Point of View

I'm just back from a week in New York, where Darling Husband and I signed a lease on a 1950s ranch house in Rhinebeck.

In square footage (1300 vs 1900) and architecture it doesn't compare well to the Victorian house in Denver we're selling:










But lot size (1/2 acre vs 40x100 ft) and the view looking out make all the difference.

From the front:










And best of all, from the back:

In Cheery Siberia (aka Denver, CO)

An arctic blast hit Denver over the weekend. It snowed yet again last night--snowfall #9 since October 8, for those keeping score. When I got up this morning it was 3°F outside. The thermometer outside my dining room window registered a sultry 20° a little after noon. When last I looked it was 10°.

Sunday night I watched Silk Stockings, with songs by Cole Porter, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. (Fun fact: costar Janis Paige was married to my father's double-cousin Arthur, whose parents were Dad's paternal aunt and a Stander cousin.)

And what song could be more appropriate to the frigid weather than "Siberia," sung by Joseph Buloff, Jules Munshin & Peter Lorre:

When we’re sent to dear Siberia,
To Siberi-eri-a,
When it’s cocktail time ’twill be so nice
Just to know you’ll not have to phone for ice.

When we meet in sweet Siberia,
Far from Bolshevik hysteria,
We’ll go on a tear,
For our buddies all are there
In cheery Siberi-a.

When we’re sent to dear Siberia,
To Siberi-eri-a,
There’s a most delicious bill of fare,
You must try our filet of polar bear.

When we meet in sweet Siberia
To protect us from diphtheria,
We can toast our toes
On the lady Eskimos
In cheery Siberi-a.

When we’re sent to dear Siberia,
To Siberi-eri-a,
Where the fresh salt air makes us feel so fine,
It is fresh salt air from our own salt mine.

When we meet in sweet Siberia,
Where the snow is so superia
You can bet, all right
That your Christmas will be white
In cheery Siberi-a.

Here's the number (stop at 2:31):

My Day in Music

I started off the day in a blue mood. Prompted by a Twitter post, after breakfast I lay on the couch and listened to "Can't Find My Way Home" on the Blind Faith album, a touchstone of my teenage years. The lyrics took on a whole new meaning, now that we've delayed our move to our home state of New York due to my wasted body--which I really wish I could leave.

Can't Find My Way Home
by Steve Winwoood

Come down off your throne and leave your body alone
Somebody must change
You are the reason I've been waiting so long
Somebody holds the key

But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time, oh no
And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home

Come down on your own and leave your body at home
Somebody must change
You are the reason I've been waiting all these years
Somebody holds the key

But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time, oh no
And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home

But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time, oh no
Oh no, and I'm wasted and I can't find my way home

But I can't find my way home
Still I can't find my way home

And I ain't done nothing wrong
But I can't find my way home

After a bit of emotional catharsis, I decided that the ideal music to listen to next was Kurt Weill. So I put on "Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill," followed by Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera), also with Lemper.

Meanwhile I read the New York Times. Or at least the A section. Or rather, the stories that didn't get me too upset. So I skipped the one on the front page about the victims of the Fort Hood shooting, and the one inside about the Orlando shooting (I had to put my hand over the photos).

To cap it all off, there were two op-eds about veterans and PTSD (which I have). The Forever War of the Mind by Max Cleland is absolutely devastating and absolutely true; Stress Beyond Belief by Bob Herbert also hits hard. Both are must-reads.



Darling Husband hid upstairs until the music was over. When he came down, I said, "Y'know, I don't think it was such a good idea to listen to Weill when reading bad news in the paper."

He responded, "It's NEVER a good time to listen to Weill. In German. That's when I know you're really depressed."

After that I made myself a bowl of popcorn and mug of mocha (DIY antidepressants) and cheered myself further by playing "Ella Fitzgerald: The Songbooks." At the same time, after wiping the butter off my hands, I redid the layout of the upcoming Bella Terra Southeast Lighthouses Map.



