our dogs + rain = you don't want to know...

so today . . . it rained again.

i promised myself i was not going to blog about the rain today. i know some of you get as tired of my weather blogs as you do of my food blogs. but here are the cold, hard facts, people: food and the weather pretty much rule my days. i go to bed thinking about what the weather will be like the next day and deciding what to wear. because if i have to make clothing decisions at 7:00 in the morning, it is not going to be pretty--or i am going to be late. and even after i get dressed, i have to decide if i should wear a coat... or a sweater... or wonder if a scarf around my neck would keep me warm enough... because it may start out cool, but by 11:30 when we are out on the playground it might be hot! but by the time i leave to come home, it might be cool again. or really hot!! you just never know...

and the awful truth is, i think about food all day. what will i eat for breakfast? do i have time to run by mcdonald's and get cinnamon melts? or should i be good and just eat my usual hard boiled egg. will the lunch at school be something delicious like macaroni and cheese? or will it be that noodle-y stuff... or will i even eat at school?!? i could go to jack in the box... or 7-11 for a salad and a brownie... or now that i have an hour for lunch, i could even go home... of course then i would have to actually make something to eat, which would reduce my actual eating time, so maybe it is better to go to jack in the box instead. or 7-11...

and what about dinner?

you see, no matter what else happens during the day, food and the weather are always on my mind. and today it rained. real rain, not that sissy socal stuff. i even had to wear a coat. with a hood. and the only coat i have with a hood is a long, down-filled puffy coat with fur around the hood. i bought it a few years ago just before we headed to oregon for christmas, because they were expecting a big snowstorm. so yes, considering we were just having rain today, it was maybe overkill... but i don't like to carry an umbrella. or get wet. so i left the house looking like nanook of the north... in southern california... in october...

and then i spent the next hour telling parents to take the tiny, colorful umbrellas that they let their children bring to school, home with them. because what am i going to do with 15 drippy hello kitty angry birds spiderman dora the explorer umbrellas in my classroom all day?!?!? i've got my hands full with tiny hello kitty angry birds spiderman dora the explorer coats and boots! WET coats and boots...

rollie worked at home today, so once again i braved the rain to meet him for lunch. he said mia had spent the morning sitting on the floor next to his chair with her front paw on his leg. this is her signal for "can i please sit in your lap? please?? please?????" mia is not really a lap dog--she is all pointy elbows and paws. but she tries. especially if it is raining, because mia does not like the rain. at all. milo, on the other hand, had come in soaking wet... i saw this as real progress, because when milo first came to live with us, he would not go out in the rain unless i carried him out and stood over him with an umbrella. thank goodness it only rains two or three times a year here...

by the time i left school to come home for the day, it had pretty much stopped raining. as soon as i walked into the house, rollie said, "did you see the garage door??" well, yes, i thought, i had to open it to get my car into the garage. but i hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary... so when he took me back out to the garage to show me what he was talking about, it was clear that i was looking at the wrong garage door.
"when i got home from lunch today, mia was soaking wet!" he said. "she was so wet i had to dry her off with a towel. and then i saw this!" yes, our precious pooch had frantically clawed her way clear through the door!

in all fairness, this door was damaged when we moved into the house. we aren't really sure what happened here before we moved in, but there were some violence issues, and the side door into the garage was one of the casualties. it had been repaired with wood putty, i think, and our painters did a great job of trying to make it look good, but it was still damaged. we knew we were going to have to replace it, we just hadn't done it yet.

i think we will be doing it soon.

because for some strange reason, when rollie left to meet me for lunch today, mia went outside. in the rain of which she is so deathly afraid. and apparently she tried to get back into the house... through the side garage door. i don't know why she would do that! she can go in and out of the house whenever she wants to--we had a doggie door specially constructed to fit next to the french doors so she and milo could go in and out even when we aren't home. but clearly something spooked her. she must have really panicked! she was only home alone for an hour...

as we were sitting in the family room talking about it, i happened to glance out the french doors, and this is what i saw...
i'm pretty sure milo is the culprit in this situation. again, i don't understand it. our patio overhang covers about three feet of grass next to the patio. and he had clearly been out in the rain earlier in the day! i guess i should appreciate that he got as close to the grass as he could without actually going on the grass...but come on!!

this was a rough day for our pups. they are california dogs. they don't do rain.

but thankfully we've now had our two days of precipitation for the fall. sunshine is back in the forecast for tomorrow... right where it belongs!

maybe tomorrow's blog won't be about the weather...

snug as a bug in a rug :-)

so today . . . my baby is back in the garage! yay!!

no, not diandra! diandra is in oregon helping her best friend get married.

i'm talking about my car.

my car has had a rough few months. it all started at the old house when i noticed the hot water heater was leaking a bit--quite a bit, actually--which meant moving all the (now) wet boxes that i had stacked in front of it to the other side of the garage. where my car was usually parked. which meant that my car had to be moved to the driveway... the cold, dark, wet from the neighbor's sprinkler overspray, driveway...

and then we bought a house, which meant i had to start packing boxes. but the boxes had to be put somewhere, and the house was starting to look like ground zero, so some of the packed boxes joined the previously wet boxes in the other side of the garage... where my car was usually parked. which meant my car had to huddle in the driveway for a little longer...

and then we moved to the new house where we no longer had a three car garage. now we had a cozy two car garage. but here's the thing about two car garages--they are designed to hold two cars. just two. and when you have two cars that you would like to keep in the garage, that doesn't leave a lot of room for washers and dryers. or workbenches and tools. or golf clubs and bowling balls. or a shop vac and a bowflex. and so my car was still camped out on the driveway...

but the lack of space in the new garage was only part of the problem. the other part of the problem was that we didn't get any remotes for the garage door opener. our new garage has a really nice garage door opener, and it works just great... IF you stand in the doorway to the house and press the button. it is quiet. it is fast. it has a laser safety feature. but no remotes. and so the only way to open and close the garage door is by pressing the switch next to the door into the house and then running out of the garage as fast as you can. which is complicated by the laser beam safety. because when you break that laser beam, the door stops. so to get out of the garage, you have to hit the button by the door, run really fast toward the driveway, leap OVER the laser beam (which, btw, you can't see,) and hope you don't smack your head on the descending garage door.

and of course you can't do any of that from inside the car.

so until the problem of the remotes could be fixed, my car still sat in the driveway...

our realtor, jill, assured us that she could take care of this remote problem. we were not going to get any remotes from the sellers. they were not the most cooperative people we have ever encountered. but rollie climbed up on a ladder, wrote down all the necessary numbers from the unit, and jill ordered new remotes from amazon...

problem solved.

maybe in the real world, but in julieland, the problem was NOT solved. the garage door openers from amazon wouldn't work. rollie tried everything! so jill called a garage door opener guy, and he came out, and HE tried everything, and it still wouldn't work.

and my car was still sitting in the driveway, collecting dust and water marks from our sprinkler overspray. i was seriously starting to worry about the paint. watermarks on black shiny paint are not good... not good at all!

and then, while we were on vacation a couple of weeks ago, jill had the garage door opener guy come back, and he connected some sort of device to the garage door opener so that it would work with a new set of remotes.

yay! my car was pretty excited. so was rollie. so was i...

