Delicious Food

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Pamela

Holiday card on the side of the road. It says, “I was going to get you a dirt bike, it wouldn’t fit in the card – Larf” I’m thinking the same thing you’re thinking, “Larf?” but that’s what it looks like.

Remember the most depressing sundries shop in the world?

Last time I wrote about it, it was under new management and new management guy was awesome. He worked really hard. He erased the stench of despair. He made sandwiches with bacon so it always smelled terrific in the lobby in the mornings. He would call out hello whenever you walked by. He had a cute sign and I thought I had a photo but I’m also afraid you’d think I was making fun of him and I’m not. It said: sandwich + chips or soda = $5 No Hungry.

So we nicknamed him No Hungry.

He did well, but apparently not well enough because battle-axe lady appeared several months ago. Battle-axe lady is also ESL. She has a helper and every time we’ve been in there she was picking on him, poor guy. She plays really loud classical music.

She also bumped up the food production and she has wraps and salads and chicken teriyaki — the same thing every deli in every office building in town has. But on Tues and Fri she serves Bibimbap.

I am new to bibimbap and I am in love. I don’t know how this particular version measures up to the best bibimbap. I’m guessing the limitations of “cooking” in a sundries shop means that there are potentially even more brilliant versions. I’m going to have to quest out to Beaverton or NE Sandy Blvd. and try to find them.

Today I wanted it again so I checked my food carts and turns out Number 1 Bento, a cart I’ve never been to, makes it. It was outstanding. I’d give sundries shop lady’s the slight edge but it was good.

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Breakfast with Benefits

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Pamela

There was a little misunderstanding about the oatmeal situation at the house. I thought we were out and bought three more boxes when we still had 2 boxes in the cupboard. Then Bob went to Costco and bought a giant box.

I said, “Well, if the zombie apocalypse comes, at least we’ll have oatmeal.”

(I don’t even eat instant oatmeal. This is all for Bob.)

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The Ten Chins of NW Portland

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Pamela

Bob and I went to see William Gibson at Powell’s this week. We’ve been to lots of popular readings here so we know the drill. We get there at least an hour early and take turns browsing while one of us saves the seats.

The crowd was total Portlandia and Bob wanted to take a picture of me writing in my notebook with a guy in a kilt in the background.

He took one and showed me the shot and said, “This turned out pretty good.”

Me: (as you read imagine the shrillest voice possible) OMIGOD! I have ten chins in that photo! Look at all those chins! Delete! Delete! Delete!

Him: Sheesh. I’m deleting. Relax already.

He then had to retry several variations while I casually posed with my chin(s) jutted out to minimize their numbers. This one is still a tad chinny but not bad.

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Wonderin’ If I’ll Sleep

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Pamela

What was going on last night? I woke up at 1am, completely wide awake. I flopped around a little bit. Bob was too asleep to be entertaining. I was so hopelessly awake I finally got up and fiddled on the computer and then read a book. At 3:30am I reasoned I must be tired by now and went back to bed and flopped around for another hour. I woke up at 7am. I don’t understand how I can be so wide awake in the middle of the night.

This morning I finally got around to pinning some pants I need to hem. I always hem my pants a little too short. I don’t do it on purpose and each time I remind myself: don’t hem them too short. Then I hem them and wear a few times and launder and notice, huh, these are kinda short. I’m sure I’ve been the subject of scorn and ridicule numerous times from the Properly Hemmed Pants Patrol.

The other thing is I have super short legs so if I end up with regulars there is tons of fabric in the length and I never cut it. I just fold it all up. I have giant hems in some of my pants.

The pants I worked on this morning must have been made for circus people who wear stilts (and wear dry clean only work slacks for their performances). If I don’t trim it the hem will be close to 7 inches. I’m tempted to leave it but I think I’ll trim this pair. But first I have to make sure they aren’t too short.

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Out of Key With Your Sky

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Pamela

Portlandia

Earlier this week I had a lunch date. I locked the office on my way out and noticed that my keychain looked weird. It seemed smaller. I kept looking at it trying to figure out what bauble had fallen off.

Oh. My car key.

I had a brief panic attack because OMG I lost my car key! What am I going to do?

When I got back to the office I cleaned everything out of my purse and backpack and shook them out. I checked all my pockets in my coat and all the folds of my clothes. I searched around the office but it was gone.

This happened once before. The top part of the key is plastic and the plastic broke. Only that time found out because the key was in my hand and the keychain at the bottom of my purse.

I knew we had spare keys at home but Bob was going to be home late. I left him a message to ask if might modify his plan to meet me at the park-n-ride with a key. Then I remembered that even if he couldn’t meet me, there’s a local bus that I could catch at the park-n-ride that would get me within reasonable walking distance of the house. All was not lost.

Then I remembered that two offices ago we had tandem parking so everyone had to keep an extra car key in a little dish by the door. I still have the little dish in the back of a drawer. I found it and it had an AAA battery, some gummy hard candy, a broken binder clip, and my spare key.

