Merry Christmas 2007/Happy New Year 2008

We spent Christmas in the Ozarks. Grady and CornyT and I rented a cabin and spent four days getting away from it all. The trip was ideal. When we weren't snuggled down by the fire sipping hot chocolate with Irish cream, we were taking the dog for hikes in the mountains. Rarely do things turn out as well as you hope but this little retreat in our charming mountain cabin could not have gone better. I also was pleasantly surprised by the book I brought. At first, I wasn't so sure about the book club choice, Suite Francaise, but two chapters in I was completely hooked. I finished soon after we got back from Arkansas and it was my 16th book 2007 and I think it might have been my favorite. All and all I really loved her keen sense of character and her ability to shows all sides of a very complicated historical event.

Itchy but not mangy

I read recently that Austin was ranked as one of the worst cities for allergies. I never new what a scratchy throat and watery eyes felt like until I spent a couple of years in the Texas capital. In fact, the first year I was afflicted I was convinced I had a bad cold. It wasn't until the following year when I had the exact same symptoms that it occurred to me that it was the infamous "cedar fever". Well turns out that our canine pals also suffer more acutely in Austin and as I learned today my breed of choice, Golden Retrievers are even more at risk for skin allergies. Poor Grady. Looks like we are going to have to take him to a doggie allergist and have his skin tested. We did get some good news from the vet: the mange that the puppy had was Demodectic mange, the non-contagious type. Yay. I also decided that I am definitely switching to this vet full time now and will take Grady and Livia to him for now on. He was personable, seemed knowledgeable, and didn't charge me for the visit because he just referred us to a specialist. He did give me some FREE prednisone and a little topical spray for the red patches. Wish I had found this guy 7 months ago. While we were waiting in seclusion (you say mange and you get your private waiting area) I read a chart explaining the age rate in cats. It's not quite the even 7 human years like it is for dogs, and according to this chart Livia's 7 years is actually 51 cat years old. Oh and I found it amusing when I told the vet that we were the first foster parents for the puppy now known as Xena he said " that puppy is quite a handfull isn't she". ha ha it was nice to hear someone agree with us and we weren't just being hard on her.

I must have too much time on my hands

The wedding planning must be over because I just spent a good five minutes watching a cat nap.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid315932962/bctid422561510

And then I spent good time watching this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYuX1rFOMvM

I should probably find something more constructive to with my time.

Matilda's Legacy

Despite her misbehaving ways I think the crazy puppy has found a "forever home". Good thing too because I am sure she is probably tired of moving around. She spent one week with us, one week with our friends who rescued her from the mean people next door, and almost 2 weeks now with her current foster mom. The road was a little uncertain for the pupster and CornyT and I were working really hard to find her a new home. I plastered her picture on the internet and put a poster up in my office breakroom. All that exposure and we only got one phone call. However, I think it was the phone call that convinced her current "foster" mother to make the big committment. In fact, she said she would either keep her or find her a new home. YAY- the poster in the office went down today! The puppy did pick up a few things along her journeys; a new name, Xena, and mange. The mange though I think she spread around a little. Grady is scratching a lot and has brown stuff on his belly. I am going to take him to the vet this weekend. I had wanted to get a second opinion on my current vet's exclusive steroid treatment so this gives me good impetus to do so. Hopefully, this vet will be a little more friendly. I thought that my current vet was pretty good with the animals and Grady seemed to really like him but he barely said more than a few absolutely, necessary words to me. I tried to tell myself it was probably because he was just more comfortable with animals than with people but it is off putting when you ask questions and he just shakes his head and talks to your pet. I am also a little unsettled that he doesn't have an assistant and I have never seen another patient in his office. This has it's upsides I never have to wait to see him and I can always get an appointment when I need one. But it is still a little disconcerting... Anyway, we'll see what the next vet says about Grady's allergies and prolonged prednisone use and maybe he will tell me and not Grady.

Happy Thanksgiving

WE have had a very relaxing and cozy Thanksgiving holiday. Yesterday we stayed home ALL day made. I don't think I even brushed my hair! We made a beautiful turkey dinner, drank mimosas and played the Wii. What a day. Grady was so perplexed that we were home all day and he was overcome by the temptation of all the food on the table that he could not take it and he stole a stick of butter off the table. Bad boy! I caught him doing it and chased him into "his room" and pulled it out of his mouth. Later he stole the box the butter came in from the recycling. Wow who knew he was so crazy for butter. Well I hope all of you had a great holiday.

My Impressions of L'Atelier in Las Vegas

Originally, we planned to honeymoon in Peru directly following the wedding. However, when CornyT landed a teaching gig at a local university we had to rethink that plan. University's tend to frown on their professors missing 5 classes in a row. This dilemma coincided with our viewing an episode of Anthony Bourdain's: No Reservations featuring the fine dining available in Las Vegas. Bourdain's show made the gaudy and smoky wasteland of Vegas seem like an epicurean's heaven. In addition, we had been spending the last six months addicted to the Bravo show, Top Chef and were starting to really get into the world of snobby foodies. So, we opted for a low key, restfull, gastronomical honeymoon and it turned out it really was just what we needed. We are still doing the planning for Peru and intend to go there in the Spring of 08 but I am glad that we ended up taking a lazy trip right after the wedding, because the planning and the festivities reall took a lot out of us:).
Initially, we were only going to visit Thomas Keller's Bouchon. Bourdain's description of this restaurant left the biggest impression on us and we were very excited to try the famous chef's bistro offerings. But Corny T did more and more research and he got us reservations to a great restaurant every night we were there. During the wedding, CornyT's sister-in-law urged us to go to Robuchon's and so as almost an after thought he got us a reservation for the first night we were in town. This last minute addition turned out to be the most extravagant and interesting meal of the entire trip. I had never had a nine course meal before and had never had anything quite this elaborate. What a treat and what a great way to celebrate a truly fabulous event as marrying my CornyT. The next morning we furiously took notes over a typical, purely utilitarian, mediocre Vegas breakfast buffet. Below I have pasted my impressions of each dish in the nine course meal. CornyT has promised to put his musings in as soon as he has time. So here it goes, my pathetic stab at food writing:)



Amuse Bouche: Frothing Foie Gras

My first experience with foie gras was this frothy little "shot glass" of port, foam and foie gras. Foie gras would become the theme of the weekend but this was my first time to ever have the duck liver delicacy. The waiter explained that the chef recommended digging deep into the glass with a spoon to get all the flavors in one bite. I am not sure if I did an excellent job of this- it kind of took me two bites to get to everything- and I think my experience would have been a little more explosive had I gotten all the ingredients in one bite. However, once I got to the foie gras at the bottom my mouth was happy.



