You're Doing It Wrong

Bad Kissingen, Germany

2010-03-11T06:14:00.001-08:00

Happy Birthday Mom.

Every time we get over-confident that we know what we're doing we screw up.

We took a train from GAP to Munich. An ICE train from Munich to W�rzberg. Our itinerary said W�rzberg to Bad K. Except I guess we were in the wrong car and the train did a saucer separation and we were on our way to East Germany. Bob asked the conductor and he sent us on another train back the way we came and then we transferred to another regional train. What's that? 5 trains?

We arrived and took a taxi to Tante Hilla's. Since we were late she had rounded up a neighbor to drive to the train station to look for us. The cab driver pulled over and she came over and told him where he should park. He pulled to a different spot and he unloaded us and she came over and showed him where she wanted him to park.

I was intentionally vague with Hilla about where we were staying but by the end she had to find out and had already phoned them and informed them she was local and her niece was coming and to prepare the best room and so forth. I should have recognized the look on the guy's face when I told him my name.

We have a lovely room and I slept through the night for the second time since we arrived. My dysfunctional sleeping has made the jump over to the new time zone perfectly.

We've had a great time so far and I am well fed and drink a half gallon of beer a day. I bought some Prinzen Rolle and put them in mz hat and then got crumbs in my hair. The drawback to packing a small bag is I don't have room to carry all the cookies and candy I want.

Hilla asked if we wanted to go to dinner or if we wanted Rouladen at her house. Of course I wanted her cooking but I didn't want to be too much trouble. "I already made it," she said.

We're taking a break here and then a rest at the hotel and then over to Hilla's. She wrote down the instructions for the bus including writing a note we can give to the bus driver so he knows what to do with us.

Tomorrow we're off to Hamburg.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen:

2010-03-07T09:44:00.001-08:00

Current Weather Conditions.

The German keyboard is laid out all different and I've had a few liters of bier and it took about 15 minutes to type that URL so there will be no more URLs in this post.

We arrived at Schiphol Airport Friday morning and waited a few hours before catching the train to D�sseldorf. At the time I was mad at myself because this was supposed to be a big money saver and now we were wasting so much time sitting around. But it turned out okay. We had good adventures and were forced to stay awake and stand on breezy train platforms

I forgot the first thing we do everytime we get off the train in a new city: get completelz lost.

It was the train station's fault. They had a giant map with a red dot that said you are here. It should have said: turn around and go out the other door and you are here.

We finally found our hotel and the desk guy directed us to a fabulous restaurant and we ate our weight in wurst and potatoes and returned to our room and I fell asleep at 7:15 and when I finally woke up it was light outside and I got up to check my watch and it was 8:10. Our plane was taking off at 10am.

Team Pam and Bob sprang to action, shampooed, packed and were at the front desk in 30 minutes. The cab arrived 5 minutes later and we were in the terminal about 20 minutes later. We zoomed through check in and then to airport security.

This is the most organized, efficient country except for local airport security. The weekday business travelers at PDX would eat these people for lunch. We could have gotten 100 passengers through in the same time it took 2 dozen to get through in D�sseldorf. And we didn't even have to take our shoes off.

Flight was delayed 1 hr 40 because of huge snowfall in Munich. Then we got out of the gate and had to turn back because of technical problems. Then the technical problems were fixed. Actually the Captain's exact words were: hopefully the problem is fixed. Just the confident speech I want to hear before take-off. Then we had to get back in line for take off. Then there was a delay unloading the luggage.

We finally got to the train station and then another 45 minutes for our regional train.

But we got here finally. yay. All the Neuner girls are taller than me now. Luis nicely pointed out that he wasn't but I'm sure when I see him in August that will have changed. There's lots of snow and it's pretty.

This rearranged keyboard has reduced my typing to about 15 words a minute so I will stop here. Possibly more later.

Window Washers

2010-03-04T06:46:00.000-08:00

Fox Tower, downtown Portland.

Three Bits

2010-03-02T21:23:00.000-08:00

Did you read that Americans only clean their refrigerators once or twice a year?

If they meant, take out the crisper and cheese drawer and shelves and scrub out everything with water and baking soda, then yeah I only do that once or twice a year.

