The Pink Eye

This morning I woke up with what appeared to be a 'sore' and slightly bloodshot eye. Did Kirby punch me in the face again during bedtime cuddle-time? Nope, she took care of that fun move last Friday morning.

It went something like:
Me: Good morning Kooner! You're such a good girl! ((cuddle cuddle tummy rub))
Kirby: Oh Mommy! Oh Mommy! I'm so excited to see you! If I could just...get...a little...closer...ennnnnnnnnnh! ((Karateeeeeeeeeeee PUNCH! to the face with a furry claw!))

If that wasn't it, what could it be? Hmmm...

The eye funk was annoying, but nothing spectacular or day-breaking, so off to work I went. La de da! Work work work. Touch touch touch (my eye). Red red red.

I didn't want to go to the clinic, I just didn't want to. However, at the end of the day I decided I must go for the sake of my 'bulb and those around me. Since I don't have a general practitioner here, it was either go to the work clinic or have my OB/GYN perform an eye exam on me. The choice was clear.

Diagnosis: The Pink Eye
Impact: Banned from work until it clears up. Literally. They don't want me infecting any spacemen or spaceladies.
Remedy: Antibiotics just in case it's bacterial. "Time" if it's not.

So how 'bout that folks? My first case of pink eye. Whee!
Good news is I have a long weekend now. That, my friends, is alright with me.

Back!

It's been since Christmas. 3 months...way too long. I mean, if my best friend Jenny Tobin can finally post something after many moons, then that's the kick in the buns I needed to start posting again.

We have much to post about and will...soon.

Koon-dogg and the Sollosi Christmas Miracle

This just in:
In an unexpected turn of events, our little nut-job, Kirby, gets to stay with her best friends ever in life Derek, Erika and little V Sollosi for the holidays! They graciously offered to spare her from the kennel for two weeks and we're dropping her off to a happy home tonight! It's a Christmas Miracle for K-dogg! Wheeeeeeeee!

She's been bathed and sprayed with doggie parfum, ready for her Holiday Camp filled with love, pets and baby smells. MMMMMM, baby smells. I know she's in for a real treat!

My Work Bestie, Lauren (yes, I used the word "bestie", thank you Lauren for that one) has offered to check in on Kirby after the Sollosi's drop her back at my place so they can enjoy their Christmas in Philly. Another blessing!

Are we a fortunate family or what?! Yes, yes we are! I am moved by our friend's generosity and kindness - it never ceases to amaze me how blessed we really are.

Have fun little K-biscuit and BE NICE, Santa's watching!

ps: Samdogg gets jipped and has to spend the holidays with us in cold-A-Minnesota. Someone should buy her a warm sweater or vest...

Packing and Swine

In a couple days we'll be headed on the road to Ye Olde Minnesota for the holidays, which include oodles of family visits and hopefully getting to see some friend-type people along the way. It's butt-A-cold there, so this type of weather allows me the full use of my winter clothing, including (but not limited to): sweaters, mittens, hats and penguin jammie pants from what I think must have been high school (thanks Aunt Lisa).

One of the hardest parts about making the trek to another climate is packing, I think. Especially in winter. Bigger clothes and more shoes (shoes for style, shoes with grip) = bigger suitcases. We are making the 1200 mile trek the old fashioned way, driving, so no worries here about airport lines and 3 oz bottles or wrapped presents...or large amounts of baggage and extrey fees. Bonus! The Sam-in-ator will be coming with us this time, while Kirby gets the kennel treatment this go 'round. Almost 2 weeks we will be gone - crazy!

In addition to the fun festivities of packing and hauling our buns to MN, I think I just might be coming down with some sort of sickness. Could be The Swine, could be The Regular, could be the Saag Paneer I ate for lunch. All I am saying is that a bunch of people at work (or their kids) are sick and well, Mama's voice is getting raspy, eyes are a little bloodshot and my nostrils are leaking. Sexy! I'm like a leathery old smoker lady with allergies. Hopefully not too leathery :)

So tonight's task will be making the packing list (including 4" heels - c'mon people!), getting out the luggage and then sitting on the couch watching the taped version of "Sing Off" from last night. Oh yeah, and probably some sort of hot tea and a dog to snuggle me on the couch. And Christmas music. And cheese.

