Climb Over Trees and Skip Over Rocks...

Extra points if you can figure out what song that came from with only the following hint: Their album came out in 1992 and the song was only 2 minutes long. Oh and they sued a popular Fox TV show because they used the band's name as the name of the show.

Green Mountain Summit - Boulder, Colorado

Happy Birthday to ME!

Today is my Birthday and next year I'm going here.....

All I Have to Say Is....

Flaxey's Number One Fear

You know those lists that rank what people's number one fears are?
Number one was always public speaking and death was second. I am not afraid of either of those things. My number one fear is snakes. It may be irrational but there's just something about them that creeps me out. I think it's the lack of legs because lizards don't bother me.


Well, they aren't scaring me as much anymore although they are still scary, creepy creatures. Yesterday, I had taken a shortcut on my hike and as I was meeting back up with the real trail I looked back and saw a healthly rattler (at least I think it was; I didn't see his tail) basking in the sun. I of course screamed and stepped away but stopped and took a better look and this picture.



I'm fairly certain I'm going to keep meeting them on the trail so I think it's time to learn how to treat a snake bite!

Quote of the Day

Brought to you by the letter "S" for "Snake" (you'll see why)

My good friend, let's call her Sally, (because I still believe in protecting the innocent and the guilty for that matter, with some anonymity on the internet) has been living it up in Seal Beach and going on some not so great dates lately.

I cut and paste the following because it made me laugh out loud! Thanks Sally*!






Subject: Birthday
From: SALLY
Date: Tue, April 3, 2007 5:24 pm
To: CITYGIRL
Priority: Normal

Hey chica,

Was just reading your blog and realized that I don't have a birthday
invite yet. Please tell me I didn't miss it!!! I will most definitely
be there - as always!!! I love, love, love you!

PS - I have a date with Brett tonight and I'm debating on the best way
to commit suicide already. Maybe a quick jump off the Seal Beach pier
into shark invested waters. ;)

From: CITYGIRL
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 10:14 AM
To: SALLY
Subject: Re: Birthday

The party will be May 19th at the pool like last year!
Thanks for the laugh this morning!!

Subject: RE: Birthday
From: SALLY
Date: Wed, April 4, 2007 9:33 am
To: CITYGIRL
Priority: Normal

Sweet! Going on the calendar now!

The date sucked - let's just say when you're drunk high school buddy
shows up and won't let you talk to your date and is a complete
moron...it's not cool. He tried to get him to go away, but the guy
didn't take the hint. Once he gave up on getting rid of him, they
started reminiscing on how they met at a Dungeons and Dragons class when
they were 10. ummm...yeah.

So after about an hour, I called it an early night and went home. The
best part of the night - thinking of ways to injure myself, here were
the top three:

1. Drive into oncoming traffic
2. Jump airport fence and stand in front of a plane that's taking off,
hoping to get sucked into jet engine
3. Overdose of easter candy resulting in stomach pumping

Scott also suggested poisonous snake bite, but snakes are hard to find
at the last minute so that didn't make the top 3.

And that my friends is the quote of the day because snakes ARE hard to find at the last minute!!


* Sally is also known as PR Chick from "Flaxey Loves to Fly"

Perspective

I want to say something
to all of you who have become
a part of the fabric of my life.

The color and texture which
you have brought into my being
have become a song and I want to sing it forever.

There is an energy in us
which makes things happen when
paths of other persons touch ours.
And we have to be there and let it happen.

When the time of our particular sunset comes
our thing, our accomplishment
won't really matter a great deal.

But the clarity and care with which
we have loved others
will speak with vitality of the
great gift of life
we have been for each other.

-Author Unknown

Flaxey Talks to Stangers

Random strangers have been talking to me more and more. It’s not the usual “Do you
have the time?” (Which I don’t because my watch died years ago and I never had it
fixed) or “Do you know how to get to the bus?” or “How do I get to Sunset Boulevard
from here?”
These are all fine and usually easy to answer. But the other day things took a
strange turn, the questions from these haphazards were more personal and it started
in the ladies locker room at the gym.

