Guess who got placed second in CSP and fifth in the overall pax at the Rio Grande Region SCCA divisionals in Farmington, while I squired my agent around Albuquerque?

Congratulations to Tom and Adam for their performance this weekend, and props to Team T-n-A for kicking all sorts of regional butt. We're proud of you.

Well, I'm proud of them.

Yet another Peanut update!

Look at that pretty girl, noshing her way through some antibiotics and baby chicken.

Lucy's been playing the role of mother hen, staying near Peanut at all times, going so far as to fill the roll of mattress when they're crashed out in the cage. Buttercup's been in the corner, playing quietly by herself.

I promise, this will be the end (for now) of fuzzy news, and I'll go right back to talking about my wacky (sort of) adventures, racing and the cat. Because I'm a girl. With a blog. Talking about my cat is the law.

Thank you for all of your well wishes for Peanut. The surgery went well and she's home now. The vet found a large mass on her adreanal gland and removed it, and she should be back to factory settings (minus, y'know, the gland) in a few days.

She has a shaved belly and the makings of a kick-ass scar. She's kind of looped out right now, but I expect my bright-eyed middle girl will be back in fine form tomorrow morning.

Thanks again, y'all. We appreciate it.

First, we pull the carrier out of the downstairs linen closet, which makes all of the animals look at each other with a touch of panic. I can see the little wheels turning in their ferret brains: it's morning time and there's a distinct lack of duffle bags, so they're probably not going to Alex's house to torture Linus and the baby for the next week.

Yeah, no good can come of this.

They launch into emergency mode. The cat makes herself scarce. Lucy hides under the sweater box, Buttercup scurries under the couch (but gives away her location with the super-loud kibble grazing and good lord, I'm sometimes amazed she still has teeth). Peanut, who was just in that carrier two weeks ago, goes flat. She knows what's coming.

Out of all the girls, Peanut hates the carrier the most. The fifteen minute ride to the vet is a nonstop chew-and-digfest and it will be a similar trip back. She looks at me accusingly at one point like, "lemmmeeeeee out, damn it, lemme out!"

We do let her out when we get to the examination room, but she's more interested in being in the carrier's hammock. She just wanted the option of being out.

The vet tech tells us the girl has gained a quarter of a pound in the past two weeks, which gets her held up to our faces and we say things like "You really are packed with peanuts" and "Look who's been sneaking out to McDonalds" in the sing-song cadence reserved for situations like soothing a ferret and not thinking about how almost four years ago we were in this same room using these same voices with Marcie.

I'm still thinking about it.

The vet comes in and says what we thought he'd say. The course of antibiotics didn't work, which means she probably has an aderenal mass or an ovarian mass, which means the next course is exploratory surgery.

I hold her up and say, "pain don't hurt, chicks dig scars and glory lasts forever" because really, that's just vintage comedy gold.

The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning. On the drive home, we reassure each other that it'll be okay.

It'll be okay, right?

On Saturday night, after I made the last post, Adam slid up next to me on the couch and took my hand in his. This is never a good move. It's bad news tempered with sweetness, a move that means please don't kill me, but...

"What is it?"

He sighed. "Well, I had this idea."

I had this idea also runs up a little red flag.

I pulled my hand back and did the eyebrow thing and he half-smiled. "Well, I had this idea. It's almost your birthday, right?"

"Yeah..."

"And I thought it would be super-awesome to have Bob Varsha wish you a happy birthday during the shout-outs."

This would be super awesome. "That would be super awesome," I said, clapping. "It'd be 100 times better than seeing my name on Bozo or the Romper Room. But...the race is on CBS."

He hung his head. "The race is on CBS. Could you just pretend like Bob Varsha gave you the shout-out? That he was all, 'And we'd like to give a shout-out to the crew at Wolf Motosport Development and especially wish Sarah Wolf a very happy 28th birthday.'"

"In my head, Steve Matchett will say 'happy birthday, Sarah,' and then talk about the Renault aero package."

"And David Hobbes will mumble 'if she plays her cards right, she can be MY girlfriend."

"And Peter Windsor will cut in with his birthday wishes as well."

"Now you're just getting greedy."

. . .

On Sunday, we sat down with the traditional fried chicken, potato salad and booze to watch the race and we compiled our best guesses to eighth on a paper plate.





