Klamath River, February 2012
Did I mention I was sneaking off to California for an extra long weekend to hang out with my family?
It was brilliant. Every bit of it was great except for the long drive home. And even that wasn’t so bad because the weather was decent.
No time for more comprehensive update until this weekend.
I’m not kidding. Today I finished the last piece of Halloween candy in my stash. (Still working on Xmas) and I went to the store and Cadbury Eggs were out. It was a chocolate miracle.
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I remember when I was a girl scout you actually had to go out and sell the cookies. You had to take a little paper form and go door-to-door in your dumb uniform and ask people if they wanted to buy any Girl Scout cookies. People would say no. And if they said yes you would have to collect the money and put in the order and then later deliver the cookies. I never sold any because going door-to-door to sell things is awful and I hated it. Last week I watched co-worker pull up a website and punch in his zipcode and then a list of stores came up with the times that the cookies would be available for sale out front. And he was in a panic whether he’d be able to get there before they sold all the good ones.
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A long time ago I bought some bath sheets that I really liked. They were the perfect size with a nubby texture. I still have some of them although they’re getting frayed and see-through in the middle. A year or so ago I went and bought some new bath sheets and I guess America decided they wanted their bath sheets bigger or may it was just the brand but these things are like drying off with a bedspread. They are too big to be pleasant to use. I have to keep wrangling the ends so they don’t touch the floor. And it hangs all droopy on the rack. And the texture is sorta smooth in a way that would be nice for a bathrobe but worthless for a towel. I feel like I want to throw my towels away and start all over.
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We’ve got new next door neighbors. Again. I saw them moving in and I felt bad because I don’t even know them but I wanted to dislike them. I saw a dog. I worked it out. The house has been a rental for 9 years and these are the 6th tenants. Bob remembers a couple that I don’t so possibly 7th tenants. The third in 14 months. So far they seem to have only two normal sized cars. They go to work at normal times. The dog hasn’t barked or bothered anyone. They haven’t had a whole group of people over that never leave. These may be the neighbors we’ve dreamed of.
Last night I spent 20 minutes online trying to figure out how to update Verizon with my new credit card. I had to go through multiple security hoops again and again. I couldn’t find what I was supposed to do and it just kept kicking me back where I’d already been. I gave up.
I went to the Verizon store today and almost cried when she pointed me to the computer kiosk which she said was the only place I could do this. Seriously Verizon, how tough is it supposed to be for people to pay you?
She ran me through the same multiple security hoops. I entered my password at least 4 times and my fresh unfrauded credit card 4 times. She couldn’t get it to work either.
She was madly texting her the powers-that-be about what a pain-in-the-ass this was (or texting her Valentine’s date about how badly she couldn’t wait for this day to be over) and finally told me to try again at home and if it didn’t work to just call and do it over the phone.
I finally had to close my auto-bill pay and then reopen with the new card. Because if I were in charge, that’s exactly the way I would set it up.
Then I tried to update my Paypal and it would let me add the new card but not delete the old card. You know, the one that’s canceled. (Thanks for nothing hippiedippies.) I’m dreading updating anything else. Credit cards expire every few years, shouldn’t this be a simple process?
Finally, I made my sweetheart truffles today and I could not shape them to save my life. They were too cold and square and as I squeezed them in my hands they just melted on me. It was (surprisingly) not a satisfying experience. They taste great but I wish they were prettier. Luckily, he still loves me.
At the end of last summer I found a sunflower filled with seeds that hadn’t been torn apart by the squirrels and birds and I stuck it in the shop to deal with later. My thought was that I’d have my very own sunflower seeds to snack on.
Like many things that I stick in the shop to deal with later, I never got around to dealing with this.
At the beginning of January when I was still fresh and optimistic about getting things done, I brought it in the house and looked for a YouTube tutorial that would tell me the easiest way to get the seeds out. The tutorial told me that when the sunflower was ready, I could just shake all the seeds out.
I wrapped the sunflower in an old bedsheet and shook it around like crazy and no seeds came out.
That was enough of that project. I threw the sunflower back out in the garden and figured the birds and squirrels would find it.
That was over a month ago.
No birds or squirrels ever paid any attention to it until this weekend when I saw all these creatures rioting over it and chasing each other off and taking turns dragging it around the yard.
So animals don’t notice food sitting around until another animal notices it? Which animal noticed it first? I wanted to go out and yell at them that they could have been gorging on sunflower seeds a month ago if they’d been paying attention.
Lake Vancouver
Yesterday afternoon Bob came home and said: I’m a verb. I’m always in motion.
I said: I’m a noun. I like to sit still.
Bob said very pointedly: You’re an adjective because of the way you do things.
It is nice to have that settled.
Remember the pumpkins? The smallest two I used for Thanksgiving. I made a pie and put the rest in the freezer.
The big one has been sitting on the counter and I could tell it was getting a little hinky and was going to have to live out its days in the compost if I didn’t do something with it stat.
Last weekend I processed it and made a pie. (this one) and I got a bar of dark chocolate and chopped it up and sprinkled on my blind-baked crust. Before I poured the pumpkin in I used a spatula to spread the melty chocolate around. It was extremely delicious. If you haven’t before, try this.
I also made pumpkin chili and I had a recipe for pumpkin cornbread but at that point if I had to do any more dishes I was going to punch someone in the teeth so I skipped that one.
