Mid-week ramble. .

So we have officially been here 4 weeks! That's pretty exciting stuff! We have gotten almost completely set up now--just waiting on our approval for trash service.
I am looking forward to that. Trash here (it's called "waste" by the way. . .the lady on the phone had no clue what I was talking about when I wanted to set up "trash service") is very different than in the States. It has certainly made us think about our garbage a lot. Basically you get two large trash cans--one for recycling and another for your trash trash. The one for trash has a microchip in it (is EVERYTHING microchipped these days? My dogs. My trash. What's next? They'll have to pry my cold, dead body off my child before they microchip him or her, just so you know. Like they'll have to pry my chips and salsa away from me if they try to ban trans fats in Houston, but that's another story. . .Just so you know, I'll chain myself to the lard machine before letting them stop making Papasitos tortillas and Don Picos tortillas chips)
Wow! I warned you this was a ramble. . but back to the trash

They scan your trash when they pick it up every other week (alternating with recycling pick-up, which is free) and you are charged by the kilogram for your trash. It will come out to about 30 cents a pound. Just take a moment to think about how much trash you throw out every day/week/month and imagine how much you would have to pay for that. . .We are adjusting and don't think it's such a bad plan, but remind me of those thoughts after we get out first bills. . .
So what else can I ramble about today? The picture I chose, for example. If you're been over to our house lately you know this is an old picture because we still had carpet back then. This is last Christmas, and I love this picture of Tex's first Christmas with his nose buried in his stocking trying to get to his rawhide chew. Bella just looks nervous like she does any time the camera comes out. So I will miss all the familiar sights and sounds of home this Christmas, but John's here so that is great.

I have to give a shout out for the best husband in the world award: John has been so great lately, especially with me being generally useless earlier in the week with the queasiness and sleeping 11 hours at a time. He even watched the baby shows with me when there was something infinitely more interesting on Discovery Wings or whatever. Now that's a real man!

But in my somewhat vegetative state on the couch I noticed a lot on the tele. Penelope Cruz is huge in hair coloring and makeup. You don't have to be size 0 skinny or drop dead gorgeous to have a commercial here. Even Hilary Swank has a perfume commercial. And that Nicole Kidman Chanel No. 5 commercial that is incredibly beautiful (where she runs away with the hot Spanish/Latino photographer guy) and makes litte sense goes on for like 2 minutes here. It's like a movie preview that you just don't want to stop, but all the while you tell yourself, "Haven't I seen this movie before? Oh, yeah, it's Moulin Rouge. . ."

There are more charity commercials than I can handle in my super-emotional state. I almost had a complete meltdown during the "stop bear dancing and bear baiting in Sri Lanka" or wherever charity where they showed this sweet little brown bear who had gone insane. Really sad stuff. Then there are the child abuse charities and the clean water in developing countries charities and the RSPCA pet charities. It all gets to you. And they only want a small sum--about $5 a month--so I wonder if people contribute more here than in the States. If you check out the "Castaway" entry from yesterday on the Mama Drama blog (link to the right--my totally favorite blog) it completely tugs on your heartstrings and makes you want to head to a soup kitchen with arms and checkbook open. And looking at the success at the Chronicle's "Goodfellows" program a lot of Houstonians are doing just that this season.

Now let me get down off my soapbox for a moment. . .and reassure you that not only will we be able to watch "LOST" here, but "Heroes" and "Grey's Anatomy" are also popular favorite. The downside: they do not come on until 10PM and I am deep in snooze-land. Our efforts to watch episodes online have been slightly foiled because ABC only wants their American viewers to be able to watch it. Snobs. Probably because things are a few weeks/months behind over here. (Mr. Echo just died on Sunday here--that was such a weird episode and he was SOO one of my favorite characters. Just don't like the new people, including the Brazilian prettyboy, all that much) And please, Grey's Anatomy is still in last season and I just can't handle watching Denny die again. As a matter of fact, just no one even mention Denny's name as that song (Chasing Cars, which is by a (Northern) IRISH band) gets into my head and I just start sobbing. "Why are you crying?" John wants to know. Because it's SOOOOO sad!!!!!!!!! Ugh. Too much emotion.

And finally I have a cell phone. I put the number on my e-mail signature so you'll get it soon. Or you can e-mail me for it. But it's my first camera phone and it's pretty. http://europe.nokia.com/link?cid=PLAIN_TEXT_17896 You can see my camera here. I have the gold color. Do I need a pretty phone? No. But all of my options were super fancy--they don't have the basic ones like I always had back home. Oh well.

Okay, finally, I'm going to give a shout-out to a high school friend who has made the big-time. Here's a link to the commercial on UTUBE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e387J21P_H4 The blog put me back in touch with an awesome friend from growing up who showed me the link. The scary red-neck guy went to school with me and college with John (they lived in the same dorm--small world)

But that's about it. I've rambled sufficiently and hope to do some updating on the Flickr and Baby website so they are not so plain.

More for later. . .