Another year gone whoooooooshing by. How does that happen?
We have been complaining about how crappy this year has been (my dad in and out of the hospital since April, KW's mom passing in September, MM's dad, CG's stepmom), but in reality, we have no problems.
Despite KW's contracts coming through very sporadically this year, we have a lovely house that we can still afford to pay for every month.
Within the parameters of normal aches and pains for our respective ages, we're in good health.
We have happy and healthy friends and family members who love us.
I see the 'spirit bell' in my closet and I think of JB, who once lived down the block from me. She now lives across the country, but I hold her close in my heart.
I find myself judging someone and think of MM, who has always found a way to appreciate and embrace everyone, finding acceptance of them somewhere in her great heart.
I find myself whining about KW's contracts being very thin this year and I think about CS, another one with a huge heart, as she works at her multiple jobs to stay afloat.
If I somehow manage to be in a weird head space and start to believe I'm lonely, I think of my knitting friends 'up north' and here in town. These are the friends who both challenge my brain and keep me calm. I can't always pinpoint what it is about them, separately and collectively, that has this effect, but I know that I am definitely out of sorts if I miss seeing them each week.
I am thankful for *all* the friends, blood friends and chosen friends, in our lives, in particular those who smack me upside the head when I'm complaining about something trivial. Mostly I'm thankful for finding KW. I can't even fathom what my life would be like had we not met.
After a 'beat the crap out of 2011' New Year's Eve party, we've decided that 2012 will be better. It simply has to be, so let's see what it brings.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Pictures and Videos of KW's Big Adventure
I like this shot because it looks like KW is doing construction work at the Wynn or the Trump!
Pushing dirt.
Pushing dirt with Reuben's help.
The big hole KW made!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Vegas Aftermath
I'll get around to posting the pictures and videos of Kelly at DigThis! in Las Vegas, but for now, let's just say that I have three more favorite slot machines - Lord of the Rings, The Hangover, and Godzilla. (Emphasis on "for now," since the next time I go, these will probably seem hopelessly dated or won't even be there any more. It is Vegas, after all.)
The Hangover machine is just like the Sex and the City machine, but with clips from "The Hangover" instead of "SATC." (Duh.) That one provided my first big win this trip, Monday night, around $50 or so.
KW and I found Lord of the Rings at the Mirage, which we almost didn't go into this trip, except the weather had turned fairly cool and we decided to duck inside to get warm. (You don't often hear us say that in Vegas, now do you?) Sat down at some other similar machine which did squat, so moved one seat to the left, which happened to hit a bonus game after only 2 or 3 spins. The game I got to play was "Arwen's Rescue." All this meant was that after I hit the button to start the bonus game, I sat back and watched the wheels spin and the credits pile up. Walked away with about $85 from that one (KW hit 2 different bonus games and came away with about $40 more).
Godzilla was Wednesday morning's bit of fun. I had played it Monday night and after 5 or 6 spins it had done nothing, so I walked away. Yesterday morning, though, I had turned a $36 coupon (a leftover one I had found when cleaning out my purse the night before) into around $55 on Sex and the City, and was on my way to the ticket redemption kiosk when I saw the Godzilla machine right next door. What the heck; I was already up a few bucks, why not see if it would do anything this morning.
Why, yes, it DID do anything! After 2 spins, I hit a bonus game. (The link to the previous Godzilla reference has a video clip that shows what I'm about to explain.) The first part was to direct Godzilla through a city. You aimed him in a direction, when he went that way, he stomped over a couple of buildings and you got a certain number of credits. So I had him stomp forward, forward, left, forward, and on the next stomp forward, instead of a bunch of credits, it said "extra bonus game initiated." Wheee! This is where the fun started. I got to pick a blob on the screen, which said my extra bonus game would be "Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla" - a mechanical romping, stomping, city-flattening machine. I sat and watched as two screens spun (the left one for Godzilla, the right one for Mechagodzilla), each one racking up credits. The game would be over when one had beaten the other. Every few spins, one side or the other would have a symbol that said "attack" and that side would breathe fire towards the other side, gradually wearing down the life meter of the other. It was cool, especially since it took at least 7 or 8 attacks to finally have Godzilla beat Mechagodzilla - at which point, it gave me a chance to pick a bonus orb...and the one I picked was for $70! Walked away with $199 in bonus winnings. Yay, me!
