BaRou is the New Bklyn

European Vacation: Barcelona

Barcelona is a beautiful, breezy city by the sea. Our first view of town from the ship revealed old classic structures alongside modern buildings and sculptures. 

One example of the local mix of old alongside new is this seating at a fantastic modern park built when Barcelona hosted the Olympics, with the antique tower in the background.

The sight of sleek modern high-rises from the port was unexpected. I'd bet the Barcelona sklyine is vastly different than it was just two decades ago. And somehow, through the magic of the internets, we had booked a room at a four-star hotel for about half its normal rate, and it was one of those sleek buildings on that skyline, right near the end of the trip when we needed it most.

We hugged our pal Kyle goodbye as we got into a cab, with the travelers' knowlege that we might never see him again, even though we planned to meet him at the rock show that night.

European Vacation: Rome

I feared that Rome might be a little too fast-paced to enjoy: too much too do, too many other people trying to do it at the same time and doing it while zipping along on scooters in every direction. While that was more or less true, you just have to know what to focus on and what to filter out. We focused on eating, and filling the recovery spans between meals with sightseeing.

We rolled into town in the evening, and were finally greeted by summer weather. Aside from the slightly down-at-the-heels area around the train station, I was delighted to discover the city still looked exactly how it had in the classic movies, and just how it must have looked for centuries.

European Vacation: Lake Como, Italy

I had never been to Italy before this trip, but had always wanted to visit. I'd avoided it previously on purpose: I used to travel with groups of friends on the lowest possible budget. That meant hostels all the way, thirty- bucks-a-night style, and nothing too fancy as far as food went. I sensed that Italy demanded a little more from visitors' participation than simply gulping down a falafel for lunch. It also appeared from afar like a romantic destination, and going there with a rowdy group would be like trying to party with friends at a honeymoon resort.

So I'm really glad I waited to go with that special someone who was willing to co-rack up the extra debt necessary for us to eat our faces off in Italy.

Weekend, part one: crawfish carnage, part two

This weekend was jam-packed full of activities, one of which involved buying a vintage Louisiana food-themed trivet, and not realizing I'd purchased a souvenir of this place until afterwards. Immediately after that, it was back to being gobsmacked by the ever-expanding local usage of purple and gold.
Later, a very special birrrthday paarrrrty, which was another crawfish boil.

Jazzfest: all that

This weekend f and I went down to New Orleans for the final night and day of Jazzfest. It was a rare 24- hours-plus of fun together. We spent most of the time hidden away from the rowdy French Quarter crowds in a private courtyard of the cottage our friends rented at a great little hotel, which had a leafy canopy thanks to trees growing out of the wall.

Boil and Trouble

So I had the opportunity to attend V-Day V to the Tenth this weekend in New Orleans. I.e., a bunch of women, some of them super famous such as Oprah, talking about their vadges (or in the case of Oprah and her disciples, their va-jay-jays). I decided not to go for a few reasons: 1. My friend who was supposed to go didn't go, B) I was not on paid assignment, and B.2) At this point, I've heard enough women talking about their vadges. No need to go out of my way to hear more if not getting paid.

Instead, I did something I'd never done before: I went to a crawfish boil.
Hi, I'm Colleen Kane. I used to be a strict vegan! Then I ate delicious cheese again. (No regrets.) Then I moved to Louisiana, and now apparently I will eat cockroaches of the sea boiled together with various items such as sausage. (Regrets, I had a few.) Here I am being menaced by a giant crawfish. After the jump, thousands of his kinsman, slaughtered and devoured!Won't you join me?

