Livin' and dyin' in three quarter time

June 2009 pictures

Thought I forgot, didn't ya? ;) Click here to see!

Baby slings are terribly versitile

You can wear a baby:

You can wear a toddler:

 

You can wear an alligator:

And you can wear a dog:

Can't really ask much more from baby gear, can you?

Ah, the memories

Behold, via Google Maps, my first apartment:

That's it on the left in the blue heart -- my little studio. In case you cannot tell, it is now condemned.

I must confess at this point: I. Loved. This. Apartment. It was my very first apartment of my very own and I loved it. I really did. And the rent was $200 a month! Perfect for the college junior's budget. It's been boarded up, but it used to have a giant plate glass window across the front; my little door was on the left. The giant window led people to believe it was some sort of shop, which led people to randomly walk into my apartment and ask how much for the plant, or for the bird (my parakeet, Larry Bird). The deadbolt on the door was my BFF. There was no threshold on the door, so there was a good 2-3 inch gap between the door and the floor. The tree you can see to the left was infested with tentworms every year. You can figure out what happened every year. I used to sit on the concrete stairs on the left after class with a glass of wine and giggle at watch the commuters stuck on Henley Street. One time one of the commuters was my friend Mike Taylor who was also my boss at Campfire at the time. Hee hee!

The door to the right of mine was my neighbor John who let me use his industrial hand cleaner every time I had to piece together something on my car. He had a crazy girlfriend. A couple times we grabbed supper together and he would declare, enunciating very carefully, at the beginning of supper: "THIS. IS. NOT. A DATE. In case she asks." Okay, dude.

Now look at this:

The little blue heart on the left is my front door. The star on the right (well, down the hill from the star) is where we had to park. Notice the six lanes and lack of traffic light? Getting from the apartment to the car and back was like playing Frogger. Imagine it with bags of groceries! Of course by groceries I mean ramen noodles, so at least they weren't heavy.

The bridge you see starting there is the Henley Street Bridge, which they closed down every year for Boomsday. Always made traffic interesting, but I had the best seat in town.

Here's a view of the front of the house:

My door is over on the left side of the house there, under the fire escape.

For my senior year at UT I upgraded (dumb -- I totally regretted it). Look closely in the picture above. See over to the right, through the porch columns? That little square, squatty looking building?

Behold, my upgrade!

Nice, huh? It's a duplex, and I lived on the right side -- for $230/month. At some point, in an effort to be helpful to the pizza guy, I wrote the apartment numbers on the brick in dry erase marker; it lasted there for years. This apartment was an upgrade because it had actual ROOMS. A bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. Yes, you did have to turn sideways to walk through the bedroom to get to the bathroom once the bed was in. Thanks for asking. ;) It also had mosquitoes the size of pterodactyls, and a nice bonus: that lovely mansion on the right? It's a nightclub. Oh my heavens the bass. I learned to sleep in earplugs. This was also the site of an attempted break-in while I was home (scary), so it doesn't quite give me the warm fuzzy memories of the first place.

So there. How's that for a little walk down memory lane? :)

I've never been so proud

I had a cleaning appointment at the dentist appointment today. At the dentist's suggestion, I brought Hank along (a doctor that encourages you to bring your kid -- how cool is that?) so Hank could watch. You know, in preparation for going himself someday. He was SO good through the whole thing. Sat quietly on a chair and didn't make a peep.

Oh, did I mention there are TVs in each exam room? ;)

So here's the proud moment: the hygienist asked Hank what he'd like to watch while we were in there. My little restricted-TV, outside-all-the-time, we-read-books-instead-of-watching-TV kid says, "You hab OnDemand?"

If you need me I'll be at the Mother of the Year convention picking up my award (again).

Patio update!

After a weekend of hard labor for Mike (Hank and I were his personal cheerleaders) we now have this:

Yay! Fresh dirt surrounding the taller sides of the patio (very important for stabilizing the patio -- so sayeth Concrete Guy), our furniture (and Hank's pool) moved down, and tiki torches! We LOVE it.  Come on over!