Me and V decided that I should blog about Beyonce's HBO documentary "Beyonce: Life is But a Dream" back in February. I spent a few months trying to pretend like I actually had a life and didn't write the blog entry, despite a monthly reminder from V who eventually just gave up after contemplating hurting me as I slept. Then today I was miraculously encouraged by my friend at her baby shower to get back on the blog train. Here is a picture of said friend:
I decided that if I could grant a mother-to-be one wish, this would be it: to do what I set out to do and blog about the many expressions of Beyonce (Mrs. Carter as she refers to herself on tour these days.) The follow are screen shots I have captured after viewing her documentary a second time in June. I entered into this second viewing with a fresh mind, ready to highlight for the world what makes Beyonce the greatest Illuminati Queen of our generation.
BEYONCE, PhD., ILLUMINATI CEO, MRS. CARTER, DIVA A DAY IN THE LIFE:
Beyonce starts her morning off right, with a bowl of Wheaties, a stretch, and practice choreography to a "not-yet-released" single set to premier on Jay-Z's (her husband...duh) top secret album for Samsung phone users only. In this photo, Beyonce is questioning if she has ever in fact seen a Samsung phone.
Later that morning, Mrs. Carter hits the studio in order to record a lullaby for Baby Blue Ivy, whose currently in the womb enjoying mommy's sweet bravado at the time of this filming. Beyonce usually requests silence in the recording room as there are times she likes to include Baby Blue a chance to sing back-up vocals in utero...but never lead vocals. Never lead, Blue.
Next, Bey and Jiggaman spend a lazy afternoon watching highlights from their vacation off the coast of St. Lucia or some other tropical island paradise that Jay-Z had built specifically for his family...and his $25,000,0000,000,000 offshore account.
After the reminiscing, Beyonce recalls how much more manageable her hairstyle was on the trip to the HOVA getaway and straight up takes a scissors to her own hair. Damn, why can't I be her?
Of course, the hair looks ferociously perfect as Beyonce gives the stare and a hair flip to a minion, or service staff, or servant...whatever they are right, Bey??
Moving on to later that evening. Beyonce's shadow performs at a sold out arena tour where princes and princess from foreign lands, mythical creatures, Malia and Sasha Obama, Amanda Bynes, and other newly inducted members of the Illuminati watch from backstage.
As Beyonce heads home from her performance, many passersby are mesmerized, frightened, and quite possibly turned to pillars of salt upon glancing at her on the escalators at an airport. *-* (Like she didn't plan their demise)
But at the end of the night, when Beyonce is spooning (keep it G-rated) with Sean in their California king bed made of 10K gold satin, Beyonce knows she rules the world, her mane is fierce as hell, and she is looking more and more like her mama every day.
And as long as Lady Gaga channeling Danny Zuko and dressed like a greaser from the 50s is intrigued/turned on/frightened by her mere existence on this planet, well then Beyonce put in a good days work. Oh the possibilities tomorrow (and the next HBO blockbuster) will hold...
behold, Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the best actors to never win an Oscar. if you don't agree with me when i say that THIS is the most gorgeous man on the planet then YOU....GET OUTTA HERE. but seriously, i've been in love with him since the Titanic days. he was my first celeb crush. some time ago, i got the brilliant idea of watching every single one of Leo's movies. and i mean all of them. after all, how can you say someone is your favorite without being able to properly critique them? behold, the power of the internet. Critters 3? watched it. The Man in the Iron Mask? laughed at it....i mean, watched it. Celebrity? kind of watched it. Body of Lies? took me about 3 weeks to finish it but...watched it.
after all was said and done, i have compiled my list of the top 7 best (i just couldn't make the necessary cuts to get down to an acceptable number!) and bottom 2 worst Leo films, which i now present to you here, in chronological order. 7. The Basketball Diaries if i had to put these movies in order of greatness, this one would for sure be near the top. in it, Leo stars as Jim, a (real life) teenage basketball star who, over a period of time, becomes a teenage-basketball-star-turned-heroin-addict who prostitutes himself for money and spends a lot of time hanging out with shady characters in drug dens. you know, the youj. based on the subject matter alone, this movie was super intense and Leo does a great job in two particular scenes. one is a cold turkey withdrawl scene, complete with lots of saliva and mucus. second, the scene below where Jim goes to his mom's apartment to beg her for money at the height of his addiction. definitely easy to tell that Leo was destined for greatness at the ripe old age of 21.
