Headed to Colorado

Dad is headed to Colorado. He's perhaps the only person I know who gets laid off and within 26 hours has a new job. The hitch: it's in Colorado. I don't know a whole lot about Colorado. It has mountains. And prairie dogs and rattlesnakes.

I have to say that even though Dad's been looking for a change, this is a very bold move. He's lived in Atlanta for 30 years (since two weeks before I was born) and he doesn't have any friends in Pueblo. Sounds like a great new place to visit.

Presidential Dreams

Just a quick note about one hell of a presidential dream last night.

Arne and I were in a big four-wheel drive vehicle when he took it full-speed through the fence around the Bush Ranch in Texas.

I think he might have said, "Let's go in." I think I might have said, "How are we going to do that?" just as we crashed through the electrical wire.

The landscape was lovely and barren, sort of rocky high-desert. And we tooled around for a while in the car until we came up near a bit of a compound. Getting out and poking around seemed like the best thing to do, but as you might expect, if They didn't know we were on the grounds from the moment we trampled the fence, They knew by the time we were walking on elevated pathways towards a rambling southwest stucco house. When They caught up with us, we'd caught up with a sweet dog - just a bit of a mangy pup. Arne had the bright idea for us to believe that we were dogs enough for Them to believe we were dogs for a moment too. All we had to do was put away all our fear and Be a dog for a short bit. So we did.

Three in a row: mangy dog, Arne as long-haired black mutt, and me as almost-pup-am-I-going-to-get-caught?! We filed through the 5 or 6 Them men and made our escape. And wasn't it fun to be a puppy for a moment!

In the next installment, we'll all find out:

Did we ever get fully free of the Bush Ranch? Were we constantly pursued like dogs across the desert by lackeys of our President? Were there doors and curtains to choose, but no way to know which to step through?

Truthfully, I wish I could tell you that my next installment would answer all the burning questions, but really we'll just have to hold on for January 20th and see what happens then. Will we ever get free again?

On fruits and veggies

Bananas are really a great go-to food. Better even sometimes than crackers and cheese, or sausage balls. But now I'm interrupted. Have to scratch Dad's head...

Dad's in town

Dad's in town. We went with my cousin and his new girlfriend and family to the Tonga Room last night. Outrageous atmosphere, outrageous music, outrageous prices, good company.

We had a pretty major disappointment this morning when we went to get our new clothes washer (bought on craigslist from someone we turned out to know) only to find out that our seller had changed her mind. How sad to think you'll be getting a clothes washer for a very small amount of money, and on top of that, to have been chosen from among the millions of craigslist respondents, but then discover that you're gettin' nothin' for Christmas. So instead we went to look at plasma screen TVs. The colors are really lovely, but the picture quality seems worse, not better. Everything. sticks. just. a little. when it. moves.

Soon I'm off to Orphan Andy's to meet my dad. Yeah Castro! We saw Milk last night and it was so so so sad. A good movie, but what a sad story.

Other sad things: my PLAID - Plant Lying Around In Dirt has deflated. It looks like a green turd. I'll post a picture when I figure out how.

To go where no man has gone before

Funny how StarTrek and Diane Arbus say about the same thing.

"To go where no man has gone before."

And

"My favorite thing is to go where I've never gone."

Not sure it's my favorite thing, but it's up there. I got asked in a parlor game (well, as part of the parlor game, but I was actually home sick, so I wasn't playing in the same timespace): "If you have no limitations of time, money or fear, what would you do this next year?" The only thing I could think of was learning another language in another locale. Vietnamese?

That or having a child. But I might very well be too fearful for that. :)

Hot tip for heating it up

Just a hot tip for keeping the heat coming from your wall-mounted gas heater distributed throughout at least two or three rooms in your apartment: put a big fan on top of your bookshelf.

I was so very excited that this idea really works to keep the heat from gathering in the top three feet of the room (so very far above the sofa), and also gets the heat from the living room into the kitchen and sometimes into the antechamber/office/storage porch. The one problem was always that you can't reach the top of the heater to turn it on, even with a chair or a step-stool or using your taller husband as your go-go gadget arm. But this problem is fixable since you can always just plug in and unplug the fan. Unless the fan always resets to not being on when you plug it in. Boo!

