wanderers

Ted wanted to go somewhere today. There was no clear concept as to where, or to do what. Just somewhere other than home, on his one afternoon off in the week. The weather was beautiful. As we ran a few errands around town, we saw a noteworthy number of people wearing shorts and shirtsleeves. I don't know that I would have gone that far. Mid-40s is nice for ditching the scarf and mittens, but that's about it. Anyway, eventually we decided to do some camera shopping and head out to Rochester.

We did some reconnaissance at Best Buy and Walmart, made some decisions about the necessary and unnecessary features, discovered that the memory card from my old camera is obsolete, and ultimately decided to let Costco be the deciding factor. With that, we headed West on Routes 4 and 16 to, as it's called at my office, RochVegas.

Naturally, we started at the Warehouse Store, where we found a few irresistible bargains and our first Christmas gift for 2010! Ted was flipping through one of Jim and Jonathan's books, and found some great recipes ideas. He asked if I had the book. Funny thing is, I do (I have almost all of them). Great! "New" meals to try!

We purchased our goodies and headed out. Instead of getting back onto the highway, Ted suggested we go explore Sanford, Maine. Why not? Before we knew it, we were wandering through Lebanon, Sanford, South Sanford, North Berwick, South Berwick, Rollinsford NH, and Dover NH. We didn't look at any map, and we don't have GPS. We just wandered. By the time we got to Dover, we started to recognize the roads again. Right about then, the sun started to sink into the fantastically colorful horizon. We headed home.

weekend ends

Had a nice visit with Sam and Donna, and doted on their cats (Versace and Tiger) and dog (Chamois). Enjoyed shrimp cocktail and cherry/apple/peach pie. Seahawks lost. Oh well.

Bought an outfit for the holiday party. It's black. ::sigh:: The top does have a design "burnt" into the velvet and a little sparkle up around the neckline. Still, it would have been nice to have some green or maroon or gold or something. Oh well.

Uploaded some more music, although iTunes was being very temperamental as to the speed with which it uploaded. Some songs went at 20x or better, but more than a few went at 5x, 3x, 1.2x. So, between doing other stuff (football, shopping) and the speed issue, I didn't get as much done today as I would have liked. Oh well.

The cats always make me happy. When I work at the computer, there are three designated cat areas in the immediate vicinity. An afghan-covered kitty hammock on the floor to the left of my desk. A folded afghan on the desktop, at my right hand. A folded lamb's wool blanket on the floor by the bookcase, to my right. The hammock is exclusively Sadie's, and the lamb's wool is exclusively Schmoo's. The desktop spot can easily accommodate two cats, and does on a fairly regular basis. Milo probably spends the most time there, sometimes solo, but oftentimes he's joined by any of the other three cats. Milo is the ambassador of the house -- everyone loves Milo. Woodle will occasionally hang out there, but usually he abandons the room altogether and sleeps on an afghan-covered gliding rocker in the living room.

Tonight, Woodle spent a little time on the desktop afghan with Milo, but then decided he wanted his own spot. Sick of being the odd cat out, he moved over to the other side of the desk and proceeded to settle right down on a Walgreens flyer, at the top of my keyboard, under the banker's lamp. Didn't seem to me that it would be comfortable, but he was very happy there for a good hour or so. Then, he decided that the afghan would probably be softer.

So, I guess I'll have to clean off the newspaper flyers permanently and find another afghan to fold up and put in this spot for Woodle. You'd think they'd find any of the approximately one thousand other soft, comfortable spots in the 1600 square feet of space we occupy. But I like having them close, so I can't complain.

Here's a picture I took of Woodle on the desktop afghan this summer. It took me a good 15 minutes to get one of him with his eyes closed, because every time I turned the camera on to take a picture, he popped his head right up to inspect. What a funny boy. We love having them around.

Good night.

Song count: 12092

"Miniature Disasters" by KT Tunstall

i should be sleeping

I woke up at 6:00am, which is later than usual but too early considering it was nearly 1:00am when I went to bed. So, why don't I just go back to bed? Nobody would think it unreasonable to get more than five hours sleep. I can't explain it. I'm awake now, so I might as well do stuff.

