Category Archives: Travel

Sundays Are For Shopping

Social, Travel

In which yes, as a matter of fact, I *will* shop for food.

Drivin' to ICTruck needed some devices, so he called me for a day trip to Iowa City because if you wanna buy electronics? I’m yer bitch! We got out of town around noon, and AmmZon drove us straight to Best Buy like the speed demon she is.

Laptop, laptop case. Printer/scanner/copier. Digital camera. Cables, memory cards. Check.

I had him buy a display model laptop because it was the most bang for his buck, so we had to wait for them to remove their security software from the machine. Truck took me out to Olive Garden for my trouble and we all ate ourselves into a coma. Yum.

Back to Best Buy to pick up the laptop (and make fun of the staff), back in the car, buzz back to Fairfield. Whee!

I got dropped off at band practice. We had a great rehearsal; everyone was in a good mood and the temp drummer is getting up to speed nicely. After, GSW dropped me at Ray’s, and then she and I walked up to Truck & AmmZon’s so I could get Truck’s new Toshiba laptop on the neighbor’s wireless network connection. (He’d called and said he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he didn’t get the thing on the Internet, a sentiment I can totally get behind.)

Which brings me to now: I’m sitting with Ray and AmmZon, drinking a much-needed glass of water, blogging from Truck’s new machine. Damn I love the Internet.

In other news, I really need to drink more water. I’ve been totally off my water cure for weeks and weeks and weeks now. Hydration is where it’s at, people.

A-Holidaying We Go

Social, Travel

In which we do the family thing.

Today is Christmas Eve.

Since I married into one of those weird families who open presents on this day, we’ll be loading our goodies into the truck and driving to Bread’s sister’s house in Pella in about an hour. There, we’ll sit around drinking White Russians (we’re bringing the ingredients with us – we ain’t stupid), then we’ll have dinner, and then we’ll open presents.

KW is requiring us to spend the night, so I’m guessing that there will be some kind of brunch thing tomorrow. I hope she has good coffee! I hear her daughter, our niece, is walking now. It’ll be fun to see her locomote.

I spent last night and this morning wrapping presents. I’m not sure why I’m not smart enough to buy boxes – I always end up doing these bizarre things to get weird shapes appropriately covered. But everything’s wrapped and ready to go.

Yay, Christmas! I hope you’re all having a lovely holiday, wherever you are, and that you’re healthy and happy and loved. And if Christmas isn’t celebrated where you are, I hope you get to sleep way the hell in. Just ’cause.

Home At Last

Geek, Travel

In which vacation, like all good things, comes to an end.

We left Laramie and went back to Boulder, taking I-25 this time since the highway we’d taken up was an eternally long strip mall. We went to BearMountain’s house to get Truck, but his luggage was all up at Ron’s. Mr B bitched and moaned about it, but drove back up so Truck could get his luggage.

We stayed in a Super 8 in Nebraska that night because by 8 pm Mr B had been driving for twelve hours and was fucking done with it. The motel allowed dogs in for $5 per night each – I simply adore hotels and motels that take dogs! Mr B and I enjoyed the spa and the pool briefly while Truck lounged in his room, then the three of us went across the street to a Mexican restaurant and sat in the entirely leather bar for dinner and drinks. (The table tops were leather, the chairs were leather. It was bizarre. It was Hannibal Lecter bizarre. It may have been the bizarrest thing I’ve ever seen. I’d have taken pictures but I didn’t have my camera and my phone was dead.) After our meal, we couldn’t resist the tavern just up the street with the martini glass-shaped sign so we waddled up there. The women’s restroom in that bar was the tidiest, nicest, neatest restroom I’ve ever seen in a bar: there were rugs on the floor, the walls were tiled, it was spotless, and on the back of the commode were three fresh rolls of paper and a container of antiseptic wipes. On the counter near the sink was a tray containing lotion, matches, and a can of hairspray. Trust me, it was strange.

The next morning we rolled out a smidge before noon.

