An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

This first novel by Richard Hawke was entertaining and compelling enough that I finished it one setting. The story revolves around the illegitimate son of a former NYC Police Chief who stumbles upon a shooting at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The shooter is killed but the actual mastermind is determined to be someone blackmailing the Mayor and the City for mucho dinero. In order to avoid a panic, the Mayor and current Police Chief enlist our hero in secretly finding the blackmailer. It was good reading although it left a lot of references to past events that made me think a lot was edited out. Or, it's setting it up for the next book. Unfortunately, Hawke fell victim to what I call a "Stephen King ending". That's where the entire story rushed to wrap up in the last 10 pages or so.

Another in my werewolf/vampire/all things supernatural reading selections, this book by Carrie Vaughn was pretty good. The main character is a relatively new female werewolf who starts up a call-in radio support show for supernaturals. The story covers drama in her pack, some scary interactions with the town's vampire family and a werewolf killing hit man (who happens to be really hot). Not quite up there with Charlaine Harris or Kelley Armstrong, but definitely good enough to get me to read the next book.

Yesterday was Shorty's birthday. He turned 72...not quite as old as dirt but getting there. A digression - for those not keeping track, let me tell you about July for me. First, it's my Mom's birthday then Steven's then my parents' anniversary and finally Shorty's birthday. I am very poor in July what with the gift buying. Of course, Shorty wanted Steven and me to make him dinner at my house. We actually made him a feast. Steven prepared two big steaks. One with a Jack Daniel's marinade and another with a spice rub. We sauteed mushrooms and onions, had white corn on the cob, rosemary potatoes, garlic bread and salad. About half of the veggies were organic so I got to clear out a lot of my weekly delivery. Shorty said it was the best birthday he ever had. Steven and I said, "We can't believe that's the best birthday out of 95." We are such smarty pants. It was a nice evening, though, and I'm off the hook for family gatherings at my house...

My pal, Jen, emailed Eileen and me to see if we wanted to go to a cooking demonstration given by Mad Coyote Joe . It was scheduled to be held at Kitchen Classics yesterday morning. She'd seen an ad for it and thought it looked like a fun thing for us to do. I told her I was in. What I didn't tell her was that the owner of Kitchen Classics, Shauna, used to live across the street from my parents and her son, Garrison, is Steven's best friend. I've known these folks for almost 20 years. I walked in the door of the place and immediately saw someone I knew. It wasn't Shauna, or Gare or his sister Candy...it was actually someone I work with. She'd coincidentally come for the same class. Jen came in after that and I introduced her. Then Eileen got there and more introductions were made. Jen and Eileen were amazed, "Do you know someone everywhere you go?" I told them it was a Pfister thing and Gare backed me up. He doesn't get how we do it but he's se...

I bowled in a charity fundraiser Friday night. They were raising money for Rosie's House which is a very cool organization. They supply musical instruments and lessons to underprivileged kids. The kids have to agree to practice a certain amount each day and keep their grades at a certain level to participate. I'm not a great bowler by any means. My highest game was a 224 and that was clearly a fluke since I never carried much higher than a 135 average when I was league bowling. Now, my only goal is to break 100 on the infrequent occasions I'm hitting the lanes. However, I really like to be competitive. Just trying to break 100 isn't all that fun. Trash talking and competing with someone else is fun. When the club bowls, I usually have The Jello Shot Prince to play against and we both have a good time with it. The women I was bowling with on Friday, however, couldn't have cared less about the scores. They were just there to chat and have a couple of cocktails. I...

My boss' last day was yesterday. She's been working since she was 14 and has done some smart planning so she can retire at a relatively early age. Good for her! I'm going to miss her a lot. Not only was she cool to work for, she was a friend. She gave me room to get my stuff done, was always there to help and we enjoyed shooting the shit on a personal level. She was awesome on communicating with the users and following up to make sure things were done. She was also the biggest Pollyana I've ever met in my life. To get her to say something critical about someone was a tremendous undertaking. And, even if she did admit it, a week later she would have re-set and thought that person was wonderful. That was a good quality to have around here to balance the view of the cynics that Sugar Daddy and I are. Hopefully, her replacement lean towards the 'Up With People' attitude so we can meet somewhere in the middle. I predicted that things were going to go to hell as soon...

