made him a legend in his time

I'm super tired - I had meetings all day and had to talk in all of them, and then I drove Kim home, which meant more talking. I ate some leftover soup and did some work while sitting here, and then I went over to Kelly's and had a drink and generally enjoyed myself for a few hours. But the fun eventually had to end - I still had work to do, so I came home and spent the last hour doing that.

And now, after a completely boring post, it's time for bed - goodnight!

take my breath away

No blog tonight - I stayed home and didn't leave the house due to continued snow, and I'm getting a little stir crazy. I had meetings all day, and sadly my painters didn't accomplish much while I was on the computer - one stayed home entirely, and one came in, painted the downstairs bath, and left to avoid the worsening snow. Hopefully tomorrow is better, but we'll see.

After I finished meetings, I took a break to try a new stirfry recipe (success!), and then I worked for the last couple of hours. And now it's time for bed - goodnight!

hold me now, i'm six feet from the edge and i'm thinking

I stayed home from work today, which was probably a mistake because tomorrow's weather looks like it will be even worse. But I didn't really have much choice - I had to be home this morning to greet my painters, who arrived to make all my fixer-upper dreams come true (okay, my house is not a fixer-upper, I am just vain and don't like beige). Their speed is really making me retroactively regret the time I spent painting my office myself - in six hours today, they painted my entire living/kitchen/back entry/laundry room, twice. They did a really nice job so far, although they covered the least offensive (aka least beige) part first, so I'm even more excited to see tomorrow's progress.

However, I didn't actually watch them all day - I had to work, so I spent the day holed up in my office. I took a break this evening, talked to my parents, and also talked to Katie. And I made a v. tasty ribeye to go with the potato soup I made last night - the ribeye method I tried tonight worked really well (let the steak sit on the counter for 45min to take the chill off; preheat the oven to 450; get an oven-proof skillet really hot on the stovetop; rub the steak in salt, pepper, and olive oil; sear for one minute on each side; pop in the oven and bake for 4min on one side and 3min on the other; let rest while the soup reheats). This came out a perfect medium rare, nice sear, and some smoke but not as much as putting oil in the pan or letting it pan-cook longer. Since I don't have a grill and it's also super cold out, this method will do.

Unfortunately, I had to do a couple of hours of work tonight, so I did that while listening to a v. 90s playlist and enjoying my fireplace. And now I need to sleep - I want to go to the office tomorrow, but the weather looks treacherous, so we'll see. Goodnight!

all the small things

Today involved way, way more effort than I really wanted to put into anything - but many hours of incessant working seems to have somehow helped me to miraculously avoid jetlag. It's unclear to me how I avoided almost all jetlag on both the outbound and return portions of my trip to Berlin - but perhaps the fact that I was staying up until 3am in Berlin (8pm in Denver) somehow helped, even though it hurt at the time. Now if I can avoid coming down with a nasty cold like I usually do, this trip to Berlin would have to be counted as a success.

sssanyway. While that's all good, I had to do a ton of stuff today - I have painters starting at 9am tomorrow morning, which meant that I had to finalize paint colors and move a whole bunch of stuff today. The painting company owner came over this morning to help finalize, and I chose everything except the hallway color, which required some more sampling. So after she left, I ran to a paint store to pick up a gallon of paint for the laundry ceiling (she uses Sherwin Williams, but the current paint is almost all Benjamin Moore, and I wanted the ceiling to match everything else). I also went to Whole Foods in hopes of finding tomatillos, since I wanted to make chicken chile verde and couldn't find tomatillos yesterday - but this WF was also out of tomatillos, so I was out of luck.

Then I came home and spent the rest of the day moving stuff, packing stuff, hauling stuff up and down stairs, and also doing several loads of laundry in preparation for not being able to use my laundry room for a couple of days. I also talked to [censored] and to my parents, and made myself some cheesy potato soup (it would have been better if I'd taken time to make bacon to put on top of it, but it was pretty good despite that).

