Waterfall at the Foot of the Mountain

It isn't that I haven't been writing. I have. I've started a story with the tentative title "The Waterfall at the Foot of the Mountain". It's so sad, but I really like the story idea.I'm not going to say much now, but I'll share once I have the first part written.

Little Alex Wins a Washing Machine

I did a new oral history interview today with Alex Arroyos. He had great stories to share, and he really has done some amazing things for his community starting in high school. One of the funniest stories was about when he was something like eight years old and living in Edna, Texas. They were having a raffle for an electric washing machine. This is like in the 1940s. He saved up soda bottle caps and turned them in for tickets. On the night they announced the winning ticket, he looked in his notebook to see if one of his tickets was the winner and it was. He raced home and woke up his mother and said, "un mexicano gano!" He then started describing himself. When his mother realized that he had won, she was so excited she started crying. Only later did he realize that they couldn't use the washing machine since they didn't have electricity.

Dinner with Billy

I really want to keep up this posting every day thing, but some days are harder than others. At least it's not because I have nothing to write about. No, today was incredibly busy. To be brief, I had dinner with Billy tonight. I love Billy. Billy and I have really great ideas and it gets me really excited hopeful for the new projects we dreamed up and I get that manic energy that is not too manic and just productive enough to keep me going for a few weeks or months. Coincidentally, the walk back to the parking lot with Laney was great, too. She mentioned a run that's local and raises money to plant trees in Memorial Park and in the swag you get a tree too. How cool is that! It's called 4 the Park and it's in April. Now I have a cool goal "race". Totally encouraging for me right now. And another co-worker and I had a great idea of having a vegetarian/vegan potluck and recipe share. Yea! SO excited for all these projects. Now, just to reign in the excitement and get all this stuff organized. Am I just busy enough? Yes, I think so.

New Orleans Setting

Did another ten minute exercise today. Listened the "Madness" by Muse and the story turned out to be an assassin, I suppose. Lesbian, definitely just waking up from a fun night and reliving it in the shower. Interesting.

Today at lunch I remembered how much I love mishearing other people's conversations. I wrote them down. The best line was "God is playing a rookie quarterback this season." So many different ways I could take that. Is God the rookie? Is God the coach? Wouldn't that be interesting? For at least three minutes, I would say.

Keep Calm, Carry on, and Use the Oxford Comma.

"You will not fuck with the way we practice the English language in my household!" --said by a parent arguing about the points I took off her son's paper for not using the Oxford comma. Not really. But how awesome an argument would that have been.

Just a Regular Sunday of Dressing Wounds and Watching Sherlock

We decided a Mexican brunch needed to be eaten, so we invited the Pumpkin over. She asked Joy to redress her wound from surgery. It's always nice when it's your best friend who saves your life. This according to the doctor. Now Pumpkin owes Joy the last bite of cheeseburger...whatever that means; though, knowing Joy, it's probably quite literal. She does enjoy a good cheeseburger.

Meredith, ever so persistent, gratefully persistent, asked me to go walking with her and Nico and to bring Gaby along, of course. So I went. I had to. It's been months since I've done any exercising outside of Christmas shopping. It was nice. I bought some Pumas that were on sale for $10 on amazon and they fit wonderfully. We went to the dog park first. Gaby chased a small pug mix back and forth. It was funny. She's in a pen full of dogs to play with, but she always just wants to run with the smaller dogs in the next pen. After that we went walking around the park, and I noticed that there was a spot on Gaby's side that wasn't laying quite right but I thought it was just fluffed up from playing with the dogs. When we got back to the car, I took a closer look and saw she had this 1" wound on her side. Meredith and I surmised that she must have caught her fur on the fence and ripped off her skin.

Joy went to get some first aid supplies and we dressed her wound. Gaby is truly an awesome dog. She let us do all the dressing without complaining, and now she's walking around with bandages all the way around her middle and not messing with it at all. Very impressive. And, no, there are no pictures. I mean, do you really want to see a gaping wound? Ew.

Later Joy and I sat and watched Sherlock. It was an episode we had seen before but liked very much so we watched it again. It was the one about The Woman. In the episode Sherlock tells his brother that she can be followed on Twitter and gives her handle, and it turns out she really does have a Twitter profile. How fun.

I really do need to sit and read Sherlock. Heck, maybe I'll get it on audiobook and listen to it in the car or while working out since my commute isn't that bad.

Tonight we had a visit from Sandra who said her family is really going to buy the land. The house should be built by next year, so it looks like we will be losing Sandra to Mexico in 2015. Sad face.

It's Too Late and I Am Too Drunk or Clockwork Birds and Things Are Big in Texas

God, I hope things are spelled correctly in this post. Yep. Drunk like that. Not quite at the point that I need that app that makes you do math before you can use your cell phone so you don't drunk dial someone you shouldn't, but drunk enough that I gave Joy my keys saying "Don'crashmah car, kay?" the whole way home.

Oh, and def drunk enough for y'all to not get a story tonight about these clockwork birds I saw in the window tonight at the shop next to Brasserie 19 where we went to dinner tonight last minute. Fuck that savings plan! I'm eatin' out in style tonight. On a whim. 'Cause I can. Yeah. It was very good, too.













Giant drinks and tiny tabasco sauce bottle 'cause things are big in Texas. Hardy har har.

Ha! Even that second one looks oddly sized due to the perspective of the shot. Well, the last one is dessert of poached pears in red wine sauce and some other fancy shit and a glass of port. I have to thank Carl and Gary for introducing me to dessert wines  and ports and pairing them with desserts. Amazing dinner tonight.