Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Day, just after Alexis overturned her plate on the dog where, against all odds, the plate rode a few feet on his back before falling on the living room floor. The baby, the dog and the carpet were covered in cranberry sauce.

Timothy looking at some sort of huge African beetle at the Butterfly Pavillion in Denver.

 

 

Chris posing with Rosie (the tarantula, not the woman)

 

 

Butterflies at the Buterfly Pavillion

 

The whole happy family (including Timothy who apparently is going to begin a waltz)

The Columbine Courier-week 2

This is starting to be my favorite day of the week…

from the Sheriff’s crime log:

-SOUTHWEST JEFFCO: Toilet paper was thrown all over a couple’s home and trees on Nov. 3 in the 7700 block of South Newland Street. There was also a mysterious pile of dog food strewn about the sidewalk nearby.

-SOUTHWEST JEFFCO: On Nov. 4, a man reported finding damage to his inflatable “Tigger” character, of Winnie the Pooh fame. Someone had sliced the neck of the decoration and took the cape it had been wearing.

EVERGREEN: About 12:35am on Nov. 4, a deputy noticed two people sitting in the back of a parked car that was filled with smoke. A woman in the car said they’d just finished a joint, and they were happy to receive their summons for possession of marijuana.

and for those of you who fear we have nothing to do out here:

SCRABBLE GAMES: 6:30pm second Tuesday, Barnes&Noble bookstore, South Wadsworth Blvd.

ROCKY MTN CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE: The group gathers in the meeting room at 6pm and the meeting begins at 7pm, the second Thursday monthly at Country Buffet, for dinner and discussions of the American Civil War.

What the…?

I thought I wasn’t that much of a cityperson, but what is this? It looks like an extra-fuzzy deer. Is there such a thing?

We went to a park in the mountains here where there the buffalo roam (actually, they’re bison. Chris tells me there are no actual buffalo in the United States, only bison. I have no idea if he’s telling the truth.) And we did see bison. There was a herd of about 40, including a few babies. But then we saw these guys and we got distracted, trying to figure out what they were. And we came to the conclusion that — we have no idea. On the way home, we stopped at the Buffalo Bill Grave and Museum where Timothy insisted we take a picture of this:

We just got back from visiting my aunt in Nebraska over the weekend, which was nice. We also crossed the border into Iowa. I can’t believe I live in a place from which I can drive to Iowa in one day. Iowa’s always been one of those states that seems far from everything…and now it’s close to me. And as a state, I must say, Robert Shaffer, that it didn’t suck. Lovely antiques. In Nebraska, we went to the Omaha Zoo, which was very cool. They built a 3-story rainforest inside with trees and rainforesty animals and everything. And since it’s indoors, the monkeys and other animals aren’t in cages — you can get a pretty good look at them.

Chris bought an antique sled, which he claims he’s going to use the next time it snows so stay tuned for injury reports…

Oh, Deer

So I woke up this morning, and this guy was camped out in my backyard. He sat there for about an hour after I woke up and then must have checked his watch and realized that children would be on their way to school soon because he trotted off over the hill about 10 min before the neighborhood kids passed by.

Last time I saw him, he was by my mailbox. If I’m going to keep running into him in the neighborhood, I think I should name him…

Creepy Clean

If I had to guess, I’d say 70% of homes in Littleton and surrounding areas are in homeowners’ associations. It makes sense — here HOA dues are about $30-40 a month, as opposed to LA where I’ve heard dues run $200-300 and up. And in a place where you can only swim 4 months a year, it certainly makes more sense to have neighborhood pools than to have one of your own. The HOA here maintains parks and hiking trails and a gym and tennis courts and swimming pools. No one leaves trash cans in their yards or cars up on blocks. And it’s freaking me out.

Don’t get me wrong — most of the time it’s a nice change from cleaning up trash people dumped in our alley in LA (including the time someone emptied their RV waste tank in front of our driveway and even the HazMat guy who came to clean it up gagged). And I appreciate going to the park and not worrying about people shooting up in the bathroom when I have to take Timothy in there. So I recognize it is pure cussedness (there’s a cowboy word for you) that would cause me to complain. But every once in a while I miss people like our old landlord who installed an elephant fountain in the courtyard of our apartment in West LA for Iranian New Year. It was hideous and I hated it, but sometimes I miss it anyway. And the lady who landscaped her front yard with a wild array of flowers and cactii and plantings in the middle of her yard in the shape of a nude woman. I even occasionally miss the guy at the end of our block on Louise who collected broken TVs in the yard.

This neighborhood is beautiful. We’re close to the foothills. We saw a buck (that’s a male deer, for you cityfolk) standing by our mailbox on Thursday. Cute little bunnies run through our yard. The neighbors are friendly and the streets are clean. I’m sure the HOAs result in higher housing prices and lower crime rates. But sometimes I miss the mess.

The Columbine Courier

We get a paper here called The Columbine Courier — one of those free neighborhood papers that’s delivered to our door once a week. Here are my favorite items from this week:

-Pet Photo Nights with Santa: Bring your lovable furry friend (domestic animals only) to take a holiday photo with Santa in his New Magical Forest.

I love that they specify “domestic animals only.” What do you suppose people would bring otherwise?

The rest of the items are verbatim from the Sheriff’s crime log:

-In late August, a motorist hit a mountain lion on C-470. When deputies arrived on the scene, they found a woman attempting to render aid to the wild animal…the shocked woman then asked deputies to give the mountain lion CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The deputies declined to do so.

-A local movie patron experienced drama, suspense and horror — but not until the end of the movie, when he discovered his car stereo and flashlight had been taken at the Colorado Cinemas at 8055 W. Bowles Ave.

-On Oct. 27, a man’s social life went dim after his cell phone was reportedly stolen.

-Post-Halloween trauma is sure to ensue for a woman in the 2800 block of Little Big Horn Drive. The woman awoke the day after the ghoulish holiday to find her vehicles had been struck with eggs.

-On Halloween night, alleged goblins “tricked” a man by shooting three orange paintballs at his living room window. The man says if whoever did it comes back, he has a “treat” for them.

I love this place.

A shoutout to my homeez

ok, I’ve done it. I’ve started a blog. I held out for a long time because blogging seems like one of those dangerous hobbies that starts out as a 5-min check on how your friends are doing and suddenly three hours later, you realize you are still online but have gone from reading about your friends to reading extremely personal tidbits about people you don’t know and will probably never meet. But I had all these little things I wanted to tell you all and when I call you, I can never remember them. So I shall relate them here…but don’t waste too much time on me…