football, boys, and faith, or? how i spent my weekend

happy monday mi gente.  (that's "my people" in spanish)  or what's left of monday anyway.  what's up in your lives?  so the start of a new week is upon us.  i don't know about you, but i'm in serious denial about the fact that thanksgiving is next week!  next.week.  don't misunderstand, i love turkey day.  it's just that time is flying by so fast it's making me dizzy.  or maybe it's just my ongoing bout with vertigo that's making me dizzy.  i digress.

the weekend
let's see, where to begin?  i went to a friend's birthday party friday night.  i was so tired from my crazy work week, that i almost bailed on the party.  but fearing severe repercussions from the birthday boy, i sucked up my tiredness and went.  and i'm glad i did.  i had the best time!  it was held at a restaurant in midtown.  after the dinner crowd thins out, the band takes the stage, the music starts, the lights are dimmed, and viola!  a pseudo night club emerges, complete with bright lights and men in dark suits, feigning the look of respectable body guards.  when i arrived, the birthday boy was already feeling no pain.  so what do i do?  bought him a shot, naturally.  this guy.  this guy has tons of female friends.  and it seemed like every single one he's ever known was there that night.  seriously. strangers kept asking who he was, thinking he was some kind of celebrity or something.  he's a great guy.  hails from new york (it's okay, he's not a mets fan), is of salvadoran descent and is a very good friend to all.  i love him to pieces!  we danced the night away.  literally.  i swear by the time i got off the dance floor my legs felt like jelly.  it was  like i had just endured an hour of zumba, but in dressy clothes and heels, not workout clothes. good times, good times.

sunday-funday
this glorious day began with brunch in the company of one of the musketeers, complete with mimosas of course.  then she and i went to see a play at a local theater.  the play was called "girls only: the comedy secret of women" -it was a two women act show and it was hilarious!  i laughed so hard my stomach hurt.  the play is about women in various stages of their lives beginning with puberty and ending with senior citizen status. there was trash talk involving men. -did you have any doubt there wouldn't be?  and there was audience participation as well, so you can just imagine the zaniness that ensued.  after the play, we headed to to a local bar to meet-up with maricela (the missing musketeer) to watch the texans destroy da bears. and oh.em.gee did they ever!  the game was played in chicago. the weather conditions were deplorable.  hello? can you say, retractable roof??? we're spoiled here in houston.  but not to worry, not to worry.  my boys conquered rain, wind and slippery ground and in the end, beat the chicago bears 13-6.  that's right america, the texans are now 8-1.  take THAT espn!

But it was not all about football yesterday in my fair city.  as you know, or may have heard, we're a pretty diverse town.  there was another type of important game taking place here yesterday.  soccer.  the houston dynamo came from behind to beat d.c. united 3-1 in the first leg of the eastern conference finals.  they are undefeated at home.  un-de-feat-ed -got that?  good.  i was not a big soccer fan until we acquired a professional soccer team and i saw some of the players. um, can you say HOT???  i think it is an unwritten rule that soccer players must be good looking.  i mean, i may not know all of their names, but dammit if i do know how they look! and i'm not just talking about houston's players, i'm referring to soccer teams everywhere.  sigh, so many, so many...

moving on.

yesterday in spite of my busy social calendar, i managed to make it to church.  and while i don't normally write about my religion or my faith that often, tonight i just felt the need to do so.  so indulge me. pretty please?

the sermon was about faith. in ourselves, in our god, in the world around us.  the priest asked if we only had faith when times became difficult or is that the time that our faith diminishes?  he wasn't referring only to our belief or our faith in god.  he was referring to our every day life.  for example, in our jobs or in someone we know.  do we give them/it/us the benefit of the doubt and trust everything will be okay? or do we automatically assume that they/it/we will fail?  i guess that really strung a chord with me because i'm going through a lot of inner turmoil with certain things going on in my life right now.  but how i deal with it, is what actually saves me from falling down that ever present dark hole of mine.  and that is, by my faith.  not just in god, but in myself.  i've been learning to trust my decisions, to trust myself and believe in what i'm doing.  believe in me.  perhaps some of you reading this are thinking i'm full of baloney or just a little crazy.  well, guess what? i am. sometimes i'm full of baloney, and sometimes, a little crazy.  (act surprised) but really, i struggle with believing in myself a lot. i've done so since i was young.  i know a lot has do with my self-esteem issues and the subsequent issues that followed me into adulthood.  and let me tell you something, it's taken a long, long, long time for me to learn to accept this about myself.  it's a huge step for me.  which brings me back to the sermon at church yesterday.  do you walk by faith?  now don't go getting all your undies in a knot.  i'm not preaching to you or at you or asking you to tell me about religion.  i'm merely asking if you live your lives just by watching it pass by or by actually believing in yourself to get you to where you want to be in life, or with your career or with your significant other.  that's what i'm asking.  i think the election rattled me more than i thought.  here we are almost a week later, and the hate and the anger and insults that people were spewing, has not died down.  on the contrary, it seems to be getting worse.  we are so divided, it's really sad.  but i have faith in humanity that somehow, some way, everything will work out.

boys
come on, you didn't think i was going to end on a such a serious note did you?  no matter how old they are, or think they are or act like they are, men will never cease to make me want to pull my hair out. never.  so on saturday i ran into an old friend.  we mostly keep in touch via the occasional email or shout out on fb.  he lives in another city. was home for the weekend. ran into him on saturday afternoon, had lunch with him and  had a great time catching up.  boy left pouting because i refused to go back to his hotel room with him.  called me a prude.  did i mention he has a wife? um, yeah.   ugh.  can't a woman be friendly to a man without the man all of sudden thinking that he was going to get lucky? and he was married for crying out loud!  i know his wife very well.  wtf is that about?  needless to say, it left me feeling very dejected and just plain sick.  later that same evening boy text messaged me and apologized. said he had had too much to drink.  he had one beer.  asked me to please not mention this little misunderstanding to his wife.  of course he did.  i now want to go out and by yarn and learn how to knit and get a fake cat ( i loathe cats), sit in my rocking chair and make scarves for the rest of my life.  just me and my pretend cat.  stupid boys.

the end.

now aren't you glad you stopped by to visit?  :)