Friday Roundup

Let's see...what's going on around here....

• We have finally set a date for our housewarming - May 9. That is way too close if you look at what we still have to do, but I figure it will make us get it done. Invitations are coming soon (Yvette, here comes that chance to see Boise!)
• Our old employer, the "Mothership" as I used to call it, seems to be in real trouble if you look at their NON-earnings announcement this week. I'm hoping and praying they can pull out of the death spiral but I am really worried for all of our good friends that still depend on it for their livlihood, both here and in Utah. I saw the CEO the other night (while enjoying a great glass of wine and great jazz here) and it really took everything I had not to go scream at him for screwing up a really fine company and good employer for many thousands of people. Yes, for those of you in Idaho or around, you know exactly who I'm talking about. I think I'm going to sell the stock I bought for $45 while I can still get $3 out of it. Sigh.


• TH and I got to see Tom & Joe aka "The Fool Squad" last night at the Fettucine Forum which is something Boise State has periodically for free. The Rose Room, a huge room where they have wedding receptions, huge parties etc. was PACKED. The boys were their usual sparkling, funny selves with lots of Tom Luna (Superintendent of Education for Idaho who seems hell bent on screwing our schools as badly as possible) and Butch Otter (Governer of Idaho, ditto) jokes. I heart them.

• It looks like my Mom is moving to Boise! She has been here all week and found a place she likes, and has made an offer on it. She won't be moving for a couple of months, but unless something totally unravels, she will be near us very soon. It will be nice to have her closer, I hope she likes living here as much as we do. And, no, I didn't talk her into it. The Bits, and Little Bit in particular, are very excited about this development.
• Speaking of Little Bit, he won a pizza party for selling the most cookie dough and magazine subscriptions in his class for the PTO fundraiser. And he only sold $91 (well, I did, anyway at work). That is both cool for him and sad to note for his school. It's in the poorest area in Boise and money is quite dear to most of the parents and families. It makes me feel fortunate indeed.
• I am sick to death of clouds, rain, and snow. Come on spring, get your happy humps over here to Idaho!
• Jay Cutler got traded to the Chicago Bears. Ha. Haha. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Whew.
• Big Bit has a DATE to the PROM. *Sob**Sniff*
• My Grandmother, who hasn't been doing well, appears to be doing much better. I don't care if she's 91, she's still my Grandma and I still need a Grandma, so she'd better stick around!
• The Idaho Steelheads made the playoffs. Yay!

I think that is a pretty good roundup of developments. Have a good weekend!

Miscellaneous Updates

Let's see. Much to update, and I wish not to ramble.

JETS WON! PACKERS WON! (TAKE THAT VIKINGS!) Jaguars lost...sigh.

Greater Tuna (Tom & Joe for 2 hours) = FUNNY.

1) Little Bit got his Bear badge in Scouts. He is gearing up for Webelos. I found it very interesting for his Scoutmaster to note that he is the Bear with the most arrow points and got his badge first - and - let's get this straight - he's not LDS, his parents aren't doing it for him (and yes, the LDS Scoutmaster who works for me says this is typically how people get their Eagle Scout at age 13 so it happens) and who goes to the den meetings with him? We do. Come on people, get involved with your kids.

Here he's putting a pin on me. Since I am "Akela", his helper - every time he gets a badge, I get a cool pin. TH helps too, of course, but this is interestingly something he and I bond over (I always wanted to be a Cub Scout, and TH was and hated it). We're very proud of him!

2) A couple of interesting things happened last week. I had my interview, which I THINK went well (but who really knows) - I should know what's up this week and Sybil managed to e-mail herself into a corner. Please, people, when you hit reply all, think about what you're sending and who you're sending it too. Without going into gory detail or "dooceing" myself , my ER person tells me I'm in "the catbird seat". Karma, indeed, can be a bitch. At least I'll be left alone until Sybil departs....fittingly...on HALLOWEEN. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.


3) Little Bit's playing baseball and really, overall, doing well. It's a laid back program stressing skill building, not competition. However, because his Mom can't read a simple schedule, we missed his game tonight. Argh.


