Once Upon a Time, A Few Mistakes Ago…

I’ve never had much luck in the dating world.  No, seriously.  It all started with my first boyfriend when I was in middle school.  I was pretty sure we would be together forever and get married, have 4 kids, have a house in CT and also a log cabin in ME on a lake (obviously where we’d vacation) and live a picture perfect life, but then he hooked up with my (ex)best-friend.  Cool.  Back then it didn’t take much time to get over guys.  A couple hundred phone calls (remember this was long before the days of cell phone and text messages) to his parents house and a dramatic bike ride over to his house to drop off a “box of his things” pretty much did the trick.  From then on there was a series of high school drops outs, drug addicts, and down right boring guys-I mean I’m an independent, smart, fun girl, why wouldn’t I go that route. It really only makes sense, right?  Don’t they say opposites attract…?

Now, being in my late twenties, most of my friends are married, engaged, in super-boring-super-serious-super-longterm relationships, or busy chasing their rug rats around Target.  I did something I never wanted to, I’m embarrassed that I did, and I can confidently say I will never do again.  I entered the online dating world.  Some of my friends (and family) tell me I’m picky, judgmental, or not willing to try – my other friends, and the general public, is just too nice to say that to my face-or maybe they just don’t know me well enough.  I like those people.

Anyways, back to online dating…how does that saying go?  Oh yea, I came, I saw, I conquered threw up in my mouth a little bit.  I was out to dinner with a friend of mine not too long ago and she, newly single, mentioned considering online dating.  I gave her the best advice in the world:  DON’T. DO. IT.  Why?  Well because people who online date, in my experience, do it for a reason. Ya, ya, ya, your sister met her husband on plenty-of-fish and he’s a ‘real catch’, your cousin met his girlfriend on ‘match’ and they really hit it off, your grandma met her lova on “Our Time” and they are having the time of their life.  I get it.  There are fairy tale endings out there, but I’m no princess so that shit just ain’t for me.  Just so you can really taste it, let me tell you about my favorite 10 guys I’ve met online and you can tell me if I was too quick to judge or if I saw where it was going and was able to make it to safe room before the tornado.

Time capsule –  I call him this for two reasons.  1. because I feel like I talked to him for an eternity and 2. because on our first date – literally the first time we ever met, he made me look at over 1,000 photos on his iphone of cruise he went on with his parents.  Somewhere around 1,500 I said “lets save the rest for next time”.  Spoiler alert – there was no next time.  Seriously, I saw more pictures of his parents than I’ve seen of my own parents-in my whole entire life.  I love pictures and will have absolutely no problem making you look at the scrapbooks I made in high school, but this was intense, even for me.

Hey Girl Heyyyyyy – So this guy was…different. I’m not sure if he was trying to convince himself or convince me, but he definitely checked some wrong boxes on that dating site.  He loved hot coacoa, “hangin out with the girls”, and his alcoholic drink of choice – mudslides.  “Um dirty martini over here please!” <–that was literally what I said as I snapped my fingers for the waiter mid-meal on our LUNCH date.  Hey alcohol doesn’t solve problems, but neither does water or milk, am I right?

The Alcoholic – This guy seemed really nice.  Actually, I thought he might actually be someone that I could hang out with, but I found out sooner (thank god) than later that he really just wanted to get drunk.  Literally- he told me he wasn’t interested in eating because “then he wouldn’t be able to drink as much”, and when I said, well it sound like you just want to get wasted, he said “well I do, I really wanted to get drunk last night but I didn’t” Yea, that date never even happened.  Oh, and for kickers, he was actually going to pick me up.  Luckily I found his intents before I got into the death chair.  He was later known to text me in the middle of the night inquiring why we couldn’t even be friends.

The Petri Dish – OK, feel free to judge me if you want to, but this poor kid’s face was like a petri dish incubating as the perfect temperature.  More and more white heads grew in the period of time it took me to choke down a burger and a beer…and if you’re really thinking about what i’m saying and picturing it, that was not a long time.

