Cacophony

Yesterday was mild and I decided to grab a book and eat lunch outside on the patio. I was joined by what seemed like every bird in the neighborhood. Sparrows, Cardinals, Titmice, Blue Jays, Robins; you name it, they were out there. The chattering was so loud it reminded me of cicadas in August! The male Cardinals were going berserk. I saw two of them spar in the garden for five minutes over a piece of dried pampas grass!


We have two pair of Northern Cardinals in residence on our property. One pair nests in the back yard, and the other in the hedge in the front. They co-exist peaceably for the most part, but in the spring, during mating season, their territorial nature takes over and look out!


There was so much activity I didn't read a single page of my book. I just reveled in bird calls, green shoots, and a breeze that didn't send me scurrying inside. It may still be gray, but it appears spring is coming to my corner of the world after all.

Fucking Computers

"That son of a bitch would freeze up in the middle of summer on the equator!"**

I'm not sure how old the computer in my home office is. I do know that it holds digital pictures from Christmas 2002 to the present. Agendas and meeting minutes as far back as 2002. Investment spreadsheets at least seven years old. Quicken records back to 2001.

It is hooked up to two printers but it won't PRINT. When it acts up the only option is to fucking unplug it from the wall. Which happens twice a day. And did I mention it's a desk top? Attached to the godforsaken wall?

I'm not known for self restraint, but trust me when I tell you this; it is taking every ounce of strength I have not to throw this piece of shit out the window.

**Mr. Parker ,"A Christmas Story"

That could buy a nice pair of shoes

From: The Saint
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 1:11 PM
To: Fannie Mae
Subject: RE:Stinky Breath

Fiona’s Appointment - Next Thursday, April 3rd. Full anesthesia for the dental procedure. No food the morning of the procedure. $225.

From: Fannie Mae
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 1:33 PM
To: The Saint
Subject: RE: Stinky Breath

Holy crap. Don’t they take our insurance?

From: The Saint
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 1:41 PM
To: Fannie Mae
Subject: RE:Stinky Breath

She is a freakin’ dependent, that’s for sure.
They put them to sleep permanently for free……….You’re just thinkin’.

I said enjoy yourself damn it!

Winter Park/Mary Jane.
Ten Skiers.
Five Days.
Ages Nine to Sixty Nine.
All Related.
By Blood.

It turns out that if teenagers have ten days of Spring Break and you make them leave town for seven of them? They get cranky. And if you make them get up at the crack of 7:15 every day because you paid a bunch of money for the by god lift tickets and you want to ski the whole damn day? They drag their feet and grumble. BUT, family is family damn it so you'd better suck it up and enjoy they made the best of it.

As an aside, we really did have a good time. The snow was terrific and Sib #4 joined us for the first time in over ten years. This is the the view from the bottom of Parsenn Bowl at Mary Jane just before you start down the glade trails. The view from the top of the bowl, elevation 12, 060 feet, is breathtaking. (We drive over Berthoud Pass to get there and the elevation at the tip top of the pass is only 11,307 feet.) It's also cold and windy as all get out. Due to the risk of frostbite and hypothermia, I have no pictures from the top.







But I digress, it's really all about the children. We met up with them in the afternoons for a beer glass of wine hot chocolate.









We played Scrabble and Sorry and went to the hot tub to soak aching muscles. The cousins went t-shirt shopping together, can you tell?






They loved this!
(Grandpa hates it if they don't use their poles and TURN!)





If you hold your brother/cousin by his ankles it's easier to read his shirt.









So no, no fun at all. Next year? We might leave them at home.

Home Again

Back.

A long absence to be sure, but the condo had no fucking, un-password protectedwireless service. The only way to get on-line was to haul the laptop up to the rec center. Being the committed asshat bloger that I am, the only time I made it over there was to fill out my NCAA bracket*. (And WTF Duke and Georgetown? Way to screw up the brackets.)

Ten skiers, five full days on the slopes and no major injuries. A full report to follow.

Hope you all had a nice Easter. We went to Mass and then out to brunch with long time family friends. I spent the balance of the day doing eight loads of laundry and fretting over what awaits me at the office.

It turns out you CAN shame your uterus!

Remember when I sort of went on a rant about the betrayal of a certain body part? No? OK, go read this. I'll wait.

Back? Alrighty, I hope you're good a math. Subtract March 12th from January 30th. (What? English majors have mad math skills too, geez.)Do you know what you get? Forty two days! As in six weeks!

