The more mundane things are still being affected by Ike. I was supposed to see my new psychiatrist today, but had to reschedule because he was still stuck in another city. I'm supposed to see him tomorrow, but I'm doubtful that I'll be able to see him tomorrow either. According to the receptionist, he doesn't have any electricity, water, or anything at his house. I hope that I can see him soon, because I really need to get my moods straightened out. I was manic all through the storm, and now I'm on the other side. Sleeping almost all the time. Aching, tired. This guy is supposed to know his stuff, so I'm hopeful that he can sort out my meds. I'm on 4 different psych meds right now, plus a whole lot of other stuff (mostly over-the-counter). They're not really working anymore, so it'd be good to figure out a new regimen that will work.

Here's a really cool photo of Ike from the International Space Station:


Isn't that cool? From that distance (about 220 miles above Earth), it's beautiful. Too bad I know exactly what's going on underneath.

We're stuck under a curfew for the rest of the week. Mom's not home yet, and I keep thinking that she's been pulled over by the cops. She works the 3-11p shift at the hospital, so she should be on her way home. After the curfew. At least she has a good reason to be on the road. All she should have to do is flash her badge and explain.

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And now for something completely different:

I'm so bummed that The Closer is over as of tonight until next year. It's such a good series. At least I will have new episodes of America's Next Top Model, House, Terminator, L&O:SVU, CSI, etc.

1. IT'S EFFING HOT. Like, break a sweat just by looking outside, hot. Why did I move to a place where the humidity is almost always 100%? The forecast for today is 101 with a heat index somewhere between 110 and 115. And, naturally, today I have errands to do, so I can't just relax in the A/C. Grr.

2. I'm in a big city now. In Austin, no matter where you were, you could look someone in the eye, nod, smile, say "hi," and they'd return the gesture. Here? People look at you like you just insulted them. Or like you were talking jibberish. So sad. No wonder that people who visit here don't find Texans friendly. Then again, as Heather pointed out, most of those living here are transplants from elsewhere, which would explain the attitude problem.

3. There was a total douchebag at The Cheesecake Factory. See the helpful "How To Spot A..." here. Couldn't have been more than 16. Drove up in what was most likely Daddy's Large SUV (Hummer or Escalade... I can't remember... big gas guzzler). Pink polo two sizes too large on his 100 lb, 5'4" frame. With the collar popped. Saggin' his khaki shorts. White sneakers. Baseball cap. Walking like he was black and so much cooler than he actually was. Then, after about 30 minutes, he went back outside... to smoke. He looked about 12. His friend had a fake-n-bake tan and was wearing a white visor. I was surprised he didn't have it on upside down and sideways/backwards. My my my.

4. People here are stupider than I'm used to. Examples: 1) We went to the camera store to get Heather a shutter release for her camera. You know, so that she could trigger her camera to take a picture without her having to touch it. We were asked if we could be helped. Heather asked about a shutter release (which makes the shutter - the thing in your camera that closes and opens and therefore stops time for a brief moment to create the picture - move). The answer? "Like, for the flash?" Yeah. A shutter release for the flash. So obviously these people had no clue about cameras whatsoever. Thankfully, there was another store within a 30 minute drive (which is close by Houston standards, I'm learning) where the guy knew which one to show Heather and all about her camera, etc. Whew. 2) We were headed out of town to go watch the Perseid meteor shower last night. We thought we were lost, so we stopped at a gas station. I knew what highway we were on, so I asked Heather to find out what the little cross street was. The woman behind the counter? Didn't know where she worked. She had to ask someone what the cross street was for the store where she worked. Is it just me, or is that a little weird?

5. As I said, we went to look at the meteor shower last night. We went out to Brazos Bend State Park, and the George Observatory there. The meteor shower itself? Eh. Okay. I've seen better. What was annoying? The PEOPLE. Oh. My. God. First, the general public: those who continued to take flash photos or use flashlights/cell phones, thus ruining both their night vision and mine in the process. There should have been someone at the bottom of the stairs around the telescope domes that told everyone going up and down, "No flashlights/cell phones/flash photos - you'll ruin everyone's night vision and screw your chance of seeing small meteors and piss others off." The volunteers showing us stuff through the three telescopes? Not educated. The one in the dome nearest us didn't know how to position it, or the names of the four main moons of Jupiter. Sheesh. Others couldn't pronounce easy constellations nor point out the correct stars. My favorite, however, was this one guy. Came out of the closest telescope dome exclaiming, "I could see the rings!!" He was looking at Jupiter and its four largest moons - Io, Ganymede, Europa, Callisto. As some of you might know, Jupiter does in fact have rings. BUT, they can only be seen from the backside of the planet when the spacecraft camera is pointed back at the sun. You cannot in any circumstances see the rings of Jupiter from a terrestrial scope. I also enjoyed people asking "Did we miss it???!?!?!?!?" like meteor showers are only available during the hours between 10p and 2a on 8/13 and if you miss that window you will not see one. In reality, the Earth is passing through the dust of the comet Temple-Tuttle which is what causes the meteors. They have a peak time - which was when we went - but can be viewed for usually up to a week with variances in how frequently they appear per hour.

So Friday was "See where Heather (georion23) works and meet all her school peeps" day. We drove up to her school - Arizona State, School of Earth and Space Exploration. I got to see her lab. It was neat to finally get to see how she will be conducting her experiments for her thesis. Don't ask me how it all works... I understand it on a superficial level, but not enough to fully explain it to someone else. I got to meet her officemate, Jeremy, and see her office, a.k.a. "The Dungeon."

After hanging out there for a few, we went upstairs to the meteorite museum. It's little-known, but ASU has the largest college-based meteorite collection in the world. And because Heather rocks (get it? She's a geologist... so she rocks?) so much, she got us an appointment with the curator, Lora. She took us back into the storage room to look at the main bulk of the collection. You can see her and a little of the room in a two-hour meteorite special that plays every now and then on the History Channel. So, she explained about the different types of meteorites and pointed out some. Then she handed me one, known as a chondrite. I wish I had a picture. You should have seen the look on my face. I held a rock from outer space that formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago. About the same time that the Earth did. How mind-blowing is that? I know it took me the rest of the day to wrap my brain around the fact that I'd held a piece of rock from the beginning of our solar system in my hands. She also showed us a Martian meteorite (that was really cool since Heather's working on one), and a meteorite from the moon. What made the lunar meteorite really spiffy is that they believe it comes from the side of the moon that constantly faces away from us (a.k.a. "The Dark Side of the Moon.") I made a joke about Pink Floyd feeling really freaked out, and both Lora and Heather just looked at me like, "Ugh. Bad joke." Anyway... holding meteorites in your hand? Awesome.

We just toodled around the rest of the day and then watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I was fine until it got to the part where they were readying Aslan for the stone table. The computer animators got the look of pain on his face just right, and it made me start to cry, because I was remembering Shadow. We paused the movie and I cried and cried. Finally, I pulled myself together, and I just didn't watch the rest of the scene. It was a great movie. The effects were stunning. I never thought I'd say this, but they were better than The Lord of the Rings. They were absolutely seamless. The half-human characters (fawns, centaurs, etc) were especially amazing. Thank God for Weta. You could tell the ILM stuff from the Weta stuff just by the quality.

After that it was bedtime because we had to get up kind of early to head to Sunset Crater and Meteor Crater the next morning. More pictures tomorrow.