12" iBook G4.

Just, if you had any money riding on it.

I'm going back to bed. Migraine's kicking my ass.

He sacrificed a rubber chicken. He clubbed a baby seal squeak toy repeatedly. He gave it a burnt offering and sprinkled it with spices. And yet, the laptop continued to give Adam the laptop version of the middle finger, which is an overheated power cord, go figure. He thinks it'll hold long enough for a data transplant, but after that, the plug will have to be pulled.

Sorry, Lappy. You won't die alone.

Tomorrow, I'm going to the bank to work out financing for a replacement. I'm kicking myself repeatedly, of course. I should have started saving for the inevitable with the first glitch last summer. I should have done some freelancing work to cover the bill. I should have, should have, should have. But I didn't so, hello bank!

And then, later in the week, we'll troop over to CompUSA and find the cheapest machine I can afford and buy it. It could be as early as Wednesday or as late as the weekend. I'll have internet access at work, but I kind of doubt I'll be able to update the website as much as I'd like.

Did I mention I'm just sick over this? I'm already suffering from buyer's remorse and I haven't started pricing anything. God.

Lappy's sick again. Now it's a power supply isuse. Adam's going to crack the case and try soldering the contacts, but the situation is considered terminal and I have to start shopping for a new notebook.

I'm! So! Iirritated! because I had big plans for retiring Lappy and buy a big pimpin' Mac Powerbook when I had money to do so. However, since I am forever broke and I like things like food and a roof over my head, the upgrade was going to be a ways down the road and Lappy was going to have last until then.

My hand's been forced. I hate that. Now instead of tooling over to CompUSA and walking out with said big pimpin' Mac, I need to shop around for some cheap PC notebook that I can pay off in a short amount of time.

I hate deficit spending.

Adam didn't cotton to my idea of just skipping the computer and finding a manual typewriter. "Aside from hating the idea of hearing 'tappity-tappity-tappity-tappity' at all hours, how would you get stuff on the internet?"

I looked at him. "You do it."

He wasn't buying that. I have to buy a new computer.

I totally spaced the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona this weekend. I came in from my parents', and Adam was bouncing on the couch, clapping and pointing. "Twenty-four! Daytona! David Hobbes! Bob Varsha! Justin Wilson in fourth!"

We're still six weeks out from the beginning of Formula One, and I've been more than a little edgy in the wait for my fix. And March 12 is never going to get here.

Awesome doesn't begin to describe how it feels to hear Bob say something dumb and see a former F1 driver advance up to first and geek out over Danica Patrick's seat bolster. Awesome. God, I've missed racing.

So, back to Danica Patrick and her giant-assed seat bolster. Honestly, it's the size of your standard toddler's car seat because she's so friggin' tiny. She's so small, Adam is compelled to comment on it. "She's so friggin' tiny! I mean, look at the size of that bolster!"

"Dude, Rusty Wallace is her co-driver. He's so not tiny."

Adam gave me one of those blank looks that means he did not understand the string of words that just popped out of my mouth. "He's a NASCAR guy," I explained.

He rolled his eyes. "Friggin' NASCAR guys."

Tomorrow's been cleared so we can watch the rest of the coverage. But the bummer of the weekend is the lack of overnight coverage. Overnight is always the best part of any 24 hour endurance race. You have the exhausted announcers who will read any factoid the intern hands them, the exhausted field guys conducting exhausted interivews with exhausted racers...and the cars start breaking down. Back in the days of pre-Fox ownership, Speedvision did wall-to-wall coverage. Now? A Tommy Lee Jones movie neither one of us has herd of, and infomercials.

"Friggin' Fox," Adam grumbled as he flipped through tonight's listings.

Anyway, we're at the four hour mark. Don't spoil it for us.

I mean damn. The website redesign wasn't enough for him. Nope. He had to build a custom Blogger template. "It was hard and I was bored."

I think it really spiffs up the joint, don't you? The seamless site integration? Dontcha just want to push one of those buttons? Dontcha just love it?

Sarahwolf.com has been relaunched.

For the past two days, Adam's been working his magic. In this instance, "working his magic" means building a pretty website and harrasssing me for content.

