Trips trips trips! I've got a couple fun things planned from now til February that I want to share.

Dallas- TX/OU followed by ACL

Not so much a "trip" as a 24 hour stay in town. For those who do not exist in the Longhorn/Texas Ex/Austin, Texas bubble...we have been faced with a terrible decision. For the first time, The Powers That Be have scheduled ACL Music Festival on the same weekend as the Red River Shootout (the Texas v. Oklahoma football game). This is blasphemy! THIS IS MADNESS! I have only missed ACL once since I started going in 2006, and I regretted it all that year. I've never missed a TX/OU weekend in Dallas since I started attending UT. So torn. So, some of us have decided to do both. Saturday, Dallas for the game. Sunday, ACL. Monday, work. Ugh. Kind of the best of both worlds, though...I'll drink a thousand beers and eat my weight in fried guacamole at the fair, and walk/dance it off Sunday at ACL.

New Orleans- Mardi Gras Baybee!

Can I just say HOW EXCITED I AM FOR THIS? I've been to New Orleans three times now, and it just keeps getting better. If I didn't have the distinct pleasure of living in Austin, I would move to New Orleans in a heartbeat. I've never been for Mardi Gras, though. We've got a hotel booked that appears to be clean and orderly, and is located in the French Quarter. Yah, it's a Best Western. But it's a Landmark Best Western. Only the best for my honey booboos. Also, it would appear that everyone has an actual bed to sleep in, which is a step up for my krewe. <-- see what I did there?

So, I need your help. Please pass along any Mardi Gras survival tips. How does one not get lost? Do you just become okay with the fact that you'll probably get lost, and embrace NOLA strangers as friends? (I can feel my mom's heart quickening as she reads this. Just kidding, Mama. I won't talk to strangers.) Should I bring an extra suitcase for all the beads I'm going to bring back? But what will I WEAR?

Los Angeles- Argo Premiere

This. Is a real thing. That is really happening. But every time I talk about it, it seems more and more far-fetched. In a nutshell: my uncle, Tony Mendez, was in the CIA during the Iran hostage crisis. He was a disguise and exfiltration expert enlisted in recovering six American diplomats who had evaded capture but were stranded in Iran. After his mission was declassified, he wrote about it in his book The Master of Disguise. No relation to the Dana Carvey movie... (turtle! turtle!) Anyway, somewhere along the way George Clooney bought the rights to his story and decided to produce the movie, and Ben Affleck signed on to star and direct. NO BIG DEAL.The movie is called Argo and the LA premiere is next week.

This has been a long time in the making, and the family has been squealing and excited the whole way through. Now the stars have aligned and we have been invited to attend the premiere of the movie in LA. I've never been to California, but I'm told this is the right way to do it. I'm certainly fine with it. So, if you need me next Thursday, I'll be poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel hanging out with Ben Affleck, John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler (!! TEXAS FOREVEROMG BLEEPBLOPBLOOP), and who the hell knows who else. And my family! Thank God. I'll need them if I'm going to attempt to stay grounded/conscious.

I'll also get to see one of my very best girlfriends from high school- she works for WB and will be acting as the family's handler that night. Such a great, small world we live in. Needless to say, I am thrilled and terrified all at once. Check out the trailer below. The critics love it, and it's looking like an Oscar front-runner.



I'll attempt to take a few pictures while I'm there, if I'm not too starstruck. And of course will update my loyal subjects (the ~3 people that read this.) Wish me luck!

tis time. time once again for texas football. college football. saturdays where entire populations point towards their respective stadiums. lots of people describe baseball as America's great national pastime. maybe those people sucked at football.

to say i'm excited is an understatement. our tailgate has been months in the making. there have been at least 150 emails about preparations. we basically bought all the hamburger meat they had at costco. i don't even eat red meat and this excites me. last night i was making bacon to put in a variation of these suckers and was thrilled because i was making something other than lean meat, whole grains, or veggies. it's healthy, i know, blah blah but ermahgerd. boring. our tailgate beer sponsor, MillerCoors, came through again so the triple hops brewed beer will flow like the Guadalupe River. us girls have all of our burnt orange apparel from Longhorn Fashions picked out and coordinated so that we don't show up wearing the same outfit. the HORROR. can you imagine? i need my smelling salts. please know i'm kidding. about the smelling salts. not the outfit coordination. that is very, very serious.

