Captain Mommypants and Bug Come to Austin

Sorry for the quiet, but it's been an insane-o week. Captain Mommypants and my little brother Bug are in town visiting us this week, and between hanging out, playing music, eating good food, and trying to snatch little bits and pieces of work in the midst of it all, I've had little time to blog. Pictures and stories to follow, I promise, but for now I've got 2 hours to myself, and 52 six-page essays to grade. Go, go, go!

I Can't Title This Post

Friday was one of the worst days. As anybody who's ever spent five minutes talking to me or reading my blog knows, my little dog Birdie is unequivocally the cutest little muppet in the world, but she's also something of a case. She's roughly 12 or 13 years old, mostly blind, almost toothless, nearly deaf, allergic to almost every food that dogs normally eat, and also sort of anorexic. She shivers and shakes as her primary form of communication, and needs a sweater when it's 80 degrees outside. But she's snuggly and adorable and hilarious. She hunts her own shadow and trips over her own extremely long legs and gets her tongue stuck hanging out of her mouth. To say that I am totally in love - perhaps even obsessed - with my little Bird is extremely understating the situation.



Lately, Birdie's been acting a little weird. Weirdly constipated, weirdly shaky, and then last week she went off her food for three full days. She's been sleeping like a maniac. So I took her to the vet and finally ordered the geriatric blood screen vets have been recommending that I do on account of her age. In spite of everything, all the signs, even the fact that a friend who's in vet school told me that Birdie looked like she needed to be on dialysis, I somehow had convinced myself that the blood screen would be totally fine and a complete waste of money.



But on Friday the vet called back and as soon as I heard his voice my stomach dropped clean out of my body. "Birdie's blood screen shows some worrisome elements..." he began in a funeral voice, and I felt my throat start to squeeze up. Birdie, it turns out, has an advanced case of kidney disease. Blood values that are supposed to measure between 7 and 26 in a healthy dog are at 132 in the Bird, and the list goes on. He recommended that I bring in a urine sample so they could eliminate the possibility of a kidney infection. What followed would've been hilarious - me, running around the back yard after Birdie with a tupperware container in my hand trying to catch her pee - if I hadn't been crying the whole time. But it wasn't an infection, it's kidney disease, and a pretty bad case of it. I spent the rest of the day coming to grips with the fact that this marvelous little dog, in whom I've invested every ounce of love and care I have in my spirit, and who, in return, has loved me fiercely, is terminally ill.

I have no idea how much longer Birdie will be with us. The vet gave one of those vague "maybe months, maybe a year..." kind of answers. Given her street-fighter mentality and fiesty spirit, I'm betting on the latter. This is, after all, the 7 pound toothless wondermutt who will take on a pit bull as if it were a mouse. The good news is that if you've got to go of something, kidney failure is about as easy a way to go as there is. Eventually she'll just get extremely lethargic as toxins build up in her system, she won't be able to eat anymore, and one day it'll be too much. But she's not in pain. This is the same thing my mother's dog Sheba died of. So we'll keep her happy, as healthy as we can, and comfortable until the end, and let her sleep in between us in the bed, because she loves nothing more than that. These last months will be the best months of her life.

The Nerds of Nerdville

A few months ago, Handsome and I went to meet up with Penata and her boyfriend, The World's Greatest Carolina Fan (TWGCF) at a local bar. In the midst of drinks and merriment, I spilled a little (oops!) and reached for the nearest napkin, a decision that happened to change my life for the subsequent future. You're dying to know why, aren't you. Well. It changed my life because scribbled on that napkin were the names of 17 African countries.

"What's this?" I inquired, holding the napkin scrap up.
"Oh, just a game," said Penata. "We were testing each other to see who could name the most African countries in 60 seconds."

Instantly (and completely predictably), I was hooked. How many could I name? Seventeen seemed a paltry number, surely I could best it by a wide margin! No. It turns out I could not. I got 18, and one of them I only remembered because I had just seen it written on the napkin 45 seconds earlier. I was humiliated. What kind of educated person am I? I'm supposed to be earning a doctorate here, and I can't name even half of the African nations? That's just downright embarrassing.

