Estoy Nueces

It appears that I am on a one week and one day rotation with my journal. Like the body would naturally work on a 25-hour clock if you lived in a cave and didn't have a sun for a reference (it's a fact, look it up), I seem to want to write every 8 days. I will try to get better about that. I know writing more often makes for better entries. Writing every 8 days tends to make me want to "catch up!" and include everything that has happened for a week.

So let me try to catch up again and then start fresh.

My biggest project of the past week has been refining our family reunion mailing list. When I mention family reunions to others, they usually have no concept of the kind of family reunion I'm talking about. This one isn't you and your cousins and your grandparents in the backyard. This reunion has been around 117 years and the family includes thousands of members now---all descended from two people (and their 12 kids who had 12 kids who had . . .). Yes, the poster child for the population explosion.

Now, thousands don't come to the reunion each year. Many because they have fallen off of our invitation list and they aren't even aware that they are members of this great family. Others don't like to come because of the August heat in central Texas or because the kids start school the day after the reunion or they are lazy. We usually have around 200 come to the reunion, but when we had the 100th reunion in the 1980s, there were over 600 people there. We took one of those great panoramic pictures of the group.

My job this past year has been to straighten out the mailing list. It started as a mission to find correct addresses for some of the invitations that had been returned to us. Then it became my job to print the labels for the invitations to go to. The program that contains the addresses doesn't do a very good job of determining who gets an invitation. It freely prints labels for dead people, people with no addresses, or each of the four minor children in a household. I did my best to pare it down to a good list with only accurate addresses. I'm not thrilled with the results (the labels are addressed to one name only without even an "and family" added, but I guess the point it to get the invitation to the house), but the labels have now been sent to the folks who do the folding and mailing, so my part is done for now. The late nights working on this are over.

I have had some fun this past week, despite working like a fiend. Saturday night I met Kitty at the Broken Spoke to see Bruce Robison. I adore his music. He's not the strongest singer and not really a showman like his brother Charlie, but his songs are the best. At the Spoke, however, he only interspersed his more upbeat songs through the night and played classics for the dancers. He knew his audience and it was fun, but I need to see him in a smaller setting again.

Last night I met Kitty again, this time at Opal Devine's Freehouse on 6th. I hadn't been there before. It's nice, very relaxing on the front porch. Friends of her friends, the Woodpeckers, were playing. It was enjoyable. Didn't knock my socks off, but enjoyable. I was glad to have a little more opportunity to talk to Kitty--she had danced all night at the Spoke so we never "spoke"--hahaha.

After I left there I had to go across the street to Mother Egan's to check in on the current Seth Walker Band. Mark was also out "catting around" last night on his own and he always goes to Ego's to see Dale Watson. Last night Dale was at Mother Egan's. I said, "Hey, my husband is supposed to be out seeing you play! What's his alibi going to be now?" We got a good laugh over it. Wasn't long until Mark came into Mother Egan's so we teased him about his story being blown. It was fun to be there and I may do it again. Nice to know people when you go to a club. Interesting, too, that the Nashville singer Danni Leigh was there. Apparently she is an Austinite now. I certainly wouldn't have recognized her (I haven't seen enough of her to know her except as "that girl singer in the hat".

Father's Day was not spent with my father. It ended up being a really long day of work. The cafe asked me to work since they didn't know what kind of crowd they might get. I said I would come in and work. The day before at the radio station the other girl on the station was trying to get out of her Sunday shift so she could go to the lake. She asked a young guy to cover her shift. He was in a debate with himself whether to take the airshift and make the money and have the glory and exposure, or whether to go with a friend out of town. He debated all afternoon. I told him I could work if needed, just let me know. He finally decided he needed the money so he would work.

Sunday morning I'm dressing for the day at the cafe and the boss (aka evil boss, but he's been less cranky lately) called. Young jock decided to go out of town after all, leaving me to fill in. So that meant for a long day first at the cafe, then at the station into the evening. Then, to really cap the day, I locked my keys in my car and had to wait for Mark to come into town for his Sunday night gig to unlock the car for me. I was dead on my feet by that time and I came home, took a hot bath, and went to bed.

Nicest thing about the past week was getting a raise at the doctor's office! At a party a couple of week's ago, the doctor said I deserved a raise. I figured he was drunk and wouldn't think of it again and I wasn't going to push it. I am still very grateful for this job and enjoy working for him so the little bit he pays is okay by me. But Friday he told me there would be a raise on my paycheck on Monday. I wondered all weekend if I could be lucky enough to get a whole 10% or if I'd better set my sights lower. Got the check yesterday and the raise was closer to 20%! A very very nice raise. Currently, all three of my jobs pay about the same per hour, with now the restaurant usually coming in third. It, of course, varies with the tips.

This morning is getting away from me, as usual. I told a friend the other day about my jobs. I don't talk to her often so she didn't know the current situation. She said, "Oh, so you have your mornings free!" Technically, yes, I do, but, truthfully, I'm usually sleeping the mornings away. If I would go to bed at a decent hour and make myself get up in the morning, I might be able to make some headway on my many projects.