Trio of Quads

Here’s a small sampling of our desert adventure today.  Thanks to Clyde and Dathan for a super fun day!

The rest are here…

parked at the waterfall - yes, there are waterfalls in the desert!

 

Mud Canyon arch

Lake Alamo

Everyone, please keep dear Rae Rae in your prayers today

Today is Black Friday and please wish her safety and sanity on this day, the busiest of the retail year.  We love her way too much to lose her to a deal seeking, holiday spirit forgetting, Christmas shopping lunatic.

xoxo

Rainmaker

We arrived safe and sound and only slightly worse for the wear.  From 11p until 9a I drove through sheeting rain.  I have a blister on my palm as a battle scar from my death grip on the steering wheel.  Oh, and apparently mud flaps on semi trucks are so passe… they prefer to blind you with water jetting out from under their many tires.  Gah.

I’ll post something more interesting tomorrow – when it stops raining because, you know, it never rains at Alamo

Preaching to the choir

Now this is the message everyone should hear at their local Forgiveness of Sins Store parish.

And to the one member of this peanut gallery who will be dying to comment on this, two words:  lesson learned.  Yeah, it would have been handy if it had sunk in earlier but I wasn’t going to church then

On the road – well, working in it…

I’m running around trying to get stuff done at work and home today so we can take off for the desert tonight.  I’ll post from Mom’s house – YAY!

May all of you who are travelling this week/end have a safe journey and remember to BE THANKFUL for all that is good in your life.

xoxo

Countdown to Chr… NOPE… it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!

My office building is right next door to Embarcadero Center, and I think they forgot that we haven’t yet had Thanksgiving!  I understand that it takes a lot of time to put up the decorations but, c’mon… 

Two vital events must happen before one can acknowledge the impending Yule time… Thanksgiving, and the gateway to Christmas, my birthday!

Sex on a swivel

My taste seems to be veering back to Mid-Century Modern… check out this out on Lush Pad.  This chair is sexier that I could ever hope to be…

Study Group

Haley’s hosting a study group where she’s working on a class project with two of her classmates.  They are deciding how they would spend $1,000,000.  Apparently they are going to Croatia for a month. 

Twenty minutes in to it, I have a feeling this is going to be more like herding cats…

Update:  Croatia was too random…  Here’s how they spent A Million Bucks (with lots of input from me and Cameron’s Mom )

Vacation (3 kids + 3 moms)

Airfare – $15,000.00
Around the World cruise – $114,000.00
Spending Money - $60,000.00
   
Wanton Spending

charity – $10,000.00
plasma TV’s (3) - $24,000.00
haley’s horse - $25,000.00
haley’s truck - $50,000.00
mary’s puppy -  $1,000.00
cameron’s game library - $25,000.00
Cameron’s bacon of the month club - $1,000.00
portrate of mary - $5,000.00
future college? (3) – $300,000.00
shopping spree (3) - $75,000.00
Camerons green house - $25,000.00
maid service (10 years) - $90,000.00
toys - $60,000.00
cars (3) - $120,000.00

TOTAL   $1,000,000.00

Well that really gives you hope for the future, doesn’t it?

Pphbt – the desert

So I have a fun (almost) week planned of sun and fun in the great Sonoran desert – quad riding, playing with doberdogs, reading in the sun, sitting in the sun, eating in the sun…  I am a total sun worshipper (yes, it’s taking its toll on my skin, STFU) but I hate the heat.  So what better time to get sun than late fall in one of the most desert-y of deserts, where the cacti far outnumber the people?

 

To whom to I speak about this TRAVESTY?  Mother???  Oh!  I’ll blame Dathan because I’m too happy to be seeing my Mom Dathan, it’s ALL your  fault!  You better bring sunshine with your quad!

The torture! The agony!

Do I open it?  Or do I wait until my birthday – TEN DAYS AWAY?? 

(Kelly, you evil, lovely, fabulous woman!  Wait!  Is that you in the package?  With your disco shoes on??  Ready to go boogie til you just can’t boogie no more with us?!?  )

I feel like Stimpy, finger poised over the History Eraser Button…

Room and Board j’adore

Just what I need – another online store front against whose glass I will smash my virtual face and slobber.

The cold weather is back and so are soups!

Piping hot Udon noodles with baked garlic Hoisin tofu… delish.  I’m kind of proud of my scallion-y flourish I think tomorrow I’ll try The Noisy Plume’s butternut squash soup.

*Note to self:  buy a tripod.

Put your money where your mouth is

Were you against Proposition 8?  Do you feel it’s unfair to legally discriminate?  Well then, put your money where your mouth is and hit businesses that supported Prop 8 in their wallets. 

Californians Against Hate hosts a Dishonor Roll of boycott-worthy businesses.

Oh no – the wheels, they are a’turnin’

T. Boone Pickens’ wife just bought 2,000 wild mustangs.  Hmmm…  I think they should hire someone to evaluate and start good candidates.  I’d love to pick out some outstanding individuals to be embassadors for many disciplines:  jumping, field hunters, eventing, stock seat and of course, dressage. 

What a fantastic opportunity to have a large population from which selective breeding could preserve the best qualities of their Spanish blood, and create a commercially viable breed that is less likely to end up on a double-decker bus to Mexico en route to a Frenchman’s plate. 

From this...

... to this

 And who wants this job?  ME!!  (mostly because I want that – right above!)

I’m off to figure out how I can get in the Pickens’ good graces.  You may be laughing – but if you are you clearly don’t know me too well.

Wanderlust, I has it

My recent frustrations with life in the avenues has sparked my wanderlust in to a raging firestorm. 

