Facebook apps

I think Facebook is passing me by.

I wasn't one of the original users--I believe it was started in 2004, and I didn't join until about a year later, when my school was added--but I've been around for awhile, since before you could add photos and before there were networks and before anyone could join and when the URL was still thefacebook.com instead of just facebook.com.

And for the most part, I like the direction it's gone in. I like that it's now accessible to all and I like that people from other countries are starting to join. I like that they have fine-tuned their privacy options to the point now where you can select a specific piece of contact information or a specific group of other personal information and list individual friends who can't see that part of your profile. I think it's moving ahead intelligently and while people always resist change, for the most part I think the changes have been positive.

I also like certain things that haven't changed, like the overall look of the site, and the inability to go overboard with customizing your page--a refreshing change from MySpace, where I'm too old and un-hip to be able to read all the crazy stuff with the insane blinking backgrounds on some of the pages. I like that I know where to look to find specific information on people's profiles. I like the updates and the news feeds and the way that I can keep tabs on what's going on in my friends' lives.

There is one minor thing that I actively dislike about the site, and that's the inability to opt out of receiving notifications when people comment on something after you. Multiple times I have thought twice about commenting on a photo or a status because I didn't want to deal with the headache of nine thousand notifications popping up over the next day or so.

But the thing about Facebook that I don't totally get is the applications. When they were first introduced, I installed a few, but mostly uninstalled them shortly thereafter. I do understand the concept--third-party applications to do just about anything in exchange for access to your personal information. I have Lexulous installed, and I love it. (Speaking of which, if we're FB friends and you play Lexulous too, start a game with me!) But that's the only application that I actively use.

The apps that I don't understand are the ones that send notifications from people you barely know. We all have those friends on FB, the ones who aren't really friends and with whom we never really communicate. So why am I receiving plants for my little green patch from them (especially when I don't even HAVE a little green patch), and invitations to join their team in Mafia Wars? Did they actually select me individually for this honor? Or is it just a massive spam from the app to their entire list of friends?

And also, just because I installed that app to "take your friends' personal quizzes!" to take ONE PERSON'S QUIZ doesn't mean I need a freaking notification every time ANYONE on my friends list sets up a quiz like that. OMG LEAVE ME ALOOOOONE. I'm just saying.

It's gotten to the point where I don't even LOOK at notifications from apps anymore. I never respond to requests or notifications or gifts sent or anything else. They are just not on my radar. And, therefore, I don't install apps on my profile anymore. Even though there might be some really cool ones I'm missing out on. It's just too much for me to deal with. I'll stick with Lexulous, thank you.

What about you? Do you use apps on FB? If so, which ones?

Senegal calling

Yesterday evening I was on my way home from the dog park with Montana when my phone rang. I glanced at the number and thought it said 202, the area code for DC. Thinking it might be a coworker with a late-night problem, I answered. But it turns out it actually said 221, the country code for Senegal.

It was Momar, a friend of mine that I haven't talked to in over three years. We were close friends when I was living in Senegal, but when I moved back to the U.S. he started telling me how he liked me, he wanted to be with me, etc., and it got to the point where I cut off contact because I couldn't deal with it anymore. I didn't think I would ever hear from him again.

In fact, I didn't think I'd hear from any of my Senegalese friends again. I had two close friends there, plus my boyfriend. My boyfriend and I broke up when I moved back to the U.S.--actually, technically a few weeks before then, when he got a job in another city and moved away, but our relationship continued, on and off, during those last few weeks. When I got back to the U.S. I didn't call him right away and he was offended. When I did call, the conversation was strained and the connection was choppy. We never talked again.

My other close friend from my time there was illiterate, making it impossible to communicate via letters and emails. We did talk on the phone once or twice, but he had a soft voice and limited French skills, and as my Wolof skills slipped (they are now totally gone), it became nearly impossible to understand each other. Plus, he had no money and I was a poor student, so we couldn't really afford to call.

And as for my host family--well, the first one and I didn't talk, after some miscommunication and culture misunderstandings, they sort of kicked me out of the house and I sort of chose to leave. And that happened so late in the semester, and I was so sick with scurvy and mono by the time I moved to my new host family, that I never really bonded with them enough to stay in touch. Plus, the uncle of the new host family hit on me, and watched me through my bedroom window at night, and that was creepy.

So, yeah. The only friends I have left from my time in Senegal are Americans I met who were also studying abroad. And I was absolutely shocked when I answered my phone last night and realized it was Momar. I didn't even know he had my phone number, since I had changed it after I graduated college and moved to DC. Turns out, he had called my parents' house trying to talk to me, and managed to explain to my dad in his limited English who he was and why he was calling, and my dad gave him my number.

Also, he knew that I was married, through a friend of a friend of a friend. So the whole "I like you and want to be with you" awkwardness was gone. We just... chatted. The connection wasn't great but it was a lovely conversation. My French flooded right back to me, thank god, because recently I've started worrying that I don't use it enough to retain it. Momar even commented, unprompted, that I haven't lost any of my French abilities.

It felt like a conversation I'd have with a brother, really. He asked about my husband, what he was like and if he treated me well. He asked how we liked Colorado and if we planned to have kids. He told me about his latest girlfriend, and about how business is going at the store he was opening right when I left Senegal. We exchanged email addresses and promised to chat on MSN soon. We friended each other on Facebook. It was nice.

And it made me feel a lot better about my time in Senegal. I guess I never really felt relaxed about how things ended with those three people, my three close friends there.

I still feel bad about my ex-boyfriend, because he was so offended and things between us ended, in some ways, so abruptly. I imagine that he doesn't have positive feelings toward me now, and I wish that weren't the case, because I have positive feelings toward him and mostly good memories of our relationship. At one point about a year after I'd gotten back from Senegal, I even tried to call him to clear the air, but his number had been disconnected. And now... well, now there would be no point. It's just been too long. Though I do hear through the grapevine that he's married with a daughter, so that's good.

I guess I just worried that even though I didn't feel this way about the situation, my falling out of touch with those three people left them feeling the way a lot of people there feel when Americans leave the country--like I had just been using them to pass the time, like they hadn't meant as much to me as I had to them, like I had just up and left them and gone back to my cushy life in my own country without giving them a second thought.

So hearing from Momar, hearing that he even remembered me four years down the line, that he bothered to spend the time and money to call, just to catch up--was a huge relief. It felt nice. It felt peaceful. It felt right. I feel like we've come full circle. And I'm really glad about that.

Public vs. private schools

I have never attended an American public school. I went to a small, private Quaker school from kindergarten through 11th grade. Then I spent 12th grade studying abroad in France, where I did attend a public school. The school was reasonable, though not fantastic, and it was also a small country school, which eased the transition for me.

I'm glad I went to the school I did, though I had some issues with it, both at the time and in retrospect. I think the single biggest issue I had with the school was its tiny size. My graduating class had 39 people in it. Half of them, at least, I had known since we were little. And that's tough. People remember what you were like when you were eight. It doesn't give you much room to grow and change and have people understand that.

