Birthday Round-up

Another Suicide Prevention Week has come and gone and it was, as usual, fantastic. (Here at SPWHQ we use the term "week" loosely.) I've already told you about one of the most fun things ever-the J.T. singalong. That would have been more than enough Birthday joy for most people. But, my friends and family are not "most people" so the action didn't stop there. Last weekend the Sr. Starks were in town and in addition to hot tubbing at their motel (hee hee) we did some high-brow activities like the Blanton Museum and Shakespeare at Winedale. On Sunday the Jr. Starks went on a movie date to Captain America and it wasn't too bad. (Mr. Stark loves a movie with Nazi bad guys) On Tuesday the Howell kids and I made some cupcakes and a yummy lasagna and then they gave me the gift of going to visit their aunt and grammy for five days :).

I know I go on and on about it but my sweet little husband is the greatest. He gave me a new camera! Your crippling hunger for cat pics can finally be satisfied:

Thanks for reading the crochet pattern for me, Hube! And as if the exact camera that I showed him at the store wasn't enough, s.l.h. also showed up with this, a GTL bouquet. Adorable.
Speaking of adorable (and things I go on and on about) the mind-bogglingly amazing Adriane made me this:
That's right, it's a Lee Chat MADE OF CUPCAKES! On my actual birthday (Wednesday) I was feeling wishy washy about what to do, so I didn't send out the Burnet Road Crawl alert text until at least noon but all of my friends showed up! Have I mentioned I have the most wonderful friends ever? Well I do. There are some pictures of the debauchery (there was planking and owling involved) on Adriane's camera, I think, but they have yet to surface because she is currently gracing the NW with her presence. Lucky NW!!

Thanks to Auntie and Grammy, I had yesterday morning off so we were able to something you can only do on Saturday morning: go to Snow's BBQ, supposedly "The #1 BBQ in Texas". Loyal readers (Aileene) will remember that a while back we went to Franklin BBQ, which I deemed the "best BBQ ever". How did the Snow's measure up? How does it look?
Here are the results of my non-scientific research study: "Snow's vs. Franklin"

• Snow's: you have to drive an hour and a half
• Franklin: you have to wait in line for at least an hour and a half, but it's in Austin
• Snow's: the guy with the mullet, 'stache, TX flag apron and permanent smoke smell-LOVE.
• Franklin: nerdy looking guy who started working at his parents' BBQ when he was nine-LOVE.
• Snow's: At the risk of losing my TX citizenship-I hate brisket. The brisket was delicious. I would be happy with a brisket-only plate. The ribs, my usual fave, not so great. Sausage? Sausagey.
• Franklin: At the risk of losing my TX citizenship-I hate brisket. The brisket was delicious. I would be happy with a brisket-only plate. The ribs? Delicious. The sausage? Good, but not as good as Luling City Market sausage.

Final Results:

Food winner: Franklin

Overall experience winner: Snow's, but the food is pretty damn good.

So if you're in Texas and you want some stupid good BBQ, here's what to do. Go stand in line at Franklin's on Thursday, hang out with me on Friday to give your stomach a rest, then get up on Saturday and drive to Lexington for yummy meat and a super fun after lunch activity-a real live small town cattle auction!!!! Sorry PETA types, I love love loved this. It was so cool to see an example of old-time culture (or should I say agri-culture, woka woka) still alive and well. Fortunately my sweet husband gave me a new camera so there are some pictures of our Saturday on the flickr. UNfortunately, when I got the new camera I put the old memory card in it to see if it worked and forgot to switch it out. The old memory card goes way back to the Galveston trip so it only had a tiny bit of space left. I wanted to get a movie of the auction, but it cut me off after only eight seconds. Luckily those eight seconds are pretty good.

Red Hot Summer!!

Hello from mid-July, y'all. Guess if I had one a them fancy pants phones, I wouldn't be so lazy about blogging. Yes, I do have a fancy pants computer, but the wireless do-dad is broken so I can only use it while tethered to the futon. Hmm, should get that fixed so I can blog from the fancy pants coffee shop.

