What I've been waiting for

Summer in Colorado is supposed to be hot. It is supposed to be dry, and there are supposed to be afternoon thunderstorms most afternoons that cool things off for the evening. Sure, there can be a week here and there where it doesn't storm, so it stays hot even at night, but that usually only goes on for a few days before the next storm develops.

This summer has been different. It's been mostly consistently hot since mid-June. We haven't really had any breaks, and the few thunderstorms that have come around haven't cooled things down. We haven't gotten rain. I've been waiting for WEEKS for the weather to break, for the afternoon thunderstorms to bring rain and cool down the inside of our house. It's been over 80 degrees even in the middle of the night in our house because the temperature outside hasn't dropped below that in at least six weeks.

Last night, it dropped a bit; we got a tiny storm with about 18 drops of rain, and today was cloudy and somewhat cooler. As I walked home this afternoon, the sky began to darken and I could feel the pressure change in my sinuses, so I had great hopes that we'd finally get the big thunderstorm that's been due for weeks now. Finally, my hopes were realized as a large clap of thunder followed the lightning out the window at 5:20. Then, the rains came, in great sheets, soaking the parched ground and running off down the street. Loud booms and claps continued, and flashes, and the kitties turned into bottle-brushes and raced around the house in both anxiety and excitement. Finally, finally, it is raining and thundering and lightninging and BOOM!ing for long, rolling seconds. I loves me some thunder/lightning, just as I still love the snow, both weather conditions being unusual to my place of origin. Our yard is going to be so much happier from the temperature drop and the water. It's 5 after six and the rain is still coming down, the thunder is still BOOM!ing, and the temperature in our apartment's down to about 75 degrees. Finally, I am happy.


Petra perches on paper, but won't stop moving


Loki decides he is unconcerned, because he is the devil.

Wet garden. You can see our tomatoes, peppers, basil and marigolds.

More True and False

Which of the following statements is the lie?

1. Since toddlerhood, my hair has never been shorter than my shoulders.

2. I have one appendix, two wisdom teeth, and no tonsils.

3. My first dog "sang" on command.

4. I went an entire year without eating meat.

5. My ancestry is (to my knowledge) entirely European.

6. I didn't eat macaroni and cheese from a box until I was ten years old.

7. When I was little, my favorite color was yellow; I never liked pink/purple.

So which one is it? First to guess right wins 8 gold stars.

That Girl goes to my gym

One of the reasons I like my gym so much is the variety of people (ages, body types, interests) who use it. I see teenage boys lifting weights, trying to build impressive muscle, and I see geriatric women with no qualms about walking around the locker room in the altogether, boobs and bellies showing what gravity does after so many years on the planet. I figure that as long as people are there to work out and not "see and be seen" like some gyms I've been to in the past, it's all good - nobody has ever made me feel uncomfortable or tried to pick me up. It's a big mishmash at my gym, and there are pretty people as well as us regular shlubs, but I don't feel bad about myself around them because they're not showing off, they just have nice bodies because they work out a lot.

I've written before about my own body image, and the concept of body image in general. I've also written about my fascination with a website showing what women's bodies look like during and after pregnancy, and how drastically some women change. However, some women's bodies seem to look exactly the same shortly after giving birth - most of the ones we see like that are Hollywood celebrities who have nannies, personal trainers, personal chefs, and have time to sculpt their bodies back to pre-baby size and shape. People are astounded, it seems, by how little time it takes some celebrities to get their "pre-baby" bodies back, as unusual as that is it seems to be a) unfairly represented by movie-star types (even the ones who have twins! Even the ones who are older! coughMarciaCrosscough.) and b) seemingly impossible to attain unless you've got a staff. On the one hand, yeah, it's pretty unusual to bounce back as quickly as most Hollywood types seem to do. On the other hand, their bodies have to look good, the sooner the better, or else they won't work, because that's reality in CelebLand. So they hire people to get themselves looking good again, or they have plastic surgery, or both.

However, today I saw That Girl at my gym. Several months ago, I started seeing her in the locker room and sometimes on the weight machines. I didn't realize for a few weeks that hey, her belly was getting a little bigger and her size x-small t-shirt was pooching out a little. Then in the dressing room I saw her putting on what were obviously maternity pants (they had one of those elastic band thingies at the top). I continued to see her here and there, tiny belly growing a bit more each time, but the rest of her looked exactly the same as it had before the belly had begun to expand. I vary my gym times, even though I go at least 4 days a week, but I've been going for nearly three years and I've come to recognize the other gym rats, even if they don't always go exactly when I do. This girl disappeared for a month or so, and I didn't think much of it because I wasn't always there between 1 and 2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays which is when I used to see her. I figured she was getting bigger and that eventually I'd see her back in the gym.

I saw her today. She had no belly. Her body was taught and toned, and if I hadn't seen her obviously pregnant a couple of months ago, I would never have known. I have no idea when she had her baby, or what the circumstances under which she lives that she's able to regularly go to the gym in the middle of the day with (presumably) an infant at home. Perhaps I just don't know what I'm talking about; maybe she was a surrogate mom, or maybe she gave her baby up for adoption. Maybe she had a late-term miscarriage. Whatever the circumstances, I gotta say, she is the living proof that some women have bodies that magically bounce back after pregnancy in a frighteningly short amount of time. I don't know her and have never talked to her, and I'd never presume to ask her about her reproductive history or how she came to look unpregnant so soon after being pregnant. Maybe the last time I saw her she was 9 months pregnant despite looking about six (the rest of her is quite small) and so there wasn't a whole lot of bouncing back to do. I only hope that I look as good as she does within a year of giving birth (should I decide to do that)(well, I'll probably never look as she does, because I'm not 5'3 and 120 lean pounds), and she seems to have managed to do it in a scant month or two. So I guess they do exist, those women who can wear bikinis or tight gym clothes only weeks after giving birth. Something tells me, however, that I'm not likely to have won that particularly rare genetic lottery.

Assortment

I had my 6-month dental checkup and cleaning yesterday.

Good news: For the first time I can ever remember, I have no new cavities. My dental hygenist praised my brushing and flossing and claimed I had no plaque and my gums looked great.
Bad news: I probably have a cracked tooth. I have to see an endodontist to get a second opinion, but if it is cracked it will likely need a crown. Not that I have the money for yet another crown, but I'm also sick of only chewing on one side of my mouth.



My Show: SYTYCD was on last night, and yes, I read the spoilers religiously, so I already knew what kind of dances the partners had and what the judges comments were. I watch the show for the dancing, and I wasn't terribly disappointed last night. I really liked 3 of the dances and thought 2 were terrible and one was just bizarre (plus, the weird one was danced by my least-favorite couple). Unfortunately, people vote based on likeability or popularity or something rather than based on talent, so I have no faith in the voting tweeny public to keep the right couples safe and the crappy couples in the bottom 3. However, I guess if I really cared enough I'd get off my bum and vote my own self, which ain't never going to happen.



This weekend: We went on a hike in Evergreen (the foothills) because Dan had new hiking boots and wanted to break them in a bit before he tries a 14er in them. We got rained on and thundered and lightninged on, but most of the hike was really nice, plus it was an up-down-up-down hike (meaning up-down-up-down back) and my legs got a great workout. It was billed as a waterfall hike, but as you can see, there wasn't much water to be falling. We did see a cool rock that looked like a dragon, though.


Finally: Harry Potter. First, I'm totally pissed that someone leaked it on the internets days in advance. Now I have to avoid all kinds of media (because, apparently, the New York Times wrote an article about the leak and included spoilers in the article!) until at least Monday, because we're only buying one and Dan gets to read it first. I read really fast, so maybe I can get it done on Sunday if he reads it Saturday, but that means no hiking and no doing anything, just an entire weekend of reading book 7 - me on tenterhooks Saturday watching him read, and him wanting to discuss it with me on Sunday and having to wait until I'm finished. I am so afraid that I'm going to be spoiled and I really, really don't want to be. Spoil me on a reality show, sure, because I have no investment in that. But I want to read every bit of HP7 for myself and I don't want to find out beforehand what happens.