So there you have it - thus began my latest obsession. Within a month we had a world map shower curtain, and another world map hanging in our bedroom. I have been steadily studying these maps a bit at a time, and I think I'm ready. Eventually my goal is to name all 47 in geographic order, but for now, my goal is to get most. Not all, just most. I think that's as much as I'm ready to commit to.

Before I begin, I would like to invite you to challenge yourself before reading the following. Close your laptop, grab a spare sheet of paper, and see what you can do from memory. Unless you don't think deliberate exercises in self-humiliation have a positive effect in your life, in which case, go ahead and study up first.

Now. Ready? I am on the couch, not a map in sight. I haven't looked at the map since yesterday, so this is as close to my natural state as I get. I have a timer, and I'm holding myself strictly to the honor code.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a test. This is only a test.

Egypt
Lybia
Djibouti
Ethiopia
Eritrea
Sudan
Algeria
Morocco
Western Sahara (occupied Morocco)
Mauritania
Chad
Mali
Burkina Faso
Benin
Togo
Cote d'Ivoire
Ghana
Senegal
Guinea
Guinea Bissau
Congo
Democratic Republic of Congo
Central African Republic
Zaire
Zambia
Angola
Namibia
South Africa
Lesotho
Swaziland
Zimbabwe
Madagascar
Uganda
Rwanda
Kenya
Niger
Nigeria
Liberia
Sierra Leone

TIME.

Shit. I don't think that was even close to 47. Hang on, let me count. OK, 39. Unless I accidentally repeated some, and I know I got out of geographic order a couple times in there. What the heck did I forget. Dang.

Oh, well. There is always room and time for improvement. Let me know how you all do, if you take the test!

A Few Random Thoughts

1. My fingers hurt from practicing the guitar. This makes typing a little more painful than normal, but only on my left hand. I will take this opportunity to not write my dissertation today.

2. It is April 19th in Austin, which normally is quite hot. I should be at Barton Springs in a bikini, lazily considering whether I should put on another coat of sunscreen (yes). Instead, I am inside wearing sweatpants and a sweater. I have a blanket on my lap, a pot of tea to keep me warm on the inside, and a green chile beef stew on the stovetop. I looked at the thermostat and it was 61 degrees in my house. I know all the folk in northern climes will either gasp, laugh, or keel over dead when they read this next thing, but I just turned on the heat. Surely in the history of Austin, this is an unusual day.

3. Just for the record, that last was not a complaint. The longer winter lasts, the shorter summer will be. Right now, I'm looking at only 6 months instead of the normal 7 or 8. Rejoice!

4. Birdie got a mani-pedi today. Absurd dog.

5. Handsome is so good looking and wicked smart. I am one lucky gal.

6. I have been floating on a tide of happiness since last Wednesday, after I lectured for a professor of mine and she said I'd done a "really excellent job." Considering this woman's life motto is "Tough but Fair," and the superlative form is entirely foreign to her, I practically floated home from school that day. I loved getting to teach a class - to design the syllabus for that section, select the readings, deliver the lecture, answer questions, engage their minds... After years of slaving away at one paper or article or project after another, it was a wonderful reminder of why I got into this field in the first place.

7. Every now and then I squeeze my eyes closed for a little bit. Then when I open them I look around me real quick to make sure this really is my life, and I really am this happy. Each time I do it, I am reassured. Yes, this really is my life, and yes, I really am this happy. I'd like to say thank you to whatever karmic fairy gods are out there sprinkling their magic dust upon me these last months.

Contrary to Public Opinion...

I am still alive. Not posting, true, but alive and well. Sorry for the prolonged silence, but the Friday deadline for a chapter turned into a Monday deadline, and then Tuesday I had to lecture for one of my professors, and then the Wednesday for another one of them, and then by the time it was Thursday I was so tired (and blessedly without prior commitments) that I ran a hot bath at 10 am, and soaked in it for an embarrassingly long time while reading a frivolous novel. I followed that ridiculous exercise in self-indulgence with a 2 hour nap, after which I sat on the front porch and drank a glass of wine. To say the least, as a result of my indolence, the following few days were also on the far side of nutsville. So there you have it. More to follow, but it's Sunday and I'm not writing any more. Mostly because Handsome is making pancakes.

