So tonight, Ben and I were driving towards the Athena Grand to see Little Miss Sunshine, and this giant double rainbow was up in the sky over East State Street! The second rainbow is sort of hard to see, but some things you just have to see with your own eyes. It was incredibley bright in person.
And as for Little Miss Sunshine, GO SEE IT! It was fantastic. Also, Alan Arkin is in it and he does the voice of Shmendrick the Magician in the Last Unicorn. Nuff said.
My parents gave me their cat tree today! They only have one cat, and she doesn't use the tree much, so they figured my cats could give it a try. Look at how handsome Charlie is in the cat tree.
DISCLAIMER: Emma likes the cat tree too and her pictures would be on here if she had happened to be sitting on it at the time I happened to have my camera out. The reason that there are no pictures of her included in this journal entry is NOT BECAUSE I HATE HER! She simply just didn't happen to BE THERE.
Today, Gina and I went to O'Hooley's for happy hour.
These guys were doing Irish Car Bombs.
Then a bunch of shuffling girls came through on a birthday shuffle. They all wanted unicorn pegasus tattoos! Awesome!
I was not planning to have an Irish Car Bomb, but then Brad, the brewmaster, confided to us that no one had ever tried an Irish Car Bomb using O'Hooley's delicious specially brewed Porter.
So we had to do one. You know, FOR SCIENCE. So, Gina was all, "I don't think I can do it fast, Kate! I've only done them once!" I said, "It's cool. Go however fast you want!"
So we started and seriously ONE SECOND LATER Gina was done!!! DONE!
I'm giving Gina the WTF hand because I was expecting to be doing a slow round of bombs!! She put me to shame!
Then we had to do a second round because pretty much everyone at the bar wanted to join us.
Again, Gina was done before most people had even had one sip!!
Gina's new friend!
Gina and Kelly. I'm all suspicious. I totally knew about the bunny ears.
When mom made these roman shades for my living room, she was at first disappointed that the fabric wasn't big enough for the giant living room window, and that there would have to be a break down the middle of the curtains. It turns out that break is a great thing, because every morning Charlie sits back behind those curtains and PEEKS OUT at me through the crack!!! It's the cutest thing I've ever seen!
And this doesn't mean that I love Charlie more than Emma, it's just that he is the one that peeks. If she were the peeker, this journal entry would be about HER. Okay?
Mer and Pete cooked up a fancy dinner to belatedly celebrate my birthday, and to celebrate Harry's birthday also! I love when my birthday gets to stretch out for a couple of weeks. The best birthday treat of all was that we got to play Pictionary AND everyone said they want to play again soon! Cha ching!
Family portrait!
Dad dishin' up some broccoli.
Fancy birthday dinner!
Pete made his specialty dish, apple dumplings:
Look at how cute that lil' dumpling is!
Harry got some chocolates for his birthday, from Holl's Chocolate store in Parkersburg. We each had one and I SO should not have, as I was regular full beforehand and then with just that one little chocolate I became TOO full. But it was worth it, at least!
My fellow NBIA coworkers and I like to go on what we call "Walkies" several times a week up here at the Ridges. Once or twice a year we'll go on a LONG Walkie, and walk up to Radar Hill. Today is beatiful outside, so some of us went up there. When we got to the top, we spelled out NBIA! Ha, we're dorks.
Tonight I went over to Linda's house. She was making a SHIT-TON of chicken wings. It was impressive. The End.
My cousin Liz was in town this week for a print making convention, so my family got together for dinner on Thursday and had a family dinner! We took a family portrait.
Then, Liz and I headed to The Union to see the Mountain Goats show. It was probably the best show I've ever seen at The Union. They were incredible! Here we are making faces that are supposed to be "We're at the Mountain Goats show?" because we thought we weren't going to be able to go because it was sold out, but Dad pulled some strings and hooked us up with last minute tickets.
I didn't take many pictures during the show.
Today kicked off the 2006 Paw Paw Festival. I've been anxious to go, because I knew they were serving Paw Paw Wheat, my favorite beer. Usually you can get this beer for awhile at Casa in the fall, but last year I missed out because I didn't go to the Festival and all of the kegs got DRANK!
So, I headed out with Summer and Yumi, and we enjoyed some delicious fall sunshine. We also tasted paw paw chicken wings, pork sandwiches with paw paw sauce, a hamburger with paw paw chutney, and ice cream sandwiches with paw paw ice cream! Everything was delicious.
Later in the afternoon, Linda stopped by the fest. We got a bag of straight up paw paws to taste. I hadn't had one since I was probably TEN. Dad and I used to go "pee-paw pickin'," as we liked to call it. We just thought it was fun, but whenever we tasted them we thought they were sick. Now I know I just didn't let them ripen!
After drinking some Paw Paw Wheats and listening to music, Linda and I headed uptown with her brother Fred, who was visiting with his wife and some friends. When we got to O'Hooleys, I discovered the saddest thing ever. There was still one more drink ticket in my pocket from the festival!!! Shoot!! One more delicious Paw Paw Wheat I could have enjoyed! I tried to use it to buy a beer at O'Hooleys but the bartender wasn't having it.
On Sunday, I stopped by my parents house and told mom the good news, that I like paw paws now! She suggested I go see if there were any on their paw paw trees in the back yard. I didn't even know they HAD paw paw trees! So I went and sure enough, there were some. Pickin' Paw Paws!
Mmm!
We did a taste test. Mom still thinks paw paws are sick. She just can't get on board with the texture.
I give it a thumbs UP! Delicious!
Look at this haul!
So, it's no secret how much I LOVE WOODY. Well, tonight he was IN MY HOUSE!!!!! Look at how cute he looks in my HOUSE!!! It was one of the best days of my life. WOODY. Charlie was hiding, but Emma met him. They just sort of stood there and stared at each other forever. They were really weirded out by each other.
Tonight I was lucky enough to get invited to my aunt and uncle's house for a Labor Day BBQ! Beer Can Chicken, which Uncle Tom is AMAZING at. It's the best thing on the planet. Mmmm. Anyway, it was a pretty nerdy night!
Here, you can see one of the neat features of my new camera. I told the camera I'd like it to only pick up colors with a certain degree of red in them. Voila!
After dinner, we set up a video chat with my cousin Ravyn and her husband Faris!
Aunt Sue and me. I guess it's sort of dark but we're talking through the COMPUTER to Ravyn!
Look! There she is with Faris, live on video chat! It was super neat and fun. Family reunion!
