6/17/08 Flying over water

I was so excited that my flight from Dallas to Manchester on Southwest was a direct flight. I knew that meant I wouldn't have to change planes and I was certain we would stop at least once. I never bothered to find out how many stops or where they were. Turns out, this flight goes Dallas to Houston to Tampa Florida to Baltimore to Manchester. I flew over or "next to" water almost the whole trip! What I never anticipated was that I never got off the plane . . . no chance to eat airport food or go to a real bathroom. I was on that plane from 9:45am until 7:10pm. I did sleep a lot. In fact, I slept right through the landing and take-off in Houston. I was sitting next to two men when I left Dallas and when I woke up, I was sitting next to an older couple. It was a very odd sensation.

6/17/08 Poor Punctuation and Grammar

This sticker was in the SuperShuttle that I took to the airport to leave Texas and head back to Maine. I'm being very careful not to call either of them home right now, though I really feel like they're both home. Anyway, this sticker cracked me up because I doubt seriously that this is "a" law as in one law. This is bound to be two laws. Additionally, the slash mark is generally used between two words or phrases that mean the same thing or can be substituted for each other. "No Smoking" and "Fasten Seat Belt" have nothing to do with each other. We won't even get into the lack of parallel structure.

6/16/08 Seafood in Dallas?

In all the years that Rockfish Restaurant was in my neighborhood, I never went. How goofy is it that I finally went when home on a visit now that I live in Maine, a seafood mecca? But I was glad to go. I went with Melissa, who lives "across the alley and down two" from my house in Richardson. She was the angel who helped me a ton when I was packing up my life (both physically and emotionally) in Texas and moving to Maine last summer. It was great to spend time with her on my last day in Dallas until Christmas.

6/14/08 Dinner with Doc Friends

Some of the ECMP folks (doc students in the Educational Computing program at UNT) couldn't make it to the dinner at El Guapo's but came up with a wonderful alternative instead. Ron and his wife and 2 children hosted a cookout at their home in Midlothian. Jennifer and her husband and 4 sons (including the brand new 6-week old baby boy!) who live in Waxahachie drove over and joined us. We toured Ron's new studio at the high school where he teaches all kinds of video and broadcasting stuff. Fun fun fun fun great food fun fun fun.

6/13/08 UNT friends and BBQ lunch

Becky Sue (lovingly referred to as Dr. B. S.) came to Denton to visit Gerald while I was there visiting Gerald and we had a wonderful day of fun, including Metzler's Barbecue in Denton for a yummy lunch.

6/13/08 Dinner with choir family

Julie invited me to dinner at her house. Whooop! Since Marty and Matthew were out of town, she was already having Frank and Adam over for dinner, so I just got to join the fun along with Ceci. Cliff, Julie, their two boys, Ceci, Frank, Adam and I ate yummy dinner and check out this cool dessert: a cake in the shape of a giant cupcake. Great food, fabulous fellowship, very interesting conversations . . . it was a very special evening with choir family.

6/12/08 Prepping for the City Inspection

Through this entire process (which only took 3 days), we never had to have our water cut off. There was one 10 minute period where we didn't use the water, but that was it. But at 8am on this day, we couldn't use the water until after the city inspected everything. It wasn't an issue because both Mary and I left the house by 8.

Dr. Mari's dad showed me what the bladder looks like that they use for this and explained the whole process to me. It's nice to have multiple dads in your life who are engineers. Here they are filling up the pipe so the city can see if there are any leaks. Here, Rick is doing the work. It's been fun that he was the supervisor on this job because he was the apprentice/rookie on the cleanout replacement job 10 years ago!

Bye-bye 10 year old cleanout. It's actually just fine and didn't need replacing but they wanted to use all clean and new parts on this job which made sense to me.

6/12/08 if you can't visit Rhonda, you can at least visit her mom

Rhonda is in the hospital for bone marrow transfer for her leukemia. Gerald and I stopped at the house to drop off some cards and goodies. Rhonda's mom was there. We got to visit with her. I've shared a family reunion and a Thanksgiving dinner with Rhonda's family, so it was great to visit with my good friend and second mom.

