May Chrissy Rest Peacefully...
Losing One Friend But Surrounded by Many
(It's not as long as it looks. There's just a lot of pictures.)
Okay, so it's been a few days, but I'm finally ready to write about it. On Sunday night, I went upstairs to discover Chrissy lying on the basking dock as usual and Janet lying on the floating island. This was a new place to find Janet. She looked so cute with her big, loafy self. So, I took a few photos of Janet and when I went to heart Chrissy, she wasn't moving. I immediately panicked and called for Chisolm. He rushed over and confirmed my biggest fear. Yep.
I couldn’t understand it. I was mortified. I had nursed her back to health and thought she was on the road back to recovery. I would have expected it in her sicker days, while I was giving her injections everyday, but she started eating again and was beginning to look well. Even more unfortunately, I believe Janet has now fallen ill. I was just in the process of upgrading their living situation but to be honest, I don’t know how much longer Janet will be around. She refuses to eat now and is showing similar symptoms. I am very worried and sad. Anyway, I put Chrissy in one of my padded jewelry boxes and gave her a proper burial on the snowy Monday morning.
Speaking of snowy Monday, apparently, it snowed more in my backyard than in the entire state of Colorado put together. Here are some pictures of Vegas enjoying the conditions (scroll through quickly for a flip-book effect):
Also, here's a photo of my snowmen later that evening (that's Chisolm on the right):
Sunday was one long 13-hour day. Actually, more like 4 long 3-hour days. The weather was just starting to get crappy which made it seem like an even longer day. I left the house at 11:30am (I know! I couldn't believe I was even up in a.m., must less leaving the house) to meet my friend Cindy for a 3-hour lunch. We had some things we needed to work out and I’m so glad we did. Afterwards, I stopped by Chris Byrne’s house (of Chris Byrne Custom Cues, he’s my cue sponsor) and picked up the butt of my new cue he had been working on for me. He couldn’t finish the shafts yet due to the humidity. I stayed & visited for a bit. His shop is so cool! It's like an episode of Sesame Street when they visit a plant somewhere and show how they make something. The photos don’t really due it justice. It’s SO beautiful! Cocobolo & Birds Eye w/ Malachite in-lays.
After that, I stopped by Table Steaks to see my friend Megan for bit before she left for the US Open. She was playing in their weekly Sunday night tournament. I stayed there for about 3 hours. After that, Hikle and I were supposed to go have pho & boba but he informed me that he was ill. So, I just stopped at Walgreens to pick him up some Gatorade, Diet 7-Up, and cookies & crackers. I went to his place and hung out for a bit (for, whatelse, approximately 3 hours) before he felt a bit better and I left for Shake’s. I told my friend Emilio earlier than I would stop by Shakespeare’s. So, I paid him & Tom a visit and showed off my new cue. I ended up staying for, you guessed it, 3 hours. Whew! I was pretty exhausted by the time I got home.
Tuesday night, Hikle and I finally met for pho and boba. He was just beginning to regain his appetite from being ill. The roads had completely dried up so I was able to drive “Matt” to pick him up. He barely fit in the car. Tonight, my mom brought over some yummy food so I called Hikle to stop by after work so I could share it with him. YUM-MY!
Chaddie called today to tell what a nerd I am. Yeah! I'm officially obsessed with Sudoku now. Ugh! I was dreaming about it last night! Numbers everywhere... I AM a nerd! Tomorrow, I'm meeting Hatty at the CC Mall to get our rings cleaned before he, Hikle and I have dinner at the CPK. Anyway, great, true friends are more rare than we may think. When we come across them, we should appreciate them.
Night (weekend) of a Million Laughs
Tonight we went to see
Jerry Seinfeld at the
Temple Buell Theatre. Though it was a most enjoyable show, in a completely different way from
Dane Cook, there was a bit of irony to the evening. It was actually somewhat surreal.
Our evening began at the
Appaloosa Grill on 16th street for a lovely dining experience. I had the special "Game of the Week." (It wasn't football or hockey. I'll tell you that much.) It was Elk Medallions with garlic mashed potatoes. Yuuuuuuuummmmmmmmy... Our friends Andy & Caroline joined us for the festivities and Johnny K. joined us for dinner. It was a beautiful evening as we strolled over to the Temple Buell Theatre for the show.
