Random Musings

Resurfacing

2009-07-07T06:08:00.003-05:00

I never blog anymore. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm on a quest, and that means squeezing all the juice out of life this summer. 2009 will go down in history as the summer in which we did the most stuff. Case in point:

Wyalusing camping trip
Memorial Day Brule trip
Kaila's wedding
Carbon Leaf Wednesday, APT Thursday, Brewers game Friday, driving hung over for a Wolf River trip Saturday-Sunday. I was a sick girl after that with some virus.
Another Brule trip with my nephew
Another Brewers game with friends
Bascom Hill, Hey Champ, and STS9 at Summerfest, overnight in Milwaukee
Cookout at the Pippitts' for July 4, stay overnight and swim with the kiddies

And coming soon:

Fountains of Wayne
Door County (if I can find a dog sitter for this weekend)
More APT
Houseboat trip on the Mississippi with friends and kids(again, I could use a dog sitter)
Mike's wedding
Isthmus Vocal Ensemble rehearsals and concert in August

Did I miss anything? I'm kind of looking forward to August. Maybe I can spend a little time at home!

I forgot to mention that Jim did two weeks in Boulder, taking a Wilderness First Responder course. And that he's slated to go back to the Brule. AGAIN.

This would be a kick-*ss blog if I would just write to it and post up some pictures.

Clouds of Mosquitos

2009-05-25T21:00:00.006-05:00

We grilled pizza tonight, after returning from a long and crazy weekend at the Brule. Straight out of Frank Sinatra's "It's Very Nice to Go Travelin'" -- light the home fires/make a pizza.

So after we'd eaten ourselves silly, I went out to the garage to put the grill away. Right away, I heard this low buzzing, almost like a motor or a faraway engine. I looked around and finally saw this:

Now clearly, this doesn't look like much, but in my 39 years on this planet, I've never seen this kind of thing before. Pretty sure this is a very recent, very large hatch of baby mosquitos, forming vortices of themselves in the skies above our homes. Pretty crazy. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions of baby skeets, for your summering pleasure. Nothing to fear, they're not biting yet. All the same, I hope the bats are hungry and feeding well tonight.

Salt IS Necessary in Bread

2009-04-30T21:18:00.002-05:00

This is a tenet I am familiar with. I've forgotten to put the salt in before. I've also put in too much salt when I mis-read my Potato Bread recipe. But today I forgot to put it in my Italian Loaf and I may never forgive myself.

I get all proud of myself that I have the recipe memorized. I make the starter the night before, and I know all the measurements there. The next day, I make the main bread, and generally, I measure the salt out so I'm sure to put it in when I add the starter.

Salt never even entered my brain today.

I'm sure there's a lesson in here. Besides the salt. To be nice to myself, to grab the recipe book, to not trust they grey matter quite so much. I think I've got most of the lesson down, even if I'm not sure exactly of its contents.

But what I really know, and resent being reminded of, is that unsalted bread just tastes like ass. I might as well eat straight bread flour. All that after the work of a starter and 4 hours of rising and then baking.

I thought, after four months of silence, you'd just like to know that.

Move Over, Machine Shorthand

2008-12-16T06:44:00.004-06:00

So, I'm surfing around my own blog, checking out Cute Overload, and I was indirectly led to this.
I had no idea. There's a whole language out there that I'm missing, merely because I'm learning and writing another language of which the folks in chat rooms are blissfully unaware.
To wit (from Wiki):

"Example sentence: L337 15 n07 4 c0mm0n 1n73rn37 5p34k 4m0n9 r34l h4x0r
English rendering: Leet is not a common internet speak among real hackers."
Steno rendering: HRAOET SNOT A KPHOPB SPWERNET SPAOEBG PHOPBG RAEL HABG/-RS FPLT

What's our language going to look like in 20 years? Maybe English spellings will finally come closer to complying with phonetics. But this spooks me, when will I stop being able to read my own native tongue!? I guess if I can learn to read steno, I can learn to read anything.

Thanks, Canoelover.

2008-11-23T08:15:00.002-06:00

Saw this on Canoelover's blog, and thought I'd give it a whirl. The figure may say 51%, but I'd say if you combine our results, they're 100% wrong! Cute, though.

"We guess http://abbiquiu.blogspot.com is written by a man (51%), however it's quite gender neutral."

http://genderanalyzer.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fabbiquiu.blogspot.com

World's most boring blog

2008-10-02T17:59:00.003-05:00

I'm going to go ahead and declare myself the winner of that contest. Jeez.

School is busy, and successful. I nailed both my 170 jury charges in the same week, and one Q&A at 170. I turned in my other 170 Q&A today and it was just beautiful. Dying to get my grade back on that one, as always. And again, 180s are just too fast. Don't even talk to me about lits, the 140s are still too fast to write "supercalifragilistic" by "writing what I hear." Dude. But it will come, as I tell all my fellow students, above and below my speeds.

I'm liking my Race, Class and Gender class way more than I thought possible. I have to sort of force myself to participate. The readings from the textbook are often dry and boring and hard for me to get anything out of till I get to class. But then I'm one of the few who might have actually read the assigned material, and the instructor is just dying up there, praying for some intelligent answer. One that preferably doesn't include 11 "likes" in the same babbling, incoherent statement.

Rose is growing, so big, and so sweet. I need to give you some pictures of her, and of Mister Squeaky. Mister Squeaky died a rather ignominous death (even I need to look that word up), and I have the photos to prove it. Off to Puppy II class right now. But she's already so smart, and a great learner. Can't wait to see her potential.

Finally, a new post

2008-08-24T08:25:00.005-05:00

Man, this blog has been boring lately. And I guess I have been too, all I can seem to talk about or think about is our new dog, Rosie. A little update and I'll shush. She's quite a sweet dog and hardly gets into any trouble. Okay, so there was the dew claw that she ripped off in playing with a friend's dog, and now some other girl infection that's got her living on Clavamox antibiotics. And then she recently stole my bamboo knitting needles and was thinking of chewing them when I heard them click on the floor. And a CAT 5 cable got chewed when she was at work with Jim at Baga. But other than that, dude, she's so not a lot of trouble overall. I suppose that will change. Took her to the Terrace last night for beers and socialization with WeatherGirl, and Rose was overstimulated but just fine. She loves to snuggle with us in bed in the mornings, what a little lover.

Okay, shutting up about dog. I start back to school tomorrow, which fills me with excitement and anxiety. I haven't shuffled through all the papers I want to keep or pitch from last year, and haven't figured out what I'm going to wear or what time I need to get up to be at class by 8. I'm both looking forward to and dreading the grind of four hours' practice each day, and the requisite nagging that a certain instructor feels compelled to supply. Meh. Let's kick some speeds' ass and get out of this school thing already, and get to work.

We went on a houseboat vacation with the LudoGausens and the kids, up at Rainy Lake, which was a blast and really deserves a post of its own. We didn't want to kill each other after four days in close quarters, which is just so great.

Looking forward to Taste of Madison and the Walworth County Fair, and in early September we'll shoot our only wedding this summer. Other senior portraits will happen, which is good, nice to have some more business for the hubby.

Hmm, I thought I had more to say, and I probably will. But Jim's just made breakfast and it smells fabulous. I'm so there.

Oh, duh, speaking of which, our 13th anniversary is the 26th. (I keep trying to make it the 25th in my brain, but fortunately, I engraved our wedding date into Jim's wedding band so HE wouldn't forget. Now that's irony.) I think lunch at an Indian restaurant today (Swagat was fantastic) will be our celebration, since school chaos will ensue tomorrow. However, my dad remembered the event and sent us a little gift for the event, how sweet!

Hokay, dats it.

Dog Blog Part 2, Electric Boogaloo

2008-07-23T15:24:00.005-05:00

Okay, so we've done it again, this time with a dog we think we have a fighting chance at shaping better. Her name is now Rosie, though it may become Grosie because she looks so much like our friends' dog, Gracie, we keep calling her Gracie. She's so named for the little red spot on the back of her head, no clue if it will stay or not, but we have photographs to prove it was there when we named her.

She's now about 14 weeks old, and is a mix of Black Lab and German Shepherd, both parents were allegedly purebred. Her mom and siblings were surrendered after they became too much to take care of! Enter Madison Mutts, and then my husband, surfing the web for another dog, found a posting of her that was too cute to resist. We met her last Tuesday evening and went home with another new dog.

Abby was not amused. She's not mean or aggressive to Rose, quite the contrary. She really won't correct her when Rose gets in Abby's face! Today I got smart and totally redirected Rose's behavior--a handful of treats went to her nose and I kept her occupied while Abby was able to walk the other way, unbeleaguered by a rude puppy. I keep hoping Abbers will bone up to Rose one day and tell her just how rude and boisterous she can be. Not to the extent of pain, mind you, but a simple, "Hey, quit it already! You're too much!"

But then again there are times like now, when she's lying quietly behind my chair, sacked out after a walk, and of course TOTALLY innocent, when I think she's really going to become a fine dog. She seems scared of just about everything, sometimes us, most times doors and strange noises outside, and today I found out she didn't like the sound of the opening mailbox. Oh, brother. I got her right next to me and fed her a treat or two as I opened the mailbox again. I think it will be like that for a while. She likes chewing on things and has not found anything inappropriate to chew on. Yet. I'm sure she will, but I also hope we have enough of a variety of "funner" things to chew than straps or shoelaces or chair legs. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

We've had to learn about housebreaking, and particularly how to housebreak this one. She can be so chill and sedentary, that when we go out to the back yard with her to witness her activities, she'll just lie down in the grass. We finally hit on the idea of walking her down the street to get some action, and sure enough, it worked. She's doing much better about "going" more quickly when we go outside now. And, knock wood, it's been five days since her last accident!

We were also very lucky to get in last Thursday to a puppy class that had just started. She thought the puppy play session was just great, and didn't mind the sort of "boring" training part either. We can't wait to go back tomorrow.

One of my favorite things she does is when she's in a playful mood, if you throw a ball off the porch, she'll dive into the grass after it and pounce on it, like a cat. Totally cute and endearing. I think we'll have to teach fetch too, but at least she likes ball to begin with. That's a start.

Anybody got any suggestions on what else we should be doing with her? Got a puppy I can socialize her with? Wanna come feed her treats? Please do!

By the way, Bella was adopted by a guy who works construction. He lives on a farm, I think, and she apparently goes with him to the job site every day. Happy ending there, and all around, really.

By the way, photos of Rosie by Jim Pippitt, see more at www.jdpphoto.com.

Black River Falls Camping

2008-07-09T07:36:00.008-05:00

So for our third camping trip at Black River Falls, we did a reunion of Jim's high-school buds and their respective spouses and kidlets. We had the California Contingent, Chris and his wife Tammy and their daughter Ayana, and then John made a rare cameo appearance, bearing stogies of a dubious nature. We also had the Midwest Contingent, the Carpenters--Paul, Shelley, kids Don and Steve; and the Ludo-Gausens, Pete and Dorothy, kids Katie, Sarah, Kevin, and their newest addition, baby Charlie at 12 weeks. Dorothy had hooked herself up with a rocking folding camp chair and a kick-butt screen enclosure, to keep the be-be out of the skeets and the deet. I felt bad that she was sort of the Mama in a Bubble, but I'm in utter admiration of her in taking such a little one camping! Ooh, anc C-Vo made a cameo appearance on Saturday, came up and paddled and hiked with us, helped us nosh on tacos.

That brings me to a quick bit about what all we did. Not lots, but there was some canoeing on the Black River, which was much bony-er than it had been just a few weeks back when we took Robbie. Lots of sandbars and actually a couple of riffles toward the end, near Mason's landing where we put out. I was thrilled to be able to paddle stern with Chris on one day and with C-Vo on the next, and they lived to tell the tale! The Nova Craft Pal we borrowed from Rutabaga is a sweet little boat, small enough for me to solo if I had to, and responsive to a good solid pry. It was a real kick for me to get C-Vo, a die-hard kayaker, in a canoe for the first time in a long time, and to see her translating double-bladed skills to a single fat paddle.

On day two, Jim got to perform sort of a rescue for some nice yokels who thought it would somehow be easy to paddle two aluminum canoes down the Black with just three people. We came upon this poor teenage-ish kid who was seated in the stern, naturally with his bow poised way up in the air and catching every breeze (and it was windy that day). Jim got them all to the river bank and tried showing the soloist where to sit, how to paddle, but he was having none of it, probably too frustrated and annoyed to give it a good solid try. Jim had a length of rope with him in the event he'd need to tow Don in the little whitewater kayak (he did tow him for a while, eventually), had the one canoe tow the other by sitting on the rope attached to the straggler canoe. At one point they forgot they were sitting on the rope and the straggler came loose, but it was recovered. At the end they finally "washed out" at the same landing we did, and they returned the rope with tired smiles on their faces, vowing that the husband would be coming with them on the next trip. They seemed very grateful for our help and I hope they aren't too soured on the whole paddling experience.

Back at camp, Jim and I made Shepherd's Pie one night, using instant potatoes for the top. I'd made a test half-recipe at home that worked great. And this one did too, but I kind of woefully overestimated the amount of instant potatoes I'd need--like the Whole Box. And I also woefully overestimated what our utensils could handle, the top popped off the spatula and we tried to break the strongest plastic spoon we had in stirring up that delicious mush. I had big help from Jim and Sarah, and a lot of milk. However, the Shepherd's Pie was a big hit with just about everyone, and I was very surprised to see it all gone at the end! Leftover potatoes went in a ziploc and turned out to be a fine breakfast the next morning, mixed with an egg and maybe some bread crumbs.

We also did a hike up to the top of (I think it's called) Castle Rock and got a couple group shots of all of us. Steeper than I remembered, huff-puff. A good number of us also attended a cool nature presentation on owls up at the shelter building, and got to see a little screech owl named Ebenezer. Owls have cool eyes, and sclerotic rings that keep their eyeballs in their tiny heads. And they can't do a real 360 with their heads, more like 260. A very cool presentation from a knowledgeable and entertaining speaker.

There was of course roasting of s'mores, drinking of beer, swapping of stories, laughter, and reading chapters of The Hobbit by the fire. It was a great way to spend our Fourth of July weekend and I hope we can do it again soon.

Done with Dog Blog

2008-06-24T21:07:00.002-05:00

Sorry, folks, that was a false alarm on the dog. Tonight our niece and nephew were visiting, and on a well-supervised attempt at petting, Bella nipped Sarah's arm. No blood, but a little scrape of skin and a big scare for that four-year-old. I feel perfectly awful, and that doesn't even scratch the surface. We are so lucky to have adopted her from a very loving shelter and they are kind enough to take her back. She's gone already. And I miss her. Again, not scratching the surface of how I feel.

But I can't dismiss teeth on children. Even if it was just a scratch, even if we pushed her too hard to accept something she wasn't ready for, a dog can't lead with her mouth and live to tell the tale, at least not live in our house that way. Clarifying here--she will not be euthanized, she'll be fostered until she can find a home to take her. But I need a dog I can trust. I'm so spoiled by Abby. She was a challenge in her day, but nothing in comparison with that Bella. I still believe Bella will be a great dog for someone with no kids or maybe older kids and no old dog that's antisocial and kinda hates her. I wish I could have been the one, the family, to help her succeed in being a great dog. My heart hurts because it's filled with love and a desire to do the right thing for a good animal. I just can't make that love mix with teeth on skin, that's oil and water and it will never emulsify, stay homogenized (or whatever, I know I'm babbling. But it's my blog, dammit.)

Anybody's up for a slightly pushy, beautiful German Shepherd, let me know, I'll put you in touch with the shelter that's fostering her. Wish us luck in our grief and our search for a new dog.

