On the Verge

My birthday was last week, and for my birthday Antoine got me a variety of goodies...a new lens for my camera, Phoenix socks (with howling wolves on them) and, in Antoine's true giving fashion, his cold.  I started to feel that oh-so-familiar sick feeling yesterday.  You know how you can taste that sick taste in your mouth before you actually get a cold!?  Yeah, that.  But I can't hate on Antoine too much, he did make me a huge pot of soup last night to sustain me throughout the week while he was in Phoenix.  Onion soup, yum!  And today I don't feel completely miserable...not completely.  Although, I have this sneaking suspicion that come tomorrow I will be flailing around in the uncomfortable world of death popsicleness.  Come on, you know it...where you can't breathe, it hurts to move your head, and everything tastes like kleenex.  Yep, that's what I call being a death popsicle.  So, unless by some miracle the vitamin C I've been popping like they're candy cures me, I fully expect to make a trip to the doctor for some antibiotics and spend the entire day laying on the couch, drinking fluids and expelling phlegm. 

Stay tuned though, once I'm feeling slightly normal again I've got some exciting posts to share with you all!  Until, I cough and hack up crap in your general direction.  Good day!

Weekend in Instagram

A recipe for this past weekend:

2 parts icy
1 part antique
2 parts drunk
7 parts lazy

Combine ingredients thoroughly.  Sprinkle with tacos and enjoy.

And that isn't even an exaggeration!  See for yourself...

 I've been on a soft taco kick lately!  In fact, last week I had steak soft tacos three nights in a row.  The fourth night I had quesadillas.

 Cheese's beggar face.  Poor guy, I only ever share healthy food with him.

 Friday night was a big pile of laziness, wrapped in blankets and filled with Cheese...literally.

 Saturday morning Cincinnati woke to this.  Ice on everything.  

 Lucky for us, Cincinnatians are notoriously afraid of snow and ice.  So, when I had a craving for fancy pancakes and we ventured to Rookwood we found the usually chaotic First Watch utterly quiet!  After breakfast we ran some errands, then made our way down to a very quiet Findlay Market for some hot chocolate and gelato at Dojo.

 Taking advantage of the quietness of Saturday, we then decided to hit up the Ohio Valley Antique Mall, one of my favorites!  In the immortal words of Gomer Pyle, "SHAZAM!"

 After the antique mall, we drove a couple miles up the road to Jungle Jims to pick up some taco fixins.

  Seriously, I have a problem!

 After a taco induced coma, we were supposed to go to a birthday, but it got canceled.  So I had the not-so-bright idea to party anyway.  I then proceeded to make several ridiculously strong drinks, including this one, which I called the "Hello, my name is drunk!"  Nearly equal parts club soda and cake vodka, with a splash of POM juice.  I'm stupid!

 This was the exact same, except ginger ale instead of club soda.  I liked it much better...at least I drank it faster.  Trust me, it wasn't pretty.  The next day I vowed to never drink again.  Or at least not turn into a complete idiot of drunken madness next time.

 Antoine went to go pick up some lunch on Sunday, meanwhile Cheese proceeded to watch the door and whine until he returned.  

It certainly is rough being so lazy!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Wedding Drunk

I have a problem when it comes to attending weddings, in that I become a total lush if there is any sort of free alcohol.  It's weird, because I'm not normally someone who regularly gravitates toward alcohol.  My college years were very bland when it came to "partying" and "social drinking".  And nowadays, if I have an adult beverage in the evening, whether it's a glass of wine or a cocktail, it's kind of a rare thing.  I almost never "go for drinks" or get wine or a cocktail to go with dinner (even if I'm doing it up fancy style).  But get me all dressed up and put me in the line of an open bar and inner lush comes out!  Seriously it's bad.  And my friend's wedding that we attended this past weekend was no exception.  Actually, it was probably far worse than any previous wedding I've been to because I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and only ate of few bites of my dinner.  Oh, and then I downed a beer and five glasses of wine.  Yeah, it went down like that.  And it wasn't pretty.  But what kind of blogger friend would I be if I didn't share with you the progression of the night's events and my subsequent slide into utter drunkenness!?  Not a very good one!  So, here we go...oh wait, did I mention that I had a camera in my hands the whole time?!  And while I was getting utterly smashed, my sister was putting 'em back as well?  So, yeah...