I found a new author I really dig. Kelley Armstrong has a series of books out with supernatural characters. I whipped through Bitten, Stolen, Dime Store Magic, Industrial Magic, Haunted and Broken in no time at all. The first two and the last books have as their main character the lone female werewolf in the world. The third and fourth book have a young witch as the focal point and the fifth one features the story of a dead (but ghostly) witch. These were really good. My favorite topics, sex and violence, are in there but there's also a lot about personal relationships and a well developed world that the characters reside in. The books share the same characters throughout. The stories and characters actually show growth which is nice. I'm really growing tired of series where the characters seem to be stuck at a certain point and it all feels like just more of the same (think Anita Blake). Good stuff here, check it out.

Today is my parents' 43rd Anniversary. Man, they're old. Steven and I took them to dinner at The Olive Garden to celebrate. How that works is that Steven drives and I pick up the check. He's got a good thing going, that kid. It was the typical Pfister family outing with Steven and I fighting over the black olives, stealing food from each other's plates and keeping the table entertained with our banter. We really should take that show on the road sometime. Fortunately, their electricity has been on since early this afternoon so they don't have to worry about that anymore. The electrician and the Salt River Project people were really great in making sure that everything was good. It's nice to hear good stories about customer service. Now, Shorty can obsess about getting the hole in their wall fixed. He'd tried to get the police report from the City of Scottsdale but the officer hadn't filed it yet. His homeowner's insurance people told him he would ...

I got everyone settled in for a good night's sleep by 11 last night. My parents in my room with the dog, me on the couch, the cat under the couch and Steven who knows where because he wisely sought refuge elsewhere. Spartacus decided it was safe to come out from under the couch at 1 AM. I know this because, in her desire to check out all of my patio, she kept moving the blinds and I woke to hear the click, click, click of them hitting against each other. At 2 AM, she started exploring my dining room shelves. Picturing the shattered remains of my glass swizzle stick collection got me up so I could move them to safety. 3 AM found her climbing on the top of my TV. Ya know, you think of cats as being quiet, stealthy creatures. Not Spartacus. She likes to rustle papers, meow loudly and knock crap over. I managed to get back to sleep until about 5. That's when Shorty got up, turned on lights and the dog came out to touch me repeatedly with his wet nose. Clearly, they don't think ...

We had a bee-yatch of a storm here last night. It poured buckets and there was lots of lightening. (Yes, my skylight is still leaking but they're really hoping to get it to it soon.) There was a microburst in my parents' hood last night and their power went out at 9:30. I didn't find out until Shorty called me this morning...at 6:15 AM. Considering I went to bed after midnight, I can't say that I was really pleased with the wake up call. Their power was still out so the whole group came over to camp out at my place. That's two parents, a dog, a cat and a freakishly tall kid. All in my 936SF condo. Add in my Uncle who stopped in tonight and it's quite the sardine tin around here. The cat was pissed off at being transported in a cardboard box. She's been under my couch all day and doesn't seem likely to come out. The dog couldn't wait to jump on my white couch. Sugar Daddy declared a no dog on the couch edict when I told him but the dog apparently doe...

I have been in work mode with little time to think or do anything else. We put in a new server Saturday and I'm the Project Manager for the whole shebang. As with any IT task, no matter how much you test (and we tested a boatload), you still get hiccups when you implement. This server was no exception. We were at work for 8 hours Saturday fighting with printers and mapping issues. Ugh. Yesterday, I spent most of the day checking to see if our UNIX guy had the issues resolved and stressing about today when the users came in. Today, I was scheduled to come in late but I checked in from home at 7:30 or so. We still had printer issues and external email wasn't working. Sigh. I couldn't take it relaxing at home so I got in around 9:30 to see what I could do. Not much, besides sending out update emails since I'm not the tech person on this one. Tonight, I'm hanging out with our Night Operator watching all of the processes to make sure everything is okey-dokey. So far, so ...

