Weekend in Denver - Part 1

Well, my weekend began yesterday, shortly after dropping Pig off at Thode's (check her blog for the Adventures of Punk & Pig). Thode had kindly offered to take Pig so Pig has been spared a trip to Krazy Karen's this weekend. Like a true fellow dog mom, Thode not only sent me, unprompted, a text message telling me things were going great, but also let me "talk" to Pig on the phone this morning. She is awesome.

So the flight to Denver was fairly uneventful. I won $10 playing video poker at the Las Vegas airport, which the pilot oh-so-cleverly refered to as the Lost Wages Airport. As we pulled away from the runway, I noticed a beautiful rainbow that ended not at a pot of gold, but at a large Hooters private plane. Ahh...Vegas.

Max picked me up from the airport and brought me back to the apartment where he's been put up. Holy mother of god. This apartment is amazing!!! I'm really tempted to just quit my job and hang out here for the rest of his stay. It's a loft apartment located in downtown Denver - wooden floors, king size bed, marble counters, 1 1/2 baths, flat screen HD tv's, Crate & Barrel decor and luxury sheets. I feel like I'm in a Romantic Comedy Movie and I've just entered the apartment of the architect/doctor/advertising exec/businessman Boyfriend. And Max is playing the role perfectly. He surprised me with a present - an Ipod, to replace the mp3 player I broke a few months ago. But he didn't just give me an Ipod - he downloaded songs that he knew I liked, and the audiobook for MUST LOVE DOGS. Then he wrapped everything back up again, so it all fit nicely in the packaging for me to open. Can I get a collective, "awwwww"???? All I brought for him was his mail and his Sports Illustrated mags.

Anyway, Nick (Max's best friend and Grayling AJ's brother)came over in the evening and we all went out to a restaurant, which I later discovered was called Wazee's Lounge & Supper Club. I've never been to a Lounge & Supper Club, but neither has the owner of this restaurant. When I think of "supper club" I guess I think of a place with a piano and maybe some woman in a shimmery dress singing My Funny Valentine or something. This place offered buckets of beer. The food was awesome, but it was essentially a pizza parlor. No complaints here though. I don't really care what they call themselves. Max, who's become quite the epicurian, ordered us a Bianca style pizza with roasted peppers, feta cheese, sundried tomatoes, and chicken, and all I can say is, I'll be going back again the next time I come to Denver.

After a late start this morning, Max and I headed out to check out the downtown area. We stopped a restaurant called Marlowe's which can proudly boast of serving the worst Italian Chopped Salad Ever. I actually tried to take a picture of it (imagine non-chopped iceberg lettuce drenched in Italian dressing with 3 olives, strange slivers of turkey, one sliced piece of pepperoni, and some oddly chopped pepperocinis) but the server came by before I had a chance to. Luckily, he was a good server and didn't charge me for it. Max and I continued down the 16th Street Mall, which is very cute and looks a bit like Downtown Disneyland. Afterwards, we went to another mall and shopped around.

So, so far so good. Really like Denver, it reminds me a lot of Ann Arbor, but bigger. Max is watching the NFL network, and I'm about to take a nap so it's almost like we're in LA. Except,of course, for the fact that he's watching it on a flat screen HD tv and I'm about to nap on a suede Pottery Barn couch.

Denver Ski Trip - Day Three

So Max and I, much to my surprise, did not wake up Sunday morning to a white washing, despite our rather "Unfunny to the Lame-O's but Hysterical to the Cool Kids Snowball Ambush" the night. Had I been the victim of a snowball attack while I was sleeping, you can be sure someone would have woken up with a bucket of snow on their face. When I relayed the story to Thode she remarked that had it been her she would have sought revenge by laying a snowball gently near the offender's ass and letting it warm/melt while the person slept. Remind me to make sure she's in the Cool Kids crowd if the occasion ever arises again!

Anyway, as I was saying, I think Max and I were the first ones up again. Since Max was using the bathroom attached to the master bedroom (which we got that night), I tiptoed out into the hallway to use the other bathroom. The door was partly open, and when I tried to push open the door, there appeared to be a sleeping bag caught underneath it. Weird. Who left their sleeping bag in the bathroom? I pushed on it harder, heard someone mumble, and realized SOMEONE WAS SLEEPING IN THE BATHROOM!! Turns out it was AD, who felt guilty about 1.) sharing a room w/ Courtney and Josh since he's quite a snorer and 2.) Courtney's snowball injuries, which had apparently really hurt her. :(

Anyway, I noticed that Benjamin was awake too and told him maybe it was time to wake everyone else up. He replied that he was pretty scared of waking up the Lame-O's. Same with Max, who didn't quite feel comfortable waking up the very people we had tortured just hours before. But eventually the rest of the group slowly started to move and the Cool Kids had some 'splainin' to do.

Luckily the Lame-O's weren't that mad any more, although they were curious who exactly threw the snowballs. Here we were vague, although I did sneakily reply that "I didn't throw a snowball." And under my breath, "I just made them." Heheh. By the way, AD called me "The General" after the Snowball Ambush - since I was the one who came up with the idea, yet didn't actually take part in it. I did point out it still makes me an accomplice, so I'm still in trouble even if I technically didn't throw a snowball. This, I've learned from countless hours of People's Court -something about joint liability, according to Judge Marilyn Milian. Who is awesome. Yet another sign that I'm 27 going on 72.

I guess what happened to poor Courtney was since she and Josh were sharing a single bed, and since she happened to be closer to the door, she was the one who got hit in the face twice. Josh escaped with no injuries - and in fact wasn't even sure what happened. Poor Courtney - we all felt pretty bad about it.

We had to check out by 10:00 a.m., and had started talking about whether some would stay longer in Vail for a second day of skiing, when we got a phone call from Nick, who said according to weather reports, a huge snowstorm was on its way to Denver - and that airports might be closing and that there were already huge traffic jams from Vail to Denver as people fled the mountains. Well that settled it. Everyone had to head back to Denver and quickly, so we all moved our little asses, packed up, cleaned and moved the furniture back to its proper place.

Here's a pic of Amol, holding up a mysterious unclaimed black sock. Had I checked my luggage, I would have realized it was mine. Now my other black sock is lonely. :(



On our way back to Denver, we stopped at Frisco for breakfast at a place called The Butterhorn Bakery & Deli. We had wait a bit to be seated, since there were only about 8 tables in the little restaurant and there were 10 of us, but it was worth the wait. We seperated into two tables, had a great breakfast, and I even bought a loaf of banana bread and a loaf of cinnamon raspberry bread to bring back to LA.

Once we got to Max's place, and hauled our hundreds of bags of luggage into his apartment, most of us sat down to do some NCAA basketball watching. A few others - Reggie and Julia, Amol & Annie went off to do some exploring of Denver. I napped for awhile, and Max and AD went to the grocery store and came back with a smorgasbord of junk food - pizza, fritos, triscuits & easy cheese, Cadbury eggs, etc - which we feasted on until dinner time.

We had decided to go to Red Lobster since there was one relatively close by, and there are none in LA. The drive was a bit scary - it was definitely storming, and when we got to Red Lobster, there were only about 4 other patrons. Luckily, this meant we got pretty good service.

