SHUT UPPP

My awesome, talented cousin Stewart Gray saw my crappy Paint-Brush (Pro!) artwork on that guy's "Jack Ass" plate and sent me this:
It's truly a thing of beauty! :-) From now on all Eevil drivers who need to learn how to drive/behave in public shall receive the Dreaded Jack Ass Plate Of Shame!

Thanks, Stewart, you rock!

Two wonderful years ago today I married my best friend, biggest fan, and love of my life. It was the easiest and best decision I've ever made and I honestly feel so ridiculously, undeservingly blessed that this beautiful man chose to share his life with me! I don't usually get sappy on this blog but I figure it's my blog so what the hell. :-)

We got married in a beautiful, simple celebration at a home on the San Gabriel River in Liberty Hill with everyone we love there to share it with us. It was a perfect day - beautiful weather, smiling faces, more love and joy than I've ever seen or felt in one place before or since, and no major disasters. Not even really any minor disasters. Our dear friend Rachael wrote and performed the ceremony (including one of my favorite poems of all time, see below) and then we moved the party up the hill for barbecue, dancing, and lots and lots of cupcakes. Best. Day. Ever!!

"You are joined together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.

You shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

From The Prophet by Khalil Gilbran

Happy anniversary, babe! Love you.

What's better than watching one of your favorite movies in a real theater with popcorn, two beers, and an extra sugary dessert? Watching it while it's actually ok to make fun of it out loud. Bonus points: Three guys with a microphone getting paid to make fun of it, and nine awesome, lovely, wonderful friends to share it with. This, if you aren't familiar with frakkin awesome Austin, is the Master Pancake Theater, presented by the delightful (I'm really into the adjectives today, it must be the wine) Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and it's freakin amazing and hilarious and so much fun. So last night a whole slew of us went to see them mock Jurassic Park, which is on my list of top five favorite movies ever (you can suck it if you disagree). I've always really loved velociraptors, but it turns out that what I love even more is velociraptors with British accents. And since they "pancake" the movie they cut out a whole bunch of crap that wasn't interesting and hard to make fun of. Plus we got to yell "Zing!" at all of Jeff Goldblum's "hilarious" one-liners and "Hello, Newman." at everyone's favorite TV mailman/movie computer guy (Uh uh uh! You didn't say the magic word!). But who were those drunken jackasses yelling "Hello, Newman" when the T-Rex showed up? Ohhh right. This guy. And her nine awesome, lovely, wonderful friends.

Thanks for a kick ass night, everybody. In two weeks it's Lord Of The Rings. Can't miss that one! The first three and a half hours of that crazy-long trilogy in less than two hours: the way it was meant to be seen!

I talked Griff into going to get our asses kicked this morning in a boot camp class. Fun! Wait, what's the opposite of fun? Anyway - We're standing around before class talking about some weird crap that happened last night (I'm sure that'll pop up on the blog soon) and suddenly Griff shoots me a Look. I glanced around and then I figured out what it meant: 1987 called, they want their music video wardrobe back. SERIOUSLY. Do you remember Jazzercise? How about Jessie, Kelly, and Lisa's music video from Saved By The Bell? This lady's outfit would have made any of them jealous. I don't know if words will convey the awesome. She had on turquoise bicycle shorts under a purple and blue leotard (LEOTARD!) with bright orange socks and white tennis shoes. Amazing! Where do you even get turquoise bike shorts and leotards anymore? I've got to hand it to her though, my ass would not look good in the outfit she was rockin. Then she velcro-ed on some of those ankle weight thingies to each leg, but apparently the strain was too much because she only did about half of the stuff the class was doing. Here's a tip: Take off the ankle weights. Now go change your clothes.

With yesterday's post about a big crime FAIL, I had to post an amazing crime WIN today! I don't know who did this (If it was you e-mail me you're my new BFF!) but it's quite possibly the most awesome thing ever to happen to road signs in Austin. Things to watch out for in Austin: Hippies, Leslie, and Nazi Zombies. Whoever you are, I effing love you, man. Or lady.



