A delicious bacon mistake

Its Christmas day. I have the lamb on the counter covered in olive oil, rosemary and thyme. I decide its time to make the green beans and bacon.

Everything starts out fine. I half cook up the bacon. I get the green beans together and wrap them in the bacon and put them in the metal pan. And then off to the side I make the marinade. Butter, brown sugar, worcestershire, and some soy. I proceed to pour it over the bacon and green beans, and then I notice the big brown smudge on the stove. The marinde was seeping out of the pan.

I immediately react. I put the pan with the bacon on top of the cooling pan of bacon grease. The marinade continues to drip into the bacon fat as I clean up the stove. I pull out another pan, and get the green been bundles into it. I check first that it has no holes. It doesn't.

I then turn to my marinade. I just decide to bite the bullet and pour the marinade and bacon fat onto the bundles. I put them in the fridge for three hours. I then bake them up in the over for 20 minutes at 350.

And what comes out is complete nirvana. OMG. Too damn good!!!

I'm a nerd

We were laughing so hard today at the office. Seriously over mortality table jokes. I kid you not. I was talking about this one soon to be ex client who is not very nice to me, and I just let it go by and am very sweet to him. No reason to be not nice. He is the one with the problem.

My bosses response "Well, we all die in the long run. No point in being mean while your alive. Gets you no where in the long run."

To which a coworker responded "We all have a seat at the mortality table." And we laughed and laughed.

Sad, its just sad. You can tell I work with a bunch of math people.

Family comes in tonight and they get to find for themselves around my house. I don't start officially entertaining them until tomorrow.

Two extremes

Friday. It took my a couple of days, but I finally got my stomach ready for Friday.

First off, I had my work groups lunch. My boss had decided to have us do something fun and picked Cowboy Chow in Deep Ellum. My real problem with Deep Ellum is that there are always twists and turns to get there, and you have to find parking. I luckily can find my way around, but I ended up navigating most of the rest of the group.

Cowboy Chow. In a nutshell, good, but not spectacular. There is an awful lot of chopped brisket around. They had these chips covered in a cheesy sauce for appetizers, and then a bunch of taco and sandwhiches for main courses. The only dessert was cookies. And they don't have their liquor license yet. So, we BYOB'ed it. It was a fun place for a get together, but I don't know if I will deal with Deep Ellum for it.

I say all that about how Deep Ellum annoys me, and then I go back there for dinner. Local. It was a final friends dinner before Christmas. IT WAS SO GOOD. Its always good there. I went a bit different this time. I got the champagne cocktail with the little dollops of grapefruit sorbet in it. And then the appetizers began. They brought fried green beans, butternut squash soup, crab cakes, and pumpkin ravioli. I eventually ate it all. Oh, it was good

Soup was just what I needed. All warm and creamy. I think that was my favorite. I've become a bit of a soupaholic lately. Hits the spot on cold days!

Overall a good food day, but a bit much. My poor tummy was groaning a bit. I slowed down on Saturday and took it easy.

Back on track

Ok, I have to say, anyone who reads my blog because of food related reasons, I will have something good for you tomorrow. In anticipation of a couple of reservations I have today, I stayed home the last couple of nights and really recouped and helped my stomach get back to fighting form.

In other news, the family is in town next week, and I'm cooking. So far, I only have three parts of the menu down:

deviled eggs
leg of lamb
mince meat pies

I probably should think of sides or other appetizers. Knowing me the other appetizeres will be cream cheese and that rasberry chipotle sauce with crackers, and sides will be roasted veggies and a corn cassarole.

I have a weekend to get my life in order and actually buy Christmas gifts and such.

How did I get so far behind??

Be careful what you wish for

I seriously was complaining about how I needed to lose five pounds. Stomach flu/food poisoning worked the trick, but man it was a tough ride. I should have leart my lesson earlier in the year. I requested that I find a man who worshipped me. Yeah, I got that too. Being texted constantly and stalked gets a bit scary after a while. I dropped that idea.

Now, I just want a guy who likes me.

Anyway, in the ongoing tummy chrisis, I have fallen under flu like syptoms a couple of times, especially near bed time, which have resulted in some weird dreams.

Last night, I dreamed that I was back in college crying to my tennis teacher about how I can't believe he gave me a C. Now, this is a true story. I did cry when I went to discuss my grade with my tennis teacher. He was grading on ability, and I was very upset. I am not athletic and forced to take the class. I have no ability. He should have graded on improvement.

But anyway, I digress. So, I was crying to my tennis teacher, but he turned out to be James Earl Jones, who kept talking back to me like Darth Vadar. Just not very nice at all. And it made me cry harder.

So, I ran out of the gym, which in my dream was his private jet airplane, and wept my way across the tarmac.

What exactly does this mean???

Prolonged Absence

Oh dear. So much to write about. But unfortunately, my tummy has decided to hate me. I woke up at 2 am and in the back of my brain I knew that something was wrong. I tossed and turned for a little bit, and then by 3 am I literally had to sprint out of bed into the bathroom, and stayed there for hours.

I called in sick. I never call in sick.

Of course, I turned on the computer and worked from bed when I could. Eventually I turned off the computer and took what my mom calls "a nice long nap". Penny and I just curled up and felt sorry for ourselves.

By 5 I was semi human, I called mom and requested some sympathy. She happily gave me some.

Sooo, enough complaining.

Things that have made me happy in the last week:
Watching the sunset at the Phoenix airport. I started taking pictures by the windown and had two people join me. I sat down and the woman behind me commented that the sunset was the reason she lived in Phoenix. I kind of get it.

Taking off to Seattle and spending the weekend with Kristine.

Dinner at Black Bottle last Friday night. Especially the pork belly and kim chi tapas.

Deep fried cheese curds at Steelhead diner.

Obtaining a copy of the New Moon and devoring it on the plane back to Dallas.

Ok, I shouldn't have mentioned food. But food is my life. Victoria with a bad tummy is like a day without sunshine.

I'm one of the suckers

I admit it.

I sit here at my desk at work wearing my new poncho. I bought it this weekend. I have received many many comments about it. Mostly, people have been commenting on how they had one like it 20 years ago. My boss said I was "rockin" it.

Yeah. I went to a craft show Sunday and was walking around buying cute purses and stuff when I spied a table full of afghans. Being an afghan guru myself, I walked over. It was a senior center selling their wares. All the money collected would go towards buying more supplies for their crafting group.

This one sweet woman showed me an afghan she had made, and then she said "I make ponchos too". And then she opened the box. Oh, they were fantastic. All these different slightly psychodelic colors. She admitted to being slightly myopic and color blind. I thought that made them all the better.

So, I bought one. My friend Sheri just looked at me like I was kinda crazy. Mine is different shades of blue and has tons of fringe. I love it!!

I'm rockin the poncho today and will be doing it most of the winter. Look out for me!

Caravelle Christmas

Every year Adam throughs a shin dig at his favorite Chinese restaurant, Caravelle. We get two big tables, bring bad gifts, wear silly hats, and just sit there and have the food come to us.

This year, we started out with fresh shrimp spring rolls and corn and crab soup. Hmm. I only had one spring roll. I didn't want to fill up.

Then came the parade of food:
Lemongrass tofu
Chicken and green beans
Crispy salted shrimp (with heads YAY!!)
Orange chicken
Beef with pan fried noodles
Peking duck
etc
etc
etc

And then came time for presents. I got mine last December. My sister gave me what she thought was a perfect present, a frog in the lotus position. I'm not sure what about it was screaming Victoria. I kept it for a year in order to have a gift for Caravelle this year.

If you can believe, it was opened and people actually liked it. And it got stolen twice. In the end, Adam's dad ended up with it. He though it was great.

I stole a reed diffuser that was supposed to smell like cedar, it smelled awful. Ryan described it as smelling like urine cake. Ewwww. At least I didn't get the vintage bee honey dispenser.

Overall good night

Social networking sites

Ok, lets all be honest and name the sites where you have a profile. I will go first:

Myspace
Facebook
Tribe
Ning

I think I have a livejournal floating out there somewhere, maybe. I'm sure I have more. I'm sure someone will remind me.

I don't know what it is, but how come "networking" sites somehow have the ability to turn into "highschool drama" sites? I'm not judging. I myself am the 14 year old who sped read her way through Twilight last week.

Why do we put ourselves through this. I know. It's all in the name to re-connect with high school friends we haven't talked to in 15 years. Seriously, if we were that close 15 years ago, wouldn't we still be talking??

Yesterday, someone deleted my comment. When I opened my profile this morning to check a comment some things, I saw it was gone. I was in shock. Why would anyone delete a comment where I beg them to vote for the SPCA?

(Um, psst, if you have a minute can you vote for the SPCA so they can win some money http://www.care2.com/animalsheltercontest/74289/?refer=19400.07.1228320189.8495)

I immediately try to remember what I wrote. I then email them to apologize and see what happened. I am told their site is professional, and they were cleaning it up. If I noticed something like that it must mean, I have too much time on my hands.

Ok.

I think I open a pot of something, and being the girl who can't handle drama because it gives her ulcers, I'm gonna put the lid back on.

Hmmm, not so sure about social networking sites.

The Mint

Last night I met with Elizabeth for dinner. I hadn't seen her in forever. She asked what I was craving, and I said comfort food. Just an FYI, in my world, comfort food is Thai food. Don't know why, but that's what fills me up and makes me happy.

Anyway, we decided to meet up at Mint, at Forest and 75. This is an easy go to place for us. Its not far from home and it has noodles and rice dishes that are yummy.

We started out with one of their far out sushi rolls for an appetizer. It was this yellow tail roll on acid. I forgot the name. It was yellow tail, jalapeno, and cream cheese rolled up and quickly tempurad, and then it had sirachai chili sauce and the mayo sauce squiggled on it. It was tasty. I did have a slight issue with how thick the tempura was. They could lighten up on that a wee bit. But otherwise, it hit the spot.

