Sweet Sixteen!

Today (June 30) is Miss Ginger's birthday! If you follow the dog years logic, that makes her right around 112 in human years. But by the Gregorian calendar, today she is 16! Stay off the roads, people.

Like someone who is around 112 years, she sometimes falls asleep mid-conversation... And sometimes mid...walk... Who can resist a good sunbeam? Lounging in sunbeams is what the golden years are for!

When we adopted these two at age 7, their first owners had divorced and neither could/would keep them. One travelled too much, the other's new husband was allergic. But they were AKC registered purebreds. (Even the pedigreed can suffer a broken home.) So in their packet of AKC paperwork was this pic of them at about 6 months old. That makes her only about 3.5 in dog years here! :)

Who among us doesn't have a few more grays? For her birthday, my husband got her this awesome new collar... He does a good job shopping for her... they are both autumns.

I went with a more obvious gift for someone as on in years as she is.

My husband says with the tabs, it looks a bit like a hospital gown. I have to agree.

CAKE, WOMAN. WHERE IS MY CAKE?

We just hope she doesn't take control of the remote, what with paws now freed of the encumbrances of a regular blanket.

Window Installation, with Wiener Dog (Age 16)

Happy Birthday G!! We're not typically huge "pet birthday" sorts of folks, but really....16?! Who would have ever imagined!?! In honor of G's milestone, I present for you a series I took called Window Installation, with Wiener Dog.

Girl...uhm...Girl...uh....there are some guys in the house... and they are taking out the windows... we...uh.. kinda... need the windows...

Hey! Girl! You aren't listening to me! Stop typing!! Windows I say, windows!!
OK, fine. I'll walk around the chair and try your left side... Uhm...Girl...they appear to be taking out ALL of the windows... oh heavens... this is not good...

GIRL! I am beginning to think you don't fully comprehend these dire circumstances!!

Guuu-uuu-uuu-urrrlllllll!!! I'm freee-kkiinnng ooouttt!!!!

GIIIIIRL! I! NEED! YOU! TO! LISTEN!! HELP! HELLLP!! GIRL! WINDOWS! MEN! WIENER DOGS! HEEEEEELP!
GIRL!! Thphbllbpthphtht!!!


WOMAN!! PUT THAT DAMNED CAMERA DOWN!! THIS IS NOT A SCENE FROM THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT!!!!

GEEZ... Despite your complete and utter incompetence, I would like to thank YOU for FINALLY coming to your senses. You should have NO problem typing with an 11-pound wiener dog in your lap. Back to work, you. SOMEONE has to keep a wiener dog in the lifestyle to which she's accustomed.

Play ball!

My company picnic was last weekend...minor league baseball! The Hawks are a farm team for the Cubs.

I have been playing with the panoramic feature on my...cell phone! Not bad! The boys were sitting in the front, girls up top!
The Hawks have been playing at this site since the turn of the century... NAW! Only since 1989. I just messed with this pic I took until it looked antiquey. Baseball is just extry charming in black-n-white.

This was a real, honest-to-goodness rainbow that we got during the game. It looks like a huge shooting star, but that's just the field lights. I'm thinking of trying to sell this to Successories. ;)

Happy early Independence Day! I continue to be impressed with the amazing phone on my camera -- it captured the fireworks -- in a not half-bad manner, neither! I am looking to replace my phone, and worry I will be sorely disappointed with the replacement.

Denver: Dead Animals!

And lastly, one of the highlights of our trip was our visit to the Buckhorn Exchange: Dead animal central.

It has been in business since the 1800s, has Denver's liquor license No. 1 on the wall, and is jam-packed with animal mounts. This pack of antelope was peering down on our dining table!

Gotta love a neon sign that says simply, "Antelope."

Cape buffalo are just about as weird looking as musk ox...oxen...(?) We both ordered buffalo, and also got a rattlesnake appetizer. The cabbie recommended the gator, but we figured Denver was more snake country.

