Tag: random

Headache, Day 3

I just took medication for my headache because I thought it would be wonderful to crawl back into bed in my darkened, cool room and sleep all day. Then I realized it’s June 5, and I was supposed to get my car inspected in May.

I have to leave the house.

I hate wasting a good pill like that.

Subject change: My sister thinks my dogs are too thin. I just think in the never-too-rich-or-too-thin department, my dogs chose looking fabulous over accruing wealth–much like my writing partner. However, I approved Debby’s promise to take them to Wendy’s for a cheeseburger even though the meat would be cooked, not raw.

In the end, she actually brought Wendy’s bacon cheeseburgers (hold the onions!) to them. This is what happened.

cheeseburger in paradise

Hump Day Happy

It seems like a thousand days since Sunday.

I just took my sister to the airport, and my brother is traveling and will come back through town this weekend. Yesterday, we went through a footlocker that my mother left in my garage several years ago. I thought I knew what was in it. I have vivid memories of looking inside it once before. But I was wrong, because things I thought were there were not, yet there were lots of good and funny surprises, some of which I’m sure will become part of LJ posts in the coming months.

Mostly it was just comfortable and comforting to sit on the floor with my siblings and see some of the sentimental things that my parents thought were worth saving over the decades, even though they moved so much that they were constant purgers. From the time I was little, my mother used to say to me on special occasions, “I want to build memories.” As her own memory began to fade, we found that the trick for veering her away from frustration was to ask something like, “What was the name of David’s dog when he got out of the Air Force?” or “How did you and Daddy meet?” or “Who was your oldest sister?” She could look back twenty, fifty, seventy years and answer, which was like a little victory for her every time. Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease, and it’s a weird feeling to be grateful that cancer took her body before dementia could take everything else.

Last night I finished reading Armisted Maupin’s Michael Tolliver Lives, which turns out to have been the right book at the right time (thanks, Tim). I was struck by Michael’s perspective of our “logical” family, that family we create from our friends, as filling gaps very often created by a biological family. I’ve been blessed with great people in all of my families.

I wasn’t sure whether to do this post today, then I realized that my hesitation was because I worried people might think being silly was inappropriate. Yet I’m the first person to tell someone else, “Who gives a shit what other people think? As individuals, each of us manages our joys and our sorrows in whatever way and time works for us, not as others think we should.”

So I have fended off a headache with some pain medication, I’m enjoying my Starbucks mocha frappuccino, and I invite each of you to give me a page number from 1 to 612 and another number between 1 and 30, and I will tell you something to be happy about from this book:

Hump Day Happy–and some New Orleans photos

I won’t be able to scurry around town snapping photos today, but if you want one of 14,000 things to be happy about from this book:

 

 

just comment with a page number from 1 to 612 and another number between 1 and 30.

While you’re waiting for me to consult the book, you might enjoy some more New Orleans photos.

Last year, David and Shannon were walking through the Quarter when David noticed the Place d’Armes Hotel. David thought it looked like a promising place to stay. When everyone got back home, Shannon called and got information about the hotel and arranged a block of rooms with special rates. Although it ended up that Shannon wasn’t able to go to Saints and Sinners this year, David, ‘Nathan, and Lisa booked rooms at the Place d’Armes. Since all their rooms are non-smoking, Mark, Timothy, Rob, and I figured we’d stay in smoking rooms at the festival’s host hotel, the Bourbon Orleans. Unfortunately for the smokers among us, without warning, the Bourbon Orleans went all non-smoking on May 1.

