Homeowners

We bought a house!  We started looking in February or so and found a place we liked far more quickly and easily than we imagined.  It's not *everything* we wanted (we already miss being within walking distance of the downtown square and all of the restaurants on Dickson street) but it's a lot of space that we'll be able to grow into.  It's a long but manageable walk from my office (a little over 2 miles), but right on the campus bus route.  We've also realized we're pretty close to the fairgrounds and a few other places worth walking to, and a short drive to all the old standbys.  So far we are pretty happy and settling in slowly, with more wall decoration and furniture to come in the future.

As people have asked for pictures, I figured here might be the easiest place to put them.  Let me take you on a little tour.

Here is the front door and the weird little open room space near the door where we have stashed a couch.  Perhaps later there will be toy bins here, but for now this is what we've done:

To the left of this is the living area (complete with a cat).

Behind the living area is an archway to the dining room.

From the dining room, you can look over into the kitchen.  This is another weird "room" with open space, but there is also a back screened in porch accessible from this area.

Another view of the kitchen.

Off the kitchen there is a room we call the "orange room" (for obvious reasons) which we are using as an office.

We made our books into a sort of "art" piece by arranging them by color...we love how it turned out!

Down the hallway we have the bedrooms.  A guest room (dubbed "the Brown Room" because we had one of those at our old place and it seemed to still fit):

A guest bathroom, which was the only room in the whole place we painted ourselves.  And by "ourselves" I actually mean my husband and our friend painted it when I was out of town.  It used to be a hideous neon orange color the paint can called "Passion Fruit."  We like it much better in bright yellow:

And last, the master bedroom, in a delicious shade of plum.

If you look closely you can see the grey and white paws of the other cat in the hallway outside the room!

There's also a master bath, and a currently empty room that will become the baby's room, but as those rooms are currently not interesting, I won't include them in the "tour."

Nor will I include the incredibly large garage and workshop space or the basement my friends have dubbed the "murder basement" because part of it looks like a place Dexter might want to set up camp.  There is a TON of storage available to us, and at least one room that we can finish to make into a game room or something.

It's our first home and so far we are loving it!

Big news!

Although most of the (very few!) people who read this blog already know this information, it is worth announcing that Doug and I are having a baby!  Here is what we posted on Facebook, based on the trivia cards we had on the tables at our wedding reception:

Now that the obvious is out of the way, it may be worth telling more of the story.  We have been trying to conceive since shortly after our wedding (for those counting, that's a year and a half), with no success.  We did the cheapy tests and found nothing wrong, but I wasn't willing to commit to the expensive tests that insurance wouldn't pay for without trying other things.  So last summer we basically quit drinking alcohol, started eating healthier and I started acupuncture.  Acupuncture was an interesting experience, to say the least, but nothing changed in the getting-preggo department.

So, in the fall, I finally succumbed to having the expensive tests.  The ultrasound (which is done to check for fibroids, I think) found nothing wrong, but the other test, which was so painful that I've managed to block out the name of it (but essentially shows if the fallopian tubes are open) found "something" wrong.  My doctor told me it was "the weirdest" one of these test results she's ever seen...which honestly was a little flattering, but also confusing.  One of my fallopian tubes was open and the other one didn't seem to be blocked, exactly, but something was getting in the way.  So, I had outpatient surgery in November and they ended up removing a polyp in my uterus.  The surgery was an event in and of itself, as I've never had "real" surgery before (only oral surgery, after which I made my mom sing me Christmas songs in the recovery room, despite the fact that it was July).  Needless to say, I made it through that just fine and apparently the surgery "worked" because.....one month later, we found out that we're expecting.

In case anyone is wondering, all is well so far!  We heard the heartbeat at our 10-week appointment in January and everything seems to be progressing well.  I also seem to be in the lucky quadrant of the 25% of women who do NOT experience "morning sickness" (which doesn't always occur in the morning, but is either nausea or vomiting or both)....I've barely felt sick at all, only a little more tired than usual. No cravings, no wild mood swings, just continuing on with life sans lunch meat, sushi, alcohol, and soft cheeses.  Plus I was convinced to get a flu shot for the first time in my life, which it turns out was probably a good idea as the flu has been pretty bad this year, and particularly bad here in Walmart Country.

We are excited about the next year and all the changes it will bring!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, because I've already got the "what are you having?" question repeatedly, to which my answer is "a baby?," we probably WILL find out the sex of the baby but we likely will NOT be telling people. Why? Because gender is a social construction and I don't like the genderizing of infants and I refuse to participant in it.

Just call me smug, I kind of agree:

A respite from the yo-yo weather

Compared to the rest of the country, we really don't have too much to complain about in terms of the weather...not that we don't still try.  It has been bitterly cold here (yes yes, nothing like you've experienced, Minnesota-Wisconsin-Chicago, got it) at times, but mostly the weather has just been a tease.  Take the last week, for example.  It was 55 on Saturday, 65 and sunny on Sunday, and then 25 on Monday with an overnight low of 0 degrees Fahrenheit.  We're teased with lovely Southern weather, the promise of spring, only to be spanked back into the cold.  It was actually colder here than in Madison, Wisconsin for a few hours this week!

We took advantage of the absolutely beautiful weather to take a walk at Lake Wedington on Sunday afternoon, a new walking/hiking spot for us.  We got kind of a late start, and had limited time because I had to be back to go to a prospective graduate student dinner, so our walk wasn't as long and luxurious as I'd have liked.  Also, Lake Wedington was further away than I thought it was, which also cut into our time.  I keep telling people that everything in Fayetteville is a 15 minute drive, which is pretty much true....but I forgot that Lake Wedington is not really in Fayetteville.  Still in the county, but not in the town (at all). 

We got out to the lake in the warm afternoon with the sun sparkling on the water, and it was quite pretty:

We then walked about a mile, passing a cute little waterfall:

Our favorite part of the walk, though, was being right up next to the lake, which tinkled like chimes because the top layer of the lake was still icy, but the ice was breaking up and knocking into nearby pieces.  It was neat to look at

and was neat to listen to.

