Fantastically Freakally Awesome

You have to check out this re-imagining of Metallica's Enter Sandman as a children's book over at Sweet Juniper:
http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2008/05/childrens-books-you-wish-celebrities.html

You'll never look at Precious Moments figurines the same again. Speaking of Precious Moments, my cousin got married when she was just 16 and they used Precious Moments as the theme. It was so creepy going to a child's wedding, (I was two years younger and I still thought of it that way), and having there be pictures and figurines of children dressed up as a bride and groom everywhere. I think Precious Moments are only a small step above the creepy clown paintings that were so popular in the 70's. And the paintings of the creepy big-eyed kids that were also popular when we were wee.

Memorial Day Weekend of FUN!

Well whether to make up for the potty training trap-in last week or just because we were getting stir-crazy, we made the most of the second half of last week and the 3-day weekend to get out and about! First Wednesday evening we went and saw Tim in his run, where he ran fantastically fast. Go Tim! Then Thursday Stella and I joined our playgroup at the COOLEST neighborhood pool! One of the women in our group and her family live just down the street from their neighborhood park which is seriously like a resort. There is a baby pool with just 7 inches of water and fountains, a big lap pool that is up some steps so it's easy to keep the little kids out, and a "zero entrance" pool (I think that's what they're called), that you enter gradually just like at the beach. It also has water fountains. The kids (and mamas) loved it and Stella cried when we finally left after 2 and a half hours of fun! Luckily it's going to become a weekly event!

Thursday night we "picnicked" in the back yard with a delicious dinner of P. Terry's and Lone Star. Afterwards, Stella attacked Daddy.

Then Friday we went over to Anna's, Daniel's and Georgia's for lunch and more pool (and sprinkler) fun. Stella also discovered Ball Moss which is her new favorite toy:
The rest of Friday played out pretty low key with delicious homemade fajitas and so-so margaritas from a mix at home followed by Rock Band. Saturday we were up bright and early and decided to tackle all our "have to do" stuff so we could have fun the rest of the weekend. We pulled out the remaining monkey-grass infested flower bed from the front and got the house all clean again after it had been neglected in the name of potty training, and after a trip to PlantEscape Gardens, a really awesome nursery we discovered on South First for some plants and a trip to Home Depot for some mulch,

it was back home where Tim quickly planted the plants. And Stella found a lollipop in my purse.

She was so proud of her blue tongue. We stuffed ourselves at the Tavern and put Stella to bed, then watched a great movie I have to highly recommend. It was called "Delirious" and it was by one of our favorite directors, Tom DeCillio. Really interesting movie with Steve Buscemi and Michael Pitts. You should check it out if you have the chance.

Sunday, after growing increasingly frustrated trying to find a floaty for Stella, we finally made it to McKinney Falls where Stella cemented her love of the water. She swam back and forth between Tim and I with her little water wings on. It was so cute! I don't think any of us were ready to go home, but stomachs were growling, naptime was approaching and the falls were getting more and more crowded.

After a meltdown at our little Mexican place because the food was taking too long and it was past Stella's naptime, Stella took a long nap and then we headed over to the Larsons for a delicious barbecue. Most of the usual suspects were there and we had great meat, great beer and superb conversation. Unfortunately we had to leave before we were ready because a certain munchkin was melting down, but still had a great time.

Monday, Tim's parents returned from their trip and so we were finally able to give in to Stella's incessant chanting of "Go Baba's house!". We dropped her off and had lunch, hit some vintage stores and Crate and Barrel and capped the whole thing off with an IKEA trip. There we got Stella a really cool picnic wood picnic table with benches for outside for only 20 bucks. I cannot wait to get it put together and see what she thinks of it!

Well it sounds like Stella's awake again and I've wasted yet another naptime on getting my pictures uploaded and blogging. One cool thing Stella did today: totally unprompted she got the colors of her playdough right! She said, brown, pink and green correctly. She called blue purple at first, but those are really close.

The Shelves are Up!

The shelves are all cleaned up and assembled. This is my first attempt at "merchandising" the shelves, and I'm sure it will evolve, especially as we maybe get more mid-century platters and vases and stuff that would look good on it.