But they mean throw out all the old ooky stuff that no one ate.

I do that every week. There is nothing past date in my refrigerator, ever. There is no container in the back with an unidentified substance covered with mold.

The food lives in there. Why wouldn't you want it sparkling clean?

Right now it's almost empty and I scrubbed it out this evening. You could do heart surgery in there.

* * *

Our dryer has been broken for a long time. If there's any time on the dial and the dryer door is closed then it would be on. So you had to turn it off using the dial.

Today I threw some stuff in and turned the dial and it didn't work. I was opening and closing the door and turning the dial around and around. I thought it was broken.

Finally I hit the "push to start" button and it worked. So now broken is fixed.

* * *

I'm all packed. I've been working on traveling with smaller bags. On this trip I'm not even taking a backpack in addition to my main bag. Just one bag small enough to carry-on. Eventually I'm going to get it so that all I travel with is my ID and a ziploc bag with a single tube of moisturizer.

Trip Nostalgia

2010-02-28T20:16:00.000-08:00

Scan of crappy 1990 photo of me and my sister at Berlin Wall

My computer has been acting like a jerk lately. I did extensive research (3 seconds of googling) and apparently have a kernel panic problem. Am in the process of providing my kernel with some sedatives. Relax and be cool, kernel.

I read that Blogger isn't pulling the plug on FTP until May 1st now. Yay! One more thing I can put off for later.

Scan of crappy 1990 photo of me and Tante Hilla on the bank of the Elbe River.

I hate this part of trip preparation. The part where everything is still all chaotic and unconfirmed. Travel arrangements that I thought were solid have fallen apart and solving the problem is a huge time suck. I'm anxious and leaving myself notes everywhere.

Bob bought me a new bag and I'm doing a trial run on packing but then half the stuff I wanted to take was dirty so now I have laundry in. What I really want to do is crawl in bed and try to finish this paperback that I foolishly started last week thinking I could finish it quickly. I don't want to take a half read book on the trip but I hate to leave it sitting here for two weeks.

I already picked my books for the trip. I'm only taking 2. Both have been sitting around here forever. A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe, 787pp. mass market paperback and A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin, 807 pp. mass market. The Martin one is part of a series and it would probably be smarter to bring the second one of these but I'm not doing it that way.

Bathroom prices in what was then Yugoslavia but is now Slovenia.

I was going to do a whole week of old trip photos and travel notebook snippets but I think I'd better use my time for getting organized.

The photos in this post are from a 1990 trip to celebrate my cousin's wedding. I don't think I have a travel notebook from that trip. Hard to believe but if I have one I don't know where it is.

I found my notebook from my 1997 trip which was a one year anniversary trip with my sweetheart and I'm going to include an excerpt below.

At this point, I'm looking forward to the actual trip part, when you get on the plane and everything is in motion. You can't worry about it any more.

Meanwhile, I need to try to fix a hotel reservation.

Menu in Postojna. We went to these caves. I remember thinking that Yugoslavia must not have tort law because the caves were a giant lawsuit waiting to happen. There was this roller coaster-like ride through the caves and I swear if you sat up too much your head would have been taken off.

Excerpt from 1997 travel journal. I chose a boatface related item.

Backstory: we took a tour from Hamburg, Germany to a resort island called Sylt and then took a ferry to Denmark. (Aug 21, 1997, as in original)

We get on the ferry and it's like this cramped packed dining room -- hot with people smoking and eating meat. Is that a recipe for vomit or what?

I don't know how to find things and walk around the boat which can I bitch? Why the f#@!!ing hell are there no maps. I've yet to see a map of our ferry route -- not like I'm driving -- but I'd like to know. Anyway. I've found a great seat on the top level outside. Fresh air, cool breeze, view of the wake. I am happy.

It is unfortunately very gray. Sky and water meet in a blue-gray blur at the horizon. I can't see what would not doubt be a fabulous view of Denmark. ... I can now glimpse a tiny stretch of dune. [note: am I writing this on the ferry out on the deck?] A narrow bit of sand and shrubs.

