Busy Week

As the title suggests, this has been a busy week for me: two family members needed help moving, I got a haircut, I'm working 6 days and 50+ hours and of course tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Traditionally, my mom has been the primary cook for the big holiday meal, but last year my brother tried his hand at hosting. I thought he did a very good job, but I think he bit off a little more than he could chew since my mom is back cooking this year. To spread the cooking around a bit, I am preparing a squash casserole side dish and my brother is planning to make a pumpkin cheesecake.

I am not opposed to cooking generally speaking, but I don't really enjoy cooking for my family. Half the time, my dad politely and inexplicably refuses to eat anything I cook (I've never poisoned anyone and it's not bizarre foods that I prepare). My mom tends to be overly critical, and I'm not even sure she's aware of what she's doing. My siblings are both generally pretty picky eaters, so most of the time when I cook, it's just for me.

This week has been pretty as far as the skies are concerned. I am a huge fan of clouds, from sunrises and sunsets to just generally interesting cloud formations. At work this afternoon, my coworkers and I spotted some rainbow clouds. At first, I thought it was just a product of my polarized sunglasses (they can make clouds look colorful when the naked eye can't see it), but it was definitely the real deal. There have also been some pretty sunrises and sunsets, which is one benefit to spending lots of time outside at work.

Other than that, not a whole lot of note has been going on this week for me. I think I'm getting into another cycle of insomnia. Last night, I had a heck of a time falling asleep and the previous night I had a hard time staying asleep. Lucky me, I can simultaneously suffer from two varities of insomnia! The good news is that since starting my new job, it hasn't reared it's head nearly as much as it did prior, when I was more stressed out. Also, working long 11-12 hour work days pretty much makes it easy for you fall asleep when your head hits your pillow.

I'm hoping to be able to write more soon, but I won't make specific promises. That could theoretically make me more accountable and more likely to post, but if I fail to come through, I'd feel bad for failing. Thus, I set myself no specific goal for the next post.

I leave you with this picture I took of this little critter stealing from a pallet in Home Depot.

Meet Turd Ferguson

A few weeks ago, I adopted a baby winter white dwarf hamster (also known as a Siberian or Djungarian hamster). A male hamster had accidentally gotten sent in with a group of females, so naturally babies happened. Since the hamster was free and I already a cage from a previous hamster, I decided to take one home. I selected the one whose coloring I liked best and hoped for a female (they are a little less smelly than the males if you ask me), but it was young enough that it was hard to say for sure what the gender was.

"Hi!"

Of course, I ended up with a male and one whose disposition was a little less than friendly. Every time I try to handle him, he bites. Since he's only about 6 weeks old, his teeth haven't broken the skin yet, but soon he'll be able to draw blood if he wants. I'm trying to work on handling him without him biting, but he even nibbles on leather gloves when I use those to hold him. He may end up just not being a very cuddly guy, which I can live with (my previous hamster was a major biter - maybe it's me?).

Here's the cage set up I have (I bought this brand specifically because you can connect multiple cages and recently added the second red bottomed cage).

Due to his somewhat unfriendly disposition I ended up naming him Turd Ferguson. This name makes me laugh every time I hear it (it comes from a Saturday Night Live sketch in the late 90s or early 2000s which you can find on Hulu if you so desire). The hamster is also a bit of a poop factory, so the name seems fitting all around. Besides, I figure I can shorten it to Gus when necessary. But for now I'm really chuckling every time I use his full name.

I've gone through 3 different wheels trying to find one that is quiet. The one that came with the cage, I knew was noisy from previous experience, but I tried it out for a while to see if I could live with the noise. If you've never had a hamster, here's where it's important to realize that hamsters are nocturnal and tend to run on their wheels at night a lot. The second wheel I tried claimed to be a silent wheel. It
was louder than the first, actually waking me up several times a night.

I like to run at all hours of the night!

The third wheel has so far been pretty quiet. Initially when I put it in the cage, it was squeaky. I removed it and greased it up with vegetable oil (because that's safe for pets) and put it back in place. He instantly climbed on and spent a good 20 minutes licking the oil off the wheel, then ran around quietly. With any luck, it will remain quiet enough to not wake me up every night.

Mmmm! Delicious vegetable oil!

For now, I'm going to keep working on getting him to not bite when I handle him. The leather gloves are helping with me not jumping when he bites because that probably just makes him more nervous and likely to bite. Even if he doesn't end up being very friendly, he'll have a good life with me. I've already bought three different kinds of treats and vegetables just for him. He seemed to really enjoy the pumpkin meat and roasted seeds I gave him. He's really pretty spoiled, so it would be nice if he would sweeten up his personality a little.