Naked Bike Guy

There is a man in Austin who rides everywhere on his bike completely ass naked, except for a bright blue g-string banana hammock. I've seen him around before, and am past the point where I'm shocked, or even surprised anew each time I see him.

But.

He just rode right by my front window, and I have to report that while, due to this habit of excessive undress, he is normally a very tanned individual, he now looks like somebody basted him with butter and stuck him under the broiler for 50 minutes at 425 degrees. Not lobster red, just a very crispy and unnatural brown color, rather like burnt sienna with a dash of turmeric. I hope Naked Bike Guy is ok.

Nothing New, I'm Afraid

Sorry to bum out this week on blog posting, but I've got a chapter due on Friday and no time for shilly-shallying. Or dilly-dallying, come to think of it. Wish me luck, and while you're at it, you might also do a dance of joy on my behalf, as I just learned that I've gotten enough funding for the summer that I can travel to Cuba and Nicaragua for brief research trips and still have enough left over that, if I live monastically, I don't have to TA for a summer course. WHICH MEANS. I am six weeks closer to being totally done with this beast of a burden. Huzzah!

A Little Visitor

One of the nicest things about our cute and delightful little Casita Sonrisa is the office. An office, I say! A room for working and books and sitting down to do things for work that keep me out of sight of my bed, the refrigerator, and the back yard. It's marvelous. When I was living in Matagalpa doing research, a guy I became friends with drew me a picture of the city, nestled in among the mountains. I taped that picture to the door of the office and now when I need to do work, I simply announce to myself (and Birdie, because she needs to know as well), "I am going to Nicaragua!" Then I walk in the office, close the door, sit at my desk, and work. This is excellent. No distractions. Except...

Sometimes I get riveted by what goes on right outside the window I sit in front of. The other day, I watched a red-headed woodpecker feed her nest of peckerlings in the tree across the street. Last week a cat sat upon my porch and groomed herself in highly entertaining detail. And then just two days ago, a little teeny tiny baby opossum ("the other white meat," as we say back in North Carolina) climbed up on the porch and started sniffing around. Naturally, I grabbed my hunting rifle. Er, no, that's wrong. Camera. I meant to say camera. Yes.

As I was saying, I grabbed my camera and sprinted out to the front porch to take pictures. By the time I got there, however, something had startled the baby possum, and it was nowhere to be found. Undeterred, I looked about, certain it couldn't have gotten far. "Here, little possumy-wossumy! Where aaaarrreee youuuuuuu?" I heard a little hissing sound coming from the corner, and approached with caution. Are you in the box? No. Are you under the chair? No. Are you...

In the map? Yes.



There she was, inside the rolled up map of the world. She stared me down, swaying her head back and forth, hissing at me incessantly. You know that rule that applies to all of nature, how no matter how ugly an adult version of something is, the baby is always cute? Not true. Not true at all, when it comes to possum. Can you see her? I tried to get my camera to focus on the bottom, but was thwarted at every turn, so this is as good as it gets:



I think I'll call her Carmen Sandiego.

A Very Hard Worker

I just wanted to issue a brief assurance, for any who might be curious, that I have not in any way been distracted by the glories of spring as it bursts forth all around me. I remain impervious to the blossoming flowers and budding trees, blind to the warm breezes and gentle sunshine of these long afternoons, and deaf to the chirps and twitters of birds as they celebrate the coming warmth. Instead, I remain steadfast at my desk, bent to my work with the seriousness of purpose befitting a graduate student hard at work on her dissertation. Rest assured, for work is my life. I shall not falter along this path.

In Which The Internets Show Me Strange Things

So my amazing brother The Fairy King googled my name the other day while bored at work. Actually, he works in Australia, so technically, I believe it was "whilst" he was bored at work, but I digress. Anyway, I can't believe what he found. Back in 1987, my mother was interviewed and quoted in Working Mother Magazine in a curiously-titled little article called "Should We Tell Our Kids The Truth About Santa?" I mean, really. KIDS CAN READ. Don't put that on the cover and then mail it to some harried woman's house. She's trying to keep the shit storms under control, and this? This probably won't help.

