You're Doing It Wrong

I forgot to set the DVR to tape soccer today. Greece v. Spain and Russia v. Sweden. Which game would I have picked? Doesn’t matter because I don’t have time to watch soccer tonight. I’ll get my fix from the highlights show.

I’ve been loading up on extra underwear in the hopes of getting as much time as possible between loads of laundry at the workshop. I am greatly looking forward to doing not-so-much laundry. I like my underwear cheap but not too ugly and usually do pretty well at Nordstrom Rack but this time the selection seemed weighted heavily on the boy-shorts style which in my limited experience is the ride-up-your-ass style and I didn’t want those. I grabbed a few pairs in girl style.

Yesterday I did a Target run and decided to pick up a couple more pairs. I grabbed what I identified as my size and later, when I got them out of the package I started laughing because they were the smallest underwear I’ve ever seen. Barbie underwear. The package said they looked small but promised to fit. We’ll see.

Yesterday I made it through one entire soccer game for the first time since last week. Germany v. Austria. Good, with weird moments, game.

I probably won’t get through another game before I leave. Too many things to do and last minute errands to run. Although two great games tomorrow. Tempting …

Last night was my last yoga class before I leave and I did a bad headstand and now my neck is ruined. I woke up in the middle of the night with a stiff ache when I tried to roll over. Fabulous timing.

There was a thing in today’s paper that said Friday is Bring Your Dog to Work Day. Is this a national thing or just Portland? I have to say, I think this is dopey. What possible purpose could there be for bringing your dog to work?

I updated the garden photoset. I’ll probably post a couple more before I go. The only thing I’m going to get out of it is baby turnips. Nothing else is close. Also I’m worried about the pumpkins because every single one I put in the ground: slugs snacked on the stems and they don’t look very healthy. We’ll see. Meanwhile, this resulted in aggressive use of slug bait. Do not mess with my pumpkins.

What’s the deal with Doctor Who this season? There’s hasn’t been one episode that I thought was great. (Unlike, say, Battlestar Galactica which peels my face off every time.) I hate the new companion. I’ve really tried to like her but she’s annoying and completely charmless. It’s really bumming me out. The one with the daughter who looks like Veronica Mars was especially wretched.

The renter(s) next door moved out a week or two ago. I’ve mentioned them a few times. They never bothered us but at one point there were at least 4 possibly 5 20-ish young people living there in addition to the grown-ups and this is an absurdly tiny house for so many adults. Every person had a car and there was lots of coming and going plus one of them had a snarly dog. But they weren’t noisy and didn’t render fat in the backyard and the grown-ups were friendly. Nothing to complain about. However, I did wonder if the landlord knew about all those people living there but at one point the man came over and asked me about his son’s car for sale in front of our house and did it bother me because other neighbors had called and complained to the landlords. He had a long sob story and I felt bad if the neighbors were giving him a hard time.

At some point he left and then most of the young people left and then I saw the woman moving out and went over to say good-bye and she had a long sob story and I felt bad that she was having a hard time.

The home owners live out of town and one of them came up to check out the house. They called us because we have this shared hedge that was growing out of control and Bob talked to him and turns out they had no idea any of those people lived there except the woman. They also left the garage filled with trash.

Now thinking back on those conversations with the people that lived there, I’m guessing they were practicing their stories on me.

Before Bob and I were serious (we married in 96), I planned a trip to Germany by myself to visit my family. When we got together, one of the first things I told him was that I already had this trip planned and I hoped he wouldn’t object. Of course he didn’t.

I was looking for a backpack and we went to the Oregon State Fair and found this one. It was more expensive than one you’d find at the sporting goods store. But we bought it from the actual guy who made it and it was sturdy and had interesting artwork which if you can’t tell: it’s a Pacific Northwest Indian design on the top and hieroglyphics on the bottom.

This pack has been to Europe at least 4 times. It’s been to New York, Las Vegas, High Sierra Music Festival, Reno, Seattle, Albuquerque and every single plane trip I’ve taken since I bought it. It’s carried my crap to work, to Orleans. A backpack has never better served its owner.

It’s finally been showing some wear and the interior lining has been peeling off. Finally, in the Boise airport this week, the main zipper died.

Good bye great backpack.

In other news, I still haven’t finished anything but I’ve started a lot. Also, those cookies I made last night turned out to be “watch your dental work cookies.” But everyone liked them.

Bob and I recently borrowed some money from a national lending institution. Before they gave us the loan we both had to provide all our information about our incomes and so forth and we both had to sign all the papers stating that we would be responsible for repaying the loan.

You can imagine my irritation when we received a survey about how satisfied we were with the loan process, addressed only to my husband. And in my usual award-winning way, I wrote exactly how I felt about that on the survey form.

Boy, won’t I be embarrassed if I receive another survey form today addressed only to me.

