flora n' fauna

Mi amiga, Elissa, made this arrangement today at work (Avant Garden in Highland Park Village) for a client of TractorBeam's (my work) for their grand opening. Ne'er will I go anywhere else for flowers.



More of her past works can be seen in the following pictures:

anniversary flora:


valentine's fauna (thanks Special K!):


She's the cat's meow!!

radiant

Here are the limited pictures I've been able to acquire from the Radiant concert on the 18th. If anyone, anywhere has some they'd like to email me.....PLEASE DO!!! I knew I should have brought my dang camera!! Dang!

Ron Romero and me - he was the valedictorian of our class!! Poteet High School, REPRESENT!!


Yesse shaking the floors, and Levi tickling the ivories:


Everybody are you with me?


Oh, and I'd like to send a shout out first and foremost to Jenni Sage/Balthrop (I'm still transitioning) because I FINALLY got notification TODAY that I can switch to beta blogger. Thanks Jenni, now all of my blogging dreams can come true. Sweet, sweet true.

devil pigeon

I saw the craziest, most feral looking pigeon that I've EVER seen today in downtown Dallas walking back to work from a pleasurable lunch with my work peeps at Tuk Tuk - wonderful place, get the cashew chicken!

Anyway, we were walking back, and just to give you a visual of where we were walking, Tuk Tuk is not actually on a street, per se, but it's in a breezeway between Main and Elm streets in the middle of downtown. Right next to Campisi's. And right next to The News Stand (a recent addition) that opens ever so pragmatically at 10am. Nothing I like better than going to get a paper and a bagel early in the almost midday, just after I've had time to check cnn.com and do an hour and a half of work. Hmm....

But I digress...

We were walking out of the breezeway back on to Main St. and there is a crowd of pigeons around, and one of them catches my eye. It's hopping ceaselessly up and down trying to eat a piece of what I'm assuming to be pizza crust by stabbing it repeatedly with it's weathered beak. It's got red eyes, which after looking up pigeons upon online, it's common for "street pigeons" to have varying eye colors, so I guess that explains that, but it was nevertheless very evil looking.

Then I look down and notice that it's got strange feathers all the way down it's legs and covering it's talons, almost as if it's wearing snow boots. Evil snow boots. It was crazy! I've never seen a pigeon like this before! It looked crazy!! The eyes on the side of their heads make it seem like they're looking straight at you no matter what they're doing....and they probably are!

Anyway, when I was able to stop saying to my co-workers,

"Look, seriously!! Have you ever seen a pigeon that looks like that before? Seriously! That's crazy! That's strange right? You guys haven't ever seen a pigeon with evil snow boots on, right?"

We turned to head back to the office and right in front of us on the road there was the remnants of a horrible pigeon accident. Possibly involving a car or a bicycler with a grudge. The head was indistinguishable from the body in both shape and definition, and where the face SHOULD have been was only a bloody mess. Gah! Poor pigeon. Poor, weathered, rough looking dove relative.

I got back to the office and looked everywhere online for a picture of this pigeon with the "boots" on, but I found none. I did find this, pictureless description on an Urban Bird Studies site:


I also found this picture, which is probably the most ridiculous picture I've ever seen, and yet it's slightly endearing that someone holds pigeons (or maybe just this pigeon specifically) on so high a pedestal.



Oh sweet, sweet rats of the sky.

keen on the human baby...

I'm not in any hurry to have kids this minute, but boy do I enjoy holding this one 2-3 times a week!!

the hedgy three!


the product of their love, what what!


oh those cheeks!!


Samuel is learning to distinguish foods from non-foods:


Samuel's favorite animal at the moment is the "seal," or as he likes to call it, "blshhhhb."


the family:


sweater hands:


baby ball:


you know, Annie, I think I'm starting to see more and more of you in Samuel:


my favorite:

mbna....revisited

My past. My past is coming back to haunt me. Thank goodness I got out before....."the merger."