Dog Blog

2008-06-20T08:09:00.004-05:00

Well, meet Bella. She's from Madison Mutts Rescue and we met and picked her up last night. What a wonderful, frightening whirlwind! They say she's about a year and a half old, and I'd guess she's in the 70 - 90 pound range--currently just kinda lean and lanky, tall and reminiscent of a training pony or giraffe. She's awful pretty, as you can see. She wasn't too into sleeping in our bedroom with us last night--there was a good half hour of her pacing before we all figured that out. After we opened the door and let her have the run of the house, Jim said he only heard her meander back into the bedroom once. We plead ignorance for the most part of German Shepherds, but I'm guessing she wanted to guard the front door, and/or was pretty darned stressed. We heard a passel of sirens in the night, and so did Bella, who sang along with them, Aroooo!

We took her to the dog park first thing this morning, and she did well. We reinforced "come" with treats and played a little with the chuck-it. She loves fetch but seems confused about mixing it in with a walk in the dog park. Fine. She also seems confused about how to stay in the back seat of the car. She jumps in the back door and slithers into the passenger seat until we can kinda get her back there again, possibly with a visit to our laps or the stick shift on the way. She LOVES having her head out the window, and it makes for some slightly distracted driving. (Jim took this one as a passenger.)

Abby, our first dog, I think is a little disgusted with us. Being the anti-social dog that she is, and so used to being the only dog, I think it will be an adjustment for her. But I think they're getting along well so far, and I hope that Abby will forgive us and find Bella as good a companion as we have thus far. Twelve hours!

Anyway, if you come to the house, be prepared for a good barking-at. But when she greeted us last night at the foster's home, there was barking and then she chilled out about it. Alert! Alert! Oh, okay. I hope it will be the same here. We'll start training with her as soon as we've seen the vet and can get into a class. Maybe agility at some point, because she seems so smart and responsive already.

That's the diggs on the dogs, wish us luck!

What a Strange Life

2008-06-04T18:52:00.002-05:00

I've just had a weird and wonderful day and have this silly urge to tell the world. I'll try to make it entertaining, and not too long and boring.

I guess I should start with yesterday--I had a meeting with a personal trainer. We joined Harbor Athletic Club recently, and thought, hey, this is the way to get into the club, get oriented and all. So she put me through my paces on the women's weightlifting equipment. I didn't think it was terribly hard, not a lot of weight, not a lot of reps. My abs were not happy about the ball crunches, but that was really the worst of it. She said I'd be sore today. OMG, she was SO RIGHT, I had no idea I could or would hurt like this! So I've been pretty much useless today, curse that lactic acid.

Ran around and did some errands today, one of which was going to a local paper shredder/recycler to get rid of 10 # of old bills and ancient checkbooks. Clutter factor improved, ahh. Well, while I was there, I made the slight mistake of engaging the billing secretary in any kind of conversation. Next thing I know, I'm getting her life story, or at least how this guy cheated on her multiple times and she caught him, threw him out, how she feels so set up for hurt. I really felt for her, but the poor thing keeps texting back to him, apparently, and he's not being very nice, playing basketball in a park in her neighborhood, and she suspects his new thang lives in the neighborhood. So she's haunted by this jerk, and wonders why he can't just leave her alone. I was happy to listen, as it seemed she needed to talk about it, but there was more work there to do than I'm capable of, or even my old shrink was capable of! I really hope she'll find some happiness. What a bizarre, surreal experience.

That mission accomplished, I got through another quick Copps experience unscathed, which is saying something. Picked up some chicken thighs for our dinner, a Country Captain's Chicken from Cook's Country (say that ten times fast). It goes in the slow cooker and has made me look like a frickin' culinary genius, made our house smell like an Indian restaurant. My work done, I laid down for a much-needed nap at about 3:30.

Here comes 6:20, and Jim waking me up! OMG I was OUT, and I must have needed the rest. What a thrill to sleep like that for a nap! Then I came out to the kitchen to find a dozen roses shoved into a vase! If there's a better husband out there, I told him, I can't imagine what he'd be. Why am I so lucky, and others so not?

I forgot to mention, in the intervening time, I'll get to roll croissants at my old haunt this Saturday. My former student, Trouble, called me with a favor--can you cover for me while I go to a memorial service for one of my high school mates who died in a car accident a couple days ago. I couldn't say yes the second he asked me, I'm not as confident as I used to be, but it took about five or ten minutes before I texted him back and accepted. I'm really excited about it. It's really fun to see things come full circle a bit.

Anyway, that's pretty much it. I'm just pretty darned grateful to be alive, to enjoy all the strange and wonderful things that life has to offer. I was reminded recently, "Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down, but it's always all around." I'm grateful for that reminder too.

LOL Dog

2008-06-04T09:09:00.002-05:00

moar funny pictures

Productivity Hits All-Time Low

2008-05-16T17:25:00.008-05:00

Yep, it had to happen eventually, and I finally pulled the trigger last week. I went off and bought us a Wii. The Wii Tracker website said Circuit City.com had a package deal, the system and a controller and two games for a not-so-low but still reasonable price, and I was just done waiting. It arrived on Tuesday, fortunately the day after my last day of school. I have been very disciplined, making sure I get my two hours of steno practice in first, before going near the thing. It's deadly addictive!

We're not thrilled with Tiger Woods 08 golf, although it's very beautiful. It's just not terribly intuitive, and they give almost no instructions on how to play the game. But they do give a zillion options on how to customize your character's face shape. And I still can't figure out how to make my character play--what if I don't want to play as Tiger Woods, and watch him sulk when I suck up the hole? I did eagle a couple of holes, though, that was exciting.

We are jazzed with the silly Wii Sports and Wii Play. I think there's not much better than cow racing or bowling in your own not-so-smelly shoes, in the comfort of your living room.

The jury is still out on the Lego Star Wars Complete Saga--it's more complex than I could imagine and is going to take some serious research. Should be fun.

C-Vo came over last night to get "baptized" in Wii. I think we doused her good, some bowling, fishing, and cow racing, and a funny attempt at the "Expert" level of Wii Sports golf. Good times!

My ever-so-awesome friend JJ in Florida just sent me Mario Kart and an additional wheel. Dudes had sold out of them here locally, in the three places I checked! And when she went to buy said Mario Kart, she found it sold out of about seven stores before she found one! And they finally had the Wii consoles, after all that time she'd looked for one for me and couldn't find one. Go figure. MK is totally awesome, we played a couple different courses before our eyes went buggy and we had to quit for a while. I look forward to playing online with JJ and maybe CL at some point--that's just the coolest concept.

Anyway, that's what's going on with me. I ended my semester nearly passing a Q&A at 160, only hit 94% though. I did kill my second jury charge at 160, so I'll be on to my 170s in the fall, and just at 140s still in the literaries. Looking forward to focusing on and kicking some Q&A butt this summer.

Went camping last weekend up at Black River Falls and took my first fire shots, that was fun. We'll paddle the Grant tomorrow, perhaps there will be something to write home about from that experience.

Definitely Spring

2008-04-06T10:53:00.008-05:00

Svetlana, our little pop-up camper, has been freed from the prison of our backyard. Instead of using our truck to tear up the grass and pull her out, our neighbor Jim loaned his services on his 4-wheeler, which still tore up the grass to get her out. That's okay, it's aeration, and it did less damage to the yard than our truck would have. It was a funny, jerry-rigged solution, using a strap to attach the trailer to the 4-wheeler, because the crank would have been in the way of the back of his vehicle. We pushed, he pulled, and now she's resting comfortably in our front driveway, patiently awaiting our next adventure together.

There are old leaves and grass clippings in the yard to be raked, and lots of new, green grass to behold. Not to mention the copious quantities of dog poo that we need to clean up today. But things are green and we're now ready to go camping again. It's definitely spring.

Some photos too, of course. Check out my new frames! And doesn't Jim look so happy, setting up the camper?! Too cute.

No longer "So Tahrrd"

2008-03-18T14:32:00.001-05:00

I hope you all enjoyed the link I put up in the last post, the silly Vogue "moddle" captions. I'm worried the hyperlink got buried. I just thought it was such a kick, and Jim and I still mutter about "I borrode ur tee cozee."

On spring break now, and it's lovely to be getting some stuff done (with Dolores, I miss "Dead Like Me"). Getting the carpets cleaned later this week, though I'm wondering about the smartness of that. A) It's totally MUD season, and B) I have an extra dog, Gracie, through the end of this week that just loves to chase ball in our yard. Oh, and C) she's so not happy about anyone who comes to the door, bellowing and circle-wagging, a riddle wrapped in an enigma, she is. Mebby I should wait till the following Friday when I have but one pooch.

And speaking of the one pooch, I'm a little worried about her. She went to the vet on Monday for routine blood work, and they've found one of her liver levels is higher than they'd expect to see. We'll test again in a month and see if it's better or worse, and then I don't know what. I mean, she is 13, and even the vet said she doesn't show her age. I hope this is just a blip, but I really hate to think of life without my Abby. Anybody who knows anything about dogs is welcome to comment, and anyone looking to put a dog to a good home, well, we're starting to look a bit.

Thinking of homebrewing again. We finally pulled the contents of the three (count them, three) carboys that were in the basement--gave them all a taste, and yuck. No good, not worth re-pitching the yeast. Ya think? After five years lounging in our basement? We were brave to even taste them. Oh well. Will probably order a couple of kits from Northern Brewer to brew up something for our camping trips with the pop-up. Can't wait for the pop-up.

Going to see Peter Mulvey this Friday at Cafe Carpe. Never been to the latter before, saw Peter years ago on campus somewhere. I'm in love with his album "Notes from Elsewhere," and hope maybe he'll sign my copy!?

That's about it for now. Getting more stuff done!

Ahm Sooh Taaahrd!

2008-03-07T22:55:00.003-06:00

Okay, so this is funny.

And I am tired. My legs are so used to standing up that I can hardly bend or squat. I was very naughty and didn't take good care of myself today--I think I only sat down for lunch. Dude.

It's only Friday night. We have a long day tomorrow too, though not quite as long as today was. Regardless, it will be busy, probably the biggest retail day of Rutabaga's year. In many ways, I can't wait. I can't wait to see how many customers I can make happy, how many coins I can put in the karmic bank. I can't wait to see how I handle the stresses, particularly those given to me by certain individuals that drive me freaking crazy. I promise to have more patience and compassion. I love what this show does for my person, and for all the hell it gives and takes away. I know I'm making little sense, and a hot bath is calling. Just trust me on that last bit. AFGO, I think.

Sad Day

2008-02-24T13:35:00.004-06:00

Okay, this shouldn't rank so highly in my list of sadnesses...but Jim just came home from a store where we'd once bought some fabulous potato sausages. He went back there today, in an attempt to procure more of said sausages. They were fresh-made by their deli, it seemed. When he asked at the deli for some today, they replied, "Geez, we did those 3 or 4 months ago, and I think we only sold two!" We'd only bought two back then, could they have been our lonely potato sausages?! If only we'd known, we'd have gone back for more!

So, we're out of gorgeous, fresh potato sausages. Woodman's still has the okay commercial brand, but does anybody know where to get real potato sausage?

Crimes against humanity, I tell ya.

Birthday Blog

2008-02-16T07:26:00.012-06:00

Yep, I'm "old." Not really, just 38. And as usual, it feels no different today than yesterday. Birthdays get boring as you get older, get more of them!

But, all that said, this birthday week has been so much less than boring. It started on Wednesday (I think I'm a Wednesday's child, actually, so that's appropriate)--we went up to the Cities to see Linkin Park! Okay, so Jim's REALLY not into them (though I may sway him with Minutes to Midnight), so Pete and I took the two younger kids to their first real concert. I can't imagine a better first concert to see, can you say "broken?" Barry Manilow with the 'rents certainly pales in comparison. Dude.

Anyway...there was an opening band for the opening band! They weren't so great, and I didn't even catch their name for all their screaming and f*ing. I think you can find their name on the LP website, but I'm not so motivated. Coheed and Cambria was up next, and they were pretty good. I'd have liked them more if I'd known more than two songs, and known those songs better than just barely recognizing them! But the lead singer's hair, man, that's a show in and of itself. What a serious mop! I wonder if his hair has its own manager.

I was totally impatient for Linkin Park to come on, and the set change took forever. There was a big stage piece that descended from the rafters. I was suddenly reminded of Stonehenge from Spinal Tap (!) although this one was actually built to scale. Then I was bugging out a little, because there were no major instruments set up on stage! We gathered they'd be coming up out of the stage, and we were right, it was very cool. I can't begin to give a set list of everything they did, but it was all fantastic. Focused heavily on the new album, and I was sad I didn't know it better. Listening now to it, the copy I bought at Wal-Mart the next day, and dangit, it's the clean version. WTF. But anyway, the boys came back for two encores--one of them included "My December." The stuff they did from previous albums just plain rocked, I screamed myself good and hoarse!

We had great seats, high up, but not in the nosebleed section, with a great view of the floor. We were off to the right side of the stage as you're looking at it. Fun to watch the kids moshing down below, in their little corrals on the floor. That's so not for me though, I plead age and stodginess. I was shocked to see that the Excel Energy Center was not sold out! That bites. But a good crowd, and I think they went away happy. I know I did!

We ended up driving back to Madison on Thursday. Ugh. We did our due diligence and checked weather online, in Eau Claire and Tomah, worried about snow. They promised none, and they were right. But we didn't realize that the "snow line" now starts at the southern state line of Wisconsin--we got whacked with snow from about Tomah down to south of the Dells. It was a Long Drive. Jim was a trooper and a great driver. We counted cars in the ditch all along the drive--we ultimately counted 20. Most of those were in the northern part of the state, though, where the snow had been previously! But there was certainly a snafu with at least one semi truck near Portage--we were glad to not be going north. We ultimately got home, safe and sound and exhausted.

And I nearly forgot to plug for the San Pedro Cafe in Hudson, WI! We stopped there on our way up to the concert for a late lunch. We've been going there for years now, and we're always so happy it's still there. Hang a right into Hudson just before the WI/MN state line at the St. Croix--it's on the right side of the street, and worth the trip. They have a wood-fired oven in which they make superior pizzas and some of their other Carribean-inspired food.

We had the Puerco Diablo pizza this time, with this crazy habanero aioli and pulled pork--yum.
Also enjoyed a crab cake with a coconut milk sauce.

Topped it off with the tres leches cake--not too heavy and seriously delicious.

And then, as if we haven't eaten enough lately, we decided to give Osteria Papavero a try last night. OMG, yum. Their website is not nearly as impressive as actually being there. They had several specials that weren't on the web menu, and they looked and sounded fabulous. We dragged C-Vo along with us, kicking and screaming. I think she had fun. I regret that I didn't bring my camera, but you're probably as sick of my food shots as I am. Besides, you just gotta get there. Thanks for the heads-up, Kathy!

Today is Ham Fest, if the weather will allow, so I'll report on that when I'm able.

So yeah, if this is high-holy days, I'm all about it. It's been a great birthday week.

Housebound

2008-02-10T08:24:00.000-06:00

Do you remember that week in February, where we pretty much just stayed inside? It was either snowing like mad or nose-hair freezing cold out. Yeah. That would be this week. Brr.

Snow Photos

2008-02-06T16:51:00.001-06:00

There's probably a better way to upload a few photos and make them look nicer, but this is what I've got for now. Jim's measuring a good foot, but not all of that is new snow. You can just barely tell that I'm behind the snowblower in the bottom left shot. That was fun. Jim plowed us out, our across-the-street neighbors, and our next-door neighbors on our right. It's a good time to invest in karma. Abby wasn't at all sure about this big wallop of snow. Neither am I! I liked post-holing in the snow while trying to clear off my car a bit. With a push-broom, mind you. Why, O, why haven't I finished my snowshoes?