After properly attiring myself for the workout, I did something I rarely do and
ascended the scale, just to check in. I stepped off and this woman asks me, “Did you
lose weight?” I have to say I was slightly taken aback by this line of questioning.
I shook my head and she said “me either.” I gathered my things and left.
Post-workout, I return for the opposite ritual and as I gather my items from the
locker another arbitrary woman sitting on the bench, strikes up with “How was your
workout?”

I told all of this to my sister and she offered the following pearl;. “Before people
were always asking you for something; what you could do for them. These people are
asking about you and your well-being. It must be a shift in your energy.”

I have to say I completely agree. I have always had a sort of magnetic personality,
(which is evidenced in the long guest list for my upcoming birthday party) if you
will, but there has been a shift in my own perception of myself and that seems to be
echoing out in the world. I have to say I like it.

That’s as deep as we’re going to get today.

I'm also adding a rant about Best Buy. I hate that place. They never have anything! I had a healthy list of things and they did not have a single one. Boo! Best Buy!!!

I leave you with the following music recommendations. The Fratellis – Costello
Music, Silversun Pickups – Carnavas, Daughtry and my girl Jonatha Brooke’s latest –
Careful What You Wish For drops today. I already have it and it’s good. Visit
her site and order it.

(Disclaimer - this entry sucks in the way of pictures, spelling and links, because we are having severe technology issues both at work and at home! And that is ticking me off too!!)

Flaxey Loves to Fly

I've flown a couple times in the last couple weeks and these flights were not eventful at all. You'll be bored reading this, but I know some are itching for new posts.

The highlights include the mean Starbucks girl in the Phoenix airport who couldn't understand the poor little old man who just wanted a cup of coffee with cream and sugar. She thought he said sugar-free. I jumped in because she was being mean and he had a hearing aid and didn't understand. She yelled at me for trying to help. The man was grateful to me.

There was the crazy unkempt man who sat next to me with his curly salt and pepper hair, rumpled clothes and crumpled up newspaper. He was the last one on the plane and stole the water of the guy in the window seat and then ordered a beer like he was at a bar.

And finally, on my flight back from Denver a friend was actually on the same plane; how often does that happen? We sat together and enjoyed the flight back chatting away and catching up. It was a pleasant way to end the weekend.

I Don't Understand MySpace

Everyone asks, "Are you on myspace?"
"No, I answer, I am right here, right now in front of you having a conversation."


Do we really need an internet page between us?
I already have five, maybe six e-mail addresses. Isn't that enough?
Can't you send your all-important communique to one of those?

Oh, yeah and this blog and three phone numbers.

Do I really need a page in cyberspace that describes my entire existence plus pictures of fuzzy, soft-focus kittens that represent my tender heart? Are words spoken from our mouths no longer valid?



Maybe I am too hung up on real live people and interacting with them. Maybe I should give that up for Lent this year. It would go well with my New Year's resolution to drink more; I can sit at home, pour myself a vodka (or six), affix myself in front of my excruciatingly, painfully slow computer and wait for the graphically intense pages to load and avoid all human contact whatsoever.

Yeah, 40 days of that and you should be avoiding me. Hell, I'd be avoiding me.

Seriously, people, are you really better off when Al Gore adds you as a friend? Are you going to meet IRL (in real life) someday over vegan lasagna to discuss inconvenient truths and his latest invention? I think not. And we haven't even covered the whole identity theft or stalking issue, and we don't have time. You'll have to ponder that yourself minus my acerbic wit.

So, no I don't understand myspace and I don't want to because I have enough technological ways of transmitting thoughts from my brain to yours.

Oh, yeah, and be sure to check out my page....

Better Call Mr. Plow

Apparently, for the seventh week in a row Denver keeps getting hit with snow storms.

My sources there say they are tired of it and have provided the following from a trusted news outlet:

Another Weekend, Another Snow Storm
http://cbs4denver.com/weatherblog

"The week ahead will keep our cold winter pattern alive and kicking. We
should have two surges of cold air drop through Colorado, giving Denver a
chance for snow Monday night into Tuesday and then again on Thursday.

