miscellany

hi yall

i am not sure why, but i haven't been the best blogger.
i can't say it's because i have been busy partying it up. i haven't.
jes came into town last weekend so i was pretty focused on that.
we had a good time. got some valentine's dinner at the standard (klassy), went to a benefit for this local bike coop and listened to some good music, and i think each of us was belly sick one night. oh yeah and we went over to emma and kristina's for a drink one night and to sarah and kim's for the hell word the other night. and we went shopping. i got some jeans and underwear. see, this is why i didn't blog. not much to say.

i do have some pictures though, so let me post those.
they come in three categories:
prom, alaska, and baby nephew.
seems unrelated, doesn't it? well the connection is ME!

first up:

got a few more pics from the prom. its hard to choose which is the most hilarious. would love to hear your thoughts on it.
we have an artsy black and white (my fav), an americana artsy pic from john (with antlers in the back), and one where the photog was like "don't look at me, look at each other, do something fun":







that is some good shit, no?
fyi, i am watching one of the finest movies ever made: The Goonies.
it's on TBS. you're jealous.

so second on the agenda is ali and alaska.
my friend ali went to alaska for her job and spent a few extra days there exploring the area.
she said it was lovely, and so i want to share a few photos with you.
one is of the landscape, one of ali and the landscape, and one is of the ice hotel she checked out but did not check into:







and last but certainly not least, more of my nephew. one is him, a moses basket and a cat namel samuel who wants the WHOLE moses basket. the other is of him with some bear slippers on. pretty cute, no?





so that's it yall
it dreary today, but at least its not raining
happy saturday!

presenting...

zachary james

here he is fresh out of the over:



and here his angry at the paparazzi:



and here he is as a sweet sleeping muffin:

this just in

and by "just in" i mean "i found out last night in the bed as i was falling asleep"

my sister kath and her husband greg had their second baby boy last night!
his name is zachary james (i think) and he is about seven pounds and pretty long
kath pushed him out in like five hours with NO DRUGS-- what a champ!

pictures and precise measurements to follow.

yeah for new baby boys!

what a weekend

happy sunday morning yall

its sunny and warm here in atlanta and me and all the kitties are on the couch soaking in the sun.

i had an outstanding weekend, and i am still tired from it. just to update you on the kitty pooping in the hallway, my i-will-clean-the-litterbox-everyday-plan worked for ONE DAY. on friday nobody pooped in the hallway. VICTORY. but then on saturday i got a morning AND afternoon poop pile. so i have given up. i moved both litter boxes back into the second bedroom and i am just going to keep picking it up and i will buy some stronger odor zapper and hope for the best. this is my life. the life of a pooper picker upper.

so i had a pretty packed weekend. on friday night after work i went over to dawn and gators FINALLY (every single one of them had a fever over the last week. i tried to go over there THREE TIMES to give bailey his three year old present and someone was always sick. i finally just took a chance and went on friday). it was a great time. i was greeted at the door by dawn and a very naked and ready for bath time baby cade. his belly is to die for. both boys bathed together (so cute) and sufficiently got twelve gallons of water up gator's nose. poor buddy. then after boys were in jammies we hung out and played in the living room.

first, cade (8 months) showed me how he can crawl. check him out in action:



then bailey opened his presents from me and jes for his third birthday. we got him a book called "my world my colors/mis mundo mis colores." it's in english and spanish and follows a little girl who loves the colors of the desert where she lives. pretty cute. very colorful. and then we got him three matchbox cars. the one pick up truck that i got him was called the troca, which is almost like my last name. total coincidence. anywho here is a picture of bailito with the libro:



his hair is so long he looks a little like he is in the beatles or something. after the boys went to sleep we ate dinner and sat and chatted. we were all pretty beat so i headed home around 10pm and watched a celebrity rehab on tivo and then hit the hay.

on saturday i was up around 8am and kim came by around 10 so that we could go looking for some components to our outfits for the east point PROM we were attending that night. she hooked us up with some sweet shirts. all we needed was cumberbunds and bowties. after looking around some at thrift stores and whatnot, we find some at stefan's vintage clothing in little five. we also got some $5 cufflinks. mine were white to match my tie and cumberbund and kim's were black to match hers. once we dropped off kim's taxes to her accountant lady we went and got some lunch at noodle in decatur. i had never been there but it is really delish. good to have another place to eat.

