You're Doing It Wrong

There is this quintessential local kid. I don’t know maybe he exists everywhere but I haven’t traveled around enough to know for sure. This particular kid is in his twenties. He’s hippie-ish and possibly has ironic facial hair or eyewear. He’s earnest and hard working. He’s developing an app or playing in a band or starting some sort of green business that involves bicycles. And his name almost always starts with a J.

Bob and I call that kid Jason.

This isn’t a pejorative. It’s a shorthand joke between us.

We’ll say, “I went to the Apple store and got Jason to help me fix my iPod.”

Or, “I was at the coffee shop and guessed who waited on me? Jason.”

If the kid’s name really is Jason it makes it that much funnier.

Yesterday we spent the day at the Rivercity Bluegrass Festival.

For most of the afternoon we sat in the main ballroom. The audience in there was dominated by cotton tops.

After dinner (at Hooters. I can now say I’ve been to Hooters and had a girl in tiny orange shorts serve me a hamburger in a room with 11 giant TVs showing football) we went to the downstairs stage. The audience down there was more mixed but a lot more young people.

We saw the Infamous Stringdusters who were really good. Bob leaned over to look at the program in my lap. He said, “How many Jasons do they have?”

I’d already checked this out. I said: They have a Jesse, a Jeremy, a Travis and TWO Andys. Also, a Chris.

I highly recommend a day at a bluegrass festival. Even if you think you won’t like it. Nice crowd and great music. Way back when I first met Bob I mentioned to a friend that we’d been to a bluegrass how. “Bluegrass?” she said. “It must be love.”

Then she met a bluegrass man. The man is long gone but she’s probably at a bluegrass show right now.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, March 2010

Someone linked to this website this week: Never Said About Restaurant Websites.

I thought it was funny because this is one of my pet peeves with restaurant websites. I’ll be trying to organize a meal out and I want to share the menu with a person or various people and I can’t cut and paste the stupid thing, meanwhile I have to sit through a linen table cloth slideshow. Or else I have to click around a bunch of times to find the hours and location. I don’t want the website to do fancy things. I want the information and I want it to be easy to find.

Police cars in Hamburg, March 2010

This morning I went to the library. I’m reading all about soccer right now and I wanted to see what they had. There was a long wall of sports books and less than one shelf was soccer stuff. I’d say at least one third of the soccer books had a subtitle something like: “how the US women’s team changed the world” “how a team of scrappy immigrants changed a small town” “how a group of soccer mom changed their lives.” Wow, that soccer stuff is powerful. Are there oodles of books like that for all sports? There was also a book about a jaded sports writer who was tired of regular old sports so he learned about soccer and guess what? He found it was just as thrilling as those other sports. Oh, and the Dad who knew nothing about soccer until his kid started peewee soccer and he had to coach. He learned a lot about soccer. And himself.

I’m hoping that soccer will change my life and my large-ish town and my world. And myself. (Or should it be: my Self ?)

Money machine in Germany, March 2010

One of my friends said: I have a fitness ball I never use. You want it?

I took it. Dang. Those things are wiggly. They call them stability balls. I call it instability ball. I also call it Elmo because it’s red.

The fitness people demonstrating the exercises on YouTube make it look so easy.

At this point, the bulk of my workout comes from having to run across the room to retrieve Elmo after it’s sprung out from under me during my one rep.

During the fall I unknowingly let my teaball fall into the garbage disposal and then I ran the disposal forever wondering what that weird sound was.

The garbage disposal choked for awhile but it finally started working again. The teaball did not survive.

I could not find a replacement ball. I went to 5 different places. Every single place I went to had this giant plastic stick with an infuser on the end and then a plastic stand to rest your teaball bat on. And just what I need, another big gob of plastic sitting around my kitchen just so I can enjoy my tea. Plus that’s not what I wanted. I wanted a teaball.

I complained to my sister and she brought me back this cool one from Germany.

I just spent about 15 minutes searching online for a photo of the giant ugly plastic infuser I kept seeing everywhere and I couldn’t find it. I did find about 25 other cool tea related gadgets that I didn’t even know existed. Too bad I can’t drink 25 cups of tea a day so I’d have an excuse to try all those things. But I have plenty of tea paraphernalia crammed into the cupboard as it is. Plus about 20 kinds of tea. And also Bob’s tea.

