Jing!

Before I knew I was getting a restaurant diary for my birthday, we went to Jing and I decided to keep track of places we ate that I liked (apparently if you say something once and embarrass Iggy by taking pictures he will remember this behavior -- and even encourage it!).


I have a soft spot for Jing. It's one of the first places Iggy and I went. We went there on what I didn't consider a date. It was February 15th. I purposely asked him out the day after Valentine's Day so that he wouldn't think it was a date. (After the fact I learned that his friends considered it a date since it was on Valentine's weekend.) We went to a movie first (Frost/Nixon) and then went to dinner afterwords to discuss the movie. When we were all done with dinner and standing up to leave, I said sorta offhandedly "Funny - we never even got around to discussing the movie." Iggy sat back down and said he really did want to talk about the movie. (Big points -- I was impressed!)


Besides that association, I love the atmosphere. There are circular booths done in white suede. There's a waterfall. And all the art and is minimal and striking. But I especially love the ceiling. There's this curtain-type thing that spirals around is a double curlicue. It has beads on the end and it must've taken several bolts of fabric to make. It starts short and gradually gets longer as it spirals toward the center. The picture below is only of half of it, and doesn't really do it justice, but you get the idea. It's really cool. I would totally do that in my living room if it wouldn't look weird.






This time we went for Denver Restaurant Week. There's a Pris fix menu for $26.40 each (or $52.80 per couple -- gotta love the Denver Mile High theme -- even though I forget which step of the Capital building is actually 5,280 feet high).


We sat in the bar for a bit since we were uncharacteristically early. I ordered a mojito of the specials menu made with Thai Basil instead of Mint, but I think I ended up getting the Strawberry Mojito. That was pretty good. Iggy tried the Ginger Limeade (vodka, Canton Cognac, fresh ginger) -- that was better.


When we sat down at our table we ordered Buddha Drops. These are drinks that come with a little flower in it (the "Buddha Drop") and eating the flower will make your mouth and tongue tingle for a while. Kinda fun. Supposedly it enhances the taste of the food and the drink. Maybe...but all I could focus on was the tingly sensation. It was fun (but distracted me from the food rather than enhanced it)! I got my Buddha Drop in a Love Potion No. 8. (Thought it was supposed to be #9? Maybe that's too risky for being in public? Maybe something got lost in translation? Maybe it's an elaborate joke on people like me who are easily confused?) That is made of vodka, Hypnotiq and grenadine. It's a pleasing lime green color. I quite enjoyed it. Iggy got the "traditional" Buddha Drop drink which probably tasted better, but wasn't lime green and didn't have a catchy name. His loss.

Clockwise below: Buddha Drop, Ginger Limeade, Strawberry Mojito?, Love Potion No. 8
I am not really a sushi fan. Or even a fan of fish in general. I say it's because I'm a Pisces and I don't eat anything that swims in solidarity. That includes alligator. It's not that I have tried most of it...it's just that it all seems to taste ... well, fishy or be chewy. On the Montana trip CuervHo ordered some sushi and sashimi and let EZ-Ho and me try some. I did like some of that but I'm not sure I could make a whole meal of it. Luckily cows and chickens don't swim or I would be a vegetarian. (haha) And honestly, it probably goes back to a childhood experience with trout. Having never seen it before we came back to the States between stays in Greece, that's what was for dinner on the farm -- the guys had spent the day checking the trout lines and we were having the rewards of their efforts. I dug right in only to have a caring aunt explain that "you have to be careful of bones". I looked all over that dumb thing and didn't see any bones. I was expecting something ... well, bone-shaped. Like the ones you see on the Flintstones. I asked for some clarification and found out that the bones were these super-fine clear things all throughout the fish. That is just way too darn much effort. I asked for a hot dog instead.


Anyways, I convinced Iggy (also not a fish fan) to try the sushi that was on the 5280 appetizer menu -- along with some reliable sliders. Not bad. Even for a non-sushi person. Iggy didn't finish his and I didn't help him out though, so maybe not something I will order next time.


