Sunday, December 31

As of this afternoon, I have been in Houston for one year. An indication that I am not in Kansas anymore -- in the grocery store today, the following announcement was made: "Attention! We are out of black-eyed peas. However, we do have green cabbage. Black-eyed peas - nada. We apologize." Apparently, black-eyed peas are the New Year's tradition here. Didn't faze me, I bought the herring in sour cream like a good Northern European. But we are having crawfish salad as an appetizer.

Last night we met Ed's friend Posh, who used to work at Mellon with him and Diane, for dinner. Posh brought along another friend, whose name I cannot remember. She is a Viagra salesperson. (well, a Pfizer pharmaceuticals salesperson). They were in town from New York City for the World Zorastrian Convention. Zorastrianism is a religion I had never heard of. Posh is Indian, and I had assumed he was Hindi. If I didn't know him, I might have read about Zorastrianism and assumed it was a fanatical religion, but he's too normal. He is attending Columbia University for e-commerce, and I've been a bit envious of him.

Anyway, we went to Sullivan's Steakhouse, a jazz-style restauant with a room featuring live bands. We had been there numerous times to listen to music, but never to eat. It was very good food - expensive, though! The band last night was fun, The Brew from Austin. They play latin jazz and salsa, a lot of covers, but are a fun band to hear.

By the way Posh's friend said it is very difficult to sell Viagra to doctors. They just want free samples for stocking stuffers and gag gifts.

Saturday, December 30

Aaaah, another Saturday morning drinking coffee and watching bad Japanese sci-fi movies on TV. King Kong Escapes! But it's okay, scientists have hypnotized him and implanted speakers in his ears so they can control him. Oh, no! He's not listening! Wait! He can't understand badly dubbed English because he's a Japanese gorilla! Oh, the humanity!

Even worse, Ed has stopped putting half-and-half in his coffee due to cholesterol concerns. He's using sugar instead, which means we can't tell our coffee apart, which means I accidentally drank coffee with sugar in it. Oh, the humanity!

Friday, December 29

We are wrapping our pipes tonight, because it might get in the twenties tomorrow. Oooh.

Meanwhile, one of our irises bloomed today. We didn't even know it was an iris, since it was here, unblooming, when we moved in. Here it is tonight, with the Christmas lights behind it. And here's a close-up. It's white with purple in the center. Very cute.

Thursday, December 28

Twenty hours of sleep seems to have improved Ed's health somewhat. At least he's not throwing up anymore. I worked from home today, which was nice.

Yesterday I received a card from Sam Manhart and Emilie, along with Sam's journal from his canoe trip in Maine two years ago. Did anyone else get this, or just those who nagged him for it? I read it all in one sitting; it was very good. He took the two week trip with one of his professors from the University of Michigan.

Wednesday, December 27

Ed just came down with a really violent case of stomach flu, probably food poisoning. Ugh.

My New Year's resolution is to be an extra in a movie (enough with that "get into shape, read more books" silliness). I was checking out the Houston Film Commission's web site; they are promoting various locations around the city for movie sets. Among these I found an IPIX virtual tour of the outside of my building, including the cool Water Wall fountain and park directly outside it. The grassy area between the building and the fountain is where our tent Christmas party was.

p.s. It's called the Williams Tower now, since Williams bought Transco.

Tuesday, December 26

A side story to the shooting in Boston today - desk rage. Quotes of note: "One of every eight workers works in a cubicle -- and they show higher stress levels." (Hmmm, I work in a cubicle now.....) and "a surprising 26 percent of survey respondents -- 40 percent of the 561 women surveyed -- said workplace stress and an angry work environment had 'caused me to eat chocolate.'" (Hmmmm, I hit the vending machine for crunchy M&M's in the afternoon.)

At my old job, I had a nice-sized office and Pop Tarts in the vending machine. But I must say that this job is much lower stress.

Monday, Christmas Day

Our Christmas tree this year had round colored lights. Some were clear, some frosted, and some "cut" like crystal. They made the tree look old-fashioned.

