MUSIC MONDAY

Interpol has been my absolute, hands-down, no-questions-asked favorite band for years now. I finally got to experience them live about a year ago at VooDoo Experience in New Orleans. Their set was far too short in my opinion, and I blame MGMT for interrupting the most enjoyable enchantment I've ever experienced.

Anyway, I've been revisiting the Turn On The Bright Lights album as of late, and I believe I've revived my adoration of this song in particular. Enjoy!

xoxo

Meow.

Hello all.  This is a picture of my beloved cat, Maeby.  She thinks she's human about 83% of the time.  As you can clearly see in the photo.  She's also the sweetest creature I think I've ever met.  She is loved like crazy, and she definitely knows it.  Little lush.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday evening.  Unfortunately, I have to work early in the morning so picking up my sushi takeout and possibly watching some Sex and the City is the craziest I'll be getting tonight.

xoxo

Love is like a cloud; it holds a lot of rain.

I've always loved this cover of Nazareth's "Love Hurts." Jenny Lewis can turn anything into gold, and it's even sweeter that she's in love with her co-singer, Jonathan Rice.

Small Update!

I'm on the last leg of my relaxing three days off from work!  Wednesday I took care of some much needed errands: bought a new shower curtain liner because ours was disgusting, new bed sheets because ours were literally ripping at the seams, bought two new pairs of flats at Payless and did some healthy browsing at Central Market.

Yesterday Jason was off work too so we got to spend the entire day together, which is super rare these days.  We kicked off our day with a much-needed workout at the gym.  After freshening up, we went out for lunch at Jalisco's, an authentic Mexican place.  It wasn't the best I've ever had, but it was Groupon-worthy I suppose.  :)  Once our food was mostly digested, we decided to venture downtown and check out Tacos & Tequila for happy hour.  The place was fabulously designed and decorated, including a great bar that actually hanged from the ceiling.  We each indulged in three margaritas.  They offer a lot of really original signature margaritas that we were interested to try out.  I got a Pink Hibiscus (delicious!) and Jason tried the Agave Pear, which he wasn't too happy with.  We'll definitely be back though- I hear they have a killer brunch for $18, but that includes BOTTOMLESS mimosas!  Just think of the possibilities, ha!

Anyway, after happy hour we were exhausted, but I had been dying to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D, as that was one of my favorites as a child, so we went over to the Cinemark at Southpark Meadows, and I got to relive my childhood.  It was absolutely splendid.

So, I think today I'll just relax at home with my little loves, maybe do some reading.

Cheers.

Friends, Family and Latin American food in Dallas

I love this picture.  I took it back at our old apartment.

I've dubbed today a lazy day.  We went to Dallas for the weekend to visit friends and family.  It was a fun weekend, but it's always so nice to come back home and relax.  We got to Dallas early Friday evening, and checked into our hotel.  We got a super cheap rate thanks to my employee discount!  After freshening up a bit we met up with a few of my good friends- Heather (who I've known since first grade & grew up on the same street as), Emily (one of my besties I met in college) and Brittany (also a friend from college).  We were joined by others as well- some of their friends they've met in Dallas.  We went to this awesome South American restaurant called Gloria's for dinner and drinks.  The margaritas were to die for.  I had three!  Luckily, we were only a few miles from our hotel.  I ordered fish tacos, and Jason and I shared a fried plantain appetizer that was incredible.  Enough about the food!  The company alone was fabulous.  I had the pleasure of seeing Emily back in October when she came to visit me one weekend and we experienced an insane bloody fight at a brewery in the hill country.  But that's a whole different adventure to detail on a later date.  Anyway, I hadn't seen Heather since last April which is terrible, so it was so good to see them and catch up on our lives.

Heather and I graduated at the same time, December 2010.  She moved back to Houston for a little while before landing an awesome job using her degree in accounting at Fossil corporate in Dallas.  So she and her German shepherd, Edward, moved up there last June to begin their adult lives.  Sadly, I don't see much her anymore, but I'm so happy for her.  

Emily graduated last May and got a job at Fossil as well doing customer service phone support.  She seems really happy too.  I'm so proud of both of those ladies moving off on their own and making something of themselves!  I'm lucky to have such beautiful friends.  Their souls truly match their outer beauty.

