Family

While Kenny and I enjoyed our dinner last night (pumpkin-granola-banana pancakes - YUM) we realized that today marks the four month anniversary since his dad, Ken, passed away from ALS.

Then, today, Kenny's sister, Amelia, posted this on her blog. I'm sure the timing wasn't a coincidence. It is a beautiful post with (always) beautiful images about a beautiful family.

In this season of thanksgiving, I am grateful for family - the families I was born into, the family I married into, the family I hope to have one day, and for the many friends I have that are so close and so wonderful they might as well be my family. You know who you all are. Thank you for being you and for being my family.

PS - I'm leaving tomorrow (yay!!) to spend Thanksgiving with a bunch of family and I could not be more excited. (This week has been the slowest, EVER.)

PPS- Happy Birthday to this Lady. Hope your day is magic.

On dreams...

First things first: I've had two consecutive nights of not just adequate, but incredible sleep. Hurray! Congratulate me. It was wonderful.

2nd: if I've ever met you - even for a second - I'm fairly certain you made an appearance in last night's dream. My question regarding said dream is this: why did so many of you feel the need to sneak into my apartment only to fall asleep on the floor under my living room window? Seriously? It's, like, a foot from the couch, why not sleep there? I don't get it.

I guess it's been so long since I've slept deep enough to even have a dream that I'm just marveling at the weirdness of it all.

Things I learned at work this week.

It's Friday!!! Yeah! Here's a few things I learned this week:

• When touring an oil refinery, bring flat, comfortable shoes. Black, snakeskin, platform heels will clash horribly with the bright yellow hard hat you'll be asked to wear. Also, there's that whole issue of safety or something. And comfort.
• Males in the oil refining business really will not care about your appreciation for their impeccably preserved mid-century building and decor. Noticing his surroundings for what seems like the first time ever, Mr. Oil Refiner will inform you that his father (the company's founder) built, furnished, and "decorated" their office space in the 50s and he simply hasn't seen a need to update it - at all. After realizing that said male oil refiners take no interest in their office surroundings, don't continue to gush about it anyway. (Really, though, I couldn't help myself. It was marvelous. I want to live in that building...minus all the oil refining machinery surrounding it.)
• Just because you provide, in advance, a detailed check list of all the information and documentation you will need from your client doesn't mean the client will provide it all. Or any of it. Actually, I'm pretty sure they won't even bother reading your carefully prepared list.
• Your business colleagues experience bouts of road rage in traffic just like you do. It's best to act invisible at those times. Laughing at them will not help.
• As professional as you might try to appear, if you're even remotely attractive, you will be hit on. Apparently, you can only hope to be taken seriously when your old and ugly. Or if you bring along women younger and prettier than you are. Or at least one with bigger boobs than you have.
• It's really good that drugs and alcohol aren't allowed in my office. Judging by the way my colleagues employ peer pressure tactics to get the health-conscious to consume junk food, we'd probably have an office full of strung out drunks all the time.

That's all. In all, I'd say I've grown leaps and bounds this week. Thanks, Job, for providing such valuable learning opportunities. My resume gets more impressive every day.

On Wiener Dogs

I’m not much for pets. At all. I never had them growing up. (Well...we did have a few birds – a gift for my brother from a lonely, but sweet old man who hung out in our building’s lobby. However, those didn’t last long with my light-sleeping father in the house. Also, my sisters’ had some goldfish, but those don’t count.) Truthfully, I never really wanted a pet. I especially don’t now, in my adulthood. I figure when I want that sort of responsibility I’ll just have some kids. Anyway. Moving on. To enter for a giveaway the other day, I had to mention my favorite breed of dog.

Uhhh. Again, I don’t actually like dogs. I certainly don’t have a favorite type. And I most definitely know nothing regarding various breeds. My only appreciation for the animal (and really all animals) has been for the cartoon varieties, like Disney’s 101 Dalmatians. Remember that scene where everyone is walking a dog that looks just like them? I loved that. That got me thinking...if I were in that scene, what dog would I be walking? After some thought (and again, my knowledge of dog breeds is VERY limited) I concluded that I resemble a Dachshund aka "Wiener Dog" – at least in body. Long torso and short legs. Yup, that’s me.

Kenny found this website last night, full of photos of people who resemble their canine friends. The resemblance is uncanny in a few. Like this one:
So, which dog would you be?

THIS EVENT just maybe redeemed all of 2009

So if I had a scanner I would have scanned and posted two things: my Mammoth lift ticket from Memorial Day, 2009 and the ticket from October 16, 2009.

Yeah; that actually happened.

I snowboarded (at an open resort - i.e. I wasn't hiking) less than five months after the prior season ended. Kenny and I were very happy people. So were the 4,500 other die-hards who showed up for Mammoth's sudden - and unusually early - Opening Weekend. It was crowded, but so fun. And because I've been accused of not posting enough photos, here' s a WHOLE bunch.

