Let's Talk About Thanksgiving, Since It's Almost Christmas

Bobby and I spent Thanksgiving in Dallas with our families and friends. Every time I go back to Dallas I'm reminded of just how much history I have there. My father has lived there since my parents divorced when I was 8, so I spent lots of summers and weekends and holidays there. Then I went to undergrad and graduate school at UTD, picking up the big group of friends I've had for a decade now. Entire neighborhoods hold an emotional history several layers deep, I have more stories than I can even remember that revolve around UTD's campus, and the bars/clubs/concert venues around Deep Ellum all have their own cache of good/bad/ridiculous memories. I don't know if I'll ever live in Dallas again- something about it feels "done" to me, as though I've had my time there and it's finished- but I do enjoy visiting. The night before Thanksgiving almost all of "The Group" got together at Vickery Park. Everyone was sober, so there is really no excuse for these pictures other than the fact that we tend to act like idiots when we get together. In a good way.

 We tried to go to this place called Urban Crust in downtown Plano, but they kind of laughed when we said we needed a table for about 20, which was apparently a two hour wait. Luckily enough, Vickery Park was across the street and has a) nicer staff b) a huge room in the back that does not have to be rented out and c) delicious food. Sometimes the manufactured snootiness of Plano makes me chuckle. Dear Urban Crust- You're not that special, or that fancy, or that cool. Love, All of Us

 They truly didn't try to match.

 Typical.

 This is about right...

 as is this. Again, we're all sober.

 I told Brooke on FB that her shirt tastes like My Little Pony Lumberjacks

 Love connection

 Staged. We're available for hire at your next get together.

 Security. This is what it looks like.

 We're good customers. Someone broke a glass, so Kate cleaned it up. We're thoughtful.

 Except for when we stand on the booths

We don't really think planking is cool. We are mocking it.

Triple stack mockery

 Jennifer is *not* impressed.

Apparently owling was in for a while, too. Mocked.

If there is one thing I never tire of making fun of, it is the hipster obsession with mustaches and "cute" (no, ladies, it's really not) scrunchy faces in pictures.

Thanksgiving Day proper kind of sucked due to some family drama, so I'll just leave it with the Pre-Thanksgiving Friendsgiving. Oh, and here's a picture of Bobby, Chris, and Brooke the next morning, running their own lil' Turkey Trot around the neighborhood:

 So committed!

 Right after this picture was taken, Kate and I hopped in the car for our own run- to Starbucks.

Deep in the Heart of Texas We're Keeping Austin Weird

Upon our return from San Antonio, I bid Arielle a temporary goodbye, and settled in for a few days checking out Austin. Now, I've been to Austin on family trips, and on school trips, and I went there when I interviewed for the English teacher job in Japan. I also went there as a delegate to the Democratic State Convention, which was great fun. But I had yet to experience the heart of Austin night life- bar hopping 6th Street. My cousin, Mel, and her family had recently moved to the area, and the trip to Texas was the perfect time to see their new house and let them show me a good time out on the town. But first, Mel and I had a good old fashioned girls' day, catching up, eating Taco Cab, and shopping for unnecessary clothes.

 Sweet, delicious, cheap Tex-Mex. Oh Colorado. You are surely a wasteland when it comes to anything to do with Mexican food. Dear salsa bar at Taco Cab- relocate. I'm tired of making my own.

 We hit up Ross, which is always unintentionally entertaining. Case in point- eww. These jeans should never, ever have been made.

 On the other hand, Mel was able to experience the glory of HD glasses. She took them off and said "I wish I could wear them, always". Damn you, Ross. We DO love it.

 She took me by their favorite local ice cream shop. I was generously allowed to sample whatever I wanted- I hate it when an ice cream shop offers samples but then shames you for taking them up on the offer. My motto is- do not offer unless you are going to come through with a smile. This place delivered.

It is hot in Texas. Ice cream is a necessary food group to protect one's health.

 We stayed up late that night eating chips and salsa, catching up, laughing and talking and making plans for the weekend. The next day Melanie was a blessed angel and allowed me to sleep in until NOON. Oh, glorious noon. We lazed about the rest of the day, and then we headed out to Polvos to meet up with Arielle and her friends. Let me just say, if you have never been to Polvos, go. You won't regret it.

Mel and Josh

On the walk to Polvos we cut through an alley. I noticed the light was great, so we snapped some shots.

