Lisa's Lounge

Oh HELL Yeah!

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:51:00 +0000

HOOK 'EM HORNS!!

My oh so funny brother-in-law decided my magnets needed some help the last time he was here.... HA! I guess I got the last laugh this year, huh? :-)

The Red River Shootout

TEXAS 45

OU 35

Baby Zoch!

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:24:00 +0000

Okay, so she's Malissa Ridgway now, but Zoch is what we all know her as. Or Socks!

Well, our Zoch is now mommy to a very handsome little boy named Riley. He was born September 22nd around 9am - a little over 7 lbs. and 19.5 inches long. Mom and Dad (Pat a/k/a FedEx) are so very happy and proud! Malissa's email said "Who knew you could ever love something so much!" I haven't been over to meet him yet - been sick this week so I don't want to invade the Ridgway home with germs. Here are some phone photos Zoch has sent....

All settled in

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:43:00 +0000

We found Edge in early June at a shelter in Victoria. He was a bit wild and crazy at first, and so very skittish. He's still a bit skittish, but has settled in nicely and is starting to show his quirks. I know all dogs have them, but our Beagles seem to be natural clowns. Hours of entertainment...

Here is Edge with one of his pacifiers. He loves clothes - especially socks. The other day, Ben was in the shower and had laid out his clothes on the bed. When he got out, his socks and underwear had disappeared! :-) Crazy dog. And he is so looking forward to his cousin Jake's visit next week!

Our adorable little niece!

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:09:00 +0000

Malia sent out some photos of our little puddin' head. She is just growing up so fast! She is 5 months old now. I love the sunglasses. They are a little crooked, so I guess that gives her street cred? hahaha!

Things to be thankful for...

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:13:00 +0000

That we don't live on the coast...

Wow. These photos are from one of our IT guys at work. He's also on our company's Disaster Recovery Team so had to be in our offices making sure the generators were working and our systems were up for all us branches outside of Houston. Thankfully no one in his house was injured by this huge tree.

Miss Julia!

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:51:00 +0000

The Irbys came for a visit this past weekend - Malia, Paul, Julia and Jake (the 4-legged family member). Miss Julia is so precious! I already miss her and they were only here for two days. She is very squeezable. :-) Here are a couple of photos -

The crazy Beagles had a good time as well

Odds & Ends

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Just thought I'd share a few photos from the last couple of weeks...

Ben's Birthday - had dinner at Din Ho with some friends...

She Craves played at Emo's Lounge with several other bands... I only stayed for two. The other one was 6 Pack Deep. Cool band from Baton Rouge

Maxx: found this little guy wandering the streets of our neighborhood. Apparently his mom and dad don't quite understand the Houdini features of a Beagle. Luckily he had a collar and tag on

Ben is excited that football has started! While I'm not particularly a Browns fan or a Brady Quinn fan, I do hope he does well after his sad draft fiasco.

Edge has made himself right at home. He likes to play in the dirty clothes. In the bottom photo - note the dog food on the couch. At that moment he was glaring at Elway, daring him to come near his food stockpile

AND!!! WE GOT RAIN TODAY! WOO HOO!

Congrats!

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:20:00 +0000

Mike and Otis, after 16 years together, were able to make it all official thanks to a new law in California. Here they are!

And here are the guests... Mike's Sister-in-law and brother are on the far left... beaming oh so proudly as representatives of the Williamson clan. (His brother Willie is behind sis-in-law Julie, to be clear... ) (And their son Brandon is in the middle with the beard)

No Shit

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:56:00 +0000

Nice headline:

"Exxon profits soar to $11.68 billion, highest ever for US firm". or "Exxon Mobil made nearly $1500 per second". Here is one article. If you care to read it. I just donated my $73 dollars yesterday to Shell.

No News is Good News...

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:59:00 +0000

As in, nothing much to report around here. Edge is still Crazy Dawg. Elway is still Old Man Dawg. Here are a couple of photos of Edge being his normal goofball self. He and Elway are such great sources of entertainment for us!

Now this one... no explanation needed, I'm sure. I sat my groceries down just inside the door - put up the cold stuff and was off doing something else when I realized it had been more than 60 seconds since Edge had been bugging me. I walked into the hallway to find this! Snooping around where he shouldn't be, as usual.

Crazy Like a Person: The Musical

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:43:00 +0000

(l-r) Liz Cass, Angela Irving, Megan Bloebaum, Jim Felkner

Today was the final show for the musical starring Megan Bloebaum (Rhonda, Life Coach), Liz Cass (Wendy, Psychologist), Jim Felkner (Dr. Fischer, Psychiatrist), and Angela Irving (Katie - not so crazy after all). Awesome musical written by Rain Nox. Accompanist was Cynthia Wilson. Rain doubled as lights person a couple of times.

