I had my birthday celebration with friends over the weekend. We saw Friends with Benefits at the Alamo Drafthouse and then just mingled over drinks. I went to bed incredibly late both Friday and Saturday (think 4-6am). Sunday, Brandi cooked dinner for me and made orange chocolate cupcakes (heavenly!) and we watched Sweet Bird of Youth, another Tennessee Williams movie to close our spree of 4 Tennessee Williams movies.
So ends the month of July and today is the first day of August and VEDA (Vlog Everyday of August). I recorded my video already but experimented with doing it with my new smartphone. I can’t seem to get it uploaded through the networks at work. I’ll figure out the upload later today and embed both today and tomorrow’s on the blog tomorrow. Or you can watch for it today by subscribing to my Youtube channel.
Photos from Birthday Celebration
If I were to describe my weekend in just one word, I’d use “convivial.”
Question: How would you describe your weekend in one word?
For those of you who can’t see videos (Best Dudie Friend, I’m looking at you), I just talked about my birthday and how I joined 2007 and finally have a smart phone. I had a good birthday yesterday. Alan treated me to a dinner at Eddie V’s and we went home and watched Jeopardy. Low key and absolutely wonderful. My friends made me feel loved with Facebook, phone, Twitter, and snail letter messages. Tomorrow I celebrate with the amigos with a movie and drinks.
2.
I’ve made my most favorite video this week and did it pretty much in two nights with shoddy outdated editing software. I love it so much I just want to post it again. See previous entry for transcription and credits. I’m just in love with their faces.
My friend, Naz (first in the video in previous take), did the sweetest thing for me. She was coming into Austin the night I wanted to finish the birthday video. She told me how she had a surprise video clip and I must make room for it. I kept telling her to not worry about it because I had over 28 clips. She was adamant. So I didn’t export my video til she got into Austin. Y’all. She recorded my dad in Houston. MY DAD. He didn’t make it in the video because she kind of took him by surprise showing up at his store. We could not make any sense of what he was rambling. Really. He talked about tying string around my neck, (to tie the things I always lose, like keys and phone) but then he started to expand with multiple strings of multiple lengths. Er?! Anyway, before he gave his advice, his little intro to me makes me melt and miss him intensely. Posting it as my next take.
Isn’t he cute? “Do I look familiar to you?” Dad, you look beautiful to me!
5.
VEDA (Vlog Everyday in August) starts Monday. Already!! Last year we had 20 something people do it. That was barely manageable to keep up with not only vlogging everyday, but also watching everyone’s vlogs and commenting. This year we’re at 50 plus people and I’m traveling two weekends in August and moving another. I’m nervous about keeping up but oh so excited! More information about the project can be found at weblogwevlog.com.
6.
Happy Mail from Jennifer, Best Dudie Friend, Sarah, and my sister.
Last year on my birthday, I shared with you, 27 Life Lessons I Learned by the Age of 27. This year, on my 28th birthday, I present to you, 28 Life Lessons from 28 People. I hope you makes you smile and laugh like it did me.
Many many thanks to my sweet friends who took time out of their schedules to record their tokens of wisdom. I had more than 28 submissions, so thank you to Kym, Davey, Valerie, Will, Rogue, and Thomas for their contributions. They’re not in the video but may have inspired me to make a sequel soon.
P.S. Even after Alan and I proofed the video a dozen times, the subtitle for the Chinese at 3:53 was tagged on the wrong person. Deepest apologies for the confusion.
If you cannot view the video, you can find transcription and credits below.