I think we all knew this would happen - after the meal, a snowball fight broke out in parking lot of the Red Lobster. There wasn't nearly as much snow as there was in Vail, but the snowball fight lasted for awhile and it was fun. My aim got worse and worse as my pitching arm started to hurt, and I was generally sore all over from skiing the day before, so after awhile I just handed my snowballs to Max and AD, who had much better aim. We finally called it quits after a while and then headed back to Max's apartment for a short night's sleep.

We had to get up super early in the morning (like 3:00 a.m. early) so it was painful to everyone. We made it to the airport fine, got on the plane fine, slept all the way on the plane, and made it back to LA - about 45 minutes late, since we spent a ton of time in the plane de-icing. Which I didn't notice, since I was passed out.

Once we got back to LA, the last hurdle was making it back to our cars. We had to wait for awhile for our shuttle, and when it never came, we took another shuttle to hotel close to Amol's (he lives in a very hotel-y district) and walked back to his place. We must have been quite the sight - seven people dragging luggage along gigantic LA roads. Sort of like the homeless - but with suitcases instead of shopping carts.

Here we are waiting for the shuttle.


Anyway, that was the trip - it was soo soo much fun!!! Except the skiing part. ;)

Julia also recapped the trip - hysterically - so check it out here.

In case you're wondering what I've been up to for the last week...

I feel like I haven't posted in forever. And so much has gone on! The worst part of it all is Max's computer is broken. Dead. It just won't turn on. I have no idea why. So I have to blog at work, when I'm "supposed" to be working...

So first off I went to Denver over the weekend. It was really really friggin' cold. Yikes. Despite the weather, I had an awesome time. After accidentally spending $35 at the airport bar by myself (the wine was $10 a glass - sheesh) and sharing a table with the Quintessential Midwest Middle-Aged Woman (I could write a whole page about how much I loved her and her fake nails, her bestseller paperback novel, her purple printed beach bag, her two cartons of marlboro lights and her stoic silent construction worker husband - I am obsessed with the QMMW - kind of like the way I love meat loaf and pot roast and houses decorated with country apples and geese wallpaper - so Americana - LOVE it) I made it to Denver. Max and I stayed in for the rest of the night and much of Saturday until around dinner time when Nick came over and we headed out to Lime for dinner. I really liked that place - the food was great and the margaritas were very good. We ordered these awesome appetizers called Scorpions - deep fried shrimp wrapped in a jalapeno peppers - very good but also made me want to stick my tongue in the snow. So hot!

After dinner we went to first to a jazz club called Dazzle, but the only seating was in the dining area so we made our way to Don's Club Tavern, a little dive bar with some arcade machine things and what appeared to be a table shuffleboard. There I witnessed My First Bar Fight. Apparently this very drunk guy who had been stumbling around ended up breaking a beer bottle over this other guy's head so the guy with the busted head shoved the stumbling guy all the way through the bar and into a herd of young women drinking wine (which was a funny enough sight - as Nick pointed out this was not the kind of establishment where you order wine...). Anyway, I wasn't really freaked out until I noticed the guy with the busted head was actually bleeding quite a lot (definitely looked like he needed stitches, although he didn't look like he was too seriously hurt) and then I got all paranoid because I really don't like body fluids, much less other people's body fluids... After close inspection I determined none of us got any blood on us, much less blood on any open wounds, so I was relieved and was able to leave without grilling the guy about the last time he got an AIDS test...

Sunday we stayed in again for much of the day but headed out in the late afternoon. Our plan was to go to the Denver Planetarium with Nick to watch an IMAX movie about black holes but unfortunately that was sold out. So we went to a place called Brix, shared a bottle of wine and a fancy cheese platter (how yuppie of us!) and hoped that John Elway would stop by - he is apparently a frequent customer. He didn't. Afterwards, we went to get The Best Burgers in Denver at Cherry Cricket and to watch the NBA Allstart Game. The burgers were awesome. My only regret is that I was disciplined and got a "Little Burger" instead of a regular sized one.

I slept in Monday until noon (ridiculous) and then watched Flight Plan while Max worked a bit. We did some shopping and then went to Zengo for our official anniversary/Valentine's day dinner. I've never had food like that before - Latin/Asian fusion. Really really good. Afterwards, we rented Kung Fu Hustle, which was surprisingly better and funnier than we thought it'd be. We had to get up at around 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning to make my flight and I was back in LA and in the office by 10:30 a.m.

So that was my weekend. Other random things:

- My brother and his girlfriend made the drive across the country safe and sound! He's now in San Francisco (his girlfriend had to go back to NY) and I plan on visiting him soon.

- I went to Julia's brother's birthday party on Tuesday night. I embarassed myself by eating three plates of food, two packages of candy and a slice of icecream cake - all on camera (Julia and Reggie are shooting a documentary about Michael). It was a fun party and I had a great time, espeically when the figure skating competition came on and we all sat around making funny comments about the skaters and announcers.

-I installed a water filter on my faucet!! This is a huge achievement as I suspect I bruised an ovary and pulled a shoulder muscle during the near three hours and two separate tries it took for me to to install it. I plan on writing to "PUR" to complain about their poor directions...

-A whole bunch of us are going skiing the third weekend in March. 8 of us are on the same flight going out of LA (we take up nearly three rows) and Annie (Amol's girlfriend) will be meeting up with us from Salt Lake City. I'm so excited!!! It's going to be so much fun!!!

-Pig hurt herself somehow while getting off the couch last night. I actually saw it happen - she got up and then sort of stiffened and looked at me with these big eyes, and then didn't really move. I think she's pulled an arm muscle because she's definitely walking gimpy. Poor gimpy Pig.

-And - I'm a little ashamed of this but I sort of like Ace from American Idol. There. I've said it. It will come to haunt me as he turns on the "Constantine Gross-Factor" in later weeks but for now, I sort of "heart" him. Just a little.

-Finally - Daniel Franco is straight?????

Good News of Sorts

Well, looks like Max has a really really good shot of getting the Denver job. Or more like, he kind of has the job. We're not quite sure. He has some bit of the job. They've booked him for two days of work in LA in two weeks, and will give him at least one episode of the show to write/produce from LA, so that buys us a few weeks. He's their choice for the job, but they're trying to work out some trial period so that they know for sure it'll work before moving him to Denver.

So in the words of Pizzicato 5 (strange Japanese band I was obsessed with in college) I'm happy sad. Feeling good and feeling bad.

To Elliot - well it's only a temporary job b/c the job is basically for one season of the show (around 70 some episodes). After that, he'll move back.

To Lypstykgirl - moving to Denver would pretty much kill my career. Not that I haven't considered stabbing its wretched little self on my own terms, but I'm not really ready to give it up.

Denver, man.

I hate the cold. I can't even ski. In fact, I don't even know how to....

Josh's Pics from Vail!

Courtney and me, getting on the plane to Denver.


AD on the plane - not sure what to make of the expression on his face...!


Have I mentioned I hate the airport in Denver? You have to take an underground train to go from your terminal to the baggage claim.



Our lodge. Look how adorable it is!! I want to decorate our apartment this way - snow shoes and all. Except everyone pointed out it'd look weird in LA.


Another shot of our lodge.


The view from the balcony of our lodge. We had a great location - super close to the chair lifts and gondola. You can see them in the distance.


Drawing for the rooms. Courtney, who was the official drawer, conveniently picked herself for the big room the first night. Hmmm....;)


Julia actually took this pic of Max and me. Not one of Max's best pics, but check out my hot pink snow pants!!


