I can't believe I ate the whole thing...

Well, not the whole thing, but enough to make me sick.  I am allergic to dairy products, but since the reaction isn't great enough to kill me or make me welt up, I still eat it on occasion.  Like on Holidays.  Like all day Tuesday and Wednesday.  Like I'm sick right now.   I'm starting to wonder if it was worth it to binge on a cheese ball...oh my tummy! Do you know the Pepto Dance?  I sure do!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to all you bloggers that are still checking your blog sites in between present opening and chowing!

Thank you to those that left messages after my previous post.  Your comments were greatly appreciated.  Although I did get my butt up at 4:30 am on Saturday, I was unable to get the stand-by flight back home.  I still had to wait until 10 am, but that was ok too.  It was the easiest flight I have had in a long time and we arrived early.  I managed to beat my folks to my house by 15 minutes. 

On Sunday my Dad installed shelves in my hall close and all three bedrooms.  Most of the closets in my house have either one or no shelves at all.  Now, they all have two!  Thanks, Dad!

Yesterday my sister, bro-in-law and niece came over and we all opened gifts together.  I had to do Christmas-Lite again this year, but we still had a lot of fun together.  I got a lot of great gifts this year...including two Adoption Mama shirts from my sister.  I will try to post photos soon!  My bro-in-law surprised me with a "Baby on Board" sign for my car and a fleece blanket for baby.  Awww.  Sarah said he went out shopping all by himself and got that for me.  I felt really bad for only getting him a shirt.  Another favorite gift was the Megellan GPS that my dad bought me.  Holy Cow!  I should not be able to get lost anywhere in the lower 48 states.  This thing is awesome!  Kristen, I already programmed your address into it!  The next time I go to Dallas I'm definitely taking this with me.  I have the worst sense of direction.  Technically, my dad is worse than me, but he certainly passed it on to me!  My mom always gets frustrated with us because she can't figure out why we can't figure out how to get anywhere.  I definitely believe that a sense of direction is a genetic trait. 

Anyway, I'm going to leave you with a couple of "Christmas" photos I found on-line...some people have no sense at all.

I call this one the Christmas Whore.  If you haven't already read David Sedaris' book Christmas on Ice, I highly recommend you buy it on the 1/2 sale tomorrow.  Dinah, the Christmas Whore has to be the best story title I've ever heard of. 

  This one defies explanation.  I think Rudolph isn't able to get the lift he's used to and is not using a blown air propeller?

And my personal favorite, nothing says XXXmas without a little BDSM.  And to think I asked for luggage for Christmas!

All you who sleep tonight...

All you who sleep tonight

Far from the ones you love,

No hand to left or right

and emptiness above--

Know that you aren't alone,

the whole word shares your tears.

Some for two nights or one

and some for all their years.

~Vikram Seth~

I live alone. Being alone has long been apart of me, even from childhood. I sleep alone, I eat most of my meals alone. I spend a lot of time alone.

Normally I am fine with this, but there is something about traveling alone and somehow being alone in a group...it makes me ponder my alone status. There are eleven people in my training group and everyone traveled with at least one other colleague. Somehow even the lesbian with really poor social skills managed to find another lesbian in this hotel to hang out with this week. And considering that lesbianism is not really a club that many of the locals join that's saying something. I did spend Wednesday evening hanging out with the ladies from Virginia, but I couldn't really join in their conversations and I don't particular enjoy shopping for hours on end so that was still an isolating experience. Even this didn't bother me.

Last night I decided to visit a Mexican restaurant here that I really enjoy for the architecture and ambience. Because I was alone I was seated quickly, but instead of getting to sit in the center near the fountain, I got stuck next to an obnoxiously large party groups. This didn't bother me. It wasn't until I was standing outside the restaurant waiting for the shuttle in the cold that I was acutely aware of how alone I was. And again tonight as I walked through the empty hotel and down the street to get some food. I realized that I wasn't accountable to anyone for my actions...and in a sense this was scary. As I raced to cross the street before the cars mowed me down or dodging cars in the Target parking lot I was acutely aware of being alone. In a sense it is very empowering. I have wandered the streets of several continents alone and I had that same sense...feeling deeply within my self, but also slightly sad because I couldn't share it with anyone.

I'm hoping to get on stand-by for an earlier flight in the morning. I really need to be around people. Especially people that love me. And when I ponder my feelings, I can't help but think of my daughter and I pray that she never feels this way. I realize that she has likely not been born yet, but I pray that she and her birth mother are loved and know how much I am loving them from afar. I hope, as Vikra Seth so eloquently wrote, "know that you are not alone, that the whole world shares your tears."

