Catching up

Sorry I've been a slacker, and this'll probably be short. Let's see.

We picked up the Xterra on the 18th. I LOVE IT!

Christmas was good. Saturday we spent the day with Marc's dad's family up in Lacey. Sunday we went to Marc's brother's. There wasn't a ton of gift-exchanging this year, but that's not what the season it about. It was nice just spending time with family.

Monday night and into Tuesday, I got really sick. Fever, sore throat, body aches. So I got a 4 day weekend out of it, but it wasn't the most pleasant way to spend it.

Tomorrow we're heading up to the Seattle area for some skiing and spending time with friends. Have a safe and happy New Year celebration this weekend!

More Hawaii pictures posted

In addition to the slideshows I put on my MySpace page, a bunch more Hawaii pics are now available on Imagestation. We still haven't pulled pics off the big camera, so the sunsets aren't up yet. Enjoy!

Color decision

We're going with White for the Xterra. It looks good. It'll hide scratches well. We can still call it a whale like we did the Rover.

The Rover is SOLD

Our Land Rover sold. A dude from Arizona who's currently in England put a deposit down. He's flying back to AZ from the UK tomorrow, then he flies to Portland Monday morning to complete the transaction and drive the truck back home to AZ. Talk about a lot of travel in a few days...

We didn't really want to, ideally, but we're probably gonna take out a loan for the difference to go ahead and get an Xterra next week. Whenever the Scion sells, we'll be able to pay it off again. Now the big debate is on the color of the X. Silver or White. Decisions, decisions...

Star Wars Exhibit

Since today was my unscheduled/on-call day at work, Marc and I decided to head over to OMSI to check out the Star Wars exhibit. We got in for free (score!) with the corporate membership that my company has and spent a couple hours wandering around the costumes, props, and information about the movie. I got a big kick out of the guy whose job it was to record sounds to reuse as sounds in the movie. He recorded a broken A/C unit in one of his hotel rooms to get a rumble for some of the ships. He recorded L.A. freeway traffic at 2 a.m. through a steel pipe to get the whine of lasers or something. There were tons of things like this that just blew my mind. I was never a big fan of the movies--I can never keep straight who's who or what the heck is going on. But seeing all this stuff was pretty cool.

Coming soon... yet another new vehicle

Last week I came home to a surprise from Marc. He'd put our Land Rover up for sale. As we always expected, we're gonna take a huge hit on it. No one except for another serious wheeler will appreciate the true value of all the modifications. It's sad to think of it going away; it has taken us a lot of places and been a big part of our lives these past five years. The sale of the Rover also led to the sale of the (hindsight is 20/20) Scion we just got over the summer. We've had several bites on the Rover, including a few guys from out of state that are willing, possibly, to fly in, buy it, and drive it home. We also have interest in the Scion.

You might be thinking, "But, wait. If you sell those, you'll only have one car. And you won't have anything for wheeling and camping!" Rest assured. Our initial list of possible replacements included the new four door Wrangler, FJ Cruiser, and a new Xterra. It didn't take long before we ruled out the Wrangler, mostly due to the fact that it's a Jeep. Let me just say that I LOVE the FJ Cruiser. I think it sparks something like I felt when the Xterras were new. They look kinda funky, are still pretty rare, and garner a sense of community with other owners. We test drove one. I liked it. Marc liked it. But it didn't reach out and grab us.

Today we drove a 2007 Xterra. We've been in new model Xterras and even driven them before, but this was somehow different. When we got out, Marc had a perma-grin plastered on his face. I liked it a lot, too. So... we've found our next vehicle. Now if at least one of the others would sell, we could go ahead and get it.

Spider monkey

One morning in Hawaii, Marc and I were at the beach when a family with a thick southern accent (I'm guessing Alabama or Georgia) showed up. Their kids were running around and one little boy in particular was being pretty ornery. My attempt at a paraphrase:
Boy: Why do I have to carry this towel? I don't want to carry the towel. Why can't dad carry the towel?
Mom: Boy, you can carry your own towel. Be a man!
Boy: (Runs around like little boys do making some noise)
Mom: Boy, quit that! You're being a spider monkey!

Two interesting things came from this tidbit of conversation we overheard:
1. The mom calling the boy a spider monkey. I'm not sure why, but this was hilarious to us. We're now using that phrase for anything or anyone that's acting silly or crazy. We call Max a spider monkey quite often.
2. The amazing ability of southerners to turn one syllable words into multiple syllable words. Watching My Name Is Earl tonight reminded me of this when Joy did the same thing. Examples: man = ma-yan (like mayo but "an" at the end instead of "o") and boy = bo-woy.

We're easily amused.

A new sister for Oatmeal

Two years ago, we got two rat sisters. Since Cookie's unfortunate passing last week, Oatmeal was acting unusual. She stopped eating and wasn't too active. We figured that she was probably lonely since her sister was gone. So we got her a new sister. Obviously, the new rat isn't her real blood sister like Cookie was, but Oatmeal seems to appreciate the company. The new baby's name is Raisin. :)

Today Marc did something really nice. He put up Christmas lights outside. The first year we lived in the house, we bought lights and put them up. The next couple of years, we just never got around to it. There are actually quite a few houses decorated in our neighborhood this year, and it's nice to join them.

The other good news today was confirmation that we're receiving bonuses at work. Score! Gotta pay off the credit card for our first-class ticket upgrades somehow!

Home from paradise

We are home from Maui. Coming home from a nice vacation like this is always bittersweet. We had a great time in Hawaii, though by most standards we might have seemed pretty boring. When Marc and I vacation, we generally do it for relaxation, and we don't concern ourselves with packing every day and night full of activities. There's a lot of "going with the flow" and doing whatever we feel like doing when we feel like doing it. We spent most mornings at the Kamaole beaches right across from our condo. Snorkeling was great at Ulua the first couple days we were there, but then it got pretty murky after that. We ate at the condo pretty often to save money, but we did go out for dinner most of the time. Lulu's became our new favorite restaurant for this trip--if you're ever there, try the Magnum P.I. burger. When we weren't snorkeling or playing in the waves, we were ususally basking in the sun. With the exception of my chest, which ALWAYS burns no matter what I do, I didn't get burnt this trip. Amazing.

We did a little shopping, but didn't really buy many souveniers for ourselves or others. We spent most of our time in Kihei, where we lived for the 11 days. One day we flew over to Oahu to visit Pearl Harbor and the USS Missouri. I hadn't been there before. It was really neat to see the memorial, but we didn't have enough time to really explore the Missouri before we had to get back to airport. We also spent a morning up in Lahaina--though I wish we could have made a day out of that trip (about 45 minute drive from Kihei) spending a morning at a different beach, eating lunch up there, doing some shopping, and maybe catching dinner there, too. Instead we just window shopped and went back home. We went to the Maui Ocean Center and aquarium, where they have tons of local aquatic life, including a big tiger shark. That's another place I hadn't been to, so that was cool.

And the cherry on top of the sundae: flying first class. No, we didn't shell out the big bucks to buy first class tickets when we made reservations, but when all the first class seats don't sell, you can upgrade to them cheaper. So we splurged on the way down and on the way back. It was NICE. And it will be hard not to do that in the future. Now we can plan ahead and budget for such things before next year's trip.

So, to recap: we flew in style, I read three books, we got nice tans, we completely relaxed, we ate well, we had fun. All in all, it was a good trip. Unfortunately, we came home to some bad news. While we were away, one of our rats, Cookie, died. Her sister Oatmeal is okay; we're not sure what happened to Cookie. Our friend who was checking in on all our animals while we were away found her and kindly wrapped her up and preserved her in the freezer so that we can have a proper burial. This is the first pet Marc and I have lost together, and even though I ended up being allergic to the rats and can't really hold or play with them, it was very sad to lose our sweet little girl. We'll miss you and the funny little clicking noises you made, Cookie!

Aloha!

We leave for Maui tomorrow morning. Hopefully all of the Turkey Day traffic will have already moved through the airport by then. I think I'm all packed, but I always have that sinking feeling that I'm forgetting something really important. I figure as long as I have a swim suit, I'm in good shape. :) I'll have a full report on how we spent our days laying on the beach and snorkeling when we get back on the 4th. See ya!

