Weird Carolina: That's what...she said?

Got this flyer in the mail today. 

Not what you'd expect to find at badcock.com

First comes love...

For many couples, getting their wedding announced in the New York Times is the ultimate status symbol and the pinnacle of their relationships.

Most of the featured couples are rich, white, ivy league graduates with multiple degrees, fancy job titles in finance or law and pretentious hobbies like Japanese furniture design or medieval bookbinding. There is even a blog about the absurdity of it all.

However, there is one publication with an ultra exclusive weddings section that is even more selective than the Times. In fact, no couple's wedding announcement has ever been featured, despite countless entries. I'm speaking, of course, about Zina Carolina. But finally, a couple made the cut, and for an engagement announcement no less! 

Two of my favorite people in the world, Brian Rocks and Lisa DiMarcantonio, were engaged on Friday, the fifth of November, 4 days after the future bride's 25th birthday. The future groom whisked her away to a fancy dinner at La Locanda Del Ghiottone in the Olde city neighborhood of Philadelphia.

I technologically stalked him all night

After a delicious meal, the couple returned to Brian's rowhome in the area known as Fishtown. Before leaving for dinner, Brian had cued up the karaoke version of the Van Morrison classic, Brown Eyed Girl on his karaoke machine. When they arrived home, Brian pressed play and serenaded a stunned Lisa in a touching rendition of the song with lyrics he'd written about his future bride. At the end, he knelt down and popped the question and she immediately said yes. The next day, the happy couple informed all of their friends and family of the thriling news. 

Of course, it's not official until it's on Facebook and 43 people have commented the same thing. 

"Congrats!"

Brian is basically like my brother. He told me he was going to propose a year ago but I didn't find out until the day of exactly how and when he was going to do it. He announced it to me in the most touching way. Through the Words with Friend app.

Still unclear what enol means

 I ran around the house screaming and called him and continued screaming. I really couldn't be more excited. I'll finally have a sister! Brian said it best:

Congratulations you crazy kids!

Disky business

On Thursday, I played Disc Golf for the first time. For those who aren't familiar, Disc Golf is similar to traditional golf except instead of hitting a ball into a hole, you throw a frisbee-like disc into a standing basket. The object of the game is to navigate the course from beginning to end in the fewest number of throws of the disc. There are different types of discs used for different purposes (eg. putter).

This is a disc

This is a basket

When Chris asked if I wanted to play, I was intrigued. I've been wanting to be more active and he described it as "exercise in disguise." 

Perfect.

I imagined a leisurely jaunt on a rolling green, casually throwing a frisbee at a basket. 

First mistake.

With that image in mind, I wore a fleece jacket, corduroys and sneakers without socks.

Second mistake.

When we arrived, there was no rolling green in sight, just a beautiful wooded park. Chris quickly briefed me on the rules and the game began. As a former high school discus champion*, I assumed it would be a walk in the park. 

Pun intended

Throwing the disc is harder than I imagined. It's lighter than a discus but heavier than a frisbee. And for disc golf newbies it tends to veer off in the opposite direction of your target. Chris patiently tried to teach me the choreography of throwing but I'm not the most coordinated person in the world. I walk into things pretty frequently (hourly) and have fallen down (and up) my fair share of stairs. Needless to say, it took me quite some time to grasp the step, step, hop throw. Or something like that.

Another thing I didn't anticipate was the retrieving of the disc. In the heavily wooded park, there were streams to cross, mud and puddles to (unsuccessfully) navigate around and slippery acorns and wet leaves to (unsucessfully) avoid slipping on. Also, some sassy squirrels tried to drop acorns on my head. And it rained at one point.

Deadly acorns

Oh did I mention the hills? There were a lot of those. The "rolling green" translated into basically an all up-hill course. The only rolling involved was if you slipped and fell down the mini-mountain. Exercise in disguise? An 18 hole, 1 mile, steep hilled course is just called exercise. If that's what Chris considers disguise, he would make a terrible spy. 

The hills are alive

By the end (ok, second hole) I was sweating, out of breath, with muddy pants and soaking wet feet. I'm not sure who won because I stopped scoring after I hit par 8 on one hole. That should tell you who won. 

While disc golf was nothing like I imagined, it was fun and a good workout. And the scenery was incredible.

