#//in other news i came home to learn that my dog ate MY ENTIRE PINEAPPLE BACON PIZZA !!!!

[outofthiisworld]

[💜] Oh, what’s this? Looked like Ophelia was mighty focused on painting; good for her! Judging by her strokes on the canvas, it wasn’t really anything, just mindless coloring mixed in together— more because she could and less because she should.

Ophelia stopped. A soft lil’ sigh interrupted her hummed song …

“ I am in sooo much pain right now~♡ ”

… and then she went right back to it!

[divinelydivorced]

Goodbye, Grandma

My grandma passed away yesterday morning. Even though we knew it was coming, it is still hard.  Tuesday around 3:50 am, I awoke suddenly and couldn’t quite get back to sleep until 4:30. Come to find out, the end started around four and she was gone around 4:20.  It’s amazing how souls are so connected that we can feel the loss happening at the exact moment it occurs.  The older I get, I am made more aware of how similar my grandma and I are.  I’m proud to have inherited so many of her quirky traits and have come to embrace them.  In fact, I see them as a tribute to the impact she had on my life.  So, in honor of the life my grandma lived, here are the 25 things she has taught me:

1.     Bladder problems ARE a joking matter.  My grandma was a hot mess, God love her. Whether it was peeing her pants in an elevator in front of a bunch of strangers or never leaving a restaurant without a huge stain on her top, she always managed to leave a trail.  Most people would cry or die of embarrassment, but she’d just hee-haw, laughing so hard she’d likely pee again.  She passed on her small bladder and the ability to find humor in the embarrassment to me, which has provided my friends with endless counts of entertaining stories. College friends still text from time to time, “Remember when Adam Harris finally asked you to hang out and you had to say no because you’d just peed on your long sweater and had to shower and change?”  Yes, yes, I remember.  

2.     If you want it, get it.  She always knew what she wanted and wasted no time in purchasing it.  I remember, around age ten, her saying how much she wanted a bird feeder.  I went home and made one out of an old milk carton.  When I showed up to proudly give it to her, only two days later, there in her front yard was a brand new gorgeous wooden one.    

3.     Eat it and get it over with.  My grandma was notorious for eating an entire watermelon in the course of an afternoon.  This also contributed to her bladder problems.  Once, my sister went to take a nap at her house.  While drifting in and out, she caught a whiff of the sweet smell of a butter braid (a very large pastry you’d take to a party).  When she awoke excited for dessert, she went out to discover my grandma had de-thawed it, cooked it, and ate 99% of it in the course of two hours.  To this day, whenever I make any dessert-I eat 99% of it while it’s still hot.  We all know what’s going to happen so just get it over with already.

4.     If it annoys you, get rid of it-no matter its practicality. My grandma loved buying things almost as much as she loved getting rid of those same things three months later.  One time she showed up at mom’s house with a car full of lamps.  She decided she hated lamps and wanted them all gone.  My mom, always the practical one, kept them so when my grandma realized later they were necessary, she wouldn’t have to buy more.  Any of my friends know I’m the same.  I served wine in a juice glass the other day.  My friend asked, “Don’t you have wine glasses?” “I did,” I said, “but just got rid of them.”  “Why? You didn’t use them?” he asked.  “No, I used them all the time.  I just got tired of looking at them.”

5.     Never stop moving.  My grandma moved all the time.  She’d often announce it at the latest holiday dinner.  She would wake up, be suddenly sick of her place, and a month later would be somewhere new.  She once left a home, only to return to it a few years later.  A constant mover myself, I was looking forward to staying in my current place for more than a year (a new record) until I recently found out I had to vacate in 30 days due to construction.  Although annoying and inconvenient, I was not surprised when I found myself thinking the other day, “Actually-I’m kind of over this place, so that worked out.”

6.     Crazy is charming.  My grandma was nuts, as am I.  Yet we embrace the crazy and combine it with big hearts.  That’s why people keep coming back.  A little crazy never hurt anyone…and we are a lot of fun on road trips.

7.     The flu is for sissies.  We’d often stay at her house when we had the flu. Grandma gave us whatever we wanted, which included the time my brother insisted he wanted to eat a bunch of tacos.  You can imagine my mother’s frustration when she arrived to pick him up and found him vomiting ground beef and shredded cheese everywhere.

8.     Pools and convertibles aren’t luxuries, they’re necessities.  Life’s too short.  GET THEM BOTH.

9.     Dogs are our children.  She had an antique cradle for her dog to sleep in and was the first to introduce me to a dog stroller.  I get it and think it makes absolute sense.

10.  You don’t need a man.  Most of my life she’s been single.  Men have chased after her and she’ll let them buy her lunch or keep her company, yet it goes no further.  Because at the end of the day, she’s her own woman and has no need for a full-time man dragging her down.  This is a lesson I’m still learning.

11.  Soap operas are good television.  She lived near the high school, so at lunchtime, my girlfriends and I would take our lunches to eat at her place and watch Days of Our Lives.  Those were some of my favorite memories.  If the show got really intense and it was time for us to go, she’d try convincing us to drive her car back, at age 14, so she didn’t have to leave.  She even took me and my aunt to a Days of Our Lives festival one summer.  When it came to idolizing celebrities, her and I saw eye to eye.

