Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

It was my turn to cook this past Family Night, and even though I had eaten pizza for lunch Friday (Mediterrean), lunch Saturday (lean cuisine Roast Garlic Chicken), late night snack Saturday (don't know, but it was yummy at 1 AM), guess what still sounded like a good idea on Sunday evening?

Holly introduced me to the in house frozen dough at Sprouts a couple months ago, which is amazing stuff, and nothing I am about to say should discredit that point...

The last time I bought this dough was for a pizza night at our apartment. Even though the directions say to let the dough unthaw for 1  1/2 to 2 hours before leaving it somewhere to rise, well, that is just not how things work, world/temperature/America! I still don't know who to blame. After an hour and fifteen minutes out of the freezer you could have used the dang thing as a weapon, so we placed the dough (securely wrapped in the plastic bag I bought it in) in warm water for about thirty minutes... at which point I realized some water had leaked into the bag. All efforts to dry off the dough ball just seemed fruitless and also vaguely unhygenic, so Tanya popped out to get different (ready made) dough from a pizza place down the road. In the meantime, Carmen and I began an impromptu game of catch with the expanding dough blob, because why throw away perfectly good food when you can toss it around your apartment? Moral of the story: if you haven't tried pizza dough catch, you need to.

Anyway, this time I moved the dough to the fridge the night before. Problem solving the second time around is my strongest suit. Actually, I guess that was the moral of the story.

I made two kinds of pizza: Basil Chicken Pesto and Pepperoni with veggies, which does not sound as legit as Basil Chicken Pesto, but I swear it was delicious. I am of the opinion that pizza is not so terribly unhealthy if you use the right ingredients, so I used reduced fat pesto, part skim mozzarella cheese, turkey pepperoni, and lots of fresh veggies. Turkey pepperoni was not the best thing I have ever tasted, but it wasn't the worst either. Mostly it just tasted like rubbery pepperoni.

Oh, and we drank red wine, so it was a healthy evening all around!

It is not unusual for my sisters and I to show up places wearing the same thing-- church, birthday parties of mutual friends, Thanksgiving. Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes there is a small fight that breaks out that results in one or more us not speaking to each other. Fortunately, this matching incident was a little more planned than usual-- Russell answered the door wearing the same shirt as me, and then called Deborah to tell her to wear hers as well. When she arrived,  he sacrificed his shirt so Stephanie wouldn't feel left out. And so we could take this picture:

Sisters! Love all the pictures with the bump, I think it is Stephanie's best accessory. 

"Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one." - Dr. Suess

Today, I wish I was wearing this:









 ... unless of course she's naked. She's not naked, right? I don't want that. It's the mask I like.

while doing this:

or this:

 or making this:

... instead of going to work and then to the dentist.

However, I did receive this message from Gmail after finally opening all of the mail that's been sitting in my inbox for well.. a long time:

"Woohoo! You've read all the messages in your inbox."

I'll take it!

ACL, Day 3

The Line Up
Baby Cuddling  AWOL Nation  Broken Social Scene
Elbow      Fleet Foxes     Empire of the Sun     Arcade Fire

No, baby cuddling is not some weird indie band-- we stopped by Grace's before the festival to see the beautiful new mama and sweet, sleepy little JD. He is a good seven pounds now, and wearing tiny pants and everything!

I particularly love these pictures of Carmen and Tanya holding him because they look soooo interested and he looks soooo ... well, not.

We learned our lesson for the final day of the festival: meet your friends outside the gates before the masses descend and the cell reception goes missing. An unsent text is no one's friend!

The AWOL Nation crowd was a persnickety bunch, and I include myself in that number. The unspoken rules of navigating the crowd during a show are thus: 1. Choose the path of least resistance 2. Watch out for the people in chairs, they are pre- mad about all the people who are going to trip over their chair, and they only get madder when you actually do it. 3. Choose the path of least resistance.
Even though I was standing next to a guy in a chair, and there was an obvious path to my left, about fifty people decided that the best way to go was making me move out of the way so they could slip by chair guy. I got annoyed, but chair guy took it to the next level-- he sat in his chair, texting mind you, with his legs straight out in front of him so that people would have climb over to get past us. I kind of wanted to be him.

I thought at first that I didn't know who AWOL Nation was... and then they started playing that Sail song. That's about all I have to say about them.