Visited by a Ho

Our friends Dr. Ho (Joe) and his fiancee (Carrie Ann) came to Portland for a visit this weekend. Joe arrived Thursday night before a job interview here in town on Friday. Then Carrie Ann rode the train down on Friday night. We had some good experimentation with root beer and kahlua that night. And the next night. Satuday, we saw the new Bond flick (which was really good) and then we wandered around Saturday Market until we got too cold. Ben came over later, and we all went to Rock Creek Tavern for dinner before the really loud and not so awesome live band chased us away. Joe and Carrie Ann had to get up REALLY early today to get Joe to the airport to fly to Tennessee for another interview, so we just chilled out at home the rest of the evening. All in all, it was a good weekend!

Today we went to the spa. I got waxed; Marc got a massage. I think his experience was more enjoyable than mine. We should be starting to pack for Maui, but that hasn't happened yet. There's still time, though not much... just four more days!!

I'm behind on my blogging

Wow. I didn't realize it's been so long. Let's see what's happened since my last post...

Jury Duty - I had to go, but they only called one jury (14 people) out of the 100+ of us who were there. Eventually they decided that they didn't need anyone else, and I was released. Very unproductive.

More Baby Action - I went to my friend Denise's baby shower on Saturday. She and Leo are having a little boy in January. Denise looks great, and Leo's always completely chill.

Crappy Sunday - We went to Grandpa's old house, which is now Mom and Rory's house, to help throw out a bunch of stuff and make Goodwill runs. Though we didn't fill the dumpster they rented, we sure did make a dent in it. Note to others who may rent a dumpster: don't do it on a day that's cold, windy, and rainy.

New Schedule - After much begging and pleading, I got a temporary (until Laura goes away for maternity leave) 4 day/10 hour schedule at work. AWESOME. Wednesday is my "day off" and every other day I work from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Getting to work at 6:00 isn't a big deal--I did that for a year while Marc worked with me--but I've never had a permanent schedule that kept me at work until 5:00. It makes for a long day, but I think I'll like it as long as I go to bed early enough.

My Wednesday Off - My day off today wasn't too thrilling. We started cleaning the house because our friend Joe is coming up from San Francisco for a job interview at OHSU, and he's staying with us. We also went to a luncheon for a remodeler's group. Marc's starting to get out and network with builders and remodelers to help market his new company and product. After that, we spent most of the afternoon lounging around the house. It's really windy out there, so it's cool listening to it from inside.

Test-Taking - I couldn't help but check my work e-mail today. You never know when something's gonna blow up. Fortunately, nothing did while I was away today, but I got an e-mail from my Six Sigma instructor (why I was in Santa Monica last month) letting me know my score on the exam. 96%! Yeah, baby! I was always a good test-taker in school, and it looks like I haven't lost that touch. Yet.

Stupidness - And now, for your reading pleasure, my stupid paraphrased quote of the day. We were watching the local news earlier tonight, and they were doing a story about a man who bought a used SUV that had been totalled and had a fake title. He didn't find this out until his 16 year old daughter flipped it and killed one of her passengers. Turns out the passenger seat belt had been sliced and then sewn back together with normal thread instead of being replaced. That's the seatbelt that failed, leading to the passenger being ejected from the SUV and dying. So here comes some investigator or professional of some sort, and the news reporter asks him, "If the seatbelt had been replaced, would she (the victim) have lived?" This guy responds with something along the lines of, "I can't say that she would have survived, but she most certainly would have been saved." What does that mean? Is it just me, or is that a bit contradictory? Stupid.

Jury Duty take two

I escaped my federal jury duty a couple months ago, but I didn't get so lucky with the county. How is it that I live for 11 years registered to vote, and get called for jury duty twice in two months? Bizarre. Anyway, I get to sleep in a few minutes later than usual tomorrow, then I'll be off to the courthouse with my trusty Nintendo DS Lite and newly acquired Dr. Mario game to waste the time away.

My former boss Heather Sharfeddin (offical site, blog) has another novel out now. Though not usually the types of books that I read (contempory western/mystery), I really enjoyed her first novel, Blackbelly. I just got Mineral Spirits today, so I can't comment on it yet, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it. The funny thing about the new book is that they misspelled Heather's last name on the binding. I think this is only an issue with the first edition, but I think it's a fun quirk.

Gettin' Crafty

I tried something new on Friday evening. A group of us from work got together at a Stampin' Up demonstrator's house to make 20 holiday cards. I dabbled briefly in scrapbooking when I first moved out to Oregon, but I never learned anything formally, and I've never done much else in the way of paper crafts. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, and it was nice to do this with a group of people I know. Mary's house was set up with a large classroom downstairs. We all rotated around 6 tables to make 6 different-designed cards. It was really fun! Of course, this opens up another new door for me--sending Christmas cards. I've never done it. It always seemed like one of those things people do just because they think they have to do it. If I'm not doing something that has a real meaning, I generally don't do it. Now that I have cards that I made myself, I'm looking forward to sending them out.

Saturday we did some preparatory shopping for our trip to Maui. I got my own fins, mask, and snorkel so that I won't have to rent them. It's one of those things where if you snorkel often enough, it's fiscally advantageous to take the plunge and buy your own gear. Thanksgiving Day, our departure date, won't come soon enough, but it sure is getting close!

Sunday has turned into a "neaten up the house" day. We aren't doing full-fledged cleaning since that just happened a few weeks ago (and if you've ever been to our house, you know that we don't really clean it that often). But it is nice to pick things up every once in awhile so that we can at least see the tabletop, counters, and closet floor. :)

Happy Halloween! (one day late)

Halloween was awesome at work. My dead/corpse/ghoul bride costume was a hit. There were a few people who didn't even recognize me. Haha! Laura helped tons with my makeup and hair, and she contributed my bouquet. It was wonderful when the fire alarm went off for a drill and I had to tromp out to the parking lot all decked out like that.

Otherwise, things are pretty uneventful around here. We didn't get any trick-or-treaters last night because we forgot to turn on our porch light. Of course, even if they had tried to ring the doorbell, we wouldn't know. We disconnected it after it tried to set our house on fire.

Ghost town hunting and weekend catch-up

Friday we went on our ghost town hunt. It wasn't totally what we were expecting, but there were some interesting highlights from the trip: seeing and photographing Multnomah Falls in the fog, lots of pretty changing-color trees, gorgeous views of Hood, Adams, and St. Helens, and just being outside in the crisp fall air. The ghost towns we wanted to explore weren't what they were cracked up to be because they were all on private property. That prevented us from doing some hands-on exploring, but Marc got lots of nice pictures. When we got back in town we met up with some of the guys from work at Buffalo Wild Wings for some happy hour action.

Saturday was relatively uneventful. We shopped all over town for new skiing/boarding jackets. I finally chose a light purple Burton jacket and picked up some new pants. Marc bought a coat, but in true form, wasn't sure it was what he wanted, so we went back today to buy another. He'll wear them around for awhile and then decide what to return. Marc is a coat and jacket whore. I keep threatening him that I'm going to enact a law that for every coat he buys, he has to donate or sell two that he already has. Now all we have to do is pray for good snow this year.

Today we visited Aaron and Robyn and their newborn twin sons, Logan and Zachary. They were very quiet babies--at least for the hour that we were there. My attitude toward babies is more and more like my attitude toward dogs. I love them, but I'm really glad when they belong to someone else. It's fun holding a baby, but I'll pass on the feeding, diapering, cleaning, etc. Aaron and Robyn are very happy, and I just know that they're going to be wonderful parents. Too bad we've lost our greatest game-playing buddies though.

All of my current ebay auctions ended today, so I've been busy this afternoon and evening getting stuff prepped to send out. I only sold half of the stuff I put up, but I netted about $180, so I think it was worth it. Now I'll have to decide if I want to relist anything or just donate it all away.

Another long weekend

A friend of ours was looking for some people to do some exploring--old mines, power stations, trails, etc--in southern Washington this Friday. Marc said to me, "Too bad you have to work." That sounded like a challenge. I asked on Wednesday for the day off on Friday, and I received. Score. So tomorrow we'll be out and about, hopefully seeing some cool stuff, and surely seeing lots of pretty autumn leaves. At least we don't have 20 inches of snow on the ground, like in Denver.

I'm always on the lookout for funny t-shirts. I recently got Marc a Meh shirt, and I picked up Pluto Replies. In the Think Geek newsletter I got today, I about L'ed MAO at this one. I just may have to get it.

In diet news, I'm a mere 4 pounds away from my goal weight. We have just over 3 weeks until we finish the BFL program, so I'll have to work a little harder these final weeks. Even if I don't make it to my goal, it's still nice just feeling healthier and being thinner than I've been in awhile.