A pic of Colorado, taken on the way from Denver to Frisco


Another one. Look how dense the trees are!


Here we are in Frisco, waiting for a 10 person table outside The Butterhorn Bakery.


This pic just cracks me up. Amol, staring at Annie through a window...


Max's apartment. Lawn chairs as furniture...temporarily. You can see the view outside his apartment.


Max and me, doing what we do best - eating junk food.


Said junk food.


Josh at Red Lobster, drinking a Lobsterita bigger than his head...


Annie at Red Lobster, drinking a Lobsterita bigger than her head...(I actually split this with her tho)


Julia and Reggie, sharing a Lobsterita. See, they're not actually the size of someone's head, it's just a camera trick!!

Weekend in Denver - Part 2

Well, let's see.

Shortly after my last post, Max and I decided to head down the street towards a lovely microbrewery Nick had recommended called Wynkoop's Brewery. The food was very good; unfortunately my fried chicken was a bit cold so I had to send it back. So my luck with Denver food has not been great, but my luck with getting free items has been awesome! For my inconvenience, the manager bought me a beer. I could really get used to this...

Afterwards we headed to a bar called Herb's, where a $5 cover fee gets you a free draught beer. Nice. The place itself was pretty divey and I actually felt a bit like I was back in Grayling at the Red Barn, which made it pretty awesome. The band covered some Janis Joplin songs (can't go wrong there) and in between the sets, the bartender headed to the jukebox and put on some Billy Joel. Um, okay. I love Billy Joel as much as the next girl, but it was a bit strange to hear The Piano Man coming out of the jukebox. The place made for good people watching - I was particularly intrigued by the bouncer with the small head yet enormous body who kept making out with some brunette at the bar.

This morning Nick took us to El Dorado Canyon near Boulder for some hiking. I had warned him beforehand that as I had quit my gym membership several months ago and got out of breath walking up one flight of stairs, I was in no condition to hike but he assured us that it was quite an easy trail. It was truly beautiful and I had a lovely time. I thought I might feel uneasy about running into rodents out in the wild but as it turns out, the place was surprisingly rodent-free. Rodent-free on account of the RATTLESNAKES that live there. There was a park ranger directing traffic away from a rattler who had decided to hang out by the trail and was quite resistant to moving. It was a bit scary, but no where near as scary at the 80 year old woman who was washing her feet in the sink in the bathroom. Yikes.

After our hike, we headed into Boulder for lunch. We were torn between wasting our burnt calories on mojitos and cuban food or beer and burgers, and finally settled on the latter. We each ordered a buffalo burger and a beer at the Boulder Cafe. Now see, you would think that Nick's fancy law degree would help him distinguish between a bottle of Budweiser and a bottle of Heinz ketchup - but it didn't. I had just finished cutting my burger in half when I looked up to find that Nick had doused his burger with beer. Sadly, you can't really send back your burger and get one for free on account of accidentally dousing it with beer...

For dinner, Max took me to a restaurant called Vesta, which specializes in different grilled food with various dipping sauces. Yum. I highly recommend it. Right now, we're watching Zoolander for the umpteenth time and waiting for Nick and his friend Julia to pick us up and head on out to check out some of the Denver bar night life...on a Sunday.

More to come...

Weekend in Denver - Part 3

Have I mentioned what a great time I had in Denver?

After my last post, we went out to a bar that made mojitos with real pieces of sugar cane. Sugar cane is great in a drink, but not so great to actually eat, as I discovered the hard way and had to pick the fibers out of my teeth in the bathroom. I expect to be Metamucil regular for at least a week. Nick's friend Julia was very cool and funny - personally, the girl got immediate props in my book for wearing these really cute high heels even after apparently pulling her calf muscles in an aerobics class that day. Now there's a fellow woman who loves shoes.

Afterwards, Max humored me and listened to me expound on the merits and shortcomings of the Harry Potter movies versus the Harry Potter books. For over an hour. Even though it was like 2:00 a.m. in the morning and he had to go to work early this morning.

And to end my perfect weekend, we went to the Cracker Barrel for lunch today!!! I LOVE CRACKER BARREL!!! It's one of my favorite restaurants, and as there are none in all of California, I try to eat there whenever I do come across one. One time I had a terrible craving for it and Max and I looked up and discovered the nearest CB was in the Phoenix area. We considered getting in the car and driving the six hours right away, but decided not to. Several months later, he planned a surprise weekend trip for us to Phoenix, where we ate there two days in a row. So yeah, I'm not joking when I say I LOVE CRACKER BARREL!!! I going to make a t-shirt that says that.

The flight back was uneventful, except for the three hour layover in Vegas, where I lost an unmentionable amount of money playing video poker. I know, it's terrible. But the thing is, it's really really hard to kill three hours at an airport.

Something did happen to me there that I thought was pretty bizarre. I was walking past a guy pushing his friend in one of those airport wheelchairs when they suddenly stopped me and asked if I would take a picture WITH them. I agreed, thinking that they had asked if I would take a picture OF them, but no, they wanted me to be in a picture WITH the guy in the wheelchair. The other guy would be the one to take the picture.

Now, this was definitely a very strange request. For starters, the guy in the wheelchair did not look like he needed a wheelchair. I'm not saying you need to have stumps to justify using a wheelchair, but this guy didn't even have a cast on. And he looked suspiciously high. Oh and they were both college aged. I asked why they wanted me to pose with the wheelchair guy, and the non-wheelchair guy said oh they had a few pictures left on the disposable camera and that they wanted to finish the roll. Hmm. That didn't make sense to me at all. I vaguely started to wonder if this could lead to some weird sex thing where all of the sudden my head gets photo-shopped on to some naked body on the Internet, holding carry-on luggage in one hand and a bottle of Diet Coke in another (airport porn??? is there a market???), but that seemed ridiculously unlikely, and frankly I was looking pretty gross and couldn't imagine why they'd chose me for that. They could tell I was hesistant, but then the wheelchair guy won me over when he said, "because we're in Vegas." And all of the sudden, I flash backed to the numerous times Julia (LA Julia, not, obviously the Denver Julia mentioned above) and I have been in Vegas and have taken ridiculous pictures of each other - spanking stuffed gorillas in front of toy shops...making lewd gestures behind Vegas showgirls...pretending to be beat up by life-size Star Trek statues and so on. And I caved.

In hindsight I started thinking that maybe they were on a scavenger hunt. Maybe first they had to steal an airport wheelchair. Then they had to find a tired looking Asian girl with limp hair and dirty flipflops to take a picture with.

And then I decided, next time I go to Vegas, I'm definitely planning a scavenger hunt.

Good News

Max left me a message last night on my phone - I guess I missed his call when I was in the shower. Anyway, he said something about having some good news, so when I finally picked up the message, hours later, I immediately called him back.

At first, I thought it must have something to do with his apartment. He's being put up in a really really sweet apartment but it's not the one with the jacuzzi. So maybe they were switching him to another one?

Anyway, I got him on the phone and he's starts telling me, but in typical Max fashion, he's sort speaking slowly and drawing it out..."Yeah....So......(*sigh*)....Um...." and I really wanted to strangle him through the phone but I've learned to be patient because not everyone talks as fast as I do. And then it hit me - I bet his "good news" is something about the Lions. Max would totally call to tell me about how the Lions have picked up some great player or drafted something or another - anyway, something Lions related.