First, there would be the e-mail. "Hey, when you get a chance, could you write an 'About' filler?"

When I wouldn't respond within sixty seconds, he'd call. If I wasn't at my desk, he'd leave a message for me to call back. Urgent. Must call. I'd dial him, and he'd answer with a cheery "Ahoy!" followed by his favorite medley "You're never at your desk/Why haven't you checked your e-mail, baby" before he would launch into the big finish, "So, anyway, about that 'About' filler?"

It's been a frenzied two days of writing and rewriting punctuated with long discussions about fonts, colors, filler, logos and organization. At the end, Adam gave me the rough estimate he'd charge an outside client.

Thank God our wedding vows stipulated he'd do it for free. You think I'm joking, but aside from pledging to love each other until the galaxy spun itself out of existance, through household chores, bankruptcy, the rise and fall of boy bands, burnt pot roast and head colds, we also pledged to not charge each other for services rendered.

It was a really weird wedding.

Anyway, go check it out. Don't worry, I'll wait here. We can discuss when you get back.

Updates have been shuffled aside ahead of the promised website redesign which was scheduled for...three weeks ago.

I'll be back soon, promise.

At some point during the week (I think Thursday night), the mountains finally got a dusting of snow simply because they were tall and the clouds, well, they were low.



The rest of the state? Tender box. Mountains? Were pretty until about noon.

*~*~*~*~*

Confession: one of my not-so-secret guilty pleasures is watching the Miss America pagent. Women sculpted into a image of beauty that went out with "Dynasty?" Women who are eight years younger than me but have fake-baked and botoxed themselves into 40-year-old faces? Women parading around with toupee-taped butts and vaseline smiles? Women with bad fashion sense performing seventh-rate talents in the name of scholarship money or a shot at reality television? I had to call Gwyneth and get her over here for an evening of crowns and cocktails.



You'll note we had crowns, cocktails and coordinating UNM Lobos sweatshirts. We are awesome like that. You'll also notice that I didn't have my arm stretched out, which meant Adam had come downstairs to join in the snark.

Due to Tivo mishaps, we didn't get the first forty-five minutes of the program and came in when they were introducing Miss Florida. Highlights of the broadcast:

• Adam noticed that Miss District of Columbia, Miss Texas and Miss Alabama all had the same Michael Jackson circa Bad nose.
  
• Gwyneth made the point that outside of Miss Arkansas and possibly Miss Flordia, there had to be some rib removal going on for the bathing suit competition.
• Adam expressed his continued distaste for spray-on orangeness of the contestants.
• We agreed that Miss Pennsylvania somehow got her wardrobe mixed up with porn star Miss PennsylPaina's AVN award wardrobe, right down to the stripper shoes.
• Adam called Miss Oklahoma and Miss Virginia for the final five for their belly-baring evening gowns. He totally biffed it on Miss Texas.
• Repeatedly replayed moments included Miss Texas' reaction to not making the top five; Miss Pennsylvania tripping on her stripper gown and Miss Alabama's mortifying ballet performance.
• At one point, Gwyneth and I figured out how we could clone James Denton, which is scary because given one boring Saturday afternoon and the right conditions, we actually could.
  
• We agreed that Miss Oklahoma credited her success to Frizz Ease and disposable contacts.
  
• On the CMT website, the contestants offered fashion tips. A lot of the girls seemed to have an unnatural obsession with belts. Lots of talk about...belts. Which prompted a Mommie Dearest reference that didn't quite work.
• Best Flub of the Evening came early: Miss Maine's pronunciation as "elemen-tary."
  
• And again, Adam totally called it on the eventual winner. "Miss Oklahoma's got the biggest boobs."
  

That last one took a little doing. The Tivo glitched again and we had to scramble on the web to find out who won. "Totally called it," Adam said as he went upstairs. "Biggest boobs always win."

Evolutionary theory in a nutshell.

"Oh yeah, that totally reminds me. I was going to look up the Santa Fe Opera's schedule for this summer."

"I hate opera."

"Oh, they're doing 'Carmen.'"

"I like 'Carmen.'"

"They're doing 'Cinderella.'"

