I <3 Awards Ceremonies (a post by Lee)

So last night was the 84th Annual Academy Awards, more widely known as Lee’s 3rd Annual Academy Awards Extravaganza. It was a big night for me, for so many reasons. But first! Let’s go back in history and revisit the past two parties.

The first iteration of my Oscars bonanza took place in 2010. I only had 3 friends kept a very exclusive guest list, so only Jordie, AM, and Kate attended. While I was actively engaged in the ceremony to the point of near-riot when they cut Patrick Swayze from the In Memoriam section (I AM STILL ANGRY ABOUT THIS), Jordie read files for work, Anna Marie tied ribbons, and Kate actually had her back to the TV the whole time. I swore that never again would I host an event that would allow for such blatant disinterest.

The next year I sent out an invitation to about 40 people, heavily encouraging costumes and promising food inspired by the 10 Best Film nominations. Because I’d actually seen most of the nominated films, it did not seem too difficult of a charge. The menu was:

True Grit: true cheese grits [apparently I was not particularly witty in 2011]
The Fighter: punch
127 Hours: trail mix
The King’s Speech: Royal-tea sandwiches
Inception: 3-layered dip [in honor of the 3-level dream ]
Toy Story 3: alien cupcakes
The Kids Are All Right: Nic’s Tomato Salad is All Right [inspired by Nic's/Annette Bening's line, "If I hear heirloom tomatoes one more time, I'm going to shoot someone."]
The Social Network: Mark Zucker-burgers [my first attempt at black bean burgers; I failed remarkably]
Winter’s Bone: coconut pie [crystal meth looks like coconut to me, is what I was going for here...]
Black Swan: swan wings

All was going well until that very last dish – the swan wings. I had never even held a chicken wing before, much less made them. It was a scarring experience. If you’re wondering, to make wings you have to cut through the bone in two different places in order to remove the wing tip. It is a vile procedure.

By the grace of the Oscar gods, somehow the food was ready by the time folks started showing up. Something I hadn’t taken into account is that our apartment, while spacious for intimate gatherings and dinner parties, is not the greatest venue to host 30 people for a sit-down event – especially because we only have one couch. That coupled with the fact that we are the proud owners of the world’s smallest TV meant that we all got to know each other real well real quick.

Anyway, the party went off without a hitch (except for the part where NATALIE PORTMAN ROBBED ANNETTE BENING OF HER OSCAR, DID THAT REALLY HAPPEN!? On a related note, I am way too emotionally invested in the Oscars.) and a few people even wore costumes! Costumed people are my favorite people.

So now that I’ve rehashed the past couple of years, let’s talk about the 2012 Oscars. First of all, you guys, the party almost didn’t happen. I KNOW! Sadness and devastation! A few minor issues prevented me from organizing the party, but most problematically, we were having issues with Comcast. In that our cable had been out since mid-December and Comcast wouldn’t send a technician out to fix it. And then Anna Marie bestowed upon me a most glorious gift: she negotiated (read: bullied) our leasing office in to letting us use their clubhouse for the Oscars, without charge!

Here’s this year’s pun-heavy menu:

The Artist: The Tartist [apple tart]
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Extremely Lard and Incredibly Toast [buttered & toasted sandwiches]
The Descendants: The Desandwichants [a stretch of a name; Hawaiian sandwiches]
The Help: The Help Yourself to Some Sweet Tea [...sweet tea]
Midnight in Paris: Midnight in Pear-is [roasted pears]
Moneyball: Honeyballs [self-explanatory]
The Tree of Life: The Brie of Life [this is the one menu item Anna Marie contributed, and she admitted to stealing it from a blog]
War Horse: War HorSeeds [this was... just a bowl of mixed nuts... I'm not proud]
Hugo: HUnGOver [This was the drink station. YOU GUYS. I feel like this is some Will Shortz level of brilliance.]

But, really, who cares about all that because guess what happened? MERYL STREEP WON! Fun fact: Meryl Streep graduated from my podunk New Jersey high school way back when, so I am disgustingly loyal to her. VIVE MERYL!

Not Very A-Peel-ing (a post by Lee)

Two summers ago, Michael, Anna Marie, and I embarked on a weekend trip to Austin. En route to ATX, we decided to make a pit stop in New Braunfels. New Braunfels is famous for two things:

1. It is home of Wurstfest, a festival dedicated to German food, polka, and beer (more like Bestfest)!
2. The Guadalupe River runs through it, which means folks can go tubing!

There is nothing better on a hot (read: 103° and suffocating) summer day than to sit in a tube and lazily float down a river with some friends and beers, so we visited the Tube Haus and kicked our celebratory weekend off right.

After going through all the folderol of payment, tube selection, and sunscreen application, we finally set foot in the river. Y’all, that water was as cold as Voldemort’s heart. I felt like Rose at the end of Titanic. Ugh, it was dreadful. To make matters worse, by the time we acclimated to the water and sat in our tubes, we realized that the river was at a record-setting low so we had to perpetually hoist our hips to avoid unfortunate rock encounters.

Despite these conditions and the fact that our fellow floaters became rather choleric by the end of the trip, we had the loveliest time on the Guadalupe. My joy was only slightly diminished by my consumption of an entire party-sized bag of Ruffles potato chips; I am a disgusting and impulsive person. But still! Floating the river was the perfect pregame to our night out in Austin.

After we got to our Howard Johnson (which, by the way, was the grottiest place I’ve ever been to in my life – it’s worse than Delaware! – and just thinking about it makes me want to bathe in a tub filled with bleach, oh the HORROR) and showered, it was off to the theatre to see Michael’s friend perform in The Drowsy Chaperone then hit up Sixth Street.

Sixth Street is in downtown Austin and is famous for its plentiful bars and music venues. It’s basically a glorified frat house for undergrads at the University of Texas. Anyway, it’s not really our scene, but when in Rome! A few things of note happened that night:

1. I ran into Patrick Swayze! Well, not really, obviously, but I did encounter a bouncer who was quite strikingly Swayze-esque.

i KNOW, RIGHT?!

I have harbored a huge, unrequited crush on Patrick Swayze ever since watching The Outsiders in Mrs. Burke’s 7th grade Language Arts class. I even wrote him a 12 page love letter. (He never wrote me back. I operate under the assumption that he lost my mailing address.) When he passed away, I received phone calls from my friends’ moms, checking to see if I needed anything. So meeting his doppelgänger was A Big Deal for me.

2. We were dancing at a club and glanced down at our feet – and we realized we were dancing on top of sharks! Y’all, the dance floor was a shark tank. It was disturbing, cruel, and fascinating all at the same time.

3. Most importantly, we discovered that I was severely sun-burned. My memory is that I reapplied sunscreen rather frequently, but I guess I didn’t.

ow.

A few days later, after returning to Houston, my skin started to flake and peel off. I looked real unfortunate and like I was suffering from some terrible disease.

all the boys be callin'.

To help expedite the process and return my body to normal as soon as possible, I actually started peeling off my own stomach skin! I didn’t lose my tan; I removed it.

yuck!

Because my chest was also burned, my skin would slough off onto people’s car seats due to seatbelt friction. All in all, I was a pretty gross person to be around for a while. And for the next month I had to drive by myself most places.