So what would I like for my birthday?

This week, Guy and I turn 45 and 38 respectively (for those new to WAD, my husband and I have the same birthday). I have a few professional engagements to attend to the first half of the week, and then we'll be in Paris, Bruges, and London for about a week and a half. As is our custom, we prefer to take a trip together rather than buy each other something for our birthdays.

We're all familiar with the trouble of buying gifts for other adults. What do you get someone that would be useful, and they'd like it, and it's not too expensive for you to buy? And what do you get someone like Guy and me, who try really hard not to have a lot of stuff around? (Living in a condo will make you edit your possessions, though not as much as we probably should edit them.) Guy and I get out of this conundrum with each other by taking a trip for our birthday, but Christmas becomes more problematic. Usually, we either get the other person a gift card, or we send each other a web link to the exact thing we like. Yes, it's anticlimactic and totally expected, but what it lacks in surprise, it makes up for in appreciation for the effort and follow-through.

But in my personal and professional malaise this summer (for which I am indeed receiving professional help, thanks for asking, but for which I'm also trying desperately not to have to take medication), I've been wondering what I want, what I really really want (thanks, Spice Girls). A gift should be unexpected, delightful, and useful, and it should be appreciated all the time, not just on the day of its receipt. So what gift would I most like to receive?

I'd like to see my profession rise back to a level of real respect and respectability. 

I'd like to see us get paid what we're worth and not constantly be worn down by the pressures of clients that can't figure out why it costs so much to have a skilled professional design a building such that you won't have leaks, get sued, or have huge utility bills, and so you'll be able to use it for decades to come (or sell it easily if you need to do so). I'd like to see clients stop asking us to shave off our services like doing a full assessment of your existing building is optional. I'd like to see clients stop thinking they can do my job because they watched a three-day marathon of Trading Spaces. The doctors I work with hate it when you come to them with your pre-diagnosed disease that you got off of WebMD, but they can't see the irony when they come to me having done the same thing with a crude sketch they made from a free download of Google SketchUp; nothing you just drew meets any building code known to the state of Wyoming, so knock it off. I'm drawing what I'm drawing because it's the right thing to do to give you a space that meets codes as well as human comfort and ease of use. I'm not trying to draw "fancy" stuff and indicate "fancy" finishes because I want to turn your building's lobby into the Waldorf Astoria--it's because these are the right finishes for the space that will wear well and that align with your original vision of having a hospitality-like "classy" building.  And speaking of building costs, I'd like to see the contractors I work with not turn every goddamn project into design-build. Every time I insist that the finishes and designs really are going to be the best in the long run, I get accused of jacking up the price to the owner.  And I know who's gonna win that little pointing contest. So much for being "team players."

But the biggest thing I'd like to see is architects themselves taking the reins back. I'd like to see us stop writing, speaking, and designing for other architects and start writing, speaking, and designing for the world. I'd like to see us really reach out to people who have never heard the work "architectonics" and don't give a fuck who Kenneth Frampton is. I'd like to see us use words that an 11th grader would use, not because I think the average non-architect is dumb, but because we need to use real, clear language with the world if we're going to explain to them (and convince them) why what we do is important and more relevant than ever, and why we need to be paid accordingly and respected and given the space to do that work.

Seeing architecture truly own the 21st century: that's the gift that keeps on giving.

Happy Anniversary and general awesomeness, yo.

Guy and I are in Vegas having a great time, hiking and walking and relaxing and goofing off.  It's good to take a break from the intensity of our work schedules, which tend to leave us bereft of energy for anything much at all these days. Today is 8 years since we got married at an Elvis chapel here in Sin City, and while it's been work and not always a picnic, it's also been wonderful and rewarding to spend my days and nights with someone who is just like me in all the right ways and completely different from me in all the right ways.  Cheers.

Random things that make me happy

Lord knows Shorty loves to bitch about stuff, but I recently realized while attempting to meditate that I have a pretty damn good life and there's a lot out there to enjoy. Lest you think my whole life is boo-hooing about white-girl problems, here's an extremely-abridged list of things that truly make me happy.

• Top Gear, the British version on BBC America.  Few things actually make me laugh out loud spontaneously, and this show is one of them.  Watching Jeremy, Richard, and James hack up old cars, slide around a track and wreck things, and "take the piss out of" each other is a wonderful way to unwind in the evenings after ten hours of architectural bullshittery.
• Ink! Coffee. Roasted in Vail, Colorado, their 6610 Blend is strong but low acid.  (Translation: it cleans me out but doesn't give me a stomach ache.) Their coffee shops are clean and modern but cozy. Their staff is casual and hipster-ish yet professional and always pour a mean cup.  I go to the one in Cherry Creek North, but they have several around Denver and in the mountains.
• Kitteh pictures from my sister.  Nothing makes my day like random pictures of one of my sister's several kittehs roaming around the house, nomming something from her plate, playing on the sofa, or snoozing in a cuddle puddle.  Epic. Wuv.
• Homemade Greek Pizza.  Use either a Flatout! Wheat tortilla or a Boboli crust (or a rolled out pillsbury thin pizza crust) and top it with chopped up cooked chicken, quartered artichoke hearts, sliced kalamata olives, a little shredded pizza cheese, a little crumbled low-fat feta cheese, and some thawed or fresh spinach (red peppers or sundried tomatoes optional).  Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for about 7-8 minutes, and top with fresh oregano when you pull it out.  Slice up and devour.  Pass out from the awesomeness.  Repeat as many nights in a row as you like.
• My arms. Since I dropped a few pounds this year, my arms have started looking super-cut.  Not only do I love the way they flex, but I love the fact that I can suddenly lift some pretty heavy stuff without breaking a sweat.  Looks like the new fitness routine is paying off.
• My husband Guy.  Sometimes, when I'm feeling proud of my arms, I'll run into whatever room in which Guy is sitting and start flexing and yelling, "You just won VIP Tickets to the GUN SHOW!! EHN!!!"  And Guy doesn't laugh--he just plays along and yells back, "Oh mah GAHH!  GUNS!!  It's the Guns of the Navarone, muthafucka!"