We made it back to town in enough time for me to get ready for my dinner, with a shorter walk than originally intended, but "better than nothing!' as my dear husband pointed out.  Hopefully we can make it out to Lake Wedington again when we have more time to linger and explore. 

Well, that and when the weather decides to yo-yo back again from the frigid to the moderate, as we've become spoiled to expect of Arkansas winters.

A quiet Hawaiian food return

I have no excuse for not writing for the last nine months, and no real reason to start up again except that I want to.  Because rehashing everything we've been doing for the last nine months is daunting and part of the reason I haven't written a word since April, we'll just skip over that.

We discovered a new tasty place to eat this week.  Or, to be clear, we finally tried a place that's been around for awhile now, called Hawaiin Brians.  It has what might be the worst website of all time, but the food was so good that the web travesty is forgiven.

The restaurant itself is the first success story for the Fayetteville "Yacht Club" which is basically a parking lot with a bunch of airstream trailers.   Pretty sure I posted about it a ways back, when we had some homemade pie from one of the trailers (that place, sadly, is long gone....though an internet search tells me there is a NEW dessert place there now!  Hopefully a forthcoming post will review that one!).  It's a nice way for new businesses to try things out without having to rent a whole building or store.  Some of the trailers serve food, some have clothing, and unless you visit regularly, there's often something new.

Hawaiian Brians was a trailer there for awhile, developed a following, and then rented out a brick-and-mortar store over a year ago, where it appears they have been successful.  It's in a strip mall near the awesome vintage Arcadia Retrocade (a vintage arcade), and when you walk in, the dulcet tones of Hawaiian music are playing, with tropical decorations, and a projector of waves on one wall.  It's a great environment, and different than any other place in town we've been.

I tried the Hawaiian Shoyu Chicken, which was absolutely delish.  Tender meat, soaked in some kind of soy-sauce-plus-other-stuff sauce, it had a familiar taste that I couldn't quite place...and I loved every bite.  Served with white rice and a big spoonful of cold macaroni salad, I devoured every morsel.   My husband ordered the Kalua Pig, also tender shredded pork in some sauce (I think it might have been the same sauce, but it didn't taste the same).  I think he might have licked his plate when I wasn't looking.

Then for dessert we had the Kings Gelato, which was a dessert-y french toast topped with salted carmel gelato.  Yes, it's absolutely as good as it sounds.

Only downside about this place is that it's so meat-based it ain't great for the vegetarians...but as we're not vegetarians that isn't a big downside.  Now we have to go back for breakfast and try the Portuguese sausage!

New finds and new spots

Our regular readers (hello, all 3 of you!) might recall that Fayetteville does something called "First Thursdays" which is an evening (the first Thursday of each month, aptly enough) on the town Square, dedicated to music and art and general community revelry.  They started up again in April. [As a side note, I'm still in awe of living in the south where outside events are scheduled from April through October.....I just learned that the drive-in opened on April 19th....these types of things wouldn't open until around Memorial day in the northlands!]

We went to this First Thursday event, mostly because it gets us out of the house and it's a nice walk up to the Square....well it's a nice walk if you're me, if you're my charming husband you complain and grunt at the steep grade all the way up the hill.  Anyway, right when we got up to the Square we ran into a new friend of ours, a fellow I met on campus last fall who is a first year assistant professor in a more hard science-y field, and we helped him find his wife, another new friend-type who runs the "storytelling" event I've spoken about in posts past.

After quickly meandering around the art, we ended up at the beer tent and then the food trucks.  Food trucks have made their way to Walmart Country, starting with the fancy grilled cheese Grillenium Falcon and the expansion has been pretty rapid.  I think there was an episode of the Great Food Truck Race filmed here sometime last year.

This food truck, Nomads, is often parked outside our cute independent bookstore, and they serve middle eastern food.  They have falafal and gyro pockets, delicious hummus, and these "pita fries" that are to die for.  I don't even know how to explain them....they take pita, slice them into strips and fry them like french fries......damn, they're delicious.  We had not intended to actually eat dinner on the Square but the food truck just called to us.

Our other favorite middle eastern place, Petras, is only open for lunch, so now that we have Nomads (which is also open around dinner time and until they run out of food on fri/sat nights), we've got options in the world of middle eastern food.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

April flowers and Ground hogs

I have so many things to report on!  Things have been busy here in Walmart Country for us.  First, a simple post.  A few weeks ago, I was walking home from work, as I do just about every day, and I noticed some flowers planted along the brick wall that opens onto the large lawn (as close as we get to a "quad" here--but it's not surrounded by buildings, so it can't in good faith be called a quad).  A week after that, they bloomed, and it was a lovely sight:

It's for reasons like this that I especially like Walmart Country in the spring.  Little touches to make the town stand out.

Of course, two weeks later, the flowers are now dead, perhaps because it's been cold at night, or because they haven't been properly tended to....no idea. The weather here has yo-yoed from low 30s to high 70s and everywhere in between.

It's like the groundhog didn't know if it saw it's shadow or not. 

Speaking of....we saw a groundhog in our backyard recently!  Doug came upstairs to say "Hey there's a big rodent thing in our backyard" and it had scampered under the fence but a few minutes later it popped back into view.  A real groundhog, in our backyard! 

As I am not trained in the ways of groundhog shadows, I could not tell if it had a message for us or not. 

The Games of Pie and Thrones

Hard to believe it's already April!  Four weeks left of the semester, then glorious glorious summer, when hopefully I can get a lot of writing done.

I'm not here to talk about the future, though, I'm here to talk about March.  March was the month of Pie and Thrones.

Why?  Well, for starters, sometime in late January, one of my students loaned me the DVD set of the first season of Game of Thrones, that HBO show people occasionally go crazy about.  I figured I'd like it, because (a) HBO, and (b) fun fantasy with a good smattering of sex and gore, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet.