... until we got back from vacation, and i opened the garage door only to remember that i had put a bunch of boxes in the garage in order to get the last of the stuff out of the old house. so now even though i had garage door openers that worked, i still couldn't get my car into the garage...

sigh.

i immediately started trying to unpack those boxes to clear out that space. but i kept getting sidetracked. like yesterday. yesterday, i rearranged the kitchen cabinets. yes i said rearranged! i unpacked the kitchen a month ago, but i found a few more kitchen things in the boxes in the garage yesterday. and when i brought them in to find a place for them, i found that there wasn't a place for them. so i rearranged things. in the kitchen. which used up time i could have spent unpacking more boxes...

you see, this is why it is taking me so long to unpack! i want everything to be in the perfect place. but i don't always immediately know where the perfect place is. so even after i have unpacked, i am still moving things around...

but a few days ago, i was alarmed by how terrible my car was looking. i was suddenly worried that maybe the paint was going to be ruined, if i didn't get it in the garage pretty soon. so i stayed up until 3:00 a.m. last night working in the garage. and finally, i had cleared enough space to get my car into the garage!

oh it still isn't perfect. there are a bunch of boxes that are diandra's which need to be moved to her storage unit. there are some boxes that need to go to my school. and rollie hasn't had a chance to put up the shelving yet that is going to hold the bowling balls and golf clubs. so one side of my car is still crowded. but the important thing is that when the sprinklers go off at 5:00 a.m. the water is not going to be hitting my nice, clean, shiny car...

because now my car is nice and shiny and clean. rollie took it to the car wash today. and those water spots? they wouldn't come off. it was pretty bad. but those car wash guys have some tricks up their sleeves, and they somehow used some clay to remove the water deposits from my paint. and now my car is very shiny, and happy, sitting in our new garage.which is where it is going to stay! because that car wash magic? i'm sure it is cheaper than a new paint job, but maybe not by much...

the perfect carry-on bag? only time will tell...

so today . . . i bought my first backpack.

well, technically rollie bought it, but i picked it out. well, TECHNICALLY, i am the one who handed over the visa, but rollie will be paying the bill...

ok. the truth is, rollie drove me to the outlet mall, and then sat in the car figuring out how to use the sirius radio while i chose a gift for myself. because yesterday was our anniversary, and anniversaries mean gifts...

at least, they mean gifts if you are me. sadly for rollie, we got married at the end of august, and since i don't get paid during the summer, by the end of august my purchasing power is pretty much maxed out at 7-11. rollie, on the other hand, saves most of his expendable cash, so i am always the lucky recipient of something wonderful. yes, life just isn't fair :-)

so this morning off we went to the outlet mall.

i could spend all day at the outlet mall, but i didn't want to do that today. we don't have a doggie door installed yet, so our pups were going to be "imprisoned" in the house while we were gone, and i didn't really want to test their limits! this meant i needed a plan, a goal, a purpose. i didn't have time to scour the racks in all my favorite stores looking for the best deals--today, i needed to shop like a man! today i needed tunnel vision! today i needed to decide what i was going to buy, find it, pay for it, and take it home.

when we recently flew to new york, it became clear that i needed a new carry-on bag. i almost killed myself more than once, schlepping my suitcase, carry-on, and handbag through airports, onto shuttles, and into motels--especially since two of my toes were broken! (and before you say why wasn't rollie handling my bags, he helped me as much as he could, but his hands were full too! i wish i had video of trying to go up the escalator ahead of rollie, tipping all my bags over, and nearly taking him out! i'm lucky he stayed within ten feet of me after that!!)

my current carry-on bag is the result of lots of research and thought--of course. until the last few years, i rarely flew. but when it looked like diandra and i would maybe be making a trip to portland every summer, i quickly decided i needed a better carry-on bag. because i didn't own a handbag big enough for everything i wanted to take on the plane with me.

needless to say, i don't travel light...

i need a lot on an airplane. it doesn't matter if i am flying for two hours or twenty hours, i take a lot of stuff with me. first of all, there are just some things that i don't trust in my checked baggage. you hear stories about valuables disappearing out of people's luggage all the time... cameras, computers, jewelry. and so when i travel, if my bags are going to be out of my sight, i feel compelled to carry my "valuables" with me.

and that includes the cords to all my electronics. yes, that's right, i don't even put the cords to my electronics in my checked bags. my luggage does not end up at the same place as i do an inordinately high percentage of the time. i'm pretty sure i can live for 24 hours without clean clothes or a comb, but if my electronics go dead and i can't recharge them? let's just say, it won't be pretty...

(rollie does not get this at all. he travels with a tiny little bag that pretty much holds his ipad, a set of earbuds, and maybe a few snacks.)

in addition to my "valuables," i also have to take hard candy (if i don't vigorously suck on hard candy when we start our descent, i am pretty sure my eardrums will explode,) magazines (because they won't let you turn on your electronics while the plane is taking off and landing. which, btw is totally ridiculous! one time when we flew, i thought my phone was off, but it wasn't, and everything proceeded according to schedule--the airplane's instruments did NOT go crazy!!) snacks (that tiny pack of snack mix is just not enough. if you are sitting next to me on an airplane, you might not want to go to sleep until you have your snack in your hand. otherwise, your snack might end up in my hand. and then my mouth,) and my inflatable travel pillow.

oh, and my polar fleece blanket--even in the summer.