Then Darling Husband took me for my first post-surgical drive that wasn't for an appointment with a healthcare provider. We went to Washington Park and took a (very short, slow) walk by the first lake. We passed four 20ish guys sitting on a bench. One of them, with his lower leg in a monstrous cast, was playing Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on a guitar.

When we came back, he was idly strumming. A German woman with a toddler said, "His favorite song is 'The Wheels on the Bus.'" The guys looked puzzled, so I said, "You know... [singing] 'The wheels on the bus go round and round...'"

Whereupon, to the little boy's delight, all four guys burst into a rousing rendition of "The Wheels on the Bus." As we got into the car, I heard them starting on the third verse.

I Survived!

What a crazy 2 weeks it's been:

• Monday 9/28 - 8:45am: visit to emergency room for lumbar and leg pain; 3pm exam by osteopath.
  
• Tuesday 9/29 - 1:30am: another ER visit; 2:30pm exam by physiatrist & house showing (canceled when we arrived at doctor's office; GRRR); 6pm dinner with AJ Jacobs & posse before his event for THE GUINEA PIG DIARIES at the Tattered Cover (which I was too sore to attend).
  
• Thursday 10/1 - 4pm: house showing & neuromuscular massage at MassageSpecialists.com.*
  
• Friday 10/2 - Literary Ladies Luncheon (see 10/9 New West article by Janet Singleton!)
  
• Monday 10/5 - 11am: epidural steroid injection by physiatrist.
• Tuesday 10/6 - 10am: exam by spine surgeon, who set up immediate surgery; 5pm neuromuscular massage; 6:30pm dinner with Agent Kristin.
  
• Wednesday 10/7 - 8:30am pre-op physical with GP; 3pm shrink session.
• Thursday 10/8 - 6am check-in for 7:30am surgery (moved up from 10:30--YAY!).
  

The surgery went fine. Though my back hurts like hell, my leg's already improving and I feel better than I ever dared dream. Thanks again for all the encouraging comments, especially from Alan Orloff, who gave me hope when I needed it most.

Enough of the sweet stuff. Now for the bitter...

Darling Husband's job--the one that moved us to Denver in Dec 2005--was eliminated in June. So our Blue Cross/Shield plan is now under Cobra. (How fitting that US health coverage is named for a venomous snake.) The surgery had to be pre-approved by Blue Cross, else it wouldn't have been scheduled. The first thing I had to do when hobbling into the hospital's registration office yesterday morning was submit my insurance ID card & driver's license. Then I had to sign & initial a gazillion forms.

After I was lying in a gurney prepped for surgery--with glasses off, so I couldn't read anything--I had to sign and initial even more forms. The kicker came just before I was knocked out, when I was given a form agreeing to pay the surgeon's assistant, who's an independent contractor. The surgery can't be done without her, but Blue Cross doesn't believe it takes 4 hands to:

• slice into the back with the aid of a microscope;
• move aside the spinal cord & sciatic nerve;
• cut the bulge off a lumbar disc;
• cut off protruding arthritic knobs at the end of 3 vertebrae that have changed 3 discs from elastic white to hard black;
  
• staple everything closed.
  

So the surgeon's office will submit the payment request and Blue Cross will deny it. Then the surgeon will appeal and months later Blue Cross will relent and pay the claim. Maybe. Otherwise we'll have to make a payment plan with the surgeon's assistant. By then DH will have a new job. Maybe.

I got little sleep last night because every time the nurse turned off the lights & left the room, some machine started beeping wildly. First it was the one that inflated cuffs around my calves every few seconds to keep blood clots from forming (and me from relaxing). Then it was the IV machine. Then it was the oxygen pump. Then it was the oxygen pump monitor.

"Look," I said, "give me another Valium so this stupid stuff won't bother me anymore, OK? And give the machines Valium, so they'll calm down too."

I got the Valium. Don't know if the machines did, though they did shut up eventually.