So what makes you happy?  What odd pleasure, great or small, gives you a lift?

Rly sry, birthday time

Today Guy and I share yet another birthday, and we're on a cross-country train trip of Canada for the week.  There will be no work and lots of, um...reading Green Eggs and Ham. Hence, there's not much to post or say. 

We'll be sure to stay aware of our surroundings.  [giggle]

Monday Visual Inspiration: Just as I got back, I ran out of gas

Guy and I had a wonderful time in Vegas. We rented a convertible and promptly got forehead sunburns driving around Death Valley, where we toured Scotty's Castle and the Ubehebe Crater. We spent a lovely night at Scarlett's and met The Cowboy, of whom we approve. (Not that it matters--Scarlett will do what Scarlett will do, but we thought he was an excellent, happenin' dude who is the yin to her yang, the boot to her spur...or whatever equestrian metaphor works best here.) We had a great time at the various shows we saw on the Strip (Absinthe was FANTASTIC, and Elaine Boosler is still funny after 20+ years on the stage), and the food was glorious.

We got back to Denver, and Guy had to immediately turn around and fly to a meeting on the East Coast for two days. Howie and Bosley were both out of the office most of the week, so I spent the week doing quiet catch-up work, which was sorely needed. It was a great week, and I was ready to meet with Howie and Bosley on Friday to get back into the swing of things, when--

Bleecchhhh.

Someone short and pesky awoke at 4am with either food poisoning (from her beloved Chipotle!) or a 24-hour stomach bug/flu/crud. I wasn't able to keep water down until 11am. I mean, heaves so bad that I was thinking Okay, my stomach is definitely empty, there can't be anything left and then another volume of fluid would come out, and I'd yell in my head Where the hell did you find that at? What, were you saving it? It left me absolutely spent to the point that on Friday, I literally only had three saltines and a bowl of chicken noodle soup at 6pm. I ate some bland stuff on Saturday and did nothing. I mean, nothing. Well, I worked on some writing on my laptop for a couple of hours, but that was it. Nothing. I slept a lot and didn't drink enough water, but that was it.

I lay there on the futon, looking at Guy, pitifully. He got up from the computer and came over and spooned me, saying, "I think I need a nap."

"I think you do too," said I. "I'll take one with you."

We were quiet for a bit as college basketball ran quietly on the TV. "Guy?"

"Hm?"

"Is this what every Saturday is like for you? Just doing nothing?"

"Yeah. Feels good, doesn't it?
"Yeah, it does."

Happy Thanksgivin', y'all!

Guy and I are getting on a plane today to fly to Georgia for Thanksgiving (a Thursday flight was the only way to get the ticket price to a reasonable amount). We considered not going to Georgia for the holiday because Thanksgiving flying is more painful than sitting front row at a Miley Cyrus-Justin Bieber double-bill concert, but a) I like as well as love my family, and b) my sister hasn't been able to fly out to see me for nearly two years. So in order for me to enjoy my peeps and for Kitty and me to spend some sista-time, I must needs get my behind on a plane.

An unintended good consequence of flying on Thanksgiving is that we have our Thursday festivities on Friday, effectively bowing out of the Black Friday nonsense. Guy gets to sprawl on Mom's sofa with three cats on him and watch some football, and we annoy Mom in the kitchen while El Seebeno putters around in the yard with the dogs--not a frenzied shopper or overpriced plastic-thingy to buy in sight. Later in the weekend we might leave El Seebeno and Guy at a bar while we gals go doodling through a fabric store (again, mostly to annoy Mom) and then hang out at the farm to make Christmas cookies. Should be a good time, indeed. Here's hoping your holiday is a good time too, wherever and with whomever you may be!

Next on The Bachelorette: Pixie cleans the house

Guy left Sunday for a week-long trip for work, and I suddenly found myself in a quiet condo--no football on TV, so beeping and clicking of playing a video game on the computer, no shuffling through the house occasionally to get some Kool-Aid from the fridge or see what I was reading/doing/fiddling with. After I kissed him goodbye following a quick breakfast at Einstein's, I was met with a wall of strange, discomforting silence. So I did the only thing that felt right--I called my sister and started cleaning the house.

