Recent happenings and observations.

The rain came on again Sunday night like a pre-ark warning. I was more than happy to drive over the formerly bone-dry Pedernales River this weekend and see that--for the first time in years--it was bank-to-bank, and looking lovely. You know, like an actual river! The rain has been great for the flowers. The oleanders, for instance. They ususally struggle in the Central Texas soil and dryness but have been looking amazing, just like the oleander down near the coast (which makes sense, since they are intended for coastal climates). And oh my...the wildflowers. I have lived in Austin off and on for 20 years, and I can't recall a wildflower season this robust. Wave after wave of different flowers come to replace the ones that came before. A couple of months ago, this same field was solid blue and white with bluebonnets. Now, this: Breathtaking. And with a white, picket fence no less...
As I predicted, there were PLENTY of "hotties" (a.k.a. bikers, see previous post) for The Geej and I to ogle this weekend. In the 50 mile trip from my mom's house to mine on Sunday, we counted 80. And each time she saw one (or, more frequently, groups of more than one), Geej would squeal, "Mommy!! Yook!! More hotties!! Yots of dem!!" Yes my dear...I see them.

Jaye and I rang in the start of summer (if not on the calendar, at least mentally) with a hot dog grillin', beer drankin', potato chip munchin', Fudgcicle slurpin', Meatballs watchin' movie event on Friday evening.

But, truth be told, we only drank like 4 beers (and a Zima...oh YES I did!) and called it a night by 9:30. We sort of suck.

Saturday, I walked in to Target with the following on my list:

• Mop
• Tylenol
• Wet-Ones
• Gift Card/Graduation Card

I walked out $160 later. WTF, people?! (The gift card only accounted for $50 of that total, btw.) That place makes me lose ALL self-control!! And it's worse when you haven't been there in a while. I hadn't been in about 6 weeks, so of course all of the merchandise had turned over, so apparently there was all of this stuff I just HAD to have.

Speaking of shit I really don't need: Will someone please tell me how I ended up on the following mailing list?
I mean, yes, like most Americans, I get about 30 credit card solicitations in the mail a week, but this has got to be one of the strangest ones yet.


And on the back printed in big, black all caps: THIS IS NOT A VALID CREDIT CARD! Really? Hmmm... As if the lack of magnetic strip, the 1-800 number printed on the front, and/or that it is made of cardstock wouldn't have clued the typcial brain-dead Stop-n-Go cashier in to that fact.

One last little nugget of info for you:

My recycle bin was stolen last week. (I know! Right?) Anyway, the place to get a new one is at your nearest fire station. I'm embarassed to say that, after 1 1/2 years in my house, I didn't know where the "nearest" fire station was, so I opted instead to go to the one that was nearest to my work. I went Friday morning, and sort of half-knocked on the side door, not really knowing what one does when one wants to gain entrance to a fire station. I started to walk away, when this nice man opened the door and asked, "Can I help you ma'am?" Ask 98% of the hetero females you know, and they'll tell you, "There's just something about firemen..." I mean, I used to drool over my yard guy who was also a (married, with a young daughter) fireman. Man, was he hot (no pun intended). So imagine my disappointment when the 3 firemen I encountered during my first ever steps inside a fire station were...um...not so hot. Nice as hell, but...yeah.
Well, turns out, they were completely wiped out of recycle bins (way to go, Austin!!), but showed me the fire station nearest my house on their map.


Saturday morning, after my financially devastating trip to Target, I went to this fire house and--holy GOD--the stereotypical super-hot fireman opened the door. I'm not shitting ya'll--he was like 6' 5", dark hair, big guns, blue eyes, great smile and...wait for it...DIMPLES!! When he asked, "Hi. What can I do for you?" my knees got weak. I think I sputtered something about recycling bins or something, and next thing I know, he's carrying them out to the car for me. I got to walk behind him and let me just say, that view was as good as the one from the front. My, my. (NOTE TO MR. WONDERFUL: Please get down here as soon as possible. Thank you.) Bookhart, you live right around the corner from this place. Might I suggest paying them a visit on Saturday morning...say about 11:00. C'mon...you KNOW you need an extra bin.

Okay, that's all for now. More about my exciting life later.

Fierce.

Tyra Banks makes me wanna punch a bitch. In the throat. But I will hand it to her in 2 respects:
Girlfriend is curvy, which makes the rest of us with T and A feel okay about life.

and

She popularized the term "fierce' when describing a certain type of beautiful. A beautiful that is totally your own. Commanded by you.

Yesterday I went and spent $100+ that I do NOT have on my hair. I know it's superficial as hell, but fuck it: I was in the godforsaken hostpital for nearly a month, and my hair hasn't been tended to since mid-August. So I deserve it.

And I did something radical.

I cut it all off. And dyed it dark cranberry.

Witness: Fierce, Karla May style (i.e., I have on no make-up and I'm wearing my pajamas).

I know I will never EVER be able to replicate this look (Hell, I haven't put a blow dryer to my own hair in about 4 years), but still...

This was TOTALLY worth $100+ bucks.

Hair Crisis Narrowly Averted.

I've been going to the same hairstylist for about 5 years now. He's one of the only straight male hairstylists on the planet and he does a pretty good job for reasonable prices. He's located conveniently near my workplace, and has always been easy to schedule with because he has an online scheduling system where you go in, pick your service, choose your date/time, and voila--it's done. You even get an e-mail reminder about your appointment the day prior. Sounds good, right? Well, not so much. In the 5 years I've been going to him, he's called me last minute to cancel/reschedule at least 8 times. Every other time, I've been flexible and rescheduled. He usually would knock $10 to $15 off the service to make up for the inconvenience. But today was the last fucking straw.

I had an appointment for 3:30 for a cut and color. It was important that I get this taken care of today because my hair was looking SUPER ratty, and I have company coming in tomorrow and a big ass party I'm throwing on Saturday. Asshole calls me at 1:30 to say he needs to cancel because his attorney had just called him and he needed to appear in court this afternoon--a command performance to deal with his (2nd!) DUI. Asks me if I can reschedule for tomorrow afternoon, same time. Um NO fuckface, I can't. That's why I scheduled for toDAY. GRRRRRR. He's all apologetic and shit, says he'll do the color for free blah blah blah. Hey, dickweed, guess what. You're not getting to do my color for free or ever again for that matter. You suck, and I'm done.

I immediately started scrambling, asking every chick I know at my office for names/salons I should call. On my third try, I got lucky. They worked me in at Anne Kelso, and I am now the proud owner of a bitchin' assymetrical, garnet-colored bob. It's ruling.

So, screw you Elliott Franklin. We're officially broken up.