Melyssa-with-a-Y

Finally, one of my friends from DC made it down to Austin to visit*! Giselle showed up on Friday afternoon, and walked straight into a whirlwind schedule of eating, drinking, dancing, and football. First, we had to go to happy hour, to say farewell (for now) to Aaron, who is moving with his wife (Erin) to India. She won a Fulbright scholarship to go study art! He'll be "telecommuting" til next June. But we couldn't stay at happy hour for long, because we had dinner reservations. We went back to my house to change and wait for Atesha, and then we were off to Ranch 616 . It was crowded, but the food was SO good. We all ordered steak - three different specials. Mine had crabmeat, Giselle's had a little quail on the side, and Atesha got a mesquite grilled steak as big as her head! And the biscuits - we were so glad Aubrey told us to make sure we got biscuits! :) Once we were completely stuffed, we moved on to Momo's to see Skyrocket . The first set was int...

All in one night! Ah, the contrasts of Austin. :) Saturday was "get your groove on" night. While we do absolutely loooove seeing Skyrocket or the Spazmatics at Cedar Street, sometimes it's nice to go hear music someplace where you won't sweat to death within 60 seconds (i.e. indoors). So on Saturday we decided to go to the famous Broken Spoke . Cowboy boots required! (well, not officially, but strongly encouraged!) We had to have dinner first, of course, so El Sol y La Luna was destination #1. Yummmm. A carpool of four turned into dinner for five - no, six! - and then a table for seven at the Spoke. The singer -- Dale Watson -- looked a good deal like Billy Bob Thornton, though with more hair (and a little more meat on his bones). The dance floor was packed most of the night. The people-watching was amazing - everyone from long-time-practically-pro-dancer couples, to little kids being held up by their (grand)parents as they spun around the room, to a sudden ...

Last weekend a couple of us were invited to a "Rock Band" Holiday Party. The invitation suggested that we dress up like our favorite Rock & Roller, or band groupie. Rebeka and I chose the latter. We thought it was going to be a bunch of people dressed up like Rock Stars, dancing around, maybe some karaoke. We were wrong. It turns out, our friends have the Rock Band videogame, for which you need two guitars (lead guitar and bass), the drum kit, and the microphone. We walked in to the sound of the neighborhood kids playing Bon Jovi (hence the blog title), which would have been great, but they played it over, and over, and over....yes, the adults were singing along, but when the time came to pick a different song, we were all in favor! So they went through The Clash "Should I Stay or Should I Go" (I did the Spanish backup line under my breath), Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear the Reaper," and Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly" -- among others. We we...

Last night Skyrocket played again, this time up at Hanover's in Pflugerville. (and yes, I say Puh-flugerville every time I say it, just because it's funny.) :) The bar was smoky, which was a shock - I haven't been in a place full of smokers since... 2006, I think - but at least it was indoors, so we didn't sweat to death unless we were actually dancing. The dance floor was small, but we didn't care! We took over the spot in front of the band, which also meant that Rebeka caught the eye of the lead singer, whether she liked it or not. They played a good run of 70's classics, and some great 80's tunes - everything from KISS' "Rock n Roll All Night" to Tom Jones' "She's a Lady" to Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" to the Clash's "Rock the Casbah." And we stayed for all three sets, so by the time we got out of there, it was 1am. Apparently it was also "Miller Chill" night... These two...

I've been busy! So sue me! Thursday night, I went up to Pflugerville to watch 'Lady Jane' with some girls from my book club. Our book last month was Innocent Traitor - a historical fiction novel about the life of Jane Grey, who was Queen of England for 9 days when she was 15 years old. The movie is also her story, although it paints a decidedly different picture of her life, and particularly of her reign. The movie (1986) stars Helena Bonham Carter as Jane and Cary Elwes as her husband, Guilford Dudley. The book portrays their relationship as painful and awkward... the movie, clearly taking liberties, spent a lot of time making it into a love story. But at least Patrick Stewart was in it. :) The heat has finally arrived, so it's been 100-plus degrees since last week. But that didn't stop us from going out dancing on Friday night! About 15 of us went to Cedar Street to see Skyrocket, a great 80's cover band. We took a bunch of 'before' and 'aft...

Saturday night, E and I went to see the Austin Symphony's tribute to the Beatles. The website said the layout was picnic tables - I was sure we were going to be sitting outside, like Wolf Trap . But I was wrong! It was inside the Palmer Center's cavernous music hall. We picked up dinner at Central Market beforehand. A lot of the other patrons had box dinners from Jason's, or amazingly elaborate dinners and setups including little shelves to put stuff on! The orchestra came out right on time, and played a lovely medley of Beatles hits: Hard Day's Night, She Loves Me, Michelle, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Hey Jude, and others. At this point I thought, "Ok, now what?" Wouldn't you know it, The Beatles came on stage! It was excellent. Apparently the " Classical Mystery Tour " is the combination of a Beatles tribute band and a great orchestra playing backup. The Fab Four are from the Broadway show "Beatlemania," so the singing voices are...

As I was getting out of the shower this morning, the radio station played "We Built This City" by Starship. You know how certain songs remind you of specific places, times, or people? This song has huge memories attached to it, all of which came flooding back today. When this song came out in 1985, I was in seventh grade, and thus eligible to join the synagogue youth group. One Sunday, the youth group was doing a clean-up project in the wooded area around the synagogue building, which was unfortunately being used as a trash dump by all of the neighbors. The 10th grade boy in charge of the project [let's call him "Joe"] was using this as his community service requirement for his Eagle Scout badge. To say that I developed a "crush" on Joe would be like saying Mount Everest is "sorta tall." This was the beginning of my affinity for smart (and smart-ass) boys. [Here come the rose-colored glasses...] Joe was funny, smart, cute, and arroga...

Dani and I saw Carbon Leaf at the 9:30 Club in December of '05. It was a nice small venue, and although the songs were mostly new and some were kind of sad, it was great. When I heard that the band was coming to Stubb's (a famous BBQ & live music place in downtown Austin), I had to be there! Andy, Faith and Matthew agreed to go along. I don't think any of them had heard of Carbon Leaf before- or if they had, they hadn't heard much. We decided to have dinner at Stubb's, too. There was a huge line outside, but it turned out those people were waiting to get in and get their tickets for the show; there was only a very short wait to eat at the restaurant. The food was very good! I had the brisket sandwich, but everybody's food - the brisket, the sausage, the chopped beef - looked excellent. We listened to the opening band from the (heated) patio, and then went inside and downstairs at 10pm to see Carbon Leaf. We ended up standing near the bar at the back...