smile: you're in the sky

The moon tonight was a Cheshire Cat, grinning at me from the heavens with Venus as a bright dimple or a beauty mark on his far left cheek (I think it was Venus. I'll feel like an idiot if it's something else. Jack Horkheimer would know ... I really like Jack Horkheimer - he's super-enthusiastic about stars and planets ... how's this for a meandering thought?).

I didn't know it at the time, but he (the Cheshire Cat Moon, not Jack Horkheimer) was grinning because he knew that Fat Burrito was closed, and that's what I dearly wanted for dinner. I settled for Qdoba, which wasn't really settling, except that I had my heart set on Fat Burrito.

During that tour of Burrito Makers of Laramie, I noticed that there's a Subway across the street from each one. Conspiracy? I think so. That said, there's a Subway every ten feet in Laramie, so maybe it's not so much a conspiracy against burritos as it is a conspiracy to get us all to eat fresh for five bucks per foot of sandwhichy goodness. I also noticed today that we're getting a Quiznos (cue angelic host).

In other news, I need a new brain. If you hear of creative, cheap ways to bribe one's way onto a brain transplant list, let me know. Mine. Is. Failing. Just ask my boss.

In other-other news, I feel this week that I need new furniture.

Let me rephrase that: I WANT new furniture. Pure vanity. Pure financial stupidity. But I want it. Matt assures me that my apartment looks fine, but that if I feel the need to indulge some vanity, why not ... I like my brother's way of thinking. Like we're related or something.

I also felt this week that I might - just maybe - be able to get through The Lord of the Rings this time, and I am currently indulging that whim.

Fourth time's a charm, and I'm in Moria now. I got stuck in Lothlorien last time, so we're approaching a critical point. But it seems to be going well (and faster than I remember). This is good. I feel socially awkward when I admit that I've never read them (or all of them, at least). It's one of the lesser things that make me feel socially awkward, but still ... I'll be one of the cool kids soon.

And the angels sang

So ... I'm pretty much convinced that, as wonderful as DTV is for the rest of the world, we who are nestled in the valley between the mountains will be a long time in being able to appreciate it.

I bought my converter box with my government-funded coupon (read: I'd already paid for the coupon, so why not use it) months and months ago, and despite clever Antenna Gymnastics throughout my living room that involved intricate poses with my television, antenna and digital converter box, each time I did a scan for available channels, I came up empty handed. And frustrated. And slightly out of socket where some joints were concerned. And very much out of humor.

The kind but dim-witted folks who run the dtvanswers.com site were bold enough to suggest that in addition to my $50 converter box, I might need a more powerful antenna. A "Smart Antenna," they called it. With printed Q&A page in hand, I trundled to Wal-Mart in search of a Smart Antenna, which is as existent as the Tooth Fairy, which is to say that it may exist, but I'll never see one. Frustrated all over again, I opted for the most expensive set of rabbit ears I could find, set them up and performed The Antenna Olympics, Round 2.

No dice.

Returned the antenna, swore a good bit, cursed the idea of a digital transition, and gave up.

Until this weekend.

On a whim, I did a channel scan, cynically expecting the zero at the bottom of the screen to remain unchanged ... until a "2" suddenly and magically popped up.

I have two - TWO! - channels found by my digital coverter. I swear I heard voices singing a jubilant chorus. Or maybe that was just me singing. Out loud. They're both Wyoming PBS, so I now have three PBS signals (Count: 2 from Wyoming, 1 from Colorado, all usually with different content on each) ... Woo!

Two channels.

DTV sucks, but it sucks a little bit less this week.

Selfish

It was, perhaps, a bit selfish, but I spent Valentine's Day appreciating ... myself.

The bitter joke is that February 14 is really Singles Awareness Day.

I, however, am already quite aware that I am single. And for the first time in a long time - perhaps ever - I was appreciative of my unattached status on the Day of Love. I decided to celebrate it.