LA LANGOUSTINE: Langoustine carpaccio with roasted poppy seed dressing

This was the most artistic dish of the evening. The thin, almost translucent meat was spread across a square glass plate and sprinkled with an orange poppy seed dressing. Alone the poppy seed dressing had a unremarkable flavor but the unique texture and subtle flavor of the lobster meat paired well with it making this one of the most unusual dishes I have ever had.



LES HUITRES: Poached baby Kussi oysters with French « Echiré » butter

Ahh the oysters. This was one of my favorite courses of the night and I still get a little flutter in my heart when I think of the blend of the subtly flavored oyster with the tangy butter and dash of lemon. Ohh so good. The three baby oysters were presented soaking in a light butter sauce in their shells atop a bed of coarse salt with a wedge of propped in front. To eat the oysters you poured them into your mouth drenched in the butter sauce. These flesh was firm and weighty in the mouth and the flavor was the subtle tanginess of a perfectly fresh oyster. The acidity from the lemon underscored the flavor of both the shell-fish and the butter sauce. A perfectly elegant and simple dish.



The EGG Dish (or L'oeuf)

This was even a little more unusual then the langoustine. Three layers starting with foam, poached egg, mushrooms, and puree of parsley were presented in a parfait glass. Oh and if I haven't mentioned before foam was a big part of this meal. Light flavorful, yummy foam. My only complaint about so many dishes with foam is that the whole meal starts to have the same texture and feel. With this egg dish we were again told to dig down deep with our spoon and retrieve all the flavors in one bite. Again, I got this in sections rather all in one bite. Typically you think of parsley has having little flavor but in puree form it is a surprising explosion of taste. Overall this dish really stayed with me because it was so unusuall and the textures of the foam and the poached egg were really surprising.

Asparagus Cappaccinno
This was a light green, frothy soup with a distinctive asparagus flavor with chunks of guyere cheese. The cheese was excellent but the flavor was a little disparate because it didn't melt completely in the soup. Where it did melt it was an amazing and startling pairing of flavors. All in all though, I felt like this was the most ordinary of all the dishes.

Halibut
This description is really can suffer from my lack of notes and faded memory. The fish was presented topped with finely diced spring vegetables. This course was a little difficult to eat. Each bite of fish scattered the veg and it was hard to get a taste of the fish and the veg in one mouthful. The Lemon thyme used to flavor the veg didn't seem to mix throughout the veg and some bites would be bland while others were really tangy. The halibut itself was perfectly cooked and tasted incredibly fresh.

Veal Piccata
This was the main dish and the one dish that CornyT and I did not share. He chose the quail while I chose the veal. The thin layer of veal was topped with an arugula salad. The veal was very tender but without a strong, memorable flavor. The standout of this dish were the Robuchon mashed potatoes. I read one blog that described them as sublime and there really is no better way to describe them.

Papaya Sorbet
A pink puree presented in a small bowl topped with a peak of banana sorbet. The was a perfect light dish after the previous heavy meals. The papaya flavor was subtle but complex and the delicate banana paired well. Just for pure bursts of flavor this was my favorite dessert dish.

Coffee Ice Cream
This final dessert was a scoop of coffee colored ice cream surrounded by mousse and topped with crumbled chunky brownies. The ice cream was a delicate texture and the mousse had a broad flavor. Not the stand out dish of the meal but a nice end to an amazing meal I will certainly not forget.
After we waddled away from the table my only serious complaint was the coffee. Geesh I am shocked that such a superb restaurant would serve such weak, mediocre coffee. CornyT told me I should have sent it back but I hate doing that and I was so lost in the whole experience that it wasn't until we reflected on it all later that I thought what a disappointment that was. But don't get me wrong I still LOVED this meal want an amazing experience.

Giving this another try

Ok I have tried to get back to blogging about 3 times now since we got back from our honeymoon and I have been interrupted each time. So, I am hoping that I can finish this post and get back into a habit of blogging again. It is nice to have all the wedding preparation over and to be married and rested and relaxed from our Vegas honeymoon. About a week after the honeymoon we introduced a new complication to our life; a three month old, puppy our friends rescued from a neglected life on a 6 foot rope tied to a bus with no real food or water. A recent city law was passed to protect dogs from spending any time tied up in yards but unfortunately the city never responded to the two calls our friends made. In a perfect world the city would have responded immediately and given those people a fine for mistreating an animal but our friend worried the pup, we now all call Matilda, would not survive that long. So, after a weekend of watching the neglected puppy starve out her kitchen window she walked over and bought the puppy from the people. What a big heart. We worried that our friends and their three cats would have a hard time with the little gal so we volunteered to take her. We also had a better set up with crates, food, treats and a buddy. Grady loved the companionship- they played and played. His favorite game was putting her entire head into his mouth. She was adorable but we have learned that one dog is enough for us- good to know actually. Now she is spending the holiday with a friend of our friends with the hope that they will bond and become the best friends. I hope that it works out for Matilda's sake. And for the friend too because having a dog is such a rewarding experience.

Good Reads

A week ago an invitation to Good Reads appeared in my in box and I haven't been able to stop thinking about all the books I have read, how I liked them, and all the books I want to read. good reads is kind of a MySpace for the bookworm. Have you ever heard of better site for me? Two of my favorite things books and friends. If they added dogs to this site some how it would be PERFECT for me:). So, on top of obsessing about my own reading habits I am now fascinated with all the books my friends have read. And I can't help competing a little for most read spot. So far, corynyt has more books on there then I do but I think that will soon change. Ha our relationship is not competitive at all. The next step is to go on there and review all the books I have read and note when I read the book. What a clever idea

Round and Round

When I was little we had a house with an open floor plan and a spacious living room and kitchen (or at least I remember it as roomy, my parents probably have a more realistic memory). The kitchen had an opening to the dining room and the hallway so you could make a circle starting in the living room through the kitchen out to the hallway and back to the living room. I would spend hours on my three wheel bike, knotted sock in hand, rolling around and around that cirlce with our border collie puppy chasing nipping at my big plastic tires and sliding on the wood floor. I must have been three but I still have clear memories of that little black and white blur barking and panting as I maneuvered my little trike.
Now I live in another house with an open floor plan, this time it is an office with doorways on either end of the living room and it also makes a nice circle in the house- a perfect dog chasing circle. Actually, it was CornyT who discovered the joys of getting Grady to chase him around the house with some chew toy dangling behind him. But I was soon with him running and squealing with our seventy pounds of happy dog at our heels. The memories of my childhood came flooding back and now I play the game almost every night for at least a few minutes. They say Border Collies are smart but I never remember our pup letting me get a headstart and then turning directions as I come out the other side. Very clever Golden. When he does surprise me I inevitably squeal with utter delight and turn around and run. CornyT once asked if I was exagerrating my enthusiasm for Grady's benefit and I sheepishly confessed that no, it was pure, genuine glee. To help me with my worthy opponent CornyT has now taken to calling out from the couch the direction Grady is headed. Yes, it is sad that I have to resort to cheating to get the upper hand on a year-old Golden but maybe he should learn English!

