January 3, 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I have been stuck starring at "Norton Internet Security is currently performing background tasks" on the bottom right corner of my screen for a week now. Strange things like this happen when my T-24 chihuahua gets too near my laptop.

So for Christmas, Eric was able to donate enough blood and bought me an expresso/cappuccino maker. I made my first expresso tonight and boy did it taste like shit. I've managed to combine all the caffeine in the world into a single ounce and I'm shaking like dog crapping a peach seed. Tonight in bed I'm going to make little brewing sounds while Eric is trying to sleep... heh heh...

Anyway, yesterday at work, I was given the strangest Christmas present I have ever received. I've made friends with an Iranian woman named Ramesh but she goes by Catherine. She is one of the most kind hearted people I have ever known although I can hardly understand her most of the time. More than often I just whip out my Chucky smile and say "uh huh" having no clue what she's telling me. The few conversations I have managed to understand were enjoyable and we've learned a lot about each other's cultures. (Especially the food part!) She brought me a cute little golden bag with a red bow on it and said, "I give to you present Rrrrrrrrreeeeeee." I thanked her and gave her a hug and when I went back to my office I looked inside the bag. The first thing I saw was a cute little kiwi-strawberry candle. I pulled it out, gave it a fine sniff and set it on my desk. Then I reached back into the bag and was abruptly slapped across the face with an enormous Queen Size PLUS pair of black tights. Who buys someone they hardly know a pair of tights 4 sizes too big? I read the back of the label and I need to weigh 230lbs to wear them!! Knowing Catherine, I'm sure she meant nothing of it and probably didn't even know she had bought Queen Size PLUS!! At least that's what I'm telling myself... Eric's son Drew was over here on Friday night to tell us good-bye as he is moving to Florida to work on a farm that grows organic food. When I gave him a hug, I slipped the QUEEN SIZE PLUS tights into his back pack!! HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA I can't wait to hear when he finds them... and has to explain them to his buddies.

Before I start posting a bunch of pictures because I've been too lazy to write anything, I must share with you one of my golden moments of stupidity. I'm sure all of you are familiar with Jay Leno's "Jaywalking". Well, one night Eric and I were watching in utter disgust as I have always been able to answer all of the questions perfectly and without any hesitation. During this time I'm also quick to sling insults to the boneheads that manage to get on T.V. Suddenly, Jay holds up a picture of Thomas Jefferson asking someone who it is and with boastful pride, I yelled out, "George Jefferson!" I thought Eric's wee teeny eyes were going to plop out of his gigantic head. It even took me a couple of seconds to realize what had just detonated in my mouth. There was nothing I could do to salvage my dignity.

It was time for me to brush up on my history and so I began reading several wonderful books. Unfortunately, I have realized that everything I was taught in school was basically fantasy and mostly incorrect. So the last few weeks I have held a grudge against the Portuguese conquistadors and several Europeans.

I just returned from a wonderful Christmas with my family in Paragould, Arkansas. I haven't seen my brother in 3 years or ever met his wife Amanda or his daughter Waimea. (WHY-MAY-UH) Her mother is Hawaiian and she is named after Waimea Beach in O'ahu.

Peek-a-booo!!

Here's my brother, Waimea and me:

I must mention here that I am completely thrilled to have Amanda as my sister-in-law. She's so sick and twisted I couldn't have asked for a better sister!! Her picture is on my Nov. 30th blog. The other pics I took of her on this vacation she had a tit out feeding a bebeh and I imagine she would appreciate it if I didn't post them here! Here are my favorite cypress trees on Grandma's farm about 200 years old or more. I use to sit under these trees when I was a child and eat Lorna Dune cookies!

One of the things I miss most about my home is living in the flyway. I absolutely LIVE to take country loops and find geese spiraling down for a rest. I was starting to wonder when I was going to see them and then on my way home Sunday, I finally got my wish. I pulled off the highway and worked my way down a muddy road until I had to stop and walk the rest of the way. The Chihuahua, wearing his grey hoodie, was by my side awaiting adventure. You cannot imagine the orchestra of a million geese or the way the wind feels blowing from their wings. I was standing in the middle of a rice field and the sky grew dark with birds. This shot I managed to catch when something spooked the geese, but I remained as they always come back. These are snow and specklebelly geese. I only wish I could show these photos/videos in a larger format however it's impossible on this blog.

Here is a shot as they are coming back down to land. There was no way to fit all the birds in the frame no matter how far I zoomed out. It was quite breathtaking. Geese were flying in from all directions. And I never got pooped on!

I was able to take a quick video of the geese as they were spooked back into the sky. Perhaps it was me or shots heard in the distance from hunters. Fortunately there were no hunters shooting at these birds. I noticed some decoys among them but there were actually some live mallards. I was so awe struck it was hard for me to hold my camera still!! Turn up your volume!!

