The House

Our tablemate got the Bacon Egg and Cheese Burger. Decadence.:

ATM got the grilled brie & swiss cheese sandwich w/ chili cheese fries. Very good! I liked his best.:

I had The House burger. The thing that made this sandwich was the mayo. It was herby and garlicky and kick a. The homemade bun was dry and choky. I'll chalk it up to the restaurant being all new and still a-learnin' about stuff:

KMHD & Cookie got the seasonal veggie sandwich (because they were out of the Dirty Hippie Vegan Burger) and I thought it looked really sad, especially compared to everyone else's overflowing/whelming basket of uh-huh. Hopefully they'll correct that:

KMHD, Tyler & Cookie:



My guts were stuffed with The House food, so I was no good the rest of the evening. I did do dishes and sort the recycling. Props. I let Hot Dog into the house to cool off and hang out. He could soooooooo get used to this:

Here's SOLO with her chew face:

Yard Sale!!! ------------------>

It was a hot, sunny day. There were endless cups of iced sun tea & all of the blueberry muffins you could eat..."YARD" SALE 2009!

What's an Arkansas yard sale w/o a gun?





What surprises me about yard sales is what you think will sell and what actually sells. A long time ago, my co-worker gave me this hideous lighter from Las Vegas. It's only redeeming quality was that it was a refillable butane lighter & I'm all about reusing things. I hated the stupid thing & am unsure why I've kept it all of these years. So, I put it in the sale thinking "Ain't no way" and made myself promise not to sell it to some kid. It totally sold!  Like it was one of the first things to go!  Then there's KMHD's potpourri that she received years ago as a gift from an employer. That stuff sold, too! In fact, I think it was the same person who bought that uggo lighter! The thing that didn't sell that I thought would be the first to go was the "Amish" fireplaces that we happened to have two of. Also, some people looked at our little garden more than they did the actual yard sale! What? I whup you! Back off, folks, those tomatoes are MINE!

Not that the yard sale was a failure, but it wasn't a sparkling success either. I suspect location was part of it; we were in between the neighborhoods of Capitol View & downtown. Too, Zach thinks that people prefer yard sales that are @ a house in known neighborhoods. And maybe advertising could have been better. Despite the lower than expected turn-out, I had a good time & I've got the heat stroke to prove it! Stay posted for Yard Sale 2009 II!

So, the 4th of July snuck up on all of us. We're standing here with our pants down with no plans! What's up with that?! As much as I'd love to be near a body of water, I don't think it'll happen. In fact, I can foresee being near a sizzlin' grill, so I guess I should start perusing my best recipes for a cookout hoedown. Maybe we should do that shrimp boil I've been talking about for nearly half a year+.

Tyler, a new friend of mine who kicks ass, invited me, ATM & KHMD to the soft opening of The House this evening. Very stoked! I've never been to a soft opening, so I feel totally hip.

I'm just going to cut to the chase. Last night, I had the best calamari in the world, no, IN THE UNIVERSE. It can be found @ Bella Arti, Hot Springs, AR. It came out hot, crispy & just perfect. I nearly ate it all before I remembered to take a snapshot of it.

Sorry, Club Lago, you've been had! (I insist, dearest Club Lago, that you are still my favorite Italian restaurant and that your pasta dishes are second-to-none. I mean, you made me like spaghetti! I flippin' hate spaghetti! Just ask my family! Also, the atmosphere! Dang, I'm missing Chicago right now.)

Anyway, we ate too much good food. I paid dearly for it this morning at 5:30 a.m. I'll do you a SOLID and not divulge the details. The best thing we could think to do was walk around for a minute and then hang out by pool. Oh, and take in the 'beauty' and 'class' of the Austin Hotel. After a brief hangout, KMHD & I bolted back to LR/NLR. We got to listen to the new The Field on the way home. Can't wait to get into it a la the aI pod.

How can we make our 5th year anniversary special? Centerfold? Jesters? Maxwell Blade? Belle of Hot Springs? Picking out crystals from a rock shop? Magic Springs?





So, tomorrow, there's going to be a yard sale (for lack of a better term) at the Victory St. space. By my count, there will be eight people contributing + 4 maybes, the maybes including me & ATM. I do plan on selling homemade blueberry muffins & sun tea to raise money to put back into the space. We've been really good about not bringing needless stuff into our home, so I don't know if I've got much to offer to the sale; I bet I can find something. Having talked to KMHD, this little yard sale is kinda becoming an event. This could be interesting!

