Short update post-Tuesday

Beast was fortunate (?) enough to have all the charges reduced to misdemeanors--DWI and disturbing the peace, rather than DUI and resisting arrest--on Friday. The police screwed the pooch in collecting evidence and not allowing him insulin, plus he took all his paperwork from rehab and meetings and so forth to show good faith in trying to fix himself. And the fact that he'd been fired carried some weight too.

So, we're packing and cleaning and prepping for tomorrow's departure. Beast paid all the bills, emailed all the car rental, airport transpo, and other updates to me and Sparky. He also sent a final email to our AirBnB host, and repacked his backpack, changing it out from work-based to vacation travel. The first-aid kit he takes when he travels has been updated.

He has been sore and limping all day--hips are achy--and about half an hour ago, he finally admitted that he was ready for bed. But he wants to see the NASCAR race. It's less than half over right now. The fast part, in other words, is over. It could be another 90 minutes before racing ends. He should go to bed. My job is to STFU and let him mind his own business.

We had to go buy a third rollaboard today on the way home because we realized that Sparky doesn't have one. So that was extra walking, because of course luggage is in the #@*!*ing furthest corner from the entrance of the store.

Anyway. I've been sparking low-level anxiety attacks for about two hours now. This is about when I start melting down prior to every vacation, but this is mostly focused today on worrying about Beast. Some of the behavior he exhibits when he's tired like this is the same kind of behavior he has when he's been drinking so that's really the majority of the problem for me. At least he's eating some dinner now though. That will help. And his affect/mood isn't like when he's drinking. So it's ghosts and my imagination that are making me slightly manic.

Also, I think I just realized today that I'm not going to see my sister. Usually when flying to England, she's "home base." This will be the second visit since her funeral, and it keeps hitting home that she . will . not . be . there.
Ever.
Again.

I sometimes wonder if I have the slowest Reality Awareness filter ever created. I mean, she died SIX YEARS AGO and I'm just figuring this out??

So yeah. Having now gone back in time to reread old blog posts, and looked at my Family page here...I need to do some work on cleanup there. People will keep having babies!

Well, we're home.

I drove the RV back to the house day before yesterday. We unloaded after we arrived, in the dark, and I did a quick wipedown of everything. Then yesterday morning we took the RV to the car wash and then back to its home. So, we are done with our trip, officially, now.

Beast's shoulder is still really sore. The oxycodone and fentanyl is keeping him functional (and sleepy). He will see his regular doctor on Monday first thing. I'm trying to figure out if I'm going back to work early or not. I'd prefer 'not' but we'll see.

This might rank up there as one of the weirder weeks of my life. I'm glad Beast is ok, I'm glad we're home safe and sound, and I'm glad nothing was worse than it was. But it was pretty bad--though I keep sugar-coating it for public consumption.

Sparky was able to come visit today after meeting some friends for lunch not to far from here. He is doing well, I think. He's excited about a date he has set up on Monday, someone he's had his eye on for awhile, I guess.

Laundry from the trip is done. Most of the stuff from the trip is out of boxes and bags and replaced where it belongs. The shot glasses I thought I bought at the antique shop apparently didn't get included, which is irritating as they were gifts. We are blessed with wonderful friends who brought us homemade Indian curry for dinner. It was delicious, and there's enough left for lunch for me tomorrow. I sound the first of Sparky's used and no-longer-needed/wanted books on Amazon today. We're watching OSU and Penn State...until Beast falls asleep anyway. The "s" key on my laptop is flaking out, so typing is annoying.

Vacation at the ER

Whee. Beast is having terrible pain in his left shoulder. It was bad enough that for a few minutes he though it might be a heart attack, which meant a fairly quick response from the EMTs who transported him to SLU Med Ctr. Where we sit.

They've established it's probably NOT a heart attack but the pain is bad. Very bad. Honestly, though, he seems a little better in the last few minutes. It might be that he's just getting used to it.

The waiting room is emptying out a little now, at least.

And we wait.  Whee.

I did manage to drive through downtown St. Louis in the RV without incident. And managed to find a spot to park eventually too!

Vacation

I haven't ever blogged from my phone but here I am, sitting by a firepit while Beast burns things, listening to night-singing bugs and nearly indistinguishable music from across the campground. The wind is blowing in the treetops but not so much down here on the ground. 