Obviously we also hung the super-groovy light. I love the whole thing, I'm so glad we got it. Only bad thing is that now it makes our Ikea cabinet which is on the wall perpindicular to it look junky and over-crowded. Perhaps we will get doors for the top of that cabinet and just put books in it. Although then we have to find a home for the Metroiskas (sp?). Ah, dilemmas, dilemmas!

More Signs of the Apocalypse

They are doing a new version of 90210.

http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2008/05/the_new_90210_commits_the_ulti_1.html

Kill me now.

This Girl likes to talk

Video of Stella on the phone with her Baba last weekend:

My Sanity Returned!

Okay, so after a discussion with Tim after I started sobbing AGAIN, followed by an email from Anna where she pointed me to a bulletin board where LOTS of people "failed" at the 3-Day method, I have decided to scrap the damn thing. Hooray! I am totally relieved. When Stella has her next accident, we're going to give her a choice between going back to cloth diapers or panties. That's it. Essentially if she doesn't go in the potty, she has to wear cloth diapers. I think it will work because she's not too crazy about cloth diapers, and if it doesn't work, I at least can let go of my guilt for creating tons of landfill trash AND I still think it will help potty training go faster when Stella is ready because she'll be able to feel the wetness. I think she thought disposables were fantastic because who cares if you're wet with fancy space-age chemicals keeping your wetness from you!

It's amazing how quickly I feel better now!

One More Thing...

I normally don't look for quick fixes. When I lost my baby weight, I did Weight Watchers even though I knew it would take time, dedication and a complete overhaul of my eating habits. As a parent, I've always let Stella lead me in what she wants to accomplish. I was seduced by the Quick Fix promise of a 3-day potty training approach and I shouldn't have been.

3 Day Potty Training Day 3: Imminent Failure

So yesterday afternoon gave me at least one confidence boosting event: Stella peed in her potty right after she woke up from her nap. Then, that evening, she had an accident literally in the middle of Tim and I reminding her to let us know before she had to go pee. Then last night a little after she went to bed, she yelled for Tim and successfully used the potty. She had one accident in the night. Then this morning she woke up and used the potty, then she pooped in the potty for Tim. I thought, "finally, it is clicking just like the "Potty Training Queen" said!" Then she had an accident with Tim, then an accident with me, then another accident with me. I was distraught. Literally. I know it's ridiculous, but all three of us are exhausted. Last night after she had the 2am accident, she took about two hours to get back to sleep, so we did too. Then this morning she woke up chattering a couple of more times before getting up for good at 7am.
This morning after the second accident, when I had been right next to her, doing everything I was supposed to, watching for the signs, reminding, praising, etc, I just lost it (I made sure to get away from Stella first). We were going to fail. And I realize this is not that big of a deal, but it was because we've wasted 3 days only to fail. So Stella had another accident with me right next to her and it hit me: The reason she's failing is because she doesn't care about using the potty right now! Stella is not going to do something unless she wants to do it, it's just her personality and it's one of the things I love most about her personality, it's just annoying when it comes to potty training. So she's had some more accidents, and I've cried some more, and I'm sort of embarassed to admit that I feel like such a failure. But it's not my achievement, it's Stella's. We're going to go ahead and finish out today because that way I won't look back and go, "What if I'd just given it the whole 3 days? Maybe a miracle would have occured." Even though that means that I'll be stuck with her until bedtime because Tim's running a race tonight. But surely I can make it a few more hours. I've already been through so much!
So now I have to decide what next? Do I just go back to diapers and pack up the potty? Use pull ups? Keep the potty out but not mention it? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that it's just not time for potty training. Even if this method worked for the other people I know who've tried it and for all the people who had the peppy testimonials on her website. And for all 6 of the Potty Queen's kids. Because I have followed it as closely as I possibly can. And when your kid has no problem peeing all over the floor two inches from you, I don't really think there's much you can do, sadly.
I guess tonight after she goes to bed I'll see what info I can find on other approaches to potty training. Maybe I can find a support group for "3 Day Potty Training Failures";)

Our cabinets are here!

