Twipply Skwood

It won't ALL be morning sickness and puking and sleep deprivation and poopy diapers. Sometimes we'll get to dress her like a chicken.

2012-01-16T05:49:00.000-06:00

If you can't admire Houston for the cockroaches, horrendous traffic, kajillion degree weather, and occasional hurricane, there's always the weather. We pretty much had all four seasons in three days last week.

In addition to flooding that wiped out any chance of driving anywhere near my school, there was frost, not to mention weather in the 70s. Some people were stuck in their cars for hours and hours. My kids' school was closed, but it didn't make much difference because the water was too high at my school to leave, and even if I could have, all my classroom kids were stuck inside because their parents couldn't come in to get them.

Here's a picture someone from work took:

It usually looks more like this:

The bridge the white van is trying to go over in the top picture is over the bayou, which is way, way deeper than the little drainage ditch or slough or whatever it is the close bridge goes over.

Here's a picture my sweet pea took a little farther down the bayou once we were able to leave our respective schools:

And looking a little more normal a few days later:

Here are some random conversations from last week (well, one from the week before) -

Me, answering The-Guy, who had been surprised that I had already been thinking about costumes for next Halloween for our yet unborn daughter:

"It won't All be morning sickness and puking and sleep deprivation and poopy diapers. Sometimes we'll get to dress her like a chicken."

(picture from Girl in Air blog)

My boy, after I expressed wonderment over his suddenly curly hair:

"It's not curly! It just wants to be closer to the sky..."

Me, to my mother, bemoaning the fact that we had missed Cid's garage sale:

"Maybe somebody else that we know will have a baby girl right before we do and dress her really cute and then suddenly sell everything they own so they can go live on a boat."

A conversation between me and the Sweet Pea last week:

Me - "The internet isn't broken! I turned it off. Remember? I said I was going to turn it off until you guys cleaned your rooms?"
Her - "Oh. Yeah, I remember now. But I didn't think you'd do it." (pause)
Her - "I didn't think you knew how."

To be perfectly honest, my boy did help me get the internet back on. But I do know how to turn it off! For cryin' out loud...

Happy Martin Luther King day and hope you're having a short work week!

Happy People Run From Anger

2012-01-07T03:11:00.003-06:00

In 2011 we went both camping (in September) and my mom and dad's (just last month) without a single emergency room visit! We've had at least one, if not two emergency room visits for years running on both those outings. So I'm going to go ahead and call 2011 a pretty great year.

By this time next week, I'll be halfway done being pregnant. That and modern medicine haven't managed to totally stop the nausea though, so my dad suggested naming the baby, "I'm Not Throwing Up Anymore."

But since we found out she's a girl, I think we're going to go with something a little more feminine.

I found out that happy people run from anger:

And here I thought they were just jogging! But I guess they have to get all those endorphins somewhere, after all.

Last but not least, happy new year all! To help celebrate, here's my brother making the champagne tower in this year's silly hat:
Happy New Year all!

I Just Go Around Breaking Stuff. But I'm Trying to Confine My Special Breaking Talents JUST to the Kitchen and not to the Road.

2011-12-24T04:23:00.007-06:00

My boy had his first ever high school final in Hebrew last week. I had just asked him whether or not he felt adequately prepared and his answer was

Yes but...the only thing hard about Hebrew is...ummmm...y'know...the words

I had to laugh, even though I knew what he meant (that vocabulary was harder than conjugating verbs). But still, isn't learning the words the hardest part of learning any foreign language?!?

I'd like to make fun of this sign more, but...forgetting to pay rent is something I'd might actually do. Otherwise, I'm thinking most people who don't pay the rent probably do it because they don't have the money. Right?
Here's the car I wrecked, the poor thing:
Yes, it was my fault. No I wasn't careful enough, which is confusing to me. Because I was actually telling myself to be very careful right at that very moment. But either I forgot to listen to myself, or I just wasn't quite careful enough.

I was wondering if I should blur out the license plate for privacy and stuff, but then I remembered that the license plate ended up in someone's front yard near the intersection.

At any rate, I'm sure the yield sign I neglected to give all the respect it was due wasn't anywhere near as confusing as this:

I'm actually sort of impressed. One can rarely ever go east AND west at the exact same time!

Not only that, but you can more or less pick any direction and still end up on both highway 521 AND highway 36 going either east, or east and west at the same time. Don't even worry about north and you're bound to get exactly where you're going. Probably.

Last but not least, I had this conversation with The Guy this week at the tail end of a conversation in which I had already listed a multitude of minor failures on my part:

Me - "...and I broke a glass in the kitchen."
The Guy - "Was it one of the good glasses?"
Me - "No. It was one of those glasses you got for me to break."

So see?!? If I can just contain myself to the kitchen, The-Guy is already well prepared. Anyway, happy holidays to all! Hopefully everyone is surviving them quite nicely and even enjoying themselves!

I'm FINE! But still, I think two car accidents by the second trimester of pregnancy is really more than enough

2011-12-17T11:22:00.017-06:00

Even though I'm only a few months along here, I've already been in two car accidents (one minor, the other quite possibly requiring a new car). In addition, I've already been kind enough to expose this new baby to fifth's disease, more varieties of the common cold than you can shake a stick at, ringworm, at least two different stomach viruses, and evacuation from a building because of the carbon monoxide levels. It's been fun so far.

As for the old babies, my boy turns 14 today! Here he is back when a slice of pizza was as big as his head:

And on his first birthday:

In totally unrelated news, I haven't really gotten too many sign pictures. Despite the fact that I haven't posted forever, I only have this one measly little sign. It's the Kumon guy.

Kumon is a tutoring place and apparently they do so much homework that the poor little logo guy can't even manage to smile. But at least they don't try and trick the kids into thinking they're going to have fun while they learn.

So happy birthday to my boy & hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season so far!

I'm Hoping to Miss the Next Puke-A-Thon

2011-11-30T06:03:00.008-06:00

I've heard that some people enjoy being pregnant. I've even heard that pregnant people "glow". Not me. I just puke.

In fact, I'm so good at the getting sick part that The-Guy mentioned we needed more words for the different types of vomit, kind of like Eskimos are supposed to have all those different kinds of words for snow.

Luckily (with the help of medication) I think I'm starting to get over the constant vomit part. I'm even starting to be able to brush my teeth without puking.

I've even managed to snap a couple of pictures. Here's an advertisement for an apartment complex near the Houston Galleria:
So in other words, "Live here if your mama taught you wrong."

And speaking of teaching right and wrong, here's a daycare where you can send your kids if you want them to go to Harvard, but don't want then to learn to spell:

So that's it for now. Hope everyone is having a good week!

I'm Trying to Make a New Person Out of Anti-Nausea Medication and Frozen Pizza

2011-11-19T06:09:00.010-06:00

I'm trying to make a new person out of anti-nausea medication and frozen pizza. So, if you've been wondering why I've been slow to post, it's because I've been too busy throwing up.

This looks like a gray lump, but it's actually a baby picture:

I figured out that the less something looks like actual food, the more likely I am to be able to keep it down. In fact, there were a couple days there when I was relying on Ramen noodles as my sole source of nutrition.

But then it occurred to me, whatever is in the anti-nausea medication couldn't possibly be any worse for the baby than whatever is in that flavor packet that goes into the Ramen noodles.

So I started consistently taking the anti-nausea medication and now I've been able to expand my menu to include frozen pizza.

That's why it's been quiet around here...I've seen good signs, but been too tired and/or sick to lift my camera out of my purse. But I'm starting to feel like I might actually survive, so hopefully I'll be back into posting.

Hope everyone had a good week!

Unlock the Chicken

2011-11-13T09:03:00.011-06:00

Hello long lost blog! What are my excuses for ignoring you so? Mostly not worth listing. Some are worth listing, but I'll list them later.

This actually came out of my very own pantry. We bought it, because like half the stuff in our pantry, it was on sale.

Besides, whenever I think of luxury, the first thing that comes to mind is ALWAYS cold breakfast cereal:

Don't you find that to be the case? Although, despite the silly name, it really wasn't bad as cold breakfast cereal goes.

Sometimes it's just the order of the signs that is so silly. I mean, who even knew that chicken, fish or beef needed to be repaired or unlocked?

These colors looked a lot prettier before I took them through my dirty car windshield:

Here are some birds. These would also look much better minus the dirty car windshield, but...that's not how I took the picture.

That's it! Happy week everyone! Or...month...as the case has been lately.

Bail Bonds Go with Everything

2011-10-25T14:26:00.014-05:00

Once upon a time when my brother was maybe 5 and I was around 7, my mom & dad left us with friends for the weekend. This family ground their own wheat to make the flour to make whole wheat bread, and they showed us how to milk...I'm pretty sure it was a goat and not a cow...for the milk for breakfast. My point is, refined white sugar and surely Little Debbie type snack cakes were not a staple in this family's diet.

So anyway, the parents come in to ask us if we like oatmeal for breakfast.

Oatmeal? What's oatmeal? My brother and I turned to each other.

We didn't know oatmeal.

But we DID know oatmeal cookies. More specifically we knew the Little Debbie type of oatmeal cookie with the yummy white cream in the middle.

I stopped at three different stores today and never found these kind of oatmeal cookies, so I had to borrow a picture here:

My brother and I decided that obviously if the brown things on the outside were the "cookie", the white creamy icing on the inside must be the "oatmeal". Oatmeal. Cookie. Made sense to us. And what kid doesn't like pure sugar for breakfast? Yes! Some of that white creamy icing sounds like the breakfast of champions! We had obviously hit the jackpot.

We assured the unsuspecting parents we definitely liked oatmeal, only to refuse to eat the hot unsweetened bowl of mush which was served to us, the same gluey stuff had turned our own mother against oatmeal for life.

I tell you this because if your own child or a child you have known has clamored for a food that was later refused, there may have been a similar misunderstanding.

The only other information I really have to share this week is that bail bonds go with everything. Apparently.

Bail bonds and tacos, for example:

(I apologize for the lousy picture, but it's hard to take at night from a moving vehicle. I assure you that the last word is the bail "bonds" though.)

Next up, bail bonds and a hair cut. Bail bonds and a hair cut kind of confused me at first, but I guess you want to look your best in court:

And that's about it, except for this sort of scary picture of my bipolar kitty:

He's not that scary in real life. Except for sometimes. Hope everyone is having a good week!

Update: To clarify any misunderstandings, we did NOT learn of the oatmeal cookies from our parents! I'm afraid we had previously learned of the snack cakes from other kids' lunches. I'm not sure of why we didn't learn of unsweetened, unflavored oatmeal from other kids' lunches...

How One of My Kids Might Have Turned Out Semi-Okay So Far Despite me.

2011-10-13T18:09:00.015-05:00

Once upon a time that handsome teenage boy-o-mine in the sidebar used to be a cute baby that I apparently never listened to.The person next to him is the Sweet Pea, who more or less always demanded that you listen to her.

So one day I'm pulling out of the drive through ATM and I hear a little voice from the back seat,

"Ah LEDDER! Ah ledder Mama! Mama! It wote you ah LEDDER!!!! Aaaaah LEDDERRRRRRRR!"

I wondered what the baby was squawking about, but not enough to turn back around to see. If I HAD pulled back around to see, I would have found out that the letter he was talking about was the machine spitting back out my ATM card. But instead, I got a phone call from the bank later.

The second time we were at the grocery store. Kroger had bulk bins back then and I began my shopping trip by scooping out some kind of nuts or trail mix or whatever when I suddenly screamed and dropped my bag of bulk food. There were BUGS in the bin!

I recovered from the trauma, did the rest of my shopping, checked out, and suddenly realized I couldn't find my car keys. I searched the store, checking the aisles bemoaning our fate of obvious food poisoning as our milk, eggs, or whatever perishables I had in the cart got warmer and warmer.

In desperation, I asked the baby in the cart, "Jared, did you see what happened to my keys?" As if none of the frantic searching had even occurred, he calmly answered, "I think you put them by the peanuts."

I hadn't, in fact, "put them" by the peanuts. I had dropped them when I screamed. There they were right there on the floor by the bulk bins and we were free to go home in time not to spoil the food and end up in the hospital from rotten eggs.

Happily ever after. Except, I probably still don't listen to him enough.

I Guess I'm Out of Practice - I forgot to make a title for this post.

2011-10-07T05:58:00.007-05:00

Hello world o' blog! If there is anyone left to read after I have ignored the blogging world for such a long time. Apparently I took a little unannounced blogging vacation.

Here's my new website idea: meet'ya-halfway.com. It would be for all those times your brother suggests meeting halfway between New York and Texas to go like, camping or something, and then you agree it would be awesome but neither of you ever does anything about it.

You'd just put in the two places you're coming from and find out the best spot to meet. And if there's more than one best spot, it could rate them based on places to see and things to do, or best restaurants or hotels or whatever.

So if someone could please be kind enough to invent that website...or point me to the one already invented...

Meanwhile, for pictures...the Sweet Pea has been keeping us busy at the orthopedic place as usual. Here she is getting an MRI of her wrist:
And I saw this shampoo at Target:
What does men's hair actually have to endure? I mean, women's hair gets curled and straightened and styled and teased and dried and constantly attacked by "product". But men's hair...I thought it led a relatively easy life of a trim or hair cut here or there. Maybe the occasional ball cap or something.

I hope everyone has had a good couple weeks while I've been not-blogging!

Well SOMEONE Has to Demolish Houston. Apparently.

2011-09-22T17:30:00.010-05:00

It seems that Houston is being demolished:

What can I say? I guess it has to be done.

Other than that, there's not so much going on around here. Mostly I've been taking pictures of these nice people:

I've been taking some flower pictures too, as usual:
And teaching school and stuff. Hope everyone has had a nice week so far!

