Austin360 blogs > Miss Adventure
Miss Adventure on break!
Hey gang!
Mama needs a break, and by “mama” I mean “me” and by break I mean…um, a break (that wasn’t exactly as poetic as I had originally intended). I hope to be back to my to my bouncy, managable, shiny self sometime shortly after spring break. So thanks for your well wishes —although I suspect some of them weren’t made at actual wells— and, as always, I’m no more than an e-mail away.
See y’all soon!
Rhiannon
If I’m going out this week, this is where I’ll be:
March 1 - Former Sinus boy and current Total Fox Jerm Pollet hosts a Who Hoot Night at Ruta Maya, starting at 6 p.m.
March 2 - The Boxspring Hogs in all their Tom Waits-covering glory at Headhunters
March 3 - Johnny Hootrock at Walters in Houston (if you can possibly make it). The debut of former Flametrick Subs guitarist Clem Hoot’s new combo. Locally, White Ghost Shivers are playing at Emo’s.
March 4 - Texas Rollergirls. It’s Derby time again, y’all. Git yer flattrack action here. Playland Skate Center. 6:30 p.m.
March 5 - Rock’n’Roll Karaoke with Nathan Black at Beerland. OK, technically yes, he once spent the better part of an hour coming up with various ways he wanted to eat my puppy, but he’s still a really nice guy. Besides, what else do you have to do on a Monday night?
March 6 - Barfield, the Tyrant of Texas Fun at the Continental Club. He looks like a young Grandpa Munster and sounds like trouble. Totally worth the late night. Skip the Toni Price Hippy Hour, take a disco nap and show up at 11:00.
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The Irish Brothers TONIGHT!
Hello my glorious chippymonks! Isn’t it a lovely day? The birds are chirping, the grass is probably green (I don’t have grass around my apartment, so I can’t really tell, but I’m willing to make an educated guess) and The Irish Brothers are in town!
I love the Irish Brothers, they’re hooky and poppy but still have some good ole dirty garage in ‘em. The super adorable brothers (really!) named Irish (also really!) from California will be playing Beerland tonight.
Just look at them, aren’t they just adorable? They’re like kittens! I wish I could get a picture of them in a wicker basket playing with yarn.
Don’t you just want to take them home to meet mom? I mean, not MY mom, but somebody’s mom, and they could be all “that’s a lovely necklace Mrs. Cleaver.” and after dinner (pot roast with mixed veggies, and they’d all have perfect table manners and help with the dishes) you all could go out — well except your mom, because that’s wrong — and drink WAY too much Chartreuse and then sort of forget which one you liked the most and wake up the next morning with the words “Remember this!” scribbled mysteriously on the crumbled-up post it that somehow worked its way into your jeans pocket the night before, only you don’t remember whatever “this” is and you’re not even sure if that was your handwriting or where on Earth you could have procured a Post-it note between the hours of 1 and 7 a.m. on a Thursday morning.
Not that I would ever do that. I don’t even like pot roast.
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Serge Gainsbourg’s on fire. Someone call Dell
So I wrote this giant blog with dialog and accents and everything, all about how Serge Gainsbourg —my shiny new laptop— burst into flame last week. Flame. Not spark, not small-electric-arc-that-might-look-like-a-flame-but-is-in-reality-still-a-spark, but an actual, no foolin’, message-from-the-Lord-style pillar of FIRE. I had it all typed up and spaced and everything, ready for publication on Friday so y’all would know I wasn’t dead, but the Internet ate it.
Stupid Internet.
The upshot is, after 53 minutes and 24 seconds of trying to explain to a bevy of lovely women from Bangalore, they have decided that a giant flame-thrower attached to my laptop is, and I’m quoting directly here “a possible safety concern” they are sending me a new one.
I suspect this one will tell me to wander in the desert.
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Blogflu
Hi y’all! I have the flu! Who wants to hug me? No takers? Well that’s too bad. I guess I’ll just sit here and be diseased all by my lonesome, just like I did all day Saturday and all day Sunday. This sickness (which, for the record, I am most certainly not down with) smacked me in the head late Friday night, shortly after an evening of being humiliated at the Hilton, the details of which I shall enumerate on Wednesday, when I return.
