fancy seeing you here!

the past few days have been filled with nothing other than mediocrity. which is fine, but you all know how much i love excitement. we lost our power. you know. then we walked around a rainy town for a day. luckily, we had gotten new raincoats. i got a nice two toned green one with a fuzzy inside neck part so my neck stays warm. dust got plain black. yesterday's big outting was getting dustin slippers. you would think that would be an easy task, but just after christmas, most places have been ransacked. also i thought albee was sick yesterday. we woke up and he was snuggled in to dust. it was really cute. but then he didn't eat or really stir about the apartment until it got dark outside. so i was worried he was a little sick. but after dark, he came back to life. so he must have slept off whatever it was. so that is good. i also have almost completed another chapter in organic chemistry. that is, after all, what i came out here to do, right. we also found a place that serves pretty good mexican food, but serves great mojitos. we went there one night and it was raining. there was a homeless man asking for money for the street paper to support the homeless. at first we said we had no money, but i made dust stop the car so we could give the poor guy a dollar. it was raining, after all. so mostly, we have been doing chemistry. by we i mean me. dustin has been reading. it looks like this when he reads.

you will note the handy controller and headset. he likes to read out loud. all the books sound pretty much like he is berating his friend, shea, but they all seem to enjoy the reading time. also i think he is reading chapter books now because it takes him a long time to read any of that stuff. only kidding. it is not reading he is doing, it is video games! blasted. i married a total dork!

dustin's grandma, meem jensen, and his aunt diana and baby anniston, his cousins', jason and tanya's kid. man do they love that kid. he can do no wrong. it is cute.

a tall cactus. you 'member that i told you there are different kinds of cactus. science has yet to find out why they sprout those arms, but they think the symmetry is due to needing balance. and they don't grow those arms until they are very old. maybe sixty or so years old they will get the arms. nifty. huh. see, science don't know everything.

see how tall they are. that is also the sunrise.
see, mom, i have seen one.

this is just random scrub stuff. diana was full of plant facts, but due to the fact it was seven am, i was not in full attention mode. one day i would like to rehear what she said maybe at around four pm one day. then i would be better with comprehension and retention of dessert plants 101.



nice huh. phoenix was a cool city. there are all these little mountains that spring up around the city. when the fog rolls in, if you are above them they look like islands. so they are called sky islands. it was nice to see that town. so clean. seriously, there was no litter anywhere. it was amazing. and everywhere was landscaped. it was nice.


now i have some cute pictures that just need to make the blog. so here goes:



the clearwater explorers in action. playing a sold out show at the tiny house in putney.








rob and quinn come for a visit while dust and i were staying at the farm. they walked through a blizzard from their house all the way to the farm. look how bundled they are.





these are the christmas cookies we made and decorated at my house in arkansas. you will note the hog in the far bottom left. my dad with the glasses, my mom has green and yellow hair (the green represented brown--an icing color we did not have), me, and dust. my dad had not decorated his three. and good you don't see them because he put us all to shame. he made snow covered mountains and a candle. his were really impressive.


like this one needs a caption. this is dorian, the 750's newest roadie. we just have to steal he and his brother from the clearwater explorers. he is cute. isn't he?









so i think that will do it for today. i need to shower and it is almost seven. ( no hot water when there is no electricity). also there is stir fry to make. delicious.
have a good weekend.
the princess

to our friend, ron, the potter

sorry rob, i just had to dedicate this one to you. we heard about your show. only that they called you ron. i think that makes you ronaldo. pretty cool. but i can just picture quinn being pissed that her honey is named ron. it makes me laugh.

today was a crazy day. it rained alot and the wind was blowing all crazy like. it sounded sorta crazy outside. and in the night, our power kept going out. we could tell because the only heat we need comes from two space heaters. i insist on keeping one on at night in the room. dust is good and lets this happen. : ) anyway. it kept going on and off throughout the night.

when we woke up, the power was out. it did not come back on until after 6pm. we had to leave in the day because i was going a little crazy. so we went and did a little laundry. we used the charged computer to watch another episode of band of brothers. and then we succommed. we laid down with the kitties (after having done nothing to warrant a nap). ten or so minutes later , the power was back on. see, ron, things aren't so bad. :) you got power.