He blinded me with science!

A few weeks ago, I turned on the TV because I was mildly curious about a one-off show listed on tvguide.com. The premise of the show was sort of "The Bachelor" meets arranged dating - some guy was given 50 potential women to date, and narrowed them down by stating a few preferences about the women he likes, then the 5 finalists were paraded in front of him and he chose 3 to speak to. After he spoke to the 3, he got to pick one to go on a date with and see if some sort of spark occurred. The twist (because there always has to be a twist) was that the show had retained all these experts in various fields (handwriting analysis, psychology, etc.) to test the guy beforehand to determine his actual (not stated) preferences and then narrowed a pool of 50,000 (so they said) to one woman who Science felt would be his perfect match. After the guy went on a date with the girl he chose, doing activities he chose, he then went on a date with the woman that science picked, doing activities picked by the show to facilitate falling in love.

I know, it sounds really dumb. Mostly I was intrigued to learn what sorts of things "science" feels are more likely to make people fall in love with one another. The manufactured date had things like experiencing an adrenaline-inducing event (bungee jumping), eating aphrodesiac foods, "gazing into one another's eyes for x amount of time". The date the guy planned himself had a trip to a football stadium to toss a ball around, dinner, and dancing at a club. He liked both the girls, but ultimately decided on the one the show had picked for him, despite her marked differences from his stated preferences (the show decided they knew his preferences better than he did). I wasn't surprised in the least and it wasn't just because the girl he had picked himself was kind of bitchy. Because it was pretty obvious that the different events of the manufactured date were having their intended effects on the guy and the show-picked girl (who kind of looked like Scarlett Johanson if ScarJo were a drag queen) - maybe it was just the editing, but it's pretty clear when two people have chemistry, and the chemistry is made that much more obvious when the events increase it.

I think there's something to be said for what "science" has determined are likely events to get people to fall in love (or at least in lust). Many years ago, I personally experienced a time when I was away from home and out of my element, met someone, had a whirlwind romance with an amazing connection to him, had all sorts of adventures together, and then went back to the real world, in which we were obviously not right for each other as a long-term couple (He was a Christian Republican cowboy country singer. Yeah. But it was really fun while it lasted, and we were good friends for years afterward.) The connection we felt was strong and mutual, and developed over the course of only a few days while we first traveled together. In that experience, both of us being away from our real lives and the real world, surrounded by new and strange things, the connection was forged far faster than it would have been back in real life. For me, "travel in a strange place" is one of those adrenaline-inducing situations, and looking back on my experience, I'm kind of surprised I didn't fall for the first guy I met on the trip!

On the other hand, there's something to be said for old-fashioned courtship. Dan's and my relationship began online, exchanging instant messages (and then having phone conversations), all without ever seeing one another in person for months. It was kind of the modern version of the courtship-by-letter that people used to have (and quite a few actual letters were exchanged as well during the long-distance portion of our relationship). By the time we met in person, the only thing left to be determined was whether we'd have real-life chemistry - usually the first thing you know about a potential partner, but not when that partner is 3 states away and still a virtual person. Turns out that we did, so all the falling for each other that got accomplished before we even met made for a very comfortable yet exciting first meeting. We spent the whole weekend (minus a few hours) together and it was like peas and carrots.

What nobody on that show mentioned was what happens after the falling in love part, after the initial rush of hormones and excitement. It's really easy to fall for someone who isn't the right person for you. It's really easy to think that the heady rush at the beginning stages of getting to know a person is what will sustain a relationship long-term. Luckily for me, long-ago-boy and I were too logical to think that a real relationship would have worked between us, so left it as fond memory rather than trying to figure out how to overcome all our differences to "make it work." Luckily for me, Dan and I were friends on the internets before we fell for each other, and had a pretty solid basis for a relationship before we even met in person. I fall in love with him all over again every time we travel together, every time we have new experiences together, and it's sustained by all the day-to-day stuff of our relationship. I have a feeling that the TV is never going to show what happened to Mr. Dude and his Scientifically-Chosen Girl after the cameras turned off and the show stopped paying for the Scientifically-Determined Falling In Love Events. One day's worth of adrenaline and chocolate strawberries probably will not a love match make.

EEK's five questions

I've done this meme before, but I like it. Here are the rules, if anyone cares to participate.

Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions.
You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

EEK asks:

1. Choose or die, sensory division: lose your hearing or your sight?
I've already got an auditory processing disorder, so my hearing (to me) is all wonky anyhow. I'd lose the hearing before I lost the sight, though I wouldn't be happy about it. It's a lot easier to get along in the world deaf than blind, IMHO.

2. You are going to join the circus. What's your gig?
Unfortunately, I can't grow a beard so I can't be the bearded lady. I don't relish the idea of hammering nails into my nose, so I can't be the blockhead. I'd rather not be the guy who cleans up all the elephant poop. And clowns are scary. So I guess I'd have to either be the ringmaster or an acrobat.

3. If you had the ability to travel back in time, which era would you choose first and why?
Wow, I don't know if I'd want to go back in time. Do I get to choose how long I stay? Do I get to choose whether or not I contract nasty diseases? Do I get to choose where in the world? I'm going to have to think on this one.

4. If you could be any kind of dog, what breed would you be?
Probably something ridiculous-looking. Like maybe one of those mop-faced dogs. What are those called again? Komondors.

5. Extreme heat or extreme cold?
If I have to pick one, I pick extreme heat. I really don't like it, but extreme cold is much more painful. Plus, I don't sleep well when it's really hot, but I literally *cannot* sleep if I'm too cold.

At least it's Friday

1. Nothing happened at work. I got one phone call all week. Nothing happens in July.

2. The weather finally cooled down a little. We even got a tiny bit of rain yesterday.

3. I woke up from my dream this morning thankful that people give birth to tiny babies and not to octogenarians with dementia. (I dreamed that I had to care for and corral and herd an elderly (fictional) relative who didn't want any part of moving around or going where she needed to. In the dream, I thought to myself "Man, I'm so glad babies are so much smaller, because you can just make them do stuff or go where you want.")

4. I'm a little annoyed at the hotel industry in Sonoma County.

5. For some reason, my fingernails seem to be growing freakishly long. I can't figure it out; all my life I've had weak nails that broke or peeled regularly. Then, suddenly, the last six months it's all I can do to keep them clipped at a decent length. I need to clip them again because they still aren't breaking and now I am annoyed to type because they are so long. Seriously, what the hell?

6. We may be doing some mountain climbing this weekend. Hiking for sure.

7. We will also be seeing the new Harry Potter movie.

8. They finally kicked off the guy on my show that should have been kicked off weeks ago. And I had no preference as to which girl got the boot. I have to admit that some dancers on there that I went in predisposed to not like (Lacey) have started to grow on me, while ones I liked so much before the elimination part of the show started (Hok) aren't as good as I wanted them to be. I'm still pissed that they kicked off Jesus two weeks ago. Stupid show! Nobody fucks with the Jesus.

We met the internets, part 3 (and then went home)

Due to our late Friday cavorting, we all slept in late Saturday, and ate some cereal and made some sammiches to bring with us on our trip to Lexington. EEK was scheduled to speak and also to receive a Major Award at a GSA event, so we decided to tag along. Between Louisville and Lexington lies the Bourbon trail, several bourbon distilleries holed up amidst the horse farms of Kentucky. We decided to stop at the Woodford Reserve distillery to take a tour, learn more about bourbon, and get a free tasting.


