Comings and Goings

I have always looked forward to spring, and the end of the school year. All winter, when I was a high school teacher, I would count down the days until I was done teaching.

Then, spring would come and the school year would start to wind down and teaching would be less stressful. In the last few weeks, I would give a final and then basically come to work to baby sit. About this point, I would spend some time with my students, relaxing and I would realize that they were much cooler than they had acted all year. Some of this is because math brings out the worst in many people and some is just how rapidly adolescence mature, huge personality growth over a single year. So, even though I was happy to have a vacation, I would suddenly realize that I would miss these kids.

Now that I am tutoring privately and working with mentally ill young adults, I have found my interactions with my students/clients to be much more enjoyable. It turns out that while I love math I don't really love disciplining large classes of kids. I haven't been counting down the days; I've just been enjoying my job.

Today one of the residents at the co-op moved on to a fancier residential program. He barely spoke to me over the three weeks he came to my yoga and art classes. He was very nice and polite when he did talk, he just seemed to be in a cloud of medications. Once, he asked me to take him to lunch because he couldn't leave campus without staff. We had a nice lunch at Kraftsmen. Again, he didn't say much.

He came up to me today to say goodbye. He thanked me for taking him to lunch that one time. On man! That hit me a lot harder than I would have thought. It was so touching, this expression of gratitude and affection from someone who doesn't interact very openly. I'm going to miss him.

Then, I learned that one of my favorite tutorees has decided that she is doing very well in math and doesn't need any more help. She is right, and I'm surprised that she continued to be tutored for as long as she did. She is a bright girl who caught up very fast. But stilll, I am really going to miss her. She is a neat kid that I spent two hours a week with for the past few months.

One of the meditations that I do calls out to the, like, eight names of god. It starts out with The Creater, The Destroyer... It isn't in English and I have forgotten the rest. It took me a while to embrace "the destroyer." But it was explained to me that we need to destroy old patterns to make next ones. You need to leave the past to enter the future.

As I say goodbye to people I like, and will probably see again, I'm a little sad. In the movie Stand by Me, there is a quote at the end that, "friends come in and out of our lives like little slips of paper."

Spring is Springing

I love Spring.
It is sunny skys here with temperatures in the 70s. Of course, it still is Houston, so the humidity is hovering at 90%. But who cares! After a long, cold winter I am just so glad to see the sun.

Last weekend I planted tomates. Growing tomatoes is something that I've attempted in the past. Bugs attacked and I was over zealous with my soap-and-baking soda-organic-home-gardening insecticide. The plants may have recovered if I hadn't then gone on vacation and left them for 10 days without water in the arid Los Angeles sunshine.

So, this year I did two things differently. First, I went to a local plants dealer specialist instead of buying my plants at Home Depot. The tomato guy told me that I could use the one gallon pots until the ground was warm enough to put the plants directly in the yard. I thought about this, but when I dug into the muddy clay that is Houston soil I realized why people go to the trouble of putting in raised beds. I am just putting the plants into 20 gallon pots. The tomated guy seemed to think that a late spring leading into a hot summer might prevent good ground growing anyway. Second, I actually bought a spray bottle so if I do have to do some insect prevention I will mist the plants instead of drown them.

The plants are all set up in a corner of the courtyard. None of the community cats seem to be interested so that's a good sign. They look great and my hands look ragged. Since I'm a working girl again, I'm treating myself to a little welcome spring mani pedi this weekend. So sandals weather here I come!

On February

Generally, my experience with this time of year is that I find myself crying for no particular reason and then I remember that it is February, the most dreadful month. It's gray and cold; Christmas is a distant memory that you only think of when the credit card bill arrives, and summer is just so far away. Even the spring forward of day light savings is just so far away.

As my father puts it, February is the worst month and that's why they made it the shortest. Every once in a while there's a leap year just to remind us how much worse it could be.

Yesterday, I woke up at 12:05 am (February 1st) sweating all over. I went to the bathroom and threw up for about half an hour. Then, I got back into bed and was just too tired to get up and eat the crackers I was craving.