Guy has gone on business trips before, but it's been a long time (maybe two years, at least?) since he's been on one. Usually, those business trips are overnight--gone on Wednesday, back late on Thursday. I was now staring Guylessness in the face for five days, which was practically unthinkable for some reason. It was almost embarrassing to admit, especially since I had initially greeted the news of his trip with some relief. I figured some time apart is always good for us, since we do spend a lot of time together, snuggled down in the TV room every evening and within 20 feet of each other most of the weekends. I figured, with him out of the house for a stretch, I might get some cleaning done (me and my cleaning fetish!) and I won't have to watch whatever nonsense is on TV--sports, science shows, more sports, or the latest aliens/Doomsday show on History Channel, which has of late become enamored with alien-based and apocalypse-based programming.

So I talked to my sister for a while, and we went over everything that has happened to us in the past two weeks, and I cleared a great deal of clutter from the main areas of the house, even the TV room. I mopped and swept and Swiffed the hardwood floors and wiped down counters and put dishes in the dishwasher. Then I called Mom and painted my nails while we caught up on what all the critters, young and old, were doing around the farm. I polished off an entire book in one sitting (well, three sittings if you include getting up to go pee twice)--it was Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse's Life, and it moved me to tears many times. And as I put the book down finally after finishing it and got up to feed the kittehs, I realized that the house...was still heavily quiet.

So I took a shower, heated up some leftover Chinese, and watched Sunday Night Football while waiting for Guy's call to say he'd made it to his hotel room all right. Sunday is a day for comfort, after all.

Happy Memorial Day, from Mile High Pixie and a graveyard kitteh

This kitteh was hanging out in the shade in the St. Louis Graveyard #1 in New Orleans when we visited a few weeks ago. It seemed semi-feral; not afeared of us hoomanz, but not really into being snuggied (rly, sry, Miss Kitty). I snapped this photo and traipsed on to look at more dead people, which seems to be one of my hobbies when on vacation or out of town in any capacity.

I got back from presenting at an industry conference in NOLA to find that there was a lot to do before our user group meetings on the Uber MOB for Gestalt. So after only really about two days off (two were spent at the conference), I pulled a 7-day workweek and had some pretty decent meetings. That leaves us with one month to finish DDs for Uber MOB, which is going to be pretty damn tight.

But alas, 'tis Memorial Day weekend, when we remember and give thanks to all those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. So, I'm going to go to brunch, then to a Rockies game with Guy (where we shall see if his beloved Cardinals can get revenge for the 15-4 drubbing they received last night from the Rox), and then go home and hug my beloved Cardinals-loving veteran and thank him for being brave enough to join the armed forces in the first place. May you all enjoy a moment's rest and thanks this weekend!

How much doing nothing is enough?

Just got back from a convention in New Orleans; the long weekend was not nearly long enough. I spent a couple of days at the convention, then a couple of days doodling around the French Quarter. It wasn't until the morning of the day we left that I really felt calm-ish. Looking for a bit of breakfast before our cemetery tour (details and photos to follow), we found a little sunlit cafe with fantastic breakfast biscuits and a wonderful cafe au lait. I sat in the sun indoors and sipped my coffee (spring in NOLA is reportedly the best time to visit, though I was a little chilly the whole weekend despite temps being in the high 70s). I realized that we'd (Guy and I) spent the last two days just wandering and looking, not having too much of a timetable, and it had been good. Would that the entire weekend had been that way--no convention involved (for me anyway), just wandering around and seeing what there was to see.

Guy commented that he felt we'd spent about the right amount of time on vacation--he hadn't done a lot, and this was just the right amount of do-nothing time. Frankly, I could have spent five days just wandering from shop to bookstore to cafe without batting and eye or getting bored. Guy, however, wants to go see and do stuff. Compare that to home, though: I'm constantly in motion, going and doing and cleaning and fixing and writing and tweaking stuff, and Guy watches sports and surfs the web and generally chills out. So, of course Guy's bored and I'm overstimulated when it comes to vacay activities. (Camping trips tend to be our best chance at balancing activities and rest/nothing time, and we do have a long trip to Yellowstone planned for the end of the summer.)

When I lamented about wanting more downtime, Guy commented "Well, you can do nothing at home for a lot cheaper." I shot back, "You can do nothing at home for cheaper; when I'm home, there's always something to clean or write or check or do." Upon mulling this over more, the obvious (and mildly-oversimplified) answer to the predicament is to get Guy to help me around the house more and spend more time chilling out at home. But would I even really rest if I had more free time, or would I fill it with yet more things to do? (e.g., now that Guy's swiffing the house, that gives me time to clean out the junk drawer!)

Either way, I hit the ground running with my hair on fire when I got back to work this week. We have a lot to do before our user group meetings next week, so looks like at least one day of my weekend will be spent doing something at work as opposed to something (or nothing) at home. At least kittehs were happy to see us when we got home.

Happy 6th anniversary!

We're in Vegas, loving and living it up. We're actually spending tonight with our friend Scarlett, then tomorrow and Sunday nights are at the new Aria. Lots of photos and stories will follow upon our return. Word, my peeps!