I arrived in Idaho this morning for a 2 day conference thing. Ideally Monday would have been a travel day except I didn’t want to miss a yoga class or take any more time away from the office and there’s a 6am flight from Portland to Boise which seemed ideal at the time and I suppose it was except for the part when my alarm went off at 4am. I am a total morning person and even I thought that was gruesome.

Plus sitting in a conference when you’re already tired is not an easy feat. I was very tempted to live-blog it because I could have made it very funny but unfortunately, it’s not cool to publicly make fun of work. I’ve done this conference before and let’s just say this time was unusually action-packed.

I did something I’ve never done before and I went out and had adventures. Usually when I travel for work, I’m the person sitting in my hotel room eating an apple and watching TV. Co-worker travels to Boise more frequently and said I should try to find the Basque blocks.

The gals at the hotel front desk said that there was a great greenway for walking and if I turned right I’d be on my way downtown. I set off with great optimism. I did grab my raincoat because it was grey, windy and spitting.

I walked for about 40 minutes and didn’t see anything that seemed like downtown. This tunnel said Main Street which sounded promising. And about every mile the greenway had a map and I thought I was gradually making my way toward something. But I was worried about getting lost and also worried about how safe the greenway was. The women at the hotel didn’t hint that I should be cautious but it was pretty isolated and there were a couple people that felt faintly sketchy.

I finally seemed to be making progress and I decided to screw it and keep going. I could take a cab back to the hotel. Once I knew I had a ride I didn’t have to be so concerned about where I ended up. The deeper I got into downtown the better it seemed.

Co-worker talked to me on the cellphone until I found the Basque blocks and the restaurant. This is something I never do: go to a nice restaurant by myself.

I put myself in the hands of the very capable and friendly staff and had a fabulous meal. Took a cab home and now I’m ready for bed.

Guess what started today?

If you guessed the UEFA European Football Championship, you are right.

Sadly, I don’t have time to really “get into” the tournament this year not to mention I’ll be in Seattle during the finals which means if either of my sweetheart teams: Germany or Spain is in the finals, I’m going to have to take dire measures to see the game.

I taped the tournament pre-show and one of today’s games plus one game tomorrow (Germany v. Poland, obvious) and added the daily highlight show to my DVR subscriptions. Also during today’s game they mentioned that there is a friendly between Argentina and the U.S. tomorrow which I also taped even though the idea of having time to watch two complete games tomorrow is out of the question. I still haven’t seen Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica yet. Plus we have to do some household errands and we’re invited to a house-warming. And I have to finish my story.

It’s hard to be me. I’m going to set my alarm for tomorrow and get up early.

I’m working on a writing project for the writer’s meeting next weekend and since I’ve organized my time poorly PLUS been side-tracked by other obligations, I’m in a crunch so I held today’s game over my head as a big, juicy carrot on a stick to keep me on task. As it turns out, my story is about soccer so my entire day was immersed in soccer. But as usual, it took me way longer than expected just to get the first draft ground out so I didn’t give up until 6pm. That means I spent most of the day chained to the computer and didn’t work on any of the other things I need to do. Oh. Well.

A few brief notes about Euro Cup. The super-annoying Dave O’Brien is not involved. D’oh! I guess he doesn’t get out of bed for any soccer that doesn’t involve the U.S. No problem Dave — you do what you do best which I’m sure has nothing to do with soccer.

Instead we’ve got my favorite commentators ever: Adrian Healy and Tommy Smyth and some new guy named Andy Gray, who is new to me but has a colorful history in sports and looking at that bio, his personal life as well.

ESPN classic is airing the games live. Maybe my recollection is hazy but I don’t recall ever having the Euro Cup live and free on cable. It is obvious that the ad-selling team had a great start with a killer VW ad and another hilarious Honda Pilot ad. Car ads have got to be great coin. But at some point they must have lost steam leading to some desperate sales including something called FungiNail which the commercials tells me “women have trusted for years.” Really? So, men don’t get nail fungus? I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I learned from the ad.

There was also an ad for something called a Grill Daddy which is basically a grill brush with something inside that squirts water. So basically you can squirt some water on your grill and use a brush OR you can have it all in one handy device with the Grill Daddy. Be sure to tell them pamrentz.com sent you.

The game today was awesome. Portugal v. Turkey. I already knew Portugal was a bunch of hotties (hi Nuno Gomes!) but who knew that Turkey fit the bill, too? My favorite Turkish player is named Kazim Kazim. Hm, Wikipedia says his name is Colin Kazim-Richards. I don’t care. Kazim Kazim is one of the best names ever and Turkey lost so not like exaggerating his name gave the team an advantage. There were some slow moments but lots of highlights in this game. The first goal, by a guy named Pepe (see why soccer is so great?) was a particular classic making me wonder once again how anyone can think soccer is boring.