PS- his crying is how i sounded when i called my mom at 1 am the night before my biochemistry final. just in case you wanted to know.
6. Romeo+Juliet come on. Leo+Claire Danes+Paul Rudd+one of the best movie soundtracks of all time+one of my favorite literary works from high school? of course this movie is on here. pffft. also, if you need a synopsis of this one, you're probably a moron.
5. Marvin's Room i definitely was not expecting to enjoy this movie as much as i did. here, Leo stars as Hank, Meryl Streep's oldest and troubled son, who starts off the movie by setting their house on fire, which ultimately lands him in a mental institution. Meryl springs him from the pen early, only to cart him off to her sister (Diane Keeton)'s house in Florida after they find out Di has a form of lukemia that can only be cured by finding a familial bone marrow donor. or something like that. who would've known that Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio and Diane Keeton would together create comedy gold?! hilarious and heartwarming. i found this as part of a $5 three-movie-Meryl-Streep collection at Target the other day and really contemplated buying it until i found out that the other two movies were Music of the Heart and some movie where her husband was named Esteban. O_o no thanks, Mer.
4. Catch Me If You Can probably the closest thing Leo will ever do to a comedy. or a romance. or a movie where he doesn't die in the end. so naturally, it's one of the best because it's different from everything else. it's light and fun and doesn't leave you feeling like humans are the worst species in the world at the end, which is also new and different. in CMIYC, Leo stars as Frank, a teenage con man who pretends to be a pilot, doctor and lawyer (sometimes all at once), and who is continually on the run from an FBI agent, played by Tom Hanks. Christopher Walken plays Frank's dad; Christopher Walken also scares the bejesus out of me. But who really cares about Christopher Walken when he's on screen next to this hottie? ;)
thought so.
3. The Departed hands down my number one favorite, if we were putting these movies in order. The Departed tells the story of two young men who go undercover in the mob and the police department as moles for both the police department and the mob (respectively). Leo plays the good(ish) guy- the cop undercover in the mob, so we really get to see him struggle with the lie that he's living and the danger he faces if he's found out. Matt Damon plays the other dude and i spent most of the movie hoping he would get caught and generally wanting to punch him in the face. Also, Jack Nicholson plays the mob boss and i realize that, like Christopher Walken, Jack Nicholson also scares the bejesus out of me. i think it's the teeth.
also, getting hit with that toy looks legitimately painful. moving on...
2. Blood Diamond Leo does a Rhodesian/Zimbabwean accent, almost perfectly (according to native South Africans). do you need anymore reason? ok, it also tells a pretty good story.
1. Revolutionary Road i have no idea why i liked this movie as much as i did, but it stayed with me for a couple of days afterwards. maybe because it was depression station/the bleakest outlook on married life ever, maybe it was this scene or maybe it was the visuals/style of everyone in this beach scene. swoon.
unfortunately, amongst all of the other greats (Shutter Island, Gangs of New York, Django Unchained, TITANIC!!, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) that didn't make the cut because then i would just look like an obsessed creepoid, there were more than a few clunkers and snooze-fests (The Beach, J. Edgar, The Man in the Iron Mask). however, two movies really took the cake and made me think: why, Leo? just....why? i now present: the top 2 worst. in order. 2. Don's Plum i watched this movie all the way through, in all of its low budget, black and white glory and finally figured out what it was about towards the end: nothing. ab-so-freaking-loutely nothing. it was literally a cast of now famous people (Leo, Tobey Maguire, Kevin Connolly, and Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley) sitting around a booth at a diner talking about everything and nothing at the same time, if everything and nothing could be talked about vulgarly. i guess they agreed to star in it to help a friend with a project and when they all became famous, the producers tried to release it for money, except everyone filmed it under the premise that it would never see the light of day (and rightfully so...). so now you can only get it oversees. so it least it has some mystique behind it and you feel kind of like a felon watching it. actually it SHOULD be a felony to watch this. here's a clip if you want to see for yourself and waste 1:24 of your life that you will never, ever get back.