anyway, the point is i couldn't be more excited about the longhorns. the game. the food. the drink. the cowboy boots. the camaraderie. the competition. and certainly not least of all: the tunes.

so this week, i bring you a tailgate edition of friday tunes. many of these are a Texan's version of an Irish drinking ballad. i can guarantee that my friends from school have either hiccuped, sang, or stumbled their way through a two-step to these songs. sometimes all three at the same time! we're multi-talented like that. of course i capped it off with the Texas fight song. if you like what you hear, subscribe to my "tailgate" playlist on spotify.



can't have a friday tunes: tailgate edition without mentioning our very own in-house musician and close friend of mine, John Edward Baumann. he'll be playing most of our tailgates and is an up and coming Texas musician. he is a seriously talented wordsmith, and his songs always make me smile. or cry. I'M IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTION. i've included some of my faves.








in the spirit of competition...please see my newest favorite quote regarding Austin/UT Football from Drew Magary's 2012 Hater's Lover's Guide to the Top 25.

"All the food in Austin is dirt cheap and impossibly good, and when I went to Franklin BBQ I deliberately tried to give myself a heart attack by stuffing my face with brisket and very small bourbon pies. The women there are not unattractive, and the folks all look extremely content with their lives. Meanwhile, 20 million people voluntarily cram themselves into a New York City subway car every morning wanting either to kill everyone around them or to kill themselves because killing yourself is kind of easier. Austin is better. And I like that the University of Texas has the balls to cause entire conference shifts without actually moving anywhere. They just break apart alliances and leave other schools bankrupt for the sheer joy of it. That's my kind of heartless bureaucracy."

yep. hook 'em!

it's that time of year. the time where you have to peel yourself off your driver's seat every time you exit your vehicle. the time where it's too hot to lay out, and not much better in the pool. the time where other people in far-away lands start talking about cozy sweaters and just the thought of that makes you itch and sweat. when i was little, i used to flip through the back to school copies of lands' end and wonder where in the hell these people lived that would be wearing tights or corduroy on their first day of school. meanwhile, some demented person decided it would be a good idea to make our school uniforms out of some type of 100% unbreathable plastic. i wish i was joking. one time my mother melted my skirt while she was ironing it...

and yet i cling to summer. the long days, the warm nights- i love it. the many hours spent doing nothing around various bodies of water. cold beers that stay cold just long enough to continue to be refreshing. that sense of unrest because summer is so unscheduled. it's the best.


so i'll say a reluctant goodbye to august and to summer with a few pictures of what's been going on this month.

remember the King of Everything from a few posts below? he knows all the best shows. another reason he is the King of Everything. this was a free show (also served free beer...pinch me) featuring Little Dragon, A-Trak, and Big Boi. it was hot, sweaty, and AWESOME. first show i've ever been front row for, which means i could actually see the bands. when you are my height this is very. exciting.
favorite song from each artist below:

Little Dragon- Shuffle A Dream
Yeah Yeah Yeahs (A-Trak remix)- Heads Will Roll
Big Boi- Shutterbug
i could do a whole post on this show. FYI, the King of Everything got me into this show, too. for free. i need to buy him a car or give him my firstborn or something to express my gratitude. this was Lindsey Buckingham playing solo in a very intimate show at Antone's. as Fleetwood Mac is one of my top 3 bands of all time, i was ecstatic to get to see him. we're talking about a guy that has done it all...and he was still so excited to be on stage at this small show. it was incredible. a few of my favorites he played are below.

