More Summer Fun: Pools, Potterfest and Water World

Now that the summer's halfway over I've finally gotten into the spirit of the season. My last two weekends included:

-A long meandering stroll east through Capitol Hill and Congress Park, all the way to the Tattered Cover on Colfax and then back past the Congress Park pool on my way home (it was unfortunately closed for a youth swim meet, but it looked awfully nice).

-A trip to the other pool near me (at 11th and Osage, which seems like a neighborhood on the verge of sketchiness but was fine, at least, during the day when I was there), which was surprisingly (and pleasantly) almost deserted on the 4th of July.

-A viewing of Away We Go at the Mayan Theater on Broadway, which is old and cramped and has tiny screens but which I love anyway for its tacky Mayan decor (it resembles nothing so much as my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant back home) and upstairs bar, where you can buy a beer, a glass of wine, or a cocktail to take into whatever indie film you're there to see.

-A Harry Potter movie screening festival at my friend Hope's awesome 90-something-year-old Tudor house, which is worth a trip out to Wheat Ridge in itself just to tour. I came for the last three movies and brought my bastardized version of an English Trifle, which was a great success (recipe below).

-A day at Water World, Colorado's largest water park, for my friend Melanie's 27th birthday celebration. Melanie, Anna, Alexandra and I headed all the way out to Thornton and spent the day on various rides (several of which I, as Queen of the Wusses, opted out of and spent floating in a circle on the Lazy River) and getting suntanned (and sunburnt, in Anna's case). Not even the forty-five minutes or so of thunderstorms were enough to get us to leave. We were all exhausted and dehydrated by five p.m., but agreed that we all got our thirty-five or so dollars' worth from the visit. It was my first water park trip in about fifteen years, and I'm glad to say it was at least as fun as an adult as it was for me as a kid, even if I did have to wander round blind all day.

-Finally, a screening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I saw on Wednesday night. I wasn't quite crazy enough to catch the midnight showing, though it was tempting until I realized I'd have to work the next day ... Nonetheless I very much enjoyed it and am geekily planning to see it again this weekend, since I felt that my giddiness on Wednesday might have clouded my ability to judge the actual merits of the film. And also, I just want to see it again. :-)

Bastardized English Trifle

1 Entenmann's butter loaf cake, cubed or otherwise sliced into small pieces
Amaretto Liqueur
Instant vanilla pudding mix
Cold milk
Strawberry preserves
Sliced strawberries
Sliced peaches
Cool whip
slivered almonds

First make the pudding according to the package directions (which will require the milk). It should chill for at least 5 minutes or until it is set.

Fill the bottom of a glass bowl with a layer of the cubes of cake. Drizzle Amaretto over the cake. Spread a layer of strawberry preserves over the cake layer and then a layer of strawberries and peaches over that. Spread a layer of pudding over the fruit. Repeat the layers and then spread cool whip over the top of the trifle. Sprinkle with almonds if desired and chill for at least an hour or until serving.

Summer

It's been awhile since the last post, mostly because I've been too busy at the office and haven't had any internet access at home (my wireless stopped working for me entirely a couple months ago, and I still haven't gotten around to calling the property managers to complain). I have almost completely recovered from the Lotion Incident, except for a few scars on my legs that look like mosquito bites. The only reason I even know they're from the allergic reaction is that Denver is freakishly (and awesomely) mosquito-free. It's one of my favorite things about the Mile High City. Sure, if I were to go hang out by a lake or other large pool of stagnant water, I'm sure I'd manage a bite or five - the mosquitoes find me very easily when there are any number of them at all - but in the drier areas of the city, even this year with all the rain we're having, I remain blissfully unbothered.

In the spirit of my mosquito-free summer I thought I'd post a list of my favorite summer things.

1) Long, long hours of daylight. Even when I stay at the office till an unreasonable hour I still have a good shot of getting home before dark. And I actually *want* to get up in the morning.

