Monthly Happenings Blog Posts and I have a tumultuous relationship. Half the time I'm thinking "ugh, no one gives a shit about this minutia," and the other half, of course "but
I give a shit about this minutia..." Then the rub: If I give a shit, why does that mean I have to share it with people?
But recently, something happened. I found some 2010 monthly happenings blog posts, and read with delight, the many details included in those months, which I had previously forgotten. Amusing details, and historically relevant, too, within the scope of how my life has played out recently. So I am back to committing myself to Monthly Happenings Posts. Maybe at one point this will inspire me to publish the
15 MHPs from the end of 2011 and the entirety of 2012, that are completed and currently hanging out in draft form.
Anyway, the
highlights from this month are scenes from Baltimore, Natural Bridge and Foamhenge!
Enjoy. (Amanda, I mean.) (And Future Amanda.)
1 March
Whipped up some homemade butternut squash soup!
2 March
A Day in Baltimore!
MB and I were bored as shit today, so I suggested we drive to Baltimore. Neither of us had ever before seen the city. Soon after we arrived, it began to snow. (Speckles of snow can be seen in the photo of the green building above.) (See em?)
One of the first things we did in Baltimore, was take ourselves to the top of the World Trade Center. Yes, I guess Baltimore has a World Trade Center. They do have a tribute to the victims of 9/11 in this other WTC.
Shots of the touristy section of the Baltimore Harbor, from above, and below.
Afterward, we decided to hit up Vaccaro's Italian Pastry Shop, in Baltimore's Little Italy, for their (reputedly) famous cannolis, and some coffee.
This is a monument to the
Katyn massacre. I haven't read whether or not Baltimore has a Polish immigrant population, or if this was the effort of an enterprising individual, or small group of people.
Even articles that pop up after a Google search seem ill-informed.
Later, we drove along the harbor until we hit Fell's Point. (Hum, OK,
the Fell's Point article is saying that the neighborhood had/s a large Polish population...) It's a picturesque, cobbled stoned neighborhood packed with restaurants, bars and specialty stores.
Got out of the truck to point my camera at boats in the harbor.
Driving around the residential neighborhoods of the city proper. I loved the narrow streets and skinny homes.
Then we drove over to the
Poe House. When he was 23 years old, Edgar Allen Poe lived here with his grandmother, aunt, brother, and 10-year old cousin Virginia, who he would
marry three years later. The Poe House (the "different from the rest" home in the photo above) is located in an economically decimated neighborhood. Traveling to see the house turned us, for the moment, into poverty tourists - as well as unwitting "The Wire" tourists, which I discovered later, after reading about the neighborhood online - and I felt uncomfortable and bad about that, so we didn't stick around this area for long. The Poe House was closed, anyway.
After driving around, just looking at Baltimore for a while, we decided to head back to Fell's Point in search of refreshment. We settled on The Point in Fells, on Thames Street. (Every town on the East Coast has a Thames Street.) A Reuben for Amanda, French dip for MB.
Made MB take a "couples selfie" with me during the cold walk back to the truck, before we took off for home.
3 March
Just another boring Sunday in Virginia.
4 March
Tulips on the table!
Fairly certain this was the night we participated in trivia at Roma's, this terrible restaurant-bar by MB's base. With Josh, Danny, and Paul.
5 March
Posted
Thus onward, the policing of women's sexuality!
6 March
Second Snow of the Season:
All melted by the next day.
7 March
MB did something we normally don't approve of in this house: brought home potato chips. When there are chips in the house, I start dipping them in MB's sour cream, and eating them. (There is sour cream in the house, because MB wants it, but I normally don't allow myself to eat it. Unless there are bags of potato chips in the house.)
Of the bag on the left, he said "They taste more like
imitation crab potato chips."
8 March
After waiting far too long than I care to admit, I finally bought some new running shoes on this day. MB carted me to VA Runner, where I picked up these Mizunos, and then we hit up happy hour at the Park Lane Tavern.