That solved the immediate problem. Once I got home I checked around and we had a total of 4 spare keys, but they were all valet keys. We could probably live with valet keys except the trunk latch in the car is cranky and won’t work about every 1 out of 3 times so it wasn’t a permanent solution.

I finally called Toyota. My car is a 2001 with 98K miles on it. It runs fine but it’s at the age where every time I bring it in there’s something. I’ll tell them, “That funny little handle is wiggly,” and they tell me they’ll check it out and then I get a call, “That funny little handle is what holds the car together, we need to fix it, $400.”

There was no reason to be optimistic about the key. I was sure they were going to tell me to just buy a new car or else get a crowbar for opening the trunk and after that use a bungee to keep it shut.

Turns out all you need is your VIN and $5. It took me longer to drive over there than to make the keys. (Of course I bought a bale of them.)

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Late Night

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Pamela

Bald Hills Road, Northern California.

When I did my stats I neglected to mention that I stopped submitting after August because I decided to self-publish a bunch of my short stories. That’s a work in progress. I expect to have an announcement on that at the end of next month.

I also realized I don’t have a stat for how many movies I saw. I used to keep track of that and I still write them down sometimes. I bet it’s less than twelve. I hardly ever go to the movies anymore and I almost never watch movies at home.

At first I was going to say I rarely watch TV at home for more than an hour at a time but I guess I’d have to qualify that and say I rarely watch TV for more than an hour at a time unless it involves the Portland Timbers.

#

I don’t want to jinx it but I haven’t needed a cough drop in four days. I still keep them in my pockets at all time. I’m not at 100% but this may be as good as it gets at this point. In which case I guess I am at 100%. I’m going for 110.

#

This afternoon I was going through my checkbook and I was excited to see some money in there. “Wow, I made it through the holidays with a little leftover.” Then I realized I never took out the mortgage payment. Now it looks right.

#

Friday night was bluegrass and fortunately we didn’t forget to wear our shirts with the signs on the back that say, “If you plan to talk during the set, please sit behind us.” No one denied us.

It was still fun. And I stayed up until 1am. This is practice for Wilco with Hannah next month.

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Statistics

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Pamela

Orleans bridge

I was going to write about this yesterday but then I got distracted and went off-topic.

These are my writing statistics.

I had 22 submissions.

I sold one story. Two reprints. And the anthology for the story I sold, also sold subsidiary rights. So, does that count as a reprint? Where are the writing statistics regulations?

I think I finished 5 new short stories and did about 15,000 words on the novel which is still in a condition that I don’t want to use negative words to describe. What else can I come up with? Unfocused? Searching for greatness? Acting out as a disaster?

My word count is 178,000 for the year which is mostly first draft words but it’s not completely accurate because I have system for how I count the time I spent revising and working out stuff when I’m stuck.

I read 30 books and I read 149 short stories/novella/novelettes although I don’t keep track of all the short stuff so I read more than that.

I attended at least 25 soccer games. That has nothing to do with writing but does explain where a big chunk of my time went. I would not dream of changing this.

I’ve been thinking about it and I honestly don’t think I can dramatically increase my output without major lifestyle changes that I’m not willing to implement.

I used to think that I just needed to focus more and be more motivated (and those aren’t the major lifestyle changes that I’m referring to) but my work days are long and I spend my days reviewing and drafting documents. On occasion I can come home and have a productive evening but I can’t sustain that for any length of time without becoming completely miserable.

And I have a lot of weekend time to work, and I do, but I also like to do other things like bake and garden and hang out with other people. I also insist on exercising on a regular basis.

So, my goal is to produce slightly more finished material than I did last year and Bob and I have already talked about some ways to promote that goal.

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I Don’t Want To Bend Like The Bad Girls Bend

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Pamela

Klamath River in December

We went back to work today. I was a little surprised by how many people did not have to go back to work.

CTran was on regular schedule.

When I pulled into the park-n-ride there were three other cars. There was a bus driver smoking in the smoke shack and he said, “There are drivers out there looking for passengers.”

Normally I take a bus with a slightly longer route because it’s less crowded. This morning I took the direct bus and was the only passenger on it. The bus driver was delighted to see me. He got on the radio and quizzed the other drivers to see if anyone had a passenger. Normally this bus has every seat full.

I don’t want to complain. I had a long break. I was glad to be back. It was nice to be able to go through all the stuff that’s piled up with few interruptions.

There were 4 people on the bus home. One of them was a regular and she told me she was the only passenger in the morning.

At first I felt bad that CTran hadn’t modified the schedule. But most of the people on the commuter buses have monthly passes. It was nice (I guess?) that the bus drivers got paid to drive empty buses around.

I had a traditional new year’s soup at my new favorite Japanese restaurant. I’d link to it but their website is an abomination. When they were putting it in we sneered and said, “Just what downtown needs, another Asian place.”

Then we tried it and we’ve been back at least once every other week.

