mexico post number dos

i know its almost been a month since we got home from mexico, so this second post is LONG OVERDUE.
its going to be heavy on the pictures (your favorite part i bet) and light on the stories (the part you tolerate).
so lets get going.

after a few days of going to beaches nearer to the house we were staying in, we headed to puerto vallarta. we drove around for a while looking for this gay beach we had heard about and when we finally got there, it wasn't all that. but the good part is we got to drive around through all these resort areas and really see some beautiful sights. once we settled on the beach, jes and shoshana went to play, mary and dusty went and sat on these blue chairs and i sat on the beach and took in the ambience and told the twelve million people trying to sell me stuff "no gracias." here is a picture of dusty & mary on that beach. so lovely:



after we got done at the beach, we headed to the airport and picked up sarah & cat. the next day we wanted them to see a real pretty beach, so we went back to the family beach. that was the day i jammed my finger playing catch with a football with mary. i didn't have the gumption to pull my finger out (i remember from softball that is what you are supposed to do to reduce swelling) but i did have the presence of mind to take my ring off so i wouldn't have to get it cut off. my ring still doesn't fit on my finger. i think it's permanent, jes thinks it just "takes time." so anyway, here is a picture of the gang at the family beach:



there was this restaurant down by the beach in sayulita that we kind of liked, so one day a bunch of us went down there and got some margaritas. we had no idea what we were in for. here are dusty and sarah sharing dusty's:



after margaritas, we walked down along the coast in sayulita to see some of the hotels down there and to see the cemetary beach (you had to walk through a cemetary to get there). we passed this gorgeous high end hotel called "villa amor." clearly lots of folks get married there because there was this ring that looked out over the ocean and you could take a pic in front of it. here are jes and i showing you how its done:



perhaps that will be our holiday card for next year. just kidding.

on new years eve we went and got a real nice dinner. i got some chicken soup i think. then we went home and played a little taboo and some apples to apples and drank homemade margaritas i think. then at midnight we went out by the pool and watched the fireworks while toasting in the new year with shots of pineapple juice. i think that was the coldest night we were there. i am sure it was only like 60 but it felt freezing:



on the days where we stuck closer to home to go to the beach, we would usually return back to the house around 2 or 3pm, have a snack and maybe a margarita and relax in the pool or take a nap. here are some pics of of cat and i chillin and chattin by (and in) the infinity pool):





toward the end of our trip, jes and i decided to go down to the beach and take a surfing lesson. the town we stayed in, sayulita, is known as a fishing village and a surfing village. we met up with our surf teacher kalle at 11am. it was just the two of us, so it was really nice. first he explained the process of surfing and all the do's and don'ts. i was a little bit nervous and jes was so excited. yall, it was so much fun. when it came down to it, jes was much better at surfing than me (no big surprise there) BUT i did get up on the board a few times. after an hour and a half of a lesson, we got to keep the boards for another hour. i was sort of over it by then, but jes went and practiced for another hour. it started to get busier during that time and there were all these dudes getting in her way, so that sucked. while she surfed that last hour, i made friends with this little boy who was four years old. i realized i actually speak spanish BELOW a four year old level, but we were able to talk about his dogs (one brown and one white) and play this game where we would write our names in the sand (i think his name was miguel) and then scream when the ocean would come and wash it away. it was good times. anywho, here is jes and i the morning of surfing:



now one day when we were driving around we went through a town or part called "banderas" and i was like "i wonder if this is where antonio banderas is from." so that sort of became a joke, that is, asking where antonio banderas is in spanish: "donde esta antonio banderas?" so the last night we were there, we went to this restaurant and everyone (but me) got HUGE pina coladas (no me gusta the pina colada). here is a picture of dusty with hers, if there was a caption, it would say "donde esta antonio banderas-i would like to share my pina colada with him":



this last picture we took the morning we departed. mary had left the day before, so she isn't in it (oh bother) but i think it is a cute photo nonetheless:



you know its been fairly cold here in new york this last week and i have been extra pissy about it and i think, in part, its because i got to experience a little bit of summer paradise in mexico and then i had to say goodbye to it and come back to the cold. jes and i had such an amazing time and we miss everyone we were with and hope we get to go back again.

happy sunday yall.

a post from my friend sarah, the saints fan...

A loss? Not to Saints fans in New Orleans

By Wright Thompson
ESPN.com

NEW ORLEANS -- When it was finally over, a woman walked down Hillary Street and she cried. Her makeup was gone. Her eyes were red and puffy.

