Welcome back to CIVILization

Well, I've been back for 5 days and I hate the fact that I was not snowed in.

Last night, one of my neighbors had someone pick her up at 11:00pm. He was such a gentleman...he laid on the horn in the parking lot for about 2 minutes, then stood up through the sunroof and spread his arms open wide and yelled, "HEYYY--YYYYYY!" Then, around 4am, she put the dog out on the balcony and it barked at the door for 20 minutes wanting back in. I can only imagine why the dog was put out on the balcony--the guy being such a winner and all. It's nice that my neighbors gave me a few nights to sleep. They're so considerate. I have a new one downstairs; so far so good there.

Work has been fun. A receptionist decided to call it quits while I was gone, so now we're down one. Now we get to start the interviewing, hiring, training process all over again. Oh joy!! I wish I could do my job from home.

This is where I want to be!

This is one of the areas that I'm looking to buy some land on. I've got a good lead that's in another area, but the trees there aren't like these. There are lots Aspens on the other lot; plus, it's 2.5 acres for just a little more than the price of 1.2 - 1.5 acres. Aspens are nice too, though.

God, grant me the luck to win the lottery.....

The Road Less Plowed

I got to play in the snow today!

There wasn't much snow when I got here...a lot more bare ground than not. Yesterday, it snowed, but it didn't stick. Today, it hasn't gotten above 30-degrees, so it's sticking today. It's not like the snow I grew up with; it's dry. I laid down and made a snow angel and when I got back up, I was still dry. It's strange how it can be cold here, but it doesn't feel real cold. No one in Texas would ever believe it if they hadn't ever experienced it.

Mom and I went for a walk. We headed out toward the back of her property and hit the road that runs behind them. It was so beautiful. It's land untouched. It probably looks exactly like it did when the Indians lived here. The road is a dirt road and no one lives on that one, so it's not plowed. We walked quite a ways and the only sound I could hear was the wind, the trees swaying back and forth, and an occasional bird. So nice not to hear diesel engines, traffic, sirens, noisy neighbors and leaf blowers! There's also no one up here complaining or whining about anything. I swear, it's heaven!

Maybe, it won't stop snowing and I won't be able to leave on Saturday!

The Trials of a Traveler

It's long, but entertaining.

It was the first day of my vacation. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't wait to leave. Off to Colorado for one whole week. There was a threat of severe weather about the time I was supposed to fly off into the wild blue yonder, though. That had me just a teensy bit on edge.

Low and behold, the storms bypassed Austin and looked to be traveling North-East. Phew! I was up at 5:30AM getting ready, switching suitcases (very different packing when you have to pack winter clothes), and making sure I had everything in order. My plane was to leave at 10:20 and I would be in Colorado Springs at 1:15 (2:15 my time). Hooray!

I went through security with no problems. My plane was on time. They loaded us up and we pushed out to the tarmac. And we sat there. And sat there. Finally, the pilot came on and told us that Houston had put a stop on all arrivals due to a storm to the north of them. It looked like we would have to wait about 30 minutes. Crap! I only had an hour between flights. I pulled out the Continental magazine to look at the gate situation Houston International. Great!!! We were landing in the E terminal and to get to the B terminal for my next flight I was going to have to run through two terminals and catch a bus to get to the one I needed to be at. Meanwhile, the woman sitting next to me was furiously thumbing e-mails on her blackberry and she didn't have her key notes turned off so I have this incessant "beep-beep-beep" going on right next to me. I finally resigned myself to missing my flight. We finally took off, with Miss Blackberry still thumbing away when she was supposed to have it turned off, and we flew into very turbulent skies.

Upon landing, I got off the plane and noted that my connecting flight was delayed 30 minutes. That gave me less than 10 minutes to get there. I tried, but of course I didn't make it. So I stood in line at the Continental counter for 20 minutes, along with other people who were having travel troubles, and when I got to the counter discovered that they had already booked me on the next available flight that would be leaving in about 30 minutes. Cool! How nice of them. Meanwhile, a vicious front was descending upon Houston. My next flight was delayed by at least 40 minutes. It was a much smaller plane--one of the express jets--but they loaded us in as quickly as they could so they could take off before the front hit. We got in, pushed out to the tarmac...and sat there. And sat there. Pilot comes on, "We're number 32 in line to take off and it looks like it will be about a 45 minute wait". OY VEY!

