We even buy the same shoes:

More frightening than the fact that my mother and I bought the same type of sandals at Kohls (on sale!!) is that I figured this out by the sound they made on the pavement. Yes, BY SOUND. Most people have to go blind to develop super-hearing, but not I.

We were walking to a restaurant last night when I heard that SQUISH sound my left sandal has been making, except it wasn’t in time to my own footsteps. I started to alter my pace to make sure it really wasn’t me squishing and squashing down the street, and that’s when I thought to take a look at my mom’s feet.

So, yeah, I am becoming my mother. But at least we chose different colors, and I certainly did not get the black pair just because they didn’t have a size 9.5 in orange. Certainly, totally, definitely not.

• Continue reading "I am my mother’s daughter"

Last night I’m watching TV when Chris Wright breaks in to tell me there is a big red blob heading for Indianapolis. (True, he’s no Dallas Raines, but we make due with what he have here in Indiana.) He’s got the Doppler radar. He’s got the tornado warning graphic in the corner. He’s got little yellow boxes outlining the storm systems. He can zoom in and forecast the path of the storm. He can tell you when it will hit every little city, right down to the minute.

Then suddenly this downspout of weather information is interrupted by:

A big black screen with big white text and an awful bleating sound similar to those vuvuzelas at the World Cup. After a pause, a robotic male voice starts to speak with the broadcast clarity of someone talking on a cell phone in a tunnel. I’ve gone from getting the best weather information 2010 can provide to getting the best weather information 1970 can provide. My question: WHY DO THEY DO THIS?

I understand that the [...]

• Continue reading "Emergency alert: Someone please explain this to me"

I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame when I was in Nashville, because I was a tourist and it seemed like a tourist-y thing to do. There were some weird things there, like this taxidermy band made of squirrels that Hank Williams shot himself, which I definitely didn’t want:

And this oboe clarinet lamp, which I totally did want:

I wonder if you can blow through the light bulb socket and make it play?

Of all the items at the museum, the one that stuck with me was a pair of Hank Williams “cinnamon-orange silk pajamas.” I didn’t take a photo of them because…I didn’t. Sorry, live with it. First off, it seems odd to me to describe pajamas as cinnamon colored because it makes them sound edible. I’m 99% sure they were not edible. But secondly, it made me wonder, at what point do your pajamas become museum worthy? My pajamas—not currently museum worthy. However, if I were to put my pajamas in a vacuum-sealed container for the next 1000 years, I bet they [...]

• Continue reading "The pajama question"

Party planning gives me the hives, but I’ve gone ahead and set a date for my official going-away party. Everyone is invited—Internet people, work buddies, friends, random lurkers. Stop on by if you can! (And if you’re over 21. Sorry, liquor laws!)

Jennette’s Bye, Bye Bash

Wednesday, June 23

6:00pm-9:00pm

The Rathskellar Biergarten

401 East Michigan St

Indianapolis, IN 46204

Google maps link

Drop by to say good-bye to Jennette before she packs up her things and leaves Indiana for the hills of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We’ll hijack some picnic tables and drink overpriced beers in the Biergarten. It’s “Can You Rock” night, so karaoke with the live band if you dare! You could win a prize, and I don’t even have to pay for it!

ETA: Uh, I just noticed there is a $3 cover charge. Sorry about that. See, this is why party planning gives me hives.

• Continue reading "My Bye, Bye Bash at the Biergarten"

I was recently in Nashville, landing a great hotel rate because of the unfortunate flooding incident. When I wasn’t listening to radio ads for floor tiles sales and construction bargains, I visited the Chihuly glass exhibit at the Cheekwood Gardens. If you have a chance to go, I’d highly recommend it.

Dale Chihuly is a renowned American glass artist, who has a permanent exhibit here in Indianapolis at the Children’s Museum, which is the only reason I knew how to pronounce his name. The Cheekwood exhibit is part of a bigger Chihuly in Nashville celebration where his work is also displayed at the Frist Center downtown. Cheekwood is a 55-acre botanical garden and art museum which would have been pretty enough all on its own. When I visited, the glass sculptures had been installed all over the estate. Chihuly’s work is strongly influenced by nature, so you could almost believe Nashville happened to have glass flowers and plants flourishing in its soil.

I stopped to sit in a theater halfway through my visit to watch part of [...]

• Continue reading "Chihuly at Cheekwood: A glass garden in Nashville"