carpet is great!

...for moose to poop on. and i don't mean that in a Triumph the Insult Comic Dog kinda way. Our recent trip back home was Moose's first experience with a house sitter. Moose failed. Mostly he failed on the carpet downstairs, a lot.

So i steam cleaned the entire downstairs. and then i steam cleaned the entire downstairs again. then i had a professional come by and steam clean the entire downstairs. Then i just said "f-it" and we ripped out the carpet entirely.

it was concrete in the main room but alas, my office and our bedroom also had some very attractive asbestos vinyl tile.

i wouldn't say that either of us was particularly thrilled about any of it.

but we got it out of there.
i couldn't move the next day (asbestos related issue or not?...you decide!),
but i still think it was worth it.

this is the proper way to remove toxic material from your home:
break it into a million pieces and be sure to not wear a mask.

Moose protested in his laziest manner.
He really can get his point across with little to no effort.

"i could be sleeping on any of this 600 square feet of concrete
but i choose this 3 by 3 patch of poocarpet instead. i am awesome."

so the grand plan is that we have to have a concrete guy level out the flooring and then we are going to throw down some engineered wood floors. we're going to do it ourselves to save money and to also make sure that at every point in our lives, we will be working on a basement. it is how we are happiest, apparently.

Neil started his job today. Moose has remembered that he is housebroken. and i am still waiting for my license to transfer.

and shane and t's little baby girl arrived yesterday. but why would anyone care about that when i have such exciting poo carpet stories to tell?


When Finney was born, i wanted to go to the place where you look at all the babies through the glass like in the movies. then someone informed me that those don't exist anymore because of all the creepos who ruin it for everyone else. but at this hospital, there is kind of one of those rooms. you can watch them wash the babies and weigh them and also see when they get their little footprints (i so just wanted to type "teensyfootsyprinties", but then you'd throw up, right?) done. So we, and some other random baby onlookers, got to see Camille's first bath, although her mom and dad didn't. that's weird, right?

so, Denver's human population just went up by one, as did Denver's number of employed residents. me? i just kill carpets with the assistance of my toxic dog.

Have you met my ovaries?

 

they rule the school around here.  i like to pretend that this is something new, but really they have been co-bossing my life for quite a while now.  i was never the girl at 22 who knew she wanted kids.  but then i would have a dream where i had twins.  wait....twin squirrels.  seriously.  squirrels, kittens....anything but a human baby.  i am destined to nurture, for sure.  no amount of swearing, denial, and/or multiple other vices is gonna stop that train, no matter how hard i try.

so J and Noelle sheepishly invited us to watch their three year old daughter's soccer "game".  do i have to pay?  can i pay?  seriously, can i just give you some money?  make you guys dinner?  am i allowed to go?  am i worthy?    don't answer that, please.

The Denver Kickers are pretty rad.  The three year old's team consists of anywhere between two and 5 players.  

Most of the time it is girls against boys, because if the girls can't hold hands, they cry.

the boys have clearly done this before.

but the girls still have a move or two to show off, and they are very supportive, 

which is totally f-ing awesome to watch.

and this is just a rad action shot.

the final score was "yay everyone!" to "good game kids!" and we celebrated by checking out the Denver Zoo.  

i now realize that the SF Zoo is groundbreaking.  it qualifies as animal abuse AND child abuse. what a miserable place for the animals to live.  What a miserable place to take your kids to.   hey SF parents, did you know that at other zoos the animals actually walk around?  i'm just saying....

and please let me describe to you the most amazing/sad/inspiring/confusing thing i have ever witnessed at a zoo.   so you know how the animals tend to ignore the humans?  and it seems that the higher the animal is on the intelligence scale, the more they absolutely detest humans?  well, the orangoutangs were in their temporary inside enclosure.  one was moving hay around, trying to make a cozy spot to rest.  the other was doing this:

if this doesn't send chills down your spine, i think you might be dead inside.  sorry about that.  maybe you should go watch ET or Old Yeller or something.  anyways, there were hordes of children looking back at this curious guy.  he was so f-ing aware of being enclosed, being watched.  so he watched back.  i felt terrible.  but then, how many kids got to see this amazing creature and will grow up remembering the experience and do everything they can to preserve wildlife, our environment, the planet?  it's such a double edged sword.

i don't think anyone ever took Sarah Palin to the zoo when she was a kid.  i mean, unless it was a target practice tutorial...

http://www.defendersactionfund.org/newsroom/sarah_palin.html   

tina fey for VP

lord knows she is more educated and qualified than Palin. sheesh.

my favorite place on earth

for 5 years i have been anticipating a certain phone call. it is a call to come home. The phone rang at 6:30 am and we were on the road by 12:30pm...going home.