First, from Memorial Day 2009:
Me, then Kenny, at the top of the Gondola. It's really high up.

Overlooking Twin Lakes

Now October, 2009.

Look! We found Autumn! In Crowley. I guess one only has to drive five hours to the Sierra Nevada's to find it.
Mammoth Resort is located in a the town, Mammoth Lakes, and it was fun to finally be able to get to all the lakes. When we're there, the roads are closed and the lakes all frozen over. These next few photos were near Horseshoe Lake.

The photo below is barely edited. It is beautiful up there. (Twin Lakes)

A random grove of Gold.
I forget which lake had all these boats...but we stayed here for a long time.



Can you see why?



After day one of snowboarding.

In my head I looked graceful...

Again hanging out on some dock. I could have lived forever right there. In my tight orange snow pants.


Flirting with death at the dam...that is just feet away from a waterfall.
Oh, don't we all love taking photos of ourselves? And then oversaturating the colors?


Some fisherman offered to take a photo for us. Yeah! a photo together! (that we didn't try to take ourselves...)
...like this one.
Mammoth, I Love You.

A Halloween Post

In honor of Halloween, here’s a list of a few things that freak me out.

• People who don’t “smile with their eyes.” You know what I mean? The person is smiling, but there is no change in the shape of his or her eye! It’s still wide open. He/she probably has no soul.
• Public restrooms. Oh I could devote a book to this fear...I guess it started with horrible eighth grade girls who would burst into the Junior Elementary bathroom (when I was maybe 6 or 7) and turn off the lights and start calling for “Bloody Mary.” (They swore she would appear in the mirrors. I never stuck around long enough to find out for sure.) We poor elementary girls would be stumbling for the doors in the dark trying to pull our pants back up. It was awful. Also, I slightly freak out when someone enters a stall next to the one I’m occupying. I can’t function properly with a stranger so close.
• The sound of cracking bones. Many, many visits to the chiropractor and physical therapist have helped me learn to tolerate this, but I still cringe and panic slightly when I hear it. (Insert shudder.)
• Washing my face (at my bathroom sink, with my back to the door) when I’m home alone. Seriously, could I be any more vulnerable?
• Thump Swish. This might be kind of a stretch, because although thoughts of Thump Swish (a fictional character my dad made up during bedtime stories) freak me out, I simultaneously love him. This duality of emotion regarding this unfortunate trucker (who, as the story goes, lost his foot while changing a tire in the rain and then spent the remainder of his days roaming the forest) is probably due to the fact that sometimes my dad made Thump Swish a good guy who rescued campers in distress and other times he terrorized innocent hikers. Either way, anything that reminds me of Thump Swish (i.e. the sound of a broom or - for some reason - the monster on The Village) slightly freaks me out.
• Backward handwriting. There was this kid’s Halloween movie my brother and I used to watch where the main kid is possessed and (while entranced) slowly writes "Karen" backward on windows. Wait, was this a kid’s movie? Should I have been watching this? Mom?
• Vomiting. I hardly ever do this. Ever. But when I do...yikes. Totally freaks me out.
• Entering my apartment after dark when Kenny is out of town. Seriously, I have to call him as I'm getting out of my car and then I keep him on the line as I enter and turn on ever light and check every potential hiding place, particularly the shower.

Anyway, I may add to the list as I think of more things, so stay tuned...
What freaks you out?

Man of Many Talents

I love when the husband surprises me. And that doesn’t necessarily mean with gifts (although I like that, too).

On Saturday, I woke up in a bad mood and immediately told Kenny that we would be spending some time cleaning and organizing because “this place is closing in on me!!!” Because he’s awesome, Kenny didn’t take my mood too personally and proceeded to spend the next three hours quietly organizing drawers and filing cabinets. When we were finished (and my mood considerably improved) I joined him on the couch. “You know,” I said “it’s finally clean enough in here that I’m no longer against pulling out my sewing machine and mending your jeans like you’ve been asking me to do (for a while).”

He looked at me slyly and said “Oh, I already did that. It took, like, ten minutes. No big deal.”

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I denied that was possible. He stood up (wearing the jeans) and showed me. He did a great job; it had been a pretty big tear. “You mean you got the machine out, threaded it, and actually did that all by yourself?! And you didn’t break anything?!” I asked/exclaimed, still somewhat shocked. He shrugged (and kind of smirked). “Yeah. Like I said it wasn’t a huge deal.”

My husband is a man of many (hidden) talents. I love him. And I love when he surprises me.

Edited to include the cause of said Rip in Jeans - apparently he ripped them while skateboarding to school. I sometimes want to take a picture of him with his back pack on holding his 80's Powell Peralta (sp?) board. It's really cute, actually. He kind of looks like a little boy. However, when I suggest it he rolls his eyes and walks out the door. I can almost hear my future son whining at me as I try to take a photo of him doing the same thing.