Easter Weekend: Shreveport Whirlwind

Well this weekend was a 'three day weekend' here on 21 Jump Street so I traveled north to the Shreve for a friend/fam fix.

I went to a strip club for the first time (not counting the all-male one that I went to in New Orleans for Melissa's Bachelorette Party). So, needless to say, I didn't have to look very far for any Easter eggs. Eggs painted and stuffed with regret, that is. I learned what it means when rappers say things such as 'She make dat ass clap" as well as that most of them wipe down the pole before they mount it. All in all, a classy night.

The next day, I got to hang out with my fraand Sass:

We had a romantic date at my favorite place, Tacomania, followed by some patio time at my favorite porch: The Cub.

Saturday, I spent most of the days with these two terrors, I mean, angels as well as the rest of my fam:

Miller

Cooper

Saturday afternoon I spent time at the Oyster Bar and ran into these little gems:

Mark and I

Covilove and myself

Everyone go ahead and take note as to how great my tan (burn) lines look from French Quarter Festival. No, I wasn't wearing a stringy top, I was simply wearing a necklace when I received that deep V mark. This, is why I don't go outside.

Saturday nightt there was a party, in my honor, at the Crawford Mansion Patio. Here are some highlights.

Ambiance

My new best friend Sarah Thomas and Benjamin - the pride of South Highlands.

Now back in New Orleans. We began filming today meaning, free lunches have began. Lobster tail on the first day! So happy here!

Things That Are Ridiculous, Part 4,291

Two Words: Heidi Montag


Summary: Gross. Not long until she looks like that crazy cat lady, or worse... Joan Rivers or EVEN WORSE, Priscilla Presley (I say that with the utmost respect, Pri).

On another note, I leave in a week for Sundance. I have purchased warm boots, warm gloves, and long johns. I need to borrow a fuzzy hat with ear flaps from Sass, but other than that, I am set. Word.

Finally, A Year Later

Last summer, Nancy and I were unemployed and laid around on the couch all day and prayed for people to call us to tell us there was work. One day we got really desperate so, we decided to be extras in the only movie that was being shot in town called "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell", which was based on the book of the same name by Tucker Max. Anyway, we decided to be extras in order to feed our wine habit and also to feel like we had a purpose in life, and to do something other than roll quarters and check out free movies from the library.

So, the trailer to IHTSBIH finally came out and here it is:

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell in HD

I know that a few of you agreed to be extras during that shoot as well (cough, Sass), so you may be interested in seeing if you are in it. I am a little disappointed because it looks A LOT like The Hangover, but hopefully it is funnier. I also hope that by the time that IHTSBIH is released that people will have forgotten about The Hangover and will go see it anyway and make it a Shreveport success! Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that some of the scenes were filmed in the COB!!! Yay for Cobblestone making it on the Hollywood Map! Anyway, Happy Wednesday everyone and try not to be offended by some of the racial jokes.

Wine Night Wednesdays!

Well, yesterday was a rough day all around. My grandmother made me cry, my bosses acted like jerks to me, John was sick, Jessie nominated Casey and NOT Ronnie (WHICH WAS THE PLAN!!!) AND it rained all day. It seems that I must have predicted that yesterday was going to be a bad one a week ago when I scheduled a wine night with Sass and this little darling:

Everyone, meet Paige! (Hi, Paige!) Let me just give you all a little background on her. So, a few years ago (back when Sass and I were each others' only friend after we moved back from college), we would frequent my brother's youth group events. We loved the kids. They were super fun. It's also nice to give some high schoolers some insight as to why you are definitely not going to marry your high school boyfriend and things like that. (If I had married mine, then I would have been in for a rude awakening because he turned out gay. So that's that.)

Well, we were Paige's camp counselor one year and we absolutely hit it off. She is a bright, spunky girl with a straightforward attitude, she asks a lot of questions, and she is open to anything. I love her!

So fast forward a few years. Paige went off to college. She came back and has desperately been trying to get together with Sass and I. We all decided on tonight for a wine night! It may be weird to drink wine with the Baptist youth group grown up, but I feel like Baptists who drink, all share a secret bond of some sort. Like we really know what the other Baptists are missing out on....

Weekend Recap (Plus A Recipe!)

This weekend was relatively low-key that involved two birthday parties and a baby shower (which I ended up skipping out on. Sorry Frances!). Friday evening after I left work, John and I traveled to B-City for a surprise Birthday party for my dear friend and former/possibly future boss Ryan Glorioso.

