(500) Days of Summer

I love Zooey Deschanel. It's sort of impossible not to. I've loved her forever and I wish I could be as adorable as she is. I also really love Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He was super geeky in "10 Things I Hate About You" and then grew up to be well just plain ADORABLE. And that's exactly why I really want/need to see this:



Doesn't it just look so cute?! Plus our friend Liz has informed me that it includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt drunk singing and dancing. How cute and perfect! Anyway I showed this to Jillian yesterday and now we are both counting down until we get to see it. Plus we are summer babies (the cutest, obviously) so we get to celebrate our birthdays. Oh summer! I'm so excited.

Love, María

Sulking and Pretending to Study with Dressy Bessy

These past few days have been interesting. I'm supposed to be working on a translation and studying but I've found all sorts of ways to avoid that. We spent the weekend making adorable videos and I spent Monday afternoon curled up under a comforter on Jillian's bed. I realized I needed some cheering up. That's why I decided listening to Slow Club and The Weepies was probably not the best idea. So while searching through my music I came across Dressy Bessy.


I used to LOVE Dressy Bessy. They are probably one of the first indie pop bands I fell in love with. Pink Hearts and Yellow Moons became my favorite album for months and I knew all the words to everything. But then I found other music and I realized I was getting sick of Dressy Bessy and stopped listening to them except when I REALLY wanted to or when they'd come on because of shuffle.

But this week I gave them another shot. They released their latest album Holler and Stomp last year and even though it was on my computer I hadn't really listened to it. I finally did and I was sort of disappointed. I liked some songs like "Shoot, I Love You" but mostly I just wanted songs like "Jenny Come On" and "Extra-ordinary" from their first album. I even missed songs from Sound Go Round an album that I barely know or like. I guess I just like Dressy Bessy best when they're cute but not too cutesy. That's the kind of music that lets me sulk but tries to cheer me up.

Love, María

Crewcuts

I think that we all know that J.Crew is adorable. I mean, Michelle Obama wore it in the March 2009 Vogue, and any store that offers to dress your whole wedding party and help you plan a honeymoon wardrobe filled with adorableness and perfection (that's another post) can't be bad. AND, since making things in tiny versions always makes them even cuter, Crewcuts, their children's clothing line, has to be ridiculously adorable!




Basically, this is exactly how my children are going to dress. They are going to wear cashmere and ballet flats and adorable little cardigans in all sorts of bright, preppy, adorable colors! Also, just to tie in my last post, they LOVE J.Crew in Japan. Japan knows what's up.

Love, Jillian

Nara

One of my goals in life is to someday have enough money to buy a one-way ticket to Nara, which is possibly the most adorable city in all of Japan. A lot of people go there because it has a bunch of ancient temples, shrines, ruins, and a primeval forest, and it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was once the capital of Japan, blah, blah, blah, WHATEVER. The most important part about Nara is the DEER.


Basically, the story is that the Shinto god Takemikazuchi arrived in the city of Nara on a white deer, and since then, deer have been regarded as heavenly animals that protect the city. The point is, because of this story, people sell biscuits in Nara Park that you can feed to the deer, and they'll walk right up to you and sometimes they will BOW because they want you to give them biscuits! I imagine that they just frolic all over the place and are adorable and cute and wonderful.


Nara pretty much sounds like one of the most adorable places of all time. If I ever go there, I will probably never come back, because I will be too busy bowing to deer and feeding them biscuits while wearing adorable Anthropologie outfits with my adorable Japanese husband and my adorable 5/8-Japanese baby!! In other words, all of my lifelong dreams will be achieved.

Love, Jillian

Back on Track with Hello Seahorse!

After a long time of starting posts and never finishing them I am finally back! I went back to THE PRAIRIE STATE for spring break. I spent the week sleeping too much, driving around, baking, and even sort of missing Jillian and Melissa meowing my name. But now that I'm back to Bryn Mawr it's time to procrastinate and get back to flower-farming.

Break wasn't too much fun, BUT I did re-discover Hello Seahorse! I was never quite sure how much I actually liked them, but after listening to them for a whole week, I realized I LOVE them. Well, at least for now.

Hello Seahorse! is one of the few Mexican indie pop bands I listen to. Christopher has mentioned that Mexican indie pop should be even more sugary than Spanish indie pop but that just can't be true. Cola Jet Set is just sugary and whiney enough to beat anything else. Hello Seahorse! is fun but I just never really got into them. First off I really don't like exclamation marks at the end of band names, I just don't. I was also really afraid that they'd just end up being annoying. Now I realize that the exclamation mark is okay because they are so adorable!

Their newest album is really cute. It's called "Hoy a las Ocho" and has songs in English and Spanish. My favorite song so far is "Cassette" but I think the song with the best title is "OK! ... Lobster" That just sounds silly! AND it reminds me of our friend Allegra! Anyway, I posted the video for "Won't Say Anything" because it's fun/sad/something and mostly because I like that song. I guess I just really like them so I'm just going to keep on listening.

