Her Ladyship

It's going to be one of those days

2012-01-27T11:06:00.002-05:00

I think the biggest accomplishment I will have today is brushing the mat out of my cat's fur. One down, one to go!

I spy with my little eye

2011-12-31T17:00:00.003-05:00

Today, when walking Che home from a "dog park" (okay, it was a park where I illegally let my dog play. Happy?), I saw a cherry blossom tree in bloom. THREE MONTHS EARLY. This has been a crazy warm winter. At least it will make doing the walk of shame tomorrow easy: one year it was a balmy NYE and the next day it sleeted. The girls in their strappy sandals and party dresses on the metro clearly did not leave their houses that day in those outfits. :)

Anyways, not an issue for me as The Texan and I are staying home. We got some prosecco, cheese that we loved when we were in Paris this spring (reblochon - LOVE), and sausage, and will reenact some of our favorite meals while we were in Paris. I even managed to record "Amelie" off of some channel earlier this week so we can do the whole homage to Paris. Bonne Annee tout le monde!

Under siege

2011-12-29T16:40:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, when I was being a responsible pet-owner and playing with our dog Che at a local dog park*, I heard a plane rumble overhead. While technically DC is a no-fly zone, there are often planes going overhead, but that's not what made me look up. What caught my attention was how deep and sonorous this plane was - you could almost feel it in your chest. Sure as shit, I looked up to see a B-2 verrrrrry slowly passing over me. I'm not a plane geek but even I know that the big flying bat wing is not something that the Pentagon trots out without reason, so I was a little nervous. I've been on vacation this week - did things heat up with Iran and I just missed it? I took some pictures just in case....you know, in case of what, I'm not exactly sure. Evidence, I guess. I came home all excited about it (it didn't help that I was het up about yet another chicken bone that Che managed to get to when I was walking him**) and it turned out that The Texan had heard it inside our house.

This morning I searched the news for other eye witness reports of it. Turned out that the Pentagon apparently DOES take the B2 out for little reason: the Military Bowl was held yesterday at RFK Stadium in DC and they did a flyover. Okay then. Glad to see our tax dollars at work.

* Unlike today, when I am being an irresponsible pet owner and assiduously avoiding even the hint of a W-A-L-K with the dog. You know how some nights you can have a few drinks and be on top of the world, and other nights you have a few and are knocked completely flat? Guess which one was me last night? I managed to get dressed around 3pm today but that's about the extent of my accomplishments today, and frankly, considering how I feel, I'm impressed I managed to get that much done.

** Seriously, WTF people of Petworth: why do you feel the need to randomly toss chicken bones on the ground? Every time I walk our dog, he picks up at least one that an idiot has decided to leave on the sidewalk rather than a proper trash receptacle. I don't blame the dog for wanting at the bones - I mean, he IS a dog - and I try to keep an eye out for them, but there's only so much you can see before the dog does. I don't get it. I can maybe understand throwing apple cores or something that can break down in some bushes, but chicken bones flat scattered across the sidewalk? Come on now.

It's all a matter of perspective

2011-12-27T15:10:00.002-05:00

Last week, I was on the phone with Papa Ladyship and he asked me about the weather.* I told him that it was going to be a pretty warm day so we had opened up the house, as they thought that it might get as high as 60 degrees out. Then my dad told me that LA had been undergoing a dip in their temps and that they had the heater on, as it might get as cold as 60 degrees there.

Well, neither of those things are true today. My family said that xmas day itself it was about 80 degrees but it has since cooled off. And we've been staying inside to avoid the nasty cold rain that's been coming down all day (54 degrees my ass, it feels a lot colder than that). The thing that really sucks when it's this crappy out is that the pets have to burn up their energy indoors. There is a lot of barking and hissing going on in our neck of the woods. Apologies to our neighbors!

* The Ladyship family has been into the weather well before there was even an inkling in the eye of cable TV for the Weather Channel. Any kind of gadget that gives you an idea of the weather is a welcome gift in the Ladyship household. Hint for next year!

You know you are in love...

2011-12-26T22:57:00.003-05:00

...when the way you show it is by giving your spouse food treats you DON'T want to eat. The Texan, that peach marmalade is ALL YOU, baby! Merry Christmas!

I will use my power only for good

2011-12-20T13:47:00.002-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk, plowing through all the assorted sundries that need to be taken care of before I head out for the holidays, when the doorbell rang. It was about 3 or 3:30, the time when lunch has worn off and you're just starting to think that an afternoon snack would hit the spot (or if you're like me and sadly trying to space out your eating, beginning the count of how many hours are left until dinner).

My co-worker got the door and I half-listened as she greeted someone and then closed the door. I was thinking as she walked down the hallway, god, wouldn't it be nice if that was someone dropping off food for us?

WELL.

It was a Godiva gift basket from our building management company. And because everyone else is gone for the holidays, we got to divvy it up between the two of us. I managed to hold off on opening up the dark chocolate bar until I got home but there was no way I was waiting to bust into the truffles.

I brought home the excess and am now sitting in a completely empty office, crossing my fingers that another gift basket will show up. It won't, but a girl can dream.

Is it time yet?

2011-12-18T16:39:00.000-05:00

Three days, and one of them I'll be working from home. THREE MORE DAYS OF WORK and then nearly two weeks off. I can't wait.

This has been a tiring fall and holiday season in particular. I'm making stupid mistakes, like renting a Zipcar for us to go buy a xmas tree yesterday (Saturday) and then realizing yesterday morning as we were gearing up for the trip that I'd actually rented the Zipcar for the day before (Friday). That was money well spent. We are trying again tomorrow during my lunch break and I have double- and triple-checked to see that I've got the car rented for the right date. Meanwhile, I just need to get through the next couple of days and try not to make any irreversible mistakes. I've saved some research to do during this time, which perhaps counterintuitively doesn't require a lot of thinking, just a lot of searching about on Lexis-Nexis. Cross your fingers for me.

Just call me MacGyver

2011-12-11T13:52:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was my bellydance performance, and I was really excited to have an excuse to bust out my chandelier rhinestone earrings.* The last time I wore them was at Z-Ditty's wedding in Boston, and I danced so much there I - sorry, this is kinda gross - sweated one out of my ears and lost the backing. Warned you. Anyways, I got a new backing for it from one of my other earrings and thought it would be all systems go.

However, I hadn't really thought through how much the weight of the earrings would affect their ability to stay in the backing. Which is to say, one kept falling out off my ear. I thought, hey, it's a short song that I'll be dancing to (I think it's under 3 minutes) so if I can just keep it on....except I couldn't. During the dress rehearsal it fell into my cleavage about half-way through, and because I had candles in my hands, I couldn't really do anything about it. After we were done, I looked around for the backing but couldn't find it.

We had a cast meeting and some other stuff right after we had our tech rehearsal and it was during some down-time, when I was trying to think through different options, that I happened to glance down. Nestled in the ruffles on my top was the backing. A bellydance miracle! Except I still needed to figure out how to make the earrings stick in the backing.

I finally decided that nail polish poured down into the backing might make it viscous enough that the earring would stay where it was supposed to. Lo and behold, it worked! Once I got it in, though, I was afraid to take off the earrings until after the show because I didn't want to rub off the nail polish that was gluing it in. I am planning on wearing those earrings to our office holiday party this week so I've got to figure out a more permanent solution. Or just be ready to carry around nail polish with me when I want to wear those earrings.

* A good chunk of the fun of performing is having an excuse to sparkle the hell out of yourself. I call it my drag queen look. For example, this time I bought what I called demure sparkly fake eyelashes. Nothing but the best!

Well that was unexpected

2011-12-02T16:31:00.001-05:00

I opened up my defense contractor swag chapstick and found out that it is bubble gum flavored. Would not have called that.

The claw

2011-11-29T23:06:00.002-05:00

Last night, my dance troupe finally got the candles that we'll be performing with in a few weeks. (Did I mention that I belly-dance? Well, I do.) The candles aren't real in that they don't burn - they work off of batteries - but they are encased in glass containers. I kind of wish that they were real because I'm more worried about dropping the container and shattering the glass on the dance floor (we all dance barefoot. God, what a clusterfuck that would be) than catching on fire. Anyways, because it was the first time we were dancing with the candles, I clutched a little too much at them - I'm not sure how attractive a death grip is, but I'm thinking, it's not a good look. Should be a great performance! I also will be wearing a "tu" - a tutu that only covers half my body. Amongst other things, I hasten to add.

Stepping high

2011-11-28T18:10:00.002-05:00

I was at a trade conference a few weeks ago and got a ton of great swag. Every year, I don't know if the vendors plan it or not, but it usually ends up that there is some sort of theme. One year, everyone has fancy pens; the next year, everyone's giving away fabric bags. This was the year of the trinket. The one that I was the most excited about was a pedometer. I've been trying to take the dog on long walks lately and I'm kinda curious as to how far we've been walking (I guess I could get on Google maps and retrace my steps but that seems a bit time-consuming). So I was delighted to have a pedometer...until I tried it out. G&T had warned me that the cheaper ones can be nigh useless and hey, guess what? Freebie crappy pedometer is crappy.

So I was going to do some research on pedometers that actually work when I realized, hey, I have an iPhone now, I bet there is an app for that. Oh, is there ever. I downloaded one and decided that I'd leave it running all day today to see a) if it works and b) how far I generally walk in a standard day at the office (no meetings etc.). So far it mostly works; there are some hiccups that I am willing to believe are user-generated (one of which is that I'm not entirely clear if the pedometer thinks I'm 5.75 feet tall or 5.75 meters tall. While the latter would be physically impossible, it's plausible that the software has me measured via the metric system. I AM AMERICAN WE WILL FOLLOW THE METRIC SYSTEM AT THE SAME TIME WE ALL BECOME FLUENT IN ESPERANTO).

But the eye-opening thing is that so far, and it's the end of the work day for me, it says I've walked about 1000 steps. Now, I think it's missing some of my steps - you know, to make up for the gigantic stride a 15-foot person would apparently have - but still. That is not very impressive at all, especially when they recommend that you try to walk 10,000 steps a day. I have got to up my game.

Missing that something special

2011-11-27T23:38:00.000-05:00

If I were in charge of representing particularly Belgian food, I would totally have the contestants go to a friterie where they would have their fill of frites (fries) with mayonnaise, The Amazing Race producers. You are missing an obvious hole. Plus I would have had them do something with biere. My Belgian roommate from Leuven never failed to remind me that his hometown is also home to over 300 beers. Of course, he also talked a lot about "Les Strymphs," or the Smurfs, which are also a Belgian creation. God help the person who stole his Smurf spoon for his yogurt. I certainly never heard the end of it.

First!

2011-11-26T17:26:00.002-05:00

For once, the Texan and I are the first ones on our block to put up our holiday lights. Suck on that, elderly neighbors! It was not intentional on our part- just a perfect storm of a long holiday weekend and good weather that prompted us to do it. Our MO is that we normally put up the lights less than a week before xmas, preferably during the middle of a wind storm. Ah well, there's always the trip to get our xmas tree.

(Sidenote: let's pour a 40 out in honor of my *almost* having made it through NaBloPoMo. Closest one ever.)

Although I must say that the gauntlet that we've thrown down has already been thrown back at us (...yes? How does one refer to that anyways?). One of our neighbors has a very cool set of icicles on a string that use LED lights to "trickle down" the lights so it looks like it's snowing. We may have to hit Home Depot to see what we can use in response.

Promises

2011-11-23T21:49:00.000-05:00

We just got done watching "The Next Three Days." I have made The Texan promise to never leave the pets behind if he had to break me out of jail.

Deliciously full

2011-11-22T23:00:00.003-05:00

We went to Rasika tonight, using J-Dawg's trip to DC as justification. So delicious. I forced myself to try something different and I was not disappointed. Paneer with tomato sauce - highly recommended. And of course we got the crispy spinach which Rasika is known for.

I also have learned from other trips to other Indian restaurants: bread OR rice, not bread AND rice. That latter combo is where madness lies.

My sister has a place near where we grew up that she loves to take me to when I'm in LA called the India Restaurant. Not the Indian restaurant, mind you, but the India Restaurant. Guess what they serve? In buffet form? WITH SAMOSAS IN THE BUFFET DO YOU KNOW HOW RARE THAT IS????

Where was I? Oh yes, food coma. This should be a good week for eatin' and sittin' and sippin'. I love the holidays.

An exercise in futility

2011-11-21T23:10:00.000-05:00

I joke about my cat Shrapnel being one of the undead as an explanation for why he is still alive and kicking (it *would* explain why I can never take a decent photo of him) but I know that a 20-year-old cat has three paws in the grave, no matter how good of a shape he's in. So to help him in his twilight years and lessen his arthritis, we have him on an anti-inflammatory that can cause liver damage if it is given long-term. Did I mention that the cat is 20 years old? How much longer is he going to be around, anyways? (A vet tech recently told me that she was pulling for her cat to make it to 30. God, I wish.) So Saturday we had to take Shrapnel in to get his blood checked to make sure his liver wasn't failing from the medicine. I understand why the vet office wanted to check, but we were planning on giving it to him no matter what they found out.*

So, to sum: Saturday we had to rent a car and submit the cat to the stress that a vet visit brings so that he could have a $150 bloodwork test done that we were planning on ignoring the results of either way. Good times.

* Got the results back today: a clean bill of health. Huzzah! May he have many more years of love-mauling** ahead of him.

** For an explanation of love-mauling, go to this oldie but goodie by the Oatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/kitty_pet.

Welcome back, J-Dawg

2011-11-20T23:34:00.002-05:00

And not just because you're the only person in the Eastern time zone who will watch "The Amazing Race" with me (seriously, friends of Her Ladyship - you are only hurting yourself by your refusal to watch this show with me). So good to have you back! J-Dawg and I have been friends since kindergarten. So, you know, 15 years or so. Ahem. Plus or minus a few years. Holla for those who know and still miss Alpha Beta!*

* To this day, when I'm tired and speak about going to the grocery store, this is what I call it.

Division of labor

2011-11-19T16:25:00.003-05:00

When I first met and moved in with the Texan, I had been living out of my parents' house for 13 years and more or less successfully feeding myself for most of that period. However, due to the fact that I had to walk home from the grocery store and thus avoided heavy packages, and my concerns about the consequences of not fully cooking meat*, I rarely made full and complete meals. So doctoring up a store-bought pasta sauce?** Or making a salad or some couscous? Dinner is served.

The Texan, being a Texan, would not have any of that. A meal is not a meal unless it has a protein, and no, tofu doesn't count. So he quickly took over the dinner responsibility for the two of us, and I have been spoiled since then, as he is a really intuitive cook (he will smell a sauce and decide what he needs to put in there).

I still like to contribute, so I have crowned myself queen of the baking. This means that once a month or so, I make cookies or something along those lines. Today, it was banana bread (I don't think that we've ever finished off a bunch of bananas before they rotted on us). And I'm ready for another slice now.

* I was raised in a household where all meat was fully cooked. None of this medium well shit for us - well done or send it back. You can imagine how well that mentality went over the summer I lived in Paris. I would order burgers "tres tres tres tres TRES bien cuit"and they would come out just dripping blood, as opposed to spewing it. I have since learned to enjoy meat cooked to medium but by god, that's as far as I can go with this.

** Growing up with an Italian mother, spaghetti and meatballs was not an eh, I don't feel like cooking sort of meal: it was something that you started two days prior to your meal and spent a week eating the leftovers. As such, it was also something that we only had a few times a year. It astonished me as an adult that you could just buy the sauce pre-made. Don't get me started on how old I was before I realized that anyone could make mashed potatoes.***

*** Please note I am not making fun of my mom, she was a wonderful cook. But she also worked full time and ran a household with three kids and a hungry husband who'd been raised back in the day where men did not cook at home, so she used a lot of shortcuts.