I was back home and in bed by 1:30pm, after having belted down a couple of Valium so I'd be sure to sleep. A nanosecond after DH finished tucking the covers under my chin, Max leaped onto me. Within minutes I was zonked out with a 14-lb purring heating pad draped from crotch to chin.

Not 2 hours later my bliss was shattered by a phone call from a lady at the hospital billing office. What could she possibly want? Well, it seems that Blue Cross, which just this morning had approved the physical therapist's request for a walker, told her that my insurance had expired months ago. Kudos to me for not swearing a blue streak when I told her to call Blue Cross back and inform them how extremely wrong they are.

I'll bet that the people in Congress fighting universal health care--whose generous coverage is funded by our tax dollars--don't go through crap like this.

Is this a great country, or what?

*Note to FTC: I received no goods, payments, services--or even dinner--from any persons or entities mentioned in this blog post. Though considering the cost of health care, I would have gladly accepted medical kickbacks.

Odds & Sods

Too occupied with consulting, editorial work (I'm done with Maine & on to editing the Mid-Atlantic Lighthouses Map now), sore arm (don't ask) & being knocked out at dentist today (ditto) to write any coherent blog posts.

So here are some tidbits I picked up during free moments at Twitter, plus a BONUS! photo.

1. Clichés cluttering your manuscript? Sweep them away with ClichéCleaner.
2. It's cyber Titania & Oberon: Robot Programmed to Love Goes Too Far.
3. Jason Pinter decodes Blago's book deal and Phoenix Books publisher Michael Viner's HuffPo column about reaction to said deal.
4. Headline of the day: Octopus gets inside lunchbox at Boston aquarium. Takeaway: A 7' long, 30-lb octopus can slither through a 2" hole.

Best of all, a photo taken in my backyard yesterday, where it was 70+F:


My little apricot tree started blooming today. But this being Denver, there's talk of snow in the foothills tonight, with a high of 40 on Saturday and a chance of rain. We sure could use it, the ground is dry as dust.

Worst Headline of the Day

The front page of today's New York Times was bad enough. Then there was this from Denver's 9News.com:

On Monday morning the official low temperature plummeted to -18 degrees at DIA.* The coldest temperature on record for Dec. 15 was -6 degrees, last set in 1951.

*Denver Int'l Airport

A Good Laugh for the Trip

On Wednesday morning, when I flew to LA, the airport shuttle van came five minutes early, so it sat while I finished tearing around the house. My street is narrow, with parking on both sides, so there was very little room for other cars to maneuver around the van. When I got in, a woman at the wheel of an SUV was reaming my driver out for blocking the way and making her late to school.

All she had to do was back up a few feet and pull into a space by the curb so we could pass, and everyone would have been on their merry way. But NOOOO..... she wasn't about to give way to anyone. So there we sat while she ranted and railed.

"Use your head," she yelled at the van driver.

"Use your car," he retorted, though with none of her venom. I and the two other passengers roared with laughter.

More ranting, then she grudgingly backed into the space. We drove north; she drove south. I pity her students.

On the Road Again

The most beautiful place I've given a workshop: the courtyard outside our meeting room at St. Maximilian Kolbe Church, Westlake Village.

I've been in (mostly) sunny Southern California since Wednesday. The official reason for the trip was to give a Book Promotion 101 workshop yesterday, sponsored by the Tri-Regions of Southern California chapter of SCBWI. I decided to take a couple of extra days, which I crammed with visits to friends old and new in Santa Monica, LA and Venice.

When I left Denver, it was about 30 with a couple inches of snow on the ground, forecast to shoot into the 50s. When I arrived in LA at noon, it was 72, with bougainvillea and roses blooming everywhere. Bliss!

The weather here was balmy thru Friday, when I spent a couple of supremely happy hours at El Matador Beach, just north of Malibu. I enjoyed the clime even more when Baby Brother filled me in on the wretched time he was having with the ice storm in Maine. (Schadenfreude is a great sweetener. And Baby Bro's power is back on now.)

Baby Bro's icy front yard in Topsham, Maine.
(Current temp: 28F. Denver: 1.)

