VISA LETTERS.

I received them. Expect me to blog about the proceedings. In the meantime, too busy dancing around my house to apply.

- Jen -

Supernerd time.

I'm in the middle of a self-imposed Lord of the Rings marathon (because please, what else do you watch when you're home sick from work?) and was suddenly struck by how much of a nerd I really am. Examples:

• A line from Arwen to Aragorn, "I would rather share a lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone", is currently my ultraromantic Facebook status.
• I'm still craving Eowyn's white dress as something to get married in. (Crappy picture but you get the idea.)
• I'm quietly amused at seeing Charlie from LOST and Rudy in these movies. And since I go to ND, I'm contractually obligated to chant "RUDY, RUDY, RUDY" at every Samwise Gamgee opportunity.
  

Enjoy your health, everyone, while I enjoy my marathon.

- Jen -

Are they called sutures or stitches?

Irrelevant of the above question, two of the aforementioned are currently in my upper back, holding together a place where there used to be a mole. I got one removed today during a full skin exam. My family is at a high risk for skin cancer (if you've ever seen me in person, you'll understand -- I really am the 'fairest of them all'). The mole I had removed has a 25% chance of containing malignant growth (big, fat, scary CANCER to the rest of you).

How am I doing? Emotionally, I'm proud of myself: I didn't freak out when the procedure was being done. That's a giant leap for me. I joked with some people that I'd need a couple Xanax before I was ok with what they'd need to do, but apparently if you give me a TIME magazine feature about Twitter, I get so enraged about the Internet that I forget my back is being cut open.

Physically, I suppose I'm all right. I've been taking Tylenol all day for the pain, which isn't too excessive but keeping the swelling down is probably a smart decision. My back feels like it itches/burns. I hope this isn't an allergic reaction to the tape (which, yes, I am allergic to medical tape) but rather my stitches (or sutures?) pulling at the skin; at least that would mean it's healing.

I won't know whether it was actually cancerous for another week or so. My stitches (0r sutures?) don't come out until two days before J goes back to school. (Waste, right?) So, basically, pray for me, everyone, and hopefully I get some normal results back.

That's one way too personal blog entry over with. I need to sleep; I have four straight days of work coming up, combined with a family reunion in Tennessee (which I spelled correctly without Firefox's spell check, I'm so proud of myself). It might be three straight days of work if I'm not able to lift at least five hangers' worth of clothes on my right arm by tomorrow at 4 PM, which is looking more and more probable by the minute. So, I must rest.

- Jen -

Girls who like sports? Unthinkable!

It's been a good past two days, I suppose. Yesterday J and I were originally planning on going to see a baseball game, but we weren't able to get tickets. He found he had a discount for a round of miniature golf (does anyone else call it 'putt-putt'?) and thus a plan was born.

Seven good things:

1. He got me flowers! And he even knows lilies are my favorites, and he got Oriental lilies for me. THey'll last for a while too. They're so pretty and fragrant :)
2. It was raining on our way out there, and he pointed out a rainbow as we drove past the zoo.
3. And we saw another rainbow while we were driving through the next city!
4. Best combination of marketable goods in one location: Gas station/car wash/convenience store/post office/Tim Horton's, all in one. Both WTF and OMG.
5. Putt-putt is actually much more fun when there are unintentional water hazards (aka puddles) on the course.
6. I got a hole in one on the third hole! I have eight weeks of mandatory phys. ed. golf lessons to thank for that.
7. J got a hole in one on the last hole!! You know, the insane one that always takes forever because after that, your ball gets swallowed. Yeah, that one.

Thank goodness we decided to do putt-putt instead of the game, because it would have been rained out. Instead, we went to the game tonight. It was actually more fun than I thought it would be. I'm one of those people who don't really enjoy watching baseball on television, but I think it's much more fun to watch it live. It's a slow sport, so you can afford not to pay attention for a while and still not miss a thing. (Can you tell I'm just not a baseball kind of person?)

Seven more good things:

1. The Columbus Clippers (that's our minor league team) are apparently affiliated with the Cleveland Indians.
2. Any seat in the new Huntington Park is a good seat. We didn't even need the binoculars I brought.
3. I believe there was at least one homer tonight.
   
4. A fly ball went right over our heads. Not like we would have caught it but it was exciting anyways.
5. The food at baseball stadiums always feels so traditional, almost ceremonial. As in, you know you always have to get peanuts at a baseball stadium. And nachos. And soft pretzels. And Dippin' Dots. (If anyone asks me what Dippin' Dots is, I will be severely disappointed.)
6. It was really a lovely night to go. We weren't stuck with any super-annoying kids near us or anything, it was a relaxed game, and the traffic wasn't too bad getting out of it. Besides, now the stadium is in a much nicer neighborhood of Columbus, so the surroundings were nicer.
7. Cheers are much more fun to do once all the adults in your section become inebriated. Having been to an OSU football game where this is, once again, definitely the modus operandi, I strongly recommend that ND start allowing alcohol in the stadium by the time I'll legally be allowed to drink it (ie. my senior year).
   