Snow, Snow, freaking SNOW!

2008-02-06T08:15:00.000-06:00

Okay, dudes, whomever's got that snow machine on, you can quit now. We've had enough. Really. Another 9 inches is really not necessary.

However, I won't complain too much, because I get another "snow day." I'm home from school and should be practicing--and I will be soon--but my coffee's not done yet and there's a moment for blogging.

I passed a 140 Jury Charge last week, I'm very excited about that. Ooh, and I haven't told you how cool it was to go to court! I was amazed at what I was able to take down. The prosecuting attorney and the first witness I saw had a very nice rhythm and I was able to get lots of it. The judge, however...whew! That man is brilliant and talks reeeally fast. Objections were made and resolved before I could even process what happened, or how to designate the speakers in colloquy. Gack! Same with items received in evidence, and motions to publish (which I later discovered was a request to put the exhibit up on the overhead projector. Ohhh!).

My mentor Linda is a gem. She gave me grundles of paper scraps as I left on both Tuesday and Thursday! And when I went Thursday, she called me to order lunch ahead so we'd have time to eat it. I just thought that was sweet, on top of being efficient. So I got to lunch with her and a few other reporters, one of which I knew from the WCRA (Wisconsin Court Reporters Association) conventions. Fun to hear them gossip about what happened in this case or that case, how the current witness is clueless, whatever. Anyway, my mentor is an intelligent, competent woman, and is just a fine role model. I left the courthouse with such a grateful heart and I can't wait to get my speeds higher so I can go back for internship. Great experience.

I won't bother much with how annoyed I am that Q & A is still kicking my butt. 140 is just not there yet. Hence, coffee's nearly done, and so is this blog. I'm going under!

Interesting Development...

2008-01-27T07:35:00.000-06:00

So this should be fun, or at least interesting. My mentor in court reporting has been communicating back and forth with me for some time now, and we've finally decided to meet up this coming week. The sort of scary part is that she wants me to bring my machine and sit up front and write during the proceedings! My great hope is to be able to designate some speakers and get a bunch of phrases, cuz I'm thinkin' that's about all I'm going to get! This will be at the Dane County courthouse this Tuesday afternoon, so wish me luck, and I'll keep you posted on how it all goes. Should be a great experience.

Other than that, just settling back into school life. Psyched because I had some help from an advisor with my degree audit, and short of getting my speeds, I think I'm only beholden to three more classes. I think I can manage to squeeze those in in the next couple semesters. What is it, business law and a racial tolerance class, oh joy. Forgive me, but I can't help but wonder why I need to be required to take a class in order to be polite and tolerant of people not of my culture or color. I realize I live a charmed and sheltered life, but I have compassion and tact, right? Can that be trained into a student in a mere semester? I'm puzzled. Letcha know how that goes at whatever point as well.

Huh, not much else to report, I'm afraid. Canoecopia's coming up soon, March 7-9, and it looks like we're working said marathon weekend again. The showguide is out and it looks fabulous. Maybe it's not in your mail yet, but it's printed, you'll see it soon. I do always love working the show, even through every last drop of physical exhaustion, I love it. Besides, we get Nick this year, and C-Vo will be helping out UB. Prince impersonations will ensue.

Ta!

Last Days of Freedom

2008-01-10T07:56:00.001-06:00

As usual, not much to report here. My sloth levels have hit an all-time high. I've been on break since a week before Christmas, and as much as I hate to say it, I am SO ready to get back to school. This semester's classes will rock--I only have two--and they don't start till 9:30 a.m. Woot! I have been a good girl, I've been practicing most every day, for at least 2 hours, sometimes 3. I will have to add it all up and average my practice time to see how good I've really been. I think it will pay off too--I've been practicing Q&A and Jury Charge at 150, and Lit's at 140.

Granted, there's not been lots of medical terminology in it, although I did want to kill one reader in a Lit recently. She said "scire facias", but pronounced it She-Ra Fa-SEE-yas, where I'd say SKEE-re FA-kee-as. It drove me nuts trying to figure out what she was saying, and then to look up a definition. So, I'll likely end up being put in my place when it comes time for class and takes, but I don't think I made backward progress over the break, and that's good.

We went to a fun New Year's Eve party at Kimbler's--a potluck where he paired the wines with the dishes everyone brought. Very nice time. But, note to self, don't come home after such an event, where you were so good with short pours, and crack open the bottle of champagne because it's New Year's?! Makes the Rose Parade such a painful thing. Ugh.

I had hoped to get more things done on my to-do list over break, like getting our carpets cleaned. But now it's all deliciously January-thawing and muddy and I'm disinclined to tackle it till the ground firms up again? Maybe I'll get to it sooner. And it's not like we're doing it ourselves this time, I wanna call a service to do it, but then I stop myself because I'm cheap! Oh brother, this is my deranged mind.

We went to Muramoto this past Sunday, and I have no photos to show for it, but I may have gained pounds to show for it! It was a fun time with C-Vo and Ray-Ray (who's leaving us soon, waah), and a new friend Deb. We ate well for not a lot of money, and there were leftovers! Muramoto will apparently be inhabiting some new digs soon, at the site of Cocoliquot. Very exciting for all involved, I think.

We've had C-Vo over to the house a few times for food extravaganzas--we shoved meatloaf at her for one meal, and I think some truly "sick" pots de creme for dessert. It was all about perseverence to finish that dessert! And then another time we made our insane homemade Mac & Cheese with some Nueske's ham she brought, and made some collard greens with broccoli, dude, it was insane. It's been fun to cook for people again, even if it's the same people. Need to get more of you's over here for said food extravaganzas.

And, last but not least, we're headed a few hours north this weekend to hang with our Cities friends and their fabulous kids, for another round at the Wilderness. We had such a blast last time! I'm looking forward to more of the same, crazy waterslides with them's that are able, and several spins around the lazy river with "mama" and baby in the oven. We'll cook for them on Friday and maybe do dinner out on Saturday, go home all waterlogged and happy on Sunday.

I guess that's it for now. I'll start whining again when it gets hard, and you'll be patient with me, right? Thanks in advance.

Press!

2007-12-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

Check this out...
It's a recent article from the Wisconsin State Journal about us court reporters and students thereof. There was apparently a photo in the real issue of my fellow student Jianna, and maybe Lindsay too. They talked to my instructors, and I was also surprised to see my mentor's name, Linda Flakne, in the article. Anyway, I'm excited, thought I'd share.

Happy New Year to all of you! And I hope you have less snow than we do. Ugh.

I love Sardine...

2007-12-15T21:33:00.000-06:00

Well, we had to celebrate Ray-Ray's birthday somewhere, right? Why not Sardine? And it was fabulous, as usual. We started with domestic bubbly and the birthday girl had a chocolate martini. Then came the oysters, half Kunamoto and half "East Coast"--these bigger and not the briny jewels that the Kunamotos are. C-Vo tried both (for the first time!) and liked them!

It took me forever to really appreciate oysters-- slimy, chewy little things. But now I love them.

We also had the piccolo fritto, "little fried things" which this time included not just the fried lemon slices, but fried Oranges! Dude! Delish.

Birthday girl had the Duck Confit with pasta, really tasty. One of the best ways to do duck, if you ask me.

Jim had the mussels, big surprise. He loves mussels and these were very tasty.

C-Vo had the salmon, because it was so good last time, she said. I don't usually rave about lentils, but the ones that accompanied this dish were oh-so-buttery-melty and yummy.

and I had the skatewing, which I've found is never a bad choice. The broccoli di rape was absolutely stunning. I've never had it so good! Perfectly bitter and yet still sweet and delicious, a great complement to the buttery fish and capers. Ooh, and little fingerling potatoes hiding in there too.

Senor Dia called midway through our evening and asked to stop by to say hi. He arrived just after dessert (no photo, but that was a pineapple crepe with coconut ice cream, shared amongst us). After that, we thought we'd walk to the Great Dane, but only got as far as the Come Back Inn, which was fine, because it was F-ing cold out. C-Vo and I played some really shoddy pinball and we had drinks and peanuts.

Note the peanut.

At the end of the evening, I ended up drinking most of Ray-Ray's second gin and tonic, and as a result, slept in the car for most of the time going home. Sorry, gang, I'm a lightweight. But I had a blast with all of you and hope we can hang out sometime soon!

I passed a 130!

2007-12-10T21:24:00.000-06:00

Yeah, you guys are getting sick of me bragging about what I've passed, whining about what I haven't passed. Well, I never thought I'd pass any danged Q&A this semester, and I got one of my 130's last week. I hope to kill the other one this week, maybe even a 140. I had kind of a break with reality last week--Lisa'd asked us to write some takes online and they seemed so freaking hard! I got really discouraged and cried for the rest of the night, blah blah, oh, poor me, I'll never do anything extraordinary. And that next day, bam-o, I passed that 130. Something broke, and I'll just have to have those breaks more often, or something. Or I was just ready, I'm never sure what it is when I can suddenly pass a take, where I couldn't the week before.

This is the last week of class, praise be to God, and I'm so looking forward to a break. We have the tree up and decorated, and I have some shopping done, but not all, and no wrapping yet. But there's time, and OMG there will be TIME to do all that stuff that I've been putting off! The exciting filing that I've been missing out on, of old bills and statements! The laundry folding, the house-cleaning, the baking of amazing breads! Okay, so I like baking bread.

And I've missed out on telling y'all about the Get Sauced party, or at least posting the photos. It's late now, and I won't get to it tonight, but soon, my pets. Meanwhile, Sparky requested this.

Warning! Graphic content follows! Shield your eyes, oh Dwellers of Alabama and Praisers of Real Fall! (teasing) I'd take a bit of your fall right now.

We've had more snow than you can (or should want to) shake a stick at. And guess what, more's on the way tonight! Sparky got out of town just in time to avoid this nonsense.

And I wish I had time to tell you all about the beer tasting at K-Love's the other night, it was such fun. I wish I remembered what beers I tasted! Then again, does it matter all that much? There were friends and beer, and food and laughter. That all melts the snow away for me, at least till I step outside again.

Hang with me, folks, more blogs will follow soon!

The Police Vs. Snow Patrol -

2007-12-06T12:43:00.001-06:00

I heard about this on the radio this morning, 105.5 to be exact. I like both songs well enough to think this is a pretty cool mix, and share them/it with you here. Enjoy!

December Already?

2007-12-03T21:59:00.000-06:00

When did it get to be December?! Dude. So, we had the Get Sauced party last night. It was rather impromptu, decided only on Friday night after much drinking and bad bowling. However, it was a rousing good time, with six in attendance all told. We made a Beef Burgundy; C-Vo brought a yummy spinach dip; Ray-Ray brought kir, an Indian rice pudding; K-Love brought the fixins for a ginger-orange carrot dish, and Senor Dia brought a nice whomp of salad. I think I covered everybody!? I do have pictures, but this is a placeholder till I get them uploaded. It's kind of a pain because I load them into the Mac, edit them in Photoshop a bit, and then plug them into the blog, generally on the PC side, and that requires effort. I have almost no effort in me right now. Long Monday--we started class at 8 this morning and didn't quit till 7:30 this evening. Oh, joy.

Only to be followed by a long Tuesday, but it will be a special one. Field Trip! All of us crazy steno students will be going to Milwaukee tomorrow to visit two freelance firms, Brown and Jones and Gramann Reporting. There's food involved, and on our return trip, shopping! at Johnson Creek Outlet Mall. Should be a good time, and hopefully there will be an opportunity for me to pick up assorted little gift exchange things, and perhaps something frivolous. I'm just glad to be out of a classroom for 8 hours. Dude.

Sleeping now, perchance to dream of cats sleeping in my lap.

Mad TV - Ipod Nano Feist 1234 Commercial

2007-11-17T09:19:00.001-06:00

I heard about this video from Leslie Feist herself, last night at the meet and greet before the show. It was great! She signed albums for me and C-Vo, and photos for C-Vo and Jim. Nice lady, and a darned good musician, it was a really fun show to watch.

Wrap Your Meat!

2007-11-15T17:14:00.000-06:00

All right, get yer mind out of the gutter. We had a party last Saturday that we dubbed the "Wrap Your Meat" party. Jim came up with the idea a few weeks back, in a television-induced stupor (gin had nothing to do with it). The theme was subject to interpretation, of course. You could either wrap your meat in something, or wrap your meat around something else. Oh, man, that sounds bad.

We had to put it off for a while, due to certain requisite attendees' jet-setting schedules (galavanting), but we made it come together last week. Big fun. As usual, I took very few pictures of people, but got some okay food shots.

Menu items included, but were not limited to:

Pigs in a blanket

Pickles wrapped in ham and cream cheese

Steamed Pork Buns (not shown here, WTF didn't I take a photo?)

Proscuitto-wrapped Pears

Thai Beef Salad (a delicious stretch)

And the piece de resistance, Bacon-wrapped Water Chestnuts. (OMG)

Carla made this insane apple dessert with cream cheese, caramel and nuts...yum. There was no meat involved in this dessert, fortunately.

I'd never actually had pigs in a blanket, or bacon-wrapped water chestnuts before. I loved them both. In fact, I'd only had my first corn dog this year with Rinner at the Walworth County Fair (I can't believe I made her take this photo of me).

But I digress. I got to meet C-Vo's friends Danyello and Danyell-Owned (so I suck at the aliases)--really nice folks. I think we may have bored them to death with photos of Door County from this summer, as Ray-Ray had not yet seen all of Jim's photos from that event. And then I continued the boredom with silly Space Ghost videos on You Tube. My social skills really need some help. But really, we had a terrific time, and there were many off-color, inappropriate (and thus hysterical) meat-wrapping jokes to fill the night with laughter.

We laid around afterwards in a serious food-coma. It was great fun, thanks guys.

Next event will be "Get Sauced!" TBA.

I got ahead of myself...

2007-11-09T16:11:00.001-06:00

Okay, so it looks like I still need one more lit and one more jury charge at 130, and then of course, two Q&A's at 130. But then I'm home free. I'm determined not to fret it, mainly because everyone else is freaking out (and they have a little further to go than I do). We'll test a lot after Thanksgiving, and I'll either make it or I won't.

But, I suppose now I can brag about my new little job at Gotham Bagels! Joe convincingly "begged" me to come help him out with pastries, just one day a week. All-righty, then! Could I really say no? Nope, and I'm glad I didn't.

Baking keeps me away from this umbilically-attached machine I keep hammering away at. I love it, but I hate it--the machine, that is. It promises something so cool, and yet I can't help but fret how much of my life I might be giving up to get there! Waah.

Anyway, baking takes my mind off all that--the challenge of rugelach; of a real, good Black-and-White cookie, and icing to cooperate with me; the quest for the proper texture and size of brownies; dealing with pre-made puff pastry (heaven forfend). All of this to fill a little pastry case, which may become a larger pastry case if Joe has his way, to put out something yummy and consistently so, for an ass-kicking little bagel shop. The wholesale production alone knocks me over. Just fascinating.

So today after my shift, I came home and baked up a giantly gorgeous Dutch Apple Pie. I'm in love with this vodka pie crust from Cooks' Illustrated, and I'd made two the other night, used one in an eggplant and pepper torte (yum). So the other had to be for a pie! Oops, but now I don't have a top crust, hmm, streusel recipe, well, hey, there's my pie! So that was a lot of silly effort, but for a beautiful result:

And Jim had started the magnificent Italian Loaf that we try to make every week, so I baked that off too, before I finally sat down to practice.

