I’m not going to lie. I had a lot of preconceptions about Texas. And given that I was in Austin (which I understand is not in anyway representative of the rest of the state of which it is a part), just about none of those were accurate. Did I see cowboys? Maybe one. Did people have GIGANTIC belt buckles? Nope. I didn’t see a single one! Was everyone packing heat? Not as far as I could tell.

In a way, this disappoints me. I mean I kind of wanted to see all these things. But at the same time, I felt pretty safe (vs. fearful of getting shot for making some hippy-liberal remark) and actually really enjoyed Austin. Minus the weather of course. Sweet Jesus, that heat + humidity was like a punch to the face every time you walked outside!! (97 degrees + 80% humidity!)

Here’s the summary/highlights:

Friday:

• We got in around 9. I was wearing capris and a short sleeved shirt, thinking this would be suitable for night time. False. I wanted to be in a bathing suit running through sprinklers.
• Our group of 9 somehow ended up at three separate hotels, each a solid half a mile+ from each other. We headed straight to one of them when we got in. I met Grant’s new girlfriend, and was expecting to see Danny and Sabrina’s new (6 month) kid, but I guess he was tired and cranky so Sabrina took him back to her hotel. Sad.
• We walked for what seemed like forever and got some food. Apparently there’s a lot of bats in Austin. We saw a few under a bridge on our way to the restaurant.
• It was J’s birthday so we hit up 6th Street for some drinks and shuffleboard. 6th Street is apparently like Bourbon Street – no cars allowed for several blocks, and just a long row of bars and drunk people. It was pretty cool!!
• Apparently you can get into a bar in Austin with a photocopied ID. That’s totally legit right? lol

Saturday:

• Got up ridiculously early and headed to Danny & Sabrina’s hotel. We got to meet their son, who is SO CUTE – little chunky monkey! Spent about an hour there before meeting up with the others.
• Grant brought his boat, so we headed to Lake Austin for some wakeboarding and swimming.
• Sabrina wasn’t comfortable bringing the baby on the boat, and I’m not sure what happened after that, but the three of them ended up driving back to Corpus Christi. Seriously? I was both upset and sad when I realized what had happened (seriously, I wouldn’t have gone to Texas if they weren’t going to be part of the weekend)
• J attempted to wakeboard for the first time. He made a noble attempt, but didn’t really ever get up.
• J and I shared a Hu-La-La at the Hula Hut off the lake. It was 2 kinds of Bacardi + fruit juice served in a fish bowl. DELICIOUS! We then shared a Texas style FEAST.
• Hit up the hot tub after we got home. J toweled off, and realized his stomach was red and in pain. He cried out “OMG I think I’m allergic to this towel!” Upon further inspection I had to explain to him that, actually, he was just sunburned. Yeah, he forgot to put sunscreen on his front. I applied sunscreen like 12 times. How do you forget that substantial of a section of your body?! lol yeah he’s magenta. It’s hilarious
• Headed to a couple of lounges, which were fun, but I was tired. Headed back around 1. (Several of the lounges played music straight from the 90s. What’s up with that?? I thought Austin was the homeland for new music? At least the last place we went was awesome. Like seriously the best place I’ve been to in a long time. I’ll have to find out the name of it so I can properly review it, but dude, this place had free skeeball!! And pacman! What not to love? Also, they had a Chuck Norris painting on the wall. Don’t mess with Texas!)

Sunday:

• Tired Caro and hungover everyone else decided to sleep in. Then we headed to Uncle Billy’s Brew&Que for some Texas style BBQ. Why I didn’t take a picture of my food is beyond me, but it was AMAZING. I got ribs with a side of glazed carrots and a side of mac n cheese. A great meal experience.
• It was father’s day. I had to get a gift for my dad, and he wanted something from Texas. Too bad we were scrambling to make our flight!! Thankfully my dad is the easiest person EVER to shop for, so I spent about 5 min in the gift shop and found some treasures: jalapeno hot sauce, ‘ass-kickin’ raspberry jalapeno jelly, hot beef jerkey, a ‘Don’t mess with Texas’ mug, and of course a shirt. Sadly they had no belt buckles, but I think my mom was really happy about that (she begged me not to get him one lol).

All in all a great weekend, and I’m the slightest bit tan to boot!

a fishbowl of liquor for two

Don't Mess With Texas

random sign at a parking lot

Basically he choreographs some of the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen. It’s so strange, yet oddly captivating. I always love his routines on SYTYCD, though I find they are increasingly few and far between. (And as cruel fate would end up, he choreographed tonight’s opening routine, which I missed because the Fox HD feed was down – gonna have to yell at Fox or my cable provider for that one!)

Anyway back to the love. I just discovered that he’s Australian. How could I have overlooked that?! We all know how I feel about the land down under and the men produced there. HI I also discovered that he’s about my same age. That’s talent to be winning awards for doing stuff in your 20s!

There are so soooo many good routines to watch, but my favorite one (at least my favorite one that I can find) is the Cabaret Hoover with Sara and Jesus from season 3.

Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s one more:

Click here to view the embedded video.

(and to clarify, yes, that is Mr. Robson in Ramalama)

Seems pretty appropriate actually; today marks one month since my uncle died. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. I wish I could have spent just one more Sunday with him, playing dominoes and eating delicious sandwiches. I always thought I’d see him again soon. Not so much.

