Another excuse

OK, ok...I know I said I'd post more, and god knows I don't think anyone still reads this thing since I've been so lame about posting, but I really do have a good excuse this time:


I've also been requested by my fiance (hee) to get back to blogging. So be prepared for annoying wedding-planning posts for the next year!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sick autumn movie weekend

This weekend I was fighting the beginning of a cold (or was it fatigue from the stresses of the week?) so we stayed in Friday and Saturday nights. We turned them into movie nights since we hadn't had time to see much lately.

Friday we watched "Let the Right One In".


Holy smokes. So good. Need to read the book as it explains so much more that they weren't able to work into the film.

Saturday night VH1 showed "Anvil! The Story of Anvil" completely commercial-free, so we took it off our Netflix queue and tuned in.

It was very different from what I imagined. For the longest time I thought it was a mockumentary in the vein of "This is Spinal Tap", particularly when I read that someone named Robb Reiner was involved. Robb Reiner is not "Meathead" but the drummer for the band that did actually exist and had minor success in the 80s. It's a heartbreaking and lovely story about perseverance and unfulfilled dreams.

No matter how much you piss me off, New York, I will always, always love you.

Sorry

I've been a little lax. A couple of months ago I discovered there was a connection between Blogger and Picasa...solely due to having deleted all photos from my Picasa account to clear up some space and having them disappear from my blog. At what point did they tell us that when you link to photos on Blogger they are hosted on Picasa? Needless to say, upon discovering that all of my blogged photos were now no longer appearing, I hid for a while. I'll try to get back into blogging, however I've found it much easier to just upload photos to Facebook. If you're a friend, check out my recent adventures there. Otherwise, I'll try to get this going again sometime soon...

Starved Rock

Yesterday we went to Starved Rock State Park in Utica, Illinois. It's located along the Illinois River and legend has it that the rock derives its name from when a band of Illini was trapped in the 1760s on the rock by a band of Potawatomi trying to avenge the death of the Ottawa Chief Pontiac. The Illini then scrambled to the top of the rock, where the Ottawa and allied Potawatomi laid siege until the Illiniwek starved to death.

Anyhoo - it was HOT yesterday, there were tons of people, and the area doesn't seem to have recovered from recent flooding so it was ridiculously muddy (we should've taken photos of our muddy feet just from trying to get in and out of the parking lot).

It was good fun, complete with a couple of beers at the Starved Rock Lodge (think the Overlook from the Shining). We followed it up with a jaunt into town where we found ourselves amongst - in this order - hordes of bikers, a couple of wineries, and finally the most amazing Cajun restaurant either of us have ever been to. It's called the Cajun Connection, and it's run by Cajun Ron McFarlain who's a displaced Louisianan and travels regularly back down to Cajun Country to get all sorts of goods like gator, catfish, "bubba" shrimp, crawfish, etc. Ron's an awesome host and chef, and when I asked if he'd ever been contacted by Diner's, Drive-in's and Dives he said, "I don't need the extra business!". That's how good this place is. Oh, and don't even get me started on the pecan pie - best I've ever had. And you don't even notice the tabasco sauce in it.

My boyfriend

Feeds me well.

Ducks

We had some visitors to the neighborhood today. We hope they find their way back to the river unscathed.