Happy Holidazzle, Peeps!

Can you guess what we did after dinner?  It was pretty dang cold out there on the street for the Holidazzle parade, but we made a pit stop at the hotel to add another layer of clothing before we lined up along the parade route.  This is one show that never gets old!  I didn't get too many photos because I had to take my gloves off to work my camera, and because the guy standing next to me kept sticking his smart phone right in my line of vision to get his own shots.  Grrrrr!  But we had a good time, just the same.  Here are a couple of the better ones, though you can see the phone guy's phone in the bottom corner of the third one.

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Fondue for Two

Friday afternoon, Walker and I packed up and hit the road.  Our destination?  Downtown Minneapolis, baby!

My love affair with downtown Minneapolis started many years ago, when I took my first-ever business "trip" alone to the Federal Reserve District Nine offices for a training seminar.  I drove myself in my Olds 98, a huge boat of a car that rode so smooth it felt like you were driving a living room.  I felt very grown up in my navy blue "power suit" and high heels.  I don't know how I did it, but I found my way to downtown so easily that I had two hours to kill before my seminar, so I wandered Nicollet Mall.

I remember going into what was then the Dayton's flagship store (it's now Macy's) to buy a headband, after my big 80's hair went flat on my drive up.  I also remember the prices in Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus.  I took a photo of myself in a photo booth somewhere along the Mall.  I bought little gifts for the two  guys I was dating (yep, two, but I was young and they both knew I was seeing "other people"), and I remember changing into jeans and a thick sweatshirt in my car after the seminar.  Probably would not do that now.  I had to drive back the same day, but what a fabulous time I had wandering downtown before, and after, my training.

The thing that fascinates me about downtown is, when you look at most of the buildings from the street they look like ordinary office buildings.  But step inside!  There are little cities behind those facades.  In one building you can shop, eat, work, party, and make your way home to an apartment upstairs.  You just have no idea what you'll find when you enter one of those buildings.  To a small town girl like me, it's just this side of magic.  And the buildings have names!  How cool is that, LOL?

So nearly every year, around Christmas, we head to Minneapolis and spend a few days downtown.  We missed one year a couple years back due to snowstorms, and last year we had to skip because I was still taking radiation therapy every day.  Naturally, missing last year made this year just that much more special.  Since I plan all these trips, I decided that this year we'd try some things that neither of us had done before.  Enter the Melting Pot.

I've had fondue before, but this was a first experience at a fondue restaurant for both Walker and me.  We opted not to take the "full meal experience", since you have to allow three hours to dine for that.  Instead, we had the "cheese and chocolate" option.  The tables are inset with glass burners, like a small stove top, and  the server makes the fondue right there, right at the table, in a cook pot on the burner.  Our server heated some sherry, added scallions, stirred in shredded cheese, and finished off with some chopped green onions and bleu cheese crumbles.  She gave us long handed dipping forks, a big bowl of bread cubes, a smaller bowl of cut up veggies, and a small bowl of cubed Granny Smith apples.  Five minutes later:

Walker is very dedicated when it comes to eating cheese.  Another server stopped by just after this photo to take our empty pot away, but Walker informed her that there was still a lot of good cheese to be had.  Um, okay, honey, if you say so, LOL.  And then it was time for chocolate.

They actually light the chocolate sauce on fire.  See the blue in the pot?

Dang good stuff!  We dipped strawberries, banana slices,marshmallows, rice crispie treats, and cheesecake. 

Walker was one happy boy!

Ernie Strikes Again

Yesterday, Walker made a delicious dinner of roasted chicken and garden salad.  When we sat down to eat, Ernie came running, begging as she always does for her share of the chicken.  She actually likes salad, too, but cutting it small enough for her is a pain so she rarely gets it. Anyway: I wasn’t fast enough dicing her meat up so she showed her impatience by putting her feet up on my leg and letting out a wail.  I looked down at her and about lost my lunch -  her left eyeball looked like it was full of blood.

 

It wasn’t like that when I went to bed that morning, so I figured she had injured herself somehow during the day while Walker and I were both asleep. I immediately called the vet, who agreed to see us right away last night.  I called my office to let them know I would be late and bundled Ernie into her crate.  Off we went.

 

Ernie is a bit of a novelty at our vet clinic, as she is their oldest feline patient.  They are all amazed at how well she gets around and how feisty (read: mean) she is.  Four and a half pounds of mouth and attitude, that one.  Bless her heart.  Ahem.

 

So they started their exam while I sat on a bench and watched.  There was a lot of fighting and a lot of hissing and a lot of spitting.  There was a little peeing on people and a very little sitting quietly.  In the end, the tests were done and the news is not good.  The bloody eyeball is caused by an infection.  The infection is caused by cancer. They can treat the infection with eye drops but it will keep coming back, since the cancer isn’t going anywhere.  My poor little girl.  The vet said she believes the eye is painful.  I got the drops and put some in immediately, so Ernie should be getting some relief soon. 

I asked about euthanasia but the vet said what I have been saying:  Ernie has too much fight left to give up on her right now.  She is not ready to go yet.  We're taking it one day at a time.

Updates

I can't believe how much I enjoy vacuuming at 3am.  It's nice to wake up to a clean house, too.  We haven't been able to finish moving Bro's furniture, but I guess he had enough to set up housekeeping cause he's living in his own place now.  The plan is to finish the furniture tomorrow. So now, I get to clean house after work, since I don't have to be quiet.  Wahoo!  LOL. At least it's something to do.  It's not like I have the option of visiting the mall or calling a friend to chat.  Maybe I need to make some friends on the other side of the planet, where it's afternoon when I get off work.

It's snowing here, fat, fluffy flakes that slowly, slowly waft down.  It's been coming down for a day and a half yet it hasn't amounted to much on the ground. The grass blades are still poking out of it.  Walker is anxious to try out his brand new snow blower.  He'd like a big dump of the stuff.  It will come, that's for sure.  I'm in no hurry.  Winter is long enough without wishing it sooner.

Happy Birthday, Diva

Our rain has turned to snow, just like the weatherman said it would.  Why did he pick today for the one day a year he's right?  Just kidding.  Sort of.

Diva's birthday party was so much fun, but half the girls we invited did not show up.  Now, why?  Why would you blow off a kid's birthday party after telling her you would be there?  I imagine one or maybe two could be sick, but four out of seven?  With no phone call?  The unfortunate part is we held the party at a local skating rink, and we had to pay for a minimum of eight kids.  Two of the kids' parents came with little siblings in tow, and had we known those four kids weren't going to show we could have substituted the little ones.  Instead, the parents paid for the little ones to skate. Diva's big sister showed up and wanted to skate, so we were able to accommodate her.  Still, we had three unused wrist bands to turn in at the end of the party.  Sigh.

 

The kids all had a good time, though.  Walker strapped on some roller blades and hit the rink with the kids.  I wanted to skate, too, but when my mom booked the party she put me down as the host, so I had to run the show.  I still want to go skating.  Maybe Walker will take me some weekend.

Diva, as the birthday girl, got to spend a minute in the cash cage.  It's like one of those money machines you see on TV except they use "point certificates" instead of actual cash.  Diva grabbed at everything that whirled past her, and in the end she got 65 points, worth.....a small pile of candy and junk.  She was thrilled.

The skating rink provided pizza, popcorn, soda, and slushies.  We also dined on cotton candy - pink AND blue, thank you very much! - and cup cakes.  The kids should be coming down from their sugar high sometime later today.  I expect there will be a few crabby attitudes as the sugar crashes come on.

Diva got some nice gifts.  I gave her an ITunes gift card.  I taped it to the inside of the lid of an empty box.  I figured Diva would look in the box and think it was empty and get all confused.  Not this kid.  She took the lid off and flipped it over on to the table, revealing the gift card just that quick.  Joke number one was a bust.  Along with her gift card we gave her my IPod Shuffle, which I bought myself during cancer treatment but never took out of the box.  The kid was hoping for an IPod, so it was win - win.  She got her wish and I got rid of a bit of clutter from my desk. But you know, I can't just hand her the IPod. No fun in that. So I took another box, the same size, and put the IPod in the bottom.  I covered the whole thing with Hershey kisses.  I figured she'd think she got a box of chocolate for her gift.  Not this kid.  She said, "Nobody would give me this much chocolate!" and she started digging.  It took about a second and a half for her to find the IPod. Joke number two was a bust, too.  It's official.  I am not smarter than a fifth grader.  Or even a fourth grader.  Sigh.

We Didn't Make It =(

It's raining, and the temps are dropping. Not ice yet, but we can't exactly start hauling stuff at 3am.  It's supposed to be icy before Bro gets done working today.  Looks like moving activities are temporarily suspended.  Sigh.

Broad Shoulders

I have a friend who likes to say, "Get out your broad shoulders!" when things get tough.  She says it means you just have to plow through.  I'm pretty good at that.  Sometimes I look back and wonder how I got through everything without having a nervous breakdown, LOL.  I have a feeling this month will be one of those times.

We're so dang busy all the time, yet I still take on more.  I think one of my goals for next year will be to learn to say, "No," a little more often.  Or maybe a lot more often. It's not that I don't want to help, just that I have to accept that I have limits, just like everyone else. Walker is just like me, always taking on just one more task. That's probably not a good thing.  We'll have to learn to balance each other out.

Bro got his house!  We all drove over Wednesday afternoon and cleaned as much as we could before Walker and I had to get to work and my mom had to get home.  She doesn't do much driving in the dark these days.  Bro's house is about a thirty minute drive from here, through deer infested corn fields.  I don't blame my mom for wanting to get home before dark.

I think we'll need the weekend to get the moving finished.  Not sure that will even do it, as Diva turns ten today - wahoo! - and we're throwing her a party tomorrow.  The forecast is calling for freezing rain, too.  Hauling furniture up icy sidewalks, trying not to fall, is not the best plan.  We're going to try to get as much hauled as we can before the weather comes in.  If we can get it all, we're good.  Then it's just arranging furniture and unpacking boxes.  Getting the hauling done is a pretty big "if" though.  Anybody wanna help, LOL?