Dogtober

Last weekend was the 2nd Annual Dogtober event for East C.A.N.
once again we had the use of ArtHouse Gardens (thanks Alan) and Elizabeth and Shelley basically did all of the organizing. I have been a little swamped at work and didn't really get involved at all as they pulled everything together.

8 am - 4 pm was my gig. I brought Beda since he's officially looking for a new home. He is still a foster dog even though we've had him for ages.

well, he's not officially looking, but i am.
Although things have been going well at the house (ie: Abner hasn't been a total butthead lately and attacked him) and since folks aren't lined up for him due to him being a... um... senior dog - we certainly haven't been pushing things.


until now. :)



he was so darn cute. who wouldn't want to take him home?
i thought he'd made a love connection at one point, but i was mistaken. bummer!


Anyway... the day was all about music, pumpkins, dogs to pet, a 3K run/walk, raising money and awareness, and of course..... the infamous Listserve Pie Toss!

We asked the top listserve posters to participate and quite a few of them agreed to take a pie in the face in the name of a cause.
those brave enough to show up were:
Rembrandt (father of 22 - who lined up to toss a pie!)
Mitch Palmer (hammer extraordinnaire - you need shakes? he's got em!)
Grizzly Reeves (who drove about 45 minutes in for this since he's moved out of East Nasty)
Elizabeth Chauncey (she was kind of trapped since she's our fearless leader!)
Wryker (manager of his own fan club)

E Burt was next door hawking her wares at Meg's for the day's yard sale so she deferred.
Pam was too chicken to show up as was Bill Bernstein. that's ok. we'll get em next time.
oh, and Alan .... he "had to work in another location" yeah right... whatever.


Here are some pics!

oh, and i got in on the action too!

i'm pretty sure this is what caused my back to go out on me for the next 5 days!

:)

Weekend Update

not really the SNL kind. the eastsidekind

got up early saturday morning thinking i was going to go to Oktoberfest/Germantown Street Festival to hold a puppy and try to make people think they want to take it home.

too many volunteers and not enough pups - go figure! One was adopted the night before and I generally don't take Beda out to things like this although it would be really great if i did.

this is Beda.

So, Alison (my sister) and i headed out still pretty early to go try to regain some German nostalgia.
yeah right. after perusing the booths and Alison making a few purchases (for those of you with no money - it's a really great way to satisfy the urge to spend - more later.) we decided to eat lunch

Alison is a pescaterian (she eats fish but no other meat) so she ate the veggie beer cheese soup from Mad Platter. I found one of many vendors advertising bratwurst and had that.
bratwurst? whatever. more like a polska kielbasa in a hot dog bun with american mustard on top.
um... hellooooooooo bratwurst is not italian sausage, hot dog, polska k, turkey sausage, smoked sausage. it's bratwurst. and i know it by the flavor. this wasn't it.
and who ever ate it from a hot dog bun? it's supposed to come in a crusty roll "brochen".
and bright yellow mustard is a travesty.

and truthfully, i could have lived with the hot dog bun and the yellow mustard IF i had been eating a brat.
i spose if i had waited to eat until after consuming 1 or 2 of the enormous beers being sold for god knows how much i may not have noticed.
i didn't drink any beer. so i guess you can say i didn't hold up my end of the whole Oktoberfest deal either.
but the German Chocolate Cake from Mad Platter that Alison and i shared on our way back to the car was divine. the icing was homemade and you could tell. we both loved it.

back to the spending money thing. Alison and i have similar things we are drawn to so we tend to visit the same types of booths at these events. we both naturally steered right into a sweet little booth with pillows and sleep masks and fabric journal covers. i eventually realized i had seen her things before at the Tomato Arts Fest earlier this summer. the cutest stuff! White Cottage Design
and they live in East Nash too! while having a conversation she mentioned her 150 pound american bulldog Boris. i said... wait a minute... you live on Douglas! yup! i run past her house with the dogs and have met them on the street with their big hoss of a dog!
love it.
Alison bought a holiday gift and two things for herself and i like to think it was because i was spending through her. i'm pretty good at convincing someone they need to "go ahead and get it" it's so cute "why not?" just think... "you'll have one gift down and only a few more to worry about"
it's really my way of being able to spend money without having any.

I love to go shopping with people who have money. When Todd wanders into a men's shop at the mall i love it when he says "i think i need a new shirt" or a new pair of shoes or whatever.
ooooh goody! i immediately go to work looking for the perfect shoe or shirt. or if it's a gift for someone .... yay! two of my favorites! i get to pick it out and maybe get to be there when someone opens it! (more later on that one!)

