Daily Archives: February 28, 2009

Thanks Mr. Mayor (honorary mayor of our lofts) for tix to this weekend’s BBQ championship at the Rodeo, which opens officially March 3rd.

Jim and I walked into town for the big parade then took a train to the Rodeo. We tried brisket, sausage, pork roast, chicken, spicy beans and cheesecake. And we met a guy who grew up a couple of miles from where Jim did. Now that’s unusual as there are more cows than people in those parts of TX! I think Jim’s entire high school graduating class consisted of thirty students. Mine, on the other hand, was more like 2.500, at least in one of my high schools.

We walked through the midway, and through the exhibit hall, which is still in the process of being set up. Then we took the train back to town and walked home. I missed Deputy Dog at the Parade, darn. We only missed about ten minutes of a two-hour extravaganza. We were beat when we got home. I laid down for a bit then prepared hamburgers and fries for dinner.

It’s supposed to go down to the thirties tonight, with 20 mph winds. Zoe’s tummy is messed up from Jim’s miscalculation in her breakfast yesterday morning (wrong food and three times the usual) so he has her out one last time before we turn in. Tomorrow we have a brunch catered by a downtown restaurant and hope to introduce our new neighbors to some of the old neighbors so they feel at home.

That’s about it for us. Hope y’all are having a great weekend. Cheers, Dee

Hello Fearless Reader/Contributor,

On Charlie Rose the CEO of Twitter seemed, without saying as much, to send a death knell to bloggers. Writing 500 – 1,000 words a day is cathartic to me, I can’t really imagine doing it in 140 characters. “Meet me at Starbucks” doesn’t qualify as something to send out to the world. Especially as I don’t drink coffee. Only espresso and then only at the end of a languorous Italian meal.

Moving. We don’t know that we will move from TX but there are some interesting opportunities in the US and elsewhere. Jim locates the job – I can’t do it anymore as the air gets more rarified and economy worse every day. I check out several cost of living indices, then hit Craigslist (shout out to y’all) for some indication of housing costs. If it’s another city I check out the lifestyle et al, another country immigration requirements for us and dog Zoe and what we can bring along.

While Zoe doesn’t have a vote (it wouldn’t be fair as she has four paws then it would be even 4/4) everything is a new adventure. A couple of years ago we spent a few months in Glasgow and London. Before that, Utah, both on a temporary basis. Sad to say, we won’t be having children, so are more mobile than others plus bring significant technical knowledge and growth opportunities. So we are open to new adventures.

These adventures don’t come without personal or financial risk, but they are short-term adventures and we minimize risk by the way we move (tow that barge, lift that bale) and live. I believe our lives would be poorer without the adventures we’ve taken together. Everything we’ve been through in the past 7.5 years has made us stronger. And we adopted a dog from a shelter, took out her hips as a pup and left it to her to grow her own. She was diagnosed with severe hip dysplasia at five months of age. She’s bunny-hopping again, but running and new folks can’t even tell! She is deteriorating, however, as sometimes we have to “otis” her up to bed (Otis invented the elevator, ours is a human getting out of bed to lift her). Val (often on this blog) took out her hips, even saved the first one for Jim to see.

If Zoe can be the happiest dog in the world (have a contest, she’ll win) we can make it through a job search in a bad economy. We hope y’all are doing OK out there. Best wishes to the military spouses and knitters out there who like this blog. Love you gals! Plus the D.C. political contingent, you know who you are. Fingers crossed and you know you’re invited on all our adventures. My MacBook is with me when traveling.

We look forward to the parade tomorrow. Downstairs in Trail Rider Land it’s not very populated this year and it must be due to $$$ issues, sorry to hear that. More reason to walk into town (we can’t drive because they’re closing our street) and cheer them on. Best to you and yours, Dee