In agreement

Olive is totally on board with our decision to become Costco members. She really digs on the boxes that we have to pack all of our 100 lbs. of bacon into.

She loves boxes and paper bags. She has an on-going love affair with a paper bag that I brought home a few weeks ago.

We members now

Jose and I just got a membership to Costco. My friend and co-worker is a veritable walking advertisement for the place. She has really convinced me and I think that I am totally brainwashed. We went the other day just to check out the prices and compare them to HEB. While we were there, being hungry, we took advantage of the sample tables. The lady that was serving samples of 100% natural white-cheddar-not-a-powder macaroni and cheese did a really bad job of preparing it because the macaronis were a not al dente (they were more like all hard in the middle) and the cheese was like white water. But other than that, it was good.

We are going to go tonight and probably spend way too much money. However, we will have a 100 pounds of cat food.

Speaking of cat food, they sell something at Costco called "cat food loaf." It sounds gross to me. I know, call me sensitive [read: crazy], but the word "loaf" reminds me of what people do in the bathroom. And while we're on the subject, I just google imaged "loaf" just to see what came up and I got a picture of a mouse cooked into a loaf of bread. Just click here and scroll down a little and you'll see it. I'm not going to post the actual picture, I've disgusted the Internet enough for this week.

I will say seriously that they have REAL Spanish cheese. I think that's what tipped the scale for Jose. Now if only they sold morcilla...mmmmmmmm.

So, in conclusion, if anyone wants to split bulk deodorant, let me know.

On being grossed out

So, in my last post I thought it would be funny to mention the eyelash mites and provide a hyperlink to an article about them. So I googled the words "eyelash mites."

Now that I have seen some real pictures and read a little about them, I am seriously nauseous. Seriously. Not only do we have these things living in our eyelashes and eyebrows and in probably every other hair follicle on our bodies, these types of articles have to go into all the other types of microscopic parasites that we have all over our bodies and everywhere else. I knew that these things are everywhere, but, you know, out of sight out of mind and all that. Now I've seen pictures of eyelash mites and if you'll excuse me I'm going to go throw up.

And since I'm already grossed out, here are the rest of the eyeballs that Jose took pictures of. He was in everybody's face with the camera. Now that's professionality.

Pictures that I tried to upload earlier but couldn't

My 11 year old niece, me and my sister-in-law

My mom and her new man

Again, sister-in-law, niece, Joe, Aubony and Nico

Pretty sunset on the way to my mom's house

My eye. It stares into your SOUL! You can almost see my eyelash mites. Grody. You CAN see the old lady spider veins on my eyelid.

100 greatest novels of all time

Ok, so here I am again. Yes, I got an iPod nano. Yes, I've been preoccupied with messing with it. Yes, my mom got married this weekend. Yes, what I am writing has nothing to do with the title of this post. So to get to the point, I am totally digging the Librivox website. I'm going to download all of the books that Librivox offers that are on the "100 greatest novels" list and I'm going to listen to them on my iPod. Awesome.

I love to read, but it was only when I went to Spain that I started reading a lot of "classic" literature. That being because there is only one English bookstore in Granada and I, being saturated with Spanish, was determined to at least read in English. When I was in high school I was supposed to read books like Giants in the Earth and Wuthering Heights. I didn't read either of them then and I must admit, I will probably never read Giants in the Earth. It still looks boring to me. However, I did read Wuthering Heights just this year. It definitely lives up to the hype. It's really good. I just hate that Heathcliff!

The aforementioned English bookstore is run by a very unfriendly (read: snobby) English guy (maybe he's just introverted). It has a great collection of classic authors, and I am proud to say that I have read a lot of the books on the "100 greatest novels" list. One book that I am ashamed to say that I haven't read is Don Quixote. Heck, I could even read it in the original language. Oh the shame! The shame!