 Before the ceremony/before the wine.  My sister catching up with my parents and sharing some pictures from recent travels.

 My brother-in-law being aloof, as usual.

 So, here's a major difference between my sister and I, she gets drunk fast and I do not.  So, after a glass and a half of wine, sister-friend was a happy wedding drunk.  It took me a little longer before I progressed into full on goofiness.

 Christian air-guitaring-it to some trashy 90's rock music.

And then, naturally, my sweet drunk sister flipped me off for taking too many pictures of her.  I don't blame her, I'm obnoxious when I have a camera and/or when I'm drunk!

 Classy.  Please note the coconut bra my sister is wearing!  At this point, I was getting a bit stumbly...hence, this is the only half-way decent shot of the six or so I took during their photoshoot!

 How Mariemont gangstas roll at a wedding!

 And this is after my fifth glass of wine, after some spastic dancing on the wedding floor (making a fool of myself) and collapsing onto poor non-drunk Antoine several times.  

 Drunk photography...it's the thing of the future!

Evil brother-in-law from outer space!  Aka, best picture EVER!

Wedding drunk Jessica was all absurd giggling and awkward dancing, post wedding drunk Jessica was a different creature altogether.  Now, let me tell you the scary tale of what happened when wedding drunk Jessica was removed from her warm and fuzzy wedding atmosphere.  *Warning* Adult Language and Child-like Behavior to follow!!: 

So, the first to leave the wedding from our little familiar group were my parents.  You could tell that they were tired, as it was far past their bedtime, and they'd had enough of their drunk giggly daughters for one night.  Shortly after, Christian & Michelle and Antoine & I started saying our goodbyes and giving our hugs and stumbling (Michelle and I) into our respective cars.  On the way back to our hotel I attempted to give Antoine drunk directions...which I'm actually pretty good at, surprisingly enough I have a good sense of direction regardless of my blood-alcohol level!  So, we make it back to the hotel, where maneuvering the turns of the hallways becomes a little too much for my balance to handle.  Then back at the room it becomes apparent that I am no longer happy wedding drunk, but instead I've transitioned rather quickly (because of the lack of food in my stomach) to obnoxious annoying pain-in-the-ass drunk!  Luckily, this is not a planet I visit very often when intoxicated, but on rare occasions alcohol has been known to take me to this scary (for others) place.  Commence flailing around, whining and yelling by drunk obnoxious and absurd Jessica.  Unfortunately, all of this childish behavior was directed to poor defenseless Antoine, who was checking his email on his phone.  Then I begin telling him that "You're not taking care of me!  You're horrible at taking care of me!  YOU SUCK AT TAKING CARE OF ME!!!".  Antoine continued to ignore me, because that's what you do when your girlfriend has turned into a wailing toddler.  And then apparently, I decided to throw an even bigger fit, throwing pillows at poor Antoine and calling him an "ASSHOLE!!!".  Just for the record, I do not remember any of this!  Apparently, I let one of my other personalities come out at this point and I was no longer the Jessica you know and love.

Then apologies were made and I passed out.  Cue 5am wake up.  My head was spinning so bad that I could barely get out of bed to go to the bathroom (to pee...strangely enough, I didn't get sick!), and once I finally made it to the bathroom I nearly landed on the tile floor instead of the toilet seat.  Once I made it back to bed I couldn't go back to sleep since everything was spinning and my head was pounding.  And after 45 minutes of laying there in agony, Antoine, sweet sweet Antoine who I had called an asshole not 5 hours ago, drove me to Giant Eagle so we could get some much needed Advil and ginger ale for hungover me.  Then, he bought me a biscuit with honey on it and some tater tots from Chickfila so that I'd actually have food in my stomach.  What a sweetheart!

Anyway, not one of my finer moments, but that's how it goes sometimes.  My hope is that the next wedding I go to I can control myself a little better...but I'm not promising anything!

