And on Saturday, I slept

Once again, I can't keep up the blogging now that I am back in the real world. Strange how having a social life takes you from the computer! But anyway:


May 1: Paul, Brian and I gave a talk about how cool science is to some junior high kids at Julie's school. The talk was pretty awesome, though Paul kept tossing around jargon (without knowing) and I'm pretty sure I said that Canada was cold about 5 times. Brian stole the show with his description of turd herding (waste water treatment).

May 4: Beth's bridal shower. Beth being the only woman in the world who hates being the center of attention, we had a paint-your-own-pottery party where we all painted her a gift instead. It turned out to be great fun. Here's some highlights:

Jessica is proud of her free-styling ability.

Nancy, Christina, Lucy and Maureen are the artistic table.

Ivon concentrates on her plate. (She's outlining the whole thing because she didn't believe me when I said the pencil would bake away!)

May 5: Cinco de Mayo, and instead of heading to the festival downtown, a few of us take advantage of the break in showers to have a picnic in Wash Park. I scouted out a good spot north of the lake (with water in it) and I settled in for the afternoon. Pretty soon Garth and dog Magna, Kym, James, and Mike and Sara with pooch Heisman join in.

Mike comes to the rescue with a brand new grill and Garth protects the meat from the dogs

May 10: Tucson, I'm off for Mother's Day and some quality time with the fam. Dad and I take the Carsons out to dinner and it's probably the most fun I've had at the Macaroni Grill.

For Mother's Day, Mom and I head out to use my new pottery painting skills and make some art of our own. (I suspected that some of my colors were off and Mom now tells me that they were, in fact, the wrong colors. Why anyone would choose to paint with baby-poo brown is a mystery to me.)

One more day left of this mini-vacation and Dad and I head out to Sabino Canyon for a hike up what is left of the road. My goal was to get a photo of a saguaro flower- mission accomplished!

May 14: Salida, Sampling at Chaffee County Landfill. In central Colorado, it's not a bad place to spend some time. This time I was training some of the local guys, so I had a crew of two to chat with. It was actually a pretty fun trip!

May 19: Ivon's birthday party at Ceviche, a Peruvian restaurant in Denver. She and friend Delia have sweet talked their way into having the party after hours and we were given free-reign of the restaurant. We started on the patio with drinks and appetizers. Here are Ivon, Sarah and Brett:

And then we moved inside for some dancing where Reed demonstrated his version of the white-man's overbite:

May 22: Jay is in town for some work schmoozing and since I am all about being a good hostess, I take Jay and his work buddy to dinner at Rodizio as a marketing effort. Rodizio is one of those Brazilian steakhouses that have a crew of servers with big bunches of meat on sticks. We had our fill of the read meat portion of the food pyramid for about the next couple of months.

May 24: Phoenix. The 25th is Graham's birthday and the beginning of Memorial Day weekend- all the excuse we need to have a pool party. I perfected my floaty skills and took lots of naps until I left on the 29th.

May 30: Baltimore. Brian and Jen, two of the crowd I met when first moving to Denver, are getting married June 2. Since Baltimore is so far away, Kym, Jon, Kate and I made a vacation of it. We toured Fort McHenry, inspiration for the "Star Spangled Banner", learned how to eat crab properly, and generally raised a ruckus. Here's Kym getting a crab lesson at the market:

The wedding was at the Baltimore Theatre Project, where Jen used to work while going to grad school.

The ceremony was creative and touching, and at the end of the day, Jen tossed her bouquet from the theatre steps as the crowd sang "Rainbow Connection". It was by far the most fun I've had at a wedding in a long time.

June 8: Jess and Todd's rehearsal dinner at the Wynkoop. I used to work with Jess and the dinner was a blast. Lucinda and Jason and Pat were also in attendance representing the Golder crowd.

June 9: The wedding. Jess and Todd got married in Genesee out under a gazebo and it was beautiful. Perhaps the best part though was that Katie and Mitch came up from AZ for the fun. Lucinda, Katie and I had a blast catching up and the boys entertained us all on the dance floor.

June 13: Happy hour at the Hornet. Sarah just got back in town from a very traumatic two weeks in the field in Montana, so a bunch of us took her out for a drink and debriefing. Jason got to show off his new motorcycle, so everyone was happy.

June 14: Arts and crafts class at the library. Can't tell you what I made because it's going to be a present soon. Fun though.

June 15: Golder happy hour in Denver. We decided to have an all Jill-and-Reed happy hour event, so we did their regular circuit and started at Dazzle, the very dark-lit jazz and martini bar on Lincoln. Then, we moved to the Funky Buddha, which had an outstanding patio that just happened to be very near to a cottonwood tree that I was really allergic to. I pleaded the need to breathe and we left early for the next stop- Armida's, the Mexican karaoke bar that I had attended earlier for Sara's birthday. We got prime real estate outside on the patio (no cottonwoods) right in front of the picture window behind the stage. We could see everyone perform and read all of the words as they butchered each song. This was way better than the last time. Not a choreographed move seen all night.

June 16: Golder picnic in Wash Park. Since the park is near my house, I was elected "she who must secure shady spot". Since Denver was experiencing a heat wave, we had the pick of the park (everyone else stayed home)... and apparently so did all of Golder. It turned out to be pretty fun, but hardly anyone showed, so that was disappointing.

Later that night: the annual Lobster Party. Brett and Larry throw the annual lobster party each year as a fund-raising effort for SIDS. Everyone who comes gets either a steak or a lobster and fun ensues. This was the first year of the lobster costume. It was impressive to say the least.