Bleed to Love Her
Never Going Back Again
Big Love
random Tuesday night at Kung Fu with some friends. it's basically a grown-up arcade...they've got it all. buck hunter happened to be broken that night, so we focused our intellectual and physical efforts on to skeeball, foosball, and giant jenga. what they don't tell you when you're a kid at chuck e. cheese is these games are really easy unless you're playing them one handed because your other hand is holding a beer. so...yah. i blame my lack of skill on that. not too shabby for a Tuesday.
oh yes oh yes oh yes they both oh yes they both oh yes they both reached for...the controller. of the video game. roommate and i finally set up her old nintendo and let me tell you. within an hour we had defeated bowser, saved the princess, and were partying with toad and luigi. not really, we kept dying and only got to world five. still so fun. this reminds me. brother, if you're out there, and remember the cheats, send 'em my way.
saving the best for last...baby sister moved to Austin to start college! that's her little cherub self sitting on my dad's shoulders at the beach. she just finished rush- talk about sweating. christ. the whole thing was a fricking nail biter. for her, sure, but me too. it's over and had a happy ending but GEEZ i'm glad she only has to do that once. she started classes yesterday and my pangs of jealousy and pining for yesteryear started right around the same time. i made her dinner last night, as any good matronly-spinster-older-sister would.

i'm so happy to have her around. what is it about baby sisters. they keep you young. they make you laugh. and then you see a picture like this and they just break your heart with their cuteness. look at her little face. those eyes! those curls!

this saturday was the ultimate summer day. i had no plans and thoroughly enjoyed winging it. lucky for me, lots of new and fun things came my way. saturday started as all of the best saturdays do: with potato egg and cheese breakfast tacos from taco shack. simple. to the point. i love potato egg and cheese tacos, and taco shack's have always been my favorite.

up next was some fun in the sun in one of austin's many natural swimming areas, the greenbelt. it is a very short drive and then about a 20 minute walk to the water. it is so worth the short walk in the heat. there were lots of happy dogs splashing around with their equally happy owners, and sangria and cold beers were plentiful.

the greenbelt. i live in a jungle!

pretty greenbelt sky.

after hanging out in the sun for four hours, the crew was ready for some grub. we chose the always delicious tex-mex locale, maudie's, for dinner. one of my favorite things about austin is that it is acceptable at almost any restaurant to show up in wet bathing suits, cover-ups, and flip flops. maudie's was no different and gave great service to our wet and sunburned group. from there we headed to a friend's pool, where summer officially started when i did my first cannon ball of the season. twenty five years young, yall.

i spent all wednesday evening pinching myself. i was finally an attendee of blues on the green- a free concert series in zilker park put on by 93.3 kgsr. somehow i COMPLETELY missed this through both summers that i lived here in austin during college. i was trapped in a college bubble. nothing i can do about that. as the great and wise pumba says, "you gotta put your past, in your behind." so, i embraced the moment and it. was. AWESOME.

the two bands lined up for the evening were the wheeler brothers and old 97's front man, rhett miller. i went to college with one of the wheeler brothers' band members, and this was my first time seeing them perform live. it was a huge deal for them to play BOTG, which added a whole layer of enjoyability to the show. their debut album, "portraits" is out now and it so great. preview some of the songs on youtube...and then buy the album on itunes. deal?

up next was rhett miller. obviously, he was flawless. RM has a special place in my heart as he is the front man of the old 97's, a dallas-based band that basically put me in a stroller and pushed me through high school...emotionally. i mean. we've all cried to heard their huge hit, "question." but it's "rollerskate skinny" that speaks to me. i have always loved the lyric "ain't nobody gonna see eye to eye with a girl who's only gonna stand collarbone high" (i stand proud at 5' 3/4"...and can be a bit ornery). i was pretty pumped when he played it! enjoy a listen below.



all in all, a great night of live music in austin shared with friends, boxed wine, and baked cheetos. can you really ask for anything more?

the crowd

the wheeler brothers take the stage

rhett miller

i saw this movie at the alamo drafthouse (south lamar location) on saturday. i am in love. definitely one of my favorite wes anderson movies and a great way to get in the summer mood. even if it looks a little quirky for your taste...please see it. there are several laugh out loud moments. these moments are even funnier if you, like me, enjoy some of the drafthouse's wine and beer selections during the film.