Nothing in Particular

This is the first post of September, posted from Robbie's new apartment. His dog is awfully cute.

By the way, if you pass me on the hike-and-bike trail, do not high-five me. I'll miss. We'll both be so embarrassed.

Happy September!

Juneau That?

As we were leaving the birthday barbecue at his house today, my brother-in-law mentioned having seen 30 Days of Night. "Oh, we went and saw that when it came out!" I exclaimed. "My two brothers and I! Because we're from Barrow!"

"Alaska?!" said my brother-in-law in some surprise, because that's where Barrow is. Well, and also (I suppose) because this would be the first time in the 18 years he's known me that I ever mentioned having any brothers.

"Yes!" I said. "So of course we had to see the movie!"

"You're from Alaska, really? Isn't that something? I had no idea!" cried another one of my in-laws. So I had some 'splainin' to do.

Actually, my favorite part of the backstory that Robbie, Justin and I came up with for our 2007 Corpus trip - the one that cast us as a family of tragically orphaned whale-marketers from the northernmost point in the U.S. - is our attempt at preparation for possible quizzing from strangers. "What if somebody asks us who the governor of Alaska is?" said Justin. "I don't know who it is, do you?"

"All I know is it's a woman," said Robbie. "We'll just answer that we disapprove of her politically, so much that we refuse to mention her name in our family. That way no one will catch on that we don't actually know what her name is."

Kind of funny, now, in hindsight. But not as funny as the fact that the whole movie was actually filmed in New Zealand. I don't know when I'll stop being pissed off about that.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my sister and her boyfriend took me out last night. Do you remember being young? I used to be able to go out at 10 p.m. and have a full night ahead of me. Nowadays this is more problematic. We arrived at the club where the band they knew was playing, and found that (1) the air conditioning has gone out, (2) the band was very loud and not all that good, and (3) I am old. So after an hour or two, I ended up ditching my sister and her boyfriend - who had found a good parking space, a commodity not to be sacrificed - and simply walking the 2.4 miles home, by myself, at 12:30 a.m. In flip-flops. I may not be dewy and carefree anymore, but by God, I can still get blisters in my toe cleavage.

Of course, yesterday was the Fourth of July, or the 78704th, as we call it here in my neck of the woods. There was a Michael Jackson tribute car in the 78704th of July Parade, decked out in glitter and memorabilia, someone dancing maniacally in a gigantic Afro wig in the back. No Farrah Fawcett car, no Billy Mays car, no Ed McMahon or Karl Malden (or his nose - alas, USENET! I knew him, Horatio) or Mollie Sugden cars were in evidence. I'm deeply disappointed, and I am unanimous in that.

But the Muppets are always there for you. Thanks Jen of Cakewrecks for posting this. I'm a day late, but my heart is in the right place:



Alaska!

Act Your Age, Not Your Sleep Number

Spring has come to breathe a promise (or a threat) of the coming summer, and I find myself lying alone in a hotel room in San Angelo, trying to find my personal Sleep Number.

That's going to be the first line when I write my Great American Novel.

It's not right. It's an air mattress. It feels like an air mattress. Once you get it soft enough, it feels like a partially deflated air mattress in a box, and you can't really sit on the edge of it properly. The whole dual adjustable sides thing is wrong, too, because I'm here on business and this bed is MINE, the whole entire thing, not just half of it. Hell, I have TWO beds, that's how much I plan to spread out. And when I take a shower tomorrow, I'm gonna use one towel for my body and a whole nother towel just for my hair.

But I digress. All I'm trying to say here is that I'm not all that impressed with the Sleep Number beds, and I don't see why the Bionic Woman is so gung-ho about the damn things. And I wanted so badly, when I was little, to grow up to be just like her...

It's been a road-intensive weekend; yesterday, Tony, Robbie, and some other friends and I went on a day-touring trip Tony planned. We went to Marble Falls, ate breakfast at the Bluebonnet Cafe, toured Longhorn Cavern, visited the Devil's Waterhole at Inks Lake State Park, popped in for a quick peek at the dam on the dismally low Lake Buh-chanan, then finished the day with dinner at Chili's in Marble Falls, on the patio overlooking the water as the sun set.

Then the group separated and Robbie and I went shopping at Walgreen's. For some odd reason, this is one of my favorite things to do with Robbie - though basking on the rocks by the shores of Inks Lake with him like a couple of sea lions is giving Walgreen's a run for its money. But you can't buy (ahem) shoulder massagers at Inks Lake, or if you could you probably wouldn't want to, not that I would want to purchase such an object anyway, seeing as how I've got a Sleep Number bed here to keep me busy.

This is going to be a long week.

Because Robbie and Kevin Said To

...and because Diane complained that my most recent post was making her want a kitten.

