the perseid meteor shower is set to begin in a few hours. i know, i am a huge nerd. the perseids are the last of the summer showers, and we have to wait until november for the leonids to give us some more fodder upon which to wish. my college astronomy teacher would be so proud of me for knowing that...he was a huge nerd, too.
but seriously, i wish i could go find a big flat rock, still hot from the oven of a day we had today, lay back and just watch the sky. funny what you take for granted-- like free time, or meteor showers, or being able to see the inky blackness of the "real" night sky. if i weren't so completely pooped out, you can bet i'd be in the middle of some hay field, praying for no snakes, and wishing my little heart out on those tiny pieces of dust that fly through the air once in a season. besides, i cheated and got to see a few of the geminids when i was out west on vacay...lucky me.
the new job is harder than i thought it would be. 12 year old cerebral palsy patients are sometimes very hard to carry. and 12 year old cerebral palsy patients who can't tell you what's the matter are sometimes very hard to soothe. but i've teased a smile or two out of sweet baby a, and those were what i've realized are called "little victories", and i am more thankful for those than just about anything i've managed to make onmy own in the last 5 years.
5 years...that's a long time. that's when i graduated college and thought i was moving to dc to take over the world with good policy and love for all people. and i was still 21. what a sucker, huh? it's amazing to me that i was ever that idealistic. it's even more amazing to me that i still have that crazy tendency to hope that things will turn out for the best, that wishing on that one shooting star could really turn the tide, make the difference, fix the situation, ect. funny, huh? sort of, i guess. either that or i'm finally just giving in to the madness. and maybe that's ok, too. ultimately, i have to go back to one of my favorite movies, the shawshank redemption (also a great short story, btw), in which the protagonist (andy dufresne) reminds the hardened lifer-con (red) that "hope is a good thing...maybe the best thing". that loop gets stuck in my head, and even on days when i don't believe that hoping something will happen will make it so, i feel a tiny bit better.
as a further downer aside, and to really stink this post up with some nostalgic drivel for the masses, i'll go ahead and say that i was very saddened by this week's passing of peter jennings. what a great man. seriously. and while i was watching mr. rogers with sweet baby a yesterday, i had the melancholic and probably over-dramatic idea that three men who were very pivotal in helping make me the person i am today passed away at what seems to be sort of critical junctures in my pursuit of adulthood. my dad died before i started college, which sucked, because i was still trying to figure out what i wanted to do when i grew up, and i fully expected him to be around for that little venture, and he taught me about life as a real, authentic person with screw ups and personality flaws and relationships that are sometimes better than others, and how to say that you're sorry and mean it, how to deal and not deal with strengths and weaknesses, and how to accept God's grace andmercy so you can offer them to those around you--he and mom taught me about who i wanted to be as a person, and tried like hell to show me how to get there. mr. rogers died right as i was beginning to teach children about God and the universe and doing good things, and he taught me that everyone was my neighbor, and that we all lived in the same neightborhood, and that make-believe was for grown-ups, too. peter jennings died as i was beginning to venture out of my comfortable little existence and see what kind of life i could carve out for myself in the wide world, and he was always the one (i used to watch world news tonight at 6:30 every night in my dad's lap, or by his chair, without fail, until i was in high school and had too much shit to do) who told me if the world was the same as when i woke up, and i expected to know who our collective friends were, who was screwing stuff up and how, etc. bizarre, no?
anyway, it's been a long week. i'm so freaking glad tomorrow is friday. i may buy a bottle of wine on the way home from work tomorrow and drink the whole thing (maybe share a glass with mom, since she's letting me sponge, and cooking me real dinner every night, and packing me a lunch and snack every morning...and she has cable. i could get very comfortable here, for a while, anyway...seriously, how amazing and wonderful and full of love is it that the woman who's body i invaded for 9 months is letting me invade her house and life all over again, just at the point at which i'm supposed to be doing stuff on my own? she's amazing. she's my hero. love my momma big...i also love parentetical phrases real big, too...and elipses...) while i try and sort out the chaos of boxes that seem to be growing like some kind of paste-board rabbit colony. seriously, i don't remember having this much shit in my personal possession...
viva la adkins. i miss real chocolate...
mil besos--rmg
11 August 2005
08 August 2005
reset
ok, campers. the great move has been accomplished. even though i'm still living out of my suitcase, all my stuff has been relocated to either the storage shed, or momma's house. at some point, i will unpack and settle. since cat and poppy are closing on the brady house later this month, there is some stuff from there that will have to be integrated, so really there's no point in starting to settle, yet. i keep remind myself that in order to say "yes" to something, you often have to say "no" to something else. i think i've been saying "yes" and "no" in the right places, but it's still a scary process to put one life down, and pick another life up. in the end, i keep reminding myself that God offers each of us enough grace and mercy to get through everyday, and today is just a day. plus, it's good to be back in my mother's house. and we both agreed that we aren't allowed to talk about politics, so i should get to stay here for a while. tee hee.
today is rest day, and i slept until almost 1pm. a lady is quite tired. i know, i know, everyone is tired, and i'm a dirty whore for rubbing my sleep in your face. to top off the sleep-fest, i've been watching crap on tv for the last hour. there's this bizarre special on the discovery channel about this animal called hogzilla, that they killed in some random georgia swamp last summer. i have surely missed cable. i'll be getting my work info this afternoon,which will be good. i'm giving myself until labor day to start taking pictures and writing for the book.
btw, re: labor day-- who all is going to goat fest? i'm trying to decide if a pilgrimage to the b-town is in order. i figure richard's park may be a good place to get some seriously trashy pictures for the book, but i need to be assured that i will have an appropriate amount of people to form an entourage. lemme know, peeps.
big love to you all. and watch out for hogzilla, because apparently, they are EVERYWHERE.
mil besos-r
today is rest day, and i slept until almost 1pm. a lady is quite tired. i know, i know, everyone is tired, and i'm a dirty whore for rubbing my sleep in your face. to top off the sleep-fest, i've been watching crap on tv for the last hour. there's this bizarre special on the discovery channel about this animal called hogzilla, that they killed in some random georgia swamp last summer. i have surely missed cable. i'll be getting my work info this afternoon,which will be good. i'm giving myself until labor day to start taking pictures and writing for the book.
btw, re: labor day-- who all is going to goat fest? i'm trying to decide if a pilgrimage to the b-town is in order. i figure richard's park may be a good place to get some seriously trashy pictures for the book, but i need to be assured that i will have an appropriate amount of people to form an entourage. lemme know, peeps.
big love to you all. and watch out for hogzilla, because apparently, they are EVERYWHERE.
mil besos-r
03 August 2005
rerun
drum roll...ok, ready?
what i'll tell you now is a tried and true story that deserves to be told for the masses. if you've alread heard me relate this story, you won't hurt my feelings by not reading the rest of this post.
picture it-- washington, dc, october 2000. i'm sitting in an interminable staff meeting at my very first real job (ok, it was an internship, but it was real to me...) thinking that this is where the action is. i'm making policy. or i'm helping people make policy by sending their faxes and cutting their bagels. whatever. it's staff meeting, and i'm answering phones, taking notes, participating in conversation, blah blah blah. this is where i should give you some background.
when i worked in dc as a lowly copy rat with a very pretentious title at a very small non-profit, i learned that manners can get you anywhere in life. lack of manners can, apparently, make you the executive director of a non-profit who rubs elbows with some of dc's a-listers. i also learned that if you are the underling of said executive director, it's best to sit near the door and always make sure you don't get trapped away from the door in a room with the executive director after lunch. now, back to the story...
our conference room was dingy. dingy like a third rate brothel in matamoros, but with less wall-paper and a wheezing copy machine. and our conference table was one of the 6 foot jobs with a peeling top, wonky legs, and the plastic binding holding the thing together was poking out in places, so you had to be careful not to rub against it. there were six of us in the room that fateful day. i was seated at the foot of the table, furthest from the door. to quote my friend cory will, irony, you are a bastard.
i'm at the foot, executive director was at my left hand, project manager was to my right. my buddy hopie was at the top right of the table, office manager was at the head, assistant director was to the left of her, next to executive director. and we're talking about inane mailings, where to put the extra large stamps that executive director loves so much ("place large stamps here" said the note on top of ALL our return envelopes, which caused so much confusion in the over 80 set, who of course called me with all sorts of questions and issues about that little ditty...), how we fold things, who's sending money, how can we get more money, when are we having a board meeting, blah blah blah. and then IT happened.
executive director had already struck me as not-so-suave in the short two months i had been in his employ. it had also come to my attention that executive director had a bad back, for which he carried a tiny, horribly crud-encrusted therma-rest type pillow. at one time, i think the cursed thing was a happy, sunshine yellow. by the time i became aquainted with it, the poor thing was ratty around the edges, and was the color of a pretty ripe sinus infection. eww, gross. that freaking pillow was with executive director ALL the time. like linus and his blankie. silly me, i thought executive director was simply leaning over to adjust his pillow. no, no, that would be the normal thing to do, and i was working for King Crazy in Crazyville, and King Crazy had had friend chicken from down the street for lunch that day. i know because i had to pick it up for him. apparently, sometimes the chicken didn't agree with him, and i found out the hard way.
executive director leaned forward, and to the side, in what appeared to be a minor adjusting motion, common to anyone who's been sitting for a while. what he was really doing was sitting forward, lifting the leg nearest yours truly, and cutting one of the most melodious and malodorous farts to which i have ever personally borne witness. seriously, this thing had two distict pitches, and while it was brief, it was mighty. it sounded like gabriel's trumpet. and for me, it was kind of like the end of the world.
see, i'm the kind of person who has always found farting HILARIOUS. farting, to me, and to my family, has always been the height of humor. i know, we are sick people. my mother always playfully joked with me that thinking farting was funny was going to get me into trouble one day. she really DOES know everything. at the second the fart was blasted my way, and before my mouth had time to react to what my ears had just heard (and felt, there was concussion, people), my brain intercepted what could have been a disasterous response. i swear i was thinking about a million thoughts a minute, not the least of which was "what in the HELL just happend? did that a-hole really just fart AT me? isn't ANYONE going to say something? isn't HE going to say something? oh crap, i'm out of air...i have to breath...why God, why?" hope had put her head down on the table and was shaking with the effort of trying not to burst out laughing, everyone else just looked kind of stunned, like executive director had just called gandhi a cow-eating facist. all i'm thinking is "that fart smells like cobwebs. no, that fart smells like a basement. how in the hell do farts smell like that. he farted at ME. i want to kick that fart back up his butthole, not because he farted at me, and not because i don't like this person, but because i can't give him grief for it, can't acknowlege it, and i have to fake like it never happend, and i can't laugh about this and i think my lungs are going to explode."
and we finished the staff meeting in relative peace. i think. the lack of oxygen and the trauma may have caused me to black out for a few minutes. later that afternoon, while i was working on yet another stupid mailing that had to be folded, collated, and stuffed into the envelope (which had to have a BIG stamp, and be licked just right-- not too much spit, or the glue rubs off, but not too little because then it won't seal right...) executive director came into my office, stood by my little desk, put one hand in his pants al bundy-style, and proceeded to tell me i had just stuffed (thank God i hadn't sealed the envelopes yet...) and folded all the wrong things into about 80 million envelopes. and then he yelled at me. i took it, redid the job, and then promptly ran to the bathroom and cried like a little kid with a skinned knee. and then i went back down to my shabby little office and wrote the story you've just read (with minor adjustments, of course) and copied it to everyone in my email address book. i felt better.
i don't know why i felt the urge to re-tell that story. maybe it's because it's the best fart story i know. maybe it's because i'm a little nostalgic about jobs i used to have, right about now. maybe it's because it's just a funny story. maybe it's because it's almost 12:15 in the morning and i had too much diet coke and can't quite go to sleep just yet. i don't know. what i do know is that i hope it made you laugh. and think about how cobwebs smell.
mil besos-r
what i'll tell you now is a tried and true story that deserves to be told for the masses. if you've alread heard me relate this story, you won't hurt my feelings by not reading the rest of this post.
picture it-- washington, dc, october 2000. i'm sitting in an interminable staff meeting at my very first real job (ok, it was an internship, but it was real to me...) thinking that this is where the action is. i'm making policy. or i'm helping people make policy by sending their faxes and cutting their bagels. whatever. it's staff meeting, and i'm answering phones, taking notes, participating in conversation, blah blah blah. this is where i should give you some background.
when i worked in dc as a lowly copy rat with a very pretentious title at a very small non-profit, i learned that manners can get you anywhere in life. lack of manners can, apparently, make you the executive director of a non-profit who rubs elbows with some of dc's a-listers. i also learned that if you are the underling of said executive director, it's best to sit near the door and always make sure you don't get trapped away from the door in a room with the executive director after lunch. now, back to the story...
our conference room was dingy. dingy like a third rate brothel in matamoros, but with less wall-paper and a wheezing copy machine. and our conference table was one of the 6 foot jobs with a peeling top, wonky legs, and the plastic binding holding the thing together was poking out in places, so you had to be careful not to rub against it. there were six of us in the room that fateful day. i was seated at the foot of the table, furthest from the door. to quote my friend cory will, irony, you are a bastard.
i'm at the foot, executive director was at my left hand, project manager was to my right. my buddy hopie was at the top right of the table, office manager was at the head, assistant director was to the left of her, next to executive director. and we're talking about inane mailings, where to put the extra large stamps that executive director loves so much ("place large stamps here" said the note on top of ALL our return envelopes, which caused so much confusion in the over 80 set, who of course called me with all sorts of questions and issues about that little ditty...), how we fold things, who's sending money, how can we get more money, when are we having a board meeting, blah blah blah. and then IT happened.
executive director had already struck me as not-so-suave in the short two months i had been in his employ. it had also come to my attention that executive director had a bad back, for which he carried a tiny, horribly crud-encrusted therma-rest type pillow. at one time, i think the cursed thing was a happy, sunshine yellow. by the time i became aquainted with it, the poor thing was ratty around the edges, and was the color of a pretty ripe sinus infection. eww, gross. that freaking pillow was with executive director ALL the time. like linus and his blankie. silly me, i thought executive director was simply leaning over to adjust his pillow. no, no, that would be the normal thing to do, and i was working for King Crazy in Crazyville, and King Crazy had had friend chicken from down the street for lunch that day. i know because i had to pick it up for him. apparently, sometimes the chicken didn't agree with him, and i found out the hard way.
executive director leaned forward, and to the side, in what appeared to be a minor adjusting motion, common to anyone who's been sitting for a while. what he was really doing was sitting forward, lifting the leg nearest yours truly, and cutting one of the most melodious and malodorous farts to which i have ever personally borne witness. seriously, this thing had two distict pitches, and while it was brief, it was mighty. it sounded like gabriel's trumpet. and for me, it was kind of like the end of the world.
see, i'm the kind of person who has always found farting HILARIOUS. farting, to me, and to my family, has always been the height of humor. i know, we are sick people. my mother always playfully joked with me that thinking farting was funny was going to get me into trouble one day. she really DOES know everything. at the second the fart was blasted my way, and before my mouth had time to react to what my ears had just heard (and felt, there was concussion, people), my brain intercepted what could have been a disasterous response. i swear i was thinking about a million thoughts a minute, not the least of which was "what in the HELL just happend? did that a-hole really just fart AT me? isn't ANYONE going to say something? isn't HE going to say something? oh crap, i'm out of air...i have to breath...why God, why?" hope had put her head down on the table and was shaking with the effort of trying not to burst out laughing, everyone else just looked kind of stunned, like executive director had just called gandhi a cow-eating facist. all i'm thinking is "that fart smells like cobwebs. no, that fart smells like a basement. how in the hell do farts smell like that. he farted at ME. i want to kick that fart back up his butthole, not because he farted at me, and not because i don't like this person, but because i can't give him grief for it, can't acknowlege it, and i have to fake like it never happend, and i can't laugh about this and i think my lungs are going to explode."
and we finished the staff meeting in relative peace. i think. the lack of oxygen and the trauma may have caused me to black out for a few minutes. later that afternoon, while i was working on yet another stupid mailing that had to be folded, collated, and stuffed into the envelope (which had to have a BIG stamp, and be licked just right-- not too much spit, or the glue rubs off, but not too little because then it won't seal right...) executive director came into my office, stood by my little desk, put one hand in his pants al bundy-style, and proceeded to tell me i had just stuffed (thank God i hadn't sealed the envelopes yet...) and folded all the wrong things into about 80 million envelopes. and then he yelled at me. i took it, redid the job, and then promptly ran to the bathroom and cried like a little kid with a skinned knee. and then i went back down to my shabby little office and wrote the story you've just read (with minor adjustments, of course) and copied it to everyone in my email address book. i felt better.
i don't know why i felt the urge to re-tell that story. maybe it's because it's the best fart story i know. maybe it's because i'm a little nostalgic about jobs i used to have, right about now. maybe it's because it's just a funny story. maybe it's because it's almost 12:15 in the morning and i had too much diet coke and can't quite go to sleep just yet. i don't know. what i do know is that i hope it made you laugh. and think about how cobwebs smell.
mil besos-r
01 August 2005
first day
and so my life as a free-lance what-have-you begins. and it's not too bad, to tell you the truth. i have about a million thank-you cards to write, about a million more things to pack up, and i still need to clean my bathroom. all i can say is thank God for clorox bleach pens. those things are freaking amazing.