We arrived home Sunday around six. The Amazon Blonde came out to collect Truck. I unpacked, made sandwiches, ate, and went to bed. I’d have gone immediately to sleep too, but Mr B nagged me until I ravished him. When he wanted to cuddle I snarled, “If you wake me up one more time, I will poison your meatloaf!” He chuckled and rolled away until only our feet were touching. “Will that do?” he asked. “Yes. Now stop twitching, for God’s sake, I startle awake every time you move,” I said, and was asleep within 45 seconds.

Truck was coming down with something on the drive home, and by Sunday had almost no voice. I spoke with him on the phone today, and he’s got pneumonia. No shit.

In other news, I went to Farmer’s Telephone today to pay my landline bill, and learned I can now actually get 256k line-sharing DSL at my house! For $30 per month. (And a $115 modem and a $60 setup fee.) Yes, that’s outrageously expensive. Yes, I’m totally thinking about it. I mean, 256k is 200k faster than the 56k dial-up I’m on now.

In other other news, on my vacation I bought the coolest sunglasses ever and a pair of new moccasins.

Going Home

Travel

In which vacation ends. Sigh.

It’s Saturday, at a quarter to eight in the morning. We’re drinking coffee at the dining room table and hoping my mom will get up to see us off. We’re driving back to Ron’s to pick up Truck (since he decided not to stay in Colorado for a few weeks after all), then we’re driving back home today. Mr. B is thinking about only going half-way, and stopping at a motel tonight, which could be fun, but once he gets driving he’ll probably want to go the whole way.

Yesterday we slept in, got up, had breakfast, lounged around… and in the afternoon, Mr. B and Jay-rob and I went to see Walk The Line at the local theatre. The movie was pretty good; I thought Reese rocked in her role as June Carter. Afterward, we stopped at a bar for cocktails and food. I have half of a small wood-fired pizza in the fridge.

When we got back to my mom’s I decided to lie down for a bit… and didn’t get up until six this morning. Since we’re leaving today I wish I’d hung out with my family more instead of sleeping.

I probably won’t be back online ’til Tuesday when I’m back in the office.

Thanksgiving

Travel

In which we celebrate the holiday like typical Americans: by overeating, sleeping, and watching million-dollar movies on high-end entertainment equipment.

Jay-rob and Mr. B slept most of the day yesterday.

I sat around in my pajamas with my mom; she did embroidery, I knitted, we talked. I finished a skein of wool and was going to start another when I realized I’d brought the wrong color with me – I guess I won’t be finishing that particular knitted sheep this weekend.

Dinner was around four and we all over-ate. (This is the recipe we used for the turkey.) I didn’t eat any turkey, of course, but I had mashed potatoes (and I even ate gravy, because it was my mom’s gravy and one eats what one’s mother makes) and a massive salad… and most of the contents of the munchie trays – I could probably survive on olives and celery and radishes for days.

Mom declared she’d cooked and wasn’t setting foot back in the kitchen again, so Mr. B and Jay-rob and I got most of the dishes handled. And then the movie marathon began: Willie Wonka, War Of The Worlds, and Batman Begins. Mr. B and and three pillows and three dogs and I held the floor down throughout. We stopped every so often for drinks or snacks or smoke breaks. The TV here is pretty huge and the stereo system doesn’t suck. Is there anything more lazy and comfortable than your mom’s house?

Doug & Mom
Doug & Mom during the Turkey Day film festival

This morning I slept ’til half past ten, then Mr. B came and woke me up for the third goddamned time since the sun came up. I hate him. So I got up out of that nice heated waterbed, put on my slippers, and made a beeline for the coffee maker. (They don’t drink coffee here – it’s a tea drinking house – so we’re using this little dinky 4-cup Mr. Coffee coffee maker which basically makes 2 mugs at a time.) Then, miracles of miracles, Mr. B decided to cook breakfast for me. (An English muffin with veggie sausage, scrambled eggs, jack cheese and a slice of tomato, and a side of hash browns. Fuckin’ A, can I get a hell yeah?)

I’m almost out of vodka, might actually have to leave the house today.

