Thursday, October 30, 2008

Crazy Life & A Cocktail




I bought napkins with this Anne Taintor quote on them at one of my favorite little boutiques, Neal's Cheezy Co. on 7515 Main, #180. Let me tell you why I needed them.


Yesterday these things happened to me in this order.

I had to wake up really early to take both kids to school and make it to a sales meeting downtown. So I was prepared and I made my shake night before. All I had to do was blend it with ice the next morning. Instead,


  • I knocked over the blender and had shake all over my kitchen floor.

  • There was a dead mosquito in my coffee when my I walked to my truck.

  • My daughter realized she'd forgotten to put her skort on over her leggings when we were already exiting to my son's school. This would have made me late but thank goodness my sister doesn't work on Wednesdays so I dropped there there so she could take her to pick up her skort.

  • I received a call from my son's school and I had to go pick him up. I called the same sister to see if I could drop him there. I had a 12 p.m. appointment.

Yeah, my life is too exciting. I was exhausted by the time I finished work, made dinner, visited my dad, bought groceries and came home to put them all up and take a shower.


I was reminded of a book that colleague told me about. "Soy mujer, soy invencible ¡y estoy exhausta!" (I’m a Woman, I’m Invincible, and I’m Exhausted) I need to read this book.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Update on Daddy

I took this great picture of my dad reading The Houston Chronicle, while sitting in his hospital bed yesterday, but I haven't learned how to load photos from my phone on to my computer yet. Hopefully I can learn later so I can load it. It's such a cute picture. He is the die-hard Chronicle reader.

OK, here's the update. After about four hours of waiting today the doctor finally came out to tell us that the surgery was a success. He said that my father had pulled through really well and had minimal blood loss. Like not even enough to be a concern. He is so strong for 84!

I finally went to eat something because I was starving. We went back up and went in to see him in the recovery room. The doctor said that they would keep him in recovery anywhere from one to three hours, depending on the person. When we went to see him they told us that he would be going back to his room in a few minutes. He was only in recovery about one hour. That also gave us hope. They had him back in his room and he was pretty out of it while I was there.

After being there all day I left around 6:30 and another sister stayed. We are trying to figure out how we are going to juggle the next couple of days when they get him up to start walking on his new hip or new femoral head, which is the part I think they replaced. It is going to be a challenge but he is alive and well!

Blogging on the Run

This is the first time I try mobile blogging with my new crackberry curve. I tried it a long time ago with my old phone & I wasn't very successful. I'm trying again.

I'm in the waiting room of the Veteran's Hospital while my dad is in surgery. They said surgery would take a couple of hours or longer.

Despite his pain my father can find the energy to joke. He told a friend that he wasn't the boxer he thought he was. How my father can still have a sense of humor after what happened to him just amazes me.

So here I am waiting to hear how my dad"s surgery goes. They moved it from Friday to Monday and the poor guy had to suffer all weekend.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Some People are Deranged and Evil

Yesterday my sister calls me around 7:30 p.m. and tells me that a deputy called her to say that my dad was being taken to the hospital because a man had beat him. Those of you who have followed stories about my dad know that he's 84. No age is a good one to get your butt kicked severely, but 84 is an even worse age.

This is what happened according to my dad. He was early to his bible study so he asked his friend to drop him off at a little restaurant across the freeway. When he was ready for his meeting he started walking across and under an underpass. When he came up on the other side he was jumped from behind by a deranged man. The man pushed him to the ground and started to kick him all over. He beat him terribly. He punched him and slapped him repeatedly on the left side of the face and all over his body. By just a miracle he didn't kill my father.

My dad said that the man was yelling politician's names at him and he would pull away and scream things at the cars passing by and then would come back and he would beat my father some more. Somewhere in there my dad managed to stand up, but the man pushed him to the ground again and my dad hit his hip on the curb. He thinks he either broke his leg then or when the man was kicking him. He broke the top part of his femur bone that connects to his hip.

A couple of cars stopped and someone called the police. A sheriff's deputy was there pretty quickly and they got there in time to catch the guy and arrest him. Then the guy had the audacity to try to act like he hadn't done anything. The police didn't buy his story. I'm sure enough people had already called 911 and they had all the evidence and witnesses that they needed.

The ambulance took my dad to LBJ Hospital first because it was considered trauma. In addition to being 84, my dad also has a pace maker. That's where they did the cat scans and x-rays. He was at LBJ overnight and today they transferred him to the Veteran's Hospital, which was what my father preferred from the beginning. My father always goes to the Veteran's Hospital for everything so they have all of his records.

Now he's there and they did the x-rays again. He will most likely have surgery for hip replacement, or partial hip replacement, on Friday. The whole left side of his face and his head are purple. His left ear is huge and purple.

