Hi all!  Sally here, back from an epic trip to Argentina, and I just don’t know where to start!  Well, first, let me just say that you all need to go because it will blow your pants off, even if your pants are posh.

We spent the first part of our trip in Buenos Aires, and y’all, that business is HUGE!  It’s got 11 million people! That’s almost 3 million people more than all the boroughs of New York!   Our first day, we went to Recoleta, which has the super crazy cemetery that is like a mini town inside.

It is where all the rich people go when they die to hang with their ancestors and have intense arguments about whose sepulcher is better. It’s like a little town. A really cozy town. How cozy, you may ask.  This cozy.

Or am I confusing “cozy” with “snug”? Also what’s up with that family member who was cremated?  Was he rebelling, or were they just running out of room and gave him the shaft…like “so sorry great-great-great grandson, we just didn’t plan on our lineage lasting that long, so you are only allowed to take up one square foot of space”?

Looking at all these sepulcher’s made us thirsty, so we had a cup of coffee under the most beautiful tree ever.

That is some major Disney movie meets Princess of Mononoke tree action.

Now, we’re getting to the world of tasty business, which is what I know you’re all here for.  I have to say that Argentina does coffee best, and here’s why.  When you order a coffee, you not only get chocolate or cookie with your coffee, they give you a shot of sparkling water or orange juice to cleanse your palette.  GENIUS!

Some places even give you a cute, tiny bowl of ice cream.  WHAT?! I don’t even like coffee that much, but I ordered it every day because it was that awesome.

I know that poshdeluxe readers are also, well, readers, and you’ll all faint when you see how awesome this bookstore is.  It is in an old opera house!

It’s about time that a bookstore was housed in an architectural equivalent to what the store provides.  Also, there was live music at the coffee shop where the stage used to be.

Speaking of live music, Buenos Aires is the birthplace of tango, so we had to go watch some! We went to a couple of awesome cafés, and one place had some serious dancing business going on:

But back to tasty business. You have all perhaps heard that Argentines love their meat.  They are serious about meat.  I suggest bringing some bulk forming laxatives with you when you go, because you will be eating meat, bread, meat, cheese and meat.  I would like to show you what is considered an appropriate and perhaps even meager amount of meat for four people.

It needed two grills!  After a couple days of that, I sought out every vegetable I could find.

Besides meat, which is the cornerstone of any meal, Argentine cuisine is greatly influenced by both Italian…

….and Spanish fare.

Food is rarely, if ever, spicy, and Argentines love themselves pasta and pizzas.  I think I had pizza seven times, and once I had it twice in one night!  The best pizza hands down was the hearts of palm & salsa golf pizza.

It looks delicious, no?  What is salsa golf, you may ask. This may gross you out hard core.  It is equal parts ketchup and mayonnaise.   But trust me, it is DELICIOUS on pizza!

I had two other favorite things to eat, and those were the Spanish-style antipasti plates.

Um, DELICIOUS!

And then, there are empanadas, which are hands down the most delicious things in Argentina.

They are especially more delicious when you have them before having bean, hog’s foot & tripe soup.   The contrast in tasty vs. untasty only further elevates the glory of empanadas.

Another thing I like about Argentina, is how they approach food.  I never thought I would make it to 11pm to have dinner.  I mean, how can I eat if I’m ASLEEP?! BUT, there is always an afternoon ice cream, coffee, or drink to be had to help you push on through. One of my favorite places was this really great, old café in San Telmo where they bring you peanuts with your beer.

I thought that is what America was supposed to do.  Come on America!  Get back in the saddle!

One of my favorite place we ate, hands down, was a place on the Tigre River. Brencho’s dad’s old boarding school mate took us on his boat, and we drove an hour down narrow, windy channels to get to Los Pecanes, a hotel in the middle of nowhere.

I mean, just look at this place!  It is only accessible by boat!  They had the most delicious empanadas you could imagine, and it was all you could eat and felt like a friendly potluck with complete strangers.

Can you possibly get a better spot to lunch?

Also, in Buenos Aires, there are tons of awesome museums that only cost about $0.70 to get into and you get to see crazy stuff like this:

Just a little creepy. And this was at a religious museum!