And suck it, people who say it's a "hazard". The roads are confusing enough without your "helpful" detour signs; I'd way rather be warned about the zombies than "MLK Closed Ahead...Still...After Three Months...Use 15th Instead...Still."

AND it's the Top Story. Even better. I love you, Universe. Sorry I was mad at you the other day - we're cool. <3

So as is the custom when a team completely destroys all competition at trivia, we brought home the trophy last week and got to add stuff to it. Turns out we're good at trivia but pretty crappy at organizing time to do creative stuff to a trophy ("I have markers." - Camden) so Dale and I wandered in to Hobby Lobby, spent four minutes(!) in the kids' crafts section, grabbed random stuff, and wandered out. Fantastic. Here are the highlights:



A shout out to Duffy and his weekly speech about "Just a reminder, there is no use of iPhones, Blackberries, schnozberries, we do have free wifi here at the Tavern but if you're Googling something, it'd better be porn!"
TToA "Googling Porn Since 2007".



Our team name won us an extra 5 points this week, so we had to commemorate it somewhere on the trophy. We're gonna be a little more hard up (TWSS) for trivia team names after January 20. It's been a good run, ol' George.



We didn't want to be too holiday-y but we had to add some jingle bells. Hopefully they'll go on to annoy other winning teams for years to come.



Mary putting the finishing touches on. Note the feathers. I thought that was a classy touch.



Annnnd the finished product! Shoes, paint pen, feathers, googly eyes, jingle bells, a button that plays "Happy Birthday" when you press it, and a Hannah Montana guitar with a pic of Cam and Duffy snuggling. It's seriously the best trophy ever. Plus it has all of our names on it, because we ARE the TToA.

Do you think we're taking this too far?
I don't think we're taking this far enough.
I just got goosebumps.

We're defending our title on Tuesday night, all suggestions for team names should be directed to the Facebook group. Aww we're nerdy but I love us.

Oh giant ten year old, where is thy sting? We totally redeemed ourselves at trivia this week, and it was awesome. Katie was in town, nobody quit, we had a dreidel, we won best team name ("If you can dodge the draft, you can dodge a shoe!") and we absolutely ruined the other teams, it wasn't even close. Trivia Team of Awesome, FTW! God bless us, every one!

While I love and appreciate ALL birthday cards and received some very creative and adorable ones this year, Katie found a way to win over my The Office-loving heart for all eternity. I give you: Flippin' Sweet Birthday Card!!



THANK YOU to everyone who made my birthday so awesomely special - my friends and family are the best ever and I can't tell you how blessed I feel to have every one of you in my life. Also, here is what I came home to after dinner and drinks on Saturday/early early Sunday morning:



Seriously - that was awesome. How cool is my family?! My mom and dad sneaked over here while we were gone and decorated. And yes, that is chimpanzee wrapping paper on my front door. :-) I LOVE YOU ALL so much! THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!! XOXO

This is a true story but the names have been deleted to protect the...well, it's only maybe a crime and it was totally by accident. ANYWAY. So, someone's cat named Avalanche (who is notorious for leaving pieces of animals as "presents" for his people) dropped off a delightful dead squirrel on the front porch recently. Thoughtful! Anyway, this person did not want to throw the squirrel away in the regular trash can because it would rot so he put it in a trash bag and dropped it in the back of his truck because apparently he's an expert at body disposal. Unfortunately, he forgot about the squirrel and subsequently drove his truck through a car wash. Squirrels don't weigh very much and trash bags act like parachutes (or sails!), and, adhering to the laws of physics, the bag and contents were whisked out of the truck and onto the floor of the car wash. Whoops. The driver didn't notice until he had pulled the truck out of the car wash and looked in his rearview mirror, just in time to see the next car in line roll over it. So yeah, somewhere in Austin there's a car wash with a trash bag with a run-over, half-eaten dead squirrel in a bag blocking its drain. That's nuts!

