Above: Baby #1, circa 1986.
Above: Baby #2, circa 2005.
Archive for the ‘family’ Category
Separated at Birth
Monday, March 28th, 2005I Should Visit Waco More Often
Monday, February 21st, 2005As some have already discovered, I traveled to Waco to visit my family this past weekend. So many exciting things and blogworthy happened, that I had to take notes because I did not have access to a computer. I also have pictures.
To begin, my brothers are the coolest brothers. When I arrived at the residence of my parents, my parents were not there, but these guys were (sans the short one). We cleaned the house, then went to the library. Of course, none of us went to the library for books. We went to the library for computers. I was going to use one, but I exercised some self control and moderation, and instead browsed the fiction section.
We also went to the library because in the parking lot there is a water store booth thing. “¡La Mejor Agua!” One quarter buys one gallon. Bring your own containers. Well, one quarter buys one gallon and one cup, as my brother and I discovered. Surprisingly. When the gallon jug was full and the water didn’t stop.
Back at the house we learned why none of us would ever see a Dashboard Confessional concert. We don’t know the words to all the songs. We were watching some concerts on a DVD, and if they are any indication, you are required to know all the words to all the songs to be admitted. Maybe the restriction only applies to the first twelve rows. Or girls. I think you have to take a test to get in, one of those fill-in-the-blank tests with just a song title at the top and blanks on the rest of the page. Not my style.
We still needed to eat dinner. For some reason I always eat fish sticks and tater tots when I visit Waco. The aforementioned fish sticks and tater tots were cooked and cooling when Daniel suggested we make cookies or brownies or something. I suggested we eat first, but my brother was afraid eating dinner first would spoil his appetite for making cookies. We risked it. With dinner out of the way, and no appetites spoiled, we began mixing up some deluxe peanut butter cookies.
First we broke the hand mixer, then we broke the other hand mixer, so we had to resort to using the KitchenAid megamixer. We should have started with that. It was so awesome. We got peanut butter all over the counter and the wall and the side of the refridgerator. They turned out great. The recipe said it makes 36 cookies. It didn’t make 36 cookies, but they sure tasted like 36 cookies.
At this point I had taken some photographs with my 35mm camera, and the roll of film was full. I had an unexplainable urge to get them developed immediately, but it was 19:30, and I couldn’t think of anyone who did one-hour processing at that time on a Saturday night. But a guy can try.
We drove to CVS first, because it was closest. My brother was going to stay in the car while I ran in to drop off my film, but I convinced him to come with.
> You’re going to want to see this. I’ll probably have to flirt with > someone to get these photos developed.
CVS? More like, CV No! That cute girl at the photo desk let me down.
Our next stop was HEB. I sprinted across the parking lot and into the store, apparently drawing the attention of several security guards. I ran up to the photo desk and quickly regained my composure. I asked the man on duty if he did one-hour processing at that time, and I think he twitched. Then he gave me a look that could be interpreted two ways: “Are you some kind of idiot? Who would do one-hour processing at this time of night? Certainly not me!” or “Well, are you going to say something to me?”
It turns out that his twitch was actually an affirmative nod, and I looked like an idiot because I just looked at him for fifteen seconds before saying anything. Anyway, he took my film, said it would probably be ready in thirty minutes, and I left. When I came back 45 minutes later he was looking for me. He handed me my pictures and said, “What took you so long? I said it would be done in thirty minutes!” And that, my friends, is why HEB will always be the coolest store in the world.
To the mothers in the audience, I also learned that there are two ways to get leftovers eaten: put them in a clear container so your children can see what it is; or put them in an ice cream container.
Let Sleeping Fish Lie
Thursday, February 10th, 2005
One of my sisters—-the one that got translated into Spanish—-married a really cool guy last July. It was July, so the colors for her wedding reception were blue and red. My mother already owned a red betta at the time, so she purchased three more: one red and two blue.
These fish went in little fish bowls on the tables at the reception, and really added to the atmosphere of the place. I mean, live fish on the tables? How cool is that?
So anyway, when the reception was over, my sister gave me one of the fish, a blue one named Violet.
Violet was a trooper. It was two weeks before I got him a decent fishbowl, and even then I neglected him every chance I got. I probably didn’t feed him as much as I should have. I didn’t change his water often enough. I left him in Austin when I visited my parents for two weeks over the winter break. Sometimes I would even leave my webcam pointed at him all day, so I’m sure that stressed him out some.
The bottom line is, Violet is free from the suffering that I deserved because of the way I treated him.
However, I will always wonder, because Violet wasn’t floating. I was always told that dead fish float. Was he just taking a three-day nap?
Now what? I have a fish bowl. I’m going to use it to hold the matchbooks I am beginning to collect.
Happy Chinese New Year, Violet.
Happy Birthday Brother!
Friday, February 4th, 2005
Today is my brother’s birthday. Happy birthday, Brother! Brother is cool and a funny guy. And now he’s one year older. He deserves a phone call.
P.S. The girl behind this link is celebrating her birthday today, too. Happy birthday, one and everyone!
Thanksgiving; What Else?
Friday, November 26th, 2004
The Thanksgiving holiday has already been absolutely unbelievable. My favorite part, of course, has been spending time with my family. Sure, I only live 100 miles or so away from them, but I don’t get to visit them very often, and certainly not for this extended length of time.
I arrived home late Tuesday night; my mother was already asleep. Actually, she was the only one asleep. My father was working, and my three brothers were doing homework on the couch and lying in their beds trying not to go to sleep, respectively. I talked with my father for a while, then went to bed myself.
I think by now everyone who knows me knows that I set my alarm for 06:00, regardless of what time I go to bed or what I plan on doing in the morning. Tuesday night was no different. After I woke up, showered and dressed Wednesday morning I went downstairs to be greeted with darkness and everyone sleeping.
“What am I going to do?” I thought. Ah. I put my dirty clothes in the washinig machine and started it up. I thought that would wake my parents, because their bedroom is on the other side of the wall from the laundry room, and washing machines can be loud.
Still no activity. So I went into the kitchen and dining room. It was quite dirty, and I wanted some breakfast. So I cleared off the table, loaded the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and swept the floor. By then my mother had come out of her room.
She told me that she thought it was my younger brother, probably trying to get on her good side so he could go somewhere that day. Ha.
I have spent a lot of time with my father over the last two days. I went with him to do his errands Wednesday, and we were doing computer-related things together Thursday. Today will be more of that. I really enjoy it.
My father is awesome. (I think that was a shout-out.)