Random weekend stuff

We had a really busy weekend. Rod's sister, Liz and her fiancé Brad came to spend the weekend with us. So, here is the random weekend stuff:

1) Got home from work on Friday, and started baking with Alex. We made really yummy cupcakes. Liz and Brad got to our house, we ordered 2 pizzas from two different places, and rather than having them delivered, we drove all over town to pick them up. And then, Liz wanted a salad...yet another place to make a pick up order.

2) Woke up on Saturday morning, and started baking and cooking with Alex. Liz's bridal shower was on Saturday 6-8pm at Whitney's house. I was not supposed to bring any food to the shower, but how could I not? Alex and I made the best ever Carrot Cake (thanks to Jenn), we also dipped strawberries, some of them looked like men in tuxedos. You wouldn't think that this would take all day, but somehow between listening and watching conference, and showering (you know, the actual kind, not the party one), and organizing, and making sure that Rod worked on some projects (and didn't just download 20 million songs onto his new found external hardrive friend), it did.

3) The Bridal Shower was fun. Whitney had set up a quilt in the basement, so we started tying it while we waited for the guests to arrive.

Here are the highlights from the shower:

-Food was excellent, thanks to Erica.
-The quilt was beautiful and it got finished.
-Great to see cousins and visit with them.
-3-year old Katelyn said when Liz opened her box of lingerie and pulled out a "dress": "Oh look, it is a princess dress".
-Liz received a set of glass casserole dishes that were etched "Hansen" on the bottom. Somebody said (and I swear this only happens in the Utah bridal showers):"When you make a casserole to a funeral, you definitely get your dish back."

4) Conference. Again, great talks and so much instruction how to better our lives. I love President Monson. When the Sweden temple was being dedicated in the mid 80s, a lot of Finns traveled to Stockholm for the dedication. My friend, Päivi and I were lucky enough to sit right in front of President Monson, our knees almost touching. I have loved him from that day on. What a spiritual giant he is.

5) Saturday night after the shower, all of us went to see "The Leatherheads". A dude in front of me texted during the whole entire movie. The light is still disturbing even though you try to hide it in your shirt! So, I started kicking his chair every time he texted. If he would have turned around and told me to stop, I would have had a quick come-back. He never did, I was dissappointed. What is so important at midnight that you have to text? Your girlfriend/wife was sitting right next to him. I want to be a movie texting police.

6) Sunday morning...another day in the kitchen, starting at 8 am. Put on the roast in the crock pot for dinner at 5pm. Made "Tear bread" (thanks to Hil's recipe, it was delicious), then made salmon (thanks to Jenn's recipe...rave reviews from the eaters), and finally rosemary potatoes (thanks to my own delish recipe). Went to Williams for brunch, and ate and ate until I had to take a nap during the afternoon conference session. It was 5 minutes well spent. This Williams brunch thing is a long tradition since we got to know them. WE LOVE THE WILLIAMS!! Thanks again.

7) Came home from the Williams, and back to the kitchen to prepare dinner. We couldn't send Liz and Brad home without dinner.

8) Finally fell on my bed after 7pm and Alex comes to me and tells me that he wants to go for a walk. I told him that I have been cooking and baking since Friday, and I just want to lay in my bed, and do nothing. Alex said totally baffled:"How does cooking and baking make you tired?" And then walked away disappointed.

And this morning Rod left for Mexico for a week.

Pictures for my friend Päivi

Alcatraz

Bay Bridge-View from our hotel window

Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul at Washington Square

Coit Tower and City View

Golden Gate Bridge

Transamerica Building from Clay St.

City View

Ghirardelli Square at night

Things that make you say hmmm....in San Francisco

Chinese Dentist, anyone?

Dinner in Chinatown. Not sure what the little creatures are on the bed of rice, but that half lemon slice makes it all better.

"Oriental" (not electric) Slide in the park early Sunday morning. There was no music but the leading lady sang a pretty Chinese song, I'm sure a popular among these lovely ladies.

Rod and I on the cable car. Nothing unusual there. Click on the picture and see the girl who is on my left side. What's that stuff on her upper lip? Frosting?

Rock stacking in Sausalito. Truly an art form. Didn't get close enough to see if there were numbers on these rocks, and if the dude stacks them the same way each morning. These were so amazing.

We also visited this weird pharmacy-grocery store in Chinatown that had all of the walls covered with glass jars. Some of them contained swallow's nests in various colors, deer antlers, all kinds of mushrooms, shark fins and other items that were written in Chinese. Truly a weird, weird place. We bought some wasabi peas from there...decided to stay with a safe choice.

I also wanted to show you Rod's heaven, the cheese counter. Rod bought 2 small slices of stinky cheese, $30.

Our whole trip was a blast. Jenn and Kip are so much fun to travel with. More fun will be had in two weeks when we travel to their house in San Diego for a whole week.

