I will have a hard time giving explicit detail to the extent that I did about the fair, so I won't even really try. I will mention some highlights of the drive that occurred after my morning in St. Paul. We drove to Chicago, Katie slept, we got there around 8 o'clock-ish. After some getting lostedness on our way to their house, we met up with Katie's aunt and uncle and their children. The kids were a little on the hyper side, as children I think tend to be. We watched the olympics between reading books and playing games and such until they went to sleep. We watched another hour or so of the Olympics before we hit the sack for a good nights sleep. Those are all the details I can really provide about Chicago, because thats all there were. We were on the road by 10:30 or so the next morning, after some coffee, some more books, and the like.
We drove pretty much uninterrupted until the early evening, when, after suffering the mild rush hour annoyance of Cleveland, we arrived in Mentor, Ohio, the town which features both the site of our unfortunate alternator failure of about a while back and the nearest Dillard's to Buffalo. We had some gift cards to use, some things to return, and some crystal to buy to round out our Waterford. Anyway, we made that stop, we went over to the Dillard's men's store (perfectly positioned on the opposite fucking side of the mall) and failed to find any fitting dress shirts, even at the fat-guys section, which goes to show that even if I fit in double-x clothing, my neck has some freakish relation to the rest of my body. I think I need like a 20-21 and since even big'n'tall doesn't even think that counts as reasonable, we ended up buying some quality t-shirts. There was one more thing we needed to do in Mentor, besides stopping at Wendy's which I don't think really counts, which was pick up a Baker's Square pie at the nearest Baker's Square to Buffalo. I can't explain to you how much it sucks to get serious French Silk cravings and have to settle for Perkins. I mean, its not a bad pie, there is just something about the composition of the silk, the velvethy smoothness of that combo of whipped delicious creaminess on top and silky chocolate goodness, that can't be matched. Regardless, we brought a pie home.
When we arrived home there was pretty much nothing to do but watch the olympics, turn on the air conditioning, because it was getting so hot, I was gonna take my clothes off. It was nice to be home with a full two days to get ready for Katie's birthday and school, which were pretty much the events of late summer. School didn't take much since I already had the basic set up of the course I was teaching under control, it really just took a couple hours of syllabus fill in to be ready to go. Katie's birthday had been being prepped for a week or two however, everything from menu and cake design, to the every important Katie's birthday shopping spree. I made stops at Kohl's, J. Crew, Herbergers, and Daytons over the course of my return to Minnesota and had all the various items wrapped by Katie's mom. This meant that on Monday morning Katie got to open two pairs of jeans, a pink sweater, pink suede shoes, Yves St. Laurent perfume, and two pairs of earings. I think she dug it. I did the cooking and preparation while she was at Rochester for some debatey practice and by the time she returned my chocolate mint cheesecake was cooling and the shrimp was ready to go in the wok.
Andrea, the first guest of our wedded life, had arrived a half hour before Katie did, since she was crashing with us on her drive back to Boston for school. That made her the fourth in a line of illustrious visitors that features el Dobas, Ben Kantor, and Wilking and Jen (who count as one, I guess, at least in visitor succession, not in personhood). Since we have been in this apartment over two years, I don't find that very impressive, but it was nice to have her here. We drank some good wine, ate some good food, and hung out until fairly late in the evening. I love Katie's birthday, to be honest, its much more enjoyable than mine. She is really pretty easy to shop for, running contrary to the female stereotype, and really appreciates the presents. Good times all around, though I had to start classes in the morning.
So far those classes have been alright. I'm teaching boring shit yet again, but I have the stuff so engrained in my mind now that I can spew it without even thinking. The other class I have on Tuesday is with Gasche, yet another close reading of German philosophy. This time its Gadamer's Truth and Method, a book I still know almost nothing about, besides its relevance for hermeneutics and its interesting revision of Heidegger. On Wednesdays I have a couple afternoon/evening sessions, which is annoying to be there so late, but otherwise very cool. Both are shit that is for the most part explicitly related to what I typically, one reading Kristeva and Irrigaray, who I desperately need to know more about than I currently do, and the other reading Seminar XVII, which has now been "about to be" published for 2 plus years. Anyway, its a really cool opportunity to do what is essentially a close reading of Lacan's text with Steven Miller, who seems a pretty fucking smart dude and is filling in for Joan this year. That is enough about school for now, since I am sure I will be blabbering about it in the future.
I love football so much. I don't know if I can explain it, i fucking love this game. I like college football and there are some collegiate match-ups that I fucking will not miss. Those tend to come up later in the season, but I fucking love a Michigan-Ohio State shootout or a Texas-Oklahoma. I mean, not like those games aren't loved by everyone, but still. My real love is the NFL which kicked off with one hell of a game on Thursday night. The NFL has set up some badass QB showdowns in the first 5 or so weeks of the season, Payton, Brady, McNair, Favre, all coming up against each other. I have never really thought Tom Brady should be considered one of the best 5 or so QBs in the NFL, but at some point I will have to admit that when you win 2 Super Bowl MVPs and now 16 games in a row, you've got something going on. He looked pretty good on Thursday night and I think there is probably a good argument that the Pats are the best coached team in the NFL, because no one saw any of that coming. The biggest hype of the offseason moves is either TO to Philly or Dillon to the champs, and the first offensive series for New England features...an empty backfield. I know Al and John commented on this, but it was fucking glaring, no one saw this coming. That said, Corey Dillon turned out to have a pretty solid impact on successive drives and the Pats D fundamentally won them the game. The Colts have alot in common with the Vikings of years past, where the strategy pretty much rests on the idea that we can score more and faster than you. It sucks that you have to count on scoring 30 or so to win, but I guess when you have 3 of the best 10 or 20 offensive players in the AFC you can try for that.
Last night did feature a college game that entirely disproved my typical attitude towards the University game, as Miami came impressively from behind to defeat FSU in an OT nailbiter. The college OT format is one of the few things I really enjoy more than NFL football, especially when I get to cheer for a team I love like the Caines against the Dallas Cowboys of the BCS. Those results were matched by a couple great games today, including, for the most part, Marshall v. Ohio State and Michigan v Notre Dame. The result of the Notre Dame game was pretty surprising, but it was a quality contest for the most part, some pretty solid talent on both sides of the ball. I don't think Michigan should ever have been ranked that high without a really viable running game at this point, but, admittedly, I am not a coach or sportswriter, which disqualifies my vote in the polls. While I did enjoy today's footbal schedule, I must say to the folks at CBS "Go fuck yourselves" for not showing me the Miami v Tennesee game instead of the tennis. Why didn't you just move the tennis to some other station and show the fucking NFL. Now, there may be some sort of tv contract thing which prevents them from showing the game nationally, which I understand, but at the point you are already moving the date of the contest, I think that can probably be altered too. I just think that at any time there is an NFL game on, absent it being blacked out, I should be able to watch one. Maybe I won't be able to watch the one game I want, but I will be able to watch A game, if that makes sense.
Anyway, Katie and I had a phat turkey dinner tonight, which I may describe more manana, but for now the triptophen has gotten me. John Madden would be proud.
Peace,
MB-K
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