We should consider building a special room just for our tea.

This was at a park in Amsterdam. It has a bunch of clips on it and if you find a mitten you can clip it on there and hopefully the person who lost it will find it.

My life has been filled with technology the past few days. I got a new iPod which once I got home I found out isn’t compatible with my desktop system. I have a laptop that it is compatible with but I don’t listen to music on my laptop so I had to move a gabillion files and authorize and deauthorize and of course my music library is purchased under about 5 different usernames and we had this problem once before but I couldn’t remember how we solved it so research and cussing ensued.

Meanwhile, I upgraded some stuff and installed some stuff. I organized my photo library (finally!) and found tons of fun photos to post. I spent some time figuring out a better system for back-ups which involved different steps and devices and looking at instructions. Every single thing I touch needs a password or wants one I already gave it and makes me click things and wait. Some things hung up the computer so I’d have to quit or save or restart or do this little dance I do to appease the technology gods.

I’m not done yet but I can see done from here. I am very tired of sitting in front of a computer. Just in time for work tomorrow.

I had my favorite New Years Eve which involved going to bed early. Staying home is fun.

It was great time off although, as always, I wish I had a few more days. I expect the next couple of weeks to be busy AND we have RiverCity Bluegrass on Saturday.

I’ve been on a decluttering rampage the past few days. Well, clutter may not be the right word. I went through a giant folder of URLs of stuff I thought I might want to read later.

“Oh look, a 10K word article on Indigenous language in N. California. That might be interesting.”

I’ve been going through all that stuff and either reading it or getting rid of it. Mostly the latter.

I also have about 100 Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials bookmarked that I never get around to and whenever I do, it takes me all day to do one because I can’t remember how any of the tools work.

I’m not a big resolution maker but I think I’m going to resolve to stop saving stuff to do later.

My other project is my digital photos. I try to keep up with them but I’ve got all sorts of folders labeled “duplicate?” “probably delete” “make prints for people” “huge organization project.” I went through a little of that. I need to do a whole series of photos like the one above. Bob has taken zillions of photos of the back of me walking with various friends and loved ones.

The one above is probably Murnau, Germany last Spring with my cousin Lisa.

Here’s one more item found during the purge. I do this. This is one of my favorite things to do when traveling.

Travel Tips for Introverts

4. Develop the art of sitting and watching.

In her book, Helgoe talks about the French term “flâneur” (feminine, “flâneuse”). It translates literally to “idler or loafer,” but the poet Charles Baudelaire defined it as a passionate observer. Yes, yes! I am a flâneuse. I love just sitting and watching people doing what they do, and even more so when I travel.

= = = =

Just in case you hadn’t heard, the holiday letter has been posted here.

I’m going to be offline for a few days.

Merry Christmas.

Vancouver Lake and Powerlines. Or is it Power Lines?

Don’t forget to read the 2010 holiday newsletter.

I had a fantastic morning. I had more shopping to do and given the choice between getting on the bus and going downtown or getting in the car and driving back to that soul-crushing mall, I picked downtown.

I went to the office and checked the mail and phone messages. I took care of a couple of things and watered the plants.

Then I accomplished all of my remaining shopping chores in two super easy stops. Then I bought a carton of kickass Thai noodles. I can’t find a link to the cart. I’m going to have to do something about that.

I was home by 2pm. I still have wrapping to do and we have a couple of food excursions to take care of. We’ve got one long car ride and then: let the sitting around and eating begin!

* * *

During my travels I passed the kiosk where they sell the magical flat irons. They ALWAYS try to pull me over for that one.

Ma’am, can I show you my magical flat iron?

Me: Unless it can change the weather, don’t bother.

I already own a very nice flat iron. I love straight-ironed hair. There is no point in ironing my hair unless it is completely dry outside. I’ve gone from flat to frizz in the three minutes it takes to walk from my car to the bus.

* * *

Cover your eyes Kenman, I’m going to complain about the postal service.