Moveingon.org...do you want to know about soccer? Well, let me tell you about soccer. I have to say that I'm really liking my team. We have some really good players and me. The others are very nice and tell me that I'm doing great. They give me advice that helps a lot, but you have to keep in mind that I haven't played soccer since I was a little kid. My team was called the Butterflies. I think I remember that was actually a forward on the Butterflies, but because my team was so bad, I hardly ever saw the ball. In the two seasons that we played, we scored one goal. That's how bad we were. Sad, isn't it? I even remember the name of the girl that scored the goal. It was Rachel K. Rachel K. scored our one and only goal (keep in mind that we were in the 1st grade, ok?).

All that being said, on the team that I'm on now, I have been playing defense. I get nervous whenever I get a hold of the ball, so I stick to trying to get it away from the other team and then kicking it as far down the field as I can. On Wednesdays, we are going to have an extra practice to work on ball handling skills. I'm totally there. Oh, and I wanted to add that my knees don't hurt nearly as much as they did the first week. Yay!!

This turned out to be quite a meandering post with an essentially misleading title. I will try to get some pictures up later. I can't get Blogger to upload any right now.

I'm going to mess with my iPod now.

Two words: A Mazing

Have any of you been following the Jill Carroll story? Well you should be. It is beyond words. She is a journalist who was kidnapped by Sunni terrorists and held captive for almost 3 months. She says that she feared for her life every day. Her experience is being retold in 10 installments on the Christian Science Monitor website. There are also little videos of her and others being interviewed. They really add to the story.

Read it. Seriously. I don't know how to describe it other than just amazing.

The match up game

I play a game on this website everyday. It's the "match up game". It consists of 10 very hard words in two columns. In one column there are 5 words and in the other column there are 5 words that match up as synonyms to one of each of the 5 words in the first column (by the way, I never thought that this game would be so hard to explain). So, you match the words to their synonyms and click on "Answer". This takes you to the screen where you find out how smart of stupid you are. It tells you the percentage of the words that you matched correctly and then gives the definitions of the words. I, surprisingly, get 100% many times. I guess it's all the reading of classic literature I do. I rarely get lower than 40%. Today I think I will get 0% because the words are really hard.

Today's words:

obdurate
spurious
impecunious
auricular
irascible

Now, some of those might seem easy, but now let me show you the synonyms that you have to choose from:

cussed
otic
penniless
unauthentic
choleric

Now, some of these seem reeeaally easy, but can you match them up? That's the hard part. I'm going to do it right now and then I'll tell you my score.

Okay, I did it. I got a 20%. I'm stupid.

See if you can do better.

Just as an aside, I also like the hangman game on this website.

Commercial break

At our first soccer practice on Monday, like Jada, I got blisters from my new soccer cleats. I got them on the backs of my ankles, not on the soles of my feet, so I think that I fared better than Jada did. Anyway, I messed around with regular band-aids for a few days and then went out and bought these little beauties.

In Spain they are made by the brand "Compeed". I think that Band-aid bought the rights to sell them here in the US. At any rate, they rock. When I went on the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain with Ágape Campus, we used a ton of these things. We walked 90 miles in 6 days. There were a lot of blistered feet, let me tell you. These little bandages stay on for days at a time, even when you're walking all day long. In short, they are amazing. Buy them.

(Band-aid, if you're reading this, you can pay me now.)

How old am I?

When I was 15 I hurt my knee playing high school basketball. I had to have ACL reconstruction. Now, I'm almost 15 years older. I went to the doctor yesterday to get it looked at. He said that it looks good. My ACL is tight and strong. However I have a little arthritis. Let me repeat that, I have ARTHRITIS.

I'm getting old.

A special set of photos for the Texan in all of us

I took these when I went to the Capitol one day here in Austin, Texas. I was meeting Jada so that we could go to a party "for legislators" where they served free food and alcoholic beverages. (The party was awesome, btw.)