The last laugh's on me though: It dropped to 40 last night in Simi Valley (home of the Reagan Library--guess where I won't be going) and there's no heat in my hotel room. (Yeah, there's a thermostat, but it doesn't do anything.) I slept in a sweater zipped up over my nightgown and the covers over my head.

Better/worse still: It was ZERO and snowing in Denver a couple of hours ago; it'll be maybe 5F when I touch down tonight. I am soooo glad I'm taking a shuttle van home, so I won't have to shlep through the frigid, snowy parking lot in my lightweight LA clothes. And I am soooo going to drink in all the greenery and flowers in my remaining few hours here. (Next stop: Topanga Canyon.)

Update, Dec 15:
It was -14F (FOURTEEN DEGREES BELOW ZERO!!!) when my plane touched down last night. You should have heard the shrieks and groans when the pilot announced the local weather. As of noon, it's warmed up to all of +1F. I mean, seriously, WTF?

All DNC, All the Time 2: The Boy Wonder Hits the Big Time

Attendees at Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC in Denver. That's my little boy at center. Photo by Kevin Moloney for the New York Times.

It was a good thing I'd finished my morning tub o' tea when I opened today's New York Times national edition to the politics pages, else I'd have spewed it when I got to the story at the top of page 20: Political Realities May Pose a Test to Obama’s Appeal to Young Voters.

Because the young man holding a flag front and center is none other than my own son, the Boy Wonder. In case you're wondering why he looks so much taller than everyone around him, it's because he is so much taller: 6'4". Thinner too: 130 lbs, despite eating four square meals a day, and then some. Hence his choice of T-shirt, whose logo can't be made out in the photo: "Giraffes United Against Ceiling Fans." (See it here at Threadless T-Shirts.)

The photo was on the NYT home page when the BW saw it late last night. Too bad he didn't get a screen shot, as it's since been replaced. But at least he had his 15 minutes of (anonymous) fame, and I'm sure the folks at Threadless are thrilled.

All DNC, All the Time 1

Downtown Denver, as viewed from Metro State Auraria on August 24.

In case you haven't heard, the Democratic National Convention has been in Denver this week. Casa Bella has been an unofficial rooming house for visiting Dems. Last Friday, we had two from Vermont: a delegate for one night and a volunteer press relations officer for a week. Sunday, a Democratic Party Girl came from LA; she's also here till tomorrow.

Sunday evening, DPG and I went to a National Jewish Democratic Council reception at the Golda Meir House (who knew?) at Metro State. The free reception followed a benefit screening of "Golda's Balcony," which we didn't attend on account of the $100 entry fee. (DPG noted that the film was shown in LA a year ago; I imagine for a lot less dough.)

Once we found our way to the party through the maze of construction sites and closed-off streets, you'd never know that I was the Denver resident and DPG the visitor. I didn't know a soul, whereas she hailed several old friends from her stint as a Senatorial aide, including "BC," a guy she'd dated. Then she discovered that another acquaintance there had also dated BC. Whoops! I was hoping that the two would down a few more glasses of wine and compare notes. Instead they quickly parted and worked separate sectors of the crowd. (I ran into BC at an event this morning, and believe me, the women--perhaps all women--are better off without him.)

Celebs in attendance (at least the ones I can remember), all of whom addressed the crowd:

• Valerie Harper, who played Golda Meir in "Golda's Balcony." I was standing next to her early on and we exchanged a few words.
• Michigan senator Carl Levin, who blasted Bush and his policies, especially the erosion of civil rights, and extolled the importance of a strong Israel, which Obama would support.
• California representative Henry Waxman, who likewise blasted Bush and extolled Israel, and is very, very short.
• Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, ditto; taller than Waxman.
  
• New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg, ditto, who was the tallest of the bunch and wore a sports jacket in a shade of blue not found in nature. Good thing the light was fading, else we'd all have been struck blind.
  