Allow me to get sappy here- I'm super lucky to have such a great cousin. I'm grateful that our dads were so close so that we were always around one another growing up. In our family "cousin" isn't too far from "sibling". I wouldn't have it any other way.

Walking up to Polvos after the alley way photo shoot, we were unaware of the epic food that was about to enter our lives.

Our feet are too hipster-licious fo' ya, babe. We were eating cupcakes, too, you just can't see our hands overlapping and holding them in adorable ways like hand models.

We waited patiently outside in an enormous crowd of would-be-patrons. I think I've figured out why I don't have 15 sponsors and 3,000+ followers- I clearly don't have enough pictures of my feet in cute shoes. Internet, I give you not one, not two, but FIVE pairs of waiting shoes! Blog success, here I come!

Everyone but me ordered margaritas while we waited, and our table freed up right as the pitcher came out. The perfection of Polvos was already in motion.

Arielle approves!

All sorts of salsa, all sorts of wonderful. My deep and abiding love for salsa variety continues.

Looking at this picture, I am tearing up a little bit as I realize that I can't go down the street and eat this. Poblano cream sauce should be a regular occurrence in my dinner time experiences. Life is sometimes so unfair.

Once we were all thoroughly stuffed, we parted ways with Arielle for the final time (tears!) and headed downtown. As luck would have it, a high school friend happened to be playing a show, and it ended up being a bit of a Brownwood High School reunion. Kind of random, and neither good nor bad. The show wrapped up, and we struck out to bar and club hop along 6th street.

The following pictures were all taken on my cheap-o LG decidedly NON smart phone. Apologies.

 We started off at the Blue Moon blues bar. An awesome band was playing, there wasn't a cover charge, and people were friendly and happy. +5 points for 6th street already, plus +10 points for the no cover charge. Dallas charges cover for everything, even just to dance. Here, I'm getting great blues in a chill atmosphere with nice friendly locals... for free? With no pressure to buy a drink? Yes, please.

 We went in a few random fun bars I can't remember the names of, and then we hit up this "swanky" club, that was totally empty at 11 p.m. Personally, I love random empty clubs because I don't need to be drunk or in a big group to dance. And you get to play around, as Melanie is illustrating above.

 Random little nooks that made me think that an 80's coke addict would be at home in them lined the walls.

 Upstairs we found a nice dusky dance floor, and the D.J. was excellent. Empty dance floor all to ourselves, with windows overlooking the pedestrian traffic below? You keep racking up the points, 6th street. We left that club and continued on our bar crawl way, and each new stop was enjoyable. They all had no cover, good music, dancing everywhere you went, and there was a refreshing lack of snobby clique-ish ness. For anyone familiar with the snottiness that permeates so much of the nightlife in Dallas, you know what I mean by that.

 We wrapped up the night dancing on the rooftop at the Blind Pig, and around 2 a.m. we headed home. This picture is a great example of the huge difference between Dallas and Austin nightlife. Austin shuts down 6th street and only allows foot traffic. This makes going out a lot safer, and also fosters a block party feel where random strangers are pretty friendly. There was also a surprising lack of drunken fights and cops arresting people. I felt safe, I wasn't heckled, harassed, or pawed at (all things that happen on the regular in clubs in Dallas). I danced with random French dudes who were hilarious, struck up conversations with friendly girls, and danced my ass off everywhere we went. In Dallas, when you go out in Deep Ellum, the traffic and parking are horrible and there are random pockets of deserted warehouses that are the perfect environment in which to get assaulted (that's not an exaggeration, things have gotten hairy for me a few times in downtown Dallas, much as I love it). Even with my many years long history of late night fun in Deep Ellum, I was already converted to Austin after only one night. Good thing cities can't read blogs, or else Dallas might get her feelings hurt...

This random guy jumped in the picture with me.

We found our way back to the car, I DD'd us home, and I crashed out at about 3 a.m. The next morning Mel was sick, so I accompanied Josh to a family picnic in Zilker Park and then headed out to Brownwood. I have to say, Austin won me over. It didn't even feel like I was in Texas, in a good way. 