Yes, we're camping. In an RV, which we rented from CruiseAmerica. So soft (ish) sleeping spots and protection from temperature changes and electricity. ...After my shower this morning, I blow-dried my hair. Because I could. Beast showered in the RV but I used the campground showers which was fine. 

I even cooked tonight. Yes, basic chicken and a box dinner on the side but still cheaper than eating out every meal. 

We're doing a Heartland tour. Today was a tour of Abraham & Mary Lincoln's home prior to his election to the Presidency in 1860. It's a lovely house, in good condition, and with much original furniture. We wandered around the 'neighborhood' near the house and then walked across downtown to a bar Beast found on Packerseverywhere.com (not sure how to do a hyperlink using the phone) and watched the Pack beat St. Louis with a bunch of Packerbackers. The place is only open the Sundays they play and only for the duration of the game.  It was fun. We'll find another place next week...

[Why does campfire smoke ALWAYS follow me???]

Think I'm going to finish this up now. Only a couple of logs left. Then I'll go in and read about Mary Todd's rather sad life.

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

9 Places you'd like to visit in 2014 (2nd January)

I know we're going these places for sure:

1. The shore of Lake Michigan in a cabin weekend we won at a silent auction. I have no idea precisely where this place is.
2. Vegas, probably. Next month.

Places I would like to go (in decreasing likelihood):

3. The Ozarks--I just want to visit them.
4. Dallas-Ft. Worth to see my new great-nephew!
5. England to see my the other great-nephew I've yet to meet.
6. New York City, to see Central Park and Ellis Island. Nothing much else, though.
7. Ouray.
8. Moosehead Lake.
9. Valley of the Kings, Egypt.

Click on the image to play along

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Beast and I spent Thursday and Friday nights in the City of the Big Shoulders, the Big Onion, That Toddlin' Town... because Friday was our 27th wedding anniversary. Although we've been inside The Loop dozens of times, there are a lot of touristy things that we haven't ever gotten around to. We did some of them, and there are still a kazillion more. Oh, well, we'll just have to schedule another trip.

To start out our weekend, Sparky came home for the holiday on Wednesday afternoon while I was at work. We had our Fourth of July cookout food that night--cheddar brats and curly chips--and sat around the living room on our individual laptops watching...something...on TV.

Late the next morning, after multiple directives to the boy, Beast and I hit the road. Traffic was startlingly nonexistent considering it was a holiday. We got to our semi-posh just off the Mag Mile hotel in record time and because Beast has frequent usage points with the chain, we were upgraded to a corner suite. Which would have been 100% awesome if it had been east-facing so we could see the lakefront without craning our necks with our cheeks pressed up against the window. As it was, it was a mere 90% awesome: leather sofa, zebra-striped comfy chair, big desk and TV in the 'living room' and another big TV and large changing area in the 'bedroom' with windows everywhere. Posh indeed.

Naturally, I noted the weirdest possible thing first about our view. A friend of mine called it "urban ranching" when she saw the photo to the right. Those are cows, formerly of the Cows on Parade display a few years decade-and-a-half ago.

So, released from our luggage, we headed out to walk Michigan Avenue. The only times we've been along here in the past is in December, usually managing to pick the coldest, windiest days to be outside. So this was a whole lot nicer. We wandered up past the Water Tower, passing several homeless people with hand-lettered signs and paper cups for donations. After passing about four of them in 6-8 blocks, we realized that all the signs had the same handwriting. I'm not sure what's going on with that, but I feel for these (mostly Muslim women) people. Especially as they sat mere yards from articles of clothing or technology costing enough to feed someone for several weeks. This is not part of traveling that is comforting or comfortable.

Michigan Ave. was nuts with people window-shopping and taking pictures and generally being everywhere, so we zig-zagged over to Rush street and ended up at McCormick & Schmick's where we had a mid-afternoon snack and a drink. I had bacon-and-jalapeno-wrapped shrimp on a bed of corn salsa, and holy God it was amazing. While we sat there, a valet from around the corner pulled up in a Lamborghini and parked it on the curb outside our window. It was fun for me to watch people walking toward it and seeing their faces when they spotted the car. Lots of stares, and a few people pulled over in their cars to take pictures including one dad who got his daughter out of her car seat to have her picture taken. The valet arrived back to reclaim the car at that point and let the little girl (and her brother) get inside and be photographed INSIDE the car. That's when Beast got actively jealous, I think.

Post snack, we wandered back towards our hotel, people-watching and window-shopping. I loved this store's window and interior displays. This is just about 2/3 of all the sewing machines on display! I also liked the "Spitalfields" reference, and "Jack's Place." You Ripper-ologists might get the connection. Or maybe I'm just weird. ;-)


At some point I realized that wearing flip-flops for this trip was a really stupid idea, and my feet began to concur (loudly). We straggled back to the hotel and relaxed for a couple of hours while we debated placed to eat dinner. We ended up in the Elephant and Castle, which was NOT the best choice as it turned out. My roast beef was delicious and the green beans were perfectly cooked. Beast's shepherd's pie was only warm when served and immediately upon finishing it, he said he was pretty sure it was a bad idea. Best part overall were the signs on the walls.

The crowd by this point was getting pretty thick outside with all the people headed to the lakefront for fireworks viewing. We were staying about 4 blocks from Navy Pier where they are launched, but neither of us felt particularly comfortable in the crowd for several reasons, so we retreated to our hotel room and listened to the booms while watching the show on TV. Yes, we suck. We also realized at about this point that perhaps a hotel a block from the Northwestern Hospital ER didn't bode well for a quiet night. This is the sort of situation for which earplugs are designed, however, so I slept blissfully till about 9:30 Friday morning.

That long sleep meant one thing: PIZZA FOR BREAKFAST! We were yards from the original Gino's East Pizza, and had noticed immense lines the day before. We got over there at 10:55 and were about the 10th group in line for opening at 11. I could eat Gino's deep-dish pizza's every day. In fact, I could eat their crusts alone for every meal. So incredibly good. The waitress was stellar, the drinks were more booze than mixer, and reading the graffiti was as fun as usual. By the time we left, the place was jammed and the line was 50 feet down the block.

Fortified by Chicago-style pizza, we headed south toward the river and then Millennium Park. We passed more stores, more beggars, more people, more odd smells, crossed the river and headed right for the Bean. Naturally, we took our pictures, which won't be posted here, but here's a sort of vertiginous shot of Several Big Tall Buildings instead. The tall building in the back center is Trump Tower, the latest of the 'scrapers.

After (FINALLY) seeing and being seen by the Bean, we scooted over to the Crown Fountain pillars, where all the kids in the universe were splashing and yelling and generally having a great time. Seriously, it was fun to just sit and watch them and know that we didn't have to worry about keeping track of anyone. Then there was this little guy, who had just had it for the day:

This was about the point when my feet, in their flip-flops, started to get very annoyed. However, we plodded along another 5 blocks to the Harold Washington Library Center, because...do I have to explain how embarrassing it is that I hadn't been here ever?? Naturally, we found the doors leading directly into the teen media area which blew my mind with joy. After asking directions, we found our way to the "regular library" which was ... sigh ... just spectacular.

We found a table to sit at on (I think) the 3rd floor and sat trying to get cooled off. One of the best things about libraries is the free wi-fi: we scoped out the CTA site and discovered a bus that would drop us back 2 blocks from our hotel in air-conditioned comfort for a mere $2.25. Once I knew I didn't have a 40-minute walk ahead of me, I perked right up and we wandered a bit more before heading across the street to the bus stop. We ended up seated across from a couple from Sheffield, England, on holiday here. The wife went to uni in the town where my sister and her family lived, on a campus in the village where my sister is buried, so that was all quite weird. We helped them get sorted out for their next activity and discussed their baseball outing planned for the next day.

Upon arriving back at the hotel, I crawled under the covers for a quick nap (the room was Siberia-temperature) and literally crashed for nearly 90 minutes. Beast woke me up so I could get changed into slightly dressier clothes--and higher heels, also unsuitable for walking long distances--and we headed to the Hancock Center for dinner in the Signature Room. Now, we had on a previous trip already paid to go to the observatory to see the view, but it was very fun this time to tell the doormen -woman and -man that we had reservations and essentially get to cut everyone in line and stand by the elevators without waiting for 45 minutes. :-)

Dinner was astounding. Stellar service, good food--I was still stuffed with pizza though, so I could barely eat--and amazing eavesdropping and people-watching. And the view:

I managed to make our waiter burst out in a loud guffaw at one point toward the end of the meal, something I suspect is unusual. I mean, this is a place where the waiter puts your napkin on your lap for you. Quite hoity-toity (and expensive--we won't be returning for another 27 years, probably). And then in the elevator down we got into a rather hysterical conversation with the elevator operator which apparently caused the rest of the people in the car to giggle. I was too busy laughing at him telling Beast he was robbing the cradle, that I couldn't be more than 19 years old. WTH--I was old enough to be this guy's mother...ROFL.

