Back to court we go....

I swear I am not a litigious person, but here I go off to court again... but this time I'm going to tree court. That's right tree court. I have to explain why I want to get rid of a tree that is bigger than a skyscraper. Conveniently the city has given me an appt during the middle of the work day. Also conveniently the tree I am going to court for is not the tree that I am actually going to take down.

Apparently our favorite tree in the backyard is a sick little bugger who needs to be euthanized(What would the Catholic church say - ARnold), so he is going to have to go first... of course he won't go until I call the city to have them give me... another tree court date. Normally I would be raving angry about this sort of ridiculousness but I am not. This weekend will hopefully be a blissfully relaxing and cool (weather wise) weekend in our old stomping ground of PDX,. A magical placewhere there is no sales tax, lots of cafes, great public transportation and best of all beautiful trees that we are not responsible to care for. :) Have a great labor day weekend everybody!

Troublesome trees

We have trouble here in River City.... this is just a teaser, more info on the trees to come. :)

Dum, dum, DUM!!!!!

Today I ran a 10 minute MILE! Technically I ran a mile in less than 10 minutes. 10 MINUTES. I have not run a mile in less than 10 minutes since junior high! I know it is somewhat narcissistic to spend so much time trumpeting my own accomplishments but I think you become somewhat past narcissism once you create a blog so here we go... 10 MINUTE MILE! WOO-HOO!

Produce

I think I am probably officially an adult, not only am I getting excited about eating such things as heirloom tomatos, but I am also taking pictures of them, so overcome am I by their beauty.

Also I like to show off my cooking skills. I am trying to brand myself as the "one who cooks" amongst my friends.

Will I look back at this moment later and think this is the day I officially became staid and boring?

I think it is more likely that I will look back and haughtily congratulate myself Bridget-Jones-style for creating something beautiful and edible in "manner of Martha Stewart or similar." Eat those tomatos while summer is still here!

L'analytics. Recently I successfully ( and independently!) set up google analytics on maghanoy.com It is so cool! Not I can see how many people look at my blog, where they come from etc. It is so cool! Did I say that already? I was really surprised at how many people read. 20 people since I started counting 5 days ago! And I was pretty sure my readership was more on the 1 hit a day level. We're moving up in the world my peeps, moving up in the world!

I love grocery shopping. I think this stems back to when I lived in Portland and grocery shopping was the only kind of shopping I could afford, thanks to the magic of food stamps. I loved wandering around the aisles of Fred Meyer's perusing the crab cakes and orange juice and what not. Well my new favorite store here in Sac is Oto's Japanese market, conveniently located in Land Park. Oto's has all sorts of stuff that I can identify since it is labeled in Japanese, PLUS all sorts of stuff I can identify like Gouda cheese and 7th Generation brand recycled paper goods. Also a lot of their products come in pretty bottles and I am a sucker for packaging. That's why we came home with sake in a pink bottle. Yum!

Tales from Locombia Pt. 3

Okay, this story was actually not brought back by Arnold but by some other friends of ours. Last night we went to visit some friends who coincidentally been in Colombia at the same time as Arnold. Our friends wife is Argentinean and it was her first trip to Colombia so of course I said "How did Paola like Colombia?" and Carlos her husband said "She's still there." Which of course inspired a big 'Wuh-huh?" from Arnold and I.

"She forgot her green card so she couldn't come back!" said her husband quite calmly.

This was beyond my comprehension. I stared and stared at everybody trying to determine if this was a story everybody was making up for fun. I lost the staring contest. Poor Paola.

Apparently Paola became a resident quite recently and has always traveled previously with her passport/visa, so when they got to immigration on the trip back she and Carlos realized her mistake in what sounded like a hysterical exchange.

"You didn't tell me!" "What do you mean you didn't bring your green card?" "You didn't tell me!" You didn't bring you green card!?!" "You didn't tell me!"

So, the end result is that she is still in Colombia staying with his relatives while her green card is being DHL'd to her. Hopefully she can get back soon.

Arnold took the opportunity to remind me that I almost lost my passport not once but twice in Bogota's El Dorado airport. The second time I dropped it on the floor which surely would've resulted in some kind of Tom Hanks-Terminal type situation for me, had Arnold not seen it out of the corner of his eye through some kind of freakish "Must protect my ditsy wife" special power.

The lesson kids? Always, always, always keep your documents close when traveling.

Cell phones Part 2

So my mother-in-law was also a cell phone crime wave victim. Unfortunately for her there was no gun-toting good Samaritan to save her phones. However, although my mother-in-law is a certified scaredy cat of things like, oh say escalators, she apparently has no problem calling up her cell phone thief to chew him out. It goes something like this...

Thief: Hello?
MIL: Hey, this is my phone!
Thief: No, this is my phone. Wrong number!
MIL: NO, you STOLE it, this is my phone and the police have your picture and are coming for you!

( A lie surely, but I give her props for thinking on her feet.

Thief: Whatever, I am already halfway to Barranca!
MIL: They are coming for you!

-----Click-------

OH, but there is more... undeterred my mother-in-law calls back...

Thief: Hello?
MIL: This is my phone and I need it, it has all my phone numbers programmed in.
Thief: Well, uh, get out a pen and paper and start writing...

