Winter (Here and elsewhere)

Yesterday morning we awoke to find that winter had finally visited our neighborhood. Hooray! Our first snow at our new place! It was so nice to see the white stuff clinging to the tall pines that surround the house. I gotta say, though ... after all the snow that the rest of the country has gotten, I kinda feel like we're the lame kids who jumped onto a trend just as it has started to lose its hip edge. But unlike the rest of you, we have already managed to discard that oh-so-yesterday layer of snow and ice. A shame, too. I was enjoying it!

My family isn't enjoying this, though. My parents' house has been without power for a solid week now. My parents are staying with m mom's best friend (and my Other Mom), Helen. There is still a very solid, very thick layer of ice all over everything & more snow may fall in the Tulsa area this weekend. I'm sure they are positively SICK of winter now. But I must admit that I haven't had enough yet.

I may have another chance to experience winter because, in less than a week, I'm going to Seattle! I'm still kinda in shock that I'm going to be traveling to the other corner of the country, but I'm quite familiar with long flights, as my dear readers should know! What's funny is that I feel positively SURROUNDED by Seattle-related messages. I've seen 3 or 4 travel or food shows about Seattle in just the past week! I guess one could say that I have caved under the pressure of the Seattle Tourism Bureau. But I think we all know what has really drawn me to the Pacific Northwest; It'll be so fun to see Derek & george & the cats! And as a bonus, we'll get to go all sorts of places and see new things. We may even run up to Canada just for the hell of it! Hooray!

Random Seattle-related links I'm investigating:
Urban Spoon Seattle: Restaurant info!
Chowhound's Pacific Northwest board: More food-related stuff. A gal has got to have priorities.
Bremerton, WA : One of my on-line friends lives here
Daiso: A chain that carries cheap, cheerful Japanese stuff. I thought george might enjoy it.
Seattle Virtual Tour: Not as fun as being with us, but whaddayagonnado? ;)

Ice Ice Baby

It was an interesting week. We had a dinner party last weekend, which was nice. And then Tim decided that he'd really like a telescope, so he went to an astronomy club meeting. And my mother said some things that scared me (the words "pinky ring" and "your father" were uttered in the same sentence), but we got that straightened out. And Aunt Flow came over & made me miserable for a while (A bleeding Mary is a melodramatic Mary). And to top it all off, there was an ENORMOUS ice storm.

Well, there was an ice storm in Oklahoma, at any rate. But not here. No, it was unseasonably warm & occasionally sunny around here. Notice the woman in shorts in the above photo. Shorts, for gawd's sake! Such apparel is not proper in January, Indeed, I felt it wasn't quite warm enough outside for shorts on the particular day in question. But it was unusually warm. One might even say it has been "toasty" lately, but only if you're talking about the kind of toast that has been sitting on a plate for a while so that it has gotten a bit cool but has still retained some heat and has accumulated a bit of condensation on the plate-side so that it has become slightly damp underneath. Yeah. That's the kinda toasty weather we've had. It isn't moist, but there's a bit of moisture in the air from the occasional fit of rain.

Nevertheless, it has been fairly sunny & we've even ventured outdoors without coats. One of those occasions occured yesterday when, in an effort towards empathy, we went out in search of ice. Flavorful ice on a stick, to be precise. And that lead us to Locopops, a little shop that sells gourmet Mexican-style popsicles. In those brief moments while we sucked on our popsicles, it felt almost as though we, too, were frozen under two inches of ice with our loved ones. Almost.

By the by, I got the chocolate brownie & Tim got strawberries & cream. We are nothing if not .... painfully boring. We'll get something exotic next time. Promise.


Speaking of Scooby Doo, we bought the telescope. We looked at Saturn & star clusters last night! Yay!

Chick Pix

Without further ado, I bring you a chicken's memories of Tulsa.

First stop: ORU and the Praying Hands


The Golden Driller at Expo Square. There were go-cart races going on while we were there!