And then we walked, or rather waddled, back to our room and crashed, feet up on the coffee table, and watched Fast & Loud, which I'm sorry to say I have started to pay attention to. I mean, they are SO Texan it's hard NOT to watch. But I loathe that beard...

Next morning, it was Beast's turn to sleep in till I woke him so we could check out and head home. It was a great couple of days.

Upon returning home, Sparky had already left to get back to campus for some Big Thing Saturday night, so we arrived at an empty-but-for-the-guinea-pigs house. The a/c came on while we were getting the last of the things out of the car ... and sounded like a plane was taking off. Beast took a look and eventually found that the housing (?) that holds the fan on the motor had broken so the fan was crashing into the walls of the unit as it spun. The cooling part and the motor are all fine, so he jury-rigged a fix to get us through till Monday when it won't cost body parts and internal organs to have someone come fix it. Or, actually, I think the plan now is that he'll go to the nearest wholesale warehouse for Lennox parts and buy replacement parts. In any case, he spent his first 5 hours home yesterday doing that and he's been outside all afternoon today doing yardwork. I've been...doing this.... Allergy season sucks.

But now I'm done with this, so perhaps I'll start working on dinner and then clean the pigs' cage. Giddyup.

Blog Challenge

So today's subject is Somewhere You'd Like to Live or Visit. Nice timing: I cataloged a book today on planning a safari vacation. I went so far as to check flights from here to Botswana. And then I realized that this isn't going to happen anytime in the immediate future. But it's fun to dream, eh?

Post-Election Bounce

Staying up till 1:30 a.m. to watch Obama's victory speech was worth it, but I'm very tired now. And today was a weird day. I try not to bring my politics to work, since I know several coworkers are not in full agreement with my view of the world (not that this surprises me, of course).  But it was kind of weird at work today. I got a strange vibe from one staunch Republican coworker who seemed almost ANGRY with me about something; I've just now put it together that she (and a few other Republican friends on Facebook) are really upset today. I'm trying to figure out if I was like that when Bush won.

I didn't feel great today. I have established beyond any reasonable doubt that I can't eat McDonald's eggs. I keep hoping that it's my imagination, but every time I drive through for breakfast I end up feeling lousy by lunchtime. Gah.

A friend's friend/coworker has been dealing with her brother's end-of-life issues, which were all resolved permanently last night. So my friend was not having a good day at work today, and she also not feeling good.

OCLC wasn't working right today either. Every time I tried to export a record, it logged me out. There were a couple of more things that it wasn't doing right either, and after a couple of hours fighting it, I gave up and faffed around the rest of the day. When I wasn't trying to decide if I should just go home since I felt lousy.

Tonight was bell choir. We've got some cool stuff coming up to play in December. And then at the end of rehearsal, the director told us that with the December performance, she'll be stepping down as director due to "personality conflicts." She was very professional and didn't name names, though at least one person jumped to conclusions very verbally. It doesn't matter, except that this really bums me out. Crap.

AND, I'm feeling under the gun because I'm going out of town this weekend, meeting Beast in San Francisco to celebrate our birthdays. I haven't packed--though this will take me about half an hour--and I can feel myself going into pre-trip freakout mode. Part of this is because I haven't been on vacation in over a year, so I'm excited, but part of it is just me doing what I do when ever I stress. At least I recognize it and have some tools to use against it, but I do not enjoy this twitchy feeling. Also: 5-hour flight? Doesn't really sound fun. Clearly, I'm over the whole TSA nightmare, and the airlines' tendency to cram-jam people into seats and charge us up the wazoo for crappy sandwiches.

