Happy Leap Dayy’all! Are you living today like real life is for March?! I hope you are because I sure am not. I did wear blue and yellow, like a boss (did anyone else wear blue and yellow? Did you see people wearing blue and yellow? I didn’t, bummer). Other than dressing the part, however, I did not act like today doesn’t count. I got my tax return today (yay!) but I used to for responsible things like paying off a credit card bill (boo). I also went to the gym for TWO HOURS guys, even though the air conditioner in the group classroom was BROKEN and I totally wanted to fall down. I toughed it out y’all, I toughed out a half hour of boot camp (SHE MADE US CRAB WALK WITH WEIGHTS IN OUR LAPS UNNNGH), and a half hour of core class, and then a full hour of body combat. Presumably I sweat out every toxin and stray drop of moisture in my body.
I did, however, eat a croissant today. Croissants are full of carbs and butter and fat, and they are one of my favorite things ever. I guess that sort of counts as celebrating Leap Day?
Image via Wikipedia
Viva la croissant! I hope y’all are having a great Leap Day!
I am all about fake holidays that people make real, like Festivus, which a number of boys from my high school graduating class celebrate yearly at an Olive Garden. The last 30 Rock proposed a Leap Day that is way more awesome than any Leap Day I have ever experienced. Here are the traditions that were established by 30 Rock‘s Leap Day episode.
1) You have to wear blue and yellow. Obnoxious people will pinch or poke or kick you, like jerks do on St. Patrick’s Day if you don’t wear green (I don’t own much green, get over it!) but luckily I am not obnoxious. I don’t own much yellow, however, so I totally ran out to Target tonight and bought a yellow scarf. I’ll be rockin’ some old-school Pine View colors tomorrow y’all!
The Bull in the plaza downtown got decked out for it.
I actually really love Mardi Gras. I like big commotions and shiny things and excuses to dress up and have fun. I’ve even been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans twice, I had a friend that went to Tulane and I made sure to take advantage. HERE ARE SOME PICTURES:
Ah, youth! Okay, nostalgia trip over!
So like I said, Durham got really into Mardi Gras this year! And I was all about it! After work Jon and I headed to the Fullsteam/Motorco area, where parties were starting and where a million food trucks were lined up. And by a million I mean like seven but WHATEVER GUYS, Fat Tuesday means that the short rib quesadilla and duck fat tots from Ko Kyufood truck (I wrote about it in this post from last summer) are 100% justified. Jon and I hung at Fullsteam a bit, eating our food truck food and drinking some Fullsteam beer. Well, I don’t like beer, so he drank the beer.
ALSO, Fullsteam had several King Cakes for the taking. King Cakes, for those of you who don’t know, are these danish-tasting, sugary concoctions with icing in the shade of Mardi Gras colors and also some sprinkles. Each King Cake has a little plastic baby in it, and if you get the baby you win luck and fortune and good things. So Fullsteam had a bunch of King Cakes cut up and you could just take a piece. And guess what y’all, I GOT THE DAMN BABY:
I got the baby!
I mean I don’t even like King Cake, guys, I really just grabbed a slice at random to see if I could maybe get the baby (heh, that rhymes) and I totally got the baby. Because I got the baby I won a pint of Fullsteam beer, which I naturally gave to Jon because I don’t drink beer. Anyways, not a bad way to kick off the Mardi Gras evening!
We walked from Fullsteam over to the plaza in downtown Durham with the big awesome bull and its giant balls (I love this statue), where people were massing for a Mardi Gras parade that would be led by the Bulltown Strutters, a sort of paradey band with lots of brass and drums and like, good things. I’m not entirely sure how to describe them but they were really, really, really good. The parade was set to start at 7:00, and by quarter til the plaza was starting to fill up.
I haven’t seen Jurassic Park on the big screen since it came out way back in the 90s, and though I have watched it a bazillion times since, it is always interesting to be in a movie theater and to hear the audience’s reactions. I learned some things about Jurassic Park, on this night.
For instance, some people find this hilarious:
Oddly, Jeff Goldblum, tanned, open-shirted, reclining like some Roman senator at a feast, isn’t something that I ever found notable when watching the film alone, on my couch, every Saturday night on Spike/USA/TNT. But when you watch it in a giant theater, people start laughing when this scene happens. So yeah, it is totally hilarious. I never noticed that before!
You learn something new every day.
(P.S. HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY GUYS! Consider shirtless Jeff Goldblum my gift to you, I LOVE YOU ALL!)
Unless you’ve been living in a hole, you probably know that all six of the Star Wars films are being re-released. IN 3-D GUYS (I hate 3-D). Anyways, the last time Star Wars was re-released was 1997, in preparation for the prequels. Little did we know guys, little did we know.
So anyways, in 1997 I was totally obsessed with Star Wars. I came to the Star Wars party a little late. I didn’t actually watch them until I was ten, for some absurd reason, but then I got SUPER obsessed. I more or less memorized the movies, and I read all the expanded universe stuff (Thrawn Trilogy guys Mara Jade guys!) Since I was so Star Wars obsessed, and since my twelfth birthday overlapped the re-release of Return of the Jedi, it only made sense to take a bunch of my 12-year old girlfriends to see the movie for my birthday party.
Except it really didn’t make any sense at all guys.
As you can guess, most 12-year old girls prefer this:
over this:
Too bad I couldn’t provide this, everyone would have been happier:
The Dilettantista 