the laanba blog

Blah Blah Update

Blah blah haven't been blogging.  Blah blah work related stories.  Blah blah end of year around the corner.  Blah blah romantic heartbreak (what's new).  Blah blah getting back on track.  Blah blah. 

 

Crawling Up

When last I left you I was spiraling down.  Now I'm crawling back up.  Slowly, but at least I'm headed in a better direction.  In fact after I published that last post I got up and started picking things up.  That's why I love to blog.  It gets the stuff out of my head.  It is therapeutic for me.

I was SO behind on so many things.  It was so bad that I actually took a bunch of clothes to the wash and fold.  I've never done that before so I partly did it just to see what it was like.  This was also precipitated by the fact that one of the two washers in my complex is not working so it was very hard to get laundry done.  The wash and fold was great.  I wish I could afford it all the time, but alas I can not.  I would rather spend my money on other things like.... a cleaning service!  

I finally found a cleaning service I like.  I had a wonderful lady that cleaned my apartment when I lived in east Houston.  Unfortunately River Oaks is too far for her to drive.  I first decided not to pursue a cleaning service since my move here conincided with having to pay $20 a week to get Gypsy her kidney failure fluids.  I toyed with the idea off and on, and I was in such a black hole the last couple of weeks that I decided to try again and thankfully I found a place I really like.  I was very happy with the job and I've already booked them for the future.  I like that they do 2 and 3 week rotations.  Not sure if I'll be able to swing 2 all the time, but I'm going to try.

I am much poorer than I was even this morning because I took my car in to get serviced and it cost $800.  Ouch!  It was one of the things I wanted to do with my refund money and I finally got it done but that's about $300 more than I was expecting.  Oh well.  It was nice to have a padded account for a while.  Now I really need to get myself tracking my money.

All these things though are adding up to a brighter home life.  Clean apartment, clean clothes, chores being finished, plans being made.  Hopefully I'm crawling out of the hole that I've been nesting in for the last 6 weeks or so.

Now if I could just get my social life moving as well. 

One of those days

What a day today has been.  

I started the day tired. Last night I went to see Annie.  It was a lovely production and the little girl playing Annie was really good.  But it was a strange evening.  As soon as the overture began I started tearing up.  And I teared up (ok fine.... cried) at almost every song and moment in the first half.  At Maybe, at Tomorrow, at any scene that had Sandy.  I certainly love this show, and I love musical theater, but I was not expecting that reaction.  I honestly think it is the stresses of my current situation that are wreacking havoc on my system.

So I got home late, but I had to get up early because I had a choir rehearsal this morning.  It is the first time I've ever called a Saturday and all the kids showed up!  Because of state testing and the way our schedule works I only saw them one day this week and we have competition in two weeks.  It was a good thing to have rehearsal and I'm glad I did it.  I felt tired all morning though and once my part was over I started to feel a headache and sore throat.  I stayed to help the band with their rehearsal and didn't get home until about 3 p.m.

By this point I was flat out exhausted.  I went to bed and slept until 8.  I woke up still tired but I got up to feed my cat.  When I sat down at the computer I noticed the internet was out (that's like cutting off one of my limbs).  I was on my phone when I heard a thump and a wailing meow.  Gypsy was on the floor and she did not look good.  She was sitting and moving in a strange way.  I moved her to the restroom because I thought she was going to throw up or expel in another way and she started panting. I let her out of there and she walked very strangely to the living room where she did this half laying down/half crawling thing.  At this point I got dressed, got the carrier down and confirmed directions to the emergency clinic.  But when I put her in the carrier she fought me like she always does and wouldn't sit down in the carrier.  I opened the door and she walked out fairly normal.  She spent the next 10 minutes or so wandering the apartment with her normal gait, going to the restroom and even taking a few bites to eat.  I think she will be ok.  I'm not sure what happened, but I think she fell off the dresser and it stunned her.  My poor elderly baby.

Now the internet is back, but this day has been so weird I just want to scrap it, head to bed and read my book.  I think I will. 

In the meantime you can watch this rehearsal footage from the show.  How I love musical theater. 

Christmas 2011

Christmas was filled with fabulous food, beautiful decorations and lots of laughter.  It was quite enjoyable and for that I am thankful since Christmas can be filled with so many mixed emotions for me.

My cousin Greg and his wife Liz host our family's Christmas dinner.  It is an event to say the least.  First off look at this beautiful decoration over the table.  Liz said she saw something like it on HGTV and had almost everything they needed in the house to do it.  I have no doubt it was easy for her, but I am deficient in the home decorating gene.  I would never be able to do this.

