An open letter to So You Think You Can Dance:

Thank you for bringing back Will, Twitch and Joshua last night! I would like to encourage you to do it as frequently as you desire, in fact, go against your better judgment and bring them back for the remainder of this season, because now that Janette an Ade are gone, I kind of don't care who wins. Thanks!

As an aside, I saw this description of last season's gang, "Thursday night's "So You Think You Can Dance" brought back last season's dancers to perform the four Emmy-nominated routines. What a treat to see last year's faves return! Will now has dreads, Joshua shaved his head, Katee is smokin' hot and Jessica was better than I remembered."

I have to say, that is EXACTLY what I noticed last night as well, although while that blogger said "Will has dreads" I thought, "Wow, Will looks GREAT!" and when he said, "Joshua shaved his head" I thought, "Wow, Joshua looks GREAT!" and when Twitch was on the show I thought, "HOLY HELL, TWITCH IS SO HOT!"

Travel Journal Excerpts 4

June 21, 2009
Sevilla, Spain

Tonight when I went to talk to the hostel desk, the manager said, "Hey Molly. I saw you guys on the news today." "Oh, what'd they say we were wanted for?" "No, seriously, you and Laura and Ashley were on the news. They were doing a story on the heat wave here in Sevilla, and you guys were used as footage." At which point I recalled when I turned to Laura and Ashley and said, "there's a camera filming us. I'm sure they're making a tourism video or something." Apparently, it was the news. One day in Spain and we're on the news.

June 23, 2009
Barcelona, Spain

While driving into the city tonight I noticed a huge building off the road labeled "supermercat." I'm not entirely sure why it took me SO LONG to figure out that it was a super market. I just had this image in my head of a mermaid cat. Like instead of half fish half human, half fish half cat, that could be a pet to a mermaid. Wow. I am ridiculous.

June 26, 2009
Barcelona, Spain

Although I try to keep this as a secret of the most secure variety, I am genuinely an idiot. Today's example: I went to the Renfe Station off of Barcelona's metro stop Sant Someone or other to go to the airport to catch my flight to Santander. I was under the impression that the Barcelona Reus airport Ryanair kept talking about was the Barcelona airport that was 8 miles out of the city. I headed out there on the train and wasted an hour there going from one terminal to another looking for Ryanair. Then in my broken Spanish I asked and learned the disheartening truth. So back to Sant to catch a different train to the suburb of Reus. Now, the timing of this worked out as well as it could have, which I can write because this story has a happy ending, but it was absolutely touch and go for awhile. I got a train ticket to Reus departing in twenty minutes, then rode the hour and twenty minute journey ever-so-impatiently. When I got off, I went searching for a cab - there was only one at the station and someone beat me to it by 20 seconds. Then I met a girl from Tijuana, who had a suitcase, also looking for a way to get to the airport. There was a half an hour break in bus service and that of course was when we needed that bus. We called a cab after trying to hitchhike - my idea - and the cab dropped us off 9 minutes before my flight, and consequently 21 minutes after my ticket said the gate closed. It was amazingly funny listening to her yell at the cab driver to pass other cars, that we were in a hurry, but the cabby just took his time. The ticket desk told me if I could carry on my bag I could try to run for it, so I bid adios to my friend, hoping she could catch her flight to London and ran like hell. I threw my suitcase on the scanner praying they wouldn't search it or be a stickler for the 3 oz rule that I was absolutely breaking with my full size shampoo bottles inside. I was that moron running through the airport because there was no other option. When I got to the gate, they called the plane and I got the ok to run on the tarmac, they were about to close the last door. Here I am, JUST in time to wing my way to the Basque coast, and here comes the perfume cart.

So this is love.

My dear friend Cathleen is getting married next month. One of the things that sealed the deal as far as our friendship goes was when we first started talking dresses she said, "You know Grace Kelly?" To which my friend Analee said, "Does Molly know Grace Kelly?"
I was given the small task of finding shoe ideas to compliment her GK style gown - a task that I have absolutely enjoyed. In my searching I found the perfect pair of shoes. As in, if I were Cathleen I'd throw caution to the wind, and buy them for my wedding and then wear them every single day for the rest of my life, or the life of my knees. Find these beauties here.



Then somehow I stumbled into the occasions dresses at Nordstrom and found this.

My goodness, how much am I in love right now?

Expectations, or the Adventureland Syndrome.

Months ago my friend Becky and I went to see Adventureland. She was thinking it would be great, and I was thinking it would be HORRIBLE. Consequently, she was very disappointed, and I came out thinking it wasn't bad. Maybe that is the secret of life, to have low expectations...

It has been EXCESSIVELY hot here in PTown. Yesterday was an all time, record breaking high, and today is even hotter.* I went to the movies on Saturday because why turn on the AC at home when you know it will be on at the movie theater? I saw (500) Days of Summer and Away We Go. And while I don't want to set anyone's expectations of these films very high I want to say that I loved them both. I had a perpetual smile on my face through both films. Maybe you should watch them and enjoy them. I went in with high expectations, and I was absolutely not disappointed. So probably having low expectations is not the secret of life. Shucks, and I had it all figured out just a paragraph ago.



