Lazy Friday

Slept in a bit this morning before heading off to the gym. I haven't blogged much about my gym situation (or at least I don't remember blogging about it). I joined up last August and went semi-regularly last semester, then tried to make up for my laziness during the break, and am now settling into three times a week or so. I like going to the gym, even though it reminds me that I'm not happy with how I look now--that's a good-motivational thing, right? It hasn't had much of an effect on my weight so far (perhaps the result of my continuing love affair with brownies and pizza), but I'm trying to be optimistic. What I don't like about the gym is being confronted by exposed boobs in the ladies changing room. All kinds of boobs, just hanging out as their attached bodies put socks on or zip up pants, which makes me wonder why putting a bra on isn't their first priority over pants?? Jesus, ladies, I don't want to see boobs on my way to hanging up my coat. Is this prudish of me? Was I supposed to be initiated into locker room boobs while playing sports in school? Well, it's too late for that.

Class went well. G. and I had lunch at a local pizzeria (we ordered the delicious Four Seasons pizza with four differet toppings, green chile/ricotta, sun dried tomato and pesto, artichoke hearts and red pepper, and spinach and garlic. Yum). We sat next to a group of women who exuded Money. They were definitely Ladies Who Lunched: hair perfect, all wearing trendy boots with fur trim and otherwise fashionable, skinny, made-up, and easily slipping in and out of good Spanish and English-without-accents. I am fascinated by these kinds of women. To be clear, it is not admiration or envy. I don't want to be them. I just wonder how it feels to be so put-together and leisure-ly. I usually don't feel very put-together at all. I usually feel like my slip is showing.

Afterwards, G. and I stopped by a cigar store that was next to the pizzeria where we encountered another fascinating--yet very different--woman behind the counter. She was super nice and friendly and wearing leather pants. I often connect leather pants to bikers and 80's metal hair bands. This woman didn't fit into either of those categories. We did not plan on buying anything, just curious about available foreign cigarrettes, but it was a small store and she was so nice...so we left with a pack of Dunhills. She joked about not wanting to sell us anything after we told her we were ex-smokers. Even with the purchase, G. and I have no plans on returning to the smoking world, although, truthfully, I have nothing but good memories. G. and I proceeded to relive those good memories. Dunhills on a cold day with a latte (mocha for G.)--it was just like when we started dating.

Moms

G. and I are not morning people. We cling to every last possible second of sleep before fully accepting that sleep just isn't an option if we want a paycheck for work. Interruptions to our sleep are met with angry cries--usually those cries are "FILOMENA HUSH!!!" as she furiously and very loudly barks in the dead of night. Lately, this ridiculous exchange has been happening every night at 2:20 am. Including last night.

Along with that interruption, my cell phone starts ringing at 6:15 am, very annoying since I had fifteen precious minutes of sleep until my alarm at 6:30. I didn't answer it, in protest. It was either a wrong number or my mother, both of which were unwelcome at that time. But then I started thinking, maybe there's an emergency, maybe my dad got into an accident on the way to work, or worse (and worse almost happened during Thanksgiving when my mom left a candle on in the kitchen and it caught fire). A couple of minutes later, G.'s cell phone starts ringing and now I'm sure it's an emergency and my mom was calling G. to get a hold of me (in case you're wondering, we don't have a landline). I find Gabe's phone, but the caller ID says it's his mom calling, so I give him his phone while I check my voice mail. Turns out both our moms were calling at that ungodly morning hour to tell us, "Look out the window, kids! It's snowing!" We looked out the window, then went back to sleep.

The powers that be aren't canceling our classes. My college delayed opening until 10am (which meant I missed my morning class, yippee!), but G.'s is still open. We think they are being stubborn because they canceled Friday for snow-that-was-just-rain. Which is really dumb because today the snow has actually accumulated on our cars, medians, roads, etc, as our moms were nice enough to point out at the crack of dawn.

Maybe our moms need to call the college presidents.

Free Day

Our winter has gone through different stages: warmish-gee-is-this-really-winter? weather; biting cold, but sunny days; windy, cloudy, kinda cold days; and it's snowing!? days. The weatherpeople predicted that today and tomorrow were going to be the it's snowing!? kind of days. The forecasts were calling for 1-5 inches of snow, rain, sleet, ice, wind--just horrible kind of weather. They advised to buy food and water and fill your gas tank, so this was going to be the BIG STORM. In response, school districts started canceling school and city-county government offices started closing, too. G. already decided that he wasn't going to campus on Friday, but he does teach a Saturday morning class. I have a class at 1 pm Fridays; no big deal, but the campus is across town, a long way to drive in bad weather.

