ATTENTION CARM!!!

Sophinator needs this, stat. Ok, well at least in time for winter.

- Thanks to Holly for always keeping me up to date on items I need.

Erin, You Just Talked About Glitter for 4 Minutes!

I spent the day driving around Texas scouting even locations. One of them was the Breckenridge Fine Arts Center.

We walked around the event space, had the normal chat about rates, catering, etc.

Then we walked around the corner to take a quick peek at the permanent exhibits. I saw a sign that said something about Dolls and Dresses, then caught a quick glimpse of a room stuffed with dolls. I assumed the dresses were doll dresses, and was prepared to basically walk in the room, show some respect for the collection, and leave.

But we didn't walk toward the dolls.
Instead, we turned down a dark corridor that appeared to lead to another gallery.
With our first full step into the corridor, motion sensitive lights suddenly illuminated the entire room.

I gasped audibly.


The festival gowns on display were just like the First Ladies dress exhibit in the American History Smithsonian museum in DC. Well, it was just like it if the First Ladies dressed a bit more like drag queens. More sequins! Glitter! FEATHERS!!!

In other words, it was the most glorious thing I've seen (since last night).

Looking at the incredible collection, all I could think about was how awesome it would be to grow up in the town that had them. I could see myself as a little girl making weekly visits to the gowns.

We had a fabulous chat about the gowns. It turns out that one of the dresses belonged to the daughter of the main benefactor to the museum, and it was her idea to do a temporary exhibit of the dresses. It was so popular they made it a permanent display that now has more than 25 dresses. Shockingly, before the exhibit, the dresses were simply packed away at home.

The gowns were stunning enough to:

1) make me want to return to Breckenridge, Texas to see the exhibit again - with all my nieces

2) convince me they could be an awesome travelling exhibit around the country, especially in the American History museum!

3) inspire me to make attendance at one of the festivals a must-do

4) cause a conversation that lead to the direct quote from Mr. Perfect that titles this post

Lights

Today was a long day.

I had a meeting in downtown Houston for most of the day, then flew to Dallas and on to Abilene, followed by an hour or so drive to Snyder, Texas.

The drive felt long.

The road was so straight I didn't even need to steer.

The sky was so dark my headlights looked like they were carving a tunnel for me to disappear into.

But suddenly, I came around a bend and the entire horizon in front of me was slowly, steadily, flashing red.

It was the most bizarre slash beautiful slash crazy thing I have ever seen. I tried to capture it on video -

but it's so dark, you really can't see how the lights just go on and on for as far as you can see.

It was, as ridonkulous as this sounds, magical.

The flashing lights were so shocking and really whimsical (almost like Christmas lights floating in the sky) that I considered pulling over to take it in - I thought that might be safer than craning my neck while driving.

It took me a mile or two, but once I got closer to those lights I discovered they were all wind turbines. All of the lights on all of the wind mills that stretched out as far as I could see for more than 15 miles worth of driving were flashing on and off at the same time.

When I saw the first windmill blade, glowing red for a beat, then gone again, it was almost frightening. Frightening to realize there were such massive structures right outside my car door that I couldn't even see.

ohhhh Texas!

1) I am in a Red Lobster. This alone is hilarious to me, but it has a tinge of sadness considering I know this is the best meal I am bound to have for the next 3 days.

2) When I asked the waitress for a recommendation, she suggested the fried platter. Ew.

3) There is a little girl, about 4 years old, wearing hot pink spurs with her boots. Yeah she is.

Not Surprising

Last night in my hotel room I got up to use the bathroom without turning the lights on. And I walked straight into the door. I have a huge knot above my left eye. At least it didn't bruise in time for my meeting today.

Speaking of the meeting, at one point, I got up to use the bathroom (again, wow, there is a theme). One person was talking and the room was very quiet, so I tried to leave in a stealth manner.

Too bad I didn't see the bubble wrap on the floor until I walked all over it.

I am serious. Bubble wrap. On the floor. Awesome.

Day 1 folks, it's just day 1!!
(yesterday was all travel and doesn't count)

Now I am off to the airport - Abilene (TX) by way of Dallas. Then an hour and a half on the road.

Winter Will Be Here Before You Know It

Are you prepared?

My roomies are - yes, the Monty Python Knight on the left and the Ninja on the right.