 

I am used to having a large Christmas meal, but I am still in awe of anyone who can get out a turkey and a pork roast (having both is our family tradition) as well as rice dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli rice casserole, macaroni and cheese, pistachio salad, rolls, and gravy all to the table at the same time (for 23 people!!) and have it taste fantastic.  Other family members brought cornbread dressing and green bean casserole.  Needless to say it took a while to get everything on my plate, but not nearly as long for me to eat it all!  Of course there was also the ham, cheese bread and boudin dip and crackers as an appetizer and the dessert table.  Are there any more beautiful words than dessert table?

We ended the time together with white elephant which was a lot of fun.  I have struggled the last few years with letting go of the Christmases of my youth and learning to accept the way Christmas works in my middle age years.  It helped to have such a beautiful display in a warm and inviting environment.  Thanks Liz and Greg. 

 

Summer 2011

Well tonight puts a wrap on summer 2011.  Looking back it wasn't what I thought it would be, but it turned out nicely all the same.  When I return to work and people ask how my summr was I can describe it in two statements.  I went to Panama.  I was lazy.

Going back through my Panama photos has really reset the trip for me in my frame of mind.  I'm glad I blogged it and while I was blogging my feelings were fresh.  Looking back on it with a little time it was a wonderful trip and I saw some really beautiful places and had some wonderful experiences.  I love my little country.

As for the lazy, it is quite a surprise.  I really thought this summer, being all settled in the apartment, I would be out and about every day taking advantage of being in the city and close to all the cool things with loads of time on my hands.  The opposite happened.  Many times my brain said "meh.. you live 10 minutes from there... you can do it tomorrow."  I spent a lot of days doing absolutely nothing.  This was probably one of the laziest summers I have spent in ages, but I have no regrets.  It is what I needed.

And while on summer I sorted out some internet truths as well.  While I was dabbling with Google+ and 500px, two newbies on the social media scene, I realized how much I love my blog and my photoblog and my Flickr account.  While many are flocking to those two new places I am staying put in my old homes and it was reinforced to me this summer.  I have been blogging more (have you noticed) and hope to continue the trend.  I revamped and put the final pieces into place for my new spin on Assignment: Houston and for refreshing my laanba identity (first blogged here).  I feel good about the changes.  Not changes really, refinements.  And I even have a spiffy new home page at http://laanba.net.  

All in all it was a good summer.  I'm not going to lie though, I will be glad to get back to some structure.  I'm ready.  

Performance Weekend

Wow, I can't believe it has been two weeks since I posted.   Time flew by.  I'm not even going to try to catch you up on what happened the last two weeks.  Instead let me focus on this past weekend, the start of my Spring Break.

Friday evening I went to see Billy Elliot.  You know I'm a musical fiend right?  Well this one was fantastic.  The singing, the dancing, the story.  All fantastic. I only watched the movie last weekend in preparation for seeing the musical.  The movie was fun, but I truly love the musical.  Music was by Elton John, but it had much more variety in sound than I think Aida (also by Elton John) did.  I listened to the album on heavy rotation this week to prepare for Friday.  I always enjoys musicals much, much more when I am familiar with the music.  My favorite piece before I went was "Solidarity" and that turned out to be my favorite number of the night.  

There was a set malfunction one number before intermission.  They dropped the curtain and we had to wait about ten minutes before they resumed.  I haven't had that happen before.  The closest I had to a set malfunction was when they couldn't open a window in Show Boat, but they just moved over one and went on with the show.  Here is a video preview of Billy Elliot.  I can't tell you the number of times I've watched this since Friday.  The music is firmly lodged in my head.

Saturday I was extremely lazy and only ventured out in the very late afternoon.  I finally spent my tax refund at Rooms to Go and this Thursday I will get a new sofa and a new chair.  Woot!  I have never had a chair since I've been living on my own.  I'm a little worried about the pieces being too much for my little space, but a.) too late now and b.) I don't care.  I want a chair.  Now I just have to find someone to take away my old sofa.

Sunday was supposed to be more productive with house cleaning, GHPA walking tour and Blue Man Group, but I only ended up doing Blue Man Group.  The lazies have a firm grip on me.  As for Blue Man Group I'm not even sure what to say.  I've known about them FOREVER and this is the first time I've been able to see a show.  It has been a long time coming and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was a rock concert of the ultimate magnitude.  So creative, so out there.  So wonderful.  There is a danger in finally seeing something after years and years of waiting, but in this instance I am completely satisfied with the experience.  I can't wait to see them again.  

Weekend Rewind

Saturday I volunteered at the museum for the butterfly flutter.  It took about three hours total and was the easiest time I've had since I was on food duty instead of crafts.  Then I came home and immediately took a long nap.  After that I spent hours working on a yet to be announced photo project which involved sitting on the sofa going through hundreds of photos.  