Another of DPG's old friends from the Hill is now the campaign manager for Bob Lord, who's running for Arizona's 3rd Congressional District, John McCain's old seat. While DPG talked with her pal, I chatted with Lord. It's not often (read: never) that I speak with a politician running for office, so I was fascinated to see how one ticks: always "on," intensely focused, relentlessly upbeat. I could do that for maybe a week; Lord has been doing it for 18 months. Imagine what it's like for a presidential candidate. Yeesh!

I've Got 99 Problems and the Thermometer Is One

It's 99°F outside right now. That's what it says on my Yahoo home page, anyway. When I clicked for the detailed forecast, it said 95°. Whatever, it's too @#$%! hot.

The only consolation--for sweaty people, not gasping plants--is that the humidity is all of 7%. (News flash: Denver is officially a desert, drier than Los Angeles. And it's on the edge of the Great Plains, not in the Rocky Mountains.) In Virginia when it's this hot, the humidity is often as high as the temperature. There were times in Charlottesville when I'd step outside our air-conditioned house and my glasses would fog up. Feh.

Time for more iced tea...

Sour Cream: A Political Harbinger?

A couple of weeks ago I was shopping at one of my favorite local food stores: European Mart. In Denver at least, "European" is code for "Russian." There's also the St. Petersburg European Deli, among other Russki markets in the area.

What did I espy in the dairy cooler but a plastic container emblazoned СМЕТАНА on the (red) logo of a black-and-white, flower-garlanded cow's head with a flower in her mouth, marked RUSSIAN STYLE SOUR CREAM and proclaiming ЗТО ВКУСНО!

Ooh! I had to buy it. When I got home, I found out that it was as good as it looked, and tasted just like the sour cream of my (not that long ago) childhood. I was hooked.

Today was my first real outing by car since my surgery on the 13th (not counting the trip to the surgeon for rebandaging last Monday). Darling Husband drove and we took Jenny for a walk along (and in) Cherry Creek, then stopped off at European Mart for supplies.

I headed to the dairy case for more of that fantastic sour cream. On a shelf were the same clear plastic containers filled with thick white stuff, with the same cow logo and Cyrillic type.

Only this time the label was marked CANADIAN STYLE SOUR CREAM. I think it's an omen.

P.S. Thanks to Wiktionary, I've learned that СМЕТАНА is a Russian (not Canadian) feminine noun, pronounced "smetána," meaning "sour cream." And according to Google, ЗТО ВКУСНО is Russian (not Canadian) for "extremely tasty."

Yet Another Reason for Me to Dislike McCain

Last week I joined the Denver JCC Fitness Center. Several of my health care practitioners told me that exercising in water would be good for my arm and back, and the JCC has a big indoor pool. (The three outdoor pools open this Saturday, when the forecast is for a high of 61F. This being Denver, it's currently 81F, with snow and rain forecast for tonight and tomorrow, when the predicted high is 46F.)

So I've been going to the "Arthritis" class, which meets at noon on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. What with my various pains and surgery #7 looming, I've been feeling old lately. But as soon as I join the group in the pool, I feel like The Kid. I'm the only one who doesn't have gray or white hair. (I have a deal with my dog Jenny, who's turning gray for me. Woman's best friend!) There are three 92-year-olds; even the Mon-Wed instructor appears to be in her 70s.

Here's a question you don't often hear in an exercise class: "Are noodles kosher for Passover?" One of the oldest ladies asked that during my first session. I would have thought that by her age she would have known the answer is no--unless you're Sephardic and you eat rice noodles. I shouted the latter across the pool, but I think one of the guys may have disagreed with me. Welcome to the Jewish Community Center.

Today while we were warming up by bicycling our legs, the instructor said something about possible parking problems for class on Friday, as the lecture wouldn't get out till noon. There's noisy equipment in the pool room and it echoes like hell, so it's hard to hear what the instructor says. All around me people were murmuring to their neighbors, "Lecture, what lecture?"

"What lecture?" I hollered.

"John McCain is speaking here Friday morning," she replied.

