Happy birthday to my grandfather and most vocal blog supporter who is celebrating a pretty big number today! (You’d never know it, though. He’s a handsome devil who doesn’t look a day over 65.) I wish I could have joined in what I heard was a fabulous celebration, but it’s unfortunately a pretty long drive and I’ll be heading back to Iowa next weekend. NPH is moving for his job on the first of the month, so I get to repay him for helping me move in by doing the same for him. Thankfully he has far less furniture and shoes to haul than I did.

This weekend, Roomie Lauren paid Fergs, Chi-town & myself a little visit which coincided nicely with the Pride activities happening literally outside my front door. And now, some photos, since the only words to sum up our time together would be food, booze & snarky girl-time chatter.

Oh, and tonight I made brownies from scratch as well as pressed, marinated and grilled some tofu for lunches this week. Ausgezeichnet!

Someone found my blog by searching “stupid blonde German bitch.” Yes.

The day of my commencement was spent not actually attending the (what was later described as) painfully long, dull three hour ceremony, but rather bathing da Fergs, festooning a strapless dress from freshman year into a passable shirt, and hanging out with multiple surrogate families. (I told mine to stay home since I wasn’t actually walking; we’ll celebrate together this coming weekend.) I tagged along with Roomie Lauren’s hilarious, wonderful kin to lunch and lots of celebratory shots. Later, NPH’s family came and we all went to dinner, ate cake, and discussed the housing situation in the greater Chicagoland area for a while. The rest of the night was spent much more tame than you’d imagine for having something so large to celebrate, but it was raining and frankly, after doing this for nearly four years, my body is quite tired. Perhaps why, after a relatively productive Monday, the first of “summer,” the first in the awkward but glorious time between school and starting work in the real world, I got sick. It hurts. I am beyond cranky. It’s some sort of sinus thing that has manifested itself in my lungs. It burns. Did I mention I’m cranky? Knowing that my mother will straight up murder me if I dare be ill during the many graduation festivities she has planned for this weekend, I’ve been taking it easy and laying around, drinking tea, and texting outrageous soup demands to NPH every hour on the hour.

I read Tina Fey’s Bossypants in one sitting on Friday, and Portia de Rossi’s Unbearable Lightness in one stretch yesterday. I cannot wait to get my grubby little mitts on Steven Tyler’s autobiography that just came out this month.

See, Roomie Lauren– I didn’t even once mention your hot older brother in this post!

This morning was Day 2 of the four-week Beach Bodies Boot Camp Natalie and I are taking together. The first day was mostly spend on taking weights (sob) and measurements, but we finished with a workout called the Big Ten which was timed and will be timed again on the last day. Holy soreness. Everywhere. We did four circuits of lunges, push-ups, squats, and kettle bell movements sandwiched between five laps of running (not a full track, but this area they have for running which is so far the easiest part for me.) Yesterday I was the most sore I have ever been in my life. I’ve had what I considered to be good workouts before, but every muscle in my body was screaming whenever I moved yesterday. Getting in and out of a car was extremely difficult– I used the towel bar in the bathroom to pull myself up from the toilet. I am not at all exaggerating, and after speaking with the others in the class this morning, they were all in the same boat. I certainly wasn’t over my incredible soreness this morning, but I still got up at 6:15 (I went to bed at 6:45 pm yesterday. Seriously.) and we made our way to the gym where we had two new circuit workouts to power through. The class was split into two and we would do each for ten minutes and then switch. In total, we did about 40 minutes of lunges, squats with kettle bells, squats with medicine balls, arm workouts, ab workouts on stability balls, and cardio from running and jumping rope. Intense stuff. We were hurting afterward, to put it very mildly. On Friday apparently we’ll also get a talking to about nutrition, which I suppose I know but choose to ignore, and will probably also touch on not drinking ones weight in Miller Lite every weekend. Wish me luck.

For those of you expecting a recap of my best-ever Valentine’s Day, patience is a virtue. I need to collect my thoughts to write a TNGG article about it, then I’ll post pics and such.

(For those of you stopping by just to check in on the state of NPH’s health, he is in fact still alive and doing well. Now he just has a really, really annoying cough that makes me want to throw the dog at him whenever he starts a-hackin’.)

The first week of classes went by pretty unremarkably (Wordpress is still me that’s spelled wrong, but Dictionary.com says it’s an acceptable adverb. Huh.) though I did get to do the add/drop slip dance on Thursday because one of my classes was already unbearable and not looking to get much better. I realize I could have just sucked it up, but it’s my last semester here, people; my lack of interest in the subject combined with the workload was setting me up for quite the uphill battle I had no intention of attempting. TURNS OUT the boyfriend and I have two classes together, one is a really fun elective that nearly everyone I know is taking, the other is a political science class from a professor I enjoyed last semester. At first I think we (ok, probably just he) were like ehhhh that’s weird, but it’s really not that bad. It’s not like we can sit there and gab like besties– we’re in a class like any other, it just turns out I might get walked home by the person sitting next to me afterward. I feel this will also work hugely to my advantage around test time because he’s a diligent student who does the readings, whereas I spend my time “studying” harassing him for pretzel M&Ms and checking out job opportunities in Boston.

