Harriet Carter

You know when you go to a garage sale and you wonder where in the world these people got this junk that they thought was cool for about two days and then wanted to throw away once they realized how embarrassing it was that they even owned it? I found the source ... Harriet Carter. I discovered the Harriet Carter catalog yesterday at my mother's house. It's incredible. I want to know who orders from this catalog and why. But apparently people do order from it as it's been around since 1958. Here are some of my favorite items:




I'm pretty sure if I was awoken by monkey sounds, the last thing I would do is laugh.




I like that the description specifies that these can be used for a "boy's birthday celebration." These lights are not for girls!

Weekend in Pictures

I had a rather eventful weekend, and I took a lot of pictures. It was fun. You'll notice that I'm not actually in most of these pictures and that's the way I like it.

On Saturday morning I headed out to Indiana with my friends to visit my roommate's parents' farm. On the way, we stopped at an apple orchard. Apparently we were a little late in the apple picking season as all the apples were either picked or on the ground.



Luckily, we got a tractor ride, so it wasn't a waste.



They also had some spectacular pumpkin and apple cinnamon donuts.



We then stopped at the Albanese Candy Factory. They offer a tour of the factory and we were excited to get started, with visions of a magical Willy Wonka-like experience running through our heads. We were quickly thrown back into reality when we realized the "tour" consisted of a ramp leading up to some windows where you could look into the basically empty factory. I think I may have seen some gummy bears on a conveyor belt.

The disappointment over the less than impressive tour was quickly remedied by the fact that they let you sample any candy you want to. A very nice feature.



After we were all satisfied with our candy choices, we headed out to the farm for some chilli. This was followed by a ride in the back of a truck (for the true farm experience) to go see the cows.





Then the cows ran away and we went back to the house to prepare for our bonfire and hay ride.



I do not have pictures of the bonfire or hayride because it was dark out and I was sick of taking pictures. After that, we settled in for a movie and went to bed. I don't think I really slept all night.

Sunday morning we had fabulous buscuits and gravy for breakfast and we headed home for church. Sunday evening my roommate and I hosted our monthly Old Movie Night. This month's feature was Psycho. My roommate had the brilliant idea of squirting ketchup all over our shower. So we did.



In case you're wondering, I'm in a 50's housewife dress. It was my Halloween costume. Old Movie Night was a huge success as was our ketchup covered shower. However if you're considering copying our brilliant shower idea, keep in mind that a large amount of ketchup squirted in a small enclosed space gives off a vomit-inducing odor.

Mystery!

Last Friday when I came into my cube at work I noticed a yellow award ribbon tacked to my bulletin board. This was definitely a new addition to my cube. It said "Good Eater Award" with a picture of a monkey eating a banana. I'd never seen this ribbon before in my life, it just magically appeared in my cube. I naturally assumed that it was left by coworker Todd because he is obsessed with monkeys and he's caused a disturbance in my cube before. However, when I confronted him about it, he denied it. I'm still assuming he did it though, mostly because I don't really have any other ideas.

Anyway, Wednesday morning when I came in there was another bulletin board gift waiting for me; a kind of scary football guy wearing a pink tutu. I don't know what that's about. I'm kind of hoping that there are more to come and when complete, they will uncover a secret message of some kind. But somehow I doubt it. I don't think anyone who has a picture of a football player wearing a tutu is smart enough to pull that off.

This morning I received yet another gift. It's a button that says "Not Until the 10th." Don't know what that means exactly. If it's referring to October 10th, it's a little late.

Mutemath

I feel the need to publicly declare my love for Mutemath. They're basically all I listen to these days. I saw them the other night at the House of Blues in Chicago for the second time and it was fantastic, as expected. The first time I saw them, I only knew one of their songs because it was on American Idol (yeah, I watch American Idol. Shut up), but some coworkers were going and they strongly encouraged me to come. They insisted it was the best live show I'd ever see, and they were right.

Here is a sampling of what goes on at a Mutemath show:

- When the drummer comes out on stage, he puts his headphones on and then duct tapes them to his head. He gets a little hyper. So hyper that he broke is drum pedal in the second song.

- The lead singer plays a variety of "instruments." My personal favorite is the keytar. He also has a little keyboard/piano thing that sits front and center on the stage; sometimes he plays it, sometimes he does flips over it, and sometimes it's played like a drum by various members of the band. In the final song, he ends up playing an inexplicable piece of machinery that is sort of played like a guitar but basically just plays sound effects. Also, the lead guitarist plays his pedals sometimes.

-As you can see in the video, there is general destruction of the stage and everything on it at the end of the show. They weren't quite as destructive this time as they were the first time I saw them, which was mildly disappointing, but I think I'll get over it.

So there you have it. Mutemath does not disappoint. We may have stood a little too close to the speaker and I think I might be deaf now. But it was worth it.

Crazy Neighbors, Part 2

Just when I thought the neighbors couldn't get any crazier, I came home the other night to be greeted by a pick-up truck on the front lawn. I believe this officially makes us the Naperville hillbillies.

Meanwhile, I found out that they do own a used car dealership in Indiana, hence the plethora of cars parked in any available open space on our property, now including the front lawn.

To top it off, the other night I was watching TV, minding my own business, and I hear quite a bit of yelling and fighting below me. About a half hour later, the high school aged girl that lives below us rings my doorbell and asks to use my phone to call her dad who I knew from a previous conversation was in Indiana. So I let her use my phone, she gets the answering machine, leaves a message in another language (most likely Chinese or something, the mom is Oriental), then leaves. I debated whether or not I should ask if everything was ok, but she didn't seem upset and I didn't want to get involved. An hour or so later, my roommate comes home and I tell her this slightly unusual story and she informs be that the girl is sitting out in the backyard with the dog. So I'm pretty sure that this girl fought with her mother, possibly about the annoying dog, and her mom threw her and her dog out of the house. I really have no evidence that this is what happened, but it makes sense.

To top that off, I saw the dad yesterday at church. He breezed right by me, and I'm not sure if he saw me, but I didn't say anything because I forgot his name. Now I feel like I to be nice. Not that I was planning on being mean or anything ...