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

It's sometimes hard to explain just how much I love to read and how cranky I feel if I'm temporarily bookless. (Truth be told, I'm happiest if I have a stack of books to read. Just to be on the safe side.) Although the Jefferson County Library system has been keeping my bedside table full, I knew I "was home" today when I visited the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver for the first time and was greeted by this huge sign on the door.

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.