Scary Texas

I finally had a chance to wander past the two block area I've been in the last 2 days and here are a couple of things that really freak me out:

• I have a possessed TV. My first night I was here I was lying in bed just drifting off to sleep and suddenly the TV comes on. Not only does the TV come on, after a minute it starts flipping through the channels. I thought it would eventually stop, but it didn't. I finally had to get up and turn it off again. This morning as I was talking to my mom on the phone, the bedside radio alarm that I thought I had turned off, came on. Only it wasn't the radio playing, it was the TV again. Weird. The alarm worked fine yesterday morning.
• The highways are seriously messed up (no offense to those of you that live here because I'm sure our IN roads are probably freaky to you too). Highways dart across each other, zigzagging across the flat expanse of land. If that doesn't groove you, the lack of road signs or the MINIATURE size them is making this near-sighted girl go batty. They say everything in Texas is big, and for the most part I agree, but these road signs...c'mon.
• THE TOILETS. As an IBS sufferer, I am intimately familiar with just about every toilet in my vicinity. These make me jump a bit and I have started flinching before I even touch the handle. When you begin to push the handle, it drops violently sudden which throws off my center of balance, pushing me forward. If having your face thrust toward the toilet bowel isn't scary enough, the vortex of Hell opens up and VIOLENTLY sucks the bowl contents into the abyss. I thought it was just at the training center, but I have seen it all over the region. This is enough to scare anyone sh**less, no wonder the highways are like they are.
• I read today that Britney Spear's sister, 16 year-old Jamie Lynn, is preggo. Wow. Evidently she met the father of the baby at church. I attended a church like that once...maybe they add something to the water?

Kris just emailed to tell me that the CCAA has updated their website and the parent's with LIDs before October 31, 2006 have gotten through the review room. Yeah! Congrats to all those parents...just 4 more months and I will be through too!

Brought to you by the Letter J...as in Janet

I think my mom is trying to get me Seasame Street ready because she brought the letter 'J' into my focus this morning. I'm sorry if that's a bit unclear, but I'm sure my mom knows what I'm referring to.

I have managed to sit through the first half of today's class and I'm still holding on. However, they just served lasagna and breadsticks so I am predicting I'll be close to sleep-time by 1:23 central time. The class starts at 1 pm so say a prayer...

Ok, I think I'm going to opt for some bullet points...

• I had a good day in class today and I am officially a builder now. I know that really doesn't matter much to any of you at all, but it's good to know my skills set has finally increased. Not only that, I didn't struggle through the class near as much as the last time. It is probably a bad sign, though, that we covered half the book the first day of class and we still have 3 more days. Hmmm?
• I made a new friend today. I was at Babys R Us picking out some clothes for my niece (Sarah, don't read any further if you don't want to know what I got Saige) and while I was on the phone talking to Kris about all the cute clothes at the store, the woman in front of me overheard a bit of the conversation and I learned she is also adopting from China! Wow, what a small world. She has been waiting for 22 months so I certainly hope things speed up so that it doesn't go past 2 years for her. Ok, that's totally being optomistic, but I'm feeling perky tonight.
• I finally got my laptop to work last night...yay! Of course, it took until nearly 1 am for that to happen.
• I'm sitting here feeling tired and not knowing why...duh, it's almost midnight my time.
• The weather here is awesome! It was about 70 degrees, bright and sunny. It's terribly dry though and it didn't help that I came here with chapped skin. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to un-chap my skin? My poor legs are cracked and painful.
• Ok, Sarah, if you are still reading I can only assume that you want to know what I bought Saige. Tough. I'm not going to tell you. You will have to wait until Christmas like everyone else.

Everything truly is bigger in Texas...just ask my expanding Buddha Belly.

Random musings from the plane of life...

I have spent the better part of the day in an airport or an air-plane so here are my random thoughts:

• Why does it take only 10-15 minutes to board an entire plane and take off, but it takes the same plane load of people 30+ minutes to get off and another 30+ to find their luggage?
• Each airplane window has two panes of glass. Since these are sealed how can they have settled dust in between them? This kept me awake and worrying today. Well, not really worrying, but too bored to thing about anything else.
• Why must I always sit by someone that doesn't use deoderant and desperately needs it? Today it was a young woman...very pretty with nice clothes. Shouldn't she want to keep them fresh smelling?
• How is it that I keep seeing the same gentleman at the Indy airport? Seriously, he's hard to miss. Very tall, large girth with big wooly black hair and beard. Very Eastern-European looking. Is this the guy that Tom Hanks was pretending to be in the Terminal?
• Why is it that when I looked up Tom Hanks on Amazon.com (because I couldn't remember the movie he was in) multiple episodes of Gunsmoke, Charlie Rose, and the movie Heat came up?
• Why do I feel more relaxed now that I am away from home than I have the past 2 weeks?
• Why does my freakin' work-owned laptop not work when I am in this hotel????

Cheers from Sunny Dallas!

Erica

PS--Happy Birthday Michael!

**Addendum**

Have you all seen this video http://www.bestviral.com/video/6629/dont_ever_drink_from_hotel_glasses

Yeah, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about staying in hotels. Fortunately, I've always been a nut about rinsing cups before I use them...even ones I use at home. But just in case, I stole a plastic cup from the dining area.

PS--I have cable TV...yeah! I'm going to stay up all night watching crap TV. Another perk of traveling on someone else's dime...