Random Thoughts, Part III

Yesterday Jeff and I had what we refer to as a Dobie Date. I should start by saying that last week was a very long week. We had houseguests from Sunday night through Thursday, and then Thursday night I had a speaking engagement at UT (and then tried to meet up with Tim S. and others who said they were going to be at the Holiday Inn bar watching the Cowboys-Packers game, but who did not appear to be there when I swung by...hmm), and then Friday night we were going to go out for Jeff's birthday, but I forgot that I had committed to my next door neighbor that we would go over to their house for dinner. I also knew I would be gone for two weeks, starting this morning, so Saturday was our one big day to try and spend a little quality time together.

So, like I said, we went on a Dobie Date. A Dobie Date involves three things: 1) going to Dobie to see an arthouse flick; 2) getting movie food (i.e., a big bag of popcorn, diet Cokes and Milk Duds); and 3) driving around afterwards looking for houses for sale in cool parts of town we want to live in but can't afford.

First up was the pre-movie activity of trying to park in the Dobie garage. Why, oh why oh why oh why, do female college students insist on trying to talk on their cell phones and park in tight parking spaces at the same time? Anyway, we parked and went in search of pre-movie food, something to tide us over 'til the movie started and we could eat popcorn. During our search, I saw my favorite graffiti in all of America: the frog-looking-thingy that says "Hi, how are you" spray-painted on the side of a building at 21st and Guadalupe. I had no sooner told Jeff that if I ever spotted a t-shirt with the frog-thingy on it, I was buying it, than, lo and behold! I spotted a t-shirt with the frog-thingy on it. I bought two. This was the highlight of my whole day (and it was a good day, so this was a big deal, kids).

Next up was the movie. We saw "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" starring Ethan Hawke and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (if you've ever seen the latter in "The Big Lebowski" you'll be a fan for life). Here are my two key takeaways from this movie: 1) it is possible to make Ethan Hawke look really, really nasty; and 2) plan to do something life-affirming after watching this film, otherwise you will kind of want to kill yourself. Also--bonus thought for you--watching Phillip Seymour Hoffman getting it on with Marisa Tomei is excrutiating and really, really gross.

After the movie (which did include eating large quantities of movie food), we went driving around town looking for houses. As usual, we found several we loved, but that we can't afford now or maybe ever. So instead we went car shopping. The Passat, which is affectionately nicknamed The Turtle, since it's green and kind of round, has 120,000+ miles on it. It is a wonderful automobile that is incredibly fun to drive, but it's time to start thinking about a replacement. In the meantime, Jeff drives an F-150 with whatever the fancy-pants package is that you can get on one of those things (but not the King Ranch package), and he puts about $60 worth of gas in that bad boy each week. So we're thinking about trading in our cars at the same time and getting two new cars (Jeff's is only a year old, has low mileage and it's in mint condition). So after doing a little research at two different dealerships last night, we went home, got online and built our new cars. It sounds kind of stupid and boring, but it was a pretty fun little exercise.

Anyway, the only sucky part of the day was that Missouri lost to Oklahoma--boo!!!! And that was my day. The end.