South-by-West mergers

A few things before I get going. I don't do New Year's resolutions, but my lack of blogging so far in 2010 is atrocious. So I'm going to do better, I promise. My goal for now is once a week. I've also put a link to my blog entry that has the tutorial for how to leave a comment if you don't have a blogger account. Just in case. No pressure.

Now let's have a story. Things are settling in, finally, out here in the beautifully odd state of California. I am finding my rhythm, my niche, and my way around town. It's been a bit more of an adjustment period than I think I originally anticipated, but good things are happening. Change is good. I forget that from time to time.

Luckily for me, I didn't have to stick it out for long before a familiar face graced The Golden State. And while I resolve to say it was a bit of a whirlwind visit, it was one fabulous weekend.

We did our thing. We ate good food. We drank good drinks. We had good laughs.

We shopped:

We were silly:

We hit up my local favorite restaurants

(with some local favorite people):

my good Texas persons met my good California persons

like this one:

Kaci Duke was my buffer. She was the sense of home I was looking for in a place that was trying to be just that. She met my friends, she approved (or disapproved) and we had plenty of "us" moments. So on Sunday, as we relaxed away our twenty-somethings' hangovers with recollections and episodes of The Office, we cooked. But we did it our way.

and it went something like this:

I rocked a vintage robots apron.

Because I'm a nerd like that.

in a good way.

It's looking pretty and fabulous at this point,

and smelling divine (just trust me.)

this photo is proof, Momma.

I use my cookware.

Things were going so well. We were following the recipe, I had everything I needed. And then, then it calls for white wine. And I'm like "great! I always have white wine!" But here's the thing about wine - you usually need a corkscrew. And here's the thing about moving into a new place, you don't automatically have a corkscrew.

So we took to youtube. "How to open a wine bottle without a corkscrew."

We tried option 1. Bang it against a hard surface.

no dice. so we took to option 2.

drill a screw into it and try to pull it out with a hammer.

screw comes out. cork does not.

option 3. push the cork through.

Third times the charm. But now we can't recork the bottle, on account of how the cork is now an acting flotation device for anything lost-at-winesea. We thought about trying to figure out a way to get it out, but the battle was long, and we were over it. Props to Kaci Duke for never giving up, never surrendering.

Solution? We'll have to finish the bottle.

One of the many reasons she's my best friend.

Now that's commitment.

Look! It was successful.

Delicious meal and an even better story.

Be expecting a lot of these shots.

Mirrored cabinets were made for me.

Extraordinary events do not happen to ordinary people.

Extraordinary people happen to ordinary events.

and that is a life worth having.