Hell's Giftshop

Is the world going to hell in a handbasket? I don't think we're quite there yet. I would say we're close. We're more like...in Hell's Giftshop.

Name:
Location: Colorado, United States

I'm a 43-yr. old music lover, off-road enthusiast, camper, gotta-be-outside mountain chick.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Move Over, Katrina and the Waves


I am a very judgmental person when it comes to music. I either hate a song or I love it. Right away. Within a few bars. However, as Jennifer can attest, I will also hate something the first time I hear it, only to love it on the second or third listening (remember "Tug of War," Jen?).

So what is it that pulls me toward a particular song? It can't be the lyrics because half the time I can't understand what the singer is saying. Once I like the song I learn the lyrics. I think for me, it initially is the music, the melody, the chord progression. The way the verses go into the chorus and how the chorus goes into the bridge. I think there must be certain progressions that just really hit an "emotional" chord with me. Take, for instance, the band I am currently in love with...

So I'm watching another teen drama last night (Wildfire, if anyone cares. Stop snickering.) and I hear a song that immediately just makes me smile. At the end of the episode, they reveal the artist as The Graham Colton Band. So off I go to iTunes, because that is simply how I spend my time. And I find their CD "Drive" and listen to each of the 30-second snippets. And within the first few bars I knew I would buy this CD because every single song is good. Every song just makes me smile. They are "good-time feeling" songs, as Jen and I used to call certain tunes. They are the ones that make you want to drive down a long highway in a red convertible. The ones you blast on your ridiculously large boombox while you eat ice cream on the basketball court at your college apartment under an autumn sun. There are so many songs that I immediately identify with this feeling. And The Graham Colton Band is the latest band to produce good-time feeling music to add to the soundtrack of my life.

Jen, let's take the Gremlin and hit the open road! :)

Thursday, March 22, 2007

How did this happen?

So, I have noticed something quite alarming lately. I need to hold small print farther away from my face in order to read it. I am getting old and suffering from garden-variety "old people" issues. How did this happen? To make things worse, I find myself wandering the aisles of the grocery store, unable to find what I'm looking for because I can't read the #$@%#$ signs over the aisles. What is up with that? How did this happen?

In light of these disturbing developments I went to the eye doctor today. I also mentioned how sometimes I see flashes of light in my periphreal vision. I was assured by the doctor I was not suffering from a detached retina, but instead, just "typical optical aging." Again I say, how did this happen?

So, I got new contacts today and I’m not so sure I like them. My new contacts are the extended ones you can sleep in for a month and only take them out once a week for cleaning. Nifty. My vision had gone from 20/30 to 20/40, so with the contacts in, I can really see a difference. Now I can count the pine trees on Pikes Peak from 15 miles away but can’t see to pluck the irritatingly persistent chin hairs that have also inexplicably sprouted. I listen to indy rock and watch teen dramas on television, people! I'm NOT that old.

Someone please tell my body this. Sigh.

I mean, really.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Why they're called the Rocky Mountains...

So, we were driving on this beautiful Sunday afternoon up Gold Camp Road from Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek, when we rounded a corner and saw a huge cloud of dust up ahead and something in the middle of the road. Several somethings in the middle of the road, in fact. Several LARGE somethings.



When the dust cleared we saw we had missed being pummeled with a rock slide by about 15 seconds. The dust was still settling as we climbed from the car for a closer look. Two mammoth boulders had become unearthed from the hillside and came crashing down, along with several smaller slabs of granite. The boulders stopped at the edge of the road and the other smaller pieces came to rest in the middle of the road. The smell of pine was strong in the air, limbs having been freshly crushed and trampled on the way down. Had we not paused at an overlook a mile back, we would have been right in the rock slide's path.







After a few minutes, we turned the car around because we were blocked from going any further. But then several trucks, coming from different directions, stopped and jumped out to ask if we were alright. And, being burly men, they moved the smaller pieces from the road so everyone could pass. Four or five of them attempted to move the larger rocks but finally grunted out a laugh as they realized they were no match for the slab. Still, the path was cleared enough to continue on, which we did. We were amazingly lucky.



So, we continued on our adventure and went to Cripple Creek, where we got to see the donkeys for the first time since summer. The Cripple Creek donkeys are ancestors of the mining donkeys from the 1800s and wander freely around the mountains until tourist season, when they wander freely all over downtown Cripple Creek, accepting snacks and scratches from tourists.



And, to top off a great day, we saw a Red-Tailed Hawk fly off into the sunset.