Lawn Mowers in Hyde Park

Have you ever had someone come to your house and ask you to pay them to mow your lawn? I see these people every week day that I am home from 11am-4pm. Sometimes I’ll get up to six different inquiries in 1 goddamn day. Boy, I thought that was out of hand, but wait till I tell you what happened at Trejo Trailer* yesterday.

November 28th, 2012

9am: Woke up, made breakfast, and greeted Roommate.

9:45am: Watched Fox’s “New Girl” while eating breakfast, and wished Roommate a fabulous day on her way to work.

10:30am: Began homework for English, I was alone in the house, received knock at the front door, did not answer

10:31am: Another knock, did not answer, took out my phone in case it’s someone I know**

10:31:50 am: Another knock, did not answer
10:32 am: Another knock, did not answer
10:35 am: Another knock, did not answer
10:37 am: Another knock, did not answer
10:40 am: Another knock, did not answer
10:41 am: Another knock, did not answer
10:42 am: Another knock, did not answer
10:50 am: Another knock, did not answer
10:51 am: Another knock, did not answer
11:30 am: Another knock, did not answer
11:31 am: Another knock, did not answer
11:32 am: Another knock, did not answer
11:50 am: Another knock, did not answer
11:51 am: Another knock, did not answer
12:10 pm: Another knock, did not answer
12:11 pm: Another knock, did not answer
12:35 pm: Another knock, did not answer
12:50 pm: Another knock, did not answer
12:55 pm: Another knock, did not answer
12:56 pm: Another knock, did not answer***
1:10 pm: Another knock, did not answer, constant knocking for 5 minutes

1:20 am: Received a knock on my bedroom window, I motioned for him to go back to the front door. I opened the door, stepped outside, lectured him on the proper ways of interacting with other people, especially on the subject of invading their privacy by constantly knocking on their doors, and extreme invasion of privacy by knocking on a bedroom window. I informed him that if he ever came back, I’d call the police.

This is getting out of hand. Was he really that desperate to mow my lawn, or was he casing the neighborhood? What validity did he come up with in his opinion that it was appropriate to knock on my bedroom window? Is my lawn so fucking insane that we deserve to get this type of harassment day after day? The last question is definitely debatable.

I’ve talked with some neighbors about this problem and they told stories of similar problems, but never to that extreme. Most neighbors settled on one mower that comes once a week or once a month depending on budgets, while others began mowing their own goddamn lawns. My household cannot afford a lawn mower, machine or human. Our solution is to write a sign to tell these dudes to go ahead and fuck off. Until we gain the funds for our own mower, we’ll just have to wade through the jungles of wild.

*Trejo Trailer is the official name of our house.
**Normal people would call before coming to my house and/or call upon arriving, especially if I do not answer the door. My experience is that anyone that knocks without calling beforehand are selling goods, services, or Jesus.
***I am not exaggerating on the number of knocks, if anything I’m understating.

Dreams are fucked up.

Hey guys, my dreams last night freaked me the fuck out!

I probably had 12 dreams last night and they were all terrifying. I’m not exaggerating, because I know I woke up 10 times and scratched my wall to make sure it was real life. In every single dream, I was in my own house, starting and ending in my own bed. They were extremely lucid, I physically felt everything, and it felt like a fucking inception nightmare. I don’t remember the details of all of them, but I do know this much (not in chronological order).

In one of the dreams, I was in my bed and I thought I had woken up from another nightmare. A large woman was sitting at my desk chair talking to me about how I should be more careful about leaving my windows unlocked. I tried to scream for Roommate but I couldn’t make a sound. She told me not to move and held up a knife. I violently shook my body until I woke up for real and fell off the bed. It felt so fucking real. I locked all the windows in the house, double deadbolted the front door, and went back to bed.

In another dream, I was in my bed, waking up from another dream, looking around and my walls were moving with beautiful white shapes. I was completely comfortable with the thought that I had probably taken acid and just didn’t remember. Then all the walls started closing in on me, and I felt one wall start pushing me toward an abyss in the other wall. I really felt the wall touch my skin, and I felt the sensation of falling when it pushed me through the other wall. I woke up with a shudder, and I was completely flat in the center of my bed.

