Food

Here is the basket which I won in a customer appreciation raffle from the Co-op!
Mmm...bunny grahams!
Yay, Wheatsfield Co-op!

Real live gelato, artisan coffee, moderately warm temps and Mr. Pammel*

For every up there is a down and vice versa. First, it is a lovely, nearly balmy, 14 deg out. With little to no wind, that is downright pleasant. The sun is shining and reflecting very brightly off the snow. It's a nice break from the frigid icicle temperatures of below zero.
Everything being relative and all.
Even though Old George's was lacking in authenticity and goodness with its mediocre fare, there is a very nice coffee & gelato place. It features some interesting flavors of gelato which is very good.
And locally roasted coffee. It also promises " we don't just brew coffee, we create experiences. Every person brings their own personal expression to their enjoyment of this ancient drink."
Calling Hallmark cards... okay well that is a bit over-the-top, but still a nice oasis in the sea of $tarbux and that kinda generic crap.
Also got to talk to the owner/guy at Pammel's, the international market...

*Not his real name but do not at this time know his name.

Restroom's, The Revenge of Old George, Rubrics, Hockey and dog shows

Someone had told me (names omitted to protect the innocent) that there was a place that had some Greek/Middle Eastern food. I thought said person(s) actually said "good" Greek food but who knows, maybe I was imagining that. I had asked if there was any place you could get Greek food here. Apparently there is a pizza place that also has some Greek items. Sounded promising. Or at least plausible. There is a place called "Old George's". Oddly it used to be very close by and now is in West Ames.
Okay...so first, it is just a sort of crappy looking pizza place, but you know sometimes these places turn out to be good. One of my more recent favorites in Pgh was a very small storefront restaurant that had some excellent Middle Eastern food. But um, anyway back to the story at hand. This place is actually a pizza place that happens to have gyros. And not very good gyros. The kind that when you eat them, later they will be kicking around your stomach for hours. Protesting. Which leads to point #3 or so. Rubrics. Also the pizza looked pretty nasty but I'm not really the best judge of that since I don't like *most* pizza that much.
How do you consider ratings/opinion polls? I tend to be skeptical. Skeptical that I will agree and I think they are sort of meaningless unless you know how the other person(s) are rating them and what their standards are. For instance, people thought this place had some great food. If their standards were High Grease and Will make you feel slightly ill, then yep, 4 stars.
Anyhow.... it's always an adventure. The other strange thing we noted is there was this sign:
Restroom's
Yes, apostrophe "S". Not to be the grammar police but why the apostrophe? The sign belongs to the restroom? Or the restrooms? In which case, wouldn't it be restrooms'?

We also checked out a Cyclones hockey game which was packed and I gotta say, sorta exciting for a while. Of all the sports which I have no interest in, I think hockey actually comes out ahead, since it is fast and easy to watch. But it seemed to be a pretty uneven bout, what with the ISU team trouncing the Hawkeyes (Univ of Iowa) and leading 6-0 at the end of the 2nd period.

What else is there to say?

Post-blizzard

Well, today ISU is open again, despite monsterusly cold temperatures. Brr brr brr...

No corn here...farmers will have to wait til Spring to harvest, if it isn't ruined.

It is currently minus 9 degrees.

Also my professor is on Twitter... This is troublesome to me.

School's OUT FOREVER:

Well, for today (Wednesday) anyway. Major blizzard = ISU closes, Cy-ride (bus system) closed,
stay home everyone.
Lots of snow and wind today...

not bike weather

outside Memorial Union:

frozen figures

Statue outside Memorial Union: ISU

Today:

Frozen Lake at Iowa State:

Snow

First snow in Ames *

And an icy cold 23 degrees out.

* or first snow I have observed, it may have snowed last week while I was not here.

Pita reclaimed

I stand corrected.
Ames does have pita, in a variety of forms. SORRY.

I was at Pammel's international grocery and came across this.

I realized they actually have an ENTIRE restaurant sized freezer of PITAS.
Like white & wheat and some handmade Lebanese stuff.

So, my apologies for the slander against the city of Ames.
Ames does have authentic pita bread. Let us set the record straight.

