A one sentence review, after viewing The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Why did we need another Forrest Gump in which Brad Pitt reprised his character from Meet Joe Black?

Justifiable Homicide

*

One of the stipulations for getting to live in this big (mostly) empty house is that Dan and I agreed to help my mom out with some of the major projects that need to be accomplished to make the house sale- or rentable. Since we had no furniture, internet, or television for the first week+ we were here, we spent most of our time working on the first big project, which was to paint my sister's old bedroom. Somehow, back in the early '00s, my mom took leave of her senses and let my sister paint her bedroom red with black trim. The worst part is that the large built-in book case/desk units in the room were also black, which meant a lot of small fiddly painting, and because the room was mostly red and black, we knew that it wasn't a matter of just a simple coat of paint.




Before...

We knew it was a big job, so we decided to consult an expert. A friend of mine worked for an independent paint store for many years, and knows more about paint and the paint business than anyone else I've ever met. I sent her an email describing the situation and asking for recommendations and advice, and she wrote me a novel in response that outlined all of our options and choices, with helpful commentary. The first thing we had to do when we got here was to check how many layers of paint were on the walls, since I knew there were at least three and maybe as many as 7 or 8, depending on how many times it had been painted since the last time it was stripped. (The house is pretty old, with at least 3 owners prior to my mom, so it was possible that we'd have lots and lots of old paint to deal with.) My friend had given me a plethora of options for paint stripping, so we were prepared to have the room closed off for many days while waiting for a stripper to do its job. When we did a bit of chipping away, however, we discovered some faux wood paneling on some of the walls covered with three layers of paint, so we knew stripping wouldn't be necessary.


Giant ball of used tape!

The second thing we did was to go to the Ace Hardware in town, where my mom said was a list of all of the various paint colors she'd used in the house in the past 20-odd years she's been here. We decided to use the same color on the walls in the bedroom as in the hallway and living room ("Powdery mist", aka a light tan color) and all the trim in the same color ("linen") as the trim in the whole rest of the house. My friend had told me that if we didn't need to strip the paint, we would for sure need stain-blocking primer to help cover the black and red, and Ace was kind enough to tint it for us to match the color we'd eventually paint.

So once we'd bought the tape our friend recommended ("The green stuff is cheaper and if your project is going to last a week or less, don't bother buying the blue stuff") and taped everything off and put down plastic, we began by priming all the red walls and all the black trim. And then we started on the first black built-in. Only a few minutes into our project, it was clear that Laurel was going to have to die for her sins. Painting every surface of every cubbyhole in that built-in was absolute torture - we had to do it all by hand, sharing the same bucket of primer, Dan doing the above bits (and only getting a little bit on my head), me doing the below bits (and cursing at the tedium).



2 coats of primer on walls, one coat of primer on built-in



Trim primer'd, walls/built-ins painted


It was toward the end of the first coat of primer on the first built-in that we began to plot our revenge. And then we started on the second built-in, which has a desk and an underside that I had to lay on my back to reach, while primer dripped on my face, and the murderous fantasies began.


Walls painted, trim primer'd

We ended up doing two coats of primer on everything, to ensure we wouldn't have to use a ton of (more expensive) paint, and then we did two coats of paint. So we painted each and every one of those built-ins over and over and over and by the last time, we had all kinds of elaborate torture situations dreamed up, and decided that my mom and the friend who helped her paint deserved horrible, horrible death as well. Finally, after working on it for several hours a day together, we finished the last touch-ups on the trim five days later.








After!

*Dan wrote the above poem using the fridge poetry. It really says everything that needs to be said about the sucketry of the paint project.

So how is Petra?

Monkey asked a few days ago how Petra was (in response to my "things I am thankful for" post, I believe, where I wrote "healthy pets").

The thanks I was giving was for Loki being healthy. Petra is still sick, and while we have been treating her for a serious e.coli infection, which it's possible it's all she has (and if that is the case, she'll have cheated death 3 times!), it's not likely. She's rallied a bit and put some weight back on now that we've been giving her lots of wet food and kitty treats. The past few days it's been cold, and Petra never acts like she feels very good when it's cold outside. She's always been kind of standoffish in the winter; we think the cold makes her stump hurt. So it is difficult to tell how much of it is that and how much is that she doesn't feel good because she's sick.

We have been continuing to give her subcutaneous fluids and antibiotics and a potassium goop shot into her mouth via large syringe (which she Does Not Like), and recently added a 1/4 tablet of Pepcid AC to help keep her stomach feeling OK so she doesn't puke up as much water. There has still been some troubling behavior, and she finishes the current round of antibiotics on Wednesday, so that's when she'll be going back in to the vet for a recheck.

There is a test that will tell us definitively whether or not Petra has cancer. It is very, very expensive and invasive and is something we just aren't willing to put her through. Because if she does have it, all we'd do is continue what we are doing. And if she doesn't, she'll get better.

The in-between is really frustrating, though. Our holiday travel plans (which we hoped would include going out to California for Wombat's birthday and staying through Christmas) are still on hold until we know more for sure. Neither of us wants to leave a very sick kitty, even with offers of assistance that have come from more than one place. If she doesn't have much longer, we want her to be in her own space and stressed as little as possible, not upset that her humans are gone or being in someone else's space.

I'm desperately homesick right now; we haven't been to California since May (the longest I've ever gone since moving here) and I miss my family and our friends in California fiercely. I am going to be so, so incredibly sad if we can't go for Christmas. And I feel guilty that I'm thinking about that rather than thinking about what is best for Petra. But damn, it's really hard for me right now. Good thoughts appreciated. And for any of you reading this who might reasonably expect a knitted gift from me this year, know that Petra seems to be infusing them with extra love and attention. The past two days she's been curled up in my knitting and it may never look the same.