"John McCain? Here? What for?" Everyone was incredulous. So was I, but also pissed off at the prospect of traffic jams and limited parking preventing me from attending Friday's class.

On my way out, I asked the guy at the reception desk what was going on. He said he'd read online that McCain was having a "town hall" meeting* at the JCC. (Apparently the Robert E. Loup Center doesn't keep its employees in the...um...loop.) We agreed that it would be a cool idea for us to drive up on Friday with big Obama posters on our cars.

When I got home and checked my email, I was greeted with a message from the JCC headlined, "IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT PARKING ON FRIDAY, MAY 2nd." Its penultimate sentence: "If you are planning on coming to the JCC Friday morning, we recommend that you come before 8am or after noon to avoid the crowds."

Oy vey.

*The meeting is on health care, per 7 News. Maybe I'll go and give McCain a piece of my mind. Though I'm sure there'll be plenty from the JCC who'll do the same thing.

Another Swell Writer Coming to Denver

On Monday, April 7 at 7:30 pm at Tattered Cover Book Store, Highlands Ranch, Lisa Tucker will read from and sign her new novel THE CURE FOR MODERN LIFE ($24.95 Atria). Her previous books are the critically acclaimed ONCE UPON A DAY and THE SONG READER.

Per a starred review in Publishers Weekly:
"An enjoyable literary page-turner that also explores serious social issues. In crisp, lively prose, Tucker cleverly executes a series of surprising twists that, coupled with the Big Pharma backdrop and cinematic feel, make the novel as fast-paced as a thriller, but with astute and often humorous observations about the shifting morality of 21st-century America. An excellent choice for book clubs... solidifies her position as a gifted writer with a wide range and a profound sense of compassion for the mysteries of the human heart."

THE ENGLISH AMERICAN Comes to Denver

Actress and comedienne (and my consulting client) Alison Larkin will read from and sign her delightful debut novel, THE ENGLISH AMERICAN, on Wednesday, April 2, 7:30 pm at Tattered Cover Book Store, Highlands Ranch.

Alison will also be performing and signing books at a gala fundraiser for Journey To Me on Thursday, April 3, 7.00 pm at the Sheraton Denver West, 360 Union Blvd., Lakewood. Details and tickets: journeytome.com, the adoption gathering place.

Alison performed snippets from her very funny one-woman show, also called "The English American," at her launch party at the British Consulate in Manhattan last month. My official date for the evening, GalleyCat Ron Hogan, wrote about the event and captured some of her performance on camcorder here.

Simon & Schuster describes the book thus:
When Pippa Dunn, adopted as an infant and raised terribly British, discovers that her birth parents are from the American South, she finds that "culture clash" has layers of meaning she'd never imagined. Meet The English American, a fabulously funny, deeply poignant novel that sprang from Larkin's autobiographical one-woman show of the same name. With an authentic adopted heroine at its center, Larkin's compulsively readable first novel unearths universal truths about love, identity, and family with wit, warmth, and heart.

Here's a video of Alison's back story:

Denver Valentine

Yesterday it was sunny and 68F. While I was walking the dog by Cherry Creek, I saw two young hotties in skimpy tops and micro-shorts.

"Hmpf!" I said to myself--and Jenny, who was scampering about in the melting snow. "I bet this won't last."

Some would call me a cynic. But those would be people who live where the climate makes sense. Here where the Great Plains slam into the Rocky Mountains, I'm called a realist.

This morning I woke up to 24F and to 2 inches of snow, which is still gently falling. I rest my case.

Darling Husband is another realist (and clairvoyant). A headline in today's Denver Post reads, Dry-winter forecasts miss mark. The lede:

Dry-winter forecasts were flat wrong this year for much of Colorado and the Southwest, and weather experts say they're struggling to understand why the snow just keeps falling.

A couple of months ago, when DH read the forecast for a dry winter, he said, "Well, that's it! This is going to be a record year for snow."

"Why?" I asked.

"Last year, we got the first blizzard just days after the forecasters said it would be dry. So here we go."

My Valentine!

