Pancho- A Boxer’s Blog | Austin's Original Dog Running Service

Spicy Pickles

July 2nd, 2010 No Comments

Ab and I stopped at the Spicy Pickle on Lamar today…1st time there…didn’t realize it was a sandwich place, but whatever..that’s fine. We ordered a veggie sandwich and stood outside while it was prepared (it’s not a dog friendly establishment. Pft.). While we were waiting, we overheard a “conversation” (we’re using that term liberally).

Man: “What’s your favorite food?”

Woman: “Sandwiches

Somehow, we refrained from commenting directly to these people, so we need to address this problem here.

Woman…
a) “Sandwiches” is not an acceptable answer to that question. A sandwich is simply a manner of arranging a variety of food items. You don’t see the difference between a pb&j and a club sandwich? Those are the exact same thing to you? And even if you can’t tell them apart, do you actually like every ingredient equally? You find the onion as palatable as the cheese? No. You don’t. Pick one ingredient in one sandwich.

b) If you’re saying sandwiches just because this guy took you to the Spicy Pickle, we hope you guys break up tonight. The existence of this relationship and every pointless interaction that will undoubtedly come from it annoys us.

There. Community service completed for the day.

Well, one more comment: The pickles at the Spicy Pickle ARE spicy. They are topped with red peppers. We were really not expecting this. We tried a bite of one…they’re horrible. We’re fairly certain no one has ever finished their pickle at that place…but we kind of admire the restaurant for sticking to their guns on that one. They apparently feel that having a clever little edible representation of their name trumps offering a side item that people would actually like to eat. We’re down with that.

Ab’s going to a yoga class later today. This is a terrible idea. The last time Ab did yoga was a couple years ago while she was living in Dallas. She had to walk backwards down the stairs for an entire day after that class because her legs were so sore. She also doesn’t adapt well to the temperature of the “hot yoga” class. I assume the heat is supposed to help people be more flexible as their muscles are immediately warmed up…right? Sure. That’s a total scam. The class that Ab went to had students doing headstands. I’m sure the heat was a critical factor there. “Oh..now that it’s 470 degrees, I can balance my whole body on the top of my skull”. Yeah…right. You people practice those moves day in and day out. So turn the heat down to a comfortable temperature that normal humans can exercise in and stop showing off.

Tomorrow is Ab’s birthday. Having a birthday on the Independence Day weekend is really dangerous. It’s 4 days of almost-guaranteed debauchery. We went out with some great people last night, we’re meeting up with friends tonight and tomorrow, we’re getting into trouble on Sunday, and we’re checking into the Betty Ford Clinic on Monday.

Namaste pups.

Piggy

oh. ps. Austin Dog Running.

We love you, Landon

June 24th, 2010 1 Comment

So…exciting developments over here. Ab and I are working with an advertising agency and formulating some creative (and fun) promotions/marketing initiatives/etc. Everything is very much in it’s infancy at the moment. While we prepare, we have been tasked with using the words “Austin Dog Running” and “Abby Loves Dogs” as much as possible in our blogs (to help with google placement). Austin Dog Running. This could be a bit challenging as we normally write about our various evening adventures and other nonsense, but we’ll give it a shot. Austin Dog Running. On second thought, maybe this won’t be too difficult.

Unrelated to Austin Dog Running news: Ab has taken up swimming…and the saxophone. I’ll tackle these two problems separately.

1. Swimming: I don’t swim. If my paws can’t touch the ground, I have a complete nervous breakdown (see earlier blog for more on my swimming experiences). But Ab has decided to swim some 10K race in Bermuda, so she is spending an inordinate amount of time in the pool these days. I stay home while she practices, so obviously this isn’t very good for our relationship. I took matters into my own hands last night and ate her swim cap. I hope that translates into a hefty vet bill.

2. Saxophone: I don’t even know where to start. She rented this sax for 3 months to make sure that she enjoys playing before actually purchasing one. She hasn’t had a lesson yet (that will happen on Sunday), so all she can do is assemble the instrument and then try to make some sort of noise (which consists of pressing one “key” (?) and blowing 4,700 times until it finally makes a honking noise). I can’t put into words how much I hate this. I stood right in front of her while she practiced last night…barking and growling at the instrument…to no avail. I’m taking the opposite approach today and ignoring her completely when she tries to play. She used this same tactic (ignoring undesirable behavior) on me during my puppy training…so I’m hoping she catches on quickly.

