1999 Dodge Dakota….sold.

Last night we saw Cake at The House of Blues. Both Andy and I agreed, it was one of the best shows we’ve ever been to. Not that I have an official list or anything, but if I did, Cake would be in the top five.

Earlier in the day, we drove the RV to the hockey rink because Andy had a game. I was an unsupportive wife and lounged in the bed for most of the game and only came in for the dramatic shoot out (pucks, not guns) that still ended the game in a tie. After, we went to the bar that the team always goes to after the game. The team votes on best players and such and reviews the video tape of the game. Once again, the RV saves the day, and after fifteen minutes of sweaty boys talking about hockey, I went out and made myself a cup of tea and made some phone calls.

After the bar, we drove to Mandalay Bay / House of Blues and saw the a fore mentioned the show. Did I mention….great show. It just happened that Nate, Andy’s hockey teammate and friend had a comped suited at THEHotel at Mandalay Bay. He’s a dealer at The Rio, and also gambles some. He went on a good run in the high limit room so they gave him the room in hopes of enticing him to gamble more. After the show we went up to the room that had become host to a poker game. The hockey team had moved from the regular Sunday night bar to the suite. I took a shower in the swankified bathroom whose sinks were full of ice and beer and then hung out in the separate bedroom and watched bad tv until around three am when the game broke up and we went to eat eggs at the cafe.

Ultimately, a good time was had by all. Although, once again, my dreams of actually finishing packing and cleaning were dashed. Tonight, I think if I can pack the dishes, I will high five myself and call it a productive day.

No laser eye surgery today. After the consultation yesterday, it was determined that since I’ve been wearing contacts for the last fourteen years and my eyes are itchy and red from allergies, I have to wait until February 24. It was disappointing, but I agree. I was given samples of and told to put one kind of drops in my eyes every two hours and other drops twice a day.

I had my eyes dilated for the first time yesterday and had the distinct displeasure to repeat it today. The doctor forgot to take a measurement. They tried to call me last night, but I didn’t get the message until too late. He thought that they would still be dilated in the morning, but it wasn’t the case. He was distracted and seemed like he was having a bad day. I said so, and he launched into a story about the divorce he’s going through with his wife of twenty years who cheated on him three times. The kids are going with her, and he just needs some peace.

Too much info dude. I’m just glad this guy is just the info gatherer and not my surgeon.

Andy and I decided (okay, I decided and Andy was a good sport) that instead of me waking up at nine and driving over for dilation torture, we would just drive the RV there and sleep. It worked out really well, but it still feels weird. This whole moving into a RV thing is taking longer than I anticipated.

Another boring, matter of fact, update:

We’re back in the house, not quite ready to make the RV jump just yet. I know I sounded absolute in the last post, but that’s just our way. Andy has some programming to do before baseball season. It’s two months away. Eight weeks isn’t long, but it isn’t short either. Tomorrow, he’s researching to figure out exactly how much he has to do, and if it will be comfortable right now to transition to the RV. More likely we will finish the baseball stuff in the house and then move on from there. Also, we’ve decided to postpone the trip to Scottsdale to get outfitted with solar. It’s just too much all at once (although throwing in LASIK sounds completely logical). We just put the truck up for sale. The ad is running for ten days. So we have to stick around and take care of it. That should be enough time to get baseball bearings, finish up cleaning and packing the house and healing from my laser eye surgery.

I know, this is all probably pretty boring stuff unless you’re us. Sorry. I’ll try to work on it. But for now, I feel that all I have in me are boring, matter of fact, updates.

I wish everyone was here and we could hang out together and tell jokes and drink chocolate martinis. That would be fun. I miss you guys….even you guys I don’t really know.

A very boring matter of fact paragraph of what we’ve been doing for the last few days:

I got back from Chicago on Saturday. Vlad the Russian Oracle was in from Denver so we hung out with him on Sunday at the Rio and used his food coupon to eat a great dinner and drink some (maybe too much) liquor. We didn’t feel like driving home and stayed in the other bed in his room. Sunday was supposed to be the big push to get the house finished. I got up early, drove home from the Rio and painted a wall and crossed off some other minor things on the “house list”. Andy came home and asked what I thought about going to Mesquite and hanging out for a couple days. Vlad and his brother were stopping in Mesquite on their way back to Denver. We had been sent some valuable coupons from the casinos there (including 2 free massages at the spa), so we decided to go. It was kind of productive for the sale of the house since we packed all of our clothes and all of the food from the house fridge and the cabinets in the RV. So now, officially (kind of) we’re living in the RV. Except not quite yet because we got free hotel rooms in Mesquite. Today we’re going back to Vegas, packing more things and trying to cross more stuff off of “the list”.