Bourdain slices and skewers
I have never met Anthony Bourdain. I have never read one of his books, seen him on TV or dined at one of his restaurants. I would, however, like to make out with him until my face falls off.
Why? Not because he’s especially good looking — although he does have a certain brooding charm that has been known to influence me in ways best left unmentioned in a blog that my priest might read — but because he is a genius.
Read this, then get in the make-out line…behind me.
Did you hear that little woosh on Saturday? The sound of a little coolness being sucked out of Austin? That’s because Hot Rod Betties, THE place for the safety pin and saddle shoe set to get a cut and curl, shut its South First doors last week. No word on when and where Bettie will resurface, but when they do, you’ll hear about it here first.
Thank you for the e-mails about my missing-in-action status. I had a bit of sickness (note: I am NOT down with it), but am fine now. Y’all are the best.
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Your weekend rawk report
I don’t usually get too sanguine about Bloodfeast, the sorta annual psychobilly show put on by Hairball 8 productions. However, I’m all het up over the glorious return of 7 Shot Screamers, a dirtyhot psychoglam combo (Think a little Jagger, a little Johannsen and a lot of Iggy) from St. Louis, who will be playing Bloodfeast 5 at Emo’s on Saturday night. Show up before 9:30 p.m. and only pay $6 to get in. Don’t miss it.
In other Red River news, Friday night is the Handsome Joel Benefit at Elysium. Put on your best black eyeliner and shell out a few bucks for a good cause. Lineup includes Dixie Witch, Amplified Heat, SuperHeavyGoatAss, Brewtality, Inc. and Heart & Soul Soundsystem.
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Today in breathlessly obvious journalism
I don’t do celebrity news often —It’s so tiresome to think about people other than myself— but I had to post a link to today’s bit of hard hitting NOT AT ALL OBVIOUS journalism, courtesy of Digital Spy. Apparently, Britney Spears wants Justin Timberlake back.
In other late-breaking news, puppies are cute and the earth is round.
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Smitten with Smitty’s
Okay, I only THOUGHT I didn’t like Texas ‘cue, but I was wrong wrong wrong. I don’t like mediocre Texas BBQ. Smitty’s —that glorious Lockhart institution— is incredible. It’s what angelmeat must taste like. Lovely, smoky, angelmeat.
I had never been to Smitty’s, or in fact any place LIKE Smitty’s. You order your meat by weight in the smoke room, where they have an open fire and long cast-iron smoking pits, and where the men behind the counter who look for all the world like Hephestus slice your meat onto a sheet of butcher paper. This isn’t gimmick butcher paper, it’s the real thing. You take your meat and your extra-refined-for-goodness squishy white bread and head into the dining room that looks like a honky tonk refectory, with long tables and people of all makes and models eating with their fingers and drinking Big Red. You “git you a drank,” hunker down and dig in.
There are no forks and few napkins, and, as my pals Amy and Ben discovered after devouring our two pounds of “Fat beef,” you can write your name in the grease left on the table.
Always the sign of a good establishment.
So thank you, dear readers, for your suggestions. My next question…where can I get good carnitas?
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Best BBQ in Lockhart?
I may not know much about my readers, but I do know y’all enjoy a good dose of Vitamin B. Some pals and I are heading down to Lockhart for the afternoon tomorrow, and I’d like your opinion. Where should I take them?
I make no claims of being a Texas barbecue connoiseur because I don’t (now dear readers, cover your eyes) really care for the stuff. I know, I’m sorry, but I am just not moved by it. I grew up eating Tennessee style BBQ, usually pulled pork in a vinegar sauce so deliciously tart it would make angels cry and demons pucker. So I throw myself on the mercy of this court. What is the best BBQ joint in Lockhart?
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Bizarre mechanic’s triangle
It’s not unusual that I would, in the course of an afternoon, inadvertently crash either a possibly-illegal gambling den or a small Mexican child’s baptism party. It is unusual, however, that I would do both within the span of about 5 minutes. Oddly enough, that is just what I did on Saturday.