Strange dreams this morning

I parked my truck on the road that leads to the driveway into our church and walked up said driveway, which was clear and driveable as far as I can remember. Once I crested the hill, I could see Paul & Matt (father & son) carrying poinsettias up from where they were being kept near the retention pond area. This was to keep them out of the weather. The sun was shining and it was a lovely day, and as I walked across the parking lot it dawned on me that I'd forgotten our bag of change for the noisy offering. This was upsetting; I needed to call Beast to remind him. I was also trying to figure out why I hadn't parked in the lot, and reminding myself that I had to get to work right after church. There were only a few cars in the lot but one of them belonged to the S. family who were unloading everyone and walking towards the door all wearing coats and winter-wear. Johnny's hand was all covered by a big (glove? scarf? sleeve of an overlarge coat? all I remember is that it was black) and I couldn't tell if he had it casted or just covered by this bulky thing.

What . The . Heck?

• Poinsettias in May? Which are being stored outside to keep them safe?? 
• There is no retention pond where Paul & Matt were working; the grade is uphill there.
• Parking on the road, which I'm pretty sure might be illegal, and is definitely unsafe not to mention ridiculous?  Plus, that truck hasn't been around for over a year.
• Johnny's hand was slammed in a door a couple of weeks ago and (long-story-short) he ended up in the hospital last weekend when it became infected; however, no cast was involved at any point. 

Tomorrow is noisy offering day, as well as Sunday School teacher appreciation, and I do actually work after church. I would be upset if we forgot to bring change, but the bag I was thinking about--which exists, and is a white paper shopping bag from ...uh, maybe Bath & Body Works?--in the dream only has about 75 pennies in it. Hardly worth worrying about. We'll bring it, along with pockets of dimes and quarters.

Do I know what this means? Well, I suppose I'll get another plant tomorrow at church; it's unlikely to be a poinsettia, however. Maybe something someone dug out of our backlot (lol, doubtful)  by Paul & Matt, who do, in reality, do a LOT of work around church. There are still buried feelings of annoyance about the driveway and road and the subdivision it leads to--THAT is a VERY long story. I miss my truck, I guess; I miss driving a manual tranny. I have been worrying about Johnny all week hoping he's ok. I think I started to wake up in the crossing-the-parking-lot phase which is why it started to become slightly less wackadoodle. Not too excited about work, though given the fact that several of the more irritating staff members won't be there, it's not such a bad thing.

And now? Now, I'm off on a mini road trip.

What? Where? Oh, yeah....

So the whole month of October passed with nothing to say here. Sigh. I even stopped meming for a couple of weeks. Thing is nothing much really did happen, although I'm sure I could've found something to say about some of the 'nothing' that happened.

Like, for instance, my boss double-dealing me on hours and holding out a promise of going full-time and then acting like it was a bit of a misunderstanding when I came back with a yes answer after doing some due diligence. Or perhaps the trip to the E.R. with Beast a couple of Saturday nights ago during which the cops babysitting the drunk next door came over to tell us to settle down and stop yelling (at the doctor). Then there was the phone call at work from Sparky about the fact that we hadn't paid the bill for his first semester of college.

There were some good things too: Amy visiting, a nice Homecoming with Sparky, a wicked-funny reunion event for reasons having more to do with cattiness than anything else, getting lost with Jen in our former college town while trying to get into Walgreen's leading to an extended giggle-fit, the fact that Beast only spent that one night in the hospital, and Fall Break with Sparky spending 80% of his waking hours in the basement ignoring us.

Beast's back, overall, is improving. Allergy season may (MAY!) actually be over, finally, for me. Sparky is doing well academically, and still enjoying the fun of dorm life. We have a new guinea pig, as yet unnamed; he seems to be getting along fine with Ruka who has taken on a bit of a protective role suddenly and surprisingly.

I really must try to get back in the habit of stopping by here to update things. It's become fairly obvious that I do use the archives to figure out when stuff happened in the past 8 years. So I need to do myself a favor and write about NOW for the future.

One of those days

Couldn't sleep last night--stupid Restless Legs. Go ahead and laugh. I hope if you find it amusing, you develop this in the future. It's fucking ANNOYING, and useless to complain about. Beast was already asleep so I did what I did in our 20s: crept as quietly as possible out of bed with my crosswords and came downstairs to sleep on the couch. I did sleep, eventually, but not well and surely not long enough.

Which wasn't a great start, but everything went pretty well at home.

Then I got to work. Had a thoroughly useless staff meeting, experienced two rounds of Total Condescension brought on by asking what I thought were fairly innocuous questions, had to re-enter ALL login/password stuff on EVERY site I use EVERY day MULTIPLE times over the course of the next four hours, put out about five forest fires for assorted people (many of which were also tech issues), and simmered.

