Tomorrow we drive down to Galveston (technically Texas City). Then Sunday morning we’re goin’ cruisin!
But before that - I have happy hour tonight, and then the Panoptikon 4th anniversary party, and have to finish packing.
So ready to slow down on the cruise. I should just leave my watch at home. But I know I’ll want it with me.
So evidently when it comes to panty wrangling – I’m the one. I’ve worked with all the major producers in the Dallas area. Starting to wonder if I should draw up a contract with specific requirements, if you want me to wrangle. Some points I would include:
Okay – that last one is never gonna happen. But it’d be nice. I hate having to sit around and wait to get paid. It’s not like I just stop when the show is over. I normally help load and move props, plus the stage clean up. Having to sit around for an hour after that is annoying.
Maybe I’m just not made for show business.
Or maybe I’m becoming a Diva.
Speaking of - Next shows:
And I’m taking the month of August off.
In theory I’m saving up my money for our cruise at the end of July – but in reality I’m spending money for our cruise at the end of July. I bought a cute pair of red dressy sandals for my red dress which I have yet to wear. Last night I spend $103 on two dresses for the cruise. One is formal and one is casual. If I remember correctly there are two formal nights on the cruise – so I still need another formal dress. However, I have plenty of other dresses for dinners on the cruise – one I may be able to pull off/dress up for one of the formal nights.
Here is the formal dress:
- This one has a lovely back with lace embellishments
And the casual: 
- This one I didn’t really need, I have plenty of casual dresses for the cruise – but I like it.
I think I need more shoes now.
I know. I’m a big fat liar…again.
I’d say I just haven’t had much to update about – or maybe I’ve just got too much going on that I don’t get around to it. While those seem contradictory, they both seem true.
Our softball team is getting it’s ass handed to them on a weekly basis now – I’m ready for this season to end, so we can start in the fall with more evenly match teams.
I’m afraid I may be getting burned out on panty wrangling. Or maybe I just had way too much going on last week before the shows. My next one is July 2nd, then July 16th, then August 6th. I’m missing the August lollies show due to a family reunion in OK. I’m still trying to convince Phlome that he should go. I don’t want to make him go, but I doubt I can convince him to want to go.
Work has me going to Austin about once a month here during the summer. My first trip was last Thursday and Friday, my next one is late July – just before our cruise. Then I might be going back in August – depends on if my boss approves it.
Speaking of cruise. We’re planning our excursions now. I think we’ve decided on:
Sandals in Jamaica
Sting Ray snorkeling in Cozumel
Secret River in Grand Cayman
I may have those last two mixed up.
Ok – end of day - time to go home now…whoo!
A good while back I used MS Paint to draw a cartoon depiction of one of Eddie Izzard’s comedy bits. It was the Volcano/Dragonfly bit. I’m not real sure what ever happened to it. So I drew it again. I think the second one was better, so I posted it on facebook. I then decided to draw a depiction of my the Badger joke from Sexie – that one is so lame it makes me laugh every time. Then I started working the giraffe coughing bit, but struggled for a good while trying to actually draw a giraffe. But I gave up on the tiger, and just pasted in an image I got from google images – I think it’s just the head of a generic tiger mascot image. So for your entertainment I am including these images here on my blog. (At Zero’s request). It also finally gives me something to blog about again. J
Picture 1 Volcano - Dragonfly
Picture 2 Badgers CAN be Choosers
Picture 3 *cough* *cough* *tiger*
There’s something about getting in and out of a vehicle that causes memory lapses. I often have an idea, or thought, or task I need to remember to do when I get to work. By the time I get into my car to drive to work I will have forgotten it. Likewise, I frequently have awesome ideas while drive to work (or somewhere), but as soon as I step out of the vehicle the thought is gone.
So I had a great idea for a blog post today, but forgot it on my way back to work after lunch.