That's right, Aunt Flo packed her bags and left. And didn't come back for SIX WEEKS! And she's the kind of bitch who doesn't take a talking to scolding rebuke slap on the wrist lightly. In fact it's conceivable she's a malicious bitch who holds a grudge. So when she went MIA I figured she was out with my uterus plotting revenge.

She did return, (is menopause EVER going to get here?) but shadow of her former self. Meek. Obliging. Respectful. Hurricane Flo has been downgraded to an April Shower.

So, if you'd like me to write to a body part anyone on your behalf, let me know. Evidently when it comes to delivering a threat giving a good dressing down I'm aces.

Photo Friday

My girls are too cute for words people. Me and my stupid, paranoid, don't post pictures of my kids policy be damned! Behold, the Precious Daughters watching the Robotics competition last weekend.

Flown the coop

Inspiration that is. Lots going on, but I can’t seem to formulate a cohesive thought. Still working on the big ass grant due Friday. I will be glad when it is no longer hanging over my head. I’m starting to dream about the damn thing.

We leave for Colorado at O’Dark Hundred on Sunday morning for a ski vacation trip. If you’ve never gone on a ski vacation trip, trust me when I tell you it’s a TRIP not a vacation. It will be the four of us, my parents, Sib #2's three kids, and Sib#4. The logistics are making me feel faint.

I’ve dug out most of the ski stuff. Had to replace a few things. Stupid youngest child still GROWING. Please STOP. I fixed and froze Goulash on Sunday for one of our evening meals. My mother has something prepared and frozen as well. The rest we’ll figure out when we get there.

Precious Oldest was back last weekend for a brief visit. It was the regional Robotics competition. She wanted to see her sister’s team and visit with the folks who were still around from her team last year. I have pictures, just need to get them uploaded.

If you don’t know anything about the F.I.R.S.T. robotics competition, read this. It’s pretty interesting and a lot of fun. I’m proud of my girls (who are readers, writers, speakers) for getting involved in a more math/science thingy that’s a touch out of their comfort zone. Oh, and precious Youngest's alliance took second place, missed going to nationals by FOUR points.

The Saint is leaving town again today. This makes three weeks in a row. It’s only been three nights each trip, but I still don’t like it. Especially when we still have a lot we need to pull together for this trip. And he’s going to miss the blur of Precious Youngest walking across the stage tonight to receive her “Academic Excellence” award. Sheesh.

I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow. My stylist is pregnant and due in June. The first thing I said when I found out was "Congratulations", the second was "But what about my HAIR?". Nice, right?

My, I’ve rambled a bit. Thanks for listening. Sometimes I need to get this stuff out of my head to make room for thinking about the things I need to DO RIGHT NOW.

Shameless

I stole this photo meme, quite blatantly, from Vanessa.

• Find five things around your house that say something about the person you are
  
• and snap a picture of them.
  
• Tell us about them.
  
• Link back to me in your post.
  
• Tag five (if you feel like it) folks via their comments and tell us who you tagged

Let's begin by recalling that I have a "no pictures of family" policy. So my pictures will be of THINGS. And let's also agree that my skills as a photographer are..well..not the best.

I am in awe of artists of all kinds because I couldn't draw, paint, or sculpt to save my life. We've become friends with an artist here in town whose work I enjoy. We own several of his pieces, but this is my favorite:

This is a shot of the bottom shelves of my wine rack. Under pain of death, no one touches those bottles but me. I have these stashed away for special occasions and days when nothing but a really good glass of wine will make you feel better.

Books. Love them. Own some, borrow the rest.

(And there is another bookcase exactly like this on the other side of the window!)

My Tub:



It has soothing jets and is nice and deep.

A soak, a glass of wine, a good book....

And I'm ready for this:

Consider yourself tagged and show us your pictures!

Mother Nature

Remember last weekend when I did a little shopping?

I went to J.Crew, and I bought this.

In this shade of yellow. Don't freak out, I KNOW not everyone looks good in yellow. But I'm telling ya, I DO!

I got this too

Very light and comfy, and I LOVE the color.

How cute is this?

Perfect for Spring!

I thought this was cute

But the Saint said it looked like a bathrobe so I didn't get it.

Do you know when I'll get a chance to wear these? On the fucking TWELFTH OF NEVER! Do you know what it is doing here in Whoville. SNOWING. FUCKING SNOWING. If I didn't have a big ass grant due next week I would go back to bed.

