Brunch is for babies

We met Baby Alex today at brunch with Greg, Amanda, Erik, and Margaret.  He’s SO cute.  See?

And he was on his best behavior.  He only fussed a little, and only right before we left the restaurant.  Margaret and I are in love.  With the baby.  🙂  (It was good to see Greg and Amanda, too.)

After we left our friends to head home, we stopped at Hole in the Wall Books, our favorite local used bookstore in Falls Church.  It was supposed to be a quick stop (John’s looking for something in particular), but of course that didn’t happen.  We chatted with the owner for a while about the snow, then we browsed (I found about 12 books right off the bat), and then we chatted some more while the owner rang us up.  And since we were chatting, we took our time, and I found three more books.  I love used bookstores.

We got back to the house much later than we originally expected (and yet, not at all annoyed  by that because, come on, books and babies (and friends, right, can’t forget about them)), but the sun was still shining, so John disappeared into the basement to play his guitar and I took the dogs on a short walk (really cold).  Walking the dogs is only noteworthy because of what I overheard.  There were three girls playing on top of a mountain of snow in someone’s yard, and one of them said:

“I’m a 12-year-old girl, but my mom keeps telling me I have to be proper.  I mean, I’m twelve.

For a second, I thought she had to quoting from a movie or something.  What mom would say that?

Moving toward a decision

Two things:

  1. The band is practicing tonight, so I spent about 20 minutes picking up downstairs.  The island is totally clear, the kitchen counters are mostly clear, I only left John’s stuff on the dining room table (laptop, camera, PSP), and I mostly cleared off the things that were sitting on the steps waiting to go upstairs.  The house looks nicer, and I feel A TON better.
  2. We bought the dining room table!  We went out this afternoon and just bought it.  Table and six chairs.  We got the 10% discount for the holiday weekend and we convinced them to give us free delivery since that was last weekend’s deal and we TOTALLY would have bought last weekend except for the snow.  Not our fault.  🙂
  3. Okay, three things.  You may have noticed that I switched the site back to the original template.  This isn’t necessarily permanent.  I just don’t know which one is my favorite.  And I may switch between a couple templates regularly.  We’ll see.  Anyway, I’m going to post screen shots of each version.  You tell me if you had a favorite or if there were things you liked about some of them that I can incorporate into another one.  I NEED INPUT, PEOPLE.

#1 – I liked this one, but if I go with it, I’ll probably mess with the colors.  If I’m going to use a fading color theme, I’ll do it with something not boring.  Maybe shades of green.

#2 – This one is a little too big, I think.  Reminds me (and Dad, I think) of a newspaper.  I did like the width of the columns, though.  I like how it takes up the whole page.

#3 – I think we all agreed to not like this one.

#4 – This one is, well, it’s very much like my original template, but blue instead of red.  Maybe I’ll switch to this one when my mood is blue….

#5 – Here we have the same TOO BIG problem.  Too stark, too, I think.  But again, maybe if I messed with the color, this would be better.

#6 – I like this one a lot.  The banner picture across the top makes it SO different from the others.  Do I like it more than the simpler templates?  I don’t know.  Do you?

Take control

Things I’m doing to get out of this hibernation funk I’ve been in since the snow started:

  1. Train the dogs.  I started practicing down with Riley and stay with Roxy, and I’m meeting with a trainer this coming week to work on leash manners and come when called.
  2. Clean the house.  Our room looks like a cave.  Clothes are EVERYwhere.  And there’s stuff piling up on all surfaces downstairs.
  3. Get outside.  Yes, it’s cold, so I won’t be spending lots of time outside, but it’s good for me to see the sun and breathe fresh air.  Dogs like walks and so do I.
  4. Meet with the financial guy.  I need to ask him tax questions and we need to finally pay off the student loan.
  5. Buy the new dining room table!  But not until I’ve cleaned up enough downstairs and found places for everything so we don’t immediately cover our new dining room table in crap.  But that might be today!

More later, I’m sure.

The snow makes running really difficult.  Impossible, really, unless I’m willing to run in the street instead of on the sidewalks.  I could do that in the neighborhood – you know, I might.  I have to do something, and exercise DVDs just aren’t calling out to me.  That should probably be #6, with eating right (and less) #7, but those are all-the-time things.