Catch Up

Well we are getting closer to the big date, the invitations are out and CornyT bought a suit. We found a fantastic suit on an Italian suit at the local outlet malls. Usually those places have terrible selections but this time we got so lucky and found the exact color and style we wanted. So now we will be clothed and ready to go in a month and a half. The only thing missing are the rings and firming up the after wedding travel plans. On this cool and cloudy labor day morning, I am enjoying my day off by taking a break from wedding plans and catching up on all the fun internet browsing I haven't had time to do. Lately, every time I am on the web I feel obligated to look up hair styles, wedding rings, or travel packages. I shouldn't sound like I am complaining. It is fun to do all the planning and I think we will all have a great time.
This weekend we ran a few wedding related errands, getting new tires (fun), spending quality time with Grady, having dinner with friends, and catching up on Heroes dvds. What a fun show. Last night we finished the episode revealing Horn Rim Glasses guy's back story and sulu's secret past. Corny T just reminded me we have head up north to look at wedding rings and have lunch- mmm Indian.

Update on July

Whew July was busy. I neglected a lot of things such as volunteering, blogging, and bathing...(Ok I took a bath once or twice) due to a visit from my mom and other wedding and work related stuff. After I wrote the last post, Mom drove down and spent my birthday with me. While she was here she helped me paint the entire living room(just what I needed, someone to help and to motivate me), made my wedding dress, and helped furnish some of my empty rooms. She was amazing. We all missed her when she left, she helped so much. Grady was really bummed when she left. He had enjoyed having someone to hang out with during the day and she took him outside for lots of playtime. So my giant living room, den, dining area is now a soft, minty green color that Behr calls Turtle dove. It looks so nice and really adds a lot of light and color to the whole house. When Mom left she said she wanted to see at least two other rooms painted by the time she came back for the wedding. Well I took her seriously, and this weekend I painted the kitchen, celery sprig, (a really bright, almost grass green) and the hallway/alcove Silverado Trail (a warm purple). The alcove counts as a room right? Those rooms are small so I thought it would take me no time at all since mom had taught me to be a master painter. Yeah, it still took me the good part of two days to finish. I think I will take a break for a while before I do the rest. No matter how confident I feel I still am not crazy about painting. Such messy work. Or at least when I do it;). Well at least I had the place all freshly painted for bookclub last night. We discussed the March by E.L Doctorow. I loved it but it got mixed reviews from the others. The writing is great but the narrative is a little inaccesible. Not really plot heavy more moody. For Aug we are reading Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux. I have never read him but I remember the movie leaving a bad impression so we'll see how the book is. In other reads, I am 3/4s through HP7. So far, I am loving it but I think 6 was a little better.The good thing is that nobody ruined it for me this time.
So three more months to go till the wedding. And things seem to be falling into place. We have the invites, and now have to mail them out. Tomorrow we go for a tasting at the cc and will pick our menu for the reception. I think once I get the invites in the mail I will feel like we are almost done. Yay.

Dreading the Holiday

Yes, you read that right. I am actually not looking forward to two days off because I need to finish painting the house and honestly I would rather work than paint. When I was a kid I hated painting with my parents. But when I bought my own house I thought for sure I would love pickign my own paint colors and painting my very own wall. Nope, it still stinks. I painted my tiny little bathroom over the Memorial day weekend and discovered it is still boring, tedious, tiring work. If we weren't buried under wedding bills, I would hire someone to do it. Oh well, I will load up the latest Lincoln biography CornyT has been raving about and put on the old clothes and pretend it's fun. I would take pictures of my efforts but for some reason my digital camera is on the fritz. Something is wrong with its ability to power up. I have put brand new, fresh out of the package batteries in twice now and I am still getting the little out of power symbol (battery with a line through it) and then it immediately powers down. Very depressing turn of events because of the before mentioned wedding bills and the need to have a nice camera for both the wedding and the honeymoon. Anyway, I will quit whining and try to enjoy my raining, boring, back breaking holiday:). PS if anyone coming to visit me in the next couple of months would like me to hold off on the painting and would like to help me, I could probably be convinced to wait. Umm just an idea and you know who you are. Happy Fourth All!

Farewell Alamo

On occasion, I like to use this space to evangelize about my dear city and in all my gushing I am sure I have brought up the Alamo Drafthouse Theatre at least more than once. How could I not go on and on about this theatre. I had never lived anywhere, where I could get a beer, a burger and watch silent movies while a real band played the sound track or sing along at the top of my lungs to the Buffy musical episode or catch a burlesque act. And I have so many fond memories of meeting my pals underneath the big ass "The Alamo" poster in the lobby. That is where I solidified a lot of my Austin friendships while standing in line with hundreds of other young Austinites waiting to watch the sinus guys goof on Tom Cruise's teeth or the iguana in the Terminator (it's a funny iguana trust me). Now the Alamo is another victim of the gussying up of the Austin down-town. Driven out by inflated rent, the Alamo is finding a new home in another theatre downtown called the Ritz. I don't know much about it but I hear it is nice and will be a fitting replacement and at least the business establishment that considers Joss Whedon's birthday a day worth celebrating is not gone from Austin forever. But it's still sad to know that original location will be a over-priced yuppy bar.
The Alamo is well known for having all night events and the last night was of course no exception. I always thought that being in a theatre all night watching every Buffy episode or all 6 Stars Wars movies sounded like great fun but when I actually got to the point of buying the tickets I always wussed out. I knew deep in my heart that by 1 AM I would be cranky, uncomfortable, and pining for my pillow top mattress. So, we didn't even attempt to get the sought after tix to the last show. However, a couple of my friends are just that crazy and they looked exhausted yesterday but had a blast! They watched the old Earthquake movie with sound equipment that made the whole building shake and wine glasses creep their way to the edge of the tables. That's the kind of fun stuff we will miss. But when one movie reel is removed another is replaced, right?