i'd did data entry for about a million hours today. i had to wear my reading glasses. i can't really complain, though, because i'm being well compensated, and this little contract job means that i won't have much lag time in getting the payola this month. that makes me very happy.
my friend ottoman is coming to hang out with me this week. i'm pretty excited. he's been at camp all summer long, so we haven't gotten to hang out much. ottoman is the very wise person who told me once that the furthest distance any of us will ever have to travel is the eighteen inches between our brains and our hearts. he's a smart kid and i like chatting with him. funny what happens when kids you had as a camp counselor become your friends.
so my life is beginning something new. i woke up this morning and was just fine. i'll probably miss things more the further away i get from the actual day-in day-out of the job. i'm sure i will wake up in the middle of the night more than once, wondering if i threw away all the pizza boxes, returned the tapes, rented the cars, copied the permission slips, wrote out the check requests, etc. and then i'll remember that i don't do that anymore. and i'll roll right over, turn the pillow to the cool side, and slip right back into my slumber. either that or i'll cry my head off and wonder what the hell i walked away from.
somehow, though, even though both will probably happen, i'm psyched out of my mind to see what happens next. i was talking to esteban this afternoon, and he and i have both had a doozy of the last half-year. we both agreed that we feel like something wonderful is about to happen. someone i was talking to the other day said that the buddha taught that when something wonderful is about to be born, rotten and crappy things happen right in your face, to keep you in the present, and not focused on the future good thing about to happen. i don't know about that rationale, but it sounds fair enough, i guess.
my friend Jesus said that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, that if God is big enough to take care of the birds of the air and the flowers in the field, God is big enough to take care of me. that definately sounds fair enough. and i know that whatever and whenever and however the next chapter of my life works itself out-- this is my life, and even when things suck, or when i'm confused, or tired, or just don't know which way to go next, it's my life.
and life is beautiful, even when it's hard. even when you realize that people you've stretched out your hands to could care less, or worse, never cared to begin with and just gave you lip service out of some sick and twisted sense of chivalry, even when you tell the truth and get into trouble for telling it, or when people can't tell the difference between the truth and a big fat lie, there are moments when the beauty of life is enough to break your heart, in a good way. like the time i cried all the way home from work because of a situation i couldn't fix, and the sun was setting right in my rearview mirror, making a vanilla sky right behind me, and in an instant, i was humbled enough to be greatful just to be alive to see that. the situation still sucked, but i had found a little beauty to see me through. or the time i was three weeks away from turning 18 and cried all the way home from san angelo, after a horrible weekend, and i had to pull the car over because it was raining harder than i was crying, and then the clouds broke open and the most vivid rainbow sprawled out across that dark grey west texas sky, and i knew that life was still beautiful. or the time i had my heart ripped out and shoved in a paper bag, only to have said bag thrown on the sidewalk and set promptly on fire and stomped on like a gigantic bag of human waste, but came home to see a beautiful butterbean of a baby with no teeth and huge blue eyes to remind me that love sometimes looks different than we expect it to look, and comes to us in different ways than we expect it. or the time i got all gross and gooby and was almost in tears in the front seat of my own freaking car because two of my cherubs were flirting like mad in the car and i felt like someone's mother on a pre-driving stage car date, added to the fact that i had just found my first gray hair and had come to the crashing conclusion that no matter how much sleep i got or how much cold cream i put on, the wrinkles in my forehead were here to stay, and my fabulous sister in law called to tell me that the most wonderful baby in the whole wide world was going to be coming to see me in 7.5 months. i know that was a horrible run on sentence, and that you got the point after the first two illustrations. but it's my blog, and i'm allowing myself to get carried away. partly because they are stories i love to tell, and partly because the more you say something good, the more it becomes true and lovely. or something like that...
anyway, i'm pooped. in fact, when i went to target today, i got a basket out of the cart corral ( i can't believe i just typed "cart corral"), turned around, and thought --hey, that car looks just like mine, only to realize that it WAS in fact, my car. geeze, oh man. and that's after i got 8 hours of sleep last night. go figure. i think i've hit sleep deficit that's somewhat comprable to the gross nation debt, which, as of last count, is in the trillions. but who's counting, really?
life is good. life is beautiful.
mil besos-rmg
i'd did data entry for about a million hours today. i had to wear my reading glasses. i can't really complain, though, because i'm being well compensated, and this little contract job means that i won't have much lag time in getting the payola this month. that makes me very happy.
my friend ottoman is coming to hang out with me this week. i'm pretty excited. he's been at camp all summer long, so we haven't gotten to hang out much. ottoman is the very wise person who told me once that the furthest distance any of us will ever have to travel is the eighteen inches between our brains and our hearts. he's a smart kid and i like chatting with him. funny what happens when kids you had as a camp counselor become your friends.
so my life is beginning something new. i woke up this morning and was just fine. i'll probably miss things more the further away i get from the actual day-in day-out of the job. i'm sure i will wake up in the middle of the night more than once, wondering if i threw away all the pizza boxes, returned the tapes, rented the cars, copied the permission slips, wrote out the check requests, etc. and then i'll remember that i don't do that anymore. and i'll roll right over, turn the pillow to the cool side, and slip right back into my slumber. either that or i'll cry my head off and wonder what the hell i walked away from.
somehow, though, even though both will probably happen, i'm psyched out of my mind to see what happens next. i was talking to esteban this afternoon, and he and i have both had a doozy of the last half-year. we both agreed that we feel like something wonderful is about to happen. someone i was talking to the other day said that the buddha taught that when something wonderful is about to be born, rotten and crappy things happen right in your face, to keep you in the present, and not focused on the future good thing about to happen. i don't know about that rationale, but it sounds fair enough, i guess.
my friend Jesus said that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, that if God is big enough to take care of the birds of the air and the flowers in the field, God is big enough to take care of me. that definately sounds fair enough. and i know that whatever and whenever and however the next chapter of my life works itself out-- this is my life, and even when things suck, or when i'm confused, or tired, or just don't know which way to go next, it's my life.
and life is beautiful, even when it's hard. even when you realize that people you've stretched out your hands to could care less, or worse, never cared to begin with and just gave you lip service out of some sick and twisted sense of chivalry, even when you tell the truth and get into trouble for telling it, or when people can't tell the difference between the truth and a big fat lie, there are moments when the beauty of life is enough to break your heart, in a good way. like the time i cried all the way home from work because of a situation i couldn't fix, and the sun was setting right in my rearview mirror, making a vanilla sky right behind me, and in an instant, i was humbled enough to be greatful just to be alive to see that. the situation still sucked, but i had found a little beauty to see me through. or the time i was three weeks away from turning 18 and cried all the way home from san angelo, after a horrible weekend, and i had to pull the car over because it was raining harder than i was crying, and then the clouds broke open and the most vivid rainbow sprawled out across that dark grey west texas sky, and i knew that life was still beautiful. or the time i had my heart ripped out and shoved in a paper bag, only to have said bag thrown on the sidewalk and set promptly on fire and stomped on like a gigantic bag of human waste, but came home to see a beautiful butterbean of a baby with no teeth and huge blue eyes to remind me that love sometimes looks different than we expect it to look, and comes to us in different ways than we expect it. or the time i got all gross and gooby and was almost in tears in the front seat of my own freaking car because two of my cherubs were flirting like mad in the car and i felt like someone's mother on a pre-driving stage car date, added to the fact that i had just found my first gray hair and had come to the crashing conclusion that no matter how much sleep i got or how much cold cream i put on, the wrinkles in my forehead were here to stay, and my fabulous sister in law called to tell me that the most wonderful baby in the whole wide world was going to be coming to see me in 7.5 months. i know that was a horrible run on sentence, and that you got the point after the first two illustrations. but it's my blog, and i'm allowing myself to get carried away. partly because they are stories i love to tell, and partly because the more you say something good, the more it becomes true and lovely. or something like that...
anyway, i'm pooped. in fact, when i went to target today, i got a basket out of the cart corral ( i can't believe i just typed "cart corral"), turned around, and thought --hey, that car looks just like mine, only to realize that it WAS in fact, my car. geeze, oh man. and that's after i got 8 hours of sleep last night. go figure. i think i've hit sleep deficit that's somewhat comprable to the gross nation debt, which, as of last count, is in the trillions. but who's counting, really?
life is good. life is beautiful.
mil besos-rmg
29 July 2005
champagne or bourbon?
well, i've reached the finish line, thanks be to God. today was my last official day as youth minister at the shep. sunday is my farewell/retirement party. i'm having a wide range of emotions, at the moment.
i'm caught somewhere between putting in my scissor sisters' cd and cracking open a bottle of champagne to celebrate being done and putting in a johnny cash cd and cracking open a bottle of jack daniels and being a little sad. what i will actually do is get a coke slurpee from 7-11, listen to james mcmurtry and some other mix cds and finish packing up my apartment. drinking alone is never a good idea, and i have a ton of stuff to do that is better done while not sweating out any kind of adult drink.
the last four years have been amazing. thanks for reading the blogs and email updates throughout. i'm not done with the blogs or the random emails, but they will be a different kind of flavor, probably. and thanks also for putting up with my endless stories about "my kids" at parties, on camping trips, in the car, etc. it goes without saying that they have brought so much to my life-- it's been an amazing ride. and in spite of the bittersweet that goes with saying goodbye to anything, i'm ready to stop riding for a while.
the picture taking and writing commences next week. so, keep your eyes peeled in the bathroom, and let me know if you find any gems. that way, you will be keeping me busy, and almost certainly guaranteeing yourself a visit from me. yay.
mil besos-rmg
i'm caught somewhere between putting in my scissor sisters' cd and cracking open a bottle of champagne to celebrate being done and putting in a johnny cash cd and cracking open a bottle of jack daniels and being a little sad. what i will actually do is get a coke slurpee from 7-11, listen to james mcmurtry and some other mix cds and finish packing up my apartment. drinking alone is never a good idea, and i have a ton of stuff to do that is better done while not sweating out any kind of adult drink.
the last four years have been amazing. thanks for reading the blogs and email updates throughout. i'm not done with the blogs or the random emails, but they will be a different kind of flavor, probably. and thanks also for putting up with my endless stories about "my kids" at parties, on camping trips, in the car, etc. it goes without saying that they have brought so much to my life-- it's been an amazing ride. and in spite of the bittersweet that goes with saying goodbye to anything, i'm ready to stop riding for a while.
the picture taking and writing commences next week. so, keep your eyes peeled in the bathroom, and let me know if you find any gems. that way, you will be keeping me busy, and almost certainly guaranteeing yourself a visit from me. yay.
mil besos-rmg
26 July 2005
this is like that one pixie's song...
you know the one i'm talking about, probably. if you've seen fight club. if you haven't, the rest of this post won't make much sense to you. but you should keep reading anyway, because i'm so tired that i'll probably say some funny things.
With your feet in the air
And your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
that's the part in the movie when all the bank buildings start exploding and the entire world gets put on reset. i'm right there, kids. reset.
i am showing the apartment at 8 tonight, after my last meeting for work. my favorite kids keep dropping by and staying...and staying...and staying. it's kind of like the time i tried to quit smoking by chaining a whole pack in the hopes that i would just get sick of them and never want one again. the only thing THAT little experiment brought me was a raspy voice for about a week and a really over-stimulated nicotine drive. what THIS little experiment is getting me is way behind in my schedule of "Things To Do", but i love it, anyway. seriously, if i have to go to snow beach one more time, i am going to turn into a freaking wedding cake flavored snow cone.
my farting cherub has been right by my warm side since saturday, almost non-stop. i adore this kid. but he's such a pain in the ass, too. i will have a child this disgusting and wonderful this day, if G-d is merciful and humorus, at the same time. but he's working my nerves a little bit, too. he told me yesterday that he wanted to spend "pretty much every available minute hanging out until you leave..." what the hell? it's not like i'm dying. don't get me wrong, it's good to be loved, as well. but today, when i was trying to get my database synched up with the main database in the office, and the farting cherub was laying on the floor like a human rug and singing the sponge-bob song, i had some serious questions about whether or not i can, in fact, maintain some semblance of sanity for the rest of this week. sweet mother of mercy...
and then one of my drama queens has been by my warm side all week, as well. she's freaking about college and talking smack about the boy who broke up with her right after she took him to prom. and i have had to hear alot about rush clothes, which would be a stretch for me to listen to on a good day. the upside, this little drama queen left me the new US weekly, with jude law on the cover--which i haven't gotten to read in two days because of the packing madness, etc. and i don't care that he got busted with his nanny--i mean, i do care-- it's just further evidence of the decay of blah blah blah, what--i'm too tired to liberal rant--isn't that sick a little bit? at any rate he's beautiful to look at-- way, way, way far out of this lady's league, but still beautiful to view, despite the fact that he's a two-timing schmuck.
i have to go to one last vestry meeting. father rhoda says they have a treat for me...
i'll keep you posted.
mil besos-r
With your feet in the air
And your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
that's the part in the movie when all the bank buildings start exploding and the entire world gets put on reset. i'm right there, kids. reset.
i am showing the apartment at 8 tonight, after my last meeting for work. my favorite kids keep dropping by and staying...and staying...and staying. it's kind of like the time i tried to quit smoking by chaining a whole pack in the hopes that i would just get sick of them and never want one again. the only thing THAT little experiment brought me was a raspy voice for about a week and a really over-stimulated nicotine drive. what THIS little experiment is getting me is way behind in my schedule of "Things To Do", but i love it, anyway. seriously, if i have to go to snow beach one more time, i am going to turn into a freaking wedding cake flavored snow cone.
my farting cherub has been right by my warm side since saturday, almost non-stop. i adore this kid. but he's such a pain in the ass, too. i will have a child this disgusting and wonderful this day, if G-d is merciful and humorus, at the same time. but he's working my nerves a little bit, too. he told me yesterday that he wanted to spend "pretty much every available minute hanging out until you leave..." what the hell? it's not like i'm dying. don't get me wrong, it's good to be loved, as well. but today, when i was trying to get my database synched up with the main database in the office, and the farting cherub was laying on the floor like a human rug and singing the sponge-bob song, i had some serious questions about whether or not i can, in fact, maintain some semblance of sanity for the rest of this week. sweet mother of mercy...
and then one of my drama queens has been by my warm side all week, as well. she's freaking about college and talking smack about the boy who broke up with her right after she took him to prom. and i have had to hear alot about rush clothes, which would be a stretch for me to listen to on a good day. the upside, this little drama queen left me the new US weekly, with jude law on the cover--which i haven't gotten to read in two days because of the packing madness, etc. and i don't care that he got busted with his nanny--i mean, i do care-- it's just further evidence of the decay of blah blah blah, what--i'm too tired to liberal rant--isn't that sick a little bit? at any rate he's beautiful to look at-- way, way, way far out of this lady's league, but still beautiful to view, despite the fact that he's a two-timing schmuck.
i have to go to one last vestry meeting. father rhoda says they have a treat for me...
i'll keep you posted.
mil besos-r
25 July 2005
simplify, simplify, simplify
the great transition of 2005 is in full swing. i'm about 1/4 moved, with a ton of stuff still to pack. derkerita is a genius for suggesting that i post up my sub-lease on craigslist, because i just might get it unloaded, now. my texas grandparents think they want to buy my car from me, and give me the townie for a trade-in. i changed my phone plan to a cheaper one (i still have a ridiculous amount of minutes, so don't stop calling). i need to cancel my gym membership so i can save a little jack. but, best of all, i have employment, again. i'll be my sweet baby a's care attendant, which i am very humbled and excited to do for him, his mom, and his brother. i am totally exhausted and can't wait to take a nap, but that will have to wait for a week or two. christmas looks promising...
life is good. i'm relishing the thought of packing up, leaving things packed for a while, and figuring out how and when and where to start fresh. it's daunting, but very exciting, as well. in the meantime, i'm spending a lot of time with my best kids. we are laughing, crying, packing, and telling stories. it's nice. but it also makes me a little more tired everytime i hang out with them. ah, the freaking irony.
i can't wait to start on the book. it's time.
mil besos-r
life is good. i'm relishing the thought of packing up, leaving things packed for a while, and figuring out how and when and where to start fresh. it's daunting, but very exciting, as well. in the meantime, i'm spending a lot of time with my best kids. we are laughing, crying, packing, and telling stories. it's nice. but it also makes me a little more tired everytime i hang out with them. ah, the freaking irony.
i can't wait to start on the book. it's time.
mil besos-r
22 July 2005
happy feast of st. mary magdalen
its july 22nd, and that can only mean one thing-- its time to celebrate the feast day of my favorite (and Jesus' favorite, too) saint, mary magdalen. yay for the mag. you can read all about her life and story on en.wikipedia.org.
in other news, but also related to womens' issues, i'd like to take this opportunity to thank George W. Bush for selling out all the "safety moms" who voted for him, some against their own better judgement, believing that he was invested in protecting our bodies, and not just our souls. what better way to thank these women for their votes of confidence than to recommend John Roberts, Jr. for the vacancy left by the only truly swing vote on the whole court, and one of my personal heros, Sandra Day O'Connor. it's kind of like trading in your cadillac for a yugo. it's going to be disappointing, but at least you'll suck as much as everyone else. i'm sure there are plenty of moderate women jurists out there who would have been more than good at a job on the bench. all i'm saying is that W. could use some street cred with the ladies, especially this lady. nominating a woman to fill the position, even if she were a crazy neo-con june cleaver who wanted nothing more than to vacuum in her pearls and crinolines, at least would have been throwing the huddled silent majority a freaking bone. and don't even get me started on the plame issue with regard to our good friend mr. rove. Lord, have mercy.
