woo! though, i have a feeling tickets will be a little harder to come by this year...and i can't imagine the lineup being as good as last year, but you never know. i have the bonnaroo dvd - i'm bummed i missed so much while i was in the damn first aid tent with an iv in my arm! :/ and i'm leaving early enough to avoid the 17 hour traffic jam!

BONNAROO 2003 DATES ANNOUNCED

Bonnaroo 2003 is confirmed to take place June 13 - 15,
2003, the three-day camping and music festival will once
again be held on the same pristine, 600-acre farm in
Manchester, TN, 60 miles southeast of Nashville.

Please stay tuned for ticket and lineup information.

Bonnaroo Music Festival
info@bonnaroo.com
www.bonnaroo.com

hmm. attempted to make christmas cookies today. my grandma's spritz cookies - sugar cookies you make with a cookie press. first only put one cup of flour in instead of two. um, duh. couldn't figure out why the dough was so smooshy. started throwing more flour in. ruined 3 batches - the first was a puddle of butter and sugar, the second a land mass of puffy butter/sugar/flour and the third a couple of islands because finally the dough didn't spread so much. but, still, it never worked. always just became crisp sugar things that stuck to the pan.

my grandma's been making them since i remember. and i blew it. i can't figure it out. i added at least another cup of flour! everyone's getting the break apart and bake ones this year. i doctored some of them up with some white chocolate chips, though. like i'm really gonna fool people. the cookies are pefectly round because of how you break equal portions of dough cubes apart. (dough cubes? huh?) and some of them still kinda look like they started from squares of dough.

eh, it's baking alissa-style. i couldn;t stop laughing at what an idiot i was. it was like a tv show...messed up batch after messed up batch, tons of dirty bowls, flour everywhere. though, i don't think food tv would be interested in me.:)

and as a sign in my neighbors front yard says 'make peace not war' i can't understand how war can ever be the solution to anything.

merry christmas !!! hope y'all have a wonderful holiday. eat drink and be merry! (raises 'eat drink and be merry' mug from tar-jay. *clink*)

geez, after saying i *wasn't* going to be a slacker, i haven't posted in almost a week...damn holidays. :) i'll get back into the swing of things in the new year....i've been to 21 concerts this year! crazy. more than i've been to in my entire life! i'm lucky. it's been a fun year....off to finish baking christmas cookies...yum!

i just got back from the grocery store. the store i shop at, raley's, is a local-ish chain. it's not a particulary large store, and certainly no 'super' supermarket. pretty small, plus they have a whole drugstore type section.

anyways, my point being, i don't shop at a giant 'name-brand' grocery store.

i have a buch of ben and jerry's coupons i snagged so many on the summer tour. and ate SO much ice cream. and filled out SO many of those goddamn little cards. i think i put my real name and info on one of them...i felt guilty, so i knew if i put it on everyone, they's think 'god, this girl is an ice cream FREAK'

they're right.

they didn't get used in north carolina due to the pitiful ben and jerry's selection - even at giant supermarkets. i went to all of them - bi-lo, lowe's, harris teeter, food king (and have a walletful of those annoying 'shopping cards')...never more than 10 choices. if you were lucky.

today, at raley's i counted the number of different types of pints. 22. TWENTY TWO! plus, you could buy a quart of 'vanilla for a change' (why oh why would you buy VANILLA? unless you planned to add your own hunks and swirls.). they had osw, phish food fro yo, half baked, coffee heath bar crunch, triple caramel, peanut butter truffle, karmel sutra...so many good flavors. no 'pistachio pistachio' like NC. see how boring pistachio ice cream is? they couldn't even think up a creative name. because there's nothing interesting in it. even vanilla gets a catchy name! ha!

ice cream makes me happy. i went to dinner/snack (at a strip center with a bunch of fast food type places - rubios, subway, etc) with my very very first boyfriend, from when i was 14. i've talked to him off and on, not very much, really. he lives down by my dad's. when we got to the center, i walked toward the ice cream shop (coldstone creamery) and said 'i'm getting ice cream'...he said 'i knew you would'. see? i was an ice cream freak even back then.

