Rainy Sunday With Tycho

Kumo moved back in with me. Which has been just lovely, and leaves me spending a lot more of my time at Village Inn enjoying their free Wi-Fi. It was a rainy day last Sunday, and that suited my mood just fine.


My human friend, Wendy, has taken up with a new companion. A stuffie dog named Tycho. She's going to Comic Con in a week, and she seems to be planning on taking him with her.


We've had some disagreements recently, and I probably shouldn't have said some of the things I did. Like saying that I didn't want to travel so much anymore. Because she took it to mean I didn't want to travel at ALL. And while staying home and playing games with Sam really is delightful, I do like travel and I really want to go to Comic Con. I didn't expect to just be replaced, and it seemed to me that there was only one thing to do about it.


Meet the competition and explain to him why it's MY bunny purse, and not his. I mean, there really ARE bunnies on the purse, not dogs.

I sent Tycho an email and he met me at Village Inn to discuss the "issue" over pie.

Everything is better when discussed over pie.


He seems like a reasonable enough fellow. Intelligent. Friendly. But maybe a little dense.


We had a very nice conversation, discussing the weather and such small talk, but he didn't seem to get it when I explained to him why _I_ should be going to Comic Con.



I explained to him the problem, and why it just wasn't right that he should take my place in the Bunny bag to go to Comic Con. It just wouldn't look right, now would it? A dog sticking out of a purse with bunnies all over it. Wendy and I have history. I have a blog. Really, it just makes sense that I should go.



Tycho did not seem to agree. He felt that if I were in fact the perfect companion as I believe myself to be, Wendy never would've gone and sought him out in the first place.



And he told me that he loves everything comic book related and he would be a great companion to Wendy at a comic book related convention. He also said he didn't figure anyone would notice WHAT was on the bag, because they would just notice him and how happy Wendy was to have him there.


I told him I was smaller, and would fit easier on the plane. And that, in fact, Wendy and I have traveled by plane before and it went great. Whereas he's a monster and would cause her nothing but trouble at the airport. But he had an comeback for everything.



It was all so stressful he nearly put me off my carrot cake, honestly. Some of his points, I did agree with. But some of them I did not. Not at all. I like comic books too. I pointed out that the fellows from the Mighty Boosh will be there, and he doesn't even know who they are! That's one of Wendy's favorite shows (and mine too).


Tycho told me that in the end, it was up to Wendy, thanked me for the pie and left. On this one point, we do agree. It IS up to Wendy.



So I paid for our pie and started contemplating how best to show her that I am the better travel companion. I have only a week before Comic Con. Time is running very short, but I think I can do it. Wish me luck.

Slight Change of Plans

The pool party was canceled for inclement weather, so the plan was that my human friends and I were going to head out and do something fun for Memorial Day weekend. We hadn't figured out what yet, and first, I needed to walk Voltaire and visit with my sister, Kumo, a little.


When I called Kumo and told her the pool party was off, she said she was going to head over anyway, just to visit and "scope the place out."


Upon hearing the distinct sound of Kumo's motorcycle approaching, Voltaire seemed to remember Kumo and started barking, and jumping around excitedly. Kumo lived with us when Voltaire had her puppies, and was quite the puppy nursemaid for a bit.


Even though the pool party was canceled, this did not seem to dissuade Kumo from wearing a grass skirt to ride over on her bike.



Turns out, it was a rented hula dancer costume, and she wanted to get her money worth out of it. (I read no reports of bunny on a motorcycle in a hula outfit related motor vehicle accidents, so I guess that's all good.)

So instead of going out with my friends to do Memorial Day things, I ended up sitting around in my apartment with Kumo chatting. It was nice to catch up, but she was a bit cagey when it came to talking about where she's living. I hope she's doing okay. She said she would have to have her belongings "called for" and that she'd see me soon. So maybe it's all in storage or something. Maybe she'll tell me the details next time I see her. She said she'd bring her dog, Tsume, and Voltaire will like that a lot. She hasn't really had another dog to play with for a while.

Not a very exciting Saturday in spite of it being mostly spent with Kumo. But quiet is okay, at least while I'm still getting settled in.

- Gage

My Dinner With Girlzoot

This week is shaping up to be a rather social one.

My buddy Mal is coming to visit from Washington state in a few days.

I finally decided to let my sister, Kumo, know that I was back in Colorado. I've been invited to a pool party on Saturday, so I told her we could just meet up there. She sounded really enthusiastic... which is always a little worrysome with Kumo.

And tonight, I got the honor of having dinner with my friend, Girlzoot.


She told me she gets lost easily, so we agreed to meet at Cafe de France, where we've been before.

It's been months since I saw her, way before I lost my mind and go married, and over those months I've found several books that I thought she'd like. So while we were waiting for food to show up, we looked through the books I found her. She seemed pretty tickled with them.



Dinner was pretty good (I had the pasta salad), but dessert was the BEST. We split something with orange and chocolate that was really just wonderful.


She agreed to let me blog about dinner with her, if I'd help her with her art project. It's kind of neat. You can see it here - Girlzoot: Words and Faces.