Here's a Texas Christmas carol (mp3, only one person per household needs to download).

We're back from our Christmas rounds. First, we had Christmas dinner with Brian and Laura and Drewe, who came to our house for Thanksgiving. Another couple was there with their 2-month old baby. I wore Granny's white sweater covered with gold sequins. The baby loved to look at it. We had Christmas crackers and wore the funny hats inside (warning, bad picture!). We gave Drewe a Madeline doll, which she carried with her the rest of the night.

Next we went with Brian,Laura and Drewe to visit another family with three kids, including a 4 1/2 month old baby. That baby loved my sweater, too.

We are stuffed now. I have to go to work tomorrow, but Ed doesn't. Not fair!

Merry Christmas! I'll write more later, but in the meantime....Snowball fight!!!!

Sunday, Christmas Eve

My, don't Manhattans look Christmasy. Especially in front of a bowl of chili lights. Cheers!

I have to admit that I was not a very inspired Christmas shopper this year. Hopefully no one is disappointed. If I've given anyone the same gift someone else has, you are free to exchange amongst yourselves.

Last night we went to Liberty Noodles downtown for dinner. Afterward, we had a pint at Slainte, an Irish pub. I wish I hadn't forgotten my camera, since suddenly about 30 Santas and Mrs. Clauses swarmed the place and began singing "Give us a beer pudding (we won't go until we get some)". It smacked of Hash House Harrierism, but I don't think it was since most of the Santas were wearing heavy Santa boots. After they left, presumably for the next bar, the young bartender was expressing disbelief (Just because they're fat and wear red suits, they think they get free beer? They're like my uncle.) Which reminded Ed of something he had heard about the three stages of a man's life: Stage one - believes in Santa. Stage two - doesn't believe in Santa. Stage three - is Santa. The bartender is in stage two.

Saturday, December 23

I just taught Ed how to ping servers (to see if a site was down). I may have unleashed a hacker!

This is the first time I've ever spent the weekend before Christmas gardening. We are continuing to expand the raised beds in the back, walling each area with rocks. It looks good. Today we dissembled the landscaping by the garage, which had been three azaleas packed tight against the wall (and each other), two other bushes squeezed in beside them, and two bulb plants of some sort. We moved the azaleas out, eliminating one (we'll find a place for it), and made the bed much bigger and curvier.

Ed's present for me was supposed to come late, then it came yesterday. It turned out to be the wrong thing, though, and he's having customer service difficulties in returning it. Then this morning, he accidentally blurted out what it was supposed to be. Oh well. I got him something today that I think he'll really like. I'm not venturing out of our neighborhood this weekend. The Heights has lots of great antique and unique stores, no traffic, and ample parking, unlike the rest of the city.

Well, back to the digging.

Thursday, December 21

For those on the west coast who can still catch it, tonight's "Just Shoot Me" on NBC is a pretty funny parody of several Christmas specials.

My boss told me I could work from home tomorrow. Unfortunately, I really have to work, but it's better from home.

Wednesday, December 20

Handy bookmarklet! Use this to look up a word at Dictionary.com. Either click the button directly to bring up a Javascript prompt text box, or highlight a word on a web page, then click the button. I've been using it for months, and it's very handy as you're reading web pages.

How to use? Drag the link below onto your Links toolbar in IE. If you want to try it first, click on the link below, either with or without a word highlighted. (If anybody needs Netscape versions, I'll have to hunt, but really, why?). Don't know about Macs, but I'm sure that can be arranged if necessary.

Dictionary.com bookmarklet

It works like the Google Search bookmarklet.

I gave blood this afternoon for Christmas, and I've been wiped ever since. I'm not getting quite enough oxygen. But, I got a T-shirt, a CD holder, and a lunch voucher (plus the obligatory cookies and juice), so it's okay.

I told Ed I am going for quantity, not quality on his Christmas gift. He thought that was fine. I've gotten him two things already, and will hit the mall tomorrow at lunchtime (the only good thing about working in the Galleria area at Christmastime is that I can go to the mall without driving or parking. Other than that, though, the traffic these days is almost unbearable).