I think the only bad things were: The freeway we were going to use to get home was closed (big deal, we took a detour) and we lost the game (who cares, we were there for fun).

In other sports news, Tour de France was EPIC today. Check out this footage in English or this footage for better detail, but that is Jens Voight, one of the most loyal teammates (on, I believe, the American team Garmin-Slipstream) in the entire peloton, crashing out in a moment of pure agony. The latest word that I've heard is that he actually lost consciousness for a few moments. Apparently he couldn't move from the spot, because the medical helicopters had to be called in order to get him to the hospital. From the footage, it appears that his head was hurt the worst. It's too bad that you can't see when the cameras cut back to him, because the poor man is just laying on the road, can't hardly move, and knows his dreams of Paris are completely shattered (probably like his knees). I just hope he doesn't have any kind of lasting brain injury -- even though they wear helmets to prevent something like that from happening, bad crashes happen.

Speaking of bad crashes, check out this footage of Frank Schleck of Team SaxoBank getting completely owned by a crash barrier in the 2008 Tour du Suisse. They replayed it during today's stage to explain why he's such a tentative descenter. It's really a miracle that he wasn't harmed except for a few scratches. But this, ladies and gentlemen, is why the same network that hosts PBR (professional bull riding) and extreme cagefighting hosts the Tour de France. They don't call it the Gore de France as a nickname for nothing.

Why does summer only start getting awesome once you realize that you're running out of time?

- Jen -

Culinary adventures, part 2.

So tonight I cooked my first dinner all by myself. I know that doesn't mean a lot, but for me, it's kinda a big deal. No help from anyone usually means Jen ends up flustered and dinner ends up in a huge mess.

But not tonight.

Tonight's meal was crab-stuffed pasta shells in a Parmesan-cream sauce, with chocolate mousse as dessert. By now, y'all are probably like "Crab what? How'd she do that?" With a few tricks up my sleeve, of course. I picked this recipe myself, knowing that I know what a stuffed pasta shell is supposed to look and taste like. I knew what the ingredients cooked like. It was actually a blast to cook, besides all the dishes I ended up messing up in the process that I then, inevitably, had to wash.

PROPS:

• Ricotta and Parmesan, for being practically my two favorite cheeses in the world.
• Crab meat, for being a very delicate but not overpowering fishy flavor. I love seafood, and that was just the right amount of seafoodiness.
  
• I finally learned how to boil water! (Yes, that is how terrible I was at cooking anything.)
• Going off the board for 1000 and making the dish that I really wanted to make without being intimidated by a 15-ingredient list, 3 steps of preparation, and 45 minutes of prep time.
• Realizing that this recipe is actually incredibly easy to make ahead of time, if the pasta and filling are made a day or so ahead.
• Timing everything right so that I could make the dessert while the shells were baking in the oven.
  

SLOPS:

• Not knowing what crab cartilage looks like.
• PASTA SHELLS ARE REALLY HOT WHEN THEY GET OUT OF BOILING WATER. I swear I steam-burned myself about 20 times while I was stuffing those shells.
• That little dried-glue layer that cream sauces get when they're not being babysat.
• Not knowing that refrigerated evaporated milk probably needs shaken before using it in a recipe.
• Still (!) managing to fling little bits of chocolate-fudge pudding all over the place while I whipped up the mousse.

REVIEWS:

• My brother stayed home instead of going to his Ultimate Frisbee pick-up game to try this recipe. I got him excited about cooking something later this summer and I got an actual "thank you for making dinner" out of him. He also mentioned that he was full from just 4 stuffed shells -- which is impressive when you consider that this kid is 17 and thus has four meals a day and is never full. ****1/2 out of 5.
• My dad got home from work just in time to sit down at the table and have dinner. "This is really good. Very rich." Only ate four shells, but trust me, that's enough for anyone. **** out of 5.
• My mom was super-impressed by my ability to refrain from asking her any questions during the cooking process. She wasn't even on the same floor of the house while I was cooking. "The filling is set just right. Overstuffing the shells was the right thing to do. I'm surprised you were able to make such a complicated recipe on your own." ***** out of 5.
• J ate dinner with us, since the recipe said it would serve 6 (it would probably serve even more, it's very rich and filling). He's one of the most finicky eaters I know, but he gladly ate my off-the-board concoction as his first experience having crab in anything. He was surprised by the amount of cooking I had to do... probably comes from not being in a kitchen longer than a microwave time, haha. He loved dessert and thought that the meal was very rich and filling. ***** out of 5.

OVERALL: I will definitely make this again. Not so much a fan of the 1:15 that it takes to make it, but with the time it was in the oven I was able to make dessert. Makes leftovers not just in the pan but also with leftover shells that couldn't make it in the pan with everybody else. One of the best culinary decisions I've made in a while. Definitely boosted my cooking ego.

Want the recipe? I'll post it in the comments. For now, I'm raiding a cookbook that I got earlier this week for more recipes that I can try out next week.

-----

In other news, I didn't realize that season 4 of LOST would be so short - only about 14 episodes! Apparently it got hit pretty badly by the writer's strike in Hollywood a few years ago. But props to Faraday for being science-fictiony and awesome, and tears of joy at Desmond/Penelope. (If you spoil any of it for me, more than I've spoiled for myself by watching episodes here and there, I will find you. And you won't like it.)

