D'Jango Montana

Last week when Bridget was here, her friend Matt invited us to lunch with him & his friend D.J. At The Royal Thai Grill.
From first glance we were a little worried, but the sign on the front door was even more curious, "Bathroom for clients only." hmmm....is this a problem around here? I mean, granted it was a shady part of town, but do people off the street just come into use the bathroom?
As it turns out, yes, they do.
While still waiting for the guys to get there, Bridget and I were perusing the menu when this guy showed up:

Yep. The one in the Joe Montana jersey leaving the bathroom. As soon as he entered, a man I can only assume was the owner ordered him to leave.
"But I just need to use the bathroom!" he said.
"Can't you read the sign?" said the owner
"Dude, I'll give you a dollar! I just need to use your bathroom!"
"I don't need any money! I just need to stop cleaning my bathroom all the time!"
"Dude, I'm not going to piss all over the wall..."

They were literally yelling at each other across the restaurant. I almost wet MY pants I was laughing so much.

Eventually the owner conceded and the guy got to use the bathroom. Who knew there was even more excitement left to come?!

About the food: The sticky rice came in this cute little bamboo thing, the lemon chicken was excellent, and the egg roll was the best I've ever had. And the noodles in the soup were the exact same size as the spoons! How fun!

About the ambience: Well, you can check out the birthday table and the statue of King #5 (I don't know who he is, but that's what our server said.)

Moving on. So we're all sitting there talking about people and names when somebody asks D.J. what his name stands for.
"D'jango."
"What?!"
"My dad really liked this jazz musician Django Reinhardt so he named me after him. My mom was in charge of my middle name. So my middle name is Montana.Because it was pretty. I don't know if she meant the name or the state."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said. "Your name is D'jango Montana?!"
"Yep."
"What were your parents like?"
"Well, my mom was kind of a flower child. And my dad was...well, they call them cosmic cowboys."
Here's what the internet had to offer:

Apparently cosmic cowboys are hippies who wear cowboy hats. Beautiful.
So here's a picture of D'jango Montana. Because you will never meet another one.

I thought I would make such a good little hippie...

Because of school last week, I had every evening off and school every day. So I went to Food Inc and 500 Days of Summer. Food Inc inspired me to eat locally; 500 Days of Summer made me want to go buy adorable dresses. Not a bad idea, either way, I think.
So Saturday I woke up early (again; I was in the habit by now), and went downtown to the Phoenix Market via light rail. Again.
A little description of why I like riding the light rail:
1- It's new, which makes it cleaner and more exciting
2- I feel all kinds of earth-friendly
3- I can read my assignments or other books on the way there and feel very productive
4- There are all kinds of people to people watch. My favorite are the ones who get off for work at 3rd and Washington. They look so professional, which makes me feel, kind of,
like...
5- I'm in Manhattan. Or at least I kind of pretend that I am. I think of the subway every single time and feel so big city, even though lots of times I think Phoenix is kind of a boring big city. So in my mind this gives me the chance to act out my big city fantasies, and it feels great. And I fell in love with this one building and desperately want to live on the top floor and have two of those windows to myself.
MOVING ON!





To the Farmer's Market. This, I decided, could be my hippie day off my 101 things list. Public transportation, a dress, a farmer's market. That seems like it should count. Except that I forgot my SIGG water bottle and my canvas bags. Who uses plastic at a farmer's market? NOT hippies!
So I ended up looking a little like a Manhattanite trying to be a hippie. I bought pears, watermelon, Japanese eggplants, dates, a sweet potato and an onion. And some flowers. And then realized I wish I had my stinkin' car. I was carrying 20 pounds of stuff in downtown Phoenix in crappy little plastic bags. And it was so crazy hot! And I almost lost my camera.
But I didn't. Brad came and picked me up from the stop near home, and that night Brad and I improvised our first meal in a while and had eggplant, mushrooms, and onions sauteed together with basil and olive oil, chicken, and Couscous mix from Trader Joe's. So delicious I think it might have been worth all the hard work!