I think there's something in the Pfister DNA that drama is just drawn to us. Steven called me tonight to tell me that a car drove into the side of my parents' house. Apparently, the driver passed out and drove along the side of the house before the car stopped. He wanted to let me know in case I wanted to come over and see it. Since I was already on glass number 2 of post-work wine, I declined and told him to take pictures with his new cell phone. He already had, of course. He didn't think there was too much damage but Shorty called me later and said that, after moving the car, there's a hole in the living room wall about 35 inches long and 5 inches wide. He'd been in the computer room (next to the living room) when it happened and he said it scared the shit out of him. The whole house shook and he thought the A/C unit had fallen off the roof. Oh, and their plumbing is stopped up and they're going to need an outside line replaced. That's completely unrelated...

I (and probably a lot of my compadres) have been in a deep funk for the last few days after hearing about Adela Mulligan's tragic accident. There has been some positive news coming out of San Carlos. Mark's boys are doing much better and should be home from the hospital. Mark's youngest brother, Dave, is going to stay with Mark for the next 6 - 12 months to help out. God bless him. Mark's got a great group of friends in San Carlos who will be there to support him. Also, the donation fund has been growing at a great speed since the word got out to the Arizona Parrot Head Club and the PHiP Leader's Board. To know Mark is to love him, so people are strongly coming out to support him. I went out with Connie and Jeanne last night for Margaritas and Mexican food. They're both friends of Mark's so it was comforting to be able to talk about how we were all feeling with folks who know and love him as much as I do. It will get better...people are resilient but it'...

I don't normally comment on politics. It seems to get people riled up and, frankly, I'm more of a lover than a fighter. There was an on-line article that got me all fired up a few days ago and I wrote this post. Imagine my surprise when one of the gubernatorial candidates commented to clarify his reported statement. I mean, come on, I'm just a teeny tiny blogger. Why bother? However, I found it very cool that he cared enough to respond. Since I put my main comments on the blog, I thought it only fair to put his comment and my response on a post as well. Here's what he had to say: Actually, I am Gary Tupper and the press edited four sentences together out of a 2 minute response to a question. I personally could care less about our current governor's personal life, but I cited specific examples that illustrate that she is out of touch with the majority of us, mostly because she is a career politician. Feel free to contact me with your questions, Tupper at Tupper06....

Tragic. Awful. Unfathomable. Horrific. Sad. There are so many words yet none completely describe the event, the situation, the feelings. Our dear friend, Mark Mulligan, has suffered an incredible loss. His wife and two children (ages 6 and almost 2) were in a car accident near their home in Mexico. A driver in oncoming traffic suffered a heart attack and crossed the median and hit their vehicle. His beautiful wife, Adele, was killed. His sons, Marcos and Luis, were seriously injured. Mark was in Indiana doing a house concert and rushed back. I can't possibly imagine how he felt on the way back home. How does the mind wrap around something like that? I just don't know. Someone quoted the police officer who said 4 seconds either way and they would have been fine. Four seconds. What a tiny slice of time that divides tragedy and continued happiness. Where does one take comfort? Knowing Mark, he's getting strength from his belief in God. Many of his family went to Mexico to be w...

Check out this article , titled "2 GOP hopefuls remark on Napolitano's personal life". Republican hopefuls for the Governor's office, Gary Tupper and Mike Harris, both made comments about the fact that Governor Janet Napolitano has never been married nor had kids which, in their world, apparently makes her less qualified to be Governor and make decisions about programs for children. What utter bullshit. I've never been married but I have a kid. I don't think I'd be a better Governor, though. In my opinion, their comments were not so subtle hints that she's a lesbian. I have no idea if she is or isn't and it frakking doesn't matter. What does matter is whether you support her platform and believe that she's competent. If you don't, that's fine. But to say she can't have good, informed positions on topics because of her marital status is nonsense. Those guys are pathetic.

