Texas Lou

I remember the first time that my young mind comprehended the depth and permanence of death.

It was summer time.  I was 9 or 10 years old.  I was in the midst of two weeks at summer camp.  I sat on the dock alone dangling my feet in the warm water of Inks Lake while I soaked up the hot Texas sun.

I don’t know what thoughts I had or emotions I felt that lead me to this frightening conclusion.  I don’t remember what path my mind was following.  As soon as the thought struck me, I was paralyzed in fear.  When you die, that’s it.  When you die, you are gone and life is over.  When you die, you have no idea what happens next.  I don’t want to die, but I have to.  I was only a child, but these very disturbing adult ideas took over my body and mind.

That was the moment that I realized that death was permanent and real.  That is when I understood that the ones I loved could be taken away from me forever and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.  That is when I think I stopped being a child, and started my journey toward adulthood.  That moment was the barrier between my innocent, ignorant, happy childhood and my stressful, fearful, incessantly analyzing struggle to become an adult.

I used to yearn for that blissful ignorance.  I used to swear I’d give anything just to turn my mind off when I wanted.  But now, I embrace adulthood and all of the fear, uncertainty, and pain that accompanies it.  I used to wonder why such a terrible feeling would have overtaken me as I enjoyed a peaceful, warm, summer day when I shouldn’t have had a care in the world.  Now I feel that the beautiful moment accompanied by its conflicting, painful memory is the perfect metaphor for life.  It’s full of good and bad, happy and sad, but they come together in life so I’ll take them both if that’s all I can have.

I want to thank my friend Heather from college for writing about a new social networking site out there on her blog.

Heather wrote about a website called foursquare where you can check-in to different places with your cell phone and earn badges and achievements for trying out new venues in the city where you reside.  I had no idea these types of social networking sites existed and now that I do, I am totally addicted.  I absolutely love this site and its agenda because I am always looking out for new places to visit and new restaurants or breweries to try!  Even though I’ve been living in Charlottesville for over four years now, it still seems that there are so many places I’ve never been to and never even heard about, and foursquare is opening my eyes to many of these locations.

The ease of checking-in with a smartphone or mobile web device is also motivating me to finally trade in my three and a half year old flip phone for something a little more technologically advanced especially since I’ve been craving a data plan and GPS but have been putting off the upgrade because of the extra money it costs.

A similar website, Gowalla, was also brought to my attention by my friend Danielle.  I haven’t played with this site as much yet, but I definitely plan on doing so, especially because the site is designed and developed in my own home sweet home, Texas!  Once I get a newer phone, being active on both of these sites will be alot easier and much more fun!

I definitely recommend giving both websites a try and make sure to add me as your friend!

In honor of the Annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, check out this cowgirl!

Too bad I can’t still fit into this outfit!  I need to get those boots in my size!

This Texas Towel!

The San Antonio River Walk, the Astrodome, Tubing on the Guadalupe, Dell Computers, Dr. Pepper, the Dallas Cowboys, the Houston Comets, the rodeo, jalapeño pepper jelly, Whataburger, Howard Hughes, Buddy Holly, Tommy Lee Jones, Patrick Swayze, Texas Instruments, Steve Martin, Dennis and Randy Quaid, Luke and Owen Wilson, Forest Whitaker, Renee Zellweger, the Texas Longhorns, Fritos, Shiner Bock, the annual Fiesta festival in San Antonio, Space Center Houston, Janis Joplin, Destiny’s Child, Pat Green, Southwest Airlines, Pizza Hut, Valero, USAA,  Taco Cabana, Blue Bell Ice Cream, Austin City Limits, the Fort Worth Stockyards and Billy Bob’s, the University of Texas, the Houston Rockets, George Strait, NASA Mission Control, Six Flags Over Texas, Sea World San Antonio, Barton Springs, Sixth Street, South by Southwest, Lone Star Beer, Saint Arnold’s Brewery, the Kolache Factory, the Galleria, my family, AND ME!

If it weren’t for the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836, none of the above would exist and the world would be a much less exciting place.

I’m proud to be a Texan!  What’s your favorite thing about Texas?

I just took the Myers-Briggs Personality test (for the umpteenth time) and this is how I scored:

I am:

• slightly expressed extrovert
• slightly expressed intuitive personality
• moderately expressed feeling personality
• moderately expressed judging personality

This score apparently makes me an idealist who would most likely be successful at teaching.  I’m not worried about not being a teacher though since my score has been a bit different every time I’ve taken the test.  One interesting thing to note is the older I get, the farther away from introverted and closer to extroverted I move.  I think that has to do with the fact that I’m getting older and becoming more comfortable in my own skin as well as the fact that my boyfriend is extremely introverted so I automatically tend to move toward extroverted to balance out the relationship (or so I learned this is usually the case in a Myers-Briggs course I once took).