A few blocks away, a lifelong Saints fan named Stan Gelpi looked up from his empty glass of beer at a stunned Uptown bar. An hour earlier, he'd been plotting a trip to the Super Bowl. Now, he was lost.

Then it hit him, like it hit thousands around this heartbroken town.

"I'm going to the airport," he announced. "They brought hope to this city when nobody else could. The mayor sucks. The governor sucks. The legislature sucks. The president sucks. The only thing that doesn't suck is that team. They brought hope to this city, and I'm going to the airport."

Men, women and children poured out of bars and houses, from Uptown to the Quarter, from New Orleans East to Metairie, and they piled into their cars. Only this time they weren't evacuating. They were going to meet their team. Some stopped at drugstores and made signs. They wrote "Thanks for an awesome season" and "We Believe" and, simply, "Bless you boys."

So much in professional sports is canned, and this was something real, something spontaneous and pure. Through a neighborhood they drove, down a winding, dark road to a private terminal where the team's charter would land. Cars parked, one after another, the headlights looking like that scene from "Field of Dreams." Fans brought coolers and bottles of wine, standing in the pouring rain, giving something back to the team that gave them so much.

"Two miles, 'til the end of the road, it's bumper to bumper," said Saints fan Colin Ross, pointing at the people lining up near the runway. "There's little kids down there yelling 'Who Dat?' on the hoods of cars."

The people who stayed all night will never forget it. Some arrived as early as 7. Others trickled in over the next few hours as word began to spread: Ice had delayed the charter flight. The team was still in Chicago.

In New Orleans, they had a little time to think about the year. Some cried. Karen Porche wiped a tear away and laughed a bit at herself. Most know it's crazy to care so much for a team. You had to be there, on the side of the road in a rainstorm, to understand.

"They brought us a lot of hope," she said. "We had six feet of water in our house." Her husband, Charlie, said, "and they helped." "You can't be mad at these guys for losing this game," Karen said.

As people waited, the craziest thing happened. What started as a funeral turned into a celebration -- a celebration not just of a team, but of themselves. The beers they raised were toasts to their own resiliency. Fans screamed. They chanted. They sang that U2 song "The Saints are Coming." "I feel like we won," Ross said.

Liquor flowed. A man showed up with a trombone and began playing "When the Saints Go Marchin' In." The guy with the "We Believe" sign, who lost his house in St. Bernard Parish, swayed in time to the music.

When a cop turned on his loudspeaker at 10:40 and announced, "The plane has left Chicago," the party went to another level. Size estimates vary. There were about 500 or so right at the gate; but with cars lined up for miles, the number was surely higher.

A young man named Michael Mulé began running up and down the street, leading the wave. The crowd responded, people raising their arms as he sprinted, finally falling to his knees in the pouring rain, the loudest damn screaming you've ever heard embracing him, his hands raised toward the sky, feeling the drops land on his face. He pulled out his asthma inhaler and took a deep
breath.

"I think the momentum and the hope that they've given us," he said, "is going to carry over into the whole rebuilding process. Everybody's counting us out, but we still have that hope. It sounds so corny. It sounds so cliché, but they're getting us going."

Eleven o'clock turned into midnight; 1 a.m. inched closer until someone spotted an airplane. The trombone started playing again.
"There they are!" a woman yelled. "We believe," another screamed.

Players and coaches cranked their cars. To get out, they had to drive down a street lined with people. The fans took pictures of the Saints. The Saints took pictures of the fans. A man chased after Drew Brees' car with a black and gold flag. One drunken fan bummed a light from a member of the caravan.

Head coach Sean Payton rolled down his window to soak up the scene. One after another, fans told him, "Thank you." He looked out at the screaming, frothing mass of people.

"Unbelievable," he said.

Defensive back and fan favorite Steve Gleason signed autographs and gave high-fives. It was well past 1 in the morning, rain coming down hard again.

"It makes me proud," Gleason said. "It makes me proud to be a part of this city."

So many things in New Orleans are still wrong; but on this night, one thing was right. More than right. It was perfect.

All things end, of course. Even Mardi Gras has a morning after. When the last Saint pulled away, the crowd dispersed. Some of them were going back to FEMA trailers. Many still haven't rebuilt their homes. Most have family members spread from coast to coast. The city remains battered and beaten, entire swaths of it empty. It's half the size it was before the storm.

Three young men walked through the rain toward their car. One carried a Saints flag. Another looked around and sighed.

