Category Archives: Uncategorized

Finally we were able to add The Foodie Blogroll.  I’ll do another post about our one-year blog-anniversary but for most of it our kind free host knew our difficulties and took its time to work it out so other sites could be listed here.  Finally I got some Jimmy time to install.

We are having organic chicken breasts on the bone with full breading/panko using a smoked paprika bbq spice I really like.  Also sauteed baby red potatoes with onion, in bacon fat of course.  Bad girl.  Finish with a lettuce wedge for Jim and some sugar snap peas for me.

More tomorrow.  Thanks for hanging in there.  Cheers!  Dee

I wrote a post about moving and insurance and one of the “relevant” posts listed is about vasectomies. I think WordPress needs my husband’s help to tweak their algorithms. Perhaps having a vasectomy can be a “moving” experience. Dee

When a pack rat (not a hoarder) contemplates moving 1,500 miles away for six months, deciding what to take along in two medium cars is a problem. At least for me.

I drove the Acura. Jim drove the Honda with Zoe, the dog. Aside from clothing that can get us through the next six months (didn’t concentrate on winter so of course it snows every day) I brought: our wedding photo; my knives, utensils and a crock to put them in; tea towels (at least 40); our down comforter and duvet cover, sheets, pillows and pillow cases; my spice rack; additional spices and my salt dish and pepper mill. I’ve already bought a Farberware pan in which to cook Jim’s eggs.

Jim brought: PlayStation III; games; electronics including both MacBooks, my 24″ monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse (2); and that’s about it.

I brought French pop-up sponges and scrubbies from Trader Joes and Sur La Table.

So, if you had to transport stuff for six months on the road in one car, what would you take with you? I remember a lady was packing up for Hurricane Rita. We took essential documents (passports, wedding certificate, birth certificates, car titles) and clothing for a few days, plus dog food and water.

She had her entire closet in her SUV and was going back for a pair of Jimmy Choo’s that she couldn’t live without. Priorities.

Mac and cheese night tonight. With a lovely salad of young greens and I’ll make a sherry vinaigrette. Keep cooking! Dee

This afternoon Zoe and I moved into a home near Park City UT for the duration of his contract, nearly six months. It is a two bedroom, three bath, one car garage ski condo that backs up to a nature preserve less than ten feet away.

We have no Internet until late Wednesday so cannot show you photos or describe the beauty of the adjacent mountains and marshland. I took all I could carry out of my car, dragged suitcases upstairs and haven’t yet unloaded them from this morning.

Taking a break looking out at the view I saw a red-tailed hawk just still, riding the air currents, for about two minutes before he swooped down. A moment ago two geese stopped at the stream about 15’ away and flew off honking.

As to skiing I believe I may be seeing The Canyons, part of Park City and perhaps Deer Valley. Despite snow and cold temperatures the sun does melt snow so everything is kind of brown and dead-looking. We hope Jim comes home soon. No word yet but at least it’s not snowing.

Two more fronts are forecasted for this week, one for Tuesday-Wednesday, another for Thursday-Friday. I got up here in 20 minutes on dry roads.

I’ll get you photos when I finally have Internet service but the difference between here and our lovely extended stay is 1,000%. Now Zoe just has to get used to it. I don’t know where to walk her. She’s just had her dinner and will need to go out.

I’m not cooking tonight, but it’s not because of the Maytag and Jenn-Air appliances. We need to finish unloading the SUV and the Honda tonight and find a real box-cutter so I can dispense with this stupid paper cutter from Walgreens.

The view is terrific and will look lovely in summer. The small streams must have just unfrozen and waterfowl are everywhere. Ducks keep landing in the stream right by us and Zoe doesn’t care. She lets out her alarm for any person or child who strolls or jogs by. She’s only been here a few hours.

One of the things that sold me on this place is the slate tile, granite and appliances. Also that it was a smaller place than others and was certainly not a “Frat House” and I’ve seen one of those.
Everything is clean and orderly. I’ll have my shopping list and go tomorrow to cook a nice meal, once I inventory the cooking materials. I’m not adding to my kitchen pots and pans unless absolutely necessary.

