A little trip down memory lane...circa 2008

So, after watching Sex and the City 2 Friday night as I promised I would, I started to take a detour down memory lane as I was chatting with a friend at Cherry Creek Mall. We both reminisced my dating blunders and I told her that while I was thinking how funny and dramatically pathetic my latter single-hood was, I was a feeling not so right in sharing these stories now in this forum. Because, after all, I am married, happily! We had a little discussion, oh, for about 1 minute, and concluded that because it was inspired by SATC, and I was mostly single when I was watching SATC (except for this last movie), it would be okay for me to take a supervised detour down that road. For a very limited time. And because a few friends (married before me) always had the joy of vicariously enjoying my exploits (regardless of my temporal pleasure). Now, I can laugh about it and hopefully, my husband has a sense of humor.

So, I bring to you Memory Lane's newest and most recent addition before being shut down, the year 2008. 2008 included the Sausage Guy (seriously, this pertains to food, really!!!), Superman, and the Russian (and believe me, this Russian is no where as enticing as Carrie's Russian). There are a few others. I am going to enjoy the holiday tomorrow and I have some plans as long as Lidiya does not have her baby tomorrow. Look forward to a walk down memory lane this week! Bring a Diet Pepsi and a cupcake to the computer and have a few short reads!

Am I a visitor already?

After spending so much time getting acclimated to Florida, I felt a little odd coming back to Colorado. I did not really think about it till about a week before my arrival in Denver. Jeff told me that I may feel like I am out of place. I definitely feel out of place when I went to pick up my bags and Sarah and Kaya were there waiting for me, the traveller. Colorado is finally enjoying nice mid 70s weather and I can't even appreciate it since I have been going to the beach, tanning, and swimming every day in 85 degree weather. I knew weather would have its effect. Just being back in Colorado with out my own car or place to live obviously makes me feel out of place. I am so grateful I have a car to use on the weekdays and a place to live for the total three weeks that I will be here.

On the few occasions where I feel like a local, I am reminded that I live in Florida when someone at the store asks for my ID, or someone asks for my number. I am no longer a 720 person; I belong to 941. How odd is that? And that's coming from someone who had to accept a 720 area code who lived in 303 land for a long time! If it was not for a few favorite people in Colorado, I think I would still be enjoying the Florida sunshine! Maybe, THEY should be the visitors! I am heading back June 8. Is anybody coming with me?

Sex and The City

So, I am obsessed. Obsessed like a school child. I love SATC. I even tried to win two tickets to the movie. FB had me as a fan of SATC and I somehow signed up for an opportunity to have SJP call me on opening day. Oh my God, how high school. So I punched in the number that they said SJP would call for. How ridiculous do I feel to have "Sarah Jessica Parker" on my phone list? Really freaking ridiculous! But let's not stop there.   When I found out that I could read an easy cheesy brain candy kind of book, I felt lucky!Joy!! The Carrie Diaries was a fast read and a little introduction to the beginnings of Carrie Bradshaw before New York. It's kind of funny that I always was wondering about her beginnings as I related to her the most (we are all always a mixture of the four women) and she never really talks about her past at all. I read this book in about 2-3 sittings. I had to have a SATC fix before going this Friday to see SATC2!

So, what's the plan for Friday? Sarah and I (and maybe others, if they can escape for the event) are meeting up for dinner and a late show of SATC2. I am going to dress up the best I can and we are going to have a nice dinner and off to the races! I am even going to get the movie tickets early so they are not sold out! Thinking ahead...nothing will get between me and my four OTHER friends. See you then!

Learning Italian in my spare time or Why I love free iPhone apps

While I see how much joy the $15 MLB app has brought Jeff, I am not interested in the least little itty bitty bit in paying for apps if I can get useful ones for free. I have found some very useful ones that I use almost daily or weekly. My newest favorite finds are my two foreign language helpers. I have a translating program for free and an Italian study app. While it is not surprising to have a free translator (people use them all the time from the Internet to mislead people into actually thinking they know the language or if they want to engage in foreign foreplay with people on Facebook on other continents), it is a really easy app to have on the iPhone to just click on the icon and it goes right to the site. The other app is an Italian study site that is very basic (I am sure the one they want to charge customers for is much better and thorough). The basics are audio flash cards of 155 words and quizzes and flash cards set up to help you pronounce the word (and it will correctly pronounce when you are ready). I have a beginner's Italian textbook, but I haven't had a chance to delve into it, so exposure to Italian words in my spare time (waiting for a pedicure, for American Idol to start, during TV commercials) is a much better use of the wasted minutes, far better than smoking in my spare time.

These are the apps I have installed and I am searching for a scrabble app. You are supposed to rate them, I suppose. I will just rate them here:
*:haven't actually tried yet
**:okay (meaning if I don't use them in the next 60 days I will unintstall them)
***: very usable
****:I use it all the time

Facebook:*** (except I don't think I am fully utilizing iPhone's capability for FB)
Elle shopping guide:**
Lucky magazine: **
Pandora:****
IMBD(Independent Movie Database):****
WebMD:**
Southwest:***
Allrecipes:***
12-step:**
What's on?(TV schedule):**
Travelocity:**
Translator: * (I will keep it for when I go to Italy next year)
Free Tutorial by AccelaStudy(Italian):***
Zillow:*
Facebook **

New Recipes I've worked on while NOT smoking

So, I've decided that smoking was the same experience it was on December 31 and thus, my 25 day smoking habit in April came to an abrupt halt on April 30. I am happy that the 25 day blip on the radar was just that, a blip. I am so happy to be a non-smoker again. I have been baking cheap desserts for the whole month of May to obtain and justify very refined sugars (like eating  Betty Crocker cream cheese and classic chocolate frosting on cupcakes or right out of the tubs).  Fun-dip and Haribo gummy bears are part of my smoking cessation diet, but Jeff has been cutting me off from sugar around 11pm. 

Other than Betty Crocker invading my kitchen weekly, I am actually keeping true to my resolution to try a new recipe every week. I have made Shepard's Pie (using ground beef and a DIFFERENT recipe that I used for book club years ago), a BBQ sauce and ribs,  a new Alyssa-made concoction to marinade my stir fry (absolutely a zen creation, but tasty nonetheless). The stir fry marinade ingredients were not original by any means, but the quantities were invented on the spot using ginger (fresh off the root), soy sauce, and garlic and a dash of olive oil (I don't know, but EVOO invades most of my recipes somehow).  This cooking horizon is broad and open. I have a year to see how far I can push myself and test my creative juices. I also made a sesame noodle salad with my mother's recipe which turned out well and Jeff liked it as well.

It is fun to cook when you are not smoking for so many reasons:
1.The wonderful aromas are more enticing when you can actually smell them
2. and appreciate the taste!
3.You can actually get cooking and cleaning done faster when you don't have to take frequent smoke breaks.
4. It seems a bit cleaner to cook when you are not dealing with nasty butts (even if you are constantly cleaning your hands before and after smoking which brings me back to #3 with a vengeance!).
5. At least for me, I have an enhanced appetite when I am not smoking and the rewards are actually reaped!

Friends don't let friends cook and smoke!!! COOK, don't SMOKE!!!!

2010 Resolution Recap

So, I was doing so well. I have been smoking since I was two days into my road trip and I want to stop the insanity. I am glad I quit December 31 and I will do it again. I am thinking that I will keep quitting. I am thinking of the other resolutions and the "gossip" one is something I have been doing fairly well with. I am accepting minimal new gossip (listening to gossip is as harmful as spreading it; don't let anyone else tell you differently). It is just so juicy; progress, not perfection! As far as learning a new language, I am intent on learning Italian and making new recipes, but I need to actually unpack my kitchen stuff in order to make new recipes. I believe I ventured to do one new thing this year and I moved to a new state. I am making some good progress here! More to come.........Come back soon!

Rocky mountain farewell: two decades of friendships in Denver, severely abbreviated as this is just a blog post.

I actually wrote this in parts. I wrote some of it during the move and some after the move. I only edited for clarity(if you can call it that) and spelling to the best of my ability!

It’s really obvious I can’t stand the work of moving and getting our house packed. I am not trying to be selfish. I am not trying to get anything material and just hang out here and eat at restaurants. I can’t stand this haunted house. I can’t stand moving stuff from one house to another. I have done my best to let go of about 100 books (and we know I love books) and 100 more trivial items of unimportance. I have done my best to leave things alone that don’t belong to me when I would rather burn them in a big bonfire (certain photos, certain checkbooks, certain books that don’t belong to either Jeff or me). I will let Jeff inherit the headache I have lived with when he comes for a very short stay.

The only reason I wanted to come to Colorado is to see my friends and the fellowship at AA. That’s not altogether true, I confess. I knew that there was going to have to be a highly organized approach to the move and the disposal of unneeded items. I knew that I was going to have to get as much as I could get done every day and fit in friends and get together around the move and around the BMW, which happens to be a very self absorbed car if I may say so myself. I have gotten some closure, but not in the way that I thought I would. The people I thought I would get to talk to more I haven’t really talked to. Certain people are so distant now, it really does not matter. Some never change. The people I knew I would get to talk to more have been there and I am blessed to know they are not going to just discard me when I am in Florida.

It’s so different than moving from Maryland. I had my family, which was hard enough, but I didn't have friends I was leaving. Just family and at 22 I was in a hurry to start an adventure. Here I have a completely different family, my friends. I had no friends really in Maryland, except several (if that) high school friends. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that I have been here for 17 years (it would be 18 years this Independence Day). That’s almost half my life. I moved to Colorado in 1992 with Bill. I lived on my own since 1995. I lived with two guys VERY temporarily and under very bad circumstances (lost jobs and the like) for less than several months. Other than those undesirable aberrations, I have been independently living in Denver as a single woman from 1995 to 2009. I have made friends before sobriety and since sobriety. It is so interesting that there is ONLY ONE friend that really still has kept in contact with me from back in Pennsylvania through the years in Colorado, though there were some absent years for whatever reason (and I really don’t care why);she knew me in college and in Colorado and did not reunite with me just because of Face book. We went to the Deadbeat Club on Thursdays and we both dated a Bill at one time. We listened to the Cure and other music we had in common and muddled through unreliable cars. Then she married her Bill and had a couple of kids while I was still out there dancing around and doing a lot of experimental living for the rest of the decade (90's).

I met a lot of people during my sobriety, some who really back stabbed me and some who stood by me and were very patient (some people at work as well as those in AA). I had the good fortune to become involved in a book club primarily with work friends. I don’t think I could have joined if my sobriety was not stable, so because of working on my sobriety in AA, I got to meet non alcoholic friends as well. Isn’t that ironic!! I am going to miss them a ton and I can’t wait to celebrate my last in-Denver get together this Saturday night. Finally, we get together without the ruse of meeting for some book discussion. I am going to miss that group and they should be glad for their wine collection that I never drank with them. I think the only one from the RMPC that I drank with never really was friendly with those book club people anyway! Thank God!And I couldn't forget Brandi at work, even though neither of us are there any longer.

Then there is my AA family. I really don’t know what to say. There are a bunch of people that fall into the following category: “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all”. Then there are people that fall under the category of “if you have four friends like these, you are one of the lucky human beings on this planet”. I am blessed that I can name people in the second category. Remember, I am not naming anyone in the first category! But I bet you wish I would, you petty thing! I am not, however. So there! For those people I have been blessed to meet, I don’t want to leave Denver. I have this fear that I will never ever meet anyone in AA, in life, on this planet quite like the small handful of people I have met in Denver (AA or non-AA). I never had the social skills, in high school perhaps, to meet and maintain good friends throughout. So maybe I am making up for lost time. Maybe these friends with the exception of the one I mentioned above came at a time when I was capable of being a friend to them.

Like I said, I consider myself one of the lucky people on this planet. I can’t thank you enough, people of Denver, for making this such an awesome place to spend two decades of my life. I am going to name some people that had a positive significant impact on my life in Denver and I am only naming positive people that I have had repeated (read: too many late nights talking to start counting) beneficial interactions with, because really the list could go on ad infinitum. Due to anonymity, I am going to name only first names and specific references: Bill, Diane, a specific RN at OBHS, Brandi, Shireen, Vickie, Kim J, Bryan, Sarah F, Mark S, the guy who bought me to DHMC on my last night of drinking (I know his name but keeping this anonymous), Heidi, and every single sponsee I have ever had the pleasure of working with. There are a few others that I absolutely am not certain what I will do when I leave Denver other than hold them hostage in Florida. Just kidding. Kind of. I have made so many mistakes and have had so many experimental blunders in Denver. It turns out I had an experimental life. I turned it in and exchanged it for a spiritual one.

It’s obvious the death of distance had made 21rst century friendships more plausible across area codes; God knows, it has worked for me and Brandi and foreign land is only several hours away if I want to hang out with Heidi (and did so). The problem is the frequency of intimate conversations, just kicking it on the sofa watching Sopranos or Intervention, is minimized or even dissolved unless a sincere effort is made on both sides. Sarah and Steve are two people that I am going to miss so much. And guess what, in the beginning, the birth of these friendships, neither is one that I gave much mind to. Can you believe that insanity?

I met Steve at a time when I was not talking to ANY guy that I did not meet in my first year or so and was established friends with (like Mark S. or Bryan). I had apparently snubbed Steve a few times, not really talking to him outside meetings and did not really give him the time of day. I am pretty sure he thought I was a bitch. Then, at a particular 4th of July party in 2005 (yes, Steve? 2005?), I started talking to him mostly because he seemed harmless and didn’t try to talk to me. Give it up, I am no intrigue addict. Anyway, Steve and I started talking that night. I realized he would be more of a big brother kind of guy and for whatever reason, would remain platonic. I think that not talking to guys for a long time really helped me here. I really scored big, more than I would EVER know till now, by discarding my old behavior for an exceptionally valuable friend. I don’t know where to start with Steve, but I don’t think I have to start. I know he’s going to be around for a long time. I can’t explain how this friendship persisted because I know I have had my selfish and self-absorbed times. What I know about now and what I learned as a result of befriending Steve after a year or two of sobriety is that NOT every guy has to be my boyfriend and I can stay as loyal and true to my friends. That’s really I think the success there. When I mean loyal and true, these are important virtues to both of us. I am going to see more of Steve, maybe in Florida. I definitely hope I haven’t seen the last of Steve.

Now, as far as Sarah. Wow! What can I say about a best friend that has one of the biggest hearts of any human being that I could have ever come in contact with in one lifetime? I am not even going into detail about how we ended up being friends. My friends know by now. I would not even have the opportunity of having this woman in my life if it wasn’t for her over sized heart. Of all the years I have had in Denver, I did not even get to meet her until 2006. I don’t have time or space to even qualify this woman as my kindred spirit. There is no space here to describe how kind she has been when I have had a trillion emergencies. I just can’t go into it here. There are just not enough words. I have the worst confession. I wasn’t sure if she would want to move on and find another best friend. I didn’t have the faith. I knew I wasn’t going to even want to find another best friend. Then she told me she wasn’t going to even try to replace me. I felt awful that I thought she might. That I didn’t believe in her level of friendship. Is that awful? I wish she would move to Florida. I really don’t even know if I can go without her. I hope she knows that by now. Especially, since she has my furry sex and the city coat.

I love you Denver!