Of course, the oppressive heat reminded me I was, in fact, in Texas. Driving a few hours to Brownwood at around 2 p.m. in a car without air conditioning was the opposite of enjoyable. I was double fisting water and Gatorade the whole way, because I truly didn't want a heat stroke on the back roads of Texas to be part of my trip re-caps. I arrived at Mom's house covered in sweat, tired, and windblown. But I arrived without a heat stroke! It was really nice to be back in my hometown, hanging with Mom and Granny. After the breakneck pace of the previous week's socializing and late night partying I was more than ready to settle into easy nights on the back porch, eating Mom's delicious food, and watching the horses play in the back yard. 

Oh, and if you ever happen to find yourself in Brownwood, TX, I highly recommend Prima Pasta. I definitely enjoyed some of their Italian take out on the back porch, too.

Texas Girls Part IV- Let's Dance

After the all night and all afternoon birthday celebration of Spring Bash, we went straight out the next night (on about 5 hours of sleep) to meet up with friends and dance all night at The Church.

About to get our dance on.

I'm about as far as one can get from a goth, a club kid, a raver, a scenester, etc. That being said, the Church is my all time favorite place to dance (with the Catacombs in Boulder coming in a very close second, for many of the same reasons). Yes, lots of people go there in full on gorgeous goth costumes, or steampunk outfits, or over the top creative and insane clothes that would make Party Monster proud.

Bunnies are particularly adept at speed chess (at least the ones found at The Church)

 On the other hand, if, like me, you often show up in jeans, a tank top, and some  Converse, it doesn't.matter.at.all. It is a come as you are kind of place. Some people might call it a freak show. I call it a lot of people who wear what they want and dance however they want until 4 a.m. every Sunday and Thursday night. I dance for hours straight at this place, until I am drenched in sweat, laughing and goofing off with my friends, usually in a little room that plays random 80's hits and pop goth-y music like the Cure. The age range is anywhere from 17 years old to 60+, although most people are around 18 to 30.

Arielle, taking good care of said Bunny's carrot.

Sure, I might sometimes see couples on leashes, or a girl with duct tape and nothing else over her breasts, or a man on stilts, but I can guarantee those people will give me a smile, and we'll all dance happily together on the dance floor. That is far more than I can say about typical top 40 college clubs, where I've often had to resort to physically shoving men off of me who want to "dance", aka grope me along to the beat of some crappy Lil' Wayne song. The Church is happily free of that particular version of frat boy, and for that I love it even more.

Texas Girls: A Story About Moving Away, Meeting Up, and Traveling Back Home

Arielle and I lived together from August '08 to August '09 in Dallas. When our lease was up I found myself unemployed that same month and spent my last semester traveling the Western U.S. while I wrote my thesis, and she scampered off for adventures in other states- first Florida, then a year in New York, and most recently, a move to Boston. She's a learner and a planner and a doer and a traveler, and she's also living a debt free, simple, frugal life. Basically we're very, very compatible and I was over the moon when we decided to synch up her visit to Colorado with my planned road trip to Texas. She flew out on Monday, April 18th- a bit later than planned after missing her morning flight- so we spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday hanging around our town and heading to Denver for a day trip. I felt a bit bad that everything we owned was in boxes since we were about to move, but Arielle is a foodie and with only two days in Colorado she was happy to dine out most every meal. Arielle and I share a strange sense of humor and a way of setting up and making jokes off of one another that gives me a lot of punch drunk happiness. There was a lot of camp going on that week, for sure. You want some pictures? Let's go!

 Anytime anyone comes in to visit, I take them downtown to be enchanted. This visit was no different. However, that day I was enchanted by a surprise attack of downtown local business awesomeness. This place is a room filled with flavored olive oils on one side, and balsamic vinegars on the other side. Scattered throughout are containers of local, freshly made bread pieces and toothpicks. You get to try every. single. one. Arielle left with espresso flavored balsamic. I wanted to leave with approximately 97% of the store.

 After all the heavy snacking at the oil and vinegar palace of wonders and earthly delights, it was time to head to New Belgium brewery for our tour (I raved about it in this post, after taking the tour for the first time with J-Ben and Pizzle while they were in town). Not being that hungry, but knowing Arielle was about to drink copious amounts of samples and we'd be in there for almost two hours, we stopped by the food co-op and picked up a beet sandwich and a coconut probiotic drink to share. We decided to eat it in the car once we were safely parked outside of the brewery and knew we wouldn't be late. The tours are crazy popular, and they're free, so you have to reserve online and there is always someone waiting to snatch your spot if you're even one minute late.

