Walking in a Winter Wonderland

We have discovered that there are trail heads about 2 minutes away from where we live, so when the snows fell last week, we knew it was our chance to get out with the snowshoes that haven't been used for a couple of years.

Our friend, Lynda, and her dogs, Duke and PJ, joined us for the snowy romp.

It was gorgeous, serene, and lovely spending the afternoon outside viewing the snowy city from afar. The dogs acted as though the live in the Arctic and had endless fun running at break-neck speed past us on the trail and then sniffing out critters.

Enjoying a beverage. . .

Home Improvement photos

Crazy Busy...

OK, so I know we haven't blogged in a long long time. So many things have happened. The Red Sox won the series, the Utes lost, work is crazy, Bill Clinton came to town, home improvements, etc. Clinton, what a charmer. J and I went up to the U to hear him speak. I'll let her blog more about that if she wants but he made a compelling argument to vote for Hillary. Work- J has been really busy with new clients and acting as "help desk" for old ones. I stayed home one day and in the midst of my projects overheard her literally tell a client to click here and open this and "Do you see the back button at the top of the page?" No wonder this part of her job drives her nuts. My work has been crazy lately too. I found out that my boss was being laid off and then had to help the company lay off about 50 people. I usually love my job but ending someones employment is horrible and a little stressful.

So onto to more important and happier things. Our good friends J & M celebrate a Korean harvest festival every year around this time. Their house has been undergoing a big renovation so we volunteered our new place for "Chusok" this year. Of course 50 people coming over to your house is a great motivator for home improvement projects (like I really need an excuse for those things). In prep for Chusok we retiled the fireplace. It was all white before and just blended into the wall, we painted our bright gold brass shower surrond silver, we installed new outside lights (house warming present from my mother, she thought our old ones were awful), we painted the outside trim stucco and the front door, new doorknobs, and the bigger project... we renovated the downstairs bath. The previous owners had tried to stain the oak cabinets by just slapping on some dark cherry stain and they looked horrible. They also painted the bathroom mustard brown/yellow, kind of the color of baby poop. So it was due for a face lift.

We stripped/sanded and stained the cabinets. Painted the walls and ceiling, twice, we didn't like the first color, it was too light. We got new cabinet hardware, a new sink and faucet and a new countertop, a few new accents and Voila, a new bathroom. We wanted everything to be a perfect as possible for Chusok. The party was a success but those of you who check out J&M's blog can see for yourselves.

Do brunettes have more fun?

After being a not-so-natural blond for a while now, I decided to give the brunette thing a try. Not sure it will be a lasting look, but since I barely get out of my pajamas most days, I guess it doesn't matter that much.

It does go well with my Red Sox gear, however, and you know, they are in the World Series!

The Nation

It's lovely when it gets to be October and there's a crispness in the air and the leaves are turning and indian summer is trying to hold back the chilly winter. But let's face it. . . sometimes it's lovely because you're not outside enjoying it, but inside watching the Red Sox in the post-season.

I admit, I do not watch many games during the regular season. There are just too damn many of them to take up precious spring and summer outings, but L is a monitor so I always know how the Red Sox are doing anyway. I don't even have to look it up on ESPN because she does practically every day. I don't know how many evening conversations have a non-sequitous insertion of "The Red Sox won" or "The Red Sox lost" (though this hasn't happened very often this year). Yes, our Red Sox Nation boasts the best record in baseball, the cutest pitchers, the big Papi, and the dredlocked Mani.

So if you wonder where we are, just check to see that the Red Sox are still in the playoffs, and if they aren't, we've gone on a very long long bikeride.

Country Cousins

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!So if you haven't checked out Jib-Jab, you should do one of these, though trust met, you'll burn a couple of hours doing it. These are my niece and nephews.

Sunny Seattle

Ok, we were a little quick to judge the visibility in the northwest in the last post because as it turned out, we may never have such clear view of Mt. Hood AND Mt. Rainier, not to mention a brief drive by of Mt. St. Helen's. Seriously, I don't believe the odds are good we'll ever see all 3 again in the same trip. But we were lucky enough to see them this time around.

