MLK Day Recap

It's nice to think about the fact that America was progressive enough and respectful of Great Black Leaders at one point in time to declare Martin Luther King's birthday a federal holiday.  Kudos to you, Reagan Administration.

On the flip side, the campaign for the federal holiday began not long after his assassination in 1968, so it's really unfortunate that it took 15 years to actually be recognized.  Also unfortunate is that it seems like our country might take 30 years to recognize something of the same nature in the times we're living in right now.  I'm hopeful that this year or next or maybe some time during the Biden administration, we can get Juneteenth recognized as a federal holiday considering the impact it had on so many lives.  Unfortunately, to my own fault but also history classes' fault, I didn't really know about Juneteenth until this past summer. However, I'm determined to celebrate it in the future with festivals and recognition...you now, once we're all allowed to congregate again. 😊

Speaking of last year, this year's MLK Day looked a lot different than it did in 2020.  For starters, the Coronavirus/Covid-19 was something I was aware of and considered a possible threat (not near the extent it turned out to be), but it was still halfway around the world, and I mainly just joked about not catching it with my coworker Deborah or mentioned it here and there with Nathan.  

Shortly before MLK Day in 2020, I'd had two interviews for my job at the Dallas Doge, and I'd convinced them to hire me. 

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Nathan and I knew we'd need a place to put all of our crap once we'd arrive in Dallas, so we took advantage of the three-day weekend by taking an extra day off (the Tuesday after) to make a weekend trip to find a place to live.  We left New Orleans on Saturday, January 18th to make the 7.5 hour drive and stayed at the DoubleTree Hotel right off of 75.  We had a really great hotel room for the weekend, and we had a great and also surreal time checking out places to live in our future city.  I want to say we looked at 4 or 5 apartments, and it was fairly easy to decide.  We also spent time driving around the city, with Nate showing me where he used to live when he went to school here, as well as where he lived before he moved to those apartments (which were now torn down), and hitting up some yummy eats. 

Sadly, when we arrived back here in February and pulled into the Mockingbird Station to enjoy some Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom again with Burt (in town for the night after helping us move), it was closed down. :( 

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We'd had Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom the first time when we mini-vacationed to Denver in April 2017, and we really enjoyed it, so we had it again.  It did not disappoint again.   

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We also enjoyed this Texan beer for the first time, and fell in love with it after that first pint.  We couldn't wait to get back to Dallas to have it again (and again and again and again...).

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We also enjoyed quite a few Trader Joe's yummies and relaxed in the hotel room with fine hotel room movies on cable like Tremors!

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We also dredged through Bad Boys II, which was really really bad, but it was playing because Bad Boys III was near release in the theaters. 

WhichWich's Courtney Cookie!

Nice view 😉

Apparently good hotel bathroom lighting called for a photosesh

We had a really great time, but the best part was realizing that we had a nice apartment to lay our heads in when we returned in just a month.  We departed Dallas on the morning of Tuesday, January 21st, but not before meeting our landlord Pat at a fun two-story coffee shop to sign our lease and pay the deposit.  

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It's weird to think about going to Toasted now, because it's only a hop, skip, and jump from my beloved Trader Joe's on Greenville Ave, and both are only a 5 minute drive from our place.  A year ago they felt so far/disconnected because all of these streets were foreign and hard to map out in mah tiny little brain.

We rolled into the city again a month later on February 20, 2020, after saying goodbye to NOLA, and here we are 11 months down the road.

This MLK day was still really nice, but there was no traveling involved.  Also, there were no Tremors (sorry, Reba!), and not near the "yummy" intake of alcoholic goodies paired with desserts. ('cause you know, health.) BUT there was still a lot of fun.  There was relaxing and playing on our new Quest2 (mini golf and puzzle games) and also planning and plotting by me to get this place even more decorated.  I'm really excited to pick out some more artwork to frame (eyeing three or so of these, or these, or these to hang above our couch, as well as getting some frames for these that I got at Christmas!  

So yeah, not really any pictures taken, but pictures bought-en.  Except not really yet because I'm waiting on a few of the Etsy joe's to get back with me on customization.

Going to the Big D...and I do mean Dallas

(For those who were not so lucky to have parents that raised them in the heart of 90's country music...I apologize if you clicked the link...and I apologize even more if you got the reference without even clicking.  kindred spirits.)

So it's Memorial Day weekend, which means three things:  cook-outs, lake days, and no work on Monday! <--the best part seeing that Natedawg and I don't own a grill or a boat.  Oh and it's also been storming like a mother since this morning and tu Madre Nature plans to carry on with more of the same through tomorrow (Monday).

Nathan and I decided earlier this week to head to Dallas on Saturday to get out of town like the wild and crazy kids we are.  Nathan's car's been having some spotty A/C issues, so when I posed him with the question of "my car or your car?", he mentioned the A/C, but it honestly hasn't been too bad because it comes and goes, and I figured it wouldn't be that bad.  Do you sense the haunting foreshadow-y nature in my voice yet?  I didn't want to risk taking my car because it's a '98, and while she does well around town, she's had a past of pooping out when you get about an hour and a half away on road trips.  And then those road trips turn into road trips from hell.  So I voiced my vote for Nathan's car.

Off we went, headed west and would you know that that damn A/C didn't come on AT ALL.  Three amazing hours of just warm air blowing, sweaty backs, hot greasy faces, frizzy, poofy hair, etc.  We couldn't roll the windows down until we got off the interstate because road trips are for talking and laughing and goofing around.  And you can't hear any of that if the wind is 70 miles per hour in your ear. Young love at its finest.

All that to say...we finally made it and I apologize to the poor souls who witnessed us busting into Chipotle looking like we'd just come off a hot morning on our boat, but probably wreaked of body odor and fun and didn't have swimsuits or a boat anywhere in sight.  I'm sure we were a pretty picture.  Actually, I know we were because I busted up in that bathroom upon arrival, whipped out my hairbrush, and eventually had to shrug and say "Well, the odds of running into someone I know are pretty slim..."

All in all, we still had a great time, and after we starting hitting up our main spots (i.e. Half Price Books, Fry's, and Trader Joe's), the A/C decided to be a trooper and be spotty here and there.  Then on the way back home, it worked for the first 30 minutes of the trip! (Insert many hallelujahs)  So much so that I had to put on my cardigan at one point.

And then it shut off.  And it remained off the remaining two and a half hours of the drive home.  I proceeded to chastise myself for the next two and half hours for ever being a namby pamby and putting on my cardigan in the first place.

Happy Memorial Day weekend it was! (and I still have tomorrow to make lofty plans to mark things off my to-do list, but will probably just read blogs, and my new book, and think about all the red, white, and blue cupcakes I didn't purchase at Sam's today.)