We're a total joke....

So, this blog was supposed to be a great way to keep in touch, but we stink at it. We are a joke to the world of blogging.

I'm going to try to recite what's been missed in the past three months...or so:
1. We went to DC for Charlie's surprise birthday, it was awesome. DC was great and so was seeing our dear friends the Tobins (and their baby girl Andrea Ann). Will try to post pix soon.
2. Saw Kings of Leon in concert at the Toyota Center - awesome! Love love loved it!
3. My parents came to visit us here in Texas for a week. We went to Fredericksburg and visited the Hill Country wine country. We hit 3 of the twenty-some wineries and really had a good time. Will try to post pix soon (see a theme here?).
4. We went to MN the following week/end to visit. Had a great time with our friends and family. Saw Ryan McVizzle for dinner and Solera (hadn't been there since our wedding 4 years ago), mmmm. Went to the apple orchard with my sister and family/friends to pick apples and then had a great bonfire at her place! Saw Charlie's family too and that was really great! Will try to post pix soon (catching on yet?).
5. Charlie went to San Diego for drill in mid-November (no pix).
6. I worked a Space Shuttle flight.
7. Charlie went to NASA JPL for a work class for a week in early December.
8. I took my very last final exam ever in life on Thursday and am now done with school!

...and now for the holiday travels. We'll be in MN for just over a week with the Samdog seeing family and friends.

Back to your regularly scheduled blog-reading...

Back in the Swing

Back home, yippee!! Last weekend I spent with Mar and mostly chillaxed. This week at work was really hard as far as motivation was concerned, but I made it through somehow. Last night we went to Joudy & John's nice, big new pad for happy hour and dinner, a few people drank too much and thank goodness I was DD!

I played football for the first time in over a year with the guys this morning, even Fatty. My friend Tito even showed up, as a newcomer. I think he had a good time :) I got some sun, enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL weather here in Houston right now and sweat. Mmmm, sweat.

At the moment I am watching class at 1.5x speed and drinking one of my favorite drinks, "Fizzed" by Apple & Eve. It's a 8 oz can of pure fruit juice and sparkling water. They come in packs of 4 and the flavor I am drinking is orange mango. All natural and NO SUGAR ADDED! Delicious. You should try them out for a soda substitute.

Next week Charlie and I are going on a surprise vacation for his birthday. I made it! ...well, it's not a surprise any more because I really wanted his input, BUT...we're going to Washington DC - it'll be Charlie's first time and my second - Thursday thru Monday. I get to see my BFF Jenny T, Jim and Baby Andi and their new digs as well! Our plan is to take in the Nation's Capitol as much as we can in 4 days and just soak in the history and magnificence of it all. We need a vacation badly! I am excited to get away for an impromptu weekend.

Next we will be heading back to MN to see the fam and new babies. Date TBD, but I am hoping October!

Missed the Episode

While in pa roosky, I missed the first episode of Season 6 of So You Think You Can Dance. When I get home it will be one of the first things I watch - yay! Thanks to facebook, however, I found this video that I literally sat in my hotel bed and watched, while grinning and clapping like a dodo.

I can't help but love it and hopefully you'll agree:


I'll be home soon :)

Scammed by the Shashlik Man

Today was my last day in Moscow, so Chris and I took a leisurely tour on foot. We once again went to the Cosmonautics Museum (metro: VDNKh), but this time they weren't closed, so we got in! It was a pretty neat place with lots of spacey stuff to see, including oodles of Yuri Gagarin paraphenalia. I very much enjoyed my time there! Afterwards, we were hungry so we stopped at the VVC (used to be called the VDNKh) next door for some shashlik. Before we could eat though, we wandered a bit and I noticed the giant ferris wheel from Moscow's 850th Birthday (12 yrs ago) just asking to be ridden. 10 bucks later, I was mounting an open-air ride to the top of this monstrosity. Holy crumbs it was high up! I wondered aloud a few times why I had chosen to ride the open-air trolley, but in the end the view and the fresh air was absolutely worth it! The pictures don't do it justice I don't think, but it was pretty cool.