6/12/08 You canNOT get enough Tex-Mex when you only get back twice a year

This was the second of SIX Tex-Mex meals while I was in town. When Dr. Mari picked me up at the airport, we stopped for Taco Cabana on the way home. Here I am at Via Real in Irving with Gerald and Alice. I went to Denton for the day but Gerald needed to go see Alice and Sam at Irving ISD, so I went along for the ride and as it turned out, for the lunch.

Bridget and Dana and I had our traditional get-together at La Hacienda on 635. A bunch of friends from my doctoral program got together at El Guapo in Denton. Julie (another doc friend) and I had a delicious and fun 2-hour lunch at Papasito's. Hmmmm. There was one more. I'll have to check my calendar and get back to you on the last one.

6/11/08 Pipe Replacement at Marilu

All of life's great expressions are on a magnet, right? One of my favorite truisms I learned on a magnet in the gift shop at the Portland, Maine airport: "Maine: You can't get there from here." Oh it is soooo true. No matter where you're going, it will take you all day to get there and you'll have to change planes at least once. So I planned this 25 day trip to take advantage of the fact that I was already going to be out of state and to take advantage of some really good fares on Southwest Airlines (which doesn't charge extra for one-way segments). Since I was going to the 30th Reunion at Hollins, I might as well keep on going and that's how I got to a week in Albuquerque and now a week in Dallas. Bonus: The travel expenses for the week in Dallas are tax-deductible because I'm a landlady checking up on my property.

Little did I know when I planned the trip many months ago that the landlady would really have to invest a lot of time in her work. The sewer pipe on my house finally collapsed. I knew 10 years ago when we did a makeshift (and cheaper) repair, that some day I would have to replace the rest of the pipe. The time was now. Fortunately, Mary the renter, did all the prep work of figuring out there was a problem, calling in folks to determine the problem, and getting bids on fixing the problem. The winning bidder was my favorite plumbing company that's worked on the house for all 25 years that I've owned it.

Here you can see that they've dug the trench down to the collapsed pipe and put all the dirt next to the trench for use after the replacement. The little white pipes perpendicular to the trench are the sprinklers. Though there was no guarantee that the sprinklers wouldn't get damaged in the process, a little luck and a lot of talent from the guys doing the digging resulted in zero damage to my sprinkler system.

This could've been a problem but it wasn't. The old pipe is located under the storage shed. However, there was a 45 degree turn in the old pipe to get it to the city pipe, so we just put in a new turn. There's no need to dig up the old pipe, the real purpose to all this is to put in new pipe.

Here's the collapsed pipe. Looks pretty collapsed, eh? It's a type of pipe made of wood fiber with tar in it called Orangeburg that was very popular in the 1950's. Turns out it was popular since the 1890's! Anyway, that's what I had and that's what I replaced.

Here's a new cleanout going in. This is what I replaced 10 years ago in my "temporary" fix. They told me at the time that inevitably I was going to have to replace the rest of the pipe, that it could be anywhere from 1 to 10 years. Shwew! I got the good end of that deal! And now it's tax deductible as a repair on my investment property. Here's the new pipe going in:

6/8/08 Theatre, Dinner, More Birthday Celebration

For Daddy's birthday, we went to see the play, "You Can't Take It With You" put on at a new theatre, The Desert Rose Playhouse. I don't know how Albuquerque supports so many theatre groups, but they do and it's great. This was a really fun production. We went with Ralph and Jude, dear friends of the family and fellow Civitan members with Daddy. After the play we went to their home for a delicious dinner and great quality time. It was so great to just sit around and get caught up and then just yack and yack and yack. Jude surprised Daddy by putting a candle in his dessert and we got to celebrate his birthday all over again. Good friends are the best.

6/8/08 Happy Birthday Daddy!

6/7/08 Games Night in Albuquerque

I think my parents originated Games Night. I remember friends of theirs coming over and playing charades when I was little. My sister and I would sneak down the stairs and watch the fun when we were supposed to be in bed. Two different groups that my parents belong to have a Games Group that meets one night a month and they are in both. One of those groups met while I was in town, so I got to go.

This particular games group asks everyone to bring something for a potluck and to bring any games they might want to play. Can you say, "Sequence?" Looks like that's a popular one tonight.

Our host and hostess have an amazing house and a way-cool backyard:

With an incredible view:

Can you say trains? How fun is this??!

The food was yummy, the company great, and the games a blast.

