sting like a...

BEE!

OK. Yours truly is OFFICIALLY the COOLEST person alive. Here's why.

I volunteered at the Texas School for the Deaf this past Saturday. They were hosting 9 other states in a track tournament. I was working concessions outside, and rooting for the Texas Rangers. I was also drinking a coke. I went to finish off the coke..threw my head back and went to swallow. OOPS. I felt something in my mouth and then HOLY GEEZ felt the worst burn/STINGING on the roof of my mouth.

I spit coke and a dead BEE all over the front of my shirt, and frantically scratched at the roof of my mouth like a mad person to get the stinger out. I ran to the bathroom, no mirrors. Somehow I managed to get the dang thing out...everyone was staring. What in the world is that hearing girl up to?!?

I explained to the people I was working with what happened as the roof of my mouth started to swell. My ASL class had not prepared me for this conversation. They called a police man over who escorted me to the nurses office. My friend Catherine came with me in case my AIRWAY BECAME SWOLLEN SHUT and they had no way to identify me.

The nurse offered me some Oragel and popscicles, which I gladly took. She said to be on the lookout for any difficulty breathing, and if I felt it I should call 911. She told me I was lucky that I didn't swallow it or it didn't get stuck in my airway, because then I would have gone in to shock. Way to not freak me out lady.

I am not allergic to bees, thank goodness, so all I have is a tender mouth. Talking was difficult on Saturday, and teeth brushing is no fun, but it's all better now. Thank goodness.

ALWAYS look in your coke cans before consuming your beverages :)

Oh Grandpa

So. I have one remaining grandparent, my Mom's dad. My Dad's dad died when I was 5 after his 4th heart attack. My Mom's mom died when I was 16 of emphysema. My Dad's mom died this past summer..of craziness. She was a mean lady that had a labotamy when my dad was younger, they thought it would get the anger out of her. Wrong.

At any rate, the grandpa that I have left, PawPaw, is a Korean war vet. He enrolled at A&M, Korea started, so he jumped over there for a bit. He was wounded (shrapnel to the hip, from some explosion) and fixed up in a hospital over there with no anesthetic, and then sent back out to fight again. Somehow, his Army records were destroyed when the US base that was over there was destroyed. My uncle has been fighting to get him his Purple Heart lately, and he finally got it.
Apparently Senator Cornyn's dad is a vet as well, and he has a lot of sympathy and does a lot for vets. He couldn't believe that my grandfather had still not received his Purple Heart after all these years, and decided to have a lil ceremony for him.

Ed and I met up with my parents and my mom's side of the family in Seguin and then caravaned with them to San Antonio, where Senator Cornyn is currently working. They had a ceremony set up outside infront of the Korean War Memorial.

I don't think anyone in the family thought it would be a big to-do, just a presentation, so we were all shocked when camera, photographers, and newspaper people showed up. Most of all my grandfather. He hates attention.

They discovered that in addition to earning a Purple Heart for being wounded, my grandfather had also earned 3 other medals: Korean War Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and the Army Good Conduct Medal.

The family is happy now that the old man has his medals. We were outside for all of 2 hours and I somehow managed to get sunburned on my face and right arm..hmm. But it was good to see the family again. I hadn't seen one of my cousins in like 2 years because he's had to work or something just about every holiday. There are a couple of articles online about it if you're interested :)

Cornyn's Website
San Antonio Paper
Seguin Gazette

PS

I forgot to mention in my last post. April's credit card was compromised.
Not sure when..or how..or what other information this butthead has on me, but somehow they got my cc number and were able to charge $20. I saw it posted on my account, and could not for the life of me remember where I had charged exactly $20 (I get excited about that sort of thing). It was pending for like a week, and I got a couple of phone calls from Chase, all of which I thought were courtesy calls. WRONG. A couple of days later I was working open-close and had 8 MISSED CALLS FROM CHASE. I got off work and was finally able to talk to someone..and they asked me about the $20..which I was pretty unsure of..and then mentioned that someone had tried to charge SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS to my account NUMEROUS TIMES THAT DAY. I wigged out, denied making the charges myself, and the dude was like "your card has been compromised. it is no longer valid, effective immediately...."....!!!
I don't carry cash. I despise checks. My sugar daddy always has cash on him tho, so it was OK. I got my new card in the mail today..so hopefully changing the card was enough. They said I didn't need to open a new account, but we'll see.