1. Total Eclipse let me nutshell this movie for you: period piece, heinous hair pieces, underage gay loving, poetry, full frontal nudity, brattiness, spousal abuse of pregnant wives. want me to go on? boring, awkward (watching baby Leo make out with Professor Lupin from the Harry Potter movies!? no thank you...) and all around terrible. it ended with Leo's character dying alone in Africa with one leg and a pornstache. oops, spoiler alert. but seriously, i'm not making this stuff up. i couldn't find a clip or picture to do this movie any justice, so instead here's a clip of OneDirection singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler on The X-Factor. also, they are dressed as vampires. trust me, this is the better deal.
from Critters 3 to Django Unchained, i've finally seen them all. now, the question remains, when will Leo finally get his Oscar? and what will i do while i'm waiting for the movie that will give it to him to come out? actually that movie should have been Django, but alas. i suppose i could get a life. i could start watching the complete works of, say, Johnny Depp or Tom Cruise. that should last me until the year 2078. or i could just sit patiently waiting for The Great Gatsby to come out on May 10th.
unless you've been living under a rock for the past month, or you don't even really know me (which is probably more likely.....i'm looking at you, New Zealanders), you should know that i graduated from college on December 9th. or was it the 10th? whatever, the date is irrelevant. after 4.5 years in school, i finally did it! graduating in the fall is a very unique experience and i'd like to think that it was designed to wean people off of college. i mean, chances are, if you're graduating in December you've probably overstayed your welcome anyways and, like any good addiction, you need to taper off the college life. what i mean is this: i had my last week of classes, which for some people would have probably been an emotional experience, but i was like "it's ok, i have graduation to look forward to!" then at graduation, i was like "it's ok, i still have finals!" then after finals i was like "okay, this stupid. i graduated like two weeks ago." i was so over school, i never shed a single tear! sure, i was sad but not in the way or to the extent i thought i would be. it was very effective and i applaud whoever thought of that idea. anywho, i was driving in my car to The Flying Saucer the other night (as one tends to do when they are only marginally employed and a recent college grad) and this song came on my iPhone
for the record, i have no idea what's happening in that music video because i just typed in the name of the song and chose a video without watching it so....proceed with caution.
the song is "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" and it's from the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack. if you don't feel like listening to all 7 minutes of it (though i highly recommend it), i'll just tell you that it's 7 minutes of Baz Lurhmann doling out his most sage wisdom, accompanied by a catchy beat and that little kid that sings at Claire and Leonardo's wedding. after listening to this song, i decided that i too would pass on my college-learned wisdom to the younger crowd.
so without further ado, here are the "Top 10 Things I Learned in College":
10. Don't go bowling with your neighbors.
upon arriving at school my freshman year, me and my roommate were eager to make friends with people in our dorm. before we knew what room we were given, we both hoped and prayed that it wouldn't be at the end of the hall, across from an electrical closet or something. well it was at the end of the hall. and it was across from a cleaning supply closet. so clearly, the year in the dorm was off to a terrific start. we decided to go bowling at the Union on one of the first nights we were there, and we invited our one and only set of (male) neighbors to join us. i mean, they had been propping the door open for days with a bulk sized package of Cheez-Wiz, so clearly they wanted to meet people. they came with us and when we got to the bowling alley, it was super crowded. our friend who tagged along saw someone she met at orientation already bowling on one of the lanes with his roommate, so they let us join in on their game. we asked our neighbors if they wanted to join in but they said "we'll watch". about halfway through the game, we turned to look for them and they were gone. they left us. three girls at a bowling alley, with some randos. gentlemen, those two were. needless to say we got back to the dorm afterwards and the Cheez-Wiz door stop had been put away, never to be seen again for the rest of the year.
ass.
9. Sorority fashions rarely work outside of the sorority house.
I use the term "fashion" loosely here. i really mean heinous pieces of clothing such as
embroidered PFG fishing shirts
Nike shorts
Chacos
...among many others (XXL t-shirts, cute tops you'd wear to the club paired with Nike shorts or workout tights, buns and ponytails specifically made to look messy, etc. etc.) i had a friend who was an orientation advisor and helped pass out t-shirts to incoming freshman. she said they actually ran out of larges and extra larges. this never happens.
i'll admit i own Nike shorts and have worn them to class on many lazy occasions, but most of the time i looked at myself in the mirror and was like "why don't i just put on pants?" it's a question as old as time, but one i asked often.
regardless, there are many sorority trends that us mere mortals should just not attempt. ever.
