Catching Up.

 

A quick rundown of the latest happenings along the StangaTrain Railway.  Disclaimer: If we’re Facebook friends, some of this is old news.  In all actuality, a lot of it isn’t all that recent, since this will only be my 14th post of 2010 and it’s already December…  Oh, you might want to go potty before committing the next 15 years of your life to reading this post.

ME

In May, my company moved locations.  Transitioning from Highland Park Village to downtown brought on more traffic issues and higher blood pressure, but at least I’m now working with real humans  …as opposed to the plastic humans hanging around in HPV.   And, who can complain about the view from 46. 

In the last 6 months, I’ve also invested a lot of time in home improvements.  After two brand new A/C units, one erroneous installation, a massive leak and and then closet rebuild, I decided I’d continue my spending, starting with redoing the master bathroom.  Prior to the revamp, it was a nice peaceful beach theme, with beautiful sandy textured wallpaper that featured nice touches of glitter and seashell tiles in the shower.  Can we say fugly?  But I am so in love with how it all looks now.

I’ve also had the rest of the house painted, redone the guest rooms, new living room furniture, new carpet installed, yada yada yada.  It’s a nice feeling to have completed most of what I have been wanting to do around that place for quite some time!  And, the best part, just in time for Christmas decor, which y’all know has been up since before Thanksgiving.

Over the summer, I posted about the newest addition to the family, little Tipitina. Well, things have changed and she has a new mommy.  She was having such a hard time potty training, made the most unbelievable screaming noises and had plenty of other flaws, which is okay if I had time to train her.  Due to her little tinkle and chewing habits, I had to crate her during the day.  With the move downtown, my commute has far exceeded torturous and poor little gal was confined for the majority of the day, and while I was sleeping for that matter.  It took months of intense debate and I finally took the plunge and found her a new home with a nice older lady who rescues small dogs.  I certainly feel this was the best move for her, and definitely for me.  Jacques-Imo has adapted well, as long as he still gets to sit as close to me as possible (which often means right on top of me.)

The family grouped up with the Martini Tour a few times this year for San Fermin:  Nueva Orleans and Thanksgiving on Lake Ponchartrain again.  Make this the 2nd year I haven’t posted about SF:NO and I’ve been meaning to.  It’s Running of the Bulls, NOLA style.  That translates to Running of the Bull Dykes. 

Me.

275 roller derby lesbians with bats and horns.

Outcome.

We went back to Lake Ponchartrain for Thanksgiving. Everything was the same, and almost as perfect as last year, except we were missing a coupl’a crews which stunk.  On the upside, however, we had a Saints victory over the Cowboys.  Happy Saintsgiving! 

In my previous post, I said that December is usually a slow month for me at work.  Turns out, for the economy being this bad, the company has had an excellent year overall and even December has kept me busy.  Finally starting to mentally check out.  Clocking in a few hours this week and I’m calling it quits until after the holiday! 

What, you don’t have a cocktail at your office?

On to 2011 … 

MOM & DAD

Not much new with them. They’ve started to really get the itch to move back to Southern Louisiana, which I can’t even talk about right now.  Who knows when (or if) it will actually happen, but it’s definitely on their radar and I’ll lose it when/if they do.  Molly is begging me to move as well, but the market in Nola for  just isn’t thriving like it is in Dallas {thriving being a very relative term.}  Mom still tends to her crazy flock of pets and Dad continues to make fun of her.  They’re precious, I tell you!

MOLLY

  In May, she earned her Juris Doctor degree from Loyola New Orleans and we are all so very proud of her. 

We celebrated her achievement and her birthday at August, an amazing John Besh restaurant. 

We also had a champagne lunch at Galatoire’s and then on to the Sazerac Bar.  What a debauchery of a weekend!  If my eyes were open in more of the pictures, I would post some, but I guess that’s what cocktails do to me.  Awesome!

Couldn’t have been any more perfect, except that stupid hat she had to wear.  Really, it wasn’t flattering. On anyone!  Regardless, we are so proud of her. 

As if becoming an attorney wasn’t ambitious enough, she decided to go on and continue her education (yes, again!) and is currently living in hell Gainsville, Florida as she completes her Masters of Law degree in Taxation.  If that doesn’t make you want to slit your wrists.  The University of Florida Gator part, not the taxation…    She is only a temporary Gator and not a real fan, which is good otherwise half the Martini Tour would die from a stroke.  I mean, what a stab in the heart to LSU. Gah!  Oh well, the program is ranked third in the country (she got into the 2nd ranked school, but chose otherwise since she’s already lived in DC,) so we can’t blame her for her decision.  As dorky as she will be, I’m kind of excited for her to help me find some loopholes on next year’s tax return.   She left Larry and the dogs behind in New Orleans and will return after the spring semester.

