on the subject of summer...

summer scenic highway soundtrack (top ten edition)

1)   big star!
2)   the kinks
3)   gram parsons
4)   the beach boys
5)   legends of benin comp (or anything else from analog africa)
6)   patsy cline
7)   wilco (covering gram parsons! perfection.)
8)   television
9)   t. rex
10) bob seger (duh)

wow, that list was really white. let's be real, i'll also be listening to copious amounts of lil wayne, clipse and kanye...espeically if the new album is as great as everyone says (which it just HAS to be, judging by  the outrageousness that is 'monster'). can't wait!



in other news, my best friend's mom donated to the upcoming 2011 summer wardrobe with this sweet crop top vest! she made this in the late 70s/early 80s, shortly after getting married. this blurry picture does it NO justice--especially the scraps of dior fabric, culled from who-knows-where!

though i'm still unconvinced of the merits of crop tops, i'm so excited to add this puppy into rotation...once the mercury hits eighty, at least. and with that, the search for a 2011 festival to attend has begun!

halftime

good ol' macbeth, in the midst of his blundering misadventures, says: "i am in blood/stepp'd in so far that, should i wade no more,/returning were as tedious as go o'er." bizarrely enough, i find myself paraphrasing that surprisingly often, mostly when a task seems to become herculean. that's kind of how i considered my time in west virginia prior to moving here--my god, i'll be living there for an entire year. the boredom! the missed social opportunities! the flannel!


but my six month mark has come and gone, and it's flown by. i literally can't believe i'm on the downswing of my VISTA year. granted, these next six months being the coldest of the year, could seem like an eternity--but the people here are so wonderful and lovely that it shouldn't be too bad. (says the girl who's already layering leggings under jeans.)

anyway, point is: time's a funny thing. and a little bit scary. hours of the day seem to drag, yet months can go by in what seems like an instant. my parents always make a fuss about how fast john & i grew up, and it's starting to become apparent why they're always reminiscing.

a second year of VISTA is looking more and more likely (fingers crossed!), and i've determined to make the most of another wv summer--cliche, yeah, but totally necessary. more days at the swimming hole, camping, lazy drives on the scenic highway--all the things i should have been doing this summer instead of going to the gym or making dinner. life's too short to be wasting it on a treadmill, amirite?!

so while winter's sure to offer a plethora of fun activities, this girl can't wait for summer. only 212 days!

come back, summer! and kater clark.

ps. if you're into shakespeare adaptations, this one is great, if only for novelty's sake!

been a while

three months. THREE MONTHS. what in the world have i been doing for three months? well...

i went to pittsburgh!

my board member & i made grape jelly, while listening to russian internet beatles radio. fun!

boy scout beach trip

read october sky and visited coalwood, wv for the october sky festival!

super inspiring, even if the coolest thing about the festival was the burned-out high school.

created records for our collections, and started photographing them. 20-something down, 1400+ to go! 

item 1000: gout rocker.

turned a year older, grew facial hair.

well, that's about the extent of it. entirely one-sided wrestling matches, too much cheap whiskey, and marathon youtube sessions have been excluded for aesthetics' sake. hopefully there'll be more exciting, and regular, posts in the future!

i canned, i saw, i conquered

friends & neighbors, i took a step today from which i will never be able to return. as i write this, i've officially entered the ranks of...marriage material! ok--in truth, there's still a long way to go on the psychological/social front, but if you want to talk domesticity, please believe i've conquered it. why, you might ask? well, at this very moment, bubbling away on my stove, is a CANNER!

yep. tonight i made and canned salsa, in preparation for winter/the lack of mexican food in the near vicinity. sure, there's decent-enough salsa at the grocery store down the street, but where's the fun in that? besides, upon finding out that i had an inkling of a desire to learn how to can, female relatives on both sides of the family deluged me with enough paraphernalia to start a small munitions factory. so, it seemed that if i didn't report back with some sort of positive canning news, a lot of face was going to be lost. thus, i canned!

six hours later, some scalded fingers, and a ruined manicure later, i can definitively say that canning won't be an everyday (or every season, or every year) addition to my kitchen repertoire. it was however, a lot of fun, and really did make me appreciate the amount of work that goes into keeping food by, whether on the commercial or household level.

i started out with a few pounds of cherry tomatoes from the plants that keep cheerfully invading my parents' yard. note to (future) self: make things easier, and don't use cherry tomatoes. they took FOREVER to peel! the larger ones i used were a lot easier.

 jalaps, of course! and TONS of chili powder, garlic, cilantro & lime juice.

 part one, done.

 my grandmother's canning jars! words can't express how happy it made me to use something that used to belong to her.

 jars all ready to be packed!

the whole shebang! minus the most important part, the giant canner that i could probably sleep in if it came down to that.

as of right now, it looks like i've got three, maybe four, jars of salsa to get me through the winter. won't know for sure until tomorrow, but i'll say this: even if it's only 75% successful, that's still a better average than anyone in MLB. so there.

carma, part ii

my car's been in the shop most of this week for some fairly serious (read: pricey) repairs. some thoughts on this:

--why do i always seem to wear white dresses whenever my car needs to go to the shop? the men at the corner station must think i'm the biggest princess.

--on a related note, it's REALLY uncomfortable/difficult trying to keep a white dress clean in a garage. try it sometime.

--the shop's owner is named buck brock--a really great quarterback name! which, i think, is all in the alliteration--colt mccoy, tim tebow, etc. (the notable exception being my perhaps #1 all-time quarterback name, johnny unitas--mostly because he sounds like a superhero.)