The Cincinnati Museum Center

This past Saturday Antoine and I set aside the entire morning to go to the Cincinnati Museum Center.  Everyone in Cincinnati raves about the Museum Center...its art deco details, the three museums in one building, and the Omnimax.  And when Antoine would say that he's never been and he's lived here 5 years people would gasp (no, seriously, my coworker literally gasped!).  And the fact that I've only been there once, to see one specific exhibit, surprised people.  So, we felt it was time to see what the Museum Center was all about!

And those of you who follow me on twitter know exactly how things went...not so great.  Upon arriving to the CMC and paying the $6 to park we went to pick up our tickets at will call.  Grumpy ticket lady gave us no guidance or even a flippin' map of the place.  Seriously, would it kill you to say "Have a nice day!"?  I don't care if you mean it or not, fake the smile and say it!  I've worked in retail, I know it's a drag, but Jesus Christ, come on lady!

Anyway, we went first thing in the morning, as the doors were opening, so it was fairly quiet and we immediately headed toward the Natural History portion of the museum.  It was practically a dead zone in there.  There were no museum attendants and only a handful of people (which was kind of nice because that meant no screaming kids).  I grew up going to the Cleveland Natural History Museum...it's old but it's good.  This, this was not good.  This was sad, worn out and showed a very very limited view of natural history.  The resin skeletons were depressing and the displays looked old.  Several of the displays/exhibits were almost in the dark or so poorly lit that you couldn't see anything.  The ice cave made me feel like I was going through a giant tunnel of plastic, despite the fact that air was blowing on my feet.  And the bat cove portion scared the living shit out of me...I felt like I was in a horror movie, and I didn't like it.

 Stuffed polar bear posed in front of what looks like two bedsheets and exposed pipes...nice.

 Creepy ass bat cave, which I could see kids really getting into but the weird little windows in it with fake moles and the several  completely empty exhibit cases inside made it a little sad looking.

 I felt like there was a big buffalo theme going on...lots of buffalo.  But not like real stuffed buffalos, resin (aka very fake looking) buffalo skeletons (note: this is the more realistic looking of the skeletons).

 The ice cave.  Should have been cool, but was kind of lame.

 WTF?!  Why does that elephant(?) have no lower half!?  I'm confused.

 Hands down, my favorite part of this section of the museum was the Giant Ground Sloth.  It's something I've never heard of before (and kind of wondered if they made it up), but damn, I wish they were still around...I love sloths!

I wondered if my very negative feelings toward the museum were stemming from the fact that the last museum I visited was the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum, which, come on, can't be beat.  Except maybe by the Museum of Natural History in NYC or the Field Museum in Chicago, which I've also been to and love.  But when I voiced this thought to Antoine, he shot it down.  He said that even if you didn't compare it to those other museums it was old and tired...and it's kind of true.  And when compared to some of Cincinnati's other museums (CAM and CAC), CMC just looked tired and a little neglected.

So, we left the Natural History portion pretty disappointed.  But we had hope that the Cincinnati History portion would be, at the very least, a little better.  And it was.  Still, it didn't blow me out of the water...but there were portions that I really liked.  It was the first weekend of the Duke Energy Holiday Train exhibit being at Union Terminal, instead of Duke Energy Center where it normally resides every year.  Antoine and I were looking forward to this, since neither of us had ever been and we've always heard people talk about the exhibit every holiday season.  Here's the thing...I don't really like trains.  I mean, if I got to ride one through some beautiful scenery, sure, that would be awesome.  But model trains, I just don't get them.  So the wonderment of the Holiday train exhibit escaped me.  Antoine was a tad bit more interested, but not really.  I feel like it's the kind of exhibit where you either need to like model trains or you need to have some history with the exhibit, like you've been going since you were little, to truly appreciate it.

Now, the model city of Cincinnati (called Cincinnati in Motion) that is to the immediate left when you first come into the Cincinnati wing was really interesting, because you could get an idea of what the city used to look like and what landmarks have survived all these years.  Another portion of the Cincinnati History Museum was the life-size Cincinnati street, complete with riverboat and storefronts. 