Why, Hello, Doctor....

I STARTED SCHOOL!! This is a picture of me on my first day of grad school (on the 24th). My mom wasn't around to take a picture of me and Brad was asleep, but it's kind of a tradition so I took one anyway. (Besides, I got my hair done on Saturday and bought a new flat iron AND a new hair dryer and if I'm going to spend that much unexpected money, I sure as heck am going to take a picture of it!!)
I took the light rail to school, which made me feel very grown up. It's only about a mile walk, so I got up early and embarked on pubic transportation for the first time- other than for just fun. Actually, Brad woke up that first morning luckily, told me 40 minutes was NOT early enough, and drove me to the stop. (I really had no idea how long it would take. And it's 40 minutes to Downtown Phoenix from the time I get picked up.)I was still five minutes late, but it wasn't too bad.
And then my laptop broke. On the first day of school. AHHHH!! Nothing could probably have stressed me out more than to start six online classes (I go to school for one week in Aug, one in Oct, and one in Dec; everything else is online) and have my computer crash. It should be back in a couple days and was under warranty and Brad's works, so I'm not completely dying. Not that I don't miss it terribly.
But...classes were all good. I got the hang of the light rail; There are 12 girls in my program and they all seem very nice.
Am I a little stressed by the thought of all this self-paced work? Yes. Mostly that I'm just going to forget to do something, but so far, so good.
My professors all seem really cool. Unfortunately, they are all doing things I find fascinating, so narrowing down my choices seems stressful. But I think I'm going to love this women's health thing.
So that's that. DNP, here I come!

Lena From Russia

I have a new friend. She's very popular, though, so I might not see her all that often. She is from Russia and very entertaining. Brad met her first, at church, but now we all hang out sometimes.
She and I worked out together the other day. Usually I would want to punch someone who looks that hot while working out. This is a girl whose "pet pee" is sweating. And yet, she's still sweet enough that she hands me a workout she found in Fitness magazine and says, "Let's do this," so I lead the way and we have a blast.
She says hilarious things, and she's very nice, and she even forces me to do fun things. Saturday went like this (phone call),"Christin, I have the day off so lets go work out." Me: "I'm not home. I won't be home for an hour." Lena: "Ok, I'll be at your house in an hour. We'll go work out." Me: "um, Ok"
Lena (my house, an hour later): "Ok, we'll go work out and then we'll watch 13 going on 30."
Me: "Ok."
Me (later): "There's a party tonight at Mike's house but I don't know if I want to go."
Lena: "Yes, you're going. I'm going so you're going."
Me (laughing): Ok!
Who said I needed to do homework on a Saturday anyways? PLEASE.
(This is a picture of Lena eating a honeydew, which she loves. It is not the prettiest picture of her (she really is striking), but for now, it's the only one I have.)

Treasures at Fort Cove

The eleven-hour ride home on Friday was littered with little adventures. You see, I realized on the way up that I never stop at those brown "Historical Marker" signs, and I hate it. I always want to stop there, but life is always too busy. So I decided on my way back I would stop at least a couple times. And this decision landed me at Fort Cove.

Somewhere between Park City and St. George lies an old fort built by Mormons (specifically Gordon B. Hinckley's grandpa) to protect them from Indians. However, they ended up being friends with the Indians so they just used it to feed and house weary travelers instead. And grow cute gardens. And now, it's a cute little tourist attraction that houses 9 (NINE) senior couple missionaries, all very happy to take you on a tour. Even if you only wanted a five minute stop. Here's a couple pictures of me and my senior missionary couple from Historic Fort Cove:

I also made pit stops for jerky and to see the Colorado River flowing through a beautiful canyon. I saw an old pioneer church and ate at a terrible cafe that announced "We Proudly Accept CASH ONLY." seriously?!?!



I drove all along Highway 89A, which was beautiful, and listened to my first book on tape, Sheri Dew's "No Doubt About It," which was excellent. Maybe more so because she read it herself, which I thought was cool.
I got home at midnight, but was so glad to have had such a great ride home.