Adam: Okay, I propose a drinking game. A CBS-broadcast drinking game.
Sarah: As much as I embrace the concept of said game, um, well, the beer.

The beer in this case were four bottles of seven-ounce Corona longnecks. A cruel, cruel joke in the history of Adam's alcohol purchases.

Adam: It's a cautionary tale about buying beer before noon on a Saturday.
Sarah: Drinking game?

The CBS F1 Broadcast Drinking Game
1. Drink whenever the not-Derrick Daly host refers to the last race as last week.
2. Drink whenever Derrick Daly breaks out his Big Book of Similies.
3. Drink whenever either host mispronounces a driver's name.
4. Drink twice if it's Yuji Ide.
5. Drink when they explain to the viewers that in F1, the lap counter counts backwards.
6. Drink when they explain what a yellow flag is.
7. Drink when they yoink a factoid from the previous night's Speed broadcast.
8. Shotgun when Daly starts using the telestrator.

The next two hours were a painful exercise in missing Speed (both channel and Scott).

Somewhere around lap three
Adam: Did he just call him Takama Sata?
Sarah:Takamasata! What a wonderful phrase! Ain't no passin' craze.
Adam: Can we amend the drinking game so I get to shotgun at Lion King references. Oh, and your singing?
Sarah: Hush.
Adam: (humming quietly)
Sarah: Erh?
Adam: (humming quietly)
Sarah: Erh?
Adam: Like a light bulb!
Sarah: It's so bad, you've been reduced to humming Christmas carols to survive?
Adam: Did he just say carbon was developed for jumbo jets?
Sarah: I do believe he skipped over the troublesome periodic table and invalidated the idea of carbon-based life forms and went straight to the jumbo jets.
Adam: Like a light bulb.
Sarah: I like how Albers' roll and the subsequent safety car gets us nothing but a an "oopsie" and prolonged commercial break, but Alonso's line adjustment in the brake zone gets "OOOOOO! Out of control!"
Adam: Make it stop.
Sarah: I like how they couldn't see the blue car on the screen at the same time as the red car.
Adam: Make it stop.
Sarah: I like how they're blaming Button for his lollipop man's incompetence.
Adam: Make. It. Stop.
Sarah: Carbon! Developed for the planes! Co-opted by life.
Adam: Make. It. STAAAAAAAAAAAP!

We ended up watching the last seven laps on 4x fast forward.

Adam: Must. Make it. To. Italian national anthem. Must. Hear. Italian national anthem.
Sarah: Yeah, CBS isn't down with the constructors.
Adam: Wimper. It was the only thing sustaining me. To hear the jaunty tune. To see Schumacher direct the band. To see the sea of Ferrari red swarm the podium.
Sarah: You know what we neeed?
Adam: The WMD Ferrari Theme Song Kazoo Band?
Sarah: You know it.
Adam: The WMD Ferrari Theme Song Kazoo Band makes everything better.

Hey, all you American race fans, this is just a reminder that the San Marino GP will be broadcast on CBS. You know what that means: telestrator madness in the hands of histrionic Darrick Daly and The Non-Descript Side Guy/Intern -- the man who, until yesterday, was pretty certain F1 refered to a the Tag Heuer line of Swiss watches.

Fortunately for all of our delicate kitty sensibilities, Bob, David and Steve will be calling the rebroadcast on Speed next week. Sunday, April 30 at 1:00 p.m. The question now becomes whether or not I'm strong enough to hold out on spoilers for the next week, or if I break down and watch the CBS presentation.

This is horribly remiss, but...

Welcome to the world, Evie!

Yesterday I was coasting down Paradise on my way to work, when I noticed the guy in the Honda ahead of me was spazzing. The car was lurching, the brake lights were flashing rthymically, the guy was flailing his arms. First thought? "Dude's stroking out. This is going to be bad."

But I had the top down on my car and at the Golf Course stoplight, I heard Rush wafting from his open window and I understood. Dude was a drummer and his car was subbing for his kit. He was pretty good, too, if we're rating on the passion and intensity of his air jam. Dude even flipped his fingers around, twirling a phantom stick before launching into his solo. He kept using his wing and rear view mirrors as crash cymbols and his left vent as his high hat. This was better than any impromptu American Idoling I've done in my car.

