Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

I haven't been taking the time to blog recently. Probably because... oh, I don't know, I was underwhelmed by Eclipse? I've given yoga a second chance? I've been baking birthday cakes? I've been watching soccer and baseball and wondering what in the world LeBron James is thinking?

And of course, it's summer, and since I spend all day working, the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit in front of a computer.

There it is, and here we are.

So: down to business.

Let's start with Eclipse. I started reading the Twilight series in the first place because I missed the thrill of the Harry Potter novels (which I started reading as a teenager). I read all four Twilight novels and liked them well enough, but I knew even two years ago that they paled in comparison to what J.K. Rowling created. Are Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner attractive? Yes. Did I leave the movie theater Sunday night swooning over fictional predators? No.

I've also been on a birthday-cake-making kick recently.

KS and I made Ina Garten's Double-Chocolate Layer Cake for MG's birthday about a month ago (which I would highly recommend if you enjoy the combination of coffee and chocolate) and I also made BF a red velvet cake a few weeks ago using this recipe I found via TasteSpotting. I can't recommend that website enough, by the way.

After being disappointed over the lackluster showing of Eclipse, I asked KS if she would want to try another nearby yoga studio on Monday morning, since we had it as a holiday.

(MG has been gone a lot recently, if you can't tell. Come home soon, dear friend!)

We found a power yoga studio near us and ended up in an 8:30am class which was thankfully about 25 degrees cooler and far less crowded than the Bikram class we took a few months ago. And you know what? I liked it. A lot. All I needed was a little climate control.

As for the world of sports: the World Cup final is this Sunday. Spain will take on The Netherlands and both teams will be battling for their first-ever World Cup Final win. It's compelling and rich.

The Texas Rangers are currently leading the AL West and have been fun to watch the past six weeks or so from the comfort of my couch in my air-conditioned house, because did I mention how much I enjoy climate-controlled rooms? (Even though, as I type this, they are having an 8th inning melt-down against the Baltimore Orioles).

Regarding LeBron James, NBA free-agent extraordinaire who created quite the circus and landed himself an hour-long show tonight on ESPN called "The Decision"- I'd love to know what he is thinking. He just left a solid career with a team built around him (players, coaches, GM) for Miami, where he undoubtedly hopes to win championships by joining forces with Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade. He essentially broke-up with the city of Cleveland on live television.

Is he deliberately trying to alienate himself from his home state? What does his behavior say about kids my age (we are both 25 year old)? And why does he wear so much Louis Vuitton?

So many rhetorical questions; even fewer answers.

Good night, world.

Ousier: I'm not speakin' to you.

Drum: Oh, what a shame!

Ousier: I mean it, Drum.

Drum: Ouiser, can we call a truce long enough for me to get a piece of cake?

[Ouiser slices him the tail piece of red velvet armadillo cake]

Drum: Aww, thanks Ouiser. Nothin' like a good piece of ass*.

-Steel Magnolias, 1989

*Please pardon the French.

What's Old is New Again

I spotted this little framed piece of greatness at an antique store in my hometown over the weekend:


I considered buying it, but I was already purchasing a few framed prints from other vendors for my newest home decorating project: my staircase. We just signed on for another year in our rental house and I'll be darned if I didn't walk into the newly renovated Kate Spade store in Northpark mall the other day and see this decorated wall and immediately decide to attempt something similar:


Forgive the poor iPhone photo- it was taken surreptitiously. You get the idea.

Oh and I bought this chair at an estate sale last Saturday. For $24:


Who wants to go look at fabric samples tomorrow? Nothing against the color pink but this fabric has seen better days. The better days were probably 40 years ago.

Have a great weekend!

A cheerful disposition is one that allows a tea kettle to sing while up to its neck in hot water.

-Unknown (from first photo)

Memorial Day {Photos}

I figured that the day after Memorial Day would be the best for sharing some of the photos I took when I visited Pearl Harbor last month...

I think it's one of those places every American should visit once in their life.

And this is actually a photo of Omaha Beach from my study-abroad trip to France. It has to be one of the most peaceful places on Earth.

Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic.

-John A. Logan

From Scratch

I've been a bit uncreative recently. I haven't felt much like reading novels, which I typically love, and I feel uninspired to write. I'm not sure if the two are connected.

I've been writing this blog for almost two years now, and a lot has changed since I began. I am now almost two years beyond my time living in New York City. I started blogging in the first place on The New(York)Comer because I moved to NYC with my friends AV and KR and I wanted to chronicle our journey together. I got a huge kick out of writing about all our crazy stories and hearing from random people who had been reading it.

About a year later, I moved back to Texas.

I wanted to keep blogging, so I started writing The Manhattan Transfer to talk about the next step in my journey: transitioning to life in Dallas. While New York was an invaluable and humbling experience for me that I will always view as important to my spiritual, personal and career development, I've grown up a lot since then and a lot has changed.