And here’s a picture for Corey.  It’s me, wearing all the clothes I could find ’cause we were taking the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood, standing next to the biggest pile of snow we have.  John took it Thursday evening, so there’s already been some melting and settling.

Change for the sake of change (or maybe control)

I’ve been home for a couple of hours.  I added our donations to TurboTax (which still says we owe $1500), and then I read a few months’ worth of Dooce archives.  During all of this, I found myself wondering if I should switch to Linux instead of Windows, and then move my website to Movable Type instead of WordPress.  Why?  No real reason.  I guess something needs to change.  And a new template for my site apparently isn’t enough.

Back to work

I tried to get to work yesterday, but as I left my neighborhood, I slid out onto the semi-major road.  It’s usually pretty clear and much safer than the neighborhood roads, or at least it has been after all our other storms and weather events.  Yesterday, I couldn’t see pavement at all.  It felt like one big sheet of ice, so, after I caught my breath, I went back home.  John didn’t even make the attempt (not in the mustang, no way), so we had another pleasant day of working from home together.  We took a walk around the neighborhood (almost completely in the streets, since most sidewalks aren’t clear) with the dogs before it got dark, and then I started working on our taxes before dinner (I’m not quite done, but how do we owe again?  What’s going on?).

Back to the office today.  I really really really want things to go back to normal.  Normal = NO SNOW.  Go away now.  Melt faster!

The Snow Also Rises

Bridget and her boy came up with much better names for the snowstorm than I did.  Actually, since Cleveland routinely gets SO MUCH MORE SNOW than we do, I’d be surprised if Cleveland residents didn’t have a system for naming snowstorms.  Kinda like how hurricanes get named.  This year they’re all named after girls.  Like Driving Miss Snowy, Snowy Poppins, and Forgetting Snowy Marshall.

I’m reaching, I know.

My computer hates me

Today was very frustrating.  We were both working from home (and the working part provided half the frustration, but that’s all I’m going to say about that), and when I booted my laptop this morning (my personal laptop, not my work laptop), I discovered a virus.  And not just any virus.  This was a monster virus that hijacked every program I tried to run.  I couldn’t open a browser, I couldn’t run any .exe files, I couldn’t do anything.  With John’s help (and the help of the internet via my work laptop and John’s computer), we were able to use the system restore feature to go back to last night, before the virus, and then get rid of it.  But it took HOURS.  John took the opportunity to blame Windows for this security failure and has me seriously considering installing the easiest version of Linux.  As long as I can open most documents and get to the internet, I don’t really care what operating system I use, so I’ll probably at least try it.  If I actually make it to the office tomorrow and the next day, though, it’ll have to wait for the weekend.

WTF?!?

More snow.  The Post is calling this one Snoverkill, which makes me laugh a little every time I see it.  We’re in the band on the accumulation map that says 8-14″ between now and tomorrow evening.  The National Weather Service says our county should get between 8 and 12 inches by the tomorrow evening.

John and I will both be working from home tomorrow, but since the snow isn’t supposed to stop until evening, I don’t know if we’ll be able to dig ourselves out before Thursday morning.  My normal after-work evening is out of whack today, too.  John normally has class Tuesday nights, but it was canceled because of snow last week, and this week, the professor decided to have class via webinar.  So since just before 7, John has been glued to his laptop with headphones and a microphone so he can listen to the lecture and participate.  On the plus side, the professor apparently said he was going to try to get through the material quickly.  AND he’s home.  Also a plus.

I’m afraid I might be over The Pillars of the Earth.  I used to really like it, and I’m still enjoying it, but as I’m reading it, I catch myself 1) getting really annoyed with Tom (like REALLY annoyed), and 2) wishing they’d just hurry up and get to the good stuff already.  What good stuff?  I don’t really know.  Maybe I’ll remember why I liked it so much when we actually get to the cathedral-building sections.  Those are the parts that stuck with me.  That and the mini-tour through Europe near the end.

I might cry

They’re talking about another 10 to 20 inches of snow tomorrow and Wednesday.  I don’t know where we’re going to put it.  Did you SEE the five-foot-tall piles of snow on either side of our driveway?

