Just Missed You

Friday I return home via Houston.  Oddly enough, my friend Carli is ALSO returning home, which is currently (and unfortunately) Houston.  We arrive at the airport within ten minutes of each other.  She will be going to baggage claim and I will be continuing on to Colorado. 

Now you would think that we could somehow sneak a quick visit in there somehow, but my “layover” is only a little over an hour.  Plus the terminals there aren’t connected.  So its very frustrating–by some accident we are going to be in the same place at the same time (no, it wasn’t even planned…she is at some anesthesia convention in Boston this week) and we probably can’t see each other.  Argh!

On a funnier note, someone found my blog by searching for “phobia of being sucked down toilet.”

 

The only thing that comes to mind is:

They don’t know that we know they know we know! 

 

Flakin’ Out on a Prescheduled Basis

I often “flake out” as a certain D would say.   “Flake out” is apparently a Woodland Park term for “not being cool enough to make an appearance at every single thing that is scheduled.”  I am a flake because I make plans (with ever intention of following through) but I often have to cancel said plans.  Sometimes this cancellation happens at the last minute.  Most of the time I cancel on plans for the following reasons:

• Work travel (sometimes finding out the day or two before I have to leave)
• Someone from out of town suddenly shows up (traveling folks take priority, I am sorry to say)
• Emergency (I am in the emergency room a few times a year)
• I just plain don’t feel like going because of recent events

Probably the most blatant of my flaking out occurs each year in June.  For the last four years, I have been invited on the annual Barr Camp trip with a group of lady hikers in Teller County.  For the last four years, I have had to cancel.  These are the consecutive reasons I have had to cancel:

• Pregnancy
• Work travel
• Back surgery recovery
• Work travel

I have to assume that God does not want me to climb Pikes Peak.  It’s okay.  He put a road there so I can still get to the top should I need to.

Anyway, now I am really worried about a major flake out that I may have to do.  A prescheduled flake out, if you will. 

Since my good friend Denise is out and about this morning, I have been tasked with purchasing Snow Patrol tickets.  We have been trying to get to a concert at Red Rocks for years, and we both love Snow Patrol, so it’s a win-win situation.  The dire need for tickets is obvious…I got an emergency phone call at 11 PM last night warning me that tickets go on sale TODAY (you KNOW it’s an emergency when people call me after 9 PM…I HATE late night phone calls..but this one was okay because it IS an emergency) It’s just that the concert is on a Monday night.  This means taking off work for half of Monday and most likely that Tuesday, because if you do a good job at the concert there is no way you should be going to work the next day.  If you do go to work the next day, it’s because you only drank Pepsi and left before the encore. 

LAME. 

So I am looking at two days off work, and I can’t commit to that because I am not sure what the end of July will entail at work.

HOWEVER, because I AM a good, but flaky, friend, I will be posted at Ticketmaster with my AMEX (I’ll at least get some SkyMiles out of this) ready to get four Snow Patrol tickets, whether I can go or not, so my friends can go. 

This kind of makes up for my flakiness, doesn’t it?

 

Pins and Needles

Carli’s new blog, Pins and Needles with Dr. Carli.  Ha, ha, I love that name (she’s an anesthesiologist)

 

Paging Dr. Carli

Congratulations to Carli! On June 5, she became an M.D.! Jesse and I attended her graduation from the University of Washington in Seattle. It was pretty cool. Now Hersh and Carli are off to Houston, TX where she will ensure her residency (think Scrubs) at Baylor Medical Center. If Texas is still there, that is. The news shows it washing away this week after five days of rain. You know…if Colorado could get ONE day of the kind of rain they have in the South, I think the drought problems would go away.

 

Art Wars

Tonight I am going to “Art Wars”, an art show created by my office-mate and friend Gwin. Gwin recently moved here from Indianapolis, and unsatisfied with the Colorado Springs art scene, she decided to get busy on her own. Art Wars is her second art show here in town. Basically, she got some sponsors and put together a collection of performance artists, poets, musicians and paintings. All will be on display tonight at 32 Bleu.

During the night, six paintings will be done on site, to be auctioned off at the end of the night. Any painting that is NOT auctioned off gets a spin on the Wheel of Death. The Wheel of Death will determine HOW that piece of art gets DESTROYED on stage…example methods of execution are chainsaw and axe.