Increasing my Dorkiness

I became a bit more of a nerd today. I got a Nintendo DS Lite. Amazingly, my parents have had one of these for several months now. I researched them awhile ago but resisted getting one. Then we saw a commercial the other night, and it renewed my interest. After watching a few sell on ebay for more than it would cost to buy it in a store, I figured there weren't any smoking deals to be had. I was at Fred Meyer for some other random crap I needed today, and I stopped in to see if they had the DS. They did. Plus, they had a buy 2 get 1 free deal on some games I wanted. I couldn't pass it up. It seems like a pretty nifty little machine, and it will certainly come in handy on our plane ride to Maui in a mere 30 days (and counting...).

Stupid questions

Okay, I'm a fan of the Extreme Home Makeover show. It's cool to see what the design team comes up with, and the family always seems to be a deserving one. Ty Pennington asks some really stupid questions, though. Take last night's episode. Here's a family with something like 7 daughters. They also had a son who had some kind of cancer and died when he was 8, I think. The details don't matter for the purpose of this blog. Anyway, whenever they start talking about "Jimmy boy," the parents and sisters cry. Here comes Ty with the stupid (paraphrased) question: "Does it make you sad to think about Jimmy?" or something absurd like that.

Gimme a break.

Of course the family is sad about the child being dead. Why would someone even ask that question? I don't know the answer, other than to think that someone, somewhere thinks it makes for good TV. Bah.

Catching up

I turned 29 this past Wednesday. In a way it was nice being away from home with a bunch of strangers who didn't know it was my birthday. No one was able to make a big deal out of it. But let me back up.

My second day in Santa Monica, we got out of class early, at 4:45. I changed quickly and went for a big walk--first down to the pier, then down Main St. past where we ate dinner the first night. I went down to the beach there and walked the rest of the way back north in the sand. Talk about a workout. Except for the 10 minutes that I sat down and talked to Marc, I was walking the entire time. I had planned to stop for dinner somewhere along the way, but by the end, I didn't want to get caught in the dark by myself. I went back and ordered room service.

Wednesday (my unknown b-day) we got out of class really early--4:00--because our teacher thought it was 5:00. Six of us from class decided to meet at 5:00 to go down to the pier together and get some dinner. We wandered around and decided on Rusty's Surf Ranch (with Good Eats!) where most of us got seafood. It lived up to the huge neon sign hanging on the inside wall. As we were eating dinner, we started seeing lots of trucks filled with lighting equipment driving down the pier and hooking up wires. Then we saw trailers pulling up to the beachfront parking lot. Turns out they were getting ready to film an episode of What About Brian. We joked about going down there and trying to get on the show as extras, but we didn't follow through.

After dinner, we stopped in a little English pub. They were getting ready to start some kind of trivia contest. I knew I wasn't going to stay awake much longer, so I cut out early with another classmate who was also ready to go back to the hotel. We found out the next morning that wherever the other 3 went after the pub, they sat down at a bar next to Damon Wayans. I'm not a huge celebrity-nut, but it would have been cool to see someone famous and be able to come home and say so. I guess I'll have to settle for my teacher having a strong resemblance to French Stewart.

So my birthday was uneventful, which is okay. On Thursday, we had a half day of class and then a 4 hour exam. I only spent 3 hours on it. Once I get through something like that, it doesn't do me much good to keep rehashing it. I'll find out in a couple of weeks whether I passed. The airport shuttle picked me up a little earlier than scheduled, but the 5 mile trip took over an hour in weekday rush hour traffic. I got to the airport, made my way towards my gate, and noticed that there was a Portland flight scheduled to leave in about 2 minutes. I interrupted the gate attendants to ask if I could possibly hop on that flight instead of waiting another 2 hours, but I was denied. If I had been just a couple of minutes earlier, they could have put me on it. Bummer. United has the coolest, nerdiest thing now, though. At least on the bigger planes like the 757 I was on, they broadcast the conversations between the pilots and control towers on one of the airplane's radio stations. The true nerd that I am, I listened to them the whole flight. It was pretty neat.

Friday was a recoup day. We slept in really late, then went to see Flags of our Fathers, which was really good. Then we cleaned the house. Fun! Saturday we caught up with my cousin TR at Saturday Market and tagged along with him to the Zoo. We tried to go to Henry's for dinner, but that failed because it was so freaking crowded--too bad they didn't still have the outside seating set up. We ended up at PF Changs instead, which I felt bad about because it wasn't a uniquely NW experience for TR. Then we headed to the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse for after-dinner drinks. I was pooped by the time we got home, but it was worth it for a fun day.

Sunday turned into an ebay day for me. I got pictures taken and descriptions written for tons of crap in my closet that I don't wear. Hopefully most of it will sell. Anything that doesn't, I'll donate to get rid of. It feels good to purge old stuff every once in awhile. That consumed several hours, and besides changing for my workout, I didn't ever change out of my PJs. Lazy day.

I think that gets us all caught up. It's been an eventful week!

Santa Monica

I'm in Santa Monica for a few days. I'm taking a Six Sigma class. It's pretty cool so far, which is a good way to feel after the first day.

Tonight most of my class walked to Enterprise Fish Co. for dinner. It was AWESOME. Neat restaurant. We sat outside on the patio, where some weird movies were being projected onto the back brick wall. Funky place!

I haven't had much opportunity to wander around yet. Hopefully, I'll get to do that tomorrow after class. We'll see. All I really want is to get down to the pier and to the beach. I love the feel of sand between my toes.

The cat fights continue, busy days ahead, and finding cousins

The stupid cats are still fighting, but I think we're making progress. Most of the time we leave our bedroom door open so that Manga can come and go as she pleases. Usually when she comes downstairs, everything's fine. She doesn't necessarily respond to Miji's growls, which used to be the root cause. When they do fight, Miji actually stands her ground and fights back instead of running away and hiding. But after reading my Pam Johnson-Bennet books, I've learned not to react positively during or after a fight--including the cuddling that I immediately tend towards when the cats are upset. So now, when the cats fight, I "speak firmly" to them. With the nice weather we've been having, we had the back door open this afternoon. Considering that I can just about throw a feather at every house within site (yes, our lots are small), if any neighbors were outside when the girls started a fight, I'm sure they found my small explosion to be quite humorous... as long as they didn't think I was talking to a child. Poor Max runs and hides every time the girls go at it though. Poor, scared baby cat.

The next few days are gonna be busy. Yesterday I got a bunch of travel-sized toiletries (and my Ziplock quart baggie to put them in) for my trip to Santa Monica on Sunday. I have to get laundry done and pick out business casual clothes for next week to get packed. (Business casual? You mean not everyone wears jeans, t-shirts, and flip flops to work like I do?) Plus, I need to finish going through my closet and drawers for the Great Exchange at Laura's this Saturday. And I need a pedicure. Yes, need.

Last night I decided that I wanted to have more friends than Marc on MySpace. I don't know why. I hit a goldmine with the cousins I have on my dad's side of the family--that's the result of him having seven siblings who all got married and had kids. I also found some of my oldest friends from Louisville. So for now, I'm winning the unofficial "number of friends" contest. Yay!

Banged

For the past couple of years, I've gotten my hair cut at a barber shop or a cheap-o place like Great Clips. Generally I don't do anything fancy with my hair, so it just made sense to avoid paying $35 at a salon. Then I had a string of really bad haircuts, and I called it quits on the cheap places. A couple months ago, I made an appointment at the salon I went to when I first moved out here and got what I called bangs--though they were really more like short layers that didn't quite tuck behind my ears.

Today I took it a step further. I'd have to look back at some of my freshman year high school pictures to be sure, but I'm relatively positive that I have not had bangs since I used a curling iron and lots of hairspray on them in junior high. That streak has ended. And it's VERY strange to have bangs again. Now I'll have to get a picture taken so that I can have you vote on whether I should start growing them out immediately or keep them.

On another note, I'm very uncomfortable with what's going to happen in 12 days. I'm going to make the final lap of my 20s. When I was younger, I really didn't care how old I was. My birthdays weren't huge occasions--I didn't dread them or eagerly await them. As the years go by, I'm leaning more toward the dread side though. What makes this coming birthday even worse is that I'll spend it alone in Santa Monica, in the middle of a training class that I've been informed will involve assignments and group meetings each night. Fun, fun. At least this year, I'll know not to be tricked into a surprise party under the guise of giving our friends an in-house demonstration of our vacuum cleaner.

