Snowpiles

We have been hit by snowstorm after snowstorm and as I pull out of my driveway each day, I notice that there are no huge snowpiles around other people's driveways, but I don't give it much thought.

Then last week, after our last storm, Peter stomps into the bedroom and wakes me up and he is FURIOUS.

As I wipe my bleary eyes, he lets out this HUGE rant and I'm all, "What did you do to my mild-mannered husband and who are you?"

Apparently, he noticed that our neighbors across the street dig out their driveways and their side of the street by pushing all the snow onto our side of the street. The neighbor directly across the street from us snowplow all their driveway snow right up to our driveway so that it now looks like this:



It's hard to tell in this photo, but there are two huge mountains of snow on each side of our driveway, making it super-difficult to maneuver our car in and out. It's been really annoying because the snow has not melted since the last week of December. It's ultra-more annoying because our side of the street GETS NO SUN. That's right, their side of the street gets sun all day so that the snow would eventually melt, but the shadow from our house prevents any sort of sunlight to hit these huge mounds of snow.

Peter was incensed because this is completely crappy unneighborly behavior and very inconsiderate.

I offered to go across the street to talk to the neighbors about maybe not pushing all their snow to our side of the street and he was all, "Oh, really? You think that'll make a difference? That they DON'T KNOW that they shouldn't be pushing their snow in front of our driveway?"

The thing is, we live on a block populated by older people who have been here for the past twenty-five years. So they won't really be taking too kindly to some newcomer who's going to ask them to change their ways.

Sometimes I really hate living in the suburbs--I can't believe how much time I waste talking about these stupid neighbors. Just last week I parked in front of one of our neighbor's houses and received a note on my car telling me not to park my car there. Keep in mind that we've lived here 5 years and this was the first time I had ever parked my car in front of this house. Also, I was only parked there for 3 hours--I only parked my car on the street because we were planning on going right back outside. I don't mind getting a note on my car, but I think it's the height of cowardice to not sign a note. I mean, really, neighbors! Own up to your stupid notes!

My sister said that I should park my car there again and leave a note on my car that says:

"Please forward all correspondence to the blue Accord parked across the street."

Austin Is Awesome...and Weird

A few weeks ago my friend Hannah invited me and a couple of girls to her house for a psychic friends visit. Hannah's ex-roommate discovered psychic abilities a few years ago and now makes a living as a medium. I know, sounds kind of nutty, but I am totally into it.

My mom is a bit in tuned to that sort of thing--she's saved us a lot of money on long-distance calls in my childhood because all she has to do is think of a person and that person will call her. Plus, every time she's had a car accident, she had dreamed of one beforehand--of course, why would she would still take the car? Uhm... still can't understand THAT one.

Okay, so during this meeting, the psychic urged me to take a look at Austin, Texas because my guides are convinced that I would be happy there...she also said to stay away from Toronto because there was "bad karma" there.

Now I'm afraid to go to Toronto.

But for the Christmas holiday season, Peter and I went to Austin and aside from the soft water, we really loved it. The water was really kind of gross. Whenever we washed our hands with soap, it still felt grimy and slippery, like we couldn't get the suds off.

We went to see Tron at the Alamo Drafthouse. There's just nothing more fun than watching a terrible 3-D movie with your favorite person while eating macaroni and cheese and enjoying an orange creamsicle. The drafthouse is right next to Austin Vintage Guitars. Since Peter has started playing music again, we've been hitting vintage guitar shops everywhere we go.

Thanks to my sister's ex-roommate Selena, who sent us a list of vegetarian-friendly places, we went to eat at Casa de Luz, one of the best meals I've ever had, they make this taco thing with this awesome green sauce. The people there were nice (although a bit floopy) and the best meal (and good for you too) you can get for $12 per person. East Side Cafe was also great, unfortunately, we blew our load the first night out by ordering every vegetarian dish on their menu. We wanted to go back there later that week, but we had already tried everything...tip for you guys...PACE yourselves.

One of the best parts of the trip was going to this little airstream trailer and getting cupcakes at Hey Cupcake! Little did we know how famous it was--that cream cheese frosting is the best I've EVER had.