YUP. So there is now exactly ONE WEEK remaining until The Office returns!! Yessss! About a week and a half(ish) ago, I decided to re-watch the entire series before the Big Fifth Season starts on the 25th. So far, so good! Except who knew that OMG four seasons of this show is still a LOT of tape (awesome tape, but still...) and time. Currently, I am watching "Beach Games". If you don't know, that's on the last disc of season three. So starting probably tomorrow and then going on through the weekend (Mon/Wed next week are totally out for TV watching, damn school!) it's SEASON FOUR MARATHON!! You should totally come watch. Long live Jim and Pan! :-)

"I would rather work for an upturned broom with a bucket for a head than work for somebody else in this office besides myself. Game on!" - Aw, <3 Stanley!

Last Sunday Dale and I wandered over to HEB around 11 in the morning just to pick up a couple of things. When it was time to leave, all of the checkout lanes were understandably full, especially since it was a holiday weekend, so hoping to defy the odds we got into the "20 items or less" (can't type that without wanting to correct it) self-checkout lane. There were three lanes open and all three had people at them so we were next in line. How bad could this be?

OMG OMG OMG. Seriously? So, I don't think any of these people ACTUALLY had fewer than twenty items but that ended up being beside the point, because they're also not at all fit to operate the technology required for self-checkout use. First there was this guy there by himself who had a ton of produce he was trying to ring up. Apparently, he couldn't see the big "PRODUCE" icon there on the screen because he took out his celery (that's what she said?) and was looking for a BARCODE there on the stalks. Ummm...this is not going well. At the next line was more of a classic fail. The lady there had two children who were getting away while she had to take things out of her bags and then replace them, etc. because she couldn't figure out that doing things like touching the bag carousel messes with the scale and will F your stuff up. THEN she takes out her wallet and awesomely begins trying to shove dollars in the dollar slots at the ONE CHECKOUT LINE with a handmade (though still large enough for me to easily see from where I was standing) sign that said: CREDIT CARDS AND CHECKS ONLY - NO CASH BACK. At this point I began giggling gleefully and uncontrollably because it's just so damn funny and also my luck to be behind these jokers.

Maybe the best, though, was the yuppie couple at the third and final checkout lane. I still have no idea what exactly was going on, but at various points they were standing there doing absolutely nothing, then she yelled at him for...something, I don't know, and then they stood there doing nothing some more, then the poor cashier/babysitter came over and tried to help but was kind of chased back to her stand, then the cashier came BACK with a whole thing of coupons but at the same time the wife yelled "JUST HAVE THEM ZERO IT OUT!!" and ran back into the store. What?! It's all so amusing! So by now I'm laughing like an idiot because this is just so funny. I mean, these are exactly the people who used to treat me like crap when I was a cashier at Target in high school and I still see it while I'm waiting in line behind someone - the cashier is so inconsequential to them and it's "not a real job" or whatever and...you know what? It's not so easy, is it, beeyotches? Seriously, between the three of the checkout lines we stood there for a good eight minutes. Not all that bad if you're just in a regular line on a Sunday but to be NEXT IN LINE with three different people standing there utterly confounded and losing it was just hysterical.

Dale has gotten really good at making it look like he's not with me when I make no effort at all to hide when I laugh at the stupid things that total strangers do in public. Poor guy.

OH and for the record the lady with the two runaways and all the cash finally saw the sign, figured it out, and paid with a card. GAH! But at least we got her checkout lane. :-)

I don't know if this is listed somewhere in the Bro Code (I'm not a Bro...) but it SHOULD be. From now on, if you receive a blank text message from a friend, that is The Signal that they are trapped in an awkward situation (you and your ex ended up at the same party and your friend/date isn't there yet), horrible conversation (Creepy Guy From Work corners you at the grocery store and won't shut up about the TPS reports), bad date, job interview gone terribly wrong, whatever. The proper etiquette when receiving The Signal is to wait thirty seconds and then call the person with a "huge emergency". The job of the caller is then to listen patiently on the line for further instructions. For example, the person receiving the call could say, concerned, "Oh no! What happened?" It is then the responsibility of the caller to fill in the necessary silence, just to make it all a little more believeable. You could talk about your day or you could offer possible escape routes to your trapped friend. Anyway, the person receiving the call is in control here. If just a minor distraction was necessary and the awkward encounter has been diffused (ie, Creepy Guy From Work wandered off or your ex left the party while you were on the phone) then you can thank your friend and hang up. If it's something more serious, like a bad date that wouldn't end, this is your chance to escape! Politely tell your date that you've had a great time and you're sorry that you have to cut it short but (Fill in excuse here; be creative!) and you have to go rescue them. Hooray for friendship!