Thanks James Taylor.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can’t remember who to send it to

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again

Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus
You’ve got to help me make a stand
You’ve just got to see me through another day
My body’s aching and my time is at hand
And I won’t make it any other way

Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again

Been walking my mind to an easy time my back turned towards the sun
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around
There’s hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground

Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you, baby, one more time again, now

Thought I’d see you one more time again
There’s just a few things coming my way this time around, now
Thought I’d see you, thought I’d see you fire and rain, now

3-11 day this year fell on a Thursday. It has previously been held in New Orleans, which sadly is NOT within a days drive. This year it was in Vegas. Hallelujah! Oh wait, let’s go back to 3-11 day fell on a Thursday. All of my vacation/PTO days are earmarked for weddings and Itay, so I have 0 left. Like I have calculated down to the hour how much time I will have away and have used every last second speaking my pretend Italian and eating glorous Italian food. This means I can’t even take part of a day off for fun things like 311.

Whatever, they’re doing a mini-tour at the moment and I went. It was seriuosly awesome, as always. But yesterday I talked to a friend who ventured out to 311 day and wouldn’t you know it – this thing was EPIC. So apparently they played for 6 HOURS. SIX! While I have no doubt I would have been exhausted beyond belief after this, I also have no doubt this would have been the single most amazing experience of my lifetime.

SO SAD I MISSED IT!

Here’s the deal kids. 3/11/11 falls on a Friday. I’ll be damned if I don’t go. In fact, I’ll even expand the concert perimiter. Forget 1 day drive, I’ll go anywhere in the United States. Is it too early to put in a request for a day off?? lol

In the meantime, enjoy this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not going to lie, ice dancing is notoriously my least favorite of the 4 varieties. Especially the compuslory dance. I think those judges have their work cut out for them. Just watching people do the same thing over and over again is too much for me, much less evaluating each competitor’s. No thank you!! The original dance can be interesting. There were a couple this year that intrigued me. Of course there was also the one that confused the hell out of me – the Russians doing the Aboriginal Dance. Take a lack of impressive/challenging moves, combined with some RIDICULOUS looking costumes and a premise that already has people offended, and you get this. Seriously, WTF?!

But then last night we got to the free skate. It’s by far my favorite. I saw a few that I liked. Even two that I loved. These of course were Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s (Canada) dance to Symphony #5 and Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates’ (USA) dance to Canto Della Terra. Beautiful. Stunning. Amazing.

But still not my all-time favorite.

That award goes to Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean (UK), who were the first people to get all perfect 6.0′s in the artistic impression section of the old scoring system. For technical merit they were split 5.9/6.0. I’m not sure what it is about this dance, but I love it. Even though it’s from 1984 and the picture is horribly grainy, I could watch it over and over again. Maybe it’s the music, maybe it’s the artistry, maybe it’s the incredible synchronization. I don’t know. They start on the ground because their music was too long. Apparently it exceeded the length by 18 seconds, which they discovered they could get around if none of their skates hit the ice until 18 seconds in. Pure perfection. Here it is:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Imagine this:

“Oh yeah, the president was talking about me!? What did he say”

“He called you a jackass”

LOL

Click here to view the embedded video.

Basically these guys just listen to rap songs and make posts that highlight the stupidest things rappers say. Sometimes they make literal interpretations, sometimes they provide pretty hilarious commentary, and sometimes they simply don’t need to say anything. Like this one:

“Don’t holler at me unless money is the topic”
- Nipsey Hussle, Hussle Is My Last Name

Friend: Hey what time is it?
Nipsey: What did we talk about?
Friend: Oh, that’s right. Sorry. Umm… What time is it right now at the bank?
Nipsey: Ten after two.

Filed under: Alienating too many topics of conversation

LOL

Or this one:

“If you wanted to ride my nuts that bad, you should’ve asked me, mang”
- Lil Wyte, Dangerous Posse by Three 6 Mafia

Can you imagine asking someone this?
“Hey Lil Wyte, can I ride your nuts? I want to really badly.”

Filed under: Wouldn’t happen / Kinda gay

Pretty much this is my current favorite website. Thanks Mel for the entertainment!! Adding it to my links right now!!

There were some classics I had forgotten about:

*Courtney and Mark dancing to “The Garden”, choreographed by Sonya – it was so strange, but that’s why I LOVED it (watch)

*Neil and Sabra dancing to “Sweet Dreams”, as choreographed by Mandy Moore (watch)

As well as classics I hadn’t forgotten about:

*Kayla and Kipono dancing Mia Michels piece on addiction to “Gravity” (watch)

*Mark and Chelsea dancing to “Bleeding Love” as choreographed by Tabitha and Napoleon (watch)

But of course my favorite routine of this season was with Jeanine and Jason, dancing to Jason Mraz‘s “If It Kills Me”. OMG so beautiful. And passionate. And everything else. Definitely glad it made it into the top 15:

Click here to view the embedded video.

(Go to this Asian site if that one gets taken down)

Like I said, AMAZING. I also really like the words to the song:

Hello, tell me you know
Yeah, you figured me out
Something gave it away
It would be such a beautiful moment
To see the look on your face
To know that I know that you know now

And baby that’s a case of my wishful thinking
You know nothing
Well you and I
Why, we go carrying on for hours on end
We get along much better
Than you and your boyfriend

[Chorus:]
Well all I really wanna do is love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can’t say it after all we’ve been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me

How long, can I go on like this,
Wishing to kiss you,
Before I rightly explode?
This double life I lead isn’t healthy for me
In fact it makes me nervous
If I get caught I could be risking it all

Cause maybe there’s a lot that I miss
In case I’m wrong

[Chorus]

If I should be so bold
I’d ask you to hold my heart in your hand
I’d tell you from the start how I’ve longed to be your man
But I never said I would
I guess I’m gonna miss my chance again

All I really wanna do is love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can’t say it after all we’ve been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
If it kills me
I think it might kill me

And all I really want from you is to feel me
Yeah, the feeling inside keeps building
I’ll find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
It might kill me

I can totally relate to all of that, which makes the dance even more powerful. *sigh*

I can’t wait for season 6 to start

For a full list of the selections of dances, see seacoastonline