We went skiing (Breckenridge) on Christmas Eve, but managed to leave the camera in the car. You'll have to settle for pictures from December 23, when we had Eldorado Canyon State Park almost entirely to ourselves for a winter hike. (There was no one around to take a group shot, so we took turns posing. Hana was uncharacteristically camera-shy.)

When we lived in Brussels, we loved being able to get to Paris in an hour and 20 minutes via high-speed train.

We discovered yesterday that we can get from our driveway to the slopes at Keystone in exactly the same amount of time. It's not the rooftops of Paris, but the panorama appeared equally dreamlike to our Midwestern eyes.

By the way, the "Slow Trail of the Day" (indicated by the yellow sign on the right) proved to be a real gift as my muscles struggled to remember how to ski after nearly three years off the slopes.

(Photo courtesy of Jim and his Blackberry)

As Christmas approaches, I've been nostalgic for the variety, low prices, and ease of shopping in Europe's open-air markets. In an attempt to replicate the experience (well, sort of), I finally stopped yesterday at the Brass Armadillo Antiques Mall (BAAM), which I pass regularly on the drive to the animal shelter. On the outside, BAAM looks like a warehouse. On the inside, its contents were nearly as diverse, if decidedly American, as the offerings at the daily market at Les Marolles in Brussels.

I didn't find any Danish art glass at BAAM, and there were just too many vendors with old Matchbox cars to search for the VW Beetles that I also collect. I did discover two American ceramics makers that I'd never heard of, both located in places I've called home. (Let's be honest here, the only vintage American pottery that I could have identified prior to yesterday was Fiestaware. And speaking of vintage Fiestaware, my brother's friend Steven, who collects it, is probably worth more than many Wall Street bankers, based on the prices that I saw yesterday.)

Roseville Art Pottery was manufactured in Ohio—we lived in Cleveland Heights for eight years—in the first half of the 20th century. Most of the pieces I saw yesterday were too over-the-top design-wise for my taste, such as this er, um pitcher. At least now I know what I'm looking at.

Weirdly enough, the pottery that really caught my eye was manufactured by Coors. Yes, that Coors. The beer company manufactured ceramics, mostly utilitarian items like dinnerware, for about two decades prior to World War. The patterns, such as the popular Rosebud design, were simple and came in a variety of colors, à la Fiestaware. I was quite taken with a bean pot—a pot just for beans, imagine that!—in this blue Rosebud pattern.

BAAM also offers vintage Western-themed items, including horse brasses, elaborately engraved silver spurs, pairs of shoot-em-out guns in tooled leather holsters, cowboy boots, ten-gallon hats, and (yuck) cowhide lampshades.

The strangest antique at BAAM? A wooden milk box for home delivery from the Cleveland Heights Dairy, which was so old that the phone number on the side began with letters rather than numbers. How did a milk box from Cleveland Heights, Ohio end up in Wheat Ridge, Colorado?

Note to Gayle and Tim: If it hadn't cost nearly $100, I would have bought that milk box for you on the spot.

Unlike many skiers, I enjoy riding slow chairlifts. In addition to giving aching, middle-aged muscles a rest, you get to see a lot of things from a lift, and not just hotdoggers who ski so well you feel like retreating to the lodge for the rest of your skiing life.

At Lake Louise, we listened to a middle-aged man coax his furious, scared wife down a moguls run, shouting, "I'm SORRY, I'm SORRY, honey" as she inched down the bumps. Bet he had to sleep in the hotel lobby that night.

At Nub's Nob, I watched a little boy, still in the pole-free stage of learning to ski, flapping his arms like a baby bird as he tried to get some "air" on a miniature snow ramp.

My all-time favorite is the orange lift on the back hills of Nub's Nob. It ascends through a quiet forest, where tiny birds dart back and forth. On the orange lift, you can go eyeball-to-eyeball with a squirrel scampering up a tree. The clinking of the old metal lift parts sounds like Buddhist temple bells among the snow-covered pines.

Mostly, sitting on the slow chairlift gives my mind a chance to meander around aimlessly, which, while not particularly productive, is recuperative in its own way. So when I watched "Solilochairliftquist," which was profiled in the Sunday Denver Post, I knew that I wasn't the only skier who felt, as the article's title puts it, "the Zen of a slooow chairlift."

