Get out of my way

Get out of my way, posted by megpickard.

Ah if only this was true. If only I could pass these out to those ANNOYING people who keep STANDING in my way. Get out of the freaking doorway!

This especially goes to those who think it is a good idea to come to a dead stop immediately after stepping off an escalator, thus forcing those behind them to back up, which is damned hard to do on an escalator!

Drinkering and smokering and drivering

Funny article about a car and Norway.

I am so using the term "drinkering" from now on.

Four. Fire. Quatro. Quatre. However "four" is spelled auf Deutsch.

Four Jobs You’ve Had In Your Life:

1. Visual Display Designer (they called us "fluffers" in the store, I shit you not)
2. Decorative Painter
3. Co-Proprietress for Victoria's Secret (Horrible title for Co-Manager)
4. ChamberMaid in a hotel in Yosemite National Park

Four Movies You Could Watch Over And Over:

1. Moonstruck
2. Victor/Victoria
3. Grosse Point Blank
4. Pride and Prejudice (6 hour BBC version)

Four Places You’ve Lived:

1. Houston Texas
2. Austin Texas
3. Oklahoma City Oklahoma
4. Oslo Norway

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch: (I'm limiting to what I can get in Norway)

1. Project Runway (so far only season 1, sigh)
2. America's Next Top Model
3. Simpsons
4. Mythbusters

Four Places You’ve Been On Holiday:

1. Marrakech Morocco
2. Malta
3. Budapest Hungary
4. The Nile, Egypt

Four Blogs You Visit Daily:

1. Up From Sloth
2. Karla May
3. Dave
4. Leslie

Four Of Your Favorite Foods:

1. Shrimp Tacos at Chuy's
2. Vietnamese Bun with eggrolls and roasted pork slices
3. pasta with pesto cream sauce
4. Chocolate cake with white icing

Four Places You’d Rather Be:

1. Austin Texas
2. Beaufort, S.C. and the Shrimp Shack
3. Tent Rock, Santa Fe
4. London, always London

Four Albums You Can’t Live Without:

1. Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails
2. Try Whistling This, Neil Finn
3. Spirit Chaser, Dead Can Dance
4. Dirty Vegas, Dirty Vegas

Four Vehicles I’ve Owned: (or that Daddy gave me)

1. A yellow 1967 Corvair Convertible
2. A white 1964 Renault Caravelle Convertible
3. A red 1990 Honda Civic Hatchback
4. The 1997 Subaru Outback Sport, sigh.

I'm tagging Kjersti. But only if she wants to. C'mon Kjersti, WAKE UP!

Vikings at the Door, or, Do Not Wake the Karla

The astute reader will notice that this post is being written before 9am. This is very rare.

I was awakened from my slumber by Vikings this morning.

Well, sorta.

Anyone who has known me for any period of my life (and especially those who have traveled with me) know that I am NOT, by ANY stretch of the imagination, a morning person. The lengths I will go to get that extra five minutes of bed time are ludicrous. I don't like getting out of the warm soft bed. I just don't. And once I am up, it still takes me a while to figure out where, what and who I am. The brain definitely lags behind the body.

So this moring imagine my glee when our claxon-like doorbell goes off at God Only Knows When AM. My head shot off the pillow like a rocket. WTF? Rich was in the shower, and as such, not a good candidate for door opening, even though he was closest. I got up and stumbled to the front door, only to remember "Pants!" at the very last moment. I found Rich's Ants in the Pants boxers on the floor and pulled them on. I peeped out the peephole (well, peeping is cute, what I did was more of a scrunchy peer or a one eyed scowl) and saw my friend Russell* and another blonde guy. HUH? What's Russell doing here? How did he get here? Isn't he in the States? Did i miss something? This is not my beautiful house...what? Wait!
OH, it's not Russell. Just a Norwegian that looks an awful lot like him. With another guy. Wow that was wierd. By then I had opened the door and had a look on my face that was a cross between "Hey, what's up!" , "Huh?" and a small hibernating ferret tentatively sniffing the breeze.

Needless to say, this made an interesting starting point from which to destroy any further coherent conversation.