"Now," he said, "back to reality."

pointing out one edit

hey yall

i was just chatting with my best friend azad who lives in chicago and he pointed out that in my post entitled "DA BEARS" i had mis named the bears the "monsters of the midwest" when in fact they are the "monsters of the MIDWAY"

i think i got them mixed up with my dissertation title. isn't that funny?

anywho, thanks az for clearing that up. where would i be without you?

donna and i got 'pee pants' from this clip when will asks the red headed boy, texas ranger, how his day was. after about 42 seconds the rest is dumb (i mean it is all dumb) but i couldn't edit it down.

last thing about the bears for the day, i swear

if the bears win the superbowl

and we ever own a house
we are so getting THIS:

DA BEARS...

are going to the superbowl yall
hell to the yizzah

*sorry to kim and sarah who were rooting (sp?) for the saints today. don't mess with the monsters of the midway!

a quickie

these are my last two pics of ben. i think they truly encompass his personality: sweet (a little bit pensive) and happy.

so last night i volunteered for the first time at god's love we deliver, this kitchen that prepares food mostly for folks who are homebound with HIV/AIDS but also folks with cancer and other debilitating diseases. i got to chop carrots and celery for soup and i got to meet a bunch of nice folks. people talked about their kids weddings, the movie dreamgirls and tivoing grey's anatomy. all the while the music was blaring and i felt like i was at a gay male bar in college. seriously disco, beyonce, madonna, etc. i am glad i went.

this morning i will be finishing up revisions on my conclusion and sending it off all while doing some laundry. later, we will take emily in for a follow up to her surgery to remove that cancerous growth. fingers crossed all the cancer is gone and she will live many more years. tonight we have a wedding to attend on the brooklyn bridge. some folks from jes's school are getting married.

this weekend we have dinner with supper club and then on sunday we are going to watch the chicago bear WHOOP the new orelans saints asses. i can't wait.

happy friday yall!

a few more colorado pictures

so ben and i got to spend a lot of quality time together while i was in colorado.

we watched the bears (WIN) together. i kept yelling "throw it rex, throw it!" and he would repeat what i said (so i had to watch the curse words).

we went swimming with kath and greg at the local indoor swimming complex. i went down this water slide FAST, we sat on the bubble bench, floated down the "lazy river," but mostly we walked around like alligators in the water (on our hands). this was fun and it kept us underwater and therefore warm.

we also went shopping with greg for kath's present. what was hilarious was as soon as we got home from the mall, ben waltzed right into kath's bedroom and told her that we had just purchased chocolates and a yoga mat for her. as soon as she realized what he was doing she started to yell "la la la i am not listening, stop telling me what daddy bought me for my birthday." i think he told her b/c he wanted to "share" the chocolates with her and b/c he wanted her to open the yoga mat so he could try it out.

here are some pictures of me and ben stretching:



and here is a further away photo us. it also includes myles (orange kitty) who is about to pounce on sammy (grey and white kitty):



he also liked to sit near me or on my lap when i was on my laptop. here is a cute photo of him "helping me" send out an email:



some other cute things he did:

1. kath said she was "curious" about something and then a few minutes later ben was like "mommy you are just like curious george"

2. when ben and i played hockey in the foyer (with protective eyewear of course) when we had to stop he said "game off" and when we started playing again, he said "game on"- just like wayne and garth in "wayne's world."

3. whenever i was putting on or taking off ben's shoes, he would rub the top of my head like i was a kitty.

ok it's late, that is all for now. more later

a digression to colorado

i know i still owe a few posts on mexico, but i have so many photos and stories to sort through for that, that i sort of can't deal. so intead i thought i would wet (whet?) your whistle with a few photos from my trip to colorado this past weekend.

my sister's birthday was the 15th and i had planned on heading out to colorado springs on friday, but because there was a big storm coming in i headed out there on thursday morning instead of friday. i had lots of fun playing with ben. we did puzzles, played with trucks, played rescue, played t ball in the basement, rough housed, went swimming, stretched, did yoga, read books and watched television (among other things)

here is a picture of ben and me playing rescue. ben didn't have any gloves in my size, so i just had to use puppets:



and here is one of us snuggling on their ridculously comfie green couch:



and here is one of my newest nephew (with a tail). his name is samuel aka sammy aka samuel l. jackson:



oh yeah, and on the way there, harry connick jr., his wife jill goodacre (she was a model), their four daughters and their nanny were on my plane. harry, jill and the girls sat in first class and their nanny ( a middle aged asian or asian american woman) had to sit in coach. the homo flight attendant told me that is how it always is. he said usually the nanny is stuck with the kids in coach while the famous folks sit in first class unencumbered. i always thought jill was a pretty lady (still is) and i thought harry was a nice-ish guy, but i lost a little respect for both of them. oh yeah all the girls and their mom were wearing bedazzled ugg boots. clearly they couldn't afford a first class ticket for the nanny.