I know everyone is greatly reassured now.

half an hour down and 30 cents behind...

Yesterday went to Ames Redemption again. I don't know if you all are as fascinated by the recycling conundrum or lack thereof that exists here. The saga and so forth.
Well, the recycling place started charging $2.00 a car for using their recycling facility.
We decided after putting off our recycling for the last month or so, the pile had built up quite high in our closet, so we should finally take care of that.
Now due to the craptastic bottle/can exchange facilities that exist in the supermarkets, we decided to just wait til we returned there to get our precious nickels back.
Last time, if you'll recall, we wound up being dissuaded by the lines and not feeling like dealing with the wait, what with the people who bring in their $20-garbage bagfuls of Icehouse and Bud Lite, we did not get to see all that action.
However yesterday we were there much earlier and the smell factor was considerably reduced.
I was surprised to see however that all the can/bottle counting is done by hand. Nothing too sophisticated about this operation!

Well, we got into line, feeling a bit out of place with our paltry dozen or so wine bottles and a few assorted soda cans to show for our efforts. Compared to the garbage-ful people.
The line went surprisingly quickly (only about 15 minutes) even with those folks who had to have their hundreds of cans counted and sorted.
At the end, our grand total netted us: $1.70

Then we went to the other building to deposit the non-redeemable plastics and glass containers and recycle any newspaper.


And pay $2.00.

So, at the end of us this, figured we spent half an hour, and were down $0.30!

Dogs and Cats

Living in harmony...
My neighbor with the crazy dog(s), yes this dog is a bit out of control, also has a cat.
Apparently they get along.
Haven't seen the cat but have heard it.

Pie, redux

To follow up on the pie story, should we want some pie, need go no further than
The Village Inn, which is pushing its pie big time.
They have a Free Slice of Pie on Wednesdays promo, that they are really eager to tell you
about, multiple times.
Dunno, Village Inn seems roughly equivalent to Denny's/Bob Evans/Perkins.
AND why are they SO eager to give away that pie?!?

Seriously. If you eat there, they will tell you a minimum of 3x about the free pie on Wednesdays.
Oh okay, apparently they are a Mid-west chain which started in Denver, CO.

Although I have to say we had just about the friendliest waitress ever!

pita and a diner that doesn't serve pie...

Well, finally found REAL pita, in a halal grocery store in Des Moines. Time to stock up!
Very exciting, since Ames doesn't seem to have any pita...

Also had some very tasty BBQ. Then tried to finish it off by stopping by the Drake Diner, because what are diners known for-- pie, right? Those revolving display cases with the obscenely high dollops of whipped cream and meringue pies? Isn't that standard fare of diner-ville? But perhaps my diner dreams will be shattered, this diner had NO PIE.
Even the server admitted this was strange- apparently they USED to have pie, but pie did not sell well. How bizarre.

Death, smoking a cigarette

Yesterday night, walking down our main street, here is the scene. Party-ers in costumes, singing loudly, at the dive-y type bar. People are on the outside patio, despite the low temperatures.
The bus is coming down the street. Standing there is a guy in a grim reaper type costume, smoking a cigarette.
Somehow, that seems apt.

Happy Halloween.

Our apartment complex is also home to a pack of dogs. I'm pretty sure the people across the hall have 4 or 5, or just two or three really loud ones. Which they take out in multiple trips, in which you hear a racket of human and animal footsteps running down the stairs and doors slamming.
If they wouldn't let the doors slam, might not be so bad. But as it is, the door noises reverberate and it's a pretty noisy affair.

Davy Crockett called...

He'd like his hat back.
Saw a guy wearing this hat today, most interestingly, inside, the coffee shop. Complete with foot long "tail". Bizarre. I think this is the same Nugent 2012 guy. This must be his winter apparel.