Oh, but she is a darling, sweet little thing (the kitten, that is - not to imply in any way that Diane is anything less than adorable, though I've never tried kissing her nosey, and suspect it would not be that favorably received if I did). Last night I woke up to find her (the kitten) sleeping soundly on my pillow, with her toes wedged up against my nose. I kissed her. She arched, purr-mewed, sighed, and fell back asleep in an even more impossibly adorable pose - taking up even more of my pillow, at that.

Hi, I'm Proto-Crazy-Cat-Lady. I'm almost finished!

But another great thing about the pillow-stealing kitten is that she wakes me up from dreams I really shouldn't be having. Last night I found myself in divorce court - peacefully enough, no problem there - but during a long recess I ended up alone in a waiting room with, with - oh, you know who.

At least in my dream he was willing to speak to me. "Hey!" I said to him, "I'm finally moving forward with my divorce!"

He displayed only polite interest, though, and after a few more minutes said he had to leave to go check his Facebook, and took off.

This isn't what is meant by the term "lucid dreaming," but it probably should be.

Robbie took me out on the town last weekend. We went and watched movies at Tony's. But first, Robbie had some shopping to do, which led to a totally new experience for me.

We went to the mall (you know, that place, with all the stores, where everything costs 800 million dollars and teenagers reach levels of inexcusable density) to buy cologne.

This may be more surreal than it sounds. Department stores have big glass counters, all under lock and key, stocked with every incredibly expensive men's scent you've never heard of, and staffed by young women who are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Audrey Hepburn. Our sales representative, for example, did not know how to pronounce "euphoria." E-phoria, she kept saying. I think that's the sensation you feel immediately following cybersex.

We tested seven or eight different scents. The sales representative seemed less inclined to consider my opinion once she clarified that Robbie and I were not dating, because what do your stupid friends know? Still, we narrowed the choices down to one, Robbie purchased it, and we left to look at jeans. But there weren't any without aesthetically-placed holes in them.

It gets hard to find basic items of clothing, had you noticed? At work, I needed a blouse for our upcoming April conference. All four of us in our office wear the same one - we're the conference coordinators, so it's important that we can be singled out in the crowd, or so I'm told. This year two of us kicked up a fuss and insisted on blouses that don't have to be tucked in, because what could be more unflattering to your figure than chopping it in half?! Hello?!?!

We wanted a basic design: a tailored, button-down shirt, in a few different attractive colors, with a straight hem and three-quarter length sleeves. The four of us went at lunch last week to look. We might as well have gone shopping for emu-feather hats.

Not that this is informative or interesting. I'm only posting because Robbie and Kevin said to. And because Diane doesn't want a kitten. No matter how adorable they are.

Maybe next time I'll post some more pictures.

Welcome to Life!

Katie and I are both PMSing right now. I thought I'd go ahead and mention that, just in case you wanted to postpone your visit.

Yesterday Robbie allowed me to come rushing up to Georgetown and sweep him away for a random road trip: what fun! There's nothing else quite so therapeutic as just up and leaving. Have you noticed? I think that's why I love road trips so much. Symbolically, everything that bothers me is here at home, or at work, quarantined within about a 5-square-mile area. So it makes me feel a lot better to get in the car, grab a friend, and go to Lampasas. You heard me.

On the other hand, spring seems rather unequivocally to have sprung, and this also is irresistibly therapeutic. How can you be sad about anything when the trees all have tiny, pale green buds? Or when you've spotted a lone bluebonnet in a neighbor's yard? (Bad year for wildflowers this year, I'll tell you that right now.)

It's impossible not to be cheerful, even when last night led into the most difficult morning of the year (at least for those of us who are forced to observe daylight savings time) by keeping me awake, restive, fretful, tossing and turning, and finally allowing me to drop off two hours before six only to send me dreams of being sick, pregnant, bedridden, and attacked by tribble Muppet vampires with very sharp pointy teeth that crunched down into my ribs with much more realism than I thought strictly necessary, then waking me up in a cold sweat fifteen minutes before my alarm went off. And I had to pee.

I should have just called in sick. My boss did. On the other hand, I got a lot done today, and ended up feeling perfectly fine, not at all as if both arms had been ripped off and used to beat me about the head, which is more in line with the way I've been feeling lately. I can't understand these mood swings. I really need professional help - but really, only about two out of every three days, and falling.

And speaking of needing professional help, the Bubbly Bitching Smoking Nonsmoker found and friended me on Facebook (thanks, Robbie!), forcing me to take down the link to my blog in a big hurry. Her latest status update is grousing about how many status updates everyone else is posting, and in fact stopped me from posting a particularly witty remark about how nice it would be if Slappy White would quit knocking all the shit down off my dresser. I may just delete her.

Alas! if we could actually delete people in real life. Well, if only I could, anyway. It's one of those things that only works out if I'm the only one that gets to do it.

So never mind. Here's Robbie and me yesterday - and Lord bless us if we aren't only here on this earth by the grace of B.B.S.N.S. and all the times she never ran us over when we crossed the street in front of her on our way back from Dominican Joe. How can I be bitter?