After a couple days in Portland, bike riding, Body Worlds III, and a hike to the backside of Mt. Hood where we could see glaciers showing off their blue hue in the sunshine, we set off for Seattle with Aunt Joy and my cousin Hayley for bumming around the city. Taking the regular commuter ferry to Bainbridge Island (for a mere $6 compared to the $25 that the tourist boats were charging just up the street), we were able to see the entire city of Seattle with Mt. Rainier in the background. We celebrated Joy's birthday that night at the Wild Ginger, a great nouveau Asian restaurant (that just happened to have a great wine list, so L was happy, even if there were shrimp and scallops all around her).

On Sunday, after hunting down some food and coffee, we headed to the Space Needle for more blue-skied views of the city. It was pretty cool though the glass elevators were not my favorite.

We headed over to Pike Place Market after that to just take in the breadth of humanity. After we collected all the pieces for our picnic--Greek grape leaves, Chinese pot stickers, French bread, French cheese, Greek baklava, American-grown Concord grapes and peaches--we found a nice spot on the grassy park nearby.

While we ate our lunch, we were treated to the great American pasttime: drug dealing. In the broadest sunniest daylight that Seattle probably sees, there were all the players: the two well-dressed men (casual but definitely looked as if they were living in some nice loft in Seattle) who were the top of the heap, the middle man with the flannel shirt, jeans, and backward baseball cap, the less-than-middle-man young black kid in a hoody and baggy pants, the half a dozen people buying (young college age kid who looked crushed when his $ didn't buy him enough of a fix; the older guy who also had some beef with the hoody middle-man; etc.), and the few desperate tweakers, one woman in particular who was trying to sell her unattractive self to any of the buyers for a little junk. We saw bags exchanged, money exchanged, beefs started and worked out, and no cops to be seen. Really, anybody watching for about 5 minutes could have seen it happening, but most of the locals and tourists were going by or enjoying the view of the water and sun and Rainier and oblivious to the whole drama. There was a 6-7 year old girl who stared at the action from less than 10 feet away while her parents busily engaged in a conversation with their friends. Even she knew there was something going on that shouldn't be going on in broad daylight.

Drug dealing aside, Seattle was fabulous and Portland was amazing! We ended the trip with a neighborhood party at Joy and Ralph's and a trip to Trader Joe's and our usual bootlegging stash for the border.

Hey, nice abs!

There's nothing like a trip to the northwest in August. It's still green here and the weather is nice (knock on wood) though Mt. Hood is still not visible today for our hike. We rode our bikes around the city yesterday on a little adventure. We had a little lunch down by the river and in general just chilled out. The scenery was great and the people watching was just as great. It was amazing how many Portlanders ride their bikes around.

After dragging our out-of-shapes butts back to Aunt Joy's house, we met up with Uncle Ralph to go to BodyWorlds III, the exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Being a squeamish type about blood and guts, I wondered how I would enjoy the "plastinated" bodies in all their muscle-y glory. But it was actually amazing. We saw organs, muscles, tendons, vessels, aortas, femoral arteries, etc. Most of the bodies were displayed in some artistic way, like The Archer.

Interestingly, they left the outside view of the penises, testes (they are after all supported by a little muscle) and the vajayjays and nipples. We saw brains, hearts, livers, kidneys, spleens, intestines, stomachs, appendix (they are tiny!), and everything else. We also saw healthy lungs vs. smoker lungs (all of you smokers, stop now!!).

The "plastination" technique was developed by Dr. Gunther von Hagens. People donate their bodies to be plastinized (there are 6,000 currently on the list). They put plastic polymers in all of the cells and then the bodies are posed in certain dynamic positions and then cured (i.e. baked) in those positions. This provides a great opportunity for people to learn about the body and appreciate the complexity of the body's movements and functions. Some of the bodies that are not posed are sliced into 1/2 inch cross sections so that you can view a person's entire torso in slices--which gives you an interesting viewpoint on how all your body parts work together.

Our New Party Palace

As soon as it got down to a cool 96 degrees outside, we decided we had to create a bigger space for us to be outside. So through a couple weeks of preparation (ripping out shrubs, killing slugs, moving sprinklers), we got our space ready for the new deck extension.

