rabbit rabbit rabbit

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Woooowwwwwwww.  Can you believe I have lived down here for a year?!  I certainly cant.

These next two months will be interesting as they are the ones I spent in Sarasota last year.  I have a very different September and October planned for this year, although I've learned that anything can happen.

I got a much needed phone call from Eliza this morning that sweetly paralleled my life.  She was bemoaning having just moved in to a new apt and not having anything besides a set of Tervis tumblers. She didn't even realize that I was lost in memories of a year ago when I was in the same boat.  I can't remember how many nights I slept on the leaky air mattress before I finally broke down and bought a bed.

I told Eliza, it takes time but believe it or not you will eventually feel like you've settled in.  A year is both a very long time and a very short time.

Thankfully I still have Barbie to keep me grounded and remind me whats what.  Apparently this month it's all about formal evening Lady Gaga:

I love it, especially her disinterested expression.

The good news is that Ariel and JD are finally coming down to visit this month, the bad news is that it took a year for that to happen.  And don't even get me started on the lack of Meghan in my life.

There's still time though, I signed a 6 month lease so I'm here for at least that much longer.  Hopefully in that time I can get my ducks in a row so I can move out in February to some place a little more comfortable.

Today though, oh today, it's all about the beach.  Too bad you can't join me.

Heather's May/June surprise internet gift

Apparently I was wasted when I took that picture.  I don't even understand how I got it so crooked.  I took like four pictures and they are all equally as wonky.

Anyways, I had been anticipating my trip to Sarasota because I wanted to go to the Tervis store for myself.  It wasn't until shortly before the trip actually happened that I realized I could get Heather an amazing internet gift.  My plan was to peruse the various themes and try to find one that I felt was a perfect fit for her.  I was leaning heavily towards the crab but had others in mind as well.

When I walked in the store, however, I saw the section that I never go in and knew it's where I would find Heather's gift; the licensed sports merchandise section.  I embarrassingly had to call Heather and ask her what her favorite team was to be sure, which is a shame because my gut was telling me it was the Steelers.  I was just too afraid of getting the wrong team and ruining the whole fun of it.

Once I established that she was in fact a die hard Steelers fan it was only a matter of picking out just the right one for her.  With no help from Dan, the scene unfolded a little like this:




Especially the part where we all spoke in Spanish with English subtitles.  The only difference is that I was obviously the blonde nazi woman.

Hopefully I didn't choose poorly, I think Heather liked her gift.  I don't think she has fully grasped the amazingness that is a Tervis Tumbler but she has time.  It only takes a few uses before you're hooked.

It was only supposed to be her May internet gift but thanks to the ridiculous cost of NFL licensing it ended up being her May/June internet gift.  That gives me plenty of time to plan the next one.  I can't believe it won't be until July, it seems so far away and yet right around the corner.

now THIS is luxury

You have no idea, the moment that I realized I could take my coffee with me to work, it was huge.  It was also the moment that I realized Dan was right all along, you do need the lid to go with your tervis tumbler.  I was a fool for doubting you, I apologize here for the record.

I am in love with my new car.  I can't even begin to describe.  As much as I love the roadster it feels so much more appropriate to park this in the mall parking lot.

My sister and I always talk about how so much of our experience with something is dependent on who we work with, especially for big ticket items like this.  I will definitely say that even though Heather and I went to a bunch of places and had a lot of different cars in mind, it was working with Daniel at the Mercedes dealership here that made me feel good about getting this amazing car.

So my new project is to make a playlist featuring songs that reference Mercedes.  Here's what I have so far:

"Got a new Benz the color of bacon bits" Hold Yuh - Nicki Minaj

"Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz" Mercedes Benz - Janis Joplin

"Boom boom baby pick you up in my Mercedes" Selfish - Britney Spears

"Think I wanna drive your Benz, I don't.  If I wanna floss, I got my own" Love Don't Cost A Thing - Jennifer Lopez

"Smoke a L in the back of the Benz-y" Ride Wit Me - Nelly

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

I was also trying to think if my car was featured in any other pop culture references.  I don't think mine has been specifically because this model is still too new and it's not really all that fancy or anything.  But if you want to let me have some creative license I can say that they drove Mercedes SUVs in Jurrassic Park II:




I imagine if I ever get another cat this is the fate that will befall me when I leave them at home too long together to conspire.  But at least I'll go out in style!