Ugh.

Probably a good thing Beast is at a business meeting/dinner tonight. At least he doesn't have to bear the brunt of my craptastic day.

On the other hand, I got a fun package in the mail today, and there's more on the way, and I only have 3 more days this week to work until the mission trip starts.

Things I should mention

• Ellen and Spence are married. W00t. More on that later, I promise.
• In spite of walking miles every day for at least 10 of the days we were gone, I gained weight. This does not come as a big surprise since I felt like I ate all day every day. Oh well.
• Either my eyes have gotten very bad, or Blogger (in draft) shrinky-dinked their template page font. Everything is minuscule now.
• I love my Nook. I may have mentioned that, but it's still true. It's not the same as reading a book-book, but that doesn't make it bad by any means. Some books won't work right in it, and sometimes you just need to hold a book, but the content of the book in a Nook is the same. Maybe better, since I can adjust the print size and leave myself notes without needing a pen to hand all the time.
• Between the Nook and the Flip, we got lots of attention from technophiles overseas. And we took illegal video. Maybe I'll post some. :-)
• Speaking of the Flip: WHAT THE HELL, Cisco?? Really? What.the.hell.
• Karma bites hard. I did a somewhat-bad thing, and had the same thing happen to me in return. On the same trip.
• Sparky ended up at the hospital, briefly (for a chest X-ray), while we were gone. FIL, however, had no problems whatsoever. Of course, we had prepared for the precise opposite, and didn't even leave Sparky's insurance info with either of them. Sparky's fine, just had a bad chest cold that caused him to have trouble breathing in gym class one day, and to miss one other day of school.
• Speaking of my brilliant son who has 5 AP classes under his belt...he missed the deadline for signing up to take the AP tests for those classes. I have, so far, restrained myself from punching him in the head.
• So yeah, the week before we left on vacation, I had a kidney stone problem. The follow-up visit to the doctor resulted in the news that I should probably try to drink more than 2 liters of water (liquids in general) per day. Two liters. That's a LOT of peeing! 
• No, I did not follow those directions in Europe. Give me a break.
• I am tired of saying, "No, not that wedding." But I will probably watch some of that wedding.
• "Gelato!" and "Room 4-4-6" will always remind me of Florence.
• It was warmer in England the days we were there than it was in Italy. That, my friends, is weird. I about died of heat prostration at the wedding reception.
• With the exception of tram, I think we road on every available sort of transportation available in the past week. Well, not city-bus-route buses or bicycles, either. Planes, trains, automobiles, taxis, coaches, subways...and then there is walking, too.
• I will upload pictures tonight. Unless I end up needing to iron, in which case, I will upload pictures...this weekend.
• Had my annual review yesterday. She likes me. I'm one of those who actually gets a (pathetic) raise this year. Have bitten off far more than I'll be able to chew for the upcoming year. Ugh.
• My brand-new (to me) car is back at Carmax having its CD player replaced. For free. I had to drive the hour to S-burg yesterday and leave it there. I'm currently driving a red car with a spoiler and a sunroof. Sport-tay! Too bad it's rain-rain-rain all the time and I probably won't get to use the sunroof. I have to go back and get my real car over the weekend.
• Before we left town, our washing machine had started making thumping and jet-taking-off sounds. We knew we'd have to have a new one--repairing the old one would have cost the same as buying new. By the time we got home, the spin-cycle wasn't removing any water from clothes, so Beast took our dirty vacation clothes to a laundromat Tuesday once he established that it took three drying cycles to get sheets to moist. 
• Consequently, last night we hit Best Buy for a new washer and brought home the floor model which is now in our basement. If you want pictures, it's more-or-less this one.
• Being a grown-up is really BOR-ING sometimes!
• In case anyone is going to England, "The Slug and Lettuce," while a catchy/cutesy name for a pub, is only a cover for being a Ruby Tuesday. Yes. We got suckered into that one. Still, astoundingly tasty nachos...for England.
• OK, so work. I need to go. More prose, less of the bullet-style ... eventually.

Testing

I am actually typing this on my Nook from our hotel room on our last night in Italy. I love my Nook! Though I will say it's not very easy to type on.

