Halloween Party

Pre-post note:

Some bloggers have insightful or useful things to say, or they are plugged into some source that few have access to, which makes them a valued information outlet.  Over time they accumulate faithful readers who find their blogs to be enriching or edifying or eloquent or entertaining or what have you.  On the other hand, our blog is rarely any of these on any consistent basis, so LL and I do not have many readers...but we do have at least ONE.  And She is like our own personal blog-stalking stadium crowd.  Around every cyber corner She lurks: a clay-and-ll junkie craving more more more!  She has even tracked us to facebook and made demands about our blog on other people's walls!  Sad...not to mention the pressure it puts on us!  What if my posts turn out to be boring, or unfunny, like the now-infamous and never-to-be-broached-again topic of uninstalling Windows Vista?  Even my wife made derisive comments about that one.  It is therefore with enormous trepidation that I now click the orange "Publish Post" button on my screen, knowing that Stalker Una will see it (no doubt within 15 minutes...as she has probably been hitting "refresh, refresh..." since the last post a few weeks ago).  Most painfully, I actually hope she likes it.  Seriously??  Do I fear rejection from my own stalker?  I gotta say, this is all around a sad state of affairs.  

Actual Halloween Party

With that out of the way, let's get on to the fun.  A few weeks ago, LL and I threw a roaring (howling?) Halloween party!  It was also an unveiling of sorts for our new apartment.  This was the first time we'd had a bunch of people over.  And we decorated (by that I mean that LL went out and bought the finest plastic goods that the Oriental Trading Company has to offer).  

For example, we purchased this lovely black "bat tree" (the thing that looks like a cassette tape caught in a blender), as well as little plastic spiders (sprinkled around for dramatic effect).  In addition, LL made cute drink recipe cards and framed them.  We had all the drink ingredients (not pictured) lined up on the counter and everyone was encouraged to make their own poison.  The different drinks were a big success!  

Oh, I should mention that the theme of our party was "Lame Costumes."  We even gave out prizes for people whose costumes represented a real lack of effort or lack of available costume resources.  Here are the nominees:

1.  Wade.  He is dressed as a human chalkboard.  Required for this costume are a black t-shirt and chalk.  No one really knew what he was at first sight (I thought he might have been a "child left behind"or something like that), which definitely puts him in the running for Lamest costume.  Extra points would be awarded if he didn't actually have to buy the chalk.  

2, 3, 4) Here are (L-R) Jim, Kim and Simon.  Jim is prisoner 24601 (for any Les Mis fans out there) and Kim is a witch.  Way too much effort guys: you have no hope of winning Lamest Costume.  Simon is a wraith, and his costume had to be shipped...a clear violation of the Code of Lameity.  Simon is also our neighbor: our front doors are separated by about 4 feet.  He's English too, so he's surrounded by people with silly American accents.  

5,6) Ben and Ali came dressed as the Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.  Again, not a lame costume at all (didn't you get the memo??).  Ben is also wearing a kippah, a nice touch.  Extra points to them for drinking without removing their plastic teeth.  LL is in the middle...we'll get to her costume in a sec.  

7,8) This is Mike and Meg.  Mike is dressed as a raver, complete with candy necklace and glow sticks.  Definitely a contestant for Lame costume.  Meg is dressed as a victim from the Hitchcock film The Birds, and she completely disqualified herself by wearing something not only creative, but with local flavor (The Birds takes place in nearby Bodega Bay).  

9,10) Pete and Liz.  Are they even dressed up?  Actually, Pete has a fantastic dog costume.  It is both super lame and easily (and usually) jettisoned.  

11,12) LL and I also dressed in Lame Costumes, but we were not eligible for prizes since we were the judges.  LL is "Hef's #1 girlfriend."  She bought bunny ears and a bunny tail, but was otherwise just wearing jeans and a shirt.  I mooched off her by wearing the pink bow tie that came in the same plastic wrap package as the ears and tail.  I pulled it all together by throwing on a bathrobe over my jeans and t-shirt and telling everyone I was a washed-up version of Hef.  

And the winners are...

