Dwelling

Siphons, Moves, and Dreams

2009-08-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

My husband is a genius. Seriously. He just seems to know everything you need to know when you need to know it, particularly when it comes to things that one builds or buys or modifies.

Today's example? You know how he built a wood-fired water heater that flowed into a hot tub? Well, we're moving houses (again, more to come on that) and we decided said hot tub will not be coming with us, so we needed to drain the hot tub. All of the valves had been sealed (we used it literally as tub and not a jacuzzi). How would you have drained it?

Tip it over on end? Cut a hole in the bottom? Bucket by bucket? Rig up a pump? Hire a large friend in padded suit to do cannonball after cannonball?

Well, because Steve knows everything you need to know when you need to know it, he created a siphon. Oh you know, he created hydrostatic pressure through a hose which once started allows you to drain a "reservoir" of its liquid contents provided the walls of the reservoir are no higher than 20 feet and the exit point of the hose is lower than the other end of the hose that's in the water. No pump needed. No special tools, destruction, or large friends needed.

What, you didn't know you could do that? Oh right, me neither. Steve's brain is the exact opposite of a siphon; it never drains.

As for moving, yep, we're moving again. Our landlord needed to move back to Denver so he gave us 30 days notice. Being the supremely industrious and efficient people that we are, we had a new rental house lined up within 3 days of that notice. We take possession of it Sept. 1, and then we have 20 days to move into it. We met our current landlord today for the first time (we'd found this house through his agent originally) and he is a very nice guy in a bit of a crisis which we totally understand and thus we take no offense at his need to boot us out.

But.

WE HATE MOVING. WE ARE SO SICK OF IT. I'm sorry for the virtual yelling, but we wanted to stay in this house until we could figure out where to buy and how to pay for it, and then we wanted to buy and never, ever rent again, and probably not move for a long time. Years and years.

The longest I have spent in any one place in the last *SIXTEEN* years is ~1.75 years. Because I went to boarding school for high school (moving back and forth between school and home for 4 years), and then away to college (moving back and forth between college and home for 4 years), and then moved to an extremely expensive city in California, and then moved in with Steve a year later, and then Steve left for Toronto 1.75 years later, and then Steve came back 6 months later and we needed bigger space soon after that, and then I made a career change and we moved to Denver a little over a year after that, I have moved, on average, once a year, every year, for the last *SIXTEEN* YEARS.

Did I mention that I'm sick of it? I did? It bears repeating.

Steve and I were delighted to find each other, delighted to move in together, delighted to figure out careers and get jobs and get into schools and delighted to get married, but short of our first born child nothing, nothing, is going to make us more ecstatic than to finally buy a house, and settle down.

And not move for years and years.

I wish...

2009-05-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

I wish I was an 1/8th of the poet Mary Oliver is. Seriously. Everything she writes is exactly what I wish I could write, and how, and on so many of the same topics.

This post brought to you by the following poem:

Breakage

by Mary Oliver

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Attended a reading last night...

2009-04-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

...by my favorite blogger, who has just published a book. Another fan-girl from school was eager to go too, so we could be fanatical and geeky together.
My favorite blogger's husband posted a picture of the Denver crowd in which you can see Katie and me:

How awesome is that? His fan-girl radar must have been super strong that night.
My favorite blogger's website: http://www.dooce.com
Her husband's website: http://blurbomat.com
The photo in his photostream on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blurb/3422120442/
Much like a concert is a way more amazing experience than listening to a cd, a reading is a way more amazing experience than reading a blog. When the band or the blogger are amazing to begin with, then the amazing is exponential.
Katie, I'm glad we went!!

For the record...

