Christmas in...September?

I was driving down Western today...minding my own business, running errands.  Haven't been down Western in quite a while and was interested to see all of the changes.

Classen Curve looks really interesting.  I think I need to spend some time there looking at all of the new shops.

Whole Foods is coming to Western.

Wait, what do I see?  On the corner of Western and 63rd...what do I see?  The Chesapeake Energy compound.  Oh My Gosh!!!  They are stringing Christmas lights on all of the trees.

I can't wait to see the finished products.  Merry Christmas one and all!!

Time to get to the mall and get your shopping done.  After all, there are only 90 shopping days left!!!

Toys R Us adventure

Brodie is about to turn 4.  So to commemorate this earth shattering event, Gramma and Grandad ventured to the Toys R Us store.

Now being a mom and dad, we had been to Toys R Us lots of times when our girls were little.  Not much to it.  There were dolls, crayons, art sets...you know typical toys.

Whew...What has happened to Toys R Us?!?!?

First thing when you walk in is Halloween candy, followed closely by Halloween costumes, decorations and party ware. 

Then you walk around the corner and there are baby clothes, beds, diapers.  I thought we had made a wrong turn and were in Babies R Us.

Finally...Toys.  OMG!!!  What happened to crayons...you know a box of 8 type thing?  They have mega boxes of 200 different colors of crayons.  Washable crayons.  Non-melt crayons.  Pastel only crayons. Vibrant crayons.  It was enough to make you crazy.

We trudged on and located the Hot Wheel section.  (Brodie wants Hot Wheel cars and tracks).  Both Bob and I were comfortable with this notion.  After all, Bob was a little boy once who liked to play with cars (OK, he still likes to play with cars.)  And I had 2 nephews that I used to play with and they had Hot Wheels all over the place. Boy, were we in for a shock!!

What in the earth has happened to Hot Wheels? They have all sorts of sets now.  Turbo charged flyer's.  Crash em sets.  Bob and I stared in disbelief.  After 45 minutes, we found something that we hope is appropriate, added 15 cars (really...insect cars?), and left the store.

BTW, When did Toys R Us stop putting price tags on stuff?  You have to lug your item to a scanner, scan the box and then lug it back.  Give me a price tag!!!!

Wow, when did we get old??


Here is a link that shows some of the Hot Wheel stuff available. 


http://www.hotwheels.com/videos/trick-tracks-contest-video-12

Whatever happened to cars that you just pushed along with your hand?  Do they even make those anymore?

I think I will do my Christmas shopping online.  It is better for my age group.  Never can tell when a Hot Wheel ,that is turbo charged, may come careening around a corner and take out a gramma standing there bumfuzzled.

The Great State Fair of Oklahoma, 2010 Edition

I love the Fair.  Always have and probably always will.  My dad was a policeman, and when I was a kid, one of his extra duty jobs was the fair.  Mom would take us to the fair and we would have dinner with daddy.  Sometimes, if we were lucky, we ate with the carnies on a picnic table outside their trailers.  I was too stupid, young to pay attention to the stories that were told.  I truly regret that.  I just remember having a great time.  After dinner, daddy would take us up and down the midway, playing game.  It didn't matter what I played, I won.  Each and every time!!  I would bring home load and loads of stuffed animals, trinkets and suckers.  I was one lucky kid.  Bob and I were dating (so you know I was at least 16) and we went to the fair together.  I told him how lucky I was and that I wanted to play the games.  He told me that no one ever won and I told him I always did.  We spent a LOT of money playing and I never won a single thing.  I couldn't understand it.  Bob finally asked me if my daddy was in his uniform when I was playing.  Well, duh, he was working...wait a minute...you mean..that I..that he?  No way.  I was heartbroken and in total disbelief.  As soon as I arrived home, I asked daddy about my winning ways and I thought he was going to have a stroke, he was laughing so hard.  He couldn't believe how naive stupid I was.  I don't care, I would never, ever trade those memories for anything in the world.

Today was the day we got to go to the fair.  We go thru building, eat some food, enjoy wine-a-rita and play games.  Here is a brief discourse of our day.