I Froze My Toes for Obama

Wednesday was a big day for politics in Denver: Barack Obama at a rally at the Univ. of Denver in the morning; Bill Clinton in a rally in the same venue less than 12 hours later; President GW Bush at a fundraiser in affluent Cherry Hills--exact time and location not disclosed to the general public.














Above, the line (1 of 2, I learned later) ahead of me for Obama rally at 7:30am on January 30. Goal: the tower.

Below, the line behind me at 8:30am. Goal: no frostbite.

The Boy Wonder (18) and friend EZ (17-1/2), my de facto foster son, are both working for the Obama campaign. (I laughed when Gail Collins noted in the NYT, "Basically, everybody’s son is with Obama.") They started out as interns and are now on staff--through Super Tuesday, anyway. BW spent nearly a month before the Iowa caucus working in the Council Bluffs office and sleeping on a couch across the river in Omaha. EZ came on board the campaign later, so he has spent his nights in comfort in Our Gracious Home.

Thanks to BW, last Sunday I heard that Obama was coming to Denver, most likely at the University. No thanks to BW, on Monday I found out exactly when and where, and how to sign up for an e-ticket online. Doors at DU's Magness Arena were supposed to open at 8:30am. BW told me to get there early. He and EZ went to help set up at 6:00; Darling Husband dropped me off on his way to work at 7:30.

Wow! I said to myself when I saw all the people already in line (per top photo). *#$%! I said when I found out, more than an hour later, that there was another line snaking across campus from another direction. Oh, and did I mention that the temperature was maybe 25F?

Unlike coatless and shivering Kevin in line next to me, I'd read in the Washington Post of Monday's overflow crowd at American Univ., and thus was dressed for waiting in the cold. Even so, I lost my toes in the first hour. I lost my fingers while finishing last Sunday's NYT Book Review (I came prepared with foldable reading in my coat pocket; the RSVP specified no bags), then regained them thanks to a sainted man who was giving away cups of cocoa out the back of a golf cart. Happily, by the time the cocoa had made its way through me, I was inside the doors of Magness Arena--at 9:45am. Better still, the taps in the ladies room had very hot water, so I was able to thoroughly defrost my hands. (It's the little things that matter.)

Per the Denver Post, some 18,000 (!) showed up for the rally. Though I was so far back in line--the first people had arrived at 4:30am--I was among the first 10,000 arrivals, and so got a seat in Magness Arena. A gymnasium was hastily made ready for the overflow, but it wasn't sufficient; the overflow overflow crowd stood in a lacrosse field. Obama, we were told, was running late because he was greeting those contingents. (Smart of him to show himself in the flesh, because his arena speech was only broadcast over loudspeakers.)




Left, the view from my seat when I arrived in Magness Arena.








Below, former Denver mayor Federico Peña gets things going.

















This being football-crazy Denver, the first really big name on the roster was Broncos wide receiver Rod Smith (below).

















Smith charmed everyone by confessing his nervousness (jittery public speakers, take note!), observing that the crowds he's used to seeing have people with their faces painted orange and blue. Obama got his only jeers later when he announced that he's a Bears fan; they changed to cheers when he added, re Smith, "I know a Hall of Famer when I see one."

Kevin in line said he hoped that there'd be some big star to speak before Obama. I said there probably would be. Little did we know that it would be Caroline Kennedy. The arena erupted when she was introduced by the stammering president of Colorado Young Democrats. Caroline pretty much echoed her opinion piece in the NYT. The crowd ate it up, but it was obvious, as Obama said when thanking her for her introduction, that she's shy and not used to speaking to large audiences. (Jittery public speakers: Dropping your voice at the end of each sentence sounds totally downbeat.)


Then Caroline introduced You Know Who, and the place went wild. At left is Obama embracing her. On the video monitor is Denver mayor John Hickenlooper; that's former senator Gary Hart on the far left, snapping a photo. (Hickenlooper's office claimed that he's neutral. He was also at the Clinton rally that night, attended by only 3000. There was an unforecast--as usual--sudden dump of 3" of snow.)