The beautiful Texas State Capitol building. Made of Texas Pink Granite. It is almost 15 feet taller than the National Capitol in Washington, D. C. There's a funny story behind that, you should look it up on the Internet. They don't say "everything's bigger in Texas" for nothin'!

Looking up into the rotunda. Can you see the star way up there? That star is 8 feet across.






This is the Spanish seal. One of the "six flags" of Texas. It was under Spanish rule for approximately 300 years. I took this one for Jose. He is proud to say that he is here to reconquer Texas.





DAVY! DAVY CROCKETT! King of the wild frontier!

Saving the best for last! This is the portrait of our current president as governor of Texas. It hangs inside the rotunda area of the Capitol building along with the rest of the governors.

LONG LIVE THE PRESIDENT!

Soccer rundown

Update: Ok, I posted a picture. I don't like any of the others that Jose took. So this is what you get! I'll take some more next week and get them up.


I went to soccer practice last night. It's the first time I have played soccer since I was a wee lass. We got directly into it and scrimmaged. This is what happened: I got nervous and forgot which direction my team was going. I passed to the wrong team more than once. I ran up and down, up and down. I never actually "dribbled" down field because I was scared to. I learned what "up the line" and "square!" mean. I got tired and dizzy. I almost scored a few times. I made some good passes. I got two huge blisters on my heels.

Over all, it was ok. I need to practice a lot more though. It's a co-ed team and everybody was really nice. Today the capitan wrote me and asked if I would like to play goalie sometimes. Then I found out that Jada told him that I might like that position. I feel better because I thought it was because he wanted to get me out of the way.

We'll see how this drama unfolds. My legs are so sore from running! I'll post some pictures later.

Mood Shmood

I know, I know...I haven't posted anything in 4 days and I haven't posted anything substantial in almost a week! I just haven't been in the mood. I'm still not in the mood, but I have an end of a bargain to keep. (As in, my end is writing stupid posts and yours being reading and laughing on the inside.)

This weekend Jose and I loaded up and went to my dad's house. Subsequently, I commandeered the visit and made everybody go with me searching for soccer cleats. Yes, I also plan to kill myself by playing soccer. Unfortunately, the soccer cleat expedition bore no fruit. I bought some yesterday after I got back to Austin.

I have to go to said soccer practice now. Here are a few pictures from our weekend at my dad's.

This is a picture of a picture of my brother and sister-in-law.

Jose, moi, and my neice.

This is Otto. After I took this picture he wouldn't let me come near him with the camera again. I don't think he liked the flash.

That's my dad and my step-mom on the right.

Star Trek! Again!

The person who made these inspirational posters is a comic genius! (Hi, bobtherobot! You're a comic genius!) Click on the title of this post to see the rest of them.

Random thoughts

I have been reading blogs. Important blogs. Blogs that are relevant to the world. I am addicted to them. I read them everyday. When I read those blogs, I feel like my blog is trite. I should be commenting on the important things! The war! The tragedy! The injustice! The truth! The lies! The right! The left!

Oh, the humanity!

Well, here's the truth: I'm not qualified or knowledgeable enough to comment on any of that stuff. I majored in Spanish, not Political Science. Ask me a Spanish question, anything, I can answer it.

I'll leave the important blogging to Michelle Malkin and all of her cohorts. They do a fine job and they are a lot smarter than I am. And more politically minded. I mean, did y'all see that thing about the altered photos?? That, my friends, is important stuff. Really important stuff.

I get so tongue-tied when I talk with someone I disagree with. I get all nervous. I can't remember what I want to say. I end up saying the wrong things. At least I think so. Maybe I'm saying the right things, but at the time all I hear is gobbledygook.

Why am I writing about this? It's because I am what some people would call a "conservative." I live in a city that is full of what some people would call "liberals." Also, these so-called liberals don't take too kindly to those who don't lean in their direction. I've been called a "bigot" because I told this guy that I believe that homosexual behavior is wrong behavior. The guy that called me that was really mad at me, just because I didn't agree with him. What happened to tolerance?