A
very funny
Tom Papa opened the show. I think I'd seen that guy on Leno or something like that before. I really enjoyed his humor. It was clean but clever. He made silly faces, too. He was, by far, much more entertaining than the opening act from last night's show. It was like day & night. We laughed almost as much for Tom as we did for Jerry. (no, that wasn't the irony)
Here it comes...
I discovered this weekend that the only thing worse than standing beside a loud, out-of-tune singer during a rock concert is to be sitting by a loud, delayed laugher during a comedy show. It was almost my worst nightmare & they're everywhere. Last night's laugher at least did not stay for the show. If she had, I'm sure she would've laughed with the rest of the audience.
Tonight, the four of us found ourselves, sitting directly in front of a woman with
THE most loud, unusual, and
DELAYED laugh in history. It sounded like Forrest Gump's mom ate an owl while calling for a train. It was so strange. It was like a constant, "whoo, whoo, whoo..." The laugh alone would not have been as bad if she did not wait until the entire audience was done laughing before she let out her whistlin' tune. The four of us were shocked and amazed at what was happening at first. We couldn't believe our ears. But then, as it consistently continued through the show. It was so tough not to burst out into laughter each time you heard it. You almost came to expect it.
At one point, Jerry made a pool reference in one of his jokes, "I'm stripes. You're solids. Just shoot." I turned to Chisolm for an inside glance and snicker. He looked clueless. Apparently, he explained later that this woman's outrageous, delayed laughter had melted his brain and he was having trouble paying attention. No kidding? We got a good look at the culprit after the show, but it definitely made for a memorable evening we will never forget.
Her whoo-ing and our laughter was so untimely and consistent that the people in front of us were turning around to sneak a peek. I'm sure they were thinking it came from us. We couldn't believe that no one else around us noticed the extraordinary sound. Chisolm feared that Jerry would hear the strange, howling laughter and think it came from us. What a strange encounter.
Oh! And the irony??? We were watching (fusilli) Jerry Seinfeld performing on stage while having our own true "Seinfeld" experience.
"Someone sh*t on the coats!"
Tonight, Chisolm and I had a hot date.
We had tickets to see
Dane Cook, "an inventive comedian and electric performer who has developed a worldwide following." He was hilarious!
First, we had a nice dinner at
Mici, a new trendy, casual italian restaurant on 15th & Stout. It was pretty good. It's only a block from the
Convention Center, where the show was. Afterwards, I made Chisolm do some window shopping with me. We stopped into Barnes & Nobel (where
my book will one day be sold) and I looked through a book on
Sudoku.
Chaddie has a link for it on his site but I couldn't get to it before. It seems very interesting and I think I will be checking it out.
Dane Cook is a comedian that Chisolm and I were only recently introduced to by our friend Bonnie. His style is so quick and energetic. His wittiness made me feel like I was sitting in a room with my funniest friends all in one person, times ten. Needless to say, I enjoyed the show.
Before it started, I was a bit nervous because there was a girl sitting in the row in front of us a couple seats over with one of those loud, machine-gun-laughs. I was very concerned with the possibility of that disruption during the show. As it turned out, she was with the media and didn't stay there long.
The opening act was okay. His name was
Jay Davis and he made us laugh a few times but it also made me a bit nervous because I wasn't super familiar with Dane Cook's stuff and I didn't know what to expect. He had some funny skits but I was ready for Dane.
The show was supposed to begin at 8pm but started very late. Dane didn't come on until 9pm but it wasn't over until about 20 after 10pm. He was really hilarious and I was very glad that I didn't listen to any of his stuff before the show so I could be completely surprised. I was very pleasantly surprised!
Tomorrow night is
Jerry Seinfeld at the
Temple Buell Theatre. I can't wait! I know this is crazy, but Jerry is a huge fan of pool so I am bringing a galley of my book with a nice cover letter in the event that I might be able to get it to him for a review. Ya' never know! That would just be the best day of my life!!!
The Big Scare
I hadn't posted anything in a while because I didn't feel a had a ton of blog-worthy things going on. I know, I know. Like that's ever stopped me before.