A Texas-sized birthday

2011-11-18T20:55:00.000-05:00

Actually, it's probably more appropriate to say a Texas-sized case of frostbite. It's the Texan's birthday today and to mark the occasion, we thought we'd take our scooters on a long ride out to Harper's Ferry, WVa. I'd been there years ago, thought it beautiful, and figured that 60 miles would be a nice long-ish but doable ride.

It would be...in the summer.

In the winter, not so much. We had to stop every so often because my fingers would numb up and my feet would be frozen. This is with mitts, gloves, jacket, coat, and balaclava, mind you. It got to the point to where it was all I could do to stay coherent enough not to fall off the scooter. Then we hit the Beltway at rush hour. I shut down at that point because all I wanted to do was lie down at the side of the road and sob.

It all got much, much better when we got our steaks from Ray's the Steaks (although we were half an hour late for our reservation because it took us 3 hours to get back from Harper's Ferry OH MY GOD IT WAS ONLY 60 MILES OH THE TRAFFIC). And now, a long hot shower awaits to finish the defrosting.

Oh, and happy birthday, Tex!

Home!

2011-11-17T21:52:00.001-05:00

So glad to be here. And done with the travel/networking.

When did this happen?

2011-11-17T01:32:00.004-05:00

I am away from home this week and thus away from my DVR. Which means I am exposed to the harsh reality of TV with commercials...and having to flip around the channels to see what is on. I swear to god, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" in on three different channels over the course of one evening here. When did that show get so popular that it could be put into reruns? And why don't I get it?

PS: Just got back in from the Mates of State show. AWESOME. So glad I went!!!

A real sausage-fest

2011-11-15T18:25:00.002-05:00

So the conference I'm at has over 55 speakers. Guess how many of them are women? No, lower. No, lower than that. No, cut that in half.

Four. There are four women speaking at this conference.

I work in a very non-traditional field for women, I've been doing it for over a dozen years, and even I am flabbergasted by this.

Watching the clock

2011-11-14T18:29:00.002-05:00

My ride is now 30 minutes late in picking me up at the airport. I have to be there in one hour in order to get my bag checked in for my flight. Once my ride gets here, we have to drive back into downtown DC to pick up another passenger I am traveling with and responsible for. I am trying very hard not to freak out but am not really succeeding. I have already checked myself and the other passenger in so all we need to do is drop off our bags but still...you can't fight with the computer. If it says that time has passed for dropping off bags, it has passed. Wish me luck.

Temptation

2011-11-13T20:00:00.003-05:00

I am leaving tomorrow for work trip to Omaha. Randomly, I started googling to see when Mates of State is going to be on tour next and lo and behold! They are playing in Omaha on Wednesday. I don't think it will interfere with the after-conference networking, and it should be done in time for me to get up on Thursday for the last day of meetings. In theory, of course. But how cool would it be to see them in a different part of the world! The last time I saw them was at the Black Cat in DC, several years ago. They put on a good show - so much good energy. Now I'm talking myself into definitely buying the ticket to see them Wednesday. Can't wait! Maybe I'll get an Omaha steak before the show and really go all out. (I mock Omaha Steaks but the last time I was there, I bought a bunch of bacon-wrapped steaks for The Texan. They've got a nice little refrigerated kiosk in the airport and everything. DELICIOUS.)

It's art-tastic

2011-11-12T20:32:00.002-05:00

Blame the two cocktails I had on that stupid post title. Hot Pants Esq. and I actually took advantage of living in DC and went to an event at the Smithsonian. The National Gallery of Art has a big exhibit going on showing off Andy Warhol's work and they had a special thing today where Dean & Britta (of the band Luna) had scored music to go along with a bunch of his screen tests. I wasn't sure what to expect, to be honest - it could've gone either way, and all I knew was that I liked Luna. But it was interesting to see how the subjects handled the screen tests. As the curator pointed out, it's easy to hold a pose for 30 seconds or so, but a 4-minute-long screen test tends to crack whatever facade you've put out there for the world and your true essence, such as it is, comes out. Plus Dean was able to speak about each subject before their test went on and told the audience (packed, by the way - probably 500 people in that auditorium) a little about the person. They had chosen mostly regulars of Warhol's Factory and let's just say most of them didn't end up so well. Anyways, after that much culture, I feel I can read my recaps of reality TV (how many steps removed is that from artistic vision?) with a clear conscience. Also, loved the makeup on the women - it was all 60s mode and still absolutely fabulous.

Reaching new heights

2011-11-11T19:20:00.002-05:00

I love our Wii fit system - it's a lot of fun and you feel oddly triumphant when you hit the 30-minute mark and the little time-counter dings with joy. However, what also cracks me up is how it does not shy away from shaming you. If you, just theoretically of course, gain weight between workouts, it does a fantastic trombone "wuh-whoa" of failure. If you have a low score, your character will drop to its knees and pound the floor out of frustration. And it has this passive-aggressive way of commenting, "Been pretty busy, huh?" when you let too much time go between workouts.

But tonight takes the cake. The Wii fit greeted me and noted that the Texan's birthday is coming up (true - it's one week out, mark your calendars!). Then it asked, "Are you going to throw him a surprise party or anything?" GET YOUR NOSE OUT OF MY MARRIAGE, WII FIT!!! I will make sure he has a perfectly lovely birthday, I don't need you guilting me into anything.

The sounds around me

2011-11-10T22:32:00.002-05:00

* My 20-year-old cat snoring next to me. At this stage in the game, I have given up on him becoming a lap cat, and have to accept that his version of it means sitting near me.

* The latest dance music from The Texan's iPad. As a computer techie, he has nothing good to say about Apple products, but now we both have an iSomething. Resistance is futile!

* The dog's collar clinking against the floor as he shifts around to find a more comfortable sleep pose. He was full of beans earlier and kept attacking the cat; after about a dozen claws to his nose, he figured out that perhaps he was better off not engaging with Shrapnel tonight.

* Our grandfather clock ticking along. It is something of an enigma right now: it has been updated to reflect the switch away from Daylight Savings, but for some reason, that hasn't registered for when it gongs the hour. So at 8pm, it rings 9 times, for example. You'd think that wouldn't throw you off. You would be wrong.

Completely avoidable

2011-11-09T21:10:00.002-05:00

So tonight I managed to add another stupid injury to my ever-growing list. This latest one occurred at the gym. I'd been swimming so my feet were wet and shifting around in my flip-flops as I headed back to my locker. I feel I should add here that I was wearing platform heeled flip-flops bedazzled with rhinestones. Just so you have the full picture. Anyways, somehow, I flipped when I should have flopped (or vice versa) and I skidded and fell down off of the platform shoes. No serious damage done but I managed to give one of my knees some serious rug-burn as I hit the ground.

In your wildest dreams

2011-11-08T23:03:00.003-05:00

*** 6 points to whoever can name the song that the title comes from.

Okay, point offer is over. The Texan and I have been watching "Once Upon a Time"* and even though it's about fairy tales, I have really been enjoying it. Not just because the evil queen has kick-ass makeup, but it doesn't hurt. Also, if I ever get evil minions, I want them to be male models wearing a smokey eye. Seriously, it's a good show and every week, we're all, dammit, what happens next?

* "Once when you were mine..." Moody Blues FTW!

Jumping straight into 2007....

2011-11-07T22:54:00.001-05:00

... with my brand-new iPhone! I finally talked my work into replacing my trusty Blackberry. I actually don't mind the BB, but a) it was sooooo slow on the internet, and b) I couldn't read PDFs or really any kind of document on it. I waited two weeks after the latest iPhone came out so I wouldn't have to deal with the crowds at the Apple store and I still had to order my phone because they were out of stock (and I had to wait a week an a half - admittedly, an improvement over the 2-3 weeks that they originally had quoted me). Anyways, now I can do what I was put on this planet to do: watch cat videos on my phone, 24/7.

Them's fighting words

2011-11-06T21:48:00.002-05:00

The Wash Post had a big article today about how DC's taxi rates are the lowest in the nation and that DC cab drivers have lost 30% of their income since we switched away from zones to the meter system. WELL. Let me tell you:

* DC's cabs also are amongst the last cab drivers in most major cities who don't take credit cards.

* I have stopped using DC cabs for trips leaving my house because they will not reliably come when they are ordered. I have had cab drivers explain to me that it's not really worth it for them to swing by Petworth on their way in to town. Instead, I have to use a car service for when I absolutely need to have a ride at a certain time, because when I've ordered cabs, and they don't show, I hear from the dispatch that no cabs are in my area. Uh, that's why I ordered a cab.

* I regularly take shit from cab drivers who don't want to give me a ride home from U Street to Petworth because it takes them away from the lucrative U Street corridor. Never mind that they can be back in Columbia Heights in about five minutes, or back at U Street in about seven minutes.

I would argue that they're not that desperate for customers, despite what they say.

My day so far

2011-11-05T15:03:00.003-05:00

1. Read in bed
2. Shift to the downstairs sofa
3. This post

I am really tired although I didn't really go crazy last night. It was my friend 23's unofficial birthday, so a bunch of us met up to see No Second Troy at the Black Cat. Prior to that, we had drinks with my friend Pisces, who is in town with her new man. The band was fun even though we were being bumped by a raucous group of very drunk fans. Their vivacity and excitement was explained later when one of them told us they were a group of friends of the band from law school and in fact that most exuberant one was the wife of the lead singer. Okay, that makes sense. Plus the free shot that they shared didn't hurt; nor did the lead singer bringing one of our group up on stage at the end to play the tambourine.

Even so, I feel like a truck ran over me. Maybe it's partly due to the book I was reading. I was hustling to finish The Sparrow, which we're reading for our book club. I always teased one of our members for regularly not finishing the book and yet I almost didn't make it in time. (BTW: if you're a book club member, stop reading now, so I don't give you spoilers for our meeting tomorrow.) Anyways, it was a good read but it did give me pause when I ate pork for lunch after having finished it. I won't say more but let's just say it brought up some unpleasant turns in the plot in the end of the book.

I think for me a lot of what was lost in the book was the discussion of God and faith. I am not religious, and so a lot of the reasoning behind characters' behavior was frustrating. I ran into this while reading Eat, Pray, Love as well (that middle section with the beam of light coming out of her forehead - uh yeah, I pretty much skipped that part). Frankly, I think a better discussion of faith was done in The Life of Pi. I did like how The Sparrow fleshed out how a first contact with an alien species might happen, and it was strange how much the aliens in this book resembled those in Avatar. And it was interesting to see the future as how it was envisioned 20 years ago, when the book came out. For example, the Japanese owned everything in the book. Aw, remember back when that was even a consideration? Now it's the Chinese. Plus, in the book, there were still wars going on in eastern Europe and former Yugoslavia. Given the timeframe for when the book was written, I could see someone thinking that back then.

I was telling my colleague yesterday that I was reading this book and she said if I liked it, to let her know. I don't think I could say I disliked it - it was a really interesting story with more or less sympathetic characters and I thought the format of flashing back to the key points of how they got the group together for the exploration of the new planet and their experiences there kept everything from getting too intense (when it did, they'd flash forward to the quieter time of when one of the explorers was recovering from the trip). But there was so much assumed with this: that the explorers were simply doing it for the sheer intellectual and religious fervor of finding new worlds, that no one else besides the Catholic Church would be interested in seeking out life forms elsewhere in the universe, and that for god's sake, you wouldn't send some sort of guard or military personnel on a trip 4.3 light years away from Earth. Seriously, what the hell. Have they never watched ANYTHING on Syfy?

Walkies!

2011-11-04T17:37:00.002-05:00

Our dog, Che, has adapted to life in a city pretty well. The one thing that has affected him the most, though, is that he doesn't have a big yard to run around in. When we lived in SA, we lived in a corner lot in a trailer park, and our trailer was up against the far side of the lot, so Che had a ton of room to run around in. Plus there were always dogs next door with whom he could run up and down along side the fence with.

Here, not so much. We do have the luxury of a wee yard, but it really works more as an outhouse than a playground. And no dogs next door either. So the poor little guy has, um, put on some weight since we've moved here.

Which means the only way for him to get regular exercise is to take him for walks. Luckily, the mere mention of a w-a-l-k sends him into paroxysms of joy, so it's not like you have to convince him. Rather, the hard part is reining him in once you get going. We let him run out the leash but pull him back when we go past driveways or near people. It's the people that are the real question marks here.

Che has dark ears and a white muzzle. One ear flops over, and his tail is the curling-up kind. He looks a lot different from most of the dogs in our neighborhood, which appear to all be some sort of variant of pit bull. So the people we walk past don't know what to make of him. The guess is either that he is a husky (er, no) or a wolf (HAHAHAHAHA). The last part I used to try to correct people on, but then I thought maybe it's best that the neighborhood kids think that there is a real live wolf hanging out in our yard. So I close my ears to the murmurs of "esta un lobo alli!" when we walk down the street.

Whoo-hoo!

2011-11-03T20:36:00.001-05:00

I heart work-bought bottles of wine, and international outreach that requires working over happy hour. Yay!

ZZZZZZZ

2011-11-02T18:32:00.002-05:00

It's 7:30pm, and I am seriously considering throwing in the towel soon and going to bed. I had to get up at 5:45 this morning so I could leave the house by 6:45 so I could pick up my Zipcar by 7.

Shockingly, I did, and I did, and I did - sort of. I got to the Zipcar and it was 7 on the dot - I was so proud, that never happens - and then I realized that I'd brought an outdated card with me and I had to call Zipcar to get access to a new one. (To be fair, they were superquick and I got a new card within minutes. But still.)

I am not a morning person. This is exacerbated by the fact that our office is separated from our HQ by 2000 miles, and I usually get up and do an initial round of email right after I get up, so I don't roll into the office normally until, um, 10 or 10:30. And if I ever have to go to a morning event, well, my philosophy is that nothing important ever happens in the first ten minutes. It really is true too! But it still makes you realize how much of a slacker you are when you realize that the last time you got up before 7 was to catch a flight. On the other hand, this job won't last forever and at some point, I will have to be in the office at a more normal hour. Why shouldn't I enjoy this while I still can? And plus my cat always seems to know exactly when I have to get up and comes to sleep with me 10 minutes before the alarm goes off. Yes, I am blatantly justifying sleeping in. I can live with that.

Drips and starts

2011-11-01T12:03:00.002-05:00

I can't quite get my mojo going on this blog again, so I figured I'd participate in NaBlaPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) to kickstart myself. Until I peter out by the end of the week, I'm guessing. Still, let the fun begin!

I guess it would be more interesting if I had something to actually report. We didn't do anything special for Halloween - I was under the weather this weekend and that, combined with the sleet/snow on Saturday, killed any interest I had in celebrating Halloween out in the bars. And last night I had dance class so technically I was in costume - a bellydance costume. Doesn't really count, I know.

A couple of my colleagues are recent grads of the place I went to grad school, and it turns out that it now has an official Halloween party. Back in MY day, we didn't get fancy school-sanctioned Halloween parties. Except for the year we were in Italy, for some reason, then it was okay. At that point Halloween wasn't that big a deal in Italy but some of the locals loved the idea of dressing up, even if they didn't quite get the execution perfect. I remember a bunch of the American students were horrified when some Italians showed up at our party wearing American Civil War uniforms....of the Confederacy. No idea where they got those from or even if they had any idea of what they symbolized. Still, very random.

At our house the most festive thing is the orange neckerchief tied around our dog Che's throat. I feel that is sufficient for this year. Maybe next year we'll dress the pets up as each other. And my transformation to crazy old pet lady will be complete.