No, he is not related to the Glorioso's of Shreveport with the produce stand or whatever. So, the surprise party was at my favorite restaurant (and only reason to go to Bossier) Don Juanz. The Weisner's were kind enough to bring this delicious cake:

So fun! Saturday morning I was supposed to go to a baby shower for Frances, but I wussed out of going. We are going to have dinner next week so I don't feel SO guilty about it. Plus, baby showers are the worst (as you all know) unless you are the mother, and even then, I don't think they really even like them that much.

Saturday evening, I went to another birthday party. For my longtime friend Jen Herron:

Sass came along as well so it was a reunion of sorts. We played games and had cupcakes and visited with Chuck, Candy and Courtney. It is always so great to catch up with old friends. We played a super fun game called Scene It Squabble, which I think that I may need to invest in in the future for my own Game Nights.

On Sunday, I decided to finally use all of the fresh vegetables that my parents have given me. They decided to 'Live off the land" and start their own garden. Well I think it was more successful than they thought it was going to be because they have an abundance of veggies. They gifted me with about seven gigantic, like probably 2 pounds each, cucumbers, bell peppers and squash. After they had overtaken my kitchen counter for a week, I decided to cut them up and make a fresh and easy summer salad (Also, say hi to my new Seattle spoon rest!):

I had some leftover spinach from the "Creamy Turkey Pinwheels" so I threw that in a bowl, followed by some chopped up cucumbers, tomatoes, baby carrots, red bell peppers, Italian seasoning, Paul Newman's Italian Dressing, and some fresh grated Parmesan (yes, I grated it myself!). And that is what I like to call "Done and Done." A 10 minute healthy snack, or lunch for a few days.

Guess What Question My Team Got? (Plus Bonus Recipe) (TEAM PHOTO UPDATE)

Well, Mrs. Schillage finally uploaded her Game Night photos to Facebook so I decided to show you all who the real winners are. This is what I would like to call the A Team, with special guest, Ryan "Ron" Roberts:

John looks thrilled, as usual. Rachel, I know you are reading this, and I request that we make this a monthly affair. Thanks. Also, thanks to Chatty Cathy, I have a new dessert to bring. So, let's get on that, ok?

Guess What Question My Team Got? (Plus Bonus Recipe)

John and I had a blast at game night on Saturday. The A Team dominated (as predicted) over the B Team (although the B Team was twice as large), and took the game of Trivial Pursuit with a blaze of glory. You guys will NEVER guess which question came up during the game... I will give you a hint, it involved this little beauty:

That's right. My team got a question about the Guggenheim Bilbao and everyone was shocked that I knew the answer. Oh well, they should have read the blog, then they would have been prepared. Also, I provided the snacks for the event. I made a lemon pie, the Turkey Pinwheel things and this:
I apologize for the crappy photo quality, but I forgot to take a photo of mine and Campbell's likes to have super tiny photos with their recipes. So let me just tell you how good this Double Cheese Crab Dip turned out to be. Sass ate more than half of it. So it really was good. Here is how to make it:

You'll Need:
1 Cup Pace Salsa (Campbell's has to push Pace since I think they're the same company)
1 Teaspoon Chili Powder
1 8 ounce package of cream cheese (softened, i.e. heat in microwave for 15 seconds)
1 Can (8 oz) refrigerated crab meat (although I used the crab sticks from the Upscale Brookshire's and it was just as good and fresh)
1 Cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup sliced pitted ripe olives (although I left this out because, let's face it, some people are picky and won't eat them)
Pita triangles/tortilla chips/fresh vegetables for dipping

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine and stir salsa and chili pepper in a small bowl. Spread cream cheese on bottom of 9 inch pie pan. Top with salsa mixture, crab meat (if you get the sticks, you should shred them with a fork and knife first), cheddar cheese and olives. Bake for 15 minutes or until the mixture is hot and bubbling. Top with additional salsa (whatever's left in the jar after your take out your cup full). Serve with pita triangles, tortilla chips or fresh vegetables for dipping. I used tortilla chips.

After we played Trivial Pursuit, we whipped out Loaded Questions and all had some good laughs. The best question of the night would definitely have to be: "What are three words that you would use to describe the word black?" I feel like after that question that the group really loosened up. I also learned some new vocabulary words. Happy Monday!

Weekend Forecast

So, I got this new map on my blog that tells me the locale of my readers. I had no idea that the Cob was such a popular place in Hungary, Canada and the UK (although I'm 99% sure that the UK is pin-pointed due to my friends Frances and Baby Money checking in on me). I'm pretty sure that I don't know any Canadians or Hungarians so this is a special shout out to them. In honor of Britney coming to see me in Shreveport this fall, I would like to present to you, one of my favorite Britney videos. She represents Louisiana well.



