Ruminating Slav

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

So BK's been out of town a lot this month. Baxter was very excited to have him back this weekend.



What has the Slav been up to, you ask? Well! I hope you're sitting down. After I read Harry Potter #7 I was so sad and woeful about the series being over that I went back and read all seven books in a row. After that I was all excited about reading so I read all 13 Stephanie Plum mysteries. I figured this Janet Evanovich couldn't be all bad if she was publicly admitting to reading Buffy Season 8. Now I'm itching to sink my teeth into another thoughtless yet not completely crap mystery series. Suggestions?

Last night BK tried to take me out to eat for my birthday, but seeing as he hadn't actually made any reservations the waiter at Bijoux laughed at us when we strolled in and asked for a table. We ended up at Rouge, which served surprisingly good tapas. I also limited myself to two sangrias, which, as anyone who's ever been around me when I've consumed too much sangria can vouch for, is a very good thing. Then we saw Superbad, which was good fun. I enjoyed all 186 uses of the word "fuck."

This week marks my last week of employment before my shit-canning goes into effect. I guess that's a little bit of boo and yay combined. I've had a laid-off version of senioritis since I heard the news, so it'll be nice to not have to do work seasoned with resentment any more. But then, no more paycheck, however meager. This week we're also tagging along with BK on a business trip to NYC, which should be nice for a change of pace. It might even be cool enough to go outside, something we haven't experienced in the post-8 am hours for months here in Texas. Central Park, here we come!

386

Internets, let's play a game. I'm going to give you a number, and you have to guess what I'm talking about. Ready? Ok, here's the number: 386.

So, what do you think? Number of jelly beans in a jar on my kitchen counter? Number of times I've said "No, not for babies" in reference to dog and cat kibble this week? Number of hours I've spent wishing [insert witty, male Jewish celebrity here] were my boyfriend?

No, no, and no.

I'll give you a hint. On the same paper that 386 is printed, it also says, "The average daily high temperature during this billing period was 101°; average daily high temperature during the same billing period last year was 94°."

Now you see, don't you, internets? 386 is the number of dollars that BK and I owe TXU Energy. That's right. Our electricity bill was $386. So America, unless your forecast for the next three days looks like this:



and your electricity bill this past month was $386 or more, I don't want to hear it.

Now I wish we'd eaten there and had some oysters

Last night BK and I had a Hott Date -- first we ate some sushi in the presence of Dallas' beautiful people (none of whom have anything as pedestrian as a baby, I'm sure) and concluded that the beautiful people like it way too loud in their restaurants. On the way to the movie theatre we realized neither of us was particularly excited to see Clerks II (although Kevin Smith ripping Joel Siegal a new one on his MySpace page is pretty funny) so we ended up at The Oceanaire for drinks and dessert. The dessert was monstrous -- a couple of those bad boys would fix Lebanon's current humanitarian crisis right up. Well, just the food shortage aspect. It was big, but not big enough to provide shelter from Iraqi bombs.

Right!

Anyway. When we first got to the restaurant we ran into some coworkers of BK's, one of whom was all palsy with the bartender and gave him strict instructions to treat us right. Next thing we know we've got two glasses of champagne sitting in front of us, and when that's all gone we order more cause, you know, champagne. It's good like that. Thank god treating us right consisted of comping those first two glasses, though, cause we done drank $80 worth of champagne, people. Sweet fancy moses! It wasn't even the good stuff.

Anyone who has three grand burning a hole in their pocket, feel free to buy me this.