And now I need to sleep - we're in the middle of getting a whole bunch of snow, so I'm going to work from home tomorrow, but I'm going to have to slog hard to get through the many and varied things on my plate. Goodnight!

sometimes i give myself the creeps

Despite napping at 7:30 last night and then officially going to bed sometime around nine, I ended up sleeping until seven. This went a long way toward getting over my jetlag... and now it's midnight, which is either a good sign or will be a disaster since this is when I was getting up in Berlin.

But I did a bunch of house stuff today - I painted a whole bunch of samples on a whole bunch of walls, which took quite a bit of time. Then I raked a whole bunch of leaves and generally prepped some outdoor stuff - it was over 70 today, but we're supposed to get like eight inches of snow in the next couple of days. Stupid Colorado.

Then I went to the paint store to get three more samples, and then I went to whole foods to get groceries so that I can cook and generally keep myself alive if I don't go into work for a couple of days. Then I came home and painted a second coat of everything. I'm narrowing down my choices and am generally happy with where it's headed - but we'll see how it all looks in the morning.

And now I'm overdue for bed - goodnight!

can I get an amen

I had a thoroughly uneventful trip, followed by a real struggle to stay awake, which I mostly failed at. So I'm going to go to bed and hope I sleep a million hours and recover quickly - goodnight!

auf wiedersehen

It's my last night in Berlin, and I'm ready for a too-early wake up time and a flight back to my beloved house. I had a quiet day, which I needed - I slept in, worked in bed for a couple of hours, showered, and then had a currywurst and some fries at the bar downstairs while working for another couple of hours.

I probably could have just kept doing that, but I forced myself out of the hotel - Kristen and I had dinner at a really cute, delicious place I found called Shishi. It looked questionable walking in since we were the only people there, which felt way too romantic... But it slowly filled up, and the vibe was really nice. It was great to catch up after the event in a low-key setting, especially with such great food.

But now, it's over - Berlin has redeemed itself a bit in my mind, although I won't be heartbroken if I never come back. But that's the future, and in the present I need to eke out a few hours of sleep. Goodnight!

99 luftballons

This is the best trip I've ever taken to Berlin, and that's saying something considering that I had to write some nasty warning emails and my team has decided that me saying "next slide!" in my bitchiest voice is the funniest thing they've ever seen. But really, the event was great. I woke up this morning really not feeling like getting out of bed, but I rallied and made it into the office in time to do some work and then have a bunch of meetings. Most of my meetings were internal - it's my only chance to see some of the team members who work in other offices, so I had a bunch of 1:1s, which was good. I also got my own performance eval from my boss, since she's in Berlin for this event - the context switching between the event + everything else I do was interesting, but all in all it was good.

Tonight was the end of the event, which meant three hours of being 'on' (and one second of yelling 'next slide'), followed by six hours of going out. Kristen planned an amazing event, so we had to celebrate. So a bunch of us ended up at Tante Lisbeth, where we drank moscow mules and threw coasters at each other and generally had a fabulous time. We also made sure that Kristen got her first doner kebab (my third of this trip), and I'm hoping that the food saves my life.

Now, though, I really need to sleep and dream the dreams of the just - goodnight!

mein haus

I'm tired, but it's two am, so that should be expected. Today went off without a hitch, and tonight's dinner at a club was even better... And then I went out with the Europeans (as I often do) and had Moscow mules at a v. hip bar with Alice, Pierre, Luca, Lore, Selene, Erin, etc. That lasted way longer than planned, and ended with some v v tasty doner kebeb... So all in all it was a great night. But now it's time for bed - goodnight!

what you need

Day one of our event got off to a fine start. I spent the morning working, first from the hotel breakfast area and then from a coffeeshop, in an incredibly ineffective and ultimately vain attempt to get caught up on work. You can't miss a week for vacation, plus already be behind before vacation, and hope to catch up in three hours while jetlagged. That's a shame, really, since I desperately need to get caught up like right now and definitely won't.

sssanyway, then I grabbed some takeout lunch and walked over to the event space, where I watched a run through of tomorrow's stuff. And then I came back to my hotel, had a couple of meetings (one involved half a glass of wine, which was nice), and then went to the welcome reception and stayed until the bitter end. At that point a bunch of people were going out, but I need to bring my A-game tomorrow, so I came up to my room and took off my pants. But then I got an urgent ping from Kristen asking for help with something, so I had to make the ultimate sacrifice and put my pants on for another hour. Really, I'm a saint and deserve a raise.