8. Don't drink the trashcan punch at a Finals Party.
i won't dignify this with an explanation. just don't do it.
7. It's possible to live off of Dine-In Dollars.
when you live in a residence hall at the University of Texas, $1200-1500 worth of Dine-In Dollars and $300-500 worth of Bevo Bucks are immediately bestowed upon you every August. i'm not 100% sure of the exact monetary breakdown, but it's something like that. Dine-In Dollars can only be used in university dining halls and Bevo Bucks can be used in the same dining halls or various businesses and restaurants around campus that participate in the program. this is all the money you get for food for 9 months, unless your parents have pity on you and deposit some money in your Dine-In Dollars account. however, my parents never needed to do that, because i am an EXPERT at dining on a budget. there are three keys to making this work:
1) all you can eat dining halls. CAUTION: you will eat a lot of pizza and salad. and chicken strips. and frozen yogurt. oh, and cereal.
2) Easy Mac.
3) peanut butter and jelly.
i once went to buy some food at the dining hall downstairs and the girl in front of me only had about $500 left on her account. it was October.
6. 90% of dorm sponsored activities are stupid.
first of all, if it's a mandatory wing meeting, it's not mandatory.
second of all, if it's a Super Bowl party in your dorm's basement TV room, they'll serve you chicken nuggets from McDonalds and pizza while everyone gets in a shouting match over whether the Steelers or the Cardinals are better. you'll also make googly eyes at the guy cleaning up afterwards, who will take no notice of you.
third of all, if it's a "How Well Do You Know Your Roommate" game show thing, it will be rigged by the presence of two roommates who are also identical twin brothers. you will lose.
all true stories.
5. Buy an external hard drive.
I got a MacBook as a high school graduation present in 2008. we had been through some rough times together. there was the time i spilled a cup of water on it while it was closed and the time that i missed the bathroom door hook to hang my backpack on and it fell to the ground with my laptop inside. but through all that, we managed to prevail. until the last week of class when it stabbed me in the back and chose to end its life nearly 5 years later on the night before my biggest test of the semester. i got a new computer and luckily they were able to recover all of my files and i lived, but i'll never forgive that Judas computer.
4. Anything free is usually worth it.
things I've gotten/attended/done for free while in college: Austin Museum Day (free admission to every Austin museum), a Gavin DeGraw concert, a Girl Talk concert, free all you can eat and drink cookies and coffee at finals, a free pair of underwear (though I didn't appreciate the crushing of my rib cage that i endured to get them), a live taping of Arcade Fire at ACL Live, multiple clothing items, yadda, yadda, yadda.
3. Don't ride the E-Bus to 6th Street on Halloween.
packed in like sardines, a bottle of mustard got a little to handsy with me. never again.
2. All math professors are terrifying. It's a requirement, I think.
luckily, i only had to take two math courses at UT: calculus and stats. both of my professors were terrifying. my calculus professor called out anyone who didn't remember basic pre-cal (read: everyone.) and generally made you feel like an idiot. she passed me on the sidewalk once when i was waiting for the bus and i immediately got a chill. this was 3 years after i had taken her class. she was just as glorifyingly terrifying as ever.
my stats professor was like Sue Sylvester's older, more terrifying, Southern sister. she yelled at you if you got up to go to the bathroom or if you didn't do your homework. or if you asked questions. or if you breathed. or if you were human.
she surprisingly did not care if you showed up 30 minutes late to a 50 minute class dressed up as Peter Pan on Halloween, however.
1. Asher Roth had the right idea.
he's a one-hit wonder right? his song "I Love College" is a really song where he raps about keg stands and playing beer pong, but at one point he says "I wanna go to college for the rest of my life," which when i think about it, actually sounds like a really great idea. i know, i know there comes a time when you have to grow up and move on and become a part of the real world, but i get why people take jobs on college campuses, especially young people. but i don't mean that it sounds like a good idea in the LITERAL sense.
it's hard to describe, but there was this.....feeling, i guess, that i got shortly after i moved into my dorm, before i ever attended my first class and all of that. i really can't describe it. i call it the "fall feeling" because it's something i felt on the first few days of school every semester since i started college. ironically, i found myself randomly getting that feeling more and more as my last days on campus started winding down. i think it's a feeling of wide-eyed optimism and anxiously waiting to find out where life takes you and what lies ahead. it's sort of giddy and exciting and comforting all wrapped into one. i probably sound like a moron trying to describe it, but if someone asked me how i wanted to feel for the rest of my life, that would be it. in fact, it's how i wish everyone could feel for the rest of their life. i think the world would be a much better place.
