Bananagrams! (And Other Such Delights)

Hello lovely reader(s)!  I hope one day to be a bit more prompt and regular with these blog posts.  But hey, I'm new to this whole blog thing, so forgive me if it takes me a while to get into a rhythm.  I'll get there eventually, I'm sure.  I know you've been on the edge of your couch, wondering when my next post will be.  Because my life is so interesting that you can't possibly have anything better to do than wonder what I've been up to these past few days.  So here's your chance to live vicariously through me.

The last time we chatted, I was telling you about the mouse issue in our apartment (ah, living vicariously through me...aren't you glad you made that choice?).  I'll make this brief because, let's face it, no one really wants to read six paragraphs about the perils of three twenty-somethings and their unwanted rodent.

So here's the deal:  we think we have finally gotten rid of the mouse!  Last week, someone from the leasing office came with maintenance to look at the latest evidence of our "guest."  And let's just say he was pretty shocked at what he found.  The mouse had chewed a hole in the corner of the wall, behind our refrigerator.  There were literally bits of wall in a pile on the floor.  I'm telling you:  this is no ordinary mouse.  I'm convinced it's been scientifically engineered to torment humans.  And destroy homes.  A bit dramatic?  Perhaps, but you didn't see the evidence (unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures. I'll work on that).

Anyway, maintenance nailed pieces of sheet metal to the wall behind the fridge (shout out to Ray!), and we haven't seen any more signs of our pet.  Now, considering the kind of brain that this mouse seems to have, as well as the tenacity its shown thus far, I refuse to say that he's gone for good.  But suffice it to say, he's at least taking a vacation from our apartment for a while.  And I haven't missed him.  Although I was looking forward to the fake owl they were going to put outside of our apartment in an attempt to scare him (how about that owl, Grey?).  Seriously, how cool would that be?  We could nonchalantly tell all of the friends we haven't made yet, "Which apartment is ours?  Oh, you know, the one with the owl outside."  Sweet.

Ok, so I'll keep the mouse debacle to three paragraphs and move on to the rest of my fabulous life.  In between job searching (seriously, kill me now), the roomies and I have managed to have a little fun.  Sometimes, you just need to take a break and get out.  Like when you try to drop your resume off at a few temp agencies, only to discover that the first one is no longer in business and the third one is for manual labor (perhaps the title, "Labor Ready" should have been a hint), which is a noble endeavor, but not quite my calling.

So we'll just skip past all the tedium and move swiftly along to the in-between.  Last Wednesday was Joanna's birthday, so we decided to paint the town red, if you will, and continue our exploration of downtown.  We began at a bar called The Ginger Man, which has an insane amount of beers on tap.  It has a great vibe - dark wood indoors, and a nice patio area in the back with tables and benches.  We sat on the patio with our brews and chatted a bit before making our way to Sixth Street.  We decided to hit up the Blind Pig, a bar on Dirty Sixth with a rooftop patio.  This is where we were introduced to the amazing live musical stylings of Ben Cina.  

Let me tell you why I like Ben.  Those of you who were in middle or high school in the 90s, listen up:  do you remember those lovely R&B classics, such as Sweet Lady, All My Life, and Killing Me Softly (Fugees style)?  For those of you who missed these gems, bear with me:  I'll move along in a sec.  Well, Mr. Cina put his own spin on these tunes, revamping them with the help of his guitar and his drummer.  It was like traveling back in time, but remembering things a little differently.

We certainly enjoyed ourselves at the Blind Pig, but not as much as the lady in front of us did when Ben started playing Cee lo Green.  There's nothing like a lady in Birkenstocks shaking her head and wagging her finger to make my night.

This past weekend, we had what may have been our most "Austin" day yet.  On Saturday, we attended the Pecan Street Festival, which basically consisted of tons of local artisans and vendors setting up tents on Sixth Street, selling their crafts.  We walked around, looking at jewelry, rocking chairs, and even a petting zoo, where Joanna laughed harder at two goats butting heads than any of the children around us.  It was awesome.

Equally awesome was the musical duo that performed in marching band uniforms.  I'm not sure how they managed to make it through their entire set without passing out, since it was literally 100 degrees.  Now that's dedication to your work.

Next came Bananarchy, the absolutely amazing banana stand on South Lamar.  Let me tell you:  if you've never had a frozen banana dipped in chocolate and rolled in peanuts, you are missing out.  It. Is. Amazing.  A taste of heaven might sound a bit extreme, but you wouldn't be saying that if you actually tried one.  Oh, and the Arrested Development theme of the stand (the Gob, Afternoon Delight) only added to my affinity for this establishment (I'm going to go ahead and apologize for the obscene amount of AD jokes that are going to be littered throughout this blog).  As did the Bananagrams.  Please see below.

 There's always money in the banana stand

Bananagrams! (with some lovely letter improvisation by Joanna) 

We ended our night by going to Baker Street Pub, where local band Dysfunkshun Junkshun was playing (the English major in me just died a little while typing that).  The band was great:  I mean, how can you go wrong with a saxophonist in plaid pants and a singer with an afro wig?  But as the evening wore on, and we realized that the bar patrons were getting older and older, we decided it was time to call it a night.

Alright, I've been rambling on for long enough, so I'll sum up by giving you a rundown of yesterday. We spent the afternoon in what is undoubtedly my favorite corner in Austin.  And where my entire paycheck (once I get one) will probably go.  Imagine having a bookstore, a record store, an amazing clothing store, and a massive upscale grocery store all in one place.  Sounds too good to be true, right?  Not so, my friend.  In this wonderfully designed town, it is a reality.  Book People.  Waterloo Records.  Anthropologie.  Whole Foods.  For a book/music/fashion/food junkie like me, this is basically everything I could want in one place.  If only Bananarchy would set up a satellite location here, then I'd be set.