Picture frame at a shop in historical St. Charles neighborhood in St. Louis, MO, at Thanksgiving 2010.

Thanksgiving...and not a moment too soon

This two-day workweek is right on time, my peeps. After coming down off of my deadline with Orville, I have found myself feeling full-fledged burnout again. I thought I had conquered this over the summer, but I evidently only tamped it down enough to keep working. I should have spent my half-day last week painting my nails and doing nothing, but I spent it cleaning which, while necessary, also just added to my exhaustion. I went back to work to face Howie, only to find that now Sven wants me to move upstairs to sit closer to the rest of the Gestalt team (whom I find to be decent human beings but half-ass architects, so I'd really rather not move). Plus, once I expressed anything even remotely resembling tiredness, Howie asked another architect in the office (non-healthcare) to help me with the SD layouts that I was supposed to be doing because, and I quote because I heard him over the wall on the phone with the architect, "She looks like she's kinda struggling."

Yes, Senor Fucktard, I am struggling, because as soon as I get done with one big-fast-monumental-do-more-than-you-were-originally-supposed-to-do-on-this-project deadline, there's another one right on its heels, and I have no time to rest or recover or anything. So I design an ambulatory surgical suite in 90 minutes or so, then I go in the bathroom and dry a few tears and pray for 5pm so I can just go home and not do anything and not serve anyone or have to humor anyone. It's been a long month and frankly a long year, and I can only describe the feeling as burnout. All I want to do is stare at the wall. I'm supposed to take all my vacation by the end of the year, but how am I supposed to do that when everything I have to do from here on out is one deadline after another and maybe you can take a few days right before Christmas but I really need to take the days now before I throw a grand mal hissy fit at work?

So, Thanksgiving has come at a good time. I'm actually looking forward to the drive to St. Louis. Being in a car with Guy for 12 hours is pretty good, really, as he and I generally have some great conversations and make each other laugh the whole way, and sometimes we're just quiet and Guy lets me be quiet and in my own little world for a bit. Indeed, I'm quite thankful for him.

Busy birthday

Efforts to post this week have been foiled by a sudden huge increase in workload brought on in part by a long-simmering project finally getting off to a roaring start, plus I have to leave Sunday for a work trip, only to return to Denver Tuesday night to spend my entire Wednesday in meetings. Which means I have to spend Saturday at work. And today. Which is mine's and Guy's birthday. I've been so busy lately that it sneaked/snuck up on me again.

[Edited to remove poor-quality photo]

I can't get this photo to show properly, but it's a picture of Guy as a 13-year-old (or so) on vacation in Wisconsin. He's so dreamy....**sigh**.....

Where was I? Oh yeah, worn out, and miles to go before I sleep. But Guy and I are going to spend this evening having a nice dinner and just enjoying each other's company and mere existence. Today, I turn 35 and Guy turns 42. And I must say that as I get older, my life, health, career, everything has gotten better.

The latest scuttlebutt from Design Associates and the life of Pixie

I suppose scuttlebutt is more like gossip, isn't it? But as my Georgia grandmother, M, once said as she removed the Virginia Slim from her lips and tapped the ashes into a fern, "Honeh, it ain't gossip if it's true."

So, some of you remember that the ever-awesome Intern Timmy left DA back in May for a higher-paying intern gig at another firm, and more power to him. Well, in the past couple of weeks, the ever-awesome Liz (if you remember her from the Pomme de Terre saga) left DA to go...run a non-profit organization. For more money than architecture was paying her. And to be fair, it wasn't hard for someone to pay her more than DA was--our base (hourly) salaries are low because we get paid overtime and profit sharing, but if you've had no raises and no overtime and no profit-sharing for almost two years, som'n's gotta give. Before she left, Liz confided in me in the ladies' room that working at DA had actually been kind of a step back. "I used to do all the things that Howie does, back at my old office back east," she said. "But working for Howie, I get micromanaged and get forced to jump through intern-like hoops and do redlines, economy notwithstanding, y'know?" And she's right--working for Howie has been really tough during the recession, as he doesn't have enough to keep him busy and ends up getting over-involved in the project instead of getting out of his staff's way and letting them succeed. So, vaya con Dios, Liz!

Meanwhile, Audrey, our female partner at DA, took me to lunch recently to talk about all the intern stuff I was doing and to get some ideas for how to improve intern (and architect) mentoring at DA. It felt really good to talk about the work I'd done on the big seminar I'd just given, and it was even cooler to watch someone so accomplished take notes while I talked. We discussed how to teach and model good communication skills, how interns could teach managers, and how hormones affect alcohol tolerance. Um, that is to say, we did each have a glass of wine. Riesling. Yum.