12.  Dairy Queen can be dinner.  When she helped move me to Michigan, we spent a week eating Dairy Queen snicker blizzards for every meal.  She was doing Weight Watchers at the time and, although two of these, met her quota for the day-she was willing to make the sacrifice.  I remember thinking how brilliant this was.  When we got tired of Dairy Queen (rare), we’d hit up the Chinese Buffet.  No excuses and no shame-it’s how we rolled.

13.  Why choose when you can have both.  My grandma loved driving with the windows down.  She also would sweat profusely.  Once, we got in the car on a blazing summer day and I asked if we should turn on the AC or roll down the windows.  Her answer?  Both. We cranked the radio up, let the wind tousle our hair as the cold AC blasted our faces.

14.  Underwear is optional.  In fact, it’s often preferred you go without.

15.  Sing loud and proud.  My grandma had one of those loud operatic voices which she’d use to pelt Amazing Grace in church.  We grandkids would chuckle, but in reality, I always loved how she simply didn’t care. She was singing for Jesus.

16.  Spend your time how you want.  There were years where she’d choose hours of Farmville over leaving the house.  I’ve been known to spend an entire 48 hour weekend playing Sims-taking breaks only to run to the bathroom and grab a snack.  It’s our time-we will do what we want with it, and if that means interacting with computerized lives over human ones, so be it.

17.  There’s always something burning in the oven.  Every holiday she left something in the oven.  EVERY. HOLIDAY.  How no one caught on, I don’t know.  How I managed to inherit this trait, despite being annoyed by it, beats me. It seems the rolls always take the biggest hit…who needs carbs anyway-more DQ.

18.  There’s no time for sentimentality.  At a family event, she once walked out with crates of old photographs-including her wedding photos-and announced to the family she was throwing them away the next morning, so, “grab what you want.”  Everyone started arguing with her and refusing to take anything.  Meanwhile I did a clean sweep, loading boxes into my car.  Later, everyone was grateful because she kept to her word and burned everything I didn’t get my hands on.  Years later, I marched out to the living room with a box full of the photos I’d taken and said to my mom, “I’m throwing all of these away tomorrow, so take what you want.”  You better believe she took them-lesson learned.

19.  Sausage gravy is love.  As long as I knew her, she had a part-time job of sitting with an elderly person, a job I’ve now inherited.  As soon as I could work, she started taking me along and then giving me some of her shifts.  She taught me how to make sausage gravy-the first meal I ever learned to cook.  “Old people love sausage gravy,” she told me. She was right.

20.  Rules are meant to be broken.  My grandma didn’t give a f***.  In fact, she invented the phrase.  Sometimes she’d do stuff simply to get a reaction out of you.  There was no rhyme or reason-she went with her urge. I remember walking through the shoe store with my mom a couple years ago and asking my mom, “Do you ever get a strong desire to just start knocking things over?”  

21.  If it can go in a blender, it should.  Grandma introduced me to smoothies and I’ve never looked back.  “Everything can go in a blender!” she once enthusiastically told me as she threw in leftovers along with fruit and hit “blend.”  Now I buy pineapple in bulk and enough produce to feed a small village for a month.

22.  New fads are meant to be tried.  My grandma purchased every diet pill and vitamin that existed, as well as any exercise devise.  She had one of those machines that shook you, vibrating a strap around your bottom and promising to eliminate cellulite by simply standing there.  She had the utmost confidence they would work.  Each time she’d pull the latest tool or pill out of the box, I’d watch in awe as she demonstrated its powers, believing she’d discovered the secret to staying fit and healthy.  She instilled this hope in me.  I carried a crystal around for weeks once after reading it’d get my period to finally to start.  I paid an obscene amount of money for Cindy Crawford’s miracle elixir, returning it 30 days later, and then surprising myself by purchasing it a second time years later during a 5 am workout binge when the infomercial reappeared.  My recent purchase was a $100 fascia blaster which I use with fervor, while watching Friends episodes, and later have to justify when explaining the bruises on my legs to friends with a, “Yeah, it hurts but I can feel it working!”

23.  Walk everywhere.  It’s great exercise, sure.  But, more importantly, it gives you a chance to catch up on the town gossip.

24.  Careful-you can give a man your yeast infection.  This statement alone is self-explanatory.  Yet my grandma felt the need to retell an in-depth twenty-minute story of how her and my grandpa discovered this to be factual, leaving me scarred for life.

25.  When life pushes back, you push harder.  The beginning of my grandma’s life was not easy.  In fact, as I understand it, it was quite hard. My grandpa rescued her and she fell madly in love.  When he died so young, it would have been easy to give up.  But she didn’t.  She found job after job, she gave of herself whenever she could, and always left people laughing.  She was resilient.  She didn’t take the easy way out and, in fact, often took the road less traveled. She made no apologies and left some scars.  Although I will miss her greatly, I am grateful she’s in heaven, reunited with my grandpa-right where she’s always wanted to be.  

