Hello, spring break! And, of course, in Kentucky we’re also saying, ‘Hello, snow!’
That’s right, folks. It’s snowing. Not that this shouldn’t be expected. It snowed 8 1/2 inches on the first day of spring break during my freshman year. In case you don’t remember that, here’s a flashback photo to March 8, 2008.
For those of you now very concerned about the weather here in Lexington, don’t worry. There’s no chance of 8 1/2 inches of snow tonight. But that sure would make things exciting.
As today was the last day of classes before spring break (hooray for no Friday classes!), every class seemed to last about eight hours. My last class of the day has about 200 students. Today there were about 30 in attendance, with everyone getting an early start to their break, I guess. I would’ve skipped the class myself, but I always feel bad for professors when no one shows up. Today I was sitting all by myself (the only friends I have in the class skipped), so I had to think of a way to keep myself awake. I tried taking notes, but that got boring fast (we’re learning about life insurance policies). So I decided to count how many states I’ve visited in my lifetime.
A little background for this story: My family has this competition to see who can visit the most states. A ‘visit’ entails either using the restroom or eating within the state’s boundaries, not just driving through. My dad is definitely winning this contest, but I’d like to think I’m coming in second. Although, my sister hit up quite a few states on her drive across America a few summers ago. So, Amanda, if you want to claim second place, you best defend yourself in our comment section.
Back to the story.
I started to make a list of all the states so that I could check off which ones I’ve visited. Sidenote: I love making lists. In fact, while in this class, I had already made a to-do list for my break and a schedule for a my weekend with a list of things to do each day. So, I’m making this list and singing through the ’50 nifty United States’ song in my head. I get all the way to Wyoming and go back to count the states, just in case I missed one. It turns out I missed two. So I went back and sang the song again. Turns out I missed New Mexico. But I could not, for the life of me, figure out the 50th state. I spent the next 20 minutes singing the song over and over. I was about to go crazy. I even tried drawing a map of the U.S. and labeling each state, but upon discovering my failure in the geography department, I resorted to Twitter. I sent out a tweet for help on naming the 50th state. I figured it had to be one of the ‘N’ states, as that is the most complicated part of the song.
Turns out it was New Jersey (thanks, Ari, for saving my mind!). So I apologize to you, New Jersey-ites. I forgot about you.
But now that I can name all 50 states, I know that I have visited 26 of them. And no, I have not been to New Jersey. If any of you have visited all 50 states, please let me know. I will think you are the most impressive person. I think my dad has been to 40-something, which is pretty darn impressive.
To celebrate the start of my spring break (and my recollection of all 50 states), Eric and I ordered pizza for dinner. But not just any pizza. Naked Pizza. We found a flier for the place on our cars a month or so ago, but I had pretty much forgotten about it until today, when I saw something about it in a presentation in one of my classes. I immediately texted Eric and told him I wanted to try Naked Pizza. Luckily, he had been thinking the exact same thing! So we tried it.
And….eh. It was alright. Eric took a bite and said, “It tastes healthy.” Naked Pizza’s whole thing is that Naked = Honest. No added junk. Just quality, natural ingredients. And they have some sort of prebiotic, probiotic crust, which is supposed to be full of fiber and protein. So I don’t know if it’s actually healthy or if they are just capitalizing on the gullible public, but I didn’t feel gross after I ate it, which is a big deal when I eat pizza. But it definitely didn’t look healthy. It was pretty greasy (a problem solved by a few paper towels and some serious blotting) and generally unappetizing in appearance, but it tasted pretty good. Question for any of you who have ever worked in a pizza place or just know a lot about pizza: Why is pizza greasy? I don’t understand where the grease comes from. Eric said he thought it had something to do with the meat on pizza, but we didn’t have any meat on ours. If you have any answers, please share your wisdom.
Eric and I decided that eating pizza makes us crave ice cream. I’m not sure why the two are tied together in our minds, but it’s probably a good reason to stop eating pizza, as I generally have no self-control with ice cream (or pizza, for that matter). So we headed to Orange Leaf for dessert! Orange Leaf has taken over a bunch of the old Graeters locations in Lexington (a moment of silence for my favorite ice cream place, please), so we have one just a few miles from our apartment. We ventured out in the snow (I think I eat way more ice cream in the winter than in the summer) and got ourselves some frozen yogurt (or ‘fro-yo’, a term Eric hates). I think I exhibited a lot of self-control in getting only two flavors, coffee and peanut butter, and only a few toppings. Eric, not so much. But it’s good stuff, and supposedly it’s better for you than real ice cream. Once again, I don’t really know if this is true, but I feel better about eating it, and I have yet to double over in stomach pain from eating frozen yogurt (this often happens when I eat ice cream).
One of the funniest things about Orange Leaf is that the spoons are in the shape of tiny shovels. I think it’s because the bowls are so big that you need a shovel to haul out the frozen yogurt.
So now we’re full of pizza and fro-yo, and all set to spend a snowy evening watching basketball (Eric) and learning about New Jersey (Ally).
Happy snow day!
-Ally
mrmrscoop says
Mmmmmmm Orange Leaf.
We might venture to Naked Pizza sometime soon (or rather, have them deliver to us, YES!) They offer a gluten free crust- but I don’t really like any other gluten-free pizza crusts, so it may not be worth the money. I like the idea that they have TONS of veggies, but I do not like the fact that they want to charge me for each of them. If we have an overflow of veggies from our garden, we’ll gladly share with the gardenless 🙂
Molly says
The grease is from the cheese.
Try melting shredded cheese in the microwave. It becomes super greasy. When the fat globules in the cheese heat up, the protein bonds that keep them bound inside the gel matrix of the cheese are disrupted, causing the (now liquid) fat to separate out as grease.
The meat probably also contributes, but the bulk is from the cheese. 🙂
Ari says
The grease is from the cheese!