Unfortunately, in my zeal to eat and drink quickly, I stupidly decided to shake said probiotic drink. And then set it in my lap. And then open it. It exploded all over my lap and into the seat, and it was fizzing in my pants for a good half hour. Not. Comfortable. Arielle tried to assure me that she had heard of people using probiotic drinks as a cleansing "flush"- ew, that's so not true, she just wanted me to suck it up and do the tour with fizzing pants that looked like I wet myself. I told her as much, but thankfully I had a scarf- I wrapped it around my waist and we headed off to be romanced by the magic of the New Belgium Brewery. Fizzy, wet pants be damned!

 Between the charming downtown, the ethical business practices of the brewery, and the beer samples, by the time we got here Arielle was saying she wanted to move to Colorado and work in the New Belgium Brewery. Got another one!

 This is the last beer of the tour, their seasonal summer selection (mmm, alliteration).

 Appropriately named and perfectly labeled.

 At the end of the tour they dump you back out into the main lobby, which is filled with laughing, talking, friendly people. You're given two tokens so you can try two additional beers. I need to say again, I don't drink. I despise the feeling of being drunk, and possibly more than that I despite the taste of any kind of alcohol- liquor or beer or mixed drinks or wine, all of it. But this? This was beet beer. And it was actually, dare I say, good.

 I still can't say I liked it, but I can say that I can totally see how someone who likes beer would LOVE this. It had fennel, beets, sarsaparilla, and rosemary. Amazing.

 After the brewery tour Arielle was a bit drunk, and she needed to hit up Lenscrafters to get her glasses fixed. Oh, but prior to that she told me she was going to find a bathroom, and I told her to meet me back up at my friend's store. After 20 minutes it was clear she wasn't coming back, so I headed out to find her. We ended up waiting 45 minutes for them to put one screw in. We had to entertain ourselves somehow.

 The good thing is that while Arielle was wandering the mall I made plans with Bobby and Jenny to meet us downtown for Indian food. So it all works out in the end. And it wasn't until very late that night that I was able to finally, FINALLY change my probiotic pants and underwear. I sacrifice as a tour guide, people. It's what I do.

 The next day, Wednesday, we headed to Denver to check out the capitol and wander about downtown.

 I love the Denver capitol- it's so beautiful. It was also designed by the same architect who designed the Texas capitol, so it feels nostalgic.

 Where the magic happens. I love the democratic process, and everything to do with government.

 View of the church we would be visiting as soon as we left the capitol.

 But we got sidetracked, because as we left we saw a huge crowd gathering across the street. At first, we had no idea what kind of a huge downtown festival could be taking place on a random Wednesday. Then we were told it was 4/20 day. And medical marijuana is legal in Colorado. Oh. Now it all makes so much more sense.

 The event had just started but it was already packed. Not one person was a jerk to me, or belligerent, or inappropriate.

 Sorry guys, but in general, I will take a crowd of stoned pot heads over a crowd of amped up, drunken people any. day. of. the. week.

 I've never smoked in my life, I don't have any desire to, and frankly I find the pseudo rastafarian BS of most potheads totally annoying. But more than that, I think it's annoying that we incarcerate harmless people for smoking pot, and often lock them up longer than child molesters. Instead of paying tax money to lock them up, how 'bout we tax the marijuana, make money while we're saving money, free up the prison system, and spend our money curtailing violent crime? And leave room to lock up murderers and rapists and real threats to society? That's just my take on it.

 After we had our fill  of people watching we headed back to our original next stop- the absolutely breathtaking Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. I have always loved how Catholic churches open their doors to the public at all hours of the day.

 There was a man playing Phantom of the Opera songs on this old organ. It was a bit creepy, I can't lie.

 The doors you enter and leave by on the side of the church.

 Capitol Bookstore was right across the street, so we popped in to peruse their selection. They had quirky art hanging on the shelves like this...

and this.

 Our  last stop in Denver was Watercourse Foods, an all vegetarian and mostly vegan restaurant.

Tea started us off, and somehow I didn't take pictures of my gorgeous portabella po' boy. For shame! We hit the road just in time to avoid traffic and made it back home to pack and organize and go to bed early. The next day we were heading to Texas- a 15 hour drive that we would drag out into something far longer...