And, with a school of that size, there end up only being a few groups. There's one popular group and then a few fringe groups, and if you don't fit into any of those groups, you're pretty much just screwed, socially speaking. Even if you like the individual people in a certain group, you may not fit with their group dynamic, and then you're stuck.

The first time I ever had a real, strong group of friends was when I attended Governor's School the summer after junior year, before I went to France. I still look back at that time as one of the best experiences of my life, and the time that started an intense, multi-year period of change and maturing for me. I had spent so long at my school not having a group that I had started to believe that I wasn't capable of fitting into a group, ever, of finding a group of people I really clicked with.

But my school also had a lot of great things about it. The secularized Quaker values were great, and very well applied. The classes were small and the teachers were dedicated. There was a great understanding of different types of learning styles, and we were all taught to value all sorts of people. Plus, the school focused not just on teaching us information, but also on teaching us how to learn, think, and analyze--all skills that have served me incredibly well since.

And, one big thing--we didn't have standardized tests. Yes, we took the SAT, but that was for college, not high school. We didn't have AP classes or tests. We didn't have end-of-year, state-mandated exams. We didn't even get grades--we got narrative evaluations.

And I really don't like standardized tests. Personally, I tend to do well on them, but I don't believe that they are a good or accurate reflection of a person, or even of a person's academic or intellectual abilities. And I absolutely hate that state-mandated standardized tests create such limitations for teachers in the classroom, and prevent creativity and tailoring of lessons to the needs of the particular students.

But, you know, I know a lot of people who went to public school and they are just as likely to be smart, analytical, thoughtful people as anyone I went to school with. I don't have anything against public school, per se. It's just not something I have personal experience with.

Of course, we don't have kids yet and this debate, for us, is not yet really an issue. But we did look into the Denver school system when we bought our house. Apparently, the elementary school in our district is the best in the Denver Public Schools system. It has a student-teacher ratio of 19 to 1, which isn't bad. I haven't visited it, obviously, but I imagine we'd feel relatively comfortable sending our kids there.

Plus, private school is freaking expensive. We did some research into secular private schools in the area, and the tuition seems to range from $14,000 to $20,000 annually. That's bad enough, but if you have two kids? How can anyone afford that?

Obviously we won't make a choice about this until we have kids, but my concerns about public schools aren't for the most mainstream students. If we have a kid who thrives in any learning environment, who is motivated and interested, then yes, public school would probably be fine for them, although I still have concerns about standardized testing.

But if we have a kid with special learning needs? How accommodating would a public school be for that? And especially if the child falls somewhere in the gray area, not requiring special education classes or an aide or assistive device, but just some individualized attention and creative teaching methods? Even the best public schools seem to fall short in this area.

What about you? Did you attend public or private school? What did you or would you choose for your own school?

Frozen bananas and deliveries in the mail

Last week I read this post about making "ice cream" out of just one ingredient--bananas. I promptly stuck two bananas in the freezer so I could try it. Of course, I didn't think to peel them first. Have you ever tried to peel a frozen banana? Because I'm pretty sure it's not possible.

Anyway, on round two of the banana-freezing attempts, I thought to take the skin OFF first, and was much more successful. So yesterday I put a frozen banana in the blender with a spoonful of natural peanut butter and a packet of Splenda, turned the blender setting to "puree," and waited to see what would happen.

At first I thought the blender would break, because it made horrible noises, but it turned out to be fine. The horrible noises were just the blender chopping the banana into little pieces. Once that happened, it blended fairly well. Certainly it did not turn out looking like the photo with the recipe, but oooh, it was delicious. In fact, just typing this, I kind of want more. Would it be a problem to make banana peanut butter "ice cream" for breakfast? Thoughts on this?

Yes, I felt slightly like I was making filling for Montana's Kong toy, but who cares? It was delicious! I need to do some experimenting with other ingredients to add instead of peanut butter. Honey? Nutella? Something else? Peanut butter AND Nutella? Mmm. I think I'm drooling.

Anyway! Just thought I'd share, because OMG yum and also, not bad for you!

In other news, I have found myself eagerly awaiting the arrival of the mail every day. There's so much cool stuff on its way to us! Our photographer emailed us a week ago to say he'd be putting our wedding album in the mail last week, so that's the most exciting thing. And also, the purple bathroom stuff I've been admiring at Kohls for months finally went on sale for almost half off, plus I got promo codes for free shipping and an extra 10% off, so I finally bit the bullet and ordered a few items.

As a side note, this is the weird thing about Kohls: they claim to be so affordable, and yet some of their prices are really outrageous! I mean, the trash can I wanted, even on sale, cost $32, which seems like quite a lot. And yet it was originally priced at $60! And that's not the whole "original price" that never really existed--that stuff was listed at full price for literally months. In what world is $60 for a trash can "discount"?

Anyway, the other thing I'm waiting for in the mail is the guidebook to Denver that I ordered yesterday. A couple of you recommended the Not For Tourists guides, which sound great, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be one for Denver, at least not yet. But the book that I ordered sounds great too. At least, let's hope.

Downtown

Yesterday Torsten and I took Montana down to Confluence Park, where the South Platte River and Cherry Creek meet in downtown Denver. We hadn't been there on a weekend before, and had no idea, but it's an adorable little family "beach" that was pretty crowded with kids, dogs, and parents.

It really is the perfect place for families. There's a little manmade "kayak run" that's not deep or dangerous, and I could totally see kids spending an entire afternoon floating down it in tubes, then running up to the top and doing it again. We didn't think to bring the camera, so I don't have a photo, but I'm borrowing this photo from here:


The thing that makes it especially nice for families is that the part where Cherry Creek comes in and meets the river is totally calm and shallow--maybe three inches deep. We saw lots of younger kids splashing around in there, just having a great time.

Plus, the place is gorgeous. I want to back with the camera when the light and weather are right so that we can attempt to take photos like this (taken from here):


Is that not gorgeous? I love that we live in a city with a real river in it, one that runs right through downtown.

But, you know, what our little walk made me realize is that we don't actually know that much about downtown Denver. I know that Denver has a great downtown--not just the sports teams and the river but also lots of parks, art galleries, and shops. We have an outdoor pedestrian mall that's pretty nice, although mostly made up of chain stores, but other than that, we haven't been very many places downtown. Most of our exploring of the area has actually been outside of Denver, in the mountains and foothills and other hiking spots.

And because we live on the edge of town, even though we're only 10 minutes from downtown, it isn't an integral part of our day-to-day lives, so we don't know it that well. So when people come to visit and ask me to show them the town, I don't totally know what to show them.

I know a lot of this comes with time, but I feel like I need to make a more concerted effort to learn about the town itself. Everything I know and have seen of this city, I love, but I want to get to know specific spots that we will return to again and again, the places we'll take visitors to see, the places we would recommend to everyone. We've been here six months now--I don't know what the expectations are for how long it takes you to get to know a town, and I feel like we've been pretty active and good about getting out and about--but somehow we seem to have forgotten our own downtown in the process.