This started out as a post about how I didn't want to give an opinion about anything and ended up being one in which I give my opinion about a very "volatile" subject. Huh.

To close, here is a picture of two subjects close to my heart. My feet, including but not limited to, my broken toe, and Olive laying on a pair of my pants.

Time fountain

This is super cool.

Olive's passport

My cat the world traveler, among other things

We have an awesome cat. Everybody probably thinks the same about their own cat, but I don't care. I'm saying it anyway. She really is the coolest. Her name is Olive. She is 8 years old. Way back in 1998, my friend found her when she was a pitiful, abandoned little kitten on the streets of Lubbock, TX. I adopted her and the rest is history.



Olive has her own passport. No kidding. We had to get it for her so that she could legally travel in Europe. She has traveled from Texas to Spain and back again. Ironically, that is farther than a large number of Americans have traveled. Likewise ironically, after going through all the trouble of getting her a passport, when we traveled with her in Europe all that the authorities would say in the airport was "aww, cute kitty!" No one ever asked to see her papers. She could have been rabid for all they cared.

Olive likes to lay on pieces of paper and in cardboard boxes. Why do cats like paper so much? She loves to play with wadded up pieces of paper more than any toy that I buy her. If she even hears the rustling of paper, she comes running. Another funny thing that she has always done is whenever she hears someone peeing she runs, nay, sprints to the bathroom to keep them company. Does anyone else have a cat that does that?

She likes to lay on our clothes as well. Any time, any place. Dirty, clean, it doesn't matter. Here she is on a pair of my jeans. I had taken them off a mere 30 seconds before.

She also likes to get behind people on the couch and eat their hair. She especially loves Jada's hair. She likes to sit, supporting the rear half of her body on the back of the couch and perching the front half on top of Jada's head like a Sphinx.

During different times in her life she was an indoor/outdoor cat. She even got in a fight with something once and has a torn ear to show for it. All she can do now, though, is go out onto our miniscule balcony and lay in the filth. There is a mockingbird that comes and squawks at her every once in a while. He's really annoying, but she hardly notices. He used to nose dive her, but he quit doing that.

Olive's other hobbies include meowing, walking on the furniture, landing on her feet and shedding.

Fries with that?

One thing that Jose is not used to is going through the drive-thru. In Spain, there are exactly 2 drive-thru's in the entire city of Granada (McDonald's and Burger King, of course) and I don't know even one Spaniard who uses them. (They also have no concept of the "doggie bag" or "to go" coffee.) Since we've been here in Texas, we almost never go to the drive-thru. Even when we go on roadtrips we always go in to a restaurant and eat, no matter how long the trip takes.

Now that you know this, I can tell you about something that we've been laughing at all week.

It was Sunday night. We were in the middle of watching the last disc of season 2 of Star Trek: Deep Nine Space. Jada was over at our apartment playing Canal Control on her phone and making fun of us for loving Star Trek. We were hungry. We had just gotten back from the Watermelon Fest trip and we had left the house empty of all human food before we left. So, we were forced to go out and find something to eat. We had to perform the operation quickly because we HAD to get back home and get that Star Trek DVD back up and running again. There was no way that we were going to go in to eat somewhere. NO WAY, I tell you. We were going to have to go through the drive-thru.

We drove around for a while and finally found a Wendy's. We drove up to the speaker. Jose has been to the drive-thru, like, twice in his life. At that moment he is thinking about the possibility that he won't say the right thing, that he won't understand the person talking through the speaker, that they won't understand him...in short, he's a little nervous about the whole thing. Also, he's not of the American "The Customer is Always Right" persuasion, like the rest of us are around here. He is of the "Cause as Little Trouble and Heartache to the Salesperson as Possible" persuasion (it's a Spanish thing). So, he quickly ordered a number 6 with a Diet Coke. Simple. Easy. No trouble at all, ma'am. There is no one that would not have been able to understand him. "Number 6." "Diet Coke." The end.

