The Highlight of My Evening

Shelley, my bridesmaid and one of the bestest friends in the whole world, is a high school science teacher out in L.A. I miss her terribly.

She sent me these pictures tonight, and its the only laugh I've had all day. Thanks, babe!

Mad Scientist Shelley dressed up for her class

Hiker Shelley being attacked by Tim the Bear

I wish I was there with you!

Halloween Bust :(

Halloween this year. A colossal failure. And I'm ridiculously upset about it. :(

Earlier this month I was thinking about all the freakin' adorable, little kids that have come to our door for the last two years. I've gotten to the point where I even recognize a few of them. I was soooooo excited about passing out candies again this year. It is a serious cheap thrill for me.

A few days later I realized that my boss had scheduled the second exam for the class I'm TA'ing on that very night! Who schedules an exam on Halloween NIGHT?!? Instead of running to the door and seeing all the little cuties, I had to sit for a mind-numbing 2 hours in a quiet room with a bunch of my students stressing about a biochem exam. Not fun.

But I thought I could still vicariously live through my husband for the night. He was at home tonight from 6 p.m. until 7:45 p.m. Plenty of time to get most of the kids in our neighborhood. I called him from work and left him very specific instructions as to what to do. Being a Brit, he didn't know about the porch light rule. If the light is on, that means there's candy to be had. If the light's off, it means to skip that house because the people inside weren't playing. Simple.

Our outside porch and garage lights are on a sensor. They usually stay off until someone approaches. There's a very simple way to fix this. You simply have to flip the light switch off and then on again. That basically turns off the sensor function and it defaults into normal light mode. It will stay on. All the kiddies will see that the light's on. The kiddies come to the door. The kiddies get candy. Everyone gets a cheap thrill.

What was so difficult about this concept, I cannot fathom.

HOWEVER, when I got out of the exam tonight and called my husband, he informed me that he could not get the lights to stay on. He assured me that he tried the very complicated light-switching function several times but to no avail. No matter what he did, that evil light would just not. stay. on.

When I prodded him further, I found out that he had spent the evening on the computer. At some point during the evening, he realized that no one was coming to the door. So he subsequently went downstairs to investigate. And that's when he realized the front porch light had been off the entire time. More attempts at fixing the light, but alas, no luck.

So the entire evening not a single person rang our doorbell. I spent a small fortune on goodies that no child in our neighborhood would ever see. Great. I was so, so upset. Greg insisted that he was by no means to be blamed for this snafoo.

*sigh*

So why is it that I get home, flip the switch, and the light has now been on for the last 30 minutes and counting?

I am so upset with Greg right now.

Not So Subtle

My boss just made a point of showing me his lunch. A South Beach diet boxed meal.

Um.... Yeah. Is he trying to tell me something?

*sigh* I need to get my ass to the gym...

I Couldn't Resist...

Greg is going to kill me, but I just had to share.

Take a look at Greg's Amazing Hair!

I find this next one especially artistic.

Greg's mohawk

This is what my shumma has to deal with every morning when he wakes up. Usually he can shower or at least wet his head to tame the wild beast, but while camping, not so much!

Rock on, babe! Rock ON!

Lost Maples Camping

Greg is 33 years old and has never been on a real camping trip!

No, sleeping in a tent in your school buddy's back yard in the London burbs definitely does not count. (He actually tried arguing this with me.) How is this possible you might ask? Because Greg is a city boy through-and-through.

Well, it was high time to throw him into the deep end. When our friends Mark & Brianna reserved a campsite at Lost Maple State Park and invited us to come along, I jumped at it. Greg didn't seem too excited to commune with nature, but he didn't fight me too much either.

Here's my shumma sporting a loaded pack.


Don't feel too bad for him. He schlepped around all the light stuff - sleeping bags, pillows, dried food. I didn't want to scar him right away. But he looks like a natural, right.

We found a site at the back of the park to pitch our tents. Since it was getting dark, we decided to take it easy, play some cards, talk politics and gossip, all that good stuff until it was time for beerbrauts and s'mores. Camping, in our opinion, is the perfect excuse for consuming mass quantities of crap! And we did!


We snuggled into our fluffy sleeping bags for the night. The next morning, we set off on a 2.5 mile loop hike before taking down the tents and finishing the rest of the West trail.

Me, Mark & Brianna on the trail

Me near an opening at our campsite

Greg and the pond

It seems that my bad camping luck is still haunting me. I was stung by both a bee and a nasty, little ant, which was actually much more painful. Plus, when we finally made it back to the car, we discovered a dead, flat tire. We had to drive all the way back to Austin on a doughnut tire at under 50 miles per hour. Very frustrating for a lead-footed road-rager like me.

But it was a great week-end. And this trip has revitalized my long, lost love of camping, and I hope this will be the first of many trips to come.

Quick Break...

I'm feeling psychotic and overwhelmed again today. The muscles in my neck and back and shoulders are tensing up so tightly that they feel like they may just crack and shatter. Aside from the worse-than-average work stuff that has me freaking out, I'm also stressing about silly stuff that should be fun. Tonight Greg is cooking dinner for me and an old friend & work-mate of his that is in town for some kind of conference. He's a French guy named Christophe who knew both Greg's ex-girlfriend and my ex-boyfriend. For some reason I'm a little nervous about meeting him. Why? I don't know, but I think it has something to do with the fact that he's only known Greg as being with another person. Its silly. I fully realize this but can't help myself.

On top of that, we're going "back country" camping with our friends Mark & Brianna on Saturday at Lost Maple State Park. Its only a 2-mile hike in so I guess really the main concern is that it will be at a primitive site. Greg has slept in a tent before, but that's about the extent of his camping experience. So he's leaving the planning and preparations for this trip completely up to me. Fine. However, I really only have gear for me. I have to somehow scrounge up enough extras for Greg too. And I have less than 3 days to do it. Ahhh!

I need a bubble bath...

Trash Mags in Potterville

Teehee. :) I'd never buy it, but I'm sure I'd sneak a peek in the check-out line...

I'm a Lucky, Lucky Girl

Just one of the many, many reasons why I love my husband...


...that, and the fact that he just told me he'd be totally behind me if I ever decided to run for British prime minister. :)

Double Date Fun

Looking for a unique date idea? Allow me to suggest dinner and a concert inside a natural cave! That's right - in a limestone bedrock cavern. The inspired music lovers at Longhorn Cave State Park have organized various concerts throughout the year. Most of them are vocalists from what I understand, but last night was the first ever piano concert that they've attempted. It took a few enormously beefy men an hour and a half to schlepp a grand piano down the 52 stone steps, through the cavern, and into the big room. I shudder to think how long it took them to get it back out...


We, along with our friends Mark and Brianna, reserved tickets to see Joseph Cordi, an Austin jazz musician, perform some of his own inventions plus a few oldy-but-goody standards. After the regular tour and a fajita dinner, it was a lovely way to wind down the evening. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

The regular cavern tour helped us build up an appetite too. Thanks for the find, Brianna!

Don't Do Drugs, Kids!

I'm crying again tonight.

But this time for a completely different reason...




***** Ok, so I got some sleep and then watched this clip again in the morning. Apparently in order to find it rolling-on-the-floor hilarious, you need to be a bit sleep-deprived and primed from watching about an hour's worth of other funny YouTube videos. But its still pretty cute...