Stress in its purest form: 700 words and thick ice.

The pace of today has been on par with the slippery-ness of the ice packed down on the sidewalks and less-traveled roads (e.g. my route to work). It snowed yesterday, and while the news reported my area got 4 1/2 inches, I beg to differ; I set my coke can down on someone’s snowy hood, to see how deep it was, and it sank well below the snow level until I had to dig it out again. So, deep. I love it, except for the ice part; this is the first time this season that it’s snowed and then stayed below freezing for more than a day. Yesterday the high was something like 15. No worries, I worked from home in front of the fire, but today was almost worse, though the main roads have been cleared. At least my car thought so; it is dead again. The brand new battery I bought about six weeks ago is completely out of juice, for whatever reason. I’ve about had it. I might get the dealer to replace it and then go trade the whole car in for something new and shiny. Something with AWD, that won’t slip around as much on ice-packed snow. Something that smells pretty and makes my heart beat faster every morning when I slide inside and buckle up. Oh, the thrill of my 7-minute commute, in a new car. It is going to ROCK.

Anyway… I didn’t have time to deal with the dead car today as AAA was backed up, and I’m off tomorrow anyway, so I bummed a ride to work, as I will home, and will deal with it tomorrow. In the meantime, between now (4:00pm) and the morning, I have a 4-page brochure to write. Yes. Thus my comment about the pace. The prospect is making my stomach hurt, but I tend to work well under extreme pressure, so Pulitzer baby, HERE I COME!!! Haha! Ha. ha…

Jess has spent an unhealthy amount of time stretched out two inches from the fire, all four feet touching the hot metal grate, tail lazily flicking as his insides slowly bake to a crisp. Crispy kitty.

that is all.

post (and pre?) holiday blues

I'm trying to determine where my Sunday night went wrong. Although I guess given the circumstances, it was doomed -- last day of 4-day weekend and all. But my Sunday in general was good; very relaxing, semi-productive around the house, recharging after the holiday and such; but I've figured it out. What went wrong was Brokeback Mountain. Yeah, i finally caught it on HBO and man was it depressing. I don't even know that I liked it that much or understand why Heath Ledger got nominated for best actor (did he win?); it was simply haunting, tragic, and depressing. Bleah. Everything has been downhill from there.

Like what, you ask? Like my discovery of the unopened jar of roasted peanuts in the pantry, the one I bought for my dad and meant to take to my sister's. But forgot. That one. Also, too much Crystal Light? Is not a good thing. It is NOT the same as water, people. I'll leave it at that. TV has also sucked tonight. After the incredible Brokeback downer, an episode of the shockingly violent and raw series "The Wire" came on HBO. If you've never seen it? Make sure you're in a darn good mood when you do. But a good mood you're perhaps annoyed with, and ready to squelch. Then, knock yourself out.

All of this to say I am more bummed than usual on a Sunday night. It's the end of a 4-day weekend, the gorge-fest that was Thanksgiving, spending time with family, sleeping in for a few days, and now...back to normal. EXCEPT. Except for that pesky day coming up where you buy all the gifts? That one. Yes, that one. We're in the homestretch, the super-sonic-fast-crazy-stressful last month leading up to one single day that will surely be anticlimactic. It has been since I stopped believing in Santa. And did I mention that I don't get to go home this year?

However. I did put up a tiny tree today, decorating it with some ornaments I've collected over the past couple of years and forgot about since I've been Scrooge for, oh, three years now. So yeah, it's only 4-feet high and I give it maybe half a day of unsupervision before the cats eat it, but still.

fa-la-la-la-la
lala
la
la.

all about nothing

As I sit in my nest, halfway watching Intervention, taking more pictures of Jess I will not get around to downloading or uploading, my fireplace on and my window cracked, suddenly and unexpectedly the fragrance of fried chicken wafts seductively into the room. It takes me a few minutes to identify the sweetness, and then it starts: the foreign craving for fried chicken. I can honestly say I have not had fried chicken in years. I don't know how many years. But suddenly, I totally want it. Now.

Awww look, the meth head just agreed to go to treatment.

But back to the fried chicken. Holy CRAP did that smell good. I am really looking forward to Thanksgiving tomorrow at my sister’s house; my parents are in town and my sis and her husband are going to cook a delightful Thanksgiving spread for us. What this means to me, besides family bonding time, is REAL FOOD. Oh, how I miss real food. The only time I get it is at sistah's, and thank you very much sistah! I don’t cook, and I have yet to find anywhere really good to eat around here. So I survive on Lean Cuisines, soup, sandwiches, and other random odds and ends I pull from my cupboard. Yeah, and sometimes, um, pizza. And noodles. And.........never mind.
shut up.

So here we go again, deep into a blog post that started off with a point and has now degenerated into boring muck. Why does this keep happening lately??

Rather than prattle on, I'm going to end it. Why beat a dead horse? Not tonight, anyway. Happy Thanksgiving ---- wait-----------we're at the END of November????????

Whoa.