There you have it. Our first goal is to make sure that he's better, but my second goal is to find the police report on my dad's attack and to follow up on that. I want to make sure that we are pressing charges against that sick sick person so that he doesn't do the same thing to someone else. Some people are either deranged or very ill mentally. We need to make sure he's taken care of either way.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Random Thoughts

Do you know how when you travel out of the city you start to see signs telling you what restaurants are coming up? So you can say to your spouse, "Hey! There's a Whataburger coming up!" Well, wouldn't it be great if they had those inside the city for Starbucks? Like, "Next Exit Starbucks."

Today I was driving along 45 and I really had to pee. I remembered that there's a Starbucks on 45, but I couldn't remember if the exit was Tidwell or Parker. Interestingly enough the Starbucks sign does tell you which exit to take on each side of the sign, but by the time you see the sign you've already passed the exit. I exited early and drove along the feeder until I came to the Starbucks. The door was propped open but no one was inside and the lights were off, like it's closed.

I heard that Starbucks had decided to close a bunch of locations in Houston and I think that may be one of them. Sad...

Now that I have this lap band I'm getting to know all the soups around town. The tortilla soup at Teotihuacan on Irvington at Cavalcade is to die for! Go at dinner time and they add chicken. At lunch it doesn't have chicken, but I'm sure it's just as good, just chicken-less. I had the tortilla soup at La Mexicana today and it was pretty good, but it was no Teotihuacan tortilla soup.

That's it for random thoughts. More later!

Friday, October 17, 2008

New York is Too Awesome

I love this city. Wednesday night I met my cousin for dinner and she remembered that her friend, author Stephanie Elizondo Griest was having a reading that night. We finished dinner and went to catch the tail end of the reading. After that we went to the after party at a nearby restaurant. I also got to see another writer friend of my cousin's, Michelle Herrera Mulligan. Then I also bumped into an ex La Voz writer who was there too. It was quite a coincidence and indication of what a small world we are in. Especially the writer/media world.

Thursday was the conference and Friday was sales calls. Friday night was the MoMa. I love that place! See my skirt blog for more details.

Saturday we went to Jersey City and ran around New York. (we may consider staying at the Hyatt on the Hudson on the Jersey side next time- Very beautiful scenery!)

Sunday we went to Zabar's for coffee and then we left New York. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay forever, but I couldn't. I had to come back to my two little ones and my job and a promotion. Yeah, promotion! Crazy I know!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Things I learned in NY

  1. Always have my writer business cards with me (I ended up at a writer's reading and after- reading drinks with no cards.)
  2. Tongue eaten here, and not just by Mexicans
  3. Kasha potato
  4. Katz deli is old
  5. My Blackberry has a bunch of cool music Rey put in it, unbeknown to me.
  6. Path train to Jersey City
  7. Goes to Hoboken weekends
  8. MoMa has a lot of great art
  9. A lot of ipods and reading, But no one sways to the music
  10. The Jersey City Assembly Hall is the most beautiful
  11. The Hyatt in JC on the Hudson is beautiful and probably cheaper
  12. The Colgate Clock in JC is the largest in the U.S., but doesn't work
  13. I threw up at the clock
  14. St Paul's chapel next to the World Trade Center is pretty cool, but creepy according to Rey
  15. My cute Loeffler Randall shoes suck for walking
  16. I have bad ankles
  17. The train from NY to Newark does not come every 15 min-Plan on 20-30 min.

Monday, October 06, 2008

The Drama of Going Out of Town

I have known for months that I was going out of town this week. Months. But inevitably I always end up running out of time right before I have to leave. Of course I didn't know that two family members of two different family friends were going to die and that I would have to go to their funerals. That took up a lot of time from my weekend too. But I take that back. I should have known that something would come up to make my preparations more challenging. That always happens.

Here is a list of all the things that I have to do to prepare for this trip:

Clean House (OK, realistically probably won't get done but should because my in-laws are staying at my house with the kids.)
Wash and fold all clothes
Organize all Uniforms for the week
Buy Groceries
Pack
Write out instructions for Yolanda (mother-in-law)
E-mails to Kids' Teachers
Note to daughter's After School
Note to son's After School
Do Budget
Call Electric Co.
Check Cable Bill
Buy leggings
Get son's hair cut

I've done seven of these and I delegated a couple of things. The clothes and the packing is the most time-consuming of them all. It is always like this when I travel for work. I can't just pack my stuff and take off. I have to prepare all of the kids' stuff and I have to leave instructions for them.

My in-laws have graciously accepted to come stay with the kids at our house. They'll be taking the kids to school each morning. What would we do without family?

So here I am. Thank goodness I cut and paste most of it from my To Do list. I have to run and finish my laundry and start my packing.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Be There or Be Square!

Who: Gwendolyn Zepeda
What: Gwendolyn Zepeda's Book Party for "Growing Up with Tamales."
When: Friday, October 3, 6 p.m.
Where: MECA, 1900 Kane Street, Houston, TX, 77007 (mapquest it baby!)
Why: Because this children's book is awesome and it's not just me saying that. My 7 year old daughter and 4 year old son think so too. Read my review on Amazon if you don't believe me, OK?
How: You get in your car, or on the bus, or you catch a ride with someone and you show up at MECA at 6 p.m. on Friday.