Now it was time to eat. We stopped at a shashlik vendor on the side of one of the walkways. I couldn't read the menu, so chris and I pointed to the one shashlik skewer and said that was it. Then the guy asked if we wanted salad: No. Potato? Sure. 15 minutes later, Fantas in hand, the guy dropped tons of food off at our table. it was like a whole skewer of potatoes and the whole skewer of meat - which was like 1-1.5 lbs between the two of us. After we ate the meal, which was fine - nothing to write home about (how ironic) - we went up front to pay the bill. 2600 rubles. Umm....surely there was a mistake. That's 90 dollars! We said, no way this is right and the guy came back and said yes it is. He pointed to the thing on the menu that said you paid for the meat by the gram. Nice. In addition, the potatoes cost 20-some dollars out of that 90...what a joke. So, Chris pulled out his 1000 ruble bill and we told the guy we didn't have that kind of money. We just didn't. He kept pointing to the bill amount and demanding that. We kept saying NO WAY and we don't have that amount...We were so mad!

In the end, and mostly because we didn't want a run-in with any police-type guys, i fished out a magic 1500 rubles from my pants (tricky) - and that was literally all we had. We ended up giving the guy 2550 of his 2600+ ruble bill. I hate to think what might have happened if we didn't have that much. UGH. I guess we should have asked "how much", but from the prices I saw on the sheet, I never would have thought 90 dollars of food was headed our way. AND, the guy knew better - he totally scammed us.



Anyway, I'm safe and sound and ready to come home tomorrow. I don't feel so well at the current moment (headache, sore throat), but by tomorrow I should be as good as new :)

Next update from Houston! Mwah!

Spasskaya Bashnaya

Tonight after my last day (half day) at work, us four fun kids went to see the International Military Music Festival (http://www.kremlin-military-tattoo.ru/en/) on the Red Square here in Moscow. There were like 1000 participants from various countries of the world, with the majority of course being Russian bands. There were horses (and horse poo), shaolin stunt dudes, traditional Russian folk dancer kids (amazing!) and of course lots of marching bands from the various country military wings.

Finland was a bust, the folk-dancing kids and shaolin guys were my favorite and the best part was: after 2.5 hrs of the show on Red Square, all the bands came in to play together for the finale. 1000 band people, doing their thang. They played Hey Jude, Yellow Submarine (don't know what it is with The Beatles) and another familiar song. In the background sang a choir and at one point (previously, now that i think of it) the Russian National Ballet danced to a song. They ended the night with the William Tell Overture and fireworks exploding over St. Basils Cathedral and the Kremlin wall. It was a pretty amazing sight to see!!

At the end of the evening, we left and had dinner (a very fast one!) at an Italian restaurant about 4 blocks away from the square. Had a White Russian drink and some pasta, now I'm eating some ice cream at home. It was/is also Pooja's birthday (09/09/09), so we wished her well. Happy Birthday Pooja!! I had a great night, glad I went to this thing and am now home, ready for nite nite.

Uno mas dia para mi...

That is jaime-ese (or "Jaimese" if you want to get fancy) for "One more day for me..." at work in Moscow! ...and there was much rejoicing!

Tomorrow I work a 1/2 day for my final day at work, then 4 of us (me, Chris, Pooja, Todd - all coworkers) are going to the International Military Music Festival on Red Square (http://www.kremlin-military-tattoo.ru/en/). This past weekend, the entire city celebrated "Moscow City Day", to ring in the city's 862nd birthday. Yikes! That means a lot is going on in the town, including this music festival. I think they end each performance with fireworks, but we'll see. Something has been exploding in the night sky over here the past few nights, so I hope it is that.

In any case, it's a new and interesting (i hope!) way to end my 3 week stay here in Moscow - I mean, how many times will I be able to say that I was in Red Square watching a military festival?! Not many - so carpe diem!

More updates to come after tomorrow's adventure, then Weds is a full day of freedom in Russia (doing TBD) and then Thursday I come home. Can't wait!