weekend highlights

the thing about three-day wknds is that they can be a two-faced son of a bitch. on one hand, you have three whole days to spend however you choose, which is deliciously fantastic and wonderful and filled with endless possibilities -- yet on the other hand you have the harsh monday night downer of having to trade in the aforementioned delicious sense of freedom and opportunity for a return to work and stress and endless mtgs and biz trips and gah....

but as i still have a few delicious hours to spare before that harsh reality becomes truly unavoidable, i will choose to focus on the positive and share some of the highlights from my three-day wknd:

fri night - lazy bike ride after work and then a night with the phils (my philips TV and DVD player, remember? you perv). truly relaxing bliss.

sat - a trip to the san marcos outlets, which are a mere 30-minute ride from downtown austin. on my way down there, i saw a billboard for some christian gift store. it listed all the various items that were available for sale (books, keychains, CDs, etc.), and scrolling across the bottom was a line that read "believable gifts at unbelievable prices!" which made me laugh out loud for several minutes. i still giggle when i think about it, actually, b/c it is just that funny. or at least it was to me.

sat, cont'd - so yes, about said trip to the san marcos outlets. i went with the good intention of purchasing items for my still-incomplete apt. i went with a plan to focus on the apt stuff and ignore the seductive whispers of coach, kate spade, nine west, bcbg, michael kors, etc, etc, etc. and... i failed miserably. i came back with hundreds of dollars' worth of clothing and shoes... and one solitary vase / fake flowers thing for the apt, a relatively unnecessary and insignificant contribution to the overall "my apt really needs furniture" cause. alas.

outlets again - there was a gondola ride in the parking lot. wait, can you please read that again? A GONDOLA RIDE IN THE PARKING LOT, PEOPLE. where you pay to hop in this little gondola pushed by a man wearing a striped shirt and red bandana who sings "o sole mio" as he pushes you up and down the "canal" and you sit back and look at the millions of parked cars that surround you. ahh, texas...

sunday - i attended my first ever crawfish boil at a co-worker's lakehouse. wait, can you please read that again? A CRAWFISH BOIL ON A LAKE, PEOPLE. i think this is another "ahh, texas" moment. having grown up eating MD crabs every summer, i was pretty proficient at the whole cracking-open-the-crawfish-and-getting-the-meat-out thing, but couldn't get over the fact that they're known as "mudbugs" and were frequently referred to as such... that name just doesn't do much to make them appetizing, you know? said mudbugs were decent, but nothing like a bushel of steamed crabs... mmm... craaabs....

more sunday - nap by the pool, then met a friend of a friend and went out. wahoo! good times.

today - major news in the apt category. i had my dining table delivered! that is, the dining table purchased from a woman named toni who had a tigger tattoo on her left breast ("tiggers are made for bouncing!"). which, similarly to the christian bookstore billboard, still makes me giggle a little every time i think about that. anyway, it is here and assembled and espresso-colored and pledged to the point of extreme shininess. happiness! i also drove 30 minutes to look at a console table that was advertised on craig's list, only to turn around and drive back b/c the color wasn't right. oh well. you win some, you lose some i guess.

now that it's past 10 pm, i guess it's probably time to get started on some of the work i brought home this wknd... and thus begins the dark portion of my three-day wknd (i.e., the end).