though it is definitely not an exhaustive list of all the things college has taught me, this list is now complete. i hope you have your own "Top However-Many-Things College Has Taught Me" list. if you don't, you should make one. it'll make you both happy and sad, all at the same time.
well, it's the holidays again! and that means that I am back at my parents' house for a few weeks, soaking up all that Corpus Christi has to offer. which is really a shopping mall with a throat slasher on the loose and some really humid evenings. one thing I always enjoy about the trip from wherever I am to Corpus is the chance to listen to potentially 4 hours of uninterrupted music! weee! (I am only partly serious...it's really hard to listen to music for that long. after a while, everything sucks.) on this particular trip, I felt the urge to listen to Taylor Swift for 2 solid hours.
why Taylor, you may ask? well, mostly because she is probably the artist with the largest collection of music on my iPod, so I don't have to do much song flipping while driving, which is always dangerous. she's also my guiltiest of guilty pleasures. I got the idea to dedicate a whole blog post to her music after her video for "I Knew You Were Trouble" came out, but I didn't know what sort of direction I should take. best Taylor Swift videos? best Taylor Swift songs? best Taylor Swift duets? progression of Taylor Swift music videos/songs (frizzy haired country tunes, to famous people's cameos as love interests, to a sudden break with reality)? about halfway into my drive, I finally came up with the angle I was going to take: best Taylor Swift diatribes!
for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past, oh, 6 years or so, T-Swizz is infamous for writing songs that sound like they came directly out of her diary. sometimes corny, always heartfelt, T is never one to shy away from the hard hitting topics: her friend Abigail doing the nasty with a boy who ignores her afterwards, her ex cheating on her and then wanting her back, being 22....the list goes on. but I would like to now focus, recall and celebrate all of the times Taylor has written scathing odes to her famous exes. we will now begin.
Number 5
Song: "Forever & Always"
Famous Ex: Joe Jonas
Most scathing line: Was I out of line?/Did I say something way too honest?/That made you run and hide/Like a scared little boy
ahh Joe. the very first of Taylor's famous victims. the story goes that Joe called Taylor to break up with her in a phone call that lasted only a few seconds. that. is. low. Joe claims that "a phone call only lasts as long as the person on the other end wants it to last" but after he reportedly broke up with Demi Lovato in the same fashion (albeit, through his dad....douche), I tend to side with Team Taylor on this one. Taylor has confessed to Ellen Degeneres that this song is about Joe, and was a last minute addition to her breakout cd "Fearless". also, the fact that I know this much about people I'll never meet is sad, and means I need a life. stat. anyways, moving on. i enjoy this song and i enjoy working out to it and listening to it on a bad day, but it's probably the least specific and interesting of all of her breakup songs.
Number 4
Song: "All Too Well"
Famous Ex: Jake Gyllenhaal
Most scathing line: Hey you called me up again/Just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel/In the name of being honest/I'm a crumbled up piece of paper lying here/Cause I remember it/All too well
I'm really not entirely too sure why these two dated each other, but I can't blame her. I'm also not entirely too sure why she wrote this super intense song about a guy she dated for as long as it takes me to brush my teeth in the mornings, but obviously she was burned pretty bad. or maybe she wasn't and she just needed some fodder for songs on her new cd. either way, I'm kind of obsessed with this song and I enjoy thinking of Jakey Poo probably not giving a crap about it either way. or maybe he does? according to the song he still has her scarf from this photo:
just like the secrets behind Area 51, Big Foot and how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know what happened with these two.
Number 3
Song: "Back To December"
Famous Ex: Taylor Lautner
Most scathing line: Maybe this is wishful thinking/Probably mindless dreaming/But if we loved again/I swear I'd love you right/I'd go back in time and change it but I can't/So if the chain is on your door/I understand
ok so this isn't actually scathing. in fact, it's a departure for the norm for Taylor and she actually accepts responsibility for once (and only for once...I promise) and apologizes to her ex-with-the-same-name, Taylor Lautner. poor T-Lautz. he fell into the female Taylor's trap, but emerged relatively unscathed. the female Taylor is probably pretty lucky that hot Taylor isn't a musical artist because I'm sure hot Taylor has a lot to say about his and female Taylor's failed relationship, if the lyrics of the song have any truth to them. also, this same name thing should've been a sign that this relationship was doomed. so confusing. moving on.
