This year has sure had its ups and downs. But we remained healthy, warm, and fed for another year. We attended no funerals and visited no emergency rooms. It seems that in these times, this is the best we can expect. And I for one, will consider it to be a triumph.
It has been a real pleasure to share my thoughts with you all this past year. My wish for the new year is to be able to see many of you personally. My new year's resolution is to make every effort to visit those of you in Minnesota, Nevada, California, Texas (and yes, even Florida), if only for a long weekend. You all have an open invitation to visit us here in Colorado where we would be overjoyed to show you the sights. I think the greatest gift I could receive would be your continued friendship and to have it in person would be just wonderful.
We truly wish each of you health, love, and comfort in the new year. Happy New Year to each of you.
With warmest wishes,
Jon and Paul
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Forty Drunk Santas
Paul works on Saturdays which makes it impossible to have weekend getaways. But we were both feeling frazzled lately, so I decided it might be fun to have a Saturday night getaway in downtown Denver. As usual, we are on the tightest of budgets, but travelling on the cheap is practically a game for me. I thought a nice hotel, a quiet dinner, and maybe a smart cocktail would be fun. I thought we could enjoy the holiday lights and maybe even do a little window shopping. Oh, the best laid plans.
The weekend started off with a successful bid on Priceline for a 4-star hotel in the downtown area for $59.00 - score! We were booked at the Hyatt Regency. While Paul worked, I took the light rail to the Hyatt on Saturday afternoon and checked in. But all they had were rooms with two double beds. I started negotiating with the front desk, but after checking in and out of two different rooms, I succumbed to paying an upcharge for a junior suite. My $59.00 room just became $109.00, plus tax. Cha-ching. Oh well, it was a nice room.
I found that the Hyatt has a bar on the 27th floor and it sounded like the perfect place to unwind. As Paul rode into town on the train from his job, I grabbed a table by the window and ordered some sort of espresso martini concoction and settled in to wait. $12.00. Cha-ching.
His train was running late and my drink was empty, so I ordered a scotch and continued waiting. $12.00 Cha-ching.
Shortly before he arrived, I had the server bring another scotch for me a and a glass of wine for him. $23.00. Cha-ching. Oh well, I've been holding this table for almost two hours and I'm not going to leave before he gets here. Besides, it was a such a serene place to relax and enjoy the view as the sun went down.
About two minutes before Paul arrived, approximately forty drunken revelers dressed like Santa Claus invaded the bar - some carrying signs reading "Less Cookies - More Ho's"! Apparently it was a group of bar-hopping Santas that grew larger as the night went on. Imagine the scene from Trading Places where Dan Akroyd, dressed as Santa, gets drunk and crashes the Christmas party of the company that fired him, but multiply it times forty. Hotel security swarmed in to monitor the situation, but how could they evict Santa Claus - especially when Santa is wearing fishnet stockings? While we tried to talk over the drunken Santas, Paul had a second glass of wine. $11.00. Cha-ching.
Next we decided to have dinner. With the budget fairly blown, we decided to settle for hamburgers at Johnny Rockets. So much for the quiet dinner.
After dinner, we found a nice bar where we spent another small fortune. While inside, the temperatures outside plummeted so low, that any television weather personality would just simply have given the temperature as "damn cold". I mean at some point, does it really matter what the number is? We high-tailed it back to the Hyatt where we each had a cup of coffee with a splash of Baileys before bed. $24.00. Cha-ching.
This morning it was so cold outside that our plans to spend the day window shopping and soaking up the holiday cheer were dashed. We had a terrific breakfast at a little coffee shop, but then caught the train straight home.
All in all it was still fun, but things just never turn out the way we plan them do they? Hey, at least one of the drunk Santas gave me a handful of Hershey's Kisses - no charge.
The weekend started off with a successful bid on Priceline for a 4-star hotel in the downtown area for $59.00 - score! We were booked at the Hyatt Regency. While Paul worked, I took the light rail to the Hyatt on Saturday afternoon and checked in. But all they had were rooms with two double beds. I started negotiating with the front desk, but after checking in and out of two different rooms, I succumbed to paying an upcharge for a junior suite. My $59.00 room just became $109.00, plus tax. Cha-ching. Oh well, it was a nice room.
I found that the Hyatt has a bar on the 27th floor and it sounded like the perfect place to unwind. As Paul rode into town on the train from his job, I grabbed a table by the window and ordered some sort of espresso martini concoction and settled in to wait. $12.00. Cha-ching.
His train was running late and my drink was empty, so I ordered a scotch and continued waiting. $12.00 Cha-ching.