I, on the other hand, can't decide at first. When I should be choosing what I want, I'm talking to Jada. Jose is telling me to hurry up and order already, while I'm still pondering the menu. All the hurrying up is making ME nervous and I just can't decide. I finally choose a number 7, but I don't know what drink I want. It's late and I don't want caffeine, so after mulling it over a minute or two, I just go with a bottle of water. All this time, of course, Jose is relaying my order to the drive-thru speaker. He's getting antsy. I'm causing stress to the girl on the other side. These delays are reflecting badly on his ordering ability! Well, that was nothing, this is where things get complicated:

I say to Jose, "tell her that instead of fries I want a salad."

Jose says, "WHA?'" (that's how he says it, he leaves off the "T").

"Tell her that instead of fries, I want a salad."

He acts like he doesn't understand, but what's really going on is that he doesn't want to cause the poor drive-thru girl any unwarranted confusion by asking for a salad.

Jose says, "Sara, please! I don't know what you're saying! You say it." By this time, Jada, having been distracted from Canal Control, is laughing at us. I'm also beginning to laugh at the situation.

I say, "No, you can say it. Just say, 'instead of fries, I want a salad.' 'Instead of fries, I want a salad!' You can do it!"

You see, I'm cheering him on. He has to learn!

He is panicking,"Sara! Please! You say it!"

(Jose talks like Antonio Banderas. Imagine Antonio Banderas yelling this.)

I am, at this time, laughing very hard. I give in and try to yell my order across the car, but I am laughing so hard that I'm crying. I feebly get out the word "instead...!" and then I'm doubled over.

Jose is frantic. I'm hysterical. This is going on for way too long. Much longer that a normal drive-thru order should. Through my tears, I watch as Jada, seeing that SOMEONE must take charge, leans forward from the backseat, practically climbing over Jose as she puts her head in the front driver side window and yells, "INSTEAD OF FRIES SHE WANTS A SALAD!"

Finally! The ordeal is over. The girl on the other side of the speaker breathes a sigh of relief. We drive forward. Our new friend, the speaker girl, gives us a disapproving look as Jose hands her our money. She probably thinks that we were high or something. She didn't even THINK about asking what kind of dressing I wanted. She just gave me Ranch.

We went home and ate. We finished Star Trek: Nine Deep Space season 2. Jada made fun of us. It was AWESOME.

Look below

Ok, so I started a post on Sunday night, but I couldn't get Blogger to post photos, so I "Saved as Draft." Anyway, I finally got pictures up yesterday and I "Published Post", but now it's as if I had posted it a long time ago and no one can see it and I really want you to see it!

So, scroll down below the comic strip to see a new post.

ok? ok.

Have a good day.

40 years ago today: the UT tower sniper

On August 1, 1966, a man named Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the UT tower in Austin, TX and started shooting people. He was there for 1 hour and 36 minutes. He killed 15 people and wounded 43. Among them was a woman who was 8 months pregnant. She lived, but her baby didn't.

I just read a poignant article in Texas Monthly about it. It recounts the ordeal through the eyes of those students, police and just regular joes who bore witness to it. I feel pity and anger toward Charles Whitman. His story is a strange and eerie one. Being a person who believes wholeheartedly that we are surrounded by an invisible spiritual world, to me it reeks of the demonic.

On thing that struck me about the whole thing was that civilians went home, grabbed their hunting rifles and started shooting back. That kind of thing only happens in Texas. There were also a lot of brave men and women that risked their lives running out in to the open to help the ones who had been shot.

Get fuzzy: an icon of tasty humor

Here is one of my fave comics. That Bucky Katt! He's so dumb and conceited! It's hi-larious!






P.S. I also like Pooch Cafe. HA!