Poop of the non-baby variety

So! Here's some things. Last night BK and I went on our first date since Baxter was born. I know, right? Shameful. Everything was hunky-dork* until we set off for the restaurant and realized that all of the exits off the highway were closed because the service road was a lake for miles on accounta the 40 days and 40 nights-style rain Dallas experienced this weekend. Because having a baby has mellowed me out considerably, according to BK anyway, I responded to this change in plans with a "meh," as opposed to my usual barrage of cursing, huffing, and moaning. I remembered reading something good many, many moons ago about a Cuban restaurant in Dallas, so I called my friend C. to telegoogle (thanks, C!) and we soon found ourselves at the Samba Room which surprised the hell outta me by being really frickin' good despite both barbacoa and sushi being on the menu (WTF?). Mojitos? Good! Ceviche? Good! Sea bass? Good! Blue crab California roll? Good! Really! Oh, and wee little key lime pie in a shot glass? Also good. We then went to see V for Vendetta which I was resigned to simply providing company for, but turned out to be also good! We rolled on in after midnight, so I guess that should do me another 6 months until the next time the in-laws come visitin'.

Speaking of the in-laws, I have never met people who poop more often in my life. My mother-in-law, in particular, poops three to five times a day. This results in many poop-themed anecdotes from the weekend, like that time I was in our bedroom and my mother-in-law didn't know it so she closed the bathroom door that leads to the hall but not the one that opens to the bedroom and proceeded to have violent diarrhea 10 feet away from me OR the time BK and I were in the nursery changing Baxter's diaper and were conversing very loudly about why does it smell like shit in here when his diaper wasn't poopy and is it coming from over here, no, is it coming from over there, no, oh it's coming from the bathroom and then cue long, uncomfortable silence. But seriously, people. Constant pooping.

My smiley little baby has been a McCrankster Supreme the past couple of weeks, which has the effect of slowly beating me down over the course of the day so that when precious, precious free time rolls around the last thing I want to do is try to assemble a coherent blog post and instead slump in the armchair watching multiple Buffy episodes back-to-back with a thin rivulet of drool trickling from the corner of my mouth. C. and K., Baxter thanks you for his Longhorn gear which he looks quite smashing in.

* This was some sort of freudian typo that made me softly cackle when I previewed so I left it.

Go, Mavs, Go!

mavs game, originally uploaded by *Karo*.

Last night we went to the Mavs game at the American Airlines Center with Baxter. That Pau Gasol does not play, let me tell you. Actually, he does play, and very well.

Baxter was great throughout the game -- he slept for two long chunks and looked around, wide-eyed, for the rest. Hopefully us dragging him to the game will not result in permanent hearing loss for the poor guy.

In other news, I attended the game last night in my pre-pregnancy jeans. Sweet. Now it's time to attack the ass I packed on after we moved away from DC and I completely stopped working out.

Have you had the burny splats today?

BK and I have pretty much talked about nothing else since the moving issue came up Monday night. I have to say I'm really proud of the both of us -- me for not losing my shit and pickling Embie in a vat of stress juices, and him for looking at the big picture and thinking about what's best for Team Slav and not just for him professionally.

I think the conclusion we've reached is a good, reasonable one. Yes, things are not ideal in Dallas right now, but lord knows they're not bad, either. We have a great house, BK has a good job and is almost done paying off his law school loans. That should happen just a few months before Embie is born, and fortuitously, the amount of money he sends them monthly is almost exactly my monthly salary (I'll let you mull over whether than means he sends gobs of money monthly or I make jack shit), so when I stop working we won't be taking a hit at all.

The thing is, life is never going to be perfect, but one strives to come as close as possible, right? And we know ourselves, and we know that living in a tiny place or having an outrageous mortgage is going to be a stressor. So when you start crunching the numbers of the Calculus of Happiness, how much further along would we be if we moved to DC? Our sum total of happiness might be pretty close to where it is now, just coming from other sources.

So what we've decided is that BK is going to contact a headhunter that specializes in in-house counsel positions. He'll keep his eyes and ears open for positions similar to the one in Reston in, say, Austin (where we have friends and originally intended to move when we started the whole Texas thing). Yes, in life there are no guarantees, but I think it makes sense to put off another move until we find a job/location combo that's pretty darn sure to increase the happiness sum total significantly.