Tuesday, December 19

I didn't get to update this last night; I meant to do it from work today, which I normally don't bother with. I have to log out of the network and dial up to post (circumventing the firewall), so it's a pain. But I was going to do it today, really, then I was instructed to fix bugs instead. Ugh. Especially when it's other people's bugs, and you don't know why they did things the way they did. But that is done, thankfully.

Remember how I said Ed and I weren't buying each other anything? Well, he did. So now I have to. I have easy access to the best mall in the city during the day, but I attempted to go to less mainstream stores after work - also in my area. This is when I realized that being in the best shopping district in Houston is not an asset, but a horrible, horrible liability at Christmas. It took my one hour to drive around the block.

Sunday, December 17

There's ice in the birdbath! We had a frost last night. I threw a sheet over my annuals, even though they probably would not have been injured.

My Christmas party was very different than Ed's. For one thing, Ed's did not have a giant King and a giant Queen to greet guests. Nor penguins. Nor Santa puppeteers. Mine was definitely more Monty Pythonesque. It was also too big. It included the Gas and Pipeline company, so it was difficult to find a familiar face outside of our table. And it was a little chilly to be having dinner in a tent!

Saturday, December 16

Ed's Christmas party was last night, at Ruggle's Latina Cafe downtown. It was nice, small, about 30 people, and the food was very good. I hadn't met most of the people he works with before last night.

Ed told a story at the party about snow which I had heard before, but still think is funny, so I'll relate it here.

When he was nine or ten years old in Buffalo, there was a big snowstorm, dumping about four feet on the ground. He and his brother Jim had been playing in the snow, jumping in it, and decided it would be fun to jump off a railroad bridge near their house. The snow would give them a soft landing. They walked onto the bridge, and both jumped off at once. 1-2-3-vooop. They landed up to their necks in the snow. Their arms pinned to their sides, their heads barely sticking out, they slowly realized that they couldn't move. They were trapped. Hee-hee. Just the mental image of it makes me laugh. Luckily, their sister Colleen was with them. Luckily, Colleen had the common sense not to jump off the bridge. Luckily, Colleen could run home and bring back a grownup with a shovel to dig them out. And luckily, the snow wasn't five feet deep that day.

My Christmas party is tonight. It is being held outside, or in an enormous tent, rather, in the park outside my building. It sounds like an interesting idea, except we are getting very high winds today. Hopefully the tent is still where they put it last week.

Friday, December 15

Aidan likes Shockwave? He might like making a video at the Milko Music Machine. I think he should make a hip-hop video. He'll probably need help.

Thursday, December 14

Other news from last weekend: I fertilized the lawn. Okay, the problem with saving weekend news to use during the week is that I forget what I did. I did fertilize, though, it's true. The bag had quantities listed for four different spreaders, but no measurements for Grandma's coffee cup, which is all it takes to fertilize this lawn.

Wednesday, December 13

I wished for an ice storm, which would have been an interesting subject for a journal, but no luck. So, here is where I can invoke some weekend news. I must write about our dinner Sunday with one of Ed's potential clients, Leopoldo - a cotton baron from Mexico City. Leopoldo (and many rich Mexican citizens), had travelled to Houston this weekend to shop for Christmas. Ed had offered to take him out to dinner. Leopoldo had brought his brother, Miguel, along for the shopping trip.

I have promised Ed that someday I will take him to dinner with one of my co-workers, and that my co-worker will bring along his GORGEOUS sister. And this sister will be young, and not a slacker, but rather a SURGEON. An OPTHALMOLOGICAL SURGEON, specializing in Lasek surgery.

But in the meantime, I will just relate that Miguel was a gorgeous opthalmological sugeon, in his twenties, specializing in Lasek surgery.

Tuesday, December 12

No sleet day today. Maybe tomorrow morning.

I baked M&M and peanut butter blossom cookies tonight. I'll try to do almond crescents and rum balls tomorrow, but then that's it. No sugar cookies this year. Too busy. I am busier at work than I expected because of some organizational changes; lots of things need to be reprogrammed by January 1st.

