How I spent my Winter Vacation

So. New Years. Yay? The party was a blast. Nearly all of my favorite people were there and it was nice to be able to spend time with so many different people. We partied, listened to music, drank, got silly, and took a lot of silly pictures. It was a pretty mellow party, we mostly just stood around drinking and listening to music and having weirdo random discussions, as you do. Before the party actually started we watched a few episodes of Star Trek: TNG, which was fun.

The evening mostly was done by 1:30 and I was in bed by 2. The next morning was blissfully hangover free but I mostly lounged around Liz's house until around 6 because I was very occupied with the book I was reading! (Discussed on 1/02) I was home by 7ish and cuddled up with my cat, who was very happy to see me after over 36 hours away! (He's very needy.) I relaxed by watching a movie and woke up with what I thought was a mild ear problem. I couldn't hear out of my right ear, it felt like I was swimming underwater!  I thought it would go away on its own (it didn't) and I thought I'd try various home remedies, which also didn't help. My sniffles/cough/mucus making factory issues that I had over Christmas came back with a bang as well.

Friday I felt awful but slightly better, so I ended up going to dinner to celebrate a friend's birthday. Big mistake! We ate at a very nice steakhouse (Ruth's Chris) and I had to get a salad/soup because I had virtually no taste buds and therefore steak would be useless. I could barely hear, my nose was experiencing leakage problems, and conversation was difficult at best (due to the ear.) Afterwards, we went to a local bar that is generally fine on weekdays, but intolerable weekend nights as one section is reserved for live music and it's terrible and I'm old and after several hours I wanted to die. It didn't help that loud music + ear problem made conversation impossible and the smoking from everyone around me likely made my ear problem worse.

Saturday I slept until 3. Sunday the Same. Monday I decide to go to the doctor (and sleep until 2ish) and end up getting antibiotics to treat an ear infection and upper respiratory infection. Tuesday (today) I also stayed home under Doctor's orders, sleeping again until 3 and I'm finally starting to feel human again, but still have the ear problem. Is it getting better? Hard to say. It feels like less pressure, maybe? I really hope it clears up soon, regardless!

Happy Holidays

So. Christmas? It was spectacularly uneventful, for the most part. Most of my family (save a mostly estranged Uncle) live either 4 hours North in the wastelands of Oklahoma or four hours south in the terribleness of Houston, so I don't go out of town typically. Add to that the fact that I had to work the day before Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, and it really didn't logically make sense. So. I stayed home, ordered pizza, and was mostly a lazy layabout. I started getting somewhat sick on Christmas itself, but by the weekend it had mostly cleared up.

That was fortuitous timing because a friend that recently moved (back) to LA was in town visiting and we had our friend group Christmas exchange party the Saturday after Christmas. It was a lot of fun! We did a White Elephant/Yankee Swap exchange instead of buying individual gifts, with the stipulation that we spend around $50 and buy gifts that people would actually use and want. This year was a good haul! I bought about 10 classic 80's movies and some boxes of various types of popcorn and the recipient seemed pleased. I ended up with a beautiful box I'm seriously keeping from Darcy, with a $40 gift card to Steam, a box of chocolates, and a twee little candle.

There was lots of food, alcohol, music, lively discussion, and picture taking. I made gift bags for everyone with candy, chocolate bars, snack bags, and candy canes that were fun to put together and seemed to be well received. Cost about $10 each (eep!) but was worth it.

Now, tonight is New Years Eve! BFF Liz is having a party at her place and is expecting 20-25 people, so it should be a hoot. I'll be arriving early to help set up and to get my ridiculous costume of sequins and glitter put together, so that should be fun!

Dinner with people not named Andre

This is another one of those slice of life posts, so if those annoy you feel free to move on. :) Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending a dinner party hosted by some friends of mine; Lyn & Brad*.  I've been to their place several times before and it's always fun and informative. We've cooked, hand made pasta, played rock band, and drank the night away. This time I attended kind of last minute as I had previous plans that ended up falling though and therefore had already eaten a light dinner (small cup of soup and a quarter sandwich.)

L made roast beef with a couple different sides, and we had cupcakes and chocolate for dessert. Oh! And Yorkshire pudding. Everything was delicious as always. Both Lyn & Brad are very talented cooks and even better company. Afterwards we played a variety of card type games while listening to records and drinking wine. Yes, records! I also got to play with their adorable kitty who is a total ham and sweetheart.

Dinner parties are something that always make me feel very Grown Up. Probably because my dinner is usually a hot pocket in front of the computer. I don't even have a table! Unless you count tv trays. My dining room has 4 bookshelves and a desk crammed into it. In retrospect I could easily move my desk into my bedroom... but I don't really do much entertaining. Hmm. I don't know. Anyway!