I'm not sure what actually happened after this because apparently no one can get through this part of the story without dissolving into laughter, Arnold included, and since Nydia still has her c-section stitches, laughter is a no-go zone.

Also, in completely unrelated news, I ran 2 mi in 25 minutes yesterday. I ROCK! My goal is to run a mile in 10 minutes, I'll let you know when I get there.... it might not be until 2008.

Stories from Locombia Pt. 1

Apparently there at some point was a crime wave of cell phone thefts in Lebrija, the small town where my Colombian family lives. This has led to many an interesting story... but first a little background.

1) In Latin America landlines are very expensive. You have to pay buy the minute and it's not cheap. So everybody has a cell phone instead.

2) Selling cell phone minutes is an easy way to make a 5 cent profit or so, so lots of people including my family buy a few cell phones with plans and then sell the minutes to people who do not have their own phones or do not have one on them at the time.

So anyways there was a "big crime wave" although "big" is relative seeing as Lebrija is like population 1000. My sister-in-law Nydia was one of the victims, lucky for her though, someone had been eyeing the thief suspiciously so when he did swipe her phone and run this bystander chased the guy, tackled him and then... whipped out a GUN! He makes the guy walk back to Nydia and forces him to return the cell phone at gunpoint. So Nydia takes the phone back with the gun to the thieves head. Then they call the police. At this point the hysterical thief starts pleading with them not to call and offering to pay them off. Of course his payoff was like a dollar or something, not very much, even by Lebrijense standards. When the police got there, they were like "You should of just took what he offered, it's the same as bond"

Lebrija's justice system at work my friends!

More cell phone drama to come....

Reunited and it feels so good!


Arnold's back and so is our former routine of him dragging me out of bed and making me breakfast! He also came back with lots of funny stories, a Juan Valdez T-shirt and pics of my nephew!




He is a giant! A GIANT! My Mom would say that he a face for T.V. In the background you can see the bakery. Yum!

Confessions

As mentioned previously I am v. zealous about not rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, in order to save water of course. However I made a bad environmental faux pas last night, I left the sprinklers on...ALL NIGHT! I am a water wasting sinner.. thank goodness Arnold is coming back on Thursday. I am just not made for yard work. I prefer things more along the lines of daintily planting succulents. :)

Since Arnold has been gone I have been in charge of all domestic duties and I am afraid that the Professor's house is not looking as sharp as it does when Arnold is here. I find it difficult to remember to water the lawn and apparently the stupid scale has taken over my poor lemon tree again. Jerks! I guess I will have to go buy that stuff Rachel was talking about. I also must admit that the bathroom/kitchen floors have seen better times.

Also yesterday I had some adventures in water, I bought a bottle of Voss at Cost Plus to bring back the memories of the good times at the San Diego W, unfortunately I did not realize that "sparkling" really means "carbonated". Long story short is that my Voss exploded all over me and the car on my way to Borders. It was very "situational comedy". Especially when I had to wander around in all the stores dripping while I waited to dry off. Good times!

I've been tagged...

I just found out about blog tag, someone tags you(in this case Rachel) and you have to fess up some weird stuff about yourself. Essentially I do this on the blog all the time. :)

1) My new thing is "NO RINSING". Obsessed with the idea that my new dishwasher can wash without the dishes being rinsed for I refuse to let my friends Rinse the dishes when they come over. Arnold broke the rules the first night, setting a v. bad example for everybody else. Still... I am v. strict. NO RINSING!

2) I have v. stretchy earlobes. I mean really stretchy, they are kind my stupid-human trick. Also when I was a kid apparently my ears were quite sticky out and my GAD wanted to clip them! Seriously!

3) "Ridiculous" is something I am saying compulsively at this point. I blame it on So You Think You can Dance. I am going to start saying "Redonkulous" instead, I find it amusing and also it bothers Sara a lot, which gives me joy.

4) I looooooooove sleeping in fancy hotels. Send me to a W Hotel and I will stay in bed all day long. Unfortunately I am only at fancy hotels when I am traveling for business, seeing as I cannot afford fancy hotels on my own means. When one travels for business I think it is frowned upon to stay in bed all day so I haven't been able to fulfill this particular fantasy yet. One day... when I'm a rock star.

5) I kind of hate going out. I love BEING out, but the effort to leave the house is almost monumental. Although Arnold is much quieter and reserved than I (generally speaking of course) he is actually the one who makes me leave the house, reminds me of my obligations to attend friends parties etc. So there you go, I might be collapsing with joy all over everybody when I go out, but I guarantee you that a 1/2 hour before this scene Arnold was probably dragging me out of bed whilst extolling the virtues of leaving the house. "C'mon honeycita, it will be fun!"

Alright, have a I completed my tagging duties?

In Locombia news, it seems that my sweet little nephew is holding the house hostage with his tears. Arnold reports that he is "very cute" but that he cries a lot. When I call him, he whispers at me as if he is a member of the CIA. "Can't talk.... too.... loud... baby... is.... sleeping." It is v. funny. I sense that Arnold is a bit afraid of Sebastian as well which I admit is normal when they are still so very tiny. It probably doesn't help that Sebastian reportedly kicks violently when he is held by his uncle. Hee hee! Arnold promises to bring back pictures when he comes home this week!