Midnight Movie #2: Magic Mike

Two Thursdays in a row Brie, Zach, and I have gone to midnight premiers! What!? Our latest excursion included a few more folks and was to see the much talked about Magic Mike staring a cast of gorgeous half-naked male strippers. Fortunately we had purchased our tickets in advance. It was sad seeing folks react to the "SOLD OUT" blinking on the screen. Unfortunately we did not arrive early enough to score good seats. We were in the neck-breaking second row.



There was a bit more to the film than just well choreographed numbers involving men acting out various "manly" professions to club music while removing their clothes. There was a bit of romance, a bit of drama, a bit of criminal activity, a bit of violence, but who am I kidding? there was *a lot* of just dancing (and audience blushing)!!

Midnight Movie #1: ALVH

A week ago Brie, Zach and I rallied and went to see the midnight premiere of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. This is the first of the movies that Brie has worked on that I have wanted to go see (sorry Zac Efron in The Lucky One...it just did not appeal to me) and we were pretty excited about seeing Ben Walker portray America's favorite President.

Overall I did not hate the movie, but I felt that there was entirely too much CGI that could have been avoided. It was a little over the top at times which took me out of the story line because I was constantly thinking "that is too crazy to be belivable!". The special effects make-up used to make one 30 year old man (Walker) look like a 54 year old different man (Lincoln) was awesome! So while the visual effects were a little chaunchy, I enjoyed the premise of vampires being the force behind slavery--they needed a steady supply of fresh blood according to the story's twist on history. Therefore elimanting vampires and slavery went hand-in-hand for Abe. But by far the coolest part of the whole movie was seeing "assistant to Mr. Walker...Brie M. Puneky"

A Day at the Zoo

Last weekend I was super antsy to do something new, something different. I needed to get out of the house so after a few ideas were tossed around, Brie and I chose to hit up the Audubon Zoo! The temperatures that afternoon were definitely in the mid 90s so a lot of the animals were more interested in lying around attempting to stay cool and much less concerned with entertaining the hoards of humans staring at them.

Zebras & Flamingos

Safari Katie & a lagoon-esque area

An albino aligator (he looked like he was suspended in jello!) and a close up of a giraffe nibbling some lettuce

Two gorillas eating celery watching us watching them in the shade and a white tiger cat napping

The elusive New Orleans Swamp Thing and a pretty area where the rhinos were hanging out

We decided that Audubon use ducks and turtles as "filler animals". They were every where! I guess if the featured animal was not up and roaming around at least you had some generic birds and reptiles to look at!

The only section that we opted to skip was in the repitile house, we heard someone comment about a spider from the room in front of us and swiftly turned around! No thank you.

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

At some point during my youth I watched the movie Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead and thought Christina Applegate's character was too cool for getting a job and supporting her siblings after the untimely departure of their appointed summer guardian. In 2008 I got an itch to re-watch this early 90's comedy and after exhausting local rental shops I created a Netflix account and put this flick at the top of my queue. Four years later I still enjoy my home delivered DVDs and decided to re-visit where it all began. That's right, I am about to enjoy DTMTBD again!

 

Any body seen this movie before? Nothing beats a 90's sappy comedy!

Summer Lovin'?

It is officially summer. Though it has been warm here in the Big Easy for a while now, I know that in due time it will only get worse! The temperatures will increase. The moisture in the air will thicken. The dog days will surely be upon us soon enough.


Confession: I loathe the heat!! I can't survive without air conditioning and I pray that the days of summer will fly by swiftly so that the crispness of fall will come sooner! 


Any tips on how to beat the heat? I've got another three official months left...oh how will I make it through?!

Countdown

It's Countdown Time

First day of summer: 4 days (June 20th) How is it not "summer" already?!

4^th of July: 18 days (July 4th) Happy Birthday America!

Summer Olympics: 42 days (July 27th) Seems like yesterday I had just moved into a place in Roanoke with Roommate Sarah and we watched the 2008 games on our back porch :)

Saints Pre-Season: 50 days (August 5th) Not as important as Regular season but still exciting!!

Saints Regular Season: 85 days (September 9th) Woo hoo! Time to whip out all my black and gold 

Dexter Premier: 106 days (September 30th) OMG you have no idea how much I am looking forward to this! Especially after the last seasons cliff hanger ending!! A premier party is in the works!

Christmas: 192 days (December 25th) Ho Ho Ho! Who doesn't love Christmas time?!

What dates are you looking forward to in the future?

Romantical

I have been into a bunch of lovey dovey cutesy songs recently so I thought I would share one:

"Ho Hey" by The Lumineers

   

This was posted on a friend's Facebook wall the other day. I thought it was clever, sweet, and fun!

 

Movie Sarah Makes a Visit

Last weekend I had the pleasure of entertaining Movie Sarah while she visited NOLA for the first time! Despite the constant storms we were able to squeeze a lot of fun into a short amount of time :)

A recap of our time together: 

Friday evening traffic. Rum House. Sucre. St. Charles Avenue. Wine/Whiskey. Slim Goodies. French Quarter. Cajun Zydeco/Creole Tomato Festival. French Market. Parkway. Prometheus (she is Movie Sarah after all!) St. Joe's. Pimm's Cup. Superior Seafood. Cafe du Monde. Plus a bunch of chatting and catching up. 

Fantasy Man

Out of boredom and sheer fantasy I have spent an embarrassingly large amount of time creating my ideal man from various celebrities and their qualities. If anyone knows of a real man that fits this description: contact me immediately! 

