table I think I'm going to buy

You can't tell because of the flash, but there are a series of holes in the table filled with turquoise. It looks really cool. The craftsman who made it said "I wanted to make a blackjack table/desk/dining room table". It has three legs. Very elegant.

Here's the picture from the other side. The natural holes in the table are filled with turquoise and black resin. Very cool. Half artwork, half table. The legs are made from bristle cone pine, the oldest still living tree in the world.

Note that the redwood was salvaged from dead fallen trees, it was NOT cut down (same with the bristle cone pine wood). The guy who made this table, Ken Lindstrom, is an amazing artist. He made a kitchen table, a bench, and a side table for my parents.

you should be paranoid

I don't think I'm very paranoid, but I think my dad is, a little. But maybe we're the same.

Yesterday at Castlewood Canyon I was freaking out about snakes. My dad was like "there are no snakes out here! the water puddles have ice on them! it's too cold!" And then an hour later he kicked a snake thinking it was a branch. The snake luckily slithered away instead of biting him.

After the snake incident we went to the visitor center, where my car was parked, to report our sighting on the board where you write what wild life you've seen. Then we walked out to do an inner canyon hike. But about 5 minutes into the hike my dad said "did you see your car in the parking lot?" I was like "no, but I wasn't looking for it." He was like "I don't think I saw your car". I was like "dude, we are in the middle of no where. Who would steal my car?" and he said "yeah, because it has 178,000 miles on it, who would steal that?"

But then I kept thinking, was my car still in the parking lot? Wouldn't I have noticed the absence, rather than the presence, of my car? I freaked out the rest of the hike, worried about my car (was it there??? did someone steal it???) and snakes.

My car was there. We didn't see any snakes the rest of our hikes.

Then today, when we were driving home from a trip to Salida (I think I just bought a table made from a redwood tree that's a few hundred years old...have to sleep on it) and Buena Vista (we did a hike partially up Yale, were turned back by snow, I can only wear my running shoes with my broken toe so didn't have real boots on) we had a major calamity.

In the morning, driving to Salida (it's a two hour drive from Denver on a very windy and steep road) I noticed that my passenger headlight was out. No prob, I thought, and I turned on the running lights, figuring I could get by on one headlight until tomorrow. But tonight, around 8 pm, as we were on the steepest and worst part of 285 headed back to Denver, with no ambient light, all of my headlights suddenly went out. We were headed into a steep curve, there were no cars with lights on around me, and I couldn't see shit. Luckily my reflexes were faster than normal and I managed to get my brights on (they were the only lights working - my driving lights and running lights all went out at almost the same time). I knew they weren't that bright because no one was flashing me, but I figured we'd be okay for the rest of the 45 minute drive home.

But then I noticed the brights were flickering and, frankly, they weren't that bright. I got so nervous that they were going to go out that I started sweating and my glasses fogged up. My dad was hanging onto the oh shit handle. I think we were both willing the lights to stay on at least until we got to my neighborhood (it's not uncommon for cars to drive around here without headlights).

Anyway, we made it home safe and then my dad made me turn on and off all of my lights to prove that, in fact, they had all failed on the same day. He said it's a one in a million chance that that would happen.

Lucky me. I'm feeling...paranoid.

my dad was on NPR

http://www.wvxu.org/news/wvxunews_article.asp?ID=9218

My favorite quote is about the gas streams.

out of season

Today my dad and I went for a hike at Castlewood Canyon. There, he was walking, after reassuring me as we were walking through tall grass that it was too cold for snakes to be out, when he suddenly stepped back into me and said "Oh!" I was like what????? and he said I stepped on a snake.

Numerous snakes had been spotted there, it turns out...

at least it was the right airport

My family is always late picking me up at the airport. One cold winter day when I had flown into Cincy my dad was 45 minutes late picking me up because he decided to rake some leaves. My brother left me waiting at Dulles one time for almost three hours because he decided, even though he was only 15 miles from the airport, to go home and feed his cat (then had to drive to his house and back to the airport in rush hour traffic).

So I decided to be on time to pick up my dad this morning (he flew out here for vacation, is staying until Sunday). Surprisingly though his flight got in much earlier than expected and his bags arrived 5 minutes after he got to the main terminal (that has never, in 7 years of flying in and out of DIA, happened to me).

I had left him a message telling him that I would pick him up at arrivals and to wait under the southwest sign. Luckily I called as I approached the terminal to make sure he got my message. He said "yeah, but I'm waiting at departures under the Frontier sign." Hm. Because he thought I would find him there easily????

So I swerved over to take the road to departures rather than arrivals but ended up in the wrong lane, for commercial vehicles. I had to wait for 7 taxis to go through the gate before I could take the exit back to the lane for normal cars.

And then we went to the botanic gardens. Fun. I love that place. Tomorrow we're hiking, Thursday going to Salida, not sure what's on deck after that...