Always have a can of Raid handy. – Naz
My bit of advice: Take care of your feet. – Mef
It’s okay to act like a kid. Wee wee wee! – Alyssa
A healthy person works out 3 times a week. – Tony
Learn to cook or find someone who does. – Suki (Twitter)
So going forward in your life, it’s very crucial that you listen to yourself and don’t give two craps about what other people think about you. Do your thing and do it for why you do it. And enjoy it. – Treavor (Twitter) (Youtube)
You should listen to both sides of a story. – Ali
By Robert Frost: In three words I can sum up life: it goes on. – Abby
You know when you’ve done something excellent. Don’t ever let anybody else take you down a peg and tell you that what you’ve done is substandard. – Nic (Twitter) (Youtube)
To quote Maya Angelou, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. (Not the 39th time) – Kim
The saying is, “Ignorance is bliss.” I don’t think ignorance is bliss. Holding the truth to make them happy, can only make you unhappy in the end. – Adam (Twitter)
Everything looks and feels better after a good night of sleep. So sleep, dammnit. – Nicole (Twitter)
Never skip out on breakfast. It helps increase your energy level and metabolism. – Alan
Enjoy your day. Take time out and enjoy your day. You’re going to have bad days, don’t get me wrong. I have bad days, I mean, this hair for one. But if you try not to worry about the little things and just go into today and have the BEST day you can possibly have, I think your life is going to ultimately be that much better. – Ian (Youtube)
My momma always says the only thing that matters is people. – Andrew
One life changing lesson I recently learned, is acceptance. When I started to accept that every person, thing, and situation is exactly the way it’s supposed to be at this moment, I was able to let go of my tight grip of the world and become a happier person. – Brandi
If you’re on a flight of stairs, keep your hands out of your pockets. If you’re clumsy like me, you’ll end up in the ER with 6 stitches. – Cindy (Twitter)
Anything worth doing, is worth doing poorly. For example, I can’t sing, but I do it anyway. – Michael
The only thing that you can control is your training; you have no control over your opponent. – Deesh
The one thing my parents have always taught me, was balance. Balance yourself physically, mentally, and spirtually. -Thinh
If you have to take a poo and a shower. Make sure you poo before you shower. – Sae
If I were to give you some advice, I would say that if you ever plan on picking your nose, try not to pick your nose after eating some Flaming Hot Cheetos. – Willis
Never talk while you’re eating because that’s just rude. – Jason
Chocolate is always the answer. – Monica
Don’t be afraid to satisfy your sweet tooth. – Karen
The best way to make sure you have a great day is make sure your day has 4 elements: Novelty, Beauty, Growth, and Love. If you get those four things everyday, you’ll probably have a good time. – Neville
One of my closest friends lost her brother this week. It has me aching for her and her family. She and I lived together for three years, went to high school and college together. Our families ask about each other every time we meet up. My parents think of her as a daughter. He used to visit us in college and take us out for Valentine’s Day. All my memories of him are fond and joyful. Last time I saw him was August 8 and like everyone in his family, he gives great hugs. I wish there was something I can do to alleviate the family’s pain.
Life is fleeting. Live and love hard.
2.
I’m feeling a little tore up. Here’s what my schedule looked like for the past week. It’ll explain why.
Last Friday: Worked 9am – 10pm. We hosted that conference. 5 hours of sleep.
Saturday: Worked/hosted a conference: 7am – 10pm. 4 hours of sleep.
Sunday: Worked /hosted a conference: 7am – 2pm. 5pm-7pm: shopped for Alan’s birthday.
Monday: Worked 9am-5pm.
Tuesday: Worked 9am-5pm. 6pm-8pm: Baked a pretty cake shaped like a big Oreo for birthday boy. 12am: Birthday breakfast/dinner. 5 hours of sleep.
Wednesday: Worked 9am-5pm. 7:30pm: Birthday dinner with Alan and his parents. 10pm: Out for birthday drinks with Alan & his roomies. 1 hour of sleep? If that?
Thursday: Worked 9am-5pm. 8pm: Group birthday dinner for Alan. 10pm-1am out for drinks again.
And here we are. I slept through my alarm but still made it on time for work. I’m feeling tore up.
3.
Some pictures from his birthday:
I must add, I’m so very happy he was born.
4.
Alan’s new place is really close to downtown so we’ve been extra good about taking cabs when we go out instead of recruiting a designated driver. The increase of cab use has widened my experience with cabbies. It used to be just a holiday experience. In the last two months I’ve come across two creepy cabbies. One was a leering creep and the other one was blatantly inappropriate. He went as far as mentioning how women should be so lucky and grateful to sexually service men. In hindsight, we should have grabbed his information but each time we just huffed and puffed (we meaning me and the other girl in both cases) and stormed out.
These newer experiences reminds me of the other pervy creeps running rampant on the dirty side of Sixth St. I don’t frequent the dirty side of Sixth St anymore as it’s a younger crowd and truly just dirty. However, I’ve frequented it often enough to know that when you go out with just girls or if you happen to be separate temporarily, it’s alarming how many gropers will sneak feels and flee.
I’ve newly resolved to throw more scenes and be more vocal and quick to act.
5.
Yesterday, a nice German man thought he could pick me up by telling me he likes Asia and that he knows someone from Bangkok. He was serious, too. And truly, he was a nice guy. Just misguidedly offensive.
6.
I had my first experience with absinthe this week. Tasted like black licorice. It was actually delicious for the first few sips but is too empowering a flavor for me to order regularly. Not that it’s a drink you see on the menu regularly anyhow.
A batch of my friends have been turning 27 this year. Aishah joined the club this weekend. Saturday night, I met her up with her little sister and another high school friend. It’s hard to feel old when you’re eating birthday cotton candy and sipping Prosecco.