That probably won't happen, though - but at least I'll wake up tomorrow (after seven hours of sleep instead of eight) without a hangover, so there is hope that I'll at least survive the dawn. Goodnight!

in a river of champagne

Today was decent, especially by my I-hate-Berlin standards. I slept pretty well last night, and so I didn't feel jetlagged much today. So I had a lazy morning, then went out and grabbed döner kebab for lunch - since I can't eat pita, I got it in a box with fries, salad (some greens and some beetroot), kebab meat, and a bunch of sauce. Since this is basically meat on top of fries, I was pretty happy. It was also a gorgeous day, so I was able to eat outside, and then take a walk along the East Side Gallery. My hotel is right on the edge of the River Spree, which used to be barricaded from view by the Berlin Wall - it must have been ridiculously depressing to be so close to the Spree and not be able to see the river because the wall blocked the view.

sssanyway, the Wall came down years ago, but sections of it survive, especially in the form of art exhibits. So I strolled along the East Side Gallery, bought myself a coffee to enjoy some more strolling, and generally wandered a bit. I ended up checking out a flea market in Freidrichshain that felt vaguely post-apocalyptic - since I'm from a v small midwestern town, I tend to find graffiti trashy, but here it's an inescapable artform. In any other city, if I'd walked down a flight of stairs into a half-submerged alleyway and the first thing I saw was a completely defaced ATM machine, I probably would have left. Instead, I got money from the ATM and wandered among all the families, locals, etc. who were perusing the flea market. I didn't get anything there, but I did buy a cute book at an art gallery - they'd taken an old book and folded/cut the pages inside to make a 3-D design, and I found it oddly charming, so now it's coming home with me.

Then I came back to the hotel and took a longer-than-advised nap. I also wrote for a little bit while drinking a mocktail in the bar (who am I?). And then I had dinner with my team - we went to an Italian place called Ristorante a Mano, which was v. tasty and had surprisingly excellent service. And then we came back to the hotel bar and hung out for awhile...but slowly it dawned on all of us that tomorrow is a work day, so it's time for bed. Goodnight!

east side gallery

I'm not going to type anything profound tonight - I am in Berlin, in the pinkest hotel room I've ever seen in my life, and I'm about to crash for the night. My flights here were entirely uneventful; Frankfurt was vaguely annoying but not nearly as bad as some of my previous experiences there; and I got to the hotel in time to shower, unpack, eat a salad, and call my parents, which got me through to a normal bedtime without taking a nap upon arrival. I also read a really cute romance on the plane, and I slept a bit, so it was all quite easy.

But now I really need to sleep so I can acclimate tomorrow - goodnight!

i'm ready for the laughing gas

And just like that, my retreat is over and I'm about to immerse myself in day-job madness. I'm sitting at a restaurant called Mustard's, somewhere in the middle of the international terminal at SFO. I've sat here before, on different trips, with different people - in fact, I ate here before my last trip to Germany, five years ago right about now, when this was a restaurant called Andale.

