Eat, DINK and Be Merry » Uncategorized

Bad bunny

Amber — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:11:01 +0000

The Easter Bunny set off our burglar alarm at 4:50 this morning and didn’t even bother leaving treats. Mark went to greet him with a shotgun, but found neither hare nor hide.

Easter is not a religious occasion in our household, unless you count my fervent devotion to Cadbury Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs, previously documented herein. We started the day at our usual Sunday service (now with fries!) and will be concluding it thusly:

A little-known fact is that the day after Easter is a more important day than Easter, because that is when all of the candy is 50% off. (It’s also a documented fact that Easter is the best candy holiday of the year.) Sadly, this year I’ll be unable to scour every Target and Walgreens in the Houston metro area because I will be riding with a colleague to San Antonio for a seminar.

Next year, Easter Bunny, I’m setting a trap.

Toasty in Texas

Amber — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:41:12 +0000

We had a long, mild winter, which has been followed by several weeks of the kind of weather that makes me want to stay in Texas forever. Sunroof open, windows down, not a care. With the flowers and palm trees you can almost pretend you’re in Southern California, except for knowing that soon the air will be hot and thick as soup until November. I got a taste of that Saturday when I ran an errand and came back to my car to find the black interior resembling a blast furnace. When I opened the door and the wave of hot air hit me I felt surprised and then dumb for being surprised; it hasn’t been that long since it was hot here! I suppose air conditioning season is nigh.

The other toast popping around here is good old Toastmasters. This past week was Toastmasters-intensive for me. Not only did my work club meet (I’m now the president of that club, and we have a lot of work to do to become a smoothly functioning club), but the next day I had the privilege of acting as chief judge at our area contest. A contest is like the old adage about the duck on the pond — if you’re sitting in the audience, everything looks pretty smooth. Only when you’re behind the scenes do you see how hard the feet are paddling! Fortunately for me, our area governor was the contest chair. She juggles an amazing number of things and she made it as easy as possible on me. (She has opened a lot of opportunities for me and I have made it a practice never to say ‘no’ to her. It’s served me well so far!) At the end of the contest she called up the functionaries to thank them and say excessively wonderful things about them. She presented me with a beautiful note and this book, which I am excited to read:

I take that photo a lot, I just realized. Insert book/tchotchke of the moment, hit shutter. Anyway, on Friday I attended the gallery opening of a Toastmasters acquaintance and ran into some other members there. On Saturday I attended another area’s contest (as a spectator) plus a couple educational sessions — one about listening effectively and the other about running productive meetings. Two of my favorite topics, for sure. One of the reasons I attend nearly everything I can — aside from my own edification, of course — is the opportunity to interact with some of the most knowledgeable and influential members in the district, and this event turned out to be a great one for that.

I feel like the pieces are moving into place for some really exciting things to happen in my little Toastmasters-nerd world. I can probably count on one hand the number of times in my adult life when an opportunity seemed limitless. I’d like to put this moment under glass so I can come back to it over and over.

Springing forward

Amber — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:00:01 +0000

If you asked me, “Amber, how many of your rodeo photos have you sorted through since last weekend?” I would have to admit that the answer is 15. Those would be the ones from which I am posting tonight. After that, I am springing forward to the next rodeo day! If you guessed that I’m still going to take just as many photos, you’re probably right.

Anyway, the photos I have tonight are from the John Legend concert after the rodeo events. Of all the performers of the various rodeo weekends, John Legend was the only one I actively wanted to see, and he did not disappoint. In fact, the sound was uncharacteristically good for Reliant Stadium, which has made many a Grammy winner sound terrible. He opened with Adele’s ‘Rolling In the Deep’ and performed a great selection of his older hits and new material. This was not his first rodeo (literally and metaphorically) and he even dressed for the occasion. Maybe we’ll go see him again next year!

Rodeo, Rothko and fried cookie dough

Amber — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 04:12:46 +0000

My parents visited this weekend and we took them to the rodeo! If you have been with me a while, you know that I LOVE the rodeo and took a million photos while I was there — too many to sort through tonight. However, I can show you a photo of this year’s game changer:

Fried cookie dough on a stick. I’ll be eating that again! I had a longer list of must-eats than I accomplished, but I’ll get a second chance in a couple weeks. Anyway, it was fun to get to finally show my parents what the big deal is at the world’s biggest rodeo.

This weekend we took advantage of the last weekend to see the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. The two frescoes date to the 13th century and were originally stolen from Cyprus. The Menil Foundation paid the ransom and restored the 38 pieces for display as intact frescoes. They’ll be going back to Cyprus after this weekend.

We also stopped into a very famous Houston landmark, the Rothko Chapel. I apologize if you are an art buff, but I am calling BS on the Rothko Chapel. It’s an octagonal bunker with some enormous purplish-black canvases on the walls. I’m happy to let wealthy art patrons commission whatever they like, but the pamphlet makes a bit much of it for me:

“It is a place where a great artist, turned towards the Absolute, had the courage to paint almost nothing — and did it masterfully.”

Can someone show me a non-masterful example of painting ‘almost nothing’? Has anyone ever advised a student of art who has failed at painting almost nothing to go back, study the masters, and try again?

