storm

Perry and I were at the store this afternoon when a big storm hit. For the past three days it has been humid and cloudy, but no rain. When we made our way home, it looked like every other house in our neighborhood had large downed tree limbs in their yard and fence panels down. Besides our trash cans being overturned and some smaller branches scattered in the yard, our house didn't fare too bad.

view from the front porch

behind our lot

The neighborhood is going to need a bit of a clean up over the next few days, but it's hard to complain after hearing about those tornadoes in Oklahoma yesterday.

college station

This weekend I went down to College Station to see my youngest sister. She just graduated from a vet tech program and her birthday was last week, so this visit was a dual celebration. I'm ashamed to say it's almost been a year since I've seen her, even though she only lives three and half hours away. She works and goes to school, and I'm only free every other week, and blah blah blah excuses. Before Perry and I left her apartment, we had already invited her and her boyfriend along with us on our upcoming vacation to San Antonio. I was worried she might get bored with us so I brought a card game, but we spend the entire time taking and eating and then talking and eating some more, so we never got around to any games. She received a cotton candy maker as a gift not too long ago, and she was pretty keen on me making one. I don't think I did too bad for a first timer.

I don't know if you can tell from the picture frame above my head in the previous photo, but my little sister loves her boyfriend and her cats. A lot. I'm not much of a cat person myself, but I do like hers. She has a total of three cats. One of them is rather large and white and he sat in the corner of the room all day watching us and looking fairly regal and majestic. That is until you throw an elastic hair tie on the floor. Then he turns into a playful little kitten, throwing it into the air, pouncing on it and stretching it between his paws.

I approve of this adorableness. But still, no cats for me please.

On a completely unrelated note, I normally read two books at a time. One book I read on my breaks at work, and another book I read at home, mainly before bed time. Game of Thrones was my "at work" book but I've become so interested in it that it's also become my "at home" book. Last night I was reading before bed, and I think I may have figured out the parentage of Jon Snow. And Ned Stark is not his father. Yeah, I know. Shocking.

I would warn "spoiler alert", but this is just the theory of someone who watched two seasons of Game of Thrones and hasn't even finished the first book yet. There may be something in the later books that completely refutes this. You know, after I read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, I figured out that Snape was actually a good guy and had been in love with Harry's mother. I know that's not exactly a major achievement but I've lamented from time to time that I never got tell my theory to anyone and then be proven right a book later. Oh, to be proven right. So I'm going to say it here and now: Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen are Jon Snow's parents. It would be perfect. Those flashbacks Ned keeps having of Lyanna bleeding and dying and saying "Promise me, Ned." She died after delivering Jon and asked Ned to raise him as his own, and conceal his parentage since all the other Targaryen children were being killed. Ned has shown time and again how he is very against the killing of children, even if they may be potentially dangerous. Examples of this would be Daenerys or Cersei's children. So, I think Ned would agree to raise his sister's child as his own because not only was it her dying wish, but it would save Jon's life. And the whole book series is called A Song of Ice and Fire and Jon's parents are Stark (ice) and Targaryen (fire). Like I said, it's perfect. Maybe instead of "spoiler alert" I should have just written "nerd alert."

gone

I don't know why, but the past week or so I've been thinking about my Godmother Janice. It's been almost 15 years since she died and I've never exactly forgotten her, but lately my mind has dwelling quite a lot on memories of her house in Illinois and it's all very bittersweet.

The first few years of my life my mother was on her own with two kids and working two jobs. My older sister and I spent so much time at our babysitter Janice's house, and she took such a liking to us that she became like a grandmother. And it wasn't just Janice that became our family, but her husband and children and eventually grandchildren. The other kids she babysat became our childhood friends. My family was always reserved about praise and affection, but not Janice. She would tell me how smart, how kind, how funny I was. She told me I was wonderful and deserved wonderful things to happen to me. She could never think anything bad of me and she absolutely spoiled me.

When we moved to Texas it was decided that my sister and I would visit her for a month every summer. And we did. We would swim, go to the movies, walk to the nearby bowling alley to play, visit the Chicago museums, stay up late at night watching T.V., play cards after dinner, sit outside in the evening talking until the mosquitoes descended, and play with the children Janice babysat at her home.