Kissing Lessons

I'm really good at kissing. It seems simple enough; but there's a finesse to it, an art that a lot of guys just don't understand. Let your lips just brush your partner's at first; pull back slightly, whisper something sweet, laugh a little, lightly touch her face, her hair. Start off almost hesitantly - savor it. It's delicious. The anticipation of the kiss is the best part.

So what you don't do, I'm saying, is lean over and stick your tongue right down a girl's throat. Why?? do guys do this??? There's no clearer signal you can give that sex will be perfunctory and mechanical, and that the most lasting impression your partner will bring away is that your ceiling could probably stand to be painted.

I don't mean to complain, though. Last night's was my first kiss in nearly a year. It wasn't a particularly good kiss, but at least somebody wanted to kiss me. Plus it was on a boat under a starry sky on Lake Austin, which is kind of a plus. It's a start.

Lucky me, I have so many friends. You can identify them by their soggy shoulders. I've been so unhappy... Yesterday I officially made the decision to get better, although actually this past week was already a lot better than the weeks before it. Last night, Tony took me to a happy hour reunion of school buddies at Hula Hut, where we met the cute guy with the boat. It was a wonderful night for me, but I'm not sure Tony had quite such a good time: the cute guy's friend was fairly drunk and possessed of a full complement of not-entirely-intelligent opinions, upon which he expounded at great length while his friend was cuddled with me in the driver's seat, showing me how to steer. I wouldn't have gone on the boat with them without Tony. I owe him one - or more.

Robbie came down and took me bowling tonight. I probably bowled the best game I ever have, with a score of - sit down, now - over 100!!! 116, to be precise. I'll have to look into it, but I suspect that might be the highest score possible in bowling. Of course, I had to sacrifice a thumbnail. And the rental shoes didn't smell at all the way I would have liked them to.

We went to Zilker Botanical Gardens, practically overflowing with brides and photographers on this lovely sunny day, then an early dinner at Freddie's before bowling. (I like Freddie's a lot, but I don't recommend the chicken-fried steak - I finally had to spit out a wad into my napkin when it wouldn't go down after chewing on it for three minutes.)

Robbie is a better bowler than I am. Granted that being a worse one would be no small feat. One of his pins fell down and forward, into the gutter along the lane; it lay there for several frames. Finally Robbie rolled a gutter ball that hit the pin and actually kicked it up into the standing pins for the most amazing spare I've ever seen. I had to sit down for a little while. I thought about him - a serious bowler. I thought about how much he would laugh at that. I teared up.

We went to Dominican Joe, Robbie bought me a mocha, and we took our coffee to the park by Palmer and watched the water fountains spraying in their ballet of changing colors, as skaters, bicyclists, and lovers gamboled nearby under a huge earthshine-lit moon. What could be more beautiful? I'm still grieving for kisses that were never possible to begin with; why? With all the friends and love and blessings and beauty that surround me?

It does and will get better. Didn't I just say that anticipation was the best part?

Life Goes On, Yeah

If there's one thing I've learned over the past three years, it's that you should never go anywhere without a camera.

Thank goodness for friends. I have some great ones, and there are times in your life when you realize how badly you need them, how heavily you rely on them, and how terribly lost you'd be without them. Last night I went to Tony's for movies and champagne. We watched Fool's Gold, not exactly the greatest movie ever made, but quite nice for drifting off to sleep on your friend's shoulder.

Robbie came down today in some hopes of buying a new coffeemaker at IKEA. We had thought of going last weekend as well, but never quite made it: it's too crowded there on the weekend, and if Robbie's driven all the way down to Austin to hang out with me, why would he drive me all the way back up to Round Rock, then drop me off down here again, then return to Georgetown? It's a lot of driving, even for a normal person.

I had a dream about another friend of mine, one I love dearly - I guess I should say a former friend. We've had a falling out, probably irreparable I'm afraid, and are not speaking now. I dreamt I asked him, anxiously, if he were seeing some other girl (since I've been accustomed to considering him as my own personal property). He hemmed, he hawed, he was evasive. Finally it came out that he had indeed met a girl and the relationship was quite promising - except she lived on the other side of town, and he didn't like to drive that far out of his way, so it wasn't going anywhere. In my dream I was jealous and upset. Once I was awake I laughed until tears were streaming down my face. That's exactly how it would be! Dreams are not supposed to be quite that realistic.

Robbie sent me an email week before last. "We need to go to IKEA," he wrote. "I need a fresh prince. I leaned down too hard and the glass broke, and ever since that I've been supporting Starbucks."

I was confused, and for several minutes pondered typing, "IKEA sounds good. What the fuck are you talking about?!" Then I remembered that a fresh prince is what we call a French press.

