Tigger’s Latest Greatest Adventure

I skipped WiP Wednesday because I hadn’t worked on anything that wasn’t finished. I’ll get to that finished thing soon. Meanwhile, Tigger wanted to show you what he’s been up to this month.

We started in Indianapolis, for some sports thing

I worked. Tigger played and got his picture taken.

After they handed out the big trophy, Tigger and I decided to drive an hour in the wrong direction before we went home. First we passed the great big new football stadium


Then we drove west on I-70 for almost an hour, then about 15 minutes north on Rt. 231. A good friend of mine took time out of his day for a campus tour (WOW, has it changed in the 18 years since I’ve been on campus!) then Tigger and I walked around on our own to show you DePauw University.


This is the main academic quad. Roy O. West Library in the center, Asbury on the right, Harrison on the left. When I was in school, there was a road in front of those buildings. Now it’s all pedestrians. Road totally and completely gone.


East College is the oldest building on campus and the “iconic” building for DPU (oh, yeah. If you ever wondered where my internet “name” came from? I went to DePauw University and they’re the Tigers. DPUTiger. A name I could remember.)

Just to the side of EC is one of the great campus landmarks.


The Boulder! There’s a little part of my brain that’s telling me it’s been moved, but since it had been almost 18 years since I’d been on campus (YIKES!), I’m not sure.

Anyhoo, since I was a history major, I had a lot of classes in EC, and walked by the boulder fairly often. And really, would it be a proper DePauw tour without seeing the Boulder? I think not!

One of my non-negotiable objectives once I was on campus was to stop at the bookstore. When you go to a small school like DPU, shopping for school gear on the internet isn’t exactly easy. You pretty much have to purchase in person. So Tigger and I stopped at the Union Building and paused to take a pic of North Quad.


These are the oldest dorms on campus. Lucy Rowland on the right and Mason on the left. When I was in college, Rector was a single large building in the middle. One morning when I was at UCLA, I was working out in the Wooden Center and some lame MTV-U “news” program was running on a loop. They kept showing a dorm fire and I kept thinking it looked familiar, but since there was no close-captioning and I couldn’t listen to the audio, I just figured I’d google “dorm fire” and the date when I got back to my office.

It was Rector. It was pretty much completely destroyed.

They built a “Rector Village” in its place. Super modern dorm-like thingies, lots of bells and whistles. Kids these days. Sooooo spoiled!

After dropping a bit of cash at the bookstore, Tigger and I headed towards my true former stomping grounds. A view of the Science and Math building (S&M … yeah) from across Bowman Park

Hey, wait ... didn't there used to be a fountain there?

When I was minoring in physics, that building was a bunker. No exterior windows, lots of brick, and built into the ground. It’s a little different now. What a rehab!

A little to the left …


… you see the Performing Arts Center. With another shiny huge new façade that’s good for natural light. But no Bowman Pond. Sad. That (farther away) browned-out chunk of grass? That used to be a pond. The particularly brave could ice skate there in the winter. Otherwise, it was mostly used for your typical college-type shenanigans that would be appropriate for an artificial pond that maxed out at about three feet in depth.

If you want to know where I spent about 75% of my collegeiate life during my last three years of schooling, this is it:


DePauw’s Center for Contemporary Media. That building opened second semester my sophomore year. People you have actually seen in the mainstream media were on camera for the first time in the far part of that building. I even directed some of them. It still houses the newspaper (The DePauw, Indiana's Oldest, Coolest and Best College newspaper), WGRE 91.5, your sound alternative, and the TV station. Good times.

Oh, and this was the only “academic” building I walked through on my own. And look what I found!


I wasn’t a knitter in college, but how cool is that?

Tigger and I finished our tour with a picture of my dorm for three of my four years of college.


Humbert Hall. It was so new when I moved in freshman year that my door didn’t have a doorknob yet. They weren’t finished installing them. Good times.

So that’s about it for campus. From there, we were hungry. And if it’s been 18 years since you were on campus at DePauw, there’s really only one option that’s acceptable for a meal.

Frank’s Fries on the left, a half-GCB … garlic cheeseburger … on the right.

MARVIN’S!

Heaven on a paper-lined plastic basket. Tasted just as good as it did 18 years ago.

I absolutely loved my time at DePauw, both during my four years as a student back in the stone ages and on my too-brief visit at the start of April. And I can guarantee it will be a lot less than 18 years before I’m on campus again. TIGER PRIDE, BABY!