Then I got the yellow curry rice with chicken, and I had them add tomatoes. I love thai rice and the chunks of tomatoes. The plate came out and it was ENORMOUS. I think I got through about half of it. It was delicious. Nice bit chunks of chicken and the rice was not too spicy. It was warm and it filled me up. Thank god, since over dinner the temperature outside dropped by 20 degrees, and me with no coat.

Anyway, Elizabeth got pad thai, no sen. She loves how they have choices with that, and she is not a big carb eater.

I know some people scoff that Mint isn't very authentic. I personally go for the dishes that make me happy. And obviously, I'm not alone. The place was packed for a Wednesday night.

Good meal!!

A little spot

I have one. On the tip of my tongue. Its like a taste bud that has gotten infected or something. I don't know what it is but ITS KILLING ME!!

I have spent the last two days subconciously playing with it. I believe it got it from the 1 pound bag of sour patch kids I inhaled over the weekend. Those things are evil. I should just not have them in my house or my life in general.

I used to get them as a child. My mom's cure was to have me wash out my mouth with salt water. Oh it was awful. Awful. And it didn't help. I swear she just made that up to make me stop eating candy.

So here I sit with my spot that appears now to be getting bigger since I keep playing with it. I guess that is the human condition.

Thanksgiving in a nutshell

November 25th
Run away from work at 4 and get on the road down to Houston. Drive like a demon through the Texas countryside and arrive in Katy, TX by 8:30. Not too shabby! That's even with the Conroe traffic. I only used the lords name in vain 3 times on that stretch of road.

Get greeted by my mother on the doorstep and walk inside to find my brother from Sweden and his lady. Stay up late catching up and eating cheese and pickle sandwhiches. Nothing better then sharp cheddar, kosher dills, and old fashioned mustard.

November 26th
Sleep in. Do nothing. Get a pedicure. Go to and Indian dinner and see Happy Go Lucky. What a great film! I love Mike Leigh. Stop really late by Walmart and pick up a copy of Twilight.

Side story - my friend Rhonda is a high school drama teacher. Her kids are addicted to this book, and she brought it to the llama farm to read so she could relate with them. I picked up and could not put it down. My craving for it for so bad I bought my own copy in Houston.

Proceed to get back into reading Twilight and stay up overly, overly late. My love for pre-teen literature knows no bounds.

November 27th
Sleep in. Get on the couch at around 10 am and proceed to watch the Macy's parade and read Twilight. Stay sitting on the couch through the Purina dog show. Finally, pick myself up and put on a dress for lunch. Go to lunch buffet, huffing the whole time. Thanksgiving is not supposed to be a go out for buffet kind of holiday for me. I prefer to home cook, but oh well. Mom didn't want to this year.

Spy an eight year old at the table next to us reading my book. Ask her how she likes it. Proceed to have a ten minute conversation with an 8 year old at a Thanksgiving buffet about the teenage, vampire, romance novel we are both reading.

She said the movie was not as good. Hmmm, I still think I'm going to go see it.

Go home and take a 4 hour nap. Stay up late reading and talking to my brother about how we have addictive personalities.

November 28th
Discover that my mother had gotten a free ham and turkey from the super market. She didn't want to cook for Thanksgiving so she froze them. Proceed to watch mother defrost said Turkey and Ham and cook them. Think to myself "why did we go to the buffet?"

Shake my head, go shopping for HOURS, come home, nap, and then meet up with good, old Claire. CLAIRE. I love her. She is officially so tired of being hounded by men, she is now wearing lesbian paraphenalia. She has a ring and a bracelet. I don't think many lesbians would be happy about that seeing as she is a stone, cold heterosexual female. I suggested she just get a fake wedding ring. She said men would find that more attractive and a challenge. I thought men would find the lesbian stuff attractive and a challenge too, but she disagreed.

November 29th

Wake up at a decent time, pack, load up the car with new clothes and a ton of food my mom cooked on FRIDAY (????) and drive home. Arive at said home which smelled like something had just died.

Spend hours cleaning out fridge, throwing out trash, and spraying lysol.

Sleep.

Toco, Tx

Ok, I just re-read some of my entries. Man, am I the world's worst speller/user of wrong words.

Anyway, last weekend when I was driving to Paris and cruising along 82, I passed through a familiar little town, Toco. For the first time, I looked at the population listed on the sign. 98???

A bit further down the road I realized I had forgotten to bring wine for the weekend. I knew that most small towns in Texas are dry. Paris isn't small, but you never know. I was about 2 minutes into Toco when I saw a little shop coming up on my left. I thought at least I can stop in there and get some coke or a snack for the weekend.

Just as I was pulling in I saw the signs all over the place listing "liquor, beer, wine". And I realized exactly what Toco, Tx was. The liquor town. As in the case in Texas, dry areas will often have a very, very small town incorporate itself in order to sell liquor.

This was Toco, Tx.

I ran inside and picked up two cheap screw top bottles of Austrailian shiraz and stood in line. The woman behind me was holding about 4 cases of beer. I guess my eyes got pretty big. She said "I live in Oklahoma and this is the closest liquor store".

And then I looked all around me. Everyone was loaded up with cases and cases of beer and liquor.

I'm thinking all 98 residents of Toco probably do pretty well for themselves.

Coming home

I don't know what it is, but coming home to my mom brings me so much joy. I can't contain it.

Years ago when I live in Detroit, I would get excited about visiting Houston. I knew the minute I stepped off the plane, mom would be there to greet me, English accent and an awaiting hug. Its home.

Today was four hours on the rode. And I pulled into the driveway and she was outside the house waving.

We might have our issues and our differences, but I wouldn't ever give up her hug hello.

Home isn't necessarily the house you go to. For me, its the arms that hold you!!

This thing they call cable

Back in October, I thought it was time I became an adult. After a four year hiatus, I decided to get cable. I called up AT&T and requested their Uverse package. We scheduled the soonest appointment they could for installation, 5 weeks. I was a little shocked by this, but honestly, I haven't had cable in 4 years. What difference is five weeks?

Yesterday I worked for home and sat around while the cable guy crawled all over my house and attic, sending wires this way and that, getting me all set up. It was very intriguing, but I tried to stay out of his way.

And then, by noon, I was hooked up, and he began the tutorial. We walked through all the channels and my remote. Then we discussed the DVR. OMG. Its amazing. I've never seen anything like it. You can search for an actor. For fun, I looked up Harrison Ford. It brought up that Blade Runner was playing later on that day. WOW!!

I spent the rest of the day working on my couch with the TV on in the background. BBC America was where I spent most of the afternoon. They have that show with the two women who clean people's houses. Have you seen how dirty those houses are? I can't believe it. And the blond woman is just so sauce and British. Then they showed Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares. I love me some Gordon Ramsey. One day I will eat with him in London. One day.

Then, I spent the evening, after a lovely catch up dinner at Shinsei with Jane, watching hours upon hours of The Real Housewives. I can't believe women like that exist. Can't believe it. And, they put themselves on TV. I couldn't turn it off. It was like a car accident I couldn't stop watching.

Eventually by eleven my eyes were hurting. I wanted to stay up and watch more housewives, but I just couldn't do it.

I swear, this will not be permanent. I will leave the house. Promise. Just give me a couple of weeks...

I think I'm going to be an author

This weekend I ran away for a day to my friend's family farm. Mostly we just laze around all day and get up to eat and feed the llamas. Its really very relaxing.

I forgot to bring a book. So, I asked around to see what people brought. Jennifer brought out her selection of paperbacks. I just looked at them. And looked at her. I picked one up and read the back of it. I looked at her and said "is this what I think it is." She shook her head yes.

"Seriously, is this a Scottish, vampire, romance, Christmas novel?"

"Yes" she said laughing.

Well,when one is presented with a Scottish, vampire, romance, Christmas novel they just have to read it.

Lets just say I now thoroughly believe anyone can get published. This book didn't even have naughty bits. The only thing that made it fun was when I read passages aloud in my Scottish accent. By the way, I have a very good Scottish accent.

Seriously, I can make lazing around under afghans in the cold weather reading bad literature (if you can call it that) fun. Just give me a bottle of wine and a romance novel full of scotts and kilts.

Little Sweety

I invited myself to Julie's last night to meet the puppy. The woman has walking pneumonia, but Jesse was over. I thought I deserved to see the puppy, walking pneumonia or not.

Oh what a sweet little boy he is. He slept on my lap for about 2 minutes. He is gray with black spots and one eye is blue and one eye is brown. And his tail curls up at the end. Still no name yet. So we just call him puppy.

It got me thinking about puppies and babies in general. I know that they are cute on purpose. Its supposed to help the mother bond with them more. Honestly, baby anythings are adorable. Kittens, bears, orcas.

But every once in a while I will see a human baby and just be like "oh dear". Seriously. But the mother thinks its the most beautiful thing on earth. I love that. I never know what to say in those situations. So I just say "oh, its a baby". Now I gave my ugly baby secret away. Don't tell!

My morning routine

The alarm went off at 5:30 am.

I pressed snooz.

The cat jumped on the bed and tried to wake me up.

I buried myself under the duvet and hid.

The alarm went off again.

I snaked my hand out from under the duvet and pressed snooz.

I had a good mini dream about Gerard Butler.

The alarm went off again.

I actually get up.

I zombie walk down the dark hallway to the kitchen.

I trip over the cat four times in my attempt to get her kitty treats.

I zombie walk down the hallway to the bathroom, turn on the light, and look in the mirror.

I roll my eyes at the bad bed hair and bags under the eyes in the face that greets me.

