Grammar

I originally titled my blog everybodysentitled because I thought that 's weren't allowed. My youngest daughter suggested - a lot more kindly than I usually correct someone else's grammar - that it should either be "everybody's entitled" or "everybodies entitled".

I plead ignorance of blogging rather than a grammatical error, however, and see that I can use an apostrophe and a space in there. I give Mary credit for catching the error. It is pretty great to point out other people's errors.

I've just finished reading Harry Hunsicker's "Still River". He's a Dallas author who spoke at our Issues and Interests Junior League Sustainer Group last year. He's also president of the Mystery Writer's Guild this year. This is his first novel with his hero Lee Henry Oswald - which is pretty funny considering Lee Harvey Oswald's role in Dallas history. I enjoyed the story with lots of action and with lots of Dallas landmarks playing a part in the story. He could have used a better editor, though. I'll check his later books to see if it is worth writing to his publisher.

Now, if she'd just come home and explain why my iPod copied the first part of Jeffery Archer's excellent novel "Prisoner of Birth" and won't let me download part two, even though it is on my iTunes list.

A fake fingernail update: I noticed that my nails grow pretty quickly and went back for what I thought was called a "fill" which I imagined was more pink goop near the cuticle - but the girl sanded off the old stuff and put on new stuff. It looks to me like most of the fake plastic nail is now off and the acrylic just covers my natural nail.

It has been interesting to have really strong nails that can pry up the ring on a Diet Coke with no problem and that drumming my nails now has a neat click to it. The only problem I have (except for worrying what this stuff is doing to my real nails) is that I have trouble setting my watch, since the nails are too thick to easily pry the stem.

42!

Yesterday was our 42nd anniversary.

It's all hazy now but I think we got engaged after Thanksgiving my senior year at the University of Texas and we married June 18, 1966 after I graduated. Byron had finished his first year of law school. I remember that the Sigma Nus (serenaded me at the Theta house. (They probably don't do that anymore - probably no college kids get engaged anymore).

We met at a match party. That was a party at the fraternity house - and each of the Theta pledges were "matched" with a Sigma Nu. The Theta social chairman and the Sigma Nu social chairman were dating (Cookie Mattox and Will Wills) and they made great matches - at least four couples ended up married (Byron says seven) and we're all still married. (Cookie and Will married other people.)

In those bygone days, the match party was held at the fraternity house (the boys buying the beer since the sorority wasn't allowed to buy it - and most of us were underage, anyway - and the sorority would pay for the live band). This happened every Friday night all Fall. If your date liked you, he invited you to the football game on Saturday. If you didn't like each other, you could spend the evening in the ladies room with your sorority sisters who were in the same boat.

After my classes were over, I didn't bother to participate in graduation, but went home to get married about three weeks later. My mother planned the whole thing. The wedding was at the First Christian Church with ministers from the Christian Church (where Mother and all us kids belonged) and the Episcopal Church, where Daddy belonged.

My mother-in-law hosted the rehearsal dinner at the Holiday Inn (the Pecos Valley Country Club was closed for renovation) and the day of the wedding lunch (none of that "bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony" stuff) was held at Jane and Bruce Hay's. She was Mother's best friend, frequent guest at our kitchen table for a five o'clock Scotch and a wonderful cook.

About four days before the wedding Byron came to Pecos and stayed at the house until he and Daddy got into an argument about displaying the gifts. The gifts were displayed on tables covered with white tablecloths in the upstairs hall and Daddy wanted them all on view. Byron thought some could be boxed up and taken back to Austin with friends so we wouldn't have to move them all after the honeymoon.

Daddy suggested that perhaps Byron should move on over to the motel where his mother and family and friends would be staying.

During the countdown to the wedding, Daddy called it the "possible wedding"; the week before, he called it the "probable wedding"; the day of he called it the "ominent wedding". On the way up the steps to the church he turned to me and said "You can still call this off if you want to."

