Adventures in facial piercings

In college, I got my nose pierced because I wanted some kind of facial adornment and an eyebrow piercing seemed too scary.  The stud came out constantly, but I was usually able to recover it from my pillow, and when I couldn't I just stuck an earring in there to keep the hole from closing until I bought a new one.  Then, on a mountain bike ride in Fruita in 2009, I must have accidentally pulled the stud out while performing a Farmer John (it was cold), because afterwards it was nowhere to be found.  Not having ready access to a tattoo/piercing shop at the campsite, I figured that was that, and let the hole close up.
Or so I thought.
This summer, I've been racing a riding with a lot of other girls, and several of them have nose piercings of varying size and ostentatiousness, and all of them are around my age.  I still like the way nose studs look, so out of curiosity I tried sticking an earring through the depression still visible in my nose.  Lo and behold, it went right through, so the following week I rode my bike to a piercing parlor on the CU campus and checked out the goods.  The store offered basic little studs for $10 each in various colors, with an option to upgrade to free crystal replacements for $20.  I'd never had a crystal fall out of a stud before, so I got one 'installed' at the place and took another one home for backup.
About a month later, I woke up to find that the crystal had come out of my stud (damn!).  Unfortunately, I had had the guy at the piercing place corkscrew the post before putting it in so that it would be nearly impossible for it to get pulled out, and I didn't want to deal with it, so I just left the unbedazzled stud there for a while, figuring it didn't make that big a difference.
Then the other night, I decided enough was enough, and it was time to bring in the backup.  I tugged and swirled the stud for a while, to no avail, and then rummaged around in the tool box for some needlenose pliers.  Those also had no effect.  I returned the pliers to the tool box and extracted the coup de grace: wire cutters.  Drawn by the commotion and cursing, Mike came into the bathroom to find me bracing myself for the snip, and promptly offered his assistance.  I then had four hands in or around my nose, but after some nervous flinching and giggling, the post was extricated from my nostril with the requisite boogers in tow.  The new stud was inserted with much less ado, and voila, facial accessory accomplished.
The moral of the story is: 30 is not too old to have a nose piercing, and for heaven's sake just shell out for the more expensive stud.

ThingsTo Make You Smile And Laugh And Maybe Cry, But Only Because You're Laughing So Hard

This one's for you, Gmom!  We love you!

Slow Motion Puppies and Kittens

Pug Licks Its Face Every Time Toy Squeaks

Kitten + Lizards = Awesome

Cat vs Printer (sound necessary)

Cat vs Cat vs Printer

Otters!

Tired Baby Sea Lion

Dancing Walrus!

Sleepy Spudgy

Dog Doesn't Want To Take A Bath

Mike Birbiglia standup - animated!

Hope this helps :)

Hey look, I'm on the podium again!

So, last month I raced in the Big Mountain Enduro in Durango.  There were six other girls in my category, and I trounced them all to claim first place!

Well, that's not entirely true.  The girl who came in third, Alexandra, was hot on my heels on Stages 1 and 2, but she had a mechanical problem on Stage 3 that knocked her cumulative time back by a couple minutes.  (I know she had a mechanical because she was trying to fix it when I caught up to her right before a chunky uphill section.  I hopped off my bike to start shoving as she moved out of the trail, but I then tripped and fell onto her, which probably did not help her time either.)  The girl in second, Terah, was only a second behind me on Stage 2, but my lead on the other stages built up to give me the win.  Woo!

So, let's take a quick look at the evolution of my podium finishes.
Here we have: "I did not expect to be here and am still not entirely sure how this happened."

Next, we have: "I have been up here before, but I still do not know what I'm supposed to do exactly."

And finally: "I earned this one, dammit!  Booyah!"

In fact, I over-earned the last one, because immediately afterward I came down with a nasty cold that left me moaning and snuffling for a week.  I was pretty determined to put up a good showing, so much so that I went to Durango with a few friends on the Wednesday evening before the race in order to pre-ride the stages.  Day 1 was Kennebec Pass, which included two untimed 6 mile-ish climbs and two fast, occasionally terrifying singletrack descents.  Here's the first part of the trail:

Eeep.