The roads were pretty bad this morning, so John and I both worked from home.  It was wonderful.  We set up in the dining room with a fire in the fireplace, sat in on conference calls, drank hot chocolate, and got a lot of work done.  I ventured out early this afternoon to go to the pharmacy and check out the roads.  They’re not terrible, but they’re not totally clear, either.   And we will both be heading to our offices tomorrow.

This snow, she is unnatural

Now I have everything I want (for today).  We have a fire blazing in the dining room, and John and I are set up on our laptops across the table from each other.  Riley is on a towel on the floor to my right, and Roxy is on the dog bed in front of the fire.  I have a glass of wine, classical music is coming from the family room, I’m wearing my pretty new shawl from Jess, and if I really want to, I can watch the Super Bowl ads on hulu.com.  I may even turn the TV on at some point during the game (John has expressed an interest in seeing The Who during the half-time show).

We did a lot more shoveling today and managed to get both cars out of and back in to the driveway, so we know we can get out tomorrow.  Then I was done shoveling, but John decided to be a good neighbor and help the downhill neighbors clear their driveway and sidewalk.  I played with the dogs in the backyard.  Then I made John come out with the camera and see it, ’cause it’s really funny to see them try to stay on top of 3 feet of snow.  Which they wouldn’t even try until I jumped in first.

Here’s John shoveling the sidewalk:

And here I made him pose:

And here’s the neighbor with the snowblower who could make a TON of money if he wanted to rent that thing out to his neighbors (or a ton of friends if he wanted to clear everyone’s sidewalks for free):

The poor buried mailbox again:

And the path I dug to it so the mailperson can deliver the mail:

The view down the street:

The view up the street:

The house, with a clear driveway, clear cars, and a TON of snow piled in the yard:

Here’s a short series of Riley in the backyard.  First, sitting nicely but not looking at me:

Second, getting WAY too close to the camera.  That’s his nose in the top right corner.

Third, Riley singing “STOP in the name of love!”:

Me and Riley swimming through the snow:

Roxy coming over to see what’s up:

And here she is, glad to get away before the wrestling and the hand-chewing started:

The hand-chewing started when I grabbed Riley’s lower jaw:

Riley, trying to crouch in the snow and failing miserably:

And here, apparently, he’s trying to fly, but his little ears just aren’t big enough:

Riley and I are sitting on top of 3 feet of snow and..yelling at each other?

And here’s a series of Roxy going “Okay.  Enough with the yelling and playing.  Can we go inside where it’s warm now?  What is WRONG with you people?”

Riley’s sneak attack…

…Ended with kisses:

Then he went back to my hands (coated in bacon maybe?):

Apparently, my hair was coated in bacon, too:

Riley officially won, though, by STANDING on me as I tried to get up:

Okay, enough pictures.  Really.  And it may look like I was having fun in the snow, but don’t believe everything you see on the internet.  That smile was photoshopped.  I had a dream last night that the snow had melted away overnight and I was so happy.  Then I woke up.  Snow snucks.

Snowmygod

The snow just stopped.  Maybe 15 minutes ago.  And the sun is out.  Our total is somewhere around 30 inches, maybe a little more in places.  Definitely more in the corners of our yard.  When we were shoveling this morning, the sidewalks (which were a little lower than the yard) had 24″ of snow.  We spent a couple of hours shoveling the driveway and part of the sidewalk, mostly to make sure we could get the car out if we really had to.  Tomorrow we’ll tackle what fell after we quit, the rest of the sidewalk, and we’ll try to dig John’s car out.  If he can swing it, I really think he should work from home on Monday.  The roads will be terrible.  We had a plow come through sometime last night, maybe early this morning, but none since then.  Our street has at least a foot of snow.  Snow snow-snow, snow-snow-snow.  I’m tired of it.  And it’s way too deep for the dogs.  The first thing we did today was clear a path on the deck, clear the deck stairs, and shovel out an area in the yard so they could get around.  They can blaze their own paths from there, although they really haven’t this time.  They’ve stayed under the deck overhang, where the snow isn’t as deep.  Mark asked for pictures (apparently, he needs proof – Hi, Mark!), so here they are.  Maybe it’ll all disappear overnight.  I’m ready for spring!

