A Pseudo Safari

We got out for a couple of hours today and walked around the Cherry Creek Reservoir.  I'm not sure why, but the only time we seem to make it out there is during the winter, so the water is always frozen over and the landscape is always...a bit blah. I mean, it's beautiful in its own way. In its own...brown, leafless, snowy, quiet way.

The only wildlife we typically see is a bird or two. But not just any birds - believe it or not, we've seen eagles and pelicans here.

But today, someone was watching us. And he was very close. Can you see him?

A coyote! He was just off the trail and he blended in so well! He didn't seem phased at all by people, but I don't think he was a fan of all the dogs. Something tells me he's trolling around for a delicious goose or two. It's a good thing we didn't have Lucy with us...

I'm trying to get out more, even for just small snippets of the day. Otherwise the reading and grading and writing and emails will do me in. I say this at the beginning of every semester but we're two weeks in and I'm 2 for 2 as far as weekends are concerned. I'm about 8 out of 10 for weekdays. So. Every little bit. It helps that I love walking in the cold. Not sure what it is but I love it much more than walking in the summer (hiking is a different story).

I would love to report something exciting, but that's it for these parts. Loo Loo Bell is feeling great. G is recovered and back to his normal self. We started on a home renovation project that will become a lovely lil B&A post soon.

Happy Saturday to you.

TGIF, people!

If you find yourself worried about parking in the afterlife, that's a sure sign you're going in the wrong direction.

Tune In for Your Regularly-Scheduled Panic

You might think that the title is in reference to school, to classes starting up again, the fun travel abruptly coming to a halt, and hours upon hours now spent reading and writing.

You would be wrong. Fortunately (!) school could not be going better. My students are still dolls, and the classes I'm taking are remarkable.

No, the trouble is not with school or work. It is with the lil bean.

Incidentally, she looks like how I feel whenever I put on jeans. But, anyhoo.

On Monday she wasn't eating or drinking or acting right and as the day went on (a very, very busy day, I might add, in which - luckily - G just happened to end up staying home sick and was able to observe her) she got worse. He rushed her to the vet and they found that she was developing a blockage in her tummy. In the rabbit world, this is called a GI stasis. It means that her digestion comes to a halt and then the clock starts ticking. If it's not resolved quickly, well, things get really bad really fast.

The vet gave her fluids and meds, then sent her home with strict instructions to force feed her a formula every few hours. We've done this before. I've posted about this before. This time, we didn't have to do it hourly, only every few hours. But between the prep and the feedings and the nerves, we didn't sleep much, or well.

Now she is totally back to normal and we are completely exhausted. And G is still sick.

She really can't figure out that dang standing desk.

It occurs to me that Lucy has a bad habit of falling ill during the second week of every semester. Every semester. She has set up her own routine schedule of inflicting panic upon her poor, weary parents.

See how she glares? How she scowls?

But all's well that ends well! We're thankful for a healthy, if grouchy, bun bun.

Week 1: Beyond Survival

Well, hello there, Saturday. You lovely thing, you.

This post is proof that I survived the first week of the semester. In all fairness, despite my flair for the dramatic, the first week is way easier than the following fourteen. Students are as good as they're gonna get, smiling at my jokes, answering questions, keeping the chit chat to a minimum while I'm talking. No grading. "Easy" reading in my Lit classes since we're at the very beginning. No need to jump into Paradise Lost if we don't know enough context about Milton yet, now is there?

You get the idea.

But I did more than just survive, scrape through. I kept the house looking like real, productive adults live here. Look! The house does not - and I mean not - usually look like this at the end of the week. But I hosted a leadership meeting in the living room yesterday, and even managed to go to bed last night with a completely clean kitchen.

I can now take on the world. Gimme world hunger and watch me solve it.

Then I was up bright and early, reading Milton at 6:30, so that we could get out for a few hours and enjoy the scenery. We went hiking at Hayden Green Mountain Park in Lakewood. Once you climb straight uphill for like a mile, you can see in every direction.

Denver is behind us in the distance (between our heads)

About a mile in, we came across a Darma station. Just kidding, it was a radio tower but we enjoyed a trip down Lost memory lane. Black smoke monster, anyone? Ha.