Possibilities: Alannah staying with us? TBA.

All paragraphs are about food or food is mentioned.

I'm impatiently waiting (complete with toe-tappin') for my tomatoes to ripen. I think I'm going to start carrying a knife, some mayo & a loaf of white bread to the Victory St. space just in case they do ripen so I can immediately nosh on a tomato sammich. Mmmm, delicious! And a very Arkansas thing to do, amirite?

This evening, KMHD & I are going to Hot Springs to meet up with ATM who is in the midst of a soul-sucking convention that his employer hosts. This is a tradition, us driving down there one night to keep him company & have a nice meal. I believe this is our fourth time making this run. We're eating at Bella Arti (instead of our usual Rolando's) and I've looked at their online menu no less than a 1,000 x's -- I can't decide what I want. I know, what a crisis!

There's no avoiding talking about the weather. It's hot! We considered camping this weekend, but file that under "ain't gonna happen". So, we've got another unplanned weekend on our hands. Maybe we can take a Memphis day-trip? I hear Jonathan will be in town, so there may be the ingestion of chimichangas.



Charles Mingus & The Cramps!

Misc.

I didn't go to Eclipse Glasses' show on Friday night. I simply did not want to get out. ATM got in really late, but I was still up when he got home. I couldn't get to sleep, no thanks to endless glasses of sun tea. It didn't help, too, that The Strain was invading my half-sleep dreams.

We had no official plans on Saturday except to go to mum's house and pick the season's first batch of blueberries. When I called in the morning to confirm our hanging out, she invited us to supper. Instantly I thought, "Oh no!" My mom, she can't cook. Her sisters? They make the best Vietnamese food all day. I feel like an ass for assuming that dinner would be awful because it was really good. She made Tibetan-style chicken on a bed of rice with a side salad and a slice of blueberry pie for dessert. I may've made too much of a big deal about it, "Oh, this is really GOOD!" After we ate, we picked blueberries. So plump and delicious! If we don't just eat them straight, I'd like to try new blueberry recipes.

Saturday turned out being much more than what we had planned.  After mum's, we went to Vino's to loiter on the deck. After Vino's, we joined Heather & Zach at Ristorante Capeo where I had ANOTHER DINNER. You can't not eat there.  We got calamari, spaghetti carbonara & lasagna.  The best Italian food in Arkansas, in my opinion.  It's in a good space with good lighting and atmosphere.  Anyway, after Capeo, we went to Heather & Zach's home in the glorious Park Hill.  I just have to say, these two have one of the best lot of pets out there!  I'm surprised I didn't whip out ye olde camera phone and take their photos.  Monkey love!  When we left there, it was sleepy time.

I surprised ATM with biscuits & gravy & a pot of coffee on Sunday morning.  It was good, but I feel like the gravy could've been better.

Later that day, we went to the space on Victory St. to water the garden.  Check this out!

Something cool:  we found five wild tomato plants at our home!  I hope they produce fruit!  What a badass discovery, yeah?  I think that they may be grape tomatoes because I threw some out that were going bad not too long ago.  Sweet!

A rock I found in Jasper -- it's a soft rock & it's covered in fossils imprints:

Something I've been working on at the office:

My mum & Larry (stepfather) have cute little chickens & roosters @ their home. Anyway, the rooster reacts adversely to the color red. Larry gave this one a soda can & it went nuts on it. When I picked it up, there were puncture holes in it from it's little thumb claw thing!

Mighty Mighty

On Saturday, we headed up to Jasper, Arkansas to meet up with people to float the Buffalo River. It was bitchin'!

Because of low water levels, we had to drop in at Ozark. I've never floated the mid-section of the river before, so I didn't know what to expect.

I love this photo -- River (the dog) is R-E-A-D-Y! Too, Zach's got an apple in his mouth.

Off we go!

I am serious, we paddled no more than 5 minutes before pulling over for our first break. How sad.

"Hello my baby, hello my darlin', hello my ragtime gallllll...!"


Taking off, Pt. II:

You could see the bottom of the river in most places. It's kinda weird to float on a few inches of water.

River!  She's a swimmer, for sure.  She would swim circles around the canoes, trying to herd us.  It was awful cute.  I can only imagine how proud her mom & dad are!


