First, we simply can't close on a house. Our loan hasn't been rejected, but neither is it fully approved. We've been in this limbo for months now. And we have to be out of the house by the end of the month. I don't really know what to do.
The 2nd anniversary of Charles' death/murder was on the 12th. Our friends in Houston went out to commemorate and the evening was hosted by one of Charles' former roommates. I'll call him Cade. He was a wild guy and I have a few funny stories about him, but he is, from what I can tell, nearing the end stages of Lou Gehrig's disease. I suppose it was bittersweet. He wouldn't talk to anyone after his initial diagnosis except Charles. I know people would have been there for him, but I have no doubt he didn't want to be slobbered over. I remember Charles telling me about it and saying that Cade would want people to remember him in better times. I know I would.
But Cade came out of his self-inflicted exile to remember his friend. A whole lot of dust gets in my eyes when I think about it. I saw the pictures. He looks not good, and I can understand someone with any amount of pride refusing to be seen in that condition. But he came out for his friend. I hope death might not seem as frightening to him with someone like Charles waiting at the end. I'm just sad that it was Charles who had to pave the way.
Anyway, it's too misery-inducing to write much more about it.
I'm trying to think of something more cheerful.
Jethro and I got drinks with a former blogger who is somewhat local to us last weekend. It was fun. I felt like getting my drink on, and I did. The $3.00 jack 'n' cokes at the local Coyote Ugly did their part. There were some hot chicks dancing on the bar too. They were neat looking. But there is the ugliest trend occurring. Tube socks with cowboy boots. I saw two girls wearing them, and it was not cute. You have to have one hot little ass to pull off that kind of ugly, and I'll give them some credit there.
Anyway, it was a fun night.
And I'm losing weight again, I'm happy to report. I can't believe I went on a diet at such a stressful time since food gives me such joy and happiness, but Jethro says if I can withstand it through this stress, it shouldn't be so hard when all the stress is over. I see his point. And the healthy eating is probably helping to keep the stress from killing me. And an even bigger plus, I've experimented with some new recipes and they're freaking delicious. And healthy. For example. Shepherd's Pie. I love, love, love shepherd's pie. But it's pretty fattening and full of bad bad carbs from the potatoes. This recipe was different. The South Beach diet calls for cauliflower to be used instead of the mashed potatoes, but I don't really care for cauliflower no matter how much sour cream you use, so I used Great Northern White Beans instead. I heated them up, put in two (heaping) spoons of sour cream and an egg yolk, then fluffed them up with a mixer. I had no idea how they would turn out, but they were really good. Very similar to potatoes, but healthier apparently. For the ground beef mixture, I sauteed onions and garlic in a wee little bit of olive oil, then added the ground beef. When that was browned, I added two cups of edamame instead of peas (which have a lot of sugar), added two table spoons of balsamic vinegar in lieu of Worcestershire sauce which has sugar in it, one can of beef broth (that was too much) and let it simmer awhile. Then I put it in a casserole dish and spread the mashed beans over it. Then I covered the top with low fat shredded cheddar and baked it for 25 minutes. It turned out really well. The only problem was that there was a lot of liquid from using too much broth. I'll just reduce that amount next time.
So big problems are always there, but the little things are good.
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