Petra: likes and dislikes

Things Petra likes:
Dan


Sunny spots
Warm spots
Catnip
The water from a can of tuna
one particular brand/flavor of kitty treats
very small pieces of turkey bacon (sometimes)
being held
being held like a baby by Dan
throw rugs (for flopping upon)
being petted backwards
having her left ear scritched (she doesn't have the left back leg, so she can't scratch her left ear!)
licking plastic (mmmm, plastic)



sitting in unusually shaped containers
warm soft things, especially if they smell like Dan


playing in bags
playing in boxes
sitting on paper
string toys


snuggling with Loki
warm days
watching squirrels and birds on The Kitty Show (aka when the back door is open or when she climbs up in a window)


the blue chair
cushions
moths, mostly to meesh at, sometimes to hunt
reflections or flashlight or penlight on the wall


bathing Loki's head for him
seeing what Dan is doing at the kitchen counter or sink (I hold her up for this)
sniffing flowers and greens
sniffing things in general
fresh water


drinking out of the glasses that the humans are using


the bird that lives at Dan's parents' house




Things Petra tolerates:
Me
being held like a baby by me
dancing around the kitchen with me
being bossed around by Loki


Things Petra Does Not Like:
Taking pills
being jabbed with a needle every day
Flying Kitty
cold weather
being sat upon by Loki
when Loki bites her stump
when her stump has phantom limb pain
the cat carrier
riding in the car, especially on the highway
when there are no rugs to flop on
loud barking doggies
sitting on laps (she seriously Will Not Do This unless she is scared shitless)
sitting on most furniture
being on our bed

Legacy, but not the good kind

Neck and back problems run in my family, so much so that my uncle became a chiropractor because of the pain he saw his mother (my grandmother) go through. My mom has had neck/back issues her entire adult life, and my sister had back problems starting in childhood. My first back/neck injury occurred when I was in high school, at a swim meet, somehow managing to mess things up during a flip turn. I saw a local chiro for months after that and was forced to wear my backpack on both shoulders (so uncool!) It acted up again during my first job in college, shelving library books, so much so that I was unable to get out of bed some days. Over the years, I've had twinges here and there, but then three years ago, I was in a car accident. A stupid kid rear-ended me at a stoplight. I got whiplash, work paid for me to see a doctor and a chiropractor for a while. I dutifully did all of the things the chiro told me to do to rehabilitate my neck and shoulder. Despite this, my neck has yet to heal fully and every so often it'll suddenly get all stupid whiplashy again, which sucks because a) it hurts a lot, b) sometimes it resolves itself on its own but other times I have to go back to the chiro and pay for it my own self, and c) it keeps me from doing things I want to do. Like hike 14ers, which we have still yet to do this summer.

Our weekend had no plans, and turned out to be spectacularly uneventful because I couldn't even comfortably go throw a frisbee around in the park. Sitting, standing, walking, and (especially lying down) hurt. Our biggest weekend accomplishments turned out to be going grocery shopping and walking to the Mayan theater to see 500 Days of Summer (which I really liked, at least enough to be thinking/talking about it the whole walk home). I spent Saturday in a small-to-medium amount of pain and Sunday in a pretty serious amount of pain, which was alleviated to some extent by walking in the sun to and from the movie.

But while it was a nice long walk, it wasn't nearly enough. We started out the summer taking hikes every weekend, but recently it seems as though there is always something else to do or something (like my stupid neck) getting in the way of our adventures. I spent all last week traveling around the state and was only reminded further how many awesome things there are to do here, especially this time of year. I feel sluggish and some amount of despair, because not only does my neck hurt but that means I can't do my normal routine, let alone tackle a crazy weekend hike. It's been far too long since I played with my camera or posted any photos.

I get to see the chiropractor tomorrow. I hope one visit takes care of the current problem and that next weekend's adventure is a go.

Where I was

Last week, we had some friends over for dinner on Wednesday night who are moving from Colorado to California, and they brought their 2.5 year-old son who spent most of the evening chasing the kitties around, declaring "Kitty!" as the kitties ran away, confused about this small monster who smelled like and resembled a human but was surely way too small to be one. He liked the magnetic letters on our fridge and insisted on having a drink that looked just like the mojitos the adults were drinking, which I served him in the only plastic cup we have, which is covered in horse holograms from Churchill Downs in Louisville.

We enjoyed dinner, especially spending time with our friends, and bemused at their reactions to and apologies for their son's behavior; he was actually very well-behaved and acted like I would expect a two-year-old to act, but I think since they knew we aren't around little kids very much that it might be kind of weird for us. Luckily we like them and we like him and all went very well.

The next day, Scarlett came back to town in order to look for an apartment and get some last-minute things settled for her upcoming move to Denver for grad school. Her boyfriend joined her this time, and we spent the weekend showing them around and cheering when Scarlett found just the right place and signed the lease (only half a block from our place!) and eating pub food and ice cream. In the middle of their visit, I had to fly to Durango for work (flew down Sunday night, flew back Monday after a day-long training). The trip to Durango was short and relatively uneventful: I had breakfast at(and bought coffee beans for Dan from) Carver's; I had dinner at a fantastic Himalayan (Indian/Nepali/Tibetan) restaurant. I stayed in the Strater Hotel though my room didn't resemble a brothel but rather perhaps the vomit of a wedding cake. Our training was over in plenty of time for our afternoon flight, but something kept our plane overly long in Denver and it was really hot, so despite the plane being not even close to full there were some sort of weight restriction issues that I didn't fully understand and we were told that five adults had to volunteer to take a bump to the next flight or the plane couldn't take off. Since I live in Denver, I volunteered. I got a $200 flight voucher and got to sit in the airport for an extra few hours, which was OK once I got the free wireless to work. I got home a lot later than expected and didn't get to spend as much time with Scar and Jason as I would have liked, but that evening we played a game Dan got for graduation called Zauber Cocktail which was super fun, and we all went to bed late, and I called in late for work on Tuesday.