Then it was off to Build a Bear to see if I could find a pair of swim trunks for the pool party (I did. Thank you, Build a Bear), and where I was serenaded by Girlzoot singing "Sing, Sing a Song" with a little stuffed microphone.

Now there's something you don't see every day.

It's been much too long since I've seen Girlzoot, and there are a lot of my friends I've neglected with this whole marriage thing. I need to see about fixing that. But first I need to figure out which box my address book is packed in. It's got to be here somewhere.

- Gage

Trail Blazing Bunny - Part 2

Okay, so when I left off, we'd just taken a break from trail building to have some delicious Sloppy Joes for lunch.

And corn stuff that was WONDERFUL.


I got to spend part of my lunch talking to the fabulous Donna Warner Wilson, who is the CEO of Cherokee Ranch. Which I figure must be kind of like being Queen, only she doesn't live there, and without a crown. She was very nice and I really enjoyed chatting with her over sloppy joes.


Before we all got back to it, we were addressed by the lovely Ann Baker Easley, Executive Director of the VOC. She had some really encouraging words, and just reiterated how important to this the volunteers are. I'd heard there were about 115 volunteers who showed up, and that is a LOT of sloppy joes, but it's also a lot of people giving up a Saturday they could've just been lounging on their couch eating ice cream sandwiches and watching TV to come build a trail. That's pretty impressive.


So back to trail building. We went back to the trails we'd finished and cleaned up the tools and everything.

I think they both looked great, but then I might have been a little biased, having had a paw in the creation of them.

One of my crew mates, Ian, planted this little tree to help show that this WASN'T part of the trail. It's tough making trail borders look like they weren't put there on purpose and the branches and stuff just happened to fall there.


We had to wait for just a little bit to join all the folks up closer to the castle for the final little bit of trail that needed to go in.


Fletcher brought around water for everyone, and we finished things up, tidied edges, that kind of thing.

Some of us posed in the sun, on a rock, like a wild bunny. Well, a wild bunny with sunglasses.


Finally, everyone was working on the path closest to the Castle. This is where the crusher fines would be coming in, and they really do make a beautiful path.


But they have to be carried down by the wheelbarrow full, and that can be kind of tricky on lumpy ground like this. So some of us were running back and forth with wheelbarrows, some were digging out the path so it was about 1" deep, and some were tamping down the crusher fines on the path. It was a whole lot of movement, and pretty fast, because everyone was ready to be done and go to the Castle for ice cream!

It took a lot of work, but finally, the trail was done. Completely and totally DONE.


There's the "before".


And the "after".

Then it was up to the Castle for ice cream and tours!


The Castle is INCREDIBLE. That roof is seven color slate, which is available only in Vermont (I think. I was pretty worn out by the time we got to the tour. I could barely hop.)


This is a nifty little building that I think I overheard one of the Castle docents say was a guest house. Oh, it looks small, but I guess there's a spiral staircase in it that goes down to the guest rooms. Or something like that. I'll have to ask when I go back.


The view from up here is amazing, and I can't imagine a better place to put your Castle than up here.

You can even see Pike's Peak! What a view!


I never did get a chance to ask about the cannon, but seriously, what Castle doesn't need a cannon?


The tour was wonderful, but there are no pictures allowed inside the castle, so I don't have any tour pictures to show you. While we were waiting for everyone else to get out of the tour, we hung around eating ice cream.


And some of us posed on rocks in front of trees.


There was a raffle.


But I didn't win anything. And after the raffle, we all went home. Kirkachu and Wendy talked about going back and walking the trail, but we were all way too tired, and we all promised to come back and walk the trail again someday soon.


On the way down, we saw a deer.


And like the good tourists we are, stopped to snap pictures.


She sure was pretty, though.


We decided that we'd worked hard enough, none of us felt like cooking. So we ended up in a Red Robin for delicious burgers.


And still not carrot cake. Harumph. I guess this diet thing is making Wendy happy, but I'm starting to have carrot cake withdrawal!

The salad did have carrots in it, though. So I guess it's okay.

I don't know what adventures we have planned next. I skipped the Mothers' Day picnic because I was still really, really worn out (and it was cold. I don't like cold picnics.) So we'll see. It's great to be back, and trail building really was an incredible experience.

To look back at that last trail and know that an hour before, that hadn't been there. It was like magic. I can't describe it, but if you'd like to see for yourself, I recommend you check out the VOC - Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado. I know I'll be doing more projects with them, so maybe I'll see you there.

Also, I highly recommend a visit to Cherokee Ranch and Castle. It was really obvious to me on the tour how much the docents and employees there really care about the Castle and everything in it. Also, I think the lady who lived there last, Ms. Tweet Kimball, seems like a real character and it was a lot of fun hearing about her and her cattle. They offer tours and teas and brunches and all kinds of musical events. Hopefully we'll be checking out more of those too.

For now, I'm pretty content to continue settling in to my home. It's great to be back in Colorado. I missed it more than I knew.

- Gage