"Hi?"
The Russell look-alike says, "Hei!"
"Yeah?"
"Hello. We are here to do some warranty work on your flat".
"Oh." Put hand to head in horror as I realize I've got a serious case of bedhead. "Um. Oh".
"Yes."
"Um, What time is it?"
(This person has obviously been up for HOURS) "It's after 8 o clock!"
"Oh. Um. Who are you?"
"I am with the building company."
"Oh." pause "I just woke up."
"Yes".
"My husband is in the shower".
Blonde guy speaks. Slowly, like to a four year old. "Oh. We have met before when I came to do some work here. I am Lars." he shakes my hand.
pause ...."Yes, I remember". (I didn't but you have to observe the niceties even when wearing Ants in the Pants boxers.)
The Russell twin takes back over. "Why don't we come back in an hour?"
"Um, yes please?"
"Ok."
"Ok."

So apparently the owner knew they were coming, but we didn't. No warning whatsoever. Rich finished his shower, I managed to get myself in the shower and slightly more awake and so now have wet head and not bed head. Lars came back without the other guy and is fixing cracks and things on the walls. I made him coffee.

Lesson learned? Being invaded by Vikings is really quite civilized these days. At least now they ring the bell first. It's that scary Kraut that answers the door they have to be careful of. She's tricky.

*Russell has not updated his blog in a while, apparently.

The House in Austin After

Is this not the whitest kitchen you have ever seen?

Bedroom. I like the color but I think I liked the depth of the previous color wash better. I might funk it up once we get back. But oh the windows are GORGEOUS now.
The dining room looks much more sophisticated, and the floor polish really helped. Here's the befores.

Front of the house. Note the overhanging magnolia tree...it's huge and takes up half the front yard. Also notice my new gravel french drain cum sidewalk on the right.

A plumber found that horsehoe under the house.

Me! Me! Meme! Me! Me!

I stole this from Bookhart and Badger and Malcontent Mama and Karla May and...and....

A - Accent:From Houston, sounds Midwestern, I'm told, but with liberal usage of "y'all".
B - Breakfast: A mocha with vanilla and some yummy Norwegian toast.
C - Chore you hate: Putting clothes away after doin the laundry. Emptying the dishwasher. Tidying of any sort. I'll scrub anything, but man I hate picking stuff up.
D - Dad's name: Terry
E - Essential everyday item: Glasses
F - Flavor ice cream: Gold Medal Ribbon from Baskin Robbins.
G - Gold or silver?:yes. OK, ok. Used to be silver but I am swinging to the gold.
H - Hometown: Austin by way of Houston.
I - Insomnia: right now I've got it like a mother fucker. I can't sleep!!!!! Jet lag still?
J - Job title: Bon Vivant.
K - Kids: nope.
L - Living arrangements: The sofa is sort of cattywampus and it faces the TV.....oh sorry, I thought it said living room arrangements.
M - Mom's birthplace: Germany, in the Schwarzwald.
N - Number of significant others: 4 (What the fuck does this mean?)
O - Overnight hospital stays: Tonsilitis, appendectomy, miscarriage, so that's three. .
P - Phobia: anything with more than four legs, under or out of the water. George Bush.
Q - Queer?: no, but I still think I'm cool. Just a little eccentric.
R - Religious affiliation: none. Don't get me started.
S - Siblings: one younger brother.
T - Time you wake up: Today? 1 am. 3 am. 5 am. 11 am. arg.
U - unnatural haircolors you've worn: every shade of red known to man, and a few that aren't.
V - vegetable you refuse to eat: brussel sprouts, they taste like farts smell. green red yellow peppers. Yuck.
W - worst habit: nail biting. nail picking. nail destroying.
X - x-rays you've had: dental, head, tummy, blah blah.
Y - yummy: fried anything. Mexican food. Vietnamese food. vanilla mochas. jaffa cakes. steamed dumplings. honey mustard dressing. steaks at Austin Land and Cattle. Norwegian sour cream.
Z - zodiac sign: SO very Leo.

Gallery of regrettable dresses

Oh man, y'all, this whole prom dresses thing is bringing me back to some BAD flashbacks of fashion choices.

