Dinner Cruise

I had a wonderful time with friends on Saturday evening.
D, D, and J came to the house and then A came over. They bought me flowers! and Champagne! How fun! So I got to open my card, smell the beautiful flowers, take some photos with them. It was fun. Some of us obsessed with our outfits, others were calm, cool and collected. The best thing was that I didn't drive down there alone!
Right before the party, one friend called to say she could not come. Another emailed to say she had hoped to come but some difficult circumstances made it too hard. I was sad to lose the opportunity to see them, but assured them I understood. One of the reasons I gave the party was to give my friends a special night of fun since I have rarely gotten to see them in the past few years. I am always so busy just trying to take care of my family, particularly the last two years.

So it was great to have some friends come drive me down. The party started early! And then we had to find the place where the boat launched. That predicted difficulty for others, so after we were all set up and ready to go. I went with A to watch for some friends. Well, along comes C! So I let A go back and C came with me. At least we had a chance to visit right then. (which reminds me I said I'd babysit her daughter tomorrow and I need to contact her to do that). But we didn't see my other friends coming, so we went back.
Well, I knew that J would send out a search party for me if the others came somehow, and sure enough, J and A had gone to find me. So I went back to find them because now everyone was there! As they were coming back a different way, I spotted them and yelled and waved. We all headed to the boat for greetings and smiles and hugs.

Other friends brought me presents, how fun! I brought presents for the friends attending, so we were exchanging gifts. I let them open theirs, later I opened mine. It was great. The heat, however, was nearly unbearable at times. Once we were on the water, there was a breeze.

It was a small covered riverboat with the round paddle at the end, like the Mark Twain riverboats. We had a nice table in the middle with white table cloths over it. The chairs were just the regular plastic backyard kind.

But the guests were fantastic and the view was great. We saw the bats leaving, an Austin tradition, which four of the ladies had never seen. There are so many bats! And so there are no mosquitos. We saw swans, ducks, turtles, fishes, and I don't know what else. The turtles had little zuchini heads popping up out of the water, looking for the snacks that people usually thrown them. The catfish weren't far behind and one large one surfaced and amazed us all. It was big as a small dog! (well, longer than a dog, but as thick around as my dog Motz!).

The lights of the city buildings were so pretty along with some of the homes that were built along the river. Everyone periodically got up from the table and took in the view. And it was so good to visit. I didn't get to visit enough with C and X, but D,D, and J are ladies I see all the time, C and I visited in the hotel as we waited for other guests, A and I stood outside and visited for a couple of hours (my hubby was shocked, I stayed up past midnight!). But at least I have had a chance to visit C and X briefly in the past couple of months. I'll get together with Jl sometime soon and then for the ones who couldn't come---Jx and T, I hope I get to see them. I did go see T sometime in the last six months, but I haven't see Jx for a while. I had also invited B and K, who couldn't come, but I had a chance to see them. We went to K's for a lunch in Buda and B came over and brought burger BBQ fixins and we went for a swim.

If I had a million dollars, I'd have another party, but expand it out to people I really like, but never see and rarely stay in contact with.
It is so important to have friends. I sure miss the ones that don't live in my city! Like C, A, A, and E! (well, and Jx!). And I miss my family, they all live far away. Two neices just had birthdays and I haven't seen them in a couple of years! I think I was there two summers ago and that is all. sniff sniff.

Well, I've tried to post a picture on here three times and it hasn't worked. Sorry this was a boring blog! I should have written an interesting one for my friends who were there....but I've got a bad headache that I had all day yesterday! So me and my darn headaches. I don't know what I'll do today. I wanted to try and see friends, but I am so grouchy and bad when I have a headache. If I can stand it, I'm going to go shopping----Jl gave me a 100 dollar gift certificate as a graduation gift---wowee wow wow! Surely that would make any headache go away!
:-)

Also, I went to a spirtual retreat over the weekend.
I'll write more on that soon. But you know how it goes, as each hour passes, you remember fewer and fewer details about a memory.

and I'm going to write the editor of our city paper. He wrote this great article in the editorial section on Sunday called, "Tracking down claims of bias in Middle East reporting" and I want to commend it for it. I think that people have to have to take a critical view of everything they read. There is no way any writer can completely be UNbiased and we shouldn't expect such. And as the paper notes, there is only so much space, every article cannot be shared. But I usually think of the media as so liberal, so it cracks me up when the liberals say it is so conservative. I read liberal pieces just to see what the other side is saying, and they often have some very good arguments. Oh but I hate to read stupid things like in todays paper when someone who was arguing against a federal something-rather against people who take a minor across state lines so they can get an abortion----saying something like you are making a law to indict clergy, and (then two other innocent sounding people) and defending pedophiles (and maybe two other evil sounding people groups). But the article went on to say that parents seriously want to defend their right to know what their minor children are doing---and I say amen to that!
It is true that many girls are abused by their parents, but there are TONS of girls getting pregnant that are NOT abused by their parents at all! and it is a dangerous medical procedure and the parents should know about it if the girl is under 18.
But the abortion argument is so intense that the sides rage against each other. and just today that boy whose parents were trying to let him---by his choice---refuse regular medical treatment for cancer and were trying alternative methods---that boy has been required by law to show up at a medical facility and allow them to do whatever they want to him. If that isn't wrong, I don't know what is. But you know, many parents or clergy or others may also force abortions on girls. There are so many stories about girls who were not allowed to keep their babies, and in this day and age of abortions, so many girls forced to get rid of their babies in that manner (and many who are perhaps not allowed to abort babies they do not want to carry).

I often find it difficult to take sides on some of these types of issues. I am positively without hesitation against late term abortion, period! I am not totally against 1st trimester, but I wish we could limit it to something even like 8 weeks. And I am definitely NOT against the morning after pill. I was shocked to discover my daughter Sarah against the morning after pill, so I discussed it with her, since she may have considered herself extending family views.

Why would anyone be against a morning after pill? The egg may have just been fertilized, who is really going to call that a PERSON??? It has not even become that thing it becomes after three days!!! So that pill should be widely available (unless it has rough side effects I know nothing of).
But most rapes could be covered in such a fashion and even foolish indiscretions. Why do moral guards want to up the cost of sin? There are enough consequences without adding an unwanted child into the picture, particularly for girls and women in poverty. It is often men who stand against such things and how foolish is that??? As if men can even begin to comprehend what a woman goes through when she carries a child.

Just the other day a friend of mine was upset because her two children are her responsibility while her husband goes about his business. He just goes to work, la la la.....but she cannot work unless she has arranged child care. And this is a good partnership marriage! Because women will always be the ones providing care and the exceptions, while growing, are not common.

In fact, another article in the paper said that these two girls, 5 and 6? maybe 6 and 7? were found near starvation. They said that they only got food when their father was not away on business. They were kept in the basement and had been starved for some time. Their stepmother's children were kept upstairs and were in healthy condition. YIKES!!! Don't fathers know that stepmothers will not love their spouses former offspring from another woman in the same way they love their own flesh! YIKES!! At least in adoption, there are fewer jealousy issues.Both parents are usually related to the child in the same manner---NONE. But with step children---well, read "The Murderer Next Door" by UT professor...........oops, forgot his name! He says that it is MOST DANGEROUS to be a stepchild. And I've read a lot lately that also to be a pregnant woman. That there are so many pregnant women who are victims of violence and even killed.

Glad my kids are big! Glad I am married to their father! Glad for so many things!

but it isn't that way for everyone.

Okay, I shouldn't write controversial stuff because I ALSO read that a CIA worker got fired for writing about torture and the geneva convention on her blog!
(but big mouths like me just LOVE blogs...............darn)