Since I am not artistic, but I am surrounded by Artsies, I always want to contribute something. I finally got to give back - I was box office lady for a couple of the shows! :-) It was awesome and I can't wait for the next production from Rain, a brilliant writer!

More photos here and here.

http://www.austinnewmusicworkshop.com/
http://www.citytheatreaustin.org/

Heh Heh Bush Sewage Plant

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:56:00 +0000

News out of San Francisco - (from AP) A measure seeking to
commemorate President Bush's years in office by slapping his name on a San
Francisco sewage plant has qualified for the November ballot. Supporters
say the idea is to commemorate the mess they claim Bush has left behind by
actions such as the war in Iraq.

Upcoming in Austin Entertainment...

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:04:00 +0000

Looking for something to do??? I have a couple of awesome suggestions:

Friends are performing a play called "Crazy Like a Person" at The City Theater, 3820 Airport Blvd. I can personally vouch for all the actors/producers/writers/accompanists involved! A great group of very talented people. More info found here. You can call me if you'd like to make reservations, or you can pay at the door.

On Friday July 18 She Craves will make a rare Austin appearance at the Rock City Icehouse. This place is cool because (a) it is NOT on 6th Street; (b) they have free parking; and (c) it's in North Austin! Several other awesome bands are on the bill as well. Come on out! It will be a little different this time... unfortunately Tim decided to leave the band (to have a life? whatever! :-) ) but fortunately Roger was recruited as the new bass player, and he's a cool guy as well as already a friend. This will be Roger's Austin debut! (Liz's new nickname from me is LUCKY!)

They are playing in Baton Rouge this weekend -read a great article about them in the LSU Tiger weekly. (hee hee, that just so reminds me of my favorite teen magazine, Tiger Beat... )

Sweet nectar of the gods!

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:02:00 +0000

Texans are funny about their weather. First of all, I'm about as Texan as you can get. My Great-Great-Great-Grandfather was born in Tennessee, but all those dudes after that were born right here in Tejas! (pronounced Tay-Hoss) And even better I'm an Austinite. Which is a "whole other country" from the rest of this redneck state.

Anyway, we love the weather. It changes easily every five minutes. We discourage people from moving here with the weather card. This summer is really a typical Austin summer. 100 degree days for days and days and weeks and weeks. It really won't start cooling off til October. Please tell that to everyone you know.

So back to the weather. Last "summer" - and I put that in quotation marks because summer begins in April and ends in October - we had lots of rain. So much that I think I only had to water the yard once or twice. (Not too shabby when you live in a 6 month summer climate) We did not hit 100 degrees that I know of. Then along comes "summer" 2008. 100 degrees EVERY day. My neighbor's yard looks like really old inedible hay. She's been out of town most of our "summer".

Today I get a call at the office from... BEN! I was on the phone, but he told my co-worker "Tell Lisa to roll up her windows - the rain is coming". We had a serious gully washer today! it was so awesome. And what makes it even better? We had a good rain yesterday as well.

We Texans are proud of our weather. Among other things...

Photo Shop Elements...

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:36:00 +0000

I'm trying to learn how to use a photo editing software for good, and maybe evil too. I tried Photo Shop, took a class - decided that it is way out of my league. Kristin suggested Photo Shop Elements - and it was on sale one day through Amazon so I got it. I've finally started playing with it... and I'm digging these results! (L-R Me, held by my mom, her brothers Warner and Sammy (Sammy is Baby Cuzzin's dad) and my brother David in front)

PRE EDITING

POST EDITING

More Crazy Beagle-mania

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:56:00 +0000

Here is our new alarm system. Elway never barks - Edge is the total opposite of that. He spends hours looking out the front window...

Edge is such a clown. Just as Elway has several songs we have rearranged the lyrics for, Edge is starting to get his own repertoire. "You ain't nuttin' but a clown dog... " or from Van Halen: "I've been to the Edge.... " or Adam Sandler's lunch lady song: "floppy dawg, flop floppy dawg" I'm sure there are more to come. My co-worker says he must be growing on me if I'm allowing songs about him. :-)

Here is Elway trying to be sneaky - he steals Edge's rawhides, then hides them in various places. Apparently he had one buried next to the fence here:

After this, he carted it around the yard looking for a spot to hide it again. I left him outside for awhile - and when he finally came in his snout was covered in dirt, he had a cut above his eye, and he was sneezing like crazy from the dust and dryness of the backyard! But his tail was a-waggin'. He had hidden it again. Success!

Here are a few of Edge, the crazy, floppy clown dawg. This morning he broke my Yankee Candle tart warmer. He's talented with that floppiness!

