jen_80206

a very sad day on the block

2008-02-17T20:05:48Z

So last night (early as hell this morning), Dave woke me up at 4:00 am.

As soon as I opened my eyes, I realized that our bedroom was awash in flashing lights. When I looked out the window, there were at least 8 police cars, a fire truck and an ambulance (with no lights on). Something bad had happened across the street.

Last spring, a young couple (early 20s) moved into the house across & down the street. Other than to say hello, I never interacted with them. Last night, the police arrested the man for murdering the woman.

It's so very sad, tragic, and scary for the little kids on our block. The house and sidewalk are wrapped in crime scene tape. Numerous officers from the Crime Scene Unit are on the scene, doing their job.

Sad, sad, Sunday morning.

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from 9 New's website:

DENVER – Police have a suspect in custody in an early morning stabbing.

Police arrived at 1433 St. Paul St. after getting a call about a stabbing. When police arrived, they found a woman in her early 20s who had been stabbed. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

James Greenwood, 27, was arrested at the scene and is being held in the Denver City Jail for investigation of first-degree murder.

Police say it appears the stabbing was the result of a domestic violence incident. An autopsy will determine the cause of death.

Bruce Springsteen makes me weep

2007-12-23T06:55:03Z

I'd never given much thought to Bruce Springsteen until I met my friend Jody nearly 10 years ago. His music really wasn't on my radar. But to Jody, Bruce was the end-all be all of musicians. As we became friends she learned the true lack of knowledge I had of all things Bruce.

Jody was my first female professional mentor. She interviewed me for my first real (non-restaurant) job. She was there for me every time I struggled with my path. She guided me when the other partners in the firm couldn't. Only Jody had the courage to tell me that I wouldn't make partner wearing Doc Martens beneath my suit pants. I'll never forget driving back to Denver from a client meeting in Vail, through quite the snowstorm, all the time, listening to Bruce and discussing the changes I needed to make in my manner and appearance in order to make partner at my old firm. (By following her advice, I did get the coveted invite.)

We lived a few blocks away from each other. Even after we both changed jobs, we stayed in touch, but I know I was not as good a friend to her in recent years as she was to me. Every now and then we would go to an Avs game (we both loved hockey) or she would come to see my husband's band play.

One night after visiting at out house, and examining our CD collection, Jody realized that we had no Bruce in the house. The next morning, we had a CD on the porch and a paperback book about his recent life.

This is all fresh to me, because tonight, for some reason, Dave was in the mood to rock out to Bruce. And, I learned, that I cannot listen to Bruce Springsteen without sobbing, because he reminds me of Jody so much. And I still can't handle that she chose to die this year. I can't still believe that she's gone. It kills me that she won't be alive to celebrate this Christmas, or to listen to Bruce singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."
Someday, when I've made peace with her suicide, I'll be able to hear Bruce Springsteen and celebrate her life, and the contribution she made to mine. Now, hearing his music causes this pain that I can't explain. The tears fall of their own accord and I just don't understand her choice at all.

So merry christmas.

jen_80206 @ 2007-10-11T14:58:00

2007-10-11T21:01:48Z

Because my friend Amy did this on her journal, I figured I would, too.

The basic rules: bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn’t finish, and strike through what you couldn’t stand.

1984
The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela’s Ashes : A Memoir
Angels & Demons
Anna Karenina
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
The Canterbury Tales
Catch-22
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Cryptonomicon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
The God of Small Things
The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity’s Rainbow
Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian : A Novel
The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences
The Inferno
Jane Eyre
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Kite Runner
Les Misérables
Life of Pi : A Novel
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Middlesex
The Mists of Avalon
Moby Dick
Mrs. Dalloway
The Name of the Rose
Neverwhere
Northanger Abbey
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
On the Road
The Once and Future King
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Oryx and Crake : A Novel
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible : A Novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran : A Memoir in Books
The Satanic Verses
The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury
The Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Three Musketeers
The Time Traveler’s Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace
Watership Down
White Teeth
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Wuthering Heights
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry Into Values

and then the fire started

2007-09-20T17:14:49Z

The week began with rain and ended last night with fire. (I can't believe it's only Thursday morning.)

I rose early Monday morning to prep for my first-ever round of golf. It was Colfax on the Hill's annual golf tournament and I was part of a four-person team: Scott & Malissa from Hooked and Don from Phase 5. We were a Bluebird District team with some talent (Malissa) and no talent (me).

The extremely talented weather people on the early morning news assured us that rain would not fall until after noon. Persuaded by their history of accuracy (ha ha) I stupidly left for City Park golf course without a coat. When we arrived at the course, we were greeted with free drink tickets and directions to our golf carts. After securing our morning beers, bloody marys and vodka drinks, we set off for the first hole.

