the parentals

Several of you know that Brian and I had the great meeting of the parents this past weekend, but I haven't had a chance to tell anyone about it...so...to the blog!

We've met each other's respective parents a few times but realized there would be no reason for us all to be in the same place before the wedding, and we really didn't want that to be the first time they'd all met, so we orchestrated a little meet-and-greet in ATX this past weekend. Brian's parents drove in from Florida and stayed for about 5 days and my mom popped down from Fort Worth for part of the weekend. Everyone played nicely, as expected, and the ladies seemed to get along quite well! 

The three main topics of the weekend were:

1) Guns

2) Food

3) Family relationships that need some explaining

Anticipating this dialogue exactly, Brian and I had a hard time figuring out what kind of activities we should plan. Unlike us, they are usually an "indoor only" kind of crew, but we were trying to avoid watching movies or other things that don't encourage conversation. We 86-ed playing poker (which we'd been doing with his parents already) because Brian pointed out that going for blood might not be the best way to get everyone to buddy-up. Doing a puzzle was out because these aren't our grandparents. Having a drink on the porch doesn't fly when none of the parentals drink. So, we went to the only place that we knew they'd all be happy:

Please note that Monday is Ladies Day. 

All the adults have their carrying licenses, so we brought 6 guns for 5 people (I hear you can never be too safe) and everyone seemed pretty excited about teaching me how to shoot, as I was the only one who had never fired a weapon. Well that's not true, there was that corn I killed, but otherwise, no real weapons. 

So apparently there's this weird thing that cops' kids do. They live around guns their whole life and then grow up and watch Bowling for Columbine and decide that guns are what's wrong with America and the next thing you know, they're crying in a firing range. That's right. Crying. In the firing range. Honestly, I almost wish I'd just peed in my pants or something. Because there's less dignity but more spine involved in that. 

So here's what happened. I wanted to watch my mom shoot first so I'd know what to expect, and then I nearly died when she fired the gun. I'd never really processed the whole "ammo works because there's an explosion involved" dealio, so the bright flash and the sound (along with twenty other people firing in their lines) just about made me stop breathing. I was like a Mexican jumping bean in there, ricocheting off of everyone else's shots. Each one literally terrified me.

Somehow I'd managed to forget that I hate balloons simply because sometimes they pop and when they do I nearly have a heart attack, and also that I hate it when Brian hides to scare me because the anticipation kills me even if I know where he is, and oh yeah I hate Operation with a bloody fire because I scream every time my tiny scalpel makes the thing buzz. So trade out a 9 mm for a tiny scalpel and an explosion in a concrete bunker for a buzz and Oh Look, It's My Living Nightmare!

At first I tried to pull it together and just breathe and try to drown out the other shots but inevitably they just got louder and louder and I became more and more jumpy and the next thing you know, here come a few tears! (Only a few, for the record). I knew how badly Brian and especially my mom wanted me to learn to shoot. But as soon as the outward motivation changed from "It'll be fun!" to "Someday you may need to protect yourself if you're walking down a dark alley," I think the reality and definitiveness of GUNS KILL PEOPLE seeped back in and, knowing that's not something I ever want to do, I just got totally creeped out by the fact that any of these people could turn around and shoot me or accidentally misfire and shoot themselves (dents in the counters helped me with this theory) and then, more tears. Mucho embarrassment-o.

The good thing is, everyone else really enjoyed themselves. And Brian was a great shot, so I think we're covered in the defense department. It was a totally bizarre activity to choose for our parents but hey, some people bond over alcohol, some bond over deadly weapons. To each his own!

Mom, Brian, random dude, Brian's dad, Brian's mom. 

One big happy gun-wielding family!

early bird / late bird

So sadly, the Renaissance Fair did not pan out last weekend. Saturday was a little more rambunctious than expected, from J Black's Blackout breakfast/brunch, to the Most Amazing Bus Ride Ever, to tailgating, to scoring free tickets on the 24th row, back to J Black's to dominate the cork-room-turned-dance-room, then inevitably to Union Park to take the dancing up a notch. 