Why, in July, did the boys (finally) buy their beard hats? They're on sale, friends.

Erin-Proof Wine Glasses

Via Dustin Deckard.

stalled

Of course I didn't check my flight status before leaving the house today, and of course it is delayed by almost 2 hours.

They claim I will still make my connection from Dallas to Houston.

We will see...

Pasta = yes

I've been wanting to make homemade pasta ever since I saw how easy it was on The Pioneer Woman.

I finally did it tonight and OMFGYES.

I cooked it for a bit over 2 minutes and it was perfectly al dente. Then I tossed it with garlic I sauteed in olive oil, about a tablespoon of butter, some fresh basil and a good handful of parmesan cheese.

It was heavenly.

I told Mr. Perfect while I was cutting it into strips that I hoping for "so good why would we ever buy pasta in a box ever again."

I think I achieved it. It was tasty. Easy. And I know exactly what went it in (one cup flour, 2 eggs - yeah. That's it.).

Yosemite - Part 2

After a beautiful drive into Yosemite, we headed to the Lower Falls. This picture blew my mind - if you look closely at the bottom you can see there are tons of people climbing around on rocks. They are so tiny!

And the falls are so huge.

My cousin Karen and I headed off to get as close as we could to the falls. K-diddy said he wasn't going to hike up with us, but guess who caught up?

Karen was a natural and made the climbing look simple.

GDSean and Mr. Perfect attacked the falls from the other side and off the beaten path.

They're soooo tiny!

While Mr. Perfect and GDSean crossed the river to get to our side, K-did and I took the obligatory bad angle to get the falls in the background picture.

Mr. Perfect is in the red, scouting out the perfect spot to cross the river.

The closer we got, the more dramatic the sound and feeling of the falls. There was also a significant temperature drop that felt great.

A look back a K-diddy, and waaaaay back, at the parents and aunts and uncles that stayed behind.

Pictures from vacations just never quite turn out. Well, at least mine don't. It seems like the more beautiful or awesome the scenery, the more they difficult to really capture it. This picture is a great example of that to me. This was a decision point in our hiking - are you done, or are you ready to try to get up this next level?

I decided I was ready after watching Karen get a few helping hands.

And once again, so did K-did.

Then we watched a couple effortlessly step up the rock.

Seriously. They were attractive, hadn't broke up sweat, and stepped with ease up the rock.

So once again, K-diddy changed his mind, and I decided I didn't want to be left behind.

We both wedged and wiggled and pulled our way up the rock.

At this point we finally caught up with GDSean. He is like a little monkey. He has no fear. I think he passes all of his fear along to me. I can barely watch him half the time - I'm either worried about him falling or worried about how he's going to get back down.

We had reached another stopping point that was up against the water.

And right up against the base of the falls.

There was no stopping GDSean - after all, he'd already ditched his shoes and shirt. K-diddy and I, on the other hand, were serious about stopping this time. Our breaking point was the water.

Karen, on the other hand, was up for the challenge and started climbing up to meet Sean. I knew that Erin + climbing + water = bad idea

Almost gone...

I had them turn back for one last picture so we could show the rescue crew what they looked like. (I'm a total wuss)

And one final look back to see how far we made it.

Hey! Look who I found! Mr. Perfect had impeccable timing. He was waiting for me at the bottom of the wedge-crack-big rock that I was wondering how I was going to get down. He caught me.

And a last look at the falls... shockingly beautiful.

When we go back, we're heading to the upper falls, for sure.

After hiking around, we headed back to the lake house we were staying at, with a detour at a local swimming hole called Rainbow Pools. There is a small waterfall and rock ledges that you can jump from.

It was scary.

Not going to lie.

The worst part was jumping off by the waterfall - the rock was worn smooth and was naturally a bit slick. Add to that wet feet and all I could think about was slipping and knocking my head on the rocks as I tried to jump.

I did it anyway, and screamed the entire way down.

Mr. Perfect and GDSean braved the higher rocks. It was actually safer to jump from because there was dirt and the rocks were slick. The trade off? It was a bit higher. Yikes! This was the jump that bruised Mr. Perfect's underarms. yee-ouch! Another cool thing about the Rainbow Pools - you can swim under the falls (if you can fight against the surprisingly strong current) and climb up on a bit of rock. It was very Irish Springs-ish, with bright green moss on the rocks and a prism of light shining in the mist of the falls.