Just as I was falling asleep the other night, however, I had an epiphany. [And I do realize that I'm changing perspective here from you to me; that's just to spice things up, and because at some point that is not a Tom Robbins novel, second-person ceases to work as well as it used to. This is that point.] We have a remote control for that fan. We have a remote control that I scoffed at and put in deep storage. Who really needs a remote control for a fan!?! Now if only I could remember where I put that remote! Physical and psychic searching did little to unearth the remote, but by a stroke of very good luck, while unpacking other items hastily stashed before the remodeling of three walls and the ceiling (*major* leak - thank God we don't own this place), voila, remote!

Currently, our fan+remote+heater action is keeping us toasty, or at least evenly distributed.

Low Grade Fever and Chagrin

With a bit of a sore throat and also a bit of a headache last night, I conceded to taking my temperature. Always a bad idea. Turns out I had a fever, which is still hanging on. 98.8 degrees of sleight crud. And a *lot* of episodes of the Office.

So after staying in bed an inordinate amount of time this morning, I got up and had some grits and eggs made by my lovely honeypie. And since then, to his utter disappointment, I've been tidying the house in 15 minute increments. According to him, I should be relaxing and taking it easy. Well, he knows this as well as anyone, but when I say "take it easy" or "easy does it", I'm actually pretty riled up. So I think that with advice to "take it easy", if I'm only tidying in 15 minute increments - instead of setting the house on fire or re-upholstering both the big blue chair and the sofa simultaneously - we're doing good.

Things to do when you have a low-grade fever:

1. sort your socks. You have lots of places stuffed with odd socks. In the wicker picnic basket. In two levels of the mesh hanging Ikea cylinder thing. In one slot of the closet shoe organizer. In the chest-of-drawers sock drawer. Why not get them all out in one place and try to match them up so you don't have to use your husband's tube socks, much to his chagrin!

2. gchat with your mom and brother *simultaneously*. I know, it's never been done before and it's a little frightening, but it's also very exciting. Use cut and paste to tell them both some of the same things, but don't ever ever get confused about which chat window is which.

3. tidy the house. Notice that I don't say "clean the house" here. Clean would be too intense. Just tidy. A little at a time. Take the egg timer from the kitchen and literally set it to 15 minutes. (But when the 15 minutes are up, you can always set it for just a little more.)

4. enjoy the cheeze-ball fashion magazine provided by your loved ones. Vogue was my treat from Mr Johnson this morning. I love it. Especially "The Rules" section: "more sleep". I'm on it!

5. during the holiday season, open Christmas cards. This is always a treat, but even more so when you're feeling a bit under the weather. Great to hear from gunners and snowers. Great to see improbable pictures that are always part of these Christmas card: She *can't* be that big! I didn't know it ever snowed up there!

6. make hot drinks. Tea in the morning, and then a move to my special hot toddy: water, whiskey, lots of lemon and lots of honey.

7. call your friends to cancel all your plans for the day. Not as much fun, but definitely necessary. We don't want them sick, too!

Skeledog

Another thing I like: when my college roommate (and reader at my wedding), her husband, and my ex-boyfriend working together as a team get their T-shirt company featured on NBC's Today Show best pet-related presents for 2008.

Skeledog (or as NBC affectionately displayed, "Skelegdog") has great shirts featuring the stylized skeletons of your favorite dogs. As they write on their web page: "Whether you think bones are morbid or fascinating or ironic, your dog just thinks they're tasty."

Yum!

turkey quesadilla

You never think about adding carrots to a quesadilla, do you? But they are so sweet and yummy when you sautee them up with onions. They add just a touch of sugar to the whole thing. So here's my suggestion: turkey quesadilla. Sautee the onions and carrots in olive oil, use the left-over cheese and cut your turkey into long thin strips. Put it on medium heat inside two tortillas, and what do you have? Turkey Quesadilla! Yogurt or sour cream and tomatoes on top. Voila. It's suddenly not Thanksgiving with turkey tetrazini anymore!

favorite things

Just a few of my favorite things. Puppies, Apricot Gold, big Thunderstorms, gourmet donuts!