Violence in the workplace

2011-10-05T11:07:00.002-05:00

Last night, I overhead two employees at my gym arguing about the new iron and ironing board that had mysteriously manifested itself in the women's locker-room. The point of contention was about whether or not it could serve as a weapon. Wait, let me change that - of course an iron *could* serve as a weapon, it's a piece of metal at the end of a nice long cord that can allow you to really get some speed going before lobbing it at someone. What they were arguing about was whether it *would* serve as a weapon and thus was too dangerous to leave out for the general public to have access to it. Now, color me naive, but I think that there are a lot of other things to worry about than that. The one arguing against the likelihood of it being used as a weapon eventually won out, but later that evening, I saw the one who was worried about it doing some sort of busywork that allowed her to sit and keep an eye on it. Always vigilant!

Well, that was unexpected

2011-09-25T16:48:00.003-05:00

Did not mean to take over nine months off from this. Are people still even doing blogs these days? Can I still string together semi-coherent sentences? We shall see.

This has been a crazy year - international travel, work intrigue, family drama - but I am going to skip over all that to talk about my decrepit back. Yes, I am on the slippery slope to 40 but I am not there yet. But still. A few weeks ago, and I don't mean to blame Canada, but I *was* talking to one of its embassy reps when I turned my head ever so slightly and BAM! I couldn't breathe. I was able to get on my scooter and drive home, eventually, which was a relief because at first I had visions of just tipping it over at the side of the road and crawling into a cab to get home. It's been ebbing and flowing since - my back, that is, the scooter is doing just fine - but there is nothing that will make you feel older than when you are crabbing about the way the young kids are dressed when you realize that you are doing that while sitting down because your back spasm prevents free-flowing movement.

Also, I am super-excited about The Amazing Race starting up again tonight, but that is on CBS which is an old people's channel. Argh. Maybe I shouldn't be fighting this - getting older means that happy hour shifts to the early bird slot, right? It's not all bad.

Yearly wrap-up

2011-01-01T12:07:00.002-05:00

Happy 2011 all! (Hey, I just typed that "20011," which is our zip code. Great, I am going to be doing that all year.) I figure what better way to tax my hung-over brain than focusing on minutiae about the past year? Wrap-up questionnaire taken from SundryMourning.com.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?

Easy: publish a book. That experience also taught me that there is NO FRIGGING way I'm doing a PhD because the dissertation will kill me.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Since I didn't make any last year, ducked that minefield. I stopped doing that a while ago. However, this year I feel like making a stand on a few things:

a. Eating/drinking more healthfully (that's right, healthy cranberry and/or pomegranate juice to wash down my bourbon! or something like that)

b. Taking the dog for walks at least twice a week. We have a yard for him so it's not like he doesn't get exercise, but my god, the joy just seeing one of us pick up his leash brings him.

c. Taking a real vacation with The Texan, where we leave the house (and possibly the country) for a week. I haven't had a vacation vacation in...oh, this is depressing. A while, and let's just leave it at that. Long weekends are nice but not enough to recharge your batteries.

d. Going to see bands at least once every two months. I used to do that all the time and loved it, but I've gotten out of the habit.

e. Spending more time with friends and getting back to CA to visit family more often.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes, my friend Grits gave birth to her second child, a little girl, while living in the wilds of Little Rock.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Thankfully, no.

5. What countries did you visit?

Switzerland (a first! Geneva, you had me at chocolate), and the UK.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

Control over our budget. The Texan and I are getting better about this - largely because he is much more responsible about this sort of thing than I am - but there is always room for improvement.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched in your memory, and why?

Uh, it's all kind of a haze. But March 23, when my book officially came out, was pretty awesome. Nov. 18, the Texan's birthday, was fun too, as we went up to NYC for a long weekend away. Oh, and Oct. 29 - the Rally to Restore Sanity - was a lot of fun.

8. What is your biggest achievement of the past year?

Surviving a rotating roster of bosses at work. Work in general was pretty good this year - we've been able to accomplish a lot and have a lot of exciting projects coming up. God I am such a lame Washingtonian. Next up, let me tell you the 50 top reasons why I heart my Blackberry.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not being as thoughtful and considerate a spouse that I would like to be.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Other than back spasms, no. Oh wait, a mysterious bruise on my left heel has left me limping. And my right knee is stiff. And there was that time I fell and scraped the hell out of my shin.... Man, I'm getting old.

11. What was the best thing that you bought?

No doubt - my Vespa. It is wrong how much I love that bike.

12. Where did most of your money go?

Rent, groceries, credit cards, occasional nights out.

13. What did you get really excited about?

I get unduly excited about a lot of things, probably much more than they merit. For example, my circle of acquaintances are already bracing themselves because "RuPaul's Drag Race" is coming back later this month and, given the opportunity, I will not shut up about how awesome that show is. I will say this: I've really enjoyed bellydance this year.

14. What song will always remind you of 2010?

I think MGMT's "Kids." No reason why, maybe it's because I listened to them a lot this year.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

-happier or sadder? Happier.
-thinner or fatter? As my doctor's office scale can attest from my visit on Wednesday, fatter. Dammit.
-richer or poorer? If we're going with credit card debt, poorer. Again, dammit.

16. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Happy hours with my friends. Swimming at the Y (I just started that this past summer and it's been a very good thing for me. Although I do tend to do what David Sedaris says happens whenever he has time alone with his thoughts: I think of everyone who's done me wrong. EVERYONE. You'd be amazed at how much having arguments with people in your head will make the time go by while doing laps.).

17. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Stressed out over things going on at work. Fun to do in the short-term, not so good for your mental health in the long-term.

18. How did you spend Christmas?

Here in DC! With a live tree! Just the Texan and me! (yes, I am rhyming deliberately! Okay, this stops now)

19. What was your favorite TV show?

At the risk of sounding like a librul urban eleetiste, Mad Men.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

I read very quickly so I tend to blow through books. Which means I read a lot of meh books because I need something to read. Nothing really stands out. This year I did finally get a DC library card, although I haven't used it very often. The Petworth library is supposed to finish its revamp this February, so maybe it'll inspire me to visit more often (the MLK one is just inconvenient to get to).

21. What was your favorite music from this year?

I listed to a lot of Vampire Weekend last spring; more recently, the soundtrack to "Sita Sings the Blues" has been getting a steady rotation on my music player. Overall, props to Soma Fm's Indie Pop Rocks - I would not have gotten through the year without it.

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

Two that stood out for me: Moon (which technically didn't come out this year, but hey, it was new to me) and Inception.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

We had a small party at the house. I turned 36. (I keep forgetting that and have been telling people lately that I'm 37. NOT YET)

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasureably more satisfying?

Having our house be a closer walk to the metro. If the powers that be could pick up our block and move it to about a 15-minute walk to Georgia Ave/Petworth metro, it would make everything so much easier. Right now, in theory we can walk to the metro, but there's something that's just off about having to walk over 30 minutes to the metro and then still having to ride for 30-40 minutes, depending on where we're going. If we could shave some of that walking commute time off, it would make riding the metro that much more pleasant.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

During the week: all about the power suits (they're like Garanimals for adults - you don't have to think about what you're wearing). During the weekend: I'm tring to un-schlub my wardrobe but it's taking some doing.

26. What kept you sane?

My husband and friends. Wonkette.com. Jim Beam.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

I'm stuck on what words of wisdom I should impart for the ages, so I'm going with something shallow: I finally learned how to apply contour eye shadow. What? Shut up, that's a useful skill.

Looking forward to 2011!

If it's Wednesday night...

2010-12-01T20:13:00.004-05:00

...I must be at Starbuck's. I've had this schedule for all of 2010 where I have one dance class, a two-hour break, and then a second dance class. In theory, I could zip home for half an hour or so but it seems kind of pointless. I experimented with various ways to kill time in the Tenleytown area and have settled on Starbucks as the best option (btw, I was seriously excited when Starbucks decided to start offering free wi-fi). For example, I need somewhere I can read and get a light snack: eating anything really big is like dropping a block of cement in my stomach, but I do need to eat something because I go to class straight from work and I cannot wait to have dinner when I get home around 10:45 at night. And I need to stay within walking distance of the studio because it's too much of a pain in the ass to have to unlock and then relock my bike.

And I know that some of you are thinking jesus, just take different classes. I won't bore you with the details, but choosing which dance classes to take requires an algorithm that takes into consideration my interest, my dance level, class availability, and my desire to only take classes on one night in one studio (a lot of the women at my studio take numerous classes several days a week - that's more time than I'm willing to allot to this). It is highly complimacated.

Anyways, I alternate between making phone calls and getting caught up with my magazines, except when I get really bogged down at work and decide to rectify the situation by using my break to get caught up. Of course, that necessitates my actually doing work once I'm at Starbucks, instead of dorking around on the interwebs. Tonight, I can tell that's just not going to happen.

All winterized

2010-11-29T21:07:00.002-05:00

Or at least as much as I'm going to be. The scooter has on its winter coat. I'd seen scooters all trussed up when I was in Geneva last spring and thought that it was a good idea but something that they only have in Europe. As it got colder here in DC, The Texan remembered me mentioning this and did some research. Turns out that scooter lap blankets pretty much ARE something that they only have in Europe, but Europe ships to DC. So I've got a windbreaker permanently attached to the front of my scooter that I wear as a lap blanket (imagine one of those lead aprons you wear during x-rays. kind of like that) to cut down on the wind. It does a surprisingly good job at that.

And we've got mitts permanently installed on the handlebars, again to cut down on the wind. I was a bit worried about them hampering my driving but as long as I can honk my horn, flick on the turn signals, and brake as needed, I'm all good, and it doesn't impede with that.

Dorky? Perhaps. But it still allows me to ride the scooter now that it's in the 30s in the morning, so I'm not complaining.* I don't think I'll ride in the snow, but I've already driven during downpours and as long as the ground isn't too slick (oh how I am knocking wood as I type this**), I'm good.

* Except for this morning, where I got up and drove all the way down to Fort McNair for a conference that, as it turns out, is being held tomorrow. Then the cold kind of got to me, particularly because it was so chilly that the frost had iced over on my scooter's seat. It was more me being bitter that I was up so early, period, than anything else.

** The most serious scooter-related accident I've had to date was completely unrelated to riding my scooter. I'd run to the dry-cleaners to pick up some laundry and had left my helmet on for the transaction. What? Shut up, it's such an ordeal to have to take off my sunglasses, take off my helmet, and straighten up my hair when I'm just going to have to reverse the process in two minutes. Anyways, so I walk out of the dry-cleaners, loaded down with freshly-pressed suits, and I have my helmet on. Just outside the store is a single, solitary step, which I could not see, as my helmet really cuts down on my peripheral vision. Down I went and I scraped the HELL out of my left shin and knee. The owner of the store, bless her heart, came running out to see if I was okay. I told her I was but she insisted on giving me a hug, and I let her, because DAMMIT that hurt. I came home and told the Texan that I'd fallen. As he was sucking in air in horror, I hurried to add, "Uh, I wasn't on the scooter at the time." Let me tell you, nothing makes you feel more....special, than falling down while walking around and wearing a helmet.

Fall festivities

2010-10-25T16:06:00.002-05:00

Every year, I swear I'm going to do something to take advantage of DC's short but oh so sweet fall weather, and every year, that good intention gets knocked aside for the siren call of lolling about on the couch. Not this year, although I can't take credit for that. G&T has moved back to DC after having lived abroad and is much more motivated to get out and about.

So Sunday, The Texan, G&T, and I braved the fields of northern Maryland to check out a corn maze that also offered pumpkin chunking. We were a bit worried as the fields surrounding the maze smelled just revolting - to the point to where we were gagging - but the maze itself was fine. They had an air cannon set up to fire pumpkins. For $10, you could lob four of them, or if you just wanted a taste of it, you could get two for $6. I figured I wasn't going to be making that drive every year to the maze so I'd better take advantage while I could and bought tickets for chunking four pumpkins. I should have bought tickets for chunking 20 pumpkins - SO AWESOME. You could steer the cannon a little bit and aim for a series of junked cars that were supposed to be reminiscent of Iron Man (the maze's theme, although G&T pointed out they were much more Transformer-esque). And it just makes your heart sing to see pumpkins whizzing for hundreds of yards, or, even better, splatting against a target. I had a 25% success rate, so I was pretty pleased. The Texan and I took a picture next to the air cannon for our holiday card (am not sure we'll be using it because it's not entirely apparent what it is), is how much I enjoyed it.

After we were spent all our tickets, we decided to try out the corn maze. I was a bit leery as I've heard these things can be pains in the ass, and I kept dropping hints that hey, the kids maze is right over here, why look, a maze for kids, gosh the kids maze looks like a lot of fun. Hints that were (rightfully) ignored by The Texan and G&T. Instead, we walked the maze, and after a few false starts, got to be pretty good at reading the map. Plus we could always place ourselves in the maze by facing toward the sound of the pumpkin cannon (it would crack very loud as it pushed out the air for the cannon), so it wasn't too bad. And if things had gotten really hairy, other people had clearly had enough and pushed their way out of the maze, so I knew escape was a possibility.

On the way home, we took the scenic route in the hopes of photographing some colorful fall foliage. We came across some but was unable to stop (no stopping signs) or were otherwise thwarted. Didn't keep us from enjoying the views.

Now I am fervently hoping that the fall weather will lead to a dry winter, or at least a winter that rains only between 11AM and 4PM, as before and after those times, I tend to be on the road on my scooter. I have ridden to work in the rain, thinking, how bad could it be? Turns out, pretty damn bad. Nothing like sitting around in a damp wool suit all day to make you rethink your antipathy to taking the bus to work.

Still unclear on the concept

2010-08-13T11:21:00.003-05:00

I've lived in DC off and on now for about nine years, which is really plenty of time to see everything that you really want to see. Not that I go off sight-seeing on weekends - not when that can cut into valuable TV and lounge-around-in-my-bathrobe time - but thanks to numerous out-of-town guests over the years, I feel like I've done most of the sight-seeing route. Except for Jefferson's house, Monticello. Yes, technically that's not DC, that's in Charlottesville and is about three hours away, but still. I'm closer to it now than I was when growing up, and, um, fun road trip? So I'd always mentally tucked that away as somewhere to check out someday.

That day finally came. Last weekend, I decided to take a couple of days off of work this week. One of them would be dedicated to sitting around in my robe - I mean, why mess with a good thing?* - but the other could be spent checking out Monticello. The Texan, forever a good sport about these sorts of things, agreed to go with me, although I wasn't entirely clear as to what we would see once we got there. Here's how I explained our trip to my sister, Dustbunny:

Her Ladyship: Yeah, so we're going down to Jefferson's house this week. I can't wait!

Dustbunny: Um, okay, why?

HL: It's supposed to be cool. Father of the Declaration of Independence and all that. Plus you can learn about all of his inventions.

DB: Like what?

HL: Um, the dumbwaiter? And the wire hanger? I don't know, get back to me after I've visited it and I can fill you in.

Well after having been there, I can tell you with great certainty that he invented the....um, still don't really know because, in the words of the ticket agent, "This never happens, but the house is closed because of some VIPs. There's some state visit going on until 5.** But you can still check out our gift shop!"

This came after a five-hour trip that included evading deluges from the sky***, dealing with a rental car whose fuel gauge only pretended to be empty, and getting lost for an hour (!) in Crystal City.

So of course we went to the gift shop, where we were faced with an innumerable number of trinkets decorated with the image of Monticello, or what I have to trust is the image of the house, as I never got to see it in-person. At least they had some decent-looking wines for sale there. Don't have to see Monticello to appreciate that!

The Texan and I have agreed that we will go back to Monticello this fall; it will give us a good excuse to go look at the trees as they change colors. Indeed, most of the pictures of Monticello in the gift shop portrayed it in the fall, so it must be nice then.