Years ago I used to buy stamps by mail. There was a little envelope with a detachable form. I’d order my roll of first class stamps and stick a check in the envelope and send it to someplace just outside Portland. A few days later I’d get my stamps.

Then I guess the Post Office decided to streamline this process. Or maybe try to wring more money out of it?

Now, 3 or 4 times a year I get this giant glossy catalog. There’s a big order sheet in there and near as I can tell there is no box to check that says “send me 100 first class stamps.” I have to order 5 booklets of 20.

Then it takes almost a month to deliver and I get this:

Five individually plastic-wrapped with cardboard insert stamp booklets.

How is this a better system? I understand that people collect this stuff and I wish the Philatelics the best of luck in saving the Post Office but I just want some stamps so I can mail stuff. Make it easier for people like me.

Christmas living room, I’m going to guess 1980-ish. Yes, that’s orange carpet. Thanks for asking.

The holiday letter is ready!

You can find it here!.

If you want to skip ahead and just read the story, you can find it here.

Enjoy.

Vanport Max Stop

Today is holiday letter and holiday story day. I already have a story. I tried to write a new one that was about Santa’s reindragon but it didn’t come together so I’m recycling something I wrote a long time ago about Indians and government bureaucracy. I know, I’ve got your attention now. Don’t worry, it’s really short.

I’ll post notice when it’s all done. Meanwhile, if you’ve got nothing to do you can always read back issues.

One of the main gifts I like to give is books. Ideally I like to give books I’ve already read so I know if they’re any good, but I read a lot of books with vampires and zombies and sword fighting. Often my recipients aren’t huge fans of those books so I have to dig around online and look for recommendations. I’ve done okay with indiebound and overbooked.

Last week I was going through a bunch of “best of” lists and every single fiction book was like:

“After an explosion destroys her family … ”
“After her son is diagnosed with spleen cancer mixed a rare face-melting disease … ”
“In a war torn country where there is no food or water or anything to look forward to … ”
“In this deeply disturbing and profoundly sad tale … ”

Wow, how do I choose? I kept crossing them off “too bummer-y.”

I did find some that I think will be good.

Remember Summer?

I very rarely carry an umbrella.

Generally, any the time I’m going to have to be in the rain I’m dashing from one dry place to another. The car to the grocery store. The bus to the office. It’s not worth the trouble for a quick dash to be stuck carrying a dripping wet umbrella around.

And in downtown Portland I usually do have to make longer walks in the rain but there is always a wind effect between the highrises that means I spend time fighting with the umbrella which gets more rain on me than if I just dash between rain drops.

This is the evolution from the California girl who would cancel anything for a gentle mist.

Sleeping Man with iPad

I’ve never been a person who ran around talking about how much I loved the holidays. But I’ve never been a hater, either.

This year I am hating it.

I keep my shopping list very simple. I shop for family. I discourage other gift-giving. I had the great idea of co-worker and I exchanging Timbers swag.

I can’t find anything that I’m looking for. I’ve been on three major shopping expeditions. There is tons of crappy stuff out there that no one wants but nothing good that I want. It’s been making me really cranky.

I’m going to go to the liquor store and get everyone booze.

I saw Voyage of the Dawn Treader last week. As a Narnia geek, I loved it.

In all other categories it fails.

It’s a really lame movie with some super cool parts. If you liked the books I can tell you that Eustace Scrubb is GENIUS. Seriously, worth the price of admission right there.

(Aside: favorite first sentence: “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”)

But the writing is lame. There were parts that were what I do when I need a short cut to get through a scene but plan to go back and fix later.

“Wasn’t it great when we were kings and queens in Narnia?”

“Yes, but now we’re stuck here with our terrible cousin Eustace Scrubb. In drabby England.”

“Yes, while Mum and Dad and Peter and Susan are in Americker.”

I’ve never done 3-D before and for the first few minutes I was afraid I was going to gack-up my nice Xmas lunch. Also that Yogi Bear movie looks like an abomination. And I grew up with Yogi Bear.

Overall: I give it a B-. I’m sure I will dorkishly see it again. And complain about the lame parts.