WHOOMP

I love natalie dee! And purple hippos, of course. Her drawing today, 8/13/07.

And this clip that Annie sent to me is enough to make me want to go work at the zoo and feed baby hippopotami carrots all day!

Senor and Ryan Adams

Last week I got to see Ryan Adams twice, at the Fox in Boulder on Thursday, the 2nd, and at Red Rocks on Friday, the 3rd. This was an especially fantastic time because Andy and Miriam were visiting from So.Dak, and because these were the first times I saw Ryan Adams live! The show in Boulder was amazing and Ryan and the Cardinals sounded great, but the highlight was probably hearing him sing "Dear Chicago" at Red Rocks.

Notice we did some tailgating beforehand and Senor climbed the Red Rocks.
Miriam and I enjoyed some Budweiser, whiskey Nalgene, and Hard Salami.

And Bridget was super excited for the show, too!

As was Kentucky Bridget and Laura!

And of course Kate's boys, Michael, Adam, and Senor and I all had a great time!

Hip to the hippo and Monkeys on planes!

Most of you know that I do love hippos. My older brother was awesome enough to send me the video below. It tells the story of a couple in South Africa that have a pet hippo. I kid you not, dear friends. Her name is Jessica. For your viewing enjoyment.

I also hope one day to have a Monkey Farm with my friend Tiffanie. She sent me this very interesting article yesterday about a man who snuck a monkey from Peru to New York on a plane, under his hat. Ingenius!

To the Estes Festiveness

To continue documenting my weekend adventures of late playing the role of "me-sooooo-outdoorsy" woman, I went camping a few weeks ago near Estes park with many Denver/Boulder friends. Ashley was our fearless and super fabulously, super-organized, organizer. Though Annie and I arrived and met Ashley in the pouring rain where we ate entirely too many Cool Ranch Doritos in the car for an hour, the rain did subside and we had something like a 14 person and 1 dog camping/hiking crew.

I don't own my own camp stove, but luckily, John does, so we were able to fire up some meannnn cheese tortellini and sauce, as shown in the picture below. We are also displaying our talent for combining pink, red, and orange and making that color combination WORK!


Though it rained a lot that night, the next day was pretty nice and cool for our hike on a trail that Ashley had helped create a few years back. Jayden and Senor both made it to the summit. The last picture is from the bottom of the hike and shows the mountainy mountain we climbed. Good times! Beer was had, of course, after this hike as well. Then it was back to Denver to become urban again, and take a shower. After all, there's only so much outdoorsy in me.

Tres hermanas

So, the summer hiking season continues. For those of you here in Colorado, you know I am not Hard Core with the hiking, but I will let all of you out-of-towners think that I am :)

I do have PLENTY of friends that are hard core hikers though, don't be mistaken. The only time I get called hard core is for my tendency to favor a good bourbon, and in that case, I digress.

At any rate, I did a hike a week after Shavano 14er called Three Sisters in Evergreen, CO. This is a very pretty hike, albeit rather leisurely. Annie, Lloyd, their pup Yuki, Chris, his dog Diablo, Elizabeth, Laura, Ashley, Randy, baby Cozy, and Randy and Annie's pups Bijou and Boudin all made the trek.


As you can tell, though not particularly strenuous, Bijou especially found solitude in the water when we took a break. For some odd reason, I forgot to take pix of us having post-hike beers and bacon, but rest assured, we certainly did!

Watch a video of the pups in some mountain water!

woo hoo!

Sh-sh-sh-Shavano

At the beginning of the summer, I had plans to do at least two, possibly three 14ers. But, now that we are into August, I must admit that I will likely just have 1 "bagged."

Kate, Stacy, John, Maggie, Justin, Steph, Trav and little Jayden made the trip down near Buena Vista and Salida on July 14th and camped the night before we slimbed Shavano 14er.

Even though I forgot my bear bell, the bears did stay away while we camped, and we hiked it up on Sunday. Took me 7 hours roundtrip, and according to my heart rate monitor, I burned something like 3,000 calories.

As you can tell from the pix, our campsite was surrounded by Aspens, and very pretty.

Also, I needed to take a little time out at about 13,800 feet. Notice my fashionable hiking attire.
There was a marmot on top of the summit when we arrived, and the flowers were super super beautiful. Oh yes, I had a PBR when we finished as well, of course.

7-11-07

OK, so I meant to post this LAST Wednesday, on the official 7/11/07, but I lost my camera USB cable and I am Sooooooooooo outta touch.