Arctic Blast

Hmm, for some reason that title sounds like some kind of ice cream dish. And no, I'm not just hungry because I totally just had a bowl of ice cream. Anyway, the weather has been unseasonably cold here this past week. We had an 80 degree swing in temperatures in a five day period. It was 70 degrees one day and -10 degrees a few days later.

It's freakin' cold out there and I'm low to the ground, do NOT mess with me.

Normally this time of year the average temperatures are in the 50s, so 3 days straight with high temperatures under 20 degrees are not our norm. It's not unheard of to have a cold snap in maybe January or February, but this year we got our chilly weather early. I hope that this is not a sign of the winter to come, but I guess if it is, we'll get used to it. If it's humanly possible to get used to wind chills of -32 degrees (hint: it's not). We even broke a 130+ year old record low temperature for the date a few days ago.

It is literally 3 degrees out here, I feel like going for a swim (forgot to clean out the wading pool before it froze over)!

This is the type of weather where you spend as much time inside as possible. Short trips outside are possible, but anything exposed to the air will be feeling it quickly. I stepped out onto the patio and my eyelashes instantly had ice crystals on them. Anway, enough complaining about how cold it has been, at least we only had a few inches of snow to go along with it. The dogs end up getting cabin fever because they can't stay outside for very long, so when it gets a little warmer they really have a blast running around in the snow.

It's also important to have a buddy to cuddle up with. Here's hoping that it warms up again soon!

Thank You

This is just a quick post for Veteran's Day. I just want to thank anyone who has served for the military because you have sacrificed a lot for those of us who haven't served. Words are not enough to truly express the gratitude I have for you, but it's what I have, so thank you! Also, thank you to those family members of veterans because you sacrificed for the rest of us as well.

The Armed Forces Tribute Garden, Westminster, CO

Feeling Poetic

Other than having a few more days of not so hot luck, not a lot of interest has gone on around these parts. My phone arbitrarily reset itself to its factory settings on Saturday, so I had a super fun time getting all of my stuff set back up the way I wanted it. The good news there was that I only lost about a month's worth of pictures because I had recently downloaded the photos onto my computer. I did lose some cute Halloween pictures, but oh well. It could have been worse...like the time I kind of sort of totally put my cell phone into the washing machine and killed it.

So in lieu of coming up with some fascinating story to tell, I'm going to share some more of my poetry. Lazy posts, FTW! I have accumulated quite a few haiku over the years, so I'll post a few here for you to enjoy.

Dog Dreams
Paws starting to twitch,
Snoring, then softly barking,
What do dogs dream of?

Night
The night is clear
The little stars shine brightly
The moon is golden.

The Hunter
Claws and teeth flashing
as the beast chases his prey
swift death approaches.

Breeze
Light breeze starts to blow,
All the leaves begin to stir,
Mother Nature's song.

Lizard
Little lizard climbs
up the branches of a tree
to bask in the sun.

And I will call that a post. I'm enjoying the new job thus far, but I am definitely more tired lately. In time, I'll adjust and probably feel more like writing actual posts. Until then, I bid you farewell.

Happy (Belated) Halloween

Author's note: Oops, I thought I scheduled this to post on Halloween, but it obviously didn't go up, so here it is now. 

I'll be working all day, so I don't plan on doing anything for Halloween, but I did take my dogs to PetSmart in costume last week to get their pictures taken. So I'll leave you with a few pictures for Halloween.

Here's the group shot. I had to sit down to get Bob to hold still, he wanted to get outta there. Also, the big dogs wouldn't look at the camera until I sat with them.

Danger, the cowardly lion

Bob the hot dog

Jonesy the pumpkin

I Had a Bad Day

Do you ever have one of those days where you end up regretting your choice to even get out of bed in the morning? Well, that was me yesterday. It started out with getting up and finding a spider in the shower, which is not really a big deal, but it was apparently a sign of things to come. When I got to work, I was locked outside and ended up having to clock in ten minutes late even though it was the manager's fault I wasn't on time.

This spider was in the sink a couple weeks ago, but it was the same kind in the shower

The morning at work didn't go very well, but it was over quickly enough. As I was driving home, my car started to feel weird (so descriptive, I know). The steering all of the sudden felt odd, but I was close to home so I just drove the rest of the way home. When I got there, I realized I had a completely flat tire. My spare tire is a regular tire, but since it's almost November I opted to just put my snow tires on anyway.