AARRROOOOOOOO! LET ME IN NOW!

They're cousins.... Non-identical Cousins...

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:40:00 +0000

Well, not these two... but read on

Not sure how many of you will get my Patty Duke Show reference there...

We went for a Julia visit this weekend, and took our new family member, Edge, to meet his cousins for the first time. We had Paul bring his Poopsie Jake out front, but being on leashes and protecting their boys--- they just snarled and growled a lot. So we took the leap and threw them in the back yard together. Jake and Edge were inseparable. They played and played and played all weekend. Elway was glad to have them play fighting; he got to lay back and grab all the attention.

Edge did sneak a lick of Julia's head at one point, but was mostly just curious about her, sniffing her.

We had a great weekend! Got to visit with Paul, Malia, Julia and Jake, plus our friends the Wilburns and the Stanleys. The Stanleys have a new addition, born on Mother's Day. She is a cute if rare little red-headed monkey like her mother! :-)

Our beagle is mentally challenged

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:12:00 +0000

These are just two of the many things I have dug out of Edge's mouth:

Silly Beagle Boys

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:15:00 +0000

Life is strange....

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:57:00 +0000

We lost our dad, we have a new niece. We have a new family member in a Beagle. It just goes on, life, doesn't it? I'll miss my dad's grin and the way he said "Lissa". Not "Lisa", but "Lissa" because he knew it would get in my crawl. So I'd call him Maxwell House. or Maximilian. Just to get back at him. When I was a teenager I'd get mad at him and call him Max, instead of Dad. He'd pretty much put up with all my shit until I called him Max. We are a lot alike, me and my dad. :-) I wish my newer friends could have known him. As my Uncle Warner said "Your dad was one cool cat." Thank you to those that came to the service and those who sent beautiful flowers and good wishes. All are very much appreciated.

So here is my week in photos...note the Elvis curl. The photo is from 1963.

And the new addition, The Edge. You can call him Edge for short. He is such a sweet natured little boy. He needs some manners, which we will be working on soon, but he is a love bug.

Elway is not sure about him yet. Edge is mostly gentle with Elway, but he likes to play and the little old man starts snarling a bit...

Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:11:00 +0000

Of all the many photos - this one kinda cracks me up! That's me in the carrier.

Max Allison, born June 17, 1938, in Rule, Haskell County, Texas. Left us June 6, 2008, Austin, Texas.
The words "May he rest in Peace" were never more true than at this moment. Dad was struck way too early in life with Multiple Sclerosis. He faced it mostly with a smile and a twinkle in his blue eyes. After 40+ years of the fight, he gave in.

I love you, Dad.

Growing oh so much!

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:27:00 +0000

Our niece Julia was 7 weeks old yesterday. And just so beautiful! A good friend of her parents, April Chastain, took a bunch of photos of Miss Julia - here are some of them. (Awesome photos April!!) We have plans for a Julia visit at the end of June. (Note, now going to Dallas is a Julia visit, not a Malia and Paul visit, not a Jake visit, not even a Dallas visit - it will officially be a JULIA VISIT from now on.) We hope to have our new family member by then too. Three Beagles and a Baby! hahahaha! The Irby house will be hopping on June 28.

This must be her Irby side :-)

The Beagle Chronicles

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:10:00 +0000

Acquiring a dog may be the only opportunity a human has to choose a relative... MORDECAI SIEGAL, AUTHOR

Elway is so rotten. He has such a life here! Here are some of my favorite recent photos of my photogenic little boy... We are still working on getting our new little girl. And still deciding on a name, as well. Jef suggested Pogo, and Ben thinks he likes it. I'm working on that...

His watermark is growing higher and higher on his ear, little old man.

Beagle part deaux

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:23:00 +0000

Well, I met Miss Bianca! She is SUCH a beagle!! Aloof yet friendly, just like every other Beagle. We now have to figure out a name before she gets microchipped on Tuesday - we'll know after her vet visit when we can have her.

Here are names we're considering: Cosmo, Rigby (as in Eleanor Rigby), Mandy (as in Barry Manilow), Dannica "Danni", Tuesday, .... some of these Ben is aware of and some not. Since I won't be seeing his Rock Star Butt til tomorrow night..... Any input from youse guys?

Fingers Crossed!

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:09:00 +0000

Ben and I enjoyed having Jake visit so much (so did Elway!) that we've started looking to add to our hound dog group. At one time we had 5 dogs... now down to the little old man Beagle. We found this totally ornery looking little girl at Etosha Rescue in Seguin.

Nicole and I are driving out to meet her this weekend. She still has to be checked out by a vet and microchipped, but hopefully in a couple of weeks we can adopt her. We passed the home visit last night :-).