So! Time for me to do some research. This sounds silly, but perhaps I should buy a guidebook to Denver. It will recommend everything there is to see, and that sounds good to me. We did get a magazine visitor's guide when we were staying in a hotel here while looking for an apartment, and that's a good start, but some of the places it recommends have turned out to be not quite what they were made out to be when we actually got there. So maybe it's time to invest in a Lonely Planet guide to Denver, or something.

What about you? How long have you lived in your current town? Do you feel like you really know all its sights and attractions? How long do you think it took you to get to that point?

Things I want to do

I keep having all these big goals, like furnish the house, lose a ton of weight, complete a triathlon, have a baby--and while they're all great and they will all happen, they are not exactly short-term goals, you know? So I'm trying to distract myself from thinking about all the stuff that I'm not going to achieve right this second by thinking about some small projects that I want to take on. And there are a few of them. Kind of like resolutions, but maybe less binding? We'll see.

• Make a quilt. I took a simple quilting class when I was 12 or 13, and learned how to make quilts in a checkerboard pattern. I still have the quilt that I made in that class, as well as one quilt that I made afterward. I made quite a few others and gave them away during middle and high school, but I haven't made a quilt since. I'd like to take a class and learn how to make a slightly more complicated quilt. There are some cool sewing stores around Denver, so I think this is totally feasible. And I am still hoping that a certain someone will come visit and take the class with me.
• Hike more regularly. Torsten and I were doing a pretty good job working through a bunch of the simpler hiking trails in the Denver area, but as it got hot in the summer we laid off for awhile. Now it's starting to cool down and I want to hit up some of the trails in our easy day hikes book. I'd like to average a couple of hikes per month, at least.
• Visit my BFF. She visited here, back in April, and now it's my turn to go to San Francisco to see her. I know, twist my arm. I haven't been to San Francisco since 1995, if I recall correctly. I'd like to go back and see it as an adult. And of course seeing my best friend doesn't hurt, either. We were hoping for a date in September but it looks like that is not going to work with our schedules, so now we are looking into October. Eventually, we WILL find a date that works for both of us.
• Start celebrating Chanukah. The biggest obstacle to this is our lack of a menorah. I looked online for one but I didn't find anything that appealed. I want to get a menorah that we can keep forever, the kind where we can tell our kids that we bought it the first year we were living in our house, before they were even born. So I want it to be a nice one. Our neighbors told us about a nearby shop that sells Jewish stuff, so hopefully we can find a nice menorah there. And I'll have to brush up on the prayer songs, but actually, I remember them pretty well for the most part. I think we'll skip the gifts, though, and just light the menorah and say the blessings each night.
• Prettify our guest room. We're trying not to spend money right now, what with the surgery and new mortgage and all, so all decorating plans have been placed on hold. But I'd really like it if our guest room contained more than a bed and a lamp on a cardboard box. Just a nightstand (or two) and a couple of little decorative touches would already be a big improvement. I'm going to need to set a budget for this, though, and then find a way to stick to it. It will be my first real home decorating project (that frame wall still hasn't happened), so it's probably good that whatever trial and error I go through will be on a limited budget. Come to think of it, we have a couple of gift cards--to Sears and The Container Store--that could probably help out with this as well.
  

What about you? Are there some short-term goals that you've been meaning to set for yourself?

Nicknames

One thing that I've always liked about my name is that it has multiple possible, logical nicknames. I went by Jessica for the first 12 or so years of my life, aside from a brief foray into Jessie at age eight. At around age 12, I started going by Jess, and I've been Jess ever since. My parents still sometimes refer to me as Jessica, but they're pretty much the only ones. Even at work, where I introduced myself as Jessica, people just sort of fell into the habit of calling me Jess. It seems to suit me.

Jess flowed well with my maiden name, but it sounds a little harsh with my short, German married name. I think that Jessica sounds a lot better with my current last name than Jess. So now when I introduce myself, if I'm only saying a first name I'll say Jess, but if I'm saying my full name I'll say Jessica. Still, people always seem to revert to Jess.

I like that I had the option to customize my name to what seemed to fit me. I like the informality of the nickname. I like that I can be more or less formal as the occasion requires.

Thus, I want to give my kids names that have possible nicknames. The only pitfall that I foresee in this is that certain names, especially boy names, that HAVE nicknames always seem weird if the person doesn't USE the nickname. So people who go by Benjamin, or Christopher, for example... it always just somehow seems off to me. Even though they are perfectly lovely names.

Still, I would like to give our kids the option of personalizing their names a bit, if they choose, without having to revert to a totally different name (think Cordelia in Anne of Green Gables). So while that won't be a dealbreaker for us if we find a name we love that doesn't have a nickname, it is certainly a consideration. And also, more importantly, if we find a name we like but we aren't fans of the nickname, I think that would make us much less likely to use it. For example, I love the name Edward, but I'm not the biggest fan of the names Ed and Eddie. I don't hate them, but I don't love them either. And that makes me not want to use the name Edward.

What about you? Does your name have a possible nickname? If so, do you use it? Would you want your kids to have nickname options or not?

On not getting a second dog

When Torsten and I got Montana, our plan was for her to be our only dog. I can totally see why people have multiple dogs--and in fact I grew up with two, and for a time, three dogs--but for us, we didn't think it made sense.

Part of why we picked Montana is because her personality profile said that she was a sweet, mellow, people-oriented dog, which is absolutely true. When we first got her she didn't have a whole lot of interest in other dogs, and didn't play at all. In the months since we've gotten her, as I've written, she's come a long way, and now enjoys playing with both toys and other dogs. She loves the dog park and is very friendly when we pass other dogs on walks, always wagging her tail and wanting to say hello.

Another part of why we only got one dog was that at the time, we were living in a small apartment with a 65-pound overall pet weight limit, and Montana weighs 55 pounds. So having a second dog just would not have been feasible. Of course, a couple months later we moved to a bigger house, one that we own and therefore can do what we want with, and one with a roomy, fenced backyard. So getting a second dog became more of a realistic option.

We've thought about it, for sure. And especially last weekend when Rosie brought her dog Chloe over and Chloe and Montana played together for hours. Torsten and I looked at each other and watched how well Montana was playing with Chloe, and thought that you know, maybe it WOULD actually be nice to have a second dog.

And I will definitely admit to browsing the list of available companion dogs on the prison program website with a mostly curious but slightly purposeful eye. (And as a side note, if you're looking at the list yourself, how cute is Carmel? And Hailey? And Rudy? And... OK, I need to stop looking now.)

But... well, I don't really think it's fair to get a second dog just so the first can have a playmate. And when we start thinking about the practical issues that would come with having a second dog, we realize that it just doesn't make sense.