Siri – Only it wasn’t Siri, it was whatever question-answering thing those huge ass Galaxy phones have.  The entire time we were out, in a restaurant mind you, he was talking to her. And by her I do not mean me.  And by her I do not mean another person.  We’d be mid conversation and get to a point where we’d try to remember someone’s name “Oh it had that guy that was in the Big Bang Theory…what’s his name? <says to his phone> ‘what actor plays Leonard on the Big Bang Theory’ ”  Yep, that really happened…at least 15 times.

Too Hot To Trot – This is the guy that is really good looking, but he knows he’s really good looking, which makes him not good looking.   This guy literally spent the first half of the date telling me how everyone always tells him how hot he is.  According to him, his ex-girlfriends’ sister put the moves on him, his ex-girlfriends’ mother “was totally into him” and he even went as far as to tell ME, the person he’s on a date with, that the waitress was totally into him, he “could tell”.

The Mentalist – This guy “knows your nervous by the way you tilt your head” and knows that you chose blue cheese instead of ranch because the female brain has some extra sensor in the frontal lobeblahblahblah…..omg get over yourself.  I can’t even. So you took a psychology class in your undergrad studies, congratulations, so did I.  Maybe that’s how I can tell you’re a complete douche.

Full disclosure, the last three guys were all the same guy, all on the same date.  He was a diamond in the rough…it got to a point where I was more interested in seeing what bullshit would come out of his mouth next than anything else.  It was seriously like a comedy show, and I had a front row seat.

The Lamb – I call him this because he was feeble, like a baby lamb.  We went out once.  It was fine.  He texted me the next day, I texted him back, it was fine.  He then texted me the next day…at 6AM…TELLING ME that he was coming over that night. Um…no pal, you’re not.  1. that’s pretty short notice, and lets face it, I book up quick.  2. I’m pretty much all set with having you enclosed in my apartment-I’ve spent all of 3 hours with you. I don’t even know your last name.  When I politely told him I was busy that night but maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle over the weekend, he basically started crying.  I could feel the tears through the text messages.  “He knew I didn’t like him.” “No one ever wants to wait until the weekend unless they dont like the guy”.  “best of luck, you were really cool”. uh, yea dude, you were cool too…till you freaked out.  No offense, but There’s no way that I’m going to try to convince a guy I’ve known for 3 hours that I’m “really into you”.  Ya blew it. bubye!

The Friendly Angry Giant – I met this guy one time for coffee. ONE TIME.  We then made plans to meet up with some of his friends the next weekend. Something came up, and I wasn’t able to make it.  Ok, nothing came up, but I just really would have rather read the Dictionary than meet up with him again.  Instead of doing what a normal person would do, such as say “ok maybe another time”, Jolly Green turns King Kong in 2.5 seconds and starts spewing off about what a crazy bitch I am.  Now I might just be a crazy bitch, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d get to know me a little better before you start throwing that around.  Wow, I’m really regretting cancelling that one…NOT.

The Textwhore – This person mine as well get an iphone implanted into their body.  Trust me, if that was possible, I’d definitely consider some cosmetic surgery.  I’m just as obsessed with my phone as the next guy.  But when I wake up at 6:30AM and I already have a “good morning” text from you…OK, a good morning text might be ok, it’s the “how’s your morning going”, and “how’s work” that starts getting annoying.  What really put me over the edge with this fellow was the “Hey! What are you up to?” at 2PM on a Tuesday.  Uhhh…it’s 2PM on a Tuesday – what the fuck do you think I’m up to.  I’m not even wasting my time to text you back.  You’ll figure it out.

So if you’re picking up what I’m putting down here, I’m not telling you that online dating is a bad idea for you.  I’m telling you that it’s a bad idea for me.  Feel Free to roll the dice on your own.

Casual Fridays With Paul

The Original Paul

Over the past couple months I’ve been throwing the idea of getting a pet around.  I think I’m mature enough for this added responsibility and I finally landed on the perfect pet for me:  Paul.  Paul McNibbler, the hamster.  You see, I had a hamster once, Nibbles, who lived a long and happy life.  He had a number of hobbies:  nibbling his way out of his cage, filling his cheeks with 3 weeks’ worth of food, and of course getting loose in moving cars.  Anyways, I figured that Paul would be the ideal pet for me because it would really fit right into my lifestyle.  Being a solitary animal, I could leave him alone for hours, or day if needed, I could fit him just about anywhere, and best of all, he’s got an expiration date.  I’m 27 now, but by the time I’m 30, ready to buy a house and (god willing) have a family, I’ll be pet free.  BOOM. DONE.