Of course, changing my tires didn't go smoothly at all. I change my tires myself because it's not that hard. My dad insisted that all of his kids should know how to change their own tires before they got their driver's licenses. That way if any of us had a flat tire, we didn't have to sit around helplessly waiting for someone else to fix it for us. Anyway, the wheels on the snow tires I have require a puzzle lock for the lug nuts (which means someone can't just take a lug wrench and loosen the nuts) and those were giving me trouble.

The second wheel that I changed was stuck in place and my dad had to come outside and kick it loose for me, which I've never had happen before. After I moved to the other side of the car, the ominous clouds finally let loose with some light rain and sleet, just what I wanted. The last step was to take my summer wheels/tires to the shed for storage over winter. I'll need new tires next summer anyway, so I didn't bother with trying to fix the flat.

See the exposed steel belt on the bottom of that top tire? So lucky it didn't blow out on me.

My dad stores tires/wheels for everyone in the family because he has two decently sized sheds for storage. So my wheels had to be stacked on top of my brother's summer tires and as I was stacking the second to last of my own wheels (about 5 and half feet off the floor at this point), the wheel slipped and whacked me really hard upside the head. At this point, I'd had enough and I just started crying. Plus, it really did hurt, the side of my head is still in pain today.

Once all the wheels were safely stacked up, I decided to call it a day. It was only about 3PM, but when you've had enough, you've had enough. How many car wheels have to hit you in the head before you give up, anyway? I came into the house, changed into my pajamas and laid down on the bed with a book. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, except for a malfunctioning cable remote when I tried to sit and watch TV for a little while.

At bed time, I decided to ice the side of my head because it was throbbing. Of course, this was the wrong thing to do because when I finished up with the ice, my head hurt even more. I think the sore spot was just so sensitive that pressing hard ice up against it made it worse. I took some ibuprofen and went to sleep.

I guess my flat tire wasn't such a bad thing in the end because it did just go gradually flat when it could have completely blown out. I don't even want to think about what could've happened had that tire blown out going 75MPH on the freeway (which is the speed limit on my way to work). I do also have 6 months notice to start saving up money for new tires next summer. Still, I'm hoping that today goes a lot better because when I have bad days, it just tends to pile on.

Cooking Adventures

A few days ago, I was at the store with my sister, intending to buy ingredients for a fried rice recipe I had come across online that sounded good. After pricing out a few of the ingredients, I decided to wait until I find shrimp on sale (because I was surprised at how expensive it is). I did, however, notice that sushi rice was pretty inexpensive when I was looking at jasmine rice for the fried rice recipe. On impulse, I bought the sushi rice and some SPAM because I had been interested in making SPAM musubi.

Here's my SPAM musubi finished product

 

The next day, I decided to also get the ingredients to make California rolls. I had sushi rice, why not make sushi, right? California rolls are pretty simple, so I decided to start there, no raw fish to worry about. I went to the store to buy rice vinegar, nori (roasted seaweed used in making sushi), avocado, cucumber and imitation crab meat.

Then I had to go to three different stores to find a bamboo mat for rolling the sushi. I had looked up online where to buy one, but had no luck actually figuring out where it was in the first two stores. I should have started out at the local Asian food market because their nori was also half the price I had paid for it elsewhere.

When I went home, I decided to make SPAM musubi first because it was going to be the simpler of the two planned dishes. The longest part of the recipe was cooking the sushi rice, but it came out pretty well. It's a very sticky rice, so some of it was stuck to the bottom of the pan, but I had enough to make my musubi. The SPAM was sliced and fried up with a little bit of soy sauce and sugar. Then, assembling them was done by placing the strips of nori and forming the rice into compressed piles about the size of the SPAM patties and sprinkling it with furikake (a rice seasoning). Once, the nori was wrapped around, they were ready to go! They turned out really good and I'll definitely be making them again.

The successful California rolls

I was more concerned about how well the sushi was going to turn out because California rolls are made inside out - with the rice on the outside and nori on the inside. I figured, if nothing else, I'd have piles of California roll to eat with a spoon instead of a neat little roll to eat by hand. I spread the rice across the nori and sprinkled a little furikake over it because I didn't have roasted sesame seeds, then flipped the whole thing over (which was dicey, but I did it).

After placing the inside ingredients on the nori, it came time to roll up the sushi. I managed to get it rolled up pretty easily, but then when I unrolled the bamboo mat, the actual hardest part of making the sushi came into play: cutting it into smaller pieces. The first roll mostly fell apart, probably because I hadn't quite rolled it tight enough. The second roll managed to produce some nice, photo worthy pieces. I shared a few pieces with my family who said it tasted just like any California roll they'd had at a restaurant.