Daughter Goes On Special Blogging Assignment

2011-09-14T15:31:00.005-05:00

I made a few references this summer to the Sweet Pea being out of town. When she got back, I was surprised to find out that...well...like mother like daughter! She had not only taken pictures just for Twipply Skwood, but was prepared to guest post:

Hello everyone out there in blog world! This is my only my second guest blog post ever, the first one being when I got a jellyfish sting on my arm when I was 12. I recently got back from the best summer trip ever in the whole world. It was called Ldor vDor, and for those of you who don’t speak Hebrew, that means generation to generation. My group went from pre-world war II settlements in Prague, Czech Republic, to touring concentration camps and ghettos in Poland, and finally to the beautiful Jewish homeland of Israel. The whole trip altogether was 5 full weeks. Five full weeks of 39 Jewish teenagers running around multiple airports with 4 counselors and a security guard (with a gun). I had a fantastic time and it was life changing and I learned about responsibility and whatnot.

Of course, as I was traveling through multiple countries, I kept an eye out for silly signs and foreign English fails for my mommy to use in her blog. Five weeks away from home and you would be surprised how many funny signs we came across. Especially in Poland.

In case anybody was wondering, it didn’t taste very good at all. Probably because it was Zartbitter.
We saw a random communist bus. I don’t know why.

In krakow, people fart on street signs

When we were leaving Poland to go to Israel, we had a 7 hour layover in Frankfurt airport. My group of friends wandered over to the bookstore to buy some foreign magazines to keep us entertained. At the store, we giggled at the names of towns to tour. This one pretty much speaks for itself.

Then we arrived in Israel. Israel is my favorite place in the whole world except for maybe my summer camp. Not only because it is the land of my ancestors and all historical, but also because in Israel, hummus is very convienient. You know you are in Israel when hummus comes in pudding cups at gas stations.

And last but not least, while we were touring Tel Aviv and learning about the city’s historical roots, we came across this sign.

Translation: 31 Penis street.

40 teenagers walking past this street made for a lot picture taking. We got a lot of stares from the locals, because in Israel, it means something totally different and completely appropriate.

I hope you enjoyed my silly Israel pictures. I have pretty and scenic and memorable ones too of course, but these are the ones I brought just for my mom's blog. I plan to go again next year and hope to bring you more!

Texas is Exploding in Wildfires and Cookie Monster T-Shirts. And mattresses.

2011-09-05T17:38:00.011-05:00

Hello blogging world! Contrary to all appearances, I haven't forgotten about you! It's just that school started. And also, I had to get the Sweet Pea an x-ray of her damaged-ligament wrist.

And we had to go see Robert Earl Keen
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And we had to go camping and then the roads were closed so we couldn't get home without driving all over parts of Texas that we had never, ever seen (where for some unknown reason many adults were wearing Cookie Monster t-shirts).

And I had to take pictures of these mattresses littering the pavement:

This guy was upset that I took pictures. Then he told me he needed me to delete them and I was all, "Okay".

So I deleted two. But then I kept two. Because sorry, but when you throw mattresses all over the place, tourists are going to want to take pictures!

He should know that! He's a motel owner...or something. Anyway...aside from spending 27 hundred hours on the phone with the carbonite back up people (they're very nice), that's mostly what I've done.

Except for take this picture of a gummy chicken leg.

Because everyone needs one of those.

Yet Another Reminder that Satan Controls All Fun

2011-08-18T15:51:00.004-05:00

Jesus is practically BEGGING me to alienate every last Christian that I know. Apparently. Actually, I'm probably not limiting myself to alienating Christians, but what can I do when this sign is only a few traffic lights from my house?

At any rate, anyone remember how satan controls all fun? I think the person who thought up that church sign got fired, because every time I pass by that church these days, it says something boring like, "Visit us on Sunday!"

Or maybe the guy who thought up that sign just moved to a different church. Like maybe this church, where original thought for the day reads as so:

I call it "original" because I thought that people who interpret God's words for the masses steered away from what could possibly be misconstrued as innuendo. But I could be wrong. And after all, giving away and selling are nothing alike whatsoever.

The sign flips back and forth between that and this:

I guess that's for when people get confused by the whole "used and abused" theme and wonder what kind of establishment they've stumbled upon.

On that happy note, school started for teachers last week and yesterday was the first day of school for the kids, so that more or less explains my recent disappearance. A guest post by my Sweet Pea is in the works, but I have to wait until she's home to post.

Little Known Occupational Hazzard Revealed: photographers in imminent danger of impaling themselves with their own fingers

2011-08-06T10:05:00.015-05:00

Hi ho hi ho and stuff...summer vacation ends next week. And so that means not carrying around my good camera. And that means lower quality pictures from random bathrooms:

But that's okay. Because apparently cameras are REALLY REALLY dangerous:

Here are a last few pictures before I go back to the land of point and shoot. These crawfish look just a tad formal to be serving up crap, don't they?

The Texas weather has been even more so. Apparently:

But you know what the really great thing is about borrowing weather from hell? Normally people are not allowed to roller blade on the golf course. But I went out rollerblading when it was a kajillion and a half degrees, and there was absolutely not one single golfing soul (saved OR condemned) to kick me off the golf course.

On the whole "hi ho and back to work we go" subject, I planted sunflowers with my class back in April or May. Here's what one of them looks like now:

So that's about it. Next week it's back to work. Happy weekend all!

It's all happiness and friendliness and niceness until someone jumps off a bridge...

2011-07-29T07:58:00.009-05:00

We went driving around southern Texas last weekend, which is why my blog post had to post itself. Corpus Christi, Palacios, Victoria, Rockport, Port Aransas...they didn't seem to have quite as many crazy signs as Houston, but it was very, very pretty.

And they are HAPPY down there! Practically ecstatic, really.

The hairdressers are happy:

The plumbers are happy:

In Rockport, there was happy pill art:

(ok, I'm not sure how many of those are actual happy pills, but I'm calling them that to suit my purposes)

Even the tacos were laughing!!!

And there was friendliness too:

(They weren't actually all that friendly if you stopped in to ask directions.)

With all all that happiness and friendliness, it's a wonder they had to remind people not to commit suicide.

But, that's the way it was! Happy, mostly friendly, extremely beautiful, and with only the occasional reminder that you might choose at any moment to jump off a bridge.

Happy, friendly, non-bridge-jumping weekend everyone!

If you're looking for me, I'll just be having fun with Ramen noodles. Or...y'know...being wiped out in the Time of Wrath. Something.

2011-07-24T11:00:00.002-05:00

I found the old age home for retired mailboxes:

And I've been looking for magazines ever since Arizaphale alerted me to the existence of "Bacon Busters":

My grocery store didn't have Bacon Busters, but it did have this:

I didn't even know you could HAVE fun with Ramen Noodles. I thought it was just something college-aged kids eat instead of food upon running out of grocery money.

On the other hand, a fun zone at the pharmacy seems logical enough...if you're into that kind of thing.

Signs can be SO bossy. Like this one, ordering people to stop suffering:

Because everyone goes to a reception hall to suffer, and it must be stopped!

Apparently.

If things go as planned my computer should be posting this all by it's lonesome while I am nowhere around.

So that's pretty much it except for this:

I don't even know what to say about this one. The math alone is astounding. And I truly appreciate the visual aid. I'm always kind of lost without a time line.

Hope everyone has had a great weekend and I hope your not caught up in that first tribulation thing. A quarter of the population sounds like kind of a lot.

While I Wasn't Looking, Luxury Was Redefined to Include Trailer Homes

2011-07-17T08:53:00.017-05:00

I didn't really know if I actually had enough silly in me this week for a blog post. I sort of was wondering if I'd just slap up a few more photos from Israel and call it a day.

But then suddenly last night I saw this sign:

And I thought,

"They've redefined luxury to mean a dilapidated motel in a questionable part of town? How 1984 of them!"

I had to go read Wikipedia and of course it turned out I was mixing up doublespeak and newspeak.

And THEN I saw this sign in the bathroom of the Shakespeare Pub:

And I thought,

"I NEVER hold down flashers in public restrooms! I'm obviously not doing my part to keep the bars, clubs, and music venues of Houston safe from perverts!"

Also this week I found out that royalty resides in trailer parks:

I thought kings' dwellings would be more ornate. But then I remembered that luxury had been redefined.

My mom and 10 year old cousin and I went on a geocaching expedition that included walking through here:

Instead of those giant windows, one of those windows was replaced by this:

Lo and behold, no one was sleeping. Or trespassing. Except for me, of course.

But another window was replaced by this sign:

And if I had a scratch and sniff blog, you would find that the level of compliance was not nearly so great for the polite, almost plaintive request.

And so now we know why so many signs are written in the imperative.

And then last but not least, I saw this book:

And so what can I really have to say about my week except that the silly, ridiculous and even absurd is alive and well.

Thanks to everyone for the condolences and I hope everyone's having a good weekend.

A not funny post

2011-07-09T15:00:00.007-05:00

My grandfather passed away yesterday evening. It's okay, really, because living on this planet for 101 years is enough to make anybody tired. But still.

Just before Father's Day, this year:

Way back when (he's on the right, the closest one to the camera):

With my boy and my nephew, 1998:

With my sweet pea, 1995. Ok, maybe I have a something a little funny today after all:

With my aunt:

With my dad and my grandmother:
I'm having a hard time ending this, because he was a hard guy to figure out. So let's end like this:

In loving memory of Elmer, April 1, 1910 to July 8, 2011. Father of Lynne and Donnie. Grandfather of Brad, Kathy, Adam, Bernard, Jill, and David. Great grandfather to Kimberly, Megan, Zach, Josh, Cassie, Rex, Jared, Leo, Nicholas, and Felix.

And hey! My new layout even did a neat thing with the quote. So there we go.

Hi! I'm The Pot! Or maybe I'm The Kettle. I get confused. Maybe I'm having an identity crisis AND I'm a piece of kitchenware.

2011-07-01T16:29:00.005-05:00

A belated birthday present - Sweet Pea has been asking me forever and a half to do a "Non-Clever-Business-Names" post. I decided a clever vs. non-clever would a fun way to do it, but the problem is, clever business names are a little scarce.

NON-clever business names are a dime a dozen though. Misspelling the business name does not necessarily mean the name of the business is clever. Or creative. Or Quee-ative either.

I know! I know! The name of my blog is misspelled but it's something funny my nephew said. I'm not really the pot calling the kettle black. Or maybe I am.

I have to sneak in an Israel photo here. It's hard to tell if this is a purposeful misspelling or a translation error, since Hebrew doesn't really have letters for vowels:

Translations themselves can be amusing sometimes. Would you rather leave the airplane in English, or in French? Because if you're trying to leave in French, don't be making a right turn!

This sign in English asks you not to loiter, which as I understand it can be a solo activity. But in Spanish, it technically only asks you not to congregate, so does that mean if you only speak Spanish, you're allowed to loiter if you're by yourself?

Totally unrelated to anything except for sneaking in photos of Israel, here's a flag in Jerusalem:

Last but not least, here's my boy. He loves me, because I bought him Mexican food.

But he hates me, because Don't I EVER stop taking his picture? EVER?!?!

He doesn't really hate me. He's a good guy, that boy-o-mine.

Also, my blog pictures are small again and I'm not the least bit pleased about it. I might have to change my whole template. But, as Janet at Of Cats & Cardstock sometimes says, you can "click to biggefy" if you are so inclined. At least I think you can.

(Update - I figured out how to get big pictures that don't look icky! But I'm not going to redo all the pictures on this post, just some of them. And also, there's no way to "biggefy" the small ones. I hope I didn't waste you a click!)

Coping With Noisy Neighbors Monthly: hot off the press soon! Except I bet that saying is really out of date because of all the internets these days.

2011-06-24T12:36:00.025-05:00

My Sweet Pea turned sweet 16 in Prague recently.

My understanding is that it is every little girl's hope and dream to spend her 16th birthday in Prague.

So while she's been gone, I've been reading this really great book about parenting teenagers (The Blessing of a B Minus by Wendy Mogel). When she gets back, I'm going to be all prepared to parent the heck out of her.

But really even before reading the book, I think I scored one on the independence thing by sending her to Prague for her birthday, don't you?

Meanwhile, I am totally not even obsessed with chickens. I DID request (and find) a man who enjoys songs about chickens when I tried online dating for the first and only time. But that was because I figured you don't hear all that many depressing songs about chickens, and I wanted to find a man who wasn't prone to despair.

And also, my next door neighbor growing up used to raise chickens. But that's the sum of my experience, chicken-wise.

I would never have guessed that there were entire magazines devoted to chickens:

In the regular magazine section of the grocery store in the fourth biggest city in the United States no less! I mean, there must be more to those birds than meets the eye, because the ratio of apartment dwellers to chicken farmers has to be kind of high at that store.

Surely "Coping with Noisy Upstairs Neighbors Monthly" would have a wider audience, at least within the city limits.

On a totally related note and in the interest of keeping on keeping on, here are some more Israel pictures:

Here's his head. The focus is lousy, but the color kind of makes up for it a little. Maybe.

Here's a kid I don't know chasing a bird:

Maybe he can be featured in that chicken magazine. "Chicken chasing children of Israel, page 28!"

What can I say? It was cute.

Here's a sign:

I seem to still have a lot of pictures, but that's all the staring at the computer I have in me for now.

Have a great weekend everyone and happy sweet 16 to the pea!

Pretty birds and flowers and tanks and bomb shelters. I'm more scattered than usual. And usual is pretty scattered.

2011-06-18T09:26:00.004-05:00

My cousins found this free air while we were out last weekend:
It's such a relief not to have to pay to breath when you're out and about.

Ever on the lookout for people who drive worse than I do, My Sweet Pea spotted the driver of this truck talking on the cell phone while smoking:
You can't see them but the big containers the truck is carrying have all kinds of flammable and danger signs all over them. So it seems there are plenty of death opportunities right here in Houston.