Tuesday evening Dan drove up to Glenwood Springs with me for my Wednesday training, and we had more pub food and stayed at the Hotel Colorado, which (as I've mentioned before) is supposed to be haunted, but the only unusual thing we noticed was the lack of cool air in our room. Man, was it hot. We got up early so we could have breakfast at the place we like and on the way back up to our fourth floor room my neck suddenly took a giant crap, right before I had to start my training. After that was over, we drove back and got home at a reasonable hour, but my neck was still killing me and remains so.

I have one more training to do, which is tomorrow in Denver. The upside is that no travel is required. The downside is that there will be more than 60 people there. I'm used to training groups of 15-30, so 60+ is going to be a challenge. Wish me luck, internet.

Yet another tale of camera woe, plus, what we did in California

First, a short tale of woe: I lost another camera. It fell out of my backpack as I was walking to work last Thursday. I'd had it in the small pocket at the bottom, where my phone charger also was, from traveling (normally it would have been in a larger pocket). I pulled out the charger on Wednesday night and forgot to zip the pocket back up, and completely forgot the camera was in there as I walked to work on Thursday. In fact, I didn't notice until noon when I planned to upload my photos from the trip and blog about them.

Dan looked everywhere at home. It wasn't there. All the photos I took in California, plus the camera itself: gone again. I put up signs on Thursday afternoon along my route back home. I went into or called everyplace that I thought someone might have taken the camera to (the Capitol, a middle school) if they found it outside. On Friday I called pawn shops and filed a police report. No dice.

So once again we went on a trip and I took a whole bunch of amazing photos that are now gone forever. Also, I went online to find another camera (I wanted the same one, a Canon Powershot A720 IS, because I really liked it). When I bought it in March of 08 it was about $200. Now, to buy the same camera new, it's over $400! Ridiculous! Even the slightly used/refurbished models were over $200 on most sites. So I looked on Ebay and found the camera and bid on it and won! My first ever ebay auction, and I was the winner! I should be getting the camera by some time next week (I hope).

Meanwhile, I don't think I'm a talented-enough storyteller to amuse the 4 readers of this blog with tales of our California trip. I will say that it was the most relaxed trip we'd had to the Golden State since sometime in 2006. There were no parties we had to plan, no weddings to plan or attend, no graduations. I got to eat the baby as much as I wanted, and watched what may be the best movie ever made about reform school girls with Leah and Simon. We became rock gods via Guitar Hero World Tour (Me: singing, drums. Dan: guitar) with the Irish German. We attended a 30th birthday party at a great pub in Berkeley. We got to see lots of friends and family members and spent hours lazing outside at another great pub. We ate greasy burgers/burger-like items, Ethiopian food, gelato, noodles, and microwave burritos. We experienced the newly-refurbished and -reopened Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, and saw everything but the planetarium. My knee mostly behaved. I learned I am terrible at darts. And we got to hang out with my friend Patient Zero Matt from the old message board, which was totally awesome because we hadn't seen each other in five years! The best part was when the three of us went to (yet another) pub to meet up with Scarlett at the end of an evening, and it turned out Scarlett and her boyfriend Jason knew Matt from attending the wedding of some mutual friends. Craziness, and small world.

I can recreate some of the shots I took some other time when we're in California (mostly they were of the UC Berkeley campus and the new Academy of Sciences), but it's just not the same thing. I took some great ones. I hope someone, somewhere, gets enjoyment out of them.

Two steps forward, one step back

I've been enjoying this whole "playing on a softball team" experience, as it's something I've never really done before. I did ballet as a child and never participated in any team sports (other than what I was required to do in PE). In high school, I was on a summer community swim team, but swimming is far more of an individual sport than a team sport. I've never been a part of team cameraderie, worn a team shirt, or had the opportunity to care how other people did in a physical activity. But the practices and the games we've had thus far (at least, the 2 I've been able to attend, having been sick last week) have been a lot of fun.

Someone told me recently that adult softball is the sport most likely to cause injury. Yesterday was one of those days where I felt like a newspaper headline come to life. First, a teammate caught a ball with his hand rather than his glove, and the stitching on the ball sliced open the skin between two fingers. He was one of our best players, so it was a real injury to the team. Then, I hit a grounder toward first, ended up avoiding the first baseman and got to first base safely, only to somehow end up doing a partial split and messing up my knee.

At first I was kind of in shock. I couldn't get up. My knee wouldn't move. And then it started hurting. I've never had any knee injuries before (hips, ankles, neck, shoulder, back, and calf, but no knee) so I wasn't sure what I was feeling or what I had done. I iced it until Dan came to pick me up using the bag of ice from the other team's cooler, sitting in a daze, trying to cheer on my team and razz the other team while trying not to think of exactly what a bad knee injury would mean. I'm still getting over a bad cold, have only been to the gym once in the last ten days, my clothes still aren't fitting right and I'm starting to feel depressed about it. And then I go and hurt my knee.