Snow depth on the bench around 9:30 last night:

Snow depth on the bench as of about 9:30 this morning (through the sliding glass door with snow on it):

Snow depth on the bench around 4:45 this afternoon:

The back corner of the yard yesterday afternoon (3-ish, I think):

The back corner of the yard around 4:45 today:

My flower bed, buried:

An evergreen in the neighbor’s yard, yesterday:

Same evergreen, after the snow stopped today:

Out the front door this morning:

The driveway, before shoveling:

John shoveling the driveway:

The house, after shoveling (and the buried mailbox):

The neighbors, also shoveling:

And Roxy, peeing in the clearing we shoveled for her:

You’re welcome.  🙂

So yeah, we have lots of snow.  We came in from shoveling around 11:30 or so, showered, and then had breakfast even though it was after noon.  Hot chocolate (of course), cereal (Wegman’s version of Lucky Charms), and muffins.  And we watched a little TV.  Since then, I’ve been messing around on the internet, and John has been stealing cars and beating people up.  Seriously.  Oh, yeah, and we’re drinking champagne that’s been in the fridge since New Year’s.  It’s better aged.  🙂

This might be my favorite

Although I do still like the original.  I’ll switch back to it in a day or two so I can make a decision (with input, if you give me any) about which version to stick with for a while.  Here’s the screen shot:

Now it’s time for laundry.

It’s starting

The DC area’s second giant snowstorm of the season is here, and I really don’t like the name they’ve chosen.  I think they called the December storm “Snowpocalypse”, and they’re calling this one “Snowmageddon”.  “Snowmageddon” is weak, so here are some names I like better:

Snowmygod (heard on the radio)

Snowzilla

Mt. Snowverest

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Snowing – hm, that’s for when the storm is over.

And there I get stuck.  I need more ideas.  In the meantime, here are some pictures as of about 2:15 this afternoon:

And a bonus funny picture of Riley:

The Snowhemoth

The Abominable Snowstorm

The Snow Has Eyes

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

It’s time to leave San Francisco.  Almost.  I’m jumping the gun a little ’cause this is the last time I’ll be able to post before actually leaving town.  I started reading Outlander the other night…I might not finish it.   Of course, my only alternatives right now are another Dean Koontz book and something short by Dorothy Sayer.  I”ll make sure I have both of those handy on the plane.  And uninterrupted reading time on the plane might be just what I need to get more involved in this book.

I got up extra early today to make sure I’d have time to pack after I got ready, and I’ve spent most of that extra time on the internet.  And that means I have to go or I’m going to be late.  Can’t be late.  If all goes well, by this time tomorrow I’ll have been home for 8 hours or so.  I hope I hope.

Not the right time

So…apparently a giant storm is headed our way (meaning home, not San Francisco) and is expected to dump a ton of snow (possibly more than in December) on us on Friday and Saturday.  Margot got our tickets changed to tomorrow, so we should be home not too long after midnight tomorrow night.  I’m kind of relieved.  I think I would really like San Francisco, but I’m not on vacation and I haven’t really had time to enjoy myself.  Marjorie and I were talking about this yesterday.  Most of the time, we can’t even tell we’re in California.  We could be in any city in the country.  So since there hasn’t been any time to really sight-see, I’m just as happy to be going home early (thereby ensuring I’ll actually get home, as opposed to be stranded somewhere because of the weather).  And I’m really tired today.  This class, even though it hasn’t been stressful, is really taking a lot out of me.  I’m standing ALL day, and I just want to rest, maybe take a bath, and go to bed.  After we finished with the class today, we did a little work to prep for tomorrow, and then we had an early dinner.  We went to an Italian place we could see from the window of the classroom and split a pizza.  Good pizza, and it was just enough food.  We asked the waiter if there was an ice cream place or something like that nearby, and he directed us to a gelato place around the corner.  SO good.  I had butter pecan.  Delicious.

So tomorrow, we’re going to check out of the hotel before class and leave our stuff with them, and then when class is over, run back to the hotel, change into travel clothes, and hop in a cab to the airport.  We should have plenty of time to make our flight.  And we’re already checked in (online check-in FTW!), so we don’t have to worry about losing our seats.  AND we’re in economy plus!  Still middle seats, though.  Oh well.  I’m seated right behind Mavis, so I told her she’d better keep me entertained or else I’ll kick her seat the whole flight back.

