Toy Story 3: Be kind to your toys

I've been begging my lovely SO to go see Toy Story 3 with me for a few weeks.  To his credit, he's a good sport and we tried to go once but it was sold out.  Luckily for me, his mom wanted to go see it too so we headed to the awesome Prytania Theatre in New Orleans.  The best thing about the Prytania (besides the sticky movie theatre candy floors of course) are the retro snack commercials they play before the movie starts.  If you open the website on the link I sent you, you'll soon have "Let's All Go to the Lobby" stuck in your head too.

But really I can't take away from the awesomeness that is Toy Story 3 by blogging extensively about cartoon snack commercials.  If you haven't seen the final round of Buzz & Woody, go see it.  I loved it, but that's not what I'm going to talk about today.

In case you're curious, and even if you're not I don't really care I present...

The Toys that I Loved that are Living in an Attic and Should Probably be Donated to a Child who will Love them but Instead will Live in the Attic Because I am Selfish:

Okay, so it probably goes without saying that I liked/like Breyer horses.  My Little Pony's weren't realistic enough, but Breyer's couldn't (and still can't really) be beat for realism and aesthetic value.  They're a bit pricy as a kids toy, but lucky for me I had a Grandmother with a shopping addiction who wanted to spoil her grand kids rotten.  Lucky for my family?  Probably not when they had to bail her out of debt several years later, but hey I had a totally bitching herd of fake horses so I was too young to care much.  These horses suffered several broken legs due to their extensive training regiments - I had a notebook where I would write down names, disciplines, and show schedules.  My grandfather built a wooden barn custom for them that had a little sign up top with "MyLastName Stables" burned into it.  Now horses, barn, and kiddy accessories all are lovingly packed up in a box in my attic.  I actually have a decent collection of these as an adult, but the carpet herd is being saved for when I might have my own horse crazy kid someday.  With my luck, there are only going to be boys who like motorcycles and zombies.

I don't have a picture, but my best stuffed companion was Brown Bear.  Yes, I realize that is a gray bear shown  in the picture.  No, brown bear was not brown.  I had an imaginative color palette and naming scheme at two.  There was also Fluffy Puppy, though I can't remember if that was actually my brother's stuffed toy.  Throughout my childhood there was a large string of stuffed animals, many got yard saled and some tossed I think.. but a lot are in the attic still.  A high light was Refrigerator Bear (another naming gem I know) who was a pink oversized bear with a rainbow on his stomach that stood taller than I did.  My dad won him for me at the NC State Fair.  He moved on at a yard sale because he was really too big to fit anywhere reasonably, sad day.

Real life circus?  Cruel and unusual punishment for animals.  Playmobil Circus?  Best thing EVER.  The highlight was a group of 6 plastic gray horses (are we noticing a theme here?) that had pink feathers for their heads and saddles.  I was very serious about training these horses.  I would line them up and shout out the secret command "Montoyo!" (I do not know where I got these things, seriously) over and over to train the plastic beasts.  This is something my dear Father has never forgotten.  So much so, that whenever I come back from a real horse show and have done well, he'll ask me if I told the horse "Montoyo!" to get that blue ribbon.  Sigh, childhood sillies.

On that note, I need to go back to pretending to work.  I'm a bit excited on the real horse front, because I found a nice gelding on Craig's List today that is looking for a half lease.  From the owner's description, he sounds like a quality animal and that's good to hear mixed in with the ads that go something like "She likes to go real fast and you don't need no saddle because she's too fat to wear one".  Will have to see, it'd be nice to ride again!

The truth is, if you whine you get what you want.

Okay, so I don't necessarily believe that  but my last post was mainly me whining about not being able to find a job.  Low and behold, I got an interview last Friday and a job offer came with it.  So, here's the big obligatory WOOHOO.  Now that I have secured employment, I'm actually a little sad that my slack lifestyle will be ending shortly.  Since this is the case, we decided to drive to New Orleans on Saturday for an impromptu trip to hang out with hubby's sister for her birthday celebration.

I love New Orleans, so do my dogs and so does everyone pretty much.  We're lucky that they're such good travelers (the dogs that is, I don't know if hubby and myself are good travelers at this point).  My spaniel freaks out a bit when he sees us packing suitcases,  but as soon as he's in the car he's just happy to be able to go somewhere. 