after kim dropped me off i graded some papers while sitting in the warm sun out in front of the house and gchatted with jes and glennda. i also took a glorious nap to prepare myself for a late night at the prom. i had to meet kim at 7pm at her house. but first i had to pick up our boutineers at the kroger florist. i got a few looks in the kroger for shizzle. here is a pic of me as i was heading out:




when i got to kim's she was completely ready. she had on her ruffled shirt, white with blue ruffles, black pants and a black bow tie and cumberbund. she also had on her gramma's (may she rest in peace) black VELVET blazer. i was jelly of her jacket, all i had was jes's black brooklyn hoodie in case i got cold. luckily, she also borrowed (along with the ruffled shirts) two HUGE while blazers. i was like "should i wear it" and then i put it on and kim almost peed in her pants laughing b/c it is a white jacket and i looked like i was in a polka band AND because the shoulder pads were so huge i looked like i should be in a talking heads video or something. ridonkulous.

so we left for the east point prom, which was at the american legion town hall. we park, walk up some stone steps and immediately walk into a wood paneled restaurant bar where the average age was about 62. everyone is smoking (no me gusta) and drinking and eating their six dollar steak dinner. it was like the music stopped and everyone looks at me and kim the queer polka brothers. we were like "is this where it is?" and then i looked beyond the room and saw pink balloons and streamers and realized we had to walk through the bar to get to the hall. there we found all of kim's east point friends.

here is a picture of her with cindy and bob (sarah and kim's savior who helped them hook up their new washer and dryer. we love him).



along with the strongest fucking jack and coke you will ever have, the east point american legion prom also offers tj, the singing dj. he took to the dance floor with a hometown favorite "strokin." luckily, he found kim's firefighter friend who is probably the shyest of the group and asked her when the last time she made love was. i think she wanted to crawl into her suit:



and thank god he threw a few pelvic thrusts into his dance:



kim and i spent most of our time dancing our asses off to music from every decade except this one. well he did play one justin timberlake song. kim also got hit on by a very drunk older woman who kept asking:

1. if kim and i were a couple
2. where we lived
3. what kim did for a living

she invited us to another bar after the prom and we respectfully declined. i tried to get a good picture of the two of us in our ruffle shirts, but here is a cute one of kim and my twelve chins:



and here is the cutest picture of kim and the wife of bob (who saved the day. i forget her name but i was calling her peggy sue b/c she looked like peggy sue got married. she was adorable:



and finally is a picture of me, kim and this wonderful older woman named patrice. when we first got there and we waited about 15 minutes (for real) to order our jack with a splash of coke drinks, we saw this adorable woman who had this thin wispy grey hair that was sort of in a faux hawk. she was also rocking a blue sweatshirt that said "DALLAS" in rhinestones i think. and some stretch pants. anywho, kim and i called her our girlfriend and i was going to ask her to dance but i chickened out. but kim went up and talked to her and we got her picture. she was there with her husband of 36 years. they were just getting drinks and dinner the american legion and made their way into the prom. she told kim that "straight people don't know how to party" and the next time we have a prom she will come dressed to impress. she was very concerned about her hair, she had just lost it after treatment from cancer (for the third time) and kim assured her she is beautiful and we love her hair. anywho, he she is:



how cute is she?

ok i need to get a move on. i have a million errands to run before i have a meeting at 4pm. i hope your day is great.

ok people

here is what i should be doing:

1. working on my lecture on south asian immigration to the u.s. for thursday
2. grading papers
3. reading "the namesake" for class on thursday
4. writing my gramma jo a letter
5. wrapping bailey's birthday present

here is what i am doing:

1. blogging
2. making italian wedding soup for my friend mel who i am going to hang out with tomorrow evening

last week, for the second half of the week my boss was out of town attending a conference in new york city. at the end of every day, i wrote him an email filling him in on the happenings of the day. i started to think that the format would be good for blogging. you know, spend some time on sunday mornings recounting to you, dear reader(s) (?) what i did that previous week. sadly, i have not implemented this new system, nor do i think i really have enough exciting stuff to write about after only one week. so let me try to piece together some stuff over the last few weeks:

1. my friends higgins and bobby got engaged. i have known higgins for almost a decade. can you believe that? bonkers. i met bobby shortly after they started dating while we were living in brooklyn. i love bobby. he's the (non dairy) cheese and higgins is the (wheat) macaroni. really. they are great together. not only does bobby have gastrointestinal problems like me (what could be better?), he loves buddha, and he is also secretly in love with our cat larry. because they are all outdoorsy and athletic they ran up the stairs in philly like rocky and then got engaged. here are a few pics of them:





2. last saturday i helped jes's folks completely demolish the bathroom connected to their bedroom down to the wood studs and wood floor. i got there right before 10am and I did not walk into my house until 8pm that night. It was intensely physically demanding work, and my hands and wrists and back and hips hurt so bad i could almost cry when we were done. not only was it hard work, it was completely rewarding work. it was amazing to see the bathroom when we were done and to think "i helped do that." i think i most definitely impressed her folks with my strength and perserverance, or at least made them laugh when i would curse at the tile or concrete as i slammed it with the sledgehammer. they began to call me "donna the destroyer." when we were done, jes's dad and i had the most delicious pbr in a bottle i have ever had, and her mom had a dirty martini. they also fed me lunch AND dinner. both were divine as usual.

3. on sunday i ran errands and did some work in the morning and afternoon and then went to a superbowl party with kim and sarah. it was at their friend lynn's house. lynn is adorable, a lawyer (ooh sexy) and she has one of the prettiest houses i have ever seen in grant park. i mean its like the kind of house you just walk into and feel at ease. there was all kinds of good food (as is often true at sarah & kim's friends parties) and kim and i downed a few crown royal & cokes b/c that is how we roll. i am pretty sure everyone in the room except me was from mississippi or louisiana, but i just said "yall" a lot and smiled. somewhere in the third quarter we headed back to sarah and kim's to watch that TERRIBLE lesbian show we watch every sunday night as some sort of community service or something. then we put the game back on JUST IN TIME to see the game winning touchdown they threw to lexipro (i know that is not his name but that is what i call him). both kim and sarah (more kim than sarah) were ELATED that eli (a NOLA boy) won. i liked how lexipro cried when they won. i like when big football dudes cry. reminds me they are human.

4. this morning i got up as ASS CRACK (i.e. 5am) to finish preparing for class and to get ready and head to the polls to vote. it only took 15 minutes (sweet!) and there were these cute gay boys behind me in line who JOGGED to the polling place. where do you think they kept their i.d.? ew. sweaty i.d. i even took a picture of my vote and my voter reg card with my phone just in case my vote gets "lost." i had a day filled with meetings and teaching, and then after work i headed to this pharmacy to pick up a chicken flavored suspension of larry's heart medicine which is 1/3 the price of the pills. he seemed to like it ok. i am a little timid squirting the 1ml of chicken flavored meds in his mouth but after i did, he licked the syringe, so i think that is good. i was supposed to go over to dawn's tonight to hang out and give her 3yearold son bailey his bday present, but now he has a fever. the last two times i was supposed to see them baby cade had a fever and then dawn had a fever. i am going to try again on friday i think.

5. i feel like sickness is all around me. my students are sick, my coworkers are sick, my coworkers kids are sick, my friends are sick, and my friends kids are sick. i am just trying to drink my juice, take and emergenc every so often and keep up with yoga. i am hoping that will keep me healthy.

yall i wish my blog was scratch and sniff b/c if you could smell how good this homemade wedding soup smells you would fall over. i hope mel and his roomies like it.

what else can i tell you? one or all of the cats is shitting in the hallway. i bought some odor and stain remover and sprayed it all over the hallway and that very same day someone shit right on top of that odor remover. i sprayed it again and no one has pooped yet (knock on wood). so we'll see. maybe its a delayed reaction. i don't think its b/c anyone is sick, and i KNOW its not b/c the litter boxes are dirty, so i am chalking it up to "we miss jes." what if i just pooped in the middle of my office every time i missed jes, or every time i had to have a meeting with someone i don't like. wouldn't that be hilarious (and terrifying if you know me).

i am thinking about doing a little shopping. maybe i will wait until jes gets home for her next visit. i think i just need a few more shirts for work and maybe one more pair of pants. now that i am wearing teacher clothes five days a week i am realizing i have some stuff i never wear. so i want to get rid of it and replace it with stuff i will wear. not a total overhaul. maybe just a few key pieces. i also think i need to get some black work shoes that are not boots or shell toe adidas and are comfie and easy to walk in. i also need to get more formal brown shoes. again, i plan to take my time with this, but i think i have mentally commited to spending some money on this stuff. yes, this is my process. please don't make fun.

ok that is it. i have nothing else to say really. hopefully i will have more to report soon. i am going to a prom with kim on saturday. we might wear tuxedos. that has to yield a few good pics, don't you think?

happy fat tuesday.