allright that is the best i can do right now. more later. i promise.

we interrupt your regularly scheduled post about mexico...

to tell you three things

1. right after we got back from mexico, we went to the co-op to get groceries b/c all we had in the frig was some romano cheese, lots of condiments and some old chunky soy milk. ew. that's gross. anywho, while we were there, we saw spike lee's sister, joie lee.





if you don't know who she is, you should. she has been in almost all of his movies, not usually in main parts, but as a supporting actor. she was also in that terrible movie "coffee and cigarettes" by jim jarmusch (who i normally like, but he lost me in that one-i think we saw it for free in the theater and we walked out. it was that bad).

anywho i am pretty sure she was following jes around the co-op (i am sort of joking, but maybe jes will post about how she was everywhere jes was). it is a small place though, so maybe that is why). anywho she checked out right next to us and i think i remember her saying she is trying to stay away from white flour pasta (i try to too, but its hard. that whole wheat pasta is so chewy). she had lots of greens in her basket if i remember correctly. jes said she also gets the same kind of pierogies and bread that we get, and that she had lots of veggies and juice in her basket. so anywho, that was a cool celebrity sighting. who knew i had so much in common with spike lee's sister? ;)

2. we went and were part of the audience of the daily show with jon stewart on monday. jes was pretty amped up for this, and i wasn't for some reason. probably b/c it was cold and rainy that day and i didn't want to wait for HOURS in the cold and rain and maybe still not get a ticket. but guess what? we got off the train and it was not rainy anymore AND it was sunny. but once the sun went down it got COLD quick. i was not dressed appropriately so i was REAL ANXIOUS to get inside. once inside i got real excited and totally thankful we went. its really small in the studio (only seats about 150 people) and during the breaks they blast music so i was sort of losing my hearing a little. it was really funny and just neat to see how it works. when they air the already taped segments, jon would watch along and he was laughing his ass off, almost crying, so that made me laugh real hard too. jes is certain if you watch the show (it aired on monday, january 8th-you might could get it on demand) that you will hear me laughing. apparently, i laugh loudly.

3. last night we watched this fucking ridonkulous movie. its called "boca y boca" and its a spanish film with english subtitles. it came from netflix and i just assumed jes chose it since she is in charge of the netflix in our family. so we were both like "why did we get this movie" but we still watched the whole thing. its about this spanish guy who is trying to get an acting job but has to do phone sex to pay the bills and then gets caught up in this murder plot and shit. its really weird but we stayed up late to watch it for whatever reason. so after bickering about who chose it (jes was sure i did and vice versa) jes realized that we had wanted to see this indie film "mouth to mouth" (the translation of boca y boca) with this new young actress we liked from another movie. netflix sent us this. how hilarious is that?

ok i just thought i would let yall know those three things. if weather permits, i will be traveling to colorado for my sister's birthday this weekend. not sure yet if i will bring my computer, so the next mexico post may have to wait until i return.

happy hump day yall.

mexico post number uno

i've got a nice warm cup of decaf joe (in my mug that has a picture of ro-ro holding a sign that says 'i love donna')

the cats are all sufficiently hopped up on catnip (emily in the kitty condo tube, larry on the couch and horace in his back room looking at the birds and squirrels)

and i wrote all my letters and postcards for the day, so its time to blog, i guess. i feel like if i don't do it now, i am not going to do it, so here goes.

our vacation in sayulita, mexico was amazing. it was warm, sunny and divine pretty much everyday. and even those few days were it was a little overcast or whatever, it didn't matter b/c i was in the most beautiful house I have ever stayed in, surrounded by people i loved, eating fresh fish tacos and mangos and drinking huge margaritas. it was a magical time.