Anyways, I hope you all headed to your closest 7-11 on 7-11-07 and had your FREE SLURPEE! Oh yes, the buzz on the street was TRUE! Sadly, they would only give me a small, 7 ouncer, but it was Wild Cherry and it was DELICIOUS! So DELICIOUS in fact that I felt the need to use ALL CAPS back there. hahaha.

I don't think I have ever actually bought a slurpee at 7-11, but I have been known to buy my share of Big Gulps back in the day. I almost bought a couple Taquitos for breakfast two days ago, but I resisted.

Cheers to the slurpee!

to the yukon

Today, I leave for my yukon adventure. It should be fantastic! Yay for vacations, all around!!!

I hope to relay stories to you all of drinking whiskey with bearded northern men, and hopefully no stories of encounters with bears.

Here, a picture of me and Senor Numero Dos. Yes, he is my traveling partner, as always!

Cowabunga, dudes

HAHAHAH. This is so awesome, one in D-Town, one in H-town, Peeps and I both like to hang out with the Simpsons!

Though I had popcorn with Homer as you can see, so we are WAYYYY tighter.

If you haven't seen "Knocked Up" yet go see it! Also the soundtrack is good, "Strange Weirdos" by Loudon Wainwright III.

Travel Buddy!

I stole this from Lizzie's blog--very fun! I've got a lot more places to go yet, that's for sure!

All married up

Stacy got married! There was flair, of course. I was the reverend, and it was quite the great day! Picture to the left are Karoline, Kate, Julia, Me and the bride with the sequin cape.

There are many more pix too, of course!

the long winters and stand-alones

I have a strange but deep appreciation for a good, non-creepy stand-alone mustache.

Last night going to the Bluebird to see The Long Winters, The Broken West and Stars of Track and Field, I witnessed a grand stand-alone.

The lead singer of The Long Winters (John I found out from Bridget and from the band's website), had a somehwat stand alone, but it was thick and red and awesome, so even though he also had a little stubble, it still qualifies as a stand-alone. On the other hand, the main keyboardist for Man Man, who I saw Monday night in Boulder (see Bridget's review) had a black, thick, scaryish stand-alone. Still awesome, but a little much for my liking.

Regardless, I appreciate the stand-alone.

At any rate, enough about stand-alones. Last night the show was quite fantastic, I'm still in the "I'm-so-happy-from-seeing-a-great-show mood" today. All three bands were great, but The Long Winters were far my favorite. Put-them-in-your-pocket-and-pull-them-out-whenever-you-need-a-lil-pick-me-up favoite types. They played their last song with a few kazoos, they reference purple rain, they talked about the seediness of East Colfax. And they played some great indie-popesque songs. My favorite song, Cinnamon, was also on the Wedding Crashers soundtrack. Hindsight was also a highlight.

I had a great time.

I also found from perusing the band's website that their drummer, Nabil Ayers, is co-owner of Sonic Boom Records, which is Seattle's "it" indie record store, or so I am told. And a friend from Seattle gave me a t-shirt from there last year, so now I am cooler through several degrees of separation.

Check out Bridget's review--hers is great!

Remember there is never enough Purple Rain. Or kazoos.

take me out to the ballgame, hold steady

Thanks much to Bridget for pointing me in the direction of The Hold Steady's take on Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

So fabulous!

Read the interview here and see a clip of them recording the song. If you click the link above you can hear the song.

Yay for bearded men who love the Twins! (That is the dude from the Hold Steady)

I will be in Houston this weekend and will be going to an Astros game, but will likely be wearing my Twins hat. Awww, yeah. And did I mention, 3-0 baby???

Day 2

Baseball opening day was fantastic on Monday--the weather was perfect, the beer was cold and the hot dogs were, well, hot. Only problem was, the Rockies didn't win.

However, when I got home I was elated to find that the Twins game was on ESPN2, and they won, and I love them. And since I see so very few of their games on the tele or in person during the season, unless I pay the bucks at the bar or fly to the cities, it was quite the treat.

Also, yesterday the Rockies won AND the Twins won, again. That makes my Twins 2-0, baby. They are on the way to the AL Central crown fo sho.

I have tix to today's afternoon Rox game but I gotta work instead. So sad! But I will be in Houston this weekend to see the Astros play the Cards, so that should be a grand time indeed.

Opening Day

Today is the best day of the year.

Otherwise know as Opening Day. I love baseball, and I love Colorado, and though I don't love the CO Rockies as much as my Minnesota Twins, I still relish in the fact that I get to go to my fourth opening day in as many years at Coors Field. Not to mention the fact that it will be around 70 degrees today, and I will be wearing my Choo Freeman jersey (even though he is now a Dodger, and I think not on the active roster).