The whole magazine seemed a little funny, come to think of it. They perhaps might better have called the magazine "Alarmist Parenting," or "Did You Know How Many Secret Horrors Lurk Out There Magazine." Then the articles entitled "Down With Office Parties," "Crying: Why It's a Career Crusher," and "Compassion: Are Children Really Capable Of It?" would seem more appropriate.

The story about my mother and me, and our little Santa anecdote? Cute as hell. Apparently, I was something of a winker back then. And yes, now my real first name is on the website, technically, and no, nobody but my family calls me that, so don't start.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=aGEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=Cheasty+Miller&source=bl&ots=sX0JBlvCuC&sig=DHg3Gho2NCLB30k0whnBUoY9uH4&hl=en&ei=5S60S4LsC9CHkQWojIyXDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CBoQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=Cheasty%20Miller&f=false

Miz Birdie Hunts Her Own Shadow

Hmmm, I'm thirsty. I think I'll go in the bathroom to drink out of my special purple cup of water that Mom keeps in the corner for me. Doh-dee-doh-dee-doh. Oh, hey! Look at this puddle of bright white light. It's so beauuuutiful. I'm going to look inside it. Hmmm, what's that dark thing in the corner of the puddle?



Oh my gosh, it looks like me. Hello? Who are you? What's your name? What are you doing in my bathroom?



Helloooooo? Can you hear me? Why won't you talk to me? Hey! Where are you going?




Hey, Mr. Shadowpants, I'm talking to you! Come back here!




Hmph. Where did you go, Mr. Shadowpants? Are you under the bath mat? You can't fool me, I'll just keep on looking. I know you're in here somewhere!




Oh, Mom! Nothing. I mean, no. I mean, why, hello there. My, that's a fetching sweater vest you're wearing.




What do you mean, what am I up to. I was just leaving, is what. Sheesh. You're always asking questions.

In Loco Parentis

Hello blog, this is Birdie. Cheasty wanted to write today, but she has too much work. Given that she takes such excellent and tender care of me, I thought that writing to you on her behalf was the least I could do. I'm not sure what else to say now, as I've used up most of my words. I still have a few left, such as: treat! Nap! Walk? Treat! TREAT! Rub my ears.



Treat?

Trifecta

So here's the marketing scheme for any business in New Orleans. First, make a list of all the things people know and love about Louisiana and Cajun culture. Second, write down the name of your business. Third, pick a few of those words on your lists and smoosh them together. Presto: business name! This is the way (I can only assume) that you get places named "Jambalaya Guitar," "Cajun Nail 'n Hair," and "Zydeco Snack Bar."

But this is America folks, where more is better. So in my imagination, this is the way it happened: some clever dude must've sat up straight in bed one night, hand clapped to his forehead, and cried, "Eureka! Why stop at ONE traditional Louisiana thing? In fact, why add any single true identifier in the name at all?" And presto, before you knew it, businesses abounded that said nothing but the words: alligator, jazz, jambalaya, gumbo, cajun, creole, French, etc, all in combination with each other.

Like, for example, this:



I have no idea what this place of business does, or what "getting your tail bit" is euphemistic for (though I must confess, the mind reels at this world of possibilities), but this, my friends, is the trifecta of Louisiana-themed marketing plans for local businesses. Jazz. Gumbo. Alligator. Stand back and watch the money roll in.

The Big Easy, II

Yesterday I talked about some of the fun things we did in New Orleans, but I completely neglected to tell you about Lubini, the Big Fuzz, and Little Cub, friends of mine from college we were visiting down there. Well, Cub isn't a friend of mine, he's the offspring of these friends of mine, and OH MY GOD, did he ever fall in love with Handsome. Fall in love as in, he wouldn't even hold my hand when we took him out to the park. All he would say is "Handsome, Handsome, Handsome, Handsome, Handsome, Handsome," and then he'd stare up at him with an adoring grin on his face. I briefly considered being insulted, but then I remembered behaving similarly when I first met Handsome, so I decided it was a perfectly natural reaction to his animal charisma, and let it go.