 Here's the printing press, which I loved.  This guy showed us the process of setting type and inking the press...it was pretty cool.

 Okay, this I just thought was completely and totally strange.  Someone please tell me why all the statues in the museum are white?!  I'm not talking white like Caucasian white, I'm talking bright ceiling color white.  The Native Americans, the Colonial soldiers, the African Americans, the streetcar conductor...all bright white.  And in some cases, even their clothes were painted white (see above).  I don't get this at all!  Especially in the Cincinnati Goes to War exhibit, don't you want to see what the uniforms and clothing from that time period looked like?  I think this was the thing that got under my skin the most.  It seemed cheap, two dimensional, and uninteresting.  And especially in a museum that is visited by so many children, you're depriving them of that important textural and multicultural experience.  Plus, it's just creepy!

We ended our visit with a trip to the Omnimax to see Rocky Mountain Express, which documents the construction and beauty of the Canadian transcontinental railroad.  I had only ever been to an omnimax once before and it was just when they were becoming popular...and it was a big let down.  This, was kind of cool!  I liked the mix of history and aerial shots of the Canadian Rockies.  I definitely wouldn't mind going and checking out another show in the future.

So, that was our visit to the Cincinnati Museum Center.  No question, the building and it's art deco details are gorgeous.  But our visit and museum experience were a let down.  At the end of the day I didn't feel like I got my $38 worth (two adult tickets + Omnimax tickets + parking).  In the future I think I'm much more inclined to go to one of Cincinnati's other museums*: Cincinnati Art Museum (my personal favorite) or Contemporary Arts Center.  What about you, have you ever been to the Cincinnati Museum Center?  How do you rate it?

*Neither Antoine or I have ever been to the Taft Museum of Art, but it's certainly on our list!

Blueberry Picking

Note to Self (and anyone else listening): Do NOT go blueberry picking on the first day of the season!!  Why?  Oh, I'll tell you why...

Reason #1:

 A couple miles away from Rouster's, where we picked, traffic was backed up/stopped because too many people were trying to pull into their parking lot at once.  Insanity!  Or rather, blueberry mania!

Reason #2:

 While you're sitting in traffic and/or trying to find a parking spot...a crap ton of people are laying stake on the blueberry bushes.  It's like the Black Friday of blueberry picking!

Reason #3:

 No joke, this is the line to pay for your blueberries!  It was seriously at least 1/4 of a mile long...if not longer.  Blueberry mania is serious business (just look at that lady's face!).

Now I know!  And you better believe that next year I will NOT be picking blueberries on the first day of the season at 8am!  HELL NO!!  

Although, if you're into that thrill of the pick that comes with opening day blueberry mania I have one word of advice for you...take two goofballs with you!  It will make things so much more enjoyable!

Behold the goofballs that accompanied me:

 (Antoine and my sis, Michelle) They're crazy...crazy for blueberry pickin'!

 Hands down, best part of picking your own blueberries is eating them right off the blueberry bush!  And no worries about getting caught, I saw a couple of the employees grabbing handfuls of blueberries and having a snack while we were eating picking!

I think all the antioxidants made these two a little sillier than usual!

 My sis is a blueberry pickin' prodigy!

 And Antoine's got it down to a science!  I, on the other hand, fell significantly behind in picking because I was too busy taking pictures.  And yes, I did get scolded by the two goofballs for this!

 Also as a sidenote, it doesn't matter how old you are, if you spill your nearly full bucket of blueberries you're going to feel like crying like a little baby.  I know this, because I spilled my entire bucket of blueberries on the ground and then proceeded to have a little temper tantrum.

In the end, despite the chaos, it was a successful and fun day.  If you've never gone picking before I highly recommend it.  It's one of my favorite parts of summer!  Plus, it's cheap/delicious fun for the whole family...whether you're 5 years old or 50 years old.  Here in Cincinnati, I've only ever picked at Rouster's Apple House, but it's a great place to pick...the bushes are very mature, which means you don't have to hunch over to find berries.