Half of THIS blog (if we're talking about humbling experiences) was written while I was still living under my parents roof in the suburbs after moving back from NYC. I'm now coming up on the one-year anniversary of living in Dallas with KS and MG and I feel more established here. I had never lived IN Dallas until I moved here last May. If I'm going to have a blog, I think it should reflect where I am in my life.

I mean, for the love, I was wishing friends MY AGE a happy Mother's Day today.

You know?

There are a lot of things I enjoy doing, but writing is at the top of the list. It really is. Rather than frustrate myself over how to re-mold this blog, I think I prefer to archive it and start afresh. The New(York)Comer reflected what it was: my friends and I as newcomers to New York, right out of college. The Manhattan Transfer reflects what it has been as well: transitioning my life to Dallas.

Now I have to figure out what exactly I want my next blog phase to look like.

I wish I could whip up a new blog name and design as easily as I can put dinner on the table (that was a bit self-congratulatory, I grant you), but alas, I confess I'm a bit incompetent when it comes to web-design. Hopefully there are some web designers who confess they don't know a shallot from a spring onion or how to use a pastry bag, and then I'll feel better about myself.

I'll cook you dinner- you design my blog. If only starting from scratch could be so easy, right?

I'll keep y'all posted on my progress and keep writing here in the meantime.

After all, the show must go on.

When you're finished changing, you're finished.

-Benjamin Franklin

"I'm not really a dessert person"

One great thing about Hawaii is that there are no snakes there. No snakes! The largest land predator in Hawaii is the human.

Strange as it may sound, this helped me sleep at night.

Once you venture out into the ocean though, it's a different story. People would say things like "Oh I don't like that beach, too many sharks." And I would be calm on the outside but thinking: "Too many sharks? I'm inclined to think ONE is too many."

Needless to say, I have what I consider to be a healthy fear of the ocean. I respectfully keep my distance, admiring the lovely coastline, lying in the powdery sand and occasionally dipping my feet in when I need to cool off.

It's probably a shame that I am seafood-averse, since it's everywhere in Hawaii. Probably because it's an island.

Ignore my obvious commentary.

Anyway, even someone with a limited palate, such as myself, can eat amazing food in Oahu.

After picking me up from the airport with a lovely yellow lei (sometimes things are just like the movies), ND took me to the only five-star hotel on the island for dinner at The Halekulani.

Everything in Hawaii is set up to make you feel like you are outdoors, which with their weather, is quite lovely. We ate at House Without a Key and I had delicious roasted chicken with cilantro butter (combining two of my favorite ingredients) a green salad with balsamic and asparagus.

ND, meanwhile, had eaten sushi right after school and ordered only drinks and dessert. The dessert? Coconut cake. I'll caveat this by saying that I'm not really a dessert person. I like it, but day to day I live without it**.

I can honestly say that now, in my post-coconut-cake existence, that I don't want to live in a world that does not include that most heavenly of cakes. It was that good. That perfect, even. The cake was light and sweet, the frosting was creamy and there were raspberries involved. We went back to the same place on Saturday night and ordered different entrees but split another because we could not pass it up.

Another restaurant ND raved over and took me too was an authentic Greek place called The Olive Tree. Their hummus and pita could have filled me up for the evening but the chicken souvlaki won me over as well. I was sorry not to have KS with me to try the house-made baklava at the end of the meal, since it was easily the best I've ever had.

Since it got windy and chilly at night, we also ventured out one night with ND's roommate E for some Vietnamese pho. I had never tried it and for something that looked like a broth-y soup, it was actually very filling. I put some sriracha with it as well, which made me want to learn to cook more Asian dishes.

As is well-documented on this blog, I am also coffee drinker. No, that's being too polite to myself: I am a coffee snob. No one makes better coffee than me and my N'espresso machine. Away from my beloved coffeemaker for an entire week, I knew I would have to make due. What I did not anticipate was liking the local, Kona blend coffee so much. I'm used to one cup of coffee a day and so I got a little amped up on refills a few days when we were having long breakfasts or brunches.

The Saturday morning I was there was a treat because we went and visited the big local farmer's market. I just went to a farmer's market in my hometown a few weeks ago with my mom, so I was expecting something small-scale and charming with a few merchants.

Not at all.

The farmer's market was huge and bustling and a culinary adventure completely on its own. I should have known I would like it after an unassuming table with an espresso machine at the entrance sold me a truly fantastic latte. We walked from table to table to see and smell all manners of fresh fruits, flowers and vegetables; curries, eggs benedict, sushi, pizza, snocones, before settling on slices of pizza that I kept seeing everywhere: a layer of pesto topped with yellow and red tomatoes, fresh mozzerella and chopped basil. For breakfast, no less.

I followed that up with purchasing a fresh coconut, whose water I drank through a straw. It made me look like a tourist but I loved it.

During one day of my trip I randomly asked ND about Leonard's, which kept catching my eye whenever we drove down the same main road through town. ND wanted to curse me for noticing it, but Leonard's, she told me, is an institution in Oahu. Leonard's makes delicious, Portuguese donut-like balls called malasadas, which you can purchase coated in something as simple and time-honored as cinnamon and sugar, or you can get them with different flavored fillings like chocolate, coconut cream or mango.