I changed the meaning of the acronym - SAD became Sarah Appreciation Day. I dressed up. I wore the pearls that Matt and Molly gave me. I went shopping. I bought myself chocolates and two Agatha Christie mysteries. I rented a movie. I fixed a fabulous (and pretty) dinner and had my first-ever steamed artichoke (I liked it, but that's a lot of work for not very much artichoke). I felt vindicated, though, in steaming and then ripping apart the artichoke, as it was the same one that attacked me at Safeway a few days ago. Vengence was dipped in melted butter and tasted pretty good.

I wished almost every person I ran into a Happy Valentine's Day. It felt like Christmas. I was brimming with good cheer and determined to share it. I was contemplating the different kinds of love that we experience in life, and I was thankful for the love I was reminded of yesterday.

My dad sent flowers (tulips!) to my office Friday. I ran into a former professor and mentor (and current friend) in Wal-Mart last night who had been snagged by a desperate-looking man in need of Rose Advice. Among the three of us, I think he walked away secure in a doghouse-free Valentine's Day, and then the professor and I caught up in a whirlwind of chatter next to the gourmet cheese case. I talked to Brooke. I talked to my mom.

I drank too much wine (the story of my Valentine's Day-affiliated life), but it was good wine, so that's (almost) OK. It'll be a lot more OK later today, after I've eaten something ...

I'm OK with selfish on a day like Valentine's Day. I've spent too many of them moping and feeling sorry for myself, wishing that this or that had turned out differently so I could spend that day with Someone Special, neglecting to look in the mirror and realize that I already was, and that in the continued absence of the Best Company (aka Mr. Right), my own company is pretty good to keep.

And, as Holly would remind me, a bigger Someone reminds us every day of His love, and that's worth celebrating, whether it comes cleverly wrapped with heart-spangled ribbon or whispered to a lonely heart on a bitter Valentine's night ...

Mr. Cellophane

The weekend was good.

Friday, I caught up with Holly, who got me thinking about Tunisia this fall. We'll see. A desert trek on camel back sounds very tempting.

Saturday, I finally met someone I've intermittently written to for the past several months, and we went to Denver to see "Chicago" at the Buell Theatre. It's been 12 years since I was at the Buell, and I looked every inch the country bumpkin as I tried to walk-n'-gawk at the same time. The result was bumping into much more suave city dwellers who scowled at me for being in distracted awe of the glass-covered theater district and for daring to block their busy path.

We got back to Laramie around 2:30 Sunday morning and zonked out (I'm happy to report that the air mattress was much kinder to Fuzzy that it has ever been to me). Slept through church, but had good coffee and conversation, then bid Fuzzy farewell and went shopping, where I was rewarded with on-sale lobster tails, which made a good dinner (hurrah!)

A note of caution, though: Half a bottle of wine combined with the conclusion of "Sense and Sensibility" is not recommended. It had quite a depressant effect, which was countered slightly by a long, brisk walk, but still ...

And now, the grind, which today involved watching one of our photographers get rearended by a screaming minivan-wielding woman in the intersection by our building. Not a typical Monday, for sure, but the typical stuff has to eventually get done, too, I suppose ...

But why would you need one?

So I was browsing the sporting goods section of Wal-Mart in the (vain) hope that they might have a telescope.

Camping/hunting aisle (hope is growing fainter).

Pocket knives. Sporks. Cast-iron skillets. Waterproof matches. Tin plates/cups/bowls. Axes for chopping fire wood.

Machetes.

Yeah. Machetes.

They weren't locked in a case. And though I didn't check, it didn't seem that they were even locked on their display hooks (like electronics stores do for high-priced things like memory cards or iPod accessories and such). They were just there, in the aisle, scaring the bejebers out of me. Seriously - if there's an axe available, why the bloody heck do you need a freaking machete?!? There is no jungle here in wide-open Wyoming through which you need to hack your way. And prairie grass doesn't count.

It brings to mind jungle warfare; Dian Fossey; and people who kidnap little kids in Uganda and do horrific things to them to turn them into child soldiers.

When I think "camping," I don't think "machete," and I'm rather scared of the people who do.