TRANSLATION:

Sennan, who was Alison's boss when she worked in a pub in London, taught her a phrase from his Irish youth—he was one of 11 children—that could be used in times of stress without dooming oneself to Hell: "Jesus, Mary, and Tap-Dancing Joseph!" (I've always thought that Sennan taught her that because she was way too fond of using the f-word as a verb and an adjective.)

Now, pretend that you've just heard me yelling Sennan's cuss at the top of my lungs.

My VW Beetle, the only "thing" I've ever really cherished, was rear-ended today by a Ford Explorer. Its forthcoming visit to the body shop will be its third this year: It was hit while parked on our street in Brussels. It was dented during the trip back to the States from Belgium. Now this.

I know that Jesus said, "If you wish to be perfect, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven," but, damnit, I love that little red car, which was bought with some of my inheritance after my Dad collapsed and died from a stroke on my 50th birthday. (Dad worked in the auto industry for most of his life. When I drive the Beetle, I often see him—despite his large size—riding shotgun.)

Dear God, is this latest accident a message that I should just sell the damned car?

JESUS, MARY, AND TAP DANCING JOSEPH!

My brain finally clicked on why this pair in the shelter look so familiar. Rascal and Semoran are living, breathing, snuffling versions of Snowy, companion to Tintin, the most beloved of Belgian comic strip characters. 2007 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Hergé, Tintin's creator, and images of the boy and his faithful dog were even more ubiquitous in Brussels than usual.

Perhaps Steven Spielberg could use these little fellows in his upcoming film of Tintin's adventures.

Photo: TMAC

. . . what is actual is actual only for one time

T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

When we moved to Brussels, what I missed most—aside from friends and family—was my job in a public library. Like every worker in every workplace, I complained, but the fact was that "Public Relations/Public Services Librarian" was the perfect job for me, one that drew fully on my education, skills, and interests. That many of my colleagues came to feel like the sisters I never had was icing on the cake.

Although I was sorry to leave Europe ahead of schedule, I assumed that I'd be able to jump right back into the public library world. Bad, bad assumption.

In the seven months since we arrived in Colorado, there have been only four (4!) public library jobs posted that a) I was qualified for (it wasn't a Youth Services position); b) I was interested in (it was what librarians call a "front-desk" position, as opposed to a "back-room" position); and c) I could get to with a commute of 25 miles or less.

Job 1: This position was actually posted before we moved back to the States. I had no Colorado address and no local phone number, so it's no surprise that I didn't get an interview. Hiring is hard enough without having to chase down candidates halfway around the world.

Job 2: I got an interview, but not the job. Ironically, this particular library district seems to be the only one hiring right now. It has had several openings since spring.

Job 3: My application—online, as many job applications are these days—apparently vanished into a black hole.

Job 4: I received a lovely letter saying that the library had decided not to interview for the position at this time, but that I might hear from them in the future.

Which leaves me with the problem of, "If not a library job, then what?" Writing? Editing? Barista-ing? Cleaning kennels? Part of me is desperate for intellectual stimulation, as I envision my brain turning into a bowl of mashed potatoes. Another part of me would be content to give a person or an animal a moment of happiness.

Just two days ahead of setting a new record for the latest "first snowfall of the season" in Denver, we woke up to a white backyard this morning.

Snow is serious business here. An editorial—an editorial, not just an op-ed piece—in yesterday's Denver Post gave us something else to worry about other than the global financial crisis, the Iraq war, and whether there will be any jobs for newly minted JDs when Patrick graduates next month. The headline read "Little snow, quick lifts create chaos on slopes," adding the ominous subhead: "With resorts opening earlier and thousands of skiers urged to use one or two runs, dangerous situations are likely to result."

Although, as the editorial further observed, "Dude, we totally don't want to look like wussies," it was a relief to see real—as opposed to machine-made—white stuff sticking to the Front Range even after it vanished from our yard. Moving from the gentle slopes of the northern Lower Peninsula to skiing the Rockies is going to be challenging enough without having to worry about getting run over by a cast of thousands.

The combination of angry autumn sky and forbidding peaks reminds me of "Lord of Rings." If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can even see what appears to be a castle turret rising on the far left side of this range, which is between Arvada and Boulder.

He fathered five children, but my paternal grandfather never knew what to say to his twelve grandchildren. How he managed the small talk required by his career, first as a journalist and later as the alumni relations director at a Jesuit university, continues to baffle me.