"I might like 'Cinderella.'"

"They're doing 'The Magic Flute.'"

"...I love 'The Magic Flute.' Damnit."

If there was ever a question about which Wolf was devoted to which Miata more, Adam would win, hands down. His passion for his car is probably the reason why I don't write about Bucky often; I don't want to step on someone else's creative endeavor, even if he is my husband.

But sometimes, I just want to pimp my ride.

I've had Bucky since September, 2003. He had 16,900 miles on him when we bought him at a shady-assed car sale over at Cottonwood Mall. The dealer, who attempted to yo-yo us, ended up eating his profit after we presented him with Xeroxed copies of the transaction and the letter of complaint we shipped off to the Attorney General. It's funny how used car salesmen quake at the mere mention of Patsy Madrid.

It was love right off the bat, of course. I've been nuts about Miatas since they were introduced in 1990 and the feeling was compounded when my dad bought his own in 1994. I envied Adam his purchase in 2000, even when, later that year, I had my own chance to buy a new car, I leased a VW Jetta. At the time I reasoned we needed a sensible car, a car with a back seat and four doors and I liked the look of the fourth generation Jetta.

You know what I discovered during the 39 months of the lease? Jettas aren't the end-all, be-all of German engineering.

Buying the second Miata, my Miata, was a no-brainer. Plus, it vaulted us into that elusive, enviable statistic: we are two Miata household.



Bucky got his name from a deficient clutch, a failure point in the second generation of MX5s. The first couple of shifts -- especially at take offs -- the pedal shudders against the foot, the car bucks through the launch and, okay, it looks like I'm one of those stupid girls who never bothered to learn a stick. But by the fourth launch, it's fine.

"Bucky" is also an homage to Get Fuzzy and the ornery siamese cat. I love that strip.

Since I've owned him, we've only done a few modifications. Adam spent an evening applying the WMD stripe. One weekend we threw on Tom's old Racing Beat suspension, but the shocks are due for replacement and there's mention of a possible Tein overhaul. Probably the most noticeable upgrade has been the airbox swap. I replaced the factory airbox with a Monster Flow intake. It boosted the BHP by maybe, maybe a pony, but it made all the difference in the world. Before the intake, Bucky sounded like a regular car. Now there's a distinctive engine sound. Not "note," that lends the eronious mental image of the car hanging out at Berkelee for a couple of semesters, it makes the engine sound distinguished, polished, refined.

It's not. Drop Bucky into a low gear and mash on the accelerator and it's middle-to-lower register growling. The noise is enough to catch the attention of post-adolescent boys in their souped-up Civics, but Buck's all talk: it's the sound and the fury signifying nothing.

The noise from the intake dies out as he climbs up past 3500 r.p.m., but the car's still loud. If the top's up, it rattles. If I'm driving solo, the passenger seat rattles. The fit-and-finish, loose from an errant hot wiring attempt, rattles. Junk in the trunk rattles. There is only one solution: the stereo is always cranked to eleven. The best driving CD for Bucky is comprised of Fountains of Wayne and U2. The first CD I ever played after I bought the car was "Pop."

I haven't put him on a Dyno or done any acceleration tests on him. The engine is a normally asperated 1.8 liter four cylander outputting about 100 BHP. He only looks fast. I don't know what his zero-to-sixty time is, I can only guess at his quarter mile. Still, he's got a fair amount of torque at the bottom of the powerband. He can get off the line quickly, usually faster than a turbo lagging Subaru or Mitsubishi. He's geared towards the shorter end of the spectrum, which suits the rear-wheel drive roadster model. This is a car designed for zipping around mountains, not mad dashes against salt flats.

I love my car. You've probably figured it out. I love my car.

I wasn't going to write about buying sheets this weekend, because sheets? Mundane. Even if they're these sheets, which I've had a sheet crush on since Pottery Barn figured out I had an address. It's boring; nobody wants to read about sheets.

But we got these sheets from Target on Saturday and wow. It's the first time in my life that I've owned 300 thread count sheets, which made a segement of my readership say "huh?" and the other are like, ... sad. And now I have to talk about them.