But since I have a seemingly never ending supply of Israel photos, let's go back to Israeli danger:
Maybe the Hebrew or Arabic explains how this poor guy is going to die. He seems to be climbing where he shouldn't be climbing, but whether he's going fall and break his neck or maybe be electrocuted is an English speaker's best guess.

At least he's bound to die amongst the beautiful palms and flowers:

See how pretty Israel is? Look, here's a bird:

And a flower:

This looks like cactus on the top and tree on the bottom. I'd never seen a cactus tree before:

My Sweet Pea on a tank:

And another bomb shelter:

Yeah. That's about all I got for today. Have a great weekend!

Living in Texas Means Every Now & Then Someone Throws a Dead Alligator Head in the Back of your Stepdaughter's Truck. Apparently.

2011-06-11T06:53:00.002-05:00

Living in Texas means that every now and then someone throws (or gently places - who can really tell about these things?) the head of a dead alligator into your stepdaughter's truck.

Unfortunately, being me means that you accidentally delete all the dead alligator head pictures and then accidentally drop your debit card down inside the door of your mother-in-law's car...oh wait...that would be ME that does all that! Not you.

In any case, this week I took pictures of a dead alligator head, accidentally deleted the pictures AND dropped my debit card down into the door of my mother-in-law's car. So I feel like I've accomplished quite a bit on my first full week of summer break, if I do say so myself.

With all that going on, I didn't even have time to call Chuck Schumer:
Or any of the hundreds upon hundreds of other people who insult Houston each day. I mean, I'm sure there are more than you can shake a stick at. Houston's just not that popular.
I'm just going to save my calories for better beer.

OK! I admit it! I don't remember ever having tried Miller Genuine Draft! But I'm sure it's fantastic. It says so right on this truck!
And also, I'm not a beer snob. Well, at least, not that much.

Anyway, here are some more Israel pictures. All of these are from when we stayed with our cousins at the Deganya kibbutz.

The entrance to Deganya Bet:

Deganya Alef zoo:

I forgot I did take pictures of a death sign or two. This time it's death by fertilizer:

There were a bunch of bomb shelters:

And, of course, a chocolate factory:

More later - have a great weekend!

Don't worry, I haven't run out of pictures of Israel

2011-06-06T06:52:00.006-05:00

It was suggested to me recently that although the Israel pictures are very pretty, the signs are really the main draw around here.

Unfortunately, I didn't take so very many sign pictures in Israel this past visit. I took a bunch on our other visit, but I noticed that most of my older Israeli sign pictures had a common theme:

"Warning! Death!"

They don't always give a detailed description of HOW you're going to die, just y'know, try and be on the lookout for the grim reaper*

I did get a couple of signs this time though. I took this out a hotel window. Obviously, this is for all those people walking around Jerusalem in midair:

This one speaks for itself, doesn't it?

I'm not sure what this one is all about, but it's certainly emphatic:

Here's another sign at Deganya Alef. It's not funny, but I still liked it:

And with that, we'll go back to a couple "pretty" Israel pictures and then call it a day.

Guy on a little side street off Ben Yehuda street in Jerusalem:

I had to take a picture of this church. I think it's the rule:

And since I'm taking a stab at "pretty", a flower in Jerusalem:

That's it for now! But don't worry, I still have like 600 pictures to wade through.

I know, you were all terrified that I was going to run out of vacation pictures.

*post from a few years ago with some danger/death signs

Zucchini Hunt Deemed a Success...and other totally random photos

2011-05-28T14:37:00.008-05:00

I seem to have lost some momentum on my Israel photos, due to the end of the school year among other things. Here's a picture of a flower on the beach at Tel Aviv on our last day, totally out of order:

I'm up to Passover and there's where I stick for awhile. We got to meet a bunch of cousins for the first time. Here's my Sweet Pea with one of them:

A few random pictures NOT from Israel. These first two are from Half Price Books. I wonder which shelves hold the "old and boring" books?

And who the heck are supposed to read the children's books if the children aren't allowed to read them?

The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken and my boy hunted this zucchini:

Obviously zucchini burgers are on the menu.

In other news, unless I brought one home with me yesterday, I seem to have made it through an entire school year without catching lice. And I think I've planned enough projects for this summer to last me the next three summers.

Happy weekend and Memorial Day everyone!

Because Who Doesn't Need to Rent a Few Live Chickens Every Now and Again?

2011-05-21T04:44:00.002-05:00

When I walked into the lobby of my kids' school on Tuesday and saw a coop full of live chickens, I thought the obvious:

"Oh. They have chickens today."

If I thought any more deeply about, I just naturally assumed they were doing something educational as well as exciting and hands-on.

It turned out that I thought wrong though, because when I went in to see the receptionist, her phone had no handset. And there was almost no light in the entire building, because the light bulbs were removed and hidden. And there were random locks on every locker, and pretend appendages sticking out from ceiling tiles*.

And there was a pick up truck in the cafeteria:

The point of senior prank, as I understand it, is to cause enough chaos so that it is impossible to hold regularly scheduled classes the following day. I'm going to say this year's crop of seniors was fairly successful.

Where did they get the live chickens I wondered?

"They rented them." my Sweet Pea informed me.

But of course. What kind of sorry excuse for a city would this be if one couldn't even rent a few live chickens for making mischief?

Have I ever mentioned that I love my kids' school? More Israel photos coming next time and have a great weekend!

*Including the skeleton arm sticking out from the chicken coop, although most of them were arms and legs, not bones.

First and Foremost, I'm not in Israel Anymore. I am Infatuated With Palm Trees Though. Apparently.

2011-05-13T20:32:00.007-05:00

It turns out that I confused a couple of people, which is not unusual. These are pictures from our second day in Israel. I'm not STILL in Israel though. I'm just really, really slow at posting the pictures.

I took about six kajillion photos of palm trees. I'll spare you all but these few though:

Actually, I lied. Here are a few more:

Most of the palm tree pictures I took out of the car window on the way to the Dead Sea at Ein Gedi. The water in the Dead Sea is some of the saltiest on earth and I can tell you from personal experience that it tastes terrible; I would never have imagined that there's a big problem with people drinking it. But it seems I'm just lacking in imagination:

Here's the Dead Sea:

And here are The-Guy, My Boy, and Older and Younger Gal a floatin' in the salty stuff:

All that stuff near the bottom of the picture you can sort of see under the water are like rocks covered in salt or rocks made of salt. The salt just chunks up like this:

And since that's probably about as many palm trees and salt rocks most people need to see on any given day, I'll stop for now. Have a great weekend everyone!

Pictures of My Boy Not Getting His Toes Run Over in Jerusalem

2011-05-07T13:16:00.019-05:00

I've managed to plow through the rest of our first day in Israel! Quite the feat, I know...

We ended up seeing the Arab section of the market twice, once on purpose, once on accident. The on purpose time was after the tour of the Western Wall.

They said everything was fine, fine, fine. Just make sure you are between the two armed guards. I'm sure it would have been fine without the guards too. The reason I can be so sure is that we didn't have any guards when we went there by accident. We saw the Jewish section too, of course.

We walked around the old city a little. Or maybe we were just looking for the way back to the hotel, I'm not sure.

I was really kind of certain this taxi was going to lop off my boy's toes. But, since he already had his bar mitzvah, obviously my job was just to photograph the event. In any case, I'm pretty sure he's now big enough to whisk me out of danger rather than the other way around. Still, even in this picture those tires look kind of close to his feet. In real life they looked way, way closer:

He made it to the other side with all ten toes still attached:

Near our hotel, The Montiefiore Windmill

The Jerusalem Railway Station:

And a random running guy. Wikipedia didn't have a link for him. I don't know why.

Then it got to be night. I still had to take pictures though:

And that's all for day one! At this rate I should be able to get all the pictures up by the time in just the blink of an eye! Or at least by the time my boy graduates college.

Everywhere We Go, I Want to Live There

2011-04-30T08:56:00.009-05:00

Everywhere we go, I want to live there. Especially Jerusalem. Especially New Orleans. Especially Austin. More or less I seem to be interested in living in the most holy and most decadent locations we've visited.

The reason I didn't have internet last week was because we were in Israel. Israel actually DOES have internet. I just didn't have any internet, personally.

I totally overwhelmed myself with the number of pictures I took so I'm starting with our arrival and the first half of our first day.

In Israel, even the airport is pretty:

A random burnt up bus. I don't know why.

The Western Wall:

The-Guy took these two, me and a running little girl:

The Western Wall from above:

AND from below! We took a tour in tunnels underneath. If you ever get to go to Jerusalem the underground tour is GREAT!

Up in the left hand corner the papers in the little square inset thing are people's prayers. That's my sweet pea holding up the camera. Of course!

The kids in the tunnel. They're still all happy with each other, because they haven't had to sleep together in a hotel room for a week yet:

Here's the part that the tour guide says is the very closest you can get to the holiest place on earth. She said that the women there aren't really supposed to be praying when there's a tour but that in Israel you can't tell people what to do.

The woman in the ponytail looks all pious, but notice the camera. She's actually on the tour with us:

More to come when I get my act together!

So Naturally My Only Choice Seems to be to Move to England

2011-04-23T20:11:00.001-05:00

I have to move to England soon, because my taxes were an absolute nightmare.

DJ Kirkby said that she USED to file taxes in Canada, but now that she lives in England, she doens't have to. So England it is. Besides, my Sweet Pea wants to be surrounded by English accents, so it all works out for the best.

The complexity of my taxes wasn't helped any by the fact that when I opened up ANY and EVERY pdf, the only thing that would display was this picture of me sitting by the side of the road when my car broke down awhile back:

The Guy fixed adobe for me though (and my car). So now if I try and open up a pdf, it still shows this picture. But if I make a bunch of unhappy noises and then reload, it magically magically shows me the pdf.

I don't have too many more pictures this week, except this somewhat overzealous seeming ad:

If all goes as planned, you will be able to read this and I won't. I'd say why, but that would ruin the mystery and stuff. It mostly has to do with the not-having-internet-thing that I mentioned in my last post. I will read everything soon, when I am reunited with internet!

Happy Passover!

2011-04-18T09:20:00.002-05:00

I don't really have internet right now, so I'm just republishing the Passover story as told by my Sweet Pea when she was three:

The king was very bad. He wanted to take away all the baby boys. But baby Moses’s mommy didn’t want him to be taken away. She put him in a basket and took him to an ocean and put him in. Another person found him.

Then the burning plant was God. God told Moses, “Here. Have a stick.”

Happy Passover - I will be making a real-ish post soon!

Gambling Losses is My Favorite Income Tax Question. If you can have a favorite income tax question.

2011-04-10T12:45:00.011-05:00

I said last week that I didn't see any silly signs. But I forgot that I saw a guy wheeling a toilet down the road:

I don't know why.

I also saw three different toilets lining the street outside my kids' school, but My Sweet Pea asked me not to take a picture for fear of embarrassment. For whatever reason I heeded her pleas. This time.

This guy visited our back yard:

The-Guy's roses are going crazy. I actually took this picture last month, but for some reason I only got it as far as flickr and not this blog:

This weekend I've been trying to figure out the great mystery of income taxes. The main thing I've learned is that despite my fascination with trains, I'm really, really happy that I don't work on the railroad.

That's because there seem to be about five or six questions about railroad income on each form. So every time I see that question, I celebrate. Yay! Another question I KNOW I got right! I like the fishing tax form and the gambling income questions too. I always know for certain I don't have those.

So that's about my week - I've moved on from typing papers to trying to figure out taxes. Time's a ticking.

So What if It Smells like Dead Fish and the Sand is Brownish?

2011-04-03T18:17:00.008-05:00

I don't have all that much to say except I spent an entire weekend without writing a paper or doing a project, and I'm incredibly happy about that. I didn't even take pictures of silly signs. But I did go to Galveston.

I know no one calls Galveston "beautiful." It doesn't have the bluest water or the pretty kind of sand. But when I close my eyes the waves sound just exactly the same.

And also, the mystery of starting with pee was solved in the comments of the last post. The martial arts place actually aksed the students to start with SPEED, but they made the mistake of starting with dry erase.

Have a good week everyone!

Start With Pee, End With a Special Event. Or maybe it's the other way around.

2011-03-29T14:56:00.004-05:00

My plan for celebrating my very last class was to take a few pictures of my cousins and then sleep in on Sunday. Instead, I saw David Allen Coe went to bed right around when I usually wake up. The best laid plans of mice and men...

I didn't get a picture of David Allen Coe, but The-Guy did get a picture of a sign. I don't even want to consider what type of special events are held in bathrooms:

The bathroom was working despite the lack of special events, so My Boy thought that maybe using the bathroom WAS the special event.

My Stepgal painted my toenails like this:

A five year old asked me if it came out of the bottle like that. I guess when you've grown up knowing skype and cell phones and all types of i-things, newsprint out of a bottle sounds completely plausible.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to start with "pee" no matter what one ends with, but evidently that's what they're condoning at My Boy's martial arts class:

I don't know why.

And that's it - another fine week! Wishing everyone a good one!

I'll take some hazardous material with that crock pot please...

2011-03-19T05:57:00.003-05:00

I've been half on vacation, because I'm off from work, but not from my classes. I'm done with my classes in a week though, so then as That Sweet Pea O' Mine pointed out, I'll be half on vacation all the time!

I pass by this sign on my way home. It flashes these messages:

I'm not sure which I'm pining for most - hazardous material or the ELE, but either way a garage ale is a good deal, I'm sure.

My brother is visiting from Buffalo. Maybe you can kind of tell why My Boy and the Sweet Pea call him "Uncle Fun":

We saw this daycare. I'm sure it's way better than the immoral ones down the street!

My brother spotted this sign. Otherwise, I'm sure the sidewalks would be littered! Littered with motorcycles I tell 'ya!