So, Alison ended up calling me a bad influence and i got excited knowing she had two new items for herself that i happen to think are just perfect! AND one for someone else.

mission accomplished! ha!

Countdown

I'm not the only person who has a significant other that spends most of their days away so I'm not looking for sympathy.

I always say things could be much worse and i'm a lucky girl.


Today I took Todd to the airport for another long and hopefully final leg of what we like to call "the neverending tour"
He'll be in Japan, China, Korea, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, UK, and Ireland with a few possible additions and maybe a subtraction or two.

I get to meet him in London on November 13th and hang until they move long to Newcastle from Manchester. Get to visit with family and hopefully take awesome pictures.

The title is countdown because I'm pretty excited about going to England again. It has been way too long and the first time back without my grandparents living. I'm glad I won't go to their house actually. I want to see it again but not on this trip. too upsetting.

35 days til i leave for London.
yay!
Here is my To Do list...

1. follow a meal plan for the next 35 days
2. try to peel a few more pounds by following above mentioned meal plan
3. consistently run with dogs for the next 35 days. good for them good for me.
4. get the darn grass to grow in the backyard before i leave! It's grass growin time um.. did you hear that Abner? NO DIGGING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is Abner. he's a digger.
that's as far as i'm going with the to do list.
It's already daunting.

ok..... GO!

Been a while...

For months and months i sat back thinking... i want a blog... i want a blog...
i was inspired by my friend Courtney. www.onemoderngirl.blogspot.com.
she's funny. and if you don't think so when you read her latest one about Southern Bred..(yes, an awesome meat and 3 in our hood) then you must go back to her May 5th post titled Foot in Mouth.
shes funny. like i said before.

so anyway. i was inspired. i started a blog.
i wrote one thing.
i'm lazy.

i've decided to make a new commitment!
how bout a few times a week? let's stop there. i don't want to get crazy and make you think i'm an open book and you're going to know everything about me and my life. whoa! nuh - uh.
yeah, i'm lying. it's not about that. it's about this.
i'm lazy.

have a great labor day weekend!
i'm gonna!

Whattaweek

I certainly didn't expect the week to turn out the way it has.
Turmoil is the best way to describe it I suppose.
Here's the long short version.

Monday - kickoff day for Young Scholars Medical Program (YSMP).
This is the part where Anne the student leader who has done phenomenal work this summer on the program gets to actually lead! (i'm pretty sure she's enjoying it)
We had a luncheon at the University Club for the students that I and the Dean of the program attended. Joel, the reason behind the program and the guy who keeps it financed and my big boss for the last 5 years stopped in to give the students a welcome.

Tuesday - Did the intro for the LifeFlight portion of the YSMP day since I work with LF. Then had time to kill on campus and went to visit my old boss. That's when the bombshell came. Joel told us he's leaving at the end of the month. Tears were shed. Professional? No, but I don't care. I was very very grateful to have a private 20 minutes to talk with him about the impact he's had on me and my time here. Sadness descended.

Wednesday. - Rumor and gossip abound...total disarray and uncertainty!

Thursday - More rumor and gossip. eek! Why does nobody have a crystal ball?
Then my wonderful friend JJ suggested a yoga class at a studio (instead of a living room- ha!) after work and what a gift that turned out to be. I had forgotten what it's like to sit in silence and focus on the inside of your body. R E C E N T E R E D

Friday - what a better day this will be. I watered my plants in the backyard and am so grateful for the mild summer we've had! My hostas are healthy and my impatiens are overflowing from their planter. Even my hydrangea (another gift from Todd) is healthy. Turned on the sprinkler to start the grass seed growing and went inside to get ready for work. You can tell i have an old house...the sprinkler being on prevented the toilet from flushing. Yay for water pressure. ha!
Off to the office to face the day with a new mantra! "everything's gonna be alright now... everything's gonna be alright."

