One step closer to obsolescence

This past weekend was a birthday blowout weekend. I turned 33, or, as I like to say, I'm now Jesus' age.

It started on Friday, where The Texan gave me his gift: a hot pink Motorola Razr. With etched flowers on the phone's face. On one hand, I hate how marketers feel that if they want women to buy something, they need to make it pink. On the other hand, it's so pretty. I want to add a few rhinestones or something to it just to make the bling complete.

Saturday night, The Texan and I headed out to our favorite bar for what I thought would be a quiet evening of contemplating being one year nearer to meeting my maker. Instead, it was a surprise birthday party, complete with far too much champagne and sheet cake. (I had told The Texan that I expected sheet cake at some point during my birthday - it's just not your birthday without that sugary, larded frosting.)

Sunday, despite quite egregious hangovers, we managed to stick to the birthday plan of heading to Natural Bridge Caverns. It's about 30 miles east of SA and has a wild animal park attached to it. The website warned that while the cave is 70 degrees, it has 99 percent humidity, so jackets are not necessary. Boy, they weren't kidding. At first it's just pleasantly moist. But then they make you trek up and down the cave and at one particularly harrowing point, have you walk up a spiralling staircase for about 100 feet. Then they take your picture, so you'll always have a memory of when your hair was plastered to your head with sweat.

I bitch, but it was pretty interesting. I would recommend it (but not on days when you're feeling a bit under the weather). We even got pressed pennies at the gift shop. We may have also bought an album for our growing collection of pressed pennies. We MAY have, I won't confirm or deny that.

Finally, we went out for Indian food for dinner. I luuuurve Indian food and could eat it every day. Unfortunately, my hangover was one of the kind where it gets worse as the day goes on. By dinnertime, I was hunched over in my chair, determined to eat my chicken tikka masala and yet feeling like I was going to have to bolt for the bathroom at any moment. Still, totally worth it.

One of the seven signs of the impending apocolypse

The Economist, a much-revered British weekly newsmagazine - like Time, but a lot better written - always ends every issue with an obituary. Often, it's not an obvious choice. Recent people highlighted include Alice Lakwena, who started the Lord's Resistance Army; Henry Groues/Abbe Pierre, who fought for rights for France's homeless; and Theodore Kollek, former mayor of Jerusalem.

Then again, The Economist can fall prey to the mob mentality which overwhelms even the most stalwart hold-outs to the media circus.

This past week, their person du choix was Anna Nicole Smith.

Finally able to catch my breath

My friends ZFF and G&T have an annual event that they call "Swanky Cocktails." They host a party where everyone has an excuse to wear old bridesmaid dresses (for the women) and honest-to-god suits (for the men). It's always a lot of fun and a good reason to put on something besides your black going-out shirt and jeans.

This year, of course, I couldn't make it as I live in Tejas and they live in our nations' capital. So instead, I went to the nearest equivalent: the San Antonio Livestock Show and Rodeo. Okay, technically, we went to the livestock show, but the rodeo sold out. In fact, the whole thing seemed to be running on empty, as we went on the second-to-last night and thus all the vendors were running low on supplies. By god, if you advertise that you have corn dogs and sweet potato curly fries, you damn well better have said items. We still had fun drinking overpriced beer (probably the only time in my life you will see me paying $6.50 to drink Bud Lite) and cruising the vendors' area. If you ever want a skimpy tank-tank with a bejeweled cross on it, I know exactly where to get one.

Sunday I attended the Express-News "Fine Wine and Cuisine Tasting." It cost $45 but I had high hopes for it. The Texan didn't come because he isn't a fan of wine and we weren't sure how much actual cuisine there would be. Next year, however, we are BOTH getting there right as soon as it opens.

As you walk in, they hand you a program with a listing of all the food suppliers and wineries present and a map of where they're positioned in the Alamodome. Plus they give you a glass wine glass - one of the more short-sighted things I've seen done - and a book of tickets. I thought at first that goddammit, each wine tasting is going to be a bunch of tickets and I'm going to get like three sips and a cracker. Instead, they give you roughly 20 tickets - it's all a bit hazy now - and each taste of wine, which is in reality half a glass, was one ticket. I'm sure it's done to keep people from getting blitzed, but ha ha ha too late. I was gone before I used up maybe half my tickets.

There were long lines for the furrin wines but I figured that time was of the essence and just hightailed it to any table where the corker was standing idle. I also skipped the chatting of the wines' bouquets etc and instead just pointed to whatever bottle of red wine was opened. They had stickers there for each wine they had on offer that I guess you were supposed to use to keep track of your sampling. Perhaps write yourself a little note too. Of course, if it were really that kind of wine tasting, they'd have spit buckets around, and they most certainly did not.

The food was quite good too, although seriously, Chipotle? Give it up, no one's ever going to associate you with wine or fine cuisine. The only food line I waited in was for HEB as they were the ones providing samples of fancy-pants cheeses. I ended up chatting with this very nice lesbian couple* who volunteered to hold my spot while I refilled my glass, as it took maybe 20 minutes to get to the front of the line and lo, my glass had run dry in the interim.

Since I was there solo I was able to dart around from wine station to wine station, unimpeded by any laggardly companions. This was good for the wine consumption but not so bad for my stomach. About 1.5 hours in, I felt a "sproing" in my stomach and an immediately cramping in my left side. I have never gotten a stitch in my side so spectacularly quick in my life. My body apparently decided that desperate times required desperate measures and it was going to stop me from consuming anything more, like it or not. I tried waiting a few minutes but the cramping didn't go away. So I gave up and called The Texan to come get me so I could go home and lie flat until my digestion caught up a bit.