Also, people don't like carrots. At the coffee place when you order a sandwich, you can get chips or carrots. Why do people order carrots if they're not really going to eat them? Does it make them feel more virtuous somehow? Like Oh, I've made the right choice. But then they don't eat them. I made this observation as I passed the used dish bin on my way out and noticed several sandwich plates, sandwiches eaten but lots of uneaten baby carrots. Maybe the idea of eating those poor baby carrots was too horrifying. Well, may as well just get chips then, instead of ordering carrots and not eating them. Who knows though. Maybe this was some sort of organized demonstration.
Two other odd things... as I walked by the Jimmy Johns, couldn't help but overhear someone giving a real dressing down to another person. The woman doing the scolding kept saying something about her f'ing employees and that wasn't how she treated her f'ing employees. Don't know what that was all about, but apparently working or dining at JJ's is a high-stress event.
Also I noticed that the coffee place was very busy today and there were a bunch of middle aged ladies hanging out there, I later observed many of them boarding one of those charter type buses, which makes me wonder...where do they live that coming to Main Street, Ames, is a worthy excursion?!?
Odd...

Smells like teen spirit...

Okay, not really. It's sort of a mix of stale beer and ??? I can't quite place what the rest of that lovely cocktail is but it's the smell that permeates the recycling/redemption "center" at the Hy-vee. I can see how this alone could be a deterrent to returning those bottles and cans. Cuz let's face it... unless you're already going shopping and you've got a respectable pile of bottles and cans to return, is the prospect of a few nickels (or nickels off your grocery bill) really worth facing that tantalizing aroma? Something about the smell of stagnant beer puddles...Yum.
Plus, I know I've mentioned it before, but the machines suck. They work for about 3 cans/bottles and then nope, they just stop working. This has happened every time I've tried using them. It doesn't matter if you follow the directions and use the right machine for the right type of bottle. They just don't like it and make you take your bottle/can, which has now gone into the machine and been rejected and spit back out at you, back. It's gross. I can easily see how people are discouraged OR wind up at Ames Redemption on Saturday mornings with garbage-bagfulls of cans.

But the alternative is landfill, which makes me sad. I talked to someone today who works with school recycling and asked about the city recycling and was told the city garbage will burn some of the recyclables for energy? but the temperature isn't high enough for glass to burn.

kids today

This isn't really about Ames, I think it's more about college life.
Yesterday in class I sat next to a girl who was both playing solitaire on her laptop ( I wonder if someday people won't realize this game actually used to be played with a deck of cards?)
AND texting in the middle of class. She may have also been taking notes for the class but somehow this seems doubtful.
Ah multi-taskers...

" Hey,it's a beautiful day...

... a good day not to get run over" *

Said the guy on a bike, at the corner of Kellogg and Lincoln Way, going into the Mister Money;
http://www.mistermoney.com/

He was wearing a camo backpack and hiking boots, which makes me wonder how practical those are for bike riding. Wouldn't think those would be the most well-suited for biking.

People like this ALWAYS talk to me.

*This is the conversation, verbatim.

wine, biking, recycling, dmv & susie one tooth

bike bus for bike ride

These are all related, I swear. A few weeks ago we went on a bike ride which started at the Snus Hill Winery. I could find a link for them somewhere if you really wanted but I guess it isn't too relevant if you're not living nearby. It was a 34 mile bike ride, round-trip, which started in Madrid, IA and went to Ankeney, IA. Kind of a funny group- the ride proposed to start at 10:00 a.m. We got there around 9:30 or so, and found a group of hard-core bikers, getting ready (by drinking Coronas apparently) and putting gear and bikes on the above-photographed bus. Apparently we were mixing it up with a group who had done RAGBRAI together, earlier this summer.
This is the big Iowa-Des Moines register sponsored ride across Iowa which happens in the summer.
So there was this group plus some random others. It was basically a ride for a cancer-support charity which the winery was hosting/sponsoring. The winery was going to have wine tastings at the end, although after a few hours of biking, wine is really not the drink you really want.
Anyhow...while we were hanging around, waiting for the biking to begin, saw a guy wearing a Steelers jersey. I thought, damn, we can't escape! I thought about talking with him anyway, based on the Pgh connection, but it was an oddly cliquish group of bikers.