We go to Sonderberg-captirol, I think, and then to another ferry and then 2 hrs. home. Then I hope that's the last of the boats on this trip.

There are some great photos of this trip but they're downstairs somewhere and I can't go dig around right now.

The Most Amazing Sandwich In The World

2010-02-25T17:38:00.000-08:00

Today I visited the food cart pod up at PSU. Everything I know about food carts I learned at Food Carts Portland. They are my go-to for lunch planning.

I've only eaten two meatloaf sandwiches in my life. The first one I said should have its own national holiday.

This one was even better. This one should be President of the United Nations. Are meatloaf sandwiches an exceptional food? Or have I just been lucky?

It was from Buddha Bites. Doesn't that sound like a place that should serve free-range soy bean pie? I know. In fact, after I ordered it I thought maybe it was going to be soy-loaf thing.

I bought a brownie, too, but I was too full so I brought it home. I also couldn't finish my sandwich and there were only two bites left but I brought them home. I'm going to arm-wrestle Bob for them later.

To all the people who live in places that aren't conducive to food cart culture: I am very sorry for your loss.

Hurry, Hurry, Here Comes My Stop

2010-02-24T17:44:00.001-08:00

This guy showed up on Monday but I got home too late to take a photo and yesterday it was raining sideways. The first daffodil is always my favorite.

There are two buses I can take between the park-n-ride to downtown Portland.

One is direct and one stops in downtown Vancouver before it goes over the river.

In the morning I almost always take the longer ride. It's always less crowded and because of the schedule arrives in Portland only a few minutes after the non-stop bus.

In the afternoon, I usually take the non-stop bus. Also because of the schedule.

However, I've learned to take whichever bus shows up first. No matter what. Because there have been too many times that I thought the next bus would arrive any minute and it did not.

I've never been here but I love the front. Barfly makes it sound good, if I were 20 years younger.

Yesterday, my regular bus was late. In fact, for 15 minutes not one single bus stopped at my stop. Even the Portland buses that come every few minutes. I thought we were part of some sort-of experiment in human behavior. I was ready to start lighting things on fire.

Also it was raining sideways.

My bus showed up 20 minutes late. The bus is supposed to run every 15 minutes during rush hour.

It was completely packed to the rafters. I said, "Fork it, I'm not getting on this bus."

And the next bus came 30 seconds later. It only had 5 people on it.

When the door opened I said, "I KNEW IT!"

My Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Name: Grumpy

2010-02-20T16:10:00.000-08:00

Front yard today. Flowers are coming.

I know it's only Saturday but I'm not loving this weekend. I'm not going to go into all the details.

This morning I was at my writing desk bright and early and then proceeded to beat my head against the keyboard in a non-productive fashion for quite some time.

I thought some exercise would help and went for a walk with Bob and later did some yoga. Then I ate a Cadbury Egg which was delightful except I'm not used to that much sugar at one time so I got kinda jumpy.

I returned to the writing desk for an equally unproductive afternoon session. Then I figured if sitting at my desk was going to be such a huge waste of time, I should do something else.

Downtown Portland: Broadway and Taylor

I went and worked in the front yard. I never did my usual autumn clean-up so there was all sorts of dead stuff that needed to be clipped and yanked. I found a major snail breeding and recreation center which I had to destroy. I also picked up a half ton of cat and dog shit.

Seriously, I would reconsider my "no pets" position if I could get a pet that would crap in other people's yards. The dog crap was imbedded in the hydrangea. Does it make sense that a big dog would come in to the yard and squat on a plant right next to the back door? But it doesn't make sense that a neighbor would pick up its dog crap and then dump it in the middle of a plant in my yard, either. I don't know what's going on back there.

I got some work done and, at last, felt some small measure of progress. Digging always makes me feel better.

Oh, so the latest issue of Asimov's is out and my story isn't in there. As I've said from the beginning, I don't know when it's coming out. I though I was being all cool and laid back and like, "Whenever." But now I'm getting nervous like I've been punked.

Downhill

2010-02-17T15:36:00.000-08:00

I'm not a huge fan of the Winter Olympics. Once you've seen a few people strap themselves to something and fling themselves down a mountain, you've seen practically the whole thing.