The modification to The Signal is The Time Bomb. The Time Bomb is usually texted from a secluded location: the bathroom, outside, wherever, and gives a specific time frame for the callback, ie: COUNT TO 200 AND CALL ME BACK! This is especially helpful if you're in a situation where you can't covertly send the blank text, and will give you time to get back to your table, bar stool, interview, whatever before The Call is placed.

Also I've been watching way too much HIMYM.

Yay! Because I wanted to how EXACTLY how long 'til Christmas and now you can too!

Also I downloaded a bunch of Christmas music. I know it's just now about to be September but...shut up. :oD

Ohhh best first day of school EVER! The weirdness and FAILs started at 5:00 am and just never quit. Here's the rundown:

5:15 AM, Cedar Park: COFFEE FAIL! I groggily wander in to the kitchen where my trusty coffee pot has brewed up a hot pot of some Austin Blend (bestcoffeeeverrrr). Except...what is this? There is like a teaspoon of coffee grounds in the bottom of the carafe? WTF?! I open the top of the coffee maker and LAUGH. Somehow my filter went retarded and it was all bunched up on itself. If you've heard my bajillions of weirdo coffeemaking stories before then...well, I guess you aren't surprised by this one. :-)

7:40 AM, San Marcos, LBJSC Parking Garage: PARKING FAIL! CRUNCH. Know what that sound is? It's the sound my car makes when I back it into the wall of the LBJSC garage at 5 miles an hour. OOPS. As far as I can tell though the only damage done was a very small scrape on the bumper. Still, it made me feel like a geek.

7:57 AM, The Quad: FASHION POLICE I totally passed a girl in the Quad who was wearing the following outfit: black leggings under a hot pink knee-length skirt with a white button-down shirt under a cream-colored vest. Not a joke. Unfortunately I was too sleepy to whip out my phone and get a picture but I'm PRETTY SURE I am not making this up. When I texted the description to Katie, she wrote back: Oh! First day of school in 1985!

8:00 AM, Taylor-Murphy History Building: CAN'T GO THERE Yup there's something ridiculously awesome about my 8:00 am class. I can't put too many specifics here for fear of it maybe one day somehow weirdly working its way around to the wrong person who might take offense but I will just say: Milton Waddams and the Impressive Clergyman. Ask me in person if you need more details.

9:30 AM, Evans Liberal Arts Building: VAN WILDER It was bound to happen sometime. I wandered in to the wrong class. Liked what I heard. Stayed. Naw, what really happened was that I'd already had plans to drop my Development of English class in favor of a geography class so I planned to go to the geo class that I was going to register for as soon as registration came open BUT I did indeed wander in to the wrong class. But then there was this German guy with a great accent all "Welcome to Fundamentals of GIS!" so I figured...I can do GIS for a day. It's part of my degree anyway. ;-)

12:17 AM, ELA women's bathroom: IMMEDIATE SOCIAL REJECT FAIL I didn't even know that people do this but...there was seriously a girl at school with her MOM today. Yeah - IDK either. Like there they were going from class to class and the mom was carrying a big Bookstore bag and the girl had her backpack and everything. I thought I had trouble cutting the apron strings and going off to college but never EVER in all my fear and insecurity did I think for a second to ask my mom to come with me. Never. Ever. Ever.