Anyway, we then went to Bariloche in the south in the Andes, and that was some pretty business.  I mean, look at the view from our restaurant window

And gas stations look like they are in Twin Peaks.

Also, why in the hell do they create such cute telephone booths? So cute, I wanted to smash my cell phone and only use this phone booth.

Now if I showed you how ridonkulously pretty the Andes are, you would go into some sort of brain stupor, so I’m going to try to restrain myself on the scenery pics. Let me skip ahead to some requisite activities when in the Andes.  One of them is drinking mate. It is basically a gourd that you fill with yerba leaves and hot water and pass it round.  It’s the Argentine way of making friends!

Brencho is a master.  I, however, completely scalded my tongue.  I actually hurt myself a LOT in the Andes. I got bamboo shoved into my hand, I fell through a dock, got bronchitis and almost fell off a mountain. America has made me soft.

Another thing you have to do in the Andes is go fly fishing on the beautiful lakes next to glaciers, OBVI!  And I caught the biggest one!

And when you get back from your day of fishing, you have to eat your fishies!  We grilled him back at the cabin at the stone grill with this amazing view.

While having appetizers and wine here…

My favorite night, which was the night before we left, we went to Miramar, a really awesome bogedon that I found in the New York Times (I owe you one NYT!)  We had an awesome waiter named Ramon.  They had frog legs on the menu, but I opted for the safer snails.

(Thanks Kevin Moloney from The New York Times for such a delicious picture.)

Ramon was so surprised that such a gringa would be ordering snails that he gave me a snail fork he made himself out of silver wire.  I love you Ramon!

And, uh, don’t worry about his horrified look.

Well, that’s that.  You must go as soon as possible.

To end on a sweet note, I think Brencho would be upset if I didn’t put at least one picture of flan in there.  He had it about 10 times when we were there (about ten times less than he had ice cream).

********

Here are some links to awesome Argentine things…

The NYTimes photo story that took me to Miramar.

Argentina is, of course way into soccer. You can tell by the how hard this commentator breaks down at this Maradona goal. This is actually the first Argentine thing Brencho introduced me to.  It is called the Hand of God goal.  There is a new Maradona.  His name is Messi, and he is amazing.  Watch out for him at the world cup this summer.

Also, if you guys didn’t already know, I am obsessed with Design Sponge, and they often have kick ass city guides.  This one will definitely make you want to go! (As if I hadn’t already convinced you with all this tasty business.)

This all got me thinking about what the soap opera is, and what it does for women.  (I’m not excluding dudes because I know you’re out there!)  It all brought me back to a talk Camille Paglia gave about poetry that I attended.  She is a huge figure in the feminist community and is was way badass.

That is the look she gives before she is going to eat you.  That is why I was blown away when she digressed and waxed poetical about soap operas while canonical pieces of poetry took a back seat.  Stand aside Emily Dickenson, the average woman learned more from daytime tv!  Now, a part of me (the snooty liberal arts student) dismissed this outright, but a part of me (that watched Days of Our Lives religiously in high school) rejoiced.  That’s right people, I was obsessed with Days of Our Lives, and I am here to tell you why!  And not just because Marlena dominates as demonstrated by the photo below:

Camille said that often women take a long time to process events.  We like to chew, to reexamine, to ask girlfriends for advice.  I mean, how else do you think the tradition of tea-time and girly nights got started, people?  This is perhaps why we get mad when guys give us advice.  We just want to TALK about it.  Soap operas are the shining example of this.  Something happens, like your husband cheats on your with your twin sister, you’re going to have to digest that before you claw his eyes out, right?  You were always going to claw his eyes out.  Girlfriend doesn’t need to tell you that.  But you need to talk about the pain he caused.  Soap operas are a model!  I am so with Camille on that one.

It also brings people together for a cooperative female educational experience!  I used to watch Days of Our Lives with my mom as we played nerts (the best card game ever).  We talked about how we would deal with similar situations.  Like seriously, say you got amnesia and a man who claimed to be your husband found you in your happy, new Amish home?   Do you believe him when he says that you’re married to him and an oil baroness?  I mean come on people.  You have to trust him.  He has an excellently well-kept beard.  I say yay.  Well, what happens when you get home and you find out that you have a clone, AND you are the princess of San Cristobal?  WHAT WOULD YOU DO??!!  (Obvi run away from said husband and clone to check out this island you rule.)   Just like the larger society, women have to build a structure of what should be done in certain situations, and every situation has been played out in soaps.  I dare you to try to give me a crazy one in the comments that HAS NOT been done.