For one thing, Montana is very calm and mellow. She enjoys having her yard to herself and being able to sleep in peace in her bed. She does a lot of napping and lying around, and she likes it that way. She also likes to bury her treats in the yard, because she sees it as HER yard where nobody else will intrude. And when she was playing with Chloe, who's a bit younger, she definitely got tired after awhile and started coming over to us as though we could protect her from Chloe's eager attempts to play. And when we took care of our neighbor's dog for a weekend, and walked the two together, Montana was getting annoyed that the other dog was walking in front of her and getting in her way.

My point is, she's a good only dog. I've talked to some owners of multiple dogs at the dog park, and they've said that when they only had one dog, they really got the sense from the dog that something was missing. We do not at all get that sense from Montana. She's not one of those dogs that requires a doggy sibling.

Plus, for us it would be a big hassle too. We'd have to get a second crate for the new dog, and those crates are large--I have no idea where we would put it. We'd have to deal with twice the food, twice the vet visits, twice the poop. Just walking the dogs would become a much bigger endeavor.

And two dogs are way more than twice as loud as one. They play together and bark at each other. They run around the house after each other, their nails scratching on our nice hardwood floors--and while obviously we don't value our floors over actual living members of the household, we would appreciate not having to refinish them once every two years. Two dogs are generally very chaotic and noisy, whereas one dog--or at least our dog--is not.

And then, when we had a baby? Well, I can totally envision going for a walk with Montana and the baby. But the baby and two dogs? I would not have enough hands to deal with everything. And with our Civic, there wouldn't be room in the backseat for two dogs and a car seat. And while the added noise and chaos is something we can handle now, it would probably get a little less tolerable every time the playing dogs woke the baby up from a nap.

It just doesn't seem to make sense for us to add another dog to our household right now. Not when we have it so good right now, and all of us enjoy the arrangement as it is. And not when we have plans for adding other members to the family at some future point. So, we're going to stick with just the one dog, and let her socialize at the dog park to her heart's content, and then come home to her own little kingdom where she is the top dog (even though she is at the bottom of the overall household pack).

Still, those dogs in the prison program are awfully cute. And we are definitely leaving open the possibility that a second dog may somehow find us someday. And if that does happen, we are poised to embrace it.

Cars

Torsten and I make decisions slowly. Or rather, we make decisions and then rethink them, over and over, until we get to the decision that we know doesn't have to be rethought.

For example, we knew we wanted to move away from DC almost two years before we actually did it. At first we decided to move to New York. Then we decided to move to San Francisco. Then we realized that those cities are both very expensive and started researching more affordable options, which is how we landed on Denver. But we were serious about NYC and SF at the time.

It was the same with getting a car. Torsten wanted a sports car and had planned to buy one before we even met, but it just never happened. Then when we moved in together we decided to get a car with the savings in rent. We test drove several of them and decided on a used Acura TSX, but my dad talked us out of it by pointing out that if we ever wanted to buy a house, we'd need to save up for a down payment, and a car is the opposite of an investment because it only loses value while costing money to maintain.

He was right, and I'm not sure we'd have been able to buy our house when we did if we'd bought a car when we were originally planning to. All the thousands of dollars we would have spent on that car instead went into a high-yield savings account and turned into our down payment. So, thank god for reasonable parents who talk sense into you.

But when we realized we were moving to Denver, FOR REAL THIS TIME, we knew we had to buy a car. And we did a ton of research. We very nearly got a Subaru Impreza WRX. Subarus are beyond practical for Colorado, with their four wheel drive, and the car was relatively affordable and also very sporty. But it was a bit more than we wanted to pay, even used, and it only comes with a stick shift, which I would have had to learn to drive. And that would be OK--I want to learn how and I have a feeling that I'll enjoy it very much--but I didn't want my only car to be a stick shift, and especially when our first real experience in it would have been a cross-country road trip where I would have had to share the driving.

So then we looked at other options. The Ford Focus, a Mazda, the Toyota Corolla. And finally the Honda Civic, which we ended up getting. The car was three years old and had 23,000 miles on it. It's a fabulous car. I can't rave enough about it. No, it isn't sporty, and Torsten still grumbles a little when he hears the sound of a WRX engine revving nearby (and that happens a lot in Denver). But it gets incredible gas mileage. It is extremely reliable. It has a ton of trunk and storage space--we couldn't BELIEVE how much we were able to cram in there when we moved. Even the freaking cupholders are brilliantly designed.

And also, that thing is PRACTICAL. It's a great car, but neither of us is emotionally attached to it, so it's OK if it gets scratched, or if the dog gets wet at the dog park and has to ride home that way. It'll be OK when a baby spits up in there or a toddler spills juice in there. This car is a workhorse and it is perfect for what we need. So again, we definitely came to the right decision.

Of course, that doesn't stop Torsten from dreaming of BMWs and convertibles and luxury SUVs. Maybe someday...

What about you? Do you own a car? If so, do you like it? If not, what car would you like to have, and do you think you'll ever get it?

Things that go bump in the night

Recently I've developed an irrational fear of the nighttime. OK, not the nighttime specifically. Rather, I'm afraid that there are intruders in our house in the middle of the night.

We've been living in our house for four months and this fear only just started. Hey, I SAID it was irrational. I guess I just didn't think about it before, AND we have a dog and a pretty good guard dog at that.

For the first month or so that we lived in the house the dog slept in her crate with the door latched shut, so she wouldn't have been any use as a guard dog anyway. Then Torsten went on his first business trip and I felt a little nervous being home alone at night, so I started leaving her crate door open, and now we always do that. It makes me feel better to know that if she hears a noise, she can go investigate it, and that if somebody is trying to break in she will likely scare them off with her barking.

But even then, even when I started thinking about it I wasn't really nervous. Even when Torsten started saying that he felt uncomfortable without some sort of security system, I wasn't really nervous.

Even though it kind of makes sense to be nervous, doesn't it? In the past we've always lived in apartments, buildings with secure access and doormen, and we were always above the ground floor with only one door and a few windows, and any weird sounds that we heard could easily be attributed to noisy neighbors.

Now we're in a house, a big creaky house with several doors and lots of old windows and no doorman. It just FEELS less secure.

So, I agreed with Torsten and we purchased an alarm, the monitored kind that automatically connects to the police when there's a problem. But we didn't buy motion sensors for it right away. At first we just had door and window sensors, the kind that set off the alarm if the door or window is opened.

Still, the fear didn't start right away. The thing that triggered it was a few weeks ago when the light rail, which runs along the highway behind our house, made a very strange noise at about four a.m. We're used to the light rail going by at all hours and we don't really hear it, even if we leave our window open, but this noise was different. It was a very loud, very distinct, repeated thumping noise, and it sounded like it was right in our house.

It woke us both up and we looked at each other and listened for awhile and didn't hear anything else. And we looked at the dog and saw that she was unperturbed and we told ourselves that it was nothing and tried to go back to sleep. Torsten did, I think, but I lay awake for an hour with my heart pounding, freaking out every time I heard the slightest little sound. I had to pee but I was scared that there were people in my house and that they would hear me if I got out of bed. On a rational level I KNEW that if there were people in our house the alarm would have gone off and the dog would be barking... but who is rational at four in the morning?