As an aside, and to make a comment which i am sure will make at least some of your blood boil, my dear readers... Why is it so important for this president to have supreme court justices who will read the consititution of the united states through the eyes of original intent, but not their bibles? just something to think about...i know i've been thinking about it. a lot.
end of rant. God bless us, everyone, even (and especially) the people i think are pin-heads.
mil besos-r
in other news, but also related to womens' issues, i'd like to take this opportunity to thank George W. Bush for selling out all the "safety moms" who voted for him, some against their own better judgement, believing that he was invested in protecting our bodies, and not just our souls. what better way to thank these women for their votes of confidence than to recommend John Roberts, Jr. for the vacancy left by the only truly swing vote on the whole court, and one of my personal heros, Sandra Day O'Connor. it's kind of like trading in your cadillac for a yugo. it's going to be disappointing, but at least you'll suck as much as everyone else. i'm sure there are plenty of moderate women jurists out there who would have been more than good at a job on the bench. all i'm saying is that W. could use some street cred with the ladies, especially this lady. nominating a woman to fill the position, even if she were a crazy neo-con june cleaver who wanted nothing more than to vacuum in her pearls and crinolines, at least would have been throwing the huddled silent majority a freaking bone. and don't even get me started on the plame issue with regard to our good friend mr. rove. Lord, have mercy.
As an aside, and to make a comment which i am sure will make at least some of your blood boil, my dear readers... Why is it so important for this president to have supreme court justices who will read the consititution of the united states through the eyes of original intent, but not their bibles? just something to think about...i know i've been thinking about it. a lot.
end of rant. God bless us, everyone, even (and especially) the people i think are pin-heads.
mil besos-r
21 July 2005
i can see the finish line
oh friends and neighbors, we are approaching the end of something. and while its a little sad, i'm mostly just ready to sleep for about a week. then i'll ponder.
yesterday, i did something i've never done before. i'd thought about it for a while, and had always passed over the idea and just gone back to my old methods. yesterday, i got my legs waxed. i'm left feeling the following: 1) i can't believe i just paid someone 30 bucks to put me through that. 2) i can't believe i didn't shave for two point five weeks. 3) i can't believe after all that, my legs still aren't smooth, and once i shave them, they will be patchy for the rest of the summer. what the hell people? i am boycotting leg waxing for the rest of my adult life.
and, as if that weren't enough, while the lady was waxing my eyebrows (a practice i strongly advocate and will continue to favor), she was doing some tweezing, and came across this eyebrow hair that was like 2 inches long. no kidding, i know it was that long, because she made me open up my eyes to look at it. i don't know who was more bothered by it-- her or me. at least it wasn't a gray eyebrow. that could have been bad...
back to cleaning out and sorting through the last four years of my life...its been interesting, so far.
mil besos--r
yesterday, i did something i've never done before. i'd thought about it for a while, and had always passed over the idea and just gone back to my old methods. yesterday, i got my legs waxed. i'm left feeling the following: 1) i can't believe i just paid someone 30 bucks to put me through that. 2) i can't believe i didn't shave for two point five weeks. 3) i can't believe after all that, my legs still aren't smooth, and once i shave them, they will be patchy for the rest of the summer. what the hell people? i am boycotting leg waxing for the rest of my adult life.
and, as if that weren't enough, while the lady was waxing my eyebrows (a practice i strongly advocate and will continue to favor), she was doing some tweezing, and came across this eyebrow hair that was like 2 inches long. no kidding, i know it was that long, because she made me open up my eyes to look at it. i don't know who was more bothered by it-- her or me. at least it wasn't a gray eyebrow. that could have been bad...
back to cleaning out and sorting through the last four years of my life...its been interesting, so far.
mil besos--r
19 July 2005
story time
ok, this is how the last 12 days of mission trip to sewanee went down... suffice it to say that by the time we got out of the city limits, my mantra had become "God has a plan", because mine flew in the crapper in a hurry...
6th-- we left a-tex, drove to little rock. it was a long ride. on the way there, i got a big fat speeding ticket in georgetown. i now hate suburbs with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. i paid it today. my bank account is now $181 dollars lighter. damn ticket quotas.
7th-- we wake up, take the little angels to waffle house in little rock, and i wonder out loud if president clinton ever ate at this one. in response to the bombings in london, the gas prices shoot up 10 cents a gallon while we're inside. as a side note, waffle house doesn't take credit cards or checks. but they do have an atm. shady, very shady. full of grease and sass, we took off for the cumberland plateau and a weeks' worth of work and dirty laundry. we were very excited. we arrived in sewanee at about 5pm, got unpacked, set up the kitchen, and took the kids to eat at a place in town called shenanigans. the reuben, according to smelly j (my dear friend from waco, who was another youth minister on the trip), was superlative. the banjo king (one of my nearest and dearest from college, who's married to the fabulous laura (i missed you on this trip like crazy, lady)) and i both agreed that we had one of the smelliest groups of kids we'd ever personally smelled on this trip. note that the banjo king and i can both be very smelly kids as well. note also that we went through four bottles of fabreeze, one of which was antibacterial fabreeze, in an effort to make our stinkers smell better. the fact that we changed altitude rapidly didn't help the stink, either.
8th--friday. we sleep in, thank the baby Jesus. we play the first of many rounds of ultimate frisbee. stinky j and i go into "town" and buy about 30 pounds of lunch meat, 6 gallons of milk, a watermelon that never even got cut, cheese, cream cheese, margarine, etc. we also bought a kick ball emblazoned with the justice league, and got a really cool batman mask. stinky j suggested that we make eggs erroneous for breakfast one morning. i laughed so hard for so long that i was sore the next day. i think the check out lady thought i was high. good times.
9th--saturday. the other group from houston shows up and messes with our group dynamic a little bit. by sunday, after a small fit or two, everything is ironed out. by this time, its become painfully clear that some of these kids don't want to be on mission trip. seems they read "swim all day and chase boobs" on the top of the brochure instead of "work hard and love jesus". what a bunch of morons. no, seriously. i think my tubes may have psychosomatically tied themselves at one point. we also go to pond swim this day-- i was very happy. i also really needed a shower after that swim, which i didn't get until the next day, for a variety of reasons i'll be kind enough to leave out.
10th--sunday. stinky j and another sponsor have to go to the er because they have pus in the back of their throats. i am not happy. the rest of us go to church, and i skip the sermon to have some quiet time. i make it back for the creed, because i have impeccable timing. i see my dear caro's mama at church, and mrs. bet gives me the best hug i've had in days. i feel much better about "things". we have our orientation that afternoon with the habitat guy. the banjo king and i are immediately underwhelmed and i begin to get what we call "worried and upset" because he doesn't have a) enough work for all 36 of us and b) a clue as to what he should do with us if it rains. which brings me to my next point-- hurricane freaking dennis. what a pain in my booty. seriously. mostly because it cut out one work site altogether, because we were supposed to be doing yard work. in a yard full of red clay. not a chance in hell, people.
11th-- monday. we have a wonderful breakfast with the lovely kitchen ladies at st. mary's (who cook big gigantic eggy grandma breakfasts, and make you take bacon AND sausage) and put some lipstick on the pig that was our mission trip. we got rained out of our worksites, and instead of farting around all day and napping, we worked at st. mary's, much to the surprise and delight of fr. doug, the director, and mr. jerry, the groundskeeper (who used to be a nuclear engineer in Chattanooga...). we picked up the limbs from the wind storm the night before. we weeded out the labyrinth. we dug the iris bulbs out of one bed, collected them all in a bag, and replanted the bed with marigolds. we painted one of the dorm rooms. and before the week was over, we built a deck on the edge of a bluff behind the dining room. monday night, we slept like rocks.
12th--tuesday. we eat more. alot more. part of the work crew got to go to the housing site. everyone else kept working at st. mary's, which is how things would roll for the rest of the week. he who must be obeyed and occasionally footnoted was called in to trouble shoot for us, and gave us the go ahead to buy the wood for the deck. fr. doug was so happy and surprised that he cried a little. he loved us by the end of the week. so the banjo king and stinky j drove off to winchester to buy lumber for the deck. and they bough concrete. 640 pounds of it. that's a lot of concrete. i stayed back at the ranch with my little angels. we dug huge boulders out of the ground with pick axes and shovels. it was fun. not as much fun as when we got to start on the deck, but close. at this point in the week, i discovered that i have a full on addiction to milo's famous sweet tea, and begin drinking nalgene bottles full of it. the people at the pig are starting to look sideways at me when i come in to buy things...
the banjo king and stinky j get back from town, and are followed by the lumber truck, bearing the makings of a 16x16 deck of treated pine. yella wood really is wonderful. what wasn't wonderful was that the lumber truck almost go stuck and tore up a little of the yard. oops. the banjo king and stinky j set about stringing plumb lines, the kids and i start digging holes for posts, and the concrete mixing commences. like i said, 640 pounds of concrete is a lot of concrete. and since you're not supposed to breathe the dust, or get any on your skin, i mixed while the banjo king and stinky j set the posts. i called my pops at pound 240, just to tell him what i was doing. he was highly amused. thank God the family trade is being kept up, huh?
i have this to say about mixing concrete-- God bless the person who invented the mixer. making mud in a wheel barrow with a hoe is one of the single most painful experiences of my adult life. it's on the top ten list, at least. top twenty. it was bad. but we got the posts set with little or no drama, and the miracle of all miracles was that we got them all level and plumb with each other. God has a plan. dinner was wonderful. i don't remember what we had, but we all ate a lot of it.
13th--wednesday--more deck building, more floor joisting. more rain. when i woke up, i thought my entire chest was going to explode. it was a long morning. the natives are getting restless. i have the uncontrollable urge to get in the car and leave them behind. after all, the jack daniels' distillery is only 75 miles away...they'd never know i was gone... i decide to stay. that was stupid.
14th--thursday--decking, flooring, raining. one of the precious angels decides to pierce his ears. and he invites a girl into his room to help. 9 kinds of holy hell ensue. there is yelling. there are calls home. in the final analysis, i'm just glad everyone's clothes stayed on.
15th-- friday-- deck is finished by 1pm. floor joists are in by 4pm. we go to the pool. we take showers. at least i think i took a shower. the only shower i know for sure i have taken in the last week is the one i took yesterday afternoon when i got home...eww gross. we tell the kids we are proud of them, because we are. fr. doug fixes us a big hamburger and hot dog dinner, complete with a chocolate sheet cake decorated with yellow roses. i cry a little bit. i also have to go back to the pig (that's piggly wiggly, for those of you who are southern-impaired) to buy bread for lunch on saturday. i'm also out of tea. again. we terrify the children with stories of how they could fall out of the boat an die on saturday's boat trip, especially if they don't pay attention to orientation. they kind of believe us.
16th-- saturday-- we go rafting on the ocoee river. it is beautiful. i buy a fun new shirt and two stickers. and because one of my sweet angels insists that he should be allowed to wear girls' work out shorts to raft in, i also get to buy some swim trunks. seriously, if those things had gotten wet, we would know more about this sweet angel than anyone other than God should know. the rafting part was fun. and cold. and two of my kids fell out of my boat and scared me real bad. but all was well. he who must be gratutitiously footnoted and occasionally obeyed came up to raft with us. he too was impressed by how badly the children smelled. there was almost some dry heaving. we go home. we have compline one last time. i remind the kids for the last time, as i have done every night of our trip, that there is a mighty, mighty God who loves them very, very much. i don't get to go to sleep until almost two for a wide variety of reasons, but mostly because two of the girl angels are gunning for two of the boy angels, and since i'd made it for 11 days without anyone getting knocked up, i was kind of invested in maintaining my track record. they finally went to sleep. so did i.
17th-- sunday. i wake up and feel like i've had the ever-living crap kicked out of me, and then had my head wrapped in cotton. i can't wait to get in the car and start driving. yay. we make it to texarkana. i am very greatful. somewhere between murfreesboro and nashville, the kids start a mooning war between the vans. pretty soon my car starts to smell like unwashed ass, and i feel the need to vomit, call my mother, and throw a fit. i ingnore the need. i focus on getting to memphis and seeing graceland. we didn't tour it. we looked at it. kind of like when the griswold's go to the grand canyon. it was great. it took about 5 minutes. shortly after memphis, i start really abusing caffeine like its my job. little rock never looked so good. we finally made it to texarkana, and i don't think i've ever been happier to cross the texas state line in all my life. by this time, i am so tired that the thought of trying to make it to dallas is enough to make me want to die. stinky j and the little angels cut me some slack, and we check into the skankiest ramada this side of atlantic city. we sleep.
18th--monday--we finally get home at about 4 pm. i turn in cars, praise Jesus that we got home, and go housesit at the home of the four horsemen, who are out of town with their parents. they are having tile put in, and i'm just there to open doors and empty litter boxes. i get some rudy's barbeque, and then i sleep for 12 straight hours.
and that's the whole story. i'm a little sad that it's over. i'm a little sad that this was my last time to be a shot-caller on one of these trips. but life is good. its scary, its messy, its confusing, but its real and mine. thanks be to God.
mil besos--rmg
** ... about the spelling errors: i'll fix them tomorrow. i promise.
6th-- we left a-tex, drove to little rock. it was a long ride. on the way there, i got a big fat speeding ticket in georgetown. i now hate suburbs with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. i paid it today. my bank account is now $181 dollars lighter. damn ticket quotas.
7th-- we wake up, take the little angels to waffle house in little rock, and i wonder out loud if president clinton ever ate at this one. in response to the bombings in london, the gas prices shoot up 10 cents a gallon while we're inside. as a side note, waffle house doesn't take credit cards or checks. but they do have an atm. shady, very shady. full of grease and sass, we took off for the cumberland plateau and a weeks' worth of work and dirty laundry. we were very excited. we arrived in sewanee at about 5pm, got unpacked, set up the kitchen, and took the kids to eat at a place in town called shenanigans. the reuben, according to smelly j (my dear friend from waco, who was another youth minister on the trip), was superlative. the banjo king (one of my nearest and dearest from college, who's married to the fabulous laura (i missed you on this trip like crazy, lady)) and i both agreed that we had one of the smelliest groups of kids we'd ever personally smelled on this trip. note that the banjo king and i can both be very smelly kids as well. note also that we went through four bottles of fabreeze, one of which was antibacterial fabreeze, in an effort to make our stinkers smell better. the fact that we changed altitude rapidly didn't help the stink, either.
8th--friday. we sleep in, thank the baby Jesus. we play the first of many rounds of ultimate frisbee. stinky j and i go into "town" and buy about 30 pounds of lunch meat, 6 gallons of milk, a watermelon that never even got cut, cheese, cream cheese, margarine, etc. we also bought a kick ball emblazoned with the justice league, and got a really cool batman mask. stinky j suggested that we make eggs erroneous for breakfast one morning. i laughed so hard for so long that i was sore the next day. i think the check out lady thought i was high. good times.
9th--saturday. the other group from houston shows up and messes with our group dynamic a little bit. by sunday, after a small fit or two, everything is ironed out. by this time, its become painfully clear that some of these kids don't want to be on mission trip. seems they read "swim all day and chase boobs" on the top of the brochure instead of "work hard and love jesus". what a bunch of morons. no, seriously. i think my tubes may have psychosomatically tied themselves at one point. we also go to pond swim this day-- i was very happy. i also really needed a shower after that swim, which i didn't get until the next day, for a variety of reasons i'll be kind enough to leave out.
10th--sunday. stinky j and another sponsor have to go to the er because they have pus in the back of their throats. i am not happy. the rest of us go to church, and i skip the sermon to have some quiet time. i make it back for the creed, because i have impeccable timing. i see my dear caro's mama at church, and mrs. bet gives me the best hug i've had in days. i feel much better about "things". we have our orientation that afternoon with the habitat guy. the banjo king and i are immediately underwhelmed and i begin to get what we call "worried and upset" because he doesn't have a) enough work for all 36 of us and b) a clue as to what he should do with us if it rains. which brings me to my next point-- hurricane freaking dennis. what a pain in my booty. seriously. mostly because it cut out one work site altogether, because we were supposed to be doing yard work. in a yard full of red clay. not a chance in hell, people.
11th-- monday. we have a wonderful breakfast with the lovely kitchen ladies at st. mary's (who cook big gigantic eggy grandma breakfasts, and make you take bacon AND sausage) and put some lipstick on the pig that was our mission trip. we got rained out of our worksites, and instead of farting around all day and napping, we worked at st. mary's, much to the surprise and delight of fr. doug, the director, and mr. jerry, the groundskeeper (who used to be a nuclear engineer in Chattanooga...). we picked up the limbs from the wind storm the night before. we weeded out the labyrinth. we dug the iris bulbs out of one bed, collected them all in a bag, and replanted the bed with marigolds. we painted one of the dorm rooms. and before the week was over, we built a deck on the edge of a bluff behind the dining room. monday night, we slept like rocks.