The uploading has begun again, although it will stop shortly when I go tackle more Christmas gifts. I won't actually be able to work on that for long, because I want to get to Catherine's when it opens, and it's about 45 minutes from here. I just went to their website and am a bit concerned that all my choices for holiday attire will be black. I hope the selection in-store will be a bit more expansive (and colorful).

Song count: 10274

"Are You Serious" by 'Til Tuesday

exploring nutmeg

Too frequently, the one day a week we both have off is occupied with a variety of chores. It is rare that we spend that day without a list, a schedule, a project, a visit, or a plan. Yesterday -- although prompted by a chore -- we decided to have such a day.

Our first stop was the Tanger Outlets in Westbrook to buy a couple new pairs of pants for Ted. That chore completed, we wandered around the Borders outlet, procuring four books between the two of us (that's 3 for Ted, 1 for me). From there, we hit the first matinee of Little Miss Sunshine. Were it not for us laughing and Typhoid Mary in the front row coughing violently, the theater would have been silent. Of course, there were only about 12 people there. Irrespective of the surroundings, I really enjoyed the movie. Along with the laugh-out-loud funny parts, there were at least three tears-streaming-down-my-face crying parts, too.

From the theater, we went on a search for a place to have lunch. After escaping Westbrook (where we'd been told there was a muster that day and parts of town were closed off), we headed for Clinton, but didn't stop until Madison where we found Lenny and Joe's Fish Tale. The place was hopping, the fried clams were good, and there was a small carousel. It was fun to watch the kids spinning around on giant frogs and cats while grabbing rings (although the rings were plentiful and not brass, so neither much of a challenge nor particularly special).

We decided to stay off the highway, wandering down Route 1. We made a spontaneous stop at Bishop's Orchards in Guilford, sniffing our way through the fresh produce. They had the biggest basil plants I've ever seen, and so aromatic! We bought apricots and limes, and wandered around looking for the animals. We found a few goats hanging out in a pen in the distance, but nothing else.

Even with the occasional rain shower, it was a nice day -- a cool and pleasant relief from the recent heat wave and perfect for driving with all the windows open. We stayed on Route 1 until we lost it somewhere in New Haven. Yes, we lost a road while we were driving on it. Go figure. Anyway, an opportunity to rejoin the highway presented itself, and so we abandoned the search for Route 1 and took the speedy way home. There, we caught up on some TiVo, napped, enjoyed a simple dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and called it a day.

We've complained a lot about living in Connecticut. Too expensive. Too stressful. Too everything. But it was nice to roam through the towns along the shore and enjoy the scenery.

juneau

At long last, I'm here to continue my vacation story. So, it's Friday, May 26th (pay no attention to the date on this post). We've just shoved off from Pier 66 in Seattle and are bound for Alaska.


It took approximately 40 hours of cruising to reach our first destination -- Juneau. As we approached the dock, we took quite a few pictures of the surrounding mountains. This was the beginning of the realization that no picture could ever do justice to this scenery. Here is one of the many waterfalls along the way.


For some reason, we were a couple hours late getting to port, and so the excursion we'd booked had been cancelled. Luckily, we were able to get onto another one, and as soon as we disembarked, we boarded a tour bus to head for the whale-watching boat. Even though there were cloudy skies and a bit of a Seattle-like mist, we were pleased with the weather. The temperature was in the mid-60s!

Riding through downtown, we learned that Juneau -- like most towns in the Southern part of the state -- is landlocked: you can't drive into (or out of) town. In fact, we saw directional signs along the lines of "End of Road 3 mi." We also learned that, because the town can only be accessed by air or sea, it has the busiest airport in the United States.

We went past Mendhenhall Glacier. A stop at its visitor center was part of our original plan, which I still would have liked to do, but there just wasn't enough time. I actually took this picture from the whale boat.

*** picture removed until Blogger cooperates ***

The bus driver was quite chatty, reveling in his role as tour guide by imparting trivia and corny jokes along the way. One interesting tale he told (which we heard from several other tour guides throughout the day) was about the airplane that had a mid-air collision with a fish. Apparently, as the plane was taking off, it crossed paths with a bald eagle with a salmon in its talons. The startled eagle released its prey, which then unceremoniously splattered onto the plane's windshield.