Both places have plenty of features to recommend them. Both are in great locations. The Bourbon Orleans is convenient for the festival, has nice rooms, and has a gorgeous courtyard with a sparkling pool. I only saw Lisa’s room at the Place d’Armes, but it was spacious and charming. The Place d’Armes pool didn’t seem as clean, but the courtyards are lush. Especially good for us was that the courtyards didn’t close at ten p.m. as the courtyard does at the Bourbon Orleans. So Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, after meetings and parties and meals, a few of us gathered around the pool area at the Place d’Armes and talked (and smoked, because that’s okay outside), and enjoyed our sport of the weekend: Tormenting David Puterbaugh.

these are some of those late-night photos

Hump Day Happy

Do you want to get me out of the house today? We’re running out of days when I’ll be inclined to go anywhere with my camera because of the OPPRESSIVE FREAKING HEAT AND HUMIDITY. Plus my camera has to go back to Nikon for a visit soon.

But:

If you want one of 14,000 things to be happy about from this book:

just comment with a page number from 1 to 612 and another number between 1 and 30. I’ll endeavor not only to find an answer from the book, but to take a photo or snag one from my archives that will–at least in Becky World–have something to do with your answer.

Friends: Random

1. In my kitchen, I have these two small, framed pieces of needlework that my mother did for me ten thousand years ago. EVERY time I see them, I think of Lindsey. Why? Because one is constantly askew, and I adjust it, knowing that if Lindsey were in my kitchen, it would drive her crazy. Here’s Lindsey getting a little R&R in the kitchen dog bed.

Edit: On second thought, maybe Lindsey is curled up in the fetal position because she noticed the crooked pictures.

2. This is a really low-quality photo shot with my cell phone of Lynne holding Lila.

I include it here so I can talk about Maggiano’s. I’d been trying to get a lot of errands done in a short period of time, and one of them included picking up something from Lynne. Rather than let me just dash in and out of the restaurant, she bought my lunch and made me sit and relax with her, Laura, and Lila. Sometimes a friend knows what you need better than you do. But here’s the thing about Maggiano’s. They have these columns covered with signed photos of various celebrities, sports figures, and such, many of them Houston locals. I’ve long threatened to send in a framed cover of A Coventry Christmas and write some gushing remark on it like “Thank you for hosting us after my signing!” (never happened) just to see if I can make the wall–even though I’m about as far from a local celebrity as there could be.

3. This is Mark G. Harris’s last full day at The Compound this trip. I’m already missing the idea of movie-and-popcorn nights. But I know my loss will be the Internet’s gain, because no matter how I’ve implored, he has refused to post in his LiveJournal until his return home. He’s a stubborn man. But a good dishwasher.

4. It’s one week until Lenny Kravitz’s and Stevie Nicks’s birthdays. If you don’t know what that means, you haven’t been paying attention. For quite some time, Rex has been daydreaming about what kind of cake I might bake.

Hump Day Happy

If you want one of 14,000 things to be happy about from this book:

just go to my comments with a page number from 1 to 612 and another number between 1 and 30. You might steer away from using dates that are meaningful to you so that you won’t get the same answers repeatedly.

See you with answers later today. =)

Hump Day Happy

I’m happy because I’m very close to getting a few days out of town, and I need them. REALLY need them. If you want one of 14,000 things to be happy about from this book:

just hit me in comments with a page number from 1 to 612 and another number between 1 and 30.

It’s either this, or I link to the unicorn video again.

Hump Day Happy

Though there won’t be time Wednesday for me to go out shooting photos, you can still get one of 14,000 things to be happy about from this book:

by giving me a page number from 1 to 612 and another number between 1 and 30. You know you want to.

The gas man fixed the gas leak on the meter behind the house. The dogs survived the presence of a stranger on The Compound (though not without a lot of complaining). And none of my photos are turning out all that great (the ones of Lindsey’s hair disaster are too dark for you to actually see her hair or anything else except her pretty face, which sort of defeats the purpose, because when doesn’t Lindsey look great in photos?), and Tim posted a photo of his newly cut hair here. Does that bring us up to speed?

I do owe Marika and Mark a post. But right now, I think they’d rather I finish co-editing a certain manuscript full of romantic short stories. In fact, I know they would.

oh, yeah, here’s my haircut