Doggonit, it's Oscar's Birthday!

July 25 is Oscar's 5th Birthday.  We just love him more and more every year.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dog.

Culture vs. Cultivation

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I love the city.  I keep thinking I'm going to grow out of it, like most of my pants.  But no... I really love the city.  And this is even more surprising, because I don't really like people very much.  For the most part, I could be super happy spending most of my time with just my dog, chickens, and that guy I married a while back.  

I like the convenience of a city.  I like having "access" and the feeling of community.  I like the noisy bustle during the day and the quieter bustle at night.   I like that I can see foreign films in a movie theatre (not that I do, but hey if I ever did...).  I like that I could eat out at a different restaurant 365 days a year, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and probably barely scratch the surface of the foodie realm.  I like that there is live music, theatre, and performance art.  I like that there are crazy weirdos on the corners.  I like the houses, well, the pretty ones.  I like the culture.

But by nature, I think a part of me will always feel most at home at a place like this one.  A place where you spend more time with dirt under your fingernails, than freshly polished.  A place where time isn't accounted for by the tick tock of a clock, but by the milking of cows.  A place where denim isn't a fashion statement, but pure practicality.  A place where you sow what you grow, and you eat what you harvest, and it's marvelously unmodified.  A place where you see something other than haze in the night sky, and where you hear nature knocking instead of your neighbor.  A place full of life and nourishment  and cultivation, wholesome and healthy and sustainable.

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I encourage you to visit Fig + Fauna, relish their pictures and experiment with their recipes.  

Or, just play this video on repeat for a little Saturday morning therapy!  

Have a healthy weekend.

A Continual Feast

My first "real" post for Sunday Hatch!  To dive right in, I thought I'd talk about something that bullies me every-single-day: discontent.  Join me, and our friends at Sunday Hatch, today to discuss happiness vs. contentment.  I even used a bible verse -- which I never, ever do.

Have a great weekend, friends!  Spread the cheer, you can link up here:

Fridays with Friends @ Sunday Hatch: A Continual Feast

Newsroom

Here's the problem with really good drama: it makes you feel like you picked the wrong career.  

Of the major television shows I've gotten really hooked on, the very best have always made me feel somehow inferior . . . and pretty much a loser.  And - lucky me - I got to experience that yet again with Aaron Sorkin's newest, The Newsroom.

When - well after its original airing - I decided to take on all 7 seasons of The West Wing, I experienced deep remorse I hadn't studied political science and interned at the White House.  As the series crept forward, I kept thinking what a great Press Secretary I would have made.  I will admit that I STILL watch Grey's Anatomy (judge me, if you will), and while I'm totally over it now, the first few seasons featuring the main cast members as Interns had me questioning my proclaimed distaste for medical science.  Shows like Downton Abbey and Mad Men have me wishing I had been born in a different time period . . .  if only for the clothes!

Now I did watch the premiere of Breaking Bad Sunday evening (an AMC series about a chemistry teacher who finds out he has lung cancer, starts cooking crystal meth to make money to pay off all his debts before he dies, and eventually becomes a drug kingpin), and had no urge to become a meth-cook.  However, the excitement and roller coaster ride of power and danger definitely had me feeling like my life was a little ordinary and colorless.  So I guess my arguement can't apply systematically to every TV drama I patronize, but I think my point remains the same: really good drama makes you excited.

For those of you who don't know, if I had to "pick another career," it probably would be journalism.  It's one of the reasons why I write this blog.  I like to write.  I like to think I can write persuasively.  Ironically, I hate the news, but that's because most of the news is depressing or not worth reporting.  Where good journalism CAN differ from news reporting, in my opinion, is that there are more opportunities to tell fascinating stories.

I've been hearing about HBO's The Newsroom for a while now, and we happened to find the first three episodes streaming online last night.  And, Oh my.  The show has Sorkin's typical fast-paced, fiery dialogue and snappy exchanges.  The characters always seem completely at one extreme or another, first utterly vulnerable and then suddenly billowing like a storm cloud.  But they are always, without fail, excited about doing their job.

And in the first 15 minutes of the premiere we find that a young Newsroom intern has "accidentally" been promoted to the lead anchor's assistant, and then within another five minutes she's suddenly made an ASSOCIATE PRODUCER.  And of course they are all like 22 and have zero experience.  What????  Who gets that lucky?  Yeah.

All I could think about as I was falling asleep later was, "what the F am I doing with my life?"

Oh, I know it's not realistic.  You don't have to remind me that if I had selected any of the aforementioned careers and pounded after them, I would have spent probably 8 years in college with no social life, several years as an intern or personal assistant hating my life, and then IF I WAS LUCKY, might have gotten some random position where I felt like I actually contributed to the state of the nation.  I realize that TV drama takes real life and glorifies it past all recognition.

But it is hard, sometimes, to remember the big big BIG dreams you had as a kid and realize maybe you didn't try hard enough, maybe you shouldn't have given up so easily.  But, oh well . . .

not everyone makes the news.

Whip it Good

The movie Whip It, starring Ellen Page and Kristen Wiig, and Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, brought nationwide - and perhaps worldwide - attention to an underground, amateur sport called Roller Derby.

Until recently, I had no idea that the great city I was living in sported its own league.  Last week, on a venture to South Congress for First Thursday with some out-of-town friends, I was passed a flyer for an upcoming game, and in the spirit of "trying new things," we all paid the $15 ticket price and helped ourselves to a slice of Derby pie.

To be vague, Roller Derby attracts a specific crowd, much like motorcycles do "bikers." I'll let your imagination create the stereotype. It is clear that to some it is pure cult-ish amusement, and to others it's more of a serious undertaking, much like league soccer or intramural flag football can be in the spirit of "fun," but are really quite competitive. I would say this applied to both the team members and their fans.  Some were more serious than others. For a lot of attendees, it really just seemed like an excuse to wear ripped fishnets.

A Roller Derby match is called a "Bout." There are four quarters in each Bout. Within each quarter there are sessions called "Jams." There are basically two types of players: Jammers and Blockers. To begin, the Blockers line up (shown above), with the Jammers from either team lined up a few paces behind them. The whistle blows and the Blockers skate forward and prepare to block. A second whistle blows and the Jammers begin to skate forward preparing to jam their way through the Blockers. The Blockers ideally want to help their own Jammer through, without allowing the opposing Jammer to get through their blocking line. Points are scored for each team by that team's Jammer pushing through the pack of Blockers and lapping the opposing team members. For each opposing team member they lap, they score a point.  

The movie Whip It gets its name from a move the Blockers perform by grabbing the Jammer's hand and using their own momentum to "whip" the Jammer forward, to gain speed. We saw this move a few times in the Bout.  As you might imagine, there is quite a bit of physical contact.

It seemed as if most of the people around us were old hat at being derby fans.  I really didn't have any idea what was going on for a good bit, but we tried to blend in.  Admittedly, I finally spent 10 minutes on Wikipedia, refreshing my memory about the rules, just so I could cheer along with them.  They had a band play at half-time, and he was pretty awesome, as is to be expected from Austin's live music scene. There were refreshments, t-shirts, and various crafts, etc, for sale.

Some of these girls really meant business!  It was kinda refreshing to see women in a contact sport who were deliberately enjoying the contact. We had quite a good time, and I'm really glad we went - even if it was just for the people watching. 

Whip it Good, yo.