Also, last week I finally decided that I’m getting laser eye surgery. It’s scheduled for Friday. If anyone has any first hand info on the procedure and want to give me some advice, it would be appreciated.

Do other people watch the news like it’s a comedy show?

That is all to report.

Seven inches of snow in Chicago
Originally uploaded by cindigodotcom.

Not a bad picture for it being 11 pm and taken with a camera phone in night mode.

I felt nostaligic for the midwest snow tonight, standing out in the front yard with all of the flakes swirling around me and piling on my shoulders. It wasn’t cold and all the cars that crept by so they wouldn’t plow into snowbanks, honked their horns in a celebratory manner while my mom and I shoveled the driveway.

Last night I had a dream that I was trapped in my grandmother’s basement…..and angry. Also, that there was a garage sale that I had to run and was selling all the wrong stuff. No one was helping me and everyone was yelling at me and….I was angry.

Gee….I wonder what that all means.

I feel like dirt. Literally dusty, decrepit, creaky, dirty dirt. You know, that creaky kind of dirt. You’ve seen it I’m sure. This house and these people are emotional vampires, sucking fun, lightness, vibrance and the will to live out of every pore of my being. *LITERALLY* they have little baby fangs and everything. What makes it especially difficult is that I believe they do this in complete ignorance. I know that they are who they are, and I should accept them as that, but somehow, it feels very dangerous.

Not that this is any news flash or anything. I came here prepared to be polite and helpful, regardless. But after a few days of exposure, the radiation sickness starts to set in.

I spent my day touching up all of the floor moldings in the house. It took about three hours and it was too much for my first day of being almost well. Also, I really wish that I got a little more satisfaction out of the yellow and rust sploches and watery tints from my expressive wall painting being gone from the white molding. But I don’t. It doesn’t look spectacular. It looks like white molding.

Andy did amazing repairs on the RV water system. He was showing me pictures of brand new Gulfstream Ultras, and ours looks so much better than anything else. I mean, I know I’m biased, but, we really did a good job. If you pester me, I’ll post pictures.

Tonight, after Andy gets home from hockey, we’re driving the RV to the parking lot of the airport and sleeping there to make it easier to leave for our eight o’clock flight to Chicago. I think we have about another weeks worth of work in the house before it’s ready to be put on the market.

That is all to report from the green fluffy couch.

I’m sick. I usually don’t get sick, but I’ve finally succumbed. This is the sixth day, and I feel maybe I have one or two days left. Whenever I get sick, or see someone that is sick, it reminds me of a physiology class I took as part of my massage school curriculum. That class was one of my most favorites, and this includes four years of “real” college (If you consider a BFA a real degree…I personally don’t). The class was taught by a EMT/firefighter that barely graduated high school. He was pasty, looked like a hillbilly and ate nothing but pizza and hot dogs. But when that guy talked about physiology, he was a genius. It made me want to be an EMT. I still want to be an EMT. But, it’s a hard job with not great pay and a huge amount of stress. Right now is not the right time. But, maybe when we’re done traveling and live in some small town in Northern California or a place in Costa Rica or Guam I will.

On to viruses…if you want to know about them. Viruses last about seven days because of the process your body goes through to fight it. First, you get sick. Your brain says, “hey, I’m sick!” and sends a message to your thymus to produce some T cells (fighting cells). The thymus doesn’t know which ones are the best for the job and sends out a bunch of different ones. They go out and do battle. After engaging the enemy, they come back to the thymus. The thymus then knows which ones were the best fighters. The thymus asks the brain what to do. The brain has the thymus configure some effective fighters and then sends T cell troupes out again. Now they fight the full scale war, and unless your immune system is compromised in some way, probably win. This process takes about a week.

The thymus is a gland located under your sternum. When you see King Kong beating on his chest, that’s the gland he’s hitting. When you’re sick, banging on your chest (you don’t have to do it King Kong style) is supposed to loosen any mucous and stimulate the thymus.

Obviously I’m paraphrasing, and possibly not giving you totally correct information. Since I have a sore throat and a stuffy nose and am pretty comfortable here on the couch with me tea, I wasn’t going to root around in the box where I know where my physiology notebook is to make sure.

I guess my plan of coming back from San Diego and being a tornado of cleaning, packing and organizing so we could list the house before we left for Chicago was just a pipe dream . We did meet with a realtor yesterday and have a meeting with another today and tomorrow (along with a carpet cleaning). It was a little shocking to find out that with realtors fees and closing costs, we’re expecting about a $17,000 bill. We’re looking into alternative selling methods or trying to find a realtor that will be a little more flexible on commission. Hopefully, these next two will have a better scenario, because going with a realtor will be the easiest way.

scorp caught in the living room
Originally uploaded by cindigodotcom.

Since we don’t have any more pets, we thought we would start adopting other types of strays.

This guy was in our living room last month. I took the picture, and forgot to post it. Andy trapped him in a glass and we put him in the park.

upsidedown orangatang
Originally uploaded by cindigodotcom.

We are back from San Diego. I am nursing my mildly sore throat with peach oolong tea. Now, on top of being a water snob, hair snob (which I’ll talk about in a minute), I’m also a tea snob. I started going to teavana and buying amazing and delicious loose teas. Now, Starbuck’s tazo tastes like brackish bog water.

As far as being a hair snob, I just came back from the salon. My hair looks fucking fantastic! The only other time that I thought that my hair looked good, was the last time I went to see Butch (yes, that’s his real name). Since I’ve moved here, I’ve had three different people at different places work on my hair. All with varying degrees of success. I was mildly satisfied with the results, but always came home disappointed in something that didn’t look or feel like I wanted. I always blamed myself and my communications skills. I’m a snob because I already way paying outrageous cash to cut and dye my hair. Now, I’m paying double. I’m a bad person…I know. If I were a good person, I would take that cash and feed a family of four in a third world country for a year and let that satisfy me. But…I just can’t…stop…petting….my…..pretty hair.

The trip back from San Diego was fun. We stopped last night in Baker and “boondocked” in the parking lot of The Mad Greek. Although when we woke up this morning one of our four new tires was deflated. We rolled across the street and put air in it and made it the rest of the way of the way home and directly to the tire shop. They said it was a valve, the tire was fine, and didn’t charge us.

Murphy the dog is now in her new San Diego digs. Nova says that she’s doing fine and is very happy. Although her walks consist of going three houses away because she just can’t make it anymore, her tail is wagging and her eyes say thank you. I’m glad she’s in a place where she can lay in the grass as long as she wants, soak up the sun and enjoy her days in peace. It’s an adjustment not having any quadrapeds around, but an adjustment that I’m very willing to make. Just an hour ago, I cut myself a pear and was walking out of the kitchen to find Murphy to give her the pear core.

Now, Andy is at a Wrangler’s game (LV ice hockey team). I’ve returned a few emails, changed our phone plan and have procrastinated by writing about my hair. I have some things to list on Ebay and Craigslist and an entire garage full of things to sort out. I may just leave it all until tomorrow.

andy and cindy at the san diego zoo
Originally uploaded by cindigodotcom.

We went to the San Diego Zoo today. It was one of the most amazing and fun places I’ve been to date. I’d tell you all about it, but my husband has left the power cord to his computer in Las Vegas. This means that usually we would both be engrossed in our laptops, but since he has no juice, he’s milling about making sarsastic comments about laptop use. I should pay attention to him and talk to you all later.

We’re leaving for Vegas tomorrow. All next week is about cleaning the house like a mad tornado, shining it up and getting rid of everything that won’t be usefull in a RV. We’re leaving for Chicago on the thirteenth, coming back to Vegas sometime before the 29th so we don’t miss the Cake show at the House of Blues, and then we’ll be off to Scottsdale AZ to outfit our new “house” with solar power.

We are in San Diego. The maiden voyage in the RV is half way done, and I didn’t even post about it. I’m going to, I swear.

Highlights:

A day of shopping (instead of packing) on $375 worth of gift cards received as a “gift”. It’s a good story.
Starting our voyage at 11 pm and not being able to make the drive.
Eating at the Mad Greek in Baker.
Sleeping in a Starbucks parking lot.
Thinking we may have had a flat tire.
Buying four new tires our first day here, thanking god that we didn’t blow out the old sun damaged, worn tires on the trip here.
Spending the morning sending out all of the Amazon books that sold and carted to San Diego…..there were alot of them.
Finding out that it is nearly impossible for Murphy the dog to walk, much less stand up once she is down, on wood floors.
Eating sushi for dinner, and Kung Food (vegan smorgesbord) for lunch.

Now, after showers, we are driving to Wall Mart to park on a level surface. Sleeping last night at a five degree angle was just uncomfortable enough to not get a good nights rest.

Tomorrow, The San Diego Zoo and looking into buying “booties” for Murphy so she can walk. Just one more thing in the long line of embarrassments that Murphy the dog has had to bear.