Sunday I’m standing in the shower trying to wash the lack of sleep off my face and I’m trying to map out the plans for the day. Gotta get everything super clean, gotta go to Lunds to get roadtrip snacks and windex and hey may as well get coffee while I’m there since Caribou is giving away a free extra shot because of daylight savings…daylight savings…
SHIT
I completely forgot to set my clocks, I’m in the shower shouting to David to get up, it’s not 8:30am it’s 9:30am, I’ve got an open house at noon, I want to get out by 11am so that the realtor has time to set up and anyway I want to get on the road early.
Blegh, so hardcore, quick running around. My peaceful, long shower that I had intentionally gotten up early for was cut short since I wasn’t up early, I was up late. We got dressed, divided tasks, traded tasks, tried so hard to wake up.
I went to the grocery store for road trip snacks and found myself briefly contemplating then shunning the Doritos. WTF? I bought apples, plums and carrots to snack on. Jesus, what’s wrong with me? This get’s rectified later, also, we already had a bag of chips.
Coffee was purchased, I came back, David was slaving away in the kitchen. We collected things together, I got him in the car and we headed out.
Ghengis is very funny in the car. He loves going for rides because going in the car always means going somewhere fun. Even the vet is fun because he gets good treats and he gets to see other dogs. While we’re on the road going fast he settles down and takes in the scenery but the moment I slow down he’s shivering with excitement, he literally starts whining anxiously as we MUST be getting close to the fun place. The instant I put the car in park he bolts from the back seat to the front seat, climbs in my lap and waits to be let out. This is a problem when you are stopped for a train and decide to put the car in park as it makes for easier waiting.
This also makes getting gas at the gas station in Red Wing a problem. I have a number of little nervous tics and habits. One of the bigger ones is that I chew my lip. With all that’s been going on lately I have been chewing my lip a lot. i’ve chewed a bit of a hole on the right side, it’s swollen, cracked and it looks like someone backhanded me (no one back handed me, no one would survive laying a hand on me for if I didn’t finish them off, my dad surely would). The dog, in his excitement, landed on my lap and as I was trying to put his compact 35 pounds of pure muscle and impulse into the back seat he managed to hook his nail right into the chasm in my lip. Like directly into it. Ow.
I got a call from my realtor letting me know she was on her way to my house. I called her back, perplexed as it was already noon. No, it seems the open house was changed to 2-4. Fine fine, easy enough, we’re already on the road but it would have been nice to have not been so panicked.
I couldn’t remember how to get to Barn Bluff, the big, pretty bluff over Red Wing so we went on as we had another destination in mind for hiking and all that.
We stopped at Frontenac State Park where we did some walking on trails and stood high over the river. I have pictures, they’re not very interesting, mostly the dog and David walking in nature. I got to watch a sea plane take off and a giant barge go by. This time I remembered to bring a water dish for Ghengis. We had a snack, played with the dog some more and took off.
We headed south again, with David navigating and me driving. I love love love driving long road trips. if it weren’t for the trashy meth habit and the weird bowlegged walk you seem to develop I might have considered a career as a long haul truck driver. Except not.
We meandered our way down and around until we got to Whitewater State Park. Here’s where I got all healthy and defied my true fat-girl nature. We hiked up to the top of Chimney Rock Bluff and god dammitall I forgot to bring the camera. That thing is high, way high, not ‘oh i’m fat and i had to climb without an escalator’ high, but for real high. I couldn’t find any good photos showing just how high a climb this was, but these are some good photos taken by someone I don’t know who seems to have gone during a very pretty time of year (my photos, had I taken any, would have been more barren and desolate with the lack of foliage and all). None of the photos show just how high I climbed so you’ll just have to trust me that I climbed a very very high bluff (one composed mostly of sandstone and quartz with no fossils to be found) and I hiked a goodly long way to get to and from it as we parked in the wrong parking lot.
