Life has been a bit aggravating over the past few days. Namely my air conditioner decided that it was too hot outside, and it was high time for a strike; George came nine days early, and announced himself during an intimate moment; and now Netflix is separating out its streaming and mail service, and thus effectively raising the cost by $6/month (60%!). Each of these items would cause me to be grumpy, and taken together as a lump-sum insult has left me feeling drained, and ill-prepared to deal with life. Sure doesn’t take much to knock me down, does it?
The AC is now fixed, and my house has gone from 100° (I am not exaggerating) last night to 85° this morning (a temperature I purposefully set my thermostat at). I did not stick around for the great cool down, and chose to spend the night at CSP’s—all the while feeling terribly guilty that the cats were becoming sticky, hairy puddles on the floor (I left them a huge bowl of ice water). I’m sure ET wasn’t too happy either even if he does spend a majority of his day outside in extremely hot weather; he often has shade and a breeze to enjoy, which his terrarium sadly does not emulate.
Two nights at CSP’s has left me feeling a bit adrift, and almost staggeringly exhausted. I’ve obviously become spoiled to living by myself. To be clear, I am not pooping on CSP’s generosity in having me stay over while my place melted—he is awesomely sweet and kind, and I hope I can abuse him some more in the future (I have a text message that pretty much gives me an open invitation to stay at his place as needed—I’m just not sure our definitions of “as needed” are the same). It’s just that I’ve grown quite used to a) going to bed at some preposterously early time for someone who does not have children, and b) going to bed in complete silence. Neither of these conditions can be met at CSP’s. Heck, we didn’t even have dinner until after 10pm the first night, and 9pm the second night. I’m generally fed by 6pm, and contemplating bed by 8pm (even if I don’t actually go to bed until around 11pm, I’ve still spent 3 hours seriously considering it, and letting my body relax in such a way that it pretty much already assumes I am asleep).
While CSP made my head drum a bit with dub beats, his roommate and friend were playing with their Kinect, and listening to who knows what, which was pretty much like sitting in a bowling alley at a dance club. Even before I wanted to be sleeping, it was still just so loud, and busy. The most action that happens at my place is Brekkie chasing around some paper on the floor, or trying to land on the Bear’s back by performing a flying-squirrel maneuver off of the table.
Don’t even get me started on how I felt when the Magic: The Gathering cards were pulled out, and discussed at length. I pretty much had to catch my eyes from rolling on to the floor. Have I mentioned there was also a bong involved during all of this? No, I did not stumble in to a frat house. I know how it sounds. This is why I do not have roommates. I just can’t make myself put up with this to save a few hundred a month. However, I will gladly put up with it for a couple of nights to escape heat exhaustion, and to play with CSP. He’s a good one. And apparently, he was only a smidge tired of me after four straight nights of being around me. Score!
Before this unfortunate series of events, I had Ivy Vyne in town, and the closest we came to death was sweltering in the heat while shopping on South Congress. That was quickly rectified by swimming in Barton Springs. Though, we did almost lose our eyesight when we were subjected to an old man and his banana hammock (which at one point he actually pulled aside and check in on his junk, as if he was worried it had scampered off when he wasn’t paying attention; later, he just removed the small strip of cloth all together and draped it over his penis—I’m sure to avoid pesky tan lines).
There was a lot of drinking involved, and DJ M and CSP were around for most of her visit. We all had such a smashing time, especially that one midnight in the kiddie pool in the backyard eating cherries, drinking beer, and listening to Young Marble Giants. How the four of us didn’t end up making out under such perfect conditions will forever remain a mystery.
We also had a geeky girls’ night at Cowhide’s for Settlers of Catan (I pretty much lost, and for once, was not bratty about it). Then there was that night of playing pool at Barfly’s where CSP showed us how he knew his way around a table (I texted with Cattleboy to whine a bit about how no one was letting me win), Ivy Vyne got hit on by a man named Sonny (we held his betting money in our bras, but declined his offer of drinks—except CSP who won a free beer when Sonny sunk the 8 ball way too soon), and managed to find 15 songs on the jukebox that we wanted to hear, but ended up being too drunk to sit all the way through.
Her last day was spent in San Antonio at the zoo. It was crazy hot, and most of the animals were having none of it, and hid indoors. This zoo is particularly heavy on birds, and boy did we see a lot of birds. However, I’ll be kind and only provide one bird photo.
