Bikes & Snow & Fun & Friends

For the fourth year in a row, I was given an Iron Horse Bicycle Classic bib number right before the race. (Bike race from Durango to Silverton.) One of these years I'm going to have to plan or train or something, whether I've registered or not. That said, I think even if I had trained I wouldn't have been able to keep up with the unicycle I saw ahead of me at one point and never passed.

That was Memorial Day weekend (May 23rd), the proverbial kick-off to summer, but somehow it was more a welcoming back of winter. This is what it looked like going over Molas pass:

Look who was there to watch us head back to Durango:

The next day Nicolas, Cayenne, Acacia and I drove from Durango to Silverton (the more normal way to do it) to meet Shane and his kids Keegan and Anikah at our friends Mike and Kim's hundred year old house they let us borrow. The plan was to climb Handies, Cayenne's last 14er, but the crazy storms dumped loads of snow on the mountains, so instead we just hung out in this wonderful mining town and threw snow balls at each other.

 The kids thought this was a way better use of time.

Can you see Acacia?

Let's see... climb a mountain in the snow, or buy matching hot pink sweatshirts...?

His small school break over, this was Nick's last day in Durango before heading back to Phoenix. He was sad to leave, but excited to start his third year because now he gets to work on patients. 

Look out, Arizona!

Letter from the Editor

When Cayenne was done her internship, the Herald's senior editor wrote her a letter:

Hi Cayenne,

Thank you for joining us in the Herald newsroom this week. I am sorry I missed saying goodbye to you this afternoon. I wished that I had been able to sit with you more to make sure you were getting what you wanted out of your internship. The challenging part about being the top editor is that I have to attend a lot of meetings, which mostly happened to be during your hours here. But please know that you are welcome to follow up with any questions you have or if you want to visit us again. I’d be happy to tell you about how much journalism has changed over the 27 years I have been a journalist. It’s a lot!

I cannot express how impressive your writing is for your age. If you pursue a career as a writer, whether it’s in journalism or some other medium, you have a very bright future ahead of you. I have no doubt you will excel wherever you land.

Good luck with your school presentation about your internship. I hope your classmates find it to be interesting and that they learn a lot about the Herald.

Good luck with your future!

Amy

Amy Maestas

Senior editor

Now that's a class act.

The Village of Langtang is gone

Cayenne's first story was published today, in the same paper as the news of her elementary school sweetheart's suicide.

Heartbreakingly, her article was about something equally as tragic as a very bright, capable, kind, gentle, popular 13 year old who couldn't see tomorrow through what he was dealing with today. And who had easy access to a loaded gun.

Soul-numbing horror.

All of it.

Well done, Cayenne. May your life's ups far outweigh the downs you'll write about, read about, and experience.


 
 

Tears

I want so much to write about Nepal, but all I can do is cry.

Message from the universe

So I'm working at the desk in our office at home. It's the middle of the day, the girls are at school, the house is silent except for my typing.

And then the printer wakes up and startles me because I didn't ask it to print anything.

Well that's weird.

And then a message from the universe prints itself:

Kind of cool (that Nick can print on our home computer from Phoenix).

Kind of freaky.

And a whole lot of wonderful.


   

Neptune & Firefly

"Moooooooooooooooooom!! Oh no! Quick!!"

My stomach sank. I already knew what I was going to see, so I was unprepared for how sad I was to see Firefly, the big fat goldfish, floating upside-down with his white belly bobbing on the surface. The night before, Acacia had run her hands through the little stones at the bottom of the tank looking for something, and it kicked up food the fish hadn't eaten. The crystal water became super cloudy and I knew we should have cleaned it right then, but it was 10:30pm, we were all tired, and, really, I thought these two critters were indestructible.

"He's still alive!"

And she was right. His tail was flicking and he was trying to flip over.

I grabbed the tank, rushed to the bathtub, scooped out both Firefly and Neptune and put them in a bowl of fresh water while we cleaned out the tank and all the stones.

I'm not a goldfish connoisseur. The girls won these teensy orange minnow-sized aquatic vertebrates tossing rings onto bottles at the county fair. They were never supposed to live this long, grow this big, need an aquarium, nor steal our hearts. Wasn't part of the bargain.

So I naturally assumed, with my limited fishy expertise, that Acacia had killed poor Firefly, just like I had done to our family goldfish back in the day, although I was too young to remember so it might have been all made up by my big sisters. I do remember flushing our gerbils Twinkle Toes and Powder Puff down the toilet, but that's another story.

Firefly forced his distended belly over, swam for a few seconds, and then rose upside-down to the surface again where he'd lie motionless - over and over and over. This was painful to watch. I wondered if we'd bury him next to Lupine the Baby Mouse we kept alive for ten days (she even went to a music festival in Telluride).

I googled floating goldfish and learned that a bacterial infection can cause so much air in their abdomen, they can't stay upright. Peeling frozen peas and breaking them up can be a trick to help move their bowels.

Huh?!

Or you can just drive the kids to school and go to work, and then come back to two swimmingly happy little fishies. Phew! It was touch and go there for a bit.

I emailed the girls to let them know it was a medical miracle. Firefly just needed to fart!

 

Queen of Everything

Two huge convoluted deals involving the sales of six houses have all closed - and I feel as though I've got my life back. WooHoooooooooooooooo! If any part of the house of cards fell down, three months of work would have swirled down the toilet.

I'm so happy!!


Today was my biggest closing yet, and I came home to a surprise congratulations from Nicolas:

He seems happy, too.


This is a good thing, because one of the new owners of one of the six houses gave me a little closing gift...

This should go over like a lead balloon when Nicolas gets home on Friday.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Just keeping the excitement in our marriage. Hahahahahaha! Oh I love this chair.

 
You can call me QOE for short.