2009-04-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

...I have been to hell and let me inform you that you better get some religion right now.
S and I are currently in Connecticut celebrating the happy occasion of my step-dad's 60th birthday. We were supposed to get into White Plains, NY's airport on Friday at 3:30pm, rent a car, and get to the house in CT at 5pm or so.
We got on our flight in Denver at 7am MDT and got to our connection in Atlanta at 11am EDT with no issue. We get on our flight to White Plains on time at 1:15pm EDT. The flight is uneventful until we get to the airspace above White Plains.
And remain there.
For an hour.
Because there's not enough visibility to land.
Then get diverted to Newark, NJ. And land.
But they won't let us off the plane because the clouds over WP might clear up at any time.
We hear this many many times over the next FOUR hours as we sit there, waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
This would simply be obnoxious if it weren't for the fact that because I'm dehydrated, and by about the time we land in Newark, I'm developing a headache that is about as close to a migraine as you can come and not be a migraine. I'm nauseous. I'm extremely sensitive to smell, light, and sound. My head is pounding.
And we're trapped on an airplane for FOUR hours. They've even turned the stupid air off. We're just sitting there, by the runway, stewing, with the pilot coming on the intercom about once an hour to say "really, it's supposed to clear up any minute."
The *only* thing that gets AirTran to finally go to a gate and give us the option of getting off the plane is the fact that there's a woman with epilepsy in the front row who hasn't eaten over the eight hours since we first set foot on that plane and if this continues, she'll have a seizure. So they taxi to a gate to let her off, and then the mutiny begins. Passengers with New York accents and deep male voices are beginning to yell "HEY LET US OFF THIS PLANE." The crew is beginning to care very little for regulations.
Finally, they let us go. In Newark. About two hours further south than where we're supposed to be. About 5 hours after we were supposed to have arrived.
At this point, I'm not kidding, I'm weeping from pain.
S escorts me to the nearest kiosk where they have a whole beautiful bottle of excedrin migraine and cold, delicious water.
We go to the car rental counter to see if we can transfer our reservations, get a car and go. But the Hertz at Newark won't let us transfer our reservation because we have to return the car to Newark; we can't return it anywhere else.
So we go to the only car rental company that will allow us to do this, Avis, and the line is 20 people deep.
That's when I call my step-dad and step-brother who are at the new Yankee stadium for the first game. They agree to come pick us up when they're done. Fortunately for us, they've put the second string in by then so the exhibition game is much less exciting, and they kindly decide to leave early.
An hour after I've taken the headache medicine and we've finally gotten to eat a meal at McDonald's, which is the only thing open at that hour, my migraine-in-training finally, blessedly, subsides. We stand out on the curb in the fresh air and await my step-family and rehash our experience over and over, pointing out silver linings (at least it wasn't our first flight that got diverted, otherwise we'd be nowhere near home; at least the 12 year old girl who was flying alone started crying before I did) and terrible decisions (or lack there of, like the one they should have made hours and hours earlier to get us on a bus to White Plains, which is what they were threatening to do when we finally left them on the plane, or the decision we made to use AirTran and fly to WP when we could have used any other airline and flown to Bradley, which was fine).
Remember how we were going to get in at 5pm after a 2 hour flight and a one hour drive? We got in at 1am, after a four hour flight, four more hours on the plane, an hour or so of waiting at the airport, and a 2.5 hour drive.
Here's the beautiful view of Newark from the plane:

Gorgeous, no?
If a migraine on a plane that's sitting by a runway in Newark not moving and full of angry New Yorkers and crying 12 and 29 year olds doesn't qualify as hell, then I'm going to say that Dante unknowingly took a detour and missed a circle.
It was that bad.
However, I've learned that when the chips are down, my husband can invoke the patience of a Saint. When my headache cleared there was much venom and frothing to be shared, but when I was a wreck and we were in the thick of misery, he was an angel.
Steve for the win.

Man's Best Road Companion

2009-03-24T12:28:00.001-07:00

Spotted outside the breakfast joint we hit up earlier this week:

In case you can't make it out, he was tied in with a leash. My guess is he loves the feel of the wind in his curly canine hair...

Someone screwed up but good

2009-03-24T12:22:00.001-07:00

Spotted on the walk from the pool hall to the Mexican restaurant we went to afterward for dinner:

Not even advertising agents pitching their wares in huge font written on glass can seem to escape the it's/its trap. Nonetheless I ate my enchiladas with a heaping side of utter disdain. Tsk tsk...
(By the way "LoDo" is short for Lower Downtown.)

Almost a year to the day

2009-03-24T12:09:00.000-07:00

Almost a year to the day that we first set foot in Wynkoop in Denver, we went back to the pool hall/brewery/comedy club (yeah, they have a good thing going) to celebrate another quarter of straight A's. I checked my phone's photos from last year and they were dated 3/20/08; we went this year on 3/23/09. That was probably the last time we played pool too. Steve and I split 2-2 (but admittedly only because he scratched on the 8 ball in the last game) but we were both quite aware of how rusty we were. Also the tables are utterly felt-less and thus totally fast, as we've become used to from pool halls. I can't imagine what it's like to play on a properly felted table any more!
I did indeed try chile flavored beer as you can see from the post below, and it was delicious. If you don't believe me, here's the blurb from the Wynkoop website: "Patty's Chile Beer: A light German-style beer made with Anaheim chiles and smoked Ancho peppers. A 2006 Great American Beer Festival Bronze Medal Winner in the Fruit and Vegetable Beer category and a Wynkoop specialty." You hear that? It won a medal. So there! It warms the belly and bites the tongue just a touch more than regular beer.
My first classes of the last quarter are on Thursday...10 more weeks and 4 more chances to rock the grades, and then summer...