12th--tuesday. we eat more. alot more. part of the work crew got to go to the housing site. everyone else kept working at st. mary's, which is how things would roll for the rest of the week. he who must be obeyed and occasionally footnoted was called in to trouble shoot for us, and gave us the go ahead to buy the wood for the deck. fr. doug was so happy and surprised that he cried a little. he loved us by the end of the week. so the banjo king and stinky j drove off to winchester to buy lumber for the deck. and they bough concrete. 640 pounds of it. that's a lot of concrete. i stayed back at the ranch with my little angels. we dug huge boulders out of the ground with pick axes and shovels. it was fun. not as much fun as when we got to start on the deck, but close. at this point in the week, i discovered that i have a full on addiction to milo's famous sweet tea, and begin drinking nalgene bottles full of it. the people at the pig are starting to look sideways at me when i come in to buy things...
the banjo king and stinky j get back from town, and are followed by the lumber truck, bearing the makings of a 16x16 deck of treated pine. yella wood really is wonderful. what wasn't wonderful was that the lumber truck almost go stuck and tore up a little of the yard. oops. the banjo king and stinky j set about stringing plumb lines, the kids and i start digging holes for posts, and the concrete mixing commences. like i said, 640 pounds of concrete is a lot of concrete. and since you're not supposed to breathe the dust, or get any on your skin, i mixed while the banjo king and stinky j set the posts. i called my pops at pound 240, just to tell him what i was doing. he was highly amused. thank God the family trade is being kept up, huh?
i have this to say about mixing concrete-- God bless the person who invented the mixer. making mud in a wheel barrow with a hoe is one of the single most painful experiences of my adult life. it's on the top ten list, at least. top twenty. it was bad. but we got the posts set with little or no drama, and the miracle of all miracles was that we got them all level and plumb with each other. God has a plan. dinner was wonderful. i don't remember what we had, but we all ate a lot of it.
13th--wednesday--more deck building, more floor joisting. more rain. when i woke up, i thought my entire chest was going to explode. it was a long morning. the natives are getting restless. i have the uncontrollable urge to get in the car and leave them behind. after all, the jack daniels' distillery is only 75 miles away...they'd never know i was gone... i decide to stay. that was stupid.
14th--thursday--decking, flooring, raining. one of the precious angels decides to pierce his ears. and he invites a girl into his room to help. 9 kinds of holy hell ensue. there is yelling. there are calls home. in the final analysis, i'm just glad everyone's clothes stayed on.
15th-- friday-- deck is finished by 1pm. floor joists are in by 4pm. we go to the pool. we take showers. at least i think i took a shower. the only shower i know for sure i have taken in the last week is the one i took yesterday afternoon when i got home...eww gross. we tell the kids we are proud of them, because we are. fr. doug fixes us a big hamburger and hot dog dinner, complete with a chocolate sheet cake decorated with yellow roses. i cry a little bit. i also have to go back to the pig (that's piggly wiggly, for those of you who are southern-impaired) to buy bread for lunch on saturday. i'm also out of tea. again. we terrify the children with stories of how they could fall out of the boat an die on saturday's boat trip, especially if they don't pay attention to orientation. they kind of believe us.
16th-- saturday-- we go rafting on the ocoee river. it is beautiful. i buy a fun new shirt and two stickers. and because one of my sweet angels insists that he should be allowed to wear girls' work out shorts to raft in, i also get to buy some swim trunks. seriously, if those things had gotten wet, we would know more about this sweet angel than anyone other than God should know. the rafting part was fun. and cold. and two of my kids fell out of my boat and scared me real bad. but all was well. he who must be gratutitiously footnoted and occasionally obeyed came up to raft with us. he too was impressed by how badly the children smelled. there was almost some dry heaving. we go home. we have compline one last time. i remind the kids for the last time, as i have done every night of our trip, that there is a mighty, mighty God who loves them very, very much. i don't get to go to sleep until almost two for a wide variety of reasons, but mostly because two of the girl angels are gunning for two of the boy angels, and since i'd made it for 11 days without anyone getting knocked up, i was kind of invested in maintaining my track record. they finally went to sleep. so did i.
17th-- sunday. i wake up and feel like i've had the ever-living crap kicked out of me, and then had my head wrapped in cotton. i can't wait to get in the car and start driving. yay. we make it to texarkana. i am very greatful. somewhere between murfreesboro and nashville, the kids start a mooning war between the vans. pretty soon my car starts to smell like unwashed ass, and i feel the need to vomit, call my mother, and throw a fit. i ingnore the need. i focus on getting to memphis and seeing graceland. we didn't tour it. we looked at it. kind of like when the griswold's go to the grand canyon. it was great. it took about 5 minutes. shortly after memphis, i start really abusing caffeine like its my job. little rock never looked so good. we finally made it to texarkana, and i don't think i've ever been happier to cross the texas state line in all my life. by this time, i am so tired that the thought of trying to make it to dallas is enough to make me want to die. stinky j and the little angels cut me some slack, and we check into the skankiest ramada this side of atlantic city. we sleep.
18th--monday--we finally get home at about 4 pm. i turn in cars, praise Jesus that we got home, and go housesit at the home of the four horsemen, who are out of town with their parents. they are having tile put in, and i'm just there to open doors and empty litter boxes. i get some rudy's barbeque, and then i sleep for 12 straight hours.
and that's the whole story. i'm a little sad that it's over. i'm a little sad that this was my last time to be a shot-caller on one of these trips. but life is good. its scary, its messy, its confusing, but its real and mine. thanks be to God.
mil besos--rmg
** ... about the spelling errors: i'll fix them tomorrow. i promise.
18 July 2005
wow
holy crap. thank God i'm home. what was i thinking taking a 12 day trip two weeks before i quit my job? sweet lord.
speaking of job and life...
here's the plan, as of now...
1. dump the apartment. know anyone who needs a 1 bedroom in central/north austin (like around highland mall) for $540 a month? lemme know...
2. trade into a smaller car
3. move in with mom and live rent free
4. write my book, take road trips to get pictures for my book
5. finally get to be a waitress because i've always wanted to do that and i will need to make some freaking money to pay for car/film/bills at momma's house.
6. come see some of you freaks and make you take me out to fun places with good material for my book
love to you all. i'm off to take a snooze for about 18 hours.
mil besos--rmg
speaking of job and life...
here's the plan, as of now...
1. dump the apartment. know anyone who needs a 1 bedroom in central/north austin (like around highland mall) for $540 a month? lemme know...
2. trade into a smaller car
3. move in with mom and live rent free
4. write my book, take road trips to get pictures for my book
5. finally get to be a waitress because i've always wanted to do that and i will need to make some freaking money to pay for car/film/bills at momma's house.
6. come see some of you freaks and make you take me out to fun places with good material for my book
love to you all. i'm off to take a snooze for about 18 hours.
mil besos--rmg
01 July 2005
72 hour break
fits have been thrown. hot dogs have been eaten and simultaneously trampled into commercial grade blue carpet. craft projects made from aluminum pie pans and beans have either been taken home or thrown out. the slip-n-slide bounce house has been inflated, played upon (prolly peed upon,too, if the facts were truly known), and deflated. i have been squirted with the water guns of several very small people. in a scene that could rival parts of "lord of the flies", i was trapped in a mob of very small people with unopened popsicles and no scissors in sight-- i had to use my teeth. it got scary, fast. and i think may have the early stages of pink eye. in short, vacation bible school is over. praise the baby jesus.
although i have to say this: for every bizarre thing the "precious children" did, they also did amazing things. one of the little girls at camp this week has cerebral palsy. she is mostly in a wheel chair, but she's walking better every day. she speaks and laughs, if you are willing to listen and encourage her. this little sweet pea walked with her peers this week. she even did the hokey-pokey during song time. and when it came time to sing my two favorite songs-- "this little light of mine" and "he's got the whole world in his hands", you can bet that little cherub was singing at the top of her lungs and doing all the hand motions. it was beautiful. and as much as my body is screaming for mercy, for that 10 minute period, watching that little girl be a little girl and singing along with her friends, and being accepted and loved, both in spite of and because of her differences, i wouldn't have traded a week of pampering in the bahamas. it was one of the single-most incredible and humbling experiences of my life.
i'm at momma's house. she told me to come home so she could feed me and do my laundry before i have to take a deep breath before the final plunge. i adore this woman. even though she's doing adkin's, she let my grammy make my favorite pasta salad, and didn't complain while i ate it like a big pig, even though she had to have a plain green salad with lots of meat on it. yay, mommy.
i still owe you people the story of the 30 foot whale (its still a doozie and most definitely deserves to be told--it might even reach classic anecdote status at some point)d, but i think that may have to wait until i have processed the rest of vacation bible school and done a little more leg work for my mission trip that leaves on wednesday. i know, i know, i lead a life ruled by madness...but also by love...and that is a good thing, even on tired days.
all is well.
mil besos--rmg
although i have to say this: for every bizarre thing the "precious children" did, they also did amazing things. one of the little girls at camp this week has cerebral palsy. she is mostly in a wheel chair, but she's walking better every day. she speaks and laughs, if you are willing to listen and encourage her. this little sweet pea walked with her peers this week. she even did the hokey-pokey during song time. and when it came time to sing my two favorite songs-- "this little light of mine" and "he's got the whole world in his hands", you can bet that little cherub was singing at the top of her lungs and doing all the hand motions. it was beautiful. and as much as my body is screaming for mercy, for that 10 minute period, watching that little girl be a little girl and singing along with her friends, and being accepted and loved, both in spite of and because of her differences, i wouldn't have traded a week of pampering in the bahamas. it was one of the single-most incredible and humbling experiences of my life.
i'm at momma's house. she told me to come home so she could feed me and do my laundry before i have to take a deep breath before the final plunge. i adore this woman. even though she's doing adkin's, she let my grammy make my favorite pasta salad, and didn't complain while i ate it like a big pig, even though she had to have a plain green salad with lots of meat on it. yay, mommy.
i still owe you people the story of the 30 foot whale (its still a doozie and most definitely deserves to be told--it might even reach classic anecdote status at some point)d, but i think that may have to wait until i have processed the rest of vacation bible school and done a little more leg work for my mission trip that leaves on wednesday. i know, i know, i lead a life ruled by madness...but also by love...and that is a good thing, even on tired days.
all is well.
mil besos--rmg
27 June 2005
bare edge of sanity
hola, friends and neighbors. today is the first day of vacation bible school, after a week of junior high sleep-away camp, after a week of packing and unpacking, after a weekend of family reunion, preceded by a week of vacation, preceded by a weekend of debauchery with esteban, and i am very, very tired. after taking what i am sure is the legal limit for birth control (a week at camp allen with 93 junior high kids), i feel much better about my station in life. two months ago, i was being all sad and pouty about children i might never have. today, i feel pretty good about not having kids. i'll post more later. right now, i need some lunch and caffiene. lord, have mercy...
i have no sheets on my bed, and i'm down to my last two pair of clean undies. i wish i could go home and do laundry, but it's looking like i may have to visit the nice asian ladies down south at the laundry with clean and fold service. actually, i wish they had pick-up service, because at this point, i'm too freaking shredded to contemplate driving the 4.5 miles to the laundry, and my clothes and soap are already in the car. my mom offered to do my laundry and feed me, but i had to come straight home from camp to do freaking vbs stuff. did i mention that i HATE vbs? it's of the freaking devil, i swear. it's like the more i have to do this summer, the more i'm positive i made the right decision to leave. i get happier and happier doing all my last things, because i'm not having to quietly figure out how to do things better, etc. i'm just finally going to be done. thank G-d. and even though i'm still not gainfully employed as of july 31st (which is starting to make my heart beat fast if i think about it too much...), i will be glad to be doing something else, even if it's working at starbucks or blockbuster, slaving for the freaking establishment and running stupid yuppie's platinum cards for meaningless shit. everything is going to be ok.
i have a story to tell you about a 30 foot whale. it's a doozie.
mil besos-r
i have no sheets on my bed, and i'm down to my last two pair of clean undies. i wish i could go home and do laundry, but it's looking like i may have to visit the nice asian ladies down south at the laundry with clean and fold service. actually, i wish they had pick-up service, because at this point, i'm too freaking shredded to contemplate driving the 4.5 miles to the laundry, and my clothes and soap are already in the car. my mom offered to do my laundry and feed me, but i had to come straight home from camp to do freaking vbs stuff. did i mention that i HATE vbs? it's of the freaking devil, i swear. it's like the more i have to do this summer, the more i'm positive i made the right decision to leave. i get happier and happier doing all my last things, because i'm not having to quietly figure out how to do things better, etc. i'm just finally going to be done. thank G-d. and even though i'm still not gainfully employed as of july 31st (which is starting to make my heart beat fast if i think about it too much...), i will be glad to be doing something else, even if it's working at starbucks or blockbuster, slaving for the freaking establishment and running stupid yuppie's platinum cards for meaningless shit. everything is going to be ok.
i have a story to tell you about a 30 foot whale. it's a doozie.
mil besos-r
15 June 2005
back in the saddle
work work work. pack pack pack. clean clean clean. blah blah blah. when our children's minister left, she didn't pack up her office. my intern, hereafter known as miss priss, and i are busy cleaning up that mess today. why anyone would buy rolls of st. patrick's tinsel is beyond me. needless to say, we've already filled up an entire 50 gallon garbage bag.
this clean up is worse than the time esteban and i cleaned my room in high school and found $47 in change under my bed, along with a dust bunny that might have eaten jimmy hoffa.
back to the salt mine. tomorrow, if we're done, i'll post up some stuff about the family reunion last weekend. all i can say is that 40 relatives plus a million hot dogs equals a good time.
mil besos--r
this clean up is worse than the time esteban and i cleaned my room in high school and found $47 in change under my bed, along with a dust bunny that might have eaten jimmy hoffa.
back to the salt mine. tomorrow, if we're done, i'll post up some stuff about the family reunion last weekend. all i can say is that 40 relatives plus a million hot dogs equals a good time.
mil besos--r
14 June 2005
there and back again...part four
Ok, we're almost home, i promise.
After we saw the marfa mystery lights, dealt with the fact that there were no active atm's in the tri-county area, and heard radio stations from all over the country, we went to sleep in our little tent at fort davis.
we brushed our teeth outside the tent, and at 4am, the javelinas were back to eat our spit. they are disgusting animals. eww, sick out.
we woke up bright and early (super early-- like 8am) and began drinking water for our venture to big bend. big bend may be my new favorite place in the universe. if the ocean were on the other side of boquillas canyon (i'll post a picture soon), i would move there. seriously. big bend is amazing. you should go to the national park website and read all about it. then you should make a reservation to stay and hike and take me with you. we would have a very good time.
after "the hike that never ended", we were a little worried about dehydration. so before we ever left fort davis, we started drinking water. and we drank water. and we drank water. and we drank some more water. and pretty soon, i had to adjust the seat in my car because i'd started to grow a hump... not really, but we did have to pull over once and pee by some rancher's mailbox. it was kind of fun.
we saw several mountain ranges before we entered the park. they were amazing, but nowhere near as exciting as the ones inside the park. we stopped at the entrance to big bend, which is right outside terlingua and took a nice little photo by the gate...and it's a good thing we didn't get arrested, that's all i have to say about that.
panther junction is the name of the park headquarters, and we stopped there to refill our water bottles (bad, bad idea. i should have used the water we brought in the car, but no... i had to use the park water.) and buy patches at the park store. we also read about the native wild life and figured out what trail we were going to hike, etc. in reading about the native wild life, kk learned that javelina (also known as the collared peccary) are not at all closely related to pigs, but are much more closely related to hippopotomi. go figure. so, being full of well water and having our patches from the park store, we set off for boquillas canyon, at the very southern end of the park.
boquillas canyon was carved by the rio grande and is one of the (illegal) ways you can cross into mexico from the state park. it also has a short in-out hiking trail down to the river (1.4 miles round-trip) that we thought we would take. it's also right by the hot springs--yay. we pulled into the parking lot of the trail head, visited the restroom (affectionately nicknamed "the hotbox" by yours truly--ask me why and i'll tell you later) and headed off on the trail. all i can say is that that hike was the hottest, sweatiest 1.4 miles i have ever hiked in my whole life. all three of us were drenched half way up the slope. we decided that we were not going to visit the hot springs on this trip, since we'd pretty much created our own. that, coupled with the fact that the temperature was about 250 in the shade made us not want to sit in hot water for fun.
we finished our hike in record time and headed back to the middle of the park to see big bend's highest peak (emory peak), in the chisos mountain range. on the way back to the chisos range, we ran into some interesting wildlife. i'll include a picture in the picture post--you'll love it. we drove up and up and up and the air kept getting cooler and cooler and cooler and the buick kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter, so we rolled the windows down and drove extra slow. i'm sure the people behind us just LOVED that. sorry, guys. at any rate, we stayed at the chisos mountain lodge for a big chunk of the afternoon, letting our car and ourselves cool off. and we saw the same family from the balmoreah pool that we had also seen at dinner the night before. we were totally being stalked. either that or we just kept going to the same places. it could go either way.