I spend half an hour trying to transform myself into a human being.

I eventually give up.

I suit up.

I wander in the light of dusk down to the kitchen, open the freezerm and peruse through the frozen wasteland to see what I might be able to defrost by lunch time.

I give the cat a hug.

I clomp out the door, breakfast in one hand, brief case in the other and mutter to myself "time to make the donuts".

It's been a long week!!!

Enough dogs

I think people are seriously putting me on email block lists at this very moment. It has been requested that I send no more pictures of dogs needing a home. So, I will stop doing it on the blog too.

What to talk about??

hmmm

I'm on a budget. I've put myself on it. I really looked at my credit card bills, and I was shocked at my spending. I spent $70 here, there, and everwhere. Ok, alot of it is on sushi.

I realized that a girl does have to eat, but she does not have to live off of raw fish. So, I put myself on a sushi budget. How sad is that? I can't eat it as often, and I can't eat as much as I was. My addiction to yellowtail and spicy tuna has got to stop.

One half of my brain is thinking of creative meals that I can cook for myself at home. The other half of my brain is scheming to figure out how I can get someone to buy the sushi for me, a sushi sugar daddy, so to speak.

My next victim

So, have I introduced everyone to Cormac?

Cormac is in a bit of a bind. His mommy just left his daddy. Its a very messy messy situation. We won't go into details. Daddy has his hands full with a 2 year old and isn't really able to handle him, a stressfull job, and this sweet doggy. Therefore, I was contacted to see if I knew anyone looking for a dog.

I've decided that since I can't really be a good doggy mommy, I would instead because a good doggy godmother. (Just ask Julie and SPOT)

Come on. Look at sweet Cormac. He is fixed and all trained. He went to a fancy training school in Highland Park. He likes long walks and snuggling(ok now this sounds like a personal add).

But you know, I was just complaining at work. I date men and that ain't no fun, but I honestly don't know how guys date chicks either. We are impossible. My solution, everyone get a dog.

Lovely lovely

I don't think that word is used enough. Lovely. I really like it. I also like to use the word delicious and not have it refer to food. "Oh, that's a delicious idea." Just makes everything sound a bit decadent.

Anyway, this weekend was lovely. Friday night I acted half my age and went to see a show at House of Blues, Of Montreal, it was fantastic. Honestly, for $20, completely worth every penny. I've spent $50 on shows that didn't hold my attention half as much.

Each member of the band played more then one instrument, to the point that at some times in the concert there were two drummers or two bassists or 4 guitars. At the same time, throughout the show, there was a group of about 5-6 extra people who kept putting on little shows. Seriously, the lead singer came out in a gold lame liter carried by five golden buddhas who danced through the first song. I highly suggest this show to anyone if they come back. Just ignore the Outback Steakhouse song.

Then Saturday was spent visiting Cindi at the Lake. This time of year is my absolute favorite. Sitting outside near the fire pit with a warm cup of cider looking at the stars. Couldn't get any better.

AND, Julie is adopting one of the puppies. SPOT. YAY!!!

Its like the stars are aligning.

Responsibility

See these puppies, they need homes. Right now their names are Sleepy and Spot, but you could name them whatever you want.

I know your thinking, "I don't need a dog. That is too much responsibility." I agree, hence why I'm writing this blog. A cat is about all I can take with my work schedule and intense need to see people and eat out.

I do get a bit judgemental of people sometimes. I have friends who have the sweetest dog who is treated like a king, when the parents are in town. They are constantly working and traveling. And when that happens, the pup is taken off to the puppy day care and the kennel. How is that exactly having a pet? You travel and work all the time so you can see your dog on the weekends?

Ok, I will stop. But don't even get me started on people who give away their dogs and cats because they are pregant, having a new baby, or moving in with a new person. I just think that's awful!!

Love

I've been discussing this word a lot lately. It scares the heck out of me. So much power in one word. Do you think people realize the power?


Love is reckless; not reason.
Reason seeks a profit.
Love comes on strong,
consuming herself, unabashed.

Yet, in the midst of suffering,
Love proceeds like a millstone,
hard surfaced and straightforward.

Having died of self-interest,
she risks everything and asks for nothing.
Love gambles away every gift God bestows.

Without cause God gave us Being;
without cause, give it back again.

Rumi

Victor Tango

Ok, I tried to post a picture, but it doesn't seem to be loading.

Anyway, last night I met Shandi and Elizabeth for drinks. Its kind of hard to get Shandi out of the house as she has two kids under the age of four, but she vowed that once a month she would meet us for a night of strong drinks. Last night was the night. We had two hours since Shandi wanted to be home in time to read books before bed time. So, I picked a new place closish to her house, Victor Tango.

I hadn't really heard much about the spot. Its situated at 75 and Henderson, right where Sense used to be. I walked in expecting the lounge of Sense and was a bit shocked. They had gutted the place. I think the bar is about the only same thing. Otherwise, its full of nice big booths and tables. I'm a booth lover. So, we quickly snatched one up.

The big thing at Victor Tango is the drinks and the food are fresh. You expect that of the food, its a bonus when the drinks are treated the same. All juices are squeezed fresh. I had the blackberry gimlet and it was tasty. I think I also had something called the French 75 with fresh lemon juice.

And the food was good. We had the ahi tuna naches, the fried green beans, and the chicken and waffles (my pick) We devored the whole table full. The fried green beans were tempura flash fried. Not to put down the state fair or anything, but the ones at Victor Tango were a wee bit better, and came with a really good wasabi dipping sauce. I asked for extra.

The chicken and waffles were rich a departure for me, but I thought I would give them a try. Delicious. The fried chicken wasn't too greasy and they gave us extra maple syrup for dipping!!

Overall, good night. Good place. We will be back.

Sometimes I'm Too Honest

I was recently having a discussion with a friend where I was telling them my thoughts on their mental state. I have to admit at the time I was having this discussion, I had quite a few margaritas in me. I'm not sure why, but margaritas cause me to believe I am incredibly intelligent and knowledgable. Yeah, not so much.

Anyway, I decided I needed to evaluate him psychologically. I believe I told him that he is so unhappy with his life, he becomes self destructive. He does bad things to make him feel like he is living. That's not good.

I said I understood where he was coming from on this. I sometimes get like this. I am slightly self destructive.

He just looked at me incredulously and said "You? You're self destructive? What self destructive thing have you done."

I looked at him honestly over the rim of my tequila filled glass and said "I dated you!"

I'm horrible

The Bounce House

You know what everyone should do once? Rent a bounc house. It's really not that expensive, but it brings so much joy to everyone's lives. Seriously.

I ordered mine last Tuesday. I went online and picked out the one I wanted, the red castle. I really wanted the pink castle, but I realized I was going to have a decent number of boys over. So, I went for the red castle.

The guys came over at 5 on Friday and had it rolled out and set up in the backyard in under 10 minutes. Seriously, it was inflated and going lickity split. So, I took advantage. I probably jumped for about 5 minues before I became so completely winded and took a knee. Man, that's a cardiovascular workout. See, bounce houses have so many benefits.

The only thing I really had to sign off on was that no silly string would enter the bounce house. That was easy enough to sign off on. I don't think any silly string has been in my presence for about 12 years. Does anyone over the age of 15 really use that stuff anymore?

People came over and I had it going throughout the night. I was a bit afraid that chili and a bounce house would not mix, but it was all good. Honestly, I think that one day when I am frivolous and have a lot of money, I'm buying one for my backyard, that and a hot tub.

Jalapeno issues

Would you like to know how much I love my friends? Let me tell you. I made two pots of chili for them. That is actually no big deal, BUT in order to make both of these pots of chili I cut up 6 jalapenos. For the record, I can't stand jalapenos. All my cheese fries come loaded, but with jalapenos on the side. That used to be so that Kristine could eat them. Unfortunately, Kristine is gone and the jalapenos sit there so lonely.

Anyway, I cut up all these jalapenos and then discovered the taste and smell don't leave your hands, FOR DAYS. I'm not even going to go into the hell I realized in the shower. It took me about 20 minutes to be able to see properly again, and that was the least affected part.

Renu from work cooks with them a lot and suggested I put some olive oil on my hands to tamp out the burn. You know what I got? Very supple hands and fingers that still taste and smell like molton FIRE!

I love you guys, but no more jalapenos. I'm stickin to lasagna.

Aquarius

I had a quick discussion with the roommate last night about my sign. I'm not a huge astrology person. I used to check yahoo's horiscopes daily when I dated this hippy guy, but once he and his patchoulli left me life, so did the horiscopes.

Anyway, I looked up the definition of me. I agree with most of it:
Aquarians are always ahead of their time
Aquarians form their own opinions, disregarding and perhaps even disdaining the orthodox
They are open-minded but once they make a decision, their mind (at least on that subject) closes.
They avoid routine and anything else that may lead to boredom. Aquarians are outgoing and find friends to share their adventures easily.

The part I'm not quite buying:
Aquarians tend to avoid hard work and will fulfill their potential best working with ideas

I do think most definitions of star signs tell us what we want to hear. Notice above I only buy the good parts that I think apply to me. Being the aquarian I am, I will be open-minded, but I've pretty much decided its bumpkiss.

Republic of what??

Yesterday, I had a day. It was going fine until 4 o'clock. At 4 o'clock I had the pleasure of sitting across from a man and being treated like a 2 year old for an hour. He seriously reeked of condescention. It was like he knew all the answers to his questions I was giving were wrong, even before I gave them. After about fifteen minutes with him, all that was going through my head was "I really don't like you. And I like everybody. But you, no, you, I don't like."

God it was awful.

I knew I had a work dinner. So, I ran to the gym to get things off my chest. I maybe got in 20 minutes. I just kept doing intervals on the treadmill. Just something. I hate being talked down to and was just so upset. I kept running and wearing myself out, then not running. I must have looked really bipolar.