We wish to congratulate Mike and Wade for winning "Most Lamest Costumes."  Wade sealed his win by abandoning the black t-shirt about 30 minutes into the party and just looking like a guy from Liberty, TX on a random Friday night.  Mike initially felt a little dissed by our lame designation of his costume, and upon reflection, maybe Pete deserved it more.  But at the time we gave out the award, Pete had recently sported his dog-head (I'll post a picture of it if I get a chance) while Mike had lost his candy necklace and was twirling his glowsticks around.  Congratulations!

September issue of Nature

Our next door neighbor, who happens to work for the journal Nature, pointed out something really pretty funny to us the other day. He swears this was completely unintentional, and I'm sure that is the case. But it's still quite the gaffe.

Front cover of the September issue of Nature

Back cover of the September issue of Nature.

Enjoy the election! :-)

A few apartment pics

After taking a several-month break from blogging, during which time productivity in other important areas of my life, such as making dinner and watching football, has improved 200%, LL says it's high time to get back on the horse.  

This is more of a wee baby post.  We just got new curtains, and the apartment is almost "complete."  So we took a few pics of the apt so that everyone can see how we're living.  We also want people to come visit, so this is sort of an advertisement, like you might see for a upscale hotel.  

This first one is of our new soap dish from Anthropologie.  If you come visit, you too can appreciate its fine workmanship in person.  

Here are the new Roman shades!  They are really cool.  LL ordered the fabric wholesale and had it sent to some lady we found on Ebay, who actually made the curtains.  The curtain lady did a great job, except for the fact that she was slow as Christmas (or I guess as slow as Halloween).  But we like them a lot, now that we have them!  

This one is in the living room.  BTW, I have an ongoing dispute with that pillow, but LL says we're both just going to have to learn to coexist.  

Locks of love

Yesterday LL got a major haircut! Her plan has been, necessarily for some time, to grow her hair out enough that she could donate it to Locks of Love when it was chopped off. Logistically, this was a much more difficult process that you might otherwise imagine. Consider these constraints:

1) Locks of Love requires 10 inches of hair for a donation


2) LL wanted enough hair left on her head afterward to still look like a girl

3) LL had two big weddings to participate in recently (her sister and her roommate), for which she wanted, needless to say, freakin' awesome hair


4) As the months wore on, she wanted this done ASAP!


She worked all this out with her hairdresser, Olympo, and they came up with a strategy for getting it trimmed just before each of the weddings (enough to be manageable, but not so much that constraints #2 and #4 would be violated). And finally, our string of weddings ended last week, meaning this weekend it was time. Here goes...



Here she is getting a little pre-measurement done. Can you see why she was ready to chop it off? I mean, it's a beautiful head of hair, don't get me wrong! But such long hair is hard to manage and hard to dry. We're probably going to save several dollars a month on electricity now that the hair dryer and Chi don't have to run for 30 minutes, meaning we will recoup the cost of this haircut in just a few lifetimes.

Olympo first put her hair in a pony tail so that he could take another measurement and decide where to chop. He would end up close to the 11 inch mark, making LL a super-donator.

AHHH! Isn't that nuts! Olympo just sawed off my wife's hair. And "sawed" is probably the best verb to use as he had to work the scissors for 30 seconds or so to get through it all. Well...no turning back now.

Here's Olympo and LL. Something like an hour has past between the last photo and this one. Olympo cut off a lot more hair, as you can see below...

I think this is called a "bob." I don't really know where that comes from (I only recently found out what a "Rachel" was...you know, 10 years after everyone had one). It's a pretty dramatic change though. I think even I would notice without her having to say (in a completely exasperated monotone), "Clay, I got a haircut today. What do you think????" It also helped that I went with her to witness the haircut, so I could not later forget and embarrass myself by saying something like, "You look different. Are those new pants?"

So everyone make sure you tell her how much you like her hair!

Erin and Barrett have a wedding

Pre blog...of the spelling of Barrett

"Barrett" -- "two R's, two T's."

Or if you have trouble remembering it that way, there's always
"B-A-R-R-E-T-T. Lawyers always drink for free."

Sorry so late!

I apologize that we're a week behind with this, but LL and I have been living like Gypsies since Christmas: flying out of town almost one out of every three weekends since then! At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I'll admit to an overwhelming sense of relief that we don't have any travel plans for the rest of this year. I'm tired of luggage and airport security and the dank smell of air that's been recycled through an airplane 5,000 times. Yuck!

