Random Photo Friday: Not in Ireland Edition

Here are my dad, brother, and me at Lake Texoma in February 1990. My mom's taking the picture.



I am twelve years old, and I am Cool. Yes, with a capital "C". You can tell by the giant Guns N' Roses button I'm wearing on my awesome jean jacket. Seriously, that thing was about 8 inches across. (I thought I might still have it somewhere, but I couldn't find it. I did, however come across a calendar noting that on this very day in 1999 I went to a Poison concert, as well as some candy I brought back from Finland seven years ago.)

Seventh grade was a very rough year for me. My dad had graduated from vet school, and my family moved from Bryan to Denton, TX. For some reason the Denton school district wouldn't admit me to the honors classes despite my high test scores. The combination of puberty, finding my social footing in a new school, and soul-destroying boredom in class was volatile.

My grades plummeted, mostly on purpose. I thought seeming dumb would make me more popular among my new found friends. Also, I started sneaking out at night, stealing cigarettes, and getting drunk. To tell the truth, most of my friends were much better behaved than I was. Being the Bad One for a change was fun.

I'm sure I seemed like a really screwed up kid, but I was just wearing this personality like a costume. My parents reacted to my new obnoxious self in the best way possible. I got grounded a few times and received some very uncomfortable lectures, but I really felt like they gave me enough room to work through this weirdness until I was ready to be myself again. If they had sent me away to a camp for irritating preteens who don't act right or something like that, it probably just would have reinforced my experiment in delinquency.

Even though I was trying my best to be a jerk, we still got along pretty well and enjoyed family outings. In the same photo album as this photo were pictures of another camping trip, a family Easter egg hunt, and a vacation to Galveston. I actually remember happily participating in all these activities, so I guess I wasn't trying hard enough.

Random Photo Friday: Bonus Edition

My complex system of random photo choosing identified this picture as my subject for this week.



However this is a picture taken during my trip with The Husband to Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in October 2005, which has already been sufficiently documented in this Random Photo Friday post. So, I decided to spin the wheel again in hope of providing a new photo inspired reminiscence for you, my reader.

The next photo I chose was a self-portrait memorializing a really good haircut I got sometime in the fall of 2005. I looked absolutely adorable, but not very anonymous. Thinking that a big blurry blob obscuring pretty much the entire photograph wouldn't hold much visual interest, I decided to try again.

Finally, after tossing out a couple more photo selections that had already been posted, I switched up my picture picking strategy and came up with this to share with you, my reader. Although, if you are my reader, you were probably there when it was taken. But, you were having a good time, so that's OK.



(Everyone's face is pretty blurry or obscured here, but if any of y'all object to literally ones of people spotting you on the internet, let me know.)

This was a spur of the moment gathering on April Fool's Day, 2006, on a perfect warm evening. We never even went inside after settling in on the back porch. I don't remember what we talked about, but we were out there for hours, laughing and drinking wine. All the pictures of this night are fuzzy and softly lit (just like my memories of the event). Everyone looks beautiful and happy, and every time I look at this set of photos I feel really lucky to have such friends in my life.

Random Photo Friday: Christmas 1986 Edition

I'm so glad someone invented digital cameras. If I took a picture like this nowadays, I'd delete it and try again. I did fix it up a little bit using modern digital technology, so there's that.

Anyway, my family has a long and faithful tradition of photographically documenting our Christmas trees each year. This one isn't too goofy, but get a load of the extra awesome faux fiber optic tree topper there. And is that wall decor fashionable for the mid-eighties, or is it a hold over from the seventies my parents were still enjoying?

I was nine years old and in fourth grade in 1986. This was the last year for quite a while I was remotely cute or cool since I hit puberty the next year way before any of my friends did. And not in a good "early bloomer with big boobs" way. Puberty mostly just stunted my growth and gave me a bad complexion and chubby thighs.

Christmas of 1986, however, I was still a cute little girl in a red velvet dress.

Random Photo Friday: Small Rodent Edition

Random Photo Friday is becoming more of an occasional series than a weekly one, but it's still fun when I remember it.

Anyway, this, quite simply, is a squirrel.*



Here is a closer look at that squirrel.



Cute, huh?

I took this photo during a trip to Ohio to see the bay-bee. (Hey, all the photos on the post are gone! Darn The Husband must have changed his website around where they were hosted. I'll get right on fixing that.)

This squirrel is special because it's black! Instead of brown! So of course I had to follow it around for half an hour trying to take its picture. Aren't you glad I did?