Paul making his rounds during a typical Casual Friday.

Oh, and the best part:  Casual Fridays With Paul.  CFWP is something that my team at work decided would probably be a great idea where Paul could come into the office on Fridays, dressed to the 9’s of course, and make his ‘rounds’ in his hamster ball.  You know, just ‘roll through’ to make sure everything is running smoothly.  Oh, and of course he would bring some office cheer.  Most likely, he would spice up the Friday afternoons when he unavoidably would get loose the office and we all would be on a rampant hamster hunt.

Anyways, I moved recently and have kind of backed away from the thought of any new responsibilities, which is ironic because I feel like it was as soon as I gave up on this dream, it just came true without me even trying. (Never give up on your dreams, kids!)  There was I sitting in my living room, watching the Wonder Years, and enjoying a pizza, when a baby opossum pops up in the middle of my living room.  WHAT?  SERIOUSLY?  Yes, this is serious, as serious as a heart attack, which, by the way, I almost had.

please note that this is not actually the opossum in my apartment, but he did look just like this little nugget

I called my land lord, who set up an appointment with animal control, and ran upstairs to my neighbor, who I have known for approximately 5 minutes and probably thinks I’m crazy to come down and assist in the situation.  Lucky for me, he was nice enough to come down and help me out with the situation.  Between the two of (and by “between the two of us” I mean my neighbor was on the front line in the living room, while I nervously stood behind the barrier in the kitchen) we were able to get the cutesy baby opossum out the door.

The little guy didn’t even get out the door and I already missed him.  A new paul was sitting there, given to me for free, and what do I do? I shoo him out the door.  What kind of a pet-mother am I?  I have thrown away the hopes of having a rodent-pet, I have thrown away the hope for Casual Fridays With Paul, and I have destroyed my confidence in myself as far as pet-owning goes.

As an aside:  no animals were hurt in the making of this story.  Paul was able to make it out alive, where he will be reunited with the rest of his opossum family, and after a thorough investigation of my apartment and the grounds around by the animal control guys, there were no more baby or mommy opossums found.

 Please stay tuned for a follow up story about all the lesser known facts about opossums – they are actually a lot more interesting than you may have thought.

 

 

 

 

Charming Charlie – A Modern Day Inconvenience

Like most girls, I don’t think I could ever have enough accessories.  In fact, even with the overflowing amount that I have now and the equal mounds that my mom and sister have that they let me borrow occasionally, I still have moments where I literally have NOTHING that matches!  Luckily there is the accessory mecca land, a refreshing oasis that provides only the lasted and greatest in outfit toppers:  Charming Charlie.  If you don’t know what Charming Charlie is, just picture Claire’s, The Icing, Francesca’s Collections, Forever 21-accessories, H&M accessories, and Charlotte Russe-accessories throwing up everywhere.  No seriously – it has the color coordination of H&M, the price point of the Icing/Claire’s, and the ‘on trend’ perfection of Forever and Charlotte.  It’s everything a girl could ask for, right?  WRONG.

I do have one MAJOR issue with Charming Charlie.  I’m signed up for their email, just as I’m signed up for with all my other stores like The Limited, Ann Taylor Loft, and Old Navy.  I use these to make the time pass while I’m drinking my morning coffee or while I’m winding down watching TV at night.  I basically use “window shopping” (clearly I’m using that term loosely here) the same way most educated adults would use reading a newspaper or book, but this is only because I don’t read.  OK, lets be clear here, its not that I can’t read, its that I choose not to.  I have been reading the same damn book on my family vacation for the past 3 summers, and I think I’m only halfway through.  It’s pathetic really.

Anyways, I digress, back to the important issue here:  Charming Charlie’s email list.  I get the email every damn day.  I want to go to their website and see their 2 for $20 scarves, their tantalizing TEAL accessories, and their cross body bags.  I want to throw my money into the endless cycle of trendy accessories that will be nothing but a fashion faux pas next season, but can I? NOOOOOOOOOO…… Why? because they don’t have a damn website!  It’s 2013 people, almost 2014 and you don’t have a website?  Is this real life?  Jenna Marbles runs a freaking YouTube channel single handedly, and she has an online store!  You’re trying to tell me that with 250+ stores nation wide you couldn’t hire a team to run an online store??  You’ve been “a thing” for 10 years now! Get it together.

Furthermore, if you’re going to dick us around with these “deals” that are “in store only” (which is pretty much a pointless thing to stipulate because that’s actually the only way that you can make purchases), lets have it be a better deal.  If I actually have to drive to the store, park half a mile away, walk in, purchase approximately 12 items more than i intended to, I’m going to need a deeper discount, ya know what I mean?

Charming Charlie, I hope that you read this post and that you understand your inconsideration for today’s online shoppers!

Namaste

 

Best Job Ever

So I’m already extremely spoiled where I work, as we get breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, and snacks provided to us for free. Eat your heart out corporate America- my job is better than yours!! Wait, if you think u hate me already, every summer we get a steak and lobster dinner provided as a summer treat. This is the ultimate “summer eats” as we get steak, lobster, baked potatoes, salad, fruit, corn on the cob…you name it, we’ve got it!! It’s actually quite amazing.

Anyways I just wanted to take a moment to share this with all you “brown-naggers” out there that aren’t so lucky!

The Deodorant Conundrum

I’m not sure if it’s just me or if this is something that happens to everyone or if it’s just me, but every time my deodorant runs out I’m genuinely surprised. Almost to the point of being shocked.  I don’t know why this is.  I know that a tube of deodorant does not live as long as people do, but each time it happens I think to myself “how did this happen?  I just bought this deodorant”.  Now of course that is not the case.  I probably bought it a month ago or maybe two, who knows.  I don’t regularly keep track of my toiletry purchases.  Perhaps I should though, and I wouldn’t be constantly faced with this problem.

It’s just not one of those things that you expect will never run out.  I mean with everything else you can see it coming.  If you’re like me, you squeeze and flatten and fold your tube of toothpaste for a week and a half before finally making it to the store to get more.  Or eat a bagel for three days in a row even though you told yourself you’re on a low carb diet just to save that last cup of milk for a protein shake later in the week – heaven forbid I step foot in a grocery store if it’s not for my weekly shopping visit!  These things don’t sneak up on you…you can see them coming a mile away.  Deodorant, on the other hand, in it’s deceptively opaque tube, sits there silently.  Mocking you looking and feeling full and stuff, then BOOM, just like that there’s not another “click” to be had.

What is the solution for this quandary?  Well any halfway intelligent person could say “Buy two and when the first one runs out you have a few weeks to get a new one while you’re using the reserve”, or “switch to a brand that has a transparent tube”, or even the obvious “stop on the day you see you have one only more day and grab some more”…am I going to follow any of these simple pieces of advice?  Probably not.  I’m probably just going to be super annoyed when my deodorant runs out, frustrated because I’m late and don’t have stop and get more, and confused on how it ran out so quickly when I just bought it “like yesterday or something”.

On The Run from the “Blue-Car-Gangster”

I’ve always had a very active imagination, and not just when I’m awake.  It’s when I’m sleeping that most of the craziest things happen.  The cool thing about my dreams is that many times the people in my dreams are people that I know.  Most of the time they are my friends, but sometimes just an acquaintance.  At any rate, I recognize them.  Last night was no different.  It was one hell of a night.  In fact, even though I got a solid 9 hours of sleep, I’m feeling a bit exhausted from all the stress and travel that happened overnight!