I should also point out that Doug started reading the books a ways back.  So long ago that I don't even remember, maybe last year?  He picked up the first book (metaphorically, as he actually picked up the Kindle on which the book was downloaded), started reading it, couldn't get into it, and set it down.  A while later he re-started it and eventually made it through.  And after a long break, decided he should actually read the second book.  For those not in the know, there are currently 5 books out, and the series is slated to be 7 books long.  Each one is 1000ish pages, give 300 pages or so, thus reading them is a true commitment to the craft of reading.

My student kept harassing me to watch the DVDs, so we started Season 1 and by episode 3 I was a goner.  Great sets and costumes, fabulous acting, a cast of what seems like thousands, great use of CGI when necessary but avoided when not, and fantastic characters.  Who the author is willing to kill off when it serves the plot.  And, as expected, a good bit of sex and gore.

When we finished Season 1, we got on the waiting list for Season 2 to come out on DVD, and then we not-so-patiently waited for Netflix to send us each disc.  By the time Season 2 ended, I had already decided to start reading the books.

I spent most of one day of Spring Break sitting on the couch, clutching my Kindle to me, devouring Book 3 (which is the best so far, but I'm only on the start of Book 5).

At this point, Doug is on Book 4, I'm on Book 5, and Season 3 just started.  It's been a month of Thrones, with many many Thrones jokes tossed around between the two of us, and sometimes they leak out into my normal life.  One of my grad students gave me a draft of something that included the sentence "It is known ...." and I wrote the comment "What are you, Dothraki?" on the side.  He told me that he laughed for almost a full minute.

What accompanied our month of Thrones?

The month of European Truffle Pie:

It is the pie of champions.  The pie of kings.  The pie worthy enough to sit on the throne, serving lesser pies.

In reality, it's a chocolate cream pie with chocolate whipped cream, chocolate shavings on top, with an oreo cookie crust on the bottom (and some oreo in the middle, too).  Village Inn, elsewhere in the country called Bakers Square, has this pie for one month a year, where it is, aptly, the "Pie of the Month."  It's usually available around easter time.  Last year it was April, and between April 1 and May 5th we ate five pies.  Not slies, pies.

This year, when we went to Village Inn to buy Doug's birthday pie, I saw it in the glass case before we even made it into the restaurant, and I'm not ashamed to say I caused a bit of a scene.  I yelped with joy.  I exclaimed my happiness to the manager.  We hadn't expected to see the pie until April, so we were both really glad that we happened to visit Village Inn early enough in the month to catch it.

The rest of the month, we had a pie a week.  This year we stopped ourselves at four pies in total.  As delicious as the pie is, we can't eat a pie a week forever (well actually we could, but it would destroy my waistline and probably decrease the enjoyment of the Pie food group), and now we will not-so-patiently wait until the glorious pie comes out next spring

I thought about going back the first week of April to see if they had any pies left (last year we got one in early May), but I showed restraint.  Probably  because the last time Doug walked into the restaurant, the manager looked at him and said, "Another pie, sir?"

In sum, here is our House Sigil, demonstrating our mascot and our House words, both together expressing our month of March:

Evil circus cat

I'm not sure I have devoted a lot of time on this blog to our cat, but as time has gone on she has become an increasingly central focus of our lives.  Mostly because she is evil.

Wait, what?  This little cutie-pie?  Margot Dorcas, the cat with the silly name from Saved by the BEll and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?  Yes, that's right, evil. I've used many words for her, some of which are profane enough I will not say them here.  Less profane and more creative alternative include "A Lannister" (for the Game of Thrones crowd) and a popular teenage girl.  You know the type, the adorable girl who smiles at you when she wants something and then when you piss her off....BAM!  She undermines your every turn. My latest nickname for her is "kitbull" (you know, like a combination of cat plus pit bull).

That is the cat we ended up with.  I'm not sure she's always intentionally evil, as she runs to greet us at the door when we come home, and on occasion she rubs against one of our legs or tolerates being pet for two minutes, but most of the time she is a little spitfire of sass.

First of all, she's very bitey.  We think that the people who had her as a kitten probably played rough with her, and she learned fingers = chew toys.  I've tried just about everything I can think of to alter this behavior, and it hasn't really worked.  Despite my training in behaviorist principles, and using "clickers" to train her, I haven't been able to un-train the bad behavior, though I did teach her how to sit, come when she's called, and jump up for a treat. 

Some of this biting appears to be out of pure spite.  She really likes to attack Doug.  He'll be walking across the room, minding his own business, and she'll run over and scratch/bite him at the ankles. Without provocation.  And then if he yells at her, she attacks with greater verve.  She attacks me less often and less randomly, but it still happens on occasion (like this morning, in fact).  I think she just wants to play....but it could be because she enjoys causing harm to those around her.  Especially Doug.  Not a week goes by where he doesn't have a cat scratch somewhere on his arms or legs.

She means harm.  The only thing that kind of sort of works is when she attacks me and I start whining in a "oooooohhhhhhhhh, you hurrrrrrt me, and I want to crryyyyyyyyyy!" kind of tone.  I start sniffling and whining and she leaves me alone for awhile.  But she knows that she's in charge, and she can hurt us any time she wants.

She also gets into EVERYTHING.  She's very curious, which is sometimes adorable, but when she opens closet doors, every drawer in the bathroom, or the doors to our storage spaces in the middle of the night, it's really annoying.  Impressive, but annoying.  And she really isn't deterred by water, loud noises, or any kind of punisher that I've tried so far.  She really just wants attention.

I must admit, she has some good qualities.  She's insanely adorable.  Like really really cute.  She's also kind of a circus cat; she parkours off the walls and can stand with all four of her legs on a 3-inch scratching post.  She can scramble up her taller-than-Doug cat tree in a fraction of a second, and she's got a really weak, whiny little meow.  She also really really loves to munch box.  As in, we give her cardboard boxes (like from Amazon) and she slowly rips up the flaps.  It's really funny to watch her tearing into cardboard like it's a mouse attacking her turf.