The dog LOVES hiking through the woods (as does David), he’s a muscley strong little trooper who never ever runs out of energy. We met some people at the beginning of the hike and a couple hours later, when we were heading back we saw them again and they noted that Ghengis was not worn out at all. I know, as long as there’s some of stimulation that dog will not get tired. Luckily he passes out the minute he gets in the car. In addition to new and exciting things to smell and explore, the woods offers up an exotic buffet of animal turds for Ghengis to sample. He seems fond of deer turds and decidedly uninterested in owl pellets (not technically turds, but I thought he’d be more interested). I can now identify many major turd groups.
David slows me down (driving, not hiking, I slow him down when we hike), he’s not nearly as impatient as I am, he doesn’t really need me to drive fast. There’s soemthing about that lack of impatience that causes me to slow down as well. I don’t have to urge to drive as fast as possible, even though I love driving fast. We meandered over to Rochester to get some dinner and I wasn’t even worried about getting there quickly.
I’d spent the day doing healthy things and eating healthy snacks and the time had come. We hit the Culvers and I got a double cheeseburger deluxe with everything except onions, fries and an ice cream soda. The universe was demanding balance and who was I to deny this. The dog got about half the meat in the burger and more than half the fries, but still it felt dirty and greasy and decadent.
We ate out dinner in a park as the sun was setting, we watched the kids play and the geese land and we relaxed.
We headed home. The dog was passed out in the back, he barely wanted to lift his head until we got home. Once in, we put things away, settled on the couch and watched ‘Clash of the Titans’. What better way to end the evening than with a half naked Harry Hamlin and a claymation medusa battling it out as I dozed.
I got very little rest this weekend. I’m exhausted and I hurt, but this was a good and happy weekend. One of the best I’d had in a long time.
Category Archives: Doogles
sacrifique el hígado!!!
yeah, so I have this dog and while I do love him dearly he has cost me an incredible amount of money for a thing so small. Obviously, I don’t begrudge him the cost of his care and feeding, these are to be expected and I want him to be healthy and happy so he gets pricey food and goodly dog treats and more toys than most kids. Beyond these things my dog has still managed to squeeze from me an amazing amount of cash. He chews, he chews a lot and he has this incredible knack for finding those things which actually cost a lot. He has expensive tastes, what can I tell you. Along with the two remote controls, the pillows, the sheets, the clothes, the shoes and the carpet (all the carpet had to be replaced, but to be fair the carpet was old and stained up, but he was the impetus for the replacement), he also chewed up 2 pairs of prescription glasses. So fiday night I went in and had the glasses and the prescription sunglasses replaced. Luckily, they were having a buy one get one free deal going on, but still, i’ve spent so much on glasses this past year it’s not even funny. No, it’s not funny, it’s damned expensive.
ah well, I needed new sunglasses for florida and I needed to replace the regular glasses as I’ve been wearing the ‘funky special occasion’ glasses almost exclusively.
So that was my friday night, dragging David to Pearle Vision to pick out glasses. Um woo? The only sad thing was that I could not get the same pair of sunglasses that I had before as they were hugely expensive, so I went similar but cheaper. I loved those glasses.
Saturday David, Alan and I went to OPH for massive amounts of pancakes and coffee and all that. After, the plan was to clean the house and get ready for the Sunday open house but luckily fate stepped in and we got a call for a showing. We frantically cleaned and straightened things out and grabbed the dog and headed out to spend the rest of the day in the sunshine. So much better to be outside than inside cleaning. We headed northwest ostensible to find the Anoka cat colony, but we never really found it. Instead we explored and drove and ran around. We stopped at a park to let the dog run wild for a bit and he LOVED that. Dogs like to play games or romp or fetch, but Ghengis will shun all these for a full bore, hardcore run. That’s what he loves best, just running like mad.
