Memorial Weekend

Three whole days off. I wish every weekend was like this. As usual, I'll give you a recap filled with entirely too many details of our gloriously long weekend. We started out on Friday night by taking the Vespa down to Vino 100 to purchase a bottle of wine for the evening. I hadn't heard that much about the place, but it was just okay. I prefer Times Ten or Best Cellars. At 7:00 pm, we were the only ones in the store, but the lady said it was more of a late night place. Then we picked up some dinner at Eatzi's and headed home to watch the Mavs play the Suns. Our baguette would not fit on the back storage area so I had to hold it as we drove home. I felt oddly French. There we were zipping around the city streets of Dallas with baguette in tow. All I needed was a beret for my look to be complete. And maybe one of those red and white striped shirts. Or is that what a mime wears? Picture it: Lee driving me around on the Vespa dressed as a mime carrying a baguette. Outstanding. Anyway, the night was capped off by watching Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals. I'm all for the Mavs winning the whole kit and caboodle, but SEVEN games for each series is a little too much. It's like I'm living in the movie Groundhog Day or I'm on the seventh verse of Henry the Eighth. Lee is in there right now watching Game 4. In the name of L. Ron, I hope they take it in five games, but judging by the performance I'm witnessing, it may be six.

On Saturday, I did a little shopping and that night we went to Lloyd and Amanda's house for a cookout. It was AWESOME and Amanda is an amazing cook. Anyone who knows me knows that I love olives and she made the best green olive dip. She was nice enough to share the recipe.

On Sunday morning, we headed out to Tyler to see Lee's parents newly built house. It was quite a project, but it looks amazing. We relaxed by the pool and ate BBQ with Ben, Tee and Beth in the afternoon. That evening, we headed to the lakehouse where we cooked out burgers with Lee's parents. I made Amanda's Green Olive Dip as an appetizer. The big dogs are insane at the lake. Insane. They can't get enough of swimming and retrieving tennis balls. Our arms will tire our before the dogs ever do. Ms. Trudie isn't much of a water dog so she just hangs out up at the lakehouse. Mom and Dad are keeping all three of our dogs plus their dog when we go on vacation this summer. I'm trying to wrap my head around the enormity of the hairball that will create.

Monday was for relaxing. On the way back from the lake and on the way back, we were listening to the radio. Lee was channel surfing and stopped on some horrific rap radio station. I said "Please turn this". He looked at me and said "What?!! I thought that you liked the contemporary artists". He is 85 years old. He is a papaw because he refers to gangsta rap as "contemporary". I love it. Anyway, while Lee went to the office, I caught up on the Oprahs I had Tivoed and cried at this man who had Tourette's Syndrome and then made Spicy Polenta Tamale Bake for dinner and we watched Munich while we ate. All of the Best Picture nominees have left me disappointed. The two best pictures from last year were Cinderella Man and Walk the Line and they weren't even nominated.

So that was our weekend. After it was all said and done, we were two very tired puppies.

My new rule for blogging

Take the camera everywhere. If I hadn't had my camera with me at all times yesterday, I wouldn't have gotten this little gem:

You can't see it very well, because I was driving while I was taking the picture, but there was a gang fight at Restoration Hardware. Two squad cars full of guys wearing "Gang Unit" uniforms were cuffing all of these guys Sharks and Jets style. I'm pretty sure you get kicked out of your gang if you get taken down at Restoration Hardware because nothing says "hard core" like purchasing overpriced drawer pulls made to look antique for your homies. The only thing worse might be getting popped at Bed, Bath, and Beyond or Linens 'N Things. Lord only knows what these guys were doing, but thank God brass got them before they hit Pottery Barn Baby.

Speaking of Johnny Law, I had my day in court for the expired tags yesterday. I was really hoping that I could bat my eyes and get a warning, but there's some sort of automatic fine you have to pay when the expiration date on your tags is more than 60 days. So let this be a lesson to everyone! Go check your tags or you'll wind up paying $118 in fines. Yikes.


Last night, we Vespa-ed off to dinner with our friends, Lloyd and Amanda. I really like this picture of Lloyd because he looks like he's in deep thought. What's going on in there, Lloyd? After dinner, we went for a glass of wine. I couldn't tell if the wine bar was open, so still on Vespa, Lee and I puttered up the valet for the adjacent restaurant. I said to the valet "Excuse me, do you know if Chateau is open?". He responded "HELL YES!!". Not kidding. I liked this kid's style. He responded with such vigor and élan that I had to take his picture. I think he looks a little like Bill S. Preston, Esq. from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I believe our adventures in time have taken a most serious turn. Put them in the iron maiden. Iron Maiden? Excellent! Execute them. Bogus!