we drove out of the park and headed back toward alpine. alpine is a lovely little town with a funny little radio station that reminded me of the radio station in brady. they were doing some random news report about a city council meeting and appropriations for the city pool. derkirita and kk both grew up in very big cities, so they got a big kick out of the "news". while in alpine, and while we still had half a cell phone signal, i called momma so she would know we hadn't died in big bend and to tell her our plans for the next day. we also took the "in town" opportunity to buy some beer. thank G-d for beer. from alpine, we headed back toward marfa-- mostly to eat at dairy queen, but also to see the thunderbird motel and hoping to catch a glimpse of the hottie we saw checking into room 25 the night before. we saw an antelope on the side of the road, and i pulled over to take a picture of it. i don't think the people behind me were amused in the least. but we got a good shot. the dairy queen was a hit, but the hottie was a miss. 50% was ok with us, because we had beer to drink at the campsite. did i thank G-d for beer, yet?
we got back to fort davis in record time and proceeded to barbeque the rest of the peeps, even though we were still mostly full from our DQ run. the peeps, again, were glorious, and we all managed to not burn our fingers again. we had secret happy hour with the beer we bought in alpine. it was lovely. and we went to sleep under the big sky for the last time. and while i was sad our vacation was winding to an end, i was also a little bit excited about sleeping in my bed the next night.
we got up a decent hour, broke camp, cleaned up, ate a bagel, and drove back to balmoreah to finish our swim in the world's largest spring fed outdoor pool, since our first trip had gotten cut short by the hail. it was glorious, again. and the extra good part, aside from no longer being stalked by the suspiciously cute family, was that the high dive was open. all three of us jumped and made big splashes. all three of us were incredibly annoyed by the troupe of junior high kids who showed up and took over the high dive. we continued to swim and lay out and say tacky things about other people's children. it was a good time.
at around 1pm, we decided it was time to head east and face the music of the real world. we made it home to austin by 7pm, had incredible mexican food and margaritas and talked about how much fun we had had, and how we needed to do this every year. it was a great trip. i can imagine that the davis mountains haven't seen the last of rachel, derkirita, or kk.
thanks for reading. hope you like the pictures-- they are kind of awful, but hopefully derkirita will email me some of hers, and i can pretend like i'm actually a good photographer.
mil besos--rmg
After we saw the marfa mystery lights, dealt with the fact that there were no active atm's in the tri-county area, and heard radio stations from all over the country, we went to sleep in our little tent at fort davis.
we brushed our teeth outside the tent, and at 4am, the javelinas were back to eat our spit. they are disgusting animals. eww, sick out.
we woke up bright and early (super early-- like 8am) and began drinking water for our venture to big bend. big bend may be my new favorite place in the universe. if the ocean were on the other side of boquillas canyon (i'll post a picture soon), i would move there. seriously. big bend is amazing. you should go to the national park website and read all about it. then you should make a reservation to stay and hike and take me with you. we would have a very good time.
after "the hike that never ended", we were a little worried about dehydration. so before we ever left fort davis, we started drinking water. and we drank water. and we drank water. and we drank some more water. and pretty soon, i had to adjust the seat in my car because i'd started to grow a hump... not really, but we did have to pull over once and pee by some rancher's mailbox. it was kind of fun.
we saw several mountain ranges before we entered the park. they were amazing, but nowhere near as exciting as the ones inside the park. we stopped at the entrance to big bend, which is right outside terlingua and took a nice little photo by the gate...and it's a good thing we didn't get arrested, that's all i have to say about that.
panther junction is the name of the park headquarters, and we stopped there to refill our water bottles (bad, bad idea. i should have used the water we brought in the car, but no... i had to use the park water.) and buy patches at the park store. we also read about the native wild life and figured out what trail we were going to hike, etc. in reading about the native wild life, kk learned that javelina (also known as the collared peccary) are not at all closely related to pigs, but are much more closely related to hippopotomi. go figure. so, being full of well water and having our patches from the park store, we set off for boquillas canyon, at the very southern end of the park.
boquillas canyon was carved by the rio grande and is one of the (illegal) ways you can cross into mexico from the state park. it also has a short in-out hiking trail down to the river (1.4 miles round-trip) that we thought we would take. it's also right by the hot springs--yay. we pulled into the parking lot of the trail head, visited the restroom (affectionately nicknamed "the hotbox" by yours truly--ask me why and i'll tell you later) and headed off on the trail. all i can say is that that hike was the hottest, sweatiest 1.4 miles i have ever hiked in my whole life. all three of us were drenched half way up the slope. we decided that we were not going to visit the hot springs on this trip, since we'd pretty much created our own. that, coupled with the fact that the temperature was about 250 in the shade made us not want to sit in hot water for fun.
we finished our hike in record time and headed back to the middle of the park to see big bend's highest peak (emory peak), in the chisos mountain range. on the way back to the chisos range, we ran into some interesting wildlife. i'll include a picture in the picture post--you'll love it. we drove up and up and up and the air kept getting cooler and cooler and cooler and the buick kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter, so we rolled the windows down and drove extra slow. i'm sure the people behind us just LOVED that. sorry, guys. at any rate, we stayed at the chisos mountain lodge for a big chunk of the afternoon, letting our car and ourselves cool off. and we saw the same family from the balmoreah pool that we had also seen at dinner the night before. we were totally being stalked. either that or we just kept going to the same places. it could go either way.
we drove out of the park and headed back toward alpine. alpine is a lovely little town with a funny little radio station that reminded me of the radio station in brady. they were doing some random news report about a city council meeting and appropriations for the city pool. derkirita and kk both grew up in very big cities, so they got a big kick out of the "news". while in alpine, and while we still had half a cell phone signal, i called momma so she would know we hadn't died in big bend and to tell her our plans for the next day. we also took the "in town" opportunity to buy some beer. thank G-d for beer. from alpine, we headed back toward marfa-- mostly to eat at dairy queen, but also to see the thunderbird motel and hoping to catch a glimpse of the hottie we saw checking into room 25 the night before. we saw an antelope on the side of the road, and i pulled over to take a picture of it. i don't think the people behind me were amused in the least. but we got a good shot. the dairy queen was a hit, but the hottie was a miss. 50% was ok with us, because we had beer to drink at the campsite. did i thank G-d for beer, yet?
we got back to fort davis in record time and proceeded to barbeque the rest of the peeps, even though we were still mostly full from our DQ run. the peeps, again, were glorious, and we all managed to not burn our fingers again. we had secret happy hour with the beer we bought in alpine. it was lovely. and we went to sleep under the big sky for the last time. and while i was sad our vacation was winding to an end, i was also a little bit excited about sleeping in my bed the next night.
we got up a decent hour, broke camp, cleaned up, ate a bagel, and drove back to balmoreah to finish our swim in the world's largest spring fed outdoor pool, since our first trip had gotten cut short by the hail. it was glorious, again. and the extra good part, aside from no longer being stalked by the suspiciously cute family, was that the high dive was open. all three of us jumped and made big splashes. all three of us were incredibly annoyed by the troupe of junior high kids who showed up and took over the high dive. we continued to swim and lay out and say tacky things about other people's children. it was a good time.
at around 1pm, we decided it was time to head east and face the music of the real world. we made it home to austin by 7pm, had incredible mexican food and margaritas and talked about how much fun we had had, and how we needed to do this every year. it was a great trip. i can imagine that the davis mountains haven't seen the last of rachel, derkirita, or kk.
thanks for reading. hope you like the pictures-- they are kind of awful, but hopefully derkirita will email me some of hers, and i can pretend like i'm actually a good photographer.
mil besos--rmg
13 June 2005
there and back again...part three
the day after "the hike that never ended" and "attack of the wild javelinas" was a lovely one. it was another cool and crisp start to a lovely day, and since we had showered the night before, we were in fairly good moods. all i can say is that dr. bonner's magic soap is one of the things for which i am most grateful in my life. it makes you feel minty fresh for hours. that and johnson's baby powder. sorry, i got sidetracked.
derkirita made breakfast couscous, which was brown-sugary good with cranberries. yum. during breakfast (we got the coffee pot fixed before we actually made the coffee, this time, so no burns this morning) dungeon master came over to chat with us about the previous night's excitement. it was then that he got his name, because up until then, he'd just been "nice stepdad with cute wife and stepkid". this guy was so full of crap, i'm surprised a little didn't drip out of the corner of his mouth everytime he spoke. seriously. here's how the story went down:
kk: so, how much stuff did you guys loose last night? was everyone ok?
dungeon master: oh, we lost some lunch meat, and the little bastards ate our ham. (i'm thinking this is highly ironic until later in the day when i find out that javelina aren't even related to pigs...) ***This is the good part** i hit the big one on the head with my mag light. (oh right, like he would still have a freaking arm...), and i was going to pick up one of the little ones and throw it in the creek, but i was trying to pick the cooler up at the same time. (uh huh, i bet...). blah blah blah...i've been around wild animals my whole life. i used to run a rescue farm for stuff. we've raised xyz such animals...
r: oh wow, that's cool.
dungeon master: more bullsh*t for about 5 more minutes, after which he gave us his left over firewood. yay.
then he left. kk gave me crap for encouraging the dungeon master. and when he said that he and the fam were going to be on vacation for two more weeks, i politely said " hey, take us with you" and we all laughed. kk was not amused by the idea of being with dungeon master for any more than the 15 minutes it took us to pack our stuff to go to balmoreah. kk decided to call him the dungeon master after the extensive lecture he gave us on wild animal husbandry. the name really stuck when he started an impromptu digeree (sp?) dou jam session with his kid, who looked like dewey from "malcolm in the middle". kk said he looked like the kind of guy who would have his dungeons and dragons set with him on vacation, and would insist on being the dungeon master anytime he played. derkirita and i concurred.
we got packed up for our outing that day, and headed to balmoreah state park, site of the world's largest outdoor spring-fed swimming pool. it was beautiful, cold, and full of fish. it was amazing to be in the middle of the desert and just have this actual oasis open right up in the middle of it all. derkirita said being there made her feel like she was in some foreign country. we ate trail mix, people watched, swam and sunbathed. we saw a cute little family playing in the pool. little did we know, that cute fam would stalk us for the rest of the trip. or if they weren't stalking us, they sure showed up every where else we went for the entire week. i don't think they are actually in my apartment at the moment, but i haven't put all my laundry away, yet...
the clouds started moving in from the west at a pretty fast clip, and it started to thunder and lightening, so we got out of the pool like the smart kids we are. we had lunch under a little pavilion and watched it rain. and then we watched it hail. and hail. and rain. and hail a little more. we packed up, bought our park patches, and drove back to the fort with the slightly sulfur smell of san Solomon springs in our hair. it was lovely and we made a plan to come back there on our way back to austin.
at the fort, we changed clothes (we felt clean enough, since we swam) and set our plans for the evening activities--dinner at the historic el paisano hotel and viewing of the marfa mystery lights.
as an aside, i should tell you that derkirita planned this whole trip into the west. and i should also tell you that she was partly inspired by an episode of "king of the hill", where in bobby gets to see the marfa lights. this is partially what caused kk's inner monologue voice to be bobby hill for the duration of the trip, that and the fact that i can apparently do a wicked bobby impression and kept talking in that voice for large periods of time.
the hotel paisano (which you can read about here:http://www.hotelpaisano.com/ ) was where elizabeth taylor and rock hudson, et. al. stayed during the filming of the epic "Giant". the movie itself was filmed outside of marfa, on the mitchell plateau. they have a lot of memorabilia from the movie in the hotel, and a cute little restaurant. dinner was good, and many thanks go to kk for footing the bill. our waiter was this little nervous guy named "shin-knee" at least, that's how he pronounced it, and pointed to the corresponding body parts to reinforce said pronunciation. he also had on a lot of cologne. but he was mostly cute and did a pretty good job waiting on the three of us. should you visit jett's grill at the hotel, i can recommend one or two items. the crusted steak was excellent, the garlic potatoes were nice, if a little on the cold side, and the chocolate creme brulee was superlative. seriously. it was better than a big wet smooch.
ok, it was a close second.
and then, we went to see the eeriest thing i have ever personally witnessed in all my 26 years of life. we got to the marfa mystery lights viewing area about an hour before dusk, since dusk is supposed to be the prime viewing time for the lights. we were accosted (ok, just sort of talked to) by a bizarre lady in a blue miata, who kept looking into the south, and telling us to "look beyond and then look beyond the beyond..." in some kind of weird shamanic voice that evoked thoughts of unfiltered cigarettes and jars of homebrew. it was sort of neat, i think. she said that she came to texas because she hated tennesee. she said that when she died, she didn't want to go to heaven, she wanted to go to texas. and that marfa seemed like as good a place to die as anywhere else. like i said, it was a weird experience the whole way around. but the blue miata lady was a good set up for what i found (or rather didn't find) in the bathroom.
now, people who know me know how much i love bathrooms, and it's not because i particularly like them just because. no, i love them because i'm in them all the time. while i usually prefer function over form, i must say that the marfa mystery lights view area bathroom was a pleasure to experience from all facets. it was a recycling toilet. i don't want to know into what my or your or anyone else's waste was being recycled, but it was amazing. not only was there no water (which freaked me out at first), there was NO SMELL. it was incredible. and there was a nice, slightly disconcerting breeze coming from under the seat. i liked it so much, i took pictures of the bathroom. i'll post them with the others...but that's another bunny trail...
the marfa mystery lights were first seen and reported by anglos in the late 1800's. but the native americans who lived in that part of texas had stories about them going back for hundreds of years. no one has figured out what causes them, but theories abound. you can google "marfa mystery lights" and see some of the theories for yourself, if you'd like.
all i can tell you is that there is something out there, and i've never seen anything quite like what i saw that night, and while i wasn't afraid of what i saw, it certainly left me feeling a little uneasy, but glad, too, because it's nice to sometimes be reminded that some things in this life just defy explanation. it was beautiful and bizarre.
on the way back to the fort, we discovered that there are no working atm's in the tri-county area. we also discovered that we could pick up radio stations in los angeles, shreveport, dallas, san antonio, and other places that didn't speak english. it was very exciting. i kind of wanted to listen to creepy radio shows about aliens, but was still a little freaked out.
we made it home in one piece and slept a good long sleep, except that the javelinas made a return trip to eat our toothpaste spit. sick out.
i'll finish up our adventures and tell you about the family reunion tomorrow.
mil besos--r
derkirita made breakfast couscous, which was brown-sugary good with cranberries. yum. during breakfast (we got the coffee pot fixed before we actually made the coffee, this time, so no burns this morning) dungeon master came over to chat with us about the previous night's excitement. it was then that he got his name, because up until then, he'd just been "nice stepdad with cute wife and stepkid". this guy was so full of crap, i'm surprised a little didn't drip out of the corner of his mouth everytime he spoke. seriously. here's how the story went down:
kk: so, how much stuff did you guys loose last night? was everyone ok?
dungeon master: oh, we lost some lunch meat, and the little bastards ate our ham. (i'm thinking this is highly ironic until later in the day when i find out that javelina aren't even related to pigs...) ***This is the good part** i hit the big one on the head with my mag light. (oh right, like he would still have a freaking arm...), and i was going to pick up one of the little ones and throw it in the creek, but i was trying to pick the cooler up at the same time. (uh huh, i bet...). blah blah blah...i've been around wild animals my whole life. i used to run a rescue farm for stuff. we've raised xyz such animals...
r: oh wow, that's cool.
dungeon master: more bullsh*t for about 5 more minutes, after which he gave us his left over firewood. yay.
then he left. kk gave me crap for encouraging the dungeon master. and when he said that he and the fam were going to be on vacation for two more weeks, i politely said " hey, take us with you" and we all laughed. kk was not amused by the idea of being with dungeon master for any more than the 15 minutes it took us to pack our stuff to go to balmoreah. kk decided to call him the dungeon master after the extensive lecture he gave us on wild animal husbandry. the name really stuck when he started an impromptu digeree (sp?) dou jam session with his kid, who looked like dewey from "malcolm in the middle". kk said he looked like the kind of guy who would have his dungeons and dragons set with him on vacation, and would insist on being the dungeon master anytime he played. derkirita and i concurred.
we got packed up for our outing that day, and headed to balmoreah state park, site of the world's largest outdoor spring-fed swimming pool. it was beautiful, cold, and full of fish. it was amazing to be in the middle of the desert and just have this actual oasis open right up in the middle of it all. derkirita said being there made her feel like she was in some foreign country. we ate trail mix, people watched, swam and sunbathed. we saw a cute little family playing in the pool. little did we know, that cute fam would stalk us for the rest of the trip. or if they weren't stalking us, they sure showed up every where else we went for the entire week. i don't think they are actually in my apartment at the moment, but i haven't put all my laundry away, yet...
the clouds started moving in from the west at a pretty fast clip, and it started to thunder and lightening, so we got out of the pool like the smart kids we are. we had lunch under a little pavilion and watched it rain. and then we watched it hail. and hail. and rain. and hail a little more. we packed up, bought our park patches, and drove back to the fort with the slightly sulfur smell of san Solomon springs in our hair. it was lovely and we made a plan to come back there on our way back to austin.
at the fort, we changed clothes (we felt clean enough, since we swam) and set our plans for the evening activities--dinner at the historic el paisano hotel and viewing of the marfa mystery lights.