Love, María

Shepherd Dogs

Over break, when I was walking my dog Chelsea (the one on the left), I found another dog that had somehow gotten out of its yard, and it came home with us! She had a collar, but no tags, so after a few hours of playing with her in my backyard and going door-to-door in my neighborhood looking for her owner, I sent her to the pound with my dad so that she would have somewhere to be indoors overnight and not freeze in our backyard. And when the owner showed up at my door a little while later, she was actually MAD that we had taken her to the pound, even though the owner is the one who apparently didn't love her super-adorable dog enough to bother putting a tag with her address (like $3 at any pet store) or dog license tag on her dog's collar. And this was a ridiculously cute, happy, friendly dog.

The point is, having my dog and this other adorable dog in my backyard made me realize how much I love shepherd dogs, especially German shepherd mixes, which is what my dog and this dog both look like. Just look how cute they are!!! And I know that I don't just think they're cute because I own one, because people tell me how pretty Chelsea is all the time and María thinks that she's adorable, too. I mean, just look!


Love, Jillian

Pannikin!

One of my favorite parts about coming home on breaks is the Pannikin! It's basically the best cafe ever, and it is in this adorable yellow house in Leucadia that used to be the Encinitas train station. When we were in high school, Hannah and I used to go to the Pannikin every Wednesday at the end of lunch and during our free fourth period senior year for Italian sodas, and we skipped pretty much every school assembly to go to the Pannikin and have breakfast instead. It was, obviously, always a good choice.

Anisha, who also shares my love of the Pannikin, came to visit me this week because it is spring break and we felt that it was necessary to spend as much time as we possibly could eating delicious food at the Pannikin. We had brunch there after I picked her up at the train station on Monday morning, lunch on Tuesday after taking naps in the sun at my neighborhood pool, and breakfast this morning before I took her back to the train station. In a word, it was glorious. And, of course, we photographed all of the wonderful food we ate!

Bandiera Bagel

Chocolate Cream Pie

Greek Eggs

Insalada Riviera

Veggie Panwich

Of course, all of this was accompanied by Mexican hot chocolate or Italian soda. The adorableness of the Pannikin combined with the insanely delicious food makes the food coma that I spent all of today in totally worth it, just like María's dream macarons. After I have to go back to Philly at the end of this week, I will be sad until I can return to the Pannikin again in May, but I know that it will be waiting for me with all of it's adorable deliciousness when I return.

Love, Jillian

Giada De Laurentiis

I absolutely love Giada De Laurentiis. I know that a lot of people don't, and I've come to the conclusion that they are jealous, because I mean who wouldn't be?!! She is Italian and super-cute and makes delicious food and her husband works for Anthropologie, which means that she probably gets free, adorable clothes to put on her adorable self ALL THE TIME. Additionally, she had a little baby girl recently and because Giada is Italian, that baby is probably about to start speaking Italian and English in the most adorable little baby voice ever. And to top it all off, Giada is adorable-sized! She is TINY, and everyone knows how María and I feel about anything tiny.

All of this perfection and cuteness in one person naturally makes people say that they don't like her for ridiculous reasons like the one that a high-school friend's mom once gave me; she said that she didn't like Giada because of how they would zoom in on her hands when she was chopping things on her show. Generally, this is what I have found to be true: the people who do not like Giada 1) usually are severely lacking in Anthropologie clothing in their wardrobe, and 2) have never even attempted any of Giada's recipies. Last semester, when I had an apartment and kitchen in Milan, I used to make Giada's peaches stuffed with amaretti cookies for people who did not yet know that they loved her, and they were so delicious that that would always change their minds.

Love, Jillian

Slow Club and Snow Days

I've tried to write this 900 times but I always got tired or realized I had other things I had to do. How sad. Fortunately, today we had a snow day! Snow days aren't exactly cute since snow means cold and horribleness. I guess lots of people enjoy snow and so for them I bet it's cute. Snow days are sort of wonderful because they mean I can sleep in and write blog posts. Plus, the Chicago Public Schools have made me into this strange person who thinks snow days are like little gems. It's almost like even from miles away Chicago only let me have this snow day because they're all getting Casimir Pulaski Day.

ANYWAY, Slow Club are definitely one of the cutest bands out there. I think there's usually something incredibly charming about boy-girl bands and Slow Club's got that charm. They sing songs that sound incredibly sweet like summer birthdays full of cake, balloons, and lemonade ("Me and You", "Summer Shakedown", "Because We're Dead"). They also sing songs that I think I'd like to fall asleep to in my pink house ("Trick Question") or sadder songs that make me think of swingsets and cuddling ("Biology Hearts", "Sunday", "Apples and Pairs"). Last year they released a Christmas single titled "Christmas TV" and it's probably my favorite song of theirs. If you like falling asleep, birthdays, and baby animals you'll probably love them too.


Love, María