Then I ran out to Las Colinas for dinner at Republic. I'm not even going to go into it, but the restaurant was horrible, the food was horrible. Just really a waste of time. Add on that I was in a combative mood. This all led to a pretty horrendous meal.

At the end, my boss pulled me aside, gave me a hug, and said "honey, you need to grow a thicker backbone. Your not going to get ahead unless you can stand up for yourself."

This weekend, I start taking my testosterone shots I guess.

I'm stuck

As some may know, last January, my cell phone went caput when I was visiting a friend for vacation in Colorado. In my desperation, I went to a phone store and just bought the cheapest thing they had and signed a contract.

Its been a number of months and this poor little phone has slowly but surely disintegrated before my eyes. I don't think it helps that I drop it about once a week and generally treat it very unkindly.

I decided over the weekend it was time to invest in a new phone. I went over to TMobile to see what I could get. They had all these new shiney phones that did everything but cook you breakfast. They appearred to be reasonably priced, but then we started getting into the nitty gritty. They were only reasonably priced if you were a new customer. If you were an old customer, they were about the price of a mortgage payment.

I looked at the girl like she was crazy. I didn't get it. I've been a loyal customer for over 6 years, and I have to donate blood in order afford a phone, but I completely new person gets one half price. What is up with that?

I shook my head and started walking out. Do I really need a new phone that badly?

November 24th

After November 24th, I fear no one will ever see me again. Why you ask? Because on November 24th I will officially get cable.

I know. This is a big step. Its been 4 years. 4 long years.

I called up AT&T last Thursday and said I was interested in cable and (wait for it) internet. YES, I am getting internet at home too. Seriously, you will never see my face again.

But, it's time to be an adult. It's time to be able to grow up and manage my time. I really think that if there is an 8 hour marathon of "Rock of Love" on VH1 I will be able to leave the house and still socialize, instead of cuddling up on my couch under a fuzzy afghan eating cheese and making fun of people. Man that sure sounds nice though.

The woman who signed me up for the service slowly walked me through all my options. We first discussed cable. I only wanted the 100 channel option, but it was pointed out to me that I could get the 200 channel option with the DVR for a year at the same price as the 100 channel option. I kind of got a bit crazy and said yes.

I'm really going to be testing myself.

The internet should be interesting. I fear I will have a permanent laptop imprint from having it sit on my lap all the time now.

It was nice knowing all of you. I will be stocking up on canned goods and supplies over the next couple of weeks.

East Wind

For some reason, I started writing this blog, and I had Neil Diamonds voice singing in my head "hello, again, hello". Why you ask? Because last night I caught up with two old friends, Elizabeth and an old eating haunt of ours East Wind.

We got there at 6:30 and talked and ate and ate and talked and pracically closed the place down. It was good!!

We started out with an Acacia pinot noir and an order of their tropical spring rolls. I think it must be the mango and the crabmeat together. I'm not sure, but something in those rolls just makes me a very happy girl. Its got to be the mango.

Then I treated myself to the fried shrimp crepes. I just love these. They are pretty good at Mai's, but they are heaven at East Wind. Not too fried. With a nice side of lettuce and cilantro and a big bowl of fish sauce. I'm just a mess when I eat these. I never wrap the lettuce around the crunchy crepe tight enough, and I get fish sauce all over my hands (and face), but once I actually get the food into my mouth, its just good stuff!!

And you couldn't beat the conversation.

Ah East Wind, even though I don't visit you often, I do think about you fondly.

Newton's Third Law

"To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"

I am a firm believer in doing exactly what you want to do. I have no issue with that. I do what I want to do all the time. But, being who I am, one of the most responsible people that everyone knows, I always weigh the consequences before I dive headlong into the abyss. I usually know in the back of my mind what might happen, and I have accepted the outcomes.

A couple of weeks ago, I stood out on the edge of the diving board and looked down. I bounced a couple of times up and down. I wasn't sure about what I was taking on, but I decided in the end that this was what I needed to do. And as I jumped off and folded myself into the pike position, I internally braced myself for the cold water.

(sorry, going through some crap. i promise to get back to funny or food or funny food tomorrow)

My therapist

I have a trainer. Her name is Mimi. Once a week we meet up and workout for an hour. Even though my body aches for a day after, I look forward to my visit with her. I realized yesterday that one big reason is that for one hour a week I get to talk exclusively about "me".

She constantly asks me odd questions to get the conversation started. I know she does this to get my mind off the 40 pounds of weights she has on my shoulders while I'm squatting. But really, its nice.

Usually the conversation starts at one place and slowly over time it veres this way and that, and by the end of the hour I'm sweating, I'm out of breath, and I just feel good.

Yesterday's conversation started out very simply. I think I just walked out of the locker room, found her by the sign in desk, and said "Mimi, I appear to be mean to people these days. I'm just warning you,", and we went from there. At the end of the hour, I was feeling very zen.

I guess in a way, she is my therapist. Once a week, I get a real full body and mind workout. Maybe I should try to file a claim with my medical insurance and put her as an out of network clinician. It could work?

Concious Objector

When I was a young child, Halloween was about being scared and eating candy. It was this lovely night where you got to dress up as something fun and eat candy.

Somehow in the last 10 years, Halloween has morphed into "sexy Halloween", the night when all women over the age of 14 dress up like whores and eat candy. NO no no! I'm not having it anymore.

About two weeks ago, I decided I was going to be a Bee for halloween. I wanted to be a cute, fuzzy bumble bee. So, I went online. I thought I would get on the ball and order early. Well, what did I find online. 400 stripper outfits. Seriously, if you want to be a Bee for Halloween, just wear a yello bikini and a black tutu and your set.

Boo! I say Boo!

Down with sexy Halloween. I'm dressing as something scary and I'm gonna eat some candy!

Yes Julie I have a roommate

The other day I sent out an email with questions for my roommate, and about 5 minutes later I got a message back from Julie saying "you have a roommate?". I guess I've kind of been lax in getting out the news. You know I've kind of been stressed a bit lately and traveling.

So yes, for the first time in 3 years, I have a roommate. Just took in a friend for a spell. I have to say she is very clean and she cooks. Its actually interesting. I will come home and the house will smell like food. Its a really good smell. And I will open the fridge and there is the food. Usually all my fridge has in it is cheese and moldy veggies I keep saying I'm going to eat. Now, there is left overs.

And she doesn't cook just normal stuff. She cooks interesting stuff. I ate okra yesterday. I haven't eaten okra in years. Ok, that is kind of a lie. I've eaten fried okra, but I have a feeling that when they deep fry it, it losses some of its nutritional value. So, even though its greenish, its still a french fry. But yesterday, I ate it non-fried, and it was good.

Maybe the two of us will learn something from each other. I thinking already I've learnt my first lesson. Just because its a vegeatable does not mean you will gag when you eat it.

Way to give me a complex

This morning, I went to a new doctor. I was not in love with my old PCP, and I thought it was time for a change. Also, I need vaccinations before I run off to Vietnam in February. This was probably the best time to go.

Everything was going ok until it was time to actually take a look at me.

1) I produce obnoxious amounts of ear wax. This was pointed out to me when she went in to look at them. She then proceeded to spend 5 minutes sticking this thing in my ear trying to clean them out. She gave me advice on shampooing my ears regularly. At the end, she said there appeared to be some redness in there. Ok, do you not think that was related to you spending 5 minutes mining for gold in there?

2) I have chicken pox scars on my back. She pointed them out when she was looking at my spine. I said I had small scars where some moles were removed. She said no these were different. Ok.

So, now I'm thinking I have some weird ear wax disease and an ugly back. Don't know why I went to the doctor.

Ok, time to Cher up for the company Halloween party. Wish me luck!

Just the medicine

"My weaknesses have always been food and men, in that order"
Dolly Parton

I really love Dolly Parton. She came in concert, and I tried to beg, borrow, and steal myself a ticket, but alas, she has many who love her and a ticket was impossible to come by.

Anyway, the past couple of weeks have been hard. The house got robbed, I took in a roommate, and all my clients projects seemed to be due in one week. Last night when I got off the plane, I was shaking. I think sometimes life gets to be too much, and I won't back off, so my physical body decides to head up a revolt. That happened two years ago. My body decided to give me mono. That sure was a wake up call.

Last night, I could tell I was on bad ground. I needed to check work email and go back to the house, but instead, I decided to meet up an old friend for drinks at Mi Cocina, and it did the trick.

I'm not a huge Mi Cocina fan. I think the fajita meat is impossible to chew. I think the nachos are very bland. And I think they put too much liquor in their drinks so that you don't notice the other issues I have stated above, but the company was nice. It was stupid fun. Just having margaritas and bland nachos and shooting the breeze.

People get at me about my food obsession. Honestly, I have grown to love food because some of my happiest times were spent around a table with people. I have decided to cook more at home. I am experimenting with lasagna on my friend Alec and his kids next weekend. Ok maybe I shouldn't experiment when I'm feeding four children. Maybe I should just stick to old fashioned sausage. But I thought the recipe I found for chicken and gouda sounded too good to pass up. Thoughts?

Meet me in St. Louis

Louise meet me at the fair.

Back in my youth, I believe I watched every Judy Garland film multiple times. Now that I'm thinking about it, I should be her for Halloween, dressed up like Dorthy and all drunk complaining about the munchkins orgies.

Anyway, I digress. I really don't travel that much, but lately these past two weeks, I'm a traveling fiend. Plus, I'm suffering from an acute case of insomnia. I think my mind won't start working at night. I get in bed but I wake up at 2 am and can't seem to go back to sleep. I'm thankful I'm at a Westin in a heavenly bed.