But this time I'm flying through Frankfurt rather than stopping there for a book fair. I'm headed to Berlin, a city that I don't particularly enjoy - in fact, every trip I've taken to Germany in my life has been vaguely tinged with disaster. The best trip to Germany was for Ritu's sister's wedding, but on that trip I drank a bunch of floral arrangement water, possibly poisoned myself, and was sick for all the rest of it. The other trips involved equally bad ideas. But maybe my weird relationship with Germany isn't surprising - my only recurring nightmare involves being chased by Nazis while freezing in a blizzard...so if I believed in past lives, I would believe that my last past life was a disaster in its own right.

sssanyway. I awoke in Tahoe this morning after a v. short sleep, stuffed all my things into my bags, helped clear out the houses, and got on the road a little after nine. I gave Barbara and Anne a ride back to the Bay Area - they live relatively close to SFO, so it made sense for them to ride with me. We had a v. easy, lovely car ride, with a stop in Old Town Vacaville for lunch. We didn't realize that Vacaville had an old town, or really anything but outlet malls and In-n-Outs, so that was a surprise. I dropped them both off at their respective houses, made a quick stop in Burlingame to grab a single, beloved Philz Coffee (and mail myself a box of stuff that I needed for my writing retreat but don't need in Germany), and then came to the airport.

And now, after eating a steak, drinking some wine, and generally relaxing a bit, it's time to put on my compression socks (I am old) and board my flight. See you on the other side!

there I was a defenseless middle kid

Sadly, my time in Tahoe is coming to an end. Happily, though, today was great. I did some work and laundry in the morning - as usual, I'm a rolling stone, and since I'm headed to Berlin tomorrow I needed to do some personal stuff to get ready (and ensure I don't smell). I also got some coffee across the street, made a v tasty breakfast sandwich, and then spent the afternoon doing some v deep business stuff. I've basically ignored my writing business the past two years - my day job pays me enough to ignore it, and also I didn't have a lot of incentive since I wasn't publishing anything new.

But I spent several hours this afternoon confronting my numbers, and the short answer is that my numbers are better than my neglect deserves, but still have room to improve them. Thanks to my knowledge of spreadsheets I was able to figure out a basic conversion rate from my always-free book to the later books in the series, which is better than expected and also gives me an idea of my target cost-per-acquisition if I start advertising again. So, the spreadsheet time was #worthit, although I probably should have written.

Eventually I stopped working, and we had dinner at MacDuffs (a pub nearby that we often go to). Then we hung out... Eventually it was just me and Anne and Jules, and then me and Anne, and then Anne let me walk out into the bear-infested woods alone (jk there is a single sidewalk between her house and mine and no one tried to eat me). And now I need to sleep - we're packing up and driving to SF tomorrow, and I fly straight from there to Germany. Goodnight!

if I could find a way to see this straight

My writing retreat is already drawing to a close, which doesn't feel possible. I had a great day today, though - I was going stir crazy, so I spent the morning at Starbucks, where I did a bunch of stuff I'd been putting off, and also journaled for a bit. I also bought myself a couple of Tahoe sweatshirts - they were cheap, and I'm cold, and I also like wearing souvenirs from my retreats to remind myself of my writing life.

Then I came back to my house, procrastinated, took a nap, and eventually wrote about six pages, which I'll take. I had to stop for dinner - Christie is leaving tomorrow instead of Friday, so we went out to celebrate the end of the retreat. We went to Scusa, which is v tasty Italian food, and we had a grand time. Then we came home, hunt out, brainstormed things, etc. I was loath to go to bed, but I'd like to write a lot of words tomorrow, so sleep seems like a good idea. Goodnight!

oh black water, keep on rolling

I'm feeling slightly murderous toward the day job at the moment - less murderous than I felt twelve hours ago, since I ate and wrote and brainstormed and walked and ate and drank a bottle of wine since then, but still. I had to do two hours of work this morning because I don't have any managers to delegate to - this will change in the next couple of months, but for now I really don't have another viable backup option. So I dialed into a meeting, where my resting bitch face was probably more of an active bitch face, and then I took care of a few odds and ends before signing off.

Then I tried to put it all behind me - I went over to the other house and made a super tasty breakfast sandwich (for lunch) with a gluten free bagel, some cheddar and ham, and my variant of a folded egg. Then I alternated between writing, brainstorming, and procrastinating, with a break to walk across to Safeway with Anne to get a soda. Anne was super helpful in brainstorming, and I think I just need to move on to the next scene and see what happens.