Like I said before, I'm not a huge fan of bourbon (or whiskey in general, for that matter), but I wanted to try to be in the spirit of things (so to speak) when I was in Kentucky and was really interested to see how a bourbon distillery would be different than a winery in terms of a tour, tasting, and actual process of creating bourbon. The tour at Woodford Reserve was excellent, starting off with a short video and then progressing onto a little bus to take us down to the buildings where they make, distill, barrel, store, and bottle the bourbon.



When we first got down to where the bourbon happens, the smell of alcohol in the air was nearly palpable. Granted, it was in the 90s temperature-wise and quite humid, so maybe that had something to do with it, but it seemed to me that the very air around the stone buildings was filled with the scent of bourbon. Through the tour, I felt a little buzz or maybe contact high from all the fumes, and before we were taken into the area we were warned to turn off cell phones and, if taking pictures, not to use flash. The tour guide explained how horrible bourbon fires can be, and that when one starts the best they can do is try to contain it to one building - there's no putting it out. If, say, the building where the bourbon is stored were to go up in flames, they'd basically go out of business because a) they wouldn't have any product, and b) it would take 4-6 years before they had more product to sell. Dan thought they were being a little paranoid, but me being the pyrophobe that I am I didn't blame them for being cautious.



Bourbon is made a little like beer (and in fact, in one of the steps they call it beer), grain fermented in giant vats with yeast and then distilled. The distillery we visited is apparently the only one that uses copper distillers and distills three times before barreling. The barrels used must be new white oak that's been toasted and then charred on the inside, and the tour guide said that after their barrels have been used once they get sold to other countries for making other kinds of whiskey. The bourbon gets stored for at least 4 years (Woodford generally does it for six) in a stone building, and the barrels are tapped a few times over the course of the aging process to be checked for quality. Their master taster decides when a barrel's ready to be bottled, and it then gets bottled on site and shipped out to the distributor. What surprised me more than anything were the strict regulations put on the bourbon making process, without which the product could not be called bourbon.


When the tour was over, we got to taste a thimblefull and hurried on our way to Lexington to watch EEK's speech and reciept of Major Award. After the event, we met up with A Smart and Rowdy Bitch, who recommended going out for pie (I like pie!). It was lovely to meet her and chat about reality teevee and eat pie (and cheesecake). Alas, all too soon we had to drive back to Louisville to prepare for our trip home - EEK was kind enough to take us to a grocery store so we could stock up on supplies, and we also finally made it to White Castle which I'm sure was the highlight of the entire trip for Dan (he restrained himself and only ate six of their miniburger things) (I had a mini chicken sandwich and some fries. EEK had fries.) (The fries were just OK. In and Out is still tops in my book.)


Dark and early Sunday we loaded up the last stuff into the car, woke EEK up to say adieu, and headed west again. We drove the entire trip with only a few stops for gas/pee with the exception of about 45 minutes in St Louis (I wanted to give it another chance). Turns out we would have gotten a discount on the trip in the dryer up to the top of the arch with our National Parks pass, but we decided it wasn't worth another hour in St Louis, so we got back in the car. It didn't get dark until we were pretty much back in Colorado, and I proved once again that my previously unknown superpower is far more powerful than I would have liked (I wished for rain or perhaps clouds during the really hot part of the afternoon driving across Kansas; we got a big thunder/lightning/wind/rainstorm at the Kansas-Colorado border which lasted an hour or so). Dan said that I'd wished for a white Christmas and cursed Colorado with days of blizzards, but I figure this was an improvement over that because at least it didn't shut down the airport or anything.


Finally, late on Sunday night we were home, and the kitties told us how much they missed us (Loki) and how much they were mad at us for leaving them alone (Petra). We fell exhausted into bed after the most necessary shower I've had since coming home from Burning Man. Because seriously, 17 hours in a car in 90+ degree weather, no A/C, across the humid midwest in July = seriously sweaty and stinky people. All in all, we had a wonderful trip, with a wonderful host who showed us some of the best things about her hometown, and we got to meet all kinds of awesome people. But I think it will be a while before I'm ready to get in a car and go that sort of distance again.

We met the internets, part 2

Thursday we slept in 'til 10:30 (very little sleep Tuesday night and long drive made for sleepy mle and Dan), then went to Bardstown Road to window shop and poke our heads into various stores. We were particularly enamored of the "Why Louisville" store, run by one of the guys who started LebowskiFest, and we also enjoyed some of the book and music stores. I tried on a dress in a swanky boutique (it was green!) but it just didn't look right. We met up with Todd again for lunch at an Indian place, then spent a while in EarXTacy and poked into some more stores.


This is not the longest avenue. They totally lied.

When EEK came home from work, we all changed into non-sweaty clothes and went out to meet the Traveling McMahans, Dana and Brian, who had just returned from their 3-week-long, year-in-the-making anniversary trip. We had a lovely patio repast of cheese and crackers, nuts, and pastis, which I'd never heard of, but loved. Dana is another past member of the same message board through which we know EEK (and each other!) so it was nice to finally get to meet her (and her husband) (and their doggie Truffle) and to hear about their amazing trip.

We had dinner at a restaurant that's got a Filipino Elvis sitting by the front door and then went to the Bourbon Bistro to taste some bourbon. EEK went with her old standby (Woodford Reserve), I had a glass of wine, and Dan did a tasting flight of "Old" bourbons. I only remember the name of one of them (Old Forester) and he let me taste them even though I'm not known for liking bourbon, but when in Rome, right? The Old Forester was even kind of tasty. Though the place was pretty swanky we felt OK in our casual clothes, and between stops EEK did her best to show us the town, zipping us around various Louisville neighborhoods in Nigel with his top down (ooh la la!).

Friday EEK played hooky from work, and we started off the morning (actually noonish) with brunch at this place with an overabundance of stuff to look at (and play with, they give you toys at your table!) After our meal, we headed over to the great big cemetery where they buried Colonel Sanders, though we were too lazy to pick up a map to show us how to get there. I heard rumors of there being a rotating bucket of chicken atop his grave, but wasn't willing to put forth the effort to actually see this 8th wonder of the world. Mostly, we wandered around in the heat and humidity sticking to the shade and looking at dead people. It's really only in cemetaries that I tend to realize how lucky most people have it now - we saw family plots with several headstones showing one date (presumably, baby born dead or living only a few hours) or very short times between birth and death. Nowadays, it's a tragedy when a family loses a baby at birth or within a few days (and it's so much more rare) whereas back in the day a lot of people had several kids in the hopes that a few would grow to adulthood. Thank goodness for modern medicine.


We threw pennies in a memorial fountain (dedicated to two successful bachelor brothers who apparently lived together and liked it that way), marveled at the elaborate monuments erected in memory of the deceased (penises! all of them!) and I poked my head into my first crypts (they only put people underground where I come from). One family had this very Greek-looking gazebo columny thing with a statue inside, which I thought was both excessive and beautiful. Then, we were way too hot, so we went back to EEK's to bask in some A/C for a while.


Dan's already written about our afternoon at the track, and my only thing to add is that a) I managed to drink about 2/3 of the beer before getting grossed out and giving up, and b) I totally called it when Put Away the Halo was going to win and he/she DID, and even though I had no money riding on the outcome (I'm just not a gambler) I still feel as though I should have bragging rights. Because seriously, despite the favorites in each race and the ever-shifting odds, it seemed like any horse could win in any given race. Which I guess is part of the fun.