We arrived at 10 a.m. and started going through the buildings.  We arrived at the Oklahoma Wine area and discovered a new wine-a-rita.  Bob, D.J. and I each had one (or two, maybe).  Then we wandered off.

There have been all sorts of newspaper articles about the midway food competition. The grand prize winner was CocoFlow's Chocolate Bread Pudding. Here is a photo of D.J. and I sampling it.  It is a completely deserved winning entry.  It was awesome.

We kept going through building, finding all sorts of treasures and meeting all sort of friends.  We looked at everything and then hit the midway.  OH MY GOSH!! They have, not one, but three stand the bottle games.  That is Bob's all time favorite and he is totally awesome at it. 

Here he is, almost winning and drawing a crowd.

Here he is with his win number 1.  Just before he stood the bottle up, the game operator said to me, "he is too good at this, do you guys have an at home version of this game?"

We headed down the midway and discovered a 2nd stand the bottle game. As Bob was attempting to stand the bottle, it slide, turned around and almost came off the platform.  Bob very carefully manipulated the bottle around and got it back in position.  I turned to the game operator and saw him mouth "f***".   Bingo, Bob won a blue gorilla.

Continuing down the midway, a 3rd stand the bottle game appeared.  One try and we were the proud owners of a huge white wolf.  We headed off down the midway.  Here is a shot of D.J. carrying Papa Smurf and the wolf while I trailed with the Blue gorilla.

We found a goblet game and D.J. and proceeded to have a wonderful time.  We both won little things and then we headed back to the wine-a-rita booth.  It was terribly hot at the fair and we needed to cool off.

Sometimes, the best way to cool off is not to drink it, but to hold it to your head.

It was time to load our prizes and treasures and head home. 

Our State Fair is a Great State Fair, Don't miss it, don't even be late!!

San Francisco, Last day, July 14, 2010

We only had a half day left and filled it up to the very end.

We got up early and checked our bags at the hotel.  Grabbed a Cable Car and went to the Cable Car Museum



This place had everything you wanted to know about Cable Cars, but didn't know to ask.


These pulleys are truly what pulls the Cable Cars all over San Francisco.  I could not believe it.  Here we had been riding up and down hills, all over the place and were being pulled along by a series of cables and pulleys.

This is an actual Cable Car from way back when.  The design has not changed all that much. They are a little bit bigger and have the outside riding now, where you can hang on and ride.  Linda was brave and did that, but I was too chicken.  They cars come so very close, that the drivers tell you be sure to have bags and packages facing the inside of the car, so not to catch the bag or person on the passing cable car.  It would be very easy to run into a passenger on a trolley going the other way.

After our tour, we hopped back on a Cable Car and went back to the hotel.  Got our Bags, and took a taxi to the Airport.

A totally new experience for me was traveling in First Class on the way home.  They fed us a full meal, with dessert and gave us a blanket.  Much better than at the back of the plane.

So, another Linda and Cindy adventure came to close.  We had a wonderful time and are already planning our next trip. 

Thanks Linda for putting up with my antics.

San Francisco, July 13, 2010

Last full day of fun.  We awoke early and took a cab to the wharf.  Today was the Alcatraz Tour.  We ate breakfast on the wharf and then got in line for our tour of The Rock.  Everyone loads up on a ferry for the ride across the ocean.  This seagull followed us nearly the entire way to Alcatraz. 

Everyone told us that it was incredibly cold on the island, so we were bundled up.  Typical for us, it was an unseasonably warm day.  Good thing we were dressed in layers and were able to get a bit cooler. (took me a while to figure out how to word that so you guys wouldn't get the wrong ideas.)

Alcatraz and it's history is incredible.  They National Park Service has a wonderful recorded history that is timed perfectly for guests to listen to through headphones.   It is not nearly as large as I expected it to be, and the cells are smaller than I had imagined.  Solitary confinement cells are closet size, with no windows, behind heavy doors, behind cages. Just going to the door area was creepy.  Alcatraz, in its hey day, was the prison for the prisoners that could not adjust to regular prison.  An Alternative Prison, so to speak.  They only had a small number of solitary confinement cells because the population knew how rugged that area was and tried to toe the line.