I went back to sleep and then woke up at dawn, got up to take a shower, made breakfast, and seared the skin off my hand. Then woke up for real.

The last time I woke up before my alarm was around 5am, and I texted my friend for comfort and then turned my ceiling fan on. I think the fan really helped because I don’t remember any of my dreams after that, and I don’t think I woke up again until around 11am. Bad fucking night. I’m exhausted today, people!

Fight Club Initiation

Remember that part in Fight Club where pledges have to stand on the porch for 3 days and 3 nights of ridicule before they’re allowed in the house?

Well, I think I do that to people that like me when I’m not sure if I like them back. I turn into a selfish, elitist bitch. If they stick around, I usually end up liking them. If they don’t, I feel bad but eventually get over it. So far, I can’t decide if it’s a good or horrible system. I’m too goddamn indecisive. Maybe I should just be celibate until I graduate college.

Hangover Breakfast

My breakfast this morning was fucking bomb, and completely cured any trace of a hangover I had from last night.

NOTE: I apologize for not taking pictures of each step, but I’m not a fucking food blogger, so get over it.
1. Get an English muffin all toasty and shit
2. Throw some cheese on that bitch (both pieces, this is not a sandwich)
3. Carefully arrange some prosciutto atop your cheese mountain (cause you’re fuckin fancier than to be using bacon*)
4. Cover the top with a few bits of avocado
5. Take the left over avocado and put some salsa on it for later
6. Fry a couple eggs and slap them on top (SLAP THEM!)
7. Feast on your brilliance.

*Bacon is also acceptable
-tofu is not.

P.s. eat one of these while you’re cookin: Guayaki Yerba Mate Revel Berry popsicle (I got a popsicle tray yesterday and this was my first experiment)

Las Cazuelas (Review)

I have been to this restaurant 3 times now.

The first was when I had just arrived in Austin and I was on a quest to find the comparable or better huevos rancheros than that of El Trébol on 24th & Mission in San Francisco. The plate was mediocre here. It was not bad, but I was on a mission and they did not live up to my standards. (I still have not found any better than El Trébol).

The second time I came to Las Cazuelas was to use a Scoutmob coupon. I brought my friend Casey along with me. This time I was craving Cactus, so I ordered the Carne de Puerco con Nopales (#85 or 87. 80something), and a taco al pastor. Casey got fish tacos, a bold choice (but then again, I consider any seafood to be a bold choice anywhere but coasts). Boy, let me tell you, the puerco y Nopales plate is HUGE! I ate my taco first because tortillas don’t tend to keep too well. It was pretty standard taco, and the pork was cooked in a fabulously yummy red sauce. Then I began on the puerco y nopales. It is goddamn amazing. The pork is rich with flavor, and the nopales don’t over power the whole dish. There is plenty of sauce that you can mix into the rice to give it that much more power. Seriously. Yummy. I took half the plate home and ate the rest for breakfast the next day.

I didn’t ask Casey how his food was because I’m a disgusting, rude, self-centered individual. And I wanted to wait and see if he got food poisoning from the Texas fish.

Guess what, reader! I came back again. Here I am, eating my Pollo Ranchero (#70something?) when I was fully expecting to just stop in for 1 taco on my way home. Fucking gorgeously, disgustingly delicious, reader. Come eat with me.

Let’s talk about the atmosphere. It looks scary, I’ll admit. It looks like a bad hangover after an even worse Easter fiesta. The paint is chipping, the exterior looks like a Mexican soccer supply store, the menu looks like a 6 year olds birthday party invitation, and the counter looks like a deli. Fuck all that. It’s charming in a John Waters on acid sort of way, and if there were anyone that taught me not to judge a book by its cover, it was John Waters (which is ironic because he is pretty much what you see is what you get).

So, in conclusion, if you’re in Austin, go eat at Las Cazuelas (on César Chavez near Chicon. Seriously, if you miss it, you’re an asshole.)

Oh and ps (the most important part) It’s SUPER CHEAP. You can get full on $5.

Dreams

I had 2 dreams last night that I thought I should share with yall.

1st dream:
My mother bought a velocirapter. This was no ordinary rapter, but a sweet, kind one. We became the best of friends, as people do with their pets. One day, I went over to a friend’s house for a Christmas white elephant gathering. It was lovely, and featured all my Austin friends (even though we were in Marin County, CA). When I went back home to show everyone by new margarita machine, I found that my mom had cooked the velocirapter into velocirapter & spinach ravioli. I did not eat any of it.