Schlitz n Giggles Friday

In an ideal world, I should be the editor of Cheese Magazine--cheese as in cheesy, but hopefully this title would also get me many free samples of gourmet cheeses. Or, if Tom Scharpling decided to make a magazine themed around his term Awfulsome, I would ideally be a writer on their staff.
On the cheesy and awfulsome note, BFF/commenter Meanie T made my week by introducing me to the Utah filmmaker Stephen Groo. Some of you know of my obsession with Tommy Wiseau of The Room fame. But tragically Tommy has only made one full film and one totally bizarro trailer for a TV show. Groo is much more prolific, with more than 100 works under his belt. According to Meanie T, these films are dead serious, not ironic, and they often utilize fresh-faced local Mormons as actors, including numerous Mom-jeaned wholesome younger women.

I've only scratched the surface of the collection, available here on the website, with categories like Drama, Sci-Fi, and Horror, but here's some brief notes on a few I have watched. Some of these works are music videos, such as "The Boys of Summer," which when it says "nobody on the road" depicts nobody on the road, and ditto for the lyric "nobody on the beach." Now, I haven't been to music video school, but I would guess that literal translation of lyrics might be the first thing they tell you not to do. I'm not saying I don't break rules here and there...just saying Groo is a risk-taker. And although there's a comedic thread through other films, there's only one entry in the Comedy category, the perplexing work labeled on the site as "Gardners," which has a minute-long scene depicting Groo inhaling helium. Turns out when you inhale helium, your voice gets all high and weird! Oh, you've known that since you were five? Just sit tight, because the clip then becomes a campus-wide singalong to "She's Got the Look." That's comedy!

There are even parallels in a few movies to my main man Tommy Wiseau: Dialogue from the trailer for Challenge of Faith: "I got a promotion." "What's your new position?" "President." Only it looks like things don't turn out quite as expected...!

Anyway, welcome to a magical wonderland of time-wasting amusement. Thank Meanie T! Her sister went to school with that guy. 

Your mom goes to spring break

And then, I went to Miami.

Road to nowhere, part two

And now to sum up the rest of the past few days of this ongoing visit. I had planned my every-two-months-sanity trip this time to coincide with my mom's birthday and my friends' wedding. I call it a sanity trip because it is so reassuring to be around folks who I don't have to refer back to a blog post for the shared memories we have...there are no blog posts for these decade(s)-old memories, just the right catch phrase or look is enough to bring hilarities back.

The wedding on Saturday was in PA with the Jersey gang of friends I've been through high school and college with (and in some cases middle school, grammar school, and even little-kid-hood) and have traipsed around Europe with. We've had so many good/bad/ugly experiences together, and at this wedding two of us had another first together: oyster shots. It looked like this:

I had to run to the bathroom because the oyster got stuck in my esophagus. It was like doing a shot of phlegm.

(I am classy.)

Procrastination Station Friday

So many little items to share this Friday, many involving ways you, the reader, can waste time, which is what you're supposed to do at work on Fridays. First, about that Hallmark holiday yesterday.

Neither the fiance nor I could care less about Valentine's Day, but we each do a token gesture for the other one, because it's just nice to do that anyway, and to be honest I would get annoyed if he didn't and he knows that. I decided to make cookies, and because I needed to procrastinate, it had to be something more elaborate than the usual blobs of dough on a cookie sheet. I would make those homemade versions of the best Girl Scout Cookies of all time, Samoas, that I'd seen on Amanda's blog. More on that in a sec.

I needed a few supplies, so I  walked to the four-corner intersection where three corners are occupied by drugstores. Let's call it CVS Crossings. I was surprised to find that at just before 4 pm, it was a complete shitshow. Mayhem. Packed parking lots, cars queuing in the street to get into the lots, longer lines than I've ever seen in Walgreen's.

All for this:

How did it become a tradition for grown men to buy stuffed toys (with lopsided eyes, stuffed with rags) for grown women? If that's supposed to be something women want, they may have to designate a new gender for me.   

Sure, it used to be cute when a courting couple would go to the boardwalk and the guy would win a teddy bear for his gal. But none of the people buying these looked like courting teenagers.

Look at these ravaged shelves. It's like the Valentines' zombies came through. Braaaaach's! See you in the landfill, stuffed bulldog made in a sweatshop!