Shortly before he arrived, I had the server bring another scotch for me a and a glass of wine for him. $23.00. Cha-ching. Oh well, I've been holding this table for almost two hours and I'm not going to leave before he gets here. Besides, it was a such a serene place to relax and enjoy the view as the sun went down.
About two minutes before Paul arrived, approximately forty drunken revelers dressed like Santa Claus invaded the bar - some carrying signs reading "Less Cookies - More Ho's"! Apparently it was a group of bar-hopping Santas that grew larger as the night went on. Imagine the scene from Trading Places where Dan Akroyd, dressed as Santa, gets drunk and crashes the Christmas party of the company that fired him, but multiply it times forty. Hotel security swarmed in to monitor the situation, but how could they evict Santa Claus - especially when Santa is wearing fishnet stockings? While we tried to talk over the drunken Santas, Paul had a second glass of wine. $11.00. Cha-ching.
Next we decided to have dinner. With the budget fairly blown, we decided to settle for hamburgers at Johnny Rockets. So much for the quiet dinner.
After dinner, we found a nice bar where we spent another small fortune. While inside, the temperatures outside plummeted so low, that any television weather personality would just simply have given the temperature as "damn cold". I mean at some point, does it really matter what the number is? We high-tailed it back to the Hyatt where we each had a cup of coffee with a splash of Baileys before bed. $24.00. Cha-ching.
This morning it was so cold outside that our plans to spend the day window shopping and soaking up the holiday cheer were dashed. We had a terrific breakfast at a little coffee shop, but then caught the train straight home.
All in all it was still fun, but things just never turn out the way we plan them do they? Hey, at least one of the drunk Santas gave me a handful of Hershey's Kisses - no charge.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Hell Has Frozen Over
I can't keep my car clean here in Denver. You see, every time I wash it, it snows, turning my evening commute into a scene that looks like a combination between a monster truck rally and some kind of mud wrestling competition.
I have decided that there are two kinds of winter. The first kind is the kind we all hear about in holiday songs, like "Let It Snow" (Oh, the weather outside is frightful. But the fire is so delightful....) The second kind is the kind that we have to push our shopping carts through when we leave Walmart.
As I schlepped home in the muck today, ruining our car's freshly washed exterior, I wondered if we had made the right decision in moving to Colorado. And then I remembered that our friend Laura Lee had sent us a picture taken from her home this morning in Las Vegas.
It seems hell has now frozen over, and there is nowhere to escape from it.
I'm ready for Spring now.
I have decided that there are two kinds of winter. The first kind is the kind we all hear about in holiday songs, like "Let It Snow" (Oh, the weather outside is frightful. But the fire is so delightful....) The second kind is the kind that we have to push our shopping carts through when we leave Walmart.
As I schlepped home in the muck today, ruining our car's freshly washed exterior, I wondered if we had made the right decision in moving to Colorado. And then I remembered that our friend Laura Lee had sent us a picture taken from her home this morning in Las Vegas.
It seems hell has now frozen over, and there is nowhere to escape from it.
I'm ready for Spring now.
Dear Anonymous
To Whom It May Concern
Anonymous blog responses are only well understood by your readers when they don't contain an abundance of pronouns. Those of us who read your responses don't know where "up here" and "down there" are. Furthermore, we also do not have a frame of reference for words like "I" or "them".
You see anonymous, you are anonymous. This means quite literally that the source of your words is completely unknown to those of us reading them.
We do thank you for your responses anonymous, but please refrain from using words that suggest familiarity, when in fact, the rest of us have no goddamn idea who the hell you are.
Thank you.
Kindest regards,
Your readers
Anonymous blog responses are only well understood by your readers when they don't contain an abundance of pronouns. Those of us who read your responses don't know where "up here" and "down there" are. Furthermore, we also do not have a frame of reference for words like "I" or "them".
You see anonymous, you are anonymous. This means quite literally that the source of your words is completely unknown to those of us reading them.
We do thank you for your responses anonymous, but please refrain from using words that suggest familiarity, when in fact, the rest of us have no goddamn idea who the hell you are.
Thank you.
Kindest regards,
Your readers
Friday, December 5, 2008
Colorado vs. Minnesota
For those of you who aren't aware, my friend who leaves comments on my blog under the identity "Nonna" used to be my boss up in Minnesota some years back. She has had to listen to me piss and moan about many things through the years, not just about the cold, and for that I'm truly sorry. She was a real trooper to put up with all that bitching. But I will never apologize for crabbing about the Minnesota winter.
The day she is referring to in her comment was a very long time ago. I had come to Minneapolis for a class. The hotel I stayed in was next door to the building where the class was held. The high temperature that day was four degrees below zero. Let's go over that again. The high temperature that day was four degrees below zero. A co-worker and I found that we had to run from the hotel to the classroom next door to avoid the severe pain that stung our exposed skin during the unbearable two minute commute.