So yeah, not a whole lot to report besides the fact that I have to start going to an office again after the 4th of July holiday weekend, and I'm sitting in a really pretty double shotgun right now with my dogs.  Tomorrow I need to go check on our florist for the wedding, because they're not particularly good at email and seemed to have cashed our deposit check without any kind of written or verbal confirmation.  Fun fun.

Naner Bread & Bugs

I wish I had something more interesting to say, but hubby is in Chicago working and I've been left at home to my own devices.  Right now, that doesn't mean a whole lot unfortunately.  I have about three more weeks that I'm working for my job remotely, so my days are spent with a laptop on my lap watching re-runs of America's Next Top Model, applying for jobs, and doing some web design.

And at the moment, the job hunt isn't going very well.

That's pretty discouraging, because I've never had a problem finding any job in my life.  Everything from tutoring to career web design jobs, it just short of happened to me.  I suppose this is a good experience, letting me know that I'm not god or anything... but dammit I'd like a little bit of validation please.

Instead, I spent tonight alone with my dogs trying to validate myself through cooking and getting the bugs out of my house.  I don't know if it's this old house we're renting, or Texas and that whole southern heat thing, or the huge gaping hole in my porch door (well, I'm certain that has something to do with it) - but my house is infested with bugs.  We have beetles, flies, fruit flies, and the occasional spider - joy!  I googled fruit fly traps, and have had a cup with really nice organic balsamic vinagarette out for days... but the flies just laughed at my fancy vinegar and refused to die in it like they were supposed to.  I'm now resorting to moving all of hubby's fruit into the refrigerator, where it may never ripen but HOPEFULLY will not attract anymore fruit flies. 

On the cooking front, I rounded off the evening with home-made healthy banana nut bread.  I don't like bananas, but in bread form they're okay.  Plus the damn things were probably attracting more flies.  I would have taken a picture, but alas I already zipped the bread up in a bag and hid it in the refrigerator so it wouldn't get swarmed by insects.  Here's the recipe, sort of a mix of my own and something off of all recipes. 

Healthy Banana Nut Bread

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 cup Agave Nectar
2 eggs (can be left out or substituted for apple sauce for vegan bread)
1/3 cup butter / buttery spread
3 smushed bananas
1/2 cup pecans

Cook at 350 (like you cook everything in the world) until it's risen some and is just starting to brown on top.

Tacoss

I know, there's been a long absence.  I spent most of last week feeling like death, somewhere between the "oh my god I can't keep my eyes open" of mono and the "I'm so green i make kermit look like a joke" stomach flu.  I call this the "I've moved to Texas and discovered I'm allergic to tacos", because it all started with these.

Those are breakfast tacos.  They are actually yummy and delicious, but they started this whole thing so now they are to blame.  In case you weren't aware, everything in Texas comes in taco form.  You can get filet mignon tacos... out of a trailer.  You can get veggie and shrimp and breakfast and dinner and dessert.  Texas should really be re-named Tacoss.

And for the first few days I had no problem with this taco delight, but then one night we went out for Tex Mex (surprise) with some friends and I innocently consumed two strawberry margaritas.  In Massachusetts, strawberry maragaritas = sugar with a hint of tequila, but here they are no joke.  Suffice to say, it wasn't long before I was begging hubby to take me to the dessert bar at whole foods (because that would fix EVERYTHING) and acting a total fool.

The next morning I woke up and thought breakfast tacos would fix everything.  NOT.

But now I'm recovered, evidence being I'm drinking a glass of white wine without feeling like I need to go have a lay down (at least not after one).  I've got three weeks starting tomorrow of stretching out my job, which is exciting because I get paid.. but not exciting because I don't really have anything else in the hopper for future employment.  At least the hubby is willing to keep buying me tacos, it could be a lot worse!

This is just to say

I had a dream last night that I was bitten by a rat that lived in my basement with a gaggle of bunnies. The rat chased me and my flash light to bite me, so it was probably rabid.. but I decided large amounts of neosporin would cure rabies.