Fifteen years ago today Oklahoma City suffered a devastating shock. I remember sitting in my chemistry classroom during lunch watching the news, in shock. One of my aunts worked in downtown OKC at that time, and she remembers feeling the entire building shake as front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building was demolished Timothy McVeigh’s homemade bomb. Timothy McVeigh’s name is burned in my brain. But I always have difficulty getting the name of the Federal building right. Edward R. Murrow is always the name that comes to mind first. And for a few years between now and then I actually thought it was the Edward R. Murrow Federal Building. I thought that was really quote progressive of Oklahoma City, but really not quite what one would expect.
I’ve been to the memorial site and museum – it really is worth a visit. The design of the gardens is, the layout, and the symbolic use of the numbers is fascinating. But who was Alfred P. Murrah? I decided it’s something I should know. So I went to my primary source of information: Wikipedia.
I was disappointed to discover such a short entry. Also it seems that his early life was very interesting but all wiki tells us is that he was a teenage runaway who hopped trains until he was taken in by a family in Tuttle. Next thing we know he’s worked his way through high school and college and is a lawyer, then a judge. He died in 1975, a Democratic Methodist Free Mason, who taught Sunday School. I want to know why he ran away from Tishomengo? Why Tuttle? While we learn he earned his room and board by helping on the family farm in Tuttle, what kind of work did he do to pay for college? What or who inspired him to attend Law School? Maybe there’re just too few people interested. Maybe too many people are distracted by the tragedy of his namesake building, that they never think to look into the man’s life. Perhaps I should go find these answers and flesh out his wiki entry.
But to keep with the theme of the day, I’ll share a story about the Oklahoma City bombing that’s always stuck with me. This is the story my aunt told me about a friend of hers.
On April 19, 1995 at about 9 am “Alice” was sitting at her desk on the third floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building. Suddenly a fan, or breeze, or the hand of fate blew a paper onto the floor where it landed on the other side of her desk. She stood up and walked around to retrieve the paper, when she felt what seemed to be an earthquake. The “tremor” literally brought her to her knees. As she shakily stood back up, she peered over her desk to see dust and crumbling rubble. Where her chair had been, where she had just been sitting, there was nothing.
It’s about that time again. That’s right, fundraiser time for KERA radio. Today they ran the Power Hour all morning until 1:00. Power Hours that go on for 9+ hours are Power Days. I’m really not looking forward to the fundraising all next week. It’ll make for some really quite days at work, since I almost exclusively listen to KERA, but tire quickly of pledge drive talk. Since I can’t really surf the web at work, and don’t watch TV news or read print newspapers, KERA is pretty much my sole source of news and events. (And in case you’re wondering, yes, I am a paying member). I do occasionally take a quick peak onto the NPR or KERA website for further elaboration on radio stories. I also consider them to be a pretty neutral news source; they seem to be pretty fair minded. Of course that may be my own personal bias. As my husband is fond of saying, NPR is too conservative for me. So, since it seems to me to express opinions both more conservative and liberal than mine, they must be unbiased, right?
So – we’ve all heard about all the earthquakes that seem to be breaking out all over the world lately. One is bound to wonder if we really are having an unusual outbreak of earthquakes, or if it’s just a result of the speed at which news travels in our new connected world. So I asked NPR. And I got my answer. Evidently we have had more earthquakes than one would normally expect to have happened in a four-month period, but not unusually so, well within the normal range of possibilities. In a year one would expect our earth to experience nearly 150 magnitude 6 – 7 earthquakes. Basically we’re getting earthquakes in more densely populated areas, causing more damage, and more to report on. I’ve copied the text from the brief article below:
From: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125991738
The magnitude 6.9 quake Wednesday hit southwest China’s Qinghai province, in a sparsely populated, mountainous area. Nearly 600 people were killed and thousands were injured or missing. While it marks yet another high-profile, destructive quake this year, scientists say these quakes aren’t above average in strength or frequency. Unfortunately, they just seem to be striking more populated areas.
Scientists have analyzed this year’s high-magnitude earthquakes — in Haiti, Chile, Mexico, Indonesia and elsewhere — looking for any unusual patterns. So far, they’ve found none.