Needless to say, we stopped and bought half a dozen different flavors to sample.

One book I was particularly glued to during my trip was The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. If you're not into cooking or don't find culinary school interesting, you probably wouldn't like it, but it made me look at and appreciate the food on my plate and the labor that went into making it so much more. It's such an art form.

My friends in Dallas can expect me to attempt making coconut cake, the farmer's market pizza and chicken souvlaki in the near future. And probably homemade hummus. I'll spare them the guilty-pleasure malasadas.

For now.

Food is our common ground, a universal experience.

-James Beard

**This would later prove to be a false statement, as evidenced by the remainder of this post.

*P.S. I did not link any of the restaurants listed, but if you ever find yourself in Oahu and would like a more comprehensive list of restaurants to visit, feel free to e-mail me!

*P.P.S. Chocolate-dipped macadamia nut cookies. That is all.

The Island Report

*Tap tap*

Is this thing on?

Hi! Remember me? I'm alive!

I've (reluctantly) returned from island life and I'm back on "the mainland", as the Hawaiians call it.

People keep asking me what I did on vacation and the short answer is that I went to Oahu to hang out with ND, relax and get a tan.

I got in the lovely routine of going to bed around 10pm at night and waking up at 6am every day, completely on my own and without alarms. ND showed me around the island that she has called home for the past three years and I got to drink various tropical things on various coasts on the island- all harboring clear water and sand comparable to superfine sugar.

While ND was at school I would take long walks around Waikiki, grabbing my morning coffee, reading the paper, going to the beach and listening to sports-radio all day (my favorite local Dallas station, thanks to the Wunder Radio app on my iPhone).

And no, I am not to be confused with a senior-citizen.

I realize this might make for a less-than thrilling vacation story, but it's exactly what I wanted. ND was just back to Hawaii from a visit to UC Berkeley, where she will be a first-year law student this fall, so we got to celebrate her last five weeks as a teacher and we were very much on the same page as far as soaking in island life and UV rays.

I also ate a lot of great food and I got to visit Pearl Harbor, which was definitely a highlight for me (it was me and the veterans at 7:15am, but again I remind you: I'm not a senior citizen). I'll expand on both of those things later this week- you will read ALL ABOUT my culinary experience in Oahu and my trip to Pearl Harbor, which I think every American should experience if they ever possibly can.

I actually got back to Texas early Friday morning, but I slept most of that day and night and spent the rest of this weekend catching up with my friends and watching the Mavericks lose two awful play-off games against the Spurs.

I've also been avoiding my Google Reader, which is reporting that I have a foreboding "1000+" new items to read.

I might be in denial; about my basketball team, my Reader and the fact that I won't wake up tomorrow morning in a high-rise condo three blocks from the beach at sunrise to the sound of doves cooing.

Which reminds me... I need to set an alarm.

The cure for anything is salt water- sweat, tears or the sea.

-Isak Dinesen

Aloha

image

I subscribe to 97 blogs.

I had never taken the time to count them all, but using Google Reader and seeing things like "390 Unread Items" made me look and count the total a few weeks back.

So yes, 97 it is. It seems that the "Add a Subscription" button is quite easy to utilize.

I realize that this devotedness to other blogs means that I myself have been writing less often recently.

Don't think I've forgotten about blogging, or that my sports-related Throwing Like a Girl posts are going anywhere anytime soon (you know you like them).

The only thing I can really focus on right now is the fact that I'm going to Hawaii this week.

Hawaii. This. Week.

It's okay to be jealous.

I'm going to visit my friend ND, who has lived in Hawaii teaching high school for nearly three years, and will be leaving this summer to attend law school in California. So this was my last chance to go visit her before she leaves.

And not to mention, spend a week perfecting a tan in utter paradise.

At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided.

-Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Danger & Pineapple

I think I could just write this post with the following message:

Bikram tried to kill me last night.

The end.

And if you knew what I was talking about, you would offer your condolences, maybe make a masseuse recommendation and ask me what I was thinking.

Because really, what was I thinking?

I would then post a photo of my roommates and I dripping in blood, sweat and tears- (did I mention the sweat and the sweat?) and those of you who previously did not know what Bikram entailed would NOW know the aftermath.

The brochure MG, KS and I perused after getting our cheap, one-month memberships informed us that an emotional response was possible when participating in Bikram. I was also trying to gauge the possibility of me passing out in such a setting.

Seemed pretty likely to me.

I wasn't wrong.

MG suggested we come up with a code word when once of us started feeling light-headed or blacking-out, since she and I have been known to do such things. She offered up the word "pineapple" while I went for the more obvious "danger."

In preparation for our first class, we all drank water all day. I drank three regular 16-ounce bottles of water this morning and then two 34-ounce bottles of Smart Water with electrolytes. I ate light and nutritious all day and didn't eat three hours before classtime. I thought I was ready.