Tonight it's St. Louis. I don't have much time in town. When I got into the room, I found no room service menu. So, I called downstairs and asked about it. The room service guy said he could send me up one, but I said he could probably walk me through it. I was craving pasta, but not too creamy make your tummy feel bad pasta. I seriously told him that. We settled on lobster ravioli and a nice glass of pinot.

Its lovely. The bed is heavenly. The pasta actually came with lobster chunks. You could actually see the lobster in the ravioli. The pinot was cheap, but it did the trick, and I got a shower.

Delightful.

Best advice my mother gave me

Food Czar's comment got me to thinking. He asked why would I go and spend time with people who didn't love me. I thought that was a good question. Why would anyone?

I had written down that I was going to be with people who love me. So, I really set my mind to it. Friday night, I was at a party having a good conversation when a friend walked over. I joked with them about the safeness of local neighborhoods. They then go into this whole soliloquy about how they read the local paper and look at the break-ins and how its such a miniscule number that they never pay it any mind. Their attitude was just very off putting to me. So, I told them "you know I got broken into last week." Their response "yeah, I know." And then proceeds to talk about some other party they have to go to.

I completely tuned them out and walked away. The whole time I was thinking here is this person I run into a lot and always give them a hug because they are my "friend" and yet its pretty obvious they could care less.

I decided a couple of things that night:
1) I've reached my self absorbed people quotient these days.
2) Why am I wasting time calling all these people "friends"?
3) I need to spend time re-cultivating old real friendships I have let go to seed.

I started Saturday night and continued on into Sunday morning.

I sometimes forget some advice my mother gave me about 3 years ago. It was after a bad breakup, and I was just upset. I was very honest with her and told her that I knew the guy didn't like me as much as I liked him. She said that I am too good for that. "You need to surround yourself with people who adore you."

Me-centric

The next couple of days, its kinda all going to be about me. I'm going to really take care of myself, physicially and mentally.

1) I am going to surround myself with people who make me happy
2) I'm going to sleep for hours on end
3) I'm going to eat good food
4) I'm going to get a pedicure

I am going to be one big ball of zen, with a big old smile on my face.

I just need to get about 10 hours of work done in 2 hours time. Wish me luck!

Late night blogging

A week ago, it was requested by a collegue in San Francisco that I fly out for a two day meeting for a vendor implementation. I have no time for this, but I am addicted to being asked for help. I always say yes. Especially, when its San Francisco.

After this weekend, I was dreading this trip. I just felt like I was dealing with too much, but weirdly, the minute I was driving to the airport. I felt like a huge weight was being lifted from my shoulders. While waiting for the plane, I started calling old friends who had been checking in with me, I bought a nurtritious dinner of sour patch kids and a watch-a-ma-callit, and I opened a good book.

Seriously, I've been in San Francisco a little over a day, and I've seen nothing of the city except the inside of a hotel room and a clients conference room, but I feel like I'm in a fantastic place. I guess I needed to fly away.

Right now my sleep cycle in very off kilter. So, I'm awake and looking up videos on youtube. How old am I?

So, during my youtube journey, I found this. Makes me smile. Arcade Fire and Showbiz pizza. Magical!

I keep saying I'm ok but...

I finally am fessing up that I'm not. I'm not at all.

The way I've been dealing with everything the last couple of days is to run my life like I'm a robot. I give myself projects and things to do. I have a timeline. I have a plan.

Last night, I had a plan in my head. I left work. I went to the gym. I came home and was organizing and packing for my trip to San Francisco. At about 8 pm, the door bell rang. I thought it was my friend coming over to help me fix a couple of things. So, I run to answer the door. I don't look out the window like I normally do. I just run to answer it.

And standing there on my front porch is a young black man. And I turn into the very woman I never wanted to be. My mind just starts reeling. Seriously, the first thought in my head was "it's one of the boys come back to the house." I am seriously gripping the door handle.

And here is where I mention that I have absolutely no poker face. Everything I'm thinking goes right across it.

He just looks at me and says "Hey, are you ok? I didn't mean to scare you..." And goes into his speech about how he is selling magazines to win a trip. I calm down, smile and profusely apologize, and I explain that I had just been robbed that past weekend and am in a weird place. He was very sweet about it. I let him start his speech again.

My mind of course is still not in a great place. I question why he is here from Topeka, Kansas to sell magazines. I smile, but you can probably tell its not real. He asks if I want to purchase one, and I tell my first lie "I'm not a magazine person." Lie lie lie. Sitting right there on my coffee table were National Geographic, Domino, and People. The truth, I just didn't want to deal with him at 8 pm on a Monday night on my front porch at night.

He again was nice and said that was all ok. He then started walking away but asked if I had a bottle of water. Get ready, lie number two coming up. "No, I'm sorry all I have in the fridge is beer." Lie lie lie. Again, I just didn't want to deal with him at 8 pm on a Monday night on my front porch at night. I just wanted to lock my door and get out my croquette mallet, again.

Then, not 5 minutes later my doorbell rings again. I look out the windown this time and its a young woman. I open the door, and she immediately says "Hey, its Tara your neighbor. Remember? The magazine guy just told me you had been robbed." The minute she spoke I recognized her. She is the super sweet girl one house over. I know who she is. But my mind was just not working. I talked to her for a bit, but went inside and just sat down and tried to breath.

And then I just broke down.

I need to stop setting unrealistic expectations and deal with this.

Thank you

So, I got through this weekend with many many lessons learned. I finally had a minute to clear my head and thought I would thank people.

Michael - my driver on Friday who put up with my shock and numbness. Thank you for just sitting there and letting me vent about the whole bedroom fiasco.

Vivy - our caravaner who patiently waited it out while I tried to figure out what was going on and what I needed to do. Thank you for giving me hugs.

The Richardson Police - who swarmed my house with 10 cop cars and ran 3 blocks to apprehend my robbers. Thank you for getting their quickly and getting all my stuff back.

Detective Gibson - who patiently sat there on the phone with me and walked through my list of missing items. Thank you for having a heart and letting me know that you had grandma's ring. Also, thank you for quickly processing my laptop and getting it back to me early that weekend.

The real nice crime scene investigator - who cleaned up my bedroom. I know you probably see stuff like that everyday, but it was very nice of you to put it all away.

My sweet sweet neighbor - for being wonderful and nosey and always looking out her window. If it wasn't for you, everything would most probably be gone. I swear, you are getting the first pecan pie of the season!

The Hatfields - for taking pity on me and making sure I was alright Friday. Also, for helping me find a contractor who would come out with no notice and fix my door. It was nice to not have to sleep with the croquett mallet on Saturday night.

Cecil Garrett - who came over late Saturday on his day off to help fix my back door. Thank you for giving me a bit more piece of mind.

Overall, not a great weekend, but it makes for some great stories.

If its October, it must be time for someone to rob me...

Last October someone broke into my online banking account. Made me very unhappy. We won't dwell on the past. Lets move on to the present.

Yesterday, I was on my way out of town when I received a call. I thought it was for work, so I answered. The next thing I know I'm talking to the Richardson police, and this man is telling me that someone has broken into my house. The neighbor saw it and called 911. Two men had busted through my back door and had run off. The police had apprehended them and the suitcase they had full of my things. The officer was standing on my back porch and was wondering where I might be. I told him I was on the road out of town, but I had just turned the car around.

All I could think about was Penny and my grandmother's engagement ring

I pulled up to my house and found it surrounded by cop cars. I run into the backyard and was greeted by the officer who had called me. He walked me into the back door and explained the situation. You could see where they had bashed the door in and broken the door frame. We walked into the living room, and I was told to not touch anything. I was just to point out what had been touched or what was different.

It was there that I found Penny crouched on the window sill. I gave her a pet, but she was pretty scared and wouldn't move. So, I let her be. I walked them through the living room. It was then I realized that someone had my work laptop. I had left my briefcase with it on the couch. Did I mention I was a genius.

We walked through the house. In the spare bedroom I noted that it looked rummaged through but that was actually how I had left it. You could tell they had run through my bathroom and just taken all the jewelry by the sink, including my watch and grandma's ring. Again, I'm a genius.

Then we got to my bedroom. It was torn apart. They had gone through all my drawers. Everything was everywhere. Really though, I have nothing hidden in my bedroom. All one would discover by pillaging was that I was into vintage purses, and I practice safe sex. It was me and three cops standing there and all I could do was laugh.

The next couple of hours were a whilrwind. The crime scene guys printed all over the house and were nice and cleaned up a bit in the bedroom. I started calling around trying to find someone to fix my door. The detective called to discuss what things were missing.

I eventually went over to mmy nieghbors across the street. She had called 911 when she heard the guys bang in my back door. She sat me down for a half hour and told me the whole story. She thanked me for giving her excitement for a year.

Eventually, the detective called and said they were going to let me have my laptop, but they kept the rest of my stuff.

I know I'm missing a lot. Just a busy day. And here I am with a broken back door and a shell shocked cat, but it will work itself out.

I almost forgot

So, we are sitting there Tuesday night, enjoying our 100% fried dinner at the State Fair, minding out own business, when this very sweet little boy walks up to our table. He was being followed by another older boy, who I'm thinking was his brother, who was poking him in the back and steering him towards Cherry. The sweet little boy says something very quietly and hands Cherry a piece of paper, and then the two of them quickly walk away.

Cherry looks at me and says "Oh, isn't that sweet. He invited me to his church."

She then holds up the pamphelt to read it showing me the back of it. Written in large letters it says "ARE YOU GOING TO HELL?" I almost immediately spit out my green been fry in shock. She just gives me this look and says "what was that for?".

I just look at her and say "Are you going to hell?"

She turns the pamphelt over and starts getting upset. "Why did they only give it to me and not to you?"

