Sunday, January 30, 2005

We celebrated my mother's birthday today - it was actually last Wednesday, but my brother couldn't make it up for dinner then, so we got together tonight. As usual, my mother cooked, which I felt badly about, but then again no one would want to eat my cooking, so it's better this way. We had steaks, asparagus, portobello mushrooms and red bell peppers (all on the bbq), plus beets & green, twice-baked potatoes and a Mediterranean bean salad with garlic. Yum. Everything was incredible. My mother was happy to have us there, I think she's been a little sad lately.

Saturday, January 29, 2005

I hate cleaning my house - that is to say, I hate the actual work, hauling supplies around and up and down the stairs, leaning over to vacuum the floorboards, etc. However, I love having a clean house, and the feeling of satisfaction that only comes when I've done the work myself. Then I walk around the house like a nag for days, telling A to clean up after himself, insisting that he take off his shoes at the front door (a rule in our house that he mostly ignores)...I've just finished cleaning, and I used my mother's new vacuum, a Dyson. It's the most amazing vac I've ever used. I couldn't believe all the dog hair it collected, and how it left clean tracks in my low-pile carpet. I think I need me one of them.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

I'm so tired that I can hardly hold my head up, and it's only Tuesday. How am I supposed to get through the week? I have an extraordinary amount of work right now, and am stumped by the problem of how to get my squad's website back up and running - a very long story and not fit for my blog. Here we're all about sweetness and light, baby.

Crazy dreams are becoming the norm. I'm not sure why that is (could be that they switched me to different levels on my b.c. pills). I'm sleeping well, but having the most whacked dreams, strange and then gone completely from my mind in short order. Oh well, what do you expect from a girl educated at a school that saw nothing wrong with my showing up for 3rd grade class photos wearing a t-shirt advertising rum that read "I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts"?

Monday, January 24, 2005

Busy weekend - besides training, I also met up with my friend Kim, did a little shopping, dinner and a movie on Saturday. Sunday I met up with another friend, Tamara, at Cherry Creek and we shopped in the afternoon, then met my mother at my house for dinner. We did beef ribs on the BBQ, brown rice & spinach salad. Yum. Tamara brought a bottle of Spanish wine that she had received as a gift, which was the same type that A and I had picked up in LA over the holidays. We had that after we polished off the bottle of pinot that I picked up last week. Did you know that ever since "Sideways" came out, my local wine dudes have been selling out of pinot?

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Sorry to have missed a couple of days, Blogger site was on the blink for a while.

Today was Ice Rescue - we did our practical evals at the Boulder Reservoir. It was a beautiful day, but because it's been so warm, there wasn't a whole lot of thick ice. As the instructors pointed out, that actually makes it better for training, because people don't fall through the ice when it's 8" thick and you could park a semi on it. They fall through after a warm spell when the ice is weakest, so that's how we should train. I spent half the day in a "gumby" (really thick neoprene) suit, laying on my belly on the ice, dragging myself along with my arms and two ice prongs. Can I just tell you how sore my arms are? Plus, I think I cracked a rib again - at one point, I had to get in a hole and be "rescued" by one of the other members - this involved a rope around the chest, and then they yank from shore and pull you in. Plus, when they pull hard, you get jammed against the edge of the ice shelf that you've been clinging to. Gives me a whole new perspective on patient management.

Don't pay any attention to my whining. I had a blast.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

tuesday is chooseday
    Would you rather:
  1. be the world's best dodgeball player OR the world's best chess player?
    best dodgeball player (even though i thought that movie was incredibly stupid) - a life of chess would give me too many grey hairs

  2. be allergic to egg products OR wheat products?
    wheat - i have already mostly given it up, but i likes my eggs

  3. be able to go back in time to when JFK was assassinated OR abraham lincoln?
    much as i would love to experience lincoln's time, it kinda scares me - probably kennedy

  4. be able to do complex math equations instantly OR sing professionally?
    totally want to do the math

Monday, January 17, 2005

Had a busy weekend - lots of laundry and football. How about those Patriots?!?! My friend Kat was probably turning cartwheels in her living room during that game.

Tonight is Ice Rescue training, and then on Saturday we'll do our practical out at the Boulder Reservoir. I'm not sure how that works - I know we get in the mustang suit, and may even get wet, but who's playing the part of the person that fell throught the ice and has to be rescued??? Not me!

Sunday, January 16, 2005

My friend Ray picked the Falcons to go all the way this year, Super Bowl and all. All I can say to that is


GO PATS!

