Halloween photos!

Halloween photos are up on Doc's Flickr account! Yay!

The weekend

I think that Doc's classic cluster cycle has returned. Twice daily bad cluster attacks.

I'm convinced that Depakote he's taking isn't doing jack shit. It may even be making it worse. It's definitely making the headaches different, and with these things, sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

Friday (his birthday) was simply awful in terms of pain. Saturday was better; he had a short attack in the afternoon but only hovered around a 1 or 1.5 for the rest of the day. This was good because Kathryn threw him a surprise party Saturday night at her house (I know, how sweet!!), so I'm glad he was able to go and participate and not be in too much pain. I had a great deal of fun. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. The dinner was awesome too, courtesy of Brett's fantastic culinary skills: homemade burgers, homemade fries and onion rings, roasted pepper salad, and ice cream with blueberry-pomegranete sauce. Humor occasionally regressed to the 5th grade level, which I think is totally necessary for adults sometimes!!

Yesterday he woke up with annoying level 1 or 1.5 pain, and tried sleeping it off, despite this never having worked before. He proved, once and for all, that sleeping does not fix the pain, and it usually in fact makes it worse. He finally got up around 3 p.m. Later in the evening we went to Trinity Hall to play trivia again like last Sunday. I really like having a regularly scheduled activity with friends. I think that next week Doc and I and Kathryn and hopefully Brittney and Chris, and perhaps some other people (?) will form our own team. We did kind of kick ass in the "computers" category, getting 10 out of 10 answers correct.

Weekend Update

I got all my holiday shopping done today. I realized mid-morning that today was pretty much my only opportunity to do it, due to various commitments over the next 2 weeks. Not to mention, the closer to the 25th it is, the more doses of crazy get added to retail excursions, and I don't much like shopping as it is.

I was out for 6-1/2 hours (insane!) but surprisingly I still had energy when I got home. Perhaps this was due to the fact that I only spent a tiny portion of those 6-1/2 hours at a mall. Malls are their own special version of hell, especially around the holidays.

Anyway, I had energy enough to bake and decorate sugar cookies for my office holiday party. From scratch, baby. They're thin and chewy and have peppermint icing. Holy crap, they're good; as K1 said, "hide-them-from-your-significant-other-good."

I had planned also to make pasta with meat sauce, garlic baguette slices, and a spinach salad for dinner, but that is going to wait until tomorrow instead.

Yesterday we went with Kim, Brittney, and Chris to Six Flags. Like I've said before, winter is the only time of the year to go to amusement parks. I was shocked at how many people were there; I've never seen a crowd that big during the winter. The lines for some of the rides were really crazy long. I freakin' love the Titan. The Spongebob 4-D ride was great too (not that I'm a Spongebob fan, but the seats moved and jolted you around in sync with the film and we got SQUIRTED at one point, it was nutty). We had a great time talking and laughing and drinking hot cocoa. I cannot believe that i paid $11 for a slice of pizza and a medium coke. Park food prices are absolutely insane; so is parking ($15).

Friday night (hey, guess I'm working backwards chronologically with this post) we went to my office's Level 2 holiday party (the one I am making the cookies for is the Level 3 party -- my department; next week is the Level 1 party, hosted by the president of the university) at the division vice president's house. There were waaaaay too many people there for the size of his house. We made an appearance, ate some appetizers and wine, and then left to go to Times Ten Cellars for a drink and some relaxation (me and Doc, Brittney, Yvonne and Nate, Ben and Chelsea, and Chelsea and Helena). Yvonne had her first glass of wine since she's been pregnant! (It's fine to occasionally partake after the 1st trimester). It took her well over an hour to finish that one glass; she says that it's strange how her body is changing so drastically in response to Le Cheetoh.

Yesterday I picked up my unrepairable sewing machine from the shop (it only sews backwards now! and sadly, cannot be fixed because they don't make the 35-year-old parts anymore). I got it into the hatchback of the Prius with no problem, but as I scooted it back against the rear seat, a muscle in my mid-back went **TWINGE**. That crazy painful sharp pain that makes it hard to breathe. I tried to stretch it out a little before I got back in the car, and then when I got home I laid down on the heating pad for several hours. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it to Six Flags later that day or not, but it looks like this time is not nearly as bad as it has been before. I did OK at Six Flags (thanks to my good friend Darvocet) and today I hardly feel it at all. I've decided to start doing yoga on my own again. I think that the reason my back has been spasming a lot lately is because I've let myself go, strengthwise. Yoga will help strengthen my back and stomach muscles and, hopefully, this won't happen as much anymore.

Today was the day of the White Rock Marathon. I did not participate. I feel all kinds of latent Catholic guilt about that, because I said over and over again that I would do it; in fact, I INSISTED that I was going to find a way to complete it despite my stress fracture. I realized, though, as the weeks went by this fall, that it would be a really really dumb thing to try to do. I would probably end up making my injury worse by keeping my training at that level. And even if I didn't push myself with the training, if I'd tried to run/walk 13 miles today I know I would have re-injured that leg.