But, when you want to end your travel season with a bang, you can't do any better than a wedding in downtown Austin (well, I imagine someone could plan a crummy wedding in downtown Austin, say perhaps with a dry reception, but then those people would not be Erin and Barrett). This wedding was spectaculous, as Don King would say (if he were invited, which he wasn't), and fun for the whole family (as long as everyone in your family is 21 or older).

First, you rehearse...

So, first, there was the rehearsal at University United Methodist Church (site of the wedding of course), which is on the campus of UT. Technically, it might not really be sitting on land owned by the university, and the roof has more of a red tint than the campus buildings, but surely any casual observer would say that it was "on campus," right Candice?? :) This church also has a bit of history with LL's parents. They actually met at this church in Sunday school when they were studying at UT, thus ruining any chance their kids might ever have of escaping chastisement by appealing to mom and dad's "wild days."

The rehearsal itself was cool, as much as that's possible. I sat and watched, similar to what I did at the wedding, except that this one doesn't count.

Here is Erin with her matron of honor, Amy. She is Erin's younger sister, but she got married first (a few months ago), and was really funny about finally having a topic on which she could advise Erin. Especially during her toast the next day at the reception, Amy dispensed uxorial wisdom liberally while the guests pretty much howled with laughter. Respectful laughter, of course.

Amy also made the bouquet that Erin is holding (it's a practice bouquet, which I actually think is a useful prop). It's made of Crate&Barrel tissue paper that Amy altered to read "Crate&Barrett." Their dad, Rusty, had never been more proud.

After rehearsing, we were rewarded with dinner at the Old Pecan Street Cafe. "The Old" is part of the proper name of the place. So is "Pecan Street" since it's actually located on 6th street. I've got no qualms with "Cafe." Here we have Erin GS, LL, Candice and Gunnar weaving through the bikers on their way to TOPSC. Austin doesn't usually have this many bikes, but it was the weekend of the Republic of Texas biker rally (featuring cage fights, girls roller derby and Charlie Daniels). You can learn more about the bikers here. I checked out the message board, which featured such gems as

"But then I am of a mind that screams 'I've got the toys and the toys are full of the TA-TAs'"

Classy.

And speaking of classy, after the rehearsal dinner, everyone went to Logan's for drinks. Logan's is famous (or at least locally famous) for serving huge beers. In fact it's more of a small pitcher than a large beer. And the selection is pretty good too. But it's mostly fun to order a beer the size of your head and carry it around with you.

Here are some patrons of Logan's. Erin GS, Amy, Emily and LL. It was like having the band back together.

I also thought these two pics were pretty fun. The left is Erin and Rusty, and to the right is Erin and Barrett. It looks like she's going to handle this life transition just fine.

And then there was the wedding...

The wedding day was cool. LL and I stayed at Fisher's the night before. Our plan was to stay at the Driskill after the wedding, but we could only afford one night there. So, on the wedding day, we left Fishers and got tacos at El Chilito for breakfast, which is an awesome place, btw. Not only are the tacos good, but they are big and they are $1.75 (or something close to that). Then I dropped LL off at the Driskill to get ready while I drove to Supercuts. And thankfully I did, because look what happened to Erin at the hands of a "professional"...

Whoh! What in the name of St. Paul Mitchell is going on? Is her hair even expected to make a full recovery?

Here we have a fabulous group of gals post-hair and makeup. They're all drinking champagne in a can through a straw. Actually, I've seen these cans before at a restaurant/wine bar out here in CA owned by the Coppola family, and I think these are a Coppola product. I'm not sure if this means that Rusty would not refuse any requests on his daughter's wedding day...I didn't ask, as it could potentially leave me indebted to a bunch of Longhorns...oh wait...shoot!

Just to point something out, it's not only bridesmaids who get all done up for weddings. Emily's bf Jordan put on his best socks! Dobby would be proud.

While the girls were prinking themselves silly, I had a chance to walk around and take some photos of the reception area. The Driskill is such a cool old hotel.

After this we went to the actual wedding, which happened successfully. I didn't take any pictures at the wedding because there are professionals who do that, and I also feel like it's not cool to be clicking away during the ceremony. It's got to be someone's job to just sit there and be nothing more or less than a guest, right? I think that's my job.

It was pretty and all that, and then we drove back up to the Driskill for the reception...

