I go to the library during off-hours and monopolize the power plugs:
I go to the library during off-hours and monopolize the power plugs:
I spent some time in Little Havana today.
I fly to Minneapolis in a few hours. It was a fun weekend but I’m ready to go back.
This weekend was mostly shopping madre and hanging out with the Gammas.
Madre flew up from Miami this weekend to help outfit the room. We took the rent-a-car to the suburbs and got, well…lost. We eventually found Wal-Mart, the madhouse that is Ikea, and Mall of America…
When law students go out: Lucy’s Birthday celebration with the Gammas.
You can’t see his face, but the homeless man on the side is so amused that he forgot to beg the obviously captive audience.
My first weekend in Minneapolis was a lesson in Krawall & Remmidemmi, but I think I have my bearings…well, sort of. Here are some snippets:
Me: Hello, do you know where can I get my student ID?
Minnesota Girl: YodelYodel GurbleGarble Yodel Gardel!
Me: Uh… Pardon me?
Minnesota Girl (slower): Yooou go ooova der and YodelYodel left Garbel Gurble dontcha know?!
Me (thoroughly confused): Okay thanks!
Look Mommy! It’s America Sized!”
The stone arch bridge!
I went to Mall of America today. I’m pretty sure it’s the biggest mall in the country. It’s so honkin’ big that it has a theme park INSIDE. Why do we do things like this?
So yeah, things are geil! More later. OH, and by the way…I found out that my neighborhood DOESN’T have a legit grocery store… just two Gas-Station-Mart-esqe things…hmmf!
Miami weather sucks during the summer – it’s hot humid, and there’s downpour every afternoon.
First world problems.
Mann und Frau kaufen rollende Schuhe um zusammen zu rollen. Sie rollen und können nicht halten und stürzen und versinken im heißen Asphalt.
Und der Hans von der harten Musik kommt vorbei, und auf ihm lastet es schwer. Er sieht den Dingen ins Auge. Er hat den Augapfel gepierct.
Und ein Schwarm auserirdischer Kinder in großen Hosen fällt er über die Stadt. Und sie überspringen alle Mäuerchen und ich glaub so werden, so werden Skateboards gezeugt. Halleluja, das ist der Sommer im Asphalt sitzen und versinken…Skateboards zeugen, Augäpfel piercen, Halleluja das ist der Sommer.
Peter Licht Rockt.
Translation of the song + youtube of it after the cut.
Hopped around the artist colony.
I noticed there was a new store on the way to mom’s house…
…no one said Little Havana was politically correct.
This is my last summer with a car, so I’m enjoying myself for $4.15 a gallon.
My favorite pair of flip flops broke today. Crap.
In other news, the Keys were pretty…
Last night JHR, Pablo, and I took a midnight walk among the docks and talked about the usual people.
I decided in the gym this morning that I had to get new workout shoes. My cheap track shoes were already falling apart and a good two seconds from embarrassing.
I went to DSW and snagged some Adidas running shoes for around $40.
And while I was in my savings bliss, I decided to go to Payless. Payless has recently stepped its game up. I bought a pair of plaid slips for $15. Vöt.
The shoe deals put me in a good mood, so I decided to take the trek to The Falls to get my phone fixed. The Sprint store was as awkward as I expected to be. The sales reps (rather rudely) ignored the bloated and flushed man from the Redlands who roamed about looking mighty confused.
Bored customers milled about everywhere waiting for their phone repairs. Everyone looked at me like I was the new guy walking in the bar on a slow night.
Redlands roamed the store for about fifteen minutes before he was told “to get service you need to be on the wait list.” He left a few minutes later, cursing.
The Sprint repairman saw my phone and said, “Yeah …uh, no.” After he finished laughing, he asked how I managed to do so much damage.
I told him about my skateboarding mishap. He laughed some more and told me to come back in 40 minutes but made no promises.
I went to The Falls mall across the street, and, to my horror, realized that there was no book store in the mall, or the entire area. How does this happen? Something is horribly wrong down there.
So I ended up at the mall’s Starbucks, which may be the worst designed Starbuck ever.
Seriously. In all of history.
Design Fail: The store is long and narrow. There is less than three feet space between the store window and the counter. The door, of course, is in the middle of this awkward space and opens immediately to the cash register.
If there are multiple customers, the line veers off to the side so you have to squeeze past people to get in the end of the line. The beverage area is equally claustrophobic and people picking up beverages end up trapped in the corner by the people waiting for their drinks.
You have to work your way back through the line (like the a moviegoer with a bladder problem) to get out of the store.