So, sing loud, grandma.  Eat your fill of watermelons and leave your underwear here on earth.  I won’t say rest in peace because that never was your style and, besides, I can hear the hee-hawing from heaven already.  In the end, she had it right.  We don’t need all this stuff we carry around because it’s only temporary. All that matters is how you make people feel, the laughter over tears, and never giving up.  And, of course, always knowing where the nearest restroom is.

[chaletnz]

Croatia's Interesting Capital City

I began my day in Zagreb the best way with a cappuccino from Cogito Coffee, I had been recommended the place by Lori although she said it looked exactly like a university toilet on the inside - she was exactly right! Next I needed food so I ate at a fancy restaurant in the main square because even though it was one of the most expensive places on the street it was still affordable for me. I took a tall glass of pineapple juice and some French toast. From my table I watched the chef making it and it came out with strawberries on top on a plate that said "you'll always be the one I love" so needless to say breakfast was divine. I made my way out to the Croatian national bank to meet Lori as her friend was taking a tour of the bank and she had invited me to join them both. However once we arrived I'm not exactly sure what happened but half the group went into the bank and the other half were taken on a walking tour of the design district. I was in the walking tour and must've got confused because I thought we'd return to see the bank but we never did. Anyhow I learned the bank was built on the outskirts of the old town of Zagreb and as a result the city flourished and grew around it and became the bustling Croatian capital we know today. In the 1990s a fountain was added in front of the bank as there was a large open space so the fountain was built as a gradient and to be something more interesting in the square. Just around the corner was a building nicknamed the "wooden skyscraper" which was essentially two floors of office buildings with about ten floors built on top out of wood for the employees to live in. Lori's friend Denis joined us for the tour and we all set off behind the guide with some more random people on our walking tour. We began at a small shed-like building surrounded by four stores apartment blocks and the guide showed us photos of how the area originally looked - there was once a huge farm of orange trees here behind the shed. I couldn't imagine even 20 trees being there before the land ended in front of the apartments but apparently once upon a time there were hundreds of trees. The "shed" was where the caretaker lived on the orange farm but is now used as a local office for something no one could translate or explain properly for me! Some citizen tax thing... The guide walked us through a parking garage at Spar and we emerged on the other side near a colourful highrise building that was intended for employees of the national bank. We took the elevator up to the top floor and enjoyed a nice view over Zagreb from the rooftop. From here Lori said the tour was going on to an architecture museum so we left and walked down the Main Street in the design district where there were some little bar kiosks, a stage and wooden seating areas set up presumably for the evening festivities. By now it was time for coffee so we took the tram (without paying might I add so I was sweating nervously the entire 4 minutes of the ride) back into the centre of town to another specialty coffee shop called the Express Bar. I got talking to one of the guys who worked there called Sani, he was considering a working holiday in New Zealand as the Australia quota was full so naturally he had a lot of questions for me! Lori wanted to show me a street full of boutique cocktail bars downtown although they weren't open yet. We walked uphill past the richest residences of Zagreb and discovered a summer cocktail garden tucked away with lots of hipster decorations and service kiosks built in shipping containers. After checking all of this out and being disappointed that it wasn't open we headed to "the nicest restaurant in Zagreb" Dubravkin Put. Lori's boyfriend worked here as a bartender and he made us some of his favourite cocktails even though they weren't officially open and we drank them outside in the sunshine. Lori then walked me in the direction of the upper part of town and we went our separate ways as she headed home to pack for a weekend wedding and I carried on adventuring. At the top of the city I found a lot of murals and street art which is always a welcome surprise. The streets were narrow and winding, and the building colourful and decked out with Croatian flags - they seem a very patriotic country! Finally I reached my final Zagreb destination: the Museum of Broken Relationships. I had planned on spending an hour here but it was just so interesting that it turned into almost two. The museum is full of random items that are exhibited with an accompanying story as to why this item represents a broken relationship in someone's life. Among the more memorable items were a stiletto, hockey puck, dog chew toy and a plush caterpillar. I was particularly touched by the story of the plush caterpillar; the couple tore off one of the legs for every month they were separated by distance vowing to be together before all the legs were torn off. The caterpillar in the museum still had half of its legs and the story ended with the couple never being together in the end. Imagine reading about 100 stories like this all associated to a weird object and that's basically the museum. After this depressing activity I realized I had run out of time completely and I needed to get a move on to quickly buy some snacks at Spar, pick up my backpack from the hostel and then catch my bus to Split. I snuck on to the tram again sweating nervously as I chose to ride for free for a few stops and then walk the rest of the way in the rain to the bus terminal. I farewelled Zagreb through a rain spattered window and then like a movie, when the bus drove through a tunnel and we suddenly emerged on the coastal side of the country the sun was out and it was 30 degrees outside. I had to switch buses in Zadar and immediately noticed the price inflation on the Adriatic coast as the driver tried to charge me 10 kuna to store my backpack under the bus whereas in Zagreb it cost me only 1. It was late when I finally arrived in Split so I had time only to walk to my hostel, check in, walk back into town for an (expensive) slice of pizza and then zonk out for the night.