I find I’m flakier in Colorado

Now I know my Texas friends are all like, “HUH? Is that possible? You mean she bails on even more HHs and parties there than here???” Um, no. I mean literally flaky. As in, my skin falls off in delicate little flakes.

(Note: This is a beauty product post, so my thousands of male readers might want to stop here.)

My sister warned me this would happen. You see, I’ve never been a lotion-all-over-my-body person; I only put lotion on my feet, at night, before I go to sleep. I don’t know, shut up. Anyway, in Austin it was so humid all the time that I had no need to add more moisture to myself. But finally, halfway into November in CO, my arms itch. And my legs. And my back. And it’s freaking me out. Here’s the thing – I am far too lazy to lotion up my whole self. It’s just a lot of work, and then my hands are all wrinkly and over-moisturized. So I’m adjusting. There must be a better, more methodical way to get the job done than what I’m doing. It would probably also be more pleasant if I shaved my legs, but that’s neither here nor there.

So the good news is, I’m finally using up all the frilly lotions I’ve accumulated over the past two or so years of my beauty-product obsession. So that’s good. The bad news is, I’ve naturally become more high-maintenance just by moving here. BUT … the reduction in bad hair days ALMOST evens it out. ALMOST.

In other beauty news, I just discovered that Secret has a deodorant scent called “Sparkling Vanilla,” and no, it doesn’t affix glitter to your armpits. However, it smells much lovelier than your average floral/”fresh” scented deodorant.

That is all the girly-ness for today, I believe.

Chia-licious

Y'all, the chia is out of control. Check it:


It makes me sad that the chia instruction booklet says they only live about 4 weeks. Two more to go...

So it's Saturday and I'm sitting on my couch working. That's right, working. And thank God i'm on my couch, because yesterday I thought my laptop was broken and I so would have hated having to sit at my desk. Something about a desk screams "WORK" whereas if i'm lounging on the couch working, I can pretend I'm not. IS ANYONE FOOLED? I didn't think so.

It's cold today, and I like it. Jess is wheezing in front of the fire. A&E is muted on the TV. There's half a slice of cake in the fridge. And life is ... okay. Not GREAT, or I wouldn't be working on a Saturday, instead of with my friends in Austin. But still -- I see mountains out my window and it makes me feel a little better.

More to come... if anything interesting ever happens, that is... ;)

I miss my friends.

It's late, and I'm tired, and CO is going to have a Democrat Governor -- wooooo! But I can't stop feeling sad about this weekend. Because this weekend, you see, I have been scheduled to visit Austin and see all my peeps. And this weekend, instead I will be staying here, paying a penalty for changing a plane ticket,and most likely working. So, I am very sad. I am craving good Mexican food and margaritas and the smiles of the people I love. sniffle. sniffle.

In lieu of my trip to Austin, I am finally going to post some of the great pics from my going-away Happy Hour that I never got around to posting before. I present to you, my friends:

Anita and Babs


Hope and Tamara

There are more, but blogger crashes if I post more than a couple photos at a time, so they'll have to wait. I can't believe I've been here three months now. CRAZY.

Anyway, I will be going to Austin soon, but not this weekend. So to all my friends back home, please have a margarita for me, ok?? EACH of you, ok? Have a good ole TX margarita buzz for me...

And know that I miss you terribly.

What a difference a day makes...

...in the life of a CHIA, that is!! Behold, 24 hours after the one I posted yesterday:

I'm SO going to win :)

how do you explain the concept of divorce to a 6-year-old?

Well, as it turns out, you don't.

Last night I had dinner at my nephews' house, and somewhere between the drinks and the main course my 6-year-old nephew asked me

Aunt Lisa, how come you're not married?

Everyone froze for a moment, then my sister began explaining that not everyone gets married, some people are happy to be alone, etc etc. Now being silly, he came back with

But Aunt Lisa, have you ever married a lion? Or a bat? Or a reptile?

and I answered him truthfully:

Well, I did marry a snake once...

He seemed satisfied with that.

Larva sprouts send team into fits of ecstasy

So I’m growing a pet chia dinosaur. But wait – it’s not just me; my whole row of cubes at work is having a chia contest! Yes! There are 6 of us participating, and amazingly, we all ended up with different chias. I have the Dino, but there is also a Scooby-Doo, a Mad Scientist head, a Donkey, a Hippo and a Cow. We spread our seeds (hehehe) last Tuesday and by last Friday they had started sprouting – we finally determined that’s what the white-rice/larva-looking things were sticking off the clay – and by today, after a weekend away, there was CHIA MAGIC. Today we came in to a sea of green leaves!! It’s all very exciting, considering I can’t grow a damn thing except ivy, historically. And chias are deceptively high maintenance, if you didn’t know. I didn’t. In any event, mine is doing well, as evidenced here:



Other people are doing fancy things like bringing in grow lights and “green housing” their chias overnight with plastic bags – but I’m proud to say I’m going natural and so far so good.

Did I mention we’re in the high-tech industry? Does that explain a lot?

Anyway, I know that was uber compelling, but I’ve really been struggling with my bog lately, so that’s all I can give you for now... sit tight for REAL-TIME chia updates.