Author Archives: Pamela

SPROUTASTIC

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Pamela

Kimberlee inspired me to get my sprouter out.

I bought it years ago and used it for awhile and then it was put into the corner of storage and I ignored it.

My seed stash was ancient. The mung beans worked great. The alfalfa-kitchen mix whatever it is hasn’t been too impressive. I’m going to need to refresh my supply.

My week was unexpectedly killer busy. I’ve hardly had time to pull up my socks. But good things happened.

I had a longer post started somewhere but I can’t find it so something to look forward to later.

It’s sunny and I’ve got a soccer match. I’m wearing short sleeves and sandals. Great day.

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Carefree Mind Of Her Own

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Pamela

Elvis Costello

Photo courtesy of wrestlingentropy. This isn’t even from the tour we saw. There were a bazillion people taking photos last night and nothing CC on flickr. Boo.

That Elvis Costello show was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen in my life. And this from a person who is a great Elvis admirer but not a hardcore fan.

All day I’ve been thinking about what I want to say about the Elvis show and all I can think of is: It was awesome.

Here’s the review from the local paper. And even though the website is a near-abomination, it’s worth a click to see Elvis in his plaid suit. Not many men can carry off that look and he looked amazing.

Regular readers are going to laugh when I say that one of the things that made the show so great was the audience.

You know how I’m always complaining about the people by us who talk during the whole show? Those people did not come last night and if they did, they did not talk. This was one of the most reverent crowds I’ve ever been in.

The show involves this giant wheel-of-fortune with and people from the audience some up and spin to pick what he will play. The people would spin the wheel and then they hung out onstage. And the people were all totally into it without being obnoxious. They danced in the go-go booth or danced with Elvis. They took photos. It was one girl’s birthday and Elvis led the audience singing “Happy Birthday” and she had the exact look on her face that you would have if Elvis Freaking Costello led a packed concert hall in “Happy Birthday” in your honor.

He sang every great song. At the end he did a bit where he stepped away from the microphone and sang.

No one made a peep.

It was an amazing show from start to finish and once again I had to thank my sweetheart for dragging me to something I thought I didn’t want to do.

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Pump It Up

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Pamela

This guy called. Strong accent. He had Bob’s name and tacked a Mrs. on it for me and then told me he was calling because of our Windows computer system. He sounded like he was phoning from a cafeteria in Outer Mongolia using a tin can and a long piece of string. I could barely understand him.

He said since we were authorized users and he could see that we’d being going online he knew we had a virus.

Normally I would have shut this call down before we even got this far except I was curious where he was going with this. I knew he wanted to rip me off but how was he going to do it?

But he just kept reading off his card with long pauses and this terrible connection. I finally asked him what exactly he was going to do and said he was going to walk me through a check for viruses.

I’m not filled with patience today and that was enough for me so I told him we don’t have even have a Windows machine in this house and buh-bye.

So I guess he wanted to get usernames and passwords? It’s hard to imagine this would be successful.

* * *

Last weekend I made a Sweet Potato Pie for Easter dessert. I haven’t made one in a long time and I thought I’d used this recipe before but maybe not. It’s from Cook’s Illustrated. As per always I was trying to do 1000 things at once and I started my pie late and then I had to hurry so rather than mashing my potatoes by hand, I tossed it all in the food processor so that filling was smooth.

When we ate it after dinner it was still warm and it was very good. But the next day after it was completely chilled it was AMAZING.

Ten stars for this recipe.

We’re going to see Elvis Costello. The last time we saw him was in 1996 in Seattle during our honeymoon. You can find the setlist here. (The Internet is so awesome when it isn’t awful.) I remember that. 4 encores. I was like, OMG, another encore?

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Warm My Bones

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Pamela

I had this post open in draft all day yesterday and I couldn’t find 3 minutes to finish and hit the button.

Sunday was the first time in six months that the house warmed up inside to more than the thermostat was set. The forecast was for 60 or above all week except now I see at the end of the week we’re going back to the 50s.

I was dying to turn over my closet and put away all my winter stuff and bring the lighter clothes out except I was afraid of jinxing it. Even last week I was still wearing my wool and long underwear.

This morning I took something out that I haven’t worn in forever. I tried a new dry cleaners and these are the sharpest pleats ever seen in my closet.

Which reminds me of a story from a long time ago. I was probably in middle school and my Grandma must have been staying with us. She ironed a gnarly pleat into my pants – I can’t remember what pants they were but not the kind where you want a pleat. I remember standing in front of the ironing board in my underwear frantically trying to iron the crease out and weeping. “I can’t look like a DORK!”

I’ve always brought my dry cleaning downtown with me since the only dry cleaners I knew about in Vancouver wasn’t very convenient. There’s a cleaners near the office. It’s kind of a pain to carry home on the bus but I don’t have huge amounts of dry cleaning.

One night we were coming home from the market and Bob said we had to pick up his dry cleaning and directed me to this place about 3 minutes from our house.

“There’s a dry cleaners here?”

It’s totally convenient and the people are super nice. And they do a mean pleat. But I don’t look like a DORK and if I do, call the pleat police.

Last not thematically linked item that I thought of because I was just downstairs getting my Bi Bim Bap. What is the deal with wraps? Has there ever been a good wrap? A burrito is a good wrap but random sandwich stuff wrapped in a cold tortilla is a sorry excuse for a meal. The kind of thing you pick only because the only other choice is tuna melt.

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I Can Even Touch The Sky

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Pamela

Ishi Pishi Road, Orleans, CA

I finally deleted my Facebook account.

Actually the button said I deactivated it. I’m not sure if I had to dig deeper to delete or if they won’t let you because once they cap everyone they want to have data they can use to control you.

Doesn’t matter because I like being able to change my mind. What if the Timbers play a game that doesn’t destroy my soul and there’s a huge photostream that I can only view if I have a FB account?
 
Clicking that deactivate button was completely exhilarating.

I’m thinking about deleting my Twitter account now, too. I’m wishing I had GooglePlus, Pinterest, Shelfari, SockProvider, RecipeWiz, SewingWorld, ExerciseMama, MeditationShare, and Guns&RodsReloader accounts just so I could delete them all and feel that rush again and again.

Orleans Bridge, Orleans CA

It’s sorta like that story I read about tattoo removal where they joked that as soon as they got one removed they would go get another to keep the cycle going.
 
Did I ever write about when I looked into tattoo removal as a possible new occupation? It was a long time ago when I was not happy with my job (different employer than I have now) and I was looking around to see what other opportunities the world had to offer. I figured tattoo removal was going to be a raging growth industry. But I also realized I would spend my days hunched over burning skin so I didn’t get too far with that.

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And Then They Went Shopping

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Pamela

School bus stop on Red Cap Road, Orleans CA

I read something today about someone who worked at a clothing store and it made me remember this story.

When I was a teenager but before I could drive I made money by babysitting. Somehow I met this great family who ran a vending machine business. They would leave a giant box of candy on the counter for me to pick snacks from. They had two daughters. The younger one was sort of a pill but overall they were good kids. I babysat plenty worse.
 
When I was old enough to drive and wanted to get a job, the Mom wanted to help me out. She knew this lady who ran a clothing store and decided that this would be a great job for me. Me, being a self-involved teenager with no clue how the world worked, thought that I was going to get a really cool job.
 
I went to the store to talk to the lady and the first thing she said was: what kind of experience do you have?
 
Me: None.
 
What the hell? I was sixteen. I went to high school. I did babysitting. Where in the world would I be getting all this experience?
 
She told me she had nothing for me and that was that.

Prospect Trail on Ishi Pishi Road, Orleans CA (not recommended)
 
At the time I was hurt and confused. Why set me up for this big thing if you weren’t even interested in giving me a chance?

Now that I’m a grown-up and have a better understanding of how the world works, I suspect that babysitting Mom shopped there regularly and probably chit-chatted with the lady and that was the basis for their relationship. She probably told the store owner, oh this girl babysits for me and she’s a good kid. She never burns down the house and our kids are always still alive when we get home. She never takes more than 3 candy bars even though we leave out about 60. I’m sure she would be great at selling clothes.
 
And then this lady has to be polite, “Oh wonderful. Sounds swell. Send her over.”
 
And then I show up and she can’t wait to get rid of me. Although as I recall she was pretty snotty about it.

I ended up getting a job at Jack-in-the-Box where they did take teenagers with zero experience and paid us $3.10 an hour.

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When the Morning Cries And You Don’t Know Why

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Pamela

The guys first time wearing their new third kits.

I’m still too traumatized to talk about the game last night so I’ll tell you about the guy who sat next to me.

There’s something like 12,000 season tickets. I think most of the tickets around us are season tickets but there is only a handful of people who go to all the games like we do.

Three guys I’ve never met before sat in the seats next to us. They were kinda rowdy, especially the guy next to me, we’ll call him Jason, who was loud. Jason told me he normally sits with Army and how he was all hardcore and apologized and said he liked to be noisy.

I told him I was happy to have a rowdy guy next to me because I yell quite a bit myself. We also took note that there was a kid in the row in front of us and adjusted our cheers accordingly.

At one point Jason pointed to one of the Timbers and said: That’s the news guy. He’s from Cameroon.

Me: Actually, that’s Palmer. He’s from Jamaica.

Jason: Oh. I guess it is Palmer.

Later in the game he pointed to a different player and said: That’s the new guy. From Cameroon.

Me: That’s Jean-Baptiste. He’s from New Jersey.

Jason: What a coincidence. I’m from New Jersey.

(I just checked the bio and it says Jean-Baptiste was born in Brooklyn. So I was wrong, too, but at least I had the right country and even the right general area.)

Me: Songo’o is the one from Cameroon.

(We have a guy on our team with an apostrophe O in his name. Is that awesome or what?)

Then, when a bad thing happened near the end of the game, Jason stood up and said, “We’re leaving. I am not enjoying this.” And they left.

What a big fat soul-patched lemon-in-his-hefeweizen ironic-eyewear fair-weather faker! He better not show up in my section again.

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Let It Rain Let It Pour

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Pamela

Photo from 2004-ish: Partnachklamm

I don’t know what I was thinking last night but I set my alarm. When it went off at the crack of dawn I rolled over and turned it off.

But then I was awake.

Why doesn’t that happen on work days?

I got up and read in the news that there was still a chance we could beat the record for the rainiest March. And great news! We did it!

I’m just kidding about the great news. Why can’t we break the record for the best weather in the whole world ever?

The sun was out this afternoon and as I was dressing for the match I momentarily considered skipping some of my rain gear. I looked out the window again and right then it was like someone splashed water against the window.

One thing I learned after the last game is that there is a big difference between water resistant and water repellant.

I’m repellant and headed off to the stadium.

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Bright Light Almost Blinding

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Pamela

I bought some new sugar but the package seemed different somehow.

I’ve had this post half-written in draft for several days now. [Excuses for not keeping up with everything omitted.] I’m going to go ahead and half-ass it so I can hit the publish and move on because I have a Timbers game on Saturday and I need to write some long-winded fangirl posts about that.

Several months ago I decided to delete my Facebook account.

I was never a big fan. I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation about Facebook where I didn’t say, “I hate Facebook.”

But I do wonder about people I have seen in ages and at the beginning it was nice to reconnect. I like reminders that people I rarely see are out in the world and doing stuff. And I liked to see what the kids were up to.

But mostly FB is stupid and soul-depleting.

Remember when the Internet was invented and there was this thing called AmericaOnline? And it was this little self-contained world that you never had to leave and you could just stay inside all day and use their email and chatrooms and get your news and talk about your TV shows? And then remember how the cool kids started venture out using URLs and AOL became the Internet for babies?

Now look at FB. People that I have email groups with start FB groups (which are immediately abandoned). And instead of emailing me they message me on FB. I typed a URL from memory the other day that redirected me into FB. And I was doing something concerning a government agency that directed me into FB. Why is the world becoming FB?

I spend most of my time on FB hiding people and unliking my dentist and making sure I haven’t inadvertently allowed an app to borg me and my friend list. I didn’t know why everyone was complaining about timeline because I didn’t even know what it was. I didn’t realize I didn’t have it yet.

One pound different.

I thought about reasons for keeping my account. “What if someone wants to find me?”

I’ve had a personal website since 1996. If you put my name in a search engine I come up on the first page. You know how many people have tried to find me? Zero.

But here’s the thing: I haven’t deleted it yet. And the reason I’m waffling is FB is where I get my Timbers fix. That’s where they post the pictures from the games and practices. That’s where they put the video clips. That’s where I connect with the other season ticket holders in my section. (117!) That’s where I spend the rest of my time on FB, liking things about the Timbers.

I keep trying to convince myself that I could live without that. I lived for almost my entire life without Timbers on Facebook, surely I can get by now. But I don’t want to. And also it feels like the world has become sell-your-soul-to-FB.

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Please, Please Tell Me What We’ve Learned

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Pamela

One of the things I forgot to mention about the Timbers game is that I was very excited for the opportunity to see Freddie Adu play. (He was on the other team.) He’s only 22 now but when he was very young, he was tagged as one of the great future U.S. Players. He hasn’t quite lived up to it (yet? – he’s on the Olympic team) but I always like to see a talented player. But by the time the game started I was so deliriously happy to see the Timbers, I forgot he was there.

Remember my troubles with Verizon?

I’m not even going to dignify this discussion by linking to the earlier part.

The short reminder version is that my credit card was faux-frauded and I had to get a new one. I tried to tell Verizon so I could pay and it’s been a total pain in the ass from day 1. I went to the store and even they had trouble helping me. I had to log on at home and try again and then quit bill pay and re-sign up again. Which they thanked me for electronically and snail-y.

You can imagine my surprise when I got a robo-call from Verizon telling me I was past due and I’d better fix it quick.

You know what I’m not going to do?

Give my fresh unfrauded credit card number to a robo-call. How do I know it’s from Verizon?

So I tried to fix it online and got run around so I stomped over to the store again.

They can’t do anything at the store but sell you shit. They can’t do administrivia. What an awesome business plan: a place one human can talk to another human and that human can’t do anything but sell you shit.

So my human got me on the phone with customer service and we went around the block a few times.

Them: Did you update your card with us?

Me: Yes I updated my card with you that’s why I’m on the phone with you throwing a snitfit.

Them: Are you sure that’s your zip code? It’s not going through.

Me: @^#5*9*^#4^)!!!!!!!!!!

Eventually, the nice lady said it was all fixed. Apparently when I switched to autopay (which I didn’t switch to, remember) I was supposed to do my first payment manually. Because that makes sense.

So nothing more to worry about.

Except I was still getting robo-calls that my service was going to be shut off if I didn’t pay — every 2 hours.

You know, according to the LA Times Verizon had a profit of $10.2 billion in 2010 — HIRE SOME ACTUAL PEOPLE YOU CHEAP FARKWITS!

So when I got home and had my cheat sheet I was able to log on and go through 7 layers of security including answering questions about my favorite Monkee, singing the chorus of The Logical Song, doing the Hokey Pokey and typing in a limerick about my favorite pet, I manually paid the “late” bill and then the new bill will supposedly be billed on the 26th.

I hope they’re happy now.

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