as an aside, i should tell you that derkirita planned this whole trip into the west. and i should also tell you that she was partly inspired by an episode of "king of the hill", where in bobby gets to see the marfa lights. this is partially what caused kk's inner monologue voice to be bobby hill for the duration of the trip, that and the fact that i can apparently do a wicked bobby impression and kept talking in that voice for large periods of time.
the hotel paisano (which you can read about here:http://www.hotelpaisano.com/ ) was where elizabeth taylor and rock hudson, et. al. stayed during the filming of the epic "Giant". the movie itself was filmed outside of marfa, on the mitchell plateau. they have a lot of memorabilia from the movie in the hotel, and a cute little restaurant. dinner was good, and many thanks go to kk for footing the bill. our waiter was this little nervous guy named "shin-knee" at least, that's how he pronounced it, and pointed to the corresponding body parts to reinforce said pronunciation. he also had on a lot of cologne. but he was mostly cute and did a pretty good job waiting on the three of us. should you visit jett's grill at the hotel, i can recommend one or two items. the crusted steak was excellent, the garlic potatoes were nice, if a little on the cold side, and the chocolate creme brulee was superlative. seriously. it was better than a big wet smooch.
ok, it was a close second.
and then, we went to see the eeriest thing i have ever personally witnessed in all my 26 years of life. we got to the marfa mystery lights viewing area about an hour before dusk, since dusk is supposed to be the prime viewing time for the lights. we were accosted (ok, just sort of talked to) by a bizarre lady in a blue miata, who kept looking into the south, and telling us to "look beyond and then look beyond the beyond..." in some kind of weird shamanic voice that evoked thoughts of unfiltered cigarettes and jars of homebrew. it was sort of neat, i think. she said that she came to texas because she hated tennesee. she said that when she died, she didn't want to go to heaven, she wanted to go to texas. and that marfa seemed like as good a place to die as anywhere else. like i said, it was a weird experience the whole way around. but the blue miata lady was a good set up for what i found (or rather didn't find) in the bathroom.
now, people who know me know how much i love bathrooms, and it's not because i particularly like them just because. no, i love them because i'm in them all the time. while i usually prefer function over form, i must say that the marfa mystery lights view area bathroom was a pleasure to experience from all facets. it was a recycling toilet. i don't want to know into what my or your or anyone else's waste was being recycled, but it was amazing. not only was there no water (which freaked me out at first), there was NO SMELL. it was incredible. and there was a nice, slightly disconcerting breeze coming from under the seat. i liked it so much, i took pictures of the bathroom. i'll post them with the others...but that's another bunny trail...
the marfa mystery lights were first seen and reported by anglos in the late 1800's. but the native americans who lived in that part of texas had stories about them going back for hundreds of years. no one has figured out what causes them, but theories abound. you can google "marfa mystery lights" and see some of the theories for yourself, if you'd like.
all i can tell you is that there is something out there, and i've never seen anything quite like what i saw that night, and while i wasn't afraid of what i saw, it certainly left me feeling a little uneasy, but glad, too, because it's nice to sometimes be reminded that some things in this life just defy explanation. it was beautiful and bizarre.
on the way back to the fort, we discovered that there are no working atm's in the tri-county area. we also discovered that we could pick up radio stations in los angeles, shreveport, dallas, san antonio, and other places that didn't speak english. it was very exciting. i kind of wanted to listen to creepy radio shows about aliens, but was still a little freaked out.
we made it home in one piece and slept a good long sleep, except that the javelinas made a return trip to eat our toothpaste spit. sick out.
i'll finish up our adventures and tell you about the family reunion tomorrow.
mil besos--r
there and back again...part two
day two of our excellent adventure dawned clear and bright and a little on the chilly side. it was a wonderful thing to wake up on june 4th in a thermal shirt. we decided to take a hike after breakfast, which was wonderful. derkirita made breakfast tacos, and after several burned fingers trying to tighten up the french press, we had some cowboy coffee, too. we lazed around the campsite and took care of our morning stuff in a very leisurely fashion, so we didn't get started on our hike until 11.
we lubed ourselves up with spf 15, packed up our day pack with dried fruit, extra water, and a train map, and headed off to where we started "the hike that never ended". oh it was a glorious hike through the davis mountains, on a poorly marked trail, uphill, downhill, across the hill, you name it, we hiked it. and just when we thought we had a) reached the prettiest view yet, or b) finally reached the end of the trail, we were proved wrong. we saw about 10 different kinds of yucca plant--flowering, non-flowering, fruit-bearing, non-fruit-bearing, etc. we saw birds and lizards, lots of mesquite trees, about 10 million ocotillo cacti (i'll post a picture of those with my picture post) with beautiful purple flowers. derkirita loves the ocotillo. i mostly think she just likes the way it sounds when you say it.
we hiked for a while, and stopped to rest and snack on the dried fruit and reapply sunblock. we hiked up the mountain some more. we figured we'd be home soon. wrong. we figured the shack with the antenna on top would have water faucets, since it was on the road and was by the park look out. so not the case, friends and neighbors, so not the case. it was about this time that i started to get a little panicky, since we had used up the extra water and were down to what was left in our bottles. luckily, and thank the baby jesus, we started down the mountain. after several sets of wickedly sharp switchbacks, we ended up at the interpretive center, scene of last night's lecture on medical practices in the 1890's. we were very happy. we drank a lot of water. we slept in the tent (for a little while), saved the mr. dungeon master's (more on him in a second..) lunch from getting washed away in the brief afternoon shower, and talked about how we so almost just died. we also contemplated writing a sharply worded letter to the park service regarding their trail markers and how much they suck.
that night, we made the camp dinner to end all camp dinners, because the sweet baby jesus knows the three of us could have eaten a horse each and still had room left for dessert. now, i need to preface this part of the story with a couple of facts. kk and derkirita are two of the finest cooks i know, hands down. talk about making silk purses out of sow's ears..those two could make dinner from just about anything, and make it taste so good you'd want to slap someone. seriously. you should also know that kk is a peeps fiend. you know peeps-- the marshmallow sugar coated bunnies and chicks that you get at easter? kk loves them--i mean loves them in a deep and profound way that she can't explain. it's almost spiritual. but i digress...
so we make hobo dinners that night. they were glorious. little foil packets of goodness, including ground beef, carrots, potatoes, onions, spices, and a splash or two of red wine from our secret stash. they were wonderful. derkirita knows how to plan a menu. and kk knows how to order up a wonderful dessert. i have to admit that i was skeptical of what is now being called "peeps brulee" since i have been a life-long staunch peep hater. i was wrong. peeps brulee, the brain child of kk, was amazing. thank the lord derkirita saved a package of chicks and a package of bunnies from easter. ( kk said they were just the right amount of stale) we roasted the peeps over the coals left from making our hobo dinners. they tasted almost exactly like creme brulee, and the three of us managed to get burns on at least one finger a piece in our excitement and readiness to cram that gooey marshmallowy sugary goodness down our throats. glorious. and we cleaned up and went to bed, where we slept peacefully until about 4 am.
let me back up to mr. dungeon master's picnic basket. dungeon master and his family set up camp next to us sometime while we were on "the hike that never ended". it was a very nice tent, and when kk dropped the picnic basket in there, she noted that instead of the hot camping guys i was hoping had camped next to us, a family was in residence. they came tramping back sometime during the dinner hour, and seemed like a happy little fam. dungeon master was very nice to his wife and his kid. we decided they were "good people".
ok, so sometime around 4am, we three were awakened by a string of obscenities the likes of which i had only read about. and there was a lot of snorting. and it smelled really bad. and there was a lot more swearing. a lot more. the dungeon master and his family had left their dry box and cooler out on their picnic table like a bunch of dumb rookies. a whole band of javelinas had smelled the goodies from their den on the creek bed, and decided that it was dinner time. so dungeon master is awakened by their snorting and rooting around and squeals of delight as they tip the cooler off the picnic table. those javelinas are smart critters. so dungeon master comes out of his tent with his mag-light, and in the shadows of our own mag-light and the derkirita's head lamp, it looks like all he came out with was his mag-light. and by that, i mean the man looked naked as a jay-bird. and it was kind of scary. we figured out that he was indeed clothed, but in the smallest pair of whitey-tighties G-d ever made. so dungeon master is swearing and screaming and waving his arms trying to chase the javelinas off, and finally he succeeds. we giggled for a while, until we realized that being awake for so long has made us need to water the trees. we then remember that javelinas aren't' particularly nice animals, and a smell outside seems to indicate that kk's skunk friend is in the area and isn't a javelina fan, either. we went to the bathroom anyway. the rest of the night was quite peaceful, if not smelly.
we lubed ourselves up with spf 15, packed up our day pack with dried fruit, extra water, and a train map, and headed off to where we started "the hike that never ended". oh it was a glorious hike through the davis mountains, on a poorly marked trail, uphill, downhill, across the hill, you name it, we hiked it. and just when we thought we had a) reached the prettiest view yet, or b) finally reached the end of the trail, we were proved wrong. we saw about 10 different kinds of yucca plant--flowering, non-flowering, fruit-bearing, non-fruit-bearing, etc. we saw birds and lizards, lots of mesquite trees, about 10 million ocotillo cacti (i'll post a picture of those with my picture post) with beautiful purple flowers. derkirita loves the ocotillo. i mostly think she just likes the way it sounds when you say it.
we hiked for a while, and stopped to rest and snack on the dried fruit and reapply sunblock. we hiked up the mountain some more. we figured we'd be home soon. wrong. we figured the shack with the antenna on top would have water faucets, since it was on the road and was by the park look out. so not the case, friends and neighbors, so not the case. it was about this time that i started to get a little panicky, since we had used up the extra water and were down to what was left in our bottles. luckily, and thank the baby jesus, we started down the mountain. after several sets of wickedly sharp switchbacks, we ended up at the interpretive center, scene of last night's lecture on medical practices in the 1890's. we were very happy. we drank a lot of water. we slept in the tent (for a little while), saved the mr. dungeon master's (more on him in a second..) lunch from getting washed away in the brief afternoon shower, and talked about how we so almost just died. we also contemplated writing a sharply worded letter to the park service regarding their trail markers and how much they suck.
that night, we made the camp dinner to end all camp dinners, because the sweet baby jesus knows the three of us could have eaten a horse each and still had room left for dessert. now, i need to preface this part of the story with a couple of facts. kk and derkirita are two of the finest cooks i know, hands down. talk about making silk purses out of sow's ears..those two could make dinner from just about anything, and make it taste so good you'd want to slap someone. seriously. you should also know that kk is a peeps fiend. you know peeps-- the marshmallow sugar coated bunnies and chicks that you get at easter? kk loves them--i mean loves them in a deep and profound way that she can't explain. it's almost spiritual. but i digress...
so we make hobo dinners that night. they were glorious. little foil packets of goodness, including ground beef, carrots, potatoes, onions, spices, and a splash or two of red wine from our secret stash. they were wonderful. derkirita knows how to plan a menu. and kk knows how to order up a wonderful dessert. i have to admit that i was skeptical of what is now being called "peeps brulee" since i have been a life-long staunch peep hater. i was wrong. peeps brulee, the brain child of kk, was amazing. thank the lord derkirita saved a package of chicks and a package of bunnies from easter. ( kk said they were just the right amount of stale) we roasted the peeps over the coals left from making our hobo dinners. they tasted almost exactly like creme brulee, and the three of us managed to get burns on at least one finger a piece in our excitement and readiness to cram that gooey marshmallowy sugary goodness down our throats. glorious. and we cleaned up and went to bed, where we slept peacefully until about 4 am.
let me back up to mr. dungeon master's picnic basket. dungeon master and his family set up camp next to us sometime while we were on "the hike that never ended". it was a very nice tent, and when kk dropped the picnic basket in there, she noted that instead of the hot camping guys i was hoping had camped next to us, a family was in residence. they came tramping back sometime during the dinner hour, and seemed like a happy little fam. dungeon master was very nice to his wife and his kid. we decided they were "good people".
ok, so sometime around 4am, we three were awakened by a string of obscenities the likes of which i had only read about. and there was a lot of snorting. and it smelled really bad. and there was a lot more swearing. a lot more. the dungeon master and his family had left their dry box and cooler out on their picnic table like a bunch of dumb rookies. a whole band of javelinas had smelled the goodies from their den on the creek bed, and decided that it was dinner time. so dungeon master is awakened by their snorting and rooting around and squeals of delight as they tip the cooler off the picnic table. those javelinas are smart critters. so dungeon master comes out of his tent with his mag-light, and in the shadows of our own mag-light and the derkirita's head lamp, it looks like all he came out with was his mag-light. and by that, i mean the man looked naked as a jay-bird. and it was kind of scary. we figured out that he was indeed clothed, but in the smallest pair of whitey-tighties G-d ever made. so dungeon master is swearing and screaming and waving his arms trying to chase the javelinas off, and finally he succeeds. we giggled for a while, until we realized that being awake for so long has made us need to water the trees. we then remember that javelinas aren't' particularly nice animals, and a smell outside seems to indicate that kk's skunk friend is in the area and isn't a javelina fan, either. we went to the bathroom anyway. the rest of the night was quite peaceful, if not smelly.
there and back again...part one
oh lord. it's been two weeks of non-stop, wall-to-wall fun. i am completely overstimulated. i have seen mountains and valleys, mystery lights and historical buildings, 40 cousins and baby sonograms, burros and antelope, fat kids with snorkel fins and skinny grown-ups with beer cans. i have been in the world's largest national park and the world's largest spring-fed swimming pool. i have had my toothpaste spit eaten by a wild pack of javelinas and have snuck drinks of wine and beer from my coffee cup. i have eaten about 9 thousand hotdogs and floated the shortest river in texas with my baby cousins. i have heard stories about when i was little, and gave fodder for stories about what i was like in my 20's. but that's the short story. the long story, well, here it goes...
derkirita got into town on the 2nd. kk came over that night, as well, and sacrificed a night in her own bed. we three watched "lonesome dove", packed, and caught up on each other's stories. and we had our last real showers ( mine was glorious). we slept right through all three alarms the next morning, and instead of leaving at 7, we left at 8:30. go figure... after taco shack and a gas station run, we were on our way to the wilds of west texas.
we made decent time and arrived in ft. davis at around 3pm. we made camp, found out about the program at the state park interpretive center, and got ourselves firmly ensconced in camping mode, complete with a drive by from rat-tail man. i think rat tail man had been camping for a while, if the length of said rat-tail was any indication of duration-- kind of like the buttons on a rattle snake tail...it was highly entertaining, and he definitely had the biggest grill in the entire camp.
we decided to take in the interpretive talk at the park hq--what a doozie. the park ranger was hilarious! she had a side kick that was all dressed up like an officer's wife, who handed out bookmarks to everyone who answered a trivia question correctly. other than that, i'm not too sure what purpose the side kick served. comic relief maybe, because that park ranger was nuttier than a fruit cake. the ranger's talk was all about medical technology in the late 1800's. she just kept repeating things like "in 1891, we didn't even have things like aspirin" or "people would just die of diarrhea" or "we had to give heroin to people with hayfever". needless to say, the three of us used those sweet lines for the rest of the whole trip. and embellished them for our own purposes. so, after the ranger finished her talk, we headed back to tent, sweet tent for some dinner and adventure planning.
on the way there, we ran into the person we affectionately referred to as "skippy the stoner" for the rest of the week. we were walking to our tent, minding our own business, when we were approached by this young kid. "hey, i know this seems like a weird question, but do you guys have any pot? i mean, maybe you're looking to make a sale, or something..." seriously, this happened. the three of us just kind of looked at each other, and were like, "uh, no, sorry man" and we just walked away. the funny part is that i don't think he believed us one bit. in hind sight, we should have sold him the oregano in our spice kit. i think he put a gris-gris on us, (that's a cajun word for a curse) because we broke mr. derkits' leatherman when we were trying to make dinner. oops.
after dinner and a very sneaky cocktail hour that consisted of us pouring beer into our coffee cups and coughing loudly to cover up the sound of the pop top, we put on our jackets and headed up to the star viewing area of the park. it was amazing. it felt like you could have reached up and grabbed a handful of stars and put them in your pocket. and there were about a million and one fireflies all over the place, so it was like a million and one tiny flashbulbs going off all around you, which proved to be helpful when we were almost attacked by not one, but two skunks. yuck. kk thinks they are cute and insists that if you have them de-smelled that they would make wonderful pets. no way, jose. we got kicked out of the sky viewing area by the park hosts because it was after 10pm, but i think that since they almost ran us over (ok, we were lying in the middle of the road...), they could have let us stay for 30 more minutes. and then we went an brushed our teeth and went to bed for the night, which passed uneventfully.
derkirita got into town on the 2nd. kk came over that night, as well, and sacrificed a night in her own bed. we three watched "lonesome dove", packed, and caught up on each other's stories. and we had our last real showers ( mine was glorious). we slept right through all three alarms the next morning, and instead of leaving at 7, we left at 8:30. go figure... after taco shack and a gas station run, we were on our way to the wilds of west texas.
we made decent time and arrived in ft. davis at around 3pm. we made camp, found out about the program at the state park interpretive center, and got ourselves firmly ensconced in camping mode, complete with a drive by from rat-tail man. i think rat tail man had been camping for a while, if the length of said rat-tail was any indication of duration-- kind of like the buttons on a rattle snake tail...it was highly entertaining, and he definitely had the biggest grill in the entire camp.
we decided to take in the interpretive talk at the park hq--what a doozie. the park ranger was hilarious! she had a side kick that was all dressed up like an officer's wife, who handed out bookmarks to everyone who answered a trivia question correctly. other than that, i'm not too sure what purpose the side kick served. comic relief maybe, because that park ranger was nuttier than a fruit cake. the ranger's talk was all about medical technology in the late 1800's. she just kept repeating things like "in 1891, we didn't even have things like aspirin" or "people would just die of diarrhea" or "we had to give heroin to people with hayfever". needless to say, the three of us used those sweet lines for the rest of the whole trip. and embellished them for our own purposes. so, after the ranger finished her talk, we headed back to tent, sweet tent for some dinner and adventure planning.
on the way there, we ran into the person we affectionately referred to as "skippy the stoner" for the rest of the week. we were walking to our tent, minding our own business, when we were approached by this young kid. "hey, i know this seems like a weird question, but do you guys have any pot? i mean, maybe you're looking to make a sale, or something..." seriously, this happened. the three of us just kind of looked at each other, and were like, "uh, no, sorry man" and we just walked away. the funny part is that i don't think he believed us one bit. in hind sight, we should have sold him the oregano in our spice kit. i think he put a gris-gris on us, (that's a cajun word for a curse) because we broke mr. derkits' leatherman when we were trying to make dinner. oops.
after dinner and a very sneaky cocktail hour that consisted of us pouring beer into our coffee cups and coughing loudly to cover up the sound of the pop top, we put on our jackets and headed up to the star viewing area of the park. it was amazing. it felt like you could have reached up and grabbed a handful of stars and put them in your pocket. and there were about a million and one fireflies all over the place, so it was like a million and one tiny flashbulbs going off all around you, which proved to be helpful when we were almost attacked by not one, but two skunks. yuck. kk thinks they are cute and insists that if you have them de-smelled that they would make wonderful pets. no way, jose. we got kicked out of the sky viewing area by the park hosts because it was after 10pm, but i think that since they almost ran us over (ok, we were lying in the middle of the road...), they could have let us stay for 30 more minutes. and then we went an brushed our teeth and went to bed for the night, which passed uneventfully.