on the up side, we got the makings for stir fry. so that is our big plan. also, dust resized the pictures. so the promised hike is up before this. enjoy. love to all.

and claudia-- i already had your birthday on the calendar. and you get bonus points for being the first one to purchase tickets to come see us. let that be a lesson to the rest of you'ns. we miss you all, but claudia is our favorite. :)
xoxo
the princess

one more thing...

here is one more reason to love emoryville...cupcake store. everyday they have new flavors of frosting. today's was chocolate pomegranate. everyday you can get chocolate or vanilla buttercream. today's vanilla was pink. dust got pink vanilla and i got brown chocolate. both of us got chocolate cakes underneath the frosting. today is also our friend scott's birthday. ( he made the toast at the wedding--so you know him). so we are celebrating that. he is in austin, tx, though. but any excuse to celebrate with cupcakes is fine by me!
love to all of you. and as soon as we eat the little cakes i will tell you how good they are.
clm

update on pictures

i know i promised pictures of the hike and arizona. they are coming. dust hasn't had time to resize them. so keep us on our toes if it seems like we are forgetting.
smiles and hugs from the long armed one.

okey dokey, artichokey

today.
today. the weather report said it was going to be 59 degrees and sunny. they were right. nice. (tomorrow is supposed to rain so i will quit gloating then). today we made another trip to target. we got dust a cordless drill. it was like i told him to pick his favorite christmas gift. he shopped the entire aisle, reading boxes, comparing voltage and accessories. it was cute. i told him to get the one he wanted because it could then be considered a wedding gift (gift cards--again thanks). he was pumped. it is nice to see him so happy. after target, we made our way to trader joes. my favorite. we spent $80 on groceries. we haven't bought groceries in so long. it felt like we were home, you know. when you have to keep packing up the car over and over with everything you own, it takes it's toll, and i just hadn't realized what a toll it had taken on me. i felt relaxed. then we came home and ate our thai leftovers from last night along with some tj's snacks. delicious!! we charged the drill. and then we got a call. the call came from a little bit of sunshine named sebastian. dust answered. so i just sat close enough to hear his little voice. man, he is a cutie. we heard all about animusic, and sledding, and he questioned why i had to go away to "learn". man, that was tough to hear. ( as if i weren't wavering enough, right?) good thing he is cute. then came delightful dorian. by this time we had put him on speaker phone. so i am sure he was thoroughly confused as to whom he was speaking, but it made our day. we have been gone half a month, and the kid is piecing together not only words, but real sentences. we understood him and he made sense. where is our drunk little man? talking to allison and jeremy was good too. just not long enough. is that not always the way. when we got off the phone, the drill was charged and it was time to start making some drawers. we are now half way through the drawers and we have pieces allover the living room, but it is too late to hammer with the downstairs neighbors being home. so we decided to go to a movie. into the wild. (directed and written by sean penn). it was great. i knew how it ended, so that made it less of an emotional scene. but the theater was amazing. it was two for one night. so that made it good. $7. perfect. they also served pizza, popcorn, salads, desserts, sodas, wine and beer, sangwiches, and nachos. amazing!. we got a salad, some popcorn with real butter, and dust got a slice of pepperoni pizza. i had a glass of wine and dust had a beer, just because we could.

i really think i will like it here. it is so nice to get to go exploring with dust. i just keep saying over and over, "we live here. can you believe it?" we work well together. we laugh. it is good. i also like living here because there is so much around us to do. we saw san fran from the bay today and i realized we hadn't even begun to explore east to west. all of our adventures in the past day and a half have been north south. we have been in many cities because we are in the big middle of everything. it is a nice feeling, but i think i would be overwhelmed had dust not come with me. we have not met anyone, so the lure of friends is stronger than ever. seeing all of this without you, knowing which parts you would like the most, is really tough. all i can say is that we will do our best to experience it all so that when we come home we will have stories to tell. and when you come here, we will know exactly where to take you. so get here soon.
love you all, and miss you all terribly.
clm

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.