So here it goes... I just went upstairs earlier and found Chrissy upside down, floating beside the basking dock. She wasn't moving and with the horror of the discovery, I went running downstairs, screaming with the my arms flailing for Chisolm. After interrupting his viewing of the Tivo'd episode of
U2 taking over Conan O'Brien, I dragged him upstairs with me, only for him to discover that she was actually moving. WHEW! Yes, in fact, she was not d-e-d at all, she was simply stuck. It appeared that she had "fallen and couldn't get up." She struggled for a bit before I could clean my hands and help her back up.
I thought about re-enacting the photo of her upside down for blog-sake but was too traumatized by the image to do so.
After the entire ordeal. I decided to put them on the scale to see how much they had grown since their vet visit a month ago. Since Chrissy's illness, Janet seems to be getting loafier and loafier. I busted her a few times eating the food that I would leave out for Chrissy. She has pretty much doubled in size and the scale confirmed it. At the vet, she was .4oz and she weighed in at .9oz. Woah! Chrissy had only gained .1oz from her original .3oz. At least she's gained something.
Anyway, here's a great photo their proud parents took of them. Chrissy appears to be laughing since she just
punk'd us.
Yeah, Chrissy. That's really hilarious! You're just a barrel o' monkeys.
Well, since I'm blogging, I may as well just go all the way...
On Wednesday morning I was dreaming about Mr. Tripp and all his loafiness when, to my surprise, I was awakened to a warm tongue licking my fingers. Chisolm was still asleep.
Hikle had dropped him off on his way in to
work so he could just come over after work without having to hurry home. YAY! Play Day for the boys.
Well, Loaf Day, maybe. They weren't very productive, but that's okay. They were good at it. Plus, they were both smellin' great from the recent baths that Chisolm had given them.
I, on the other hand, was VERY productive on Wednesday. I cleaned out and organized the entire garage. I desperately needed to make room for the delivery of my books and I didn't want to wait until the day before or even until I would need a parka to do so (Which is
very unlike me. Chisolm and I appreciate
estivating for as long as possible.). So, since I was doing this, I decided to FINALLY go through some of the boxes of leftover roommate crap from the past six years of roommates. Pretty scary. Just like the recent kitchen adventure, this one also resulted in boxes of unwanted items. Fortunately this time, most of the things did
not have expiration dates (though some of the styles of the old clothing I found did). So, boxes and boxes were loaded into Curby and when Hikle arrived, we took everything to a nearby, newly opened, former-Walgreens-looking
Goodwill. After the dropoff, we took a moment to take a photo of this very interesting sign. What can I say? We thought it was cute.
Last night (tonight, for me still, since I haven't gone to bed yet), Hikle and I drove up North to try a different Pho (#88) and it was great! Afterwards, we picked up
Hatty and tried a new Boba place. It was different. I'll just leave it at that.
On a side note, before Boba, we stopped at the
Pier1 Imports in Westminster for me to pick up a certain secret ornament. This was only after Hikle and I had mistakenly stopped by the one in Aurora the night before. "This is clearance store but they'll still have non-clearance items." I thought. Wrong! On our way to Pier1 #2 tonight, I was reassured by my dear friends that they would surely (no, not Shirley) have it at this one. Wrong again! We show up only to discover that
this Pier1 was moving a few blocks away and would not be open until the end of the month. The store was almost empty. There were only a few items inside. Determined to check it out anyway, Hatty and I went inside while Hikle stayed in the car listening to
Scissor Sisters.
When we went inside, we discovered that not only were all 5 remaining pieces of furniture in the store on sale for 50% off, but they were also selling all their fixtures, including a 10-foot electrical extension cord/outlet piece of equipment for $5, plastic price tag sign holders from $.50, and even their tape dispensers. Boy, when you move a Pier1, you really mean business!
In the meantime, I had a couple minor hiccups this week with the cover artwork of the book, but the garage is ready and the wheels are in motion.
Chrissy Update: On the road to recovery...
Great News!!!
For most of the day yesterday, Chrissy was hanging out by the island in the middle of the aquarium. This was the first time in days that I had seen her voluntarily move from the floating, basking dock.
Then, tonight, as I was going to feed Janet and leave food for Chrissy, she was back over by the edge of the floating dock and she started eating some of the food as I set it in the water. She then, for the first time in about a month, ate a piece of food from my hand. I am so happy!!!