2) Swimming pools. As a child I spent about 3/4 of my summertime submerged. I even love the smell of chlorine. Unfortunately I don't have regular access to a pool, but I plan to fix this next weekend over the 4th of July holiday. My mission is to find a pool and spend all day alternating between submersion and reading beat-up paperbacks.

3) Outdoor dining/drinking. Growing up in the blistering Texan heat and spending college and my first year after college in the swamplike Southeast, I never really understood the appeal of al fresco dining. Then, a little over four years ago, I moved to California, and eighteen months after that to Colorado. These are places where, once it gets to be June, it's warm during the day and cool at night. Perfect patio weather. No wonder everyone out West is so outdoorsy.

4) Movies. Sometimes, I'll admit, it's a stretch to find something I actually want to pay increasingly absurd amounts of money to watch, but there's nothing like retreating to the dark chill of a movie theatre with a bag of candy and a soda on a summer weekend. I've already been to the movies more this summer than I probably went in the previous nine months. Next big thing: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I have been waiting for this movie forEVER, and I don't think it will disappoint. And I may even pay to see it more than once in the theatre, despite the $10.25 for a matinee price gouging.

5) Frozen treats. I often lament the general lack of ice cream parlors in my neighborhood, though there's a new one not too far away I've been meaning to try. Still, I'm jealous of my more settled Highlands-resident friends, who have access not only to the Sonic on Sheridan by Sloan's Lake but also the Dairy Queen. There are days when I'd kill for a blizzard. In the meantime I make do by buying and devouring loads of popsicles. Ahhhhh.

6) Summer clothes. Sandals are my favorite variety of shoe, chiefly because it's almost like not wearing shoes at all, which would be my preferred way to go around. I'm also not really a fan of sleeves, so I look forward with glee to tank top season (this is a bonus of working in a casual nonprofit environment). And long floaty dresses can be fancy or casual depending on what you pair with them, which takes a lot of guesswork out of getting dressed.

7) Baseball games. I'm not even much of a fan of the sport, but there's something about sitting down in the stadium (particularly Coors Field, which is right downtown and has lots of cheap seats, expensive microbrews, and a stunning view of the mountains and the Denver skyline if you sit in the Rockpile) with a bunch of people and watching the sun set and the huge lights come on. My attention drifts, but even so I don't miss much, since baseball is so slow.

8) Barbecues. They're like instant festivity. And it seems like half the people I know are always having some kind of cook-out replete with grilled meat, vegetables, and cold beer. Colorado's no Texas when it comes to grilling, but the weather's nicer (see #3).

9) Getting tan. I'm feeling particularly fond of the old-fashioned dangerous method of tanning after the Lotion Incident (and who can blame me?). I don't intentionally tan most of the time; I just walk around in the bright sun and don't wear much sunscreen. Sure, I'll probably be visiting the dermatologist in the next few years to check out all these moles I've acquired living in California and Colorado, but for the most part I tan as easily as one would expect with my Native American heritage, and I only burn if I'm at the beach or pool for hours on end. Not to mention my fat looks so much less hideous when it's brown.

10) The general air of vacation that settles on everyone. No matter how old we get or how busy our summers are (and mine are pretty busy, since the summer is our crazy season), everyone's just a little happier this time of year. We all feel a bit as if school has let out, and as if we're all just a step away from going on an exotic holiday.

And now that I've rambled on about the wonders of summer, I'd better get back to work. That's right. I'm at my desk right now catching up on everything I missed this past week, when I was out sick (in a most un-summerlike fashion) for two and a half days.

Nothing's perfect!

Always Follow the Instructions on the Bottle: A lesson on the dangers of vanity and impatience

I've been looking forward to this past weekend (Memorial Day) and my upcoming June 5-10 sojourn to the Southeast for months. I've been trying (with middling success) to drop a few pounds, and in the last few weeks I went crazy and racked up the credit card debt buying summer dresses, skirts, etc. in anticipation. Well, given that I live in Denver and the warm weather just arrived in earnest a few weeks ago, my legs are about the color of raw mushrooms.

