Can I just say...

that I love Star Trek? The whole franchise. The original Star Trek, The Next Generation, Space Nine Deep, Voyager, etc. We're getting S9D through Netflix these days. We already finished watching the entire Voyager series. I'm even pondering buying a t-shirt that reads, "Beam me up". Next thing you know, I'll be buying one of the fake communication buttons and wearing it everywhere I go.

The t-shirt IS totally cool, though...

Am I a hopeless case?

And while were on the subject of t-shirts, I'm also thinking of buying this one:

Because it's true. I mean, really. Nobody cares.

How I broke my toe.

Someone besides Jada commented on my blog. Gasp! All this time I was under the impression that I was writing this for the sole entertainment of Jada and Jose. I never thought this day would come!

Moving on, the comment pertained to my toe breakage. The question was, how did I break my toe? Well, the answer is so boring that I didn't even think about blogging it, but here it is: I was getting out of the water at Krause Springs and I hit it on the rock bank. Boring? I told you so.

The cool thing about that comment was that the commenter commented on my beautiful feet. My doctor said that I have great bone structure in my feet. They are size 11. For those who don't know, that's BIG! It's hard to find shoes.

One week ago...sad black toe.

Today...happy normal color toe.

It's still broken, but it's healing. It doesn't even hurt. I almost went to the doctor, but I decided that it would be a waste of time and money. Just like everyone says, "you cain't do nothing 'bout a broke toe!" I don't think there'll be any permanent damage. Someday I'll be able to walk on sand again...sigh.

Cover Blown

Jana is Jada, Ricardo is Rigel. It's out! It's all over the news! I can't hide it anymore! It's on Jada's blog!

Thank goodness Thad is still a mystery to the world...

Totally dissed by the weather

Saturday in Austin. Mid-morning: hot, sunny.

We went to eat at Cool Taco, the quaint RV taco stand that Jose's classmate recently opened up. It is located behind 6th Street Cool Store which has a Bob Marley mural on the western facing wall.





After lunch: hot, still sunny. Dark clouds looming on the horizon.

We were off for an adventurous afternoon of swimming at Barton Springs. However, our destiny changed its course in the blink of an eye. It was thundering and lightning somewhere within earshot. When we arrived at the gate it was practically slammed in our faces. It turns out that they have a 30-minute-thunderclap-closure-countdown policy, i.e. they hear thunder and they close the pool for 30 minutes. Bummer.




Notice the empty waters, people leaving, etc.

We waited around a while and finally decided to throw caution to the wind and take matters into our own hands. We went to Jada's apartment pool and jumped in.



Here we have Jose horseplaying at the pool, which we all know is strictly prohibited!

And then, to make a long story even longer...we went to eat pho at the supposed best pho place in town. I didn't think it was that great, not to mention there was a fly trapped in the sugar dispenser. Grody. Oh, and then we came home and watched Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which apparently scared off Jada. (Hi, Jada, didn't mean to scare you off...you can come and watch Space Nine Deep any time!)

Soooooo, alls well that ends well around here. We still want to go the Barton Springs, though.


To end, a gratuitous photo of Jada's cat beating up on the neighbor's cat:



And giving her the death stare:

Accident prone.

As I was leaving work yesterday, my boss said, "don't hurt yourself this weekend..." I think I'm making a name for myself.

Joseph Smith really tricked a lot of people

Mormonism

This is a 10 minute video about the differences between Christian beliefs and Mormonism. Freaky. I'm glad I'm a Christian.

palindromes

Damn! I, Agassi, miss again! Mad!

Dr. Awkward

Butt raft, fart tub.

[For Jada]
We passed Odessa. Pew!

Harass selfless Sarah!

Zeus: "Nile macaroni, Ma, is a nitrate-tart in Asia Minor, a camel in Suez."

Hah hah! [I made that one up...creative!]

Musical theater and I hate Monopoly, Aka: complaining

I have found that I don't like musicals as much as I wish I did. I think I like the idea of musicals more than the actual going to see them. That goes for plays and symphonies too. I guess that I'm not as inteligente as I pretend to be.

On Friday (before the fateful day of the toe breakage), I went with Jana &co (including, but not limited to, Ricardo and Thad) to the outdoor musical theater that is at Zilker park.


The crowd


Moi


The alleged "Jana"


The finishing (I took a flash photo! Ha ha!)

The park is putting on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I did like the going and the being there with my friends and the crowd, but as to the play itself I found myself thinking, "hurry up with all the singing and dancing and get on with finishing," etc.

Maybe it's because the Zilker hillside theater is, well, on a hillside. A steeply sloped hillside. And we had to get there an hour and a half early just get our blanket in a decent spot. And we had to sit there for the next 4 hours. Needless to say: me butt was a hurtin'.