Lubini and Fuzz were working nights on the movie they're doing down there, so we didn't get to hang too much Thursday and Friday, but Saturday was a different story. Handsome and I did some walking and driving around the Garden District while they slept in the morning, and then that afternoon they awoke with great news. "Hey, Cheasty, we scored some free box seats to the NCAA tournament games this afternoon. Want to go?"

Ummmm... yes, please?

So off we went, silly grins in hand, to hobnob with the hoi polloi.



Folks, seriously. There's free food and beverage. Much beverage. And an uninterrupted view of the court. I'm not saying I'd want to see a Carolina game from way up here - in that case courtside, please - but for games I'm not passionate about, and with an active toddler in tow, this is the way to go.



Cub introduced himself to popcorn for the first time, and whoa, nelly. Let's just say he was double-fisting it.



So, yay, games. After that, we dropped Cub off with a babysitter and headed out for a late dinner at a divine tapas bar called Baru, which was the best meal we had all week. We had a little conversation, drank a little red wine, caught a little bit of those Cajun girls, dancing to Zydeco. (Are you humming along yet?) All in all, it was grand, but as with all good things, it was destined to come to an end. The next day we hugged our friends, said goodbye, and as Hansen and I headed home, Texas welcomed us back with a Lone Star sized sunset. It was good.

The Big Easy

Howdy, blog, I'm back from the grandest long weekend in recent memory. How grand, you ask? Very grand. So grand, in fact, that I might have to break this up into a few posts. But I'll start with a quick summation: it rocked. Handsome and I, faced with a few days of Spring Break on my part, and an itch to get out of the office on his, decided to take off for the city with more nicknames than God: the Crescent City, Birthplace of Jazz, The Big Easy, Nawlins, NOLA, am I leaving something out? Oh yeah. New Orleans, Louisiana.



Somehow I had never been there before. I know, crazy. I couldn't believe it either, but it's true. We rocked up on Thursday night, and promptly dove head-first into an enormous plate of Cajun food. After, that is, we bought 20 oz. beers and walked around IN THE STREETS with them. Shocking! I felt so illicity! So yes. Gorgeous food, public alcohol consumption, and dandy music all about. Pretty much I felt like we'd landed in heaven.

These are the fun things we did:

When I asked my mother what we should do in New Orleans, it took her negative three point two seconds to scream BEIGNETS AND COFFEE at the top of her lungs. So okay. We went to the Cafe du Monde, and to be honest, I was a little skeptical on account of EVERYBODY IN NEW ORLEANS was there. Mass production for mass consumption? How good could they be.



Good. They were very good. Now I understand.

What else. Oh! Public transportation. Parking is CRAZY expensive in the French Quarter, so Handsome and I figured out the bus system, and it was so much fun. I know, I'm a nerd, and maybe totally crazy, but in my opinion, learning the public transportation networks in any city is just about the best thing ever. You can put down your tourist map and just saunter aboard. "Hello!" you can greet the driver. "Could you let me know when we get to Oopsie-Daisy Street?" And the driver will nod, and the doors will close, and you can sit there and stare out the window until you arrive. It's awesome.



We also talk a walking historical tour of the city from an older gentleman named Hal. We learned the difference between a gallery, a porch, and a balcony, we learned about the colonial-period yellow fever alert system, and we learned euphemisms for prostitute, courtesan, and concubine so exquisite that Handsome didn't at first realize what sort of "special relationship" Hal was describing. We saw examples of hilarious architecture (look, the marbles don't match!), and while Hal certainly told us that a woman named the Baroness Pontalba existed, thank God I'd stopped in the Cabildo museum earlier and knew this amazing story. Man, that lady was awesome. Ferociously ugly, but awesome. Her father-in-law shot her point blank with dueling pistols, blew off her fingers, and somehow she survived with bullets lodged permanently IN HER CHEST. I tried to wheedle some more salacious historical details out of Hal, but he wasn't having any of it because look - the Mississippi River!

