An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

I got this from my pal, Elizabeth. Ya know, Crime Dog is from Clovis. Oops, make that Roswell. (see comments) At least I had the state right...Kathy 05/01/05 School Mistakes Huge Burrito for a Weapon from Yahoo! CLOVIS, N.M.April 22, 2005 - A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school. All over a giant burrito. Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High. The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt. "I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," school Principal Diana Russell said. State police, Clovis police and the Curry County Sheriff's Department arrived at the school shortly after 8:30 a.m. They searched the premises and determined there wa...

Sugar Daddy got home Thursday after an 8 day trip to Great Britain. One would think I'd have been blogging about how wonderful it was to be out from under his despotic thumb but I didn't want to advertise to any axe murderers that I was home alone. Do we have a prevalent problem with axe murderers in our neighborhood? No, not that I'm aware of. But, I'm a big scaredy cat with an overly active imagination so I didn't want to take any chances. Here's how much of a scaredy cat I am: I got nightmares from watching Buffy and Angel . I get nightmares from reading books about monsters and killers. When I read Salem's Lot, I ended up staying awake for over 36 hours because I was too chicken to close my eyes. When I stay alone in a hotel, I have to check the closet, shower and under the bed for intruders. Before I turn off the bedstand lamp, I have to check on the floor on the other side of the bed to make sure no one is there... I do this in my own home. I kno...

Apparently, I'm Lisa and I'm cool with that. You are Lisa (from Weird Science)! Sexy and magical, you either charm the pants off everyone, or make them crap their pants in fear. Either way, you rule. Which John Hughes Character Are You? brought to you by Quizilla Got this from the Crime Dog . Yeah, he's the guy who thinks these quizzes are silly...

We packed up on Sunday morning. The little purse I'd been using for the weekend was soaked clear through which is why my previously mentioned receipts were trashed. I thought it was from the storm but it was actually from the cooler leaking on to it. As we trudged over to the Waffle House, Paula fell off her flip flops and skinned up her elbow and arm. Good thing she had jeans on or her knees would have been in bad shape, too. Funny how these things happen when we're stone cold sober. Waffle House was packed with race fans with most people still wearing their driver's gear. It was sad to say good-bye but we all had to head our separate ways. Paula to pick up her dog, Tom and Janice to Tucson and me to home for 1/2 hour before I had to leave for my next event, the latest House Concert. What a great experience it was and I'm grateful to Tom and Janice for being our resident experts and to Paula for those pit passes. I can't wait until the next race!

Cup Day had arrived! The gates were opening at 11 so we planned on leaving at 10. Paula and I headed out to the store to get sandwiches and stuff for after the race. The plan was to not rush out right away after the race but to tailgate with some beers and food and let everyone else stress about traffic. Best laid plans... We got back to the hotel and I asked Paula if I should park by the ice machine since we needed to load up or by Tom and Janice's Tahoe since we were driving that to the race. She told me, "I am not making decisions today." I asked, "Can I put money on how long that will last?" She had to laugh - it's funny because it's true. We were off to the track by 10ish and the debate was already on as to our best route and parking strategy. We told Tom to drive to the front without asking permission or making eye contact with anyone official. Paula offered to flash boobage as a bribe if needed. Truth be told, she seemed pretty eager to flash boob...

Well, it was finally time for my first NASCAR experience. Since the cleaning people chased me out, I made it to the west side really early. I called Tom and Janice and they were still on I-10 at Riggs Rd (pretty close to my house, actually). So, I had some time to kill and did what comes naturally, I went shopping. I got a new purse, a pair of shorts and a T-Shirt that says Princess in rhinestones. So me. Tom and Janice called me from the hotel and, fortunately, our rooms were ready early so we checked in. Unfortunately, the Econolodge wouldn't honor the room rate they had quoted me when I made the reservations months ago and when I had confirmed a week prior. The woman behind the counter would not budge so we got charged $30 extra a night. I will be battling that later. Paula was trapped at work so the three of us headed out to the track. Janice and Tom debated the route and where to park once we got there and we ended up in a bad spot. It was too far out for a quick exit which is...

I took Friday off for the races and, when I got in this morning, you would have thought I'd been gone for weeks. I had two people lined up before I even had a chance to check my email. And, they're both new so they haven't learned that I really should be feared so neither got the hint that I wanted them to shoo. They weren't the only ones around, though. I had heads popping into my doorway all morning. I didn't get a chance to open my calendar until 1 and then saw...dammit! I was was supposed to meet the poker chicks for lunch at 11:30. I had to send an "I'm sorry I suck" email and am now on the hook for picking up the tab at our next arranged lunch date. ARGH!! Next time, I'm sneaking in the building's side door and closing my office door until noonish...maybe they won't even realize I'm there. Actually, that sounds like a good plan for every day.

I wrote that last post while trying to stay out of the way of the cleaning people. They came early today. The liberal angst gets to me when they're around as I feel guilty that we are so lazy that we (actually Sugar Daddy) pay people to clean our house. I'd like to think we're doing our part to help the economy but after I read Nickled and Dimed , I worry that these poor folks are getting worked to death for "The Man" and we're just taking advantage of them. Does it bother me enough to clean the house myself? Nope...sigh.

The day is finally here. I'm packed and getting ready to head out the door. Got all of the important stuff: JJ Shirt for today JJ earrings JJ Pit Crew Cap Digital camera and extra batteries Sharpie in case I get close enough for an autograph Oodles of money for SWAG which will fill in my wardrobe for the rest of the weekend I felt silly packing my big suitcase but I know I'm going to end up buying everything under the sun so I'll fill it up. Go Jimmie! And, for my race buddies, Go Rusty! and Go Michael! Vroom, Vroom!

Hmmm, can you tell who my favorite driver is? We have a new guy at work and Sugar Daddy was talking to him about sports (those who know Sugar Daddy know he was just being polite as he is soooo non-sportsy) and the guy says he likes NASCAR. Sugar Daddy's response was, "No WAY! I hate NASCAR but Kathy loves it." So, the guy comes up to me and says he's a NASCAR fan and my response was, "No WAY! Did Sugar Daddy (though I used his actual name) put you up to that? Once I believed him, I asked, "Are you a Junior fan?" Now, I admit I said it in a way to lead him to believe that I was not but he said "Not really, I was a big Dale Sr. fan and I really like Randy LaJoie." We chatted a bit about this weekend's race and my driver then went back to work. I saw his truck in the parking lot later on and he has three decals on his window: a 3, a 57 and an 8 . His license plate is a version of NASCAR and the number 8 . Dude! Clearly you're a Junior ...

The latest in our continuing series of the classics was Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic anti-slavery work, Uncle Tom's Cabin . What an amazing work it was/is. Originally published as a weekly series, the entire work was published in 1852 and sold an incredible 300,000 copies in a few years. It's actually never gone out of print at all. Her stories of the lives of several slaves and their owners is extremely moving (though quite dramatic and simplistic in parts) and must have been outrageous for her day. She chides Northerners, Southern slave owners, "good" Christians and anyone who doesn't rail against slavery for their willingness to participate or even tacitly support the institution. Stowe came from a family of preachers and there's a heavy Christian tone to the book. The most Christianlike characters are generally the slaves with their belief that God will save them, in this world or the next. An understandable belief because without it, why woul...

We convened once again at the Stewart household for another fun (pain?) filled evening of chick poker. Morgan agreed to deal for us again. He says we're actually fun and amusing and he enjoys it. By the end of the night, he thought we were ruthless with the verbal abuse we were throwing each others' ways. Play has improved since last time. Becky didn't need to ask Morgan for advice very much but she did pick up a habit of putting in her chips ahead of her turn. In the interest of fair disclosure, I did that myself once and was very ashamed. Chris still couldn't remember to ante. Though now her cover story is that she's doing it just to annoy me. Yeah, tell us another one, Chris. Angela couldn't catch a break. She had to buy in a second time just to keep playing. She didn't really make any major mistakes it was just that damn Stacey and her lucky cards... Speaking of that damn Stacey, she had to call that stupid Criss Cross, or is it Kriss Kross or so...

How close can I get to my dreamy driver? Only two days until my first NASCAR weekend! We've been refining our plans for a week and, come Friday morning, I'm so there! Finally! It seems like we bought the tickets ages ago. Paula managed to score us some Pit Passes. I'm not sure what kind of access that grants us. The thought that it may get me within autographing/photo proximity to Jimmie is making me break out into uncontrollable girl giggles. I mean, he's so dreamy in addition to being the #1 driver in the standings. I'll probably get all vaklempt (veklempt?) but I'm sure I'll be cool.

Sugar Daddy told me if I ever want to bash him in my blog, I can safely do so in any post that's more than three paragraphs long. It doesn't even have to be buried somewhere in the text, he automatically skips anything that long. I don't think it's an ADD type thing as he can park his butt on the couch and watch four successive repeats of King of Queens without a problem. Guess it's just his personality quirk (one of many, many, many). On the other hand, my friends Chris and Stacey told me they want more details (and therefore longer entries) in my posts. I told them that sometimes there just isn't that much more to say and their advice was to make stuff up. So, I will. About them. I'm not making up the stuff about Stacey coming on to me, though. That is all true. I guess it's one of those times where you can't please everyone so I'll carry on as before. I'd call my style fairly verbose so there will probably be a lot more longer posts than ...

I caught U2 for the first time on Friday night. Good show with a nice mix of songs and Paula scored us great seats. I'm not a huge fan so there were a few tunes I didn't know but they did all of the favorites. A nice change from concerts today, the lights dimmed promptly at 8 PM for the opening act. It seems that starting times are only 'suggestions' at a lot of shows I go to. The openers, KOL (stands for something I didn't catch) brought back memories of our 80s concert experiences. Loud, lots of base and indecipherable vocals. Even when the guy was talking, I was like, "Huh?" U2 played a solid 2 hour set. The stage was cool, an elliptical walkway that came out on to the standing room only floor. There were also some really cool lighting effects and the neatest thing I've seen at a show; they had four big monitors and kept a camera on each of the guys so you could catch all of the action. There was the expected do-good aspect to the show as well. They...

A pic from my friends, Tom and PJ, who are living the life Jimmy Buffett only dreamed about.

Me and Pabla at the pre-concert party with "Yeah, yeah, yeah" in the background.

Sugar Daddy actually paid a $3.99 PPV fee for us to spend 113 minutes of our lives that we will never get back. This movie was bad, really bad, so bad that even seeing buff men without shirts didn't make it interesting. Though I do have to admit that Dennis Quaid looks good for an old guy. A group of mostly wildcatters crash in the Mongolian Desert with limited food and water, no radio and, of course, way off course. They end up getting threatened by Chinese nomads/drug smugglers/rejects from an Indian Jones movie and build another plane out of their wrecked one to fly out. Along the way, several of them get bumped off and they have the standard "we're doing it my way", "no, my way" arguments. The characters are somewhat developed but of course, they killed off the hot Scottish guy who was the only one keeping me interested. Every time I saw Miranda Otto onscreen, I wanted to say "Hey Eowyn, where's your sword?" And Giovanni Ribisi ga...

As exhausted as I was after the Buffett show, I couldn't help but laugh at myself the whole next day. I am such a bad girl and here's why. I spent a lot of time before the show flirting with a 48 year old (whom I might be willing to bend my rules for). Then, during the show I somehow ended up talking to a 29 year old I'd never met before (whom I might be willing to bend my rules for) who all of a sudden was kissing me. This happens to me on a surprisingly frequent basis. I'll just be standing there talking to a boy and the next thing I know, he's putting his tongue in my mouth. I swear I don't do anything! I told Sugar Daddy the story and he said he wants to interview the other party. He's pretty sure I'm not the victim in these tales. So, if anyone witnessed this action at the show and can verify the actual events please let me know. After the show, it was back to flirting with the 48 year old. No macking with him, though. BTW - bonus points to whomever...

What a day - I left work early because a group of us rented a limo to take us to the Buffett show. I could get used to those banker hours. Craig set it up and, once we were in the limo, had control of the tunes and, apparently the A/C. We were sweltering. We got to Macayo's for the pre-concert and I joined some of the gang at a table...for about 10 minutes then the Butterfly had to be free. I saw friends from Tucson, Galveston Bay and LA and somehow ended up spending most of my time near the beer station. Surprise, surprise. Greg was there to show me his "I Voted Red" (or something like that) bracelet. He was all proud of it and knew I wouldn't really be impressed. I wear bracelets that support cancer research, bone marrow matching and solders KIA in Iraq. He wears one that supports...I don't know what it supports but in a state where you can't throw a rock without hitting a Republican, I'm not sure why he needs to advertise his status. Macayo's got re...

Argh, Sunday morning...my head hurt and I had no voice. Paula was pretty perky after her 14 hour nap. She didn't even remember me waking her up, twice, the night before. She did wake up at 9:30 PM and thought about joining us but didn't have the energy. I agreed to see her at breakfast and got my butt officially out of bed only after Roger called and woke me up. Oh, I should mention that on both Saturday and Sunday morning, housekeeping knocked on our door at some ungodly hour (probably 8 AM) and since, they couldn't hear me yell, I had to go answer the door. Gawd, I musta looked like a cross between Medusa and something from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Roger, Todd and I somehow missed the fact that the free breakfast was in the Pavilion so we headed to the restaurant on Roger's comped meals. I could barely speak above a whisper and I was dying. We loaded up and hugs all around. At the very last minute, I realized I'd left my cell phone in the room. Whew! That w...

Argh, Saturday morning...my head was hurting and I was losing my voice. I needed greasy food and fast but first I had to go to a wedding. That's right, there was going to be a wedding at the pool at 10 AM. Karen and Gordie from Puget Sound were tying the knot and everyone was invited. Here's another thing I love about our Parrot Head world - we all end up meeting each other eventually. I met Karen and Gordie in New Orleans in January at Pardi Gras. The three of us ended up going to dinner and having a great time. I haven't talked to them since, but when I turned around at the pool on Friday, there was Karen! She said she didn't want to get all bugged out with planning a wedding so they decided to do the deed in Laughlin with their Parrot Head friends. We started gathering on the grass just off the pool. Gary Seiler was there and introduced himself to me for about the 7th time. Sigh. I'd like to think I'm a little more memorable than that. He also went up to the ...

I got this from my friend, Elizabeth, and it just cracked me up.

I hit the hay early last night to finally catch up on some much needed zzzzzs. That plan went all to hell when work called me at 1 and 4 AM. Of course, it was my program that screwed things up so it's my fault but two wakeups in one night is a killer. I can't wait for our new programmer to come on board so I can go back to my DBA world and not have to monkey around with our legacy system stuff anymore. (And, that last sentence probably didn't mean squat to anyone but my techie readers...of which I think I have none. Oh, well.)

A couple of anecdotes I forgot to mention... SAM I R took a group of folks out on his boat. Gary Seiler was loaded, picked up the Golf God, lost his balance and dumped them both into the cold, cold Colorado River. Why he picked him up is unclear to me but Gary did a nice job of soaking his cell phone and wallet. We (at least I was) were highly entertained watching Ray Cody set up in the lounge. He had everything plugged in...nothing worked. Mark Mulligan and Gary Seiler got up and started messing with things...nothing worked. Turns out, they just need to hit one power button. How many musicians does it take...? Ray did a great show. It's been cool to see his progression over the past few years. He's come a long way from the guy who got up to do a song at The Tropicana while Mark was on break. Correction: I saw the pictures and it was Jerry Gontang, not Gary Seiler trying to help Ray out. Alcohol was clearly a factor somewhere...

Our plan for getting to Laughlin for last weekend's PHINS To The West event was simple. Roger was in Vegas for work already so Todd, Paula and I were driving up in Roger's car then we were all driving home together on Sunday. Todd, Paula and I were scheduled to meet at Paula's at 8 AM. I wasn't sure on how bad traffic would be so I left early and got to Paula's around 7:45. I parked in front of the house and waited for Paula to get back from dropping Marcus off. Time went by...I finished reading my newspaper, said Hi to Paula's neighbors, talked to Andrea on my cell phone. Basically, I was wasting time. Todd finally pulled up about 8:20. We started to load the car when Paula came traipsing out of the house. She'd been inside eating breakfast the whole time I was waiting. Doh! After a short stop back at Roger and Todd's to get some sweatshirts, we were finally on the road. Paula (or the Control Freak as Todd called her) took the wheel and got us to Carefr...

It's been a hectic week and I've been too exhausted to do much posting. Carol emailed me to see if things were OK with me because I haven't been blogging. I think that's sweet. I have lots to catch up on and I'll try to get you filled in on all of my adventures soon.

My buddy, Tripp, is Parrot Head of the Week on Margaritaville's website. Pretty cool!

Nice article about our club in a local paper.

I've been having some pain in my left leg the past few weeks. A throbbing pain down the back of my leg every morning and it's only relieved when I stand. Sitting is extremely painful which makes my hour long commute every morning quite uncomfortable. I couldn't help but think I was heading down Shorty's (my Dad's) path: bad knee, another bad knee, two bad shoulders, bad back, multiple surgeries and gimping around with a cane. With my hypochondriac tendencies, I was thinking I was only a few months away from getting a handicap parking sticker. I might even have to admit that maybe, possibly I might be getting old. Gasp! I went to the Doc on Monday and it turns out I have an inflamed muscle that's compressing my sciatic nerve. He told me the name of the muscle which I promptly forgot but basically, it's in my butt and it's the muscle that rotates my hip. I have to take anti-inflammatories for a week and do stretches every morning before I get out of...

I got hooked on Phillip Margolin when I read Gone, But Not Forgotten. Spoiler alert - the bad guy actually got away which made me crazy and nervous. I don't do well with serial killer books where the villian isn't dead or locked up at the end of the story. It just creeps me out but that's a problem with my imagination that tends to run wild. Margolin's latest bad guy is a serial rapist/murderer who attacks a young high school girl and kills her father. Her mother is then apparently killed by the same man and the girl goes on the run since the police are doing a crappy job of protecting her. There are several plot twists, a few that I did not see, but I pegged the killer from the beginning. Margolin's story telling is always entertaining and he does a good job of portraying the evil that men (and woman) do. If you like James Patterson, you'll enjoy Phillip Margolin.

I finally came to the top of the list at the library for Kim Harrison's latest book. Man, she is turning into Laurell Hamilton . Her main character, Rachel Morgan, makes deals with demons, gets in fistfights with vampires and accidently binds her human boyfriend to her in the spirit world...she's starting to look a lot like Anita Blake. The good thing is the story has become a lot more interesting and I'll probably stick around for the next book.

So, I’m making the 27 mile trek into work today and the low fuel light goes on about 4 miles from the house. There’s literally only one gas station between my place and the freeway and I consistently have trouble with my Wells Fargo debit card there but I was stuck since I didn’t want to risk running out of gas. I pulled into the aforementioned Mobil, swiped my card and got a “Card Not Read” message. Already starting to swear, I got my credit card out of my purse and, when I tried to swipe that, the pump then read “Pump Shut Off”. I tried the Clear button to no avail then stomped inside to pay cash. However, I had to dodge a few maniacs who must have been jonesing for their morning java pretty bad by the excessive speed they were running in the parking lot. Hey, Mario, if you’re so desperate for overpriced, crappy coffee, why don’t you brew some at home and save some pedestrians? Back at the pump, I started filling then went to clean my windshield. Snap! The pump stopped about $2...

Crime Dog called my quizzes "Stupid" on Friday night (or maybe it was "Dumb" - there were beers involved) but he said he takes them all anyway. Hmmmm, who's stupid then? I just think they're fun and they're great for killing time at work...but, don't quote me on that one. Anyhow, I got this one on finding your "Dog Type" from Stacey. Turns out, I'm apparently a Neopolitan Mastiff. "Generally of a friendly disposition, this dog will generally only attack on command. But beware, this beast needs space and is happiest when given a job to do." I was told this is what Fang is in Harry Potter and he's a big slobbery beast. So, I got that going for me.

Damn those Illini! I ended up tied for 7th in the pool and missed my hoped-for top 5 finish by 15 points. Bummer. I will never root for those stupid orange guys again!

Me as a South Parker..Parkian..Parkette? From El Capitan who got it from Beth and Cowboy Blob , this is from the South Park Character Generator . I don’t know how far back you’re supposed to give credits as prescribed by blogger etiquette but I think three links is enough. I hope. Anyway, this is pretty much me as a South Parker. They didn’t quite have my hair and it doesn’t allow for batting eyelashes (Stacey’s criticism – is she trying to imply I’m flirty?) but, they did have a beer mug.

Going into the final game, I'm tied for 7th and will stay there if North Carolina wins. If Illinois wins, I end up tied for third. I never, ever, ever thought I would say this, but "Go Illini!" Ouch, it hurt to say that.

If you could look up the phrase "colorful character" in a dictionary, it wouldn't be surprising to find a picture of Kinky Friedman as an example. Friedman's latest work is a collection of fiction and fact and filled with tales of his adventures. The cast of characters includes Bill Clinton, W and Laura Bush, Don Imus, Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Jack Ruby, Joseph Heller and Kinky's Dad, Tom Friedman. That's just the short list - there are lots of other folks mentioned during stories about touring with bands, working in the Peace Corps, traveling to Australia, London and other locales. Fun read - I liked the semi-true stories more than the fictional ones but it was all entertaining. Friedman is currently trying to get on the ballot for Governor of Texas. I think it would be great if he succeeded. You gotta love the slogan - "Kinky Friedman Why The Hell Not?"

I finally found something that took me away from blogging - working on the club's quarterly newsletter. It's a labor of love but really time consuming so I always feel relieved when it's done and the pdf is online . Based on the comments I've seen about blogger problems the past few days, I think it was good timing to be taking a break from posting.