02 June 2005
popularity contest...
no, i'm not talking about my life and my shameless efforts to curry favor. i'm talking about all-star games. at the request of he who must be gratuitously footnoted and occasionally obeyed, i am weighing in on this rant...
all-star games, while nice in principle, are total crap. aside from the show-boat events like the dunk contest or the homerun derby, those games are just another chance for the pretty faces of the various leagues to get more camera time, more time to endorse the crap they sell, more time for the tax base of the host city to be enriched, etc. and for what? home field advantage? in an age where cheap air-fare and the horrible pervasiveness of expansion teams makes it fairly easy for the average person to go watch the game of their choice, all-star games are pointless.
not to mention that, as aristotle and de toqueville pointed out, people, when left to their own devices, usually act like pin-heads. take the upcoming baseball all-star ballot, for instance. nomar (now i know he was a red sox player, but not any more...so he gets no protection from me), who's on the DL at the moment with an unfortunate injury, but only had a .157 batting average when he got placed on the DL. i think i know some high school freshman who could get a .157. that voting isn't about putting the best of the best forward, it's about promoting who we like best, which is totally different.
all i'm saying is that if we want all star games to be like the miss america pageant, and just pick the prettiest, nicest, most outgoing players, then let's just own that, and deal with the mediocre game that will ensue. on the other hand, if the all star games are about picking the best players to play against each other in a non-division game, then why not let the coaches and players do the picking, and just let us stick to the hot dog eating, beer swilling, heckling from the stands, and watching, just watching, amazing feats of athleticism. that's all i'm saying.
and just to really make some people mad, i'll go ahead and say this-- NASCAR IS NOT A SPORT. yes, it is physically taxing. yes, it is difficult to drive a car 250 miles an hour around a tiny circle and only make left turns and avoid hitting the other cars on the track. but it's not a sport. if you think it is, you are wrong. putting NASCAR in a class with basketball (GO SPURS GO!) or baseball or even freaking curling hurts my heart. it does more than that, it almost offends me on a personal level. i mean, if you are going to classify NASCAR as a sport, i want my standing saturday night babysitting gig with The Four Horsemen considered a sport as well.
the deep throat post is coming...
mil besos--rmg
all-star games, while nice in principle, are total crap. aside from the show-boat events like the dunk contest or the homerun derby, those games are just another chance for the pretty faces of the various leagues to get more camera time, more time to endorse the crap they sell, more time for the tax base of the host city to be enriched, etc. and for what? home field advantage? in an age where cheap air-fare and the horrible pervasiveness of expansion teams makes it fairly easy for the average person to go watch the game of their choice, all-star games are pointless.
not to mention that, as aristotle and de toqueville pointed out, people, when left to their own devices, usually act like pin-heads. take the upcoming baseball all-star ballot, for instance. nomar (now i know he was a red sox player, but not any more...so he gets no protection from me), who's on the DL at the moment with an unfortunate injury, but only had a .157 batting average when he got placed on the DL. i think i know some high school freshman who could get a .157. that voting isn't about putting the best of the best forward, it's about promoting who we like best, which is totally different.
all i'm saying is that if we want all star games to be like the miss america pageant, and just pick the prettiest, nicest, most outgoing players, then let's just own that, and deal with the mediocre game that will ensue. on the other hand, if the all star games are about picking the best players to play against each other in a non-division game, then why not let the coaches and players do the picking, and just let us stick to the hot dog eating, beer swilling, heckling from the stands, and watching, just watching, amazing feats of athleticism. that's all i'm saying.
and just to really make some people mad, i'll go ahead and say this-- NASCAR IS NOT A SPORT. yes, it is physically taxing. yes, it is difficult to drive a car 250 miles an hour around a tiny circle and only make left turns and avoid hitting the other cars on the track. but it's not a sport. if you think it is, you are wrong. putting NASCAR in a class with basketball (GO SPURS GO!) or baseball or even freaking curling hurts my heart. it does more than that, it almost offends me on a personal level. i mean, if you are going to classify NASCAR as a sport, i want my standing saturday night babysitting gig with The Four Horsemen considered a sport as well.
the deep throat post is coming...
mil besos--rmg
01 June 2005
long kiss goodnight
and so it begins. i turned in my resignation to the boss man yesterday at 5:15. i have spent most of the day telling kids and parents. it sucks. but it's kind of good, because it's important that i do this-- and by "this ", i mean telling the kids and making good plans to leave. they are taking the news well, and i am very grateful for that.
in other news, this morning, i woke to the sound of rock hitting glass, and was shocked and dismayed to find that the lawn guys had weed-eaten a rock right through my sliding glass door. believe it or not, this is the second time this has happened to me. blah. however, the cool part was that one of the guys who came to repair the glass was an old high school acquaintance of mine, and when he heard that i had a lunch meeting, he got the situation taken care of muy pronto. yet another thing for which to be grateful...
and i got to wear my second favorite outfit today-- white linen skirt, brown t-shirt, cute flippies. and my hair is incredible today.
i'm having a meeting with the first set of law firms to set up interviews, and based on the prelim convo, the one i wanted to work for is not going to pan out, at least that's my initial impression. but keep your fingers crossed...
mil besos--rmg, the process queen
in other news, this morning, i woke to the sound of rock hitting glass, and was shocked and dismayed to find that the lawn guys had weed-eaten a rock right through my sliding glass door. believe it or not, this is the second time this has happened to me. blah. however, the cool part was that one of the guys who came to repair the glass was an old high school acquaintance of mine, and when he heard that i had a lunch meeting, he got the situation taken care of muy pronto. yet another thing for which to be grateful...
and i got to wear my second favorite outfit today-- white linen skirt, brown t-shirt, cute flippies. and my hair is incredible today.
i'm having a meeting with the first set of law firms to set up interviews, and based on the prelim convo, the one i wanted to work for is not going to pan out, at least that's my initial impression. but keep your fingers crossed...
fun is on the way... i just know it. it has to be that way. and this time next week, i will hopefully have more clarity, a kick-butt tan, and some freaking clue about the direction my life is taking... i'll keep you posted.
mil besos--rmg, the process queen
31 May 2005
the low down
it's been quite the last few days, friends and neighbors. esteban came in on thursday night, and except for the time he spent with his fam, esteban, stuey and i were inseparable. it was quite the learning experience... my liver hurts real bad, right now, i'm ashamed to say. i learned several new words, none of which are blogable, but are fun to know, just the same. i learned that club soda actually does get red wine stains out of carpet the hard way. i also became esteban and stuey's favorite female friend because i helped them wax and shave their backs. it was highly entertaining, much like my habitual use of the cell phone while intoxicated. my apologies to you fine people who got called...a lady had a long night.
we also managed to crashed a james bond party (at a bar, not at a house--we do have SOME class...)on thursday-- the bond people gave us big stink-eye for showing up to their party in jeans and flip flops. esteban insisted on wearing the conical hat (like a rice hat) he'd bought at party pig around all night thursday night. shocker that it ended up sans it's elastic strap and died and undignified death on my dining room table.
to say that we had a good visit seems a horrible understatement. we celebrated his trip and my soon departure from the current job in style last night-- esteban, stuey, and i finished off two bottles (one small pinot and one really huge shiraz) of red, listened to lots of random music, and laughed our heads off. i woke up at four and had to take two advil, because it felt like my head was full of tiny people with tiny pick-axes hacking away at my grey matter. i also had to wake up because i was having the worst dreams EVER. scenario one: i am female napoleon dynamite, trying to get across the country and having to sell my favors in the back of a winnebago to get home. awful, awful, awful. Scenario two: i am running a used car lot and attempting to sell cars to the entire cast of dallas. equally weird, but not as awkward as the first scenario. this, friends and neighbors, is why i rarely drink. it messes with my head. real bad.
so the boss has been in and out all day today, so everytime i walk up to his office door to have The Talk, he's busy walking out of it, on the phone, etc. part of me wonders what would happen if i just taped my letter to his door, and left at 5. but, i am a lady, and ladies do things the right way. boo.
consider yourselves caught up. i'm sure there will be another story tomorrow, but hopefully a dreamless night. yay.
mil besos--rmg
we also managed to crashed a james bond party (at a bar, not at a house--we do have SOME class...)on thursday-- the bond people gave us big stink-eye for showing up to their party in jeans and flip flops. esteban insisted on wearing the conical hat (like a rice hat) he'd bought at party pig around all night thursday night. shocker that it ended up sans it's elastic strap and died and undignified death on my dining room table.
to say that we had a good visit seems a horrible understatement. we celebrated his trip and my soon departure from the current job in style last night-- esteban, stuey, and i finished off two bottles (one small pinot and one really huge shiraz) of red, listened to lots of random music, and laughed our heads off. i woke up at four and had to take two advil, because it felt like my head was full of tiny people with tiny pick-axes hacking away at my grey matter. i also had to wake up because i was having the worst dreams EVER. scenario one: i am female napoleon dynamite, trying to get across the country and having to sell my favors in the back of a winnebago to get home. awful, awful, awful. Scenario two: i am running a used car lot and attempting to sell cars to the entire cast of dallas. equally weird, but not as awkward as the first scenario. this, friends and neighbors, is why i rarely drink. it messes with my head. real bad.
so the boss has been in and out all day today, so everytime i walk up to his office door to have The Talk, he's busy walking out of it, on the phone, etc. part of me wonders what would happen if i just taped my letter to his door, and left at 5. but, i am a lady, and ladies do things the right way. boo.
consider yourselves caught up. i'm sure there will be another story tomorrow, but hopefully a dreamless night. yay.
mil besos--rmg
26 May 2005
spazzy magee
i've been thinking alot about what i do lately, and why i do what i do, and why i think it's important. i've also been thinking about why it's time to move on...here are some of those thoughs...
what i do: i listen to kids. i play with kids. i tie dye, i make them eat gross food, i play endless games of sardines. i write bible studies that i know full well i will only get to teach half of, because God will steer the direction of the conversation where God wills. i make phone calls, i write emails, i send post cards and newsletters. i sit on instant messenger so that kids can tell me about what they did that day. i try to give sound advice on how to not get into trouble with parents, siblings, and teachers. and i try to give sound advice on how to not get in trouble with children to parents.
why i do what i do: i do it all because i firmly believe that if the family dynamic is healthy, the church will be healthy. i do it all because i feel that children have magnificent things to say and do and be, and they are at a time in their lives when it's all but impossible for their parents to be there at all times. i do it because it's precious to me. because i firmly believe that they have a place a the table, and all my gifts in this life have led me to be here to help them set that place.
i don't kid myself that i teach them grand and glorious things about theology or ultimate reality. i don't kid myself that i'm teaching them how to be more moral people. i'm there so that in 15 years, they will be there, too. i'm there so that they know they matter and that they are loved, which they won't get until 15 years from now, anyway.
why it's time to do something else: little things that used to make me laugh drive me nuts now. there is a point at which you know too much to stay, but enough to leave-- i am at that point. i love my kids enough to let someone else love them. i value my relationship with God enough to move on and see what's around the next bend in the road, even though the easy thing to do would be to stay in my comfort zone. it would also potentially be the worst thing.
so, there's that...in other news, esteban's flight from boston will be here in about and hour and a half. let the fun begin.
i had some trouble getting to sleep last night. i even stayed up to watch malcolm in the middle, which usually does the trick, but to no avail. i read some of my book filled with unfamiliar russian last names and oddly translated words, but to no avail. i finally got to sleep around 2. silly me, i know. i guess the thought of grown-up fun for three days is just too much to handle. and i'm going to see the fam this weekend, on top of that, so a wee bit of extra excitement was prolly in order.
this is the second weird hair (not bad, i do not have bad hair days) i've had in a row. i think i got too much product in it this morning. under other circumstances, i would have washed it and started over, but i was running a little on the late side, since i hit the snooze button twice. if it goes for three days, i may have to make an apt. with the hair lady to get things figured out. i'll keep you posted. be ready for lots of stories on tuesday, maybe sooner if i can tear myself away from the fun zone to post.
mil besos-r
what i do: i listen to kids. i play with kids. i tie dye, i make them eat gross food, i play endless games of sardines. i write bible studies that i know full well i will only get to teach half of, because God will steer the direction of the conversation where God wills. i make phone calls, i write emails, i send post cards and newsletters. i sit on instant messenger so that kids can tell me about what they did that day. i try to give sound advice on how to not get into trouble with parents, siblings, and teachers. and i try to give sound advice on how to not get in trouble with children to parents.
why i do what i do: i do it all because i firmly believe that if the family dynamic is healthy, the church will be healthy. i do it all because i feel that children have magnificent things to say and do and be, and they are at a time in their lives when it's all but impossible for their parents to be there at all times. i do it because it's precious to me. because i firmly believe that they have a place a the table, and all my gifts in this life have led me to be here to help them set that place.
i don't kid myself that i teach them grand and glorious things about theology or ultimate reality. i don't kid myself that i'm teaching them how to be more moral people. i'm there so that in 15 years, they will be there, too. i'm there so that they know they matter and that they are loved, which they won't get until 15 years from now, anyway.
why it's time to do something else: little things that used to make me laugh drive me nuts now. there is a point at which you know too much to stay, but enough to leave-- i am at that point. i love my kids enough to let someone else love them. i value my relationship with God enough to move on and see what's around the next bend in the road, even though the easy thing to do would be to stay in my comfort zone. it would also potentially be the worst thing.
so, there's that...in other news, esteban's flight from boston will be here in about and hour and a half. let the fun begin.
i had some trouble getting to sleep last night. i even stayed up to watch malcolm in the middle, which usually does the trick, but to no avail. i read some of my book filled with unfamiliar russian last names and oddly translated words, but to no avail. i finally got to sleep around 2. silly me, i know. i guess the thought of grown-up fun for three days is just too much to handle. and i'm going to see the fam this weekend, on top of that, so a wee bit of extra excitement was prolly in order.
this is the second weird hair (not bad, i do not have bad hair days) i've had in a row. i think i got too much product in it this morning. under other circumstances, i would have washed it and started over, but i was running a little on the late side, since i hit the snooze button twice. if it goes for three days, i may have to make an apt. with the hair lady to get things figured out. i'll keep you posted. be ready for lots of stories on tuesday, maybe sooner if i can tear myself away from the fun zone to post.
mil besos-r
25 May 2005
once more, with feeling
i guess you can deduce from this communication that i did not explode after my untra-fiber breakfast. you can stop saying novenas now...if you want to.
alright people, it's 3:45pm, and i just had my afternoon meeting cancelled. life is good. very good. an even though it means missing free amy's ice cream, i think i will live. besides, i need to go home and clean my house, change the sheets on my bed, buy some toilet paper, run the dishwasher, etc before esteban arrives. and tomorrow, around 5:30, if you hear a loud noise followed by an immediate shortage in martini olives, just chalk it up to me and esteban being on the prowl, once again. and if i call you for bail money, act like you know me and don't hang up the phone.
