Mt. Baldy (well, almost)

This weekend I skipped out on the trip to Washington (insert sad face here, but I hope to be up in my FAVORITE town again soon! Okay, well second favorite... Austin still comes in first.) Instead Paul and I got to spend some quality time together cleaning the house! However, he saved me from taking out the garbage and cleaning the cat box by suggesting a nice small hike on Monday. That sounds wonderful sweetie!

(me) Ahhh, you want to try to surmount Mt. Baldy again? You mean the one we did not make it the top of last year? I mean, it is only 7900 ft in the air, ending at 10000 ft with a total of 7 miles in and back... who wouldn't be in shape to do that hike? Ha!

(him) We are in much better shape this year! It will be nice and cool up there and a good hike.

(me) In shape from all the gyms we have been frequenting? (can you hear the sarcasm through the web post?) Okay, sounds great! I am up for it!

We drug some friends along thinking that we started them out on an "easy" hike up to Mt. Lowe, so it was time to progress! They had a blast and did much better than me! We got all the way up to about 9700 ft when the altitude really started to bother me. We saw a summit and thought, hey, we can make it to the top in enough time to turn around and catch the last lift down the mountain (the ski lift is at 7900 ft and takes you to the parking lot at about 6000ft). We hiked (and Glenna ran) to the top of the summit only to find out that it was a false summit. There was another mountain hiding behind that one! Well gosh darn! We gave up at that point (not because we could not climb the rest) but because we were about to kiss the ride back to our car goodbye. We took some great pictures and headed back. We had hiked for a total of about 3.5 hours up the mountain and it took us about 1.5 hours to hike back.

I had put sunscreen on before we started out and had accidentally left my hat at the house, er, thanks to Paul, LOL. Anyway, I noticed my shoulders were red on the way down, so I tried to cover them up, but apparently the damage had been done. I had a distinct line on my forearm where my sunblock had been applied and it was bright red where the sunblock was not applied. OPPS. My back also has lines near the tank I was wearing. Next time I think I will ask for help on applying sunblock. My head also go some sun, so shampooing has been challenging to say the least.

I did, however, get to return to the house chores on Tuesday. Yea!

RIP this week

It started off with a phone call as Amie and I were sitting outside of starbucks. We had just finished trying on a PILE of wedding dresses (her, not me! I was just helping), and we took a brain break to sit and talk. Well, Paul calls me in the middle of my iced caramel macchiato, to tell me that there was an emergency this morning. It is a tad windy outside, and the connection is not great, so all I hear next is, "I just got back from the (garble)." Immediately I sit up and yell into the phone, from where? What's wrong? Are you okay? Paul then tells me, "The Xbox died this morning." Well, I used some explicative's on the phone that I probably should not repeat here. I did however, tell Paul he was a rat bastard for scaring me!

RIP Xbox. We will miss your Guitar Hero. You have been a good entertainment for us. (And your replacement from Microsoft better hurry UP!!!)

We made it just a day before the next one hit. I had just returned from Austin on Monday night, and what happens Tuesday morning when I sit down to email Chessa about her pictures? Yep, you go it- the cable went out. We have NO phone, NO TV (at all), and NO internet. STILL.

RIP internet. Charter you suck the big one. Well, I guess the bright side is that my co-workers are going to see more of me, since I have nothing to do at home and will check my email here!

And the third, since things always happen in threes, is not the tongue and cheek story like those above. *This part of the broadcast contains mature material*

I got a call yesterday at work from my dad- my grandmother took her last breath at noon yesterday. She was with family, and has had company the last few weeks. Her health has been severely declining in the last few weeks. She stopped eating about that time, and never recovered. I was hoping to see her this weekend. The Albright family, and my cousin, Mel had all planned a trip to visit Grammie this year over memorial day weekend. Although I feel bad that we missed our opportunity, this is exactly the reason why I schedule a trip every year, to try to make sure I see my Grandma. If I had scheduled my trip for February, as I had originally intended, her health could have declined in December! Mainly I am glad that someone was able to sit with her through the last few weeks, so thank Mom, Elaine, Steph, Danna, and Rich for all your Grammie support.

RIP Grammie. We will all miss you terribly and the Copes Clan legacy will go on.

Some more pictures for all see: Grammie's life in pictures.