Here are Erin and Barrett during their first dance! They did a nice job, complete with a few under-arm turns. One thing about Erin though, and this has nothing to do with her dancing, is that she gets some wicked redeye in her pictures. I know this because I have to go in a fix it in all my photos. The problem is that her redeye isn't even red. If it were, then there are photo tools that will automatically fix it. But Erin's redeye ranges from racoon to Terminator. So hard to fix! I keep wondering if this is related to her two cornea transplants. I also wonder if it shares cause with her ability to control her evil bloodthirsty pet cat.

Here is the mother of the bride (Betsy) and LL's mom (Leslie) trying to bustle the dress. I don't know anything about this, which apparently puts me on par with everyone who's ever tried to do it.

If you know Erin, you may be surprised to learn that this is the groom's cake. LL and her family are proudly hooking 'em.

Here's Gene and I relaxing a little at the reception. We had a good time and got in a little bonding while LL and Leslie ran around doing whatever.

The reception ran until 11:00, at which point everyone headed over to the Driskill Bar. The bar was a lot like the reception, except that we had to pay for our own drinks. It was a nasty shock. On the way to the bar, we decided to go to Gunnar and Candice's room to visit Lulu (I think she needed to "go out"). The hotel was great about pets, even giving Lulu her own little doggie bed and food and water bowls.

Here we all are with Lulu. In this photo, I asked everyone to pose while we were waiting for the elevator. But just as I was about to take the picture, the elevator arrived and Fish darted for the door, resulting in this odd pose.

Rye Ann Win collage

Lastly, I though I'd take all the photos of RW throughout the evening and make a collage out of them. I got this idea because he rarely just takes a "normal" picture and I couldn't decide which of these really captured his inner spirit. However, I changed his name so that these won't show up in a Google search done by a potential employer. Instead, they'll have to wait for their first company party so they can snap their own. I'm nice that way.

To see all of the pictures, click here!

Chris graduates from college

Note: click here to see all the pictures!

My brother, Chris, graduated from the University of New Orleans last weekend, so LL and I flew to Louisiana to celebrate with him and the rest of the family. We were both really glad for an excuse to visit everyone! We stayed at cousin Wil's in Ponchatoula.




Here's Wil on the front porch with Casey. Casey's a great dog, though due for a haircut. Her favorite toy is Donkey from Shrek. She pretty much goes everywhere with Donkey.


When we're in Ponchatoula we always like to go out on the town and see what's new...what the new restaurants are, who's hanging out where. Actually, the restaurants and bars are always in the same places, but they change names once people get tired of the menu or the vibe. We went to a new place called Rockefeller's. I had some sort of cajun pasta with fried shrimp thrown in, which I ate till the near-bursting point. The portions were enormous. Not a skinny place, Louisiana. However, that doesn't mean there aren't some good-looking residents...

Here's LL and I posing with this year's Strawberry Festival Queen (the Festival was just a few weeks ago)! She was eating at Rockefeller's just like us, but looks like she must have only gotten appetizers (probably a salad) and then did 200 situps. Now...you may be wondering...is this the way she goes around town all the time? With a giant crown and a sash? Well, no. It just so happens that she had her crown and sash in the trunk of her car (I'll admit that it's' possible she has it available at all times, but who could blame her?), and LL was not ashamed to ask her to pull it all out for a photo. The crown has its own custom case (with built-in mirror in the lid to aid a quick change), and the sash was protected in a cute little sack that her grandmother made for her. I think this makes the 3rd or 4th picture LL has taken with a Strawberry Festival Queen...for whatever reason, she really has a knack for sniffing them out. In this case, Wil introduced us to her. Wil is in the Ponchatoula Chamber of Commerce and in the Rotary Club and he works in an office on main street, so he pretty much knows everyone in the town, Festival royalty being no exception.

The next day we drove down to New Orleans for the graduation, which took place at the UNO Lakefront Arena. It's a nice facility (my sister, Celeste, saw Styx here a few years ago...she has fond memories). Fittingly, the roof resembles a mortar board.

Here is Celeste helping Chris into his regalia in the parking lot. Amazingly, it wasn't hot or really all that humid in New Orleans. In fact, it was hotter in Menlo Park that weekend!

And here's me helping my little brother get his hat on straight. I think he had spent some time on his hair, so I did my best to ruffle it in every possible direction. It seemed like a good brotherly thing to do.