Un. Attractive.

So I decided it would be a good idea to try the fake 'n' bake once more. Back in high school, before my junior prom, I bought a Neutrogena self-tanner (said to be the easiest to use since they're streak free, and Neutrogena is usually a safe bet for your skin) and used it to heighten the contrast between my pale green dress and my not-yet-summer-ready skin. It worked okay, though it wasn't as dark as I'd have liked. This time I bought a gradual build-a-tan lotion, also by Neutrogena, at target. Excellent, I thought proudly. I actually planned ahead! I will start building my tan a week before my trip to Dallas. I can wear tank tops and skirts and I won't look like a big lump of raw dough! So after my shower, in which I was careful to shave and exfoliate, I smeared some of the tanner on my skin. The bottle's directions, like all lotions, makeup, etcetera, said to test some on a small patch of skin first. Of course I ignored these. The lotion went on. Everywhere. I went to bed after carefully washing my hands (wouldn't want them to be orange, God forbid!).

The next day I woke up and my underarms were a little itchy, and I thought, I probably need to be more careful and not get any lotion under those. I knew (from several painful experiences with fragrance-containing deodorant) that the fragrance in the lotion might set off a skin allergy there. My legs, however, looked noticeably darker, as did my face and chest. So that night post-shower I smeared more lotion on my legs and a bit more around my collarbone, shoulders, and neck, careful to avoid the underarm area completely. And again I went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up looking not like a lump of raw dough, but like a crust brushed with pizza sauce. Or a very fair-skinned person suffering from heat rash. Or a child at summer camp who'd rolled down a hill covered with poison ivy. And I felt it too. My underarms were bright red, my chest, neck, shoulders and arms were mottled with red bumps, my inner thighs had dark red patches, and all of it itched. I also felt nauseated, as though I'd been poisoned. The only part of me unaffected by my toxic lotion allergy was my face, oddly enough.

I happened to have a doctor appointment scheduled that morning, and as my doctor finished her cursory examination of me for the physical, I sheepishly showed her the rash and asked for a recommendation of some kind of treatment. She recommended hydrocortisone, and I bought some at the pharmacy. I also decided to take daily antihistamines to try and calm the reaction.

And I took my antihistamines and I smeared myself with hydrocortisone. And I wore long sleeves and tried not to scratch. And after the second day, when the rash only looked like it had spread, I went home to take an oatmeal bath. Needless to say, by the time the holiday weekend rolled around, the last thing I wanted to do was expose any of my skin. It had gotten better, but I was still mottled and red and constantly itchy. I had to explain, over and over to every friend and family member I greeted in Dallas, that no, I was not contagious. Just vain and stupid.

Now my neck and chest look like a normal person's again, and my underarms have faded back to their normal mushroom hue. My immune system appears to have almost conquered this thing - way to go, I can't help thinking sarcastically. Thank GOD you overreacted to this lotion. Who knows what damage a masking fragrance could do to my cells? - but as I write this post, my upper arms and upper legs are still itching, itching, itching, and what makes it itch worse is knowing I have no one to blame but myself.

So kids, do yourselves a favor: always follow the directions on the back of the bottle. Even if you think you tried the product years ago, trust me, things can change. Formulas, your own immune system, your memory of which product you actually tried. As for me, I'm going back to my old, fail-safe tanning method: carcinogenic UV rays.

P.S.

This might become a food blog.

This is shaping up to be a carbalicious month

It's been awhile.

My blogging capabilities have been severely limited recently due to a) my apartment building's free wifi, like, NEVER EVER working, and b) all the crazy projects I've been slogging through while chained to my desk.