Ennneeway....(yes I do watch too much Ellen)...in between bouts of profound sadness and insomnia-inducing anxiety, I've had a pretty bitchin' summer so far.

I looked through my pictures to remind myself what I've been up to since y'all took a good hard look at me in my motherfucking boat, and this is what I came up with:
Lavender Festival with the in-laws! There are more pics on the flickr. Very hot out, but super fun. Lavender is the only girly smell that doesn't give me a headache so this is a fest I really enjoy.
I went to my (unintelligible) year HIGH SCHOOL REUNION. No, I am not kidding you. Even more shocking, it was FUN. There are tons of photos of it on the facebook if you're into that sort of thing, but here is one of my favorites of the few taken with my (now broken!!!) camera. All of the girls I actually liked in school were there. I'm talking a beer for breakfast level of fun y'all. I know that my non-HS northwest peeps were sad that I didn't get a chance to hang with them and believe me, I wish I could have seen y'all, but I didn't even make it past Gig Harbor and I was only there for a couple of days. You know you can catch a plane up there in SeaTac that can take you right here to Austin, right? Just sayin'.
I got my hair cut, and I'm not grumpy about it. Amazing. Speaking of amazing, here's Adriane wrapping me up!
Still speaking of amazing, check this out: The Stuffed Burger. It's hard to see, but there's a bunch of stuff inside the meat. I will never make an unstuffed burger again.
We're in the midst of an epic drought here in TX, but we have managed to find a little water here and there. Do y'all understand how this photo illustrates what a completely different person I am now that I'm Texan? My head is in water and it is water that may contain fish, and those fish may touch me!! And yet, I appear to not be in terror. Plus I'm in swimwear. Again.

One of the places we found some water was Port Aransas. Loyal followers will know that Port A is one of the Starks' "special spots" and this trip did not disappoint.
We rode bikes! I'm pretty sure I haven't been on a bike since I was about twelve. And when I was twelve, I would have LUVED this bike. Hot pink and neon yellow? Rad. Bike riding is surprisingly relaxing. Even though it was 1000 degrees out and I was technically doing a physical activity, I felt great. Of course when we stopped at a waterin' hole, I saw myself in a mirror and I had the "Jen's been exercising" face which is a disturbing shade of purple.
There I go. Look, no training wheels! I guess you really don't forget. Unfortunately there are only a few other shots of me on the bike and a few random seagull pics from this trip because as I may have mentioned, my camera's broken for real this time. It's been acting a little wacky now and again, but had always come back before. I don't know what the life expectancy is for one of these electro-gadgets but I had it for almost six years and y'all know I am not exactly gentle with my possessions. Sad sad sad. How will I document important cat holidays? Luckily, everyone else in the world only takes pictures with their fancy pants phones so plain old cameras are not too expensive these days.

After a couple of Starks-only days in P.A. we headed over to P.O.C. (Port O'Connor, where the Howells have a lavish vacation home ;) HQ of one of the finest local newspapers of all time: Dolphin Talk, in which you can read hard-hitting editorials about the problem of "radical Chicano agendas") We had sooo much fun celebrating America's Birthday with our voluntary family. Thankfully, Adriane was there this year so my broken camera didn't stop me from getting a series of patriotic photographs.
Um, yeah, I know I got some sun. That is not the point. It's about America, y'all. Does it get more American than resting your bottle of Jack on your sunburned gut? I think not.

Speaking of Birthdays, Suicide Prevention Week officially kicks off on Wednesday, but I will be hard-pressed to top the gift already given to me by the aforementioned AMAZING ADRIANE: a trip to the Justin Timberlake Sing-Along!! It was magical. I hope you have a friend like Adriane, she's the greatest.

I reckon that brings up to near present day. Hope y'all are having your own red hot summers!