Date:	2007-08-05 18:56
Subject:	kitten!
Security:	Public
Mood:	chipper

This is my new friend Minuet. I call her Mini

Date:	2007-07-03 18:21
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	chipper

Yay for no work tomorrow!!

Date:	2007-06-05 21:20
Subject:	Boring grown up info.
Security:	Public
Mood:	content

So my new job is pretty fun. I like it so far. I get to play on the internet making these web stores all day. Also, I am taking the train to work and my employer pays for it. So I get to read the newspaper during my commute, and I get to conserve energy, AND it's free.

Also, Bryant and I already booked a date and a location for our wedding. It's kind of crazy that by Christmas I will be somebody's Mrs.

Date:	2007-04-20 20:21
Subject:	Sevilla with a stomach ache is still Sevilla.
Security:	Public
Mood:	content

So here I am at home again. My trip to Spain went like this:

I went to a midieval tower in the center of the city that had a giant camera obscura at the top of it. The camera obscura had lenses that moved so you can see the whole city from a bird's eye view. It was a pretty cool way to get the lay of the land. I met some of my brother's Spanish friends. They kissed me on both cheeks and one of them said she was "enchanted" to meet me. Awesome.

I went to one of the oldest bars in the world. It has been open since 1670. It's called El Rinconcillo and it serves cured ham and sheep cheese that's older than my big brother. The Spanish love their cured ham. A lot of the tapas bars have entire pig legs with the hooves still on (presumably the source of the beloved cured ham) hanging from the ceiling. Toast in Sevilla means toasted bread with olive oil, slightly green tomato, and cured ham. You can get a drink call tinto limon which is lemon soda and red wine. You can also order lemon soda in your beer if you want. It's actually not as gross as it sounds. The coffee is amazing which I believe I have already mentioned. Also, there seems to be no such thing as pre squeezed or from concentrate orange juice here. Everywhere serves fresh squeezed OJ, even the McDonald's at the airport in Madrid. As you can see from this and my last entry, my main objective while in Europe was to eat as much as possible. To my horror, I came down with some kind of stomach flu about 2 days after arriving in Spain. Foiled!

I went to a Roman town just outside of Sevilla called Italica. They had the original mozaic palace floors still on site at the ruins. They also have a neat old amphitheater. The emperors Hadrian and Trajan were both from Italica.

I went to Sevilla's gothic cathedral, and I went to the Plaza de'Espana, and I went to a HUGE garden (can't remember the name of it right now).

I went to the Real Alcazar which might be one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It's a fortress/palace first built by the Moors. It was then occupied and built onto by the Spanish monarchs, all in the moorish style. It is beautiful and ornate. You could go blind looking at it. If you've never seen some serious Muslim architecture, you're missing out. These same Moors planted orange trees everywhere in Sevilla. My brother says it's because they believed them to be very clean. I can see why. The whole of old Sevilla smells heavily of orange blossoms. Orange blossom is, in my opinion, the most fabulous of all smells. Legend has it that at one point, all the oranges in all of Sevilla for all time were bequeathed to Queen Victoria for one reason or another. The joke's on her though because the trees are all ornamental so the oranges are terrible.

I also went to a Spanish futbol game which was everything I ever dreamed of and more. Real Betis (which is one of the local Sevillan teams along with Real Sevilla) played Real Sociedad (the team from the Basque region). Real, real, real. There were soccer hooligans galore. In the course of one single game, there was a smoke bomb, a road flare, and a fire cracker all lit off in the stands at different times by different hooligans. Several people jumped out of the stands and ran around the field. I got cat called presumably for having light hair (according to one of my brother's Spanish friends), and the old man sitting next to me cried when Betis lost.

I went a lot of places.

At some point there will be pictures.

Date:	2006-12-22 11:06
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

i have christmas gifts for all the ladies in my life but none of the gentleman. i have the day off from work today... just got back from a dentist appointment. i am going to finish christmas shopping, do some baking, clean the house, put the finishing touches on the homemade presents i did this year, and then wrap them. i don't know if i can get it all done, but it's worth a shot.

i was thinking the other day that i am so much happier now than i was this time last year. i am farther from my friends. i have less spending money. i work more. i can't figure out why everything seems so much better. i feel a lot richer than i ever have. maybe it's because i have people to miss and a roof over my head that belongs to me and those things make it easier to be content.

i miss you santacruzians and others.

Date:	2006-12-14 17:49
Subject:	more of the same
Security:	Public
Mood:	nostalgic

bryant's birthday is on friday. his dad's christmas party is on saturday. my work's holiday party is on sunday. last weekend, brenna was in the nutcracker ballet so bryant and i went to bako to watch her in that. my grandparents (mckay) were there. the holidays are fun, but they make me tired, and i haven't done any christmas shopping. i suck at this.
every time i see my grandparents, i get scared that it will be the last time. they are in good health for being in their 80s, but i just can't stand the thought that they will be gone someday. it makes me want to move to denver so i can spend every spare moment absorbing their wisdom while i still can.
also, i heard on npr today that the painting THE GROSS CLINIC has been sold to a walmart heiress. this kind of depressed me, but it also reminded me of the best class i took in college (victorian america with martin berger). That made me smile.