2009-03-23T15:13:00.001-07:00

Chile flavored beer is good - who knew?!

Oh, that smell...

2009-03-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

Murphy's oil (for cleaning hardwood floors) smells exactly like saddle soap. The moment we opened the bottle I was shot back to days in the tack room learning how to take apart, polish, and reassemble saddles. Oh...yum.
I mopped today. I can't think of the last time I mopped...probably one of my apartments in SF, but who knows. So because I didn't have any strong mopping memories and the smell of the Murphy's Oil was ever-present, I remembered my days of sweeping the corridor in the stables, my riding boots clomping and stomping behind the broom's bristle, horses whickering and watching me with relaxed amusement.
I might just mop again soon for the sheer nostalgia it brought on.

Happy "Luck O' Th 'Irish T' You" Day

2009-03-17T13:07:00.001-07:00

Right now on our stove a pot of corned beef is merrily boiling away. Parents of mine reading this will recognize the extraordinariness of this admission -- as a wee one, I loathed corned beef. I continued to loathe it, even after trying it again in my adulthood, until a year or two ago when that husband of mine decided he was going to make it himself to show me its delicious potential.
He was right. (I hate it when that happens. At least he was deliciously right!)
Why, oh why, is corned beef so often dry, salty, chewy and generally icky? S showed me it can be moist and even slightly sweet. I love his version of it. Throw in some cabbage and potatoes and I'm in hog heaven. Which is what we have planned for dinner tonight. I can't wait!
Lest we stray from the ethnic fare today, S. also cooked up some carne asada from flank steak this morning. It smelled so good I sat down with a fork and ate it plain, sans accoutrement. Oh the warm spicy happiness in my belly.
Now if only we were as creative and consistent about exercise as we are about cooking...
Cooking opportunity aside, today marks another very important event: the 7 year anniversary of one mom and one recently-upgraded-to-step-dad, or "3D" as Fred deemed him.

A long, long time ago in a Fish House far far away, two souls were blessed by the Luck o' th'Irish and have been divesting each other of creme brulee ever since.
Happy Anniversary Mom & Sabatini!!

2009-03-05T21:43:00.001-08:00

Along with spring comes spider season. Let the squealing commence...

2009-02-23T10:30:00.001-08:00

Two more things:
1) I just discovered google reader. I am never going to get any work done!
2): I've learned how to post using my cell phone, so expect some one line posts...but they should be more frequent. Maybe. I just tried it and I can only send it one text length at a time, so we'll have to see if I can fit my thoughts into such a small box! (Might make for a blog full of haikus.)

2009-02-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

Since it's February and I haven't posted since December, let me say: Happy New Year!
I did my taxes early again this year. Taxes, for whatever reason, make me reflect more on the previous year than does the actual turn of the new year; maybe because they're tangible evidence of how the last year went. This year's tangible evidence: one federal tax return, two state tax returns, and a pretty decently sized refund all around, since both the Feds and California taxed me with a view toward a whole year of income, when in fact I had half a year of income. In fact, this is the first time in at least a couple years where California owes me. This will be the first year in four or so where I really really need the refund, so 'tis better for California to give than receive, much as I sympathize with their budget crisis. (S is dubious that I'll get my refund at all...I can't see how they could get away with that.)
That last statement -- "I sympathize with their budget crisis" -- is truly not hollow. Staring down the precipice of a job in social work, I see that much more clearly how essential state money is to the survival and well being of its constituents. So many of the Federal government's programs for funding to states are matching funds -- so the state has to be able to pony up money to get the benefit of Federal help. Given its Libertarian roots, Colorado in particular has all kinds of binding restrictions on taxes and budget surpluses, meaning that in times like these Colorado has its hands full -- well actually, empty -- trying to find a way to cover the predicted losses without cutting the budget into confetti.
Maybe it's just growing up, but I sometimes wonder how I got by for so long with my head in the sand about stuff like this. It feels much better to know about state budgets, poverty, oppression, policy, etc. and be mildly overwhelmed and sad than to be sitting at a desk job (albeit at a great organization, but still) having sent my inner Jiminy Cricket on sabbatical. Ignorance is not bliss; right now I'd say contribution is. I'll be spending my 2009 figuring out just how I plan to contribute my time and energy, and Jiminy Cricket will be right here beside me.