No animal was safe from this establishment!!

This is the second largest typical elk ever shot in Colorado on a Tuesday with a pistol over your left shoulder while wearing a Batman mask, or some other such claim to fame. The waiter, who was becoming increasingly annoyed with me (9 p.m. reservations on a Saturday night...I get it!) indicated that once a month a crew of staff VACUUM the surfaces of the mounts for dust to keep them pristine. I hope to never vacuum an elk. That's just me.

Denver: Pub Crawl!

So during my planning I ran across a couple of pub crawl tours of local craft breweries. Which seemed fun to me, but which I knew my husband would not like. He's not big on the guided tour. So we decided to create our own! First up: an English pub across from the Museum. Here we had a weird appetizer that amounted to french fries covered in brown gravy, swiss cheese, and curry powder. Uh...yeah. This place claims to have the largest selection of single malt whiskies outside of Europe, at over 260. Impressive! Those are them behind this fellow I don't know.

Next up, a taxi cab over to the Coors Field area to visit Great Divide Brewing, whose tag line is, "Great minds drink alike." Hee hee!

And the last spot on our tour? A champagne bar!! A pub crawl that ends at a champagne bar? Sign me up!! I LOVE this place. All jeweled lighting and black velvet and white leather...and little sayings on the wall, like Noel Coward's famous, "Why do I drink champagne for breakfast? Doesn't everyone?" Hee hee!

Look! Champagne grows on trees at this magical place!!
I consider it obligatory... ;)

And thus ended our pub crawl. Heh!

Denver: Rain.

Have you ever heard that Denver gets some 300 days of sunshine a year?

No really, that's what they say.

Maybe its a good thing Bono postponed on us....
Because Invesco Field is an outdoor stadium...

And the show would likely have been a sloppy mess.

Denver: Art Museum

Up next: Off to the art museum! I love this giant broom and dustpan out front....

But probably even more than that, I loved the plaque that accompanied it. Which was lucky, because I do blame the broom for the degradation of contemporary morals.

I couldn't help but want to be photographed with this higher ed art, what with only 12 days left!!

Go Ducks! Hee hee! These ones are from the Eastern Han Dynasty of China, c. A.D. 25-220.

I love that folks from the Huron tribe, circa 1800, (a) needed business cards, (b) needed a case for them, (c) decorated it up so dang fancy!

Guess who made this steer-horn armchair? Our friends over at Tiffany & Company, c. 1880.

Here's Hellboy...I mean my husband... in the middle of an awesome installation called Fox Games. I LOVED it! Everything's painted red, except the gray foxes jumping all over stuff! It was really hard to shoot in all that red tho...CLEARLY.

And lastly, some 'art' of my own...the capital through the glass blocks in the staircase. We HAD to use the staircases, the elevators were unbearably slow AND full. And I don't do full elevators. :)

Denver: The Brown Palace

So first on the list, over the Spa at the Brown Palace for massages! The Brown has been there since 1892 and is full of history and old-timey and time-honored tradition and blah blah blah. We visited one of their many onsite restaurants, "The Ship." My sailor and I were pretty underwhelmed.

I was, however, impresessed with their spa. LOVE a full-service spa.

I'm also very picky about my spa shoes. Theirs are custom-printed. Nice touch!

I just love chandeliers. So jewel-y and fancy. Upon leaving the spa, I grabbed a bottle of nail polish -- OPI Russian Navy! -- which my husband so generously paid for, along with our massages! When I thanked him he said, "Well...I'll pretty much buy you whatever you want..." WHAT!?! Why didn't I know this 18 years ago!? ;)

I really like this big blue bear at the convention center. This piece is called "I See What You Mean."

This awesome piece was at the McCormick & Schmick's where we dined. [What!? We don't have one in Boise!] I'm pretty sure "put a hat on Uncle Wiggily" is going to be the euphemism of 2011.