tarantino it back...

we took this one because we heard a rumor that budweiser was making beer with clamato juice. turns out, the rumor was true!
other than that, chelada has no relevance to today's story. so it goes at the top.






after passing dinosaurs on the side of the road in arizona (a good two days before), we got to our new home at 2 this afternoon. today is new year's day (my aunt's birthday--happy birthday, aunt dace). it was sunny and warm. i think my uniform here will have to go into spring mode already. today i was in a tee shirt and jeans while we moved the stuff from the car, and i was warm. we had only a two hour drive today because yesterday we made it from chandler, arizona, to somewhere north of bakersfield, ca. our motel six was right next door to a gas station with a shop called "rotten robbies." i wanted to take a picture, but in the haste of getting out of there this morning, we forgot. we ate our last meal of 07 at denny's. we also ate our firs meal of 08 at denny's. i had cheese stix for dinner, and grits and cereal for breakfast. anyway. new years eve was pretty uneventful. (false) upon making it to the eight lane highway that takes you into LA, we almost got side swiped. had it not been for quick braking and loud yells ( both on my part), we would have totally died. you gotta love LA. it took us a good hour or two to get around the city. not because of traffic, but because of the size of that town. but after the near hit, we were both on our toes and dustin said goodbye to what would soon become a well needed nap. we ate at in and out burger just after we got around the city. and we saw a six flags. always a good sign. it was nice out. tee shirt weather, in fact. we even had to put on the air conditioner in the car. you gotta love california. before we got to la, we spent a few days in chanler, arizona, a suburb of phoenix. we stayed with dustin's aunt dianna, and her honey las (pronounced less). they were about the most hospitable folks you could ever imagine. we couldn't even butter our own bagels because it was already done. we went on a seven am hike through the desert with dianna where we saw cactus. now i have never really spent time in the desert, so i was pretty amazed. they get really big and old. and lots of birds and rabbits live in the desert. also different deserts have different types of plants. i know this may sound childish to some of you, but i just never stopped to think about those things. so i was amazed. we also spent a little time with dustin's cousin, jason, and his wife, tanya (really pronounced "tan-yuh"). they were funny. we also met their new baby, aniston. he is breathtaking but all in arizona are so enamored with him that i will not worry about his self esteem as he already has quite a following. we also got to spend a lot of time with dustin's grandmother. she told us stories of what a great mom she thinks his aunt natalie is and how her husband's mom was married two and a half times ( the half is because she married a man who quoted scripture like you would not believe. she got word from God in a dream one night that she needed to leave him. so she kicked him out of his own house, and he left graciously. upon going to the social security office to get her ss check, they informed her that the man was already married. so the poor lady had to get the divorce she so dreaded. but we were unsure if the marriage even counted so we just called it a half marriage). that grandmother seemed quite happy in her new "digs". she knew everyone, and introduced us to them all. she also has everything in her community: a pool, a work out room, a bar, free wine and cheese every afternoon at four, a bocce area, card rooms, a restaraunt, five computers, a library, you name it she probably has it. we even played two games of billiards with her (that grannie smoked me! no joke. she was on fire!) we had a good time with her. when we left it looked like she was tearing up. so i was glad we got to go there. the kitties were happy to be in dianna and las's house instead of a hotel room. they got to roam freely, and they enjoyed it. especially at two in the morning when albee got stuck behind the dryer. i went in search of him and when i found him all he could do was lift his arms so i could pull him out. i know it is silly, but sometimes i know that kitty speaks to me. :) before all of that we were in albuquerque, and those of you keeping up already know what happened there. so that brings us back to present day, if i do my tarantino-ing right. so we spent the night in nowhere's land, ca. we enjoyed our denny dinner of cheese stix. we go back to the room to celebrate new year's with a bottle of cheap champagne. we go to watch tv and time square is on most of the channels. so we watch. it is all very exciting, but then we realize the ball dropped at nine. our new year celebration was over at nine, and the champagne didn't last much longer. so we fell asleep at or before ten. (i know, i know, but we are 30 now so an early night is ok every now and then. although it is a bit lame when our early night is new year's eve. dorks. we are dorks!) so we get a wake up call from albee, my beloved kitty who has already been stuck behind the dryer just a mere 24 hours earlier. he was going crazy. crying, scratching the walls. we could not sleep. and the exhausted knock on the wall, told me the neighbors could not sleep either. i was frustrated. i really thought we would be up for the rest of the day as i saw 4:15 hit and there was no end in sight. finally--a quick 15 minutes later, he had dug his way into the box spring and under the bed. it was quiet. relief we thought. but that was short lived. about five minutes later, mona started crying and going everywhere albee had been. i showed her how to get under the bed, but she was too big for the opening. (everyone must sigh here and not laugh because we all know what a gem that mona b. bones is, despite her plus size figure). so i decided to have dust get up and help me lift both the mattress and the box springs up so we could just put her under the bed. we did it. do you think it worked? it did and we got to sleep until nine am when travelers were rolling suitcases past our door with kids laughing and dogs barking. it was loud, but we were so happy it wasn't earlier, we just didn't care. (allison, knowing that i willingly put my cats under a bed for the duration of almost five hours, just so we could sleep...do you still want dust and i to take your kids if anything happens to you and jeremy?) i think the kitties smelled other animals in the hotel room and were nervously waiting for them to come out. (the hotel accepted pets for free, so i am sure the littles smelled other animals in the room. that has to be a little scary for them, right?). after enjoying our breakfast, we drove our two hours to the new home in sunny, warm berkeley. we got everything moved in and said hello to a few of the neighbors. we then went to target (four minutes north of our tiny apt). they did not have all we needed, but it was all paid in gift cards from the wedding. ( thank you wedding guests who purchased gift cards for us.) then we came back and made all the calls to the parents, my brother, melissa, et c. and we went and ate fabulous thai food that was right down the road from our tiny apartment. then i had convinced dust to go to ikea with me because it was only 8 miles south in emoryville, ca. now you may ask why i am so specific about the location of this ikea, and here is why. emoryville is where i think quinn and i should be roommates, because as dust so aptly put it, "emoryville is shoppingville." they have two movie theaters, a gap, h&m, pottery barn, coach, banana republic, trader joes, sephora, aveda, the list goes on. they have two movie theaters, and a trader joes (we'll be there tomorrow!). now you maybe are saying, Cortney, i thought you were moving to california so you could go to school. but let's be honest, i could run dust and i 100K in debt by shopping too. and that would take far less than four years. and i am sure there would be many fewer sleepless nights if i just shopped away all of our money instead of schooling it away. so let me know what you think. shopping or school? the only downfall is after shopping, i can not contribute to the retirement fund with nearly the fervor of a doctorate degree---unless ebay gets in on the act. then we are set! i will put in pictures of the hike and arizona with the aunt and grandma as soon as dust resizes them, but i hope you feel like you came on our cross country trip. we are here. we are safe. we are flying back for summer. this driving thing is overrated. my butt hurts.
xoxo to all.