I'm just laughing and telling her "I don't know. I'm the one eating all the fried food. I'm most likely to keel over on the table here."

State Fair BINGO

There are really a lot of things that make me happy to see. To name a few:
My family
Smartcars
Big Tex

Big Tex (aka Mary Alice's boyfriend) just makes me smile. He always scares me when he moves, but I will focus on the smile part.

Last night was my first fair night of the year. Mary Alice had written me last week and said she was going with a group and they would be playing State Fair BINGO. I didn't quite get the BINGO part until I looked at the playing cards. Each space under B I N G and O was filled with a description of an individual you would usually see at the fair. Mary Alice provided daubers, and we stood out in front of Big Tex and started looking. I unfortunately got too sucked into the people watching to use my dauber. There was just too much to see:
Kids on leashes (one was actually on a chain)
Many many large people on electric scooters (its like Medicare just gives those away)
Muffin tops (non edible)
Mullets (business in the front, party in the back)
etc.

I ate my body weight in fried food, which is really what the State Fair is all about. My dinner consisted of fried BBQ egg rolls. They were very tasty. I thought I should have a vegeatable, so I shelled out for a side of fried green beans. I'm not really sure how nutritious they were, but they were really good with the ranch dipping sacue.

We then ran outside and found the Pirate Ship. YEAH. I love the Pirate Ship. I was good and didn't have any change in my pockets. I usually lose money on that ride.

Then we wandered, and wandered, and wandered around the midway. Mary Alice won a monkey. She already had one and really didn't need another, but I'm glad she won. I'm not bitter or anything.

Then, we went on the claw. That was super duper fun. Unfortunately, it didn't go for very long. I'm told that they don't do the rides as much on cheap Tuesdays. Not fair. Just because people are frugal doesn't mean they should be punished.

I started noticing it was getting late, and I hadn't eaten half the fried food on my list. So, I dragged Cherry away and ran back to Big Tex to get some fried cheese curds. Very tasty. I was munching on those when we went on our hunt to find Cherry's deep fried chocolate covered strawberries. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. Seriously. Those were the best fried things I have ever eaten. EVER. We were stuffing them in at the stand and making dirty sounds.

We started running to find the chicken fried bacon, but kind of got a bit waylaid by the deep fried chocolate truffle. 100% ghiradelli chocolate. You can't pass that up!! I got the last one. I should have stopped. It was so good, but I shouldn't have stopped. The bacon was closing up by then. Booo.

I guess this means I'm gonna have to go back because
1) I got no bacon and
2) I didn't get to ride the Ferris Wheel. No one wanted to pay or wait in line with me for it.

Next week maybe?? Anyone free??

Our state fair is a great state fair...

don't miss it, don't even be late.

Tonight tonight tonight. Things I'm looking forward to:

- chicken fried bacon
- fried pickles
- fried grilled cheese sandwhich
- the pirate ship
- funnel cake
- the ferris wheel at night
- fried chocolate truffles
- spending $50 to win a big stuffed animal worth only $2

I have fasted all day in order to be able to eat my bodyweight in fried batter.
I have printed out the fair food locator
I have printed out a fairgrounds map

From my calculations, I will burn off a chocolate truffle in my quest to get a grilled cheese sandwhich. Those are all the way over by the creative arts pavillion. I guess I could get a grilled cheese and then check out some of the entries into the quilt competition.

Next year I think I'm going to enter my grandma's mincemeat into the fair. Mom finally handed down the recipe. It's full of burbon and suet. I'm thinking it will fit in just fine at the fair.

Tillman's Roadhouse

Last night I took Elizabeth to Tillman's for a birthday dinner. I hadn't been there in a while. Actually, now that I think about it, it might have been months.

The last time I was there they set me and Adam in one of the 2 tops along the banquet, and we were placed in between two other couples. Adam swore they were listening to our conversation, but I thought they had better things to do then listen to us discuss the merits of H&M. Everything was going fine until he got up to go to the bathroom and announced "we can discuss your herpes when I get back". Both couples swivled around and looked at me. Adam was right. And he laughed all the way to the potty.

So, last night was a bit different. They really weren't that busy. We were sat in the banquets again, but no one was really that close to us.

I love Tillman's first for the decor. You enter and to the right is the bar with "The Misfits" playing on the wall over a big comfy Aquamarine couch. To the left is the restaurant. Its like one big train car full of wood and chandaliers. I always tell people it looks like Za Za Gabor's hunting lodge.

We are sat and they brought over the big ladels full of warm nuts and popcorn covered in white truffle oil. Elizabeth was in a funny mood yesterday. She usually is all about vegeatables, but she requested the fries done three ways for an appetizer. Who was I to say no? The big box came out, overcrowded with sweet potato, idaho russet, and purple potato fries. I mostly ate the sweet potatoes. They had a nice chili rub on them and that seemed to appeal to my taste buds.

We both ordered the venison frito pie. For the record, two things I love: venison and frito pie. Therefore, I had to order this meal. Oh, it was so good. I used to eat frito pie every Tuesday in high school. It was my addiction. This kicked it up a notch with nice chunks of venison in a tangy chili. Add some sour cream and fritos and you have nirvana.

Since it was Elizabeth's birthday, we got dessert. We decided to try the crisp of the day, huckleberry. It was pretty good. The speedy version of happy birthday senorita made it much better. Huckles are ok for a berry. They tended to turn our mouths black. It took a couple of brushings that night and this morning to get my mouth back to normal.

Overall,a very good meal. I like Tillman's. I wish more people had been there.

RIP Meridian Room

I just heard yesterday, Meridian Room is no longer. I'm just saddened. I don't know who to blame. I don't know who to be upset with.

I have friends using DART's name in vain. They believe that the streets being all ripped up contributed to lower patronage and the closure. I myself have driven down Exhibition at night trying to figure out where the lanes were and how exactly I turned into the parking lot without taking my car into a ditch. But, that didn't keep me from going.

Others blame the State Fair. I guess the fair goers fill up the parking lot, and Meridian patrons just don't feel like dealing with the crowds. But, the Fair just started last weekend. One weekend doesn't close a bar.

I blame Dallas fickleness. People fall in love with a place and go there constantly. It becomes their place until they tire of it and move on. Therefore, each restaurant and bar has to keep constantly appealing to new and different crowds. If this doesn't happen. If the crowd goes stale, you end up having a spiral downward.

I will miss Meridian. I had a couple of good first dates there. I had a number of fantastic half priced Wednesday nights there.

My favorite night. Elizabeth's pooch Bradley passed away. We decided to have a good old fashioned wake. I told her to meet me at Meridian at the bar at 7, and she needed to dress hip. She shows up in jeans and points out that she is wearing leopard print pumps. God bless her. I told her yes, her pumps were hip. We spent the evening just talking and toasting the memory of Bradley. Somehow, everytime I went to the bathroom Elizabeth would get hit on by an old toothless man. I promised her I would no longer leave.

I'm just saddened that something a bit different, a bit not of the norm, a bit funky is gone. I'm ok with some conformity, but let me have my little fun spot. My little hole in the wall.

Anyway, Libertine the sister restaurant is open on Greenville. Half priced food on Sunday night. Hopefully, I will see some of you there.

The mother daughter relationship

True story.

A women is visiting her mother in the hospice. Her mother has been fighting the good fight against multiple myloma and is on a strong cocktail of pain killers. The daughter who has been by her bedside for the last year goes to see her before going out that night. Before she can even ask her mom about how the day has gone, her mom looks at her and says "you going out in that". And they spend the next 10 minutes fighting over her outfit, as they have been doing since she was 16 and her mom stopped buying her clothing.

We can't change our mothers. They are our mothers. Life gave them no instruction book when they had us.

HFCS

I have been on a cable high this weekend. TV TV TV. Its lovely.

Until, I saw these:



Just disgusted.

tgif...i feel like poo

Seriously, this was the hello I got from Cherry over messenger this morning. One I read it, I had to concur. Its been a long week.

I had the Omani now Aussie Kleins over. Tuesday I met them at Kerry's house. At one point in the night we were sitting around the dinner table, and I started to do mental head math.

Lee, Kerry's husband, I met freshman year of college - 15 yrs
Pam, college roommate, I actually met in eigth grade - 19 yrs
Jason, Pam's husband who I went to private school with, I met in seventh grade - 20 yrs
Kerry, old church friend, I met in 4th grade at sunday school - 23 years

Just crazy to know people this long. And when we get together, its like no time has passed. Pam and Jason just live down the street, not in Brisbane. I'm the real me. I tell my stories about being pranked by 8 year olds and thinking its a booty call and the toilet with the dryer. We make fun of old people we knew in college. It was great.

We figured out when I could come to visit them. I fear it might not be until 2010, but they will be there for while. They went through a big lifestyle change. In Oman, Pam had a maid 3 days a week and drove an SUV. Now in Brisbane they only have one car and their choices were all diesel or hybrids, and the maid comes every two weeks. I think she is still trying to figure out her way around.

So, I stayed up late talking with them Tuesday and Wednesday. Last night I got home and was so drained I put my head down for a short nap. I woke up 3 hours later. Needless to say, last night I did not get to bed until 2 am. I was just not sleepy. Now I'm paying for it!

One thing I have to say is that Jason gave me some wise words of advice that I'm keeping with me. I need to live more for the moment and not always be so thrifty. "Life is too short to live for Ikea shelving". Yes. I agree!

Best bathroom in Dallas

This topic was of such importance, I had to give it a blog of its own.

Sunday night at Tei An, after 2 or 3 Ichibans, I had the need to use the facilities. I walked over to the entrance by the bar, and this women was just standing in the doorway in semi-shock.

She looked at me and exclaimed "Have you ever seen those before?" And then pointed to the stalls. The doors were glass. You could look through and see the toilet. She was in shock. She said "someone can see you."