Just had to tell you my scary story. Watch your cards. And online purchases. And bank statements you throw in the trash.

Spring "Break"

Consisted of me working my BOOOOOTY off. Things have been crazy at the clinic, so I offered to work extra and let the other receptionist take a couple of "mental health" days. What's wrong with me.
For cheap thrills, Ed and I rented a bunch of movies that we both felt the other should watch..he sat through Across the Universe..TWICE and Enchanted. I watched some crazy movie I can't remember the name of, but he loves 'em. I think it was called..Dr Strangelove OR How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. Don't ask.
We also did some SXSW stuff...CRAZY FUN. He lives in the heart of SoCo, so we were within walking distance of most places. We went down to Auditorium Shores one night, and the next day we went to Waterloo Park. One of the stages had ALL SuperDeluxe.com comedians (which is one of Ed's fav websites--and group of comedians). It was a crazy good time.
We've been looking for apartments in the Austin area, as we had pretty much decided to stay put for the year we take off. We were all set to sign a pre-lease on this place down the street from where Ed is now..and they never called back. They STILL have not called back.
However...Rich (the grad student I worked under who is now doing a fellowship at UCLA) sent me an email..one of the professors he works with is looking for a Master Coder (something I'm not really qualified to be..) and really things I would be great at it. He sent the other prof an AMAZING email about me, and the other prof is really excited about me applying. AH! LA?!?!? Scary thought, but Ed was really supportive and encouraging, so I'm going to apply. EEE!
If I don't get it, it will probably be a sigh of relieve (LA scares the sh** out of me-just bc it's far away) but SO SUPER DUPER exciting. I'd love to move somewhere different. And learn to surf.
Ed and I took our ENGAGEMENT pictures on Friday! (YEA-we've only been engaged for what..8 months?) and we should have a link to our pics later this week. I'll post when we get it :)
ALSO--we met with the woman we want to officiate our wedding. Her name is Spike. She's a bit of a hippie, and a writer, and she wants to travel the world for 3 years when her son graduates from high school. She has some beautifully written ways to make it a very personal ceremony, so we're really excited about it. More to come.

I love you all! Come and visit me :)

Just real quick

In a rush loves, sorry, but I wanted to give you all an update!

So I went home this past weekend with Ed and we
a) Got our passports taken care of! We'll get them in "4-6 weeks" if all goes well. SOOO glad to have that off our list.
b) We spoke to our travel agent! The last time I talked with her she gave us various books of guided tours and whatnot.."SEE EUROPE IN 21 DAYS!" But we knew none of these were really up our ally. Instead, I researched the trains and went to her with a list of cities we want to see, etc etc and she's supposed to be drawing up an itenerary for us! We'll travel by train, stay in the major cities and make day trips out to the smaller towns that we want to see. VERY excited. SHIVONNE--We're totally planning a meet-up :)
c) My sister has offered to make the invitations, which scared me at first. She's great at that sort of thing, always making cards and scrapbooks for someone or something, but I was afraid she might take it too far. HOWEVER, she showed me a few sample invites and I LOVE THEM! They're so beautiful and romantic, right up my ally.

Most of you know that Ed is currently writing various short stories and plans on attending grad school in the Fall of 2009 to get his MFA in creative writing. He is also currently enrolled in a creative writing class at ACC in an attempt to defer his loan payments :) He submitted a story last week and got back great reviews. TONIGHT he went to a reading at Austin Java and read part of it aloud. I'm so proud of him. Had to share.

ONE more thing :) There are finally pictures of my dress online! It's part of the Spring 2008 line, which until recently was not available on their website. But here are some pictures--much better than the ones previously posted.

I am having it altered to be tea-length..blasphemous, I know, but I don't want to worry about my dress dragging on the ground and turning brown. We're going to be outside people.