Here's the beauty shot

So, the bottom line to all of this is if there's something out there that you've been wanting to cook, but were afraid...go for it! It might be fun, it might be a disaster, but you never know until you try. That lesson can easily apply to a lot of other things, and I'm sure it's one you've heard before. Still, it's important to remind ourselves that it's okay to go outside your comfort zone once in a while, even if it's in a small way like trying to make sushi. Worst case scenario, you have a big mess in your kitchen and a pile of sushi ingredients to eat.

I Think I'm Trying to Break My Own Nose

On Tuesday, my sister's little dachshund mix, Bob Barker was visiting for the night. I was sitting on the sofa with a blanket over my lap because it was a little chilly in the living room. At one point, I leaned forward to throw the blanket over my feet because they came out from under the covers. This is the exact moment that Bob chose to jump into my life. So you can picture what happened next...little dog skull straight to the bridge of my nose.

Bob Barker - who doesn't look big, but can pack a wallop when he jumps into your nose with his skull

It hurt for a few minutes, but never bled and when I woke up the next day I had no bruises or anything. I thought I'd be on my merry way and forget about the incident, but then Thursday morning, I managed to smash myself across the bridge of the nose with a somewhat heavy metal object at work. It hurt bad enough at the time that it actually brought tears to my eyes. The most frustrating part to me was that I totally can't blame it on anyone else. You know, at least if it resulted from the dog hitting me, I could blame it on him. But this was all me.

I went to examine my face in the bathroom mirror and noticed a red mark that wasn't too obvious. Again, no resulting nosebleed, so yay for that. When I was a kid, I had some really nasty nosebleeds (like the umm...maybe we need to go see a doctor ASAP kind). You know, the sort where you're not sure if it's okay to lose that much blood and it's just not stopping.  Those started when I moved with my family to Colorado and quit after a while, so my mom just assumed it was related to the higher elevation and lower humidity

Yesterday, I worked the first full day at my new job (just got hired on Wednesday and it was a long 11 hour shift). Fortunately, I'm outside all day with sunglasses on so no one noticed that I had two partial black eyes. Including me. I guess when I was doing my hair in front of the mirror in the morning I just didn't notice the bruises. It took until I glanced up at myself in the mirror at my first job this morning to see that I had some really dark spots around the bridge of my nose. The bridge is still sore too, but never swelled up too much, it just feels like someone whacked it, which I kind of did.

I was there when I hit myself in the face and my first thought was still, "Gee, it looks like I didn't get enough sleep last night, even though I got a good 8 hours in." No one said anything about it all morning, so I guess it's not extremely obvious that I have a couple black eyes. Or else they all assume I'm in an abusive relationship and they don't want to say anything about it. I guess I might be in an abusive relationship with myself because I keep trying to break my own nose. I leaned into a dog jumping into my face and then whacked myself with a heavy object, I don't what else you could call that. Other than my usual clumsy self, that is.

*Blog news*

So I mentioned that I got hired to a new job this week and I'm not sure what that means here. In case anyone is actually reading it, I don't plan on quitting the blog, there's just no guarantee as to how often I'll be able to post. For the time being, I'm keeping both jobs until I figure out whether the new one is something I will be able to do long term. I just hope I remember to go to both jobs and don't completely space out going to a shift at either one some day. For at least a little while, I could potentially be working 6-7 days a week and maybe upwards of 60 hours (not that I'm complaining, working a ton is so much better than lousy part time hours and not being sure if you can pay all your bills).

Lunar Eclipse

In case you missed it, early Wednesday morning there was a full lunar eclipse. I set my alarm clock for 3AM and put on some warm clothes to go outside and watch the eclipse. The dogs looked at me like I was crazy, but joined me outside. I took my camera, tripod and a comfy chair and spent two hours watching the earth's shadow fall across the moon. After the eclipse was full, my feet were cold, so I gave up and went back to bed.

There was a layer of thin clouds during the whole eclipse, so some of my images came out a little fuzzy or hazy looking because of that fact. The rest of the post will just be pictures from the eclipse. Enjoy!

The shadow starts to fall across the moon

Almost halfway there

Almost fully eclipsed

Nearly completely eclipsed and looking like a blood moon

Fully eclipsed moon

Winter Is Coming

The weather for the last week here has definitely reminded us that winter is just around the corner. One morning, I was totally unprepared for the fact that I had to actually scrape some ice off my car on my way to work. I leave for work at 5:30AM, so it's dark out at that hour and the temperature was cool enough for the dew to freeze on my windows. Fortunately, since I live in Colorado I keep the ice scraper in the car 365 days a year (you just never know) so I only had to fetch it out of the trunk.

My dad asked me to go with him on Friday to get some firewood in preparation of winter. I have this nasty habit of agreeing to do things without thinking about them, so I naturally said yes immediately. Our neighbors have property up in the mountains and since the pine beetle infestation has killed off a lot of their trees, they don't mind us going up and taking some firewood each year. There's a wood stove insert in the fireplace in the living room, so when the temperatures drop my dad likes to have a fire going because it drops the heating bill dramatically.

Snow-capped peaks around Berthoud Pass

So I got up early on my day off and we headed off for the two hour drive to our neighbor's property. There were still some fall colors on the trees, but about half of the trees had dropped all or most of their leaves. Going over the mountain pass, it was clear that it had recently snowed as the pine trees were dusted in snow as well as the peaks. We had decided to bring the dogs along so that they could run around on the property while we worked. On the way up, they had the whole bed of the truck to themselves because my dad has a topper on his truck. The ride home was going to be less cozy as the back would be full of wood, so they would ride inside the cab with us.

When we arrived, my dad set out to getting his chainsaw started up (which did not go well initially) and then he started cutting up a downed tree. My job was loading the cut up tree into the back of the truck so that we could drive up to the garage where they had a hydraulic log splitter. If you've never tried to manually split wood, let me tell you, the hydraulic splitter is a fantastic tool. It seriously saved some time and labor on the wood splitting.

Lots of exploring was done

 The dogs got to run around the yard. My dad's dog Danger had a rope tied to his harness because he is mostly well behaved, but has a habit of getting far away from us at the dog park and pretending not to hear us. He brought a rope for Jonesy as well, but he stayed close to us and I never have to call him twice if he does start to wander off. The large land area around their cabin was fenced, but the dogs could've easily gotten out if we got busy and weren't paying attention.

Dad at work

A squirrel sat high up in one of the live trees and dropped pine cones down on the dogs until Jonesy realized what was happening and chased it off. The squirrel was not happy and was probably never faced with dogs there before. I think the dogs ended up thoroughly enjoying their time away from the city. Us humans, however ended up with sore muscles from our hard work, but it will pay off when

the cold temperatures come and the heating bills don't go up.

Look at that smile

By the end of the day, we had managed to cut up nearly two trees and had the back of my dad's truck filled up to the roof of the topper. The dogs were tired and had to be somewhat crammed into the back of the truck. Fortunately, the ride home wasn't too bad because Friday traffic can be a nightmare, but it only took a little longer than the ride up. Probably the worst thing was coming home to stack up the wood in the backyard after sitting in the truck and having muscles stiffen up. My dad appreciated my help though because it would've taken him twice as long to do it all himself and I got a free lunch out of it.

Don't they look cozy?

Leaf Peeping

This past weekend was the peak of fall colors in the nearby mountains of Colorado and I wanted to go for a drive on Saturday to go soak in all the glorious colors. However, on Friday, my grandma called me and asked me to drive her to look at a couple of apartments (she's looking to move and is having a flare up of her rheumatoid arthritis so she's having trouble getting around these days). I love my grandma, but every time I go over to do something that would normally only take a couple hours at most, I get sucked in for a whole day.

On Sunday, my sister and I had planned to visit the local museum because it was having a free admission day and we hadn't been able to hang out for a while. She stopped by the house on Saturday evening to pick up her dog who had been staying a couple nights here while she worked long hours and she just couldn't wait for me to bring him home Sunday, so we decided to go leaf peeping instead (seriously, that's what it's called).

I don't regret going to see the leaves because in some areas, the leaves were already mostly falling off the trees or gone altogether, the museum will have other free days. Most of the trees though were a gorgeous golden or red color in their full fall glory. Also, yesterday it rained so hard here that the green-leaved trees were stripped in some places. The first half hour of our drive, it was raining moderately, but when we got to where there were large groves of aspen trees, it let up.

Poetry Time

I don't know if I'll make this a regular occurrence (and I mean regular as in every week), but I think I will make the occasional poetry post. If that's not your thing, please feel free to skip, I won't be offended. I have written poetry since I was in middle school and recently rediscovered a lot of it. A lot of it, as you might suspect, is not really any good. Some of it though, I'm still happy with, so at some point I'll definitely post more of my poems.

