It’s a bad week. Stressed out co-workers, higher expectations…
Plus Mark’s leaving for California next weekend. I’m trying not to think about that.
We had planned on meeting up in the Bay Area — but I can’t take off from work. I’ve now been away from California for more than six months. It feels like it’s killing me but I have to suck it up.
I tell myself other people have made greater sacrifices for their careers — moving an ocean away from family and friends. Sometimes I think I’m in a different world in the Midwest.
I suppose the homesickness hits harder on a stressful week like this one.
It’s a bad week. For some reason, everything’s my fault.
It doesn’t matter if I chimed in and made my opinions known. They can’t hear me.
And that’s all my fault.
So, we try to escape on the weekends. We pack it wtih activities, sights, flavors and sounds — all to distract us from the fact that home is more than 2000 miles away. We did a good job last weekend in Kansas City.
We did a post-theater dinner at Papa Keno’s in Westport. This is the Shredder slice - juicy tomatoes, pepperoni, herbs and goat cheese. Yummy good times with Flying Monkey Beer and baseball highlights on ESPN.
Now last weekend’s like a dream…
OK. Back to life in Topeka.
Back to sucking it up — because if I don’t, I’ll go crazy.
It’s difficult to function with out my daily cup of coffee. It’s probably something I should give-up for Lent next year. However, I suspect my non-Caffeinated attitude could be considred a work hazard.
My mom introduced me to coffee drinking. She mixed-up hot coco and coffee as part of my breakfast, before I had to hit the rink around 5:00 AM. I refuse to consider early coffee drinking could have contributed to my vertically challenged height. I’m actually at a an average height in comparison to the rest of my family.
Mark helped kick-up my coffee palate. He introduced me to the wonder of freshly grounded coffee beans. Now I can’t imagine making coffee with out popping beans into our grinder. Our first dates involved a lot of cafe hopping, from Berkeley to San Francisco and beyond. I remember pouring over a new book at a cafe in Mill Valley - after hiking around Mt. Tam.
Over the last few years, my coffee preference moved from sweet beans to milder, brighter and more complex flavors.
This blogger had a nice description on coffee addiction and I think it applies to me.
After working 6 months at Starbucks, I appreciated no-hassle customers and other coffee consumers who had their own ordering quirks. This barista offers up tips on how to be a good Starbucks customer.
I just finished up a graveyard shift and produced the morning show. Our morning producer called in sick yesterday and I suppose I’m next in line. It was a smooth newscast and I’m happy my boss told me about the shift change, before I started drinking coffee on Sunday.
Mark, Daisy and the rest of the world are getting ready for the day. At the same time, I’m winding down my night.
We spent out Saturday in Kansas City. I wanted to check out the new Bloch addition to the Nelson-Atkins museum.
As always, we explored the art of food down at the Country Plaza. These sweet treats are from the Three Dog Bakery. All the desserts are canine-friendly. We picked up some goodies for Daisy. Last night, she wolfed down the pizza cake.
OK - feeling my second wind die down.
I feel wiped out from my show.
Going to bed after sunrise.
Last night, Ted Koppel made a cameo on the Daily Show. The dude rules and I was thrilled to visit the Nightline studios during my last quarter for Medill. It’s always charming to see a journalism giant like Koppel express himself so bluntly. Check out this clip!
The man behind Praire Home Companion has some kind words to share about Los Angeles. Online, I try to defend LA. In true form, Kansas commenters proceeded to dish out disgust for my home town. Sigh. Only a few folks in Kansas have any positive experiences to share about California. Ever since I moved to Topeka (Nov. 2005), a majority of Kansans I’ve met told me I made the right choice to leave California. They said couldn’t imagine anyone, including a sweet gal like me, being able to live in L.A. I just stare at them and try to find a gentle, politically correct way to express my opinion that they have know idea what they’re talking about.
I miss home.
Finally, another cool way to check out my photos. I think you need a flash player to see this album.
We called up our dads and wished them Happy Father’s Day…on opposite ends of the country. I’m happy Amazon.com delivered my dad’s gift of smoked salmon and gourmet seafood spreads. As always, I wish we could be with our families on these holidays. It’s nice to hear their voices and catch-up on family gossip.