Boys will be boys - please note Little Bit manhandling the kid (last on the right) next to him for this picture. I love the pic for the looks on their faces.



He got to pitch - he really didn't do bad, considering he's never done it before!



4) Dad is having his surgery Wednesday and feeling pretty uppity and ready. Thank God. Please shout out your prayers and well wishes. He would like to feel ready to go fishing with Little Bit during track break in a few weeks. Saw Grandma Sunday - she's looking pretty good too all things considered and I'm hoping after Dad's surgery our family medical drama is done for eons! I'll keep you posted on how he's doing.


5) "Gertrude" had her baby today! Madison was a little over 6 lbs and is apparently pretty and healthy - haven't seen any pics yet. Welcome to the world, Madison! This is going to sound weird, but I hope you look like your grandpa, who is long since gone from this world. He was a very handsome man, and none of his kids or grandkids have really looked like him or had that really quirky, quick and smart sense of humor to the nth degree. That Porteguese look and temper has got to show itself somewhere - I miss him to this day.



Keep those fingers, toes and eyes crossed for the job - I ALMOST smell Idaho, and if not that, at least a boss is on the horizon I will really enjoy working for and with.



Lastly this cat is cute...yet really evil.

Just When I Think I've Got It Together

Then the last 10 days happen. (Actually I never think I have things together, but sometimes I do like to dream).

Let's see...in order of things happening (though not of importance) we had our Weekend at Willie's and the official Golden Mallet Tournament.

Before all that started though, we found out the horse races were going at Les Bois Park. Yes!!! We've actually gotten to go twice in a year. We got to go for an hour between getting up and having lunch; then attending the Golden Mallet Tournament. So, when I said it was busy, it was. This was our one hour of taking a deep breath.

Love Les Bois. It is pretty in its own Idaho way. And we saw Rod Stewart. Sort Of. Big Bit played paparazzi and stalked him.

"Rod" is apparently a limo driver in Boise who dresses up for his clients (I found out from my cousin Dan the next day). I guess he's been around for years but we'd never laid eyes on him. Now, we have. And who says you can't see interesting things in Idaho?

Pics of the track and environs - I sure miss this place. All of it.

We even picked one winner before we had to go. I think we cleared exactly nothing if you add in the cost of beer. Maybe less, since we picked the winner to show so I think we made a whopping $4 on a $2 bet. We won a few others but nothing of distinction.

Did I mention it's pretty? I think I did, but bear with me, here's some proof.

Then...it was on to THE TOURNAMENT.

Our friend Steve (well, TH's friend Steve, since he was the ERISA attorney for our department at the old Mother Ship he probably wishes he'd never met me other than because of that he got to meet TH) hosts a croquet tournament annually. The first time he invited us was I think four years ago. Steve has an expensive croquet set he bought from a Wall Street Journal ad back when the Mother Ship actually paid profit sharing because there were profits. He's gotten a lot of fun out of it over the years. I note that it's expensive, because if you look at the pictures, you will see it is NOTHING like any croquet set you or I grew up with.

TH won the first year we went. Then, incredibly, he won the next two years as well. The prize? The total discomfiture of attorneys, college professors and human resource professionals everywhere who really shouldn't be this competitive; and a beautiful gold spray painted croquet mallet (the kind we all have that paid $15 bucks for our sets at Target) with the names engraved. Steve REALLY wanted that mallet out of Utah and we'd heard there was a plot afoot to reclaim it at any costs. There wasn't, and TH almost won AGAIN, but a last minute ploy by Jim the professor killed TH's ball and it was all over. It was almost more fun this year not winning because last year when TH won I thought some people were going to lose their tempers, so now they're all happy.

Here's (from left) Steve, Jim and TH plotting their strategies:

I got to see my friend the Donna-lama (kind of like the Dalai Lama, she is very peaceful and calm). It was good to see her and we will have our final Weekend at Willie's with her in September. Yay!