On another completely unrelated note, I'm getting into the Halloween spirit this year. My mom sent my first wedding dress to me to use as my costume. (Thanks to the diet we're on, it fits really well again.) I'm gonna be a corpse bride. Originally I thought of this before the movie, so I don't know if I'm going to be THE corpse bride or just some random dead bride. Either way, it should be fun. We usually have a costume contest at work where they give away gift certificates and stuff. I'll do my best to win something.

I think we are broke now

All three cats went to the vet today. Max went in this morning to be neutered, and the girls went in at 2:00 for shots. After the surgery, microchip, rabies shots, distemper shots, prescription for Max's ear drops, and prescription for Prozac for both girls, we were out several hundred dollars. Nevermind the cat drenched in her own pee that we got to bring home, too (Manga).

But here's the interesting development of the day. When I met up with Marc at the vet before the girls got their shots, I walked into an exam room where both girls were wandering around. TOGETHER. Not growling too much or fighting at all. I was amazed. When we brought them all home, we let them all out of their carriers downstairs. Miji went immediately to the window sill behind the blinds. Manga went upstairs to try to get into our bedroom, but we didn't let her in. Eventually she came back downstairs. We had her down here for a couple of hours, and though she did growl and hiss a lot--especially when Max was within sight--she didn't start any fights. Progress. Finally. They're still gonna take the Prozac though.

Things that are too good to be true

There are some things that sound awesome that will just never happen. Consider:

1. Winning the Powerball. Or even Scratch-Its. No matter how often or how much I play, I never win anything significant. I think I need to move to Kansas or Iowa--people there seem to win Powerball jackpots a lot recently, even if they are *only* $15 million.

2. Those "free" laptops, iPods, $500 gift cards, Xboxes, __fill in the blank with whatever you might want__. This one might be a little more attainable than winning the Powerball, but the pain and suffering you have to go through to cash in is rarely worth it, unless you're obsessive about canceling trial memberships and you don't care if your credit gets pulled for a bunch of new credit cards.

3. Three cats in my house that get along. For christsake. We've had Max the kitten for, what, 8 weeks now. He gets along with our other two girls separately just fine, but the two girls STILL freak out on each other. Manga's still locked up in our room, with baby gates in the door so that she won't get out and Miji won't get in. Max can climb them though. This leads into...

4. A decent night's sleep. I sleep with a big body pillow. I love it. Manga has realized this and claimed it as her bed during the day when we're not in the room. This is problematic at night when, because she's a cat, the pillow supposedly is still her bed. I swear, I had to shove/push/throw/drop her off of my head/arm/chest/side so many times last night that I can't count them.

5. Pumpkin ice cream. Oh, wait. That's not too good to be true. It exists. There's a local grocery store here that carries Snowqualmie brand of pumpkin ice cream this time of year, which far surpasses anything made by Breyer's, Dreyer's, or any other mass produced ice cream. However, it may as well be too good to be true during the week when it's not our free day. I managed to make a pint of it last the whole month of September since we could only eat it on Saturdays. That's just unheard of from me. One pint of ice cream in the house for a month? That's crazy talk.

Three year anniversary

Sunday was our third wedding anniversary. To celebrate, we took a one-night trip out to Kahneeta--a place I've never been but have wanted to go to for awhile now. On the drive out there, we stopped at the Gap outlet. This was a very necessary trip as I'm shrinking out of all of my beloved jeans and corduroys. After a quick stop at the Huckleberry Inn for a maple bar, we got to the resort around 1:30 and were able to check in before their insanely late official check-in time (4:30!). We checked out the room and then went to the restaurant for a bite of lunch. Marc tried his luck in the casino, then we went to the big, warm springs-heated pool. That was cool--actually, it was very warm. :)

After dinner we just hung out in the room relaxing, which was something Marc desperately needed and I always treasure. Sunday we laid by the non-warm springs pool for awhile before we checked out. On the way out, we stopped at the village area to play mini golf. Marc won by 1. That's what I get for all my trash talking before we started playing. It was an awesome weekend, and it was the first time in awhile that we've really been disconnected from computers and phones for a significant period. It was nice to focus completely on each other. Happy Anniversary to my hunny!

BFL Update

Just a quick Body-For-Life update. I have lots to write about, but I can't get it all down at once.

We're now 4 weeks into the BFL program. I've lost 8 pounds. That leaves me with 8 weeks to lose the remaining 8 pounds to meet my goal. Marc's lost about 12 pounds. It's awesome to watch our bodies transform! And we feel better, too. It was hard last week not to cheat--we had "Staff Appreciation Week" at work, which included lots of non-BFL food. I avoided it though.

More later...

My footwear addiction

It's official. I've turned into a shoe whore. In my younger years, even as recently as a year or two ago, I didn't care that much about shoes. That changed when two things happened. 1. My friends at work introduced me to Dansko clogs. 2. They built an REI just a mile or two from our house. These two things have been my downfall.

Between purchases on ebay and at REI, I've amassed no fewer than 9 pairs of Danskos in the last year or so. Then, back in the spring, we discovered Keens. After tonight's two purchases, I have 3 pairs. That's 12 pairs of shoes in 12 months. Maybe this isn't a big deal to some of the ladies out there, but for someone who maybe bought a pair of shoes every 4-6 months before, it's quite a change. It's even shifted the way I get ready in the morning--sometimes I have to plan an outfit around the shoes I want to wear that day. Sad. But my feet are so comfortable.

Happy Birthday, Marc!

Today is my honey's 34th birthday! In honor of the special day, I got sick enough to stay home from work so that he could watch me nap most of the day. Yeah, I know, I go all out. I'm feeling better now, and even though I felt like crud, it was nice spending the day with my hubby.

Escaping jury duty

I got a summons for federal jury duty. I was due to report in downtown Portland at 8:30 this morning (talk about a traffic nightmare). Fortunately, when I called the recorded message last Friday to verify whether I needed to report, they said that my panel wasn't needed. Hooray! Double-bonus: they were foolish enough to tell me when I would get called again (April 24, 2007), so now I know exactly when to plan a spring vacation. Ha! I've never been called for jury duty before, so in a way, I was kinda looking forward to it. Not so much the hassle around it--getting there, missing work, potentially sitting around all day doing nothing--but for the actual process. I'm sure my day will come.

I'm still fighting off a really annoying sore throat. I have it every morning when I wake up, and it comes back in the evening. At least it hasn't been bad enough to keep me from work. I suck on Cold-Eeze every day, but it's not helping.

The diet/exercise plan is still going strong. I lost a few pounds last week, but then I gained some back. I like to think that it's because muscle weighs more than fat, but that's probably a bit wishful at this point. When I used our little body fat monitor thingy, it did say I was down 1 percent of body fat. That's promising.

This weekend, Marc's deserting me and leaving the country. He and Ben are going up to Vancouver, Canada, to see Claus. Marc's gonna meet with Claus's new boss to discuss some sales possibilities with biological security products. It sounds really promising and exciting! But being left alone means that one thing is sure to happen: I will clean the house. For whatever reason, that seems to be the first thing I gravitate toward when I'm alone at home. I think it's because I don't have someone to hang out with on the couch, and I know I won't bother anyone with the noise (clanking dishes, noisy vacuuming, washers and dryers, etc).

Saturday is our free eating/no workout day, and it should be interesting by myself. I'm already making a list of some foods I'll require when I don't have any restrictions. We didn't have ice cream or cookies last week, so those are at the top of the list. And pizza. And biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

On Sunday, probably before Marc gets home, I'll be down at Saturday Market with my recorder quartet, Piping Hot, for a performance. We haven't played since Christmas down at Pioneer Place. It should be fun. I'll try to refrain from walking around and spending money at the market afterwards.

Updates

It's been awhile. Sorry.

1. The cats are still segregated. Manga seems to get along pretty well with Max though, and Miji actually approached Mange yesterday without any disasterous side effects. Hopefully we'll get them all in one place soon. In other cat news, Max officially likes everything we eat. Add spinach, protein shakes, black olives, and pears to the list. Seriously, we haven't found much that he won't eat.