Oh yeah, we had a good meal, but an unpleasant waitstaff experience at Bouldin Creek Cafe the first time we went. Now, pretty much everybody likes me. Gay men, old ladies, babies, young girls, boys, you name it. And most of time, gay women like me, but for some reason, when I asked for more time with the menu, I just got on our lesbian waitress's last nerve and so she completely ignored us pretty much throughout our meal when Peter needed some stuff from her. In fact, on our way to the car, he said, "We got bad service because she DIDN'T LIKE YOU."

Later, Peter said that he only meant that if we had hoped to get ANY kind of good service from anyone, it was if she liked me...and she clearly didn't. Fortunately, we went back on another night and our gay waiter was practically tripping on himself to provide me with the best service, including getting me a special desserty thing that wasn't even on the menu. So my argument to him is that, even though I was a woman, perhaps HE could have done a better job charming the lesbian waitress, since I clearly charmed the gay waiter.

According to our guidebook, The Clay Pit was the spot to hit for Indian food. We went for the lunch buffet, but since we're used to the Jackson Diner, the food was merely...meh. Of course, the Jackson Diner has pretty much ruined us for any other Indian buffet. We're used to having practically ten meal choices with free dosas, tandoori, dessert, salad as well as naan bread. So when we went to Clay Pit, we were all, huh? Only three meal choices? But to be honest, all of the Indian people who were there ordered off the menu--so I suggest you skip the buffet and order off the menu, it seemed that's what the locals were doing.

We had a great time and ate a lot. There was so much for vegetarians in Austin. The only thing we didn't try was the pizza. Every time we passed a pizza joint, Peter said, "Soft water pizza. I just don't think that could be any good."

Mega

So my mother called me up last week and her first question to me when I picked up the phone was:

"WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Okay, ten heart attacks later, I'm all, "WHY? WHY? WHAT HAS HAPPENED?"

Apparently, she just wanted to get a hold of me to tell me to purchase MegaMillions tickets because according to her Tibetan sushi chef, a psychic from the Chinese newspaper said that the next winner was going to be a woman, born under the Gemini sign, who lives in New York State.

That's ME!

So she wanted to get a hold of me because I needed to get my coat on and run over to the local gas station to pick up my winning ticket.

My mom is a bit in tune with psychic forces herself, so I was getting my jacket and Peter came with me.

While I was in the car, I thought, which gas station am I going to bless with the fantastic reputation of being a winner?

At one point, Peter asks me, "Why are you doing this?"

I said, "Look, once a year, my mother asks me to do a crazy thing and I do it. Last time I had to burn a piece of paper, but water on the ashes and pour it over my head."

"You did WHAT?" Peter said.

"Yeah, I didn't TELL you about it because you would have told me that it was CRAZY."

"I don't think you should have told me now," he said.


I was really bummed when I didn't win, because she had me totally convinced.

Oh well, I made a deal with myself that I will do ONE crazy thing for my mom each year--and she used it up early this year!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Standing in the bathroom, I told Peter that, "2011 is going to be the year I CONQUER SOAP SCUM!!!"

I thought that would elicit a laugh from Peter, but he looked at me with an eyebrow raised and said, "You know, you said that last year."

I was all, "What? I did? I don't even remember!"

Oh well. Maybe I'll succeed this year. Now that I have this written record of it to remind me.

So much happened last year. Rocky got skunked, one of our cars was caught up in a tornado (thank goodness no one was in it), our other car was hit by a drunk driver (while we were in it), Rocky ran away during Peter's mom's birthday party (luckily some nice people found him), my grandfather passed away and Peter got cancer.

Although we hit some rough patches last year, we had some fun times. Peter has picked up the guitar again and is back to writing songs. We did a lot of traveling. We went to Denver, Austin, Nashville, and both Portlands--the one in Maine and the one in Oregon. Guess which one Peter liked better? The one that had more vegetarian options and didn't "smell like fish."

At the close of last year, a year we were on pins and needles just trying to survive, I asked Peter, "Was this year the worst year of your life?"

And he looked at me and said, "Of course not. Some really great things happened this year."

The reason I didn't post so much last year was that I wanted to respect Peter's request not to write about what he was going through while it was happening---but it was such a large part of our lives that it didn't ring true not to write about it so it felt easier to just not post. Then a few weeks led to a few months and pretty soon I became another deadbeat blogger even after Peter gave me the okay.

So, another one of my New Year's resolutions is to post regularly on this blog again. After all, I have my dozen fans to think about...plus all those people who come here to find out about Liz Cho's feet.