Bed Bath & Beyond has them, but they cost three times as much as they do at IKEA (although they might be more durable). So we gave up on that, had lunch, got Robbie a new iPod nano (ooh they are pretty!), picked up some coffee from Dominican Joe, and spent a couple of hours at Little Stacy. Someone's placed a cement Buddha there by the creek, which just goes to show that an afternoon spent with Robbie is always a religious experience. But a picture taken with his phone didn't come out well enough to post here.

We're starting to talk about another Corpus trip, over Memorial Day weekend. That Friday, the 22nd, will be my fortieth birthday. Forty! My God! That's, like - well, I don't know. It's forty. It's hard to pretend you aren't a grown-up when you hit that age.

But as God is my witness, and with the help of all the friends I can muster, I damn well intend to try. And there will be pictures.

These Shoes Were Made for Sulking

We didn't make it to IKEA, but Robbie did not let me down:

It's good to have friends who will dispense sage advice or drive down from Dallas to spend the day with you. Robbie and I visited old haunts - lunch at the Garden District, where they make a mean organic grilled-cheese, cucumber and onion sandwich; girly-girl shopping for shoes followed by manly-man shopping for electronics; a stroll down SoCo, where Robbie inexplicably purchased some pickle-shaped band-aids; and finally two mocha frojoes and a giant piece of chocolate cake from Dominican Joe, taken to go, and affectionately consumed in the old 3MBG spot.

You know what the break spot needed? Bunnies. That's what it was missing. Our center in Amarillo had lots of little brown bunnies, but most have been lost to the depradations of a big snake, I was told today, and of a coyote. Exterminators came and removed the snake. They tried to remove the coyote too, but coyotes are wily. Sadly, an 18-wheeler accidentally accomplished what the exterminator could not, and the bunnies roam unmolested once more.

All two of them. Still, two bunnies, as I pointed out to the Amarillo supervisor, should be quite enough, provided that one is a boy bunny and the other is a girl bunny. Also provided that the boy bunny is into girl bunnies. And provided he's a nice boy bunny, who treats the girl bunny kindly, and doesn't make the poor little thing jump through hoops just to try to make him happy.

It's so hard to hop in four-inch stilettoes.

Use It or Lose It

Walgreen's sells vibrators, so it doesn't matter if their selection of dog toys is fairly small.

Robbie and I had a proper nooner yesterday - I was forced, due to circumstances beyond my control, to take the day off work, so I picked him up for lunch at 11:15. We dropped his car off to be washed, waxed, and detailed; we ate steak; we did a spot of shopping at the abovementioned purveyor of questionable appliances; we hung out in the outdoor waiting pavilion at the car wash (which reminded me a bit of our dear old three-martini break spot); and eventually he returned to his office about two o'clock.

See? That's what I call a proper nooner. Well, except that his wiener wasn't involved.*

We're coming up on the end of the fiscal year, here. That's why I am now slated to visit four cities before the end of August. It's also why I had to take yesterday off. Do you know, my old cube neighbor Audrey never had this problem? She hated the job so much, and (quite frankly) lacked the capacity for finding joy in the company of cool people there, so she burned vacation and sick time faster than she earned it. It's kind of hard for me to imagine, because I find our employer's vacation leave policy to be particularly generous, although the concept of a limited amount of sick time, that you can actually run out of, is a little odd. Still I've accumulated more of both than I can even imagine being able to use. And I've only been there two and a half years!

Robbie and I had lunch at Montana Mike's. Have you ever played Paper Mario? The trainee waitress shadowing our waiter brings this game immediately to mind; but if you don't know what I'm talking about, never mind - there's not really any explaining it. "You can have a beer if you want to," said Robbie magnanimously, "but I can't."

Oh! the humanity! Not being able to have a drink during your two-and-three-quarter-hour lunch break! My heart bleeds. Somewhere, a very small violin is playing.

But I just had iced tea, because I was already planning to go to Diane's happy hour later, anyway. Diane has a great group of sweet, friendly and funny cohorts she goes out drinking with every Friday, and I always want to go, but I don't get off work until 5. They don't either, but they're all charter members of the KMA** club and take off whenever they damn well please. Friday is a blow-off day. So whatever!

Happy hour was at Donn's Depot. Either the wine is extremely cheap there, or else I owe Diane money. My favorite thing about that bar is the ladies' room, because it's an old caboose - rather plushly furnished, with little closet-like rooms for each commode, rather than stalls. And instead of the usual ladies'-room sofa that never gets used, because who the hell relaxes in the effing bathroom?! - there's the little sitting area you have to climb a ladder to get to, the old lookout seat of the caboose. Don't think I haven't thought about it. There are random women's thoughts scrawled on the pink-and-white-striped wallpaper in the stalls, but they aren't all that profound. I didn't bring a pen.

I have four more off-hours to burn off next week - probably Monday afternoon, I'm thinking - and then, after the travels are over, it's back to normal. Until the next hurricane.

I love my job, almost as much as shopping at Walgreen's! Still, thank God for the occasional nooner.