But next time, I'll dress a little more appropriately.

*In the Prep B, Central Jersey division in which I was one of the only discus throwers. 

Cat nap

Find something cuter than sleeping kittens. I dare you.

It's my costume and I'll cry if I want to

This past Saturday was Halloween. I initially wanted to dress up as the giant tube sock from the Skittles commercial that I'm obsessed with. If you haven't seen it, check it out:

Unfortunately, it proved to be a very difficult costume to put together. You can't just go out and buy a giant tube sock at your local Target. Instead, I decided to embrace what I've become in the last 2 weeks: a cat lady. Obviously my first stop was Goodwill. It is a gold mine for tacky clothing. Within 20 minutes, I had a pile of cat themed clothing to choose from. 8 dollars later, I had this snazzy getup:

The cats loved it for obvious reasons

I put a lot of effort into the details of the costume (including an hour spent applying glitter) and was confident that I'd be a shoe-in for the costume contest. Chris decided to wear the same costume he'd worn for the past four Halloweens: a whoopie cushion. He got it from a child who outgrew it. A child. Who outgrew it. He almost didn't even wear a costume. No Halloween spirit, I tell ya.

A few weeks ago, Chris read about a Halloween party at Thomas Creek Brewery. It promised , live music, BBQ and five hours of all you can drink craft beer for 10 dollars. As a plus, the brewery was less than 10 minutes from home. It was an easy decision.

The event started at 1:00 and by the time we arrived unfashionably late at 3:00 the party was in full swing. The instant we got there, some revelers turned and laughed at us. I was prepared for this. I know, I know people, cat lady = brilliant! The timelessness! The attention to detail!

And then, something terrible happened. They started telling Chris how awesome his costume was. CHRIS' COSTUME??? They looked at mine just long enough to register confusion then began requesting pictures with him like he was Jake Gyllenhaal. Dressed like a whoopie cushion. This disturbing trend continued the rest of the afternoon. I think some people honestly questioned whether or not I was wearing a costume. My visions of sweeping the costume contest and being paraded through the party on the shoulders of a horde of partygoers faded with each passing minute.

I beelined to the beer line to drown my sorrows. At least the beer did not disapoint. They had a variety of specialty beers, from IPAs to Vanilla cream ale to Belgian Porter. They also had some pretty intense cask beers that helped ease my pain. Chris on the other hand was eating up all the attention.

He started walking around squeezing the whoopie cushion to make the farting sound behind random people. The whoopie cushion that I told him to buy. The crowd loved it. I can't win. Obviously simplicity is key down here. I mean, a teletubby won the costume contest. A teletubby! 1997 called and wants it's costume ideas back.

Too excited for spell check

Ok yes, I was a little bitter. Halloween is MY favorite holiday and Chris swooped in and got all the attention with a lazy costume he didn't even want to wear. But despite the soul crushing, there were quite a few perks. The live music was good, the beer lines were short and the BBQ was amazing. Carolina BBQ is second to none. Chris had an incident with the hot sauce but that was kind of his own fault. We literally had to sign a waiver to try it and he decided to slather it all over his pulled pork sandwich. A few beers (and tears) later, he was recovered.

The party didn't go quite as I'd hoped but it ended up being a good time. At least the kittens loved my costume. And the old man from the portapotty line that offered to lick cat food off me. Hoping not to run into him again.

Below are some more pictures from the party.

Next year, I'm all over that giant tube sock.

Attack of the kittens

As evidenced by the video below, my mother is not an animal lover. Growing up in Jamaica, she didn't have any pets and is generally scared of them. Except Brutus. No one is scared of Brutus.

No kittens (or Jamaicans) were harmed in the making of this video.

Keep on truckin

South Carolina is an interesting place. They just do things differently down here. One thing I've noticed is that it seems like everyone drives a pickup truck. Even my mom has one now. And apparently the bigger the better. The one below said "Daddy's little redneck girl" on the windshield. 

Despite having driveways, they often park their trucks on their lawns, no matter how nice the neighborhood. My mom's truck is the red one. When in Rome I guess?

But really, I shouldn't be surprised. Before moving down, out of curiosity I checked out the Google street view of my house.

Note the empty driveway