This afternoon, when Mark went out to pick-up Daisy from Day Care, I went on a secret mission for my puppy.
As Mark headed back home, he saw my car getting on the highway. I suppose Topeka’s a small town afterall. I finally saw Mark and Daisy in my review mirror. So I sped through the speed bumps at our apartment complex and raced them back to our home.
Daisy asked me to pick up some Dirt and Worms from Sheridan’s Custard. She wanted to share one of her outdoor pleasures with her puppy daddy. I told her that Mark would probably get sick on REAL dirt and worms. So, she agreed to the vanilla custard pie with crushed oreo cookies and gummy worms.
It was about 90 degrees outside. That’s pefect weather for a frozen custard pie. Of course, mixing Sheridan’s creamy vanilla custard with oreo cookies was an obvious combination. But the gummy worm toppings was a delightful, fruity surprise.
I know some day we’ll have real human babies and we’ll go on that next rollercoaster adventure people like to call parenthood. But for now, Daisy’s our bundle of joy and Mark’s a wonderful puppy daddy.
I managed to survive the Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival. I just finished up loading Saturday photo galleries for my work site. I ended up heading to a cafe to upload the first batch of pictures and then finished up the second batch at home. I got a kick out of using my dad’s Canon Rebel camera. It helped me fit in as I rubbed shoulders with the other photogs in the media pit in front of the stage.
I feel wiped-out but I’m also happy to help cover this positive concert experience. It’s been a long week and this music festival helped wipe away the stressful vibes.
CLINTON LAKE — I’m sitting inside the media tent…waiting for the content management sites to load-up. Funny how my blog is faster than the work sites. The Wakarusa Music Festival has been fun so far. We caught Lotus at the Sun Stage and I had some yummy Indian veggie curry for lunch.
But the technology is slowing me down. Mark’s out in the sun…chilling with New Belgium beer. And I’m stuck in the alcohol-free media tent - playing musical chairs with the wi-fi access point. Grrr…
In sickness and in health, Mark and I trudged through these last few weeks of a nasty little virus I picked up at work. We’re still trying to figure out who was Patient Zero in the newsroom. Outside of work, we took it easy - pampering each other and making sure we ate regular meals. Sometimes I lose my appetite when I’m sick. Great for the waistline but terrible for the immune system.
We’re still getting some violent storms in this part of Kansas, but the weather is warming up and I’m looking forward to summer. This morning, I took my first run on Shunga Trail — since the floods swept through Topeka. It felt wonderful - pounding one foot in front of the other and watching the area heal from the flood damage.
This weekend was packed with live music and good food. This is a tasty beef brisket sandwich from the Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival at Harley Town. Fun and smooth jazz music with tasty bbq flavors. Good times.
Yesterday, we headed out to Truckhenge for a free music concert, protesting he who shall not be named on this blog. The owner of Truckhenge constructed a series of trucks-sticking-out-of-the-ground installations to promote recycling, a political agenda of sorts and to bring Stonehenge to the Topeka-area. Neato. The owner also invited folks who were drinking-up a storm at the Music Phestival to camp-out….instead of driving home drunk. That was quite nice of him.
Biteboy drove all the way from Florida to headline the 3-day Phestival. Our camping chairs came in handy for the concert held in a dirt pit. Interesting live indie rock music with their hearts in the right place…but bugs kept eating us alive.
Since we forgot to BYOB to the Phestival…we headed over to Varsity Blues for some tasty pub food and beer. These fried mushrooms helped soak up the alcohol.
And this morning, we did lunch at Germanfest. Yummy. These are noodles and meatballs in a sage cream sauce. I enjoyed the home-cooked German food — all going towards fundraising for the area parishes. We also rocked out to a sweet sounding Drumline and cheered on kids smashing-up a car at the Car Smashing event. Good times.
On this lazy Saturday morning, Mark insisted on showing me this sneak peak of a Family Guy episode on my PowerBook. It has better speakers than his Dell laptop. It’s a 10 minute preview of the upcoming one hour special of cartoon’s version of Star Wars.
It cracked me up! Especially the part about the pig’s ear…
Enjoy.