Weekend

Didn't feel physically great this weekend and was missing someone so I kind of "hunkered down" as my mom would say!
I watched movies!
I never do this. I'm notorious for going to Blockbuster or Red box and renting a video and then not watching it.
Anyway... it started with
I Heart Huckabees - hated it. i'm sorry if i'm not that deep. i hated it. and the word existential just confuses me.
then
Juno - seen it before (actually was my Earth Day gift last year from my sweet boyfriend- yes he gets me Earth day gifts!) still love that movie.
Rachel Getting Married - loved it. raw is a good word for this one - in more ways than one.
Doubt - it was hard to watch. great movie - Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic and of course Meryl Streep. But I probably should have saved it for when i wasn't as emotional. There are some scenes that are just so heartwrenching - it's one of those where no matter how many times you say to yourself "it's just a movie" it doesn't matter at all because you know that the subject matter here is something that people deal with every single day so it isn't just a movie at all. terrible.

then of course you have to add in the insane number of "16 and pregnant" episodes that were on MTV. really. even though i think MTV should have MUSIC on there... i'm wondering if these actually work as a deterrent for teen pregnancy.

oh, and i ended with an episode of Throwback with Bobby Flay last night.
next time i'm in New York i'm eating blueberry pancakes at Clinton Street Bakery...

www.clintonstreetbaking.com

definitely!

now when is my next trip to NYC?

only new from now on

Just wanted to make sure those two pieces that have a lot of emotion tied to them weren't lost in the shuffle of deleted files.

now... on to the new stuff.

Granny

originally posted Monday, February 12, 2007 on myspace


end of an era one might say..
After 84 years on this earth, my sweet Granny decided to move along to her next destination... rejoining her husband after 4 years and 2 months of separation.
Funny actually, you know how things are told after the fact and suddenly there is meaning when a day, a week, a month ago they seemed so trivial.
Our first destination upon arrival in Oklahoma City was my aunt's home in Norman. As we sat around in a house that echoed, Jodi said... "you know she needed a new winter coat... so last week I asked her if she wanted to go shopping and she said yes... but as we stood in front of the mirror at the store, her with a brand new black wool full length coat on nodding, she suddenly said 'I don't think we should get it'.. and of course, I said, 'of course we should mother, it fits you perfectly'.. and she said 'no.... I don't think so... I'm not going to be here long enough to wear it'... I totally blew her off and said something stupid like 'now, come on, don't be ridiculous. I don't want to hear it!'... and I can't help but think that she was trying to tell me something and I ignored her... And of course we all reassured her that no, there was nothing there to know ahead of time. Granny was fine, healthy, and feeling good and Jodi did just exactly what she was supposed to do as a daughter.
As I was sitting in a faded upholstered chair at the Ritter-Gray Funeral home on Wednesday afternoon, my cousin Britni said.. "you know my dad and mom had lunch with Granny on Friday and my dad said she looked at him across the table and grabbed both of his hands and stared at him for a few seconds.. she didn't say anything, but made sure to look him in the eye the entire time..." Apparently something was murmured about wanting to talk, but of course in the rush of life, it didn't happen.
Britni also told me that Granny had actually mentioned to Larry (her dad) and Jodi (my aunt) that she had dreamed of Grandpa every night that week. of course she did... their anniversary was coming up.... would have been 66 years had my Grandpa been living. So on Saturday morning, she got up.. made herself some oatmeal... went back to bed to do some 'correspondence'... called her younger sister...and then died. No detail necessary, but it was fast. very fast. the best way really.
She died on their anniversary. February 3. I remember when I learned that fact I thought about how she once said to me when I asked how long she'd known Grandpa when she married him..."I reckon I'd known him long enough" That was her way of saying...not long at all.. but still, they were together for 61 years and are now together again. The way it should be of course.
WE.. as we refer to ourselves... "the grandkids" with the exception of those who could not be there and those who chose not to be there, made a trek out to the cemetary the day after the funeral to check on her.. and grandpa. It was upsetting and comforting at the same time to see his gravestone and the freshly dug dirt where she had been placed on top of him along with the flowers still fresh from the funeral. We huddled around with the Oklahoma wind whipping through us crying and remembering. Then I asked a question... just a simple question... and without pause the answer came from my cousin Rachel's mouth... it was funny.. i mean really funny... Sara fell on the ground and curled up in a ball laughing and I let out one of my loud laughs with my head tossed back... my sister let out her normal high pitched squeal in her usual manner.. and we all had a moment of real funny... but then when quiet came again, we all knew that that was exactly the way it should have been.. and the way Granny and Grandpa would have wanted it. Nothing pleased them more than having their boisterous crazy grandkids all together making a lot of joyous noise.
yep, it was exactly the way it should have been and i will remember it always.

In Training

originally posted Friday, April 13, 2007 on myspace.