(Sin: Eragon was okay – I liked it. Eldest is pretty good, maybe a little better than the first book. I doubt it’d make your Top 100 Books of the Year list or anything, but it’s worth the time to read it.)

…and Now I'm In Laramie, WY

Social, Travel

In which I continue to drink. Like. A. Fish.

So far I’ve done nothing but overeat and drink like a fish. I think I’ve gained ten pounds and I haven’t even been presented with Thanksgiving dinner yet.

Yesterday I did nothing but sleep. Well, except for the twenty minutes I spent making eggs and potatoes, and the hour I spent in the spa reading Eldest, that is.

Last night we celebrated Ron’s birthday (which is on Friday) by going out for sushi. We sat in the tea room. There were eight in our party (Ron, Truck, Brett & I, Marc, Ivi and Ryan, and Josha) and we paid a $450 check. It was awesome. I ate so much sushi! It was so good! (Brett even ordered a roll called – wait for it – Smokey and The Bandit. It was delicious; smoked salmon or something.) There was a rather large Fairfield congingent in the restaurant; Truck said it was surreal but I find they’re (we’re) everywhere.

Truck and Mr. B
Truck and Mr. B at the sushi restaurant in Boulder, CO

After sushi, we went bar hopping: Ron, Brett, Joe, Josha, and Marc and I. They all drank cocktails with Red Bull in them and were wired. I spent a nice stretch of time doing the Where Are They Now roll call with Ivi; she seems to think that Slick is still in Cali and is married! We stayed out ’till last call. I count myself lucky that I didn’t actually have to accompany them to a titty bar. We drove back up the mountain and passed out.

Today we back to Sundance for brunch and had two rounds of their delicious Bloody Marys with our food before going up to Josha’s in Ned. The guys hung out, and my full belly and I held one of the couches down.

After visiting with Josha, we went back to Ron’s and packed and split for Laramie. We looked at the map and thought 287 looked like a real highway… it turned out to be 45 MPH through strip mall-land for nearly two hours, but eventually we made it to my mom’s house.

We got a $75 speeding ticket for going 40 in a 30 within moments of entering Laramie.

She bought vodka and cranberry juice. DOES MY MOM ROCK OR WHAT?!? So I’m drinking a cocktail and blogging and it’s so fun to be holidaying in my mom’s house for the first time in years and years and years. (She’s hugged me about nine times. Ah, mom love – so neato! AND SHE BOUGHT ME VODKA AND CRANBERRY JUICE!) I showed her my knitting; she showed me her quilting room and half a dozen quilts she’s made. She also gave Mr. B and I our wedding quilt (we’ve been married four years, mind you) and it’s gorgeous. She’d also made a quilt for our niece Parker, which I look forward to giving to Kris when we get home. And Jay-rob is here! HOW COOL IS THAT??!?!?

The back yard here is fenced for the dogs and sports yet another spa – I’ll be spending some quality time soaking my ass in that puppy tomorrow, you betcha. How cool is a two-spa vacation, I ask you?

The only thing that could possibly make this trip better would be GETTING TATTOOS.

Hi, I'm in Denver!

Travel

In which I blog from someone else’s computer. IN DENVER, CO.

I’m in Denver with Mr. B. and Truck. It’s Monday evening, I’ve just had three cocktails at a biker bar called BoBo’s (where Truck almost overheard a drug deal in the men’s room and had The Fear).


Truck, Jeffro, Mr. B – Bobo’s – Denver CO

My hair looks fantastic (I got it cut and colored some random place at the 16th Street ped mall –


16th Street Mall in Denver, CO

– where Mr. B and Truck also got their hair cut), and I really have to say that alcohol and altitude make me feel way drunk. We’re at Jeffro’s house, listening to blues and hanging out drinking water.

We drove out here Saturday, and have been enjoying Ron’s hospitality to the utmost. Last night we had killer pasta at Pasta Jay’s and I ate way too much – and the food I’d eaten expanded in my gut when we drove back up the hill to Ron’s house. Oh my God, food coma from HELL.

All in all, vacation so far has been about great food and alcohol. And it’s been good. I love vacation!

