For your best viewing experience pause the music playlist on lower right then pause the video until it fully loads then hit play to view vidie-enjoy!!!! If you love it like I do go to JustAskDoug on YouTube and leave pleasant comments-thanks!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
What tha...?
Last night we attended a post-Christmas, Get Even With Santa, party where I knew no one. It turned out to be a blast. Kathy and Dave are fabulous hosts; fun, food, drink, gifts; they had it all. I was lucky enough to pick the number 2 for gift picking and I was even more lucky to have picked the above, apparently a gift that has been seen at Kathy and Dave's annual party for the last several years. Of course I was the only person there who wanted to keep it. When I say keep it I mean I'll not be taking to the party next year either. In case it's hard to tell, it's plastic monkeys, one having a baby the other the doctor mounted on a wood piece with plastic doctor's equipment. There's even a baby that's coming out. Need I say more? It's sooooo me.
When the openings were over, some 50, the number 1, 2, and 3 people get to decided whether or not to keep their gifts or trade with any others. I stuck with my monkeys. Then they did something I've never done before and voted on who was the best sport about what they got "stuck" with as a gift. I got the most votes so I got the additional gift above. Nice red bag, nice 2008 ornament, and nice repro framed vintage card. Inside:
A bottle of Hope. I guess if I drank it all I'd feel hope but when it wore off, since it turned out to be wine and I can't drink wine, I feel well...not at all hopeful. Still a very cool bottle and a totally cool monkey...umm...still don't have a good noun for it...thing. Don't even think about making an offer, it's priceless.Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Updates on The Pink Cabbage
Please check out what's new at The Pink Cabbage at http://www.pinkcabbage.blogspot.com/ . We have literally turned the place upside down. Better yet, come on in and see it for yourself.
Meet Sofie and JustAskDoug
Voila, here's Sofie, Kristen's bff sitting with Justin New Year's Eve in Austin. She's the reason for the trip there and what a great reason. She was gracious enough to take us all in including the three dogs we brought with us and all the kids were gracious enough to take Mom along with all their fun friends to play that night and then down to The Drag New Year's morning for breakfast. As beautiful inside as out, wow, just like Justin...what a coincidence! They are just friends...brother (Lucas) and bff (Kristen) are the couple.
When we left Austin we stopped in Salado to meet (well, they all knew each other, I was meeting) Sofie's dad, Doug, and step-mom, Carol. Now I had already experienced Doug and Carol through YouTube and was a huge fan of them and their creation of JustAskDoug. If you don't click on there and give them a try you are sorely missing out; they are hilarious in their dry, droll vacation clips...you just gotta watch them all...now!
Doug makes his living as a dentist and Carol sang opera in New York. Small world: Carol knows the opera singer who used to live two doors down from us, but you can imagine how small the opera world is, not many make it that high. Doug wanted me to make sure that the dead plant was in the picture-you MUST see their vidies to see why. Leaving comments on their YouTube site is most appreciated also. Yet another fabulous experience while I was there-Sofie, Doug, and Carol.Sunday, January 4, 2009
In between...who and what I saw
I guess I have an unusually strong sentimentality towards my hometown. I know folks often do and often retire where they grew up but I haven't met many lately who feel as I do, perhaps a little obsessed, which I can only assume means that I had a great childhood and parts of adulthood in this wonderful place. Above are Julia (remember my Silver Bella sister who met me in Omaha last month?) who was great to pick me up from the airport in Houston with only a few hours notice, Cindy, friend since we were 4, and me. And above, Cindy and I as juniors in high school. Crazy.
In between "college" and beauty school I worked at Frank's Bar and Grill as the day waitress. Alan, with me above and below, was the day bartender, and Michael was the day cook. We were the Three Musketeers-thick as thieves-best friends.
Kismet, the whole trip was unbelievably, perfectly amazing. Alan says he's never at home and never answers his home phone when he is. Well he did on Tuesday, coinkidinck, I don't think. We met at his "office", Fox and Hound, a neat little bar where he can get all his work done on his laptop and cell as a regional sales rep for a wine company. His wife of 28 years, Bobbie, couldn't meet us as she was busy with their two young daughters but it was so special to have the time together to catch up.
Fate still at work, Lucas and I needed to get he and Kristen's gas account changed into their names so we needed to go to the gas company which is called Atmos Energy. At the same time that we were looking for Atmos, I was looking for an old...ummm...friend, Otto. While Lucas is finding out where Atmos is on his phone, I'm finding out that Otto works at Atmos by knocking on many doors in a neighborhood where his last address was shown on the Internet. Technically that's not stalking, is it? Not when it's been 35 years of pining.
AND, also working there is Glen, friend since first grade, our sisters were good friends too. So many fabulous surprises. There were others there, like Jack, below, I have to follow up on names, I'm embarrassed that I didn't remember them the way I did Otto and Glen like the back of my hand. 
Here's a better picture of Glen, on the right, with Jack and Otto at their office party.