Wedding Chores

We recently returned from the first of three weddings we will attend this year. (One of course being our own:). Our friends hosted a beautiful, day-time wedding in Maine on a gorgeous local estate. Their ceremony was outside under a gazebo and incorporated a lot of personal touches that I would love to steal. However, they will be at our wedding so we should probably come up with something of our own. I am thinking a conga line around the terrace would be a blast. Just kidding, I am trying to make wedding planning more manageable and have a little more fun with it. I am assigning one wedding chore to do a day. Chunk the whole process up a bit. Since I have implemented this plan I have felt a lot more in control. I don't what I have really accomplished but I have at least called more people. I did talk to a friend of a friend who arranges wedding flowers and I had SO much fun talking about flowers. I love flowers. Especially bold, dark red flowers and she was just as excited about red stuff as I was. I was going to get wholesale flowers and do it myself and although that would be a lot of fun. I have never done that before and have no idea what the learning curve would be like so this way I don't have to worry about it. Plus, I think they are reasonable and willing to work with my measly budget.

Pup and Circumstance

After 8 weeks of lessons in sit, down, watch, loose leash walking, leave it and stay our boy successfully completed his first obedience class. Well, like CornyT said he got a pity diploma. Grady definitely needs to return for graduate courses but he kind of got the basics down. He sits and stays pretty well if he isn't too distracted. He does need more work on the leash walking. Today he demonstrated his education by dragging me into the street where I proceeded to trip in a pothole and slide across the street for about 6 inches all while my neighbor looked on in horror and said "that dog is kind of big for you." Yes, that was money well spent:). Well it least it went to the shelter who is now having even more problems. On top of the quarantine scaring away adopters, the air conditioning has broken and it may take months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix. Poor shelter, things were going so well at the beginning of the year with a balance sheet in the black and a donation for kitty condos.

Shelter Struggles

Two weeks ago, on Saturday May 19th when I was skipping my usual shift at the shelter to take Grady to the Golden Retriever rescue group picnic, the humane socity volunteers found a dead bat in one of the dog runs. The bat tested positive for rabies and the poor shelter has been practically shut down for the last two weeks. Over half the dogs have been placed in a 90 day quarantine and only special volunteers can walk those dogs to the special runs. Other volunteers, like myself can walk pre-adopt dogs and do other little chores around the shelter. If I had been at the shelter that day I would probably been interviewed by the health department but I don't think the volunteers had to get rabie shots. Or at least I hope not that would be horrible. Anyway, the whole thing is really bad for the shelter and all those poor dogs who will have to spend over 3 months in the shelter without a chance of being adopted. All the puppies that were not in the shelter when the scare occurred are placed in kennels out on the patio for people to visit and hopefully adopt. From the emails it sounds like there are still a good amount of adoptions every week so at least people have not been scared away. What an unfortunate thing to happen to the poor shelter.

This just in

My dog is absolutely adorable, but I have to share this guy with you and my new favorite cute site, the Daily Puppy. Actually, since this is a Golden pup, I am sure my boy looked a lot like this guy only about a year ago. Now he is a big, gangly, 70 pound pup.

Swimfest 2007

I have finally attached some pictures of our new dog Grady. It is hard to believe we have had him 6 weeks already. Every day life with Grady just gets more and more fun. Last Saturday I took him to the rescue groups semi-annualy swim fest at a farm out side of town. The thirty or more Gold Retrievers in attendance frolicked in the creek while their human companions ate breakfast tacos and fruit salad while discussing their dog rearing experiences with other Golden owners. Grady was in heaven bounding around where ever he wanted off leash and I was also pretty content watching all the cute Golden heads bob up and down in the water. Although, none of those head's were ever Grady's. He was much more comfortable chasing other dogs on the dry ground than diving into that scary, wet pond. I am not sure he had ever seen open water before. He certainly didn't act like he knew what to do with it. It was fine for putting your feet in but going in farther was not a good idea. I also think this was the first time he had ever been around a horse. He barked hysterically at them when we passed a couple on the road. When a couple came near our little gathering all the dogs went nuts and chased after them (of course). The owner of the farm told us to call our dogs and I shouted a little panicky for Grady not seeing him anywhere. I felt a dog by my legs but there were a dozen around me. After a coulple more yells I look down and realize he's been right there by me the whole time:). What a good dog. In fact, he was by my side most of the picnic- like my little pal, people and dog watching with me. Right now he is chomping on a bone by my feet while I write this.

In the company of puppies

So now that I have my very own big dog to walk every day, I have decided to move my attention at the shelter to puppies. Yeah, I needed a lot convincing to decide to spend two hours cuddling, playing, and petting puppies but after I relented and admitted it was for a cause I took the puppy training and donned my official Puppy Socializer badge. I am not kidding, I really have a badge that says Puppy Socializer.

So, this weekend instead of walking big dogs around the field, I scrubbed down the "real-life" room, gathered an armful of toys, treats, and towels and "socialized" three darling terrier mix puppies. When I took the first puppy out of his kennel, I was sure someone was going to say "hey girl put the dog down". In fact, I was showing my badge to every staff member I walked by just so they knew I was officially allowed to pet puppies. You see, for the last 9 months, the pups have been off limits and marked with big red stickers on the kennels. Don't even look at them the stern looks from the staffers seemed to say as you neared a pup's kennel. However, after lots of convincing from the volunteers and promising to be very careful and use liberal amounts of bleach in the real-life room, the shelter staff has agreed to let volunteers play with puppies. This is a win-win for everyone, the puppies get that all important socialization so they can be good grown ups and not end up back in the shelter and the volunteers will be even more compelled to stick around. And in case you were not aware, a little mopping and sanitizing is well worth a good cuddle with a pup.