I'm sure L could tell more details about the process--about attaching some board to the foundation or doing the "underlayment" I think is the term. Yes, L can... Our favorite handyman was up for the adventure so, after the prep work we woke up early Thurs. morning had a few cups of coffee and we were ready to go. Pugsley, joined for a cup of joe from Jeff's thermos. He needed the energy so he could run around, get in the way, and bark at all power tools. For the underlayment we had to dig post holes, pour cement, set posts and a 4x8 beam, which fell on my leg, more bruises, drill holes in the foundation and then use anchor bolts to anchor the ledger board to the house. Once all the joists were hung the Trex could begin.




We pre-drilled to screw in all the Trex, making sure to space them. Of course, I've skipped over the endless trips to Home Depot and the carrying of all of
the supplies--Trex are freakin heavy--and the bruises I have on my forearms prove that. And then there was the stairs, the railing, the staining of the railing, and the creation of the doggy tripod ramp (I insisted; L figured out how to make it happen--now all we have to do is train the dogs to use the doggy ramp).

In short, I lost 4 days of my life, found new bruises practically every other hour, begged L to let us have a break after 2 full days (until seriously 9-10pm at night), and I couldn't be happier with the new party palace. Seriously, it's awesome. If you haven't been to visit yet, you should. We've got a few new patio furniture pieces and we have eaten outside every night since we finished. It is my new favorite thing about the new house.

Scenic Road Trip and Patty

Two of my favorite things are road trips and Patty Griffin. So when she skipped Utah on her latest tour a road trip was in order. We had been wanting to do a trip through Durango, Silverton, and Ouray for a couple of years and as luck would have it... Patty was playing in Durango. So on an early Friday morning we set off for the four corners area. Patty wasn't the only item on the agenda but a good start, there weren't any wineries in the area but there was a honey mead store (brought a bottle home for some of you to try), some great hikes, good shopping, and great food. My lastest foodie magazine had a restaraunt in Durango listed as award winning, so we had to try it out (twice :)). We also had a great sweet surprise when there was a cold bottle of bubbly in our room when we arrived. A little gift from our dear sweet Superman, who we couldn't thank enough. On day two we asked a local about a good hike, I think we missed the trailhead he described but we stumbled upon a great hike.. Haviland Lake, wild flowers, turtles, brilliant frogs.

The drive from Durango to Silverton and on to Ouray has got to be one of the prettiest in the country. There is an overlook where you are supposed to be breathing the cleanest air in the country. That point was lost on the bad hair, bad a#$ biker chick behind us who took a deep breath and then proceeded to light up another cigarette...

This short post is just for K so she will stop giving me S#*) for not blogging, and to commemorate our one month blog anniversary. We will blog about Durango and home improvements soon.. More to come.

Saga of the Tripod

We've had a little surgical emergency in our household (and it's a long story--but here are the highlights). Maggie the dog had been suffering from a hurt back leg for the last 2-3 months. We'd taken her to the vet in Orem at the beginning of all of that, but at the time, it appeared it may just be related to jumping off the couch or bed or something, so got an anti-inflammant and then got caught up in moving and everything as Maggie continued to limp around a bit. We took her to a new vet in Draper about 2 weeks ago, expecting to hear something about surgery to repair a ligament or something like that since it hadn't seemed to heal. Instead, the vet kept her for the day to do some X-rays (resulting in a without-warning-$600-bill--our other vet would always provide a quote before services--so it seemed very unprofessional and dishonest at the time--but we were reeling from the diagnosis--so how do you argue?) and delivered a callus cancer diagnosis of bone cancer (that he was 99% sure of even though she didn't have the accompanying tumors in her lungs) first to me and then to Lisa, who he talked to literally for all of 45 seconds and told us to google osteocarcinoma in dogs if we wanted more information. He told us that she probably only had 30-45 days to live, so we took her home very sad and gave her the prescribed round of antiobiotics and pain pills, hoping that perhaps his unsure 1% might turn out to be true, but willing to accept the likelihood of no recovery and putting her down sometime soon.