The funny thing is I'd actually be pretty into these projects if I weren't so pressed for time, and if my magnanimous coworkers didn't flatter me by assuming I am more knowledgeable/skilled/quick than I am. As it is, though, I've got no time to breathe this month, my resolution to go to the gym at least three times a week is becoming a joke, and my normal, nonchallenging but still somewhat important tasks are getting pushed aside. And I feel simultaneously exhausted and frustrated at how much work I'm doing and how slowly my projects are going, and guilty that I'm not doing more. Not to mention I'm driving myself crazy having to push back finish dates for projects; my hatred of being late for anything is pathological.

This situation coupled with the aforementioned lame wifi is tempting me to just go ahead and pay for internet. As much as I hate to sign any kind of telecommunications contract (why is it that phone/internet/cable companies have the worst customer service and the most devious fine print in the world?), I'm thinking it might be nice to be able to:

-leave work at a normal time
-go to the gym
-check my email at home
-work some more once I'm in my PJs and relaxed

I think it might go a long way towards assuaging my current work burnout. At the moment, though, my brain cells are all screaming for a vacation and the closest thing I've got coming up is a very short trip over Memorial Day weekend. And there's just so much to get done before May 22nd...

All in all, I can already tell that I'm going to be scarfing down a lot of pastries from the Tattered Cover cafe this month. Today's goodie? Possibly the most delicious peanut butter chocolate chunk cookie ever baked.

I miss school

About a million people I know have long weekends for Passover and/or Easter this weekend. Not me. Nope. Because I am neither a student nor a teacher (nor working for an organization affiliated with religion in any way, shape, or form).

I mean, I'm not religious or anything. I'm not going to church on Sunday. I'm not pretending to be all sad today because it's Good Friday. I'm not planning on eating ham and whatever else people eat for Easter dinner on Sunday (my family didn't really do the traditional Easter foods, other than the candy). But neither are about 90% of the folks I know who got yesterday and/or today off. Unfair!

I think I'm going to go buy some damn Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs or something now.

These are a few of my favorite things ...

Five of my favorite things right now (yeah, that's right, goin' all Oprah today. I had to counteract the heavy posts from before):

1) Planning trips. I've got one planned already (U.Va. Reunions in June, woohoo!), another in the works (Dallas, Memorial Day weekend - just have to buy the tix), and about three more in the early daydream stages (New York in the fall? Canada ... sometime? Paris 2013, anyone?)

2) Celebrity blogs/tweets. Yeah, I'm late on the bandwagon. But I find it oddly endearing to find out that Shaquille O'Neal really wants to break his diet and go to Dairy Queen (I feel you, Shaq. I feel you). My fave celeb Twitter pages so far: Felicia Day, Michael Ian Black, Wil Wheaton, John Mayer (he's a douche, but he's a funny douche) and Idris Elba (mostly for the sheer number of times he uses "yuh mon" and "fanks." SO British! and he was Stringer Bell!)

3) Pandora radio. This has been a favorite thing of mine for awhile but it deserves a shout-out. My stations are becoming more and more refined -- I do get lots of repetition but it's mostly songs I love, and I'm still finding new and interesting artists. And I listened to romantic piano solos for nearly a whole day earlier this week. So much Chopin and Field and Schumann. So calming and gorgeous. Really made me miss playing the piano.

4) Fug Madness. I really don't care about March Madness, even though almost my whole office has gotten into the thing with the brackets and they have a pool and whatever. The Fug Girls, however (see my link to Go Fug Yourself), have a (to me, anyway) much more entertaining spin on the whole thing. My favorite to win it all is SWINTON. Check it out.

5) Emerald Cocoa Roast almonds. Seriously, these things are addictive. I had to divide them into individual servings in ziploc bags last week so I wouldn't just cram the entire container's worth into my mouth while watching TV. They're roasted almonds, awesomely crunchy, lightly sweetened with a little dark cocoa powder. Excellent 3:30 pm snack - I always want something desserty then, but these babies have protein too. Next project is coming up with recipes in which to include them. I am open to suggestions and I'll certainly post about anything delicious I invent.