"Then, get ready, Cold air originating in Siberia will blast into the
North Pole, then into central Canada this week. By the time we get to
Friday and Saturday that Polar Express will drop into the Northern Plains
and push our temperatures into the deep freeze once again. Highs next
weekend might not get out of the teens and we may have a few lows below
zero.

Meteorologist Dave Aguilera



My actual interest in snow can be measured by the fact that I moved far, far away from it. Although, I sympathize with this plight, my level of frustration really isn't going to register, especially since I am not traveling there again anytime soon. I do want everyone to stay safe on the roads though.

I really have no other profundities on this topic. So, I close with, don't let this happen to you:

Leaving the Iron Home Alone and ON

Is it bad that this keeps happening?


Anyway, my favorite songwriter puts it best, as follows, and that's what I have for y'all today.






Digging
By Jonatha Brooke

I am digging deep, I am digging wide
Looking for clues, in the grand design
But no better, no better I'll never ever be
If I can't keep what I find

Cuz I have lost so many things
And I have loved so foolishly
But oh, never no never have I walked this dark path
Or felt this troubled sleep

So can you make ends meet when they're tattered and frayed
Make peace with the things that you've done
Cuz the end has nothing to do with the means and the
Way that the battle's won

Cuz you try to talk me down
And I'm running all around
You try to make some sense of me
But there I am in pieces on the ground

And so I wander, so I lust
Ever wonder who to trust
Cuz there's no clear line from blindness to sight
No straight path from dust to dust

So can you make ends meet when they're tattered and frayed
Make peace with the things that you've done
When the end has nothing to do with the means and the
Way that the battle's won

And you try to talk me down
And I'm running all around
You try to make some sense of me
But there I am in pieces on the ground

So I am digging deep, I am digging wide
I can see true, when I see your eyes
And no better, no bettter I'll never ever be
Without love by my side

2007

Feel the Magic.

I Blame the Media Blamers

Actually, maybe it's OK to just blame the media? Flaxey flys safely as predicted. Only 7" of snow actually fell (versus the 20+ inches predicted by the media to sell their newscasts). DIA stayed open (after they figured out they should plow the ramps).

Any Lessons Learned here? (Don't let the Guest Blogger loose while Flaxey plays in the snow.)

Signed,
The Guest Blogger

Fly on Flaxey...Fly on

Nothing excites the Denver media more than the threat of a good storm (except perhaps the illusion that the Broncos will go to the superbowl). The impending storm is being downgraded like a K-Fed CD in the bargain bin.

Fly on Flaxey, Hell is only half-full.

Signed,
The Guest Blogger

Exactly

This is What the 14th Circle of Hell Looks Like

I am now trudging, searching and digging, through site after site of weather maps, forecasts, radar, NOAA models, low pressure, high pressure and various fronts.

All in the hope that it will turn up some small nugget of information that will make a decision about my impending flight to Denver.

I am at the ready. I've researched the timetables. It still won't matter.



It doesn't look good and I have uncovered nothing except the fact that I've quite possibly made a serious vocational error. Meteorologists make a lot more money.

Nothing has changed except United already anticipates canceling flights and have extended their change waiver through the 30th. They are giving us a big giant clue right there.

If you look at the radar right now, you'd say, "Nothing is there, it's clear." I did that last week and look where I ended up; in the city of angels for Christmas by myself.

As someone wise just said:

Lessons learned are not always lessons remembered.

The Universe Has Spoken

If it was not clear before it is transparent now...

More snow is on the way to Denver


Yes, it's supposed to hit on the new day I am to fly out to try and have Christmas a week later. I don't think it will happen.

I must be in my own version of LA Story when the sentient freeway sign tells Steve Martin that the weather will change his life. Because other than that what are the chances that paralyzing snowstorms would hit in exact conjunction with both of my trips?



That is all. I am beyond any description of emotion. There just aren't enough words.

It's a War Zone!

The official word from Denver is "Forget Katrina, What about Us!?!"

For the record, I did try to prepare for the certain cancellation of my flight. I just didn't pull the plug soon enough.



The lessons we have learned; at the first sign of trouble, bolt! and never, ever, ever mock the storm!

Old Man Winter

Has ruined my Christmas.

The Road Home