I dunno. I though sidewalks were for walking, but who's to really say about these things?

Flowers in the front yard:

Last but not least, That Sweet Pea O' Mine wanted me to show off this kitty face inside a carrot:

And that's it! One week left to go on my classes and then I start my 12 step program for people who sign up for too much stuff! Happy weekend everyone!

My Last Class is Technology. Maybe I Can Learn Me Some Internets

2011-03-15T05:06:00.004-05:00

I'm in my last class. I hate it, because it is an introductory course and irritating. I love it, because occasionally I can play with my camera and call it homework.

But I hate it, because it's time consuming in a way that doesn't normally involve a camera.

At least I got to go to the coast this weekend and see birds and wild boars having dinner.

And My Guy's ball game.

And bake hamentashen cookies.

When I posted about Go Texan Day, Bruce (from Hypocrisy) was trying to reconcile the whole Cowboy Texan Jew thing.

If thinking Kinky Friedman doesn't do the trick, what about jalapeño jelly filled hamentashen?

I tried s'mores flavor and some with peanut butter and chocolate this year too.

Back to work on my class! I need to go learn me how to do stuff on the internets.

Happy week everyone!

I Forgot to Leave Time for Breathing

2011-03-06T12:20:00.019-06:00

Within the past twelve months, in addition to working and parenting and doing laundry and stuff I have: gotten married, celebrated my boy's bar mitzvah, started a Master's Degree and come within three weeks of finishing it (okay, twenty days). It's a lot for one year.

When people at work asked how I could possibly complete a Master's in only one year, I answered with the God's honest truth:

I cried a lot.

I don't recommend speeding through like that AT ALL. Although it may be preferable to prolonging the misery, who knows?

This week, I somehow managed to take 500 and something pictures of My Sweet Pea's school play, three of which are suitable for this blog (because they don't feature other kids...privacy and all). Presenting Veruca Salt:

Meanwhile, My Boy made a joke:

For whatever reason he was allowed to watch The Grudge at his dad's house. Fully aware of my disapproval, My Boy remained quiet as I interrogated him...

Me - "What was the name of that movie you saw? The Ghost? The Grime?"
Him - No response
Me - "The Grime? The Grin? The Grudge? The Glove?"
Him - No response
Me - "It was something scary that started with a 'g'..."
Him - "The Gas Prices!!!"

He's right. I'm terrified. And that's about it for another week!

I Just Now Turned in a 13,712 Word Paper

2011-02-26T15:12:00.005-06:00

I just turned in a 13,712 word paper which had to be written in four weeks, so I don't have too very many words left.

Luckily I have these words are leftover from the day before yesterday: "It's FEBRUARY and it's too hot to keep chocolate in your car without it melting (all over the steering wheel). It is 78 degrees as I type this right now. Thank goodness."

And these words from yesterday: "Today was Go Texan Day (the day the trail riders come in for rodeo). I finally have a whole Go Texan Day outfit and thanks to The-Guy, I also have a picture:"

I think that's about all I can manage until my eyes stop burning out from staring at the computer screen. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend!

I Need to Take These Nice People Home with Me Because They Don't Scowl When a Camera Comes Near Them. Except Then I'd Need a Kosher Kitchen.

2011-02-21T07:13:00.014-06:00

Last week was tough, tough, tough. Nothing really so very horrible happened in the grand scheme of things but still, it was just one of those weeks that left me wondering if maybe that survival instinct is overrated. I mean seriously, giving up would just be so much easier sometimes.

In fact, I lost my entire sense of humor right around Monday of last week and it didn't come back full force until Thursday or Friday, so that makes for sort of slim pickins blogging-wise.

I tried to do the water droplet thing, fairly unsuccessfully:

But I had a lot of fun with these nice people!

And then that Sweet Pea O' Mine came through with this sign. Things were looking up!

It's amazing how firm we are in our belief that chickens enjoy being eaten. Because nothing says cruising and fun like being fried up for someone's dinner!

On Thursday we welcome The-Guy's mom to Texas after living her entire 89 years in the Washington DC area AND only five weeks left on the count down to the Master's thing AND my kids smiled for the camera! This week looks good so far!

How a Coffee Mug is going to Make Me Almost Have to Quit My Job

2011-02-12T22:36:00.015-06:00

You might be raising a Texan if your 15 year old daughter wakes up when it's 20 degrees and actually says the words, "It is SO COLD TODAY!!!! WHY are we having school?!?!" It's not her fault. The snow day with no snow was confusing for a lot of people I guess.

My stepgal brought home a coffee mug that orders people around whenever they open up the cabinet:

I could never drink out of a mug like this in the morning, because I'd waste the entire rest of the day just thinking up ways to be either passive aggressive or just downright defiant. It's so hard to choose sometimes.

Besides, some of these directives aren't even practical. Like, "Eat when you're hungry":

If I were the type to be ordered around by a coffee mug, first and foremost I'd have to quit my job. Because if I ate when I was hungry, I would be eating the entire livelong day. I wouldn't have time to eat all day AND hold down a job.

And that's just ONE of the direct orders! The whole mug is covered in them. I probably wouldn't have time for vacations either.

What I need is a coffee mug that's gives unsolicited advice in a gentler fashion. Something like this might help me make it to work in the morning:

In other news, I finally threw these out yesterday after having them for two years:

I thought having two year old cookies would protect me somehow, because why buy more when you still have some from two years ago? But it turns out that there's really no protection from girl scout cookies (Sorry Julie!).

At any rate, it's time to start a countdown. I don't think I actually graduate until April and won't see a piece of paper saying so until summer, but if all goes as planned I should be done with all the work for my Master's in six weeks.

Definite Proof That We Needed A Snow Day Even Though There Wasn't Any Snow

2011-02-05T10:38:00.016-06:00

Look:

In years past I have spent a good solid hour just trying to get from North Braeswood to South Braeswood, and that was just for heavy rain, not snow.

Now that we had actual ice, I say our snow day was well deserved, especially since the freeways were closed. Gallons and gallons of gas would have been wasted as cars idled while the drivers whiled away their work day stuck on the side roads.

We're already not incredibly environmentally friendly. Better not to chance it.

Besides, if we have to deal with cockroaches, floods, 100 degree temperatures, tropical rain storms, and hurricanes, we should definitely get to stay inside when the temperature is in the twenties.

That's just fair.

Here are some ice pictures. I couldn't take very many, because I don't own gloves:
These look like water droplets, but they're really ice. In Houston. On roses that were in bloom the very day before. We definitely needed to stay home:

Does it count as taking photos while driving if you're at a stop light? Here's a truck in the lane next to me. Yeah I know I said we should stay in, but this was after 12:00, when the roads were deemed "safe-ish". The freeway was still closed though:

Here's one last one from the same tree as the first picture, in front of our house. Now please excuse me. I have on 752 sweaters and it's hard to move my arms into the proper position to type. I might have to come back and center and resize the photos later!

Who Needs ACTUAL Snow to Have a Snow Day? Hello from the land of the rolling blackouts...

2011-02-03T17:54:00.020-06:00

We have a snow day tomorrow!

We don't actually have any SNOW, but we have a snow day.

And to all those people who are laughing at Houston just because we don't need an actual snowflake to shut down the city, I say this - YES the schools may have called a little on the early side.

But if a city has
no snow plows
no sand or salt trucks
no cars with four wheel drive/all wheel drive
no snow tires
and nobody's even heard of a cotton pickin' ice scraper...
it might be a little hard to drive in inclement weather.

I think Houstonians deserve a snow day just because we THOUGHT about snow. Or hail. Or sleet. Or even the ice pellets they're predicting.

And considering our average commute times are ALREADY among the nation's highest even when the weather is gorgeous, we probably ought to shut the city down when it rains too.

At any rate, here's the picture of herself my Sweet Pea likes:

Never mind that she's scowling. She has good hair.

And here's a picture of a sign. I've always wanted to take a picture of this sign. I don't know why. But I wish I had done it before Hurricane Ike lopped off the top and Enrique added his two cents:

At any rate, I'll let you know if we get any actual weather, besides from the pipes which are already bursting left and right. Did I mention we had rolling blackouts yesterday?

Happy week everyone!

Now I Have a Day and Half to Sin! Come to Think of it, I'll Just Take Pictures of Signs and Stuff Instead.

2011-01-28T14:11:00.031-06:00

I turned in a HUGE project for my master's classes yesterday. I have a day and a half before starting my next project, so I have time to sin now!

Except, I think I'll just take snapshots of signs instead.

I saw this billboard about the SPCA. I have nothing whatsoever against the SPCA. I hear they're fantabulous. But this sign makes me realize that animal best friends are different from people best friends:

Because my best friends don't actually euthanize me if I overstay my welcome. They just start talking about vaginal exercises and hope I go away.

Since I have an entire day and half, I might as well not even confine myself to signs. Here are some trees near my work:

In other happy news, this kid passed driver's ed!!!!!

Driver's Ed ain't what it used to be, and this was an ORDEAL and half! We're happy it's over! We're SO happy that we don't even care if she actually drives, we're just celebrating driver's ed being over.

Not to be outdone, the other day this kid ate a third of a bottle of catchup in one sitting:

See? This bottle was full when he sat down to eat:

Ok, I helped him a little.

Also, I tried to get the pictures bigger on this blog. Although, I'm not sure anyone actually needed to see a jumbo sized bottle of catchup. But that's about it from Casa Twipply Skwood - catchup and signs and big things completed! Here's wishing you an equally productive week!

In Case You Were Wondering if the Rest of my Family Is Any More Sane Than I Am, They Are. We call this Supportive!

2011-01-23T06:52:00.019-06:00

Hello people! What do you know? Much to my surprise it seems we have made it through yet another week!

Unfortunately I seemed to have made it through the week without much in the way of pictures. Except, I did get this of that Sweet Pea o' Mine:Luckily, my brother sent this picture. "No what" you ask? No. Just no.It's like the two year old national anthem is just posted for drivers' enjoyment.

My brother also sent me a picture of the ever popular and easy to find corner of McWhorter and McWhorter:I got this photo of my brother's boys Rex and Leo from my dad, along with a note that said:

"On top of Mount Cardigan. Lost Leo over the edge of the cliff but Rex managed to hang on. One out two isn't all that bad."

If anyone's looking for a husband, my dad found one: He really seems quite thorough. The "taking your ex's stuff out" seems particularly convenient, especially if you're looking for a rent-to-own type of husband.

Older Gal sent a picture of a Chanukah menorah on top of a car. I was going to save it for next Chanukah, but I'm on a roll: I would have cropped it and stuff so the menorah was more visible, but the sky was much too pretty to crop out.

Last but not least, a coworker sent me this video.

Ok, wait...I thought I knew how to embed a video, but apparently I don't. At any rate, it's Ellen WhateverherlastnameisthatstartswithaD making fun of this children's book here for obvious reasons: If you're way more video-y than me, I believe I have actually managed a link: Ellen D: Fun with children's lit.

Did I question my entire family's sanity in the title of the post? I'm going to call that supportive actually. And my coworker. We'll call her that too, as long as we're calling names.

Have a great week everyone!

I Don't Have Time To Sin Even if I Wanted To

2011-01-16T10:48:00.015-06:00

People are good.

Oh, I know that there are a few mean ones and criminals stuff, but mostly they're good. Look: The-Guy lost his wallet on Wednesday. Saturday night we got it back WITH the cash still in it.

I was telling this person who I totally don't work with and has nothing to do with my job (because I NEVER blog about my job) that I don't even have time to sin these days, even if I wanted to. Because I spent like 11 hours with my nose pressed up against the computer working yesterday, and today I'm looking at more of the same.

But then again I did end up with time to sin, because that was a lie. I might work with her. Sometimes. But only Monday through Friday.

So I love people, because they're good. Mostly. And also I love Walgreens. Because it's convenient, and also they have great sales.

You can get totally serious for only $.25! Maybe the people on this church bus have time to sin. Because, look, it has the devil's phone number:And also, I love my phone because although I've had it for two years, I just today figured out how to get those two pictures off of it.

Anyway, nose back to the grindstone - hope everyone's had a great week!

Beward of Turtle

2011-01-10T20:23:00.009-06:00

Let's see...mostly around here I'm just doing my school work and saying things like, "I'm never signing up for ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!!!!" and also, "I'M SO TIRED OF SCHOOLWORK!!!!"

And so it's a good thing "being a good role model" was not in my top three reasons for going back to school for my master's. Actually, I just remembered that I didn't really HAVE a reason, but It's too late to turn back now.

Here's a picture of That Sweet Pea O' Mine, learning to play the ukulele. It's not really so very difficult.Here's another bar mitzvah picture of my boy:In Texas, where it's totally permissible for any-ole'-body to carry a concealed handgun, what you really have to be careful about is the turtles. The turtles are so dangerous, they have to put up warning signs. See?
Here are some decorations downtown:

I'm sure this gift was a gigantic hit and kids are just a'thankin' Santa right and left. I bet kids near and far just couldn't even believe their eyes when they opened their stockings!
'Cause what kid wasn't dreaming of a flu shot for Christmas I wonder?

Well, back to my schoolwork. I'll be up for air sometime this Spring.

Besides for two trips to the ER, sliding my mom's car into a ditch, and a bruised (cracked?) rib, it was a really, really fantastic vacation!

2011-01-05T13:30:00.003-06:00

What with the multiple ER trips (for That Sweet Pea O' Mine, for asthma), a rib injury (for The-Guy, although it was not skiing that did him in, but in a snowball fight a day or two later) vacation wasn't as carefree as I had imagined. But it was still a very, very nice trip.

We skied. We read the paper. We had a New Year's party. Or we helped Mom and Dad have a New Year's party. Although, I wasn't actually all that much help. Sometimes I make a New Year's resolution though.

