What Happens In Pittsburgh Ends Up All Over The Internet

Blah blah grad school blah blah busy at work blah blah nervous breakdown blah blah PICTURES OF PITTSBURGH!

  

Almost the whole gang (minus me, of course, because SOMEONE had to take the picture and SPOILER ALERT it's almost always me), pre-gaming. The Pittsburgh Posse was already in town, but we met up with them later, at a German bar (don't ask, but it was AWESOME!) after we made fun of the predictably questionable fashion choices of today's Midwestern-adjacent college students. Please note that we managed to ensure that the two pregnant ladies in this picture still had a good time.

  

There was a pool at the hotel. OF COURSE we went swimming. Have you MET my family?

 

Secret agents and super-spies and minions of Doofenschmirtz Evil, Inc. would be infinitely more successful if they were all THIS FREAKING ADORABLE while they were busy plotting their assorted no-good shenanigans.

  

Yes, they're all looking at something different, but they're all basically facing the camera, so I'll take it.

  

Something tells me it's all happening at the zoo. Depending, of course, on what "it" is.
 

 

You don't get to see a giraffe ambling around in front of a skyscraper very often. It's kind of awesome. (Pittsburgh Zoo is very nice, BTW, but I would have preferred it if every child under the age of 12 in the entire city of Pittsburgh were not there with there families when we were. You know how I hate people.)

  

Please note that this kid will be five years old (!) in just six more days (!!) and ALREADY she is the approximate equivalent of ⅔ of one full-grown Mario Lemieux. I just can't even with this one.

(Non)Winter (Non)Weather

I never figured myself for one of those crotchety old windbags who spends all her spare time complaining about the weather, and yet here I am, spending all my spare time complaining about the weather. In large part because the winter we've had has been so weird that I'm not even sure what season it is right now. It's 60°F outside right now. I mean, honestly. All the trees are starting to bud. I can see pollen in the air. I've had a sinus situation going on since August, when Hurricane Irene hit, and there is no foreseeable end in sight, because it hasn't been cold enough for long enough to kill whatever winter mold I'm allergic to, and now I'm getting smacked in the face with the spring stuff that sends me into my own personal circle of hay fever hell.

But that's not why I'm really gretzing.

   

We had snow back in October, right before Halloween. We were grossly underprepared, as per usual. Shae didn't have snow boots or a new coat or mittens or any of that stuff. She went out to "play" in the snow in her pajamas and galoshes that were a skosh too small. I was mortified, as you can imagine, especially because I had all my Christmas shopping basically done at that point, but I wasn't prepared for winter. The very next weekend, she got two new coats and a pair of snow pants from my mother-in-law, and two pairs of long johns from my parents, and some nice gloves from LL Bean that remind me a bit of my old Freezy Freakies from back in the '80s, and a nice pair of fuzz-lined boots that I deliberately bought a size too big so she could put on two pairs of socks and thermal underwear and still get her boots to close properly.

   

And then ... it basically stopped being winter. These pictures are from almost a month ago, February 12th, the last time it snowed in these parts. The time before that, it was the end of January. The time before that was ... Halloween. That's it. Three snows in one winter, if you define the winter as "whenever it starts snowing to whenever it stops snowing," as they do in Syracuse. I mean, I freaking HATE winter, but even I am like, "The HELL?" Now it's March, and today it's 60°F, and my Weather Channel iPhone app is calling for high temperatures of 60°F or higher for seven of the next ten days, with an average high of 58°F.

   

So why am I complaining, you ask? Aside from this upper respiratory clusterduck that I have going on? BECAUSE THOSE GOSH DARN BRAND-NEW BOOTS DON'T FIT ANY MORE, and she's only worn them TWICE. That's why. Stupid weather.