For those of you who were totally confused as to what I was talking about with the shelving unit, this post is going to clear absolutely nothing up. Because the cabinets are all on the floor of my garage, on their ends, and I just rotated the pictures to try and make them appear horizontal. Except it just makes them look like they are in an amusement park funhouse. They are still extremely dusty, need a good once over with Liquid Gold and new knobs, not to mention assembly, but here they are:

Oh, great, even though ALL the pictures are rotated properly in my files, Blogger rotated some of them back for some reason. Because blogger hates me. So turn your head to the right and squint. This is the locked liquor cabinet that we are (unfortunately) going to have to take to the locksmith to get undone, since we're pretty sure the key is locked inside:

Sweet, this one worked. This is the double-door cabinet. Have to replace those grandma pulls with something more modern:

This one did not work. Try turning your head to the left. It is a set of three drawers. I have no clue what I am going to put in them. Perhaps I will have to acquire some fancy silver placesettings or something:

The supports into which the shelves and cabinets will fit. I'm a little concerned that 1) we won't have all the hardware for this and 2) we will be balancing things in mid-air and trying to keep the supports from falling over. I'm not really looking forward to the assembly part. Can't we just skip straight to the assembled stage?:

Turn your head to the left again (damn you blogger!) This is the desk. The desk surface pulls out to be deeper and there is a drawer and the sliding door space to put stuff. And vintage dust:
Turn your head to the left. The record cabinet. Guess we'll store our oodles of records in there;) :

Two of the four shelves. The one shelf has a weird lip on it, no clue what for, perhaps so that stuff doesn't fly off? I have a feeling that every component in this thing had a very specific function when it was first created, although I have no clue what those are now!:

And if you're curious how potty-training is going. It's still going. We're both still alive, still talking to each other (Stella and I that is), and she's sleeping right now. We've had two poops in the potty, one in the panties (that was especially unpleasant) and a couple of incidents of the floor being covered in pee. I really wish we could get the whole pee in the potty thing down, but there's still tomorrow, right?

Stealing a Blog Post from an Email Thread

So my friend emailed me about some people she knew who were profiled in the New York Times because they are shucking off the coil of consumer trappings and moving to upstate Vermont. The article is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/us/17texas.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

You really should read it or else you will have no context for my post. It's very short. It brought up a great discussion about what they are doing. This is how I responded to my buds: I admire the romantic ideal of what they are doing, I really do. I think it is amazing and I love the idea of being untethered from all the material possessions that I feel like I "need". And I hope that it works out for them. BUT, I find it very interesting that he is planning to continue to keep his job making a "ridiculous amount of money". WHAT?!!!! How is that living off the grid? I think that by trying to keep their feet in both worlds at once, their experiment is doomed to failure. Also, I was a little wary of the statement that they had a "brand new car". That shows that up until very recently they were still accumulating new, expensive stuff. IMHO, you might want to downsize a bit before giving away everything you own (including very sentimental posessions like your wedding rings) and moving across the country to live without electricity or running water. It might ease the shock a bit.
And to go further (and why I turned this into a blog post), it made me think of my own experiences. When Tim and I first got married, we didn't have a whole lot of money, but we had a very cheap apartment (how's $625 for a 2/2 sound?) and we were very happy. We were able to live life like we wanted with hand-me-down possessions and occassional splurge trips to IKEA while still having money left over to eat out when we wanted and invite friends over for mixed drink soirees. Then we both started getting raises, Tim especially. And we still had the same expenses. So every Sunday we'd get the paper and read the circulars while eating donuts or cinnamon rolls (this is also the time when I gained 20 pounds). And then we'd go out and go shopping, usually to Target, and come back with a bunch of crap. Granted, we were also setting up house, so you could argue we had places for it, but shopping was a hobby. That continued for a while until we decided to buy a house, so we went on a severe budget and saved the money for a downpayment for our house (which I think was only eight grand, but it seemed like an ENORMOUS amount back then. And actually, it probably was.)
Fast forward to now. When I think really hard about every single purchase. Like do I really want to bring this into my house? And a lot of that has come out of the design of our house and the evolution of my sense of design. Although the fact that everything we have to buy seems to be skyrocketing in price doesn't help. But focusing on the design element, I have grown to HATE clutter. I still have some tchokes that I love dearly, but for the most part I've tried to banish the ones I don't have material attachments to. Our house dictates we can't have clutter. Of course, the flip side of this is that when we make purchases they are BIG ones that are what I would call "investment" pieces. But I don't really buy much crap anymore. It's sort of a shock to realize that. But it's true. And when we moved from our old house to Tim's parents we got rid of a ton of stuff. Then when we moved in here we realized we still had a bunch of stuff that never should have made the move so we purged again. And just a few weeks ago, we cleaned out the garage and purged again. The moral of my ramble? There isn't one, I guess, except to say that even those of us who (somewhat reluctantly) continue our traditional consumerist lifestyle still put thought into what we purchase and how. And perhaps the one good thing that might come out of the recession would be a whole lot of people doing that same sort of self-examination. Because most of us have a lot of stuff we don't need.

