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Where do I start. Okay, well the first thing is a note to myself, to remember that everything takes way longer than I think it will during an art car weekend. Picked Georg up from the airport without incident, except for it taking about an hour longer than expected. His plane landed at 1:30 but we didn't arrive at Lankford Grocery until 3, just as they were closing. Luckily, Lee and Russ knew of a nice Greek place called Niko Niko's which had excellent iced tea.

I had a great time chatting with them and catching up, and then Lee took us to a Penzey's field trip. Yay! Penzey's! I've been ordering from their catalog for years, but this is the first time I've been in a city that had one of their stores. It was a little overwhelming, I have to say. They have sample jars of all the spices so you can find out what they smell like. It worked too; we bought a jar of Sunny Paris spice blend based on the sniff test. It was the shallot that hooked me. We also bought bay leaves, which we were almost out of; szechuan peppercorn, our stash of which had gotten stale and musty (I bought a huge bag when the FDA took them off the market years and years ago); and smoked paprika just because it smelled so good.

Our conversation with Russ and Lee had turned to car repair at one point, and I mentioned that shaking my car has been doing at high speed. Russ took a look at my tires and declared them to be very worn, possibly in the early stage of tread separation, and overall not safe for the return trip. You know, I had my mechanic check out my car before the trip, and he said everything was fine. It never occcurred to me that the mechanic wouldn't check the tires because he doesn't do tires. Anyway, Russ recommended Discount Tires as a fast place to get new tires.

We had no time for the tires yesterday, since our lunch and Penzey's trip had taken up the entire afternoon. We had just enough time to get back to our hotel, drop off Georg's luggage, and change our clothes before the Art Car Ball. They had told us beforehand that no cars would be admitted after 6. We took them seriously, but I guess we should have realized that was in art car time. There were cars arriving until about 7 and no one seemed to give them a hard time.

As always, the Art Car Ball was a crazy scene. The costumes seemed more elaborate than I remembered from previous years, but maybe I just didn't notice last time. I'm bummed about not getting photos of a few, like the man with an actual flame jet on his head, and the guy wearing a spacesuit (or maybe undersea diving suit) with live plants in the airpack on his back. But I did get photos of some of the good costumes, including Russ's ferry outfit.

Most of the party was outside, including the bands. There was a B-52s cover band that I quite enjoyed, especially since they played obscure songs as well as hits. (I wish they had played my favorite B-52s song, "Cake," but since I wasn't dancing I didn't have the nerve to request it.) There was also an "angry white boy" band (Georg calls this "big pants music") fronted by a guy making ice sculpture with chain saws. Two chain saws at once, at one point. I did not care for the music at all, but the ice sculptor was quite the showman. They also had a chill-out space indoors, with a bar lit by black light and a room with another band, and later on "urban bellydancers." Which I gather is bellydancers performing to Western music.

There was also a giant puppet there as part of the entertainment. At one point the puppet was dancing with somebody, and I went over to take his photo, and he moved towards me with his arms out like he was going to grab me. It really creeped me out, this puppet looming over me with his arms outstretched, so I screamed a little and ran away. And damn if that puppet didn't chase me all over the parking lot! Jeez, dude, crowd interaction is all well and good but learn how to recognize whether someone is playing along or is trying to get the hell away from you. I finally escaped him by ducking around a car, spotting two people I had already met, and saying to them "Help! That puppet is chasing me!" They distracted the puppet while I got away.

What with all the stress, and not eating lunch until 3:30, Georg and I didn't eat dinner at all. Which meant that by 10 we had crashed hard, and really wanted to go. That was when they said we could leave, but unfortunately we were parked in behind several rows of cars. We walked around awhile feeling tired and grumpy and sorry for ourselves, then we went back up to the bar and lay on a couch while I amused myself taking photos of my polka dot dress under blacklight. (Georg got an excellent photo of the black light effect earlier in the evening, which I hope he posts soon.)

Eventually the nearby cigar smoker drove us away, so we went back outside and had the brilliant idea of asking the people at the gate if there was any way we could get out. To my surprise they told me that one of the cars in front of us also wanted to leave. So they had already identified the one car they could move to open the logjam, and were trying to find that driver to let us out. I must say, my hat's off to those guys. It cannot be easy for them to deal with the art car weekend logistics, but they manage it well.

I chatted for awhile with the other woman who was trying to leave (she's from Beaumont TX and had a 90 minute drive ahead of her!) and by 10:45 they had located the missing driver, moved the car, and we had a way out. We had to drive off a really steep curb, but I took it slowly, at as much of an angle as I could manage, and didn't bump the undercarriage of my car at all.

The drive back to the hotel was surprisingly easy. Generally Houston driving goes like this: "Where the hell are we? Dammit! That street is one way the wrong way! Look at the map, is this street even on the map? Christ, we're on a highway now! How did that happen? Fuck! I hate driving in this goddamned city!" That's how the conversation goes every time we get in the car here. But last night wasn't like that at all. Even though I had forgotten to get reverse directions, last night it went more like "Wait, I think I know where we are! If we turn left here, we'll end up exactly where we need to be! Hey, there's our hotel!" Believe me, I savored the moment. I don't expect it to be repeated.