I will have a hot dog, I will have a beer, I will sing during the 7th inning stretch, and of course cheer.

Bring on the small ball!

wooooo

There are seriously, never, never, never, never NEVER enough pictures of purple hippopoatami. Or hippopotamus, in this case.
But where is Batman?

3 albums worth giving a listen

Or at least I think so.

I've just been listening to the newMaria Taylor album, Lynn Teeter Flower. (You should be able to listen to the album from that link). Like most first listens, for me I don't listen to the lyrics much, but I love the sound of this album. A shame I will miss her show at the Hi-Dive in Houston on April 6, but if you are in town, I say go. go. go to the Hi-Dive and see her. I saw her months ago put that was pre-Lynn Teeter Flower. I predict a grand showing.

The new and first (I think) Albert Hammond Jr. album (you can listen to it if you follow that link to his MySpace page), Yours to Keep, has also been in the rotation this week. I'm going to check his show out Saturday nite at the Marquis. He's the guitar player from the Strokes, and, dare I say, I like his solo album better than the Strokes stuff, though theirs is good, too, no question, but I like the sound of this Albert fellow.

Last, The Mountain Goats Get Lonely. I've listened to this often since I first heard of it, but it's quite to my liking. Get Lonely is my favorite song, though Wild Sage isn't bad, either.

yadda yadda. that is all.

lalala

So I have been doing things lately, but they mostly involve work, and I often forget my camera, so not a lot of postings going on. However I will try to remedy my ways.

In the meantime, if you are still checking this, and are into music, you should also check Bridget's blog, because she has allll the best local music stuffs on her blog-o-rama.

Cheers for Thursday and no work on Friday!

Thriller Wedding

I have several friends who are getting married this year, beginning this summer in June. I think that those of us attending can think of an even better dance than this one



But this one is pretty awesome. It may be hard to beat.

Put your thinking caps on and dust off those dancing shoes.

Skiing the Beav and Grassing It Up

Kate and I skiied/rode Beaver creek last Saturday (01.20.97). The snow was pretty great, which is a lot to say since it hasn't been the best snow season ever so far. Perhaps the highlight though was meandering through the Ritz Carlton which was at the base of the area of the mountain we were perusing.

The bathroom had no paper towels, only wash clothes, and lotion. It was pretty classy. We proceeded to sit in the fireplace area with the other high-rollers, and discovered a margarita that we could all afford, at a meager $125.00.

Later that night, a bunch of us from our condo headed over to Keystone to Grass It Up with the Grass It Up Bluegrass band. Quite the time was had, indeed.

A few of my favorite pix of the evening include Big Johnny shaking it in the overalls; a dance that appears synchronized with me and a dude from Kansas, but really wasn't at all; the happy sack prize goddesses; and of course the GIU boyz.

More pix are on my ofoto!

Remains

You can listen to the new Alkaline Trio album, Remains, on myspace right now. It's not released until Tuesday:

http://myspace.com/alkalinetrio

I like Alkaline Trio. They make me run faster, very often.

Check it out!

Sappy Song of the Week and Super Bear

Occasionally, I get stuck on a song and like to play it over, and over, and over, and then over again. Usually it is a sappy song. This week, it's Joshua Radin's song "Only You." I think this is a cover. It is pretty, it is simple, and I like it.

You can see him playing it on You Tube here.

Lyrics are here.

Oh Sappy Song of the Week, I love you so hard. Super Bear loves it, too.

Colorado 2008!

Yes, it's true. It was announced today that Denver will be the site for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. So exciting! In years past I used to very interested in politics, having internships in D.C. a few times. I feel the political embers stirring inside me with this announcement. I can picture myself getting caught up in the hype--being in the Pepsi Center as the signs are being waved and the confetti flying. Remnants of past student government and college political science classing stirring?

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Regardless, it is great for Denver and Colorado economically, destined to bring in tourism dollars. And I can't help but be excited that I may be around here then to share in the political rambunctiousness! It's only been 100 years since the last time D-Town hosted a convention, after all.

Merlot Pollo

When I got home from work tonight, I thought it would be a great idea to see what Betty Crocker suggested for dinner, based on what I had in the house.


I tried to make this Chicken Nice dish, but I didn't have most what Betty recommended. So instead of white wine, I used leftover Merlot, and instead of rice, I used a tortilla, and came up with some delightful Merlot Pollo fantastico.



Directions:

• Throw in whatever red wine you have


• Sautee some chicky in that


• Take out the chicky


• Add, red, yellow, and green onions; Red, yellow, and green bell peppers, and some squash from New Year's Eve for good measure


• Throw in some Italian seasoning, and half a jalapeno pepper for good measure


• Toss the chicky back in


• Wrap it in a tortilla and serve!