UPDATE: I’m still mad at my mom and she doesn’t know why. Or that I’m mad at her.

2nd dream:
The Giants and Dodgers were having an all-in-good-fun event in San Francisco over an off-season week, and  had 2 parts. The first part was that people would run around SF putting up t-shirts from either team (being bright blue and bright orange), and the other team would cover those shirts with their own (for dreamland sake, there were equal numbers of giants and dodgers fans in SF that week). The point was that what ever team has the most visable t-shirts gets to have the game in their hometown at the end of the week. The second part was that during this week each team would train at a different undisclosed location each day. This was my favorite part because it meant you could accidentally run into a Giants practice and watch.

So as I was running around covering dodgers shirts with giants, when a couple of dodgers fan tourists stopped me and asked how to get to the ferry building. Apparently the dodgers were practicing at candlestick cove (the park outside, not in the stadium) and there was a secret ferry taking fans to go watch. I’m a nice person, not outrageously competitive, so I walked with them down to the bus that would take them to the ferry. Chaos struck, and somehow I got thrown onto a full dodgers fan bus going to the ferry. As luck would have it, on the way to the ferry, we passed the giants training ground for that day! I stuck my head out the window to see my friend Thomas standing between Timmy Lincicum and Tim Flannery. Tom saw me and yelled for me to go join him. He was the only fan out there, effectively alone with the giants, and they accepted him with wide open arms. I scrambled to the front of the bus and convinced the bus driver to let me off at the next red light. I walked a few blocks and found Tom and Timmy talking (why Timmy wasn’t practicing was a mystery I didn’t question). Now you have to understand, Tom has long hair now, just like Timmy’s, so they look a lot alike standing next to one another. They bonded over their long locks, and became best of friends. Tom introduced me and Timmy went in for a hug. I hugged back, and then patted his head, as I’ve always wanted to do.

In this dreamworld, baseball was a little different in one specific regard: the league was co-ed. There were many women on each team that played just as well as the men. This did, however, cause romance to blossom in unexpected areas. Specifically, between Timmy and the catcher on the dodgers, Patricia.

The Giants lost the t-shirt contest (i know), so the game at the end of the week went to LA. Since we were all best friends now, Tim Flannery invited Tom and I to fly down with the team, all expenses paid. We humbly accepted. When I got to meet Patricia before the game, we hit it off immediately. She was a total goofball, gorgeous, and super sweet. She invited me to her and Timmy’s wedding!

The dodgers lost. Yay!

Timmy & Patricia got married, had a kid, and I became the nanny, traveling all around the country for important games with little raven haired Beth. We all lived happily ever after.

My experiences with Craigslist

Allow me to begin by telling yall about my first stab at craigslisting for roommates:

Last summer I searched on CL lightly for a cheap room anywhere remotely close to downtown Austin. I ended up going with the second place I visited, mostly because they called me that night and offered $80 off the listed rental price. The room was by no means fancy. Far from it. The house was an awkward setup where I had to go through a bedroom to get to the kitchen, and my roommate had to go through my room to get to the bathroom. I was living with 2 boys. Not men, or even guys, but BOYS. It ended up being a horribly awkward situation where 1 roommate had a crush on me, and the other was overbearing and treated me like his daughter (he’s just a few months older than me). I moved out after 9 months to spend the summer in SF and start fresh next go-round.

I am now homeless and falling deeper into anxiety.

1st CL attempt: dude wanted to meet me before everyone else because he liked my email the most, but I was still in SF for a couple days. He went ahead and found the perfect roommate, but still wants to meet me so we can become best friends.

2nd CL attempt: I gave up before even going because I realized the place was way too far north.

3rd CL attempt: absolutely love the roommates, haven’t seen the house, wouldn’t be able to move in until October, and can’t get a commitment out of them (yet).

4th CL attempt: lady bailed on me before meeting me and hasn’t contacted me since.

5th CL attempt: lady found a roommate an hour before I was supposed to meet her.

6th CL attempt: lady emailed me with her entire life story, including an extremely troubling incident that required her to get “confirmation of sanity” from her  psychiatrist. I called her to set up a meeting, and she continued to tell me everything wrong in her life. We’re meeting for lunch tomorrow.

All the while I’m staying with a friend, and feeling more and more like a burden. CL gods, please smile upon me and give me the perfect ratio of price : location : roommate(s).

Also, I need a job.

Best Friend and a Swede

Chicago, sometime in May 2012

Best friend and I had decided to go to a shindig called Porn & Chicken. What happens at Porn & Chicken, you ask? Exactly what it sounds like, idiot, they play porn and feed you chicken. And dancing, I’m told. That happens there too, probably. I wouldn’t know. I never made it in.

We arrived at the line for Porn & Chicken, about 3 minutes before the time in which they begin charging a fee at the door. In the cab ride over, we had drank a large container of a Mojito mixture best friend had made way too strong (we also blended the mint leaves into the drink, in stead of adding them after blending. Bitch, that’s a mistake). Porn & Chicken really only sounded enticing if we could get in free, so when they started charging, we bailed.

We took the subway 1 stop down the road, and went into a bar to go pee. Then we went into another bar to grab a drink. Best friend swears it was ghetto night that night, as everyone was dressed in their highest class ghetto garb of leopard print spandex shirts, jeggings, and fake diamonds. Apparently the clientele is normally slightly different. I ordered a Lagunitas IPA, and a man behind me ordered the same. We bonded. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but I do remember he and his friend talking about how cute I am in front of me. I fucking hate that! I hate it when people have conversations about you in front of you, and you’re meant to hear it, but not be a part of the dialogue. That’s kid stuff.

Regardless, I became instant friends with this man. Did I forget to mention he’s Swedish, with a ridiculously thick accent? I actually make friends with anyone and everyone with a little alcohol in me, but that’s besides the point. This man was fucking fabulous. He was about my height with long, thick black hair, a long beard, and extremely bushy black eyebrows. He was slender, and wearing a shirt depicting some death metal band. We later found out that he himself is in a band, but I won’t tell you the name. I will tell you that several of my friends were extremely jealous when I told them who I’d met. And I can tell you it’s a hardcore metal(?) band that I had never heard of because I’d rather chop off my own ears and burn the wound shut than listen to that shit. He invited us to see them play at the House of Blues the next night, and said he’d put us on the VIP list. We never went.

Best friend and I had been talking to these guys for about 20 minutes before we all collectively decided we were bored of, and didn’t belong in, that bar. Swedish Metal suggested we go to a bar he had heard of from his friends, so we hopped  over. There was nobody there. Best friend gets very affectionate the more she drinks, so by this time she had been cuddling with me on the bench quite a bit, and kissing me every time I say something witty. I guess I should mention that she wasn’t aware of the concept of mixing spirits, and that you probably shouldn’t do it. We had been drinking white rum, and she decided to switch to whiskey (mostly because she couldn’t come up with a rum drink that wasn’t fruity…. so she ordered a whiskey coke). All this kissing and cuddling brought Swedish Metal to the conclusion that we were a couple, so I went along with it, hushing best friend whenever she began to say “my boyfriend…” This lesbian thing was fucking genius. We could hang out with this guy without any prospect of hitting the sack, and still get free drinks and hilarious conversation. The only worry was that he might think we were into threesomes… but then it took a turn for the best. He wanted us to find him a girl to take back to his hotel room (best friend swears he said tour bus, but I swear I heard hotel room. Either way, good luck dude). For some reason, probably my OCD creating a circle, I thought Porn & Chicken would be a good idea. He’d pay for the cab over, and for us to get in, and then we’d find girls in there that would instantly fall in love with him! It’s fucking Porn & Chicken. I have no idea what I was thinking.

In the cab ride over, my favorite event in my time in Chicago occurred: Best friend was sitting in the middle, and I began tickling her. She’s hilarious when she gets tickled. But then Swedish Metal began tickling her too! I did the knee trick that I always do, where you glide your fingers over the knee in an outward circle. Swedish Metal saw best friend react like an asshole and so he did the same… then he said the funniest thing I have ever heard in my life to date: “betveen zee legs it goes!” He didn’t mean anything sexual by this, he was simply tickling best friends knees. Best friend quickly locked her legs together and said the best response that could ever happen: “THE MUSHROOM SHOP IS CLOSED.”