I've tried to get into the spirit of things and I sat down with a sandwich over the weekend and fired up the tube just in time to see commercials and two guys talking. Later I tried again and it was commercials and some athlete who was such a weenie I wanted to punch him in the face. I'm not sure which sport but I think he did something with a snowboard. I tried again the next day and it was commercials and then this lady who went and saw polar bears.

I don't remember polar bear watching being an Olympic sport.

Then last night I wanted to watch the figure skating because I like that event and I'm a recently converted Johnny Weir fan. No one is more surprised than I am.

My DVR wouldn't tape Lost and Olympics at the same time. I thought those gadgets were supposed to be able to do two at once but my machine is old and crotchety and is doing a weird popping thing which means it's going to break the minute I need it to record something I'll die without. Time for another trip to my favorite to swap it out again.

Of course I wasn't going to skip Lost so that got DVRd and I sat in front of the TV and watched more commercials and hoped for skating. I finally got a magazine to read during the commercials. The whole time I tried I saw one skater and the TV said I could watch more skating in 27 minutes and I said screw it and went to bed. This morning I found Johnny's short program online. The Internet wins again.

Stay At Home Husband

2010-02-15T16:07:00.000-08:00

This is at the elementary school near our house. I was trying to get the camera as high as I could. You can see the shadows of my arms

Bob started sabbatical in January and doesn't go back to teaching until September.

I almost wrote "doesn't go back to work" until September but it's not like he's sitting around the couch ordering me to bring him another sandwich.

He's got a bunch of projects he's working on and he's taking classes. And he's also way more involved in domestic contributions. My favorite is that he's doing most of the laundry.

During the first couple of weeks while we were transitioning to the new routine, I never thought I'd make it.

He was there when I left. He was there when I got home. He spent most of the day without a lot of contact with other people. The minute I hit the door he wanted to tell me all! about! his! day!

We had a couple of major shouting matches where I said I need to put down my purse and change into my sweatpants and enjoy 15 minutes of peace and quiet when I get home from work. And he would be all defensive about just wanting to connect with me when I got home.

Now that we're settled in, I like having him on sabbatical. He's way more relaxed and doing all kinds of things that feed his hungry mind. Last week he went to MacWorld in San Francisco for a few days. Normally I look forward to a few days with the house to myself but not this time.

I always give Bob a hard time because he has no concept of how much I eat. Whenever he makes my plate I say: think of how much you think I would eat and then cut it in half. And he still hands me plates mounded with pasta or giant blobs of meat and sauce. Most of the time I insist on fixing my own plate.

I guess I have no concept about how much I eat either because I had all these menu plans. I thawed out some tomato soup that I made last summer. And I had a few potatoes and leeks that were in their last days so I made a pot of potato leek soup. And I a few other plans but it took me the entire time to finish the potato leek soup.

This morning we divided into A and B Teams and worked on trip planning. He did trains. I did accommodations. I'm finally feeling like we're really going somewhere.

Come Sail Away

2010-02-11T18:10:00.000-08:00

This is part two to the photo I posted here. I don't love boats. There are times when I will get on a boat without drama but generally I'd rather just not get on a boat. We have a whole series of photos of me on boats doing my boatface which I will have to post someday. Boatface is an uphappy face.

My father grew-up in a huge port city and he does love boats. And his family. I don't think we ever did anything in our visits to Hamburg that didn't include a harbor cruise, a ferry trip, a river taxi or whathaveyouonaboat.

The photo above is from a ferry we took to an island called Föhr. It was windy and cold and August. We went to visit my cousin who was at a summer camp. My note on the back of the photo says: "Notice the windswept seas."

Here's a quote from the travel journal [as in original]:

There was a nice beach and lots of little beach seats. Unfortunatly it was very, very cold with and icey wind blowing. We had a nice lunch and we walked around through the shops. This island is like Denmark - kinda. There are windmills and some of the roofs of the houses are thatched with this straw stuff.
The ferry journey home was very rough and it rained all afternoon.

I uploaded a bunch of photos earlier this week thinking I'd have them when I posted and then I never had enough time to post them all.