After the afternoon at Churchill Downs, we got cheap burritos at Qdoba and took advantage of their free wireless. I got an email from an old friend from out of the blue, and found out that my coworker's kitty died. So I was both happy and sad when we headed out to see some live music performed by some of EEK's friends. The band that played after was too loud and bangy, so we went back to the Nachbar to chill out, and found that they also had live music - an old-timey-music style band (think O Brother Where Art Thou music as played by hipsters) which was passing through town and just asked Nachbar if they could play for a while. I really liked the music and ended up buying a CD, despite my distaste for the band's name (Special Ed and the Short Bus? Seriously?) The Nachbar takes good care of its regulars (and guests of regulars, wow, super generous pours!) and was a great place to spend a summer night.

We met the internets, part 1

A week ago, we hopped in the (non air-conditioned) car, threw in a couple of bags, a tent, and some food, and drove east on I-70 for about six hours. During this part of the trip through western Kansas, we learned a few things by watching road signs. People in western Kansas are really concerned about the fate of unborn fetuses, and some of the signs were actually pretty offensive. One can see the world's largest prairie dog in western Kansas, and there are signs advertising roadside attractions that are actually over a hundred miles away (who detours over 200 miles roundtrip to see some dumbass roadside attraction?). We also learned that humidity pretty much starts at the Kansas-Colorado border, and just gets stickier and muggier as one continues east. Our original plan was to camp at a state park west of Salina but we realized we had to drive INTO Salina to find dinner (Subway sammiches), and after a quick stop at the weirdest liquor store I've ever seen (we were looking for wine, but they didn't have it) and the procurement of some groceries, we sucked it up and went to the KOA. That was right by the highway. On July 3. At least it had an actual bathroom, which was pretty much the only thing it had going for it - the floodlights around the place stayed on all night, the ground shook every time a big truck drove by, and the womens' showers weren't even useable. And of course, people in Salina were setting off fireworks most of the night. The family camped next to us was, shall we say, interesting - perhaps Quiverfull? - they had 10 kids ranging in age from older teen to one-month-old infant (and yeah, I asked, and no, I don't think I'd choose to take MY one-month-old on a weeks-long roadtrip). Dad appeared to be in his 40s, the woman appeared to be in her mid-30s (at the oldest) which means the oldest kid was born when she was super young. They also had two dogs that made doggy noises all night. Man, that was weird.


We woke up really early and got the heck out of there on Wednesday, calling Cagey after it was a decent hour to let her know where we were and to solidify plans to meet for brunch. We met Cagey and Average Jane at an IHOP just west of Kansas City, and had a lovely time. We also got to meet Arun, the famously gorgeous Internet Baby, who began to study up on his new role as the Older Brother by learning how to be more useful to his mom. Cagey was due to give birth on Friday, and she still came out to meet a couple of strangers from the internets. And her daughter Anjali finally made her appearance last night!


After KC, we continued on our merry way across Missouri (hotter, muggier), and in Saint Louis I got to see the arch a little through the rainstorm. The storm got worse as we headed east, and we ended up in a torrential downpour for nearly an hour - and of course, drivers were being ridiculously stupid in how they chose to drive through the weather. It didn't let up until halfway through Illinois, and both Illinois and Indiana looked the same from the highway - lots of green trees, no mountains or hills. Some flowers. We made it to Louisville at around sunset, and called EEK, who navigated us to her house in Germantown. We were hot and sticky and gross, so after we ate dinner we took showers and then went out to the Nachbar to meet Todd of Death Wore a Feathered Mullet (and some other people). It was the night of the 4th, and people in EEK's neighborhood seemed to get pretty excited about their street fireworks, so much so that a couple of guys put on a show for us as we sat on Nachbar's patio - these were real, up in the sky type fireworks, and the show went on a good long while.

Oh, and also

Today is our 6 year anniversary.

Happy anniversary, Danielsan. I know you won't see this because you're on your way to pick me up, but I wanted to write it anyhow.

*VAPT*

How lucky am I that I get to marry my best friend? So lucky! *squish*

Leaving in a hot car

I've got about five different blog entries in different states of completion, but they may not get posted anytime soon because in a couple of hours Dan and I are taking Moxie and blowing this popsicle stand. We're headed east on I-70, camping in Kansas tonight, meeting up with Cagey of Rancid Raves for breakfast tomorrow morning (we hope! stay put, little baby!) and ending our journey in Louisville, KY, where our friend and Impressive Clergyman EEK is gracious enough to host us for a couple of days. We've known EEK for years but never been to Louisville, and she's talked it up so much that we just can't stay away any longer. While we're there, we hope to live it up in true Louisville style - EEK's mentioned the track and there will likely be bourbon and bars and debauchery of all types. We're excited to see a new city and I'm excited to see a part of the country I've never seen before - I'll be able to add Kansas and Missouri and Kentucky to the list of states with which I've graced my presence.

Moxie's all tuned up (though somewhat the worse for wear; someone spilled a bunch of latex paint in the alley near our garbage cans and it spattered the back of the car, which is really annoying, but luckily it's nearly the same color paint as the car, and also it kind of scrapes off with my fingernail) and our neighbors will be feeding/watering the kitties, so we're pretty much ready to hit the road. I'm also excited because we have two (two!) sets of tickets. Yesterday, we used our gift certificate to the Denver Center for Performing Arts to buy tix to Spamalot (mezzanine level, opening night, sweet!), and today I took advantage of Southwest airlines to buy tix to California in August for wedding-related activities. I nearly kissed the TV the first time I saw them advertising nonstop Southwest flights between Denver and Oakland, and they're so cheap!

Hmmm, what else is new. It is really, really hot here. We have been sweltering under our ceiling fan, next to our box fan, and in front of our tower fan, because we live in an old house with no AC. Our kitties sprawl out in the coolest areas of the house and park themselves in front of/underneath the fans as well, telling us in the only ways they know how that oh, how poor and pitiful they are, those hot kitties. So hot. Loki doesn't sleep with us when it's that hot, but creeps in during the cool part of the morning and flops on his side to spoon whichever of us is getting the most fan action. Our tomatoes and peppers love the heat, though, and I'm started to get excited about freshly made salsa from the garden.

Exciting things are happening in the lives of several of my friends - new relationships, new babies (woo! wheels is a daddy!), and sad things are happening as well (coworker's 8-year-old cat stopped eating on Saturday after long illness). After a couple of weeks of feeling stagnant, I'm looking forward to this trip as a little get-away; I'm hoping to push away the stress I've been feeling surrounding a particular upcoming event about which I cannot blog (not our wedding) and just let it all out the window where it can live nestled and carnelian-colored amongst the corn in Kansas.

That clinking, clanking sound

Money has been on my mind today. One of the wedding-related (yes, still stuck on the wedding) websites I read consists of several pseudonymed women blogging about their wedding planning for weeks or months and then recapping the wedding after the fact. I've been reading the site for a couple of months and have read through the archives, so it was pretty obvious that the majority of women were planning (in MY opinion) expensive and/or lavish weddings, and when they wrote about projects they did themselves it wasn't necessarily to save money but just because they wanted to do them. Granted, most of the bloggers thus far have had weddings in or near NYC (or other big cities), and I could tell from the way they wrote about designer dresses and letterpress invitations and how much they were paying for hair and makeup that their budgets far, far exceeded ours. It's still an interesting site to read, though, one that has given me quite a few ideas for projects or other elements which could be interesting to have.

Today, in response to a comment someone left a few days ago, some of the bloggers wrote out their wedding budgets (ballpark figures) including everything but rings and honeymoon. As I suspected, the one in NYC was nearly 50K, while the one in the midwest (with a lot of DIY, or do-it-yourself projects) was 8K. And that one was a dessert reception - no appetizers or meals were provided.