My longtime friend and confidante, Vinnie, met me for a long drinking-and-talking session at the Oxford Hotel's bar (opened the day after Prohibition was repealed--yes!!), and he noted the confluence of Audrey taking me to lunch with another interesting bit of news. The week before we went to lunch, Guy's office, Acme Architects, landed a big healthcare job that meant they were going to have to hire a passel of well-qualified architects. Now, being that the market is flooded with architects these days, they shouldn't be hard to find. But with Winston, one of my former DA colleagues now working at Acme, Guy confided that Winston would likely be recruiting from DA's ranks. And why wouldn't he? If you haven't had a raise in two years, and you've been at 36 hours for 18 months, why not go work elsewhere for more money on a challenging project? Vinnie's angle was that Audrey was also trying to shore up the Pixie angle--make sure she knows she's well-liked and respected so she doesn't bail on DA for greener pastures. Perhaps so--Guy said that my name did come up in Acme's higher management's discussions about who to recruit. However, Guy and I both decided that me working at his firm is our "if Pixie gets laid off" plan. We've rather liked not working together for the past almost-four years.

Speaking of working, last week DA had an office meeting and announced that we were all going back to 40 hours a week. (Longtime WAD readers may remember when this all began.) The news left me with mixed emotions, as most things do. On the one hand, I had been looking forward to having the extra four hours when all this started. And while I didn't get a lot of writing done, per se, I did use the time to do errands and cleaning that I usually did over the weekend. But that was when I actually got to work half-days on Fridays. Frequently, the four-hour cut was used for vet and doctor appointments, or a long lunch with friends at other firms. Perhaps I didn't defend the time fiercely enough, but it seemed like I wasn't as productive as I could have been with the half-day gift I'd been given. And now, we were being allowed the full 40 again, and the very sound of it made me exhausted. What kind of wimp had I turned into?

Plus, whatever brief elation I had at getting the extra time was whooshed away when I realized that at the moment, I barely had 36 hours' worth of work to do. There wasn't much left to do on the CDs for Gestalt's 9th floor project I'd been working on, so what was I to do with the time? I managed to help Norman out a little bit with some Revit stuff on his projects, but then Wednesday, Sven whoomped! a big, fat, marked-up set of 9th floor DD drawings from the contractor on my desk. "Here's Glasnost's comments," he said. "And when are 9th floor CDs due?" I peeked up at him. "In a week," I replied. So much for not having 40 hours' worth to do.

So, I know that's a lot of catch-up, and that's not everything that's been going on, but I at least owe y'all a decent explanation of what's been going on. More later.

The Red Badge of Dumbass and the 41-Year-Old Virgin

This coming Wednesday, Guy and I are heading to Miami for an architectural convention followed by a couple of days in the Keys. I'm doing a presentation at the convention with a friend of mine from grad school, and Guy has yet to decide whether he's going to watch my presentation. On the one hand, he wants to be supportive; on the other, he gets creeped out when he watches me present or speak/perform in public. Either way, I've been working on this presentation for a long time, and I'm just ready to get it over with and go have some fun in the sun.

The very thought of Miami beaches and swimsuits (or lack thereof, if you've been to South Beach) has affected Guy's and my behavior to the point that we've done some pretty odd/dumb things in the past week. For example, last Saturday I decided I should lay out in the sun and get a little base tan with some SPF 20 and SPF 30 all over me. Now, I had purchased some self-tanner while I was in Georgia with my sister, but it was more than 3 ounces, so Kitty had to ship it to me and it wasn't here yet, and I was getting impatient. Since I was going to be in a swimsuit at some point over the weekend, and I know what people look like in Miami, I figured I should at least not blind people when I walked outside. And here's the thing about Florida sun vs. Denver sun: Denver sun is way more intense. The atmosphere is thinner here, and I can get more of a tan here in the Mile High in 30 minutes than I ever could in 4 hours in Gainesville, where I went to grad school. So, I slather up with my SPF, go upstairs to the roof top pool at my condo...and fall asleep on my stomach.

About four hours after I came in from the sun, it was abundantly clear that I had seriously burned my back, butt, back of thighs, and even back of calves. My ass looked like the Coppertone cutie, but not in a aww-how-sweet kinda way but more like a wtf-is-wrong-with-you-you're-34-and-you-know-what-sunscreen-is kinda way. I slept on my stomach for three nights in a row because I could barely stand to have anything touch my back or butt. Even worse is that now, seven days later, the back of my right thigh just above my knee is peeling for a second time this week and looks like I leaned up against something on a motorcycle. I mean, yesterday it really looked like a real contact burn. (Though it's better this morning, it still itches.) And of course, despite the fact that I've had relatives with skin cancer and this alternately itches and hurts a little, the reality of it won't fully sink it. My brain is so addled from working on a presentation and getting ready to fly across the country, that all I can think is "can I put self tanner over a burn like this?"

Meanwhile, a couple of week ago, Guy walked into the bedroom as I was just getting under the covers, and he whips off his shirt, looks in the mirror and asks, "Should I wax my back for Miami?" Thankfully, I wasn't drinking anything or I would have done a spit-take all over my clean sheets and white-on-white summer quilt Mom made me a few years ago. Here's the thing with Guy's back: when we met, there was a little hair on it but nothing monstrous. His dad looks like he's wearing a sweater even when he mows the lawn shirtless, but Guy so far seemed to have willed the follicular affliction off of his back. Fast forward ten years, and he's turned into Sasquatch. The hair doesn't even all grow in the same direction; it goes several different ways and it's not even symmetrical. He has at least three cowlicks on his back. On his back!