Which brings me to another point, where else are you going to find these ridiculous storylines?  The one up above ACTUALLY HAPPENED, to Reva Shayne on Guiding Light.

Now, interestingly enough, there are two camps of soap opera watchers.  Those who are into the absurd form and those who are into classic soap opera form and never the twain shall meet.  On the former end of the spectrum, you’ve got living dolls belonging to mean-spirited witches (a.k.a. Passions):

and the other you’ve got love affairs all over the place (think Young & the Restless).  Y & R fans are in the ivory tower of soaps. I mean, just look at the characters, they’re normal looking, above-average attractive people who probably don’t have time-consuming jobs, but have time-consuming lusts:

You can see it in their EYES!!!  Now, every dredge can be a part of the absurdist club (they even took me!)   I mean, if you are trying to convince people that someone is possessed by the devil, you kind of have to cater to the lowest common denominator.  In case you haven’t been paying attention, I am that lowest common denominator.

Remember Virginia Woolf and A Room of One’s Own?  Every woman needs to write.  She said other stuff too, but that’s the gist.  Soaps have even gotten a whole gaggle of women writing!  There is a whole fanfic world!  If you thought that Twilight fans were crazy, just browse through the 775 fan fiction options for Days alone.  Dude, it is so serious they have an MPAA-style rating system.  That’s right ADULT CONTENT!!  Daytime tv is too tame for these fans.  And don’t think that Y&R isn’t above that, cause they’re not.  But they do only have three pages versus Days’ 31.  I told you, there are categorical differences between fans.

So perhaps with all the gifts that soap operas give us, we should be thankful that James Franco is being a po-mo-neo-feminist and GIVING BACK!!  Huzzah my good man!!  Perhaps he wants to reach out to the true feminine element and show his support!  Also, he may just be so pumped to be chewing the scenery and practicing his manacing eyebrow lift.  But, from this interview he’s doing it just because he heard it was hard.  Good on ya, our little celebrity air conditioner.

BTW, if you want to read Paglia’s pretty awesome book on poetry, it is called Break, Blow, Burn, and it is for people, like myself, who tend to better associate with the struggles of daytime soap stars than with Dickenson.  Sorry, Emily.

Anyway, I was pumped as a gal could be.  I had my dress (which is gorgeous and only $40…ever notice that girls are OBSESSED with telling you how much something was…we beam with thrifty pride), I had my tickets, and a series of couches to crash on.

The first was in Greenpoint Brooklyn, where hipster meets Pole, and only the G train unites them.  I got in super late, but not too late to sit on my friend Lex’s roof and drink some locally brewed stout from a ridiculous jug.  The kind they used in prohibition, I kid you not.  My great uncle Virgil once found a prohibition jug in the woods.  It’s in our attic.  During prohibition at night you would leave the jug and money in the woods, and the next morning your money would be gone, but your jug would be filled with sweet moonshine.  Like the greatest tooth fairy ever.  Or would that be money fairy?  Anyway, Virgil may have been lying.  My family has a history of that.  My family was so poor back in the day Virgil’s dad (a.k.a. my great-grandpops) once took a knife blade from its handle, burned it, left it to rust and banged it up so he could sell it to the local history museum as a Bowie knife and buy himself a handle of whiskey.  It is no longer on display in the Winnebago history museum, but it was still up about thirty years ago according to my mom.

Anyway, family stories are great, but so was the view from her roof!  All of Manhattan, some antennae’s and my friend Karl’s head.  WOW!

Next morning we had the best freaking brunch I’ve ever had at the River Barrel.  I had crab cake benedict with super spicy home fries.  I was so pumped I forgot to take a picture BEFORE I dove in.  Sorry if half eaten food grosses y’all out.  But, I think you will understand my lack of restraint.

