House

Mordecai and I moved into our house this past weekend. I'm wary of my enthusiasm; I'm afraid that it'll dissipate once I realize how much actual work is required of owning a single family home (rather than for instance a condo). But I'm hopeful. As part of my excitement (and general envy of tumblr-ers), I started a tumblr that features unedited iPhone photos and minimal text about the house:  keipophouse.tumblr.com

I'll be back here though with non-house related posts, and better pictures that are sized just the way I want them. Werd.

I guess I didn't get the memo

There is so much I want to post: Japan, nails, shopping, iPhone 4, moving...and more Japan. There's never enough about Japan. But all I can offer to the Internet right now are some photos from my recent quick trip to Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas.

Needless to say, it was hot. After nearly dying in the heat from walking around their garden for like, five minutes, here I am inside the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas with a Jeff Koons piece. The guard could tell I wanted a picture of it, so he kindly offered to take one of me with it. Thank you, kind guard!

My grandmother invited me to go to Dallas with her for the weekend. One of the things she wanted to do was to see Idina Menzel, who was set to perform with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. My aunt is the assistant conductor there (her left arm is in the picture below behind Idina Menzel), so she hooked it up with 6th row tickets. And by Idina Menzel, I mean, RACHEL BERRY'S BIRTH MOTHER. Here are some Dallasian (?) ladies, all dressed up to go to the symphony! This was quite a different crowd from my previous night at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Idina Menzel is so lovely, so humble, so beautiful in person. I didn't recognize some of her earlier Broadway songs, but she sang Glee songs--"Funny," "Poker Face," and "Defying Gravity." She also sang a lovely lullaby she made up for her son, Walker. My aunt continued the stellar hook-up with a backstage greeting and photo! I will keep the photo to myself because I look way too giddy in it. I mean, this is Rachel Berry's mother, everyone. I met Rachel Berry's mother. She made out with Mr. Shuester. She sang "Poker Face" with Rachel. WTF? My life is too sweet.

The first night, we stayed at the Ritz Carlton (a.k.a. Ritz Carleton Popperstein). That was the good life; I was most impressed by their bathroom and breakfast. The second night, a family friend, Teddy, generously let us stay at his house in Fort Worth. It was basically an upgrade from the Ritz (surround sound in every room, including bathrooms?), and I made breakfast with his fresh ingredients and top-of-the-line cookware. There was even a Totoro coffee cup!

Teddy lives down the street from Fort Worth's Museum of Modern Art and the Kimbell Art Museum. I like to think that he's neighbors with Ando Tadao and Louis Kahn. I love Ando's buildings. Here is a famous Anselm Kiefer piece in its own Ando enclave.

After cycling 63 miles (!!!) in Italy, Texas (last week he rode in Dublin, Texas, lol) Teddy took us to Fort Worth's stockyard district. Our trip would have been so dull without him. He took us to a delicious burger joint, and one store that had amazing cowboy boots. Like, the Chanel of cowboy boots. You can custom pick your leather; I liked the purple ridgeback alligator and turquoise stingray leathers (above; blurry closeup of the bubble-y side here).

Though I absolutely enjoy and appreciate visiting other parts of the country, it just makes me love Chicago more. I'm so glad to be back, and not in insane heat all the time. The one place that will probably never have that kind of effect on me though is Yokohama. There are so many Japan photos to sift through; I haven't even finished uploading them onto Flickr. But hopefully some more of those are coming up next! See you all here in like, three weeks, unless I run into Miguel Cabrera again. lol.

My Miggy Moment

On Tuesday night, Mordecai and I attended the White Sox game. The promotion was a "Hawkisms" t-shirt to honor White Sox announcer Ken "Hawk" Harrelson. If you've never heard Hawk call a game, I suggest you tune in. His overt bias towards the White Sox is amusing, if not entirely endearing. This anti-Hawk site is actually really informative; it even has audio clips of the Hawkisms that are on the back of my new t-shirt. The Sox were also scheduled to play the Tigers, so Mordecai and I got tickets kind of spontaneously. Little did I know, not only would I get my awesome t-shirt, but I'd experience one of the greatest moments of my life. Read on!

