upgrade, my a$$

i am already a teensy bit age-sensitive -- heightened by my turning 30 in mere days. and i am pretty sure my age karma is in the toilet right now, since i have been making fun of all the old-balls in my household for the past year or so. this bad mo-jo came back around earlier tonight when Budget hit me below the muffin top with a"free upgrade" to my Vegas rental car.

yes, people, for the next six days i'll be driving around fabulous Las Vegas in a brand-new MINI VAN.

i was shocked when the lady behind the counter dropped this bomb on me. holy crap. i am going to look like a soccer mom and i don't even have freaking kids yet! what have i done to deserve this?

and i'm in vegas, of all places! i should have a convertible, a spray tan, and loads of shopping bags piled in the back seat as i cruise the Strip.

"seriously? that's the only thing you have left?"

"yes. ma'am."

"that totally ruins my already iffy image. does it at least have spinners?"

(confused look)

i think she was pissed because i didn't opt for the $47/day extra insurance.

i am NOT driving anyone around in this. i am not happy about having to be seen in it at all. i guess i will just do all of my soccer-mom errands (yes, i haveto drive my Kia Sedona to Babies R Us tomorrow), and hope that i can rebound from this major psychological setback. my ovaries are recoiling in horror just thinking about driving tomorrow.

on the bright side, it is tricked out with power gadgets, iPod USB ports, digital things, safety devices, interior lighting, a heater, and only has 6 miles on it. a far cry from the soldered-together hunk of steel i call "the mini" (which i could comfortably pull into the bag of the MV with its fold-flat seating).

what am i saying? it SUCKS. i am going to go lay behind the rear tires now and hope someone puts me out of my misery.

where have all the bunnies gone?

i decided to take my new camera out into the countryside to capture british wildlife -- mainly bunnies -- in their natural habitat. apparently the bunnies have all flown south, or are snuggling in their hidey-holes. either way, no bunnies today. i found this interesting wildlife instead.

tour guide fail

i love off-season travel. no queues. no high prices. but, as i recently learned, no "open" signs, either.

my brother came for a week to see me and i had it all planned out, as usual, based on my past tour-guiding experiences with mom, dad, in-laws, and friends.

but i didn't know that jared had the same interest in old churches and museums that i did -- get in, get a photo, get the key facts, get out, get on with it. it was fantastic.

so, after what i thought would be a full day of sightseeing, we found ourselves with still an hour or two of daylight with no plans each afternoon. so we "winged it."

i am not good at winging it.

on wednesday we finished our touring and i remembered a local castle nearby. unfortunately i punched in the wrong address on the GPS so the mini was up to its rusty undercarriage in slush before we found the right route. just as we got a great parking space and it began to snow, we saw the sign "closed on tuesday-wednesday, december 1 to january 31." DaMMIT!

oh, well. it was a lovely drive.

i thought we might be able to catch the last tour at the Greene King Brewery, but we got there at 3 p.m. the last tour was at 2. DaMMIT!

so we came home with plans to get a pint at the pub before dinner. but it was the empty hour -- the time between 2:30 and 5 p.m. that pubs close for their own landlord's lunch break. no pubs, no castles, no fun.

on thursday we saw ely cathedral and toured all of cambridge and ate lunch, and still had hours of daylight! so i knew of a local manor house that was a national trust property. they had to be open. nope. closed january. all of january. DaMMIT!

on friday we went to London. i knew it would be open. except for the London Eye ferris wheel. closed the middle two weeks of January for annual maintenance. this is getting bad.

"at least i got to see the outside of a lot of things," said jared.

very funny.

i'm fired.

(but we really did have an awesome time. as if there was any doubt! :O)

i miss my grammie

before we get started i am not barefoot, nor am i pregnant. thankyouverymuch. but i did recently purchase a sewing machine.

already i have fixed four pair of trousers, three shirts, and a coat. (i use the term "fix" loosely because my seams sort of resemble the arabic alphabet: أ ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ). but i am improving, sort of. mom sent me some fabric for christmas so now dan and i have matching Oregon/Oregon State pillows, aprons, and potholders. i even made dan a coffee cosy for his cafetiere.

not only is this saving me some money in alterations, but it is providing me an "occupation." instead of watching hours of TV during the long dark winter, i watch hours of TV while pinning stuff together. or i listen to podcasts while i crookedly stitch my latest project.

as i sat concentrating on my ducks potholder, i suddenly thought of Grams. as a kid she taught me to embroider, and i sucked at that, too. but it was fun to sit next to her and work on my Simba dishtowel as we watched Perry Mason on TV. she was always occupied with sewing projects -- zillions of doilies, patchwork quilts, afghans, embroidery, braided rugs...

after a few sewing projects, i feel like i understand her a little bit more. she was drawn to sewing for the same reason i am: being occupied. productive. creating. passing time with a purpose.

i wanted to keep learning, but i kept growing up - sports, 4-H, school, driving, music, and a million other things took priority. i always thought i would get back to it later when i had more time.

when i bent the needle on my little machine yesterday, i wished for the first time in years that i could call her. i wanted to ask advice and tell her that i wanted to learn what she knew. could she teach me how to make the rows straight or join the fabrics on a corner? could she show me how to knit a scarf? would she define "basting" and "on the bias" for me? why won't my invisible hems catch right? how come the tension on the thread is so testy?

the worst part is i can call her. but she wouldn't know who i was. it's been like this for a while and we've all sort of come to terms. but this rekindling of interest in things domestic made me miss her all over again. it's horrible missing someone who is still alive.

i don't have regrets, really, because we did spend so much time together doing so many fantastic things -- from motorcycle trips, crab fishing, and mushroom hunting to walking the dogs, making biscuits on sunday, and playing Muggins in the camper -- but still, there was so much more we could have had. so much we could have learned. it is so crappy.

i miss and i love you grams, and i hope you still remember that somehow.

sliding off my chair...lift

i called my parents yesterday to thank them for being so damn cool to teach me the ins and outs of downhill skiing when i was a kid. how cheap and easy it would have been for them to teach us to "hike" or "watch tv." instead they threw in loads of time and coin, and now i am capable of not killing myself on most alpine runs. this came in handy last week as we found ourselves high in the Italian alps near a lovely ski resort called Madesimo.

we drove up 12 km of switchbacks, parked the car on an icy lot, went into a tunnel, and took a funicular (a train that goes straight up the side, or in this case inside, of a mountain) and found ourselves at the bottom of a chairlift! up, up, up, to a cable car, up, up, up. and we skiied all day long.

after lunch i said something in spantaliangish to a nice looking italian man like, "molto mille bueno montanas pretty, eh?"

"yeah, it's really beautiful."

doh...he speak-a the englaysh. i'm retarded.

we got to chatting about skiing and he said we must, must, must, must make the 1 hour drive over to Engadin, St. Moritz in Switzerland to rub shoulders with the richest people on Earth and ski some of the best terrain in the world.

thank you mr. italian man. thank you.

our day at St. Moritz was the best skiing i have ever done in my life. granted, i sucked and found myself sliding headfirst down the side of the alps at one point, but even upside down the view was spectacular. it was sunny with perfect snow. there are thousands of acres of runs. trophy wives sporting fur-lined collars and gucci glasses swooshed by us at every turn, probably heading down to meet their sugar daddies at the "reservations only" lodges to share some Cristal and steak for lunch. the parking lot was crammed with land rovers and mercedes. every once in awhile we would hear the sound of a helicopter shuttling some billionaire backcountry skier off deeper into the mountains.

it was surreal. a beautiful day with the beautiful people.

we skied into the ski-up bar and dan went to grab us a round of drinks. as we sat in the sun, enjoying the views and marveling our good fortune, trying to blend in, i said, "look at us, we're enjoying a real pint of beer, in a real glass, in real Switzerland, at one of the best ski resorts, with the richest vacationers on earth."

erin aptly pointed out, "yeah, but we're the only people who brought our sandwiches stuffed in our coats."

touche.

back over the border for us. but what a great sojourn it was to the other side.