Apres Ski

No, we're not actually going skiing, but we could! The snow has stuck quite nicely to the ground around Kevin and Candyce's place. In fact, poor Kevin had a bit of a time getting out of the driveway this morning. I grabbed their bucket of (clean) kitty litter and left a trail for him, but alas...we ran out of litter and Kevin was no where near the top of the hill. He ended up backing slowly into a neighbor's driveway so that the kids sledding down the street could continue sliding across the ice again. Except when they run into the abrasive kitty litter. The street smells nice, too, since we were scattering Fresh Step.

I'm glad Candyce suggested I up-size my car to an all-wheel drive vehicle as it's come in handy. Our first trip was to the store to buy them some tire chains. :D

On a lark, Candyce and I had our photo taken with the Santa at Factoria Mall, but I'm grieved to see how chubby I look. I think the photographer's insistence that I tilt my head down, tilt some more, tilt a bit more, now scrunch in so you'll both be in the photo, ended up giving me quite the double chin. Either that or I'm really a lot heavier than I thought. Oh, well. More incentive to exercise, I suppose.

We're going for a walk to their neighborhood park in a bit. It's 32 degrees out and feels like Christmas. I'm so glad I came!

Two Days!

I'm really excited about my upcoming trip to Seattle! Tuesday night, I'll be shivering in the familiar dark green cold of the Pacific Northwest! Yay! And I'll get to sit up and giggle the night away with Candyce! Double yay! And we'll all be going to the Seattle office's holiday party on Friday! Triple yay!

When Chris and I went for our walk last Thursday up and down the beach, we talked about all kinds of things. That's one thing I love about my cherub. He's such a smart guy/ass :) One of the things we discussed was where he wants to be in the future. He still feels as though living in San Diego is a vacation 24/7, and he doesn't want to live that way forever. Chris wants to move somewhere that has four seasons, so he can experience them all.

I immediately thought of and later offered him to SteveD as in-house chef for his new frat house, but Steve declined. :P Men.

Over the weekend, I cleaned out my room and rearranged the furniture. It's nearer to what I'd like, but still so cramped. What I've managed to do is stack the boxes in a corner where they aren't readily visible to anyone from the room's doorway. My XPS (still on a rolling file cart) is tucked beside my wicker armoire and also unseen from the room's door. Visually, it looks less cluttered, which is nice. But it's still too full and now I have a couple of boxes more in my hallway.

Oh, well. Two steps forward, two steps back. And just two days till Seattle!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The sun is shining and Chris and I will be going down to the beach for a little bit, just because we can! Then, I will cook our cute little Cornish game hens (instead of a turkey), make some rice and then we can have a little feast. For dessert, I made us a blueberry and limoncello tiramisu last night and it should have had enough time for the flavors to meld into sweet perfection.

Then I need to pull everything out of my bedroom and rearrange it :)

Hope all the rest of y'all have a great day with food you like and people you love!

Why I Hate Exercise

1. I hate perspiring.
2. The gym is always too cold.
3. The locker rooms smell funny.
4. Sweaty people make me nervous.
5. Exercise clothes are expensive.
6. I'm uncoordinated.
7. The other girls are in better shape than me.
8. I grapevine left; everyone else grapevines right.
9. The classes are inconvenient.
10. The gym is too warm.
11. Everyone else is wearing better gym clothes.
12. I hate perspiring.
13. The gym is too crowded.
14. There's never anyone else in the gym.
15. Public showers are uncool, except for onsen.

Those are my reasons. What are yours?

Tired

Last week I had my oil changed by the mobile oil change dude that comes by the office. He pointed out to me that my tires were looking a bit shabby and needed replacement, which of course made me drive very cautiously around until Saturday, when I put in an order for tires at the local Firestone place.

I drove up to LA to hang out with Kurt, who was stopping there on his way home from a conference. We stopped at a gas station on the way to the airport to buy something. That's when he found out I'd been screwed! In my left rear tire! Eeep! Lucky for me he noticed, or I'd have driven back to San Diego with an unhappy tire and probably very unhappy car. :(

Oh...and so lucky for me that the cop who pulled me over as I was leaving the mall in Irvine (had to stop to get a manicure, you know how a damaged tire can bring on the need for a manicure), merely (and literally) slapped me on the wrist for making an illegal left turn. Which was rather funny, as I had mentioned to Kurt, who is in charge of an entire precinct on Oahu, that I planned to limp home while observing all traffic laws. Oops.

