Successes and failures

[yrmencyn]

Wow, I'm just really not normal, am I?  I was sitting here, and I thought "I'm still hungry, but not enough for a whole 'nother meal" (take that, Taco Bell's so-called Fourth Meal!).  So what did I do?  Did I... run to Taco Bell anyway?  Heat up some leftovers?  Go hungry?  Eat jellybeans?  Or did I go into the kitchen and make a little tiny portion of lentils?  If you guessed the lentils, you know my madness too well.  I dunno, I just LURVE LENTILS.  They're so filling, and they cost almost nothing, and they're absolutely delicious, so nutty and fantastic.  Throw in some minced onion, a little cumin, maybe some curry powder (or hell, just straight up turmeric and coriander)... you've got a party.  A delicious, nutritious, economical party.  I am such a dork :)

So, the weekend's events.  First off, since I know everybody's been wondering, the brisket was amazing :)  It was so tempting... a vegetarian even ate it!  In my defense on that count, I didn't even pressure him, I just turned around and he was eating it.  As he said when I questioned him, "It's a brisket made by a Texan, how can I not?"  I can't say I disagree.  The party was also fabulous!  The rain played nice, and though it was overcast the whole time it only sprinkled briefly, so we still boated, grilled, and swam, huzzah!  And then a large portion of Jägermeister seems to have disappeared over at Angélique's house, which was good times.  I think I may have taken... 6 shots?  I don't know.  I'd had quite a lot of beer at that point, plus swigs from a bottle of mezcal (the cinnamon-flavored magic that Michele brought me from Oaxaca).  Other highlights?  Black bean pupusas, crawfish pies right off the grill, fresh cracklins (read: still warm from the fryer), seeing quite a large number of my friends, staying up talking to Gél until quite late.  Lowlights are composed entirely of injuries: I cut my fingers a couple of times on twist-offs (did they start putting those on tighter or something?!), and I burnt my arm on the oven coil as I was warming the brisket: there's a really cool dark-colored blister full of liquid on my arm!

Failures, however, happened today.  Mainly these failures are sartorial.  See, I went through my clothes and got rid of things I no longer wear.  The thing is... I now have no cold-weather clothes.  I can list the cold-weather garments I have: a few pairs of jeans, a hoodie, a flannel, a weird cowboyish double-breasted corduroy shirt, and a couple of fleece jackets.  That's it.  See, two things have happened in the past few years.  First, right toward the end of undergrad, my arms grew a little bit.  This means that quite a lot of dress shirts just don't fit right, but unlike down here, I can't pull off the "look at me, I'm so casual with my rolled-up sleeves" look throughout most of the year.  Second, my style changed (for the better).  I've become much more comfortable and happy with my body in the last couple of years, and thus I've gotten away from wearing baggy clothes.  So I've got a lot of clothes, and not really bad ones, but they all need to be, like, a size smaller.  And I'm done growing.  So away they go.  I was really quite frustrated by this earlier, now I just find it ridiculous.  I'm going to be spending a lot of time in thrift stores.

Still, the day was not a complete loss.  Tasty pasta happened for supper (leftover brisket and carne asada pasta with dry gnocchi), the girls gave me a very sweet going-away gift (giant picture collage), and I finally bought a hands-free kit for my phone, thus enabling me to drive and talk at the same time without feeling like I have one less hand than I need for phone, wheel, and stick.  Plus I watched an inordinate amount of Sports Night, did laundry, and boxed up books (I have 14 boxes of books, total -- that's ridiculous).  And of course my tasty lentils :)