I still had plenty of pumpkin and I didn’t want to freeze it since I already have lots in the freezer. So I made Bob’s Red Mill 10 grain cereal and stirred a bunch into that. It was amazing. We added blueberries from our freezer and finished the whole pot.
I still had pumpkin leftover so I made a pot of lentil and coconut soup (substituting wuss peppers for the peppers in the recipe because really hot peppers frighten me) and stirring in the last of the … pumpkin! Also super delicious.
So the lesson is, you can be very creative with pureed pumpkin.
I have a ton of notes here for posts I want to write but I’m on a huge writing roll. I haven’t missed a day since October. So priorities in other places. Plus, things are going to be busy for the next few weeks and then guess what starts March 12, 2012? Did you guess Timbers? You win!
I had lunch at a place outside my normal circle and walked by this building. I feel like I’ve never seen it before.
Remember the fraudulent charge I found on my credit card last week? The one I found when I was looking up something I’d ordered that had never shown up? But I knew it wasn’t the same thing because it was the wrong amount and the wrong company?
Guess what?
I was wrong.
Apparently the hippie dippie company that sells my special tooth powder sold its brand to some “Leaders in Bad Customer Service” company. The LIBCS company couldn’t fill what I ordered, so they just filled what they wanted and charged me for that and charged my card to LIBCS which I’ve never heard of, all without any communication with me whatsoever.
Meanwhile the new credit cards arrived and I have to update approximately 1000 companies with my new number so they can load it onto laptop computers that their CEOs can leave on the front seats of rental cars to get stolen so I can do this all over again.
My packing slip is a sheet of paper that looks like it came out of a free printer and it doesn’t have the total on it. I’m afraid to do the math myself because I’m sure I got screwed.
The good part is that I ordered 7 bottles of tooth powder so I don’t have to worry about buying more for at least 2 years.
I can’t remember if I ever wrote about this before. This is the magic dress. I wish I could take a better picture but you get the idea.
This dress is at least 10 years old but it still looks great. No snags or pilling. Hasn’t faded a bit. Hasn’t stretched out all ugly.
It is a comfortable material that hangs just right. It can be worn in winter with wool tights and a sweater. It can be worn in summer with sandals. It can be dressed up with nice shoes and a fancy necklace.
It can be balled up at the bottom of the suitcase and then shook out and will look fine.
It goes in the washer and dryer.
Someone should find out what this material is and makes it in 30 colors and come up with some different dress styles and and then sit back and watch the money fly in. If you are a person who wears dresses, believe me, you want this.
I got it from Coldwater Creek. I was talking about it to someone and she said she had a similar dress from The Territory Ahead.
I wrote the above post yesterday and it was ready to go I just had bunch of things going in the kitchen so I didn’t get to it. Then we had this thing with our power that I don’t want to get into but it was dark in all the corners and I turned off the computer to deal with later. That problem is patched up for now and we’re keeping an eye on it.
Meanwhile, I found a strange charge on our credit card which a problem still in process. I found it yesterday and the only reason I did was because I actually did order something over 2 weeks ago and still haven’t seen it. I wanted to check and see if they charged me before I inquired about what the hold up was. They did not. But I found the fraudulent charge – so I guess lucky I spotted it before it turned into a hot tub or plane tickets to Peru. I know I feel lucky.
I waited to ask Bob about it just in case it was something he bought because it makes sense that my husband would buy something from a sports nutrition company in Florida. (What’s the deal with Florida? Last time we had credit card fraud the purchases were from companies in Florida.) It wouldn’t make sense at all. In fact, he uses a different card for his personal stuff. I’m ready to take care of it today and, of course, everything is closed. The credit card place has a phone thing you can use to block your card so hopefully that’s real and not just something to trick people like me into not being worked into an anxious frazzle.
Last time this happened was was about 7 years ago and the credit card place made me file a police report which I had to go pick up in person. What a fabulous use of taxpayer resources. I hope they have a new system now.
First visit to Southpark in almost 2 months. Our server said, “Can I bring you a glass of rioja?” They remember us.
I did an office supply order this morning at work. One of the things I wanted to buy was a packet of multi-colored paper.
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You can’t imagine the time and trouble paper companies have gone to in naming their colored paper. There was one company that had plain old names like blue and pink. But the rest of them have huge long lists of crazy names: Popper-Mint Green, Banana Blast, Re-entry Red, Stardust White, Sea Blue. It goes on and on.
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I like to try to imagine the process of coming up with these names. Someone at a desk with the colors spread out, making lists of ideas. Then having to do a presentation, maybe even a Power Point, in front of a bunch of management people who would be scratching their heads.
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“Re-entry Red? Will the customer be able to visualize that?”
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Then a group brainstorming session: Rodeo Red, Rock and Roll Red, Righteous Red, Really Red.
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Then the person has to go back to his desk and re-work the color names. And now he has to refer to marketing reports and back issues of “Colored Paper Naming Weekly” to make sure their color names are properly targeted for their demographic. Maybe they’ll even talk to a consultant or do some Twitter crowd-sourcing.
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Then there’s an extended conflict about Oasis Orange v. Orbit Orange and one of the managers goes home fuming with outrage because Oasis is so much better than Orbit, but management is always playing favorites and Orbit won.
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They finally make a decision and release their paper into the world.
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And now I’m sitting here looking at a catalog mocking their dumb color names and making my decision based on the number of sheets per packet/price.
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.
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.)