Anyway, it is pretty cool because all the money she raises is going to a center that benefits disadvantaged kids by introducing them to the arts. So if you are in town, check it out starting at 6:30 PM!

 

You never call anymore

I used to have a friend named Carli,
Who wrote poems ’bout chicken soup and barley.
She moved in with a guy named Hersh T
And now she hardly ever talks to me…

All I want is a simple hello!
To hear about her Thanksgiving jello.
And maybe about her school and work,
But she must think Im some kind of jerk!

‘Cause she never calls, and barely writes -
Haven’t heard from her for 40 days and nights!
Claims that she ‘lost my number’ - lame excuse!
Too busy ‘remodeling’ in the theme of ‘Moose’

To call - but that is ok, I’ll be here, alone…
Staring at my non-ringing phone.
We were supposed to get old, and buy an RV
And see the Grand Canyon, Des Moines, and Poughkeepsie

But now that I know that you’re taken and all
I’ll settle for a lousy telephone call
Do you need me to send you a telephone card?
Just dial down the center, it isn’t that hard!

And so I wait patiently for this friend in Seattle
To give a holler, a smoke signal, some kind of rattle!
Alas, I feel she’s forgotten my face…
Not to mention the bike crash, bad perm, Cookie Place.

 

NYC 2003

Spent the weekend in New York!  This was a pretty good trip - went with Kelly, Will, and some other friends.  Pictures are posted in the gallery.  Saw “Rent” on Broadway (excellent), stayed at a f-a-a-a-ncy hotel (several of us in one room brought the cost down considerably!) and dodged peace protestors left and right as we window shopped.  Also saw the WTC site. 

 

Jennipher with a “Ph”

I found my old friend Jennipher again!  We only talk about every three years or so but I am happy to report she is still living outside of Seattle and is doing well.  Nothing new to report.  I wish I lived in Arizona.  It is cold here this year.  

 

Al Retires

Congratulations to Al Pickering on his retirement from the Marine Corps! 

 

A G P

Congratulations to Jenn and Josh (and to Andy too!) on the arrival of Anastasia Grace!

 

Slick Job

I have a friend who works in downtown D.C. - I won’t say where, but I can give you two clues:  1. It’s white.  2.  It’s a house.  Well today, as he was walking out the door he ran into Bono who was in a suit and getting escorted in to meet G.W.  I know that he is all busy with all of his political agenda - making and saving the world (see the March issue of Time) but really, couldn’t you have just hit him up for one lousy autograph? 

Three weeks until Europe trip!

 

Weekend Fun

This weekend was great.  Friday night I went to a Jane’s Addiction/Live concert at Nissan Pavilion.  Did I mention the tickets were free?  My roommate has a magical phone that wins tickets all the time.  ALL THE TIME.  Well, then Saturday morning it was horseback riding at Greenway Stables (pics coming soon) and I learned a valuable lesson…the crop does not make the horse slow down when it is running too fast.  I thought I was going to break my neck for sure.  When I de-horsed I half expected to see the saddle attached to my rear end.  

Sunday I climbed Old Rag for the second time this year.  It was a beautiful day and the leaves had started to turn red, yellow and orange.  No wildlife this time (last time we saw a black bear and some deer).  It took seven hours to do the trail, and when we got back to the parking area, we learned from other hikers that the U.S. had started to bomb Afghanistan.  

 

Friends

Tonight was a surprising night.  I spoke with not one, but two people that are great friends of mine that I haven’t been able to talk to in months.  I have been trying to find Clay for months because I knew he had moved to this area, but so far had been unable to track him down.  Then in my online class, the first one of the semester, his name pops onto the screen - he is enrolled in the same class!  It wouldn’t have been so weird, but there are several of the same classes that I could have enrolled in, and I nearly didn’t take a class this semester anyway.  Then, I got a phone call from my friend Becky who has been missing since last Christmas.  In fact, a group of us spent last Christmas at a disgusting Chinese food restaurant in Laurel, MD.  I got to hear all about Becky’s exciting trips to Germany.  It was nice to hear form you both, guys. 

 

Old Friends

Old friends Al Pickering and Shawn Piers met Scott Hill and I for prime rib, at Tom Sarris’ Orleans House (Arlington). It was nice to see them and hear that everything back at the ranch is exactly the same as it was when we left it.