3-Day Potty Training, Day One

So today was the first day of Operation Potty Train Stella. I thought the hardest part would be being cooped up in the house with her, but actually the most difficult thing is making sure I am by her side constantly. I can't go to the other room to get water, she has to come with me. If I go potty, she's with me. I can't let her wander off and get a toy while I blog, etc. I have to be there at all times so that can I catch her in the middle of peeing her panties and scoop her up and take her to the potty. Thank God we have hardwoods and tile, I have no clue how someone with carpet would do this without replacing it afterwards! All day she'd start peeing and then be like "pee" or "potty". We started at 10:30 and by noon we were on our 3rd or 4th pair of panties. I started to worry the 12 pairs I had would not be enough and I'd have to send Tim out for an emergency panty run. She stayed dry through her nap and when she woke up I tried to get her to go on the potty since I knew she had to go, but nope. So we went to get the mail. And let me tell you, you feel a little embarassed going outside the front of your house with your two-year-old only wearing panties and a t-shirt. Don't know why this is more embarassing than with a diaper and a t-shirt, but it is! Then we got back in and sat on the couch looking at the mail. Of course this is when she chose to let out the post-nap gusher. All over the couch cushion, the floor, and my foot and flip-flop. Ewww. Later she started peeing right in the middle of me saying "remember to tell mommy when you need to go potty". I was starting to think we'd never get her to actually go in the potty! Then I went to get dinner and left Stella with Tim. And, of course, that's when she chose to go in the potty. I was very excited, but sad that after all my hard work all day I missed it. He's with her for 10 minutes and she goes. And of course, while I went to Target to get more panties and to the grocery store, she peed in the potty again for him. But hopefully tomorrow will go much better now that she's got the whole pee in the potty, get a sticker thing down.
I picked a week when we've got pretty much nothing going on so even though it's only supposed to take 3 days, I'm prepared to have to devote the whole five.
I just re-read my post and I really thought I'd be able to be more clever and wittier when I was thinking of doing this all day. But I think I'm just too freakin' tired! Oh, well, I've got a positive attitude, stickers, prizes, high-fiber treats and low-sugar juice. For Stella that is. For Mommy, I've got a well-stocked fridge of beer for bedtime;)

My next project

So yesterday Stella and I met with Jen and Susie from Vestige Group as well as Andrew who will be playing my brother in Marisol. Andrew and I wound up reading about half the script for them. And we were cast. Yay! Stella was really an angel, but I'm sure she picked up all sorts of new cuss words from Andrew and I's reading. So mark your calendars for the last two weeks in September. This is a dark, dark script, but doesn't the description sound freaking awesome?!

