Tag: raves

Bar Hopping with the Iphone

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Today’s post is brought to you by  the one and only Noni. That’s right, Big Jude, my mom is the guest blogger today. She didn’t intend it, but when she sent me the following email, I knew it was perfect fodder for The Goon Room. So grab a drink and toast the 55+ crowd and their salute to the Iphone. Her quote about what kind of Iphone she has is my favorite – enjoy and thanks Nonester!

Yesterday I found the perfect place for a bar—next to the Apple store at Biltmore Mall.
 
Went to the Apple Store to have my Iphone checked out—you make the appointment on line (of Course) once you figure out how to move the page far enough down to let you see everything because of course you use the larger print on the computer than the under 30’s.  Then you book the appointment at the genius bar and you become hopeful—like maybe the Iphone can be fixed and no longer run down to dead battery every 4 hours, maybe it will finally connect to WIFI and that damn Siri will quit asking how she can help and when you tell her she just says—I’m busy now.
 
So off I go —a little early cause afterall they’re doing me this great service and I arrive –the store is a large loud box—all hard surfaces so everything is alive and moving—the tables are lined with goodies—Iphones, Ipads, computers, TV’s and there are no signs because cyber people know where to go because Siri told them….me unfortunately had that deer in the headlite look in my eye and I clutched my Iphone hoping somehow it would communicate with the mother ship and let her know I had arrived!
 
Everyone in the store that is a customer is an average age of 55+ (I’m being nice) and everyone working there is 19+ (again kindness).  I wanted to fit in so I thought I would look at an extra plug for my Iphone—make nice kinda—a perky young thing pounced on me and offered help—What kind of Iphone do you have—well I was ready–“White”!  She saw the little darling under my arm and snatched it up and announced —Just an Iphone!  Ok, I’m learning…..then she asks if I would like to check myself out—frankly I just got here and was hoping to check myself in—so I decline and she says ok—do you want me to email your receipt or do you want a paper receipt—well I figured she didn’t know my email so I say paper—only to find out they don’t have paper—so I said skip the receipt—I’m really here for trouble shooting.
 
Three very nice young people checked their tiny little wireless computers and saw I was indeed a “scheduled guest” for the genius bar!!  One of them drew the short straw and suggested I “take a load off”—now seriously at my age and backside don’t ever use the  word “load” in the same sentence with my name…..so I continued to stare into the vast array of things flashing, happening, and doing.  Finally a nice young man who only spoke Japanese appeared and announced he was there to help.  He asked me several questions with that thick Japanese broken English to which I politely replied “What???” and then he suggested a Reset was in store—so I handed over the Iphone and he proceeded to wipe it out as I watched and asked me to hold it for 5 minutes—I think this is similar to how the doctors let you visit with the sick family member before they pull the plug.  He pulled the plug and handed it back and said—if that didn’t fix it reschedule another appointment—so I walked out shell shocked realizing I had just lost all the phone numbers, my email, and my 3 new audio books and as I drove home in the quiet I realized a martini bar next to that store would have a steady flow of people (55+) all day long!!!  Anyone up for investing?

Interesting Enchiladas

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I think *no jinx* I might be through the morning sickness business. I say this because over the last week I’ve stopped being totally repulsed by food and even, dare I say, started to get hungry for things besides turkey sandwiches on Hawaiian rolls. That said, I got a huge hankering for sweet potatoes…and black beans. A quick trip to my Pinterest “YUM” page and I found a recipe for sweet potato and black bean enchiladas. I added the ingredients to my grocery list and headed out the door.

While I was mixing, I started getting second thoughts. Who they hell thought sweet potatoes belonged in enchiladas?? But I was already knee deep in the recipe and thought we could have quesadillas if it turned out as wrong as it sounded.

To my, and PW’s surprise, they were DELICIOUS! I put my own spin on the recipe by adding some frozen corn – a yummy addition if I do say so myself. I love how easy this is since most of the ingredients will last for a few weeks in the fridge and pantry making it a “go to” meal since it won’t require a trip to the store for fresh stuff. Also, I think it would freeze nicely AND would be a  nice gift recipe – you know, when someone has a baby, is sick or just needs some home cooked food!

Ingredients:

Small corn tortillas at room temperature (so they break less)

1 large sweet potato

1 can of black beans – I like Bush’s

1 small jar of salsa – I used Newman’s Own

1 can of red enchilada sauce – I used Hatch

1 small bag of frozen corn

Mexican shreded cheese

Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Peel and cube the sweet potato into bite sized pieces. Put into steamer basket and cook until soft – about 15 minutes.

3. Drain can of black beans and pour into a large bowl. Add cooked sweet potato and about 3/4 of the jar of salsa. Mix in about half the bag of frozen corn. Add several good shakes of salt and a little pepper. Stir until combined.

4. Using a greased baking dish – take tortilla, spoon in mixture, roll and place seam side down in dish. Don’t panic if they break or spill, just squish them together. Repeat, lining them up side by side until the dish is full.

5. Pour can of sauce over the top of the tortillas so that it’s evenly distributed. Cover top completely with cheese.

6. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the top is getting crispy. Serve with a big dallop of sour cream.

 

*this is where a picture would be…but since I thought they were going to be crappy, I didn’t take one! Oh well, use your imagination 😉

 

 

Gettin’ Strait

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Friday night we joined good friends Ryan and Lisa for dinner and the George Strait concert. It was the second time I’ve seen him and it’s honestly one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. The man may be getting older, but man can he still entertain! He hit all of my favorites; Run, Blue Clear Sky, The Chair and Amarillo by Morning – a favorite of both PW and I. We especially like that we have been in Amarillo, in the morning while listening to Amarillo by Morning.  We’re nerds, we know.