Norene and I had several hours to spend before the show last night. She had two things she wanted to do. The first was to drive around the Arizona State Capital area since she'd never seen it. The second was to go to Hard Rock Cafe. She's been a Hard Rock pin and shot glass collector for years and she'd never been to the Phoenix store. The Capital part was easy. I knew, sorta, where it was and we drove around and through where we could. The actual Statehouse is dwarfed by all of the buildings around it but it's still kind of neat. The Hard Rock was not so easy. I had looked it up online before we left and thought it was at 200 W Washington (when I rechecked it today at dexonline, it actually says 200 E Washington so we were off a bit). The Dodge Theater where we were going for the concert is at 400 W Washington so I thought it was going to be very convenient. We drove around the block twice at 2nd Ave and Washington...really slowly. Thank goodness downtown Phoenix is de...

Norene and I went to the highly anticipated (by us, anyway) Lyle Lovett show last night. Wow! He had the Large Band with him and that's not an overstatement. There were 13 band members and 4 back up singers including Phoenix' own Francine Reed. Margo Reed came out to do a couple of songs, too. Every musician had his turn in the spotlight and they were all fantastic. Awesome! It was a nearly non-stop 2 hours and 20 minutes of great music and fun stories. Lovett is very funny in a quiet, dry way and he tells great little stories, mostly related to Texas. Norene had never seen him before and she was enthralled. As we were driving home, I said "I can't believe Julia Roberts broke up with him." Norene replied, "I knew you were going to go there." I remember back when they got married and my first thought was, "She's not good enough for him." I haven't changed my mind since.

You scored as agnosticism . You are an agnostic. Though it is generally taken that agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God, it is possible to be a theist or atheist in addition to an agnostic. Agnostics don't believe it is possible to prove the existence of God (nor lack thereof). Agnosticism is a philosophy that God's existence cannot be proven. Some say it is possible to be agnostic and follow a religion; however, one cannot be a devout believer if he or she does not truly believe. agnosticism 71% Buddhism 54% Christianity 54% Satanism 50% Paganism 46% Islam 38% atheism 38% Hinduism 33% Judaism 29% Which religion is the right one for you? (new version) created with QuizFarm.com Got this from Vern .

It's Steven's birthday today. Unlike Crime Dog, I don't publicly display my kid's age because it makes it too easy for people to start doing the math on my age. I called to wish him a Happy Birthday this morning and he was all bummed out. Not because of his birthday but because of his job. Long story short, he has employee issues to deal with today and he had planned to take the whole day off. He's worked 16 straight days and really needs a break. I was sympathetic but them's the breaks when you manage a bunch of teenagers. They do sometimes do dumb stuff and you have to be the grownup and clean up after them. He'll probably feel better when I drop his present and card off this afternoon. He bought himself the Calvin and Hobbes collection the other day and had asked me to pay him back for it as a birthday present. I told him, "Hell, no, that's over $100!" Of course, I'm going to give him $100. Easiest birthday present I've ever bought.

Wednesday, July 5 7PMish I worked late and headed out to the nearly empty parking lot. I started my car, put it in gear and immediately noticed that it just wasn't right. The engine was hesitating and it felt like it was going to stall. I though, "Oh no, not this again!" But, it's only been 5,000 miles since my last oil change...well within the suggested range. Don King was leaving and saw me popping open the hood. He came over and we checked the oil. It was full and nice and clean looking. He listened to the engine and said he thought it sounded fine. Actually, what he said was, "It sounds all right for a Hyundai." I then proceeded to lecture him on the merits of my car. It's a really good car - Consumer Reports gave it the best of the year when I bought it. My Mercedes driving friends have actually said they thought it was a pretty smooth ride and one of them has even bought one. I get a little touchy when people knock it. Just ask Grandpa. After sitt...

I found this article in today's Arizona Republic quite interesting. It's about older women/younger men relationships and why they're becoming more prevalent. They took the words right out of my mouth in several places. Now, I know there are exceptions to every generalization so don't jump on me here but, I believe: Younger men are more fun. They're not necessarily looking for a serious relationship so they're more willing to just chill and play. I have no desire to get married but I would like to have someone to have fun with. And, not that I don't like kids, but they're less likely to have them. And ex-wives. It certainly makes things less complicated. Younger men aren't threatened by an older woman's success. They're not competing for who makes the most money, has the biggest house, etc. and they don't feel the need to give well intentioned (but often unasked for) advice on career/life/purchases/etc. so they can feel superior/smarter/...