A Quiz

Which of these things caused me to say "Holy Crap" today?

a. Crashing a hard drive on the server

b. Having the UPS die (WTF part of "uninterrupted" is up for interpretation?)

c. Making virtually no forward progress on the big ass grant due March 14th

d. Realizing that we're leaving for our ski vacation trip in less than two weeks and having no idea where all the necessary bullshit equipment and clothing might be

Lazy

It's a Movie Meme! I saw this over at Canned Laughter last week, and it requires no tagging. What could be easier? Let's give it a go shall we?

Here are the meme rules:

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
   
2. Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
   
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
   
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
   
5. GUESSERS: NO GOOGLING/using IMDB search functions. I mean, you can cheat if you want, but is it really that important?
   
6. One movie guess per blogger. Give people a chance to guess before you steal all of the awesome!

1. Madame Queen got this one, from "Stripes" We're all very different people. We're not Watusi, we're not Spartans, we're Americans. With a capital "A", huh? And you know what that means? Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts.
   
   
2. Yay for the Drawer Queen for getting "Fargo" OK, so we got a trooper pulls someone over, we got a shooting, these folks drive by, there's a high-speed pursuit, ends here and then this execution-type deal.
   
   
3. Angela got this one, Waking Ned Divine! Michael O'Sullivan was my great friend. But I don't ever remember telling him that. The words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the man who is dead. What a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral. To sit at the front and hear what was said, maybe say a few things yourself. Michael and I grew old together. But at times, when we laughed, we grew young. If he was here now, if he could hear what I say, I'd congratulate him on being a great man, and thank him for being a friend.
   
   
4. The Hotfessional guessed first, but Daisy got it too, "Bull Durham" Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you'll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob.
   
   
5. Some people find it ironical that although we run a travel agency, we've never been outside of Blaine.
   
   
6. The Queen in for round two, "Sixteen Candles" Games, Jake. Silly torturous games. Sometimes I go a week without lunch because some bitch wants to borrow my lunch money. Any halfway decent girl can rob me blind. Because I'm too twuirked up to say no. It's heinous, I'm telling you.
   
   
7. You fathers will understand. You have a little girl. She looks up to you. You're her oracle. You're her hero. And then the day comes when she gets her first permanent wave and goes to her first real party, and from that day on, you're in a constant state of panic.
   
   
8. Angela in for round two as well, "The World According To Garp" We'll take the house. Honey, the chances of another plane hitting this house are astronomical. It's been pre-disastered. We're going to be safe here.
   
   
9. Shelley guessed correctly, "One flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this.
   
   
10. And New Diva guessed correctly with "Sideways" Listen, man. You're my friend, and I know you care about me. And I know you disapprove, and I respect that. But there are some things that I have to do that you don't understand. You understand literature, movies, wine... but you don't understand my plight.

That's it folks, have an excellent Tuesday!

The weekend, it was nice

As practice makes perfect we had another "empty nest" drill; Precious Youngest went to visit her sister at the Princeton on the Prairie for the weekend. We took full advantage.

The weather here was glorious. Wind that could knock you on your ass, but temperatures in the low 70's. I took great pleasure in opening windows and letting in fresh air for the first time in months.

Some weird spring cleaning fixation must have blown in with the spring air. I started out cleaning the vegetable bin in the refrigerator and ended up cleaning every square inch of the thing. Every tray, drawer and shelf got scrubbed down. There was also the joy of coming across mystery containers and trying to figure out just what the original contents had been. It took all of twenty minutes; making me wonder why I don't do it more often. The fridge hasn't looked this good in years!

I also went through the tottering pile of clippings perched on my recipe box. I pitched about half of them wondering what the fuck I was thinking when I tore this or that particular recipe out of whatever publication I found it in. Seriously, a good dozen fish recipes and I'm the only one in the house who eats fish! And the cake and cookie recipes? I really need to leave Food and Wine alone if I've been drinking.

Speaking of baking, I did. I made some spice bread to take to Precious Oldest when we picked up her sister. See people of the internet? I do have a heart!

Saturday afternoon we went out for lunch and a little shopping. Shopping can be tiring even when it's for me, so when I was done we frittered away a couple of hours over pints of Guinness at our favorite roof top bar. I wish I'd had the camera. Dozens of fellow imbibers, sitting with faces to the sun like lizards on a hot rock.

Of course today we're back to thirty degrees and arctic wind, but it was nice while it lasted.

Let there be SPRING

This has been a long, cold, dreary winter. But, the sun it is shinning. At 51 degrees is feels downright tropical. And look!

Crocus!

Daffodils!

I do believe the end is in sight.