The Iphone did not capture just how good our seats were…

I think the best part about George is he plays a ton of old stuff with a few new songs – so the result is a lost voice from singing along all night. We also had fantastic club level seats thanks to Ryan. Although when PW is enjoying himself, he is all. over. the. place in those rolling chairs…

I think my favorite was the encore. He opened with Fireman and then did a 10 minute long rendition of Folsom Prison Blues.  It was really amazing.

The last time I saw him was about 7 years ago. My entire family was there and we had a box. PW was still in law school and completely annoyed because we kept calling him and singing to him despite the 2 hour time change. The best part was Mame was there and being a life long George fan, she was in heaven. And a little drunk. Which made for a lot  of screaming and cheering. It was hysterical. It didn’t quite feel the same without her this time.

When we were kids, my favorite songs was All My Ex’s Live in Texas and  (which we heard on Friday). The reason it was my favorite was because I thought it was about tic tac toe – like x’s and o’s. I would always ask Mame “Where do the O’s live?”. Her response varied from trying to explain that it wasn’t about tic tac toe to just responding “Tennessee – where his hat lives”. I was also a little baffled why he sang a song about Ocean Front Property in Arizona when we didn’t have an ocean. It was then that she would explain that there used to be an ocean, but not any more. Because trying to explain sarcasm to a 3 year old is just too much work … as I am learning myself.

Creative Weeding

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We live on a great street. We have lots of neighbors with kids and we are friends with a good 80% of our street. Like sit on the patio and have a cocktail, come by for dinner, can you watch my kids for an hour, here’s my spare key kind of friends. It’s awesome.

Friday night, Melissa came by with several bottles of wine (if she ever leaves the wine business, there will be tears). We cracked a bottle and sat on the patio while dinner cooked. I told her about our neighbor to the West kids “borrowing”  neighbor to the East’s scooter. In their defense, the scooter was in the front yard. Now, we’re talking all kids involved are 3 years old and younger. Nothing malicious, but there was confusion about where it had gone and why there was a new toy in the garage.

I joked to Melissa that she was safe since she wouldn’t have any toys in her front yard. She thoughtfully sipped her wine before responding: “Do you think if I tied Smarties to the weeds in my grass, they would steal those?”.

I’m pretty sure we woke up the sticky fingered toddlers laughing.

Bop It

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PW and I had a very limited idea of what the hell we were doing when we registered for all our baby gear. I, the shopper with a black belt, was totally overwhelmed by the process and spent most of our first trip with my feet up in the floor model gliders. Thankfully, we did pretty well ending up with only  a few things we didn’t really need.

One of those items was a Boppy Pillow…or so I thought. This little “U” shaped, stuffed thing is supposed to help support your baby while you breast feed. I am apparently not the Boppy standard size as I would have needed 3 of them stacked up to help me out. But I did find it useful when Bay was learning to sit up. We would sit on the floor and try to get her to stay upright with the support of the soft pillow around her.

Normally, as soon as we are done with something, it gets washed and goes straight to a storage bin in the garage. But for some reason this damn pillow escaped my organized wrath and B spotted it at the top of the closet shelf. She asked if she could have it and then insisted she sleep with it. She didn’t have a pillow at all, is out of SIDS range and has enough stuffed animals to choke a horse in her crib any way, what could it hurt? It turns out that she loves it. She sleeps like a badger – flailing around and rolling all over the place. So the Boppy works great as it pretty much surrounds her. She looks so comfy, I’ve been tempted to snap a picture. But because I haven’t totally lost my mind, I don’t risk waking her up with the camera beep.

I HEART ZAPPOS!

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Yesterday I had one of the greatest customer service experiences of my entire life.  Seriously, it’s the stuff legends are made of.

I ordered a pair of Christmas shoes for Bay about a week ago. I love Zappos free shipping both ways policy (I hate paying to ship back a return) and I am now in love with their “video view”. You know when you’re looking at something on-line and you can’t quite tell if it’s the right color or if it would look right on? Enter video view. It’s a quick 20 second video of an employee holding, squishing, twisting and pointing out the assets of a shoe. I was set on a pair until I watched the video and saw the color wasn’t quiet true to the picture. LOVE.

Naturally I was super excited to open the Zappos box when it came yesterday – but when I did, I realized it was the wrong shoes. I checked the receipt to confirm that I didn’t have an aneurism while shopping and saw that they had clearly shipped me the wrong shoe. Right size, wrong color and style. No biggie, I’ve returned with them before so I knew it wouldn’t be a huge deal. I called up customer service and with in 45 seconds was connected to a person (LOVE). I explained the problem and read off all the number for my order and on the box. The man said he would get it fixed in no time and would I mind holding.

When he came back, he apologized profusely and told me that the shoes I wanted were no longer available in B’s size. Before I could relay my disappointment, he had already launched into a compensation shpeel – Zappos was going to refund my money for the wrong shoes but they insisted that I keep the wrong shoes since they were the right size AND they were going to give me a $25 coupon to purchase a new, different pair. Huh? I asked him to run through it again so I was sure I got the point – I got my money back. And a free pair of shoes. And a nearly free pair of the shoes I actually wanted?? LOVE.

When B woke from her nap, I tried on the new free shoes and realized that she really could get away with a half-size bigger. So I used my coupon and ordered her up the pair I wanted in a half-size bigger for a total of $8.99! Amazing!

She’ll be looking so fancy in her new, nearly free shoes! Shop Zappos. Shop them often and tell your friends!

Happy Father’s Day

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We had a lovely Father’s Day weekend. Peter’s one request was no gifts so we went the home made route:

Just what every dad wants –  silly glasses! They were a big hit:

Baylor is clearly excited:

Please note the oh-so-cool-improvised wands on the sides. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.