I did not drink six $3.99 martinis that taste like candy. I drank only three, and made a collage out of them. So, hmph.
9 March
In love with the new Mizunos.
10 March
New duvet! Slate grey, but it looks brownish in photos, for some reason.
Posted
blogging angst.
11 March
Posted
Can. Not. Wait.
Took the One Click Personality test.
The test categorizes people based on their Facebook "likes."
The One Click Personality test thinks I am a rather nice person!
I was curious about what it would say, considering I've only ever liked a handful of things (
because it's none of your beeswax, FACEBOOK), including public radio,
The Daily Show, a couple of friends' businesses, college peers' band - and Taco John's. Because, duh, Taco John's.
12 March
These mixers are soooo pretty. I want to buy a whole set of them so they can hang out together on my counter and...look pretty. Sadly, I never seem to find myself in need of even one mixer. For anything.
DIY project on the bed! (In front of Sunday night TV.)
13 March
Still in love with Mizunos. Later, ruined my run by making a "cheeseburger bake." Not
terribly healthy...
Posted
Teach your chillens songs of ye olde Americana, and yea shall they conquer the challenges of Jeopardy!
14 March
This was the evening that we joined Josh, Danny, Manolo, and two other dudes whose names I can't remember for their last evening belonging to the base, at Outback Steakhouse, in MD. MB convinced me to buy a whole bottle of wine, as advertised by the server - because it was a "better value" - the remainder of which the server wrapped up for me when it was time to leave. After a night-cap at Apehanger's (there is so much meaning in "argh," so "argh" is what I will say here), it was "goodbye" to all those dudes, and back to having zero friends/acquaintances out here.
15 March
Hungover, regretful.
16 March
Lookee at what MB made, with his bare hands! A collapsible saw-horse. Yessirree.
17 March
DIYing in front of
Gilmore Girls marathon.
18 March
Third and final snow of the season! (Taken during my run, as everything melted.)
Posted
In which Amanda is a curmudgeon about thermometers.
19 March
Hm, not sure what happened on this day, but it was Sunday, so there was at least Sunday night teeeeeeveeeee.
20 March
I luuuuuurve this: kale with beans and onions. Added the bacon for MB.
21 March
This was the day I flew to Minneapolis!
The entire trip is recounted here.
22 March
Today I hung out with Maria, shopped with Laura, and visited Dez, Jeff and Kenzi.
23 March
Day of the baby shower! Below, Dez demonstrates the fine art of swaddling. Looks like Isabelle approves.
24 March
Lunch and a movie at Rosedale with Samantha, and then hanging around the house. We saw
Spring Breakers. I loved it.
Oh, and don't take that as a recommendation for you to see it. Seriously, don't see it.
25 March
This was the day I flew back to VA. This time I had a layover in Detroit, but it wasn't too onerous.
Pretty fountain in the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, above.
Wine, during my layover. The cute older lady bartender boxed that pen at me, before handing it over so I could sign the check.
I did however, manage to destroy the windshield wiper when I was trying to get the snow off my car in the lot, and thus had to endure a precarious drive with the constant presence of precipitation, all the way home. Dammit, Amanda!
26 March
Posted
Twitterversary!
27 March
Posted
Know the difference between right and thong!
28 March
Posted
Yellow and Grey Baby Shower DIY
29 March
Hmmm, this was a Friday... Yeah, I don't what happened on this day. Nuthin' good, probably.
30 March
On this day, we intended to tour Monticello. Alas, when we arrived, we were informed that we should have booked a tour in advance; they were already booked up for the day. I hadn't realized the Monticello tours would be organized with such structure.
Since we were already all the way out in western Virginia, I suggested we see a couple of other things I'd read about in my
Lonely Planet Eastern United States guidebook, but had assumed MB wouldn't have agree to drive all the way across the state to see:
Natural Bridge and
Foamhenge.
Below: Love the pretty horse farms all over the Virginia countryside.