 Day 2 was Raiders Ridge, just east of town, and a second, marginally technical trail, the name of which now escapes me.
Kennebec Pass was an absolute beast.  On Thursday, we paid to get shuttled to the trailhead in a lifted van instead of riding pushing our bikes up the rough 4WD road to the top of the pass, because we didn't want to get wrecked before the race even started.  We made our way to the rumored start line and assessed the situation:  nasty exposure, steep drop to the right, couple scree fields, waterbars that had to be taken slowly or we'd go flying off the mountainside, blind corners, overgrown trail...super.  Happily, our group had no incidents, but I had to go frustratingly slow for the first few hundred yards because I was unfamiliar with the trail.  Then we dropped into a drainage with lots of surprise switchbacks and stream crossings, and eventually came to the finish of Stage 1.  This meant that it was time to start climbing!  We were in no hurry, having literally nothing else to do that day but ride this trail, but even at an easy pace we were out of breath and hating the race organizers for being so cruel as to make us pedal our bikes uphill.  The bastards!

This is Matt. He is out of breath.

This is Eric.  He is also out of breath, but he has a dog named Kaia.

Eventually we made it to the start line for the second stage, and had a blast riding the flowy, jumpy downhill to the road back into Durango.  We had some beers, ate some dinner, and crashed early.

On Friday, a few of the local riders led us on a preview of Raider's Ridge, which is almost exactly like Dakota Ridge in Golden, Colorado, but longer and more difficult and with less shade.  The ridge undulates for a few miles in a general south-ish direction, and alternates between ledgy off-camber rock and ledgy cliff-exposure rock, plus some loose stuff here and there to keep it interesting.  It was awful.  I'm sure the locals can go and figure out the lines and piece everything together eventually, but for a race, it was a mess.

Carnage in 3, 2, 1...

 We decided that we would just pick up our bikes and run over the majority of the trail on race day.  Then, in the last few hundred yards of the stage, the race organizers had decided not to send us on a nice newly finished fast flowy section, but to instead make us ride down two super-steep sections that were covered with what Liz christened 'demon baby heads': loose rocks about 6 inches in diameter that really really wanted to slip under our tires and make us crash.
It was a fitting, final 'F YOU' from the trail, and we were not looking forward to racing it.
And then we did not pre-ride Stage 4.  Everyone told us that there was nothing to it, and we shouldn't bother.  Just fast and flowy downhill.  Right.  So we went to Tricia's house, waded in the nearby Las Animas river to ease the aching in our forearms and hamstrings, ate dinner, and went to bed.

For a while, at least.  Mike couldn't leave Denver until after work on Friday, so he rolled in to the campsite at 1:30 on Saturday morning.  Yay Labor Day weekend.

After Mike's arrival, I got a few more hours of fitful shut-eye (Ellie kept stepping on me), and then it was time to get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, drink coffee, and go to Tricia's house to meet the people with whom we'd be carpooling to the start of the Stage 1 climb.  Officially, the race organizers wanted all racers to meet in Durango and ride the shuttle buses to the start, but after the shitshow in Angel Fire (wherein the trailer carrying the bikes first broke and then went off the fire road into a ditch) we broke the rules and shuttled ourselves.  There was no advantage in terms of the distance we had to ride; we started the climb at the exact same spot as everyone else.  But since we began pedaling right as the first round of shuttles was heading back to town for the next load of people and bikes, we had the road to ourselves and thus felt free to go as slowly as was physically possible.  Before we set off, however, we did some yoga

Ellie is helping

and then we had a quick dance party to warm ourselves up, thanks to Liz's Jammy Pack:

If anyone cares, I would be happy to get one of these for my birthday or Christmas :)

Liz kept the Jammy Pack rocking for the entire 6-mile slog up the pass, which helped our spirits enormously, and Tricia decreed that in order to conserve energy, we should not be working so hard that we couldn't sing along to the music.  It was a good strategy, and we went slow enough that it took us two hours, but we were still a little beat at the top.  We refilled our water, stuffed some Clif energy shots in our pockets (do not try the vanilla flavor, it's horrifying), and queued up at the start line:

There was a group of 8 or so women, and we decided that we should all go at the same time to create a buffer between ourselves and the boys, who, by dint of being silly and competitive and reckless, are generally faster riders.  Liz went first, then Tricia, then me, then Leigh, who is faster than me but hadn't ridden the trail before.  A photographer got a shot of Leigh and her awesome socks after she went by:

As I expected to, I went painfully slowly on the first section, especially over the loose nasty scree

Please don't let my brakes fail.

 but once I dropped into the trees I opened up the throttle and caught Tricia on the first short uphill section.  Leigh caught me at the same spot, so she went in front and I chased her, with Tricia close behind.  We were having a super time, hootin and hollerin, until I came to a section that had given me trouble before: a blind corner with a stream crossing and a big rock that you have to manual over.  I almost made it, but I stalled and had to unclip my right foot to catch myself.  But instead of falling right, I fell left, and wasted a few seconds flailing around under my bike, trying to free myself.  I got going again and had no more issues, and crossed the finish very tired and out of breath.