at least 13 years of ice cream craziness. and nothing beats a caravel vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles. except osw. hmm, or festivus (damn you, ben and jerry's!), or..wellllll...it's all good. :)

i'm back! wow, i missed my computer. and my dsl line. my monitor is HUGE! much better than the tiny one i was used to at work. did the long drive home after the dave matthews band concert in atlanta. yeah, i know. they STILL didn't play say goodbye. i think i have some sort of curse.

got to stay in midland, texas one night. as a couple of signs proclaimed 'home of george and laura bush'. woo. it was a terrible place. kinda a city. flat. dirty. republincan. bleh.

i drove across texas from dallas to el paso. it's a big state. damn. and everyone drives pickup trucks. seriously. big pickup trucks. soon after i crossed into texas i saw two billboards proclaiming 'united we stand. in god we trust'. churches had billboards. a couple anti-abortion billboards. lots of bush stickers, even more american flags. (and american cars. i was so glad to see a crown victoria in my rearview mirror in LA and have it be a cop. what? i was glad to see a cop? haha).

when i looked up 'coffee' in the yellow pages (amazingly enough, midland had a starbucks.) i found there was a huge 'church' section. one of the baptist churches advertised their radio station.

98.3 KKKK

now, it might just be me, but i wouldn't want that to be the call letters for my radio station, let alone a christian radio station. weird.

i'm so happy to have unlimited access to a fast computer...i promise more (and much more interesting. damn, have i been boring the past few months.) soon! and more often!

another quote from utne, as the current issue's theme is finding and following your 'calling'. as i prepare to leave this portion of my life, the one that was so new and scary and exciting which then became the familiar and fun, i find this appropriate. picking up myself and moving to the other side of the country to take a job that came to me and just 'felt right' was one of the best decisions i've made.

"i'm deep in 'don't know,' but strangely calm, more curious and interested than anxious about what's next. i'm listening as deeply as i can, paying attention to the sychonicities, to song fragments and random comments that move me, to my memories and dreams, and i'm reflecting on the needs i see around me, via news items in the media and through direct requests of my family and friends, and complete strangers. and, like parzival, i'm learning to ask 'what ails thee? how can i help?' i really don't know what's next, but i feel confident whatever it is, it will be a calling." - eric utne

some very good news from my new issue of utne (formerly known as utne reader, they decided to 'change' the name)...

'a new study reports that drinking at least 3 cups of coffee a day may reduce your chances of developing alzheimer's, notes 'the week' (july 25, 2002). research conducted by scientists at the faculty of medicine in lisbon, portugal, found that people drinking 3 to 4 cups of coffee a day from the age of 25 reduced their risk of dememtia by as much as 60 percent. researches suspect that the caffeine in coffee may protect the brain'

cheers! *clinks coffee mug*

oo...ooo...i like those 'life is good' tshirts, and always thought about getting one. either the coffee mug one of the climbing one. but i've found the perfect one on the ben and jerry's site when i was checking out the osw tshirt i'm going to break down and buy one of these days. i'd love one with an ice cream cone *and* a coffee mug, though. :)

looks like we're not going to see any festivus this year.:( i am not a happy camper. anyone have a leftover pint or two in their freezer they'd like to share with me? i'm driving across the country next week, so i can stop by. :)

IT'S SNOWING! and we're supposed to get an 'accumulation'. *even crazier snow dance* ******************************

it's going to SNOW!!! *does wild crazy snow dance* SNOW! i can't believe it. it really doesn't snow often here, but our last two groups here at work had to cancel because of it. yayay! i haven't lived in snow since i was 8. SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! ** ~ * ' * ~ ** * '' *** (my weak attempt at keyboard snow) i'm so excited! woo!

...Winter storm warning for this afternoon through Thursday
morning for snow and then significant icing...