But I was wrong!! He did have legitimate good news!!! Apparently, the show he is working on in Denver will move to Los Angeles in September. There's no chance he'll be relocating to Denver for eight months!!! So if all goes well after this ten week stint, he'll be back in LA working on the show here!!!! Whoo hooo!!!! I can't even get over how happy I am about that!!!!!

Not to say that the Lions picking up a great player isn't "legitimate good news" of course.

Denver Update

It just occured to me that I never posted about the job sitch w/ Max. I assume no one's been holding their breath with anticipation, or gnawing at their cuticles, but for the sake of continuity on my blog, here's a lil update.

So Max has been booked for 8-10 weeks in Denver for a trial run of sorts. He'll be leaving towards the end of July. So...I predict a long boring summer for me. :(

Maybe with all my free time, I'll actually exercise and take Pig out, instead of staying in and watching TV Land and TNT nonstop.

Irony

After spending an entire day yesterday trying to convince some people to leave their family, relocate and take a job in Utah, starting July 18 and ending around May, I came home to discover that Max got called in for an interview for a job in Denver, starting July 18 and ending around May. Which would require him to leave me & Pig and relocate to Colorado.

I hope he gets it and I hope he doesn't. It would be a great job, good pay, good career move and besides his unemployment has run out and he really can't turn it down if he gets it. But it would be in DENVER.

Second ironic thing.

While walking Pig today down the street, I found myself thinking about how AD, who's been stuck doing sidewalk cleaning for community service, has twice found hypodermic needles on X blvd, right down the street from me. In my neighborhood. And I was thinking about how he said that I should just walk Pig later in the day, when the sidewalk cleaners have done their job, if I'm afraid of coming across one. And lo and behold, while I was thinking about how Pig and I would walk down to library in the afternoon instead of the morning and Pig was peeing by a little bush just a few doors down from my apartment, there was an empty syringe right under her nose. No needle, just the plunger part of it. (*shudder*) Luckily she didn't try to pick it up, but even so, I didn't quite feel comfortable until I gave her face a wash down with some astringent cleaner stuf f when we got home. Not that it matters, but it made me feel better.

Am thinking right now about how lovely it'd be to win the lotto. Yes, still thinking about it. And thinking about it. And thinking about it.

Gonna go buy me a ticket later today.

Weekend in Denver - Wilderness Edition - Day 2

I woke up in what felt like 100 degree weather - man, that tent retained heat. I have to say, waking up outdoors is a seriously awesome feeling - I just laid there, listening to the river rushing below us. I felt inspired and alive and briefly fantasized about getting out and doing yoga in the quiet of the mountain, but soon remembered that I only knew 2 yoga positions, and besides, there were fire ants out there. Also, no mat. After a few minutes, I couldn't take the heat or the fact that I had no idea what time it was, and I finally got up.

It was around 9:00 a.m. Nick and Emily were already up and slowly beginning to pack up things. We finally got all our stuff together, and managed to get Nick's truck back onto the main road. Our plan was to head back to the Lodge and grab breakfast, and then go white water rafting. Okay, not really white water rafting, just regular rafting, but there were some Class 1 and Class 2 rapids. I had high hopes of not encountering the inept waitress we had last night - surely she wouldn't do a double shift. Sadly, we found ourself faced with an even more inept hippie trash whore waitress (sporting a scrunchy btw - yuck) who either forgot to place our order...or I don't know what. She seriously emanated Krissy Snow vibes from Three's Company but with a bad temper. After waiting an hour for our food, all it took was one sarcastic comment from Max for her to tell us we could leave. So we did.

Emily had heard of a bbq place not too far away up the river, so we rented two duckies (floatable canoe type things) and drove up to the bbq place, which was right next to where we would start our lazy float down the river. "KK's Barbecue" turned out not to be a restaurant, but rather, a small shanty/shack managed by KK herself - a strange old mountain woman who was probably in her 60's but looked about 80. Clearly, a woman who had never heard of the word sunscreen in her youth and every so often, we'd get an unfortunate flash of super wrinkly cleavage. There was hammock nearby, a couple picnic tables, and some crazy old guy playing the harmonica and guitar. When we first got there she told us she wouldn't be open until noon because she spent the whole night peeling peaches for her homemade palisades peach pie, oh my oh my. Seriously, every time she said the words "peach pie" they were followed by "oh my oh my." In her hair, she sported a scrunchy, two pens, and a flower mini-windmill. In one ear dangled a big daisy and heart earring - in the other ear dangled only a heart earring. Bizarre. More bizarre was her menu, which was pretty limited and had no prices listed. The thing is, the Lodge and KK's were the only two places serving food in the entire area. When she finally "opened" she rang a bunch of cowbells. She had a strict "1 napkin per customer rule" and made fun of me when I asked for a second piece of wax paper (not a napkin, which was what prompted me to ask) for my second rib. My first rib came on a piece of wax paper, and rather than giving me a second rib wrapped in wax paper, she just plopped my second rib on my first eaten rib and I didn't think it was a big deal to ask for another piece of wax paper but it came with a big lecture about "you city folks cutting into my profits..." and something about "back in the day you'd just lick your fingers and wipe em on yer pants" I'm sure she makes a hell of a profit considering the fact that our meal of two ribs, 3 burgers, 2 pieces of pie, 1 corn, and one beer came out to $47. Cash only. Profits my ass - just give me the damn piece of wax paper.

So, after finally eating food some five hours after we woke up, we got into our duckies and headed down the river. Max and I shared one - me in the front, Max in the back. I'd have to say he probably did nearly all of the paddling as I enjoyed our ride down the river. Once in a while, I'd "help out" and sort of haplessly fling my paddle around. The rapids were super fun and exciting, and I did my best to channel Meryl Streep in River Wild while we went through them. Actually, I just held on to my paddle and tried to keep my balance, per Max's suggestion, for every time I tried to paddle in the rapids, we'd get turned sideways and risked tipping over. It was so much fun! At one point, I announced to Max that now I was officially an "Outdoors Girl." No less than a minute later, I let out a shrill scream when a dragon fly landed on my arm.

We finally got back and changed into our dry clothes. I realized it was about 3 p.m. and I hadn't peed all day and finally had to brave a port-a-potty. So so so gross. I don't know how any one can use a port-a-potty without seriously feeling sick. Thank god for Purrell.

Anyway, we parted ways with Emily and Nick and headed back to Denver. We spent Sunday night just resting on the couch. I've always said that Max knows me really well and sometimes it really does scare me. After checking with the channel guide, I asked him, excited, "Hey, guess what's on tv tonight??" and he guessed "Rush Hour." It was Rush Hour 2.

Denver Ski Trip - Day One

Well, I've come to the conclusion that Josh will never post his pics (I'm a wonderfully patient person, aren't I?) so anyway, on with the recaps. You'll just have to imagine some of the places we were at...(this is me asssuming that you're even remotely interested...)