Anyway, I really really really want to come back here on vacation and do all the touristy sightseeing stuff and eat at all the fantastic restaurants and just hang out.  But right now, I can’t wait to get home.  I’d much rather be snowed in with John (and the dogs) than stranded away from them.

Ode to a hot fudge sundae

I am SO full.  We got out with daylight to spare today (and the rain held off for the evening), so we decided to head to Ghirardelli Square and the surrounding areas while we could still see some stuff.  We made definite dessert plans (hello, hot fudge sundae at the Ghirardelli Ice Cream Shop) and just needed to find a place for dinner.  Again.  We headed for the water (less than a block away) and walked along Jefferson Street and eventually (okay, it didn’t take that long – there were signs) figured out we were at Fisherman’s Wharf.  So naturally, we had seafood.  We basically picked a restaurant at random and ended up at Tarantino’s, which was very good.  We were early (6-ish, maybe a little before), so there was no wait, and we got a table overlooking the boats in the marina.  I had prawns and scallops sauteed in all the delicious stuff (wine, garlic, butter, etc) with vegetables and rice.  SO good.  I called Mom and Dad during our walk back to Ghirardelli Square (and listened to the everyday drama of finding the other phone so they can both be on the line (I know I make fun of you, but I love that you do it that way.  I just wish you’d have the phone handy!)), but was, you know, forced to hang up on them because the banana hot fudge sundae was twisting my arm and marching me through the door.  Man, that was good.  But huge.  And I couldn’t finish it.  Madeline couldn’t finish hers, either.  She got the one with peanut butter topping AND hot fudge – they brought her three spoons.  Hm.  Maybe she could have finished it if she’d used all three.

I did well today, in class.  If I may say so myself.  No major screwups, no belligerent students (unlike yesterday, but I didn’t have to deal with them.  Myrtle did.), and when I misspoke (happened a couple of times), Mona was there to rescue me.  I wasn’t nervous at all, though, so that’s pretty cool.  🙂  I don’t think tomorrow will be much different.  Hope I didn’t just jinx myself.

Looking for dinner

I remembered why I don’t like to exercise at the gym.  Hotel gyms, anyway.  They’re HOT.  Freakishly hot and humid.  But I’m not about to go for a run by myself, in the dark, in a city I don’t know, so a treadmill in the rainforest it is.  We did go for a quite a nice walk last night, though.  Martha’s phone died Sunday night, so we walked to a nearby Verizon store and figured we’d look for a place to eat near there or on the way back to the hotel.  We saw surprisingly few restaurants at first, but we kept walking.  Ended up at Union Square (I think), found a sketchy street, turned around and headed east (I think – no, it was north) for a while, found ourselves in Chinatown, dismissed one restaurant because it was empty and smelled weird, found a really steep hill (the first one we’d seen!  very exciting), and tried to find our way back to Market Street.  We did, eventually, and we turned east again, but within about three blocks we realized we’d gone too far east on California Street (maybe in Chinatown?  nope.  Again, that was north.), so we turned around on Market and found our way back to 2nd Street.  California was the hilly street.  We had dinner at a Thai place less than 2 blocks from our hotel (it was really good and we were really hungry) and then crashed for the night.

I think tonight we’re either going to find one of the French restaurants Evelyn recommended or head somewhere famous and touristy.

Today is my first teaching day, so I have to hurry up and get ready.