I was anxious to get to U.S. Cellular Field early to secure our Hawkisms t-shirt (only 10,000 of them!). It had been raining all day, too, so I was afraid that the game would be postponed as well as the t-shirt giveaway. We were like, 20 boxes of Hawkism t-shirts away from not getting one. I saw Tigers fans using it to wipe their wet seats. Anyway, we got to the park around 5:30PM for a 7:10PM game. We were wandering around the 500 sections, upper deck, looking for food, when we remembered hearing about a new Wow Bao concession stand. Mordecai decided to ask Guest Relations since our memory kicked in right in front of their booth. They knew about Wow Bao and recommended Burger Barn as well, and they gave us an elevator pass to the field-level area. 

When we got down there, I noticed that no one was checking tickets for people who wanted to linger near the White Sox or Tigers dugouts. I remember Mordecai asking me if I wanted to go, and I said, "...nah, it's OK." But there weren't a lot of people, so I was like why not, and we trotted down to the front row seats. There were about ten other young boys dressed in navy and orange, waiting for Tigers players with baseballs, autograph books, and Sharpies in hand. No one was out in the field except for crew members pulling the tarp off of the field. But then I noticed a Jose Valverde-like person at the opposite end of the dugout, listening to music on earphones, all "in the zone." 

Then I saw catcher Alex Avila look out on the field briefly before going back into the dungeon.

Before I could start thinking about how long I'd have to stand around until someone from the Tigers hitting well below .200 or with an embarrassing ERA equivalent to my perceived or actual age would come around, my peripheral vision sensed movement from the White Sox dugout. It was none other than MIGUEL CABRERA. My most favorite baseball player was walking towards me (or his dugout) and he was smiling (or laughing at Valverde). 

Once he saw us asking for autographs, he stopped smiling. But he diligently signed baseballs, autograph books, and my card. When I was in Japan recently, I carried his and Felix Hernandez's card with me in my purse every day for two weeks. I almost brought my 2010 Finest red refractor of Miggy to the game, which I recently got in the mail, but I made a last minute switch and brought one of my favorites, Miggy's 2008 Stadium Club base card. I have many Miggy relic cards (jersey swatches and morsels of bats), but I don't have any autographed cards. This is my first one!

Mordecai kept egging me on to say something. What does a mere commoner like myself say to THE LORD MIGGY? Especially an idiot commoner decked out in White Sox gear? (I had briefly contemplated stacking my White Sox and Tigers hats to the game. For Mordecai's sake, I decided against it.) I had nothing to say except that I was totally starstruck, shaking, and fearful. When you're in the presence of someone you admire so much that you don't even think to soil their presence with your own pathetic existence, you tremble. Tremble I did, but mixed with a kind of rare, pure elation.

I believe it was Ryan Raburn who had also emerged from somewhere by the time Miggy signed my card, and then they started walking to their dugout. Mordecai said Miggy didn't sign very much after my card. On the way down the stairs, they stopped and started pointing at Valverde, laughing and making jokes (above). Then they disappeared. We went to Burger Barn, decided against Wow Bao, and returned the elevator pass to Guest Relations.

I AM SO BLESSED.

Japanese Food: Sweets

Haagen-Dazs's crispy ice cream sandwiches are now a little smaller and a little cheaper. I didn't buy any this time, but I liked the sign at Seven-Eleven.

Melon pan from Seven Eleven.

We went to "Sweets Paradise," an all-you-can-eat-in-80-minutes restaurant in the new Sakuragicho shopping center, Colette Maré. They mostly serve desserts, but they also had Japanese curry rice and various kinds of pasta. This green tea cheesecake was the best.  

These are donuts from Cafe Andoland, the fancier cousin to Mister Donut. That's a cassis-orange donut in front and a lemon tea n the back. Even the ice tea tastes better here.