The rain and wind started last night. It was a very unpleasant walk with Filo. More rain this morning, so UTEP and my college canceled afternoon classes. After several more hours of rain, I guess the newspeople thought the threat level had decreased, so instead of snow warnings, it was where's the darn snow?? WE WANT SNOW! SNOW IS NICE, NOT SCARY. Fooled us, I guess. Well, fooled me really. I bought two gallons of water, even though G. and I weren't really sure what buying water would protect us from--frozen pipes? sewer line breaks? snowed in cars? mass looting of grocery stores? In all of those cases, we're ready!

The weatherpeople claim there is still a chance of snow tonight, but I think they're trying to let us down easy. The unexpected free day didn't amount to the completion of any real classwork. We hung up a towel rack and mirror, rearranged some frames on the walls, made white chili soup, and watched three episodes of King of Queens before I took an hourlong nap. I'm not that upset about my lack of initiative. Just a little upset because I didn't get to real important stuff. The stuff we did was sort of important--yet it also should have been completed during our vacation. Oh, fuck it-- I don't know if I'm just tired of beating myself up for not doing things or if total inertia has set in after an extended time home-- I'm through with this.

As for the crown, I think it needs some adjusting. Dammit.

New Semester

The spring semester started yesterday. So far, so good. They looked interested, asked questions, laughed at my jokes, participated in my "So What Do You Remember About American History?" activity (So what do they remember? Each class was different, but the trend was the American Revolution and Columbus. And nobody named any women until I prompted them). After the first lecture, I'll have a better idea of where we stand. Will I like them or despise them?!

Tonight, G. and I visit our friendly dentist-across-the-border. I was already fitted for the crown; tonight, it will be installed (wrong word, but it sounds funny, yes?). G is getting his teeth cleaned for the bargain basement price of $25 (instead of $185). My crown will cost $180, a price I can very easily live with (I cannot live with the regular price of $900). I feel like I know this amazing secret and I'm stickin' it to the (Dental) Man-- ha! actually, I'm no genius for going to Juarez for dental work. Oh, well.

What I've Been Up To

1. Snow came along a couple of days after New Year's. It fell all in one afternoon, and melted completely by that night. Better for Filo--she hates the wet.

2. Went to the Sun Bowl with my best buds. M. is from Missouri, so we cheered for the Mizzou Tigers. The Oregon State band was awesome, how else can I describe a band that played such a variety of songs like Green Day (Holiday), Twist and Shout, AND the El Paso song?? (You know which one, Out in the old west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl...) I mean, really, What a way to win over the home crowd! The Tigers lost in the final seconds of the game. Super game, even if our nearest concession stand was run by bored ROTC guys who never had enough hot dogs.

3. Oh, aren't we cute? For all the grumbling and mini-pity parties (and I'm just speaking for myself), Christmas was perfect with everybody committing themselves to getting along and being nice and thankful. Part of 'getting along' includes playing a couple of bingo rounds with my professional bingo set (complete with ball cage!). It took some prodding among my family, but they had fun (even if my bro-in-law won each time). I tried to be all modest and I-don't-need-a-gift-from-G., but he was astute enough to see through that bullshit and got me a beautiful necklace which I adore. If wanting a gift from G. makes me shallow, then fine I'll accept that. Christmas is a special time, dammit.

4. I spent most of last week watching VH1's non-stop marathon of America's Next Top Model. Crazy thing is by cycle 7, I actually started liking Tyra Banks. Sure, she looked like a drag queen by #7 and she's got an ego the size of Texas and there were plenty of cringe-inducing moments (ESPECIALLY when Miss J joined the panel--let's limit his/her's screen time, ok?!) and the show doesn't really produce top models HOWEVER...hmm, well, the show's redeemable qualities escape me now that I have some distance from Ms. Banks and her crew. I know there was something that reeled me in beside cheap dramatics/hysterics. Hmm...

5. Cleaning the apartment here and there and trying to get myself together before the semester starts next week. I attended a couple of workshops today about encouraging active learners and public speaking. Those tend to motivate--tomorrow is the big department meeting where we hear how registration numbers are up, up, up--unfortunately, our paychecks remain the same. Poo.

All in all, a great break, just the right length, just the right amount of nap, Filo, and G. time. Now let's have a fabulous 2007!!!