I will have much to say when I get home and have a proper keyboard instead of a touchy touchscreen on which to type. Ciao!

Peregrinations

As promised, here's the program for the next few weeks for us.

Miscellany

A headline from a nearby paper that I read on occasion; I have kept saved for weeks in my RSS feeds because it makes me laugh EVERY time I see it:

Woman falls out third-story window, found on neighbor's couch

She was fine when found. Just drunk. Surprise, surprise.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Speaking of which, Sparky informed us there was a WHOLE LOT of drinkin' going on in Germany, among both the American and the German teens. He is appalled. APPALLED! His appalledness makes me roll my eyes and snort.

Wait till college, hon, just wait!

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Pics from our vacation:

Because one really has to stop here when you see this sign, no? I didn't go in; Beast did. I stayed outside and took pictures, because I just oculdn't handle the schlock value. Beast was impressed. I'll bet they have good bathrooms.

Windmill farms have sprung up all across the plains, which is wonderful. However, you can't deny how spooky they are on the horizon.

This is scenery I grew up seeing as a child as we meandered around Wyoming and Colorado. This donkey is in Kansas, but otherwise it looks completely the same as the hundreds of others I've seen.

This is the view driving from Kansas to Colorado Springs. The road waaaaaay off in the distance is about 20 miles away, and still another 20 miles from the Spgs. Bor.Ring.Dri.Ving.

The Beaumont (duh) in Ouray. Our room was the third window from the left, where the curtain is open a bit. I can't imagine there's a boring or bad room in this place. And yes, the street is that steep. lol

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
I played hooky from work today, staying home to cull through the pages of "Cookery" changes that need to be made in our catalog while watching NCIS reruns on the USA Network. I made it halfway through in checking (not fixing)...in four hours. I may dream about "Cookery (Tofu)" and "Cookery, Acadian" tonight. Gibbs as a gourmet cook? Ducky making foie gras?

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Germany is out of the Cup race, but I'm kind of secretly glad that Spain is in. I don't know why, and don't tell Sparky; he's bummed that Germany lost.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
And I'm going to bed.

Home

We are there, after 3000 miles of road under our wheels, and richer in furniture and 'stuff' from Mom's estate. I have things to deliver to the nephews up the road.  We have yet another piece of the "set" my dad made--this makes #4--and a cedar chest.  Those are the big things that are (probably) staying here, along with some (more) photos and papers and odds and ends.

The highlights (and a few lowlights) of the trip:

• I can strike Kansas from my list of "states I have never visited", and I'm pretty glad of that, though there was a great steak place in Salina....
• The Best Ever tortilla chips at a restaurant in Colorado Springs, along with what Beast describes as The Best Margarita Ever. The chips were so good we asked for a takeout order and snacked on them in the car the rest of the trip.
• Unfortunately, something else at that meal did not set well in my G.I. tract, so I spent that night inspecting porcelain rather more closely than I normally would do in a hotel room. I think I'm off rice and beans for quite awhile as a result. [We are pretty sure, however, that it was the sopapillas, since that's the only thing I ate that Beast didn't eat--and he had no problems at all.]
• The Beaumont in Ouray, as mentioned in the previous post. Stunning setting, but lacking couple of minor conveniences. However, the spa and massage, and the balcony martini bar all more than made up for the excruciatingly slow internet and inefficient breakfast service. I wish my dad had lived long enough to see the inside of this place....
• I want to live in Ouray...but only part of the year.
• The drive from Ouray to Ogallala is L - O - N - G, even if you sleep 3/4 of the way. And losing electricity and then hot water at the hotel is a sucky way to end a day like that. We never did get a hot shower there.  And the 'cuisine' we chose was less-than-fab as well.  Oh well.
• The only bad weather we had was unbelievable heat in Ogallala (over 100 when we pulled up in front of the hotel) and the big storm overnight in Des Moines last night, which I slept through.
• We saw a doe and her fawn in my sister's backyard. Just passing through. 
• I only broke one fingernail all week, and managed not to chew on any of them!  Woo hoo!
• The sandals I wore ... I never want to wear them again. I love them, but I'm really tired of them.
• I shouldn't check work email on the road. I just get cranky.
• I am no longer able to run around at high elevations without stopping every 3 minutes to breathe, i.e. pant. So ... outta ... shape ...! Crazy! Sux.
• Three vodka-tonics plus a Lemon Drop is probably too much alcohol for me in the 4 hours prior to bedtime. Especially at 8000 feet elevation.
• It has rained a LOT this spring in the Midwest! Everything was green and wet, rivers were overflowing and crops were flooded in some fields. Even Colorado was green(ish).