There is always next year. Yvonne says that after she has the baby in May, she'll want to train for it as well, to get back into shape. I think that it's a good goal to have and I'm totally supportive of whatever she decides to do, but I also think that she might be so tired from being a mom that she just plain might not have the energy. I plan to train either way, once my leg has a chance to get stronger. I'd like to start training in earnest in March. I hope that's enough time. We'll see.

no wire hangers ever!

There's only so much you can do with makeup when you just don't look a damn thing like the woman in the first place, but I gave it a shot.



Things I learned at this year's Halloween party:

• False eyelashes are itchy (and come off if you laugh so hard you cry) but not having to wear mascara kind of rocks
• Skin-colored latex works great for making little patches to cover your real eyebrows
• A costume consisting of polyester clothing covered in baby powder that's set with hairspray and a plastic wig is really quite flammable
• Doc is a fantastic sculptor
• Sure, Leslie likes mayonnaise, but not THAT much
• Ben brought some of the best salsa I've ever tasted
• I love olive dip
• You people didn't eat nearly enough candy
• All the costumes this year: fantastic!! Not a lame one in the bunch. Even the "Best Costume Clearly Thrown Together At 6:30 This Evening" was quite good!
• White Elephant costume contest prize selection was a fun method
• I probably flew my Geek Flag a little too proudly when I recited the whole "Holy Hand Grenade" speech to Arthur, King of the Britons (Mark)
  

aimee mann and my 34th birthday

I had a pretty good 34th birthday. Doc surprised me with a homemade miniature cake (red velvet and white layers, with cream cheese icing and crushed up cookies in the center) and a big Hello Kitty balloon. The balloon has actually been the source of a very entertaining revelation: Loki is scared to death of balloons, or Hello Kitty, or both. He hid under the bed for two days straight, and hasn't been downstairs at all until just last night. The experiment that proved my theory left me with numerous cuts on my right hand.

Saturday night we had a little cookout party, which was a lot of fun. I wish it hadn't been so hot outside, because I was hoping that we could spend the evening on the patio.

Sunday was a very different weather situation. I got up early to run around the park, and it was cloudy and low 80s, which was OK for running (humid, but OK). On my second lap, a reddish-brown medium sized dog fell into step beside me and ran with me for the next two miles. He had no collar, and no owner in sight, and he just silently trotted along by my side, only occasionally stopping to sniff at something or to meander out into traffic. I'm sure that people driving by thought I was his careless owner. He didn't seem to listen when I tried to call him back on to the sidewalk. He stopped and waited for me while I stretched afterwards, then dutifully followed me home. I wouldn't let him in the gate, and he looked sad, but then moseyed off.

Later on, I met Yvonne at the Farmer's Market where we stocked up on fresh vegetables. It's nice to go with a friend and split the goods, because if you have small families like we do, you often can't eat the quantities that things come in.

It stormed all afternoon. We watched television for a while, then napped for a few hours while it rained buckets outside. The temp dropped into the 70s.

Then that evening, we went to see Aimee Mann do an acoustic show at the Lakewood Theatre. It was a fabulous concert! She played a good mixture of older songs and new ones. She also has really good stage presence and is very entertaining when talking to the audience between songs. Before "Save Me" she said, "Most people know this song from the movie 'Magnolia.' But I like to think of it as the one that lost an Oscar to Phil Collins' cartoon monkey love song."



At the end of the show, she said "This is the part of the show where we leave, and you clap, and we come back. Or we can just stay and play some more songs." And then she took audience requests! And played several songs that they had not rehearsed in a long time and weren't even sure they could do -- I don't think it was just an act because they did mess up at the beginnings a few times. On Driving Sideways, they told the pianist the first chord, and a few seconds later he asked "Ok, now what's the second?" I did not shout out any requests, because she did three of my very favorite songs: Wise Up, Red Vines, and Driving Sideways. The only songs that I wish she would have also done were How Am I Different and Satellite. Other songs she performed included You're With Stupid Now, Invisible Ink, Goodbye Caroline, You Do, Invisible Ink, Little Bombs, and One. There were several others as well which I don't remember now.

Two big bonuses: I did not smell like smoke afterwards, and I was not deaf. LOVE the Lakewood Theatre!

i played recorder in doc's crazy circus orchestra!

on saturday, doc and i participated in this crazy wacky performance art piece done by a photographer friend of lori's, max sturdivant. it was a big circus themed thing, with a blue tarp big top, fireworks, wonder woman and batgirl, a fire eater, a sword swallower, and lori dressed in black with gold leaf on her face. there was lots of pyrotechnics and lots of colored smoke bombs going off everywhere. max filmed the whole thing, and doc composed and performed the music live as we were taping -- a really beautiful ambient soundtrack with lots of swooshy sounds and clanking things. it was really neat.