But oh, the evil.  She's probably a step or two removed from feral catdom, and it's clear she is not stimulated enough.

So, we ponder our options.  Do we get another cat for her to play with?  Do we let her outside?  We don't want to get her de-clawed, as there don't appear to be good reasons to do that to cats anymore, and really she doesn't rip up our stuff (just the boxes).  We play with her, but it's never enough, and she doesn't respond well to discipline. 

For now we've resigned ourselves to owning an evil cat, and feel comfort knowing that she'd probably attack an intruder worse than she attacks us.

Found Fayetteville

A few weeks ago I posted about the Sheet Fort Experience here in Walmart Country and it's still going strong.  We've gone to one improv show, two story telling nights, one stand up comedy night on St. Patricks Day (there was one song and one limerick, other than that it had nothing to do with St. Patty's Day), and now the show called Found Fayetteville.

The show was described to me as a multimedia presentation and love letter to the city of Fayetteville, and I will give it part of that description.  It did have multimedia and the creator certainly loves Fayetteville, though I don't know if it was entirely obvious from the show itself.  Basically, it consisted of items found around town (scrawlings on bathroom walls, notes found around town, Craigslist ads) and put together into a show performed by six capable actors.

I wanted to love this show, I really did.  For me it had two problems, one of them very fixable.  That one was that the show has previously been performed on New Years Eves.  Not a problem, except the slide show referenced New Years Eve...couldn't you take that out, because it's March?

Second, with the exception of occasional references to Dickson street and Walmart and a sequence about Bikes, Blues and BBQ (the motorcycle festival that people either love or hate), the ads really could have come from anywhere.  I used to read Craigslist personal ads for fun when I was bored in Chicago, and they are totally craze balls, but it's rare to find one that is craze balls in a particularly location-specific way.

I think part of my disappointment is that I've grown to really love this town.  It's quirky, and has a lot of personality.  This is evident in the Fayetteville Flyer, particularly the comments section about community plans and such.  Like many small towns, the residents of this one have pride for their community.  They support new initiatives that will help people and actively discourage ones that will be eye sores or hurt the local economy.  The mix of people in this town is likewise awesome, from college students to Walmart officials to low-income people living on the outskirts of town who show up to dinner in a straw hat and overalls (I have seen this, I'm not exaggerating).  Likewise, the local commericals and the local news are hilarious, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.

In short, I wanted to love Found Fayetteville, and I only just liked it.  I have hopes that over time the show can develop with new found material that really lets the flavor of the town shine.

Oh, one more thing in praise of the event.  For the two nights of the show, all of the proceeds went to help one of the company members who recently had a bad work accident that resulted in loss of a finger.  This fellow works with his hands and due to his injury, business has been halted, and the family has 20K in medical bills.  So there have been some efforts to raise money for them, including a craft sale and two nights of this show.  It's stuff like that that make me love this town--people coming together to support the arts in a sheet fort and to give away proceeds to friends in need.  

Casino Buffet

Every time we drive west, to Tulsa or further (usually toward Albuquerque), we pass through a little town in western north-west Arkansas called Siloam Springs.  I am not motivated enough to try to find an audio clip that accurately portrays the way this town name is pronounced with the local accent, but suffice it to say that we both adopt an accent for five seconds every time we drive through the town.

I have nothing against this town personally.  It just happens to be on the way to Tulsa.  But, because of the stop lights and lower speed limits in the town, Siloam Springs really cramps my style and makes the trip to Tulsa take a lot longer than it would if there were an actual, you know, interstate that connected Walmart Country with Tulsa.  Point being that we are typically trying to get THROUGH Siloam Springs and have never actually stopped there.

Right at the Oklahoma border, or really at the border of Arkansas and Cherokee Nation, there is a large casino.  The Cherokee Casino and Hotel, as a matter of fact.  Everytime we drive through town, we say "Hmmm, we should stop there sometime."  Well, folks, some time has finally arrived.

As you migh recall from my last post, we recently went to the Drive-Thru Safari, which is just up the road from Siloam Springs.  So, leaving the Safari at 4:30pm on a Saturday afternoon, going to the casino seemed the logical choice of activity.

The casino was crowded.  We caught a glimpse of a couple with matching M&M jackets as we walked in....which was too awesome to not take a picture of:

Then we went inside, and it was a typical smokey casino.  Initially we were going to play the penny slots, but it seemed as though one needed a card to play the games, or some kind of ticket/token system, and I felt stupid for not being able to figure out how that worked, so after walking around the casino a few times, doing some stellar people watching, we decided our money would be better spent at the buffet.

Buffets are dangerous places.  This one had stations from all over the world, with a Mexico station, an Asian station, an Italian Station, a salad bar, a BBQ station (which I think was called "Local Favorites") and a big dessert station.  We both loaded up our plates with grub and made it through only one round before we realized that the major pull of the buffet was, in fact, the dessert station.  So we abandoned "real food" and hit up the desserts.  Round 1 involved pie.  For Round 2, I visited the chocolate fondue fountain and got strawberries, cherries and marshmallows dipped in chocolate, as well as an "ice cream" sundae and chocolate pudding.  Doug got cream puffs, his own "ice cream" sundae and more chocolate pudding.  We skipped the cobblers, the jello, the bread pudding and the cupcakes (though the cupcakes looked fancy and delicious).

We left the casino in under an hour, maybe a record for a casino goer, and only $20 poorer.  And with enough dessert to get us through the next month.

Drive thru Safari

When we first moved to Walmart Country, I was sad to learn that Groupon doesn't exist here.  I quite enjoyed getting the daily emails of random services, events and restaurant deals in Albuquerque.  Thankfully, within a few months I was informed that although Groupon doesn't live here, Living Social does.  Same deal, different name.  Living Social has given us deals for all kinds of restaurants, like the sandwich place (Hog's Breath Eatery) we thought was a BBQ joint.  If/when you ever visit us in Walmart Country, friends and family, the fried "corn nuggets" at Hog's Breath are a complete marvel.  Mmmmmmmm.

