august 27

fall
is
here!
i can feel the undeniable crispness in the air! it's afternoon and it's still chilly outside! i'm considering lighting a fire...

39 favourite things: a list

as some of you may know, the cure is my favorite band. it's been this way since i was 12, i think, and despite new music that i'm discovering and falling in love with every day, they still top my charts. i won't make a mix without putting the cure on there; they alone take up about 1/5 of my ipod memory; i never go anywhere without having at least one of their albums on hand; i have spent too much money collecting rare albums and singles on vinyl. yes, i love the cure.
so when i finally had the opportunity to see them on their dreamtour, i about pissed my pants. it had long since been a dream of mine, and nothing was going to stop me.
the show was, needless to say, amazing. i actually cried. i took my sister with me--she was only 16 at the time and i had taken it upon myself to see to it that she had a good sense of music instilled in her. my parents certainly weren't going to undertake that task; ask my dad who played "stairway to heaven" and he can't even tell you that. they listen to 70's jesus music and comtemporary christian pop. i shiver at the thought. anyway, katie did not fully appreciate that show until years later. she had been hoping for their more poppy songs, so when they played the likes of "100 years," "prayers for rain," and "from the edge of the deep green sea" (my personal favorite, tied with "disintegration") she couldn't dig it. but she learned later; oh, she learned.
i also dragged my jita; she, too, was unimpressed at the time, also hoping for poppy songs i believe. she, too, had to undergo the growing pains into appreciation of the cure.
anyway, i purchased one of those overpriced booklets they sell at shows, the one with miscellany and photos. in this little book all of the members of the band had written up their list of their 39 favourite things. it was (and still is) very interesting to read, to get a glimpse into the private lives of the people who make my favorite music. so i composed my own list of 39 favourite things. keep in mind, this was back in 2000, so some of these have changed a bit.

my 39 favourite things
a good book
snuggling
snow
music
leaves
daisies
san francisco
cats
travelling
always learning
photography
beautiful friendships
kisses
coffee
fags, especially after coffee
ice cream
venice
lightning storms
the symphony
piano
peanut butter
getting mail
laughing outloud when no one is around
candles
the moon
dreams
wine
understanding
being challenged
weeping willows
swimming
movies
the smell of rain
love
embraces
water
poetry
writing
working clay with my hands

it was actually harder to compose this list than one would think. i am prepared to put my updated, revised version out there, but not without hearings from a few of you first. i'd like to see a list of 39 favourite things from:
almitra
hubs
kt
camille