I slept until 8:05 and the day just got worse from there.

So, here's to you February. You didn't pull any punches this year.

There's 26 more days left, and I am steeling myself for what might be coming. You may have gotten off the first blow, February, but I'm a contender. You haven't beaten me yet.

Dogs love Peanut Butter!

Last night I opened the Peanut Butter Fudge Frank's mom had made for us and Lady Bird freaked out. Frank was like, "Yeah, she loves peanut butter. She freaks out every time I open a jar." I guess I didn't know that because I only eat almond butter and cashew butter. (Yes, my dog is more a lady of the people than me.)

She was so excited about the pb fudge that I made her a special batch of pb dog biscuits. Hey, I love to bake and its not like I need to eat a whole batch of cookies. I'm doing my best to obscure the baked goods Frank's mother sends us home with.

	Homemade Dog Treat Recipe Peanut Butter Puppy Poppers 2 cups whole-wheat flour 1 tbsp. baking powder 1 cup peanut butter (chunky or smooth) 1 cup milk They were so easy and she is going crazy over them.

On Husbands

Tuesday was my first day of school. There are few people out there that have had as many first day's of school as I have. As a child they were a mix of anxiety, anticipation, and sadness. Now I am just so glad to be going back to school. I love school

It was a typical first day of school. The weather in Houston warmed up to the high, humid 70's and this was a great reprieve from the hard freeze we just had. (I guess Houston's weather may be another entry all together.) One class looks great and the other was a bit painful. On the way out a kid behind me asked, "Does anyone else teach this?" to which his friend replied, "Yeah, but he's just as bad." I guess I had been in the good section and then the professor died. A girl next to me said, "We just missed it by a semester." I'm hopeful that the current professor will recover from having a class dropped in her lap at the last minute.

Now, U of H is a big commuter campus. There are lots of parking lots and a parking pass may be more important than your student ID in getting you in to places. Schools like Columbia and NYU won't even let you in the building without a student ID. I haven't even taken the time to have my ID for U of H made yet. My parking pass, however, I ordered as soon as my schedule was confirmed. It was supposed to come in the mail, and everyday it didn't come made me more and more worried. I thought that it would arrive over the weekend.

Before I was married but after I moved away from my parents, I knew that if my dad was calling me on the phone it meant that my mom was out of town. Of course we would talk other times, but after my mom had handed him the phone. Once he was left alone for a few hours he would get bored and lonely and call my sister and me.

Now that I am married, I know that if my dad is calling it is to ask, "Is Frank there?" If he was calling to ask Frank to a ballgame or some other kind of fun male bonding this might make me jealous, but he is calling to ask Frank if he wants to help him fix his computer or stereo or whatever, the kind of male bonding I'm glad to have dodged.

This past weekend my mom and I took a trip to Marfa, TX, and it was awesome, but a different story. My sister also took advantage of the long weekend and visited a friend. Before she left, she gave Frank some sage advice, "You should get my dad to take you out to dinner. Whenever my mom leaves I always get a good dinner, but I won't be here so you should have Man's night."

I heard that Man's night was a success and I was glad to hear that while they went to a restaurant my mother won't go to, everyone stayed out of trouble.

When I got back I asked Frank if he had seen my parking tag, because I was really starting to worry. He said that a whole lot of mail had come for me from U of H, but that he couldn't find Saturday's mail. If you've seen his "office" this doesn't come as a surprise. I asked him to look for it.

Tuesday arrived and my parking tag still hadn't. Frank wasn't looking as hard for Saturday's mail as he should have been, so I made him drive me to school and pick me up. What else was I going to do! I couldn't park.

Tuesday night I started going through the mail from that day and shredding the junk. We have a backlog of stuff to be shredded so I dug into that, and what did I find but my parking tag. It was in an envelope that had been torn in half and it appeared to have been partially eaten.

The mail is delivered through the door and falls on the floor. Frank saw the mail fall on Saturday and never picked it up. The dog picked it up and chewed through as much as she could. Frank then found the shredded mail and assumed that it was garbage and put it in the shred pile.