The birds are done and have gone home for the night. Jim is trying to get home to our new place as well. He’ll call a few minutes out and I’ll talk him in. After all, someone’s got to get a fire going.

I think there’s a Domino’s nearby. Delivery would be great tonight. Interesting I was told that every home in Utah must have a land line (sop to AT&T, probably) in case of emergency. That’s like telling us that every e-mail we ever send must also be sent in the mail to that person with a huge amount of postage.

I thought Texas was unnecessarily paternalistic. Utah, I have only been here a few days so need time to figure that out. In TX I would be making more Spring dishes about now. Here it’s still winter and I have a stew or few to try before the snows stop blowing.

There’s a farmer’s market June – October a couple of miles away once a week. Concert series. Movies are within walking distance. Whole Foods is as well. I’m still looking for a drycleaner.

Hope Jim gets here before dark. Zoe’s looking out on the expanse and mountains, just showing the lack of info as where Jim will come from.

Have a great evening and cook well. As soon as I get my kitchen, desk and Internet set up I’ll be back with you. Cheers, Dee

‘Tis the wrong season for these lyrics. When the roads cleared I used a box from the car to get the snow off. Then I headed out to Walgreens for two car window scrapers.

I found them and cleaned off Jim’s car and put his present in the trunk. I moved both cars to plowed locations. I’m starting to be able to see the mountains again, a little bit.

Even the drugstore had put out its Spring display with Easter and gardening items. They didn’t expect this storm either.

Got a lot done today, not pretty stuff. A lot of organizing and phone calls. Moving stuff from cars, literally getting my feet wet in Utah.

We need to find a place to lay our heads at night that is not a hotel. That is my quest. As a pioneer I’m wanting.
When we crossed Wyoming there was a spot pioneers gathered on July 4th because they they could reach their destination before the first snowfall. We flew through there at 75 mph. There are wagon ruts in the stone five feet deep in some places. It’s our first time driving the checkerboard states, but can you imagine moving a family knowing it would take that long?

Then again, Nurse Margie would say that slowing the ascent would mitigate altitude sickness. So perhaps we should have taken two mules and a dog. And Sister Sarah and Clint Eastwood for good measure.

Hope you’re cooking the things I can’t on two burners and a microwave right now. Don’t make me write a book on how to live in an extended stay suite. No way. The Knights Who Say Ni would not approve.

Sunshine, still can’t see the mountains. Perhaps I’ll take a few photos tomorrow. Now it’s up to me to order pizza. We’re exhausted and Jim just got home from his first day of work. Cheers, Dee

They’re very small in OK, KS, CO and not in WY as we’re only 12 miles in. Very small and with a lot of verbiage. “Make sure you don’t do this because it’s against state law.” When you’re 1/4 mile away you see the sign, try to read it and miss most of it because you have to keep your eyes on the road.

Signage is bad, as in none from TX to I-35 North to OK City, and none whatsoever guiding one to true I-70 to Denver. I did pass one sign that said the next three exits would take one to the Pike’s Peak area, an area that my Aunt Lorna explored as a twenty-something en route from SF, in her Mustang. I thought of her today.

We had no time to loiter, however, as we need to get to our destination and find a place to live.

I had a dream last night that we had an additional box to pack, not a box, a drawer, a shallow drawer. And I needed to pick up jigsaw puzzle pieces. Think what a shrink could do with that one. There were other things in the drawer but I don’t remember.

I enjoyed driving a checkerboard state, as I’ve only seen them from 35,000 feet. As for Denver, we were tolled $7.50 each car to drive five miles. Smog, yuck, I never saw the City but what people go through to work there looks abominable and we hit the outskirts at 4:00 p.m. pre-rush hour.

Wish we could spend a bit of time in Cheyenne but we really do need to finish this endless journey. We did great on the driving, the packing and moving fell behind.

This hotel is lovely, and for the weekend it is populated by beauty pageant contestants and the “Border Queens” of the Ms. Wyoming Pageant. The Border Queens are here at the hotel tonight and it’s a sight to see. There are a few people I know who would like to take that title, but not in this venue.

It’s quiet, Jim and Zoe are sleeping soundly (it makes a difference when there are actual walls between rooms, which folks understood when this was built in 1911). Otherwise Zoe protects us from every voice, door opening, etc. in a hotel because she’s not used to the sounds.

Off to bed now. More at our final destination, no not THAT one. Dee

We’re moving. Two full cars, two adults, one dog. Not only do we need to watch our cars full of stuff, drive separately and travel in tandem, we find it difficult to find a place to stay that will allow our dog. Our places have run the gamut from a crummy place in a swanky part of Houston; to the best hotel of all, Jim’s parents’ farm; to a dismal Holiday Inn Express (we thought that brand was a standard but it’s not, at least out west); and tonight, a lovely 1911 hotel in historic Cheyenne, WY overlooking the Union-Pacific train station and Cheyenne Depot.

It has been an adventure, but too often as dog owners we’ve been placed with a view of the dumpster, and between the elevator and ice machine. So these hotels pretend to have a pet-friendly policy but have their worst possible room available for the sucker who dares take it.

They always say “We’ll put you on the first floor so it’ll be easy to take the dog out” and in code that means “Stay off the elevators and out of public areas. Stick to the back where no-one can see you.”

Forget about eating. We’ve had more delivery pizza and drive-in Sonic burgers than one should eat in a lifetime in the past week. No-one will even serve us on a patio. It’s been too warm to leave her in the car, and she freaks out being left alone in a hotel room.

Tomorrow, as we reach our final destination, we’ll have a good place to stay, I hope. It’s been booked and we look forward to a relaxing evening before finding a place to live and starting work on Monday.

For those hotels that treated us well, you’ll hear from me. The opposite is true as well. Gone is the day when a hotel lives in a vacuum. I’m fifty and have my first blog. I have a plethora of electronics that connect me to the world for free. Does a hotelier really think that pretending to have a pet-friendly policy will make it these days?

Pet owners spend a lot of money in the US. When only 2.5 star or lower hotels are available to us that’s an insult. We’re used to staying at three-star or better and are willing to pay the price, but not to be treated as “steerage” once we get there.

I walked Zoe tonight, while Jim ordered take-out because we weren’t allowed near a restaurant. I actually wish we could spend some time here because it seems like it has an interesting history. But we have to go on. I arranged for a six-hour travel day tomorrow so we can finally rest.

Zoe doesn’t know who I am anymore. I’m just the lady that feeds her and follows her place to place. And tells her to be quiet as she humpphs and growls whenever anyone opens their hotel door. Jim pulled up by me today and Zoe looked at me and knew me and the car. All I can think is that she and Jim are running away and I keep catching up to them every evening! Hey, I never got the Aerobed/vacuum cleaner connection in a dog’s mind…

Cheers, Dee

First, thank you WordPress, for giving my entries top posts on the Editorial blog. Also thanks for creating new blogs just because I wrote something esoteric that you thought fellow bloggers and readers might like. You just created one for my Aunt Lorna’s Smith-Corona portable electric typewriter, and others. It’s not an Oscar, but a reward for work whose only remuneration is the work and readers and that is much appreciated.

As I sit at a small typewriter return desk already packed for moving, with a book reader lamp as my light, there’s another topic I’d like to cover.

Pyrex. Of course I’ve a couple 8X8 baking pans and lasagne pan. But it’s the bowls. Aunt Lorna gave me the blue bowl, the smallest one that always breaks, from her grandmother. Then Jim’s mother gave me one from her family, yes we have two blues now.

Then it steps up to a red, a green and a yellow is the icing on the cake. If this set fits into the cars that would be fantastic. I love these bowls and may have written about them before. Jim’s mother got me everything but the blue for a great price at a country antique store. As Dallas moves into those areas I hope they raise their prices!

I don’t have a photo for you but may get you one shortly as it’s very late and Jim and Zoe are asleep and I don’t want to use a flash because everything’s pretty open here.

