Tuesday, October 31
We ran out of candy for the third time, so we've turned off our lights. Here is a picture of me posing as a witch. You can also see our fireplace, the old family shoes, and my heirloom pumpkins.
We're getting lots of trick-or-treaters! It's like Glenview. It makes me feel like we're in a real neighborhood, which is why we bought a house here....uh-oh, we're out of candy. Good thing we have a grocery store 1 1/2 blocks away.
Okay, I'm back. We're into the older kids, now, but at least they're wearing costumes. I hope we don't run out of candy again.
Well, we ran out of candy again. Next year we'll have to buy eight bags!
I added some links in yesterday's entry for my pumpkin and our house decorations.
Monday, October 30
I carved my first pumpkin in a few years...wait, Ed's trying to hijack the trick-or-treat peanut butter cups with a cleaver....wait while I defer bloodshed....
O.K....no casualties, but there are Reese's all over the floor.
I think he was surprised that I had a videotape of 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown', but he's over that now and getting into the Halloween spirit. We have some decorations up. We're not even sure if we'll get trick-or-treaters here, but I hope so. We do have toddlers on our block.
Sunday, October 29
I had a choice of two things to do last night (by myself). One was a huge Halloween costume party in a big club downtown, hosted by someone I know slightly, and possibly attended by zero to six other people I know (slightly). The other was a Dar Williams show at The Fabulous Satellite Lounge, here in the Heights. I couldn't decide what to do, so tried both. I went to the party about an hour into it, didn't see anybody I knew, so went over to the FSL. The concert was great. The opening act was Catie Curtis. During her whole set, I was thinking how much I liked her even though I'd never heard of her. Then she sang her last song, (RealAudio excerpt) which I've heard many times. "Oh, that's who she is!". So now I'm a big fan. Both women were very funny in between songs. I had seen Dar Williams (here are some excerpts from her albums: 1, 2 - these are not great quality, and don't always work, sorry) once before at Duquesne, but this was much better because it was a tiny, divey, SRO club, probably a former auto body shop. Also, I met a real-life bike courier.
Saturday, October 28
The Kroger's right by us, surprisingly enough, has heirloom pumpkins instead of the boring kind that I bought last week. So, boring pumpkin, I guess it's soup for you.
Friday, October 27
Hey, I was going to do the Excite ghosts thing, too!
Ed is in San Francisco this weekend, so I went to see the movie Pay It Forward, figuring he wouldn't want to. I wanted to see it before it got overhyped. I liked it; everybody in the theater was crying, including me. I saw it at the new super-ultra-mega-plex. This has 23 theaters with stadium seating (and luv-seats!), an IMAX theater, restaurants, shops, virtual reality games and a skate-park. I wish they had pictures of it on the website, because it looks like Disney World with palm trees and everything. It's about 10 minutes away from here. By the way, if you ever want to check movie times in any city, MovieFone is an easy way to do it. You just decide how you want to choose your movie (title, theater, genre, star, time or browse) type in the zip code, and all of the time listings are there, with links to maps to the theater. It's handy in a big city like this - it's too hard to wade through the entertainment section of the paper.
Due to an inventory control problem in this house, the following rules are put forth to all visitors. Please take note and be prepared:
- All guests must eat oatmeal for 30% of the breakfasts they eat here. If a guest prefers not to eat breakfast, he or she may save the oatmeal for lunch.
- On a guest's 'Oatmeal for Breakfast Day', he or she must use two (2) packets of Sugar In The RawTM on their oatmeal. If said guest has a medical condition limiting the use of Sugar In The RawTM, he or she may be excused from this rule.
- Each guest must use one (1) Q-TipTM each full day they spend at our house. The Q-TipTM may be used at any time during the day or night. The use chosen for the Q-TipTM will not be questioned by the management.
- Q-TipsTM should not be positioned too deeply into the ear. If the Q-TipTM is placed too deeply into the ear, the use may, in fact, be questioned by the management. The management does not want hearing loss among its guests.
- The management is not responsible for injury or losses due to oatmeal, Sugar In The RawTM, or Q-TipTM quotas. This notice serves as a public notice that guests will be asked to adhere to the above rules and that their own common sense is required to meet said quotas in a safe way.
So, who's coming first?
Wednesday, October 25
By the way, these cheesy seventies colors are not cheesy seventies colors. They're Halloween colors
Tuesday, October 24
I was frustrated because I have nothing interesting to write about tonight, then I remembered I had a picture of our powder room. Very, very interesting.
Monday, October 23
So...one of my teeth broke today, for no reason. I had that dream yesterday where one of my teeth broke, which I've always heard is a sign of feeling vulnerable. So I guess I'm vulnerable. My dentist appointment was in the Decorative Center of Houston, I'm not sure why. And I don't think my dentist's office is on the virtual tour.
Sunday, October 22
Another photo, this time of the kitchen.
We spent the weekend doing things around the house. Planted a tree, put up shades in the bathroom, hung skeleton lights in the butler's pantry, that kind of thing. The only windows left with paper on them are in the family room. The dining room, living room and office still have no window treatments, but there's no hurry on those. The office hasn't even been unpacked yet.
Saturday, October 21
Here is a photo of the interior of our house. It's taken from the front door, and you can see the living room, dining room, and bits of the family room, butler's pantry and kitchen. I've added captions to some of the items in the picture - you'll see them if you mouse over them. It doesn't work in Netscape, and I'm not going to make it work in Netscape, either.
Friday, October 20
Happy 10th anniversary (Linda and Kevin).
Kind of a fun day at work today. I had a presentation this morning, which went well. After that, Williams bussed the employees to Dave and Buster's, a restaurant / entertainment place. They had multiple make-your-own fajitas buffets, all you could eat, then they gave us each cards with which we could play video and virtual reality games for three hours. Then they told us that when we got back to our building, we were free to go home. The occasion was the fact that we raised 14 million dollars for the United Way, which is some kind of record.
Thursday, October 19
So, a Chinese guy, an Indian guy, an Ethiopian, a hippie,
and this chick walk into diversity training.....
Not a joke, I did have mandatory diversity training today as a new employee,
and the above are my work friends (I'm the chick). We figured we'd be
excused as soon as we walked into the door ("you look pretty diverse
already, you're free to go"), but no. We had to sit through eight
hours of diversification. It wasn't that bad, really.
Ed's in Galveston tonight on business, so I'm surprising
him by getting his computer in shape. His hard drive died, he got a new
one with Windows 95; he needed to update his video driver before upgrading
to 98, but discovered his modem had died too (we suspect lightning) so
he couldn't download the driver. I reinstalled his NIC card, downloaded
the driver to my computer then copied it to his computer, installed it,
installed 98, installed Office 2000, and actually restored a bunch of
his files that I had backed up to my computer, including old e-mail and
contacts in Outlook. And his Andy Warhol Howdy Doody wallpaper. I wish
I had backed up his stuff more often, though. Which reminds me - I need
to export my Outlook to his hard drive. Next I'll reinstall his CD burner,
and we'll be back in business.
The nice thing is that they gave him 5 extra gigs on the new hard drive
(it was still under warranty).
Back up your files. Right now.
Wednesday, October 18
Today at work, I had a meeting with David Hasselhoff's sister. It turns out I've had lots of meetings with her (she's one of my favorite people to work with), but it wasn't until today (Me: "What's today's date" Her: "It must be the 18th, because my brother opened on Broadway on the 17th, and that was last night.") that I knew who her brother was. For those who don't know who DH is, he's the Baywatch / Knightrider star. And now, the Jekyll & Hyde (on Broadway) star.
Monday, October 16
We had a great time in Boston. The weather was perfect and the leaves were just turning. It was a short trip, but we packed a lot in. Friday we walked part of the Freedom Trail, from Fanieul Hall to Bunker Hill. Ed and I even climbed the 294 steps to the top of the Bunker Hill monument. We saw Paul Revere's house and The Old North Church, and Cobb's Hill Burying Ground. I took a lot of pictures at the burial ground, because I love the old tombstones. We were going to go on the U.S.S. Constitution, but five busloads of teenagers got there just before we did, so we skipped it. I was disappointed, because we missed going on it last time, too. That night we went to Veronique in Boston for dinner. It was excellent, and highly recommended. We had wanted to go to Salem, since it was Friday the 13th, October, and a full moon, but we couldn't fit it in.
Saturday was the Syracuse - Boston College football game, which Syracuse lost. We were invited to a tailgate party before and after - that was fun. It was Indian summer there. That night we went to Harvard Square to go pubbing, but we only made it to one pub.
Sunday, I finally got to go on the Constitution!!! It was really great to get the tour of the whole ship.
We stayed in Brookline, at the Beacon Inn. It was kind of a dump, but cheap. And really, not as bad as we all made it out to be the whole weekend.
The End.
Wednesday, October 11
We are flying to Boston tomorrow to meet some of Ed's college friends for their annual Syracuse reunion / football game. I'm looking forward to seeing some fall sights.