Speaking of moving far away places, Roomie Lauren has some amazing opportunity to move to Dublin because she rocks socks at well, everything, and last night I was all omgI’llcomewithyou and we’ll make a fabulous life in Ireland together! Because ok, we may have been at a bar. We shook on and it were dreaming of Irishmen and lush hills of Guinness all evening, so this morning I decided to Google “moving to Dublin.” Turns out Dublin’s one of the most expensive cities in the world, and it’s not all that easy to just up and move to another country. She’s still sleeping so I won’t interrupt her clover-filled dreams, but I’m probably going to stay Stateside, at least for a while until I can afford more than a shack and a half-passable work visa.

Oh and shout-out to my family already in Hawaii and those will be soon arriving for a wedding!!

I’ve been hiding something from you. I’ve been trying to hide it from myself, but I need to come clean.

I’ve had two Taco Bell $5 Buck Boxes in less than 48 hours.

I know. It’s disgusting. But so, so good. I’ve eaten at Taco Bell maybe five times total in my life. It definitely wasn’t a place we went when I was a kid, and I generally try to avoid places where food comes at you through a window. I’ve been seeing the commercials for the five dollar box for a while and didn’t give it much thought, but one day I really paid attention and was like DAMN that’s a good deal. Five items for five dollars? Enough to fill you up for hours (though might perhaps make you regret your entire life later)? Sign me up. I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat this on just any regular day though, so it’s not always been sober consumption (that makes it all the more delicious.) God bless Neil’s still-fevered soul for being my enabler, for not breaking up with me after I waxed poetic on the sheer awesomeness of the Crunchwrap Supreme for a solid twenty minutes post-meal. Arteries, I’m sorry. Thighs, I’m even more sorry. I promise I’ll cool it on meals that come packed in laptop-sized boxes. For those of you who are now morbidly curious, go to Taco Bell and try it for yourself. Get the Beefy Crunch box, not that nasty Volcano one because it’s doesn’t come with aforementioned Taco Frisbee (crunchwrap supreme.) No need to thank me, your bloated, sour cream-filled tummy will be all the repayment I need. I’m gonna go lay in one position for a very long time.

Yesterday was my 200th post, whaddya know.

I am far more sore today than I was yesterday, holy butt muscles it hurts to move. My poor NPH has the flu– fever, body aches, sleeping all day. Thankfully a slightly pushy doctor back in November talked me into getting the flu shot so hopefully I won’t get this, but you never know. I am playing the part of diligent girlfriend and catering to his tomato soup and grilled cheese requests; I will demand monetary reward later. This evening a friend from work and I are going to show around some of the newly arrived foreign exchange students, I’m pretty excited about that since they seem to be as well. The girl coordinating all of it is from The Netherlands and keeps asking about “the pubs” which I think is delightfully European of her and might just start referring to them as such myself. I’m currently watching the Sex and the City movie for really no other reason than background noise while doing some work online, oh well that and Roomie Lauren hates when I go into her room, thus I try to do it at least thrice daily. This just reminds me that I need far more impossibly chic outfits for my random daytime errands. And that Kim Cattrall is just the worst actress.

Someone found my blog by Googling “how long til adam richman gets a heart attack.” While humorous, I hope the answer is a very long time from now, or that he steps away from the eating challenges before then because I think he’s kinda cute in that lovable oaf kinda way, and Lord knows I’ve always had a thing for dark hair.

After reviewing yesterday’s post, I realized I had COMPLETELY forgotten to share with you my FAVORITE part of the trip (thus all the capitalization): MY NEW HAT.

Such a gem. So warm and…. Miller Lite-y. I wore it during a 30-second Aldi trip yesterday, and you can best bet there were a few um, glances. NPH posed a great question yesterday when, 20 minutes outside of Iowa City and over four hours into what was starting to seem like the longest car trip of my life, he asked, “How are you going to survive when we drive for 12 hours at a time going to Vegas?” Egads. My answer is that of course I won’t actually survive and he’ll have to dump my lifeless body somewhere in Durango, Colorado for D-Bag to find, since visiting him is the only reason I’m subjecting myself to the confines of a vehicle instead of a cushy less-than-three-hour flight.
In all seriousness, I did enjoy the road-tripping part of our Milwaukee trip sometimes almost as much as the actual exploring the city part (a stretch of the truth, but follow me.) We weren’t really on a time crunch to get back, so getting lost in Madison twice wasn’t really a problem, and we were able to stop off in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin– the troll capital of the world. No seriously, that’s their town motto. Their website is Trollway.com (why the town isn’t just called Trollway, we may never know.) Obviously we had to stop, only to find out that this place thinks it’s somewhere in England because every intersection is a roundabout. They had a McDonalds so we stopped for a sweet treat (ice cream cone for her, Oreo McFlurry for him) and were baffled because I drove right past the window to pay because it was on some diagonal hidden corner of the building. The guy in the window had to shout out for me to reverse and make another attempt because OH WAIT I’m sorry, I’ve never been to a freaky diagonal Mickey D’s before. Silly trolls.
Road trips are also that magical place when you find out weird things about the person you’re traveling with, such as NPH’s complete– do I wanna say obsession here? Perhaps just love– love for Culver’s. Yeah, that Culver’s, the restaurant with the Butter Burgers. Is the part where I say ew? But sometimes we take one for the team to make our loved ones happy, so you better believe we stopped for lunch on the way back so someone could cure that Culver’s craving. In defense of his arteries, there’s no Culver’s in the Iowa City or Chicago areas, so the only time he can get it is perhaps twice a year when he ventures away from those places.