Living social has also given us deals for some other random adventures too, like the 2-for-1 admission to the Wild Wilderness Drive-Thru Safari, which we visited recently.

The safari is about 45 minutes away from Fayettville, off the road we take to Tulsa, almost at the Oklahoma border.  Some friends of ours visited and had a hard time telling us what it was like, and now that we've been there, I can see why.  It was weird, ya'll, but more fun than anticipated.

The brunt of the adventure is, as should be obvious from the name of the place, a drive thru "safari."  You take your car on a 5-mile dirt road loop around 400 acres and look at herds (yes, really, HERDS) of animals roaming around.  The more dangerous ones (lions, tigers, ligers, bears, hippos, rhinos, panthers, etc.) are caged, but the other ones (deer, elk, zebras, camels, buffalo, piggies, tons of creepy looking emus) just wander around.  Sometimes in front of your car.

Sometimes right next to your window.  I have seriously never been that close to a cow or an emu before.

 Plus, a herd of like 15 zebras running on a hill?  Pretty spectacular, albeit odd to think about in Arkansas.

In addition to the drive-thru safari, the place also has walk-thru and pet-thru parts where you can feed piggies, goats, chickens, llamas and the like.  Plus, you can hang out with kangaroos!  

In a barn-like area they also had monkeys, parrots, lizards, and snakes.  And then in a real barn, they had chickens with baby chicks, rabbits, piglets, and a couple of giraffes (one of these things is not like the other!).  I wanted to pet the giraffe but I kind of forgot to do it.

The best part, though, was the 7-month old lion cub one of the staff members had out on a leash.  A baby lion.  On a leash.  He was ridiculously cute and had such an adorable, loud, low lion roar.  This cat did not sound like a house cat.  But he sure played like one!  His paws were as big as my hands and he kept grabbing at his leash to bite it, rolling around on the ground to let people pat his tummy, and generally entertaining the crowd.  We seriously could have watched him all day:

Apparently there were some even smaller cubs people could play with in the barn area, but the line was too long and we were unwilling to wait for half an hour to even get a glimpse of the little cubbies, though now I kind of regret not doing it.  I can say that I've pet a lion, though!  His fur was much coarser than I expected, and his teeth were just as big as I expected.

Between this place and the Wild Life Refuge I wrote about awhile ago, whodda thunk there'd be so many exotic animals in/near Walmart Country?

Holiday traditions

We have started several holiday traditions which in my mind will actually count as "traditions" next year, after we've done them three times (once is just random, twice is a line, only three times do you have an actual pattern or tradition...just like a serial killer isn't a serial killer until three kills).  One of these is watching the delightfully awful ABC Family Christmas movie "12 Dates of Christmas."  Mark-Paul Gosselear, of Saved by the Bell fame, is the male lead, and it's kind of like Groundhog Day for Christmas Eve.  A self-involved woman has to do Christmas Eve over again until she gets it right (and it's 12 times, unlike the many years Bill Murray spends reliving the same day in Groundhog Day).  We watched it for the first time in December of 2011, and in 2012 we decided to watch one "date" each day leading up to Christmas.  It's our own silly advent calendar.

The other holiday we have a tradition-in-the-making for is Valentine's Day.  Now, I have mixed feelings about V-day.  On the one hand, it's nice to celebrate romance. Who doesn't like gifts, chocolate, or flowers?  On the other hand, why does one need a day for that?  The expectations are high, the single people are sad, and I doubt anyone has the perfect romantic date of their dreams.  Sure, restaurants make a lot of money and I'm sure the lingerie business sees a nice boom, but overall I can't really get into the hype.

Therefore, we have started what I like to call "trashy Valentine's day."  Instead of going to a nice, romantic restaurant, we go to a kind of trashy place that we wouldn't otherwise go to very often.  Last year we went to Hooters.

Ever since February 15th, 2012, I knew where we were going to go this year: Chick-fil-A.  Here's the thing: I've never been to a Chick-fil-A.  I love me some KFC and other fast food fried chicken, but we didn't have Chick-fil-A where I grew up and I just never got into it.  But it's huge here in Walmart Country (and all over the South).  Last spring at some point I mentioned to my undergrad class that I'd never been there and they all freaked out; one of them tried to organize a class field trip to the closest Chick-fil-A right then and there.  But after class one of my more politically active students came up to me and told me that Chick-fil-A is anti-gay, which I then verified by the many stories on the Internet, so I thought it would be good to boycott the anti-gay, super religious establishment.

Except here's the thing.  Boycotts are more meaningful (to me, at least) when you know what you're missing. It's like giving up motorcycle riding for Lent when you've never been on a motorcycle.  So I decided it would be best to go to Chick-fil-A just once, and then boycott.  Thus the plan for Valentine's day was born.

Also, Chick-fil-A does Valentine's day up.  Last year it was a romantic candlelit dinner.  This year the theme was "A night in Paris."  Seriously, it was.  See?

It was more spectacular than I ever dreamed.  Inside the tables were decorated with black tablecloths and red table runners (note: they also gave free desserts, either cookies or a little ice cream sundae!):

All the people working were wearing berets or black and white striped tops, and/or red neck scarves.  And they brought the food to the table.  This is actually our waiter delivering our food:

The best part part, though, was the corner of the place where they'd set up a little Parisian cafe, complete with a violin player and a big ass cow dressed as a French beat poet or something.  How awesome is this:

The place was packed, which was probably the biggest surprise to me, as Hooters was dead last year.  The staff and guests alike appeared to be in an excellent mood, and there were people on hand taking pictures of guests with the big French cow.

Are there pictures of us with the cow?  Well yes, yes there are.  But thusfar my tradition has been to avoid personal pictures on this blog, which I will uphold today.  I will say, however, that in a very small position of defiance against Chick-fil-A's anti-gay leanings, I did dress in drag for our Night in Paris.  Not very well, either.  Doug dressed up in a shirt and tie, and I did the same--wearing his shirt, tie and khacki pants.  We got quite a few weird looks around the restaurant, and the staff member taking pictures did NOT offer to put ours up on the Facebook page.