At around five, the sound happened again and woke Torsten up again, and I convinced him to go downstairs with Montana to check out the situation. At four a.m. I'd been thinking that the thumping was the sound of thieves dragging our TV out of our house, but when it happened again I was able to tell myself that maybe it was an animal. Or the trash can. Or something else innocuous.

As soon as Torsten turned on the hall light I felt better. He inspected the whole house and yard, and (of course) found nothing. And then I felt better too. After that, I managed to fall asleep.

But you know what's strange? Even though now I KNEW that that noise means nothing, and is just the light rail, and it's not like there actually WERE armed intruders in our house? After, every little nighttime noise freaked me out. If a noise woke me up I would totally lie in bed hallucinating other noises and convincing myself that someone was about to creep into our bedroom and murder us. Even though I KNEW it was ridiculous. I KNEW IT, but when I was lying in bed in the middle of the night and my heart felt like it was about to leap out of my chest, trying to be rational just didn't work.

However, it has gotten better. There was one week where it was really terrible, and I slept like shit every night because something would ALWAYS wake me up and scare me, and then I would lie there terrifying myself with imaginary scenarios, figuring out ways that burglars could get into the house without setting off the alarm, and not be able to go back to sleep.

But now it's mostly better. We got motion sensors for the alarm, for one thing. So now I know that even if a burglar somehow manages to get into the house without setting off the door and window sensors, the alarm would STILL go off as soon as they took a step into the house.

And also, I looked up the crime statistics for our neighborhood over the past few years, and they are extremely low. And even the crimes that have occurred in the neighborhood have occurred in a few specific areas that are not anywhere near our house. In the past five years, there has only been one crime in what I consider to be our section of the neighborhood, and none at all on our street. And I couldn't tell from the map what kind of crime it was, so I choose to assume that it was something minor like a car break-in, and nothing that was actually dangerous.

After those two things happened, it took me a few days of middle-of-the-night wakeups to teach myself to calm down. To remind myself that the noise CAN'T mean anything, because if it did, the alarm would be going off, FOR REAL. And that the likelihood of anyone even trying to break into our house, regardless of dog and alarm, is very slim.

And I had a whole rationale behind these self-reminders. I assumed the there are two types of break-ins: crimes of opportunity and premeditated crimes. We lock our doors and windows and therefore prevent any crimes of opportunity. And we can only assume that a premeditated crime would include some scoping out of the target house ahead of time, and any potential criminal who did that would see that we have a protective dog who barks AND an alarm, and pick a different house to target.

Add that to the low crime statistics for the neighborhood, and the odds of anyone trying to break into our house are very low. And yes, I realize that I'm overthinking this but I NEEDED that kind of logic to make myself be reasonable. Especially given the level of panic that I was feeling in the middle of the night.

So, yes, after a few days I'm pretty much back to the way I used to be, not freaking out if I wake up in the middle of the night, and actually able to get a good night's sleep. Thank GOD. I don't think I can adequately express how STRESSFUL it was to wake up almost EVERY NIGHT and imagine that someone was coming to get me. A grown-up bogeyman, if you will.

But even yet, every now and then that damn light rail makes that weird loud thumping noise and wakes me up, and even armed with all my tactics for talking myself off the ledge, it STILL gives me a good few minutes of freaking myself out.

Am I the only person who still lets herself get freaked out by things she should have grown out of 20 years ago? Please tell me I'm not alone in this.

OK, so the luxurious sleeping in that I had planned for today didn't happen. But! On the plus side, I've gotten a lot done. But I have a lot more to do. (So. Many. Errands.) Which is why I don't have a real post for you today, and why I'm writing this fake post so late.

But! There is a real post over at Bodies, with a three-month post-op status report. I'm averaging 12 pounds lost per month! Go me!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Boots!

I have tomorrow off of work, and I am so excited about it. I don't have any earth-shattering plans, but I am really looking forward to the day.

We're having some lovely people over for dinner, so after I get up (which will hopefully be luxuriously late), I will head over to Whole Foods to pick up everything we need to prepare the meal. And at some point I will head to the gym to swim for an hour (or, if I happen to wake up early, I'll go to water aerobics class). There will hopefully be some relaxing on the couch. And possibly a trip to the dog park.

But what I am most looking forward to is SHOPPING. I don't shop much, especially these days when we are working on paying off my surgery. But I've decided to make one purchase that I really missed last winter: soft, warm winter boots. I have real, hardcore snow boots (with purple trim!). They're great. We bought them when we found out we were moving to Denver for real. They are tough, and waterproof, and warm, and they have great traction. But they are also stiff and awkward and not really comfortable for long periods of time. They're designed for really walking IN snow, like when you have to take the dog for a walk or whatever.

So yeah, I have that. But what I WANT is cozy warm fluffy boots. Not ones that do well in the snow, not necessarily even ones that are practical and reasonable. No, what I want is the winter equivalent to summer's flip flops. Comfortable, easy, slip on right away when you're headed out the door, not appropriate for brutal weather.

Basically, what I want is Uggs. Though they are expensive, and also not the most attractive thing I've ever seen. So I'm going to the mall to try some on. And I'm also going to try on Emu boots, because those are similar but more affordable. Although also possibly even less attractive.

So, here are my options. I'm considering three colors of Ugg: sand, eggplant, and gray.

I like the sand the best, I think. They're the most versatile and the least offensive. But I'm concerned that they'll show dirt too easily. But I've also heard that if you apply the weatherproofing and dirt-resistant spray stuff, they don't get that dirty, and they can be cleaned. Thoughts on this? Does anyone have experience with this?


Then there's the eggplant. Yes, this season Uggs are available in a deep purple. Which is awesome, but do I really want purple boots? Boots that I would wear with everything? Wouldn't that be a tad over the top? I mean, it just seems excessive. But on the other hand: PURPLE.



Gray is sort of my backup plan, if I decide that the sand will show dirt and the purple is too much. But I don't really LIKE the gray. I just don't want to get the chocolate (which I also like), because I wear too much black. And I don't like the black ones either. Gray is the least offensive of the remaining colors, basically. But does that reasoning really make sense for such expensive boots?


Then there's the Emu option. But a) I don't really like any of the colors (they don't have a sand or eggplant equivalent--their beige is hideous--so I'd have to go with the gray), and b) they really are ugly, in my humble opinion. Still, is it worth it for the cost savings? The Uggs cost almost twice as much as the Emus.


Sooooo... what do I do? Uggs or Emus? What color?

Shallow fears

Remember last week when I was talking about the large woman in my water aerobics class, and how I was comparing myself to her?

Well, this week I found out that she is pregnant. Not just pregnant, but 36 weeks pregnant. And you guys, I had no idea. I SCRUTINIZED this woman while she was wearing a bathing suit, and I didn't have the first little inkling of the POSSIBILITY that she might be pregnant. It is so, so, so not obvious. And she's due next month.