This made up for the fact that I only ate out TWICE the whole time I was in NYC.  I know.  I apologize.  My friends are starving artists and good cooks, so what is a gal to do?

After brunch we walked off our incredibly full bellies on our way to the East River.  There we made an incredible discovery: a guitar hero controller. What ensued was a mad frenzy of photos for our upcoming album – Super Hero Magic Time.

Later we went to get ice cream at a place in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!  Seriously, nowhere.  This is how directions would sound:  “Now, go to the end of this street of warehouses, turn right and go past all the junk yards, then left down another row of warehouses, and there it is.  You can’t miss it.”

I maniacally loved my peaches and cream.  Or perhaps it wasn’t mania, but rather a dose of patriotism I was imbibing from the waffle cone wrapper.

To work off that ‘meal’ I went to my pal Dave’s house, who is an insane video game freak.  Seriously, he is a painter who paints in pixels, and has a somewhat religious, enormous triptych involving classic video game characters.   I apologize for not having taken a picture of that.  But I did get a picture of me playing his ridiculous Japanese arcade console that has every classic arcade game ever!  I don’t know what I was playing, but I do know I sucked at it.  You will also note that he has ANOTHER ONE right next to the one I’m playing.

The next day I came upon some wonderful things.  Like a bag full of VHS’s very meticulously labeled.  The most prominent being “The Stuff.”  Maybe that’s what our album should be called.  To the point and wildly ambiguous.  Just like me.

We found this on our way to visit my friend Annie’s organic rooftop farm.  Dude, seriously.  A farm on a warehouse roof with an amazing view of the city!  Also, SCRUMPTIOUS baby greens and tomatoes that were dying to be in my belly.

Then, we did the unthinkable.  We went to New Jersey!  (or the Newj, as I like to say)  But, actually, the Newj is kind of the shizz, and it is far more beautiful than people give it credit for (just ask Erica). We went kayaking on Lex’s uncle’s wonderful lake.

And went walking through beautiful trails with our super bright colored shorts.

Note that these shorts were necessary in case any of us got separated because they’re easy to spot, and surprisingly enough, the Newj has tons of nature to get lost in!

Then, it was the moment we had been waiting for.  The opening night of NYLIFF!  Here I am looking very Latina, which is why I was in the VIP line.

Oh, you had better believe that I watched myself!

We got into the theater and sat down.  Dudes.  Whoopi was there and Benjamin Bratt!  Good thing that man is married, because there was a theater full of Latina ladies (like myself) who would have beaten him over the head and dragged him against his will to the county courthouse to get hitched before we went to our cave.  Seriously.  Women were going Neanderthal over this guy.  He is dreamy, but the light was low, so I only have a blurry picture of him.  Sorry, yo.

After the movie, we went to the after party in possibly the tackiest, neon painted-est, mannequin decorated-est place in Manhattan. See below:

The guy with the mic was trying to bust out his best Justin Timberlake impression, but it was sad, just sad.  Since there were only free drinks for about 20 minutes, we got as much as we could as quickly as we could.

I learned this trick from fellow pansters at the Dos Equis castle party.  Thanks Pansters!

You can infer how douche-y the people at the party were by the fact that the entire thing was sponsored by Ed Hardy.  Uffda!

Anyway, this place was not my scene.  I went excitedly to bed because the next day was PREMIERE DAY!!!!!!   We’re talking WORLD PREMIERE at an HBO festival.  The next morning, I went to Wall Street to listen to my pals Sam and Elissa play in the River to River Music Festival.  Their band is called The Great Republic of Rough and Ready.  They are awesome, and you should listen to them.

Then, a really large rain storm later, it was GO TIME!  The dress went on!

I know you can’t really see the dress here, but if one of you fools gets married (or has a bogus graduation party, or an outlandish dinner gala) and invites me, I will wear this dress.  It is now my dress for every schmancy occasion.  But what you can see in this picture is most of the people who made this movie.  Aren’t they cute? Isn’t our poster kind of awesome?  And apparently the movie was awesome too because we swept the documentary categories and won both the Audience Award AND Best Documentary!  Yay Stages!