TH and friend Shawn got to visit some. Shawn is interesting - he lived in Nevada in the same town as my ex in-laws at the same time I lived in Nevada and knew many of the same people I did. But we didn't meet until he interviewed for a job in my department at the old Mother Ship. It is a small world, but I wish I would have met Shawn in Nevada. It would have made it more bearable. He's born and bred Utahn (he is a Utah man, if you know the Ute's fight song) and he won't live here, either.

Shakespeare for that weekend was MacBeth and I really was disappointed in it, though the Green Show was probably one of the best ever. I can't wait to see Tom and Joe in "Greater Tuna" which is the last play of the season. Right now, I really need a dose of Joe and Tom, the Fool Squad, available for parties (www.foolsquad.com). I think the problem was it reminded me of MacBeth when we saw it in Ashland with Cousin Steve with its Asian theme (fun weekend with him, but didn't like the presentation of the play) and we'd just seen it I think two/three years ago at the Festival in a different setting. Plus Mr. Dan P. wasn't there. It made for a cloud.

But here's Tom and Joe being Tom and Joe! (Oh, Big Bit is REALLY talking College of Idaho, he even said it to Grandma. Must make plans to be home in 2 years, but I think it will be sooner given what's going on at work).



Wanted to get this out there - the Sunday, 2nd half of the weekend involving a wedding that made me feel really old and ANOTHER pregnant cousin (I currently have four and counting) - that post is yet to come.

Cheers.

What a Week(end!) and Beautiful Boise

I had such a exhausting weekend and then a hectic week, I am ready for another weekend with much less activity!

It was, indeed, Weekend at Willie's, and we had fun, though things got a bit awry along the way. We got to Boise about 11 pm and immediately headed to TableRock...but, things changing as they do, they now close on Friday at 11 pm. WHAT? Something is really wrong here.

So, we went downtown for a while and it was VERY interesting. About 14 years ago, downtown Boise was my milieu. I knew the Piper Pub, Hannah's, TableRock, Alive after 5 etc. etc. like the back of my hand (yes, folks, this is when Big Bit was at his dad's. My weeks with him I was very well behaved). People looked SO young, and they didn't look as though they were having as much fun as we used to. Or maybe they were, but they have it differently now. Not sure.


Next morning, we headed for Starbucks and then the Boise Depot to take some pics. I LOVE LOVE LOVE BOISE. Can I say this enough?

Here's the Depot itself. I've been in the tower once, after dark, when I worked at the Bank and it was an amazing view.

The roses were amazing. You could smell them just from walking by, you didn't have to sniff them directly.

After a fun lunch with our friends Ra and Renee, we went to our friend's wine shop to collect our wine club wine (can't ship to Utah, of course!!!), then to Troy and Dana's for a glass of wine and to see them landscaping their palatial home (and I'm not kidding). If I had a house like that, I'd sure be paying someone to do the landscaping. Which is why I will never have a house like that. I don't want to work hard enough to own one.

Then it was on to the Festival. The play - "All's Well That End's Well". Loved the Green Show (comedy right before the show) - as usual, Joe Golden and Tom Willmorth were hilarious. Sadly, Tom didn't spill my wine this year so that I got to chat with him at intermission while he apologized profusely and I just stared at him. Here's Joe bein' Joe - Big Bit's talking about going to College of Idaho and if he does, I want him to take a drama class just so I can meet Joe, who's the Chair of that department...

They had to start late because the wind really blew up...then it was fiddling with what microphones they have so the back could hear...then they went ahead with the first half and that seemed okay to us. However, after intermission, they started up briefly and then Charlie came up and called it off - BIG thunderstorm on the way, bad news in an outdoor venue.

So we ended up dancing at Hannah's which we haven't done in years. It was fun...but I can't quite party like I could when I was 27. Gee, ya think? Interestingly, the promised storm never arrived. I think maybe Charlie just wanted a night off. He owes me half a play.

I've been super homesick all week. I can't stand not going home, but when I do it just makes me miss it more. I guess I can't win.