Next was Broken Social Scene, who I know I think were really good-- it was just so beepin hot, we looked like this for most of the show:

Next was Elbow. Yep, you heard that correctly. Elbow. Tanya had been raving about them for weeks, but I was a bit skeptical-- surely this band cannot possibly be named after a body part, right? According to Wikipedia, their name was once "Mr Soft", so I guess Elbow is an improvement? Hard call to make.

Elbow (ok, now that I have typed that word three times in a row, it has lost all possible meaning and does in fact sound like a great band name) turned out to be one of my favorite acts of the festival-- and they brought a glorious light rain shower to cool everything down!

If we are talking possible renames, I would say that either 'Supplication' or 'Handout' would fit; the singer always looked like he was asking us to give him something:

See?
We flitted from Elbow to Fleet Foxes, who sounded just like they always sound (amazing) and dressed just like they always dress (in flannel). I would like to say that I am fantastic at taking group pictures with my left hand, but trying to fit four people in was kind of stretching it...

... so some kind lady offered to help me out. There are a few things I love about this picture: 1. That guy in the red hat's face behind me. 2. That guy in the grey shirt's face sitting next to him 3. The fact that I didn't think now the was time to assume a more ladylike position.

After Fleet Foxes, we watched Empire of the Sun as the sun set over the final day of the festival, grabbed a quick bite from the fancy food stands (P.Terry's) and then took our places in the field for Arcade Fire.

I know that indie music as a genre is not broadly appealing or well known (for further clarification, see the meaning of the term 'indie') and that the ACL headliners are generally both of these things. But, whatever. I loved it. And you know what, this is Austin Music Festival! Austin! Home to Leslie and those cows and the Longhorn Network. We do what we want and sometimes it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

So: ACL 2011, in Conclusion:

1. Ray LaMontagne is amazing in any setting, may he be shoeless, mic-less or in a crushed red velvet suit.
2. Christian Bale will eventually show up if you look for him everywhere, every day for your whole life.

3. Make plans like you don't have a cell phone more often. As in, use concrete details and include contingencies for if something falls through or someone gets lost. Kind of like 'dance like no one's watching', except with more practical applications.

4. Don't judge a band by their name. Judge a band by their crappy songs that play on the radio all the time.

5. Try naming more things (children, bands, activities) after abstract things (fruit, body parts, activities). If celebrities can do it, I can too. I wanted to name my daughter Chevrolet until I was ten years old... maybe it is time to resurrect that dream.

6. I need to listen to more music-- there is so much good stuff out there to be heard!
Until next year...

ACL, Day 2

The Line Up
Fitz and the Tantrums  Cee Lo   Tv On the Radio  Stevie Wonder

Celebrating the first rain fall in months... we were a little wet and frizzy, but definitely not complaining!

Fitz and the Tantrums, baby! 

Really glad I have a picture of 'Blow up cactus wearing shorts' flag as well as 'Googly eyed friend with lei', because they were hidden gems of the festival flags, to say the least. 

Oh you know, just minding my own business, enjoying the show and then guess who shows up? Christian Bale, love of my whole life, looking so serious and aloof just the way I like him. I pretty much lost my luggage when I spotted him and tried the 'frantic waving in a crowd of thousands of people tactic', but he was too focused on some distant horizon to notice me. Perhaps it was the cameras in his face, we'll never know. Anyway, he was there and I was there, and that random guy in a bandana was there, and that's all that matters.

TV On the Radio

I spent most of Cee Lo in line for the port- a- potties, texting back and forth with my sister and Tanya and Carmen in hopes of finding my way back to them in the crowd. Thankfully, the TV on the Radio fans were pretty obliging...

Success!

 

Unfortunately, Stevie Wonder was really quiet (due to a blown speaker or something)... and also just generally kind of weird. At one point he wanted us to do this audience participation thing, which you can't blame him for as there were about 50,000 people there, way too tempting...but he kept saying something along the lines of 'errrrrrbody layout except Steeevie, errrbody layout... errrbody layout 'cept Errol, errrbody layout.' 

Vagaries are not your friend when instructing the masses, Stevie. 

On the upside, we finally met up with Hillary and Erin after two days of texting back and forth! Thumbs up indeed. I cannot even begin to imagine what people did before cell phones at things like this... 