After the film, we went to a super secret boat, that isn’t owned by the city, but the private owners don’t care if you go on it.  It is also conveniently located next to an open-air bar.  So obviously it is the best place to celebrate.  Except it was totally a set-up for a really grizzly horror movie.  None of the lights turned on.  It was only us on this three level boat.  There was a single shoe and mussed sheets in one of the bunks.  Then I heard something really creepy.  An out of tune piano.  DUDES!  My friend had crept down to the lowest level of the hull, found the piano and started playing the piano to scare us.  Why in the hell did these people have a piano that could only play the soundtrack to our impending deaths?  SCARY!  Anyway, we sat and had beer in the back of the boat, and had a good time.  Sorry for the low light…seriously it was dark and cavernous in there.

But then, there was a HUGE storm!  Rain was pouring in through the port holes, the boat was rocking tremendously.  I thought I was going to puke and then die.  But, thankfully, the storm subsided, and I did neither of those dreadful things.  PHEW!

I went to bed happy to be alive, finally dry, and ready for the second greatest brunch ever the following day.  This brunch happened at Tom’s Restaurant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.  This place is OUT OF CONTROL!  My friend and I split crab cake benedict (sorry for the repeat!) and sweet potato pancakes that were OUT OF THIS WORLD!  They gave you butter mixes (butter w/ cinnamon, butter w/ stawberries, butter w/ lime rind) that were so delicious I didn’t even use syrup!

We also had great Kilbasa sausage that my friend claims is the greatest sausage ever, but Texans, no need to worry, it has nothing on the sausage that you can get at BBQ joints.  But then, I don’t think you were worried. There is also some guy that works there who cruises through the restaurant and asks you if you want complimentary cookies every twenty minutes or so.  Seriously.  Cookies at breakfast.  It was HEAVEN!

And with my belly full, I went home!  Next time I go, I promise to expand and vary my food intake.  I hope I haven’t failed you all.

Links

If you go to New York, you have to go to Bespoke Chocolates.  It is TASTY BUSINESS, and it also was started earlier this year by my friend Rachel, who quit Columbia grad school to go to culinary school.  Talk about following your passions!  Also, can anyone say salted caramel dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in pretzel?  Yes, I almost died too!

Cat playing theremin.  Nothing else needs to be said.

Is anyone else a Jane Campion fan?  Well, here’s to all the ladies out there with 19C hearts yearning for the beginning of fall movie season.  Bright Star

Texans beware!  THEY LET SQUEAKY FREE! I read Helter Skelter for my criminalistics course in high school (my teacher corresponds with Manson himself…really, really creepy), and let me tell you Squeaky is one f’d lady.  Even my great aunt Elsie was scared of her. When I got the Barbie news station for Christmas (at age 6), I was playing with Elsie (then 92). My sister (as Midge) reported that a woman had escaped from prison. Elsie (camera operator) gasped, put her hands to her cheeks, and with wide eyes said, “Oh my, what if it’s Squaky?!”  Good think Elsie isn’t alive today to hear this news.  It would have done her in.

by Sally Pants

I just got back from my trip home to Iowa!  My mom turned 60 and the whole gang showed up.  In case you don’t know, I have the largest family outside of farmers and the fervently religious.  See below for a picture of just me and my siblings.

That’s right, there are NINE of us!  We all dragged our significant others and the clan of children to welcome my ma into her 60th year with a potluck.  At this gathering I discovered that my 6th grade nieces are far more well read than I am.  They are working through the C.S. Lewis series and all I could contribute was that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein engraved their initials into a table in a pub in Oxford.  So, my nieces can describe the insides of books, and I can describe the insides of bars.  This is not surprising because I brought a box of wine to celebrate, and seeing as how people preferred Miller Light, it was mano-a-mano with the box of wine.  This means I got a little tipsy.  A lot tipsy, but my mother assured me in the morning that I didn’t do anything to embarrass her.  I tend to get rather tipsy at family gatherings, but this time I kept my pants ON and didn’t lose my wallet!  Yay, progress!!!

The first night back my bff, Deanna Bastard (Dbas, for short) and I trekked to our old play ground, and set off in style on our tandem bike!!

You are sooo jealous right now!  We got to good old South East Elementary and discovered that we are still awesome and our favorite playground stations.