The reception was held at my parents' house with cake and champagne. In those days people were expected to have eaten dinner before attending a wedding and the reception was mainly dessert. There were little boxes with a small piece of cake, tied with ribbon for guests to take home. (It was a superstition that if you slept with wedding cake under your pillow, you would dream of your future spouse.)

We left the reception very quickly - not even having a dance in the newly created "ball room" which had been the sun room which had been especially decorated for the wedding. We drove away in my Nash Rambler which our friends decorated to the filling station where Byron's car was stashed.

We spent our wedding night in the Sands Motel in Odessa, catching a plane early the next day to New York where we spent a week at the Plaza Hotel. A few years ago the Plaza had a promotion, before they closed for renovation, that invited honeymoon couples to stay there at the same rate as their original stay. I couldn't find it at the time, but came across it later - $32.50 per night.

After 42 years with Byron, three wonderful daughters and four lovely grandchildren - I'm glad that I decided to ignore my father's suggestion to call it off!

Sprinkler

I had the sprinkler people out this week to fix a head that wouldn't stay screwed on, and after replacing four heads and checking to see that the entire yard was actually sprinkled, they charged me $208. Last night about 11 p.m. I heard the system go on, then realized that another head had popped off and was shooting water about 25 feet into the air.

The stations are set at about 10 minutes per section, but this seemed to be staying on, so I went out into the night to shut off the system - but it wouldn't shut off. The water in the back yard was about ankle deep.

I got Byron up (we are leaving this morning for Virginia to see baby Margaret Anne be baptized - the car picked us up at 6:30) and we tried for 30 minutes to shut off the water in the alley.

We finally called the city fire department to come shut off the water and it turns out that we have not just two meters in the alley, but three. The last one was hidden dirt and grass, and, of course, that's the one that controls the sprinkler system.

I'm looking forward to a nap on the plane. Then I'll be making a call to Mustang Contracting to see if they guarantee their work.

Kiera Knightley, Pride and Prejudice

I just watched the Kiera Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice. Boo, hiss. 1) How can you call it "adaptation" when you change the story? Austen was a master - don't mess with her. 2. Knightley never closes her mouth! Someone must have told her that she was more attractive with a half-open mouth - but for that moue to be effective, it must be contrasted with some faces with lips together. Does she do that in all her movies?

Why did I stay up to watch that when I knew every minute was making me more irritated.

I have gone to the dark side

First the braces, now the fingernails.

This morning while making the bed I tore one of my fingernails. I have tried gelatin, nail strengthener, liquid wraps, etc, etc. My nails - unlike my bones, which are in the top 10% of my age group - are like paper. Occasionally I have had all ten sort of long, only to chip, peel or tear one, followed by the others.

So I went to my usual nail place and asked for gel nails. A high school friend said the gels are better and healthier than the acrylic ones for reasons I don't remember now, but even though "We specialize in gel nails..." was painted on the window, they don't do them now.

Being ready to have stronger nails, I decided to get "solar nails". It was a fascinating process. They trimmed my pathetically short nails to the same length, used a machine to smooth out the ridges then glued long, long, LONG plastic nails. These looked like the ones you see on some cashiers who have them painted with designs. I couldn't scratch my nose with these on my fingers, much less use the phone or the computer!

The manicurist (who fortunately spoke some English) then clipped them to about 1/8 of an inch longer than my own nails. The join between the plastic and my nail was then smoothed with the drill. She then dipped a wet brush into some white powder and piled it up on the end of the nail. She used an extra plastic nail to make the crescent shape of the white tip. After this hardened, she dipped the brush into some pink powder and piled it up on the rest of the nail. When this hardened, she used the drill to smooth the edges and the surface.

After more smoothing and polishing, I have strong nails which look mostly natural (not natural to me, but still sort of natural). Another good thing is that they always look clean!

They said I'd have to return in two weeks for a fill. I don't know if I have entered the perpetual zone - like shaving your legs - or whether I will decide that this process is actually dissolving my real nails. But it's interesting for now.

Braces, fingernails.... is lipo next?