We went home and I put my leg up on the couch, took some aleve and iced my knee some more. It started taking a little more weight so I had hope that when I woke up this morning it would be fine. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It's not as painful as yesterday and not swollen, so those are good things. I have it wrapped under my pants and I can walk slowly and with a limp. It hurts the most when I straighten it and put weight on or when I bend it too far. It crunches a little. I'm going to take it easy today, put it up when I get home, and hope for the best. I gotta say, I'm a little tired of sustaining injuries to my limbs prior to trips. We're headed to California this weekend to attend a friend's birthday party and hang out with our friends and our internet nephew, Wombat. Keep your fingers crossed that I'll be feeling OK to walk on it normally by Saturday.

Two parties and a graduation, part 2: Nobody in the world has a mortarboard like this one

When we last left our heroes, one of them was up at 2 AM after his graduation party, expelling all of the contents of his digestive system.

This continued throughout the night. I got up at 7:30 AM in order to prepare for the morning's event, which was a belated Mother's Day brunch we'd invited my family and Dan's parents to (because how often are our moms in the same state at the same time? Not very often!). They were scheduled to arrive at 10 AM in order to have enough time for brunch and also to get to Dan's graduation early enough to get good seats. I baked Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble, and while that was in the oven I prepared everything for a quiche with asparagus, mushrooms, onions, turkey sausage, and smoked gouda/Irish Dubliner cheese. I removed the crumble and put in the quiche, and prepared the broccoli slaw. In between everything, Dan was getting up from the bed to go spend time in the bathroom. He looked like death. I've actually only seen him that sick once before - when he had food poisoning several years ago.

I was in the middle of the fruit salad, after having enlisted Dan's help in moving the furniture around yet again (he also made coffee because I don't know how), getting down and setting out the silver and dishes, and putting the linens on the table, when everyone showed up. They were all dressed up for the graduation. I hated to break the news that unfortunately, the graduation was not going to happen. Dan could hardly even stand, let alone was he up for sitting for several hours waiting to cross a stage. Everyone was really sad, but I took bagel orders and set out toasted bagels. My sisters helped me find glasses for everyone, set out ice water in a pitcher, and the families entertained each other again while I set out the food and finished the fruit salad (strawberries, blackberries, kiwi and halved red grapes).

We all sat down to eat. Everything turned out well, and the conversation seemed to flow, while avoiding to the extent possible the elephant in the room - that the main event everyone had come for was not going to happen. When we finished eating, I excused myself to take a shower and change (having not had the opportunity to do so yet) while people relaxed. When I got out, my sisters were washing the dishes (!) and I served the strawberry rhubarb crumble, which was absolutely fantastic. Dan's parents left with their folding chairs and my family amused themselves by making Dan a mortarboard out of cardboard from the recycling bin, some yarn left over from his sweater, and a black sharpie.

Laurel got tired in the middle of coloring the top of the cap black, so she wrote Black. Then she wrote Negro (black in Spanish). Then she looked up how to write black in other languages and wrote them around the hat part of the mortarboard. My mom finished the tassel and attached it with tape, and we all went into our bedroom, placing the mortarboard on Dan's head and humming Pomp and Circumstance. I think he was a little bewildered, but eventually got the joke and took it in stride. I present to you all, a unique mortarboard made with love.

We pretty much all agreed that the only thing Dan had eaten that other people hadn't in the days preceeding was his meal at Sam's #3 (he had corned beef hash and biscuits/gravy). I called the restaurant to let them know he had eaten there the day before and what he ate, to allow them a chance to pull anything that had gone bad. The guy was pretty much a complete jerk on the phone and told me that it was probably the flu. Um, no. 14 hours after his meal, he was violently ill for hours, after feeling perfectly fine. And then that evening he was significantly better. Not the flu. We'll never eat there again.

My family decided to go back to the hotel and change in order to go on a light hike around the Red Rocks area. We hiked up about 1/4 mile of the trail, just to give them a taste of the mountains (foothills, really) and then went up to the Red Rocks Ampitheatre. Here are a few of the photos I took during the hike.





They drove me home and Curtis and Lissa drove my mom and Laurel to the airport. That evening, they came back over and we went out to eat at an Irish pub nearby. Dan even managed a few bites of soup. We hung out for a while afterward, but everyone was exhausted so they left around 10:30.

I took Monday off. I was completely out of steam and needed a day to recover from my weekend and the extremely stressful previous week. Lissa and Curtis came by to have a light breakfast and say goodbye. Dan felt a lot better, but still wasn't up for eating much. We spent the day being lazy, doing girly errands (he took me to the yarn store and the shoe store! We also stocked up on spices at Penzey's), and I ended up taking a much-needed hour-long nap. It was finally all over. I'm so glad my family finally came to visit after so many years, bummed Dan didn't get to walk in his graduation (and nobody got to see him do it), and so glad that it's behind me.

So that's the story of two parties and a (non) graduation. The unexpected happened, the parties went over well, and on Friday I'll write about all the food I made.

Boulder or Vegas?

Despite it being late spring and the weather having finally (FINALLY) warmed up, somehow I managed to come down with someone's nasty cold (no idea who, but tons more people at work are sick too) on Saturday and spent Sunday and Monday feeling like utter shite. This is not a good time for me to be sick, as I have a lot of actual work to do at work (!), a bunch of side stuff going on (like volunteer stuff, softball team, etc.) AND this weekend is Graduation weekend. In which my family is coming to town (my mom is the only one in my family, besides my cousin, who has visited since I moved here in January of 2003) to attend the multiple parties and the graduation, and we'll have the largest gathering of people in our house ever (20+!) and I have a brazillian things to do before everyone gets here.

