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!!