“We’ve had six [magnitude 7 earthquakes] this year, and that’s within the range of variation we expect,” says Andrew Michael, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.
Earthquakes are actually pretty common; the USGS estimates that several million quakes strike the Earth each year. But many go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small magnitudes. It’s the ones that hit more populated areas — like many of this year’s big quakes — that get lots of attention. But even those aren’t uncommon.
On average, there are 17 magnitude 7 quakes around the world each year, and an additional 130 in the magnitude 6 range. That would be one quake every 2 1/2 days if they fell evenly spread on the calendar. So while this year’s spate of seismic activity actually isn’t out of the ordinary, the USGS researcher in California analyzed the data, running various models comparing this year’s high-magnitude quakes with the previous 100 years.
“It’s definitely more than most four-month periods, but things are not always exactly at the average,” Michael says. “This is within what we expect variations to be from random models of earthquake occurrence.”
And what’s happened so far this year is no indicator of what’s to come, he says. “It doesn’t tell us more about the future any more than [the idea that] if someone wins the lottery, you should go to the same store and buy a ticket there.”
What might be easier to predict these days is which areas are most at risk of devastation if — or when — an earthquake does strike.
“What really worries seismologists is that the rapid urbanization of a lot of the world is clustering people together in poorly constructed buildings,” Michael says. “There are a lot of improvised buildings being built, not engineered, creating a very vulnerable situation.”
That’s evident in early reports from the scene of Wednesday’s quake in China: In Yushu town, for example, 85 percent of the buildings — many made of mud and wood — reportedly had collapsed.
So there you go: Lots of earthquakes where lots of people live and work in shoddy buildings leads to lots of news stories.
So while I do get my news from KERA/NPR, I think I get most of it on accident and through osmosis, I mostly listen to it for entertainment value. What got me listening to KERA to begin with was “Everything you ever wanted to know.” It’s a Friday call in show, where people from the metroplex call in, ask questions, and other folks call in with answers. It’s on every Friday during lunch. I used to spend my lunches sitting in my car listening to the show and eating fast food. Now I listen and eat at my desk most of the time. Fridays really are my favorite days for the KERA radio shows. After “Everything…” is Way With Words. On this show people call or write in about their question related to word usage, grammar, pronunciation, origin, or anything to do with the English language. Today someone called in to get clarification between supposedly and supposably. My first thought (also confirmed by my spell checker) is that supposably isn’t even a word, it’s just a mispronunciation of supposedly. But it is in fact the adverb of supposable. However, it’s almost never used correctly. According to Grant Barrett (one of hosts of the show), supposably is far more theoretical and philosophical than supposedly, but still a valid word.
The best call in today though, was a man calling about a story his friend in Canada had told him. His friend had come home to find a “moose” in his kitchen. When asked what he did about the animal in his kitchen, the friend said he took a broom and swept it into a paper bag and threw it out. The man said, “Oh, you had a mouse in your house?” “That’s what I said,” the friend replied. “I had a moose in my hoose.”
About once a year my mom and/or my aunt and her daughters come down to Dallas to visit. This year it looks like there will be two trips. My mom is coming down for Mothers’ Day weekend, then may aunt and cousins will come down with her again in early June. Since their visits are so infrequent, I try to always do something new with them. With so much to do in the metroplex, there’s really no excuse. It’s just a matter of deciding what to do, that most everyone will enjoy without exhausting them. Last time they came down we went out to the Stockyards then my cousins and I went to Billy Bob’s, followed by Cowboys Arlington. That night ended with a dislocated thumb on my part. Good times indeed.
The trick is balancing the preferences of my near agoraphobic aunt and her co-dependent daughter, with those of her youthful party-girl daughter, and adventurous yet frugal oldest daughter and my unpredictable mother. I also have to take into account the cost of the trip for them, so I usually try to take advantage of as many free or low cost activities as possible. One thing they all seem to really enjoy is riding the TRE. So the weekend usually involves at least one ride into downtown Dallas or Fort Worth.