Speaking of Larry, he is coming home with Molly for his first Christmas in Dallas.  He has been to a few Thanksgivings in the swamp but never to experience the Stanga madness during the holidays.  Mom is so excited to have him join us this year, she has gone all out.  We never have ribbon and bows on our Christmas presents, just plain ‘ole wrapping paper.  Not this year! Our gifts are all decked out and when I inquire as to why, she says “It’s for Larry.”  My mom also has a beautiful snow village collection that she has stopped displaying in recent years, but this year it’s back up and glowing.  Now that Claire can appreciate it and Larry is coming, her Christmas spirit is back and brighter than ever.  It’s precious, really.  I sure hope Larry likes the dysfunctional routine we still have to go through, even at the ages of 34, 31 and 26!  Yes, Lar – you will have to line up oldest to youngest for the annual Christmas morning portrait.  {Make sure you wear cute jammies!}

SCOTT

Not a whole lot to say about Scott, except what I do have to say is big news.  He has decided to go back into the military.  He and Mark were both in the Air Force for 6 years and they really enjoyed the pride, the discipline and the benefits of serving our country.  With so much going on and our troops being pulled out, the opportunity for veterans to re-enlist has been few and far between.  There aren’t any openings for Air Force, so he has decided to go back in as Army.  Due to a major backlog, he doesn’t leave until May 2011 and will go to South Carolina for 10 weeks and then Maryland for another 26 weeks. 

Luckily, he gets to keep his same ranking as when he left the Air Force, but he does get to take another stab at boot camp.  At least he knows what to expect this time around and has been working his booty off getting into tip-top shape for his training.  It’s funny, he has to do physical training every other week at the recruiting office and all the young 18 year old recruits ask him all kinds of questions on what to expect.  I think he really enjoys counseling the young, oblivious soldiers-to-be. 

Also, the biggest relief  is that he won’t be in infantry or anything of the sort.  He has taken a communications opportunity that will allow him to gain a whole new skill-set which can be used well into the future as technology continues to evolve.  Besides him missing more holidays in the upcoming years and the distance between us, we are very excited for him to start pursuing this new career. 

MARK, MAEGAN & CLAIRE

Where, oh, where to begin.  There is just so much to say about Miss Claire, I can’t even think of it all.  In May, Mark & Maegan broke our hearts by uprooting their family and moving to Charlotte, North Carolina.  It was a tough adjustment for everyone involved, but mostly for Nonnie and Claire.  Before they left, I set them up on a Skype account and bought my mom a webcam for Mother’s Day.  They spend hours upon hours chatting with each other.  We are so fortunate that they were able to come home for 3 weeks in November and are coming back again this week!  After the holidays, they are moving to Naples, Florida for another 6 months of Maegan’s training program and then will be moving to open up shop in San Antonio.  It will be so nice to only have them 5 hours away, but still not quite the same as being 15 minutes away.  We sure do miss that little girl {and her mommy and daddy too!}

I can’t even think of all the things Claire has done in the last 6 months or so, but she will talk.your.ear.off!  I’ll just run down a random list of things that come to mind.

*When asked what she wanted Santa Clause to bring her for Christmas, she responded. “A beer.” She’s two and a half.   That’s our girl!

*If you ask her to do something, she now uses her best pirate voice and says “Aye Aye Captain {insert name.}”

*I yike ice cream.  Tini, do you yike ice cream?  I yike ice cream.  Nonnie, do you yike ice cream?  I yike ice cream.  Yaney, do you like ice cream?  I yike ice cream.*  {IT.NEVER.STOPS.}

*Mark told Claire that they were going to go on an airplane to visit Nonnie’s house and Santa was going to come.  She disappeared.  He later found her in her room piling all her clothes into bags.  She was ready to go right that second.  Poor baby has had to wait 3 weeks!

*”Close your eyes.  One. Two. Three. Tooprise!”

*One night during her three week visit, she wanted her crackers instead of her dinner.  Her daddy said she couldn’t have any until she ate her meal.  Well, smarty pants noticed I was standing right there, so she tells her daddy to leave the room for a second.  I then am summoned over to her and she whispers: “Yaney.  Give me the crackers!”  Too dang funny!

*She LOVES to sing Marry had a yitto yam, yitto yam, yitto yam.  Marry had a yitto yam, it's fleece was white as snoooooooowwww.  Marry had a coowonday, coowonday, coowonday…” {Mary went to school one day…}  Cutest damned thing you ever did hear!

*Nonnie was showing her a picture of herself, and asked who was in the picture.  She responded, very impatiently, IT’S ME! CWAIRE! OKAY!?” And went about her business. 

*She is very proud of her potty achievements and likes Tini to see the big mess she’s made in her big girl potty. 

I literally could go on and on and on about how freaking cute that child is, but it’s just too much.  She is such a nut.  No clue where she gets it…

I will leave you with pictures:

  My goodness, I could just eat her up! 

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Sorry for a very boring, catch-up post, but since I haven’t done that great of a job all year, BAM!  Here it all is….

There should be some good dysfunctional stories to come out of the holidays, so stay tuned… {but don’t hold your breath!}