I am so THANKFUL...

For my awesome boyfriend.

For my fabulous mother. I have the best mom! She laid the foundations for me to be a thoughtful and responsible adult (things I am constantly working on).

For the opportunity to have worked and learned so much at my old company.

For my ability to see the good - even if it takes some real searching - in any situation and all people.

For my wonderful sister who has become the best friend and ally.

For my best friend who still calls me at midnight on my birthday (her time!)

For having friends who find it as amusing as I do to run races dressed in ridiculous costumes.

For my perfectly healthy, working, disease-and-pain-free body.

For my brother, who never ceases to make me laugh and helps out my mom in ways her other kids can't.

For good friends, those here in Colorado or living far away, they stay with me wherever I go. I truly cherish whatever time I get to spend in their company, even if it's only for 2 hours every 2 years.

For my dad, who taught me everything I needed to know in order to come out of this whole life thing OK. (Even if some of those lessons were on how NOT to follow his example!!)

Just thought it might be nice to acknowlege the things I am truly thankful for. :)

ballet class

So those who know me know I've been moderately unhappy in certain areas of my life, lately. Overall life is good, Mr. BP is the best boyfriend ever (he still seems to be convinced I'm a princess!) and it's snowing in Colorado. Life is OK.

But some aspects of my life these days have really been dragging me down. Well, The Rockette has been feeling the same way lately. Her cure? She started taking drum lessons as a result of an impulse purchase of an entire drum kit from Best Buy. (Yes, Best Buy sells music instruments, too - complete with a 5 lesson package, who can resist?) But what a great idea! Rockette loves music, has always wanted to play them and for venting frustration you really can't beat whaling on a set of drums.

And so starts the thinking... what could I fill up some spare time with? Well I used to like ballet as a kid... and oh, look, ballet slippers are only $13 online! Let me order some! Oh and classes are less than $10/hour... I think I'll sign up! This is gonna be great! And not to mention I can definitely use a little grace in my life, both physically and mentally.

I went to my first class on Tuesday night and it was FAN. TAS. TIC. It is an "Absolute Beginner" ballet class for adults. I've had ballet, but not since I was 12 and I was no great shakes at it then. In any case, Tuesday night's class was 2 hours of outstanding instruction from a bubbly little ballerina who thoroughly explained everything and was exceedingly patient as I struggled to remember first vs. third arm positions. I had a great time and I can't wait to go back.

And I'm sorry to disappoint Miss Grits, but there will be no you-tubing my ballerina efforts, EVER. Next week when the teacher asks me to attempt some kind of pirouette I am certain I will live up to my sign languauge name of "Liz Falls" and end up flat on my face, or derriere, or whatever. [Actually you should SEE the size of the bruise currently on my right leg, and that's just from running into something while walking around!!] But I'll try to be graceful when the falls happen. Kinda like life in general. ;)

so what DOES it all mean?

I sat through 5 minutes of a crazy presentation that was filled with all kinds of numbers on technology proliferation. Things like India's top 25% of honors kids outnumbers ALL kids in America.... that over half of what is learned by this year's freshmen going to college for technical degrees will be outdated by thier 3rd year of school... that the average person will have 10-14 jobs by the time they are 38.

The presentation ends with a slide that says "So what does it all mean?"

What DOES it all mean? Facebook virtually eliminates the need for a high school reunion - you can see pictures of classmates and their kids, their jobs, etc online. You can move to another country and Skype with your family every day, provided they are not on dial up.

At the heart of all of this technology is communication, and speed of communication. This is the beginnings of the human race coming together as a collective organism. Those fiber optic cables that can download music and carry phone calls at millions of megabytes per second are the human root system. Like the Aspens here in Colorado, we are all connected to each other. Yes, you, dear reader, are part of me here in this great virtual space.

Right now the choice is ours as to how connected we want to be. But we log on and we read the news, we see what is going on in remote parts of the world, we pick a cause and spread the word via the internet, we plan trips and events and surgeries online. The fibers cross, and we are all connected.

That being said... all this technology cannot replace true human interaction: touch, expression, socialization, sorrow, laughter with your friends. No matter what the speed of communication is in the digital age it will never match the speed of the smile returned by the friend facing you or the instantaneous comfort of a hug. So go visit the people you love. Bring your daughter to meet her grandparents. Play football with your friends. Hug your mom. Hi-five your best friend. Go out and LIVE. We've been granted the HUMAN experience. Live it and learn from it, and use the fiber optic root system to convey your experience to those who are absent from your daily presence.

I wish I had come up with this

But alas, I can't take the credit. Leave it to my friend the Snowman to construct the following:

"Obama ALSO awarded Nobel prize for physics. 'It's not necessarily that he actually did anything for science, but we saw those pics of him on the beach in Hawaii, and we unanimously decided that physically, he's a good role model.'"

I'm not saying The O is a bad guy or that SOMEDAY he won't have done work deserving of the Nobel Peace prize. All I'm saying is that if the Norwegians are going to give away the Nobel peace prize to an international celebrity after just 9 months of being on the radar it kinda negates the honor and prestige of the award.

Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa... these I understand. Obama? Really? What exactly did he DO!?!?

Vacation Bikers

At tri club practice the other night, Coach Tequila mentioned that the path along Lake Tahoe is one of the worst for serious bikers. Apparently there are a lot of tourists looking around who don't know the rules of the road, and they pretty much set up perfect traps for accidents.

"Look, honey, the lake!"

"Oh sweetheart, it's gorgeous. Let's set up the camera to take a picture of us right here [at this blind corner that a Postal Service jersey'ed dude who shaves his legs will be coming up on at 24 mph in approximately 2 minutes, which is the precise moment we say "Cheese!" and only a split second before he performs an endo into our tripod - wrecking himself, his $7000 bike, and our $8000 Nikon]."

I can see how Tahoe would be a bad place for serious bikers to ride regularly. A close second for Most Dangerous Biking Location in the USA has to be the bike path along the entrance to The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

A couple weeks ago Mr. Blueberry Pancakes and I went out to the bay area for a long weekend to celebrate our anniversary. (One YEAR!! Can you believe it?!?) That Saturday morning after a big breakfast we thought it would be nice to burn off some calories. Tricky really wanted to take me over the Golden Gate into Sausalito and go for a ferry ride back. Well, lo and behold, in San Francisco you can rent bikes to ride around town and across the bridge and they give you a ferry ticket for the return! What a *perfect* way to spend the anniversary of our first date, which had also been a bike ride!

So off we went to find a bike rental place, and within an hour we had bikes, helmets, maps and return ferry tickets. It was a beautiful day. Sunshine, perfect temperature, birds all around... the bike trail went along the water up to the bridge. The bridge itself was a couple miles away and very fogged in, but that just added to the San Francisco-ness of it all. We were on bikes and we were having the greatest time! Ghirardelli Square, the piers, marinas, side markets - what an experience!

After about an hour we abruptly went from the sun into the fog as we came to the stretch of trail approaching the bridge. There were hordes of bikers here. There were some crazy zig-zags and blind corners on the trail, with a lot of people stopped in bad places. There was also a lot of yelling, in all different languages. Most of the riders on the path were tourists (like us) who had never been there, but there were also a few highly agitated racing-jersey-biker types - and it was those racing biker types doing most of the yelling. No disrespect to them, as I have been on their side of the bridge (so to speak) but yelling and bullying their way through the crowds was certainly NOT helping the problem. This was not the Tour de France, it was the Golden Gate bike trail, one of the most touristy spots in the USA. A few clueless riders on cruiser bikes are to be expected and racer types should be prepared to avoid them. Luckily Tricky and I were able to navigate the madness pretty quickly and get through the masses and on our way over the bridge.

After the Five Minute Frenzy, we were on the bridge and everything melted away. Everything except for the fog, that is - I could barely see Tricky through it despite being right behind him! We did stop at a bridge tower base for this super cool foggy photo, and someone was nice enough to take a picture of the two of us along the way as well. At the end of the bridge the fog gave way to a gorgeous view of the boats in the bay on the Sausalito side. We wound down a road lined with wildflowers under the most beautiful of blue skies. Riding into Sausalito was a dream I hope to relive (in my memory and in physical presence) throughout my life.

So despite the insanity trying to get on the bridge, that vacation bike ride was without a doubt one of the best things I've ever done in my life. If you ever get the opportunity to ride your bike across the Golden Gate, TAKE IT. In fact, plan a trip to San Francisco for the sole purpose of doing this ride. Give yourself 5 or 6 hours, more if you want to enjoy time walking around shopping and touristing in Sausalito. There are a number of bike companies that offer the bike + ferry package, and you can go at your own pace. The ride itself took less than 3 hours, and we went around San Francisco, too, before getting on the bridge.

Just be very careful when you, the Vacation Biker, are getting on the bridge, and have respect for all the riders around you!

---

Note: Tricky and I used Blazing Saddles to outfit ourselves for our San Francisco biking adventure. They were great! www.blazingsaddles.com

Just a Regular Rembrandt

I am moving. Moving from my shoebox of a bedroom into the vacant bedroom – WITH BATHROOM – in my house. In addition to having my own bathroom, I’ll get more square footage and a better closet. And if that weren’t enough to convince me to make the move, there is also the fact that I will be getting two eggshell-colored rooms whose walls and personalities I will be able to change with a mere roller and some pigmented liquid produced by Glidden. Not one, but TWO whole rooms to paint!!!

I made several trips to paint stores which resulted in hours of deliberation (I am a Libra, after all). I finally settled on a yellow for the bathroom and a pale green for the bedroom. I had the tools, I had the paint, and I was ready to give life-in-the-form-of-color to my future living quarters. I figured it was best to start with the bathroom, as it was smaller but tougher with all the details and fixtures to get around. I went in and applied blue paint tape anywhere necessary and put some plastic sheeting down, and let the fun begin!