Friday we stopped at a wine tasting at a wine store for Prairie Moon winery... most of the wines were actually pretty bad, ranging from mediocre to just plain awful. Sorry Prairie Moon. I hope no one from PM is reading this. The rep at the store was pretty nice, and since we were the only ones there, he & the wine store owner talked a bit. Somehow we started to talk about Snus Hill and the bike trip, and we mentioned we had moved here just recently. I don't know, this always seems like a good default topic for conversation. Then they told us that the guy with the Steelers jersey was a guy from WVA area and the owner of Snus Hill.

Anyway... the rest of this weekend involved going to the recycling place again. This was both good and weird. After sorting all the plastic/glass/papers/cardboard, thought we would try to cash in our maybe 10 soda cans and a few wine bottles and beer bottles. To get your deposit back, you have to go to a separate bldg. (okay more of a shed really). And the place is only open til 12 pm. on Saturdays. As we walked over there, were informed by a sort of unkempt, ill-tempered lady with a giant trash bag full of cans, that the line STARTED after her. Apparently the holding pen inside was full and the rest must wait outside, til space becomes available. At this point another woman came by (also with huge bag of cans)-- seriously, how much freakin' BEER and SODA do people drink? I'll assume this is several weeks or month's worth and not that people actually go thru cases of soda or beer in one week. Okay, c'mon, I really want to think this.
Finally, we get to go inside and wow. First, it's that smell of the recycling area at Hy-vee, only intensified. Second, it's so sad. A guy & his son walk out with a $20 bill. People wait with giant garbage bagfuls of cans. We briefly contemplate whether we really need to wait right then to get back like $1 or so. Um, nope.
We let the second woman take our place inside.

Oh I think I was going to talk about the Dept of transportation too, but this entry is already kind of long and depressing.

Challah, Part II

Success, again!

Challah acquired, same brand, but this time at Fareway, another grocery chain.
Overall, not terribly impressed with store but nice to see more robust bread selections.

Today found out chickpeas are filed under "ethnic/Mexican foods" section in Hy-vee. Who knew.
I was a little suspicious when all other types of beans were clustered together, but since employees seem to hover around, waiting to be of help, one asked me if I was looking for something, and
then I was directed to the other aisle, where lo and behold, chickpeas aplenty.

Additional items, no extra charge

Call now and you'll receive a free door!

Today I saw a door on the curb, with a sign that said "Free"

In other non-Amesian news, wtf is going on in Pittsburgh????
Seriously, I'm not gone 2 months and it's all gone to crap?

Chair in Yard

Here's a picture of the whole scene. In case you were having trouble imagining it. Sometimes this place is like bizarro-world. Maybe I have wandered into the portal, and it doesn't go to Joliet or Ames or Pittsburgh; it goes to bizarro world. I'd be curious to see if they do manage to sell it!

Still for sale...

Apparently, it's still for sale! This amuses and perplexes me.

Impromptu garage sales

Another funny thing I've noticed is the impromptu garage sales that occur here. There are some of the "regular" garage sales but I've seen that there are some people in the building which borders the main road here, who hold these semi-regular impromptu sales. Yesterday I had the good fortune to actually see them "setting up" for this. This involved pulling a card table onto the sidewalk and loading that up with about a dozen (?) old DVD players and a VCR or two, and some assorted DVD's. This was at around 3:30-4:00.
I wonder what, if anything, they managed to sell.

The better "sale" I saw was on a side street- randomly in someone's front yard, they had dragged out their recliner ( I wish I had gotten a picture of this), and slapped a "For sale: $20" sign on that thing. Also it was draped in red and gold (ISU colors) some sort of plastic or vinyl sheets.
I wonder if it sold!

Nugent 2012

Today when I stopped to have a *coffee and crappy scone at this coffee place, I saw a guy wearing a shirt which said: Nugent 2012. Of course this made me think of my friend Rebecca, but sadly, I think his tshirt is asking us to consider supporting rocker Ted Nugent for President.
The guy was wearing a cowboy hat (yes, I know you saw that coming) and sunglasses.

*this made me think longingly of La Prima and of Friday coffee days with H & H.
Although I never did like the way La Prima made their coffee.
The scone at this coffee place was pretty bad, maybe too much baking powder or something.

Tacos Deluxe

For those days when you just can't decide between:
Taco Time and Taco John's.

