Julie Ta's blog

State Fair, part 1

Come on in!

It's fall, and that means the greasy monstrosity that is the Texas State Fair hit Dallas.  Today's the last day, so I'm glad Dan and I got to go Thursday after work.   If you didn't go this year or have never been, make yourself "whalecome" as the ribbon-winning mat says and see what you missed:

The Food

Food stand

The food is the main purpose of the fair--people watching next.  Everything is fried to a delicious deliciousness, and I advise going in a small group (3-4 people), so like dim sum, you can sample more things.  Still, it worked perfectly with just Dan and me.  We took turns choosing what we wanted to eat, and in that manner, the locations of the food stands dictated where we were going. 

Dan's First Pick:  curly fries.  Standard fair food, but like you can only get at the fair, it was fried in the same pot of grease that the onion strings were, too, so every curl had a yummy onion ring flavor to it.  Drench this in their watery ketchup.  Thumbs up.

Fried chili Frito burrito

My First Pick: fried chili Frito burrito.  We ordered this all the way with the toppings because the Fair is not a time to be skimpy--melted cheese, onions, jalepeno relish (Dan's favorite part), picante sauce, and sour cream.  This was my big hopeful.  It was a new entry
to this year's fried food competition, and I think it won

The perfect item to have in a food fight

honorable mention, but Dan agreed when I said it tasted similar to the burritos I had in elementary school.  Sounds great on paper, and it tasted ok, but don't waste your coupons on this one.  Thumbs down. 

                                           

Dan, making the hardest decision of his life

Dan's Second Pick: fried P.B.J and B (fried peanut butter jelly and banana)
This received the "Best Taste" award the year it came out in 2005.  It was also the first time we went to the Fair together, but we didn't try it then.  Dan talked about this one a lot, but when we got to the stand, he couldn't decide between it or fried Coke.   We went with the "Elvis" as all the cool kids called it, and it was best thing at the fair!  The perfect dessert pairing to a monte cristo dinner.  Thumbs up!

Fried peanut butter jelly and banana sandwich!!!!

My Second Pick: grilled corn.  No grilled flavor.  It was unsurprisingly greasy, which led me to believe "grilled" actually meant "deep fried."  It was sprinkled with lots of lemon pepper, and tasted good, but I don't know if it's Fair worthy.  However, the fiber might come in handy, and for that, thumbs up.

Beer battered, jalepeno-cheddar-cheese sausage-on-a-stick

Dan's Third Pick: beer battered, jalepeno-cheddar-cheese sausage-on-a-stick.  Awesome.  The perfect item to tip us over into complete madness.  Thumbs up! 

Claw vs. Chopstick

awaiting death

1) Get home from work; naturally go to the kitchen to wash hands for a small snack before dinner. 

2) Change plans!--blue crabs are in the sink!

3)

"The Claw"

Chopstick/crab claw battle must commence.  









  
           (I don't think I'll ever outgrow this impulse)

Blathers!!!

Blathers

Isn't his bow tie adorable?  I'm so in love with him, Dan says he can't tell whether I'm smiling over Blathers pumpkin or at him. 

This took Dan and me (but Dan mostly) a pretty long time to complete, but I'll take equal credit since it was my idea to carve Blathers.  High-five to Dan for hand drawing the perfect likeness of Blathers onto the pumpkin!

And Dan's favorite: toasted pumpkin seeds.

Dilemma

I don't know if kids these days have even heard of it, but that's not stopping Channel 4 from putting on a full hour of Saved by the Bell from 11am to noon Saturday morning!  It was the best discovery I made yesterday, and now I can remember why so many girls were in love with Zack Morris.  He's too damn cute with his giant pompadour on his tiny, tiny adolescent frame and his charming camera asides.  Maybe these re-runs will propel him back on the cover of Teen Beat magazine and replace Zac Efron.   

Although, this discovery throws off my Saturday morning plans of watching back-to-back cooking shows on PBS.  Two episodes of Saved by the Bell or Simply Ming/Lidia Bastianich?

JTa, PD

So my career as a professional dog sitter begins next Tuesday, when I start taking care of a second pet.  I suppose you're just a helpful acquaintance when you dogsit for your cousin's, co-worker's dog and two cats for the weekend.  But when a lady living on the same floor asks for your card and calls you two days later, then I suppose its time to open shop.

It was a little bit like a movie:  I was in the same elevator as potential customer #2, and then we both swiped our keys on the pad and reached for the same floor number.  It would have been rather comically cute and romantic had it been a random boy and Dan wasn't also in the same lift.  She, of course, fumbled and made a wide gesture of never having seen me before.  We chatted all the way up three floors, and now I'll be taking care of a chihuahua. 

Yay for extra cash!  And just in time for the antique flea market. 

  

myfreeshoes.com

Why doesn't a site like that exist when myfreeimplants.com does?  In case you're wondering how the latter works, the site explains

MyFreeImplants.com is an online community. Through this website and our street team, we bring together two groups of people:

• Women that have a strong desire to enhance their physical appearance through cosmetic surgery
• Benefactors who wish to help these women improve their self esteem and confidence through cosmetic surgery [by sending a direct donation to her for her procedure]

Not really as free sounding as it seems, since the woman really have to work it to reach the goal of $3,500-$5,000 for a boob job.  From the September Elle magazine, "benefactors..pay $1.20 to e-mail woman whose plights or bodies--even sorely unenhanced--move them.  (The woman get to hold on to $1 of that; the site takes the rest, minus credit card processing fees.)"  The key for the bust-deprived is to keep the cyber-conversations going--some log as many as eight to 12 hours a day at their computers..."  Interestingly, most of the woman who really want it reach their goal in about 3-5 months. 

So, back to my original question.  Don't you think this is a gorgeous pair of shoes?  Does it make you sad that I don't own it? 

Model this

Bebe shoes.  $119 <--with some assistance, I should be able to reach my goal in a Saturday!

Shuffling to bed

Grandfather.  Still spry at 95.

The coolest thing I've seen this year

Ron Mueck.  Have you heard of this guy?  I never have until last month, when my sister and a cousin went to his exhibit at The Modern in Fort Worth.  So, Dan and I went this past Sunday (first Sundays of the month are freeee!), and I think I've urged everyone who asked how my Labor Day weekend was to go.  Seriously; go!
 
He molds and paints and creates fiberglass models and places hair--one follicle at a time--onto either much larger or smaller than human sized sculptures, so of course I was already going to love it.  The colors and details he places on these human sculptures are really amazing.  You can see faint veins on the body, tiny wrinkles around each middle finger joint, and intense facial expressions.  It was the best art exhibit I've seen, and I left thinking this guy should be more famous.  But my most lingering thought was who made all the tiny outfits?

Mask II

Woman in Bed

 

A Squishee--er, Slurpee--on a hot day

Dan and James were in town for Dave and Stephanie's housewarming party last month, and then we and the cousins made a trip to the newly minted Quik-E-Mart.  Squishees were promised to us.  My cousins bought mediums; Dan and I bought smalls.  Who can drink that much frozen slush after dim sum?  But, after Dan and I were almost finished with our "Squishees" we realized 7-11 forces you to buy mediums or larger for the official drink of The Simpsons.  Mmm, the bitter taste of conned marketing. 

Blind Cat Challenge

Hmm, can you believe this is my second time to such a challenge?  I guess DS picto-chat and MS paint were made for these things.