Here's my other main story:

I started my personal webpage in 1996. Back in those days you got a website from your Internet provider. My url was: www.teleport.com/~prentz. And you had to learn some basic HTML and FTP your files where you were instructed to.

You can see early versions on archive.org.

Try this.

I started with blogger in 2001 and got my own domain in there somewhere.

A couple weeks ago I got a message from blogger that they weren't supporting FTP any more.

I spent at least half a day thinking: "I didn't even know there were other choices."

I re-read the stuff a million times and I think I get it know and I did some homework and I think what's going to happen is that I'm going to find a new host and change platforms. I'm not asking for technical advice, I'm covered.

This is something I've thought about for the past several years but to paraphrase Kenman I never wanted to spend a day-and-a-half staring at my computer and saying, "Shit."

I might possibly get to it this weekend although I have a chore stack that I intend to tackle. I get Monday off and I think I'm going to make it a not writing day and prioritize all these other things that I've been putting off.

So, if you try to find my site and it's a hopeless mess. That's what's going on.

The Truck is Here

2010-02-09T11:09:00.000-08:00

North Sea in Summer 78. I don't know why I'm putting this photo with this post.

Back in the eighties I had a job in Hollywood at a film camera rental place. Every morning, I think at about 10am, a food truck would come.

Maria, the receptionist, would announce the arrival of the truck but for some reason, the big boss didn't want her to make the broadcast over the system intercom. She had to go to each individual extension.

My desk was near hers and every morning I'd get to hear it. Maria was (is?) an actress and she'd have to say it about 30 times often with great enthusiasm:

The truck is here.
THE TRUCK IS HERE.
The TRUCK is here.
The truck IS here.
The truck IS HEEEEE-RRRREEEEE.

And so forth. I've been out of touch with her for eons but if I had her phone number I'd call her right now and holler: The truck is here.

The truck food was pretty good. One of my favorites was the quesadilla which had a cilantro-y salsa folded inside and was the perfect combination of outer crunch and inside melty cheese. I don't think I ate any other food from the truck.

Pointless Wanking

2010-02-07T17:17:00.000-08:00

One of my Clarion West instructors Connie Willis signs her latest book for me.

Since the beginning of the year I've been trying to get this story revised and ready to submit. It's a long one and has given me an extra amount of headache since the very first draft.

That one was set aside for a little rest and I started preparing a different story for submitting. This one was a lot more fun which was a refreshing surprise. I thought maybe I was always going to find revisions agonizing.

My point is that I've been putting almost all of my free time into these stories and I'm starting to feel a bit frazzled on everything else. As soon I get them both submitted I'm taking a day to do maintenance which includes house things, yard work, errands and probably the taxes, also the millions of photos and duplicates I have in various unlabled folders and the 50 URLs I have saved in a folder in my desktop to look at later. Why do I do this to myself?

I can't help it. I saved them, now I have to look.

I did finally get a few more of those old photos scanned and will share later this week.

The Most Depressing Sundries Shop in the World

2010-02-05T13:25:00.000-08:00

When we moved into the new office building about 18 months ago, among the first thing we did was check out the restaurant and the sundries market.

After moving we went to the restaurant bar for happy hour. It smelled like beer and had the ambiance of a bar in an airport hotel. We decided never to go there again. It later went out of business. It's like a haunted restaurant now because all the stuff is still in there, including the hard liquor, and occasionally there will be a light on and a few chairs moved around, but no people.

We also only went into the sundries market one time. Co-worker smokes. She didn't have his brand. She didn't have his back-up brand. We never never went in there again.

The sundries market was tiny and didn't even have good candy. The whole place reeked of despair. There was a 50-ish lady who is the only person I ever saw working in there and she never smiled. It wasn't like she was a person who doesn't smile much, it was like she was about 5 minutes a way from swallowing a box of paper clips to end it all.

One day the place was locked up and there was a big sign that the business license was expired. But she returned. And she seemed to be trying. There was a sign that she now sold coffee. Two sizes. Small and large. There was a sign they now served Chinese food.

Our law clerk last summer bought soda from there even after I told him it was the most depressing sundries shop in the world.