It all started when I was with my friend Liz and her friend Erin and Erin’s son Justin (don’t be confused – so in this car is Liz, me (erin), another Erin and her son Justin).  Anyways we go to Big Y and there is this gangster guy there in this very noticeable robin’s egg blue and white car.   Well he starts saying something to us, at which point Erin lashes out.  Things got a little heated, so we decide its probably best to get the heck out of there.  This gangster guy chases us for a little while, but then he’s out of sight, and therefore out of mind.

We all go along with our daily business, but then about a week later we find out that Erin and Justin have been missing for days.  Of course Liz and I are the only ones that know of the blue-car-gangster, but obviously we know that he is the one who must have abducted Erin and Justin and naturally we were next.  I mean that only makes sense, right?  So what else were we supposed to do but go “on the run”?

So we hop in Liz’s car and of course we immediately have a run in with blue-car-gangster, but we somehow avoid him and are now dipping through town trying to think of where we should go or what we should do to get away from this psycho.  We decided the best thing to do would be to get on the highway and drive to VT.  Why Vermont?  Well we were convinced that blue-car-gangster had our car bugged, but as soon as we got as far as Vermont it would no longer be traceable.

So there we are driving on the highway, trying to get away from blue-car-gangster, but suddenly just about half of the cars on the crowded highway are light blue and white, and we can’t figure out which one has the villain in it.  It’s at this point that I realize I was supposed to waitress that night, but obviously I couldn’t take the risk of being in one place for that long.  So, I called down to the restaurant where I worked and talked to the bartender, who basically laughed at me and instructed me to drive to the nearest police station if I was really that concerned.  I was that concerned, but was also terrified that if we stopped the blue-car-gangster would get us before we could walk into the police station or even on our way out.   So we just stuck with our original plan to get to VT.

Once we got to Vermont, we went to my apartment.  Of course, my everyday apartment just happened to be in Vermont, why wouldn’t it be?  Unfortunately, this is where the dream kind of abruptly ends.  I know, I’m just as sad about this as you are, but I had already snoozed my alarm about 7 times so if I didn’t actually get out of bed then, it wasn’t going to happen.  Hopefully this is a “to be continued…”  Maybe if I read this right before I go to bed tonight I’ll find out what happens!  Does Erin and Justin get rescued?  Does the blue-car-ganster get caught?  Are me and Liz safe up in Vermont?

Friends, Wine, and a REALLY Great Time

Here in Connecticut we were predicted a blizzard.  We were declared in a “state of emergency” and I worked from home.  I was pretty much pumping myself up to watch the lat 5 episodes of Nashville that I had DVR”d and make some beaded necklaces (seriously, thats what I was going to do), but instead had a surprise visitor!  My friend Petow, who also braved Irene with me a couple years ago, showed up with storm snacks.  At that point, I knew my night was about to get a lot more interesting.

Before there was too much snow on the ground, and while it was still somewhat light we wanted to play outside for a while.  So, we played KanJam!  Normally a summer game, we discovered that it is actually an AMAZING game to play when it’s cold out.  There’s enough moving going on that you stay pretty warm.

Later, after it got dark we decided we should go sledding.  We just had one problem-we didn’t have a sled.  So we decided we should MAKE a sled.  We looked around my apartment to see what we could use, and then headed over to my storage unit to check out what goods we could come up with in there.  We ended up using a tupperware top, a slab of wood, and a buttload of duck tape.  And voila!  We’re ready to go sledding.

Its about 9:30AM here now and it’s still snowing…in fact, my car is buried under s snow drift, but I have a feeling today will bring some excitement as well

In this pic, you can see my car yesterday morning, and then this morning it’s basically buried under a snow drift – the car next to mine is completely covered!

It’s Been a Hard Day’s Night…And I’ve Been Working Like a Dog

It has been cold here in CT this week.  No, cold isn’t the word.  It has been freezing.  Temps have been in the single digits and teens all week dropping below zero at night.  OK, it’s no Minnesota or Alaskan Frontier winter, but still, its freaking cold, and let me tell you a quick story about that:  I’m not cut out for it.  So Since it was 6 degrees  when I left for my first job in the morning, about 12 degrees when I was commuting between jobs, and 9 degrees when I left job two to go home for the night “looking forward to my heat” is an understatement.  No really, when I left my apartment around 6:30AM there wasn’t even frost on my windshield.  I’m just gonna go ahead and say that if it’s too cold for Jack Frost, it’s too cold for erinHasThoughts.  It was so cold in the evening, that the contact solution in my contact case, which I left in the car for 3 hours was completely frozen when I opened it after work.