Hal later redeemed himself for the mediocre tour, however, by taking a shine to Handsome and myself and calling in a favor to get us a table at his favorite French Quarter restaurant. Turns out they had one table left, up on the balcony (not the porch or gallery)...



White wine, shrimp etouffé, fried green tomatoes, coffee and creme bruleé. Good heavens. Half drunk and very full, we tottered off to a place whose name I kept mixing up. Eventually I settled on "Hall of Preservation Hall Jazz Hall" but I'm pretty sure I was needlessly complicating the issue. The Preservation Hall Jazz Masters play nightly in a teeny-tiny intimate setting - no mikes! - and it's awesome. They're having fun, we're having fun, it's just great old New Orleans Jazz music. I honestly expected Louis Armstrong to waltz on in the door at any moment.



Drunk on jazz, cajun food, and music, Handsome and I tottered back to the bus station that night, and... Not to leave you on tenterhooks, but I believe I'll continue this later. I've got work to do, people!

Nawlins

Hey everybody, sorry for the prolonged silence, but SPRING BREAK! So far, so groovy. Also, 30 Rock. Handsome's been sick for a good handful of days, during which time we realized we could watch all seasons of this magnificent show online through our Netflix, and sad though it is to admit it, we're completely immersed. We might or might not have watched 7 or 8 episodes in a row the other day, (blushes), a fact made even more outrageous by the glorious spring that has sprung all about us. This addiction is hideous and must come to an end, which it will in approximately 15 more episodes.

In other news, we are off this morning on a jaunty vacation over to New Orleans, a place I have never been. Huzzah! Updates later, cats. For now, we're totes outie (as the youngsters say).

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Now first off, I'd like to start by saying that I mean absolutely no offense to my charming little Elf Palace. Darling, you will always occupy a cozy little nook in my heart.

However.

Blog, I'd like to introduce you to my newest love: Casita Sonrisa. Oh the joy, oh the utter dizzy delight of having space in which to walk around. Other rooms in which to go. FIVE WHOLE ROOMS, counting the bathroom! From 450 to 1400 square feet feels like an embarrassment of footage, a wealth of space in which to cavort. I am thrilled beyond belief. And not only that, but the house itself is lovely. 1930's craftsman-style architecture. In yesterday's post I rhapsodized about the glorious front porch, but look at this place. (Note: not done unpacking yet, and chaos still reigns - don't judge me!)

The kitchen is large and airy and has more counter space than I know what to do with. A dishwasher, which I have systematically forgotten to use, a full-sized refrigerator (!!), lovely original tile, and big glorious windows.



The bathroom inspires me to immoderate heights of enthusiasm. An old fashioned iron claw-foot tub! With a window! And a skylight! I've taken approximately 467,982 baths in the two weeks we've been here.



The bedroom: French doors leading out to the patio. I almost fainted the first time I saw it.



The living room. Skylights, windows, hard-wood floors, built-in bookshelves!




And last, but certainly not least, a window seat.



Even though we'll have to move out eventually, I'm going to love every minute of this.

My Front Porch

It has always been one of my small ambitions in life to have a front porch. Nothing grand, just a small cozy front porch with a railing and some steps, and a roof, deep enough to put a few chairs and a table, or maybe a porch swing. In college I lived in a house during my senior year that had a porch, and it was grand. One of the many many gals who lived in that house was part of a bluegrass band, and sitting on the porch while she and the rest of the Steep Canyon Rangers practiced their tunes was one of life's enduring joys. Oh, the happy sunshiney toe-tappiness of it all - bliss! The Samurai Warrior lived in that house long before I made my move, and I remember sitting on the porch with beer in coozies, watching the people walk by. "Hey, you can't park there!" she would holler out to a man destined to get a parking ticket. And we'd giggle when, not five minutes after he gave us a dirty look and walked away, the traffic cop strolled by. Told ya! Tee hee! Front porches are fun.