The sliders were great though -- the hot jalapeno was a nice touch with the cucumber. And you gotta love a burger served on that puffy dough thing that you usually get with the duck at Chinese restaurants. Yum!


In the picture below:

Four Sauces for dipping: red wine, teriayki, wasabi, pepper; Kobe Beef Sliders: little burgers served on Shanghai buns with a cucumber strips and a jalapeno on top; California Rolls

I didn't take pictures of our dinners, but they were quite good and the presentation was cool. I had the most fun with the drinks and the appetizers...so that's what you got above.

You should go -- let me know what you think!

You Know You're High Maintenance When... (or Tales of Bridezilla, Part 1)

... you take 3 salespeople to help you pick out a ring.

I'll get back to that. It's been a busy few months:

• My boyfriend's family came to visit in December for Christmas (the first time I've met his mom/sister).
• I went to TX on Christmas day (and stayed a week) to see my mom, dad, grandmas, brother, sister-in-law and niece.
  
• Had a quiet New Year's by going out to dinner and watching a movie in. (Yeah, I know, I'm old and boring -- I'll get to that too.)
  
• Went to Montana with the ColoradHos (playing as the Denver BroncHos) for a tournament in January.
• One of my good friends on the hockey team had 4 brain aneurysms not long after we got back -- that was super scary, but amazingly and miraculously she's made so much progress in her recovery that they're expecting her to play hockey again in the future!!!
• Went to St. Paul, MN to visit a client for a week in early February.
• Got an unexpected offer on my condo in mid-February (I hadn't listed it yet, just had asked a friend what I needed to do to fix it up in order to list it).
• I went to Warren, NJ the 3rd week in February to visit a different client.
• The last week of February I rented a storage place, donated 75% of my furniture, moved the rest of my stuff, cleaned my soon-to-be-ex-condo, had it's furnace fixed, had it's carpets cleaned and closed on the place (a shout out to Becca and Iggy for all the moving labor and for putting up with my stress-monster ways during that time!).
• We found out my grandma had 2 weeks to live, so I booked a ticket out there toward the end of that time to see her and help my mom who took FMLA leave to do the hospice care.
  
• Got engaged.
• Turned 40 (told you I was old and boring).
  
• Actually went on the trip to TX to visit my grandma one last time.
• Had an "intervention" at work to remove all other clients from my plate for one week so that I could concentrate on one that's in danger of missing a go-live in September.
• And since then I have been playing catch-up from that crazy week -- it wasn't worth it, by the way, because we couldn't agree on the specs and they're still in danger of missing September and now all my other deadlines for my other clients are closer and need attention. (For the record I said I didn't like the idea, so perhaps I'm guilty of not putting in the 150% effort needed to make it work. Most likely, yes.)
• I think that's it. We've now arrived at April 2nd and Easter weekend. Holy moly, where does the time go? (See? I even sound old and boring. ha!)
  

I was completely surprised by the proposal. We went to dinner and a play the day before my birthday because I was planning to work on my birthday (a Saturday), then play hockey, then go out with the team for dinner/drinks. Iggy and I had a lovely dinner Friday night at Limon (planning to blog that later) and the play (The Goodbye People) was good. When we got home I said I wanted to open my presents.

I should pause here to say that I am terrible with presents. If I buy you one, and I see you, I will give it to you. I can rarely wait for the day that occasions the present. I should probably become a last minute shopper -- it might be cheaper because after I give you the first one I tend to have to go and buy one so I have something on the right day. And...I'm just as bad at getting them. My mom/dad shipped me some presents, and my mom always wraps lots of stuff individually. I opened present per day until they ran out.