Way back a long time ago, before we got engaged, before we were even thinking about it, I spoke to a coworker who was planning her wedding, and she cited a figure to me that just sounded outrageous - she'd read that the average wedding cost in the US was over $20K. "For one day!?!" I interrobanged. "Over 20 thousand dollars for just a party for one day?" That figure sounded completely absurd to me - how could people possibly justify spending that much money on a party for one day? When *I* got married, I'd do it for super cheap. I'd do everything myself, or it would be a really tiny event, and I would show the world that it was possible to throw a one-day party (that happened to include two people getting married) for a miniscule amount of money. It could be done, right?

I didn't think much about it again until we got engaged, a couple of years after the conversation I had with my coworker. I didn't know a lot about weddings or wedding planning, so I started doing research. I talked to people who had planned weddings, and I started looking at sample catering menus and poking around on photographer websites. The sticker shock I began to encounter was far greater than I had expected. Dan and I came up with a number for a budget that sounded reasonable to us, one that would allow us to have good food and good drink, yet still not be a completely ridiculous amount of money to spend on a party for one day. As I read more and more information, and read about more budgets and on what sorts of things people spent their money, it started dawning on me that I'd never seen any sort of budget for under a certain amount (the amount we'd decided on) unless the food was provided via family or friends (potluck, knowing the caterer/restaurant people, etc.) It just isn't possible to have a full meal with beverages served to people for under a certain amount of money, and when you add in all the other expenses (despite all the deals and hookups) you arrive at the number we've decided upon. And surprisingly, I'm starting to be OK with that.

I've read about a lot of different kinds of weddings these past few months, daytime and evening, city and country, indoors and out, in all ranges of style, formality, and budget. And I'm starting to realize that money doesn't mean the same things to all people, that the amount of money my wedding dress is going to cost is, in comparison to some of the coture designers, a very small amount. I went to the library this afternoon to do a bit of research and found myself looking at a wedding magazine for the first time. Now I know that I'm not missing out on anything by not buying the enormous bricks they call wedding magazines (because you pay for 25 pages of content and 230948029384 pages of ads), and now I know that wedding magazines really aren't geared for people with the sort of budget we have (just as the trash I read at the gym doesn't feature clothing I could ever afford), I'm glad I did said research. Not to knock the magazines - it's just that I can see the same pictures online, read about lavish details in other people's weddings, and shrug and be OK that our wedding just isn't going to look like the photos in the magazines. Besides, we're not photos-in-magazines people anyhow. To me, it's more important that everyone has a good time, gets good food to eat and drinks to drink, and feels that it was worthwhile to attend.

I recommend hiking shoes.

This past weekend was relatively eventful. Despite the hot, hot heat we've been experiencing in Denver the past week, we ventured out from our cool(ish) first floor flat and away from the ceiling fan to go to one of three cultural festivals Denver threw (another one kind of passed by our window on Sunday as we ate breakfast (PrideFest), and the third one (Cherry Blossom (Japanese)) we were just too hot to try to attempt). But we did go to the Greek festival, which centered around the Gold Boob (as we call it), aka the Greek Orthodox Church that sits up on a hill here in Denver.


I put on a short-sleeved linen blouse and skirt because I knew part of the festival was the opportunity to see the inside of the church, something people who aren't part of the congregation don't generally get to see. I know from going into churches in Europe that tank tops and short shorts just aren't respectful, and it turned out that it was kind of cooler to wear loose linen clothing anyhow. The first thing we did upon arrival was make a beeline for the food (we shared a "combination plate" which, while expensive, was very tasty and contained a good representative sampling of Greek food). We watched some kids do some traditional Greek dancing. We wandered around checking out the trinket booths and bouncy castles of various types. Then we escaped the heat by ducking into the church, which was absolutely gorgeous and did not disappoint. My photos didn't turn out great, since the rule was no flash (which was fine), but we sat inside for a good twenty minutes or half an hour admiring the amazing paintings on the ceiling of the dome. Later, we checked out the cultural center and ate some dripping-with-honey baklava.


Sunday dawned hotter than Saturday, and we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast while watching participants in the PrideFest parade walk by to get to the parade route on Colfax. It was really really hot. We decided to escape the heat by heading up into the mountains and drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park, opting to purchase a year-long national parks pass (good for the whole country! for a whole year!) rather than just the admission to the park for Sunday. On the drive up, when we got to Estes Park (the small tourist town right next to the park) I realized that I'd remembered to bring everything for our hike but my hiking shoes. I was wearing flip flops. I decided I wasn't willing to buy shoes or boots I didn't need and that I'd just make do with the flip flops as best I could, and we chose a hike that was somewhat less challenging than we normally might have.

Rocky Mountain National Park has, in the last two years, implemented a park-and-ride shuttle bus system to get more parkgoers to the more popular trailheads, improved parking lots and conditions, and generally made things really easy to go hiking. We opted for the park and ride rather than chancing our luck with the trailhead lot, and shared our shuttle bus with a group of twenty middle-school-aged softball players from Chicago who were going on a different hike. Boy, were they loud and girly. We got to our trailhead after a short ride and I knew I would be OK; the hike was really quite easy and not especially long. It was cooler than Denver (though still quite warm) and the first part of the hike was mostly uphill (and at significant altitude) so we were winded pretty quickly, but we each had our camelbaks and snacks, and we enjoyed the views and passed a lot of couples, families, and other groups along the trail.
(If you look closely, you might find the native Nerdus GreatBiggus)

The hike we chose passed by one lake before ending at another, and just before the second lake there was a large patch of snow one had to cross. Yes, that photo above is my foot in my flip flop in the snow - it's not terribly often that one can say one has hiked across snow in flip flops. But I did, and it was OK. Luckily I'm in good enough shape that my leg muscles felt a little strange but mostly did what they were told. When we got to our destination, we pulled out the trail mix and shared an orange, and took in the amazing view while a greedy pika tried to get us to feed it. We didn't.



Eventually, we turned around and hiked back down to the trailhead, passing all kinds of pretty wildflowers and winded tourists along the way. We got back on the full bus, and when it stopped at the next trailhead it picked up the entire gaggle of softball players (and their chaperones) again, so the bus was completely packed. On our way back to Denver we stopped in to visit with Dan's parents and had a lovely dinner. It was a great Sunday, and hiking (though I did it in flip flops) was a good way to escape the oppressive heat. I have vowed that I will keep my hiking shoes in the trunk of the car from now on so I won't forget them again. The flip flops were an adventure I don't need to repeat.

I never

There was this drinking game in college - I'm sure you've all heard of it or played it at some point. It's called "I never." A table full of people takes turns announcing things that they've never done. An example might be, "I've never eaten Jello." Then, people at the table who HAVE eaten Jello have to take a drink of whatever tasty beverage they have in front of them. It's a game of strategery (sometimes you say "I never xyz" even when you have, and then you have to drink too). It's also a good way of getting to know a group of people you don't know very well, or a way of bonding (I suppose) with people you DO know.

I was thinking today about the things I used to use, my trump cards in the "I never" game. "I never got a driver's license" was a good one; most people had done that. "I've never been outside of the United States." "I've never slept with more than one person." "I've never smoked pot." That last one is still true, but the others have changed with time and experience. The last time I played "I never" was with a group of people all staying the weekend at a friend's cabin at Lake Tahoe one Fourth of July weekend, and by the end of the trip I felt like I knew all those people really well, because we'd spent a long weekend together, had swum in the frigid and gold-dust-filled lake, had taken hikes and gone exploring, and had played "I never" into the wee hours. I was friends with several of them for a couple of years after that, though everyone went separate ways after graduation and the friend who's family owned the cabin ended up dropping out of school and moving home with her parents after a series of embarassing pathological lies came to light and she got caught embezzeling money from our co-op. I do hope she got better.