My Monthly Post

OK I have been very bad. I am sure you are shocked to actually see a post here since it has been a MONTH since I last posted. Ugh I have to get back into the habit of writing here. I love doing it, it's just after all the wedding planning and trying to train the dog, I don't have energy to get back on the laptop. Whine, whine, whine, huh? Anyway, it has been a busy month. We finally adopted a Golden Retriever boy, named Buddy who we now call Grady. The first week with Grady was fairly hard. The first night he made his way out of the yard and played a "fun" game of chase with me for about a block and a half. When I brought him back home I was livid and in tears, just sure we had made a terrible mistake giving up Sasha and adopting this young Rascal. They say the first 2 weeks of adopting a pet are the honeymoon stage... in our case it was a rocky honeymoon but I now am completely enamoured with his adorable little blonde face. Our biggest complaint about Sasha was that she was so low energy we really couldn't interact with her a problem that Grady does not have. He goes for a good, energetic game of frisbee while still knowing when it is time to lay nicely by our feet while we watch tv or surf the net. We start obedience classes this Tuesday at the Humane Society and I hope we can improve his recall and few other basic manners.
Anyway, as you can tell I could go on and on about the dog but there have been other things keeping me from the blog. This is actually my first weekend at home in over 2 weeks. The weekend before last I drove to New Orleans for a friends steam boat bridal shower and crawfish boil. What a blast that was. New Orleans is such a fun place to spend a weekend and it was a special treat being there with natives who knew all the great "hole in the wall" type restaurants. Last weekend we went to Charleston, South Carolina to watch the Mamester graduate from the Americorp. I cannot express how proud I am of her for sticking with that program. I am sure it didn't always feel like it was worth all the trouble but I think the skills she learned and the people she helped was more the worth the inconviences she had to endure.
Anyway, I have to run for now but I will honestly try to write more I promise.

Sad News

In October I wrote about a shelter dog named Cole who had touched the lives of her adopter and her adopter's dying father. The adopter had called the shelter to report that Cole was such a wonderful dog and had been her biggest support during a tough time. Unfortunately, this story does not have the happy ending it should have. On Friday, this woman returned Cole to the humane society in a state of obvious neglect and poor health. The volunteers who knew Cole from her previous time in the shelter could barely recognize her she was so gaunt and sickly. As they were walking her to the runs she collapsed and was rushed to the onsite clinic. The clinic staff noticed a festering wound on her leg that they later realized was maggot infested. Sadly, the clinic staff decided that because she was just too sick there was nothing they could do but end her suffering with humane euthanasia. I am just so sad that things ended so terribly for Cole. She was a sweet dog and she didn't deserve to be treated that way. I wish the animal cops could make that woman accountable for what she did to Cole.

Dogless

So, we decided that Texas was probably not the dog for us and found her a home with a young woman and her parents. At her new home she has two doggie siblings and 4 people to pet her all the time. I think she will be very happy in her new home. The rescue group has found us a boy named Buddy that I think will be a really good match for us. He is lovable, playful, and a little younger. We will meet him this weekend and if we are all in mushy love with him we will bring him home. I have seen pictures and he is a gorgeous boy. I can't wait to meet him.

Mechanical Things Hate Us

In the week my garage door opener broke, the monitor on the laptop went out, and our front porch light went out (doesn't seem to be the bulb either). Its a little weird that they all happened at once. We must have ticked off some force that controls electrical-type objects. The most annoying thing is the garage door opener because it could be complicated to fix. The little chain thing jumped off the track that strung it through the pulley and got wedged between the pulley and the bracket- yeah it's complicated to explain. We are going to try to replace the chain. CornyT has an idea how to do it and he is becoming more and more handy. Amongst all these broken things we did fix our toilet- FINALLY. Yeah we had been living with it for a while but it runs like a champ now. So that makes it us 1 : Mechanical things 3 - darn!

Trouble in Paradise

The other night we were taking Sasha for a walk and encountered the bravest little kitty you have every seen. The cat just headed towards Sasha with confidence and not an inkling of fear of this much larger animal in front of her. She must have been a street cat used to encountering dogs and secure in her ability to kick their buts if she needed to. The cat was adorable, Sasha's reaction to her was not. Her ears perked up, she crouched and went in for a lunge. CornyT had to hold her back with the leash and I shooed the cat away who either wanted to play or more or wanted to finish the fight because she kept coming towards the dog. If I hadn't worried so much about her safety I would have let the cat scratch Sasha to teach her a lesson but there was no guarantee Sasha wouldn't get in a lucky bite. Needless, to say this began to give us pause about adding Sasha to our 2 person, one cat household permanently. We have kept Livia and Sasha seperated mostly for the last 3 weeks. In response to this behavior, we have been evaluating her with the cat for the last few nights. We place Livia in the room with Sasha in her crate and let them see eachother and be close without any danger. The first night Sasha banged up against the cage to get at her but last night she just watched her attentively. I don't if it is going to work and I know I wish Sasha was a little more playful. She could careless about tug of war or hide and seek. mmm can you train for that?

Busy Weekend

Finally, CornyT and I took advantage of Austin's biggest tourist draw and actually went to some SXSW shows. In fact, we went to almost a dozen shows in 3 days. Phew and I am exhausted. I would like to say that we did it on our volition but we in fact needed an excuse to get out. CornyT's friend from college came to town to visit us and we felt we had to show him a good time. The great thing is we didn't buy one of the pricey wristbands and still got into the shows we wanted to and at a lot places didn't even pay cover. Previously, I had thought SXSW was so overwhelming and hard to sort through all the available bands but when you have an old college buddy who is willing to listen to all the myspace pages and find the good bands it really isn't hard:). Along with all the bands I also had my first celebrity sighting in Austin. At the You Am I concert we saw an actor from one of our favorite shows, a man who is never nude.

Showing off

I have a brief moment at work so I thought I would show off my ring. I just love it and think CornyT did such a nice job of picking it out. I had to educate him about the virtues of patinum over white gold- patinum is harder and therefore better for the diamond, and doesn't scratch as easily. So next we have to pick out bands. UGH I love picking out jewlery as much as I love picking out furniture. Well at least the bands are cheaper:). Am I just killing the romance or what?!

The More to Report the less I do

I have been guilty of some serious blog neglect. However, lack of things to report certainly has not been the excuse. The big news is two weeks ago on February 25 CornyT and I got engaged. Most of you probably already know this but I want to fill in everyone else. (yeah I am still fooling myself that anyone is reading this:) The proposal was amazingly romantic and touching and I will remember it forever. He is such a fabulous guy! We are absolutely thrilled and are in the thick of wedding planning already. Even though we are going to keep things small there is still a ton to do. And I can't wait till it is all done. But I guess the journey is half the fun right so I shouldn't complain too much abou the planning. We have been to a lot of different type of venues already a couple of super fancy, places and a few kitschy, "backyard" type places. We did find one place that seemed to kind of fall in between those two that I think we are going to go with.