I went shopping for my Mom's birthday present at Bookstar on Sunday morning. It wasn't easy getting out of there with just purchasing two books for her. I'm like a crack addict with someone dangling a lot of pipes in front of me when I go into a book store. All I can think is, "I want that one. I really need that one. Oh, that one looks so good, I must have it." I could easily drop a couple of Benjamins every time I go in. However, I've been trying to convince myself that I don't really need to buy books. First, it seems silly to spend $9 to $30 on something that I'll be done with in a couple of hours. Second, I don't have the space to store them. As it is, I have books tucked away all over my condo. Finally, I have a really good library system available to me and it's really easy to reserve something and pick it up in a few days (assuming I can wait). What I try to do is make a list of everything I want to buy then reserve them at the library...

Today is my Mom's birthday. Shorty took us out to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner to celebrate. It was a pretty typical Pfister family dinner. Steven and I verbally sparred on every subject unless we were united in picking on Shorty. We've eased up on him over the past few years so don't feel too sorry for him. He actually likes the attention. It's funny the habits that get passed on to the next generation. Shorty is a Gin Martini drinker and has been since way back. I think Gin is vile. If it were the only alcohol on the planet, I would live out my days completely sober. However, Gin flavored condiments are tasty. When I was a young lass in the frozen tundra, I used to wait until Shorty (I called him Dad back then) wasn't paying attention to his drink then I'd sneak his olive. Looking back, I'm sure I wasn't as stealthy as I imagined myself to be and that Shorty just let me get away with it. I also used to eat the fruit out of my Mom's Brandy drink...

I decided to be a slug for most of the weekend and just watch movies recorded on my DVR. It was nice to not be on the go for every minute of the day and night. Without further ado, here are my reviews. The Avengers Incredible movie. Incredible as in, every time I asked if it could get any dumber, it did! Watching weeds grow in your backyard would be a more productive use of time than watching this flick. Bummer, because I really loved the series. Mr. and Mrs. Smith Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. There was some fun stuff (Vince Vaughan's scenes, especially) but it was way too long. Ice Station Zebra This film made Mr and Mrs Smith seem like a short. Wow, did they drag it out. I love Alistair MacLean's books but they could have tightened up the story quite a bit and made a better movie. Rock Hudson was studly as the sub commander. Ernest Borgnine was distractingly quirky and Patrick McGoohan was pretty one dimensional as the super secret spy. (This was from 1968, bt...

I caught the premiere of the show Psych last night on USA. Its premise is that a guy convinces the cops he's a psychic and helps solves crimes. He's actually just really, really observant. Really funny show, you should check it out.

T, Don King and I were talking today at work about job interviews. (Note to work people: none of us are looking for jobs!) Don King told us about a guy who interviewed with him for an open position. He said the guy just didn't seem excited about it and that he never even followed up afterwards. He did not hire him. T asked him, "Did he ask for the job?" Apparently, T won't hire someone unless they specifically ask for the job. He rattled off some really nice wording that asked while sounding reasonable and wasn't pushy. Wish I could remember exactly what he said. He would never hire me. I'm not good at asking for things and I wouldn't even know how to say it without sounding like some sort of overly aggressive type. I have said in interviews, "I'm really interested in this position and I think I would be a good fit for it." That's about as bold as I can be. Sugar Daddy and I talked about it at lunch. He said he would think the candidate...

Steven had his final appointment with the Cute Doc today at 1:30. It seemed fitting that he was running an hour late. He had a good excuse, though. He'd been called in on a trauma and had been in surgery since 7 PM the night before. Steven got a big thumbs up on his recovery. His ankle is stable and, if he keeps doing his flexing exercises, he should be at 100% in a year or so. That's pretty remarkable considering how much damage he did. The Cute Doc and Steven have become buds, of sorts, since the Doc has been frequenting Jamba Juice. I told Steven to chat me up when he gets a chance. Can't hurt and you never know...