On the ferry ride back, this guy sat next to me.  He had a back pack and after we left the dock, he pulled out his friends and proceeded to pose them for different photos. I finally asked him if he wanted me to take a picture of him and his friends.  He said no, but could he take a picture of Linda and I with his friends. We of course resisted and said no, jumped at the chance.  This young man, Chris, was traveling from Australia and taking his friends, Kevin Penguina and Steve Penguina to tour the USA.  Kevin and Steve have their very own Face Book pages and are quite the travelers. 

Linda and I promptly took pictures of him, of us and of Kevin and Steve.  We also exchanged Face Book information and when we got back to the room that night, we friended all of them.  Chris, Kevin and Steve left San Francisco the next day and went to New Orleans.  Their adventures continued across America for a couple more weeks before they all went home down under.  You meet the nicest people on tours!

We then proceeded to Ghirardelli Square where we bought chocolate, broke my glasses and ate lunch.

This is probably the best drink I have ever, ever had in my life.   Ghirardelli Chocolate Martini.  It was like drinking icy cold chocolate milk.  You could not taste any alcohol at all.  I only had one at lunch.

After I broke my glasses, we went in search of a place to buy an eyeglass kit.  We passed a street vendor selling jewelery and I stopped and asked to buy a finding to fix my glasses.  This guy was wonderful and fixed my glasses at no charge. I had already picked out a beautiful necklace and ear ring set and Linda was talking to the lady about a necklace for her.  The guy gave me back my glasses, I popped them on my face and shouted..."It's a miracle, I can see!"  Linda burst out laughing.  It seems Linda was discussing the healing quality of the various stones  when I shouted and the lady said "No, no, my dad just fixed her glasses".

We went back to our hotel and got ready for our evening.  We had tickets to Peter Pan in 360.  This production is presented in a circus type tent with all sorts of computer generated graphics. I have never seen anything like it and would highly recommend it, if you are ever close to where it is showing.  Here is a you tube link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ESSxeJEHAE

As soon as the show was over, we grabbed a cab and took off for the wharf for desert and another..

Well, OK,  maybe more than one.  We closed the restaurant.  What is that saying about God taking care of old women and drunks? 

We made it back to our hotel and wound up in the bar for a couple of hours...drinking and laughing and talking.  I tried  my best to get Linda to get a luggage cart to load me up on and roll me to the room, but she wouldn't cooperate.

What a way to end our visit to San Francisco.  Wait, we have half a day left!!!

San Francisco-Day 3-July 12, 2010

This was a jam packed day...and the only day that I had to take pain meds for my back.  We hopped the trolley (by now, we were such pros, it was scary) and road down to the wharf.  We had set up 2 Gray Line tours and had to check in at the departure place early.  The first tour was a bus tour of Golden Gate Park, Muir Woods and Sausalito.  This tour lasted half of the day (all morning).

Golden Gate Park is basically a look out area on the ocean shore with a great photo area of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. 

The area is breathtaking.  The sound of the waves, the view,  the cold air.  We were only allotted a certain amount of time, but I assure you, it was not enough.

We loaded up on the bus and began the trek to Muir Woods.  We were in a tour bus, going on hair pin turns...up a mountain, with really narrow shoulders.  It was not the most pleasant drive ever.  I am too much of a control freak and was not sure of the drivers skill.  We arrived at Muir Woods and were given a lecture by the driver that if we were not back at the bus by a certain time, he would just drive off and leave us.  He had a schedule to keep.  He scared the heck out of me and I was constantly watching my watch.  I could not figure out who would come rescue us if we got left.

Muir Wood is an enchanted place.  Words can not describe the feeling I got when we went into the woods.  There were no traffic sounds, the only sounds were of the other tourists talking.  Even those noises were hushed.  The most peaceful place that I have ever been in my entire life.  If I could go back, and get brave enough to drive to Muir Woods, I would spend the entire day there.  Everywhere you look there is something different to see.  The trees are huge, the foliage is so green. It is cool, shaded and almost made me feel like I was in an enchanted forest.  I would not have been surprised if a fairy princess or leprechaun came popping out from under some moss.

We made it back to the bus in time and headed back down the mountain.  It was just as scary, if not scarier as the pain pill buzz had worn off,  as going up.  We drove to Sausalito.  Now, I was hugely disappointed in this place.  I was expecting a quaint little artist village where there were going to be gypsy artists selling their wares.