It was a delightful evening and I'm always glad to spend time with them. They are always a hoot and we are usually in a large group when we see each other so being able to actually have conversations is definitely nice!

*Not real names

Sushi, some beer, and ice storm 2013

I know that this is mainly an outlet to share my attempts to become or be or do more/better/best before I'm 30, but it gets really old talking about just that I'm probably going to run out of content sooner rather than later if that's all I talk about! So, from time to time I'll be posting about things of a more personal nature than just books I've read and movies I've watched.

So, that being said last week had a few particularly note worthy events happen! First of all, a little bit of a back-story is required. (Names have been smudged for privacy reasons) I've known Mr. S for over 5 years now. We met through friends of friends, as you do, and since then I've been to countless parties he's hosted, drank countless beers together, and celebrated his marriage to Ms. F.

Unfortunately, (for us here!) The two of them have decided, due to a variety of factors, to move to a state Far Away. This will be a fantastic opportunity for them and they are both thrilled. We will miss them dearly but are equally happy for them. They have been discussing this for a rather long time and all of it has really come to a head this month. The house is on the market, Ms. F is currently safely settled in their new home, and their going away parties were last week.

On Wednesday Mr. S had a combination going away/plate party at a local bar. If you have 200 different beers (at a max of 3 a day) you are awarded a plate and given a party. This was, I believe, his 4th plate and he finished right on time! They ordered a wide variety of beers for us to all sample and we ended up staying until after midnight. It was a very fun farewell with a lot of laughter and tears. The next night we had a smaller, quieter final sushi dinner at our favorite sushi place that has been our go to spot for years for birthday dinners, celebrations, or just random dinners. This finished up much earlier than the previous night and overnight we got hit with a pretty heavy ice storm!

Friday Morning I wake up and the city was covered in a thick sheet of ice. The entire nearly half an hour long walk to work it continued to sleet and when I did finally make it to work I found it nearly deserted. Luckily I had already planned on the following Monday and Tuesday being off! By the time I left (slightly early) there was practically no one on the road and every available surface was covered in nearly an inch of ice. I get home and the electricity was out. Oh joy!

Luckily, I had already planned on being out as a friend was having a party that evening, so thankfully a friend of mine arrived not long after in his trusty 4 wheel drive truck to pick me up. That night we had a small party that surprisingly had more guests than expected considering it was still terrible outside, and we partied hard late into the next morning. Saturday was spent mostly taking it easy until the evening when we went to a nearby friends house for a Christmas bash where good times were had by all.

After we finished there we went for a short (but extremely memorable!) joyride in a nearby field and danced the night away to various Whitney Houston songs and other 90s hits. Sunday I get home and electricity has been restored! Temperatures remain cold so I don't even leave my apartment until I have to on Wednesday (which is technically tomorrow according to this post...), at which point most of the ice had melted. Hoorah!

So there we have it.

Getting paid to judge people

I don’t know if I mentioned my intentions to cut down posting to twice a week (likely Tues/Thurs) but that’s the plan from here on out! And now, for something completely different, my experience with jury duty!

Okay, first of all the process itself was relatively smooth and efficient. I was told by my paperwork to arrive by 8:30am and I did (well, a bit earlier!) and I was sitting in the actual courtroom awaiting whether I'd be chosen or not by about 10:15. I'd estimate at LEAST an hour of that was waiting for lame ass jabroni late people to show up (A WHOLE BUNCH) or for people that didn't either mail in their paperwork OR fill it out online ahead of time to do that. LAME. 

I get my assigned court and wait about 15-20, maybe, to go into the courtroom with the other 23 people. Introductions were made and the Defense had Grumpy SMU Big Cheese, Nervous Noob, and the Defendant. It was announced upfront that Nervous Noob was not yet an Actual Lawyer and this was his very first trial experience!!! Prosecution had ADA and Slightly Flustered Firstimer. We did not find out until later that this was her first trial (after verdict had been reached and we were out of the courtroom) but I guessed as much. She was confident and less flustered than Nervous Noob but she still made quite a few "mistakes" that made it pretty clear that she didn't have a lot of experience. 

Prosecutor 

Defense side I'd say about 60% was handled by Nervous Noob. His mentor spent a lot of time loudly whispering in his ear what to say or do, even when it seemed clear that he already did. From my position I could clearly hear Big Boss loudly whispering, despite the fact that I was closer to the Prosecutor. Which is to say he wasn't given a chance to speak first in a lot of cases. On the Prosecution side it was more like 90% Flustered Firstimer. When the ADA did have input he would quietly give her an aside and despite being as close as possible to both of them, I couldn't hear a word. All 4 participated in closing arguments. 