My goal for each week of this semester is to go beyond survival, whatever that means for the time at hand.

Lucy doesn't share that goal. Also? She can't figure out what to do about that pesky standing desk. It's an endless source of fascination for her.

TGIF, people!

Merry and Bright (Cont.)

Well, well, well. Guess who has finished, printed, and officially posted both syllabi?

Feel free to email AND text me with praise and extensive congratulations.

Now I just have to face the needy students and their needy needs next week. The emails have already started, inquiring about text books, etc. I'm like, you guys, stop, I'm too exhausted.

And I'll have you know that we took the Christmas tree down today. On January 14th. At least I'm not driving around with an enormous wreath on my car, or reindeer ears and such, but apparently I'm turning into that type of person. My mind barely let me fall asleep last night. It was like, "But the tree. The treeeeeeeeeeee." I got up and took off the ornaments first thing this morning, skulking around my own front room with the blinds closed. By the time I finished my second cup of coffee, G had packed it up and thrown it into the garage, high on a shelf, and I had vacuumed and dusted my way out of sloth.

In order to remedy the darkness and cold that will be our lives for the next few months, I got some lights from World Market. Look how festive!

This way I can still sit and enjoy my coffee in the mornings (and sit and enjoy my tea at night) in some sort of festive, lighted bubble of goodness. I liked the lights so much that I put some up in the living room, too. 

You might be wondering what happened to all of Lucy's friends. Well, I dropped the lights onto the hearth and busted three of them, which resulted in a super fun afternoon of vacuuming and crawling around on our hands and knees (oh, who are we kidding, poor sick G crawled around on HIS hands and knees) double checking for minute pieces of glass and picking up microscopic pieces of all kinds of things with scotch tape. Hours, you guys, hours. Because of my great and fantastic light idea. So I swooped up her friends and her towel (doesn't her cage look naked?!) and put them in the wash.

I'll have you know that as I type this, everyone is back in his/her place and boy do they look fluffy and clean. Basically we should clean everything in our house about 3 times as often as we actually do.

I know what you're wondering. Did Lucy help? No. No, she didn't. She's making up for all the excitement by crashing in her cage. Take a look at this lazy girl bunny rabbit. We call this The Crescent Splendor.

We've made another change to the house in 2017 as well. Check out our new standing desk:

Funny story about this, you guys. I'll give you the moral up front: In America, it's easier to be lazy than active. The end.

We were in Office Depot before I went on my recent peep visits because I needed to grab a notebook to take notes for lesson planning. I have a very particular and peculiar method of note taking that is basically a long OCD story. While I was picking out the cheapest yet largest legal notepad I could find, G was wondering around. We had been planning to just make our own standing desk out of, well, I don't know what, but he had found a sturdy, big, adjustable one there. And it was big enough for two people to work on it at the same time.

Great!

Except, although the desks are on display in the store, you can't actually buy one there. You have to buy it online.

OK!

Except, when G checked, you can't actually buy the table all together. You have to order the legs and the table top separately. Although you can pay for the order together, the pieces will be shipped separately and will arrive at different times.

Ok...

So we chuckled a bit and made some sarcastic comments about the convenience of Amazon Prime in comparison to this, ha ha, and moved on with life.

Within about a week, both packages had shown up and sat in the front room until G had time to deal with putting the desk together. At which point we realized that Office Depot had sent us the legs and a BOX OF 60 ROLLS OF TOILET PAPER.

Sixty rolls, you guys.

G had a melt down.

I was downstairs reading and I heard a ton of scrambling around, and he goes, "DID YOU ORDER A SH*T TON OF TOILET PAPER?" I was like, "NOOOOOOOOOO."

Bottom line: It's not possible to conveniently make and execute healthy life choices in this country. Give up now, grab a slice of pizza, and just move on.

He called the Office Depot customer support line and had to repeat the toilet paper info about 4 times while I rolled on the floor and snorted with abandon. They sent us the table top and took away a small country's supply of bathroom material, and now we stand all the time!

Big changes in dawrighthouse. But, not very much TP...

TGIF, people!

2 Highlights: Bridge and Food

Hello from Denver! I made it back home last night and have 24 hours before the life of leisure officially ends. Writing consulting and supervising start tomorrow.