Baking keeps me sane.

Wrap-Your-Meat party tomorrow night, I'm sure there will be some fun, stories, and photos there, I'll post them all when I find time.

Facebook is my latest fetish, come join me!

Kick it up a notch. Bam.

2007-11-01T13:04:00.000-05:00

Passed my second Q & A at 120! Yay. Now it's time to kick it up to that 130. At least I'm evenning out, I think that's got me working on 130s for all of my work now, lit's, jury charges, and Q & A. They say Q & A are "easier" because there are more phrases, you can pass higher speeds sooner. I'll believe it when I see it.

I lost my mind today while practicing. There was a dictation piece I was writing, that was reeeeally sloooow, and I was tired, and bored of the speed and the topic. Well, the piece was about insurance, and what kind of rates you can get, etc. So the piece suggests you look into rates for senior citizens, that you can get better rates being an old fogey. Sorry, age-ism. But the sentence that literally had me in tears, and my classmates thinking I'd really skipped the groove, was,

"Retired people stay at home more and spot fires sooner than working people."

I got this image in my head (and couldn't shake it for anything) of two old folks sitting in their recliners, watching TV, and suddenly one saying to the other, "Huh. Look, Margie, there's a fire over there in the corner."

Just a little spontaneous combustion, that's all! I laughed and laughed, and then kept trying to write, and laughing, and crying--I hope I wasn't really disturbing any of my fellow classmates with my temporary insanity.

That's been my day.

G.I. Bob, Lazarus

2007-10-24T06:44:00.000-05:00

This is just too silly, and please accept my apologies if I offend anyone.

Back in high school, I used to have this little action figure that hung from my rear-view mirror. I don't remember where I found him, probably rescued him from the side of the road. I named him G.I. Bob. He had both legs at the time, but at some point one of them disconnected from his knee, so now he looks like an amputee.

Anyway, he was my little mascot for years, wagging around the rear-view mirror, sometimes hanging upside down or by one hand, however we could configure him. Some of you may remember him! He hasn't been in my car for years, and I'm surprised I even kept him. He's had a rather interesting retirement, living in the big yellow Chi Omega pencil cup that's right above my computer here. I guess he wound up there after I left Mobile, and there he's stayed.

Fast forward, oh, ahem, 20 years...last weekend C-Vo was over for dinner. [Soup in a pumpkin, haven't had it for a long time and we felt like showing off. And roasted ceci, chickpeas, that is, with garlic and shakey peppers and parsley. Yum.] Somehow in the course of conversation we got to talking about action figures--I can't remember exactly how it came up?! That prompted me to drag out old G.I. Bob and show him off.

So I was sitting there, wiggling his legs or something, and suddenly his hips and legs just plain fell off! Poor Bob, age'll do that to ya. Particularly when you're held together by a rubber band thingy. So I did what any compassionate person would do. I laughed mercilessly at his plight. (Which reminds me, I think Bob used to have some interactions with firecrackers at the 4th of July--and he was relatively invincible, so I guess that's why I really committed to his adoption.)

The next morning, I came out to the dining room area to see this:

I laughed even harder when I saw him in so many pieces. Poor Bob.

Jim thought we could fix him if we had a small rubber band. I dug around in the drawer I used to keep hair things in (when I had hair), and found a couple that would work. I tried putting him together, but Humpty had nothing on this one. The arms and head had to go into the torso before you could clip it all together, and then you also had to be able to get to the rubber band for his pelvis and legs. I like to think I'm mechanically inclined, but not on this count.

Needless to say, Jim was able to reconstruct Bob in about five minutes.

We just took to calling him Bob Lazarus after that. Raised from the dead.

Sidebar: What was that I heard on the radio the other day, some protest group in Madison hollering about Zombie Rights? Arguing with some other group that Jesus was a zombie? Does that mean Lazarus was too? Did either of them go around eating brains afterwards? I think not. I live in a very strange place.

Second 120 Lit, Squished!

2007-10-18T06:19:00.001-05:00

It's a real kick to have passed my second 5-minute literary take at 120. But, as we know, there is little time for celebration, it's all about kicking it up to 130 now. Shouldn't be too far off, though--I've passed (by the skin of my teeth at 94.7%) one jury charge at 130. Now if I can just kick the Q&A's butt...

And I so appreciate how much time and space you folks are giving me, but I'm drowning in the radio silence here. Tell me, what does fall smell like to you? Share! Let me know someone's still reading?!

Space Ghost, Learning to Talk Italian Lesson 1

2007-10-08T11:29:00.001-05:00

I needed to laugh today. If you do too, please enjoy until you too can "talk Italian." Sorry the video quality is so bad, kind of out of sync. I think that makes it a little funnier even.

Do watch out for the volume, though, it seems like it's always cranked up to Maximum Deafness when I listen to it.

Not lots to say...

2007-09-30T18:35:00.000-05:00

I never tire of watching the Packers win! Especially against the Vikings (sorry, D). Football is more interesting now than it's ever been before--I'm not exactly sure why. I think it's our arse-kicking HD TV--no cable--it just makes it more fun to watch somehow. And, for once, instead of rooting for the underdog, the Pack is the over-dog!

Jim's been off galavanting this weekend in Jersey, taking pictures of his niece and nephew, and cooking up a storm for them. Lucky dogs, all of them. He left me well stocked, with a Thai chicken soup (phonetically, dom ka gai, awfully lazy about looking it up atm) that's just nearly too hot. He's still razzing me about the Tablespoon of salt I should have put in some bread recently, and justifying his mistaking 3 Tablespoons for 3 teaspoons of the hot Thai red curry sauce that went into the soup. This is why I believe Tablespoons should always be capitalized in recipes. You 'could' still screw it up, but it's harder.

I did my share of galavanting too, only it was local. I had a convention to go to for the Wisconsin Court Reporters Association. As a student, I was required to attend the student meeting on Friday with the board members. At least they bribed us with food and gave great stories of their careers. The woman who reported the Vang case up north was present. She said she'd recently retired, but is still working, she still enjoys her job that much. She retired just after that Vang case and jokes that she went out with a "big Vang." Har har...

Rin and I were supposed to attend a Brewers game, but those goofballs moved the game to 3 instead of 6 p.m. She came up anyway and we went to the Glass Nickel for some gorgeous, Fetalicious pizza (a slice of which will be my lunch tomorrow, and was part of dinner tonight). The little goddess loaned me the third season of Gray's Anatomy too, and I suspect a serious lapse in my productivity over the next couple of weeks. And a lot of knitting. I can hardly wait. It was nice to see her and talk about all sorts of stuff. No offense, great to talk to someone besides my dog for a few hours! I like my time alone, but I do miss my fuzzball husband. Fuzzball dog is hardly a great substitute, namely because she's generally sleeping. I'll miss her like crazy when she goes.

Okay, so I lied, I do have lots to say, and frankly, I'm also procrastinating.

I had a meltdown last Tuesday. I got really overwhelmed with schoolwork, and it seemed to hit me like a brick wall that the work will just never, ever end. My demons came out of their little cages and had a kegger in my brain and heart. They told me lies (and I believed them)--that I'd never get it done, that I'd never have what it takes, that it would never be worth all this work, time and effort that I'm putting in. I wanted to give up and quit worse than I ever have before, and that felt even more awful than the prospect of failing, not getting it all done. It was so amazingly sad to want to give up on myself, right on up there with pathetic.
A really good cry and some commiserating with Jim and a friend (also in the dumps, by odd coincidence) helped a lot. I was whiny that day. I'm not a whiner. I wanted to quit. I'm not a quitter. However, I did discover for myself at some point that if I don't end up getting to this goal, I won't die. I will bounce, I always find something to do with myself. Learning this skill is so interesting and challenging and freaking maddeningly frustrating--I'm getting some payoff somewhere. I do think I'm improving, I just can't always see it in the time frame I want to see it (i.e., now, yesterday!). I overthink and I worry, and that breaks the locks on the demons' cages, and they bust out the kegger of Two-Hearted, and they don't share with me. Bastards. What do they know, anyway, except from good beer...

It was heartening, at this convention on Saturday, to see a room full of court reporters and/or captioners--to know that every one of them had been through some of the frustration I've seen. They all went to school and they got through it. Dude.

And I put two and two together, even in the midst of my freak-out, and realized that Tuesday was an anniversary, I think it was the day my mom went into the hospital for the last time, back in 2005. It's amazing how your body remembers that kind of thing, I didn't really believe it until suddenly I was just a crying, wet mess. I still miss her, especially at a time like that.

At any rate, wish me a better week this week. Miss Optimism says, yep, it's another week of testing, another chance to reinforce or break another speed limit. Let's do it!

120 Literary, Conquered!

2007-09-19T09:29:00.000-05:00

I passed one take at 120 words a minute! That's straight literary material, just boring reading stuff. Q & A is today, or at least practice takes today. Wish me luck!

An Act of Defiance

2007-09-18T11:22:00.001-05:00

I read something the other night, at the end of this great book I've been reading--Heat by Bill Buford. He said that things made by hand are an act of defiance, to go out and seek them, make them, eat them, and they'll be gone.

Actually, this was it.

"How long will that taste memory last? The Maestro will die. Dario will die. I will die. The memroy will die. Food made by hand is an act of defiance and runs contrary to everything in our modernity. Find it; eat it; it will go. It has been around for millennia. Now it is evanescent, like a season."

(page 301, first real paragraph)

I know this from making bread and cookies and any yummy little thing I make. Defiant, in that damned-if-I'm-gonna-use-that-bread-machine-to-make-my-life-"easier" way. This was the book that got me all fired up about making my own tortellini. And hand-rolling pasta. Tortellini I think I've sorta got down now, but the hand rolling--well, that looks suspiciously like a trip to Italy. Darn.

And I was thinking about it this morning, that I miss all that bakery work that just walks away. I miss making people happy when the blueberry or Craizy (insert Heart's "Crazy on you") scones come out. And I miss being able to snag half a chocolate-chip cookie, or better yet a whole ranger cookie, for my breakfast. (My hips don't miss it, mind, but the taste buds do.) I miss being around all those young kids and watching them learn how to be defiant too. I miss smelling a giant whomp of bread in the ovens, when they do artisan breads in the second semester. Nothin' like it.

But I also thought that I do a similar thing with this insane writing on the machine--even though it's all way higher-tech than it used to be, we still train ourselves to write verbatim on a machine. Maybe there are even still pen writers working out there somewhere. But it all harkens back to them olden days of yore. Maybe they'll automate the procedure of taking people's words down verbatim, figure out a system that doesn't require a breathing, thinking human to distinguish between "there" and "their," figure out how to discern accents. Maybe that system will actually know that an apostrophe should go in that word, and where it should go(unlike some of my fellow breathing, thinking humans, omg).

But basically, till then, I'm being defiant. And I have a starter warming on the counter--I'm baking bread today, the three-hour-rise kind. Neener. Neener.

Stupid, funny video

2007-09-14T06:33:00.000-05:00

Just in case you haven't seen this one in a while, go here.

Okay, now I KNOW I'm happy...

2007-09-13T11:07:00.000-05:00

...for lunch, I just had the leftover homemade tortellini from Sunday night. Darn, now I guess I have to make more.

And we're going camping this weekend, Blue Mounds. Abby will love it. And so will I.

And I may have just passed a 110 Q & A, or at least the 100, so I think that's pretty cool right out of the gate.

That's it for now, back to the grind of practicing, trying to get it done before this weekend of more sloth than usual. Wow, that's an awkward sentence.

Oh, but for sad, my friend is down with shingles. Again. Sucks for her, except that she gets really good drugs. Hope you're feeling better soon! Don't worry about the Wii in the meantime...

I think I'm Happy...

2007-09-11T16:36:00.000-05:00

Yep, I'm one of those annoyingly optimistic people. I feel like I'm working my butt off in this steno program, and sometimes feel like I'm only treading water. But being in this program this long has taught me that the skill will come with time. And practice. And I'm just happy that I'm working so hard, and praying that it will pay off.

I'm waiting for the foot to be on the other shoe--I've been watching my compatriots with their computer woes and translating software issues, and feeling all superior. I just got my receipt in the mail, so as soon as I have PC to load it on, I can get the software and hook up at home. Really looking forward to that. There will likely be headaches for me too, and maybe I'll be taken down a peg, and not think I'm so computer-savvy as all that. Or not, we'll see.

I am thrilled that I am older, that this is an adventure for me, and that I don't complain as much as I hear from others. Or maybe I do and I'm just not paying attention. It hurts too much to feel so nagged by this process. Yes, there are frustrations. But why fight them at every opportunity, what can you learn from that? Dude.

I am happy that my husband is really supportive, Mister Laundry and Mister Kitchen-Man as of late. I am happy that I make time to practice at school and at home, and I make time for balance--for fun on the weekends, for cooking during the week.

And I make time for walkies, which I shall be taking now. Nuff of this blogging and talk about happiness, I'm gonna go out and be it.

Photos!

2007-09-07T06:39:00.000-05:00

This is a follow-up post to the wild girls' weekend. C-Vo sent some photos (since, as I mentioned, I lamentably did not have my camera with me) that I wanted to post. I understand that Ray-Ray doesn't much like pictures of herself. So I found a good one and played with it in Photoshop, hoping that even if she didn't like how she looked, that she'd like how the image looked anyway. I used two different filters--on her it's Diffuse Glow, and I think maybe a Cutout on the background.

I also played with the Pickle-in-the-Sprite photo...it was a little out of focus, so I played to that strength and watercolored the top of the glass. I like it. Artsy, Fartsy.

These are just my feeble newbie attempts at playing with Photoshop, and thanks to Jim for all his help. Here are others that are only minimally messed with.

No more 3 x 5's

2007-09-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

Dude, have you ever re-listened to an album and discovered it's way cooler than you remembered? My latest new favorite is John Mayer's Room for Squares, and the song is 3x5. I hate posting lyrics as a blog text as a general rule, but these are just so cool.

I’m writing you to
Catch you up on places I’ve been
You held this letter
Probably got excited, but there’s nothing else inside it

Didn’t have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I’m
In the mood to lose my way with words

Today skies are painted colors of a cowboy’s cliche’
And strange how clouds that look like mountains in the sky
Are next to mountains anyway
Didn’t have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I’m in the mood to lose my way
But let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
It brought me back to life
You’ll be with me next time I go outside
Just no more 3x5’s

Guess you had to be there
Guess you had to be with me

Today I finally overcame
Tryin’ to fit the world inside a picture frame
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I’m in the mood to
Lose my way but let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
It brought me back to life
You’ll be with me next time I go outside
No more 3x5’s
Just no more 3x5’s

I guess it just goes along with wishing I had a camera at points, whether I have it or not, wanting to capture something that might be uncapturable, or that my skill lacks to do so. And now I'm over-explaining...go listen to the song. I will be.

I wish I'd brought my camera...

2007-09-02T07:28:00.000-05:00

...although I don't know what exactly I would have taken pictures of. I often hope that a camera can capture all the fun I'm having in a day. Jim reminds me that cameras don't capture reality, reality's not an f-stop and a shutter speed. Anyway, I won't make that mistake again, I shoulda had my camera.

I had a great day with "the girls" yesterday. Can you believe it, I actually LET myself have some fun! C-Vo and Ray-Ray (forgive the monikers ladies, I'm not good at this yet) came over for breakfast around 9. I roasted bacon and pretended to cook eggs--I mangaged a decent fried egg. They liked my toast, from my fabulous Rustic Italian Bread I'd baked the day before. Mmm, toast.