*I wonder if it is possible to write a grammatically accurate, correctly punctuated sentence with commas between every word?

Random Photo Friday: Goofy Cousin Edition

This is my cousin, Rob. Although, back when this picture was taken in August 1992, we called him Robbie. You wouldn't know it from this photo, but evidently he grew up to be quite the hunk of let's-not-go-there-he's-my-cousin.



His mom, my aunt, invited me to go with them on vacation to Florida, where they have a condo. They picked me up here in Texas, and when they left to drive back to Canada, I got to fly all by myself for the first time back to Dallas. My dad picked me up from the airport, and on the way home we happened to pick up a kitten, who turned out to be our weird cat, Buster. He deserves his own post at some future point.

Anyway, we enjoyed snorkeling and seafood and visiting the wildlife park, where my French-Canadian uncle flouted the rules and rolled down the window in the middle of the lion habitat. He nearly got us eaten by lions, and most definitely got us yelled at by a nice park ranger who didn't want to see us get eaten by lions.

He met another Canadian couple on the beach and made polite small talk with them. Once they left he spent several minutes mocking them for the way they said, "Eh?" at the end of every sentence. Evidently the Québécois don't talk all funny like that. Of course I only understand every third word of his "excellent" English.

Oh, but back to Robbie. He mocked me for not knowing French and believing that a salon is a place where you get your hair done instead of a living room. I mocked him for not knowing that a word can have more than one meaning, and also for pronouncing the letter "z" like "zed."

He was kind of bratty, being an only and very much wanted child born into a family with more than enough resources to pile upon a precious son. I suspect a little part of my being invited on that trip was to play the role of big sister and cut him down to size a bit. At one point I refused to swim with him because he was being kind of jerky, and I made him apologize to me, so I think it might have worked.

I haven't seen Rob in years, and I don't know if I could pick him out of a crowd. I guess as he got older he had more of a life in Montreal and didn't have time to be dragged down to Texas to visit family. He has probably been here once or twice in the last 15 years, but for whatever reason, I didn't have time to be dragged two counties over to visit with him. If he comes for Christmas, I'll be sure to take an updated photo to compare.

Thanks to Holly for reminding me about this whole random photo Friday thing.

Random Photo Friday: Hot Tub* Edition

I love this picture of the hall after our wedding reception is over. My brother is looking all James Bond villain in his tuxedo. Friends who now live in three different states are lingering and laughing.

Meanwhile, The Husband and I are enjoying some marital bliss for the first time in our hotel room's hot tub.

This is supposed to be when the party ends and the real "work" of being married begins. However, after 2 1/2 years I still haven't figured out what's so strenuous about hanging out with The Husband all the time. If I didn't think it was going to be fun, I wouldn't have married the dude, and so far it has been.

I would like to impart some wisdom to newlyweds and horny people everywhere. Engaging in "bliss" in a hot tub is not all it's cracked up to be. I have to recommend against the amphibious "bliss." If you feel the need to know why, you'll have to email me because I'm pretty sure posting explicit material on the internet isn't allowed.

*Not pictured

Random Photo Friday: Oh, Yeah, I Almost Forgot About Doing This Edition

Today's selection requires no explanation.



It's a cat! Wearing a bandanna!

I'm totally sending this to Stuff On My Cat.

Random Photo Friday: Halloween Edition

This is a timely selection for this week.



On Halloween 2001, The Husband and I had only been dating for about a month. At this early stage in our relationship, he was still acting like a good sport who was willing to go along with my goofy schemes, and I was still acting like I was thin.

After the next year's Sonny and Cher debacle, we never attended another costume party together again.

However, he did have the awesome idea to dress up like a headless wolf to go along with my murderous Little Red Riding Hood costume this year. Alas, that would have required way more effort than we were willing to expend, but I give him full credit for suggesting it.

The Return of Random Photo Friday - Paternal Edition

Here's my dad. He's great.

I remember when my brother and I were little, he taught us how to catch crawdads in the creek behind our house with a piece of twine and some bacon. He also made us bows and arrows out of sticks and kite string.

Sometimes when we were falling asleep in the back seat, he'd swerve the car just a little to see if he could make us bonk our heads on the window.

I'm not sure who it was, but someone gave him some snake eggs, and he had the idea to hatch them in our yogurt maker. One day we woke up to a yogurt maker full of hatched snake eggs and no snakes. Turns out yogurt makers are not appropriate devices for post-hatching baby snake containment.

