You're Doing It Wrong

I got back from my trip last night with only enough time to catch up with my spouse, cobble together something to eat and watch the season finale of True Blood. (bleargh!)

I don’t understand why I’m so tired today I can hardly see straight. It was a relaxing weekend. I got plenty of sleep. The plane ride was uneventful. I finished She’s Come Undone (mini-review to come), I listened to some podcasts courtesy of Escapepod). I dozed. I got a decent amount of sleep last night. I feel like I hiked from Atlanta except my feet don’t hurt.

A few photos eventually. I’ve got family coming into town so I don’t expect to be online much this weekend but we’ll see.

Cracker Barrel general store

I’ve been in Atlanta since Thursday visiting Kira. I probably should have updated our adventures earlier but I never seemed to get around to it and I’ve had a massively productive writing day today which means my eyeballs feel like they’re going to drop out of my skull so this is going to be brief.

We’ve had a fabulous time either tooling about Atlanta running errands or hanging out around the house writing or not writing.

Two of my Clarion West Classmates have written apocalyptic stories where Cracker Barrel played a role. I did not know what Cracker Barrel is. We don’t have that on the west coast. So Kira took me to Cracker Barrel (photo of the general store, above) which was completely awesome and I never have to go there again.

I tried to order a few things that I haven’t seen on a menu like fried apples and turnip greens (gak!) and something called a frozen mug apple cider. The adorable server brought me a warm apple cider in a mug and a tall glass of ice and told me they were out of frozen mugs. “I had no idea what it was,” I told her as I spooned ice cubes into my mug. “You could have brought me anything.”

Kira had a bunch of stuff to do and the first few days we ran around. Her errands weren’t in the shiniest parts of the city and my initial impression of Atlanta was that is was sort-of an armpit. In some places it looks like there was a contest to build the ugliest strip mall. There are also a ton fast food places, many of them with chicken in the name. I wish we had more time to take photos. Later we drove around some much prettier parts so I withdraw my original opinion. I will say that this is the most consistently bike and pedestrian unfriendly place I’ve seen in awhile.

I’m on my way home tomorrow.

I was going to write a long cranky post about customer service but I changed my mind. But a quick note to the bank: It makes me uncomfortable when I walk through the door and the teller shouts across the room, “Welcome to [our bank.] I can help you right here.” I would argue further that the shout is redundant because the whole reason she’s standing there is so she can help customers like me.

I get to sneak in one more out-of-town trip before summer is really over. I’m taking the red-eye to Atlanta tonight to visit Kira. I’m sure there will be stories and photos from the road.

Kimberlee gave me some berry starts back at the beginning of summer. I’ve never had great luck with berries but these guys are already going strong. Moments after this photos was taken, I ate them.

I went to the mall today to get my hair cut. What a depressing place. My unscientific estimate is that at least 10% of the place is empty.

Then there are about 30% of stores that sell only completely worthless crap. Stuffed Hello Kitty dolls the size of VWs and lamps with the base shaped like a three foot high wolf. Yikes. And lots of idle clerks.

The worst part is the long row of kiosks that runs down the middle of the mall. People pop out at you with things in their hands and say, “Miss, do you have a moment? I’d like to show you something amazing.” One of the guys was really cute like the long-haired foreign guy that would be the love interest in a romantic comedy. I was severely tempted to see what sort of amazing thing he might like to show me. But I had to hurry to my appointment. My loss, I’m sure.

I let the pumpkin vines out front do what they want although I discourage them from running out in the street. This vine grew over the top of the bush and produced a pumpkin in the middle. I’ve been curious to see what happened and so far the vines keep it from falling to the ground.

Bob and I went to see the Woodstock movie yesterday. I’m afraid we can’t recommend. The minute the lights came up Bob looked at me and said, “I don’t think that worked.” We spent the next hour talking about what went wrong. I don’t know. Cruddy script. Too many loose ends not tied up. Not enough characterization. Not enough plot.

All I could think about the whole time was: Please, someone make Demetri Martin a sandwich. And: “Thank God I’m not there. Crowds. Hippies. Argh.”

This week I’ve been trying to do at least one thing I’ve been procrastinating on each day. On Monday I finally made an eye appointment. I had an eye doctor I loved. The office staff was always pretty lame but the doctor was awesome. Last time I was there they were rude when I phoned, rude when I arrived, the doctor acted as though he’d been interrupted from the most fabulous meal in his life to look at my old eyeballs, then they made me stand there, one of only two people in the reception area, and wait until they begrudgingly took my money. I don’t know what the problem was but I’m not going back.

I found a new eye doctor who is conveniently located and compatible with my new insurance. I’m going to buy about 10 pairs of glasses and put one in every drawer, counter niche, pocket and bag I have. I can never find my glasses plus two of the three operational pairs I have now have been sat-on so many time their arms are bent and one of the nose pads things fell off.

Some other long procrastinated things had to do with visiting retail establishments. It think it’s been pretty well documented here that I hate shopping. I tried for awhile to improve my style but it takes too much time and you have to go to stores and look at things and try them on. Last year during the never-ending winter I realized that I’m a little thin on winter stuff plus over half the pants in my closet are 3 or more years old. So I finally went out into the world to get nice work slacks.