Number 2
Song: "I Knew You Were Trouble"
Famous Ex: John Mayer
Most scathing line: And the saddest fear/Comes creeping in/That you never loved me/Or her/Or anyone/Or anything
I don't actually know that this song is about John Mayer, but it probably is. if it's not, it should be. I wish I knew Taylor personally so that I could've told her that dating John Mayer was a terrible idea. this is the guy that called Jessica Simpson "sexual napalm" in a public interview. on the record. to be put in print. while I enjoy this song, thinking of John taking Tay to "places [she's] never been" kind of makes my lunch reflux into my esophagus.
Number 1
Song: "Dear John"
Famous Ex: John Mayer
Most scathing line: All the girls that you've run dry/Have tired lifeless eyes/Cause you've burned them out/But I took your matches before fire could catch me/So don't look now/I'm shining like fireworks/Over your sad, empty town
this is perhaps THE BEST example of a classic T-Swizz diatribe. the only song that directly names her ex-lover, she sings for almost 7 minutes about how he burned her. although, again, I don't particularly enjoy thinking about her probably engaging in some adult behavior with him when she was only 19 and he was like 67 (ok, 30), I do enjoy hearing her sing about the after effects. I also particularly enjoy how she spends a majority of the song talking about "the girl in the dress" who "cried the whole way home" and how she "should've known" it would end up like this. then, in the last lyric, she turns the tables and says "The girl in the dress wrote you a song. You should've known." touche Taylor. touche. and a word of warning to other famous men willing to date Taylor: godspeed.
well that's it! the top 5 best breakup diatribes from the incomparable Taylor Swift. while I usually stand up for Taylor when people put her down for dating so many guys (I mean how many people in this world casually date lots of men? no shame in your game girl!) and for her cutesy, sometimes juvenile lyrics (she has a formula that's made her a millionaire a million times over, so why change it now? business genius, i say.), I do realize there is a common denominator in all of these songs: Taylor. so if any of these lovely men would like to get together and write a song called "You're The Problem In All Of Your Failed Relationships", I will gladly dedicate an entire blog post to that song as well.
Family. Football. Jellied cranberry. Lots...and lots of cranberry. This Thanksgiving we spent the afternoon with dad's side of the family in Kingsville. I know we're always in store for a good time when we head even farther south in Texas to spend time with the good ol' paternal familia. The visit started off interesting with my disappointing attempt at being nurturing and motherly as my mom encouraged (forced) me to hold my cousin's baby who was a mere 9 days old. I mean, I immediately loved that little baby, but I loved her enough to want to protect her from the discomfort of being in trapped in my bony arms. The conversation quickly turned to my cousin telling me, "You better start practicing. Your time is running out!" Ehhhhhh...no. I've still got time. Plus..maybe I'll adopt. I'll adopt a baby who is already in their toddler years and is not as delicate as a frail bird. I held the baby for a few minutes, then passed her back to my mom who couldn't stop fawning over her the rest of the day. She deserved someone like my mom. I went to look for the bigger kids. And the food. A couple of hours later (and a lot of sitting around watching football and making chit chat while we all secretly wished we were eating), it was time to eat. I thought I would try my hand at being motherly again and offered to help my grandma set up the food. "Here," she advised (I was sure she was going to give me a big task like getting the rolls out of the oven, stirring the gravy, something manageable but still important), "take this to the other room." She handed me a styrofoam plate with a cylinder of jellied cranberry balancing on it. Both my grandma and I agreed that we could eat the whole helping of cranberry out of the can if our lives depended on it...or if no one was watching. I walked the cranberry outside to the party room. Yes, party room. We'll come to that in a minute. The cranberry was like congealed liquid gold on a plate. It was wobbling all over the place...but I cradled it and kept it safe. Probably