My grandfather used to raise small ponies/large miniature horses. They were more or less feral, but of course I always wanted to ride them despite the fact they were nearly impossible to catch and not trained to wear a saddle at all. Being such a brilliant child, I told my dad I thought I could ride one if it came near the fence and I jumped on it. Being such a thoughtful dad, he suggested I try it.

I did get one leg over the black one and good enough grip on its mane that I managed to hang on as it sprinted half way across the field. When I finally fell off in a pile of rocks and weeds, my dad came running over laughing so hard he could barely stand up.

I remember my dad laughing that hard another time. Just after my 17th birthday, I got my driver's license. As my birthday present, my parent's had our old VW bug painted purple for me. My very first act as a new driver was to pull the car, with its brand new paint job, off the street and into the garage. As my family stood in the yard watching me, I popped the clutch, and the car, with its brand new paint job, jumped the curb and hit a light pole.

One time my dad got to the post office too late, and it was closed, so he cursed, "poopsticks." I still crack up when I think about it.

ETA: I can't believe I forgot about this one:

In junior high I really hated P.E. There was very little actual exercise involved, and changing clothes seemed like a stupid waste of time. One day I was whining at my dad before school, asking him to write me a note so I didn't have to participate in P.E., and he said he would.

Several minutes later he asked, "How do you spell 'weenie'?" For some reason this did not seem particularly strange to me.

When he gave me the note, I just stuck it in my pocket and didn't think any more about it until I was on my way to P.E.

Fortunately I opened the note before I gave it to my teacher. The note read, "Please excuse Unruly from P.E. today. She is a weenie."

Random Photo Friday - Wilderness Edition

Today's Random Photo was taken by The Husband as we drove down Mt. Scott at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in October 2005.



We spent about four days tromping around in the wilderness, eating s'mores, and looking at hairy animals. I know the photo above doesn't hold much visual interest for anyone who wasn't there, so let's spice up this post with the hairy animals.

Prairie dog: small and cute

Buffalo (Bison?): big and kind of intimidating

Anyway, we spent one day hiking and got terribly lost. The trail map provided by the refuge was a joke, but even if we had bought a topographical map, I'm not sure either one of us would have had much luck reading it, especially since we forgot to bring a compass. We still had fun climbing around on the rocks and eating our lunch while overlooking a majestic Oklahoma vista.

Once we'd had enough fun and lunch and majestic vistas, we gave up trying to relocate the trail and started heading back. We weren't 100% confident where "back" was, but we had a vague notion that we were walking in the right general direction. As we were starting to get frustrated, knowing we were close to the path to our car but still not able to find it, we both suddenly stopped and looked at each other. The Husband and I had both recognized the same weed in an entire grassland and were able to use it as a landmark to navigate back to the parking lot.

I guess we developed some sort of botanical marital mind-meld when put to the test. It was a good thing, too, because I was really starting to worry that we'd have to spend the night with the buffalo/bison.


Majestic, huh?

Random Photo Friday: One Day Late Edition

Why am I posting the Friday photo on Saturday? Just because I can! Bwa ha ha! Anyway...

Here is my lovely mother-in-law at our wedding.



I am blessed with a pretty awesome family, including the one I married into, and my mother-in-law is no exception. Despite the fact that she's been through some real crap since I've known her, she always seems to be smiling and looking for her next big adventure.

She has always made me feel welcome among her family and circle of very cool friends. One New Year's Eve she and my sister-in-law taught me how to knit. In less than 6 months, she altered my wedding dress and two of the bridesmaids' dresses and still found time to sew her own outfit.

I know this isn't how mother-in-law stories are supposed to go, so if guess if I had to complain about her I would say that her energy and creativity sometimes make me feel a little lazy and boring in comparison. Of course, I'm totally lazy and boring so the fact that she only makes me feel a little bit that way still speaks to how awesome she is.

Random Photo Friday: Junior High Edition

Meet 1st period girls' P.E. on the last day of 7th grade, May 1990.*



The next picture was not randomly selected, but I dug it up so you could see exactly what I'm wearing in the photo above. How AWESOME are those pants?



7th grade was a really hard time for me. My family had moved the summer before, and the new school district wouldn't accept my test results to place me into honor's classes. I was stuck in (gasp!) ~regular~ classes with ~regular~ kids.