Iggy has strict rules about waiting until the day for presents. But I think I'd worn him down because he said OK this time. I opened some fun stuff - a restaurant diary, a wine label preserver and diary, a subscription to 5280 magazine (a Denver/Colorado magazine), a vodka infuser (so much fun! -- have had one OK batch so far and one pretty good one -- the good news is that it's fun to test!). After all that he said "I have one more present" and that's when he asked me if I would marry him. I was so surprised! And I'm a good guesser! (Hey - this is my blog - I can spin my abilities any way I want!) He said he struggled with what to buy because he's not sure how I *really* feel about diamonds.

After I got back from TX and Iggy got back from the guys' trip to Las Vegas for the opening weekend of the college hoops tournament, we went to the store to trade in the solitaire ring for a different ring. Normally I wouldn't probably have done that -- because I like keeping the gift itself. But he said that was the plan, so I figured it must be a good one. Now, I am not a very good shopper. I like having a list and a plan and getting in and out as quickly as possible. So I looked at the website over the course of the time he was in LVNV. I picked out a few, printed out the pages and took them to the store. I even said on the way there "hopefully this will take like 30 minutes and then we can go to lunch". Iggy, in his wise ways, said "maybe we should have lunch first". That was a good call. At the store I showed the salesperson my list. She said she'd look them up and to browse for a minute.

?!?!

I didn't want to browse randomly. I wanted to see my list. And I was tired of all the random salespeople gushing "Oh congratulations!" And I was not pleased that there was a crowd of people to wade through. Eventually she gave the list to someone else to look up -- apparently there were easier customers to wait on that actually liked browsing and wanted to make an afternoon of it. Salesperson 1 down.

The only part of browsing I enjoyed was watching the other people. Luckily there were lots of those. There was a knot of girls (women in their early 20s) picking out an engagement ring. There was a woman there older than me. She and her future husband seemed to be beaming as brightly as the 20-year-olds. I know have a little hang-up currently about being 40 and being a bride -- I seem too old to be all giddy and gushing, don't I? Not that I was ever that way, I guess. I'm also a little hesitant because I was married once before and I feel a little guilty at going through this "once-in-a-lifetime" process for the second time. Not that any part of it's really been the same -- including my feelings. I think when I was 24 I figured it "made sense" and was the "next step" after dating for 5 years... Anyways. Back to Bridezilla and the ring selection!

Salesperson 2 was a guy -- I hoped that would be better and he'd be more no-nonsense about the whole thing. He looked at their inventory on the computer in the back room (after inviting us to browse and get ideas while he was occupied). When he came back he said "we have 2 of your top 3, so let's go find them." Ok, better. But we couldn't find either of them. Apparently they have no organizational system at all. I picked some randomly after that. The "rules" only allow you to keep 3 rings out at a time, so I kept having to choose one to give back. Sometimes he'd put it in the case and sometimes in his pocket. (Does that seem fishy to you?) Usually that was really easy, but at one point I had to randomly pick. And I kept holding my solitaire up to the ring in question to try and imagine the diamond in there... Eventually he offered to get a loose stone to let me see how it might look. That was good. A couple of the settings that seemed cool looked overpowering (to me) with an actual diamond as the featured attraction. Then I thought I'd like to look at the one I randomly selected to give back. Of course we couldn't find it again. (I wonder how many rings they lose even with the "only 3" rule.) Eventually Salesperson 2 said "I have an idea -- I will be right back."

His idea was to bring in Salesperson 3. Apparently each time we got a new salesperson we went up the foodchain of salesperson hierarchy. I was thinking at some point we might actually get to talk to Tom Shane himself. This guy said "let me double-check the inventory and see if I can find your #1 choice." He also invited us to browse while we waited.

(sigh)

The good news is that he did come back with the ring I wanted to see! It had been ordered off the web and was going to be shipped out at the end of the day. So I felt a little guilty about choosing someone else's ring, but he assured me that he'd changed it so that the Kansas City store would be fulfilling that order now.