Then I got the biggest Ghengis scare i’ve had since I got him. He ran up to the semi-frozen pond and in an instant was on an ice chunk, before I could react and call him back he decided to go to the next ice chunk by way of the thin (THIN) sheet of ice between. A split second later he’s under the ice, completely submerged. I thought my heart would stop. With a scream on my lips as I’m running he comes bounding out of the water. He wiped his face all over the grass to get the freezy water off, shook himself off a few times, got a snausage from me and went on his merry way.
Then I cried a little, that quiet relieved cry when the surge of adrenaline seeps out and you’re left feeling a little scared and a lot relieved and when you play it all back you realize that the whole thing took less than a minute and yet every detail adds up to almost an hour.
More driving, exploring, chip eating, laughing, and talking. This is really one of my favorite things to do, get in the car and drive all over the place exploring. We took highway 65 back into town, marvelled at all the ethnic diversity in the restaurants and promised to get up there and sample the food. I don’t know what it is about Central avenue, north of the city but there’s just this huge diveristy, all this stuff going on and you never hear about it. The best part is that things aren’t divided in any way. You don’t have the ‘Indian’ block here and then the ‘East African’ next and the ‘Lebanese’ all bundled together away from the ‘Ukranian’ Corner. It’s all mixed together, one after the other.
We got home, David napped with the dog for a bit and I finished reading my book. The lesson I learned is that if more than one person, completely unrelated people who don’t know each other, tells me that I will not like Robert Heinlein, they are probably right. I read ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ and I absolutely hated it. HATED. It was terrible. If I had to read ‘Thou art God” one more time I was going to rip the book to shreds. Go take your ‘fish out of water’ innocence and your superior grokking skills and stuff them up your own butt. I also hated the hippie style religious commune orgy bullshit and the ‘we never rush anywhere, we don’t hurry’. Hated.
I also learned that if a lot of unrelated peoplee keep telling me that I will like something I should try it out even if it seems like something I wouldn’t like. I finally saw Monsters Inc this weekend and loved it. I thought it was terribly cute and a lot of fun. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but so damned cute and fun to watch. Not as good as Lilo and Stitch, but what can you expect?
In my continuing quest to make vegetarian comfort food (mostly I’m just craving comfort food, it’s what i want to eat and since I have a vegetarian to feed, I have to make comfort food that he can eat) I made a mexican version of shepherd’s pie with tvp. It actually turned out really well, I was happy with it, but I should have added some corn to the base, that would have helped. Yum.
Sunday posted in a bit, I don’t want to make the world’s largest post here!
i know…i know
So I’ve been going on and on about the lime popsicles that I will eat in Key West. In my head I was picturing an almost non-stop supply of cool green treats at my disposal.
Suddenly, I couldn’t figure out where I’d gotten this idea from. Did someone tell me about these lime popsicles? did I just assume that the abundance of lime juice and and the heat would drive people to produce lime popsicles? why is there a weird midgety dude walking around outside? Did I dream of lime popsicles and forget they weren’t true?
I consulted with Alex and he confirmed that the lime popsicles did exist. Success!
I also just had to explain to him that the Keys were, in my mind
* Lime Popsicles
* Beach
* Seafood at every meal
* A grizzled old man selling giant avocados from a rolling red cart (or so the picture on the tourist website told me)
I imagine the Keys being some cross between Tybee Island and South Beach. We’ll see what happens.
The Keys are the new Ghengis. I used to write about Ghengis all the time, now I write about my upcoming trip. When I get back I’ll tell you about the trip then get back to Ghengis.
Also, I really am trying to get an episode up before I go. I’m hoping to get the cell phone pictures up before the trip then vacation pictures up after.
A Jar Of Pickles
My boss’ baby was finally born. Beautiful little boy, Rhett William. So very cute. With him on paternity leave I am left in charge, this allows me to sit in his chair, spin wildly and chant “i’m in charge…i’m in charge…” or so he told me in an email.