But that wasn't the end of the auto weirdness on my commute. On Paseo, a guy on the Ninja right in front of me decided it would be TOTALLY AWESOME to pop a wheelie right before the north valley exit and ride it all the way up the hill.

It wasn't the most stable wheelie I've ever seen, and I sussed out an emergency swerve and dodge scheme in case of rolling Ninja and Darwininan debris, but the guy stuck it and went on his merry way, throwing me the devil horns when I passed him for the Jefferson turn.

I don't know. It's something about the car.

Not to shift into meta mode, but I had this thought in the shower.

In the novelization, this would be page one. This would be where the blows come, tempered with irony, one after one until the protagonist realizes CRAP. She's twenty-seven and 362 days and the past year of her life has been one long Rob Schneider movie and she's never getting that time back. This is where she drinks heavily and expositions the back story for the audience with her cadre of interchangable friends before they disappear, launching her into the narrative.

In the book version, this is where the protagonist and the sidekick/love interest load up the vintage convertable and take the back roads to adventure, or at least Vegas. In the book, this would be the first step to shocks, twists, surprises, and crazy misunderstandings that all add up to Life Lessons Learned by page 400.

This could be considered a begining.

Lesson of the morning: Mix caffeine and the asthma rescue inhailer together for a jittery good time.

So, the Fix is is turning a year old. Which means I was wrong. As I am. Most of the time.

All of y'all coming over from the Fix, hi. This is more of a personal blog and my author shill space, but I live in our fair and fabulous city, so Albuquerque does get a fair amount of play. I specialize in girl rhetoric: talkin' around and around the issue without saying much so I won't offend to many people, which usually offends everyone. Or I talk about being married, which is just as interesting. Oh, yeah. You know you want to come back every day.

Hello, and happy birthday. I've already called dibs on one of those cookies.

Comments have been turned off (again) after spambots-turned-interns started spamming it up (again).

Have a comment you're just dying to share? E-mail me at drivinginheels at gmail dot com.

We've crossed into "women of a certain age" territory. Scholastic Inc. is releasing a graphic novel edition of The Baby-Sitters Club #1: Kristy's Great Idea.

The Baby-Sitters Club. In funny-book form. Think about that for a moment, Pop.

The targeted market is not just tween girls, but (say it with me) women of a certain age who grew up with the series and grew up to become big Alan Moore geeks as adults. The release of the graphic novel also coincides with the twentith anniversary of the series launch.

Holy crap, I feel old.

I have got to stop reading Duke City Fix. While it's more than okay for happenings around the city, the sacrasam-and-hatred drenched posts about the West Side sends my blood pressure sky high. Some of the posters are just evil to anyone identified as a West Sider. For a bunch of seemingly open-minded/progressive people, the Duke City Fix posters don't seem to realize fellow Homo Sapien Sapiens live on the west side of the Rio Grande.

I call it the Robot Republican phenomenon. The West Side's home to the housing boom because Albuquerque doesn't have any direction to grow but west. And boy howdy, has it grown. Development runs rampant and seemingly unchecked; the schools are overcrowded and the infastructure can't meet the sudden rise in traffic. Most of the geeks interest in civic development are appalled at the big-box-and-SUV development mentality and automatically seethe at the concept of the west side.

Here's where the Robot Republicans come in.

Some folks -- those who can't imagine moving out of their postwar rambling stucco-and-hard-wood floor homes -- cannot fathom any other rational person would shun the heart of the city for new construction out on the mesa. This manifests as "what are you, a Republican?" in polite conversation. Sometimes followed by "well, are you a robot or something? I mean, Jesus, the West Side?"

This has actually happened. New Years' Eve.

Awesome party.

Anyway, until city leaders and civic wonks and average citizens decide to heal the rift between east and west, it's going to remain ugly. And really, if everyone west of the river decided to up and sell and move back, there'd still be ugliness. And really, the ugliness can come from so many different angles: if a person doesn't have a problem with big development per se, they can worry over our lack of water (which is one of my concerns). If water doesn't float their boat, they can rail against a lack of foresight in infastructure planning, or impact fees or the rocketing home prices friggin' with everyone's property taxes.

It's absurd, our city and the way we so rip at each other. Somtimes I can't help but laugh. Laugh at the irony of people railing against the developments in one breath while deriding the high-density, zero-lot-lines in the next. Laugh at the Robot Republican questions. Laugh at the mindset of people who moved to our neighborhod because it was "safe" when there are condemned houses and meth houses and registered sex offenders just as there are in every other part of the Duke City.

