If It's Tuesday, it must be... ... TIRED Tuesday.

Man. This past weekend wore me right out. Today, Tuesday, I took Marilyn to the airport, did a few things like put the shampoo back in the bathroom, took a nap, made Zach go get Tess because I did not feel capable of driving. Oh, and slept.

Exhausted. Worn out. Pooped. Dragging. Wiped out. Sleepy. Tired. Yawn. Nackered...no, knackered. Too pooped to party.

Like this:


Mark and Zach, 3 days old

Okay, they are not asleep. But it's hard to tell when looking at a tiny thumbnail.

Thor sleeping on Mojo. Abe one good kick from falling off the couch. (And, no, Mark, I did not authorize this...)

They really are asleep here. Why they are laying like this I don't know.

Abe on Morphine. He is completely out of it. I mean completely zoned. His eyes are open, but he is not seeing.

I am sure Zach would be thrilled beyond words to see this photo.
Oh, well.

Zach just after painting the last state. This was his Eagle Scout project -- repainting a map of the US on an elementary school playground.

Tess. Asleep. Man, her hair is a lot longer now...

Monday, Monday...

My sister Marilyn joined me on the trip back to Tucson, so she could see my kids before heading on to New Orleans for a conference...It was really nice to have the company!

There was no snow here when I drove through on Friday. All that rain we had in San Diego was snow in the higher elevations.


These rocks are very interesting to me...It looks like somebody just went nuts with a ball peen hammer and cracked them all. I have no idea why they are like this, but I like it.

Marilyn found it endlessly hilarious that I took many many photos of the clouds trying to drive and photograph at the same time.

We saw two rainbows like this -- one close to Casa Grande and one in Tucson...It's the end of the rainbow, sort of, without the arch. See there is just part of the rainbow, right in that spot where it was raining.


I really did take lots of accidental cloud shots...

Although...
I do actually like this one:


Here's the weird rainbow in Tucson...

Marilyn brought the kids this Killer Bunnies card game, which is crazy fun. And rather gruesome. Bunnies die in all sorts of horrible ways.

So that was my weekend! I had a marvelous wonderful fabulous time! And took over 500 photos. Be very grateful you are not in my basement right now watching slides...zzzzzzzzzzz!

Sunday Bloody Rainy Sunday.

Sunday was rainy in San Diego.

I did take some photos of the rain on glass, which was fun since rain is rare in Tucson. Which you would think would mean I don't mind the occasional rain drop. HA. I hate rain. I hate cloudy gloomy days. I think my allergies to molds and mildew makes rainy days and gloomy damp weather so horrible for me that it is now a psychological thing...I hate gray rainy days.

So Sunday in San Diego. (I went off on a bit of a tangent there... Who here is surprised?)
We again had breakfast -- hey. A person's gotta eat...Two of our group had to leave Sunday morning (work is such a bugger.). The rest of us went to see Michael something with George Clooney Clanton? dang now I have to google...Clayton. Michael Clayton. That's what we saw. I think I need to see it again when I am a bit more coherent...my sister and cousins pointed out several times to me that I did fall asleep for a couple minutes. I never fall asleep at movies, but I have this stupid cough left over from my cold and it keeps waking me up at night. Plus the gray rainy day thing. And the movie was very gray. Look at the sky behind George...I would like to see it again, when I am in the right mood. (When we went to this movie, I knew nothing of it. Not one detail. Which is okay, but I don't think that works so great when it's such a subtle movie -- lots of hinted at and suggested things. Not a great movie to be sleepy. You always feel like you just missed something important. I mean, the movie is like that anyway, and then when you add sleep confusion, well, it's just hopeless. I am still not even sure if I liked it...)

Did you notice? That was sort of a tangent there...I am tangent woman!

After the movie we wandered around the Gas Lamp district (?). I think that's what it was called. I really wasn't paying that much attention. Anyway, wherever it was, there are lots of cool buildings like this one:
And this one:



And a Ghiradelli's Chocolate and Ice Cream Parlor.



May I just say, "Yum."

It was still raining, so we went back to the hotel


(the atrium of the hotel had this gigantic gold and bright green sculpture hanging there. It was pretty interesting, and completely did not fit the current theme of the hotel, which is all "spa" and "breathe" and "relax" and "unwind" and "calm" and bright green plexiglass panels just do not fit that mood. My sister and I think the green is left over from a previous incarnation of the hotel and that they either did not bother to change the panels, or that it is in fact art (although I saw no little art plaque thingie) and thus the green was in fact chosen by the artist and cannot be changed. Still, what color is "breathe"? They can't make it gray, because that would be boring. Pastels would be ucky, vibrant jewel tones would work, I guess. I dunno. It's a great hotel anyway, and I like the green. Plus it's about five stories high, and changing that art work would be a bastard...)