It's ten o'clock on Saturday night and I can't see my hands

Saturday night BK and I went to a (!) concert at the Granada Theater on Greenville. Before Bob Schneider hit the stage at about 10:45 (I'll spare you the old-woman bitching about why does it have to be so late, yadda yadda yadda), we were treated to two opening acts. The first band was so completely forgettable that both BK and I thought we might die of boredom as a result of just being in the same room as them. The highlight of that performance was when the lead singer spoke up between songs and told the audience, "We wrote this one for William Faulkner." I'd like to tell you what the Faulkner song was about, but I regrettably sipped back into a coma when they started playing.

The second band -- The Deathray Davies -- made quite the impression, however. As I type this, I am fully aware that I am outing myself as singularly lame. I am sure that all the kids listen to The DRD, and by professing my pre-weekend ignorance of their existance AND by preparing to mock them, I am branding myself as An Old Fuddy Duddy. Still, the following needs to be said, so here goes.

The Deathray Davies weren't bad. Some of their songs were pretty catchy in that 00's rock renaissance sort of way. No, my problem with The DRD centered solely around one person -- the keyboard player. Now, the keyboard player ROCKED, y'all. He had one mean straddle going in front of his keyboard, and nodded his head back and forth in a spectacularly violent fashion throughout the set. His patented move, though, reserved for particularly ROCKIN moments, was an impressive sideways kick with his left leg. So it would be straddle straddle nod nod straddle straddle nod nod KICK and let me tell you, homeboy did not play. The Kilgore Rangerettes would be honored to have him on their line.

But here's the problem: every straddle straddle nod nod straddle straddle nod nod KICK would be followed by one more element of this finely-tuned tango -- the right hand would inevitably wander over to the button that controlled the fog machine and PRESS. Imagine, if you will, every 10 seconds:

straddle straddle nod nod straddle straddle nod nod KICK ... PRESS

straddle straddle nod nod straddle straddle nod nod KICK ... PRESS

straddle straddle nod nod straddle straddle nod nod KICK ... PRESS

It's really not surprising, then, that halfway through The Deathray Davies' set, the entire Granada Theater was filled with a dense layer of smoke, completely obscuring the band on stage. Even we seated lameos in the balcony could not escape the wrath of the keyboard player's right hand. It's a good thing we weren't driving, people, because visibility was LOW.

Right before their last song (hallelujah!), the lead singer remarked, "Man, this fog machine has taken a few years off our lives tonight." So what does Mr. Keyboard do? You guessed it:

PRESS. PRESS. PRESS.

When I win the lottery I'm placing a full-page ad in the local paper

Drivers of Dallas, there seems to be a misunderstanding. The majority of you appear to have been granted driver's licenses without grasping the fundamental rules of operating a motor vehicle. Fear not! Karo is here, and will help you avoid debilitating car accidents with a few Tips for Driving:

• Tailgating: This needs to stop. F'real. There is no excuse for you driving your Escalade three inches behind my back bumper. BACK OFF, YOU 5'2" BLOND SHE-DEVIL.
  
  
• The turn signal: This is controlled by the little level coming out of your steering wheel. You do not appear to be familiar with it. Please, please use it. Also, for those of you who do use your turn signal, but only when you're halfway into my lane -- YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT. The turn signal is supposed to alert me to your future actions. If you're already in my lane, I'M ON IT.
  
  
• The pedals: Dallasites, I'm here to tell you that 75% of our traffic woes could be remedied by clearing up the misconception that your foot must be depressing a pedal at all times. Believe it or not, this is not true! You don't need to be accelerating or riding your brakes at any given time. Sometimes, JUST GIVE YOUR RIGHT FOOT A BREAK. This will cut down on the tailgating and the ...
  
  
• Merging: We really need to work on this. When a car is approaching on the on-ramp, take your foot off the accelerator. Please note I did not say, "Slam on the brakes." I also did not say, "Ignore the other car." Take your foot off the GODDAMN ACCELERATOR AND GIVE ME SOME FUCKING ROOM.