So, in the end we made the most of standing in a field listening to what sounded like a recording of a person who sounded like Stevie Wonder by starting a full-fledged booty shaking dance party- it was the perfect way to spend way a Saturday night in Austin!  Perhaps Zilker Park should look into expanding into the club scene.

ACL, Day 1

The Line Up:

Brandi Carlile     Ray LaMontagne     Foster the People     Coldplay

Tanya and I camped out for a good view of Ray LaMontagne-- and it definitely paid off!
The girl who took this picture declared us 'adorable' and then followed up with 'I'm so sorry guys, I'm 6 foot 2. My view is going to be AWESOME.'

 I would just like to say that even though ACL festival goers freely embrace near nudity in the 100 degree weather, it is understood that the performers will garb themselves in the hottest, sweatiest, least breathable fabrics for their hour onstage.

Exhibit A: Crushed red velvet pants and vest, matching hat.  

I always love being close enough to the stage to get a good view of the interpreter--- this woman was a rock star with her air guitar! My ASL is pretty rusty, but I did catch her interpretation of  Ray's 'she gives me love and affection' as 'I have a girlfriend- she loves me, WOW, I have a girlfriend, I like it.'

Oh, Foster the People is playing right now? Much of this show was spent trying to navigate this crowd-- rookie ACL mistake. 

Corinna & Carmen found us! Obligatory Friday crowd shot #1.  

And #2-- Look at that skyline! 

So. many. people. 

Obviously I don't know how to use my camera, or I would have fixed the flash...  but this weird glowy light is oddly appropriate for two girls standing in line to use a porty-a- potty while holding a wad of toilet paper they brought from home. 

To cap off the evening, we sat and watched while Chris Martin somersaulted around the stage and sweated onto his keyboard. I'm not sure this performance is going to go down as Coldplay's best, but in my mind, they can do no wrong.

On an unrelated note, I once asked my sister if Apple (Gywneth Paltrow & Chris Martin's first child) was a girl or a boy, and she looked at me like that was a stupid question. Do fruit namesakes really have obvious gender?


One day down, two to go...

The Age of Aquarius

Last Sunday, I went to see my friend Meg in her final performance of Hair at The City Theatre, an adorable local theater in East Austin. She was fantastic as always, and the show was beautifully crafted and executed by an amazing cast of local Austinites.  

I have seen a lot of great theatre in Austin over the years-- and I'm not just talking shows, but good theatre with the -re, performances that encompass every aspect of the world of performance. Austin boasts a large artist community as well as a large community that supports the arts, but what we have is so much more than people who like to perform and people who like to watch others perform.

We're experimental, and sometimes those experiments fail. We work on limited budgets, limited time, and limited resources--- so sometimes our costumes choices don't make sense, our sound cues aren't as loud as they should be, and our theaters aren't as nice as they could be. But, it's the 'we' that sets us apart from many other cities that also boast a thriving theatre scene.

We love our local Austin playwrights, and our annual musicals in the park, and our sometimes hair brained takes on classical literature (see: The Grapes of Wrath, The Musical). Oh, and most of all, we love our performers-- the leasing agent at my apartment complex, my co worker's daughter, this one guy I met in the Radisson parking lot who talked my ear off about Hamlet for twenty minutes, and of course, my former acting buddies.

Meg & the girls at Red House after the show, toasting her fabulous performance with a Pimms Cup. There were, of course, some protestations when the camera came out... 

.... but then they got into the spirit!*

*Hillary is holding my drink. 

Pictured in the hazy darkness behind us is a slew of my coworkers. I wonder what they thought about our photo shoot, which extended way beyond these few pictures after all of our drinks were drank and food was eaten and Meg's camera came out to play. 

The star herself! Good show, Meg Bear. 

So thank you Austin, once again, for being a cool place to life. I will try to hold these sentiments close next time you grace us with a 105 degree day.

The Busy Girl's Guide to...

realizing that being busy does not equate being happy, fulfilled, or worthwhile.

I want a colorful, happy, fast paced life filled with all the goodness twenty four hours has to offer me, and then some. If I could have my way, I would have five different jobs for each day of the work week, and then a different hobby for each day of the weekend. And then I would request that there be 48 hours in my day instead of 24 so I that could try new things.

Fortunately, if I got my way, I would end up even more exhausted, stressed, and cranky than I am now. Wanting what's not good for you... that's a thing, right?

