A True Ktty Conundrum!

I came home from work tonight to find that Bootsie had somehow managed to get herself stuck behind my bookcases.

Let me give you some perspective here (helped by a video included below).

In order to do that, she had to squeeze into the tiny space between my couch and my windowsill, walk the length of the windowsill still wedged against the couch, and then jump down about a foot into the approximately 4-6 inch space between the two adjacent bookshelves and the wall.

I am convinced she only accomplished this feat because she is so tiny. Spitter would never have even made it onto the windowsill.

I don't know how long Bootsie was back there, but it was long enough to cause frantic meows when I opened the door. I wandered around calling her name for several minutes, trying to figure out where she was! At first I just thought she was trapped behind the couch, but that seemed unlikely because it's her favorite hiding spot and she goes back there all the time.

Behold the discovery of where she really was!

(Note: when I took this video, I thought she was just trapped behind the curtain on the windowsill. That's why I say "oh" after looking behind the curtain.

Flagstaff foodie? Or nostalgic nut? Either way, happy 2013!

Have you ever noticed how much a vacation, especially to a place near and dear to your heart, revolves around where and what you eat while you're there? I never really gave this much thought until I myself took a special trip and found myself planning my meals with extra special care. I've heard before that the smells of favorite foods are linked to memory recall, but apparently sentimentality can also be linked to the actual consumption of food. I guess that's why some people can't eat cookies without a big glass of milk, and why I can't visit my beloved college town for an extended weekend without chowing down at no fewer than 5 of my personal favorite local Flagstaff eateries.

Last weekend I drove up to Flagstaff to play in my old stomping grounds for a few days. The fact that my trip happened to coincide with the new year was completely and totally on purpose. I invited my family to join me for the festivities, and the 3 of them drove up on Sunday evening.

During my solo drive up the mountain on Saturday morning, I sang my lungs out to my combination Disney-and-Broadway Musical Pandora station (throughout my senior year I was completely enamord of Wicked the Musical and listened to the soundtrack pretty much nonstop while I was driving to school, work, or just down the road to get a coffee). Whenever I stopped singing long enough to take a breath, my thoughts turned to where I would take my rumbling stomach out to lunch (I skipped breakfast knowing full well I'd be starving by the time the I-17 turned into Milton Rd).

My first meal was a no-brainer: Mountain Oasis is and always has been my favorite Flagstaff lunch place. It's been five-ish years since I've had the opportunity to dine there, and it held up to its (well, my) standard of excellence nicely (though I could tell that the chef was different because the ingredients in my all-time-favorite Rach Chicken wrap were subtly changed. Still delicious as all get out, though!) The waitress was of the overly-friendly, I-almost-just-went-ahead-and-invited-her-to-sit-down-and-join-me variety, but I was in such a good mood and so happy to be back in Flag that not only did I not mind her chattiness, I chatted right back and then left her a ginormous tip!

For dinner that night I went to Hiro's, where I had tried my very first sushi roll freshman year (the Philadelphia roll, because the salmon was smoked and I wasn't brave enough yet to eat raw fish). Since then I have become an avid sushi fan and a lover of salmon nigiri and the Rainbow Roll! I also went on a nighttime Safeway run for some apples, since I start chomping at the bit if I go too long without apples the same way some people get cranky without their coffee fix.

On Sunday morning I decided to stroll around the frozen grounds of NAU "for old time's sake." But first, I headed over to my beloved streetside drive-through coffee joint, Wicked AZ. The fact that it shares a name with my favorite musical from college just makes me all the more nostalgic about it. While waiting in line, I noticed that the day's trivia question happened to be about the main reason I chose come to Flagstaff for that particular extended weekend (which I'll get to in a minute). 

The Wicked Trivia board says:
"What year did the Flagstaff pinecone drop start?"

I ordered my Wicked AZ Coffee favorite, the Snickers (I actually like the cold drink better, but t'was not the season for icy drinks!). I always order it decaf with no whipped cream, but the tasty confection still contains enough sugar to pack a hyperactive punch! Especially when the girl drinking it is so nostalgically ecstatic that she leaves yet another enormous tip, causing the barista to give her TWO punches on her Wicked coffee card!

At NAU I parked in the parking lot behind the library and music building, then half-hoped I would (and really kinda still hoped I wouldn't) slip on the thick coating of ice leading to the sidewalk (I took two big spills during my wintery Flagstaff college years - one in that parking lot, and the other by the Liberal Arts building). No falling ensued this time around, which is actually good since I was still holding a hot coffee in my hands. I then spent the next hour wandering around the deserted campus while four years of memories jumped out at me everywhere I looked. I was too cold and too lazy to make it all the way down to south campus, but most of the good stuff happened on central and north campus anyway (of course, now that I've typed that, my neurons are firing in defense of what south campus fun did occur, and some very not-fun things that happened on central campus). After treading carefully back to my car, I had lunch at Crystal Creek and ordered my regular Crystal Club sandwhich (I could be thinking of Jitter's, which is now closed, but I could have sworn that the tabletops at Crystal Creek used to be wood slabs covered in graffiti carvings. Now they are boring green and yellow tiles).

