Picture of a Snow Day

My little snow monster has just spotted a squirel down the street. Just after this, we were both bounding full throttle through snow twice his height to get the furry little tease. Ahhhh, snow days.

Observations from a Native on a Snowy Day

Our first big snow has settled across the Mile High City, and my short commute through the winter wonderland this morning (and subsequent time at my desk) left me with a few observations that may or may not be unique to a Colorado Native's perspective:

1. If you have a Texas licence plate on your car, you should probably just stay off the roads if it is snowing. I know, I know, we are always stereotyping folks from Texas up here. But ya know what, it is from experience. If you don't like it, try harder not to live up to it. The things I have seen newbie transplants from the Lone Star State do with their cars in the snow would give my driver's ed instructor a coronary, plain and simple. Don't cry Texas, it goes both ways. You would never catch me trying to navigate my way on or off the interstate using those blasted 4 lane "feeder roads" during rush hour in The Woodlands - I know my limits. Baby steps, grasshoppers, baby steps.

2. Surprisingly, I am WAY more hopeful and excited about the possibility of a snow day now then I EVER was when I was little.

3. College Students negotiating their way through their first winter at school in Colorado, a piece of advice. Snow falling does NOT mean that anywhere you want is a cross walk near campus. Walking out in the road and expecting cars to just stop for you is actually EXTRA stupid when there is a fair chance that car CAN'T stop. Something to think about. Just sayin'...

4. Contrary to what I just heard a co-worker say about flying out in snow, you are not "golden" as long as they don't cancel your flight. Ever driven Pena in a snow storm?

5. Shoveling your driveway in a snow hat, t-shirt, shorts, and Crocs doesn't make you seem manly, just too dumb to come out of the cold. And no one is paying attention to your "gun show" while navigating the icy side street at 7 am either, dude.

6. Most of the folks calling in to say they can't get to the office through the 3 inches of snow will be sitting in traffic on snow packed, icy I-70 towards The Tunnel in an hour. None of them are natives (bet me.)

Great Pumpkins

When I was little TV and dinner did NOT mix. Like EVER. We had one family TV, it was down in the family room, and it certainly was not the center of family activity.
And before I get too far into this, I know I am no spring chicken, but people we are NOT talking about gathering the family to watch Ed Sullivan introduce the Beatles to America here. It wasn't THAT long ago. We just weren't that TV-centric when we were tiny. (Heck, I didn't have cable until The Hub and I got hitched in 2004, just some bunny ears, some tin-foil, and 6 or 8 channels "over the air.")
That being said, there were a few select nights of the year where (future) Dr Sissy and I made extra sure that we were our extra sweetest selves, because we knew that there was a holiday cartoon special on TV that night.
And if we were our most angelic, then while Mom was cooking dinner in the kitchen, Daddy would tug a positively ANCIENT old black and white cabinet TV from its position in the corner nearest the window in our living room (where it did duty as a plant stand 99% of it's senior existence,) open the sliding panel on top to reveal the knobs and switch the old timer on - which it acknowledged with a pleasant hum.
Now all of this firing up had to happen AT LEAST 20 minutes before your chosen program started because it took at least that long for the tube to warm up. Dr Sissy and I would watch intently as the screen slowly started to lighten more and more, until finally a black and white (actually it was more green and white) picture would appear.
The TV would get aimed towards the big old table in our warm country kitchen through the arched door way leading to the living room, and we settled down and ate our dinner and watched in silence. I was shocked to learn as I got older that these cartoons were not actually IN black and white.
To this day, as an old (but not THAT old) married lady, holiday cartoon specials are still a cause for celebration. There is still a "something special" about that night for me, and I will always hunker down, now with Potter chewing contently on his bone next to me, and watch the shows that were such a special treat to us when we were young. I catch a whiff of our warm cozy old kitchen, hear a hint of that old TV's hum. I feel safe and happy and home.
Tonight is "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."
I bet this is the year he comes, Linus.

Left handed and out of my right mind.

I should preface this by explaining that I am left handed.
When I say that, I don't just mean that I write with my left hand and have more coordination when using my left hand; I mean that my entire right side is strictly for balence and decorative purposes. Other than that, it is good for nothing. NOTHING.
Got it? Good.

So I seem to have hurt my back. What started Monday morning as a dull ache/sore muscle in my left bicep has migrated and morphed into searing, constant pain in my entire left shoulder-blade as of today. Not as in "avoid lifting heavy objects" pain, I mean as in "I vocalized involuntarily because it hurt when I blew my nose this morning" kind of pain. Also as in "I can't do my hair, even in a freaking pony tail because I can't reach the back of my damn head it hurts so bad" kind of pain.
(Serious, my hair is jammed up in a half-assed knot situation and fastened with a clip that my worthless right hand finally managed to affix in there.)