THE STORY: Marisol Perez, a young Latino woman, is a copy editor for a Manhattan publisher. Although she has elevated herself into the white collar class, she continues to live alone in the dangerous Bronx neighborhood of her childhood. As the play begins, Marisol narrowly escapes a vicious attack by a golf club-wielding madman while traveling home on the subway. Later that evening Marisol is visited by her guardian angel who informs her that she can no longer serve as Marisol's protector because she has been called to join the revolution already in progress against an old and senile God who is dying and "taking the rest of the universe with him." The war in heaven spills over into New York City, reducing it to a smoldering urban wasteland where giant fires send noxious smoke to darken the skies, where the moon has not been seen in months, where the food has been turned to salt, and water no longer seeks its level. Alone, without her protector, Marisol begins a nightmare journey into this new war zone where she is attacked by a man with an ice cream cone demanding back pay for his extra work on Taxi Driver. Marisol finds herself on the streets, homeless, where her many encounters include a woman beaten for exceeding her credit limit and a homeless burn victim in a wheelchair looking for his lost skin. With the apocalypse well under way, the angels have traded in their wings for Uzis and wear leather motorcycle jackets and fatigues. As the action builds to a crescendo, the masses of homeless and displaced people join the angels in the war to save the universe.

Winner of the 1993 Obie Award. An apocalyptic urban fantasy which urges society to "wake up" and somehow find a way to recover the long-lost and much-needed compassion for our fellow man, as this is the only way to save our world. "…Rivera's play is angry, fearsome, fantastic, and poetically frenzied, without surrendering either its sanity or its mordant sense of humor…It's a cry from the poet's heart." —Village Voice "…Rivera's cruelly slanted world view…is fascinating." —NY Post. "…Rivera's dialogue is poetically powerful…" —BackStage. "…the writing has the potential to tickle a bruised city audience awake with the dark absurdities of our current malaise…" —NY Newsday.

I play June, Marisol's best friend and coworker. And I care for my mentally-challenged brother Lenny, who will be played by Andrew Varenhorst, a very talented local actor you've probably seen if you've seen much here in town. As for the rest of the cast, that gets decided Saturday at auditions, so hopefully some talented folks will come out in droves!

Modular shelves that sorta kinda are like ours

I know you are all DYING to see our new shelving unit, so I found some shelving units on ebay that reflect the spirit, if not the exact look of our shelving which my wonderful parents will be bringing to us next week:Ours is in three sections, not two. It has a fold out desk with sliding doors like the top shelf below, a locked bar that we weren't able to get into, a record cabinet, and a set of 4 drawers, as well as (I think) 4 open shelves.

These are pretty much all more scrumptious than ours, BUT they are also in the UK, so it's not like we could get them anyway. Everyone saves everything in the UK and they all seem to have stuff that is older than our entire country, so there's really no hope of finding stuff this cool in the US. Also, these are much smaller than ours.

Happy Anniversary and "Oh, no you didn't!"

So today is Tim and I's 9th wedding anniversary. Hooray! I'd post pictures of the wedding, but we got married back in the dark ages (aka the last millenium), so I don't have digital versions of our wedding photos, sorry. It's been a great 9 years and here's to at least 9 more! (I kid, I kid!) Tonight we're going out for dinner, I have no clue where, but before then I have to go read for a part in Vestige Group's latest show, Marisol. I'm praying that traffic doesn't kill me since we're meeting at 5. It's a great script and hopefully I won't spazz out (I think I basically have the part as long as I don't suck and do fine with the guy they've already cast as my brother). It's not until the last two weeks of September, so it won't take up too much of my "lazy" summer. It does throw a curveball into some of my plans, but I don't often get asked to be in shows without a real audition, so I need to take opportunities where they are given!