I got the scoop on Unavailable Boy from C-Vo and Ray-Ray. I'm always sad to hear about folks who are just unwilling to take emotional risks, small or large. What's that thing about getting through life with a half-mangled body and a scarred heart, being a sign of a life well-lived? It's way more poetic than that, but you get the idea. Anyway, UB seems like a nice person and has social skills, but they don't seem to translate to the one-on-one relationships. Like he's been really burned somehow--or never has--and is afraid to find out what it's like, or if it's different this time.

Feh, on with fun. To the Farmers Market we went, to shuffle around the square with the masses. Mostly talking and laughing ensued--ooh, and a three-way with a cookie from Teddywedgers. Great cookies, guys. I finally noticed how the market smells--I smelled a lot of peppers yesterday. We walked over to Monona Terrace and checked out the beautiful view from there (bridal party not so much included). More talking and laughing. Walked inside the capitol building (ooh Lisa will kill me, is that the one time you capitalize Capitol? Ah, no, that's in D.C.), did a water exchange.

Tired of waiting patiently for the Taste of Madison to open, we went into the Old Fashioned for a standing beer at the bar. RR had a bloody mary and I ended up eating the pickled brussels sprout, yum. No, really! I had a fine Lake Louie porter, and C-Vo put the pickle from the bloody mary in her Sprite. She was smart enough to have a camera for that one. Afterwards we wandered around some more, tasted some of Hook's fabulous cheeses, and then lounged on the grass till 2:30.

We'd centered on our targets: Lombardino's, Sa Bai Thong, and David's Jamaican. When we finally saw people munching on things, and smelling the beautiful fragrances ("Pancreas!" see previous post) of various everythings cooking, we made our move. We were wise and got one of everything--Panini, Calamari, and Eggplant strips. I was still scarfing panini when they went to SBT for the squash curry and the shrimp pouches. Yummm on both counts. Then three types of jerk from David's, Pork, Chicken, and Tofu. I was surprised the tofu was so good. The pork was decadent and all creamy and falling apart. That last stop did us in, we were in serious food coma afterwards. We headed home after that and there's not much to report from there.

I think I remembered that guy's name, I believe it's Kevin. But what was his last name?! That came to me at about 10 p.m. last night, weird.

Anyway, it was a great day with the girls. It was fun to have it just feel effortless to get along with these great ladies, to laugh and talk and talk and laugh. I probably embarrassed myself on more than one occasion, but for once I wasn't too self-conscious about it. I don't have enough girlfriends, at least not many that live close to me--I can fly south or drive north. I like these chicks, they're just fun, and I'll be treasuring this day for a long while.

Space Ghost, Zorak, and Raymond PONY!! [jumbles]

2007-09-01T06:56:00.001-05:00

"No, pancreas." I love Raymond...bring him back!

ROTFL

2007-08-29T16:03:00.000-05:00

Please tell me that you think this is as funny as I do. Click here to see bees.

Don't try this at home, kids.

Not dead, but may act like it.

2007-08-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

Back to school, people. Practicing for 4 hours each day will certainly inhibit my ability to blog successfully, succinctly, or humorously verbosely. I'm pretty sure I made those words up. However, I'll try to keep you posted on what's new with me, even if it's nothing.

Learning lots, and liking it.

Ha! I laugh at rain.

2007-08-20T18:50:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention, at the start of our Wyalusing trip, it was freaking pouring rain in Madison as we loaded the boat and trailer. Ugh. I had grabbed an "ancient" Triple Point jacket from several years ago, and, not all that surprisingly, I found it had lost all its water repellency. I felt like I was wearing a wet Ziploc bag, or a wet diaper, once I'd been out in the rain for a while.

Fortunately, Rutabaga had an immediate answer to my problem. I picked up a nice Marmot jacket (at Jim's nice price break)--it's bright green. I feel like a key lime pie wearing it. Mmm. Pie. Porky's deep-fried key lime pie.

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Anyway, that was basically my train of thought as I walked in the barely-raining yesterday with Abby. I'm just really glad I have a jacket that's actually water-repellent. The rain's been here all weekend and seems to have no intention of leaving, so for now I'm set. Prepared to laugh, rather than cry, at the rain.

Except now I want some of that pie...

More Pictures from Wyalusing

2007-08-18T16:38:00.001-05:00

Jim was ever so helpful in handing over some of his beautiful images from our trip.

Abby is generally a very regal dog, quite beautiful, we think. However, here she was drooling--probably due to her extensive walkies throughout the day. It was also dinnertime and she is spoiled--was SO not interested in boring old kibble, thanks so much.

And another one of Jim's "fire shots," although this one is a really good one, I think. So good, there are two. Enjoy.

Wyalusing was Awesome!

2007-08-18T13:21:00.000-05:00

So this was my first time, and I guess our first time going to the campground at Wyalusing. It's where the Wisconsin River meets the Mississippi, and the place we stayed at was right up on one of the tall bluffs. We could see Iowa from where we were. And we could see the parking lot of the Wal-Mart near Prairie du Chien. Charming. We took our trusty little pop-up trailer, Svetlana, and camped mid-week, hoping to avoid some of the yokels. I guess we avoided some, but not all. There was certainly a kids' group of bicyclists, a regular clan of Hell's Angels, they were. I really loved watching the helmetless ones on their scooters, zooming down the hill and back up the other side. I guess they are mostly invincible.

Our campsite was right near a full-service bathroom and shower facility--flush toilets and private showers and Everything (hardly roughing it). But the restroom was just down this very steep hill from our campsite. I managed to negotiate it well enough during the daylight hours. But maybe around midnight of our first night, still half-drunk from a good wine, I had to pee and started down the hill with my flashlight. I was still half-asleep too, which might account for the fact that I didn't see this big hunk of mud in the middle of the hillside...I was wearing my crocs and they had zero traction against said mud dollop. Whump...down I went, hard on my right hip. If I were a little old lady, I'd-a had me a busted hip. I think the fall even knocked the wind out of me a little. I know it sent shocks up both my wrists--I tried to catch myself, of course. Ugh. So I was hyper-vigilant in going up and down that hill ever after. Dork. I realized the next morning that my night clothes were just about plastered with mud, particularly on the butt. Charming.

We took Abby with us, our ancient-of-days mutt dog. We usually leave her with a sitter when we camp, we're normally worried that it'll be too hot or that we'll be away from camp too long. But it was slated to be cool (and it was, yum) so we took her along. Our logic for Thursday's activities was to "wear out" the dog on walkies (hike-ies, for the humans), then leave her in the pop-up while we went paddling around the circuit through the slough and into the Mississippi. It took us three walkies before she was finally not tugging at the leash every opportunity she got. She was acting all "seven" again, really cute. I joked that her eyebrows were making a beeline for the back of her head. She was very "cow-eyed" (whites of her eyes showing) and seriously over-stimulated. She had a ball, and so did we, watching her. She's exhausted now, needless to say.

Many of the trails are closed right now at Wyalusing, due to a 7" deluge they got about 4 weeks ago. So we hiked the Sentinel Ridge Trail a ways, saw some of the effigy mounds there, and took photos of flowers and lichen. And got eaten by bugs. We drove around to a picnic point, and hiked a little of the cross-country trail there. We even spooked up a deer, watched it bound off into the woods. After that hike we went back to camp, and I took a quick snooze while Jim took Abby for another stroll around the campground. She was finally tired enough to come inside and lie down, and we loaded up the NovaCraft Blue Steel canoe we'd borrowed from Rutagaga, and headed for the river.

The road down to the canoe landing is on a seriously steep hill. The road and surrounding forest had taken a big hit from those rains--it was amazing to see what that much water could do to the land and the road, and the trails at the bottom of the hill (what trails?? No dere.). We got ready to paddle out and some incoming canoeists told us that the park signage for the canoe trail was kinda fubar, that we should take our map. So we did, and it helped quite a bit. We saw tons of wildlife--a river otter, great blue heron to beat the band, turtles, big schools of little fish, slapping of much bigger fish, kingfishers, some tiny little heron-looking bird that I'd never seen before. My favorite was seeing the eagle. There may have been two birds, because we had two sightings, but it might have only been one. The first view was the closest, it didn't spook off until we were really close. The second view was longer, we gently chased it down the river left bank as it seemed to be eating something in its talons. So. Freaking. Cool. Thanks to Jim for the pictures we have, with my little dinky camera, mind you. We'd talked about bringing his "big dog" camera in the dry bag, but we weren't sure what conditions we'd encounter. Turned out it might have been okay. But I was glad we knew something about paddling a canoe--some tight spots and turns in the slough, and some tall wake waves from passing speedboats on the Mississippi. Yokels (neophytes) would more likely capsize.
I forgot to mention the waterbugs--as we paddled back to the landing, there were hundereds of them and as they skimmed the surface of the water, they made this almost-argyle pattern on the water. Jim thought that was a cool analogy, eee, and so do I.

Back to camp, the dog is still crashed. But not dead, so that's good. She begged her way through dinner, which was fabulous, and she got her share. Boring old Hormel Chili from a box, mixed with Smart Chicken fire sausage (which actually has flavor!), topped with a Jiffy cornbread mix, all in the Dutch oven over a raging charcoal fire. More beer, and some of those single servings of some cheap Cabernet. Kicking back by the fire until I just couldn't stay awake any more. I actually slept pretty well in the pop-up that night. It's still camping, and you just don't sleep as well when camping as you do in your own bed. No real explanation for it.

Made another lovely breakfast in the pop-up, this time it was eggs, left over from the Jiffy Mix necessity. Toasted up some leftover buns on our camp toaster, and since we were low on regular coffee, we indulged in the only-half-narsty Taster's Choice Vanilla instant coffee. Beats cleaning a percolator, really. We had five eggs, I could only eat one, Jim ate three, and Abby got most of the last egg to herself. Happy dog.

After that, we pretty much packed up and headed home. Stopped for one more short hike on our way out of the park, again, trying to wear out the dog. Mission accomplished, I think. And I forgot to mention the hummingbirds--they have about 6 feeders at the main ranger station at the park entrance, and they're swarming around them, looking more like big bugs (cicada??) than birds. Really neat. I even saw one or two near our campsite.

I think my most profound thought while camping, was the general amazement of humanity and camping. We spent all our evolutionary lives, hunting, gathering, forming clans and civilizations, fighting wars with each other when we didn't get along. All that work to finally live in individual family dwellings, only to come out and still go camping, to pretend--definitely pretend--we're still capable of surviving in the wild. Some of us are lucky to build a fire (myself included). Okay, so maybe I've offended someone who can indeed pull a Grizzly Adams, some NOLS graduate who's proficient in Leave-No-Trace. But most of the "camping" we saw this time around was in some form of pop-up or more serious 5th-wheel, or at least a tent with rooms. Or a vestibule. I mean, I saw women actually Primping in the restroom! Dudettes! Yeah, I took a shower, but I didn't bring make-up or a hair-dryer. I'm camping! Yes, we purchased an electric site for our pop-up, but we didn't use it all that much, and didn't even try to plug in anything until just before we left on Friday. (By the way, our refrigerator, the Dometic [note the lack of an 's' in Dometic], doesn't seem to work using any form of power, propane or electric. A problem for further inspection and solving. Oh for sad.) Anyway, I can't rant too much, we are "cheating" with our camping. But it does seem ironic, doesn't it?

Wyalusing for Wednesday

2007-08-14T07:56:00.000-05:00

Taking "Svetlana" (our pop-up) to Wyalusing for an early 12th anniversary mid-week weekend. Svetlana now has a nice rack. For carrying boats, etc., that is. Jim slapped on some A towers and 2x4's so she'll carry a canoe for us. I'll letcha know how that all goes. I've never been before, it should be a blast.

The photo above is the view from inside Natt Spil. I love that place. Three-cup chicken, baby!

Ahh, Harvest.

2007-08-08T10:02:00.000-05:00

What a fabulous restaurant. We haven't been in forever, until last night. We took our friends' kids, Whitney and Ian, for their first trip to this restaurant. *Back Story* We'd taken Whitney to L'Etoile when she was 10 for her birthday, that was fun to watch. So we wanted to do something similar for Ian, since we'd long ago missed the boat on his 10th birthday--and he's only recently become a less picky eater. Whit's home from BYU for what's left of the summer, and she wanted to do a fun dinner together before she goes back to take Polynesian dancing next semester (among other cool subjects).

I wasn't on the ball enough to get photos of our appetizers, and the photos I got of entrees and desserts are pretty lame too. I was trying to avoid using the flash because it's just annoying in a lovely dark restaurant to do such a thing. However, here's the scoop. Ian ordered the frog legs, surprising us. He only shared with his sister because they have blood between them. They looked fabulous, like little figs. I did get to try the potatoes that surrounded the fat little frog legs--those were delish. Jim had the sweetbreads with plump little bacon bits, yum. Matched his with a Leitz Riesling, punk. I tried the Lettuce Soup, with a stravecchio flan. Very interesting. Dark green and bitter-ish, acidic. Matched with a Las Brisas wine, part Sauv Blanc, part Verdejo, I think. Yum. Whitney went for the cannelloni, stuffed with lemon ricotta. Beautiful and tasty, served up with a little poof of purslane on top.

Nearly forgot the amuse beforehand--a tomato "consomme" with parsley oil on top. It was like tomato booze, without the alcohol. Delicious shooter. Like gazpacho without the cucumber chunks.

Then the entrees: Whitney and Ian duked it out with variations on a beef theme. She went for the hangar steak, he went for the tenderloin. Same prep on both, with beets and their greens and a blue cheese something underneath. Fascinating to taste the different textures and flavors of their beefs. I think I prefer the hangar steak, but the tender didn't suck either. Succulent is more like it. Jim went for the lamb, which looked just about raw, but was beautiful on top of some gorgeous little summer tomatoes and fennel. Paired up with a syrah to beat the band. I went for the trout, which I never order, and it was just great. The skin was all crispy, like it was a fried potato skin or something, not leathery or oily. Served on top of a cauliflower puree and summer corn and greens. Paired up with a rose, someone de Bergerac, not Cyrano.

I don't know where we found room for dessert, but we did. My old boss had been in the house earlier in the evening, but before he'd left he'd apparently left instructions with our waiter to buy us dessert! Very sweet of him. Ian went for his favorite, creme brulee. He boldly claimed that the creme he makes is just as good! As you can see, he liked it. I even thought it'd be okay if he licked the last of the sugar crunchies off the plate. Jim did the Angel Food Cake with Tarragon ice cream. Holy strange and wonderful, Batman. Paired that with a Stregga, which we'd never heard of before, something like grappa crossed with chartreuse. I want. I had the Lavender Panna Cotta in Strawberry Soup, delicious--creamy and wonderful, nearly sickly sweet. Coffee for me, in a little french press, what a treat. Whitney had a towering chocolate semifreddo that was rich and velvety.

We rolled out of there, and very grateful for our gift certificate and for Lorin's kindness in footing dessert. I wish it weren't so expensive, but it is truly an investment in great food and irreplaceable memories.

Who's coming with us next? There's some prix fixe events coming up soon!

Space Ghost - the Ramones - VideoJihad.com

2007-08-06T13:11:00.001-05:00

We recently rented a Space Ghost DVD from Neflix. Here's a clip I found from an episode I watched last night. I love this show! Zorak, what a nut.
Brak is my other favorite character, I'll find something from him soon.

Sounds like SOMEone's got a case of the Muuun-days!

2007-08-06T12:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, is it possible to "have a Monday" if you're not working? I might be living proof that it is indeed possible.