i don't travel anywhere without my polar fleece blanket. but when i fly, my blanket serves two purposes, the obvious one being to keep me from freezing when they crank up the a/c on the plane. the not so obvious purpose is to hide my handbag from the flight attendants. for some reason, the last few times i have flown, they say EVERYTHING has to be stowed either in the overhead bins or under the seat in front of you. but there is never enough room for my carry-on bag AND my handbag under that seat! but if i put my bag in the overhead bin, then i can't get to my snacks and magazines and electronics and inflatable travel pillow. so my solution is to put the carry-on under the seat in front of me, and then hide my handbag behind my back or in my lap and cover up with my blanket. then when the flight attendants walk through the cabin, checking for take-off infractions, they just think i am cold and they move on... so far, rollie hasn't turned me in, but i fear that one day he is going to feel compelled, for the safety of the rest of the passengers, to point out my deception to the flight attendants. of course, that will be the last time we ever fly together...

which is just another reason that i need a better carry-on.

i really thought that if i could find a carry-on with wheels, my problems would be solved! so a few years ago i went to the orange county swap meet with my list of requirements--wheels, cheap, big enough to hold all my necessities, yet small enough to fit under an airplane seat, and cute. because if i have to carry something around with me all day, it had better be cute! so i was ecstatic when i found this bag!it was perfect! i bought it and prepared to fly to portland...

but as it turned out, it was not the perfect bag. the wheels were better than having to carry it, but i had trouble maneuvering it and my larger bag. i could get a lot in it, but it fit so tightly under the seat that i couldn't get anything out of it. and yet i kept telling myself, through gritted teeth, that it was perfect.

and then a couple of weeks ago, we traveled to new york.

i couldn't balance my bags. they kept tipping over. they would get stuck every time i had to roll them over a gap to get onto an elevator or a tram. and then they fell down the escalator, smacking into rollie, almost taking me with them, and holding up everyone behind us.

it was not my finest moment.

it was suddenly clear to me that i needed a different type of carry-on bag. and i needed it before i took another trip. which is happening in about a week!

so i did what i always do when i need to buy something--i got on the internet. i searched. i googled. my requirements had changed a bit (i decided instead of wheels, i needed a really good cross-body bag or backpack,) but i still couldn't find anything! i haunted discount stores (because it's the end of august and my bank account is dwindling!!) with no success. and our next trip was getting closer and closer. so when rollie said, "let's go shopping for your anniversary present. what do you want to look for?" i immediately thought about a new carry-on bag.

rollie has a backpack. it's a nice medium-sized black leather backpack. it is very nice, but i really didn't want a backpack. rollie really wanted me to get a backpack. he thought it would be the easiest way for my to carry my stuff and still be able to drive my larger suitcase. but i didn't want a backpack. i wasn't going to get a backpack. all the backpacks i saw either looked like they should be carried by a 12 year old girl or a man. or the fabric was awful! so even though i considered backpacks, i ended up rejecting them all...

instead i looked at tote bags. i looked at large handbags. i looked at messenger bags. i looked at cross-body bags. i even looked at laptop bags. but none of them were perfect. they were too big to fit under the seat, or too small to hold all my stuff, or there was no outside pocket for my phone, or the fabric was too floppy to hold it's shape. or they were just too ugly!

i finally bought a backpack.

the one i decided on is pretty cute. the fabric is a nice heavier weight. the size seems just right (i think.) i didn't have to pay for it, because it was my anniversary gift. i think carrying it on my back will make it easier for me to get my larger bag where it needs to go without knocking anyone down or hurting anyone who might be behind me on an escalator. i think it is going to be the perfect travel bag......if all my stuff will fit into it...

sorry, no blog tonight... oh wait...

so today . . . there will be no blog. here's why...the move is finally happening. i hope. as you can see, there is still packing to be done. we have spent the last two weeks trying to get everything done in the new house before we moved in, but it has been a nightmare for me! decision after decision after decision. and not making decisions. and changing my decisions... it has not been pretty, people!

the interior painting went well. i only had to have the painters repaint one room. it was the man room. everything else looked exactly like i had pictured it, but the man room was baby boy blue, not the muted turquoise i had in mind. i tried to like it, but i just couldn't. i didn't know how they had gotten the color so very wrong! i went to get more paint chips, chose a new color of blue, went back to the house, put it up on the wall, and guess what? it was the exact same color. i don't know how it could look so different up on the wall, but it sure did. when i told jose' he was going to have to go get another color of paint and paint the room again, he just smiled and said, "no problem!" and so, the painting was completed and the new color looks good. and i only changed my mind once!

i spent several days working on the wood floor that was hidden under the awful carpeting in the master bedroom. i spent most of one saturday just pulling up the tack strips and the staples from the padding--over 1300 inches of tack strips and hundreds of staples. and then i spent the next saturday and sunday afternoons cleaning it, square by square. it was a lot of work and every muscle in my body ached! but when i got done, it looked sooooo good!

last weekend we had new windows installed in all the rooms upstairs. i have never seen windows replaced, but since i was on my hands and knees working on the wood floor, i got to see the process. either it was much simpler than i thought it would be, or those two window installers were just really, really good. either way, it didn't take them long and we had beautiful new windows. although, i learned that i should not watch work in progress. i kept thinking, "oh no! the windows are too small! oh no! the windows aren't level! oh no! i can see that foamy stuff all the way around the window! oh no! these are going to look awful!!" i was feeling a little sick and wishing maybe i had spent the big bucks and just hired home depot. but as it turns out, i am glad i went the cheap route, because they turned out really nice.

we have prairie shutters coming (if i can find a way to get my window sills trimmed down--none of my windowsills are level!) i've scheduled grass for the backyard, and i am currently doing battle with lowe's over carpet installation. (i am mad at them. i will never, ever use them again. but i am madder at home depot's carpet people, and i need carpet NOW, so i don't have a lot of options. if i had taken care of this two weeks ago, i would have had more options. but two weeks ago i was busy making paint decisions and trying to get rid of the leftover furniture the seller's left and degreasing the kitchen--which, btw, i am still doing--and so carpet was not the high priority it should have been...)

i also should have been packing. but rollie had a plan and it seemed so simple. he said to just pack the things i wanted to take, and then after we had all that stuff moved, we would dispose of the stuff we had left. it seemed like a good plan. and i especially liked it, because it didn't sound like it required a lot of actual packing. but it does...

and so, that is where i am right now. packing. this is not the fun part of moving. but it is necessary, so i guess i had better get back to it...