My pal Torvald (the burly-astrophysicist-who-will-someday-move-my-couch from Monday’s blog) and I had taken his gargantuan truck up to Arlington for fun, adventure and a bit of planetarium gazing. After filling up on mediocre brisket at authentic-looking but disappointingly sub-par Bodacious BBQ, we parked and dashed into what we thought was a local mechanic’s shop. It might actually have been a mechanic’s shop, that is, if David Lynch had given up film making and dedicated his life to the care and feeding of Buick Skylarks (tangent: it’s very inconvenient for the purpose of this narrative that Torvald doesn’t drive a Skylark, because if he did I could make jokes about Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” but there’s nothing to be done about that now).
We walked through the propped-open plywood door into a noisy, claustrophobic room full of what looked like low-budget digital slot machines, each with a shabbily-dressed man or woman sitting in front of the screen, intensely focused and clutching cash in their fists.
It might surprise you that I don’t spend a lot of time gambling. I have no real moral objection to it, but I know if I put four quarters into a slot machine odds are I won’t get anything back. If I put four quarters into a laundry machine, however, I have clean underwear for a week.
Torvald and I, completely over-dressed for appearing on COPS, scooted out of there as quickly as our law-abiding legs would take us and, after standing outside a moment, located the mechanic who promptly walked past us, keys in hand, and unlocked a darkened glass-walled room for us and turned on the television, but not the lights. “Wait here” he said.
As our eyes adjusted to the light — or lack thereof — we saw a strange display. A dozen round tables, draped in white and baby blue and topped with flowers, toy bears and mylar balloons reading “Feliz Bautizo.” A bizarre counterpoint to the den of possible inequity we’d just witnessed.
We waited outside.
‘Hello Ms. Major, or can I call you Ursula?’
Saturday, my pal Torvald — a no-foolin’ astrophysicist who can only be described as burly — and I hightailed it up to Arlington for a day of fun and adventure. It’s always strange going on a long car trip with someone for the first time. It’s like a first date, except more nervewracking. See, there will always be plenty of fish in the sea but only a select few of those fish have the magical combination of gullibility and a really big truck. These fish are incredibly important because, if fed and watered properly, they will move your couch for free while you drink something with an umbrella in it. By this definition, Torvald is a very important fish.
We went to see the UT Arlington Planetarium because Torvald is on the board of directors for Friends of the Austin Planetarium and is into such things. I am into such things as well. I grew up attending Repressed Oaks School for WASPs, and we had a planetarium in our elementary school. I won’t write about how pathetic it is that my elementary school had a planetarium yet The Greatest City in The Greatest State in The Greatest Country in The World doesn’t, but trust me. It is.
The planetarium was ‘eh’, We caught the 1:00 p.m. showing of “Honey I Shrank the Solar System” — not great but not so completely awful as to merit much discussion other than the well-intentioned but completely ineffectual planetarium guide who kept calling all the planets “she’s” (Mars, the last time I checked ye olde book o’ mythology, was a dude.) and called the big and little dippers Ursula Major and Minor, respectively. Of course it should be Ursa. Ursa is a bear, Ursula is a Bond girl in a white bikini. Wrong kind of heavenly body, y’all.
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Champagne wishes, too
This was supposed to post Monday. Stay tuned tomorrow for my adventures in the storm.
There’s caviar in my hair and I blame the dog. I’ve been feeling a bit icky and under the weather recently and I’m doing my best to nip it in the bud before it turns into full blown death. Nipping it in the bud usually involves drinking vast quantities of scalding hot ginger tea from an old plaid thermos and making an inelegant swan dive into a vat of Vick’s Vaporub which -as far as I can tell— hasn’t done a darn thing except for making me smell like the inside of a cough drop. Oh, and eating Special Desickening Foods.
Andy Warhol reputedly ate Campbell’s Tomato Soup every day for lunch for five years because it helped his creative process. I’m not sure I believe it, but I can see the appeal. Not of Campbell’s Tomato Soup — that stuff is on a vile level somewhere between those sugar-free candies my grandmother used to keep in her purse and the stuff between a homeless guy’s toes — but I suppose I understand. Certain foods elicit certain physical and psychological responses. For example: Everyone knows the hot and sour soup from Wanfu Too — aside from being the best in town—has magical smartening properties, especially when consumed after midnight when your woefully incomplete term paper is due the next morning, and that après-club pancakes from IHOP, doused liberally with magenta syrup, will greatly reduce your risk of leaving ill-advised voicemails containing the phrase “ANDLETMETELLYOUANOTHERTHINGABOUTYOU” to people who, technically, are the boss of you.