YOU WILL LOVE THIS!



And finally I zoomed out to show the tremendous size of this migration. You can see how they spiral down.


Since I'm tweeking on expresso, I figure I'll continue with the rest of my photos and videos from a few weeks ago. Eric's company, Central Yamaha, had a redneck get together including everything from guns to beer, cows to ATV's, camo and of course a couple of Yamaha Rhinos.

Eric vs. Cow (please don't ask me about his outfit) This is what we were doing on the Rhinos. Steve demonstrates his manliness:

This is Jason, Eric's boss:


I love this shot- check out Eric laughing:

Extreme close up-

And then Rhiannon said, "Damn it Eric, I swear to God if you flip this thing over I'll-"

Yep, I took this picture after I climbed out and gave him a good sound thrashing...

Hope everyone had a good New Year's and I look forward to some juicy stories... xoxo

December 7, 2008

I just found out that my chihuahua isn't who I thought he was. It turns out that he is a model T-24 cybernetic organism. (T-24 Terminator). I have rewired his chip so that he is currently on my side... MOVING ON...

I had an enjoyable Thanksgiving with Eric, my mom and Eric's son Drew. It was a miracle that everything I cooked was edible! I even put out some Fall decor...

The following Saturday, a week ago, I visited my Aunt Becky (Aunt B) at her and her husband's new business in Mesquite (about 45 minutes away) called Treasured Vessels http://www.treasuredvessels.com/ . They have created a wonderful studio where people can make their own pottery, create mosaics and learn glass fusion among so many other things. What a great idea!! There have been numerous times where I wanted to go out and do something besides dinner and a movie that didn't cost an arm and a leg. I can't wait to take Eric there for date night and sip wine while I'm creating a masterpiece!

Anyway, here is a picture of Treasured Vessels located in Mesquite's cozy town square.

The building is so old and full of history.
Here is a shot of the inside:

My uncle Winston made this Texas Snowman that I absolutely had to buy!


On my way home Eric called and said that Jeff and Michelle invited us to see Eddie Money that night. It had been a while since I've done anything WILD so we went. I didn't bring my camera but Eddie Money was actually pretty entertaining. Eric took my picture with Babe Laufenberg who use to play for the Dallas Cowboys and several other NFL teams. Aside from that, the last week has been a dull conglomeration of work and no play.

Let's take a quick moment and secretly watch in on the savage beasts at play...

Here was the sunset in my neighborhood the other day.

Some shots from the park a few days ago... Bailey is such a water dog.

There were ducks everywhere looking at me with their wee beedy eyes... And then, suddenly-
It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye!!

Narcissus

Ducks on the brain.

That's all folks...

November 30, 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BROTHER!!

From my little punching bag....

To a wonderful father and husband...

Here I go falling behind on my blog! I went to Memphis on the 15th for a visit with friends and family and the whole thing turned out to be a huge disappointment and disaster! The only good thing to come of the trip were the fabulous photos I took and I wanted to share them all with you.

The Arcade is famous landmark on South Main and a wonderful place to eat. I had breakfast here with my Dad on Sunday morning before he turned to The Dark Side.

Here is the Lorraine motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. It is now the Civil Rights Museum. It's so weird going home as a tourist...

This duplex (669 Mansfield) is where some of the happiest times of my life happened. My friend Amy and I lived downstairs and our friend Cameron lived upstairs.

A home I have always loved in Central Gardens on Belvedere. (The neighborhood where 669 was.)

The corner of Rozelle and Central in Central Gardens.

Beautiful Fall tree in the same neighborhood. Most of the houses in the neighborhood have trees on fire like this.

Here's a shot of some Canadian geese at Shelby Farms. This was a place I would often go to reclaim my sanity!

My friend Beth I've known for 17 years was able to meet me there for a brief visit.

The next day I went to Shelby Forest to take pictures of what's left of the Fall colors. Shelby Forest is about 25 minutes north of Memphis. Here are some of my favorites:

I saw this owl in a tree right above us and took this picture from the car!

This corner store has been here forever. A rooster greeted me at the door.

November 3, 2008

Last Monday I talked about Leo haunting our mini-van. On Tuesday afternoon when I was leaving work I got into the van and asked Leo out loud, "Please don't f*** with me tonight." I should have kept the thought in my head because Leo heard it and ran with it. The mini-van sat there dead as hell. I swear I heard Leo's sneaky cackle. So I called Eric as he was leaving work 7 zip codes away and he dissected the engine and decided to jump the battery.

