Monday, July 24, 2006

I wish I were better about making time to post. Every day it seems like there is an interesting or funny little story that would be perfect to share, but by the time I get around to actually doing a post, I've forgotten all of the little gems of my day.

One thing I can share with you is how much I'm enjoying Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I never had the opportunity to read much Hemingway (outside of school), and this book is like a little gift that waits for me each night when I go to bed. I especially love how he describes needing to read other writers at the end of his work day, to preserve that part of his writing that still lives in his mind, by escaping into someone else's story.

For most of my life, since I learned to read, I've read every night before bed. Even when I'm traveling, or I stay out too late, I still pick up a book before going to sleep. I keep stacks of books on the floor next to my bed, because I never know what I'll be in the mood for from one night to the next. Sometimes I stick to one book until I finish it, but other times I know that what I need is something else, and I pluck a different one from the pile. I'm also one of those people who rereads books over and over again, because I'm able to disappear into the ones I love, and it's like reading them for the first time again.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Dr. Choppers passed on the house. *sigh* Oh well. I'm not going to kid you - the idea of a nice, responsible dentist and his kids as tenants was pretty much a dream come true for us, but what can you do? So the ad is running again, and I might actually have to plunk down some serious cash and run an ad in the local paper. Yes, I said "serious cash" - to run the very brief ad, text only, on a single weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) is $800. I kid you not.

Come to think of it, I know someone (in the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend fashion) who works at the paper. I'm going to call and work on that. Really, it's not as if they have people getting left out of the local classifieds for lack of space, so how hard can it be to do me a little favor?

Monday, July 17, 2006

Dr. Choppers (I mean the dentist - ha ha, where is that reference from?) has been offered the house to rent. I should hear tonight or first thing tomorrow whether or not he'll take it. Hold good thoughts for my house to rent.

It's a relief to be back at work, mostly for the opportunity to spend the day indoors with A/C. We had some major computer issues this morning, so I haven't been as productive as I would have liked, but it beats being out in the heat. I'm even skipping going out to lunch (oh, the horror!) because I don't want to be outside. I know, I'm being lame, but I can't help it - I'm so sensitive to heat! Give me winter any day over being hot. I suppose it's a good thing that our new house is way up in the mountains, it's at least a good 15° cooler up there at any given time.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Since I've talked several times about how hot it is, I'm guessing that you figured out that we don't have air conditioning. There are really only a handful of days each year when this is a true problem, but unfortunately those days seem to all be right about now.

We went to a movie last night in the hopes of cooling off a bit, so I got to see "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest". I'm not going to do a movie review here, except to say that I wouldn't spend any money to see it again. It's not that it wasn't entertaining, it's just a kind of bored, been there, done that kind of movie. Anyway, the point wasn't to see THAT movie, it was to be inside someplace with A/C for a while, so I guess at least the money wasn't wasted.

Today, I took my niece and spent the entire day at a shopping mall. No kidding. We strolled through most of the stores, had a long lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, bought a few little goodies, had our makeup done at Nordstrom, etc. We managed to kill 6 hours - but hey, that 6 WHOLE HOURS THAT I WASN'T SWEATING AND MISERABLE.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

It's been a busy freaking day, and also the hottest in years. Really. Record-breaking heat.

We had three potential renters come over this morning, starting at 9:30am. Two were referrals from friends, and the third answered our ad on Craig's List. All three seemed to like it, all three took applications. Unfortunately, I was interrupted with the last person (let's call him "the dentist"), because Alex called to tell me that he was stuck by the side of the freeway in Denver, wearing a wool suit.

Yeah, that one begs for an explanation. This morning was the funeral for our friend Gene, who died last week. Gene and Alex used to race together, they were incredibly well-matched in terms of their abilities. Gene was a sweet kid, and Alex was like a big brother to him. Since we had already lined up several prospective tenants, and since it's so unbelievably important that we get the house rented, I stayed behind to do the showings and Alex went to the funeral. Being the nice, well-mannered, cultured boy that he is, he went in his only black suit, a lightweight Italian wool. He looked lovely, and I was so proud of him for being so respectful toward our friend's family by looking appropriate when he went to grieve with them (unlike some of his fellow racers who thought it was somehow completely appropriate to go to a graveside ceremony in A T-SHIRT AND SHORTS. Are you fucking kidding me?).