First off, they're mind boggling awesome. Soft and pretty and a bit slippery because did I mention they're 300 thread count? We picked out sage green sheets and blue and orchid pillow cases, and I do believe it's the first time in years when all of our bed linens have coordinated. Everyone gave us dishes when we got married, you see.

Second off, they're partially made from bamboo, which means if a giant panda ever decided to crash at our place, we're set. Which could happen. You never know. A tear could open up in the space/time fabric and a panda could fall out. Or someone could abandon one on our doorstep. Stranger things have happened.

Third? I've never heard Adam talk about friggin' linens.

"We are not worthy of the sheets," he said after the first night in them. "It's like we've spent our lives swathed in gas station toilet paper and now someone's gone and handed us a roll of Charmin triple ply."

Which isn't to imply we've been sleeping in burlap for seven years, but damn.

The rest of the weekend was uninspired contentment and not really worth reporting.

Bob E. over at ALOTT5MA finally answers one of my top five burning questions of all times: Who (or what) the hell are the Baldwin Brothers?

I think I'm going to buy an album, just 'cause.

For my marooned readers in Alabama:



(Sorry it's so tiny.)

My parents, dear people that they are, gave us a deep fryer for Christmas.

Adam broke it out for the first time last night.






(That's not red eye. He's the devil when he's angry.)

I like it when they write television just for the two of us.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Adam and I were jawing over the law school/medical school decision that really should be off the table since 30 is looming, and Adam posed a very important question, one that could affect a potential career. "What kind of doctor would you be?"

"Oh," I said. "I wouldn't just be a doctor. I'd be a surgeon."

"Oh," he said, lifting the eyebrow.

I came back with, "And I wouldn't just be a surgeon, I'd be a ninja surgeon."

"OooooOOoooOOoooh!" Adam said. "With the cap and the mask and the scrubs! And throwing scalpels!"

Which was where we broke into a chorus of "Kung-Fu fighting."

(And for the record, there is absolutely no chance that I'll ever, ever be practicing medicine. Or the law. So, um, you're safe.)

And some readers might know that I've got an eye on finishing a very, very, very small, very, very short, very, very scary triathlon in May.

Last night's Scrubs was written just for us.

From the first bad ninja kick, we were clutching each other to keep from falling over and braining ourselves on the coffee table. And then JD ran the race I fear running, and Adam kept smacking my thigh shouting, "Hey! You'll do better than that!"

The second episode crossed over to meta with Ted smiling, Colonel Doctor, the longest "heeeuuuuuuuuulng!" ever, chest hands and Janitor's Jiggly Ball and we were still freaking out.

"They wrote it for us!" Adam shrieked. "They wrote it all just for us!"

"It's a hip-hop world, son."

He stopped laughing and did the eyebrow thing again. "It's tin foil hat time."

Hee!

(Adam would probably also like me to add the drug company on trial on Boston Legal was Devlin McGreggor, the same drug company in "The Fugitive." Awesome.)

Word comes from The Smoking Gun that James Frey kind of faked that whole memoir bit while the New York Times reveals JT Leroy's a total sham.

So this raises some daunting questions like, will Oprah retract her endorsement?

And then, if the Kitty Table wasn't enough, I found this site. It's William Shatner's answer to Netflix! Rawk!

I have assembled a series of films that run the gamut of Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy, including underground hits, genre classics, and even some gems pulled from the far reaches of independent cinema.
...
The iconic Captain Kirk has watched literally thousands of Sci-Fi, Horror, and Fantasy films and has selected his personal favorites for you.
...
Only watch the best genre movies available, without wasting time with bad films that obscure these diamonds in the rough.
...
Every DVD we send to you is yours to KEEP!

Which begs the questions what sort of gems Denny Crane's picked out for us. I think Adam's going to find out. I'll report back.

I present to you the most amazing feline feat of all time:



The kitty table. That's the cat. My cat. Under a 400 page manuscript. Just kickin'. Totally happy. Purring away.

Okay, so she's not a fan of the camera, and is indeed giving me the fuzzy kitty finger, but she stayed under those 400 pages for 45 minutes.

Tah-dah!