A few weeks ago, I found a book at my parent's house called The Too-Busy Book, by Linda Andersen. I usually have to be goaded into reading anything non fiction, but at this point, I was desperate. For what felt like the tenth time in the past year I had gotten myself in over my head with my schedule, overcommitting myself to things and to people's expectations of me. At this point, I stop serving out of love, and switch into robotic people pleasing mode. My shoulders ache from keeping them up by my ears all the time, to the point where sleeping becomes difficult because I can't get comfortable... and once I do fall asleep, I dream about the things I am trying to take a break from, going through whole days at work concocted by my sub conscious.

The introduction to Andersen's book, titled "An Invitation to Live Lightly" states very clearly: "The truth is, we don't have to be busy... you have chosen what to do with your time, and you can still choose" Wait... what? I did? I can? I mean... I guess? I guess I could not have a job, or friends. I guess I could not do the things I want to do (see how bad my attitude was here, yikes!), I guess I could do the bare minimum and be selfish and think only about myself.

Mmm mmmm. Yep, my perspective on busyness definitely needed a tune up! She goes on to say "I look around and see women laboring beyond reason and rationality. I see them straining to the brink of exhaustion ... but they are too busy to ask themselves 'why am I living at this pace?' Sermons on God the Provider are pushed neatly to the side, and these women proceed to work even more hours next week, often to 'catch up'."

Oh. Well Linda, when you put it like that. God the Provider? Yeah, I remember him. There is more than one pace to life? Yeah, I think I have heard something about that too.

So maybe I can still have a happy, colorful, fast paced, 24 hour/day life with boundaries? Maybe everything doesn't have to be done right away, maybe I can say no now, but plan for a yes later?

Perhaps my favorite sentence in this book (so far) comes at the end of the introduction when the author is telling you how to read the book. She says, "take your time. Relax. Slow down. No one cares how quickly you finish this book." I nearly burst out laughing-- reading is one of my favorite things to do. It is relaxing for me, and renewing. But I even put an expectation on myself for reading-- I am always racing to the end, telling myself I need to finish this book and get on to the next... and somehow I never realized before what a perverted and detrimental thing this was! That I was minimizing the joy I would get from reading by turning it into something I had to do to check it off my list.

So: Slowing down. Taking a breath. Enjoying life. Trusting God. Not defining myself by what I have to do. I'm working on it.

The Tuileries

"One had only to look at him, from the slant of his bald forehead and the curve of his beautiful fair moustache to the long patent-leather feet at the other end of his lean and elegant person, to feel that the knowledge of "form" must be congenital in any one who knew how to wear such good clothes so carelessly and carry such height with so much lounging grace."

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

...however, only the most fashionable can pull off a tutu.

My Summer Reading List

Growing up, I read constantly-- usually two or three books at a time, one of which I would keep under my pillow at night, the others I would hide under my skirted bedside table. Before anyone lables me as too prodigious a child, I have to admit that most of the books I read from ages 7- 13 were part of the Babysitters Club series... but that is neither here nor there.

Summers in particular feel like the pages of a book to me--  I used to stay up most nights until 2 or 3 in the morning reading, and then wake up in the morning and read some more.

Nowadays, my laptop is the last thing I look at before I go to bed and the first thing I reach for in the morning. Although I would say I am relatively well-read for my age (I mostly credit this to being an English major), I just don't feel like I read enough. Now that the summer is halfway done, I have finally decided I need to start my reading list and stick to it. Selections are as follows..

Under the Banner of Heaven- This is my current read and it is flipping crazy. I read Into the Wild, another Jon Krakauer book, a few months, and my experience with Under the Banner of Heaven has been exactly the same-- I can't put it down, and when I'm not reading about it, I'm thinking about reading it.

Catcher in the Rye-- I actually have read Catcher in the Rye.. when I was about 13. Ambitious though I was, I definitely did not understand it... or like it. We'll see how the re-read goes.

The Watery Part of the World... I know nothing about this book except that the author knows how to write a good title. Very Ernest Hemingway way of him. Also, I had to get on a waiting list at the library to get it, so you know its good.

The Help-- I read a really interesting interview with the author of this novel a while back, and it has been on a radar for a while. With the movie coming out in August, I would like to try to finish it before then.

Just trying to be honest.