This morning we went to the park to celebrate one of Stella's playgroup friend's 2nd birthday. We had a fantastic time complete with balloons, apple cake and coffee, but there was one snotty-nosed person there (there is always a snotty-nosed person, isn't there?) She's not part of our group, but was friends with the birthday boy's mother from another group he belongs to, although she's part of the larger group which our ground spawned off from (confusing, I know). I recognized her name from the group list and also from the Texas Exes magazine, which she'd just put her latest child's birth announcement in (her kids are about 19-20 months apart.) So I struck up a conversation because I knew she didn't know anyone there. First she's all like, "I live in the Arboretum and it was SOOOO far for me to drive down here." I told her I lived at Oltorf and 35 and she was like, "Oltorf, that is soooo far, that's like going to Buda!" Uh, huh, right. Actually, you just live on the north end of town. She also was quick to say that she hadn't been on I-35 in years! I guess she doesn't leave town or something. Anyway, at this point I should have just ran far far away from her and luckily she did wander off after her two-year-old. About this time, my friend tells me that Stella's been running up to anyone who would listen and telling them that she had a poopy (of course my friend told Stella to tell me but she didn't!). So I go track down Stella and I'm like, "Let's go change your diaper and then we'll come back and play." Well Ms. Better-than-everybody else hears me and is like, "How old is Stella again?" And I said she was two, she'd turned two in March (her daughter turned two in April). And she said, "And she's not potty trained yet?" I couldn't believe it! I'd NEVER had any of my friends act like that. Us South Austin Mamas are a supportive group and we don't try to out-do each other by boasting about our child's potty habits (or anything else for that matter). So I said, "No, not yet!" Cheerfully and very matter of factly. And she said, "Well, WE'RE potty trained", like it was her own personal achievement or something. So I tried to walk away from her, I really did not want to talk to her at this point anymore, she was obviously not my type and she kept walking with us as I went to get Stella's bag, "We've been potty-trained for months". So I finally said, "well, we were working on it, but she saw it basically as just play time, so I just got 3-Day Potty Training from Beth today and we're going to try that." She was so relieved! She instantly starting babbling about how she used that and how well it worked for them and it really took 5 days and how she almost gave up at 48 hours and blah blah blah. I was like, "thanks for the warning" and managed to avoid her for the rest of the time. What the hell is wrong with you if you get that wrapped up in other toddler's bathroom habits? My friend Michelle said I should have said, "actually, we're working on getting me potty trained first and then we'll worry about Stella." HA! She was shocked. Luckily this uptight woman lives too far away from our sad part of town and most likely won't be back. Thank GOD!

More cute Stella moments:

-Yesterday, out of the blue, she says "Mommy and Daddy make baby sister". Huh? did your MeMe teach you that? ;)

-Poor thing got into an ant pile and got ant bites all over her feet. She woke up in the middle of the night crying and she was lying on her tummy running the tops of her feet along the mattress to scratch them. She said, "Pappy carry to doctor?"

So we are going to read 3-Day Potty Training this weekend and commence training next week. Wish us luck. I know that meddling busy-bodies everywhere will be relieved!

Stella having fun in the water fountains at the park while her Daddy and Baba ran yesterday.

Post-Vacation Wrap-Up

So we had an awesome vacation. Houston was the best part, oddly enough. Our hotel was really great, I needn't have worried and it was near everything. We walked to restaurants and bars at night, which was great because we didn't have to worry about parking or who gets to play DD. And apparently Tim didn't even KNOW about the downtown tunnels, so he got to experience those for the first time. We went to a bunch of FANTASTIC vintage stores Saturday and saw more mid-century modern furniture and pieces than we'd ever seen before in our life! We wound up getting two groovy 60's lamps at a little hole in the wall near TSU, and a shelving unit at another store on Milam. Everything was a steal, although everything also needs a little work. But we're up to the challenge! Sadly, the unit is still at my parents because it took serious Tetris work to get it in to the Scion and then we would have had no room for Stella, Lucy or any of our belongings. And I forgot to snap a picture before we left. But my parents are hopefully bringing it next week, so I'll have pictures as soon as I can! The lamps are still in progress, but I can post pictures of their current state:

The hanging one is ready to go, rewired and everything, but since we'll probably hang it in front of our shelving unit, we're kind of waiting for that to be put up before we put it up. Although I don't know if my patience can hold out that long! It's green and white and grey little pieces of plastic glued together. Hard to explain, but I am in love with it!

The other one is a floor to ceiling standing lamp that has springs in it and literally fits between the floor and the ceiling. My mother recognized what it was immediately, so if you grew up in the sixties, you probably know what I'm talking about. The pole was gold and brown, so we spray-painted the gold part silver. It needs another coat before it's done. I think Tim is re-wiring it as well.