And for the actual graduation:

After that everyone went to dinner.

Some of us went to Brennan's, a very good restaurant in the French Quarter. Here's Chris and "Maw-maw Betty" out front. Maw-maw isn't quite as mobile as she was a few years ago, but she hung tough all weekend going to the various grade school/high school/college graduations and awards ceremonies for four of her grandchildren (Paw-paw adopted the opposite strategy and skipped all of them...both methods adequately avoiding favoritism). She actually has this little 3-wheeled walker (not the cane in the picture) that she zips around with...like you'll turn around and she'll be across the room.

After dinner, the 'kids' (those 32 and under) stayed out till 2:30 on Bourbon Street. Quite a feat, I believe, though I felt pretty old. You'll see what I mean in a bit...

Here's Chris with a friend of his from UNO named Carrie. She was really fun and sweet. She also helps run the Arthur Roger art gallery. Really not too much wrong with old Carrie.

At this point, she was going up on stage to try and get them to do something for Chris, though I can't remember what it was. Whatever she was angling for, the guy in charge was having none of it (keep in mind that the 'guy in charge' is a loser whose sphere of influence extends across a 7x10 foot stage where he uses his microphone to sing (badly) over the club music and make sure that he's the only male up there).

This is also the point where the 30+ club (me, LL, Celeste and her husband) became certain that we needed to call it a night. We were having fun, but the thumping music and smoke and lights that would have been hypnotically intoxicating ten years ago, failed to charm us this time. Instead we spent a lot of time looking around wondering why no one else could see the run-down bar behind the flashy facade. Must be a sign of old age.

Finally, take note of the girl in burnt orange (no need to ask where she goes to school). In about two seconds (not pictured) she starts rocking out with a series of pelvic thrusts, leaving Chris in a state of... ...sheer wonder? Well, anyway, everyone is pretty overwhelmed. Happy Graduation, Chris!

And if you want to see more pics, click here!

Melissa and Mark's wedding: part 3

Hello, and Welcome to the third installment of the Box/Stromblad wedding weekend! I'm going to try and wrap it all up in one uber-post because I'm getting backlogged...I mean now I've already been to my brother's graduation (this past weekend from the University of New Orleans), yet I'm still writing about the wedding. Not that the wedding doesn't deserve many, many posts...


So, this post will have stuff from the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner and the wedding itself (finally, right?). The R/RD was held the night before the wedding at the home of a relative of Mark (well...now Melissa too, I guess...though not me, right? Surely you have to draw the line somewhere...). Interestingly, the rehearsal was not at the wedding site, so some adapting had to be done as far as pretending to walk down and aisle and all that, though it seems to have worked out just fine. Melissa was really chill about this stuff...I'd rate her a mild 1.5 on the Bridezilla Richter Scale (by comparison, LL gets a 2.5...still pretty mellow, but not so much as Melissa...neither would cause much more than a ripple on a pond). Actually...is the Richter scale too confusing? It's log-based, and the scaling is wack. Maybe I should have used the Bridezilla Hurricane scale instead. For that, LL is a Tropical Storm and Melissa is a Tropical Depression...basically just good surfing weather.


Which would you pick? I think everyone I talked to preferred the one on the left. At least that was LL's personal favorite. In addition to the frozen drink machines, we also have Leslie (bride's mom) and Streak (bride's Godmother). Actually, by divine arrangement, Leslie is Godmother to all Streak's kids and Streak is Godmother to all Leslie's kids.

Here's the rehearsing part. The woman in blue is Mrs. Lewis, who choreographed all the who-goes-where-when parts of the ceremony. Behind her are the bridesmaids, to the right are the groomsmen, and in the center are Mark, Melissa, and the Father of the Bride. Gene is a really good sport about weddings. He is also not-so-secretly happy to have a grand total of zero daughters left to get married. He still has two boys, but the difference between the marriage of a son vs. a daughter is like the difference between making Pop Tarts for 2 vs. dinner for 50.

On to the wedding day...!

This is a lobster. He lives at the hair salon where all the bridesmaids got their hair done. His life sucks.