One year my resolution was to start liking whiskey. It took me more than one year to accomplish, but I'm glad I did it because it saves a lot of calories. Another year I resolved to start saying more swear words, but that didn't really take.

This year I'm resolving to stop gasping. Y'know, like when you suddenly remember that some big project or assignment is due in an hour? My brother says it causes excess adrenaline, and I barely know what to do with the adrenaline I've already got, so I'm trying to go cold turkey on the gasping. That Sweet Pea O' Mine says she's going to help me by flicking me every time I gasp.

I used to put a lot of emotional energy into whether or not our New Year's party traditions were maintained, but I'm mostly over that now. If my brother pours a champagne tower wearing a silly hat, I'm about as happy as can be. Unless there's music and singing and dancing. Then I'm even happier than can be.
One year we even canceled the New Years party altogether, and merely had people over for food and drinks and music and decorations and dancing. And that is totally different from having a party. Because it is. I don't know why.

Here are some pictures from New Year's past:

New Year's Eve, 1979, Little Rock, Arkansas
New Year's Eve, 1980-something, Sharon, Vermont:New Year's Eve, 1993, Sharon, Vermont:I'd wish everyone a happy New Year, but I think I've already done that on my last two posts. So I'll just wish anyone who saw midnight or beyond a speedy recovery on the sleep front!

We're not in Vacationland. But it's sort of like Vacationland. It's called Mom & Dad's.

2010-12-29T19:23:00.012-06:00

Again, through the magic of the internet, I'm not even here. I'm visiting at my parents. Here's my baby nephew, isn't he the cutest?!?!?

Here's my boy skiing. I skied too, but luckily there wasn't a picture, because I wore purple snow pants and just missed looking like a giant grape by half of an outfit.My Sweet Pea went back to the hospital, but I didn't even manage a picture this time. It was asthma, and don't worry - she's doing well.

In lieu of an asthma picture, I offer these people we saw in Houston right before we left, bundled nice and warm against the cold:It was in the high 50s/low 60s mind you.

I also have this one sign I saw while skating last week:I mean, I try NEVER to leave money on shelves. But there wasn't even a shelf. There were some cubby type things nearby, but no shelf. So that makes it way easier to comply.

Have a great New Year everyone!!!!!

Satan Controls All Fun. I didn't actually decide that. I saw it on a church sign today.

2010-12-22T00:48:00.009-06:00

As I type this it's a few days before Christmas and the temperature is in the 80s. Still, Houstonians make a valiant effort, don't they?

If that's not enough to fill you with holiday cheer, I don't know what is!

Maybe the depths of despair would be more up your alley? Speaking of which, I saw this on my way to bring the kids to school:
Just in case you missed it, that would be:
Really?!?!?! ALL fun?!?!? Like, even wholesome fun like playing catch? What about baseball?

Does Satan control board games? What about those big inflatable play things that kids bounce around in?But maybe Satan SHOULD control those big, inflatable play things that kids get into a bounce around. SOMEBODY has to make sure that the big kids don't all go in at the same time and trample the little kids.

I'm actually kind of surprised there wasn't a stampede to attend that church such that I couldn't even get a photo...

At any rate, in case I don't get to post again before New Years (especially if I get smote and all from making fun of a church sign) have a great Christmas and New Years too! Most importantly, try not to let Satan control all your fun!

Photo:Bouncy house

This Shin is Done Dug

2010-12-20T06:30:00.032-06:00

We've had about all the shin digs a body can stand in the past couple few months. Thanks to everyone for my boy's bar mitzvah! Thanks to people who don't like to speak in front of crowds but who still read stuff, especially if they read it in a language they didn't know. Thanks to my cousin for calling me before the break of dawn to make sure the music was perfect!

Thanks to Older Gal for pitching in whenever and however she could. Thanks to people who drove and flew incredible distances to be here, and to people who came even though they just got out of the hospital (and thanks for these party pictures too Debbie)! Thanks to my sister-in-law who took sole care of my baby nephew and withstood computer problems and other storm and strife just so my brother and older nephews could come. Thanks to my other cousin for holding up the Torah even though I forgot he just had back surgery. Thanks to people who came short distances, but had to fight galleria traffic to get to the party location or drive in the dark on Friday night. Thanks to my coteacher for not complaining even though I had to use each and every classroom break to make phone calls. Thanks to all my coworkers. Even though I just invited people I work with directly, I truly wish it could have been all the teachers. Thanks to my Sweet Pea for trailblazing and for helping her brother out all she could. And thanks to my other cousin for reassuring me that it's perfectly normal to discover people I should have invited every time I turn around. Thanks to my cousins and relatives and friends who wished they could be there but couldn't. Thanks to friends who did stuff to help, and friends who offered to help.Thanks to Mom and Dad who always do everything they can to make everything better and thanks to my brother for coming to Houston (premier vacation spot that it is) twice in six months. Thanks to all my boy's teachers and the rabbi and the cantor and the gabbai and everyone at the synagogue. And thanks to The-Guy for being my strength when I didn't have any. Thanks of course to anyone who read this far and everyone for everything, especially in this crazy holiday filled month.More pictures to come!

The Iternet is Magical. I look like I'm here, but really I'll be back tomorrow or Monday.

2010-12-18T09:00:00.000-06:00

If all goes as planned, I'm not actually posting this right now, I'm listening to my boy read Torah!Except, hopefully he's wearing a suit instead of Christmas colors. At least that's the plan anyway. You know, the plans I've had more than two years to make, but decided to pack into two and half weeks instead?

At any rate happy birthday to my boy! He's thirteen today, on his bar mitzvah day!!!!

I hope everyone had a great week and has a great weekend and I will catch up with everyone because VACATION!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!

Jill

I have six papers due plus my boy's bar mitzvah all in the next eight days. So how can I really be expected to think up a decent title I ask you?!?

2010-12-11T07:54:00.000-06:00

When I mentioned my need to learn to plan a bar mitzvah in two and a half weeks, my friend Beth came up with this helpful hint:

I think first and foremost, you give everyone the wrong time and then print up correction postcards and forget to mail them. Isn't that the way you do it?

And that is exactly, exactly what I did!!!! So I'm good there.

But I'm not the only one working hard on this event. My boy has been studying practically since he was born. The-Guy is acting as his personal postman. Older Gal is tempering our bad moods with baked goods.

And of course my Sweet Pea is doing her darndest to free up beds for relatives. She does this by making herself at home (as usual) in the ER. (A door closed on her foot, but don't worry, she's fine):Even the good for nothing cat is pulling his weight, by reminding us that you should not forget to stop and smell the roses.
Eat some too. They're delicious.

And when you're done, feel free to drink some of the water from the vase. 'Cause all those rose petals make a body very thirsty. Apparently.
Plus, the roses are decimated anyway, so how much water could they really need?

Hope everyone has had a nice week! Thank you for the good thoughts for my friend - it will still be a long road, but so far so good!!

How to Plan a Bar Mitzvah in Two and a Half Weeks

2010-12-04T05:32:00.010-06:00

I don't actually know how to plan a bar mitzvah in two and a half weeks, but I'm trying to learn. If I get any worthwhile experience, I'll pass it on. Come to think of it, I have a day less than two weeks now.

There's just not another way to describe this week besides "bad". A good friend of my parents passed away unexpectedly and a good friend of mine discovered a very serious health condition.

Here she is all happy and dancing at the wedding. She's in black, I'm in the makeshift wedding dress, and my other friend is in greenish-yellowish and black, and they're both of them the best friends a person could ever want:But she made it through what more or less amounts to brain surgery, so even though it's Chanukah, it's actually a second Thanksgiving.

So happy (C)han(n)uk(k)a(h) people! That's how my friend/coworker has decided it should be spelled and I completely agree. And happy second Thanksgiving too!

Between the lost goats and the dog that sounds like it needs to be flushed down the toilet, there must be a title around here somewhere.

2010-11-27T09:54:00.005-06:00

Here's my boy, getting his yellow belt:

My small camera has a lot of settings: one for portrait, one for snow, one for fireworks. There is no "rotten lighting, through a glass window, constant movement, bright primary colors on every surface" setting though. So that was the best I could do.

I love downtown. I love the light rail, and the graffiti, and the old brick buildings, and the crack heads offering to watch your car for you, and the signs.No sleeping standing in doorway. I love it! Does that mean you can sleep in the doorway if you're sitting down? What if you're slumped against the door sill? Could you sleep all curled up in the doorway lying down?

And I love the lost goats. I mean, right near the center of the fourth biggest city in the United States, people lose goats.And I love that even when we're late for the airport, my man turns right around and does a U-Turn if he sees a sign about lost goats. So that's what makes him the perfect man for me. That, of course and the fact that he enjoys songs about chickens...and whiskey.

My Sweet Pea found this book in the bargain bin of a close out store:I just can't IMAGINE why it didn't sell. I mean, I don't know what kind of euphemisms are popular in your area, but around here caca and poopoo are pretty much the same thing.

On that appetizing note I leave you with this Thanksgiving cartoon, which I've used before, but I still like:Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and ate a lot of big dead bird!

Taking photos while driving: possibly a more socially acceptable hobby than defending meth heads. I must have a good hobby around here somewhere...

2010-11-19T08:30:00.004-06:00

When I started this blog, those two nice teenagers who you can see in the sidebar were a little younger than this:They've more or less grown up blogged. And so that must be why now, when My Boy accidentally knocks a shelf out of the refrigerator, my Sweet Pea's instinct is to run for the camera:
And what I end up hearing is that he knocked a shelf out, "but don't worry! I got pictures!" Far be it from her to leave spilled salsa undocumented - that's my girl!!

I was met with these wasps in the bathroom the other morning:It's a far cry from the rose petals I found last time, I tell 'ya!

I wish I could have gotten a better photo while I was driving, but here's a bunch of birds:
I don't just need a photography class, I need a photography-while-driving class. In fact, if Leisure Learning doesn't offer it, I might just have to start teaching it as an after school enrichment class.

Except, my preschoolers can't drive. But that's okay. Maybe my Sweet Pea can drum up some business for me at her high school. There are probably just oodles of teens all clamoring to learn to photograph spilled salsa while driving. I think.

In any case, that's about all I've got this week - it's been another busy one! Here's to a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone just in case I don't manage a Thanksgiving post!

I Just Don't Want to See Meth Heads Getting a Bad Name

2010-11-13T03:32:00.011-06:00

Last night I argued on the side meth heads in my master's class. I don't know why, since I don't even know any meth heads. The-Guy is probably right, and my compassion is probably misplaced. Plus, I don't think the professor truly appreciated it. So if you know any meth heads who happen to be outstanding, stellar parents, could you please let me know? 'Cause it might help my grade.

Here's a sad sight - My Boy at the radio station. The DJ asked him to help out. There's a band playing in the lobby; you can see them through the doorway. What's he doing? Playing a video game on my ipod.

Oh well. What can you do? (I mean, besides drag him to volunteer at a radio station every now and again and hope it takes)Here's a mom and son having a little picknick tailgating thing. I didn't capture it well, but I like a lot of contradiction...like the fact that this sweet scene with the pretty sunset is happening in a Walmart parking lot.Here's my good for nothing cat. I think it's still called multitasking if one of the activities is a nap, isn't it?
Here's my Sweet Pea feeding that very same cat a dinner roll:I have these things. They got lousy reviews on Walgreens.com (where I happened to get the picture). I think they work pretty well compared to other wax strips. Sort of a strange name though:The-Guy and I had a conversation something like this last night:

Him: I'm going to lay down, but keep on doing your homework.
Me: Oh, I'm not doing any more homework.
Him: I thought you were defending meth heads.
Me: Oh yeah, I am defending meth heads. But that's it. I'm not doing any more homework after that.

We went to a wedding reception at a Mormon church in which the couple's car was decorated entirely in penises in the mistaken belief that the bride wanted it done that way. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture.

But other than that, it's been a thankfully uneventful week. Just working myself silly on homework, baking dinner rolls, defending meth heads, admiring a bride's would-be-penis-mobile...that kind of thing. Hope everyone else has had a good one too!

I don't really know much about politics, but I do know that the result of that Yemen bomb thing is that teachers don't get to the bathroom as much

2010-11-06T08:55:00.002-05:00

It's true. One of the lesser publicized results of that Yemen bomb thing has been to grant teachers less access to the bathroom. I won't go into details (because far be it from me to compromise security in any way) but doesn't it just illustrate how totally unpredictable this world can be? At least, I imagine the bomb's main intention was not to restrict bathroom access for teachers.

This week I sent out a kajillion and seven bar mitzvah invitations with the wrong time on them. If you got one, services are at 7:00 and not at 8:00. If you didn't get one, just thank your lucky stars I don't have your address.

On to Halloween...

My Boy wanted to be a trash can, but The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken talked him out of it. They made a pretty good outhouse costume before My Boy lost interest. Then he wanted to be Facebook, but we ran out of time. After all that, he ended up as Scooby:My Sweet Pea and her friends made all their own costumes from actual fabric and beads and stuff! They went this incredibly PC route:Younger Gal said it's okay, since she's part Native American. Older Gal told us that this is called, "Hipster Racism." That totally took me by surprise, because I didn't think that 15 year olds qualified for "hipster" status. I guess she's just mature for her age.

My friend and her son done good too, don't you think? It was even more realistic in person (if you can call a zombie realistic):

If the Obamas Call Again, Tell Them I'm Not Home

2010-10-30T12:31:00.021-05:00

Lately every time I press the button on the answering machine, it spouts the voice of an Obama or two. It's actually kind of a nice change from whatever creditor has been trying to chase down Ebony Hutchinson and her multiple aliases for the past two years.

Aside from being stalked by the Obamas, mostly this week has been school work and work and trying to get My Boy's bar mitzvah together.