The next day my sister arrived with her Banjo, which I proceeded to learn while drinking from my glorious box of wine.

I spent most of my time at home on the porch with my seemingly grouchy, but actually totally sweet pa (for this apparent discrepancy, see below in your Iowa primer).

Iowa’s summers are short, but vicious (over 100 degrees).  Summer hasn’t yet started yet (even though it was almost July).  I knew it wasn’t summer because at the hottest time of the day it was barely making it to 85.

This was glorious compared to what Texas was going through, and this calm before the summer heat almost makes it worth the six months of snow Iowans have to deal with, but it doesn’t really.  Nothing makes up for never being able to trick or treat without a winter coat and boots on.  As you may have guessed, my Halloween costume abilities are severely atrophied, and to this day cannot think of a good one.  Help an Iowan out this year, all right?  Suggestions are welcome in the comments section.

But this pre-summer weather made perfect disc golfing down by the river.

This is also amazing because the river looked like this last year at this time (you’ll recognize the green bridge behind us master golfers).

I rounded out my trip in true Iowa fashion by going on a mule ride of course!  Our great family friend, John, raises mules.  Here I am with John and Spider who was FREAKING HUGE!

The other ones are the size of donkeys.  I got on and shamed John by not knowing how to ride a horse or mule.  Duh, John.  I am a CITY GIRL!  My town is nine THOUSAND people HUGE (for those who know UT, that is about the size of  the freshman class)!

You’ll notice that the mule is not moving, and judging by his legs, has no intention of doing so.  John shook his head and lead me around on the reins.  I didn’t want to get off, so John tied spider up to the back of the mule wagon and we rode off into the sunset.

It was sooo BEAUTIFUL!  Man, those rolling hills and corn fields sure do a soul good.

Then, I came back to Austin and to 102 degree weather.  I’m still trying to shake my Upper Midwestern the accent.  It always takes a couple days, so if you want a laugh, call me up.

THE IOWA PRIMER

I know most of you pantsters are Texans.  Now, most Americans and a majority of foreigners will be able to tell you a lot about Texas but, ask an American about Iowa, they’ll either ask you if that’s where they grow potatoes or if that is the buckeye state.  My dear friends, everyone should get to know our beloved swing state a bit better.

1.  Cultural high point

Iowa has a world renowned butter sculptor and this year will be paying tribute to Michael Jackson at the Iowa State Fair with a butter sculpture of him.  Please see picture below for previous music icon sculptures.  I hope she adds sequins!!

2.  Local custom

Hats.  Though Iowans have a bit of the cowboy in them, they are predominantly a harvesting creature.  This means that all baseball caps must represent the seed that you plant.  For instance, my good pal John, pictured below, plants Wilson seed and his forehead will tell you:

Now John is a pretty savvy fellow, and therefore will not wear his hat in the old school customary way, which is resting precariously on top of your head, allowing passers-by to admire the progress of your balding pate through the mesh of your seed cap.  This is common mostly in the Dekalb and Pioneer fans see below:

It must have been a particularly windy day for farmer AJ, because his hat is pretty far down on his head.

3.  Linguistics

Where I come from in Iowa, we speak “North Central American English” or “Upper Midwestern.”  This means we sound like North Dakotans trying to hide their Norwegian American pride.  Now, not everyone sounds like I do when I get tired “Oah, jeez, Ahi’m tie-erd.”  But, there are some things that you should know

Pop = soda
Crick = creek
Ruff = roof (rutt = root)
Dinner = lunch
Supper = dinner
Bad weather = tornado, flood, or both at once.

4.  Diversity.  Now there is a lot of racial diversity in Iowa.  Betcha didn’t know that, didja?  There are the German-Americans and the Norwegian-Americans.  See below for the stark differences.

German-American

Norwegian American

Now, most people can’t tell the difference, but being of Norwegian-American stock raised in a German-American household, I have can help you figure out what race you are talking to despite the fact that they look totally the same.

Category                           Normal                          Norwegian-American                        German-American
Phrases                         “Come here”                 “Come here, now then”                         “Come here, once”

Food                                Pork chops                  Lutefisk (fish soaked in lye)              Bratwurst mit sauerkraut

Swearing                            Shit!                                          Drit!                                                    Scheiße!

