The Date Report

Some of you knew I had a date today, so here is the report.

I was a bit hesitant because this guy, Dave, is 15 years older than me. Plus the whole dating thing makes me nauseous. On the way there I kept thinking "I really LIKE being alone".

We met in Fairhaven and sat on the green behind the Colophon had coffee and talked for a while. Then walked around and went in a few shops. We ended at Mambo Italiano for a drink and some eats. This all took about 3 hours.

The good:
He was on time.
Nice shirt and pants. Not old man clothes.
Shirt buttoned appropriately. No old man gray chest hair showing with gold chains. Yes some old guys think they are hot when they do this.
Clean shaven and well groomed. I HATE facial hair.
No strong cologne. Big turn off.
He did not talk about the ex wife. Been divorced for 3 years. He answered questions when asked, but said nothing negative.
We know some of the same people.
We have common interests and values.
He looked and acted a lot younger than his age. Probably because his ex wife was 25 years younger than him.

The bad:
He IS 15 years older than me. Maybe another 10 good years in him. I have hopefully 20-25.
Hated his shoes. Looked like orthopedic black walking shoes. Probably expensive though.
He has a cataract in one eye that he will be getting surgery for.
We know some of the same people. Yes, I know I put this on the good list too.
It is an hour and a half from his house to mine.

He ended the date with "what would you like to do next time". I guess that is a good sign. Brooke said if he didn't want to see me again he would have just said he would give me a call. We will see. Sorry y'all no pictures, although I did have my camera. I am not sure he would have been too happy if I said I needed pictures for my bloggy friends.

Pillow

I cannot sleep without my favorite pillow. Now this may be disgusting to some. When I got married in 1973 we were given 2 very good quality feather pillows as a gift. My pillow is 35 years old! Honest! I can't remember what happened to its partner. I was divorced in 1982, perhaps my ex got the other one.

Several years ago I had to put pillow into another case as I was waking up every morning with feathers in my hair. I don't dare take it out of the case because I am sure it would disintegrate. Don't worry I always put a another pillowcase over that one. So it is clean....well sort of. it smells just fine to me. Although sometime mornings when I don't wash my hair and just use the blowdryer to fluff it up I get a whiff of sort of a mildewy, little old lady scent.

I have honestly tried to find a replacement for pillow, but nothing can equal it wonderful squishyness. I recently tried to wean myself off pillow, but after 4 nights of tossing and turning I admitted defeat, snuggled up with pillow and slept like a baby. Pillow also scrunches down nicely to fit in my suitcase for travel.

I guess pillow is my grownup wooby. It took the place of BUNNY, my pink stuffed Easter bunny I got as child. BUNNY slept with me every night of my life until I got married. Bunny was very special because he was pink. I grew up with 2 aunts that were close to my age. We always got the same things, but in different colors. I was always given blue, Judy got yellow and Holly always got pink. I felt Holly was the favorite because she got pink. That Easter a mistake was made and I got the PINK BUNNY. I was thrilled.

When I had children I let them have BUNNY to play with. One day I realized that I had not seen BUNNY in a while and started a search. No luck. I asked my then husband if he had seen BUNNY. He said he had thrown BUNNY away because he was disgusting. BUNNY was a little threadbare, his color more gray than pink and his little music box only a memory, but he was NOT disgusting. He knew how I felt about BUNNY. We got divorced not too long after that I believe. I am sure if we were still married, pillow would have joined my beloved BUNNY a long time ago. No heart, that man.

Flood pictures

Muddy water runoff from construction across street



The "river" running over the sidewalk. It had gone down quite a bit by the time
we got there.


This is taken from same spot, just turn around toward houses.
It had a long ways to go to reach the houses.



Mosquito alley. Probably wasn't very smart of us to go down there.
There was so much rain that there could have been another flood
following this one.

photos from San Antonio

Rolling down the San Antonio River.



I just loved these polka-dot umbrellas on the River Walk



It was sooo hot. I left a pool of water when I got up from the plastic seat on the boat.



Yummy Mexican treats at Mi Tierra



Pinatas on the ceiling at Mi Tierra

San Antonio

Day 1--Left house at 5:10 a.m. for 30 minute drive to get on airport shuttle--2 1/2 hour drive to airport to catch plane
FEAR of flying--took half a xanax--2 1/2 hour flight to LAX--2 hour layover--took other half of xanax--got to end of runway and one engine died--towed back to terminal to wait an hour for another plane, with hopefully good engines--took half a xanax--3 hour flight to San Antonio. No Mr. Right on either flight.
Finally made it to Kari and Kevin's around midnight. Seemed to have developed HUGE cankles during flight. Lovely.

Day 2--Slept great--still have cankles. Went toobing down river, with a few little rapids. Great fun and saw a lot of turtles swimming along with us. Took 2 strong Hispanic men to haul me out of toob at get-out point. Thank God no one had a camera for that one. If those guys hadn't been there I would probably be in the Gulf of Mexico by now. Cankles down slightly.

Day 3--Almost cankle-less. Went to Mama Mia. Loved it! Then SHOPPING! Bought 5 new tops. Score. Would have bought more but ran out of time. Slight canklege.

Day 4--Took a barge tour downtown through the river walk. Beautiful, but VERY hot and humid. Mi Tierra for lunch. Yum! There was a fantastic mariachi band playing the whole time. I got their CD. Roamed around the market place and saw Miss San Antonio do some Flamenco dancing. She had nice slender ankles. Jealous. Still can't see my ankle bones.

Kari dropped me off at her house and went to pick up Kevin at work. I took a nap. Woke to the sound of a horrendus thunder storm. I have never seen it rain so hard. The streets were flooded with water. A while later after the storm Kari and I were on her back deck and I said
"Oh, you can see the river from here". Kari "No, we are not near a river." Me, looking again "I can see it through the trees." Kari looks up at this point "oh my God! Kevin!" It was a flash flood! Fortunately, we were in no danger, as her house and the others are quite a bit higher than the "river". We walked down a little later to take a look. It was pretty incredible. Sorry, I haven't downloaded the pics yet. Will post later. I got eaten alive by mosquitoes down by the "river" so we left. I am still scratching at those dang bites.

Day 5--Time to go home. Kari dropped me off at the airport. Took a WHOLE xanax. Lovely flight to LAX. In my drugged state I accidently went to baggage claim instead of catching shuttle to next terminal and then had to walk to the terminal and go back through security. Took half a xanax and had another pleasant flight to Seattle. Very important to take proper dosage of xanax.

Two plus hour shuttle from Seattle to Bellingham--Obnoxious couple with 2 obnoxious small children sat right behind and would wake me up every time I nodded off. The mother repeated EVERY word her kids said and kept telling them how smart they were. At the first stop when a few people got off I was able to move away from them. It wasn't just me, everyone else sitting close to them moved too. I think they got the hint because they toned it down after that. No
Mr. Right on either of those flights either.

Big time cankles, especially on the left. On my flights I did the foot and leg exercises, drank lots of water and got up at least twice on each flight to the bathroom. Problems with them all week. Within a few hours of coming home from work they go down significantly and no problem at all this weekend. Maybe the way I am sitting at work. I took an extra "water" pill, but that did not seem to help. I guess I need to go to doc. Looks almost like a bruise where the left cankle was the puffiest.

Aren't you supposed to ENJOY a pedicure?

Now, I haven't really had a lot of pedicures, BUT, they shouldn't be painful! I was all ready for a day of pampering. I had my haircut and was very happy with it. I called my friend Kari after the haircut all bubbly and cheerful and told her I was on the way for the mani/pedi. Haircut and a mani/pedi are kind of my prevacation ritual. Along with a little self-tanning. I am heading to San Antonio on Thursday for a long weekend with my BFF Kari and you never know when
Mr. Right might be in the seat next to you on the plane.

I show up right on time for mani/pedi, pick out my color, plop my butt in pedi chair, grab a smutty magazine and get ready to relax. WRONG!!!! This gal was rough. She had these long talon-like fingernails that came to a point and the edges were sharpened like a ginsu knife. She kept running the edge of her talon along the edge between my nail and the skin. It felt like a razor blade. At one point, it hurt so much I instictively yanked my foot back, which caused her to paint the whole side of my big toe red. I told her "that hurts". To which she gave me a blank stare. Her coworker at the next seat looked over and they said a few words to each other in Thai and gave me dirty looks. I asked the other one if she spoke English? Again the stare. I said "she is hurting me". To which she finally responded, "you want shorter?". NO! IT HURTS! Tried some sign language of touching my fingernail and saying SHARP....HURTS. They exchanged a few more words and ignored me. It was still uncomfortable, but not as bad as before.

I almost walked out of there before she was done. Then I thought maybe this was one of those sweat shops and they would beat the girl if she displeased a customer, so I gritted my teeth and got through it. Hopefully, someone else would do my manicure, which is what they usually do.
NOPE, not so lucky.

Crap. So here we go. She asked "you want cut?" pointing to my fingernails. HELL NO, not after the clipping my toenails down to the quick. She was rough, but she did not use her razor talon on me again. Usually they have you take off watches and bracelets so they can massage your hands and lower arms. I forgot to take off my watch, so when she got done with my nonwatch arm I said I would take off my watch. She said "NO!" and just lotioned and massaged my hand.

My nails on my right hand look like they were filed on an angle, one side shorter than the other, if you know what I mean. My big toe on my right foot is the same way.

I went up to pay the slavemaster (man) with my debit card. He gave me the reciept to sign and I put zero under tip. When she did a half-assed massage and filed my nails on an angle she sealed her fate on the damn tip. Heck, I wanted to slap her! He looked at my reciept and he and talon lady exchanged a few words. I ran out of there. Anyone know of a good place to go for a mani/pedi?

Happy Birthday Boys and What was I thinking!!

Brooke's Kung Fu Panda cupcakes.

The Birthday boys, Dane and Davis

The Melting Pandas

Last night we celebrated Davis and Dane's birthdays. Brooke make adorable Kung Fu Panda cupcakes and because I think every kid should his or her own cake for their birthday volunteered to make cakes. So on the hottest day of the year I came up with the brilliant idea of ice cream cakes. I didn't want to heat up the kitchen any more than it was (90 degrees) with the oven. Not thinking about the fact that I couldn't have the "cakes" out of the freezer for longer than 60 seconds before everything started sliding off.

Needless to say, decorating them was a nightmare. At one point I actually had the cake in the freezer along with my arms and head. How does Dairy Queen do it? HA! They probably have air conditioning. Then.....I had to drive two miles to Brooke's house. My car air conditioner was just eeking out lukewarm air on high. Fortunately I made all the lights (two), while I kept an eye on the rapidly liquifying cakes.

I whipped in the driveway and ran them to the freezer. Then we forgot them until people were starting to leave! Oops. By then the kids really didn't care, they were full of pizza and Panda cupcakes.

Most important, the kids all seemed to have a great time and those boys made a haul on the toys.