My Life Blog

When I was in San Antonio, I went to a party hosted by my Mother’s boss. He is the owner of Mad Dogs Pub in San Antonio. They also have a couple of other locations as well, one of which is in Hong Kong.

But anyway, I realized that this was the first time we’d ever attended a party where we all drank alcohol. They drank wine and I drank beer.

It a stunning confession, my Step-Dad mentioned that just last year they had attended a “wine meal” where they served a different wine for every course. That’s not so stunning. What was stunning was that he said he got totally wasted. I mean puke-in-the-bathroom wasted! And he admitted that my Mother had to drive home! Funny, I don’t recall hearing that story. I guess we aren’t proud of such moments. I was amused, though.

So anyway, the party was fun and my Mother stopped short of singing karaoke. But that’s not to say that she didn’t get some prompting. The host said, “Linda, put down your calculator and sing us a song!” Or something like that. You see, my Mother is the accountant for the establishment. There was just something funny about the moment. And if you knew my Mother, you’d know that she would never be the center of attention.

Two nights later, we went to Mad Dogs and dined and drank on the Riverwalk. It was a perfect 72 degrees as far as I could tell. And the bands of Nebraska and Michigan State floated by consecutively and serenaded us with fight songs. Pretty fun time, I have to say.

I just discovered that I left my new book “Optimal Thinking” in the hotel room that I vacated two days ago.

Is there any question that I need to read that book?

In my ear today were Adam Duritz (Counting Crows), Johnny Rzeznik (Goo Goo Dolls), and Chris Martin (Coldplay) on my road trip from Dallas to San Antonio to see my parents for Christmas.

But what I really needed in my ear was a spotter — NASCAR style.

“Three-wide, you’re in the middle, hold your line,” he would have said.

It was like Talladega — huge swarms of cars all separated by mere feet, all with a desire to get where they were going as fast as possible. At least on the road, you can see the brake lights. It made me wonder how the real NASCAR drivers do it without the brake lights and at twice the speed.

“Lap traffic ahead, take the high line.”

Not everyone was in a hurry, though. There were a few curiously slow cars that would bunch us all up. And in those cases, the fun part was trying to figure out how to safely get around them and break free of the traffic.

“Fast rookie approaching.”

And of course, there were those that were in a hurry for their annual drive. I say “annual” because the skill level was consistent with someone who drives once a year. Its always a bad thing to be in a hurry in a car you don’t drive too well. Such was the case this time. I saw this car quickly approach me and then draw even with me. I could tell from its body language that it was coming over. I lifted right as the slide job happened in front of me. The rookie safely made the pass, no doubt unaware that the veteran behind him probably saved his car and his Holiday.

It kinda made me wish that my own car was a NASCAR car and that I had a dozen just like it in the shop. Yep, I had a Tony Stewart moment. I wanted to spin the rookie and put him into the wall, but alas, my Mercedes is unsponsored and costly to replace. I visualized it instead.

I’m not complaining, I enjoyed the competition. The trip was only about four hours with one pit stop and my parents were happy to see me. Not quite the victory circle, but close.

“All clear.”

Is anyone else ready for the Holidays to be over?

I’m thankful for the time off, but this time of year just drives me crazy. And I guess it has something to do with being single and having an unsettled personal life.

While everyone is excitedly buying gifts for their significant others, I’m shopping mostly for me. I had to deny the B&N people as they offered to wrap some books that I recently bought. I told them these weren’t gifts, they were for me!

So anyway, my stay in the hotel has thankfully ended, but not without an evening full of movies that made me feel even more alone. In total, I watched all or part of “Titanic”, “Two Weeks Notice”, and “Message In A Bottle”. I finally had to turn off MIAB as it was just a bit too melancholy even for me. But in TWN, I enjoyed the song trailer as the movie rolled its credits.

I’ve always identified with the Counting Crows, but hadn’t heard the song “Big Yellow Taxi.” To the unfamiliar, here’s a link to the lyrics:

Big Yellow Taxi

Anyway, it got me thinking how many times I’ve figuratively done the same thing. Way too many times, I think. I count at least two ex-girlfriends who I paved over in hopes that there was something else better out there. And in one case, I know I made a pretty big mistake. She was marriage material and we were good together, but timing wasn’t on our side. Funny, I ran into one of her friends the other day. According to her friend, she’s happily married to the guy she dated after me.

Anyway, its already been a long December, but there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.

It better be…

This one is unbelievable.

I take pride in managing my life in a very detailed and organized way. Stuff just doesn’t happen to me out of the blue. I usually see a crisis coming from a mile away.

But not yesterday.

When I pulled into the driveway of the home I’ve been in for now two months, the garage door would not open automatically. I’d experienced this before at my former apartment and just thought we had some temporary radio interference.

So I quaintly entered my house through a side door and quickly observed that the power was off all over the house. My first thought was that it was some localized blackout. I looked through the neighborhood, but could see lit doorbell ringers, so I knew this was isolated to me.

Unfortunately, I do not have the old-fashioned phones which just plug into the wall. I have gone exclusively with the powered cordless phones, so they were of no use. Instead, I had to use my cell phone which was low on battery power to call TXU Energy. So after wading through the voice response and dropping into the proper queue, I waited 30 minutes for a person to answer. Meanwhile, the house darkened all the while. My spirits darkened along with it.

Once I got the non-caring, paid-by-the-hour, is-it-Christmas-yet agent, I began to convey my story. It turns out that they “lost” my orders to disconnect my apartment and connect my house. So I’ve been using energy from someone else’s account and they finally terminated it. Part of me was pretty angry about this since it happened without notification. But in thinking about it, they didn’t know who to contact. Of course, if they could cross-reference with TXU Gas, they might find that I’m happily a customer.

So after much discussion, they concluded that I never called for the disconnect/connect. Of course, that infuriated me since I successfully turned on my gas, water, DSL, and phone service. Its doubtful that I would have forgotten my electricity. But there didn’t seem to be anyone who really cared on the other end of the phone.

And now the bad news. In order to establish a “new” service, there is lead time. And that lead time is three days! So I’m staying in a hotel for four nights until Monday when hopefully my power will be turned back on.

Never before have I felt so disempowered (pun intended). It was not my mistake. And thankfully, I had no major party plans or arriving family for the weekend. I really feel like our technology and control systems should have evolved to the point where turning the power off and on only takes a flip of a switch. Isn’t that what happens at the micro-level within my house? Why is the macro model so different? I think I will never have answers to those questions.

Now here’s the semi-amusing part of the story. When I arrived at my house, I had about three hours to spare before my evening plans. And these plans were with someone I was to meet for the first time. So as I decided that my only option was a hotel room, I quickly packed some clothes for the evening and the next day. I did so in the darkness with a flashlight. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the hotel, the slacks that I chose did not match and I was forced to dress down for the occasion. For what its worth, it all worked out okay in the end. I had a nice time and returned home…to my hotel.

Just as I resisted the cell phone and grocery self-service, so too have I resisted web logs and web-logging. But since I have several web logs on my daily surf list, I feel in some small way that maybe I owe a little bit of myself back to the Universe.

And so here I am.

I can’t imagine who would be entertained and amused by my goings-ons, but it is not up to me to decide. I don’t feel particularly enlightened much of the time and occasionally feel downright uninteresting. But alas, I write on nonetheless…perhaps to an audience of one or a very few.

If you are here by accident or invitation, I hope the visit was worth the minute or two out of your life that you’ll never get back.