All productivity stopped around six + we ordered in Thai food, and then I spent six hours hanging out. Writing might have been more productive - but I miss my writing people, so this was v worthwhile time. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

i'm waking up

It was a lovely day in Tahoe - I didn't write as much as I wanted, but I did write for a couple of hours, so it was still enough to feel happy. I also had to have a call with my boss, which made me less happy (because I don't like working on vacation, not because the call itself went bad). And I went to CVS and bought a bunch of eye care stuff - my eyes have been bothering me for several days, so I loaded up on new products to hopefully make them better.

I'm also now, finally, officially at the point of caring more about comfort than appearances - I bought a pair of sunglasses to go over my regular glasses. They're great, so pour one out for my youth, I guess.

We ended up staying in for dinner - we ordered takeout from a barbecue place. Unfortunately they forgot my order, so I didn't get much brisket... But everyone had so much food that I basically just ate everything else. And now, I think, it's bedtime - goodnight!

she said my spirit doesn't move like it did before

I got a lot done today, but unfortunately almost none of it was writing. Instead, I was up and at 'em by nine, and then I did five hours of work for the day job (with a break to make an omelette, which was the only nice thing about that span of time). I had meant to get stuff done on Friday before leaving, but instead I took a lot of time packing, getting my house ready, etc. And I couldn't really delay any of it any more, so I had to get stuff done. Still, as someone who almost always refuses to work on weekends and also doesn't work on vacation, working on a weekend vacation day felt like a real kick in the teeth.

sssanyway. After I finished what I was doing, I talked to my parents (and interrupted my mom's progress in making dinner for [censored], which was rather rude of me). Then I did write for about twenty minutes, but just as I was really getting into it, people started gathering to go to dinner.

We went to Azul, which we've been to before - it's a tasty Mexican place near Heavenly village, and the enchiladas and chips (and margarita) made me happy. We had a v. nice, v. stereotypically ski-bum server, which I enjoyed, and Grace drank an entire third of her margarita before giving me the rest of it (so my evil plan of convincing her to get a margarita paid off). Then we came back to the house and played a couple of rounds of Downton Abbey Clue; I sat out the first one, then won the second, so I'll take it.

And now I'm going to go to bed and hope there are no work emergencies tomorrow so that I can focus on zee writing. Goodnight!

found myself in a conversation

Tahoe was delightful today. I woke up early and went to the other house in search of my eye drops (fail) and iced coffee (success), and then Cassie and I went to Safeway to grab new eye drops and other things. I spent the whole day alternating between writing and catching up with all the people I never get to spend time with in day to day life.

Anne and I took a break to drive over and pick up pizza, and the rest of the night was almost today entertainment. And now I'm going to bed - goodnight!

(make your own)

I'm exhausted, but I made it to Tahoe for a writing retreat. Luckily, I decided last night to move my flight later in the day, so I had time to pack and generally take care of things.

But now I am desperately tired, so I'm going to sleep and catch you up on everything tomorrow - goodnight!

(Editor's note - woke up and discovered this didn't post, so posting now!)

dissolve

I'm tired and my eyes are bothering me - specifically my left eye, which looks like I have pinkeye, but I almost assuredly do not. Instead I have "business planning eye", because I'm deep in the midst of planning for next year at work, which means I've been looking at screens too much. Also my eye doctors have all told me that my tears are oilier than average, and so I have a tendency to block my tear ducts with oil, which is apparently bad for them. Serves me right for being a demon who cries oil instead of water, I guess.

sssanyway. I worked all day, although I took a few mins before and after work to lie on the couch with a warm cloth over by eyes like a maudlin Victorian lady. I even had wine at lunch - no further comment, other than that drinking wine out of a coffee mug at noon felt both illicit and necessary. Then I skipped out and had a very long dinner with Alice at Boulder Depot - it was pretty great to see her, so I'm glad we made it happen.

But now I really need to sleep - I got less done than I should have tonight, and tomorrow is going to be a bit of a joke. Also, it was 78 degrees when I walked into the restaurant at 4:30pm...and when I pulled into my garage at 9, it was 40. A 38-degree drop during dinner is really quite shocking. So I'm going to go to bed and mentally prepare for the apocalypse - goodnight!

don't let me down

Meetings. That's all.

But the good news is that traffic is definitely better now that they've reopened the collapsed section. Also, I like (most of) the people I meet with, so it could be worse. Oh wait - it is worse, because we're also in the middle of total insanity with multiple projects, since all planning for next year has to happen right now.

But it will all be okay in the end...and I'm going on vacation in a couple of days, so it will get better by force if nothing else. After I'd slogged all day, I went to a paint store to pick up samples for my upcoming paint job. Then I grabbed dinner at Motomaki, drove home (and talked to [censored] on the way), tidied up my house, and then worked for the last three hours. Fun times, I guess.

And now, after that entirely boring post, it's time for bed - goodnight!

it's so romantic on the borderline tonight

My parents left this morning, and they somehow managed to make it all the way back to Iowa - I assume that their speed was driven by wanting to spend the night in their own bed, and not because they wanted to leave Colorado as far behind them as possible. I spent a couple of hours this morning seeing them off, and then I drove to work. Happily, they finished the repair on the collapsed portion of the highway and so all lanes in both directions are now opened, which made my commute way better - granted, I didn't leave for work until ten, but it took the 35min it should take rather than the 50min it was taking before.

I wasn't totally #inittowinit at work today - I was a bit too tired, and also a bit too behind to really know where to focus first. But I survived all my meetings, got just a little work done, ate some lunch, and generally thought everything went fine. Then I came home, with a stop to run some errands. When I got home, I ate some leftover pizza, washed some stuff that has to hang dry (I'm leaving for Tahoe/Berlin on Friday, so I need to start prepping), messed around a bit, and then worked for a couple of hours. But I'm not feeling like I'm being super productive, so I'm going to go to bed and hope that I can get a bunch of stuff done tomorrow instead. Goodnight!

battle hymn of the republic

Apologies to my regular readers - I haven't been getting nearly enough sleep, and my parents are in town for the weekend, so I have less urgency to blog because they know that I'm alive. They're leaving tomorrow morning and then it's back to the grind (for a few days, until I leave on a two-week odyssey to Tahoe and Berlin, which are usually not combined into one trip).

So, let's recap. On Friday we went to Boulder, where we saw my old apartment and the Hotel Boulderado, and then had a tasty lunch at my office. Once we were done with exploring my Boulder haunts, we drove to Golden and visited the train museum - there were a ton of trains there, as you might expect, and also some garden rail exhibits, and so a good time was had by all. We then dropped by a train hobby store, as well as a garden store, before coming home and relaxing for a few minutes. Then we took an uber to LoHi Steakbar - I'd never been there, but it always looked cute from the outside. It turns out to be quite tasty - we all had flatiron steaks and fries, and split a pork belly hash, and I was pretty happy with the end result.

Yesterday we did some more sitting on my patio (my patio got excellent use this trip) and some more exploring. First we had brunch at Bacon Social Club - I went there with Ritu Rani a couple of years ago, when it was newish and relatively slow - but now it's a destination, and there were like fifty people waiting for tables when we got there. Luckily I'd made a reservation, so we waltzed right in and at a whole lot of bacon (yum). Then we drove down to Union Station, where I showed my parents the station, and then I went to Whole Foods to stock up on stuff to make dinner.

Then we came home and spent the afternoon doing house stuff while I cooked - I made chocolate pots de creme, and a v. tasty instant pot beef stew, so that we could have Katie over for dinner. Unfortunately her family had to bail because Anne had a fever, but Katie came over and proceeded to virtually stay the night. We had dinner and then adjourned to the patio, where we hung out from approximately 7:30pm to approximately 2am. I can't believe we were out there that long, especially since it was so cold - but obviously the blankets I bought for the patio were #worthit. Eventually, though, the fun had to end, and so I got Katie an uber and then came upstairs to crash.