Anyway, including Max and me, we were a 10 person ski party, this weekend. The rest of the cast is as follows:

Julia and Reggie
Courtney and Josh
Amol and Annie
AD and Benjamin (who are not a couple, but just naturally got grouped together as a couple in my head)

So...first off, we left Friday afternoon, St. Patrick's Day. Friday started off a completely asshole of a day, and I encountered all sorts of obstacles in the morning, but luckily, since it's now Wednesday, I can't recall any of them. I think I tripped, and forgot things while I was packing, and couldn't find stuff, but whatever. All I remember is that I had a shitty morning. Finally at around 1:30, I pulled myself together, dropped Pig off with Thode, and headed to the mall. I had some time to kill before I was supposed to meet up with the rest of the group, so I darted, embarassingly, into a FOREVER 21 store to buy some cheapy big sunglasses. And to try on a bunch of tops that were way too small and young looking for me. I know the point of the name of the store is to make me feel like I can dress FOREVER 21, but really, I'm 27 (turning 28 next month), and I just can't pull that shit off any more.

Anyway, I made it to Amol's house by 4:05. The plan was to catch the free shuttle from a nearby hotel to LAX, which should have worked perfectly. Except like all scams (realistically, the hotel shuttle is for hotel guests, not for people who live near the hotel), eventually you get caught, and we got caught on our first try. Since we were still waiting for AD, we had to explain to the shuttle driver that our friend was coming, and since he was coming not from inside the hotel but across the street by Amol's apartment where he had parked his car, the hotel people got hip to the fact that we probably had not stayed at their hotel. The manager came in the shuttle and asked us which room we stayed in and we pretty much all sucked at lying. I opted for just staring at him blankly, hoping to pull of the Foreign Girl Who Doesn't Speak English look. Amol stammered repeatedly "Man, I don't remember, I was SO DRUNK all weekend..." (which made no sense since this was Friday) and finally Josh just said, "Room 263. Right guys?"

Unfortunately, there was no Room 263 in the hotel.

Luckily, the driver and manager were cool enough, and said that we all had to pay $5 for the ride, which was fine. AD finally showed up and graciously paid for everyone's fee, mainly to shut us up since it was all sort of his fault and we were on our way.



Here we are, waiting for AD, minutes before we got caught being Free Hotel Shuttle Scammers.

We made it to the airport with a good hour to spare, so we headed over to the Chili's in the airport. Since it was St. Patrick's day, most of us got margaritas. AD got talked into some fancy margarita that came in a sippy cup and a martini glass.

It was soon time to board and honestly, if I wasn't part of this group, I probably would have hated us. We sat as follows:

Row 15 - Julia and Reggie and some Random Guy who moved to a nearby empty seat once the plane started.

Row 16 - Me, Benjamin, and AD

Row 17 - Josh, Courtney and Amol

And...we were loud. And chatty. And laughing. A lot. You put a bunch of friends together, throw in some margaritas, and silliness ensues. Julia kept leaning back pointing out ridiculous items that you could buy from Sky Mall. Benjamin yelled out something about the meaning of "chortle" being "when you choke on the choad!" and after the plane kept driving around for awhile without taking off, someone started with "Complimentary Drinks! Complimentary Drinks! Complimentary Drinks!"

Normally, flights are fairly uneventful but this one certainly was not. On top of the experience of flying with 7 of my friends, there was also an "incident" that required the plane to drive back to the gate, and for security officers to board and then escort a passenger OFF the plane. Exciting. I actually recognized the guy who got taken off the plane from another flight I took to Denver - he was hardly inconspicious. Greasy chin length air, sunglasses, FULL LENGTH LEATHER JACKET, snake skin boots - the guy reeked of cologne, and small time drug dealer. We speculated that surely he'd been caught with drugs, or was jumping bail, or something illegal. Turns out...he had basically offended a stewardess, and then did not comply with flying regulations.

I found out when she came around with the drink cart. I asked her what had happened, and she leaned super close to me, and said, "He said he had a machine gun." Wow. I guess she wanted him to put his jacket away and he made some smart ass remark about having a gun and then she decided that was that. He had "messed with the wrong girl from Texas."

So "messing with the wrong girl from Texas" caused our flight to be delayed by about 45 minutes. Luckily, Annie's flight (she was coming from Salt Lake City) had also been delayed, so everyone was delayed all together. Annie and Amol got the rental van, and after eating at the Burger King in the airport, we spent about 25 minutes figuring out how to fit our 85 pieces of luggage into Max's Cougar and van, and then we were on our way to Vail. It was around 11:30 p.m. when we left, and we finally got there at about 2:00 a.m., stopping only once to stock up on water, hostess cupcakes, and combos. A very healthy eating weekend.

Max had booked an awesome place for us - a two bedroom, two bathroom condo/apartment. It was adorable and was decorated in a very lodgy/Northern Exposure style, with snow shoes and pictures of Eskimos hanging on the wall. We drew for the sleeping spaces - one bedroom had a double bed, the other had two single beds, and the couch in the living room turned out to be a pull out bed. Julia and Reggie brought aerobeds so we all slept pretty comfortably, except for AD who had to take the floor. Max and I got the one of the single beds and we fit surprisingly well. Either that, or I was too tired to notice.

I think everyone was in bed by around 3:00 a.m., which was good, because we had to get up at around 7:00 a.m. the next morning, to go skiing!

Weekend in Denver - Wilderness Edition - Day 1

I did it!!! I went camping this weekend!! Whoo hoo!! Though I grew up in the midwest, I had somehow managed to never camp in my entire life so this was a super exciting weekend for me.

Max picked me up from the airport at around 11:30 a.m. Saturday morning. He was a really good sport about the fact that he had to wait an extra 25 minutes and drive in circles around the airport, as I was on a mission to find some Purell and had to stop at four different stores in the airport to find some. There was no way I was going to camp out in the wilderness and possibly brave a port-a-potty without at least a bottle of instant anti-bacterial hand sanitizer.

So, with two bottles of Purell and a package of anti-bacterial moist wipes in hand, we set off for the Statebridge Lodge, which is about two hours outside of Denver. Our plan was to catch a concert and camp nearby over night. We met up first with Nick, and then went on to pick up his friend Emily, who actually went to my high school and graduated a year before I did, but who I never knew. She was also really cool and so I'm really glad I got to meet her, nearly 10 years later.

We finally got there and set up camp, after driving around a bit to find a decent spot. Since I'd never been camping before, I had no idea what to expect. I think I was actually kind of surprised that camping really did consist of sleeping in a tent in the middle of nowhere. I suppose I still thought that there'd be restrooms or at least a port-a-potty nearby, but there weren't any by where we were. It was a great camping site - it was very secluded and the Colorado River roared just down below in front of us. Anyway, I did my best to help set up our tent and not freak out about the fire ants crawling around. Once Max showed me how mouse-proof the tent would be, and promised he'd do a mouse check before we turned in for the night, I was happy.

Now, while I'm usually pretty detailed in these posts, I may have to gloss over some incidents - a few things happened and the request, or in some cases, the warning of "This is not to make the blog!" was given so I will now skip over what I privately dubbed "The Firewood Fiasco" which ensued after we set up our tents. All I'll say is that several hours of extra driving and 12 logs of Duraflame later, it was resolved.

So, after the Firewood Fiasco, we headed back into the Lodge, which was really just a small rustic bar/restaurant with an outdoor patio and a small stage. Our waitress was unusually attractive and unusually terrible. It took us nearly forever to get our burgers, but at least they were good. Afterwards, we headed back to camp.

