You're Doing It Wrong

Welcome to the Broiler
This is the scene outside right now. Every time I go into the kitchen I can see it’s gone up another notch so now I’m avoiding going in there. Yesterday was supposed to be the horrible day and today hot but not horrible. It’s hotter today than yesterday. I guess the weatherman lied so as not to totally demoralize us. All the poor little plants that have been shivering out in the yard are now burned to a crisp. But then by Tuesday, 55 degrees and raining again. Oh Mother Nature: how may we appease you?

Lucy For A Day
If I could ever live the life of a fictional character, without hesitation, my answer would be Lucy Pevensie. I’m an ancient old lady and I love her stories as much now as I did the first time I read them.

Yesterday, I went to see Prince Caspian. I expected the world to be filled with nerds rushing to see it so I made sure to get there early. Then I did a gymnastics routine in the lobby of the empty theater so the popcorn clerk would have something to look at. More people came in closer to show time including the lady with nice talking child who sat right behind me. Interesting all-ages crowd, starting with some very young kids and up to older people of retirement age.

The movie was fabulous. I loved it. Ten minutes in I was hugging my knees, thinking, “Omigod, I can’t wait to see it again.” At one point the High King was fighting in chain mail while Prince Hottie was running around in leather pants. I was just wishing every day for the rest of my life could be exactly like that moment.

**Warning: small spoilers ahead … but it’s only the 2nd book in the series so you can probably guess that everyone isn’t going to die.**

Having said all that, it was a teeny bit like diet Lord of the Rings. And I love Lord of the Rings like nobody’s business but the Battle of Helm’s Deep is my favorite nerd battle of all time (even beating out many prime Star Wars battles like Yavin IV and that really sad one that makes me cry every time in Revenge of the Sith where they kill all the Jedi) and the big battle in this story felt very Helm’s Deep-y. I loved it once. I love it again. But I at one point (LOTR II spoiler ahead) I fully expected to see Gandalf galloping in to save the day. And it sorta happened except that instead of Gandalf we had Aslan and instead of the Riders of the Rohirrim people it was Ents. Oops. I mean, the trees.

Have I ever mentioned that the Ents are my favorite characters in all literature?

I recommend the movie. Another one of my favorite characters of all time is Reepicheep who I’d totally forgotten appears in this story and makes an incredible entrance. One Million Stars for Narnia lovers. Probably less than that for non-Narnians.

I Can’t Wait to Stay Home
I’m having a hard time playing with others lately. I got into a thing with my eye doctor’s office and the charmless, witless staff that run the place. This morning I got into a thing with a surly young person at the farmer’s market over some tomatoes. If I tell you the story it will only be to make me look good and right and them wrong and stupid and I don’t know what’s stopping me but I’ll let it go and we can all try to be better human beings from this day forward.

Meanwhile, Bob told me that there’s an Obama rally tomorrow at Waterfront park and he might go check it out. Then later he told me the Decemberists will be playing.

“Sounds like it will be nuts,” I said. “I can’t wait to stay home.”

This is part one of my filing at the office. There are four more piles almost equal to this on a table behind the photographer.

I have confidence that some day, maybe this weekend, I will come up with a decent post.

After another long busy week, today is a major goof-off day. I’m going to have a massage and then I’m going to see the new Narnia movie.

Someone Else’s Bad News
I’m apparently trapped in some sort of time warp since I’ve been on the wrong date since Saturday. On Monday there was a moment where I had to whack my head against the desk trying to clarify which day we were on. Usually on Mondays I have it together.

I just got back from the restroom and noticed I have terrible VPL today. (There’s a giant mirror in there.) I’m celebrating by finishing off this box of Wheat Thins (Big).

A couple of weeks ago (at home) we received some mail addressed to 2 names we’ve never heard of but with our address hand written on the envelope. It was from a property management company and the best I could tell without opening it, it was an eviction notice. I assumed they’d written the address wrong and marked return to sender.

I didn’t think too much about it except last week we got a piece of mail addressed to someone else (I don’t know if it’s the same person because I didn’t pay attention the first time) and from what I could tell by shaking it around and trying to see in that window on the front, it was about a returned check. There was a return address but no business name. Maybe the bank? I made a note of the name this time before returning to sender.

It’s hard to imagine the two items aren’t related and I’m wondering if this is the beginning of some sort of pain in the ass for us or just a random data misfire.