So that was our Thursday night with Amanda, Lloyd, and Bill S. Preston, Esq.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!! Be sure to take a minute and think about what the weekend means.

Know how I know you're gay?

You drive a Vespa to work.

Just kidding, honey. It's very hip. And bungee cording your briefcase to the front of your bike is hot. Standing on the driveway this morning, I felt like a mom taking a picture of her kid on his way to the first day of kindergarten. There's actually a big article in the Dallas Morning News Metro section this morning about how many people are buying Vespas because of gas prices. Lee has driven it to the courthouse twice now and I don't know how much he's saved in gas money, by he's saved $5 both days in parking fees so that counts for something!

Right after I took that picture, I took the big dogs for a walk, and Lucy (the black one) got attacked by our neighbors dog. Lucky, I was able to pull her back before the other dog got her, but she was MAD. Then she totally went junk yard dog on me trying to get to the other dog. She loves to meet and play with other dogs, but for some reason they always want to attack her. How could you hurt a face like that?

Varoom Varoom

Instead of detailing our weekend chronologically, I'll start with the biggest news first. I'll give you a hint - it involves me wearing a white helmet with pink flames and Lee wearing a matching black helmet with sliver flames. We are absolutely flaming. We bought a Vespa!! Yes, we are now the proud owners of a black Vespa LX 150. It's so cute. I don't really know what prompted this purchase. Lee and I have talked about getting one for several years and Saturday we just decided to go to the Vespa dealership and do it. So far, it's been a 5 star experience - very fun. I didn't know how mom and dad would react, but I found out this afternoon that my dad used to own a Vespa in college. Early Sunday morning, Lee and I went over to his parent's house to show off our new toy and walked into the house wearing our extremely cool helmets and sunglasses. My father-in-law said "What the hell are you guys doing?". Then we went upstairs to wake up Beth. We walked in the room and she shot up in bed and said "What did you guys do? Buy a Vespa?". Good guess. We've already put 50 miles on it just by tooling around town. We don't hit any major streets - just the back ones. I haven't driven it yet. I'm leaving that to Lee. Next weekend we may go to an empty parking lot so that I can practice. Lee let me name her so I call her Sophia after another Italian beauty, Sophia Loren. After we surprised Tee and Beth, we took Sophia to get some bagels and then went to Lakeside Park where Lee fed most of his bagel to the ducks. The funniest thing about riding around on the Vespa is that we have total street cred with other motorcyclists on road. We get waves from everyone who passes us. I'm practically a Hell's Angel now. It must be the helmets.

So that's our big news. The weekend sort of wore me out. On Friday night, we celebrated the college graduation of Anne Marie Wheelock with her family at Cafe Pacific. On Saturday, my company had a picnic and then we again celebrated - but this time the celebration was for Beth since her birthday was on Friday. Don't worry, Beth- I won't say which birthday it was! Since Elizabeth was at a bachelorette party in San Antonio, it was just me, Lee, Ben, Beth, and Tee at the birthday party. I took my camera, but for got to charge my batteries so I don't have any pictures. Gotta run - dinner (and dessert!) are ready and the season finale of Desperate Housewives is on!

Finally, some pictures

I don't have many, but it's a start! Here are the photos from our Mother's Day party. Unfortunately, the photographer (my dad) is not pictured. I'll get you next time, dad!

Tee is ready to eat his risotto.

Lee, Ben, Beth, and Elizabeth

Two Dallas Dishes!! Mom liked her gift.

Mother's Day weekend

Welcome to DAY 25 of me waiting for the PE Exam results. I swore to myself I wasn't going to be one of those people obsessively waiting for the results, but here I am on DAY 25, obsessively waiting for the results. I can't help it and it's making me crazy. CRAZY. We're not supposed to call the Board and ask, so I called the Board today to ask. They told me between 6-8 weeks which means I have a minimum of 17 more days of waiting. Maybe I'll call back tomorrow and see if they've changed their minds.

Lee and I had another extremly fun weekend. And by "fun" I mean I got to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep three nights in a row because the alarm system didn't go off and by "weekend" I mean Saturday because I was slaving over a hot stove all day Sunday because I love my mother.