In the same vein, sour cream and cheap caviar, all wooshed together (what? I’ve been watching Cabaret)and consumed on Ruffles potato chips has magic unplaguing powers the likes of which are rarely heard outside a Sunday morning sermon. As a person of faith, I find it’s my responsibility to eat as much of this concoction — a pal calls it my Republican Comfort Food— as I can. The trick is, when I’m sick, I can’t eat very much at a time, and I usually have to take a bit of a nap before I’m done, which leaves the poor food-covered tea tray to defend itself against two dogs who act as if they’ve never been fed in the lives, or at least not in the past five minutes of it.
That’s how I ended up with caviar in my hair. I fell asleep on my lovely red couch and woke up covered in fish eggs and dairy product. I’m not sure which one of the dogs actually did it, I suspect Dozer, who is wise in the ways of the world — and also tall enough to reach the tea tray — but it’s possible that it’s the newcomer, my baby bulldog, Thomas. He is English, you know… might have just gotten tired of waiting for his tea and decided to help himself.
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The Mrs. Kravitz diaries
I never wanted to be the mean neighborlady. Yet there I was, decked out in mismatched satin pajamas, Libby Wondermop in hand, banging on my ceiling trying to get those darn whippersnappers upstairs to settle down with their rock and their roll. The neighborkid, whose gender I cannot discern thanks to a steady supply of baggy hot-topic t-shirts and vaguely emo hair, has taken to drumming directly above my chandelier. This auditory assault starts shortly after 10:00 p.m. and lasts until I thunk on the wall with the wondermop. I know, I know. I’m 27 and have become an old lady. Just stick rollers in my hair, a Virginia Slim in my mouth and call me Gladys.
Now I’d better skedaddle, it’s time to watch my stories.
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RIP Ramen Guy
The Ramen Noodle Guy died. Frankly, I had no idea there was one person responsible for inventing the Most Important College Food Ever, but apparently there was and now he’s dead. When I had a friend from Virginia crash-land at Stately Miss Adventure Manor for a few months, looking for a job he practically existed on Ramen and chopped up hotdogs.
At the time I was mortally offended — his oodles of noodles insulted the inherent dignity of my gorgeous Le Creuset saucier — but now I understand that ramen is a rite of passage, just like getting your ears pierced or taking a late night road trip to Mexico just to see if the nachos are better there (they’re not).
Since my grandparents who raised us spent so many years in Asia, my brother and I ate ramen fairly often. William liked his noodles dry and without the little silver flavor packet, which I viewed as heresy. I liked mine the way the Good Lord (and Momofuku Ando) intended it, with lots of steaming salty broth. It’s not that I particularly enjoyed the broth which in my household came in two flavors: yellow and brown. I just liked what happened after all the noodles were gone. My grandfather, who is a no-foolin’ Harvard-degree holdin’ expert on Chinese culture, told me the best way to compliment the chef was to sluuuuurp the soup — paying special attention to volume and creativity of noise — and once the broth was gone, to release a window rattling belch.
Just to be polite, of course.
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Back in Black (and blue)
I’m back y’all! With a Brand! New! Puppy! And would you like to know something about puppies? They’re only cute so you don’t kill them. At least that’s my theory. Saturday night I brought home Thomas, a 10-week-old English Bulldog named after two martyred archbishops of Canterbury and an English muffin, and cute though he may be —and he truly is— he’s got a look in his eyes that says “I will destroy everything you’ve ever owned or loved.”
I have no doubt he will.
A few housekeeping notes:
For 2007, Miss Adventure updates will appear on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There will, of course, be updates on other days, but you’ll always get a fresh blog at least three times a week.
Happy New Year y’all!
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Type quietly please
Riddle me this dear readers, how is it possible to have a Morning After without a night before? Aside from communion wine and one small “toddy for the body” in the form of an Irish cream consumed on Christmas Eve afternoon, I have had a hooch-free holiday.
