Goodbye, sweet Brandy

Fourteen years ago, Che woke me up in the middle of the night coming home late from work with this scrawny mutt puppy by his side. Two of his coworkers were returning from Colorado when they saw a pickup truck in front of them pull off to the side of a busy Texas interstate and kick this dog out of the back to fend for herself. She was scared and bewildered, so they picked her up and drove her home to College Station with them. They stopped by work on the way to the animal shelter, and Che being the softie that he is, agreed to rescue her.

Brandy was so skinny you could see her ribs, and her muzzle was full of porcupine quills. But she was also the sweetest dog you could ever meet. She didn't take well to strangers (especially men) at first, but we think that's because she was abused as a puppy. We spent the next 14 years making sure she forgot about that life and knew nothing but love and happiness.

After Abbey died in November, Brandy seemed to decline rapidly. I think she missed her best friend, but today they're together again in a better place.

We love you Brandy, and we will miss you more than you can ever know. Rest in peace, my sweet beautiful girl.

Keeping my sanity

My work life sucks right now, so in an effort to not completely lose my mind, I made a list of things that I am thankful/grateful for or that I have to look forward to. If I focus on these things, I might not have a nervous breakdown today.

1) My sister-in-law Aubry's cancer has not spread to her lymph nodes;

2) My brother-in-law has a job interview in two days that would give him a potential great new career opportunity, which he desperately needs;

3) My friend Michelle is coming to visit in two weeks;

4) I am finally getting a desperately-needed massage this weekend;

5) We are going to Chicago for the first time at the end of the month;

6) I get to spa/shop/dine with my friend Debie in Chicago;

7) I'm having drinks in Chicago with an old junior high/high school friend that I haven't seen in probably 20 years;

8) I have a three-day weekend this month!

9) I am going to bed before 10:00 tonight. :)

The City of Brotherly Love

My blog (and life) have been sad this year. I have been so consumed by work that I can't seem to find time to post more than an average of twice a month. Pathetic. So I might as well post about something tangentially related to work.

Last week, the firm sent me to Philadelphia for our twice-annual seminar. This was technically my third trip to Philly, but I can't say that I've really seen much of the city on any of my previous trips. This time, between meetings, I did find time to check out a couple of sights. Che sent me to the Mint for him (he's recently taken up numismatism as a hobby), which turned out to be a bit of a hassle for our group of four. They don't allow camera phones inside and they don't have lockers either, so one of my colleagues offered to stay outside with our stuff while we quickly toured the Mint. Turns out she was the smart one. There was no A/C inside, so we blazed through the tour, sweltering along the way, then I picked up a couple of souvenirs for him in the gift shop.

Then we headed across the street to the Constitution Center, Independence Hall (which we only saw from the outside because all the tickets for the day had been distributed), and the Liberty Bell. Oh, and to Jim's on South Street for the obligatory Philly cheesesteak afterwards, with a stop at Reading Terminal Market on the way back to the hotel. A virtual wealth of sightseeing compared to my previous trips. I even took photos!

Tag, You're It!

I've been tagged, by Collateral Evidence.

1. Pick up the nearest book (one of at least 123 pages).

2. Open the page to 123.

3. Find the 5th sentence.

4. Post the next 3 sentences.

5. Tag 5 people.

I have to admit, I had to dig through my nightstand to find something other than a People magazine. I finally came up with Capote's In Cold Blood, a book I started at least two (three?) years ago. I'm not sure I ever got past the first chapter.

"Hitchhiking his way to New Mexico? No, he said, he was driving his own car. And it was parked down the lane a piece."

Hmm, maybe I'll try this one again. Thanks, Amanda!

Now off to tag Robyn, Laura, the other Laura, and JeAnne. Yeah, I know that's only four people - I couldn't come up with five.

Bit by the travel bug

Che & I are in the fortunate position to be able to do quite a bit of traveling now. Well, putting aside the fact that I do have to work on pretty much every vacation I take and can't generally avoid calls on my cell phone, emails on my Blackberry, and sticking to locations where I can be wired and accessible. Umm, does that even COUNT as a vacation??? Anyway...

For my left-brained, OCD, dysfunctionally-anal retentive self, 90% of the fun in travel is planning the trip. Works out well for Che, since all he has to do is show up and go where I tell him. I know, I must be totally crazy. Or a travel agent at heart. That's not to say I plan every minute of every day of every trip. At least not anymore. :)

That said, booking our "big" trip of the year turned out to be a huge headache, even for me. And we're not quite there yet, but we're close enough that I'm no longer panicking. And we're super excited to head to Thailand (Phuket and Bangkok) and Hong Kong for two weeks in September!! What's funny is that we're almost as equally excited to return to NYC in July for a long weekend, a trip we impulsively booked last night just because we had the airline miles and hotel points to do it. We can't wait to spend more time in NYC - we had a great time there last year but our two days (plus) there was not nearly long enough.

But before that, we have our first trip to Chicago to look forward to next month. We've been looking forward to visiting Chicago for a long time. So far, the agenda includes a trip to the Shedd Aquarium, tickets to Wicked with my friend Debie (who is great enough to come down from Michigan to hang with me for a couple of days!), and dinner reservations at Everest (it was a very tight toss-up between Everest and Tru, not that we could go wrong with either).