Doggy-back ride

2008-12-15T08:20:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is just that cold. We took our dog and the neighbor's for a long walk to the university library so I could drop off my books from finals, and then walked all the way back. Took us about 2 hours and by the final third of the trip, the neighbor's dog was over it. Poor pup kept getting ice stuck in between her toes, causing her to limp, and when we went to clear her feet for the third or fourth time, she lay down and looked at us with eyes that begged, "ARE WE THERE YET?"
We weren't, but fortunately S has a sturdy set of shoulders, so Kali got the Steve's eye view of most of the walk home. It is a testament to how miserable Kali was that she only struggled a couple times against being carried like a little lamb. Tika had her momentary ice-limps as well, but being the half-husky she is, shrugged it off and forged ahead. If we'd had a sled, she probably would have towed us all the way home.
I went home with the realization that I need to invest in long underwear. Turns out it was about 10 degrees out during the whole walk, and any part of me that had more than one layer was fine. My thighs thus took about an hour to thaw out completely, and last night I noticed a slight rash on my cheeks from the cold.
S is the only one of our little snow posse who proved not to be a delicate flower -- on the outside at least.
A couple hours after I snapped this camera-phone photo, all four of us were fast asleep. That was some walk.
(*~ _ ~*)

Hope is the thing with whiskers...

2008-11-24T08:58:00.001-08:00

An entire childhood of hope has been vindicated at long last, at the tender age of 29, in the most unexpected way.
Last Tuesday evening S hollered "the dogs have something!"as he ran from the house. Turns out Tika and her "BFF" (our neighbor's dog, Cali) had decided to be cats for the night and caught themselves a field mouse. I pinned the dogs as S, with gloved hands, pulled the drool-covered little guy from certain death. Its whiskers were twitching and its chest was heaving, with no visible puncture wounds.
How many times have I picked up a bird, a mouse, a vole, its chest heaving, with no visible punctures wounds, and stood there with it on the very edge of death, wondering if this time, this one time, it would pull back?
Too many times to count. And every time it was game over. Even if the physical injuries were nonexistent, the shock was always too much. The next morning I'd find a stiff carcass where a freaked out little rodent used to be. I know why the caged bird doesn't sing -- because it's dead by morning.
Despite the impregnable evidence to the contrary, S and I did the unthinkable and decided to build an out-patient mousie hospital. I found a shoebox. Lined it with paper towel. Bundled up some kleenex for nesting type materials. Put in a bottle lid with water and a tiny pile of bird seed. And we placed the mouse inside -- still paralyzed, still heaving its chest, not moving a voluntary muscle -- partially under the kleenex, crossed our fingers, and closed the box for the night.
A couple hours later, no noise from the box.
A couple hours after that, we head to bed. S says he thinks he hears scratching.
The next morning, I tiptoe to the laundry room, ready to accept defeat. I tilt the lid back...
...and there is the mouse, not so much dead as confused, rising to his hind legs, whiskers ablaze with alarm and curiosity, looking at me as if to say, "WHO THE HECK ARE YOU AND WHERE AM I??"
Later that day S would text me to say he'd set it free in the woodpile and it left with all the joyous panic of a survivor to points unknown. The mouse and I would share a rare moment of symmetry; just as he described it LEAPING from the box like it was shot from a gun, that morning I put the lid back down before the thing escaped and LEAPED across the house to my still sleeping husband to greet him with the rooster crow: "IT LIVED!! IT LIVED! IT LI-II-III-IIVED!!"

Denver

2008-10-11T17:27:00.001-07:00

So many little things to note about Denver that I think of in the moment and then forget to write down, and can't think of when I sit down in front of my blog.

But why not try anyway? Here, some miscellanea:

1) It is supposed to snow tonight. In October. Wha'???

2) Having a real fall again is AWESOME to behold. We have two huge maple trees in our front yard that are just barely starting to change -- I can't wait. And it's brisk and cold now too. I baked chocolate chip cookies today, and warm chocolate chip cookies on a cold fall day may just be the exact composition of Heaven.

3) Fermenting crab apples (almost wrote that crap abbles, lol), such as those that have fallen off the tree in our backyard, smell delicious. Don't worry, I have not tried to fashion a drink out of them. They sell pumpkin beer here that does the trick. I just like the smell.

4) We are truly a swing state. I have never seen such a diversity of political lawn poster endorsements in my life. Our block alone is evenly divided.