Like I just remembered:

The Belle Ball of 1982. I was a freshman. Oh so young. Baby, really. I had a HUGE crush on this boy named Brian. He, unfortunately had a HUGE crush on my best friend at the time, Rachel. I asked him to the Belle Ball. That was painfully hard for me to do, but he said yes, and I was thrilled. So to make it special, the day of the Ball I got my hair cut. Up til then I had long hair that my Mom sort of arranged into a series of Three's Company ponytails. Either one on each side or one high one in the back or whatever. I had that hair whacked off into the most butch dyke haircut you can imagine. But in true 80's style, without products, it looked like a hair helmet. Old lady hair helmet. Oh it was BAD.

My dress? Oh the dress went GREAT with the hair. It was a poofy pink strapless net and lace HOOPED affair. A hooped dress with butch dyke hair? Oh man. Every time I sat down my dress swooped up and popped me in the face. I had to stuff it between my legs and hold tight or it would just attack me again. Everyone and I do mean EVERYONE was treated to an impromptu view of my underwear at some point in that night. And the dress tore, so I had to safety pin it up at the shoulder.

That was a bad night. I so did not know how to be on a date, and every bit of that night goes down in memory as an excruciating reminder of why I did not have many dates in high school. And why the boys I liked always went for my friends instead of tall, gawky Nympho Eyed me....

I gotta find the picture from this. Maybe my folks have it and can scan it.

Oh but it gets better. Sophomore year my dress was almost an exact replica of Lady Di's wedding dress. I had no idea it was until, like, YEARS later, when I realized, holy crap! Replica of Lady Di's dress! (Bummer, really, as the dress was quite unique at the time and I would have been bummed had I known it was a knockoff. I really really liked that dress....) My date was a basketball player I had a crush on (he also went for one of my friends) and he had a twin brother. Between the two of them, there were like 13 feet of Holmes brothers. Anyhow, he wore an exact replica of Kevin Bacon's tux in Footloose. And we all thought it was totally cool. In retrospect I should have asked the other brother. He was nicer.

So to recap: 10th grade dance. I'm Lady Di and he's Kevin Bacon. And we both thought we were the shit. Oh holy crap.

High school is just painful, y'all. Just painful.

A Progression of Big Hair

Bookhart, Malcontent Mama, Karla May, and some others have been posting pics of themselves in high school prom dresses. There has also been discussion of big hair. And rampant 80's style. The gauntlet has been thrown. The dare has been issued. Here we go, a progression of my big hair from high school into college.

Picture 1) Me, 10th grade. Hair not so big, what you can't see is the scary mullet thing happening in the back and I think I also had a tail. This is the closest, the absolute closest I ever got to wings in my life. This is also the closest I ever got to smiling in a high school picture. I hated my smile and I wanted to look "mysterious". What the fuck ever.

Picture 2, 11th grade. I've always rather liked this picture but why the HELL didn't I straighten that earring? I was quite the fashion girl, always on the best dressed lists, and I remember this outfit very well. A black cowl necked dress made out of sweatshirt material that I wore with those pink "Doggie in the sun" earrings, a black double wrap around belt and black ankle boots. I was HIP man, totally 80's stylin'. My hair has actually gotten a tiny bit smaller here. That would never happen again in my life. Note lack of smile. I look, like, 30 here.
Picture 3) Prom. 1986. That's me and Lawrence. Lawrence was the best friend of my ex-boyfriend Mark. We all hung around together. Mark and I still liked each other, but he was dating someone else at the time. (We eventually got back together and then went our separate ways in college, but he is still a friend, and is now in Iraq. Arg.) Anyhow, Lawrence was voted "Most Handsome Sophomore". I remember after the prom I had tons of girls asking me for one of my prom pictures, just so that they could have a picture of Lawrence. I was all like, "No!", cuz I knew they'd cut me out of the picture and I paid for those pics so why would I give them to those bitches just to have them cut me out? Girls suck.
Anyhow, the dress was a black velvet strapless Victor Costa that I remember dragging my Mom to the Galleria to see. And buy. It cost $300 (To this date still my most expensive dress ever, including my wedding dress!). It had a tulle skirt with giant black velvet polka dots scattered here and there. I felt like that myserious woman in black in that Sargeant painting. I love that dress, still have it and can still wear it!
Picture 4, Freshman year, college, 1987. This is where the hair starts getting BIG. This was on a spring break trip to New York. You can hardly tell where the horse ends and the hair begins.
Ironically, when riding that horse, I ended up falling off it and cracking my skull on the road because my hair was too big for the riding helmet. Big hair can be a safety hazard. I almost had a concussion.
Picture 5) Me in New York City,1987, on a seesaw in the park. This was during my "Lennon glasses" phase. I still think I look cool here. My mom made the coat, the sweater was vintage. I like the layered look. Still do. My hair almost obscures the building behind me.