Nearly 40 years after his death, my verbal memory of Grandpa Pfau comes down to two sentences, repeated throughout my childhood: "You know what our last name means in German? It means peacock!"

Which of course ensured that I would always think of him while visiting a zoo . . .

Through the bushes, we glimpsed a tall bird sprinting back and forth in a large enclosure at the Denver Zoo. From a distance, it appeared to be a stork wearing black cut-offs. Up close, it looked like an exotic amalgamation of many birds, with its eagle's beak, peacock's goofy head plumage, and stork's long, jointed legs. Although its otherworldly appearance recalled Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, its name was oddly prosaic: a Secretary Bird. A native of Africa, it is a raptor, but, unlike eagles and hawks, it pursues its prey mostly on foot. Hence the long legs.

The Denver Zoo owns two of these curious creatures. The runner seems to have been the male of the pair, trying to impress his mate. She turned her back on him and folded herself to the ground in a neat, Origami-like series of steps that totally concealed those unlikely legs and made her look, from certain angles, like a seagull wearing one of those feathery hats currently favored by the British aristocracy.

Gail Collins has replaced Maureen Dowd as my favorite humorous/satiric columnist on the New York Times Op-Ed page. In her picture, Gail looks like someone I could go out to lunch with. At the end of the meal, we'd both order dessert without ever uttering the words, "I feel guilty, but . . ." Maureen Dowd, on the other hand, looks like she would eat me for lunch and then regurgitate a neat little pellet with my non-digestible remains.

Gail's post-election column was classic Collins. Our daughter attends school in and voted (for Obama, duh) in North Carolina, so I e-mailed her this paragraph from the column:

By the way, I believe that during the campaign McCain’s great friend Senator Lindsey Graham said something along the line of promising to drown himself if North Carolina went for Obama. I believe I speak for us all, Senator Graham, when I say that we are feeling extremely mellow today and you do not have to follow through.

Read Gail's entire column at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/opinion/06collins.html?ref=opinion

I was too superstitious to include this quote in Monday's blog.

What Obama said about the race during his conference call to the campaign field offices late Saturday night: "We've got John McCain on his own five-yard line."

Unlike our beloved Michigan Wolverines this football season, Obama's team pulled off the win.

In an attempt to curb my election anxiety ("They've stolen it before, they can steal it again"), I'm planning to spend part of the day with the pit bulls at the shelter where I volunteer. My job there is "dog enrichment," which means taking individual dogs outside to run, chase balls, and exchange love--I give them belly rubs, they give me kisses.

I spent nearly eight hours over the weekend (including a 7 p.m. to midnight shift Saturday) at the small, local Obama office entering voter data gathered from the massive phone and door-to-door canvassing effort into the campaign's database. The staff--paid and volunteer--are a mixed bunch, ranging from a young campaign field manager who used to work at a PR firm in Manhattan (he plans to backpack around the country after the election) to a middle-aged character in cowboy attire to retired couples who dote on the younger workers as if they were their own grandchildren. A couple of volunteers are Californians who flew in to help with the last weeks of campaigning in Colorado; "It's so much more exciting here than in California," one San Franciscan told me last night.

The highpoint of the weekend came late Saturday night when Obama phoned in on a (nationwide? swing states only?) conference call to thank his field office staffs for their great efforts and to encourage them to hang tough for the next 72 hours. He acknowledged their shared exhaustion, adding, "Listen, no one needs sleep [right now] more than I do."

By the time Obama called, there were probably only a dozen or so people left in the office. The regular staff gathered around the speaker phone, but turned it up loud enough so that the volunteers, spread around the office on computers, could shyly listen in. Even though I had seen and heard Obama in person the week before in Denver, hearing his disembodied voice rallying the troops in that quiet little office in a suburban strip mall was pretty magical.

And one more thing: Obama used a football analogy to describe his position--as of Saturday night--relative to McCain. I won't repeat it, because I'm overly superstitious about jinxing the election, but I found it pretty hilarious that even a guy who's already made history and may be on the verge of making even more history still reverts to that Y-chromosome-generated tendency to explain the world in sports metaphors.

Anne and I went to hear David Sedaris read last night in Boulder. It was the perfect medicine for my pre-election high anxiety levels. I laughed so long and so hard that my ribs hurt, and if you ever want to watch me shoot liquid out my nose, try whispering "slave monkey" to me when I've just taken a drink.