But the traditional soup had mochi in it which is nasty. It was like gluey mattress stuffing. At one point I had a very small amount in my mouth and I was thinking: I cannot swallow this.

There was nothing to hide it in and I started mentally ticking off the items in my purse, trying to figure out if there was anything to save me. I gagged it down. But oof, never again. I hope that isn’t bad luck.

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No Carb Left Behind

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Pamela

Earlier this month I wanted to do 12 Days of Christmas with the Rentz girls but I could only find 3 photos. I just picked up another giant bag of photos on this trip so next year, watch out. I love this one because of the lederhosen and also the delighted expression on both our faces. We always had a really cool swing set in the backyard when we were little.

This morning I tried on my test pants. You know the pants you use to test how far gone you are? If you can zip them, you’re still okay.

I could zip them. Whew.

I think what saved me is the 10 lbs. of Fisherman’s Friend I’ve eaten in the last 2 months for the never-ending cough. They keep me from coughing and I can’t say they kill my appetite but they don’t do it any favors. It also helped that no one ever got around to making cookies.

Christmas was all good. California was great. I’ve enjoyed my time off. I accomplished about a third of the things on my list which is pretty good.

I even did the thing that’s been on my xmas vacation list for about 5 years that I always put off. I cleaned out my pantry. I took everything out and scrubbed down all the shelves and tossed all the outdated stuff. It’s always funny to find something that says Best By 2005 and you can’t imagine it’s been there that long.

Here’s a question: why do baking mixes come in goofy quantities? The instructions for making will call for 2 1/2 cups of mix but the package will have 3 1/2 cups of mix? What do you do with the extra mix? Yeah, duh, you could buy another mix but I’m not falling into their trap. I’m going to combine all our leftover mixes and make date muffin-cornbread-12 grain pancake something.

Bob and his new friend Shyboy having a Christmas nap.

I also finally tried that recipe for Ocean Rolls that I’ve been sitting on since summer. As usual I biffed it up a bit. I guess I need my recipes a little more hand-holdy than that one. After it was too late I found a site where someone had posted feedback and said that it was too much flour. My dough was pretty dry.

Then I couldn’t understand the instructions for shaping them so I wung it. When I opened the oven door to check progress, they’d all come unrolled and it looked like Medusa’s nightstand if she takes her snakes off when she showers.

They tasted terrific so I will definitely try again.

Tonight I’m having my favorite New Year’s Eve — the one where I stay home and reheat leftovers then go to bed by 9pm. I woke up at 5 this morning so I might go to bed earlier.

Happy New Year.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS 2011

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Pamela

(Aside: for those of you following along at home, this isn’t intended to be the final blog layout but it’s as far as I got given my slow learning curve and the time I could scrape together for this project.)

Usually I have a bad attitude at the beginning of the holiday season and gradually warm up to it. This year it’s the other way around. I’m hoping after I get my last 300 tasks crossed off my list I can be more filled with cheer again.

I decided to ditch the annual newsletter this year and just do a quick wrap-up post. Next year I’ll do a holiday tweet and the following year I’ll text “MC” to everyone and forever after that just send holiday greetings telepathically.

Hiking with Mom and Dad in the Salmon Mountain area.

There’s not a whole lot to wrap-up. If you’re a regular reader there is nothing here you haven’t seen 1000 times. In January we went to bluegrass. Bluegrass is good food.

I’m trying to bring my pie making to a new level so I made lots of pies. I finally found a pie crust recipe I could master and by master I mean, I can make it consistently without crying and hurling pie plates across the room.

First game for Timbers in Major League Soccer.

My biggest development is that I fell in love with the Portland Timbers like I’ve never fallen in love in my life. (Well, except for that one thing. {If you think you know what I’m talking about you’re probably right.}) I’m wearing a Timbers jersey right now. I never take it off. I got the world’s worst fan picture taken which I couldn’t escape. I went to Vancouver BC for the day to see my team. I loved every minute of last season and can’t wait to do it again next year.

Dahlias

I celebrated 15 years with my sweetie and 20 years in the PAC NW. I drank Tab and ate Twinkies for lunch when I was a teenager and everything still turned out okay.

San Diego reunion with my beloved Clarion West 08 class.

I am still writing fiction and here’s the pimptastic part of my post.

I sold another story this year.

The story is called “Lottie versus the Moon Hopper” and it’s in an actual book that you can buy called Future Lovecraft published by Innsmouth Free Press. It’s has a cool cover and lots of great stories. You should check it out.

If you’ve got a dollar and an ereader you can download this ginormous sci fi collection called The Second Science Fiction Megapack published by Wildside Press that includes a reprint of my story “The Battle of Little Big Science.”

Finally, I’m continuing my tradition of putting up a story for the holidays. This year’s story is called Freezing. I wrote it for the Machine of Death 2 anthology but they didn’t take it. It was just sitting around in the basement so I dragged it out, dusted it off, and offer it to you here. Nothing says Happy Holidays more than a story about how people die. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hope you have fun, whatever you’re doing.

xo P.

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