I've been thinking about:

1. Imogene. It's one week and two days away and my prospects are bleak. Busy summer means not a lot of training means ohmygoodnessI'mprobablygoingtodieonamountaininColorado.

2. Wow, I didn't blog the entire month of August.

3. Holy cow, it is already September.

4. Holy cow, the weather is already turning cold.

5. Holy cow, my baby started second grade two weeks ago and he's brilliant.

6. I can't believe how attached I am to my dog. I expected to feel some mild affection for him, enough to tolerate all the necessary dog care, but I really thought my affection would be more of an off-shoot of Garion's affection. Not so. He follows me around everywhere I go and sleeps on my feet and I can no longer imagine life without a dog. 6 months--that's all it took.

7. My neighbors have chickens. Based on my understanding of the zoning ordinances and my extensive knowledge of chicken physiology, they are Outlaw Chickens. I can see them from my office window and hear them clucking around all day and I am COMPLETELY jealous. Maybe I will just get chickens and not tell Moses, and, probably, he wouldn't even notice. I'd keep them on the side of the house where he never goes and when they cluck and squawk, I will just blame the noise on the neighbor's chickens!

8. Last weekend we went camping with good friends and I absolutely love having friends who understand the very important skill of social reading--sitting around in proximity to other people while reading and not having to engage in conversation because it is not necessary to talk all the time.

9. Despite a ridiculously late start, I managed to grow tomatoes this year. Yay!! I cannot make them turn red. Boo!!

10. I am reading a book to Garion in which the main character pseudo-swears by saying "brussel sprouts!" I like this. I am going to adopt this.

11. Brussel sprouts! I'm only a couple of months away from 35 and therefore only 5 years away from 40 and, brussel sprouts!, this life thing is going too fast and I would like my money back please.

In Which I Confess a Newfound Affinity for Country Music

Last weekend my little family and I sojourned down to Tucson to help my grandmother celebrate her 80th birthday. We had a nice visit with my family and Moses's sister and hit a couple of our favorite spots in Tucson: Blue Willow for breakfast and Sabino Canyon for a Saturday morning stretch of the legs. Sabino turned out to be a bust because the boy was sleep-deprived, cranky, and not in the mood for walking (I'm talking about Garion here, although the description applies to Moses too except that Moses was in the mood for walking, so we had a nice little scene on the Sabino Canyon trail). Anyway, as we were driving around Tucson, we had the sense that Tucson is huge. It seemed like we drove, and drove, and drove, and we were still in the city. I mean, really, we drove for twenty minutes to get from our hotel to the restaurant. As Moses pointed out, if we drove twenty minutes from our house in Flagstaff, we'd be halfway to his dad's place, which is out in BFE. I also found myself thoroughly enjoying the temperatures, which were in the mid-60's in the morning and I accordingly took my sweater off. At which Moses fainted with shock and declared the end of the world because hell must have just frozen over. "You're not warm are you?" he said. To which I replied, "no, of course not." But the fact of the matter is, it appears that after a year in Flagstaff I have adapted.

"So," you ask, "what's this got to do with country music?" Well......ahem.... it seems that since moving to Flagstaff I have developed an appreciation of country music. Yes, I find this as mysterious and unfathomable as the rest of you, but there it is. It might have something to do with the fact that the country music station is the only station in town that comes in loud and clear no matter what part of town you're in. I know, that's weird. But Flagstaff is small and next a really big mountain that seems to interfere with radio and the country music station is the only one that has successfully overcome this problem. Now, I feel I need to clarify that this new appreciation does not extend to all country music, there is still a good bit of it which makes me want to pull over to the side of the road and immediately vomit its ooy-gooy, sappy-sweet, cornily-patriotic taste out of my mouth. On the other hand, there's a good bit that I can now sing along to. Lord, help me. Dixie Chicks, Sugarland, and Allison Krauss are my favorites. And, I think I should point out in my own defense that Allison Krauss is really more bluegrass music, which is different. Isn't it? Suspecting that this appreciation may actually be the result of the something in the air up here, I asked my brother (who as a kid hated country music as much as I did) if he listens to country. He does. Ha! It's not just me. But he also said that it's required in Williams (where he lives) and that if you don't listen to it, the pick-up-truck-with-a-gun-rack-posse comes after you. Hmmm. Regardless, you have to admit this is a pretty darn catchy song.* And the air is thinner up here. It's not my fault.

*You might have to click play at the top of the page to hear the song. Just to be clear, the song I'm referencing is "It Happens." I don't know how long that song will be playing on their website, so if you go there and it's a different, not-at-all-catchy tune, you'll know I'm not completely off my rocker.

Tagged

It seems that whenever there is a lull in my blogging, I get a little something from Stacy along the lines of, "dude are you ever going to blog again?" This time she tagged me with a game where you post the sixth photo in the sixth folder on your computer. Then you tag five more blogs. That's my photo up above. It was taken in February 2005 at Organ Pipe National Monument. Garion was two-years-old. I forgot how little he was. Sniff. Anyway, there it is.

I tag:
Grumpator
Nightshade Kittytoes
Steamed Puddings
Barbara (sorry Barbara, I forgot the name of your blog, I could look it up but then, you know, I'd have to look it up)
and G&D Discuss Science.

Look, I know exactly five other people who write blogs! Not counting Stacy, because she tagged me and it seems silly to re-tag; I already saw her picture.

Really?

I picked this little quiz up off of Grumpator's my space blog and these were my results:

Star Wars Horoscope for Scorpio

You are a powerful character. You tend to be possessive and lusty - which explains your greedy nature. You feel threatened when people try to order you around or control you. You are prone to suspicion and jealousy - but your resilience and passion get you what you want. Star wars character you are most like: Han Solo

What Is Your Star Wars Horoscope?

I'd like to think of myself as a Han Solo type of person, but I don't know about that possessive, lusty, and greedy stuff. Maybe I'm just in denial.