SO if you'll NOTICE the larger panel of lace going across, knee-ish area, that's where they're going to cut it. They're also going to raise it up a little around the waist. yay :)

Albuquerque

Hello loves! Just a short post to let you all know that I did, in fact, make it to Albuquerque to attend my much anticipated conference! It was completely overwhelming and more exhausting that it probably should have been, considering my aching body and sole desire to climb into bed and sleep forever.
Everything went pretty well, no troubles with the travel arrangements, plane or car, and we found the convention center and our bed and breakfast with magnificent ease--I tend to over-plan and had detailed directions and iteneraries :)
The Blue Horse Bed and Breakfast was AMAZING! It was right at the bottom of the mountains, newly established, fireplace in the bedroom, heated tile floor, great gathering space, and the most delicious breakfasts I've yet tasted, nooo joke. I'm a sucker for the pastries and this little lady had to of been a pastry chef in a past life. I'm making a go at peach french toast and apple/cranberry turnovers this weekend, we'll see how it goes!
Ed and I enjoyed our first casino experience together. I only played slots, which gets old REALLY FREAKIN FAST, I honestly don't know how people do it! Money, so easily lost, and rarely a payback. I guess it's the occasional big win, but I'm such a penny pincher, it was more painful than enjoyable for me. Ed tried his luck at a couple games of black jack and Texas hold'em, and actually won some money! With my losings and his winnings, we actually came out about $10 richer than when we started, not bad, not bad.
So the CONFERENCE. I was one of the youngest people there, by far, and for obvious reasons. It consists of doctors and researchers presenting their findings in clusters of related topics that people can wrap their heads around. I went to several talks on romantic relationships, including the one given by the grad student I worked under, Rich. Turns out our study had some pretty amazing findings and a lot of people were interested in it. And Rich, bless him, must have plugged my name in his talk 20 times, and thanked me right after he thanked his graduate adviser. When I went to introduce myself for the remainder of the weekend, it was, "Oh! Rich's research assistant! He thanked you right after his graduate adviser, that's huge!". Needless to say, I owe him big.
Other talks I went to were about religion, self-esteem, relational security, attachment, dyadic analysis, marital satisfaction over the years, and WORRY AND RUMINATION ON PHYSICAL HEALTH--totally applicable to my own life. Did you know that the physical processes we go through by worrying have significantly similar effects on our heart and blood pressure as SMOKING! Never smoked in my life and I'll die at 40 because I am a chronic ruminator. Talk about your wake-up call. As a result, I've decided to actively engage myself in positive psychological mindsets, aka, de-stressing my abused body.
It was a great experience, completely reaffirmed for me that research is what I want to be doing and close relationships is where I want to center it. I met almost EVERY professor that I wanted to apply to work under in graduate school, which was a nice perk.
Only thing I didn't take away from the conference that I went in looking for was a summer/year long internship--hopefully one that pays well :) I'm supposed to email different people this week, so we'll see how it goes. If nothing pans out, I think I might look into the Gender and Sexuality center at UT. I always wished I had the time to volunteer there, and maybe I'll get just that when I graduate.
I'm feeling..meh, 80% now? Poor Ed got sick on our last day there and ended up puking on the plane :/ and is still feeling poorly. I'm trying to nurse him back to health, because I've got items on my wedding list that are NOT getting done! And of course because I love him, wouldn't want him to be ill :)
So..this ended up being not so short, but yay for you if you read through it all! I love you guys and miss you all, even Heather who is in the same city but is just as busy as I. We should make time for each other, we suck ;)

Dress

...and the flu :( Yes darlings, I managed to find my wedding dress and catch the flu, all in the same weekend!

My dad had the flu when I got home on Thursday, and i just KNEW I was going to catch it, even though I took extra care to steer clear of everything he came in contact with, wash my hands, take my vitamins, and not breathe his air. A cue-tip shoved up my nose at the doc's office yesterday confirmed, however, that I indeed have the flu. BAH.

I found the dress with my mom and sister at The Princess Bridal..a cute little boutique in Old Town Spring (if you're from the Houston area, you might be familiar with it) and then spent the rest of the afternoon at an equally cute cafe. It was an incredibly enjoyable experience--my sister was pleasant, mom was more excited than I was (she cried when I had it on) and I got to try on so many different types of dresses! and let me just say, those suckers are HEAVY!! I tried one on that was 100 lbs! No WONDER they have assistants that help you get dressed!

The dress I chose was ivory satin with a lace overlay. The beading and lace was beautiful, and I just found out this afternoon that they are willing to make it tea length for me. I'll get it sometime at the beginning of April, so there will be time for additional alterations if needed.

Now apparantly the boutique has some arrangement with the designers that they won't let people take a picture in the dress unless they buy it? Something about publicity..whatever. These shots are Juli in the dressing room, me out in the middle, and no flash, so as not to draw attention :)

I travel to Albuquerque tomorrow with Ed to go to the conference for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Hopefully this fever comes down and I'm able to actually enjoy the trip, and not get rooms full of people sick :/