I highly doubt it's H1N1, aka the swine flu, since it's essentially a bad cold plus fever. (Although I just looked at the CDC website and I have at least half of the symptoms of H1N1. Yay?) I have only had the actual flu (influenza) 2 or 3 times in my life and it completely wipes me out beyond functioning. This is just a bad cold.

But it got me to thinking about, you know, Steven King's The Stand and the possibility of a huge portion of the world's population dying and if that happened what would I do? (Assuming I survived, of course). I'm not a huge fan of King's work but I really like The Stand, especially the extended edition. I hated the made-for-TV movie version (don't see it, it's TERRIBLE) when we got it from Netflix several years ago, but I re-read the book every year or so. Since I live in Colorado, I'm pretty familiar with the terrain for a good chunk of the story, as (for those who haven't read it) survivors of a manmade superflu end up congregating in either Boulder (the good guys/luddites) or Vegas (the bad guys/techies). I won't get into how it happens or why, but there are some memorable scenes that take place in well-known Colorado locations (a scene at the Eisenhower tunnel always flashes through my head whenever we drive west on I70, for example).

Every time I re-read the book, I think about what I would do in a similar situation, dealing with the deaths of most of (if not all) my friends and loved ones, figuring out how to survive the urban jungle, and would I be a good guy or a bad guy? I know I wouldn't want to go to Vegas in particular; it would be too hot and dry to try to get there via bike or on foot. Boulder's only 35 miles to the Northwest. I'm far to lazy to bike or walk all the way to Nevada. Boulder it is. Guess I'm a good guy by default.

Second Harvest

Did you hear about the lady who got a court order to preserve her murdered son's body so she could harvest his sperm?

!

And why did she want the sperm? So she could use it to impregnate a surrogate and get some grandbabies.

!

As someone who is interested in reproductive issues in general, I find the ethical dilemmas surrounding fertility and parenthood to be endlessly fascinating. I even wrote about it once after reading a (kind of old) book on the subject. Sadly, this is not the first I've heard of someone wanting to harvest the sperm of a dead son in order to get grandchildren. When I read this news story, I was a bit taken aback for a while, and had to figure out what I thought about it. My reaction (in this order) was:

shock
disgust
pity for the potential grandchild
pity for the dead kid

In no part of my reaction did the feeling of "This is a great idea!" come up. I'm sorry, but violating your child's dead body in order to possibly carry on your genetic line is NOT OK. It's just not. Even if you have tons of money and resources to throw at a surrogate and a child, what gives you the right to bring a person into the world who's got one dead parent and one stranger for a parent? All to appease the sensibility of a neurotic grandparent? No. It's not OK. It's not ok to take the sperm from someone who never consented, or to take eggs from someone who never consented, and make a new person who is going to be born into a psychological mess.

The way I see it is that you get your own shot to make kids. If you have kids, and they don't end up having kids (for whatever reason - they die, they don't want kids, they can't have kids, whatever), TOO BAD. You raise children to become adults who make their own decisions about whether or not to reproduce. You are not automatically entitled to grandchildren, even if medical science will allow it.

Does this woman know whether or not her son would have wanted children? I know ultimately it shouldn't matter, since after he died what was his body just became a collection of cells. I am glad the woman opted to donate her son's organs so that other people can have better lives. I am NOT glad that the courts decided she should be allowed to take his sperm in order to make grandchildren for her.

I've heard of similar situations, where the significant other of a dead/dying man wishes to harvest his sperm in order to have his child. I find that to be kind of bothersome as well, but at least there was theoretically a decision made by the couple beforehand, or some discussion, as to whether or not to have children. I can understand wanting to have a living reminder of a dead partner. But once you're a generation removed, I'm sorry, but no dice. No person's DNA is indispensible enough that it should be postumously used to fuel someone's desire for grandchildren.

If you're really that desperate to have grandchildren, have you ever heard of this program called Big Brothers Big Sisters? Or considered becoming a foster parent? Or doing some other sort of service work with children who need parental figures? Because there are a heck of a lot of kids out there that need people like that already. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved. This, on the other hand? This I can only see as lose. It's lose for the dead guy (who didn't get to have any reproductive choice). It's lose for the potential child who will never know his or her parents. And it's lose for the grandparent who, lets be honest here, is grieving over losing her own child and is just looking to replace him with an updated model.

So, lady who just harvested her son's sperm in order to get grandbabies, to you I say: FAIL. You are wrong. This is not OK.

An expensive year for fruit

Once these were new baby green leaves. Now they are dead.

Yesterday I was in a bad mood. One of those grumpy funks that you get into once in a while, the sort of thing that you feel like you need to get away from everything in order to get back to your normal, evenly-tempered self. By 4:15 I hadn't taken a lunch break so I decided to go home, change my clothes, and go out for a walk rather than hamstering away yet again in the smelly gym.

I changed into a bright red zip-up hooded sweatshirt and one of two pairs of jeans I currently own that a) fit, and b) don't have holes in them*. I decided on what we'd have for dinner, made a mental list of needed grocery items, and put a bag in my pocket (reuse is good). And I headed out the door and up the street, looking for signs of spring, for anything to help me feel better about the world and my life and all that crap.