My GOODness

The last…lots of hours have been both a whirlwind and the longest…lots of hours I can remember.  John dropped me off at the airport at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, and I met my coworker, Millicent (not her real name), in front of the United counter.  She’s got some kind of special frequent flyer status, so we got to get in the short line.  Usually, she (and anyone checking in with her (that would be me)) gets a free upgrade at least to Economy Plus, but we were on a full flight and no upgrades were available.  Sad for us.  Especially as we boarded the plane and realized that we were in the two middle seats on either side of the LAST aisle on the plane.  Yeah, those seats don’t recline.  We were in the first boarding group and got on the plane about 3:30.  Supposed to take off at 4 and land just after 7 PST.  My first seatmate, window seat guy, arrived.  He’s a big guy, a little too big for the seat, gray hair, very nice.  He was reading David Eddings, so we chatted about that for a few minutes.  Then Mr. Talkative arrived.  Tall and skinny, also with gray hair, he started talking the minute he sat down.  He travels ALL the time apparently, all over the world, and knows everything.  He tells funny stories, but because he knows EVerything, it got old fast.  (And he scared the 10 year old in the row in front of us with horror stories of flying in bad weather.)  But I was being nice, so I didn’t bury my nose in my book or reach for my headphones.  Anyway, while everyone was still boarding, a maintenance guy came by.  We heard the flight attendants talking about how the potable water system wasn’t working.  Then they made the announcement.  “We’re fixing the problem and will get in the air as soon as possible.”  At about 5pm, an hour late and after another announcement that didn’t give us any clue when we might actually go, I called John and told him I’d just text him when I landed, since who knows how late it would be.  At about 5:15, they made us all get off the plane.  They were either going to fix our plane or find us a new one.  But all other flights to San Francisco (and to anywhere that might get us to San Francisco) were full.  They weren’t saying where another plane might come from.  Everyone ran for the customer service desk.  By the time we got there, United was telling us to wait and see.  A decision would be made by 6:30 one way or the other.  So either the plane would be fixed or the flight would be canceled and we’d be getting on a 6am flight Monday morning, if such a thing existed.  It was just after 5:30, so we figured we had an hour and we’d go find somewhere to sit down and eat.  Wendy’s was the only place nearby with seating, so Mildred grabbed us a table and I ordered.  We got a frosty to share.  (We felt we deserved it.)  JUST as I got our food and was heading for our table, I heard the announcement for immediate boarding of our flight.  It was about 5:45.  Maybe another 15 minutes later, we were on the plane again, this time with food.  And now people were jealous.  But we had a frosty to share, so we were trying to figure out how to sit next to each other, just for a little while.  I convinced Mr. Talkative to switch with me, so I had an aisle, and then we noticed that her aisle seatmate hadn’t arrived yet, so I figured I could sit there, next to Miranda in her middle seat, and let Marcella’s aisle seatmate have the aisle seat that belongs to Mr. Talkative.  Just for the length of time it would take for us to eat our dinner and our frosty.  Everyone went for it, we all switched around, and the plane took off.  And then we gave away our fries ’cause we had WAY too much food.  So people liked us again.  Until the flight attendant (who wouldn’t take any fries even though she was starving ’cause she said it wasn’t professional) yelled at me for getting out of my seat too early.  I could have sworn the captain made the announcement.  He did make an announcement, but it was about something else.  That I totally missed.  Anyway, we all switched back when we were allowed to move about the cabin.  And then my rather large seatmate, window seat guy, started getting claustrophobic.  For real.  At first, he was just feeling a little overheated, and he’d ask me and Mr. Talkative to let him out so he could stand in the aisle.  That happened two or three times.  He got some ice, he had my air thingy and his pointed at his head, but it wasn’t helping.  Then he panicked a little and said, “Okay, I gotta get out of here.”  So we got up in a hurry and let him out.  I had already considered offering him my seat, but I didn’t really think putting this big guy into a middle seat was going to help at all.  I was working on how to bully Mr. Talkative into switching with him and letting him have the aisle, but when window seat guy panicked, the mom in the row ahead of us offered to have her daughter (in the aisle of that row) switch to his window seat (next to me).  Nice lady.  Window seat guy calmed down and was fine in his aisle seat for the rest of the flight.  It worked out for me, too, ’cause the daughter didn’t take up nearly as much room.  No more crowding.  That’s more drama than I need on a flight.  Mr. Talkative finally shut up, I was able to finish This Rough Magic (I liked it), and I got more than 2/3 of the way through my Dean Koontz novel.  But I was SO bored!  I didn’t have any puzzle magazines (stupid oversight on my part – won’t happen on the way home), I was uncomfortable, I didn’t watch the movie (it was The Informant!, which I really want to see (so does John), but the airplane was loud, and I couldn’t hear the movie very well, and I figured I’d just miss lines, so I’d better wait), and I wasn’t sleepy.  I don’t usually get bored with reading, and now that I think about it, I don’t really think I was bored at all, but I was uncomfortable and restless.  The rest of the flight was uneventful (yay), and we landed around 9:30 or so.  We were at the hotel by 10:15 or 10:30 (felt like 1:30), and then I collapsed.  I’ll get into today tomorrow sometime.

Who needs paragraphs?