cheleblog

We went to The Black Forest Inn last night. It's a place that I needed to reclaim. I'd spent significant time there in my far-away long-ago past, with people who are no longer important (nor even part of my life) anymore. So while I had nice memories of the place - and the food! - the memories were tied up with not-as-nice memories of those people.

I don't even know why I started thinking of the place again.. but along about Thursday afternoon the idea was firmly lodged in my head "We're GOING to The Black Forest this weekend."
Okay then. When I get ideas like that, I pretty much have to act on them.

I knew that we had to sit out on their patio too. Ragazz' isn't always a big outdoors-diner. When we got there and I said "We have to sit outside" he asked if I was sure about that. "Yes. Outside."

I could tell the minute we sat down - he was instantly loving it. He gave it our ultimate compliment (lifted from WILD man Max) "We're moving here!"  It's the perfect urban patio, and it wasn't crowded or loud or crazy. The food was as good or better than I remembered it. And we had a lovely, spaetzle-filled evening.

It's MY (well OUR) place again. We'll go back there again. Or possibly even move there. Heh.

I'm off to have some PANCAKES (or something similar) with notprada and then I suspect we'll have to spend some time making sure he's ready to go to the Big Race.

Ciao.

Hello and Happy Saturday!

I sorta kinda remember waking up the ragazz' so that he could go practice racing today. We purposely had an evening full of nothing last night.. couch, pizza, and yes - The West Wing. We're almost done with Season Six.

( Funny story here... )

And with that, I'm outta here. Have a good day! Ciao.

A public service announcement for all you 612, 952, 763, 651 (and even 218, 320 and 507) people:
Go to Burger Jones. Go there RIGHT NOW. You will thank me for this.
SmashBurger was our favorite burger place until last night. Now we are complete and total Burger Jones fans. There was a little wait - but it was 7:30 on a Summer Thursday evening.. and it's still a pretty new spot. And the service was a tiny bit slow - but nowhere near as long as we waited at Brasa last week.. and again, the place was really hopping.
But oh.. my... word.... every single thing was deeeelicious. I want to go back there and just have fries. Really.
So if you are our friend, expect an invitation to Burger Jones soon. I'm going to try to convince ragazz' that we need to go there one more time before he leaves.

I was laid pretty low by this swine flu    H1N1   bubonic plague  summer cold yesterday. I did a lot of layin' around and I got a really good nap in between 6:00 - 7:00, and then I started feeling better. My head's still plugged up (and gadzooks, is there anything worse than the plugged-up-ears thing? I think not.) and I sound funny.. but I think I'm gonna live. I know you are relieved to hear this.

So there'll be a regulation work day today.. although I'm gonna try to not spend a lot of time pushing bins and furniture. I have some putzy desk work to do, so that's what will be on the agenda.

I'm going to get to it so I can be done with it.. and then the weekend begins! Have a great day. Ciao.

I spent most of the day cleaning up other people's messes. I've learned that when some people are done, they're very neat and throw everything away and/or take their personal items with them. Then there are others who just push back their chairs and exit the building. They leave all their work papers/notebooks/binders etc. They leave all their recognition awards. Some people leave personal pictures - I always feel bad throwing out the kids' school pictures! 

It's not like they didn't know this was coming.. everyone who was laid off had a minimum of six months' notice. I don't get it. Why would you not bring your personal stuff home with you?

So I cleared off desks and offices so the furniture guy could come along after me to knock things down. We have a rule - he gets to keep all change/money found in the drawers.. I get first dibs on any cool looking office supply stuff. Heh. And we've agreed that if someone left a big pile of money behind, we'd split it 50/50. Unfortunately, no one has left behind any money bags yet. He found about a zillion pennies the other day.

There's one thing that we've found in just about everyone's desk, though. Right after the acquisition was announced a couple of years ago, the CEO of our company gave everyone a copy of this book. We've literally collected about 300 copies.. many of which have never even been opened. I guess nobody cared about where their cheese went.
I think I'm going to start selling them to Half Price Books. That's where I brought my own copy the day after I got it. They gave me $0.25 for it.