Tour de San Francisco

2 fares to Fisherman's Wharf on light rail-$3.00

2 bike rentals for a 10 mile ride to Sausalito-$60

Biking over the Golden Gate bridge-$Free (can you really put a price on burnt-up thighs, great scenery, and memories?)

Spending a weekend in San Francisco with good friends-Priceless

Where in the world are Rod and Marja?

We are traveling this weekend, but where??? Here are some hints:


Some people in this city hang their chickens in the window. At least, I think it is chicken.



Rather than planting flowers in the flower beds, this crazy person planted store-bought cauliflower. Well, it has a "flower" in the word, so I guess it counts.










Pineapple is used as a lamp on a gate post.

Can you guess yet?

How about this one:


Our ever funny friends, Kristian and Jenn are traveling with us. Yes, they flew from San Diego.

You are right, we are in San Francisco having so much fun. We walked and walked and walked all over Chinatown, North Beach and the Wharf this afternoon. Then went to the best comedy club show tonight. Let's just say that we haven't laughed so hard for the longest time.













Us on Lombard Street.

Tomorrow, biking to Sausalito. Yep, my butt is feeling it already.

And a bucket o' pho

Dinner was pho at a local Vietnamese restaurant. Delicious! The dog cartilage was crunchy, and the boiled meatballs were... well, ballsy.

The office move went well tonight, and I'm now done with Houston. Didn't even see one cockroach. Plenty of weird looking long tailed birds, though.

Tomorrow---home.

Houston-Day 3 -- 79 degrees and partly cloudy --but how would I know, I haven't been outside yet today and it is almost noon

The answer to yesterday's multiple choice question is the berry juice spilling all over the counter. BUT it could have been any of the others.


Dinner last night and breakfast this morning:

-Chocolate covered raisins
-Dried Mangos
-Fresh strawberries, blackberries, blueberries
-Liquorice
-Odwalla juices

YUM!


Bored in the hotel room, watching:
1) Autism: the musical
2) How to make faucets, down comforters, and dress forms on Discovery Channel
3) Shroud of Turin secrets
4) Secrets of Freemasons
5) Glenn Beck
6) All of the Above

Yeah #6. I'm so much smarter now.

¿Que carajo es lo que hiso esta señora?

Day 2 in Houston didn't start pretty. There was this incident with the towel. I'll give you a multiple choice to guess what happened.

1) I had an intruder in my room when I woke up, and I killed him, and this was the towel I used to wipe off the blood.

2) Because I was so bored last night, being all alone in my hotel room, that I went to the next door grocery store, and bought a box of red hair color, and colored my hair red. Finally a color I wanted to try for years.

3) I couldn't sleep last night, so I took Ambien. I woke up this morning and the walls were written on with my crayons. Ambien has a side effect of sleep-walking. I wiped the washable crayons off the walls with this towel.

4) I was shaving in the tub, and cut myself badly.

5) I took my medicine, and tried to open a berry juice bottle with my right hand while holding the pills in my left hand (open hand facing up), and my right hand slipped and the berry juice spilled all over the mini counter. Used the towel to wipe off the juice.

And when the cleaning lady entered my room to clean it, she said:"¿Que carajo es lo que hiso esta señora?" which is the title of this blog....meaning "What the hell did the lady do?"

Tomorrow, I will share my answer.

Houston....We have a problem

I'm in Houston, TX (shout out to Hilary..I know you miss the heat) this week for work, and I just barely got here. It is sunny and beautiful. My trip didn't start the way I planned it, which is surprising, I'm sure, to many of you. So, I would like to compile a list of flying rules for travelers of any age.

1) Be on time. I think it is very important to keep the time table because the planes don't usually wait for you. So, yes, I missed the plane. First time EVER! Let me explain why. First of all, I didn't want to get out of bed this morning when the alarm went off at 4am. I hadn't slept all night because I'm just that way. And who was the crazy person who made this reservation for 6:40am flight, anyway? Ok, so it was me. Don't know what I was thinking. Probably wasn't thinking, that was the problem. So, I left the house at 5am. After getting into the car I noticed there was no gas in my car, so I had to do a detour to the gas station for some expensive gas.

Trip continued.

Got to the airport just fine, hopped on the shuttle and got to the HUGE security line. There were millions of kids (ok, there were only 6, but you know how they move fast so it seems that there are at least a million of them).

And here is where my trouble started. Got to undress in front of all the people, pulled stuff out of my suitcase, and I was ready to go through the security check. Went through the air machine just fine until I heard the voice of a female security person yelling:"Whose big bottle of hairspray is this?" Sheepishly I announced that it was my quart size bag that I didn't realize that 6.6 fl oz doesn't equal 3 fl. oz. I was never good at math so don't blame me. And those oz and stuff don't mean anything to me, anyway. Why can't we deal with the metric system in this country. It would be so much easier and people like me wouldn't get caught trying to smuggle a hairspray bottle on board. So, the nice lady told me that I had to go play chemist and dump the big bottle and put some of it in the empty bottle I HAPPENED to have on hand (I kind of planned to have it on hand, just in case they discovered my evil plan). So, off I went, to the BACK of the line to do my dumping. At this time the time was 6:30am. Need I remind you that the plane was supposed to depart at 6:40am. So, I quickly went back in line (not the whole line, I'm not that stupid) and asked a nice security gentleman if I can sneak in because I tried to smuggle some liquid on. He let me in, and this is where I faced the children. There were 3 kids in front of me undressing, unstrapping, untying. I undressed again, emptied my nearly empty suitcase, and was ready for the re-do of the security check. And the kids took forever.