Picture 6, Oxford, England, Summer of 89. Uh, yeah. Now that's some BIG Hair! That was the summer I met Rich. I wonder if the bigger the hair the more confident? Cuz damn I was apparently very confident. This was right before we went to the Oxford Summer Ball, where I got very very drunk and was the scandal of all Oxford society when I slid down the banister of Town Hall and fell off, exposing my seriously holey tights to everyone. I was NOT graceful.
Jeez my face looks positively chubby in that photo.
I still have a hard time trying to get my hair to NOT part on the side like it did in the 80's. It got trained and remember how when you had long hair, you parted it on the side and then tilted your head to keep it there? I was a major head tilter. Arg. I'm surprised my head is not tilted in this shot.

freaky weather

After all the snow of last week, today Oslo and Stockholm are the warmest places in Europe. They are having snow in Athens, Greece. We are warmer than Spain and France.

What is UP with the weather? It's like it turned upside down.....

Quicky in the Swamp of Death.....

.....and other classic romance titles.

Go here for some of the funniest romance novel covers you'll ever see. (Yeah, they are spoofs, but oh my, how inspiring.) I might have to do one based on one of Laurel K Hamilton's Vampire Porn books.

One word:

AAAGGGHHH!!!!!!!*

*It's a David Hasselhoff video. I found it on Kjersti's blog. It's...it's....everything you expect.

Gettin' a leg up

Well after the photo debacle of the last post I have made some progress. I've finally figured out how to make the iPod just act as an external hard drive without the rather authoritarian influence of iTunes. (Duh Karla, even on the PC you can still just click and drag your media from one drive to the other!) So now I've managed to get most of my photo archive onto the Mac just by dragging it onto the hard disk. No iPhoto needed. And I can arrange them as I see fit.

Plus I found a piece of software that might do very nicely thank you very much.

It's called iView Media. I think it might work. I like that it is fully customizable and that it lets you file your stuff the way you want. Sorry, control freak me just can't hang with the iPhoto thing. I have to have things organized the way my brain works, which, unfortunately for me and iPhoto's future relationship, is NOT chronological.

I also have an older version of Adobe Photoshop Elements around here, which I can put on the Mac and have as a back up photo-tweaker.

I won't delete iPhoto, I'm not cruel, and once I feel more secure with the Mac I might even play with it some, but it just felt so unnatural to me, I couldn't face it AND all the other stuff I still need to learn about the new computer.

I'm also kinda cranky and here's photo evidence of why:

This is a night photo of the wraparound deck. It was taken in late summer. It's kind of blurry, but note the stained glass window propped against the window in the middle right hand side. IT looks small in this shot but it's about two and a half feet tall including the window sill.

After the recent snow...it's piled up about 3 1/2 feet.



View from the inside with the stained glass window. The snow is about a foot and a half higher than the top of the window.

I keep clicking my red heels but nothing is happening......

some day I will learn patience, though yesterday was obviously not it

Part 2 of my iPhoto woes.

I put some more pictures into iPhoto via my iPod...and all the new pictures just...poof...went away. I dunno where they went. I click on the thumbnail of the new picture in iPhoto (which would tell me the larger picture should be SOMEWHERE), and when the larger picture opens it's just....black. Nothing. Nada.

That annoyed me.

So, I decided to start all over and deleted EVERYTHING in iPhoto. Start over with a clean slate. Be patient. Learn more before I transfer. Buy the book for Dummies. It's ok as all the photos are on my original laptop. The ones on iPhoto were all duplicates.

Except....

All my photos of my brother and I at Christmas. The whole shebang of pictures from the Empty House Party 2. All my "before" photos of the house before painting and primping. These were all uploaded directly to the mac, not to the pc. And yes, they were deleted from the camera, and yes, I emptied the Trash.