We arrived at the dock in Auke Bay to board a much smaller watercraft for whale watching. So certain are they that you'll see a whale, they offer a $100 money back guarantee. And they were right. There were dozens of opportunities to see whale backs, tails, and even a whole body over the course of a couple hours. Contrary to my dark, blurry, and uninspired pictures, it was an amazing ride.

*** picture removed until Blogger cooperates ***

My camera, resigned to its limitations, sat idle while we watched one whale breach the surface completely. It was breathtaking. We also saw a bald eagle being harassed by a huge crowd of seagulls flying erractically all around him, hoping to annoy him enough to drop his fish (which, thanks to the bus driver, we now know they are wont to do). There were a number of sea lions hanging out on bell buoys and a variety of other wildlife in, above, and at the edges of the water.

*** picture removed until Blogger cooperates ***

We stopped at Orca Point Lodge for a salmon bake. My Costco radar was in the red, as nearly everything that was served was Kirkland Signature. The grillmaster even had KS vegetable oil, plastic wrap, and foil at his station.

I made it a point to have salmon nearly every day during the trip (c'mon, it's Alaska!), but I must say this was probably the least inspiring version of it I encountered. Teriyaki. Still good, but it couldn't hold a candle to some of the amazing salmon appetizers, entrees, sushi, and even lox aboard the Mercury.

Anyway, it was an interesting place. A day lodge (no overnight accommodations) run by a couple who were two of only eight people who live on this island. Their house is on a ledge near the shore, and they have to climb a 30-foot ladder to get to it.


After dinner and shell-gathering, we headed back to Juneau. With about 90 minutes remaining before we set sail again, I did a burst of shopping while Ted, Sam, Donna, and just about everyone else went back to the ship. I found the Wal*Mart of Alaskan tourist giftware, where I immediately procured t-shirts for every family member (including myself, which is rare). There was a great store that only carried pieces handmade by Alaskan artists, a trinket store that was a mess of high quality and low quality items, and a jewelry store from which I procured a free watercolor painting of the town (part of a shopping guide deal I joined onboard). I also found the first couple items for the kids' Christmas stockings.

There was no time for anything else. I made it back to the gangway at precisely the moment we were told to be back (9:45pm). A few minutes later, I returned to our cabin where Ted had just gotten off the phone with ship security -- they called wondering where I was! At 10:00pm, we were sailing again.

All in all, we spent about seven hours in Juneau -- two fewer than planned and not nearly enough. Although I was very much enjoying my vacation to that point, I decided the future trips to Alaska would not be by cruise.