5) Denver's large interstates are designed such that you have to constantly keep merging left; all right lanes become exit only lanes. It's annoying but perhaps it's meant to keep you vigilant?

6) The curbs in our neighborhood are slanted such that if you ride your bike parallel to them and steer ever so slightly on to them, you can glide right up them.

7) S and I are totally acclimated, which makes me think that we are going to drink our cousins and my brother under the table this Christmas. Not that we don't anyway. And not that drinking competitions should be endorsed. Still, the thought is personally satisfying. Altitude adaptation for the win!

8) The difference between morning and afternoon here is often 30 degrees or more. Riding my bike to school, I can get near-frostbite on my fingers at 7am and be sweating in my t-shirt by 3pm.

9) The food in this city is strangely bland. Seriously. You have to work to find real flavor here. This phenomenon is very distinct from San Francisco, where everything was seasoned, a lot, and brilliantly.

10) Our neighbors are the most neighborly neighbors we've known, with the last apartment building we were in being a close second, and that's only because we hang out and drink beers with our neighbors here all the time.

To be continued!

Marriage...!

2008-06-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

What length we lacked in warning people we made up for in explaining...

What volume we lacked in planning we made up for in exuberance...

And what procrastination we truncated by way of City Hall, we'll certainly make up for at the Wedding Celebration still to be planned!

Oh My Grand

2008-04-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

S and I went out to lunch today. I had a mild throat spasm, so I got up to go to the bathroom (sometimes just walking it off helps). In the bathroom was a young woman and the restaurant hostess. As I walk into a stall, I hear the young woman say, "are you okay?" Then a lot of thudding. (At first I thought the hostess was upset about something and crying and slamming on the soap dispenser.) Then the woman says, "excuse me, EXCUSE ME" and I realize she's calling out to me. I come out of the stall and the hostess is in a full grand mal seizure: flat on her back on the bathroom floor, arms, legs, head flailing, eyes bloodshot, mouth open; her feet had kicked through the plaster in the wall.
I recall what my Mom has told me about seizures and immediately stabilize her head while the other woman runs to get help. I talk to her and tell her she's okay. (I know that during a seizure people black out but I figure anything soothing I can do can't hurt.) The manager, a woman, comes back with her and immediately puts us at ease -- I would not be surprised if she had RN training. The first woman wets a paper towel with cold water and kneels on her left, gently wiping the hostess's forehead. I'm kneeling at her head, keeping my hands on either side of her head and gently stroking her temples with my thumbs. The manager is to her right, talking to her. The seizure is easing -- she's gaping like a fish, and jittering, but not flailing any more. The manager keeps in good humor and rubs her sternum and tells her to breathe, and tells us there will be maybe another minute of this. The manager is watching the two of us to be sure we're not flipping and when I look over at her, she says, "Women are great, aren't they??" with pride and kindness in her eyes. (Definitely.) I ask the manager what kind of seizure this is and she says epileptic. Finally, the hostess' body and face goes slack, she takes her first full breath, and then her eyes start to track the manager's, who continues to talk to her, often in a playful manner ("you're looking at me now, aren't you hon?"). The manager is very good at relieving everyone's tension.
When I feel the hostess's head is safe, I hold her hand and squeeze it every now and then. The first words out of her mouth, heart-breakingly, are a slow, thick, "I'm...sorry..." to which all three of us are immediately like, "don't be silly, honey!!" Then, "water?" The manager goes to get her some and the woman and I help her slide a little away from the door so a few women who had tried to come in can finally enter. We reassure them that she's okay, and she is. The manager comes back with water, and the woman and I help her sit up, and the manager kneels behind her so she can lean back against her and helps her stabilize the glass -- the hostess' hands are still shaking. (The manager tells her it's okay to lean back and says, "don't worry, I'm wearing non-skid shoes.") At this point the manager says we can return to lunch, it's under control, and she says she's going to comp our lunches, to which of course both the woman and I say, "not at all."
I return to S., poor guy, who's seen women running to and from the bathroom and is starting to worry that I choked. He's relieved to see me. I tell him what happened and a few minutes later the manager and a waitress walk the hostess over to a booth and sit her down. She still looks a little lost -- a little like she's moving underwater -- but otherwise she's fine. I want to run over to her and verify that she's fine and soothe her and also ask her a million questions about her condition, but I decide to respect her privacy instead. It's her place of work and we eat there a lot, and I don't want to embarass her. The manager comes over again to thank me, and of course ends up comping our meal anyway.
Afterwards, I shake and tremble from the adrenalin rush as my muscles slowly release their tension, and for the next few minutes eat like I just fought all of Sparta. My throat spasm disappeared instantaneously the moment that woman called for my help, and is all but forgotten as my body's fight or flight response makes way for its renew-lost-energy response.
I suppose it may seem sentimental but my emotional response in the moment and in the aftermath was gratitude. As frightening as the seizure appeared, I knew she'd be okay, and I felt strangely grateful that I got to understand something I'd never witnessed before. I recall hearing about certain cultures where epileptic fits are taken as shamanism, and I wonder what she saw and felt when she was gone from 'this' world. In the meantime I took my instantaneously appointed role as her guardian as a welcomed education in the human body, compassion, and my own ability to stay calm and focused when chaos drops in on lunch.