Now, we don't leave the puppy outside of the crate when we leave the house. So Frank saw the mail on the floor, left it there and then didn't watch the puppy closely enough to realize she was eating it while he was home. When I found the parking pass I was pretty incredulous. I was glad that I was the only one who bothered to shred anything. Much like I am the only one who bothers to pick mail up off of the ground or watch the puppy. I sort of feel like in this story Frank is a husband from a sitcom.

I guess it is nothing a little duct tape can't fix.

On Pigs and People

This is a picture of a teacup pig, which those flakes and nuts in California are importing as the newest pet craze. My sister wants one. However, since it would be smaller than her cats, they would probably succeed in eating it.

Houston has the same humid, heavy air that has made places like New Orleans and Florida famous for ghosts. On a hot, humid summer night the air distorts light and sometimes you just can't be sure what you are seeing.

This past summer, I was walking Lady Bird around the neighborhood and from across the street, inside a gated yard, I saw a pig the size of an America bulldog. I was all like, "Whoa! Those people are keeping a pig as a pet." I quickly reported this freakishness to everyone I know. Met with their skepticism and my own inability to remember where I'd seen the pig, I began to think maybe I had not really seen a pig at all.

A few weeks later I was walking by a house and noticed that the yard was full of pig themed stuff, including a large statue of a pig. I realized that I had mistaken a statue for a live animal and was a complete idiot. I kept this to myself.

Later that week, Frank and I were sitting on the front porch and someone walked by across the street. She was walking an animal the size of an American Bulldog.
"Frank! Look! That is the pig I saw."
"Are you sure that is a pig and not a dog."
"Yes, well maybe not. It looks like a pig, right."
"I don't know."
"Hey, is that a pig?"

To this the lady replied: "I don't know. Maybe it's part pig. I'm just the dog walker."

So at this point I really did feel like a total idiot. There was no pig and I am crazy. (But maybe not as crazy as the walker of a part dog part pig.)

But then, last week, I was so excited to see that there was, in fact, a real pig around the block from me. I was walking Lady Bird, but this time we were on the same side of the street as the pig house. There is was, a large pig, just standing in the front yard, enclosed by the fence. The pig did not move at all as we walked by. This gave me a little relief. The pig was statueske. To my surprise, Lady Bird had no reaction to the pig. She did not go and sniff its nose as if it were a dog and she did not chase it like it was a cat.

Ta Da. A pig lives around the block from me and whoever is keeping that pig is as much of a nut as I am.

Wedding Photos

Our wedding photos are up!

http://dasophoto.zenfolio.com/f719540946

http://dasophoto.zenfolio.com/f663414146

Northern Exposure

My father has bought himself a vacation home on the Bay where he spend his childhood summers. All of his friends had vacation homes then, and they all do now, and, finally, so does he. To be clear: the Bay is Green Bay, off of Lake Michigan, and the house is half an hour north of the city of Green Bay. It is way far north of Houston, where we all live.

To help my father settle in to the house, change the locks, buy some sheets, and generally make sure things were OK, Frank and I accompanied him up there this past weekend.

We flew into Chicago, spent the night with friends and then drove the three and a half hours North. We got out to the house without issue. Thankfully, the road and driveway had been blowed and the below zero Fahrenheit temperatures had warmed to the twenties.

Lunch time arrived and my dad and I drove down fifteen minutes down the road to a place he said had great burgers. It was closed. The sign said it should have been open on Fridays for lunch, but no one was there. We went back to the house, which, of course, didn't have any food in it because we had just moved in. So, Frank and I drove about ten minutes down the road in the other direction looking for food. The first place we tried was also closed with no sign of explanation. We arrived at a bar that had pizza and I was very hungry. While the bartender made the pizza I ate a mediocre salad from a neglected salad bar and drank a great root beer.