Next time, Skagway. I wonder if it'll be August by the time I get around to that entry.

~~~
An aside. I regularly break out into this song whenever I prepare broccoli for dinner. Been doing it for years since seeing the skit on SNL, I think when I was in college or shortly thereafter. Now, our friends at Cute Overload have nicked it to go with this incredibly cute picture. How funny.

seattle, part i

Evidence of my post-travel vacation is indicated by a tendency toward general lollygagging. The most constructive tasks I've accomplished since returning on Sunday are as follows:

• Writing a to-do list (such ambition and optimism!)
• Talking with my husband (a lot; not on the to-do list at all)
• Making dinner (twice; also not on the list)
• Showering (more than twice; nope, not listed either)
• Emailing my siblings
• Catching up with a friend on the phone (200 minutes)
• Hanging up coats (it took three days before I moved them from the railing to the coat rack)
• Folding laundry (Ted did the hard part of actually washing and drying it)
• Uploading pictures from digital camera to computer (wouldn't have taken long except for my looking at every one of the 300+ photos I took on vacation)
• Uploading pictures from computer to Costco (each picture 2MB... took a long time)
• Sending online order for prints to Costco (at 1:30am... because it took so long to upload the pictures in the first place)
• Shopping at Costco (to pick up prints... and groceries)
• Filling the car with gas ($3.149 per gallon)
• Putting away groceries
• Starting to organize vacation gifts (on the list!)
• Watching a movie about quantum physics (this required more work than anticipated)
• Actually doing laundry (it's been so long since I started this entry that more laundry accumulated)

One may question how constructive some of these tasks really were. That same person might also wonder why more pressing tasks (especially those on the aforementioned to-do list) have not been completed.

What can I say? I'm on vacation.

So, to get started on the travel recap, this entry is about our brief first stop in Seattle, from whence the cruise originated. This is the first time I've been back since my friend, Anna's wedding in September 2002. Ted has not been there since moving away in January 2000.

We arrived in Seattle on Wednesday, May 24th around 12:00 noon. We procured a stretch limo to get us to the hotel because it was less expensive than getting all four of us and our eleven bags onto a shuttle. We walked to the Steel Pig for lunch, wandered around the Seattle Center vicinity, relaxed a bit, and headed over to Lake Union for dinner at Chandler's Crabhouse (where, although the whole dinner was amazing, the Northwest Seafood Chowder -- with crab, shrimp, clams, and smoked salmon -- was amazingly amazing).

Thursday morning, we enjoyed the complimentary hotel breakfast (which was actually quite good), and headed off to Pike Place Market. We walked a bit through the park by Cutter's, showing to our friends, Sam & Donna, points of interest in Elliott Bay and taking a few pictures like this one of a ferry (that's West Seattle in the background).

* * * IMPORTANT NOTE * * *

You may notice that I nonchalantly referenced a photograph in the previous sentence, but oddly there doesn't appear to be a picture. Blogger continues to disallow me the ability to upload pictures, and frankly I don't want to wait to post all this fascinating vacation information. You'll just have to come back for the slide show later. Future photo references will merely contain an unobtrusive placemarker, instead of a Blogger rant such as this.

Thank you for your time and attention.
* * *

We wandered over to the Market and proceeded to spend approximately six hours there. A very easy thing to do, considering the vast number of merchants there. I've been to the Market more times than I can count. In the nine years I lived in Seattle, I not only took every visitor there (great souvenirs, views, and touristy experiences), I regularly went on my own (great veggies, fruit, and flowers, all fresh and at amazing prices). It felt very much like home to me, but it was fun to see Sam and Donna taking it all in for the first time.

*** PHOTO PLACEHOLDER #2 - Sam & Donna at Pike Place Market piggy bank ***


*** PHOTO PLACEHOLDER #3 - Pike Place Fish Co., a.k.a. "Flying Fish" ***


We each found a different place to get lunch and rejoined in a central location to partake of it. We wandered Post Alley for a while. After spending ample money and wearing out ample shoe leather (who are we kidding, they were all rubber soles), we made our way back to the hotel to tally the goods and find room in the suitcases. We walked to the closest Pagliacci's to pick up pizza for dinner that we brought back to the hotel and ate in the common area, before retiring for the evening.

That's one of the nice things about vacation: you can do things like retire for the evening.

Friday morning, we were hoping to walk to Seattle Center, hop the Monorail to Westlake Center for a tad more shopping, and then take the Monorail back to go through Experience Music Project before boarding the shuttle van to head for Pier 66. However, our plans were modified by two factors. First, the Monorail is currently not running. Oops! Second, the plan was pretty ambitious considering the time contraints.

So instead, we cabbed to Westlake Center. While chatting with the nice folks at Made in Washington, we learned that there were two stores a couple blocks away that carry a good deal of Seahawks merchandise. Sam headed in that direction while I introduced Donna to one of my favorite stores of all times, Fireworks. I exercised extreme restraint and only spent $90. I have said for years that this will be the first store I visit when I win the lottery. I could easily have spent $10,000 there (and that's no exaggeration).