So I finally get home around 10 and my apartment is chilly.  It was about 60 degrees, which trust me, is tropical compared to the outdoors, but still pretty chilly, so I cranked up the heat and popped on the TV.  I was still freezing so about 25 minutes later I went to check the thermostat again…58 degrees. Wait, how is it possible that I turned my heat UP, yet it’s getting colder in here. I decided maybe, just maybe, the heat needed a little extra help since it was so frigid outside to I bumped up the temp one more time.  I checked again about a half hour later…57 degrees.  OK  this is NOT cool.  Of course this would happen to me.  Come on!  Let my air conditioner break in the middle of August I’ll be fine, but please, PLEASE don’t take away my heat!  What, are you trying to kill me or something!?

Now don’t get me wrong, I know how lucky I am to have a home and shelter, but this ain’t no warming station, this is an apartment that I pay a lot of money to reside in…and on the coldest day of the whole year having heat is pretty essential.So I did what any other half-ice cube/half-woman would do and I called the “emergency maintenance line” to report this obvious emergency.  At this point it was already about 11:30PM so I had come to the terms that I was going to have to “rough it” for the night, but HOPEFULLY by the time I get home tonight this will be fixed and I can freeze this memory right out of my head!  Wish me luck!!

Afternoon Delight

I’m pretty sure this e card was created to act as a short description of my life:

Awesome Austin Part 1: Where to Eat!

I recently took a trip down to Austin to visit my friends Carrie and Doug, and it was pretty exciting because I’ve never been to Texas before and I love exploring new places.  They moved down south over the summer so Doug could volunteer for Habitat for Humanity (whata guy!) and I was lucky enough to get to go visit and have them show me around!  They live in an awesome area right near the University of Texas, so there is lots of fun stuff to do…especially a lot of cool and unique places to EAT!  Pretty much the entire time I was in Austin, Carrie and I joked about how looking at our pictures it looks like all we did was eat.  I swear we did other things too, but since it was kind of an ongoing joke, I thought it only appropriate to have my first “Austin Post” be about Texas’ culinary hot-spots

This mural is painted on a building across the street from Carrie and Doug’s apartment! Much different than the things painted on buildings in CT!

Central Market:  Central Market was the first stop for me, Carrie, and Lupe (their new puppy) once my plane got in!  We walked right over to it from their apartment and got some great sandwiches!  Central Market is located within Central Park and has a cool outdoor seating area where you can eat, play on the play scape, etc.  And dogs are allowed, which in my book makes it about 100x better!  I got a mozzarella, tomato, and basil sandwich and Carrie got an Asian chicken sandwich.  Both were delicious!  Of course we shared some fries and fruit with the lunch…it was very well rounded and delicious!

Lupe while I we waited for our food to come!

Pinthouse Pizza: Pinthouse Pizza is not only a pizzeria, but they also brew their own beer, which is awesome!   Who doesn’t love pizza and beer?!  We got the Man O’ War IPA.  I’m not a very good “beer describer”…you ask me how it is I’d tell you what I thought “it tastes like beer…it was great!”, but for you beer connoisseurs out there, here’s a little description right from their website:  “Bright tropical fruits and juicy citrus in the nose are followed by a mouthful of resiny citrus and just a wee bit of clean bitterness to balance it all out. Much less bitter than many IPAs out there, yet so much hoppier.”   I love IPAs so I thought it was delicious.  We got dinner with Carrie’s brother and a couple of their Austin friends, including their friend named Austin…talk about getting confused! The pizza and beer were both great!  And even better because both were made in house! Wayyyyy better than a bud light bottle and slice of Dominos!