Le Tour de France has been pretty quiet lately. Still makes me want to go to France. Am expecting a huge charge from Astana any day now. (My dad didn't know until a few days ago that Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan, and he follows the Tour religiously. Wow.)

Anyhow, I'm busy for the rest of the summer with personal Super-Secret Projects. Don't expect many, if any, updates about them, because the Internet is an increasingly not-private space and I wouldn't want anyone's surprises to be ruined. So, as Desmond might say, see you in another life, brother.

- Jen -

Previously on LOST:

Just something I've been hearing a lot more of lately. J and I are only done with three seasons out of five so far. Season 3 finale was underwhelming to say the least. I became very confused and thought that the season 3 and 4 finales actually happened within the same episode. I'm never that lucky.

In official study-abroad reason-I-made-this-blog news, I was supposed to have my student visa letter by July 4. It's 11 days later, and still haven't seen it. I'm wondering if it's trouble on my end (for filling out a form wrong), trouble on their end (not getting their letters sent in time), or our mail carrier's fault. (If you don't believe me that she's terrible, listen to this story: She actually never delivered one of my college acceptance letters. I have no idea why she still has a job.) Also, I figured out today that even though I RSS-feed this blog into Facebook, I believe that only one person consistently reads this blog. My parents didn't even know it existed, even though I had let them know what the URL is. Remind me why I do this again?

My summer is officially halfway over today. If you count from May 1 to September 30 that is... so it's approximate but accurate. J only has one more month of summer. Because of fraternity things (he's Recruitment Chair, to the best of my knowledge, and his chapter needs to keep up their reputation of having the best chapter in the nation) and his college's week-long welcome-back party for all students (no idea why they do this), he needs to arrive on campus about a week and a half before classes start. Boooooooooo. My time with him has been short enough as it is.

I'm proud of my brother for getting close to being an 'official' Eagle Scout and all that, but seriously, the fights about it need to stop. As much as I'd like to have his Eagle Court of Honor to happen before I go abroad in the fall, it's just not going to end up happening like we think it will. Add to that that I need to make sure that I schedule off for at least two weekends during the back-to-school rush, and I have no idea what I'm going to do.

That's assuming that I can actually go anywhere once my brother has started school. I'm interested in going back to Notre Dame for a weekend in the fall to see my friends and celebrate September birthdays, among them mine, but it all depends on if I can get the weekend off of work and if I have a car and if there's not a band competition and if I'll have somewhere to stay and park the car and other shenanigans. I'd like to see J at school before I leave in the fall, preferably the last full weekend I'm home so we can celebrate my 20th birthday and our 3-year anniversary, but apparently I have no place to stay and no place to park on top of the possibility of not getting off of work, not having a car, and a possible band competition on top of that.

tl;dr it's never really mattered what I want this summer.

- Jen -

A few things that might actually be going right this summer.

1. I'm going to the pool today with J. Just as soon as I find a cover-up and SPF 100+ sunscreen...

2. As most of you don't know, my family are avid watchers of the Tour de France. Epic finish today. Check out extended coverage on Versus HD tonight starting at 8 PM.

3. While cleaning our basement yesterday, my mom and I stumbled upon "Modern Bride" magazines from when she got married, back from 1986/1987. Number one reason why I never want to go back to '80s fashion: PUFF SLEEVES. Second reason: an obsession with velvet and lame.

4. My drive to work yesterday was heavenly. All the windows rolled down (and I mean literally; I don't have power windows) and Maximo Park as loud as it would play.

5. A surprise that I can't tell you yet, but there will be pictures to document it.

Hope your summer is going as 'swimmingly' (PUNS!) as mine.

- Jen -

Anticipation or dread?

Trying to think of the right word. For right now, debating on whether or not to get a camcorder. It would be an extra $200 that I wouldn't technically need to spend, because my current camera has video capabilities and I have at least one 4GB card, but I'm thinking the software and better image quality would vastly help matters. Although it would be one extra gadget to carry around... but something like a Flip wouldn't seem that heavy. Still in the debate stage.

Two months of summer down, three to go. It's taking forever. Seriously, I need to find ways to make this summer the Best. Summer. Ever. I thought every summer could potentially be that way, but I was very, very wrong. For example: It's July now, and the high temperatures for our past two days in July have been in the upper 60s. Oh, and I have a bug bite the size of a half-dollar (from what was otherwise a very cute and thoughtful picnic) and a purpling bruise on the back of my left hand (from what was otherwise a very satisfying sanitation of our basement).

Went down to Stanton's today, which is a sheet-music store in downtown Columbus. I still at least attempt to play the piano, and as of right now I have down about half of Five for Fighting's song "100 Years." Also bought a Dave Matthews Band anthology. I can nearly hear you judging me through the innertubes, so I'll explain that it's for my dad, too; he plays and it'll be an incentive to get him back on the piano. (Ouch, my hand really hurts - too much LH piano and typing!)

Just a short update. Like I've been saying, nothing exciting.

- Jen -