My family had to drive up the mountain in a snowstorm on Sunday night (in conditions not unlike the very first time I drove my Roxy car up the mountain my junior year!). By the time they arrived, I was ready and waiting for them with several yummy dishes from my favorite dinner place, Dara Thai (the timing was perfect, as my car was still idling in the driveway when they pulled up beside me. I myself had just had a crash-course in remembering how to drive in heavy snow!). Ever since my first bite of Evil Jungle Princess (spicy level 2) my freshman year, I have been in love. No other Thai food restaurant has measured up, at least not in sentimental value!

As has become our tradition for Flagstaff adventures, my family and I stayed in a ComfiCottage house (though not our favorite, the Beaver St house from my freshman year). On New Year's Eve, my mom and brother stayed warm in front of the Beal St house's cozy fireplace while my dad and I braved the 9-degree temperature to watch Flagstaff's infamous pinecone drop!

In all four years that I lived in Flagstaff, I never did the pinecone drop thing because I always went home to Phoenix during winter break. I figured it was high time I finally saw this New Year's Eve phenomenon for myself! The pinecone "dropped" from the top of the Weatherford Hotel (where, incidentally, the fam and I had stopped earlier that day for a beverage - hot apple cider for the ladies, beer for the boys- after some downtown Flagstaff shopping).

It was 30 seconds of very much excitement accompanied by about 50 school children blowing noise makers (we went to the 10pm drop because the midnight crowd of downtown drunkies would have killed my happy-to-be-in-Flagstaff endorphine buzz). After cheering for the LED-lighted 6-foot metal pinecone, my dad and I traipsed over to Rendezvous for a drink (yummy mojito for me, I've never been a martini kind of girl).

Because we are a family of desert rats, we couldn't drive back to Phoenix on Tuesday without taking a bunch of Flagstaff winter wonderland photos. 

For my brother: "Ermagerd! Ercicles!"



The 4 day trip was a literal bite out of heaven! My whole family keeps telling me how glad they are that I suggested it. It was so much fun, packed with foodie food and enough nostalgia to last me at least until next year (at which time I intend to make the trip again!)

PS: the answer to Wicked Coffee's trivia question? 1999

PPS: of course I also drove to where I lived for three years, one year of which was with the 3 best roomies ever. I elected not to drive down the still-icy-because-the-plow-doesn't-go-there small streets to get to the actual house, though. I settled for driving down the adjacent bigger road and basically spying on everyone's back yards trying to see into mine (which puts me right on the edge of creeper-status, I know haha).

Christmas time is here...

...and so are the Christmas commercials! As a Holiday Season fanatic, I get as excited about Christmas commercials as football fans get about Superbowl commercials.

I don't watch all that much tv during the rest of the year, but during the holidays I stay pretty tuned in to the channels with the most holiday spirit. My hope is that I will witness at least a few showings of my all-time-favorite Christmas commercial, the "Hershey Kiss Orchestra" (as I call it). It's such a classic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HtSLF4vlrk

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

"Thank my lucky..."

At a cultural awareness meeting at work last month, we had 30 seconds to draw both sides of a penny from memory. Several people had a relatively accurate depiction, and many others were creatively, hilariously, off-the-wall wrong. (Mine was surprisingly close to accurate, I was quite proud of myself!).

Because my brain tends to process info in strange little loops, my thought process quickly changed from the American penny as a cultural icon to the American penny as a good luck charm. And from there, of course. the topic broadened into a full-on contemplation of identified tokens of impending good fortune. 

Think about it. We have: 



Find a penny, pick it up
and all day you'll have good luck!

 

My beautiful grandma
at her 90th birthday

 

My personal favorite, however, is the green m&m...

I don't know how well-known the Lucky Green m&m actually is, but when I first heard about it at age 11, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was in the musical production Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and during the song 'Pure Imagination' the cast members danced around as various pieces of candy. Ross was a Tootsie Roll; I was a green m&m. One of the older cast members, a narrator, told me about the "lucky" value of a green m&m. I took her word for gold and didn't even ask her where she heard such a thing. To this day, I still catch myself countng how many greens are in a pack of m&ms. Christmas is a particularly exciting time, with bowls full of reds and lucky greens!!