jes and i arrived in sayulita on the afternoon of wednesday, dec. 27th. it was clear and warm and sunny and i knew i was going to like it. we took a taxi to the house from the airport in puerto vallarta and when we arrived, we were met by bikini clad mary and shoshana. dusty had driven down to the baseball field to pick us up from the bus (how were said we were going to get to the house from the airport but then we changed our minds and went for the more expensive but much quicker taxi ride. its vacation, right?) we unpacked our swim-wear, changed into it and hung out by the infinity pool (after a quick tour of the house we were staying in (it is seriously like something off a video on MTV. the views alone were ridonkulous). shoshana blended up a batch of margaritas (divine- i began calling her tom cruise from "cocktail") and our vacay officially began. that night we went and got some dinner at a beach front restaurant. i stuck with cheese quesadillas and guacamole b/c i was so afraid of getting sick. i didn't, by the way. none of us did. thank the heavens for bottled water, grapefruit seed extract, and a little luck, i think.

that night, jes and i learned how to play apples to apples, this great card game. surprisingly, i won (not sure how). i think my favorite part about it was seeing mary's competitive side come out. i don't get to see it often, but when i do, it makes me smile. we turned in pretty early b/c i was exhausted and still a little bit on new york time (two hours later than sayulita).

our first day we first went to this beach that was near a flea market they wanted to check out. they had been in sayulita for almost a week when we got there, so they really knew where the good beaches were and they felt this flea market beach wasn't cutting it. what i found most memorable about it was the huge birds that looked like they would swoop down and eat your babies:



so we high tailed it out of there. mary and shoshana led the way:



we first tried to go to what the kids were calling the "family beach" but its parking lot was filled with huge buses (apparently it was a huge mexican holiday that day so everyone was off work and at the beach, who knew?) so we followed this other road and found the second secret family beach. it was really lovely and really clean and not too crowded. the waves were pretty serious as was the undertow pulling you back in, so that made me a bit nervous, but everyone was safe and no one got hurt. well, except i did get pummeled a little bit and this big rock hit me in the ass. for reals, in the ass, and i got this little bruise on my butt cheek.



here is a picture of dusty at the beach:



jes and shoshana played in the waves most of the time and mary and dusty went in and out of the ocean. i spent most of my time either watching them from the shore or reading my book. i got through "a million little pieces" by james frey and almost finished "in cold blood" by truman capote. i also read a million magazines- trashy and otherwise. here is a picture of mary lounging under the umbrella:



and here is one of jes and me when we went exploring a bit on the rocks. we saw all these people (local folks) picking up these little white things, like tiny tiny shrimps and putting them in buckets or bags. i am not sure if they were going to eat them or what. it remains a mystery to me.



i don't remember what we did that night, but i am sure it was relaxing and divine. here are some pics of the studio apartment of the house that we stayed in the first four nights. it was downstairs and somewhat removed from the main house where the others were staying. the studio only had one door, the front one and everything else was open (including the shower and the toliet (i got used to it). it was almost all windows too (with no coverings), so basically anyone could see us showering (in the double showerhead shower) or walking around in our pj's and such. i stressed out about this for about a minute and then figured if some dude sees me naked then so be it. i was on vacation for fucks sake. here are two pics, one of the bed and one of the shower:





most mornings, i woke up with the sun (or shortly before). i am not sure if this was because of the time change or because i heard the local dogs barking and the local roosters cockadoodledooing. either way, it was nice to have a little quiet morning time to myself. i thought i would be cursing the roosters, but in the end, i was thankful to them for getting me up a little bit before everyone else so i had that quiet time. across from the toliet in the studio were these sort of paper maiche roosters and chickens. i called them our "colon coaches"- they made sure we stayed regular and stayed away from montezuma's revenge. here is a picture of them:



ok that ends my first installment of our mexico trip. i need to try and keep them short so you don't go crazy reading them and i don't go crazy writing them.

happy sunday yall.

christmas 2006

its saturday night and i am at home with cramps and some post gay-cation blues
jes is out drinking and playing erotic photo hunt with some friends
so i am trying to get started on my blogging about the holidays and our trip to mexico

our christmas was lovely. we got to see some west coast friends, some atlanta friends and spend lots of quality time with jes's folks. we arrived into atlanta on friday night and had dinner with kennie, kelli, their daughter emalee, lydia and her boyfriend thomas. we had not yet met emalee, only seen pictures, so it was great to finally meet her AND to see k & k in action as parents. they are amazing and em is adorable. take a look:



here's em looking cute and happy:



and here it looks like em is giving us the finger. never too young to learn, right?