...which is why there will be no blog tonight.

there is listening, and then there is listening and thinking...

so today . . . i was once again surprised by the five year old mind.

we have been learning about different countries in our social studies curriculum. this week we are learning about china. i always find this a little bit ironic, considering the majority of my students are chinese by heritage. and although many of them were born here in the united states, their parents were not. so i am sure they know waaaay more about china than i do. and really, what we learn about each country is kind of superficial--climate, exports, location, stuff like that. but when i am teaching them what our curriculum says about china, i always expect one of them to say, "that's not right!" it is compounded this year, because my assistant is chinese--really chinese! she has only been here for a few years. i was reading about chinese new year last week, and i kept expecting her to say, "that's not true!" but she didn't. it probably helped that the book i was reading was written by a chinese lady, but still...

i don't know why i expect that the books will get it wrong. it is just that sometimes the generalizations that are made seem kind of simplified--like saying chinese children like to jump rope and play ping pong! really?? that is kind of like saying american children like to play jacks and baseball. i was an american child. and let me just say, baseball was my worst nightmare when i was in school! so when i am teaching the curriculum, i pick and choose what i tell the kids.

today, their paper had the chinese character for "big" printed with red ink. their task was to copy it. but the really cool thing that happend, was that when i showed them the paper, one little girl's face lit up and she said, "oh, oh, i know what that says! that says BIG!" she was so excited! and so was i, because this little girl isn't chinese--she is philipino, but she takes chinese class in the afternoon. and she knew how to read the chinese character for BIG.

i am amazed by this. when i first started working at this school, i thought i would stay late in the afternoons and learn chinese with the kids. it sounded like a great idea, but i quickly gave it up. there was no way i was going to learn chinese. it is way too hard!!

but apparently it isn't too hard if you are five years old...

so anyway, i explained the paper and what they were supposed to do. this was a task that should have taken them all of 30 seconds to complete, so i was kind of surprised to see kevin still working on it ten minutes later. when he finally brought me his paper, this is what i saw.i really like kevin, but like several of the boys in my class this year, he doesn't always listen to my directions. and clearly he hadn't listened to them this time. "kevin," i said, "this is a very cool picture, but you were supposed to draw the character for BIG." he looked up at me and very seriously said, "but i drew God. he was the biggest character i could think of!"

i laughed. it was just too cute! clearly he had been listening, his brain had just tweaked my words a bit. and the really funny thing? kevin is chinese! he should have known what i was talking about, even if i hadn't taken the time to thoroughly explain it.

we sing a song in music time called, "my God is so big!" and i guess kevin got that message. because in his picture, God is definitely the biggest one. he is huge! but the thing that makes me smile, is all the tiny little people crawling all over God, standing on his foot, even balancing on the top of a cloud. i love it!

kevin just kept saying, "what?!" as i laughed. i'm sure he couldn't figure out what i thought was so funny. but i loved it! i loved that God was the biggest thing kevin could think of. i love that the people are all over God. but mostly, i love that kevin has learned that God is big! and we can crawl all over him, and he doesn't mind--he still smiles.

i guess he was listening after all... kind of...

how much is enough?

so today . . . i replaced the lotion that the evil tsa agent stole from me, and it ended up costing me almost $30!

call me obsessive/compulsive if you must, but i just can't let it go. i was going to replace it while we were in portland, but then i saw the line at the cash register in bath and body works! not even the "50% off" and "only $3!" signs could entice me to stand in that line! so i came home, lotionless.

and then today, when we got done eating lunch (at rubio's, of course,) i stopped in at the bath and body works at the town center. the "50% off" and "only $3" signs were there, but thankfully, the long line was not. my first thought was, "great! $3! i can replace my lotion for just a few dollars." i looked at the selection of lotion i could buy for only $3, but i did not see white citrus (which was the scent of the lotion that was taken from me.) so i kept looking. at the 50% off table i found some delicious smelling stuff. and at 50% off, it was only $2.50--an even better deal!

...and it would have been a better deal, if it had been lotion. but it wasn't. it was anti-bacterial soap. this was not the first time i had mistaken soap for lotion. and it is not something i want to ever do again--it makes a big mess! (just ask diandra.) so i put the soap back in the bin and moved on...

i had left rollie in the car. i had told him i would only be a minute. i had told him i was not going to shop--i was just going to go in and buy a replacement bottle of lotion. i knew exactly what i was looking for. it should only take me a minute...

...but i quickly realized that it had been a loooooong time since i had been in a bath and body works store, and a lot had changed. they don't just carry lotion and shower gel anymore. they have shampoo and conditioner and body butter and spritzes and sprays and aromatherapy and LIP GLOSS! really. lip gloss. (somehow i think lip gloss belongs at ulta or sephora, not bath and body works.) and so it wasn't quite as simple as just running in, grabbing a bottle of lotion, and getting out. decisions were going to have to be made. and you know how i am about decisions...

i continued on... and then i found it--the white citrus lotion. and it was not on a sale rack--it was on the "new arrivals" rack. this did not bode well for my wallet. i picked it up, flipped it over, and looked at the price.

$10.50.

oh nonononono. i am not paying $10.50 for an 8 ounce bottle of lotion! now i was really annoyed. i hadn't had a $5 bottle of lotion confiscated--it was a $10.50 bottle!!!

in my mind, i was out $10.50.

but i was already in bath and body works, and i did need lotion, and i was surrounded by sale signs. so you know what happened next.

yes, i bought lotion. from the $3 sale rack. and it is the most wonderful smelling lotion i have ever had--"night blooming jasmine!" before i knew what was happening, four bottles had jumped into my arms. and then two bottles of body spray followed them! i decided i should go to the cash register before anything else took a flying leap toward me...

...because really, how much would be enough. my intent was only to replace the ONE bottle that was now in the possession of my favorite tsa agent. but they were on sale! really, really cheap!! and that made me think that maybe they would be discontinuing the delicious scent that i had just discovered! so maybe i should stock up... definitely i should stock up! but how much would be enough?

then i turned around and saw a whole bin of "night blooming jasmine" lotion. a whole bin!! i didn't have the last four bottles of lotion after all. now what was i going to do?!?! i couldn't afford to buy them all!

i decided i could spend my emergency $20. (i keep $20 hidden in my wallet for emergencies--you know, if i need gas or if i need to contribute to something at work or if i get unexpectedly asked to go to lunch... but i am finding that usually my emergencies are shopping related...) i was already holding four bottles of lotion and two bottles of body spray. i decided that would have to be enough. for now.

i went to the cash register and handed over my emergency $20. as i was walking out of the store, i walked right past the $10.50 white citrus lotion. i mentally added that to what i had just spent, and decided that my confiscated lotion had now cost me $30. because if they had just let me keep my lotion, i would not have had to go into bath and body works...

of course, that means i would also not have four bottles of lotion and two bottles of body spray of the most wonderful smelling scent either.maybe instead of a bill, i should send my tsa agent a thank you note!