It's much harder these days to find groups of people to call friends; to make new friends in social situations, at parties. It's much harder to go away for long weekends with large groups of people when everybody has responsibilities and jobs and lives and significant others. I suppose that a little of that is recaptured when we go to the cabin, but we usually know everyone who goes and "I never" is of little use. I hope that my next job has more people who are younger and in a similar life stage to Dan and I, because spending three years surrounded by people an entire generation (and sometimes two) older than I has been a bit of a damper on my social life. I'd like to meet more people, make new friends here in Denver, and I'm hoping that some of the same people are at tomorrow's dance class. I've got some other ideas about meeting new people, especially now that we have a car and don't have to limit ourselves to events within walking distance.

Though "I never" was a fun college drinking game, looking back on it, I'm glad it wasn't something that people I knew continued doing past college. Because nobody really needs to know that much about a group of other people they've just met. Some stories are better left for times after you've known someone a while. And I would have to come up with an entire new set of "I nevers," since my old ones are outdated. Heck, I can't use "I never went to a post-Folsom Street Fair after party and saw someone getting paddled while wrapped in Saran Wrap," "I never saw a huge group of babies who wore split pants instead of diapers," or "I never met (or dated )(or got engaged to) someone from the internet." If anyone used those around me, I'd just have to take a drink.

Progress

Last night I fell asleep around 3 AM, which was an hour earlier than I fell asleep the previous night. I'm not sure what's going on; Sunday night's sleep issues were solely due to heat (it was hot!) and the presence of a moth that Loki kept trying to catch by using me as a trampoline to get up to the window above my head. Every time I fell asleep, he'd be jumping on me or using me as a landing pad, and eventually it felt like torture. Finally, Dan got coherent enough to kill the damn moth so Loki lost interest, and I got to sleep an hour later.

But last night, it was not so hot. It was, in fact, quite a pleasant temperature. After my cracked-out day I took a 1.5 hour nap, which was lovely and refreshing and I'm sure contributed to last night's insomnia. I took two valerian root pills at 11:30 PM, which in every other circumstance have flat-out knocked me out, but last night they were no match for The Brain That Would Not Turn Off No Matter What. Until we started with this whole engagement and wedding deal, I'd never had insomnia (other than a bout during a course of prednisone for poison oak back in 1999). Since then, it's become this creepy, shadowy beast that lurks under my pillow and uses some sort of remote control to keep my brain on no matter how desperately I desire it otherwise, and I never know when it will strike. Ideas, concerns, logistics, what-ifs run through my head over and over, back and forth, thumping as if in a potato sack race from one hemisphere to the other. This happens during the day, too, but it's not so overwhelming when I'm interacting with people or watching Planet Earth on DVD or knitting a new baby blanket (this one in small triangles to be sewn together later, and I'm super excited because it's going to look so cool!). Sometimes I also have a song running through my head as background music to the potato sack race. During the day I can direct my thoughts in other directions, but at night, when it's time to sleep, that's when the crazy begins.

And really, I have no idea why this whole WEDDING thing is taking over my brain. We're still over 9 months away and already have a lot of stuff figured out. We registered a domain name last night and Dan's working on our website for wedding-related information, and today I shot some emails to some photographers and friends who have already gotten married in the area to ask their advice about caterers and stuff. We finally put everything down in a great big spreadsheet, budget and guest list and all kinds of lists with formulas, which made me happy because look! I figured out how to make that number do what I wanted it to do. We're collecting addresses and phone numbers and I feel like it's real progress toward a real event, not just these nebulous ideas that have been floating around the ether for the last several months. But with all this progress comes more what-ifs, more logistics, more questions and concerns and ideas, and for some reason my brain is fixating on these things when it should really be sleeping like a good brain. I can't even get into a book to take my mind off things, and that's really saying something, because I am an expert at the time-honored tradition of literary escapism. Like so many other tricks, it has failed me.

There are other things I could be writing about - my favorite show's on now (SYTYCD) and TWOP is recapping it and they've even got a devoted forum for it now so I can read other people fanwank in all sorts of ways. The yard is looking better every day; Dan is running and biking all the time and looking amazingly good; we went dancing last Friday and we're going again this Friday. Thursday we've got a date planned for the drive-in, which has been impossible until we got Moxie. All these things I'm excited about or looking forward to, but am I writing about them? No. I'm writing about Wedding Brain and how I feel like a pod person for thinking so much about this event that really, when you come down to it, is just a party for one day. I'm afraid that if I get too focused on or bogged down with Wedding Details, after the day is over there will be After Christmas Letdown x a googol. I'd rather avoid that, since what I'm really looking forward to is the Being Married part, rather than the Big Party. I just wish I could get that across to the monster under my pillow because brides need their beauty sleep, you know.

Hippo Bird Day QIR

Happy anniversary of your 29th birthday, and many happy returns!

29 reasons why I love QIR:

1) She is far more giving, thoughtful, and generous than she'd like people to believe

2) She has a fantastic black-hearted sense of humor

3) She makes a mean cocktail and stocks good booze at all times

4) She is not afraid to experiment

5) She is the sexiest Santa evar

6) She may just have the best ass for grabbin' in existance

7) She gives wonderful advice but only when solicited

8) Her blue eyes sparkle when she is happy or excited

9) She makes everyone feel welcome

10) She has tiny hands and princess feet

11) She likes ladybugs and bees

12) Her joy at spending time with friends and loves ones is, at times, palpable

13) She's the best at driving in SF I've ever witnessed

15) She loves the mountains

16) She loves to travel

17) It is wonderful to have a conversation with her even when she's sleep-deprived

18) She does not like rats

19) She's (almost) completed a goal that she had for many years before I even knew her, and despite the difficulty and challenge of that goal, she accomplished it with grace and dignity

20) She finds wonder and joy in small things, while having the taste of a connosieur

21) She is freaky and weird (like me!)

22) I learn something new from her every day we spend time together

23) She is far more beautiful than she knows, in many ways

24) One time, for her birthday, I made a cake, but the frosting kind of melted, so I called it an avalanche cake and she ate it anyway even though it was really weird-looking

25) She is crafty and creative

26) Her car says "hink" when she locks it

27) She celebrates solstice rather than giftmas

28) She's definitely on my top 5 list of good snugglers

29) Her heart is enormous. Seriously, I don't know how she manages to carry that thing around in her chest!

I hope your day is fabulous, QIR, and I will hoist a tasty adult beverage in your honor tonight.

Virtue

Yesterday, a pint of blood was siphoned out of me by a needle/series of tubes (not the internets, though) and collected in a bag. Afterward, I ate some cheezits and drank some water, and it was all very routine, as if people do that sort of thing every day. Which, of course, some people do (not the same people every day though; they'd run out of blood pretty quick). After I'd finished my crackers I walked back to my cube and a couple of coworkers kind of gushed a little about how great it was that I give blood.

Honestly? It doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. I have enough to spare, and I have the most common blood type (A+ baby) so my blood can be pretty useful. I've never spent any time in Africa and I've never lived in the UK and I've never taken Propecia and I've never had sex with a man who had sex with another man, even once, since 1977. So I'm all clear to give them my blood and they're all clear to give it to someone who really needs it.

I was thinking about the whole giving blood thing last night. I wonder, for example, if blood collected at altitude (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico) gets sent to other states because of the donators' high red blood cell count (you develop more red blood cells when you live at altitude because there's less oxygen, so the blood has to compensate and make more red blood cells to carry around the oxygen it can get). I was also thinking about this disease that I'd heard of where the cure is pretty much bloodletting because of a too-high iron count - maybe the one condition for which leeches actually worked way back in the dark ages. And I thought about all the blood I've donated over the years, and who might have gotten it - was it a trauma victim, exploratory surgery, someone with leukemia? Was it an old man or a little boy? Was it a woman who gave birth and hemmorhaged? It kind of blows my mind how much blood is needed every day in this country, how many people's lives are saved every year because people donate blood and platelets and bone marrow.