Also, as if getting engaged wasn't going to keep us busy enough we also are fostering and probably adopting the Golden Retriever of our dreams. Yep the rescue group deemed us fit adopters and we are now fostering pending adoption a two year old girl who is absolute sweetie originally named Texas- we are now calling her Sasha. She was a little shy at first but is coming out of her shell. Pictures of her will be posted soon. She is so pretty.

TV Addict

Okay there were three things that I liked about American Idol last night: A) The Keen song and the beat box boy's version of that song B) Ryan Seacrest (funny) C) The adorable parents of the Justin Timberlake looking kid.
There were three things that disappointed me: A)Sanjaya! B)Paul Kim's falsetto (and overall performance C) Chris Sligh's whiny response to Simon's critique
And I though Sanjaya and Chris Sligh were going to steal the show.

I hate to admit but I like the show better when they only sing a little bit of the song. I get bored with all those bad boring songs. I am not a true fan am I?
After Idol we watched the Prestige on DVD. Go rent that movie RIGHT NOW, you won't regret it.

President's Day Weekend 2007 and Happy Chinese New Year

Kind of a quiet holiday weekend and I spent the day off catching up on my sleep. Work has been pretty busy this last week so it was nice to just relax, read in bed, and snooze. We did a little shopping yesterday at IKEA and spent the evening constructing 4 dining chairs and one loungey type chair for the sun room. The IKEA directions could be a little more efficient (and I know something about directions). On more than one occasion we realized we had made a mistake because the appropriate screws or chair pieces we not correctly marked. The good part was we did this all while watching the season premiere of the Amazing Race All Star show. Yes, I am hopelessly addicted to TV and now becoming more and more addicted to reality TV. But the Amazing Race is all about travel and it is so fun to see all the places around the world that they end up going on their crazy adventure. The wacky relationships and the bickering is fun too. Before we hunkered down in front of the TV we spent the afternoon at a Chinese New Year festival. It was the fairly standard Chinese New Year festivity; lion dancing, fireworks and food. We spent SAturday cleaning the house; sweeping and taking out the garbage because it is good luck to start the Chinese New Year with a clean house (what mom started that tradition;)?) and sweeping, cutting, and throwing out trash is forbidden on the new year day.
I did take advantage of my extra holiday time and went to the shelter today as well as my usual shift on Saturday. Lately, I have been getting some really mouthy puppies who like to go for my whole hand when I play ball with them. I look like I did when I was a kid with scratches on my hand from my very energetic border collie puppy. Every time they get rough I stop the play and we go back to the kennel but it has been 4 dogs in the last 2 weeks to do this. Hopefully, with more training they will get a little less mouthy. My favorite moment with the dogs was when the Schnauzer named Fancy I took out chased after the shadow of a bird flying over head. He was very disappointed when there was no bird on the ground.
Well I have to run and make hamburgers- it's like 75 here and we thought we'd celebrate with an outdoorsy kind of dinner. Hope all you have a great year of the Pig.

Lots to Report Little Time to do so

These days it so hard to find time to get on the computer if I am not working. The good thing is I am SUPER busy at work and very happy with all the new challenges. The bad thing is I don't feel like getting online at home and blogging as much; tired of looking at the computer screen. So those are my feeble excuses. But I thought I would take these few moments at lunch to report some stuff going on in my little corner of Austin. First, the Gold Ribbon Rescue interview on Sunday was a blast. The interviewer brought over her Golden puppy and the puppies mommy. What a blast it was to watch the momma and the puppy play in our back yard. The neighbor dog Maggie (lab) came over to join in on the fun and it was so good for the soul to watch them chase each other around the trees. As far as the interview goes she told me she will let me know in a couple of weeks what their decision is- so I still don't know if I get a rescued golden but I will keep you posted.
Also, I hope everyone had a great Valentines day. CornyT and I had a quiet night home. I made organic steak, potatoes and zuchini yummy yummy. Better than anything in a restaurant and we exchanged Xmas/v-day presents. Huh you say? Well if you remember I was stressed and cranky at xmas so we decided to give our presents in FEb to give us a little break from shopping and such at that time. I gave him pants, a new shirt and tickets to the Richard Thompson concert coming up in March. He gave me baklava, a puppy calendar, and an adapter to play my ipod in the car. Score.
After dinner we capped our romantic evening by watching American Idol. So I have favorites of the newly picked 24- for the girls I LOVE Lakeesha- that woman is going to make me cry I just know it and I like the woman who made it to Hollywood last year but was cut- can't remember her name but she has personality. For the guys, I LOVE Sanjaya- so cute like a little puppy, all gangly and smiley, the guy who looks like Jack Osbourne, and that HOT guy from LA who was a back-up singer, Brendan I think! CAn't wait to keep watching. Well I need to get back to work so that is my quick and probably full of typo post. I will try to write more late.

Worn Out

Whew it has been a busy weekend. Last night we went to a reading of Mike's former classmates in charming Kyle Texas and then went to a fancy wine bar/restaurant down town here in Austin.The wine bar was great a little pricey but amazing food and nice atmosphere for the fancy schmancy "Dallas" district. 2nd street down town has gotten a little uppity and doesn't have a lot of the traditional Austin casual charm but the fancy restaurant did have the most amazing mashed potatoes. Ah nothing is better than cream and lots of butter in a plate of mashed potatoes.
Today, I walked the dogs, took a long walk with a couple of friends and then went to the gym with Mike. Tomorrow is the big day, the home visit by the Golden Retriever rescue group. I cleaned up and am all ready to meet her two dogs and show her we can make good golden parents. It will be weird when we get a dog. I am sure it is going change our routine a lot but it will also be fun to have a buddy to go walking with and take to the river and the dog park. I can't wait!

Guilty Pleasure

The other morning I awoke and felt the same as any other day, but something had profoundly changed. I am not sure how it happened but I had found myself hooked on American Idol. I have always had a mild interest in the talent show that has stolen America's heart but for some reason this year I am a "we-have-to-record-it-and-I-can't-be-interrupted-while-it-is-on" hooked. Maybe it was all the heart wrenching auditions this year like the older man who fought to get an audition to give his dying wife hope or the 16 year-old, "crack baby" who sang her heart out or maybe it was the really attractive back up singer who wanted to get on Idol to validate his singing career. Whatever it was, I am hooked and I can't wait to watch the upcoming Hollywood auditions!