Tangent woman strikes again!

and we watched the rest of the Super Bowl. (The beginning of that sentence is waaaaaayyyy up there, before the whole discussion of the hotel green thingie. Tangents R Us.)


And ordered in pizza. And chatted and laughed and goofed for the rest of the evening, again in our jammies, and again, I am not posting those photos.

Tomorrow. Parting is such sweet sorrow...

In which we watch some whales. And laugh.

Saturday morning. We stumble out of bed, have breakfast,

mess around in the cool glass elevator with the mirrored ceiling,

tease the single cousin about the concierge she was flirting with the night before,

(note the lean against his desk...)

wander around some waterfront shopping,



talk, laugh, surreptitiously or not so surreptitiously watch some firefighters (not fighting fires, just standing around chatting)...

I was playing with my new camera. I figured out that a 2 GB memory card can hold somewhere around 6000 photos with my current settings, so I took photos with abandon.



Anything and everything, and used the 3 frames a second setting for absolutely no good reason...

Except for this series of LuAnn "dancing"...


That was a very good thing to photograph at 3 frames per second.


Then we went whale watching. Gray whale watching. It was a beautiful bright sunny day, if slightly chilly on the upper deck. We saw a bunch of pelicans rather up close...


And sea lions...


The whales are so cool up close. They popped up really very close to the boat.
And because San Diego is a military town, we also saw F16's flying overhead.


We went to a great restaurant Saturday night...


Then we went back to the hotel and laid around in our jammies drinking wine and eating brownies and laughing. Since I have to see all these women in a few months, I am not posting any pictures of that part of the evening. You are welcome, Deb.

The Brownies.


Make a dark chocolate brownie mix as directed, or make your own brownies.


Sprinkle really good dark chocolate chips over the top of the brownies when you take them out of the oven. (I used Nestle's Chocolatier brand. ) Use lots.


Cut up caramels with kitchen shears (into four to six pieces each) and sprinkle those across the brownies too.


When the brownies cool, top with this frosting:

• Ghiradelli's sweet chocolate powder and cocoa
• Butter (half a stick, maybe)
• half and half. (I use fat free. I don't know why I bother)
• vanilla (a teaspoonish amount)
• powdered sugar (about the same amount as the cocoa, maybe?)

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over probably rather low heat. Beat in the rest of the stuff. This is the tough part -- you HAVE to taste it to make sure it tastes FABULOUS. I don't measure -- if it's not thick enough I add cocoa and sugar, if I want a thinner glaze I add more half and half.


(For birthday cakes, I bake chocolate cake or cupcakes, put them on a platter, and dump a fairly thin version of this glaze over the top of them. )


For the brownies, once the glaze/frosting is FABULOUS, I just poured it over the pan of brownies, threw them in the back seat and drove to San Diego. Woot.

Tucson in the rear view mirror

This morning (Friday morning, that is.... I know I am posting this on the following Tuesday. Sue me.) I drove

to San Diego for the 2nd Annual Girls' weekend. Tons of fun and laughter and catching up on family gossip.

Still 353 of 426 miles to go. Sigh.

Zach's hula girl in the rear view mirror. It was supposed to be Tucson in the rear view mirror, but I was driving while photographing. Not exactly a really great idea...



The drive from Tucson to San Diego is interesting...You start out in the Sonoran desert, drive through sand dunes like these, into mountains of enormous cracked boulders (photos of those on Monday's post), into the green and lush area of San Diego.



Of course, after driving so far (and being briefly sorta lost in San Diego), the proper way to start the weekend is with a Margarita.

We did in fact briefly allow testosterone at our weekend, since our cousin and his two terrific kids drove down from LA to have dinner with us Friday night. The laughter started immediately and lasted the entire weekend. Many stories and reminiscences were told -- nobody was spared. James and David and their adventures with tubes of oil paint and a vice in the machine shed, the encounters with electric fencing and cows and marijuana plants on the farm. All those things that kids do when parents are not watching...

We were on the 22nd floor of the Westin in downtown San Diego. Great hotel, great views, great food, great margaritas...What you cannot see in this photo is ocean. Not an ocean view like this:



(See the little strip of ocean there, between the buildings?) But an ocean view like this:

Tonight (Friday night) we ate and talked and drank some cocktails and pretended to make plans for the weekend (we are the queens of going off on a tangent in conversation. In fact most of our conversations are tangents. Staying on track, not our strong point.)

And by the way, my dear cousins, don't worry if you don't see any photos of yourself yet...the weekend is young, and I have photos of all of you...