I didn't even like to walk past it. I always thought it was too bad they didn't get some charming person in there and paint the walls and sell yummy baked goods.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a sign that they had new management. I saw two new people working in there. Bummer lady is gone. They wear bright green smocks and it looks they have colorful signs up and a big display of sandwiches.

I don't know for sure because I still can't bring myself to go in there.

News on the Radio

2010-02-04T22:23:00.000-08:00

Today's my mother-in-law's birthday.

I had a good week but I woke up at 2:30am this morning and I'm completely droopy right now. I had an epic post planned but the scanner decided to go crazy on me so we'll have to look forward to it later.

Here's one of the shots from the Europe trip. I wrote on the back, "Arc D'Triumph Aug 78." I love the cars.

Tonight's update is that I sold another story, "Estelle Makes the Casino Run," which will be available online on June 1st. The table of contents is here: Innsmouth Free Press.

I'm excited to see my name turn up in one of my Google vanity alerts from something other than my own blog.

The Simple Life Ain't So Simple

2010-01-30T14:44:00.000-08:00

At last, all my major responsibilities for the week are over. Comcast has been and and gone. The guy seemed slightly taken aback when I ran out to the truck and thanked him.

Now I've got a little free time and I think I'm going to squander part of it by sitting on the couch and watching one of my shows.

Today was writer's group and I usually bake a treat. When I know I'm going to be busy I usually buy cookie dough or brownie mix to make it easy. This week I was mesmerized by the pictures of layer cakes on the cake mix boxes and threw a mix in my cart. Of course, later I realized that made no sense. That I wasn't going to pour the mix in a bowl and pull a frosted layer cake out of the oven.

I thought I could make it a bundt cake and drizzle something over the top. I hollered at Kira and Amanda for help and Amanda recommended a basic ganache and explained how to do it.

I made the cake last night but I waited until this morning at the last minute to do the topping. I needed to bathe before the meeting and the chocolate wasn't melting so I finally put it in my improvised double boiler and put it on low and jumped in the shower. When I returned it was all melty and I very delicately attempted to drizzle it on my cake.

PLOP. PLOP.

I used a spatula to smear it around. I wasn't sure whether this was a disaster or not. It's not a great photo. I still need a "make your food look pretty on your blog" tutorial. It tasted fantastic and everyone loved it. That's good enough for me.

On Tuesday I had a smoked bacon cheeseburger and fries that ruined my digestive system for 24 hours but was so totally worth it.

Fuk-Ola-Dola

2010-01-29T16:40:00.000-08:00

Patti with surprise appearance by Severus Snape. (Peter Buck)

When I started this post almost two hours ago, it was going to be about seeing Patti Smith talk about her new memoir this week. But we've had a minor clusterfuk in the meanwhile so I'm going to write about that instead.

Here's Hannah's review of Patti in Seattle. The first time I met Hannah was at a soccer game. The second time I met Hannah was at a Patti Smith show. If the third time we met it was at a Star Wars convention, we would have had to get married. But she's not a Star Wars fanatic. But she loves to read and is a fiction librarian which is even better. But we already married other people.

Here's Bob's review of Patti in Portland.

Onto today's surprise adventure.

We have this giant hedge between our house and the house next door. Today we had someone come over to prune our trees and whack back the hedge.

A couple of hours ago he knocked on the door to let me know that he'd accidentally cut the phone line to the house next door. Okay! Crap!

I got on the horn and sat through the phone tree from hell, did a song and dance to get the repair department. "No not my phone, the phone next door," and so forth like this. They told me there was no record of them having a landline.

Yay! They won't be inconvenienced.

The phone company made an appointment to come fix it anyway and I put a note on the neighbor's door letting them know what was happening.

Could it possibly be that easy?

No. Neighbor comes over and thanks me for the note but informs me she has no cable and no internet. And she's not happy. And who can blame her? Who wants to come home from work and find you have no cable because of your stupid neighbors?

So now I have to get on the horn with Comcast and go through another phone tree. [Hint: when the phonebot asks you to explain the problem yell at it. It'll transfer you to a person.] More back and forth and when can they come? Monday. Yikes! Please don't make me go to angry neighbor's house and tell her she has to wait until Monday. More back and forth. The best they can do is tomorrow.