Sedaris opened with his current piece in the New Yorker, which wanders back and forth from what he really, really thinks about undecided voters to his experience as an 11-year-old voter in the 1968 presidential election. You'll have to imagine his wonderful voice, but you can read it yourself at:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/10/27/081027sh_shouts_sedaris?yrail

" . . . I went out as a chicken pot pie. Mama wrapped me all up in silver foil and she stuck feathers in my hair and hung a carrot and a celery from my ears and she wrote 'Heat at three thousand degrees for twelve hours' across my forehead. You know, I'm real lucky I didn't run into one of those psychopaths because I think he would have had a defense . . . "

Nancy Clark
The Hills at Home

This morning, I took advantage of the opportunity here in Colorado to vote early. It was my first experience with touch-screen voting. The last time I voted in Michigan, we were still using paper ballots, which I have to admit feels more reliable. I like the idea of a paper trail.

CNN is reporting that, as of yesterday, 31.3% of active registered Colorado voters have either early voted or returned their mail-in ballots. That's over 800,000 swing state residents (in a state whose "official" total population estimate is just under 5 million) who wanted to be certain that their voices were heard.

I contributed money to the Obama campaign. I volunteered for the Obama campaign. I voted for Obama. Now all I can do is pray.

One of the things that I love about Colorado are the ubiquitous "Share the Road" signs, reminding drivers and cyclists to play nice with each other. (We could have used a few of those signs in Brussels, although I suspect that the Belgians would have ignored them.)

Hikers, cyclists, and horse riders also share many of the dirt and paved trails out here, generally with good humor and manners worthy of 18th century European aristocrats. ("You first." "No, no, you. Please, I insist." "Why, thank you. Enjoy this beautiful day.")

When we hike at the base of the mountains, as we did yesterday, we sometimes see signs such as this one:

Which is how we found ourselves sharing the trail--which, after all, crossed their grazing lands--with a small herd of cattle. Hana completely ignored the cows--even the huge black one, who trotted right out in front of the dog's nose--and they paid no attention to her. Apparently even the livestock in Colorado are easygoing about sharing open space.

On a related note: Hana and I recently spotted some livestock just off the paved trail that winds through our neighborhood. I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, but sure enough, there they were, a trio that I can't stop thinking of as "Llamas for Obama."

After 12 years in Catholic schools, I can feel guilty for just about anything I've ever thought, said, or done, even decades later. At the moment, I'm feeling guilty for voting for John McCain in Michigan's 2000 Republican primary.

The Michigan Republican primary was open that year, meaning that even registered Democrats (e.g., me) could cast a vote for their favorite Republican. ("Favorite Republican" would be an oxymoron these days.) Since I thought even then that George Bush was, as one columnist delicately put it, "a high-functioning moron," I wrote John McCain's name on the scrap of paper that served as a ballot.

When I see John McCain now, I'm ashamed that I ever voted for him. The malice and lies emanating from his campaign make me nauseous and terrified for my country. And Sarah Palin brings back nasty memories of Melinda P., a "mean girl" whose name proceeded mine in the alphabet in our high school homeroom. Every time she turned around to say something to me, I shook in my desk.

Sometimes I wish that there was a human equivalent of prairie dog holes to hide in until the election is over.

Prairie Dogs, Flatirons Vista Trail, October 5

Writer Anne Lamott cheered me up considerably when, during her talk here last night, she asserted that librarians and teachers will have the best seats in Heaven, "right next to the dessert table."

Color season is a week or two behind schedule this year, or so the locals say. But if the occasional impatient leaf is any indication, it's going to be glorious.

I feel like I'm missing a limb. The PC caught a virus and has been at Microtek for a week; they tell me it will be a few more days until I can get it back, healthy and with more memory.

I've become one of those people who pour into the public library when it opens so I can snag a computer. In the evenings, Jim lets me borrow his laptop, which is kind, but makes me feel like a poor relation. Meanwhile, my camera is full of photos waiting to be downloaded.

During our stay in Belgium, the only American TV programs that we really missed were MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. So when we read that the MSNBC team at the Democratic Convention was broadcasting outside, we headed downtown to see if we could catch a glimpse of Chris, Keith, and Rachel Maddow, the network's newest star. (I love to see brainy, funny women like Rachel--who was a Rhodes Scholar--on the air. It's a vindication for all of us girls who were too smart to be cool in high school.)