Still, I feel the night was a success (note: after dinner we went to the arcade and then watched the "excellent" 80s breakdancing movie Electric Boogaloo).  One more step toward a legitimate holiday tradition, and a full step into a legitimate boycott.  Trashy Valentines day is absolutely a tradition we enjoy upholding.  Stay tuned to see where we go next year!

Sheet forts and improv groups

Last year sometime, shortly after we moved here, we went to a performance of a local improv troupe and were less than impressed.  The audience seemed to like it, but with my Big City background and Doug's actual improv training, plus with our general judgmental natures, we found much to complain about.

Yet, it was the only game in town, so we went again a few weeks ago and were equally unimpressed.  We walked home feeling like snobs--we'd *wanted* to like them, we had hope they had perhaps improved over the year, and the audience was even larger and more enthusiastic than last year.  Obviously they are catering to their audience well, and if the goal is to make money, they look like they are having some success.  But we felt many of the games went on too long, they gave too much power to the audience (e.g. don't TELL the audience what the nouns and adjectives are going to be used for, that's less funny!), etc.

Then, miraculously, the tide turned.  In reading the Fayetteville Flyer, I learned about some "fringey" (word used by the artistic director herself) theatre company in town called Artists Laboratory Theatre who are hosting a month of shows in a sheet fort. Yes, you heard me, a sheet fort.  They have a small space rented out that they've draped sheets all over, and put up some lights to make a stage.  They're doing all kinds of fun stuff, from long form musical improv (more on that in a second) to viewing movies (Goonies! In a sheet fort!) to open mic storytelling nights, etc.  The company also does "secret theatre" where 10 audience members are taken to a random location for a special performance. It's just the kind of fun, fringey types of theatre that I've always enjoyed, and very local.

It was a performance-heavy week for us, as we saw shows three nights in a row.  First the movie Amour (the last best picture nominee--I've now seen all 9!), the next night the touring production of Hair, and then musical improv.  While I'm here, we had fun at Hair, although Doug was perturbed about the cast interacting with the audience.  I thought it was fun, and we both got up and danced on stage with the cast at the end.

The sheet fort show was really fun.  A beer company donated beer that they sold for super cheap, lights bouncing off the sheets, performers peeking their heads through gaps in the sheets to be silly....it was a lighthearted, fun performance.  They did two "long form" improvs, one beginning with a song and the other incorporating music throughout.  We had a great time.  Afterward I went up to talk to the Artistic Director of the Artists Laboratory Theatre (who we've seen in several shows in town) and chatted with her for awhile.  We're going to go back to their storytelling night next week, and Doug may attend a rehearsal of the improv group; he's been hoping/wishing to get back into that and this may be an opportunity.

In short, yay for the sheet fort!

Snow freakouts

Sorry for the long absence, ya'll.  I was doing so well at posting regularly in the fall and then....nothing for two months.

In those two months, we spent two weeks in Albuquerque over Christmas, and almost a week in New Orleans, Louisiana, at a conference.  Doug came along to the conference too and hung out with friends while I spent my days listening to research talks with my four stellar undergrad companions.

Mostly I've been putting my nose to the grindstone, trying to get a bunch of papers out over the first portion of this year, and due the conference it's taken awhile to adjust to the craziness of this semester.  Not to mention that even though I'm teaching two classes I've taught before, I'm always updating and trying to improve the student's learning, which means more prep work than I would like.  But still, things are trucking along nicely.

Until now we haven't had a ton of things to post about, because we haven't been doing a whole lot out of the norm (working, watching TV, trying to see all the Oscar movies, etc.), but it is winter in Walmart Country, and thus worth spending a bit of time talking about the weather.

The weather here is really quite lovely and mild during the winter (the summers are soppy drippy gross hot).  Highs in the 40s and 50s, lows in the 20s and 30s, very little snow or rain.  Similar to Albuquerque winter weather, actually, but without the dryness.

"Nice winter" actually translates to "complete freak out when snow might fall."  Granted, this region got hit with a couple of big storms a few years ago that resulted in the University shutting down for over a week and many power outages.  Also, it's below freezing at night and above freezing during the day, so when it snows/rains and then hardens into ice, navigating the hills on car or on foot can be pretty tricky.  And, of course, they don't have the salt and dirt and general "winter machinery" to move the snow around like the northern cities do.  Still, though, this town freaks out when a storm hits.

Earlier this week we had a snowstorm the likes of which Chicago would scoff at and Minneapolis would barely even notice.  Here, though?  Classes were cancelled in the afternoon into the next morning, University offices were shut down, and everywhere we went people said "Stay warm!"  The last part was particularly amusing to me, as it's been much colder here this winter.  I guess people just lump "snow and freezing rain" into "it must be cold out."  Throughout all of this, I was at work on time, enjoying the lack of activity in the hallways, and happy to wear my winter boots one day this year.  The snow was gone within a day, though there is a leafy, dirty snowman a couple of blocks away that is still standing.

Grilled cheeses!

I've lost track of what I've talked about and what I haven't, but I'm pretty sure I haven't devoted an entire post to what is one of the shining gems of Walmart Country: the grilled cheese restaurant known as Hammontrees. 

Hammontrees is in the heart of Fayetteville, in the "entertainment district" right of of Dickson street.  I've been there a couple of times for lunch, but Doug had never been before.  He has, however, been to the food truck owned and operated by Hammontrees, called the Grillenium Falcon.

I believe it was around the time that I found the Grillenium Falcon photo on the website and showed it to Doug when he said "Hmmm, maybe I could move to Fayetteville."  Perhaps a coincidence?