I'm still cheesed about some stuff that happened over the weekend, so that taints my attitude to begin with. I'm also cheesed that the scale is giving me a higher number than usual (yeh, right, I had nothing to do with that), and so I'm watching carefully what I eat. Which makes me a little hungry, and thus a little crabby.
So I'm about to go out on a nice, pro-active walk, and Jim suggests I take Abby for a quick walk. She can do a dumper, then I could bring her back and go out for longer walkies for myself. That's an okay idea, so I go to execute.

"Aw, crap," says Jim, "I'm supposed to take the truck in today for that service."
Okay, fine, we'll just take the dog with us in the car. Needless to say, the dog's confused and thinks we're going walkies sans leash.

"Abby, come." No response.

Except that she walks further away, and starts down the street without me. Livid, I run after her and end up grabbing a hunk of fur at her back. She looks shocked! I dragged her back to the house by her collar, scolding her. Poor sweet dog. I hate myself when I get angry at her like that. It's not her fault she's half-deaf, and that I don't work on her recall anymore. No wonder she's not obeying. So for her "punishment" I just left her home while we dropped Jim and his truck off at the dealership.

"Smart" they call this dealership. I beg to differ. Jim had rescheduled his appointment for today, but when we got there, they had apparently dropped the appointment altogether off the books when they'd attempted to reschedule. No matter, we were there. I figured, hey, we weren't late for the 9 a.m. appointment if they didn't even have us on the books. We joked about how expensive it must be for them to buy clues these days.

So then I drove Jim to work, and it's an okay thing. I had a check to deposit in the bank and there's a branch right near Baga. So I pulled to the drive through, and I'm waiting for the guy ahead of me to move through the channel. I have my window open, in preparation for the drive-through service. Suddenly, I felt this heavy plop on my left shoulder/chest. I seriously thought I'd just been pooped on by a very talented and very large bird. I would have accepted that, in comparison. Instead, it was a giant freaking LOCUST* that had plopped onto me. Utterly revolted, I gave a girly scream (probably freaking out folks in the drive thru) and whisked the thing off of me. Then the guy ahead of me in line moved, so I've got to move forward. I figured this giant prehistoric creature was still in the car with me, but I didn't know where he was--oh wait, I did know, right next to the clutch pedal. So I moved the car forward without squishing it (quashing every impulse to squash it). It wasn't moving, but it was buzzing as I poked it around my floorboard with a pen. Eww. I finally managed to flick it out of the now open car door using a piece of folded up paper as a card.

Okay, breathe.

At this point I lost most all of my composure and just started laughing. I wondered what the drive-thru teller was thinking of me as I tossed my head back and laughed. I was starving and I'd had a fairly strange day so far. I decided at this point, I was having a "Monday" and that I needed to tell y'all about it.

I came home, had some lunch, watched some soap (Y&R rocks), and then went for the double walkies that I'd intended to begin with. Abby was much happier with me.

Life is weird, isn't it? Freaking locusts, man.

*Whoa, wait a minute. Not a locust, a cicada!*

Bored Now...Blogging

2007-07-31T07:02:00.000-05:00

Yep, just a little prevarication before I get to my practicing this morning. Lack of class-going makes me a bit lazy.

Cool day today, though. Hair color at 11 (oh yes, and you thought it was my natural sorta-red color--not so much), the grays are getting the better of me. Plus there's that whole dried-out old color feeling to my hair right now. I don't know if or how I'll ever wean myself from this luxury. Chiropractic whacking at 2 something. And then our last rehearsal at 6--well, the last before the dress on Thursday. I'm sad it's almost done already.

Ugh, which reminds me of the fabulous choir party we went to on Sunday. And of the painful hangover which resulted from said party. Four beers, plus a gin when I got home. Those last drinks always seem like such a great idea at the time, why don't I LEARN? I will look through the photos Jim took with my little camera, see if there are any worth posting. It was a blast--potluck and drinking. I made two batches of this insane cheddar and parmesan cheese bread, served it up with ham. The bread had a little kick of cayenne and black pepper too. (It made great croutons last night for a salad.) There was also some "rehearsing" at this choir party. Just try singing Bach musically, but with ill-pronounced German. It's hard! Or, for that matter, singing quick Russian tongue-twisters when you're three beers in. I hope that "rehearsing" didn't adversely affect our performance, all the work we've done thus far! It was way fun, though, lots of laughing.

So, for Hangover Monday, I spent most of the day in bed reading tons of the new Harry Potter. I'm to about page 387 now, I think. I also made a loaf of our favorite Italian Bread, and I vacuumed and cleaned some windows, lest you think I am naught but a layabout.

I thought I'd run out of material, but I remembered that last Thursday we went to the ElDorado Grill on Willy Street. Very yummy. I had the chicken fried steak, just to see how it compares with the rendition we do. I think it whooped ours. They used tenderloin instead of our gnarly cube steak, and served it up with mashed potatoes and these gorgeoud little corn-pancake thingies. I must conquer those.
A very nice time, although it was our last meal for a time with Sparky and Expat, who have moved far south for jobs in academia. No offense guys, but sometimes that's an oxymoron? But we'll miss them. I took some photos there too, which I should post.

I'm getting excited about the second weekend in August, Great Taste of Madison beer fest thingy. Even though I have no business round any more beer for a bit. But Bell's will be in a local pub with 18 taps, I am so there. I am hoping to get our friend to come out with us, she's not much of a beer drinker. Hoping to change that. Not sure about the actual fest in the park, that sounds like a recipe for hot beer drinking. I do want to see it sometime. I must plug Beer Advocate.

Okay, whether I've run out of things to say or not, I gotta get moving toward that machine. Photos later, if they're worth it. Talk atcha soon.

It's Finally Raining

2007-07-27T07:08:00.000-05:00

Jeez, took it long enough. I heard a couple of thunderclaps last night, and I actually heard rain on the roof this morning. It's about danged time. I was about to have to go online and figure out whether I should indeed be watering my lawn on alternate days. Up to this point I hadn't really cared, I'll admit.

I swore at the sky yesterday, because there was rain between school and home, but no actual rain at home. Then it got all bright and sunny again. Tease.

Speaking of school, I'm done (with summer class). Well, at least for the next four weeks. I'll finally move on to second year (but it will be my third year of study). I want to make it my last year of study. I mean, hey, going to school is interesting, practicing is occasionally entertaining, but dude...I wanna start working and earning the money I've been in this gig for to begin with! I'm lucky in that I don't really need to earn that money, except for my own personal "stuff" reasons. I want to be worth that money I earn. I got spoiled in my cushy baking job and I'm fairly certain I didn't Earn the state pay I was getting. So I'm training for another state job where I can earn what I'm worth. Or a freelancing job, don't much care. Help me remember, folks, that I want to be a terrier at that rat hole, kick this skill's ass up and down the street. I'm inspired by marathon runners and triathletes, who just do these things. I'm sure I need to find bigger reasons to want this skill, but I haven't discovered them yet. 120s are next, that's as much as I know for now. Ugh, and we go to 5-minute takes in the fall--we've been at 3-minutes--I don't know how soon after we start back!

Okay, enough about that. There are still a couple weeks until our performance, so rehearsals on the weekends and up till August 3. Going to see a Brewers game on August 1, with many of Jim's high school buds. Should be very fun. Then on the 4th we'll go to Jim's HS reunion, where I'll be the odd man out--Dorothy and Shelly will not be there for me to commiserate with this time. I plan to tell stories about how I'm a belly dancer or how Jim met me pole dancing. Something random.
Then on the 8th we'll do a little lake cruise on Lake Geneva with all (the) hoi-palloi from Morgan Stanley. Ugh, I'm feeling overprogrammed. But then life calms down a bit.

We have our 12th anniversary coming up on the 26th. What should we do?

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy the rain.

Spider Seen and Assassinated

2007-07-25T18:40:00.000-05:00

Jim whacked the suspected fast spider with an old issue of my JCR (Journal of Court Reporting). I feel guilty about never reading it, but if I hadn't had that particular issue, perhaps said spider would not have seen stars. This is more fun than the "P" game. Spider Murder, brilliant. LOL. End of Spider Saga. I'll find something far more interesting to blog about.

Like last night, when we were leaving the Great Dane, there was a dog in the neighboring car, and I was talking cutesy dog talk to it ("aren't you a cute baby!"). The dog's owner was in the driver's seat, and said, "Excuse me?" Hello...I'm so talking to your dog, not you! At least I don't claim to speak cat. I only speak marginal dog at best. Anyway, you'd think you could tell when someone was chatting up your dog and not you. But maybe she'd had as much beer as I'd had (one).

Have I mentioned how I love The Sopranos? Re-watching season 3. Still need to see all of season 6, I think, and 6.5. No spoilers, please.

Update: Sneaky Spider Seen

2007-07-25T17:21:00.000-05:00

...but not killed, dangit. It's a fast one. I'm scared it's one of those brown recluse spiders. It was indeed trying to pounce on me, it was on the printer next to the Mac where I was sitting, trying to install the new counter at the bottom of the page. That only took me ten tries, jeez. This blogging thing can be harder than it looks.

Still seeking sneaky spider...I'll post when I've nailed it.

Big Hairy Spider

2007-07-25T07:59:00.000-05:00

I had to commit arachnicide again this morning. I should have been tipped off by the little strand of something I ran into in the bathroom, first thing as I stumbled out of bed. BIG nasty hairy spider in the tub. Including its legs, it was the size of a quarter, maybe even a half-dollar. Ick. It met a quick end--I grabbed the cup by the sink and washed it down the drain. They don't like that. But I do. PETA, go ahead, tell me what-for.

But why is it, that a spider in my tub is all nasty, but I admired a spider on my way out the door yesterday morning? It had built a really cool web in front of the house, just above the hedge that Jim had recently hacked back (yay Jamie). I even came back to look at it, after I'd put my things in the car on my way to school. I blew on it and it scurried to the top of its web, up at the gutter on the roof. I even meant to go take a photo of it when I got back from school, so I could show you! Big fat belly on that one. But it wasn't as big a spider as the one in the tub. Yeesh.

My theory on spiders, for all its logic: They can live in the basement, or outside. No problem in general with spiders. They eat bugs, I'm down with that. But when they come upstairs into my living space, all bets are off, dudes are dying if I can get a shoe at them or a water glass at them. There's still one floating around in my practice room. Lurking somewhere, waiting to pounce on me. Some little punk spider, just the other day, spun his web between my front door and the screen door. That was pleasant to walk into, yuuch.

The universe is probably trying to tell me something, with all these spiders. Do they represent something, other than an aversion to their sticky webs? Until I figure out what it is, my theory and behavior will remain the same.

Passed my second take at 110. I'm off to my 120s now! Holy crap, never thought I'd see the day.

SOMEone should write about Door County!

2007-07-20T05:37:00.000-05:00

Wow, there's been a request that I write about my weekend in Door County. Since it's almost "next" weekend already, and since Abby so graciously decided to wake me at 5:15 this morning with, "Hack, hack, hack, hooooooaaark!", I figure now's as good a time as any to do so.

We went as volunteer workers, I guess, to the fourth annual Door County Sea Kayak Symposium, in Rowleys Bay, WI. Jim works for Rutabaga, a great paddle shop, who puts on this event, and it's really a blast.

Wednesday evening we gathered C-Vo and her boat, and another boat from Baga, to schlep up to the DC. At Baga we had a great time talking with Kimbler about everything and nothing while Jim futzed with the bow and stern lines, making them as perfect as possible. Not too long, not too short, as little visual distraction as possible. Then we agreed to meet her at 8:30 Thursday morning.

We were on perfect time on Thursday morning, and hit the road in great spirits. We had our pop-up in tow, and two boats on top of the truck. Truly a recreational assault vehicle. Somewhere in either Appleton or Green Bay, we stopped at our first Tumbleweed restauraunt.

Okay, just slingshot me into a countrified Texan roadhouse. The country music was off the hook in there, uncontrollable and un-ignorable. I tried to imagine working there and listening to that quantity of country, but my mind isn't that imaginative. I really shouldn't hate country, and don't really "hate" it, but it can wear on you when it's all twang, all the time. I did hear, for the first time, some song with the lyrics, "I like my women a little on the trashy side," which turns out to be called "Trashy Women" by the Confederate Railroad. How apropos. We giggled a lot through our meal, which was tasty and not too expensive to boot. They offer 2 for 1 burgers (mine had a peppercorn sauce to beat the band, great on their crispy fries), and $2.99 margaritas (Jim and I split one, boozers). Oh, and then there was the salsa and chips. The "mild" salsa I described as "like ketchup with chunks." I still think that's funny, maybe I'm just odd (oh yeah).

C-Vo and I fell into food comas afterward and slept to about Sturgeon Bay, or no, maybe it was further north, not Sister bay?
But, C-Vo had the hook-up with the "quiet" versus the "tourist" road and we got to Rowleys Bay far quicker than we did last year.

The rain came just maybe an hour after we arrived, and it poured nicely for maybe 15 minutes. There was a double rainbow over the bay there at the Wagon Wheel, a good sign. Well, maybe only a sign for more rain and wind and cold than any of us had bargained for, but hey, it's still Door County, cold, crappy weather or not. Thank God I brought some Icebreaker pieces with me, I'da froze otherwise with my little sleeveless shirts, "oh I'm going to get some sun"--NOT. We got our pop-up set up in record time, and C-Vo's tent set up too, all before I had to meet Megan and find out what I would be doing for the weekend.

I was assigned to Stuga (which means little house), where registration stuff was happening, and before I knew it I was writing up sales for gear the Bagas had brought up. Nose plugs, farmer john suits, hydroskins, hats and Luna bars. No scanning, all writing. And I had my very first opportunity to use one of those ancient manual credit card machines! With the carbon, and the thunk-thunk? What a relic. I confess to getting bored, once the weather got nice, and I think I really only spent most of Friday actually IN Stuga, being helpful.

More often, I was with Jim, who'd hand me a camera and say, "Here, go take pictures." Twist my arm, it's getting fun, and I got to the point where if I didn't have the brick hanging around my neck, I'd miss it. But it also gets boring taking pictures of people in kayaks, near their kayaks, upside down in their kayaks--there's only so many, really. And there was one day, where it was so windy, I remember standing on this little pier, trying desperately to zoom in on some folks way out in the water--and my face was streaming with tears from the wind, like it was January in the MATC parking lot. Hello, it's July, why this wind? The weather seemed to change more than it ever did in Florida, quite the little ocean climate there in DC.

Jim and I also got to drive people (and also noisy children) to and from their various destinations--my favorite Garrett Bay, and Europe Lake, also Sister Bay. The minivans had names like Sargeant Wintergreen and Gray Goose (not gray, but blue), I never found out how they got their names. The rental company had screwed up and didn't have the 15-person vans we had last year, so we got the minivans with the cool seat storage in the floor and the strange side doors that only wanted to work via the remote.

There was free beer and good food every night, I availed myself of both. Socializing when it wasn't too damned cold (Saturday was best for that). And at 9:30 each night, Jim put on a "slideshow" of all the day's pictures, and the day(s) before, for those who hadn't seen them. We hope to make that earlier in future, people are pooped by 9:30, including us.
We made friends with Kelly Blades' wife and adorable children. Their young boy is now, by his declaration, my boyfriend. What a cutie. He's maybe three? I also got to sit with their daughter for a while, while Kelly ran off to do something. We talked about pictures in the Passport to Paddling guide, and I got a hug afterwards. Eee!