2. I kinda learned how to wakeboard over the weekend. Our friends Aaron and Robyn have access to his dad's boat at a camping "hideaway" on Lake Merwin. There's a perfect view of Mt. St. Helens from the campsite--it's awesome. Anyway, Aaron talked me into a wet suit and onto a wakeboard. I think it took me 3 or 4 times, but I did actually stand up for a good 15 seconds. It might be awhile before I get to try again--Robyn's due to have her twins in November, which means that it'll be awhile (18 years?) before we see them again. ;)

3. We're on a diet. I've been stuck with 10-15 extra pounds that I'd like to shed. Marc has some extra weight, too. We decided to do Body For Life. We tried it once several years ago but fizzled out. This time we're doing it. It should be easier since we have a good home gym now compard to having to go to the gym before or after work. We just started on Monday, and the program lasts 12 weeks. Almost perfect for our Maui vacation, which is 12 weeks from this Thursday. We're gonna be sexy beasts!!

4. Laura and I finally moved into our new office. We have a bigger space now to share, which is good because the first office they stuck us in was kinda cramped. I just got a call from her actually--her dog broke her finger this afternoon, and her left arm is in a cast up her forearm. What a bummer! I've never broken a bone or had a cast, but I did break my teeth, which I think is enough.

5. Fall TV is getting closer. I'm looking forward to Lost. I'm also intrigued by that new show Heroes. There are quite a few new shows that look like they'll be worth checking out. I have a feeling we'll be putting the Media Center to good use.

That's it for now. I'm fighting a sore throat, and with my workouts now (okay, just a cardio workout yesterday and weights today--but when you're completely out of shape, that's a lot!), I'm going to bed early.

The cat who likes canteloupe

It's official. Our new kitten is crazy.

First things first: we've pretty much agreed on calling him Max (short for Maximus). Marley was a very close 2nd (thanks, Laura!), but he just isn't "chill" enough for such a laid-back name.

Besides the usual kitten behavior, this kitten is especially nuts. By mistake at first, and then through a sincere curiousity, in the last week we've discovered that Max likes cookies (fresh-baked), cantaloupe, tomato, granola bars, beans, and cornbread along with the requisite tuna and turkey. I've had a cat before that liked canteloupe, amazingly, but I've never known a cat to have a taste for such a variety of human food. It's wacky!

In other cat news, Max and Miji are getting along famously. Manga's still locked away in our bedroom. Now we have to work on reintroducing her to her longtime buddy and the new kitten. I actually went out and bought a couple books over the weekend to try to help me understand what's going on in Manga's head. I recommend anything by Pam Johnson-Bennett if you're trying to understand your cat's goofy, annoying, or bad behavior.

Progress with the cats

Well, Manga is separated from Miji and the baby, since she's been trying to kill Miji lately. We kept her in our room last night, and she snuggled with us under the covers. It's been a long time since we slept with a kitty. (Miji ruined that because she wouldn't shut up in the middle of the night.)

Today, we let the baby come downstairs and hang out with Miji. Though Miji hissed and spat a bit at first, now they're playing like pretty good friends. Every once in awhile the baby poofs up his tail if he gets scared, but they're sharing toys and chasing each other around--playing nicely--now.

So now the question is, how long do we keep Manga separated? And how do we get her acquainted to the kitten? From past experience, we've seen that Manga and Miji usually just work things out all of a sudden one day. I don't know if that will happen this time since there's a new cat now, too.

Wish us luck. At least we have two cats getting along...

I've been so neglectful

I guess a few things have happened since I last wrote.

1. I bought the Pure Beech sheets that Laura recommended in a previous blog. NICE. We're loving them. Along the modal fabric theme, I also bought some modal/cotton blend towels (best I've ever used), and a few modal/cotton shirts from Gap and Old Navy. Love it all.

2. We've seen a couple more movies. Miami Vice was good but a bit slow in a few places. Overall, I'd recommend it. The Da Vinci Code I really liked. I read the book awhile back, and I wasn't disappointed by the movie. (Plus for $3 at the cheap theater where you can eat pizza and drink beer, how can you complain.)

3. We visited a couple of cat breeders today. First we met a guy who raises all sorts of exotic cats--Bengals, Savannahs, Caracals, Bobcats, Lynx. He also had a couple monkeys and lemurs. Craziness. All of his cats were really pretty, and it was the first time we'd seen Savannahs and their Serval relatives. Absolutely gorgeous cats. We walked away without a kitten though. Then we met a lady who breeds Abyssinians. We didn't walk away from there empty-handed. Yes, we got another cat. He's 12 weeks old and breaks the female streak in the house, so Marc's not the only guy anymore. We're keeping our yet unnamed baby away from Manga and Miji for awhile. If you know anything about what we've gone through with Manga freaking out at other cats, you understand why. If you don't know about Manga's fits, you don't want to. She can get ugly, and the wild cat in her really comes out. Anyway, we're really excited about our new cat. We're trying to decide on a good name that starts with "M" for him--to keep the naming streak alive. So far on the list we're considering Maxim or Maximus, Marmot, Marcello, Mugato, Mojito... If you have any good ideas, let us know.

A very movie weekend... and I just cried three times

So far this weekend, we've seen three movies. Last night we watched V for Vendetta and Aeon Flux. Both were very good. V was more intriguing, and we'll probably have to own it. I didn't cry lsat night...

Today we watched Eight Below. Though it's still hard to take Paul Walker seriously after the stupid Faster and Furiouser movies, I had to see this movie for the dogs. Now, I went into it knowing that not all of the dogs lived, but that didn't matter much. I cry when animals die, and this movie really tore me up. I'm talkin' tears running down both cheeks, snotty nose--the whole bit. It's a good thing that we didn't see it in the theater. Except for the dogs that died, at least it had a happy ending. Now I'll have to see what I can dig up about the real, un-Hollywoodized story behind the movie.

America's Talent and our cat's killer claws

Somehow, we got sucked into the America's Got Talent show. There are some weird, funny, and genuinely talented people on the show. My gripe with the show will be if they let a singer win. First, there are LOTS of good singers out there. It's a nice talent, but it's also a widely shared one. Second, there are already other shows exclusively for singers. I really hope that someone with a non-singing talent wins. I like the magicians (though they're a little "dime a dozen" too), and especially the acrobat/gymnast groups.

Our little grey cat, Miji, has really sharp claws that she's not afraid to use. Marc has realized this again twice in the past week. A few nights ago, he was holding her when I made a noise in the bathroom. She slashed his hand, right on one of his palm wrinkles. It was pretty bad. Now that it has started to heal, it was inevitable that something else would happen. Tonight, he was holding her on the couch, and she was looking out the window when something spooked her. She slashed the same hand again, but in a different place--plus she got his lip. Darn cat. They're both so skittish. Now we have to wait for Miji to fall asleep so that we can trim her claws. That's the only way we can do it, because otherwise she's a total wiggle worm.

Work has been pretty normal lately. It's still busy, and now we're going to move again. Laura and I will still be sharing an office, but now it'll be bigger. Yea. I still don't have an office phone, and now they're not going to work on it since we're moving again. Bummer.

The Scion goes in tomorrow to get upgrades. The most exciting part will be the satellite radio since it only has a single disc CD player. We've become so spoiled with our satellite radio in the other cars. It makes it really hard to listen to commercials on the regular radio. Such a tough life.

That new car smell

Sorry I've been lazy about my blog lately. The days have been pretty hectic lately--partly because we've spent a lot of time after work at car dealerships. Marc decided that the Rover isn't the best "drive around town" vehicle (duh) and he wants to avoid putting any extra wear and tear on it, considering how easily and expensively things can break on it. So we started looking at cheap, efficient cars. Honda Fit, Nissan Versa, Mazda 3, Scion xB. Then we looked at Civics. Then we looked at and ended up with a Scion tC. It's more than we initially planned on spending for a third car, but isn't that what always happens? It's pretty sweet--silver, auto locks and windows, sunroof, and a hook up for my iPod. It's a zippy little car, and it gets better mileage than the Rover and the Infiniti.

We're preparing for another heat wave with temps in the 100s for the next couple of days. Our power better not go out this time...

Camping recap

Our camping trip was pretty awesome this weekend. We took off from work around 10:00 and were on the road by 11:00. After some awesome corndogs as a quicky lunch, we got to the site and hung out for the rest of the afternoon. The Xterra club rented out a cool, defunct, old ski lodge. There was tons of room inside the lodge, but we all set up tents or slept in trucks outside. The inside had a wood stove that we didn't use (Charlie was there with tons of wood for the fire outside), and there was a huge built-in wooden bar. We made good use of that.