And yet I seem to have awoken with the sort of hangover headache that inspires one to start the day with the word “mother” before rapidly descending into odalisques of profanity that would make longshoremen weep. It’s a puzzlement.
As a rule I do not get hangovers. Even the morning after my gigantic birthday party where I woke up face-down on living room carpet, clasping a roll of tin foil (don’t ask) I was merely headachey for a few hours. Yet somehow I am sitting here, stock still and barely capable of sentence structure, wishing people wouldn’t blink so (deleted scene of colorful-yet-unimaginable verbal violence) loudly.
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It’s never too early for Scotch
Scotch on waffles. No, seriously fix yourself a waffle, butter it, pour on some real maple syrup and then sprinkle generously with your favorite Speyside. I had one for dinner last night, and it was so delicious I morn the fact that showing up to work smelling of single malt is no longer considered acceptable behavior for those in the newspaper bidness (full disclosure: I’m not sure if it ever was, my knowledge on the subject comes only from old black and white movies, most of which involve witty banter, a May/December romance and a lot of terribly attractive hats.)
Also a big success? Whiskey in oatmeal. Needs more sugar though.
Consider this my present to you.
Merry Christmas, y’all.
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Stolen Gear Alert!
The Black Irish — one of my favorite Austin bands — had some gear stolen last Thursday at Red Eyed Fly. The item in question is a Mesa Boogie DC-3 (small combo amp, black, similar to the one pictured) given to guitar-player James Fitzsimmons by his father. If you see this amp — it’s pretty unusual — please contact me at rgammill@statesman.com. Thanks y’all! — Miss Adventure
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Forgive me, Father
I’m not going to say what I really think about this calendar which features some very good looking, very real Catholic priests shot in what has got to be the world’s first clerical-core photo spread because it will probably get a) caught in your Net nannies b) me fired. Instead, click here, browse through the images (March is an especially good one) and try to think of a phrase that doesn’t rhyme with “may born”
Go ahead, I dare you.
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Wet rice and hot messes
Will someone tell me what I’m missing with risotto? Is it or is it not just wet rice? It is.
Wet rice! People! Do not be fooled by this food. This is not food for grown-ups. This belongs in Gerber jars and not to be consumed by folks who, when given a crayon, car key or baby carrot aren’t immediately inspired to stick it up their nose. I find the stuff reprehensible, especially when paired with an otherwise glorious meal — such as the one I had last night, catered by chef Ray Trono consisting of beef tenderloin medallions, blue cheese empanada and a delicious tian de couregettes (a sort of rustic veggie gratin).
Reminds me of the time my Dutch ex-boyfriend was first given corn on the cob … he looked at me, then at the corn and said in confused, polite bewilderment
“This is … for people?”
In other news, my Fafarazzi team is doing exceedingly well thanks to Nicole Ritchie’s fortuitous-for-me DUI arrest. Don’t know Fafarazzi? It’s Celebrity Fantasy Football, except without the football part. Log on, join or create a league, draft your most trainwrecky celebrities and watch the nightmare unfold.
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A dish best served sparkly
Finally, a permanent form of revenge that won’t land me in jail or someplace…warmer. It’s the glitter letter and it’s brilliant. The main problem I have with revenge is that it’s bad for the soul. It’s a poison that eats the container or whatever.
You know what isn’t bad for the soul? Glitter! How can glitter or any related glitter-delivery system possibly be bad? They’re like tiny little particles of happiness, or at least tiny little particles of gay discos — so you know, six of one. So on the link and send one to a “friend” today.
P.S.: As with all practical jokes and/or forms of revenge, they are only funny when played on people who are not me. So any of you crazy yahoos who are thinking about sending me a glitter letter can just save yourself the trouble. Bah Humbug.
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It’s the hap-happiest time of the year!
Yesterday marked the day that I gave up the Ghost of Christmas Pressure. Last year I did what felt like an entire month of full-metal Christmas and this year, this year I’m not going to do a darn thing. No tree, no cadre of highly trained, thematically coordinated ornaments hung with military precision — did I mention I have a chart? — and no harvesting mistletoe in the dead of night. Nothing, and it’s going to rock.