At the same time, to me, the whole giving blood thing is no big deal - I get a heavy arm for a day, a little itchy puncture wound, and I'm a cheap drunk for a night (only after a meal, of course). But to some people, it's an impossible hurdle because of a needle phobia or anemia or low body weight. I'm sure there are thousands of gay men in this country who are assuredly HIV negative and would love to donate but are denied the opportunity. So I guess in a way, I donate because other people can't - just as other people do things that I can't to help people in need.

Earlier this week, one of the most impressive outpourings of giving to a stranger I've ever seen happened on one of the message boards I read; a person had a sudden and unexpected financial hardship due to theft and was going to have a hard time keeping the electricity on for his family while the police sorted out the whole mess of the situation. Another person on the message board read the story (he'd written it just to vent) and took it upon HIMself to set up a paypal account and solicit small donations from the community, which he then transformed into a check and sent off to the guy in need. The guy was flabbergasted, touched, and (at first) unwilling to accept generosity, but eventually thanked everyone for what they had done for him and his family and promised to "pay it forward" once everything was fixed. I hadn't read anything about the situation or the thread saying "let's help this guy out" until the whole thing had already transpired, but I was amazed and humbled at the lengths to which small gestures can go to make a huge difference in someone's life. I highly doubt that anyone who contributed to the fund sent in more than they could afford - perhaps a week's worth of Starbucks or something equally minimal - but together, the community's resources made infinitely better a situation for the family of a stranger on the internet.

Both the acts described above - giving blood, donating money to someone in need, could be construed as acts of virtue. Our society has deemed virtuous the act of selflessly helping another person, whether that act be small or large. Is it more virtuous to donate time, money, blood, when it's a true hardship to the giver? Or is the mere act of giving a virtuous one, even if it affects the giver in a very minimal way? Should there be any level of judgement when it comes to virtue? Should people strive to donate money or time or bone marrow or a kidney because it's the right thing to do to help another human being? Or should that act be contingent on the rest of the community (coworkers, fellow message board users) knowing that one gave something? Does it really count if nobody else knows about it? I wonder sometimes about the little prizes given out for donating blood or voting (stickers, t-shirts), whether it really makes a difference in someone's decision to donate blood if they're promised a sticker afterward that they can wear and show people. The medical wrap stuff they use to wrap your arm after you donate always comes in bright colors (aqua, teal, purple) - I'm sure they make it in flesh tones, but then who would notice?

It's hard in this day and age of paparazzi and instant communications to know the motivations of celebrities who are doing good things - on the one hand, isn't it a great example they're showing for driving a hybrid or serving as a UN ambassador to a war-torn country? On the other hand, isn't it a little self-serving for every celebrity to have his or her own foundation or camp or charity (frequently with the celebrity's name, even)? Should the motivation even matter, as long as people are being helped and good works are being done? In the long run, I don't think it should. The money, the time, the blood are all there when people need it, and that's all that should really matter. So yes, world. I donated blood yesterday. Perhaps that makes me virtuous, even though I needed it less than someone else, and I walked away with an ugly t-shirt, and it didn't help keep someone's electricity on or save the children (but not the British children). I plan to do it again in 8 weeks when I'm eligible again. Because I can.

Flat on his back

We have a kitty who sleeps like a people.

Here are some pretty pictures since I haven't much interesting to say

I gotta say, these days, life isn't especially interesting. This weekend I bought some shoes and we added a bit to the home decor, then on Sunday we took a hike in Red Rocks, one of the prettiest places anywhere. Sunday's weather was perfect for hiking (especially under our protective hats and SPF 5 billion sunscreen) and I took these pictures along the way. I did not, however, take a picture of the guy who got bitten by a rattlesnake.


I've been reading a lot more about weddings and wedding-related crap on the internets. Since we're over 9 months out from ours, we live in a different state from The Wedding, and I've pretty much decided on my dress (though now the question is whether I get it from a retail shop or online; the cost savings would be approximately $125, though then I have to figure out steaming and alterations (hemming) myself. The shop where my mom bought her wedding dress carries the designer/dress I'm interested in, though I don't know when I'll next get to CA so she can see the thing on me), there's really not a whole lot else to do right now in re: wedding. I will say that during our hike we talked more about things like color scheme and overall feel of what we're going for, after finding some decor possibilities at World Market on Saturday, and I think seeing the colors of wildflowers that we saw influenced our decisions. Again, nothing set in stone, but we've got a pretty good idea at this point.


I think we have another road trip planned for a few weeks from now out East, though we haven't really figured out all the details yet - and some of it will depend on job-related stuff (for me). I'm looking halfheartedly for another job, and finding the whole process to be overwhelming, but I really don't want to stay in the job that I have past this summer. I guess I'll figure things out, but it would make life much simpler if something would just fall in my lap.


My mood was definitely better after Sunday's hike (I'd never before seen wild snapdragons (yellow!) or so many colors of lupine; where I hail from they're all a dark purple, but here they can be purple, lavender, white or yellow. Nuts!) and it's better this evening since it rained most of the day. The air felt heavy and oppressive when I walked to work this morning but by the afternoon it was cool and refreshing when I finished my iron-pumping and hamstering and walked home. Dan made these amazing peanut butter chocolate chip cookies yesterday and I had one when I'd been home a little while because they were too tempting not to - we rarely have things like that around, so it's a treat when we do.

I'm finding the gym to be less and less fulfilling; I'm still going at least 4 days a week but I'm going to have to find a way to mix it up because it's just as boring as work these days. I've also decided that I'm not going to try any crazy dieting scheme or excessive exercise plan for The Wedding because I already fit perfectly into a particular size of the dress I want and it covers me from chest down, so it's not like people are going to see how ripped my abs are since they'll be covered in dress. I'm OK with what I look like now; I'd like to look a little bit better but I'm not going to kill myself to lose five pounds like I did last year for the reunion, because seriously it took me about 6 months to lose five pounds and it didn't last long. I think I'm just at a higher setpoint now that I have so much muscle and I'm old. As long as my clothes (and the dress) look good, and Dan thinks I look good, I guess that's all I'm going to let myself care about. Maybe when it gets closer to The Wedding I'll care more, but right now I just don't.

Nihilistic enough for everyone? Yeah, I thought so. Sorry I'm so meh these days. Maybe soon things will change and I'll have more interesting thoughts to pour out of my fingers and onto the internets for your reading pleasure.

Lunch

Picture it: Denver, Colorado on a fantastically gorgeous late spring/early summer day. The sky is the clear deep blue of sapphires; a few puffy clouds drift above the mountains in the distance. It is the perfect temperature outside and there's just enough of a breeze to keep things from getting too warm when you're in the sun. It's a Friday, the end of a long week, and instead of going to the gym you decide to stop by the used bookstore for some mindless drivel. You cross the street to the park by the capitol where groups of tourists and passers-by mill around looking at historical stuff, and you plop yourself down in the grass under your shade hat and sunglasses to bask in the unbelievably wonderful afternoon. Screw the gym; it's too nice out to spend an hour hamstering today.

You pull the pbj and orange out of your purse and crack open the murder mystery you bought for fifty cents. The noise of the nearby traffic and the kids working off nervous energy fades away as Kay Scarpetta examines a dead body in a landfill. After your first bite of sandwich, you start to feel uneasy, as if someone (or someTHING) is watching you.