Luckily, they are right across the street from each other.

Odd convergences

Walking through downtown today noticed the following:

1. Ames Subway Development office
Are they developing a subway in Ames? Weird, huh.
The bus seems pretty good.

2. And the Body of Christ Church

3. Directly across from the strip club

Swans, not swine

Famous ISU swans:
Lancelot and Elaine

If you are wondering, in the winter the Poultry Science Department keeps them on the college poultry farm. They are returned to Lake Laverne (on ISU campus) just before Easter and taken off after Homecoming in the fall.

Also they mate for life....Aw, that's kinda sweet!

swine flu na'at

How you know you're really at an agricultural school...

1. You pass the National Swine Research and Information Center

litterers, revisited

Well, I should amend my previous statement. Although many people do in fact litter here,
and after yesterday's football festivities, which apparently seem to stress the festivity part much more strongly than the football part, there is a lot of crappity crap on the streets.
However, I noticed that my neighbors and their visiting family did, in fact, ultimately pick up after themselves. So, I stand corrected. I should not have been so hasty to rush to condemnation.
For reasons which I cannot fully understand, apparently, they were only temporarily storing their
Bud Lite cans on the grass, under the bushes, but later would remove them. Apparently the cans needed to take a siesta there for a while but later could be removed and transported to an appropriate trash (or who knows ,dare I dream, recycling???) receptacle.

Sorry neighbors...

HWLS stories...

10:15 is re-up time at the liquor store.
Especially after big football Saturday.
There was quite a line in the HWLS last night when we stopped in to get a bottle of wine
and quite the assortment of characters. Sometimes I don't think words necessarily do them justice. This is when I wish for a secret spy camera, like in my finger tip, or somehow activated by me just thinking, take a picture of this. Has anyone invented this yet? James Bond? Sky Mall catalog?
I wish.
There was a crowd of young college students buying alcohol and mixers and amusing themselves greatly by posing and posturing for the security camera. Another dude buying a ginormous bottle of Vodka and a bottle of OJ. A young woman wearing a very short outfit.
I only hope all these people do not litter, like my crappy neighbors.
Also yesterday I "met" the crap-house man. More on that later.

Black n'Gold pride...

Hahhaha... the "rival" colors here - for University of Iowa- are....


black and gold.

Deja vu anyone?

more sports

I have no news for today, except to say there is ANOTHER football game coming up.
Didn't they just have one of these?

Except this is the BIG RIVALRY!!!

IOWA STATE VS. UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

I will stay away...very far away...

kitchen robots

Who says CMU is the only one developing useful robots?

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/articles/2009/09/02/news/doc4a9f2e9317828160199764.txt

Oh my, Pittsburgh was just mentioned on Morning Edition re: an angry driver...

Still waiting for my classmates to get back to me... Oh my... I will learn...soon, I swear.

Victory!

And... Wheatsfield Co-op emerges as the clear winner!

No waiting for Christmas time...

Goats and "Llamas for Obama"

Also, WHY am I not reading the Des Moines Register every day, when it has articles like this:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009909050329

Extra meat, extra cheese

Some moments just come to you. Sometimes you don't even have to search for them.
Sometimes bloggable moments just happen.

Standing in line at Bruegger's today:

Guy is ordering his sandwich:

Bruegger's woman making sandwich:

"So, extra meat, extra cheese?"

Guy:
"Yeah, that's gonna be AWESOME!"

smells

This is random too, but why does the first floor of this building (apt) smell?

Like seriously bad and gross.

I don't know. Fortunately, I only need to go down there to visit the mailbox.
Which doesn't seem to often have much in it (HINT HINT, SEND ME SOME MAIL PEOPLE!!!)

