Family vacation, baby

For those of you who missed reading my blog last week, I apologize, I was on vacation in Florida. And what a vacation it was! All 11 members of my immediate family - my parents, three sisters, two brothers-in-law, two nieces, nephew and I basked in a three-story beach house in Destin, Fla. for a week.
The best part of the vacation was having 3.5 bathrooms in the house. A few years ago, when we were family vacationing in Port Aransas, most of us caught a stomach bug that had us bowing over the toilet every half hour or so. Even worse, the house we were staying in only had one bathroom. Orderly rotations for bathroom use just don't work when that many people are sick in one place.
Fortunately, this time, no one got sick, and if they had, plenty of bathrooms would have been available.
The house we stayed on was right on the beach, so every morning when I woke up, I could see watch the waves through the window by my bed. Make that sofa bed, actually.
Up until last week, I hadn't slept on a pull-out sofa bed in several years. Generally, if I'm given a choice, I prefer to sleep on the floor. After sleeping on that sofa bed and refreshing my memory, I was reminded why. I'm not sure who invented sofa beds or who made the particular one that I was using last week, but they apparently thought I needed an iron bar to run across my back and shoulder blades. You know, just in case my back was in danger of being comfortable.
Aside from the bed, my vacation was nothing short of relaxing. My oldest sister and I did provide some nail-biting moments for the rest of my family, though, as we zeroed in and won our family's first annual Pinochle tournament.
Those with the last name Kezar or who have married into the Kezar family know the rules of Pinochle. For those of you who aren't so privileged, I can't really explain how the game works. I vaguely know how to play myself, and am generally known as a non-aggressive partaker of the game, which makes me last pick for a partner. My oldest sister is the same way. We were stacked as the underdogs in the  tournament, so we felt completely justified in screaming and jumping up and down when we beat our parents, who pretty much play telepathically, my brothers-in-law, who play with a lot of testosterone, and my other two sisters, who play with a lot of - well - testosterone, I think.
All I can say is, that plastic trophy may have cost my brother-in-law four bucks, but its worth its weight in gold to me.
But winning the Pinochle tournament wasn't the best part of the trip. Neither was scuba diving, snorkeling, being stalked by a remora (a type of sucker fish), watching the antics of a pod of dolphins, running on sand so clean it squeaked under my feet or stuffing myself beyond good sense with crab at the Crab Trap. Though, come to think of it, those were highlights.
No, the real peak of the trip was spending time with my family. Three bathrooms or none, couch sofa beds or memory foam mattresses, we are and always will be a tight bunch. While this means I'll never be able to take a shower in peace, it also means that I have 10 people to call at any time, day or night, for help, support or love. And we can put up with each other for seven consecutive days in close quarters. Not every family can say that.
So, back here in Texas, now a slightly off-white color because my freckles are starting to merge together a little after so much time in the sun, I'm settling back down into the routine of work and everyday life. And my family is already planning our vacation for next year. As for me, I'm just hoping Vacation 2013 brings me a real bed.

Shannon (right) and I on the boardwalk near Crab Island.

Audio blandness

Is it just me, or is everything on the radio lately pretty sub par?
I don't mean the oldies and goodies - I'm talking about top-40 pop music, the stuff that blares in two-hour cycles on stations with catchy names like "Mix," "Da Beat" and "Jamz."
As far as Austin radio stations go, I find myself sticking to KLBJ, which plays a decent assortment of classic rock, and BOB FM, which plays a decent assortment of everything.
I've taken to avoiding everything else, because I can't stand anything that's come out lately. Probably the latest top-40 hit I liked was "Good Life" by Onerepublic, and that was apparently released in 2010.
I can only attribute this type of reaction to popular mainstream music to two things: my age and upbringing.
I grew up on a steady diet of Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Who, Journey, Heart, Boston and other classic rock staples. Both my mother and father have great taste in music, though I will say that I don't really agree with Mom's like of Katy Perry. Even so, 99 times out of 100, I can tell if a song is by Grand Funk Railroad, the Yardbirds, Velvet Revolver, etc. And it's getting to the point that 100 times out of 100, I'd rather listen to one of the above mentioned bands than whatever is on "the mix of (insert city name)."
I suppose my aging process has something to do with my growing dislike as well. Despite the fact that quite a bit of popular music is catered to people up to 24-years-old, at 22 years of age, I'm ready to toss it all out the window. I think after two decades and two years, I must now know what I like to hear and be stuck in a rut of comfort with hits like "Barracuda," "More Than a Feeling" and "Baba O'Riley." Either that, or Dad was right - I was born 30-years-old.
Typically, I'm not one to bash others' musical tastes. I don't like mine to be questioned or made fun of, so I generally extend everyone else the same courtesy. But all of the "Little Monsters" (Gaga fans) and "Beliebers" (Justin Bieber fans), are really starting to get to me. And the lack of variety on the radio is becoming tiring, too.
Looking for possible solutions to my problem, I have come up with only two - putting in earplugs and turning on pop music radio stations so as to appear normal, or disabling the radio in my car. Both sound like too much work.
I think the only real solution is to declare myself as a horrible top-40 hate and let the fuss die down. That means most top-40 lovers will probably avoid me when playing music, which is fine with me, and everyone will know the truth about my musical tastes.
One day, when other people my age realize they don't like pop music either, I can only hope I'll still be around as a bastion of good tunes they can run to. And those who shunned me because I think Heart is an awesome girl band will come back apologizing, and I will accept them. But for now, I'm listening to the Eagles by my lonesome.

Photo via campusvoice.info.

Take your chirping elsewhere

My newspaper office has become a hospital for amputee crickets.
In an obvious sign that summer is raging across Texas, even the smallest creatures are trying to make a break for it and land inside an air-conditioned building. Anything, it would seem, is better than outside.
I feel bad for the crickets in some ways - by the time they get inside, they're usually missing legs or miscellaneous body parts I can't spell, if they're alive at all.
On the other hand, I can't stand seeing them in the first place. Despite growing up on a ranch, I have a huge fear of grasshoppers and crickets. It doesn't matter that crickets make pretty sounds at night, or that they're supposedly "gentle insects." As far as I'm concerned, they need to be squashed. Preferably by someone who is not me.
My cat, Juliette, and my room mate's cat, Cousteau, seem to be the only ones happy with the infestation. When they find a cricket, they generally paw it onto a spot on the floor where they can both examine it and then perform what appear to be a series of experiments.

Juliette: Dr. Cousteau, what is your prognosis?
Cousteau: Well, Dr. Juliette, it moves, so that must mean we need to pounce on it.
Juliette: My thoughts exactly. Being cats working in the name of science, we'll need to bite it, too, to determine whether it's any good to eat.
Cousteau: A fine conclusion.

They then proceed to bite off one of the cricket's legs, and when the insect tries to amble away, they paw it back to the "examining table" and continue their scientific discovery.
At least someone's happy about it. A couple of weeks ago, when crickets were first starting to leak their way into our newsroom, I refused to sit any way but Indian-style on my office chair for fear I would step on a cricket or one would run a quick marathon over my feet.
I did make a fool out of myself one morning when a particularly brash cricket made its way under my desk and I screeched "Kill it, kill it!" at my editor, who obligingly crawled under my desk, picked up the bug and delivered it outside unharmed. Our sports editor, who sits across from me, didn't hesitate to make fun of me, but only for 10 minutes, at which time a cricket crawled under his desk and he screeched "Kill it, kill it!"
Fortunately, I live in a second floor apartment and despite the cricket's ability to jump, only a few have made their way into my living quarters. If more come along, I will assume this means all of cricket-kind is declaring war on my 1,092 square-foot territory, and kick into battle mode.
So, a warning to crickets and all bug kind: if you continue to advance the troops, prepare to meet the mean end of my boot, spatula, rolled up newspaper or other object at hand, as I will begin wildly swinging and throwing with no regard to the safety of others.

Photo via eightcow.com