Bloomington's Best Beer

Dear Lawry, your beer won.  Thanks for letting me have some.  Dear Uplands, you are always my favorite place to eat in Bloomie.  Best burgers and uh-mazing brewskis.  Dear Bad Elmer, your porter and your badder porter are badass.  Dear Buffalo, you are such better meat than cow.  You make me want to swear off cow meat forever, please start roaming free in Texas.  Dear Jesus, at the Wambrano wedding, will you turn the water into beer if we start running out of Shiner?

"Golly, we should get married" #5: You enjoy discussing our faith with me, I love these times.

Excited to be at under 90 days,
MJ

Holler Scholar

This among my more favorite pictures of Mollo and me.  Her smartosity and funosity deserves its own post.

Congrats Molly!!!

Blananalate Pancakes

Blueberry, Banana, Chocolate Pancakes to be exact.  Lawster and I had some for breakfast on the Saturday of his visit and they were fantabulous.  Then, we watched 30 Rock because it is our favorite show.  Once I heard that Americans think Thursday is the worst night of their week.  Apparently these people don't know about 30 Rock... or Community for that matter.  Anyways, while we were watching Lawry said, "Look! My head is perfectly perpendicular to yours!"

"Golly, we should get married" #4:  When you say things like, "Look! My head is perfectly perpendicular to yours!" I know that we are both geeks.  Also, when you correct my Star Wars facts, that is another time when I know we are both geeks (but these are times when I think your nerdiness is slightly exceeding mine).

Reconciling myself to the fact that it's going to snow again,
MJ

Bloomingtón

http://www.idsnews.com/news/multimedia/media.aspx?type=PG&id=348#!&pn=5

This sleepy midwestern state is trying to pass a bill similar to Arizona's SB 1070 bill (the one with the racial profiling, not the one where they try to eliminate ethnic studies or that one time they didn't want to observe MLK Day).  So in a protest commensurate to the size of Bloomington, I got my 1968 on (or should I say, my 2011 on?), and marched for a bit with my friends and some townies.  I told my Dad about it, 'cause he was a "Down with imperialism!" yelling university student back in his day.  He asked if we had tear gas thrown at us, and when I told him "no" he said, "well, you got off pretty easy then."  He was proud and supportive, but I'm pretty sure that compared to the 70s in Venezuela, he thought our protest was "kinda cute."  :)  That's okay, 'cause I'm not on a soapbox.  I just think immigrants want to work hard--I want to work hard, and I am an extremely fortunate immigrant with many opportunities presented to me.  I think the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not just a US American Dream--it's a people dream.  And, we're all people, right?  Yes.

Getting my spirits up about grading papers,
MJ

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. - Gal 3:26-29


PS - My Dad is in no way a Latin American university student now.  I'm pretty sure he would want me to make sure that got cleared up. :)

Studying Space

After hot cocoa, Lawry and I explored our creative side.  Lawry was impressed with the quality and size of our Midwestern art museum.  Also, there was a coat check that you actually had to use because it was brrrrrr outside.  Lawry learned how cumbersome winter can be, coat checks are a good thing. We started a new tradition for art museums:  we get an art sketch book and we pick one work of art and try our best to draw it.  We haven't decided yet if we'll pick a winner or anything like that.  But if we do pick a winner, it's just so that person can pick where to eat or what beer to get with dinner.


"Golly, we should get married" #3: You humor my brain and answer questions like, "what is the point of museums?" for me.


Excited and anxious to be at less than100 days til the Wambrano Wedding,
MJ

The Circle of Circle City

Per suggestion of Lawry's co-worker and her Hoosier husband, we headed to downtown Indy to Monument Circle and split some hot dark chocolate with the works (it was like 15 degrees after all).  He gave me the cherry on top.  What a sap-a-doo.

"Golly, we should get married" #2:  You eat the whipped cream off of your hot chocolate first and then drink it.  This isn't something I do myself, but I like to watch you do it.

Celebrating SPRING(!!!),
MJ

Reasons Why #1

Lawrence,

This weekend we had several impromptu "when do you feel loved" conversations.  I felt loved just having those with you.  You told me you felt loved when I blog about you--this is great because you are the star of my blog.  So, because we had such a good weekend together, I'm spacing out all my blogs about it.  One for each event.  In each blog, I'll talk about all the ways you made me think, "golly, we should get married."

Golly, We Should Get Married #1:  We always find good gas station food together.  And, we have food competitions over who orders the best meal.  When you win, you let me have lots of bites.  However, at this particular meal, I definitely won :)

Still savoring the gas station tacos Lawry brought me from Taqueria Colima in the 'ville,

MJ

How Do I Love Thee?

Valentines' Day.  I like you.  Not because of your sappyness, but rather because of how much you inspire people to bake.  I have had 5-6 sugar cookies today.  So what do I love about Valentines' Day? Sugar and Butter... Also, in Venezuela, Valentines' Day is Friends and Love Day (it's alliterative and catchy in español).  I think that sounds a little bit more like a holiday I might pay a bit more attention to.  Or a holiday where Lawry's job is to buy me good cheese.  Felix bought MJ Sr. a pineapple for Valentines' because it is her favorite fruit.  Well done, Papí.

Weakly exercising self-restraint,

MJ

PS - Posts from LAWRY WEEKEND 2011 are on their way!

PPS - Lawry, I love you.  Happy 3* years :)

Lawry Countdown

2 Days until this:

Planning out our northern adventures,
MJ

Things I Love About Texas #1

Breakfast tacos and chorizo in corn tortillas.

Thinking about eating one right now,
MJ

Keep Austin Weird

My Ode to Texas
Texas, Our Texas,
Why were you freezing?
Snow was the weather I was leaving!
Canceling a day of the conference with a thin layer of ice
That was not very nice.
But, still you have lots of good beer
So, we passed the free day with cheer.
Besides the temperature
The Mexican food was excellent for sure.
Breakfast tacos with chorizo and cheese,
Give me more, please.
Sister and Lawry,
I could not stay longer and for this I am sorry.
Texas, you are full of things and people I love.

Hoping the groundhog was right and Spring is near,
MJ