Au contraire, mon frère.

The class was wall-to-wall packed and after about 20 minutes of poses in the heat, I could feel my heartbeat getting a little higher than it needed to be. Even sitting perfectly still, criss-cross applesauce style on my mat, I was completely out of breath and dripping with perspiration. The three of us were separated due to getting there on the later-end, and I could gradually see MG slowing down as we went along. I had less of a view of KS, but she powered through about 75% of the way before hitting a bit of a wall.

We all got plenty of practice with the corpse pose, let's say that much.

I left class what I thought was early when I just couldn't take it anymore, but what turned out to be exactly 90 minutes from when we had entered. The class ran about 15 minutes late, and MG clamored to get out the door into the breezy outside to be able to breathe again. KS appeared a few minutes later and her face was kind of frozen and swollen-looking, which I've never seen happen to her.

We dragged ourselves to the car and picked up Crystal Light Icees at a nearby 7-11 as a reward.

The silver lining in all of this was that I think I would actually benefit from these classes if they kicked down the thermostat from Sweltering Amazon Rainforest to Breezy New England Beach Town. I'm strong but inflexible, which Yoga is a great fix for, so I'm inclined to try it again.

In the air-conditioning, of course. Just wanted to be clear about that.

Bikram is one-and-done.

Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.
-B.K.S. Iyengar

Jesse's Girl

I think we can all agree that Saturdays are wonderful.

Unless you work on Saturdays, in which case they may be a little bit less than wonderful to you, but let's not ruin my story.

Saturday morning I woke up to glorious sunshine. I had plans to meet AV for brunch, so I showered, put on a cute little outfit, opened my sunroof and drove to meet her at Toulouse in Dallas.

MK gave us a ring and picked us up to go with she and her friend in town, C, to the Nasher Sculpture Museum. The Nasher is free on the first Saturday of the month, and since it's partially outdoors and the weather was gorgeous, there were people everywhere. There was a yoga class going on, children running in all directions with face paint on, security guards fighting the uphill battle of telling said children that they were not allowed to play on or touch the statues, etc.

We weren't in a hurry, we were just... there. I loved it.

After departing the Nasher, we walked down the street to the Ritz-Carlton to sit outside and get a drink.

Drinking in the afternoon... at the Ritz-Carlton.

Nothing to see here, folks.

After being told that the pool was on the second floor and available to hotel guests only, MK thanked the hotel employee and in true MK fashion, turned around to us and said: "Let's go find the pool."

So of course, we ended up sitting by the pool at the Ritz in lounge chairs, sunglasses on, loving life. MK's friend C had never been to Texas, and was already getting a favorable first impression.

We had just received our drinks and while sipping from our mimosas, a familiar face walked outside to join a rail-thin girl who had finished a work-out and was relaxing in a chair to our left.

I'm not a fan of celebrity gossip, but I love movies and watch T.V. and all, so on rare occasion, I recognize people.

Bringing the long-stemmed plastic glass up to cover my lips, and without looking at her I said very quietly to AV:

"John Tucker Must Die?"

Without flinching and reaching for her own glass, I heard a very quiet "mhmmm" to confirm.

That's right- John Tucker, aka ridiculously good-looking actor Jesse Metcalfe, was also at the Ritz pool.

All I can say is thank goodness we were all wearing sunglasses, because I think any one of us could now tell you that he was in Dallas filming the pilot episode for a new show after mercilessly eavesdropping... and could also tell you exactly where the tattoos are on his shirtless body. I'm pretty against asking photos and autographs in general, but I did manage this one behind-the-scarf candid...

You're welcome.

Cause she's watching him with those eyes...

-Rick Springfield, Jessie's Girl

Warmer Weather

I ran across this dress online the other day, and I saved the link, labeling it:

"I want this dress."

Ballet Interlude Dress

I felt the need to share. Can't you see why?

Sure, that dress would be pretty if it were strapless, but how much more interesting is it with the black straps?

While shopping over the weekend, I started seeing the first signs of spring: Easter and prom dresses. Pink in particular, was everywhere.

Pink isn't really my color though.

I'm a brunette with brown eyes, and my skin tans easily in the summer. I will always stand by my love for neutral colors, but I don't think they have to be boring and they certainly are not limited to winter-wear. I spotted the two dresses below and they are only perpetuating my love of the color combination that these all have of a shade of nude/beige with a bit of black contrast.

I love these scalloped edges...

'Priscil' Scalloped Dress

... and this zipper.

Tiered-Skirt Contrast Dress

Since I'm not big on pastels (including pink), I like that these dresses are still ruffly and light enough for spring.

Now to find the skin-tone that matches them so well...

The best color in the whole world is the one that looks good on you.

-Coco Chanel

A Better Understanding

(Photo credit to my aunt and uncle, whose ranch was covered in a lovely layer of white this week.)

My Gmail needs a good purging. I try to delete emails as I see fit, but I also don't like deleting particularly funny little exchanges between some of my friends. I keep the gems.