it's christmas eve!

so today . . . is my second blog anniversary. it is also christmas eve.

in hindsight, perhaps that was not the best time to actually start a blog. because now, every year on christmas eve, i feel this pressure to produce an amazing anniversary blog. but by the time i sit down to write, my brain is all full of christmasy thoughts instead of bloggy ones.

if i was more organized, i would write some sort of yearly retrospective a week or two before christmas and have it all ready to post on christmas eve. but clearly, i am not that organized.

so this year, i am just going to leave you with a picture of my mom's tree. because i am sitting here in her living room, looking at her beautiful tree, and enjoying this moment.i know this moment isn't going to last. in a few days i will go back home, pick up my real life, and move on. but tonight, i am enjoying the feeling of contentment that sitting in front of my mom's christmas tree always seems to bring.

i hope all of you are able to find some peace and joy during this holiday season.

happy christmas eve!

a dress, some shoes... oh, and a momentary lapse...

so today . . . diandra and i went shopping for a wedding dress.

this is not the first time we have gone. typically we go in, choose several dresses, diandra tries them on and looks beautiful in every one, and then we leave. dressless.

but today was different. today we went to a different shop--"castle for brides." this is not a shop we probably would have found on our own, but we went today because they were giving away free wedding dresses to women who are in the military or engaged to men serving in the middle east. we thought free was a pretty good price, so diandra made an appointment.

when we arrived, we were told that they had given away 60 dresses yesterday! our expectations immediately fell. if 60 dresses were already gone, what would be left? we looked over the remaining 30 dresses, but none were the right size. since we had driven all the way to huntington beach though, we decided to look at the other dresses in the store. we went into the dressing room with three--one i chose (that was on the sale rack for $200,) one diandra chose, and one we both liked.

she started with the dress i chose.

ok, can i just say here that i wasn't in love with the dress! but i felt kind of bad, because the people who worked at the store got so excited when someone found a free dress! and we hadn't found one, but they seemed like they would be just as happy if we left with a discounted one. so, you know, i said "just try it on..." so she did.

it was a mistake. clearly.

but we did go home with a dress today--a beautiful dress. she was happy, i was happy, even the salespeople were happy. we walked out of the store happy, happy, happy. until we tried to put the dress in the trunk of my car...

...because for some reason, my car beeper wouldn't unlock my car or open the trunk. and of course, ignoring albert einstein, i tried it over and over and over again. i was afraid to try unlocking it with the key in case it set the alarm off--because i wouldn't know how to make it stop!

in our family, when we come up against a situation where we don't have any answers, we pray. and so diandra prayed, tried the beeper again, and it still didn't work. "what the heck," she said, "praying always works!" only this time it didn't.

i called rollie, and he said to try the lock--eventually the alarm would stop. (and he should know, after his recent experience with a car alarm going off...) so i stuck the key in the lock, but it wouldn't turn.

we were in trouble. i was thinking that the battery on my beeper must be dead, but i couldn't figure out how to open up the key fob to play with the battery. i didn't know if AAA could help or not, since the problem was with the alarm system.

and i was getting hot!

i was out of options. so i prayed again. and then i had a thought... (coincidence? i think not!)

i went over to where i had dumped my handbag on some grass, checked in the outside pocket, and guess what i found? yep, my car key.

i had been trying to open my car with rollie's car key.

i know, i belong in a home... but i used his key this morning to get gas money out of his car, and for some reason (i blame my usual morning rush,) i didn't put it back on the key rack--i put it in my pocket. and when it was time for us to leave, i just reached in my pocket for a key. and i found one. only it was rollie's.

this is the problem with both of us driving mazdas...

we finally got the trunk open, and diandra put her dress in--or i should say, attempted to put it in. it is a little bit fluffy, and there was some air in the bag. it looked like a giant piece of bubble gum was about to explode!! but she kept at it and finally got it all contained.we headed back home and met rollie for lunch.

rollie was having his own "special" kind of day. he had been at home all morning while workers ripped out an old sliding glass door and installed a new one. (yes, it will be nice to have a door that can be opened and closed without the strength of superman, but it is noisy getting it done!) we met at rubio's, (we are NOT predictable--we are consistent) and sat outside to eat, because a)it was a lovely day, and b)all the tables inside were taken. he was looking forward to a break from the construction noise at home. but sadly, there was construction noise at rubio's! they are in the process of re-doing the outdoor seating area, and today appeared to be "electric tool day." so we ate lunch, and yelled to each other... and when we were finished, i sent rollie's extra car key home with him. it was just too risky to put it back in my pocket.

after lunch diandra was still feeling wedding happy! she has been unable to make any decisions, and today she found a dress, so she felt like riding that wave right on into shoe shopping...

we went to dsw shoe warehouse. oh. my. goodness. if you want to know where shoe heaven is, just find your nearest dsw shoe warehouse. rows and rows and rows of shoes... and today she found these--could there be more perfect wedding shoes?!?!?! she put them on and wore them all around the store, because i wanted to be sure she could actually walk in them.

(oh, our little flip-flop girl has come a long way from her high school graduation when she wore heels for the first time...)

we were standing in line to pay, and she just kept getting happier. so i took another picture. because that is what i do. she said, "mom! we aren't in the bridal store anymore. people will think we are weird."seriously?!?! in l.a.?!?! are you kidding me?!?!?! we are nowhere near the weird end of the scale...

while she paid, i went to the front of the store and made a phone call to check on my new glasses. it has been a week since i ordered them, and they are still not here!! and in the back of my mind, i am a little worried that i have been scammed, so i needed to check. someone did answer the phone (ok, it was actually a machine,) and they put me on hold. and i held. and held. and held. for 27 minutes! i was starting to believe that i had been scammed, and this is how they dealt with phone calls--unending hold! but at least they were polite scammers--they thanked me for my patience about 42 times...

and diandra waited, her joy at her purchases barely contained, so i took one more picture.this was not the end of the wedding shopping today, but it did turn out to be the end of the wedding buying. for today. we came home and started shopping for venues. in las vegas.

oh. my. goodness. i think that is a blog for another day...

10-10-10

so today . . . was october 10, 2010. you know, 10-10-10.

numbers fascinate me. i think they feed my ocd tendencies. one plus one is always two. twelve inches is always a foot . if you have four cookies and you give one cookie away (yeah, like that is going to happen,) then you always have three cookies left. and check registers should always balance. to the penny.