I didn't count how many trucks there were, but probably about 20 altogether. Really great group of people. We met some new club members and saw a few that we haven't seen in awhile. I drank half of my cherry jolly rancher martinis on Friday and got a good buzz going, but I started too early. I can't maintain a steady level of drinking without falling asleep, so I sobered up when I ate dinner. Boo.

On Saturday, we went with ToyMan on a new run. It was very scenic, a little technical, and lots of fun. A bunch of other people went on a run Mike led to Funny Rocks and Moon Rocks. We've done that so many times though (and that's where the Rover died last time) that it was cool to do something different.

I drank the rest of my jolly ranchers Saturday night. Nothing too exciting came from that. Ian's kids ran around with mullet wigs on. Mike backed Tony's trunk into a tree. Three people with guitars got a good jam session going around the campfire. We saw tons of stars on both clear nights. Magnetic "I masturbate," "I have erectile dysfunction," and "I have crabs" bumper stickers made their rounds on several trucks (including Claus's all the way back to Canada). All in all, a great trip.

When we got back to town, we took showers and went to Ben's for some more pool time. Stupidly, I thought that 4:00 was too late to worry about sunscreen. My stomach, back, and neck are paying for that today. Darnit. It was a nice weekend, especially since I didn't worry about work at all.

Work got artsy today

Today we held our third annual Art Show at work. My officemate Laura was the committee head, so she's been going insane working out all the last minute details this week. We had singers, guitar players, and a bagpiper. Our choir, the Timbertones, messed up a bit on our songs, but it still went well. It's fun to perform for people. There were lots of photography displays, some drawings, costumes, quilts, jewelry, woodworking, and paintings. Marc's photography was the best. I might be a bit biased though. We also gave away a crapload of raffle prizes. That's always fun. Marc and I won a cool picnic kit (which we're using for our camping trip this weekend), a huge outdoor thermometer, and a big body pillow. Fun day!

Tomorrow I'm leaving work around 10:00 so that we can take off on our camping trip up in Naches, WA. It should be a nice weekend. We haven't gotten much camping in since everything happened with Grandpa. I'll have a full report on Sunday--hopefully there will be something funny to tell as a result of the consumption of our cherry jolly rancher martinis...

Nigerian scam artist strikes but is foiled by my awesome skills

I think I wrote about the portable DVD player I won at a work conference in Boston. I finally decided that we really would never use it, so I put it up on ebay last week. The auction ended yesterday. Until about 2 hours before it ended, everything was going just fine. Then, even though I said in the auction details that I would only ship to the U.S., someone in the UK started bidding and had the top bid. Seconds before the auction ended, someone in Malaysia put in an outrageous bid and won. WTF? So here's a DVD player that retails for $300 and sells on ebay for around $200. Ms. Malaysia "bought" it for $405. Brand new user ID. 0 feedback rating. Goody...

Within minutes of the auction end, I send a message to the Malaysian and ask for a U.S. address to ship to and tell her that if she doesn't have a U.S. address I can't sell it to her. She sends me an e-mail to tell me that she's in America (yeah, right), her husband is in Nigeria, and she wants me to buy some Dolce and Gabbana cologne and a card to ship with the DVD player for her husband's birthday. Uh huh, sure. And to compensate me for my troubles, she will pay me an extra $150 to cover the costs of these extra items and shipping.

It gets better.

I get a spoofed PayPal e-mail that says something along the lines of, "The money has been deducted from Ms. Malaysian's account but we'll hold it until we get a shipping confirmation from you; then we'll give you the money." That's not how PayPal works. F-ers. The e-mail was a horrible fake. It didn't even look like a PayPal e-mail. In the meantime, I look at the auction and send a second-chance offer to the top U.S. bidder (skipping the schmoe in the UK), and she accepts. At least I sold the thing. I sent another message to Ms. Malaysia to let her know that she's not getting the DVD player and that I've forwarded the fake e-mail to PayPal for investigation. A little later, I get another better spoofed PayPal e-mail offering me an extra $200, but I still can't get it until I give them proof of shipment. I report that one to PayPal, too, and tell Ms. Malaysia yet again that she's not getting the thing no matter how much she offers. She stops sending messages. She deletes her ebay account. I report the unpaid item, get my final value fee returned, and all is good.

But wait, there's more.

Today I get a message from ebay saying that a user that bid on my auction was actually an account that was hacked and that the transactions with that user should be canceled. The user was the UK person, my real next highest bidder, who I thankfully skipped when I made the second-chance offer. What an ordeal.

The moral of the story: don't trust anyone who's offering you an absurd amount of money for an auction when there are conditions like having to buy additional stuff for them and ship it to some foreign country.

This ended up being a long story. It certainly livened things up in my electronic world these past couple of days.

Tomorrow is our company art show. The "Timbertones" choir that I'm in is performing a couple of songs, and Marc is displaying some photography. Plus, he won the program cover contest with his picture of Newspaper Rock. Unfortunately, my recorder quartet can't perform this year because two of the members don't work at Timberline anymore. Boo. Oh well. We'll probably play down at Saturday Market this summer, which should be fun.

Grandpa's official farewell

Grandpa's funeral was this morning. Everything went very well. The flowers were beautiful, the family and friends were wonderful, the ceremony was thoughtful, and the reception was perfect. That's a lot of adjectives. It was really great seeing so many family members and friends gathered together to celebrate a great man's life.

Not that I've been to a ton of them, but funerals always remind me about how important it is to appreciate the lives we have and the people we love. Sieze the day. Hug the important people in your life. Try to live without regrets. Now I'll turn off the cheesiness and return you to your regular programming.

It's official--Marc and I are nerd twins

Marc has had several problems with his laptop in the past year or so. After a horrible experience with the Geek Squad at Best Buy and a computer that they never fixed even after multiple attempts, we found out that the computer is part of a class action lawsuit. It heats up too much and shuts down. It's so hot that you can't even keep it in your lap. Couple that with my 1 percent free space hard drive and similar heating/shut down issues that have cropped up with my laptop lately, and we decided that it was time for something new.

So Marc went shopping today and got a sweet Compaq V3000. Then I went shopping with him later and got the same one. Yes, we look dorky sitting on the couch with matching laptops. But it's also cute in a weird way. And we didn't buy them from Best Buy this time, because as far as I'm concerned, any big purchase isn't a best buy from those jerks--at least at our local store. It's kind of a pain having to reconfigure and reinstall everything on a new computer, but it's fun.

I got a good tip from Laura in my previous blog's comment that gave me a good idea for something to talk about. She recommended a sheet set that I'll definitely try out. That reminds me of how obsessive we've become with our bedding. It makes sense to transform the place where you spend a third of your life and that is vital to your heath into the most comfortable place it can be. We have a pretty good mattress from when we moved into the house four (wow!!) years ago. We've since topped it with a featherbed, king size sheets (on a queen mattress--so we don't fight over them as much anymore), and a king size luxury down comforter. That comforter might be the best deal I ever found. Originally over $600, it was half off plus an additional 10 percent off. Score. We used to use flannel sheets, but then I discovered something new. Modal, which is actually made from beechwood trees, just like Laura's suggestion. We got ours at Linens 'n' Things, but I think they have them at Bed Bath and Beyond, too. We liked them so much that we even bought some for our guest bed to pamper the occasional friend that stays for the weekend. If you're looking for new sheets, check these and Laura's recommendation out.

Thanks, Benny!

Our friend Ben did an awesome thing a couple weeks ago. He moved into an apartment. The apartment, of course, has a pool. Marc and I spent Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday at Ben's--and the pool. It's so nice to just lay in the sun, and I'm actually getting a little bit of a tan. We also accomplished something big when we convinced Ben he should replace the 27" TV he had with a sweet 37" LCD. And to get a Bose sound system. And an AC unit. Go Ben!

Other than a lot of good junk food and some movies we watched (Annapolis--decent; Kiss Kiss Bang Bang--awesome!) the weekend was pretty uneventful. Marc ran a couple of errands to tie up the last strings for grandpa's funeral on Tuesday, and today we put together some picture boards to display.

My tip of the week: If you have a toaster oven and like fresh-baked cookies, get the ready-to-bake cookie dough from Tollhouse or Pillsbury or whatever, and just make 2-3 at a time in the toaster oven. We love this way of always having yummy cookies! And on that note, as the scent of the ones we're baking right now wafts into the room, I'm out of here!

