Day 13 – Favorite board game

Dear Hasbro -

Thank you so for the hours, nay, the months spent on various living room floors and kitchen counters over the years playing Connect Four.  As a child, there was no greater test of strategy, bluffing & general out-tricking one another than a round or 700 of your blue, yellow, red & black goodness.

Yours truly -
- Cari "let's try for Connect Five" Wheat

(UNO was a very, very strong contender for this category... but it always involved too much luck of the draw to really feel like you were outsmarting your friends & family.  Connect Four had nothing to hide, no surprises.  I always admired that...)

Day 12 – A prized possession

This was the easiest answer in The Challenge yet. With not even one ounce of hesitation, I can promise that if my place was ever on fire (God forbid), I'd grab this painting and run.

Shortly after I'd decided to leave San Francisco for New York (with a looooooong layover in Spain in between) - I asked my friend Mitch Temple to paint this from a snapshot.  He gladly took on the challenge and promised to have it ready for me when I got back from Barcelona in six months.  I could hardly wait but knew, based on other work of his, that the wait would be well worth it.   (That's the back of my head in the Stills icon.)

A few weeks later my wonderful coworkers from Boys & Girls Clubs took me out for a lil' good-bye shin-dig.  At some point, Jim, our softhearted boss said something like... "Cari, we all love you so much and we just wanted to see if we could make you cry one more time."  He then unveiled the painting, finished ahead of schedule and purchased as a going away gift from the team.  And yes, it had the intended affect.  Not a dry eye in the room.   I obviously love it and cherish it because it's me & my mom.  But I'm also acutely aware of what a lovely thing that was of Jim et al to do and what a treasure it is to also have those people and that time associated with the painting. 

Best. Gift. Ever.

Since then, I've hauled this prized possession from apartment to apartment, city to city, never letting it far from my sight and certainly never locking it up in storage with the rest of my things.  It's always the first thing on the walls when I arrive and the last thing to come down - some proof of that below. 

Everything cleared out from the SF apartment, 'cept for the painting. 
(That's the Closet of Sin in the background for anyone paying attention.)

Before a single other thing was moved into the current Denver apartment.
Was just me, my sleeping bag & the painting for a few days.

It's also fantastic each time someone asks me who the little girl is in the painting with me... and kinda unnerving.  Yes, she was about my age when this photo was taken and yes, we are mirror images one of the other now. 

Just another reason to love it so and to always hang it first, in a place of honor.  Usually somewhere near the door to make it easy to grab on the way out.
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Day 11 – Your favorite food

So many delicioso choices, so little time.  I've spent most of today drooling over an extremely long list of favorite foods for today's photo.  Mac & cheese (from the blue box to lobster-mac to my old standby of trailer trash tuna casserole), The Spotted Pig's Devils on Horseback, Park Chow's Warm Ginger Cake w/ Mitchell's Pumpkin Ice Cream, Corner Bistro's burgers, ballpark hot dogs, my mom's cheesecake, Shake Shack's Pumpkin Pie Concrete (there's an actual slice of pie in there!), Hurts So Good Thai, Copeland's Shrimp & Tasso Pasta, Monkey Bread, Max's Reuben Bites, and on and on and on. 

But, since the idea is to post only one photo...  It should be no surprise to anyone that I'd pick an Amy Blackburn creation.   Feast your eyes on "Medio Kilo" - so named by Amy, Libby & I on a (too long ago) trip to Spain and based on the half-kilo each of caught-that-day calamari, shrimp & mussels.

Not only was the dinner delightful, but the company, the scenery, the "did you know's", the Bailey's in the morning coffee, the botched Spanish, the cliff that nearly ate the car, the terraces, the Christmas Crackers, the blown fuses, the champagne opened with teeth, the grapes at midnight, the wood burning stove, the dance parties, The Game -- all those ingredients, in one tasty dish.  Not too shabby.

Medio Kilo recipe here - enjoy!

Day 10 – Your bedroom (In its current state)

Finally, an easy day - not a lotta thought or waxing nostalgic on this one... or is there??

An actual bedroom has been somewhat elusive in recent years.  How many of you have heard me say that all I wanted after buying my place in NYC was to sell it soon and get myself a bedroom?  Not a bigger apartment or a house but a bedroom.  Studio living is for the young and for neatniks.  I posses neither of those qualities.


My last apartment in San Francisco was a studio too but had a closet just big enough for my bed to fit.  That wasn't technically a bedroom, that was the Closet of Sin (thanks Ryan!).  I ditched that little double bed when I left SF because I was going to be a grown up that got a big girl bed when I got to New York.  Unless of course, the first apartment that Amy & I shared in the East Village had a bedroom so small that a bigger bed literally wouldn't have fit into it - so repurchased yet another little double bed.  ARGH!  I managed to upgrade from that to no bedroom at all with the Hell's Kitchen spot... feh, whatareyagonnado?

Fast forward to Denver, a move West, to wide open plains and tons of space, to an affordable town with normal-sized housing (as opposed to SF or NYC sized shoeboxes).  Now, now I'd get a ginourmous bedroom, and a massive bed, with thousands of pillows and acres of space for all manner of fancy matching bedroom set furniture.  Wait... no?  Apparently you can take the girl out of crammed city living, but you can't quickly take the tiny apartment living out of the girl. But it *is* a bedroom, with doors, so there's that.  Progress.

Current bedroom shot below, try not to trip over yourself while getting in and out of that Queen sized beauty...

 

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100 Day Challenge - days 1-9

You gotta appreciate a girl that throws down a 100 Day long challenge and then lets the people around her make what they will of it.  A debt of gratitude to Michelle for getting this started, and for the gentle arm twist to take it on.  Read more and see the list of all 100 Days' themes at Michelle's blog here.

On the surface, the idea is to post one photo each day for 100 days, each day being a different, pre-set topic.  Easy right?  Until you're me and you find the need to explain each and every photo and somehow find yourself exploring fond memories, scary pasts and hilarious adventures - not to mention future hopes & dreams.

Days 1-9 are on FB.  Start there and then I'll see you back here at ...but we're making good time for Days 10-100.  Hope you enjoy either way.  I also hope you get inspired and share your own 100 Days with the world.

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