I ran across this email that I sent to MG last week as a follow-up to a discussion on pronunciation woes that we had had the night before. I realized that this email is so very me, it is such the perfect example of my personality and how my brain works, that it's almost comical.

Sometimes I capitalize words that need to be capitalized, other times I'm too lazy and use all lowercase letters. Sometimes I just find all lowercase more charming. When I run across a word or a phrase I don't know (I think I'm the only person who still wants to learn Latin), I look it up immediately, though I should probably pay more attention as to how to pronounce the word itself instead of the definition.

I realize that I'm strange. At least I embrace it.

from: Amy
to: MG
date: Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 8:56 AM
subject: pronunciation

remember the crudites conversation from last night? (side note: i don't always feel like looking for letters with accent marks and i don't know the short cuts, but i know one should be there. by now i could have found it and not been annoyed with it, but i still don't feel like it... just had to get that off my chest.)

okay so i was trying to think of a word that tripped me up in a similar fashion, and i found one!

"dossier"

i used to say, in my head of course, "dough-shur."

it is, in fact, pronounced "dos-ee-ey."

i won't even admit that it was an episode of gossip girl that revealed this to me.

we can't have these french words embarrassing us up like this, it's unacceptable. we are more cultured that this. our next continuing education class needs to be beginning french.

peace, love, appetizers of raw vegetables and a collection of documents about one subject,
amy

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
-Oscar Wilde

Let There Be Light

Early Thursday morning, it started snowing, which persisted into Friday. This would not be out of the ordinary in many parts of the world, which I realize, but in Texas that much snowfall is most unusual.

On Thursday night schools started canceling class for Friday and local weathermen were having a heyday because of the record-setting inches which kept falling. Emails started buzzing about snowball fights and huddling up indoors to watch movies and drink cocoa.

Friday morning I woke up and immediately attempted to turn on my TV to see what the traffic and road conditions would be for trying to get to work. No luck. I then tried turning on the lamp on to my left next to my bed. No luck again. I sat up in bed and brushed the top of my duvet, which was freezing.

We had lost power.

I washed my face and threw on jeans and a North Face because there would have been no way of drying shower-wet hair, nor was I having much luck finding anything in the darkness of my closet. I was even on my hands and knees feeling each one of my shoes as I would imagine a blind person reads Braille. Efforts at looking presentable were futile.

My roommates kept me up to speed with the power-situation throughout the day, which was that we didn't have any, and MG told me that we could stay with her parents who live five minutes from our house, until our power returned. I drove home after work to check our house and get what I needed to stay away from home for a night so that I could have everything settled.

Friday was my dear friend AVs birthday, and a group of us drove from Dallas to Ft. Worth to eat dinner at Joe T. Garcia's and then go to Billy Bob's for a Miranda Lambert concert. MK was driving us and while trying to park in a snowy field next to the concert hall for $5, her car got stuck. AV, CC and I hopped out of the car in our cowboy boots and started pushing while MK tried the gas pedal to get the car to budge. I was thankful to be wearing old cowboy boots that can withstand the elements, because we were sliding all over the place after falling knees to the ground into the snow and finally getting MK's car moving.

AV has had more white birthdays in recent years than I have, a fact of which I am supremely jealous because I also have a winter birthday but very few of my 25 have seen snow. We scurried inside to get out of the cold wind with our cold and now muddy tights, and MK threw a snowball at me as I told her to "walk with purpose" after she was offering up ill-advised piggy-back rides.

We had a great time and I returned to MG's family's home feeling like a teenager sneaking in after curfew. I woke up Saturday morning to find that the G's were also harboring MG's brother, his wife and their golden retriever, who live a street over from us and were also still without power. Seven people and three dogs under the same roof.

We made more trips to our house after coming to terms with the fact that we would need more clothing to survive the weekend, and somehow I ended up bringing five pairs of boots into the room where I was staying. Five pairs of boots and my own room and bathroom in the G's house... you can tell we were really roughing it, can't you?

MG and I were feeling both productive and a little helpless today after church and finally decided to face the carnage of our refrigerator before it got any worse. With the power still out, we opened all the blinds in the kitchen and filled four trash bags with the contents of both our fridge and freezer, save for the alcohol, which was unaffected. I ascertained during the purge that we have an affinity for cheese, hummus, barbeque sauce and frozen pizza at our house. On the bright side, our fridge has not been this clean since the day Home Depot delivered it.

KS and I went to dinner tonight (she was a lovely Valentine, I must say) and while eating I got an email beep on my phone that MG's brother had sent, telling us our power was back on. We bolted as soon as we could sign our checks at the restaurant, did a quick drive past our house to make sure he wasn't playing a cruel older-brother joke on us and confirmed the power was indeed on, then went back to pack our things. No one else was home and we left a note but otherwise I felt like we were thieves in the night, stealing away with bags of ours clothing, hair-dryers, boot collections and other essentials that had been brought with us. The G's could not have been better hosts- I think we were just thrilled at the idea of waking up in our own beds and not having to make anymore trips for those one or two things we forgot at home.