Like I said, this year, my mom is coming down by herself for Mothers’ Day weekend. She’s taking the Heartland Flyer from OKC to Fort Worth on Friday. Since I work on the edge of Dallas/Irving/Grand Prairie, and she arrives in Fort Worth around 1, I’ve asked her to hop on the TRE to the South Irving Station, where I can pick her up on my way home from work. Driving into Fort Worth on a Friday afternoon is not an adventure I want to tackle if I can at all avoid it.
So, after I pick her up, and get her all settled in (either in the Squid’s room, since she’s visiting her own mother for the weekend, or at a nearby hotel), we’re going to the races at Lonestar Park. It’s a party at the park night, meaning that after the races, a local cover band will play. That Friday it’s Hard Night’s Day, a Beatles tribute band. Mom is very excited. So am I.
Saturday we’re going to Scarborough Faire. If things go well Friday it will be a late night, so I expect we’ll sleep in a bit on Saturday. The plan is to get to Scarborough in time for a late lunch. I can’t imagine we’ll be there for more than 4 hours. So if we get out of there by 5:30 at the latest, we’ll plan on a late dinner at the Clay Pit in Addison. I say late dinner, because we’ll want to go home first and get cleaned up. Scarborough is about 45 minutes south of our place, and Addison is about 45 minutes north. So we’ll be driving quite a bit on Saturday.
Mom has to be back in Fort Worth by 4:30 on Sunday in order to catch the 5:30 train. So I thought we’d have an early-ish lunch around 11 at La Madeleine (probably Arlington Parks Mall area), then head up to the Sam Moon in North Fort Worth for some shopping. That should give us plenty of time to shop before I take Mom back downtown to the train station.
So that’s the plan for Mothers’ Day weekend. Easy enough since I only have to entertain my mother. Next I have to plan for the big Girls Weekend when the whole crew comes down…
I’ve been feeling at a loss for my blog topics lately. So this time I’ll just recount the weekend then plan out the week.
Friday I was supposed to go to a birthday party of a friend that was to include dinner, lesbian bar, and a stripper. By about 7 pm I had decided to flake. I was tired, and had a lot more planned for the weekend. Plus my stomach hasn’t exactly been cooperating with me much lately. I feel like I suffer from a stomach ache at least briefly almost every day. Sometimes it goes on longer. So instead, Phlome and the Squid rented 2012, we ate popcorn and stared in awe at the indestructibility of limos, RVs, single engine jets, and John Cusack.
Saturday Phlome and the Squid ran errands while I did a couple loads of laundry and finished watching the Firefly series (again). Then Saturday night we went to another friend’s birthday party at Excuses with intentions of staying out long enough to get in line to watch the Irving/Dallas stadium implosion. We stayed up late enough, but when we drove by the stadium, we decided that it wasn’t worth waiting in line for a chance to get in, when home and a warm comfy bed were so nearby. Yeah folks – we’re real party animals.
Sunday was our last softball practice of the season, followed by linner (lunch/dinner) at pizza hut. Then I watched Serenity. I am now well prepped for our Serenity role playing game nights out at zero/elanna’s starting next week. We had planned to go see Clash of the Titans, but alas it will have to wait for another weekend.
This week is looking to be pretty busy:
Tonight and Wednesday I have Lollies Rehearsal from 7:30 – 10
Thursday is our last scheduled season game, except for one rainout make-up game scheduled in two weeks. We really need to win this game. If we can win out the last two games we make it into the finals. Which I think just means we get a free t-shirt.
Friday night is the first night of the Lollies shows for April at the Pocket Sandwich Theater. Before the show we may take the Squid out for dinner to celebrate her new drivers license.
Saturday we’re going with a good size group of friends to Scarborough Faire. Then Saturday night I have the 2nd night of the Lollies at the Pocket.
I hope I don’t have anything going on Sunday other than a possible viewing of Clash of the Titans. I’d really like to just rest on Sunday. Saturday’s gonna be a long day.
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