I really tried not be be a Bridezilla, but I think I turned out worse than all the other brides-to-be there. Most of them were excited to tell their story to the salesperson and seemed to love hearing "congrats" from people whose job it was to sell them a ring (granted one of the Tom Shane commercials says they don't pay their sales staff on commission -- cynical me thinks that instead they probably use a bonus system).

It’s All Relative

As I am approaching 40, and starting to feel old, it's always nice of my relatives to remind me that everything is relative (a shout out to my college buddies who thought the Physics 2 lesson on Einstein's theory of relativity applied to all things in the universe -- including emotions, luck, and 5-year plans).

I just got back from a quick trip to see my family at Christmas. To set the background:

• my dad's mom - Dot - is 96. On Boxing Day she ended up getting admitted to the hospital with pneumonia.
  
• my mom's mom - Annie - is 88. She fell and broke her arm recently, then during rehab fell and bruised her back, so she's in a downhill snowball of increasing pain right now.
  
• my niece - Merci - is 6. I love this because there is a 90-year age gap between her and Dot.
  

My folks have been caring for their moms for the last 6+ years. It's noble. It sounds exhausting to me. There's figuring out how to pay for it all (if health insurance sounds confusing try that combined with medicare, veteran's affairs benefits and retirement benefits). There's the emotions involved - from the "you kids are all trying to get your inheritance before I'm even gone" to the "I wish the Good Lord would take me now" to the "no one ever visits me". My dad stops by his mom's place at least 4 days a week. He may not stay long (Dot goes to bed at 7pm most days, so with long hours at work it's hard to get back from work before she's getting ready for bed), but he picks up and delivers all her groceries and does all the laundry. My mom spends 2 hours most days after work with Annie. This boggles my mind - 9 hours at work (with a lunch break that she usually works through), the 1 work commute, then 2 hours talking and playing cards ... when does she eat or sleep or do the insurance thing? Does she do anything for herself? I hope I can handle it with as much grace as my folks when it gets to be my turn to take care of them.

I didn't get to see Dot too much, sadly. I saw her the first morning, but that afternoon was when she had to go to the hospital. She was feeling well enough the third day to see us for a bit. It's tough to talk to her because she won't wear her hearing aids. By the time she got them, she was so used to silence that background noises like the clicking of the car blinker bothered her. So I have to shout, but even then my voice is too soft and it reminds me of a comedy of errors the conversations we do have.

HOW ARE YOU DOING TODAY?
Yes, lovely.
DID YOU HAVE A NICE LUNCH?
I don't think so.

It almost makes sense, but not quite. As a result, I decided not to let the same thing happen to me. So last year when the doctor said I could maybe use an eyeglass prescription, I decided I should probably get it filled right away. I have to say that I find glasses annoying - and that whole seductive librarian thing I thought would make it fun just isn't all I thought it would be. (sigh)

Moral: Don't wait.

My cousin Les (who is younger than me and in his residency for oncology) flew in to see Annie for a Christmas surprise. Les and I spent most of our days in town with Annie playing cards. One day we showed up and Annie was slumped over in her wheelchair in a dark room. She was in too much pain to move, so she couldn't push the call button to get help. Her oxygen wasn't on - so I'm not really sure why they had the tubes in her nose. I hate to think how long she was sitting there. But I do feel lucky that we walked in at that moment to push the button and get the oxygen back on. And to distract her a bit so she could maybe ignore the pain. So I suppose I don't blame her for saying "I wish the Good Lord would just take me" a half dozen times. On the other days we mostly just played cards or wrote letters for her. I am vaguely wondering what the people who get the letters I wrote for her will think. First there's the handwriting - mine is atrocious and obviously not hers. Then there's the "voice"; if she said "I think I'm going to die in this place" then I wrote "I might be in the rehab unit for a while." Annie has always been a bit of "realist" ("the glass is half empty"). And if she repeated herself (either due to pain meds or the early signs of Alzheimer's, I am not sure which) I wrote something else. If I knew the people, I wrote a note from me to say hi, and if not I wrote about the card games. I wished I'd kept track of how many times she told me to "enjoy being young because getting old isn't all it's cracked up to be". I don't feel like I'm exaggerating to say it was nearing triple digits for the 4 days (probably about 16 hours total) that I was there.