My Sweet Pea has been back in the clutches of asthma. For the same reason that I would have a problem signing my kids up for a daycare that had an intentional misspelling in the name, I'd have a hard time entrusting any of our health to these people:Needless to say that's not where we went. We were lucky enough to go to her regular pediatrician.

Lest you think I'm a total stick in the mud, I didn't mind being greeted by this guy when we got there:In other news, for safety's sake I've almost completely stopped talking on the cell phone while driving. It's way too difficult to hold the phone AND take pictures out the window at the same time. One of them had to go, and it really couldn't be the camera, now could it?
Hope everyone's had a great week!

Dinner was great, but what was it I was supposed to do with my toilet paper?

2010-10-23T20:33:00.016-05:00

In case you're wondering, this sign doesn't make any more sense in Spanish than it does in English:The really confusing thing is, there's no similar sign in the women's room.

How DO you thrive for excellence? And is there also a club for people who want to learn how to thrive for it?A coworker almost forwarded me my own blog. She thought I would like it because "Hey look! Someone else likes that Vampire Weekend stuff!" She was about to send it along to me when she got to the wedding photos and figured out it was mine. I guess ole' Walt was right after all - it is a small world.

Speaking of Vampire Weekend, Older Gal was turned away by security. She wasn't allowed to bring her mechanical pencil into the concert. On the other hand, I waltzed in with this, as usual:I can't even say how many times I've accidentally gone through airport security with it in my purse.

My classes start back up again in about an hour. Time flies when you're having fun. Or when you're ruminating. Actually, it seems to fly no matter what. Goodbye thirty seven seconds of free time I had per week! I'll miss you!

My First Ever Post With Sports In It. Ever.

2010-10-18T06:00:00.019-05:00

When I get tired of sitting around and looking cute at home, I have to sit around and look cute somewhere else. Anderson Fair is always a nice change, especially if Michael Fracasso is playing.If you're into one-guy-with-one-guitar-singing-thoughtful-poetic-stuff, you SO should have been there. I know you weren't, because only about ten people were there, and you weren't one of them (unless you happen to be my cousin Bernard). But don't worry! He'll be back in February!

I sat around and looked cute at a Houston Texans game. We even won, which, if you're a Houston sports fan you know is totally and completely unexpected (no matter who we're playing).Getting there required sitting around and looking cute on the light rail.There was some walking involved too, actually.

The-Guy and I saw a horse in the center of downtown Houston, right near the tracks:Did you see him? He's at the far edge on the right:When I get tired altogether of sitting around and looking cute, sometimes I have to bake something. This is full of broccoli: It's not usually that phallic looking, but I made this one for a party. I thought skinny would be better for a party bread.

That was my weekend! Next weekend my classes start back up, so I'll be attempting to write papers while looking cute. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Mostly, I Just Sit Around and Look Cute

2010-10-12T01:00:00.002-05:00

We had a few friends over recently and they asked about quite a bit of stuff that tends to escape me. We had conversations like this:

Friend - "So have you had the air conditioner off the past few weeks now?"
Me - "I'm not really sure. I don't really do the thermostat. The-Guy's in charge of all that."

And I had this conversation with another friend:

Friend - "Come show me how to use your coffee maker!"
Me (following her enthusiastically, as if I might actually be of some assistance) - "I know we have to press a lot of buttons. I don't really know how, actually. If The-Guy's not home, I just drink coffee at work."

And then there was this conversation:

Friend - "This friend of mine said it's really expensive to heat her pool. She says it costs her like $200 every time she does it."
Me - (blank look)
Friend - "But maybe you have a different kind of heater?"
Me - "I didn't even know we HAD a pool heater until my boy told me today."

In my defense, I was fine and good with apartment living, where lots and lots of life-spackle happens magically and without thought. It was The-Guy who thought that perhaps five people and two cats might not live entirely harmoniously in a two bedroom apartment.

And I do some stuff. I cook dinner MOST week nights. It also tends to fall to me to plan the attack against the vast amounts of paper that infiltrate our house via US Mail, children's backpacks and the like.

Far be it from me to actually GROW anything in any of The-Guy's beautiful and prolific gardens, but I do cook some of the stuff he grows.

I also take pictures of the non-food items:

I play taxi in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. I do a lot of the scheduling.

I've fixed a toilet or two and I picked out the color paint for the bathroom. And I did paint our living room green. But mostly, I just sit around and look cute. Apparently.

I was finally the cool mom for once in my cotton pickin' life! Or maybe I was just the dorky mom. Whichever. I still got to see Vampire Weekend.

2010-10-08T19:32:00.014-05:00

Here's my gal the younger, all set to go see her umpteenth concert, but the first one she had ever successfully petitioned for on her own behalf:Unlike Michael Franti, Vampire Weekend did not demand a great deal of enthusiasm (earned or unearned). Although they did mention that it looked rather pleasant from the stage when the audience waved their arms in the air:In any case, this time I wore shoes much more conducive to expressing enthusiasm. Although it was kind of scary jumping around way up there in the balcony like that.My gal was very, very happy. I think both my gals and my gal's friend was happy. Besides for the staying up late on a school night thing, I was very happy. And that was everyone that went. It was fun, fun, fun!

My original title talked about the devil being in the details. But last time I sold Older Gal's soul on ebay things didn't go well. So I changed it.

2010-10-03T20:39:00.016-05:00

What can I say about a week in which I lost almost all my work on my master's, but I got to see Michael Franti and Spearhead in concert? It was an eventful week, but boring unless you happen to be me.

We went to services for Simchat Torah.
My gal went on her first plane flight alone, but as usual refused me a picture:My boy and I saw turtles...or maybe that was last week...it can be hard to tell these days...The cat had a nap, the boy read a book: The cat ate some roses:
The-Guy and I saw Michael Franti and Spearhead. Michael Franti's frequent demands for enthusiasm irritated The-Guy more than it irritated me. I wished I had worn shoes more conducive to jumping up and down, which was how he requested this enthusiasm be expressed. That and arm waving. But we enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot.
Through it all, I have been attempting to throw together a bar mitzvah for my boy and recover my lost schoolwork. So them's the breaks this week.

Brought to you by Twipply Skwood, the bipolar downswing edition.

This is what happens when you have your wedding at a beer joint. It's fun, but they don't actually provide a traditional religious wedding contract.

2010-09-26T02:35:00.006-05:00

For a Jewish wedding you're supposed to have a ketubah, or a wedding contract. It reads sort of similar to wedding vows, with promises to cherish and honor and all that stuff.

At least, our ketubah says we're going to cherish and honor. And then you sign it during the wedding and the rabbi signs it and two witnesses sign it and THEN you get to cherish and honor and stuff.

My friend said that when she got married, the temple gave them their ketubah. But apparently the honky-tonk bar and grill where we got married does not provide a ketubah, so we had to buy our own. And since we were buying our own, we figured we'd buy this one, because it was pretty: Our wedding was very funny (apparently):And it was very serious (apparently):
And it was fun (apparently):
And the ceiling was interesting (apparently):
I say apparently. All I really remember was being happy. Because even though I always said I would never, ever, ever get married again, that was only because I didn't know there was The-Guy-That-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken. And we belong together. With a bunch of beer advertisements.
Thanks again for the photos, Jeff! I loves them!

Here's the Picture I Get When I Tell my Boy, "If you don't come out and let me take your picture, your cat will probably get eaten by a coyote".

2010-09-19T09:37:00.024-05:00

I had this post more or less completed in my mind when suddenly my gal decided a trip to the emergency room would be in order. She wasn't feeling up for having her picture taken this time, so I'll just repost from December. It was the same darn thing anyway:Except this time she had a mask over her face instead of a tube in her mouth. And she wasn't quite as cheery.

The post I had written in my head had wedding pictures and talked about Yom Kippur. I fasted yesterday and atoned for telling my boy self serving jokes that he takes seriously. It's not one of the sins they list out in services, but I think it maybe falls under selfishness.

For example, once I told him one time that if he wasn't quiet while I was on the phone, I wasn't going to let him turn six the next day and he was going to have to stay five. He didn't really think I could manage that, but he stayed quiet just to make sure.

Here's the picture I get when I tell my boy, "If you don't come out and let me take your picture, Sugar will probably get eaten by a coyote!"The truth is, coyotes actually HAVE been eating outdoor cats in our neighborhood. And if my boy hadn't come outside, I would have had to take pictures of the cat. But I wouldn't have let the cat escape and get eaten by a coyote. Instead, Older Gal would have held him. Like this:

I'd like to say the wedding pictures were trickling in, because it sounds better than saying we got a small batch. But we got a small batch. And I was going to post them instead of the whole emergency room visit thing. But here's one, and more to come!

We Have Not-Wedding Photos!

2010-09-12T00:39:00.003-05:00

Yeah, so people keep asking me about wedding photos and look! We got one!
We're going to get more later.* But we got getting-ready-for-the-wedding-photos. They're very, very much like wedding photos, except without the men (most notably the groom, which I understand is a requirement for many, many weddings).

Here are me, my mom, my gals, and an unidentified small cousin's feet**:

That's it for now! Hope everyone is having a great weekend and happy new year to anyone celebrating Rosh Hashannah!

*Actually, Jeff accidentally made a liar out of me, because he sent more after I scheduled this to post itself! So...more to come soon!
**Because I don't know how mom feels about small-cousin's picture on the internet. Otherwise her picture would be all over this post because she's adorable!

We're Back & We've Already Washed Most of the Camping Off of Us

2010-09-06T19:56:00.012-05:00

Here's the picture I get when I tell my-refusing-to-have-his-picture-taking-boy, "The torture will be over a lot faster if you just comply!"

I don't even want to think about what life lessons I'm imparting, but at least he finally looked at the camera:One gal a'campin':Both my gals a swimmin':The partridge and a pear tree come later after I wade through the other 400 or so pictures to find the other three or four I like.

On totally avoiding cannibalism despite a dead battery and a car accident. Plus, bathroom graffiti pictures.

2010-08-28T09:59:00.003-05:00

Tuesday, on my birthday, my car stranded me and a friend on the feeder road of an interstate freeway:I'm smiling because I had a friend with me. And plus we were within walking distance of a restaurant, so I was already certain that we weren't about to run out of food and end up resorting to cannibalism or anything.This guy stops to help us and he thinks we need a jump start. But he makes sparks start flying off my battery. He does this a lot of times. Then he tells us it's the alternator.

Triple A comes to tow the car away, but for kicks my friend asks about trying a jump start. Sure enough, it works!

All is well for two more days. Then yesterday while trying to turn right at an intersection, the car ahead of me begins to move forward. I'm all thinking that she's headed through the intersection because her car has moved forward. So I look to my left and decide it's safe for me to go too. But unfortunately for me, I start to move my car forward before my gaze gets all the way back to see that she actually didn't go.

She stopped.

And then I stopped, because her bumper was in my way.

This time I was not smiling at all on the side of the road. Not smiling at all. I was fairly unhappy, actually.

When I told the entire story to my sweet pea she said, "At least you were in a cute outfit while you were on the side of the road!" And it's totally true; I was in a cute outfit. Unfortunately my friend wasn't around to take a picture.

And then like 10 minutes after I run into someone, some other guy comes so very, very close to running into me! And then my car almost didn't start again that afternoon and I think from now on I should just take the bus.

Here are some more honeymoon pictures of Austin bathroom graffiti. Click to read a little better:
Apologies to Bob Schneider, but this next one is my favorite. In case you can't read it to the very end it says:

-Bob Schneider - Don't be such a man-diva. It doesn't become you. Ellen
-I'll second that!
-Well he's not going to see it in here!
-Yes he will its the closest Jon to the stage
-he's also a man and therefore uses the MEN'S room
-Actually, Bob is the anti-Tin Man, full of heart Dorothy

The problem with this type of honeymoon pictures is that actually when you go to print them out for your new mother in law, there's not really all that much to give her.

I'm Writing Myself to Death. Luckily, there's help if I lose the will to live. But only if I can find my coupon.

2010-08-24T04:28:00.001-05:00

The-Guy got me a (non-point & shoot) camera for my birthday!!!! I've always wanted one!!!!!! I just got it, so I don't know how to use it yet. All I have to show for it so far are 754 pictures of my cats' ears, plus this picture of The-Guy and my step-gal:The Succeed in Life Center continues to amuse me. Keep in mind that this is the same place where you need a coupon to see a pastor. Here's what it had up on its sign this past weekend:If I'm feeling suicidal, I'm thinking I don't want to have to search around for a coupon in order to get help. I mean, what if my coupon is expired?!?

I still have a few more honeymoon pictures. A Taco Shack in Austin: My understanding of the word "shack" is a bit shaky, apparently. They had these spices spices at a drug store type place:
It must be hard to decide between them.

Anyway, nose back to the grindstone. I figured out that in the last six months I've written at least 24 papers at 15-20 pages each. The end is in sight though. Maybe. If not, I'll have to find that coupon.

If I had an interesting title, I would slapped it up on a bulletin board already

2010-08-17T07:38:00.019-05:00

Don't you hate it when you're enjoying a blog and then the person suddenly falls off the face of the earth for no apparent reason? Yeah me too. Sorry I haven't been around. But I more or less fell off the face of the Earth for the usual reasons...like school starting.

Still, The-Guy finished the bathroom, so I can do before and after pictures. Remember the "before" picture? Oh! Wait...I didn't get a before picture. But I got a not-too-long-after-before-picture:And now it looks like this:Here's the purple streak my gal got put in her hair in a salon. Good thing I got a picture, because the permanent dye only lasted four days. I guess she wasn't supposed to swim?I've cooked very few dinners in the time leading up to the first day of school. I did manage to explain to that sweet pea o' mine why it would be okay for me to cook a meal that not everyone in the family would gobble with equal enthusiasm:

"Not everyone will hate dinner every night. But someone will hate dinner some nights."

