Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight, Someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight

okay, maybe not.

But have you heard? I have DNC fever! SO when, at the last second of the speech tonight, when we heard the same fireworks that we saw on tv... we raced outside to see if we could see them as well as hear them. we couldn't. i had a Fivel moment and just had to remember that "It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky" seriously, i don't think i have ever seen that movie. and i most defintely never saw fivel goes west. is that even the same fivel? oh well.

ew, and upon watching the end of the speech again, i am glad we missed that terrible country music. here's a tip: at the end of any politician's speech that requires a song about america to be played at the end, think about how many songs about America are actually good songs. THEN, you have to subtract the songs that have already been used by political candidates in the past. then, run out of the room. i honestly think the only song left is "america" from west side story, and that song is all about sticking to your own kind. not so much the message we are looking for. and when i say "we" i mean democrats. Whiz! Bang! Just kidding folks! kinda.

you know how in other parts of the world, you are hated because you are a democrat? you think i am kidding? check out this douchebagnumerouno:



ANYWAYS, Neil and i went to the most amazing art exhibit today. it was only here for three days or so....just for the DNC. i don't think i could possibly explain it and do it justice. so here is the official website. and here is an article from sfgate.

The first painting we saw was not a part of the exhibit. or it was, but no is gonna buy it because it is painted on the gallery wall. i was blindsided by emotion. if you know me, you will probably chuckle at this because i cry a lot. but this was a new cry. no puppies being abandonded or moms dying. just the weight of how important these times are:
there was a contest. many entered but few won. most of the pieces are being auctioned on ebay with the proceeds going to obama's campaign.

hee hee!
and finally, Shepard Fairey's absolutely stunning piece that has been made famous by t-shirts such as my own. Check out the fancy BET reporter. He bought up a lot of the art he saw today.
This was not just a room full of bland portraits. this was peoples' hearts and hopes, all resting on one man. oh, and that man is not colbert, in case there was any confusion.


oh, and here is some art we saw outside of the gallery:
kinda not really on the same level. but still kinda funny.

okay, i've got to dnsleep it off.
please vote.

DNC ya later!

Get it? Someone is funny. That person is either me, neil, or shane. I can't remember though because there were a few beers involved.

Denver is full. or at least it is 50,000 people more full than normal. i find this funny because the first time i ever came here, i thought "where are the people?". there are skyscrapers and restaurants and salons and coffee shops but the streets are relatively empty. not now. not now at all. so we ("we" consists of us, j, noelle, and greta) hopped on a bus on sunday to see what was all goin' on downtown.

here is something awesome that you can do to/for/with a three year old. but it only works if a) you are willing to trick your three year old for adult amusement and b) you have a reliable public transit system. We live all of 8 blocks away from J, N, and G. They got on the bus a few stops before us and did not tell Greta we were meeting them. So when i stepped on the bus, i was greeted with her yelling "REBECCA!!!!" as though the world is chock full of grand coincidences like these. When neil got on the bus behind me, it was almost too much for her. She might grow up thinking that life is as wacky as a Meg Ryan romantic comedy, if her parents keep this kind of stuff going.

Noelle and i are girls....ahem....Women. so apparently we are genetically predisposed to shopping. yeah, bite me if you think that is true. but i did get my second place t-shirt. i was hoping for hope, but i settled for progress:
If you are unfamiliar with the artist, get yourself familiar here.

So we walked and walked and walked around. There was a "green" festival that had *everything* you could possibly imagine to lower your carbon footprint.

Solar Oven, anyone?

i Loved this :

Freewheel lets you "rent" bikes for free! you just ride around all day and then bring it back to one of their many staions about town when you are done....for FREE. dig it, people! It's something J has seen before and he did mention that sometimes you see some douche from Kansas with a Freewheel bike in the back of his truck at the end of the day. oh Kansas, must you ruin it for the rest of us? was Wizard of Oz not enough or do you need further recognition as "the free bike stealers"? seriously.



well, Kansas has another thing coming this week. we have all of the police here. ALL of them.

They hang outside of SUVs~

They ride around on bikes~

And they also have buggies!~

The ones that freaked me out were the foot patrol. It is weird to walk so close to a group of people who are carrying on their person at least 7 different ways to completely immobilize, if not kill, you. and they were on every block. i was almost going to ask to get my picture with a group of them but i realized that if they said "no", i might cry and maybe piddle, too. but even worse, what if they said "yes" and THAT was when some neo-con fruitloop decided to take matters into their own hands? yeah, i'm not going to carry that one on my back. no pics for me!

