Oh, my stars and garters!

Bugly

I have no way to give you the scale of this thing as it was way up on the side of the house, but put your thumbs together and look all the way down to where they meet the heel of your hand. That's about how big it was, give or take a bit of variation in our thumb sizes.

Anyway, it was big, and at first I thought it was a giant cockroach, and I further thought it was seeking a way into the house where it would squirt its giant cockroach eggs all over the counters in a fine mist and then we really would be screwed, screwed! screwed, I say; and between the coming giant cockroach infestation and the swine flu we might as well just die of fright right now and get it over with.

 
Then I took a picture, in part to show you and in part so I could zoom in and get a better look, and I can tell you I've never been so relieved to see a set of mandibles. For that meant it was a beetle. A big, freaky, unpleasant-looking beetle, it's true, but also a sort of curious and remarkable beetle, not some terrifying mutant harbinger of the roach apocalypse. 

Dispatch from the most boring woman in America

Buh.

Go away.

My long and erratic work schedule is leaving very little time for fun, but the upside is there's also very little opportunity to spend money, last week's new-restaurant binge notwithstanding. I think it's about time to start obsessively checking plane fares for when this is over.

Shit. It just started raining really hard again. I am trapped under the crappy deck cover until it stops. That would be fine because I like the rain, but my drink is getting low over here. Help.

Uh oh.

Chicken-n-waffles. Whoo! Chicken-n-waffles. Huh!

...oh, hi! Sorry. I have a suggestion, and that is to go to the Lucky J's Chicken and Waffles trailer on Burnet with a friend. Split The Deal, which is two waffles and half a fried chicken, so everyone gets a piece of dark meat and a piece of white. Spring for the real maple syrup, which costs extra but is worth it. Then make it all disappear by alternating bites of chicken and waffles and also making cute little chicken-and-waffle tacos. Belch, wash your sticky hands and face, and go have a good day.

The chicken itself does not quite meet my golden-fried chicken ideal, but it's still damn tasty, and the combination does completely satisfy my salty/sweet/savory needs.

Plus it's really, really fun to say "chicken-n-waffles." (Huh! Chicken-n-waffles. Ah! Chicken-n-waffles. Yeah, that's right! Chicken-n-waffles. Hah! Chicken-n-waffles. I can't stop! Chicken-n-waffles. Huh! Chicken-n-waffles. Kill me now! Chicken-n-waffles. Rah!)

Salvage

The meteors were kind of a bust. Too much humidity and light pollution; tonight, of course, is dry and the sky is clear as glass. We only saw a few, and those were dim and fast. That's okay. It's never a waste to spend two hours on a blanket looking at the sky and drinking beer with a cute guy.

Lyrids!

In a minute here I'm going to stop screwing around on the internet, set out a blanket, and try to see some meteors. I wish I'd thought to ask my neighbor to turn out the light in her backyard.

You don't have to go here if you don't want to.

Pad Thai Cuisine was fine. Their iced coffee wasn't particularly fresh, the soup that came with their lunch special was flavorful but greasy, and the dishes themselves were tasty and seasoned well but nothing out of this world.

I knew that would be the case as soon as I saw the green bell peppers lurking about on my plate. Green bell peppers are kind of bullshit. They don't taste like much and don't add a thing, but they are cheap filler. Everything tasted fine, though, not bad at all, and I want to try their dinner menu to see if there are some hidden gems on there. You should go there if you're in the neighborhood, but I'm not going to drag you.

Maybe I'll try to extend the new-restaurant streak a little more and try Lucky J's Chicken and Waffles trailer on Burnet this week, but then I have to stop before I go broke and gain 900 pounds. Unless you know of somewhere that's opened up recently that deserves a look?

You go here now.

Last night we went to Taste of Ethiopia, a strip-mall restaurant that has delicious food and is owned by the nicest woman in the world. It's in Pflugerville, but it's worth the drive, and besides, we are spoiled here in relatively compact Austin and tend to consider a 20-minute drive across town on par with a perilous journey to the outskirts of darkest Siberia. I'm trying to get over that myself, but it's hard. Anyway, a bunch of us risked almost certain death to make the trek, and we were glad. We got family-style vegetable platters, plus a few people got meat dishes to share and had an all-around dandy time.

I may have mentioned this before, but women who run their own restaurants adore Eric. I think it's because he orders on the adventuresome side, his eyes visibly shine when he really, really likes what he's eating, and he often opts for dessert and blushes a little when he asks for it. He got an extra piece of baklava last night because the lady thought a treat might be good for his wrist. "Sweet helps," she told him, very seriously. She was genuinely, effortlessly awesome, and she makes some really good food. Go there and see for yourself.