I have to for a moment just note how strangely dark it was outside. Now, I don't even walk to my bathroom in the middle of the night without turning on the lights in my apartment, so it was really bizarre to me walking around in the middle of nowhere, in the pitch darkness. There was no moon and no stars, and except for our two flashlights, it was completely black. I clung on to Max and tried not to think of The Blair Witch Project. After a few bad starts, we managed to get the fire going and life was good again. We drank a few beers, a little whiskey, and butterscotch schnapps.

At around 11 p.m., we decided it was time to catch the main act of the concert - Karl Denson, who notoriously starts rather late. He's a great funky jazz saxophonist/flutist. However, before we started back down the hill to the Lodge, I realized I had to pee. Really really badly. I was all set to risk getting a bladder infection and just hold it but everyone told me I should just go and get it over with. And with no port-a-potty in sight, I had to do the inevitable - pee outside. So, I made Max come with me. Yes. I made my boyfriend stand guard while I peed in the great outdoors. I'm only noting this in the blog because I'd never really done that before. And Max was super nice about it and when my legs were about to give way from squatting for so long (I really really had to go), he told me to hold on to his belt loop for support.

Anyway, this was followed by another strange experience - running downhill in darkness. I'm not sure why we were running - I think we were afraid that we'd miss Karl Denson. Or maybe it was because were were following Nick, who was the only one with a flashlight, who was running. I can't really explain the feeling - here I was, slightly drunk, running downhill in the dark, trying to keep the beer and schnapps from sloshing upwards out of my stomach, trying not to trip, chasing after the jigging/dancing silhouette of Nick, with the only light in all the world coming from the bouncing beam of one small flashlight. It was strangely cinematic, and strangely eerie - I suppose he reminded me of Puck or maybe some mythology character leading me to hell.

But we didn't go to hell, just back to the Lodge, where the warm-up act was just wrapping up. So we danced and had a great time for the next three hours. It was awesome. There were a ton of hippies, some mountain-men looking types, and a lot of just regular campers like us. I was definitely the only Asian person in the whole place (there was about 200-300 people there) and the only other non-white people there were Karl Denson and his band members. Afterwards, we headed back up the hill. Max and I briefly lost Emily and Nick, and when we turned back for them, we found them at an impromptu dance party, dancing next to a car blasting a Janet Jackson song. Funny.

Once we got back to the camp, we started another fire, this time using toilet paper, paper towels and the Lodge menus that we had pocketed as kindling. I fell asleep in my folding chair, and just before I passed out, I saw that Emily had her head down - asleep as well, presumably. I think she may have woken up again, as I have this vague memory of her suddenly up and saying "I HAVE SO MUCH ENERGY NOW." Soon after, she went into her tent and fell asleep, I think.

After using all sorts of disgusting ways of putting out the fire (mainly peeing on it - ewwww) we all went back to bed. Max and I shared a one person tent but luckily it was pretty comfortable. I remember talking to Max about how cool it was to actually sleep on the ground - on Earth - and how I was sleeping the way prehistoric people did (except in a tent, in a newly purchased Eddie Bauer sleeping bag), and Max telling me I was sleeping like the cowboys and Clint Eastwood did...and then I out for the night.

Denver Ski Trip - Day Two

Well, now that the whole Pig Fiasco is behind us, I'm going to continue recapping the Denver trip. Julia has kindly sent me her photos, so I will post them along with my recap. Josh still hasn't, although he did share the photos from our Goth Night this weekend, which I too will post about...

So, I think we were on Day 2.

Between 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., my cell phone alarm, Max's cell phone alarm, and Benjamin's cell phone alarm must have gone off about 5 times. Each. Still, we didn't quite make it out of bed until 7:45 a.m. or so. The three of us were the first ones to get up, but Benjamin soon roused (is that a word) everyone else up with a rendition of Boys to Men's "I'll Make Love to You." That, and just going around shaking every one up.

I was feeling rather groggy from the limited sleep and moved like I was underwater. Which didn't help because I had a lot of getting readying to do. First,I had to brush my teeth and put on make up (Courtney exclaimed "You're wearing make-up to go skiing?" - Um, yes. side note - is that weird? It's not like I was going swimming. Which, even then I do wear make-up...but just a little bit.) And I had A LOT of clothes to put on. First I put on some tights. Then yoga pants over tights. Then the hot pink ski pants over the yoga pants. Then black tank-top, with black v-neck sweater over it. And a new multi-colored scarf my grandma knitted, which matched the ski pants because it had pink in it. A little gross with the matching, I know, but I liked the ensemble. Next came my teletubby purple fleece, and over that, Thode's white/gray winter jacket. I slipped on my sunglasses, donned a purple ski hat and pink gloves. Josh pointed out that I looked like an Olsen twin. Back when they were three years old.

And then I realized I had to pee again, so I had to undo everything and then put everything back on.

We finally made it out the door and headed towards the ski rentals shop. Man, those ski boots are heavy. I felt like I had robot feet - super friggin heavy robot feet. Next, I got skis. Now, I don't know how this ski rental guy knew that I'd suck at skiing, but he took one look at me and gave me the world's shortest skis, explaining that I'd have an easier time with them. They barely came up to my shoulder. I saw a bunch of kids with the same pair. At first, I thought my skis had a name - "Wendy" - but as it turns out, that was merely the name of the last person who rented them. The ski rental guy wiped "Wendy" off the sticker label and replaced it with "SC." Now my skis were named "SC." I preferred "Wendy."

By this time, I was sweating under the ridiculous layers of clothing and it had gotten very warm outside so AD and I hobbled our way over to the next store, and then down the stairs, where we rented a stupid storage bin for $5 to put our shoes and my teletubby fleece in. This was actually a huge pain in the ass b/c it was super hard to walk in my ski boots. I had orignally wanted to get rid of the tights too, but the thought of having to hobble upstairs to the changing room, take off the boots, ski pants, yoga pants, and then the tights, and then putting everything back on was just too awful.

Finally at last we hobbled over to the gondola. I had a terrible time trying to figure out how to hold my skis while walking - I guess the best way is to throw them on your shoulder, but I preferred to hold them in both arms like they were a baby. Or a big bag of groceries. Either way, despite the fact that they were the world's smallest skis, they were heavy enough to be bothersome. And I also had to keep dodging other people's skis which often came rather uncomfortably close to my head, and I had some worries about being sliced open at the neck.

We got to the gondola, which reminded me of the cable car ride at Cedar Pointe. Except the view was beautiful. Here are some pretty landscape shots - and by the way, it was a gorgeous day.







So, I made some uncontrollable roller coaster "whooooaaaa" noises while we went up the gondola. I also realized I was super hungry, having not eaten ANYTHING at all, but unfortunately, the vending machine at the top was broken so basically none of us ate until around 4 p.m. Luckily Courtney was kind enough to share half of her power bar with me, which I in turned shared half of with AD, so basically, I went on 1/4 power bar all day.

Anyway, looking back, I think my skiing problems began right away. When we got to the top, I put on my skis and started to get a feel for them. Unfortunately, I sort of felt my way to this area that had the slightest bit of a downward slope and since I hadn't had a chance to learn how to stop yet, I nearly slid off the mountain. Seriously. You can ask Max - I am not exagerrating - I nearly fell off the mountain within the first 45 seconds of putting on my skis. Max managed to grab me just in time.