...stayed home, part deux

okay. so back to my bad-karma-infested week.
so we all recovered from the dog incident, only to be flying out to napa, california two days later. you're thinking, napa, what could go wrong, right? yes, 'tis the land of flowing wine, but getting there and back is a bitch, let me tell ya.
so thursday we have to take our daughter to rifle to drop her off at her grandparents' house. this was to be an adults-only trip, so they kindly volunteered to keep her. only problem is, it's a 4 1/2 hour drive to their house, then a 3 hour drive to denver. the only time schedule we had to keep was, they needed her by 2pm, and we needed to be in denver by 4.30. so we set off early in the morning, but being the country folk we are, forgot to account for possible traffic and/or construction. we hit both. it took us 6 hours to get to rifle, which was long, but not too bad. until we stopped for a quite bite at the subway. someone backed up into our car, leaving quite a mark. it was still driveable, thankfully, but definitely messed up. after getting that glich taken care of (exchanging phone numbers and insurance and biting my tongue), we were on the road again. more traffic, more construction. we didn't make it to denver until 5.30. molly was kind enough to squeeze us in to later hair cuts, and we did get the royal treatment at the parlour, but we were still kind of wound up from our tight schedule, getting hit, and having spent 10 hours in the car.
we were supposed to be staying at j's mom's apartment, conveniently located near the highway, nice, comfy bed and privacy awaiting, but neither of us had grabbed the keys. my sister offered us her couch, but laura offered us her bed, so we ended up with a nice place to sleep, just (again) a bit of an askewed plan. though, the night turned out okay after we got to the nearest watering hole and filled up. we slept like babies.
we slept too soundly, in fact, and did not hear our cell phones ringing early the next morning when our parents were trying to wake us to alert us of the terrorist attacks and the new security measures. when we finally did get the message, we still had enough time to clean up and find some breakfast. though, while we were waiting to be served, i called to confirm our flights. what do you know but our flight had been cancelled, and, lucky us, they'd booked us on a flight that left one hour earlier! so we couldn't stay for breakfast, we had to book it to DIA and forego watercourse's scrumptuous banana bread french toast. getting to DIA was no problem, but finding parking was a complete pain in the ass. then we had to shove all our chapstick and lotion into our check baggage (which we were going to just carry on). then, the lines, oh the lines. they were horrific. it took us 30 minutes to get through the line just to check in, and then they didn't have my husband on the plane. getting that taken care of took some extra time, and then we were off to security. holy shit. anyone who is familiar with DIA will appreciate this: they had the normal windy roped line, but then it wound back around the baggage claim areas, all the way around, and the line ended basically where it began. it was re-fricken-diculous. so we spent about 1 1/2 hours there, and it would have been longer, if we hadn't had a slight streak of luck (our only one so far) and been rushed through the express lane. they only asked us if we had laptops, and then we got to go in the fast lane. if it had not been for that, we wouldn't have made our flight. in fact, i had already called the airline, certain we would not make it, and rebooked us on a later flight. thankfully, though, we already had our boarding passes, and so when we ran up to the gate just as we were closing it, we squeezed right on and took our seats with seconds to spare.
the flight actually wasn't too bad, except we still had no food in our tummies and wouldn't be served on the plane. we made it to san fran and got our rental car and were starving, so i had the bright idea that we'd head to fisherman's wharf and find some food whilest doing a bit o' sightseeing. j has never been to san fran, my favorite city in the us, and so i wanted to show him around a bit. though, pier 39 is filled with disgusting restaurants and seafood (he hates seafood), and so when we finally picked a place and ordered beers and they still hadn't come in 15 minutes and there was nothing that looked remotely decent on the menu, we said fuck it, and left. i think we ate ham and cheese crepes. but we did do a bit of sightseeing, and i took him to stinson beach, kind of a pretty drive along the coast, so that afternoon turned out okay.
then we were to head to napa to meet up with the rest of the family, including cousins and aunts we haven't seen in ages. driving in california is, well, interesting to say the least, and it just woulnd't have been right had we not seen at least one horrific traffic accident. lucky for us, we had front row seats to this one. we came up over a hill and the traffic was backed up as far as we could see; a motorcyclist two cars ahead of us must have locked his wheels and lost control. all i remember is all the cars screeching to a halt to avoid running over this guy who, by that time, was dragging himself to the side of the road with his elbows, his legs apparently hurt pretty badly. i called 911 and j got out to help; luckily a doctor from the traffic up ahead saw it and ran back and took control of the situation. it was pretty bad, and we were both shaken up quite a bit, but after helping pick up the bike we had to continue on. the rest of the way we probably drove 55.
is this story becoming mundane?
we didn't really have anymore glitches, just minor inconveniences. for instance, the hotel wouldn't give us the rate we were quoted, and the room wasn't even that nice. and when we returned we couldn't find our parking ticket (no surprise, with the hurry we were in when we left). i should say, though, that being in napa was almost worth all that hassle. that place is amazing. the rehersal dinner was held in a wine cellar, complete with wooden casks that held 2000 gallons of wine each, and there were probably about 40 of them in this cellar. the dinner was served by candlelight on one long table, beautifully decorated with candles and petals, and it was a three-course meal, each accompanied by its own particular wine. and we had entertainment, phantom of the opera songs. it was truly amazing.
but it's good to be home and i wonder if we will be doing any travelling like that for a while? the answer is currently an overwhelming NO but i do get the itch too often so we shall see.

perhaps we should have stayed home

okay. we had a pretty strange trip to california. it was actually a strange entire week. i'll start with the events preceding our departure. (disclaimer: this entry promises to be long and strenuous. only the bold {bored} read on.)