And then you see it. Black beady eyes only a foot away are staring at you and your sandwich. A bushy plume twitches up and down, small paws wiggle in anticipation while gesturing as if to say, "Look at my balls! Look at my balls!" You stomp your foot and the creature backs off a few inches, crooking its rodent head to the side and trying its routine again. Another set of beady eyes joins it, and another, and you realize that you are the only person eating in the grass and therefore a target for the bushy tailed rats that live everywhere in an urban environment these days. At home, they're simply annoying, destroying the bird feeder you got for Christmas and providing a show for your pathetically prey-lacking indoor-only cats, but here? In the park? These squirrels are used to being FED, son, and if you aren't going to give them food they're going to creep you out until you do. Your heart goes a little faster, though intellectually you know you could stand up and stomp the crap out of any one of the nasty suckers. But those pupil-less beady eyes. The knowing looks. The sharp-clawed paws, all gesturing at genetalia, all expecting something from you. There are many of them and only one of you. Perhaps they will become small children of the corn, and there will be no escape.

You shout and stomp again, shout and stomp. Eventually they scamper off a ways, only to come back a minute later when you've finally calmed down enough to take another bite and go back to your trashy book. Because they won't give up. They'll never give up. They've been raised from birth to know that humans = food, and unfortunately most humans they've encountered DO feed them, or else they don't pay close enough attention to their bags of cheetos or whatever, and the squirrels can just run in and take what they want. You know they will; you've seen them do it on college campuses and in other city parks, the brazen hussies of the rodent world. And because their tails have hair, people think they're cute and feed them. But not you. You eat every bite of your sandwich, wrap the orange peel in the sandwich bag, and toss the remains of your lunch in the garbage can. The verminous plague-carriers will get no food from you.

The long story

This coming Saturday will be the 6th anniversary since Dan and I met in person for the first time. Neither of us actually remember the date, but another significant event happened on that day, and I just looked it up on the internets and it was June 9, 2001. So that's the day we met.

The lead-up to and circumstances of our first meeting were a little different than those of most couples. I've told an abbreviated version of this story before in a meme, but the long version goes like this. I graduated college in May of 2000 and planned a trip to Europe for that summer (one of those 10 countries in six weeks whirlwind trips), partly with the help of a website dedicated to backpacking in Europe. Through that site I met many people and after I came back I remained involved, since I'd developed online friendships with a lot of people. At one point, I met up with a couple of different people from the site who lived in my area, one of whom later became my roommate (QIR) and another of whom later turned out to be Dan's brother. I found out later that it was around the time that I met the bro for lunch one day that Dan had mentioned wanting to plan a trip to Europe, so his brother recommended he visit the site, and Dan started getting involved in the online community as well.

At first, his writing style and sense of humor intrigued me, but I didn't know who he was, and through some sleuthing I figured out he was the younger brother of the guy I'd met for lunch that one time. He lived in Colorado and was planning a trip to the UK. There was a chatroom associated with the backpacking site, and he popped in there a few times to chat with people (me included). In the spring of 2001, I started a "one word story" thread (ie, everyone post one word to continue the story) and he jumped in with "The Spanish Inquisition! Because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." and though it totally was more than one word and against the rules, it made me laugh. A week or so later, he posted a thread asking for people's instant messenger IDs and provided his own, and I was definitely intrigued by this point so I IM'd him one day. We started chatting every couple of days, then every day, then for hours every day, and then in May I got up the nerve to give him my phone number. That night he called me and we talked for seven hours. Now I'm a chatty phone person, but he is not, so I understand it was a big deal to him that he'd found a girl he could talk to for seven hours. We began talking a couple of times a week, and planned that he'd come out for a visit in July when we had a message board get-together in the works for the Bay Area.

Not too long after that first seven hour phone call, Dan's grandfather (who lived in the Bay Area) passed away. His parents wanted him to go to the memorial service, and he agreed with the stipulation that the rest of the weekend would be his own. I was both excited and nervous and I met him at the airport with flowers and a hug. I didn't meet his parents at that time, though I understand they were on the same plane. He and I took the shuttle to the BART station and while waiting for a train I thoroughly embarassed myself by not paying attention to where I was standing and had the train operator honk at me for standing too close to the track. When we got to my house, he unloaded his bag and told me about his shirt, which was some sort of thing having to do with Game 7 of the Stanley Cup, in which the Colorado Avalanche were playing the New Jersey Devils for the title later that day. I didn't pay much attention (sports? what? meh!) and took him on a tour of Berkeley, the campus, and out to eat at Vik's, the best Indian chaat place in Berkeley. I wanted to kiss him all day but I wasn't sure what he would think of the idea. Later, he had to change clothes and head out east for the memorial service and he kissed me instead.

That evening, he spent time with his family and got to see part of the hockey game (I think) after taking the wrong BART train and then taking the right BART train and getting there a little late. I went to a party for my cousin in the city but came home pretty early because I wanted to be there when he got back. So I did, and he stayed at our place (mine, QIR's, and the girl with the rats) that night. The next day before he flew back to Colorado he and QIR and I headed over to the city to the Haight Street Fair and messily ate Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I took a photo of them in the Ashby BART station which hangs in my cube right above my head and I look at it several times every day. Dan lost his new prescription sunglasses on the BART train (bummer) but he got a ride to the airport from me and QIR and there was a lot of squishiness which I won't talk about, but I was very very sad when he got on that plane and very, very glad when he came back for another visit a month later.

It wasn't until quite a while later when we were fully established as a couple that he told me he'd missed the game to spend the afternoon with me. We didn't have a functional TV (other than for watching movies) and it never occurred to me that he'd want to watch a HOCKEY game rather than hang out with this hot chick he'd met on the internets, but after I'd known him a long time I realized that this game was a huge deal to him and he'd forgone watching it to spend time with me. Because I was more important to him than watching his team win the championship game, even though he'd only met me a few hours beforehand, and only kissed me once. I think he knew even before I did that the connection we had was special and important, but I figured it out pretty quickly, I think. Six years ago this Saturday the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in an exciting game 7, and six years ago this Saturday we each met and kissed the person who would be our best friend, psychic twin, and flerson. *VAPT*

Scarred for life

The weekend was a mix of emotional ups and downs, social events, and relaxation. Saturday I went dress shopping with Dan's mom. I won't write another long post about dress shopping, but I will say that after having tried on a bunch more dresses (including some that were closer to my original plan of wearing something less formal, destination-y, etc.) I've realized that my idea of what a "wedding dress" is in my head has changed. Because after trying on 12 more dresses I'm pretty sure I know exactly what I want - ie, I've actually found my dress - and it's a lot more froofy and wedding dress-y than I had originally pictured. I'll keep looking some, I think, but I'm about 85% sure I've found The One with nearly 10 months to go. How weird is that? And the best part is that it's really really close to an idea I had in my head, that I described to Dan 6 weeks ago and he decided to draw it for me. Then I went and found it.

After dress shopping, Dan and I went to a pool party for a friend's birthday and we stayed for many hours enjoying the sun and the company of lots of other people, some babies and dogs, and a kid who insisted on bringing his skateboard into the hot tub (yes, it did leave a bunch of wet sticker behind, and yes, it was kind of gross). Then our friends Toph and Amber came over for the evening/night and left at noon on Sunday. After that I was socially spent/exhausted and had to take to my bed for a few hours, getting waited on hand and foot. I even got homemade popcorn in bed. Teh Awesome.

My sunglasses had broken on Saturday, and my eyes were aching from spending a bunch of time in the sun with no sunglasses or hat (bad mle! first time I've done that since moving to CO!) so Sunday afternoon we ran some errands and I bought new sunglasses - two pairs this time, one for the car and one for my purse. Other than that, it was relax city, exactly what I needed after Saturday's whirlwind. I also need a new bathing suit, since the plastic dealie that held the top of mine together busted at a rather inopportune moment during the party. Luckily, I caught it fast and I'd brought a tank top so all was not lost - and another partygoer brought an extra that fit me OK so I even got to go in the pool. I've heard Target has a good selection, and this time I'm getting one that's got a metal dealie, because flashing the 8-year-old in the condo across from the pool probably scarred him for life.