Then back to the phone company's phone tree to cancel that service call.

Then over to neighbor's with more apologies and explanation.

Then pour a glass of wine.

Let's just hope the repair goes as planned. The guy said "there is no way on earth someone won't be there to repair it tomorrow."

Work That Cowl Neck Baby

2010-01-24T19:11:00.000-08:00

Another photo from Germany. Look at my Mom's giant purse. That's my sister exiting the WC. Me and my bitchin feathered hair are holding my Kodak camera which must be the source of the old packet of random photos of castles and lakes with no people or interesting things to look at that I have in my photo box.

Here's a journal entry from that trip, exactly as in original:

Sunday August 20th
Today we went to a old ruined castle. The walls were thick and high. There was a wonderful view of the Rhine River. We crossed the border and went to Heidleburg. Heidleberg is a wonderful little city where we stayed in a nice hotel with featherbeds and a nice big bathroom. We took a short walk to the train station. That night we went to a famous resteraunt and had a good meal.

You can really get a sense of my early genius. I'm grateful we didn't lose that detail about the hotel bathroom.

In the process of my regular Sunday afternoon taking stock of things I noticed that I have a crazy busy week coming up. Posting will be cranky if at all.

Flower Power

2010-01-22T13:03:00.000-08:00

I just realized that I didn't crop those the way I intended. Oh well.

I haven't bought any new dahlia bulbs for two years because i already have so many and I'd shifted my attention to more spring bulbs. Last summer I noticed I'd lost a bunch of my dinner plate dahlias, probably during the winter wonderland of December 08, so I grabbed highlighter and post-its when my catalog showed up. I'm going to be restrained but will buy more than just replacing my dinner plate collection. There are a bunch of new ones but the bulbs are up to $23 a piece. Yikes. I'm a lazy gardener. I don't need luxury flowers to fret about.

This morning I saw an unfamiliar cat jumping around in the backyard and I realized it had a mouse. I leaned up on the kitchen counter and yelled, "Bob! There's a cat and mouse in our yard." That made the cat look at me and the mouse tottered around in the grass. The cat went back to bashing on the mouse and Bob came in and said, "Yeah, there is a mouse." So then the cat looked at us again and after a long pause the mouse scampered under the deck. The cat jumped around the deck but couldn't get at the mouse. We laughed. That mouse better not start a family anywhere inside this house.

Dark Fuzzy Photo Shared

2010-01-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

I don't know exactly where this photo was taken. I'm going to guess somewhere in Germany around 1978-ish. Nice lighting.

I especially love that my pants desperately need hemming and that I'm carting around the world's biggest purse. How practical. What was I carrying? Hairstyling supplies? Lunch for four? The Complete Kent Family Chronicles? Also I'm pretty sure the collar on that shirt is pink satin. I wish I still had it.

Today's "why do we always see this in stories?" topic is: unlocked storage rooms.

TV, movies and fiction always seem to have conveniently located unlocked storage rooms when they need them. Often for amorous purposes. I remember a show where some people did it in a storage room at the airport.

When was the last time you saw an unlocked storage room anywhere?

This book I just read not only had an unlocked storage room but it was huge. There were four people in there and fighting and at one point someone was running from someone else. This was at a night club.

Maybe I'm not going to the right places.

Good Dog Bad Dog

2010-01-18T16:42:00.000-08:00

I think I got this thing in the second grade which would be, urgh, early seventies. It was part of a whole desk set. There was a stapler. A letter opener. A blotter. A noteholder. You had to buy it all separately and I wanted the complete set for the important work I did at my desk when I was seven.

My income was pretty tiny at the time so I only got this, the stapler and the noteholder. The other items are long gone but I still use this thing to hold my paperclips and safety pins.

I have way too many projects going right now and it looks like I'm not going to finish any of them.

One of the projects is working on revisions to a story and I had two productive days but now I'm all gummed up in the same part that been giving me fits since the first draft. I think I have it under control but I'm not going to finish today which is a bummer because I have some momentum and probably won't have time again until next weekend.