The events scheduled for this weekend include lounging around doing nothing as well as Game Night on Saturday at the Schillage residence. Dear Sass (whose Birthday Dinner Part Deux was held last night and I was unable to attend due to home plumbing issues), Dobber, Rex and Flavor of the Week, John, myself and the Skills are going to play some games. I'm hoping that Sass, Rex, John and I are on the same team. I am confident that we would be UNSTOPPABLE. (Did you know that the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is made of Titanium? Because I do.)

Also, I am going to prepare a crab dip that I found on Campbell's Recipes or something.com and if it turns out to my liking, I will share the recipe with you. I am a modern day Betty Crocker, I'll tell you. Last night I made THIS and even edited the recipe by adding some black beans. I like to call that 'using my artistic license'. Sunday, John and I are going to look at a house with our realtor friend, Chris David (pronounced Dahveeed). Let's hope that John likes it, because I sure do.

Caricatures

I'm so ready to leave this town that I could pee my pants (possibly because I've drank a lot of water recently in order to become Skinny Bridesemaid). So, as I'm wasting time during my last hour of work, I decided to peruse some photos from my Photobucket account. This is what I came across:

Myself, Sass and Steph's Simpson's caricatures (Stephanie's should have darker hair now by the way)! Steph made these for us when the Simpson's Movie came out a couple of years ago. Just thought I'd share.

Seriously, thirty more minutes and I'm free!!!!!

The Time I Went To A Frat Party

Once upon a few years ago, some friends and I travelled over to our Alma Mater for, what else, Homecoming. I figured that this was going to be pretty interesting since the people I was going with weren't necessarily the people that I hung out with the most while actually attending Tech. So off we go. We ended up staying at the 'nice' hotel in Ruston, which was actually pretty dumpy. We didn't know this going in, because why would we stay in a hotel when we lived there? So we get there, unpack all of our crap and head over to the game. For whatever reason, we ended up having to park very far away... like near the Smoothie King far away. No big deal, we made it over there and ended up 'tailgating' if you would even call it that, from tent to tent outside the stadium. For the record, it looked NOTHING like this:

We meet up with some of our friends from Shreveport and hung out with them for most of the day. We sweated profusely throughout the game (thanks to Tech for making the students/cheap seats on the sunny side of the stadium) and ended up leaving early (since the game sucked) to meet some friends at Ponchatoulas for some food and beverages.

After eating, everyone wondered where we should go. Someone suggested the KA house. I jumped at the chance to go. (During my actual school-time at college, I had NEVER gone to a frat house, except once to the TKE house to borrow a water hose, but I don't count that time.) I had always wondered what actually goes on in a frat house. This was the only preconceived image that I had in my head:

I couldn't decide if I would be excited or disappointed if fraternities were like Animal House. (Everyone say hi to the real John Belushi. He's not as cute as mine is.) So, I walk in to the house and unfortunately, wasn't too impressed. There was a trough (like a horse feeding trough) filled with Natural Light. There was a stage area where a band played who were HORRIBLE . Everyone felt relieved when they would take a break and the sound system rap music resumed. This was circa the year that the "Chain Hang Low" song came out and fortunately for everyone there, I was wearing a rather large chain necklace, so I entertained everyone with my amazing dance skills. I mean, I was on Silver Spurs.

There was a GIGANTIC bowl of PDP (Panty Dropping Punch). It wasn't too bad. Mine stayed on, for the record. At one point, I needed to go to the bathroom and my friend Sass gave me a tour of where the toilets were. After nearly vomiting on myself in sheer disgust, I decided upon squatting near a fence far away from the house.

On my way back in, I discovered two GIANT swings on the front porch. This, I thought, is the only redeeming quality of this place. Sass, Eric and I sat on one side:

Will, Stephanie and an unnamed girl sat on the opposite swing from us. The goal was for us to swing at opposite rotations in order to make it impossible for anyone to enter the house without us kicking them. Sometimes we would catch up with each other and our swingers would try to kick the feet of the other swing's swingers. It was a lot of fun. At one point, when we were swinging toward each other at a rapid rate, I heard the unnamed girl mention to Will "I can't help it, I have eczema." I mean, who shouts that in front of strangers? So from then on we openly made fun of her until she ran off.

Thanks to the swing, it ended up being a pretty awesome Homecoming experience. Not to mention, I'm glad that I finally shattered the mystere of a frat house.

Weekend Recap

Well, this weekend was slightly more eventful than I planned on it being. I got out of the house for approximately 3 hours on Saturday. Evidence of said outing is a photo of my dear friend Sarah (Sass) and I at her father's 50th birthday party extravaganza on Saturday.