Surprise

Surprisingly, they actually have Jewish New Year's cards in the Target here.
I was less than optimistic that this would be the case. Not a huge selection, mind you, but
still, given the previous experiences, a surprise.
Still no word on when to expect the festive Christmas challah.

litter, assfire everwhere, and randomness

I rode my bike to downtown before, even though it really is only like 15 min away, walking. But I wanted to ride my bike, since I haven't been doing much of that lately, oddly enough.
It was a pretty nice ride, except on the way back, there were two obnoxious motorcyclists behind me, with a serious case of assfire, ie. gunning their engines and speeding as fast as they could ahead of me. Weird. I guess assfire exists everywhere.
Also, sadly, litter. When I was walking before, I picked up two plastic bottles and a beer can, along the side of the road. Why do people litter?
Then I went to Target. I guess I didn't say this before but the Target here looks absolutely identical to the (Pgh) Waterfront Target. The first time I went into this Target it kind of unnerved me. It has the EXACT SAME layout and *exact same merchandise, in the exact same arrangements. The very first time I went there after we'd moved, I seriously felt deja vu, like OMG, Am I back in Pgh? Did I go thru the portal? I could be anywhere. I guess this is the point of chain stores but it is a weird feeling.
Maybe this is why I am drawn towards small and independently owned businesses.

*Except for the ISU apparel, which only appeared since the start of the school semester.

Recycling

Another weird thing is they don't really recycle here. Well it's more complicated. First, they do have a deposit on cans and bottles, including wine. So I guess this is supposed to encourage people to bring back their beer, soda, and wine. Which I don't mind doing, except I wonder if it really works. It's a good idea but it's a little annoying in the implementation. There's a little room/foyer in the outside of the grocery store where all those can/bottle recycling machines are set up.
The only thing is usually if you go in there: 1. at least one or more of the machines is out of order
2. the machines don't seem to accept certain bottles (I dunno, maybe I'm feeding them in wrong),
3. it usually smells pretty rank- imagine all the nasty beer bottles, etc. crap pulled from the trash, whatever smell, yuck
4. there's usually someone with like 2 giant garbage bags full of beer cans hogging up those machines.

But fortunately, you can just bring the stuff to the customer service counter and they'll give you back your 15 cents or whatever.

So this is all well and good for your glass and soda cans. But what, you may ask, about plastic and what about newspaper and cardboard?
In this city brochure thingee we picked up somewhere, they say "materials that are traditionally recycled (such as paper, tin cans, plastic, etc) are not separated from garbage in Ames. Instead, they are separated at the Resource Recovery Plant. The burnable trash is used as a source of fuel in place of coal....etc. Metals are separated and sold for recyling.

Wait, what??? So, the city of Ames does NOT want me to separate recyclable items because first, they are going to pick out the most profitable ones from my trash and sell them themselves? I don't know...this sounds weird.

Luckily there is another option. You can take your stuff yourself to the Ames Redemption Center. Save your soul and your recycling. Kidding... It's just for the recycling.
It's sort of like Construction Junction but much better maintained. Thankfully. CJ made me sort of aggravated and sad, because people would f- things up and throw all sorts of crappity crap in the wrong bins and just plain out crap. For example, last time I went there someone had thrown a LAMP in the paper recycling dumpster. I hate people like that.

The place here is pretty cool and it's all indoors, so no rain getting everything a mess.

So, YAY Ames redemption.

Cyclone fevah

Well folks, here I thought one possible asset to Ames was the lack of professional sports. However, I had not counted on the extreme fervor of college sports, including, apparently, college sports which are not even doing that well. Okay, I don't know if that's true, I was going to even try to look up their record and tell you all this, but honestly I don't really care. So the first football game is
today (why is it even on a Thursday)? It is at 7 pm. Officially-sanctioned tail-gating starts
at....

wait for it....


1:00 p.m.

Good grief. Either this team is mega bad and everyone must be piss drunk by the time the game starts or... well I don't know.

Luckily, in case you were blind or living under a rock, once you step onto the bus, you will start to hear all about the game. Once you get on campus it's cyclone-fevah time.
Today we had to meet with someone in financial services and this woman was all decked in ISU
gear. The funniest part is when we asked if she was a big football fan, she said, No, not really.

But it truly was like being back in Pittsburgh (sorry, not dissing on Pgh, it's just the same level of sports fervor).

Today on the bus ride home, omg, the craziness. I encountered no less than 2 very young, fresh-faced (ie. Poppin' Fresh, right outta the oven) Mormon guys, several band members complete in ISU marching band uniforms, and an unfortunate smelly man, standing quite close to me.
Usually, I must say, the bus here is okay and much less crowded than PAT ever was.