Other projects I'm not finishing include updates to my bio page and the photo letter I'm doing for my Aunties in Germany.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd take advantage of the break between storms and got my butt out into the yard. I took care of a bunch of stuff that I neglected to do in the fall. I cleaned up dahlia stalks and raked junk and hopefully discouraged tons of weeds. I don't think it's possible to discourage weeds. I think attacking them now just kills the weak ones and makes more room for the vicious ones to come in later.

I also pruned the roses.

When the people moved in next door they asked about the roses between the houses. I said that the roses went with their house (they're renters) but that I'd been taking care of them. They said they didn't mind taking care of them but I guess there was a misunderstanding because no one watered, clipped or paid attention to the roses ever again.

I decided to prune them and I was deep into it when this loud bark-howling cuts loose behind me. I jumped out of my skin and turned around and there's a huge black dog trotting over from the hedge between our houses. I have adult onset fear of dogs but I held it together and scolded him for startling me. He turned out to be a big friendly labrador-hound something who cowered behind me when his master came out to drag him back to his own yard.

It took about 45 minutes for my heartrate to return to normal.

The Great Pumpkin Tragedy of 2010

2010-01-15T16:37:00.001-08:00

Historically I've always left the pumpkin crop on the kitchen counter. I've kept them there for months and never had a problem.

This year I got the bright idea of leaving them out in the shop. It's cooler out there and they won't be in the way.

Also, I never really looked at them and they caught a terrible case of the MOLD. Why isn't there a wildly successful horror story about mold? It's one of my most terrifying things right up there with being eaten alive by a bear or alligator and being chased by aliens on a lonely road in the middle of the night.

I salvaged one and have learned my lesson.

The photos are of a weather beacon downtown. We have a clear view of it from our new office and we learned how to read it from this handy article online. Red is warmer, white is colder and green is staying the same. Blinking means it's raining. It's always blinking.

These photos weren't taken on the same day in case you're wondering.

Heart Bandage

2010-01-12T09:29:00.000-08:00

The other night I jabbed myself with one of the dullest kitchen knives we have. We were in the last phases of getting dinner on the table so I squeezed it with a paper towel for a minute and then threw on a bandage. Later I noticed this.

Does anyone else ever think about crime shows when you throw a bloody paper towel into the garbage? If something terrible happened and the detective team had to come search the house and they'd hold up the bloody paper towel with their tweezers and gloved hands and use it as proof that something terrible happened. Even though really you just cut your finger in the kitchen.

Hm. I think about that.

What are bandages made out of these days? Before I went to bed I decided I'd better do a little proper first aid on my wound and it took me a couple of minutes to scrape that thing off my finger. There was a brief moment of panic when I thought it might be bonded to me forever.

The Secrets of Really Great Pie

2010-01-10T17:32:00.000-08:00

Looking upriver. Klamath River at Dolans Bar.

Last night I dreamed I was visiting this pie making class.

I was telling the pie makers about this recipe I wanted to try. It's a pumpkin pie but you put chunks of dark chocolate onto the pie crust before you pour the filling in. I have this recipe in real life and, for reasons unknown, I still haven't tried it.

In the dream one of the pie makers made a pumpkin pie with two handfuls of candy corn.

When I woke up I kinda wanted to look online and see if there was such a recipe. But I'm not sure how I would feel if there was.

My only other comment of the day: is the "tips to a flat belly" ad financing the Internet? Almost every single site I read has these ads for the secrets to a flat belly. I clicked on it and right now it's on sale, for a limited time (heh heh) for $40. I guess it's a book and secrets? I spent about 20 years of my life as a professional dieter and I can say with a great deal of confidence FOR FREE that it's how much you eat vs. how active you are. There is no magical formula because believe me, I would have found it. I guess I should keep my thoughts to myself because otherwise who is going to pay for the Internet?

More Updates

2010-01-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

Grrrrr.

I fiddled with the flickr badge and now look.

I might just delete it. I've tried 2000 things and nothing will budge that puppy.

The whole template needs some TLC but I sense that now isn't the time to start that.

This is just how it's going to have to look for now.