A Roaming Tigger Travelogue

Visiting with the Wild Alligators in Alabama 

(Wild alligators? Really? There are tame alligators? Who knew? Either way, we couldn't find any gators inside the fence at the gas station/convenience store. Probably best.)

Funnel Cake at the field. Yum!

(we split it with an 11-yr-old. Kaci's mom -- the sanity-saving Karen -- wouldn't let her have a whole one by herself, but funnel cake was approved if someone would share. We were volunteered, but it didn't take much to convince us.)

Sticking our toes in the sand on Panama City Beach

We took a half-hour walk on the beach after our games finished for the day yesterday. Right at sunset. At high tide. Still, it was fun and I'm hoping to repeat the experience tomorrow morning and Sunday afternoon/evening.

Feels like we've been on the road for a month. We get home Monday. I already know I have renovation stories to tell, but they'll keep.

Sunset, Panama City Beach, Fla., Thursday, March 5, 2009

Weekend Recap

So the Hubster and I stayed in town this past weekend instead of going up to the Lake. This meant that I got to go to the Borders knitting group that meets every other Wednesday at the Borders closest to my house. Heather, LaurieG and Celtic Queen were there, among others. We stayed until close (11 pm!) and had fun.

While at Knit Night, I executed an equipment change for the Tour de France KAL. I had planned to knit Green Gable but switched to Sprout after visiting Bloomin’ Yarns last Thursday. The store is having a KAL on that sweater and Michelle was crafty enough to suck me in with some Dream in Color Classy. Aside from some crocking issues (turned my brand new KA interchangeable set blue. Booo!), it’s zipping right along and is quite a bit of fun! Updates on that tomorrow, in honor of the Rest Day at the TDF. Yeah, I probably should have done the update in honor of Bastille Day, but then the weekend stuff would be really extra-boring, right?

I wound up working at Bloomin’ on Saturday, then the Hubster and I went to Outback in honor of our anniversary. Five years. Hard to believe it’s been that long!

On Sunday, we started to execute our plan of playing tourist in our own town. Since it’s a limited-time exhibit, we decided to go see the Titanic exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center

Who knew that Captain Smith had a Pittsburgh phone number?

We got in there and it reminded me of the King Tut exhibit I saw in Los Angeles many years ago. Lots of kids and it was tough to get close enough to any of the artifacts to read the cards. But that part turned out to not really be a problem.

But still, we agreed that it really wasn’t worth the $20 they were charging. I know I read everything there and looked at every artifact. We were still through the whole thing in less than two hours. It was OK, but wasn’t worth that hefty price tag. Heather? I'm talkin' to you! :-)

Bye!

Since it wasn’t even 1 pm yet, we headed over to the Strip District. We pondered going straight into the Heinz History Center, but then decided we were both hungry. After enjoying some yummy sandwiches at Primanti Brothers, we started back towards the History Center but then decided that we could do that another day and that we (me) were a little tired and home was a better idea.

After sitting and knitting on Sprout for a bit, I got a bit of a bee in my bonnet.


And baked batches of two different kinds of cookies. My standard chocolate chip and a new favorite, Oatmeal Scotchies. It was a new recipe for me, but I really like the result! Since there are just two of us in this house and we finished with nearly 70 cookies, that combined rubbermaid on the right is going next door to Sidney's family.

Oh, and we had bratwurst for dinner and for me (and just me, not the hubster), bratwurst requires onions. Thanks to reading Pioneer Woman Cooks, I managed to successfully and easily dice an onion by hand for the first time … ever. Thanks, Ree!


So that’s about it. I have the heel turned on my first Black Bigfoot sock and will be on the second sock before I know it. Sprout is nearly to the end of the first skein of Classy. It’s much fun. But for now? Off to bed so I can wake up and sweat tomorrow morning!

WWE Are The Champions

I’m being forced to watch the 15th Anniversary of Monday Night RAW, so please bear with me. And welcome to my 200th post!

Today was full of little to-dos. Took the first steps towards getting blinds on the upstairs windows. Did some minor cleaning up.

Got Steelers Scarf II and Jaywalker Scarf II blocking

Got bothered by door-do-door religion saleswomen (THEM: we’d like to share something positive from the Bible. ME: No thanks)

Put out a holiday decoration or two


Yep. Just 15 days until Christmas. Hard to believe!

