Odd dog in the park

I only caught a glimpse, but it's now like a snapshot I have memorized.

The day was zooming by quickly -- errands, the daily grind, etc. -- and I was hurrying to work. Suddenly, my eyes caught two figures in a park near the Cherry Creek bike path.

Two yoginis wearing bright colors that reminded me of springtime were postured in downward-facing dog, but the part that caught my eye was the sea of colorful flowers that surrounded them. What a prime piece of real estate they had staked out. I imagined the scent of all those flowers they were breathing in deeply. It reminded me to slow down, to make time for myself.

It reminded me of a T-shirt I bought at a yoga conference a few years ago. A buddha smiles, and beneath it is a sort of demand.

Inhale. Exhale. Ahhhhhhh...

Crazy, 'mon'!

Shame on me. I haven't told this to everyone yet, so here it goes.

It has been almost three weeks ago, but C. and I went to Keystone for a golf tournament he had qualified for. It was The Fan-950's summer golf tour, and after three tries at different qualifying tournaments around the Denver area, he finally qualified and later won.

The grand prize? A trip for two to Jamaica. We're planning on going in late March. Just about everything is included: air fare, transfers, golf (go figure!), meals and beverages at the all-inclusive Grand Lido resort. I'm not quite sure, but I believe it includes scuba diving (on excursions for beginners). Something I read on their Web site also says manicures and pedicures are complimentary.

And just in case you're wondering, C. shot an 82, but the scoring was a Stableford format in which he finished with -1 points.

Not his greatest round, but good enough to win.

P.S. As one friend said, time to get our Red Stripe on.

Remembrance

Over the past week, I've heard various stories from people; their memories of 9/11.

Where they were, whom they were with, what they were doing. What they were thinking.

So I thought of my story. Here it is:

I was living in Pueblo at the time, but on this day five years ago I was in Arvada staying at Mom's house since I had gone to the Broncos' Monday Night Football the night before. Out of nowhere, she burst into the guest room where I was sleeping, shouting "We're being attacked!" Wha? My brother had called her from Minnesota, an hour ahead, and told her, plainly, "Turn on the TV." I think it was about 8 a.m. MDT. I followed her into the living room and we didn't even speak. My dad appeared, he didn't say a word. We sat in silence, watching what so many of us can replay vividly in our minds. And I had to go to work. In Pueblo. I think it was about 11 a.m. or noon when I was driving down Interstate 25, and I saw something that will never be erased from memory. A single man standing on the bridge of Downing or Washington (this is all before the T-REX project) was waving an American flag. It was big, he was small, and that flag flapped to the left and the right, and he just stood there, making his statement. I drove down the highway, listening to a continuous feed of news from the radio, then went straight to the newsroom in Pueblo. Sympathetic faces stared back at me, and nobody said a word to each other. The first thing I wanted to find out was if the high school soccer games in the county had been cancelled. "Nope," my editor said. Shoot. I had to cover a boy's game and I didn't really want to. Begrudgingly, I arrived at the Roncalli Middle School soccer field, where it was East and Centennial high schools getting ready to take the pitch, both teams unbeaten. In the press box, I sat with the scoreboard operator and an officer working security. We tuned the radio to the news. The soccer game was flat, boring, inconsequential. The first thing I asked the boys after the game was, "Do you even want to be out here?" The overwhelming sentiment was no. They wanted to be at home, with family, with friends. Not out doing this. The next day, the school district said it should have postponed games, which is what most districts in Colorado did, not to mention professional sports leagues. It was the right thing to do. I wrote my soccer story for the next day's paper, all the while catching snippets of news from TVs and wire stories. On that day, I couldn't get enough coverage. It was all to satisfy the question that was poking at me all day. The burning question was "Why?"

"Why did this happen?"

Psych

Driving down Broadway on my way to work yesterday, I passed a sign that shouldn't be displayed on a Sunday. It's something at which those of us who have lived in Colorado at any one time (or a lifetime) would furl our brow. As I passed Blake Street, my eyes flashed across the words.

"Liquor store --> OPEN"

Huh? The arrow was just taunting me. I'm sure it was someone's mistake by leaving the sign out overnight, but that's just wrong to make us think we can buy a frosty case of beer or a liter of our favorite liquor from the LQ on a Sunday.

Maybe...

... this will be next.

My latest creation

This sad little wine cork board kit has been living on the top shelf of my laundry room for months. The lonely corks have been sitting nearby, atop the washing machine.

This weekend, I decided (FINALLY!) to do something about it. Working the wine-stained cylinders into the wooden tray seemed easy at first. But it became a puzzle. A pretty difficult puzzle. After struggling with trying to make them fit without cutting them, C. had a great idea: use his pvc pipe cutter. The next day, armed with the pipe cutter, glue, sandpaper and a dwindling amount of corks, I worked another couple of hours and at last, this 16"x16" beaut was ready to hang on one of the kitchen walls.

It gave me a chance to display a handful of corks that remind me of special occasions. The two bottles of wine we drank in Fiji -- one at dinner with new friends, another while sharing a romantic dinner for two on the beach. Another cork -- from a La Crema bottle of shiraz -- was a late addition. There are simply outrageous corks: the Electric Reindeer cork, the only red one on the board, and four with the label "RIBBIT!" A series of corks that have one word on them, such as "heritage", "patience" and "renewal." There's also the lone Whitehall Lane cork, stained with the cabernet of which C. bought an entire case.

The finishing touch was spur of the moment, really. I had saved the cork from a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne C. and I sipped near the time of our third anniversary, the one when we first met. It's a wonder I even found it. I had marked around it "1-6-05 THIRD ANNIVERSARY VEGAS." I cut off the mushroom-like top and here's what appeared.

P.S. Lest you think we drank all these bottles of wine, about half the supplies came from C. He opens loads of wine bottles at work, so that's where we got all the Guenoc, Crane Lake, Chateau St. Jean, Ravenswood, Louis Jadot and Benziger corks in bulk!

P.P.S. You can hardly see them at the top, but when I bought the kit, I also ordered a set of six pewter push pins. They're in the shapes of a wine bottle, grapes and a wine glass.