• and....Voila! Merlot Pollo Fantastico.

It actually tasted quite fantastic, don't hate til you try it darlings.

Vail

On Saturday, Kate, Maggie, Justin and I ventured west on I-70 to ski at Vail. Vail is beautiful, and quickly becoming my favorite place to ski.

We had a beautiful, snow-filled day, and it didn't get unbearably cold until around 2:30 when I thought the left side of my face might fall off. But the right side of my face stilll had an unmistakable glow.

The Holiday

Last night I treated myself to popcorn, Cherry Coke and a movie. The biggest treat was the movie itself--"The Holiday" which I had been hoping to catch since I first saw the previews.

It did not disappoint me.

I'm sure you cynics out there are thinking, it's a cheesy, romantic comedy, chick-flick.

And you'd be right.

But it's also one of those movies that is long (2 hrs 15 min) but doesn't seem long. It makes you smile at the end. And for anyone who's ever fallen hard for someone who really wasn't worth it, it emphasizes you aren't alone, and you are so, sO, SO much better than them, anyway.

Plus, it has Jack Black, who can make you laugh. And Jude Law, who can make you swoon. I now understand what the Jude Law hype's been all about. He looks quite fetching in this film. Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet aren't so bad, either.

The movie made me laugh, made me cry, and was full of pretty people with problems that all meet some level of resolution. After all, that's why we go to the movies, like this, right? For some hope in this crazy, mixed-up world?

In a word, fantastic!

Happy New Year!

It's a new year, thus a revamped blog. Thought I would change it up just a bit.

Here's me in the New Year, celebrating with Senor and a martini.

More to come!

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas

This might be the BEST Christmas song I have EVER heard!

So fabulous. Check it out here, and turn up the volume!

Bacon Tini

My friend Peeps sent me this lil ditty which I find FABULOUS. Please read below

"SOME PIG (from http://www.gochgazette.com/)

I think New York City should change its nickname to the city that never sleeps (cause they are too busy coming up with new trends).

Leave it to the Big Apple to come up with the hottest drink ingredient around, Bacon. The Bacon Martini and the Bacon Bloody Mary are popping up all over the place in NYC.

From Williamsburg to (no surprise) the trendy Meatpacking District, hipsters are going Hog Wild for bacon infused drinks, which have obviously replaced the pomegranate and lychee martinis as the drink du jour.

Just like anything else, what happens in New York, shows up in Vegas.

So next time you are in New York City or on the Vegas (bacon) Strip give this shock-tail a try.

Or if you want to “bring home the bacon” you can infuse a bottle of vodka yourself."

Now I have not tried the Bacon Martini, but of course, I certainly will sometime. So I can't weigh in on it yet, but I hope to soon.

Here is a flickr set from some dude with some comments from people:

And here is a fun NY Post article about the bacon martini and martinis in general (NYC focused, I must admit).

celebrity crush

I have a bit of a celebrity crush on Evan Dando. That may seem very 1995, but I don't care

Check out an interview here complete with acoustic versions of my two favorite lemonheads songs, Outdoor Type and Being Around.

I also like, Confetti. Old, but great.

He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he could've.

The story's getting closer to the end.

He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he could've.

He'd rather be alone than pretend.

She just wanted him to love her but he didn't.

He took to the woods and wandered in it.

Walked along and on until they couldn't.

Stole himself to tell her that he wouldn't.

He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he could've.

The story's getting closer to the end.

He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he could've.

He'd rather be alone than pretend.

She just wanted him to love her but he didn't.

He took to the woods and wandered in it.

Walked along and on until they couldn't.

Stole himself to tell her that he wouldn't.

He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he could've.

The storys getting closer to the end.

He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he could've.

He'd rather be alone than pretend.

Happy musings

I haven't posted anything in awhile, so here are some happy musings as of late:

• GBHR (garbanzo bean, hot raisin, burritos. DELICIOUS)
  
• $1 tacos
  
• Whiskey Fridays, Saturdays and most importantly, Tuesdays
  
• Winning 56 popsicles (half fudgsicles, half grape, thank you very much)
  
• The Keystoner (see above)


• Wendy's Giant Diet Coke I love you so hard (but only, like, once a year)


• Dancing snowmen light blossoms


• The Lemonheads Outdoor Type and Being Around


• Pirates 2, Arrrrrrrrrr


• Spiky tall new heel boots
  
• Frozen peas as ice packs
  
• Shopping Online


• The Flask
  
• Drunk dials and snakes on a

  plane

Whiskey Saturday, I do believe, below