I thought the economy was hurting. I thought America need me to spend my dollars. I was prepared to pay full price. I wasn’t even looking for bargains. Where is all the stuff? I went to 5 stores looking for pants. My infatuation with Ann Taylor is officially over. I’ve never had a great customer service experience downtown although the Loft has usually been okay. Yesterday no one in the store even looked up when I walked in there, one of only two customers in the store. At the Loft they said Hello and then I never saw them again. The selection was doody. Too bad I wasn’t looking for a frilly sleeveless top or dress because they had racks of those on clearance. Those will be worthless in about three weeks.

I love Pendleton but could they please design slacks that don’t look like they were styled for 80 year old ladies. (Um, sorry Priscilla). I liked the pants at J Crew except they were a little lightweight for what I had in mind plus the first pair I tried on was clearly too big but the next size down was about 3 grilled cheese sandwiches away from being too snug. I don’t see how I can so precisely not fit into clothes. The obvious solution would be to buy the too big ones and eat grilled cheese sandwiches until they fit properly.

So I struck out on pants.

Yesterday I went to buy underwear. There were three choices: granny panties, thongs and frilly. Where is the normal underwear? I should clarify the normal underwear that doesn’t cost $15 a pair.

Another thing is I made a hair cut appointment for tomorrow. I cut my hair myself for a long time but then back around the time I wanted to have more style I started getting it highlighted or weaved (wove?) or whatever the term is. At first I enjoyed it but then I got annoyed by how long it took plus it cost a lot of money. So I changed over to regular haircutting and now that seems to take too long and breaks up the entire day. But I ate my last piece of See’s candy yesterday and I need to go to the Mall anyway to restock. Might as well get styled while I’m there.

My last thing that I did today was deal with some retirement account stuff. I always get nervous when I call there because they ask about 50 security questions so I feel like they’re trying to trick me. And then when I put stuff into funds they say things like, “One you do this it can never be changed or undone even if flying monkeys conquer the earth in the next 24 hours and there might be some fees and we will send you a blizzard of emails and snail mails regarding this transaction until you worry that something is wrong. Do you want me to go ahead with the transfer?” Today I said: Go for it.

Possibly my favorite photo of me ever taken: I’m holding Uncle Barry’s hunting pistol which I’ve just used to ruin that chair. I’m wearing my Clarion West t-shirt and you can see my notebook and pen in my pocket. Writing research! I’ve written a couple of stories that concerned guns and I know nothing about them. OR, I knew nothing about them. I got to shoot a bunch of different guns on the trip. It was really fun. My main note was: guns are loud.

We’re back!

And we had a fabulous trip.

Hopefully I’ll write more and post about it later. I have some notes but I can’t find them right now. My entire life seems to consist of things I intend to do later.

Short version: we swam and visited with fun people. We ate lots of stuff. We went for long walks, many of them involving steep hills. We went to parties. Really great trip.

I intended to write a long post about it today but somehow never got around to it. We took today off because it’s our 13 year anniversary.

I intended to post a new wedding photo but I don’t know where the photos are and the scanner is put away. This is the photo I posted at our ten year.

Today we slept in and then went out to breakfast for crepes. I had the Nutella and bananas which was fantastic and also my sugar allowance for about 3 months. I felt fantastic and talked really fast for a couple of hours and then crashed pretty hard. We did our grocery shopping and then in the afternoon I made green sauce using the tomatillo stash from the yard.

I also peeled and sliced up all the cucumbers for a salad I never finished.

This evening we went out to an event with the Vancouver Chamber of Commerce. We walked over there and tried out foods and wines and had a really fun time.

I think I’ve written before that I have some issues with anxiety when I drive. It’s hard to explain. The anxiety doesn’t follow any particular rules and it’s not every time I get in the car. Generally it has to do with unfamiliar places.

Someone suggested GPS and I was telling my mother-in-law this along with a story about going to this place that was way out bumfark Oregon that I didn’t know and trying to find my way home in the dark. She showed up a few days later at the house with a GPS. (Isn’t that thoughtful? She also makes delicious cookies.)

I’m still getting used to it. The first time I took it when I already knew where I was going just to hear how it worked. Then I used it again this weekend when I was truly and completely clueless where to go.

I don’t think GPS is going to save me.

Partly because even though I understand it’s a machine, it still feels like a person. I was first using the lady’s voice. This was when I already knew where I was going. I didn’t like the route she was trying to get me to use and was going my regular way. Every time she said, “recalculating” I felt like she was judging me. And I swear she was getting sort-of shrill, “Turn left, turn left, TURN LEFT.”

“I’m not going that way,” I told her.

I changed it to the Australian man voice so the GPS is now named Hugh (Jackman). This weekend I had to navigate around this major freeway re-paving that cut off the main route to where I was going. There was no way to explain this to Hugh and he kept trying to re-route me back to the place I was avoiding and then after awhile he just shut up, like he was mad that I didn’t follow his suggestions.

And he tells me, “In .3 miles turn left on ramp.” I know fukall what .3 miles is. I need him to tell me, “Get in the left lane right now. Not the far right lane. The outside left lane.” But later he took me down some bizarre back alley and then my destination was right there. So he helped but there was still anxiety.

I’m headed for the hills and will be offline for about a week. Photos of adventures when I return.