After dressing, and getting a green light this time, I raced the mile to the Southwest gate, and got there 6:41. The plane was gone, and I was not on it. Then the voice of Alex came to me reminding me to "think mom!" I went to the counter where the nice lady told me that she had been looking for me. Really? "Did you go look in the bathroom, because I wasn't there? I was at the security line behind a million kids with a small hairspray bottle in hand."

The nice lady told me that she can put me on a stand-by to Vegas and then to San Antonio. My original flight was supposed to get to Houston at 1:50pm. This new flight pattern would put me to Houston at 2:50pm. "I'll take it", I said.

And off we went to Vegas. Window seat, and a nice view of the wing mechanics. The flight attendant sang when we were landing in Vegas. If you haven't tried the Southwest flight to Vegas before, I highly recommend it. The flight crew is hilarious. Puts you in a gambling kind of mood.

Changed planes in Vegas. Walked to the next plane to San Antonio after de-planing. In the air again. This time in the middle seat. Beggars can't be choosers. This seat arrangement brings me to:

2) If you have to bring a coffee table size book on board, lay it in your lap and don't block both of the windows from the person who is sitting next to you (especially the person who can't sleep or read during the flight, BUT who can listen to iPod, I discovered...a major win in my OCD flying...Tom Jones and BeeGees on mine, if you were wondering what's playing on my iPod).

3) If you claim the window seat, at least look at the scenery, for heaven's sake, at least once during the flight. Why do you want that seat if you are not planning on looking at the wasteland between Vegas and San Antonio.

4) San Antonio is GORGEOUS! Shout out to Janessa. I thought about you the whole 15 minutes I was on the ground. Didn't know it was so green and foresty.

I got to San Antonio 20 minutes ahead of time. Leasurely, I went to the bathroom, picked up some gum and water. Then strolled to the gate and noticed that my last leg was 35 minutes late. Talked to the nice lady at the counter and she said:"I can put you on this 1pm flight to Houston that is boarding right now." So, I was literally on the ground in San Antonio for 15 minutes.

5) Cute little 50 year old men read "People" as much as the next girl.

I sat next to the cutest gray haired man. He seemed to have Down's Syndrome and we struck up a conversation. I didn't, unfortunately understand anything except that his name was Mark. He couldn't open his peanuts and I helped him, hardly able to open the foil package myself (and this is where Rod laughs because he would tell you that I can't open anything worth crap).

6) "Cell phone turn off" rules apply to executives. Don't try to scroll down your messages when we are almost in the air.

7) If you forgot to turn off the cell phone, don't answer it while we are in the air! Didn't you feel the sudden jerk of the plane when you answered the phone? Or, maybe it was water in the gas tank that caused the turbulence.

8) Don't pass gas while flying. The sign says that people will be using the seat cushion in case of an emergency water landing. I take that back. I think that passing gas is ok if you are sitting in a leather seat, because you know that the "bubbles" just bounce off the leather. If the seat is fabric...you don't even want to think about it. Or think about those sorry souls who need to rip that seat off, and hold on to dear life while floating somewhere in the Lake Mead or some ocean, while cursing your name.

I got to Houston 10 minutes before my original flight (a 32 minute flight from San Antonio). I was in the SuperShuttle 15 minutes after that, and an hour later, I was in my hotel room somewhere in the city...now hungry and sleepy.

And here is the beautiful "city view" from my hotel window. I'll be here until Thursday. So, stay tuned for exciting adventures of Marja in Houston.

Favorite Easter Traditions

When I was little (so little I can hardly remember this), my sister and I used to go "virpomaan" at Easter to our friends' houses. This is an old Russian Orthodox Palm Sunday tradition from way back when. You take some willow brances that are starting to bud, tie some crepe paper streamers on them in different colors (mostly green, yellow and red), you dress up like witches, and ring the door bell, and say the following poem:

Virvon, varvon

Tuoreeks, terveeks

Tulevaks vuodeks

Vitsa sulle

Palkka mulle

(This tradition is very much like Trick or Treating on Halloween)

The best Easter dish is "Mämmi". It looks like poo, but with cream and sugar...it is divine.

Two weeks before Easter we would grow "rairuoho" on a plate, which is just grass. When the grass is tall enough, you set your little fake yellow chick on the grass, and on Easter morning you would find the biggest and the most beautiful chocolate Easter egg on it. (If you didn't know, bunnies don't lay eggs)

Good times, good traditions...and we would get Thursday, Friday and Easter Monday off from school and work.