I'm pretty sure today is the day I should try to eat some beets. I can't taste or smell a single thing. I feel pretty rotten. I do have to run to the Sales Office for a couple of minutes to sort through the mail and grab a couple things, but then I'm coming home so as not to infect the world. And also to not scare them. My nose is pretty red, and I've got the oh-so-hot mouth breathing thing going on. Ragazz' has never wanted me more, I tell ya.

Wow! Again with the kind of Debbie Downer posts!  This will make you feel better. You are welcome.
(hey.. at least it's not a rick-roll. but it still makes me laugh every time.. because I am a dork.)

Ciao.

I may be suffering from some oxygen deprivation. That not-allergies-but-cold that ragazz' had last weekend? He threw it and I caught it. So now it's mine for a while, I guess.

I drove a little Mazda SUV last night. It was nice! It didn't feel at all truck-like. The salesguy rode in the back with us, which always kind of gives me the creeps. "Turn left here. We'll take a right at the light and get on the highway. There's no one behind us, hit the brakes hard NOW." It reminded me of taking the license test. I had to keep reminding myself that he wasn't judging my driving skills.
We'll be driving more vehicles in the coming weeks, and the thought of it isn't freaking me out anymore.

The Infinite Jest reading goes on. I'm still keeping up with the weekly schedule, and the farther into it I get, the more I'm enjoying it and the more I understand it. So fellow readers (looking at my cousin!) - don't lose heart! Keep plowing through.. it just gets better. What I've noticed about it (and I like this) is that you have to devote TIME to it. You can't just pick it up, read a couple pages, and put it down again. The schedule keeps you on about 7-8 pages a day, and really, that's about the minimum you can read at a time.
This is fun. It's like going to school, but without those darn pesky tests and papers.
I'm totally going to audit a class soon.

Um... what else? I need to go sneeze some more. That is all. Ciao!

It was one of those days that starts out slowly, gets whipped up faster and faster 'til you're a whirling dervish and then you crash out on the other side, exhausted.

A little dramatical, perhaps. But that's how it was. Tuesday is Monday Do-Over Day, so I'm hoping that it will be calmer.

I can't believe that ragazz' leaves for the race in just a week. Man, that came up quickly. While I'm a little bummed out that I don't get to go away on vacation too, I think I'll have enough stuff going on to keep me distracted.. heh. As we all know, a distracted chele is a lot better than a bored chele. When bored, chele gets into trouble.

Audrey is back from the car spa. Oil changed, tires rotated, supposedly cured. I'm crossing my fingers here.

I'm spending the day at the Downtown office, packing, tossing, cleaning. You'd think it would be done by now. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. Heh. It's NEVER done. Another department is done today. After that, there will be FOUR of us left in an office that used to house about 650 people. Isn't that less than 1%? I think that was my lottery luck right there. Now I'll never win the Powerball.

I just realized that this entire entry sounds like I'm in a bad mood - and I'm really NOT! So here - some internet happy for you:

( Click here... IF YOU DARE! )

Ciao, Bellas.

I'm getting a little extension of the holiday weekend, thanks to Audrey. We're getting a little TLC at the shop. Think of it like a spa-day for four-wheelers. She's getting a new.. something. And then she will be happy and good like new.

Now that it's been six months..
One thing that I wanted to work on this year - so I made it a resolution - was the worrying. Or rather, trying to NOT do so much of that. I'm a world class champion worrier. I'd probably be ranked in at least the top 500. I don't worry a lot about *me*. I just don't. I've been through enough stuff that I know I can handle it. If I can control it, I don't worry about it.  I worry about other people and other things.. all things over which I have no control.
AND... therein lies the problem. Heh.

I know that worrying wastes a lot of energy, and really doesn't do anything to affect an outcome. I know this in my logical mind. I often am not logical. Ask Ragazz'. He'll tell you that.

So I decided that I need to cut it out. So while we were all whooping it up at 12:01 AM on 1/1/09.. and while I was eating my first bite of chocolate.. I declared publicly that I was going to try hard to not swear this year (yeah - that lasted a week, goddammit), and I declared privately that I was going to not worry quite so much.

Because the universe can be just like a comedian sometimes... immediately I got all kinds of worrisome situations thrown at me. Work stuff. Money stuff. Car stuff. House stuff.
I guess it's good to practice this.

I think, though, that I'm getting better about it. I realized the other day that Ragazz' was out for a bike ride and I hadn't flicked at my acrylic nails even once. You can't bite acyrlics - well you can, but it's icky. But you CAN flick at them. (shh. that's why I used to pop nails off at an alarming pace.)
Someone went off at work at me about.. something. I can't even remember what it was. The fact that I can't remember what it was means that I didn't worry about it at the time, and I'm not thinking about it anymore.

Most importantly, I think I'm going to have to start looking for a new car. I love Audrey. The world knows I love Audrey. But - Audrey is getting old and grumpy and it's time to get a new and improved Audrey. I started worrying about this yesterday, because I hate buying cars MORE than hate. I do. For realz.
Then I remembered - I just don't have to worry about it. I'm going to do my homework, we're going to look around at stuff, I don't have to make any decisions RIGHT THIS SECOND...
And now I'm not worrying about it.

Time to do some work things! Ciao.

I left the western house to go to the northern house at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon. It was sunny, with just a few puffy white clouds.. so a perfect top-down drive time. I got on to the northbound highway, and noticed a wall of really dark clouds far off to the north, so I was feeling sorry for my SheridInn friends. I was about at the halfway point in my travels when the wind shifted. I watched the temperature gauge fall from 78 to 66 in literally 2 minutes time. And then the heavens opened up on me.

Me.. with the top down.

Now in cases like this, I know that momentum is your friend. As long as you keep going at the same rate of speed, most of the rain will fly over the top of you, directed by the windshield. I've had to use this to my advantage a couple of times, and always when I was very close to either a bridge or a garage that I could pull under or into to get the top back up again.

At the halfway point on Highway 100 there are no bridges or garages. I had to go another half mile to get to the next exit and then I had to slow down when I got to the top of the exit and stop at the light.

And then I was getting soaked, and that 15 or so seconds that it takes to get the top back up feels like an eternity!

Luckily the guy in the truck behind me saw my plight and drove around me instead of being a jerk and honking as I was still stopped when the light turned green (he did point and laugh as he went past me... but hey - I would have done the same, probably. HA!).

I drove through a literal deluge for the next 5 miles. At times it was raining so hard I couldn't see past the end of my hood. I was doing about 15 miles an hour on the freeway. When I got off the freeway the rained had slowed, and by the time I pulled into the northern house driveway it had all but stopped and the sun was coming out.

Minnesota Summer storms - brief but intense, just like chele.

After that we had kind of a roll-with-the-changes day on our 4th of July. What we thought was maybe just allergies was, indeed, a full blown summer cold for poor ragazz'. So we laid low and he slept a lot in the afternoon. We watched the race in Daytona last night and saw (my NASCAR boyfriend) Tony Stewart win in a spectacular crashy finish. It was exciting.. we were yelling at the TV and everything.

Now it's time to go have the REAL Sunday (I've felt like I've had 3 Sundays in a row..heh.). Ciao, Bellas. 
 

This is that one day a year that the cheesy "And I'm proud.. to be and AmeriCAN.. where at least I know I'm free..." gets stuck in my head. And now it's stuck in your head, too. So, you're welcome.

I've gotta play in the kitchen a little bit now, and later we're going up to Canada, take a left and hang out at the SheridInn. Have a Happy Independence Day, Bellas. And take a minute to remember all the people who have served and are serving so that we can be free.
Special thanks to Josh and Adam... Be safe today and every day, guys. xox

Ciao.

I'm getting my days messed up again. It feels like Sunday. It's really Friday. And in the mini summer vacation thing I should be on weeks 4-6.
Time. It has no meaning in cheleVille.

We had good food but surprisingly bad service at Brasa last night. I'm still chalking this up to working out the kinks of opening a new location. Those cheese grits make up for a lot of badness, lemme tell you.

I'm going to play in the dirt on the deck today.. since it's July, I should probably put SOME plants out there. I bought some basil, mint and rosemary at the farmer's market. Oh! and I forgot that I had this story:

I went to Home Depot to get some clean dirt (I love saying that just because it makes ragazz' laugh) AKA potting soil. I bought said dirt, and then I saw those little "as seen on TV" water globes which I think will be a good thing - my plants get so thirsty out on that south and west facing deck. The globes were $9.99. Then I saw the most lovely bowl of pink petunias. And really - who can resist pink petunias. The sign above them said $14.99, and I realized that the tag on the bowl said $21.99.. but I didn't care because, well, pink petunias.

I got up to the cash register and the crankiest old man in history was there.. wearing PINK pants, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the story. Except, well, pink pants. He was griping and complaining about everything and had the two cashiers completely frazzled.. and his poor wife was just watching it all go on. I felt sorry for her. I can't imagine being with someone like that for 30-40-50 years. (aside: thank you, sweetie, for not being a tool.).

Finally one of the cashiers broke free, but I could tell he was still all mental-fied from this jerky old man. He scanned my dirt, my water globes.. but he couldn't get the petunias to scan. He tried about 20 times. The poor guy. I said "Hey - it's no big deal. Don't worry about it." He said "I'm just gonna charge you the price of the water globes for the plant." I said "But that's only $9.99, and the plant is twenty-two bucks!" He scanned the globes again and said "You get the nice customer discount." So YAY. Half price pink petunias.

And thanks, Grumpy Old Pink Pants Man. Because of you I got a deal.

Off to plant! Have a great day. Ciao.

For your consideration, edification, and amusement:

After lunch and farmer's market I went to Target. Parked the car, put the top up, started walking across the parking lot to the store. Suddenly I see this very young, very good-looking, shirtless young man - about 22,23 years old or so - RUNNING full on towards me, waving and yelling "Hey! Hey! Hi!"

I'm thinking "Wow.. I still got it! Look at me, I'm turning all the young boys' heads." I walk a little taller and prouder.

He gets closer, stops short and says "Oh. I'm sorry. I thought you were my mom."





Yeah.




Carry on!

It's a long weekend, in honor of Independence Day. I'm calling it mini-summer vacation. Of course, when you are a kid, you get about 12 weeks off, and this is just four days. So I will have to pack 3 weeks' worth of activity into each day. A lot of caffeine will be required.

So far, I'm just up to the part of summer vacation called "sitting around".. but more activity will begin soon. I'm going to head downtown in a little while to meet up with my boy, then I'm going to wander through the farmers' market just because that's a summer thing to do.

THEN.. well.. probably some Infinite Jest reading. Last night I decided that I needed some lighter reading to balance it all off. I discovered the world of Kindle Freebies. FREE books. FREE on my Kindle. Oh my. So I grabbed Little Women for free. I love it!

I think maybe there should be some kind of 12-step group for Facebook Farkle. That's a dangerous little addiction right there. "Just one more game. Just one more game." Then it's 12:45 AM.

Now it's time to go. Ciao!

Moving equipment is a lot easier than moving people. Equipment doesn't often complain (or at all, really). Equipment doesn't care where it sits. Nor does it insist that you change the area in which it is sitting.

Thus, the move last night was pretty easy. And my wonderful ragazz' took me out for yummy Thai food when it was done. Win for chele!

The last two mornings in a row have been cloudy and cool. It reminds me of early Fall. Not that I'm wishing away Summer. NO.

Ragazz' will be going to the National Race in a couple weeks. I'd wanted to go to California when he was gone, but that's not going to happen now. *sad face* I'm going to take a few days off for a little playtime here at home. Enterprise sent me a free upgrade coupon, so I might rent BigAudrey for a few days and ride around all Jeepy and stuff. Heh.
Hey - I'm pretty easily amused.

Hm. I don't know other stuff. Not yet, anyway. So let's go forth and have a day, and if I think of anything later I'll tell you all about it.

Ciao!

My foot is almost (kinda sorta) really cured. Almost. Heh. Taped one more week full-time, more exercises, wear those supports in my really flat shoes and I should be good to go. The good news, too, is that if it starts to bug me again I know how to take care of it quickly so I don't have to walk around going "ow. OW. ow."

Other things -
( General stuff )

Then there's this -
( Some astrology stuff )

Time to get to work! Ciao Bellas.

They've been opening more Trader Joe's around the cities, which has taken the pressure off the teeny tiny one by my house. It's now possible to actually park in their lot and push a cart up and down the aisles. So I had a ball there yesterday! I got marvelous treats - kick-ass tamales, edamame crackers, dried mango slices, pepperoni pizza...mmmm. I also picked up ground beef and brioche rolls and we had ginormous hamburgers for dinner.

I'm all caught up (and actually a little ahead) on Infinite Jest. I'm glad I'm reading this with hundreds of my closest friends..heh. The moderators sent out a weekly summary and I was so relieved to find that I *am* catching most of the important stuff. This is the toughest but most awesome book I've read in a long time.

I'm glad it's a short week, and I can't believe July 4th is here. I need Summer to slow down just a little bit. Just a little.
I've got an equipment move on Tuesday. It was pushed off from last Tuesday (which was the hottest day of EVER). It will be far more pleasant to do this when the weather isn't trying to kill us. Other than that, the week should - cross fingers - be easy.
I'm starting to get that restless feeling - the one that says "Maybe you need to have a little vacation with days and days in a row off".. So I need to study the calendar to see when that could happen.

Going to see Mr. Foot Doctor Man this afternoon. It's getting better and better every day.

I should get started. Happy day, Bellas! Ciao.

The FIRST time I woke up this morning, it was 5:30. I thought I was done sleeping so I made coffee. Then I looked at most of the internet. Then I was suddenly SOOOO very tired again, so I grabbed the soft blanket and laid down for a while more.
The second time I woke up it was 8:30. Then I had some super-delicious Special-K with chocolate thingees cereal. Now I'm all the way awake.

In the second sleep I had a wildly realistic dream. I don't need to tell the world (or even my little corner of it) what it was, but I'm putting it here so I remember it. I want to see if it was a dream or a premonition.

The weather cleared nicely for ragazz's race yesterday. He did, however, buy big ol'fisherman-type rubber boots to bring to future races. He'll probably need those when he goes for the national race.

I'm glad I got all the cleaning and whatnot done yesterday. I want to go to Trader Joe's today to pick up some treats today, but other than that all the errands are run too.

It's nice and cool out there. I need to go be outside for a while! Talk to you later. Ciao.

I woke up at 10:30. AM. I guess I don't have to sleep again for the rest of the weekend, and possibly for a few nights next week as well. It's good to get that all out of the way at once. Heh.

You'll be glad to know that I now have a new, working coffee maker. It's black and shiny and looks rather like Darth Vader. "Luke, I am your caffeine". Or something like that.

Poor ragazz' has to go stand at a muddy track for a few hours today. They're having a memorial/fundraiser for a racing buddy who passed away. And did I mention that while it's not 100 degrees today, it IS about 100% humidity. Yeeesh. 

We had a fun evening. North St. Paul puts on a huge classic car festival every Friday night. It's like a mini Back to the 50s show.. but all for free, and far less overwhelming! There's bands and great junky foods and holy cow the bikes, too. I think that when ragazz' gets tired of riding the sport bike he really needs a Harley Road King. Or perhaps a Boss Hoss. Wooo!

We met up with our WILD friends at the VFW. Yes, the VFW. YAY! I was disappointed in that there was no bingo and no meat raffles going on.. but we're going to show up for the next raffle, for sure. We're all class. 100%.

Today - now that it's almost NOON for the love of God - I have a little bit of Infinite Jest reading to catch up on, and my poor western house needs some TLC. We're going to go smash some burgers with notprada this evening. Yummeh.

AND - that's it. Now you know what I know. Ciao.

First it has to be all about me for just a moment.
OH MY GOD. THE COFFEE MAKER IS BROKEN.
So I am blogging in an uncaffeinated state, and I am not responsible for anything I might say on here or any typos that might be made.

Wow - The world lost Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on the same day. Interesting how TMZ had the news before any of the big outlets. I was never a huge MJ fan... I was more of a Donny Osmond girl when I was a little kid. I remember getting together with a bunch of people to watch the Thriller video when it first aired on this new-fangled TV station called MTV. Heh. I'm like a dinosaur! I had the Thriller album and I listened to it approximately one million times (the first and only album of his I owned). By the time he turned into the weird plastic surgery/baby dangling/accused predator guy I was waaaay done with him.

