Freakin' FREEZING!

Was my weekend in Boulder. With the weather outside some number of degrees below zero, my DDD's apartment had a broken furnace. My first night there was spent in a double bed, huddled with my daughter in an effort to stay sort of warm. My nose was kept under the covers so that the cold air would stop waking me up. JJJJEEEEZZZ, it was cold. Both roommate and mother (me) called the property management people in the morning to get them the hell out there! They finally delivered two space heaters, neither of which worked. Then one industrial strength space heater showed up, shortly AFTER the power came back on after an hour or so of an outage. This, strangely, bolstered our feelings that things were starting to look up and that our luck wasn't ALL bad. The carpenter covering for the property management people did manage to get the pilot lit and the furnace to stay on, but the apartment smelled so strongly of gas that I did not think we could stay the night. Fortunately, it dissipated enough by evening that we were all right. They are still not allowed to close the door to the heater.

The good news was that both Friday and Saturday night audiences really loved The Learned Ladies! DDD played Armande, and has proven herself pretty darn adept at this acting gig she's pursuing. She's got a nice flair for comedy, and has always been pretty striking on stage. She got these nice big, beautiful eyes (the rest of her's pretty good too). The costumes were very unique and striking, and while the set was simple, it was utilized very well. I was impressed. Unfortunately, her grandparents and aunt came to the Sunday matinee where the audience was just plain dead! What a difference a lively audience makes - the actors play off the audience reaction, which of course, gets the audience rewarded with even more enjoyable moments! Remember that, people, next time you are in an audience! Laugh it up! Enjoy! Appreciate! (unless it's a serious or sad drama, of course...) Let 'em know you're there!

So the double edge sword here is that when I go out to visit DDD while she's in a show, we don't get to spend a ton of time together, which is sad; but then, I get to see her in her element, which is just wonderful. We did manage some shopping time so she could replace her cold toes boots with something a little more appropriate. She always gets a few little goodies as well - a nice dinner or two, a tank of gas, some windshield wipers and the like. Being the good little credit card holders we are, we oblige these little luxuries. The sad part is that I realize just how much I really like her company and how much I've missed her these last 3 1/2 years.

My little great-niece had her second birthday while I was there as well - it was SO fun to see her and her little baby brother! Two little blondies - Adam still looks bald (he's only 3 months old, so duh...) and Nina still has just a little bit of hair, but it's in cute little curls at the nape of her neck. I just wanted to eat her up! I didn't get nearly enough of a baby fix, though, so I'm just going to have to go borrow my nephews a little this weekend. Can't believe littlest nephew is going to be a year old in a couple of weeks. It's gone by so fast...

So, for those of you bugging me to tell you how the weekend was - it was great, it was freakin' freezing, and it wasn't (and never is) long enough. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

template changes

Why the heck am I so inept at this stuff? I've been experimenting with trying to change my very old template with something I really liked, but then I lose stuff, it gets rearranged or just plain looks ugly. I'm generally pretty good at picking up on things, but this and photoshop elements has me looking for something other than a computer to work on.

In the meantime, as most of you who read this blog already know, my sister, Lunasea had a freak accident a week or so ago playing with her 3 year old which gave her a pretty significant head injury and landed her in the hospital for 3 days. Scared the bejeezus out of us. I got to spend the weekend with my nephews, which I love, but that is just not the best way to do it! I had planned to spend that weekend gathering and preparing stuff for Li'l K's birthday party, but I played with them instead.

Strangely enough, her birthday party came off pretty darn well in spite of all that. We had an "old fashioned" birthday party, at our home, with a music theme. We made shakers out of little playdoh containers and jingle bells with tongue depressors and bells, natch. And then had a marching band. We sang some songs (I played the guitar), played musical chairs (let me tell you, that is fun when your participants range in age from 2 - 8, with the majority being 3), ate some pizza and later, cupcakes. I had both my camera and the video camera out and available, but my DH completely missed the hint and I was a little too busy to remind him to pick one or both of them up and take some damn pictures!!! Good news - injured sister felt good enough to drive oldest nephew to the party and was snapping pictures here and there. THANK YOU!!!

Anyway, I was downright surprised at the comments about it. Many parents thought I should go into the birthday party business (can you say INSANE with me?). omg.

I made the mistake of telling LK that there wasn't enough time left in the party to open her presents (besides, how boring is THAT for kids???) so she decided she'd help everyone to leave. She suggested (nicely - sort of) that gee, she would get to open her presents after everyone left, so could everyone please leave now? Her message eventually got across to the minions and she was left to open gift after gift. And some very cool things she got! Clothes even! I never think to get clothes for kids - except, I suppose my own family and extended family. She really liked them, though!

My nephew told his mother that we have a beautiful bath tub. I hadn't exactly looked at it quite that way before. And when he spent the weekend here, I don't think he felt the same way about it - he really wanted to wash his hands in the kitchen instead of the bathtub and wasn't very happy about my insistence that I wasn't leaving the other two naked kids in the bathtub to go wash his hands in the kitchen. It was almost a melt-down moment, but he pretty much pulled it together. He's a trooper.

Other news: re: previous post, the timeline was changed again. Let's see, that first one came out on a Thursday, and by Monday, we had a new one. This one has our sites going live 9/2007. A pretty big jump from 2009. The clinical people are jumping for joy, the IT folks are freaked out! There's a lot to be done before then... But I'm not totally believing this timeline, as it only took them what, 3 days to change it this last time? I'm not holding my breath. This whole saga is going to need a whole new blog. But no - I can't figure out how to make time for this one! But suffice it to say at last count, I occupy 4 different positions. Simultaneously. One of them will have to win, but I just don't know what it will be. Some counts have 19 people reporting to me, some more, some less.

whatever...

New and exciting - I'm heading out to Boulder to see The Learned Ladies, starring (among others) my dear darling (and oldest) daughter. Leaving Friday - back Monday. FUN! FUN! FUN! She says the audiences have really enjoyed it and that it's really a fun production. Can't wait. After this closes, she goes straight into Richard III, her last production in her undergrad career. Letcha know how it goes next week.

3 yr old hide n seek

LK: OK, now you hide. Right here.
DH: OK. You count.
LK: One, two, three,..... fourteen, fourteen, sixteen, here I come.

2-3 seconds pass

LK: HA! I find you! OK, let's do it again, You hide. Right here.