Hotels.com sent me an email this morning, asking me to write a review for their Millionth Review Contest.  (Yes, I’m fully aware that they also asked everyone registered with them to do the same.)  The prize?  A trip to Bora Bora. 

Are you kidding me?  I would give my left eyeball for a week in one of those huts, filled with sun, sea and debauchery.  *sigh*  I need to work on finding myself a boy to travel with.  One that will be an adventurer – and not just a vacationer (grrrr UK trip grrr)

BUT… come September ‘09 Suzanne and I will be packing our bags and heading someplace incredibly super fabulous:  RIO DE JANEIRO!

Oooh weee – I’ve got about 9,678,285,335 lunges to do before that trip!

If my group at work has made their accruals and our bonuses are going to weather this financial storm, I am going to take Haley on a trip this summer.  The final destination is still to be determined, but Paris is the strong front runner (though I may try to talk her in to some place abroad that may be cheaper – Portugal?)

BIG TRIPS are fabulous without a doubt, but I’m also a huge fan of long weekends.  I find them to be more restorative than the epic adventures:  high impact fun, low impact sleep deprivation :-p

First off… ARIZONA!  Thanksgiving Tofurky with Mom and Clyde *hugs*, quad riding in the desert (Dathan is coming to play, too!), maybe some fishing, lots of playing with the dogs, and hopefully some swimming.

And… I am SO happy to say that I reconnected with a friend from my early days of college - someone who was always a fantastic friend and tons of fun (like a barrel of monkeys – adventure-sport loving monkeys!).  He just so happens to live near Moab.  I haven’t seen much of the red rocked version of desert and I am *dying* to!  It’d be an extra slathering of icing on the cake that I’ll have a kick-ass blast from the past for a tour guide!

So – I figured out how to get paid to ride horses, now I need to figure out how to get paid to travel!

Please come here so I can slap the crap out of you

Oh my god.  I am not sure how to spew my poisonous vitriol on this subject without it taking racial overtones BUT…  If I see one more guy carrying the stupid purse of his wife/girlfriend I am going to have to deal some death.

Nothing says “I’M A GIGANTIC WANKER THAT WILL STOOP TO ANY REPUGNANT LEVEL JUST SO I CAN HAVE AN ASIAN GIRLFRIEND!!!!!”like carrying her purse for her.  Honest, more often than not it’s a wee clutch or even a wristlet; almost never is it a big tote bag.  (Oops – race still slipped right in there, didn’t it?  Rae, are you offended?)

This is not coming from one iota of jealousy, either.  I was raised that NO ONE touches a lady’s bag other than the owner.  Their husbands or children risk losing their hands if they dare touch.  I am SO over this pansy-ass metrosexuality.  I’d dare wager that these wieners also refer to their women as Goddesses. 

GAH – the hackles on my neck are standing up and I feel like I need to either vomit or punch something.  I need to get the hell out of Dodge.

(Sorry – despite this gorgeous weather I’m having an I Hate San Francisco kind of day. I need to see me some mens driving trucks with gun-racks!)

Even I am laughing at this ridiculous undertaking

A week from tomorrow night I am jumping in a car and driving (10-13 hours) straight to my Mommy’s house for Thanksgiving.  In preparation for an all night drive after a whole day at work I decided that I am giving up all stimulants entirely (caffeine and sugar – how dare you!) Hopefully my system will be re-sensitized to all Keep-Me-Wakey assistance.

HA!  That sounds like a good plan any way!

You have to understand – I LOVE coffee.  Monday-Friday I probably average 6 or 7 cups a day.  I rarely drink it on the weekends though.  I’m not too lazy to make it; I’m too lazy to clean out the French Press when I’m done.  Life sucks without a garbage disposal but I am looking for a nice compost bucket for the counter top, but I digress (as I usually do).

I also have a malignant sweet tooth.  The moment I decide I am not going to have any sweets I feel the compulsion to knock over a liquor store and grab all the sugary goodness I can load in to my arms.  Actually, the moment I decide to deny myself anything I soon find myself in an orgy of gluttonous consumption that leads to an agonizing shame spiral and, of course, MORE self indulgence.

*sigh*

So, my bright idea du jour is to cut out two things that I love most in life.  Wait – I wonder if I tried that with The Child, too, if that would work?!?

What’s for dinner?

So my white trash dinner got me thinking about – well – dinner.  The hot weather combined with my embarrassment prompted me to go a little more upscale last night…  The ubiquitous Wedge Salad.  Yum…  the only time iceburg lettuce is o.k.

Tonight Haley and I watched the latest Indiana Jones movie, so I thought I’d make some super snacky snacks to eat while on the edge of our seats…  Buffalo (Un)Chicken Wings!  We roll vegetarian in this house so spicy and bitesized is our friend, faux or not

So, in the spirit of good eating I am going to start a photolog of our dinners (if you care).  It’s really more an exercise in culinary creativity on my part.

Bon Appetite!

The view from my weekend office

Oh.

My.

God.

Today the weather was just…. UN-F*ING-BELIEVABLE.  Seriously.  I just spent 4 hours outside and it feels like how July must feel in places that have sunny summers I’m wearing a tanktop, jeans and Blundstones and feel like I’m going to keel over from the heat.

I taught two superfun lessons and had this lovely view to gawk at whilst standing in the arena.  I thought I’d be nice and rub it in share.  Yes, that is the Pacific Ocean. 

Before you resent me too much it’s usually fog to the ground with gale force winds while I’m trying to shriek at my students… but not today.  Today was divine.

It’s official: I am totally pathetic

It may be the nicest evening of the year and I’m home.  I treated myself to a white trash dinner:  frozen pizza, cheap wine and cookies.  Do you think Gordon Ramsay would approve?  Doesn’t look like it