The Dog's Gone

Today was Mr. Shadow's last day with me. It's hard to believe, but I had him for a total of 11 weeks, just shy of 3 months! (Not counting those 4 days where he was running wild on the streets of downtown Phoenix). Considering that the dog-to-human age ratio is 1 human year to 7 dog years, that means that from Shadow's perspective he was with me for nearly two years of his life! (Does that mean that in Shadow's mind I'm already pushing 30? Eek!).

Sayonara, Shadow! You're a good old boy, for a dog.

(Postscript from the cats: Old, yes. Good, no. So long, you smelly beast of burden)

Crowds and Turkey Crazies

Today my mom asked me to pick up a few things at Trader Joe's for our Family Thanksgiving Sunday Supper (after the big Turkey Day with aunts, uncles, and cousins, we do another one with just the 4 of us. Plus, Sunday Suppers are kind of a tradition in our family). I agreed obligingly, even though grocery shopping is one of my least favorite activities.

When I got to the grocery store around 3pm it was teeming with a bajillion harried and hurried-looking shoppers (apparently mine's not the only family who continues the big dinners the weekend following a major holiday). Shopping carts were whipping around corners and flying through aisles, the people steering them avoiding eye contact with fellow shoppers but scruitinizing food labels with almost comic intensity.

I get so claustrophobic in huge crowd situations, it seriously borders on agoraphobia. When that happens it can take me an hour to do 20 minutes-worth of shopping because I get all overwhelmed and distracted. Not to mention I have to wait my turn to bulldoze down a crowded aisle, so I spend several minutes wandering through the store just trying to stay out of the way.

Do you see why I hate grocery shopping so much????  It doesn't help that Trader Joe's is small compared to, say, Safeway or Fry's, so the hectic atmosphere is intensified by the more compact space.

What's funny about all this is, I have no problem with small spaces in general, and I have a rather flimsy "personal space bubble" most of the time...but busy crowds make me crazy.

After finally asking for help to track down something called mirepoix, I swiped my debit card and fled out the automatic sliding doors to the fresh air. As I was crossing the parking lot back to my car, my mom texted me asking for chicken broth (I had texted her earlier to inform her that, according to the store clerk who helped me find the mirepoix, turkey broth is officially out of stock for the season. Um, hello, the season ain't over for another month!).

"I just left the store!" I texted back, panicking slightly because I did not want to go back in there.
I foisted the responsibility onto my dad to get the broth, which was really for the best since at that point I wasn't sure if the turkey was even in the oven yet, and I figured I better get back to help my mom get the dinner started.

In the end, the amazingly delicious dinner (incuding my famous mashed potatoes) was well worth the supermarket mania. I'm gonna sleep good tonight, and going back to work in the morning is going to be an adjustment after my food-filled four-day weekend.

This picture pretty much sums up the chaos I experienced today:

Photo courtesy of a Google search for "crazy busy supermarket." I didn't take this photo. 

Happy weekend-after-Thanksgiving, y'all!

Cowgirl Dreaming

I have loved horses since I was a little girl. My favorite toy was a horse figurine that all my other toys spent hours riding through the hills and valleys of my bedroom. I would always end that game fantasizing about my own future as a rancher's wife, when I would get to spend my days riding horses and lazing in beautiful green meadows while my beloved horse grazed on wildflowers nearby. Interestingly, the chores and hard labor of being a horsewoman never made it into my fantasy. As I got older, though, a crew of handsome cowboys started showing up, leaning on perfectly clean rakes and admiring me as my horse and I appeared through the haze of twilight with wildflowers braided into our mane and hair.

Wild imagination? You know it.
Did I wish with all my being it would come true? You know it.

When I was 13 I asked my parents for a horse. I even tried bargaining with them about the future of all birthdays and Christmases: "if you buy me a horse, you never ever have to buy me another present ever in my life. Ever."

I continued getting lovely gifts for all major holidays, but never that beloved horse.

Considering how much I love horses, it's pretty sad that I've only gone riding 3 times in my life:

The first time was at girl scout camp when I was 7, which I "remember" only because there are pictures.

The second time was in Wickenburg during some lawyer convention my parents attended when I was 11, and I remember that trail ride primarily because the guide let us canter through a wide open field, which was the BEST THING EVER to me at the time.

The third time was yesterday, a whole 16 years since my last joy ride. My mom gave me two trail ride coupons for my birthday, and it only took us nearly 2 months to redeem them. But we wanted to wait till the weather was perfect, which in the desert can take a while.

The MTM Ranch is way out in Cave Creek, so the drive took us about an hour. By the time we got there I was pretty nervous; the pessimist in me kept picturing the nasty spill I was terrified of taking. But the giddy cowgirl wannabe inside me won out, and after signing my life away (my mom and I signed waivers stating our choice not to wear riding caps. We're wild women!), I hoisted myself onto the back of an ancient-looking dapple gray named Badger. After Badger sated his thirst and had himself a little playtime in the water trough (most hilarious thing ever), we set off into the desert with our friendly and talkative trail guide, Joe.  