This brought to mind the first episode of the television series Northern Exposure. Joel got to Sicily, Alaska from New York and was shown his cabin in the woods. As his landlady is leaving he asked about good delivery around there. She laughs, because there is only one bar with food and no delivery. That is how I felt at the cottage on the Bay. I just don't really understand how to get myself fed outside of an urban area.


Part of settling in to the house was making sure there were enough beds and sheets and towels for people to come and visit in the summer, when people would want to come and visit. My great aunt recently passed away and my dad's cousin had moved some of her stuff to a basement, holding it for us. To get the bed, lamps, and dishes, my father had arranged to borrow his brother's van. As we drove over there my dad explained that it was an old van that was used mostly for moving around band equitment. Then, he asked who wanted to drive it. I don't really need to drive on snow and ice, and I certainly was not going to volunteer to drive a cargo van. My dad was greatful when Frank volunteered.

We get to my uncle's house and as we are walking out to the garage my uncle asks Frank if he knows anything about cars.
"No."
"Do you know what a manual choke is?"
"No."
"The van has an automatic transmission and a manual choke."

I got pretty confused as he was explaining what that meant. I was pretty glad I hadn't volunteered to drive the van.

To paint a clearer picture of this interaction, imagine that instead of whoever you were picturing as my uncle, picture Cheech from That 70's Show talking about a manual anything. My uncle is a musian in Wisconsin and he acts a whole lot like Cheech. The van had a peace symbol hanging from the rear view mirror and an aged hula girl on the dash.

As Frank was getting into the van, I thought about how if my life were a sit-com the next scene would be a funeral. A funeral for a pet. For a pet's tail. As he backed out my uncle said, "Don't worry, if you hit anything you'll destroy it but nothing will hurt you. It's a lead sled. ha."

We stopped at a gas station to fuel up beacause "the van eats a lot of gas and there isn't any in it, man." Frank bought a Wall Street Journal. Walking up to the van in his New York coat and scarf (i.e. not the Wisconsin rigour bright orange hunting wear), carrying a paper, Frank looked way out of place.

Luckily, we moved the furniture and returned the van without incident. On the way home, we were lucky to get on an earlier flight because the snow was falling so hard all flights out of O'Hare were delayed. The snow falling in Chicago was the biggest flakes I've ever seen.

Last night, happy to be in my own bed, warm with my puppy, I had dreams of snowflakes as big as oven mits falling from the sky. Then I woke up put on a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt and took Lady Bird for a jog in Houston's 70 degree weather. It's nice to go places, but it's even nicer to come home.

On Christmas Shopping

This is my favorite memory of Christmas shopping.

Several years ago, before Frank realized that he could skip Christmas by skipping town, Frank and I found ourselves at a Super Target on Christmas Eve morning. For those of you who have never seen a Super Target, its a really big Target, that sells groceries. This Super Target is across the street from the AstroDome and the two parking lots are similar in size and stature. The Super Target does share it's parking lot with a Sonic Drive In, though.

Not surprisingly, the Super Target contains a full service Starbucks. Frank and I were waiting for our holiday, syrupy lattes when a man walked up with a five year old in his shopping cart. The little boy was wearing a helment. This was not some sort of therapeutic helment and it didn't appear that the man had deemed the dangers of riding a shopping cart to require a helment. In fact, it did not appear that the man had given any thought to the risk posed by letting a child ride in the basket part of a shopping cart: you know, not the part for kids, the part where your stuff goes. It seemed like maybe this child just always wore a helment the way some kids wear capes.

So the man walks up to the counter and asks for 3 shots of expresso with some ice. The little boy is using his fingers to shoot imaginary bullets at other shoppers. The barista asks if the man wants his expresso iced. He replies, "Just put a few ice cubes in there. I just need it cool enough to drink. My partner and I (he points to the little boy) have some Christmas shopping to do."

The most disgusting thing I've ever seen live

After reading this you are all going to be thinking, "she doesn't blog in months and then she posts THIS! Disgusting."