Do you see that flute? 5 seconds after this picture I flung it at the poor little sister (whom I see as my little sister too). Which explains the next picture…
What a full weekend! Friday night (pictured above), I had a birthday get together at a Mediterranean restaurant and then a handful of us hopped over next door to smoke hookah and play chess over some beers. (I stuck to my mint green tea). Saturday, I spent the day in my fat pants with Jon and ate at all the places he missed while living in NYC. Then I gave back by offering my designated driver services and went out downtown Saturday night. Even rubbed elbows with Brittany who joined us. The last time I was downtown with Brittany was about 2 years ago. Finally, Sunday was spent doing chores, cooking, and recovering from a fantastically full weekend. I miss Jon already :(.
Now it’s Monday. I started my day off with breakfast burritos courtesy of a sweet boyfriend and then picking up coffee at a drive-thru, which led to me spilling it all over my white ensemble. Oi. Happy Monday.
Question: What is your favorite weekend day, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? Why?
Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I had a fantastic weekend and last night slept almost 7 hours which is amazing. Saturday I had lunch with an old friend and spent the rest of the day helping set up a surprise party for my friend Liliana. I’ve known Liliana going on 9 years now and have not once made it to her birthday. This kind of thing happens when you share a birthday with my mom. This year though, mom came up to Austin! Giving me a chance to finally celebrate with Liliana.
Sunday, I spent the day with my parents. We had lunch and Alan finally got a chance to meet them. Then we dillydallied and had dinner. My parents rarely have the time to come up (the last time was 2 years ago!) so it was awesome to have them. Sunday night was spent on the couch w/ zee boy watching True Blood and feeding my crush on Eric.
All in all it was the perfect balance between friends, family, sleep, activity, myself, boyfriend, etc. I’m quite pleased with myself. I close with pictures from the surprise party. Birthday girl claims she was surprised. :) We’ll take that as success.
BBBB was the most stressful birthday party I’ve been to. I don’t know how the bingo pros /elderly do it. I had one sheet of 9 cards and that’s pretty relaxing and laid back but when I decided to take one of Brittany’s 9 card sheets to help her out, I felt like I was back in elementary school doing SPEED MATH. Minus the math… At the big bingo hall in Austin, on your birthday you can buy 27 cards and a computer game for one penny. I don’t think Brit’s doing 27 cards again.
How do you make bingo classy?
You bring your own minature bottles of wine!
We managed to get Alan to come even though he swore after his first time, he’d never go back. This time he learned his lesson and stuck with a relaxing 9 cards. I love how in the following picture he looks like he’s going to stab the shit out of his bingo cards.
So you can buy yourself fancy bingo bags on the internet. For instance, this one I found on Amazon.
Or you can make your own!
The bingo bag we made last night
Time to go to work :) I’m taking half a day today off so I can face one of my biggest fears. Kayaking. Wish me luck.
I got this voice mail yesterday from my old college roommate and high school classmate. It reminded me of the scene in He’s Just Not that Into You, where Drew Barrymore’s character says, “I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies.”
Edit: Note about the sound clip: She’s one of three people who call me “Deese” shortened from “Lindisimo.”
Edit: If you’re reading in a reader, the sound clip can be seen if you go to the original post.
2.
I babysat these boys that I’ve been babysitting since they were both born last night and this conversation absolutely tickled me.
3 year old: Sonic the Hedgehog’s girlfriend is in this show.
6 year old: Sonic the Hedgehog doesn’t have a girlfriend!
3 year old: Yes he dooze!
I want to steal that verb tense for do. Yes I dooze.
3.
I saw Anthony Bourdain not too long ago. He’s my main food squeeze. I bought tickets to see him again! He’s coming back June 28th. This time, I shall try to get a book signed. I like getting author autographs. My collection thus far: Frank Warren (not a true that author really is he?), Jaden Hair, Chuck Palahniuk, and Amy Tan.
4.
This weekend is crunch time. Moving Sunday. I have tonight and tomorrow to get the hard bits of packing. Sunday is going to be hectic. The movers come and I also have tickets to my first ever baseball game! Going with my little to a Round Rock Express. I heard Will Farrell threw the first pitch at a Round Rock Express game not too long ago. I’m looking forward to eating a hot dog at a ball game :)
5.
My 27th birthday is looming. Do I have to turn 27? Dooze I?
6.
Brandi, my current roommate for another few days is moving to Dallas. Jessica, the other in our threesome is moving in August. It’s the end of an era and I’m feeling a bit sad. I told you before in 7 Quick Takes that I hate this part of growing up, the goodbyes. We’ve been thick as thieves since 2005. I always worry that friendships will frizzle once we physically move away from each other but right now most of my closest friends are long distance. My best friend in Boston. Kym, Jon, Will, and Thomas all are in New York, Dallas, and L freaking A. Kim, Cindy, Aishah in Houston. Nam floats around all over the US. So there is hope for Jessica, Brandi and me. :) We’re doing our goodbye outing Tuesday and kayaking at Town Lake. One of my irrational fears is kayaking. I’m afraid I’ll fall in the water and some little critter will crawl up my nose and then lay eggs in my brain and then I’ll find out three months later and then die. You think I’m joking.