Last night I even saw her naked in the dressing room after class, and it is STILL not obvious. EVEN NAKED. I mean, since I knew I could tell that part of her belly was a little firmer than the rest. But if I hadn't known? Even naked, I would NEVER have guessed.

I don't mean this as a criticism of this woman at all. I'm excited for her that she is pregnant, and impressed that she is still coming to water aerobics so close to her due date. I also know that it's true that larger women don't need to gain as much weight during pregnancy (and possibly not even any at all), so it makes sense that she's not showing as much as a thinner woman might be.

But still, the idea scared me. I'm not as large as this woman, even without the pregnancy. But a pregnancy in a plus size... well, it scares me. And yes, part of it is the higher risk, the gestational diabetes, and all the rest. But if I'm being totally honest? Part of it is that I want to have a normal-looking pregnancy. I want to be able to find maternity clothes that fit. I want to have enough of a bump that I'll even NEED maternity clothes. I don't want people to look at me just weeks before my due date and assume that I'm just extra-fat, not pregnant.

And yes, I know, I won't be getting pregnant for almost a year at the very least, and I've already lost a lot of weight and will lose a lot more before then. So I shouldn't have to deal with this issue.

But I haven't always known that. This surgery was a recent decision. I've been thinking about getting pregnant for years. And I've worried about this exact issue for precisely that long. It's not a worry that just goes away like that, you know? But I always used to tell myself that I was just being silly and of course even larger women look pregnant once they get that late in the pregnancy.

Except... now I know that those worries WERE founded. And, OK, yes, it's shallow and the last thing I should have been worried about. And it was not a reason why I had the surgery. But it is absolutely a fringe benefit. I am SO RELIEVED that this is something that I am unlikely to have to worry about. And now extra-motivated to lose a ton more weight before I get pregnant.

Premature discussion: baby names!

I've been thinking about buying The Baby Name Wizard for over a year now, but I finally bit the bullet and did it when Swistle announced that the second edition was out. Of course, it took me three tries to actually GET the second edition (thanks, Amazon! And dumb publishers for giving the first and second editions the same ISBN!), but once I got it... ooh. This book is GREAT.

Of course, Torsten thinks I'm insane for buying a baby name book when I am nowhere near pregnant. But: BABY NAMES. It's never too early, right? Plus, I have convinced him to talk baby names before, and we even tentatively agreed on one, and then a few months later? I was SO OVER that name. See? It's good to start early so you have time to really USE the name and THINK the name and see if it's a good one, the kind that sticks.

I have a few criteria for names. I don't MIND being in the top ten, as in, if there were a name that I LOVED and it was the top name in the country, I'd use it anyway. But otherwise, I'd rather be somewhere in the top few hundred. I want a name that is recognizable and has one main spelling and pronunciation, but that isn't overly used. I want a name that's pretty and has at least one possible nickname, though I can be flexible on this. I don't struggle with middle names--we already have a meaningful one picked out for a boy and a girl--and I want the first name to flow with the middle name.

These criteria tend to lend themselves to old-fashioned names. Everybody has heard of old-fashioned names, they are less likely to have been butchered with funky Y spellings, and because they are old-fashioned they are often not as popular. Plus, old-fashioned names are usually pretty.

One such name that I ADORE is Eleanor. I think it is pretty, classic, and elegant. I love that it has multiple nickname possibilities. And I think it would fit a person of any age.

But Torsten hates it. This is a conversation that we have had many times and just keep going back and forth on. He thinks it's ugly and old-fashioned, in a bad way. I think it is woooonderful. But honestly? The Baby Name Wizard made me feel better about this, because it claims that according to their unscientific survey, Eleanor and Lillian are the two names that men and women disagree on most. Somehow, this makes me feel better, imagining the same argument playing out in households across the country. And all you women with daughters named Eleanor... you are lucky! I am jealous.

I do wonder some things about name-selection etiquette. Like, if you have a good friend with a name you like, does that name become off-limits? For example, I like the name Mallory, but I have a friend named Mallory. And I like the name Jillian but I have a friend with that name too. Would that be weird? We wouldn't be naming our child AFTER these friends, but they would still have the same name. Or is that OK?

Or what if your friend has a KID with a name you like? Is it OK to use the same name? I wouldn't name my kid the same name that my sister used for her kid, for example. But how far into the social circle does this rule extend?

Also, there are two girl names that I LOVE that just don't fit with the middle name we've picked out: Amelia and Lena. BUT I LOVE THEM. But they would sound TERRIBLE with the middle name. And the middle name is PERFECT, and also meaningful, whereas the first name is just pretty. So the middle name wins, right? But would it really be SO TERRIBLE to just saddle her with a first and middle name that don't really go together? I mean, how often do you REALLY use your middle name anyway?

And there are LOTS of other names that I like but that Torsten has vetoed (because I have managed to make him talk about this once or twice). For girls: Audrey, Beatrice, Bridget, Charlotte, Chloe, Gemma, Imogen, Nora, Sophie, and Vivian. For boys: Colin, Jackson, Kieran, Mitchell, Oliver, Roger, and Trevor.

I am especially sad about the loss of Roger as a possible name. I don't know why. I just think that name is GREAT. Am I alone in this? Torsten says that it would remind him too much of Roger Federer. I think that once you have a kid, you kind of lose any celebrity associations you once had with the kid's name, and just think of the kid when you hear the name. But he still says no Roger. And I am very sad about that.

What about you? What are your baby naming parameters? What are some names that you love and hate?

Happy perfect weekend

On Saturday, Torsten and I (and Montana) drove out to Breckenridge, home of Torsten's favorite brewery, and Dillon, home of a gorgeous lake. (Full set here.)


Montana thoroughly enjoyed being included in our excursions after her brief toenail-related hiatus last week, and we spent more time doing what we do a lot of these days--marveling at how close we live to so many beautiful things.



In fact, it made us wonder if maybe we should both reconsider our feelings on camping--which is that yes, nice idea, but not so comfortable and why not stay in a hotel? We are both thinking that maybe with the right air mattress, it would be fun to camp out near some of the beautiful places that we've been checking out recently. But on the other hand, camping equipment is quite expensive, and we don't know if we would like it, so I'm not quite sure how we can find out if it would be a worthwhile investment for us.

Regardless of the day trip status of the excursion, it was lovely, and made us feel totally justified in having no plans whatsoever yesterday. And in fact, we made good use of our lazy morning when our vacuum cleaner crapped out on us and we started researching a new one. Our current vacuum is actually perfectly functional, but it can't quite keep up with the dog hair, and is no longer able to do a good job on rugs and carpets. Plus, it needs to be emptied after every room, which is a pain in the ass. So maybe we can sell it on Craigslist to someone who doesn't own a dog?

Our research showed that the Dyson Ball Animal is pretty much the best vacuum cleaner for what we need, but it retails for a whopping $550. We thought about buying it at Sears, where it was on sale for $465 and where we have a gift card that would have helped defray the cost, but it still would have been $400, which is pretty outrageous.

