Homeland security

I seriously considered buying this t-shirt today.

Read Full Post »

Another perk of my sabbatical

I don’t have to drive to work on this Wednesday morning.
It’s Bike to Work day in Colorado and Lord knows how many people are on the streets on bicycles right now. People who have little, if any, experience navigating city streets that way, and who assume that the traffic rules and laws don’t apply [...]

Read Full Post »

You don’t park like a nice person

So how often do I find a Hummer-sized behemoth stuck sloppily into a “compacts only” parking space, meaning that what’s available in the empty spot next to it, will not allow me to park my Subaru and then open the door and get out?
How many shiny Beemers do we see parked snottily – or snootily [...]

Read Full Post »

The Stranger

George in Denver added some poetry (those creative writers, you just can’t keep ‘em under control) to his commentary on the Larry Manzanares matter.
That got me thinking again of how we all have our secrets. Obviously Larry had his; so many people who knew him well are still having trouble getting their heads around his [...]

Read Full Post »

The Thunderbolt Kid and THE Princess

It’s time to cheer things up around here. Enough with the sadness and anger, for a few minutes anyway.
Read any good books lately? Well, I have. Two, in fact. And I’ll tell you about them.
First, Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. A memoir of childhood [...]

Read Full Post »

Not ready to make nice

 [Update:  nearly a week after originally posting this (June 30), I've realized I should not have tried to sort through my feelings - mostly anger - about this on my blog.  I am saddened by the tragedy, and will always be.  But I have let go of anger toward the DA and the press.   So [...]

Read Full Post »

Tragedy – and stupidity

[UPDATE: As of 9:31 this evening, the Denver Post has changed the lead sentence on the story by replacing "prison time" with "criminal charges". Maybe somebody there read this blog.]
I’m very sad about this. I met the man a couple of times, just after he became City Attorney, and shortly before [...]

Read Full Post »

A promising re-Spray

I hate to stand in lines for movies, but I’ll be lining up to see the remake of the cult movie Hairspray on the day it’s released here.  I hope that’s on July 20, which is the movie’s official release date, and not later.
John Travolta (above, left) plays Edna.  I can’t wait!
HT to Suz at [...]

Read Full Post »

I always suspected this and now I know

We all know (or should know) that the city/highway MPG numbers published for motor vehicles are at best aspirational, and we’d be insane to expect to get that kind of mileage ourselves.
Now, the former owner of a small SUV has published the statistics from his experience and the numbers don’t lie.
Thanks, Mike!

Read Full Post »

Fun with blog stats

My free WordPress blog (this one) lets me check my blog statistics, and lists some search terms that led visitors here.
A cryptic search term has appeared several times: “shit suz.”
Today I had the “aha!” moment.  

Read Full Post »

Ethics in government

Mike Keefe’s editorial cartoon in today’s Denver Post sums up my position very nicely – but you’ll have to click on the thumbnail to read it because the WordPress editing function isn’t letting me put a larger version into the body of this post.

Read Full Post »

Entertainment from the blogroll

As if I had nothing better to do tonight - such as pack for the week-long trip that starts tomorrow – I decided to check some of the links in my blogroll.  While I was away in May, there were some changes for:

Wide Lawns, Narrow Minds – where Subservient Worker is subservient no more.  Hooray!  Sadly, she’s [...]

Read Full Post »

Grace Notes

Who would have thought it?
Wisdom in a column printed in today’s Denver Post Style section, along with Ask Amy, the daily horoscope, TV schedule, and the comic strips. The author, Natalie Constanza-Chavez, writes:
This I know: I have no gospel to spread, and I am quite proud that I am sure of very little.
I believe language [...]

Read Full Post »

Oh, not London!

I haven’t had a chance to get tired of London, which must mean that I’m not yet tired of life, according to Samuel Johnson. Crowded, expensive, inconvenient, loud, maddening London. I love the place. Goodness, I really need to get back there soon. It’s been too long. Yeah, I [...]

Read Full Post »

Ouch

I was out of the country – heck, I was in the Southern Hemisphere – for most of the month of May.
When I left on that trip, our local gas stations were charging something like $2.80 per gallon for gas. A week or so later prices started shooting up up up all over the [...]

Read Full Post »

Little discoveries while traveling

When I was a little girl, the dime store in town was called “Woolworth’s.” It was one of the huge F. W. Woolworth chain of stores – which have all disappeared now. Wikipedia says the company evolved into Foot Locker.

Last month in Australia I saw “Woolworths” signs on stores. They are a grocery chain, and that [...]

Read Full Post »

Gifted public servant

I don’t know what to write about this, or how, but I have to. If only to quote Susan Barnes-Gelt, writing in Sunday’s newspaper:
[R]arely recognized are those gifted public servants who work to advance the mission of caring for the most vulnerable among us, ensuring that the protocols and systems that protect them are empathic, [...]

Read Full Post »

Jindabyne

Last Thursday afternoon I made it to another bargain matinée movie. This time it was Jindabyne, the complex and engrossing Australian film that I had a chance to watch on the Qantas flight from LAX to Melbourne last month.
I’m glad I didn’t try to watch it on the teensy-squeensy video screen on the seatback [...]

Read Full Post »

Weed control in the park

I have been taking a long walk nearly every day in the City parks across the street from our condo complex: Hutchinson Park and Bible Park. In each park, the wetlands (Hutchinson) and natural areas (Bible) are full of growth, tall grasses and leafed-out plants and trees.
The “developed” areas, especially in Bible – the big [...]

Read Full Post »