I immediately knew what was up. I had seen these doors on CSI Miami. For once, my addiction to this show paid off. I told her they were special glass and demonstrated. When you locked them, the glass immediately fogged up, and you couldn't see through.

So, that mystery solved. I went into one stall, locked the door, watched the glass fog up, and turned around to the toilet. It looked different. I sat down and noticed under the toilet paper roll there was some sort of control panel. Of course I had to start pushing buttons.

First, I discovered the seats heated up. Granted, its september in Dallas. So, this option is not necessary at this time, but I kept thinking this would be lovely December.

Secondly, I began playing with the "wash" buttons. Lets just say the toilet has a sprayer and you can push buttons that have it spray from different angles. I had fun with all the angles, but eventually it got old. So, then I turned on the dryer.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A TOILET WITH A DRYER??

Crazy.

I looked it and it was a Toto. Totos are the cadillac of toilets. This thing is their Escalade. Amazing.

Of course after I was done, I went to the very cool sink with the spigot that had a sensor and turned on and off by itself etc.

Overall, an absolutely fabulous experience I would gladly do again.

Tei An

Sunday night, Adam took to a private dinner for his Japan America society at Tei An. I guess they are usually closed on Sunday, but they opened up for this group. I knew it was located in the new Southland building, but was unsure exactly where. We parked across the street and found it easily.

Walking in, I immediately loved the space. It kind of reminded me of the Kimball. I am a big fan of when architects are about to make concrete beautiful. Louis Kahn mastered that as did Lloyd Wright. We actually discussed this a bit over dinner.

Anyway, the space is small, but they have used it well. Very minimal with ambient lighting. We went to the bar area first and discovered they have Kirin Ichiban on tap. Score 1 for Tei An.

We mingled a bit and found a good spot to sit in one of the half booths. We perused the menu and decided upon onigiri and tempura for appetizers. I was set on not having any sushi that night. I eat that all the time.

The onigiri was delicious. I devourced my two quickly. We had the seaweed and the smoked salmon. Adam liked both, but he thought the smoked salmon was a bit strong. Next came the tempura. We had the combination which consisted of shrimp, mushrooms and mixed veggies. Shrimp tempura is always a test for me. Some places really make it too oily. Both Adam and I agreed this was the lightest/best we had had in a good long while. The tempura mushrooms were my favorite. I never see that. Unfortunately, I ate this green thing I assummed was squash but was actually a pepper. Much Ichiban was called for to wash that down.

Next came the curry udon. We meant to specify soba but we god udon. I'm not complaining. It was delicious. The broth alone was bowl licking worthy. I didn't, but I wanted to.

We splurged on dessert and got the black seasame mouse and this chocolate lava cake kind of thingy. It was a very light cake and it had this odd white filling. It was delicious, but I kept referring to the filling as goo. No clue what else to call it.

Overall a very very good meal. I need to go back and actually partake of the soba, since it is a soba restaurant.

But I just have to say, if you ever go there, go to the bathroom. It is seriously, the best bathroom in Dallas. SERIOUSLY. But I will save that story for later.

My equilibrium is shot

Friday night I agreed to tromp over to Addison and partake in Octoberfest. It was not what I expected at all. It was a fair. I walked past the midway and all the bright lights, and I got so excited. I love rides. Love them love them.

I ran over to the Bier Garten (Beer Garden) and asked if we could go on the Ferris Wheel. My friends who I was meeting up with said they wanted to eat first. So, we had some of Chamberline's roast pork on a potato pancake, very good. I also had some of the skillet potatoes and a beer. Actually, besides the massive amounts of salt I ingested, it was an overall good meal.

Finally, we walked over to the rides. We decided to go on the swings first. I was stoked. I love love love rides. But I should point out, it has been a while since I had ridden them.

At the time we were swiming around, I was in nirvana. All the bright lights against the dark sky. The feeling of weighlessness. It was fantastic. Like flying.

And then the ride stopped, and we hobbled off. I was feeling a little weird. My head had a knot in it, and I just wasn't feeling that good. I had to sit down. Within five minutes, I was running for the port o potty. Oh, it was bad! Not as bad as my first Austin City Limit were I passed out outside the port o potty from heat stroke, but pretty up there.

I just felt awful. What had happened? Was I officially old? I stated right then and there no more rides for me. I went to bed around 1 and didn't wake up until almost noon on Saturday and my head and body were still messed up. The rest of the weekend I had that inner cloudy feeling.

I want my childhood back!

Oh the anticipation

I have many things I'm looking forward to:

1) Vietnam. We are working on visa's as we speak. I'm booking hotels in Hanoi this weekend. We are reviewing Halong Bay junks. I think we are going to take a food tour one day and a cooking class.

Could it get any better???

2) Soba tasting at Tei An Sunday - Adam is on the board of the Japan America Society, and he told me that they were having this event a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad we signed up early. 65 people are coming. My knowledge of soba is extremely limited. Seriously, my knowledge of Japanese food in general is limited. I have spent so many years focused on sushi, that I completely disregarded the rest of diet.

I've been slowly but surely working my way through the items on the wall at Sushiyama, but I think its time I took it a step further.

3) DaKleins formerly in Oman and now Australia are coming to visit - They are taking three weeks off to visit the family in Houston and are being ever so sweet to drive up and visit me and Kerry early next week. Pam is in the middle of a cat SNAFU with Sammi and a bit down, but we can cheer her up. I think Sammi is trapped in Oman at the moment because they will not export him to Australia. Or it might be that Australia does not want an Omani kitty. Either way, he is in limbo and currently being snuck under the border to Dubai. Cross your fingers Australia is ok with Dubai kitties.

4) If I had written this yesterday I would have added my excitement about doing dinner at Charlie Palmer last night. While the food was devine, I had issues with the service. It wasn't horrible. Don't get me wrong, but when someone is paying that much for dinner, I guess I expect the service level to be 10 notches higher. You shouldn't have to ask twice for your martini.

But I discoverd the next new item for the State Fair. Lobster corny dogs. They brought that out and everyone devoured them. Served with dijon mustard. A little bit of fried heaven.

One Book

I have decided to people need to read more.

Last night I attended the annual Richardson Reads One Book assembly. I use that word because it was held at Richardson High Schools auditorium. High school auditorium's look all the same.

Anyway, Richardson is a decent sized city, and yet, we did not fill the place up. It was kind of sad. One book. People had a year to read one book.

Again I say, people need to read more. So, I'm looking to see if anyone is with me. I will give you two months to read a book and then talk about it.

I just think people need to read more.

Things I learned this weekend

Friday

1)Everyone has their own definition of hunker.

Urban Dictionary - a phrase used very commonly by radio announcers as hurricanes pass by. it basically means "hang in there" or "be strong."

A certain friend from Lubbock - the need to stock up on necessities to help her get through a storm including a case of beer and some smokes. (I swear I'm not making fun. I swear!)

2)I'm an old woman.

Seriously, I'm in bed and about to fall asleep when my doorbell rings. Being who I am, I saunter up to the front bedroom window to peep outside between the blinds. The whole time I'm thinking "whose car is outside and wants a piece of this." Instead I find three eight year olds scurrying across my lawn. My ego completely falls into the floor when I realize I just got pranked.

I speak with my dear friend originally from Lubbock and have her sit on the phone while I open the front door to see if there is a flaming bag of poo out there. No bag of poo. I think the boys were having a sleep over and decided to play a prank on the old lady down the street. The old lady being me. Boo.

Saturday

People from Houston have no fear - a Hurricane is coming up from Houston, and we might get 3 inches of rain and 50 mile per hour winds, but a table full of native Houstonians still shows up for brunch in Dallas to enjoy the humidity and mimosas.

Sunday

Vegas is not sin city - that would be Antartica. I met my old friend Paige for lunch with her husband. He is awaiting to see if he grant has come through for him to go to Antartica. He goes every two years usually for about 3 months to study seals. He likes being down there, and he loves his work, but he said socially he has issues. I thought this was because he was shy. I questioned about whether he would like lessons from me on making friends.

He gave me a look, and then went on to clarify his statement. He said no, his issue was that people get down there, and they seem to forget about the rest of their lives. Everyone is having sex. Everyone including many of his collegues who are married. There are parties every night and professors are sleeping with interns. Lab techs on lab techs. He said they did a study of it, and its called the law of 3000 miles. When you get that far away from your real life, you just forget about it.

Who knew Antartica was an orgy??

Its called a calendar

You know that thing you see on the wall. It has boxes with numbers in them. They are in order. And at the top it has a big words like September, February etc. That thing. Do you know that thing?

Yeah, its called a calendar. I have one. Its little and black and fits in my purse. I used to have an electronic one, called a palm pilot, many years ago. But it exploaded and took my life away from me. I was very sad, and I decided that I never wanted that to happen to me again. So I:
1) Got more of a life
2) Went back to paper

Anyway, I like my calendar. I've had a number of people get at me about my calendar. I will pull it out and look up things. They don't like being dictated to by my calendar. WELL, I don't like hurting other people's feelings and missing things because I double booked or forgot something.

I just think that's common courtesy.

I think more people she put things in their calendar. That's all I'm saying. If you ask me to dinner. I calendar, dinner. You can't just change it to lunch and expect me to be open. Have you seen my calendar?

Ok, vent over.

Hurrican season

As some people know, I grew up in Houston. Not a bad town. Growing up, I wanted nothing more then to get the hell out of there. Now looking back, I have no clue why. I don't think it was the town itself. I think it was just being young and wanting to go away and see the rest of the world.

I grew up with hurricanes. They were a way of life for us. We were always watching the Gulf. I submitted Victoria a number of times to the National Weather Service. I just though it would be cool to hear about the "destructive power of Victoria".