Okay well that's about all I have to say about Cyclones. Except every other kid on campus wears a t-shirt that says "I am a cyclone" Maybe they give them out free to new students.

wine and liquor

Okay, before I completely forget this story, I should get it down. It's about our first experience
with HWLS. The first night we got here, after driving for many many many hours in a truck, we met up with out landlord. The last several (possibly million) hours of driving through Iowa seemed to take a disproportionately long amount of time. I don't know why. Perhaps we entered a time warp. Luckily our landlord is very understanding and was still working and met us at like 11.30 or something absurd. Also it's one hour behind here, so really it was 12.30 a.m. and we had been in a truck for approximately 14 hours. I can't stress this part enough.

After we met up and got keys, we headed over to Hy vee to get some basic necessities like toilet paper and wine.

Now, we had our very first experience w/the Iowa wine store! We walked in- and it quite a sight- it's actually a pretty cool store. It has a lot of different kinds of wine and beer in cases and single beers and lots of things. Including Jekyl and Hyde, but more on that later.

All this was probably lost on us at the time though, as we were extremely tired and overly stressed, possibly from sitting in a truck for 14 hrs.
A VERY YOUNG looking girl who worked at the wine store approached us.

SERIOUSLY, this girl looked about 14. I didn't know you could be 14 and work in a wine store. Maybe you can though. I can't remember her name. Let's just say it was Shelly or Shelby or something like that. Or 14 year old girl.
She asked us what we were looking for and we said a sweet wine. We were standing right by some white wines. I guess we should have just picked one but like I mentioned, exhaustion and mental fatigue.
She recommended something that she called a dessert wine. For reasons I cannot fully explain, we decided to go with her recommendation.

So we try this wine and you know what? It's not really wine. It's like hard cider. It tastes like apple crack.

The next day, after unpacking, and getting some amount of rest, we went back to HWLS (did I mention that it is close). We pick up some "real" red wine to have with dinner (Yay our first dinner in our new home) and guess who rings us up?
Shelly/Shelby the 14 yr old wine steward. Well when we mention that our previous wine selection was a little lacking, she immediately says that she felt bad and that she realized the moment we left that she had given us a bad recommendation! She even starts talking to us about a local winery.
Now every time we go back, I have looked for the 14 yr old but alas, we have run into other wine stewards- an older/normal aged person originally from Ohio, Kenny, and my "favorite", Talon.

The awesome thing, well two really, about the HWLS:
1. They do NOT make you take bags! If you say, I have my own bag, they don't foist a paper or plastic bag on you! Huzzah! This almost makes up for the city's lack of recycling.
More on this in another post.

2. Their awesome selection of the KATZEN WINES!

Katz, aka Schwartzkatz the original, aka Happy Mosel wine, comes in SO Many colors, it is amazing. Red, green, blue, etc!

I know, most of you are saying, what is this Happy Mosel wine?

It is a nice white wine that comes in a BOTTLE SHAPED LIKE A CAT

It was first introduced to me by my good friend Mauren, with the original black cat wine.
I was very excited to see it comes in many different colors.

Okay...that is enough about the happy cat wine, but really, it's wine in a cat bottle.

"Mexican" food?

somehow this place doesn't quite look authentic

Challah, the Christmas treat...

There are many good things about the local (is it a chain, I don't know for sure, but it is
"employee-owned") grocery store. It has a great selection of many many things, it's kind of like
the nicest, spiffiest suburban grocery store- or like Market District Giant Eagle. It's way nicer
than the craptastic Giant Eagle I shopped at in Pgh.
Also you can buy wine there. Have I not stressed this already? Perhaps, the novelty of this will wear off eventually, although I could devote an entire entry (and later, likely, I will) to the joy that is the Hy-vee Wine and Liquor store... It's attached, to the very same store. And is open all sorts of "crazy" hours, like on Sundays. Wild. You know, after living in the strange PA/state monopolized liquor store-land with it's oddly restrictive rules, it is almost unsettling to walk into not just the grocery store but Target, Walgreens, etc. and see lo and behold, Cases of beer for sale. A-M-azing... And I'm not even really a beer drinker.