I don't see a solution to healing. This isn't a blue-bandana-red-bandana kind of rift. I don't even see a suggestion of a solution.

But all this anti-West Side sentiments does spur one bit of my soul. I want throw a party. I'd call it "Slumming it in the Suburbs" and open our house to everyone we know. I figure all of our hip, child-free, downtown livin'-and-lovin' friends will scare the neighbors while maybe underlining how so far removed the 'burbs aren't. Or maybe everyone will just get a hangover and ignore the bigger issue of comprehensive city planning.

I don't care. I'd be happy either way.

I'm just testing out flickr's "Blog this photo!" feature.

Adam always writhes when I use the Flickr, but I like it. All the cool kids do their web photoing with the flickr.

Cupcake Update: Three remain.

From: Sarah Wolf
To: Adam Wolf
I had a cupcake for breakfast. I might take a second one to work for a Friday snackie.

From: Adam Wolf
To: Sarah Wolf
ONE CUPCAKE!!!

From: Sarah Wolf
To: Adam Wolf
I did a cupcake census. At the begining of the morning, there were eight cupcakes. Now there are seven cupcakes. One cupcake will be going to work with moi. The other six are nestled in the same box in the fridge, happy, happy, happy.

I even took pictures. I was about to post them to flickr.

From: Adam Wolf
To: Sarah Wolf
HEY!!!!

I shoulda thought of that.

From: Sarah Wolf
To: Adam Wolf





Eight cupcakes. Two days after we went to the cupcake place. We're slowin' down in our old age, man.

From: Adam Wolf
To: Sarah Wolf
Well, you're not allowed and I'm trying to be good.

From: Sarah Wolf
To: Adam Wolf
That's no excuse.

From: Adam Wolf
To: Sarah Wolf
Junkie.

Adam finds me sprawled across the bed, arms thrown over my head and probably snoring gently. Oh, and drooling. I'm a drooler.

"Jesus," he says balancing my coffee mug on my forehead. "You look like a junkie with a cutting problem."

"I like it when you lead with the 'wake up, poogle.' " That last line might be more effective if I actually say it, but in the space of thirty seconds I was awake, gotten the arm thing and I have scalding coffee balancing over my line of sight, and we're in Albuquerque, home of the hot coffee lawsuit. I am not thinking on my feet.

I pull the coffee off my head, sit up, smack a couple of times and do the head-swivel-pointed look. "Junkie? Cutting problem?"

He points at the underside of my left elbow. I had blood pulled on Tuesday and the really fantastic bruise that bloomed is showing no sign of turning yellow and fading away any time soon. When I bruise, I do it with enthusiasm and staying power.

And then he points to the newest line of parallel angry red scratches on my right arm just below my wrist where I had to deal with an angry, duct-taped ferret with claws that should double as Ginsu knives. No. Don't ask. "Junkie. Cutting. If you wear short sleeves to work, they're gonna ask you if everything's okay at home."

"I'm fine," I say. "Except for the crippling intravenous cupcake addiction."

This is when Buttercup climbs onto the bed so she can get at Adam's yogurt. Another morning ritual. We talk about the weekend and making it through the day. I get a list for Adam's Annual Easter Basket.

Eventually, Adam has to go to work. "Have a good day, Junkie," he says, patting me affectionately before leaving.

"I am not a junkie."

"Yes you are."

"You mix Nyquil and Dayquil together."

"Good-bye, Junkie."

It's not an exciting life, but I'd say it's a pretty damn good one.

It's 3 a.m. and I'm awake and on the internet. What the hell?

For a very, very small subset of the DiH/ALOTT5A cross-readership:

Look! I met Bob E. on Monday!

I have learned my lesson, Alton Brown. If I need to whip up some succluent treat, but I'm not sound in my techincal skills, all I need to do is hit the Food channel's webpage and type in "Food dish I want to make + Alton Brown" and I'm good to go. You are never wrong.

This was never more in evidence than this weekend, when I decided to make your Chips and Fish fry. Now, okay, maybe the potatoes were a touch on the soggy side, but that? That was all me. I settled for vegitable oil when I should have used sunflower oil. And the pot I was using wasn't a totally awesome, three-inched dutch oven jobbie that could take heat and hold it in like an inversion layer over Phoenix. My bad, and oooooooh, belive me. I have learned my lesson.