This is a plant that’s in the backyard. It’s ugly all year round except for a few weeks in the spring.

The spring around here has been pretty bad. 50 degrees and rain. I’ve been whining that we weren’t going to get any of those gorgeous 75 degree days where you walk around hugging yourself and wiping tears from your eyes because you feel so fortunate to live in such a gorgeous place. I cried that we’d go from 50 to 90.

You know what? It was 50 today and raining and the weather people say it’s going to be 90 on Friday. I bet about 5000% humidity, too.

A couple years ago for Administrative Professional’s Day (Whatever. If you type “Administrative Assistant” into Wikipedia’s search engine you get shuffled right in to Secretary. Thanks, Wikipedia. Why not shuffle woman into “domestic slave,” too.) colleague gave me a plant which I later planted in my yard. I’m not a plant expert but whatever this is, a bulb or rhizome or something, it keeps spreading. It used to be 3 little stalks and now there’s almost a dozen and they’re about two feet tall.

How Long Have I Lived in the PAC NW?
This morning, as I was getting ready to head out the door, I asked Bob if it was supposed to rain today. “Partly cloudy,” he announced after he checked the paper. So I jumped in the car without my raincoat thinking how tricky I was. In the 4 seconds it took to pull the car out of the garage, it started drizzling. D’oh! I have lived here long enough that I realized immediately what a moron I was and ran back in for the coat. A good hard rain the entire drive in.

Another Time Warp Sunday

There is a fabulous article about my absolute heroine Lynda Barry in the NYT today. She’s a writer/artist/cartoonist, in case you’re wondering. Here’s her bio if you’re interested. (I did not know she dated Ira Glass.)

I can’t wait to get my hands on her book which I need like I need a hole in my head. For every book I read, I put three more in the pile. Even worse, I BUY three more for the pile. Today I was looking for something on Bob’s shelf. I didn’t find it but I did find a Flannery O’Connor paperback which includes Wise Blood which I’ve never read so I optimistically put in my to-read pile as if I would get to it anytime soon.

As usual, the day flew by and I feel like I barely made a scratch in all the things I wanted to do.

Here’s the birdfeeder that remains birdless. I saw a hummingbird yesterday on the complete other side of the yard. I might move the feeder but then I can’t see it from the window. I could also put up a sign. “Food over there birds.”

My Mom gave me this cute apron made by Marble Mountain Bedding. I never wear it because it’s too pretty to get gunked up with kitchen grease. The crafter herself told me to get over it because it was washable and last night I put it on and had Bob take a photo.

Tomorrow I think I’ll have time to answer email and catch up on blog reading and all my neglected chores.

Filled With Delicious Sugar Water
A couple of weekends ago during one of the 15 minute warm spells we’ve had I saw hummingbird try to feed at our red barbecue. I decided to we needed a hummingbird feeder and the next time I was at Fred Meyer I went to grab one and turns out there are about 25 different kinds in all shapes and sizes.

I decided to skip the traditional clear plastic thing with a red top and red feeding flowers at the bottom and buy this pretty lavender shaped glass dome with glass feeding flowers. I’ll take a picture this weekend.

I suspect everything on the box is a lie. It said it was hand-blown eco-glass (?) and it came wrapped up in a giant piece of Styrofoam bigger than my head. It said it was easy to fill. It was not. It said it was guaranteed to attract hummingbirds and I’ve yet to see one.

The directions also said I’m supposed to clean the thing twice a week. We’ll see how that goes.

Two Tidbits

There is a fabulous article in the NYT today about urban farmers.

Over the past several days I’ve been getting phone calls from a family of Spanish speaking individuals who seem very disappointed that the person they’re looking for isn’t answering the phone. The reason I say family is because they’ve passed the phone around and I hear different voices speaking to me, which doesn’t change the fact that I don’t speak Spanish and cannot help them. I’m sorry they have the wrong number but I’m perplexed at why they keep talking to me when clearly I don’t understand. I eventually have to hang-up, after very politely saying again that I’m sorry and they have the wrong number and that I’m hanging up now.

Best Week Ever
It’s May 5 and I’m wearing open-toed shoes for the first time since October. Big day.

I knew I had a busy week coming up this month but didn’t clue in that it was here until I checked the calendar when I got to work this morning.

Besides slightly busier than normal work stuff, I have some sort of appointment or event every day up to and including Saturday. Friday is my usual catch-up day and that day I have two appointments and an event.

I better get busy.