So, Badger, the picture of your sweet little ass at the empty house party is history. Bookhart, you and Karla May making out, that's gone too. All the dancing to Abba is gone as well. Malcontent Mama, the pic of your beloved hubs with is big ol' foot smearing the wall, that's bye bye as well.

And the pictures of the giant turkey my brother and I cooked....gone like the leftovers.

Oh I'm just so MAD at me. Mad mad mad. Stupid me.

iPhoto is PISSING ME OFF

Right now I am in some sort of wierd computer/gadget hell.

Right now I really really hate both my iPod and the iPhoto that came with the iBook.

Who in God's name thought it would be a good idea to AUTOMATICALLY assign organization of all the photos you put into iPhoto by year? So here I am having spent the majority of a day getting my *&^% iPod to upload over 7000 pictures from the old Windows based pc (which does not have USB 2 so it was slower than shit), then I get them on the new iBook (faster as it DOES have USB2) and fucking iPhoto takes all my pictures, shakes them up and then randomly assigns them into new folders.

Folders I don't understand.
Folders that have NOTHING in common with my painstakingly organized system that Windows easily allowed me to create.
Folders that are dated 1997-2005, then when you open one of those, the folders are titled "1", "2", "3". and so on.

So you open THOSE folders and they have yet more numbers as titles. And, as I never had time to NAME all 7000 photos, the fact that iphoto won't let me see thumbnails of whatever is in its stupid little assigned folders is just about ready to drive me over the bend. Cuz, yeah, I know what 86732be53.jpg looks like. FUCK!

A guy at the Mac store told me to re-load the photos onto the iBook, this time avoiding iPhoto. So I did that, and it STILL assigned everything into photos by dates. GAH! What the hell am I missing? How do I fix this? How many hours am I going to waste on this shit?

And the iPod keeps leaving these HUGE cache files on the old windows system whenever I upload the phtos to it, which almost crashed the computer as it used almost 8 gigs of hard drive space with the cache. What is up with that? I was going mental trying to figure out where all my hard drive space had gone. I knew I hadn't used it.

Does Apple hate me? Can anyone tell me how to NOT have iPhoto totally gank my whole photo filing system?

Life Lesson #4: always give yourself something to look forward to

I've booked a ticket to Bangkok Thailand in March.

Woo!

WOO!

Seriously, can it be just a little more extreme?

Hi. I'm back. In Norway.

And it's COLD. And it's SNOWING. I don't mean a little snow, I mean clusterfuck snow, snow that is piling up our windows and on the deck to a point that I don't think we will be able to be on that deck until May, after it all melts.

Shitty, crappy, even the Norwegians are freaking, weather.

I went from weather in the high 70's in Austin, sun sun and more sun, to snow dark and highs in the low 20's. Hello, life, can you make it just that much harder for me to get acclimated?

I finally figured out what life here is like. It's like living in a snow globe. From the outside of the snowglobe, it's all pretty, and dreamy and you can shake it up and watch the little people on skates on the little pond in front of the little thatched cottage and you think "Aw, how picturesque".

Inside the snowglobe, those people on the lake in the skates are saying, "Mother fucker, who the hell keeps shaking up all this white shit? I can't see a damn thing! And it's COLD! And WET! I can't breathe! Hey! You! There! On the outside? How the HELL do I get outta here? (tap tap tap on glass)".

Welcome to my snowglobe. Feh.

the big bye bye

As I get older it gets harder and harder to say goodbye.

I've been crying all morning. I cried passing by my friend Julia's house. She'll be moving and I won't get to sit on her back porch anymore guzzling beer and trading stories. (That she will have a new, closer to my house and nicer back porch is immaterial. I'm depressed and dammit I'm crying over her soon-to-be-gone old porch.) I cried getting my last mocha at STarbucks. They've treated me really well these past couple of months. They gave me the coffee free this time...apparently I had that weepy look in my eyes and they took caffeinated pity on me. I creid after my breakfast this morning with Bookhart. I cried in the parking lot at the post office. Someone shoot me. I'm fucking annoying right now. Poor Rich is at his wit's end with me.

The house is empty and spotless. It's got new paint, new gutters, new french drain in the yard, new sidewalk. New fire alarms. All new locks and knobs. New light fixtures. New mini blinds. It's sparkly and pretty and dammit do I have to leave it now that I've got it where I've wanted it for years? Shit shit shit.

I know once I get back to Norway (and sleep for three days, don't bother calling) that i'll be ok. I also know that life gives you lessons and as you get older you learn more about yourself. So here's my big lesson: I love to travel, no doubt, and will do it at the drop of a hat. I'm good at travelling and am a fairly awesome travel companion (if you forget that when I am drunk I snore.) But I think I am also a home kinda gal, and Texas is just home. I would rather travel around and know that I have my crappy little well-located house to come home to than live in the poshest flat in all of Norway (which honestly, I think I do live in the poshest flat in all of Norway.) So that either makes me very provincial or, as I like to think, shows that i have a fairly solid grounding in my roots and who I am.

Whatever, right now I am just glad i had these two glorious months at home and I am damn sad they are over. At the beginning it seemed like i had all the time in the world. Now it seems way too short. Funny how that happens.

serious packing issues

My dad has a saying: "trying to fit 10 lbs of shit in a 3 lb bag". That's what I am doing right now. I've got so much CRAP to bring back and i am totally, hyperventilating, maxi-stressing over getting it all shoved in and packed away. I don't know how I accumulated so much, but there it is. Crapola. Everywhere. I'm doing a "test pack" now, to see how it all fits and what I will have to mail back to myself.

Plus there's the last cleanings, organizings and putting-awayings in the house. I just have this slightly obsessive need to have everything PERFECT and just so. This, by the way, is not my normal MO, so I am not sure what's up. I just feel a bit overwhelmed and anxious, like this is permanent and I have to make sure it's all forever correct, not just "correct for right now".

Last night we went for dinner to Malcontent Mama's house. She and her husband and two kids live literally right around the corner from us. Like, it's a bit embarrassing to drive there, it's so close. Their little boy, Anderson, is just such a huggable chunk. He weighs a TON. My arms are killing me from holding him. Seriously, he loves to be held and normally, with kids, I'm all about the politically correct 'two minute and then pass off' hold. You know, just enough time to show interest, not enough time to get drooled, barfed, pooped or yanked on. But Anderson, man, he's a different story. If my arms could have taken it, I would have held that kid all night. I can see why Lindsay has lost so freaking much weight in the past few months. Between running around after their daughter and weight lifting Mr Love Chunk, she's got her exercise totally taken care of.

Today we meet a bunch of folks at Matt's El Rancho, a Tex Mex place in South Austin. Some folks love it (like me) others don't but dammit, I dream about their shrimp tostadas. That and the Bob Armstrong dip are the stuff of my nocturnal digressions when I am in Norway. Norwegians just don't GET the idea of gooey, orange and white Tex Mex cheese. I've been eating an awful lot the past few days, and my stomach is not happy with me, but shit, I'm completely committed to eating everything in sight until I leave on Wednesday......You can just call me Karla Creosote.

buzzzbuzzz buzz

I've been crazy busy like a bee....

Sorry for lack of posts.

Hope to have time for more in depth posting later. Right now I'm enmeshed in last minute shopping, details and social stuff. Gotta get it all in for the next half year in a remaining 4 days. I am so full of Mexican food and beer it's starting to change my hair color to Guacamole Auburn.

WWWAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Four Days Left!!!!! Sigh.

Nothing embarrasses me anymore...not after Friday night.

I've been doing a bit of hanging out at this bar in Austin called The Mean Eyed Cat. It's a new bar that's supposed to be a hole in the wall, but it really isn't, as it is too kitschy, cool and hip to be a true dive. But it is divesque...complete with the railroad tracks being right behind it, homages to Johnny Cash on every surface and a cool Decayed Meets Trading Spaces vibe. It's got a great outdoor garden for slippin' into mosey. Me likes it.

Me likes it so much that I bought a pair of their logo "girl hotpants". Which is where the embarrassment begins. Because, folks, let's face it, I bought panties at a bar.

