The last hurrah

The past couple weeks have just flown by, which is very unfortunate. Kate said that she wishes we could get stuck in a Groundhog Day loop, but with senior week, and I agree. So much has happened (and FYI, for some reason these pictures are so big that they get cut off on the side, so you have to click on them to see the whole thing):


We were beer fairies last Tuesday night, the last night of reading period. I'm pretty sure that past generations of beer fairies haven't gotten this carried away with dressing themselves, but we had a good time. And, as a bonus, we got to look like complete idiots walking into and out of the library. In any case, everyone we beered was so happy. When I asked one freshman-looking kid if he wanted a beer, he looked from the beer can to my outfit back to the beer in wonder and joy and said, "... YES??!! Thank you!!!" A girl we offered one to said, "Oh yay! I've never met the beer fairy before!" It was a very rewarding experience.

On Saturday we went to the chili cook-off in Tappan, where one pays a ten dollar donation to a feed-the-hungry type organization, and then one gets a homemade bowl to keep and all the chili one can eat. Here is the bowl I picked:
Literally no one else thinks it's a good bowl, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it had to be mine. Ben claims that I won't be able to eat anything out of it because it's too deep, but since I picked it up I've eaten chili, easy mac, and some chips out of it, so there. It can have other uses too, besides just a bowl. Bottom line: I love it, and I'm going to take pictures of everything I use it for and send them to Ben.

On Sunday morning, I woke up (very hungover) and went to two brunches: the English honors brunch and the boys' house's brunch.
There were a lot of people there, a lot of coffee and mimosas were drunk, and so much bacon was cooked that it still sort of smells like burnt pork fat in their house.


Then we all went to TGIS (Sunday)...
... where we ate fondue.

AND THEN, that same night we went up to the observatory:
It was cool. We saw Saturn and Mars and the moon's tiny craters, not even just the big ones.

On Monday we went to Cedar Point, and Henry and I rode TOP THRILL DRAGSTER or something like that I think it was called. It should have been called: THIS IS A TERRIFYING RIDE.
It goes from zero to 120 mph in 3 seconds, and then it goes 90 degrees straight up and then 90 degrees straight down, corkscrewing on the way down.

Kate got this picture of our car, but you can't see us because we're way in the back.
Basically it was the most amazing ride I've ever been on and I would do it again in a hot second.

Last night Henry and I went to the Shoreby Club in Cleveland. It was pretty much the WASPiest I've ever felt in my life. The first twenty minutes or so was very overwhelming and nerve-wracking, what with getting in through the gate, dealing with valet parking, trying to figure out the menu — basically, at every turn, we were afraid of being found out as poor people. Anyway, we eventually made it through to the eating, and oh man was it great eating. We ate in this area:
And our view from this area was something like this:
It was a tapas style menu; incidentally, my menu did not have prices on it but Henry's did, because he's a man and I'm a lady. This both shocked and offended me, and threw me off for a good five minutes: "Wait, so, REALLY? Separate menus?? Do they do this at all rich places?! WHERE AM I??!!"

Anyway, we got a cheese board which was full of the best cheese ever, and Henry ended up constructing the most expensive Lunchable of all time. Then asparagus with a poached egg, and I don't even like that goopy yolk stuff that happens, but seriously, it was the best asparagus and/or egg I've ever had. And then we had steak and "truffle fries". It's kind of funny that our favorite part of this whole meal was the fries, but I'm telling you, you can't even in your wildest dreams imagine fries this good. AND THEN, we got dessert; Henry had mango sorbet and I had a triple chocolate mousse cake.

AND we had champagne, AND this weird old maitre d' with a strange accent picked a flower outside and gave it to me (I think he realized I was kind of a bumpkin because I saw him catch me bouncing a little in delight as I ate my cheese), AND we were able to watch the sun set over Lake Erie. Like I said, WASPiest evening ever.

That is, until we got back to Oberlin, where a few of us scaled a building to take a gander at the abandoned pool, and then we went to a Barrows reunion party that made us all regress a little bit to freshman year, and then we went to Agave and made queso-y fools of ourselves. All of that almost canceled out the fanciness of the earlier part of the evening.

But tonight we may be able to get it back, because it is the "dress to impress" senior supper and senior formal. I can't believe that tomorrow is when commencement weekend really begins. I wish it were last Thursday again.