Bob and Catt are Smaaahhhhhtt

We are having a party in honor of bob and catt today. I'm breaking out the good cheese: chevre and triple cream brie topped with caramelized onions with baguettes, sliced grapes and apples.

*pops the champagne*

WHY BOB IS SMAAAHHHHHTT
Bob saved me last week. Remember that tooth problem? Well, my entire gum was swollen and I couldn't get into the dentist until Tuesday of this week. I recalled Bob telling about the emergency "curing" of a toothache with Listerine doused cotton balls. I restocked our orange citrus Listerine and checked out other "remedy" mouthwashes in the toothpast aisle. Well, someone had a healing mouthwash where the active ingredient was hydrogen peroxide. So completely not knowing if I was going to create some chemical reaction, I mixed some peroxide in with my Listerine. Whew. No noxious fumes. A steady stream of cotton balls soaked in the stuff for two days took the swelling right down and enabled me to get through Thanksgiving weekend.

Cheers to Bob!

WHY CATT IS SMAAAHHHHHHTT
Remember my cat having a new fetish with tipping and dragging the water bowl across the room? Catt came in with a silly suggestion of putting shiny rocks in the bottom of the dish. While the fountain idea of others sounded more likely to work, it was an additional investment I didn't want to make and since Ali can't do plastic (kitty acne!) and resin also builds up bacteria, that would likely be a little pricey for a flipping water dish.

Last weekend I bought some shiny marbley rocks at the dollar store. Ali hasn't done more than drink out of the dish since. Problem solved!

Cheers to Catt!

Burning Question

I can't wait til tomorrow, I must ask now.

What IS "Fancy" Ketchup?

Yoink!

Cheesy cauliflower soup today because I have to eat soft foods.

I suprisingly had my tooth pulled yesterday. I hate dental insurance. It really doesn't cover crap.

I have been gone so much from work that I don't know where to begin on my projects.

I'm starting to get pics organized from my Nov. trips, so will soon have those to post!

Quick Update

I'm sorry, it's not inspired. I just brought you one of those cheese & sausage trays from the grocery store. It's been a busy week.

My tooth is feeling better. I have a dentist appt tomorrow. I was all ucky & swollen last week. Had the family over for Thanksgiving. It was very relaxed. Went up north to visit Chris's crazy mom. She wasn't overly crazy (other than saying she's retiring early & is happy to move in with us so we can have a baby...um, she apparently didn't listen the last three times I've told her we don't really want children at this point).

Did a lot of walking in the northwoods with Chris hunting. Stayed at his BIL's *cue dueling banjos* and got PLASTERED on Saturday night. Those big bottles of vodka are deceptive. I didn't think I'd drank much, given how much the bottle was going down. Then I realized it's a wider bottle than usual.

Quick. Tell me three things you always have to buy the same brand of. Me: Lipton black tea (for regular iced tea), Pledge cleaner and Diet Coke.

I Got Crabs in Texas.

Quesedillas in honor of the great mexican food I had in Texas.

Everything is bigger in Texas...including my swollen gums. I have a chipped tooth that is infected at the root & needs to be removed. It started bothering me on Friday night & was pretty swollen by the time I met momma & sonya. I hope they didn't think I just had a wad of tobacco in my cheek. :-)

Dallas Report:
The weather was lovely and the conference was great. Our presentation went fine. We didn't have a huge crowd in our session because it was the same time as the Ohio v. Michigan football game. The rest of the sessions were very useful. Unfortunately we were in sessions from about 8-6 every day, plus a few evening "interest group" schmoozing things, so not much time for sightseeing.

Saturday night I went out with a bunch of doctoral students...some in our nursing program, some in our school's medical program. The three glasses of wine & two cosmos before dinner might have been a bad idea. When we got to our restaurant, the waiter immediately elected me head of the table, as he could tell I was in an extra good mood. :-) Two pomatini's later, I was in a REALLY good mood. I spilled some on my shirt & whipped out my Tide stain remover pen. They made me sing like Kelly Rippa does in those commercials. *hangs head*

Fast forward to Sunday:
Momma and Sonya were going to meet me at 5 pm near "the big horse statue" in my hotel. As I walked up the the big horse, I could see they'd arrived first. I was greeted by these great big Texas hugs and smiles. I knew it would be a great night.

First thing I learned: Sonya is pronounced "sawnya." I thought it was "sownya." Who knew?

Second thing I learned: Just because they are from Texas, it doesn't mean they know their way around Dallas. :-)

We decided to walk down to the West End Historic District, where all the restaurants are. When I realized where we were headed I said "Oh yea, I know how to get there, we had dinner down here last night!" So the girl from Wisconsin guided the girls from Texas to the restaurant mecca. It's the cutest area...brick streets, horse drawn carriages, christmas lights, the whole bit.

On our way there, some man said that momma was "so beautiful." It's true...she is! She has the most beautiful blue eyes.

We couldn't decide where to eat until they heard I'd never eaten at a Joe's Crab Shack. Unfortunatley, despite Sonya's best efforts, there would be no crazy dancing at this location. She tried to get the manager and waiter to dance to no avail.

We all ate crab (Kim's Peep Meet Rule 43: Apparently you must eat crab with peeps and you must all order the same thing from the menu). Yummmmmm! We also went shirt shopping at Joe's...Sonya & I wanted the one that said "Good Girls Get Crabs," but it only came in a small. I did, however, find Chris a neanderthal eating crabs t-shirt and a cute beer bottle cozie for me. I also got a bag of awesome Texas themed gifts from the girls.

I learned a lot about the wild days of sonya and momma. They swear they are homebodies now. Should we believe them?

We then went for a few drinks at Gator's. We think our waitress might have been interested in sonya. :-)

It was SO nice to meet momma & sonya. They are two of the nicest people you'll ever meet. I only wish it wouldn't have been Sunday and sonya wouldn't have been on-call for work. I have a feeling these two could've shown me a wild time!

*smooches* to sonya & momma...the best things in Texas!

A list for Boo

Pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting today. Oh how I love pumpkin. Yay for pumpkin cooking season!

Thoughts currently running through my head:

1. I need a luggage tag for the new giant duffle on wheels. I have a mini pink caribiner and lots of old plastic name badge holders. Perhaps I'll fashion one this morning.

2. I leave at 12:30 today for Dallas. I have sonya's number tucked in my wallet and we are brewing plans for a sonya-momma-me meet this weekend. Hooooooray!

3. I have a pumpkin donut in my office from the cafeteria. I caved. I think since I bought it, I must eat it. I really need to watch what I eat the rest of this weekend.

4. My boss upgraded us to first class. This is good. However, sitting next to hear means we'll work the whole time. I had a new Marie Claire and my MP3 player all set. *pout*

5. Marie Claire is a better magazine than I thought. Budget Living mag went defunct mid-year, so Marie Claire finished out my subscription instead. I thought it was more like Elle. Instead, it has some really poignant articles along with some beauty and fashion stuff.

6. I chose to watch Top Chef over the Laguna Beach finale last night, so I'm still cool, right? I love Sam. And "I'm So Talented" Josie got kicked off...yay! I'm hoping for a Cliff vs. Sam finale. Similar caliber chefs, yet different styles.

7. I will miss The Office tonight. This makes me sad.

Let the holiday frenzy begin!

Chicken Noodle Soup cheese today. I saw that some Wisconsin cheese factory makes it on tv last night. It's monterey jack with chicken noodle soup flavorings. Weird.

I'm starting to work on holiday plans.

1) Thanksgiving with the in laws. BIL isn't going to see his mother, so we are going by ourselves. Oh well. She'll be sad, but nothing I can do about it. BIL is a big boy that can make his own decisions.

2) Simplifying Thanksgiving dinner. Every year we seem to cut something out. Last year we nixed the rolls (and again this year). This year I'm nixing homemade cranberries. I'd nix the cranberries all together, but I like em on my leftover turkey. So I'm just buying canned. Forgive me Thanksgiving Food Gods, for I have sinned. Turkey frying is still the best thing in the world. The boys deal with the turkey outside and the girls have the whole kitchen and oven for other things.

3) Christmas plans. Holy crap, I think we have Christmas plans in order BEFORE Thanksgiving. That's a first.

4) Christmas cards. I started them last night.

5) Wine party is scheduled for Dec. 8th. About 12 wines with the following food:
ceviche (shrimp & scallop)
cheeses, breads, crackers
dipping oils
olives (for OTHER people, not me)
proscuitto & melon, grapes
chocolate caramel fondue with fruit, macaroons and almond pound cake

6) Christmas cookies. December 9th.

The big question. Holiday Decor. Should it also go up on the 9th? We have nobody coming over for the holidays. Should I bother? Is it just another pack & unpack thing that takes up time?

Canadian Slang & Weird Cat

Burrini cheese and french bread for our Canadian themed post today.

A local radio station had a contest for BNL tickets today. Since BNLs are Canadian, the game was "Guess the Canadian Slang." Do YOU know what a gorby is? Now I do. The caller made a good guess and got it right, so that was the end of the game. Boo. They said they'd play again tomorrow, so I'll try to bring you more Canadian fun words. :-)

My big kitty is weird. She just started this odd habit of moving the heavy ceramic water dish...full of water. Splish splash. Water all over. She puts her paw inside the dish and pulls on it.
Problem solving attempts:

1. I took it off the rubber mat, thinking the mat was bothering her. Nope. The water dish ended up about 3 feet away.

2. I've made sure the water dish is full when she goes to drink. Still not satisfactory. It only lead to more water being spilled.

3. Less water in the dish? Nope.

So now, I think I need to try a new bowl. The current one has high sides. Maybe one with lower sides will please Her Highness.

Feeling overwhelmed

*quickly throws out some gouda and sourdough bread*

My list of things to do this week at work is growing. And I leave for Dallas on Thursday. I wish I had more time to spend there.

We had a fairly productive weekend at home. I checked out the new Trader Joe's in Madison. First time going there. THEY HAD THE WASABI ALMONDS that I had at Catt's house. This pleased me greatly.

We hung pictures and a new candle sconce yesterday. We had a growing stack of stuff to be hung. Do you ever have that problem or do you hang things right away when you get them?

Baked Potatoes

Let's have cheesy topped baked potatoes today. I love baked potatoes. I like them with either butter or sour cream, plus lots of salt & pepper. However, they are fun to make as a meal with lots of other toppings & I think I'd like to do that tonight.

So, get my salivary glands going. What would YOU like on your baked potato?

I'm baaaack!

Sharp cheddar, mild swiss and a lovely brie with a selection of Napa, Sonoma and Livermore area wines.

So much to reflect on.

1. San Francisco was different than I'd pictured. I thought it would be full of beautiful rich people. Instead, people were down to earth and friendly, for the most part. And the city itself was more spread out than I thought. Not as much focus on the coastal areas as I thought there would be. The city was pretty clean and easy to navigate by foot. Public transportation was innovative & fairly clean. I would never again attempt to drive in the city at night. Stupid one ways, angled streets, cable & street car traffice, etc.

2. Wine country was awesome. Sonoma and Livermore (by Catt) were my favorites. Napa's Silverado Trail wineries had a beautiful backdrop, but they were WAY too crowded. And it's the offseason (and it was Friday)? In total, we had a case & a half of wine to ship back. Since we only bought a few bottles at each winery, it would've been uber expensive to have each winery just ship our one-three bottles individually. So we just too it all back to our hotel room & thought we'd hit a Fed Ex. Well, only places with a "wine shipping permit" (as most wineries have) can ship wine out of California. Carp. We figured it was going to cost between $50-100 to ship the wine (which was moot, because we COULDN'T ship it), so we instead bought a giant duffle bag suitcase on rollers and stuffed the styrofoam packaging and wine bottles into it. $39.99 and we were set. I was relieved to see the bag didn't leave a purple trail as I was wheeling it to the car last night. No brokens!

3. Dinner with Carey and Chelli was amazing. I know, I've already talked about it, but words can't describe how warm and funny these two are. I want them as roomies. Chris was completely enamored with them, too. I think he wishes we'd spent far more time with both chickies.

Carey's generosity was amazing, as was her humor. Seriously, she's even funnier in person. A thousand *smooches* for being such a caring, hot dog loving woman. I've met few people that care about their friends more than she does. I think she might have even gushed a bit about missing all her visitors. *bonus smooch*

Catt is warm, welcoming and in so many ways, like me. It was such a comfortable feeling to spend the day with her. We laughed, we cried, we sang, we drank. I hope we didn't do anything illegal. :-) We found awesomely fun wineries out by her. Closing time was a little wacky. We had some great wine and some effing great pizza. And I want some of those darn wasabi almonds. *drool*

4. I had lunch with Sharnina. Yet another warm, friendly person. While we come from different political and religious sides of the coin, there was never any tension. We talked about how OT really opened up our viewpoints and understandings that we'll all never agree, but we can still try to understand and respect eachothers views. But mostly, it was just a lunch between friends getting to know eachother. Her two daughters were soooo well behaved and friendly. We got to draw lots of pictures on the tabletop at a rather fancy restaurant.

I also had the FABULOUS coffee & tea meet with MTW. He brought us brie, bread and candy. Sooooooo good! We blabbered incessantly. No awkward lulls in conversation. I, however, don't think we convinced him to move to Wisconsin. And Peet's? Is awesome.

5. My muscles have recovered from the bike ride. ugh. Meh, I guess the pain was good for me.

6. My conference was average. I wasn't supposed to present at this one, but at one session (of about 60 audience members), got asked THREE minutes before starting if I'd sit in on a panel for my boss (who couldn't attend at the last minute). I had NO briefing on the topic. ACK! I managed to fudge my way through, but was sick afterwards thinking about what I could've said, or what I could have clarified.

7. I had a $3 cupcake. It was good.

8. If you are ever in downtown SF at night & want to get a fun drink, head to the Gold Dust. It's an old fashioned cocktail bar. GREAT bartenders, average prices, very tasty drinks and classic musical entertainment.

9. Other big thumbs up: Lefty O' Douls for a good cheap breakfast, Sinbads for seafood with a view (if you take Carey and Catt, they'll even manage to get a free round of drinks from the waiter), Sonoma and/or Livermore, Golden Gate Bridge, views from the coast (but think twice about renting those bikes!), The Beach Chalet brewery & restaurant, the spicy prawns at Thirstybear brewpub

10. Chris got hit on by a bartender while I was at conference. :-)

SF Day 5

*snore*

I'm so exhausted. We've been on the go since we got here. Tonight we decided to come back to the room after dinner and relax instead of going out. I'm going to catch up on some email....and update you on fun stuff.

We took a 20 mile bike ride. Ouch. We started near Fisherman's Wharf, biked along the Presidio, up-up-up the coastal hills through some pretty high falutin' neighborhoods and then along the western coast over to Golden Gate Park....and back to the Wharf. Why didn't the bike rental guy tell us that we are too fat & clumsy to do this? Well, we did it, but it wasn't always pretty. The highlight of the day was lunch at the Beach Chalet. Yummy food & beers. And some views of cute surfers.

We also had a FANTASTIC night with Catt & Carey. Carey must have been really warm because she was taking her clothes off before we even got to the bed at our hotel room. Did I mention Michelle was at a concert and left Carey alone with us? *blinks innocently*

Dinner with them was awesome. The food was great, the view was beautiful and the company was great. I've never seen two girls milk a round of drinks out of a waiter at a nice restaurant with such ease. I think the waiter was HIGHLY entertained by these crazy local girls. We had fresh crab and so much other good seafood. Yum!

Catt was our awesome host for a Sunday of Livermore wine country and Sunday football (her team unexpectedly won, so there was much celebration). Words can't describe what a fantastic day it was. The weather was perfect, the wineries are crazy fun there and I got to spend lots of time with one seriously awesome chicky. Chris has even adopted her as his big sister. *laughs at the old folks* Oh, and Catt's hometown is beautiful. We want to move there.

Now I'm wrapped up in the conference. Boo for stupid work. :-(

Pictures and more stories to come....ok, how bout a picture for the road....

SF Day 3

*shares brie from MTW with bloggers*

Ok, so let's back up to Thursday night again. I don't remember falling asleep. Although, I had no hangover yesterday morning. Yay!

Friday we were, like Breezy said, screwed up with the time difference and were ready to get up by 5:30 a.m. So we got our rental car (a big ol red Impala...that at least had a moonroof) & headed out of town. We had a 9:30ish date with MTW. I was supposed to call him when we left town, but forgot. Ooops. Had an uber greasy breakfast in Vallejo & then headed to Peet's in Fairfield. Peet's was so good! Chris had coffee & I had tea. We need more tea friendly places like this. Sometimes, I have my fill of coffee.

MTW is a fantastically nice guy. He was so relaxed and we had tons to talk about.We did get some pics, but I'm not equiped to post pics right now. You'll just have to watch his blog.

Then it was off to wine country. Bouchaine was our first stop & it was marvellous. Friendly ladies, a beautiful deck where we were given table service for samples...and generous samples they were. Met another young couple from the midwest.

Then it was off to lunch at Boon Fly. Yummy. Chris ate a kobe beef burger & I had a yummy flatbread. Then we hit Artesa winery. Gorgeous location and grounds, average wines...didn't buy any there.

Then we headed further towards Sonoma to Schug winery. Friendly people, decent wine. Not much sampling, though. After that it was Cline...my favorite. Pretty grounds, friendly staff (mostly old men) and great wines. Bought a lot there.

Headed back to Napa. All the wineries were really crowded and we ended up skipping two. Hit dinner at Julia's Kitchen and headed back to San Francisco.

Do not attempt to drive in downtown San Francisco at night for your first time in the city. Yikes! Soooo many one way streets and such.

Today we were up early again. Now I need to get off the blogs and plan our day. *smooch*

Prop 151

Well, we've been in SF since about 1:30 this afternoon (after a bunch of flight delays). We've quickly realized that "props xxx" are hot items here. So this afternoon we embarked on Prop 151, which was really about drinking.

We checked into the hotel around 2 pm, tried to take a nap, but it wasn't happening. Our hotel is nice, so we snuggled on the bed, watching the lil' tourist channel. Then it was off for food an drink. We've hit the hotel sports bar, Thirstybear brewing, Chevy's, Jillians and 4th Street bar. We got lots of snacks at the bar, so I settled for some pumpkin ice cream for dinner.

I've drunk dialed carey & catt. Tomorrow morning we need to be in decent shape for our Mtw meet at Peet's cofffe. *yawn* This time adjustment is tough.

Vacation time!

*stocks blog with enough cheese to last the week* Bob, that means you can't eat it all today.

Tomorrow I live for my lil' vacation & conference in California, so it might be my last blog for a few days. I'm sure I'll check in at some point.

Any other Bay area peeps up for some Saturday night hoopla? I like hoopla.

Oh, I got a new haircut last night & don't particularly like it. I give up.