I bought panties at the bar from a male bartender. (Let's also note the fact that these particular panties say, on the front crotchular area "Eat the Kitty". Ok?) So here I am, at a bar, buying theme naughty panties from a large male bartender and (girls you will know how I felt on this) HAVING TO ASK FOR A LARGE. eek. He joked with me and told me he needs a two xl himself. I was so embarrassed buying the undies I didn't get the joke til way later. So I looked like a total big assed, red faced humorless PRIG who didn't get his joke. Arg. anyhow, I got me a beer (or three) he handed me the panties, I balled them up into my purse and I crept away from whence I came.

Next day. Hungover me rescues the balled up tiny piece of lycra from my purse and takes a look. Hmm, these look small, I say as I hold them up. Very small. Like, if this is their idea of a large I am one big assed motherfucker for SURE.

They were SMALLS.

This means, I realize with dawning horror, I have to GO BACK TO THE BAR, RETURN THE PANTIES AND ASK, ONCE AGAIN FOR A LARGE. (Hey, naughty eat the kitty theme panties ain't cheap, and I actually do want to wear them someday.)

Is this a cosmic joke? Does someone have it in for me? Me thinks yes.

So Friday night I head back to what is now my favorite-yet-oddly-dreaded-local-divesque bar and make sure i get there as early as possible after opening so that I can be relatively assured of less humiliation when doing the return. OH, shit. The place is packed. To the gills. The one bartender (a woman, THANK GOD) is harried and rushing and has no time for my panty issues. Not that I blame her one bit. She says she will do me the excahnge when she gets a chance.

I slink out back to the garden, meet up with my pals, and explain my panty woes. It's a small bar, not like everyone won't know what I am up to eventually.

I start to tie one on. The panties get passed around like a party hat. (I have camera phone proof, people.) Everyone at the table has now worn my small eat the kitty soon to be returned panties on every part of the body EXCEPT that which they were designed for. Boys and girls.

Some of us get hungry and run across the street to the Mexican place across the street. I get bought a frozen margarita with a Herradura floater. This means Karla talk funny now. Whilst in the midst of my garmarita-ing, one of the guys from our party at the bar across the way runs into the restaurant brandishing yet another pair of eat the kitty panties and says "Hey she found the large and told me to bring them to you! Here they are! I brought them to you!" Panty purchase by committee with free gleeful boy delivery?? What is this? Sheesh! Now the mexican food restaurant patrons know my underwear issues too. And also I had a cell phone message to the effect that the large panties had been located. My God! Alert the Media! Karla's Large Ass Panties Have Been Found! All is well! We are no longer on orange alert!

After dinner we went back to the bar, granted a little more wobbly than when we left, and continued the beering and the panty fashion show. The larges fit much better on our heads, much like a jaunty, if holey, beret. Fits around necks as a scarf, too. Well, kinda. It's a bit constricting and there is the issue of what to do with the otherr side. Would work better for someone with two heads.

So yes, I wear a large in my underwear size. I am no longer embarrassed to say it, as everyone knows it (now), and seriously, who are we kidding anyhow? Large and proud of it! Got it, everyone in Austin? I bought the large girl hotpants at the Mean Eyed Cat! Good, now get me another beer. I have brain cells left to kill.

grrr.....

I've just run up against the wall of State regulations. And it's pissing me off.

Apparently in order to rent your house you have to have some extra locks put on all the exterior doors, so that the people innside can lock the doors and there is no key on the outside. I can understand why the law is there, as it protects, say, a single woman from the unwanted attentions of a key and phallus wielding landlord, but it still does not make me happy. Especially as I JUST changed the front door locks, with nice new high quality double dead bolts. Now not only do I have to replace those with crappy latch cylinder locks, but also have to add the extra locks. Which makes three things on the door: knob, lock and extra lock. I HATE the idea of it. HATE it. No more holes and drilling in the house, please????? Shit.

So that $80 bucks I spent gettting the locks changed is getting thrown away as I get the new, less quality ones put on. The single bright spot is that, if I have to change all those locks, might as well get new knobs, too, and continue with my shiny brass banishment efforts in favor of brushed chrome.

I've also been waxing the hardwoods with this stuff from Johnson wax that is totally making the floors look great. They need refinishing, no way around it, but this stuff is at least adding a bit of depth to the sheen and some protection too. But Oh My God it smells horrible.