(did i mention that i love math...)

so number patterns catch my imagination.

my fascination with number patterns collided with my need to take photographs at midnight on new year's eve, 2000. in my mind, that was a huge event. and as circumstances would have it, i was not where i wanted to be. we had just moved to the coast, leaving the friends we had spent the last twelve years making. and i knew those friends were having the new year's eve party to end all parties. and i wanted to be there. music was going to be played, and i wanted to be playing it. i wanted to ring in the new century with my peeps. (diandra is dying right about now. i didn't even know the word peeps then. but somehow, it just seems to fit...)

...but we had just moved to a new community, and there were expectations of rollie in his new job that made attending that party impossible. so i tried not to be too sad, and we tried to make the best of it. we didn't have new friends to party with, but we stayed up late anyway and watched the ball drop into times square. (and waited to see if everything with a clock would continue to work, or if everything would reset itself to 1900 and cease to function.) and we took a picture.the turn of the century gave me multiple number based photo ops--01-01-01, 02-02-02, 01-02-03, 03-03-03, 02-03-04...well, you get the idea. did i get pictures on any of those dates? of course not! i would think about it. i would tell myself not to forget. and then i would forget.

until 2007--in 2007 there was an event at the rose bowl sponsored by some of the churches in our area. diandra and i were assigned to go to lax to pick up one of the bands. yes, a real, live band whose cds people buy, and whose concerts people pay to go to.

i was pretty excited. (i admit it--i get a little star struck. i try to be cool, but inside i am going "oh my gosh!!! do you know who that is?!?!?! i have their cd in my car!! and they just talked to me like i was a normal person!!!") sadly for me, there were plane connection complications, and after sitting at the airport for a couple of hours and having several conversations with the band, it finally became clear that they were not going to be arriving at lax. ever. (well, at least not for this event.)

we went back to the rose bowl, bandless. and yet we still had a good day. we got to meet two other bands and heard a lot of great music. we got to stand right behind the stage. it was awesome! yeah, i was feeling pretty cool. and did i mention we were in the middle of the rose bowl?!?! on the grass?!?!?!?!?!

of course, i took a picture. with my phone. (which i can't seem to find. i really have to get my photos organized...)

which brings us to today. i wanted to take a picture at 10:10 a.m. on 10-10-10. this was going to be easy. since it fell on a sunday, i knew exactly where i would be--i would be in the gym at church just finishing up band rehearsal. so it would be easy to remember to take a picture.

and then i got sick.

i have had intestinal issues all week (which is why i haven't been blogging,) and yesterday i wasn't sure i would be well enough to go to church today. so we arranged to have a combined service. but i felt a bit better this morning and decided to go. i still thought i could get the picture. but circumstances conspired against me (stupid red lights!) and i didn't quite make it. this is the picture we took at 10:13 on 10-10-10.(i know! it is in front of the windows! the worst possible place for a picture!! why we didn't just turn and take it another direction, i don't know. i think diandra just wanted to get it over with--we were in the foyer. and there were people around.) rollie couldn't be in this one, because church starts at 10:15 so he was unavailable for photo ops. but i still wanted a picture with him. on 10-10-10. so at dinner tonight i had diandra snap a couple with my phone (because did i remember to bring my camera?? no, i did not!) she suggested we should hold up our 10 fingers, since it was 10-10. so we did.
but i also just wanted a nice, normal picture of us, so she took this one.i looked at it, and of course noticed the odd hair bump on the top of my head. i said we needed to take another one, and rollie made a face--and not a nice face! i am pretty sure eyes were rolling. and while i was telling him he had just better smile, because we were going to take another picture, diandra snapped this one.i finally got the nice picture i wanted, but since all these were taken with my camera phone, i noticed that when i looked at a larger version of the picture, it was blurry. oh, and did you happen to notice the shark sitting on my head??? yeah, our daughter (the photographer) thought that was funny. and my hand looks unnaturally large...i could be bummed. i did not get my nice, frame-able photo from 10-10-10. but sometimes it isn't so much about the actual photo. i just wanted to remember where i was, and what i was doing on this memorable day, and now i will. on 10-10-10 i was having fun with my family!

oh, and i took one of diandra too, just because she looked so beautiful. (again, shooting with windows behind her--i don't know why...)i had a whole series of her, because i never take just one picture. but since i love her, i am only posting the best one :)

and so, even though the pictures aren't great, at least i got them. now i can relax.

until november, 2011...

9/11

so today . . . is the ninth anniversary of a terrible tragedy that has forever changed our country.

usually i try to write about something that will make you laugh or smile or at least take your mind off more serious things. but today doesn't really seem like the appropriate time to do that.

i spent an hour today at my church. we provide a hot meal and showers to the people in our community who don't have regular access to either of those things. it is a new endeavor, and for now, we only have the resources to do it once a month. today it was my turn to share a few words with them. i did not talk about the tragedy that happened nine years ago. i would be kind of surprised if most of them even knew that today was the anniversary of that event. i suspect that when your life is not ruled by a job or electronics or tv shows, or when you don't have a wall on which to hang a calendar, you might tend to lose track of what the exact date is. instead, i talked about timeless truths--even though most of us are ruled by time.

i saw several posts online today in honor and support of those who lost loved ones on this day nine years ago. and it is right and good that we would continue to honor and support them. but today i was reminded of another group of people whose lives have been forever changed by the events of september 11, 2001...

my friend m'chel was at our church today too. she had come to sing a couple of songs before the dinner was served. today is m'chel's birthday. it has been her birthday for more than 30 years--long before those two towers collapsed. and yet, because of that event, her birthday will never be the same. when people find out her birth date, they often don't quite know how to respond. birthdays are supposed to be "happy." that's why we sing "happy birthday to yooouuuuu!" but for americans, it has become a day of sadness, and remembering great loss. will m'chel ever again be able to celebrate her special day with abandon? maybe, but maybe not. and what about all those couples who chose september 11th as the day they would promise to love and cherish each other for the rest of their lives? how do they spend the day celebrating their love with the backdrop of such terribleness all around them?

i would guess that we will see very few september 11th anniversaries in the coming years, but babies are another story. my "nephew" (the quotes are because i am not really sure of our familial relationship--he is the son of my cousin--but it doesn't really matter, because i think of him as my nephew,) and his wife just welcomed their first baby into their family. she was born on september 9th. they had no control over the day she arrived, but i have to admit that i was really glad she chose to join us on that day, rather than coming a couple of days later. her arrival was a happy, happy occasion. if she had been born on september 11, all of us who know her family would still have been happy. but in coming years, while she was blowing out her birthday candles to celebrate the beginning of her life, the rest of the country would probably still be focused on the tragic ending that took so many other lives.