Anyway, both the restaurant and the food truck serve delicious fancy grilled cheeses with fun names.  My normal order is "Brie's Company," which has apple, brie, gouda, onions and fig jam--it is so so tasty.  This time I branched out and ordered the "Cheebacca" which is a bunch of cheese, bacon, pulled pork, and grilled onions.  Also mighty fine. Doug ordered a buffalo chicken grilled cheese sandwich (the "White Buffalo").

The sandwiches are tasty, we were able to sit on the porch outside on a fine Saturday afternoon (in December!), which felt like a novelty in and of itself, and the real kicker came from the side order of sweet potato fries.

I must wax poetic here for a minute.  Maybe sweet potato fries weren't really a thing when I was younger, or maybe I just never happened to encounter them, but sweet potato fries add a measurable level of quality to my life.  I'm only so-so on actual sweet potatos, but the fries? YUM!  And these SPF provide me with some serious protection from hunger and gloom, let me tell you.  I will say that Hammontrees' sweet potato fries are among the best I've ever had, and they might be the ACTUAL best I've ever had, but I'll need to visit again to be sure. Maybe a few more times, just to be really sure.  Nothin' like a Saturday afternoon walking around town, the sun shining, and sweet potato fries in my belly. 

Woo Pop Sooie!

I made an interesting discovery at the supermarket one day. The entire shelf display at the end of an aisle was taken up by this:

Limited edition Arkansas Razorbacks Pop Tarts. If I remember correctly, I didn't even put any thought into whether or not I should buy a box. Honestly, I don't even remember doing it. I must have put a box in my cart directly after snapping this photo. It wasn't until later, when I was checking out, when I saw them again and thought, "Oh yeah, I guess I'm buying these."

I get the feeling that by buying these Pop Tarts, I've already shown more school spirit than for Arkansas than for any school I've ever attended. Sadly, I don't think the technology for custom printed Pop Tarts was available 15 years ago during my days at the University of Delaware, nor do I think they'd waste the technology on some Division II school.

After doing some light Internet research, I've discovered that The Razorbacks are one of five schools that earned the Pop Tart honor. The other schools are UNC, Florida, Michigan and Georgia. I'm not sure why those five schools were picked. It would make sense if they were going to do a few schools a year, they'd go with colors that match the flavor that year. So since this was a strawberry year, they'd do a bunch of schools with red logos.

Nope. That theory goes out the window with the inclusion of Michigan.

I don't know. I would think "Go Blue berry" would make more sense to me than "Go Blue Strawberry," but no one asked my opinion.

As an added bonus, the football schedule was printed on the back of the box.

However, I'm thinking that if you're buying the Arkansas Razorbacks Pop Tarts, you're either a big enough fan that you're able to recite the schedule from memory -- or at least have it plastered on a half-dozen surfaces around your home -- or you're someone like me who bought it specifically so that I would be able to say, "Holy crap, you're not going to believe what I bought today."

Weeks later, as the special Pop Tart inventory decreases, the supermarket has been using the space for another Razorback-themed item.

Toys, Tusks & Trotters

We've been spending more time up in Bentonville lately, which is the apex of Walmart Country, mostly because.....well, that's where Walmart Home Office is.  Some friends of ours bought a house up there, a few blocks off the Bentonville Square, so we've found ourselves making the half hour drive up to B'ville fairly often in the last several months.

One of those recent adventures was to revel in the glory of First Fridays, a similar town-square event to Fayetteville's own First Thursdays.  No idea what the Bentonville event normally looks like, but I can tell you that the first Friday of November, First Fridays is a toy fair extravaganza.

Toy booths were everywhere along with delicious fair foods (cotton candy, corn dogs, fried pickles, etc.).  Folks were demonstrating remote control planes, some poor schmuck was dressed up as Barbie taking pictures with kids, they had a Mystery Machine bus you could wait in line to walk through (we didn't), and Batman was there taking pictures near his camouflage Batmobile and Batmotorcycle.  There was a stage with perky teens singing Radio Disney songs, a lego tent, a Play-doh tent, and all kinds of other tents with toys to look at and play with.  It was a kid's paradise.

Of course, we went with a group of childless-adults (OK, to be fair, one of our party was 8 months pregnant, so there were some impending parents in our midst) and meandered through the throngs of visitors.  And it did feel more "throng-like" than any other event I've been to in Walmart Country save the Wild Hog Convention.  It was pointed out to me that the Toy Fair makes for excellent people-watching, between the Walmart execs and the "local hillbillys."

Others might have also enjoyed watching us, as we took pictures with the cardboard Disney princesses, the cardboard Bratz dolls, the Scooby Doo gang cutouts, and one very special picture of Doug looking at the One Direction (excuse me, 1D) dolls.

After wandering through the fair, we headed over to Tusk & Trotter, the only restaurant Doug and I have been to on the Bentonville Square (we tried another place but the wait was an hour and we were too hungry for that).  It's a great place, good atmosphere if you can ignore the HUGE hog paintings everywhere, and delicious food.  As our little Canadaphile, Doug had the Poutine, and I had one of the best burger's I've ever had called the "Charcuterie burger."  Description: Housemade sausage patty, duck pate, housemade bacon, pickled vegetables, housemade roasted garlic-red grape cheese, brioche bun.  YUM!  Oh, and their pub food comes with your choice of salad, veggies, or three kinds of fries.  Salt and pepper, truffle or glazed.  The glazed fries are delish--slightly sweet but not overpowering.

The Sunday brunch menu looks phenomenal.  Perhaps some day we will have a reason to go up to B'ville for brunchy-goodness and have a carrot cake waffle or lemon souffle pancakes or duck pastrami eggs benedict.

Just goes to show that we have some good food and some entertaining culture here in Walmart Country. Time to visit, ya'll, time to visit and give us a reason to go out to brunch. :)

Award-winning runner!

I'm not sure at what point in the last year I stopped hating running. I think it's been since August.  Last year, I ran because it's free exercise, emphasis on "free."  It's not my preferred way of getting physical activity, but there appear to be NO modern/jazz dance classes for adults in this town and I'm thusfar unwilling to join the gym at the University.  Mostly because the gym is a hike from my office--and I mean hike.  Uphill.  A big hill.  So I don't want to walk to the gym in the morning, work out, shower, and then have to sweat my way up the hill to my office.  No way.  And I prefer to work out in the mornings, so...yeah.  I've just avoided joining the gym.