Went out with my mom and acquired a Christmas tree … our first one! It’s the first time we’ll spend the holiday in the city where we live, so there really wasn’t a reason to get one before now

It’s still naked. It’s busy slurping up water, “relaxing” and drying (it’s been raining here for about 36 hours). I’ll start putting lights on it tomorrow and Scrooge and I (uh, I mean the Hubster and I) plan to decorate tomorrow night.

But the outdoor decorations are up and running


My grandfather made that Santa. My sister-in-law got it “restored” about two years ago and after a year’s hiatus, he’s back on the front porch roof here.

Oh, and I’m through the leg on my first no-purl Monkey sock in Yarn Love. I need to tink a round and a half because I thought I was through five repeats, not six. Oh well.


In other news, I burned the crap out of my tongue on dinner … not the tip like you’d do on hot chocolate, but the middle. It was lasagna. Good (frozen) lasagna but, obviously, too hot. What to do to make it feel better?

Eat ice cream, of course! So I went downstairs (it lives in the downstairs freezer so it’s not so convenient. Helps with the self restraint). It’s not as good as the similar composition Panda Paws I can get at the Lake (what would you expect from something partnered with the Pirates? Excellence?), but it’s made by Hagan and that family is OK with me b/c they had excellent taste in homes/architects. Anyhoo, my bowl of ice cream came back upstairs with me, and now I’m mildly ill because I’ve eaten too much.

But my tongue feels better!

Crash!!

I broke a dinner plate tonight. I realize that this is not a major upset in the state of the universe, but it is notable simply because this is the dinnerware that we registered for as a wedding gift and my Aunt Melissa (and her family) got us the entire set of 12.

My inclination is to ask for a few Crate & Barrel gift certificates for Christmas (from certain relatives who tend to get us junk if we don’t get specific with requests), then use whatever we get to replace the broken plate, get a spare, and finish out whatever else we need to have 12 full place-settings.

Hubster thinks this is overkill. Opinions? [NOTE: Why the crap don't we have a C&B anywhere near here? Bummer.]

In other news, we both had fun watching a very bad football game with a surprising outcome yesterday. I had fun spotting for the play-by-play announcer. Two bad parts: 1. I never caught up with the person at Pitt who has been avoiding me since July (It’s a public blog. That’s all I have to say about that). 2. I started getting a headache with about five minutes to go in the fourth quarter.

I hadn’t been particularly hungry all day, and as a result had eaten very little. I also wasn’t hydrating as well as I should have, primarily because I knew I had two consecutive 90-120 minute stretches where bathroom breaks were totally out of the question. Between these two factors, I think I may have had the first migraine headache of my life. As this is not a normal state for me, I tried to eat a normal dinner, thinking that food would help. Nope. Had plenty of leftovers for today, though.

A good nap and an “early” bedtime killed the thing, and I was fine today for our Costco trip and continued house organization.

I promised pictures, right? Now I’m not trying to give Pioneer Woman Cooks! a run for her money, but here’s my little recipe contribution to blogland.

Meet my famous Dill Weed Dip!


This is possibly the easiest recipe ever, and can be whipped up quickly whenever you might have veggies or chips that are feeling lonely.

1 cup mayonnaise (Miracle Whip works fine too)
1 cup sour cream
2 Tbsp parsley flakes
1 tsp dill weed
1 tsp seasoned salt

The recipe actually also calls for 1 Tbsp finely chopped green onions, but I’ve been making this recipe since I was a schmoo, and I don’t ever remember including that ingredient.

Mix it all up and enjoy! The flavor comes from the spices, so it’s not a big deal to go “healthier” on the mayo and sour cream.

In other news, I’m moving along on the latest incarnation of the Steelers sock yarn. I decided to morph the “Jeweled Steps” from New Pathways into the master pattern, rather than try to make a decision between the 8” midfoot and the 9” midfoot when my actual foot is 8.5” at midfoot.

Of course, I remembered my gauge as 8/inch and used that number. In reality? 9/inch. I’m almost to where I’d start arch expansion and it’s still feeling a little loose, but I’m reminding myself how small Dove was, and also reminding myself that if these master numbers are correct, 62 stitches should be plenty few at 9/inch to go around my 8.5” foot (and ankle) snugly. Right? RIGHT!!!

No pics of the sock since, well, it’s just the toe of a sock and it’s pretty damn boring.

I’m off to watch a football (Steelers-Broncos) and baseball (ALCS G7) game simultaneously. Hope you had a good weekend!