Since it was quite hot, several of us all but submerged ourselves in the stream running along the trail and declared that we were too tired to ride bikes ever ever again, that riding bikes was in fact the dumbest thing a person could do, but then twenty minutes later we were up again and shoving our bikes towards the Stage 2 start line, 5 miles away.

Tricia rides a 29er because she's tall.

Stage 2 was uneventful, except I had to stop briefly and extricate the shattered remains of my chain guide from my drivetrain so that I could pedal again, which cost me a couple seconds.

fin

 

Liz's friend Arturo was not so lucky; he redlined in the last mile, crashed, and broke his helmet and one of his front teeth.  Supervan was called in to take him to the ER south of Durango, and Paddington helped by sitting on him during the ride.  He returned to Tricia's house a few hours later with a concussion, some painkillers and strict instructions not to not to race the second day.  Luckily, Arturo's dad is a dentist in Ecuador, so he'll get fixed up next time he goes to visit.

Upon returning to town, we waded in the river again, ate dinner again, and sat by a campfire for a while, consuming a perfectly reasonable amount of alcohol, before going to bed (again).

Day 2!  Up at 6, breakfast, drive to start of climb, dance party, pedaling.  It was really really very hot that day, so of course we had to race at 11am, because heatstroke really helps to narrow the field.
We stopped in the last bit of shade before the ridge began in earnest:

and had another quick dance party, then put on our armor and got in line to drop.

Not a single goddamn cloud in the sky.

Remember how our plan was to just pick up our bikes and sprint over the parts we couldn't ride?  Yeah, that didn't work out.  It was so hot, and I was so about to have a heart attack, that the best I could do was trudge along while resting my weight on my saddle and taking giant, scalding lungfuls of stupid Durango air.  I may or may not have been hallucinating by the end.

There was one section on the trail where you could either send a 3-ish foot drop, roll a middle line, or take a roundabout route that keeps your wheels on the ground.  I wanted to huck it (the landing was clean), but I did the smart thing and took the middle line:

And finally, after what felt like days of riding/hiking, I got to the demon baby heads.  My tires made it clear that they would buck me off if I dragged my brakes the way I wanted to, so I jumped off and ran down the sketchiest section, then hopped back on for the last hundred yards:

Not amused.

After everyone in our group came down, we sat under a tree and got rehydrated before tackling the climb to the last stage, which was, remember, supposed to be a piece of cake.  "All downhill," they said!  "Nothing to it."  Yeah, right.  It was like 90 percent pedaling, and I went so hard that I literally started dry heaving after crossing the finish line!

(barf)

Luckily the finish area was only a few minutes' walk from the ubiquitous Las Animas river, so we soaked ourselves and our nasty shammy until it was time to go to the park that BME was using as a staging area to look at our times.

There was beer

and dogs

and a man with a mohawk

The guy with the epic goatee is Gary, and the guy with the plugs is Joe, and they're both very cool.

and a podium!  Look, there's Leigh in first place for amateur women 30-39!

wow, the girl on the left is super ripped...

Her cumulative time was only 12 seconds ahead of mine, and she's pretending to be worried about the fact that we will be in the same category next year.  I think we should just practice getting the exact same time in races so that we can share the top spot.

So, that was my adventure in Durango, and if you want to see more pictures of people that aren't me, check out Mountain Flyer Magazine's coverage of the race.

(fin)

Yummertime!

Yesterday evening I made fried squash blossoms for the first time:

They were delicious and surprisingly filling, and we still got the flavor of the flowers through the tempura coating.  I think the base for the stuffing is traditionally goat cheese, but since the grocery store didn't have it on sale I used cream cheese instead.

Here's my general recipe if you want to try it:

15-20 fresh male squash blossoms, stamens and spiky sepals removed
 filling:
1/2 cup shredded pecorino romano
1/2 cup cream cheese, softened
splash of cream
some chopped herbs, like basil, thyme, parsley, and dill
1/2 garlic clove, minced
black pepper
salt
frying:
veg or canola oil
tempura mix


Combine the filling stuff and put a spoonful of the mix in each blossom, then gently twist the ends of the blossom together to contain the filling.