This car was pretty much representative of Sausalito.  Shiny, new, sleek, mass produced foreign stuff.  We did have a great lunch.  Grilled Cheese and Onion sandwich.  Why had I never thought of grilling onions in a Grilled Cheese Sandwich?

We reloaded the bus and headed back to San Francisco.  We had some time to kill and then reloaded a bus to take us to the The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose.  (Let's all stop to sing...Do you know the way to San Jose?  Very good class).  Now remember, that Linda and I had been wearing sweat shirts and jeans.  It was cold in San Francisco.  Well, in San Jose, it was hot.  The Winchester House does not have air conditioning and it was hotter than a fire cracker.  How hot was it?, you might ask.  Hot enough that at the end of the tour, we went to the ice cream shop, bought drum sticks and held them on our foreheads and neck to cool off.  The Winchester House is unbelievable.  Here is the link to take you to their site :  www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/   It is a sad commentary on a life gone so out of control.  It was fascinating to see the stairways that went nowhere and the doors that opened onto brick walls, but when you think of the woman behind all of it, it was sad. 

We loaded back on the bus and went back to San Francisco.  There is a guy who makes a bunch of money on the wharf by sitting on a bucket, hiding behind branches and then jumping out and scaring people to death.

He sits in different spots and people actually pay him to scare them.  One of the tour guides told us this guy makes 10-12 thousand dollars a year doing this.  We stood and watched him for the longest time.

We ate our dinner and then headed back to the hotel, content in knowing that we had seen it all, done it all and were exhausted (until tomorrow that is)

San Francisco-Day 2- July 11, 2010

Sunday was a really full day.  We grabbed the Trolley Car and began our adventure.  Linda had booked a walking tour of eating/food places in San Francisco. 

We began at this really cool little park.  There were all sorts of people doing morning exercises, yoga and just hanging out.  There was a photography artist selling his photos...which were unbelievable.   

One of our stops was at a Chocolate Truffle shop.  Can I just say, that I thought I had gone to heaven right there.  This little picture does not do this place justice.  After the tour, we hunted all over so I could buy a box of one of each kind he had.  I almost made it home with the entire box.  A band of thieves broke into our room and stole one or two.  (that is my story and I am sticking to it)

Next was this wonderful church.  We hung around outside to wait for the services to end and got to walk around inside for a bit.  This alter was so beautiful.  I felt funny taking pictures of it, but wanted to capture it in time.  Believe me the photo does not do it justice.

How many of you are old enough to  remember "The Streets of San Francisco"?.  Here is the street that the opening scene was made at.  I kept looking for Karl Malden and Michael Douglas. 

Next was a Bread baking shop.  They took us back to the oven area.  They still use brick ovens.  It was interesting to see how they scooped the bread out with the big paddles.  Then I looked on the floor (cement) and saw a pigeon walking around eating the meal that the baker threw on the floor for him.  Let me tell you how tasty bread was from that point on at any restaurant in SF.

Next we went to the Barbary Coast.

Read the sign...enough said.

There is a restaurant that is fairly famous in San Francisco. The Garlic Rose Restaurant. Their Motto is that they season their GARLIC with Food. We had to try it. Vampires kept their distance from us for the rest of the trip. We started off with Roasted Clove of Garlic and just kept marching thru the Garlic dishes. We even topped off our meal with Garlic Ice Cream. Yes, you read that right...Garlic Ice Cream. Actually, it was good.

China Town was really cool. We went into a Chinese Tea store and got to sample all sorts of teas and learn about the proper way to make, store and drink.  Linda was brave and bought some.  I had visions of being arrested for carrying some sort of drug (pot) in our suitcase.

We took a Gray Line tour of the city.  You really meet some kooks   nice people on these trips.  Below is a perfect example of that.  It was sooooo cold that this group went to a shirt shop and bought Sesame Street Sweat shirts that  they felt were representative of their personalities. 

Let's just say, they were the life of the upper deck of the tour bus.

San Francisco is famous for their "Painted Ladies".  Now if you were like me, you had heard that term and had all sorts of notions of what a "painted lady" is.  Sorry, they are not ladies of the night.