I can't wait to go back.

Erin's Awkward Top Ten

I did a little guest blogging for the Queen of Quirky while she's at BlogHer.

For some crazy reason, she suggested I write a post with tips for her on how not to be awkward.

Uhhh....

Head over to Queen of Quirky to see what happened.

Yum.com

The other night Mr. Perfect and I came home with one of our roommates from the weekly poker game (I drink beer, read magazines, distract players and break poker etiquette - they play) to find our other roommate had been cooking up a freaking storm. Our fridge was packed with containers of food.

Naturally, the next morning, I had to sample some of it. The first dish I went for was so damn good I had to immediately put the lid back on it and throw it in the fridge. I had a legitimate concern that I would eat the entire thing otherwise.

It was mango and chicken.... with some sort of awesome ginger dressing.... and red onions... and and... And it was so good that I had to confess my food-sampling sins and ask for the recipe.

Here it is folks, courtesy of my roommate via Cooking Light.

Grilled Thai Chicken Salad with Mango and Ginger
Yield
3 servings
(serving size: 1 cup chicken salad, 1 1/3 cups salad greens, and about 3 tablespoons mint)

Ingredients

Dressing:
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons minced seeded Thai, hot red, or serrano chiles

Salad:
12 ounces skinned, boned chicken breast
Cooking spray
2 cups sliced peeled mango (about 2 mangoes)
2/3 cup thinly sliced shallots
1/4 cup matchstick-cut peeled fresh ginger
4 cups mixed salad greens
2/3 cup torn mint leaves

Preparation
To prepare the dressing, combine the first 4 ingredients in a bowl, and stir well with a whisk. Set dressing aside.
Prepare grill or broiler.
To prepare salad, combine 1 tablespoon dressing and chicken, and toss to coat. Place chicken on a grill rack or broiler pan coated with cooking spray; cook 6 minutes on each side or until chicken is done. Cut chicken diagonally across grain into thin slices. Combine chicken, mango, shallots, and ginger. Toss with remaining dressing. Divide salad greens evenly among 3 plates. Top salad greens with chicken salad; sprinkle with mint.



Note - I ate the chicken-mango-ginger mixture minus salad greens. It was fabulous on its own, and would be really good in a tortilla or pita pocket.

Local News, Now Featuring PROPS!

Wow. Just wowowowowow.

That's quite a bit of prep work for such a worthless story.

And OMGWTFRABBITHEAD?!?!?

Thanks again to V for the awesome links.

Chris Brown's Comeback

Who knew it was going to be through a wedding march?

Thanks to V for the link, and check out the original article here.

Clearly

"There is a deeper side of me, and, blah blah blah, you know?" - Ayiia from Real World Cancun

Things That Make Me Look Forward to My Trip to Texas

Getting hit on by a stranger in Texas while making preparatory phone calls.

Seriously.

He called me beautiful.

Over the phone.

Hilarious.

Alice

I'm so scared of the new Alice in Wonderland. Hell, I'm scared of the old one! I have never seen it start to finish. While I don't think it's quite as horrifying as Pinocchio - little boys that turn into donkeys, scary men smoking cigars, kidnappings, whales, etc - it's basically a child-sized psychological thriller.

But, it's Johnny Depp! I'm still pumped to see it. And I will totally hide my face for most of it.

Yosemite - Part 1

Last Monday we headed to Yosemite for the day. Thanks to GDSean, I can't write or look at the word Yosemite without thinking Yo-zeh-might. Thanks Sean.

Yosemite was incredible. One day was not enough. Mr. Perfect and I

have already planned a return trip (or two) to the park.

The drive into the park was great, it seemed like every new bend in the road opened up to a increasingly incredible views. We pulled off at a scenic point, but it seems impossible to actually capture the scene. Who doesn't love a good explorer pose?

While we were stopped at the scenic point, we had a quick bit of entertainment as another car frantically pulled into the scenic pull off, peered out his window without breaking speed, and zoomed off.

People are funny.

This area was so spooky - tons of tall trees that had been in a fire (I'm assuming) and were missing their limbs and foliage. Speaking of forest fires - sequoias are (relatively) limited in number in the park because when people first started "protecting" the forest land they would fight the forest fires. This was actually harmful; younger sequoias needed the fires to clear out brush and help them thrive. Isn't it funny that humans thought we were so much smarter than nature that we could take care and protect it by fighting it? We sure are a cocky bunch.