Oh, and we had a chance to meet up with my brother. Had dinner with him both Monday and Tuesday nights, which was a surprise since we originally thought he'd only be free Monday. Looking good, looking and sounding just like my dad, in a very scary - eeeeeerie - way.
The Hangover machine is just like the Sex and the City machine, but with clips from "The Hangover" instead of "SATC." (Duh.) That one provided my first big win this trip, Monday night, around $50 or so.
KW and I found Lord of the Rings at the Mirage, which we almost didn't go into this trip, except the weather had turned fairly cool and we decided to duck inside to get warm. (You don't often hear us say that in Vegas, now do you?) Sat down at some other similar machine which did squat, so moved one seat to the left, which happened to hit a bonus game after only 2 or 3 spins. The game I got to play was "Arwen's Rescue." All this meant was that after I hit the button to start the bonus game, I sat back and watched the wheels spin and the credits pile up. Walked away with about $85 from that one (KW hit 2 different bonus games and came away with about $40 more).
Godzilla was Wednesday morning's bit of fun. I had played it Monday night and after 5 or 6 spins it had done nothing, so I walked away. Yesterday morning, though, I had turned a $36 coupon (a leftover one I had found when cleaning out my purse the night before) into around $55 on Sex and the City, and was on my way to the ticket redemption kiosk when I saw the Godzilla machine right next door. What the heck; I was already up a few bucks, why not see if it would do anything this morning.
Why, yes, it DID do anything! After 2 spins, I hit a bonus game. (The link to the previous Godzilla reference has a video clip that shows what I'm about to explain.) The first part was to direct Godzilla through a city. You aimed him in a direction, when he went that way, he stomped over a couple of buildings and you got a certain number of credits. So I had him stomp forward, forward, left, forward, and on the next stomp forward, instead of a bunch of credits, it said "extra bonus game initiated." Wheee! This is where the fun started. I got to pick a blob on the screen, which said my extra bonus game would be "Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla" - a mechanical romping, stomping, city-flattening machine. I sat and watched as two screens spun (the left one for Godzilla, the right one for Mechagodzilla), each one racking up credits. The game would be over when one had beaten the other. Every few spins, one side or the other would have a symbol that said "attack" and that side would breathe fire towards the other side, gradually wearing down the life meter of the other. It was cool, especially since it took at least 7 or 8 attacks to finally have Godzilla beat Mechagodzilla - at which point, it gave me a chance to pick a bonus orb...and the one I picked was for $70! Walked away with $199 in bonus winnings. Yay, me!
Oh, and we had a chance to meet up with my brother. Had dinner with him both Monday and Tuesday nights, which was a surprise since we originally thought he'd only be free Monday. Looking good, looking and sounding just like my dad, in a very scary - eeeeeerie - way.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Waffle Aftermath
So after my mother-in-law passed away, one of the things I got from the house was her Belgian waffle maker. This is the real, original deal, folks! It's from 1965 or so, makes ONE small waffle at a time, has no heat control, no timer, and no on/off switch! Plug it in, it's turned on. Unplug it, it's turned off!
Those controls (or lack of them) sort of make it difficult to make a successful waffle. The first time I attempted it, I was using a malted waffle batter (Golden Something brand, the same brand that Marriott uses for their Residence Inn and Courtyard Hotel breakfasts). That attempt came out really really dense - tasty, but very chewy - and the waffles were cooked properly and didn't stick to the waffler.
Today I used Bisquick, following the waffle recipe, and, boy, they were very tasty. However, even though I sprayed the waffler (like I had done the first attempt) and there was more oil in the batter, today's batch cooked up too brown and stuck to the waffler.
Luckily, we're not too picky about our waffles and ate them with gusto, slightly crunchy edges and all.