Instead, I resolve to spend more time at bars, clubs and other places where a girl and her dog can spend quality time with good scotch and bad influences.
I think Santa would approve.
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The Velvet waaay Underground
What are the odds that some mysterious Miss Adventure benefactor is bidding on this, trying to win it for me for Christmas? Not good? Darn.
I’m anxious to see who will end up winning the auction for this incredibly important (also: awesome) piece of rock ‘n’ roll history. I bet it’s Lou Reed.
The Velvet Underground and Nico album. Rock.
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Baby, it’s cold outside
Perhaps last night was not the finest night to sleep with my bedroom window open. I woke up in the middle of a really good dream conversation between Oscar Wilde and Hugh Laurie — whom I have loved since I was seven and was my second-ever celebrity crush after Peter Tork — to the rumblings and thunderings of an especially noisome storm. This is my sort of weather, made even more so by the fact that I didn’t have to do anything but lie there and watch the wind catch sail and blow my canopy curtains about my bed. However, the weather did not prove as delightful to experience this morning when I tried to start my car and it would not let me get out of park without several big flashy lights announcing it was:
a) very cold
b) raining
c) not a very pleasant day and wouldn’t I just have more fun staying at home listening to Fairytale of New York over and over again and wishing I was Kirsty McColl but, you know, not dead.
Is it wrong that this is my favorite Christmas song ever?
The Pogues and Kirsty McColl performing “Fairytale of New York”
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Germans, grease and guns.
Is there anything Charlton Heston can’t do? I will freely admit I’ve loved the star of a “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Camp” classic Ben Hur —arguably the finest of the entire Greased Up For Jesus genre— for many a year. I loved him when he was painting a ceiling, I loved him when …well, whenever else he did noble things while coated in baby oil, and now I’m discovering Chuck again as audibly chiseled narrator of everyone’s favorite Prussian, Immanuel Kant.
Wee!
During an ill-fated trip to Half-Price Books last night I ransacked the audiobooks section and came home with an entire collection of “Philosophers on Tape.” I needed something to listen to in the car since KMFA has been a little Vivaldi-heavy as of late (every morning for the past week!) and I thought this would fit the bill. Now I’m schooled on the Age of Enlightenment by the dulcet tones of the nation’s favorite sea-parter.
Although, I still can’t help but hope he’ll shout out “Reeeaason! True Enlightenment is Reeeaason!”
The narrator, in more lubricated times
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Good hair for bad girls at Hotrod Betties
Brilliant experience the other day at Hotrod Betties Hair Salon this bad girl beauty parlor that occupies the former Pedazo Chunk space on South 1st street is my new favorite place to take my crazy curls, with competent, colorful stylists, a minimalist garage aesthetic and booze. The space is huge, the chairs are sparkly vintage and each cut or color comes with a glass of wine or a cold beer. If you’re not in a committed relationship with your stylist, give these gals a try.
Plus, I really really love their motto.
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Sugar plum scary
OK, this? This is just not good. I love feathers as much as the next person but what is happening here? I understand not wanting to kill a tree to decorate for Christmas, but is killing a drag queen really any kinder? No, it is not.
I’m the first to admit that I don’t like Christmas kitsch and that I tend to get a bit Il Duce around the holidays, but it’s not like I hold everyone to my admittedly strict yuletide decorating aesthetic (I have a chart where the ornaments go, and it WORKS.) This isn’t to say the Christmas tree in my own house was much better with its giant asbestos-coated colored lights and horrific grapefruit-sized ornaments which is what you get when your family spends most of its formative years in Southeast Asia. And, OK, this tree could be worse. It looks like there’s been thought put into it, and I suppose there is a theme —Sugar Plum Showgirl or something like that — but when a tree makes me think “Hey, I wonder when the John Waters ‘Very Crudely Yours’ Box Set is going to get cheaper,” I can’t help but feeling something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong.
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Oh, Aggies.
So driving into work today I noticed our fine town was being invaded by infidel boy scouts. Further exploration proved that they were not in fact boy scouts but Aggies who did not actually have the sense to get out of the road when cars were coming.