Goodbye, Grandpa

After 16 days at home in hospice care without food or water, Grandpa passed away today. Technically my grandpa-in-law, he was a great, caring man who took me in as part of the family from the moment that he met me. He always bent over backwards for everyone, and he would have done anything to help anyone. The world is a worse place to not have him in it anymore. I'm sure he's having a blast with Grandma now, though. We'll miss you, and we'll always love you, Grandpa!

Click it

We saw Click yesterday with Steve and Andrea--it's always good to see a movie with them since Andrea has the hook up at the movie theater. The movie was actually really good, though sad towards the end. Good mix of humor and real-lifeness. (Yes, I'm making up words.) I recommend it.

Something's wrong with our luck with getting good service at restaurants lately. After the fiasco at Rose's a few weeks ago where the manager we asked to talk to told us, "I'm not good with names, but I remember faces, so if you come back in, maybe I can give you a free piece of cake," we've avoided that restaurant. After the movie last night, we tried going to Macaroni Grill for happy hour. We sat at a table in the nearly empty bar for 10 minutes without anyone acknowledging that we were there--except the bartender just looking at us. Ridiculous. So we went to Stanford's, which was fine for awhile. Our waitress told us about her guest stardom on a Seinfeld episode and some voiceover work that she's doing for some local TV and radio ads, but after our food was brought out, she didn't stop by for nearly 20 minutes (during which time, Steve and I ran out of drinks). I had to get up and go to the bar to order another round. That shouldn't happen, should it? I hope we're not just being crotchety.

Today, we spent some time tidying up the house since cleaning has taken a complete back burner lately with everything going on with Grandpa. Marc returned some stuff at REI (bye bye stinky feet from those Keen sandals), and he tried out some really weird Mion sandals. Marc discovered a bees' nest inside our grill (we haven't used it in a LONG time) and went on a killing spree. I don't know why bees would want to live in our boring, deck- and barkdust-covered backyard, but they do. We met up with Slimey and Chris later for dinner and several rounds of Cranium Ziggity.

I'm not exactly sure what our plans are for tomorrow. Ben should be back in town, so we might do something with him. Otherwise, we'll head back over to Chris and Slimey's for some BBQ action. Our across-the-street neighbors always buy "less than legal" fireworks, so we should get a nice little fireworks show from the comfort of our front yard.

On a completely different subject... Do all cats like to have their backs/butts scratched or spanked? Ours sure do. It's funny when we scratch Manga right above her tail, she likes it so much that she licks us. Cats are funny.

Shopping spree

I don't remember exactly when capris came into fashion existance. I know I was in college--maybe it was about 8-9 years ago. I was vehemently against them, as I usually am with fads. (I have this same mentality with TV shows too--I refused to watch X-Files or Friends when they were still being produced, for example.) Anyway, back to clothes. I thought capris looked stupid, and I was pretty sure that they would be "out" again in a year or so. I wasn't gonna waste my money. But they didn't go away, and then they started growing on me. I gave in, and now, a few years later, my summer wardrobe includes lots of capris and very few pairs of shorts (that fit anymore).

Until today.

So all of that was just leading up to my grand announcement that I now have several pairs of shorts that I will actually wear and that are appropriate to wear to work. This really is quite an accomplishment because I'm really picky about shorts. Yea for me!

We hung out with Aaron and Robyn tonight. We played Settlers, and team Mosiman came out ahead. We have this funny agreement where, if one of us is close to winning and the other isn't (or if we're all just tired of playing and want the game to end sooner), Marc and I team up and help one of us win. My brother Tom would probably walk out on us if we ever played like that around him. Ha!

Robyn's about 19 weeks along in her pregnancy now. They find out on Wednesday what the sex is of their twins. I'm excited for them! They'll really get to have fun with the name game once they know what they're having.

I'm not sure why, but Marc thought it would be good for me to blog about the corn dog he ate for dinner tonight. So, there, I just did. Are you happy, honey?

Officially, I have Monday off from work, but I'm not sure whether I'll take it off. We'll have to see how things go with Grandpa (who is still hanging on). I at least have to go in and get my stuff unpacked in my new office. Hope you all have a great, safe weekend and 4th!

On the move at work--but not up the corporate ladder

I found out last Friday that my cohorts at work and I would have to move "soon" so that we can accomodate the 30 new employees that are moving into our office as a result of an acquisition that we made. We hadn't heard much more about it yet this week, except from the occasional coworker who will be moving into our area as they came by to scope out our real estate. Turns out they're moving into our spots over the weekend, which left us wondering when someone was going to tell us when and where we're moving. We finally found out that we're moving into offices (hello windows, bye-bye cube), but we have to share them with someone else. That's cool though. At least I won't have to stare at an inside wall anymore. Now I just have to finish packing--I'm up to 7 boxes so far--and get moved as soon as the person currently in my new space moves out. This will be my seventh location in the 4.5 years I've worked at Timberline. Crazy.

The sad thing about moving into an office is that I'm not going to have a good place to hang my maps anymore. I have US and world maps that I've kept on my cube walls at work. I mark with colored pins the places I've lived and visited. It's a neat reminder of how big our country and our world is and just how much there is out there to see and do.

It's a cool 80 degrees here today. Much better than earlier this week!

Hot hot heat

Yesterday it was 101 degrees in Portland. Today it was hotter, I think. I don't know for sure at this point though because around 5:30 tonight, our power went out for 4 hours, interrupting our evening news viewing. Fortunately, we'd just finished dinner, so we didn't have to worry about cooking. But while the AC had kept our house right around 73 degrees up to that point, we watched it climb up after everything shut off. Marc called PGE a few times, and they were actually predicting that they wouldn't have things fixed for us until midnight. At that point we contemplated setting up "camp" downstairs to sleep for the night since it was even warmer upstairs. I took what I thought was a cold shower, but it still steamed up the bathroom. Lucky for us, everything came back on just before 10:00 tonight.

It's sad how my home life comes to a crashing halt when the power goes out. No TV. No internet. No computer at all after my laptop battery dies in 15 minutes. No good reading light after the sun sets. We did take advantage of this as a good excuse to partake in a couple of adult beverages out on our porch, though, which we barely even go out and sit on.

Grandpa is still holding on, even in the big heat these past couple of days. Work is busy as usual, with more projects on the way. Nothing too exciting to report there. Now, with the sweet, cool air blowing from the vents again, I'm heading off to bed.

Nacho worth your time

Usually I enjoy stupid funny movies. Nacho Libre didn't cut it. Don't waste your time with it in the theater. At least we had a gift certificate...

Be envious of the massage

To relieve some of the stress we've been going through lately, we splurged a little yesterday afternoon by stopping at the local Massage Envy. While the quality may not have matched that of Portland Spa's, the price can't be beat for an hour massage. I highly recommend it. And if you go, put my or Marc's name in as your referral, and we might get a free massage for it.

So the stress lately has to do with Grandpa (Marc's). He had a stroke a week and a half ago and is now in a coma. We've spent a lot of time in the hospital with him, and then this past Monday he got transferred to his home to live out his last days with hospice care. It's been hard on the whole family, but we just hope that he can go peacefully.

On a different note, I got my new teeth torqued in this afternoon, so my new smile is now permanent. One of these days I'll get some new pictures up.

Drunkenness as a spectator sport

Last night I felt like I was back in college again. We hung out with some coworkers and experienced the glory of drinking games. Beer Pong reigned for the first part of the afternoon. Kings took over in the evening. And in a blast from my past, I took on the role of the only person who could go buy more beer when they ran out. That led to a bit of confusion for me when I drove someone else's car to the store and then couldn't remember what kind of car it was when I came back out in the parking lot. (I swear, I didn't drink a drop.) Thank goodness for remote entries that make the car beep. The evening was fun in that weird way that watching other people have fun is fun.

For "dinner" (which finally happened later than I usually go to sleep), we went back to Macaroni Grill for our favorite happy hour. Pablo wasn't the most efficient or accurate waiter, but he sure was enthusiastic about the World Cup.

Today we're getting stuff packed up for a one-nighter camping trip up at Mt. Hood with Slimey. It'll be cold, but I'm looking forward to it. And, we have our portable Mr. Heater Buddy, so the tent won't be too cold for Marc. Seriously. :)

My new teeth are here!