Plans were made earlier in the week to have Gwyneth and this guy over for dinner tonight, which meant ignoring the whole "people are coming to our house to eat" issue until this morning, when it became imperitive we sort out the wreck that is our house, because our friends appreciate it when we don't serve them dinner balanced on a stack of old magazines.

Anyway,there I was, trying to scrape the aquired grime of the last week off the stove, and the 409-soaked paper towel was kind of making a deep-sounding squeek against the cooktop, which made Adam laugh out loud, because it sounded exactly like a fart, and because we're such mature adults, he requested more and I complied, complete with the appropriate "Aaaaah" face.

Stove farts. They let us get married, own property and operate automobiles. Y'all, that is just wrong.

Later, we did a Target run, and I nearly ended up buying a $20 framed Buddah because I was freaking out, shouting "Ong Bak! Ong Bak! This is why it hasn't rained since September! He's angered! His head's only selling for twenty bucks!"

Adam swears up and down this is just another reason why he married me. "What other girl would nearly get me banned from Target because of a framed Buddah head?"

Though maybe I have a point. It was a lovely 65 degrees and sunny today; warm enough to have the sliding glass door open while I scrubbed the kitchen floor, warm enough to drive around with the top down on Bucky. It's early January in the northern hemisphere and it's 65 degress. Somewhere, some deity is a bit peeved. Or maybe just cold. I understand cold.

And then, the sun was heading down and I had two men take over the couch and the television and demand dinner. I ended up making baked ziti, which has become my signature, go-to dinner dish. Also, because I know Tom's a big fan and will turn himself inside out for leftovers. And if he has leftovers, that means that my fridge is free of a half-dozen dead ziti Ziplocks. Everyone wins.

Gwyneth came over just before I tucked the ziti into the oven and we sat around waiting for the cheese to brown. Tom told Marine stories. Adam and I alternated crappy neighbor/bad vacation stories. I broke out a 2004 Foxen Pinot Noir and poured liberally. More narratives came tumbling out. The ziti came out. We sat down at the cleaned off kitchen table Gwyneth found for us a couple of years ago. There was so much food, I pulled out both leaves. More wine, more stories peppered with good-natured ribbing.

I will admit straight out, I was secretly proud of all of it: the food, the friends, the conversation, that even with the stove farts and Ong Bakking through Target, we could pull off something as grown up as a dinner party with our friends. Also? I remembered to buy candles and light them, and I finally broke out the Nambe platter someone gave us when we got married.

But it's Sunday night and everyone has real jobs that require meetings in the morning, or clean clothes, or a combination of the two, so the party broke up just before 7:30. Between this, and Tom's suggestion last week that we go for sushi right at five, I'm starting to wonder just when time accelerated and we aged by 40 years.

It's either fart jokes or the early bird special. Where's the happy medium?

The off-season has reached the point where it's starting to d r a g o u t., y'know? March 5 is never going to get here and it's bringing a girl down.

I can't believe we have to endure another eight weeks until the FIA gives us the dulcet tones of the V8s (rest in pieces, you glorious V10s) and David Hobbes drunk off his ass. I want it now. I want Bob Varsha to start the preshow with the inevitable "Can you hear the drums, Fernando?" I want Peter Windsor asking inane interview questions. I want Steve Matchett geeking out over the new rules and regulations. Jesus, I have such a crush on Steve Matchett. I'd listen to him talk about areo packages for hours.

I want a look at the new grid. I want to get a feel for the new teams. A whole boatload of talent's moving up from GP2, including American Scott Speed driving for the second Red Bull team, Torro Roso, and I can't wait to see how they aquit themselves. I want to see the team dynamics now that BAR's become Honda and Rubens Barrichello's jumped ship from Ferrari. I need to know who BMW will blame when they can't win races now that Williams is out of the picture.

As usual, I'm praying Mark Webber gets a fast car this season.

Oh, I want to revel in the Fred-to-McLaren fallout. I want to roll around and bathe in the fallout. Who will leave so Fred can come in? Will Juan "Boom-Boom" Pablo Montoya be out of the sport after seven disappointing season? Will Kimi pick up the first seat at Ferrari behind a Schumacher retirement? I need the prognosticators, people!