1983 was Alicia. WHAT A STORM. I slept on my parents floor. Actually, I "slept". Dad snored so loud I couldn't get any real sleep. At about 6 am, dad, me and my two brothers were up. We were listening to a battery radio. They said that the eye was coming right over us. And not 10 minutes later, everything died down outside. It was amazing. My dad took us out. You couldn't hear anything. There was absolutely no white noise. The sky was still that green murky color, but the rain and wind were gone. It just felt like a whole other world. My mind didn't grasp at the time what I was doing. I was standing in the middle of a hurricane. How many people can say that?

The wind picked up and dad ran us inside. We finally came out again a couple of hours later and took in the destruction. Whole trees were ripped up over the neighborhood. You couldn't use the streets. Everyone's power was gone. We were trapped. Luckily for us, no flooding.

The crews came by and finally cleaned up the streets over 3 or 4 days, but we didn't have electricity for a good two weeks. Imagine August in Houston with no electricity. My parents tried to put up a good front, but after the first week, even they couldn't take it anymore. So, they packed all five kids into the Cadillac and drove us all to the only place nearby with a generator. SWENSENS.

FYI, if you don't know, Swensens was the most fantastic ice cream store ever. And I, the lucky little girl I was, got to spend every night for a week there trying out different kinds of Sundays. It was heaven. Eventually, life went back to normal. The power came back and we had no more candle light chinese take out dinners or flash light ghost stories.

I hope Ike doesn't hit Houston too hard. Neither of the parents would ever even consider evacuating. That word is not in their vocabulary. Mom has her flashlight and a cell phone. So, I guess we are all good.

Bolsa

It's time for another Victoria restaurant review.

Saturday night, I picked up Cherry and James and drove over to Oakcliff to try out Bolsa. I had read about it on Daily Candy, and its name had been in the back of my brain since then. James had been before and gave it a good review. So, we went.

I started to take my convoluted way into Oak Cliff, and James had issues with it. Yes, its weird that I got off of 35 South, but I never get lost. James had us go off of 30, and we had to backtrack. Going off of 35 south is not the quickest way, but again, I don't get lost, and I really don't like getting lost in Oakcliff, personally. And that's all about that.

We arrive and as expected have a bit of a wait. It gave me time to check the place out. Big open kitchen, nice dining room, and great large patio. It was actually a nice night. There were tons of people sitting outside.

We experimented with some of the bars girly cocktails. I had the rasberry sangria, but I preferred Cherry's peach sangria, and cherry preferred James's black and blue mojito (mojito made with blackberries and blueberries).

When we were sat I perused the wine list. It was set up with the wines split by color and price. I had a glass of A by Acacia and James got a cava. Cherry stuck with the mojito. We split the appetizer of bruschettas. That was downright tasty. There were 4 different kinds of bruschetta split into 3 pieces each. It worked out perfect. They had a salmon and dill one, a tomato and goat cheese one, an apple and cheese one, and ham with figs (my favorite). They were all good. Light and fresh and not too much. Not filling.

They had a selection of flat bread pizzas. Cherry and I decided to share the Jimmy's sausage one which came with banana peppers. I love sausage and I love banana peppers. Sounded good to me. AND IT WAS. On top of that I ordered their clams. I don't know why. I was in one of those weird food moods. James and I liked them, but Cherry isn't one for shell fish. I forgot the broth they were in. I have to admit I was concentrating on the pizza which had a nice thin crust. It was fresh and not too filling.

James had the duck. He kind of horded it. So, I can't report on that except to say he said it was some of the best duck he had had. Not too rich.

And the guy next to me kept going off about how good the pork tenderloin was.

We skipped on dessert. The couldn't open James's mini-bottle of cava. So, they gave him two. I drank his second for dessert.

Overall, really nice place that I will be going to again. I promise to pay more attention next time.

Scene of the crime

I met my old friend Alec for lunch today at Maggiano's. I'm not usually one for Brinker clone restaurants, but I love their gnocchi.

Anyway, when we passed the bar, I just laughed. Around two and a half years ago, Alec, Kristine, and I met in that bar for St. Patrick's Day to drown our sorrows. We wanted the least Irish place we could think of to meet up. We didn't want to deal with crowds.

It ended up being us and bunch of older Highland Park gliteraity. I guess they had the same idea as us. It was backed, but the three of us had managed seats at the bar. Alec was upset about his boyfriend, I was upset about my boyfriend, and Kristine was just drinking. At the time I was dating the fireman, who I actually liked. I question now if I liked him because he paid attention to me or if I really liked him liked him. I thought I needed to fix things. Make the relationship more interesting. Alec suggested, between crying fits, I tie the fireman up.

That was not quite the advice I was looking for.

So, two and a half years later. Alec is now living with his boyfriend happily ever after. Kristine is in Seattle, and I've seemed to given up men for the gym.

Maybe I should have tied up the fireman. Hmmm

I've got a meeting in the ladies room

Ok now that song is stuck on my mind. Who sung it? I think it was that girl group that Rick James created. Can't think of the name.

Anyway, Saturday night at about 1 am at Cosmos, I headed into the restroom. I got my business done and then this girl just runs in. She proceeds to completely fall apart. I notice that her strap has broken on her tank top, and she is a mess.

We spend the next 5 minutes cleaning her up. She just keeps crying. Luckily she had worn a brooch that night, and I clipped up her strap. That was one problem solved. She then went into how she was at the bar with her ex boyfriends best friend, hoping the ex would show up. Of course it was 1 am, and the ex was no where to be seen and had just calld and said he wasn't coming.

She then starts crying again. She said she was only crying because she was drunk, but she would have liked to see her ex. She just felt stupid. I didn't exactly know what to do. I eventualy just left.

I always get the cryers in the ladies room. Maybe I look sympathetic??

I cooked

I know. Your shocked. I cooked. I get it into my head that I should.

Actually, I got it into my head last weekend. I spent Monday night baking. I made these oat bran muffins. Hmm. Not so great. I consulted a vegan message board and found out I was supposed to have soaked my flaxseed. I will try yet again.

Last night, I made my own Indian meal following Renu's instructions. Chicken tika masala and aloo with some wheat naan. I didn't make the naan. I had that frozen in the freezer, but I made the other two.

The chicken tika actually didn't have a recipe. Renu didn't give me one. It was all about eye cooking. Does the paste look like its the right color? Should it be a bit darker? Should I add more sour cream to make it pinker?

I ended up putting in a bit more butter and tomato then she did when we cooked together. I love spicy, but I had put in so much garlic and pepper, I had to calm that down a bit. I have some left over which I will eat cold this weekend. I love cold indian. Its like all the spices congeal and you ahve a completely different dish.

I will try to keep up with this cooking thing.

I should have knocked on wood

I received my second jury summons of the year. I went 33 years without one, and then bang, I get two. I have to call them up and reschedule because I'm supposed to be in Houston that day.

I don't get this. Jury duty isn't something awful, but it is a real waste of the day. The process takes hours and could really be done in 20 minutes.

Step 1 - have everyone show up in jury pool
Step 2 - have everyone peel off to their respective jury rooms
Step 3 - racially profile everyone in the room
Step 4 - pick jury

Honestly, that is what they are doing. They ask a bunch of questions, but really in the end, they pick the jury that would best benefit their side.

I am looking at it as a good time to catch up on my reading.

Tickets Bought

Ok, I think it has finally fit inside my skull that I'm actually going on vacation. A real one. It's not until next February, but its happening. We land on February 15in Hanoi and have 14 days in Vietnam to explore before having to come back to the real world.

So far I've got Kristine and Elizabeth on board, who else wants to come?

Being who I am, cruise director Julie, I have already started to put together an itinerary. Once that is nailed down, we can book hotels guides etc. I just wanted to make sure we fit everything in. I believe we are going to be doing Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sapa, Hoi an and Hue. Lot of h's.

My mom thinks I'm crazy and going to become a communist, but I told her even Kristine's dad who founght in the war was on board and she should just let it go.

I've been doing a lot of trip exploring, and I would love to do a motorcycle trek one day up in Sapa. I think you ride these refurbished 50s bikes up in the mountains and you stop at a little indiginous market for street food and spring rolls. How fantastic does that sound???

I have wanted to go to Vietnam for years. I read an article in National Geographic back in 2006, and it has never left my mind. Only took me 3 years to get there. Why not??

Carcinoma in situ

Saturday, I stumbled out of the house to actually get my hair cut. I was supposed to have a massage too, but I cancelled that. I was still experiencing post nasal drip, and I was just imagining lying on my stomach on the massage table with my head through the hole dripping. Not a pretty picture.

Mid way through the haircut, my hairgirl asks if I've noticed that my hair has thinned on the sides. Uhh, no. She said its definately much thinner then the last time she cut it and can even see spots where it used to be. I start to internally freak out. On the outside I'm like "its no big deal" but inside I'm screaming. She laughs and says my hair is so thick anyway she is sure no one will notice.

My mind just starts thinking. Within the past month two women I work with who haven't seen me in a while comment on how they like my new hairstyle. I say thanks but its not new. I haven't gotten it cut in months.

Did my hairstyle look new because its thinner?

Then my hairstylists asks "do you have a thyroid problem? Sometimes that causes thinning." A thyroid problem??? No, I don't think so, but maybe I do. Maybe its cancer. Maybe I have a tumor.

Seriously, the whole drive home I'm looking at my head in the rear view mirror. I probably almost killed 5 people on the road worrying about my hair. I dropped the cancer theory when I realized you lose hair with chemo and not the actual cancer.

I looked at my head at home and it appeared to be fine, the 10 times a day I studied it in the mirror.

Why does this upset me so much? No clue. I guess its my inner mini narcissist.