The reason for our trip home is not to be written about here. But we did find some time to tromp around the Marin Headlands, aka "my favorite place on Earth".

Before the headlands we made a very important stop...

Mom has a bench at the dog park she used to take Matilda to. I also took Matilda there....and Moose, too, once he came into the mix. The bench overlooks the span of the park, where dogs run and play and revel in all that it is to be a dog. It is a celebration of mom's time spent as a saver of pups. i am very proud of the work she did. Sometimes, i get pissed when people are sitting on her bench. I know that this is not the proper spirit to have. But i am selfish and i want to sit there. Not only am i selfish. I am also weird. when i sit on her bench, i lean my arm along the back of the bench, over the plaque. if my mom were sitting where the plaque is, i would have my arm around her.
So, off to the headlands. There are two ways to get there. One way involves the 5 minute tunnel, which i still call "the 6 minute tunnel". The tunnel itself does not take 6, or even 5, minutes to get through. But it is a single lane that is governed by a stoplight. Before the quake of '89, the red light took 6 minutes. then it was closed down for a very very long time. upon it's reopening, the light was changed to 5 minutes. it was a sign of the times, i suppose. people are so impatient.

This sign says not to "feed" or "approach" coyotes.
i remembered it as "do not encourage the coyotes".
my mind can be so hippy dippy at times.

The 6 minute tunnel:The Headlands is a stunning place. And it is also very full service. If you like nature, military history, beach, hills, graffiti, driving, hiking, surfing, wildlife rehabilitation, geology, ymca day camps, gigantic missiles, bird poo, and encouraging coyotes, this is your place. oh, and if you like fog, you're in for a treat.

So we drove and walked around quite a bit. Due to being at the gateway to the bay, there once was quite an attempt at a military presence. A lot of it was never even used for its original purpose. But how cool to find a place like this to go explore:
Here is the back end of it:
So Neil realized that he didn't have his preferred camera lens on his person. He hoofed it back to the car and i took in the view, which consisted of the oppressive feeling of being at the end of the earth. i heard footsteps and assumed it was Neil coming back. But no, it was some totally random dude. i watch too much law and order, i admit. but seriously...if you ever want to push someone off of a cliff, just to hear them scream as they tumble to their untimely demise, have i got the place for you!
So that guy totally wasn't a psycho killer. yay!

we hiked around a bit, in flip flops and a sweater that was purchased on the road, because we were awesome tourists who think it is sunny in california in the summer. ha ha.

Am i pointing at fog? is that even possible?You know you are a true lover of the Golden Gate Bridge when
not seeing it is how you love it the most:
rocks are neat!
So inside the bunker, there are rooms. Surprisingly, these rooms are not equipped with recessed lighting. whatever, Marin. Get your crap together. What, you can't afford it? Anyways, We found a room that we couldn't see into. Neil took a picture with his flash, and this is what was going on in there:

Then we had to walk back through the original psycho killer alley to get back to the car.

You know how in the movies, there is an innocent couple walking through a corridor of sorts and they you hear an extra set of footsteps? the couple picks up their pace and then so does the extra set of footsteps. then, more often than not, there is some stabbing. Well we got to go through all of that BUT the stabbing. We made it to the end of the tunnel and came across another couple in the daylight. extra set of footsteps was a really old scraggly dude who may or may not be the Zodiac Killer. I am just saying. contrary to how heavy handed the recent movie (which i loved, btw) was declaring Arthur Leigh Allen as the Zodiac Killer, his crap just didn't match. And then there were the murders in Jenner a while back....ugh, i need to find my happy place. oh wait, here it is!:

In all, our trip back to SF consisted of all of about 20 minutes in SF. The trip was about friends, family, nature, memories, and maybe the Zodiac Killer.....you know, the important stuff. Suck it, Fisherman's Warf. You aint got nothing on My Home.