Zoe’s Journal

A couple of days ago, the LotR and I moved around a bunch of heavy furniture. Our ‘guest room’ was transformed into my office, and the corner of the living room that had housed my desk is now a cozy little sitting area. We found an amazing, hand-carved (custom-made in 1965) German table on craigslist which we went to pick up this afternoon. We also stopped at IKEA where I found a few frames to frame some of my old sheet music.

I picked up this print in Prescott last weekend.

Well, the LotR is gone to San Francisco for a week, and I’m already grasping for things to do. Today, at least, shouldn’t be too hard. I need to do about three loads of laundry and buy groceries (not too many, since it’s just me). I may or may not get started on my homework that is due tomorrow (may as well do it today)… There is some cleaning that I’d like to do as well.

Yesterday I went shopping and splurged on a $700 purse - but hey! I got it for only $140. And it is fucking beautiful. I’ve never bought any type of clothing or accessory for that much before, but I’m not going to feel guilty about it, either!

I also stopped a couple of other places yesterday, Target being one, where I found a cool set of dipping bowls (think sushi and soy sauce with wasabi). They’re black and red, so they fit right in with what dishes we have already. At Target, I also bought a book, which I read last night, and cranberry juice. Yum.

This morning has been OK so far - I’m about to go do that grocery shopping… and I should really stop at Target again to pick up a new pair of sheets and see if they have an acceptable computer bag for my amazing new laptop.

I think the hardest part of the LotR being gone for so long will be remembering to scoop the poop and feed the cats. Yeah, he normally does all of that, and now that they have a cat door into that room, it stays shut all of the time. Out of sight, out of mind.

Well, hi. How was your weekend, might I ask?

Mine was just great. Fancy fine, in fact. On Friday, the LotR and I went to see the Suns play vs the Orlando Magic - we won, of course (but it got exciting toward the end). On Saturday, we didn’t do much. If I remember correctly, I just lounged around the house reading ‘A Storm of Swords’, book three in the Song of Ice and Fire series. Awesome books, those. There are still 3 more books still to come out! I hope the author doesn’t die first - like the author of The Wheel of Time series, who died in the last and final book of the 12-book (?) series. George RR Martin is getting kind of old, yeah? Eh… he’ll live. The force of my will shall make him live and finish those books.

But I digress. Saturday evening, we went to some sort of game developer bash - where the guys (and some girls) just sat around in a big building programming. Four of us sat down to watch Blue Velvet, which one reviewer described as “The Hardy Boys on drugs”. I brought a couple of books, just in case it was bad, but it was good…

Sunday morning, I got up in the morning around 10. I was expecting to go to a movie with a friend from work, but she wasn’t feeling well, so I hied myself off to go shopping - to a new store! Last Chance - all Nordstrom’s clothing, but at cheap prices - last chance, y’know? I ended up spending $50 and getting 8 great new sweaters. I’ll have to go back there to finish up my Christmas shopping.

Then, that afternoon, I had Callipygian come over, and we baked all sorts of cookies and brownies and stuff. Chocolate chip cookies, rice krispy treats, molasses spice cookies, and even some chocolate brownies. She took some home, and I put a lot of the rest in the freezer, so that I hopefully won’t have to bake so many for Christmas this year. She left around 6:00, and I got on the treadmill for a bit… by 7:30, I was sound asleep in bed. I slept until 3, when I woke up and realized that I wasn’t sleepy anymore. Meh. I slept again - until 6:20. Then I got up and got on the treadmill for a full half of an hour. Wow!

Now it’s time for some delicious soup - the LotR’s mother is coming to visit in January again, and we had best empty that freezer or else risk her mild disappointment…

Today I ruthlessly cut through the clothes in my closet, picking out items that I 1) didn’t like, or 2) didn’t wear anymore. These clothes, I cut into two piles: 1) clothes that my older sister could appreciate and wear, and 2) clothes that my little sisters would think of as ‘cool’, and wear.

I heard from my mother yesterday, and learned that Heather, the largest of the twins, is now only 2 inches shorter than myself. D’oh! Too bad I stopped growing already… she’s not even a teenager yet! Valerie, the smaller twin, is going to be about my size when she finishes growing. At least I’ll still have someone to send my clothes to, haha. But she’s still pretty small. I don’t know how many of the clothes I’m sending will fit her. At least some of the tops will.