Eric found the +- feeds into the battery and I walked a good distance away as he jumped the van. I hate it when people jump batteries. I just know that sucker's going to blow up like a hot water heater and some metal will slice through the air and go directly into my pupil (arrow into tree sound) so that I have one blind, buldging, white eyeball the rest of my life. Needless to say (so I'm going to type it) we got a new battery and made it home late just in time to have Taco Bell. The van is running better but Leo is still popping the locks up and down and flashing all the cabin lights. Eric says the computer is going out but I know better...

The next day Drew picked up Kelly and she spent the night with us. Her Sweet 16 was on Thursday so we surprised her with the Carrie Underwood concert. Eric took these pictures:

The Kelly is happy...

This shot shows the confetti at the end of the conert:

Friday was an uneventful Halloween. I bought all the nice chocolate candy that I didn't get when I was a kid because we lived in the redneck neighborhood. I also knew we'd probably not have many trick-or-treater's because I now live in a neighborhood inundated with paranoid soccar moms afraid their children will bite down on the proverbial razor blade. When I was a kid and would bite down on one of those things I'd yank it out of my gum, wipe up the blood and continue eating my damn candy.

What left me completely unprepared were the lazy ass kids that wouldn't even bother to say "trick-or-treat". They'd just hold up their pillow case and try to scope out the inside of my house for stuff to hock. You think I'm just handing out candy because I like to watch my arm fat spin around? You're gonna work bitches! There were a lot of kids that didn't even bother to dress up. One boy turned his shirt inside out- that was his costume! Your daddy's driving around in a Hummer and you ain't got no costume? Then a few kids had to select their own candy because they had peanut allergies. What the hell is that? Bad genetics, that's what.

On Saturday Eric and I watched the Texas/Tech game at the Fox & Hound with some friends. Sunday was Tick Day. This is when you just lay around and eat all day. I'll leave you with this picture. It's time for bed!!

October 27, 2008

My mini-van is haunted.
It isn't enough that I traded in my sexuality to bounce the streets in an mini-van. I had to end up with a haunted one. The van belonged to Leo, Eric's step-dad and we bought it from his son when he passed away a little over a year ago. I never really got to know Leo that well. He was sneaky and he looked just like an egg but he was always nice to me. In fact, I liked Leo because I appreciated his sneakiness.

The first haunting came about a few months ago when the van alarm went off in the middle of the night disturbing Pleasantville. I flew out of bed like a Halloween cat sure that some punk was up in my property trying to make off with my toll tag. Once my pupils shrank down to a normal size and I saw there was no one around I had to shuffle around in the dark to find the little key remote to turn off the alarm. I went back to bed dismissing this incident as a strong gust of wind or someone's cat.

A few nights later at approximately the same time, the alarm went off again. This time I was sure there was a punk after my toll tag. I peeked out the window and nothing was there. No cats and no breeze. The hair on the back of my neck was all, "What up home skillet?! Haaaayyyy!!" I told the back of Eric's head to get the gun. He responded with a grunt, fired off an air bagel and managed to scratch a ball. The next morning we discussed the alarm going off and Eric said it was probably the battery going dead. This sounded logical enough to me so I let it go, and for a couple of weeks nothing happened.

Then one night while I was driving down the highway the locks started popping up and down and the cabin lights were flashing like a strobe light. The "Door Ajar" indicator light came on so I pulled over and checked all of the doors. They were shut tightly. I got back into the van and the locks kept popping up and down accompanied with that constant DING!DING!DING! This was when I realized Leo was back and having a fine giggle over my puckered butt hole. You can't imagine what it's like to drive a possessed vehicle down a busy interstate in the dark hoping a cop wouldn't see my little mobile disco scene. I made it home alright and of course the van was on perfect behavior so that Eric never once witnessed any of the mania.

This has happened many times since and never when Eric is around or driving. I'm sure he thinks I'm going a little Tom Cruise but just smiles and says, “We'll get it checked out honey...” It happened again this morning on my way to work but I've gotten use to it now. I quit locking the van so the alarm won't go off and when the locks start popping up and down, I just beat the dash board to turn the volume up on the radio because it doesn't work either. The volume is either completely gone or so loud that you have to roll down the windows to let some of the noise out.

I figure if some punk manages to get hold of my toll tag, they'll end up with a bit of Leo too and that's all the justice I need. Heh... Heh... Heh...

October 7, 2008

Yes. I did do this to my dog. And his little shirt glows in the dark making him extra-spooky!

I haven't had anything happen to write about. On my way home today I drove right past my subdivision because I was daydreaming that I was in a spelling bee and I had to spell chateau.

Anyway, because I posted a horrible picture of myself with candy corn teeth Eric is terrified that the world will think that is how I look all of the time. Well, it is! I'm going to take a normal picture of myself but I have to master Photoshop first. I did get my rrrrroooots done so maybe I can go back to the dentist and get my teeth cleaned with dignity...