However, if I'm being totally honest, I'm looking at the leisure in the rear view mirror even today because: (1) OMG I need to get syllabi done and printed, (2) Our Christmas tree is still up. And decorated. And lit even as I type this. It's January 12. And (3) The rest of the house looks like humans don't live in it. It looks as if rabbits or some other beasts of the field have taken up residence and full control.

But! San Francisco, you guys! Yesterday morning we swung by the Golden Gate Bridge on our way to brunch and then the airport. The sun was even coming out, which was great because so many parts of the Bay area are flooded right now. We spent about half an hour taking pictures, hiking around, and just enjoying the view and the sound of the ocean waves.

You guys. The food. What can I say? It's California - San Francisco, no less - home of some of the best chefs in America. Believe it or not, food wasn't really the focus of our trip, as we are still seeking a rich benefactor to subsidize our lifestyles and therefore do not have thousands of dollars to part with for the sake of unbelievable gourmet meals. But still. Feast your eyes on what I enjoyed this week.

Hands down, this was the best brunch I believe I've ever had, at Plow in the city. I included a pic of the brunch menu below so that you can take a look at their offerings. I got The Plow: eggs any style served with (THE BEST) breakfast potatoes and (THE BEST) lemon ricotta pancakes, as well as your choice of breakfast meat (choices: bacon, homemade pork sausage, or homemade chicken apple sausage), I chose the chicken apple sausage because I'm a genius. Em chose the bacon and we swapped a few bites so that we could both experience Heaven on Earth for a few minutes.

Here's the kicker. We split a brown sugar crusted warm mochi cake for an appetizer, if you will. It was so good. Warm, buttery, crispy crust, mochi filling was moist rather than pseudo-tough. It was absolutely to-die-for. It really was phenomenal. If you're in the area, I highly recommend this place!

Other food highlights were:

Argentinian Tacos I had right when she picked me up from the airport. Sorry, I don't remember the name of the place, but it was in downtown SF, just a few minutes from SFO. I got their homemade sweet corn "bowl" filled with pulled pork and avocado. They serve a flavorful slaw to mix in it, and they have a variety of fresh sauces at the table. I used a creamy, spicy aioli as my sauce and could have stayed there forever.

And sushi! When her husband got home from work one night we were all craving some fishy deliciousness and went out for sushi. In addition to miso soup and tuna sashimi, I got this Tora Heaven Roll: Deep fried shrimp, spicy tuna, avocado, cream cheese, masago, and creamy spicy sauce. Done and done. Pair it with some Asahi and then go out for ice cream on the way home? Um, yes.

And that was my quick trip in a nutshell! Now the break is over, real life begins, and endless complaining will be my content for at least two weeks here on the blog.

The Life I Was Meant To Be Living

In the midst of a busy semester, I usually whine to G that this was not the life I was meant to live. Getting up super early in the morning to prep for the day? No. Needy students for a minimum of 15 weeks? Mmm no. Grading and writing and lesson prepping and responding to snarky emails and presenting and conducting workshops? Not really, no.

But. This? This is the life I was meant to be living. Yesterday we drove around Napa Valley (in the crazy rain - lots of roads are closed) and went to a tasting at Em's favorite vineyard, V. Sattui.

We got to do the tasting for free because Em has brought so many friends and family here! It was amazing! A nice break from the rain. We chatted and drank and drank and chatted and then perused the goods. I ended up buying (in addition to wine, duh) a couple of bottles of dipping sauce that I think G will really like. One flavor is garlic parmesan and the other is roasted red pepper. It's the gift that keeps on giving. :)

My favorite wines that we tasted were the Sauv Blank and the Cab Sauv. I bought a bottle of Gamay Rouge, though, a fairly light and sweet red table wine. When the man poured it he said, "This is your hot tub wine," and we just chuckled and gave each other a look. But as we were taking the first sip, he said, "This makes the perfect Sangria," and that got me. It was fruity and light and refreshing without being overly sweet. Twist my arm. Sangria at my place this summer! You're invited!

Today, we're on our way to spend some time in San Francisco before I have to go to the airport. Before real life (palm swiping across forehead) begins (swan dive into the abyss).