Painted ladies are homes that were built out of kits.  All of them began looking just alike.  Then the owners would shop via their catalogs or door-to-door salesman and buy the lattice work, window sashes or whatever to reflect their personality.  These home run upwards of 1 Million Dollars each.  They come in every color under the sun and some are painted like rainbows.  All of the are 2-3 stories high and have no yard to speak of.  Yet, the tour guide said, they do not stay on the market long, if they go up for sale at all.  Lots of them are passed from generation to generation. 

San Francisco Day 1--July 10, 2010

Linda and I are traveling buddies, having gone to Paris, France last year.  This year, we chose San Francisco.  I had never been to California and it was one more state I could cross off my bucket list. We had a blast.  Thanks Linda for putting up with me and all of my craziness.

 I am going to break this down to a day by day blog, as we crammed so much into one day, it would be impossible to tell you all about it in one post.  I had to have a back procedure on July7th and was a bit worried that I might have problems while on our trip.  One time, I had to take a pain pill, but I think I did all right otherwise.  You would have to check with Linda to be sure though.

We left OKC at 10:45 a.m. on Saturday July 10th and arrived in Dallas at 11:45 a.m., leaving Dallas at 12:25 p.m. and arriving in San Francisco at 2:05 p.m.  Upon arriving, we took a taxi to the hotel, checked in and promptly left to explore.

We ate lunch at John's Grill.  for you book fans, this is the home of the Maltese Falcon.  The place is steeped in history and tradition.  It was just around the corner from our hotel and worth the trip to experience this.

Next, we decided to try our luck at the Trolley Cars. Linda is a whiz at  reading maps and I am soooo very directionally challenged, that I just blindly follow her.  She got a map, decided which lines to ride and where to get off.  The ending/beginning of the line we rode most of the time, was just around the corner from our hotel.  This was the first glimpse we got.  They really truly do rotate the cars by physical force.  (Be sure to notice the way the guys are dressed).  While waiting in line, there are street performers to keep you entertained.  Really good street performers.

We traveled down to the wharf. The closer we got to the ocean, the colder it got.  OK, I know what everyone said, and we did take jackets, but it was COLD.  Our very first purchases were....gloves. See how those guys are dressed in the cable car pic?  We should have caught on, but being dummies being so caught up in the experience of San Francisco, it never occurred to us that our hands might be cold.  (Before the end of the trip, we both had bought San Francisco sweat shirts and were dressed in so many layers, it wasn't even funny).

Anyway, at the wharf, there is a bread shop that bakes bread in all sorts of shapes.  Here are pictures of the Bear Bread, the Turtle Bread and the Alligator Bread.  No, I didn't bring any home.  I couldn't figure out how to pack it or I would have.

We found a restaurant on the wharf and decided to eat dinner before heading back to the hotel.  We got a wonderful booth facing the ocean and Alcatraz (see below).  Our booth even came with binoculars so we could zoom in on everything.  It was so foggy and gray, perfect for our first view of "The Rock".  This restaurant had forks, knives and spoons shaped like  fish tails.  The food was good, but the atmosphere was awesome. 

We were starting to get weary and decided to walk back to the Cable Car pick up area and go back to the room to crash.  We arrived back at our room and after a couple of hours of deciding what to do the next day, we crashed.

There were so many sights and sounds to take in.  The hotel did not really have air conditioning, but had windows that opened about 1 inch or so.  We slept listening to the sounds of the city.  Not long after we went to bed, I was hunting for the blanket as it got cool in our room.

Summer Highlights-Part 2

I am still working on catching all of you guys up on my summer.

In January, I realized that I was getting pretty stressed about work.  I stuck it out and kept thinking it would be getting better. It did, but it didn't...know what I mean??

In May, I began looking at the whole picture.  Life is too short to be doing something that I doesn't fit well anymore.  Thank God, we were/are in the position for me to step back and re-evaluate. 

After agonizing over it the entire summer, I made the decision to  quit "retire".  I shared this information with a few close friends and one of them asked me to hold on...she might have a position for me. 

I held, she did, and the rest is history.