Even if we didn't see our faves, we figured that it would be fun to see a TV broadcasting setup. We're Midwesterners and easily impressed by the slightest whiff of New York or Hollywood.

I'm happy to report that we had a blast. We gaped at the shorts-and-T-shirts tech crews and all the equipment--cameras, lights, teleprompters, even the teetery-looking two-story broadcast center. (Chris and Keith had the upper level to themselves; everybody else was on the lower level near the common folk.) We mingled with the crowd, which included convention volunteers, protesters, and "Grandparents for Obama." We happily took any NBC/MSNBC tsotchkes that were handed out. (The NBC "Decision 08" baseball caps are totally tasteful and to die for. Thank you, MSNBC staffer in the green dress, for coming out to the back of the crowd with those hats!)

And the faces we watch on MSNBC every night? Saw 'em all, although Keith only stuck his head over the balcony railing for a few seconds, when I didn't have my camera in hand, and David Gregory was on his way out just as we arrived. Best inside scoops? Pat Buchanan needs more hairspray than Nora O'Donnell to keep his combover in place. Nora's high heels looked like they were giving her blisters; she needs to take a fashion hint from Rachel and wear comfortable shoes, particularly since TV viewers can't see her footwear anyhow. (Crocs or hiking boots would have been very Colorado, Nora!)

Pictures from the MSNBC broadcast center:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Katharine.Gillette/MSNBCAtTheDNC

August 16, I-25 between Denver and Loveland:
Two days of precipitation and falling temperatures
led to fresh snow in the Rockies.

This little pug mix has the worst underbite I've ever seen--
he looks this way even with his mouth closed.
Because he's a dog, his looks don't get in the way of his stellar personality.
Humans should be so lucky.
(Photo: TMAC)

. . . as it was yesterday. Actually, this is what I've been doing for the last 22 days of 90+ degree temperatures in a house with four ceiling fans and no AC.

1. Lie directly below a ceiling fan in boxer shorts and a camisole and read. Favorites? The Used World by Haven Kimmel. Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott. Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva. Forward From Here by Reeve Lindbergh. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman.

2. Go to the movies. Theaters always have air conditioning. In the past two weeks, I've seen four movies. My favorite was "Wall-E," but I liked "The Dark Knight" and the new X-Files movie, too. Thumbs down on "Swing Vote," though. Tomorrow: "Mama Mia."

3. Get some culture, preferably free or cheap. Seeing Daniel Silva at The Tattered Cover and Eilen Ivers at Lincoln Center (Fort Collins, not NYC) were heatwave highlights.

4. Hit the end-of-summer sales. Like theaters, retailers always have air conditioning. I picked up two tops, a dress, a pair of capris, and a skirt at Dillard's (much nicer than Macy's) for $106, total. All "Famous Names," too, as the ads always say. The dress alone was originally priced at $134. I swooned with joy.

5. Head to the mountains for a hike, and get caught in what folks around here refer to as a monsoon, making me feel like I'm living in southeast Asia.

We drove up to Indian Peaks today when it was 98 degrees here in the foothills. At 10,000-plus feet, it was only 84 degrees on the CRV's digital thermometer. When we got back to the car after a two-hour hike, the last hour of which was in a brutal rain and hail storm without our ponchos (The Stupids Go Hiking), it was 48 degrees and my fingers were turning blue. Three hours later, Hana is still slightly damp, since she couldn't change into something a little drier when we got home. But we are all a lot cooler.

Indian Peaks, pre-monsoon

Mother and baby, Chimney Gulch Trail

Cecropia moth caterpillar, Chimney Gulch Trail

Colorado Dragon Boat Festival, Sloan's Lake Park

Dragonboater's version of "Just do it!"

I once read that the Irish love to talk about the weather. (I also once read that the Irish don't take well to psychotherapy, because they would rather talk about anything other than how they "really feel" about personal matters. Hence their attraction to weather as a topic of conversation.)

According to a genealogy project my Dad helped me do in grade school, I'm 7/16 Irish, which may explain why I feel compelled to share this item from today's Denver Post:

If Denver's heat wave holds on for three more days, the city will smash a 19th century record. In 1874 and again in 1901, Denver braved 18 consecutive days in which temperatures reached or surpassed 90 degrees.

Fortunately for record watchers - and unfortunately for relief-seekers - the week's forecast is flush with 90-plus degree temps.

What the article doesn't mention is that since June 1, we've had 31 non-consecutive days with highs in the 90s; on July 20, it was 100 degrees . . .

