Remember Me?

Someone begged me to blog today. So here I am.

I wasn't kidding when I said I wasn't going to be blogging as much, was I?  Like I totally wasn't bluffing.  It was not an Idle Threat. I mean, I haven't blogged since Jan 14 and now it is March 1 and that is crazy.

Really, it's been so long since we've spoken - it's a bit awkward, no? 

Whenever I have time to write - I work on my manuscript.  Or I sit and think about working on my manuscript.  Or I read writing blogs or e-mail my writing buddy about how much writing sucks or I read books that I like to pretend are worse than mine. And really, that's kind of all I've been doing.  Ask the kids, they'll tell you.

Well, maybe I've been doing a few other things:

I've gone vegan.  For reals. I'm having a soy mocha at this very moment.  Watched Forks Over Knives and that did it for me.  I dropped 14 pds - easiest weight loss of my life.  Jeff's dropped about forty - which is insane.  Speaking of vegans and the Red Hot Chili Peppers - oh my - were we talking about the Red Hot Chili Peppers?  Well, we are now.  Look at this pic and see if you can spot the vegan!

Since we are now talking Chili Peppers - you guys know we have floor seats for the upcoming concert, right?  The one that is supposed to be next week?  Well, it's been postponed due to an injury Anthony obtained from the Stadium Arcadium tour (a million years ago) that never healed.  I'm telling you - OLD ROCK STARS SUCK. I should dump those guys. But who wants to start all over?

Speaking of concerts - last week we went to see Matisyahu.  We took Joel because he's a big fan.  My sister got the tickets without really paying attention as to what they were for - which is no big deal because we'd go see him regardless - but I wasn't prepared for a theater full of Chabad Lubavitchers and an Acoustical Evening of Inspiration.  This was a fund-raiser in an extremely small theater - really amazing.  It was just Matisyahu and his guitarist - awesome, awesome, awesome.  I could have done without the opening act, which consisted of rabbis talking and talking and talking and talking about what I can't tell you because I'm really not an opening act sort of girl - I'm a let's do dinner and miss the opening act kind of girl. And then the one time I show up on time it's a bunch of rabbis.

So now I have a God Awful Confession.  I really do.  You're going to hate me after you read this.  While we were watching everyone stream into the theater for the concert, I couldn't help but notice two young men walk in who looked different from everyone else.  I wasn't TRYING to look for people who stood out.  I was innocently minding my own business and trying not to stand out myself.  So yarmulke after yarmulke strolls in and then, as I said, these two guys and they are definitely Middle Eastern but not Israeli Middle Eastern.  One of them was wearing an Actual Members Only Jacket.  And all I could think of was that every Jew in S. Texas was currently in this theater - trapped in this tiny theater - crammed into this theater - and you know, these two guys walk in and I started to sweat.  They sat four rows in front of us.  I didn't say anything because DUH - that would make me a HORRIBLE PERSON.  Well, I didn't say anything at first.  But remaining silent (about anything) is not something I've ever quite gotten the hang of and so I leaned over to Joel, who was sitting silently next to me staring straight ahead because that is what teenage boys do when they're sitting next to their mothers, and I said, "So..."  and that's all I said! I swear! And he says, "Don't be a racist."  Which technically makes him a racist or he wouldn't have know what I was going to say.  But anyway, I told him I wanted to trade seats because they had a clear shot at him, and he's my baby, after all - and he refused to trade seats with me but did promise to reach over and use me as a human shield if the need arose and that, of course, made me feel much better.  I forgot all about those young men as soon as the music started.  But still - yeah, I carry the Shame.

It reminded me of the time Jules and I were in line to go through security at LAX when a Middle Eastern man was pulled out of line. He looked extremely irritated, as he had every right to be, and I went on and on to Jules about how his human rights were being violated and it was racial profiling and somebody should do something and we shook our heads and felt all indignant and outraged over the injustice being inflicted on that poor man.  We talked about it all the way to our plane.  And we talked about it as we sat on the plane, waiting for a final passenger, about how awful it was and what we had just witnessed and we were maybe going to write some letters and then the final passenger got on and it was The Poor Middle Eastern Man and I leaned over and said to Jules, "God, I hope they did a cavity search...."  I KNOW! I already said I'm a horrible person! Go ahead, I said you could judge me.

I'm on a roll now.  Just free-writing, as they say.

We had an anniversary! Our 26th.  Remember last year's? It was not that exciting.  Thank God. We rented a little house in the Texas Hill Country that was supposed to resemble a tiny chapel, and it did.  These were the front windows.

There were angels at the tops of the windows.

The chapel part isn't what drew me (although it was a lovely little home), it was the private hot tub on the deck.  From the hot tub you could look out at a flowing creek with a small waterfall.  It was quite lovely from that angle.

From that angle.  From the other angle? I had to look into the house whose backyard we were in!! Argh. I hate that.  I said I wanted secluded, and the agent told me this was secluded.  Dude - we live on 150 acres so I guess my idea of secluded is a little different than other folks' ideas of secluded.  Mostly the couple in the Big House just watched TV.  I know because I couldn't stop watching them watch TV.  Jeff would say, "Just come sit over here. Stop looking."  And I was like, "I can't.  Look, she made popcorn." And then he would look and we would both agree that she had made popcorn.

There was a guest book in the house.  I refuse to sign guest books because it just seems weird.  But I read every page.  People wrote where they were from, why they had come, what they did, where they ate....yada yada.  Everyone who wrote in the guest book talked about how nice the owners, Pat and Sandy, were.  Pat and Sandy were so nice! Loved Pat and Sandy! Hope to keep in touch with Pat and Sandy! So Jeff and I couldn't relax at all because we kept waiting to be ambushed by Pat and Sandy. Anytime a twig snapped, we thought it was Pat and Sandy.  Seriously, you know, do you want to be in the claw-footed bathtub celebrating your anniversary when Pat and Sandy finally decide to make their move???  It was nerve-wracking. It was a relief when it finally happened, although I don't think it was a relief for Pat. Or maybe it was Sandy.  Those are very sexually ambiguous names.

Jeff was running around the creek bed at 2 in the morning with a headlamp on, you know, like most normal men do...looking for kindling to keep the fire going in the fireplace.  And Pat (or Sandy) saw the light and thought maybe it was suspicious and he came sneaking up behind Jeff to see what he was doing and they startled each other and I'm not entirely sure that Pat/Sandy believed that he was looking for kindling instead of burying a body but nobody came looking to see if I was dead, which come to think of it, Pat/Sandy should have because he very well could have drowned me in the hot tub while they were busy eating popcorn - and then he was trying to dispose of the body because HELLO - it was 2 am and he was wandering around the creek bed with a flashlight strapped to his head!

Although, after 26 years, I think I'm safe.  If he was gonna do it, he'd have done it by now. Jules took this picture on our anniversary when we took the kids hiking.  And I like this picture.

Other News:
Camille danced in Copellia.  Here are pics. I hated being backstage - I am not good at it. She was precious and beautiful and perfect and I cried. 

Here are some pics of Camille - backstage.

And that is all....For Now. Let me know what you've been up to.