I think I picked the wrong photos yesterday and these are the ones I divided. I’m sure I’ll mix them up before this is all over so really they’ll be surprise bulbs.
Remember last year when I wrote about loving the last place team?
Tonight I am going to my first western conference championship. We’ve got a little hole to dig ourselves out of, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. I will be cheering my face off, and also wearing a lot of layers.
Remember last time I dug dahlias? It was 2005, you might have not even known me then.
It was a terrible, terrible job and I vowed to never do it again.
But I lost my mind today. I have a few major bulb mounds out there and we’ve had a freeze. It’s been dry and a balmy 50 degrees. Come on, how bad could it be?
Urgh. What was I thinking “dry?” Sure, water is not falling from the sky but the dirt is a robust mud. I don’t know how they do it at the dahlia farm but I fought a giant mass out of the ground and then tried to break it apart. I tried to shake the dirt off.
I got them in smaller pieces and then put the hose on them.
By the end I was wet, cold, my hands muddy little icicles. My pretty shop that I busted ass to tidy this summer/fall had dirt and mud everywhere.
I only dug two plants. The pink.
And the white. If they make it through, and last time I lost a lot due to my terrible care, I will have about 100 to share. Of each. If you live near me I’ll give you some.
If you’re someone that knows me this would be an obvious xmas present but I couldn’t wait and already bought my copy.
I’ve read the first few pages but I put it aside until I could finish another book and also I’m wishing for an afternoon where I can sit on the couch for hours and really get into it.
Then I had a couple of terrible commutes and I started a book that was on my nook that I read about 75 pages of and was going to finish but urgh. Do not like so I quit it at the end of the commute.
I also accidentally started a soccer book about a fan in Italy following his team around. I’ve read about 5 pages and I’m already in love. It’s 447 pages, soccer dorks unite!
Giant traffic jam this morning so I got to work late so I only have time to mention that: I already started Christmas shopping. Yes, me, the person who always whines how I’m not in the mood for the holidays and I hate shopping and urgh, kill me now. I’ve bought more than one thing and even put some of the things in gift bags. I just need to keep it up before the last minute.
Flying Heritage Collection in Everett, Washington. Really great museum. Worth the effort if you’re in the area.
Last night we had takeout and there were three fortune cookies.
I took one and Bob took one. My fortune was, “You will soon receive an email of great importance.”
“That’s a stupid fortune. I don’t want it,” I said and I grabbed the third cookie.
My second fortune was, “Time heals all wounds. Keep your chin up.”
“That’s also a stupid fortune,” I said.
Bob said, “Sorry, I got the good one. A bold and dashing adventure is in your future within the year.” He gave it to me.
I think November starts the big marketing push for everything in life. Not just the holidays.
I’m getting marketing calls at the office almost every day. Several places have my name and tell me we’ve spoken before and then they tell me what they want to sell me — something that I’ve already told them doesn’t apply to this business so even if we did buy things from random people who phone we wouldn’t buy this because we don’t need it.
And then the endless emails from any place I’ve ever purchased from online. I end up unsubscribing from everything. Even the ones that promise they’ll only send you 1 email a month or only a few times a year — there’s always a week where they send you three in one week and then I’m done.
I found a new recipe to try for Thanksgiving: Green beans, mushrooms and cipollini onions. There’s our one green thing.
It never fails that if I string together a couple of award-winning nights of sleep over the weekend, Sunday night I will wake up at 2am and stare at the ceiling for a few hours. Bob was up around 4am and we chatted a bit, mostly about being awake and wishing we weren’t. I was thinking about getting up and making tea and reading but next thing the alarm blasted out Huey Lewis and the News and frightened me awake. Great way to start the day!
I went through all my glasses and put the ones I don’t need into a sack for the Lions or whatever that service club is that will take your old glasses. I asked Bob to grab me a bunch of +2’s at the dollar store. +2 or +3’s I can’t remember how strong I get. Kids, write this down: once you hit your mid 40’s your eyes completely go to hell. If your eyes are hell before that, I’m not sure what happens.