That made today a little painful - I wasn't exactly hungover since I had paced myself with the wine, but getting less than four hours of sleep always does me in. Still, I had to rally to get some stuff done - my dad and I had an epic adventure to figure out how to blow out my sprinklers, since it's going to freeze later this week and I wasn't sure I could drain them myself. We ended up going to Home Depot (my dad only got one trip to Home Depot this weekend, unlike when [censored] was here in August and we practically lived there), where we bought an air compressor and some other random tings. Then we came home, ate some breakfast, and then messed around with setting up the air compressor, and then figuring out how my sprinkler system worked, and then blowing out all the zones with the air compressor. It was overall fairly straightforward, and I took comprehensive notes, so hopefully a) nothing breaks this winter and b) I can refer to my notes to blow out my sprinklers myself in the future. We also played around with my leaf blower, and I think it's safe to say that I'm officially a home-owning adult with real home-owning problems.

But when we were finally done with our main chore for the day, the three of us went to the Denver Botanic Gardens. I hadn't been before but now I want to get a membership - the grounds were amazing, and I could see a lot of joy in going there to write in the garden cafe. We walked around a lot of it, and now I just want to plant all the plants, but I know that's probably not the wisest idea.

Then we came home, rested a bit, and then I made supper (pork chops, green beans, baked potatoes, leftover pot de creme from last night). And now it's barely ten, but I'm going to sleep - I need to bid my parents farewell and also work tomorrow, and sleep is crucial for all of that. Goodnight!

lay where you're laying, don't make a sound

I worked from home today, and so while I had a straight slog from 9-3 with a v. brief break to reheat some soup, it was at least more relaxed than if I had driven into the office. But as soon as three p.m. came around, I signed off - my parents are in town for the weekend, and they rolled up around 3:30. I'm v. excited to show them my house (even if half-duplexes in Iowa aren't nearly as impressive as they are in Denver), and I'm also v. excited to show them Denver in hopes that they will come visit this metropolis more often than they came to San Francisco.

So, when they arrived, I showed them the house, and then we spent some quality time out on the back patio. While it now officially feels like fall here, today was a really nice day - so the late afternoon / early evening on the patio was quite delightful. At some point I walked down the street to pick up takeout gluten free pizza from Blue Pan - they kind of screwed it up because they put the wrong toppings on the thin-crust vs. the deep-dish, but I didn't quibble because I was hungry. So we ate pizza, spent some more time on the patio, watched a bit of old Johnny Carson, and eventually ended up on the patio again (this time under the blankets that I bought at Costco, which turned out to be a v. wise investment).

And now I'm going to sleep so that we can do fun stuff in the morning at a reasonably early start time - goodnight!

hot as a fever, rattle of bones

Nothing exciting to report. I got up early and made it to the office by 8ish, where I did a bit of work and then had meetings pretty much straight from 9 to 5. I should have left immediately, but I did a bit of desultory work and ate some granola in an attempt to avoid traffic, which was kind of a fail. But I made it home around 6:45, spent some time tidying up around the house, ate some leftover soup, and then did about an hour of day job stuff. I then spent the last hour wasting time on my phone - perhaps good for decompressing, but probably not good for sleep.

And so now it's time for bed - goodnight!

my baby don't mess around

Today was the first day that totally felt like fall - it rained/drizzled/was in the 40s-50s all day. Unfortunately that meant it took an hour to get to work. But I had several free hours somehow, which was surprising, so I actually got a lot done. And I survived all my meetings and left a little after five, which was even better.

But I still spent a couple of hours talking about work - Caroline, Isaac and I went to River and Woods and had a 100% agreeable time. It was nice to hang out outside of work (with wine), and also nice to go back to one of my favorite haunts - they were quite surprised when my favorite server brought us free dessert (and she and I exchanged emails to hang out in Denver sometime).

So that was fun, but it means I didn't get home until nine. I should have worked but I have no desire to, so I'm going to bed instead. Goodnight!