For today's post, this is a new poem (as in I wrote it about ten minutes ago). The main purpose of this blog as a whole is to get back into writing more. I used to write all kinds of things regularly and have fallen out of the habit for years. I still enjoy writing, but sometimes feel like there's nothing to write about, so I skip it. By writing a blog, I feel like there will be some sort of motivation to write at least somewhat regularly and have also felt the need to write some more poems.

I even started a short story, but about a week after being struck with what I felt was a brilliant idea at the time, it quickly petered out. I'm not saying I'll never get back to that story, but it's been shelved for now. It was a sci-fi story about colonization on Mars, which in itself is not so unique, but I had a different angle based on a story that really happened during exploration and land grabbing in the western United States. I'll say no more on that subject just in case anything further ever happens with that story. It was mostly spurred by a combination of reading some sci-fi novels and the story I heard on a history pocast.

Anyway, before I ramble on for another half a page, here's the poem I wrote:

Tap, tap, tap.
I look up from the book I'm reading,
Hoping to find the source of the noise.
Tap, tap, tap.
I can't determine the source,
Back to reading I go,
When again there comes the noise:
Tap, tap, tap.
This time I get up from my chair, 
To make sure that I really am home alone,
That this isn't some prank. 
Then, as soon as I pick up my book,
Tap, tap, tap.
I begin to ponder nervously,
What could be making this soft noise,
So intermittently and yet so persistently.
Tap, tap, tap.
Finally, a flash of movement catches my eye,
I glance up at my aquarium,
One fish is swimming rapidly.
Then I hear it again,
Tap, tap, tap.
I see my fish has decided to redecorate,
He's piling up the gravel,
Spitting it at the glass,
Tap, tap, tap.
Back and forth he swims,
Scoops up the rocks in his mouth,
Then piles them in the front of the aquarium,
Tap, tap, tap.
The mystery is solved,
So back to my book I go.
While in the background, 
My fish continues to redecorate,
Tap, tap, tap.

And for proof, here's a video of the mound of gravel he's got built up, while he's in action (unfortunately, when I get closer to the aquarium he stops, so this is taken from across the room and you can't hear the tapping):

Update: In my previous post, I detailed how I managed to burn my tongue with a molten marshmallow. The good news is, mouth injuries heal quickly. Today, there's almost no pain, but there's a slight loss of sensation where the taste buds were burnt. I suspect that in another week, I'll be on the path to forgetting I ever did this.

Beware of Molten Marshmallows

A week and a half ago, I happened to get a three day weekend scheduled off from work and I decided that I had better take advantage of going camping one last time before the weather turned too cool for that. Of course, Friday of that weekend it was chilly and possibly supposed to snow in town so it was probably going to be even colder in the higher elevations where I like to camp. My favorite local camping spot is Rocky Mountain National Park (hereafter referred to as RMNP because I can't be bothered to type the whole thing out repeatedly).

In preparation for this camping trip I went to the store to buy hotdogs and large marshmallows because what else would you eat with a campfire? On Saturday morning, I woke up and packed my tent, sleeping bag and some firewood into my car. I took the scenic drive up through Boulder and into Estes Park before entering RMNP.

At the entrances to the park, they have signs posted stating whether or not the campgrounds are full and it said all of them had vacancies, so I paid the entrance fee (because my annual pass had expired) and headed in. The first campground I came to had a sign on the roadside stating that it was full. I was concerned and headed on to the next closest campground, which had a full sign up as well. I wasn't extremely disappointed at this point because I figured I could at least get out and take a hike in the nice, warm weather.

All of the parking lots near (and even the ones not so near) the hiking trails were full. At this point, I had two options: I could drive over Trail Ridge road (the park's main road that connects the east side and Estes Park to the west side and Grand Lake) and hope the campground on that side of the park had openings or I could just head home. I weighed my options over a picnic lunch and opted to head home. I really didn't feel like making another long drive (probably about 2 hours because I like to stop periodically to take pictures) and find the campground was full. Even if it had vacancies, there weren't really trails on that side of the park that I wanted to hike, so I'd have to wake up really early the next morning and drive back to the east side to find parking to hike.

All of this now brings us to why molten marshmallows are very dangerous. I was disappointed to not get to camp and to have basically wasted my park entrance fee, but I still wanted to have some roasted marshmallows. Cue the newly installed gas stove that I have at home and I figured I'd try roasting some marshmallows at home. Sure, it's not the same as roasting them over the fire, but I wanted some gooey marshmallows, dang it!