And on the way back, we decided to make lemonade out of the lemons of the day, figuring that since we had the rental car, we should try someplace out in Virginia for dinner that we normally would not go to. I remembered that the WashPost had reviewed a hotpot place a few weeks ago that was supposed to be good. The Texan and I had spent some time in Chengdu during our honeymoon where we got to enjoy some hotpot and had always wanted to have it again. Perfect chance, right? Except I forgot to mention that we arrived in DC right during rush hour traffic and had to navigate it, road construction, and yet another wild storm that made it difficult to see ten feet in front of you, much less find a restaurant tucked away in the recesses of a strip mall. But after far more time than I care to think about, we did stumble upon the restaurant (Uncle Liu's Hot Pot of Falls Church) and it was quite delicious. Then we came back home to find that we still had power, unlike 100,000 of other DC-area residents, so all's well and all that.

* Guess what I'm wearing as I type this?

** Looking at the local paper for Charlottesville, the Daily Progress, I still have no clue who was there. But they were stopping traffic all the way around Monticello with state troopers, so presumably someone fairly high-ranking? Maybe THEY can tell me what Jefferson invented.

*** I have seriously never seen such a wild storm. I woke up because lightning flashes kept going off - it was like someone was flicking a switch - and the thunder was non-stop.

Thinking cool thoughts

2010-07-24T09:00:00.002-05:00

You know it's going to be a bad day when the weather service says, er, better check on your elderly neighbors. Today the heat index is supposed to reach 110 degrees and we have an excessive heat warning, which I don't remember DC having before. It almost makes me feel okay with what just happened.

I went outside to go refill the dog's pool (one of those baby pools that are five feet in diameter) and his water bucket. The cat has taken to hanging out next to the pool in the dirt, so I made sure to double-check that he wasn't there before starting to empty out the pool. Unfortunately, I hadn't realized that there was a little hollow there and the cat was nestled in it under the pool. Which meant that when I started to pour out the water, I ended up dumping a bunch of it on a very surprised and formerly sleeping cat. Poor kitty! He didn't seem pissed, just very confused about how his rest happened to have been interrupted by a couple of gallons of mosquito-infested water. Shrapnel is currently grooming himself and trying to put himself back together. At least he's been cooled off, right?

Ratatattat

2010-07-05T11:00:00.002-05:00

I have spent eight 4th of July's in DC, so I felt that I was pretty familiar with the routine: hide out during the day, char some meat on the grill, find a high point to watch the National firework show on the Mall, and top it off with some adult libations. Yesterday we followed the script mostly - we found out that we were out of charcoal briquettes, so we were forced to cook the burgers inside, the horror! - and we took the scooters down to 13th and Clifton where there's a gorgeous view of the city and watched the fireworks there with about 300 of our closest friends.*

On the way back, though, it was an entirely different 4th of July experience. Now, it's been a while since I lived in DC - this is the first 4th of July I've been here since 2005 - and things may have changed. For example, I don't really remember fireworks stands being so ubiquitous (in San Antonio, we were under such strict restrictions because of the worry about an errant firecracker setting the whole dried-out place on fire that it was not that common to see people setting off fireworks, although of course it did happen).

But Petworth...man, it was a whole different story. Every four or five houses, there would be a family setting off firework set after firework set. Coming up New Hampshire toward Sherman Circle, the Texan and I saw such a spectacular show that we thought we'd somehow stumbled upon another municipality's fireworks show. No such thing: it was just some dudes with a LOT of fireworks.

One thing that was a bit disconcerting was riding the scooter through all this. Your instinct is to look up when you hear that crack of a firework going off, but if you do that, you'll throw off your balance. Also, I was a bit alarmed about having a Roman candle land on me - they were coming down on all sides.

When we got home, we sat outside and enjoyed the show, but eventually decided that for our dog's sanity, we'd better get back inside. (We'd brought him outside to hang out on the steps with us, but the fireworks agitated him enough that we quickly sent him back inside. Where we could hear him worrying on the other side of the door.) It was insane and spectacular and next year we are going to buy as many as we can and participate too.

* I will forgive putting your toddler on your shoulders during a fireworks show, even though the chances of him actually paying attention when there are so many other things to grab his focus nearer by are slim to none. But by god, do NOT stagger in front of me halfway through the show with your girlfriend on your shoulders. If she wants to take a picture of the fireworks on her crappy phone, then have her do what the rest of us do and take a hail mary shot.

Three things to share with the class

2010-05-05T16:20:00.002-05:00

1. Does anyone remember the school-yard jump-rope chant, "Lincoln Lincoln/What were you thinkin'/What the hell have you been drinkin'?" If so, please share the rest of it, because I've got those three lines stuck in my head and IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY.
1a. Also, please explain why little girls in the 80s were jumping rope to chants about lushes who made poor decisions.

2. Guess where I am? Suggestions on the Lincoln, NB, "nightlife" welcomed.

3. I would like to put forward a new rule: I strongly urge that any American paper/article/book that cites Sun Tzu be banished to the remainder bins/round file (as appropriate). I am so sick of reading quotes attributed to him that more likely came off of a Successory poster.

Happiness is...

2010-04-04T20:28:00.003-05:00

...finding an old Sephora gift card that has been lost but certainly not forgotten, and THEN discovering that it still has quite a bit of money left on it. Huzzah!

....zooming past traffic on your spiffy red (albeit pre-owned, ahem) Vespa. LOVE. We had bought a Kymco back in SA and brought it to DC with us, but thanks to the snowiness/general grossness of the winter, have had it sitting unused in our backyard. But with the nice weather, it has now crossed into scooter season. We'd put a little aside when we left SA for me to have a scooter because while I enjoy being The Texan's cupcake (what scooter riders call someone who would be, on a Harley, the bitch), it is far too crowded for long rides. And we'd figured that it would help The Texan acclimate more to DC if he and I could drive all over it in our respective scooters. Plus the four mile commute to my office was taking a freaking HOUR each way and slowly sapping my will to live. So far, I'm loving it. The only thing I don't care for is having to lock the it up: I am, to put it bluntly, a hot mess when it comes to things mechanical, and having to twine a bike chain through the spokes and then get the U-lock to go around the ends....there have been times when I've come *thisclose* to just hurling my helmet off into the distance and giving up the scooter entirely. And in SA, scooters were so rare that people didn't know what to do with them; apparently stealing them was never even an after-thought, to the point to where you could actually just leave your helmet on the bike and everything would be there when you got back. Memories.

...working the kitchen sink's faucet properly. (See above about inability to work anything with more than one moving part.) Yesterday, the faucet broke so off we trundled to Home Depot to get a replacement. Unfortunately, the replacement doesn't work either (this is after The Texan, who has built houses from scratch and thus knows what he's doing, attempted to install it, not me), so we need to get a replacement for the replacement. In the meantime, we have the equivalent of a hose in our kitchen sink. Yesterday I was using the contraption for the first time and not really paying sufficient attention to what I was doing, which allowed the hose to get away from me. While spewing water. At full blast. This could have been a kitchen catastrophe, except that Scratchel happened to hear me in the kitchen and had just come around the corner to see what I was up to. That poor cat took the hose of water straight to his face. I turned it off but after the damage had been done. I tried to wipe him down to get the worst of the water off of him but all he would do is hide under the table where I couldn't get at him and look at me reproachfully. Still makes me laugh to think about it. So maybe happiness is not working the sink properly.

...finally having a working phone again, with all the bells and whistles. I am currently on my fifth (5th) Blackberry in about two years, all of which have died unnatural demises that thankfully happened under the warranty. Every time that happens, I have to go through a song and dance with my phone company about how I want a new one expedited to me and NO I will not be paying to ship a replacement for their shoddily made equipment. It works, but that victory is short-lived, as I then must reload the damn thing with all my music/email/ringtones/settings/etc. It is, as you can imagine, a giant pain in the ass. I'm presently killing time transferring music back on it, a job that is time-sensitive since I leave tomorrow for a business trip and need my phone to have music on it so I have something to listen to (after I killed my third music player, The Texan and I decided it would be best just to use my phone for that sort of thing). I probably will call it a day in a bit because there's only so much I can ramble on about here (lucky you guys). Plus it's The Amazing Race time!

Enough

2010-03-30T11:44:00.002-05:00

Long-time Ladyship friends know my quest for the ultimate spicy dish. I have had numerous meals at restaurants where I've ordered the waiter to bring it "hot hot HOT. As hot as they can make it, and then double that!" where the chef ends up peering around the corner to see what kind of lunatic is eating in their restaurant. And it never is hot enough.

Last night, though, I got schooled.

I had read that the Indian military was looking to weaponize a chili that has over 1,000,000 Scoville units, and joked that perhaps THAT would be enough for me. The Texan decided to do a little research and found a sauce that is supposed to contain it. So an innocuous-looking bottle was awaiting me when I came home from work last night.

I tried a wee bit on the tip of my tongue. It spread rapidly to the back of my throat but wasn't too bad, so I figured it would be safe to sparingly spread some on my sandwich. WRONG. Oh god, was I wrong about that.

I couldn't eat it. Could. Not. Eat. It. At all. So I tried rinsing off the cheese. No go. Maybe warming it up in the microwave? Nope. Increasingly desperate, I rinsed off the meat. Not even. I ended up throwing it out because my entire throat was on fire at that point and I couldn't imagine making it worse.

So I sat there, gasping for air, as my throat, lips, nose, and then nasal cavity went numb. After about half an hour I could breathe normally, but my lips were still feeling it hours later when I went to bed, which I am prepared to accept was psychosomatic more than anything else.

Moral of the story: that tiny bottle will last me a lifetime, as I cannot see using more than one drop at a time.

Done and done!

2010-03-23T14:28:00.002-05:00

And I mean DONE. We finally paid our taxes....for the 2008 tax year. Hooray. That nearly-a-year-long payment plan is over.* Now we can focus all those extra wads of dough (ahem) toward paying off the 2009 tax year. Which is a MUCH smaller bill, but still. Note to my patient readers: always, ALWAYS pay your taxes in quarterly installments if you are self-employed. Trust me, the shock is a helluva lot less when you do it that way.

* Some more unsolicited advice: should you decide to go this route, DO NOT SET UP AUTOMATIC PAYMENTS. I cannot emphasize that enough. It took the IRS five, yes, *five* months to set this up. I shudder to think of how long it will take to turn it off. Am seriously considering changing banks just to avoid the hassle.

File this under the "Why Didn't I Think of This?" category

2010-03-10T09:41:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, en route to the office, I joined the normal crush of people on the red line platform at Gallery Place, when I noticed a few backpackers who were damn near bent over, trying to counterbalance their bags. One of them was a fairly young girl who had a backpack nearly as big as she was, plus she had a sleeping bag rolled up and hooked up to the back. She was almost at a 45 degree angle and I looked at her, trying to determine when exactly she'd tip over backwards, when I noticed something perched on top of her bag.

It was a black cat with white paws, harnessed up and leashed off and quite possibly the most mellow cat I've ever seen. If you've had the pleasure of travelling through Gallery Place during rush hour, you can imagine how crowded the platforms get; if you haven't had that pleasure, imagine a surly crowd five people deep and about a 100 yards long who are late for work and annoyed at the metro. But this cat was just taking everything in stride: it rolled on its back, kneaded the bag a little, walked around, allowed itself to be petted, and generally seemed to be enjoying life from top of the backpack. I thought maybe the train rushing in would startle it but the cat didn't even appear to notice. I *never* would have thought to go backpacking with my cat; I know what I'm doing this summer! (Not really - I think I'm past the stage where I can put up with backpacking/hostels/that whole scene. Plus Shrapnel is needed at home to patrol the kitchen and kill mice. He got four more last week, and yes, we have the exterminator coming out. AGAIN. Third time's the charm, we're hoping. The worst thing was that the cat keeps bringing his trophies to me and what I feared the most happened on Friday: I stepped on one. I thought at first it was one of the dog's toys and then realized JESUS JESUS MOUSE. Fortunately I was wearing slippers, because if I'd been barefoot, I would still be bleaching my foot. Gah. Anyways, where was I? Right: no backpacking trips for the cat and me in the near future.)

And so it begins

2010-03-08T17:46:00.002-05:00

I sat outside at lunch today - couldn't have been more than 40 minutes, tops. And I am presently sporting an attractive pinkish twinge to my skin. First sunburn of the season! *Now* can we assume that winter is over? Please???

I realized that Snowmaggeddon was a month ago and yet we still have piles of dirty snow everywhere. Whereas The Texan and I went up to NYC two days after they had received a couple of feet of snow and were shocked to realize that some cities have ways in which to shovel and then get rid of snow. Seriously, we thought maybe we'd just been watching the news reports and gotten NYC mixed up with another snowstorm, because New York had maybe a hint of snow, but that was it, and almost every sidewalk we saw had been shoveled AND salted.

RuPaul, I love you

2010-02-24T17:08:00.002-05:00

I don't know actually if it was RuPaul who was the brains behind "RuPaul's Drag Race" but holy crap is that the best hour of TV every week or what! The Texan and I came across it by accident. We'd been out at happy hour and decided to grab a nightcap at Nellie's, a gay sports bar that always plays good music. Except for that night in question a few weeks ago, when it was blaring "RuPaul's Drag Race" on its bazillion TVs. We decided just to call it a night and as I was finishing up my drink, The Texan went outside to smoke a cigarette. Bored, I started watching the show. The Texan came back to find me staring at the screen, mouth agape in wonder. We have been hooked ever since. I even wrote Logo's marketing department to tell them how much I liked that show, and I NEVER do that.

So why is the show so awesome? It's a combination of "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway," where drag queens have to do tasks and then do a runway show based on a certain theme. Thus far, the themes have been "Gone with the Wind" (which involved a Civil War shoot with shirtless soldiers and a big cannon), burlesque show/pole dancing, country friend chicken, and .... some sort of game show? Plus, the two lowest queens at the end of the show are told that they must "lip synch for your life," which usually spurs someone to do the splits, rip off their clothes, lose a wig during a particularly vigorous kick, etc. Finally, the loser is told to "sashay away," while the other one is reassured, "Chantez, you stay."

PLUS. Monday, while watching the opening of show, I finally clicked that one of the contestants was from Falls Church, the end of the Orange metro line. Lo and behold: Tatiana was there at Nellie's to promote the show. !!! She looks good on the show, but in real life is absolutely stunning. When they offered people the chance to take their picture with her, I raced up with my phone in hand. I tried to get The Texan to do it with me, because how awesome of a Christmas card would that have been, but he refused. My friend 23 came up with me instead. They had a drag queen emcee (of course) running a trivia contest during the commercial breaks. Man, I got schooled on my "RuPaul" knowledge, and I thought I would clean up the joint. Finally, at the end of the evening, Tatiana performed for the crowd, and did a fantastic job.

The only bummer is that for whatever reason, Logo's not showing it next week, and I'll have to wait two weeks to get my next fix. TOTALLY WORTH IT though.

Praying for rain

2010-02-15T14:16:00.002-05:00

Only because I'm hoping that it will melt some of the snow. We've got these lovely ice dams forming over the back of our house, and every time I shut the back door I cringe in anticipation that this will be the time that they come crashing down. Also because our little street has not been plowed yet and I'm thinking it never will be (it's pretty narrow).

We did manage to leave the house on Saturday. You will notice that I'm posting on Monday. This is not because I was so busy yesterday that I could not find the time to post; it's because I was so grievously hungover that I did not get out of bed until 5pm, at which point I toddled downstairs to the TV so I could watch "Annie." "Dirty Jobs" had far too many fast cuts for my eyes to take, plus I love that movie. I had taped it off a channel called "GMC" that I later found out stood for "Gospel Music Channel." FYI, it has a preponderance of commercials for As Seen On TV products and motivational speakers. I also timed it: 8 minutes of movie were followed by 5 minutes of commercials. Thank god for fast forward (and people wonder why no one wants to watch live TV any more). Anyways, you would think that I would know better than to accept a vibrantly colored drink made at a house party with a silly name. I actually do, and yet I still kept on drinking them (damn you, Pretty in Pink!). Despite all that, it was nice to socialize again.