Our New Tenant and His Attempts At Redecoration

2008-04-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

To get the full story, go here!

Denver

2008-03-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, S and I took a long weekend and visited Denver to help aid me in making my MSW decision. My preconceived notions about Denver -- mountain town, ski town, athletic town -- were all proved quite wrong.

1) Mountain Town: False. Aside from the fact that 'town' is an obvious misnomer, seeing as it's a city, this concept was proved false because Denver squats on the very last vestiges of the plains that stretch through Nebraska and Kansas. Denver is flat. Denver has gorgeous mountains off in the background. That's about it. Denver also has the flavor of a central/midwest state in that it has more strip malls and housing developments than I thought could possibly be packed into one city. There were at least four Walmart complexes in ONE city, not to mention the Target complexes, the J.C. Penny complexes, the outlet malls, and fast food after fast food after fast food chain. (If I had spotted one Dunkin' Donuts, maybe I would have forgiven Denver. But I didn't. It seems they couldn't spare the extra McDonalds and definitely needed two Long John Silvers.) San Francisco in all its high-and-mightiness tends to eschew major chain stores within city limits: we have our Walgreens and our McDonalds but they are far, far outnumbered by privately owned pharmacies and food places, not to mention all the independent clothing and furniture and art and knick knack shops. Denver was perhaps the complete antithesis, almost as though Denver eschews indepedence. It made me want to start a website listing independent stores in Denver so that if one wants to find them, one can. (Maybe I will!)

To help you understand just how much of Denver is made of "new homes" -- town houses, condos, and McMansions, all painted dull colors to blend in and avoid being even more of an eye sore, I have created this handy jpeg showing just exactly where there are "normal" brick and wood houses in the Denver area:

Seriously, that's it. Not kidding. In the South East corner on the road back up towards Parker there are a bunch of horse ranches. And in Boulder there are some more houses. Otherwise, that tiny little circle in the middle and the one in Englewood is about all we spotted. Fortunately, Englewood is where University of Denver is located, so we might actually get to live in a real house.

2) Ski Town: Inconclusive. I had half expected a Jackson Hole, Wyoming type place, but as reported above, Denver is a plains city. I'm sure the occupants love to ski. There is a train that takes you directly from Denver to the ski resorts. There is lots of skiing to be had within mere hours. But it's not a ski-town per se. It is, after all, a city, and can't cultivate that much cute and yuppie with so many other things to do. Also, I don't ski, so one might question why I care. It's not so much the skiing as it is that ski environments are often rustic and full of great food and cozy scenes, all of which I like. And I do cross country ski -- perhaps I can take that up as a hobby again.

3) Athletic Town: Inconclusive. I am used to California where the equation is something like: (warm + sunny) / most of the time = less clothing + higher levels of vanity = fitter bodies. Denver suffers no such mathematics. But it was March and still somewhat cold so perhaps the athletes were hidden under layers of wool or in the gyms getting ready for hiking season.

This post undoubtedly comes across as negative, as it is conveying my disappointment in Denver, which I foolishly thought I could compare to San Francisco. (I certainly have a whole new appreciation for San Francisco now!) There is one caveat to my experience there, and many things that I like:

Caveat: I caught a head cold the day before I left and was sick the whole time. It wasn't a full body cold, at least, but I did have to spend much of my time in Denver "toughing it out," and so I associate the city with a mild sense of post-nasal nausea.