Golden in My Home

Today, I scheduled my home visit with the golden retriever rescue group. This is the 2nd step in the application process. The first was the phone interview screen, which went very well. Now they will come to the house, and confirm that I have a fenced yard and I guess look like I am responsible enough to adopt a sweet little golden. The evaluator will also bring two of her own dogs to the house to show me how to properly groom a golden and to give Livia more exposure to dogs. I think the home outings I have been doing with the shelter dogs is also helping her get a little used to dogs. She is not going to love it when I get a dog, I know but I am hoping she will just learn to tolerate him and all will live in peace. I have read everything I can find about how to properly introduce them and I am hoping that will help ensure a successful transition. Oh and did I mention that one of the evaluator's dogs is a 4 month old puppy! I can't wait to see the little pupsterooni!

House Guest

So, over this weekend we hosted 5 twenty-somethings as mentioned in the post below. And it was a very fun time. After they left I must have been suffering from a variation of the empty nest syndrome because I immediately went to the shelter and brought a dog home for an overnight stay. As CornyT requested, I found a well behaved dog with a good gastro-intestinal trac- last time I brought home a dog as farty as an 80 year-old grandpa. Drake, a one-year old rough-collie mix, was an excellent house guest. He is a great dog who is just a little shy and anxious when confronting new situations. This was first evidenced when we got to the car. He immediately layed down by the open door, refusing to jump inside. It took a LOT of persuading with treats and some gentle pushing to actually get him in the car. In fact, he was reluctant both times we got into the car. Once he was in the car he was ok, although he got out of the seat belt pretty easily and stood up and got jostled around. At home he did not have any potty accidents and enjoyed playing with a stuffed toy and going for a long walk around the neighborhood. He was good on the walk and only showed mild interest in other dogs that passed by. He only barked once when a man on a bike "walking" his dog went by us. When we went to potty in the backyard at night he seemed very fearful of going on the side of the house until I coaxed him in an excited voice to follow me to the side door. He seemed to have little interest in our cat and did not want to walk by the room where she was sleeping. I am not sure if it is because that was down a dark hallway or because he could smell Livia. We thought that was strange behavior. All in all he spent the evening curled up on the floor by the couch next to us. He tried to get up on the couch once or twice but we corrected him and he sat nicely on the floor. The only really naughty behavior I noticed was when I placed a small wallet on an end table he picked it up with his mouth and dropped it on the floor. Though, no counter surfing or interest in food we snacked on. He did get a little anxious with TV and kitchen noises when he first heard them but he would quickly settle down and was calm most of the night. He is so sweet and so people oriented that I think he will be a great dog for someone who is patient and willing to work with him to get over his fears.

Party Like A 21 Year Old

That's what I did this weekend with my newly legal to drink sister! We had originally planned to go to Vegas for her big birthday but our schedules didn't really allow for it. But we really wanted to spend the day together. So on Friday, her birthday, she rented a car and drove to Austin with 4 of her Americorp team and went to at least 4 or 5 clubs in Austin. We barely skimmed the surface of all the fun places to go in Austin so I can't wait till she comes back so we can do more of those things together. I hope her and her friends had a fun time. I would have liked to have shown them more Austin type stuff but I didn't plan as well as I should have. I should have taken them out to the Oasis for margaritas and sunset viewing but I didn't think of it until about 5:30 Saturday night- a little too late. Oh well there is always another time I guess. I am just glad I got to celebrate with Mame. I also hope she appreciated the giant costco birthday cake I bought her! It is enormous- I don't know what I was thinking by not forcing the gang to take some back to Americorp with them. We are going die of diabetes eating that thing. Does anyone want some chocolate cake?

Spring??

Right now I am sitting in a coffee shop with the sun beating down on me and I am comtemplating changing into shorts. Hard to believe it is this warm after we spent almost an entire week holed up in the house. On this sunny, warm day we should have been out working in the yard or taking a walk but instead we saw a movie. Silly I know but we have wanted to see Pan's Labyrinth for a while- you might remember from the last post when I whined about the movie being sold out that was the one we were trying to see. Anyway, we finally got there early enough to get in (this show was also sold out) and we both really enjoyed it. It's a little dark and definitely not a children's movie (violent!) but well made and worth seeing on the big screen.
Yesterday, it was more like winter and was a very drizzly and cold dog walking day. Not of course as wet as last week, none of the runs were flooded this time but rainy enough to make field walking a real bummer. I took most of the dogs to the auditorium and let them run around chasing stuffed animals and tennis balls. My favorite time of the day was watching a huge Rottweiler named Bishop chase a cuddly, white teddy bear around the auditorium. He would toss it across the room and scamper after it. Very cute. Kind of like watching a line backer play with kittens:).

The Big Melt

Well, I am pretty sure today is my last day of working at home and tomorrow I will have have to start showering again and exchange my comfty sweat pants for real clothes. Just kidding I have been showering, um today at least. Oh and I am going to have to find my hairbrush. I haven't had need for that in a couple of days either. We did actually venture out this afternoon and the roads were pretty clear as long as you stayed off the highways. We thought we would catch an early movie after I finished up work and were pretty sure we would have the theatre to ourselves. Ha some original idea. The rest of the city had bravely crawled out of their little holes too and the movie we wanted to see was sold out. We settled for an early dinner and an abbreviated browse through Borders which closed early due to lack of staffing. All the employees must have been watching Pan's Labyrinth. Anyway here is a picture of the ice that brought our brave Texas city to its knees. I thought you northeners would get a kick out of the pictures.

The Big Chill

Winter has come to Texas and we are hunkering down in the house watching the weather and wallowing around in our pjs. We have been calling the ice storm the STORM of the CENTURY (in dramatic news caster voice) but the news here is actually a little more low key and calling the storm "The Big Chill". The house looks so cute with icicles lining the eaves and frost dotting the front lawn. Any where in the country I think this would be business as usual but in the Hill Country it is shutting down the city. We haven't got our mail today and some places didn't get trash picked up.
Actually, it is kind of fun to have something out of the ordinary break up the routine. Although, it would be a little more fun if I had a job where I couldn't work from home but it is still fun to do all my work in a sweatshirt and puppy slippers plus I am getting paid so I can't complain too much.