The good news is that the stove did a nice job of toasting the marshmallows and while it was not quite satisfying, things were going well. As I roasted my last marshmallow, I let it go a little longer than the previous few because I wanted it golden brown all the way around instead of just at the top where it would catch fire and blacken quickly. I let it cool off for what I thought was a reasonable amount of time, it was cool enough to the touch on the outside, but I quickly found out that it was still molten inside.

I've burnt my tongue on pizza that was a little too hot to eat before and that was painful, but I walked away with maybe a small blister. I suspect molten marshmallow goo is probably one of the worst things you can burn your mouth on. Not only was it hot, but it was stuck to my tongue! I was fortunately standing near the sink so I ran my tongue under cold water for a few minutes, but not before the damage was done. The whole tip of my tongue was burnt and I was quickly googling remedies for tongue burns.

It looks slightly more red in person, but you can see all that whitish discoloration at the tip that's burnt. Also, I'm sorry for making you look at a close up picture of my tongue, I feel like it's a little gross for some reason.

Today, my tongue feels like one gigantic blister basically. I am sucking on as many ice cubes as I can and using Orajel and pain killers to try and keep down the pain. I have to be really careful when I'm talking so that I don't accidentally scrape my tongue against my teeth. I'm also making sure not to eat food that's too hot (in both the warmth and spicy senses of the word). It will probably feel a lot better in the few days, but leave it to me to get hurt eating a marshmallow. I guess I was just not meant to have my roasted marshmallows.

And a quick appearance from Jonesy to update you on his nose progress. He's looking almost 100% again (still missing the fur, but his dark skin makes it look less obvious from a distance).

Last Days of Summer

The weather over the last week has definitely had more of a fall feeling to it. Sure, the temperatures during the day have been pretty warm, but in the evenings the air definitely has a bit of a chill coming into it. Summer doesn't officially end for a couple more days and I got to enjoy a cookout and bonfire last night.

One of my friends grew up on a farm north of Denver and his family has an annual pig roast. They invited a couple hundred people and asked folks to bring either a side dish or a dessert. There was no shortage of food with dozens of different pasta salads (including the one I took) and about 20 different kinds of desserts.

The evening started out with a tour of the farm (which used to be a dairy farm, they only have a handful of cows that they no longer milk). They keep a couple of donkeys, which are actually friendly enough to let you pet them and a dozen chickens. There were also several friendly dogs around and a trio of barn kittens who they took in after the mother was hit by a car.

There were several horseshoe games set up...what do you call a horseshoe playing field? Arena? Pitch? Not that it really matters I suppose. I avoided the games anyway, klutz plus throwing a heavy metallic object around dozens of people doesn't strike me as a good idea. In the barn, they had lots of long tables set up for meal time.

When the pigs were finished roasting, a long line formed (seriously we stood in line for about half an hour to get food, but someone brought a plate of pork down the line for sampling). The pork was delicious and barbecue sauce and buns were provided. I loaded up my plate with a couple of types of pasta salad and some delicious baked beans and veggies. Then afterwards I had a pumpkin spice cupcake, a small piece of brownie and a thin slice of root beer float cake. I had never heard of such a thing, but it was pretty good (I assume the cake itself had root beer in it).

After the meal a large bonfire was started and everyone got to hang out and enjoy music (and alcohol if you wanted). There was a wide open view and to the south a thunderstorm was producing lots of gorgeous lightning. For some reason, there was also a nearby fireworks display for a while too. All in all, it was a pretty fun way to spend one of the last few nights of summer. Now if I can just figure out a way to delay winter.

13 Years Later

I find it hard to believe that it has actually been 13 years since 9/11. Of course, I generally am terrible at realizing how much time has passed. In my brain, the 90s weren't that long ago (but they were actually quite some time ago, heck I know people who were born in the 2000s). Still, it doesn't seem like that terrible day happened 13 years ago.

I still remember very specific details about where I was and what I was doing on that fall day in 2001. Some of the details are starting to fade, but I don't think that I will ever completely forget it. In September 2001, I was in high school, tenth grade specifically. We had just moved into our new house 2 months prior and gotten a German Shepherd puppy the month before. I walked to school because my high school was about 2 blocks away from home and even when I was old enough to drive, there wasn't much point in driving such a short distance.