--------------------------
*This pun will never, ever get old
**Thursday I was tasked with putting together an acronym glossary for the supervisory manual I've been working on. I think that's a relevant entry, don't you?

Day Trip to South Dallas

Georgetown is a cute little city, but it closes on Sundays. Go on Saturday instead.

Closed or not, I had a good time today with Robbie, who took me for a bit of sight-seeing, and indulged me with a spot of shopping at Payless, where I picked up a cute, yet sensible pair of ballet flats. We also visited the big-box mega pet store so we could buy something his wiener could play with.

I never really noticed before how closely dog toys can resemble, um, other kinds of toys. Bill, I asked Robbie to take this picture for you - maybe it's not the one you were looking for, but it really might as well be.


I liked the old Williamson County jail, now in service as a public health building, and looking pretty much the way a place you take your children for free vaccinations should look - at least from the kids' point of view:


We tried to go for iced coffee, but every place that wasn't Starbucks was closed. So we went back to Robbie's and drank ice water and watched a movie on cable instead.

But at least Robbie's wiener was happy.

The Amazing Alphabetical Adventures of Robbie and Elizabeth

Bright and early this morning, Robbie picked Elizabeth up for a day of adventures. "But they have to be in ABC order," he told her. "And we have to go through the entire alphabet today."

A: Apportioning the first part of the morning to Dominican Joe, the pair absorbed coffee and asked the amiable barista - who welcomed them avidly after their long absence - what to see in Fredericksburg on the way to Enchanted Rock. She turned out to be full of answers. Also, apropos of nothing in particular, here's another piece of advice: always wear a bandana tied around your neck, because you never know when you'll want to hold up a bank. Or perhaps an armored truck.

B: Broke into Elizabeth's office - okay, badged in - to pick up a map, a notepad and pen, and most importantly the Buddha.


C: Car maintenance. In preparation for the trip, Robbie filled up the gas tank (at, it goes without saying, catastrophic cost) and topped off the windshield washer fluid, because when you're on a road trip, you hit a lot of bugs. Butterflies mostly, but let's just say they're crickets.

D: Drove! And while driving through Dripping Springs (Gateway to the Hill Country, don'cha know), Robbie and Elizabeth dished some dirt about former coworkers who think they're too good for Dominican Joe now. Just because they felt dissed. Also discussed was how doves always bring another former coworker to mind. Meanwhile, David Bowie played on the car stereo.

E: Elizabeth enjoyed the exemplary cleanliness of the restroom at the Stonewall Diner, as Robbie stood watch outside, lest she be abducted by Canadian Mormons, which don't even have an E at all; what were you thinking, Robbie?

F: Frittered away an hour or so in Fredericksburg.


G: German food is gastro-rrific! Or so the two found at Altdorf's, which is right next door to St. Mary's Cathedral, as a consequence of which they

H: Heard church bells ringing several times, apparently at random, for no particular reason, so they decided that every time the church bells ring, somewhere, an angel must be getting some. Meanwhile, thanks to the filling German food, they found they were no longer hungry.

I: Inappropriate remarks were made: if the church bell idea is correct, angels are apparently insatiable. Onward, then, to Enchanted Rock, where Robbie and Elizabeth found themselves exclaiming, "It's so BIG!"

The parking lot was full, but a car with Indiana plates and an Indianapolis Colts sticker pulled out just as the intrepid pair arrived, giving them a space only a short walk from the trailhead. And a good thing, too. Heaven forbid you have a long walk to the trailhead. It's very hot, and

J: there may have been a lapse in judgment involved in timing this excursion so that they were climbing Enchanted Rock during the hottest part of the day. "It's just a big rock," said Robbie.

K: Karma - "Good Karma," in fact, is what Buddha replied when, 1/4 of the way up the rock, Robbie and Elizabeth sat down, kaput, and asked him whether they were going to make it.

L: Lichens; there are some very cool lichens on the granite, which make fascinating patterns against the rock if you look closely. Robbie and Elizabeth were likin' the lichens.


M: Martinis! Halfway up, the pair stopped to rest on a comfortable rock. It was so comfortable, they stayed there for quite a long time, long enough that the friendly people who had begun climbing at the same time they did, and whom they therefore naturally regarded as arch-nemeses, actually made it to the top first. Robbie and Elizabeth christened the rock the Three Martini Break Rock.

N: Neato, nifty, nice view from the top! Enchanted rock is one of a pair of domes which curve down to a canyon between. This made Robbie think of NICE TITS!

O: "Oh what fun it is to ride with a condom and Buddha!" said Robbie. Elizabeth objected that this was a stupid entry for the letter O, but she was overruled.

At the windy top of Enchanted Rock, airborne soil and seeds have created several small grassy oases in the rock.


P: "Politely, we refrained from peeing off the rock onto the land below," pointed out Elizabeth. It was Robbie's turn to protest; but Elizabeth pressed on, as indeed anyone who is prepared enough to bring a vanilla-flavored condom to the top of Enchanted Rock has every right to do.