Now it should be noted this bathroom doesn’t have a window. It should also be noted that I bought plain old paint, which smells like, um, paint. In my long quest of searching for just the right shade I discovered that not only do you have choice of color, but you also have the option of purchasing “fume free” environmentally friendly paints that don’t have ill-effects on the human mind and body while being applied and while they are drying. Well, being frugal, the only thing “green” about my paint choice was the color. I started painting with the exhaust fan on, but 15 minutes in I was a bit lightheaded and reconsidering my choice. The feeling passed, though, and I kept on going with the roller.

It took less than an hour to complete the roller part. After it was done, I went out to the backyard to clean up. Right as I was finishing washing out the roller and paint tray in the backyard, Mr. Blueberry Pancakes showed up. He and I had planned to have dinner together, and afterward he would help me paint if need be.

Well, God bless him, Mr. BP suggested some wine with dinner. So I opened up the last of my favorite Sattui wine... and we finished it. But oh no! I had not finished painting the bathroom! What to do? Why, finish painting it, of course!

Now, mind you, the only part I had left to do was the trim – go around the cabinets, shower, plumbing, etc. And I only had one paintbrush, so I told Mr. BP I would be finish up on my own, he could just go on and go to bed. And I took my Sattui-induced tipsiness downstairs to my enclosed, highly fumigated bathroom and got going!

I finished the job in a mere 15 minutes! Or so it seemed, to my drunken mind… because in reality, it was actually two hours. And also to my drunken mind, it looked fantastic – but I decided I would go to bed and decide how it really looked in the morning when I was a bit more sober!

And guess what? I woke up and it looked even better than I had hoped! AWESOME! With a little help from a Morisoli vineyard cabernet, I was a regular REMBRANDT. Haha! Guess I’ll be opening up another bottle before I tackle painting the trim for my bedroom!!

It's TEN MONTH TUESDAY!

Mr. Blueberry Pancakes and I have been dating for ten months as of today!

Here's a little timeline:

- First date - met through Rocky Mountain Tri Club, so of course he asks me to go ride 25 miles of hills. I say yes, we go and the ride is followed by an hour conversation in the sun (during which I fried half my face) and then followed by tasty breakfast. Many thanks to Dr. Drew for loaning us the road bike Tricky used on our first date!!

- Labor Day - JazzFest in Aspen - Went to visit friends and go to jazzfest in Aspen. Did not make it to ONE show due to weather. Miss Grits showed up for the fun from the ATL. We all played kitchen ping-pong. (Tricky thinks of this weekend as when we'd first started dating, but we'd been dating three weeks by then!) This is also when I first let him drive my car, on the way back, over Independence Pass. Which is one of America's Scariest Drives.

- Livestrong Ride October 2008 in Austin, TX - 37 hours together in the car (just the 2 of us), got lost on the way there AND on the way back, and had a great time all weekend!

- Thanksgiving - Tricky came to Italy to meet my family. Well, my family lives here in the US. We were going to Italy for vacation, he bought a plane ticket and joined us. (That was about the time I thought *maybe* this guy really liked me!!) He picked out my awesome italian leather boots! We went to see the Pope with my grandma, who believes we will "make a Catholic out of him yet!"

- Christmas - I met his mom and Dad, who are super nice, and live a mere 2.5 hours south of my mom and brother. NICE!

- January - now we're in love. We'd better be, because he is about to take me on some ski trails that I will not be too fond of... but since Tricky is *the* most patient guy in the world, it all goes smoothly! :)

- February - what the heck did we do in February? No idea. I think it involved a lot of skiing, and a particularly awesome day at Vail during which we grilled Omaha Steaks Hotdogs atop Blue Sky Basin.

- March - went to Steamboat together to visit some good friends of my family. The friends love Tricky. LOVE HIM - maybe more than they love ME!!

- April - went to my brother's wedding back in FL. This was our first air trip together where we actually flew on the same plane. Had an unplanned overnighter in Chicago and went to an impromptu dinner party with his friends. Wedding in FL was really fun, Tricky's parents even came up for it as Mrs. Slugbrother invited them! Super fun.

- May - two very awesome adventures. The first was a trip to Southern California to meet Tricky's brother and his family. Had a great time with his brother and nieces, went to Disneyland one day with them. Might have been the perfect day, as it was Disney followed by a late-night Inn-N-Out Burger run. Tricky also got to meet my good friend from college and her family, it was awesome!

The second adventure was a trip to Moab (um, 80 miles south of Moab) for Memorial Day weekend. I continued my Memorial Day Weekend tradition of camping in the middle of absolutely nowhere in the desert with people I really like. Tricky was one of those people. We broke in the tent (for real, not in the living room) and it rained on us every night (in the desert, for Pete's sake!!). Had a scary adventure hike, made smores and sang songs around the campfire (when it wasn't raining) and used the percolator I got from Rockette. We had a generally awesome time together, as we always do.

And today marks 10 months into The Adventures of Tricky and Liz. NICE! And ten months later, I still thank God every day for having him in my life. :)