Whiplash

Why the neck brace, you ask? Well, let me tell you a little story about me and my insurance company...

Once upon a time, a beautiful princess named Anne had stomach pain. A kind doctor recommended some medicine for her, but the evil insurance company told him to suck it because the medicine was expensive. Along came a new year and a new, seemingly benevolent insurance company that offered to pay for the medicine, and there was peace in the land. 

But then the benevolent insurance company came down with a case of the crankies and couldn't decide if they wanted to continue paying for the expensive medicine or not. 

"We're so happy the medicine works," they wrote, "we'll continue to fund your health and happiness."

Later the same day, they wrote, "We've changed our minds, we DON'T want to pay for the medicine. Mwuhahahahaha!"

The kind doctor's kind nurse called the insurance company because she was confused. And they decided to remain benevolent and cover the medicine. And hopefully, there was peace in the land.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

For the last handful of years, Will and I have been putting spare change in old jelly jars. Once one fills up, we start on another. We've jokingly been calling this our "down payment for a house fund." I finally combined all of the jelly jar change into a purple Crown Royal bag (I don't know where that came from or why I have it, but it was hefty and could handle the massive pile we'd acquired). 

I trundled off to Safeway this afternoon with my Crown Royal bag full of change to get it counted. And would you believe that we had $92.58 in change*? Plus a few battered and beaten coins that the machine rejected. Clearly not a down payment on the house, but not a bad total either. We'll put it into the ol' savings account for new house fun.

But that's not even the biggest change around here. Our house has gone through some pretty drastic updates over the last two weeks. Since last Saturday, we've been sprucing, painting, yard selling, installing, cleaning, packing, moving & unmoving stuff, all to get the house looking nice for potential buyers. More than a few times Will and I have exclaimed, "Why didn't we do this years ago?" We're pretty pleased with how things have turned out. I'm especially in love with the laundry closet. Serious love. I want to marry it.

I was hoping to post some before and after shots tonight... but I don't have the after photos just yet. I guess that gives me an excuse for another post soon!

*That's before the coin counter took their 8.9% cut. Grrr....

Nostalgia

We are getting ready to put our house on the market.  So far, "getting ready" has entailed creating a list of the home improvement projects we didn't quite finish or get to, convincing my Mom to be our realtor, and creating piles of stuff we don't want anymore.  Needless to say, we've got a lot of work ahead of us.

I went through my books and CDs today and separated out the keepers from the get-rid-ofs.  It was so much easier to get rid of the CDs than the books.  I get really, really attached to my books. Even books I didn't love, I feel like I'm somehow betraying the characters by admitting that maybe they aren't worth living in my library.  

CDs on the other hand, are pretty easy to get rid of. The good ones I've got on my computer. And the bad ones are the hardest to get rid of because I have to admit that I actually purchased that music at one point (um, Candlebox? I plead the insanity of the 90s).

I also found a whole bunch of tapes that I held onto.  Mostly mix tapes from old friends and a large collection of U2. I know I got rid of tapes a long time ago and I must have held onto U2 because the tapes are all from when they were beyond awesome. I purged the tapes, but found a few that I just couldn't get rid of:

To: Anne From: Chris Keep Jammin' in the Car, Chica. A mix tape from my friend, Christine, from our junior year of high school. Having good tunes in the car in high school was key. I took this mix with me to Architecture Camp the summer between my junior & senior years of high school and the mix became famous in my studio for its awesomeness. Plus, I'm feeling all nostalgic.

Learn Xhosa with Anne Munik. This tape is from my Xhosa language class in South Africa. Anne Munik was my teacher and she was the cutest little white lady. She had grown up on a farm outside of Cape Town and absolutely loved the Xhosa culture and language - enough to dedicate her career to teaching it to other white people so they could appreciate it as well. The thing I absolutely adored about Anne was that whenever we'd learn something contradictory from our host families to what she taught us in class, she'd say, "Well, it is their culture, so they know it best." And she'd make a note. In a country where white people had for so long ruled as oppressors, it was amazing to see this woman who not only loved and appreciated the African cultures around her, but realized that she could never be the ultimate expert despite all of her learnings. 

A Reading for Anne 2003.  I usually get my tarot cards read about once a year, usually around my birthday.  I adore my Mom's friend, Bonnie, who reads the cards and records the sessions for us. She is such a gentle soul and I love that there are people in the world that see things that I don't. I also think that this is the reading she gave me where she said I would have a husband whose birthday was very close to mine. I met Will later that year and his birthday is 5 days after mine. Coincidence? I think not.

An unopened, blank tape. You never know when you are going to need ancient relics like this.

Now that I've decided what to keep, I need to figure out what to do with the old.

Lost in Translation

On Saturday morning, I had a voicemail message from my mom:

"Hi Anne, it's me.  I can't believe they named the baby Costco!  Give me a call when you get a chance.  Bye!"

Some dear friends, Marc & Perrin, had a baby boy late last week.  They didn't share the baby's name ahead of time, just like their last pregnancy with Malia.  I think we were all pretty sure that this baby wouldn't end up with a name like Joe or Bob.  If the mom's name is Perrin, it doesn't really work well to go everyday with the rest of the family.

And Marc & Perrin do indeed have a membership to Costco - I clearly remember that they got their membership before moving to Hawaii earlier in the decade.  But being the Boulderites they are, I'd assume they'd choose a local business name (McGuckin's has a nice ring to it) before a national chain if they decided to indeed name their progeny after consumerism.  

Fortunately for all involved (especially the baby) there was a horrible connection in the game of telephone announcing the baby's name.  I told my dad, who told my mom, who got it all wrong when she called me.  And baby Costco is actually baby Kosmo.

A Hendirks Movie Review

The Illusionist

An excellent study in interesting facial hair.

How Romantic

Scene: Eating artichokes, candlelight dinner

Me: Want to clean off the rest of this and eat the heart?

Will: Yeah, let's rip into this sucker Temple of Doom* style.

Happy Valentines Day!

*My least favorite movie ever.  I had serious nightmares about everything in this movie.

Teh Anxiety, I Has It

Seriously people.  Another plane crash?  This is the second time in as many months that I've landed in Denver, turned on my phone and saw an email alert from the NYT about a plane crash.  And add to that a friend's death in an airplane crash the same day as the Hudson River crash and you get a nervous Anne on a flight.

Flying in and out of Stapleton and DIA over the past 30+ years means that I laugh in the face of turbulence.  Lightening storms are really just good laser shows.  A fun activity with Will is being towed in a glider behind a prop plane.  And apparently donkeys kill more people every year than plane crashes.

But still.  I'm getting nervous.  I've already been on 15 flights since the start of the year.  Big jets and little commuter planes.  I have four flights scheduled for next week alone.  I hope I have an abundance of luck that isn't about to run out.  And some incredibly skilled pilots in charge.  And take-control flight attendants who don't loose their cool under pressure.  And a strong person sitting in the exit row who won't fumble with the emergency exit door. (Yes, I've started sizing up all of these people as I get on a plane these days.)

So, wish me good luck.  More so with the whole not getting anxious part than with the plane part.  That's going to go swimmingly, right?