Cruise follow-up: Mary Beth posted her cruise photos on Picasa.  Margaret posted her photos on Kodak. Some photos are the same, we were together after all, but others will be new, since not all of us took the same photos. If more photos get posted, I’ll add them here.

My flight to Fort Worth from New Orleans on Monday was quick and uneventful. It was on time, no luggage was lost and I got to read my book. I picked up my rental car and headed to Julia’s apartment. She had worked hard at getting it cleaned up, including  renting a carpet cleaner, due to pet issues with the carpet. I think they were just looking for an excuse to clean the carpets and were lucky I came by. Julia has a new roommate, Tiffany, who has two cats, brother and sister, who are about 4 months old. Julia has her original cat, Mufasa, who looks Siamese and a new chihuahua female puppy, Hurley, who is 2 months old.

I enjoyed being around cats again, and who can’t fall in love with a puppy. Hurley was just learning to bark, but it sounded more like squeaks than barks. She is adorable. After introductions to Julia’s girlfriend, Tia, the pets, and roommate Tiffany, Julia, Tia and I headed out in the rental car for dinner at Uncle Julio’s  in Fort Worth. Uncle Julio’s is a restaurant that I have missed while in CO. Jay and I would have lunch there 3 – 4 times a month. The food and service was still excellent and I had fajita leftovers to take home for lunch. While we were visiting west Fort Worth, we drove past the site of our former office building. It was demolished last year, but no roadway construction has begun yet.

Tuesday, Oct 28th, was Julia’s 22nd birthday.. where did the time go? It is also the birthday of my BFF Denise. After a relaxed morning (someone skipped school on their birthday), we had lunch at Cheddar’s with Tia then got pedicures at Julia’s new favorite nail salon. Julia’s choice for dinner was Pappadeaux, a New Orleans style seafood restaurant. We were able to arrange dinner at the Pappadeax restaurant in Plano, so that we could celebrate Denise’s birthday as well. My other BFF, Brenda, also drove from Arlington to join us and our party included Katie, Denise’s daughter, Megan and Damian, Brenda’s #2 daughter and her first grandchild, and Tia, Julia’s girlfriend. Pappadeaux’s is known for its seafood, Julia and I go there for the chicken. The two birthday girls each got a complimentary dessert, which was enough for us all to pass 3x around the table and still have enough to take home. A good day.

Wednesday, Julia had school and work. Brenda had made reservations for us to see Menopause, the Musical that evening. We had dinner at Boomerjack’s, the restaurant where Julia and Tiffany work. Denise, Brenda and I were joined by Brenda’s husband, John, son Mat and #3 daughter Anna. Julia was an excellent waitress and the food was very good. John was our chauffeur to the play, which was good because we had drinks with dinner and we got dropped off at the door.  The play was excellent, very funny and right on! There was probably one man for every 15 women in the audience, but I’m sure they had a good time, it was hard not to. After the chauffeur ride back to our parked cars at Boomerjack’s, I headed to Julia’s apartment, where she and Tia taught me to play Phase 10, a rummy style card game.

Thursday, after packing up my suitcase, I had lunch with Cathy, Molly’s mom. Oh yes, Matt has asked Molly to marry him and she said yes! They are newly engaged, were friends from Martin High School and Congregation Beth Shalom and have been dating since college, most recently via long distance between Baton Rouge, LA and Austin, TX . We are very excited for Matt and Molly and are very pleased to have friends for new in-laws. No news on a wedding date yet, but we know it won’t be August 29th. That date is reserved for cousin John and his fiancee, Laura. I thought I’d left enough time to get the rental car returned at 2 pm. However, I ran into two separate areas of traffic congestion on the interstates raising my anxiety level. But luck was on my side, I was able to refuel the Caliber and get it returned with less than 10 minutes past my due time & without penalty. My flight to Austin was again on time and uneventful. Wallace picked me up at the airport, which was only a short drive from their home. We had a nice dinner, I had a lesson in making Risotto, an opportunity to check email, and we were off to bed.

Friday was the day for sightseeing in Austin. We went to visit Matt at his work, got a tour of Rackspace and his cubicle, and had lunch together. After lunch, Wallace took me to visit Mount Bonnell, where he took a lot of pictures with his new Nikon camera. We then went to Laguna Gloria, an estate which is part of the Austin Museum of Art. And finally we went to the Mayfield Park, which is famous for their flock of peacocks and peahens. Wallace took more photos. Friday was also Halloween, so after the sightseeing we returned to W&J’s house. Wallace was chef and made beer can chicken, grilled zuchinni, and quinoa ( a south american grain) and we took turns answering the door for trick or treaters. After dinner, Matt reviewed Wallace’s photos and upon request gave us all lessons on taking better pictures, how to figure line of sight, where to pose people, the use of the rule of 3, etc. It was very informative. Wallace took some good pictures and we could see why some worked and some didn’t – in light of the info Matt gave us.

Matt also showed me a very funny website where people post pictures of cats doing funny things with captions spelled as cats would spell, i.e. poorly. The website is I can haz cheezburger or also called Lolcats which I guess means laugh out loud cats…who also like to eat cheeseburgers. It’s worth a check out if you like cats or like to make fun of cats, and is probably funnier when viewed by a group of like minded people, but it will make you chuckle out loud. Make that laugh out loud, I was just perusing the site. The best humor is not necessarily the photos, but the captions. Enjoy!

Here is a picture of Jen that Wallace took on Friday at Mount Bonnell. Oh, did I mention that Jen is pregnant? She is in her fourth month, has finally finished with morning sickness, and is able to feel the baby move a lot. Wallace calls the baby Gil, a nickname. We don’t know if it is a girl or boy, but Gil’s due date is April 23rd, which is perfect because all of the bowling leagues will be finished. (It’s all about me!) LOL, not really, but both sets of grandparents are very excited. Wow, grandparents….that’s me and Jay!

Saturday was a quiet day. We did some window shopping for living room furniture and maternity clothes, then went to see Matt’s house. Matt offered me a walking tour of his neighborhood, so W&J went home to take a nap. He lives in a neighborhood which was established in the early 1950s. Many of the houses have been updated, and it is still a mix of original owners, young professionals starting families and single persons like Matt. You can walk to interesting stores, like Indian and Asian markets, restaurants, bars, an IGA grocery store, etc. He took me to a neighborhood bar, Lala’s, that maintains Christmas decorations all year and treated me to a beer. Then I got to ride in Matt’s RX8 to dinner with W&J. We had a nice Mexican dinner at a local restaurant,  Curra’s Grill. I had an avocado margarita! It was very smooth and creamy. After dinner, we went back to the house, and played two games of Scrabble. Matt is an excellent scrabble player and was the player to beat!

My trip was over. Wallace took me back to the airport on Sunday to catch the flight to DFW, then the flight to Colorado Springs. Again, luggage and I got to the same place at the same time on time. Jay met me at the airport and we had dinner and got to catch up on all the details from two weeks. Then we went our separate ways again, Jay to the Academy  and I home to see the puppies. The two weeks seemed to fly by.