For now I'm holding on to my roadster, hopefully Elliot is going to be able to fix it for me and then I will figure out what I'm going to do with it.  In the meantime I feel a little bit like this.  My favorite part was the description of the Rolls' steering wheel that had melted off.  I also thought it was interesting that the luxury car dealers were hoping that the cars would never get back on the market again.

At least I can comfort myself knowing that I'm not that ridiculous.  But it does seem insane to look at two different keys on my counter.  I told Eliza that I have finally realized my 8 year old dream.  She seemed impressed.

SO COME VISIT PLEASE OK?  THANKS!

it was a good day

I really did need to do some shopping here, but it didn't take a lot of arm twisting to make me come down to tervis.  And when I saw what the sign said I may have audibly gasped.

Of course the shopping I needed to do wasn't going to come close to $75 worth so I figured I should just enjoy the tervis experience and let the paula deen cookbook go.

So I entered the plastic cathedral, and oh was it glorious:

Now the problem with the tervis store is that while they do have an incredible selection of patterns, shapes, and sizes, their supply is limited.  Say for example they have a set of songbirds, they may only have 3 16oz of each; cardinal, blue jay, wren, and i've run out of song birds that i can think of off the top of my head and am too lazy to google it so come up with your own fourth songbird.

The point is that while some people like to buy within a set, others like to mix and match.  While fine for the mix and matcher, it creates problems for the people trying to complete a set because the most popular will often be missing.  This is why shopping at tervis quickly goes from a casual afternoon of fun to a strategic mind game played between you and the other shoppers.  You start to realize that just like you are noticing where everybody else is looking, they are noticing you.  When you are glancing in somebody else's shopping basket, they are glancing in yours.  It's twisted, it's sick, I don't like it, but I can't get enough.

 Because the store is fairly small you can only really carry around a shopping basket, which means you choose your items carefully.  Sometimes you pick things up not because you necessarily want them, but just because you see that it's the last of a set and you don't want somebody else to snatch it.

As you can imagine I was starting to get freaked out, I didn't think I could do it alone, which is why I was so relieved that Dan, sensing I was at tervis, answered his phone in the middle of the day on a wednesday to help me through some tough tervis decisions.  Of course while phoning a friend had its advantages it had the big disadvantage of totally giving away my hand.  I swear there was one guy who's eyes lit up when he heard me say that something was the last of the set that I could find, and then he went desperately looking for it to see if it was worth him picking up.  I ended up walking around the store whispering in to my phone with my hand covering it, shooting angry looks at anybody who crossed me.

Oh and of course I easily spent $75:

 
To be fair, Dan asked me to pick up some things for him since I was at the store anyways, so that helped me reach my secret goal.

And I love that it's signed, I had actually forgotten that part:

So of course after all of the hustle and bustle of an afternoon at tervis there was only one thing I could think that I wanted to do.

Make and enjoy some delicious iced tea.

iced tea

I think iced tea is the perfect demo drink for the tervis corporation.  I mean, it's quite brilliant really.

See tervis tumblers keep things both cold AND hot, which I understood in principle but had not quite grasped the magnitude of this attribute in practice until I made iced tea for the first time.  What's amazing about it is that you can put your tea bag in and then fill it up to about the bottom of the pineapple with hot water to let it steep.  The cup not only keeps the water piping hot, but the outside stays room temperature so you can easily carry it around or put it wherever without worry about the glass getting too hot.

Then when the tea is done steeping you just dump ice in until it's filled to the top and wham bam thank you ma'am you've got some delicious iced tea.  It takes a few minutes for the tervis to make the transition from hot to cold but it does it and you are none the wiser because the outside stays the same temperature the whole time.  Don't have a coaster?  No problem.  Sensitive hands?  No problem.  No cup holder in your car so you have to keep drinks in between your legs, which is fine when you're wearing pants but has caused problems when you've tried it in a bathing suit?  No problem.