Well, blog, I've finally done it. My new house has a front porch, and it is all I ever dreamed it would be. I haven't got a porch swing, or even anything more elegant than a set of $10 folding chairs to perch upon, but the other day when the sun came out and the weather warmed up, I rode my bike home from school, fixed myself a bowl of strawberries and blueberries, and plopped myself down on the front porch. After a few minutes I got nostalgic, so I called up the Samurai Warrior on the phone. "Hey, guess what I'm doing right now," I said. "What?" she asked. "I'm sitting on my front porch watching all the people go by." The Samurai laughed and said, "Hey, you can't park there!"

The Things I Learned This Weekend

You know what I love about life? It's that no matter where I am, or what I'm doing, I can still learn things. Sure, maybe I'm not memorizing the capitals of every African nation or Latin verb declensions, and I'm nowhere near understanding how to graph imaginary numbers on non-existent polar planes (the actual title of a chapter from my high school calculus textbook), but still. I'm learning. Like this weekend at the wedding. I learned so much cool stuff! Like, for example, the following short list.

1. Numero uno of the things I learned this weekend was that (and this is pretty much scientifically true) I have the smallest hands in the known universe. Concomitantly, my friend's husband has the largest. I mean, look at this. Are we even the same species?



2. Second, I learned that, no matter how stressful and difficult doing my PhD in History might feel, the training and work schedule of medical doctors is much much MUCH worse. Want to know how I learned this? My friend Raquelita (see pic below) is in her first year of residency, and hasn't had a day off in a LONG time. She pretty much works non-stop, and when she's on, people's lives are on the line. If I get confused or make a mistake, maybe someday a reviewer will write a withering evaluation of my scholarship. Ouch! If Raquelita gets sleepy and writes "legs" instead of "leg," well. You know.

Brave Raquelita soldiers on diligently, but this Thursday when she arrived in Austin for the wedding pretty much the first words out of her mouth were "beer" and "now." So we went over to the Samurai Warrior's house where tacos and beer were awaiting us in the back yard. I was over in the corner talking to another friend, when we happened to glance over and see that Raquelita was standing by a big cooler full of about a dozen different kinds of beer, and she was on the verge of crying. Actual real tears were in her eyes, and her lower lip was all aquiver. "Why Raquelita, what's wrong?!" we cried. A lone tear slipped over the edge, and with a waver in her voice, Raquelita said, "Oh, there's just s-s-s-s-so m-m-many wonderful beers, and I just c-c-can't drink them all, and I don't even know where to start!"

I mean, wow. To be so stressed that the sight of beer and the time in which to drink it brings you to tears? Not for me. Nonetheless, being the good friends we are, several of us bolstered her spirits by proposing that she drink all the beers, and worked out a nifty plan to do it in alphabetical order. As you can see, this helped relax her considerably, and in no time at all, Raquelita was swinging from the chandeliers.



3. I also learned that being a bride looks like a whole lot of fun. I don't know that I've ever seen the Samurai Warrior smile so much, or look so completely pleased with the world. That might have been the nicest part of the whole evening.







4. Lastly, I learned one very important take-away lesson. In spite of my advancing years, rapidly multiplying numbers of gray hairs, and spreading road map of sexy wrinkles... in spite of all that, I'VE STILL GOT IT. I don't know who took this picture, what we were doing at the time, or why it looks like I might be Shiva surrounded by my adoring minions, but this picture is going to the top of my short list of "Photos I Want Engraved On My Headstone." A list, by the way, that I had never thought of compiling until just this moment.

Weddings! Guests! Crazy!

Still short on time, but before I forget, WOW WHAT AN AMAZING WEEKEND. I was a bridesmaid in my friend The Samurai Warrior's wedding, while Handsome and I played host to a few friends from ye olde rowing days in college - GREAT friends - who were also guests at the wedding. In short, the weekend was spectacular. I am now exhausted and in dire need of cleaning house and continuing the long process of unpacking our home, but hello out there. I'll be back tomorrow with pictures and tales of wonder.

Before I go, however, let me gift you with what is perhaps the funniest photo of the weekend. Yes, I'm on top of a human pyramid, no, I don't particularly remember getting up there, and who the heck is that photobomber. I have no idea.