Monday, December 11

UPDATED: I'm free!!!! We had a partial power outage in my building this afternoon. I had very little power at my desk, and they finally came on the PA and said they would be cutting all power at 6 to make repairs, so I got out while one elevator still worked. From what people have told me, walking down thirty-one floors of stairs is not as easy as it sounds. It was a little spooky having the lights go out, then hearing fire sirens coming toward the building, looking out and seeing them pull into the driveway. But I don't think there was a fire. I did call Ed downtown and tell him to look out his window to see if there were flames shooting out my building. He couldn't see, though, from where he was.

Feels like a snow day, and we might actually get a snow day tomorrow. Or at least a sleet day. People at work were unnerved by this fiveday forecast (time-sensitive link) because of the snowflakes, but I explained that frozen rain was not the same as snow. It's worse. If it's bad tomorrow, I'll work from home. I'm sure people here do not know how to drive on ice. It's already started to blow hard; the leaves from the neighbor's pecan tree are raining down in our yard.

Sunday, December 10

Did more stuff this weekend, but I've decided not to tell you about it. Instead, I'll drag it out over the week so I have something to write about on the boring workdays.

We got our Christmas tree yesterday. The nursery is just a few blocks away, and the tree was already in a stand (they keep them watered at this place). So the whole operation, door-to-door including installation took about 30 minutes.

We have ten foot high ceilings, but the big trees were $179, so we got an 8 1/2 foot one. We'll just make or buy a really tall tree-topper to make up for it. It's almost decorated; I'll take a picture when it's done.

Saturday, December 9

I now own How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph and A Christmas Story, all on DVD. I've only watched the Grinch so far. If you turn on the commentary, you hear Cindy Lou Who and one of the commentators describing the making of the show. Pretty interesting.

Thursday, December 7

What I want for Christmas. Just kidding. I really want this.

We went to a lunch today at the Amazon Grill for Eby, who leaving our department to become a network engineer. These are the people I work with. A few programmers, a few web developers, and a few support people. Eby is in the green vest looking at the camera.

Wednesday, December 6

I discovered where that black-dots optical illusion came from. There are lots more there.

Not much exciting here. Ed has had the Steven King disease for three weeks, but I'm fine. Work is fun, but very busy with the end of the year coming. I'm juggling a bunch of projects now. It will be nice to have a long weekend at Christmas. And I am going to try to work from home a bit more this month so I don't get dragged into so many extraneous meetings.

Monday, December 4

Someone please let Ed know the true meaning of Christmas. He's bah-humbugging. He hasn't liked Christmas for years. And we're not even getting presents for each other! His only pressure is Erica, who wants clothes. Which I'll probably pick up for her, anyway.

Sunday, December 3

I finished a lot of projects this weekend with Ed gone. I finally put the new legs I made last fall on his teak coffee table, planted the garden, got rid of the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers. I also did some woodworking while watching Christmas videos. Pretty boring weekend, but I accomplished a lot.

Saturday, December 2

I hope this didn't scare anybody. I plan to make a more elegant Christmas design, but I didn't want it to hold up my posting.

Ed is in Buffalo this weekend for a football game. Today I went to Buchanan's Native Plants to look at wreaths and greens. I didn't get any of those, but I did buy a bunch of annuals, which I planted in our new bed in the backyard. Buchanan's was handing out mimosas and cookies. This was in celebration of the Heights Holiday open house, which I attended this evening. This is a home tour, like the spring home and garden tour, except less gardens, more Christmas decorations. A house two blocks up from ours was on the tour this time. We have always referred to this house as "The Monstrosity", but now that I've been in it, I like it. I wish Ed had been able to see it, too. They had a lot of great art, unusual antiques, and just goofy stuff (like one of the lights from an original Kentucky Fried Chicken that looked like a bucket of chicken).

So it got me in the Christmas spirit, but....the leaves have just changed color and are beginning to fall, it's in the 50's and 60's, and honestly it feels more like buckwheat festival weather than Christmas. That will take some getting used to!