You're Doing It Wrong

There are certain foods I rarely buy because if they are in the house I will eat nothing else. Chips is one although we’ve had them around lately. Now that I’ve started this I’m drawing a complete blank. Generally I’m talking about certain junk foods that are delicious and also have that magic ingredient where you can’t stop shoving it into your mouth.

Several weeks ago we were doing our thing wandering through the grocery aisles and filling our cart when I spotted something I’d never seen before. It was Klondike Bar flavors. There was Heath Bar, Caramel & Pretzel, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. A bunch of yummy choices. (Klondike should be ashamed that Wikipedia is more informative on Klondike bars than their own site.)

I spied the Caramel & Pretzel and I did something that I do every once in awhile that I think is hilarious. I grabbed a pack and ran down the aisle waving it at Bob while hollering, “Dad! Can we get this?” This never gets old. Then he goes through the motion of looking at it and saying, “Sure. I don’t care.”

And this is funny because he does this to me now and then, asks me if it’s okay to get something. And I say, “Dude, you have money, a car, you know where the store is. You can get whatever you want.” It’s like a holdover from childhood, asking for permission to get something you want at the grocery store.

When I showed him the Klondike Bars he sort-of made a face like, “Look what crazy things she finds.”

I had to chuckle when I dug around the freezer to try one and two were already gone. The caramel and pretzel is in the chocolate coating and was really delicious. We tried the Reese’s too. But I said we had to stop buying them because basically I was hoovering my dinner in two minutes then running to the freezer to get my dessert. Also there was some bickering in the form of “You already ate yours. These are mine.”

Here’s another 70’s classic photo of me making my boat face. One of these days we’re going to have a whole photo page of Pam Boat Face. I hate being on boats and make this pained face like I’m trying to be a good sport but all I really want is to not be on the boat.

Bob has the most classic Pam boat face photo series of all time. I’ve probably written about this before. We were on this tour with my Auntie in northern Germany and I think we took a ferry from somewhere in Denmark to somewhere in Germany. We got on the boat and entered this hot, cramped little room where people were eating fried foods and SMOKING. I’m making boat face right now just thinking about it. It was cold and windy and I think even raining and I said I’d be standing on the deck and that’s where I remained for the entire ride. Bob has a photo of me jumping off the ferry and I look like I just won the lottery.

Last night I made gumbo which was fantastic but gave us both indigestion. I swear, we aren’t far from the day when we both eat a few spoonfuls of broth before we go to bed because everything fancy seems to gurgle the innards in the night. I got up and had a little ginger tea and my stomach settled right away. Then I couldn’t sleep for 3 hours and woke up every hour after that. I woke up feeling like I had a 3 star hangover with none of the fun to earn it.

I hung out with the Hobbit this afternoon while his Mom and Dad went to see The Golden Compass. When I got home I worked on my holiday newsletter which put me in a cranky mood. I’m still a C- on the Adobe skills. Also my firelog won’t light. Do those go bad? Is that why it was only $16 a box? I really didn’t want to spend my evening babysitting the firelog.

This is me and my cousin Lisa tubing on the Klamath River in the 70’s.

I decided tomorrow is going to be a no computer day. I actually have a ton of computer projects going but I need to give my neck, mouse arm and eyeballs a break.

Then I can get my Christmas stuff organized and maybe do some wrapping and list-checking.

Plus I have tons of cooking projects going although I decided to push the tamales back until next weekend. I’m making gumbo and I need to replenish my granola. I ran out of homemade granola and have been making do with store bought and yukola-dola. Too sweet and not close as yummy. I bought huge bags of nuts and raisins and oats and sadly, sweetened coconut because the only place I’ve ever seen unsweetened is Bob’s Red Mill and we haven’t managed to get out there yet and doesn’t look like it is going to happen any time soon. I’m also baking cookies (right now) and I need to process the rest of the pumpkin. I also might throw in a loaf of bread.

An afternoon of kitchen and Christmas stuff sounds perfect about now.

This morning I did a major Trader Joe’s run plus hit Freddie’s and Target. And I did it all in less than 3 hours door-to-door. How come that isn’t an Olympic sport? But I was on a tight schedule because I had to be at the theater for The Golden Compass at Noon. I love, love, love the books and I’ve been so excited about this movie. For fans it’s a must see but if you’ve never heard of the books, I predict you’d be bored and confused. Too many characters and plots going on to easily translate into a movie. When you check out the cast list — it’s amazing but most of those people have about 3 lines. It looks really cool and I loved the daemons and Iorek Byrnison is probably one of my top ten fictional characters of all time and the minute he showed up I was on the edge of my seat. I give it a solid 8 for fans.

There was a trailer for a Will Farrell movie with basketball in the 70’s (?) that looks hilarious. WF movie trailers always seem to be funnier than the movies but I almost had tears coming out of my eyes for the trailer so I bet the movie is good. There was also a trailer for Speed Racer and by all rights I should be slathering over this and I think it looks stupid. Well, it looks interesting but in an eye-candy-video-game-crazy way not I-want-to-sit-and-watch-these-bright-twirling-colors way. The interactions between the characters look stupid. “I want to change the world with my car racing.” Are you kidding me? I want to change the world with my pumpkin growing and I’m a speed demon in Trader Joe’s. Where’s my movie?

This was supposed to be my quick and easy post and it’s taking me forever to gather URLs so I’m going to go with what I have.

The more time I spend with Flickr the more I love it. It’s a great reference tool and a great place to get lost checking out photos of places I’ve been or places I want to go, or places I’d never go. (Aside: last night we watched the Iconoclasts with Jon Krakauer and Sean Penn and they talked a bit about Into Thin Air and I leaned over to Bob and said, “You know what I’m never going to do? Climb Mt. Everest.“)

My Flickr photos are here and not terribly exciting. Mostly photos of pumpkins, dahlias, Orleans and Portland/Vancouver.