Tonight I got off work a little early, so Eric and I had an impromptu date night and checked out House Pizzeria, a new place at 52nd and Airport. It used to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken when I lived down the street, and later it was some short-lived wings place, but I think the building has finally found its calling. They remodeled and landscaped so it's very pleasant and comfortable inside and out--we ate on the screened-in porch--and the pizzas are thin and wood fired with good sauce. The menu is totally basic, just two salads and maybe eight different 12-inch pizzas, but the food was solid and the draft beer was fresh. So you should also go there.

While we're on a new-restaurant roll, I also want to try Pad Thai Cuisine in the shopping center at Mueller this week. I hear it's comparable to Titaya, and even if it's not, I'm blown away that we have a restaurant within biking distance that isn't a Jalisco joint or the fast-food-chain hell that is Cameron Road. Northeast Austin is not especially known for its Asian food, or really any kind of food at all, so this is potentially an exciting development. I will, of course, let you know if you should go there too.

Self-evident

The comment threads on the Statesman website are usually full of racists, crazies, and tiresome cranks, but this secession kerfuffle has brought out a new and special breed. But don't worry, guys! A poll was taken, and a full 75 percent of Texans favor remaining in the United States. You're stuck with us for a while yet.

Maybe the other 25 percent can go live in that Ron Paul commune they were trying to get started out in West Texas. I don't know if they were ever able to agree if it was ideologically permissible to pool their cash to get a water well drilled, though.

As for me, baby, I'm out of here. Well, actually I'm staying put. But I hereby declare my body and any three-foot radius about and around wheresoever I may be standing to be the sovereign nation of Joolistan. Don't tread on me (or a three-foot radius around me) and we'll be just fine. And be warned: Any attempt to take away my breakfast tacos will be considered an Act of War under Article XXII, Sec. 245(q)(3)(L)(xii)(f-7) of the 2009 Provisional Constitution of Joolistan. If you want my Mi Madre's #0s you're going to have to pry them from my cold dead hands. HUMMM....WAIT FOR IT....WAKE UP PEOPLE AND SMELL THE LIBRETY!!!!!

If I could just figure out how to run my car off of vomit...

There are two things that reliably make me gag with considerable violence: the taste of overripe bananas and the smell of used cooking oil. I was not thinking of that when I pulled up behind a biodiesel truck at a light tonight, but when it pulled away I instantly got the chills and nearly barfed all over my steering wheel. A quick jog into the other lane took care of the problem, but now I am faced with the selfish conundrum of thinking something is great in theory while really, really hoping it doesn't catch on.

Morning stars

I got up at 8 a.m. today for the first time in probably six months so Eric could get the pin out of his wrist. Being up and around in the morning was novel and nice. After the pin yank we bought a bag of kolaches and ate them in the park behind Central Market (and the state hospital), then walked around the retention pond for a while. Then we went home, where I made another garden bed while Eric mowed the lawn one-handed. The bones in his wrist are completely healed, but it will be a long time before he gets the muscles and general range of twistyness back.

Now I'm stuck at work late, waiting to do one last thing, on very little sleep. Really, I'm just rambling on here so I don't do a faceplant into my desk. Yeah. So how are you? How was your day? Did you see that news story about that stuff that happened? How about that band? That drummer is really something, huh?

Whupped

Today I dug a lot of holes, put some bushes in them, planted some seeds, and hauled some rocks. Then I cooked a big, delicious dinner for my sister and got my ass kicked at cribbage. Now I flop on the couch and drink to getting to do exactly what I wanted today.

Oferic

The rat guy came today with his supervisor to see if there's a hole somewhere under the slab where the rats are gaining access. Bad news: Yes. Good(?) news: We can probably just fill the slab in with dirt. Hmm. Some more phone calls are in order.

Anyway, that part is boring. What interested me was the casual chauvinism of the supervisor, a polite and intelligent-seeming man.

He finished the test and came out back, saw me, and looked flustered.

Him: Is your husband upstairs?
Me: I'm not sure.
Him: I need to talk to him.
Me: You can talk to me.
Him: I can talk to you?
Me: Sure!
Him: Oh! Ok, well, blah blah blah bunch of stuff in man language that only men can understand.

Whatever, dude, it's my house too, and I've been in on this whole rat thing since the beginning. I can handle it.