Our poor dog has been so bored since this all happened. He keeps on wanting to go out and then, when confronted with icy steps, wants to come right back in. Today the Texan had an appointment downtown, so Che and I walked with him to Georgia Ave. When I got back, I let Che off the leash on our little block with the intention of bringing him immediately back inside. Instead, he lay his ears back and started tearing up and down the street in sheer joy of being able to run. So I let him run up and down the sidewalk until he wore himself out. Poor puppy.

Washington-on-the-Bering Sea

2010-02-11T17:39:00.003-05:00

Somehow, without us noticing, DC got transplanted quite a bit north. We "only" got 11 inches more of snow yesterday, giving us three feet of snow in less than a week. It got up to 40 today and was sunny, which helped things thaw out. A lot of houses around here developed very big (~five-ten feet long) icicles, which makes me very nervous. We had a few lovely ones hanging over our back door, poised for an unsuspecting person (or dog), but they broke off in the morning sun and instead took out half of the security light. Eh, we always hated that thing - it was motion-sensitive, and you couldn't turn it on or off, so you would have to constantly wave your arms above your head when you were outside and needed some light - so silver lining etc.

Tonight I think cabin fever has set in enough that we are finally going to try the one of two (2) restaurants within easy walking distance of our place. I'm excited to be wearing non-elastic waistbanded pants. Here's hoping all of our neighbors hopped to it and shoveled their sidwalks! (On Tuesday, I fell right after having a neighbor lecture me UNASKED about how I was walking incorrectly in the slush. When I got an "I told you so" I was ready to pop him one if he didn't shut the hell up. I don't handle snowy weather well, did I mention that?)

And snow it begins

2010-02-09T18:12:00.002-05:00

I cannot stop making these horrible snow puns. I guess that's my way of dealing with the fact that O THE HUMANITY it started snowing about an hour or so ago. Again.

The Texan and I took Che out for a walk this morning to get some more important necessities (vodka) and what should have been a happy 20 minute stroll turned into a 90 minute death march. I capped it off with slipping and falling on my right knee, just to ensure that I had scabs to match those created when I fell on my left knee on Friday. There is a reason why I chose not to live in a snowy climate, goddammit! Ah well. Time for more TV and cocktails.

Snowmaggeddon 2010

2010-02-08T16:19:00.000-05:00

Hey there - at long last, I am back. I had forgotten the log-in for this blog (I KNOW) and then Blogger said sure, we'll send your password to you at your gmail account, for which I had also forgotten the password (I KNOW. what can I say, this fall was busy) and it was easier to let it go than jump through all the hoops I'd have to in order to figure it out. But I decided to take a break from obsessively monitoring the weather service's predictions for later this week and give logging into this a whirl and voila! I'm in.

Part of the reason why I even tried to log in is that I'm running out of snow-day activities. I worked from home today because the federal government was closed and I figured that they're a good arbiter of whether it's a smart idea to go in. Plus where we live now is a mile from the nearest metro, the buses are only running sporadically, and the idea of hiking through two feet of snow just to sit in my office to do more or less what I could do at home was not an appealing one.

So I've been working, but I've also been home for three days straight. The Texan and I have been keeping busy, but if we get another 18 inches tomorrow on top of the 26 we got over the weekend (OH DEAR GOD WHEN WILL IT STOP), this might change. I already am cursing my shitty Netflix choices. I have a bad habit of putting stuff on Netflix I think I *should* want to watch, as opposed to things I actually *do* want to watch.

There has been some excitement though. I took a picture of our dog in the snow and sent it in to the WashPost's website, since they've been collecting pictures of people's Snowmaggeddon experiences. I figured it was one of roughly 2000 identical shots of dogs in the snow and it would just disappear into cyberspace. So imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning and checked the website to see the latest in weather updates only to find our dog on the home page. HA, suck it other dog owners of the DC area, outside validation that my dog IS cuter than your dog! I perhaps have become a little too focused on this. We took a screenshot of it for posterity and I may have sent that around to my office under the pretense of explaining why I was working from home today.

The other excitement around here is one that I could do without. Keep in mind that we live in an old rowhouse - it's maybe 80 years old - and we live in an urban environment. So when we heard rustling in the walls when we first moved in, we figured, ew, probably mice, but what are you going to do? Keep away from our food - which we've hermetically sealed up - and out of my sight and we're golden. However, the balance has changed.

A week or so ago, I was working from home - hey, it was a Friday, I didn't feel like trudging into the office - when the cat, Scratchel, went to sit under my desk and intertwine himself around my legs. Not unusual. If I had a nickel for every time I accidentally kicked that cat, I'd be a, um, thousandaire. What was slightly unusual was that he started batting something around. I looked down to see SWEET JESUS A MOUSE. AND ONE THAT IS NOT ENTIRELY DEAD. I fled the room and insisted that The Texan make it go away. So he did, we let our landlord know about it, and figured that it was a one-time deal. We had an exterminator come out just to cover our bases.

Except that yesterday Scratchel caught not one, not two, but THREE mice. Granted, one of them was stuck on a sticky pad and basically served up to the cat on a platter, but still. Ugh. I think I may have just ensured that no one comes to dinner parties at our house (really, we are clean!). What really amazes me is that the cat is 18.5 years old and has never caught anything in his life. What other skills has he been holding out on us?

Lists

2009-09-30T12:15:00.002-05:00

Things I have to do:

* Figure out why the automatic payment plan I set up with the IRS isn't working
* Find out where the new suitcase that Continental is supposed to be sending me ended up
* Get a cashier's check for our new place's first month's rent and security deposit
* Track down where exactly UPS delivered my replacement debit card
* Get my blackberry resynched with my work email
* Decide if the residual swelling from twisting my ankle three weeks ago is cause for finding a doctor
* Make appointment with my beloved gyno (seriously: LOVE HER)
* Buy: baby gift for a child that is approaching his first month's birthday, birthday gifts (late and upcoming)
* Make a stab at doing my job

Things I learned from reality TV shows:

* Always try things on (What Not to Wear)
* Memories don't go away if you get rid of crappy old souvenirs (Clean House)
* Never give up (The Amazing Race)
* I, actually, cannot dance (So You Think You Can Dance)

Lots of sittin'

2009-08-01T15:45:00.004-05:00

I've had a fun week on the couch. My back occasionally decides to stage a work strike and opt not to cooperate, and Wednesday was a full work stoppage. I stayed home from work for two days and didn't even check my emails (which is when you know I'm sick). Wednesday I alternated between being camped out on the couch and taking uber-hot showers. That, and the dozens (only slight exaggerating) of ibuprofen that I took, helped me enough that I could make it to a therapeutic massage on Thursday, which seems to have sped up the healing process.

But ugh. Wednesday I toddled to the pharmacy - it's 1.5 blocks from my house, took me 45 minutes to get there and back - only to find out that they don't sell over-the-counter muscle relaxants. How did the older sister get them in "16 Candles" then? Anyways, I was desperate for a pain reliever and something to stop the muscles from seizing, so I fixed myself a few strong vodka and coke zero drinks. Let me tell you, drinking at home alone in front of daytime TV is not as much fun as you might anticipate. But it worked. And I should be in decent enough shape to get on another airplane tomorrow.

Yes, "another" airplane, as I just flew last weekend. I still had some frequent flyer miles and it was a friend in SA's baby shower, plus there was always the benefit of seeing The Texan and the pets. So off I went. I worked a few days when I was there but mostly just took it easy. When I left, they were on their 31st day of over-100 degree weather, which really inhibits one's interest in doing anything that involves leaving the air conditioning. Luckily, The Texan made my mom's lasagna my first day there so we had plenty of grub for the weekend.

It was great seeing The Texan again. And it was fun getting caught up with my SA friends. Seeing the pets, on the other hand.... The dog was his usual exuberant self. The cat, however, seems to be shifting his loyalty to The Texan. Not enough to wake him up at 4am; that honor he still reserves for me. But when he'd walk into a room, he'd go over to The Texan first and then me, the person who flew 1600 miles to see his ungrateful ass, second. This led to many iterations of the following scene:

Us, sitting par usual at opposite ends of our sectional, watching TV

Shrapnel walks into the room, jumps up next to The Texan, and sits about four inches from his face, staring intently at him.

The Texan: Okay, I'll pet you. pets the cat Fine, I petted you. Go away.

Me: Shrapnel, I'll pet you! Come here!

The Texan: I'm ignoring you, cat.

Me: Babycakes! Over here!

The Texan: eyes on the TV

Shrapnel: eyes on The Texan

Me: Sweetheart! Petting is to be had over here!

Shrapnel: rolls eyes, walks over to my end of the couch, but keeps an eye on The Texan in case he changes his mind.

Repeat ad nauseum.

Sigh. I guess, if I want to be mature about it, I would realize that the cat is nearly 18 years old and if he gets depressed, would spiral down pretty quickly, so it's a good thing that he's adapting fine to my absence. But when he's back here in DC, I'll win him back. With hugs! Cats love hugs. (Note to non-cat people: not really.) Hmm, I think I see where the problem is.

Just like the olden days

2009-07-17T16:26:00.002-05:00

I have a work-ish happy hour tonight* and afterwards I'm supposed to meet up with a friend for drinks. Possibly food, too, as a liquid dinner never really turns out for the best. Anyways, this friend who I'm supposed to meet has left her cell phone at home, so we had to pre-arrange a meeting time AND place. ???? What is up with that? Reminds me of how plans used to be (relatively) concrete, where you knew a) who you were meeting up with, b) when, c) where, and d) what time. Not necessarily e) why, but that's okay. Now it's all free and easy, I'll call you when I know more what's going on, etc. And don't even get me started on twittering and the like of your whereabouts. If I want your company, I will let you personally know. After I finish yelling at the kids to get offa my lawn so's I can watch my stories.

* That means it's with former colleagues, so I guess technically it counts as networking, but I doubt we'll do anything more than pass around unsubstantiated rumors about our previous place of employ.

Being damned with faint praise

2009-07-13T16:35:00.002-05:00

23 and I spent yesterday window-shopping up and down 14th Street. After having covered most of the U Street corridor, we decided that a nice cold beer would be perfect. So we go to Nellie's and cozy up to the bar. The bartender, per usual, asked for our IDs. He looked at them, then at us, and gasped, "You guys look good for your age!" Backpedalling, he tried again: "I mean, you don't look anywhere near as old as you are!" Um, thanks?

The new meeting-place

2009-07-02T16:46:00.002-05:00

Move over, Starbucks: I had the best business meeting yesterday at Hello Cupcake. I had the death by chocolate cupcake, whose divine chocolate-ness put me in such a daze that I left my wallet on the table when I headed back to my office. If it weren't for the kindness of one of their employees who chased me down the street with it, I'd be ID-less for my trip to Texas this weekend. Not good.

I am so looking forward to tomorrow. I fly out to SA to see The Texan, Shrapnel, and Che for the first time in six weeks. That's the longest I've ever been separated from any of them. We're going to drive down to Corpus to spend the 4th on the beach. Of course, we're getting up at the crack of dawn to try and avoid the worst of the heat (SA has been undergoing temperatures over 100 degrees for the past week; all of South Texas is one big tinder-box). We're trying to hold off on planning too much for the weekend, as I'm only there for a few days. And he'll be out to DC to visit me in August. Still, very excited!!!!

I have become that person

2009-06-24T17:06:00.002-05:00

On Monday, as part of my campaign to stop pissing away $10/day on lunch, I brought a can of Indian food (some sort of lentil mixture I believe) for lunch. I waited until my neighboring colleague had stepped out before I heated it up in the microwave. I shouldn't have bothered. That stench stuck around all afternoon.

Yesterday, I went to warm up my maple and brown sugar oatmeal in the microwave. Guess what scent wafted out to greet me? I love me some Indian food, but not with my maple and brown sugar oatmeal. I figured that that last usage would get it out of the microwave's system and we could all go on with our lives.

Not so much. I made oatmeal today and was faced with yet more curry smells. That's just not something you want mixed in with your breakfast food. Or at least I really don't want my poor office-mate to have to deal with that one-two punch first thing in the morning. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can nuke a container of baking soda. That smell IS going away, one way or the other.

Let the hippie-fying begin

2009-06-17T14:32:00.002-05:00

I bought my first fabric grocery bag at Whole Foods today. I kind of hate myself because of all the places to buy one of those from, Whole Foods is a about as holier-than-thou as you can get. However, let's face it, I did buy stuff there (chili and whole wheat naan bread, not the best combination for lunch, for the record), and I did need a bag.

I even did my full-on grocery shopping at Yes Natural Foods last week. Overall, it worked out okay. There was, however, the one incident where I went to bake a non-chicken chicken patty from the box of four that I'd bought from them and found that someone had opened up the box, taken a patty out, and taped the box together before putting it back on the shelf where it lay in wait for an unsuspecting shopper who just wanted a goddamn easy dinner, is that too much to ask? Mother Gaia doesn't condone stealing, Yes shoppers!

And I'm back in DC. Huzzah! Except for the part where my husband and pets are still wrapping things up in Texas. That, I'm not too thrilled with, but they'll be here soon.

Kicking it while it's down

2009-04-29T12:17:00.002-05:00

I hate to pile on the newspaper industry, because god knows it has enough on its plate these days in remaining relevant and all that. But wow does the new revamp of the San Antonio Express-News suck.

They launched it a few weeks ago and I tried not to judge. But seriously it's like reading my college newspaper. In fact, I think my college newspaper might be thicker than the Express-News. They fired a ton of people, including 75 reporters, so obviously budget was an issue. But the powers that be shrunk it down and slimmed it so it's like reading the freebie paper that only has real estate listings. Plus they cut back on a lot of the features (wherefore art thou, food section?), yet somehow the comics pages went from two to three pages.

The funny thing, if that can be said about this, was what happened with the comics. They got rid of a few that I really liked ("My Cage" is actually fairly clever) and also a few of the columns that regularly run in that section, including the bridge column, Billy Graham's column, and Dr. Phil Donahue's column (who answers medical questions that seemed geared primarily toward seniors). The last three were gone, no exaggeration, for three days. Apparently San Antonio's retirement communities went up in FLAMES about these being missing and inundated the paper's mailbox with complaints. You do not mess with the bridge column, is what I learned from all this.

Yet "Peanuts" still staggers on...albeit in a greatly reduced form. I have great vision when it comes to reading and even I find the font on it nearly impossible to read. Talk about a hearty fuck-you to the people who insisted that it continue to moulder away on the comics pages.

The gods must be angry

2009-04-18T16:31:00.002-05:00

That can be the only explanation for that liquid coming out of the sky. At least, that must be how most San Antonians explain rain to themselves, because otherwise there is no explanation for how SA drivers freak the fuck out every time there's water on the roads. Now, I am all for safe driving, particularly in my 1995 Neon which loves to skid given the slightest opportunity. But there is NO NEED to drive 20 mph below the speed limit in a light drizzle. Trust me on this.

The rain appears to have stopped, leaving a lovely amount of mud in its wake. Our poor dog has been exiled outside, as every time he comes in, his paws have to be washed, a job that The Texan and I both studiously try to avoid. (Oh, he comes in several times a day, and of course at night, we're not monsters. Just lazy.)

I can only imagine how the rain affected Oyster Bake. For the uninitiated, Oyster Bake kicks off San Antonio's biggest party of the year, Fiesta, which goes on for 10 days and basically shuts the city down (seriously, they even close down schools for the latter part of it). It started this weekend and I feel for the organizers who have drunken revelers stumbling through mud on their way to the portapotties. At least it isn't actively raining, although I'm not sure that would stop people from going out to Fiesta parties. True conversation I had with a native San Antonian the first week of April:

Her: Wow, it's already April!
Me: Yeah, I know, that's nuts. I can't believe taxes are due soon.
Her: *I* can't believe it's almost time for Fiesta! Are you ready for it?
[Editor's note: I wasn't aware that any prep time was needed for Fiesta, other than lining up a designated driver.]