I got my new front teeth today. I feel like I have to learn how to talk and eat again. They're a completely different shape and depth than they were before. During dinner, I kept mashing my teeth together. It's a strange feeling, but it's worth it knowing that my tooth drama is finally over. I think they look really good, and Marc agrees, so that's a good thing. :)

We picked up a new cooler and new camping pillows tonight in preparation for a night up at Mt. Hood on Saturday. I'm totally looking forward to getting out and camping.

I didn't win the Powerball last night. That was a real bummer. I don't usually buy tickets until it's over $100 million, but I just had a feeling the other day and bought one anyway. No luck. I think I only got one number. Boo.

Over-eating and under-sleeping

What a crappy couple of days. I haven't slept well. I don't know why. Of course my big mistake yesterday was falling asleep on the couch for about 90 minutes after work. That made it impossible for me to fall asleep last night, which just compounded the effects of the past few nights. I don't know how little sleep I got though because I have this weird obsession about not looking at the clock when I can't fall asleep so that I don't officially know how little sleep I'm gonna get. Yeah, I'm weird.

We've been a bit gluttonous the past couple nights. Yesterday we were lazy and got some Chinese take out. Tonight we went to Chili's for their new happy hour specials with Chris and Slimey. We haven't seen them in forever, so it was good to catch up.

At least we did work out today, though my body was really resistant to the whole idea.

Work has been busy. I'm looking forward to the weekend already. :) Hopefully we'll be going camping on Saturday.

Lazy Weekend

Another weekend gone. Sunday evenings always stink, but we had a good lazy weekend. Yesterday Ben came over and we went to Helvetia Tavern for burgers for lunch. It's been a long time since I've been there. Later in the evening we went to Bugatti's for some cocktails, and then we hit Macaroni Grill for the late happy hour specials. Marc tried to set Ben up to get our waitress's phone number, but he didn't bite. Wuss.

We bought some new dumbbells yesterday--they're the neat ones where you just turn the outside of each dumbbell to the weight you want and lift them out of their holder. Good space saver, considering the spare room that we use as our workout room isn't all that big. We're also contemplating getting a rowing machine to help vary our fitness routine (and I really want one). We'll have to see where it will fit though.

That's all for now. There's just nothing extremely exciting to report today. :)

All I want for Christmas... errrr... whatever holiday comes up next...

For those of you who don't know, I have four fake front teeth. See, I was a stupid 7-year-old once, and I thought I was a daredevil. There was this hill in my neighborhood in St. Louis that we all thought was huge. We liked to ride our bikes down it, and I liked doing it as fast as possible. One day, with my friend Laura (the one whose wedding I just went to in St. Louis), I rode down that hill with my eyes closed--for extra adventure!--and I'm still suffering the wrath of that adventure 21 years later.

I knocked out a permanent front tooth that day. An oral surgeron put it back in. About 7 years later, they took it out again for good, and I had a perfectly good bridge. To make a long story shorter, I ended up with a cracked root and a couple other cracked teeth. In the past couple years, I've had three more front teeth extracted and two implants put it. It's always fun talking about my implants around people when they don't know I'm talking about teeth. HA!

Today was a milestone of sorts. Since I had to let the implants heal and fuse to bone for several months, I've had a kinda gimpy temporary bridge. Today I went to the dentist and got fitted with my permanent bridge. In another week, I'll have it in my mouth for good. Then, if the tooth fairy smiles down on me, I will be through with all of this tooth business for good.

On a completely different subject, I've been asked by a British coworker to write a front-page introduction for a technical writing newsletter that's distributed worldwide to tech writers in my company. I agreed. But now I need something clever to say so that I'm not just another boring newsletter contributor. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Something I'm just not meant to do

I don't like speaking in front of groups. I do okay with two or three people, but many more than that and I really freak out. Today I got to spend a couple hours training seven new-hires at work. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I don't think I've ever trained anyone anything before. It's just not my cup of tea. Honestly, I'd rather give presentations to my boss's boss and her boss (which is nerveracking but in a much more bearable way) than train seven newbies.

Somehow, I survived. Laura better not bail out on me again.

What city am I in? What time is it?

Last Sunday, I left at the butt crack of dawn for Boston with Laura. We went for work. I could babble on about the conference we went to, but I won't bore you. It was cool though--both professionally and personally. I got to meet Laura's brother-in-law and his girlfriend. They took us to a great pizza place (Figs) and dessert place (Finale). I flew back to Portland on Wednesday after winning a portable DVD player at the conference. Score!

The Newark airport sucks. I don't ever want to go back there.

So I got into Portland late Wednesday night. Thursday, I got my hair cut, colored my hair, and got my nails done. I went to Target and bought a new suitcase. Somehow the one I used to go to Boston got busted up. Then I did some laundry and packed up again.

Friday, Marc and I left at the butt crack of dawn (again) for St. Louis. We got in just in time to change clothes and make it to Laura's (different Laura this time) and Ron's rehearsal dinner. Good food and company. Saturday we went up in the Arch. Man, those eggs (errr, capsules) get hot! We went to the wedding that night. It wasn't unbearably hot in at the Gardens, and the reception was very nice. Good food and company again. Sunday we went to the wedding brunch out at the castle (a.k.a. Laura's parents' house) and met Bailey the whippet. Awesome dog! It was really cool to see Laura and Jen--friends from when I was in elementary school. It's crazy that we're all grown up now. After the castle, Marc and I took off for a tour of Meramec Caverns. You'd have thought we were in New Delhi with a tour group of NASCAR enthusiasts. Sheesh. I won't go into details about the horribly ill-planned trip to Ted Drewes.

We flew back Monday evening and stopped at Taco Bell on the way home from the airport. I ate, showered, and then it was time for bed. Getting up this morning and going to work was surreal. I feel like I've been gone for a month. For awhile there, it was hard to remember what day it was, what time zone I was in, and which city I was standing in. I'm glad things will settle down now.

A short history of my life so far

This will probably be boring, but even if you know me, you might learn something new.

I'm the youngest of three kids. I have two older brothers--8 and 10 years older than me. Yes, I was an "Accident." I'm not too close with my brothers because of our age difference, but it's interesting to get to know them better now that we're all adults. My mom is a typical mom. I had to promise to call her every week when I moved to Oregon. I guess I'm still her baby girl.

I was born in Columbus, Ohio, but we moved to Michigan when I was 3, and I don't really remember my first home. After 3 years in MI, we moved to St. Louis, where I went to 1st-3rd grade. Then we moved to Florida for 4th and 5th grade. Then to Kentucky, where my dad promised that he wouldn't move me around anymore. True to his word, my mom and I stayed in KY while he moved along to Ohio, Texas, Wisconsin, and then Ohio again. By the end of my junior year in high school, I'd decided that we should all live in the same place again, so my mom and I moved up to Cincinnati for my senior year, and within a month of us moving in, my dad's company got bought by a company in Kentucky, and he moved right back where we had just come from. Nice timing. I finished up high school in Ohio, then went to college at the University of Kentucky. I loved watching the basketball 'Cats, and it was awesome being a student when they won the national championship in 1998. (I was visiting on campus in 1996 when they won--awesome!) I spent a semester in Orlando as part of the College Program working at Walt Disney World and then came back to finish up school. I took school pretty seriously, as I do with most of the things I commit my time to, and got an exclusive internship with a Big 5 accounting firm which turned into a full time job after college.

After I graduated from UK, I moved back to Louisville and married my high school "sweetheart"--the only guy I'd dated since I was 14. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it all fell apart little more than a year later. Live and learn. I think we're both better off.

I met Marc online. Better yet--We met on a message board for Nissan Xterra owners, which we both drove at the time. I could tell from the very start that there was something about him that filled a void I'd always had. It wasn't long before I moved to Oregon. After a few months of searching, and two failed attempts to pass the "test" to get an interview with Washington Mutual as a teller (I'm not smart enough to be a teller?! That's crazy!), I got a job with what was then called Timberline Software. I'm still working there, even though our company name has changed a couple of times. I have a job I really enjoy, and I work with a bunch of great people, so I have no complaints in that department.

I can be a quiet person, especially if I'm around people I don't know well. I think most people don't realize just how much I enjoy their company. I don't have many close friends, but maybe that's a remnant of my childhood. I think I learned not to get too close to people in case I had to move in a year or two. I'm loyal to the friends I have and generally expect the same from them. I'm not a "wild partying, go out clubbing every weekend" kind of girl, but I love spending time with friends, whether by a campfire, at a pub, or in someone's living room.

So that's the short story of my life. Hopefully you're still awake by the time you read all the way down here... :)