But here are some fun photos I’ve found lately.

I read an article about all the bald eagles in Homer, Alaska. Punched it into the Flickr search engine and found these fabulous eagle photos. Awhile back I wrote a blog post that mentioned the neighborhood I lived in when I was a wee child. Just for kicks I put “Encino Village” into the Flickr search engine and found these. This week I wanted to see if there were any photos of the interstate highway where it’s shut down in Chehalis, about 80 miles north of here. The Oregonian has a photostream that is unbelievable. It goes way beyond the highway flooding. Amazing and heart-breaking photos of local storm damage and the people who are dealing with it.

My Dad was born in Hamburg, Germany and said there was flooding there not long ago. I found and subscribed to Hamburg Harbor group.

Also last week I saw a photo of a crane that fell over the Interstate in L.A. and found out that LA Fire Department has a photostream.

Now that you’ve looked at car wrecks, you can refresh your eyeballs with some photos from the Portland photostream. I subscribed to this for awhile and loved it because it was like a visual check on the city every day. But it’s high volume and got to be too much.

The following quote is in today’s New York Times Food Section, “Eating an entrée is too many bites of one thing, and it’s boring.” It is attributed to a chef in an article that argues that the entrée is on its way out as the centerpiece of an American restaurant meal.

This is so stupid I can’t even form a response.

Before I get started, look what the person I’ve been married to for 11+ years wrote on his blog.

“Typically, my tastes are more towards hard bop than the free yangy stuff. In most circumstances, I’ll pick out George Coleman and Harold Mabern before innovative saints like Ornette or Albert Ayler or even Rollins and Coltrane.”

I don’t even know what that means.

***

It’s hard to feel good about how I look in winter.

My hair gets out in the damp and turns into Sideshow Bob. My skin isn’t great to begin with but now it’s washed-out gray and blemish-city. I had one of those giant volcanic under-the-skin red zits on my chin over the weekend that erupted under a mole which made the entire lower half of my face look like a potato. And not in a good way.

Then there’s the holiday overeating and the giant layers of clothes so I feel like I’m waddling around like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other day and thought, “Honey, you could pass for ten years older.”

This morning I woke up at 3am fretting about getting to work. Today is driving day.

We’re in the middle of a wet and windy storm. I don’t think it’s stopped raining since Saturday and not the usual PACNW gray mist rain but plinking on the roof and forming a wading pool at the end of the driveway rain.

As I lay there in the dark, listening to the wind whip the rain against the window I tried to figure out the best strategy. My coat keeps my top dry but usually from the knees down I get at least a little damp and I didn’t want to start my day with wet feet.

I thought maybe I’d wear jeans and old shoes and bring a separate bag with work pants and dry shoes and socks and then change when I got here.

Then I tried to imagine myself walking from the parking lot to the office in the dark and pouring rain carrying my purse and my lunch and my bag of dry clothes. I decided, screw it. My health, safety and convenience is worth $12 today. I parked in the building. I also have a giant package ready for mailing and wasn’t sure how I was going to transport that so parking close today solved another problem.

Police motorcycles line up outside the courthouse.

The best advent calendar, ever.

Rain outside the office.

I can’t imagine actually putting this check in the bank. I like it sitting here. Of course it’s already spent so I’m going to have to break down one of these days.

I never dealt with my technology issues. I’m bumbling along with the same hosting. Mostly I wasn’t in the mood to deal with it plus it’s paid for until June and I’m sure there’s fine print somewhere about getting any money back. It would be like buying a new car because you didn’t want to fix a flat tire. But I expect I will be in the market for a new host next year. Or the next time I’m mad at the current deal.

My beloved Tribe who sent me my absentee ballot on the Friday before the Monday it was due in the tribal office managed to send me a birthday card one full month before my birthday. Yay. Today Siskiyou and Humboldt counties. Tomorrow: the world.

Bob and I planned to go to Bob’s Red Mill this morning because last time that was on the agenda I ended up being laid up with the Lindsay Lohan flu. This morning there were snowflakes. The weather report said the storm was here. We went back and forth and decided it was stupid to drive to the other end of town when the weather was acting up. I managed to avoid crossing the river again.

We’ve spent the entire day puttering around the house and I’ve been doing computer projects all day and my massage person would strangle me if she saw what I did to my neck today.

I pulled up a nice reminder of summer earlier this week and then had technology problems and swore at the webhosting but now I can make it work.

This post sounds like it was typed by a crazy person. Sorry.

I was going to do a NaBlo wrap up but I don’t have much to say. I thought it was harder to discover new blogs and while I did have lots of new commenters, I didn’t notice any uptick in traffic. I added about a dozen new blogs during October when I was checking out the groups on ning and I love them all and they’re all staying for now.

I’m going to deal with my hosting later today and figured I’d better post now because if there’s any sort of snafu who knows when I’ll get this working again.

Yesterday one of my nerd news feeds said that The Golden Compass was going to be sneaking into theaters a week early and I could possibly see it today. I was lying in bed awake at 4:30a (because why would my body let me sleep-in on a day when I could?) and heard the newspaper thump on the front doorstep and the first thing I thought was: wonder what time Golden Compass is playing.

(Aside: I just pulled up the cast list on imdb.com and Ian McKellen plays the voice of Iorek Byrnison. Lord of the Rings. X-Men. Da Vinci Code. What hasn’t this man been in?)

Turns out it’s only on two screens and they are both on the other side of the river and on the outer reaches of town. After this week I dread the thought of getting into the car. I’m not even going to do a Trader Joe’s run and my wine supply is dangerously low. Although I would do it for GC if it was the theater that’s 5 minutes from here.