It's everything I can do not to just run around blindly, grabbing things off of the shelves and pushing people out of the aisles if they dare step in my way.

It's also one of the most depressing corners in Austin because I have to remind myself that I indeed cannot afford to take entire shelves of merchandise and shove them in my Volvo.  Oh irony, you cruelest of sirens!

Well, once again, this blog post is quite long (too long), so I'll shut up now.  If you made it this far, thanks for indulging me.  You sure know how to make a girl feel special.

Like I said, I'll try not to wait so long between posts next time.  Who knows, maybe I won't write a novel.  But I wouldn't bet on it.

My Journey to the Blogosphere (By way of Georgia, and Alabama, and Louisiana...)

Dear family, friends, and any randoms who may have stumbled upon this website,

I have officially bitten the bullet.  I’ve joined the blogosphere.  It’s something that’s been recommended to me for a while, and I’ve been meaning to sit down and actually create one of these things.  But you know how it goes:  you make this perpetual “To Do” list that just sits there, and you somehow seem to add things to it constantly without ever actually crossing anything off.  It just grows and grows, and all of a sudden you look down and you have three years of tasks that you’ve never completed, which only serves to overwhelm you more, and you end up shoving the whole list back in your desk drawer, hoping you won’t discover it again for quite some time.  Or maybe never.

Well, the blog has kind of been that way for me.  As an English major, I kind of feel like I’m supposed to have a blog.  I mean, I majored in writing, for goodness sake…isn’t it like a requirement or something in 2011 for all recent English majors to have one?  But alas, I’ve been putting this off, for one reason or another.  It just seemed like so much pressure.  What should I write about?  What do I have to say?  What if it’s boring?  Oh God, am I going to bore my readers?

And then I thought, Seriously, Lucy.  What kind of a blog do you think this is going to be?  I mean honestly, how many people do you think are going to read this?

Now, I’m not trying to be Debbie Downer over here or anything, with this self-deprecating thinking.  It’s just that I realized that this is just a blog.  One of the thousands or millions on the Internet.  It’s not like they’re going to publish an article about it on CNN or do a story about it on NPR.  It’s just the thoughts and experiences of a 20-something-year-old in America.

And so, with this move to Austin, I’ve realized that the easiest way to keep up with everyone from home is probably going to be through a blog.  Instead of trying to call or e-mail everybody I know and update them about my adventures in the capital city of Texas, I can write it all down and share it at once.  Much simpler.  Much faster.  And a whole lot less hassle for me, if I’m being honest.

Ok, now that I’ve given you a history about my reasons for starting this thing, I’ll try to be brief about my stay so far.  Now, for those of you who know me, being brief in my writing is not my strong suit.  So I make no promises .

Most of my time has been spent job searching.  Ugh.  I hate it.  Cover letters, resumes, job search websites, applications…it’s such a process.  And it can take forever.  Sometimes you just need a break (I’m actually writing this post as a respite from my job searching).

But it’s all part of the joyous moving process.  I’d love for someone to walk up to me on the street and hand me a job, or for something to fall from the sky saying, “Congratulations, Lucy!  Your search is over!  Here’s the perfect job for you!”  Now, so far, that hasn’t happened, but if it does, you can believe that I’ll be blogging about it.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the move so far has been the addition of a fourth roommate.  For those of you who don’t know, I moved to Austin with Joanna, one of my best friends from high school, and Caitlin, one of my best friends from college.  We found an apartment in a great location, just south of downtown.  When we moved in, we thought it would be just the three of us.  We soon discovered, though, that our apartment already had an inhabitant.  In the shape of a mouse.

Awesome.  Less than a week after we moved, we found a box of English muffins partially eaten through.  We set out traps, called maintenance, and had a pest control worker come check things out.  But our little friend just won’t leave.  In the past two and a half weeks, we’ve found chewed up bagels, gnawed up carpet, half-eaten bread, and holes underneath the cabinet in my bathroom with teeth marks.

 Delightful.  I can’t tell you how excited I am to be sharing my bathroom with a mouse.  As the only roommate with her own bedroom, I was missing a bit of companionship.  Clearly, the mouse picked up on this.

Maintenance came in yesterday and placed boards over the holes that the mouse had eaten under the cabinets, and they’ve caulked other holes that were found in the apartment.  So hopefully, we won’t see him again.

Aside from the mouse, we’ve just been exploring the city a bit.  There’s so much to see and do that I know we’ve barely scratched the surface.  We did have a great time doing some Austin City Limits people watching last weekend, though.  That festival certainly brings a diverse group of people to the city.  Nothing beats sitting in a bar, watching hoards of people walk down Sixth Street (affectionately dubbed Dirty Sixth) after they’ve consumed a few drinks.  Except maybe participating in a Monty Python quote-along (complete with inflatable swords and coconuts).

So that pretty much sums up our first few weeks.  We’ve seen a little, spent way too much time in front of our computers, and dealt with our first unwanted guest. 

And so begins our journey in this wonderful new city.  What’s next?  Watching the bats from the Congress Avenue Bridge?  Stopping by the frozen banana stand (there’s always money in the banana stand)?  Celebrating Eeyore’s birthday (wait, that’s not until April)?  Honestly, I have no idea, but I’ll do my best to keep this updated. 

So welcome to my blog, and thanks for making it through to the end.  And if by some miracle you enjoy reading my thoughts, I’ll do my best to keep it interesting.