--walking is super-inconvenient. i'm all about slowing down and enjoying the moment, but when you get a little too caught up in TCB-ing, as i often do, walking somewhere is insanely patience-trying. it's pretty much impossible to multitask while walking--reading's out, and forget about writing anything. it's even hard to text at full walking speed, unless you want to end up like dexter strickland.

--then again, there's no real reason to rush anywhere in marlinton, and it was GORGEOUS out today. so really, what's there to complain about?

--when i went to pick my car up, nobody could find my key. it turns out they moved my car, left the key in the ignition, and left the car unlocked.  considered having a freak out for about 1.37 seconds, then realized: IT'S POCAHONTAS COUNTY. nobody's going to steal the car.

--but really, it's pretty incredible. only place i know of where a car should, but won't, get stolen!

i’ll lay it out for you: i like west virginia, don’t get me wrong. this place is crazy in all the right ways. but i don’t plan on living here after my term’s up—i’ve got other things i want to do and other places i want to be. i haven’t even lived here long enough to feel like it’s home (and god knows not long enough for people to NOT consider me an outsider--back-to-the-landers, i feel your pain.) so there’s really no reason for me to feel this way.

but i’ll tell you what: play ‘country roads’ on a sunny day with the windows down, going through the little levels on 219 north, and don’t be surprised if you get a lump in your throat.

char-town

well, let’s get caught up, shall we? the other weekend, my roommate and i decided that enough was enough. after residing in a town of 1,200 for the past two weeks, bank account be damned, we were going to a city!

in west virginia, that city is charleston. sure, you can go to morgantown for wvu sports, beckley to visit tamarack, lewisburg for that gorgeous secondhand bookstore guy, but for a semblance of a city atmosphere, you gotta go to charleston. not that charleston is much of a city. hell, it’s about the same size as my hometown, which isn’t slightly impressive. still, we figured, it’s better than looking at cows all weekend. so, charleston-ho!

coincidentally, we happened to choose the first weekend of festivALL! to visit charleston. it’s pretty much what it sounds like. in any other city, festivALL! would be one weekend slam-jam full of (semi) exciting things to do. in charleston, though, they spread it out over a ten day period—as a result, the excitement is rather limited. luckily, the day’s big event just happened to combine two of my favorite things: puppies and competitive sports!

i guess puppies is the wrong word—dachshunds are NOT puppies just because they’re small! my mistake. at any rate, we were privileged to see this year’s winner, stella, crowned champeen, in what was probably the cutest animal race possible. miles better than a rattlesnake rodeo. also, i saw a uga fan with a bulldog—the inventiveness of georgia alums is simply astounding.

after a finally-decent meal, we headed downtown to catch some wv power baseball! nothing like baseball and a giant beer in the summer. or more accurately, doing the day’s crossword with a giant beer. let’s be honest: i might’ve grown up with baseball, but that doesn’t make it any more exciting. after all, i didn’t break my arm at my brother’s t-ball game by watching in rapt absorption. but, adding beer to even the most mundane activity greatly increases my enthusiasm for said activity, so baseball/crossword it was!

america's real pastime

best part of this game was the appearance of wrestling legend jerry “the king” lawler. no idea who he is? you’re not alone. turns out the dude has a pretty sweet history: getting in kayfabe fights with andy kaufman (it was the 80’s, who didn’t?), performing this instant classic, running for mayor of memphis and getting a not-shabby 11% of votes, using mussorgsky as theme music. generally being an all-around badass. among his exploits this night, the king manhandled a giant anthropomorphic mustard bottle and participated in the ninth inning rave. yes, you read that right—a rave. it doesn’t make any sense, no matter how much you think about it. sadly, despite a valiant (mediocre) effort, the power were bested. so ends day one.

day two: west virginia day! unlike our lovely neighbors to the northwest (wv) and southwest (georgia), north carolina’s celebration of statehood is somewhat…subdued. then again, west virginia’s secession was rather uniquely timed, and i guess that’s as good a reason as any for a day off. and what better way to start such a day than with a biscuit? so, to tudor’s biscuit world we went! for you nc-ers, it’s basically a biscuitville with much less kitschy décor. also, they’re sometimes combined with a place called gino’s pasta and spaghetti. yeah. bottom line: delicious face-sized biscuits. definitely a must-try for all those of you considering a trip to west virginia (which should be everybody!).

after touring the capitol grounds and learning that booker t. washington spent a good deal of his youth in the charleston area (super interesting!), we took a tour of the west virginia state museum. friends, if ever you have the chance to enter this fine establishment, do so. nowhere else will you find preserved (and clothed) circus fleas, jerry west’s lakers jersey, and a rousing marching band version of john denver’s ‘country roads' as exit music!

seriously though, this museum, which opened last year, is fantastic. it starts way back in dinosaur times with the formation of coal, and continues up to the present day with vignette-esque scenes of west virginia’s past. so cool! among the things i learned: george washington owned a ton of land in west virginia (yeah, yeah, i know—west virginia was part of virginia once, but it’s still pretty cool); fiestaware, possibly one of my favorite consumer goods, was created in newell, west virginia; and the coal wars were just another reason being a miner is kinda hazardous to your health (for more on how mining is awful, watch harlan county, usa, or read this book).

this is an ungodly long ramble, but the take-home message is this: charleston was fun, educational, and quirkily great. so visit already!