I’m so excited to see my mom and brother on Wednesday. Whee!

Haven’t been in Ron’s hot tub yet, though, due to drinking too much. Hah. I love vacation!

Thanksgiving

Travel

In which I freak out with excitement about enjoying a holiday with people I’m actually related to by blood rather than marriage.

We’re taking a whole week and driving west. For Thanksgiving. Oh yeah.

Early this coming Saturday morning we’ll be loading ourselves, our dogs, and Truck into a vehicle and driving to Colorado, where we’ll invade Ron’s house and drink all his beer and sit in his hot tub and eat take-out from the kick ass little Italian restaurant down the mountain from his place.

After a few days of that, we’ll drive up to Laramie WY (sans Truck, who will stay in CO) where I will have Thanksgiving dinner with my own mother and brother for the first time in close to twenty years. It’ll be so awesome! I can’t express how geeked out I am at the prospect, and Jay-rob Jethro‘s so excited he’s called me about the whole thing at least three times.

The Saturday after turkey day, we’ll get back in the vehicle and drive home. (The house will probably have been invaded by rodents in our absence, and we’ll have to enter shooting.)

Nuns With Guns

Travel

In which I’m stumped by a microwave boasting a function I’ve never seen on a microwave before.

Okay, sorry. I lied. None of the nuns I saw this weekend had guns. (That’s just the name of a song on an obscure album by SNL’s bandleader. Yeah. Nuns With Guns is the name of an obscure G.E. Smith song.

Oh, forget it. Never mind. Moving on.)

Tahmi picked me up Friday morning, we drove to Kansas, we went to evening praise, we ate nun food in the nun cafeteria, and that night we hung out in the basement of ‘our’ building and knitted stuff. The next morning I’d apparently decided to sleep in because I didn’t go to morning worship and stayed in bed ’til nine.

Mt. St. Scholastica

Saturday afternoon, we both got hour-long full body Swedish massages for $40 each. From a nun. How cool is that? She knew reflexology and everything. She also told me she could feel my aura, but I didn’t concern myself with it.

Saturday night we obtained a bottle of wine and again hung out in the basement with our knitting and we talked and talked and talked, as we are wont to do. It was way fun. You can’t imagine how much talking we can do.

It rained six inches Saturday night. BIG storm. Big, loud, thundering, cracking, hailing, power-outaging storm. I loved it.

All in all, a lovely retreat weekend at Mount Saint Scholastica. I enjoyed myself. I didn’t have any deeply profound spiritual experiences, but I know better than to think that they just show up because you’ve moved your body from one location to another. (I had a stunningly deep spiritual experience there once. Another time, I got drunk as hell on wine while smoking cigarettes on the lawn. The sublime, the ridiculous, it’s all part of the trip. I take whatever comes and try to be appropriately grateful when it doesn’t smell like dirty socks or sass me.)

We even ended up taking the gifts up to the priest during mass this morning, which amused me seeing as how I’m a poser heathen and all.

icons

Oh, yeah: about the microwave. It took Tami and me – both college educated – nearly twenty minutes to figure out how to use the microwave in our building’s kitchen to make popcorn. (There was a “broil” button on the fucking microwave that had to be un-pushed. Who knew?!?)

Retreat! Retreat! Run away! Retreat!

Travel

In which I re-post a post I’d posted a week too early last week.

This weekend, I’m going to a Benedictine nunnery in Kansas with Tahmi, where we will go to chapel four times a day, eat cafeteria food with nuns, drink wine, sing the rosary, stay in giant old bedrooms in an historical building, browse the excellent library, gaze at icons, and gossip.

It’ll be fabulous. (Not fabulous like they mean it in Manhattan, but fabulous like you mean it when you live in rural Iowa and are going to Kansas for the weekend.) Here’s hoping for creamed eggs on toast for breakfast Saturday!

Tahmi’s picking me up at ten tomorrow morning.

P.S. Don’t tell anybody I’m Hindu. I take communion while I’m there but heathens aren’t supposed to do that, you know.