I believe the bowls were made in the fifties, perhaps before then. They are a joy to have and know their history and the people who used them. These things matter to me. Anything that came from family matters to me, like the cutting board I used tonight to cut up a pot roast of Wobbly, the fattest calf on the farm who became dinner. It was tasty, with egg noodles. The bowls, Wobble and a lot of stuff we have are family legacies, like the cutting board made from the grandfather who died two weeks before I was born.

A box from my mother arrived today. I don’t have time to open and close it again so its contents will remain a surprise for 1-6 months. It’s quite light and I hope it contains her 1950’s Revere Ware potato masher. Will let you know when I open it.

Probably 2-3 days packing left then movers to storage. Then we get on the road, visit Jim’s folks and Nanny and head out with both cars, the dog and fully-packed cars.

I don’t think my putting a label “CAR” on the Pyrex would work. We need too many other things but it’ll be well-packed and safe in storage. Just looking at them makes me think of days past when we ate cherries from the farm stand down the street or baby strawberries down the path to the creek.

The midnight hours when I’m sweating the move and all is the only time I can write and writing helps me get tired enough to go to sleep, so that’s what I’ll try to do. You take care now, Dee

The rest of us don’t. Obama talks about pain then the papers talk about David Axelrod’s home Wednesday meetings at his place overlooking the Washington Monument and all the new suits he bought to be a presidential advisor. Yada yada yada.

People are losing their jobs and homes and all the new government can do is hand out billions to the people who have put us into that situation (granted, banking rules were pretty laissez-faire under Bush). Let’s say one only needs 10K to get out of a hole, do you think a bank or insurance company or car manufacturer believes in trickle-down? No way! The banks ate all theirs and said basically that they had it in a vault not accessible to anyone but them. That’s because Congress never required use for specific purposes or reportability standards of how the money was used. Shame on us, taxpayers, for allowing so many inept people to represent us! Forget $10K, just ask for a billion and they’ll hand it over. How about we collectively ask $430 Billion and share it. They care more about their hair and how they look on TV.

If you’re out of work now I’ll start doing recipes that require more effort but little money. It’ll take some research. But you need to write in and tell me what you need. Tell me what your family likes and I’ll try to help you out. It may take a week or two because this economy is making us move and we’re packing boxes for the next few days.

I am so upset at this economy, how the Feds allowed the banks, insurance companies and Bernie Madoff and his ilk rob the people. Every billion the government spends “fixing” the economy comes out of our pockets. We’re paying the mortgages that weren’t paid on homes foreclosed. We’re paying AIG and the big banks for being greedy. Pay them once, pay them twice. Keep saying that and I’m switching to the GOP! More likely libertarian.

The have-nots have not. Always. I wish I had the answer to poverty. Mother Teresa simply served the needy and gave them hope. She did great work during her lifetime. Without jobs, I don’t know the answer.

As we drive across country I’ll know the state of the nation, like if I see a recent Ferrari or Porsche parked at the $39 Super 8 motel…. they’re just conserving their last bonus and looking for work.

I wish you well in this economy. If you have a job, try to keep it. It’s he!! out there on the streets. Cheers, Dee

ps And stop talking about Michelle Obama’s biceps.

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Dear Government:

We request $430 billion because we need the money. We are out of work and can’t get work and are being thrown out of our houses. AIG has cancelled our insurance and our 401(K)’s have gone kerflooie. Our insurance is toast as well, as are our stocks. Your dismal efforts to assure the futures of the companies that exist to take our money have failed. Yet you continue to pour more billions into these morally bankrupt institutions.

We suggest you give it to us. We gave it to you and you’re giving it back to the corporations that let us down. In the end, who is more trustworthy? Us or them? The number came out of the sky, no, not God or anything. I just wanted to shake a head or two. While you’re at it please beef up the FDA (peanut butter) and the SEC (who let Madoff and his ilk have their day in the sun). Thank you from our vast constituency of readers, Dee

[I’ll work on it some more between packing boxes]