Saturday night we had way too much delicious beer at the Flying Saucer along with really wonderful conversation. I think we were there for over 3 hours! Sunday we went on a driving tour of the coooooolest neighborhoods in Houston; we saw a ton of mid-century mods. Unfortunately, many of them were next to new construction behemoths. Houston and the surrounding areas desperately need a McMansion ordinance. We went to Memorial Bend, Meyerland and Glenbrook Valley. In Glenbrook we hit the mother-load. Wow, what an amazing number of beautiful, perfectly preserved MCM's. We were in HEAVEN! Some of my favorites:

Look at those rooflines! I totally am going to use this picture for inspiration if we ever build an addition onto our house. That Home Depot-special door is a crime against nature, though, on this house.

Love the windows on the right:

This is perhaps my favorite. I'd seen it on a forum I stumbled upon (where I found out about Glenbrook) and it is even more amazing in person:

I wish I'd taken more pictures, but I was sort of afraid that someone would call the cops on us, especially in Memorial!

After we finished driving around and took off our drool cups, we headed to Galveston. Unfortunately, our condo which had actually gotten good reviews was a hole. A Golden Corral with very bright lights stood between us and the ocean, so while we could have seen the ocean at night from our balcony, we couldn't because we were blinded by the lights. And then the waves were so bad that we couldn't go in the water (they had a red flag up; it was the worst I'd ever seen), so we just kind of walked along the water shivering for less than a block and gave up.

The killer waves that kept us from going in.

We didn't have a hot tub at Chez Crappy and the heated pool was constantly full of kids (we heard a kid laughing at ONE AM!), so my new bathing suit saw no water. I don't think kids go to school anymore because I certainly see them everywhere on weekdays. So Galveston was a wash, although still relaxing. We had some good food, played putt putt and saw "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (lots of fun, you should see it). So I'd hardly call it a disaster.

Getting all the ducks in a row

So we're only TWO DAYS away from our little mini-vacay to Houston and Galveston and I'm making sure everything is ready. Currently I'm getting my oil changed and and my 30,000 mile service (thanks for the wireless, Lamb's!), and I'm just overjoyed that everything is in good shape and the whole kit n' kaboodle should only be about $110. I'm sure glad I didn't get the service done last time I had my oil changed because that guy quoted me about $200. Same place. Seems a little fishy to me. After I get my oil changed, I'm getting a free neck trim so that my hair will also be ready to go on vacation. Ideally I'd like to get the mountain of car crumbs vaccuumed out of my car as well, but there are only so many hours in the day.

I hit the Priceline for our Houston hotel and, lucky me, got the one hotel which my sister-in-law described as "old and cruddy" and which had bad reviews on Trip Advisor. ROCK! Tim, my favorite optimist, says, "maybe we'll get one of the remodeled rooms and it will be really nice." Unlikely. At least we got a good deal, which is good because the parking is $25 a day! Although I read a Trip Advisor tip from someone who parked in a lot for $6.50 and just walked two blocks to the hotel. That's probably what we'll do because $25 a day is ridiculous! Oh, well, I've always had good luck with Priceline in the past, I was due for a dud.

The woman across from me looks like my late Great Aunt Viney. She has the super-super short tight curly hair, glasses and the severe expression. But she's wearing jeans and a t-shirt and Aunt Viney always wore these dresses that looked like they came out of a dustbowl-era photograph. And did you know that there is a cartoon that is Scooby Doo but they're all kids? Just saw that as well because they had cartoons on for the little girl who was here. She's gone now, so it's back to CNN and Hillary Clinton droning on.

I am So Sick of this primary. Please, for the love of Pete, just drop out Hillary so we can move on with our lives. I can't stand either of them, quite frankly. I mean, did you know that they both went on WWE? Are we really at that point now, they have to stage a cartoon wrestling match to appeal to wrestling-fans? I mean, come on! I think that's frankly insulting to wrestling fans, like they don't pay attention to politics unless it's on their entertainment? Please!

Oh, man she's talking about how Iraq has a blank check and we need to end that and make them stand up on their own. Uh, they wouldn't have these freakin' problems if WE DIDN'T INVADE THEM! We can't just abandon them, WTF?! Grr.