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

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!

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

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 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.

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!

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.)

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 guy 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 the rabbi 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!

Nothing Says Fun Like a Few Kajillion Deadly Man O Wars

I got to go to Galveston for a work conference last week with some coworker-friends. A couple of different drunks were kind enough to take some really good pictures of us. But my boss was with us. And I like my job. So I decided against posting them.

After the conference, The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken drove in with my boy and my sweet pea. And it was wonderful and the weather was beautiful. And the beach was...well, it was a beach, which means it was paradise.

Except for the man-o-wars. Those things are deadly, apparently, and the beach was more or less carpeted with them. That kind of put a damper on the swimming and wading and stuff.We wandered around The Strand, but for some reason, I took most of the pictures in the alley.
I'm sure Galveston must have been breathtakingly beautiful some number of hurricanes ago. There's still some Ike recovery going on a year and a half after the most recent one though.
We heard music at the Old Quarter.The owner told my gal to reach her hand up as far as she could, then told her that's how high the water had been inside!

The amazing thing was that it was kind of hard to tell. The walls were covered with pictures of people who had played there, which he said had been either sent to him or had been restored.

All in all, except for the man-o-wars, me losing my favorite hoodie sweatshirt (It's black with a zipper & says KPFT. Have you seen it?), and my friend's son puking, it was a perfect couple of days. I even saw a motorcycle made of wicker! So what could be better than that, I ask you?!?!?

New Years Means You Can't Always Get What You Want. Sort of like the rest of life.

New Years has always been a big deal in my family, although we've simplified a few of our traditions. We've gone from entire grocery bags filled to the brim with confetti to a single, illicit handful, furtively tossed by my nephew.

The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken not only shares my love for songs about poultry, but has also brought us a new tradition, called a Turducken. That means a dead chicken stuffed inside a dead duck stuffed inside a dead turkey.My brother said he's impressed they can market any food which begins with the word "turd" and then he proceeded to write a short song about it. Turducken has now been the food centerpiece three years running.

We've been listening to the Rolling Stones "You Can't Always Get What You Want" at the stroke of midnight since I was too young to remember (also known as the early 70s). I predict this tradition spreads across the USA to become more popular than whatever that ball dropping thing is.

One tradition I'd like to see minimized - lately we seem to make our way into the ER each winter vacation. Last year my brother used his knee to stop a sled carrying a full grown adult. Needless to say crutches and physical therapy were in order.

This year my sweet pea had a post viral restricted airway, more commonly known as an asthma attack. Would you believe she was a good enough sport to pose for a picture?Not to be outdone, my littlest nephew's trip to the ER involved strep throat. He's a good sport too. And he offered to let me take a picture of his red throat (ok, he didn't). But you can never have enough pictures of a baby in a guitar case:

Some traditions I hope we never give up. I hope my brother will continue to wear a silly hat while pouring a champagne tower. It just makes me happy.So does the dancing:Even better if followed by guitar:Happy New Years everyone! This one brought to you by the Rolling Stones, as always:

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
but if you try sometimes
you just might just find you get what you need.

And if you hang out with us, you might just find you get what you need AND some turducken too.

Turducken picture: Turducken

My Jeans Totally Have Syphilis Now. Or Maybe Herpes.

The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken and I went to New Orleans and so I am in HEAVEN on Bourbon Street. Because I'm always in heaven in the French Quarter. It's the law. And plus, how can ANYONE not be in heaven in a place where dressing up as a fire hydrant is an acceptable career choice?

Look, here's a New Orleans fire hydrant:And here's me with a guy whose job it is to dress up like a fire hydrant and stand on the street:So I'm all happy because I'm in the French Quarter, breathing the French Quarter air. But my jeans aren't happy. Because I wore flip flops and so the bottoms of my jeans were all dragging in the muck and spilt beer and pee and stuff on the street and getting all brown and disgusting. And now I'm pretty sure they at least have syphilis. Or maybe Herpes.

But that's okay, because I made up a greeting card just for them. To make up for it, because I was having such a wonderful time while they were getting diseased. You know those cards that say, "When I count my blessings, I count you twice."?

Well, my new greeting card would say, "When I count my blessings, I count not having herpes twice." And I really do. Because that would suck. Although that particular greeting might not work for my jeans, because they probably already GOT herpes from being dragged along Bourbon Street.

Here's the interesting thing I found out today: All those drunks on Bourbon Street aren't really alcoholics. They're only drinking in order to forget all their gambling woes.

It's true! I've been seeing these signs EVERYWHERE, all over New Orleans:This one's on the door of a pub, no less.And so you see, obviously gambling is the serious problem in the French Quarter, not drinking.

I'm going to post in a timely manner, so that I can encourage anyone planning a trip to New Orleans to wear more appropriate shoes than I chose, thus helping prevent the spread of herpes among blue jeans.

This computer doesn't seem to have spell check though, and also it's one in the morning. So appologies in advance for any typos, mistakes, or ill advised mentionings of STDs.

Fire hydrant photo

My Lips Are Sunburned

Happy Mother's Day all you women out there who sacrificed your bodies and all your time and every ounce of energy that you had just to put yet another human on this earth who will alternately adore and you and ceaselessly criticize your every move! This day's for you!

Anyhow, we've been busy like little bees here. The kids had the production of their play, and now they're world famous in Jewish Houston. Random strangers tell them what a great job they did, and suddenly parents and grandparents of my students realize why I look so familiar.

Yesterday was Houston's Art Car Parade, the country's oldest and largest. Two hundred and fifty THOUSAND people were expected to show up, and I'm pretty sure I handed out a KPFT 90.1 program guide to 249,000 of those people. So that's why my lips are sunburned and I practically got sunstroke.

It's worth it though, because the art car parade is like Christmas to me. Did you ever know anyone who said, "No matter what, I can never be sad on Christmas."? I know someone who says that, and it's true. No matter what kind of PURE HELL she happens to be living through during any particular year, Christmas day makes her truly happy.

A couple things do that for me, like seeing my gal sing or dance or hearing my boy scold the cat for getting near his miniature Torah. And the Art Car parade. I'm always happy at the art car parade. Here's a couple pictures:


Here's a woman painting the words, "Art Horse" onto a police horse:
The-Guy (who knows a song about a chicken, as opposed to the guy whose car is a giant chicken) and I had this conversation with the owner of the chicken car:

Me - "Do you have to get it inspected?"
Chicken-Car-Guy - "No. I just get tickets."
Me - "But you have a license plate on there."
Chicken-Car-Guy - "Yeah, I take it off my other car and put it on there."
The-Guy - "Do you have it insured?"
Chicken-Car-Guy - "Yes, but I have it insured as a Toyota truck, not as a giant chicken."

In other news, the Older Gal is hoping to become a binge drinker like me, so next up I have pictures of our cabinets and refrigerator, showing what an awesome job we're doing around here helping her to aspire to her goals.

Meanwhile I'm off to collect on what I'm sure will be a plethora of mother's day gifts and a day of pampering...or something. Happy Mother's Day!