Male height                         5’9”                                             6’                                                   5’11.75”

Orgs.                                     FFA                             Daughters of Norway                      Hertiage Days planning committee

Show of happiness              Smile                             Really loud laugh                                   Frown

The differences are stark and polarizing, but we are working for a peaceful resolution of tensions.  This is usually accomplished when an outside element is introduced and we band together.  An example of one such outside element would be when someone Anglo-American enters the room.  Because look at how weird they are:

Like a different species entirely.

Anyway, I hope that you will now know your way around the cultural land mines planted cunningly in the subtleties of Iowa.

And, really, Kirk is from there.  Who could stay away?!

G’Day gladyhooks and beezleworts, today is Nature Friday, with your good pal, and honorary Australian Nature Personality, Salleewonk!

I have been spending the better half of a year watching way too many nature videos in West Lake, as if the natives weren’t strange beasts enough to warrant years of anthropological study. I have become quite enamored by many crazy beasts and snookies – see the last third of this vid if you don’t know snookies. But, more about that later.

Contrary to what you may imagine, there was way, WAY more nature in West Lake than I would have cared for. I was walking to my car at the back of the parking lot because the building’s landlord considers my white Subaru steed too wild to be tied up right there next to the building (it’s ok, my car’s name is Shadowfax, and he is the king of all horses can’t be bound.)  I ask that Exhibit A and B be entered into the court’s records as evidence.

Exhibit A. – Stupid Landlord’s Car

Exhibit B. – My Car

But back to the story.  I was walking a good quarter mile to my steed, when what do I come upon on my trek?  Non other than a TARANTULA!!!!!!!

Needless to say, gladyhooks and beezleworts, I was FREAKED OUT! I knew all about these things. I learned about them in the investigatory documentary, Tarantula!

Learn more about the tarantula here:

I thought that these creatures were supposed to stay in the desert! What were they doing here in the hill country of Texas?! No one knows, but I did take some pictures on my phone for evidence. Unfortunately, not being the phone savvy person I would like to be, I couldn’t get them off my phone! Here is a picture of my phone’s picture. To enhance your viewing pleasure, I have included in this super-meta picture, myself, as I believe I was at that moment.

Thankfully, I left unscathed, which I consider a miracle since I didn’t give in to any of the ne’er-do-well, Shelob wanna-be spider from hell’s demands. But this got me thinking, what other crazy beasts lie in wait out there in Texas?

Kiddos, we’ve got scorpions, coyotes, Raspberry Crazy Ants, rattlesnakes, Curve-faced Solifugi – I have no idea what these are, but dude, just look at these fools:

Upon reading more, these things take down scorpions!  Even SCARIER THAN TARANTULAS!

Hey, you know armadillos? On one hand they’re a cheap and inefficient way to get around downtown, and they’re strangely cute and seemingly innocuous. I mean, my friend’s dad took a stuffed armadillo to every Iowa footall game, until even that preserved dillo started disintegrating, and poly stuffing started coming out through his armor. But they belong on the dangerous Texas animals list, yes even considering that crazy beast Solifugi!  Dude, these things carry leprosy! Between their toes.  My uncle, who is a doctor, told me this important fact as we visited the leprosy museum in Bergen, Norway.  This was the only museum we visited on that trip, and my uncle and aunt spent most of the time telling leper jokes as I almost started crying reading leper poetry.  My family is strange, but that is for a different post altogether.

Anyway, gladyhooks and beezleworts, I hope this was a good lesson for today, and as promised, here is an instructional video about the fauna of the world, specifically, the honey badger.

The honey badger is one bad mo-fo.  This thing fights snakes.  Here is a video where it is eats a cobra (that it fought and totally dominated).  As it eats it, it falls over, having eaten the snake’s poison.  You think it’s dead, but it gets right back up and starts eating again.

The instructional part of this video is that you should stay the heck away from a honey badger.

Sincerely,

Salleewonk

p.s. I have attempted to start an email correspondence with an Australian running a marsupial sanctuary who because of his love of kangaroos has legally changed his name from Andrew to Androo.  He hasn’t written back.  My fingers remain crossed.