When I first moved into my condo in November, they had just redone the roof. We didn't have any rain until March when it rained buckets for hours and hours. That was the day before I got home from the Parrot Head cruise. I've had bad luck with leaks so I fully expected to come home to puddles on the floor. Sure enough, it had leaked around my bathroom skylight. It's all tile in there and there wasn't much harm done, fortunately. I called it in to the Property Management company but never heard back from them. I should have followed up but I trusted they would take care of it. Not sure why I believed that... We are officially in our Monsoon season here in Phoenix. Generally, it means afternoon and evening rain is always a possibility. It started raining steadily around 12:30 this morning. I had a premonition and checked the bathroom. No leaks. Got up this morning to find that it was dripping in all of the same places that it had in March. sigh I called it in today and ga...

I watched another kiddie movie yesterday. I had heard a couple of reviews of Madagascar that said it wasn't all that great. That there were a few clever jokes but it mostly dragged on and that the cast wasn't all that inspired. The reviews were right. I laughed at a couple of the jokes. Most of them involved the penguins and the lemurs. The rest of the movie was just kinda, eh . I'm not even sure if kids would really like it. It didn't have a lot of action and not a lot of cuteness.

I've been telling this story for about a week now. I'll leave out some of the details to protect the innocent when I tell it here. I was in a serious, nothing flirty or frivolous at all, talk with a guy when I literally got so distracted by his good looks that I lost all track of the conversational thread. I was stunned. Man, all I could think was "You are so absolutely hot I can think of nothing more than what I would like to do to you. And with you. Over and over." (Not that I would do anything being a single woman - family member readers qualifier.) Oy vey. Is it hot in here or is it just me? I managed to cover it up pretty well and went on with the conversation but it wasn't easy. And, I just had to laugh at myself because it was just so juvenile. When I told the story on Sunday, one of my friends related a "stunned" story involving a shirtless fireman. I felt better knowing that I'm not alone in having this experience.

I haven't posted any book reviews lately, mostly because I've been rereading a whopper of a book (513 pages in the trade version) called Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. Since the subject matter is the History of Philosophy, you can't just skim through it. I first read this book shortly after it came out in the mid-90s and I picked it up as an impulse buy at Border's when I went shopping for my Mom for Mother's Day. I have no doubt that I'll be reading it again in a few years, too. The story starts with a soon to be 15 year old girl (Sophie, natch) who gets involved with a mysterious teacher who imparts to her the world history of philosophy. From there, it switches to another character and oh, you just need to read it to appreciate it. I found myself thinking, every time I put the book down after reading a bit, what an incredibly clever and well constructed book this is. Creative, informative, fantastical...I could make up more words but it's just th...

Crime Dog, in a desperate and sad plea for blog comments, whined here about how no one is responding to his prose. So, just to get him to stop with the bellyaching, would you mind popping over there and leaving him some sort of comment, please? When I read his post, it reminded me of these two cartoons that I'd read in our local paper. Don't get me wrong, I love to get comments but it's not the biggest drive for me to blog. Probably isn't for Crime Dog either, maybe he was just wearing his crabby pants when he posted.

Did anyone work yesterday? We only had five people in my office and it was an incredibly slooooooow day. I think I only got five emails...counting spam. I came in late because our Night Operator and I were doing some testing on a new server and he was coming back from Rocky Point so I didn't want to make him come in too early. He picked the weekend in Mexico where there were no alcohol sales due to the election. He did, however, bring down enough booze to get him through. He could be a Parrot Head. Anyway, I digress, as usual. I left a little after 6 (coming in late means you have to stay late and that seems so unfair) and my car was the only one left in the parking lot. I fully expected a tumbleweed to come rolling through the gate when I opened it. That's how dead it was. If only I didn't use every vacation day for some Parrot Head frivolity, I could have had the day off, too. As it is, I'll be back at work tomorrow and we'll still be down some folks who took the ...

I came home last night to a message on my machine from Shorty. Call me. OK, nothing unusual about that. He's always wanting me to call him. But then he follows up with: 480-945..... Yep, he left me his phone number. The same number that my parents have had for something like 20 years. The same number that was my phone number for a while. Did he think I'd somehow forgotten it? I talked to Steven today and Shorty had done the same thing to him. Guess he really wanted to make sure we had no excuse for not calling him back.