Ok, two notes about this response:

1) My mind immediately went to dark places, and I thought maybe she was trying to allude to the notion that she has a penis. I thought this was brilliant! We’re a seemingly lesbian couple, but she has a secret penis.

2) I found out the next day that what she meant to say was “the muffin shop is closed,” a reference to the movie Saved!

Best friend and I never made it into Porn & chicken. We left Swedish Metal there, and we hopped a cab back home. We never heard from him again.

Hipsters Know How to Fucking Dance

Just so ya know, that last musical post that I did (If You’re a Hipster You’ve Heard of All of These) was actually written about 4 months ago, and I just got around to posting it. My laptop was stolen between then and now, so fuck off.

I have more musical artists to jizz to.
(WARNING: some of these songs are NSFW)
(DOUBLE WARNING: All of these songs will make you want to dance, so turn that shit up, get naked and jump on top of your desk. It’ll be good for everyone)

Continue after the jump, or just listen to my dancey mix over here.

Dayvid & Blou

I haven’t been posting. Wanna know why? Well, uh, my laptop got stolen…

by these guys

That’s Dayvid (left) and Blou (right). (Go ahead, bother them on facebook)

Story time!

I was at my best friend’s house in Chicago. Her boyfriend came up to say a little hello to me, as I’ve never met him before (she is my best friend, so I must approve. duh). He brought these characters with him. He didn’t know them, but his roommate used to work with Dayvid, and they happened to be hanging out just before I arrived. Dayvid was wearing a large backpack, Blou was wearing a large sweatshirt.

May 12th, 2012 (around 10pm), Lakeview/Wrigleyville, Chicago

Scene 1: Best friend and I are sitting on the couch in the living room watching America’s Next Top Model. Best friend’s boyfriend arrives with Dayvid & Blou. We leave the laptop (with best friend’s phone attached for charging)., and retire into the kitchen.

Between the livingroom and kitchen is a hallway with a door.

Scene 2: Best friend, best friend’s boyfriend, Dayvid, Blou, I and a friend of best friend’s are talking in the kitchen. Best friend’s friend and I decide to go outside to the deck. The kitchen has windows wall to wall that look onto the deck, so we can still see and talk to everyone inside.

Scene 3: Best friend’s boyfriend, Dayvid and Blou are ready to leave. Blou says to best friend’s boyfriend, “don’t forget to say bye to the girls outside!” They wave, turn around, and leave through the hallway door, into the livingroom, and out through the front door. Dayvid was in the livingroom while Blou and best friend’s boyfriend acknowledged us outside. They all leave single-file Dayvid first, best friend’s boyfriend, blou last.

Scene 4 (about 10 minutes after scene 3): Hana needs to make a call, but cannot find her phone. We tear the entire house apart looking for the laptop and phone. GONE.

We proceeded to spend the entire night (until about 3am) looking for the laptop and phone. We grabbed best friend’s boyfriend and went to his house to look up where the phone was with iCloud. We went to the police, who told us to find the addresses where the boys live. (Thanks, police!) iCloud lead us to a general location where the phone was that night, but we found nothing (even after ringing every single doorbell in the building). Best friend’s boyfriend brought a bat with him to beat the motherfuckers if we came across them. I’m a little glad it didn’t come to that, but at the same time… fuck them.

Scenario 1: Dayvid took it while best friend’s boyfriend & Blou said goodbye.
Scenario 2: Blou slipped it (and the iphone) under his sweatshirt on the way out.

We found out later that Dayvid was fired from his job at Sports Authority (where he worked with best friend’s boyfriend’s roommate) for… wait for it… stealing merchandise.

After I found out their names, I made a formal police report. That did absolutely no good.

These guys are scum.

Look at Dayvid’s twitter. Some of his tweets are so bad they’re hilarious. His name is BestBeatz… come on.

Now I have to buy a new laptop. Fuck those guys.

Update: In no way do I blame best friend or best friend’s boyfriend. Dayvid & Blou are lower than scum, and violated the trust we all put in them upon inviting them to enter our home. True, that trust prematurely given as none of us actually knew them, but that is nobody’s fault.