Julia and I drove around the first day seeing our old grade schools, childhood homes, and many other sentimental landmarks. Here I am, above, crying my eyes out on "my" front porch calling my mom saying, "Mamma, I'm home!", scaring the crap out of her thinking I might have been calling from Heaven since it was coming out as, "Maaaammmmaaaa, sniff, sniff, sob, sob, I'm, sniff, sob, sniff, sob, home, sob, sob.". At least I was with Julia who knew me. The poor girl sitting next to me on the plane who had to witness my breakdown when the pilot announced that we were 110 miles from Houston and it finally hit me that I was going to be in Texas after way tooooooo long will need some serious counselling.
I pulled myself together just long enough to have to do my "Vanna" thing in front of my favorite climbing tree. The owners came home while we were there and I got to go inside for the first time in 25 years.
After Lucas and I left Atmos we found our way out to what used to be our family farm. Hadn't been there in over 30 years. While we had our home in town, my dad had gotten a farm with acreage and turned it into an exotic animal farm. We had llamas, kudu, ostriches, emu-actually somewhere around 140 different breeds of exotic animals. My class used to take field trips in the buses each year. Above is the original cabin where we spent any time away from the horses and other animals shooting pool. Infinite, blessed memories from here.
Above was the original tank that was on the land, Daddy later added a second, but this is the one where all my wonderful loving memories were made of me and my Daddy fishing in our little john boat, below, for hours on end. There was a movie called Passion Fish made a few years ago and I went to see it alone. It was a great movie but what did it for me was at the end she's sitting in her john boat and there's only the sound of the waves hitting the side of the boat and I burst out in sobs, the sound memory being so exact to that of Daddy and I fishing. Fortunately, at the time, I could just go to their house and hug, kiss him, and tell him all about it. He was there with me when Lucas took these pictures looking down from overhead. I love you Daddy, thank you for being mine.
In between "college" and beauty school I worked at Frank's Bar and Grill as the day waitress. Alan, with me above and below, was the day bartender, and Michael was the day cook. We were the Three Musketeers-thick as thieves-best friends.
Kismet, the whole trip was unbelievably, perfectly amazing. Alan says he's never at home and never answers his home phone when he is. Well he did on Tuesday, coinkidinck, I don't think. We met at his "office", Fox and Hound, a neat little bar where he can get all his work done on his laptop and cell as a regional sales rep for a wine company. His wife of 28 years, Bobbie, couldn't meet us as she was busy with their two young daughters but it was so special to have the time together to catch up.
Fate still at work, Lucas and I needed to get he and Kristen's gas account changed into their names so we needed to go to the gas company which is called Atmos Energy. At the same time that we were looking for Atmos, I was looking for an old...ummm...friend, Otto. While Lucas is finding out where Atmos is on his phone, I'm finding out that Otto works at Atmos by knocking on many doors in a neighborhood where his last address was shown on the Internet. Technically that's not stalking, is it? Not when it's been 35 years of pining.AND, also working there is Glen, friend since first grade, our sisters were good friends too. So many fabulous surprises. There were others there, like Jack, below, I have to follow up on names, I'm embarrassed that I didn't remember them the way I did Otto and Glen like the back of my hand. Here's a better picture of Glen, on the right, with Jack and Otto at their office party.
Julia and I drove around the first day seeing our old grade schools, childhood homes, and many other sentimental landmarks. Here I am, above, crying my eyes out on "my" front porch calling my mom saying, "Mamma, I'm home!", scaring the crap out of her thinking I might have been calling from Heaven since it was coming out as, "Maaaammmmaaaa, sniff, sniff, sob, sob, I'm, sniff, sob, sniff, sob, home, sob, sob.". At least I was with Julia who knew me. The poor girl sitting next to me on the plane who had to witness my breakdown when the pilot announced that we were 110 miles from Houston and it finally hit me that I was going to be in Texas after way tooooooo long will need some serious counselling.
I pulled myself together just long enough to have to do my "Vanna" thing in front of my favorite climbing tree. The owners came home while we were there and I got to go inside for the first time in 25 years.
After Lucas and I left Atmos we found our way out to what used to be our family farm. Hadn't been there in over 30 years. While we had our home in town, my dad had gotten a farm with acreage and turned it into an exotic animal farm. We had llamas, kudu, ostriches, emu-actually somewhere around 140 different breeds of exotic animals. My class used to take field trips in the buses each year. Above is the original cabin where we spent any time away from the horses and other animals shooting pool. Infinite, blessed memories from here.
Above was the original tank that was on the land, Daddy later added a second, but this is the one where all my wonderful loving memories were made of me and my Daddy fishing in our little john boat, below, for hours on end. There was a movie called Passion Fish made a few years ago and I went to see it alone. It was a great movie but what did it for me was at the end she's sitting in her john boat and there's only the sound of the waves hitting the side of the boat and I burst out in sobs, the sound memory being so exact to that of Daddy and I fishing. Fortunately, at the time, I could just go to their house and hug, kiss him, and tell him all about it. He was there with me when Lucas took these pictures looking down from overhead. I love you Daddy, thank you for being mine.
And, of course, below, the beautiful blessings of why I had to rush down and do the "mamma" thing, Lucas and Kristen. 
Need I say it every time? There is more to come...
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