*For those of you unconvinced of global warming, I would submit Oregon as case in point, this winter 16 inches of snow in one day when so many years of my childhood were spent sans snow, and now this summer has been brutally hot - more extreme weather than ever before.

TMI

There are about a million things that I've been meaning to post here for your enjoyment, and mine, but I've been crazy busy these past couple of weeks. One of the main things being posting more excerpts from my travel journal, because some of those are super funny or awkward, but until I have ten minutes together to collect a few more of those, here are two anecdotes for you to mull over.

Last week we had a woman in to try to sell us windows, because we desperately need new ones. Within the first twenty minutes of being in our home, she shared her entire employment history, told us when and why her husband left her and her two children, and that her autistic daughter once almost bit her nipple off while she was nursing. She then proceeded to describe the shape of her nipple post the biting incident. She stayed and talked incessantly for 4 hours.

And we did not buy those windows.

Last weekend I went down to Salem to hang out with my dear friend, Analee, and we went to the Salem art fair something or other. At this fair, there was a band playing. The band was fine, but what made it so strange was the lead singer/harmonica player started talking about getting a cinnabon, dousing himself in the scent, and then going to pick up on chicks outside of the Lane Bryant. Classy.

Well, that makes sense.

Although I've never read or viewed anything of the Harry Potter empire, I've fallen in love with Emma Watson's wardrobe choices whilst promoting the latest one which all inhabitants of earth have presumably seen by now.



A few days ago, reading Harper's, I discovered that Miss Watson's stylist is none other than my old friend Caroline Sieber. And by old friend I just mean I really like her outfit choices and a few months ago when she was Vogue's It Girl I tore it out to remember how much I love her rockin' the Prada.



And, before I get hated upon, one of these days I'll read and watch all of the HPs...it's just not high on my to read list.

Reasons why YouTube is the greatest!

Travel Journal Excerpts 3

June 23, 2009
39,000 ft above somewhere between Seville and Barcelona

RyanAir has proved to be the craziest airline I've ever experienced, not only are they charging 3 euro for a bottle of water, but they run up and down the aisle and sell perfumes and lottery tickets. At one point after some turbulence, a stewardess came on the intercom and said some things very quickly - those some things both Ashley and I heard as "this is an emergency" and then the lights went out. After we landed, a large portion of the passengers broke out into applause and shouted "Olé!" thus proving to me that other people heard "this is an emergency." Laura of course doesn't believe us, but why else would people shout and clap en masse?

June 24, 2009
Barcelona

Last night when we got into town we discovered that it is Sant Joan/San Juan, and we found out that the party was at the beach. We were instructed to go there by metro by the old man at the hostel who was on his smoke break with this young kid who basically told us to be super paranoid about getting mugged or worse on the metro. I wasn't too worried, but the metro is a whole lot of crazy. First, everywhere we've gone there are people selling beer from a six pack in their hand or bag. Most likely they picked it up at the store and are charging more than they paid, but still, that's a little sketch. Then, we are on the train and we see people pouring alcohol from bottles into cups held by everyone in a huge group. There were people smoking - which I knew was against the rules because of the "30 Euro fine for Smoking" signs everywhere in the train - but what was truly awesome, was this totally stoned guy smoking a joint on the train! I kind of couldn't believe it. When we surfaced, we discovered that every single person in Barcelona was at the beach. We passed a guy literally passed out on the side walk. There were several guys who tried to talk to us, but one was so funny. He started talking to me, then quickly transferred to Ashley, saying phrases in English and French trying to figure us out. He followed us for a while, until Ashley let out the most amazing "NO!" I have ever heard. It was sustained and unlike anything I've ever heard. A little whiny and desperate and more nasally than anything Ashley ever says, but it was SO FUNNY. There were several different stages and bands playing. We got to see this great drum line, probably from a university jamming for a long time with masses encircling them dancing and drinking--standard merriment. There was one kid dancing like he was seizing and clogging at the same time. I laughed so hard I fell off of the tree I was standing on to see the drum line. We walked around a little bit, and walked past another passed out guy on the side walk, and a huge line of honey buckets with a bunch of guys peeing on the ground near them creating this massive stream of piss, it was so gross, and one guy walked through it in bare feet. ... Then we saw this band that was not awesome, but the girl joining them had a super cute romper on, and one of the coolest afros I've ever seen. There were a lot of people who tried to chat me up while I was dancing to the mediocre band with a fun beat, and that was awkward and a completely new experience. I'm 100% convinced it is because of my blonde hair. ... We got back to the hostel at about 5 am, and were followed shortly after by one of our roommates. He looked and sounded familiar, but I couldn't really place it, until Ashley said, "He looks and sounds exactly like Brad from Home Improvement?" All three of us quickly agreed, and were still talking about it when he came back into the room. Knowing he heard something, Ashley said, "Have you ever seen Home Improvement?" He said, "You're going to tell me that I look like Zachery Ty Bryan." "No, we were thinking how much you resembled Jonathan Taylor Thomas," I said this trying to be funny, but he didn't pick up on my sarcasm, and said, "Really?" "No." He never denied being ZTB, and mentioned playing soccer with those guys growing up in California. He also regaled us with delightful anecdotes about his friend being molested by a transvestite hooker on the street, and how his sister was on Laguna Beach. We IMDBed ZTB this morning. I am 85% sure it is him, and will state with confidence forever more that I stayed in a hostel with Zachery Ty Bryan.