Cozy Sunday

Don't just love days when you feel like you got done everything you wanted to do accomplished. Often the weekend days get away from me and I feel like I only finished a fraction of what I wanted to do. Somehow though today I managed to be fairly productive despite the cold, gloomy weather. I did spend the first 2 hours of the day curled up in the covers but while I was there I finished my book club book so that was the first thing I could scratch off my list for the weekend. I then cleaned up the clutter on my vanity, nightstand, and my desk. Now, I can look over at those places and not feel overwhelmed by all the junk mail, books, and notebooks stacked up; it's a nice feeling. I then did some chores around the house like sweeping, dusting, and all that other boring but necessary stuff. Now that all the household jobs are done I am ready to head back to work. However, we will see if I actually work in the office tomorrow. We are having our yearly bad ice storm and if the roads are bad I might just work from home tomorrow. I hope everyone is staying warm where they are right now. It looks like this bad weather is hitting the entire country. Well, here's to cuddling up with a hot chocolate and a good book; doesn't that sound perfect?!

Rainy Rainy Saturday

Oooh it is chilly and rainy here. I don't think the rain has abated all day. All this rain, made for a soggy dog walking morning. All three of the dog runs, where we take them to go potty were fully submersed in about 5 inches of water when I got there this morning. Apparently there was one dry spot in a corner where the first two volunteers took one dog at a time to go potty. That of course would not work, so another volunteer brought a shovel and they began digging out the runs and creating a drainage system to evacuate the water. I was so impressed with my fellow volunteers for doing all that hard work to fix the runs. That is dedication.

My first dog of the day, Louisa a Finnish Spitz mix, was not at all into being in the rain or going into the flooded runs. She sweetly would lean against my leg kind of pushing me towards the door. Eventually, I got the message and we went back inside and snuggled in a nice dry, warm visitation room. What a sweet dog she was, she would gently lick my hand and sit nicely for lots of head rubs. Actually, all the dogs I took out today were just super sweet. My new favorite dog at the shelter is Herman a black retriever mix. He has a beautiful full coat and is very calm and very affectionate. I can't understand why someone would give him up. He seems like a great dog who would just quietly lay next to you while you watched TV. If I don't hear back from the gold ribbon rescue soon and Herman is still in shelter I may consider adopting him. But I doubt he will stay at the shelter for very long someone will certainly snatch him up soon.
On Thursday when I last wrote, I was running off to Girl's Night at Cork and Company. This was my first experience at a wine bar and I have to say it was really nice. The atmosphere was elegant yet casual and the selection of wine was amazing. You can sample a variety of wines grouped as tasters or flights. The flights had fun names like my friend's Chardonnay flight Blonde Bombshell or my favorite the Hot Texas Redhead (mmm there was a hair color theme wasn't there). Mmm it was fun to taste those wines and I would love to go back but oh buddy was it expensive. That is one thing beer has over wine it is a lot cheaper.

Bad Blogger

Oh I have been such a bad blogger and I was going to really try to blog more this year. I could make a lot of excuses but instead I will just tell you about my weekend now that is almost time for the next weekend. This was my first week back to the shelter after xmas break and I was so glad to have some quality time with the doggies again. CornyT was busy doing some contract writing so I spent 3 and 1/2 hours with the dogs. Luckily I had that much time to spend there because for most of it there was just me and another volunteer. Sadly, there were at least 3 dogs returned back to the shelter that have been adopted earlier last year. The one I was not surprised to see was a sweet border terrier named Seamus who is just a whirl wind of energy. The first time I took that dog for a walk I knew he was going to have a hard time in a home.- if you've seen the old warner brothers tasmanian devil Taz you would have some idea of what Seamus looks like when he gets out of the kennel. Phew, hopefully we can do some crate training with him and he will be more adoptable because he is a really nice dog. I can however happily report that Casey, the smart and endearing shar-pei mix that I had a soft spot for, was adopted over the weekend. Oh by the way, I never got to take her home for an overnight like I planned. When I went to the shleter to pick her up she had already been taken by another volunteer. It is probably a good thing because I heard she liked to chew on furniture a lot. Hopefully, her new family was warned and will break her of the habit. I did bring a dog home that night though. A Harrier (a lot like a fox hound) named Jack. He was a sweet dog but he did not get along with poor Livia- he really wanted hunt her. There went my plan to get her used to dogs. The funny thing about Jack was that he had a bad case of irritable bowel syndrome. FArty farterson all night long! Hopefully, his new family won't mind that either. WEll I have to run for now to meet a couple friends for girl's night at a local wine bar called Cork & Company. I swear I will try to blog more.

Book club and other stuff

The other night was the first book club of the year and the third anniversary of our little group. I am so proud we have been keeping it up for three years. Although I have not always finished every book (too many books too little time to read the boring ones) I have only missed one meeting in our three-year history and that was because I was out of town on business. Keep in mind though showing up to the meetings is not really hard work... hmm stay at home or hang out with intelligent women, eat yummy snacks and talk about books boy that's a hard one. Anyway, here is to three more years of good book talk and good snacks. This month's book was Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith and it was well received by everyone. We did spend most of the night talking about the quirks of Mormonism rather than the book itself but it was a lively chat. I highly recommend this book it is a powerful combination of true crime and American history. Krakauer is just a great writer and the fact that this very young, American religion has grown to have such immense global power is fascinating.
We have chosen Limbo by Alfred Lubrano for next month. A collection of essays concerning people from blue collar backgrounds striving to emerge into the white collar class i.e. the American dream, right. Should be an interesting read. I suggested Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell of this American Life and received a few votes but still lost out. Oh well I will try next month.:) Time to run off to work now. Have a great Friday.

Vacation is over

Finally, we are back from our Christmas tour. We were only gone for a week and a half but it felt a lot longer. We started in northern New Mexico, stopped over in South Dakota, and ended the whole thing in a rented beach house in Port Aranssas with two other couples celebrating 2007. Phew that was fun. Today it was back to work, no more idling away the days. The one good thing about being back was that traffic was so much better. Thank God the holiday season is over. The highlights of the holiday were definitely skiing in Taos and playing the new Nintendo Wii at a relatives house. Who would think that a video game could be as physically exerting as skiing. What a blast though- finally I was able to actually volley in tennis and bowl over 200! Luckily we had secure arm straps. I would felt terrible if I had taken someone's eye out. I think I am going to quit my job and join the pro-bowling circuit. What a great blog that would be - my experiences as a pro-Wii bowler.