Things I liked: The zoo. Always love a good zoo. You may recall that on my road trip out to San Francisco, I stopped at the Denver Zoo. Steve and I went again on Saturday. This time we got there around 2pm and it was overcast. Many of the animals were asleep, but many more were inside and restless to eat as the day wore on. The lions in particular were spectacular. One male and three females were in a small pen with a large glass wall and they were hungry. We were treated to lots of small spats and the male lion suddenly deciding to majestically, loudly, well, whine! Think of the ordinary housecat making those repetitive whiney meow noises when they want to be let inside or they're hungry, and then deepen the tone quite a lot and make the melody of it a lot rougher, and boom, that's what we heard. ROOOWW! ROOOWW! ROOOWW! We also walked past the giraffes, which had two babies stirring up each other and the elders, and they have the most eye-boggling run. Because their limbs are so long they appear to be running in slow motion even as they're running at a speed faster than a human can match. It hurts one's brain to watch. Very cool. We saw a lot of beautiful birds in their indoor atriums as well.

We also enjoyed the Wynkoop Brewery, which we found on the first night. The top floor was a pool hall with darts and shuffleboard; the middle floor was a restaurant and bar; and the bottom floor housed an improv comedy troupe and bands. We, of course, hit up the pool hall. It was the only place I took pictures (on my cell phone -- I just kind of forgot to after that):

Steve and I played horrible pool and ended up having a better time playing darts. We have a dartboard at our apartment so both of us got some practice in, and I actually beat him the first round, after which he beat me, after which I think he beat me again, but I can't remember. It was quite close each time. The beer there was quite yummy and the food was solid.

Lastly, Saturday evening after the zoo, we finally found a cute little neighborhood that reminded us of San Francisco: Highland Square. There were real houses there! And independent shops! It reminded us of Cole Valley, in that it was basically a neighborhood centered around one intersection that had shops and restaurants. We found the 8 Rivers Cafe there by chance and I was treated to my first great Caribbean food since Wesleyan. Steve and I both got Jerk Chicken dishes, mine with the traditional rice and plantains, his over pasta. The slow burn commenced, and we were treated to a quiet and reserved snow fall while we ate.

Other things I liked: the view of the mountains was beautiful, and merits exploration time that we could not carve out in one weekend. The vast emptiness of the plains and the blueness of the sky at that altitude made me want to write. Costs are generally cheaper out there, especially things like housing and gas. And the weather is so dry that the environment feels more tolerable. Steve and I stepped out of the airport on the first day and laughed because we were comfortable in t-shirts in 50 degree weather -- no wind and humidity to creep under our clothes and our skin. Our hair and towels dried quickly. And it was, as promised, quite sunny. The horse ranches in close proximity hold the promise of me getting to ride again for the first time in years. The University of Denver has picturesque brick buildings, and holds the promise of a career waiting to be learned.

Initial shock now over -- I think we can make it work. News to follow as it comes!

a big update of small things

2008-02-25T12:30:00.000-08:00

1) I got into University of Denver's Masters in Social Work program. They have a program for animal-assisted therapy that inspired me to apply. It's looking likely that in September I'll be going to school for the first time in 6 years, and finally pointing myself down a career path!

2) S. and I talk about some day opening up a bed and breakfast; little did we know we already have. We've become quite the rest stop for the birds in our neighborhood, many of whom troll our fabulous finch seed diner, and some of whom even sleep for the night on our carpeted porch -- mourning doves in particular seem to like our cozy housing. Our most recents guests have extended their stay -- I guess Oregon Juncos found it a pleasant winter stomping ground, perhaps recommended to them by the house finches who are our daily customers. We also are familiar enough with the birds to notice that we now have white-capped sparrows as well as regular house sparrows partaking of our sumptuous buffet. The scrub jays and humming birds seem to have taken the winter off for now, but we're hoping to see them back when the spring weather rolls in.

3) My hair is the longest it's been probably since Freshman year of high school -- that would be in 15 years! I'm getting cut and colored tomorrow though, as it's fallen into the trap of being so heavy as to lose all body. I don't think I'll go too short -- I'm enjoying the length.

4) How to tell the weather in Oakland if you were somehow unable to see, hear or feel it: the kinder the compliment, the nicer the weather; the more direct the request for money, the worse the weather. On sunny days, especially the first one after a long spell of cold, fog, or rain, I get told I'm beautiful, a supermodel, and I've made someone's day. On lackluster but not particularly ugly days, I'm always asked to smile. And on gross days, everyone cuts to the chase: spare some change?

5) I'm coaching a volleyball team of 13-14 year olds; I'm loving every minute of it. The organization is called the starlings, and I've enjoyed titillating and horrifying the girls with stories of how starlings were brought to the U.S. because they were mentioned in Shakespeare, but now they've become a veritable plague. Of course, I try to spin this as a good thing -- we can be a plague on the court! We'll be a bad disease our opponents can't shake! We'll devour points the way starlings steal resources!
No, it's not really working. But it's still fun to say. :)

6) Buckets. Buckets are the bane of corporate lingo right now. Every time finances come up here, it's bucket this, bucket that. It makes me want to put a bucket on my head and bang it with a wooden spoon until I go deaf. Just saying.

