Family Time

Fall, in all its splendor, has finally fell in Greenville. The trees turn slowly here, creating a fireworks effect with green centers and orangey-red tips. In the spirit of fall, my parents and I decided to go apple-picking on Saturday. I know what you’re thinking- they came from Michigan to South Carolina and you’re going apple-picking?! That’s like me driving twelve hours up to Pittsburgh to buy some peaches. But actually, North Carolina is the 4^th-largest producer of apples in the United States (or so the Visitor’s Center tells me). At any rate, the weather was perfect, the scenery divine, and I came home with more apples than I’ll ever know what to do with.


Apples are far and away my favorite fruit. I love everything about them, from their shiny red peels to their down-home American scent to their juice-rolling-down-your-chin goodness. Apple pie, apple crisp, applesauce, apple cider, dried apple chips, apple leather (like fruit rolls ups) caramel apples, caramel apple suckers… you name it, I love it.

Speaking of things I love, one of the best things about a visit from my parents is the virtual cornucopia of goodies they bring me. The following is an incomplete, but accurate list of what fell out of the back of the station wagon this time:

• a turkey baster
• 2 (more) bikes
• a space heater
• the movie Dan in Real Life*
• a coat rack
• 2 windshield ice scrapers (question mark? this is South Carolina...)
• my yearbook
• 1 (large) bag of dirt
• 10 pounds of deli meat
• a crockpot
  

And finally, my favorite quote of the weekend…

mom: "didn't MargaretAnn commit suicide?"
dad: "whaaa?"
mom: "Oh, no, wait. She had leukemia. That's right."

*neither of my parents have any idea where this came from. When asked about it, they both replied “I don’t know, I’ve never seen that before- isn’t it yours?” I explained to them that I hadn’t even seen the movie until I got it from my netflix this summer, and I certainly never owned a copy. We asked my brother if it had possibly accidentally ended up in my parents’ stuff when they visited a few weeks ago, but nope. My mom thinks she may have accidentally stolen it from one of her students.

Welcome to the neighborhood

I finally met my new-ish neighbors last night. After nearly taking Mr. Handsome out with a giant-sized coat rack as I not-so-gracefully rounded the corner on our outdoor stairway, we'll-call-him-Alex politely ignored my complete lack of coordination and introduced himself. The exchange went something like this:

Alex: "Hi! Are you moving in?"
me: "No."
Alex: "Oh."
me: "But I can see how you would think that as I've been lugging piles of stuff up these stairs for the last 40 minutes. I moved in in June."
Alex: "Oh!"
*awkward silence*
Alex: "June did you say?"
me: "yup."
*nervous throat-clearing and shuffling of feet*
Alex: "we'll-call-him-Jack and I just moved in like a month ago"
me: what I thought: I know. I watch you creepily through the peephole every time I hear a noise outside my door.
what I said: "cool"
*more awkward silence*
me: "Welp, see you around!"

Needless to say, I don't think I'll be invited over for movie night anytime soon. I imagine my relationship with Alex and Jack will go much the way of my relationship with the guys who lived there before them- namely, they carried my two-thousand pound sleeper sofa up three flights of stairs during the second-hottest South Carolinia June on record and then never spoke to me again. Maybe I should have baked them brownies.

Anyway, it's only thanks to my parents that I ever meet any of my neighbors, and lucky for me, mom and dad are visiting for a long weekend. Yes that means there are three of us co-existing in my apartment the size of a chest freezer, but I don't mind. Mostly because my morning went something like this:

-I woke up and thanks to my mother's prompting, actually got out of bed when my alarm sounded instead of my usual routine of accidentally hitting 'dismiss' when I meant to hit snooze and promptly falling back asleep until exactly 9 minutes before I need to leave for work
-My mom ironed my clothes while I made coffee
-My mom packed my lunch while I showered
-My dad drove me to work while I put my make-up on (note- I would have done this even if I had been driving, it just meant my fellow commuters were saved from imminent disaster via my total and utter lack of road skillz)

Yes I earned my first paycheck when I was 8 years old. Yes I own every cleaning product known to man and can clip your couponing socks off any day of the week. Yes I can change my bike chain, check my oil, and I do grown-upy things like eat off of place mats and buy housewarming gifts, but you better believe I love, love, love being totally spoiled by my parents and regressing to my 8th-grade self. And darn it all if my mom doesn't iron a mean crease on J Crew chinos.

Bleh

Watching Obama (a lawyer) and McCain (a naval pilot) debate economic policy is like drilling my own teeth out. I heard better economic discussion from people who were failing first year econ classes.

Obama/McCain vs. Pongracic? Now that I'd like to see.

The Sunny Side of the Street

"Isn't it good just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren't born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one." -Anne Shirley

I confess that I've picked up Anne of Green Gables for a repeat reading, despite the fact that I've yet to finish Death Comes to the Archbishop and I'm knee-deep in My Life in France, not to mention the pile of books on my nightstand, borrowed from the library and friends.

But Anne Shirley possesses unparalleled wisdom and so I come back to her time and again. She so perfectly describes my Saturday; there will never be another quite like it. It is lovely here in Greenville, 70 degrees and breezy, and I spent it accordingly.

I woke up early and hit the Sav-Mor sidewalk sale, an event that deserves its own post, with Alycia. A local grocery store gets all the near expiration and dented cans from the high-class, snooty organic shops around town and every other Saturday, they're gathered into rows and rows of boxes in the parking lot. Hundreds of people show up, empty boxes in hand, and line the perimeter of the lot. At 9am on the dot, a whistle is blown and the crowd rushes in, like vultures on a dead carcas. The whole ordeal lasts about 10 minutes, and at the end, you walk out with a banana box full of food for $6. Here's our haul today:














Afterward, we headed out to the local Farmer's market, where we picked up some great produce, and both bought a fresh herb plant- Cilantro for Alycia, Oregano for me. Now my basil plant, Gianni, will finally have some company out on the deck. The man who sold them to us said that they can stay outside year-round down here, which is wonderful. I can't wait to make tomato sauce!

I also picked up a pomegranate and a handful of muscadines, which according to the world wide web, are the 'Passion Fruit of the South'. They are one of the strangest fruits I've ever come across, and if you ever visit me in Greenville, be sure to give them a try.

Last night I held my first 'gathering' in Greenville. Several friends came over, and we spent the night playing Outburst, Taboo, and 'Free Writing', which is only fun if you're several beers into the night. To that end, we went through a 24 pack of Yuengling and my version of man-nachos. Billy Joel may or may not have gotten involved at some point, as evidenced below. God has been so good to bless me with the companionship I've found here.