The super foxy looks of Ryan Gosling, Joey Lawrence, and Ben Affleck combined. Holy crap!!

The sense of humor of Steve Martin

The suave-ness of George Clooney

The manliness of Tim Allen

The boyish charm of Zac Efron

The adorableness of Michael C. Hall as Dexter when he is with children 
(yeah, I know that sounds weird but kids are his soft spot)

The goofiness/lovability of Paul Rudd

And because I just like him, I would like for my fantasy guy to be the little brother of and therefore have the same distinct accent as Tommy Lee Jones

Let me know if this wonderful concoction really exists. 

P.S. I had waaayyy too much fun putting this together :)

Memory Lane

While I was in Virginia I took some time to stroll down memory lane. Over the years I have purged my keepsakes and widdled my collection of pictures, notes, trinkets, etc down to a few banker's boxes and scrapbooks. 


I have discovered that reaching inside a cardboard box and pulling out reminders of events, people, and moments that have passed can be painful, joyful, and sometimes therapeutic. I am not one to destroy things or part with them easily even if they serve as reminders of old wounds, rather I tuck them away until I feel that enough time has passed to patch up my emotions and then I pull the lid off that box and let the memories and lessons flood me with a feeling of reflection and growth. 


While rummaging through my things the other day did not conjure up any strong emotional breakdowns, it did make me feel very nostalgic. I flipped through scrapbooks that covered my trip to Hawaii in ninth grade, my senior year of high school, my college May Term trip to Germany and Poland, and my final days at Roanoke College. I remember the many many hours I spent assembling those mementos and am glad that I took the time to capture and document those moments in my life.


Along with my labor-intensive scrapbooks, I also flipped through some old notebooks that Brie and I used to write notes back and forth in. They are covered in pictures clipped from magazines of teen heart throbs, quotes we strove to live by, and doodles of our names + a long list of random guy crushes. I brought three of these treasures back to NOLA with me and once Brie returns from her vacation later this week I am going to see if she wants to sit down and laugh about how unbelievably ridiculous we were! Here are some particularly comical tidbits I came across while flipping through:


March 4, 2000: (ME) "I was on IM and Sam was the only person on and so I was telling him that I'm way confused w/ all this guy stuff. Then, well by the end of the conversation he likes me and asked if I sorta like him and how long I wanted to stay single. I had answered that I sorta like him especially since he had been so sweet to me lately and that I didn't want to go out w/ anyone until I had figured out my guy problems."
March 14, 2000: (BRIE) "Ok, important stuff! I'm finding myself liking HIM more and more as the days go on. I know he's a pimp and all but even Ashley said that she thinks me and him will be an item soon."
September 10, 2011: (ME) "My brother's birthday is tomorrow. The Big 1-2! I got him a CD with lots of songs on it- Now 7"- and cologne - Gravity - that stuff smells so good! T.J. smells like Josh. I <3 the way Josh smells. I <3 Josh in general. I can't be mad at him. Well I'm gonna go."
October 5, 2001: (BRIE) "I'm so upset, I wanted to talk to Michael last night so bad. And I didn't get my coffee this morning."
August 21, 2002: (ME) "Well-here we are-the beginning of our JUNIOR year! That's right, we are over 1/2 way through with out high school career...I want to wish you the best of luck in the school year to come - not just with grades but guys, gals, dance, work - just life in general! Just remember - I love you and I'm always here for you. No matter what."
May 7, 2003: (BRIE) "Asa told me that Sarah Sorrells told him that Sam Hasey likes him. Well he didn't seem to complain much. He kept saying he would have to call her something else b/c his dad's name is Sam."


Man, sometimes I think it would be nice to go back to the days when all we seemed to worry about was silly high school crushes! LOL

The Big Gateaux Show

Two weeks ago was the 20th annual New Orleans Wine and Food Experience. Their newest event to help raise money for the Second Harvest Food Bank was The Big Gateaux Show. 

Tariq hosted the burlesque-themed cake competition along with Johnny Iuzinni from Top Chef, Just Desserts. Four teams were created with a celebrity cake decorator and a group of local culinary students that were assigned a burlesque dancer to model their cake design after. The winner received $5000 from Valrhona.

A bunch of Sucre folks either worked the event or attended it, myself being part of the latter group. The cakes were on display around the ballroom at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter and accompanied by the dancer who inspired the design. 

Each cake had a 4 foot base and had to be at least 5 feet tall. Due to the nature of the charity they were raising money for, the "cakes" were not actual cake, rather constructed out of Styrofoam since the masterpieces are not in fact eaten but typically thrown out.

The winner was selected by a panel of celebrity judges, including Ron Ben Israel from Sweet Genius, however each guest was given a doubloon to vote for their favorite as well.

The winner was Bronwen Weber whose model and inspiration was Trixie Minx. (Above top left photo). 

Fingernails

I remember my mom buying me the coolest shades or green and blue fingernail polish from After Thoughts when I was in sixth grade. It was a surprise and my first experience with any colors beyond the typical reds. Over the years my interest in painting my digits has waxed and waned but currently I am enjoying fun different things and using the pretty designs and colors as a way to help prevent me from nibbling on my nails.  

Clockwise: French Tip Gels (my newest venture), gold crackle over a black base (Saints!), pastel chick-a-dees (Easter), and rhinestones on black (Mardi Gras)