Then Torsten remembered that we have $250 in gift cards to Macy's, gotten as a lease signing bonus in our last apartment. So we checked, and the website showed the vacuum cleaner on sale for $500. So we called to find out if they had it in any stores. They didn't, but we were able to order it over the phone in order to avoid paying shipping--AND the in-store sale price was $400 instead of $500. PLUS we had some credit on our Macy's card from an earlier return.

So, after tax and gift cards and everything else, we ended up getting the vacuum cleaner for a grand total of $165. I still can't get over what a good deal it was. AND, as a bonus? It's PURPLE.


I KNOW. I can't get over it either. I'm still slightly suspicious that the vacuum cleaner that shows up at our door in a few days will not be the right one, because it is pretty much impossible to find this vacuum cleaner for under $450.

But the most amazing part is that this incredible steal didn't even turn out to be the best part of the day! Because guess who sent an email saying that she was going to be in town last-minute and did we want to meet up? Artemisia! She is one of the first blogs I ever read, and I absolutely love her. And of course, to nobody's surprise, she is even MORE awesome in person. Seriously, so fun and smart and sweet and interesting. And the same goes for A. Seriously, both SO nice. I feel lucky to live near them, if two hours away qualifies as "near," and am already campaigning to get them to move to Denver so that this whole "near" thing will be for real. (Plus, the two of them are both gorgeous.)

So, yeah. One of those weekends that just kept getting better and better, and definitely saved the best for last. PLUS, despite everything else that was going on, we managed to get to the gym this weekend, TWICE. It's like we're superheroes or something.

Breaking out of the mold

I've been thinking a lot about social norms recently, and what sorts of expectations we project on our children from the time that they're born, or even before. I think the clearest one here is gender norms: we pick names, decor, clothing, toys, etc. based on the sex of our child. That doesn't mean we aren't open to our children expressing their gender in varied ways... but we certainly do start pushing them into a particular box from birth, based on their sex.

There's a couple in Sweden who haven't revealed the sex of their child to anyone except a few close friends and relatives who have changed the child's diaper. (See more takes on this here, here, and here.) They call their child Pop and while they are raising Pop outside of a specific gender box, they do assume that Pop will eventually choose one side of the gender binary--and they're probably right, given how deeply ingrained gender and sex are in our culture.

I can see why they're doing this, although we won't be doing the same thing with our own children. I agree that our society is overly gendered and that it shouldn't take as much work and hardship as it does to express a gender identity other than the one that you are assigned at birth. But I also don't like androgynous names very much, and know that we will choose decidedly gendered names for our own children. If we have a girl, we won't go crazy with the pink--but certainly I would pick more purple clothes for a daughter than I would for a son.

However, if I have a son who wants to wear purple, or doesn't want to be considered a son--that's fine. I guess my approach will be to assume that, like most people, when our kids are small they will be fine with whatever gender. And as they get older, if they prefer a gender other than the one we've assigned to them, I want them to know that we'll be open to that. If I have a son and he wants to wear dresses, I will definitely be OK with that. And if it goes further than clothing choices, that's fine too.

I guess what I want is for my kids to know that even though we started off by putting them in what seemed like the most logical gender box, they don't have to stay there. I don't necessarily want them to think that there are default options for everything, and if they choose something other than that, it has to be a big, shocking deal.

As another example, if we have a child who is gay, I don't want them to feel like they have to "come out" to us. I don't want to assume that our kids will have an opposite-sex partner, and that if they choose otherwise, they have to break the news to us as this big deal. I want them to always know that whatever choices they make and whatever categories they think they do or do not fit into, that's OK with us.

I guess my point is that I don't want them to feel like there's a mold they're supposed to fit into. But I also don't want to saddle them with something that will make them stand out unnecessarily in their childhoods. I want to accommodate the preconceptions of our society without necessarily buying into all of them. I wonder if that's even possible.

What about you? Do you expect your child to grow up with a certain gender? What would you do if your child rejected the gender that you had assigned to them?

I heart the gym

Yesterday was a weight-focused day in blogland for me. I wrote here about body comparisons, and then I wrote over at Bodies about why I don't tell anyone my weight.

And then I went to the gym and swam for an hour, as usual. And my arms were extra sore because the night before that in water aerobics, we used weights for almost the whole time. And I felt really good after.

And this is period week for me. And yet, again, no PMS, and I've lost 2 pounds so far this week. This whole exercise thing is fabulous. And I've reached the point where I actually miss the gym if I don't go. Not that I love it when I'm in the middle of it--though swimming is by far the most tolerable form of exercise I've ever found--but it feels so good after, and on days when I don't go, I feel heavy and slow-moving.

I'm definitely thinner, not just in pounds lost but in inches and in the way clothes fit. Only a few weeks ago I started wearing a pair of jeans that had previously been too tight. Now they're too loose, and I can pull them off without unbuttoning or unzipping them. I can feel muscles, especially in my arms but really everywhere, that just weren't there before. I have more stamina. I've gone from swimming 40 laps in an hour to swimming 60. And this no PMS thing is one of the best perks of all.

So, yeah. The gym = great, and totally, totally worth it.

I'm still not sharing my weight, though.

Bodies vs. bodies

Last night in water aerobics class, I realized something: I do not have an accurate concept of my own body size. And, as a result, I do constant comparisons with other women.

This realization came about when I looked at this one woman in the class who is really very large, and then I thought to myself, Really, she's not much bigger than me. And then I wondered if that was true. She was in a bathing suit, so it was fairly easy to compare. So I looked at her for a little while and assessed that in fact, yes, she is a fair amount larger than me. Every body part of her is bigger than the same body part on me. And yet, when I looked at her I assumed that we were the same size. That's a problem.

But more importantly, why am I even comparing? Why am I examining this woman intently to decide who is larger? Why do I need to know? Why does it matter? Why do I feel better if I ultimately determine that I am not the larger person?

I didn't have weight-loss surgery so that I could be thinner in comparison to other people. Sure, I look forward to fitting easily into all seats, no matter how narrow. And being able to wear clothes that aren't available in plus sizes. And a million other things that come along with being thin, or at least not fat, and yet aren't related to health.

But the main reason I had this surgery was for my health, and for my own sanity. So that I wouldn't spend the rest of my life constantly obsessing over my weight and doing unhealthy things to my body because of it. So that I wouldn't have to worry about diabetes, and high cholesterol, and high-risk pregnancy. I did it for me.

So why am I looking at other women, trying to decide who's fatter? Why do I have this constant need to compare?

I think part of it is that we have this societal set-up that there is a correct weight, a good weight range, and anyone whose weight falls outside of that range, and specifically ABOVE that weight range, is not good. We make being thin the holy grail, the thing everyone aspires to, and we set it up as this virtue. If you're thin, it's because you DESERVE to be thin. Being thin means that you are strong, and beautiful, and that you have self-control.