Me, Brandi, Jessica
7.
Friendly reminder, Father’s Day is this Sunday. I’m not driving down to Houston to see daddy because I’m moving on Sunday. :(
Last night had date night with zee dude. Alan was pretty sweet and accommodating to go watch a documentary on babies (aptly entitled Babies) with me. The documentary followed 4 babies from different corners of the world, San Francisco, Namibia, Mongolia, and Tokyo. It’s ALL babies, the documentary. No narration, hardly any other dialogue save the gurgles, baby coos, and baby teary outrages for an hour and 20 minutes. We laughed out loud a few times and I enjoyed it but it was a little slower than I was hoping. My rating is 3/5 stars. See trailer below.
When we got home, Alan reattached his manly bits by watching first game of NBA championship series. ;)
2.
Our fridge at work has pictures of current lab members. The photos have to be humorous and non-serious. I thought I could go unnoticed without a picture up but it has recently been threatened that if I don’t put a picture up, someone else will take one of me and post it. I value my autonomy so I cropped myself out of this photo taken from the weekend.
Photo courtesy of Jason’s facebook
3.
I finished listening to Julia Child’s My Life in France (Ten fricking CDs). It inspired me to buy her first Mastering French Cooking book. I think I’m going to make my 2nd quiche from that book this coming week. If you don’t know how to read or speak French or even sound out French words, I recommend getting the audio book to listen to instead of the actual book to read. It’s fun to repeat after the reader and laugh at yourself as you drive to and from work.
4.
I finished this book at the end of February and much to Martin‘s chagrin, I still haven’t done the book review. As much as I wanted to. I just didn’t quite understand the ending. But up to the ending it was a very humorous story about a Fup, duck (named for “Fucked up”), a grumpy but hilarious Grandfather, and his grandson, Tiny. Written in the early eighties, the story was outrageous and makes you want to own a pet duck with as much character as Fup. (She enjoys chick flicks and bullies the dogs and if memory serves, she also drinks alcohol religiously.) I’m afraid I can’t offer that much of a review, but lucky for you Martin wrote a thorough review on his blog.
5.
So last week’s 7 Quick Takes, I shared that I made my first lasagna and how excited I was. Lasagnas aren’t too terribly exciting but I’m not a skilled cook and the most mundane cooking skills (making lasagnas) are new and wondrous to me. Intimidating at first sight but fulfilling when accomplished. And I’m always surprised when things turn out well. I was surprised that the lasagna was edible and Alan’s even told me he could eat it again and wish he had more. This week’s mundane to others but intimidating kitchen skill I tackled was ZEE PINEAPPLE! I’ve always steered clear of buying a whole pineapple and cutting it myself. I’m a give it to mom to cut or buy it already precut kind of girl when it comes to this tropical fruit.
Emboldened by my conquering the lasagna (and recently the quiche), I finally conquered my silly fear of cutting a pineapple. It’s not very hard. You cut off the top and bottom, and shave off the skin. Then cut in desired pieces. All that fear for nothing. The pineapple recipe I chose was from my Steamy Kitchen cook book. Involved grilling the pineapple, drizzling coconut rum chocolate sauce on the top and sprinkling coconut flakes on the chocolate. The combination was a hit or miss with our Memorial Day pot luck crowd. Brother hated it, Brittany loved it.
6.
Recently, I’ve noticed I’ve taken an interest in nature and green surroundings. I credit this to working at a job that requires me to walk about 20-40 minutes from and to my car. The University has great landscaping. Also, I’ve never been the kind to take leisurely walks outside unless it’s an outlet mall but Brandi and I have been walking more in our neighborhood. 6 months ago, I wouldn’t ever think to myself, look at those leaves! Those leaves are different shape from the other leaves on the tree. Or lookit that flower! It’s practically the only flower on that tree!
But it’s happening. I like flowers and leaves that are not delivered to me in a vase (those won’t ever get old, just to be clear :p).
cell phone picture from one of our walks
7.
I always run out of things to share by 7. 2 of my closest friends turned 27 and 26 yesterday and today. So happy birthday Will and Jen T. My brother got accepted into a PhD program in San Antonio. Congrats to him.
Happy Friday to everyone who reads my dribble. Thanks for that by the way. Reading. Say hi or something :).
Texas native. Living and working in Austin, TX. Twenty something. In hot pursuit of good food, adventure, and laughter. Dreams of owning her own place with a big giant library.
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