I am so happy and content with my work life that it is scary.  There are lots of new skills for me to learn, new friends to make and new mountain's to climb.( Insert your favorite Sound of Music tune here). 

I have great  friends  who are getting tired of listening to me, have been so very supportive during the transition period.  Thanks to all of you.

Summer highlight recap part 1

Here is what hours of water running into your house looks like

In May, a valve stuck on our front loading washing machine. Water ran out of the machine and flooded our home. We left home at about 7:30 a.m. I received a phone call from Bob at about 2:30 saying that our daughter had come over to our home to fax something. When she pulled up in the drive, she called Bob and told him that there was water coming out from the garage door and running down the drive. She opened the garage door and there was water in the garage. She and Bob thought that one of the salt water fish tank water holding tanks that are in the garage had sprung a leak. No biggie. Daughter opened the door leading from the garage into the laundry room and a waterfall came pouring down the step...all over her shoes. She stepped into the laundry room and stepped into a mini lake. The carpet in the hallway right outside the laundry room was completely soaked. Water gushed over our feet. All told, our laundry room, hallway, office, guest bedroom number one, guest bedroom number 2, guest bathroom and the guest dressing area were flooded. We were so incredibly lucky in that there is a tiny dip in the long hallway leading to our living room which created a natural dam effect. None of the water got into the living room or dining room. The water extraction company spent 4 hours here sucking all the water possible out of the carpet and unloading furniture and boxes into the dry part of the house. They left and left us with big fans blowing air under the carpet in an effort to save the carpet. Most homes use the fans a day or two, we wound up with them for over a week. The musty, moldy smell in our home was horrible. The whole process to resore our home took 6 weeks. We still have some stuff in the garage and Bob is still having to park in the drive, but the new carpet, flooring and paint is wonderful. Now I am trying to figure out how to get new carpet n the rest of our house.

Try having 3 of these huge fans running 24 hours a day.  It was LOUD!

Look at the footprints in the soggy carpet

Resturant Review of Stella's

Linda and I went to a new resturant (at least for us) tonight. Stella's located in Midtown. When I was a kid, this location was a drug store/medical supply place. I vividly remember going to it with my Gramma. What a difference a couple of years make.

We started out with glasses of wine. I am a white wine girl and had a glass of "White Knight". It was OK, but not a sweet as I normally like. Linda had a glass of red cabernet. Appitizer was Artisan Cheese with honey drizzled golden rasins and nuts, cheese (duh) and toast crisps. It was awesome and paired with a salad, could be a whole meal. For my entree I chose the Pork Roast while Linda had the Rib eye. We each sampled each others and I must say her steak was great. I did out order her with my Pork Loin though. It was wonderful.

While we are both on diets, we took a long time (OK, 3 seconds may not be long in your book, but hey) to decide on desert. I chose 3 types of gelato with home made biscotti while Linda chose the special. The special was a white ice cream on top of chocolate/coffee syrup thingy. It was really chocolate as I instantly sneezed. Well worth the sneeze though.

Would I tell you to go? Heck yes, can I go with you??

On a scale of 1-10, this place deserves a 9. Go check it out and tell them Cindy and Linda said hi. (That will mean nothing to them, but it will make me laugh when you tell me their reaction.)

Summer highlights

I know I have been missing in action, and I truly don't have a good reason...just busy this summer.

I am going to outline the highlights of my summer and then the next several posts will be detailing each thing a bit more.

1--In May, we had a valve stick open on our front loading washing machine and pour water into our home for hours. 6 rooms in our home were water logged. It was July before we got the new carpet and everthing put back in place.

2--In May, I realized I was unhappy with my job. I decided to take the summer to decide what to do. In late July, a new job dropped in my lap and in early August I made the decision to transistion to a new job.

3--In July, my bestest friend and I took a trip. We went to San Francisco. It was a wonderful trip and I loved every single minute of it. I am thankful that the guards at "the rock" allowed me to leave.

4--In August, we welcomed a new grandaughter into our family.

5--Today, I was reading another blog that I follow faithfully. Her entire post was about what she has learned about blogging and the number 1 thing was that you need to blog on a regular basis. I have been terribly inept at that, so I vow to begin anew. I hope you guys don't loose your minds reading my seepage.

Cindy