on saturday, we went with dawn, gator, and bailey to get lunch at taqueria del sol (jes was THRILLED). bailey will be two in february and its so hard to believe how much he has grown up since the last time we saw him. here is a picture of him with gator:



and here is one of dawn (you can't see it, but she has this hot new hair cut), bailey, and me and my six chins:



after lunch jes and i went and got haircuts and then headed up to marietta to spend a few days with her folks. her mom made several delicious meals for us, and one included a sweet potato they grew in their garden. it was HUGE, so i thought i would post a picture here:



it turned into a sweet potato caserole with brown sugar and pecans. so divine.

we spent our final evening at kim & sarah's. sarah was still in mississippi, but kim and ruthie headed back to atlanta so we got to see them. ruthie LOVED the new shirt we got her. you can't read it, but it says "southern belle." jes picked it out.



on wednesday, we headed to sayulita, mexico for a wonderful vacation. stay tuned for a few posts on that.

happy 2007 yall.

something to look at

while i prepare to post about our holiday in atlanta and mexico

its my sweet nephew ben holding the puzzle jes and i got him
so cute!

baby jesus is almost here!

hey yall:

i am sitting on the couch in my fuzzy black pants the kitties love with larry on my lap. i just checked my email and all my friends blogs and everyone is writing their "last post before the holiday," so i thought maybe i should write one. i am such a sheep. baaaa!

so jes finished all her finals with flying colors. as soon as she got home she wanted to PLAY. and by play i mean not study, sell all her books back and go have drinks with friends. last night we watched "little miss sunshine" and i LOVED IT. i especially loved the little girl Olive. i have wanted to name my daughter olive for the longest time (b/c i love olives). that movie made want to even more. jes says "no way."

last night jes and i opened our presents to each other. she got me some sweet running shorts, this book i wanted, a wallet size subway map and delish bar of organic chocolate. i love it all. i got her some ornaments (i get her a star ornament every year), some warm biking gloves and, most importantly, the OC board game. she was totally surprised (and elated) by that one. we will play it nine million times. i am sure.

ok i think i should start my day. i just wanted to send a holiday shout out to yall and tell you i love you and miss you (if i know you).

light a candle for peace in 2007.

party time excellent

while most of the days and nights of the last week or so have been filled with jes studying for her finals (today is her LAST one, after it she is OFFICIALLY half way done with law school!), me sometimes working on the conclusion to my dissertation, me spending HOURS in line at the post office to send off holiday presents or books somebody bought from us or me walking bambino or loving on batu and nala (ali's cats), on saturday night we actually went out to dinner with friends AND went to a party.

hard to believe, i know.

jes had a take home final on saturday that roughly went from 10am-6pm. i cleaned up the house a bit, made higgins some peppermint patty brownies (so decadent) and then i went and met nancy for coffee so i wouldn't bug jes (if she is here i have to talk to her, its a disease i have). she was finishing as i got home, i showered, she showered and we prepared for the arrival of higgs and her sweetie bobby. bobby promptly fell in love with larry kitty (its hard not to). horace and emily were more reticent. we chilled, higgs ate a brownine and almost fell over from the sugar rush and then we headed to RICE in fort greene where we met lisa d. and vicki (and their friend ann).

jes and i had our usual: arepas, veggie pot stickers with the best sauce you ever did have, black rice and edamame. it was delish. i also had my favorite hot spicy sweet ginger tea. so good AND it helped settle my sort of wonky stomach. bobby had the mini chorizo hot dogs and he loved them. i don't know what everyone else ate.

after dinner we piled into two cars and headed to prospect heights (my new favorite *affordable-ish* neighborhood) to attend botacelli and steve's holiday (housewarming?) party. their place is adorable and as per usual, botacelli was floating around like a holiday nymph. you'll catch my drift when you see the pics of her below.

there was all kinds of tempting food, and surprisingly i didn't eat any. i was pretty full from dinner. higgs had some egg nog, jes had a piece of a dunkin donut and i just drank a miller lite, that i got at the bodega down the street from their house: only $5.50 for a six pack of bottles. so much cheaper than bodegas in park slope. double nice.

anywho, lemme show you the pics of the cuties. first up, higgs and botacelli:



and here is one of botacelli, vicki and lisa d. all kinds of emory alumni cuteness:



it was great to see everyone, but jes and i were pretty beat from a long day, so we headed home, watched a little bit of tivoed SNL with justin timberlake (he is fucking hilarious) and then hit the hay.

today is more writing (or not writing) and dog walking.

happy tuesday

pink wonders...

when will sarah come and help me tear off the rest of this shirt?