Sunday I got up with full intentions of being productive.  Instead I messed around on the computer, fixed breakfast, watched TV and then took a nap.  It wasn't the most restful nap because I felt guilty for taking it but I couldn't get myself to get up.  Then I made a quick trip out to the Williams Tower and Water Wall for this month's photo assignment.  Of course since I had been so lazy I only had about 30 minutes which was too bad because it was such a beautiful afternoon to just sit on the lawn.  I ran into two photography friends who were in fact doing just that.  I wish I could have stayed to talk to them, but I had evening plans.  

Dinner at Catalan with the lovely Diginee and ShutterSam and their son who happens to work there.  It was the perfect meal with good conversation and even better food.  I am spoiled and blessed to know such great people.  You can not escape without hearing what I ate:

Appetizers were spicy garlic shrimp and roasted pork belly in cane syrup.  Both amazing of course.  For dinner I had a pork chop with roasted brussel sprouts and a strip of pork belly.  It was a pork kind of night.  This was the first time I've had brussel sprouts and I really liked them.  Of course they probably aren't that fabulous everywhere.   Then we split three desserts of profiteroles with buttermilk ice cream and salt caramel, white chocolate bread pudding with Nutella and mexican chocolate creme brulee.  The whole meal was fabulous.  Have I said that?  Well it was.  Fabulous.

When I was experiencing this weekend I would have said it was strictly lazy because I didn't clean my apartment, go grocery shopping, go out and take pictures (except for 30 min) or do anything really  productive.  But now that I see it written down it looks like it was a pretty good weekend after all.  

 

So far...

I've been wanting to blog about various things, but frankly I'm tired and the thinking involved in putting together a coherent post it just too much.  But I told myself I was going to write something here, anything, even it was bad so here goes.

I'm on vacation (hooray!).  Can you believe it has been a year since I went to Panama?  It seems like forever ago, but a year isn't that long.  Especially considering I am going back in June.  Yes June!  I'm excited and scared at the same time because I am going by myself, will probably be staying in my aunt's house who doesn't speak a stitch of English and I will be there for 10 days.  But I know distance removes us from situations.  I remember clearly thinking last time I was there that I could go back by myself so I just have to hold on to that belief.  I am almost done sharing pictures from the trip.  Probably not next week, but the one after.

Although I love taking trips (did I mention I'm going to Orlando for Spring Break) I also love vacations where I have nothing to do but hang around Houston.  This one has started out very well.  Harry Potter yesterday which was so well done that I'm ready to see it again.  This will be my first long break without cable and I think it will be a cinch.  I've gotten used to have the TV mostly off.  But I  still have screen time on my computer.  So far I've been keeping up with the Daily Show fairly regularly and last night I found that CBS finally (FINALLY) put some episodes of Big Bang Theory up.  Now I'm all caught up with that show.  This morning I also caught the episode of Throwdown on iTunes that features a  food blogger that I follow. Nope, don't miss cable.

Today I cleaned the apartment and then went to see the musical 9 to 5.  It is everything I love about musicals.  A fun story with all the bright costumes, songs and choreography that goes with it.  I was actually getting misty eyed during it because I love the art form so much.  Plus it had Dee Hoty.  I have been in love with her voice ever since I first heard it on the Will Rogers Follies soundtrack.  Came home and have been domestic ever since (a little more cleaning, cooking and laundry).  

Vacation is off to a good start.

The Weekend That Was

All in all it was a really nice weekend.  

Friday - The Greek Festival.  I'm glad I went on Friday because I heard they had so many people this year that they started running out of food on Saturday night!  Wow!  The only thing I don't like is that it gets so incredibly crowded with people you just end up elbowing your way everywhere.  I'm wondering if it is any better on Thursday night, the first night.  I've never gone then, but it might be an option.  No matter because I did get my souvlaki (oh so good...) and my kourambiedes and saw the dance show.  I've had several people ask me this weekend what is so good about the Greek Festival and while yes, the food is awesome, by now for me it is just a tradition.  Something you do because you always do.

Saturday - Up and out for a bike ride.  This was my first ride with a purpose as I decided to ride to the post office to mail a letter.  Of course I could have walked to my mailbox and mailed from there, but that's not the point.  It was nice to have a specific destination and it was nice to get back on the bike.

Then off to Miller Outdoor Theater for the Panamanian dances.  The performers are actually a dance troupe out of Austin that performs Panamanian dances and it was a really wonderful presentation.  I moved around Miller a lot until I finally settled on a good place to watch and take photographs.  A couple of notes from this.  First, one day I'd love to have a pollera, the traditional Panamanian costume, and now I know I want mine to be black and white.  That was my favorite that I saw.  Second about half way through two young guys came and sat right in front of my camera even though I was on the second row.  And then they started talking and I was so annoyed.  But after about 5 minutes they popped up and walked away and I'm sure they saw the look of annoyance on my face.  Later they were introduced as the Consul General of Panama and his assistant stationed here in Houston.  Oops.  Finally after the event I went to talk to the assistant and was disappointed to find out that they do not process new passports only renewals.  That is different than what my dad told me so I will have to wait to get my Panamanian passport.