I’m apparently the go-to girl for travel dining. People are always saying “i’m going to this place…where should I eat”. That’s me, I have the answer (as long as i’ve been there). I do, however, avoid recommending the rat infested restaurant that Mark took me to (grumble grumble grumble…I don’t care how good the food was!). I wish I could remember name of the place on Lincoln in Miami Beach that I had lunch at when I was there. The BEST miso glazed salmon i have ever has. I’ve been trying to emulate the recipe ever since then. My trip to the Keys (oh, did I mention the Keys again…I DID) will also be a culinary tour. A culinary tour taken on scooters!
I’ve been messing up ‘you’re’ and ‘your’ again. It’s not that I don’t know the difference, i’m just typing it wrong.
last Friday I upgraded firefox on my computer at work. It upgraded nicely, pulled all my bookmarks and cookies over. I was happy. This morning i get to work, all of my bookmarks and cookies are gone and it won’t import my bookmarks from the previous version. Weird.
My t-rex tattoo is finally being designed. Hooray! I can’t wait to see the final result. My coworkers rule…
sometimes…they do not rule when they have this long drawn out pissing contest about how to properly install a toilet. I’m so fucking sick of this argument, i’m so fucking sick of telling them to shut the fuck up and go away. I don’t want to hear about it.
damn, I wish I had time to take the dog to the park, it’s such a beautiful day, I’m sure he’d have a great time, but alas, I’ve got dinner with the sister and the semisonic boy. I need to bring a bunch of stuff to dinner (wasabi…rolling mat…dvds…david…) I’m sure I will forget something.
blah blah blah nothing more interesting today.
Happy 500th
Here we are at the 500th post*
HUZZAH
Or something.
On Feb 19, 2001 just before 2pm I made my first and second completely pointless posts. Four years, 500 posts, an average of 125 posts a year. It doesn’t work out exactly as there was a lull in there where I barely posted for months at a time.
Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, shall we?
The infamous Toblerone post, the one that got me my first batch of fan mail from people I did not know. People enjoy Toblerone and they like to read about it too!
I used to write haiku all the time. I don’t so much anymore, I think everyone is okay with that.
Of course, anyone who’s been around since the beginning will remember the ant farm and all of it’s glory! Let’s relive the joy of the ants one more time…
aaaaw yeah
I was always this cranky
I wrote smaller posts more frequently. It was probably healthier that way instead of the less frequent big pushes of today. There were not, however, any more coherent (no…really).
Lengthier posts found me examining the mysteries of the world around me
Surprisingly, there have only ever been 2 "Very Special" Episodes
Episode 1(to be fixed)
Episode 2(also to be fixed)
There are plans for a 3rd episode, I just havent gotten around to it. It will most likely feature pictures from my phone or something equally fascinating.
Too many trips have been documented on here for me to list them all. Suffice to say, I wish I was better at travel blogging since I do travel a lot, but I do document as much as I can.
Oh, um…centipedes.
I think about the things you’re too sober to think about.
I posted a picture of a potato with an odd shape once. It felt like the visual highlight of my year! Until I posted this, or any of the various holiday pictures, dog pictures or upskirts.
In mid 2002 you start to really see a decline in my general happiness and in the number of posts. Nothing specific to link to, really, just more evidence in the “Hindsight is 20/20″game. I was not happy and it shows in little ways that I hadn’t noticed until Ethan pointed it out to me a few months ago.
I have loved and I have lost and I recovered.
After this point there is a definite upswing in the frequency of posting. The halfway point happened less than 1 1/2 years ago. The last year has been dense!
My posts about David were sparse in the beginning, partially because I didn’t want to jinx anything, partially because I like to hold things like this close and quiet to me in the beginning and partially because it wasn’t any of your damned business, anyway! Sometimes, though, I couldn’t resist.
And everything since has been so recent you can see it easily. It’s not exciting, but it’s mine. It’s not me, just one angle of me, for as much as I say, there’s much that I keep to myself.
Happy 500th post to me!
*The post count is off, with the shift from the old to the new a (very) few posts got deleted or combined and also I found a curious few post numbers with no posts, something odd in the db. We’ll keep this at 500.