Snow is expected to develop this afternoon. The snow should
accumulate from 1 to 4 inches....With the higher amounts in the
North before changing to sleet and then to freezing rain by late
this evening. Ice accretion in excess of a quarter inch is expected
tonight and Thursday morning...With some amounts near half an inch
in North Carolina.

ahem. i need to go to the store for more ice cream. i hope this doesn't stop me...

on a happy note, i got to sit and goof off a lot of yesterday while the 'three musketeers' (coworkers. 2 are nice, one's crystal. 'nuff said.) built shelters for firewood. good thing my boss isn't too hip on crystal, either. he actually apologized for her the other day! he's an old-school phishead, and drives the same car as me, only 5 years older. i think i'm working at a good place. :)

thinking about festivus today...the ice cream, not the holiday. not that i don't care about the holiday, i just have an, um, well, kind of an obsession with the ice cream. haven't seen it yet this year, but north carolina has a pitiful ben and jerry's selection. i've only seen osw in ONE store. usually each grocery store has only 5 or 6 flavors and one frozen yogurt. :(

checked out the ben and jerry's site, no info. did find something interesting on the UK b&j site - an ice cream spade! free! i wonder if they'd send me one here in the states. see? they are supporting digging out all the good stuff. i confess, i am guilty of searching out the chocolate hunks, gooey swirls, crunchy stuff...the ice cream is there to hold all that stuff together, isn't it?

they also have an UK flavor that i would love - caramel chew chew. "swirls of caramel and chocolate-covered caramel chunks swimming in a sea of caramel ice cream." i wonder if it would melt if i tried to get it shipped from overseas? ;)

haha, on the one sweet whirled page for france, there's a link for 'le dave matthews band' :) i find it odd, though, that the names of the ice creams in france are still the 'american' names - i know there are french words for 'chocolate' 'berry' 'monkey' - well, maybe not 'vermonty', but still...

what a feeble thanksgiving post, eh? well, i spent many an hour on the freeway this weekend, so i had LOTS of time to think of something to say. :)

i drove to upstate new york, (everything other than nyc is upstate, right? ;) just like everything east of the mississippi is the 'east coast' to me) and found something very interesting about virginia license plates. there seem to be a much higher proportion of personalized or 'vanity' (as they call them in CA) plates. on everything from soccermommobiles to grandpa's lincoln to luxury automobiles. in californina, those plates are $50 a year on top of our already exhorbantly high car lisence fees (mine was almost $200!) and many people have them, but not nearly as many as there seem to be in virginia. is it really inexpensive? are virginians more self-expressive? or vain? in california, the plates are seen as frivolous and often seen on upscale suvs, minivans, and sports cars. if i wanted to spend the $50 and be vain, i think i'd get 'CLMB2X2' :) i think in some states you can even get 8 letters.

i drove in snow! and survived! go subaru four wheel drive! i love the 'warp speed' effect of driving in snow, all the white flakes shooting at your windshield.

i've managed to buy exactly zero christmas presents so far. i think my brain is full of thoughts of going home, scared, intimidated...i try not to think about it. but i also can't seem to make any decisions about gifts.

only one more group of kids, coming wednesday - friday. i can't believe it's almost over. i fell into this lifestyle very easily, and don't look forward to leaving it. just feels so right. i wish 'right' paid more, but...i am fairly certain i am coming back in march, so i will get it back. when i returned home yesterday and looked at my room, all my possessions in it - i was so content. happy. it is much easier to live with less, even though society tells us 'more more more'.

i don't eat turkey. never liked it. but i am eating (and loving) some vegetarian turkey salad. weird. i'm probably one of the few who prefer the taste of soy products (milk, tofu, fake 'meat'-like substances) to the 'real' thing.

there. the cliff note version of what went on inside my head from, oh, wilkes-barre to the mason dixon line. :) call me if you want the unabridged version. ;) i can't tell you everything that went on in my head on my trip, though. because then i'd have to feed you iocane powder (you get to pick which glass to drink from) to kill you. and i don't want to do something like that. it's not very nice.

added note. 7pm december 2nd

i don't mean to put down any of you that have personalized plates. my first two cars had them. but in ca i think they're seen as show-offy. :)