A Little R&R

Hello everyone, long time no see! Sorry for the hiatus, but I needed some time away from the
public forum to regroup and let some things marinate for a while. Let's see, what have I been up to since you last heard from me...

Paul and I took a trip to Tahoe with a group of friends. Parts of the trip were fun, like the night we stayed in and cooked up some lasagne and spent the night drinking wine and Blue Moon (the unofficial official beer of Tahoe it seems) while we played Taboo and Apples to Apples. My two friends Marissa and Jeff, the couple who planned the trip, are the two most competitive people in our group of friends, probably in all of creation, so it was great fun and verbal fireworks when we played boys against girls Taboo. My motion sickness/nausea/migranes/possible altitude sickness and then the drugs to counteract said sicknesses which made me super sleepy had me pretty much out for the count during most of the weekend. I didn't go skiing, partly due to the sickness and partly due to my fear that I will never find ski boots the fit me properly, but I did ride the gondola up to Adventure Peak to go tubing on day two. And of course, no force of nature or sickness can keep me away from trolling the gift shops for treasures.

Almost as soon as we got back from Tahoe, Paul was off again to Washington D.C. to attend the AIA Grassroots conference. He got to hobknob with some architecture greats at the conference Gala including John Carl Warnecke, the Architect responsible for JFK's eternal flame memorial at Arlington National Cemetary.

While he was gone, I decided to use the extra free time to do a lot something I love -curling up in a comfy chair at Borders or Barnes and Noble (I alternated) with a good book or writing in my journal for hours. I also had lunch with my wonderful friend Michele and a sleepover at my mother-in-law's.

I was a reading fool last week! I finished Perseopolis: The Story of a Childhood in a couple of days and it was really a good read. Its a graphic novel memoir, telling the story of Marjane Satrapi growing up in Iran during the time of revolution. The writing style was both humorous and poignant showed the changes in Iran and in one family's life because of the revolution. The movie based on this book and its sequel (which was also good, better than the first, in my opinon) was up for an academy award this weekend for best animated film. I'm hoping that the theatre near my house that usually gets the less mainstream movies usually reserved for New York and LA is showing it.

I'm also reading Love in the Time of Cholera. I LOVE this book. At the risk of sounding like I should be recieving social security, they just don't make books like that anymore. The first 50 pages were agonizingly slow and confusing. Where is thte love story? Where are the main characters mentioned on the back cover? Who is this boring doctor? However, I think it is well worth enduring that part for the rich story that follows. And don't worry, I wasn't one of the masses that bought it when Oprah chose it as her book club selection. No, I was way ahead of the trend when I picked it up a few years ago when it was featured in Serendipity, the John Cusack/ Kate Beckinsdale romantic comedy.

Well, that's about all for now. Since I have been getting into yoga again lately, I'll leave you with Namaste.