My finger, which was bending pretty much ok when I went to see the doctor about it, is now pretty much immobile. Is it because it’s been splinted for a week? Am I ever going to be able to make a fist again? How am I going to flip people off with my left hand if my ring finger’s sticking up too?
Testing out to make sure everything moved to my new server.
I broke my finger. On the dog. Yeah, I feel pretty much like a dogbeater, but I was just trying to keep him from 1) lunging at the door when I tried to open it and 2) wake up the baby and/or run down Jo. He got his revenge, didn’t he?
Ow.
I would like to wish those of you celebrating the holiday today, and even those of you who are not, a very happy Thanksgiving. There are so many things in my life I am thankful for. You are part of my list!
The more I go into Nordstrom, the more I like it. It’s the shopper’s nirvana. I bought 5 pairs of shoes today. I haven’t bought that many shoes at once in 10 years – because no place sells in my size! Retailers think there are no women out there with feet past size 10. The one place in town who sells larger sizes (9-14) also caters to drag queens, so the shoes there are sometimes a little funky.
Anyway, Nordstrom carries up to a size 14, and they also carry everything from trendy Burberry to earthy Birkenstock. I have this pair of adorable Stuart Weitzman shoes on order, since they didn’t have black in stock. The sales lady was so helpful and not overbearing, bringing me not only what I asked for but other shoes in my size that she thought I would like based on what I’d picked out. It’s like TiVo for feet.
Then I headed over to the MAC cosmetics booth trying to find that perfect shade of lipstick that Gillian Anderson used to wear on The X-Files. Couldn’t find it, but the people working there showed me a spectrum of colors and demo’ed them all on their hands for me. I ended up getting a bottle of jojoba essential oil (supposed to be good for rosacea) and strolled up to lingerie, where I got measured for a bra for the first time in ages. The sales lady there brought me something like 10 different bras to try on, but hub called and needed me to come home, so I only ended up getting one. On the way out I stopped and checked out the womens’ sales racks (Fresh Produce stuff on sale, gotta go back) and bought Jo some more big girl panties.
Maybe it is not the cheapest store in the world, but their customer service can’t be beat. Between Nordstrom and Stein Mart, we have 2 really excellent stores within 2 miles of the house. And Nordstrom, although located at the mall, never has overfilled parking, and doesn’t assume you’re a criminal. They had their $895 Marc Jacobs bags sitting out on a table, for heaven’s sake! Other department stores have them under lock and key. I have to wonder what the Nordstrom security force is like in order for the store to leave pricey merchandise out so blithely.
But that’s ok, I’m not planning on stealing anything.
We’re in the midst of a gigantic solar storm, and people in the most unusual places are reporting seeing the Northern Lights. Check out this photo from Houston! Boerne, about an hour south of Austin, as well as Llano, an hour west of Austin, also have reports in. I’m so jealous! The aurora is something I want to see before I die.
We have been out of town more often than not for the past couple of weeks. Last weekend and the weekend before we went to the ranch. Dove hunting season opened up, so we went out ready and willing to take a ton of birds, but since neither one of us has hunted doves in a few years, we ended up killing far more ammo than birdies. Cuervo was very excited to be out retrieving again. Kona, it turns out, is gunshy. We’re going to have to acclimate her to loud noises. Funnily enough she really doesn’t seem to care for fully automatic gunfire. Can’t imagine why.
Today we went out to see my aunt and uncle’s new ranch in the hill country. What a beautiful view… I can’t even begin to describe it. Up on top of a hill is a view that stretches for at least 20 miles (you can see the town in the distance), and has a perfect shot of the sun setting in the saddle of two tall hills. Ojalá que I had a camera. There’s also a mysterious cave in the ground, with the half-moon opening too small to accept my bloated body. Shining a flashlight in there shows some stalactites and stalagmites, though.
The weather today was outrageous. High around 82, clear and dry. This is my very favorite kind of weather. The leaves are starting to turn a little yellow; a reminder of death and birth and life all wrapped up in the subtle change of a tint.
While we were 2.5 hours away from home tonight, my cell rang – the alarm company, calling to tell me that the alarm went off at the house and police were on the way. They called back 30 minutes later to say that they think the dog set it off. Turns out a cat was locked in the kitchen and knocked a cooking pot off the counter.
I’ve got to get on the ball regarding the JournalCon! Things have been so hectic that I haven’t really had a chance to do much of anything. Including update my blog. Sorry.
It’s been a crazy week.
We had been completely dead all summer, business-wise. Nobody was calling in, and we were starting to get worried. One of our usual clients called last week, and so hub went out there from 10-7 on Tuesday, then I went from 1-7 or so on Wednesday and Thursday, then hub went back again from 8:30-11 on Friday. And I’ve got to go back this week.
We left for the ranch on Friday afternoon, detouring at the Sprint Store because I was unable to get to the Wireless Web and customer service told me to go exchange my phone, and I called the south store to doublecheck they had them in stock, which they verified and told me to come on in. When I got there, they not only refused to exchange my phone (they had them in stock to sell, not to exchange), but they couldn’t be bothered to apologize for whoever screwed up and told me I could, and then when I told them I was really mad they said I was free to take my business elsewhere. I called Customer Retention because they’re the people who bend over backwards to keep you from ditching Sprint, and they told me my account was not highly valued enough to bother with. I guess because I’m the add-a-phone to hub’s account, and my fee is $10/month. So not only did someone lie to me, but they also told me my business wasn’t valued. Nice! Way to go, Sprint, I will not be buying my new $500 Treo from you, and you’ll lose our $1000+/year when we switch to T-Mobile.
By this point I was furiously upset and starving, since I’d forgotten to eat with all the excitement. We hit the road and got to the ranch around 10:30, kids in tow. Not a one of us slept well the whole weekend and on the way home tonight I kept smacking hub, who looked like he was on the verge of nodding off at the wheel.
Dove season opened on Saturday. We were very excited about hunting that evening. Then it rained, and rained, and rained some more. Undaunted, we packed the kids and gear into the car and drove to the tank, set up a video, and took positions near the car. I took charge of Kona, who had never been hunting before, and put the loop of her leash around the foot of my seat. Someone called over to me that I had a bird passing by, and even though it was too far away I took a shot. I turned around, and suddenly my chair was around 10 feet away from me and the dog was just a brown streak heading to the car. She’s terribly gunshy. We will have to work on that.
At this point, a mosquito flew into the car with the kids and all hell broke loose. Jo has a Fear of Bugs, and started screaming, which scared Caroline, who started howling. Hub tried to calm then down but couldn’t, and when I arrived on scene we had two children with tears and snot running down their faces, in “huh! huh! huh! huh!” hysterics.
So much for hunting.
My cousin asked us down for next weekend. We’ve already arranged for the kids to have visit with their grandparents.
In the meantime if anyone knows of a good alternate set of ATI drivers for MacOS 9.2.2 (ATI Resource Manager kills Quark, and without it windows draw so slowly that my client gets seasick), I’m open to suggestions.
While we were at the ranch, the gas station on the horizon let out a bunch of little mushroom clouds. As that distracted my attention, a 737 taxied up to the ranch house. It said “Panama” on in, but I knew that was a Hawaiian airline. The pilot set up the plane like a pop-up camper and went to the neighbor’s house to pick up an invisible quilt. Intrigued, I followed him over there. The woman wasn’t home, and as the pilot made disparaging comments about her quilt, the radio in the background played “Another Drip in the Mole”, which was almost but not quite like Pink Floyd.