So, he's headed home from the funeral, on the freeway back from Denver, and the truck dies. Just completely stops. It'll turn over, but won't catch. He's stuck on the side of the freeway, in 104° weather, with no power in the truck (and so no A/C), and I'm about 40 minutes away and occupied with trying to rent out our house.

Anyhow, long story short, the truck made it home, then died again on the way to the dealership, got towed, and now appears to need a new power train control module (oooh, scary). Alex says the whole thing with the truck is just our friend Gene, messing with him one last time.
So....hot....can't....move.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

It's not a good day. A friend died today. He was injured almost two weeks ago, and died this morning. His organs are being donated as we speak.

I didn't know him well, but well enough to miss him. His death is hitting me really hard, and one reason is that his accident occured while he was riding his motorcycle at a track day - something that my husband does on a regular basis. I'm long past the point of feeling sick every time he gets on the bike, but I have to confess that after this, I don't know how I'll feel.

Monday, July 10, 2006




Big news. We've decided to buy a second house. We're land barons now (haha). The picture above is the view from the end of the driveway, out toward Gross Reservoir. It was such a good deal, a nice piece of land, a nice little 2,000 square foot house, 30 minutes into the mountains above Boulder. More info later.

Friday, July 07, 2006

You know the guy in your office that talks too much? The one who can't resist butting in on any conversation within earshot? The one who sees you standing in the doorway of the manager's office chatting, and strolls over so he won't be left out? Yeah, that one. I have one of those, too. We couldn't decide what to call that condition, until Wikipedia helped me out (actually, Wikipedia pointed me to Wiktionary).

Gobshite. Heh. Perfect.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006


One of my favorite things about my job is the people. We're a small group of about 8 (there are 18 in our office, but many are on the road a lot or work from home, so the core group is about 8), and we have lunch together nearly every day, do happy hour, that sort of thing. Now we're adding movies to the list of things to do when we're not hard at work.

Boulder Outdoor Cinema is a cool way to see movies in the summer. The films are projected up onto the back of a building on the quiet side of downtown, in front of a big empty parking lot. The movies start at about 9pm, and from 7pm on, people start to slowly arrive and stake out their spots - dragging lawn chairs, bean bags, coolers and picnic baskets. You can bring whatever food/drink you like, or they have some to purchase.

This Friday we're going over to see "Office Space". I can't think of a better movie to watch with this group of friends. One of them promised to bring a pitcher of margaritas (made with some excellent tequila that another coworker just brought back from Mexico), and I'm going to take some bbq chicken and deviled eggs. Should be a good time.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Back from a race weekend in Iowa. It's WAY too hot to be going to a place like Iowa right now - of the four days I was there, I think the lowest daytime temperature was around 90 degrees. Ugh. I'm not one of those people who handles hot weather well. I'd rather be surrounded by snow 10 months out of the year than go through 3-4 really hot months of summer.

Boulder is hot, damn hot, in the summer. There have been summers since I have lived here that have been almost unbearable for me. In fact, in 2001 I fled Boulder and returned to Santa Monica, in part because I was so hot all the fracking time. I get cranky, have headaches, my joints swell - it's awful!

This summer got hot pretty early, but it's cooling off a bit now. We had a fierce thunderstorm last night, just dumped rain down on us. My house backs up to open space, and there is a creek just beyond our property line. Flash floods are not uncommon when it rains like that - it's one reason that flood insurance is required where we live. In the four years we've been in our house, we haven't had any flooding yet, but we are on the "100 Year Flood Plain" - let's just hope the 1-in-100 doesn't happen while we live there.