My immediate concern after packing up was the fact that we were now without coffee creamer at home. This may seem trivial, but when you can make the world's greatest coffee at your house and you've been without it for three days, your priorities change accordingly. Never mind milk and bread; I needed Original Fat-Free Coffee-Mate. I went three places to find it too.

Our refrigerator is now home to multiple bottles of beer, wine, prosecco, strawberry yogurt and Coffee-Mate, naturally. The freezer has ice-cubes and one loner bottle of Tanqueray gin.

Home sweet home... and happy Valentine's day.

He made the world to be a grassy road before her wandering feet.

-W.B. Yeats

Vegas in Pictures

{That's the dress on the right- you can't really tell but there is practically a jigsaw puzzle's worth of beading on the front. I liked it. A lot.}

Vegas is a funny place. Funny and ridiculous, cheesy and entertaining. It's like people cross into the desert and see slot machines and suddenly they exchange common decency for poker chips, yard-long margaritas, tiny dresses and impossibly-high heels.

KH and I had a great time relaxing at The Mirage, where we were staying, seeing Garth Brooks at the Wynn on Friday night and the Cirque du Soleil show "O" at the Bellagio on Saturday night. It was fun to see two completely different shows and we were big fans of both.

KH is only 2.5 years younger than me, but growing up it seemed like a bigger gap because her brother and my brother are in-between us. Our moms are sisters and have similar mannerisms which we make fun of ourselves for mimicking; our dads are both hard-working, more reserved men and we have their similarly dark features (though she is ridiculously more tan than I am right now). Our personalities are very different but we have an understanding of each other and her role in my life in irreplaceable. She is the closest thing I will ever have to a sister.

It's fun.

We came, we saw, {we ate, we shopped}, we conquered.

I check the odds

And I place my bet

I pour a drink

And I pull the blind

And I wonder what I'll find

I'm leaving Las Vegas...

-Sheryl Crow, Leaving Las Vegas

Vegas Attire

So I'm going to Las Vegas this weekend.

Hooray!

My cousin KH and I will be flying there tomorrow afternoon and will be there through Sunday evening. She is a senior in college (translation: legal) and newly single so we have some fun plans in mind, but I'm also hoping for quality time with my pillow, a visit to the spa, yoga by an infinity-pool (just seems very Vegas, right?) and some leisurely book-reading and brunching.

I am selective about the way I like to plan things and what I actually take time to plan. I like to plan outfits and menus most of all. I put things together in my head so that I don't destroy my room every morning picking out something to wear for work. I successfully make a mess anyway, mostly with the 11 pillows on my bed that end up on the floor, but that's neither here nor there.

I began my Vegas wardrobe planning earlier this week because I've been to Vegas before, but only for work. Based on my experience, work clothes and Vegas clothes may as well be opposing forces. Business professional does not overlap- in any universe- with lucite platform heels that have goldfish swimming inside of them.

I'm a pretty modest person. I'm 25 now, and a frayed denim mini-skirt circa 1998 Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't really scream "I take myself seriously" now does it? I also don't believe that modest has to translate to homely. Modest can be sexy, it's just a different kind of appeal.

When I looked at what I wanted to pack, it ended up being various forms of black, gray and white. Black blazer, black cardigan, white cardigan, gray tank, white tank, black boots, dark jeans etc. This completely works for me on a daily basis and after all, it's still January. I needed something fun, something different from my every-day staples to wear, and after taking stock of my closet a bit better, I noticed that I completely prefer color in accessories. I love a bright pink clutch, my ubiquitous blue wrap or my quilted yellow Tory Burch Reva flats. I had good choices but still wanted one new dress or piece to wear for the trip.

I started looking and most everything of color that I found was not my taste, for example the neon-orange strappy cork-wedge heels with metallic studs all over them which made me want to run in fear back to J.Crew to hide behind their ruffly cardigans and tailored City pants.

After that initial defeat of finding only offensively bright items, I remembered a dress I had spied right after Christmas. It was an unusual Phillip Lim 3.1 shift that was colorful in a striking way. I remembered wishing at the time that I had a New Year's Eve party to attend that would be worthy of such a number.

{Insert Vegas trip.}

I located said frock and ended up purchasing it, and the print reminds me of a Jackson Pollock painting. It is perfectly modest-sexy; the pièce de résistance to my Vegas wardrobe.

Pictures will come- since we all know that what happens in Vegas ends up on the Internet.

Alan Garner: Can I ask you another question?
Lisa: Sure.
Alan Garner: You probably get this a lot. This isn't the real Caesar's Palace, is it?
Lisa: What do you mean?
Alan Garner: Did, umm... did Caesar live here?
Lisa: No.
Alan Garner: I didn't think so.

-The Hangover, 2009

Image found here

{Literal} Scoreboard Victory

I am a Dallas Maverick's basketball fan. There have been a lot of improvements to the program since Mark Cuban bought the team, over 10 years ago now I believe, and one good shift during this time has been the move to the American Airlines Center.