Did I mention there's an American this season? Named Speed for the love of God?

And we have to wait eight weeks?

God, it's killing me.

I'm waiting for a phone call that was either supposed to come an hour ago, or will happen in a half hour, depending upon whose time zone we were discussing, or maybe I was totally confused and it's scheduled for next week. At any rate, I keep glancing at the phone, willing it to ring, an activity I thought I'd left behind when I graduated from high school and I keep thinking "I got up early for this?"

Plus, I've had an entire pot of coffee on an empty stomach. It's not helping matters.

And then, while I'm reading coverage of the mine tragedy, I run across a very interesting piece of trivia: the second worst mining disaster in the history of the United States happened here in New Mexico. On Adam's birthday. In my paternal grandmother's hometown.

Really?

I've had an urge to go up and check out Dawson for a couple of years now, partly out of morbid curiosity: Phelps Dodge shuttered the town and razed it in 1950. The idea that from the time she was in her forties, my grandmother didn't have a hometown grabs my imagiation. Grandmother Ellen died when I was barely five years old and only barely knowing her has been a regret. I want to go to Dawson because I want to see where she came from.

Also, I want to visit the cemetery, one of the few landmarks that remains. The great uncle my father is named after is buried up there, along with another Upton who died in the October, 1913 disaster. Is that my great grandfather? I have no clue, because that side of the family's like the middle of Proust to me. I know the basic tea-soaked madeline premise (they came from New England because of the railroad and they had a ranch?), but the details elude me. Time to rectify that, I think.

Okay, so now I actually have a resolution for 2006. Find out about the family. Visit Dawson. Answer phone. Oh, shit. Phone.

A girl starts out in a small town. Tiny. Miniscule. People from the northern part of the state have maybe, maybe heard of it. Its largest import now acts as the comic relief on a freshman comedy on CBS. She knows everyone. Everyone knows her. She has to get out.

She graduates early from high school and moves to a bigger town, as big as it gets in this state. At first, she freaks out. She can wander campus for a week straight and not run into a familiar face. She considers screaming back to the small town. She remembers she ran screaming from the small town in the first place and stays put. She gets used to not seeing anyone who knows her life story. She makes friends. She makes plans. She's going to stick around three years. Four, tops. Grad school on the coast, baby!

She moves across town thirteen times. She starts recognizing people in the grocery store. It's starting to become home. She's going to stay maybe another two years. Three tops.

She gets married. She lands gainful employment. Her parents run screaming from the small town. They buy a house. She buys a house. Stories are written, careers progress. There's discussion about maybe moving out of state. The country's explored. There's discussion about maybe moving across the river instead.

She begins to think she's cultivating a serious relstionship with the city, but won't admit it, because it's like confessing to a serious relationship with an all-around, unexciting nice guy. She knows that she could start a torrid affair with other, cooler cities, but this one makes her laugh and she can just be herself there...maybe they'll see other people. That's what traveling is, right? She has a fling with New York, but counts down the days until she gets home.

And then, one Wednesday in January, it hits her: she's been here ten years.

Congratulations, Albuquerque. I think I love you.

In light of the coming redesign, cleaning up my links/blogroll on the right is akin to rearrainging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but hell. I'm orgainized now.

Flashback to New Year's Eve, 2004: We're on the couch in our drab living room, watching something on the Tivo, sharing a bottle of cheap champagne and listening to the soothing pops-n-bangs of gunfire from down the street.

We vowed this year would be different.

This year, we made the rounds with friends, hitting all the high notes: Trivial Pursuit followed by sushi, followed by a lavish rooftop party where we didn't know anyone but talked to everyone anyway. We upgraded from the Brand X sparkling wine to a bottle of Gruet's 2000 Blanc de Blancs, which was nice and yeasty. We spent the early hours of 2006 drinking cosmopolitains and yelling increasingly stupid answers at the DVD trivia game. I laughed so hard, I gave myself a headache. We woke up in two different beds before the night was officially over. We stumbled home just before the sun cleared the mountains, doing a double walk-of-shame for the bennefit of the neighbors and proceeded to sleep until noon.

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope it's a good one.