This morning I was reminded of my friend Shirley's thoughts on parents: spending time with babies and dirty diapers makes parents act like children and make poop jokes that only they think are funny. I was reminded of this when my dog licked my cheek after eating her own poop and inadvertently smeared poop across my face. Then she went and smeared poop across my bed while I was scouring my face.

Some of you already knew that I have a dog that loves to eat poop, but that story was to get the rest of you up to date. That wasn't the most disgusting thing ever.

I was sitting in my back room writing thank you cards and Lady Bird walked in an puked a quart of the contents of her stomach all over the floor. Because she had been eating poop, her puke smelled like poop. While cleaning it up I almost puked. It was the most disgusting thing ever.

Then when I ran her outside to get the garbage can she ran onto my neighbor's lawn and had some pretty major diarrhea. This is a neighbor we don't get along with anyway, a neighbor who spends ten hours a day watering her lawn. I think that my dog has food poisoning.

I just made her a bowl of gatorade.

They're playin' my song/I know I'm gonna be OK

Some of you know that I am currently teaching yoga to youngin's at Poe Kids College. Its an experience that I am really enjoying and Poe is such a wonderful community that I understand why at least 2 of my friends have parents that intentionally moved into the neighborhood zoned to Poe.

During spring break in high school, I was staying at a friend's house in Manhattan and we found a little cut out of a Houston map. Her dad told us that that it was the Poe school zone and that he had been told that they had to move into it (from NY) in time for my friend to start school.

Although the classes I'm teaching are not formally Kundalini, I still play "Longtime Sun" at the end of every class. At the end of class today, one of the girls said that it was a really pretty song and then another said that it was so sad.

I guess a children's yoga class just attracts precocious children.

In related news, everyone I know loves the new Miley Cirus song Party in the USA.

I got my hands up,
They’re playin my song
I know im gonna be ok

Although it is Miley, it is just such an inspiring pop song. I love that she gives a shoutout to Britney. 

The Hundred Pushup Challenge

The One Hundred pushup challenge is the hottest new trend sweeping the nation (or at least my limited circle of friends and acquaintances).

Today I did the second set of week 3, and had two questions:

1) If I started in the second column and now my max isn't high enough to stay in the second column, do I have to repeat the week or can I just drop down and do the sets in the first (lower) column? Furthermore, if I am doing the sets in first column and week 6 has only a max of 50, how am I supposed to get to 100 two days later?

2) Why is doing 100 pushups at once even something I am working towards?

A Pixar movie in the making

In one of the frontyards in my neighborhood sit a Great Dane and a Miniature Dachsaund, no leashes, no tethers. The yard isn't on my regular commute, and the few times I have driven by, I've thought, "Those dogs shouldn't be free like that."

Then, the other day I made the mistake of walking Lady Bird on the sidewalk right in front of this house. Now, poor Lady Bird had a really bad day months ago when she into some dog's backyard and we attacked. So, when I realized that I was walking her by this Great Dane, I panicked a little.

The Great Dane took no notice of us at all, but the Dachsaund ran straight toward Lady Bird, yapping the whole way. When it got about a foot from her a beeping noise started. On the dog's collar a red light started flashing. That dog turned around and ran the other way immediately.

These dogs are clearly living behind an "invisible fence" system, and I guess it is working for them. I'm sure that their owners are enjoying the protection that comes from having a Great Dane in your front yard. Maybe the dogs don't have a backyard to live in like most Houstonian dogs do. Maybe they just really love watching the cars go by.

Whatever reason motivated their owners to put up an electric shock system it seems that they overlooked a Houston phenomena: constant blackouts.

I can see it now. This really, really big dog who is a little shy and a little mellow and this small, angry, aggressive, elongated dog always knew it would happen one day and then the power goes out they are free at last. I can hear their little ethnic sounding voices now.

If it is a little power outage from a rainstorm then the story might be about avoiding being re-caught. But this is Houston, and we have hurricanes when the power is out for weeks and all sorts of things go crazy. Civilized, business friendly Houston starts to look like free wheeling New Orleans. I mean a pre-Katrina New Orleans, when everyone still had sense of humor enough to call a drink you put in a foot long plastic cup you wear on a lanyard around your neck a "hurricane."