When Joe wasn't regaling us with stories from his own childhood, he provided us with bits of western trivia:
               John Wayne hated horses.
               The Roy Rogers restaurant chain is named for a cowboy tv actor.
               Gene Autry wrote "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

The trail ride was 2 hours long, but I could have stayed out there with Badger all day. I find horseback riding so peaceful...even the bumpy clip-clopping of my horse's steady gait couldn't detract from the joy of riding under an azure sky full of fluffy white clouds, while a cool breeze blew across the landscape.


Mom, Chloe, Joe



Me, Badger, Joe

The whole drive home, my mom sang "The rain is Tess, the fire's Joe, and they call the wind Mariah," which is a song from an old cowboy musical movie. I've decided that Mariah is my official cowgirl name, which would make my mom Tess.

The most amazing thing? I'm not that sore today! I guess there is something to the whole "keeping your heels down" and "moving with the horse" and all the other horse riding etiquette they teach you. That, and lots of Advil and muscle relaxers to stave off the worst of the muscle pain!

My mom and I are both already talking about our next trail ride.

Happy trails to you!!

Cozy kitties

I love it when I catch my kitties being lovey together. It doesn't happen very often...and in fact seems to occur most often during the colder weather months. What looks like affection could very well be a survival instinct...body heat preservation!

But they sure look sweet, whatever the reason for this snuggle-fest. I wish they'd included me in it!

Read me like a book...

Today at my workplace's monthly staff meeting, all the newbies had to stand up and introduce themselves, then be subjected to a round of questioning by the other employees. Since I have only been working there for a couple weeks, I was one of the newbies. I had been warned that some people liked to ask awkward or embarrassing questions, so when it was my turn in the spotlight I was a little apprehensive. Turns out I needn't have worried, since all my questions were fun.

"Were you named after Meryl Streep or Merrill Lynch?"
(Neither)

"What is your favorite movie?"
(This changes seasonally; right now I'm partial to The Family Stone)

"If you were a novel and I were to walk into Barnes and Noble and find you on a shelf, which section would you be in?"

I loved  that last question. Loved. It. I loved it for two reasons:
1) I'm an avid reader and consider bookstores my second home
2) It's an out-of-the-box self-examination question, not of the typical "getting to know you" variety

I took a few moments to mull it over, then answered: "In the fictional literature section, because I'm a bit of a storyteller myself."

My answer was met with an enormous "oooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!!" from the rest of the staff, which made me laugh. Apparently my answer sounded very profound, when I was just revealing a quirky truth about myself!

Top 10 Notes to Self from Halloween 2012

1) If you want cool-looking jack-o-lanterns on Halloween night, don't carve pumpkins more than 48 hours in advance. I carved mine last Friday; one has already caved in and the other looks like a wrinkly old man. Not very impressive.

2) I think it's safe to say that Halloween is Spitter's least favorite holiday. Every time there was a knock on the door I could hear her growl from her hiding spot behind the couch. Poor kitty baby.

3) Never assume that the older kids will be mature and exercise restraint. One group of teens snatched handfuls until I said, "please take just one or two, I need to save some for the little kids." Emphasis included.

4) In my neighborhood, a few bags of candy ain't gonna cut it. Next year I'll need to remember to get several of the jumbo-sized bags if I expect to stay in business past 7pm. I had to turn away the sweetest little hopeful-eyed boy in a spider man costume.

5) Yes, I really did run out of candy before 7pm. I believe it was 6:48pm, to be exact. It was a total fail, even considering Halloween was on a weekday this year and most kids probably had to go home early to get ready for school the next day.

6) The sad thing is, I thought I had over-purchased. I was convinced I would have tons of candy left over. HA, boy did I turn out to be mistaken!

7) When in need of more loot, put on your creativity cap and ransack the kitchen. I weighed my options for appropriate potential handouts, and came up with sugar packets and/or Emergen-C.

8) Emergen-C packets look enough like Fun Dip that I figured I could at least trick the littler kids into thinking they were getting a real treat.

9) Older kids, however, can sniff out when you're trying to dupe them. Literally. When I was down to my last few pieces of the good candy and had to supplement my candy bowl with only only other pre-packaged items I could find, one boy (he was at least 12) picked up the packet of Emergen-C I dropped in his bag and SNIFFED IT.

10) If you run out of treat options and have to go into premature hiding, it helps with the feelings of lameness if yours is not the only dark house on the block. Several of my neighbors turned off their porch lights around the same time I did...I wonder if we're all newbies to the neighborhood who underestimated the surrounding population of candy seekers, or if there was a recent population surge that even the veteran residents weren't expecting??