Abby Loves Dogs.

I don’t recall blogging about this previously…so for those of you that don’t know me…I am a certified therapy dog. I don’t actually DO therapy (and right now I’m really hoping that the various therapy dog organizations don’t read this blog). I went through the certification so that I can fly with Ab in the cabin as opposed to down below in the dog part. Disclaimer: Ab and I don’t really know what that means. We’ve never seen any part of a plane outside of the cabin…so we have no idea to what “down below” refers or how animals are confined during a flight. It very well could be a pleasant experience. However, Ab generally prefers to have me plastered to her side, so she’s using the excuse of “cruel and unusual pet flying conditions’ to justify having me sit in the cabin under the guise of ‘therapy dog’. Wrong, we know…but the difference between right and wrong doesn’t normally play a huge part in our decision making, so why start now?

Anyways…we have our test flight next month. Southwest is having some sort of sale to celebrate their 36th anniversary (I could be totally off on the number..but I don’t feel like opening another page to google that. 36th ?72nd ?…irrelevant detail). So, we’re jumping on a cheap flight to practice my flying behavior. I don’t really see any chance of this going smoothly. Ab was once almost arrested in a Panamanian airport for making a drug joke (it really was just a joke…but it was NOT AT ALL FUNNY to the airport security folks down there. They have a sub-par sense of humor). So since then, it appears that she has been profiled as a suspicious passenger and therefore must be thoroughly examined at every check point. I plan to go completely off my rocker while she’s being inspected. There is absolutely zero possibility of me sitting calmly through that process…and yet Ab is going to maintain that I am an experienced therapy dog while I’m jumping around hysterically. Impending disaster.

We. Can’t. Wait.

That’s about all that’s new for now. Well, of course, there’s also : Landon Donovan, we love you. We love watching you play. We love your interviews. We love everything about you.

All Austin dogs…hell, all American dogs…I better HEAR YOU on Saturday!

Peace Pups,

Pancho the Pigbelly

Memphis

June 14th, 2010 No Comments

My position was almost usurped recently. Ab went to Memphis for a reunion. Before she left, she told me about some “Peabody ducks” she planned on seeing while she was out there. I was cool with it. We have a pretty chill relationship and I’m fine with her seeing other animals. No sweat. So she leaves on Thursday afternoon…Thursday evening comes and goes and I don’t hear a word from her. Whatev…I assume she’s still en-route. Well, Friday rolls around…nothing. Saturday comes and goes…radio silence. At this point, I’m understandably riled (and feeling a strong sense of solidarity with almost everyone Ab has ever dated). She returns on Sunday, toting a book on these ducks, a painting, and about 700 pictures of them. Apparently she went to see them 4 times in the span of 2 days. The 1st viewing was at 11am on Friday when the ducks take their ceremonial trip down the elevator, run along a red carpet, and plop into the fountain in the center of the Peabody Hotel lobby. Ab was so excited to see this that she got all choked up when the ducks ran out of the elevator for the 1st time.

I’m completely stumped.

I run everywhere. You stick me in that elevator…and I can GUARANTEE that I will run out and jump in the fountain at the 1st opportunity. What the hell is the big deal?

So, needless to say, I’m very suspicious now. I’m quite certain that she is leaving out key details to this story and I am determined to expose them. Ab claims that spending all of Saturday on Beale Street effectively erased her memory. I’m not buying it. I’ll get to the bottom of this…

Ab did see a few other things in Memphis in addition to the ducks. I enjoyed hearing about everything BUT the Stax Museum. Stax pays tribute to the great blues musicians and is, most likely, quite inspirational to everyone that visits. In our case, it goes a step beyond inspirational and has actually motivated Ab to start playing an instrument. If it were anyone else, I would be 100% encouraging. However, in the short 2.5 years that I have spent with Ab, I have heard her absolutely destroy the piano, oboe, guitar, and violin. She has been talking about the saxophone for about a week now…and I am finishing up my application to Austin Boxer Rescue.

In business news: We had a sugar glider as a client last week! Yep…you heard me pups…I was tasked with caring for a FLYING SQUIRREL. Hands down, best invention ever. I haven’t stopped drooling for 7 days. I’m guessing some brilliant scientist mated a squirrel and a bird…to give us this little piece of rodent heaven. I’ll obviously be asking for my own sugar glider for my birthday this year. What I plan to do with it…well…don’t ask, don’t tell.

Insert segue.

Ab bought me a red kong and some soft treat stuff (ok. Honestly, the thing lists “lamb lungs” as the main ingredient, but that is so incredibly repulsive that we just refer to it as “treat stuff”. We’re all about the ostrich defense over here). Anways, Ab stuffs my kong with lungs (good god…) and gives it to me to bounce around/entertain myself/remove the lungs. Sounds fun, right? No. It sucks. It takes me about 5 hours of full-on ASSAULT before Ab finally feels bad and takes the “stuff” out for me (while gagging). This is the most ridiculous dog toy ever. The only possibility of getting food out requires me to fling the kong into the air and let it bounce off counters/ tables/etc. Did the peeps at Petco ever test this thing? Do they realize the house carnage that a kong will cause? The dog is entertained for a minute …but all the furniture must be broken in the process. It reminds me of a medicine commercial. “Will cure headaches, but may cause herpes”. Mmm. Good. Totally worth it.

So we were reading the Statesman online this morning and noticed that Passion Pit is coming to Stubbs this weekend. Ab loaded up a few tunes while we worked just to see what the fuss is about. All I can say is “you have to be freaking kidding me”. What exactly do you have to be on to enjoy that music? I will cede the fact that we do not have the best taste in music…but gimme a break. No one likes that. The only reason anyone will be at that concert is because Hoboken Pizza is right across the street. (which is an AWESOME reason, by the way).

Have a great week pups. Stay outta the heat. We’ll see ya at Passion Pit.

Pig

Mayo and snake proofing

May 25th, 2010 5 Comments

Ab and I went to lunch today at a place on South Congress called “The Flying Pizza”. We would have loved to have been part of the naming process of that joint. We’re guessing they didn’t use free association. “Ok team, close your eyes. What do you think of when you picture ‘pizza’????”… “Flying!!!”… “Done!”. We’re considering setting up a partnership with them now…as (believe it or not), Abby Loves Dogs didn’t consult a creative committee during the naming process either.

In other restaurant news: we tried out a sushi place downtown on Saturday night. Ab ordered a couple rolls and a small salad. Yeah, I agree…ordering salad at a sushi place is unnecessary, but that’s what she craves after every long run. Side note: we never have food at our place, so thank god for the awesome salad bar at Whole Foods. (although the pricing scheme at that place is out of control. We have to eat the ‘lightweight’ veggies. Green, leafy salad…$4.75. Add cauliflower…$53.00. They should put a little bowl at the checkout register. Build the salad you WISH you could afford…take it to the checkout…keep removing veggies until the price is down to what you can do. ) Anyways…so yeah…we had salad at the sushi place. The waitress says “would you like to try our ginger or mayo dressing?”. Ab, assuming she misheard anyway, goes with the ginger. The ginger dressing turns out to be basically water, so Ab asks for the other dressing. Lo and behold..it IS mayo. GENIUS. Who DOESN’T want to coat everything in mayo?!? No one. That’s who. But it’s totally unacceptable to do so….UNLESS…you’re at a restaurant and that’s what they offer as their salad dressing and it would be rude to not accept it. So, Ab got to have mayo-coated salad. I don’t think she has any other goals in life, so you may not hear much more about her.

Segue.

Ken Saxton is coming to Austin tomorrow….the barefoot running guy! He’s holding a clinic at Butler Park at 7pm. We are SO.EXCITED. Seriously can’t wait. I, of course, am great at barefoot running as my pads are very tough and made for that exact purpose. Ab tried to get in on the fad last year after reading “Born To Run”. We went out to a field in South Austin. She took off her shoes…started running…and was on the ground 30 seconds later, swearing, with a huge splinter in her foot. Wow. Didn’t see that coming. Big shocker…

So I should have reported back on this a while ago…but better late than never. Snake proofing was….HORRIBLE. We expected it to be a little spooky. But really, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a fairy tale compared to this ordeal. We arrive at the ranch and the snake proofer tells Ab to put me on a leash as, in his experience, boxers can be aggressive towards snakes. Ab is 100% sure that I will not be aggressive, but complies with the instructions. The proofer has Ab guide me over to the 1^st snake (a rattlesnake) to get a wiff of him (??? Guessing on that part. But he looked masculine). I get a big wiff because, while humans can’t smell snakes, dogs absolutely can (snake proofing, while traumatizing, was quite educational). The proofer then tells Ab to bring me very close to the snake…like…to let me try to lick him. Ab is shaking so hard that I can feel it through the leash…so come on, I’m not about to run over to this rattling freakshow of an animal. It takes a bit to get me over to him (the proofer ends up taking the leash)…and the second I lean down to get a close-up, I get the sh*t shocked out of me. I am not exaggerating. I actually levitate for a second. It’s horrifying. I’m squealing and jerking so hard to get out of my collar that the guy can barely hold me . Ab’s in tears, the proofer is undoubtedly thinking “what the hell were you expecting?” and we’re heading back to the car. Truth be told, this is not the first time a dog/owner has reacted this way, so the proofer calms us down and convinces us to go through with the other 3 snake proofings (all types of snakes have their own unique smell), lest we run into one of them on the trail the next day. Good point. We’re eventually convinced to continue. After the rattlesnake shocking, I am a little more hesitant to approach any snake. This seems “good enough” to Ab, who is totally terrified of ALL snakes, poisonous or not, and does not understand why it matters if I can tell a poisonous snake from a nonpoisonous one. The proofer explains that I will only recognize snakes by their smell, so I must be introduced to the types that I should avoid. Uhmm….I would like to share my opinion at this point. I do notice a few other distinguishing characteristics for snakes besides their smell. Illustration:

My next door neighbor’s cat:

A snake:

Yeah…thank goodness they smell different or I would never be able to tell them apart. But, whatever, we continue. The next 3 snake exposures don’t end in quite as strong a shock as the proofer can tell that I’ve picked up on what’s going on…as evidenced in the following pics:

PRE 1ST SHOCKING

before meeting the 1st snake (he’s in the grass right in front of me):

Very curious:

POST 1ST SHOCKING

Silly proofer thinking I might even CONSIDER investigating the 2nd snake:

Dude. Screw you. I’m not comin’ NEAR that thing.

You will seriously have to rip my head off before I come any closer:

So…to summarize our experience, snake proofing works. Neither one of us is ever gonna go near anything at all, ever again. If you see us out on the trail…leave us alone.

Sleep tight pups,

Pigbelly

Music

May 20th, 2010 2 Comments

15-mile training run yesterday afternoon. Aside from the obvious problems including:

a) It was a hell-ish 90-something degrees outside

b) The run was 15 miles long,

we have also pinpointed another huge issue. Ab has god-awful taste in music. Here’s a small sampling of what we listened to (in order): Hayes Carll, Black Sabbath, and Miley Cyrus. Now, before we get bombarded with emails, lets step back a bit. Hayes Carll is indeed a fabulous artist. We love going to see him, we love his music, and we love TX country in general. The problem is that the purpose of slow country songs is to make pregnant women cry…not to pump up runners training for an ultramarathon in hell. Black Sabbath is also…well….”artistic”?…but we can’t figure out what constitutes an appropriate time to listen to them. Perhaps right before battle? We don’t know…

And Miley. I know, I know. It’s just that we really liked dancing to that Hollywood song the first 407 times we listened to it.

If any readers have advice on better running tunes, shoot ‘em over. We’ll be forever grateful.

On top of our music lineup problem, we also have a very temperamental ipod (Ramona). Ramona starts out at a normal volume…and over the course of 10 miles or so, grows increasingly quiet, until we can no longer hear anything at all. This makes Ab regularly contemplate suicide on the running trail. It’s really that annoying. We realize this could be fixed by getting new headphones…but that would make our 4^th set of headphones this year (to accompany the 3 blackberries and 2 hard drives we’ve been through. Awww).

As usual, “insert segue”. You know the routine.

We might have another favorite bar. Doc’s on S. Congress is really growing on us. We went to happy hour there last Sunday…for 6 hours. The rest of the details are a tad blurry…but trust me, it’s a cool joint. (before you judge, remember that Ab doesn’t have kids. That is the POINT of not having kids yet. Alcoholism. Yes.)

Yesterday I attacked a canoe. Ab and my absentee father took me canoeing last year (more on him another time. Ooooh. And now I have you for another week…. one can learn a lot from LOST…) Anyways..so yeah, they took me canoeing and I don’t know how to swim. They had me in a life vest just in case I fell in. I did indeed fall in, and I’ve hated canoes ever since. Here’s a picture of me in the water:

VERY. SULLEN. BOXER.