Q: "Cheryl's Bitch is SUCH a queen!!!!" quoth Robbie on the way down from the summit, for no readily apparent reason.

R: "Right About Now - The Funk Soul Brother" is a song on Elizabeth's iPod, playing through the stereo in Robbie's car on the way to LLano, but Robbie really likes it, I mean really. Frankly, it's kind of embaRRassing. Rrrrrrrrr!

S: Sweating profusely is what you will do if you climb Enchanted Rock on a hot day, incidentally. You'll also get sticky, and you might even smell.

T: Took the time to indulge in tasty ice cream treats, then traipse around historic Llano, where the llocals, engaging in an Old West reenactment, were so traditional in their dress that Elizabeth felt a bit like a tramp for wearing trousers.

U: Updating the decorations on the historic square is something Llano might want to take under consideration.


V: Vultures have hopefully eaten Robbie and Elizabeth's vanquished arch-nemeses by now.

W: Wildflowers are everywhere! Why did they take down the wildflower hotline at work? Elizabeth was wonderful at waxing rhapsodic about wildflowers. The hotline was taken down because the wildflowers had supposedly all wilted. Wrong!

X: Robbie and Elizabeth had a little trouble with this one for a few minutes, wondering, what on earth are we going to find on a road trip that starts with X? Then they drove past a noisome, bloated specimen of roadkill on the shoulder. "Look!" exclaimed Elizabeth, "it's an X-raccoon!"

Fine, you come up with something better.

Y: Yelled at a passing yokel (that's not what Robbie called him, but the word he used started with C) who failed to wave after Robbie pulled onto the shoulder to let him go by. SO rude. Probably from Califo - I mean, the Yukon.

Z: Back in Austin at last, Robbie and Elizabeth decided to stop for a drink before heading homewards. Z Tejas would certainly have been the logical choice, but they like El Arroyo better: it's a favorite place to sit and relax and enjoy margaritas and chips and salsa.

And then finally back home, after a fun and exhausting day: time to catch some Z's!

See all the pictures!

Say WHAT?!?!?

I'm still bummed about not getting to go to Corpus, but my BFF Robbie wants to go on a road trip this weekend. Wouldn't that be fun?!? Somewhere we haven't been before. Somewhere out West, he says. I have a couple of coworkers in West Texas, people I just met in person at the conference in Beaumont, so I send a quick inquiry and get some information.

Maybe an hour later, another coworker from near the Oklahoma border calls me up to get clarification on a task I'd assigned him. I dig through my files for the information, making small talk to kill time. "So I hear you're planning a road trip out West!" he says.

And they say my agency has internal communication problems.

And speaking of not speaking, I got out of an agonizing, 3.5-hour staff meeting this afternoon only to discover a chummy email from a former acquaintance of mine, who owns a small plane and makes his living contracting out to local farmers to spray pesticide over their fields. "How are you doing?" he wrote. "I thought you would be driving to Corpus Christi last week."

Oh, he's a smart guy. Well, ish. He'll never set the world on fire (unless he has a strategically-placed lighter), but sending this message via email shows he has some sense of self-preservation, at least when it comes to his eardrums. It's a good thing computer monitors aren't made of glass anymore.

Finally, a funny story (I thought) from another coworker out West: west, in fact, of El Paso, as far west as you can go and still be in the grand old state of Texas. My coworker was attempting to hire someone, and candidates were sent over from a local employment firm.

The first candidate he interviewed, he said, was absolutely perfect. He didn't need to see anyone else. He transcribed the interview as required, filled out the paperwork, prepared to move ahead with the hiring process - no small task, you know, when you're in state government - and called the firm. "You don't need to send anyone else," he told the representative, "this one is perfect! Please go ahead and extend her the offer."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" said the rep. "I should have told you. She isn't actually available to work at this time. We just sent her out so she could get some practice interviewing."

Exhibiting superhuman patience, my coworker did not bitch-slap the rep into next week, and instead recovered himself and moved forward with the interviews. The next candidate was quite promising; she arrived early; appeared very professional, knowledgeable, and friendly; and he chatted with her while getting everything printed out and ready for the interview. With everything lined up, he asked her the first interview question, switching to English.

She appeared confused. "Oh - I don't speak English," she said (in Spanish.)

"Oh," he said, taken aback. "I'm sorry. You have to be able to speak English." So the disappointed applicant left, and once more he called the employment firm rep, of whom I have to think he was not overly fond by now. "Why did you send me someone who can't speak any English?" he asked.

"We already discussed this," she told him patiently. "You said it wasn't a problem."

"WHAT?!" he said, "of course it's a problem, this is an information position serving the traveling public, why on earth would I say they wouldn't need to be able to speak English?!"

"Well, I did ask you if this position required the candidate to be bilingual," the rep said reasonably. "You told me it didn't."

Maybe Robbie and I will get out there this weekend.

