Friday, April 23, 2010

Off to Tahoe


Paternal relations
Originally uploaded by suzipaw
So I had a fun time last weekend at the shower for baby Sophia, but it went by too fast. I miss my brothers and their families very much.

Work continues to be stressful but I took yesterday and today off to hopefully tame that stress a bit. I see that I already have 639 unread email messages, and all of Friday lies ahead, argh. But...that will just have to wait. I had a lovely time relaxing and puttering and meeting M for lunch yesterday and want to replicate that for the next three days.

I guess there's still snow in Tahoe so I'm a little nervous about driving. The speedometer in the Monster Mobile is misbehaving, adding to the week's stress. I mentioned to one of our regular fellow-dog walkers yesterday that I was going to Tahoe, and his advice was to be sure to fill up the tank with gas as soon as I arrived, so that if we lost all of our money gambling we'd be able to get home. I think he still dwells in the pre-credit card mindset. But that might make for a good story, wouldn't it?

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Away for the Night

I write to you from Santa Clara, bad TV and Silicon Valley traffic noise in the background, the stressful week and pleasant weekend activities fading into the past. But before it goes:

M had knee surgery on Tuesday. It went well--as well as surgery can go--and thank goodness he's now on the road to recovery. It's a bit like sleeping with Frankenstein, between the cpap machine and the little cooler-like contraption that circulates ice water to a wrap around his knee. I took part of the day off on Friday and we met with the surgeon for a follow-up. We were treated to photos of the inside of his knee joint. Eew. We went out to dinner on Saturday and afterwards took a stroll around the block to the cupcake shoppe for dessert and thence to peruse the stacks in the used bookstore, and that pretty much wiped him out. But, he's getting stronger, slowly spending more time back at the office.

On Saturday I abandoned my invalid to spend much of the day with a dear friend, her daughter and niece, wandering the radiant Cartier exhibit at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. There was SO much jewelry on display, case after case, a bling binge--decades of diamonds designed for duchesses, sparkling stomachers, glittering gilded 'gator necklaces done for a Mexican actress, Grace Kelly's 10 carat engagement ring. I didn't realize that it was Cartier who pioneered the use of platinum rather than silver and that apparently the practice of American heiresses snagging titled British husbands was pretty common, not just fiction from Edith Wharton. Thank goodness there are museums to pass on this kind of learning.

It somehow ended up being a very spendy weekend. I think I've been pretty good about reining in the spending lately, but fell off the wagon. I was interrupted from an email reverie on Friday by two young men ostensibly selling magazines, ostensibly for an educational trip to Germany and they managed to finagle $40 out of my wallet. They really had an impressive sales spiel. I somehow found myself at Ross later that afternoon and clothing somehow ended up in a shopping bag that belonged to me. On Saturday, it wasn't just the trip down to the City that I spent hard-earned ducats on--in a fit of magnanimity, I became a member of the Legion of Honor, and of course there was the audio tour and lunch in the gourmet museum restaurant. And on the way home, I stopped at a high-end mall to finally buy one nice small area rug at Pottery Barn but shopping bags branded Williams Sonoma and Anthropologie also managed to hang from my arm like bracelets as I headed back out to the parking lot.

Time to call the husband and curl up (sadly) mutt-free under the covers. Glad to be going home tomorrow.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Rainy Easter


Owie knee
Originally uploaded by suzipaw
Just got back from walking the dog in the deluge. It was fun being out in such a downpour--for the first three minutes. We were both grateful for the activity, however brief and chilly. And Rex smells better for it. It's been a pretty cozy but sedentary weekend. The most notable thing from yesterday was a great blue heron that warily followed Rex and me on our walk. A striking feathered beast, almost four feet tall--I think it was curious about us too. Rex finally couldn't take it anymore and half-heartedly charged it, forcing it to flap up and glide away just far enough that Rex couldn't follow. It wasn't there today, unfortunately.

M's knee injury is the big news around these parts. He overdid it at they gym last week and hurt his "good" knee--he had to be carried out by an ambulance crew it was so painful. He went to the ER, then to his regular physician, then to an orthopedist, and got his first of two MRIs last week. Another MRI happens Tuesday, and surgery at some point next week. The sooner the better, we have that trip to Tahoe planned at the end of the month and he needs to be mobile for that walk over the state line to the casino. On the bright side, he's pretty entertaining when loopy on ye olde vicodin. Apparently, the orthopedist has "the good stuff."

Adding to last week's excitement, as I was driving to work Thursday morning, I didn't even make it to the office before the monster mobile decided it needed some quality time with the mechanic. I had felt something funky with the engine during the drive home from San Jose the night before and frankly was grateful it hadn't strand me in the dark, rainy south bay. I had a big meeting in the City that afternoon, and ended up taking the bus into the SF to attend and driving home with my boss (no way I was driving M's rattly deathtrap stick-shift there). Thank goodness there was a break in all the rain that day--I just picked a street corner upon which to debark the bus and it took a few minutes before I could grab a cab to the meeting.

I got the Cadillac back Friday afternoon, but even that had a scoche of drama. The bill was a less than I thought, but my malaprop-ly voluble mechanic complained not once but twice about the crappy spark plugs that "someone" had put in last time. I didn't say anything, but--of course--he was the one who had replaced them. When I got home, I dug out the bill from three years ago and--of course--he had charged me for the swanky plugs. That made me sad. In the main, I think he charges a reasonable amount, and the shop is close to my house, so he often picks me up and drops me off when M can't--as he couldn't last week. Wondering if I should call him on it. Or find another mechanic. Or just let that sleeping grease monkey lie.

Happy National Poetry Month!

Friday, April 02, 2010

At Our Conference on Wednesday

...in San Jose. I didn't stay the night. Remind me not to look so old and tired next time!