Random Hilarity

I love the craziness in the world.  By craziness, I am not referring to mental illness – although I firmly believe that people with mental illness enrich our lives and provide variety and spice to the world.  Hence the fact that I work at a psychiatric hospital.  But I’m talking about just the random hilarity that exists everywhere we look.  The kind that makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.  And then take pictures.  And then laugh some more.  For instance, this historical marker I encountered at a wedding in Midway, Kentucky last weekend:

So much randomness…

So much art…

So much spelling difficulty…

So little punctuation…

So many squashed restaurant muffins…

So many matching embroidered outfits worn to semi-formal weddings

(posted with permission)

So many aptly-named public restrooms…

So little time.

The View From a Volkswagen

Okay, so I recently got a FABULOUS gift (well, not so much a gift, because I had to use PTO, but nevertheless) – a week off work!!  Sweetness.  I opted to use this week to visit friends, and as I don’t frequently get to take a whole week off at once, my road trip blossomed into an 8-day cross-state extravaganza.  It was so fun.  I have a new little Volkswagen Jetta, and he got to try out his wobbly new legs over many miles of Texas highway.  It was one big barrel of quality time.  Amidst fabulous time spent with friends, I got to spend long hours talking with myself in the car, as I journeyed from town to town.  This is normally frightening for me.  However, I have a new camera, and as I had these many hours to enjoy the winding roads of this great state, I felt compelled to take pictures to commemorate the journey.  Especially as I noticed how many unusual and entertaining things are to be encountered once one begins venturing across one’s state in a Volkswagen.

Heading south on Highway 84, the windmills ruled the skyline for many miles.  Beautiful sky, creepy windmills.

First stop:  Abilene, and lunch with a great friend.  By the way, there are cows in Abilene, right off the freeway.  Cardboard cows, turns out.

The journey south continued towards Houston, via several small and character-filled towns throughout the heart of the state:

Who knew?

The Texas version of the great city of Jerusalem

Famous restaurants were encountered:

The great Mel’s Diner

And sights were enjoyed.

I have to say, though, that the cream of the crop was a small cemetery in South Texas, with a store next to it that sold “cemetery monuments.”  Now, I’m all about self-expression, even when life reaches its necessary end, but I had to stop and think when I encountered this little shop.  I asked myself, when I am faced with the task of choosing cemetery monuments for my beloved family members in our hour of grief, if I would be more tempted to choose:

The dancing frogs, the pink flamingo, or

The half horse/half eagle.  I also considered

this lovely pink pig, to commemorate a life well lived.  The possibilities were endless:

Houston was great fun with great friends.  San Antonio and Boerne were next, to visit more friends and family.  Deer were plentiful,

and more sights were enjoyed, including a cave called…oh, right.

After San Antonio and Boerne, I headed north to Austin for more buddy time, and then to Northeast Texas, which, paradoxically, is where this town is located:

The last leg of the trip took me to Dallas/Fort Worth, and it was on this leg that the ultimate in randomness was encountered.  A small village made of domes.  For shizzle.  Domes.

Dome with carport

I’m just sayin’.

Road trips are great fun.  The quality time with friends and family is the best, but the journey in and of itself isn’t too bad either.  The Volkswagen performed like a champ and the new camera got broken in as well.  Enjoy the ride until next time.

First Steps to Mental Health

My cousin Jill is one of my best buds.  She is also a blogging, Twittering, Facebooking machine who has a much better grasp on all things world wide webbish than I do.  Jill is one of those people in my life who pushes me to move outside of my comfort zone and do things that are sometimes a bit unfamiliar to me.  She has been encouraging me for many months to start a blog, because she knew that once I got past my initial resistance, I would love it.  I love to write and read and listen and speak, and basically anything else to do with words.  I may be the only person (other than Jill) who ever reads this, and that’s okay.  Because writing is healthy, and as much as I love it, I seldom do it.  I work as a social worker and substance abuse counselor in a psychiatric hospital, and I encourage the patients with whom I work to journal, because it’s a healthy and therapeutic coping mechanism, but the reality is that I do not take my own advice in this area.  And I honestly think that everyone should write in some form or another – whether it’s a blog or a journal or a post-it note or whatever.  It’s good for the brain and the soul.

I chose the name MuffinandMoses because Muffin is a nickname I was given in college, and Moses is my fabulous, adorable, and near-human cat (and also sort of my alter-ego.)  He may blog some, but it will mostly be me.  He’s already a lot closer to mental health than I am.