Usually, this time of year there are things blooming. This year, not so much - everything started blooming a week ago, right before our big snow storm. Then everything got frozen in the storm. The flowers that were buds during the storm? Dead. The flowers that bloomed right after? Daffodils, especially, faced the ground all bent over under the remembered weight of heavy wet snow, despite the sun. I got to the park and walked around the perimeter, trying to get my heart rate up while keeping an eye out for things to photograph. I saw a stuffed lamb in a tree (a beanie baby, maybe?) and a few daffodils that weren't actually touching the ground. I shot the one plant/tree/bush that looked like it had actually put out some green in the past week (most of the new growth on everything had been frozen and turned to brown or yellow crispness). I shot a tree that looked dead against the gorgeous blue spring sky. And as I headed out of the park and down the street to the grocery store, I found a tree that hadn't budded before the storm, though some of the paperthin baby green leaves had charred-looking edges.


Stranded toy



Just about the only green in the park. Note the curled edges.


Someday this tree will have leaves on it again.


Note the buds, the fresh leaves, and the brown edges.

As I was walking home from the store, I shot this:

1990 called, it wants its mall hair back.

And remember the photos in this post and then here?


Same tree as the last two times

I took this photo on my way to work this morning. As you can see, the flowers are dead. There was no time for anything to be pollinated. Dan told me he heard the trees on the western slope (where most of Colorado's produce is grown: peaches, plums, etc.) were budding before the storm, and most of the flowers died. This is going to be an expensive year for fruit in Colorado.

*Then, last night, the jeans developed a hole. Guess I'm going jeans shopping this weekend.

Tying it up

1. Once upon a time, I asked for suggestions on how to use my Aveda gift certificate, which was due to expire in early March. I got a lot of good feedback, and still wasn't sure what to do, and then we had dinner with Julie and Steve. They're going to a wedding on the East Coast this weekend and Julie talked about how she really wanted a haircut and highlights done before they left. They've fallen on some tough times (as have a lot of people, because duh) and I offered to let her use my gift certificate to get that stuff done at the Aveda Institute. She was all over that, and when we went in yesterday to set it up they told us they weren't taking any more appointments for the day. Denied! The girl extended the expiration on my gift certificate and Julie's mom offered to pay for her haircut so now I'm back to where I started.

2. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I'm going to LA this weekend to attend the 30th birthday of Oldest Friend. Because it's a ball I wanted to find a fancy dress or something otherwise appropriate to the occasion, and did a lot of looking around online and in regular stores. I found some actual, no shit ball gowns in a store in the racetrack mall (the store is called FT Casuals yet there's nothing casual in the store); they sell prom and quincenera and wedding dresses and hooker shoes, and lots of dresses in the store could have worked for my purposes but a) they were all kinda oogly, and b) I still wasn't willing to spend that much on a dress. I tried a few costume stores, thinking I could find something vintage or something I could alter but didn't have much luck. So I called her up and asked if I could wear the dress she wore as my Best Woman - when I made the dress, I made it to fit me because I knew it would fit her; we're the same size. She said yes! So, that being solved, I went about Project Gloves. My first stop was Claire's, thinking that it's prom season and they'd have them if anyone did. Nope, all they had were bright-colored fishnet gauntlets and tacky black lace Madonna gloves. I went on a wild goose chase into 3 other stores to no avail. I guess the girls aren't wearing the formal gloves no mo. My mom has several pairs that belonged to her mother but they're in northern California and I needed some for this weekend; no time to get them to me. Luckily, I mentioned my predicament to Julie because I figured she might have some, having been in about 8 gazillion formal expensive East Coast weddings over the years. "I've never been asked to wear gloves in a wedding," she told me, "but I inherited a giant box of gloves from my grandmother." Her wealthy, New York Jewish grandmother. Who attended umpteen formal functions over the years. I went over to her place and we went through the piles of gloves (and a few hats). Oh. My. There were leather and kid gloves of all lengths and colors (even blue!), there were forearm-length fabric ruched bright yellow and bright orange. There were simple, short ones, black and white, with intricate beading. Many of the gloves had obviously never been worn, since they had the tags still attached and cardboard inserts. It was a fun glove-trying-on party and I'm borrowing four pairs (one black velvet elbow-length, two white kid (different lengths), and one gray forearm-length) to see which ones look best when I have the whole outfit put together. I'll be wearing silver or black shoes, a mask also borrowed from Oldest Friend, and one of four different wraps. Oh yes, there will be photos!

3. I have one project at 95% completion that you'll get to see on Monday and another at about 90% that you'll get to see after I mail it to Jive Turkey. I want them to be surprises, so no peeking this time!

4. Please, think good thoughts for me. My cold took a turn for the worse last night and I woke up this morning with some new symptoms (sore, constricted throat, dizziness - maybe my inner ear is affected?) - a relapse, or have I gotten another cold on top of the one I had? Either way, I ended up going home early from work and napping for some of the afternoon and may not go in tomorrow, just to rest up for my plane trip. I get to stay with Monkey and spend time with Oldest Friend and attend a ball and eat homemade Indian food and I don't want to be sick! No more sick!

Near-Death Experience

Pre-birth: During labor, I get stuck on my mom's bone structure somewhere up in there. They use a forceps to get me out. Had it been 100 years earlier, I probably wouldn't have survived.

Birth-5: Due to a proclivity of putting things in my mouth, I scared the crap out of my parents on numerous occasions (did she just swallow a nail?) and was the subject of multiple trips to the emergency room for x-rays. Also, this one time I was riding on my dad's shoulders and he tripped and fell and I fell off and had the wind knocked out of me but they didn't know if I had a broken neck or anything so there was another trip to the ER.