We found MSNBC's home base. Here is Chris Matthews, doing what he does best:

And here are hundreds of people screaming over what he does best. Denver is quite exciteable, people.

Greta is a fan of Hardball, apparently:

I totally have DNC fever. As I type, there is a pot of chili on the stove and Nancy Pelosi is being tivo-ed. I plan on hunkering down and watching each and every minute of coverage i can get my hands on.

Politics are sensitive. I have no plans to argue or try to convert. But i really wasn't kidding about that "hope" t-shirt. I feel it and it feels goooooood.

and also, i am kind of convinced i might see Susan Sarandon driving Kanye around in a rental Prius. How rad would that be?

Swimming Lessons

Our little Moose (all 65 pounds of him) is growing up! Today he had his first swimming lesson. (yes, there is water in Denver. in fact, it's right smack dab in the middle of town and it only carries a slight risk of infecting everyone with e-coli.) Matilda is a stellar swimmer. She is confident and driven to fetch long after her body has worn itself out. Moose is confident in chasing smaller unfamiliar animals, like this guy we came upon:
Birdy bailed before Moose could get to him. In fact, Birdy bailed right into the water. Moose followed. And that was the beginning AND end of Moose's swimming lesson!

He was hesitant to go back in. He let Matilda do all the work.

"Thanks! I was looking for that!"

"no seriously. can i have that ball?"

Eventually, he was ready to fetch for himself. He's part retriever. i know this because i am the raddest detective ever and i notice things. Here, i notice that he is looking not at me, like matilda, but rather out where the ball (or murdered duck, if that is your thing) would fall.
OH CRAP! this is why we had him on a 30 foot lead for his first river adventure:
He made it. Barely.
Looking to Neil for sympathy:
When that didn't work, he came to me. i caved and provided scritchies. Scritchies are a nice non-noncommittal alternative to actually petting your dog when they are swimming in e-coli tea.
Matilda would like to remind you that she is a stunning creature of exceptional intelligence.
Moose would like to show you how his lip gets stuck in his tooth sometimes. Neil doesn't think this is related to Moose's level of intelligence but i am not so sure.

i also detectivised Moose's houndy status after watching countless minutes of this. if we don't distract him, long strings of drool form at either side of his mouth. He's sniffin' it up, pro style.
Shoulda brought a towel....

and a double shake!

In all, a really great time. stinky, but great. oh, and this little adventure spot is only 6, yes 6, minutes away from our house. i know because i mapquested it. i have proof, you sceptics. denver continues to prove its radness....except for the e-coli thing. wash your hands, people.

my dogs are not hobbits, i think

here's some unsolicited advice: if your dog pukes in the mornings, feed your dog later at night. it took me far too long to figure this out. Matilda was always something of a morning puker. But she is so excitable that i kind of just thought it was her being Her. For a dog lover, i have my failing moments. And then we got Moose and it was PukeFest 08.
Flashback to Ms. Moreno's 7th grade social studies class. i was nauseous. i raised my had for a nurse's pass and Ms. Moreno took her time. I payed her (and everyone in class) back by puking up all over my desk. I wasn't sick. I just didn't eat breakfast. The thing is, i Never ate breakfast. but that morning, at the very least, taught me that if you don't eat for long enough your body will hate you and probably humiliate you in front of all of your peers.
So now we feed the dogs two dinners, like hobbits! they get first dinner after we eat (so that they know that we are the pack leaders) and a second dinner around 9 or so. no more morning pukies, thank you very much.
so tonight, after 2nd dinner, we took the dogs out back like we always do. they were mucking around. neil and i were both looking South (obviously! what? you have a better place to look?) and saw a HUGE meteor. It was early, near the moon, and low to the ground. i know it was a meteor now, but at the time we also came up with a plane crash theory and an alien landing theory. I looked online and saw that tonight is the height of the Perseid Meteor Shower. No planes smashed to bits and certainly (maybe?) no aliens.
It reminded me.....when i was little, Mom used to wake me up for meteor showers. She'd wrap me in a blanket and we'd snuggle up on the plastic lawn chairs we held on for far too many years. Mom and i don't have a lot of romantic stories, but i always appreciated her taking the time to show me just how beautiful a proper meteor shower can be.
Her last birthday, i was broke. Her last birthday also coincided with the Leonid Meteor Shower (as it often does). My lame ass gift to her was that i went to 108 for the night determined that we would get up in the middle of the night and watch the shower. i remember that i fell asleep and that Mom had to wake me up. I don't remember if we saw any shooting stars, though. In all, i can't say whether or not the night was a bust or not to her. I tried, kind of. Hindsight and all that. had i known it was our last chance, i would have stayed up for days and forced her to do the same.
Funny now that i am in here on my computer and not outside where it is all happening. will we ever learn? actually, i gotta go. i learned.