I read somewhere that if you want to get pregnant as an "older person" you should watch out for three things: diet, cigarette smoke and noxious chemicals. Apparently too much drinking, eating badly, being around smoke and heavy cleaning supplies will shrink your eggs to little wizened raisins. Well, all I can say is my ovaries must have a lot of room right now, because after this two months of smoky bars, beer, paint, wax and cleaning fumes, my eggs are rattling around like dehydrated peas in a pod. Eeek.

The smell of the wax is wafting about me now, even with the windows and doors open. My future babies will be two feet tall and look like Oompah Loompahs on crack.

elk's lodge, rose bowl and beer bucket

last night I went to the South Austin Elk's Lodge to watch the big game between USC and UT.

Let me preface all that follows by saying this is the first football game i have ever watched with even a modicum of interest. Football to me has always been a bunch of fat guys in tight yeast-innfection inducing pants playing gang bang withh a funny shaped ball. I never got it and would always clap for the wrong team when I was in drill squad in high school. Plus, both my highh school team and the Longhorns when I attended UT sucked really hard, we never won games and it was just demoralizing as hell. I just assumed any team I was supposed to support would always lose.

Last night, however, totally and completely rocked. I met a gang of pals at the Elk's Lodge. Yes, Elk's Lodge. The Austin Elks have been making a push for younger members to help support their AWESOME facilities. The lodge is located on a bluff overlooking downtown with sweeping views. They've got a pool; and a ballroom and activity rooms. But even better is the bar with $1.50 beers and $4.00 pitchers. A four buck pitcher to someone from Norway is like a swimming pool full of Evian being presented to a dehydrated desert dweller. Sheer abundance and wonderfulness. The folks there are a mixture of traditional older Texans, young hipsters, folks with kids and lots of folks with accents so thick you want a butter knife to cut through it. All the bartenders call you "sweetiepie".

So I had my pitcher of Miller Lite (hey, I'll drop my beer snob standards for a cheap bucket o' beer. Even snobs can bend.), my burger and my nachos and settled down to watch the game. We yelled we screamed and we drank. Valerie, one of the gang, came up with the best line of the night, which went, " I wanna see some white all over that mofo!", when she was hollering for the USC quarterback to get tackled by the UT team. I almost snorted beer out my nose.

I mostly got what was going on, with some helpful explanations about rules, etc. It was especially exciting towards the end, when, after two failed throws towards the goal, the one guy who had the ball just basically said "Fuck it, I'm running" and ran with the ball for a touchdown that won the game. You could see his thought process before he ran, which was "these guys can't catch and I can run like the wind, so here goes!" It was cool. I yelled and hollered with the best of 'em.

I swear, if football was like that I'd watch it ALL the time.....

Go Longhorns! Woo!!!!!

After the game we went to the Mean Eyed Cat for a post game beer or two and it was madness on the streets. Folks honking and hollering and cheering and honking some more. It was great. I'm so glad I went to the game. I had cancelled due to tiredness, crankiness and an almost bad incident involving me, a chair, some mini blinds and a drill, but when I realized I was not dead or hurt, just scared stupid, a hot shower perked me back up and I ended up joining the party.

last night was a true Texas night. Now if only Guinness came in $4 pitchers......

removed too much funk?

Lemme first say that I am so glad i had the inside of the house painted. The trim is so gleaming white it's unbelievable. Windows that I used to just say "ick" whenever i looked at them are now so gorgeouus...oh my. And the kitchen? it's so white it's like it had a whitectomy. it's WHITE. Even inside the cabinets has been painted, and THANK GOD for that. I am no longer afraid to reach under the sink for stuff.....

Which is also making me a little sad. In my efforts to clean up the house and freshen it, I think I took out too much of the funk. All my stenciling and paint finishes are gone. The funky 50's tile remains, I wouuld NEVER change that, but I did like the bathroom painted black (and so did the new renters! cool!). Now it's white. And well, white. I defunkified my house. It's not blah, but it's definitely closer to Pottery Barn than the City Wide Garage Sale I used to attend so regularly.

sigh. I know when i come back to Austin I can refunk it. But it's sad to think all my creative efforts are now hidden under "Montgomery White" and "Decatur Buff".

And shit. I have to clean the floors AGAIN. Grrr......