Age 5-17: None that I can remember. I had an awful flu one year and probably had a mild concussion at one point but never even ended up in the hospital.

Age 17: Nearly hit by a bus in Berkeley coming home from campus (the bus ran a red light).

Age 18-21: Nearly hit by multiple vehicles on multiple occasions in Berkeley (generally, red-light runners).

Age 21-28: Nearly hit by multiple vehicles on multiple occasions in the Bay Area and in Denver (generally, red-light runners and people who don't watch for pedestrians).

Age 29: This morning, along with several other people, I was nearly mowed down in a crosswalk by a driver who ran a REALLY REALLY red light. As in, the walk sign had already turned for us, every other car had stopped, and several people had already started crossing through the crosswalk. He had 2 small children in the car and didn't even appear to care that he'd nearly killed at least 3 people. Bastard.

Internet, I ask you once again: is it really that hard to watch out for people who are walking near where you are driving? Is getting to your destination 30 seconds earlier really worth almost killing people, not to mention endangering your own progeny?

Poo-ish

I have succumbed to my annual January cold, and so was out sick all yesterday. I came in to work for a few hours just to wade through my email (darn this no internets at home thing!) but I'll be leaving shortly and going home for a nap.

There's nothing to say about being sick except it sucks. At least it's not 3 infections at once, like last year.

We saw Slumdog Millionaire (finally) over the weekend. It was awesome. And I found 4 new pairs of shoes for less than 80 bucks. Including a pair of boots that fit over my calves! (barely)

It's not funny anymore

I hurt my neck in a car accident in June of 2006.

I hurt my neck again last December when I slipped and fell on our back stairs. And again in yoga class a few times. And had some sort of stress-related reaction in the same spot right before the wedding. I hurt it again right before my sister's wedding. And again in another yoga class, so I stopped taking yoga.

It had been a few months. I was back up to my previous weights in my weights classes, and was feeling pretty good.

Then, this morning it had dropped more than 30 degrees overnight, plus it sleeted a little, and I slipped on the back stairs again. I didn't actually fall down because I caught myself but boy howdy did I immediately feel it in that same spot in my neck.

I walked with my gym buddy at lunch, and felt a little better after that, but now my aleve has worn off and I am grumpy. I want to yell at my neck, but that doesn't seem to do any good.

Things I dreamed about last night that I hope never to dream about again

1. Breastfeeding someone else's baby. WTF?

2. Getting an itemized bill at my work from someone who decided to charge me for commenting on my blog.

3. My family getting injured in a fiery flatbed accident.

4. My mom deciding not to put up Christmas decorations.

I didn't mind the part about modeling (like in ANTM) for someone with a camera, partially nude, with props like my cat's tail. It was all artsy and black and white anyhow.

Totally random things that I really really hate

1. Those creepy flappy blown up arm waving thingies that they have at car dealerships and store grand openings. They scare the crap out of me.

2. The band Rush.

3. That the phone company never seems to actually send me the rebate they owe me when I buy a new phone.

4. When I'm in the middle of knitting something and I get to a part of the yarn where they HAVE TIED A KNOT IN THE YARN AND IT IS NOT CONTINUOUS, which usually results in me having to either start over or un-knit (tink) the whole row.

5. That someone apparently stole my ipod which was my Christmas present from Dan.

Because boob touching before marriage is SICK AND WRONG

Saturday was a day of colors: of gray, overcast fall skies; of flaming orange and red and golden trees as we drove up into the foothills; rivers of shimmering gold aspens catching the intermittent sunlight amongst the dark evergreens. I was kicking myself all afternoon for forgetting my camera. Then, because Dan's parents were out of town we got to use their tickets to the CU-Texas football game. The walk up to the campus was all black and gold (CU) and muted rusty orange (Texas), and someone had put bright yellow-gold t-shirts in the stands, particularly in the student section. Thus, halfway through the (terrible, awful) game, I looked across the stands and noticed the same colors I'd seen earlier: patches of gold amongst darker color. (Some took advantage of the shirts by throwing them down on the field to protest plays or outcomes they didn't like; the shirts were the same color as a yellow flag). I hadn't been to a college football game since maybe 2000, and the games I attended while I was in college helped me discover some of my migraine triggers (loud unrelenting noise, humans screaming, the acoustics of such in a stadium). I'll never sit in the student section at a game again.

But I digress. While I wasn't impressed with the way CU played (it was really, really unimpressive) or with the CU band (I think I'm spoiled by Cal's band, which was always great), I was impressed with the blowup doll that was tossed around by students and made its way onto the sidelines at one point, at which time the CU mascot put one of the tossed t-shirts on her. And I didn't see what happened to her then, though I'm sure she is living a long happy life in a pasture somewhere. Equally impressive was the running of the CU buffalo at the start of the first and third quarters when the team came out. They have a real, live young female buffalo that gets run around the field, surrounded by 8 or 10 handlers, and she runs right into a trailer. Apparently she's replaced every few years because each one grows up and gets mean. And then she gets to go live a long happy life in a pasture somewhere.

We had good intentions for the remainder of the weekend, but our errands took far longer than expected so the only room that got cleaned was the bedroom (which, admittedly, probably needed it the most). I counted over forty books next to my side of the bed and another 20+ on my nightstand, which are all now back on bookshelves where they belong, and we definitely need more bookshelves or to sell a bunch of books or something, because we are bursting at the seams with all our books. We also bought a vaccuum because the one some friends gave us when we moved into our current place never worked well and recently hasn't worked at all. Is it funny that buying a vaccuum made me feel more Old and Married than getting married did?