Most everything that Obama said was covered in the press, so I won't repeat it here.

In vain, I tried to catch a glimpse of BW and EZ in the scrum in front of the stage. I later learned that BW was collecting names and addresses at the lacrosse field, while EZ was seated in the first few rows down front in the arena. (Not being vertically gifted like BW, he wouldn't have seen a thing if he'd been standing.)

After the rally, I lost my toes again while waiting 40 minutes to take a 15-minute bus ride. Halfway home, I had a moment of intense anxiety when a woman, who was talking on her cell phone and looking right, nearly plowed her sedan into us while merging left. Stupid cow! (Another "c" word, which I hardly ever use aloud, flitted through my brain. Desperate times...)

On the bus, I got into a lively conversation with a fellow passenger about Obama and the rally. Much to my surprise, the driver chimed in. (This is a weird city: Bus drivers are pleasant, passengers thank them when exiting, and both parties say, "Have a nice day!" Even the traffic court judge, as Darling Husband discovered, is friendly and chatty. Must be the altitude, or something in the water.)

Almost everyone on the bus was a Democrat. "Go caucus next Tuesday!" I exhorted as I stepped off.

Dumbest News Story of the Year

Headline & first graf on front page of today's Denver Post:

White Christmas chance is 50/50

A white Christmas — at least like the ones we thought we used to know — is as unlikely in metro Denver as a sane shopping mall experience.

Why this is dumb:

1. We had a blizzard just before last Christmas, so it was very WHITE.
2. As of yesterday, we had ca. 4" of snow on the ground, which is...um...WHITE.
3. IT'S SNOWING LIKE CRAZY RIGHT NOW. There is at least 5" of new snow, which is--you guessed it!--WHITE. (And of course our street hasn't been plowed, which further jeopardizes our plans for dim sum & flick.)

New Year's resolution #1:
Maintain subscription to the New York Times.

However, there was this priceless jump hed in the Post's print edition:

BELLS: Pet pig ate Gift's chime sheet music

Progress!

On the way for a walk with Jenny at Crown Hill Lake Park, I had the happy idea to have lunch afterwards at the nearby Empress Sea Food Restaurant, site of our annual Jewish Christmas chowfest. Darling Husband, the Boy Wonder and I worked up quite an appetite during our trip around the lake, which we sated with many plates of dim sum.

Best of all, I discovered that I could use chopsticks again! The dexterity in my right hand has improved despite its remaining partially numb. I didn't drop one morsel of food, though I tucked my napkin into my neckline just in case.

Funny thing: the all-Chinese staff ate their lunch with forks and spoons. We assumed it was to not waste the one-use chopsticks; they rolled back the tablecloth too.

Firewater!

Lee Marvin in "Cat Ballou"

This morning I went for docent training at Four Mile Historical Park, home of my new boyfriends. Four Mile House, built in 1859, is the oldest surviving house in Denver, though technically it was outside Denver--four miles away, in fact--when it was built. There were older buildings in the area, but they were swept away in the great flood of 1864.

Four Mile's second owner was one Mary Cawker, a widow who purchased the house in 1860 at age 47. Her moonshiner husband having died of TB in Wisconsin, Mary made the trip to the Colorado Territory with her teenage son and daughter. She soon had a thriving business serving the stage lines that stopped at Four Mile House.

One of Mary's profitable products, I learned today, was whisky--better and more accurately known as "Taos lightning." She cooked it up herself; the ingredients were:

• Equal parts 180-proof grain alcohol and water
• For flavor:
  • chili peppers (perhaps from New Mexico)
    
  • tannin bark (some sort of tree root; tasted like sassafras)
  • gunpowder(!)
  • strychnine (!!)
• For color: grasshoppers; or if unavailable, cigar stubs

And you thought bathtub gin was nasty!

We weren't told whether Mary drank her own brew. I rather think not, as she lived to move to New Mexico (impelled by the 1864 flood) and then California, where she ended her days.