Next came the problem of trying to get back up over this tiny downward slope. Going uphill is really really hard. You sort of slide in place over and over again, with the constant threat of just sliding backwards downhill again. You know what makes it even harder? When all of the sudden, sirens go off and a big gigantic Snow Cat (I guess the machine smoothes out the snow - it was huge, bigger than the ice smoother things at a hockey game) starts heading your way. I was smack dab in the middle of its path, and all I could do was just scissor my legs back and forth, like I was Scooby Doo on ice, not moving forward or backward. I screamed naturally, and luckily it didn't hit me, but man, those were some scary seconds there.

I'm not going to recap the rest of the actual skiing experience. I will say that even though I was on the mountain for nearly 6 hours, I actually skied for about 8 minutes. And that's a generous estimate. I fell about 30-40 times (not generous), cried about 3 times, slipped off my skis about 10 times, and walked for about two hours. I nearly hit 4 trees, maybe three rocks, and did in fact one time trip over a snowboarder. I probably elicted more "Are you okay?"s from passerby skiers than anyone else, I screamed going up and down the chair lift (fucking scary shit, I tell you), and I got the attention of an entire group of ski patrol people as I slide on my ass out of control down a hill, being dragged by very own skis, like someone who's fallen off a runaway horse, but whose foot is still caught in the footstraps.

And I am fairly certain that I'm the only person who's ever accidentally skied backwards and crashed into the First Aid cabin.

I will say though, that Max wins the Best Boyfriend Ever award because not only did he stay with me the whole time, but he was completely patient and never was anything but totally nice to me. And, people, I put him through hell. If I were him, I'd have left me on the mountain. Right before I fell each time, I'd drop my poles, so Max spent much of his day sking UPHILL to get them. And carrying my poles while I was walking. He also tried to have me ski with my ski pressed up against the edge of his, which helped a bit, but that unfortunately also caused him to fall....when I dragged him down with me. More than once he had to lay down and help me knock the snow off my boots because I couldn't balance well enough to do it myself, and I basically could never get up after falling without him pulling me up and me trying to climb up him like a disabled child with no arms.

Not only that, but he put up with my proclamations of "I hate skiing!! I've never hated anything so much in my life!" "Skiing is the dumbest sport ever" "What kind of moron does this for fun??!!" "I'd rather get a 12 hour pap smear than this!!"

Others faired much better. Here's a great pic of Benjamin, taken by Amol.



I always figured that even if I didn't enjoy skiing, I'd enjoy having a nice cup of hot cocoa in the lodge. Unfortunately, since it took four of the worst hours of my life to make it to the lodge, the only thing I wanted was a beer.

Here are some pics of our travelling happy couples at the lodge. There aren't any of Max and me, because we were too busy throwing down a couple of beers and burgers, since it was close to 4:00 p.m. by the time we finally got to the lodge, and we hadn't eaten all day.


Amol & Annie


Josh & Courtney

Anyway, after scarfing down some food and taking a look at the map, Max and I both decided there was no way in hell I'd be able to ski/fall/walk/cry myself all the down the mountain, so Max arranged for me to take the chair lift down.


Here's a pic of the chair lift - I know that at this particular angle, going up, it doesn't look scary, but it is going down!

So at the end of the scariest chair lift ride down ever, I met Max, who skied down instead. We dropped off my rentals, and then went to a little restaurant/bar called Mezzaluna to wait for the others. This was probably my favorite part of the day - the "apres ski" according to the menu, and "apres" a couple glasses of wine and some pizza, I decided skiing wasn't so bad after all. :)



Julia and Reggie, who both have bad knees, opted to go fishing instead, but met us up at Mezzaluna as well. Look how cute they are here:



Anyway after Mezzaluna, we all headed back to our lodge/apartment/condo and rested and showered. Max's friend Lo came over and invited us back to his house for pizza and drinks. After that, the group split into two groups - the "Cool Kids" who wanted to go and check out the night life in Vail Village (me, Max, Julia, Reggie, AD, Benjamin), and the "Lame-O's" who needed to crash and sleep (Amol, Annie, Josh and Courtney.)

Here are a few pics of the Cool Kids on the bus to Vail Village.





We headed into a bar, having a few snowball fights on the way. While the streets of Vail Village were quiet, the bars were packed! We danced to some terrible music and got into some minor tiffs with some rude dancers who had no concept of personal space.

Afterwards, the Best Snow Ball Fight Ever broke out. I'm pretty sure Julia started it. Here she is, throwing, if not the first, at least one of many many many snowballs she threw that night.



Total chaos ensued. At first the fight was just amongst the Cool Kids, and there was no mercy to be had on anyone. Alliances were formed and then broken. I nearly got white washed by Max. Suddenly, a few girls joined in, announced their allegiance to Wisconsin, and then it became a fight for the Midwest - Wisconsin vs. Michigan.

After some more snowball throwing, we all made it the bus stop, when it became clear that Wisconsin and Michigan needed to join forces and heeding AD's rally cry, we had to "PROTECT THE BUS STOP!!!!" and hurl as many snowballs to the people trying to join us at the bus stop. That was probably the highlight of my trip. Here we are at the bus stop, getting our commands from Julia.



Most everyone fought back, and one guy even faked an arm injury, limped off, only to reappear on the ROOF of bus stop with a pile of snowballs. He nailed several us before laughing and running away. It was awesome. The bus eventually came and we all headed back to the lodge.

On our way in, we were laughing and giddy, and I will admit, I was the one who suggested it, although I did point out it was maybe a bad idea...but that it would be really funny to throw snowballs at the unsuspecting sleeping Lame-O's. In my defense, well... I don't really have any. The Cool Kids all sparked to the idea immediately, packed snowballs, and giggling, we crept into the lodge in a single file...

And then we AMBUSHED!!

Needless to say, the Lame-O's were pretty pissed. So pissed that by the time I was inside (I was at the end of the line), Courtney was swearing, Amol was up and walking around menancingly, and I chickened out and handed my snow ball to Max. Who had no problem chucking it at a Lame-O.

Max and I went to bed fully expecting to get white washed in our sleep, but nobody seeked revenge. In the morning, we'd learn that biggest victim of our sleep attack was poor Courtney got hit in the face twice.

Back to Work!

Wow, man. Getting up was brutal this morning. I haven't exactly slept in over the holidays (I consider 7:00 a.m. pretty early, even if it's an hour and a half later than when I normally get up) but it was still a nasty jolt. I had taken Nyquil and went to be early last night, hoping that I'd wake up refreshed and healthy, but instead I woke up drowsy and congested. Not good. Somehow the ten feet between my bed and my shower felt like ten miles. I had a terrible nightmare last night where I got fired. Yup, straight up fired. Then I had a dream-within-a-dream where I "woke up" and couldn't tell if I had actually been fired or if it was all a dream. You know, it's a good thing I figured out it was just a dream this morning and actually went to work.

Max comes home tomorrow - at last! Feels like it's been forever, even tho he's only been gone since 12/19. Sometimes I look back on those months he spent in Denver and wonder how I managed not to be totally and hopelessly bored. Or maybe I was. Probably just got used to it over time.

I just finished Atonement by Ian McEwan which I highly recommend. Really great book. As much as I enjoy my murder mysteries, a proper novel from time to time really does me good. I want to see the movie, but doubt that I can persuade Max to go with me, so I will have to ask one of my girlfriends.