All of this sucks, no doubt, but here is the real kicker: I have no idea what I did to cause this injury. Nothing new or different has happened in the past week - no heavy lifting, rock climbing, batting cage outings, or chasing The Hub around the Tree-house with a cast iron fryer waiving over my head.
Which leaves me wondering, in private, silent horror at myself, if I am crippled from a freak magazine page-turning injury? Or nursing pain caused by my unintentional training for the Olympic Sitting-There team? Or even if I pulled something out of whack during a particularly tricky TV Remote maneuver involving DVR'ed Food Network shows?
My middle name isn't exactly "Active" so how did I end up with this awful hurt and funky hairdo!?

Sigh.
Somebody get me a 'Tini... I'll be on my heating pad watching TV.

Don't tell my husband, but...

I have a crush on Handy Manny.

Ok, so I think The Hub already knows.

I get up most days before him, and he wanders in a sleepy haze out of the bedroom to find me and a giant cup of coffee curled up on the sofa watching TiVo'ed episodes from Playhouse Disney.

I really don't try to hide it. I certainly don't fumble for the remote trying to turn it off. It might be excusable if we had a child, but it is just me and my coffee and Manny.

Don't judge me, join me.

Manny is a cutie pie. He can fix ANYTHING - I mean anything from the town's 100 year old broke-ass historical water well, to a book drop that the children of Sheetrock Hills can't reach, to his Abuelito's garden border and the lazy old guy's will to garden, too. (Did I mention he was bilingual? Oh yeah - Manny hablos the Espanol like crazy.)

He is also polite, concerned and connected in his community, and always willing to offer Mr. Lopehart help, just one more time, though his silly comb-over sporting neighbor doesn't ever accept.

Day after day, Manny pats his "dog" (whatever sweet-tongued Fixit really is) and pulls his gloves on over those perfect cartoon cuticles of his (mmmm, perfect guy cuticles, grrrrrrrrrrrr,) and fixes the problems of his tools, his friends, his town. All while sporting lusty Latin hips.

How do you NOT have a crush on Manny?

Serious.

Some people do yoga...

Stress is a funny thing. There are as many ways to deal with it as their are single socks in the depths of my closet, (and that is A LOT,) and the way one chooses to handle a tough patch probably says a lot about that individual.

But I hope not.

Because stress reduction for me involves liquid cheese. Lots of it. Possibly washed down with Hawaiian Punch.

If it is a particularly hairy incident being grappled with, I will go days eating almost Nothing but Nachoes (abbreviated "N-b-N" to my close friends as a code for the severity of the situation.)

When I worked downtown I actually had two different liquid cheese supply sources that I alternated between so that no one could see the awful truth: I was eating zesty orange chip gravy every lunch hour for months. (The months leading up to me leaving that job were AWFUL. I was even eating breakfast burritos covered with my favorite substance at least two mornings a week by the time I managed to extricate myself from that mess.)

Sometimes, if it is super, super serious, The Hawaiian Punch gets tossed around in a cocktail shaker with ice and generous shot of Svedka, poured in a martini glass, and masquerades as a classy adult beverage while I sit and sip and stare off the Tree-house patio in the evening.

But always there is the liquid cheese.

I hear the nacho cart down the street calling me now.

Peanut butter dreamin'

This is Potter. The puffy little center of my universe. The furry, smushy light of my life.
Of late, he is also the kennel-rattling, whimpering reason that I end up shooed from my bedroom at unreasonable hours of the wee early morn, fluffy black ball of dog directly after me, The Hub grumbling "sump'n wrong wif dog" as he shoves us towards the living room and falls back into bed.
Potter-pie, after 5 years of sleeping peacefully in his kennel until one of us opened the door each morning to greet him, has stopped sleeping through the night.
In attempting to determine why, I have had many conversations with him regarding this new-found love of the nightlife that go along these lines:

Me: "Mr. Binky, mommy is very tired. Do you want some water? What is wrong?"
Potter: Panting and wagging tale, eyes bright and VERY awake
Me: "Smoosh, you need to sleep all night in your own bed - you like your bed, remember?"
Potter: Nosing bone towards me and pawing his "I want peanut butter" dance
Me: "It is really late to have our bone, don't you want to go night-night?"
Potter: Tilting head to one side, continuing wiggly dance
Me: "Oh, alright - here is peanut butter bone, but just one dip.. Mommy is just going to lay down here in front of Sprout TV on the sofa and... zzzzzzz"
Potter: Chewing bone happily, thinking (I imagine) "ha ha, SUCKER!"

And I awaken with a start on the sofa with him curled up crowding my feet when The Hub (who is SO not the hero in this story) emerges from our cozy bed to make coffee.
Repeat that with alarming regularity for about the past two months.

What has become of my good boy who seemed to treasure the safe serenity of his big cave of a kennel? Am I destined to watch late night preschool programing every night for the foreseeable future? Is this God's (or even the dog's) way of telling us "just go ahead and have a kid - you'll be up for those feedings anyway"?
And why, at 3am, do I actually half expect him to open his furry little mouth and answer back any day now?