So yesterday these 2 girls try to dock their canoe at the Auditorium Shores dog swim area. I went all Kujo on it’s *ss. Seriously. Hair up, body tense, growling and barking. I let the girls get out, of course…but just totally attacked this canoe. Ab turned around and pretended to be searching for her dog elsewhere. Pft! All I can say to that is, “duly noted, my friend, duly noted”. What goes around, comes around.

Next up on the agenda: Austin Urban Vet (the vet that I blogged about…the one that I visited because I was “tired”) is having their grand opening on Sunday. They’ve invited us to set up a booth and market Abby Loves Dogs at the event. Austin Urban Vet is in a money spot in the middle of downtown. We’re hoping to pick up some new clients…or perhaps some wealthy, single, high-rise dwelling, investment bankers who want to summer in Europe. Either or.

We’ll close with a client story. We have a pitbull client named Worthy. We know not everyone is a fan of pitbulls, and that’s understandable. Ab wore a towel around her jugular the first time we met her… just in case. Turns out, Worthy is a SUPER sweet champion for her breed. She’s also not really into listening to commands from humans. So Ab drops her off the other day after her run and we go out onto her owner’s back porch to talk to them for a bit. Worthy ends up jumping over the porch gate and takes off running down the street. Ab and I and Worthy’s owners chase after her. This happens fairly regulary at Worthy’s house, so the owners already know which backyards she likes to explore. We eventually turn into the right yard and Worthy is back there playing around…as the ABC Pest Control guy continues spraying the yard for bugs. Ab stands there dumbfounded…and asks the guy “Did this pitbull just come flying right by you!?”. The guy goes “awww…MAN…I LOVE dogs! She ain’t botherin’ me!!”. Uhhhh. YEAH. I think it’s pretty clear by now that Abby loves dogs too…but if a 70 pound pitbull came charging at her, I can guarantee that “aww…man” would not be the first words out of her mouth. So….dude…if you’re reading this, feel free to start a company called “Pest Control Guy Loves Dogs More.com”. You’ve earned it.

Unplugged at the Grove tonight. Operation “find better music” fully underway.

Peace in the middle east,

Ito

Testing…testing

May 14th, 2010 No Comments

Warning pups: don’t read this. Totally mundane post. I’m just doin’ some puter work for Ab and linking her facebook page to my blog. So…this is just a test. Go back to what you were doing. Catch ya tomorrow.

Love,

Pig

Snake proofing

May 7th, 2010 14 Comments

Hi guys.

I already blogged this week…but I think it’s necessary to pass along one more as this may very well be my last opportunity to do so…ever. I’m getting snake proofed on Sunday. Ab has a habit of turning situations that require caution into epic catastrophes, so I have no doubt that we will somehow get placed with a venomous, pissed-off snake and will leave the ranch paralyzed or catatonic or something along those lines. Supposedly the snakes have their venom removed…we shall see. I’m going to be wearing a shock collar and when I approach the snake, the trainer will deliver a shock so that I learn to keep my distance from snakes. The trainer’s website says “dogs have no natural fear of snakes”. Ab finds this really amusing…as I have no natural fear of ANYTHING..so specifying ‘snakes’ is unnecessary. This entire experience is bound to be completely ridiculous as there is absolutely NO WAY that Ab is going to watch me get shocked and not burst into tears and punch the trainer.

As for our running update…the Palo Duro training is going well. I suppose. I accompany Ab on 5-8 miles and then she runs by our condo, drops me off, and continues the rest of her run (to total 20 miles or so for now). Then she returns, delirious and starving and drinks Dos Equis to refuel her carbs. This may not prove to be the MOST effective training plan…but she’s worried about becoming one of those overzealous, serious runners. She’s protecting herself from this possible outcome by drinking copious amounts of beer throughout the training. I honestly don’t see any alternative. All the ultra-running blogs talk about using meditation, motivational phrases, etc to keep focused and energized on the runs. The only thing that motivates Ab during a 20 mile run in 95 degree weather is cold beer. So…that’s what we’re goin’ with. Fully expecting disastrous results.