So, I popped into Sally Beauty Supply yesterday and picked up a home waxing kit. Last night, Guy first sat on the edge of the tub while I used hair trimmers to take the hair down to about 1/4" to 1/2" long (stop laughing). I mentioned that he might want to take some Advil, but he looked at me like I had two heads. He then laid down on the futon and let me put the "pre-wax" lotion on his back (which didn't appear to do anything but make the TV room smell like coconut oil) while I heated the wax in the microwave. I heated it until it had a "thin, creamy consistency", which is what the container said it should have, though Guy said it had a "firey, lava-hot, nuclear waste consistency" and that I should "get it the fuck off now." I informed him that he was being a "pussy", and that the back of the waxing kit box even said so too.

I should back up and explain that back when I lived downtown and had no TV, when Guy and I first met, we had to invent things to do with each other. One day in 2000, that involved yet another home waxing kit from Sally Beauty Supply. Guy waxed my legs, and I have to say that he did a really good job. He put the wax on nice and thin, smoothed down the strips, and yank!ed them off in one clean, fast pull, leaving my legs beautifully smooth. When we got to my underarms, though, we started drawing blood, so we stopped. However, Guy, feeling tough/foolish, suggested that we try waxing what little back hair he had at the time. We did so, but sadly I was not nearly the waxing whiz that my then-boyfriend-now-husband had been. I pulled too slowly and put on too much wax and didn't keep it warm enough, which basically left him thrashing on the futon in pain and cursing not just my parents but also my grandparents for ever living and thereby bringing me into existence.

Fast forward ten years yet again, and Guy is laying on his stomach on the futon, kicking his feet against the wall and sucking air sharply through his teeth as I spread a thin layer of honey-scented magma on his back and yank it off to the best of my ability. There is wax on my mouth; I have no idea how it got there. The cat is walking around yowling and shaking one paw; I don't know how or where she stepped in wax, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't game for any of this. There is wax all over my fingers and nails and in my forearm hair. I've done most of Guy's back, but there are still little bits of it here and there.

"Wait," says Guy, half lifting up off the futon. "Do I look like the 40-Year-Old Virgin back there?"

"No...not really," I reply. "It looks, um...natural."

"Natural. So it doesn't look like I can do a combover with my back hair anymore?"

"No, I mean...y'know, it looks like the way your back did when I first met you."

"So I'm like 50% less Sasquatch-like."

"Look, if you don't like how it looks tomorrow, I'll clean up the bits I missed, but your back is so red right now that I'd feel bad doing anything more to it tonight."

Guy sat up and actually gave me a little smooch. "Thanks for waxing my back, sunburned cutie."

"Thanks for letting me. Now go take some Advil."

As soon as I get a new paddle, someone adds more $&*@ to the creek.

When I completed my deadline on Friday, Guy asked me to pick him up on my way home, as he was feeling under the weather. By the end of Friday, my day off after working like hell on the Gestalt 1st floor DD deadline, I finally came down with his bubonic death funk. While he was leveled more so than I, I've still had pretty low energy (about 50%-60% of Typical Pixie Energy Level), and I've been congested and had sinus goo draining into the back of my throat, which dries me out and leave my throat feeling raw. Meh.

Thing is, I really wasn't able to be sick this week. I got sick at the end of my day off, after mopping all the hardwood floors and cleaning out the fridge (Mom, plz 2 come vizit kthx, kitchen needs cleaning), and then I had to spend Tuesday getting ready for my Gestalt user group meetings, which took up most of Wednesday and Thursday. We had one more round of meetings with all five first floor departments to make sure that we have all their equipment and casework correct in the plans as we head into CDs, and then we had another user group meeting with the OB/GYN staff in Gestalt's Bierstadt building. That user group meeting today was a two-hour Bataan Death March of trying to find a good place to locate the advice nurses and the reception desk and the department head, one of the physicians, and the nurse manager continually changing their minds about who works where with whom and what they should be near. Ninety minutes in, I nearly stabbed one of the clients with my green pen and thought, "There isn't enough Sudafed to make this tolerable".

So I dig through hours of meetings and then go home and collapse, and I don't post on WAD or clean or catch up all my other writing projects or anything. And of course, I feel guilty for not getting more stuff done, but it feels like I'm not sick enough to stay home and not well enough to go to work. I'm not well enough to work out, but I'm not sick enough to sleep in. Not that I can sleep; I doze and then wake up and feel how dry and achy my throat feels, and then Guy starts snoring, then Hazel readjusts and curls up closer to me. (To be fair though, Guy hasn't slept in the same bed as me for nearly a week because he's been so uncomfortable and unable to breathe and sleep well.) At least tomorrow is a half-day for me. I can practice trying to rest with the extra time. Maybe.

A few pictures from the weekend

While today is technically our fifth anniversary, we took our trip last weekend. The rates were better and it worked for our schedules. A few highlights:

After arriving in Vegas on Friday morning, we did a little outlet shopping (mostly looking) and then went to dinner with Baxtersmum. On our way back from the fantastic restaurant where we met her, we passed our old haunt, Circus Circus, where we stayed during our honeymoon (now referred to as "our Hunter S. Thompson honeymoon", because you really need to be high on ether to enjoy the carpet in there).