90 degrees in the shade

2009-04-09T15:44:00.002-05:00

You know, driving home today, I thought it was a mite warm out. But I figured that it was largely because I was wearing a black suit. Well, that didn't help, but my god - 90 degrees in the shade? It's barely the first week of April. What madness will this summer bring?

Digging myself out of this nice rut

2009-04-03T18:04:00.003-05:00

Postings have been sparse this past month because things have been a-changing around here. I officially started a new job this week, after having spent the better part of a decade in my last job. I am very excited about this new job and think it will be terrific, but it requires changing how I think and go about my day and it will take some doing before it becomes more natural. It's bad enough that the San Antonio Express-News had to pick this week to shrink the size of its pages AND its font, now I have to deal with this work change too.

I am trying to look at this as a way in which I can establish shiny new and responsible habits. Also, sometimes you become a hostage to your routine, so a shake-up can be healthy. I'm trying right now to figure out what habits I can bring with me to my new job and which ones should be shit-canned. And I'm also working out exactly how many questions/requests I can make of my new colleagues before they lose their patience and tell me to shut my pie-hole. It's a fine line, I'm sure.

On a completely different note, The Texan and I were visiting our favorite bartender/turned chef on Wednesday so that The Texan could take pictures of the kitchen for a school project. While there, we had to eat (of course), and were presented with some artisan cheeses that the chef's dad had brought back from Europe. One of them still had HAY on the outside. Now that, my friends, is Authentic. It also was delicious, although we're not sure what it was that we ate; best I could fathom was some sort of pecorino.

Time to go wake up The Texan from his nap so that we can watch Evil Dead 2. We are both fans of USA's "Burn Notice," where Bruce Campbell plays the jocular best friend, and so I rented "Bubba Ho-Tep" which he starred in a few years ago (and for the uninformed, where he plays Elvis in a retirement home, gearing up forces with JFK [Ossie Davis][I KNOW] to fight off an evil Egyptian mummy)(by the way, Bruce Campbell does a helluva good Elvis impression). But it got the Texan talking about the Evil Dead series, and when I admitted I'd never seen it (my childhood was almost entirely devoid of R-rated movies), he immediately put them all on his Netflix queue.* We watched the first one last night, which was dated and campy and had subtle misogynistic tones (why did only evil dead women get chopped up? plus, a tree rape scene? wtf?) yet it had us both jumping at times. I hear the second one is deliberately campy and funny, which is exactly what I'm in the mood for.

* Secret to a happy marriage: separate Netflix queues.

The unthinkable has happened

2009-03-08T15:49:00.002-05:00

We ran out of cheese yesterday. To the grocery store, ASAP! I hear cheese withdrawals can become quite violent.

The gauntlet has been thrown

2009-03-02T17:53:00.005-05:00

Saturday night, The Texan and I went out for dinner for my (thirtymumble) birthday. I asked him to find a good Italian restaurant, as we rarely go out for it. Mama Ladyship is Italian and frankly most Italian places in the United States serve their food far too sweet. The Texan more than exceeded my hopes with Luca, a restaurant in the Fairmont Hotel* in downtown San Antonio. The food was wonderful, they had a great wine selection**, but they have something few other restaurants can claim.

When we walked into the Fairmont's lobby, we were greeted with a friendly, big yellow Lab. I thought maybe he was with a guest, but a few steps further and we saw his bed and a few toys. The Texan found out that the dog - whose name is Luke - was rescued by the owner of the Fairmont and now has full run of the place. He can wander around at will and often is requested by guests to go up to their rooms and chill with them for a while. Best of all, the dog has his own business card. He's the director of pet relations, and his business card is nicer than mine. Seriously, is your business card gold-embossed? Luke's is.

* The Fairmont's claim to fame, outside of Luke the dog of course, is that it used to be a few blocks over. Wanting to change location, and not wanting to deal with the historical society, they moved it on a truck to its present location.

** I went with our waiter's recommendation and had a not-too-fruity pinot noir to go with my ravioli. This was after the prosecco I had with our appetizers and before the Bombay Sapphire gin and tonics I tossed back at Drink afterwards. I spent most of yesterday curled up on the couch, rehydrating. Even hungover, though, and in the mood for brainless entertainment, "Bridget Jones' Diary 2" still sucks.

Wrong on so many levels

2009-02-19T14:02:00.003-05:00

Today, I drove past a McDonald's that was offering 50 McNuggets for $8.99. I think your heart would explode if you ate 50 of those in one sitting, and it's not like they refrigerate well. I realize that it's often cheaper to buy in bulk, but there has got to be a limit.

Oh, I'm ready

2009-02-15T12:21:00.002-05:00

I would like to start this off with a PSA: I AM NOT PREGNANT, NOR DO I PLAN TO BE. However, I do have three friends who are in the family way right now so it does make you think. And not to downplay the trials of parenthood, but I honestly think owning Shrapnel for eleven years now* has prepared me quite well.

1. You know how they say once you have kids, you never go to the bathroom alone? Thanks to Shrapnel, that has been my life for the past 11 years. Adding to the fun since I moved to Texas is that I often have a snarling cat and barking dog fighting around me. Let me tell you, you don't know vulnerability until you are trapped in a very delicate position in the midst of a pet rumble.

2. This cat pukes all the time. I've had him checked up by several vets and they all say the same thing: cats throw up. (In fact, there was even a "King of the Hill" episode about it. And Hollywood wouldn't lie to us.) So I've just become accustomed to keeping my eyes on the ground when walking around the house. It only takes one barefoot "discovery" of a pile of cat puke to change your habits really quickly.

3. Cats are nocturnal, despite my every effort to train Shrapnel otherwise. After years of being awoken numerous times in the middle of the night, we have arrived at a detente: he comes to get me around 4AM, I get up, go to the bathroom, pet him and maybe give him a little water out of the faucet. Then we can all go back to bed for several hours. If he ever feels like he needs more attention than that, I have my trusty pressurized air can to squirt at him** and convince him otherwise.

4. Litterbox: enough said. Okay, well maybe this: it's under my desk, and at times I swear he's launching a chemical attack at me.

Ugh, a new pile of puke has been found. Duty calls. Tomorrow: another story about my kitty-cat! (Just kidding. If I didn't put a moratorium on this sort of thing, this blog would quickly devolve into "My Angelic Kitty-cat and How Awesome He Is.")

* Shrapnel was originally supposed to stay with me for six months while a friend worked overseas. What can I say, I'm a sucker. Although I must stay that for the first few months that I had him, I was tempted to put him in a box and ship him to his former owner.

** The air doesn't hurt him, I don't spray it in his eyes or anything like that. He just doesn't like the sound of it. It's gotten to the point where we just have to point at the can and look at him, and he takes off running.

Honeymoon's over

2009-01-27T13:13:00.003-05:00

Sorry Obama, FAIL. Only one week in and we in Texas are under a winter storm warning. A winter storm warning! And here I was expecting sunshine and rainbows for the term of your presidency. Thanks for nothing.

*********

In other news, I learned a valuable lesson about respecting the rules last week. My job now has me going to a site twice a week for meetings that is still under some construction. I'm learning all the shortcuts and am always looking for ways to shave valuable seconds to my walk from the parking lot. (Time, money, etc.) The other day I realized that it was almost a direct line from the parking lot to the back of the building where I was headed, if I walked through the grass. No problem, I thought.

Turned out what looked like innocent grass was in actuality a hidden marsh. I took two steps in the "grass" and sunk to my feet in mud. And it wasn't regular mud: it was clay, which basically engulfed my feet and turned them into two rectangular blocks. As I tried to free myself, the mud sucked the shoes off of my feet. Fortunately, I was wearing flip-flops, so after getting out of the marsh, I shuffled through the grass and got the worst of the mud off of me. My shoes, however, would take some doing to get clean. So I just abandoned them at the side of the building - no way was I going to show up at my meeting with two filthy flip-flops in hand. After the meeting, I scurried over and, studiously casual, gathered them up for the hike back to my car.

So take it from me: when walking through a new construction site with implanted sod that may not have taken yet to the ground, STAY OFF THE GRASS.

And then there was light

2009-01-21T14:41:00.002-05:00

Number of days of gorgeous, dry, cool-yet-sunny sparkling days we've had in a row: 2

Number of days Obama has been in office: 2

Coincidence?

Getting caught up

2009-01-18T14:54:00.002-05:00

Life is finally calming down a bit. Just a word to the wise: never, EVER assume that you can work a week from your parents' house without having outside confirmation that the internet connection is a) reliable and b) relatively speedy. When I'd last visited, back in March, everything was dandy, but things have for some reason gotten belabored with my dad's wifi connection (The Texan and my brother-in-law, Roadrunner, both think that the computer has become infested with spyware and needs a good cleaning). So while all my colleagues came back from their winter holidays and got right back to business, I was barely keeping afloat with an internet connection that dragged its ass and forced me to spend about half every day at a local coffee house, which kind of bagged the point of spending the time at my parents' house to begin with.

Anyways.

Everyone else in the house is napping right now, which is the best way to spend a lovely balmy Sunday afternoon. I think I may have to join them shortly. I am reluctant to stop revelling in the speedy internet connection though. (How bad was the internet situation? So bad that I couldn't play in any of my Scramble games on Facebook and GOT BOOTED from all of them. WAH.)

Finally

2009-01-02T14:02:00.002-05:00

I've been writing "2009" since about October, which I guess my subconscious trying to hurry up and get done with 2008 already. But now my subconscious and I can revel in the gloriousness that is the new year. Hooray.

The Texan and I plan to get it off to a bangin' start: taking down our holiday lights and decorations. Including the tree, sigh. Had to happen, though: no one wants a repeat of the year that I waited until Valentine's Day to haul the tree out and surreptitiously stow it in the dumpster of the building next door, then having to sweep up the trail of pine needles which lead straight back to my front door. (I don't think I'd be a very good criminal.)

I already got started on that, sort of. Last week, for xmas, The Texan made a turkey. Because we had the whole carcass at our disposal, he decided to boil it and make soup. A few days later, I started to smell something that, frankly, was rotting. And being the supportive, loving wife that I am, I immediately assumed that it was the turkey. It wasn't until I was wandering around the living room, going, "God, this almost smells like...rotten fruit" that it came to me. It was those damn oranges I'd made "decorations" out of by poking cloves in them and hanging up in the tree. They were all withering away on our tree of death, forcing me to toss every last one of them. I would like to point out that NONE of the sources I consulted on how to make those ornaments said anything about needing to take extra steps to preserve them. Stupid fruit. Say what you will about Twinkies, but those things preserve themselves.

Happy New Year! Get money out of the ATM now while you can!

2008-12-31T14:57:00.002-05:00

Not to be all Gloomy Gus at the end of the year, but man was it hard to find an ATM that had money in it. It took me three tries to find a bank with one. I even called my own bank to harass them to see if there was a problem with my account (there was not). Finally, when I did get to a bank that actually had money in it, I was behind a car that had "CASH" stamped all over it. Turned out that they were huge Johnny Cash fans, but for a minute there, I thought it was an omen.

Anyways, tonight, be sure to use a cab that takes credit cards, just to be safe, and drink responsibly. That is to say, quaff only GOOD champagne, because god knows the bad kind can give you wicked hangovers.

Back to the grind

2008-12-29T13:28:00.002-05:00

For a day at least. I took it pretty easy last week but plan on putting in a whole day (one! whole! day!) today. I'm trying to wean myself off xmas cookies too but it's hard, as we keep getting supplied with new ones.

This is the first holiday season in a decade that I didn't have to fly anywhere. My take on it? Awesome! On the big day, we opened gifts, ate a cheese souffle that is a Ladyship family tradition, and watched DVD after DVD. You know, after all these years, "War Games" really holds up. Even though the computers are laughably HUGE. Plus the Texan made a fantastic turkey dinner, which allowed us copious amounts of leftovers for the holiday weekend. Today's lunch was the first leftover-free meal I've had since Wednesday.

Now my main task for the week is ascertaining whether Maybelline "Superstay" lip gloss is all that it's cracked up to be. I love lipstick, but because I wear dark colors, it's painfully obvious when it's worn off. And yet the long-stay lipsticks are too drying. So far I'm not impressed with the superstay, as it tends to wear partially off and have the rest of it stick around for 16 hours (not a good look, btw), but I'll give it a fair shot. Wednesday night we're going to a small NYE party and I want my lipstick to be up to the challenge.

The weather outside is frightful...

2008-12-18T17:21:00.003-05:00

....so it must be time to put up the xmas lights. Somehow, The Texan and I have developed our very own holiday tradition of holding off on doing so until the weather is crappy. Nothing like skittering about on a wet roof to really get the blood pumping.

We do have a change from previous years inside the house: an honest to god live xmas tree. I used to always get them when I lived in DC, but The Texan always insisted that we use the artificial one if we weren't going to be here for the holiday itself. Well, after flying to LA last xmas, I vowed that it would be a cold day in hell before I flew during the Christmas season again.* So this year, we're staying home and thus have an actual tree. It's purty. So far, the cat has avoided knocking it down (although he's far too interested in the tree water for my liking). I "decorated" it with random ornaments I've gotten through the years, plus some homemade ornaments - the kind where you stick cloves in oranges. I tried not to be insulted that every website I read about these ornaments on insisted that these were GREAT things for pre-schoolers to do. Um, sure. No problems here at all. Now all we need are some presents to go under it. And our stockings to arrive - I ordered some online, am not sure if they'll be here in time for St. Nick to put anything in them or not.

* Seriously, I've had to fly on or around xmas every year since 1996. FLYING SUCKS. And flying over the holidays is even worse.

Happy birthday, The Texan!

2008-11-18T16:57:00.002-05:00

It's a milestone birthday for The Texan today, one he's been looking forward to with equal parts dread and excitement (one of his friends came over today and swore to me that his birthday was tomorrow. Um, no). Happy birthday! Hope that you have a wonderful day. And that I don't regret buying you "Hellboy 2."

********

Today is the taking it easy day - The Texan is off at the bestest spa ever (The Watermark, if you're ever in SA and looking for a fantabulous experience) and tonight we're going out for seafood. Well, one of us will be eating a terrestrial animal, but you get the picture.

Saturday, on the other hand, I'm throwing him a small party at a restaurant where one of our favorite bartenders works (the one we've followed from bar to bar. Let's hope he sees it as simply being loyal customers). I've spent some time getting stuff ready for it - decorations, invites, etc.

And as part of the party prep on Saturday, I ran into another car.

Another car that was parked all by its lonesome in the parking lot of the bakery where I wanted to order his cake. Another parked, SHINY RED CAR which couldn't have been easier to see.

See, I'd gone to order The Texan's cake, but the shop was closed (at 3:30 on a Saturday. Strange, right?). So I was thinking about whether I should call the shop owner or if it would be better to come back on Monday, and if so, what would be the time the bakery would most likely be open. As I was ruminating, I realized that I'd hit - no, too violent, I'd pressed up against another car. Now, pressing up from behind may be sexy on the dance floor, but it really should be avoided in parking lots.

I jumped out, first looking to see if there were any witnesses. None. So I darted over to the other car, where I saw to my relief that it was barely damaged. Most of the harm was done to our car, which is white. Or should I say, was white, as the back bumper now is a lovely swirl of pink, red, and white.

However, there were a few really small scratches on the other car's bumper. I debated it, but after talking to The Texan, decided it was really better to leave a note with my contact information. Which I did. Eventually. Hooray, I passed a real-life ethics exam.

Turns out the owner of the car is the daughter of the woman who owns the bakery. The first question I asked her when I heard that was, "What hours is your mom's bakery open?" She's getting it fixed, and I'll be paying for it. So stupid. So avoidable.