Aggies…I’m going to be gentle here because I really don’t have a problem with y’all, but let’s face it, there’s a reason you play football instead of Trivial Pursuit. I’m sure you’re all lovely people who only occasionally violate the laws against consanguine marriage, but let’s face it, y’all need all the help you can get in the brains department and playing in traffic isn’t exactly the way to get it.
P.S. Love the boots.
Thanksgiving Observances
Turkeys are for suckers. I didn’t like turkey when I was a kid, and I don’t like turkey now. Granted, I’ve heard good things about fried turkey, and I have personally made a darn fine bird by brining the bejeezus out of it, but really, if you have to work THAT hard to make something taste good … maybe you shouldn’t be cooking it in the first place.
Speaking of not cooking in the first place, what am I missing when it comes to Rachael Ray? She’s cute and noisy and all, but so are Pomeranians, and yet somehow they manage not to be on every television show and magazine in these great United States. To be fair, my experience with Rachael Ray mostly involved two weeks in the desert of southern New Mexico when I actually had access to a television and she was on every channel all the time, and I have no proof that she’s not a good and fine person. I just don’t get the love. Someone help.
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The Plague
So I’ve got the plague. Not quite black plague, but some sort of I don’t know … medium gray plague, where the symptoms are craving herring and feeling seasick. Of course I haven’t ruled out the possibility that I’m turning into an albatross, but since I haven’t yet started to sprout feathers, I’m not too worried.
Because of the plague I missed Joan Jett at Stubbs with Riverboat Gamblers and The Eagles of Deathmetal which by all accounts was an incredible show to the surprise of no one because Joan Jett is the coolest person I don’t actually know.
At any rate, y’all will have to wait until next week for any regular blogging wherein I promise to relate the great and glorious stories of my trip out to the wilderness, including my failed — and surprisingly explosive — attempt at bootleggery.
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Duck, duck, GOOSE.
My Goodness, how hard can it possibly be to find a goose in this town?! All I want for my thanksgiving dinner is to find a goose, cook the ever-living daylights out of it and serve it on a big ole platter surrounded by various forms of carbohydrates and seasonally appropriate vegetables. So I call Central Market, which carries every thing under the sun (except for maple sugar, because God forbid I be able to make pumpkin profiteroles in maple caramel without a Indiana Jones/Last Crusade-style quest through the grocers of this fine hamlet) and they have no goose. They have poussin, capon, pheasants and two different sorts of duck, but no goose. Capon? I mean, I love a rooster that sings soprano as much as the next gal, but give me a break. Plus, it’s not like geese are hard to come by in the wild. I can barely drive to work in the morning without waiting for some stupid gander to waddle its way across Riverside Drive. I bet I could reach out, grab one and not even impede the flow of traffic.
So it was down to Whole Foods. I don’t like Whole Foods. It scares me. In fact, the last time I went to Whole Foods was before the big Fritz Lang looking one opened up and it was only to get the maple sugar, which cost not just an arm and a leg, but also the healthier of my two kidneys —the one I was saving for my grandfather, who’s been working with just one for nearly 50 years after one kidney was “shot out in Okinawa” (“shot out in Okinawa” I was later to find out, was code for “never existed in the first place.”)
Thankfully, much like the Russian mafia and James Caan’s character in the Great Escape Whole Foods was able to work their Mephistophelian granola magic and order a goose for me for the low, low price of $5.99 a pound.
Next year it’s a slow drive-by on Town Lake … and I’m bringing a net.
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Into the woods
Well gang, I’m going on vacation for a week to get some of that good old-fashion autumnal splendor (and if I get some of that old fashioned roadside apple-jack on the way…well, so be it.)
For your viewing and listening pleasure I am proud to present a little band called the Go-Go’s performing —live— their timeless classic…”Vacation”
Legwarmers!
Mullets!
Belinda Carlisle’s funky dance moves!
See y’all on the flip flop (that means later, right?)
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DIY brain surgery
It only looks like I’ve had a lobotomy.
Remember that bull-riding thing I tried a few months ago? Where I discovered that I have prohibitively stumpy little penguin arms? Well they’ve come back to bite in the proverbial backside, again.