From the X-rays, it was pretty clear that her knee joint was damaged and something had been eating away at it. Usually bone cancer in dogs is quickly accompanied by spread to the lungs, but Maggie's lungs are totally clear of any tumors (which the Draper vet pointed out--but discounted as an anomaly) so while of course we thought the doctor was probably right (he should know, right?), after 10 days, Maggie seemed actually a little better (running around the backyard, sucking on her stuffed animal, chasing the water hose), though still doing most everything on 3 legs and definitely didn't seem like a dog dying within a month. The vet wasn't really all that helpful in terms of information--like what were the options; is there a way to clearly diagnose (rather than guess?), etc. When I took her back to the vet 10 days after his initial diagnosis to have her checked again and get more pain pills, the idiot vet delivered the same news "I'm sorry to tell you this, but your dog has cancer" as if it were the first time he'd seen me or Maggie, and gave me pain pills and a lecture about "knowing when it's time" and "not being selfish." All very strange; and not helpful.

The interaction with the Draper vet just didn't jive and was really unsatisfying in terms of information, so Lisa called the vet in Orem that same day to just find out what is the usual course of action. Since they had been treating both dogs for the last 10 years, they immediately asked if we could bring Maggie on Friday afternoon and if we could contact the Draper vet to get the most recent X-rays. We managed to get the X-rays (though only after some grumbling from the vet that he was offended about us 2nd guessing his diagnosis) and took Maggie to Orem. Dr. Weber and Dr. Pew both took a look at everything on file and determined that 1) bone cancer was probably 3rd on the list of possibilities, 2) a fungus was #1 possibility (and the vet wanted to rule out any fungus that might have been affecting our health as well) with an infection #2, and 3) in any scenario, the best option for Maggie was to remove the leg because the joint was causing a lot of pain and was too damaged to repair and removing the leg would allow the doctors to make a more accurate diagnosis, plus at this point, she was essentially only using 3 legs. We also found out in all of this that 1) the Draper idiot vet took crappy X-rays for $600 (like as in the Orem vet felt that a new chest X-ray needed to be taken so she could actually see--which cost us $60 not $600); 2) surgery and related expenses to take care of the problem was only going to cost $400-$500 (after the Draper vet's bill, we though it would cost thousands) and 3) dogs recover and adapt quite well--not like humans who lose a limb. At that point, it was frustrating to have already spent $600 on no solution and a bad bedside manner, and yet it was sort of impossible not to spend less to properly address the problem.

So on June 30th, little Maggie became a tripod. She rested comfortably at the vet's office through the weekend and came home on Monday. The vet's office told us that she was her social and snuggly self shortly after recovering from the anaesthetic and charmed everyone there, even with just 3 legs. Since she's been home, she's done well though had to restitched on Monday because she was so active and licking her wound that she opened up about a 2-inch hole (gross!). We're trying to keep her from jumping and going up or down stairs, but you'd be surprised how well she manages them when her owners are too slow to grab her. Her only problem is the hardwood floors through the kitchen and living room area. She doesn't quite get the grip there like she does on carpet, so she slips from time to time. But honestly, sometimes when she's running, you wouldn't know she was only doing it with 3 legs. Maybe we'll have to enter her in the special doggy olypmics. Seriously, she's happy and normal and I think she'll be around for a while longer to snuggle and bring solace to her humans.

The biopsy results came back this past week, and it turns out she has a cancer, but not bone cancer. She has sicle cell sarcoma, a very slow-grower and has no other indications of cancer anywhere else in her body. The prognosis is that she will probably be with us another 3 years or so and will likely die of old age at that point rather than cancer. We're really glad that we followed our instincts and took her for second opinion. The leg had to go because of the pain it was causing, and now we know that had it not been removed, over a long period of time, it would have spread and been a very uncomfortable life and death.

We can't wait for when she's well enough to take her on . . .er. . . walks (?). Maybe we can jerry-rig a little back wheel for her?

We do laugh that we now have two "special needs" dogs.

Initial Voyage

We have finally ventured into the blog world. We really need to keep all of our friends all over the place, up to date on our adventures. Stay tuned... really... for updates.