Thursday, August 23, 2007

Uh, no...

On Tuesday, the European Union urged the governor of Texas to halt executions and introduce a moratorium on capital punishment in the United States' busiest death penalty state. The EU said Texas Gov. Rick Perry must ''exercise all powers vested in his office'' to halt the impending 400th execution since Texas resumed carrying out death sentences in 1982.

Governor Perry's office issued a reply, which I rather like regardless of how one might feel about the death penalty:

''The reason our forefathers fought a war 230 years ago was to throw off the yoke of a European monarch so that we may have the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens.''

Monday, August 20, 2007

life is good...

We're getting settled into the new place and I really like it. I will like it even better when the new carpet is installed (next week Mon-Tues) because that's why I can't fully unpack. (Easier to move china cabinets, dressers etc when they're empty!)

So this weekend is a nice little salsa event in Dallas featuring John & Liz from Salsamania in San Fran... we'll also get to see Mitch's brother and family, and his best friend Jeff, so that's all good.

Then Labor Day weekend we'll be unpacking and cleaning and repotting plants... then the next weekend (9/8) is our big housewarming pool party. Unlike most of my parties, this will be very low-key and low-cooking for me... just sangria, guacamole, chips, maybe a fruit salad, and soda pop. The rest is potluck and BYOB :)

The nicest thing about our new house (so far) is the wonderful outdoor entertainment opportunities. The deck is in the middle of a tree canopy plus we have a lot of houseplants, so we're enjoying our "tree house" frequently. Astonishingly there's no mosquitoes! We grill most of our dinners (the non-stick grill basket/wok thing is perfect for veggies) and eat most of our dinners al fresco. It's nice when you have friends with little ones, because the inevitable showers of food from their mouths just get washed away with a hose when it's all done. (sure, people don't clean their feet when they go in the house, so we find food in the carpet, but we'll figure out how to prevent that soon enough.)

Anyway, I sold some stuff on Ebay so I gotta bolt to get them to the post office in time. And I woke up too late to walk/swim this morning, so that's still on my to-do list.

Have a good one :)