Aging

Here is a list of things that age a person:

• going to see your "little cousin" play drums, in his band, at a show, where they serve alcohol, and your "little" cousin is old enough to drink said alcohol, AND he has full facial hair, and the band is actually pretty damn good. oh wait...and the merch guy confirms that you probably are the oldest person there but he *thinks* one of the guys in one of the bands *might* be three years your junior but he's not sure. oh well. look at and listen to the goods here: A snippet for the interweb networking folks.
  oh, and also, he grew up to be pretty great....as a person, i mean. a man person. not the little kid person i remembered him as. he has a quality that is pretty prevalent in my family. i am going to go ahead and call it the "don't give an f" quality. we are a pretty easy going people. we just live it. thanks for coming. hope you have fun!
• Getting a virus on your computer. I swear, you would think that my participation in Facebook would keep me immune from such atrocities. I am a part of the modern age, Computer. Treat me as such! BTW, how do you get rid of a virus when it is constantly opening windows containing porn and interviews with the director of the new Mummy movie installement? You can't. You ignore it for days. You mention it to your husband but only in passing because who, under the age of 60, actually gets a virus on their computer? me. thanks. I am awesome. Oh, and Neil fixed it because he is monumentally rad and all that.
• Painting. Have you painted recently? It hurts. It hurts your body but it does help your soul a bit.
  Here is what happened. The previous owners went for the whole "neutral palette" of colors for their real estate adventure. But they were lazy and only did one coat so the yellow-orange that previously occupied the walls was still hauting me. I like yellow. I love orange. but this particular incarnation of the two colors combined made me suspicious. why are you trying to pretend you are so happy? the only way walls like that could be enjoyable is if you were sipping valium disolved in sugar water All Day Long. It's wrong. I had to paint. Oh wait....one more thing. the Entire house is painted this color. I have so much work to do.....

trying out colors:

The fireplace was the first to be painted. This is after one coat.

When you have popcorn ceilings (ack!) but aren't ready to remove them yet, you need to be kind of genius, like me! instead of taping off the bumpy ceilings, we used super thin tape at the top of the walls. makes for some very deliberate cutting. And it is important that you wear your pajamas, as well. Don't believe me? I am an expert, folks. And if you look at the picture, you will note that i am Clearly in my pajamas.

Oh and also you should have old "just taken out pony tail" hair and Never Ever wear make up!

we chose the dark brown to show off the arch.

This is our first use of no VOC paint! It covered really well and i totally did not feel poisoned after painting with it!

Oh. And we got a new couch. Neil apparently thinks it's a hit. The dogs? The think everything is a hit....especially a cool floor when it is 101 degrees out for the 46th day in a row. (actually, it was just three days but i am new so f-all, i am calling it 46).

One thing that does not make me feel old at all is that tomorrow is our 1st anniversary. Happy Anniversary to us! I took a few moments to look at all of our pictures (Anna. Thank. You. Amazing.) of the event and I am just so grateful to everyone who came out for it. I made a point on the last day of our trip to write down some of the things i was worried i would forget:

• How much John smiled during his speech
• How beautiful Kirby is
• DJ Pearly Shells
  
• Owen asking if Gorman was "A Magic Guy" and when i asked why he said "because he just appeared!"
• Duck Duck Goose
• Getting to know Beth, Brad, and Krista better
• Cole lost a tooth!
  
• Feeding the homeless kitties in Koloa
• Jason giving me permission to give the finger at my discretion in his speech
  
• Molly making me cry in the best way
• Joan kissing me so many times after the ceremony
• Marishka declaring that *maybe* John tried to kill her off the Napali Coast.

There is so much more. I just couldn't have asked for a sweeter set of memories of the greatest time of my life. And i am just really happy that Neil and i get to keep doing this for the next 49 years. oh yeah. i am giving him an easy out. he doesn't need to do life, just 50. he's got one down....