I'm in training.
I didn't really know it until that trip to Oklahoma for the funeral.
For a really long time... well basically my entire life... I've acknowledged the fact that I have a pretty good memory. It is one of those where I basically have a video playing in my head and will tell a story about a particular experience with pretty extensive detail. I guess it never really occurred to me that I was any different from anyone else. I know there are others out there, but apparently not so much in the same age group of my family members. that said, my mother is actually amazing in the story writing abilities she has happened upon in the last few years. I am continually in awe of what she puts down on paper and shares only with us her family with absolutely no intention of going any further.
It is funny sometimes as I find myself going into detail about a random childhood memory with my sister as she stares dumbfoundedly at me saying she has absolutely no memory of it whatsoever. It's almost disappointing because it is sometimes a memory I seem to think of as profound in some way and she actually has the gall to say she doesn't even remember it!!! Unbelievable! Oh, I'm just kidding! Don't sit there and think I'm sounding like Sharon Almighty!
anyway..... off the subject for a momento....soooo, yeah, here I am with a fabulous visual on me at age um, 4 probably running around outside in a bikini - god I just loved that thing... it was floral, but kind of a soft floral- not pastel, but with soft oranges. kind of peachy and greens in it. You know the little girly kind with the elastic all the way around the waist and the legs so at the end of the day you end up with red symmetrical indentations right where where your legs meet your body... kind of poofy like bloomers. oh, and then the top part of it... hilarious... baggy of course ( i was four!!) with great effort taken by my mother to tie it tight enough to stay on around my neck but not tight enough to cause me to put up a fuss and snatch at it complaining it was too tight...
I really remember being so attached to that suit.. i think it was one of my first memories of really appreciating color and all that it can entail.
so i'm running around the yard and my sister is there too in her suit and my dad has the hose and is spraying my sister and i'm running from him due to my traumatizing fear of water... yes, i hated bathtime too and cried when i got my hair washed.. (once again, I WAS FOUR!) so, my dad gets me with the hose.. so i burst into tears and race into the house.. to find my mother in the dark paneled kitchen standing at the counter with her long brown hair chopping salad vegetables for dinner. Me crying and blubbering about daddy trying to drown me and my mother calmly reassuring me that that was most certainly not his goal.
that is one. one full technicolor moving picture in my head from well, i guess about 30 years of stuff. My dad always makes fun of my mom, and sister me about "living in the past". We do, we have good memories, bad ones, really good ones, ones we'll never share with others and ones we've shared a thousand times and will again... my sisters may be more limited to mine and my mothers, and we all have our own experiences, but we all have em. I don't mind living in the past because I'm always moving forward and creating more and more. Perhaps my greatest fear is losing them... that is scary...
so, remember in the beginning i said i was in training... so, there we all are in Oklahoma creating one of those many memories... one we all would rather have had much much later or actually maybe never... and we're actually in the room at the funeral home with everyone talking and remembering...
My grandmother's sister Aunt Jo who hadn't seen my sister and I in years and had to be reminded which was which was sitting with me on the couch. I was holding onto her warm wrinkly soothing hand with family comfort... the kind that is there regardless of how much time passes between seeing one another.. we were talking about times we had visited over the years. I briefly mentioned visiting her at a particular house and she looked at me and said "you remember that?" Oh I could almost hear the sound of the film as it wraps around the reel and then catches and flutters and smoothes itself out... I can see her with her platinum blonde bouffant hairdo (backcombed with great effort that morning) wearing a white or pastel sleeveless shirt and those polyester shorts that hug your leg all the way to the knee... very very popular in the 70's.. I think they were blue green or pink... she was sitting on the front steps of her house next to her sister.. my grandmother who was almost identical in hair and outfit... i'm pretty sure they bought their shorts at the same store. I think this was when I really made the family connection that they were sisters just like my sister and i and all the closeness that comes with that... it was nice to have that realization... to truly understand it..
and then i realized that when the film had started, so had my mouth and i had narrated the visual to the entire room of about 9 or 10 people there to see Granny at the funeral home... Aunt Jo said... she couldn't believe i remembered that and how young i must have been.... and i think that is where the word came into being that I think i will have to consider my family legacy...
Memorykeeper.... someone said it and it may have been my mother, i can't remember... but somehow for the rest of the trip, I was reminded more than once that that was my job... for the family, by the family, i am that person who is supposed to make sure we don't forget.... i'm in training..
but then, i guess i have been for a long time.

New

New stuff.... like this blog for one.
Old stuff....like some of the bloggy stuff i'm gonna post.
Part of the reason for this blog is to have a place to put stuff. Thoughts - that is.
I've got old ones that i like from myspace days so i'll be transferring those thoughts to this spot.
so, i may not actually accomplish the goal of "everyday" musings but i figure most don't want to hear from me everyday anyway. except for my mom. :)
more to come from ma vida loca
stay tuned
:)