You can't displease all of the people some of the time, after all. Well...if you work really hard I'm sure you can.

Last but not least, I might as well throw in a few more honeymoon pictures. My brand new favorite place on the planet, Luckenbach. Have I mentioned that Luckenbach is just like heaven? Actually, not having been to heaven, I couldn't really say. But in Luckenbach, people sit around and play guitar and sing and it's really quite wonderful.

Still in Luckenbach - there's a chicken in this tree somewhere. I don't know where:Here's a guy cooking sausages, but I forgot the name of the town:
The inside of the dome of the Texas state capital building:I'm sure I'll be coming up for air soon, & then I'll post something that takes me more than 53 seconds to write. And I'll comment on your blog. Or I'll call you. Or I'll email you. Or I'll come down to your classroom and chat. Or I'll comment on your facebook status. If you live in Morocco, I already checked out your facebook status but I just didn't comment. But I will do all that stuff soon!

If it's a crime, then I'm sure it must not have happened

2010-08-10T07:21:00.016-05:00

More honeymoon pictures! Here we are touring the Spoetzl Brewery, makers of Shiner beer:
I can't decide whether walking into a county courthouse while construction workers are renovating it is actually a crime that perhaps shouldn't be broadcast over the internet.

If it IS a crime, we definitely didn't do that and I just got these photos elsewhere on the internet without crediting them.

Wait, that might be a crime too...

In any case, here's a random county courthouse they might or might not have been renovating in Texas or some other state that someone may or may not have walked into because the door was unlocked. Isn't it beautiful?

Here are some giant spider pictures The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken took. We actually stopped so he could take a picture of these tractors:But oh my gosh! The spiders! The fence was silly with them!
Now I appreciate spiders, really I do. In fact, I'm a big fan of anything that would happily munch on a mosquito or cockroach for lunch.

But The-Guy took these pictures. I got close enough, but never steady enough, and the wind was blowing them all around making it extra hard to get a good shot if you were already shaking.

So that's set number two on the honeymoon pictures! More to come and hopefully some wedding photos soon too!

It hurts me to say this, it hurts a lot, a lot a lot. But Austin is cooler than we are.

2010-08-04T20:05:00.015-05:00

We're back from our honeymoon. It was wonderful and Luckenback is as heavenly and romantic as you all imagined. I highly recommend it as a honeymoon destination.

Unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that Austin is cooler than we are, DESPITE the fact that Houston has the world's largest and oldest art car parade.

Houston got these cows awhile back:You'd just see different ones around town for no reason. But Austin got guitars instead:
Plus, here's public transportation in Houston: Meanwhile, here's Austin's bus: At least we have light rail: Austin even has at least one outdoor shower for homeless people (or joggers). That's got to be way better than bathing in the fountains in Houston, or the ditches outside of Houston.

Plus, Austin has all these bicycle taxis: We just have plain old regular taxis.

But the icing on the cake or maybe the whole cake AND icing is that Austin has more musicians than you can shake a stick at.

I think musicians are sort of like zucchinis in Austin. Except that unlike zucchinis, which you have to unload into some poor sucker's car when you grow too many, Austin has special designated areas just for unloading extra musicians. I'm not really sure why you need a permit to unload a musician, but that's the way it is in the big city.

More honeymoon pictures later. After all, like all good honeymooners we toured a beer factory and we broke into a county courthouse. And I took some more bathroom pictures too. I wouldn't want the world wide web to miss the evidence.

Pictures that aren't mine:
Houston cows
Houston metro
Houston light rail

I Thought a Shotgun Wedding Meant Something Else Entirely

2010-07-23T06:43:00.015-05:00

Not every groom gets a threatened with a gun on his wedding day. My guy is just lucky, I guess. Since I was obliviously awaiting tequila the entire time, here's the story in his own words:

Bang-Bang

The closest I came to holding a gun was through my daughter. The Older Gal had earned sharpshooter certification at Camp Ho Mita Koda in northern Ohio, east of Cleveland. Former Army sergeant, William Keckert was her instructor over several summers and he appreciated the care and no-messing-aroundness that the Older Gal showed. Given my distant relationship with guns, it was a surprise that I would be threatened with a gun, by a woman, at my wedding, to Jill.

The ceremony was over. The first dance had come to a close. I had had a couple of Shiners to fortify myself before the crowd arrived and was feeling right proud of myself for not finding some screwball, thoughtless way of deep-sixing up what looked to be about the smartest thing I had done in years. The relatives on Jill’s mother’s side of the family whose name I was inordinately proud of remembering were talking about the newness of their own marriage, colleagues were marveling at that little hat I was wearing. ("Brenda" had asked me that week if I was going to wear one of those little hat things that Jews wear. Well, I said to her, since I am Jewish and it is a Jewish wedding I will be wearing a yarmulke. Funny … I have never asked a Christian whether there was going to be one of those funky torture devices used by the Romans and other pagan cultures on display while they pledged eternal loyalty and love to another.) As I said, the ceremony was over, we had danced, I had kissed the bride, and I was on my way to get Jill a shot of tequila.

I thought it an unsaid rule that women in low cut green dresses do not pigeonhole the newly minted husband at the wedding much less the reception bar. Introductions done and my grasping to remember the outlines of "Trudy’s" relationship to Jill all the while dancing around the great tragedy experienced 15 years ago and the gravesite Jill and I had visited. I remembered that her mother had helped Jill find her first apartment in Houston.

She said, “I know how to handle a gun.” Now, in Texas this can be a challenge or just a way of starting a conversation on a common subject, sort of like, lawns or plumbing, normal opening gambits in 95% of the middle class, thing-besotted world. Remember, I had two tequila’s in my hand and a bride strapped into a bony corset designed to do that which corsets do well and whose unexpected and unexplained side-effects were to restrict Jill’s ability to breathe; which is a long way to say that Jill needed her tequila right quick. I was happy that "Trudy" knew how to handle a gun and that she was so overcome with joy in her skill that she wanted to share this with me on my wedding day and made noises to such effect that her skill was right and proper and I would never impinge on her Second Amendment rights as I was now a Texan and felt as close to guns as I felt to the right of the federal government to impose a tax on income and require all good citizens to purchase health insurance.

As I said, I was feeling pleasant and sure I wouldn’t irritate or otherwise deliberately provoke anyone. The conversation progressed in its normal and very ordinary way with her making it clear that were I ever to wrong Jill in any way, that she loved Jill like a sister, and if I were to cheat on her or beat her that she would have no compunction to come after me with her gun - we had already established her gun-handling skill bona-fides – and that her husband was a member in good standing with the local constabulary and that he too had developed fine gun handling skills over a long period and he too would be more than happy to share his gun handling skills on my face were I to wrong Jill in any way whatsoever.

I thanked her for letting me know that she cared and assured her that I was a fine upstanding citizen of Texas and these United States and that I loved my new wife with a passion and that I would never give her cause to demonstrate her gun handling skills on or near my person and that I sorely needed to get these shots to Jill else she might expire from longing or thirst. I am pleased to say that the shots revived Jill so that she could continue to enjoy our wedding. On later days, she invited me to guest post about how much her friends care for her and how they would bring all the knowledge and skills they have to bear in order to preserve the state of our new, marital union.

How does that saying go? A good friend will bail you out of jail. A really good friend will be sitting next to you in cell saying, "Dang that was fun!", or something like that? I'm going to tag on the end, "A great friend will protect you with a gun." Apparently.

We're honeymooning people now - see you in a little while!

I didn't have a picture of a gun, but this nice person did: Gun picture

Thousands of People Flock to Houston to Smell Death

2010-07-15T06:41:00.007-05:00

Here's my first video! I think it's my first video. Once I tried to take one of a bird, but I don't think it worked. This is my good for nothing cat in the clean, warm towels from the drier.

At least it's mercifully short.

Did you know that sometimes if you take pictures in some grocery stores, they threaten to kick you out of the store? Yeah, me neither. Now I know. Gotta be more stealthy, apparently.

Seems like they'd be shooting themselves in the foot though, because no matter how good their price on blueberries, there's still another grocery store just down the road.

Besides, how much different could Latino laundry be from plain laundry anyway?And who the heck cleans with pet snacks?!?!?!

Here's that other cat I never talk about:Here's how I painted my fingernails for July 4th.All of that is fantabulous and wonderful and it probably makes you want to up and rent a U-Haul and move to Houston.

But you know what's REALLY making people flock to Houston these days? A flower that looks like a penis and smells like a corpse. The radio program from last week said this about the flower:

"The scientific name is amorphophallus titanum which means, if I can say this on air, a giant shapeless or misshapen penis or phallus."

And my favorite:
"Surrounding that is a leafy collar of purple. It's not a radiant, velvet purple but rather a murky, gloomy purple. It's the purple of decomposing flesh."
Seriously, thousands of people have been watching it for a week now, waiting for it to bloom so it can stink more than it already does.

When I'm at that museum, I can't even wait around long enough to see the giant pendulum knock over one of those little rock pyramids.Twenty years I've been going to that museum, and I've never had the patience to see a stone fall over. But, whatever. The stink of corpse must be worth the wait.

Flower Photo
Pendulum Photo

A Penny for your Thoughts, A Propane Torch for Your Cares...

2010-07-08T17:06:00.003-05:00

Would they even give you this if you requested it as a vanity plate?I think each and every one of us needs one of these propane torches:Flaming for all seasons! Hundreds of large AND small jobs!!!! What more could a body want!?!? I mean...aside from a license plate that announces one's STD.

Here's our new dishwasher detergent:If the new stuff is "complete", does that make our old detergent "incomplete"?And which parts of the dishes did it not wash?!?

I wonder if this sign stops crime all by itself?And how much crime does the field around it actually get, anyway? I thought this was a nice Houston area picture. The longhorn isn't quite in the shade of the superhighway, but almost:Good evening, my name is Sugar, and I will be your waiter this evening:
Can I get you some coffee or perhaps some dessert?It's very distressing to have a cat as a waiter, apparently. But not as distressing as having an STD for a license plate.

But probably it can all be cured with a personal propane torch anyway. That's my guess.

It's Raining Small Household Pets

2010-07-03T02:56:00.007-05:00

Actually, I think it's been raining large farm animals in addition to the traditional cats and dogs.I guess we got Hurricane Alex's aura or something. Because he was too far away for it to actually be his tail, and yet we got awfully wet here. Here's my boy getting back from helping The-Guy fix the drain:I got this quote from the local news website:

"It really is a dangerous situation," Yanez said. "Not just life-threatening, but they can lose a lot more property out of this if the rain continues."

Yeah, not JUST life threatening, mind you! I dunno, but I think I'd rather lose the property.

My boy on a bridge in between the storms:I didn't get any really great flooding pictures, even though our street was up to the top of the curb in water. So instead, here's my nephew riding in for the wedding: Isn't he the cutest? It's looking clearer for today - only a 60% of rain today. Hope everyone else is a little dryer than we are!

I'm married now! (In which I explain a lot of stuff, almost making you feel as if you were AT the wedding. Except, this is probably longer.)

2010-06-29T07:24:00.013-05:00

The-Guy asked if I was going to blog live from our wedding, and although the idea had merit, I think it would have taken a little something away from the ceremony.

And then after the wedding, I had a wedding hangover. It's like a regular hangover, except with only two shots of tequila and a few sips of beer. And seven hundred and fifty three pounds of lamb tacos and baked goods instead of aspirin and puke and stuff.

But now I'm coming out of my wedding fog and thought I'd do the next best thing and tell the whole kit and caboodle in as short a version as I could manage. Sorry in advance to those who have been reading since before I met The-Guy and have the basic gist.After much convincing from a friend who would prefer to remain unnamed on this blog (I'll call her "Linda"), I joined a dating service and was on it for ten days, from start to finish.

To the dating profile question that asked who I was looking for, I answered, "A person who likes songs about chickens. Or songs about whiskey."

I got a bunch of emails and I answered all of them, but I only gave my phone number to two guys. The other guy collected all kinds of junk. I talked to him on the phone, but he had an antique gas pump he was planning on keeping, and an antique jukebox he was planning on selling. This sounded like a severe case of confused priorities.

Meanwhile, The-Guy had emailed me saying he knew a good song about chickens. Not only that, he had a 45 with the chicken song on one side and a whiskey song on the other.

Still, I thought I should seek the advice of girlfriends before actually committing to a date. I showed his picture to my friend "Linda" and my friend Laurie.

Laurie protested, "Don't go out with him! He's wearing khakis!" But my friend "Linda" countered, "He's cute! I think you should go out with him!"

"Cute" sounded more convincing than disqualifying someone on the basis of clothing, and he DID know a song about a chicken. I gave him my phone number and he totally impressed me with his use of the word "umbrage". I'm a sucker for a guy with a larger vocabulary than I have.

And so we went on our first date, and I fell totally and completely in love with him, because he didn't have a television. It was a Thursday, and he asked to go out again on Sunday.

But, of course there was a Friday and a Saturday in between and yes, as the rabbi mentioned during the ceremony, I did kiss a bald Spaniard on the Friday in between. But it was only in self defense, because men say all the time that they're going to call and they hardly ever do. Little did I know that The-Guy was canceling a Saturday date just to make more time with me.

We spent most all our free time together after that (of which I had about 37 seconds a week, having two jobs, two kids, and two cats at the time).

And as the rabbi mentioned during the ceremony, I really did pull him aside as he was dropping off his kids for preschool and say, "My boyfriend doesn't know it yet, but he's getting married."

The part the rabbi omitted from the ceremony was his response to me, which was, "Well, sometimes men take a little longer to realize these things than women do." He also offered to give The-Guy a good talking to if it took him too long to come around, which turned out not to be necessary.