Emily, Me and Heather in Nov. 2009

Back to our weekend.  Friday night, after Gloria's we walked over to the Flying Saucer, where Jason was hoping we'd end up.  It's a bar with a million taps and all different types of crazy beers.  

Saturday, Jason's Uncle Jimmy met us at the hotel and we drove over to the nursing home where Jason's grandma is temporarily staying until she can go back to her apartment.  We chatted with her for a little while before lunch at an empty Italian place across Central Expressway.  Jason and I were zonked after lunch so we took a refreshing two hour nap before heading out to Arlington.  We went to Abuelo's for our second Latin American meal of the trip.  Jason's cousin is a bartender/waitress there so we got to talk to her for a few seconds, literally.  Then our friends Chris and Evelyn met us for dinner and took us out to downtown Fort Worth, which was so cute!  Sundance Square was adorably sparking with light and energy.  It reminded us a lot of Austin.  We started out at the Flying Saucer (again, but a different location) and then went to a classy jazz club called Scat Lounge.  All in all it was a fun night.  We didn't get back to our hotel in Dallas until about 3 a.m.!  That's pretty amazing for us.  We were so proud of ourselves for not wanting to crash at 10, ha!  

Sunday, we saw Jason's grandma again, and then met his Aunt Janie and Uncle Marlin for our THIRD Latin American meal of the weekend.  I think we're good on that cuisine for the next few weeks.  

It was wonderful to see everyone.  I wish we could make it up there more often.  Everyone was trying to convince us to move up there, but we're both pretty against it.  As far as we're concerned, Austin is home and will be for quite some time if we can help it.

I just finished watching Sylvia, a film about the doomed, jeopardous relationship between poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes that ultimately led to Plath's melancholic suicide in 1963.

I have been intrigued by Plath's life story, as well as her work, which are basically one in the same.  She was her own subject when it came to most of her writing.  It's gut-wrenching that she always felt sophomoric and inferior to Hughes.  She ached to be first in his eyes, and when she finally realized he'd never be fully hers, she gave up.  The saddest part of it is that she probably was; he was just incapable of expressing his desire and passion for her.

Nick and the Candlestick

Sylvia Plath

I am a miner. The light burns blue.

Waxy stalacmites

Drip and thicken, tears

The earthen womb

Exudes from its dead boredom.

Black bat airs

Wrap me, raggy shawls,

Cold homicides.

They weld to me like plums.

Old cave of calcium

Icicles, old echoer.

Even the newts are white,

Those holy Joes.

And the fish, the fish-

Christ! they are panes of ice,

A vice of knives,

A piranha

Religion, drinking

Its first communion out of my live toes.

The candle

Gulps and recovers its small altitude,

Its yellow hearten.

O love, how did you get here?

O embryo

Remembering, even in sleep,

Your crossed position.

The blood blooms clean

In you, ruby.

The pain

You wake to is not yours.

Love, love,

I have hung our cave with roses,

With soft rugs-

The last of Victoriana.

Let the stars

Plummet to their dark address,

Let the mercuric

Atoms that cripple drip

Into the terrible well,

You are the one

Solid the spaces lean on, envious,

You are the baby in the barn.

First "Real" Christmas

This Christmas will technically be mine and Jason's first real Christmas together. The past two Christmases I've traveled to Houston to be with family. This year I have a different job that requires my presence this holiday season. I was bummed at first thinking back to each of the 22 Christmases I've spent with my family in the past, but I quickly began to see the silver lining. Jason and I have now started our own tradition and developed a Christmas color theme for our decorations. I even bedazzled a plain ol' $5 wreath by making bows made out of a cute little gingerbread man pattern and attached them to the wreath. As much as I'd like to think I'm a DIY girl, I'm really too lazy, so I was super proud of myself for this creation.


I'm actually not missing out on seeing some of my family. My dad, Rebecca, Meme and Papa are all driving up to take Jason and I out to dinner at 24 Diner. I haven't been yet, but I've heard it's fabulous! They have chicken & waffles with brown sugar butter. How could that be anything other than amazing?

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

xoxo