Some years later when she hired me, she chose a week for me to come up and work with her in her office. Yep, you guessed it, smack in the dead of winter. I'll never forget flying out of Minneapolis, seeing the lifeless frozen tundra stretching out for hundreds of miles in every direction as I departed by air at the end of my week there. When I arrived back in Las Vegas to a balmy winter evening, I opened my car's sunroof and sighed with relief. I swore I would never travel to Minnesota again during the winter.
If you ask me, and even if you don't - it's my blog, Minnesota in the winter is not exactly the picture of a winter wonderland. It's more like the inside of an old freezer that hasn't been defrosted in several years. It's a place where they boast about the number of indoor passageways they have between buildings, always forgetting to mention that if people were forced to walk outdoors, they would lose appendages to frostbite.
I'll always love my dear friend Nonna, but if she thinks that a Minnesota winter can be compared to a Colorado winter, she's crazy. Poor crazy Nonna. That's what they'll call her. Oh, did I forget to mention that it will be sunny and in middle 50's in Denver this weekend? The high in Minneapolis today you ask? 19.
The day she is referring to in her comment was a very long time ago. I had come to Minneapolis for a class. The hotel I stayed in was next door to the building where the class was held. The high temperature that day was four degrees below zero. Let's go over that again. The high temperature that day was four degrees below zero. A co-worker and I found that we had to run from the hotel to the classroom next door to avoid the severe pain that stung our exposed skin during the unbearable two minute commute.
Some years later when she hired me, she chose a week for me to come up and work with her in her office. Yep, you guessed it, smack in the dead of winter. I'll never forget flying out of Minneapolis, seeing the lifeless frozen tundra stretching out for hundreds of miles in every direction as I departed by air at the end of my week there. When I arrived back in Las Vegas to a balmy winter evening, I opened my car's sunroof and sighed with relief. I swore I would never travel to Minnesota again during the winter.
If you ask me, and even if you don't - it's my blog, Minnesota in the winter is not exactly the picture of a winter wonderland. It's more like the inside of an old freezer that hasn't been defrosted in several years. It's a place where they boast about the number of indoor passageways they have between buildings, always forgetting to mention that if people were forced to walk outdoors, they would lose appendages to frostbite.
I'll always love my dear friend Nonna, but if she thinks that a Minnesota winter can be compared to a Colorado winter, she's crazy. Poor crazy Nonna. That's what they'll call her. Oh, did I forget to mention that it will be sunny and in middle 50's in Denver this weekend? The high in Minneapolis today you ask? 19.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Baby, It's Cold Outside!
Every morning I pour my coffee and then I look out the window. I don't know what I'm looking for.
Today there are tiny snow flurries floating in the air. For those of us not used to snow, we picture it falling down and sticking to the ground. But this snow is floating in every direction. Some of it is falling. Some of it is rising. Some of it is drifting sideways. All of the snow is moving slowly and gently through the air. The snow isn't sticking to the ground but is drifting around like grains of sand across a Las Vegas parking lot. You can tell that it is truly cold outside just by watching the drifting snow.
The walk to the train station takes seven minutes. I bundle myself up and walk toward the station. For the first time in many years I can feel cold air on my cheeks. The gently blowing snow melts on them and makes them feel even colder, but the rest of me is well-dressed and warm.
As the electric train rolls quietly toward my stop, I watch the world go by. Everything is dusted in a thin blanket of white that stretches from the tracks all the way to the foothills, twenty miles to the west.
Tonight the low temperature is described by a word that only has one syllable, but today I feel alive for the first time in a very long time.
Today there are tiny snow flurries floating in the air. For those of us not used to snow, we picture it falling down and sticking to the ground. But this snow is floating in every direction. Some of it is falling. Some of it is rising. Some of it is drifting sideways. All of the snow is moving slowly and gently through the air. The snow isn't sticking to the ground but is drifting around like grains of sand across a Las Vegas parking lot. You can tell that it is truly cold outside just by watching the drifting snow.
The walk to the train station takes seven minutes. I bundle myself up and walk toward the station. For the first time in many years I can feel cold air on my cheeks. The gently blowing snow melts on them and makes them feel even colder, but the rest of me is well-dressed and warm.
As the electric train rolls quietly toward my stop, I watch the world go by. Everything is dusted in a thin blanket of white that stretches from the tracks all the way to the foothills, twenty miles to the west.
Tonight the low temperature is described by a word that only has one syllable, but today I feel alive for the first time in a very long time.
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