Now, as for the case itself I won't get too specific more out of respect than for any legal reasons. I will say that nearly two years ago a man (I'll call Dennis) was pulled over for speeding and ultimately arrested and subsequently charged with a DWI and that's what we were there for. After a couple of hours of back and forth, the police officer on the stand, a defense expert called up, and watching the entire 45 minute dash cam we were sent to the jury room where we found him guilty.

Random Thoughts
* I exited the area with him RIGHT BEHIND ME and held the door open for him without noticing at first and then was like OH CRAP but he did not say anything to me or appear angry. 

*We had 6 people. 5 women and 1 man. One of the ladies originally jokingly suggested the guy be the foreman (because foreMAN har har har) and he demurred so I said bitch I'll do it. (Did not say bitch)

To start with we all wrote down our verdict and placed them in the middle. 4 guilty, 2 not guilty. 1 of the not guilty people honestly I don't think, um, well. She agreed with our assessment that he should be found guilty but was quoted as saying "he deserves a second chance" which is totally irrelevant. The other person was Not Guilty but leaning towards undecided. The 4 of us (mostly myself and another lady) laid out our justifications based on evidence presented.

Leaning Lady made some counterpoints, we discussed those, sort of batted the ball back and forth on this and that. Very civil and logical. After maybe half an hour Leaning Lady decided that she agreed with the Guilty verdict and Second Chance lady (apparently) realized that oh wait this is a court of law and we were deciding Innocence vs Guilt not la la la this person deserves a "second chance" for whatever bizarro reasons she was thinking. She did some thinking out loud, basically, and determined that there was sufficient evidence to declare him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We then all verbally confirmed that our verdict was guilty, multiple times. I signed the paperwork stating as such and pressed a button to summon the bailiff. 

* Turns out, in the county of Dallas (and possibly state of Texas) you do not need to prove a BAC of 0.08 or higher in order to arrest/prosecute someone for a DWI. In fact, at the time of the arrest (nearly two years ago) they were moving away from performing breathalyzers in general in favor of doing actual blood tests. Additionally, at the time of arrest you could refuse a blood sample (the defendant did) and the officer could CHOOSE whether to request a warrant for said blood. Now, it is standard that the officer will request a warrant if you refuse a blood draw, but at the time it wasn’t.

So yes. You can be convicted of a DWI even without having BAC evidence. He was, based on the 45 minute arrest video we watched, incredibly intoxicated and he admitted on tape repeatedly that he had been drinking. Out of a possible “drunk scale” (my words!) of 0-18 (based on the field sobriety tests) (I think it’s 18, I could be off on this) he received a 16. It’s either a 6 or an 8 that is considered intoxicated. Dude was super wasted.

*We did discuss that the Defendant admitted to drinking 80 ounces of beer (He was a shorter man of average build, for the record and that's just what he had admitted to!) in no more than 45 minutes. (Based on the time he was pulled over and the time he says left work.) We also had an extensive discussion on whether or not his incredibly slow and yet very slurred speech in addition to his inability to properly perform any of the 3 field sobriety tests could entirely be due to nerves. It was very interesting and a lot more difficult than I expected!

Sometimes life is Fair

This isn’t really related whatsoever to the list, but whatever! I went to the fair today, which isn’t especially note worthy because I’ve gone every year I’ve been in Texas for it since moving here. It was slightly different than usual, though.

*This year I took a half day and arrived shortly after 1 on opening day. Surprisingly enough, opening day (or night) typically isn’t that busy. This had more people than it perhaps would have otherwise though due to the unveiling of the new Big Tex. Even still, lines were mostly pretty short and we didn’t have to fight the crowds too much.

*New Big Tex! Our previous Fair mascot burned down in a horrific (if slightly hilarious) fire on the last day of the fair last year, while thousands of onlookers stood by in horror. He’s just as creepy as he used to be but he has a new outfit and I imagine a new voice, since the previous dude was let go for vague and mysterious reasons

*They had an exhibit featuring previous incarnations of Big Tex, which is kind of cool to see. What is NOT so cool is the room where they had his charred hands (the only remaining part of him that wasn’t destroyed by the fire) and a disembodied head from the original Big Tex on display together, for some inexplicable reason. What the what state fair?

What the what. Lots of fried foods were eaten and shared amongst ourselves. The standout being the King Ranch Casserole. It’s basically a cheesestick in the shape of texas. With a tiny texas flag stuck in it! So good. Cuban roll was decent, but not great. Thanksgiving dinner was basically a ball of deep fried stuffing, and the golden millionaire pie was super delicious. I will be returning again in a couple weeks, and there are a few more things I look forward to trying!