I wasn't a big Farrah fan either because, well, her poster didn't do a thing for me as a kid (because I wasn't an adolescent male). But still, two iconic figures from my childhood gone in one day. Pretty momentous.

We went to a really good Thai restaurant with Mom & Dad S last night, then went back to their house and visited for a long long time. It was really nice. A normal family dynamic. What a concept.

Dudes - that is about all I have in me without caffeine. I have to go buy some on the outside now.. and the first order of business after the work stuff is done is to buy a new coffee machine.

Ciao. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

I just watched a huge storm roll in. Cool. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to be sleeping as the thunder and lightning was going on.

I got all of my works done yesterday before I hit the wall at about 2:30. I left a little before 3:30 because, c'mon, I started at 6:00. Today will be a little more humane.

The Association replaced all the sprinkler heads, and left a bit of a mess behind. I called the office to register my displeasure and was told that others had called as well. They won't be having that group back again to do work here. So I swept up the debris and then decided that I should lay down for a quick 15 minute nap.

3 hours later I woke up. WHAT?

I came out of the fog, looked at the clock and saw that it was 7:15 and was convinced for a moment that it was 7:15 AM. Then I realized I was still wearing my work clothes. Then for a minute I thought I was at the Northern house, but no.. MaddyCat was there with me. What? Where? How?... LOL. This is why it's a bad idea for chele to take long naps.

We're having rootbeer floats this afternoon at work. I'm on the yay-rah-rah committee that's serving them. It's actually pretty cool, though. For the longest time I haven't had a chance to do the yay-rah-rah kinds of stuff because my job hasn't been conducive to, you know, even thinking straight for weeks and weeks on end. I started to feel disconnected from the greater part of my co-workers and office. It'll be good to start reconnecting with them in good, fun ways, rather than only connecting with them when I'm moving them or doing other things to disrupt their lives.
Besides - rootbeer floats. Mmmm.

We're taking Mom & Dad out for dinner tonight just because we can. I'm glad they now live in the same area code as we do.

Foot is 90% better. I took the tape off to shower and it barely hurts at all without it. I'll still be good and keep it taped for one more day. If this is all it takes, I'm glad to know how to do it in case it happens again.

Lets go! Have a day. Ciao.

Updates and commentary on various topics:

Foot: MUCH better! That taping thing works. The reason that I know it works is that I had to untape it (I've just given up on trying to keep it dry in the shower. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat.) and when I take the tape off and step on it - OUCH. So - the tape is giving it the support it needs to heal, and I really *do* have to wear it for at least a couple weeks, I guess. I'd rather do that than have to have him give me one of those boot things. This seems cheaper and a lot less intrusive.

Heat: Oh my God. I was melting yesterday. We never got the huge storms here, though the skies threatened it. But after about 8:00 or so it was starting to feel better outside. It's still pretty warm in the house. That's another area where sometimes I'm just going to have to admit defeat. This place is on the 3rd floor, facing SW, and the hallway is eleventy million degrees at any given moment.. so it's going to get a little warm. SO, running the AC helps.. but what helps more is to just sit in close proximity to the fans every single minute. Then it's bearable. It's supposed to get better the rest of the week.

Work: I am almost ready to go out the door to work, because I have to get an employee set up in the new office before 7AM. The best thing about this is that if I get to work at 6:00 I don't feel guilt when I leave before 4:00. Call me crazy - I still miss the days when I worked the super early shift. Once I'm up, I'm up. It's usually not too painful.

Duluth: I started looking around to see if maybe we could sneak up to Duluth for a long weekend in August or September. There are no rooms EVER available in either of the nice places I like. What? I guess we'll have to start making plans years in advance or something.

Shopping: I think my shopping bone is broken. I went out last night to get a pair of sneakers (the doctor said so! really! He said shoes that tie right now would be good...). I went to DSW. I found a pair of cute pink and white Skechers - $50. I tried them on.. and then decided that I really didn't NEED to spend $50 on sneakers. So I went to Target and looked around, and couldn't find anything there either.
I've forgotten how to shop for shoes. Who AM I, anyway?

Have a good day, kids. Ciao.