I also stopped at Rochester to pick up three ties for Ted who, despite months of preparation for the cruise's formal nights, neglected to actually pack his ties (he did pack his new suit). And we went to Bartell's to get motion sickness wristbands and Bonine. I didn't believe that Ted or I would need them, but better to have them and not need them than to need them and pay cruise ship gift shop prices to get them.

Sam came back to Westlake a happy camper with bags full of Seahawks booty. We made our way back to the hotel, quickly reorganized, and hopped the shuttle to get to the ship. It was relatively painless to get through baggage, security, check-in, etc., and before we knew it, the ship was "setting sail."

*** PHOTO PLACEHOLDER #4 - Seattle skyline from deck 14 of the M/V Mercury ***


And thus ends the first Seattle leg of the trip. Will I have time to recap all the Alaska stops and the second Seattle stop over the weekend? I don't know. But eventually, I'll get it all here. I was bad about posting information on my other big trips (Brisbane in late 2004, Honolulu in early 2005). I must get better about such things.

Plans for the weekend (which Ted reminds me is now just an ordinary weekend, not part of vacation) include going to see a movie. Our current options are A Prairie Home Companion, An Inconvenient Truth, Cars, or Mission Impossible 3. I think if we see all four of them, we'll be fairly well-rounded. Other plans for the weekend? Organizing the stuff we bought on vacation (the Christmas storage boxes are ready!). I actually started that today. And relaxing. OK, maybe I can blog the rest this weekend. Depends on how cooperative Blogger is.

For the first time in two weeks, I'm going to bed before 2:00am Eastern time. That gives me three nights to get into the habit of waking up in time to actually, you know, get to work on time. 'night.

the quiet niece

Sure, to people who really know her well, Megan can be pretty boisterous. But compared to the truly noisy people in the family (and there are plenty of us), she's downright silent.

When she was little, she was a fashionista. She even helped her mother coordinate outfits right down to the accessories, coats, and make-up. One Christmas, in an effort to reel in out-of-control gift-giving, the family decided to draw names so only one person would buy for each kid. I got Megan. I think she was five years old that Christmas. The fun part about this method was that I got to spend my entire "kid budget" on one kid! It was an easy decision: I bought Megan a miniature wardrobe. She was little. Fred Meyer and Target had inexpensive clothes that were cute and colorful. It was a blast.

Ah, but that was 12 long years ago. For today is Megan's 17th birthday. A junior in high school, contacts replacing glasses, braces removed, a boyfriend, a job, and a driver's license (alternately in and out of her possession), a plan to become a high school social studies teacher. The girl who became my second-oldest niece and first goddaughter is growing up. (Can you hear the sniffing again? Pass me a tissue!) Her wardrobe now consists of demin and fleece, which is almost universally the teenager's uniform. She may be just the tiniest bit less helpful to her fashion-challenged Mom.

Happy birthday, Meg! And please let me take a picture of the front of your head sometime before you graduate from high school!

defenestrating time and its pieces

It's lunch time again, and I just can't help myself but to blog. The topic top of mind today is how very little time there is left before Christmas. Christmas, whoa. Wasn't it just Christmas, like, a couple weeks ago? Uh-oh. It's another sign of impending old-cranky-ladyhood. Anyway, we are amazingly prepared for Christmas. Despite the fact that we shop for approximately 40 people (14 of whom are 18 or under), our shopping is 99% done. I've even finished putting together the kids' stockings!

We Christmas shop all year long -- as we see things, when an item inspires us to think about a particular person, or when something cool is at Costco (ask me some day about the 'treasure hunt'). My trip to Australia in October also netted a vast collection of items for the gift list. We have large, plastic storage bins stacked in our living room with the spoils of more than ten months' worth of shopping.

Where the time crunch is feeling particularly crunchy is that we must now wrap said spoils. That in and of itself might not be so bad if we didn't have activities booked nearly every weekend between now and Christmas. A weekend in the city to see a show, Thanksgiving, a business trip to Chicago, etc. I won't even go into how we were supposed to arrange a time to visit my Aunt Kaye sometime between last Christmas and this one to pick up our gift from her. She's one state away, and we haven't managed to do that yet. :-(

So, the phrase "time flies" is lodged in my gray matter. And I'd prefer to think that I have some control over it (which I know isn't true, but the control freak in me wants it to be), so I want to instead be the one making time fly. And simply making it fly isn't colorful enough, so I want to make it fly out a window. Hence, the title of this entry. That made me think about my stupid alarm clock which, for absolutely no good reason at all, went off at 6:37pm last night while I was in the downstairs living room. That's not even reasonably close to the time at which it's set. I wanted to throw it out the window, too.

Back to work.