My social skills among the un-dorky were rather lacking, so I ended up way overcompensating. I argued with my teachers, purposely flunked tests, snuck out in the middle of the night, and stole cigarettes and booze from my parents. I wasn't very smart about it, however. One day after school my friend and I got passing out, puking on ourselves drunk after school before our parents came home. I'm not sure how I thought we were going to get away with that one. Of course there were a lot of other shenanigans I did get away with, most of which involved getting drunk and wandering around the neighborhood at night.

By the time 8th grade rolled around, I'd straightened myself out. I think I just got it out of my system. My whole life I had been a pretty uptight, type-A kid who never, ever got in trouble. It turned out that being bad got boring and wasn't worth the hassle. I credit my parents for not making too big a deal out of my sudden rebellion. If they stirred up a bunch of drama about my behavior, it probably would only have made things worse. Luckily, deep down, I was just a normal, boring, straight A student.

It wasn't until college that I discovered I could be a goofy, drunk-ass, straight A student.

Ah, good times...




*I planned to anonymize any people who showed up in my random photo selections, but in this case it seems like a little much. So, if you recognize yourself in this picture and want me to take it down, feel free to email me. I doubt that's going to happen considering approximately 10 people read this blog and I probably know them all personally.

Random Photo Friday - Gardening Edition

It came as quite a surprise to me that I have an entire folder on my computer devoted to pictures of tomatoes from November 2005 - mostly courtesy of The Husband, I suspect. He has instilled in me an appreciation for botanical photography that was previously lacking.



We were 2/3 successful in 2005 in our tomato-growing efforts. Of two of our three bushes produced prodigiously, and yummily may I add. Sometimes I would stand in the yard, picking tomatoes right off the vine and popping them in my mouth because there's nothing better than a perfectly ripe tomato still warm from the sun.

The singular spicy green earthy scent of the tomato plants would transport me back twenty years to when my grandmother was still strong and blessed with the greenest thumb I've ever seen. Because of her efforts I've known the pleasure of eating tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, green beans, and even peanuts fresh from the garden.

Now that my grandmother is frail and forgetful, she can't grow her vegetables any more. My parents have moved into the small cottage next to the garden plot to watch after her, and they've cleared out the dead stalks and vines to plant a butterfly garden - a peaceful place to sit and be still rather than to stoop and bend and weed and harvest.

If my grandmother showed me the rewards of coaxing and cultivating nature, my parents were instrumental in teaching me the pleasures of watching and understanding. We spent most of the vacations of my childhood camping. (We were too poor to afford much of anything else.) We would walk in the woods talking about different kinds of birds and flowers and berries and paddle canoes finding alligators and trees felled by beavers.

Little by little, however, I've let myself spend way too many hours in front of the television and the computer screen. The longer I let it go on, the less energy or motivation I have to tear myself away. At this point I'm tempted to make a dramatic gesture to reacquaint myself with the outside world, like quitting my job and setting up a yurt on the steppes of Mongolia or something, but that'll have to wait until it stops being so damn hot outside.

Introducing Random Photo Friday

Don't ask me where this goofy idea came from, but I've decided that I will post a photo from my albums chosen by a complicated system involving a random number generator each Friday and reminisce a little bit.



This picture certainly isn't the most exciting, but it brings up great memories. It's some Indian ruins in the Painted Desert of Arizona taken in May 1997.

At the end of my sophomore year in college, I broke up with my "fiance." I put that in quotes because I never intended to marry him, but that's a different story. To clear my head of the weirdness of our relationship and the stress of leaving, I decided to take a road trip and get far away from the whole situation.

Except for some periods of adolescent difficulty on my part, I've always had a good relationship with my parents. I was telling them about my plans to skip town for a while, and my mom mentioned how much she'd like to run off, too, so I invited her along. We had such a blast. That was 10 years ago, and we still talk about how great that trip was.

We set out to the west of Dallas, and spent some time with my uncle in Cuidad Juarez. Then we moseyed through southern New Mexico and Arizona, ending up in San Diego. After that, we headed up the Pacific coast to see my aunt in San Francisco, and then made our way back south, stopping at the Sequoia forest, the Grand Canyon, and other random sights along the way.

By the time we made it to the Painted Desert in Arizona, we were both tired and starting to wear on each other a little bit. We would have these pissy little arguments and then end up giggling about how annoying we both were.

That trip with my mom was the perfect way to reconnect with myself and what was real in my life after leaving a relationship based on so many misunderstandings and disappointments.