Also, when they talk to me, Eric is always "Eric." When they're talking to Eric, I am always "your wife here."

I encounter subtle signs of sexism every day, even from people who would never in million years consider themselves sexist, but most guys at least act like they know better, even if they have assumptions they can't quite shake. I don't spend a lot of time looking for it or dwelling on it when I find it. But that exchange was a little too obnoxious to ignore. I am glad this sort of thing happens infrequently enough in my life that it is noteworthy. It's still entirely too pervasive, but the world seems to be very slowly passing guys like that by.

And now...three-day weekend! I hope you have one too, and that it is tremendous.

What else I hate

Working very late so there is no time to write a post and nothing to write about anyway. Hate that! Chop it up with an axe.

What I hate

Wind. It dries out my skin and blows my hair in my mouth. It tumps over chairs and deposits garbage in the yard. It makes everything so much harder. I say we abolish it.

Buffering. I'm all like, come here, come to my computer and watch this funny video because it's so funny! And they come, and they gather round and watch. But then halfway through the funny video, buffering, and everyone's anticipation turns to impatience, and then fidgeting, and if and when the video ever gets buffered, whatever is so funny is much less so. Buffering is terrible. Throw it in the lake.

Fungus gnats. They live in dirt and multiply rapidly. They get up your nose. They are terrible tiny creatures, and I am against them. Employ swatting, sticky strips, and diluted peppermint tea to thin their ranks.

Andie MacDowell. She makes me writhe. What is with the inappropriately lush Southern accent that only pops out every third word? And the flat affect? We were watching Short Cuts last night, and we were like, god, even Lyle Lovett is better in this than she is. And he's terrible! But he's not an actor; I don't know what Andie MacDowell's excuse is. Her career is kind of on the wane anyway, though. I don't even know why I care. Maybe I just hate myself and project it all onto Andie MacDowell. Yeah, that's probably it. No action recommended.

For balance, one thing I love: Dark rum in pineapple juice with a splash of Topo Chico. I don't even like rum that much, but I crave this all the time lately. I move we all drink one every day.

Cat sticks

The front beds look pretty dumb with a bunch of chopsticks and skewers jammed in there, but it looked even dumber when it was filled with broken plants and moldering mounds of catshit.

So far it's been an effective deterrent and much preferable to the cayenne pepper method. Did you know that if cats get cayenne in their eyes, they are liable to scratch them out? That's what the internet says, anyway.

Even if the eye-scratching-out part is not true, burning hot pepper in the eyes seems like a disproportionately harsh punishment for just wanting to take a dump in peace and comfort. So stupid-looking sticks it is, at least until the plants fill out more or we can afford to get the front yard electrified.

I guess this is my week to be a jerk.

The interstate on the way to work this afternoon was slow and cloggy, and this girl cut over into the entrance lane to try to get around a few cars. She raced through and ended up even with me just as her lane ran out. I looked over at her and saw she was dressed for fun with this totally entitled look on her face. That irritated me. I didn't let her in, and I believe what I mouthed was, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

She finally oozed in behind me, got over a lane, pulled even with me, and honked. Great. I looked over, expecting a finger or worse, but she and her friend gave me big fake smiles and exaggerated waves. It caught me off guard, and I started laughing and fake-waved them back, and then they started laughing, and then we very slowly passed each other about 8,000 times between there and my exit, the awkwardness of which I solved by fiddling with the radio and concentrating on the car in front of me.

It is boring to complain about traffic, I know, and it is pointless and dangerous to antagonize people. But I also know that people who jump lanes, even ones with a sense of humor, are lame. Especially when they are trying to get to the margaritas or whatever on a beautiful afternoon and I am trying to get to boring work. It does seem to bring the petty right out in me, anyway.

Daily thwarting

Working the night shift is in theory great for getting stuff done in the backyard, but every single day I sleep too late, linger too long over coffee, and then run out of time right when I'm hitting my stride. At 3:07 or so each day I have to stop and shove everything back in the shed so I'll have time to rinse the dirt off and find my (choose one: keys, wallet, access card) in time for work.

I've been trying to break every project into small chunks so as not to get frustrated and/or fired. Today I spent a few hours turning compost, planting seeds, and repotting succulents. Some other day this week I will drill holes in a washtub and fill it with dirt, and some other other day I will plant things in it. And so on. Everything is a sickly, haphazard mess right now, but maybe someday it will start to look like something other than a giant litterbox.