Take Two!

We have been off on wedding road trips for the last two weekends in a row. The odd thing is that both weddings were second weddings for the brides. Nothing wrong with that... y'all should know that I am all in favor of Big Life Do Overs. And the events were both lovely, the brides were gorgeous, the grooms dashing...


The grounds were diverse, yet similar. One, a brand new luxury mini-cabin campground, the other a turn of the century bordello! Both with tent camping available for the steering impaired. I hate to say it, but the bordello was the loveliest site for a wedding I have ever been to, including my own. The bride's parents bought the old rambling structure on the Klamath River about 7 years ago and have been restoring it ever since. I guess there was a big push to get ready for the wedding, and it SO payed off. This picture doesn't do it justice, but imagine wandering the grounds on flagstone walkways, by the river, in the shade of huge maples, cocktail in hand, light breezes playing through your hair, with rambling golden ridges all around and twinkly lights in the trees. Got it? Good.


The food at both was fantastic, and again oddly enough, neither had a traditional wedding cake. Steph and Mark had cupcakes, and Chris and Seth had pie! (I like pie...) On both occasions we were short a camera memory card, so I do not have pictures of all the extraneous details. One thing that you are glad I don't have a picture of is the cooked pig carcass from C&S's wedding. Ewwie! (Mighty tasty though!)

So here's to all the women in the world who are brave enough to take the plunge again. It may be hard to take us seriously sometimes, but we are not messin' around this time! I swear!

96 Degrees In The Shade

Wow, with Katrina, this other timely news story and this book I'm reading, its hard not to feel that we are on the verge of something very bad...

The book, by the way, has a few main characters all living in the DC metro area, and between them there is a math person, a science person, a climber and a stay at home parent. Needless to say I related to this book on many levels, and highly reccommend it. WARNING: It is the first of a trilogy, and the two other books aren't even out yet, so if you are impatient, don't start yet!

Animals, All Of 'Em

This is a picture of our very dirty dog's bum. He loves to roll in filth and then shake it off inside the house...

This is why we will not be having much carpet in the house when it is done. Speaking of which, our bathroom vinyl and guest room carpet have finally arrived at the installers (from Georgia?!) and the install should happen sometime at the end of next week! Assuming I can get it painted before then. Then I'll just need to get on the ball with the living room floor and we may even be finished before winter sets in. Anyone need 300 square feet of 20 year old brown shag? Tempting, eh?

The Hub has a rather cool job. Sometimes for his job he even gets to go backpacking for three days. This is what happens to your feet if you haven't hiked in 8 months and then go backpacking for three days. Ew. He was very proud of the fact that he used one of his diabetes needles to suction the goo out of the big one on the right so that it didn't pop. Did I mention, ew?


And hey, here's something not so gross. The cute fuzzy llama across the street. I tried to get closer, but they seemed a bit skittish. Anyone know the universal llama calling noise that would be used in place of the chuck-chucking you do to a horse? "Hey llamallamallama!" didn't seem to work too well...

Callooh! Callay!

So I finally done did it. I sent in The Paper. The Best Prof Ever only had a few succinct comments, so it looks like the thing may actually be done by today. Oh frabjous day! At some point in the near future (after many, many years in the making) I may have a Master's degree! Alright, I'd better get to work and incorporate those suggest-chee-o-nays. Don't wanna dawdle, got a bike ride to make it to tonight!

Green Eggs and Spam

To my two loyal reader/commenters out there, who also happen to be my closest living relatives, I have had to add the inconvenience of an anti spam test to the process of commenting. While it was nice to come back and find that 20 people had commented on the old bloggy, it wasn't so cool that they were just using me to sell their junk... Darn blog sabotaging spammy junk sellers!

And I'm Not Talkin' About Short Cute Lesbians...

Yesterday I managed to survive the entire long day that it takes to do this climb, Snake Dike.


It is a crazy, lumpy, utterly climable feature up the entire (otherwise rather smooth) side of Half Dome. Beautiful day, gorgeous (and cool!) weather. Rather long hike in, and even longer hike out. And yet again, I'm whupped! Off to a wedding in Tahoe, be back soon! (When I will finish That Paper, I promise!)

Biding My Time

So while my fabulous Pops was looking over the latest version of The Paper today, I found some creative ways to keep busy... This morning I made another round of sparkly earrings, and I can't take it anymore, this time I'm claiming a pair for myself!


Then I was farting around on the internet and realized that I only had two days to get my application in for the FE in October!! So I hopped to it and got that puppy in the mail today! Thank heavens I still have 2+ months to study for the ghastly 8 hour test!

Then a coworker of the Hub's called and invited us on our First Mountain Bike Ride Since Moving (FMBRSM?) and we jumped at the chance. (I think I might have scared him, poor guy, because I was so darned enthusiastic...) Fortunately I had the time to fix all the flats and get some of the kinks out of the mountain bikes, since they have been effectively mothballed for so long.

I was under the vague false impression that all the mountain biking out here would be hot, exposed and dusty, but the nice 1:20 loop that we did was pretty much the exact opposite! It was about the same elevation as our house, but a much wetter area (and yet less than a half hour drive away, go figure) which was super nice for the big shade trees, but not so nice for the attendant mosquito population. Ah well, good incentive to go faster! Needless to say we all managed to keep the rubber side down and make it back to the cars with big goofy grins on our faces. Have I mentioned before how scary it is to be having such a wonderful life?

So Glad I Took That Left At Albuquerque!