Having now taken a bath and finally started to wind down for the day (almost 10 hours after we arrived home), I think I'm going to head to bed.

A good trip, all in all. Single best thing: Beast's back was not injured this time, and he feels fine tonight.

Vac

We are staying here. Our room is where the two dark spots toward the front of the roof of the hotel are. Those dark rectangles are skylights. The BIG central dark spot is a skylight over the atrium/entrance hall of the hotel. The sleeping area of our suite shows up at about :23 in this video:
So now we're going for a walk. More of a meander, at nearly 7800 feet elevation. Beast suggests walking till we're out of breath and stopping for a drink to rest, and then carrying on till we are out of breath again at the next bar. It's probably doable.

Edit: It's doable. We hit an Irish pub, where we watched as they called today's record-breaking tennis match for the day, and then to the Western Hotel (which my brother was going to buy when he was a grown-up--oh, well), and then to a biergarten where we had sausage and more drinks for dinner, and where we eavesdropped on people much younger than us and were shocked to learn they are turning 30 this year!). Now we're back at our hotel--with turn-down service completed and chocolates on the nightstand--and down in the bar overlooking the bistro and (more to the point), the cliffs to the east of town. We have a wonderful view. The whole situation here reminds me a bit of a MUCH QUIETER Athens, with the outdoor bar with a view overlooking the nightlife. Thought it's just turning 8 so it's hardly "night"life yet really. Would that I could spend the next week here.......

Busy week

Since I last posted, life has been rather hectic. We finally heard from Sparky on Tuesday--a quick Facebook message. Then another one Friday morning. Today he figured out how to use his pay-as-you-go phone and called us: he is very homesick. VERY homesick. I think the major problem today was that they didn't really have anything planned so he slept till noon (!! a first, ever!) and then just hung out. He's a 10-minute drive from town and everyone else on the trip, so he's feeling sort of abandoned and the weather profoundly sucks. It hasn't hit 60 more than 1 or 2 days and he doesn't have enough warm clothes. Plus he forgot to pack shampoo (he thought the little hotel bottles of bodywash in his bathroom were shampoo...) so he's had to buy some.

On the other hand, he sounds like he's learning more than he thinks he is, so that's a plus. It was hard to talk to him knowing there is nothing we can do that will really help make this easier. Preview of college and the rest of his future, right?

In other news, we are in West Des Moines tonight at a Candlewood Suites. Our 'room' is basically an efficiency apartment with a kitchenette. We ate out of the cooler tonight: sandwiches and yogurt. Will probably throw a DVD in the machine in a few minutes to watch. Big fun. Tomorrow night: Salina, KS. And a lot of flat between here and there. I like Iowa, though. Nice people.

Déjà vu

Five years ago, I wrote:

It's official: Sparky is in England. I'm not particularly freaked out, although I slept really badly last night. We got the call around 4:30 this morning that they had arrived safely, but I spent most of the night with one ear cocked for the phone (while wearing earplugs: what a dope).

Today, Sparky has been in Germany for about an hour, where the weather seems to be pretty much exactly the same as it is here today, minus our rain. We aren't expecting a call from anyone until they arrive at the school in the town where they will be based, which won't be for another couple of hours. I slept like the proverbial log last night. And I barely cried at the airport, only after Sparky couldn't see me anymore.

Viel Glück, mein Sohn, und Spaß haben!

New Shoes

Mama's got a brand-new stash!

Gladiator sandals. How awesome are these!? I fell in love instantly with them. Shiny! And just imagine the really weird tan that will be possible when these are worn!

Denim shoes. I've never owned denim shoes. I showed them to Beast and said that very thing whereupon he gave me the typical Boy Look: WHY do you need denim shoes? Because I've never had any before, silly. Boys. So clueless.

I get tired of wearing sneakers when I'm walking or working outside. These are a cute compromise. I expect to wear them the whole time I'm in Colorado this summer. They are super-comfortable--they even have Dr. Scholl's Gel in the heel, so yes, I'm Gellin'--and somehow manage to make my feet look less gargantuan.