Moral: Enjoy what you have going on right now - tomorrow's going to be a whole different game.

Merci instantly took to Les. She thought it was entirely funny to call him "the doctor in the house": "the doctor in the house will probably knock over the Jenga tower this time!" or "the doctor in the house and I are watching football". This would be followed by peals of giggles. They watched a football game together where he taught her to cheer for the Steelers. She had never seen football but learned how to yell at the TV quickly even if she had no idea what was happening. "You've got to be stronger than those other guys! Go Steelers - Go Steelers - Go Steelers!!!" She still has unending energy - it really is amazing. She gets up at 5:30am and doesn't want to go to bed until 10pm. If only I had that discipline, enthusiasm, and ...well... energy.

Moral: Amuse yourself.
Enthusiasm is contagious. Try it out.

So...thanks to my relatives for the reminder that it's all relative.

Happy 2010 everyone.

Grout Vision

Have you ever had a completely obscure item demand your attention? Something you never noticed before somehow becomes un-missable all of a sudden?

I remember when my parents came out to help me paint the exterior of my new (to me) house (built the same year I was born). And yes, my parents have an odd sense of what's "fun" and how to spend their vacations... For the weeks during which I was trying to pick colors, I suddenly noticed a lot of interesting choices that my neighbors used. Prior to that I'd only really noticed the turquoise house with white trim. And maybe the Jamaican lady's bright pink house. But that also had white trim and wasn't glaring -- the only reason to notice her house was the large number of whirly rainbow kite things in her front yard. Take, for instance, the house in a cul-de-sac down the street: it was an decent mint green which contrasted nicely with the dark wood accents like the porch. The maroon trim also matched nicely with the roof and wood accents. But mint green and maroon as a pairing? Not for me. I got a lot of ideas of what not to do. In the end, I chose something super-boring: tan with forest green trim and a brilliant blue door. (Yes, that might've been the last neighborhood in the entire USA that isn't covenant controlled!)

But that sort of fixation (colors to paint with) seems sorta normal given the project I was taking on...

However, after that project was done, I suddenly focused in on caulking everywhere I saw it: public restroom sinks, the counter at a hole-in-the-wall pizza shop, the shower at an upscale hotel, etc. Caulking is everywhere! I had no idea. Had never even noticed it before. This came about because my dad had me re-caulking several areas on the exterior of my house before we started painting. While I was doing that, he was busy sanding off a water damaged spot on the north-facing wall, resealing it, priming it, etc. I definitely had the easier job. But he finished first. He came over to inspect my work. He burst out, "Tammy, it's a house, not a Picasso! It doesn't have to be a perfect masterpiece!" Apparently I am more of a perfectionist than I thought...

That was more than a decade ago, and while it's not as prevalent now, I still seem to notice other people's caulking jobs than I think most people do...

A week or so ago I got sucked into a project on the guest bathroom. There's a deadline since the guests arrive 12/20. I replaced the faucet (which the directions said would take "approximately 12 minutes" -- it took me 2 days and an additional trip to Lowe's). I mopped the ceiling to get the dirt/mold off that. I ripped out the caulking to replace it (ahem! It needed it - really, I swear! ok, maybe not). In the process I tried whitening the grout with bleach. When that didn't work, I went to Lowe's and bought tools to scrape out all the old grout and re-do that.

So, of course, I've started seeing the grout in the master bathroom and on tiled floors at restaurants. sigh. I'm wondering if I'm replacing my caulking tunnel vision with a grout one... Is that progress?