This was the highlight of my official weekend, since my air conditioner decided to be ridiculous and not cool the house down correctly (a technician is coming out this afternoon). My father was nice enough to purchase a window unit for me for my bedroom. This is what it looks like:

For the record, mine only has one hose, yet it has about a pound of duct tape keeping it connected to the window. I try to keep it as Keithville as possible behind closed doors. So, besides laying on my couch and sweating and reapplying the duct tape that was coming loose from the window, I watched some TV and kept it a low-key weekend. I'm hoping that this week perks up from the blah that would classify the former week. Happy Monday!

Room for Improvement

I occasionally have those mornings where I wake up late and don't have the energy or time to wash, dry, straighten this mane of hair on my head without being late for work. Actually, usually I have plenty of time but I'm just too lazy to do it. It takes me FOREVER to dry my hair and I get so overheated due to hair dryer that I've gotten to the point of just drying it halfway and saying "Screw You" to the rest of it. On top of the heat-issue, my hair has gotten to a length where it isn't easy to lean my head over the bathtub and wash it effectively anymore. (For the record, I take baths at night and don't wash my hair at the same time because if I sleep on it after washing it, it gets all lumpy and wavy and not right. Just letting yall know that I bathe every day.) Enter Psssssst (pronounced like it's spelled):

Side story: Once upon a time, my good friend Melissa and I took a trip to Drug Emporium in search of Psssssst, because that is where Barber Sass informed me that it can be purchased inexpensively. We walk in D.E. and peruse the never ending shampoo aisles. There are seriously like 3 shampoo aisles, which is a little ridiculous, but it's good to know that they have such a nice selection. Anyway, so I look and look and look and I can't find the Psssssst ANYWHERE. Great. So Melissa and I go to the cashier area and ask for assistance. We tell the girl what we're looking for and she points us to condoms. No! We tell her. Psssssst isn't a type of contraceptive, it is spray shampoo. Finally we find it with no help from her. We laughed for a long time about that story at the time... Ah memories.

So, like I was saying before, Psssssst can be a real lifesaver when you are too lazy to wash your hair. You simply point and shoot where your hair looks greasy (i.e. territory where an egg could be fried), and it sprays white talc or something that I'm sure is really harmful to the environment as well as yourself and off you go with perfect 'clean' hair. Barber Sass also told me that Ken Paves uses Psssssst on Jessica Simpson's hair (which I'm sure is true since it is rumored that she is an unbathing, disgusting person. I know this because she craps in her wardrobe from film sets... another story, another day.) instead of washing it. Barber Sass' mother D.D. also told me that Psssssst, as she pronounced P.S.S.S.S.S.S.T., was a hot commodity in the 70's, back when people flat ironed their hair with actual irons.

I am not upset at all about not being born in that decade if you were wondering. So, I used Psssssst a few times. It just doesn't work right for me. I find that unless you have dirty to light blond colored hair, it leaves gray/white streaks where there should be beautiful strawberry locks. So, instead of looking clean, I just look old. I think that I should write the headquarters of Psssssst and tell them that they could better their product if it came in different shades. White could be for blonds, brown for red/brunettes, and black for black-headed people. I should be a marketing strategist.

Out With The Flush, In With The Navy

When I first was introduced to the truth serum that is, alcohol, there was always a tell-tale sign of when I had or was about to consume too much. Please note, The Sexy Flush:

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

I guess that's one of the drawbacks of being a fair-skinned redhead. Anytime that I get flustered or drunk, or embarrassed, it shows up right there on my face in the form of two red streaks on my cheeks. I mean, you can't have it all, right?

NOW, when I have had or am about to have too much, instead of just having a 'Sexy Flush', I start to ask questions that are so dumb. Lately, my question is: "How do you feel about navy?" I ask this question to close female friends of mine that I would consider being in my imaginary wedding party. Why? Why, does this happen? The latest victim was Sass, bless her heart.

Sass:

She's so precious! How appropriate for her to actually be wearing navy in this photo. She's a girl after my heart I tell you. Anyway, last night we gathered for a toddy and the longer we visited, like clockwork, the question came out. She says she likes navy. So that's good. Because she's gonna have to wear it one day in the form of a bridesmaid dress that she won't be able to wear again. I'm not going to lie to people. No you can't shorten it and wear it as a cocktail dress. That is the biggest bunch of bullcrap I've ever heard.

Whoa, what just happened? I think I just went off on brides when I was supposed to be talking about how great vodka tonics are.... Sorry brides, I'm a little crabby today. Happy Friday!