Monday I spent running around like a chicken with my head cut off at work, trying to get everything finished (copies collated and folders stuffed and emails returned, follow-up calls, you know, all that stuff) before heading up to my first training in Glenwood Springs. I left work an hour later than I'd planned so I got to Glenwood right at six, with no time to stop and take photos of the most amazing fall color I've ever seen in Colorado. Vail pass was just incredible, as I was driving through with the afternoon sun hitting the mountains covered in bright gold aspen just at the right time. It quite literally took my breath away, and I really wished I hadn't been driving so I could have just basked in its beauty. Maybe it's like that every year, but I've never driven that way this early in the fall (usually the aspens have already dropped trou by the time I'm getting up there) and so never seen anything quite like it. People say that the northeast has the best fall color, but I'll put Colorado's aspens up against their maples any day of the week.

I spent the evening with Dan's cousin and her husband who live in the area and were kind enough to entertain me for a few hours. I got slobbered on by some dogs and mostly ignored by a cat, saw photos from their wedding four years ago and talked a little politics and a little wine. When I got back to my hotel, I took a warm shower and got into bed, thinking I'd fall asleep right away. But that's never the case when I'm away from home, particularly when I'm staying in a hotel rumored to be haunted (it was a sanitarium and a hospital at various times in its life), and my eyes were dry and red as I watched my first ever episode of the Duggar show on TLC or whichever channel that plays on. In said episode, Oldest JimBob Jr. (age 20) flew to Florida to ask some chick he liked (also age 20) to marry him. Notice I didn't say girlfriend, because they weren't dating (apparently, in the Duggarverse you're only supposed to start dating/"courting" once you've already committed to marrying someone). Of course, he asked her father's permission first, and he met her with her parents at a restaurant with a whole bunch of balloons and, of course, a camera crew. Nothing says "special" like balloons. So she said yes, took off her purity ring, put on the engagement ring, and they shared an awkward sideways hug. No full frontal contact, since that would be too intimate. And of course, no kiss (they spent the rest of the episode talking about how they were saving that for the wedding day). The two drove back to Alabama together, chaperoned by two of her siblings, and they sure did a lot of hand holding and saying "I love you" and Future OfJimbobJr looked sufficiently Stepford for the role. At one point JimBobJr also mentioned how he knew to look for someone like his mother, and Future OfJimBobJr was enough like his mother to get a proposal out of a horny 20-year-old. So, you know, good for them, but NO KISSING OR EVEN DECENTLY HUGGING BEFORE THE WEDDING? Too far, JimBobJr. Too far.

Needless to say, after watching that I did not sleep well. I woke up in time for a hasty breakfast at my favorite breakfast place in Glenwood (Daily Bread Bakery & Cafe) and then conducted a training from 8 AM to 5 PM. Then I drove the nearly 3 hours home.

I am wiped out and seriously considering taking tomorrow off work for a mental health day, or at least a half day. I would have done it today but had too much to do for the next training which is down in Durango and to which I have to DRIVE (I usually fly) so I will spend all day Monday driving and all day Tuesday training and all day Wednesday driving home. Fall in Colorado, you are beautiful, but you are exhausting.

Food, poisoning

Somehow, Friday's food theme was continued through our weekend. As a special treat, we went out to dinner Friday night at a local Indian place (at which we hadn't eaten since April of 2007, which shows you how frequently we eat out). We split veggie samosas, Dan had lamb kebab and I had chicken tikka masala. Afterward we had intended to see the new Cohen brothers' movie, but we got to the theater and the line was frighteningly long. So we walked by Julie & Steve's place and hung out with them for the remainder of the evening.

That night, my tummy hurt when we were going to bed. I chalked it up to a reaction to the drink I'd had at Julie's - flavored water and vodka; I figured my stomach didn't like artificial peach flavor or there was too much aspartame or something in it. I fell asleep.

At 3 AM, I woke up. Things were very, very bad. I stumbled to the bathroom feeling seriously poisoned. Then, some really gross stuff happened. Yes, that. And that, too. At the same time. I was miserable.

Eventually, everything that could possibly evacuate my digestive system had done so in one fashion or another, and I went back to bed, but couldn't sleep for a while because I still felt kind of nasty. Saturday, we had grand plans, but I wasn't up for much of it. We did make it to the local Penzey's store and spent a few bucks replacing some of our empty spices and trying some new spices and seasoning mixes. The garlic we got is particularly tasty.

Saturday night we planned a somewhat unusual dinner but it all came together very nicely. We had an ahi tuna steak, seared, with gomasio (a japanese seasoning blend) on it; fritters made from the little zucchinis we grew, summer squash, and a little bit of onion, potato, and fresh basil; and steamed Olathe sweet corn-on-the-cob. Yes, kind of scattered, but boy was everything tasty. I'll post the fritter recipe on Friday.

Sunday we cleaned the house and Dan watched football and we prepared for Sunday's dinner for Dan's parents. I made a key lime pie (damn, those limes are tiny and take forever to squeeze!) from a Rick Bayless (Mexican) cookbook and Dan made a chicken dish from the same cookbook. We had a simple green salad and made some whole wheat quesadillas for appetizers, half with sharp cheddar cheese and half with the chocolate bell pepper (soooo tasty because of its deep color), some onion, and squash blossoms sauteed and mixed with queso fresco. We also made fresh guacamole and pico de gallo with stuff from the garden. Everything turned out really well.

I like Indian food much better when it doesn't make me violently ill. It might be a while before we go back.