So I haven’t been getting a lot of shut-eye lately, and the sleep deprivation is sort of impairing my judgment. After rolling in to Stately Miss Adventure Manor around 2 a.m. (another late night at the library. Really.) I didn’t quite have the mental capacity to go through my entire pre-bedtime production.
Having been raised on a steady diet of old movies — featuring imperious looking filles d’un certain âge, who wander around in turbans and silk pajamas slathering on face cream and plotting the untimely demise of their husbands — I have developed a Byzantine bedtime ritual which requires a good deal of time and equipment, including the requisite pajamas and turban plus a special lavender silk sleep mask with embroidered eyelashes in case a murderous gang of home-invading emus gets a hunger for human eyeballs in the middle of the night.
(don’t ask about the emus. It’s a long story.)
Unfortunately, my sleep mask had fallen somewhere under the bed, or, as I like to call it “The Heart of Darkness,” and I was left defenseless against the emus.
At this point, normal sensible people would probably have said “well, just get a broom or something.” Oh sure, do it the easy way, but where’s the challenge in that? Instead I went bellydown on the floor and fished around pathetically until I managed to push the mask even further under the bed and get a dead moth in my hair.
I reasoned — and I use the word reason very loosely — that I could probably use one of the soft, thick headbands I use in conjunction with the turban. (So I like to get my “Mommie Dearest” on, so what?) so I turned off the light, pulled the band over my eyes …
and woke up with a giant lobotomy line across my forehead.
… and it won’t go away.
.
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Red whine
Sorry about the dearth of posting my collective sweet baboos, my computer had an inelegant descent into madness which I won’t bother trying to describe because Tennessee Williams already did it, although in my version there was a lot more swearing and a 27-year-old Marlon Brando didn’t take off his shirt.
Speaking of madness, what makes people think crossing MoPac in the middle of the night is a good idea? Listen y’all (and by y’all I don’t mean y’all y’all, because anyone who reads this blog is obviously good looking, intelligent and prone to acts of safe pedestrianism) don’t cross major thoroughfares at night. You might not mind dying, but I mind killing you. Take the shuttle.
In late-breaking girly news I’ve been having mixed luck with Almay’s 1-2-3 Ideal Lip Color in Red. Bought in a moment of desperation (i.e. the Chanel counter at Saks was closed) this supposedly simple “system” requires the purchase and application of three individual products: lip liner, lipstick and lip gloss. The liner and the lipstick, both $7.49 run far too blue for anything touting itself as a true red, although the gloss ($7.99) is nice when worn alone or over almost anything other than the lip liner and lipstick it’s meant to support. I particularly like it over Chanel’s Double Intensity lip color in Garnet ($30.00 at gloss.com). When it’s part of Almay’s set up, it looks cheap.
Speaking of cheap:
My ankle is bothering me today so I won’t get on my soapbox on how most drugstore makeup is a false economy, but had I waited until the lovely sales girls had opened up the next day, instead of shell
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forgive me Father, for I have had visions of locusts carrying off Miss adventure.
Unless, of course, you are really, really sick, and then I feel very bad. I hope you are OK soon.
... read the full comment by Bonnie | Comment on Serge Gainsbourg's on fire. Someone call Dell Read Serge Gainsbourg's on fire. Someone call Dell
I am planning on being there. When their vocals are done by a man named Hot Karl, you just have to see them.
***Miss Adventure responds***
It's so cute when he shakes his little rear end! Aww.
... read the full comment by Nathan | Comment on The Irish Brothers TONIGHT! Read The Irish Brothers TONIGHT!
How courageuse! no one can argue about the price or the novelty value of a flaming computer but it is much more satisfying to get in someone's face when it blows up rather than calling Bangalore. Since the accent grave does not compute on this website replace
... read the full comment by Robynne | Comment on Serge Gainsbourg's on fire. Someone call Dell Read Serge Gainsbourg's on fire. Someone call Dell
...and another reason I dont have one of these dang PCs at home, I fly straight and narrow with my mac. No major issues and I get an american when I have an issue.
... read the full comment by chris danger! | Comment on Serge Gainsbourg's on fire. Someone call Dell Read Serge Gainsbourg's on fire. Someone call Dell
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