Despite having to be completely connected to the office on my trips, at least I'm not IN the office, right? I can't tell you how much I look forward to these getaways throughout the year - I think I'd go insane at work without them. Now to break the news to my boss that I'll be needing three weeks of vacation in the next six months.

Bend Trip Report

I guess technically that should be Redmond, Oregon, which is where we were staying at Eagle Crest Resort. We spent most of our time in and around Bend, about 20 minutes away. But our 2-bedroom condo/townhouse was great, and the resort grounds were beautiful. I especially enjoyed the running path along the gorgeous Deschutes River:


Che's buddy Rik joined us for the first few days. For most of the week, the weather was GORGEOUS. We spent Saturday tooling around town, had lunch at Deschutes Brewery, and had a fabulous dinner at Deep. We already had plans to meet up with our friends Cory & Lisa at Deep on Monday night, but you can never have enough sushi. Monday's dinner was even better:




Sunday we hit the slopes at Mt. Bachelor. After a private lesson, I was still nowhere near ready to go. What happened to my confidence in seven years? Sure enough, at the bottom of the first run, I took a pretty hard hit to the head and was done for the day. Learned my lesson, though, and decided to rent a helmet the next time out. The boys, on the other hand, were tearing it up. They spent all day Sunday and Monday on the mountain. I spent Monday shopping, lunching, and spa-ing with my Lisa.

Rik went home on Tuesday, and Che & I were pretty much on our own the rest of the week. We did have a great dinner with my friend Alycia at Cork on Tuesday night, enjoyed a couple of massages (at our resort and at Jinsei Spa), did some shopping, ate some great food, and caught up on some R&R. Oh, I can't forget to mention breakfast at the Mustard Seed Cafe in Redmond - AWESOME.


The weather turned cold and snowy on Thursday. We hit Mt. Bachelor for the last time on Friday and boarded as long as we could until the visibility turned to complete crap:




We had a fun week, but man, I do not miss the cold.

Next trip up - Chicago in eight weeks!

Snowbound!

We haven't really seen much snow since leaving Oregon six years ago, so this year we decided to take a "snow" Spring Break trip instead of a "sun" one. We get plenty of sun living in Arizona. We leave on Saturday for a week in Bend/Redmond, home of Mt. Bachelor. This is us, about 6 1/2 years ago, on our last trip to Bachelor:

I am excited to hit the slopes again, after a refresher lesson, of course, and to spend some time hanging out with my dear friend Lisa, who lives in Bend. Che's buddy Rik is also joining us for the first couple of days. I can't wait to leave. Then again, anything that involves me not having to be at work is a good thing in my book.

Meet my new ride!

Happy belated birthday to me. :D Today, I am the proud new owner of this 2008 Infiniti EX Journey:



Isn't it bee-yoo-tee-ful??? The color is Dark Currant, and the interior is Wheat:

This thing is loaded with bells and whistles, not the least of which is a fully-integrated communications center, which is my interactive navigation system, 9.3 GB musicbox hard drive, satellite radio, iPod interface, Bluetooth phone, voice recognition for audio/phone/navigation commands, and oh yeah, an around-view monitor (cameras all around the vehicle to show you obstacles) combined with a sonar system, which beeps when something comes within a few inches of your bumpers.

This is my first "luxury" vehicle, and I love the details that Infiniti adds to its cars. Like the embroidered "Infiniti" logo on the front seats:

It was a lot of back and forth for me before I ended up deciding to go for it. It is a lot smaller than my last car (a Nissan Murano), and I had a lot of concerns about that. Truth is, I still do. I'm still not 100% sure I made the right decision, and I hope I don't end up regretting my choice in six months or a year, wishing I had stuck with a bigger car. For now, though, the EX has me won over.

Happy Birthday To Me!

We returned to Amara Resort and Spa for one night, compliments of the hotel to make up for the trouble we had in December. They more than came through for us on this trip. First, they let us book just one night, when they otherwise had a two-night minimum for Valentine's weekend. Then, they upgraded our already-free room to a king suite with a whirpool tub and a patio that opened up to Oak Creek for a gorgeous morning view. On top of that, they gave us a gift certificate for dinner in their restaurant, which was fabulous.

This was my birthday meal of a half butter-poached Maine lobster tail and claw, two seared Maine diver scallops, an organic olive oil cake, and truffled brussels sprouts petals in a black pepper-tarragon lobster emulsion. YUM. Dinner was so delicious, I didn't even bother with dessert.


And this was the view from our hotel room the next morning as we enjoyed a room service breakfast of pancakes with warm Vermont maple syrup, fresh berries, and applewood smoked bacon.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day, despite its bad rap as a commercial, sappy, "Hallmark Holiday." Maybe because it's so close to my birthday, so it's like a weeklong celebration of me, starting with Valentine's Day.

So I'm sitting in my office yesterday, working away. Little did I know that Che was lurking outside my office door. Fortunately for him, my coworker next door saw him and dragged him into her office without me seeing. Ten seconds later, I get a call from another coworker, whose office is five doors down the other direction, asking me to come down and help her figure out what some kind of document is. Had I thought harder about it -- and had I been even the slightest bit suspicious -- red flags would have gone up, since this coworker graduated first in her law school class and is sharp as a tack, so the likelihood of her asking me to help her figure out a document is pretty lame. But nice distraction.

Anyway, off I go, and when I come back to my office, this gorgeous arrangement is on my desk: