An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

Y'all have to wait for the rest of the Vegas story until I get back from Florida. Got a call from Eric tonight. They're in Homestead and had no problems getting there which bodes well for our vacation. Good thing since I didn't want to have to sedate Crime Dog tomorrow.

Sugar Daddy and I carpooled yesterday.  I was jonesing to get out of the office by 5 but he made me stay until 6.  My excuse was that I'm going on vacation and his reponse was, "You're not leaving until Saturday!"   Last night I told him we should probably not carpool since I'm going to want to leave around 3.  He said, "I already planned on driving separately because you're going to want to leave at noon."   He could be right on that one.

Finally, the tales of Vegas, Baby, Vegas! First, a little backstory. The Golf God’s 7 months pregnant wife decided that a bus trip to, and weekend in, Vegas with a bunch of drunks (her husband definitely included in that group) did not sound very fun. Can’t say that I blame her at all. We are really not as funny as we think we are if you’re sober. So, a plan was made. Pab and I would chaperone The Golf God (GG) for the weekend with the O’Malley Babes as backup. I know, what, exactly, were we all thinking? Now, on to the story. The Eastside folks met at the Ferrallis’ bright and early for our scheduled bus pick up at 6:30 AM. No bus, though. Turns out our somewhat regular driver couldn’t make the trip so he passed it off to a new guy and told him to be there at 7. He made it there a few minutes early and we were actually on the road by 7. I can’t help but wonder what the neighbors think. They’re trying to gate the community and I’m guessing having big tour buses come through ...

Despite being a life-long Cubs fan, I sincerely congratulate the White Sox and their fans on their World Series win. It was a long time coming. Let's hope we keep it in the same city next year...but in the other league!

Especially, if I get it from Crime Dog who thinks they're dumb. Kathy took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Needs to feel identified with someone or something..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

Our Key West trip is still on with a few deviations from plan.  The folks who had our condo the week before us cancelled so it's open.  We're going to drive down on Saturday and check in early.    I'm not unhappy about a few extra days in Key West but am bummed that our few days hanging in Key Largo are out.  Considering everything that's been going on, I think we're darn lucky, though.   Sugar Daddy's VERY happy.  He's been counting on me being gone through two weekends and was grumpy about me not leaving on Saturday as planned.   Now, we just need the Ft Lauderdale airport open...which should be tomorrow.

I've checked this website on the Keys a dozen times so far today. Go to green, baby, so we know we can get to Key West! Annette called the condo rental place and they said all but one of the units is dry. Fortunately, the wet one isn't one of ours. Now, we're just trying to decide what to do since we're all flying in on Friday or Saturday. I'm still hoping some Key Largo hotels will be open but it looks like we may be heading to Orlando for a few days.

Shorty got the OK from the Doc to go back to work. No restrictions. Did he ease back into it? Nope. Not the Pfister way. He started back with his full schedule on Monday. He sounded pretty chipper when I talked to him last night but I'm guessing he will be pretty pooped come Friday.

There are days when I love my job and then there are days...   I took Friday off to go to Vegas, Baby, Vegas.  Man, did I suffer for that.  I came back to the email inbox from hell.  Problems, problems and more problems.  Funny how so many of them had the phrase "when Kathy gets back she'll take care of this" or something to that effect.  Actually, not so funny.   Guess I have to earn my salary somehow but it's been tough today since I have my usual post-Vegas, Baby, Vegas laryingitis and sleep deprivation going on.   OK, I'm done bitchin' now.  I should have a full Vegas, Baby, Vegas report soon but I'll leave you with two teasers.  1.  The Golf God was the life of the party and 2.  Kathy O. needs remedial door opening lessons.

I'm going to leave the freaking out to Crime Dog on this one. We're all heading out to Key West next week and there's that nasty hurricane Wilma heading there now. I am just refusing to worry about it at all. I'm confident it will pass through sparing major damage to Key West and our trip will be just fine. It's not that I haven't worried about this trip. I was freaking out when we didn't have airfare booked. I admit, I was worried that the price was going to go through the roof when gas prices seemed to be heading to a gazillion dollars a gallon. I also stressed about getting our condo arrangements set when we were first booking the trip. But, I'm not worried now. It will be what it will be and we'll have a good time. We are Parrot Heads after all.

I had stuff to do Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights this week so Sugar Daddy and I didn't carpool.  My drive in on Monday took 75 minutes, Tuesday was 70 and Wednesday was a little less than an hour but only because I left at 8:15.   So, it was either carpool in today or I was going to kill someone.   There was a potential problem with the plan, though.  We were releasing a new version of one of our websites today around 2PM and SD is the main programmer so he needed to be at work for the release and post-release testing.  He warned me it could run late but since he said they could have released yesterday, I thought we were safe.   I think I was wrong.  They didn't release until 4ish and I can hear them going back and forth over the speaker phone in SD's office on things that aren't working and it's making me think this is going to be a late night.    A late night at the office when I should be home packing for Vegas, Baby, Vegas ...

A bunch of us played in Adopt A Greyhound’s Charity Golf Tourney yesterday. It couldn’t have been a better day for golf. A little overcast, not too hot, not too cold. The only problem was it was on a Sunday and we couldn’t get beer until 10 AM and we started at 7:30. Stupid Arizona drinking laws…we had a six pack in hand by 10:04 though so we didn’t suffer too much. They had an activity hole called “The Speed Hole” which I had never encountered before. Basically, you position your team on the hole so one person tees off, the next picks up the ball where it lands and throws it to the next person who throws it on to the last golfer who drops it in the hole. To get a birdie, you had to do it in under one minute. We managed it somehow despite Pab hitting a massive drive over Sandy’s head (who knew she’d become a great golfer for that one shot?), Sandy throwing it into a sand trap instead of to Roger and me not being down on the green in time. For an extra donation, you could get up t...

I washed my car on Saturday morning.  Went to a self cleaning place, scrubbed it up and it was sparkling!  That spot free rinse option really works.   So, of course that exercise conjured the rain we got this morning.  It was inevitable.   When I cleaned the car on Saturday, I only did the outside.  I got an unintentional interior wash today.  Sugar Daddy and I both forgot about closing the moon roof when we got home from dinner last night.  Since I'm not allowed to park in the garage and relegated to the street, it got a little damp in the car.   The open roof was also an invitation to every mosquito in Chandler to move in.  I tried to kill them all on the way into work without crashing.  I succeeded partially.  No crashes but I think I gave up some blood to the little pests.

This one's for the guys.... If you're going to drop trou, be sure to keep your legs together. I wish someone had shared this tip with Roger before today.

I'm Susan. "You always mean well, but somehow things don't always work out as you'd planned. It doesn't matter. You take your tumbles with good grace and always come up smiling. But try to remember you're the grown-up in your family." I'm totally OK with being Susan, especially if I end up hooking up with the hot plumber with the dark past. Hubba, hubba. I do fall down almost as much as she does but I can't compete in the boob department. You can take the quiz here and thank Carol for sending it to me. I'm assuming it came from Carol and not Rick since he doesn't seem like a Desperate Housewives kind of guy.

Thursday was not a good day. I had a class in Tempe and Sugar Daddy and I were scheduled to get our hair done that night at Cheryl's at 7. We worked out a plan. I would drop him off at work, go to my class then go drinking with Audrey while he had his guitar lesson at work with Kevin then we'd drive together to Cheryl's. I dropped him at work then reversed course to Tempe. As I was close to the class site, my phone rang. It was Sugar Daddy telling me I had his guitar in my backseat. He had the keys to Kevin's Jeep so he could retrieve it but he didn't know where I was. I told him Apache and Rural. That did not help. Sugar Daddy has a geographic mind block when it comes to Tempe. He doesn't know any of the streets and whenever he tries to go there he ends up at the airport. Once he hits the airport, he turns around and goes home. So, I had to give him directions. Anyone who knows me well will recognize that the chances of getting good directions from me are slim ...

You scored as Hoban 'Wash' Washburne . The Pilot. You are a leaf on the wind, see how you soar. You have a good job, and a stunning wife who loves you (and can kill people). Life is good, which is why you can't help smiling. Now if you can just get people to actually listen to your opinion things would be perfect. Hoban 'Wash' Washburne 69% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 69% Capt. Mal Reynolds 63% Inara Serra 63% Simon Tam 63% The Operative 50% River Tam 44% Shepherd Derrial Book 44% Jayne Cobb 25% Kaylee Frye 19% Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com Got this from El Capitan . Wash is my favorite character - I do feel like he's a kindred spirit. He also wears a lot of Hawaiian shirts so clearly he's cool.

Sugar Daddy told me about a new (to me anyway) Google game. You put your your first name and the word needs within quotes and record the first 10 results. "Kathy needs" comes up with: 1. Kathy needs a nap. (true) 2. Kathy needs to fix. 3. Kathy needs partner. (oh, so true) 4. Kathy needs services like the soup kitchen and the showers... 5. Kathy needs advice. 6. Kathy needs the house to keep her sanity and resist suicide. (also true) 7. Kathy needs eating in. 8. Kathy needs this same information. (boring) 9. Kathy needs advance notice to ensure you a room. 10. Kathy needs list of Delgado teams. (well, that one's certainly a bust)

I picked up the newest Stephen J. Cannell book, Cold Hit , from the library this weekend while on the hunt for all of the Evanovich Stephanie Plum Books. Cannell was the guy behind the TV shows The A-Team , The Rockford Files and The Commish. A digression here. I loved The A-Team . If I could have run away with Face, I'd have done it. Dirk Benedict was hot in that suave bad boy kind of way. Whew! Wonder what he's doing now... Anyway, Cannell's hero is Shane Scully, an LA cop who used to live in the bottle but now has a pretty good life with his cop wife and recently found son (whose Mom was an expensive call girl but now dead). The latest book finds Scully searching for a serial killer and trying to help his drunk partner shape up his life. These books are good afternoon reads that one can easily see being a 2 hour TV movie. The action's fast and furious but there's also a lot of heart in it as Scully has developed into a character who's maturing and whom yo...

The house concerts at the Combos' just keep getting better and better. Saturday's show featured a guy from New York City, Greg Tannen . I'd say his music falls into the pop genre. Lots of clean, sharp guitar, peppy rhythm and great lyrics. It was an awesome show. He's very funny and cute, too, which never hurts in my book. I've got the CDs in my car right now and they're really sharp and professional sounding.

My Evanovich binge is officially over. I finished the latest Stephanie Plum, Eleven on Top , tonight. That's 11 books by the same author in about 2 weeks. And, I didn't limit my reading to just Evanovich. I have issues. I also don't seem to have a life.

OK, we really do call it Bring Your Child to Work Day but I like calling them rug rats, or, sometimes, chilluns.  There's a big team of employee volunteers that put on a whole day's worth of activities for the annual event which took place yesterday.  They tour the kids around all of our buildings, feed them some corporate propaganda with their lunch and let them design and make their own mugs. Think the plastic tumblers you get at Starbucks that are clear plastic on the outside and have a paper insert with the design on it.  We buy the mug parts and print our own labels in house and have a sonic sealer for assembly.  It's a pretty cool process.   My rug rat is too old for this but I could totally see him spending the day here with the kids.  Maybe I'll see if they want an adult volunteer next year (well, semi-adult) who's not on the payroll.   The highlight for us worker bees was having the Schwan's man hand out ice cream in the p...

I took Sugar Daddy out to dinner for his birthday. He picked the place and it was Foga e Brasa , a Brazilian restaurant. It's an all you can eat place (but fancy) and it's all about the meat. There's a super salad bar with all kinds of good stuff: chicken and tuna salad, cerviche and several other shrimp dishes, scallops, mussels, crab stuffed tomatoes... Once you get done with the salad, you turn a little marker with the green side up and they start coming around with skewers of different meats for your selection. There was garlic steak, tri-tip, bacon wrapped turkey, sausages, chicken, top sirloin and ham. When you want them to stop, you turn the marker to the red side then back to green when you're ready to resume. You could eat all night if you want to. I pooped out before SD because I filled up on the scallops and mussels. Neither of us had room for dessert but they looked pretty good. If you're on Atkins or a serious meat eater like we are, you'll dig thi...

I am totally in love with Smoking Loon wines. I tried them on a whim a few months ago and haven't bought any other label since. I'm even buying them in bulk. I wait until Fry's has them on sale then I buy them six at a time. Fry's gives you 10% off when you do that and it brings the price down to $5.50 a bottle. That's a bargain considering I pay that for just one glass when I'm out for dinner. The only one I don't care for is the Chardonnay. The Syrah, Merlot and Cab are really good and the Pinot Noir is absolutely awesome. Check them out.

The checkout guy at Safeway yesterday was wearing eye makeup. I thought to myself, "That just ain't right." Oh, it's not that he was wearing makeup it was that is was such a bad look for him. He was a light blonde with small eyes and he had on jet black liquid eyeliner. Dude! He would look much better if he used a soft brown pencil.

On Sunday, Sugar Daddy brought home most of a Costco cake (oops, forgot the key word there) from Prescott that his Mommy bought him for his birthday. Costco cakes are awesome! The frosting is way tasty, almost as good as Barb's Bakery. You can't beat the price, either. $15 for a half sheet. I had cake on Sunday, so did Sugar Daddy. I had cake for dinner on Monday. Sugar Daddy had some for dessert. I skipped Tuesday only because I have Weight Watchers on Wednesday but Wednesday night, it was cake for dessert. We're eating the edges only to maximize frosting intake and will probably end up throwing out the middle. I loaded our dishwasher this morning and it was mostly plates with remnants of icing on them. Yesterday at work, we celebrated SD's and Allen's birthdays with yet another cake from Costco. I was going to stand firm and decline but got handed a corner piece. Clearly, I had to eat it since it's the frosting heavy piece and it would be a shame to waste it....

We were out and about in Tempe this week and decided to stop at The Chuckbox for lunch.  It's right across from ASU and it looked like it was 20 years old when I started school there back in '82 so I have no idea when it opened.  I just know it's an ASU institution and I spent many hours there.   The atmosphere hasn't changed one bit since the old days.  It's dark, humid (I think they only have an evaporative cooler) and furnished with wobbly Formica tables and crates for chairs.  You place your burger (or chicken) order with a cranky guy on the grill.  There's no "How would you like that cooked?"  It's more like "What kind of cheese do you want?  Next!"  Then you wait for the cranky guy to cook your meat on a charcoal grill, fill your own soda, grab your fried side dish then pay the crabby guy at the register.  Nothing fancy about the place at all.   If you can get past the rustic appearance, you will be treated to a great bu...

I have bad night vision. It was only so-so before I had Lasik and it went to hell after that. Everyone's heard or seen the evidence: the sprained ankle from Grandpa's back yard, the re-sprained ankle from the cruise ship, the bad night driving...the list could go on and on. Sugar Daddy is well aware of my vision impairment but he likes to torture me so he keeps rubbing it in. When we went to see Serenity last Friday, I was walking into the theater in front of him and I slowed down to check out where I was going. You go from light to dim rather quickly and the floor is usually slanted or has steps so I try to be careful. The Rat Bastard tried to tap me in the back of the foot just to startle me and ended up nearly sweeping my foot out from under me. He said, "Sorry." and I thought it was an accident until he couldn't control his laughing. I was pissed. I said, "I could have fallen or spilled my soda all over the place!" His response was, "If you...

One would think a fish is a really easy pet to have around. You'd hardly notice it was there. Not my George and of course it's my fault. I completely cleaned his tank out on Saturday. When I was cleaning the filter part, a piece of some kind of stone looking material broke off the base of the pipe that pulls the water through the bubbling part (I am so technical). I reassembled it all and now it's, well it's kinda louder. As a matter of fact, it sounds like a big pot of rapidly bubbling water. Like when you cook spaghetti. I was hoping it would go unnoticed when Sugar Daddy got home. And it did, for about 60 seconds. I explained what had happened and he just gave me this look that said "You do these things just to drive me crazy." Not true at all, I swear. SD says it's so loud now that he can hear it in his bedroom, which is probably 30 feet away from the kitchen where George lives, unless he closes his door. I'd like to say he's exaggerating but I...

I got through Hot Six , found out who Stephanie made the nookie call to and it was to whom I suspected. Breezed through that book and Seven Up last night. Dang her if she didn't leave me hanging again with another potential sex session! This time, we know who Stephanie is with but I've read enough of these now to know things don't always turn out as expected. I was already in bed and had to troop out to the kitchen and my stack of library books to dig out Hard Eight so I could read the outcome of the encounter. No sleeping for me until I knew. As usual, she didn't give the details until a few chapters in. I kept reading until page 100 and 11:45 PM before I decided I better call it quits before I did a reading all-nighter.

Went to the latest house concert at the Combos' weekend before last. The musician was Taylor Harvey and he wasn't quite what I expected. Taylor's the former President of the New Mexico Parrot Head Club and now hangs with the San Diego club so I was expecting Trop Rock. What we got were two distinct sets. The first were bluesy-rock like and the second was sentimental and romantic. Taylor's written a lot of songs that were inspired by his wife and his autistic daughter and those were definitely my favorites. They were sweet without being cloying. Taylor brought the room to tears with a song he wrote about his Mother who just passed away. It was absolutely beautiful. You should check him out at his website .

I got the fifth Stephanie Plum book, High Five, from the Chandler library on Saturday. I finished it up on Sunday afternoon and told Sugar Daddy, "I hate the ending of this book." See, Stephanie makes a nookie call and we don't know who she called! Is it Morrelli or Ranger? Both of them are totally hot and I was hoping for some graphic description, too. Dang her for the cliff hanger! Of course, my library in the sticks is closed on Sunday so I had to go to Scottsdale and get the next book. If it hadn't been there, I would have stopped at Barnes & Noble and bought the damn thing. Fortunately, Scottsdale had it and numbers 7, 8 and 9. I checked them all out and, at the rate I'm going, I'll be ready for number 10 in a few days. She just published 11 so I'll be able to take a break after that. Not that I have OCD issues or anything...

Sugar Daddy was gone today so I had control of the TV. Doesn't happen very often.... Here's what I watched: Bulletproof Monk Oy, an hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back. Not even Chow Yun-Fat (hmmm, Chow, yummy) could make this more than a crappy movie to waste time with. Connie and Carla Too funny. Though, if I were Toni Collette, I would be concerned how easily I look like a drag queen. I would recommend this flick. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story Ben Stiller slayed me with his over the top performance. I've never since Vince Vaughan so understated. I laughed out loud at several points. Bonus for finding that the guy who plays Wash in Serenity was Steve the Pirate. Gary Cole and Jason Bateman also cracked me up. So, I've wasted many hours on the couch and should go read a book but there's poker to see. I can always read tomorrow!