When we arrived at Natural, we discovered that access to the geological formation required $20, per person! I was confused. I thought Natural Bridge was just this cool thing off the highway, and you would park and then walk down to it on a trail. Anyway, so I asked the woman selling tickets:
Amanda: Why does it cost $20 to look at a geological formation?
Ticket Woman: Because it's a private company.
Amanda: Ohhhhhh.
(Um, duh Amanda.)
Ticket Woman: Also, it's not just Natural Bridge. There's also the butterfly sanctuary and the wax museum...
At this point, I must have accidentally had an absurd expression on my face, because the woman paused and said "I know what you're thinking." And I laughed, but MB later interpreted this whole exchange as an effort of bitchiness on my part. Dude, the Ticket Woman and I were cool. We understood each other.
Anyhoodle, so we looked at the butterflies. Butterflies! You have to look at the floor when you are walking around in the (roasting) butterfly sanctuary, because the butterflies like to walk around on the floor as if there aren't giant humans with body-crushing feet ambling around clumsily.
Adam and Eve display in the Wax Museum! The museum also featured various historical characters. There were anecdotes from Virginia's past, acted out by wax people who collectively looked slightly astonished over the fact of their existence.
Yes, the place has a Christian vibe. The last display was "The Last Supper." After we were done with the wax museum, we headed toward the trail (so there was a trail after all) that would take us to Natural Bridge. Along the way, there was a tree that (as a sign stated) was thousands of years old. (I can't remember how many thousands.)
Beyond Natural Bridge, a trail takes visitors along a creek to a waterfall. Wanting to get the most out of our $40, we walked the whole thing. One of the displays on the trail had been broken.
MB (without irony): Maybe a tree fell on it.
Amanda: *guffaw*
There's the waterfall!
Slats of rock in the creek-bed.
FINALLY! Here's
Natural Bridge. Thomas Jefferson used to own the land on which NB is located. They also claim that while surveying Natural Bridge as a young man, George Washington carved his initials into the rock formation, but that smells apocryphal to me.
MB loves Natural Bridge.
After seeing all of Natural Bridge that we could see, we decided to swing by Foamhenge on the way back to the Interstate. Foamhenge - self-explanatory, right? A Stonehenge replica made of foam. There is no, erm, admission required to view the Foamhenge.
But there is a warning written with the flair one may expect of a person who would carve foam replicae of the stones of Stonehenge, and display them in a field.
Pretty Shenandoahs, in the distance.
It's time that I made a confession, Blogosphere: I am collecting henges. Yep, that's going to be a thing now. Make a henge out of something, put in in a field, and I WILL BE THERE.
Do it!
MB and AM at Stonehenge, on the Salisbury Plain of England, March 2012
Amanda at Stonehenge, January 2000
Amanda at CARHENGE! (So far my favorite Fake Stonehenge. ...But then again, there have only been two.) Near Alliance, NE, July 2008
MB loves Foamhenge.
After Foamhenge, we decided to get dinner in Charlottesville. I normally don't take photos of my house salads, but this one had a remarkable sesame dressing. And that pulled pork sandwich was exquisitely smoky and wonderful. At South Street Brewery.
Then we got a couple of cocktails at Mono Loco, where I greatly enjoyed the music.
We finished the night at Miller's which my
Lonely Planet Eastern United States guidebook tells me, is a bar where Dave Matthews, of Dave Matthews Band, used to bar-tend. (But that's not why we went there!) We sat at the bar and made jokes about requesting "DMB!"
Amanda:
I went to a DMB concert once, in '98. I kept waiting, throughout entire concert, for them to play my favorite of their songs, but they never did. UNTIL, that is, they came back out for the encore, and THAT was the encore song! It was so awesome.
MB:
Said every girl who went to college in Minnesota.
31 March
Posted
HAPPY GAME OF THRONES DAY!
Got a haircut and some highlights the other day. The blonde is less subtle than I thought it would be, but it's different and I've decided I like it. I already commented about the hair, and the irritating Christian rock radio station that played in the salon the entire time, in other social media, but I wanted to talk about the shirts, so here are the photos of the hair again!