how long will the sadness last? i don't know. when i was 5 or 6, my grandfather died. he had cancer, and we had lived with my grandparents for a while to help take care of him. he was a daily part of my life. but "in those days" if you had cancer, you eventually died. and he did. on thanksgiving day. and every year, for a long time after that, i would remember, "this is the day grandpa died." i still think about it sometimes, but i confess that there have been several thanksgiving days when we have eaten turkey and watched football and made shopping lists, and i haven't thought about him or his death. at all. does that mean i didn't love him? no. does it mean he wasn't an important part of my young life? no. it just means that time does heal the pain--but sometimes it takes a LOT of time.

as a nation, and as people, those of us who lived through it will never forget watching those airplanes crash into those towers. we will never forget the shock and horror we felt as we sat glued to our tvs. we will never forget the uncertainty of knowing who was actually in those buildings at that particular moment. we will never forget the bravery and endurance of the men and women who worked until they dropped, searching for possible survivors. we will never forget the search dogs who became so depressed, that workers had to let the dogs find "pretend survivors," so they could continue to do their jobs.

and we will never forget the families whose moms and dads, aunts and uncles, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews never came home from work that day.

but babies will continue to be born--some of them on september 11th. and while we will never forget the pain and loss of the past, i hope that we will also be able to embrace the hope of the future. because we haven't seen the end of the story just yet...

when "good enough" just isn't...

so today . . . i am trying to wrestle my ocd tendencies into submission. but they are strong and somewhat resistant...

first of all, let's be clear--i have never been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. i'm pretty sure if i were tested for it, medical professionals would laugh me out of their offices. but i do have some tendencies that scream OCD!!! probably a more accurate description of my idiosyncrasies would be "frustrated perfectionist." i want things to be perfect. i need things to be perfect. yet, i know that things will never be perfect--hence, the "frustrated" part--so i don't even want to try.

well, that is not exactly true. sometimes i try. sometimes i look at a project and think, "i can do this. it may take me months and months, but i can do it." my closet is a perfect example of this. i clean it out. i organize it. i catalog it. i list everything in it. i organize the list. then i clean it out again. reorganize it. update the list. go shopping. update the list. clean it out again. and so on. and so on.

this is why it took me over a year to organize my digital music files just the way i wanted them. (i have a lot of music.)

i recently decided that it would be a good idea to digitize all my old negatives. when diandra was born, we decided that every photo we took of her was priceless and irreplaceable. so i immediately became worried that there would be a fire or a flood which would destroy both my photos and the negatives. (i'm not paranoid either. really.) i needed insurance . . . and it came in the form of velveeta cheese boxes and my mother.

the only solution i could see to save my precious photos from natural disasters (or unnatural ones) was to keep the negatives in a different location than the photos. since i had the photos, i decided my mother should have the negatives. so i put the negatives in velveeta cheese boxes (which fit them perfectly,) and gave them to my mom to keep at her house. my mom also had a set of photos--we always printed doubles--but for some reason i always thought her house was safer from fire or flood than mine. so i entrusted the precious negatives to her...

then we entered the digital age. and the priceless photos yellowed, and the negatives lay hidden in the dark at my mom's house. and i developed this need to digitize them. so i decided to scan the strips of 35mm film into my computer. but it wasn't as simple as it sounds...

i am using my beloved canon photo printer/copier/scanner which i have had for a few years. it is specially designed to scan negatives, which is one of the reasons i bought this particular model. but now that i am ready to scan my negatives, i can't find the manual. no problem, i thought. i will just go online and download the manual. which i did. and it was not helpful at all, because it kept saying, "refer to the manual that came with your printer for specific instructions." yes, that would have been great advice if i could find the manual that came with my printer. but i can't. which is why i downloaded one. i could see a vicious catch 22 developing . . . so i decided manuals were highly overrated. i would just figure it out for myself. how hard could it be?!?!?!

i lifted the lid and saw some irregularities in the plastic. ok, let's just take this thing apart, i thought. which was probably a good first step, because i found the part that should hold each piece of film, but i couldn't figure out how to snap it back into the lid. i turned it. i flipped it. it HAD to go where the light strip was, but i could not figure out how to make it stay there. i laid it on the glass while i poked around some more. which is how i discovered it would snap into place on the glass and then the light strip would lower onto it. it was a clever design, but not exactly intuitive--at least not for me!

i started scanning in the negatives. i scanned several rolls of film and was delighted to see my baby's precious face emerging. and then i went to bed.

the next day when i started scanning photos, i realized that for some reason, many of the photos were taken from quite a distance away. what if i wanted to crop one? what if i wanted to print an 8x10 of one? i checked the resolution and realized that it was not going to be enough. so, you know what i had to do? i had to re-scan all those negatives at a higher resolution! yes, i said re-scan. because it wasn't going to be good enough to just do all the rest at the higher resolution--i had to do them ALL!

you see?!?!? ocd tendencies. because really, am i ever going to do anything with those old photos? probably not--they aren't that good. but then i look at that smiling baby face, and realize that i want the best resolution i can get.i fear that i am going to be working on these photos for a long, long time. because i still haven't figured out how i am going to scan the 110mm film. and then once i get them all into the computer, i have a date with photoshop. there are imperfections that need to be erased, deterioration that needs to be restored, and colors that need to be corrected.

i'm going to be working on these until i die . . .

i thought freestyle was just for olympic skiing . . .

so today . . . we ate lunch at hometown buffet.

i like hometown buffet. i am the only one in my family who does. diandra refuses to eat there--she will go across the parking lot and eat all by herself at panda express rather than come into hometown buffet with us. rollie's reactions are mixed. he can usually find something he likes, but it is definitely not his favorite place to eat--it is probably not even in his top five.

that is, until today . . .

we went to hometown buffet today, because we were avoiding carbs, and there are a lot of carb-less choices there. (well, if you stay away from the dessert area and the cinnamon rolls--which they inexplicably put on the salad bar!!!) i came back from the salad bar with a plate full of yummy stuff. rollie came back with a plate full of tiny tomatoes and cucumber slices. and three sodas.apparently our hometown buffet has upgraded their soda fountain. they now have the new "freestyle" coke machine. we now have more beverage choices than anyone needs. there are soda choices in this machine that are not even available anywhere else! rollie's first three choices were grape coke, vanilla coke, and peach fanta. yes, he is somewhat partial to fruit flavors . . .