Now, only in my dreams do I purport to be a screenwriter, but I think we may have something here. A big dog and a little dog go on an adventure in a hurricane. There's lots to find. They could help squirrels whose trees feel down and find cats who are running a criminal underworld.

After the wedding planning is over, I might just pursuit this.

If you like Gutterballer you'll love NRWLobster.com

Gutterballer fans, I apologize for being aloof these past few months. First, it was the MCAT, and now it is trying to get a collection of jobs big enough to support myself until med school. That, and executing a wedding and training a puppy.

Mostly, however, I have been spending my blogging time working on the wedding website NRWLobster. It has all the crap you have to put on a wedding site like location and travel arrangement. But, because Frank and I are storytellers there is a lot about us and about Houston. So if you have been missing this raconteur you can find a little taste over there.

But don't worry, come December I'm sure I will be full up of things that I need to tell. Already there are some posts in the pipeline that I just haven't had the discipline to finish.

On Crocs

Remember a few years ago when everyone was wearing Crocs all the time? Then there was the backlash, then there was the backlash to the backlash. People who wore them said that they were oh so comfortable and people who didn't wear them said that they were ugly, ugly, ugly.

After all that blew over, it looked like the only people left wearing them were in the health care industry: nurses and veterinary technicians. Well, I guess that seeing as how I am pre-med, it was just a matter of time 'till I got some.

And I just did. And they really are super comfortable. I got the ballet flats because I thought that they were less ugly and would slip on real fast. I leave a pair of shoes by the back door and slip them on when I run outside to stop the puppy from eating her own poo. Then, I've been staying out there and gardening. Well, maybe I shouldn't call it gardening: I've been raking the massive leaf pile and putting in into a massive compost pile in the corner of the yard. All that dirt has taken its toll on my cute Keds and it seemed that a pair of shoes that can be hosed off was the answer.

But these Crocs are better than Keds in so many other ways. I have a foot injury that has been slow to heal. My physical therapist had me put inserts into all my shoes. Well, after putting on a pair of Crocs, I realized that the inserts must have worn out. These ugly Crocs really are supportive. I liked them so much that I wore them to my volunteer job walking people across the street. They were better than my old running shoes, support-wise. Then I wore them over to Frank's Mom's house.

I think I may have just crossed the line: the line that divides people who think that it doesn't matter how you look as long as you're comfortable and the people who care how they look. Some of you may be saying to yourselves, "Katie, you always loved to wear ugly clothes." True. True. True. But that was on principal. Now I'm just wearing ugly shoes. They are ugly without it obviously being a design choice. But they do feel good and I love them.

Oh, the irony!

I am so in love with my puppy. She is just the cutest, smartest, wiliest puppy ever and she may have ruined us for all future puppies.

Lady Bird is a digger. She loves to dig. When we met her I asked her foster mom if I should worry about her digging. Her foster mom told me that it was a bad habit she got from watching the other dogs and that alone she was fine, that she didn't dig. She answered as if I was worried about my grass. I'm not. I was just worried that the dog was an escape artist. She was attacked when she got out through a hole one of the dogs had dug.

Well, she digs. She digs all over the backyard. When she finds something she likes in the house she takes it out back and buries it, just like dogs on TV. In the disaster area that is the backyard, she is always digging up new treasures. So far, her favorite treasure is a shovel she dug up.

I came outside to find her digging with her front paws while holding the shovel in her mouth. It was so freakin' cute. It's like she wants to be a person but hasn't quite figured it out. Then, she buried the shovel, and oh I loved that!

Here is a picture of her running away so I don't get her shovel.

My life has changed so much

The house I moved into has a huge, huge Oak tree in the backyard. It is really wonderful, but because the former tenets were deadbeats there is about three years worth of leaves piled up all over the yard. And the major hurricane Ike hit in one of those years. So that is a serious amount of leaves, and sticks, and garbage. It reminds me of the joke: you know that you are a redneck if you have ever moved the lawn and found a car. There is random debris hidden amount the leaves, things like Styrofoam packing material, cardboard, soccer balls, basketballs, metal hangers, and my personal favorite, old garbage bags partially full of leaves. It is as if someone, a long, long time ago started to clean up but either gave up or forgot and ended up contributing to the mess.