In all seriousness, we are genuinely amazed that writing a motivational phrase on one’s arm actually does help people get through really long runs. One blogger says that he writes “family, friends, desire, and destiny” on his arm. WHAT!?!? Seriously?!?

A) no one in our family runs…so reading “family” would just make Ab think of her dad sitting in a turkey-hunting stand in Pennsylvania. How does that help?

B) 99% of Ab’s friends have responded with “you are completely freaking crazy” when she’s mentioned the race. Ab agrees. Also…not helpful.

C) uhhhh. Desire? There are definitely other activities that come to mind before running when we think of the word desire. Okey doke.

D) pretty sure that thinking of the Palo Duro race as one’s “destiny” may be exaggerating things a wee bit.

So…we’re running for beer.

We rescued a caterpillar yesterday. We were driving home from the greenbelt and planning to swing by Rogue to drop off the shoes that Ab wear-tested (more on that in a sec). Ab felt something crawl on her leg…fortunately she didn’t instinctively brush it away…but checked first…and it was a baby, green, spiney caterpillar. That’s not a technical term, “spiney caterpillar”, but upon close examination, we saw that the little guy was spiney. Now that I’ve typed that a few times, “spiney” doesn’t even look like a word. We’re derailing this story…back to the point: we scooped him onto a piece of paper and drove him over to a field and released him back into the wild.

That’s the whole story. That was anti-climatic. Sorry. Then a dragon popped up out of nowhere and tried to eat the caterpillar but I blasted him with my kryptonite wand and totally saved the day. Better?

So…the wear-testing experience was cool. As in “we got free shoes” cool. Otherwise, I’m predicting we were of very little help to the Under Armour folks that are now analyzing our report. They sent us a survey asking all about the durability, cushioning, support, etc. We had no idea what to say. They’re shoes. They stayed tied. That’s basically all we expect from our shoes. They also asked us how we felt about the length of the shoes. Well, we ordered Ab’s correct size…so the length was great. Is there any other way to answer that? Did some people get some sort of makeshift “ski shoe”? If so, we are really pissed. We would have been totally down to wear test some sort of 20 foot long ski shoe.

Ab’s competing in a 3-mile stand up paddleboard race tomorrow. She’s had one paddleboarding experience ever… and has deemed herself a strong contender in this race. I don’t even wanna watch.

It’s Friday. It’s 4:15pm. Lets go drum up some mischief on South Congress.

Peace Pups.

Piggy

Armadillos and a hat dance

May 3rd, 2010 4 Comments

Hi guys. It’s been a busy past few weeks. Things are calm today…after a crazy weekend. Ab went to a wedding on Saturday at House on the Hill. I went with her to pick up her car the following morning (yep…it was that kind of night. I’m really, really glad there is no video footage of the walk we attempted to go on around 2am.) I had nothing to do with the wedding, but I tell you what…whoever decided to put a party/wedding location at the top of that hill off 360 had some ulterior motives…possibly something along the lines of “population reduction”. It’s barely even safe to drive TO that place, much less to drive home after a night of celebrating. Bizarre.

Amazingly, we did manage to make it to Sunday Runday about 5 hours after our “walk”. Then we did absolutely nothing for the entire rest of the day. I felt fine, of course…but I refrained from bothering Ab at all…lest I find myself in a pen at Town Lake Animal Shelter. (kidding…I don’t think she would do that…but better safe than sorry). She’s all better today and I’ve resumed tormenting her while she tries to work.

I accompanied Ab and Fischer (her boxer client) on their morning run today. At about the halfway point, we saw a HUGE armadillo. He was running down the side of the trail and stopping occasionally to forage. We stopped immediately and watched him, totally amazed and so happy to be at that exact spot at just the right time to see him. This experience also made Ab wonder about something though. We were the ONLY ones that stopped to watch. We realize this immediately shouts “not native Texan”…which seems to make sense as Ab had never seen an armadillo before moving here (whereas , I assume, most Texans see armadillos at some point very early in life). However, it’s not like seeing an armadillo is the same as seeing a squirrel. How often could any one person see an armadillo? Does it really eventually become NOT interesting? Mind-boggling. Rest assured, we will still be stopped…staring…awe-struck…15 years from now…at any armadillo spotting. Ab loves them dearly. Fischer and I just want to box the life out of one. To each their own.