I was sad to not have gotten out on the water, or to have dived in like I said I was gonna. Too dang cold on both counts.
Sunday was absolutely beautiful and none of us wanted to leave, but we had to. Before we left, we watched Kelly and Danny et al do Stupid Things With Their Boats--hanging off the back, rolling while another's on the back deck, standing in the cockpit and jumping off. Oh, and the infamous Kelly's Inflation of the Dry Suit, and watching Dan(?) try to paddle Kelly as if he were a boat. Hysterical. I'll find a photo for that one, it's a visual thing.

Ooh, and on our way home, we stopped at a Friend-of-a-Friend's house, to look at and quickly ride his BMW GS. Hot bike, I squealed profusely. I rode passenger in shorts and sandals, what an eejit! But it was great. Don't think we'll purchase that bike, not just now, but it sure is a sweet little monster. It'd be nice to narrow the fleet down by one--sell off two to acquire one that does the things two bikes do.

Best part about the weekend--I said I was gonna practice--HA! I got in a grand total of two hours (SHUFB more like 8) over the course of the weekend. But, Monday, I went in to class and passed me a 110. One down, one to go. I'm psyched.

Rehearsals start tonight for the best performance of my year--Isthmus Vocal Ensemble! August 3! If you can't make it, I get it, don't kill yourself. But it's gonna be awesome all the same!

Baby Blue Jays

2007-07-06T07:44:00.000-05:00

So, here's the scenario. I practice my steno writing in our office/computer room, with my Mac at my left side and the window in front of me. It's always fun to watch the change of the seasons out this window. Lately I became aware of a really cool change.

Last week it was cool enough for the windows to be open, and as I was practicing, I kept hearing this intermittent squeaking/screeching coming from the scrubby trees outside my window. Birds, I gathered, but what's with that racket? I noticed there were I think three baby blue jays in the tree. But they're not so "baby" anymore. They look a little fluffy still, but they're fledgelings! The parents would come back with food for them and they'd make that squeaking sound.

Yesterday I couldn't help myself. I thought, if I don't take some photos of them now, I'll miss them and be pissed that they're gone. So I grabbed my little Canon and zoomed my lens way out and got these. Rotten shots, I know, please forgive me. And then Jim reminded me today when he saw the photos, that my subject was in some dark, that I needed to over-expose for that screaming afternoon background. I was so not in an evaluating mood or mode, I just wanted to git 'em. Baby's in the tree, and one of the parents is on the fence, looking at me as if he's pissed off.

So yeah, baby blue jays, cardinals, I forget what else I've seen out there. I'd put out a bird feeder, but then I'd never get anything done at my machine. I'll learn more about my camera so that the next photos I take of them, or anything else, are better.

Isthmus Vocal Ensemble

2007-06-29T06:57:00.000-05:00

Be there or be square! August 3, 2007, 7:30 p.m., at Luther Memorial Church in Madison, WI. Check out our website at www.isthmusvocalensemble.org for details.

I'm excited because we're doing Jesu, Meine Freude, Bach's monster motet. Jim and I sang it years ago under Dr. Fountain (God rest him), our second tour together. Also Whitacre's Water Night, which I'm certain we did once with Festival Choir. It's gorgeous, all cluster-y and intense. There are also some Russian pieces that will kick our butts until we get the diction under our belts, but they sound really cool.

It's a great group, and even greater because we only rehearse for about 3 weeks prior to the performance. So tell all your friends to come on out and see us! You won't regret it.

Thanks for reading my little advertisement!

Latest Randomness

2007-06-27T12:39:00.000-05:00

Sorry, faithful readers, all two of you--I haven't posted in a while.

Last week we were busy with preparations for and the photo shoot of Space's wedding in Devil's Lake on the solstice. We went up on Wednesday night and camped in the Ice Age campground--our first trip alone with the new pop-up, and for that matter, the first time we'd camped just the two of us, not planning to meet any other friends to camp with us. We were so excited to find, in the little concession a half-mile from our campsite, a gas-burner toaster for all of five bucks. So Thursday morning we perked coffee and made toast with my fabulous (excuse the vanity, it's true) Rustic Italian Bread. Except I brought a crummy knife, which mushed my bread more than sliced it. Pissed. I won't do that again. But, there was peanut butter for the toast, and it was good.

At about noon, we started to get ready for the outdoor wedding. Jim thankfully showed me a few settings on his D200, but ya can't learn it all in a day. BUT, I did Know when I was taking a lousy photo, that I could have done something about it, if I'd only remembered what to do! (Hot light in the background, subject's gonna be dark--pop quiz, whadda ya do? eek, now I can't remember, is it aperture mode and kick it down a stop? dangit) AND I was able to translate some of what Jim had taught me to my little Canon point-and-shoot, it was cool! Another light bulb went on for me recently, about larger aperture and shallower depth of field, I could finally make sense of it. But I must confess I just had to look at my little Nikon guide to be sure. I'd apologize, but why? Because I'm learning? Get used to it.

Anyway, I meant to talk a bit about the wedding, that I got some great shots (and some not great shots) and had a pretty great time at the reception. We were well hydrated--very important, as I've found. There was some rain, but it waited till we were all indoors at the recetpion. Then it stopped, and then it started again when the party moved to the group campsite. I was not sad at all to leave that site to return to our dry and cozy pop-up! It was a long day and a lot of work, but we had a great time overall.

Still in school, and after turning in two really sucky 110s, I think I turned in a successful one today. My poor fingers get so confused when they get stressed, when the pressure's on. They just plain forget where they oughta go, especially in the inflected endings, -S, -T, -L, -G, -D and -Z; although it really seems to be that those inner fingers are stronger and the pinkies just go to hell on both hands. It'll come. I'm glad I'm not fighting for my 100's like I was this time last year. That sucked.

What also kinda sucks is that I think my baking job is over. I keep deluding myself, thinking that maybe I could keep a few hours somehow and still survive in school. But I'm now thinking that maybe that's a little selfish. The whole reason I went into this new field was to get out of the old one, to get away from that job. Yes, it's cushy; yes, I get flex-spending. I think the fear about leaving the old job is just that: fear. Scared to move from something I'm competent at, to something I only have minimal ability to do right now. I question myself every day, "What the hell am I doing? Can I really do this, do I want to do this?" Until I can come up with a good solid "no," I think I keep plugging. Maybe I can find some part-time work that doesn't feel like work. There's so much that I just don't know right now (okay, always there are don't knows). And I think that's the biggest reason to keep plugging. That whole "do something every day that scares you." Doin' it, livin' it.

Last but not least, I am so jazzed about this video. Jamiroquai's (Don't) Give Hate a Chance.

Thanks for reading, hope I've wasted enough of your time. Now go back to work!

No way, 30 years since Star Wars?

2007-06-17T11:51:00.000-05:00

I remember going to see this movie with my parents and, for some reason, with my paternal grandmother, Anita. We lived in Atlanta at the time, and I remember no huge hype about it, no excitement or anticipation to see this film. I think I might have even fallen asleep in this film. However, I do love it and the next two sequels, but I think that all the subsequent "prequel" George Lucas films are absolute crap. Dude, go to film school already, or something.

I did have my first digital (mom used to say "diginal", God rest her) watch after this film. It was a Hideous, Bulky, (boy's, I think) gray Star Wars watch. I think Darth Vader was on it. I loved it. It looked a lot like this one. Well, maybe it was C 3PO and R2-D2.

So today in my inbox is this. My first "boyfriend" is the focus of the article, and in the first half of the video. In costume. He's a peach, I still adore him today, in that brotherly way, of course. Check it out.

My New Favorite Band

2007-06-15T07:05:00.000-05:00

While I was hanging with Jenny in Florida for my reunion--actually, in the car on our way to and from Sammy's :)--she played some Jamiroquai. I thought, hmm, Maroon 5? Earth Wind and Fire? Random disco? Nope, Jamiroquai. She gave me their greatest hits album, which is just fun to listen to. I was killing some time this morning and went to their website and watched a couple of their videos. The "Runaway" video was not all there, but I found it at YouTube . I'm diggin' on the Spaceman Spiff suit in London, and the Moon Buggy. It's right on the ragged edge of Spinal Tap. And Jay Kay is hot.

Fear not, Fountains of Wayne. I have sent my missionaries to see you in Chicago with our Speedpass blessings, since we were lame and didn't go to Oshkosh last night to see you. Instead we went to Tyranena for some pretty good brews (Stick it to the Man IPA, wooo) and a really spicy crawfish boil. Ooh, I should post the video. Lemme figure it out. Ugh, what a pain!

Anyway, I still love the Wayne, and I bet Jamiroquai would also love the Wayne. How can you not love the Wayne? Just gotta spread the love.

CHS 20th Reunion, Part 2

2007-06-06T07:30:00.001-05:00

So there are enough pictures to fill a small wagon, and I've posted more of them up at flickr.com. Check it out.

We flew in Thursday to FWB, and the airport is all changed up. Much less the dismal, low-ceilinged, ancient cement bomb shelter it used to be. Now there are tall ceilings and lots of light, and a fanatical devotion of TSA to finding the tiniest piece of metal on your person. Jenny picked us up, and it was so cool to see her again. It's not been more than 10 years since I saw her last, but to see your "little" friend all "grown up" is quite a kick. Chilled out in her lovely back yard for many hours, drinking Bud Light and I think we switched to vodka at some point, and us girls stayed up and talked forever.

Ugh, hangover. But, no rest for the wicked! Dad had indeed made it from the Keys to Destin, and requested that we meet him somewhere for breakfast. Whee, that'll be fun, I have no idea what's where, let alone in Destin. But, we went out to his hotel behind the McDonald's, and visited with him and Lee, his "not-girlfriend" I like to call her, and attempted a stab at breakfast at a local haunt. NO dice, people oozing out the door. Jenny was a brilliant concierge--dialed information on her cell for the Broken Egg Cafe down the way, found out the wait time, and when we heard it was about 10-15 minutes, we were on our way. Finally had a nice breakfast, when the waitress was no longer hounded by the 10 or 12-top that was sitting behind us. Visited with Dad and Lee some more afterwards till about noon, showing pictures and shooting the breeze. We took Jenny back to Shalimar and later headed all the way back out to Destin for a meeting with my AG Edwards boys.

Come to find out, AG Edwards will no longer named such, as of about 24 hours before--Wachovia has bought them out! Whatever, I'd hoped to stay far from that name after the trust was disbursed. But I digress. A nice meeting with them, and at Early Bird Special Time (and it was a good thing), we went to dinner with the AG Edwards boys and the eldest's wife and Dad and Lee. Harbor Docks has a nice view of Destin Sound, I think it is, and pretty great seafood. Strange musical chairs to make sure the guests got that view, and who got the amberjack grilled!? The restaurant had seriously filled up by the time we left, and valet parking had nearly parked us in, in my dad's giant Avalanche truck. So I decided to be a spotter and help Dad back out of the parking lot. I was much successful, even moving cones that they'd set up to get people into the parking lot. I wish I had a photo of that!

Dad got delightfully mushy after dinner, and I really felt how much he loved me. I got all weepy myself on the drive home, how could I not see the way he and my mom felt about me when I was growing up? Like it never seemed explicit, or maybe I was just thick-skulled. I was sorry that he'd travelled all that way just to see me, for such a short period of time, but I was also really happy to see him.

Later that night, we decided to play "tourist" and go to an institution of a night club, Sammy's. We had a blast. All the ladies seemed to be so genuinely interested in whether we were having a good time, smiling, saying thank you, giving driving advice (you DO NOT drive drunk in FWB anymore apparently)! I had really expected the place to be pretty seedy and tragic, but it was really a place I'd go back to and recommend to others. If for nothing else, go to see what some of those girls can do on a pole--you can hang upside down on that thing?

Saturday was met with another hangover, big surprise. But, off to the beach party we went at about 10:30. Saw people I haven't seen in a long time--Carey, Diane, Lee, Rhonda, Carmen. I was really hip to see Wright. Robert said he was bringing his "brood" and I was like, whut? Long story short, Wright and I "dated" in junior high for about 2 weeks (he says 3), I broke up with him and he never forgave me all through the rest of school. Well, maybe 3-5 years ago, I sent him a sort of random email through the CHS yahoo site. Told him I'd been a jerk to him in school and he said he'd been the same to me. Life is too short to lose contact with good people over something that happened SO long ago, so we've really come full circle and I'm thrilled. Besides, he and my husband are definitely cut from the same cloth, twins separated at birth, and it turns out they really like each other. Anyway, so Wright did make it to the beach with his lovely girlfriend and her kids. I really must get a recording of her Japanese! Hysterical. We all had a nice time on the beach, didn't get too much sun, and nobody laughed in my face about the bikini I wore. Brilliant.

Lunch on the beach at the Crab Trap, 50 dollars later, and we went home to Jenny's. Laid in the pool a while and tried a Bellini. Not bad. Showered up and got ready for the banquet thingy at the Ramada. We were ungodly early, among the first 10 people to arrive. But Brian was in rare form, I never remembered him being so hysterically funny. It was amazing throughout the night to see people, faces you knew in high school, and to see how they'd either changed drastically--to make them almost unrecognizeable--or hardly at all, just a few years and general age and gravity. I found if I focused on the eyes, I had a pretty good chance of figuring out who was who. But, the truth was that in high school I had a fairly small circle of friends, who fortunately gravitated to me that Saturday night, and all the rest I knew faces and some names but never knew them all that well in school anyway. Good to see them all the same. The hard part was having the spouses in the mix! Who's he, who's she? And no nametags on most of us, I sure didn't wear one, so I can hardly complain. There was 80's music played and seriously danced to, including "Rock the Casbah" and "You Spin Me Round" (the latter I squealed at some supersonic frequency, claiming I was trained to do that as a child and never recovered).

Okay, I'm blathering, I'll try to wrap this up soon, I promise. I was sad after the banquet/dance, because I had been expecting so much, anticipated so much, imagined how it would all be. I worried that I was somehow reliving the "glory days" that had never actually existed in the first place. My husband was charming and told me how people's eyes lit up to see me. I hope he was right, I was sure glad to see the people I saw. I had a great time, but between expectations and reality, I felt a little let down.

Sunday was a fine day of sloth, more pool-sitting and beer drinking, oh, and Wii playing! Thank God for Jenny and her video games, what a kick that Wii is. I learned how to race cows and perform surgery! Heee. Bobby came by, another old flame, and he hung out for a while with us. Another 2-week dating record there, again in junior high. Except he broke up with me and I was crushed. He and I made amends much sooner though, and he's been a good friend for years although I'm not in touch with him very often. Great to see him. Wright also came by for photos and pool-sitting, a real nice time.

Jenny and I stayed up until the wee hours again, drinking and talking. She dropped us at the airport on Monday morning, where we experienced the search for microscopic metal, both on my person and in my backpack. Now I'm back home, thinking I'm back to normal. More or less. I miss my friend and sometimes I actually miss Florida. It's clear and cool outside here, and for that part I miss the Florida heat and the ability to sit by a pool and just hang, as if I were 12 again. I guess those glory days did exist. But I think when you try to "relive" them, you just get new glory days, not really exactly the old ones. I think it's worth trying, all the same.

I am so grateful for the reconnections I made this past weekend, and for the giant hospitality that was extended to us by my oldest and dearest friend.

Hope you'll all enjoy the photos on flickr, and thanks for reading this enormous post.

20th High School Reunion

2007-05-30T21:58:00.000-05:00

OMG, where did the last 20 years go? Flying to Fort Walton Beach, Florida tomorrow, to hang with my fellow 1987 Choctawhatchee High School graduates for the weekend. Multiple emotions flying, mostly excitement at this point. Convinced that everyone is just as beautiful or skinny or whatever as they were in high school, that they all look just like they did then, that I'm the only one who's changed. Not the case, I know from attending the 15th reunion, but those "memories" and expectations still linger.