Getting a little squirrelly

2008-11-14T14:34:00.002-05:00

Recently, I've been sticking pretty close to home. This is partially because we're trying to cut back on expenses - I hear tell of mythical creatures who have a "budget" and thought I'd give it a whirl - and it's partially because I have a major work project due at the end of the month which requires a lot of focus (emotional energy even if I'm not actually working on it at the time). It's...starting to get to me.

Today I found myself randomly popping and locking as I walked around the house. The only witness was the cat, and he didn't seem to mind my flailing about too much. I think I need to start making more of an effort to go outside, even if it's just for five minutes here and there.

On the other hand, Scramble is now my bitch. (Which may also explain why I haven't finished the work project as of yet.)

**********

My new glasses arrived late last week. I am still trying to ascertain how I feel about them. I've worn the hipster brown cat eye frames for the past decade, so this is a giant leap for me: brown frames that are rectangular cat eyes. I'll give you a minute to pick yourself up from the floor. Still, it's enough of a difference that I'm still noticing them. However, I can see a lot better now, which technically is the point of wearing glasses, so I shouldn't bitch too much.

Who'd have thunk

2008-11-11T20:43:00.002-05:00

If you'd put a gun to my head and forced me to guess, I would never have said that the "L" on my keyboard would have been the first letter to be worn off. Although, come to think of it, I grew up watching "Wheel of Fortune"* and L is one of the five letters that they supply you with during the final round.

*Hey, before you judge, I'll have you know I much preferred "Jeopardy," another staple of my childhood. Even to this day, whenever the Ladyship family gathers for dinner, conversation stops when Alex Trebek saunters on-screen wearing one of his lovely suits.

It just kept getting better

2008-11-05T11:25:00.001-05:00

A brand-new wedge of St. Andre cheese + a showing of "My Date with the President's Daughter" (ooh, topical!) on the Disney channel = a good evening.

A brand-new bottle of champagne and Barack Obama becoming the next president of the United States = a great evening.

Vote early, vote often

2008-10-30T15:07:00.002-05:00

Look, a non-scooter-related post! (Except this: I am not driving that thing at night until well into summer. I met friends for dinner on Monday and damn near froze to death on the way back home.)

Anyways, voting. The Texan and I did our civic duty and went down to the library to vote early. We unfortunately timed our trip right around lunch, which meant about a half hour wait. Which kind of invalidated the reason why we went early, i.e., not having to wait. But the voting, once it started, went like gangbusters. We have touch screens, so it just involves scrolling rapidly through the screens, double-checking to make sure that you pushed the correct box, and then hitting the flashing red button that says "Vote."

BTW, I voted for the JP who married us. Hope that makes up for stiffing her on the tip. (In my defense, it was one of the few things I'd forgotten to arrange ahead of time. The other was failing to make sure the DJ got to eat during his SEVEN HOURS on the clock. Uh, sorry dude.)

If nothing else has come out of this looooong election year, it's nice to see that it's driven voter turnout way up. Go democracy!

Fully legal!

2008-10-27T09:49:00.002-05:00

Well, I finally did it: I got a Texas driver's license. And it is a motorcycle license too, so I can drive our scooter with impunity. Hello, California rolls!*

There was only a minimum of drama in getting the license. I was worried they'd be anal about me having to have my social security card - no idea where the original one is - but I had my school transcripts and they have my social security number on it, so it worked out. Probably the first and last time I was glad to have my privacy violated by having my social security number splayed over non-official documents. Also, I had to wait nearly an hour before they called my number, and when I went up to the window, it turned out you had to use black ink, and I'd - GASP - used blue ink. And yes, I had to fill the damn things out again, but fortunately, they didn't kick me to the back of the line.

I'd taken the motorcycle riding school course and passed it, so I didn't have to do the behind the wheel portion of the motorcycle test. All I had to take was a written exam, which, thank you very much, I aced. Of course, of the 15 questions I was asked, probably three of them were things I learned in the riding course; the rest were just common-sense. But still.

So I had my picture taken - where they insisted on removing my glasses, even though I wear them pretty much every waking moment - and in two to four weeks, I'll have an actual license. In the meanwhile, I have a lovely piece of paper that indicates I am legal to drive in Texas.

This all happened Wednesday afternoon. By Wednesday evening, I'd had my first accident on the scooter. No, not what you were thinking. I'd taken my glasses off to get my helmet off - it's one of those that covers your whole head - and set the glasses on the scooter's seat. Unbeknownst to me, the wind blew my glasses to the ground, where I promptly stepped on them and broke an arm off.

The really strange thing is that while taking the eye exam for the license earlier that day, I'd gotten a 20/50 rating. I used to have 20/10 with my glasses on, and it made me realize that this pair was 4.5 years old and maybe the prescription needed to be changed. Breaking your only pair of glasses is a great incentive to hie yourself to the optometrist. Now I have an appointment for Tuesday, where I have to pick out a new pair of frames. O the pressure of picking a look for the next few years. And I found a good repair place that was able to temporarily weld the glasses frame back together so I don't have to walk around with scotch tape doing the job.

* I was very surprised to learn that people from other states also call it a "California roll" when you don't make a complete stop at a red light/stop sign. I thought it was just us Californians who did that. Come to think of it, it's kind of an insult...

Peace of mind

2008-10-20T15:28:00.002-05:00

I got my wedding and engagement bands back (from having the prongs tightened and the missing diamond replaced), so all is right with my world again. Although here was the conversation I had when I called on Friday night to see if I could come pick them up:

Me: "Hi, this is Her Ladyship, I'm calling to see about my rings?"

Jeweler's: "Yes, I see that it's ready."

Me: "IT??? I dropped off TWO rings."

Jeweler's: "No, all I have is just the one here....Wait, is your first initial [X]?"

Me: "No. WHERE. IS. MY. RING."

Jeweler's: "Uh, I'll be right back......Okay, found both of them."

They look purty and as far as I know, they didn't swap any of the diamonds for fakes. Or grab a random ring willy-nilly out of the display case. But what a clusterfuck this has been from the get-go.

Feeling nekkid

2008-10-17T09:38:00.003-05:00

So two weeks ago, I happened to glance down and see that one of the diamonds had fallen out of my wedding band. This annoyed me for two reasons: 1) it looked all sorts of shitty, and 2) I've only been wearing the thing for a year and a half. Come on, just because the divorce rate has skyrocketed in this country doesn't mean that wedding rings should be made to be disposable!

I took it back to the store, where I found out that my "diamond warranty" (free replacement of the diamond) would have been followed if I'd been taking it in to the store to get the prongs tightened every six months. Allow me to break this down: they take a week to get it back to you. So I'm expected to give up my wedding band for TWO WEEKS every year - keep in mind this isn't costume jewelry, it's something that is not supposed to leave your hand - or else *I* am the one at fault. What sort of crap logic is that? And what does that speak about their product, that it can't be expected to last longer than six months without needing to be tinkered with?

Anyways, I'm getting it fixed, and while I'm waiting for the jeweler to finish his work, my left hand is bare. There is a HUGE farmer's tan on my ring finger, which makes me feel like a sleazoid who's on a business trip and tucked her wedding ring in her wallet. Plus I keep startling myself because I'll realize it's not on and then freak out for a second, thinking it fell off. What I'm saying is, this is causing me duress. They said it should be back tonight. For my mental health, I really hope so.

Rolling with my homies

2008-10-06T16:39:00.003-05:00

Am I totally dating myself with that title? Oh hell, what don't I say that isn't years out of date? (True story: J-Ditty and I still greet each other with "Wasuuuuup.")

ANYWAYS, this weekend I took the plunge and headed back to motorcycle riding school. Now, the first time I tried this, it did not go well. After an hour of sheer incompetence and boobery on my part, and hamhanded-ness on my instructor's part*, it was mutually agreed that it would be best if I left early. So I did. The Texan, being of heartier stock and mechanically apt, did beautifully at the school and was able to successfully complete it. He followed it by quickly getting his fully motorcycle license and thus being able to legally drive our scooter.

I followed it by ignoring our scooter for a few more months, and then, as the wounds healed (emotional, I never did fall off the bike during the class), slowly getting used to short rides around the block. I expanded it to the gym, and then my dance studio.

This was all in prep for a second chance at motorcycle school, which I had this weekend. Now, not everyone knows this, but you can use a scooter for the class, which makes it all sorts of awesome. Seriously. 90 percent of the class is teaching you how to shift from various gears at various speeds, so while all that's going on, a scooter's main job is to remain upright. Done!

I was the only one in a group of 8 riders on a scooter, and I thought that perhaps I might be mocked for my choice of riding equipment, because let's be honest, the reason why I was on a scooter for the class is because I could not hack it on a motorcycle. But my classmates couldn't have been nicer. I had told them that I have a scooter, hence my interest in taking the class, and people would surround me during the breaks to ask questions about it.

In the end, I passed the skills test in the respectable middle of the group, aced the written exam, and walked out of there with a certificate that will give me a discount on my insurance and allows me to skip the riding portion of the DMV test for my motorcycle license. Yay!

Of course, that does mean I have a trip to the DMV in my future, at which point I will need to switch over my DC license to a, sigh, Texas one. Well, I'd managed to put it off for three years, I guess I can't bitch too much.

While this was all going on, The Texan was involved in a scooter rally. If you were wondering why in the world there were hundreds of scooters on San Antonio's streets this weekend, well, question answered. They had several rides for the participants, one of which took them out to Hill Country (about a 120 miles round-trip, I believe), another which took them through San Antonio's Mission Trail. And talk about friendly - I have never seen such a happy bunch of people in my life. They really do love their scooters. In fact, we might even join a local group and go on weekend rides. It'll be just like the Hell's Angels, except, you know, for the meth and crime.

* I accept my part for the debacle of my first time to motorcycle school, but the way the school is set up, it does not deal well with people who have never been on the back of a bike before (despite what they say). And I would argue that the school has a nasty habit of pushing women toward the scooter if they run into trouble with their bikes, as opposed to working them through the issues. But that might just be some of the bitterness talking.

A note to my fellow San Antonians

2008-09-30T12:48:00.002-05:00

Driving in the left lane on the freeway is not a right, it's a privilege. If you don't want to go at least the speed limit, then for god's sake get your ass over in the right lane. The rest of us would like to get to where we're going.

Grey no more

2008-09-22T16:56:00.002-05:00

When I lived in DC, I bounced around various stylists until I finally found one who I just loved. One of the first things I did when I finalized my moving arrangements to SA was booking one (sniff) last appointment with her. We laughed, we cried, she gave me the exact formula that she used to make up my hair dye. It was a wonderful good-bye.

Here in SA, I have not had that kind of connection with anyone else. I've tried everything you're supposed to: ask people whose hair you like who they go to, search up Aveda concept salons, read reviews, etc. It's not that I've had bad experiences per se, they just haven't really left me a-twitter. And given how expensive a cut and color runs these days (fellas, it's well into three digits, FYI), I didn't feel like I was getting my money's worth.

So when the white hairs began to become far too numerous for me to talk away ("Oh, it's just the light hitting my head at that angle"), I figured what the hell, I'll try out the Aveda school and have a student work on my hair. They have different scales for fees depending on whether a "sophmore," "junior," or "senior" doing it, but no matter how you slice it, it's dirt-cheap.

Of course, there is a caveat to all this: namely, a student will be the one doing the cutting and coloring. But I have a fairly easy cut and only do a single-process color (I have a lot of hair, and if I ever tried to highlight it, I would probably have to clear out a week), so I figured what did I have to lose and booked the appointment.

They have an "educator" (who presumably is someone who has actually passed the board exam) come over and look you over before anything irrevocable is done, and one comes by after it's all over to make sure the cut is even, but other than that, the student does it all.

Turned out that the student working on my hair did a pretty good job. The cut is good, the color hasn't rubbed off yet. Best of all, my hair no longer has that purple tint that it did in certain lights from the last dye job it got (from a licensed professional who really should know better). And it was under a third of what it would have cost me to get it done at a salon. SOLD.

******

My other big adventure this weekend was riding the scooter down to the Aveda school and back. It's 22 miles round-trip, by far my longest jaunt to date. But it was a lot of fun - gorgeous sunny weather, perfect for riding. The only sour note was that thanks to an unusally wet end of summer, we have been inundated with butterflies. They're quite pretty but when you hit one going 45 mph, it feels like an icy hot stick has poked you in the neck (or wherever it was unfortunate enough to plow into you).

Drunk on my own power

2008-09-17T13:52:00.003-05:00

Or is it residual from last night's vodka and Diet Dr. Pepper? Nope, my power.

A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that it is dark outside our house at night. Now, I know there's this thing called the "sun" which provides light, and when it goes away, it takes the light with it. I accept that. But it just seemed unduly dark to me. The Texan, when asked about it, sighed and said, "The streetlight across from our house has been out for weeks." My keen powers of observation kick in yet again.

What I perhaps lack in observation, though, I can make up via my writing. Namely, a strongly-worded letter to our property management slipped in with the September rent check letting them know that hey, the light's out on our block. For all I knew, they were just as oblivious as I was about the situation and would leap at the chance to do some expensive upkeep.

That was on the 5th. Today, I was hanging out on the front porch enjoying the thirty seconds of fall that San Antonio gets every year when a truck with a cherry-picker pulled up opposite our house. Sure enough, it was there to replace the lightbulb. Evidently the management fears, nay, TREMBLES at the thought of my wrath and retribution! Or everyone on this block has been involved in a writing campaign for weeks and my letter just happened to be one of many. Either way, this should make it a little less perilous at night.

TGIF

2008-09-12T17:24:00.002-05:00

But not for the usual reasons. I mean, sure, I'm glad the week is over, but I have to work this weekend (and pretty much every weekend for the forseeable future, thanks my inability to spread out work before a deadline).

No, the real reason I am so glad that today is Friday is that it means tomorrow is Saturday, and I can finally roll down the windows on the car.

See, when I lived in DC, I didn't have a car (okay okay, I didn't even have a license, I had to take the test before I moved to Texas). So in moving here, I became a driver of The Texan's car, a Ford Escort whose windows were tinted. When I first saw that, I snickered because come on, pimping out a Ford Escort? But after seeing school buses here with tinted windows, I got it: it's hot, tinted windows keep out the sun.

They also give you a modicum of privacy, so when we got the Neon after our Escort went to the big junkyard in the sky, I felt nekkid to be in a car without any tinting. Plus there was, you know, the heat (today, for example, the heat index is 104 degrees oh my god will summer ever end).

Hence The Texan's trip on Monday to get the windows tinted on the Neon. They are DARK now. As in, I have no need for the night-version of the rear-view mirror any more. The only thing we needed to do was to not roll down the windows until Saturday so that the tinting could set. The Texan told me repeatedly, as I'm the primary driver of the car (until I get my motorcycle license, he has primary custody of the scooter), don't roll down the windows. Keep the windows up. Better hope you don't get pulled over by a cop because you cannot roll down the windows.

Of course, Tuesday morning, with the tinting not even 24 hours old, I went to go deposit a check at the drive-through ATM and got half-way through a crank (we're kicking it old skool here and have manual windows) before I realized GODDAMMIT THOSE ARE SUPPOSED TO STAY UP. There was a big scratch down the entire length of the driver's side window. $160 out the window. So to speak.

Fortunately, The Texan was able to determine that no harm had been done to the window by my ineptitude - that scratch had been there before, but no one had noticed because the glass was clear. Off by a technicality!

Since then, I've been driving while doing the mantra, keep the windows up. Tomorrow, even with the advent of Hurricane Ike, I think I'm going to go nuts and roll down the windows, just because I can.

*********

Along those lines, here's hoping the storm surge doesn't reach SA. And that our power holds up. I don't mind hunkering down for a couple of days, but take away my electricity and all the shows waiting for me on our DVR and all bets are off.