On Saturday we went to Krause Springs, where I broke my toe. Moving on.

Saturday night Jose and I got together with J and R and T yet again. This time to play Monopoly. Simpsons Monopoly. I hate Monopoly. (Jose loves Monopoly.) Why do people like to play it? It takes way too long to finish and it's BORING. The fact that it was the Simpsons version made it only slightly more enjoyable. I got to be Santa's Little Helper. That's the only reason. The funny thing was that I was winning through most of the game. I had tons of money and property. Ironic, no?

Monopoly high jinks




Concluding: I will continue to go to musicals and plays and symphonies. I will go to them and maybe someday I will like them. I'm never playing Monopoly again.

The Black Toe Saga

Black toe and Speed Scrabble.

Notice "throbs" spelled out back there.

Very appropriate.

Black Toe: The Morning After.

I really think I broke it.

As purple as the day is long

Today we went here:

Krause Springs

And I broke my toe:

See?

An e-mail exchange

Jana: Sara, you have just been promoted. I gave you your own folder in my e-mail account.

Me: Wow, I'm honored. I guess I'll just have to start writing you meaningless emails to fill it up. Maybe I'll start sending you all of the forwarded chain letters, jokes and "inspirational messages" that I get. How about that?

Jana: Awwww, I LOVE chain mail! It seems like every single time I forward those things, I get lucky or something cool happens in 7 minutes or my wish comes true. Thanks!

Chindogu

The Japanese have an "artform" that they call chindogu. The art of the almost useful invention. Here are the 10 tenets of chindogu. Now the inventive Japanese have come up with something on the very edge of almost usefulness. A smell recorder.

Interesting.

One more link.

So many things to catch up on

I haven't written (save the earlier post for today) in a week. I know that no one reads this (sigh, poor me, I won't even give the link to my friends...) but I want to keep up with stuff anyway. So here's the list of things that I want to log on my blog.

1. Italy won the World Cup. Does anyone in the US care? I care. I wanted France to win, just because I like Zidane and he is retiring, etc.

2. And then there's The Head Butt.



Everyone is talking about it (at least in the news). I have been monitoring to find out what the heck Materazzi said. It had to be something very nasty for Zizou to do that. Although there's no excuse for what he did, I can understand why he did it because those Italians really get on my nerves too. They're sooooo dramatic when they fall on the ground and roll around pretending to be hurt. And on the other hand, they're so likeable and cute. Ugh, it really angers me.

Moving on...

3. This weekend we hung out with some really cool friends, Ricardo and Jana. Ricardo is the biggest friend I have ever had, being 6'6'' and so many hundreds of pounds. I don't know how else to describe him, he's just B-I-G. Huge. He has to duck to enter my apartment and then watch out for the ceiling fan. Jana is like 5'4''. It's cute. We played a diverting variation on Scrabble, dubbed "Speed Scrabble".


(Not my picture, I got it off of Flickr, but replace the bottle of root beer with a bottle of wine and you get the idea.)

In one of the rounds, our other friend (the one who wants to read my blog), we'll call him Thad, spelled just two words, "sexy" and "knobs". We had a little giggle over that one. He insisted that it was the luck of the draw. Ha ha! Sexy knobs! Sexy knobs!

4. This weekend we also helped a friend move. She is one person with 3 cats. She lived in a two bedroom apartment and both bedrooms and living room were FULL OF STUFF. To clarify: She had a lot of stuff. A...lot. Anyway, we (six peeps) started at 1 pm and worked until about 7 pm. I'm glad that we could help, but man, did I mention that she had a lot of stuff?

5. Well, let's see, what else...it rained here on the 4th of July. I went to see Superman Returns the other night. Liked it. Right now I'm listening to Pride and Prejudice from Librivox. (I've read it a bunch of times and seen various film versions...I really like it, obvies.)

Two Darcys from the movies:



vs.



Which one was cuter? I don't know.

Hope you liked the recap. Adios people.

OMG!

One of my friends found out that I have a blog and now he wants me to send him the link so that he can read it. I'm freaking out. I mean, I don't care if people that I don't know read my blog (not that anybody does), but someone that I know? Whoa.

Maybe if I just let it lie, he will forget and quit asking about it...

Pictures from my family reunion!!!!

My aunt Lisa and my Grandma. Grandma hates to get her picture taken...now the whole world can see her on the internet. Ahh, the sweet irony.

My Spaniard with the first fish he ever caught. It's small but meaningful. He fished the whole weekend. He's a real part of my fishing-freak family now.

The "dock" where I "fell" in the "water" and hit my "chin." Also where we fished from for hours at a time. I'm out there with my foot up on one of those pole thingys that holds up the roof...(I can't remember what they're called).