I have never met Mark Cuban, but based on everything I have heard, he is very much in the trenches making decisions for his team. He's a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy who prefers sitting next to the bench on the floor rather than in a suite, removed from the action. Before this season started he had huge new four-sided HD screens erected above the middle of the court, and there are also boards on the walls at both ends of the court that have team statistics updated throughout a game.

I was at the Maverick's game played against the L.A. Lakers on Wednesday night of this past week with my dad, and when looking up to see the points and fouls of the different players, I noticed that everything for the Maverick's was in a blue font, and everything for the Laker's was in white. In past experience, even earlier this season, the scoreboard font was all white. The white was fine to read but the blue I found impossible. It made me cross-eyed and squinty, which I'm not accustomed to experiencing unless I'm not wearing my corrective lenses. In fact, if you ever see me doing anything without glasses or contacts on, it should only be because I am sleeping because otherwise I am a total hazard.

So I mentioned my difficulty in reading the blue on the scoreboard to my dad, who was also finding issues with it, and he suggested I email Mark Cuban and give him feedback. He claimed that Mark had his email address on the team's website for the purpose of being accessible and that he likes to respond to each one.

I found the email address easily and emailed Mark the next day and informed him of my issue, to which he responded in seven minutes and let me know that the feedback he has received actually says the contrary, that people prefer the blue font. He also said that he actually agreed with me though.

He thanked me for my email, there was nothing to indicate a change being made, but I had mentioned that I would also be at the game the Friday following (two nights ago) and upon arrival I quickly noticed a difference.

This photo was taken at the game Wednesday night. Notice the blue font on the right and the white font on the left at the top of the scoreboard:

This photo was taken at the game Friday night. Notice the white- the score itself is in blue, but the names of the players and their point and foul numbers have all changed to white from the Wednesday picture:

See the difference? It's so much easier to read, and that was because of me! Little ol' me!

To be honest, I actually have no confirmation of my influence over the scoreboard change, but I'd like to think I had something to do with it. Apologies to all of my friends who are reading this and were with me upon making this discovery Friday night, or one of the other seven times I told this story this weekend.

I just like thinking my voice was heard; my email was read. And somewhere out there, someone listened to a small sports-related opinion from a woman.

It's about time.

Victory is won not in miles but in inches.

-Louis L'Amour

Honey, I'm Home

My roommates and I have different schedules, making the time we do get to spend together restful and something we all look forward to.

KS is home at the most off times because her time is split between school and working for an interior designer in Dallas. For the first six months or so of living together, whenever MG and I returned home from work, KS was typically there. I became accustomed to returning home to lamps on in our cozy house and KS and Ruby there to greet me on the couch. She always asks how our days have been, and usually gets a cursory "fine", "good" or "it's over" from us.

We are such joys to be around, let me tell you.

Recently though, with Christmas followed by a trip to Jamaica, KS has returned to a full work schedule. This means she is working until about 7pm some nights and MG and I come home to an empty house. No lamps on, no news program on a low volume in the background, no KS and Ruby on the couch.

After coming home consecutive days to a lonely, empty house that looked much like it did when I left for work the same morning, I asked MG if it ever feels like something is missing when she comes home and finds herself alone. We laughed because we agree that KS is treated as the wife of the house and we have grown accustomed to having her there all the time, so when she's gone, we notice.

I always thought it was kind of funny when I was younger that my mom made a point to greet my dad when he came home from work. She still does it too- a hug and a kiss and dinner ready or in the works for him when he walks in the door. It seems like a simple ritual, but for him it makes coming home a welcoming experience every day.

As a working adult I now I see the value that having someone smiling at you on the opposite side of the door can have at the end of a long day. I think we all sometimes forget that enriching daily life in small ways can actually make it so much more enjoyable. You don't have to wait for grand gestures- a great opportunity lies simply in asking a question and sticking around for an answer.

"So how was your day, after all?"

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

-James M. Barrie

Back in Session

I did not intentionally plan it to coincide with the New Year or any resolutions, but within the past few weeks I have signed up for two classes to take which both begin in January.

Just sharpening the old noggin.

Please ignore me.

My personal training sessions run through January (which has been a great experience- lost a few pounds, got a lot stronger, got back in the gym period) but since I plan to take my physical fitness into my own hands after that, I need other interests to pursue.

The first class I signed up for is a series on The Bible: A-Z (that's what I keep calling it, it's really Genesis to Revelation I think), which will be taught at my church in Dallas and covers the story of the Bible. My Community Group and I will be taking this class together as a way to start 2010 together, learning about the Lord and continuing with purpose that which we started in 2008.

Purely for my own amusement, I have also signed up to take a continuing education course to learn calligraphy at Southern Methodist University (or SMU) here in Dallas. I like my handwriting- I'm a swirly cursive kind of girl, but I would like to learn different styles, adding a certain panache to my thank-you notes and invitations. I think it's such an interesting talent.