Corp Speak Alert, edition 2

2007-09-13T10:09:00.001-07:00

Come, let's journey down Corporate Etymology Way again. Lately I've been hearing:

Machine: an organization's structure and processes, writ large. E.g.: "We need to fix our machine if we want to get this done."

Siloes: over-specialization among departments. Indicates a need for better communication and even overlaps among departments. E.g.: "Let's tell everyone about the change in this department; we don't want siloes about something so important." Note: this one is so well built into our lexicon where I work that it only just occured to me to think it strange and share it.

Fred has an East Cost update:

Flow-Down: a report communicating decisions from upper-mgt to the rest of the team. E.g.: "Today's flow-down includes the following..."

My final word is a little bit separate from the others because I know its source exactly and there's only one manager here who really abuses it (and I adore her, so this has no bearing on who she is).
Arranger: from the book Now Build Your Strengths, it is defined thusly: "People strong in the Arranger theme can organize, but they also have a flexibility that complements this ability. They like to figure out how all of the pieces and resources can be arranged for maximum productivity." The manager who learned this as one of her 5 strengths has been running with it ever since - now everything is a product of her Arranger strength, from coming up with creative ideas, her interest in staff perks, or just pulling a meeting together, and if you do the same, then you must be an Arranger too! I particularly like this one, though, because I keep hearing it as "A Ranger," and I think of her tromping through the woods in a Park Ranger outfit, helping the trees to organize their leaves and giving the woodland creatures assignments and words of encouragement...

Old building, new building

2007-09-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

About 3 weeks ago, we packed up our old office and moved into a new one 6 blocks away. I have never been a part of this kind of shift before, and so there are lots of small culture shocks I have to get used to.
Today, for example, when I got in the elevator, every single button for every floor was pressed. Had this happened in our old building, I would have considered it a very bad sign -- our old building had 14 floors, and that would have meant there were at least 13 people in the elevator. Our new building has 6 floors, and there were 7 people in the elevator - it was a short and comfortable ride.
Another good example is the bathrooms: Old Building: genders alternated floors, there was only one per floor, everything was manual, there were two stalls per bathroom, entry doors didn't lock, and each had either windows or those squirty smelly air fresheners blasting out canned scents every 10 minutes. New building: both genders on every floor, 3 sets of bathrooms per floor, automated everything -- flushing, sinks, and soap (!) -- three or more stalls per bathroom, keyed in codes for the bathroom entry doors, no windows (at least in the one we we use most frequently), no air fresheners. For some reason the soap is the kicker for me -- automated soap? Who does that? New building does.
There are large things that are different too -- the fact that we have twice as much space, the fact that we moved into a Class A building (i.e. really really nice), the fact that I have my own office -- but those were all known changes. It's the little things that truly reinforce that we moved on -- and up -- in the world.

Pretty much my picture of heaven

2007-07-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

Trilogy

2007-05-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

Today marks my 3 year anniversary at the Donor Network. Remarkable. Not only have I worked here longer than any other job I've had, but I've worked here longer than all my other post-graduation jobs combined!

In honor of this momentous occasion, I wanted to let you know of three new corporate-speak alerts. We all know that the lingo flies fast and furious in an office...but have you heard these recent new-comers to the scene?

Have Energy About: A guarded way to state that you're really worked up and angry about something. E.g.: "Can I talk to you privately about something? I have a lot of energy around it and I need feedback..."

Bucket(s): a way to financially group costs, employees, etc. "Let me know if that event is going to cost a lot because if I have to put it in a different bucket I will."

Operationalize: Taking something theoretical (or not perfectly functional) and making it practical. "We need to work on operationalizing this plan so it makes sense given work flow."

As an addendum, Fred notes that he's hearing a lot of "the reality is..." over in Virginia!

*Dwelling*

Siphons, Moves, and Dreams

I wish...

Breakage

Attended a reading last night...

For the record...

Man's Best Road Companion

Someone screwed up but good

Almost a year to the day

Oh, that smell...

Happy "Luck O' Th 'Irish T' You" Day

Doggy-back ride

Hope is the thing with whiskers...

Denver

Marriage...!

Oh My Grand

Our New Tenant and His Attempts At Redecoration

Denver

a big update of small things

Corp Speak Alert, edition 2

Old building, new building

Pretty much my picture of heaven

Trilogy

Dwelling