We’re super excited that it’s finally May…we love the summer…and we LOVE Cinco de Mayo. Not really sure why that is. If you read this blog at all regularly, you’ve realized that we don’t require any sort of real reason to party. But Cinco de Mayo is a huge hit with us. Perhaps it’s because of my Mexican heritage. I haven’t shared many stories about my heritage with you, my readers, yet…but I am indeed Mexican (as I’m sure you deduced from my name). I’ll talk more about all of this in another entry. (Ab just left the room to start packing for Tijuana. We’re now using this upcoming entry as an excuse to go to Mexico). I remember mentioning in an earlier blog that I was born at the Double K Ranch in Texas…so I see how that could cause some confusion about my roots…but that is a mere technicality. My grandmother calls me Panchito, Ab and her friends have frequent conversations where they ‘voice’ my thoughts and they always use a Spanish accent (just keep reading. Don’t try to picture the ridiculousness of those conversations. The UT MBA decreases in value every time we blog about Ab’s extracurricular activities), and Ab regularly exclaims “Mi Amor!!” upon seeing me after a short absence. For these 3 reasons, it has been determined that I am of full Mexican descent. We will be doing the hat dance on Wednesday. Feel free to join us.

Hasta Luego, Amigos!!

Ito

Top Ten and San Jose

April 22nd, 2010 3 Comments

Top 10 Reasons that I’m starting to feel we spend too much time outside:

#10. We almost never sleep over at other people’s houses because we hate sleeping without the window open. We live in Texas. It’s never actually comfortable with the window open.

#9. Last summer, Ab went to the library in a bikini. Don’t do that. It’s frowned upon…seemingly everywhere.

#8. We once left a bar and rode McGregor (our beach cruiser bike) home..without Ab’s shoes. They were still at the bar. She didn’t notice until we were already home.

#7. She lets me walk straight into our condo with sticks. She sees no problem with woodchips all over the floor.

#6. We regularly run into people that say “aren’t you the girl I see on the lake…like…all the time?”

#5. Ab almost never wears something that doesn’t qualify as running clothes. “Dressing up” usually means wearing high heels with running clothes.

#4. We recently came home to an opossum hanging from the shower rod. This didn’t even slightly faze us.

#3. We’re not 100% sure of the name of the street we live on. But we could tell you the exact mileage of any greenbelt path in the city of Austin (and probably the surrounding suburbs)

#2. We haven’t been to a restaurant that doesn’t have an outdoor patio in…well…I don’t even know how long.

#1. The guy behind Ab in the grocery line today pointed out that she had a light blue caterpillar in her hair. I wonder if he’ll call…

So anyways….we got to stay at the San Jose Hotel (funky hotel on South Congress) yesterday evening!! Ab has been searching for a reason/way to stay there for a long time. She was off-the-charts excited. They have a nice front door:

(really, really excited)

And fascinating wine labels…

If you’re not from Austin but planning on visiting, this is the one and only place to stay. (warning: it’s a little pricey. Find an event to attend there so you don’t actually have to pay for your room…then you’ll be able to afford the green flip flops that are for sale in the bathroom. Totally worth it)

Oh! Oh…and one more thing. Guess who’s got takers for Sunday Runday now!!!! Yep! Finally! I’m. The. Man.

Out.

Panchito

A little healthy competition

April 21st, 2010 7 Comments

Wow. So there’s this girl. She’s a UT student and she has a blog. Her blog was ranked “fastest growing blog at wordpress.com” today!! WHAT!?!?!?!? THAT IS NOT FAIR!!!!! She’s still a student! What does that make her? 14? That is so not right.

Ok..in all honesty…we read a lot of her blog. It’s pretty funny…and we even sent her a “job well done” comment. Still…the fact remains…her blog is winning. So, we did some analysis. Seems to us…most of her entries are about clothes, dating, and good-looking guys. So that’s what sells? Alright then, readers. Here you go…

This is one of Ab’s best friends and the guy she stayed with when she first moved back to Austin last year. And he likes his friend’s babies…And we have his phone number. Just sayin. We got more where this came from. NOW whose blog you gonna read!?!?

Ps. We realize this isn’t helping us bolster our male fan base. Here’s a cute picture of Ab wrestling with me.

Ok. That didn’t work. That’s straight-up creepy. We’ll do better next time….so you should definitely check back on a DAILY basis.

Game on, UT blogger kid.

-Pancho ‘the warrior’ Pigbelly

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