Adrienne Culpepper: October 2010 Archives

It's almost here - it's so close I can hear the Polka and taste the strudel (I can admit the brauts smell good, but you won't catch me with any in my der Mund) and the Ziegenbock - actually it's Saint Arnold's Oktoberfest for me - man that stuff is tasty! 

OKTOBERFEST!  Hosted by the First Lutheran Church along 24th and Winnie in downtown Galveston.  Friday, 5pm-11pm and Saturday 11am-11pm come enjoy the food, live music, dancing, craft booths, auction and raffle!  Admission is free!

Although Michael is a former boxer and would ordinarily LOVE to go to this, I suspect these ticket prices are probably going to be a bit rich for our blood... BUT - speaking of blood - if you like seeing it splash everywhere, you might wanna nab your ringside seats for this "Brawl at the Seawall" (not to be confused with that other Seawall brawl, mind you) coming November 20th to the Seawall Convention Center!

The Main Event will feature Texas Heavyweight Champion (and Dickinson native), Eugene "Mean Gene" Hill (23-1, 16 KO's) V. the undefeated Fred Allen.

If you're a Galveston Chamber member, call (409) 763-5326 for info on tickets.  Or you can visit www.savaresepromotion.com.

Recently Michael and I entered into a rather heated debate (or we just debating when it was very hot outside... I cannot recall) with Willthing and Shannon about where to find the very best french fries on the Island. 

Michael and I (unfortunately for my rear end) discovered one of our recent favorites at the Wingstop over off the 61st/Broadway/I-45 feeder - it's one of the little box stores in the parking lot in front of the big Home Depot/Target corner.

They must add sugar or nicotine (anyone remember tomacco?) or some other crazy addictive coating to these things.  Whatever it is - it is delicious. 

So, it was decided that we must somehow organize a taste-test of the various best french fries on the Island.  I will share our draft slate below and welcome any other suggestions...

Wingstop fries
Gumbo Bar's sweet potato fries
Rudy & Paco's french fries (I've never had 'em - I just sit and eat the fried bananas til the cholesterol-induced coma kicks in)

For anyone interested, I challenge you: try the Wingstop fries and tell me they're not amazing.  In an effort to keep an open mind, I too will give the others a shot, but man, that tomacco is goooooood.
 

Michael and I just finished the 3rd weekly class (of 5) over at Galveston College (go Whitecaps! - the lady's volleyball team is actually quite fun to watch; they're usually playing in the gym when we arrive for class) of beginners ballroom dancing.  (I'll wait a moment for you to reseat yourselves and wipe the tears of laughter off your faces... Good, now that we've got that over with...)

I must admit that it is HARD work.  Not to say that I expected it to be easy by any means.  But we've also never watched "Dancing with the Stars" which, in hindsight probably would have prepared us for what we were in store for.  Granted, we aren't competing against anyone (except for the youngest couple in the class who already took it last year and continues to show us up - plus she wears heels to class and I wear tennies - much to the chagrin of our teacher) and we aren't practicing for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week like they do on DWTS.  It is a challenge to train our feet to do what they just aren't used to doing though.

And, MAN do I now realize my posture could use a good ass-whooping.  Seriously, my lower back is all jarred from standing up straight and poor Mikie's right arm is all sore from holding up my lazy left arm - we both leave sweaty palm marks on each other's shirts, and within the first hour of class we're both crawling to the water fountain like we've been in the desert for 5 days.  It's all very alluring and sensual.  Riiiiiiight....   

So what made us sign up?  Rather, what did I have to do to convince Mikie to do this with me?  Aside from the fact that he's a pretty good sport about trying anything once, dance class also happens to fall on a NON-college football night.  Lucky for me.  Also, dancing is something we both really like to do, but only really get to do on random occasions like weddings or the very infrequent late-night red-bull induced club dancing (if you can call what I do dancing, which I don't think anyone would - think Elaine Benes here...) so neither of us is really any good at anything other than the "sway".  Except Mikie who can also do the "worm" and has performed it at 3 - count them - 3 of my friend's weddings.  Yeah.

Now we have an excuse to try out Shearns - we've heard there's a pretty posh piano bar across the hall over there that's the semi-secret hangout of other ballers.  (I'm pretty sure that's the appropriate slang for ballroom dancers and I plan on throwing it around more often.)

 

This is the first year I had even heard of the Holiday Shopping Card, (presented by VICTORY, a fundraising branch of the Amercian Cancer Society) but after we learned a bit more about it, we were excited to participate at Nautical Antiques.

Basically, you (1) pay $71 bucks for this card which you can purchase online or at any of the participating merchants' stores and from Thursday, October 28th to Sunday, November 7th, (2) you shop - and (3) you save 20% each and every time you buy something at any participating store.  So basically for 10 days, in the Bay Area you can hit up hot spots including Williams-Sonoma, COACH, Mommie Chic & Me (hmmm... if only we knew ANY new mommies out there...) the Galleria area's Kate Spade, Emporio Armani, Field of Dreams, Brooks Brothers, 7 For All Mankind, and in Galveston at The Frog at Home, Head to Footsies and Nautical Antiques.

Now I'm no rocket scientist but by my calculations, if you spend over $350, the card has paid for itself.  So if you're planning on doing any hard-core shopping sometime soon anyway, I'd highly reccomend giving this thing a looksie. 

Oh yeah - 100% of the donation for your card (the $71 bucks) goes to the American Cancer Society.