gus and jo turn 4

here is the cutest picture ever of my friends ara and steph helping their daughters jo and gus celebrate their fourth birthday



ADORABLE!

serious cuteness

one more thing...

i forgot to include these DARLING pictures of my friend tony & laura's little boy diego in my last post.

the first one they call "el pollito" (which i think translates into "the little chicken") and the other one is a gorgeous nature shot of baby d and some autumn leaves. can you stand those big blue eyes?

if you are feeling the sunday blues, just take a look at this little muffin and you will be instantly happy.





thank god my good looking friends keep having good looking babies so i have something to post on this blog.

its beginning to look a lot like christmas

whoa yall
i apparently had a post named this already b/c when i started typing the title in, it filled it out for me
so much for originality

anywho, jes and i jaunted into manhattan today to pick up a thing or two for her mom
it was unseasonably warm today and there were twelve million irritating out of town shoppers everywhere we went so we tried to be quick about getting what we needed and then getting the hell home to brooklyn.
but before we left, we went and saw this:



its the big old tree in rockerfeller center. i liked the one last year better.

we got home and got to studying and we just finished our dinner break.
it was my favorite kind of dinner, the use-stuff-from-your-frig-to-make-a-delish-dinner kind of dinner
basically some left over chicken sauteed in garlic, onion and jalapenos with some black beans with lime, yellow rice, tomatoes, salsa and organic sharp cheddar. it was very very good. and for dessert jes had a rice pudding and i had three divine squares of dark chocolate with rasperries in it. i love chocolate yall. for reals.

ok now jes is back at work studying for copyright (boring!) and i am typing in my FINAL revisions for chapter four that i just received from my committee member. while i should start drafting up my conclusion after that, i think i will take a bath instead. neener neener.

happy sunday yall!

more on emily and our anniversary

jes is at the coffee shop with beth studying evidence and i just did another installment of mind numbing work on the senate website. i needed a break and i had to get away from my desk which is next to the windows with no insulation. there is literally a freezing cold breeze coming in from them. so i have relocated to the couch where emily sleeps next to me on my black brooklyn industries bag. larry is next to her keeping jes's spot on the couch warm for her. horace is either in the back room or on the penthouse of the kitty condo giving me the finger i am sure.

i wanted to post some pics of emily with her shaved legs and one of her wound a few days after she got home:





and here is one of jes and emily snuggling on the futon in the back the morning of the second day she was back home from surgery. the flash woke jes up so that is why she looks so groggy:



i think it is the sweetest and most hilarious picture ever. jes may scream at me for posting it. we'll see.

so while em is doing great, eating, pooping, drinking and purring like always, we found out yesterday that the mass they removed was in fact cancerous, a fibrosarcoma. it is the lowest level cancer and the least metastisizing (metastatic?), so what that means is if she is going to have cancer, that is the *best* cancer to have. the surgery may have removed it all and it will never come back and she will die of old age years from now. or it may come back, they may have to do more surgeries, and if that doesn't work, the next step is radiation. our doctor does not recommend it for her, and jes and i agree that she is too old for radiation. while this all makes me very sad and very scared, i am trying to hope for the best and really enjoy emily for being in my life now. as i understand it, we are to just wait and see if any lumps return over the next few months.

i told her i loved her so much and that i need her to be strong and healthy and to stay around for a few more years. i did this before her surgery and it worked, so lets hope it works again.

ugh, what a downer. and on a FRIDAY night no less.

lets move to something happier: more deets on our anniversary. here are some pictures of the flowers i got for jes. they filled the foyer with a sweet delicate smell for days. it was so nice:





and here is a photo of the apple pie i made with the left over pie crust from thanksgiving. it was ok, not really sweet enough, but we ate every damn piece (with homemade whipped cream of course):



and lastly, here is a picture of sweet horace overjoyed that jes and i have been together for over five years. he can barely contain himself:



now is that a cute cat or what?

i don't have much else to report on right now. its cold as fuck here in new york and i hate it, but that is supposed to change tomorrow. by wednesday it is supposed to back up to 50 degrees. god bless georgie and his global warming.

happy friday yall.

do you know what today is...

it's our anniversary
FIVE YEAR anniversary to be exact! can you believe it? jes and i have been together for five years. and what a lovely five years it has been.

i can't really go into the details of what exactly happened five years ago, but i can tell you that it started with me leaving work early.

fast forward five years and jes is asleep on our little floor fort in the living room (so that emily could sleep on the "bed" with us without having to jump up on our big bed. the past two days we have taken turns sleeping in the back room with her, but tonight we wanted to sleep together) and i am up blogging.