SO– to end what has become a sort of Saturday morning ramble sesh, I will answer the question probably burning in all your brains since bacon ended up in my Bloody Mary: I’ve abandoned the whole vegetarian thing. Why? Well, in a simple answer, I do like meat. Sometimes. Still not a lot, but I did find it much harder to be a veg in certain situations. I will still always pick a veggie burger over a real one because somehow Morningstar Farms has managed to find heaven and pack it into their chipotle black bean burgers. Also, not to completely rip off Marie, but I LIKE VEGETABLES!!! Also, the doctor says my iron and protein levels are low. I realize I can take supplements for that, but I could also just pick up some meat sometimes. Because there are two things I’m going to get in Vegas over Spring Break besides obliterated: In-n-Out Burger and a turkey reuben from Canter’s. And yes, I mostly posted this confession for my two vegetarian roommates who I’ve been pretty scared to come out of the meat-eating closet to because well, they can be vicious. You shoulda seen the way Rachael attacked the Wii when our marathon session of Say Yes to the Dress stopped streaming on Netflix. Ruthless, I tell you.

The boyfriend and I returned this afternoon from a mini vacation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where we toured the MillerCoors brewery as his Christmas present from me. (Yes, I realize the tour is free, but the idea and other shenanigans we got into were courtesy of moi.) It was so much fun, more than I guess I was anticipating. Being both huge Miller Lite fans, the tour itself was the highlight of the trip, culminating in three free samples at the Miller Inn (which I thought would be like sample-size shot glasses but were pretty regular-sized beer glasses.) As per a tip we got from another couple we were on the tour with, we went to dinner at the Comet Cafe, a place that has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. It certainly did not disappoint– in fact, it was fantastic. They’re big on bacon there, yet also have a ton of great vegan options (I had an almond-crusted tofu vegetable salad with ginger dressing– zooooommmg amazing.) I got a Bloody Mary, one of their specialties, which came with a giant garnish, a piece of bacon in it, and a Miller High Life chaser. Yes, my drink had a piece of bacon in it, it was awesome, and they put a splash of Guinness in there as well.

Oh yeah. It was amazing.

Sorry for the shoddy camera work, but yum

Halloween Fergus

German beer girl (way to go, Halloween clearance sale at Target!)

AhhhhhGunsnRosesAhhhhhh

Which one of these is not like the other ones?

NPH isn't one for getting all gussied up

Also, giant shout-out to Roomie Rachael who is apparently scrubbing the apartment clean this morning while I “look for jobs” (Facebook?) in the living room, waiting for Roomie Lauren to wake up who I will then assault until it’s pumpkin pie shake time. Don’t let me down today, Hamburg Inn.

Our time at the conference is half over, and it’s been… ok so far. There have been some good speakers, some bad speakers, some really lame moments, and some meeting of pretty cool people. My favorite parts have been the times we weren’t actually in any sessions– when we went out last night with girls from Virginia Tech, when we went to lunch at a Mediterranean place yesterday where both Miller Lite and hummus were on special. Tonight NPH’s little sister took me around town since she goes to school here, and home girl literally restored my sanity. We went to dinner at a diner in the Adams Morgan area of town, then we took the Metro to the National Mall and saw all the quintessential things I needed to see to say I’d actually been in DC. The White House and other monuments were so completely different than what I ever pictured them as. There’s so much open lawn space around everything, especially the Washington Monument. We couldn’t get close to the White House, and were ever talked to by security guards because we couldn’t figure out how to leave the area to get over to the other monuments. I really like DC, as in, I could really see myself moving here. I won’t get into all the head games that have been brought on by being surrounded by 1,000 of my peers who are all just as qualified, if not more so, for the jobs we’d kill each other over. I realllllly miss Fergus, and I miss NPH more now that his sister and I had a few good laughs over him this evening. I’m ready to go back to Iowa just because I have so much for school and work that I need to get done, but I definitely want to return to DC on my own terms and really look around.