safer than I held that tiny baby. Once I got to the party room, it was then that I noticed that 3 other cans of cranberry had already been opened. Not sure what else we really ate at Thanksgiving, but one thing I am sure of is the fact that we had at least 4 lbs. of the 90 cent delicatessen. The party room. That is a whole other story. It's like Tony Romo (or some other Dallas Cowboys player who is actually good) threw up in there. Cowboys posters covered the walls, tiny Dallas Cowboys helmets sat on random window sills and on any available counter space, and one of my personal favorites, a Dallas Cowboys flag declaring, "America's Team." I wonder what other American citizens would say about that. Like perhaps if we asked the New England PATRIOTS, who's colors are red, white, and blue. Think they think of Tony and the rest of his fumbling teammates as the football team of the U.S.? I think not. I was honestly afraid to watch the Cowboys vs. Redskins game in that party room. I mean, I had heard stories of my uncle being completely obsessed with the Cowboys (which I had inferred from the Dallas Cowboys matching bath and toilet rugs in the bathroom), but I didn't want to be present for a meltdown that would occur when the Cowboys inevitably failed. McKayla was impressed when an ACTUAL Dallas Cowboys team member showed up to join us for Thanksgiving lunch and to watch the game. At least...I think he was a team member. I knew he wasn't part of the family because I had never seen him before and he kept saying things like "We need to get it together," or "Our fans are very fickle." Using those possessive pronouns can really transform someone! As I was analyzing this phenomenon, I noticed my uncle pulling down the ladder to head up into the attic. 'Is there another level to this party? Please, take me with you!' He looked around for a little bit and came out with another pile of styrofoam food trays. Duh. Silly me! When in doubt and you need more kitchen supplies...just head up to the attic. A small Thanksgiving miracle occurred during the Cowboys game when I heard my cousin ask (aloud), "What is a punt?" Yes! I was no longer the only one who didn't know anything about football. Just a few minutes before, I had asked V how the Cowboys could only have 3 points and she gave me the DS (Death Stare in case you forgot) as she explained how kicking only a field goal at the beginning of the game and not scoring any other points made this a possibility. It's always a good Thanksgiving when family members find different ways to poke fun of one another; especially when we are all together stuffing our faces while doing it. Needless to say, the Cowboys lost, we had our gluttonous fill of starched sides and deserts, and as we were saying our goodbyes before we left, I'm pretty sure I saw my uncle heading up into the second level of the party room to wallow in sorrow at the demise of Team 'Merica.
Ok, so the Sisters do more than gossip about coffee obsessions and hot Olympians. We decided to catch the wrap up of the Vice Presidential debate, mainly because everyone was talking about it on Facebook and we had already missed most of it due to a small shopping spree we went on in preparation for Austin City Limits (that's for a later post though).
Briefly, here is some of our highly political commentary on what we witnessed between Biden and Ryan: On Ryan: A:"Ryan would be cute, except for his widow's peak." V:"He looks kind of like Phil Dunphy." V:"Uhh..he looks so smug."
On Biden: V: "What the heck is Joe Biden doing? He looks like a potato. Like a potato with eyes and mouth, right?"
On budget cuts, health care, and getting out of national debt: A:"I don't care what politicians say. How the heck will the U.S. EVER get out of debt? Where will all the money come from? Are they planning on doing a nationwide fundraiser? " V: "Ok everyone...we're doing a bake sale! Even though we'll be spending thousands and thousands of dollars for the cooking supplies." A: "We've infiltrated the Girl Scouts. Buy cookies to cut back on the national debt!" V: " $1,000.00 a box!" A: "Thin mints anyone?"
Republican vs. Democrat, Samoas vs. Thin Mints...I hate making choices!!!
On the debate moderator, Martha Raddatz: V: "Whoa. Crypt Keeper."
So, with all that being said...vote for whoever you want. Politics, debates, the future of these United States of America. It's all just a "bunch of malarky" anyways!!