My normal time to leave for school was about 6:45am to get to school and have a little time to socialize before classes started. So on that fateful day, I left my house about a minute before the first plane hit the first tower. The world was changing right as I walked to school, but I had no idea. My first class of the day was Geometry, which was held out in the trailers the school had set up in the parking lot to account for growing student populations. One classmate was always a few minutes late to class and that day when she came in she announced to the class that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

At the time, we had no idea what was about to unfold, so a few jokes were made about how could you miss such a big building. Terrorism was not high on the list of possible things that could happen in our minds as us teenagers had no real reference point for it then. The one drawback to classes in the trailers (other than the heat early in the school year) is that there are no TVs. The rest of the school had TVs in most of the classrooms and cable hookups as well.

My second class of the day was Biology and when I arrived the TV was on a news channel. I watched and still couldn't exactly comprehend what was happening as I discovered the second tower had been hit as well. My class watched in silent horror as the first tower collapsed, I couldn't help but think of all the people who were dying. It was later, during my third period class that an announcement was made over the intercom to the whole school with a basic summary of what was happening.

I remember walking home during my lunch hour to check in with my brother (who had just graduated high school the previous spring) and my grandma (who at the time lived with us). They had the news on, but my grandma was trying to just go about her normal business and not focus too much on the terrible images on the TV. Some point later in the day, I remember we watched President Bush address the nation and announce that it had been terrorist attacks. One teacher refused to turn on the TV, feeling that we didn't need to stare at that kind of thing endlessly.

For days, the TV carried nothing but wall to wall coverage of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Then, at some point, the coverage slowly diminished and normal programming started coming back on. I remember watching the first comedy program since the attacks and thinking it felt weird to laugh again. I remember how across the country, people came together and vowed to never forget the events of that day.

Now it has been exactly 13 years since that tragic day. Things have changed a lot in the intervening years. I still remember the events as though they happened much more recently than that. I haven't forgotten what happened, maybe some of the small details, but not the way that things changed forever. Thinking back on it still brings strong emotions too.

Sunday Drive

As summer slips away and we dive into fall, my mom and I decided to take a drive through the mountains yesterday before the snow season starts. It was a little early for much fall color, but it was a pleasant day for a drive. Part of the day was cloudy and rainy, but mostly the views were open and typically glorious Colorado. We opted to go south through Fairplay (considered the center of the state and the place South Park is loosely based on) and into Buena Vista.

We stopped in Buena Vista and had lunch at a local pizzeria. The pizza was really pretty good and the view was nothing to complain about. In fact, it was pretty obvious why the town got its name (Spanish for beautiful view). The main peaks to the west are named the Collegiate Peaks because they are named: Mt. Princeton, Mt. Harvard, Mt. Yale, Mt. Oxford and Mt. Columbia.

Collegiate Peaks

Fall colors starting on Mt. Yale

 After lunch, we drove up Cottonwood pass, which wound slowly up through the mountains and ended at the top with a continental divide and sweeping views.

Looking down the road that leads to the top of the pass

Top of Cottonwood Pass

On the way up the pass

I've lived in Colorado for the majority of my life, well over 20 years at this point and there are still many corners of this state I haven't yet visited. This trip was not a disappointment, even if the drive was a little long (and made me miss half of the Denver Broncos regular season opener...not that I was bitter about that or anything). Also, the sunset on the drive home was pretty colorful.

Sunset, moonrise, small rainbow.

Jonesy Update (Now with more update!)

I'm just going to give you a quick update on Jonesy. The swelling on his nose has gone completely down, but the day after he went to the vet he woke up with hives all over his ears. At this point, we have no idea what caused his allergic reaction. After a couple higher doses of benadryl, the hives went away. The sores on his nose have scabbed over because he has no opportunities to go outside alone and scratch them up with tree branches again.

Looking a little better

The real test is going to be today. I work in the middle of the day and no one else will be home with him from 3:30-7:30PM. Normally, leaving him inside for four hours would be no problem. He has a history of holding his bladder for 12 hours at a time when it's really cold outside and he doesn't want to go out. However, the steroids he is on to help with all the allergic reactions make him really thirsty and therefore he has been peeing at least once an hour.

So for a few hours, he's going to have to be left outside where he can scratch his nose. I'm hoping not to come home to a bloody mess. He will have company in his friend (my sister's dog) Bob Barker and my dad's dog Danger, so maybe they can help keep him distracted. So far, even with the cone on and close supervision he is obsessed with trying to scratch his nose. He's discovered that he can press the cone up against someone's leg and rub his nose on the inside of it. 

Bob Barker with Jonesy last fall

Update: Today, Jonesy's nose is looking pretty good. He managed to rub the scabs off, but he has been cone-free all day and things are healing. He is still peeing like a racehorse, but that will continue as long as he's on the steroids.

Happily cone-free!