i have to say that while i haven't had anymore laughing fits, i did have some custard after lunch, and i remembered another hot afternoon custard run. we (the future mrs. CHRISTMAN, super-mel, andrea, and little me) were coming back from the new jersey shore (we stayed the weekend at brooke stupid's (not her real last name, and we really do love her..., it's a long story) beach house, after the future mrs. CHRISTMAN and i had camped out with her inner-city kids and scared the crap out of them with ghost stories...), actually almost right about this time of year, and we stopped on the way back to dc for some frozen custard. super-mel got some creamcicle in her hair (whilst she was trying to untagle a ring from her necklace and trying not to get creamcicle drippage on the future mrs. CHRISTman's upholstry), and in the laughter that insued, proceeded to wipe it all over the windows of the future mrs. CHRISTman's toyota. i think i might have laughed myself into partial bladder control failure, but i'll never tell for sure. that combined with the fact that while getting gas in new jersey (they won't let you pump your own gas-- how bizarre!), i actually referred to our gas pumper as "skippy" when i handed him the gas card. i was a little embarassed, mostly for him, because he was a total skippy, but that's another story.
all is well. get ready for some stories on tuesday, which, incedentally, will also be THE DAY i boldly go where many have gone before, hopefully with some grace and style. i'll keep you posted.
mil besos--r
alright people, it's 3:45pm, and i just had my afternoon meeting cancelled. life is good. very good. an even though it means missing free amy's ice cream, i think i will live. besides, i need to go home and clean my house, change the sheets on my bed, buy some toilet paper, run the dishwasher, etc before esteban arrives. and tomorrow, around 5:30, if you hear a loud noise followed by an immediate shortage in martini olives, just chalk it up to me and esteban being on the prowl, once again. and if i call you for bail money, act like you know me and don't hang up the phone.
i have to say that while i haven't had anymore laughing fits, i did have some custard after lunch, and i remembered another hot afternoon custard run. we (the future mrs. CHRISTMAN, super-mel, andrea, and little me) were coming back from the new jersey shore (we stayed the weekend at brooke stupid's (not her real last name, and we really do love her..., it's a long story) beach house, after the future mrs. CHRISTMAN and i had camped out with her inner-city kids and scared the crap out of them with ghost stories...), actually almost right about this time of year, and we stopped on the way back to dc for some frozen custard. super-mel got some creamcicle in her hair (whilst she was trying to untagle a ring from her necklace and trying not to get creamcicle drippage on the future mrs. CHRISTman's upholstry), and in the laughter that insued, proceeded to wipe it all over the windows of the future mrs. CHRISTman's toyota. i think i might have laughed myself into partial bladder control failure, but i'll never tell for sure. that combined with the fact that while getting gas in new jersey (they won't let you pump your own gas-- how bizarre!), i actually referred to our gas pumper as "skippy" when i handed him the gas card. i was a little embarassed, mostly for him, because he was a total skippy, but that's another story.
all is well. get ready for some stories on tuesday, which, incedentally, will also be THE DAY i boldly go where many have gone before, hopefully with some grace and style. i'll keep you posted.
mil besos--r
wednesday morning, 10:15am
i've already had two laughing fits today, and no coffee. i hope you folks are ready for a fun day. i know i am.
first fit-- i went to bed with wet hair last night, and woke up with major chicken hair. lumps, bumps, and weird waves. for those of you who have seen me in such a state, to say that it's not pretty seems like a horrible understatement. so, instead of hopping in the shower, i turned on the sink and just stuck my head under the faucet, which would have been fine, (i have done this before, countless times...) had i not gotten a big chunk of hair stuck in the drain. it hurt real bad. but i was laughing to hard to panic. i leaned further into the sink, by this time trying not to panic, but still laughing, and gently pulled my hair out of the sink. i am very picky and protective when it comes to my hair, so i was very very glad that i didn't have to cut any of it off to extricate myself from the sink.
second fit--my old roomie , the soon to be mrs. CHRISTman (yes, i spelled it that way on purpose, and no she's not going to become a nun...) sent me a lovely mix cd last week. there's this great song on it called "david duchovney" by a band called bree sharp. what a super song! i laughed and laughed, and then replayed it so i could sing along to the chorus. my favorite tag: to kiss and to hug me, debrief and debug me, why won't you love me, david duchovney?" i got the giggles again. and they lasted for a while, because once i got to work...
it was breakfast time. i know, i will miss this kind of lax working environment when i finally grow up and go all corporate. so, i made myself some oatmeal (pick yourself off the floor mom, i really do like the stuff now). only i didn't make it right, because i put too much water in the mug. and it ended up all soupy and gooey, but not in a good way. so, instead of pouring that out and starting over, i just kept adding oatmeal packets. i ate three oatmeal packets for breakfast. i'm expecting some interesting developments over the next few hours...i hope i don't explode.
i'll keep you posted, sort of.
in other blogs, my good friend bethy @ www.bethsincessantramblings.blogspot.com
has a very good (i think so anyway) post up about stem cell research. check it out.
mil besos--r
first fit-- i went to bed with wet hair last night, and woke up with major chicken hair. lumps, bumps, and weird waves. for those of you who have seen me in such a state, to say that it's not pretty seems like a horrible understatement. so, instead of hopping in the shower, i turned on the sink and just stuck my head under the faucet, which would have been fine, (i have done this before, countless times...) had i not gotten a big chunk of hair stuck in the drain. it hurt real bad. but i was laughing to hard to panic. i leaned further into the sink, by this time trying not to panic, but still laughing, and gently pulled my hair out of the sink. i am very picky and protective when it comes to my hair, so i was very very glad that i didn't have to cut any of it off to extricate myself from the sink.
second fit--my old roomie , the soon to be mrs. CHRISTman (yes, i spelled it that way on purpose, and no she's not going to become a nun...) sent me a lovely mix cd last week. there's this great song on it called "david duchovney" by a band called bree sharp. what a super song! i laughed and laughed, and then replayed it so i could sing along to the chorus. my favorite tag: to kiss and to hug me, debrief and debug me, why won't you love me, david duchovney?" i got the giggles again. and they lasted for a while, because once i got to work...
it was breakfast time. i know, i will miss this kind of lax working environment when i finally grow up and go all corporate. so, i made myself some oatmeal (pick yourself off the floor mom, i really do like the stuff now). only i didn't make it right, because i put too much water in the mug. and it ended up all soupy and gooey, but not in a good way. so, instead of pouring that out and starting over, i just kept adding oatmeal packets. i ate three oatmeal packets for breakfast. i'm expecting some interesting developments over the next few hours...i hope i don't explode.
i'll keep you posted, sort of.
in other blogs, my good friend bethy @ www.bethsincessantramblings.blogspot.com
has a very good (i think so anyway) post up about stem cell research. check it out.
mil besos--r
24 May 2005
wonderment, part two
my mom is offically the smartest person i know. i've known that for sometime now, but feel compelled to say it in a public venue. and even though we absolutely don't agree on things like politics or whether or not i should have short hair, i still think she's a genius.
i'd also like to thank her for not killing me when i was in junior high, because G-d knows i gave her plenty of chances and reasons. and i'm sure that she would have much rather had my brother and i ride in the trunk on some of those trips to see the alabama folks, instead of listening to us fight and call each other sweet names like butt-face or fart-knocker (that one still cracks me up...)
some answers to this morning's questions:
1) tom cruise makes news because he is prettier than the average man. that's all there is to it. it's not right, but that's the way it is.
2) mj is a big old freak, all accusations of parental misconduct aside. and letterman will always be better than leno. period.
3) dr. spock would definately not approve of putting your kids in the trunk to see grammy. but maybe if we supported a movement to apply a living wage to working families, the fam in question could have freaking gone greyhound.
4) coffee sketches me out because i let it. i have moved on to tea.
5) i remember what i wear because i like memories better than money. i call the bank to make sure i have money, even though i know i do. i chalk that up to not wanting to get caught off guard, even though i know i won't. it's bizarre, i know.
6) my grandmother's tuna fish salad tastes better because, like my brother says, she makes it with extra love, and that's something you can't make for yourself.
in other news...
save your pocket money. i may need it for bail, if not this weekend, then next weekend.
esteban is coming in this weekend for merriment and memorializing, and the next weekend, the derkirita and kk and i are going to big bend, etc. for some much needed vacationizing and debauchery. at least as much debauchery as the three of us can kick up in brewster county. i'll admit that while we are nice girls, we do in fact know some people who have done naughty things. like skinny dipping at rio vista and getting busted right before graduation. so, even though we won't be super-bad, i can imagine that we will gossip and drink beer and tell scary stories. and we will probably eat some chocolate. and derkirita and kk will roast peeps by the campfire while i try not to throw up. it's going to be a good time. and there will be a lot of music, as well.
which brings me to another fine point-- the wild bean made me a weezer mix sunday night. i haven't taken it out of my cd player yet. i adore weezer. the sweater song makes me feel all sassy and nostalgic at the same time. it's one of those songs that i could totally get busted singing to at a stop light and about which i would feel utterly unapologetic. same goes for "crash on the barrelhead" by the old 97's.
oh geeze, it's three o'clock. time to do work. i'll try and give you people more inane drivel to read later this pm...
mil besos-r
i'd also like to thank her for not killing me when i was in junior high, because G-d knows i gave her plenty of chances and reasons. and i'm sure that she would have much rather had my brother and i ride in the trunk on some of those trips to see the alabama folks, instead of listening to us fight and call each other sweet names like butt-face or fart-knocker (that one still cracks me up...)
some answers to this morning's questions:
1) tom cruise makes news because he is prettier than the average man. that's all there is to it. it's not right, but that's the way it is.
2) mj is a big old freak, all accusations of parental misconduct aside. and letterman will always be better than leno. period.
3) dr. spock would definately not approve of putting your kids in the trunk to see grammy. but maybe if we supported a movement to apply a living wage to working families, the fam in question could have freaking gone greyhound.
4) coffee sketches me out because i let it. i have moved on to tea.
5) i remember what i wear because i like memories better than money. i call the bank to make sure i have money, even though i know i do. i chalk that up to not wanting to get caught off guard, even though i know i won't. it's bizarre, i know.
6) my grandmother's tuna fish salad tastes better because, like my brother says, she makes it with extra love, and that's something you can't make for yourself.
in other news...
save your pocket money. i may need it for bail, if not this weekend, then next weekend.
esteban is coming in this weekend for merriment and memorializing, and the next weekend, the derkirita and kk and i are going to big bend, etc. for some much needed vacationizing and debauchery. at least as much debauchery as the three of us can kick up in brewster county. i'll admit that while we are nice girls, we do in fact know some people who have done naughty things. like skinny dipping at rio vista and getting busted right before graduation. so, even though we won't be super-bad, i can imagine that we will gossip and drink beer and tell scary stories. and we will probably eat some chocolate. and derkirita and kk will roast peeps by the campfire while i try not to throw up. it's going to be a good time. and there will be a lot of music, as well.
which brings me to another fine point-- the wild bean made me a weezer mix sunday night. i haven't taken it out of my cd player yet. i adore weezer. the sweater song makes me feel all sassy and nostalgic at the same time. it's one of those songs that i could totally get busted singing to at a stop light and about which i would feel utterly unapologetic. same goes for "crash on the barrelhead" by the old 97's.
oh geeze, it's three o'clock. time to do work. i'll try and give you people more inane drivel to read later this pm...
mil besos-r
just wondering...
ok, here are my questions for the day:
why does what tom cruise says about katie holmes get registered as news? what about that seems right?
why in the world is jay leno testifying for michael jackson? what about that seems like a good idea?
why do parents put their kids in the trunk of a car to go visit auntie so-and-so? dr. spock would definately not recommend that, would he?
why does coffee make me awake and focused if i drink it before 10am, but jittery and freaked out if i drink it after 3pm?
why can i remember what i had on during pivotal occasions/conversations in my life but have to call the bank to check my balance?
last one:
why, even though i make mine the exact same way, does my grandmother's tuna fish salad taste better than mine?
go ahead, leave a comment, i dare you.
i'll be back later, maybe even with some answers...
mil besos-r
why does what tom cruise says about katie holmes get registered as news? what about that seems right?
why in the world is jay leno testifying for michael jackson? what about that seems like a good idea?
why do parents put their kids in the trunk of a car to go visit auntie so-and-so? dr. spock would definately not recommend that, would he?
why does coffee make me awake and focused if i drink it before 10am, but jittery and freaked out if i drink it after 3pm?
why can i remember what i had on during pivotal occasions/conversations in my life but have to call the bank to check my balance?
last one:
why, even though i make mine the exact same way, does my grandmother's tuna fish salad taste better than mine?
go ahead, leave a comment, i dare you.
i'll be back later, maybe even with some answers...
mil besos-r
17 May 2005
truth number 2
the greatest niece/nephew ever will be discovering the universe on december 5th--probably. his/her parents are happy and doing well. his/her auntie is very excited. his/her auntie is having a hard time restraining the urgent need to shop and buy lots of fun baby things. yay.
mil besos-r
mil besos-r
my favorite art form
ok, it's 2:30pm and i just got out of the most pointless staff meeting ever. staff meetings are a waste of time, and i happen to believe that waste is a sin.
the only thing that could make me feel better (ok, it's on the short list of things that could make me feel better) is a killer nap. and i don't just mean the fall asleep on the couch by accident while you're trying to watch oprah. i'm talking about the full on purposeful nap. you know what i mean-- the kind of nap where you eat a little extra food at lunch to push you into a carb-coma, rush home before you get crossed eyed at the wheel, throw on your pj pants and a t-shirt (my preferred outfit: blue and white pin-stripe old navy cotton boxer pants and a [plain white hanes undershirt-- best outfit in the world. i love that outfit more than i will probably love my wedding dress) crank the air conditioner down to 65, turn off the cell phone, snuggle under the covers and sleep.
and not just any ordinary sleep, either. i mean sleep like you can only get when you take a really intentional, well-planned nap. the kind of sleep that takes you 30 minutes to climb out of because you are so relaxed that your whole body just kind of tingles, the kind of sleep that you wake from briefly to drink some water or go potty and then rush right back into (because, let's face it, if you asked for an i.v. and a foley before you went to sleep, people would look at you all funny). the kind of sleep that starts at 4pm on an idle tuesday and ends somewhere around 7am on wednesday. it's amazing.
i remember my golden days of napping-- napping was what i referred to as sleep in college. my friends and mom knew when i had class, and knew if i wasn't in class, i was prolly working on homework or asleep. people knew when to call, when to come by, and they never, ever messed with my nap schedule. it was wonderful. i could work until 3am, sleep until my 10 am class, go to class until 2 or 3pm, come home and nap until 6pm, go eat dinner at the cafeteria (or cook after i moved out of the dorm), come home and study or do homework until 2 or 3am and start the cycle all over again. it was glorious. ah, college, how i occasionally miss you...
life is good. sleep is good. once i finally get home today (it's a long one, today friends and neighbors. two of my cherubs wanted to have one last breakfast with little old me before they graduate, so i met them at our spot at 7am, and tonight is a graduation party for a staff member, so i won't be home until 8pm. please hold all calls and questions until then...) i need to pack for my weekend jaunt to the piney woods, thank G-d i did laundry and ironed last night.
ta ta for now, my compatriots.
viva la nap. mil besos--r
the only thing that could make me feel better (ok, it's on the short list of things that could make me feel better) is a killer nap. and i don't just mean the fall asleep on the couch by accident while you're trying to watch oprah. i'm talking about the full on purposeful nap. you know what i mean-- the kind of nap where you eat a little extra food at lunch to push you into a carb-coma, rush home before you get crossed eyed at the wheel, throw on your pj pants and a t-shirt (my preferred outfit: blue and white pin-stripe old navy cotton boxer pants and a [plain white hanes undershirt-- best outfit in the world. i love that outfit more than i will probably love my wedding dress) crank the air conditioner down to 65, turn off the cell phone, snuggle under the covers and sleep.
and not just any ordinary sleep, either. i mean sleep like you can only get when you take a really intentional, well-planned nap. the kind of sleep that takes you 30 minutes to climb out of because you are so relaxed that your whole body just kind of tingles, the kind of sleep that you wake from briefly to drink some water or go potty and then rush right back into (because, let's face it, if you asked for an i.v. and a foley before you went to sleep, people would look at you all funny). the kind of sleep that starts at 4pm on an idle tuesday and ends somewhere around 7am on wednesday. it's amazing.
i remember my golden days of napping-- napping was what i referred to as sleep in college. my friends and mom knew when i had class, and knew if i wasn't in class, i was prolly working on homework or asleep. people knew when to call, when to come by, and they never, ever messed with my nap schedule. it was wonderful. i could work until 3am, sleep until my 10 am class, go to class until 2 or 3pm, come home and nap until 6pm, go eat dinner at the cafeteria (or cook after i moved out of the dorm), come home and study or do homework until 2 or 3am and start the cycle all over again. it was glorious. ah, college, how i occasionally miss you...
life is good. sleep is good. once i finally get home today (it's a long one, today friends and neighbors. two of my cherubs wanted to have one last breakfast with little old me before they graduate, so i met them at our spot at 7am, and tonight is a graduation party for a staff member, so i won't be home until 8pm. please hold all calls and questions until then...) i need to pack for my weekend jaunt to the piney woods, thank G-d i did laundry and ironed last night.
ta ta for now, my compatriots.
viva la nap. mil besos--r
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