And then The-Guy proposed, and my dad said to make sure to have the wedding during my brother's vacation and my aunt said, "I'm coming to a wedding if I have to make the potato salad myself!" And I said, "We gotta have a wedding too?!?!?! Can't we just get married in the rabbi's office on my lunch break?!?!?!?"And even though we had to invite some people and not invite other people, and even though I forgot a cousin here and there and never got other people's addresses, and even though the music may have been a little loud (my brother said the music wasn't too loud, the crowd was too old) it turned out to be perfect and wonderful and fun, just like people said it would be.

And only one person was injured, and he TOLD my boy to try and hit the beer bottle with the shuffleboard puck for cryin' out loud.

So very many thanks to my friends and family, and my family that are my friends, and my friends that are my family, and everyone, everyone for making everything so special and wonderful and memorable and meaningful and all that kind of stuff. Wedding pictures still to come!

I Don't Really Have a Title. But They're Wedding Photos. Or Pre-Wedding Photos. Or Engagement Pictures Even.

2010-06-22T04:43:00.000-05:00

My friend Beth noticed in my joke from last post that I would be kind of hungry if I only ate things that start with E on Thursdays. Luckily Arizaphale and DJ Kirkby thought up plenty of E-food, but really that wasn't the point. The point was WHOLESOMENESS! The-Guy helped me choose letter E like this:

Me - What letter do you think is the MOST wholesome?
Him - Most wholesome?
Me - Yeah! A nice wholesome letter.
(no answer)
Me - You know? Like one nobody associates with any swear word?
Him - A! Oh. No...wait...
(several moments later)
Him - E.

That's what he goes through just to hang around with me and take pre-wedding photos. Jeff actually called them engagement pictures, which sounds better, although I think both are accurate descriptions.

First some in my decoy wedding dress. Because, you know, The-Guy isn't supposed to see me in my real wedding dress.

I searched and searched for a decoy dress that looked weddingy, but I didn't find one. Luckily a teacher across the hall from me had given me her daughter's old prom dress. So I just wore that:The-Guy - "Look at the definition in your arm on this one."
Me - "That's definition? Oh good! I just thought my arm was lumpy."Please don't worry about correcting him. "Definition" sounds way better than "lumpiness".More casual ones:

Woo-hoo! The wedding is over! We're all jumpy and happy!Wait! The wedding's not over?!?!? Drat. That's okay. We're still jumpy and happy. Or exhausted from picking out tacos. One or the other.

On Thursdays, I Only Eat Foods That Start with the Letter E

2010-06-19T05:47:00.002-05:00

Hello internet! I missed you that one day without access for no apparent reason!

Here's a phone conversation I had with The-Guy last week:

Me: I got chicken sausage for dinner. You know? Those long kind?
Him: Yeah?
Me: You know, the long kind that look like...
(Pause as I attempt to find a way to distinguish between sausage varieties without referring to male anatomy)
Me: that look like...
(pause)
Me: that look like cucumbers?
Him: I just took you off speaker phone.

I've been deemed unfit for broadcast amongst his coworkers. Again.

I wasn't going to say it looks like a penis though. Because we were just talking about spring rolls the other day. And who wants to be known as a gal with only one simile to her name? Or was that metaphor? I can't remember my exact words actually.

In any case, in addition to eating a bunch of different foods that look like male body parts, we also got (pre)wedding pictures taken. I can't remember exactly why Jeff (friend/wedding photographer) said it would be good to get some pictures beforehand, but it was fun.
I mean it was like, actual fun and not that kind of "fun" that I'm supposed to be having trying to deciding what kind of tacos we'll be serving. Except for trying to find a decoy wedding dress to get the pictures taken in. That part was a little stressful.

I'm not wearing the decoy wedding dress in these pictures though. These are some of the casual pictures.

And also, I don't only eat foods that start with the letter E on Thursday. I just asked The-Guy what he thought was a nice wholesome letter of the alphabet. That way I figured I could balance out the whole body parts thing.

If You're Going to Get Married, Try Not to be Born in Washington, DC

2010-06-13T12:39:00.000-05:00

We went to get our marriage license and The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken was born in Washington DC. It turns out that these two facts are not necessarily compatible. The form for a marriage license requires your birth city, county, and state. The-Guy didn't have anything to put down for two out of the three blanks, and it made the clerk upset.

She was doubtful of his claim that Washington DC is not part of any county or state. As The-Guy started to give her the full explanation of how Washington DC differs from other cities in the United States, I could see the look on her face change from one of confusion to something closer to mistrust or outright suspicion.

"Oh no!" I thought, "What if she gets defensive about her lack of political knowledge and doesn't let us get married?!?!?!"

Because by this time The-Guy, possibly from nervousness but more likely because of a true wish to inform, had moved into a full explanation of Washington DC's lack of representation in congress.

My fears were ungrounded, however, as she decided the best course of action was to call the Texas state capital and make sure that people from Washington DC were, in fact, allowed to get married.

And then we raised up our right hands and took some oath and she pronounced us practically just about married or ready to get really married or something like that and it was all very happy and official.

AND she gave us a booklet on being married published by none other than the Attorney General of Texas which is the exact person I always think of going to for marital advice...The booklet is full of sterile yet helpful information. For example, "Knowing what your spouse wants is only half the story. You also must know how to provide it to him or her." and "If you have not had a conflict yet, sooner or later you will." and "Arrange to spend time together on a regular basis."

Now that we've read the booklet, I'm pretty sure a successful marriage is practically guaranteed. I feel bad for all those poor suckers who got married before this booklet was published.

And also, I'm really glad we were both born here in the United States. Because if being born in Washington DC caused that much trouble, can you imagine how badly being born outside of the country would mess with the paperwork?!?!?

Weddings Are Like Oil Spills. Apparently.

2010-06-09T17:05:00.000-05:00

I believe it might have been Disa awhile back who requested a wedding plans post. There are only two and a half more weeks to go, so I figure any wedding plans post has to be done kind'a soon.

The problem is, we haven't really made many actual "plans". I'm pretty sure the wedding is planning itself at this point, because once that man put an engagement ring on my finger, the wedding took on a life of its own.

It's like those large underwater oil plumes in the Gulf of Mexico. Except not. Because we created this monster ourselves. On purpose.

It will be fun though. I think.

Here are pictures of the place we're getting married. I've been calling it a bar, but apparently "honky tonk" is the more precise definition.

So yeah. All we need now is some wedding food. And some wedding plans.

Here's that darn cat, apparently waiting for his shower.Here's another piece of food that The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken grew in the back yard. You might not be able to tell from the picture, but this particular piece of food is a cucumber...... a really, really big cucumber.

So anyway, that's what's going on around here. It's summertime and the livin' is easy. I have declared our wedding more fun than a disastrous oil spill. The-Guy is growing Texas sized food.

In fact, maybe that one cucumber will be enough to feed all the wedding guests. We'd probably even have leftovers.

Some Jews Do Fix Stuff. But not that many I gather.

2010-06-03T03:42:00.000-05:00

I think I've mentioned that The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken commands the plants around here. He told them to do this:
And this:

And this:

And this:
And they did, because he's in charge.

And he even told them to grow food, like this:
And this:And the plants did it, because they listen.

And then a few weeks ago I was out to dinner with some coworker-friends and I volunteered The-Guy to build something on our school playground. Apparently fixing stuff is not a Jewish thing to do.

The woman who teaches in the classroom next door to me interrogated the other women around the table, "Does your husband fix stuff?!?!?!" Everyone answered no, except my friend Missy.

But the other teacher was not so easily placated. About Missy's husband she said, "Well he's not Jewish. That doesn't count!" Apparently marrying someone Jewish does not impede one from performing household repairs.

She wanted to know if I was SURE The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken was Jewish. He is. AND he's remodeling the bathroom. I didn't get a before picture showing the ugly wallpaper and mildewy shower door. But here's a halfway in the middle picture:"After" pictures coming soon! By the way, does anyone need any fresh yellow summer squash?

And where exactly IS the Failure in Life Center is what I want to know

2010-05-29T12:26:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to post this picture for a good, long time. Because I'm just sure this place must have a sister company named, "The Failure in Life Center"From this picture it's pretty evident that it's a church, because of the Easter message. It was more ambiguous the first time I saw it. But, just in case there was any doubt, my friend Missy discovered that actually it has drive through prayer:
Yeah so anyway, it turns out success in life is practically guaranteed because they have COUPONS for counseling with the pastor.I didn't even know you NEEDED a coupon to see a pastor.

I'll bet the sister company, "The Failure in Life Center" has a coupon for a pastor who rushes you and only feigns interest in your problems.

I saw this food product at the grocery store. I honestly like stuff made out of soybeans. In fact, I truly prefer soy sausage to pig sausage. But if I'm going to eat tofu, I like it to at least PRETEND to look like a familiar food.I mean, is "Good Stuff" fake chicken? Fake pork? I like to know what it is I'm not eating.

I saw this game from Discovery Toys. Man, the fun and intensity that game must offer! I bet kids can hardly wait to be safe!Here's my boy, winning the Keter Shem Tov award. I'm pretty sure that's an award for making his mom proud.Here's my Sweet Pea, not studying for finals. I have a hard time forcing her to study when she's doing something so productive.Let's see, I didn't actually get a picture of Older Gal making me proud this week. She did kill a cockroach with her shoe though, and asked if she could go into Gaza when we go to Israel ("Only if you want to be stoned!" replied Younger Gal), both of which I thought were pretty brave from a gal who is at loose ends if she has to drive through flood waters.

That's our week! School's out, so I'm hoping for a come back!

Coupon & drive through prayer pictures

I Found a Little Boy Yesterday, But I Gave Him Back

2010-05-23T10:18:00.000-05:00

Another school year is coming to a close. Gone for this year will be the opportunity to teach and influence young minds. Gone the opportunity to see the excitement in each child's face. Gone the opportunity to bring home lice.

My gal says I have the worst job in the world just because I bring the occasional louse (and other communicable diseases) home from work. I don't though. I have a great job and hours conducive to raising children. I do get exposed to all sorts of fun stuff though.

Yesterday I found a four year old while rollerblading. He was at a park wandering around all by himself. There were seven soccer games in progress, but he was nowhere near any of them.

My boy and I tried to find his grown ups for about a half hour before someone finally claimed him. Making things more difficult was the fact that the boy's speech was delayed. He was completely unintelligible except for the words, "mommy gone" and "car". It turned out that the adults he was with figured he had gone to the restroom all that time. By himself. For a half hour.

Mostly I've been awash in research papers this week, but I did manage a few photos. Here's part of the "senior prank" at my kids' school.
Front:

And back:
Here's my boy getting a haircut:
Last but not least, here's that good for nothin' cat. He may be a pain in the neck, but at least he's observant. Picture thanks to Older Gal:

My Gal Wants the Title of This Post to be "I'm Having Stress". So that's the title. Actually, I AM having stress. I hear it goes great with Valium.

2010-05-15T05:05:00.000-05:00

I'm having wedding stress and work stress. I'm having I'm not sure why I went back to school stress.

Wedding stress sounds like this sometimes:

My sweet pea - I wish we could have Hayes Carll.
Me - Yeah. Me too.
Her - But I bet he would be really expensive.
Me - Probably.
Her - You would have to have your wedding in a warehouse. You would have your wedding dress and Hayes Carll and nothing else.
Her - Not even shoes.
Me - I might not have shoes anyway. I haven't been shopping.
Her - Yeah, but you wouldn't have decorations. Or cake either. But you'd be super happy!
Me - I'm already pretty happy sweetie.

She doesn't realize that we're already not having any decorations. The bar has cowboy hats hanging everywhere and I think those little beer advertisement flags. So that's one thing taken care of. And I never really cared much for cake.

Here's what bedtime stress sounds like sometimes:

Me - We got Sugar in 2001 and Nimue in 2005. So that's only four years Nimue will have to live without Sugar and be companionless. That's not as bad as I thought.
Older Gal - But we're saving up to clone our cat!
Me - Oh yeah! I wonder...
My Boy - Yeah! We can clone him and have another Shuguee!
Me - I wonder if...
Younger Gal - Would you stop counting the time until Sugar's going to die?!?!
Older Gal - But we're going to clone him!
My Boy (earnestly and seriously) - Ummm...but I forgot...I'm saving up to fight terrorism.

Because if counting up the years until your housepets' eventual demise ain't a relaxing way to send your kids off to bed, I don't know what is.

The kids actually do own these piggy banks, but it was easier to swipe the pictures from these places than to take them myself:
Cat bank
Terrorism bank

Personally, I'm saving up to buy valium. I hear it's good for stress.

Valium bank

The Angry Mesclun Lettuce That Ate Houston

2010-05-07T06:53:00.000-05:00

Hello long lost blog! How I've missed you! I'm sorry to abandoned you and facebook and the bloggers and the rest of internetdom that isn't directly related to professional journals or the university's online portal.

I've taken a lot of pictures for you, and I promise to show them to you...sometime. Look! I have a couple today!

It never occurred to me that lettuce would outgrow those cute balls you see them in at the grocery store. But The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken described this lettuce as "angry":Here's my good for nothing cat, licking an ipod cord as if it were a Popsicle. He LOVES those things!Here's a picture of a big giant truck with a teeny tiny blue sticker on the back advertising the wind energy they use at home.
Which is a HUGE relief, because the first thing I think when I see a huge, giant squeaky clean empty vehicle with one person inside is, "I wonder if they practice environmentalism at home?"

I apologize for lacking the time to load my ancient version of photoshop onto this computer so I could blur the license plate. Feel free, I suppose, to hunt the driver down in order to offer congratulations for being so conscientious.

As for lack of time, if it's any consolation, my card making pastime has really taken a hit too. I promise to be more diligent in June (when I'm only taking classes full time and planning a wedding, instead of doing both those things AND working full time). I promise to be more diligent in June! I'll try to be more diligent in June, oh hobby-o-mine.