Mirallel

I got to go on my birthday outing this week: a trip to The Bullet Hole, the local indoor shooting range. How exciting! We produced our gun permit, rented a 9-mm Beretta, and purchased two boxes of ammo. Lane 11 was ours for the next hour. The employee carefully walked us through gun safety and handed us our protective gear. I really despise safety glasses, but at least the ear protection was more like old-fashioned headphones than those foamy things you stuff into your ear canals. Kiah showed me how to load the magazine and then it was time for the moment of truth: Can Melissa fire a real firearm in a competent fashion? The answer…Yes! Not one of my first round of shots missed the target. We were shooting a Robin-Hood style target for the first while, and I won’t claim that all my shots went inside the first couple rings, but I did have more than one bullseye. I must confess a real gun is nothing like an airsoft or bb gun. I was a little intimidated when I saw the kick the gun had and heard the loud report even through the ear protection. However, handling the gun wasn’t all that bad. As long as I was in the correct posture with my right foot back and my arms held somewhat rigid, the recoil was absorbed with my shoulder and back muscles, which are quite sore today! Speaking of arms held rigid, I have discovered yet another thing that is difficult for double-jointed people to do. I can’t lock my arms in the approved fashion, so I had to make do with holding them as securely as I could manage. Kiah thinks that is why my back is sore as he is able to take all the recoil with his shoulders. Then again, his shoulders are also quite a bit more substantial than mine! In any case, between the two of us, we fired off about 100 rounds of ammo, decimated four targets, and generally had a fabulous time. I think we will have to go back again when we can afford it. Too bad we already got our Christmas present for each other.

The big day is over, the ballots are being counted, and we will have a new president. I must admit to being somewhat surprised at the amount of foreign interest in our election. There are news articles with the headlines “Election Unleashes a Flood of Hope Around the World” and “Obama’s Win Restores World’s Hope in US.” Perhaps I’m just uninformed, but I don’t see what Obama has promised or is supposed to do that reaches the magnitude of those comments. I know he is anticipated to be less aggressive in his foreign policy, but I haven’t heard of any Ten-Step Plan to World Peace or Free Food for Everyone agenda. All the commentators seem agreed that Obama will bring change, but what type of change still seems vague. I’m also not sure what I think about foreign leaders speaking directly to Obama while he is not the sitting president. Obama intends to act aggressively while president-elect and not wait until the inauguration. Circumstances may dictate such an approach but it doesn’t seem respectful to me. My personal doubts aside, I hope for our country’s sake that he will govern with wisdom and that whatever changes he makes are for the best.

Perhaps he could start by fixing Nebraska’s voter registration system which apparently mislaid my registration. It’s a good thing McCain and the other Republican candidates won for our district or I would have felt like an irresponsible citizen for failing to follow up on my registration. I still do to some extent. Considering that Kiah’s voter information card took over a month to arrive, I wasn’t worried when mine hadn’t appeared. I guess I should have been, but I would have had to realize it by October 20th to do anything about it. Alas.

The local kennel had an offer we couldn’t refuse, so we are now the proud owners of a 5-month old Cairn terrier. For those of you not familiar with the breed, our current dog is basically a Cairn terrier as West Highland terriers are Cairn terriers bred to be white from about 150 years ago. His name is Scotch, and he is settling in quite well at our apartment. Archie doesn’t appear to be jealous (we have been making a point of paying equal attention to them) and seems to enjoy tussling with his new companion. Having two dogs does make it a bit challenging to walk them, but other than that the adjustment hasn’t been too hard. Check out the photos!

Fall is my favorite season, and this fall has been particularly pleasant. The trees still have leaves and our first frost is supposed to happen tonight. I’m happy to be back in Nebraska where fall lasts at least a couple of months and everything isn’t dead and dry by August. This last weekend I took a trip downtown to catch the sights and take pictures. It had been a few months since I had gone on what I term a “photo expedition.” Downtown has some spectacular architecture and a lot of parks and green spaces. I even made it down along the river to where we had our rehearsal dinner cruise and where the new pedestrian bridge is located. I’ll have to go back again and get the parts of downtown I missed. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Thanks to everyone who made my birthday weekend so much fun! I got to do something special each day so it was like having three birthdays. On Friday I took the day off from work after a particularly stressful week. It was wonderful to be able to sleep in and relax. I had my piano lesson with Mom and I got to chat with Stephi for a bit while I was over, which is always a treat. That evening Betty and Steve came up from Lincoln to take us and Kiah’s parents to dinner. I wanted to go somewhere with a fun atmosphere and also somewhere I hadn’t been before. I looked online and found place called The Drover, an old steakhouse here in town. After much debating, I actually ordered a steak for the first time in my life. Their special was a whiskey steak and it was quite delicious. The salad bar was one of the best I have had in a long time. Not that it had so much more than other places offer, but it was much more flavorful. Add to all that a bottle of superb German wine and you have a dinner fit for a king- er, birthday girl. I was forced to suffer through their rendition of “Happy Birthday” but I got free cheesecake for my pains, complete with a birthday candle! Ooooooh, ahhhhh. And then there were presents. Hooray!

Saturday I once again slept in (probably sleeping off all that steak). Kiah and I went to lunch and then he  surprised me by saying his present to me was a trip to a firing range. Cool! Melissa shooting a gun, I know it’s a scary concept. We tried to go that afternoon, but we need a permit to rent the gun, so that pleasure is deferred to sometime this week. I am quite excited to indulge my superspy-wannabe self. In the evening, our church hosted a hayrack ride/bonfire (I’m sure they picked the date because they knew it was my birthday). We got to get to know more people at the church, in particular some couples our age. We even had Marcus and Rose over to our place afterwards for some games. Hooray again!

Sunday Kiah had to work, so I was left to my own devices. My family came to the rescue and took me out to lunch at Valentinos (mmmm, tasty). It’s not very often we get the whole Bardon clan together, so it was a lot of fun to see everyone. Stephi headed back to Oklahoma later that day and Zach will be heading out this week, so the next occasion will probably be Thanksgiving or Christmas. After lunch, I drove downtown with my trusty camera for a photo expedition. The trees are starting to change and the high clouds made the lighting good, so I wanted to take advantage of it. That and, for living in Omaha much of my life, I haven’t been downtown all that much. It was fun to go exploring and see the buildings and parks. Hopefully, I can post a few of the results in the next week or two.

This post is only slightly belated (cough). Here are photos from our cross-country, or perhaps more accurately cross-state, moving expedition. Kiah’s parents drove down to help us load up and drive. We noticed a difference in the amount of stuff we had to pack this time. Those end tables and bookcases really add up. Last time we had room to spare in our Uhaul but it was a tight squeeze this time around. Good thing we had Kiah and Jim to mastermind the truck loading.

We had the Subaru hooked to the back of the Uhaul so we only had two vehicles to manage. We had great weather for our trip (see below).
We left bright and early in the morning. Well at least early.
We said goodbye to our old apartment and after 500 or so miles we arrived at our new residence.


We very much like our apartment. It is quiet and convenient, and has lots of windows. For any of you that haven’t seen it yet, swing by for a visit. We have a very comfortable couch!

My Grandma Carmin from Hastings is in town and my sister is home from college on break. Plus, my brother is home from his road trip. How exciting! We went over to my parents’ house on Sunday for a lovely pot roast dinner and lots of fellowship. Grandma Thorson was also there for the meal. We all had fun reminiscing about my grandpa, talking about world issues, and playing the piano. I have been taking lessons from my mom, so she and I played some duets for my grandmas. They love the hymns and I must admit I don’t know most of them as well as I should like. Something about the words they wrote back then are so powerful, especially when you know the history of what the authors had experienced in their lifetimes.

On a less fun note, I had to watch both my football teams lose on Saturday. One of them I was expecting, but I was sure hoping Oklahoma could pull it out against Texas. I’m rooting for them to meet again in the Big 12 championship. It’s time for Oklahoma to finally win some post-season games!

So Kiah and I are thinking of getting a puppy. Yes, I know, we already have one, but he seems lonely. I’m sure another dog would cheer him right up! We are trying to consider all the pros and cons (it’s a lot harder to transport two dogs or ask someone to watch them for us). On the other hand, once they get past the  puppy stage they are not too much work and I don’t think we have any big trips planned anytime soon. The biggest factor for me is how much Kiah likes dogs. He really missed his dogs at home when he was at college. Hmm, a puppy for Christmas?

Today I get my family over for lunch. My grandma hasn’t seen the apartment yet. Plus Kiah has his friend Paul over, so our place will be fairly burgeoning. Good thing we have that new couch!

It feels like we are finally settling in to our fall routine. Kiah started his work at Walmart this week and has his first round of exams. He already found out he got an A on his physics test. Woot! Of course Walmart has already scheduled him for about ten more hours a week than he wants or needs, so he is hoping to talk to his manager and get that straightened out. He is liking being a cashier and his boss is impressed at how he handles money due to his banking experience. It’s not his dream job but he said he will be happy working there during the school year.

This last weekend we went to Cunningham Lake for some R&R. What we didn’t know was that the lake is undergoing restoration since 2006 and has been completely drained, dredged, and is in the process of refilling. I’ve never seen so many cottonwoods growing in a lake. The pier we sat on was about fourteen feet above the water level. I was a bit disappointed as I had heard they had boat rentals at the lake, but the marina looked like a great place for a haunted house. Everywhere the playgrounds, picnic tables, and even bathrooms were overgrown with weeds, and all but the main road were in terrible shape. However, we ended up having the place pretty much to ourselves. We enjoyed the quiet and playing with the abundance of frogs. Next time we’ll have to take Archie so he can chase them.

Tuesday was the debut of a couple of my favorite TV shows: NCIS and Dancing with the Stars. At the end of last season, the director of NCIS had split up the team of agents, much to everyone’s consternation. That said, they managed to create a reason that was both plausible and intriguing. I think this season will be very enjoyable to watch, though we are still using Netflix to make our way through the early seasons that we missed. Dancing was a joy to watch as always. Last time, Kristi Yamaguchi was the clear front-runner for the entire season, but this year seems quite a bit more balanced. I don’t have a favorite yet, besides professional dancer Julianne Hough. She is simply amazing, and she knows how to choreograph to her partner’s strengths. She’s won twice, but I wouldn’t mind seeing her win again. The pro dancer who needs to win is Edyta, but her partner already got her knocked out of competition.