This rat also later turned out to be a muppet, which I tried to dispose of by flushing down the toilet and cutting various body parts off of (think van gogh, not gelding).

All of this is okay though, because this house doesn't have a basement.

Homebody goes out in Austin: Fireants, Split Rayfield and some band I didn't like

Some background about me. I'm kind of a homebody. I don't think I always used to be a homebody, and I actually don't like the term homebody (I prefer to say that I'm very good at entertaining myself) but between moving a few times and not having any friends in the area, I'm perfectly happy staying at home watching bad television, playing with my dogs, and doing artsy dorky crafts.

My fiance, is not.

He needs to be entertained, and loves going out and meeting new people. In this way, we're a really good match because I keep him in the house enough to justify paying rent and he makes sure I don't become a crazy cat lady at home alone.

So last night we went out in Austin. It's the live music capital of the world, and hubby is a big live music fan. He pitches a lot of shows to me that I have absolutely no interest in, but last night there was a bluegrass / folk / band with a mandolin playing and it sounded good to me so I agreed to go.


As we walked to the venue and passed this couple riding a souped up tractor down the road, I was glad I decided to go out. We ended up at Antone's , which is a neat little divy blues club downtown. Besides the fact that he first bartender charged me $2.50 for a diet coke (wtf dude, i'm driving drunky home), I really liked it. Smaller venue, concrete floor, simple folding tables. A place you can go in jeans and an old t-shirt and not feel like you have to impress anybody.



First band, Fireants, I loved. They're a bunch of teenagers and have that arrogant, finding their way kind of attitude that you'd expect any teenage band with some talent and credibility to have. The lead singer and fiddler has a decent voice, and an amazing talent for the fiddle. He's also a decent entertainer, though is still finding some comfort with the stage. Extra points for the super cool girl bass player. I wish I was that cool in high school (but definitely wasn't).

Second band, don't remember the name. They jumped around from being jesus freaks (with an empty whiskey bottle on the symbols... that was interesting), singing 60's television jingles, conservative "This is AMERica" songs, and ending with a GREAT song called "Fuck Fuck Fuck This Really Fucking Sucks." They didn't suck, but need some kind of consistency.



Last band, Splitlip Rayfield was the headliner and the hubby's obvious player. Granted these cell phone pictures are horrible, but if you look at the photo above you can probably notice that the bass isn't an ordinary instrument. It's a freakin' fuel tank converted into a base, and that guy was rockin' it. I should have donated him the parts from my burning car (that's a story for a later date), he probably could have turned the scarred brakes into a piano. To be honest, it was getting late (for me) at this point and I faded before the show ended - but the band was really entertaining and rich with talented musicians.

Tonight, I'm cleaning my dirty house which we've almost unpacked and looking forward to the weekend.

Texas is ridiculous.

No really, it is.

Tonight we walked to a bar near our house that has just glowing yelp reviews for having good food (Why my fiance thought going out to dinner sounded better than tofu pop hot dogs, I don't know). So when we sit down at Gibson's I don't know anything about it besides "They have really good food," and as I look at the menu it's pretty clear why they have really good food - because it's pretty much all burgers, hot dogs, and fries. Who doesn't like burgers hot dogs and fries? Not only that, but they're trailer park themed burgers & fries, because everything is cooked in a 50's silver trailer next to the bar. No need to make junk food classy in Texas, yeehaw.

So I get a grilled chicken something and the fiance gets a veggie burger. There was a brief plea from him for me to order a - and this is true - baked potato hot dog. Because a plain hot dog isn't enough oh no, but we should wrap it in bacon before putting it in a bun with a wedge of potato, cheese, sour cream, and chives. Tasty? Oh yes, but my rationale of "I walked 1/4 a mile to get here so that means I can eat french fries" wasn't extending so far as a baked potato hot dog.

Then our food arrived.


Your eyes are not deceiving you. That is a veggie burger with a donut for a bun. Ohmygoddonutbun! Neither I nor dear hubby read the fine print on this one, so this came as a surprise. A sugary fattening wonderful surprise. OK, so I only had a bite but this officially confirmed the sneaking belief I had all along - that Texas is insane and I haven't even begun to see it all here.