The scene as we pulled into the Venetian. Guy would stay elsewhere in Vegas, but I love their spa way too much to stay anywhere else.

The next night, we had dinner at a great Tex-Mex restaurant in the Venetian, near the indoor gondola channel....

...where we promptly spent part of our meal staring at the ceiling and wondering how they got away with painting the escutcheon plates for the pop-down concealed sprinklers.

It was off to the Rio for the Penn & Teller show, but before that we enjoyed a "Carnivale In The Sky" in the casino area. "Floats" hung from the ceiling and slid by on roller coaster-like tracks while very attractive and in-shape dancers threw beads at us. One of them clocked me in the head, but I caught the beads.

As always, we have to know how it works. Here's the opening in the casino wall that allows the "floats" to enter the casino ceiling space. It's hidden behind a curtain.

The stage the Penn & Teller show. They ask people to come up on stage and sign an envelope and look at a wooden box on the stage. As the show starts, Teller pops out of the empty box. Very cool. The envelope is also used in a trick, but it's kinda hard to explain here.

One of the hallways at the Canyon Ranch Spa at the Venetian/Palazzo. Squee!

On Monday, I'll post about Liebskind's building at City Center Las Vegas. It deserves its own post.

MaddyWatch: well, we knew it was coming.

The vet oncologist confirmed this afternoon that Maddy's cancer is back. There is nothing left to do but keep her comfortable and monitor her closely so that when her time comes, we can help her along in a kind and timely fashion. She made an amazing go of fighting her cancer--she lasted 18 months, which is about 12 more than they originally thought she'd live past diagnosis. Guy offered to go to today's appointment with me, but he has a deadline so I didn't make him. However, when it comes time for that final appointment, I think Guy's going to have to go with me.

Maddy and I have had a good run. This March would be12 years I've had this tortie ball of awsum and win in my life. A constant companion around the house: on the toilet, on the balcony, in the bed (much to Guy's chagrin), at the computer, wherever--there she was, meowing and purring and following and even occasionally tapping me with one of her big, white paws or even giving me a nibble on the hand or wrist, as if to say, "Knock off whatever you're doing and pet and feed me, fool!" She could be a real pain in the ass, to be sure, but ultimately it was such a wonderful thing to know that someone unequivocally loved me, missed me, and was glad to see me when I walked through the door at the end of each day. Whether she was perched in her cat tree in my cruddy ground-level cinderblock grad school apartment in Florida, snorfling up under the covers and spooning with me in my chilly downtown Denver loft, or perching on the back of the chaise here at the Happy Kitten Highrise and purring while I read, she has been a fixture in my entire adult life.

And it seems so unreal that in a time which hastens ever nearer, she--one of the few constants of the past twelve years--will be gone from that adult life. No furry, sneezing creature crawling up on the bed just before my alarm goes off, no yowling from the other side of the front door as my keys jingle to go into the lock, and only one food bowl in the dining room floor...it will be Hazel and Hazel alone. Not that Hazel will mind--Maddy's been kicking her ass ever since they met in the summer of 1998, and Hazel's probably had more than enough of it. Right now as I type this, Maddy is curled up under the heat lamp in my bathroom while Hazel lolls in the living room floor, taking a bath and occasionally chirping and rubbing her face on a catnip toy. As Maddy has declined these past couple of weeks, Hazel has become more social, more present in the public areas of the house. I wonder how she'll be after Maddy's gone. Even though Hazel seems to be enjoying her new status as soon-to-be top cat, I occasionally have seen them curled up on the futon together in the TV room, and now and again when Maddy's on my bathroom rug, Hazel is curled up on a nearby rug, about two feet away.

Maddy and I have to go through a process that may be as hard as death--we have to separate from each other over the coming days and weeks. We must adjust to the reality that she's not running to the door anymore and I'm not going to have to fight her off of whatever I'm eating if I'm on the futon watching TV. And by "we", I mean "I". She will spend more time in the closet and in my bathroom (both very warm places in the condo), and I will read alone on the chaise and only have Hazel to bother me as I work on the computer (which she has started to do, interestingly enough). It seems unreal that at some point soon, I will no longer be able to snap a picture of her or put the phone down to her so Grandma can hear her loud "MROWR!" in the kitchen. Until that time comes, I can only be as kind as possible, kinder than I've ever been. I can only attempt to repay the kindness she has shown me for the past twelve years by helping ease her pain as needed, and ultimately by letting her go.

Reason #874 I married Guy

[the TV room/den/guest room, Pixie reading an issue of Yoga Journal while Guy surfs the web on the nearby computer]

Guy: So how much vacation time do you have to use up before the 24th?

Pixie: 67 hours.

Guy: Wait--like...

Pixie: As in eight days and three hours.

Guy: Damn! [pause] Huh...

[silence for about five minutes; college football plays on the TV on low volume]

Guy: So...I know we're going to St. Louis for Christmas, but...what if you went to visit your mom and sister for a while in December?