ZZZZ

2008-09-11T10:43:00.002-05:00

Man, I am out of practice of getting up early. Working from home you do need to follow a schedule, but it's one thing to roll out of bed and into your chair; it's another to have to be groomed and at an outside location by a certain time. Yikes.

To make it worse, I have to get up REALLY EARLY twice a week now. Like, oh-dark-thirty early. So early that when I leave the house, I can't see the front door to lock it and I have to turn on our porch light. It really makes you rethink doing anything crazy the night before, like going to bed as late as 10PM.

I didn't use to have this problem. Back in high school, I spent four years getting up at 6AM so I could do my hair for 45 minutes. WTF. Talk about youthful folly. Those days are gone. Now I have to talk myself into spending the five minutes blow-drying my hair so it won't freeze in the winter (in the summer? Forget about it).

When I went to college, I thought it was super-awesome-frabulous that we could start classes as late as 9AM. Keep in mind, this was someone who had to be at high school for a start at 7:18 AM. (Why the weird time? Ours is not to ask, but to accept. In other words, no clue.) 9AM? That was sleeping in! Until I actually had to go through with it, when I found out that for a college student living in the dorms, it was not a good idea. I truly hit my stride my third quarter in college when I arranged it so that my earliest class was at 11AM. Ah, the good old days.

Right now, I am debating slogging through the day or taking a quick nap. Responsible or slothful? Lady or the tiger? TBD.

Move along, nothing to see here

2008-09-05T10:22:00.002-05:00

School started last week and things have been a bit hectic. New schedules are always a bitch to get used to. Really, only a few things of note to speak of:

1) I taught the cat how to high-five me. Sure, he may be using his claws to try to take off my hand, which technically may be against the esprit de corps that a high-five is supposed to engender. But he's still doing it.*

2) The Texan has started to learn French, so we've been practicing pretty much every night. It's fun for me, as I get to feel smart that after, god, eight years of studying French, I know more than someone who started last week. Yes, I clutch at small victories.

3) Last night, The Texan and I went to San Antonio's "art district" (I use that term loosely), the Blue Star**, to go see a photo exhibit by Patrick Zeller. Two years ago, he and a few other people took a motorcycle tour of Iran and he wrote about it in the Express-News, which was one of the best pieces of travel writing I've ever seen. Seriously. So I was curious to see his pictures. They were really interesting, but The Texan (despite being a photographer) was more intrigued by the motorcycles themselves, which were also on display. I told him not to get any ideas, as I am NOT about to ride 2000 miles on the back of a bike.

4) While watering our tree out front just now, I somehow put my left hand in a red ant nest. OUCH. Those motherfuckers hurt, and when they bite, they do not let go. I tried spraying them with the hose, but they didn't budge. I finally was able to swipe them off, but not before they left me with multiple welts up and down my left side. Assholes.

* When I told The Texan of the cat's amazing new ability, he immediately set about to teach the dog how to high-five too. Of course Che can do it without his claws. Show-off.

** At the art show, since it was the opening, they had wine on tap for the low low price of $2/glass. I noticed that a lot of people were walking around with what looked like wooden coaster-holders imprinted with the name of a local sushi chain. I couldn't figure out what sort of drink they were serving in them. I finally figured out that these were intended for people who were drinking water - apparently it's more environmentally friendly than just disposing of plastic glass after plastic glass?

Howdy neighbor

2008-08-27T09:47:00.003-05:00

We live at an end of a cul-de-sac, which is nice and quiet. After having lived so many years in earshot of drunks having fights outside my window and fire engines racing up and down the street, it's a rather pleasant change of pace.

I fear that all will change. Our next-door neighbor up and left yesterday without saying a word. After all these years of, um, nodding at each other and occasionally saying hello, she didn't bother to say good-bye. Hmm, maybe not such a shock after all. We knew the move was permanent when we noticed her string of xmas lights was finally down from her side window.

I haven't met the people who took her place, but they're already there, or at least some of them are. And they have a darling little dog too, which is nice. The woman who'd lived there had two wiener dogs, one of whom was good friends with ours. They'd race up and down the fence together and have a great time.

I think I'm a little too invested in making sure Che has a replacement buddy. Today I took him outside and in vain tried to get him to show an interest in the other dog, who was wagging his tail, shrinking down on the ground in a submissive position, and practically holding up a sign that says "I'm friendly." I even got to the point to where I was throwing Che's ball over to the fence to try and force him to interact with the other dog. Nada. I guess I should be grateful, as Che's usual MO is to bark like crazy at unknown dogs. But dammit I want him to have a friend!

This is also the problem with working at home: you become far too entwined in your pets' emotional health. The other day, I turned to The Texan and said in all seriousness, "I worry sometimes that Shrapnel is bored." HE IS A CAT. He sleeps 16 hours a day and spends the rest of his time driving me nuts. He has a full schedule.

Just let Che out. Maybe this time he'll notice the new dog.

In need of adult supervision

2008-08-23T11:24:00.002-05:00

So the very first day The Texan was in Colorado, I found that I have less sense than your average kindergartner.

Here's the deal: Friday morning, I was puttering around the house, reading through emails and having my coffee. I got up for my second cup, went to pull the clothes out of the dryer, put the wet ones in the washer, etc. Really exciting stuff. I fix myself a bowl of yogurt and take it to my desk.

I was focused on some news stories and not really paying attention to what I was doing. So when I realized that I had something on my left hand, I figured it was some splashed-out yogurt and casually licked it off. What? Stop judging me, I work at home and my standards are pretty low.

Within about one second of having licked what I'd thought was yogurt, I realized two things: 1) I was eating blueberry yogurt, which was blue, but the liquid I'd ingested was white. 2) I felt sick. Very, very sick.

As soon as I finished thinking, "Hmm, I don't feel good," my body's like, I don't know what you put in me, but we're getting it back out. NOW. And the heaving and gagging began.

I'll spare a graphic description of the next few minutes. Let's just say it involved a lot of gargling with water and rinsing of the mouth.

The only thing I could think that would've caused that sort of reaction was that somehow, when I'd been pulling the laundry out of the dryer, some laundry detergent dripped on my hand. I'd been exposed to absolutely nothing else that could've caused that sort of reaction.

So I checked out the box for directions on what to do if you accidentally swallowed some. I'd done the first part - drink a big glass of water - and decided to do the second thing that they recommended, which was call a doctor.

My health insurance has this program where you can call in to talk to a nurse to see what you should do. The woman I spoke with said as long as my lips weren't blue and I didn't have trouble breathing, I didn't need to call 911. But she did recommend I call the poison hotline.

I remember when I was little that was a really big deal - whenever your parents left you with a babysitter, the name/number of the restaurant, the doctor's number, and the poison hotline were left in the "just in case" instructions. But I'd never had cause to call them before.

Let me tell you, they pick up a hell of a lot faster than 911 does. The guy was very nice and said that unless some new symptoms emerged, I'd be just fine. He did want to know how old I was. I guess not many 34-year-olds call in having accidentally eaten laundry detergent. Sigh.

The back of my throat burned all day, and I had this persistent nauseated feeling I'm willing to believe may have been psychosomatic. Other than that, I don't think any serious damage was done.

The ten minutes when I was desperately trying to get that shit out of me, all I could think of was that The Texan wasn't expected to be home for three more days; how long would the cat wait before snacking on my corpse? How long would The Texan hang out at the airport, expecting me to pick him up, before realizing I wasn't going to be there? And I had one very strong thought overriding everything: I did not want to shuffle off this mortal coil in my bathrobe with unwashed hair (again, I work at home - all the stereotypes are true). What an asinine way to go. It's even worse than the time I was eating beef kabobs with Grits a few years ago and tried to swallow far too big of a piece that stuck for an excruciating long second in my throat.

At any rate, I learned a very important lesson: always, ALWAYS use a napkin. Mom was right after all.

Holding the dog hostage

2008-08-14T13:05:00.002-05:00

I dropped The Texan off at the airport today, a startling change of pace, since I'm the traveller of the two of us. But he'd gotten wind of a Shire horse*...convention? Meeting? Whatever you'd call a conflagration of them, and it's occurring in Denver this week. When he first learned of this event, I told him, sounds nice but um I think I have to work that week. So he's flying solo, and I'm by myself with the pets until next week, at which point I will be the one leaving for a trip and all will be right in the world again.

This jaunt to Colorado is a dream trip for The Texan: despite his name, he lived in central Colorado for the better part of the decade and still dreams of living in the mountains again. Plus he gets to look at horses for a whole weekend. I told him that if he called and said he was staying, I was keeping the dog but sending him the cat.** That should get him back home ASAP.

Anyways, this is the first time I've been on my own in SA since I've moved here nearly three years ago. I am getting all the Indian and Thai food I can choke down (stuff that The Texan does like, but in much smaller doses than I do), plus it's all indie movies, all the time! And the bed is going to stay unmade, just because I am feeling cah-RAZY. Of course, this is the perfect chance to see if I've truly changed my slovenly ways or if I'll backslide into a pit of discarded newspapers, dirty clothes, and empty soda cans. I'm putting my money on #2.

* Shires, for those of you who like myself aren't horsey, are the overgrown horses Budweiser uses in their Christmas commercials. Imagine elephants, except a little more graceful. I hope they reinforce the floor of wherever they're hosting the Shire show.

** Whenever we hear about divorcing couples fighting over the pets, we always laugh. That's one thing we won't ever have to experience, as there is no way either of us would let go of "our" pet (the cat for me, the dog for him). Oh, and the fact that we really hope not to get divorced. We agreed to stick it out for the first 44 years; after that, we'll consider our options.

Desert crossing

2008-08-09T16:37:00.002-05:00

Well, for the two of you who read this blog who I'm not in regular email contact with, yes, The Texan and I survived our trip across the desert. We arrived in Vegas around 9pm last Saturday, and my first thought when I stepped outside the terminal was why in the world they had heaters on, the wind was so fierce and hot (think it was around 105 degrees). We had an awesome dinner at an only-could-be-in-Vegas restaurant (the Peppermill, whose indoor "greenery" had to be seen to be believed), then went straight to bed. The only good thing about getting up at 5:30 am was that we got up before Dust Bunny and Roadrunner's cats got frisky.

But the drive itself wasn't that bad. On the first day, we drove to and on top of the Hoover Dam. I've been told that traffic there is intense. Well, go at 7am on a Sunday and it'll be surprisingly light. We also drove to Flagstaff, Arizona, which you may recognize from a certain song lyric.* It's quite purty there - pine trees, mountains, fresh air, and best of all, cool temperatures. On the way out, we also drove through Sedona, which has red rocks reminiscent of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. I understand that it's where McCain has a summer home, and it does have that kind of super-wealthy on vacation sort of atmosphere.

The second day was mostly spent driving through West Texas. Not the most exciting scenery there is.

It wasn't until hour 18 of our trip that the Texan goes, hmm, I know they said that the cruise control doesn't work, but let's just check it out anyways. And behold! A Texas-sized miracle, as the cruise control supposedly had been dead and unfixable for the better part of a decade. Of course, it would've been nice to have learned that earlier in our trip, but at least now we know.

And we're absolutely delighted with the Neon. It's 13 years old and has 150K on it, but it's in really good condition and runs very well. There are a few things here and there that need to be fixed, but overall I think (knock wood) it's going to work out nicely. Nothing like a two-day, 21-hour road trip through the desert in August to find out if it's going to hold up under duress.

Asshole, or arthritic?

2008-08-02T11:20:00.002-05:00

Shrapnel is going to be 17 next month, which puts him at holy christ, is he old levels for a cat (or as the vet calls it, "geriatric"). Now, as much as he is the best cat in the whole wide world and my little sweetheart, I have to admit that also at times he can be kind of difficult. Some might even say...an asshole. I don't mind, so much, as I think that little spark has kept him fat and sassy for all this time.

But it makes diagnosing him somewhat difficult. When we'd gotten back from Yellowstone in June, he was super-cranky, much like he always is when we're back from a trip. But then he kept it up and kept it up and finally we realized hmm, maybe it's something else. Turned out he'd either fallen or knocked something over on him and hurt his back. A few days' worth of steroids and he was back to full evil capacity again.

Now, though, we have to monitor his behavior to see if he's feeling bad again. Which, for a cat who has been pissy for the past decade, is somewhat challenging. So we play the game, is he being an asshole or arthritic? Or perhaps some combination thereof? We think we've figured out the right combination of meds, but who knows for sure.

One of the most annoying things about this - well, for me, I'm sure for the cat it's the back pain - is that we had to move his food and water dish to a more accessible spot. Before, we'd had his food on the bathroom counter. Classy, yes, but it was safe from the predations of the dog. Now, though, because he can't jump (or at least shouldn't. Try and tell him that he can't), we had to move it to the floor. So he can reach it, but alas so can the dog. Who has gained ten pounds (seriously) from all the cat food he's been snacking on. Trouble is, we can't catch him eating the cat's food, so we can't train him not to eat it.

*****

And in the tradition of abandoning the pets, we're off again for another road trip. This isn't the fun kind, unfortunately. A few weeks ago, The Texan and I were at a party at a gated community. We got lost on the way to the party and on the way out, discovered another reason to hate gated communities: their damn gates spring out of nowhere. We're fine, but the car has gone on to greener pastures. So we have been looking at new (and new-to-us) cars, but since we're leaving Texas in a few years once The Texan is done with school, we didn't want to spend money on a car we'd just be selling anyways.

After looking at many, many piece of shit cars and getting depressed about having to buy an over-priced car that we wouldn't need in two years, my sister came to the rescue and offered to sell us her '95 Neon for a song. Hence, we're flying out to Vegas (using frequent flyer miles, otherwise this car would be a lot more expensive), spending the night with Dust Bunny and Road Runner, then driving the Neon back to San Antonio. Through the desert, during the heat of summer. Should be fun!

You tell 'em, Lewis

2008-07-25T13:04:00.002-05:00

Last night, The Texan and I ventured out to the Majestic, a restored movie palace that now is used for concerts and the like. (Prettiest. Theater. Ever. Seriously, I'd pay $30 just to go sit in it for two hours.) Lewis Black was coming as part of his "Let Them Eat Cake" tour.

We'd gone to his "Back in Black" performance a few years ago. Back then, he'd had a comedian open for him. The opener was on stage for a few minutes, then introduced Lewis, who came out in a very nice suit.

This time, the opening comedian (Jim McCue, very good) was on-stage for over half an hour. Besides doing his bit, he also spent quite a lot of time asking audience members their names and then making cracks about their jobs. Then, there was a 40-minute-long intermission. Finally, Lewis came on-stage, wearing rumpled casual clothes.

Turned out he'd gotten screwed on his flight into SA and had to cool his heels for seven hours at the Newark airport, waiting for the weather to ease up (thanks, Hurricane Dolly!) so that his plane could head this way. I think that he came pretty much straight from the SA airport to the Majestic.

Now, in case you're not familiar with Lewis Black, he's known for his rants about the state of the world today. Now, imagine him after having been in the fifth circle of hell (i.e., airport purgatory) for an entire day. He was on fire - the first part of his show was spent ranting about the airline industry and how awful air travel is. COULDN'T AGREE MORE. The rest of the show was good, but for me, that was the best part.

Well hello Dolly

2008-07-24T13:04:00.002-05:00

The eagerly-anticipated Hurricane Dolly has finally reached us. Of course, it's no longer a true hurricane, since we're three hours in-land (a pain when trying to get to the beach, but a nice plus during hurricane season). Everyone here has been all atwitter about the possibility of getting some rain, and the excuse to go out and buy large amounts of booze (what if the power goes out? what else will we do to pass the time?). It's been raining pretty steadily, which is fine and dandy with me. We'd planned on taking a cab downtown tonight to go see Lewis Black at the Majestic. Nothing like some vitrolic rants about the state of the world on a rainy day to pick you right up.