I found this graphic on Une femme d'un certain age's website to be so perfect that I had to showcase it here:

I have some friends and family members who are too much about keeping an utterly clean house. I have often thought of the wonderful things they could be doing with their time besides cleaning. Over and over again. What could they have accomplished in their lives with the hours and days that were instead devoted to cleaning?

Elsewhere in the blogosphere and on Twitter, we have a raging debate going on over the merits of minivans. Girl's Gone Child is considering getting a minivan. The comments that are rolling in from all directions are funny. And interesting. And sympathetic. I too once owned a minivan. When my daughter was an infant I caved in and got one. It was comfortable and useful. It was great for traveling. It easily held all of her baby stuff and included a handy dvd player screen that dropped from the ceiling. But truthfully, it was not a "cool" vehicle to drive. It was such a "mom" vehicle. I got rid of it after only a few years. I was ready for a car again.  But I see both sides of the argument.

In other news I got these new Michael Kors shoes (except mine are red):

I wore these shoes today to take Toot to the doctor. She had an earache. And wouldn't you know it, she has a middle ear infection. We have to get this thing cleared up by next week because she is flying with me to NYC. And we all know that ear infections and plane rides don't mix.

I did not remember that the doctor's office had wooden floors. These turned out to be the loudest shoes in the history of all time. I could not walk quietly to save my life. Everyone kept looking as we walked down the hall to the examination room. And then when we walked back to the front of the office. And as we walked through Walgreen's. You get the picture. I really need to put some of the anti-skid things on the bottoms of these shoes to soften the noise.

And these shoes are fairly tall. I felt like an amazon because the little nurse's assistant at the clinic was only about 4 and a half feet tall. She was tiny. And there I was with these 4 inch heels (the website says 3.5 inches but I measured them at 4) added to my 5 feet 5 inch height. So I was towering over her and clomping around on the wooden floors. It was completely distracting.

But the shoes are fairly comfortable. And aren't they cute? That's what counts. Right?

This bug shell (husk?) is clinging to the wall outside my home office. I am just not sure what kind of bug this was but we see these remains of bugs clinging to various places around the countryside. I have never seen one of these bugs alive and walking around. I have only ever seen them dead. They look fearsome huh? This picture greatly exaggerates his size. This bug is only about 1.5 inches long in real life.

Yesterday we got up at 5 am to go visit Lois. She lives at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. She is 6 foot tall and she STINKS. But she has a rabid following and even her own line of t-shirts and buttons. The reason we went to see her at 5 am is to avoid most of the crowds that are flocking to see and smell her. The museum is staying open 24 hours a day this week to give everyone the chance to see Lois, the corpse flower.

Lois is kept is a smallish room that you access on the second floor of the museum. The room is kept at high humidity and heat since she is a tropical flower. There were news crews from the local tv stations in the room with their cameras. They were giving regular updates on Lois. Toot managed to get herself into one of the broadcasts.

Wondering why this flower is such a big deal? Because there have been only 29 of the flowers ever blooming in the US. And they are an endangered flower from the rainforests. The flower only blooms every few years. It has to wiegh 30 pounds before it can bloom. The HMNS has a webcam focused on Lois so if you can't make it there in person, you can view the progress on-line: Lois Webcam and you can check out the Twitter stream for Lois on the HMNS site.

Update 7/25/2010 at 9:15 pm: here is Lois now. She did not open up fully. And now she is expiring:

Urban Dictionary is a good place to stay current on the latest additions to our seemingly ever-evolving language. It is a large database of words/terms with definitions and often hilarious usage examples. I like to visit it occasionally and browse around. I hit the Random button and see what pops up. For the record the following are all randomly generated and the usage examples come directly from Urban Dictionary:

 phone a mate when its late The phonage of a mate (just for some banter) after consuming a large quantity of beer at a late hour of the evening

 get at vernacular term meaning respond to (verb) got at, gettin' at

internet doood: "so yeah, ma' you need to get at me one day, yo I could take you to a movie or something."
meczilla: "excuse me?!?!"

 nachos slang word for pot coined by a group of high school kids from northern VA (which spread quickly as far north as Boston, as far south as Savannah) both in honor of their favorite food and as another name for their favorite recreational drug. This name has been tested and proven for safe use in public.

In history class and across the room, "Hey man, those nachos we had this weekend were fantastic." "Yeah I know what you mean, I stuffed myself with nachos all weekend."

 Brandie An intelligent woman, usually brunette, gorgeous, and goal oriented. She's one to speak her mind and you do not want to mess with Brandie. She's liable to attack at the slightest insult and she has a mean right hook. However, she can be won over by a really nice hug.