Curious about your personality type?  Take the test!  I’d be interested to know people’s scores.

Alot of people think it’s strange that I played bar as an adolescent.  I never thought it was out of the ordinary until I received this feedback from my peers.

There was this one specific instance that I remember when I was about 12 or 13.  We had cousins and friends spending the night and the seven of us decided to play bar.  I must have been the ringleader since I was the oldest. We took turns as both the bartender and the customers.  We served grape juice as red wine and lit the ends of pretzel sticks with a book of matches that we had somehow gotten our hands on.  We had a blast and it was all good, clean fun.  I guess we had outgrown playing house or school and needed something a little more grown-up to occupy our imaginations!

Years later, when reminiscing with friends about our childhoods, I asked surprised, “Yall never played bar?”  I had always assumed that was one of those games that all kids played at some point during their childhood.  Now it doesn’t surprise me that all seven of us turned out to be drinkers (not alcoholics, but ones who enjoy a few beers every now and then).

So what I took away from this discovery that playing bar was not a run-of-the-mill game played by all children is that it was really harmless and probably resulted from the fact that the fairly new house we had moved into had a sunken bar that had to be incorporated into our make-believe games.  And it could have been worse…we could have been playing bar with real wine and real cigarettes instead of grape juice and pretzels.  Or even worse, we could have been playing doctor!

So what I want to know is did any of you (all three of you out there reading this) ever play bar or anything else unconventional?

One of the worst things you can do at work is burn popcorn.  This terrible offense brings about the punishment of hearing “What’s that terrible smell?” and “Who burned popcorn?” for the rest of the afternoon.

It’s one thing to burn popcorn in your own home where you only risk offending the sense of smell of your loved ones, and really loved ones were made to offend.  But burning popcorn AT WORK, disrupting all of that productivity because each and every coworker HAS to comment on that god-awful smell?  What kind of person would do such a thing?  THE INSANITY!

Ok, so I burned the popcorn…I admit it.  I was distracted while it was in the microwave and I should have been monitoring it very closely.  I apologize VGT and for future reference, for the love of all that smells decent, please don’t talk to Leslie Elsaifi while she is cooking popcorn in the microwave…it can only end badly. 

Today, February 22, 2010, is National Margarita Day and to celebrate, I want to tell everyone about one of the most unique margaritas I’ve ever had.

Now my mom’s homemade margaritas are definitely my favorite.  She usually makes them out of frozen limeade, Jose Cuervo tequila, Triple Sec, ice, and salt on the rim.  However, recently I discovered a new type of margarita.  It was a jalapeño margarita!

I know it sounds dangerous, but it was actually quite delicious.  For those who are not a fan of anything too spicy (definitely NOT me), the heat of this drink would definitely be tolerable.  It tasted like a regular margarita with a hint of jalapeño that was spicier to the lips than the tongue.

Where did I discover this new beverage you ask?  At a high-end Mexican restaurant in downtown Charlottesville called Ventana.  They don’t currently have a website, but I figure it’s only a matter of time.  I dined there a few weeks ago with a couple of friends before attending the Complexions Contemporary Ballet at Charlottesville’s Paramount Theater.  It was the perfect beginning to the evening!

We dined during Restaurant Week since Ventana was offering a 3-course  meal for only $26 (substantially cheaper than their usual prices).  The food was different and delicious and I can’t wait to check it out again for a taste of what is on their regular menu.  However, the drinks were what really wowed me!  In addition  to the jalapeño margarita that I ordered, the drink menu featured several other unique drinks that I’d love to try in the future, including a cucumber margarita, a habañero margarita, a $100 dollar margarita called “el dinero”, and according to a friend, the best long island iced tea they’ve ever tasted!

I definitely plan on making a trip to Ventana again soon for both dinner and drinks and will introduce it to any of my Texas friends and family who make the trip to Virginia for a visit!  For a more descriptive account of Ventana’s cuisine and atmosphere, you can check out the local Charlottesville blog, Cvillain.  You can also read more about Ventana’s unique margaritas on the local Charlottesville blog, Mas to Millers.

Happy National Margarita Day!  I hope everyone celebrates with something cold and delicious that hits the spot!

This is a cheap little souvenir I bought myself at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin back in December.  Even though it’s just a coffee mug, I think it might be one of my favorite pieces of Texas memorabilia, not just because I love the quote, but because it reminds me of a wonderful weekend trip that I spent with friends and family in the lonestar state.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!