One More Chance to Get It All Wrong

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Pamela

Bob just did something completely ridiculous and then he asked me, “Honey, am I doing it wrong?”

I said, “Dude, you are a public service announcement for doing it wrong.”

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Another Shot of the Apple Tree

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Pamela

I don’t think that other photo really captures how pretty it is so I tried again. This isn’t much better but it’s the best I can do with my cheapass cameras and my skill set.

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Jump The Garden Wall

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Pamela

We had amazing soul-transforming weather three days in a row over the weekend. We also had a soccer game and some visiting fans of the away team wrote about their visit to Portland. One of the things they commented on was how to them it was just a nice day in April but the locals were running around stoned out of their minds on heat and vitamin D.

It’s gray and raining again. Whew! That was enough open-toed shoes and not carrying around a raincoat for me.

I finally figured out what was going on with my iPod. Remember back in February I was on a road trip and it kept repeating the same song over and over? I don’t use my iPod every day and I forgot about it and every time I’d take it with me somewhere and it would be repeating over and over and I’d think, “Oh crap, I need to figure this out.”

I sat down with my iPod and my trusty search engine and immediately found a forum where someone said, “My iPod keeps repeating the same song over and over, what’s going on?”

And then, the amazingly helpful reply: “Sounds like you have it on repeat the same song over and over. Turn that off.”

No duh, Waldo. When I’m queen of the world that person is going to be banned from the Internet. I found several versions of this helpful information and had to dig around until I unearthed the secrets of where the repeat thingy was and even then it took me awhile of tapping on that tiny screen with my chubby man fingers to get the right menu to pop up. I can’t believe I managed to turn it on in the first place.

One problem, solved!

There’s always a new problem to take it’s place. The dishwasher died and the refrigerator is coughing and the bathtub is on slow-drain. At least the apple tree looks amazing. I don’t think it’s ever looked so pretty. I had enough time to prep the garden plot but not enough to actually plant anything. Supposedly the rain will take a rest this weekend and I can go crazy out there.

Posted in doing it wrong, garden | 1 Comment

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.

Posted in doing it wrong, favorite | 2 Comments

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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