Lee and I got really crazy on Friday night and went to Patrizio and then came home to watch Chicken Little. I wasn't feeling well, but we won't get into that. Saturday, I woke up to do a little volunteer work and was promptly pulled over by HPPD because it had been a whole 6 days since they had stopped me. Are you kidding me? I wasn't even playing my Def Leppard that loud. When I saw the officer do a U-Turn, I just went ahead and pulled over since I was in a residential area. Why make them go to the effort of turning on lights or sirens? He pulled in behind me and I had my license/insurance wad ready and he said "Do you live here?". I said "No, I pulled over just for you, officer". He started laughing. Then I made an oinking noise and he pulled me out of the car and handcuffed me. Okay, that last part didn't happen but it could have. He was actually really nice and sent me on my way with a warning. After cleaning up White Rock, I went and got my inspection sticker updated. Lesson learned, HPPD. Lesson learned.

Lee and I went to the FC Dallas game on Saturday afternoon. It's the Dallas professional soccer team. I never played soccer as a child so I don't know what the rules are so I am just as entertained by watching a junior high soccer team. Or watching paint dry. On our way up there, Lee had me get something out of the glove box and he had a special surprise for me in there! He got me the Tiffany's cuff bracelet that I've been admiring for about 5 years. He's so nice - he did it "just because". Thanks, honey! Those are the best kind of gifts. That night, Lee watched the Mavs pull off win #2 while I did some menu planning...

Mother's Day Dinner was fan-freakin-tastic. Both of our families were able to attend and that made it really special. I went with a Southwestern theme so Lee made a special drink we called the "Bright Sunrise". It was sort of like a tequila sunrise. We gave Beth and my mom the newest Junior League of Dallas cookbook for Mother's Day so every recipe I made was from the book. Drum roll, please:

Appetizers
Tomato Feta Salsa with corn chips
Bacon wrapped shrimp and jalapeños

Main course
Ancho Pork Tenderloin
Southwestern squash casserole
Grilled Corn and Roasted Poblano Risotto
Mixed greens with bleu cheese, pears, dried cherries and walnuts

Dessert
Warm Blueberry Buckle with vanilla Ice cream

YUMMY. Everything was so good, but the risotto was hands down the best. It's not that hard to make, but you have to stir it for 30 minutes straight without stopping so it's pretty labor intensive. Lee is so funny - I was sitting here at work the next day and I got the text message "Good food last night". So I guess he liked it! We all had fun. Dad hasn't sent pictures yet and I didn't take any because I was either wrapping a piece of bacon around a shrimp or stirring the risotto. Will post tomorrow.

Sidebar - alarm system is totally fixed. The first guy hadn't grounded the system. Ahhh sleep.

Doris and Ez

I'm blogging twice in one day. I may be starting to fit the profile of an engineer.

This is so weird. I have this counter at the end of my blog that let's me see how many people have viewed my website and also tells me the web address that the person was on before they stopped by to visit my website. I was taking a look and someone visited Doris and Ez's blog before they stopped at The Bright Spot. It's such a strange blog. Apparently, Doris and Ez retired and embarked on a road trip of undetermined length in a 42' Monaco Dynasty. From what I gather, they enjoy taking pictures of rock formations and structures that should be demolished.

Do you take sugar? One lump or two?

While I was studying for my PE exam, I longed for the day when my schedule would ease up and I would have some down time. Wish granted. Let me hit the highlights of my week: I bought a new CD and I forgot my shoes for my Wednesday night barbell class. That's it. And let me emphasize that those are the highlights.

The title of today's blog should give you some indication as to the CD I purchased. Aaaawwww yyeeeeaaahhhh - we got a little Def Leppard Greatest Hits in 'da Civic! I say Civic because Lee told me if I ever play it in the house, he's going to throw it out the window. Whatever - he can't bring me down. Listening to the CD totally took me back to my junior high sock hop days where they'd always play the slow song "Love Bites". Love did bite when I was in 7th grade because I was 5'8" and all of the guys were 5'3". So when that song came on, I would pray to God and Saint Anthony (patron saint of lost causes) that Philip Farco would ask me to dance, but he wouldn't and then I'd wind up trying not to make eye contact with the Asian guy from my math class to no avail and that's who I'd wind up dancing with. Ah, memories. Anyway, nothing says summer like rollin' through my new 'hood, sunroof open, windows down and the stereo thumping just above a whisper as to not draw any attention from the HPPD seeing how they pulled me over last Sunday for expired tags. That's how I roll - I was brought up in A-Town, where we know how to rock because we have our own Awesomely Bad Hair Band. Well, had our own awesomely bad hair band. RIP, Dimebag.

As mentioned above, the other "highlight" of my week was coming down with a severe case of head-up-buttitis. All I have to do to prepare for my class is pack 1) a sports bra, 2) a top, 3), pants, 4) socks, and 5) shoes and I can't do it. I CANNOT DO IT. I thought I was going to have to teach in socks, but then I remembered that I still had a pair of shoes in my trunk from 1998 (not lying - got them at the Academy in College Station). They are a size too small, but they got the job done.