With today's temps predicted to top out around 100 degrees, it was too hot for hiking. Instead, we loaded our two-person kayak on the CRV and headed 40 minutes northwest to Garrison Reservoir. Since we kayaked only once while living in Belgium, we were very, very happy to take up our paddles again.

Aspen looks pretty much like any cute, upscale tourist town in a picturesque area. (Think Harbor Springs on steroids, all you Michiganders.) I didn't take many pictures there, except at the John Denver Sanctuary, which is actually one of the more interesting memorials I've ever seen. (Stop gagging and snorting, Jude!) There's no statue, just the lyrics to a few John Denver songs engraved on boulders arranged in a semi-circle near a fast-running river. Our friend Gayle, who's a music therapist, couldn't help singing a few bars here and there . . .


Actually, unless you're a photographer for People magazine during ski season or attending the Music Festival (Emanuel Ax was amazing), what's near Aspen is more interesting than what's in Aspen. Ashcroft is a tiny ghost town left over from Colorado's mining boom. The Historical Society has fine guided tours of this remote spot. The tour's cost ($3) is less than we paid for a gallon of gas ($5.30) in Aspen.


You can also designate a fearless driver to take you up to Independence Pass so that you can admire the Continental Divide. (Blood members of the Gillette family are handy to have around in such situations, since they were all born with teeny-tiny "No Fear" tattoos on their foreheads.) Parts of the two-lane road to the pass are so narrow that the highway department doesn't even bother painting a yellow line down the middle. If two big SUVS are facing off on this section of road, they have to treat it as one lane and take turns, because shoulders don't exist: Depending on which side of the road you're travelling, if you move a few inches to one side, you will either crash into the vertical cliff looming above you or fly off the mountainside.


More photos from the Aspen area: http://picasaweb.google.com/Katharine.Gillette/Aspen

What does $300 buy in Aspen? Not much, apparently, at least if we're talking hotel rooms.

I was late in booking a room in Aspen for this past weekend, when we went to visit Tim and Gayle, our friends and former neighbors from Cleveland Heights. They were in town for a week while Tim worked for the Aspen Music Festival and School doing on-site repair of woodwind instruments.

Our hotel was in the center of Aspen, near the spot where Tim and Gayle were staying. When we stopped at the front desk to register, we were informed that there would be a $26 per night additional fee for parking. $300 a night, and I have to pay for parking? (We were offered the option of taking ourselves over to the Aspen Parking Department and purchasing a $7 day pass to park on any city street. If we could find a parking space.)

Our room wasn't ready--in all fairness, it was only noon--so the clerk offered us an "upgrade" for the same price. The "upgrade" was on the second floor, right around the corner from the elevator. The room did have a king-sized bed, which we had requested. It also had a balcony with a view of an alley; a tiny bathroom with no fan and a tub shorter than those in most Days Inns; and a weird decor that was ski lodge architecture--low, oak-beamed ceilings and oak woodwork everywhere--paired with Eurotrash furnishings. Highlights included an all-Formica, Cubist-looking bedside table; a chrome desk chair with a faux white leather seat; and a fake (and fake-looking) fur throw that, a sign informed us, we could purchase for $400. (I think that our friend Marianne may have paid less for one of her real furs at Jacobson's going-out-of business sale a few years back.) The carpeting was a zebra print. Animal print--one zebra, one cheetah--robes hung in the closet for our use, as well as two pairs of fuzzy blue--one pale, one navy--slipper socks designed, I guess, to enhance our chic quotient when we slipped into the robes.

The oddest part of the decor was a minibar with a glass display case on top, sort of like a curio table on top of a dorm refrigerator. In addition to cans of peanuts, bags of M&Ms, and a tin of Altoids, the display case held 1) an "Intimacy Kit" with condoms, lubricant, and "obstetrical wipes;" 2) a playing card-sized box with "Kama Sutra" oils and a vaguely Indian painting of a happy couple on its cover; and 3) a pair of velvet handcuffs. Suddenly the ski lodge/Eurotrash room added a third school of decorating: Truck Stop.

Frankly, our $100-a-night hotel room at the newly remodeled Holiday Inn in Ogallala, Nebraska, where we were stranded by a ferocious spring snowstorm during our move to Colorado, was bigger and more tastefully decorated.

And the parking was free.