(When I poured the batter for the first one today, I used too much batter and it sort of exploded all over the kitchen... I'm so happy that we have a "I cook, you clean" policy in our kitchen!)
Friday, November 25, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
"Apparently not..."
So, the answer to the question "Are you ever going to stay put?" is, once again, "Apparently not."
Off to Camarillo this past Saturday so we could visit with KW's dad and get some papers signed for the house that was just sold. Plans were to spend time with him, then toodle around Camarillo/Ventura/Oxnard and look at apartment complexes in preparation for (possibly) moving down there in the not-too-distant future.
That's not what happened.
What happened was a growling/creaking/groaning noise that started to come from The Beast (KW's BMW) when he was turning the car, especially at low speed. We noticed this late Saturday when we first pulled into the real estate agent's parking lot and noticed that about an hour later, it had gotten noisier when we pulled into the parking lot of the ALF where his dad lives.
By the time we had gotten back to the hotel (a real pit, but that's another story), it was obvious that driving it around on Sunday would not be advised and driving it home on Monday was out of the question. So Sunday morning was spent trying to find where we could score some fluid for that model BMW. It seems that his year and model BMW (2001 740iL) is very, um, special. You can't just pop in to Pep Boys and pick up a can of Valvoline generic stuff. Oh no, this is going to require special stuff that's very expensive.
We learned all the above after a few phone calls Sunday morning to said Pep Boys, AutoZone, and O'Reilly, so the next phone call was to a car rental agency at the Oxnard airport (which is an airport in name only, as there are no flights in or out, but that's another story). Oh, and by now, it's raining the first and biggest rain storm in Southern California since the last first-and-biggest. The plan was to drive the rental to the local BMW dealer, which, we assumed would be open even if the service department wasn't. We would leave the car on the dealership's property, put the key in the 'night owl / early bird' box, and have them work on it.
I think we found one of the only car dealerships in California that's closed on Sundays. Not only closed, but all the driveways in were gated off. We couldn't even get the car to where the service department was. And even if we could, KW roamed around and noticed that they didn't have a drop box!
Instead, we managed to find a car repair shop that specialized in German cars (that had an after-hours drop box!), and left his baby in their parking lot with a note letting them know what was going on. The really really bad news about all this? Any other weekend, we could have waited around for them to fix the car and come home Monday evening or even Tuesday. This time, though, no such luck. We had to be back on Monday - HAD to be back - in time for KW to attend a client meeting in Sunnyvale at 2:00 PM.
So after all the phone calls today, the car will be ready by Wednesday, when we will drive the POS rental car (Nissan Versa - don't get one) back down to Camarillo, get the BMW, go back to the rental company and give them their car back, then decide if we want to drive back Wednesday night or stay over Wednesday night and drive home on Thursday - Thanksgiving Day.
Despite all this, we really are thankful, and we don't have any problems in our lives, just minor inconveniences, as evidenced by our next trip - we'll be off to Vegas on Monday. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Off to Camarillo this past Saturday so we could visit with KW's dad and get some papers signed for the house that was just sold. Plans were to spend time with him, then toodle around Camarillo/Ventura/Oxnard and look at apartment complexes in preparation for (possibly) moving down there in the not-too-distant future.
That's not what happened.
What happened was a growling/creaking/groaning noise that started to come from The Beast (KW's BMW) when he was turning the car, especially at low speed. We noticed this late Saturday when we first pulled into the real estate agent's parking lot and noticed that about an hour later, it had gotten noisier when we pulled into the parking lot of the ALF where his dad lives.
By the time we had gotten back to the hotel (a real pit, but that's another story), it was obvious that driving it around on Sunday would not be advised and driving it home on Monday was out of the question. So Sunday morning was spent trying to find where we could score some fluid for that model BMW. It seems that his year and model BMW (2001 740iL) is very, um, special. You can't just pop in to Pep Boys and pick up a can of Valvoline generic stuff. Oh no, this is going to require special stuff that's very expensive.
