Good day after all

So, my legs are sore as all hell from Saturday's Grand Dandelion Smackdown. After hobbling around work and gobbling ibuprofen all day, I head to the awesome massage place near my office to try and get a little relief. I get kneaded like sourdough for 45 minutes, and told I shouldn't run for 2 weeks (!!). By the time I get home, I am in a lot of pain. I walk in and am about ready to cry. Not just because I'm hurt, but because a few hours of weeding have done this to me. Because I won't be able to run for a while. Because 5 years ago, this would have been nothing on my legs.

I walk in the door, and Aa's in the kitchen making popcorn. Zack runs up to me to sniff my knees (it's how he greets me). I tell Aa I need to lie down. Aa says, "Can you feed the Zacker first? Please?" I groan, but I agree. I walk over to the newly-shelved closet where we keep the dog food. I look down, and there's a little box sitting in front of the dog food. I open the box, and there's a little ring in there. We picked this thing out like a month ago from this hippie jewelry place and Aa surprised me by telling me he bought it. Then it took a long time to come. But today it's here. And I put it on as Aa stands there watching me with a big old grin on his face.

So now I guess we really, really have to plan a wedding.





Um, this only worked because Aa held a piece of popcorn over my head while I took the picture.

The ham-fisted gardener and exciting storage space

Yesterday I spent more than four hours in our backyard, weeding and pulling up all sorts of dead plants. I'm pretty sure that I pulled up some actual plants in the process. See, the previous owner really meticulously gardened the backyard. And Aa and I initially said, "we just want to see what she planted! We'll just see what grows." Well, you know what grows when you don't weed? Um, weeds. Particularly dandelions, which I thought I liked until I fought to dig as many of them out of my yard as possible. Dandelions are vicious, man! They grow deep, thick roots and choke the life out of almost every other plant near it. The dandelions killed so many plants in the yard, it felt a little like I was cleaning out a plant cemetery. Also, I think I probably cut a rose bush in the middle of our yard waaaaaaay too much. But now I am really interested in gardening, for the first time in my life. Yesterday was way hard work and my hamstrings are uuuuuunnnnnnnhappy today, but it felt great when I was all done. I keep going out to the backyard and looking at it, imagining what else I'd like to do and grow back there.




Zack was way into gardening too.

Today, Aa and our buddy Don Mateo installed shelves in one of our little closets. And now we have a beautiful, beautiful little pantry for cookbooks and soup pots. Hooray for home improvement.

All that fuss

Drama at work. Drama at work!

...and that's all I can say about it!

My last day

Today was my last day on the show I've been producing for three years. (Monday, I start as a host on another show.)

I've had a hell of a time at this job. The show has a crazy-ass deadline - most of the people who really know me know that if they called me before 2:30 pm during the week, it better be because someone died. I've gone nuts trying to pull the show together until the last possible second countless times. I've done the dash from the control room to the newsroom and back a bajillion times, grabbing some last-minute thing we needed or burning some interview to CD to ensure it played exactly when we needed it. (My co-workers know to get out of my way when it's almost 1 pm and they see me running - especially if I'm running to the bathroom because it's been such an intense day my stomach has decided to rebel.) I've argued with guests and "communications professionals" about our news coverage or about not allowing some luminary to blather on long enough. I've yelled at my interns. I've yelled at the show's engineer. I've yelled at the host. I've screamed profanities in front of my bosses when something goes wrong. I've lost sleep and fought over station resources and complained endlessly and gotten fed up and fantasized about quitting and now that I'm at the end of this, I'm so sad. I've loved every second of it. This job forced me to step up my game and make better radio. The host I worked with did the same. Because he's so freaking good at his job, I wanted to make sure I was worthy of doing the work too. I am going to miss working with him so, so much.

I don't regret leaving though. I'm sure I'll love my new job. It'll be really exciting to do something new, and tell stories on the radio in this way that I'm still very green at. But, man. Today is a sad day. I'm only moving like 15 feet in the newsroom, but still. I kind of feel like I'm never coming back.

If you have time, give this a listen

I love this story for a lot of reasons. I like the really personal, intimate feeling of the interview. I like hearing all the emotions of the subject in her voice. She goes from hesitancy to sadness to happiness. You can hear her sense of humor and excitement. I would love to hear more stuff like this on the radio. In fact, this will be something I'll work to achieve when I start my new job next week.

Please just watch Unicorn Planet right now, ok?