45 minutes turned into another 45 minutes due to the tower having computer problems. I'm sitting all scrunched up in my seat listening to the people in front of me tell there life stories to each other. They were both in their 50s. He was a psychiatrist, grew up in Catholic schools, married three times--twice to the same woman--and had two grandkids that were a year or two older than his youngest son. She'd grown up in Catholic schools as well, married young, had two kids, three grandkids, got divorced, got involved with someone else, moved with him to Colorado Springs (she was originally from Mississippi), blah blah blah. When her boyfriend called her she had "When A Man Loves A Woman" as her ring tone. Mr Psychiatrist thought that was so sweet. They were getting antsy though. They wanted to start drinking wine. The flight attendant was having none of it, but Mr. Psychiatrist got up and somehow sweet talked her into it. So, they started drinking wine.

45 minutes turned into another 45, because the front changed the wind direction and we, as the pilot put it, had to take a tour of the airport and go over to the other side, because planes cannot take off with the wind. They have to take off into the wind. So we followed the trail of the 31 other planes in front of us to the other side of the airport so we could take off correctly. I had already been sitting on the plane for hours, and when we finally took off, I would have another 2 hours and 20 minutes in the air. My butt was having a hard time with that realization. My mother and her husband, on the other hand, had to keep finding things to do in Colorado Springs since they live 2 1/2 hours away from the airport and they had left the house at 8:30 to meet me. We were supposed to have lunch and margaritas at a Mexican restaurant. Well, they got theirs.

Meanwhile, Miss Southern-Belle and Mr. Psychiatrist have finished two small bottles of wine each and at one point, she just crawled right over him to go to the lavatory, jaunty breasts stuck right into his face. Uh-oh...I see what's happening here. She has a boyfriend and he's married, mind you. Yes...by the time the plane did take off, they were making out like teenagers at a drive-in. I had to bare witness to all this. Sloppy kisses, too. The kind you can hear. That's pretty sloppy when you can hear kisses over the sound of plane engines. It made me feel dirty. I just prayed that they wouldn't head off to the lavatory together. (They didn't) They had more wine, then graduated to SCREWdrivers.

We land!!!! After 7:00. I was supposed to be there at 1:15. After a few more kisses, Mr. Psychiatrist said, "Well, it was nice meeting you." Yeah...I bet! Her cell phone burst out into "When A Man Loves A Woman" right after he said that. She just giggled and said it was nice meeting him, too. They have plans to meet somewhere tonight at 6:00. I'll bet she's all a-twitter with lusty anticipation.

So, out of the plane and into a car I go...for another 2 1/2 hours. My butt was not happy at all. But, I'm here...and thankful I've never had to see a psychiatrist myself. Talk about problems.

The American Legacy

Now that the campaigning has moved away from Texas and the next "big state to win" is on the East Coast, I feel left out of what's been going on. I get updates through e-mail, of course, and if I weren't so busy, I could go to all the websites myself and read everything that's going on every day. Who has time for that? I'm not one of those that can sit in front of my computer for hours every day; I have to work, I have to exercise, I have to do the shopping, I have to see that baseball game, I have to finish reading my book, writing my own, or just sit down with no electronics on and just breathe. So what I do see of the campaigning is what happens to be the most inflammatory thing of the moment on a news clip.

It seems some black preacher voiced his opinion on how white people and white politics has treated black people in general over the centuries that this country has been in existence. This preacher happens to be Barack Obama's preacher.

Some people are sitting around wondering what this guy could possibly be so angry about; some people thinks this guy, along with so many others, should just get over it and move on; some people are getting all red-faced and choking on their indignation while sputtering racial discrimination and how dare he say such horrible things about us!

Others, such as myself, wonder why people can't look back on American History and see that things sometimes were done wrong and why can't we just admit that? We joke about a president that can't admit that something he did may not have been the best way to do things, but try to glance over the mistakes that were made along the way by everyone. We make mistakes. That's what makes us human. Like Barack says in his speech, "We are the sum of all our parts".

Now, what gets me about black anger is that they were not the only ones that were treated unjustly during the span of American history. Native Americans could certainly argue that point. While we were building this country from one coast to the other, Chinese and Irish immigrants were treated horribly--we couldn't call them slaves, though, because they received what could loosely be termed as "wages". And the Irish were white! Somehow just being Irish made them sub-human. Poor people of all ethnicities were--and still are--viewed as the scum of the earth who dirty the landscape with their pallid existence. Throughout the history of the world, there have always been a people that thought they were better than others--how they always seem to be the ones in all the power positions is beyond me. Why do we get stuck in the same place century after century? You'd think we would have all learned something by now.