Also excited because my dad's coming up from the Keys for a visit, to see little old me. Bringing his travel companion Lee, whom I've not seen in, geez, well, 20 years or more. That will be interesting. I hope for some healing there...long story.
I'll post more about all of this when I return, photos and all. Stay tuned, for Cat in a bikini! (what am i thinking...)

OMG, FOW!

2007-05-29T21:19:00.001-05:00

All who love the Wayne, should come to see them at Waterfest in Oshkosh, WI, on June 14, 2007. I myself will be there with bells on.
Links at www.fountainsofwayne.com/main.asp
and
http://waterfest.oshkosh.net/
Seriously, there is no better master of the three-minute pop song. Their music keeps me up at night sometimes, it's so darned catchy!
"...Y'know I've come too far and I don't wanna fail/I got a new computer and a bright future in sales/yah yah, yah yah..."

Anyway, 'scuse the exuberance, but Fountains of Wayne is coming to the Fine State of Wisconsin! Let's show them how much we love them! Woooo!

Having Entered the World of Pop-Up Camping...

2007-05-29T18:15:00.000-05:00

...here's what we found.
It was cold and rainy going to get the camper, and once the camper was acquired, it was still cold and rainy--all the way up and into the Brule! But, we are "broken" now, as in can't go back to the way it was before the pop-up. I caught Jim's cold en route, and if we hadn't had our new little camper, I'da been bitchin' that we need to go home. No sleeping on the ground for this little sickie.

There are a jillion photos that I want to include, but I'll have to be sort of selective. Mike the Fisherman found (not fish, but) a pair of newborn fawns on the riverbank. He brought Jim back to the babies with his camera to capture their amazing camoflage.

It was camping, so S'mores were made and consumed with great glee. Abby the dog can be seen "resting" or "Smaug-dogging" in the lower left corner, under the bench. We got worried about her this trip. She is 12-ish now and it seemed a lot of stress to give an old dog, all that driving and raining and sleeping in a more civilized tent (oh darn). She looked positively exhausted one night, and I thought I might have to dig her a grave at her favorite campground! Some of her ashes will go there someday, but she's fine now.

One word for this photo: "Stealth-Jamie."Okay, I lied. This photo cracks me up. We don't love it because it looks like the handle is trying to go up his nose, but I love the notion that he's "hiding" behind a stack of dishes. It was taken in the process of getting this shot, thank you Kevvinator.

There's so much more to be said about this trip, but I feel like I've used up all my space with the photos I've shared. That said, there are three more. You know you're camping when cheese nothings go with Chardonnay. (Forgive me for bashing Chardonnay, but really, who could tell anyway? Kidding. A good Chard is a hard thing to find, as far as I'm concerned. Stop oaking it!)
And, one of many fire shots.

Entering the World of Pop-up Camping

2007-05-21T18:08:00.000-05:00

Well, here we are, folks. Memorial Day Weekend approacheth and we will be ready to kick its ever-livin' arse with this new little pop-up we just bought. Okay, Will Buy on Wednesday from the previous owner who used it once. I'm really excited. Check out that sincerely clean cooktop! Stay tuned to see how that maintains...

I hate spending money, but I think we're getting a good deal for a great little barely-used camper. We'll not be sleeping on the ground no-moh, oh no, not us. We will still, I'm sure, be bringing all the cantankerous crap that we always bring camping: the Dutch ovens (can't live without) and the sleeping bags and pads and flashlights and boats and paddles, the Dinty Moore and the Jiffy cake mix. The tarp that never seems to string up the same way twice, and when it rains, well, we get wet standing under it. The coolers, the chairs, the sunscreen and Deet. You'd think we were actually trying to "get away" from "it all." But no. All that stuff that sends me into tizzies for days, trying to remember and collect it all for a weekend at our favorite campsite at the Bois Brule. (Shhh, it's a secret! We never want anyone getting there before we do on any weekend, especially Memorial Day weekend, we want our "pole-position" campsite!)

Anyway, so we'll go up Wednesday to the Cities, where our friend Roma found this delightful contraption, to pay the owner for his trailer. Spend the night with Roma and his lovely family, and we'll head out early to make the Brule on Thursday. Still praying for pole position, mind you.

I've been resisting this move to the pop-up for a while. Sure, it's a big investment. It's also a large thing to park, and where to do so? Our garage is a non-starter, filled with motorcycles and boats and lawn gear, and the camping crap!
I think we'll ultimately chuck a gate in the far side of the fence, so we can back it in there and occupy a bit of the side yard. The weeds will love it. We also hope that Abby will love it, no more sleeping in the tent, or in the rain in a tent. She may hate it, but she may adore it too. She always seems to want to be on the "side" that she's not on, either inSide or outSide.

Anyway, so before this past weekend, we were unsure, undecided, as to whether we'd go to Brule for Memorial Day weekend at all. One classified ad later, and one hellaciously long drive to the northern side of the Cities to see the camper, and our decision was finalized. We are excited about this weekend, and all the future pop-up camper weekends to come. Watch out, fishies, I'm comin' with mah Fly Rod. And the regular rod too. I found myself scouring (and even cleaning!) old drawers, searching for my fishing license that I Knew I had around here Somewhere. It was stuffed in among my makeup, go figure, but expired in March. Good, a new one to acquire. Let's hope I have the same luck at the Brule with the trout that I had in Phillips, with the stulti Bluegills.

Give me sunburn and skeeter bites. I'm goin' to the Brule!

First, there was Cat Bowling.

2007-05-14T20:25:00.000-05:00

And now there's Pug Bowling. Thanks, Yahoo!

They Do it Out of Love

2007-05-08T06:57:00.000-05:00

It's story-time!
When I was 19, well, I guess I need to go back a bit. My life was a mess. Or at least, I thought it was a mess, at leat to some extent. I had been in college for two years at the University of South Alabama, studying piano, and I had a delicious boyfriend. Some time in April I think, my parents called me and said, "We're moving to Wisconsin and we're going to build a house." Oookay. So at the end of the semester, I packed up my stuff and my delicious boyfriend and I headed north to Wisconsin together. He had a plane ticket to fly back from Minneapolis. I settled in, Living At Home for the summer, he flew back to Mobile, and I kept on going.

I've probably taken you too far back with all that, but it's nice to reminisce. I decided I wanted a job for the summer, because I was bored out of my mind just hanging around on the farm all the time with nothing else to do. I went to Kelly Temporary Services, signed myself up for I can't remember what, and waited for the call. That first job was, of all things, dumping cartons of liquid soap into a barrel. I kid you not. The packaging was "bad", reacted with the product and the ink-jetted coloring would smudge right off. So they were trying to reclaim the soap and try it again. I thought it was actually kind of fun.
There was apparently lots of this soap to dump, or some other work, that Kelly asked me to do on 3rd shift, I think it was. I said yes, thinking, well, the hours are kinda sucky, but it's a job, here I go.
Well. My dad heard it was 3rd shift, up in Eau Claire, 20 miles away, and he hit the roof. He told me to un-take that job, or, the alternative was to have him drive me up there and back. He wasn't going to have his daughter driving at those hours of the night with all those G-D crazy people on the roads.
Oh. My. God. I was mortified. I was furious. I was seven kinds of sad and angry and devastated. I cried for hours. I missed my boyfriend and my old life like crazy, and now my dad was trying to run my life. Kelly wasn't too pleased with me either, lecturing me that I shouldn't have said yes and then no. Well, duh, I wouldn't have said yes if I'd known my dad was going to pitch such a fit.
I think I'm still mad at him over this, at least a little. I still wish he could have trusted me to take the hard knocks and figure out for myself that this was a stupid idea, a bad job to take. It was, theoretically, only temporary after all.

All I know now, is that parents do that kind of "injustice" to their kids because they love them. They see a different truth than what we see. They do see the crazies on the roads, they read about senseless deaths of young people due to drunk drivers or whatever other circumstance. They see our youth and inexperience and naivete. Looking back, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I might have indeed become another statistic on the road. Even though he sounded like a raving lunatic to me at the time, I now think there was indeed some truth to what he said then. I didn't want to address it, accept it; I wanted none of it. He wouldn't, he couldn't, have said those things to me if he didn't love me with everything he is. If he didn't want better for me.
The hard part at that time, was that for most of my life I had been allowed to do just about anything. I got away with stuff (or thought I did) that they didn't know about, that I really wouldn't have been allowed to do. I had been living "on my own" in the dorms for two years, for crying out loud. To suddenly be prohibited from doing something, to have the rules just change, ooh that sucked. And what really sucked, was that ultimately, he was right. There was that grain of truth in it that I didn't want to acknowledge. I didn't see it then, but I do now. And the larger, more important truth is that he loves me. I am now grateful for his protection, and for his willingness to risk all to tell me the truth about what I was doing.

"If you tell me the truth about me without my permission, I have to make you wrong--so I won't be."

Thanks for reading/listening. I am human, and I am fallible.

Might as Well be Bling

2007-05-04T08:53:00.000-05:00

I just like that silly play on words. I thought of it in regards to my little silver circle of leaves that I bought at Canoecopia this year from Liisa (see her beautiful jewelry at www.silverwaves.net). A link to her website is here.

Anyway, when people have commented on it, I've referred to it as my "bling." Spring, bling, now I've over-explained it. Darn.

I don't think I got my second 100 wam take yesterday. I'm not sure much of anybody passed much of anything, she read some hard material. I'll have a myriad of opportunities this week, we're doing takes all week I think. There's got to be something to get me over that 100 mark. Maybe 110 if I'm really lucky! The hard part, is that yesterday, my fingers felt like they were on crack, like they were three times as wide as normal and I had almost zero control or accuracy about them. Like an eejit, I spent an hour when I got home, working on this one two-minute take till I got it right. Which, in and of itself is not a bad thing, I just realized after the fact that I might have worked smarter, not harder. Gave myself time, a few days, to really lock into it. But I was impatient and made myself go after it. Harumph. It'll be fine, hear the mantra, it'll be fine.

This may be a topic for another blog, but here it is anyway. Since my mom died in 2005, I just hate Mother's Day. If I had a mother still, I'd send her candy or flowers or whatever the hell. But now I really resent the advertising for Mother's Day shopping and sales. It's damned insensitive, that's what it is. Don't they know my mom's gone? And I know, I DO still have a mother, and the good news is that she lives in me. That I hear her laugh when I do, that I hear her Southern-ness when I talk, that I get testy easily. Maybe one of these days I'll get to be a mother to someone else besides myself. But for now I'm just pissed. I still have to set a date to go up to her grave and have a little gathering/picnic. It seems morbid and gross, but I think she'd be okay with the company, and with the effort to be with her. I'll bring the Dewar's, she'll be ecstatic, except for the fact that she can't quite taste it. Honor your mothers, folks, especially while they're here. Ya can't do it after they're gone.

Party tonight at Kimbler's, looking forward to that. Pre-Kentucky Derby party. Any excuse will do!

May Day!

2007-05-01T06:54:00.000-05:00

No, not that kind of mayday, just your regular first of May, Day. Dangit, I missed my second 100-wam take by .7%! I needed 95% accuracy, and I nearly had it with 94.3% accuracy. This week for sure. I was too focused on the 110's and thus had those adrenaline jitters afterwards. Ugh, hate those.

Spent time with the in-laws this weekend, and the in-laws of in-laws. Wow, that's removed. First we went to Delavan to assist with flooring in their house--all of the carpet in the place has been replaced with some lovely wood laminate flooring. Now Mom wants to paint. Wait, wouldn't it have been better to paint before the new floor went down? Oh well, at least the walls are all exposed at this point. Then on Sunday, we went up to Mauston to spend time with Liz and Todd (sister- and brother-in-law) and his parents and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, and I think an uncle of his too. Since it was sort of a reunion for them, Jim took the camera and shot some nice group photos of them, and I bet some good casual shots too. Those are often his best.

We got delightfully "lost" on our way out of Mauston. Took some country roads south-ish and found gorgeous hills and some fun dirt roads. Bust out mah dirt bike on that. The Gazetteer was so not helpful here--many of the roads we saw were not on the map, as far as I could tell. Didn't know we had so much po-dunk in Wisconsin, but I guess I don't get out of the city much.

What else...school's almost done for the semester, which may mean that my job may be done too. Working up nerve to talk to the boss-man of sorts, to find out if there's some other position I could apply for at school that doesn't require me in the mornings like the baking does. It makes me half-sad to think of not baking every day. It doesn't kill me to know that certain annoyances will go away. But there's that whole amnesia about pain thing. I'd really like to be able to work part time, doing something, and it would be so ideal to keep the flex benefits I have now. I think work does me good and keeps me on schedule, disciplined with my time. Blogging, on the other hand, makes me late for my date with my steno machine. I know I'll find some way to be productive, might have to get creative.

Thanks for reading!

Last Saturday

2007-04-24T12:35:00.000-05:00

Ahh, and what a fine Saturday it was. Jim and I went to the first Farmers' Market on the square. Nice time. Fine bagels from Gotham. I went for my standard Everything and tried the salmon cream cheese. Very tasty. Jim went for a Salt bagel with caper cream cheese, dubbed "formidable" by Giuseppe. Well spoke. He also did the Cinnamon bagel with the walnut cream cheese, delicious. Not much to see yet at market, the standard opening day plants. We bought a pair of basil sproutlings, and a Jen-Ehr chicken. We went home and had a nap--not like we'd actually expended any energy or anything.
Then we went for a long motorcycle ride, getting only slightly lost on our adventure to Yellowstone State Park. Spring was there, but not yet in the tops of the trees. The grass was green, and low bushes were happy, but the trees will take a bit longer to poof. I was "bitch on the back" of Jim's beemer. A nice time.
Then, as if we hadn't packed enough living into one day, we decided it would be windy enough in the afternoon to fly our kites. We had one that had never been flown, never even taken out of its smelly vinyl packaging (oh, for sad). I resurrected our other kite from the basement, and off we went to Garner Park to seek the wind. Sparky called in the meantime and I mentioned we were kite-flying. She was still groggy from her nap, and I was a tool and didn't specifically invite her. Just about the time we thought we were done futzing with our kites, Sparky showed up with her trusty Pocket Parafoil, which went skyward and stayed there until we had to yank it down maybe an hour later. That thing was awesome--a glorified, well-engineered plastic bag shaped like a jellyfish that just about flew on its own. I'll put photos up when I get a chance.
But wait, there's more! None of us had eaten, so we procured brats and fixin's from Brennan's and grilled out. Polenta aided the cause, as did the asparagus we bought. Top it all off with a great peach beer from--ack! i can't remember, will edit. Jim and Sparky worked on pictures and I numbered some of her score for her performance on Sunday (at which she and her musicians excelled, woo hoo!). Anyway, it was a terrific time. We don't think we've packed that much living into one single day in a very long time.
I hope to do it again soon.

Russian Tunnel Video

2007-04-22T07:20:00.001-05:00

And you thought Americans couldn't drive (in the ice?)

Looks like spring, but still feels cold!

2007-03-20T13:57:00.000-05:00

Too long since I've last posted. Life is going pretty darned well. Scary tax snafu that I think we've gotten ourselves through. Yay husband, good helper.
Canoecopia is over, and so is my driving gig that happened last week. That made for a very long week, but we made a trip up to the Cities to see our bestest friends. I learned how to pour a Black and Tan! Yum. Their house is our Rivendell, it's such a haven for R&R. I got to re-watch the last episode of season 5 of the Sopranos. I love that show!
Now all I have to do is keep on keepin' on, keep writing at a happy speed and then some, and wait for spring break, which can't come too soon for me. I'll write more when I have something more to say!