The outfitter told us that the halfway point would be when the Little Buffalo River runs into the Buffalo. She said that there was great camping 'round those parts, so we planned on getting out there. On the river, some fishermen passed by & we asked them where does the Little Buffalo River run into the Buffalo? They said that it was "a little ways up" and "it'll come in on your right". Well, there was an intersection in the river that was indeed a little ways up with some water coming in from the right. I was so confused because we didn't spend one hour on the water and here we were already! We pulled the canoes up out of the water and surveyed our camping spot. It was perfect! There was white sand & plenty of room for all of our tents. Someone had already built a fire pit. Even though we couldn't believe that we had already gotten to the halfway point, we were really happy with our spot. We unloaded and set up and sat around.


I know, a buncha "cool breezes" here:




KMHD & I buddy up to find a spot on our island to relieve ourselves. As we wandered towards the middle of wooded area, we noticed a couple of canoes heading our way. We waited for a few minutes, but they never passed us because they veered right; they totally came out on the other side of our island! We were NOT at the intersection of Little Buffalo River/Buffalo River. I felt better knowing that because I just couldn't believe that we had floated half of our trip in an hour. It was making me crazy. Mystery solved! In hindsight, it was good that we camped there because we never did see anything better the rest of the float. Funny how those things work out.

So, dusk descends upon us and it isn't long before the bats swoop in low (awesome!) and the lightning bugs make the darkness sparkle sparkle. It looked like a zillion camera flashes going off in all directions. As Collin said, "Now we know how Steve Perry feels!" All of this combined with the sound of a running water, clear skies, a bright moon, full bellies, soft sand between the toes, no biting insects, cool air/warm fire & laughter made for a perfect evening. I immediately let go of all of my worries. Like, all of them.

One exhausted pup:


Group shot:

Micah found this branch that was very "Blair Witch" and shoved it upright into the sand; after awhile we had to toss it into the fire, it was starting to creep us out:



This is to illustrate how close to the water we were. I'm jealous of past-me!


The morning after. This is where the two "rivers" meet.



Back on the river! Collin's boat had the most (ALL) flair:



I'm sorry, I had to:



We had to do a ton of paddling because there were long stretches of longpool. After awhile, it was tiresome, even with some of the best scenery in the world. At one point, we got caught in some heavy rain, which, for me was one of those "I'm alive!" moments. We (finally) got out at Carver & waited for our shuttle. After much confusion, waiting and other mishaps, we finally hit the road back to NLR/LR. We wanted to stop at the recommended CJ's for burgers in Russellville, but they were closed. We begrudgingly went on to Feltner's Whattaburger. As ATM said, "Whattadisappointment!" I totally agree. I think they've had the same recipes since opening, which people love. Keeping things the same, I mean. I get it, it's an institution, but I've been spoiled by better burgers.

After eating, ATM is so exhausted that Zach takes over the wheel. We drop him off at his home (technically he drove himself home, but you know) and we head to our house where, somehow, I managed to eke out a shower and then pass out, face down.

Here it is, Tuesday, and I'm still worn out. I think when we go back to float, we've got to do the upper Buffalo. And hopefully, the lot that didn't come this time will next!

I've got good plans ahead:  blueberry picking @ Mum's, my tomato plants are producing tomatoes (so, salsa!), a buddy field trip & Florida!  

I've got to make myself the best river-contemplation mix ever! You know it's got to be part sad, part hopeful with a small triumph at the end. It's time to bust out the Lomo, too. I'm 80% ready to go!

A trip to Florida may be in the works. Want! There was mention, too, of a field trip to Texas to hit up some museums and Ikea. We've got the best family & friends.

House hunting is a difficult & emotional venture. I knew that getting into it, but like most any other thing, you can't really know until you're in the middle of it. Our next and most logical step is to get pre-approved. I know, you're probably thinking, "Why haven't you done that yet?!!!" I don't know! But, we're fixin' to!

One option that we've been thinking about is having one built. The obvious perk is that you get a whole lot of what you want and need. We'd like to start really small, like 4 basic rooms, and eventually build on as necessary. I just hope that the designer and contractor is willing to work with a small, no, miniscule budget. It'd be a challenge; maybe they'll be willing to take that sort of thing on? The have-nots want to live in a spectacular, GREEN pad, too!

There's a potluck with an Asian theme @ the Peek's this evening. Should be delicious! They've got a KILLER porch that is up in the trees, screened, and roomy. We've been so desperately busy that it will be lovely to sit down for a minute with friends. Maybe it'll rain? We need it for the impending float trip anyway.

Last night, I bought Guillermo Del Toro's The Strain. I don't know when I'll be able to crack it open, but I can't wait! I've been wanting to read some fiction.

I am looking forward to river revelations.