Didn't You Learn Anything from "A Bug's Life?"

You'd think, wouldn't you, that you'd be able to experience a perfect Austin afternoon without importing someone from Georgetown?

Well, you'd be wrong.

Robbie was kind enough to make the long, arduous journey south today, to drag me out of the house and rescue me from a sad and self-absorbed funk (PMS for short). We went to Dominican Joe for coffee.

Ah, Dominican Joe. Do you know, the place gets quite crowded on a bright sunny Sunday afternoon, and fills up with the sort of people who saunter lazily up and down South Congress - until so recently the undisputed dominion of drug addicts and $10 whores - the trendy, the happy, who wear sundresses and cowboy boots, and spend more money on a pair of artistically pre-tattered jeans than I did on my first car.

Robbie ordered a smoothie and I a frozen mocha frojoe, with whipped cream (why do anything by half?). We sat in the shade on the patio and talked about urban planning and deviant sex practices. But there wasn't a table available, and it did just cross my mind to suggest moving across the street to our work campus and our old break spot, two picnic tables under a pavilion. I was afraid that might be dorky.

"Hey, do you want to go to the break spot?" asked Robbie, who is one of my best friends ever for a reason.

So we did; we sat at the Official Three-Martini Break Spot for a good 45 minutes, sipping sublimely unhealthful nonalcoholic beverages, enjoying the magnificent weather and the inappropriate behavior of grackles in the spring sunshine. One of the tables sports a heavy chain and large padlock, but not the other - a fact I had never noticed, but Robbie said he'd always found curious. "What's this table chained to, anyway?" he asked.

Long story short, if you go to the corner of Congress and Riverside looking for a picnic table, you can pick up a free chain and padlock as well.

From there we moved to the new park complex across Riverside from Auditorium Shores, next to the Palmer Events Centeer and the newly-opened Long Center, where they built that spiral-pathed hill overlooking the skyline. Robbie and I have been there once before, under slightly sketchy circumstances. The whole area was under construction, and presumably meant to be shut off to the public. But we were on our lunch hour, and so apparently were the gaggle of construction workers bivouaced nearby; and the gate to the construction zone was slightly ajar. "There's not a sign saying we can't go in," Robbie had pointed out, reasonably enough. The workers, being off the clock, were hardly going to confront intruders on their own time. We had the run of the place.

Today it was different. The hill is seeded with grass and the occasional bluebonnet, and ringed with benches. Two ponds, one near the hill, and one in front of the Palmer Events Center, are well-stocked with laconic turtles, who sploop right into the water when people approach them with high-pitched voices (what's with this urge to use baby talk on reptiles?!), but have a hilarious amount of difficulty climbing back out again once the danger has passed. Fortunately turtles don't mind being laughed at. Or maybe they do, I don't know. What are they going to do - chase me down?

The view of the skyline from atop the man-made hill is fairly spectacular, though it'll be nicer once all the cranes are gone. And Tony will agree it's a great pity that all these beautiful downtown condos are destined to be filled with Californians, especially inasmuch as they have no idea how to drive. People! When you cut in front of someone, you wave! That's how you know you're in Texas, dammit.

And from the park, we meandered our way to El Arroyo to enjoy a frozen margarita in the midst of yet another construction zone. There's not much getting away from that.

It was Austin. It was perfect. And an outraged young mother demanded of her toddler, in angry tones, the timeless line I've used as the subject of this post, just as we were passing. What more could anyone ask for?

BFFs

My totally awesome friend Vicki called me today. I haven't seen her since before moving to Corpus in early 2004, and though we've been in sporadic touch, we haven't really kept up with each other over the past few years.

When I met Vicki, I was 22 and she was 39. She doesn't have kids, but has a particular warmth to her that I always found maternal. She's extremely smart, tremendously funny, good-humored, perceptive, and very, very kind. She was a mentor to me, as well as a great friend. She was a temp working in the document storage room at Sematech, and I was brought in on a six-week temp assignment to help out.

The weeks grew to months. Vicki got hired on as a permanent employee, and (after almost two years!) I did too. We had the big storage room all to ourselves, with only the most infrequent visits from management. Well, we knew our job well; it wasn't rocket science, but anyway Vicki has a very strong work ethic. We worked really well as a team, so everything got done. We always had KUT playing on the radio in our work room. It was a fun place to be; other people at the company often came to hang out and visit, including such folks as Debby, the sister of someone I would eventually marry; and Mary, the wife of Robert, who would someday be my lead worker (and who has come to be a good friend in his own right) at the organization where I work now.

Eric was 17 months old when I began working there and got to know Vicki, so she was a little thunderstruck today to hear that he's about to turn 18 (years). I got pregnant with Katie just after starting that job.