Travel Journal Excerpts 2

June 17, 2009
New York City

So after my upset at Sotheby's yesterday, I called the Monégasque consulate to see if they had any more of the auction catalogs, and they had a couple. When they offered to send it to me I said, "I'm in town, I can come by and pick it up." The woman responded with something like, "ok, but we don't have an office you can come up to, so when you get here, tell the concierge, and I'll bring it down to you." She gave me the address, and so I headed down.

As I was about two blocks away, Jooj called because she was off of work early, and she was nearby too. We would meet at the consulate. I went to the wrong building at first, one who had a a most confusing address, one that said 564-6 -- this does not mean that 565 is in this building, by the way. But I don't really care that a room full of middle-aged Arabic men were laughing at me. Then, I found Jooj, and we went to the right building, but we weren't without doubts. When we got inside there was no indication of anything that went on inside the building. Everything floor to ceiling was marble with no art work, no personality, just something that seemed straight out of a spy movie. (I am not joking, what came to my mind was the Bourne movies, and Jooj went straight to Mission Impossible.) Oh, how to articulate how awkward it was in that lobby? I don't think it is possible. I went to the concierge who at first seemed to have no idea what I was talking about, then after asking again, he called up, and we waited. Whilst we were waiting, there was the most random group of people coming in and out of the building. I'm sure it is a situation where people live in the building and there are offices, but this was a truly random group of people. A young woman, a young gay couple, an elderly woman, and several people in business dress. The people who weren't in business attire didn't look like they could even remotely afford an apartment in that building, unless they are pulling a Jemaine and living in the utility closets. So strange. But, I got what I came for, and am so excited to bust it out and look at it.

June 20, 2009
Sevilla, Spain

My brother told me that Sevilla was the warmest place in Europe, I would argue that it is the warmest place ever. It was 40 degrees today, I don't even want to know what that translates to. I think it was especially warm because we were outside all day walking around Sevilla. We watched some flamenco, got accosted by some gypsies, and went to the cathedral, which supposedly houses Columbus' grave, but I'm not going to lie, other than the excellent exercise the hike up to the tower was, it was pretty much a bust. The best part of the day was the Alcazar, which is exceptionally beautiful. There were peacocks and ducks running around, and glorious gardens. ... We decided on some lunch, and found a place with a picture of a very tempting, ice cold smoothie on a placard outside, so that was our winner. Ashley and I ordered smoothies, Ashley banana, and I lemon. The waitress looked at us like we were crazy when we ordered that, but those were the only fruits she had that we wanted in a smoothie. The food was awful, just heated up pre-made stuff with no flavor, but we held out hope for our smoothies, that is until they were delivered to our table. Unlike smoothies in the states, dare I say, how smoothies should be, there was no medium for the fruit other than water. She literally juiced a lemon added water and two whole ice cubes, same with banana. Had there been shaved ice or yogurt or sherbet or anything, my lemon choice would not have been so crazy, but as it was, stupidest lunch choices ever.

Travel Journal Excerpts 1

June 17, 2009
en route from NYC to DC

I always try to pick my seat with great care. I try to choose someone who looks as though they have things to occupy themselves with, and who consequently won't talk to me that much. I also like to sit near doors so that I have a short wait to exit. With these two motivators in mind, I chose my seat. The vamoose was fairly full, there were no empty rows, but a few empty seats, and I asked a woman "can I sit here?" to which she replied, "sure." Before we had even left the train station, she was on the phone to either her mother or her husband saying, "Thanks to your sound advice, I am the only person on the bus who has someone sitting next to them. You told me to sit in the front and I did, and everyone in the back has two seats to themselves." When she said this, I was so sad that my cell phone's battery was dead and I couldn't call someone and say, "Guess what this passive aggressive woman who is prone to hyperbole and very keen on displacing blame said about me when I was sitting right next to her!"

June 18, 2009
Washington DC

I was on the metro on my way to meet up with Britt for lunch, (after a somewhat unsuccessful walk to Ballston from Ashley's house) sitting down behind a man in business attire and across the aisle from a man in business attire. Nothing about this ride was seeming at all unusual until the guy across the aisle retrieved a pile of recycled paper towels from his briefcase, and started pulling them up the leg of his pants, then the other. I was watching out of my periphery--so as to not raise his awareness--to try to figure out what on earth he was doing. After he pulled the paper towels all the way up his trousers, he took a bundle of paper towels and shoved it down the front of his pants. At this point, the man in front of him looked over at him squarely, and then paper towel man picked up his things and went to the other end of the car. I wouldn't say that I am not used to crazy things on public transportation, the max has shown me a lot, but mostly its things I don't want to see like bare butts or genitalia, not things that leave me completely flummoxed like paper towels down your pants.