After the performance I set out to go to Fire Fest, but by then it was quite hot and I decided to skip it.  I ran some errands (did you know EyeMasters replaces nosepads for free even if your glasses aren't from there) and came home and relaxed for a few hours.

Then off to see the wonderful Ira Glass.  What an amazing man and what a fabulous performance.  It started in complete darkness as he talked about the power of the voice on radio.  It was really smart because once the lights came on the audience was entranced and the tone was set for the evening.  This was a much different atmosphere than from Anthony Bourdain a month ago.  The Anthony Bourdain audience gave the impression of being very uncultured.  Hooting and hollering and yelling things out and just generally tacky.  The audience for Ira Glass was completely opposite.  I know it seems obvious that the NPR audience would be that way, but it was still refreshing.  Not a single person tried to sneak a photo, no one talked, they were a good audience and when it was over only a very small handful of people left during the question and answer section, unlike at Bourdain where people were pouring out the exits.  Ira Glass is an intelligent, thoughtful man who sees the world in a unique way.  He is This American Life.

Sunday - Up and out for another bike ride.  I love riding it two days in a row.  This time I rode over to the Empire Cafe part of Westheimer looking for street art.  I only found one big piece but the ride itself was wonderful.  I think having another destination really helped versus my usual way of meandering around.  I'm going to have to think about different destinations I can ride to in the area.

Then I came home and watched the start of the Texans game.  GHPA had changed their walk from the warehouse subject which I really wanted to do to a Buffalo Bayou tour which I've taken before.  I was trying to decide whether I should skip the tour and watch the Texans game when they were quickly down 21-0.  That helped me with my decision right there and I went to the GHPA tour.  Always enjoyable especially when it is downtown.  And I finished a whole roll of film just on Sunday. 

Back home, cleaned myself up and was back out to HMNS for the Pirates exhibit.  I didn't really know anything about the exhibit, but I enjoyed it quite a lot.  The Whydah is the only ship that can truly be authenticated as a pirate ship and the exhibit has a lot of artificats recovered from the ship and lots of interesting facts about pirates in general.  

Overall a wonderful weekend.  Now just to get through the next two days of concert preparation.  I'll be a happy girl on Wednesday.

April Fool's

Today has been a weird day.  

We had Pre-UIL at work.  A stressful event in itself where we take five choirs through the UIL process. That's a lot because each choir's process takes an hour from warm-up to concert to sight reading so I was pretty much in high anxiety contest mode from 7:30 this morning when students started arriving to 3:00 p.m. this afternoon when I finally was able to leave campus.

Just some of the stuff from today.  When I arrived I had a chocolate bunny sitting on my desk, a gift from my co-worker.  I think she was trying to ease my stress because I had a bad day yesterday with some students. For the most part I felt like the students were calm at the contest or maybe I was calm.  I don't know but it was a different feeling than normal and they did the best they have done so far this year.  Of course as soon as I looked at the judges comments that ripped everything apart I didn't feel so good, but at least I know that this year's crop of kids performs well under pressure.  

By the time I was done at 3:00 I was STARVING because I hadn't eaten breakfast and worked through lunch. I picked up take out on the way home and came home to rest my aching "been in high heels all day" feet.  I ate, surfed the internet, watched some TV and finally fell asleep around 5:30.  I kept waking up thinking I use my foot bath massager, but would just promptly fall back asleep.  

I woke up around 7:30 and checked my email.  No wireless signal.  I looked over at my Time Capsule which is also my wireless router and the light was out.  And then my stomach did that gurgle that said that it didn't quite like my food as much as I did.  I unplugged and plugged my Time Capsule back in, saw the light come back on and rush to the restroom.  When I came back out, no light.  Repeat the following sequence of events about three more times.  Then I called it.  Dead Time Capsule.  I moved my laptop over to the desk, got the internet back through ethernet cable and researched.  Of course only after whining that I was now not going to be able to buy an electronic book reader (I first thought about a Kindle and then was leaning towards a Nook) because now I was going to have to buy a Time Capsule.

But wait.  After doing more research it looks like I might be able to have my Time Capsule replaced for free by Apple.  Apparently they have a problem with failures with the Time Capsules and in November of last year changed their policy.  I searched and it looks like anyone who has AppleCare on their computer (which I do) can get their Time Capsule replaced.  It isn't explicitly stated by Apple so I will find out tomorrow when I head into the Apple Store.  So that was a bit of good news.  And then?  Then I got an email from a Flickr contact who said that she had an extra Kindle and if I wanted it I could have it.  I KNOW!  It almost seems too good to be true.  I'm going to call her tomorrow to arrange to pick it up.  A free Kindle!!

Today has been a weird day.