Late last night, we heard godawful noises outside. One sound was familiar from our days as cat owners, when our young, slim, calico Goldberry whupped the two fat (literally) cats next door, Bert and Ernie. The other sound was totally unfamiliar.

When we went out front to have a look, there, across the street, was our neighbor's black and white cat, hissing loudly and puffed up as big as one of those red rubber balls used for dodgeball in grade school. Facing off with her was a coyote. Jim started yelling, "Shoo, shoo," and waving his arms wildly. The coyote glanced at him briefly and returned its focus to the cat. Finally Jim took his arm waving routine to the street, jogging up and down, still yelling at the coyote. After a few minutes, the coyote gave up and loped slowly west (of course) down the street.

We stood and watched the big animal until we were sure that he was well on his way. Meanwhile, the cat continued with the pufferfish imitation and non-stop hissing, no doubt convinced, in the way of all felines, that she had scared off that vicious wild animal.

. . . in a Denver neighborhood. And, no, I didn't PhotoShop in those Gothic spires in the background.

I finally went to see the "Sex and the City" movie this afternoon. Alone, which really sucked.

The movie brought back the wonderful times I've had with my girlfriends . . .

from the first night Judy and I spent in our dorm room, when she poked a hole in the ceiling with her umbrella trying to get our upstairs neighbors to stop bouncing a basketball at 1 a.m. and then tried to hide the hole with her white saddle shoe polish . . .

to countless Starbucks and endless, perfect hours of hanging out with Catherine . . .

to margaritas and bitching at Border Cantina with "The Gang" (you know who you are) . . .

to margaritas on Beth's patio (do I detect a trend?) . . .

to wandering Les Marolles and eating pastries at Teddy's with Jill.

I miss every single one of you irreplaceable women.

He has been thirsting for books, for anything to read. He has long ago finished The Riddle of the Sands, which he brought with him into NEFA, and has been reduced to reading the labels on bottles of medicine, the fine print at the bottom of army requisition forms, and as even these have run out he has started to experience a kind of panic, as if he is slowly drowning.

Vikram Chandra
from Sacred Games

another candidate was chosen, whose knowledge and experience more closely fit our requirements."

Intellectually, I realized midway through the job interview that the position would not have been a good fit. Emotionally, it was still a bit of a knock up the side of the head when the envelope arrived yesterday.

All I could think of was a fake rejection letter that one of my classmates had taped to his kitchen wall during our last term in library school, when jobs for new graduates were scarce. The letter, addressed to probably the only famous librarian whose name the public might recognize, read, in part, "Frankly, Mr. Dewey, we wouldn't even hire you to sweep our floors."

A new puppy recently moved in next door. Izzie is a goldendoodle (Golden Retriever/Poodle mix), whose bright blue, intelligent eyes and tousled, pale coat distract you from the fact that she's shredding your shoelaces while you're chatting with Tom and Melissa, her owners.

Having a puppy nearby really brings home how old Hana is (12 in September). I can't remember the last time I saw her run; she doesn't even chase the backyard squirrels, preferring to just watch them run up and down the fence. Getting to a standing position in the morning is a struggle that 500 mg of glucosamine a day doesn't make any easier. Other than her twice daily walks, which we take at her slow pace, she now spends most of her life sleeping.

Although some days (including a couple of scary ones last week) it seems as though walking around the block is too much for her, Hana loves to go hiking in the mountains, as we did Saturday near Golden. She insists on being at the head of our little group. When we stop for a water break, she quickly slurps the water in her little metal bowl and then stands impatiently waiting for us to finish drinking. Hana hates to be picked up, but when the trail became more of a boulder field than a path, she accepted tush boosts from me and let Jim lift her from a boulder that was too steep for her to scramble down.


After the hike, she joined us for a beer on the patio of the Golden City Brewery, snoozing in the shade before the bar's 4 p.m. dog curfew. We're trying to treasure such moments with this lovely animal, because we know that there may not be many more.


And on an unrelated, Wolverine-centric note:

As we were approaching Golden, we spotted a huge, block "M" on a hillside near town.


"Wow, look at that, another UM fan lives out here," we said to each other, adding, "Go Blue!" It took us a few hours to realize that the "M" was for the Colorado School of Mines, which is located in Golden. Thank God Kevin and Anne, who are Mines alumni, were far away in Brussels and couldn't knock our Maize and Blue heads together . . .

BTW, the yellow (Maize?) and white specks in the picture are parasailors.