The other day when we were driving back from Lauderdale we actually passed the tervis factory and I'm not kidding I got butterflies of excitement for a moment.  I don't know why.  It's the same feeling I get when I drive through Land O' Lakes or Zephyrhills.  I am truly a child of the 80's.

P.S. I feel like my recipe for iced tea could be straight out of a Rachel Ray cookbook.  Put tea bag in cup, pour in hot water, wait.  After some amount of time, put ice in the cup, enjoy.

Why do I not have my own show?

a tervis for every occasion

I'm glad that I can convey my feelings through my cup.  I can finally be like those cool kids from high school who showed up to homeroom with a glass of juice from home.

Only I get to take it even further and pick out my cup for the day that best reflects my mood.  In this case, it's crabby all the way.

virgin and not

Coconut, mango, pineapple, and banana.

I think my favorite part about mix n' match tervis tumblers is matching the cup to the beverage inside.

And as the thermostat climbs, the amount of drinks being made increases.  Tropical fruity wonders in the morning, transitioning into frosty boozy concoctions for the afternoon.  Speaking of which, I've got a jug of sangria brewing in the fridge as we speak...type...as I type and you read...  Whatever.

I bought triple sec for the sangria and had some left over so I used it to make this cocktail:

orange and grapefruit juice with vodka and triple sec.  Quite refreshing, and I think the color compliments the hibiscus nicely.  

Gotta get my fill of delicious high quality beverages before I head to the desert and the land of cheap drinks.  

lapping at the peen of America

It's monday morning, back to life, back to reality.  I took Dan to the airport yesterday morning, came back and slept for the rest of the day.  I'm not kidding.  I did wake up in the evening and managed to watch the new episode of celebrity apprentice (i'm obsessed), but otherwise I didn't have the energy to do anything yesterday.  For as little as we actually did while Dan was here, it was an activity packed weekend for me.

The picture above is from Lido beach when Scott took Dan and me there to watch the sunset on Friday night.  I was pleased that Dan's mind immediately went to celestial bodies and how we are but a rock hurtling through space.  After watching the sunset we ended up here for dinner where the three of us split a dinner called "Nirvana" that was basically more seafood than you'd believe.  And delicious.

Now, I can't really talk about Dan's visit without mentioning the Tervis tumbler factory store.  Twice.

As I've mentioned before in my blog Scott and I got these amazing cups that we were all excited about using when we had guests over:

That's strawberry lemonade in my Florida palm tree cup.  If you want the full scoop on them you can go to the source but basically they are really well insulated durable cups with fun embroidered decals inside.  Now, as Dan pointed out numerous times, I tend to say that I can't really describe the amazingness of things on my blog very well but I'll have to say it again.  Even after having seen my posts about the wonder that is Tervis tumblers Dan still had no idea what he was in for when he took his first drink in the pink flamingo cup.

I'm going to save us all a lot of "he said, she said" here and just say that of the three full days that Dan was here in Florida we spent the better part of two of those days driving to, and shopping at, the Tervis Factory Store in glamorous Osprey, Florida.

I will say, it was totally worth it because Dan overheard me saying how much I liked this cup and secretly bought it for me:

That was an "always the perfect temperature" iced coffee in my nice fish cup.  The handle seems a bit superfluous since part of the appeal of the Tervis tumbler is that it's insulated so the outside of the cup never gets too hot or too cold, but I think I like it for that very reason.  I'm all about unnecessary accessories:

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Thankfully Dan's trip was not ALL driving up and down Highway 41 betwixt the house and the Tervis Factory store, we did manage to fit in a few other fun things.  There was our first day at the beach, starting at Siesta but eventually setting up camp on Lido.  The water was brisk for me but Dan went right in no problem.  I did end up swimming a bit but the best was laying in the sun warming up after.  Thinking back I'm not sure there's much we did that day besides go to the beach, eat lunch, and watch Burlesque on demand.  It was such a different experience to watch it at home with Dan where we pretty much talked the whole way through it.  Or sang.  I'm glad we watched it on the first night as it appropriately colored the rest of Dan's visit.

Dan was rightfully cautious about sun exposure so we ended up spending a decent amount of time around the pool and under the shade of umbrellas.  One afternoon even featured an in-pool game of yahtzee:

We were experimenting with dropping the dice in the pool but they were a little too small.  You'd either need bigger ones, or like floaty ones.  Either way, let it be known that I came up with the idea and wrote about it here.

The final night of Dan's visit we actually made it to the opera to see La Boheme which my sister has been in the pit for.  It was the last performance and I still hadn't seen it so I was glad it worked out for us to go.  Here's my picture I took of the outside, though it pales in comparison to the one that's on their website:

The performance itself was so amazing.  All of the performers were on point, the sets were perfect, I thought it was one of the best performances I'd seen in a long time.  In fact I found my mind wandering during the performance to all of the shows I've seen in nyc and how most of the time the things I see outside of the city ends up being so much better.  Of course I'm sure I am a little partial to this particular performance since my sister was actually a part of it but I can own that.  I like going down to the pit during the intermission to see her and say hi.  It's a perk of knowing somebody in the orchestra.

The program for the performance was actually just a booklet program that they must pass out at all of their performances.  It had all of the performers for the season and the directors notes and whatnot.  It also featured a certain headshot which, along with the line, "you aint got nothing on me Goody Proctor"  became the Tweety Bird Pez Dispenser to my Elaine.

Thankfully we were not sitting that close, and most of Sarasota is deaf anyways so I didn't cause a commotion that required me to leave my seat, but let me tell you, I was having a hard time keeping it together.

The other gem from the program was in the producers list.  Almost all of the pictures were of a husband and wife all dressed up, there were a few pictures of people alone, and then there was this woman:

I love her!  That is exactly what I would do.  I want to think that her husband wanted no part of the opera so she took that picture with her cats to spite him.  Or, she's like me and wishes that the opera would be more accepting of feline patronage.  It would be very nice if I could bring the detective with me to a night at the opera.  He's always black tie ready, and I could get him a pair of opera glasses!!!

Either way those are two of the nicest little guys I've ever seen.  I'd really like to meet this woman and shake her hand.

So that's pretty much all she wrote.  Dan's visit was a whirlwind of drinking, listening to Beyonce, buying cups, laying in the sun, and opera.  I think Dan was sufficiently impressed with Sarasota, and hopefully, as his plane took off from Trampa he looked down at the diminishing coastline and thought, "It's kind of like the waves are lapping at the peen of America"

yum!

coconut, pineapple, mango, and orange juice.

I think I'm going to take this tumbler with me to the tattoo place as an example of what I'd like my flamingo to look like.

tervis tumblers

First of all, I love everything about these guys.  I'll go ahead and let you all down now by telling you that I didn't get any of the dog ones, but I did love them all.  They also had kitties, but nearly the variety that they had of dogs.  They didn't even have the same breed as the detective, much less a handsome black cat.

But the point of this post is about how I got a new phone today and was actually able to recover the pictures I'd taken over the past couple days.  This was the first one that came up when I put them on my computer.  I liked them then, I like them now.

As part of our continuing series, "making the backyard awesome" Scott and I  went down to the Tervis Tumbler factory store and browsed their literally shelves of outdoor cups.  They had a lot of boring sports ones, and several like the dogs that were just kind of strange, but then they had a bunch that were amazing.

We ended up deciding to get four medium size cups and four giant size cups and to mix and match where we each picked two and two.  I'm sure I will post all 8 over the course of the summer, can you spot them all?

Here are the first two:

I think the cockatoo was the first cup I saw that I fell in love with, mostly because that is the bird version of me if ever I've seen one.  Scott chose the hibiscus, after much pointing to it by me.  Don't they look so great against a background of greyhound?

Can't wait for summer.