2:00 PM, ELA: FASHION POLICE, PART TWO Chick walked in to my last class of the day wearing ill-fitting stretchy cuffed dark blue denim shorts. I mean, there are indeed worse things that someone could wear to class. What made this a fashion fail was the white button-up sleeveless shirt she wore with it. It had all different color stripes on it and it was...TUCKED IN. Un! Flattering!! Stacy London would've had an embolism.

2:58 PM, ALKEK STEPS: RETURN OF THE FASHION POLICE! Ugh, was there some "Wear your ugliest outfit" contest that I wasn't aware of going on today? Do these people dress in the dark? WHAT IS GOING ON!? Girl comes walking down the Alkek steps in a bright yellow top with a purple cami-vest thing (couldn't really tell what was going on there) over it. Ok...I could let that go. But she had paired it with skinny jeans that were kind of loose around her thighs but skinny on her calves (think AC Slater pants!) and had light blue seams sewn down the front of either leg, from hip to ankle. Bottoming out this atrocity were pointy black boots, worn UNDER her skinny jeans. OMG. Barf.

3:06 PM, LBJSC GARAGE: TX STATE'S BANK ACCOUNT FTW! It now costs $10 to park your car in the LBJSC garage for eight hours. WTF?! Texas State, really? You hike up my tuition higher than my financial aid will pay, you charge an arm and a leg for perimeter parking and don't run enough buses to carry everybody, you raise the price of a one-way bus ticket from Austin to San Marcos to $6 (it's now cheaper to drive my car to San Marcos, gas-wise), AND you're gonna charge me ten bucks to park in your garage? I hate you. Can't I just give you my spleen, my pet unicorn, and my firstborn child and call it even? Jeezah!

So there's my day in a nutshell. Crazy, I know! Best first day of school ever, though, because now I remember why I started this blog to begin with. It's the ridiculous! And the awesome! And oh how I've missed it.

My official new hero? Whoever randomly put this picture on TV for no apparent reason what so ever during a broadcast of The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet. Not that I *watch* that show, I saw it on The Soup, and when I did I laughed and laughed and had to rewind and watch and laugh some more. And so I give you...SPAGHETTI CAT!


Ta!

So newsflash: I love the Olympics. Like, love to the point where it becomes a little crazy and obsessive and I'm not really doing much in the evenings these days because I'm watching the Olympics instead. I've always been this way, and I do it during the winter Olympics too just not as much because let's face it, I can count the number of days I've spent in a "winter" environment on my fingers. Anyway.

I am so impressed by what we're capable of. Usually I look at what we as human beings have done and kind of shake my head and sadly say "Damn..." but the past couple of days watching people who have sacrificed, driven, dreamed, and pushed their entire lives for these few days has reaffirmed my faith that we are capable of being bigger. Rising above is humanity's natural state, and I feel like we move further from that with each war, trashy reality show (oh how I love them), intolerant state of mind, hateful word, fast food chain, impatient moment, and political decision. But sitting in my parents' living room flipping out over an intensely exciting swimming race (I'm just saying...don't make four American athletes angry before you jump in the pool with them. Consider THAT a lesson learned, France.) jumping up and down with my family and our dogs(!) and knowing that across the world there are hundreds of thousands of people feeling the same way, doing the same thing, I am reminded that we are all connected all of the time. I might not know any of their names, where they come from, what they believe in, but it absolutely does not matter. The point is that they are exactly the same as me on a human level, and because we are all exactly the same, we are all individual pieces of something much bigger and more powerful than any of us know.

And we are all connected from birth until death, whether we nurture the connection or not. It's an amazingly comforting thought and it's the reason that I geek out with anticipation months before the opening ceremonies. It's why I love Christmas time - there is nothing that I share with more people on a more regular basis. I love feeling human.

I'm totally bringing back "Rad". It's super functional, brings back good memories, and is really fun to say. So spread the word, RAD is back! Oh and don't be like Dale and when I say "You're so rad!" look at me confused-ly and say back "Resident Assistant on Duty?" because no, you're not R.A.D., you were RAD but now you're a NERD and also maybe have been at your job too long. So YES, RAD ie. "TOTALLY AWESOME". Use it today and get a gold star!!