once upon a time there was this dog. this dog lived at the shelter. and in that same once-upon time, there used to be this friend. in these days, she was a really good friend. despite that last description, she made a fateful error in deciding that on a particular day when i was driving (we used to carpool), she needed said dog from the shelter. did she already own a dog a third of this dog's mature size? yes. did she live in her parents' house while they were trying to sell their house? yes. did she know this new dog acquisition might upset her parents and therefore be unwelcomed? yes. but she wanted it anyway. it was a cute dog, and, understandably, she had a difficult time resisting. so she got the dog. and on the way home, said dog decided to puke in my car from the motion sickness. notably, it was not in her control that the dog did puke in my car, but needless to say i was not too happy. but the second fateful error was when she decided to do the most shoddy clean-up job i've ever seen. basically she rubbed the puke even more into my car. so it became my problem. and that was the end of it. or so i thought.
{fast forward about 8 months} we were busy all weekend (before last) with preparation and party festivites for j's father. the eve of the party we went down to help at the farm, and we took our dog ollie with. so you can imagine our surprise when we returned much later that night to find another dog in our backyard. this dog, at first glance, looks quite similar to ollie, though the sober and alert person would notice enough discrepancies to discontinue mistaking the dog for ours. nonetheless, this dog was in our backyard, we assumed, probably from such a lack of sobriety or attention as to have made an honest mistake. this was not so much a problem, until we came up onto our porch and began to enter our house. there was a GINORMOUS hole in our screen door, and upon further enterance, we found dog paws of mud tracked all over our house. to help you perceive just how upsetting this was, i had spent the entire day cleaning my house for guests of the party that would be staying at our house, and who were entering directly behind us. mud was literally everywhere; this dog had not missed a spot. it wasn't the first time we'd seen this dog; i myself had actually seen her at a distance at nighttime on my way home and stopped to call what i thought was my dog, of course discovering it was not her. and frequently when i take my dog for walks she is carousing around in the neighborhood, no collar or other mark of ownership present.
as there is a strict leash law in our neighborhood, we had a choice to make: call the police and have dallas (the local law enforcer) spend way too much time at our house going over every grueling detail to discover the owner, issue a ticket, take the dog to the pound, which would only incrue more fines for the owner, und so weiter...
we decided to be cool about it and try to find the owner on our own, thinking this owner would of course pay for the screen door to be fixed and my time spent re-cleaning my house.
this is where it gets interesting. we did find the owner, by way of other neighbors who had also seen the dog running rampant and had returned the dog several times already. turns out, the owner is a friend of said once-upon-a-time friend, the person upon whom the dog was shoved when it wasn't allowed in the parents' house anymore, and the dog was the very dog who puked in my car. so at this point j and i are wondering how the hell this dog and this person continue to affect our lives in frustrating ways?!
well since we've discovered the owner of the dog, j goes to pay him a visit. he isn't home, we're told. he's leaving to go camping. j leaves our number. so then we get a phone call from the owner, and get this. he says, i won't be back in town until tomorrow, but you can take the dog to the pound if you wish, or just let her go, or just put her on my porch, she'll be fine until i get back. i don't know about you folks out there, but as i understand it, that isn't the way you take care of a dog. just let her go or leave her on my porch. nonsense! so we decided to keep the poor (and obviously neglected) dog until the owner returned. of course, our ollie was in heaven. he's just discovered what his balls are for and, well, i don't really need to say anymore. but the guy did come back, and as i understand it, j and he had words. something about why don't you talk to me like a man and how can you call me irresponsible? type phrases coming from the perpetrator's mouth.
to end it, he did fix the screen door, though i didn't get any recompense for having to re-clean my house. the dog hasn't been seen running around (or in the backyard, for that matter), and as far as we can tell, the matter is over.
that was the beginning of our week.

i'm going to finish the rest of the story tomorrow.

hooray for poop!

i never knew poop could be such a cool thing. it's been a long time comin', but we've finally achieved success. soren FINALLY pooped in the potty! now it's practically her favorite thing to do, and when she goes, she sits there for at least a half hour. when did she turn into a man? but i thought i would share this incredible milestone with you. we're one step closer to being diaper-free! hell yeah!

doesn't she look so grown up?!























after 30 minutes on the toilet "just ONE more poop mom."




















she likes to be able to see her progress.