She reminded me today of Salvador. How could I forget Salvador?! Working among boxes and boxes of technical documents, and occasionally doing bulk mailouts, we sometimes had to transport multiple boxes to the mailroom. We had a dolly for the purpose. Well - what else would we name a dolly? He was called Salvador, of course. The sweet thing is, apparently he, complete with his nametag, is still in use.

We also had a publicity photo of the dearly-missed CEO, Bill Spencer, which I had cut out and placed on a brightly colored background. I had various different costumes and props for him for different times of year - like a paper doll, you know. He had a Santa hat, an Uncle Sam costume, a pot of gold, etc. For Easter I had a big decorated egg with holes cut out for his eyes. I had totally forgotten about that.

I worked in that area for a while after Vicki had moved on to another department. Requesting a document, she once made fun of a former coworker who had asked for a technical document, volunteered to come pick it up, then heard where in the building we were and asked to have it delivered instead. Vicki came to the room to pick up her document, threw herself onto the floor, and clawed her way along the carpet with her fingernails. "So far!" she gasped, "so very, very far!"

One of the marks of a true friend is that, even after not talking to them for years, you find that the flow and spark of conversation is just as free and spontaneous and fun as it was when you hung out together every day. It was like that with Vicki today: checking up, laughing, on one another's latest developments; me asking after her work and her husband (he's such a cool guy!); her asking after Daddy and Joyce; kids, friends, work, life. And we will get together very soon.

Happy Easter; here's to the dear and wonderful friends who bless us and make our lives so well worth living!

Best Weekend Ever

Isn't there a song about how, if you're going to Corpus Christi, be sure to have flowers on your car?

I'll write one, perhaps. We're also going to write a musical about the big creepy Jesus of the Sea. Justin, I mean Edwin, has the title song mostly done.

Downtown Corpus, you know, is largely derelict, though there are some efforts under way to revitalize it. There's this incredibly cool old building right across from our hotel. Aside from a lone dive bar on the ground floor, it's been empty for I-don't-know-how-long. Now they're gutting it and turning it into lofts; and I bet they won't go for as much as the downtown lofts in Austin do... Anyway, the doors are all locked and all that's left of the bar is its sign on the side of the building. But many of the windows are open. And there's a fire escape. Wouldn't it be so cool, Edwin and Dumas and I kept saying to one another all weekend, if we could somehow get into that building and explore?

Last night we went out with my old war buddies Omar and Spam Master G, who's still at the hell place (and says it's almost sane now that Tiffany is gone - I cannot tell you how flabbergasted I still am by that - my head is reeling!). And as we walked back through the deserted downtown streets at 2am (almost no bars are open on Sunday night, Memorial Day weekend be damned), we passed our building. It's so cool, isn't it? Wouldn't it be awesome if there were a way in?

You can jump and reach the fire escape, but it's chained in the up position. But Omar gave G a boost (in a fashion that, if they still worked together, would have them both working from home for at least six months) and G went through a window, came down the stairs, and opened the bar door for us. It wasn't really even locked - it opens inward, and was secured by a length of 2x4 propped under the door handle.

There's electricity, but above the fifth floor no lights were on. The inside is completely gutted. Most of the windows were open, so with no interior walls (but many, many concrete columns) it wasn't impenetrably dark. It smelled old. It was deliciously spooky. I half expected Richard Dean Anderson to leap out of the wall at me naked.

Of course we disturbed nothing - there was nothing to disturb, and after a while we made our way back down to street level and outside. It was incredibly cool. I'd like to say it's the crowning moment of the trip, but it's got some pretty stiff competition: the beach at midnight, silent except for the waves and dark except for the stars and a half moon; getting ready in the bathroom for an evening our partying and coming out to find Dumas filling the room with pink balloons and paper streamers and a birthday card and candles for me (he wanted to have a cake too, but since we took my car and nobody else is able to drive it, there wasn't really a way to do that); trying to reassure a very drunk guy on the street corner that we weren't breaking into my car, as it's actually my car; discovering that Captain Albatross looked just like our dad; getting caught staring out our hotel window at all the human drama taking place by the pool; finding out that Robin quit her job at the old hell place by screaming "FAT BITCH!" at Tiffany and slamming the door in her face; breakfast at City Diner with Omar and Robert; talking up Alaska and how much we miss our butler (or maid) Nyuk-Nyuk over lunch in Nixon; listening to cool tunes on Edwin's iPod; having the most complicated, difficult, and lengthy hotel check-in process I have ever experienced; gathering flowers and vegetation at every place we stopped and tucking it under my rear window wiper, so by this point it looks like I drove down a ravine and into the sea ass-backwards; pink yogurty yummy strawberry martinis; taking a driving tour of the ghetto; getting rained on; getting sunned on; laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing so much I'm totally hoarse.

Of course, our Dad's ashes are still going round and round on the conveyor belt at the Seattle airport. We thought about asking Nyuk-Nyuk if she (or he) would FedEx them to us, but figured we'd be back home in Barrow by the time they arrived.

So we'll go back again one day. And there will be flowers on my car.