"I throw my hands up in the air sometimes. Singin' hey-ohhh!"
ahhh yes. fall kinda, sorta officially started in September with the arrival of new fall television shows and the return of some old classics, but everybody knows that it's not officially fall until the pumpkin spice latte finally makes its much anticipated return to your local Starbucks. the rest of the country probably considers the start of fall to be the day when scarves become a necessity instead of a trendy accessory or the weekend that a cold front blows in and doesn't leave until march. but since this is texas, and both of those things last for about a day, we have one warm pumpkin-y beverage to look forward to to signal the start of the best season of all. and look forward to it we have.
i was recently at Starbucks for a study group when i decided to use my birthday gift card to order said latte. i approached the counter and asked if it was possible to make my pumpkin spice latte decaf. the barista replied "oh yeah, we can make anything decaf! but we don't have any pumpkin. and we won't have any until thursday." it was monday. what was everyone going to do!? the pumpkin wasn't going to arrive for THREE. MORE. DAYS. i suppose they could just get their pumpkin fix with some Starbucks Via pumpkin flavored coffee. or not. that rack was completely empty. no pumpkin anywhere. it didn't dawn on me until i read this article about the national pumpkin spice latte shortage that i realized what was really going on here. the entire nation is experiencing a phenomenon i call "fiending". until recently, fiending had only been happening on a much smaller scale. coincidentally, i witnessed my first fiend at starbucks a while back. i was at the starbucks on campus (a college campus being a fiending mecca for various items) and the store was quite busy. i was patiently waiting for my drink at the counter because i had nowhere else to be. i was people watching (as one is prone to do in these situations) and i noticed a girl fixing up her coffee at the sugar and cream station. i watched her make up her drink, but when she went to reach for the cream, she found the container empty. i watched her as panic set in on her face. i watched her frantically look around, wondering what to do. i watched her spot the cream the baristas use behind the production counter. i watched her march up to the counter and reach over it. i watched as she grabbed the baristas' private cream stash and poured it in her own coffee like it was no big deal and then set it back behind the counter. this was fiending in a nutshell. you see, it's basically when you are so frantic about something that you go to extreme lengths to get it and freak out when you don't have it, or are afraid that someone could take it from you at any moment. my next encounter with fiending was late one night at HEB. i was on a grocery run and made a stop down the pasta aisle when i noticed a fellow college student eyeballing the Ramen (ummm....duh). i watched as he browsed around for the flavor he preferred. then, when he realized that they were out of individual packets and all that was left was an entire case still unopened and covered in saran wrap, i watched him load the entire case in to his cart and roll away. he was so fiendish for some Ramen that he didn't even bother to open the case and take out 2 or 3 packets. that's Ramen dedication right there. recently a friend of mine told me about a really good sale that was going on at a liquor store. i'm a fan of wine, so off i went to browse their selection and see if i could snatch up any great deals. it turns out that i went 10 minutes before the store closed on the last day of their sale. it also turns out that all of northwest Austin heard about this sale too and were now at the same liquor store as me trying to take advantage of the sale's final moments. i watched in awe as people pushed other people out of the way with their shopping carts (yes, shopping carts........at a liquor store) and loaded them up with cases upon cases of beer, wine, Malibu, Smirnoff, whiskey as old as my dad, mixed nuts, bendy straws......literally whatever they could get their hands on. there was so much frenetic energy in there that i couldn't handle it and retreated to the refrigerated wine room for some peace and quiet. then the wine fiends (a particularly snobby bunch) followed me inside and i had to leave, empty handed. i'll stick with Arbor Mist, thanks. lastly, i went to a PINK by Victoria's Secret tailgate giveaway at the Co-op with some of my friends today. i was thinking this was going to be something really special and maybe i'd get a free bra out of the deal, but it wasn't. and i didn't. we got there early and a small line had formed outside of the gate. the line eventually grew to hundreds of girls waiting to get in. the big moment finally came shortly after 11 and they let us in. the first stop was supposed to be a table full of bags stuffed with coupons. i don't know why the event organizers didn't realize that this had all the makings of a small scale riot. i mean...college girls, free bras, fighting for equal rights.....oh wait.... anyways, the organizers didn't put up any organizational barriers or ropes or anything, so everyone just kind of rushed the table to get to the bags. i ended up crushed between the table and about 100 other girls that i didn't know. i'm pretty sure at one point i was bent over the table at the waist, yelling at other people to get off of me. then security came and dispersed the crowd peacefully, which was good because i hear at other universities they use pepper spray. i could see the headlines now: "university students pepper sprayed after rioting over free panties" or "panty fiends get peppered" (there's a reason i'm not a journalism major). so in short, i hope you have learned from my mistakes and are better equipped to recognized those who are fiending. i mostly wanted you to learn to stay away from fiends. far, far away. otherwise, you might just end up bent over a table. and nobody wants that.
