Monday, March 29, 2010

I broke my blog. UPDATE: Fixed it!

So, silly me, all I had to do was click "Revert widget templates to default" on my edit HTML page.  Not sure how I messed them up in the first place, but it was only after hours of scouring my HTML and reading tutorials (to no avail) that I figured this out.  Sheesh.



Does anyone know how to fix it?

So, I have a pretty rudimentary understanding of html, and in the recent process of toying with the appearance of my blog (mostly using copy and paste templates), I somehow lost the date on each of my posts, and instead of having a "comments" section, it now just says "read more" at the bottom of each post (even though there is nothing more to read).

Does anyone know wtf I did?

I will look into this further.

Respectfully yours,

Anne

P.S. - I have already tried the obvious things like checking the date and comment settings.  That is all.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

St. Paddy's Day in Dublin

I had the great privilege nutty experience of being in Dublin on Ireland's big day last week.  I decided it would be fun to describe the day through photos. 

11 a.m. (ish): Pedestrians head over the Millenium Bridge to line the parade route; surfers row by on their boards.


12:20 p.m: O'Connell Street is packed beyond hope.  We are not sure where the parade goes next, so we settle in and resign ourselves to the fact that we will not be able to see. 


The kid on the sign has the right idea.

Climbing is a popular tactic.


Kids on shoulders definitely had the best seats in the house...


... and provided the highest levels of adorable Irish pride.


Some grown-ups got in on it, too....


... including myself.


From this vantage point, I was finally able to catch some parade highlights:


Like this giant chicken!


And more adorable children.


Awesome, tall puppets.


Lady in the sky.


Attack!

Not sure... but I like it!

So, as it turns out, the St. Patrick's Day Parade had little to do with Ireland.  Oh yes, the crowds were out in all their green and face-painted glory, but the floats themselves seemed to be a bit... random.  Don't get me wrong, I love giant papier-maché insects and puppets that hover high enough over the crowd to be seen by all, but there wasn't anything that particularly bespoke Ireland.  Or maybe I just couldn't see.




Friday, March 12, 2010

Giant Cadbury Egg Not, In Fact, Filled With Creme*

When the GD brought one of these home from work, I was truly excited:

Why, it's a giant Cadbury Egg! It will be filled with so much creamy goodness!

When I went to crack it, it crumbled into its hollow shell. No cream. Not so much as a prize. I know it's no Kinder Surprise, but a girl can hope.

I guess it would be kind of an unwieldy process, cracking open an egg of that size and trying to consume it in one go. You might need several friends around to aid in the process. Some might find ostrich-egg-sized yolk to be alarming; I know there was always something a bit off-putting to me about the standard-issue Cadbury egg filling (I always preferred the caramel). I was also unnerved by the idea of bunnies laying eggs at all.

That aside, what makes a Cadbury Cream Egg is its cream filling, and though the giant one is not explicitly marked as such, I wanted reality, on this front, to live up to my imagination.

If Philip Morris is behind this egregious skimping on filling, I'm gonna be pissed. Kraft already attempted to close down a factory during negotiations over the sale and began discussing job cuts soon after the acquisition; this is the next logical step, no?

UPDATE!

Apparently, the GD brought home the wrong egg.  Further research/google image searches yielded this beauty:


Either that's a normal-sized egg in excessive packaging (quite possible), or that's the one I had in mind.

*As spelled on packaging.  That was totally an accidental spelling on my part, but I guess that's how they roll over in the U.K.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

International Women's Day

... was yesterday. But it's not too late to celebrate! My friend, Molly, wrote a great post on True/Slant in recognition of some awesome woman-ness this year.

I first became aware of International Women's Day was while I was living in Cameroon in 2006. It was a huge deal and there was an enormous parade through Yaoundé with President Paul Biya and his crazy-haired wife, Chantal, in attendance.

(I have pictures of this somewhere in the internet universe. I must track them down.)

 UPDATE: Found 'em!

We (the visiting white students) bought traditional muumuus, dressed up with our host mothers and marched in the parade!

 I forgot about all the guns.  Also, love that he's checking his phone.

It was amazing. There were thousands of women out and, as there had been two colors that year for the traditional Women's Day fabric--turquoise and pink--we were divided into groups by color. Only, as soon as we were spotted, we were forced to the front of the line (that is to say, further divided along color lines), as if to say, "Look! We've got foreigners in our parade! They are both white and able to look ridiculous in muumuus!"

 A friend with her host-mother and another Cameroonian woman.

This only became more embarrassing when everyone started singing traditional songs that were completely unknown to us. There we were, the white folks right at the front, not singing or gesturing along with the rest of the crowd! So, we basically looked really... white.

 Lady Police Officers!

Despite the nationally-aired humiliation, it was an amazing event. I truly felt a part of something that transcended nationality, age and attire. To see so many women out and dressed in the same fabric--many of them had made their own dresses--and to be one of them, myself, that was a unique moment.

This is one of those things that is awkward when translated from French, so let's veer from the literal: 
"Opportunities for women in high, decision-making spheres (positions/jobs)."

I missed my chance this time around, but I think next year I'll dig my muumuu out of retirement, round up some friends, and parade down whatever street I may be living on at that future point in time. Any excuse for a parade. Especially when the excuse is the awesomeness of women.