Okay but back to the topic at hand... Although at some point I will have to talk about the cast of characters who work in the Hy-vee Wine and Liquor Store (hereto will be abbreviated as HWLS)...including... 14 yr old girl, Kenny, and Talon.

This is a second-hand story... but still worth telling. Cory apparently asked someone who works at the grocery if they had any challah. The worker gave him a perplexed look and he tried to elaborate by explaining/describing the sweet yummy Jewish bread. The guy said he had "never heard of that in his entire life"
But, if nothing else, Iowans are very helpful and they do seem to all take their jobs seriously. Honestly. Almost every person (except for that disgruntled girl at Wendys) who I've encountered is very cheerful and nice.
So the guy called his manager to inquire about this mysterious bread- and was told
"We only carry it around Christmas".

Um, yes... all the challah we eat to celebrate Christmas...

On the plus side, also, they have Brueggers here! So you can get bagels. But only til 3 p.m., as I found out the other day. Seriously folks... if you have any bagel cravings post 3 p.m., you're out of luck. Gotta plan carefully.

Bunny-mania

Here is a picture of one of the many bunnies who hang out

Wasn't it freaking AWESOME?!

Okay... here I go on the blog, I know everyone has been on the edge of their seats, waiting... So many things have happened in Ames, it's hard to even know where to begin. Then you put it off a bit, then you go on vacation, then you come back and spend 5000 hrs trying to finish unpacking, then classes start, etc. etc.
I know, it's all lame. But fear not, faithful reader(s), blogging will commence.

At some point last week, I believe it was Tuesday, we had to go to the bank and fix our account to be joint. We had Bob, the most down home, true Iowan, earnest banker around :) He spent an inordinate amount of time copying C's social security card and less time than you'd expect talking to us about the account.

The absolute best part of this encounter though:
Okay, other than the fact that when I had to tell him our previous addresses, I had to spell the
word "Maryland" for him. Apparently my hint, "Like the state" wasn't helpful enough. But okay, I digress.
After we happened to mention that we were new to Ames and had just attended the Iowa State Fair (more on this later perhaps), his eyes lit up and he said:

"Wasn't it freaking AWESOME?"

Completely serious. And he wasn't a young guy either.

I think it actually would have been worse though if he was being sarcastic. That would have been kind of sad.

He went on to tell us how he had not missed a state fair in 30 years! And I tried, honestly I did, to match his level of enthusiasm. I said something about the multitude of foods on a stick available at the fair and Bob replied something like there were 70 different foods on a stick.
I actually don't find that unlikely.
There was A LOT of food on a stick at the fair.
Even things which one would not normally think of as being possible to eat on a stick. Lo and behold...

I don't know if I'm doing Bob justice here... Needless to say, I don't know if he actually fixed our account properly but I have to say, the experience with Bob... well it was worth it.
The only problem with these encounters is we cannot look over at each other, lest we start laughing aloud and then seeming like total jerks.

So anyway...there's Bob for you...

Good times..

Oh, how could I forget this part-- Bob also told us this was the 30th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's visit to Iowa-- and that he was there.
I thought what he said was that the Pope was at the fair but upon further thought, maybe that's not actually what he said. I think it was when he was telling us about the OTHER thing we should do in Iowa; which was visit the Living History Farm in Des Moines.

man with Corn

So every day here in Ames brings a new story to us. For some reason, odd things seem to happen, things that make you wonder if you really truly just witnessed it.
Tonight we walked over to Hyvee to get something to make for dinner. On the way back, we had crossed the street and saw a man walking with two dogs who appeared to be eating something.
It was sort of dark out so at first glance I couldn't tell WHAT exactly he was eating; I thought only that it was something on a stick, that he was holding in one hand. Of course he had the dogs' leash in the other.
He glanced over at us, said hi, and WAVED his corn cob at us!

Afterward, Cory & I waited a respectable amount of time before looking at each other and starting to laugh and say, OMG, Did that guy really have CORN?!?!

Oh, Iowans...