But anyway. The reason I did all of this? Ah.

I went shopping.

Yes, I did. And while I didn’t buy that much for myself (only 3 tops, a pair of jeans, and a pair of slacks), the LotR has been complaining that my clothes take up too much room in our tiny walk-in closet. So, I went through all of my clothes, and after the first round of selecting, I went through and did it again. I have so many empty clothes hangers now… Time to go shopping again!

But anyway. What I got when I shopping on this Black Friday? Aside from the clothes for myself, I bought four items for the LotR (he has no idea what - success in secret-keeping!), LOTS of baby clothes for my niece and nephew, and a couple of items for my older sister. Oh, and I bought a movie, Ratattouille (however it’s spelled), for my younger sisters. Oh, and another pair of pants for myself.

You know how some women collect shoes and purses? Or jewelry? Well, for me, it’s pants. Jeans, slacks, shorts… you name it. If it’s original, I like it (two of the pants I got today were RED. 1 for work, 1 for workout and home). I like shoes too, but not that much, and it’s a pity they’re so expensive and can’t be folded up and put away. Besides, I don’t want to be typical. Forget that I said anything about shoes!

**This is going to be one extraordinarily long post, so I shall divide it up into as many sections as needed.**

Let’s start with our get-away to Seattle. Now, I know that this format of the site sometimes has a few problems showing pictures and their tags properly, so the ones I upload today will be smaller than usual - don’t fret, you can see any larger image simply by clicking on the small one, okay?

———————-1st Night in Seattle ————————–

First Impression - Snowy Mountains!

Second Impressions? Colored leaves and tall buildings!

That night, we went to see the Seattle Symphony perform Mozart’s Requiem. While it was all sung in Latin, I would have enjoyed it a bit more had they not deigned to translate the text on the program into its uber-religious words. I can’t believe some that stuff came out of Mozart!

———————– 1st Day in Seattle—————————

The next morning, we walked down to the Pike Place Market and meandered through several shops.

Then we walked further toward the coast, heading for the aquarium. It was so pretty!

The aquarium was nice too - they had lots of sea & river otters, but, while they were amazingly cute, they don’t sit still long enough for good photos.

This guy looks like a fish-version of Sponge-Bob Squarepants (Argh! I HATE that cartoon show!)

And this guy looks like the shellfish from Futurama!

This was the only otter sitting still long enough for a picture.

All hail an emaciated Christopher Columbus.

But really, there were a lot of cool structures.

After the aquarium, we walked into Pioneer Square. Apparently there was a football game going on down the road.

Vine covered building and totem poles in Pioneer Square.

We saw some pretty weird buildings. We also went to the Seattle Art Museum, but had only an hour before closing, so didn’t buy tickets.

——————– 2nd Night ———————

Not much to tell here - we were dead tired! and stopped to have some dinner at the Palomino.

Oh! I almost forgot (how could I forget!), we also stopped by a Barnes and Nobles. I admit I splurged and bought two entire bags of books. I will go into greater detail about those in a later post.

—————— 3rd Day (Monday) ———————–

We slept until noon, and then went to go see my friend from Vancouver (who sometimes posts comments on here in strange little names). We hung out at a coffee shop for a while, then he had to leave. The LotR and I went to go see the Space Needle. There’s a lot more stuff down there! Things like the Experience Music Project, a science fiction museum, and the international fountain. It was also kind of rainy, so we got to see the ‘real Seattle’.

This is the International Fountain when it’s quiet. It looks like a…a… jellyfish?!

We got caught in the rain again…

I might be happy in this photo.

—————- 3rd Night ———————

That night, we went to the popular Purple wine bar for dinner, along with one of the LotR’s old friends from NASA. The huge pillar went up to the 2-story ceiling, filled with wine bottles. The spiral staircase nearly reached the top.

Indian chieftain is my father.

—————– 4th & Final Day ——————-

The LotR knew some game developer folks in town, so we went to visit before heading back to the airport. While they talked codes and dropships, I played with the two dogs - the pug’s name was Zoe!

She lovered me.

Then, alas, we had to head back to Phoenix. But we did catch an awesome sunset!