Gabfest Over Poached eggs

Today, I drove from Linda and Bobby's place in Newberry to Jacksonville to meet Natalie and Christie for brunch. I first got the official tour of Natalie's adorable house, filled with 1930's charm, a backyard, and back house which she's converted to a small movie theatre (complete with deco theater seats)! Also, Natalie's two cute cats just made the place feel the best B&B. Then we headed over to Uptown Market, a sunny diner with big windows, where we enjoyed brunch together and caught up on each other's lives. It's amazing how much you can get caught up with old friends and over eggs--our love lives, family, work, lows and highs, pets, etc. Definitely good times and a reminder of how quickly time moves...


We'd all originally met back in the day (could it have been ten years ago???) while studying abroad in FSU's London program. What a tremendously life-changing semester. Christie met Colin, her future (and present) hubby. Natalie scoured all the events and museums of London. For me, London was unbelievably rich too--where I saw performances by the Count Basie Orchestra at the legendary Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, Max Roach, Gil Scott Heron, LSO, and many many dance performances (my favorite was one choreographed by Bill T. Jones) and theatre performances.

Well, if luck allows, Christie, Natalie and I are hoping to take a trip together next summer to revisit our old haunts in London! I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Not-so-anonymous donor...

I'm back in Florida! Today, Linda and I browsed at a few furniture stores for an entertainment center that might be able to feature their forthcoming 52' flat screen tv...technology, geesh.

Afterwards we ordered carryout Italian. As I waited inside the restaurant to pick up our orders, a guy in front of me in line handed the cashier woman an extra twenty dollar bill and said he wanted to pay for the order of the person behind him (me at the time), that he wanted to start the Christmas spirit early. I thought I must've misheard him, but sure enough, when I reached the counter, the employees at the cash register said our order was covered by this guy. So before the guy walked out, I shout to get his attention and thanked him before he left and he waved back. Aw, so nice and unexpected. My eggplant parmesan tasted so good in light of this surprising act of kindness from this stranger...

Julia's Big Times at GilGal Gardens

Last night we had a small gathering in honor of Shena's birthday. Shena played her musical saw, Jordan his Kazakh dombra, me the banjo. I showed everyone a box of clothing my mom mailed me, which was filled with various fashion atrocities that I refuse to wear--shirts that could pass for curtains, jackets with big gold (unironic) buttons, etc. I couldn't even give any of it away to my friends! At the end of the night, Bowie one-upped everyone by jumping--Spiderman style--onto V's head and shoulders!


Today Julia and I checked out Gilgal Sculpture Garden (check out the incredible interactive tour on their website complete with bad rock n' roll music), which was founded by Thomas Battersby Child, Jr. in the mid-twentieth century and is apparently the "only identified 'visionary art environment' in Utah." The incredibly quirky sculptures included LDS founder, Joseph Smith's head on a sphinx, Thomas Child's self-portrait of him donning brick-patterned pants that reached his chest, and lots of biblical verses engraved in stone.


Then we browsed cute wares at this cute antiques shop called Emilie Jayne, and sipped tea at The Coffee Garden.

The 3 Ss--Ski, Spa, and Sumptiousness

My friend, Julia, is in town for the weekend. Yesterday, we (Julia, Jordan, Catie, and I) headed to Alta Resort to take advantage of their "free after 3pm" deal. We rented equipment at the Alta Ski Shop for only $13 (half day/after 3 pm rate). J and Julia headed to the more advanced slopes, while Catie and I headed to the more beginning ones. I nervously hobbled to the ski lifts and because I didn't want to lose face, I told Catie I'd get onto the lifts. We hovered over pines, probably 30 feet in the air or so. The landscape was spectacular. Catie kept saying, "Can you believe that we live here?" And she's right. The snow and its accompanying silence represented the quintessential aspects of Utah's serenity and beauty. For the next two hours, Catie was the patient ski instructor (she herself hadn't been skiing in years) who showed me how to properly turn and regain control. I noticed that the downhill slopes didn't look like what I'd imagined a bunny hill to be and, in fact, we realized later that we indeed weren't on a bunny hill, but on a relatively easy run (but not as easy as a bunny hill). With the first hill, I fell a few times, but by the third one, I managed to ski down without falling zig-zagged down the slope. It was so much fun!