Grr. Argh. Why won't my nose stop running? You know, I read online that the average non-sick person produces nearly 3 quarts of mucus a day. Ew. Gross.
And a sickie produces up to 6 quarts of mucus. No wonder I feel sluggish - and fat! That's a lot of extra fluid to be carrying around!

Anyway, as the title of the post suggests - back to work!

"I Wonder What Would Happen If...."

So I was having some soup at the office and decided to share my crackers with Pig, since I couldn't very well share the soup. At first I fed a few to her, and then I gave her an open packet. She very quickly figured out how to pull out only the crackers and leave the wrapper on the floor.

I was so proud.

I knew she could open fortune cookie wrappers, and eat only the cookie, leaving the wrapper and fortune slip behind (usually), so I decided to give her a unopened packet of crackers to see if she could do the same with it.

She started out strong, tearing at it with her teeth. She used her left paw to secure the cracker packet, and then added her right paw, and I really thought she could do it. Then she put the whole packet, wrapper included, into her mouth and started chewing.

Stoopidly, I watched her, thinking that eventually the wrapper would tear. It didn't.

By the time I realized what was about to happen, it was too late. She ate the whole packet, wrapper and all.

My apologies to Thode, who will be taking care of Pig this weekend while I'm in Denver, and who will probably spot the cracker wrapper again...

3 day weekend!!!

I'm off to Denver for a 3 day weekend in a few hours. I can't wait! We were originally supposed to go skiing this weekend, but since the weather forecasters predict a high of about 20 degrees, with snow, we've decided to stay in. Call me a wimp but 20 degrees is just unbearable. The other day, it was about 60 in LA and I was freezing! We've decided instead to go skiing during the third weekend in March, when a few of our friends will be able to join us as well.

This weekend Max and I will be celebrating Valentine's Day and our 5 year anniversary. Can I get a collective "awwww...." please?

Anyway, we've definitely decided to go out for dinner somewhere. Don't know where yet, but Max says he'll do some research. I figure as long as he can drop me off at the door of the restaurant so that I don't have to walk around in the cold, that'll be good. God, I really am such a wimp.

A Moment to Reflect

On Saturday night, at Johnny's Pastrami, a rather drunken friend of mine asked me if I ever felt like I was just wasting my life away. And then today, I checked NannyKate's blog, and she had done this neat thing, so I decided to do it too.

20 years ago I... (1985)
1. was in, crap - what grade was I in? I can't remember how it breaks down. I guess I was in 2nd grade? At a Montessori School? Sweeping rice with a little broom - that was one of my favorite actitivities...weird and oddly foreshadowing, I know.
2. probably made my teacher Miss Rosemary pull out my loose teeth - she was a pro at it
3. got glasses????

10 years ago I... (1995)
1. started senior year in high school
2. was late nearly every morning to AP English - I'd blame it on a train crossing
3. freaked out about college applications (I think...man, I have the worst memory)

5 years ago I... (2000)
1. was working at the same damn company I'm working for now
2. lived with kate - and bought furniture from Ikea with her
3. broke up with my boyfriend from college

3 years ago I... (2002)
1. had been dating Max for a year and a half
2. still lived with kate
3. still worked at the same damn company I'm working for now

1 year ago I... (2004)
1. I threw a lot of bbq/football parties with Max on the weekends at my current apartment
2. went to Hong Kong and Tokyo
3. started my blog

So far this year I... (2005)
1. visited Denver twice
2. went camping for the first time
3. took an evening class at UCLA

Yesterday I...
1. went to work for the same damn company I've been working for, for the past 6 years
2. took a nap with Pig on the couch
3. learned all sorts of nasty things about RV toilets

Today I...
1. slept in and skipped going to the gym this morning
2. made myself a nice breakfast
3. wrote up this post

Tomorrow I will...
1. go to work
2. mail my passport and passport picture to my grandpa, who will be taking it down to the Chinese Consulate so I can get a visa for my upcoming trip to Shanghai
3. go to my pilates class

In the next year I will...
1. find another friggin' job
2. be on a regular exercise routine
3. adopt another dog (maybe)

Incidentally, I had replied "no" to my drunken friend. Not sure what to conclude from this...but now I'm late for work.

Weekend Recap

Well Friday afternoon we had our office pool party. I ended up wearing the bikini, but opted to suck in my gut, and stay in water as much as possible, so I don't think I grossed anyone out too much. The party was fun and relaxing. It was at one of the owner's mansion up on Mulholland Drive. Amazing house. Anyway, there was food, booze, swimming, and a fairly well-known comic book writer came by too. I was in a great mood until I got home and heard from Max that the company he is working for in Denver has offered him more money, in exchange for a six month contract. Man that sucks. We talked about it for a long time, and are going to take the deal for all sorts of good, responsible, mature reasons, but that still didn't keep me from bawling like a baby.

Anyway. Saturday, I seem to recall I spent it playing online poker and watching tv. Oh that's right - I watched another Cheers Season 4 dvds from Netflix. Saturday night I went to Boardwalk 11 for Tony's birthday party. As usual, I didn't sing but Benjamin and I did turn wherever we were standing into a two person dance floor. Yup. Didn't matter that there was actually a dance floor by the stage - the real dance floor was anywhere we were standing. We tried out different moves and Kate even joined us occasionally (turning it into a 3 person dance floor) and did her Molly Ringwald and the Roger Rabbit (I kept trying and failing at both - cringing as I think about this...). After Boardwalk, we over to Johnny's Pastrami, an all night pastrami sandwich place. Yum. I'm getting hungry just thinking about a pastrami.

Sunday I just sat around again. Did some cleaning, some grocery shopping. Ad, Amol and Ben had called me on a conference call, inviting me over to bbq but I wasn't around to pick up the call so it went straight to voicemail. I was highly amused to discover, when I checked my messages, that they had somehow forgotten to hang up, and the entire rest of their conversation was recorded. So I of course listened eagerly, hoping to catch some juicy gossip, but sadly there was none. It was pretty funny though.

Close Call

Whew - just escaped from potential total disaster. I had gone to shut the glass sliding door on my balcony and noticed half of it had slipped off the track and it wasn't really sliding. I stepped outside and tried lifting the door back on to the track. I pulled a bit, and then pulled up a bit, and pushed, and rocked, and this and that until I noticed the door was practically closed - but still only half on the track. Worst of all, it was jammed and I couldn't open it again and I was stuck outside on the balcony. At 10:30 p.m.!! I could see Pig napping blissfully on her bed through the door but she was obviously of no help. The lights were out in the apartments on either side of me, and the nearest building was a whole house away - and their lights were off too. After 15 minutes of frantic pulling, I managed to yank the 300 lb glass door entirely off the track. Which was good, because it meant I could at least get back inside, but bad because now I had no door. And of course, with no door, mice and serial killers would be able to run in during the middle of the night so that was a problem. Even if I could make it through the night, I was still not looking forward to asking the apartment manager to fix the door, as we had a bit of a misunderstading earlier this week and I'd rather avoid him. I tried for another several minutes, to no avail. And then I started worrying that even if I gave up and just propped the glass door somewhere, it could fall down and crash and kill Pig. Finally, just when I was about to burst into big baby tears and call Max and yell at him for being in Denver since putting the sliding door back on track is his job, I managed to fit the glass door back on to the track. And all was good again.