I musta missed the exit to Boringburg, and headed straight into Fun Fun City! We had our Preliminary House Warming Party (PHP) this weekend (preliminary, due to the fact that the house isn't actually done...) and it was lovely. We now know three fabulous sets of neighbors all within stumbling distance of our little home. A bunch of folks from the Hub's office came too, as well as some friends from our short stint in El Portal. All in all it was just about the perfect little housewarming party, and this would be a great place to insert a picture, iffin' I hadn't been runnin' around scrounging up enough plates, forks, and gin and tonic receptacles.

And as our little party was coming to a close, our next-door neighbor popped back over to invoke Round Two, and we visited yet another set of neighbors down the road. They were just gettin' cranked up for their annual luau bash, complete with a live band of fresh young local gents with guitars and a free shell lei's for all attendees. We proceeded to have a few beers, dance to an eclectic mix of punk/classic rock and meet yet more neighbors. The fun kicked up another notch when the local sheriffs came out for a friendly visit, and tried to impose some authority on their own PARENTS. Gotta love a small town. Much photo snapping and late-shift officer snacking ensued.

By this time I was knackered and ready to hit the hay. So whupped in fact, that I conned the Hub into doing the initial party clean up back at our house while I sawed logs. Wow, he deserves the Extra Special Super Duper Husband Award. Again. But see, I had to get some beauty sleep, because I had big plans for Sunday...

The Whippersnapper and I had plans to climb this up in Tuolumne Meadows the next morning. And it was beautiful and exciting and pretty much almost the same experience that these guys had, including the erroneous guide book data. We did great, climbing as a team, swapping leads, and managing to climb safely yet efficiently when the weather turned a little sour about halfway through. With that pesky storm brewing and all, we called it a day after this one route, despite the fact that there are many other super lines on this dome. Tough call, but fortunate, because I made it home in time for the neighbor's tri tip barbecue taco night. Life so does not suck...

Next Exit - The Fun Of My Recent Past

Hi! No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth! Yet. I have been attempting to finish up with The Paper lately, and well, not only is that as boring as dirt to talk about, it has been like pulling hens teeth. Or squeezing turnips from a stone. Or some such nonsense. So you'll have to bear with me for a bit while my life takes a slight detour through Dullsville. So here are some anecdotes from the recent past...

I got to go along to a local water-park for a friend's daughter's birthday last Monday. And now I know why we as adults do not do this on a regular basis. Not only are the waterslides and "rides" designed to remove your head cleanly from your neck, but there seems to be a design feature that attempts to remove half of your rear-end through friction where the slide seems meet. Oddly enough though, the neck actually feels better after its forcible tweaking, sort of like a big, wet, (yet cheap) chiropractor. The abraded butt-bone, on the other hand is taking its sweet time in healing! All well worth it however, and a better 10th birthday was never had.

I also got out one night for an after-work, evening climb with the Whippersnapper in The Hub's office. I was incredibly impressed as she cleanly led up Bishop's Terrace, a very long (takes the entire 60 meter rope)and classic pitch of 5.8 in the Valley. I did my best to not embarrass myself while following her, and we both rappelled off in the gathering dusk. Unfortunately the clean up process didn't go as smoothly, and we ended up getting her rope caught in a tree about 25 feet off the ground. After some dinking around in the pitch black, and scrambling up the easy bits with one headlamp, we ended up having to cut off the last 15 feet or so of the rope that was still out of reach and hopelessly tangled in a branch.
Ah, the joys of climbing.

So I'll leave you here, with stories of fun, adventure, and bodily bruising. And I'll attempt to get back to the mental grind. Wish me luck, and I'll see you on the other side. Happy weekend!

Can We Do It Again Next Week?

Well the girls weekend went swimmingly...


The bride-to-be was adequately pampered...


and embarrassed...


And the whole crew of hottie mommas seemed to have a great time.


Thanks to everyone for being so great! Hope y'all had a much fun as I did!

Two Down, Three To Go...

This coming weekend I will be hosting a good friend's bachelorette party here at our little homestead, so in order to prepare for guests, the Hub and I have been working our (already fairly tiny) butts off.

Here's my man. Being manly.

The lawn done got mowed.

Here's the old bedroom.

Groovy mint green-dark brown color combo, eh?

Said room has now been magically transformed into this snug haven...


So now if only those little decorating elfs could unpack the boxes still stacked in the living room by tomorrow night, I'd be totally stoked. Regardless, it should be a fabulous weekend of estrogen, adrenaline, and endorphins. Cocktail O' Fun!

Oh For Three

Well, you thought it couldn't be done, but it has. My cat has gotten into yet another brawl. This one either consisted of, or included, zapping herself on the neighbors electric fence. She seems fine, we can't find a scratch on her, but from the kitty howlering that notified us of her newest altercation, it sounded like she was dying. Again, the hub came to the rescue, remembering to bring a flashlight as he sprinted out of the house after an ineffectual lightless me. As Molly came shooting out of the neighbors (2 inch by 2 inch wire grid!!??) fence, he somehow corralled her despite her best attempts to scratch his eyes out. She had the distinct and incredibly disturbing smell of burnt fur about her.

My nerves. They are shot. I'm getting incredibly depressed, I don't know if I can handle this every week. What the heck am I going to do? Give her up for adoption to a place that has less predators, or electric-fence her INTO our yard, or just live with the fact that sometimes this is what it means to be a parent? I feel like the situation calls for some Tough Love or something, but other than locking her in the house and making her (and us) miserable, I'm out of ideas.