Pixie: I can't go til after the 8th--that's when Tumbleweed County's CDs are due.

Guy: Well, but maybe you could go after that, like the week before Christmas. Look, you could fly out--

Pixie: [exasperatedly drops magazine into her lap] I can't afford to fucking fly at Christmas, Guy. I checked into it--it's well over $300 to fly from Denver to Atlanta and then to St. Louis. I'm about to be out a week's worth of pay. I can't afford to go anywhere with all this time off.

Guy: Well then, I'll pay for it.

Pixie: [blank look] But...well, I don't know when I could pay you back; it'd be spring before I could.

Guy: You wouldn't have to. I owe you, actually.

Pixie: Wait, I paid you for the new iPods, but--

Guy: [turning fully to Pixie] Look: I sponged offa you for a long time. When we first moved in together, you paid way more of the bills than I did while I paid off my student loans.

Pixie: Well, you had student loans and I didn't.

Guy: Pix, I can actually afford it. I've got my emergency fund paid up, my Roth IRA is maxed out for the year, and I can even make a mortgage payment for you and buy your tickets to Atlanta.

Pixie: [pinched mouth, looking unsure]

Guy: [cute voice] Aaaall you have to do is say yeee-eeees...

Pixie: [sighs] Well....

Guy: [turns back to computer] It's decided. you're going to Georgia. You can leave the 12th and fly back on the 20th...

Feliz cumpleanos, El Papa del Guy!

Today is Guy's dad's 70th birthday, so we're off to St. Louis for a surprise visit to celebrate. It'll be a very quick trip--in town for less than 24 hours due to Guy's really busy work schedule, but I know we'll enjoy the time while we're there.

I'm doubly thankful for the opportunity to visit and celebrate. Last week, longtime employee and architect at Design Associates, Sutherland, whom some of you might remember as the guy who hired both Guy and me at DA, passed away after a long and valiant battle with cancer. He was younger than El Papa del Guy, and he will be very much missed. His funeral is today, on EPdG's birthday. Such is the circle of life, I suppose. It's good to remember to appreciate our loved ones, and even our friends and acquaintances while they're still around. A few months ago, I emailed Sutherland to thank him for playing inadvertent matchmaker by hiring Guy and me. His response was kind and "aw shucks"-y, but I think he kinda appreciated it.

I know I appreciate it. Every day.

Scooby-Don't

Guy wrapped up a major deadline last week as well, which was DD drawings for a classroom and research facility for a college campus with the starchitects at Scooby-Doo & Associates. A few weeks ago, Guy wrote them an email saying that they really needed to get their detailing together because the Revit model (the drawings, as it were) that they kept sending him wasn't up to date or useful to him. For the love of Renzo, the windows they were showing in the plan didn't even course with the bricks (i.e., have a width that is evenly divisible by 4" or 8" and a height that is evenly divisible by 8"). So, Guy sent out this polite-but-firm coming-to-Jesus email, and nothing happened. A few days later, he was booked on a plane to New York to spend three days helping SD&A work out their detailing. Well, isn't that nice?

So Guy flies out there on a Saturday and spends 13 hours on Sunday, 15 hours on Monday, and 6 hours on Tuesday before getting on a plane and flying back to Denver, helping these people find their asses with both hands and a flashlight. (I think Guy held the flashlight for part of that process.) On his last day there, Guy found out that his email had indeed put the fear of Richard Meier into these people. SD&A's design team truly had no idea that the project and the model was in that bad of shape. Turns out they were designing their exterior elevations in AutoCAD but not transferring those changes and ideas to the exterior (core & shell) model, which was being done in Revit. Matter of fact, there was only one guy maintaining and updating this huge-ass Revit model, and several designers fiddling and fuddling over sketch paper and the CAD elevations.

Now, the design and construction people reading this are clutching their chests and trying not to faint, but I know the rest of you may be doing the "Baroo?" look. Allow me to explain. Let's say you have a master calendar on your wall that shows all the comings and goings of the people in your family. This master calendar is for a whole year, and it shows the vacation days and birthdays and anniversaries and days that people are traveling for work or having their wisdom teeth removed and so on for the entire next twelve months. You need this master calendar to stay updated so that you can use it to figure out when to plan a party or to know when you need to go stay with Martha, because her wisdom teeth are coming out on the 17th, and she'll need help for a couple of days, but you'll have to take a break in the afternoon to get James from the airport on the 19th because he's flying back in from Bangladesh.... Now, let's imagine that your loved ones are writing down important days in their Day Timers or appointment books or even on little pink Post-It notes, but they're not conveying these dates and appointments and whatnot onto the master calendar. Suddenly, Evan is calling you wondering why you didn't come to his one-man show, and you notice that it wasn't on the master calendar and he's all "but it was in my BlackBerry!" Now, imagine that each of these unmarked appointments costs several thousand dollars each to remedy and throws off everything else in the calendar when they get forgotten or missed or not coordinated--that's what working in CAD and not transferring the design decisions into Revit does to a project.

I don't know how much more Guy has to work with Shaggy and Scrappy up there, but I'm sure the end will come not a moment too soon.