She just totally decked him, she's such a Brandie.

 weasel stank When a person pours on the cheap cologne or perfume and thinks they smell fine.

Holy Buckets! Jane's back to using the weasel stank again. Damn.

 booty text The lazy, low-commitment version of the booty call.

So go on over to Urban Dictionary and amuse yourself. You'll definitely learn something new.

If I could be queen for a day, I'd wear these Michael Kors shoes and not fall down. Because I love love love shoes. And I like these an awful lot. Alas, the price tag is a wee bit high.

Aha! I have a brilliant idea. Since I love shoes so much, I should start another blog on this website. It can be devoted to just shoes. Then I have an actual, legitimate excuse for trolling the shoe sites constantly.

We had some extra granite so Danny, aka Mr. Neat & Organized, decided to use it to construct a nice parking spot in the side yard for the trailer he uses to transport the motorcycle:

It does seriously seem extravagant to craft a parking spot for a trailer out of sheets of granite. But we've had the stacks of granite for years and couldn't make up our mind what to do with it. So he put some of it to use. The cougar sticker on front top of the trailer is from our alma mater, the University of Houston.

I am probably way late to the game, but these have got to be some of the ugliest footwear I have ever seen. They've aparently been on the market for awhile now but I am only just now discovering their hideousness and getting to participate in the laughing and finger pointing. And God help us if I ever see someone actually wearing these in public. I'll have to run away as fast as possible to avoid making a spectacle of myself.

On that note, I give you: Tube Flops

Avoid the whole grandpa-black-socks-sandals disaster and walk around with your own foot disaster. These are tube socks built onto a pair of flip flops. For what purpose, I haven't the slightest idea. But you can get your own pair at Zappos.

Continuing onto the theme from yesterday of wads of insect-like creatures, I give you Texas mosquitoes:

That is only a small patch of the many mosquitoes that are coating the outside of our house and all the other houses, businesses, and the general atmosphere around the entire Texas gulf coast. We had so much rain from the two tropical storms that rolled through here last week. That rain made a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Oh by the way, it is devilishly difficult to take pictures of the mosquitoes.

The UPS guy came to make a delivery today and I did not want to open the door at all. But he rang the doorbell a couple of times and wanted to deliver the package directly to me. I finally opened the front door and ran outside, slamming it behind me to avoid the mosquitoes getting into the house. I practically grabbed the package from him and said 'good day.' But he wanted to chat! I am standing there swatting mosquitoes and he wants to talk about when we were moving and should he continue to leave our packages on the front step, etc. I finally got rid of him and went back inside to treat the mosquito bites I had acquired all over me.

Monday we visited McKinney Falls State Park. It is in an interesting location in Austin. You will be driving through the city and then you make a turn south. Suddenly you are in a secluded 744 acre park. Pay the $5 entry fee and drive to the right towards the lower falls:

That is the view from above the falls. Now these are nothing on the scale of Niagara so don't go there expecting it. My favorite part is this area above the falls. I like to sit in the water right above the falls. The water has carved out little "stream beds" in the limestone. It was hot as hades the day we were there. The water was not cool and refreshing. It was warm. And there was quite a bit of algae in the wider spots of the creek further up that was "polluting" the water. We decided to leave and come back in the fall when the weather had cooled down a bit.

On our way out of the park we stopped for a bio break. Upon exciting the bathrooms I noticed an amazing conglomeration of pholcidae, better known to the general public as daddy long-leg spiders. So of course I had to get a picture for the blog. There were several masses of these spiders on the rock walls outside the bathrooms. My hand will give you some idea of the size of this mass of spiders. Don't worry, no spiders were harmed in the making of this photo and not a single one got on my hand, thank goodness.

A couple more pictures (next time we will visit the upper falls also and I will get some pictures):

Seems like everytime we have out of town visitors we drive the 3.5 hours to take them here:

Yes, it is the place where Pee Wee Herman went to find his bike. But we all know it better as the symbol of Texas independence. From Mexico.

That is my mom in the picture. She has been to the Alamo quite a few times. But her significant other, Sam, had never been. He always meant to go there. And he has seen every movie about the Alamo ever made.

So we visited the Alamo. Then the San Antonio Riverwalk. After that, we drove up the interstate to San Marcos to the Kate Spade store, among others. We had a late lunch at Johnny Rockets.

Then...we drove up to Austin and visited McKinney Falls State Park. Because we like it. I'll write more about that tomorrow. Finally we drove back home. Two tanks of gas used. 14 hours away from the house. I think we drove across a little part of Texas. There is lots more to see but only a limited amount of time.