I now have glasses in every drawer, the car, the backpack. I accidentally left a pair in Timbers ticket partner’s truck and later found them and then left a different pair behind.
Last night I realized that my back-up pair for work was in the Lions’ sack which meant there was no back-up pair at the office. Do you have any idea how screwed I am if I don’t have my glasses? I don’t even like to eat without my glasses on. Problem being addressed.
Yesterday I watched a car appear to ask to be pulled over.
We were on a two lane highway where the speed limit would seem to be a recommended minimum.
The State Patrol came barreling along in the left lane and everyone slowed to the recommended minimum and moved to the the right.
Except this one car that slowed down and then went slower and slower.
The Patrol put on its brakes. We all slowed down. Everyone is afraid of passing a patrol car. Except me, if I’m driving legally I have no problem passing a patrol car.
I thought maybe the person was nervous about moving over but if so: don’t drive.
Finally, the car must have been going 40 mph. And the patrol lights came on and the person pulled right over like all his or her dreams had come true.
I couldn’t rubberneck to see what kind of person was driving because all the cars instantly turned into maniacs and whipped back up to 70+. It was do or die.
Enjoy these photos of the Klamath River Bar, all taken in different spots and at different times.
I’m running out the door to BizarroCon for the rest of the day.
This is a Breuer chair.
You might think this chair looks nice and not the kind of chair that can ruin a person’s day. Do not be fooled. If you have the choice between fixing a Breuer chair and buying new chairs, buy new. If your husband indicates distress over buying chairs over the Internet, even after you point out that the two of you are the worst shoppers ever, always pick the first marginally decent thing you see and you might as well just buy damn Internet chairs to solve your problem, just kindly listen and then buy the online chairs. He’ll forgive you.
Breuer chairs came into my life in the late 70’s. You can see proof here. I still have that Breuer chair. Many years later, in the late 80’s my Dad made me a kitchen table and gave it to me with 4 Breuer chairs. I still have those, too.
The cane gets stretched out and holes in it. I had a local guy fix a bunch for me once.
But the last time I needed help with my chairs, which was OVER FIVE YEARS AGO, I phoned him a couple of times and never heard back. This is the kind of project that I only looked at once every few months. Like maybe company was coming and I thought: extra chairs would be handy, so I’d make the call.
I eventually gave up on my guy and looked for another guy. I finally found a place and I thought I wrote about it here but apparently I wrote about it on Facebook.
In brief, I found a place in an inconvenient location and I made the time to go out there and carried my broken chair parts in and they were patronizing and rather than just saying, this is such a pain in the ass we don’t want to do it, they quoted me a ridiculous price while all looking down their noses at each other. When I said, thanks, but I’d rather buy new chairs, they said: Well don’t buy chairs like these.
If you know me, you can imagine how I took that. I stomped out of there determined to show them.
Using new information, I FINALLY got around to ordering replacement parts that arrived this week. You can buy replacement chair bottoms and chair backs for probably too much online. My parts arrived and this afternoon I fixed my chairs.
First of all, I totally violated the Uncle Joey rule about never letting an inanimate object kick your ass.
I could not get my screws to go in so I looked it up online and saw a demo, from the company I bought my chair stuff from, and they’re like, “Keep the screws you already used. Our parts are pre-drilled.” Well, I had the screws that I already used because I am my father’s daughter. But they are like 10 feet long and I couldn’t get them to fit. And “pre-drilled” my ass, they were like “pre-dimpled.”
Also I had to replace the chair back which is not pre-dimpled. They said either measure from the old chair back that you’re throwing away (too late!) or do whatever you want.
What?!?!?! He’p!
It took probably 3 times as long as it should have and I said a lot of bad words plus ruined the chairs’ self-esteem by telling them how much I hated them but in the end, we have fixed chairs (I was very creative with my screws) and I can cross something off my list that has been there for more than 5 years.