Downtown T-Town



Getting her kicks on 66


A chicken's first Christmas

Xmas piccies

For Christmas this year, my darling husband got me a digital camera.

This made me feel kinda crap because all I got for him was a Dr. Who box set and some slacks. Okay, I also got him a sweater (seen in the above photo), but that certainly pales in comparison to my sweet camera. It's much nicer than his old camera (which is so old that it does not even have a zoom. I kid you not). Plus, my camera fits in my purse! So now I take it with me everywhere.

And this means you all should expect more photos from me from here on out. Yay! But I've never done this before, so in addition to this post being a little slide show of our Xmas celebrations, it is kinda a test. If something looks wrong or the pics are so huge that you can only see Tim's eyebrow in the first pic, I hope you'll mention it to me. Constructive criticism is all good. And many thanks to my brothers because they took many of the photos here.


In our family, Christmas just isn't Christmas without my mother's made-from-scratch yeast rolls. They are amaaaaaazing.
My brother, Ray, helps make the rolls now, too. He was at my parents' home before 8am on Xmas day just so he could start making the dough. Now that's dedication! In the photo below you can see his hands rolling the dough into balls. My only job in this process is to drench the rolls in a couple layers of melted butter before we pop them in the oven. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.


Notice the paper tubes at each place setting? Those are Christmas Crackers - an English tradition. I got them as a surprise for Tim. Rip them open & they make a CRACK sound. Inside is a paper crown, a bad joke, and a toy. I chose crackers with a musical theme, so we all got a little whistle & music to go with them. It was ... an interesting experiment. :)
Obligatory photo of the tree post present-opening extravaganza. Mom has developed this habit of buying us wacky Xmas ornaments every year. I think the weirdest one she got for me is made up of three multi-colored chickens wearing high heels and fancy hats. They're 3 French hens, get it? Huh? Get it?!?! HaHaHa!!! Well, it always amuses Mom, at any rate. In retaliation, last year I got her an ornament of a lobster in a grass skirt that will wave its claws if you pull a string that comes out of its tail. Beat THAT, Mom!
The Emily Pup looking unusually calm and dignified.

Me in my Christmas cracker crown. King me!

One: Cut a whole in a box ...

Shortly after I arrived in T-town, my parents' internet connection. Died. Or at the very least, it behaved as if it were barely holding onto the last little dregs of life. One night it took 20 minutes for a single page to download. And that was on a good day. So that's why I didn't up-date my blog while I was gone. It's a shame because now I'm struggling to remember all the things I wanted to write about!

At least I can give you this belated Christmas present. If you're reading this, Mom, I apologize. For the rest of you, enjoy!


Randomness: Here's the MySpace page for the guys who make the Tulsa t-shirts. According to George, I know one of them. Small world!

Don't Hate the 918

I'm back. In fact, I got back Wednesday night. Or should I say that I barely got back because I almost missed my flight out of Tulsa (grumble security mumble grumble). I had to do that whole running-down-the-concourse thing, because (of course) my gate was the VERY last one. My flight was announced as closed just as the gate came into view, so I ended up yelling, "Wait! Wait!" as I finished running to the gate. Yup, just like in one of those damn movies.

I've noticed that my life is turning into one big cliche after another. Even my romantic life feels like a strange mix of Sleepless in Seattle plus You've Got Mail plus Notting Hill. My father-in-law once said we should write our story & sell the film rights. Maybe he has a point. But then I think about what sort of actresses might be chosen to play me & I wince a little.

At any rate, I made it. I left the 918 & am back in the 919. But I'm suffering from a bit of a post-holiday hang-over. It isn't that I miss Christmas. It's just that I miss Tulsa. Which is why I am now the proud owner of a "Tulsa Rocks" t-shirt. Yay. :)


Random fact: The Blue Whale in Catoosa has a MySpace page. Yup, even a giant fiberglass whale is more hip than I am.