What I was suprised about was how dressed up a lot of people were. I know I live in Texas but it's an event in the Alamodome - why would sequined cocktail dresses be warranted? I was wearing a t-shirt** and jeans and was glad that I could scoot around without having to worry about being crippled by my shoes.

* San Antonio's gay and lesbian community was out in full force last night. So THIS is where they hang out. I'd been wondering where they were.

** Specifically, I was wearing my Amazing Race t-shirt from TelevisionWithoutPity.com (the one that has a front that reads, "You're the first to arrive!" and the back that reads, "Sorry, you're the last to arrive." It was in honor of last night being the start of TAR 11: All-Star edition. And I think one word describes how I feel about this season: ecstatic! Or goofy. Take your pick.

Happy Feb. 14!

A very happy Valentine's Day to you all, but a special VD shout-out goes to those in the trenches this holiday season. My sister Dustbunny lives in Vegas and has one of those only-in-Vegas jobs. No, she's not a cabaret dancer, nor their naughtier cousins. She's a wedding planner at a wedding chapel, and Valentine's Day is their busiest day of the year. Know what the second busiest day is going to be this year? July 7. Yeah, I know - at first, I didn't get it either. But if you look at it numerically - 7.7.07 - it makes a little more sense. Just a smidgen - I can't really figure out why having a numerically cool wedding date is reason enough to get married, but that's just me.

Anyways, be strong, Dustbunny! You shall overcome. And in the end, you can think of all the happy couples you marshalled into the world today. Plus there's always discount VD candy.

(BTW: At Walgreen's today, I hit the trifecta of chocolatey goodness: Reese's pumpkins, Reese's hearts, and Reese's eggs. All in one aisle!)

Grooming status:

Clean. I'm happy to report that we have had a solid 24 hours of non-stop access to water. My god, what country am I living in again? Saturday night we were up until 3AM, sporadically testing the faucets in the vain hopes that the water had been restored. I got on the horn around 10PM and called everyone who possibly could be considered relevant to see if our property management had broken any laws, then I called the onsite manager and bitched him out.

Anyways, at 6AM on Sunday, The Texan nudged me out of my sleep to alert me to the fact that he could hear the water running in the pipes. Sure enough, it was on in full-force. So I got up and immediately took a shower and did a first load of dishes. Being clean has never felt so good.

Three days and counting

That's how long it's been since I've had a shower. And no, I'm not sick. This is, as we used to say back in my Valley days, grody.

It all started Wednesday. I checked the mail on the way home - the mailboxes are up by the trailer park entrance - and there were signs all over saying that they would be turning the water off for some work on Thursday from 10AM until the late afternoon. How nice of them to tell us, I thought. How very thoughtful.

Thursday we'd planned on having the house cleaned, so I got up early Thursday morning and filled the tub so that there'd be plenty for the job. Off and on all day, I'd check one of the taps and the water was running each time. But I didn't want to drain the tub because I was sure as soon as I did, the water would be off.

Thursday night The Texan and I kind of shrugged at each other, figuring that it was a false alarm. Thursday night I could've taken a shower but I was lazy and thought that there was no hurry. How wrong I was.

Friday morning, the water stopped around 9AM. Keep in mind, we're both home all day, so by noon, the toilet was resembling those at Club Heaven at their worst (DC readers are nodding knowingly and shuddering at the memory). I took off midday for my hair appointment*, so it at least got washed. We spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening at a friend's place, but came home to find that they'd only sort of turned the water back on. The pressure was about halfway, so we were able to fill up the tub and manually flush the toilet, but that was about it. This morning, of course, the water had been turned back off and it remains nonexistent this very minute. I don't know what sort of dicking around they're doing on the main line, but I am this close to doing and driveby and lobbing some tomatoes at the slacker employees who are causing all this angst. It wouldn't speed them up at all, but I'd feel better.

There was one silver lining in all this. Last night, as we were filling up the tub, Shrapnel was watching all the activity very intently. Once the tub was full, we went into the living to watch some TV, leaving him to ponder the situation. About ten minutes into the show, we heard this splash, and then his collar jingling. I went into the bathroom and found the cat sitting there with the lower half of his body soaked and a very peeved expression on his face. Some cats like to swim, but this evidently is not one of them.

* I got my hair cut and colored. It looks longer somehow, but it's not as red as I'd wanted (my hair color veers between brown and auburn normally). The stylist admitted when we got done with the coloring portion that she didn't want to mix in too much red as all the white hairs on my crown would've turned pink. Remember back when having pink hair was considered to be a good thing? I guess in some circles it is, but unless I'm applying Manic Panic to my head, I'd rather have a more natural color. Sigh. Dark brown it is then.

Just curious

You know how if you eat a preponderance of carrots, your skin turns orange. What, pray tell, happens if you eat a crockpot full of melted cheese? Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Hope everyone had a fun Superbowl Sunday. I belong to the unwashed masses who don't give a rat's ass about the game but like the social aspects and of course mocking the commercials. We went to a small gathering and had a good time. My contribution was the Cowboy Cookies, which, modestly speaking, are the best cookies in the world, even if they do come from the Bush White House's cafeteria. Luckily, The Texan isn't much of a football fan either, so when at the end of the third quarter I gently suggested that we head home, he readily agreed.

I was all frothed up though: the Superbowl was on CBS, which meant they were plumping their shows, which meant OH MY GOD THE AMAZING RACE IS COMING BACK IN TWO WEEKS EEEEEEE!!! Let the countdown begin.