the cats woke me up at 4am to get some food and i started thinking and that was that. i thought i could come in here and do a little blogging and then be back asleep in an hour. then horace realized that our next door neighbor's nuisance of a cat named bellyboy (though i call him "creamiscle") was outside the window. he went APESHIT, his tail puffed up as big as his body, i threw larry out of the room and closed the door, then ran back and pounded on the window until the little fucker went away. when i let larry back in the room horace tried to beat the crap out of him, so right now horace is having a "cool down" session alone in the bathroom. my heart has just gone back to normal beats (as opposed to the POUNDING it was doing just minutes ago) so i am not sure i will get back to sleep after all.

luckily i have a conclusion to write for my dissertation so its not like i have nothing to do to fill the time, you know?

so maybe later i will post five pictures of jes and me-one in each year of our relationship. isn't that a cute idea? i will need to get jes to help me with scanning the pics in b/c we didn't get a digital camera until three years ago when my nephew was born (my sister gave us their old one b/c they had to get a new fancy "we-have-a-kid-now" camera).

perhaps you are wondering what our day of love is going to look like. let me show you a rough draft of the agenda:

1. good morning niceties, green tea, and two pieces of fakin bacon each

2. donna goes and gets bagels (AND decaf COFFEE!) from terrace bagels while jes checks email

3. we partake in the deliciousness that is terrace bagels

4. jes studies some while i begin to prepare our anniversary dinner: homemade italian wedding soup

5. somewheres around 2:30 jes begins to prepare the TGIFridays spinach artichoke dip and the fake pigs in a blanket.i begin eating large green olives.

6. at 3:15pm we begin to watch the big game: Chicago Bears vs. Minnesota Vikings. GO BEARS!

7. we eat and drink until we are sick. maybe doze off on the aforementioned living room floor bed

8. when we are hungry, we have soup.

because this is a rough draft, i may have not included all activities in the day, but you get the general idea. food, football and more food. and lots of lovin.

ok my battery is about to run out and i think horace is ready to be released. i will try and post those pics later.

happy sunday, yall.

update on emily

so emily made it through her surgery with flying colors
apparently she did not like getting her iv put in so it took not one, not two, but THREE tries
so she has little shaved wrists up front and one on the back
she did not like the bandages they put over them so she let them know by hissing and then taking them off the front
i just took the one off the back

they told us she would need a quiet dimly lit place to heal so jes and i set up the back bedroom which is real warm and cozy
the futon cushion was on the floor and i took her right in there and closed the door
she immediately started meowing and laid in front of the door and with her paws under the door
basically, she wanted her brothers
so i opened the door and she just started ambling around the house. the boys have not hissed or meowed at her once and they are pretty much staying out of her way. she walks a bit and then plops down like she is a little drunk.
she has already gone into the litter box TWICE, ate a little wet food (meowing like CRAZY for it!) and she jumped up on the couch and back down.

so i think she is ok. i think she still should sleep in the back room tonight with one (or both of us) so that we can keep an eye on her. the next 48 hours are the most important, so i am going to stay close to home when jes is not around to make sure she is doing okay. hopefully all will go okay and she will heal up just fine. i will keep yall posted.

thanks for all the emails and voicemails i got from folks. your love and support means a lot to me.

think happy thoughts

in an effort to balance out the nastiness of that last post, i give you this, a picture of two of my sisters cats looking cute:



in about an hour, we take emily to the vet to get surgery. she is getting this growth on her side removed. the doctor said it is a quick procedure, maybe only fifteen minutes, but with a cat her age (16) and with compromised kidneys (both her and larry kitty have them) there is always a risk with them going under. jes and i have been teary eyed about it all week, both of us are scared, but we both agree this is what is best. if the growth is cancerous (they won't know until it is removed) it is good that it was taken off.

because she is getting surgery she could not eat after midnight, so we figured if she can't eat, none of them will. normally we get up AT LEAST twice a night and feed them wet food. needless to say they woke us up meowing just about every hour on the hour last night. i finally gave up and came out here to check email, blog, drink some green tea and start my day. i know i slept enough for two dream cycles but it feels like i got *maybe* three hours if that. good practice for if we ever have a newborn i guess.

anywho, please send positive, healthy, healing energy to emily kitty today.

just plain wrong

yall
i have lots to blog about. it will happen this weekend.
but i have to post this: