Catnip is a gateway drug

We went to an eggnog party last night at Ryan and Ashley's. We played Rabbids and looked at their beautiful tree and watched Rudolf.
When we came home, it looked like someone else had been hitting the 'nog pretty hard around here. This is the Christmas tree the way we found it. Notice anything missing?
That's right. No angel. No angel on top of our 7' tree. Where there used to be one. A pretty one. Also, the Christmas tree skirt was missing and there were an outrageous number of needles all over the floor. What happened? Were we robbed? Did the angel have to fight?
This is how we found her...
Poor angel! What did she do to deserve that? Who could've knocked her off the top of the tree and taken the tree skirt?
Suspect #1:

Suspect #2:We caught Georgie this morning trying to light a little bonfire under the tree. She said it was "too cold up in here". Brats. I suspect the angel was making them feel guilty about whatever they were up to while we were gone, and she paid the price. too much nog. Or was it catnip?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Wait a second. Is that a snowflake? On the Tucson forecast? As in snow? Frozen water falling from the sky? wow.
We've seen mountain snow for a few days. They're saying that Mt. Lemmon is going to get 14 inches tonight. Won't that be pretty! The snow line is moving further and further down toward town. It's raining here now. All dark and gloomy and wintery like.
Update: It's sleeting! The cats are slinking around all scared of the "pink pinkity pink" going on outside!

December

The wind is howling around our house and it's still raining. The house is nice and chilly and I think we'll have soup for dinner. Oh how I wish the weather would stay nice and wintry.

Drip Drip drip

Oh Atlanta, I wish I could send some of this your way. We woke up this morning to hear the steady dripping of rain. I absolutely love this sound and I never get to hear it since we moved to this desert. Oh man, there's no better way to wake up. And it's still raining!

And also:

Wow. Thanks Mrs. Haury. We're having a big ceremony tomorrow with a formal dinner to announce the gift and thank Agnese Haury. With this gift, we'll be able to build a new archive building to house the thousands of tree-ring samples that are currently stuffed in the store rooms under the stadium. They'll finally be climate controlled and ventilated. This lab has been waiting for new headquarters since 1937. This building won't be headquarters, but it will move our most precious and vulnerable artifacts into a place where they'll be safe. They'll be organized and preserved so we can continue to use them. Some of the samples up in the Lab attic were collected by Douglass himself. I love when I'm looking for a specific piece of wood from a particular pueblo and I find it in a box, neatly labeled with a real ink pen. The neat little initials in faded ink say "A.E.D". It makes me feel like I'm a part of a long tradition. I'm really lucky to be at the tree-ring lab, and we're really lucky to have such a generous benefactress.

Front Door fun

I know. I know. It isn't even December. I'm not nuts, I just like lights, that's all.
We put together this little wreath the other day. It's a regular old plastic wreath with bendy branches. We wrapped a string of big ceramic lights around it, did some clever extension cord work and voila! Big, bright, cheery front porch!I may have also put up some lights in our room... Just one strand. and that's it. And two bows. But seriously, it's too early. that's it.

Christmas idea #1

The turkey is barely gone, but can I talk a little about Christmas?
I like to make my own Christmas decorations as much as I can. I have fun doing it, and I like to have something that's a little unique.
Here's the first thing we've made for this Christmas. The day after Thanksgiving, Rob's mom and I were sitting in front of a movie making these little guys.We took small pieces of red felt and cut out two bird shapes. Then, we embroidered flowers, wings, and star designs on the sides. Sometimes we added a few beads for the eyes or for the middle of flowers. When both sides were decorated, we sewed the two sides together and stuffed the birds with cotton balls. When we ran out of cotton balls, we just used the scraps of felt. When we sewed the seam shut, we added a little piece of green ribbon to the top of each one to hang it by. We made seven in all. We think they look kind of Scandinavian. What do you think? I have a short stand of red wooden garland from the grocery store ($1.99 tops). I attached the birds here and there along the garland and hung the whole thing over the window in the dining room.
It was an easy, inexpensive, and fun thing to make together.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had much to be thankful for on Thursday. Grandma, Jeanne, Doug, Charlie, Bob, Patty, Tommy, and Dana were all here with us to help celebrate. Isn't it wonderful to have a house full of people you love? We also had a lot of delicious food to be thankful for. Eight pies (that's close enough to the five pie limit, give me a break) and a huge pan full of stuffing.
Oh man, though. Thursday morning gave us a real test of gratitude. We got up early (not exactly as early as we meant to, but hey, it's a holiday) to prep the bird. My biggest worry was that Tom would still be frozen on the inside. HA! We got the bird out and unwrapped him and put him in the sink to wash. But the water wasn't draining. No big deal, I thought, we sometimes have a hard time with our stone age plumbing. However, a half hour of plunging did no good at all. Precious turkey time was ticking by. Poor Rob was up to his elbows in yucky sink water when all of a sudden dirt and gravel comes shooting out of the drain. Holy shit! Turns out our minor plumbing problem is much bigger than we thought. Then, "ding dong!" the family arrives from the hotel hungry for breakfast. I could've cried, but wonderful Rob just laughed and went to run interference. We ended up washing the bird in the bathtub like a big, cold, slimy baby. We even stuffed it while it was in the bathtub. Then, all the uncles went out back to sort out the sink issue. I think they were kind of having fun doing it, at one point they had out wrenches and hoses and beer. At least two of them were on the roof. They eventually rigged some sort of system where the water drained elsewhere and the sink was usable. Phew.
So, the turkey went in at least two hours late, but the rest of the preparations were mostly drama-free. Here's a little video of grandma making the lattice on the cherry pies. Nice work, Grandma!

Here's the whole gang beginning to enjoy dinner. It's funny how it takes all week to get ready for this dinner and it only takes just a short time to eat it. We ate lots of helpings and really made it last. Then, we ate at least three slices of pie each and passed out. Ahhh. This is the best holiday ever.

Gobble

We just added Tom as a friend.

Nooo, not this Tom:

This Tom! He is a big boy, but not quite as big as last year. He was the biggest one at the grocery store weighing in at 20.69 lbs. Yum. Do you think that will feed ten people? No? you think I should get two? I so agree.

Little People

The tiny family I told you about have been having some *problems*. Their little boy has been hanging out with a rough crowd:

And their little girl has been drinking an awful lot.
Both kids were recently caught stealing the family car! So naughty.
"What are we going to do? These kids are getting into so much trouble."
"Do you think we should homeschool? You, know, to keep them from drinking?"
"What if we moved out to the country. Somewhere away from the negative influence of the Tucson streets"
"That's a great idea, but where will we go?"
"We'll find someplace"

So the little family set off. They left the bad friends and the booze and walked off into the wilderness.
They camped out along the way.


Finally they came across a little clearing in the woods of Georgia. In it stood a little house, just their size. Is this the answer? Can this little family live in a tiny log cabin so far away?
"This is perfect!"
"Well, almost perfect. Don't you think our house should be painted and fixed up?"
"Oh, I'm sure it will be before Christmas, don't you worry"

How it really happened...

Secret Project X

I'm working on some sneaky sneakiness for my favorite nephew who doesn't read blogs.
These little people are step one.

I got little wooden game pieces at the craft store. I painted them and made them some little clothes. The mom and dad are about 2 inches tall and the kids are a little shorter. I think L. will have to use his wonderful imagination a little since this family hasn't got arms or legs, but they sure do have a lot of fun. Wait until you see where this little family lives...

Lucky and Dusty, what have you done?

Well, their names are Lucky, Dusty, and Ned, but something terrible has happened. This morning, Ned is dead at the bottom of the tank and Lucky and Dusty are swimming around triumphantly. Was it Lucky? Was it Dusty? Did the cats somehow kill the fish with their brains?
I'm going to be watching these murderous fishies more closely today. I have to say, I suspect the more aggressive Lucky. Poor dusty is looking ragged this morning. I hope he's not next.

More beasts than people

Well, we've had a week to come to terms with the death of Black Bart. While we still miss him, we decided our family needed new fish, so we got three guppies. Two are kind of orange and the third is really pale yellow with a fancy tail. They don't have names yet. I sort of want to see if they make it through the night and then we'll invest in names.
I was thinking that a set of names in threes might be fun. We could do Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Or Koltho, Lakhesis, and Atropos for the three fates. Or Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar for the three kings. The ones I'm really liking the best are Lucky, Dusty, and Ned for the three Amigos. Don't those sound like great fish names? Especially Dusty, that cracks me up.
anyway, here they are:
Our three new fish
...and the cats who will someday eat them.

Blackout!!!

I want Mark Richt to be my boyfriend.

Is it too early?

Okay. I know that we have a little while yet, but my mind has been on Thanksgiving. I wait all year for Thanksgiving. This is my favorite holiday by far. there's nothing not to like about Thanksgiving. The decorating is minimal and voluntary (you better believe I put up cheesy turkeys all over this place), there aren't any presents to buy, you eat all day, the entire day is based on a good happy feeling, instate rivalry football, and, most importantly, the pie!
The pie is the subject of this post. You see, I may have a problem when it comes to pie. Every Thanksgiving I find myself baking 8 jillion pies. When I'm at my parents' house, this is no big deal since I come from a family of hearty pie-eaters. In fact, it is only since I got married that I learned that most people don't consider pie a breakfast food. Can you imagine?!
This year, Rob and I are hosting Thanksgiving at our house (yay!). We're having Rob's parents, his grandma, two uncles, an aunt, an uncle in-law? (not really sure how this person is technically related), and Dana and Caitlin. Last year, our crowd was great about eating seven helpings each of turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, and rum. They did not, however, eat their fair share of pie. Now, true to my heritage, I can handle a good amount of pie by myself, but that was too much and it went bad before I could eat it. (am a failure to my family).
I've been doing some careful figuring, and I think I can make five (read: six) pies and count on them being consumed within a reasonable period. What should those precious five pies be? Any suggestions? We know there has to be pumpkin, apple, and cherry. Probably some kind of berry pie for Dana. What should I double up on? Should I make any others?
ahh. a delicious dilemma.

R.I.P. Black Bart

We had some bad news at our house last night. I was sure that Black Bart was feeling better yesterday because he wasn't so covered in the white scuzziness and he was swimming a little higher in the tank. Unfortunately, last night at about 10pm, Black Bart joined the big fish tank in the sky. We said some words over his burial at sea and Rob gave a beautiful eulogy.
Black Bart, I'm sorry that I brought you home on my bike and I'm sorry that our house got a little cold that first night you were with us. I hope that where you are now there is a pirate chest that opens and closes and that you are swimming through the bubble-blowing thing that you loved so much.

Fishiness

Yesterday was homecoming at the U of A. (We won our game, yay! so did Georgia- double yay!).
I was walking down University Blvd. and these people had a fish pong booth! It is the most genius thing I've ever heard of. It works like beer pong, but instead of drinking when you lose, you get a fish! You make a small donation to UNICEF and they give you three ping pong balls to throw at solo cups floating in a baby pool full of fish. I got a ball in a cup, so I got to pick out a fish.
Meet Black Bart:
Black Bart is a goldfish with a black stripe down his back. He has survived two days so far, which is better than I expected given his species and the two predators that live with me. Today, though, Black Bart is having some issues. He's covered in white fuzz and is swimming sideways. I know that listing is really bad for fish, but in case he doesn't die today, does anyone know anything to do for fuzzy fish? Or, um, any fish that are more long-lived?

p.s. Congratulations Diane and Damian! I'm sure it was a beautiful wedding, you are a wonderful couple.

Trip to Denver

I'm back from a busy trip to Denver. I went to present a poster at the Geological Society of America's annual conference. I can't get over how huge that meeting is. There are 10,000 people there and they're all giving papers or posters. The program for the week was like a phonebook. My poster presented some new data about Lassen Volcano in California. People asked some good questions and had some good criticism, so all in all it was a successful conference. This is my poster. I know it's too small to read, but trust me, it's only exciting to me. The graphs are tree-ring chemistry and the rest of the figures are mostly maps. I observed something else in Denver. Archaeologists aren't particularly famous for their fashion choices, but next to Geologists, we look like supermodels. The standard uniform for men seemed to be faded jeans, a blue collared shirt, and a tweed-y blazer with elbow patches. Most of the time, this was topped off with a field hat. On women, I saw a lot of long skirts with tights, fleece jackets, and white white sneakers. Next year, I might propose a session called " how to not look like a field scientist" or "how to be taken seriously outside of your lab". do you think anyone would come?
A cool thing happened on the plane on the way to Denver though. These fighter planes were taking off from the Tucson airport and they kept flying right over our plane. Neat, huh? The guy next to me thought I was a dork for taking pictures outside the window. Okay maybe I was being a dork, but I had to get ready to meet the rest of the dorks in Denver didn't I?
I went to the conference by myself. I met a bunch of friends the first day for dinner and drinks and then I shared a hotel room with them that night. It's great to be able to meet old friends from all over the place at the same conference. I really look forward to it, sometimes, the GSA's are the only time I see those people all year. I got to see Joe, Nikki, Kathy, Lori, Chris, and Christian all on Tuesday. The second night, they all left town and I moved to a different hotel by myself. I know it probably sounds weird, but I've never stayed in a hotel room alone before. I was excited about it- keeping the temperature just how I like it, watching whatever I want on the TV. I also resolved to go out to dinner all by myself. That was the hardest part. I don't know how people do it. I hesititated a little at the door of the restaurant, but I was brave and got a table for one and ordered my dinner (resisting the temptation to order it takeout). It was kind of fun- being alone, I could eat wherever I wanted and not worry about impressing anyone- so I got Lasagna and a shirley temple. yum. Then I just sat there. by myself. What do you do when you're alone at dinner? I should have brought a book. I got lonely and called Dana who kept me company over the phone. I still feel like I've overcome a scary obstacle- staying alone and eating alone. Ha!
Still, I'm glad to be back with Rob. Busy week ahead, I'll try to post at least a few more times.
Happy November and Happy day of the dead!

Meet Jack

Living in a sketchy neighborhood, it is very important that you carefully consider your pumpkin guardian at Halloween. Everyone knows how many spooky creatures roam the streets of Tucson toward the end of October. About a week ago, R and I bought the most perfectly shaped pumpkin ever and named him Jack.
These are R's prototypes for Jack.
He had to be 1. Really scary 2. unique and 3. really scary.

Hello Jack. Boy are you scary. Thanks for keeping away all the ghosts and ghouls. I'm real sorry about that time when Orbit ate your guts.

Go Dawgs!!!

42-30!!!!

Blumen!

Kacy's getting married this sunday, so this morning we had a bouquet making party. We bought a ton of gorgeous flowers (nice job Kacy!) and everyone worked together to make corsages, boutonneires (I had to look that up), and six bouquets.
So Pretty!

Naughty Orbit!

This picture isn't posed, I promise. This is how we found Orbit. He somehow found the bag of tobacco and the little corn cob pipe from Rob's Leprechaun costume from last Halloween. He smokes now? He's only four! Needless to say, we took this stuff away from the bad boy.

Standin' on the corner and fishin' in the lake

I went on two fun trips the last two weekends. First, I went to Winslow with my friend AJ. We slept in this pueblo that she built. It was really cool to watch the stars at night through this smoke hole in the roof. The next day, we burned the pueblo down as an archaeological experiment. She's looking at how fire behaves in prehistoric buildings and whether or not you can reconstruct the origin of the fire from the debris on the floor and the smoke patterns on the walls. I was looking at how many tree-rings are lost on the primary and secondary beams when the roof of a pueblo catches fire. That way I can know how far off tree-ring dates from a prehistoric charred log might be. Anyway, we came back very tired and very filled with smoke.
Last weekend I went with Ashley, Ryan, and Reggie to Lake Havasu to visit her family. We had a really really great time. It was very relaxing and felt like a much longer trip than the two days that it actually was. Plus, there were Yorkies!