And then our host gave me a tour of his collections. Oh my! Native American art, Civil War models, Circus things, . . . he had many collections and MANY items in each collection. I couldn't even absorb it all but I hope to get to return and see them all again because it was most amazing.

6/7/08 Saturday Breakfast at Millie's

Breakfast at Millie's is a Saturday morning tradition for my parents and their walking friends. You'd think after walking together Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings that they would see enough of each other, but they obviously don't 'cuz they get together on Saturdays, too (and often go to the theatre or dinner or other fun things as well). Everyone on staff at the restaurant knows all of them by name and all of the walkers know each of the staff by name. I'm not sure who enjoys whom more but they all have a great time.

One of the things that cracks me up about this group is when they walk, the women go one way and the men go another. Then they all meet up at the coffee shop in the local grocery store and visit (a well-deserved reward) and the men sit together and the women sit together. When they go to Millie's they sit the same way. It's almost like junior high when boys sat on one side of the dance floor and boys on the other. But it works. They all have a great time and truly enjoy each other's company.

6/6/08 Happy 80th Birthday Ric!

A Civitan buddy of my dad had his 80th birthday while I was in town. I got invited to the party at his daughter's house. Wow. Does she have beautiful gardens. Somehow I didn't get enough photos of the gardens, but trust me. Every inch of both the front and back yards was covered in beautiful gardens and landscapes. It was quite the setting for a great party.

Ric's grandkids:

Ric helping to light his own candles so he can blow them out:

6/5/08 More silver polishing

So I arrive in Albuquerque on June 2 and guess what's on Mother's list of things to do while I'm there . . . Polish Silver!! How fun is that?! Who else gets to polish silver in two states in one week? There wasn't as much to do as there was at Cathy's and Mother and I polish silver pretty frequently when I come visit, so there's never much tarnish buildup, but I just thought it was pretty funny that this would be a silver polishing trip. :-) In about an hour working together we got it all done. It's always fun to polish silver in Albuquerque because each piece has a family story that goes with it.

6/1/08 Sunday with Betsey

After the wedding, I spent the night at Betsey's house. We had a very leisurely Sunday. She and her husband Jim worked in the yard a little, she and I got her set up on iTunes plus we figured out how to make her Bluetooth headset work for her cell phone, Jim cooked a delicious dinner, we got a load of laundry done with all those stinky hiking clothes, and I got to see some of the amazing work by Betsey's artists. I can't wait to come back after she and her mom figure out how to make her living room work as a gallery so she can really show off some of those pieces that she now owns. Wow, were they ever beautiful.

Super Shuttle came at 3:30 Monday morning (6/2/08) and I was off to BWI and my next adventure: a week in Albuquerque with my parents. I can't wait.

5/31/08-8 Caroline & Cathy Phun Photos

And when the serious photos were over, Cathy and Caroline did the fun photos. I don't know how many times we said, "1, 2, 3, GO!" and the two of them jumped up on "Go!" We didn't catch them in the air very often, but it was a lot of fun to watch the two of them jumping around.

5/31/08-7 Wedding Photos

After all that good food (Cathy and Steve spent years finding the best barbecue in the DC metropolitan area and had their reception catered by their favorite) and great music and great fun, the party really was over. But we did stop to take unofficial family photos. Here are Steve and Cathy with their 3 children.

And here's that mother/daughter, bride/maid of honor pair:

5/31/08-6 Bands at the Reception

The official band for the reception was the Buck Creek Jazz Band. They were fabulous! During their very long break (as requested by the bride and groom), Cathy and Steve's musician friends performed, including their own Jazz Band that they co-founded "Jefferson Street Strutters"

And Steve is in a Russian balailaka band, The Washington Balalika Society, and some of those folks came and performed.

At one point in the evening, The Buck Creek Band and the Jefferson Street Strutters joined forces and played together. Here's Cathy on tuba with her bouquet, jamming with the bands. At the end of their wedding ceremony, the trumpet, keyboardist, and banjo player played "When the Saints Go Marching In" while Steve and Cathy walked down the aisle. Much to everyone's surprise, they walked down the aisle and straight over to the band where Steve picked up his clarinet and Cathy picked up her tuba and they joined in the music. It was very appropriate for the two of them. This is what Cathy looked like at the wedding as well as at the reception.