Montreal, Quebec, May 29, 2010
Two years ago today was the last day of our French-Canadian honeymoon. There was late-night poutine (technically early morning on the 29th) with delicious local beer, a cat-chalet handoff, a river cruise and lots more. When we got home, we were tired.
Posted in booze, excellent munchables, nostalgia, Old-Timey Tuesday, travel
Atlanta, Georgia, May 22, 2010
Today marks two years since we got hitched. Two years! Noots! In honor of this momentous occasion, I borrowed an idea from Matt Miller of Our Labor of Love and made a video of all 600+ Smilebooth photos compressed into about three minutes. It’s kinda super awesome. Please enjoy my hilarious friends and family:
all photos copyright Our Labor of LoveToday I’m starting a new thing that may or may not become a regular feature: mirthmobile must-haves! These are things that are super awesome — and even sometimes super useful, as is the case with this inaugural endorsement. Without further ado, I give you the BAGGU bag:
(photos from baggubag.com)
I first came across BAGGU some years ago online via some blog or other. I know that I briefly entertained getting these for my bridesmaids as part of their gifts (they come in so many fun colors!) but ended up going another direction. 
Back in the fall of this past year I happened upon BAGGU bags again. Perusing their website, I discovered an alpaca-print bag; I immediately placed an order for three, to be Christmas stocking stuffers for myself, my sister and my mom.
(Sidenote: these things are so hip now that J. Crew is selling them in exclusive colors, and Madewell carries them too. They’re all the rage!)
I’ve been big on reusable grocery bags since my year in Germany. I’ve used several different kinds, and BAGGU is by far the most convenient and cool. I keep mine in my purse at all times, because it takes up hardly any space; it’s also handy to not have to remember to take something into the store with which to tote my groceries, because it’s always with me. It folds up flat back into its pouch, so I just stash it in my purse again as soon as I unpack it at home. (I also get lots of compliments on it from grocery store cashiers.)
Anyhoo, go forth and check out baggubag.com. There are multiple sizes and shapes, and even a few in leather for you high-rolling style mavens out there. You’re welcome.
Posted in design, gift ideas, mirthmobile must-have!, style
Kingsport, Tennessee, April-June 1948; Somewhere else, July 1950
Those first three photos are my Grandma Jean holding my tiny baby mama at ages 3.5 weeks, 2 months and 3 months. Grandma Jean looks so very Judy Garland to me… maybe it’s the hair. The fourth photo is my adorable mama at 2 years and change walking with her grandma. Hooray for mamas and grandmas!
Posted in family, holidays, nostalgia, Old-Timey Tuesday
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y., May 13, 2007
Right around this time five years ago, we were “graduating” with our master’s degrees. (That’s in quotation marks because we still had about eight daunting weeks of work ahead of us in the form of writing and workshopping our capstone stories.) This photo, post-walk, was my way of determining whether my cap had left unsightly lines on my forehead, because Jon probably told me I looked totally normal and I didn’t believe him.
Posted in Old-Timey Tuesday, nerdery, hair, occasions, higher ed
Since it’s finally the weekend and I’m going to some fun graduation parties tonight, I wanted to share a killer party photo from my friend Allison’s wedding in December. Our gang definitely knows how to get down, and we always bring along our beer-bottle microphones in case of awesome ’80s rock:
Most triumphant! And it gets better. When Allison sent me this, I immediately thought of another dance-floor shot: one from my wedding, of Allison:
Those are some super-fun parties, right? We are nothing if not passionate air-musicians. However, far and away the best part of these photos, taken a year and a half apart on different sides of the country, has got to be Shane, the dude rocking out in the background at left in both pictures. Beer in the same hand, sleeves unbuttoned and sorta rolled up, eyes closed and all-out singing along — and I’m pretty sure that’s the same tie. I damn near died laughing when I noticed this. Does this guy know how to party or what?!
Posted in friends, HUZZAH, observations, photography, ROCK, social graces, weddings
Somewhere in Germany, sometime in the ’70s
In honor of May Day — not much of a holiday here, but a big one abroad — I thought I’d post an old-timey picture from Germany today. I found this among my Grandpa Jim’s photos. It’s a picture of his German friends Wolfram and Doris — now friends of mine as well — looking rather glamorous, from back in the day. My guess is that this was taken somewhere along the Elbe during one of Grandpa’s visits; either that or Wolfram and Doris had this taken on a special occasion and later sent a copy to Grandpa. Maybe I’ll drop them a line to ask…
Posted in friends, nostalgia, Old-Timey Tuesday, things German, travel
Yesterday the fine folks from Live Nation confirmed rumors that had been swirling for weeks on the internet: Pearl Jam will headline this year’s Music Midtown, a festival that happens to take place in Piedmont Park, oh, HALF A MILE FROM MY HOUSE. HOLY SHIT Y’ALL.
I’ve been joking about offering up our place to the band so they can stay for free and be close to the park, which of course makes me think of the Wayne’s World episode with Aerosmith and Tom Hanks as one of their roadies. A true classic! (Click on the photo to play the excellent video. Best part is around 2:00.)
The concert is September 22 (adding further support to my theory that 22 is a magic number for me, as previously noted here), and comes toward the end of a month that is already packed with awesome. I already know I’ll need to take the last weekend of the month to lie in bed and recover from my epic fun bender.
EDDIEEEEEEEE!!!!
Allison Hall girls’ triple, Evanston, Illinois, spring 2003
In honor of my excellent former roomie Allison’s birthday today, I dug up some photos from the first year of our friendship. The above photo was taken before an evening out at a house/apartment/dorm-room party and features some sweet ’90s makeup action on my part. Please also note that there is a choker involved.
In the same stack of photos I found a shot that’s a perfect companion to the first one. A month or two later, we got all tricked out to go to a themed frat party… I’ll let you guess what kind of party it was:
By now you surely must now that I love a theme and can’t resist a chance to dress up. How do you like my crimped hair? (And again with the ’90s makeup — I’m guessing this was during the phase when I and a few friends only owned/used the Clinique color “tenderheart.”) You may recall those lovely vinyl pieces from an earlier post as well — I definitely got my few dollars’ worth out of them! I particularly enjoy that I got resourceful in my efforts to dress like a tramp and used my tube top from the first picture as a miniskirt.
Posted in friends, hair, lowbrow, Old-Timey Tuesday
Last Friday marked a year since I began my new job. In most ways, this is the first real job of my career; I feel like my initial 3.5 working years out of grad school led to brain atrophy and little else. (Well, that’s not true — it did good things for my salary history, and I learned some new parts of my hometown.)
I was really excited to start this job, because there was basically no way it wouldn’t be a thousand times better than my first one. Happily, that has been the case, and not merely by default. It comes as no surprise to me that I really enjoy working in a university environment. I’m writing stories and connecting media people to experts, meeting with faculty and proofing pages, and the subject matter I’m dealing with is constantly changing. I feel productive most days, which rarely happened before. Above all, I have a kickass group of coworkers who are not only great colleagues but people I want to hang out with after hours.
It isn’t all bunnies and moonbeams, of course — I am nowhere close to being past my frequent fits of writerly agony, and I still have plenty to learn on each of my beats. Someone told me shortly after I started that it takes a full academic cycle to get your bearings, so by that measure I’m just about on track. Regardless, I’m happy to have landed in such a nice place. Go Panthers!
Posted in deep thoughts, grown-up stuff, higher ed, HUZZAH, observations