Cornhole.

In this picture is my dad, in the striped shirt back there, my step-mom, in the red shorts, Jose, in action back by my dad, moi, in the black "shorts," and featuring the legendary cornhole competition bag flying through the air (look to the left of step-mom's head).

We had to have a tournament, being that my family has lots of coaches and people with a general obsession with competition. Jose and I got 4th place.

My cousin, Dustin, on the paddle boat with my other 4 very cute little cousins. Dustin had jelly legs after they got back to shore.

The whole fam! Not everybody was there, but we were 23 in total. That's a lot of people...

THE Bruise

We went to my famliy reunion this weekend. I fell in the lake at my uncle's dock and hit my chin on the boat. Can you see the ugly bruise? It's right next to the scar that I got in a freak rollerblading accident.

Other than that little incident, we had a lot of fun. I'll post some more pictures later.

Today

Today is our anniversary! 4 years...it seems like an eternity...

Just kidding, Antonio!

Jelly shoes, et al

Do you remember these ugly shoes from back in the day? I, of course, got my pair at Payless Shoe Source. They made my feet sweat and gave me blisters. Plus the little plastic strands would break and my toes would poke out everywhere.

The funny thing is that when we were at Fiesta Texas I saw a woman wearing a pair of sparkley blue ones. Weird. I don't think that they're coming back into style because the lady was in her 40s. Not that being 40 isn't stylish, it's just that the lady in question didn't exactly look like a trend setter, if you know what I mean. Among other interesting apparel choices, I saw a 13 year old wearing a plastic diamond tiarra all day. Every time she got on a ride she would take it off as if it were a hat. That's certainly not going to be a new style. From this and other evidence I would say that Fiesta Texas goers aren't going to be the ones setting any new trendy fashion sensations.

Summing up: jelly shoes. Uncomfortable. Impractical. Sweaty-foot inducing. Not a good comeback style.

However, I do see the checkered slip-on Vans back in style. I've always been partial to these shoes. They remind me of all those rebel 6th grade skater kids that hung out with my brother when we were growing up in CRAZY! Lubbock. Plus they look very comfy and slip-ons are my fave.

One last 80's side note: Yesterday I asked a little girl if she knew what a Smurf was and she said, "no".

I'm getting old.

A sad day for España

He's sad.

ESP 1 : 3 FRA

Me too.

Who do I root for now??

Fútbol and USA

I wish that we Americans would like soccer a little more. Especially right now that the World Cup is going on. The only game that they showed on non-cable TV was US v. Italy. Nobody even cares that we totally and completely sucked. We technically lost to every team in our group. We only tied with Italy because they scored FOR us. It was horrible.

Oh well, at least I have a real fútbol lovin' country to root for.

VIVA ESPAÑA!

holeyness of pant

I bought a pair of cute linen capris yesterday at Old Navy. When I put them on all excitedly this morning, not only did I find a Blackjack gum wrapper in the pocket, I found a big ol' hole in the inner thigh region. Evidence of a prior wearing and returning. I'm a victim of the very same generous exchange policy that I have always loved about American stores! I'm returning them immediately.

BTW, my husband (the Spaniard) still can't believe the ease of which we in America can return and exchange merchandise. To return a pair of pants in Spain you have to talk to 42 different store employees of varying degrees of store rank, sign 12 notarized contracts of agreement and eat some worms to prove your sincere desire to return aforementioned pants.

AND you have to have the receipt.

In conclusion, be warned: check pockets for foreign objects and for general unholeyness of garments before buying at Old Navy.

What happens in Fiesta Texas stays in Fiesta Texas...

...except when it doesn't.

We had a great time at FT. They have a couple of awesome roller coasters. The Superman one and the "Polergeist." They were my favorites.

We were going up the stairs to ride the Poltergeist again and the people coming out were saying that it was broken. Jose and I were suspicious so we went to investigate. Turned out that it wasn't broken. Someone had thrown up while riding. The operators were cleaning it up. I hadn't thought about that happening before. At that moment, my eyes were opened and I saw the light. What happens if the person in front of you pukes? I mean, let's face it, who doesn't scream with their mouth wide open when riding a roller coaster? This brings to mind a certain movie in which there is a puke chain reaction. I think it was:

...from then on, we sat as close to the front of the train as possible. We didn't want to take our chances.

The Poltergeist

Foreign customs

I found this blog that I can totally relate to. It's called Tokyo Girl and it's very clever and amusing. Being a person that has lived in another country for a long time, I know that it's interesting and funny to see how other cultures compare to your own.

For example, in Spain, when you go to a bar or coffee shop (which are almost always the same thing) you throw your trash (mainly napkins, olive pits, etc.) onto the floor. At first, we Americans have a real aversion to doing so, but believe me, you get used to it. It's very convenient and satisfying to make a mess that you know someone else is going to clean up.

Since I've moved back to the US, when I'm at a restaurant I sometimes get the urge to throw my napkins onto the floor. I have to restrain myself from doing so. Every once in a while, though, the desire is too strong and I do it anyway. I'm addicted.

I've got to get out more

I feel like my life is a little on the boring side right now. That's all about to change in the near future, though. This weekend I'm going to...Fiesta Texas! in San Antonio! It'll be non-stop excitement from then on out! Next weekend my family is having a reunion at Lake Brownwood, TX! It'll be nice to see my relatives! We'll probably fish all weekend! Some people might think that that is boring!

Lubbock or leave it

Natalie Maines didn't make up that nifty phrase. People from Lubbock have been saying that forever. Being from Lubbock myself, I am kind of embarrassed that she is too. What she recently said about patriotism (and the president, for that matter) was really stupid. It doesn't sound like she thinks about what she's going to say before she says it. It's certainly not a way to garner respect from the American public.

I listened to the song "Lubbock or Leave it" and now I think that she is even more misguided. She says that people in Lubbock are ignorant. I think it's the other way around.

I don't live there anymore, but Lubbock is a great city. The people are extremely friendly everywhere you go and there are nice parks all over town. Also, it's easy to get around in and it has an excellent university. There are a lot of churches there but I think that shows wisdom, not ignorance. People are spiritual and want to seek God. I think that's awesome.

My husband and I went back for my 10 year high school reunion and he LOVED it. He says that he wants to move there. The land out there has a very unique beauty to it. It is so flat that you can see until the earth curves. And the sky is HUGE. The sunsets and the thunderstorms are the most beautiful in the world. One thing about Lubbock, though, is that the air is really dry. It sucks the moisture right out of your skin. You have to use a lot of lotion and chapstick. And drink a lot of water.

Update on filth

I swept up the cigarette butts and went away for the weekend. I came back and, lo and behold, there are more cigarette butts... but no dime. Now I don't know what to do.

My upstairs neighbors

My cat, Olive, laying in the filth.

The people that live above me keep throwing their cigarette butts and other pieces of trash on my balcony. They also dropped a dime. I guess they're paying me to clean up their mess.

Assorted stories

We've been to my dad's house for the last two weekends. Jose painted my sister-in-law's bathroom (it turned out really great). My sister-in-law,Jade*, and her cousin, Keira*, have houses on the same street as my dad.

Last weekend Keira's husband, Cooter*, was cleaning out their garage, which is full of toys, tools, etc. He had hauled everything out onto the driveway so that he could clean. Soon after, people started coming by, getting out of their cars and eyeballing all of Cooter's stuff. Apparently, there was a yard sale a few streets down and these people were just a little lost. Eventually, so many people were stopping that he had to put a sign at the end of the street, right in the middle, that read "Not a yard sale! Move on." with some arrows pointing down the block. It was hilarious.

Jose and I were walking from my dad's to my sister-in-law's house and he remarked at how nice my dad's yard is. Then he looked at the neighbor's yard and said in his cute Antonio Banderas accent, "Who lives here? Theirs is really ugly, they don't do anything to it!" At that moment the neighbor's front door came into view and we saw the neighbor standing there. Oops! He should have said it in Spanish. He forgets that people can understand him.

Next weekend is Father's Day and so we're going back to spend the weekend at my dad's again. We told him that next weekend we can do anything he wants. It took him a minute to realize what that meant and when he did his face lit up with joy and he said, "well, if we want to go fishing we have to get up and go at 4:30." (he means a.m.) So that's what I'll be doing next Saturday. Getting up and going fishing at 4:30! I love my dad.

*Names have been altered to protect privacy

Ann Coulter

People either love her or hate her. I think she's awesome. She is very outspoken and I love how the liberals hate her so much and she doesn't even care. I may get her book.


See how they hate her?

Bliss

The little subtitle "There is a greater bliss than ignorance," I saw at the Austin House of Prayer. This is an amazing place that is dedicated to 24/7/365 day prayer in Austin, TX.

I went to pray for 2 hours and it was awesome. The statement is written on a piece of paper hanging in the prayer room. The greatest bliss is found in Jesus Christ. Yes.

A picture

This is my brother and me. He died on December 20, 2005.

Can I just say...

...that the website gofugyourself.com is so hilarious? I mean really. It makes me laugh out loud at work and when I try to stifle the laughing, my co-workers think that I'm crying. The recent post with Keira Knightly is too funny.