Sometime over the last few months, I've stopped hating it.  I don't look forward to it, exactly, but I don't hate it.  Podcasts are much to do with this.  Running to music isn't fun for me, it makes me think about how I'm running, and that just makes me want to stop. But listening to podcasts makes the time go by quickly, because I'm listening to a story, and I want to find out what happens, so I just keep running.

As Doug noted a ways back, I ran a 10K this fall, only the second in my life.  I did better on the first one (two years ago), but was close to my target time in less-than-ideal conditions (not used to running on gravel, ground was muddy from rain, temperature was in Indian-Summer-ville).  While "training" for the 10K, slowly increasing my milage up from 3 miles to 4, then 5, I stopped hating running.

So, when the opportunity to run another short race came around, the "Down and Dirty" 5K, I decided to do it.  This time I left Doug home, and woke up early on a Saturday morning to sub-freezing weather.  I drove over to the race area (the same place I'd run the 10K!) with a hat and gloves and commenced to run the fastest 5K I've ever run.  I think I clocked in at 26:45 or so (the above link should have the race results posted on the website along with pictures....but they aren't there yet).  Considering my best 5K before this one was 27:50, this means I shaved over a minute off my best time....go me!  And even better...I placed 3rd in my age group!  Apparently of the 100 or so people who ran the race, this was by far the biggest age group, so obviously it's very very meaningful.  Here's my medal:

After the 5K they held a one mile "fun run," populated mostly by families with small children. After Doug's experience and this one, I now understand that "fun run" means "mostly for kids."  But having looked at the race results from previous years, the placers were all adults and I thought I might be able to "medal" in this event too.  As it turns out, I came in second.  Not second in my age group or second for women (though both of these were true too), but second overall.  The top finisher was a marathon-running woman who ran the mile in just under 7 minutes, and I came in at 7:40 or so.  I probably could have pushed myself to run faster, but it seemed plenty fast enough.  The ridiculous plaque I received:

So where does this leave me?  With some silly awards and the possibility of training for a half-marathon.  I have zero interest in a full marathon, but I think I might train for a half.  Maybe.

Also with the knowledge that I like running in the cold.  I woke up on November 4th with an extra hour on my hands due to the time change, and I decided to use that hour for a run.  Of my own free will, I ran 6.5 miles in just over an hour and came back invigorated.

I think Doug is worried I've been taken over by an alien.

Haunted Corn Maze

A few weeks ago, some friends of ours invited us to go to a haunted corn maze.  Considering how awesome my first corn maze two years ago outside of Albuquerque was, I was totally in.

Except, things are done Walmart Country style.

The link to the corn maze website (It's a MAZE-ing!) is here, but as I doubt anyone actually clicks on my links, I will instead steal their picture and post it here so you can see how hog-wild these people are for their hogs:

People, the corn maze HAS A PICTURE OF A PIG IN IT.  Within an outline of the state of Arkansas!  I mean.....wow.

Anyway, we went at night to the "haunted" corn maze.  When we got there, we found all kinds of goofy small-town stuff, namely $20 helicopter rides over the maze and some kind of "corn shooter" where you shoot cobs of corn out of a cannon-y type thing toward a target.  Unfortunately, I cannot be more specific about this because no one in our party wanted to do it, and I just wanted to watch someone else do it.

We waited in line about 10 minutes before getting into the maze, and once we did, it was....well...walking around in a field of corn expecting some creepy creature to jump out at you.  Which is fun, if you like the ambiguity of fear.  The first fella who jumped out at us was very friendly after we screaming, as he said something like "You have a nice night now!" as he backed into the corn.  My personal favorite was when we reached what looked like a dead end, but someone holding a row of corn then jumped out at is.  Sort of the corn-maze version of a false door.

I probably made the mistake of wearing clothing too light in color, because the creepers seemed to like jumping at me in particular, which was mostly fun, but a little scary when a chainsaw was involved.

All in all, though, it was a fun small town adventure, a night that ended up in our sitting in a friend's backyard roasting giant marshmallows over a fire pit and chatting...just what a fall weekend night should be like in a small town.

Fossil Cove

Recently, Doug and I "discovered" a new Fayetteville tap room called Fossil Cove Brewery.  And by "discovered," I mean that one of my new faculty friends (from teaching camp!) invited me to go there for a trivia night with her and one of her colleagues.  Of course I invited Doug, but they wanted more of a "ladies night" thing, so I met them halfway. I went first and told Doug to come by later, to help us at trivia and to drive me home.

I walked there from the office, about 1.5 miles achieved in half an hour.  It was a lovely fall day, and I just put on a podcast and strolled up the trail.  The actual location for the tap room is in an industrial-feeling part of town, though right near to residential neighborhoods.  In terms of location, it felt similar to our favorite Albuquerque brew house/tap room owned by some friends of Dougs, La Cumbre.  Seriously, if you're in Albuquerque with a car, check it out, especially if you like IPAs.

Anyway, Fossil Cove was really cute!  Very small, with a bar counter and maybe 5-6 tables, it's a one room venture adjacent to the actual brewing room with big ole beer barrels.  The tap room has local art on the walls, is painted a cheery color, and just seems like a happy place.  They have outdoor seating as well which I'm sure we'll take advantage of next summer.

And the beer.  The beer is good!  I particularly like a Belgian brown they make.  There are a bunch of IPA-types as well, which I didn't try because I'm less of an IPA fan, but others said they were good.  The trivia was difficult and we didn't get a question correct until Doug came--though I knew the question they asked immediately before he walked in (Which president had the shortest term?). Mostly because of The Simpsons.

We've been back to Fossil Cove since, after my winning race (more on that in another post!), and enjoyed it just as much the second time.  Yay for local brews!