Lucky for me also, my tires had arrived at the Firestone, so my little car is spending the night there so the tire guy can install them in the morning.

Even more lucky for me, my sister picked me up at the tire place and is letting me crash at her house tonight, for lo! Tomorrow our expansion doth shippeth and I am on the early team! We stopped by the store to get some champagne to make some celebratory mimosas. And...isn't this the most lucky day ever???...I can have all the mimosas I want because I'm not driving! Yay!

Stupid tires. :(

That Soundtrack Thing

I burned a CD of my soundtrack and played it in my car tonight to ensure that it would work on something other than my PC. And you know...I really like it (up to track 15 anyway).

Tomorrow, I will have quite a different CD in the car, for my Italian language lessons have arrived and I shall be repeating after my invisible instructors on the way to and from work.

The only problem I foresee is that I will be too shy to actually speak to anyone in Italian. It happened every trip to Japan; I couldn't say more than a few Japanese words to anyone. In Moscow, it wasn't so much of a problem as I knew exactly two words of Russian, and even though the nice chaps at Akella tried to teach us a few more words, I came away with my same two words :) At least they are polite ones!

Listening to myself speak, when I'm alone anyway, I think I sound like a reasonable facsimile of whatever native speaker I'm imitating. I don't know why it frightens me to think of talking to someone in their own language.

So we shall see. I have three different types of language CDs as well as a dictionary and that's got to be enough to grant me two whole sentences in Italian by the time I take my trip! :)

Flannel

This has got to be the best fabric ever. As I lounge here on my little bark-o-lounger drinking hot lemon and ginger tea (with honey!), I am wrapped in a soft little flannel cocoon.

As you might imagine, I am sick...and this time, in the physical sense.

I caught Cydney's little cold and have mutated it over the weekend into a disease of epic proportions. Blech.

Before my lungs filled with fluid, however, I did meet up with one of the other devs to see Borat yesterday. The theater was packed for the 2PM show.

"Good thing this isn't a date," I said, "because then we can sit separately if we need to and it won't be a bad thing." Luckily, though, our seats were together even if they were in the very first row. I've actually been on a date where there were no seats together in the theater (for a play) and my date ended up sitting several rows away.

This was the best not-a-date I've been on in ages.

Back to my cocoon. I hate being sick.

Trippin'

You might think I'd be tired of traveling, but I'm not! I prefer to plan out my travel waaaaay in advance of anything actually happening because that's the kind of person I am.

So here I am, probably at least 18 months out, planning my trip to Europe :) This is somewhat like the first time I planned a trip to Europe, except in that case I never actually went (I got married instead...and certainly don't plan to do that again any time soon).

First, I must pay off the credit cards that I have, which should take me a year. Then I'll be able to charge them right back up with my vacation plans. Bwahahaha!

The thing of it is, it takes a lot of time and skill to plan a trip when you're not just going somewhere to sleep on your sister's couch. I've been jotting down little tidbits as I come across them so that when the time is right, I won't forget what I'd actually like to do and see.

What do I want to do and see? My list is still topped by Rome. By the time I go, I hope to know more Italian than how to say "thank you" and "good evening" and "no, that costs too much" :D Although I can certainly see the latter phrase coming in handy!

I don't know how I feel about Paris. Barb didn't like it at all. But then, I was afraid to go to New York and in the end, I liked it...so maybe we will go to Paris after all. Then again, I would like to go to Normandy, if I have to be in France...so who knows?

And then there is jolly old England. I'd like to go visit the setting of my favorite books. That's pretty much it, although I'm sure if I went again there's other places I'd want to see.

That's a lot of travel. I don't know how much time and money a trip like that would cost. Maybe what I'm really doing is planning for several trips and have yet to admit it!

Frequent flier miles, here I come!