Let me say this, though. When you work at a credit card bank.....you'll participate in anything if it means that you don't have to sell someone another credit card for 2 hours.

oh those pearly wisdom bits

A friend of mine on marriage:

"There are few real truths in life and everything else is personal preference...you stick to what is true and be willing to bend."

Good stuff.

spektator

Tomorrow night I will be having an AWESOME time going to see Regina Spektor in concert at the Gypsy Tea Room. It will be glorious. Here's what you have to do to get a glimpse of her amazingness:

1. go to her website

2. click to enter site

3. click on "video"

4. click on "on the radio"

5. watch, listen, be amazed.

haggard times

On my favorite new website, they had an insightful post about all the recent exposure to come out of Colorado.

Thought it was worth posting.

Today is a great day, incidentally. Rainy days seem to be my favorite these days. Great for opening up the shades, walking outside and just smelling the freshness. It's pretty awesome.

peace

lead us to the place where you'll restore our souls
and all our earthly strivings come to cease

take from our souls the strain and stress
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of your peace

*sigh*

p.s. love you Jesus!

anarchy

I was talking on IM to Jerome today (and I intermittently still am), and we were talking about the Ted Haggard scandal of late, and I got a few comic gems out of the conversation.

But first, before the hilarity - now I've built it up too much haven't I? - I don't know how much of the allegations against Ted Haggard are true, as I honestly don't know much about him other than that he's from Colorado and a major Republican & Evangelical figurehead who definitely supports that marriage between two people is defined as a male/female union.

If they are true, that's definitely a shame. With someone so prominent in such a field and who supports the things he supports, it would be easy for anyone who didn't want him reelected, and who is negatively affected by those very ideals to come out of the woodwork and claim outrageous things. I also know, though, that someone with such a calling for the Lord is going to be subject to fierce attack and temptation, and I don't just mean from humans. I read on the Colorado Springs channel 11 news website that he admitted to some of the allegations but not to others. Who knows.

Man. What a mess. That's why it's so important to have good, wise people around you for counsel. That's why it's good to just be honest, not necessarily with everyone, but with a few people you really trust. People that can keep you in check and know how you want to live your life and to remind you of that when you fall away from the course. Even if honesty is embarassing. Be honest before temptation turns into action. As any Jesus loving person, but especially as a spiritual leader (of many or few) and activist.

Okay, on to the comedy. On one blog website that referenced the Channel 11 report I mentioned earlier, after it cited a couple of paragraphs, the writer wrote this:

"Questions remain. Is this concrete evidence that God has now foresaken the Republicans? And how does this bear on James Wolcott's theory that 'all Republican political figures are gay, especially the men'?"

WHA? Seriously? Who's asking those questions? Who is this James Wolcott? Oh wait, I just looked it up and he's a Vanity Fair et al contributing editor. Hmm. Well assessed, James Wolcott.....Well assessed indeed.*

Jerome and I were talking about this whole ordeal and he was expressing that this confirms his belief in the separation of church and state and how he feels like Jesus would agree. Here's a bit of our conversation (and by our, I mean, here's what he wrote):

"Seriously though, you know that part where some wise acre asks Jesus who gets the $ money first - Caesar or God...and Jesus is just like, man, give Caesar what's his and give God what's his...i don't think that was about money. Taxes were the main beef the people had with the goverment then and I think that was a question regarding goverment as a whole...to me, I think Jesus was saying don't mix the two."

And this is my favorite:

"I am an anarchist (see Romans 13:1)."

Ha ha! Then he said just kidding, but it's funnier without it. And to save you the looking up of, here it is:

Rom 13:1 ¶ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

Nice.



*he only feels that way satirically.

putting on costumes...

...for no reason at all last Friday.

el grupo!






































and even though he wasn't at my house, I thought this costume was worthy of displaying on account of it's horrifyingly accurate representation: