Monthly Archives: August 2007

1. Let your Verizon contract lapse. You will never get more attention from Verizon than when you are not locked into a contract with them. I get email and snail mail from them every couple of days. Everybody wants to talk to me and give me a deal. Sometimes a girl needs to feel special.

2. White Vinegar. I’ve always had a big jug of plain cheapie white vinegar in my cupboard but I don’t use it much because it smells sort of nasty or like Easter egg dye. But really, that nasty stuff can leach the bad smell out of anything. (That I’ve tried so far.) We have two coolers we use for trips and both of them were getting gamy. The red one smelled like old socks. I poured in a little white vinegar, swabbed the entire thing with a washcloth and now: normal plastic-y smelling coolers.

3. In order to follow the rule of three I need one more tip here but haven’t come up with anything great. During the summer you can freeze berries to put in your breakfast yogurt during the rest of the year. The frozen berries will keep your yogurt cold until you eat it. Of course, here you could duct tape your breakfast container onto the roof of the car in December and it would keep plenty cold while you drive to work.

Another idea for a tip is if you make your lunch and it’s in the fridge and you don’t want to forget it. Put your keys in the fridge next to it.

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I thought it was a parody at first. I saw a commercial for a new Halloween movie. But it’s not Halloween, Episode 157, it’s a remake of the original. And rather than wait two months for Halloween, it’s coming out at the end of August.

Speaking of movies, did I ever say that we went and saw The Bourne Ultimatum for our anniversary date? Followed by a fabulous meal. It’s not really Bob’s favorite kind of movie but we both enjoyed it. I think Jason Bourne is my new boyfriend. He’s a great driver, he can keep you from getting assassinated in a train station and he can beat people up.

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Last night we watched an episode of the Henry Rollins show and he featured a guest who he said was known for the Obey the Giant images that virtually everyone has seen before or something like that. I should pay better attention when I’m going to write about it later. Anyway, I had no idea what he was talking about and even after seeing the images and reading the story – it says it was created in 1986 – I was not familiar. I guess my point being that (a) I’m not as dialed in to pop culture as I thought I was (I didn’t even know what High School Musical was) and (b) Henry, the images are not ubiquitous in the PAC NW.

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I want to buy a new work outfit for Fall and I’ve been waffling what store to go to. I decided to go to Nordstrom Rack on my lunch hour and I have no idea why I ever go into that store. For every 35 things I try on, I find one thing to buy. And of the things I buy, they are never my favorite things that I reach for over and over. I tried on one pair of pants that was skin tight in the thighs, gaping in the waist and would have needed a 14 inch hem. A women shaped like a pencil, take note.

I woke up at about quarter to 3:00 last night, as per usual. I knew there was a total lunar eclipse going on so I woke myself up all the way and found some binoculars and went to the living room window. There was a little sliver left when I sat down and I sat up almost a half hour until it was complete.

Of course I couldn’t fall back asleep right away and I kept thinking, I wonder what it looks like now? And I’d sit up and peek out the window again.

It did look pretty cool like a glowing orange ball in the sky. To me, the regular moon looks flat but the eclipsed moon had a shape. Every once in awhile a car would come by and I wanted to wave out the window to make sure they saw it. Also at one point I heard what sounded like a small plane. I always wonder what people are doing out and about at 3am.

You know you’re old married people when you’re thinking, “I can’t wait for my sweetheart to get home so we can go to bed.” And what that means is, “I can’t wait for my sweetheart to get home so I can get some sleep.”

I read a Johnny Depp quote somewhere which went something like: you know you’ve grown up when you talk about sleep the way you used to talk about partying when you were younger.

I’m going to make tomorrow a no computer day. It’s our 11 year anniversary and we’re going to spend the day hanging out. Probably the Farmer’s Market and visit some friends and later dinner and a movie.

Photostream on Sunday.

I just read in the paper that there’s going to be a Macaroni and Cheese cookoff in September. How I can be a judge for this contest?

Last night I sat on the DVR remote and accidentally hit the “lock” button. I didn’t even know a lock button existed and there was much frantic pressing of buttons, buttons in combination, power on/off-ing and changing of batteries and changing of batteries again while pulling my hair out because all I wanted to do was have a quiet relaxing evening and catch up on a few shows and not get into some sort of problem solving with a broken remote. Also I couldn’t control my DVR in any way and I hate the sound of the television unless I am sitting in front of it watching it. I had to turn it off with my show (The 4400) still running. Several wads of hair later, I learned of the existence of a lock button. Press and unlock and rewind. All was well with the world again.

I never learn anything more about technology than what I need to get the job done. No doubt there are all kinds of short cuts and tricks to make technology more useful that I’m too lazy or too stupid to learn. Even if someone says, “hey, look at this great feature” I will be, “That’s so handy. Thanks for showing me,” then five seconds later I can’t remember how to do it.

In the last post before the trip I mentioned that waterers had disappeared. They turned up about a half hour before we left for our get together. And they did a great job. Just in case you were worried.

Also right before we left we saw Patti Smith at The Bite of Portland which was fabulous. There are some good photos, not by me, here. The bummer was that we arrived a wee bit late and had eaten before we got there (because of the get together) so we totally missed out on the food which looked great. We took a quick tour through the booths before making our way to the stage. I’m sure you will drop your teeth when I tell you that, yet again, we were right next to a huge group of people talking loudly, over the music, during Patti’s set. What is wrong with people? This was a huge event. There were beer gardens and tables all over the place. Why would you park your butt 10 feet from the stage to talk? I think it should be legal to assault these people.

A lady did chew them out and they rolled their eyes and then wandered off for a bit although they did return later but didn’t talk as loud. I bet they spent the next day bragging about how awesome Patti was at the Bite. And she was. Favorite quote, “I ate 6 tacos today. Anything could happen.”

First, the definition of grubstake (one word) is food and equipment furnished to a prospector on condition of participating in the profits from mining. We all learned something today. In my head I like to think of it as Grub Steak.

What a welcome home. I woke up in the night to the sound of rain. Not like a refreshing summer shower but like dismal never-ending drip. I also woke up with that faint feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach like the feeling I would get right before school started in the fall. Remember that feeling when you got older so you weren’t necessarily terrified, but there was a little nervousness about the first day of school?

Even my psyche recognizes when summer is over.

After my shower I had the opportunity to inspect the damage from the mosquitoes and poison oak. Boy howdee. Usually I get bitten on my feet so I always sprayed them in the evening. This time I got bites in all sorts of weird places. I must have whipped a branch of poison oak against my arm because I have a thin line of it from my wrist and twisting around part of my forearm. Not too bad, really. But itchy.

My bangs had last week off and were free to do this thing where they split in the middle and curl around so it’s like I have a mustache on my forehead. This morning they weren’t pleased when I tried to curl them in a graceful fan and instead stuck straight out like a big brown comb.

Then there was a traffic accident and it took a half hour just to get to Delta Park. I was all worked up by the time I got to my desk but now I’ve had my tea and sorted through the mail and I’m ready for my day.

One last story before I run. Yesterday in the car my dear husband was kind enough to drive the whole way while I napped and stared at the scenery and counted car accidents. (One on our side, one on the other side plus on our side: a ginormous tanker thing in a ditch with haz teams and all sorts of excitement).

Bob had loaded up the CD player with a variety of stuff including things I would like. Somewhere around Grants Pass this one CD came on and I didn’t like it very much. I listened to about three songs and finally asked, “Who is this?”

“It’s Benny Sings. Why? Is it bugging you?”

Since he was nice enough to do all the driving and since I wanted him to enjoy the music he liked, I said, “No, it’s fine. Let’s keep listening to it.” (Who says “Let’s keep listening to it?” – that should have been a clue that I hated it.)

An hour later, it went to track 15. We were STILL listening to this thing and I said, “I’ve had enough of this. This is awful. I would never have said it was fine before if I knew how long it would go on.”

Bob laughed and said there were 22 tracks. Then we listened to The Frames.

We got home a couple of hours ago. Pooped. That last 100 miles was killer. Two accidents plus regular weekend traffic. I thought we’d never get here.

We’ve got the car unloaded, laundry started, most everything put away. Pulled the photos off the card and can’t wait to work on the photostream (probably next weekend).

This is the swimming hole at Grub Stake. (Salmon River.) There’s a story about the name which I intended to clarify and totally forgot about so maybe in the future. Unbelievably gorgeous. More photos to come.

We haven’t left town yet but these last few hours are full, full, full. We’re about to depart for a local get together and from there we go downtown to see Patti Smith at The Bite. Tomorrow we aim to leave at the buttcrack of dawn. We’ll see.

This is the half-assed version of the post I had planned.

My yard waterers dropped off the face of the earth. I recruited them and asked them to stop by and then phoned them (no answer, no machine) and not a peep. Now we’re leaving the house for the rest of the evening so no chance to catch up with them before we go.

I think St. Joe of 44th street (next door neighbor) will cover for us. I can water in the morning and that leaves maybe two days of filling in. I’m mostly concerned about the tomatoes and pumpkins. Tomatoes and cucumbers are bursting on the scene now, of course, when I can’t be here to enjoy them. I’m sure there will be tons in Orleans and tons when I return.

Meanwhile, the zucchini bandit was here and dropped off some of his bounty so at the moment I’m doing something creative with things I want to clear out of the fridge which include zucchini, tomatoes, salsa and cucumbers.

I’m 75% packed which is my big downfall — I’m always 75% packed until it’s time to load the car, then I’m running around like a crazy person and never fail to forget at least one vital item such as a toothbrush or something to tie my hair back.

Yesterday there was a hawk in the backyard. Only the second time I’ve see that. It was in the hedge. I think there’s a hummingbird nest in there. It flew from the hedge to the apple tree and it’s not just that it’s big but it’s so substantial. I’ve been trying to find a word to describe it since I saw it and that’s the best I can come up with.

It sat in the apple tree for a few minutes while at least a half dozen hummingbirds buzzed it and chittered away. I’ve never seen them so noisy. Meanwhile, high above on the powerlines, a row goldfinch (? – not a bird expert but that’s my best guess) did their best not to attract any attention. Finally the hawk swooped out of the tree and over my head, really amazing sight, and then did a couple of turns over the yard, with the hummingbirds in hot pursuit, before it took off for other parts of the neighborhood. About 3 minutes later, a buzzard flew right over the yard. Huge bird, right overhead.

Big thrills in suburbia.

In my last post I mentioned my appetite had been weird and about 30 minutes after I posted I ate a half a pan of lasagna. I guess I’m back to normal. But just in case this blog has some sort of supernatural qualities, I’m going to complain that I never win the lottery jackpot.

Last few items to keep you busy while I’m offline

Here’s the Flickr set from last year’s trip: Orleans 06.

My favorite regular blog read is Jezebel including what is probably my favorite post and comment thread of all time. (Totally NSFW.)

boingboing.net also never fails to please.

I’m signing off. Have a good week and be back soon.