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›comments[18] ›all comments ›post #271 ›bio: katie ›bio: victoria ›perma-link ›10/20/2005 ›12:36 ›archives ›first post ›that week |
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Art Colony: my first alcohol-buying excursion Thursday, October 20, 2005 › by victoria  Ladies n' Gentl'men... I worked 6 hours straight on midterms yesterday, and I felt exhausted, wound up, and extremely proud of myself. I turned in what I consider to be a pretty damn good english midterm exercise: over 2.5 hours, I wrote 10 pages, went all the way through Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, and A Midsummer Night's Dream...I was typing away furiously knowing that it was due under the professor's door at 5 PM and I had started the test at 2:30! Also, I was going straight to writing my english midterm after taking my ADPR 142 "Strategic research for Advertising and Public Relations" midterm, also known as "That Midterm for the Class that makes my head hurt and makes me cry." I need to start learning how to scan & post drawings, doodles and photos on here, because if I could you could all see the little drawing I did of a sad, blobby little character who says "Research makes me sad." The test was damn near impossible. In fact, the class should be called "Stats in Disguise" because the last time I felt such sweaty desperation was this past summer taking my stats class, and even though most of the people in the class claimed that the teacher (who was from India) was unintelligible, I actually understood him more than I do my "american" public relations instructor. I think that college student bias against foreign instructors is ridiculous. Some of the best teachers I have ever had were from foreign countries. They were actually thinking of passing a law at my college that would've barred foreign instructors from teaching if their accent was "too heavy." It didn't get passed, thank goodness. Biff also worked his butt off yesterday finishing up his complicated art projects which were due today. So when he came and met me at the Central Library--well, first he had to play me the hilarious 80's hair metal he was listening to on his old sony walkman radio...I started playing air guitar (*I can't help it) and being silly--anyawys, when he came and met me at the Central Library downtown, first thing we had to do was to check out his Uncle's website/blog. Which is totally awesome. He's an amazing writer--I really respect people who can write stuff that makes me laugh out loud, because writing humorously is infinitely more difficult than writing sad things. Not to bash sad things, but I'm so soft-hearted that I start crying during programs like Extreme Home Makeover or movies like The Mighty or even the old BBC Chronicles of Narnia (*i swear, it's the music). Anyways, I would feel weird sharing the blog address without permission but this particular quote is just so hilarious--it's about Sedona, Arizona: "Sedona's main street is a bizarre collection of shops crammed together for a quarter mile on both sides of highway 89A. Here you can find Minnesota Minnetonka moccasins, fortune tellers, T Shirts of all kinds and the same typical fare that is ubiquitous in any Southwest tourist town, including those horrifying "life-like" baby Indian dolls with hair and headbands. Brrr. They give me the shivers! These little nightmares don't belong in shops. They belong in Hell. And for the life of me, I've never, not once, seen anybody, anywhere buying one ... We found many of Sedona's visitors walking up and down main street, trying desperately to tap into the vibe that had made the town famous years ago-a time before property values in the millions, a time when locals could live without having to hold three jobs, a time when the red rock meant more than just an opportunity for a jeep tour. But the vibe seemed to be missing. Or maybe people have simply lost their ability to feel it in these days of rampant materialism. Predictably, many of them defaulted to the one behavior they could count on: to try and buy the vibe. In Sedona, tourist dollars flew out of pockets like lead flew from Colt six shooters in the Old West. The rich visitors set out about buying everything and anything they possibly could while on main street, and they walked with bags hanging from each hand. You could tell the newcomers because their hands were empty. Those who had stayed on main street the longest were weighed down with bags upon bags. Perhaps they reasoned that the sheer weight would push them through the Earth's crust and into the vortex, where they would ascend to a new spiritual plane of shopping bliss. We fled in horror, but not before getting caught up in the Sedona shopping vortex ourselves..." After enjoying reading a bit of the website (again, I speed-read which drives Biff nuts because I can jump from website to website like a hyperactive sugar-glider), Biff wanted to see if his Uncle had posted any comments on his [Biff's] website and was rather crestfallen that he hadn't. I told him that he [Biff's uncle] had probably gotten confused with the rather minimalistic and glitchy design of the site--hell, the site had even stumped the MIAD admissions person until Biff explained that you had to click on the small purple squares in the upper-left-hand corner to navigate through it--and then we crossed the street and waited to catch the bus. The bus which eventually came--the #10--was the smelliest bus I have ever been on. Well, possibly not, when it's compared with roasting-hot italian buses filled with old "rustic provincials" who don't believe in deoderant...but this one was pretty bad. The smell o'erpowered Biff. He got off the bus and just kept on wondering "what was that smell, Victoria?" and I replied that it was probably stanky B.O. but in an extremely concentrated and potently confined area. We went to Osco's and--ta da! in my first legal liquor buying excursion! and c'mon I totally deserved/needed a drink by that point--tried to compare/contrast what kind of alcohol we should get. Biff was enamored with the bottle of Chambord for $18.99--it looks like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch or something the Holy Infant of Prague would be carrying--I replied that I had no idea what you did with Chambord, although it looks incredible. Possibly carry the bottle around as an amulet? That's how attractive the bottle is. Biff wanted to get wine until I reminded him how nasty 99.999% of all wine is. I suggested vodka but that was a no-go. Finally we agreed on a very generously sized bottle of Vanillacutty--which i looked up on google just now and surprise surprise Art Colony got 3 hits for mentioning it (!)--and some cranberry juice. We walked home and made delicious random chili, which is basically when you cook in olive oil some ground beef, heat up a can of random beans (kidney, black beans, whatever) and a can of chopped tomatos (or tomato paste) in another pot, sprinkle in seasonings (again, whatever you have handy that might taste good--Sriracha, garlic salt, onion powder) and then mix it all up and eat. We watched this show on PBS about Immigration that was really interesting, but then we fell into the slough of watching "Invasion" on ABC and it was mecha-lame. You know primetime TV is bad when Animorphs: the TV show was better. Vanillacutty + Cranberry Juice = feeling pretty relaxed, going to bed early...until the roofers woke us up (or at least, me up) when they came to work at 6:15 in the goddamn morning! When will the roofers leave?! Seriously! :) |
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