Moments after arriving as said first hole, the skies opened and spewed blistering rain. Brrr. Thank god for beer. We soldiered on, drinking, laughing, and at times, golfing. It kept raining. And raining. Just as our spirits started to ebb, we came across the Dewer's stand at hole 5. Oh gods, rain blessings on Amy & the good people of Dewers. Even though it was 9:00 in the morning, nothing sounded better than 12 year old scotch on the rocks. In addition to the warming booze, Amy plied us with free hats to keep our heads warm, cigar clippers for our cigars and playing cards.

Imbued with the glow of scotch we continued our most excellent play. By the time we started the "back 9" the sun was shiny and the mud was almost slick enough for "doing donuts" in the golf carts.

Golf, I have decided, is fun. Especially if it's soaked with scotch, pinot grigio, beer and bloody mary's.

After golf, we went to Charlie's for the after party. I scored 5 wins in the raffle, including my coveted Grey Goose golf towel. Very snazzy.

Tuesday was a productive day. I was supposed to go to the Uptown Sampler, but I was beat from the golf and actually had paying work to do. So, I was a good girl for once and got my homework done.

Wednesday was another productive and good day.

Wednesday night was another story.

It started simply enough. Quin and I prepped our bikes and rode to the first Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN) wine tasting, an event designed to raise money to restore the Historic Tears-McFarland House adjacent to Cheeseman Park. We arrived, adjusted our helmet hair and made a beeline to the first tasting room. Had a lovely Malbec to start and then filled up our plates with food. It's a wine tasting, and you must fortify!! After sipping a few more reds, we ran into my golf team - Scott, Malissa & Don. After a few more "tastes" of red, we moved on to the room with the whites and the silent auction items. As a good CHUN Board member, I immediately set about raising the prices on items I thought looked cool. More chatting and sipping. More food. More price-raising.

Soon, the silent auction was over. I scored. I won't name all the goodies ('cause most are gifts), but one in particular came in a large basket with lots of tissue paper. After paying for my winnings, I realized that I had ridden my bike to the event. Luckily, I was with Quin, who is the master of carrying things on his bike.

We returned to the red wine room, accompanied by Scott & Malissa. There, Quin set about prepping the large basket for travel. I kept "tasting" wine. Suddenly, the center of the table burst into flame. I quickly grabbed the flaming tissue paper and held it aloft, trying to keep it from igniting anything else. Quin, a much quicker thinker than I, grabbed the massively flaming tissue paper and threw it on the ground and swatted it out with another bag of my winnings.

Huge charred pieces of burnt tissue paper fell from the sky onto me, Scott & Malissa. Luckily, neither the floor nor the carpet was worse for the wear and I didn't get badly burned. Oh, and we didn't burn down the historic house we were there to raise money to renovate.

Unbelievable accident that I, of course, brushed off with humor. But, it really could have been tragic. Thank God for small miracles and Quin's quick thinking.

Yes, I know, I will never live this down. Much to my chagrin, tonight's activity is the monthly CHUN Board meeting. Hopefully none of them saw the flames......

Friday rambling & the Colfax Office

2007-09-14T20:55:47Z

Thanks to Amy, I'm now trying this LiveJournal thing. It's a beautiful Friday on Colfax. I have some things I should be doing for work, but the lovely French Chard I had with lunch at Cafe Star has pretty much eliminated any hope of productive work this afternoon. Thank God I'm my own boss. Since lunch, I've been sweeping up the shop/office, rather than trying to work. From my desk looking toward the front door, I can see sunlight from beneath the door. This explains how all of the street dust winds up inside. Have to figure out how to fix that one.

Having your office on E. Colfax in the Bluebird District is full of daily delights....hordes of East High students gaping through the windows on their way to 7-11. The mailman trying to jam my junk mail through the too-tiny slot in the door. The occasional crack-head staggering down the street. The stylish and style-seeking indie folk traipsing into the Fabric Lab to buy their exceptional locals-only threads. Old men shuffling down the walk, cane in hand, to take their seat in the barber's chair at Turn I, followed quickly by young, hip-hop inspired men needing to update their cut. And this was just this morning. At least once a day someone opens the door, comes in, stares at the empty-but-for-my-desk-space and asks, is this the Fabric Lab? The experience affirms my deeply held belief that some people truly are stupid. Taking the high road, I give directions (next door, the place with the Fabric Lab on the door and the well-stocked shelves) and return to work. Or playing online scrabble, or reading blogs. (Perhaps this is why the website for my business has languished on the vine. ... too many distractions on the net.)

Phew. This journaling thing is tough work. I think I've earned a smoke break.