what we didn't know beforehand was that doc would also be conducting a band -- six nonmusicians, ME included (OMG), playing things like a big kettle drum, a tambourine, a gong, a little shaker egg, a wooden fish that you hit with a stick to make a hollow sound, and a plastic kids' recorder. somehow i ended up with the recorder, the only instrument (besides doc) that actually had to play NOTES! everyone else got the easy rhythm jobs!! i fucking SUCK at the recorder, although a couple of quick lessons from doc helped a little. i didn't make it squeak horribly ALL the time after that.

max absolutely loved the soundtrack, which was fantastic. doc is going to be working with him on getting the sound finalized for the film (post-production, i guess you call it). i really want to see the end result.

here is doc teaching some of the band how to play their instruments.


batgirl and wonder woman's main job was to hold a pinata full of sparklers.


i guess batgirl got her own poster.

mom's 60th birthday party

apparently i am the master of surprises.

i have pulled off my second successful surprise party in the past year and a half. i did not know i had this talent in me. the first one was doc's birthday party in las vegas in 2004.

and last saturday we threw my mom a surprise 60th birthday party. to say she was surprised is an understatement. we had been planning this since last october. 30-plus people knew about it, and somehow nobody spilled the beans! i have no idea how that happened, but i'm glad it did!

in order to get her to come up to dallas that weekend, doc had a clever idea that i tell her that i had to do a cooking demo on sunday morning, and since arushi isn't here, i wanted her to come up and help me with it. the sticky part was, i needed her to come up on saturday, not on friday night like she normally would do if she was coming for the weekend. so we told her that doc had a sleep study thing on friday night, and that we had doctor appointments all day saturday, and wouldn't be home until about 6 p.m., so could she please come up saturday afternoon instead.

she thought that was a great idea, and said that dad might come too, so he could see his parents, but she wasn't sure if he'd come with her or not. little did she know, he was totally in on the plan too.

i decided to make it a dinner party, and cooked for 25. note to self: not so much pasta next time. 3 pounds is plenty for 25 people. i furiously shopped on thursday night (sam's club, which kathryn was gracious enough to take me to) and friday afternoon and evening (party city for decorations, central market and albertson's for the rest of the food). i had a party rental place deliver wooden folding chairs and tablecloths, because there was no way i was going to be able to collect and borrow enough chairs for everyone. i still had diane's folding tables that we borrowed for the garage sale last may, and those came in handy as dinner tables.

bob drove in on friday night, and mike and vanessa flew in that same evening. we all met up friday night, after i had worked several hours making filling, icing, and layer cakes for the Raspberry Almond Cream Chiffon Cake (ooh la la). after they all arrived, we drove out to mercado juarez, mike's favorite restaurant in dallas and one that we used to go to for special occasions while we were growing up. it is as good as i remember. after dinner we came back to our house, and i started work on the chocolate cinnamon sheet cake, which i decided halfway through to convert to a round cake.

i got up early on saturday and continued my cooking and also cleaning the house. doc had to work all day on a difficult project, but helped where he could, and mike, bob, and vanessa pitched in as well. the cakes turned out great, although i did have to make more custard for the chiffon cake because i used too much inbetween the layers. i improvised and created a chocolate whipped cream icing to go around the outside of the converted chocolate cinnnamon cake. vanessa made the salad; the meat sauce came together beautifully, and my focaccia bread turned out perfect.

everyone arrived on time (mostly), and dad got mom here precisely at 6:35. all the guests had parked down the street and so mom did not suspect a thing until i answered the door. she came in and couldn't figure out why doc was taking photographs of her, and then she saw someone on the couch with another camera (julie), and then everyone who was gathered near the kitchen came out and yelled "surprise!"

she was surprised.

we had hidden mike, vanessa, and bob upstairs. after mom had started getting over the initial shock and had greeted all her friends, bob came downstairs and surprised her again. and a few minutes later, mike and vanessa came down. judging from her reaction to seeing bob, i was afraid she was going to have a heart attack when she saw mike and vanessa!

anyway, the party went great, lots of wine was consumed, and people seemed to enjoy dinner and dessert a great deal. brett and kathryn were immensely helpful with getting the pasta and alfredo sauce finished so that i could do other things. thanks, guys!

mom's friend sarah created a huge poster-sized image of a woman on a bathing suit on a beach, and i had supplied her with mom's glamour shots picture so that sarah could put mom's head on this body. then she covered the whole poster with index cards containing trivia about mom, and she slowly revealed the picture as questions were asked and answered.

i'm really glad we did this. i had so much fun; i'm pretty sure i had a huge stupid grin plastered on my face the entire evening. it was really great to see both my brothers and vanessa again too.

sunday morning after the party, we woke up to rain. (i mean, real rain, where you can see and feel the drops. i can count on one hand the number of times it's rained since last summer. we're in a severe drought.) mom and dad took us to brunch at blue mesa grill. what a feast! it was only $16 and included free juices, champagne, and mimosas. i'll gladly go there again. it was so nice to be out in the rain, too.

yeah yeah, i'm behind, i know

i know i'm behind on posting... i'm sorry to all my "regular readers" (yeah, all two of you!)

i am working on a post about my mom's surprise 60th birthday party. it's taking a while and i'm not going to finish it tonight because i'm really tired.

stay tuned...