My Life Since High School: Reader's Digest Version

An old high school friend found me on Facebook. He asked me for a "Reader's Digest" condensed version of my last 20+ years. It was sorta fun to write up (and sorta morbid because it got me thinking about obituaries). Some of this is probably repeat for this audience, but I thought I'd post it -- and you should send me yours too!

School/Work:

· I worked at a book store during college. This was my favorite job ever. If there was a way to make a living at that, I would totally do it. I’m keeping it in mind for when I retire, although I acknowledge that there won’t be any books left in the world by that time. (As an aside, I got an Amazon Kindle for my last birthday and love that too…)

· 1992: Got my BS Aerospace Engineering – but I never used it to be a Rocket Scientist.

· My first “real” job out of college was as an “Engineer” for a company that made for roadside sobriety testing. Then I moved to the software industry since that was taking off. I worked at a dot-com for almost 8 years. I had several desks at that company in several buildings in downtown Denver, and the company had 5 names…but it was all the same group of people. I never got a car as a signing bonus and I didn’t retiresuper-rich at age 24.

· 2001: Was bored being a software developer and talking only to the computer all day long, so got an MBA International Business hoping to move into something where I could talk to actual people. Haven’t really used that either, but I did switch career paths.

· My current job is as a “business analyst” where I write technical software specs, but talk to the client to figure out what it is that they want. It’s my 2nd favorite job – and it pays a lot better. I get to work from home and travel to client sites. This is almost how I pictured my life as a “grown up” – if there were international travel it would 100% (except the part about being a female-James-Bond spy). It’s not as glamorous as I pictured!

Love/Family:

· Best Friend: I am still friends with my high school BFF. Outside of my family she has been my most constant friend/companion.

· College sweetheart: We dated for 5+ years and were married for 10. When we divorced I got my first apartment on my own ever (always had roommates until then).

· Ariel: I had a cat that I got in college outside a local grocery. She lived to be 19. When she passed away this summer, it was the first time I felt I was truly alone in the world. (My mom/dad/brother/grandparents all live in Texas now.)

· Akela: I had a dog, an Alaskan Malamute, that I took through a pet therapy program. We spent 9 months visiting an Alzheimer’s unit in North Boulder every weekend, but the clinical smells and machines made her nervous. So we switched to a halfway house in Boulder for the next 2 years. The whole experience was very rewarding for me (and hopefully the dog and the people we visited).

· Hockey: I picked up roller hockey, then ice hockey during my dot-com years. I’ve broken both wrists (separate incidents) while participating. If I break a 3rd one, I promised my mom I would take up ballroom dancing instead. I’ve played all over Colorado, in Laramie, Las Vegas, Dallas, Reykjavik and Toronto. I missed the Calgary games with one of my wrist injuries. That’s all with my women’s team. I occasionally play co-ed, but don’t travel with them.

· Travel: I’ve gotten to see a bit more of the world (my favorite pastime). I’ve been scuba diving in Bonaire, St. John and Cozumel. I went to Great Britain (Scotland, Wales, England) on a bus tour (gah! – possible preview of retirement travel). I took my brother to Rome, Italy one Thanksgiving. Went to Paris one summer to visit a different friend. Had the chance to move there, but couldn’t make the leap. I visited a friend in New Zealand (Wellington area) this year.

· Road Bike: With my tax return in 2005 I bought a road bike (from a company known for their mountain bikes, if that tells you anything about how I do things). It was on sale and 2 years old (still new on the showroom floor though). My tax return only paid for about half of it. It was the single best investment I’ve ever made. Even though I’m not very good at it, I love riding and in the summer try to take my “lunch” for a couple hours and ride the trails in the Denver Metro. I rode my first organized tour (Elephant Rock – 33 mile road route) this summer.

· Next Chapter: I spent a couple of years “dating as an adult” (without the coercion of high school dances and meeting hundreds of new people in massive college classes) and enjoying being on my own, doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I have never really believed in “the one” theory, but last fall I re-met someone I knew years ago and I might be changing my mind…