Look at the photo of this tree. It is a very impressive tree. What is that metal thing blocking the view? That is a broken space heater left by the deadbeats.


I've been spending a lot of time getting big bags (like fifty pound bags) of coffee grounds from Sbucks and layering them with the leaves in a big pile in the corner of the yard as an attempt at composting. The guys at Starbucks know me and always want to tell me about what I should plant and when I should bring them some on the tomatoes that they think I should be growing. I dig through the piles of leaves and sort out the sticks and the garbage. My puppy, Lady Bird, hangs out and just digs, and my parents' dog, Luigi, just hangs out.

I was out today shopping and registering for Texas shaped cookie cutters when I smelled my hands: dirt and dog. It made me really happy. It is nice to be back to my hippie roots. Even with the unworldly heat, it is nice to be back in Houston where I have the luxuries of time and space to do things like composting and puppy training.
Q: How do you hide something from a hippie? A: Put it under the soap.

Congratulation, Me!

I finished the MCAT, I got a puppy, and I'm getting married in November.
Woo hoo.

Houston, where it's too hot to swim

Yesterday I woke up early and went swimming at Memorial Pool. It's a nice big lap pool with a water slide, and, for the bargain basement price of one dollar, you can lap swim from 6-10 in the morning. I was pretty excited. It is the hottest summer every in Houston and I've been dreaming of a nice, cool swim.

So I put on my googles and braced myself for cool water. I anticipated the nice, chilled out feeling of getting out of a cold pool and into a hot car. But as my body hit the water, my brain was filled with memories of a childhood spent swimming in Houston. In the summer in Houston the pools are only cool in the most relative of senses. The water was very, very warm. Last week my father told me that the water in his backyard pool was up to 90 degrees. That was when the air was 105.

Local news stations are telling people to keep the AC in their houses set to 15 degrees below the temperature outside. Seriously, no matter how environmentalista I try to be, I just can't live in a house that is above 85. I am undeinably a Houstonian and there are things that you cannot convince a Texas girl to do, even if you threaten rolling blackouts.

But, apparently, I will swim in a pool that it that warm. It was like doing a Bikram yoga class. The heat was more of a challenge than the workout. It took me about twice as long to swim my laps and I just gave up after half a mile. Yes, some of that can be contributed to my own out-of-shape laziness, but it was undeniably hot.

Also, the awesome water slide kept pushing me to the end of my lane. It was like swimming in a river, y'all. Then I saw a woman just go up and run in place at the foot of the slide, like it was a water arobics prop or something. That made me feel like maybe my swim wasn't that pathetic, cause I was working in two directions, forward and to the right.

Anyways, I just can't wait until I take the MCAT and I can get out of town. "Where will I go?" you ask. Barton Springs, Austin, TX. Or, even better, San Solomon Springs, way out I-10, TX.

Back in H-town and living the life

This afternoon I went and got a mani/pedi with my sister. We went to a "salon" in a strip center because I cannot afford the fancy place, and she cannot afford to pay double at the fancy place.

Afterward we got dumplings, which were totally great and exactly the right thing at that moment. I wore the disposable pedicure flip flops to the restaurant. Apparently, you can wear whatever you want to anywhere here in Houston. Last night at dinner at a nicer restaurant I saw a girl wearing short running shorts. It was definitely cool that I didn't have to dent my do by putting shoes back on but I felt a little bit like I was cheating.

Then I wore those flip flops for the rest of the night. As I was about to get into bed I realized that my feet were probably kinda dirty, so I rinsed them off in the sink. It seemed ironic that after paying a woman to scrub my feet, I had to wash them off in the sink. Maybe this is a lesson to me about wearing those flip flops home after a nice pedi.