Heat up the oil and mix together about 1/2 cup of tempura mix and cold water.

Lightly coat the blossoms in the tempura mix and drop in the oil (I used a 9-inch fry pan with about 1/2 inch of oil).  Turn the blossoms after about a minute, fry another minute and then remove and drain.

I would have made a dipping sauce, but I couldn't think of something that would go well and I didn't want to wait any longer to stuff the blossoms in my face.  Something fresh tomato-based might be nice, but these are rich enough that you probably wouldn't want a creamy dip.

Enjoy!

Aaaaaaand We're Back!

Oh my, it's been a long time since my last post!  A lot has happened, too.  In June I took 1st place in my category in my very first mountain bike race ever:

(I was so startled)

But then the race organizers changed the rules, so my official ranking now is 4th. (Sad face.)  This came about because the races are scored in two ways: you get X number of points for the way you place in each stage, and you also get a cumulative time by adding up your times from all the stages (in this case, 5 stages).  I got a flat tire on the first stage, so I came in last on that one.  But the next day I won 3 of the remaining 4 stages, so I came in 1st by two points.  Apparently, though, people complained that ranking by points was unfair, so they changed it to cumulative time.  But if I hadn't flatted on the first stage there's an extremely good chance I would've won that one too, so I can't say that I'm particularly fussed about it.

But I still got to keep the loot!  Yay!:

That's like 600 bucks worth of stuff.

So it was a good time.

Then, since I had officially caught the racing bug, I competed in another Big Mountain Enduro race.  This one was in Crested Butte, CO, and I came in second by 16 seconds:

And I still had no idea how to behave on the podium, so while everyone else was doing something appropriate I was looking like a doofus:

Derrr?

It's what I do best.

It's actually a good thing that I didn't get 1st again, because then I would have gotten the same tires, roof rack, tshirt, sunglasses and shoes that I did in Angel Fire.  This time I got a spine protector, different tires, different tshirt and different sunglasses (which I gave to Mike, because I need prescription sunnies).

I also won a new pair of goggles in the raffle, which was lucky because mine were all scratched up:

Awesome.

Other things of note:

In Crested Butte, I discovered Paddington's Mini-Me:

I got to hang out with lots of ass-kickin' ladies:

from left: Leigh, Sara, Sparky, Elena, Sienna

CB has lots of adorable chubby marmots trundling around in the park:

Well camouflaged, too.

Arrelaine came with me and hung out with the dogs while I rode:

Grass + David Sedaris + Oskar Blues = Awesome

And that's Crested Butte.
Also, if you're curious what an enduro bike race is, watch this video:
http://vimeo.com/68740190

I'm planning to race in the next BME in Durango at the end of August, so wish me luck!


Mike was taking anatomy and physiology classes at CU for the whole month of June, so he did not get to participate in the races (or even come and cheer), which was a bummer.  But he was supportive from afar!

Also tired.  Very very tired.

Let's see, what else...

Those of you on Facebook already know about Kermit, our foster dog:

We were trying to think of a better name for him than the one he came with (Nick), and I really wanted to go with something from either British literature or a Broadway musical.  We were toying with the names Mr. Bingley, Elder Cunningham, Fiyero, and Mr. Knightley when all of a sudden I gasped and said "His name is Kermit!" because, well, that's exactly what he looks like.

But his full name is Kermit Fitzwilliam Bingley, so that he can be Mr. Bingley on formal occasions.

Anyway, he's being formally adopted by his new family on Friday (the Browns), and while we've enjoyed having him, Paddington and Ellie are ready for things to go back to normal.
And I will miss the snuggle-wrestling:

taken two seconds before he started squirming like mad

Good Squirms.


Two weekends ago was Stevezie's birthday party, which involved a decent amount of alcohol, OHVs, and BB guns in a national forest camping area.

It went about like you would expect, but luckily no emergency services were needed.
There were lots of dogs in our group, and Kermit ended up making very best friends with a little beagle mix puppy named Anita.  They had a whale of a time wrestling and chasing each other around, while the more grown-up dogs pretended to be too mature for playing (but secretly wanted to join in).

We also had lovely weather for hiking:

Then last weekend, I went riding at Winter Park with some other ladies for Sienna's dirty thirty birthday celebration.  And, slightly on impulse but not entirely because I've always loved this particular make and model, after trying out one of WP's rental DH bikes I bought it, because it's so much bigger and squishier and awesomer than my current freeride bike:

Her name is Marshmallow because she is squishy and delicious.