The works of the Rothko Chapel and a few other surreal about-town experiences made for a weekend replete with hilarious (to us) inside jokes and commentary. From this sprung my idea for my next blogging venture. I’m pretty sure it is destined for greatness.

What’s with the plastic baby?

Amber — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:18:49 +0000

So asks the king cake:

That’s the first king cake I’ve bought that included a bean. Maybe we’ll plant it.

It’s been yet another week of blog neglect because there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Right now part of my job includes being an event planner, which is interesting and kind of fun, but my head is swimming in hotel and food rates! I have a feeling this week will fly, because I have so much to do and so little idea how. Most of what I’m doing is not engineering, but the problem-solving required appeals to that side of me.

Mark and I both have to work on Valentine’s Day and I’ll be speaking at Toastmasters, so we’ll have some steaks at home on Tuesday and we’ve got something fun planned for the weekend. But between now and then…king cake!

Please stand by

Amber — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:51:27 +0000

This morning I awoke to find my laptop display no longer working! Instead of the productive, makeup-free, pajama-clad day I had planned, I was forced to brave the mall. I was hoping the citizens of this fine city would be at home watching the Texans’ playoff game, but approximately all men who chose not to watch the game were at the Apple store. All of the women who chose not to watch the game were at Sephora. Fortunately I survived both with minimal bruising. I’ll try to make my Tuesday/Thursday posts this week, but no promises — I’ll be using my work laptop, which is better than nothing but still super-annoying.

I did, however have a productive Saturday. I had some Toastmasters training to attend from way too early until early afternoon. I saw some friends, met some great new people and learned a lot. I am excited for where Toastmasters will be taking me in 2012 and hope I haven’t over-committed myself, but one of the great things about this organization is that there is always someone willing to help you, even if they don’t even know you.

The other highlight of the weekend was purchasing our rodeo tickets! We’ll finally get to take my parents and my sister this year. They’ve been to smaller rodeos, but nothing compares to the world’s biggest. Can’t wait! We’re taking my sister to one of the championship rounds, so I’m thinking this is a perfect year to make sure she meets a bull rider…

(PS: as you can see, I’m trying out some larger photos. Is this breaking anything for you? Please let me know if things were better at 600×400.)

One a day

Amber — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:30:39 +0000

Drinking and cycling. Note the interesting footwear choices.

It’s January 12, and I just finished uploading the last of 2011′s sorta-daily photos. Thank goodness that’s over. Just since the last day or two am I able to get through a day without the occasional worry about what I’ll shoot, or go to bed/wake up without having a mini-heart attack trying to remember whether I took a photo.

As I’ve mentioned, this year I’m trying weekly photos. I haven’t put any into my flickr yet, but that’s Week 2 above, taken hastily with Mark’s phone. We see that thing going up and down Washington Avenue now and then. It’s a bicycle bar. There don’t appear to be seat belts. What could possibly go wrong?

Now, if someone starts a pedaling cake bar, I will be the first in line.

The resolutionists

Amber — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:34:35 +0000

I’ve never been a member of a commercial gym, so I’ve never had to deal with the dreaded January deluge of gym newbies who are ‘really going to do it this year.’ However, I used the private gym at my last job every day, and there was definitely a slight January uptick of people who didn’t know the lay of the land — that this lady sets her bag on this bench in the locker room, and that guy always uses treadmill #3 out on the cardio floor. January was actually nowhere near as bad as Intern Season, but that’s another story.

Anyway — these days I exercise solely at home (highly recommended if you can swing it), but tonight I was faced with a deluge of a different sort of resolutionist — the Toastmaster Resolutionist.

Our meetings typically run 15-18 people, which is about half of our membership. Tonight we had about a dozen members and MORE than a dozen guests! It is typical to have a few guests at a meeting, but this was amazing. They just kept coming; looks like public speaking is trending for 2012! We love guests and new members. The trick, as with any resolutionist, is to keep them coming back.

Apropos of nothing, a couple Seattle photos that didn’t make the cut on the last post:

Orchid you not

Amber — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 04:10:20 +0000

My father is probably the only one who will laugh at that.

Anyway, I have spent the evening laugh-crying at DamnYouAutoCorrect, as I like to do every so often, so tonight instead of content I have some photos that I took at an orchid show a few years ago in New Jersey. I’m a big fan of orchids, so the chance to go see hundreds of varieties in one room was amazing. We bought a beautiful cattleya from that show, but sadly it didn’t last. We have had great success with a couple orchids here in Houston — they love the humid bathroom. I wish we could just fill the house with them!

Have you had any luck keeping orchids? Have a favorite variety?

Burning out my fuse

Amber — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:43:28 +0000

Aren’t things supposed to slow down as the holidays approach? So why do I feel like I’m running ragged at work every day, running to the next social event, then running home to do it all again? It’s mostly pretty good, it’s just very different from the way December usually goes for me!

Anyway.

I don’t know if it’s just first-born behavior or what, but occasionally Mark will do something that will make me say, “My god, I married my sister.” Nowhere is this more apparent or irritating than in their complete disregard for lyrical accuracy…which is why I am currently in so love with this commercial:

Mark would like me to tell you that he didn’t know the actual line. I would like to tell you that he didn’t care.