It was a great night, and people came from all over CO- even Dena came up from Trinidad to hang with Kym (but hey, she's a party regular).

June 17: Digital photography class at Chief Hosa Lodge in Genesee. The lodge is named after Chief Hosa, who watched over the hill that became the "Switzerland" of the Rockies. He was honored by having the City of Denver buy the land as the first ever Mountain Park as soon as humanly possible. Denver built the lodge for travellers on the stagecoach road that became I-70. It began as a reception hall and chapel, became a restaurant, a museum, a hostel, a gambling hall, a brothel, and now it's... a reception hall and chapel.

The class was taught by one of Denver's big digital photographers (name forgotten). He showed us the result of mysterious elements such as "aperture" and "back lighting". Most of the things I'd heard before, but it was a nice refresher. Lots of good photos to see, so that was good for inspiration. It was meant for the people with the really expensive cameras though, and so I had to fake most of my effects. Here's my "portrait of wildflower"

June 21: Gay on Santa Fe. This was the kick-off for gay pride weekend here in Denver, and since Kym and David's gallery was one of the few participating, Jill and I had to show our support. (The free wine didn't hurt.) One of their friends installed a giant art thing in their "ghetto garden" (the concrete lined backyard of their gallery that they share with a few others) with giant scrunched-up reams of paper. It was like a paper cave, but since this was gay pride, Jill and I decided it had to be something like a giant birth canal or something equally meaningful.

June 22: drinks with Peruvians. I joined Ivon, Carmen and E for mojitos at Cuba Cuba, in the Golden Triangle neighborhood of Denver. It used to be pretty sketchy, but now it's being over-run by lots of yuppie condos and the new federal court buildings. The restaurant is still good though- it's a converted house with an outstanding patio/backyard. The mojitos were pretty good as well. In fact, it's the first time I've actually liked a mojito...

Later we continued the consonance with dinner at Noa Noa, an outstanding Mexican restaurant on Santa Fe. Since this is just down the street from Kym and David's gallery, I'll be visiting it often.

June 24: Gay pride parade. Some friends of friends threw a gay pride parade pre-party, so I crashed. (That's the best part of the gay community, as long as you know someone, you're golden.) Jill and I met with Kym et al. at Eric's house at the beginning of the parade route for breakfast and mimosas. As soon as we heard the cop cars and the "dikes on bikes" leading the parade, we made our way to the street to join in the revelry. It was quite an experience.

After the parade, Jill and I made our way downtown to Civic Center Park, the center of all things gay that weekend, and had a look at all of the booths of stuff for sale. It was pretty much like the booths at any other festival, except with way more specialty travel agents. About then, the heat was getting to us, so we made our way deeper into downtown for some lunch at Zaidy's, a jewish deli/restaurant that has amazing pastrami. (I chose the lighter stuffed tomato instead.)

After lunch, we headed back to the gayness and found seats for the entertainment. We watched some random emcee and then a drag show that basically re-enacted all of the movie "Dreamgirls" (really- now I don't have to see it). We couldn't stay too long though because the heat was sweltering. We headed back to our respective houses and sat in front of our fans. (That's what I did, anyway.)

June 25: dinner at the Keg. I met Mike downtown at the steakhouse so he could use his free dinner cupon from his birthday (Sara was characteristically out of town). It was an excellent way to get half a free steak.

June 26: movie on the Rocks. Well, that was the plan, anyway. Crisis at work meant that I didn't get to leave work until like 8:30, so the movie was out. Dang crisis.

June 27: Bike to work day. I was the organizer for the office, so I rounded up breakfast and cajoled everyone into signing up for biking or carpooling or whatever and we got first place in our county! Not bad when you're competing against the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. (You'da thought they'd have it in the bag!) Since I was unable to ride (all that breakfast organizing) I carpooled with a couple of women who had to be to work extra early for a safety class. By 10AM, I was ready for a nap!

After work, Ivon raced across town for another crafts class at the library. This one was a fused glass workshop, and we made little glass creations that will be fired and mailed to us later. I made a key chain. I'm guessing that it's not award worthy, but I had fun anyway.

And THEN, I went to Mike and Sara's to dog sit the little dog. We watched a chick movie and bonded.

June 28: Today is the monthly beer-thirty reception at work, and I got to give out Bike to work day certificates like the "keeping it real" award for riding the last block to work with a grande starbucks, and the "AARP award" for the guy who tried to keep up with the young bucks riding from Boulder.

Later we celebrated Kate's birthday with happy hour at the City Park golf course club house. It was a great mix of trying-to-be-snobby golfers and folks chipping the crap out of the free grass. Definitely entertaining.

June 29: Happy hour at GI Jodi's in Littleton. Definitely not my pick. It was a very strange mix of redneck/biker bar/ hooters located in a very well-to-do area of town. Strange, but cheap.

June 30: I slept. All day.

Then I had dinner at Little Ollie's. Sara's back in town for the week and Karin was celebrating free babysitterhood and her first glass of wine in 10 months, so naturally we had to head to dinner in Cherry Creek. Little Ollie's is an asian fusion restaurant that was tasty but pricey- but I'm sure that's mostly due to the zip code. We finished dinner but not the gossipping, so we headed to a coffee shop to chat away until Karin's babysitter curfew.

Not a bad ending to a very busy month!
Here's hoping I don't wait this long to post anymore- I doubt anyone can read this far!