We learned all the above after a few phone calls Sunday morning to said Pep Boys, AutoZone, and O'Reilly, so the next phone call was to a car rental agency at the Oxnard airport (which is an airport in name only, as there are no flights in or out, but that's another story). Oh, and by now, it's raining the first and biggest rain storm in Southern California since the last first-and-biggest. The plan was to drive the rental to the local BMW dealer, which, we assumed would be open even if the service department wasn't. We would leave the car on the dealership's property, put the key in the 'night owl / early bird' box, and have them work on it.
I think we found one of the only car dealerships in California that's closed on Sundays. Not only closed, but all the driveways in were gated off. We couldn't even get the car to where the service department was. And even if we could, KW roamed around and noticed that they didn't have a drop box!
Instead, we managed to find a car repair shop that specialized in German cars (that had an after-hours drop box!), and left his baby in their parking lot with a note letting them know what was going on. The really really bad news about all this? Any other weekend, we could have waited around for them to fix the car and come home Monday evening or even Tuesday. This time, though, no such luck. We had to be back on Monday - HAD to be back - in time for KW to attend a client meeting in Sunnyvale at 2:00 PM.
So after all the phone calls today, the car will be ready by Wednesday, when we will drive the POS rental car (Nissan Versa - don't get one) back down to Camarillo, get the BMW, go back to the rental company and give them their car back, then decide if we want to drive back Wednesday night or stay over Wednesday night and drive home on Thursday - Thanksgiving Day.
Despite all this, we really are thankful, and we don't have any problems in our lives, just minor inconveniences, as evidenced by our next trip - we'll be off to Vegas on Monday. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Travel interrupted (for 12 days, anyway)
We got back from our annual Pismo Beach trip (which was lovely, by the way) on Sunday, November 6, and we're heading down to southern California to visit KW's dad on Saturday, November 19. Those 12 days between the 6th and the 19th represent the longest stretch we've been home since... well, it's been a while. This past weekend was the first weekend we've been home where we didn't have to travel or where we didn't have work to catch up on or work-ahead for.
It was glorious.
We slept in. I walked. We listened to the radio. I knit. I cooked. We watched one of the Oceans movie (can't remember which one; it doesn't really matter, does it?). We were supposed to go out to dinner with friends on Saturday, but one of them got sick and had to cancel. I hate to say it, but we didn't mind - it meant we could slug around all day and not worry about being 'on' for anyone. We know C. will recover and we'll have dinner with him and M. another weekend. For this weekend, it was okay they had to cancel.
This coming weekend will be a quick turnaround for us. Early drive on Saturday to meet the real estate agent (KW's parents' house sold!), visit with dad, poke around some neighborhoods down there, then a very early start home on Monday morning so KW can go to a client meeting at 2:00 in the afternoon. That means we'll have to be on the road by around 6:00, maybe 7:00 at the latest. After I nap, I'll be able to knit for the rest of the ride. But after I nap. Definitely after.
Is everyone sure they don't want a nice teak wine rack? Roll-top desk? Long dining room table? Well, I got rid of my knitting machine; I'm sure I'll get rid of these things before we move, too.
It was glorious.
We slept in. I walked. We listened to the radio. I knit. I cooked. We watched one of the Oceans movie (can't remember which one; it doesn't really matter, does it?). We were supposed to go out to dinner with friends on Saturday, but one of them got sick and had to cancel. I hate to say it, but we didn't mind - it meant we could slug around all day and not worry about being 'on' for anyone. We know C. will recover and we'll have dinner with him and M. another weekend. For this weekend, it was okay they had to cancel.
This coming weekend will be a quick turnaround for us. Early drive on Saturday to meet the real estate agent (KW's parents' house sold!), visit with dad, poke around some neighborhoods down there, then a very early start home on Monday morning so KW can go to a client meeting at 2:00 in the afternoon. That means we'll have to be on the road by around 6:00, maybe 7:00 at the latest. After I nap, I'll be able to knit for the rest of the ride. But after I nap. Definitely after.
Is everyone sure they don't want a nice teak wine rack? Roll-top desk? Long dining room table? Well, I got rid of my knitting machine; I'm sure I'll get rid of these things before we move, too.
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