Party in the USA???

Ok, so I’m gonna be brave here and admit that sometimes I listen to “Top 40″ music, and sometimes it happens to be some high school pop song. I don’t actually go searching for these songs, but everyonce in awhile one will come on that catches my ear, and I’ll sing a little bit and dance in my car. Maybe I should join some bad music annonymous group or something. “Hi, I’m Lindsey, and sometimes I really like to listen to music with no redeeming qualities except that the tune and beat get stuck in your head, and they entertain me in car.” There I said it. Confession over, now to the real issue with this music. So lately, every time I hear Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” I really want to sing, and I really want to dance, and so I do. But here’s the thing, the title of the song is the last line in the chorus, which oh by the way, has nothing to do with the song:

“So I put my hands up, they’re playin’ my song
The butterflies fly away, I’m noddin’ my head like “Yeah!”
Movin’ my hips like “Yeah!”
Got my hands up, they’re playin’ my song
I know i’m gonna be ok
Yeah! It’s a party in the USA!
Yeah! It’s a party in the USA!”

So for those of you who have never heard the song (or are just too ashamed to say you like it too), the whole premise is that she’s going out to LA, she’s a small town girl from Tennessee or something, and she’s nervous in the big ‘ol city. Then she’s in the taxi and a club and she hears her favorite song, and all is well, she’s got her hands up cuz they’re playin her song. Get it? Ok, so now that we are all on the same page, I would like to submit the question, where did the “Party in the USA” come from?

Well, here’s my hypothesis, actually it was mostly Adam’s, but I totally agree, so I won’t take 100% credit. Her record label came up to her, and was like, “Miley, we need you to be a serious artist, we need you to write your own song. We’ll give you a super songwriter and producer, but you need to write the lyrics. The public needs to know who Miley is as an artist.” Miley thinks, “Hmm…what can I write about?? I know! Nodding my head and moving my hips, perfect, that’s what I do best.” She goes on about the process of writing her lyrics gets, “Got my hands up they’re playin’ my song, I know I’m gonna be ok….crap! what ryhmes with ok???…Hmm…I got it! ‘Party in the USA.’” It just so happens they’ve played her up to be a country girl turned pop star, even better that her dad is Billy Ray Cyrus, known and loved country singer. Her record label thought about it, someone probably mentioned the line didn’t go with the song, and they then probably said, ah let’s go with it. Play up the USA theme, and make it the title of the song, “Way to go Miley! That was terriffic.”

And that ladies and gentleman is how this song was made (or at least that’s what I think).

A Little of This and That

Now that our weekends don’t revolve around bike rides, long runs, packing, or moving, we are finally getting back into our new schedule. We had a great weekend and were able to get a lot accomplished as well as spend a lot of great time together. The weather was of course amazing, and it was so nice to just get out and have some fresh air.

A great new thing we found: YELP
If you are still using citysearch, then it’s time for an upgrade. I love this website and love the application on my iphone even more. It helped find a great new little wine bar/eatery, and I plan on using it frequently in the near future. It is especially helpful when you have this conversation with your spouse/bf/gf/friend:

Person A: “Where should we go eat?”
Person B: “I don’t care, you decide.”
Person A: “I don’t care, let’s try something new”
Person B: “Hmm…well I can’t think of anything, there was this place that someone was talking about the other day but I can’t remember”
Person A: “Oh well, wanna go to Onion Creek (insert name of frequently visited restraunt here)?”
Person B: “We always go there, but I guess, it’s cool”

So get out of your restraunt/wine bar/coffehouse rut and try something new. Yelp helps, I promise!

PLONK Bistro
This wine bar is about a 5-10 minute walk from our house. I found it on Yelp (see it does work). It opened just a few weeks ago, it’s located at Ella & 43rd street. We got a cheese dish and a couple entrees. The wine was pretty reasonably priced and the food was good. It was not crowded at all, which was so nice.

After an unsuccessful desk shopping trip on Friday, we ended up having the discussion above, where to eat. A friend had recently told me that Tiny Boxwoods was now serving dinner. As one of my favorite places for breakfast and lunch, I convinced Adam to give it a try. We were really really impressed. There was a bit of a wait, so we sat on the lawn in cushy chairs and sipped a glass of wine and chatted. The rest of the evening was filled with perfect wine and food. The amazing atmosphere does make the food better. We sat outside at a quiet table, had an excellet waitress (Madison), and talked about our dreams of one day living overseas. Great night!

Saturday was spent desk-hunting, and we finally found one! We are officially grown-ups now. I think there is a line that you cross over when you don’t buy your furniture at IKEA anymore. Not that I don’t love IKEA, in fact I like it very much, it’s just that our furniture purchase to furniture throw away/sell rate was getting a little high. We needed something that was a little more durable and that we didn’t have to spend hours reading sweedish instructions to assemble at our house.

After a quick trip to COSTCO, sidebar, does anyone else love going to COSTCO? Seriously, I think Adam and I could spend a whole afternoon in that store. We really didn’t NEED to go, I just wanted to get some water and walk around to see what other things I could get in bulk that I probably didn’t have any room for anyways. That was a long sidebar, so after COSTCO we went for a bike ride along the TC Jester trail. Someone told us that this trail goes all the way to downtown, um…it does not. After winding up at the bottom of a very steep hill right before I-10, we realized that this was not going into downtown, and because we were on our road bikes, we really didn’t feel like exploring, so we just headed back to our house. Which leads me to my new favorite place in our neighborhood:

Our courtyard. I guess that’s what you would call it. We have this area in front of our house that’s fenced in and isn’t part of the yard, we have a couple camping chairs out there, and Adam’s parents graciously gave us there chiminea. So, Saturday night we sat outside by the fire, eating grilled cheese sandwhiches and tomato soup, with a bottle of wine and just relaxed. It was awesome. My cousin Jess was in town, so she came over and we just sat outside and talked. It was perfect. So relaxing. I intend on spending many more winter evenings out there.

That’s about it, sorry for the disjointed post. Hopefully one of these days, when there are no longer boxes in each of our rooms I will post pics of the house. Have a good day!