Thursday, January 13, 2005

There is a "buddha" theme going on for me this week. First it was a blurb I read in "In Style" on Monday night about music being played on a photo shoot - Buddha-Bar VI, which I bought last night at B&N and am listening to as I write this. Very cool, especially to be seeping out from my cube at work. The second was today, when I stumbled on a great blog, Lose the Buddha, a very funny, well written blog about dieting, exercise and struggling with weight and torturing yourself (or not, maybe that was just me)...check out Lose the Buddha, it's up for a BoB award.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

tuesday is chooseday

    Would you rather:
  1. have all your body hair fall out and take a year to grow back OR have a really bad rash between your thighs for a month?

  2. if i knew it was just for a month & didn't affect anything else, i'd go with the rash

  3. have people shout to you because they think you're hard of hearing OR have people make funny faces at you because they think you're blind?

  4. shout at me - i sometime have trouble hearing them anyway

  5. be tortured with bamboo shoots under your finger nails OR with thumb screws?

  6. ouch! thumb screws sound a little less terrifying

  7. have your car stolen OR your wallet?

  8. have to go with the car - at least it's insured. i'd feel weird if someone else had access to everything in my wallet

Monday, January 10, 2005

I got a page today to respond to 3 dogs that had fallen through the ice at a frozen pond - while we obviously don't want the dogs hurt, we respond to these calls in "emergency" mode because there is typically a person who will go in and try to rescue a dog in that situation - so then our scenario becomes a person in trouble. Luckily, everyone waited patiently for us to arrive (they didn't have to wait long, it was just a few minutes before the first trucks arrived), and I'm pleased to report that all three doggies were rescued and were just fine. I wasn't able to respond because it happened in the middle of the day and I had a meeting at 11:30 that I couldn't miss - this is why I need to be self-employed! More time to respond to rescue calls!

Friday, January 07, 2005

Question to you all - what is your experience with either Cingular or T-Mobile? I really want to know. I was a Cingular customer in LA (after they acquired Pac Bell Wireless) and would have stayed with them when I moved to CO, except that they didn't offer service out here. I switched to AT&T, who I hated, and finally moved to T-Mobile this year. T-Mobile is reasonably priced, but the coverage isn't great, especially once you leave Denver/Boulder proper. Now that Cingular has acquired AT&T, the coverage is supposed to be much better out here. Is it worth paying the early termination fee w/ T-Mobile??? A hates his phone and wants a better one (he does get really lousy reception), but I hesitate to upgrade his phone if we'll be switching plans anytime soon...

Thursday, January 06, 2005



Via Daisy.
My dear friend Paulett has been visiting from LA, and we've been celebrating her 60th birthday for several days. Dinner last night was at Da Gabi Cucina, a wonderful, quiet little Italian place tucked away in North Boulder. I had butternut squash and yam soup and then pasta. Breakfast this morning was at Lucile's, this tiny little cottage in Boulder that is home to the best Cajun food outside of Mississippi & Louisiana. I had eggs, grits and a biscuit for breakfast with chicory coffee - YUM. Paulett flies home this afternoon, full but happy.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Happy New Year to everyone! Sorry for the long break, but I've been on vacation for almost 3 weeks, and it's been incredible - I've hardly even seen a computer in all of that time.

Spent Christmas in CO with the family, had a lovely time. My sister and the kids came out for 10 days, and I was able to spend a lot of time with them. We went to movies and dinners and ice skating and made snowmen and played pool - really had a wonderful time with them. A and I went to LA for New Years to be with his family, also a very nice time. This was the first time we'd seen any of them since we were affianced (isn't that a great word?!), and there was much talk of things to do around the time of the wedding.

So, the wedding. Wow. The date is set for July 8, a small ceremony with our families and closest friends. The party (not a reception, a full-blown party!) is on July 9, and will be a much bigger, more festive event. I'm beginning to look into invitations and food and bands, all of that. I'll be setting up a website shortly for our out-of-town guests, hotel info and the like. I'm still at the stage when I'm really looking forward to it - I don't yet feel overwhelmed by details. My friends assure me that time is coming.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

tuesday is chooseday


    Would you rather:
  1. work at a company that regularly tests hair care products on animals OR regularly buries toxic waste illegally?

  2. as deep as my love for critters goes, i just couldn't bury toxic waste

  3. for an entire month, eat everything through a straw OR deep fried?

  4. through a straw! smoothies every day!

  5. invent the next popular kids toy OR sex toy?

  6. probably make way more money on the sex toy

  7. find out your neighbor is a spy for an enemy nation OR a black ops assassin for your government?

  8. i'd rather know they were on our side