John began painting the house next door, but he is already unhappy with the color. It's almost a slate blue, but a little too turquoise. I don't mind it, but he's rethinking the whole thing. His wife is 1 1/2 weeks overdue with their first baby, so he's panicking at problems with the house. I think he should just make the color a little more gray, a little darker.
Monday, October 9
Today all the boys wore coats to school. Seriously, one of them even wore his coat while working. Inside. These Houston men are NOT rugged. To me, this feels like typical October weather. I continue to organize the garage, although I might need to buy a pickup truck before I build the shelves or the workbench.
We made pumpkin soup yesterday. It was very good, and very simple (and Italian). Here's the recipe.
Sunday, October 8
It feels like October in Pennsylvania here. Yesterday was the first day since we moved in that we didn't have the air-conditioning on. And today, we turned the furnace on.
All the cold, rainy, windy weather made me want to build things, so I started setting up my 'workshop' in the garage. Today I only put some pegboard up. The next big step is to build a workbench, but I'm not quite sure how to go about doing that yet.
Ed had a letter to the editor published in Friday's Houston Chronicle. It was featured fairly prominently, much larger type than the other letters on the page. He would probably want me to stress that his letter was edited, and so does not pack the same punch the unedited version.
Saturday, October 7
Cold und rainy here. It feels so good! We wanted to have a fire in our fireplace, but apparently we need some sort of faux cement logs to do that (it's a gas fireplace). And we didn't have time to look for the logs. We had Ed's old friends Mike and Carla over for dinner tonight.
Today is Keith Demmler's birthday, FYI. He would have been 41.
Friday, October 6
My boss told me to leave early today, so I did. I ran some errands, and am now hanging around the house. Unexpected free time! Yay! Although I have to use it to clean out my car, pick up around the house, and do laundry. Boo!
O.K. I'm back from cleaning out my car. It had Sunny Delight bottles in it, which, if you follow the commercials you will know is only drunk by teenagers. So yes, they're from Erica. But before you criticize me for not cleaning it out sooner, please know that we have food in our pantry that is referred to as B.E. (Before Erica). And that's not Before Erica Visited, it's Before Erica Was Born. Some of it has been quietly disappearing, though. Don't tell.
Thursday, October 5
We finally got some rain. Hopefully the hurricane will bring some more. We came home to find the front yard dug up - I wasn't surprised, because I noticed it had been spraypainted yesterday. It was for the water for the house next door, and didn't disrupt the lawn proper, just the area between the sidewalk and the street. John, the builder, has offered to re-sod, but I had planned to put groundcover there anyway. Cold front coming! Maybe!
Wednesday, October 4
I'm listening to WYEP Pittsburgh, live on the Internet tonight. The DJ is Shari Richards, who I've seen perform (she's a blues singer) at Nick's Fat City on Carson Street a few times. I miss that radio station.
I just realized that my search function had stopped indexing automatically. I've reset it, so it should give accurate results now. I'll reindex manually after I upload this file. And I'll be redesigning some of this site (although probably not this page yet) shortly.
Tuesday, October 3
I can't log on to Earthlink tonight for some reason, so I'll post this when I can.
The Riding the Line crew pulled into Houston today, so we had a big catered party out on the lawn. I think I might do that ride next year. I've always wanted to do a long bike ride. I've been looking at road bikes anyway, since Ed would like me to ride with him when he's back on his feet. He had another doctor's appointment today, and starts physical therapy on Friday.
Monday, October 2
I am reading Professional ASP XML, and Professional ADO 2.5 and RDS Programming with ASP 3.0. Realizing that those books really don't have any words in their titles to speak of, I am also reading The Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius to make up for it. And yes, the links give me affiliate credit at Amazon, so buy them. Especially the first two, since they are more expensive.
Sunday, October 1
Today was the annual Houston Heights Festival, on Heights Boulevard (three blocks away). It was a typical community festival, with arts and crafts booths and a parade. The only unique part was that there were art cars in the parade. Well, also unique, to me at least, were all the turkey leg and frito pie stands. But you can't find a festival or any event here without those. I have not even been tempted to eat one enormous, greasy turkey leg since I've been here, but I do rather like frito pie. It's Fritos, chili and cheese.
In the afternoon, we split up to do some shopping, each of us concentrating on our areas of expertise. Meaning I went to Home Depot and bought tools, and Ed went grocery shopping and also bought some light fixtures for the house from Restoration Hardware.