But we have to get back to the fish, Alton. The fish was amazing.

I'm what you call a bad frier. I can do a decent pan fry, or shooka up a mess of taquitos, but the breaded, deep-fat division has always been out of reach of my comfort zone. My chile rellenos always turn into gloppy, melty messes. My one attempt at fried chicken ended with a panicked run to KFC. And we're still not talking about the deep fried Oreo debacle of last fall. See me? Not talking about it.

I'm definitely more of a roast girl.

So please take that to account when I tell you how brilliant your instructions were. Or as I'd write it in a quasi-mathematical equation: Cold fish dredged through corn starch followed by a dunking in chilled beer batter = Awesome. The batter held on beautifully. It clung to the fish through the first contact with hot oil. It puffed up into a golden, crunch shell. It looked all tasty and deep-fried.

Check that. It was tasty and deep-fried. Everyone at the table mawed through the pile of fried fish, drank Guinness and were generally cheerful, chatty (but not too chatty) people. Another week, another unmitigated distaster avoided.

Thank you, Alton. I couldn't have pulled it off without your instruction, patience and wacky aloha shirts.

Yours very sincerely,
Sarah H. Wolf

Hey, did you know that I'm a high school dropout?

It's true. Seriously. In the winter of 1995, before I could start on my early enrollment at the University of New Mexico, I signed paperwork that changed my status from high school student to high school dropout, even though I had earned the credits needed for my diploma and racked up enough hours at the community college that I entered UNM as a sophomore. But in the eyes of my high school and the State of New Mexico, I am now and forever will be a damn, dirty high school dropout.

A reader writes:

What's with the no write-write? Don't you no love us anymore? Update now, woman!

If only it was that easy.

Those of you invested in seeing more updates on the main site, rejoyce. I think I'll be back on schedule with a Harriet update early next week. I've missed her, too.

From the mind and office of Adam, a cautionary tale of camera phones in the workplace:


Interior: Jedi fighting furiously.

*zwang* *Zwally* *clash* *zwang*

Right, there was a race on Saturday night. This might be fragmented.

Oh, bullshit. And seriously, "Beavis?" Hello, the second milleniumn called, they'd like their insult back.

(But seriously Scott Speed from Manteca, California, we respect the yellow.)

I don't know about the disrespectful language in front of a steward bit. Still, seriously.

Seriously.

And really, if they're going to dock Speed 25 seconds for passing under a yellow, shouldn't they push Ralf all the way to the friggin' back of the pack? I seriously don't believe he earned that podium on his own merit. Thems some fishy drivin' on his part.

Seriously.

So, how 'bout that Honda engine? You think they're going to ding Button for pulling over 50 yards from the start/finish?

Seriously.

As Adam said, "if Schumi can keep his car on the track, I'll be impressed," the man picked up air over that back corner and ran into the wall.

Seriously.

And again, Webber's got to have some seriously weird karma. The bloke can't catch a break with his luck. Having the transmission seize when he was leading his home race? Sad. Hearing him tell Peter Windsor they had enough fuel to make a late pit stop (and with all those safety car periods, I know some genius at Williams could have worked it to their favor)? Sadder still.

Seriously.

Three weeks off until the San Marino GP, happy birthday to me.

Maybe it's just me, but I keep reading it as Mission: Impossible Ill.

My run of bad karma continues...

Someone hit my car.

Someone hit Bucky.

Someone, probably at Satellite between Tuesday and Thursday, nosed into a parking space and, with their right-hand bumper, bent in my back right wheel well and barely dented my door, but barely dented is still dented.

Someone probably felt the feedback of metal-on-metal in their steering wheel and instantly went into reverse and realigned. But Someone probably decided Bucky was just yucky enough that the rain-splatters would hide any damage and, really, no harm, no foul.

Or Someone didn't have insurance.

Either way, Someone didn't leave a note.

Someone in Albuquerque is driving around with a rivulet of Mazda Emerald Green on a bumper.

And while I'm sure Someone probably cringed and probably felt really bad about hitting my car with his or her SUV, they still drove away and didn't leave a note.

I am so sick right now.