The point is, it’s an awkward, crowded space.
So of course the loud, dopey lady in front of me causes scene. She’s accompanied by an overlarge bearded guy in with ratty tennis shoes who looks like he likes anime and vintage Pacman.
Dopey lady’s Starbucks employee card doesn’t work. She tells the cashier that she “HASN’T BEEN ON THE SCHEDULE FOR A FEW WEEKS!”
She’s loud and has the lispy tone of someone with a learning disorder. Everyone in the line exchanges the glance that acknowledges someone is violating crowded space etiquette.
If you’re in a small, crowded shop – you do not 1) hold up the line, and 2) fail to regulate the level of your voice.
We all know this.
This exchange goes on for a while. The manager finally comes and tells dopey lady that her employee ID isn’t valid and that she should check with her Starbucks to see if she’s still employed.
The drink maker, who hasn’t been paying attention calls her drink, and then screams, “DOES ANYONE HAVE A CINNAMON DOLCE LATTE?” as if the store is more than 20 feet long.
The manager at the register shouts back (even though they are about 3 feet apart) “Yes, she’s still at the register!”
The man behind me laughs.
Dopey lady doesn’t get it, but she eventually pays.
So dopey lady and overly large guy are completely in the way when I get my drink. They are both hunched over the sugars and napkins and so consumed with fixing their drinks that they don’t care about the rest of us waiting.
I was mesmerized how fervently the were stirring their drinks. They were working their drinks as if they were beating eggs.
Like, they looked intent and excited to be stirring their drinks. They kept adding a little milk, tasting, adding sugar, tasting, and so forth… it was intense and painful to watch.
So I exchange smirks with a blond middle-aged woman (who was with laughing man) when SMACK-SPLASH, dopey lady spills her latte. She screams out, “OH NO!” and shuffles to the finished-drink-stand while flailing her arms,“Excuse me! EXCUUUSE ME! I SPILLED A DRINK! Can I have another?”
The sixteen year old behind the counter rolls her eyes and fixes another latte. I reach over the foamy latte muddle, get my two packets of Splenda (that I had been waiting five minutes for now), and left the starbucks.
As I was squeezing out of the door I heard laughing man go at it again.
Hmmf.
I eventually got my phone back. They fixed it. No charge. Holler at warranties.
Well, there was a bowling alley. Last week (or the week before?) Matt and I dropped about $70 at a boutique bowling alley – which, for college students, is unacceptable.
$42 for one hour. $5 (x2) for cover (yes, the bowling alley charged a cover), $10 for soda. $4.50 (x2) for shoes.
Memorial Day Weekend in Miami: Rain. And not that nice London rain either, but that explosive “the world is pouring down” Brazilian-rainforest type of rain.
If Miami had mountains there’d be mudslides. Für sure.
Went to Little Havana and got some food from Mom’s.
“When you need a refill just call me a day in advance.” – Mom’s the business. I love going back to the neighborhood. People’s cars chink and clank just like mine. There are fruit carts, Botanicas, grandpas drinking on stoops, and chickens in the road. It’s a nice break from the sterile streets that surround school.
Visited a few old haunts in South Beach and South Dade…There’s a definitely a few Edie Sedgwick complexes going around. (And by-the-bye Community College does not mean you’re Indie.)
South Beach and Downtown are beginning to resemble something from lastnightsparty.com. I’m going to leave it alone for a while and stay in the Gables.
I’m facing some hardcore resistance writing my last history paper. It needs to be all of three pages. I’ve done all the research. I’ve read over 300 pages for this thing. I’m so just so incredibly bored with the subject that I can’t stop whining about not writing and just write it because I don’t want to write it.
And well, I need to. The FTS (F-this-S) hormones have arrived. They need to go away for the 45-or-so-minutes this thing will take to write.
I even entertained the idea of not writing the paper for a while, but when I mentioned this to Miss Pao she threw a fit. Seriously. Stomping and all.
She might stab me if I don’t turn it in.
Today Matt and I went to the mangrove swamp.
The swamp. I ran face-first into a web with a huge-huge spider up in there yonder.
We were stalked by the pelican with the greedy eyes.
I don’t trap hermit crabs in random Heineken bottles…but someone does.
After my last test Friday, I quickly went to work, then loaded the car and skipped to the beach. I was there for a solid hour before a storm came.
I went back to the car and found a “where the fuck are you?” voicemail on my cell. Oops. Turns out I was on borrowed time. While ill advised, it was a nice preview of a spring break (which turned out to be spent mostly on campus.)