And in order to believe all these good things about being thin, we have to set up its opposite as not good. Which means that Fat is Bad. Therefore, overweight people? They must have emotional or psychological problems that cause them to overeat. They must have no willpower whatsoever. They must be weak and lazy and greedy. Because if being thin implies that you are NOT those things, then necessarily, being fat implies that you are.

Which, first of all, not all fat people are fat because they have no self-control and overeat compulsively. And some compulsive overeaters are at a perfectly healthy weight.

But here's my question. Say I were a compulsive overeater with no self-control, and I had surgery to correct that. What would be WRONG with that? Nothing at all, right? Nobody makes perfect choices and everyone has flaws, some of which are dangerous. Even if I were a compulsive overeater, I shouldn't feel GUILTY about liking to eat. I should recognize that it would be causing me health problems, and that perhaps there were some underlying emotional issues that I needed to deal with, and I should work to fix those things. But eating too much doesn't make you a bad person.

And yet, we as a society act as though it does. We set up these categories and we beat ourselves up if we don't fall into the premium category, the creme de la creme, the thin category. We apply these negative feelings about our own body size to every other area of our life. And we use such negative words to talk about our food and exercise choices: I was bad. I was lazy. I was unmotivated. I was wrong. I was a sloth. I am a whale.

And then, how do we make ourselves feel better after we've told ourselves all these horrible things? Well, there might be thinner people, and by virtue of being thinner they are clearly also stronger, better, and more deserving... but there are also fatter people. And that means that those people are weaker, worse, and less deserving.

Even if you don't articulate it like that. Even if you are horrified at the very thought of ever looking at someone fatter than you and thinking bad things about them because of their size. Subtly, subconsciously, those thoughts are there. You compare, and if you come out smaller, you win some kind of unacknowledged battle.

But as long as we keep comparing ourselves to each other, we'll never win the war.

Doggy injury

So, the reason that you didn't see Montana in that photo of us at the top of Pikes Peak is that she wasn't there. Shocking, I know! But seriously, we would normally take her with us on an outdoorsy excursion like that. And in fact, when we left the house without her, she was very upset.

But there was a reason we didn't take her with us, and it's that she seems to have somehow injured herself last Friday. Torsten was out of town, and I wasn't working, and she was acting antsy, so I decided to take her out to the state park that has an off-leash dog area with a pond for the dogs to swim. Everything was fine and I didn't notice any problems with her at all.

When we got home, I left her in the backyard and went to the gym. And when I got back a couple hours later, her foot was bleeding. I didn't think much of it, assuming she had cut herself on a rock or something. She didn't really want me to touch it, and it stopped bleeding on its own, so I figured it wasn't a big deal and left it alone.

But later, when I checked, I discovered that she was missing an entire toenail. Seriously, the whole thing is gone. I'm no detective, but given that the blood starts in a big patch in the middle of the patio, in one of her favorite spots to lie, and then is tracked in bloody paw prints in only one direction, I've developed a theory. I think she tore her nail or something while we were at the park, and then while she was in the yard she chewed on it and somehow yanked it out.

Anyway, when I saw this, I called the vet and they told me that as long as she didn't appear to be in severe pain (and she wasn't), and it wasn't still bleeding (and it didn't), I didn't need to bring it in, but instead I should just clean it, bandage it to keep her from licking, and keep an eye on it to make sure it didn't become infected.

Of COURSE Torsten was out of town when this happened, because it's so easy to clean a sensitive wound on a dog by yourself, you know? But I managed it. I cleaned it with soap and water, then with peroxide (which she did NOT like, but it was necessary to kill any bacteria that might have gotten in there). Then I put Neosporin on it (again: she was not a fan) and bandaged it up by putting an old sock on her and attaching it with medical tape. That, too, she was NOT pleased with.

In fact, I think the bandage exacerbated it. Without it, she wasn't even limping, but with it, she was actually hopping on three legs, and when we took it off later, it had blood on it. I think it must have been pressed against the wound, irritating it. So we stopped using it once we got home and could keep an eye on her to make sure she wasn't licking it.

But yeah. No big deal, but it did mean that she spent all weekend trapped at home, and we still haven't brought her to the dog park or anything, because we'll afraid she'll reopen the wound somehow while playing, and then it will get infected. I'm not quite sure how long to wait to take her back there. And in the meantime, the poor dog is house-bound and not happy about it.

In fact, when we got home on Saturday night to feed her before heading back out to the concert, she was PISSED that we were leaving her again. I guess she's not used to being alone for that long, since we work from home and often take her with us when we go places. But it took us forever to put her back in the yard, because every time we would start to close the door, she would come dashing back in the house. And by "dashing" I mean "hopping on three legs as fast as she could."

Really, it was adorable. But I didn't take any pictures or videos, tragically. It just seemed cruel when she was clearly so unhappy. So instead, I leave you with a photo of her from back in the day when she had all her toenails:

Pikes Peak

On Saturday, kind of on a whim, Torsten and I decided to spend the afternoon in Colorado Springs, which is about an hour south of Denver. We'd heard that it was gorgeous there, so we picked a brewery to have lunch at, typed the address into our GPS, hopped in the car, and went. I love how easy things are with a GPS.

After lunch we stopped at the visitors' bureau in search of advice on where to go to see pretty things, and that's when we realized that we were right by Pikes Peak. There's a train that goes right up the side of it, and we wanted to do that, but apparently it takes over three hours round trip, and we had to be back in Denver that night for a concert. So, we decided to drive, since that only takes two hours round trip.

I was driving, because Torsten had had a beer with lunch, and that kind of sucked for me, because it was a scary road and not the type where you can take in the scenery as you drive, you know? But luckily, there were lots of places to pull off the road and get out of the car to admire the view and take photos. So I still got to enjoy myself.

But OMG, let's talk about the ROAD a little more. It's 19 miles to the top, and during those 19 miles you ascend from about 7,000 feet to just over 14,000 feet. To do this, you take 150 turns, 50 of which are classified as "hairpin turns," according to the nice woman at the visitors' bureau.

So, yeah, hairpin turns on the side of a mountain would be bad enough, but you guys, whoever built these roads? Had apparently never heard of GUARDRAILS. Or, really, road shoulders. Seriously, you're driving, and just off to the side of you is the side of the mountain, just WAITING for you to plunge to your death. I'm not even scared of heights, but... I don't know, the four guardrails that they've installed on the four scariest curves just aren't enough to cut it, in my opinion. Plus, you can drive as well as you want to, but what if someone going the other way ISN'T driving well? All you need is for them to veer onto your side of the road and you're a goner.

Seriously, in case you don't believe me, check out this road:




AND, on the way down, you have to drive in 1st gear, even if you're in an automatic, AND they stop you partway down and measure your brake temperature to make sure that your brakes aren't going to fail further down the mountain, killing you and possibly people in cars near you. Charming, huh?

Still, it was worth it for the view. I GUESS. (Full set here.)