The sum of all my parts, looking back on my ancestry, goes something like this: English, Scottish, Irish, German, Prussian, Swiss, Native American, French, Spanish and Italian. I am descended from serfs and nobility, merchants and farmers, drunks and explorers, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. We're all made up of history. I look back proudly on the ancestors who crossed the ocean on a boat that got lost at sea and survived the starvation that took 2/3 of the passengers on that vessel. One of those even dared to get back on a boat to go back and get the woman who was to be his wife and her family to bring them over to the dream that was America. I have a many times great grandmother and grandfather that were tried and convicted at the Salem Witch Trials, but got out of it alive. Only about 150 years separates me from the grandfather whom, as a boy, rode the countryside with his uncles passing out vigilante justice to farmers that treated their own families and neighbors ill by being drunkards or gamblers; unfortunately, if there were no drunks or gamblers to teach a lesson to, they were known also to drag Catholics out of their homes in the middle of the night to pass the time. Not too long ago, I found out that my great-great grandfather was a Grand Wizard in the KKK. That really turned my stomach; how could I have descended from that? And isn't he spinning in his grave right now knowing his descendant is supporting a black candidate for President of the United States?

The thing is, we could all be--should be--the best part of our history. Accept what's been done, and do better.

Exciting night in Texas

It's been an exciting night in Texas. For the first time in years--and certainly the first time since I've lived here--the primary voting actually matters! And I get to vote twice...legally! How great is that?

Of course, I voted early, but the caucus could only be done tonight. It's the first time that I've ever had to caucus. It's the first time a lot of people have had to caucus, apparently. There were more people at the caucuses than people expected. There was almost a fight at my polling place because people were "cutting" in line. These are adults we're talking about! I had to call my mom and tell her all about it, since she moved to Colorado and is missing out on it. She said that it was just like it was 1968 again. I wasn't around in 1968, but I can tell you, there is certainly more energy in this race than there has ever been in my lifetime.

It's so very cool to be making history. If you live in Texas and you didn't caucus tonight, you missed out. There might not be another opportunity like this for a while.

Only 320 more days for Bush to be in the White House!!!!! His days are numbered!!! I swear, if I die before he leaves office, I'm going to be very upset and will haunt him for the rest of his life!!!!!!!!!! http://backwardsbush.com/

New friends

Have you ever wondered if the friends that you have were supposed to be in your life for one reason or another and at a certain time? Really...think about it. Sometimes you can be in the same place for years and never meet, but then one day in a totally different place, you meet and become friends.

For instance--my friend and co-worker Stacy: we both went to the Art Institute of Dallas at the same time, different majors. We never met. Years later, dreams of photography and music production tossed aside, we meet while working at a veterinary hospital. My friend Cherri and I both lived in the Dallas area at the same time. Never met. Years later, we meet working at said vet hospital. Are there certain times that you're supposed to come into someone's life or they into yours? Years ago in Dallas, I could have met the man that I have recently been wildly in love with, but I met him here, years and two kids (for him) later and a relationship that he can't see himself getting out of because of those two kids (despite the fact that they've left each other twice, but gone back). Why didn't we meet in Dallas before his miserable relationship and two kids? Is it because I had to meet someone else first, lose him when he died, and go through that horrible grieving process. For what?

I've recently met someone that I did some pet-sitting for. In our preliminary meeting, she mentioned that her boyfriend had passed away not quite a year ago. I recognized the look in her eye and knew exactly where she was in that grieving process. Man, it sucks! I didn't say anything at the time. She went out of town and I checked in on her cats. I looked at all the pictures of "J" she has all over the place. He was incredibly similar to my Marshawn--tall, broad athletic chest, dark complexion and hair, and the same spirit shining from within. It made it seem like almost yesterday. She's a petite girl and I could see her big bed in her room and know how absolutely empty it feels right now and know that all those pillows that are on the bed do nothing to allay that feeling.

When she came back, I took her key back to her. Usually, if I'm not keeping the key for frequent jobs, I have people come and pick them up. I wanted to tell her, though, that if she ever wants to talk to someone that had been where she's at and understands where she's coming from, that she can give me a call; that I understand because I had been exactly where she is eleven years ago. Sure enough, the first question out of her mouth was, "Have you been able to love anyone else since then?" Hope springs eternal even in our darkest hour. I was able to tell her yes, and even though it seems it's not going to work out for me, I have the strength to go on and try again. We ended up talking for four hours. It won't be the last time either.

Ironically, her relationship with "J" started out much the same way that my relationship with "G" started.

So, the question is this: why do we have to go through such convoluted circles to meet each other at precise moments in our time? Are things pre-ordained, or is it all just chance? Do things always happen for a reason, or do they just happen? (I guess that would be "questions") Do you come into someone's life precisely when they need you to?

I'll let you ponder your deep thoughts now.

Patriots upset AGAIN!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love it when the Patriots get upset in the Super Bowl! So goes their undefeated season. What a time to lose, huh Tom? Beaten by another Manning!!!! Can't imagine being their mom. 2 boys, 2 years in a row.

Too bad it was one of the most boring games in Super Bowl history until the end of the 4th quarter. The commercials weren't even that good this year; although, the baby buying stocks on the computer wasn't too bad.