i had a diet coke. with a lemon slice from the taco bar. i am so adventurous . . .

rollie was pretty excited about his drink choices. i was not so sure. i'm not adverse to a vanilla coke now and then, but grape coke?!?!? raspberry coke?!?!? i'm sorry, but that is just WRONG!!! rollie, however, seemed to think it was delcious! i think he made more trips to the freestyle coke machine than he did to get food!!and i had a diet coke. with a real lemon slice in it.

i did take a sip of his grape coke (it was gross!) the vanilla coke was pretty good. i declined his offer of a taste of the peach fanta. but the point is, there were drinks of just about every flavor in this machine. rollie continued to drink, and i went back to get some meat.

i could tell rollie was enjoying his beverages. even as he sat drinking one of them, i could see the wheels turning inside his head, already thinking about what he was going to have next . . . that is the thing about this machine--there are over 100 choices!

rollie had a big smile on his face the whole time we were there. he said it was the best meal ever from hometown buffet. but he didn't really mean meal--he meant he liked the beverage choices.

i don't think i am a fan. the machine was cool, the technology of it is interesting, (because they are not keeping a supply of 100 different drinks in there--think about it,) and it is nice to have all of the choices. but only one person can use it at a time! and because of all those choices it can take that one person a looooong time to decide what to fill their glass with, so the wait to quench your thirst can be daunting . . .

in the end, i still got the same drink i always get--diet coke with lemon. because that is what i like. and this new machine? i'm glad it is there, because now rollie will jump at the chance to eat at hometown buffet. but for me, it just adds one more layer to my own personal hell--a place where i have to make more decisions . . .

san diego=fun!

so today . . . was our bonus day in san diego--a whole day to do whatever we wanted to do.

"what do you want to do?" rollie asked me. "i don't know," i said, "what do you want to do?"

you see, this is how our conversations go. it doesn't matter if we are discussing where to have dinner or what movie to see. it isn't that we don't have preferences, it is just that we are both so nice that we will agree to whatever the other of us wants. but knowing that, neither of us wants to impose our preferences on the other one . . .

"well," rollie said, "we don't have to go do anything if you don't want to. i would be happy just hanging around here and reading." reading is probably our favorite thing to do, so normally that would be a great suggestion. but we can read at home! we are in san diego today, and i thought we should go do something, i just didn't know what. it was not a lovely sunny, warm day--it was cloudy and damp--not the best weather for going out and doing anything! but after a little more discussion, we decided to brave the weather and go visit the u.s.s. midway. i put on as many layers of clothing as i could get on under my sweatshirt, and off we went.

i was driving, rollie was navigating. except he couldn't get the gps in his phone to find us. he turned it off and then back on again. he had me pull over and wait for it to catch up. he rolled down the window and stuck his phone out into the open air . . . meanwhile, i pulled out my old magellan and found the directions :) and off we went. again.

i am fascinated by aircraft carriers. i am amazed by their sheer size, by the fact that they are like small cities, and that airplanes can actually take off and land on a ship! so i was pretty excited. they gave us headphones and digital players with explanations of all the different parts of the ship and it's airplanes. for free! (of course, we did have to pay to get in. and to park. so maybe 'free' is overstating it a bit.) it made a huge difference in enjoying what we were seeing, to be able to listen to all that history.

i took a few pictures, and then my camera batteries died. that was it for me. i was pretty sure i was done having fun if i couldn't take any more pictures. we started through the labyrinth of passageways, and then i saw it--a store! "look," i said to rollie, "i will be able to buy batteries. what luck!" but when i reached the front of the store, i saw that i was still going to be batteryless for a while longer . . .
there were mannequins all over this ship! and it isn't that they looked so lifelike up close, but seeing them out of the corner of my eye, they kept tricking me. it happened again when we entered the mess hall. i saw the food line and thought, "yay! i was just thinking i would like something to eat . . . "(of course, my brain quickly corrected itself, but those pesky mannequins creeped me out all afternoon!)

soon we found the cafe (because what tourist attraction would be complete without serving seriously overpriced food?) and ate delicious mushroom cheeseburgers for lunch. actually, we ordered mushroom cheeseburgers for lunch, but they refused to make any modifications! so when we got them, we performed surgery--i gave rollie my mushrooms, tomatoes, and extra sauce, and then i added ranch dressing to mine, cut it in half, eliminated half of the bun, and stacked the burgers together. the result was sort of messy, but delicious!

after lunch we walked through the gift shop--because they put the cafe on the opposite side of the gift shop, so we had to walk through it to get to the food! and i seriously looked at souveniers, because you know how anything touristy and overpriced draws me . . . thankfully they had penny-munching machines, so i pressed a few pennies to satisfy my need to buy something, and then we moved on to the flight deck and all the airplanes!

this is where i lost rollie. i was going from plane to plane, in an orderly fashion, and obediently listening to the information about each one from my headphones. rollie was darting about, in seemingly random order, and he was TOUCHING THE PLANES!!! (we were sooo channelling each other--usually rollie is the methodical one and i am the totally random one.) when i tracked him down, he said he was only interested in the fighting planes, so that is what he was looking at. i kept waiting for one of the docents to smack him across the knuckles for playing with the aircraft, but apparently it was ok, because they completely ignored him.

my favorite part of the day was meeting tom casenza. he is a world war II veteran, and he was there talking with people today. and when i say talking, i mean TALKING! but he didn't talk much about his military service. he talked about his construction business, and about where to get the best italian food in san diego, and about dancing--that is when his eyes really lit up--when he was talking about dancing . . .before we left, rollie wanted to ride in the fighter plane simulator. it was a two person ride, so he said to me, "do you want to drive or shoot?" i wasn't sure i wanted to do either, after watching these things in action. it was a little pod on a swivelling arm, and it would roll and move according to what the driver did. i was watching the one ahead of us twirl and toss and go upside down and all around, and i was pretty sure driving was not what i wanted to do. but i was also pretty sure rollie was going to want to shoot something down. we decided he should drive, and i should shoot. and it was a wild and crazy ride! we flew upside down, we flew sideways, we did a nosedive, we flew straight up--and this was with rollie driving. can you imagine what would have happened if it had been me driving?!?!?! fortunately we survived, but it was a good thing they had us empty our pockets before we got in . . .

the museum closed at 5:00. by the time we left, the sun was shining. we put the top down on the car and headed back to our dorm room. it was just as we had left it :)yeah, i'll bet you can guess who sleeps where . . .