I like that I will be learning alongside people who want to be in the classes. I graduated college two and a half years ago, so learning is no longer obligatory but elective. I get to sit among people who desire more, beyond what they know.

I turn 25 next year (and by next year, I mean two weeks from now). One of my friends said she was ready to "wreak havoc" on 25, and I'm on board with the idea.

There is no time like the present to pursue things, people and places that interest or intrigue you. And while you're at it, buy some sparkly nail polish for New Year's Eve. I know I did!

Why the heck not?

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
Albert Einstein

And To All a Good Night

Remember how it was just Thanksgiving?

Yeah, me too.

I recall many years spent in eager expectation of Christmas, thinking about this time that it would never get here, whereas now I wonder how on earth it is December 20th today.

There was one year (emphasis on ONE) that my brother, cousins and I (pictured) and our cousin BG, our ring-leader (not pictured) were all under the same roof for Christmas Eve. We were all in the same room, actually, which was mistake numero uno. There was a lot of giggling, shushing and no sleeping whatsoever. We all received assignments like Flashlight Holder from BG and even after strict instructions from our parents, we still snuck downstairs at some ridiculous hour to see our presents in the living room.

This year BG is about to be a dad (in January!), my brother and I will roll downstairs at the leisurely hour of half-past whenever we wake up, but my cousins KH and BH maintain their principles of waking up in the early morning to open gifts. They are now 22 and 24-years-old, respectively. I don't know why exactly they do this, but I do recall them being beside-themselves one year when their parents sneakily turned off their alarms, causing them to sleep in heavenly peace for hours past their usual wake-up call. My poor aunt and uncle found out that spite is a beast that will unfailingly wake you up at 6am on Christmas morning.

And yes, my cousin IS wearing flip-flops in that November photo, in case anyone needed confirmation.

Lucy Van Pelt: I know how you feel about all this Christmas business, getting depressed and all that. It happens to me every year. I never get what I really want. I always get a lot of stupid toys or a bicycle or clothes or something like that.

Charlie Brown: What is it you want?

Lucy Van Pelt: Real estate.

-A Charlie Brown Christmas

Moths & Cashmere

I don't have any sisters, so sharing clothes was never something I did growing up. I didn't really have to share anything because as soon as I was old enough to establish dominance with the bathroom counter-space for all of my pre-teen accessories and hair products, my brother moved into the third upstairs bedroom. We would steal t-shirts from one another during college, when he took hostage my Aunt Carrie's shirt for a few years (it's from a restaurant in Rhode Island, it's soft, t-shirty perfection) but I won the war on that one.

A few months ago I wore a cardigan that belongs to KS a few times and then took it to the dry-cleaner. I don't take things to the cleaner's very often and it's always a massive heap when I do, so when I started examining everything as I was paying, I saw the condition of the sweater and thought it was ruined. I panicked, thinking that the sweater must be the most important and pivotal piece of her wardrobe, and I would need to take her to J.Crew and pick out something she would love, just not as much as the yellow cardigan I had destroyed. Upon further examination, it looked like they had washed it and had knotted it and let it dry and it was just terribly wrinkled.

I don't know how everyone else's dry-cleaner operates, but wrinkled is not typically the look I'm going for. Glad we are on the same page.

Ultimately they fixed the sweater (after three attempts) and ironed it to within an inch of its' life so as to get out the wrinkles and I was able to return it to KS with profuse apologies of tardiness and she was nice as could be. That's just how she is.

Fast-forward a few months to yesterday as I returned home from work and found a cardigan of mine that KS had borrowed was hanging in the laundry room. KS and MG had been cooking for MG's family who were coming over, and KS said "I have something to tell you about your sweater..."

I saw the look of fear and worry in her eyes, the very look I had when I thought I had ruined her sweater. Before she could continue, I said "The little holes in the sleeve? I did that while moving a mirror." She looked confused and said that she thought they happened when she had been holding her dog Sadie, how she had been wriggling and thought that she snagged the two little holes and how she had fretted over telling me for months. I told her for first thing that the sweater had been gone for a while and obviously I was okay without it, secondly that it was not her fault in the first place and thirdly that it would have been okay had that happened anyway.

I realized it was completely true- it would be one thing if things just disappeared all the time but were never returned, but that doesn't happen at our house. It makes life so easy. In both cardigan situations, we both spent a good deal of time worrying about something that would have been okay either way. I have become more of an advocate of borrowing from each other out of convenience and in that it is non-budget-threatening way to wear something new. We have nice things and take care of them, but accidents happen.

Moths also happen, apparently.

Evidently a moth found my favorite blue cashmere wrap in my closet recently and decided to have a snack, leaving two finger-poke sized holes behind. I will not be so forgiving, should I find him fluttering around my closet again.

The culprit is still at-large.

I've got to get home - Oh, baby, you'll freeze out there

Say, lend me your coat - It's up to your knees out there...

-Baby It's Cold Outside, lyrics by Frank Loesser