Afterwards, we headed down the street to Snowbird's Cliff Lodge Spa, where for $10 (locals or $20 otherwise), we accessed the rooftop hot tub and heated swimming pool, eucalyptus-scented wet sauna, and dry sauna. We were all so happy! During our second trip to the hot tub, under the night sky with snow falling upon our shoulders, we sat in the hot tub with jetted streams. Then, at one point, Julia and Jordan ran over and spread-eagled across a snow-covered table (their creative version of a "cold plunge") and ran back into the hot water with us. Hilarious.

And top off the great day, we had dinner with V at Sewadee. Their ginger duck with candied yams and panang curry were incredibly good.

Post-Thanksgiving Gluttony

I've been bad about posting, but my New Year's resolution will be to get back to semi-daily posts. Here are a couple pics from our Thanksgiving dinner--about 20 or folks (mostly friends from my program) came over and showed off their culinary skills. Ces and Cai, who had been visiting that week, were such good sports about being bombarded by so many new faces.

A funny moment for me was listening to Rebecca (turkey-roasting extraordinaire), Robert, and Tim thoughtfully debate and discuss how to cut the turkey properly. It reminded me of a deconstructionist debate by English majors, but it was well worth the wait...

Halloween of White Flammable Batting (or i-'Lamb'-ic Pentameter)

Last night Cami threw a party for the ghoulish-minded. J and I decided on a few potential costume ideas before heading out for materials. My shortlist: Tornado, Kim Jong-Il, Fortune Cookie. J's shortlist: Sheep, Chuck Norris, George Michael, Ron Burgundy. We drove to a DI (Deseret Industry thrift store) and J immediately found a perfect shirt for me to wear as Kim Jong-Il and I found a stuffed sheep doll and other materials for J's future sheep costume. So it was decided. We spent the next two hours or so making J's sheep costume. I cut the sheep doll apart, used the ears and sewed together a sheep cap. The doll's tail glued onto the white sweatpants. The doll's legs were resourcefully reimagined as teets (which looked suspiciously like big penises instead)....voila! Sheep Jordan!

For my costume, I drew a North [C]orean flag to glue onto my shirt, added some pins that J had from Mongolia--I figured no one would be that discerning enough to tell that they had little to do with Kim Jong-Il or North [C]orea for that matter. Then I hairsprayed my hair into a crisp froth. Voila! Dictator Esther!

For the most part, the party was much fun--dancing, goofy photo-booth picture taking, talking with others while we're in character. There was this uninvited-drunk-methhead-neighbor guy whose hands gravitated to squeezing people's arses, including mine. When I realized what was happening, I (in true Kim Jong-Il fashion) performatively and aggressively told the guy to back off, pushing a finger in his face. He backed off only to return later and try his smarminess on another friend. Before doing so, I again warned him (this time using some explicatives), getting in his face, and this time he scuttled backwards and eventually resigned to the couch, in a drunken haze. Well, a little later, Cami (when she heard about him) threw Mr. Methhead out. Ah, I'd like to think that Judith Butler might've loved this moment of someone 'performing' as Kim Jong-Il and going beserk on this fiend!

Pumpkins and Don Henley

Bad, Esther for lagging on posts...

A few nights ago, J and I carved our first pumpkins together. It's sad but we really got into it. I remember looking over at Jordan and saying something, but he was so in the "zone" that, eventually, all you could hear were the slicing sounds of our knives in their respective carving modes and nothing else. Here are the results of our efforts (in various lighting).


In Lit. Theory today, we discussed Kant's take on the sublime. Surfing--or really anything that involves watching nature with both awe and fear is perhaps quintessentially sublime. I never made it to the annual Mavericks Surf Contest in Half Moon Bay (just 30 minutes or so south of San Francisco) while J and I lived in SF, but man, I really want to watch those surfers against the 50-foot tall waves. That's utter sublime for me...

I've been on a kick of learning to play cover songs on the banjo. This week: Cyndy Lauper's "Drive," Magnetic Fields' "Chicken
with its Head Cut Off," Johnny Cash's "13," and Neko Case's "I'll Be Around." I'd like to cover some great heavy metal songs or something similar on banjo, but haven't found the right ones yet (inspired by the AC/DC cover by Kozelek that Nathan burned a while back). I did recently have a request to learn "Crazy" by SEAL and Don Henley's "End of the Innocence"...not exactly heavy metal but definitely worth pursuing.