On the homefront, the guy who installed our security system was a bonafide idiot because he hooked the alarm system up to the line that all of our other appliances are connected to. That means that starting at 2am every night, the breaker blows, the security system switches its backup battery, the security system starts beeping loudly to alert us that its running on its backup battery, Lee starts cussing out the security system, the guy who installed it, and our 60 year old electrical system. At that point, I tell him to give it a rest because it's happened every night for 7 days so I don't know why he's so surprised that it's happening tonight, he stomps into the kitchen, screams "I'm gonna rip it out of the wall!", and then goes outside flipping every switch in the fuse box that he can find. We repeat this song and dance at 30 minutes intervals. Last night, Lee told me he was going to get a hotel room. I couldn't figure out if that was a threat or a promise. I told him that we should shut the bedroom door and wear earplugs. He called that idea "insane". Really? Because I'm re-reading what I just wrote and earplugs are starting to look better and better. Brinks is coming to fix it on Monday which means I get to experience this for 3 more nights. I know our downstairs neighbors can't wait to move the hell out of there.

Well, more after the weekend. Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Brian Wilson/Helen Keller Update

Well, it seems that Lucy is back to her old self. She and the others are still a little confused about the move. She spends most of the time sticking as close to me as she can... she spends the other time sleeping. Trudie gave me a mild heart attack when she stressed herself out and exploded from both ends on Tuesday morning. That required a 7am visit to the vet. Poor pooter. She's like that kid at summer camp that always falls into the poison ivy. I think she's thinking that any day now, we'll be headed "home".

We got Lucy and Morgan some Lee Press On Nails. Trying to get your dog to hold still while you super glue plastic tips to their nails is not for the faint of heart. Lee and I did it last night. We're using them on their nails so they won't scratch our floors - I can't wail until Christmas. Check back in a few weeks for a full review of Soft Paws.

Lee and I had a fun first weekend in our new house. On Friday night we walked to Highland Park Village for dinner at Patrizio. While we were waiting outside for our table, we saw Ross Perot and his wife coming out of our favorite restaurant, Cafe Pacific. Afterwards, we watched the movie The Sentinel. It's a renter at best. On Saturday, we unpacked EVERYTHING. We only have one box left and it's all of the crap from the other that didn't fit in any other box so it may be going to Goodwill. We also joined the YMCA. They have got a ton of Group Exercise classes there. Sometimes it's nice to walk into a place and not be a teacher. I was thinking about picking up some classes there, but I'm happy with what I have at 24 Hour. Maybe eventually I'll toss my name in the ring. I'm going to try it out for the first time on Thursday night when Lee has his Poker night with the guys. I'll also use that time to catch up on some girl movies I have Tivo-ed.

This weekend were going to host our first party at the new digs - a Mother's Day celebration for Beth and Connie. Maybe then I'll get some pictures on here!

Moving day

I can only imagine what hell is like, but I'm pretty sure God makes you move the whole time. He let's you get all set up in your house and then tells you that you have to move. Then he makes you watch as strangers transport your most valuable possessions. Then he makes your possessions double in volume so that there are twice as many as you have storage space. Then he makes it rain while you move.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. We had the best movers ever - if you live in Dallas, be sure to hire IEDS. The owner and his whole family was there to watch his workers. My parents also came over to help and to my amazement - nothing was broken the entire weekend. I say that, but I haven't unpacked the crystal yet. We still have a bunch of boxes all over the place, but our goal is to have no boxes in the house and all of the pictures on the walls by next Sunday evening. I think that's do-able. Still no pictures - maybe next Monday after everything is tidied up.

We sign over our old house today at 4pm and I don't know how that's going to feel. I'm anticipating sadness and closure all at the same time. I'm sad about leaving our old house, but nobody could be sadder than Lucy. For those that don't know Lucy, she's our 8 year old flat-coated retriever. Our dog is more depressed than Brian Wilson on a bad day. At first I thought that she was sick, but she's just upset. She spent all day Sunday lying on the kitchen floor completely detached from everyone else, but she perked up last night after we went on a walk and realized that our new neighborhood has squirrels too. As for the others, Morgan didn't care that we moved and Trudie (the blind one) already memorized the whole house. This morning she ate her breakfast and immediately came and found me in the bathroom just like she does every morning. As long as that dog gets her food, she's totally happy.

We found out yesterday that our downstairs neighbors are moving so if you know of anyone who wants to live downstairs from two really fun people and three crazy dogs... let me know!!