I was 15 when I opened one of her letters and as soon as I saw that it was typed instead of handwritten, I knew something was wrong. She was recovering from heart surgery and her husband, my Godfather, had died. Three months later and she was gone too. I went to the funeral and that was the last time I saw any of her family or friends. I wonder if that is what's been bothering me so much lately: I never kept up contact with anyone. Janice was my link to them while I was in Texas, and when she died, I never tried to strike up a correspondence with anyone else. But I don't know. Maybe that's not it. Gone is gone. Even if I had kept in touch, nothing fills that void, you know. And it still seems frightening that someone that meant so much to me, influenced my life so much, could just vanish. And that is what it seemed like to me: she just disappeared. One summer she was healthy and happy and a few fall letters later, she was too weak to write and then gone. Gone and all I have for proof of her existence is a bundle of cards and letters and a 25 year old plush dog.

the rest of my days off

I saw Iron Man 3 and Pain and Gain. I'm what's wrong with America: I am one of those people that will see a movie I know is going to be terrible just to kill time. However, to be completely fair, I didn't think Iron Man 3 was going to be so bad. But Pain and Gain? There's no excuse for what I did. I'm a movie industry enabler.

Our dog, Reggie, got a case of the fleas. We gave him a flea bath and bought a better (more expensive) topical flea treatment, which has fixed the problem. I feel a bit odd about covering my pet in poison. Once upon a time, I also felt odd about spraying pesticide inside my house. But then a giant cockroach joined me in the shower one day. Now I squirt cancer causing chemicals all over my windows and doors on a very strict mark-it-on-your-calendar schedule.

I had to go off birth control pills for a month since my prescription expired. The pill affects people differently, but one common side effect is decreased libido. I guess I forgot exactly how much my libido decreased until I stopped taking them. I think it's very ironic that when you're on the pill it makes you feel "meh" about sex most of the time and then when you're not on the pill you feel very un-"meh" about sex so you need birth control. I feel like I'm going through a repeat of my teenage years and it's exhausting (so to speak). If this is the way males feel all the time, I pity them.

I'm pretty sure Perry and I passed our 3 year anniversary sometime last week. We didn't exactly mark our first date on the calendar, but we do agree it was sometime after his birthday and before mid-May. I think we should just pick a made up date and stick with it. And sometime this June we will have been living together for a year. People say relationships are hard work. I've always thought that was bullshit. I've seen people's relationships that were hard work, and it seemed like the reason it was so hard was because they were terribly incompatible. I think relationships should be easy most of the time, or at the very least not an exhausting, frustrating mess. Life's hard enough as it is. But I think I may be starting to understand this whole "hard work" idea. I can see Perry and I falling into some of the common long term relationship pitfalls. We take each other for granted. We live together, but we spent more time truly interacting when he lived an hour away. What was extraordinary becomes ordinary, the new becomes old, you got what you wanted, so now what? It still doesn't really seem like hard work, more like just staying aware and being able to recognize future problems and trying to avoid them. I don't know. I guess we haven't really been tested as a couple yet. Am I supposed to feel bad for things being too easy? Does it mean something is wrong with us?! No? Okay.

I made Finnish prune tarts. They were an extraordinary failure. The pictures looked so pretty on the internet. And I don't understand why prunes get so much hate. Raisins don't and they're just dried up grapes. Well, prunes are just dried up plums and plums are delicious. Prunes are delicious! But not when I put them in Finnish prune tarts. Then they're just awful.

so far this week

Well, my work week is over so I've returned to the land of the living once more. I began my days off by seeing the musical Wicked with my mother. I don't really like musicals, but I enjoyed myself for the most part. It was very lighthearted and comedic, which is the opposite of the book. The singing was really well done. I liked the ending: it was very "happily ever after" without being too cheesy. However, since this was an early Mother's Day gift, all that really mattered was what my mom thought, and she absolutely loved it.

My niece turned one last week. My sister rented out a room at a local indoor swimming pool to throw her a birthday party today. I think having birthday parties for small children is kind of odd since I don't think a one year old really understands or cares about parties in general. She seemed to understand the cake part just fine though.

I recently found out that the people that make Adventure Time put out a short series that's available on YouTube called Bravest Warriors. There's only a handful of episodes and they only run about six minutes. If you just put aside any hopes for a back story or understanding exactly what's going on, you'll really enjoy yourself. I did. If you like Adventure Time even a little, you should check it out.