Top (starting from bottom left and going clockwise): Lilybeth, me, Dan, Carrie, Doug, Austin, and Drew
Bottom Left: Me and Carrie outside
Bottom Right: Me vs. the Man O’ War IPA (no I didn’t drink the whole pitcher…just most of it 😉 )

Carrie and Doug’s Kitchen: Every morning while I was visiting, Doug got up and spoiled us with a delicious homemade breakfast! One day we had bagels with eggs that had chipotle peppers, onions, and cheese on them…it was super delicious, however unfortunately I couldn’t stomach the whole meal thanks to the prior night’s party. The next day we had sausage egg and cheeses made with venison sausage. It was delicious, especially because we know how much Carrie lovvvvvvesss sausage!

Austin Java: We stopped at Austin Java for a mid-afternoon ice coffee located in….you guessed it!  Austin!  I got a toffee crunch ice coffee, and besides it being probably the most expensive ice coffee I’ve ever purchased, it was delicious.  Hey! I was on vacation! But if I lived in Austin I’d probably have to make coffee at home or find a slightly less expensive java-joint!

Deliciously Tasty Austin Java

Chuy’s: Apparently there is a saying “If you see one Chuy’s….You’ve seen one Chuy’s”.  And let me tell you…I believe it!  This is the kind of place that is decorated with everything from a street signs to sports apparel to even a car sticking out of the wall (which is actually the booth we sat at).  And of course is complete with a shrine to the king himself, Elvis that is!  This place has some cool history too!  Founders Mike Young and John Zapp started the place in 1982 with nothing but an old abandoned BBQ joint and $20.  There was a women’s bathroom about the size of a broom closet and a men’s bathroom…uhh in the dirt parking lot, where else?!  From there they took their eclectic charm to a new level and came up with their reknown decorating style and some famous dishes that include “Burritos as Big as Yo’ Face”.  It was easy to tell this place was going to be a crowd pleaser from the moment we walked in the door because as soon as other customers found out we had never been there before they were eagerly offering their expert opinions on what we just HAD to eat!  I got enchiladas, rice, and beans, and it was all delicious.  In fact, my mouth is watering just thinking about it, but unfortunately, it’s too late to eat…and I’m in CT again…damn!

Chuy’s Tex Mex!

Ruby’s BBQ: We went to Ruby’s for a BBQ lunch my third day in TX.  I was left to choose between this and a local taco place, and was having the WORST time deciding.  What can I say, I’m a fat kid at heart (and maybe a little on the outside too :P)  so I ended up choosing BBQ because I don’t eat it as often and it seemed delicious, and I’m glad I did!  Everything at Ruby’s is authentic pit smoked BBQ slow cooked on oak wood in brick and mortar pits. Ruby’s has been family owned and operated since 1988 when they opened and they use only hormone and steroid free beef.  I got the spicy chopped BBQ beef sandwich with homemade potato salad. My sandwich definitely had a kick to it and was complimented by the crisp potato salad and fresh ice tea!  It was a really cool place to eat too because there was an “indoor-indoor” seating area, an “indoor-outdoor” seating area, and an “outdoor-outdoor” seating area.  We sat in the “indoor-outdoor” seating area, where Lupe was able to join us, and we were also joined by the restaurant’s cat.  Now, if you know me, you know my feelings on cats…but I am a sucker for businesses that have animals, what can I say!

Doug, Carrie, and Lupe outside Ruby’s. Then me inside after we ate.  It was awesome, we were able to bring Lupe inside while we ate!

Sandy’s Frozen Custard:  Normally I’m not a huge ice cream or frozen yogurt fan, but in Texas frozen custard is a big thing, and I’m not talking about the “frozen custard” you can get at Rita’s here in New England. This is Real Deal! I opted for chocolate in chocolate dip, which I immediately regretted.  Don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely delicious, but the custard was melting under the dip faster than I could keep up (like it always does with “dips”, yet somehow I never remember this until I’m in the moment!).  Whats the difference between Frozen Yogurt/Ice Cream and Custard?  In addition to ice cream’s cream and sugar, custards also use eggs as one of the main ingredients.  It was so creamy and fattening, I’m glad they only make it down there in the south!

Sandy’s Frozen Custard!

 Stay tuned for Austin Parts 2 and 3!