Later, she swam around a bit and went back over to the middle island. She is still floating around and not completely submerged, but she was submerging her head and swimming around. This is very exciting and I believe she's on her way to a healthy recovery. YAY!!!!!
Last night, poor Hikle's flight was super delayed. He was supposed to get in at 9:30pm but his flight didn't come in until after 1am due to bad weather in Chicago. I didn't mind. Those are my hours.
Today, I drove to a Mazda dealership in Aurora to get a couple keys made. I got there too late. The parts dept closed at 6pm. However, as I was walking back to Matty, a salesperson rushed over to me and asked, "Excuse me. What year is your car? Are you looking to sell it?" I explained that I just got it and was not in the market to sell. Well, apparently, 5-speed '99 Mazda Miatas are a hot commodity. The guy freaked out when I told him it only had 60,000 miles and then told me to keep him in mind if I was interested in selling it and that I could get $10 or even $15,000 for it. WHAT?! Geez! Who knew?! He said he had 2 buyers looking for my car. Well, that's good to know, I guess.
I gotta go. My monitor is acting weird and giving me a headache. I'm so glad Chrissy is eating!!!!!
Off to the press!
On Thursday night (well, at around 8am Friday morning, technically), I finished my book. I created a CD w/ all the book files, printed the hard copy, wrote the check, and shipped the entire package off to the printer. It should all be ready by the end of this month. YAY! After only laying my head down for, what seemed like, 12 seconds, my dad called around 10am for me to go to the shop. That part sucked, but the reason I had to stop by was to sign the rest of the paperwork for the new Miata. DOUBLE YAY!
My dad owns an auto body shop and after our engagement announcement in May, he found a used Miata (newly named, "Matt(y)") at the auction and fixed it up for us as an engagement gift. Pretty cool dad! Anyway, it's taken him a few months now to get it ready and I was beginning to wonder if I would have a chance to put the top down in 2005. I've been wanting a convertible for SO LONG... (that's Chisolm's Saab, "Bob", in the photo background)
I had actually picked up the car on Thursday afternoon but the paperwork wasn't ready until the following morning. Chisolm dropped me off and afterwards,
Hatty and I went to the CC mall in style, for an evening of ring cleaning, CPK, and then we had boba (of course). Hatty and I don't see each other a ton so it was great to have some 1-on-1 QT together. Later that night, I locked myself out of the house (I didn't grab my keys since Chisolm was driving that morning but had forgotten he wouldn't be with me when I got home) and went to my mom's. We went to get a couple keys made for Matt and then she let me in the house.
After the early start yesterday, we stopped by our friends' new pool room in the neighborhood, the Colorado Cue Club (or, the CCC, as we like to call it). It should be open very, very, soon. They have hit so many unexpected hiccups along the way. The place is really coming along nicely and we'll be playing league from there. I can't wait until it's open. I'll have some more pics on
my site.
Anyway, if you're reading this or have stumbled upon my blog, I welcome you to sign my new guestbook. The link is to the right.
In the meantime, the boys are doing well. I like to leave the back door open for them to come/go. Here are some loafy pics:
The boys playing on Day 2
...more playing???
... a little rolling...
Here's Tripp, wondering when Hikle gets back... 
Last one - Loafing in the living room on Day ?
Another update...
Chrissy's condition seems to have stabled a bit. She is still floating around and just loafing under the basking lamp. Tonight will be her last injection of the addtl' 7 days the vet suggested so I'll have to call them again on Monday to see what I should do. I really hope she'll be okay.
Alright! That's REALLY it for now.
After that, I stopped by Table Steaks to see my friend Megan for bit before she left for the US Open. She was playing in their weekly Sunday night tournament. I stayed there for about 3 hours. After that, Hikle and I were supposed to go have pho & boba but he informed me that he was ill. So, I just stopped at Walgreens to pick him up some Gatorade, Diet 7-Up, and cookies & crackers. I went to his place and hung out for a bit (for, whatelse, approximately 3 hours) before he felt a bit better and I left for Shake’s. I told my friend Emilio earlier than I would stop by Shakespeare’s. So, I paid him & Tom a visit and showed off my new cue. I ended up staying for, you guessed it, 3 hours. Whew! I was pretty exhausted by the time I got home.