Pictures

Chessa asked me to take some pictures for her and Heather both this weekend and in a few weeks. She even went as far as to fly me to Austin to do this! Sure, I love photography, and I even have a professional PRINT camera, but it has been years since I picked it up for some real photo shoots (like since before professional digital cameras were worth the expense). Well, because these pictures are important, AND because I have been jonesing for a digital camera- which I still cannot afford- I decided to shoot in digital. Ha! This is like learning a new sport. The rules are not the same with a digital camera. Anyway, I borrowed my sister's camera, practiced for a while, called her with a million questions, and took a flight to Austin with a roll of Tums. (hey, I was nervous!)

My concern was unfounded, since the weekend went well in Austin. I got some great pictures of Chessa and Heather (and amazingly, they liked them too!) Here are a few of my favorites:

Heather and Chessa also have three cocktail frank dogs... and no one warned me of their underwear fetish! I had put my clothes on the floor next to my travel bag before hopping into the shower, and guess what? When I got out of the shower, my underwear was missing! After getting dressed, I hurried out of my room to search the house for my underwear, because really, who wants someone else coming across that? All I see is the dogs running around, so I start looking under furniture, talking to the dogs and pointing fingers. This apparently is scary looking because the little stripped dog peed all over the floor. So now I was mopping up pee, yelling at the dogs for my underwear, and searching all at once WHEN the culprit walks through the dog door from the OUTSIDE with my underwear dangling in her mouth. "Ahhhha!" I shout! She took my underwear outside, ewww! That must have been quite a site, lol!

Crazies on the train

I am now resolved to wake up earlier (with my alarm) and get out of the house and to the train and work on time. Of course, this is good for the normal reasons- I will get to leave work earlier, my day seems less long when my lunch hour is in the middle of my day (rather than an hour after getting to work), and the train is running more frequently during rush hour. However, this morning I realized one more good reason to get my butt out of bed early- the crazies don't wake early and ride the train!

I have had a fair share of entertainment on the public transit system over the last two years. There of course was the woman who was staggering around and stumbled into the street, barely recovered without hitting pavement, and wobbled back to the train station entrance, then proceeded to hang on the rail all the way down to the platform right before falling smack on her butt. Except for the severe drunk state that limited her gracious mobility, you might have thought she looked normal.

You cannot say that about everyone. Some people are visibly rotting from the outside, others just smell like it. Then there was the woman this morning whose palms apparently were bothering her because she scratched them THE WHOLE train ride. It sounded like grinding sandpaper. Of course this was interrupted by the woman behind me who sneezed on the back of my head. She did apologize, but really, how does that make it better? Ewww, gross!

One man, who had never ridden the metro before (he kept asking questions), had some kind of skin fungus growing under where he normally wore his watch. That apparently did not stop me from showing him how to catch the correct train at the red line station.

This was followed by the woman who had a saggy wrinkly beer belly and wore a half shirt like she was in style. I was amazed she managed to get a bra on.



To top it all off, there was the woman today in Pershing Square who was walking around in a T-shirt, and I kid you not, her blue and white cotton undies. A man putting on his shirt (he had a LOT of tattoos) was following her. Yikes.

On the bright side, there is a nice looking tall lady who rides the train every morning, who also catches my eye, although for better reasons. She has this long dread locked hair that she keeps changing how she designs it (I don't have a better word for what she does with her hair, it really is a design masterpiece). My only question is this- in the two years that I have seen her wearing her hair like this, how do you wash dread locks?

Where the hell is Matt?

I keep going back to this website to look at Matt's two videos:

Dancing

Dancing 2

Mr. Woton's Wild Ride

Mr. Woton is not normally allowed on the balcony alone. At our last place, he figured out how to jump off our balcony onto a fence (yes, the skinny, narrow top of a fence) that was almost 5 feet blow him. He would then proceed to the ground from there. Well at our new home (a recently purchased condo), we have a second story balcony. It is really more like a second and a half story balcony, since it is at least 5 more feet above the ground than a normal second story.

The first time I allowed him outside on the new balcony, I saw him attempt to walk on top of the railings. Erggg. Not a safe kitty place. Next week, he gets all excited about a cat on the sidewalk below and he walks on the OUTSIDE of the rails. There is about an inch of stucco for our 20lb beast to help him try maintain his balance. Not cool. Okay, so now he is only allowed out while Laura is watering her plants and he is in eyesight.

Ergo, Friday morning- I am outside watching Woton and watering plants. I bring out his cage because I think he can sit in that and I can let the other two cats enjoy the balcony. Immediately, he jumps on the cage, jumps on the rail, I run over to stop him, and as I stick out my hands to grab him... (imagine all this happening in slow motion, and my lips are saying "NOOOOOO") as he jumps off onto the roof.

Well, this would not be too terrible if he could walk across to our neighbors balcony (it would have been a pain, but not too terrible). However, our roof is not designed to keep a cat on it- it is a 45 degree angle roof. The moment he landed on the tiles, he started his decent. There are still claw marks on the roofing if you look carefully. He slide all the way down the roof to the gutter, where he finally caught a claw on the edge, but his butt had momentum and slide right OFF. He dangled there for a moment, furiously twisting his tail around to reverse the process, but alas, the twenty pounds could not defy gravity (but Paul says gravity is only a theory!)

I at this point made a sound not unlike the noise only 2 year-olds can make- the piercing scream they tell you to make to scare off an attacker. For a second I thought Woton was going to rip a nail off dangling the way he was from the gutter. Once he fell though, my next thought was LAND UPRIGHT! and don't break anything and don't run away! I ran into the house and screamed at Paul "OUTSIDE OUTSIDE OUTSIDE!" Then I ran back outside onto the balcony to track my cat in case he tried to run away. Paul managed to pull him from the spiky green leafed plant unharmed. We watched him walk around for a while and were convinced that the only damage was all of our adrenaline levels. Now that he is inside and safe, I kinda wish I had a video of the whole thing, because it was darn funny. Stupid troublesome cat.

One down eight more to go.

Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what he went through...

The 45 degree roof:

He fell to this:

A straight down look:

Another Xbox addict

Kiyomi stopped by our house because she heard we had the new Xbox 360 (her dad only has the OLD Xbox) and she wanted to play! Little did we know that she would poo poo playing Gears of War and head straight for just carrying around the controller, but Paul has high hopes of making her the next... Guitar Hero!

Total Spaz - on the local news

Crap! Did I tell you what a goof I am? Well, somehow this morning I allowed myself to get coerced into being interviewed about... (wait for it)... a public self cleaning TOILET.

I hope they think that I had nothing interesting to say and they re-record over that section of tape (or they accidentally erase it), but I doubt that will happen, so maybe you should check out the local news tonight. Or not.

The Magic Castle

Paul and I, and some friends of ours, Glenna and Jeff went to the Magic Castle last night. We had tickets courtesy of Celia (thanks!) to go on a Monday or Tuesday. Although we have tried to go a number of times before, it is hard to get a group together on a weekday to go. So, after my Tuesday night class ended, it seemed like a good time to try make plans (plus it was a great way to unwind after this weekend... I am sure Paul needed it too- after having to deal with me!)

We arrived at the Magic Castle around 6:30pm. The first show starts at 7pm, so we had the perfect amount of time to check out part of the first floor, and grab a drink.

We saw the close up magic show first. This is an awesome show where the magician has two people seated at his table (from the audience). He did card and coin tricks that would amaze anyone.

Then we had a great dinner (I accidentally ordered twice as much food as I wanted), but we managed not to have any leftovers, and we found room for dessert!

After that we caught the main act of the night- a three act show. The first lady combined dance and magic, pulling a guy from the audience to demo the sword through the neck trick. I think he was a willing participant until she demonstrated the sword on a balloon. Then he did not look so excited about being on stage. She gave him a bottle of wine for being a volunteer, which she brought out from his jacket- neat trick.

The next guy (John) had seen us wandering around before the show and he gave us a quick tour. As the second act he did a great alliteration act where he pulled a picked card from a pile of pickles he placed on a paper plate. (I guess you had to see it).

The last performer really did not do that much magic, but he was hilarious and kept us all well entertained. He accidentally pulled a guy who took himself too seriously up onto the stage (with puffed out chest this guy says, "I make weapons of mass destruction." then he ticked off examples on his fingers, but they were really not WMD, but rather planes. What a complete ass... he was booted from the stage- I might have booed him if I hadn't been avoiding drawing attention to myself for fear of being the next volunteer victim).

We could not take pictures inside the castle, but we managed to document that fact that we got dressed up (I will post them soon).