Here's the bride with her hair done! Melissa was a super-pretty bride, and she was completely awesome all weekend about dealing with all the weddingness. I'm sure it was stressful for her. I know about this stuff first hand after all. No...not because I have already been through a wedding. Remember, I'm a boy, so my wedding was a breeze for me! But I DO remember LL being under a lot of stress, and, considering all the crazy things there are to worry about, I thought Melissa did great. She was a gracious hostess and all that.

Now that the hair is done, Melissa has to get her makeup on (Mark, following the standard male wedding day agenda, is probably about to wake up). Katie is something of a make-up martial artist (huh...one of the few times where 'martial' and 'marital' could be mixed up with little or no consequence), and she is putting eyelashes on Melissa individually. I didn't even know that could be done!

The bride and the matron of honor! LL looked great too. She was a little worried about the, er, front of the dress, but she always worries needlessly about that. I thought it was fine, impartial judge that I am!

After that, we go to the ceremony itself. It was at a beautiful place called Skelly Lodge, overlooking something of a valley, over which were flying lots of hawks and buzzards. Buzzards, I've decided, get a bad wrap, but they look cool flying around. There was also an eagle out there, but I don't know that we saw it.

Here's some family (of LL's and mine...I'm pretty sure I claim most of these). Right to left on the row with the Cheshire uncle we have Tom (Leslie's brother), Stacy (Tom's wife), Laura (Leslie's sister), Joyce (Gene's sister), Harry (Joyce's husband), and Mema (Gene's mother). Note that I went right to left so that I could introduce the blood relatives first (e.g. Tom, Leslie's brother) and then the relatives by marriage (Stacy, Tom's wife). Had I gone left to right, it would have been awkward to, e.g., introduce Stacy first (as Tom's husband or as Leslie's brother Tom's husband...it just gets messy to say all that). See how hard I work for you, dear reader?!

OK...actual, actual ceremony! LL gets a fancy yellow flower in her hair because she is special. The other bridesmaids look on enviously. In this pic, Melissa is about to be given away by Gene. We assume Mark, smiling, knows what he's getting into. Isn't' the wedding pretty? Also, I should add, the weather was really nice. Unfortunately, as we enjoyed a beautiful, if a little blustery, day, there were tornadoes ripping across other parts of Oklahoma. But whatever the surrounding weather was up to, it was perfect here at the wedding. Sunny, but not too hot. Really nice.

The Matron of Honor and the Best Man (Mark's brother). You could tell that LL was very happy for Melissa. They are great siblings. I mean, they raid each other's suitcases for new clothes when we're all together for the holidays and accuse each other of stealing any clothes that they can't find at the end of the trip. They both engage (and deny engaging) in the pirating, which seems to be in good fun, until someone's favorite cami goes missing. But when it comes down to it, they adore each other. Sisters.

Smooch! All hail the happy couple. Personally, I think posing for a kiss is hard.

This is Lillian. She is (Leslie's sister) Laura's granddaughter, which means she is LL's cousin, once removed. I took 5 or so pictures of Lillian, and she was cute as a button in every one.

In this photo, you might think that everyone is just chatting, but that doesn't explain why everyone is sort of in a circle. Well, actually, these people are all avidly following the exploits of a certain...

...MOLE!!! Ahhhhhhhhh! Killer mole!! Run!!

No, silly, moles are not killers. In fact I recently read The Wind in the Willows, and Mole was very nice indeed.

Mole actually introduces the wildlife section of the wedding. Oklahoma is known to be home to some of the most interesting animals in North America.

Here is Frog. He's looking forlorn, and is contemplating a leap off the table. We're pulling for ya, little guy.

Oklahoma is also apparently home to a boatload of hummingbirds. There were a ton of them around this bird-feeder hanging off the porch at the lodge. Enough, anyway, for me to get this National Geographic quality picture (or at least Wikipedia quality).




Cousin Wil, in the house.


Sometimes LL scares me with all her talk of cute babies, and I have to remind her that I'm in school and we're poor. This little guy was fantastic. Thankfully, though, we also occasionally come across noisy, whiny ones and she realizes that maybe we don't want one for our own just yet. Schwew.


Here's the mother of the bride taking a load off. You can also see Lynette (left), who is Lillian's mom. So Lynette is LL's first cousin. Leslie had a lot going on, as mothers of the bride often do, but she came through and helped make the wedding a big success and a lot of fun for everyone.