As you might suspect, Sunday morning came fast and hard. I had pre-purchased our tickets to thee ole fair so we spent about 30 minutes weighing the pros (fried food, midgets in costumes) and cons (rain, cold, removing ourselves from bed, wasting $26) before the gavel of Google maps brought our decision-making to an end: ye fair was three and a half ungodly hours away. And it closed at dusk. Which was in like 5 hours. So we agreed to try to not spend $26 all day in exchange for our laziness, and I spent the next three hours cursing ESPN for locking me out while attempting to pick up Miles Austin at 11:59 a.m. Oh, for the thirty-seventh time, did you hear he had the best game of his life?

I definitely learned a little lesson about pre-purchasing those tickets, which incidentally I did because it said there were limited quantities available at the discounted price (incidentally, there were not). I am a chronic planner and always think that the price will jump or someone else will buy whatever it is that I want if I do not buy it right at that minute. My neuroses has saved us a lot of money, especially when it comes to plane tickets and such, buuuuuut this weekend made me realize that perhaps there's some value in playing Brian's version of the Game of Life, which is to wait until the last minute to buy things for ultimate flexibility purposes. Because sometimes you get a lot of good deals that way too. Case in point, we wouldn't have wasted $26 this weekend. And, for the two UT games that we've gone to together, we didn't spend a dime because we didn't buy tickets in advance and instead just used tickets from people that were leaving the game around halftime (excellent plan, you must try it). That's at least $200 saved. 

Great free seats, no complaints. 

So, I decided maybe we should start keeping track of money we save/waste through our different tactics and see where things shake out. For all I know, maybe the early bird is getting screwed. (Note: that is an obligatory concession and I know it's not true, what? Game on.) 

get ye turkey leg

Here ye, here ye! To whom is the honour bestowed upon that she shall incur a multitude of merriment and festivals all in a weekend's time?

Translation: who's about to see her fiance, tailgate & hopefully sneak into the UT game, and go to a Renaissance festival this weekend?!

That's right. Me lady me-self.

I find it no small twist of irony that Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves will also be arriving in my mailbox today. This is destiny, people.

(There's something so, so right about this.)

behind the scenes

As I was uploading videos and pictures from this weekend at ACL, I ran across some videos from our girl's trip to Horseshoe Bay a few weekends ago. This is what happens when you put 9 girls in a lakehouse, give them a few cases of beer, and discover Michael Jackson's Number Ones in a drawer.

Me: We are a disaster.
Lundy: Such a sweet sweet disaster.

the brick exists!

I mentioned a while back that I'd bought my dad a brick to go along the Town Lake trail. Well, promptly afterwards, I lost all records of doing so and started to wonder if I'd actually ever successfully put in the order at all. So I emailed the foundation in charge of the bricks to confess my idiot self had no mental or electronic record of the order and wanted to make sure it actually existed. No response. 

So I finally convinced myself that I was going crazy and obviously hadn't ordered it at all. Maybe I'd gotten to the last page and never clicked "send," but regardless, there was nothing in my credit card statements or email confirming my little make-believe transaction had ever happened. For the last few weeks I've been meaning to (re)order another brick, because they only have so much space in this particular pavilion. It's not exactly cheap, so I had been dragging my feet. 

And once again, procrastination does me a favor. 

On Monday, an email appeared in my inbox with the subject "Your commemorative brick at Lou Neff Point." My brick! The brick that I had ordered! The brick that I had not at all made up and had totally purchased successfully like a normal functioning human being! I already had plans to go to the trail that afternoon so I took my phone to get some shots of it. It's in a perfect spot, right by the edge of the sidewalk where I like to think it will get more "face time." The pavilion is right behind it with an awesome view of kayakers and downtown! I couldn't be happier with it!