We're going to go huck some fuzzy bunnies together at Keystone on Sunday.  Hopefully there will be pics and maybe even some GoPro footage.

Super quiet, super awesome!

I Am Growing a Glorious Garden

I am growing a glorious garden, 
resplendent with trumpets and flutes,
I am pruning the euphonium bushes,
I am watering the piccolo shoots,
my tubas and tambourines flourish,
surrounded by saxophone reeds,
I am planting trombones and pianos,
and sowing sweet sousaphone seeds.

I have cymbals galore in my garden,
staid oboes in orderly rows,
there are flowering fifes and violas
in the glade where the glockenspiel grows,
there are gongs and guitars in abundance,
there are violins high on the vine,
and an arbor of harps by the bower
where the cellos and clarinets twine.

My bassoons are beginning to blossom,
as my zithers and mandolins bloom,
my castanets happily chatter,
my kettledrums merrily boom,
the banjos that branch by the bugles 
play counterpoint with a kazoo,
come visit my glorious garden
and hear it play music for you.

-by Shel Silverstein, in Something Big Has Been Here

(Side note: that's one of the poems I read to Liv when she stayed with Mike and me the night Ila was born.)

I'm not growing tubas and stuff, but I have planted these things:
5 kinds of tomatoes
4 kinds of peppers
pineapple sage
5 kinds of mint
wax and royal burgundy beans
snow peas
marigolds
spring onions
lettuces
arugula
yellow and zucchini squash
rainbow chard
japanese cucumbers
basil
parsley
tarragon
dill
rosemary
thyme
nasturtiums

Here's the garden now:

I'll take another picture in a few weeks, and hopefully it will be much greener!

Also, I built an Outdoor Play Area (OPA) for Badger the corn snake, so that he can enjoy the warm nights in a larger, more interesting enclosure.
Here it is:

And here he is, hiding under a turtle shell:

"Go away."

I'm pretty sure he's grumpy because he's in the middle of shedding and can't really see anything right now.  Also, I imagine he must be very itchy.

They Say You Can't Go Home Again...

...mostly because your parents have moved like a million times and they're no longer in the house you left to go to college.
But that's okay, because now they have an awesome cozy house on 6-ish acres in Charlotte, NC!

I had nothing much going on at work during the last few weeks of April, and I was tired of the weekly snow showers in CO, so I booked a flight to Charlotte to spend a few days with mom and dad.  Hotwire was offering a 'Hot Deal' for about a hundred bucks less than the next cheapest fare, but the catch was that you only see the details of the trip after you book, and then you can't change anything or get a refund.  I figured, how bad could it be?
Well, Hotwire put me on a 5:30pm flight out of DIA and only gave me a 30-minute layover in Atlanta.  I hoped it would turn out okay, because I didn't recall ATL being a very large airport.
But then, of course, the weekly snow shower started in Denver and, though we boarded the plane on time, we had to spend an hour getting de-iced before taking off.
During the flight, I kept looking at the image of the little plane centimetering its way across the middle of the US, silently urging the pilot to put the pedal to the metal, because the estimated arrival time was only 5 minutes before the departure time of my connecting flight.  Once we landed, the plane seemed to take FOREVER to taxi to the gate, and even though the flight attendants had requested that the people whose final destination was Atlanta stay in their seats so that the folks who had connections could attempt to sprint to their gates, as soon as they seat belt sign went off everyone stood up.  I pulled my duffel from the overhead compartment, booked it down the aisle and up the tunnel (only sending four or five old ladies and small children flying), found my connecting gate on the departures screen, hauled ass the 50 yards or so, and rolled up to the gate just as the jetway was being pulled back from the airplane door...
A couple of douchey-looking middle-aged guys that were on my flight ran up after me and started waving frantically through the window at the pilot (like he was going to open the door back up for three random people) and then, when the gate agent came through the door to the jetway, immediately began berating her for not waiting for them before closing the door.  I made a token attempt at standing up for her ("Guys, it's not her fault") but they appeared to be merely warming up, so I went to the Delta help desk to find out what to do next.
The gentleman at the desk seemed perfectly nice, but there were two problems: one, he was a low-talker, and I had just spent two hours mere feet away from a very very loud jet engine; and two, he had a completely indecipherable accent.  I eventually gathered that I was already booked on the first flight out to Charlotte the next morning, but when I asked where Delta would be putting me up for the night, he said (I think) that they weren't getting me a hotel room because "the de-icing was out of our control."  I said, in a sad but nonconfrontational tone, that the de-icing was not in my control either, but ultimately all I got was a voucher for a special rate of $50/night at whatever hotel I preferred.
The stay was uneventful, as was the flight, and at 8:30am I found myself in Charlotte!  The warm weather was a very welcome change from stupid cold Denver, and we took advantage by heading over to the US National Whitewater Center, where we could do some rock climbing and rafting and biking and ziplining:

It was cloudy when we first arrived, so we saved the whitewater rafting for when it warmed up a little more.  Everyone who signs up for the WWR has to sit through a little orientation thingie, and the particular raft guide leading ours looked like this guy:

but sounded like this guy:

It was an excellent combination.
Dad and I did four laps of the whitewater course while Mom spectated, and we both managed to stay inside the raft, but we got thoroughly soaked.  After that I checked took out a bike which was much too big for me, because a middle school class happened to be visiting the center that day and they had already taken all the bikes for smaller people.
Besides being much too big, the bike also had an alarming rattling noise coming from the fork, so after doing a quick loop on a 'blue' trail, I decided to just cruise down some of the smooth, flat trails to the south of the center.  Almost immediately, I ran over a big beautiful king snake that was doing its best imitation of a stick across the middle of the trail.  I don't think it was mortally wounded, but I completely lost my motivation for biking and rode (carefully) back to the stable, relinquished the bike and walked over to the restaurant to meet my parents.  I scared the bejesus out of them by bursting into tears--they thought I had hurt myself--but I eventually calmed down over a pint of some tasty Belgian trippel-style beer.  I still feel bad about the snake.  Freaking go figure, that it would happen to me, probably one of like ten people in the world who just wants to pick snakes up and make friends with them.  Jeez.
 On our way back to the house we picked up some Chinese take-out and a box of brownie mix, and had a pleasant evening of tofu and conversation before I zonked out on the La-Z-Boy 15 minutes into an episode of Project Runway.

The next morning, I was walking from the back yard to the front, and when I looked down, there was a nice conspicuous four-leaf in a patch of clover in the grass, and when I bent to pick it my eye caught another one, then another, and pretty soon I had a whole mess of them:

I've still got the mad four-leaf finding skillz!

Then I went for a walk around the property while Mom did something or other.  I investigated an old falling-down shed on the edge of the neighbor's yard which had a big opening on one side of the foundation, and while I took an amateur-artsy picture of a raptor feather I found on the ground, I heard some scuffling coming from the shed.  I took a step toward it, and all of a sudden a big old buzzard came running out of the foundation, took a look at me, and flew up to a branch of the big oak tree next to the shed:

 

I was so startled.

I also discovered a specimen of a very expensive fungus near the shed, and as I explored further I saw more of them here and there, so now Mom and Dad can sell morels by the road if they want some extra income:

They're real morels, not false ones, the internets told us so.

I also took some pictures of the wildflowers about the place, found a puddle of water with some tadpoles, and may have tracked down the nest that the hawks circling the area and generally being noisy had as their home base:

I also saw and heard lots of birds, but it's been long enough since Ornithology at UW that I couldn't identify all of them.
But in all my travels, I did not encounter a single snake!  What a terrible disappointment.

The rest of the visit was terribly pleasant and relaxing.  Mom and I got pedicures, saw a movie, and drove by the house that we lived in for a few years in Matthews:

It sounds very cliche, but the trees in the neighborhood were much taller than I remember them being.

We also visited some local breweries, and then had a really wonderful dinner at Mimosa in downtown Charlotte.  It happened to be prom night, so we got to see (i.e., judge) the myriad styles of formal dresses that teenagers are into these days.  Things haven't changed much in ten years, it seems: bright colors and satiny fabrics are still the rule, with one or two vintage or unusual styles sprinkled around.  One girl looked like a cross between Barbie and Glinda the Good Witch, right down to the blond hair and the sparkles.  I asked lots of questions, found out some very interesting things about Gmom and Gdad in their younger days, and enjoyed the decidedly non-vegetarian short ribs.  I also had a glass of stupid-good pinot noir...if I'd been paying attention, I would have written down which one it was.  Then, to top it off, when we couldn't decide which dessert to share, the waiter just went ahead and brought us both!  The weird free-dessert streak continues!  You're welcome, guys ;)

And then I returned to Denver, where it snowed the next day and I was very cross.  But now it's finally warm here, so yay!