My favorite part of the drive occurred when we rounded a corner and saw this -

Again, pictures do no justice.

Straight back, allllll the way, there is a HUGE waterfall.

I'm sad to report we killed some bears while in the park. Mr. Perfect was driving at 47 MPH in a 35 zone when we saw these signs:

It was just too late. He had been speeding for a while - I estimate that he killed at least 3 bears.

We decided later that if speeding killed bears, it was likely cursing, littering, farting, and so on, killed bears.

I kill so many bears each day. It's sad.

Speaking of killing bears, the literature they gave us at the park gate said that 15 bears are hit and killed by cars annually.

Awkward!

Seriously, can you imagine being the asshole that kills a bear* in a national park? I can see it now - a family crammed into a van slams into a bear. The kids are crying and asking Daddy why he killed the baby (of course it's a baby) bear, while other motorists glare at the horrible person that hates America and bears.

After reading about the dead bears and seeing the signs, I started to get worried.

What is the protocol if you kill a bear? Because I'm pretty sure the one thing worse than being the asshole that just killed a bear, is being the asshole that killed a bear and then broke the rules by tying its carcass to the top of your van so you can take it home and get one of those super cool bearskin rugs made. I'm going to assume that remove dead bears from the park is frowned upon.

But, who do you call? I know I can't drag it out of the way (unless it was a tiny tiny baby), so can I just drive over it and on my way? Will other bears smell the dead bear on my car and attack it/me later? Are other motorists as worried about what to do with their hypothetically killed bear?

I feel like I need answers to these questions before I return to the park to camp.

Finally! Down into the Valley, parked and ready to explore. I love how even the parking lot is incredibly beautiful.

I couldn't get the whole bear issue out of my mind, so I bought Kate a tiny tiny black bear. I have bear guilt. And yes, we bought a Speeding Kills Bears sign as well.

Really I just wanted to hear her whisper in her adorable voice, "litttttle, tiny."

* If you kill the bear with your bare (haha) hands, you're not an asshole, you're awesome. You're only an asshole if you kill it with your RV because you were distracted by the Cheetos you dropped/screaming kids/trying to take a picture out the window.

The Joys of Daytime Talk

Right now, on the Today Show, they are discussing the perils of wearing skinny jeans and Spanx. Apparently there is a mini-epidemic of people suffering from nerve damage and numbness in their thighs due to prolonged skinny/tight jean wearing.

Wow.

I should probably host a fundraiser for this health condition.

But I've Almost Solved Pi!

One of our favorite parts of our trip to California actually happened before the plane even took off from Dulles.

The flight attendant was making the standard pre-departure announcements when this happened:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, at this time we ask you to turn off all electronic
devices including cell phones, pagers, calculators and laptops."

Calculators.

CALCULATORS.

CALCULATORS!!

Who is still using calculators? And why are they doing it on an airplane?? And when did it become such a wide-spread epidemic that they had to include in in their list of electronic devices? And who still carries a pager, while we're on the subject!

For the first half hour of the flight, we couldn't stop guessing at what other passengers' reactions to the announcement were.

I think the winner was, "Thank goodness my TI-83+ has a save function!"

You know there was a row of nerds in the back row that were totally bummed when they were told to put their calculators away.

Crusing Around

Our trip to California last week was awesome, but if I could change one thing it would easily be the amount of driving we did. Due to a limited amount of days and a large amount of destinations, we ended up driving every day but one (the wedding day) for an hour and a half to two hours.

The scenery made the drives easier, as did the company.

Driver = Mr. Perfect. Worthless navigator = me. Backseat = GDSean

I'm kinda surprised in all of our travels we didn't see more awesomness like this:

I'm sure it was there and I was just too distracted by all the crazy windy roads.

And incredible views.

My guys.

Siblings!

I made the guys get together so I could take a picture of the three of us.

After I snapped the shot, I glanced at the screen to see how I did, and saw this:

Apparently the zoom was still on.

Take two!

A good chunk of our drive reminded me of Kansas, especially out in the Flint Hills by Manhattan.

This was one of my favorite shots. So stark, and so beautiful.

It's like you can see a covered wagon in the distance.