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105 Express to Downtown
I don’t have full update on the furnace/oil leak problem yet, but upon further investigation, it appears that things are not what they seem. I’m going to wait until I talk to the oil people before I issue an update.

Also, I haven’t been writing about my insomnia this week because that topic is even boring me but I’m operating on low sleep this week. Last night, about 45 minutes after I went to bed, my dear husband decided that it wasn’t a good idea for me to be sleeping in a thick cloud of heating fuel vapor so he woke me up. At first we were going to sleep in the basement with the windows open but after further discussion we decided to go to my mother-in-laws because at this point in our lives we can’t afford to kill any more brain cells and in a worse scenario, who wants to be the people who die in their beds because of their heating oil?

So at 10:30pm I put on a sweatshirt and slippers and grabbed my purse and off we went. Luckily her house is about 3 minutes away. But then I couldn’t get back to sleep and then I woke up at 3:30 and then the alarm went off at 5am so we could get back home with enough time to shower, etc. and now the bags under my eyes are dragging on the floor.

Here’s the deal with the bus. I am now taking the bus and I would love to tell you a whole back story on this but this isn’t the time or place. The express bus between Vancouver and Portland is awesome. It’s quick and easy, not crowded, nice people, nice drivers. The Portland stop is 1.5 blocks from my office. I have no problem with this method of commuting.

The problem is the bus between downtown Vancouver and my house. It runs about every 45 minutes. It also takes 45 minutes to walk that distance. I don’t mind walking at all except when it’s dark, raining and/or 40 degrees and that’s what it’s going to be for the next many months. The rain part, all the time. Forty-five minutes is a long time to wait for a bus, especially if the weather is crap or it’s dark. (In case you’re wondering: there’s no free parking near the Vancouver transit center and there is potentially neighborhood parking but still at least a 20 minute walk away.)

I’ve been trying it out this week. The afternoon bus connector bus is at 4:40 or 5:25. On Monday I left the office and took the 4:35 express bus. There wasn’t a speck of traffic and we rolled into Vancouver at 4:50. “Screw it,” I said. And I walked.

Yesterday I was record-breakingly productive at work and barely took 15 minutes for lunch so I decided to leave early and take the 4:05 express and there was a giant traffic jam and we pulled into Vancouver at 4:42. “Screw it,” I said. And I walked. It’s a nice work out so we’ll go with it while we can.

I only have to do it 3 days a week and Bob can pick me up on some days. I’m going to see if there’s another route that has a stop near my house where maybe I have to walk further from the bus stop but won’t have so much waiting.

Update: Our tank didn’t leak. It was overfilled. They’re coming out to deal with it. The funny part is that we didn’t know they were out there and since the fuel gauge was on empty, I assumed we had a leak. I guess the overfill somehow disconnected the gauge. That wasn’t the funny part, the funny part is that one of my pumpkins is growing in front of the fill pipe on the outside and when I got home I noticed it looked moved and I thought maybe some kids were messing around with it.

From the Even More Bad News Department
I don’t even have time to tell you about the bus debacle. Well, debacle is a slight exaggeration. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

But I pushed open the front door to the alarming smell of oil refinery.

“This can’t be good,” I thought.

My regular readers have been following along with our furnace issues. I wandered through the house violently sniffing until I got a little light-headed. About that time my cellphone went off and my dear husband wanted to know how the bus went.

“The house smells terrible,” I said.

While he was on the phone I went down to the basement and it smelled worse than upstairs. I couldn’t find a flashlight so I grabbed a box of matches.

Just kidding!

I ran back upstairs and found a flashlight and opened the oil tank closet and hey, the fuel indicator was on empty and there was an oily sheen on the floor. [insert numerous bad words of great creativity here.]

I turned off the furnace. At least it’s 62 degrees outside. For now.

On the bright side: at least the tank was already almost empty. Better cancel that oil delivery. Wonder what we’re in for now. Will EPA condemn us? Will we finally tap that home equity to get the whole thing fixed?

Stay tuned.

Tales from Portland Clinic
Yesterday I had a mammogram. It’s not my favorite but it’s better than a lot of things that can happen at the doctor’s office and I’m grateful I have preventative health care. Having said all that, it is a damn weird procedure.

Every time I do it, this is maybe the 4th time, I think about two things. One is what a bizarre job it must be to spend all day squeezing and flattening women’s breasts. I’m sure there are lots of men who would think: hey, sounds good to me. I wonder how many men even have that job. I’m sure legally it would be discrimination to refuse to hire a man to be a breast technician. They probably aren’t really called that. Mammogramographer? Radiologist? I don’t know. But I bet a lot of women would be uncomfortable having a strange man handling her breasts in such a personal way. I bet there are a lot of women who are uncomfortable having any stranger handling her breasts.

My second thought is that it seems like a fairly primitive process for our modern times. There you are standing with your arms wrapped around a machine, chin up, shoulder down, breath held and your boob flattened to its maximum flatness. (Sexy!). Can’t they come up with a better way?

I get my healthcare at an all purpose clinic in downtown Portland. There are a lot of old people coming into this clinic. As I sat in the waiting room, an elder couple got off the elevator and slowly wobbled to check-in. Don’t you worry when you see an elder couple and both of them can barely keep upright?

She had a cane and he walked very slowly and carried her purse. The receptionist told them to sit down and they ended up in the cluster of chairs where I was. The man stood there looking at the magazines, I guess trying to pick something to read before he sat down. The woman couldn’t get by to sit down so finally she turned around and tottered over to the reception desk. The receptionist asked if she need help and she said, “My husband is in my way so I’m going to sit over here,” and she went to the complete opposite side of the room to sit down.

The man sat near me and after a bit a nurse comes out and said, “Judith?” There’s a long pause and then she says it again. Finally the man says, “My wife can’t hear you. She’s over there.” The nurse tracks down Judith and bring her to the entrance. The man has managed to stand up and Judith says, “You don’t have to come in” and this is an order not a request. The man says, “Oh yes, I do.”

You know every night they probably stare at each other across the kitchen table wondering when the other will die.

Then a guy came in with one of those walkers that doubles as a seat (whoever invented that should have a giant ambulatory care center named after him or her) and wearing a hat that said World War II Veteran and singing “Strangers in the Night.” He came out of the elevator singing and the staff all said, “Hi, Leo.”

They took me back and when I got out of the changing room they asked me to wait until the boob-crush room was free. There were two chairs in a corner and Leo’s walker-seat was in front of both of them. The walker was draped with all kinds of bags of stuff and also had an American flag on it. I moved it a bit so I could sit down. The staff was trying to get Leo into a gown for whatever radiology procedure he needed. He had to come out and find his paperwork and when he saw me sitting there he asked if I liked music and when I said yes, he sang “What’s It All About, Alfie?” and then the radiologist wrangled him back to the exam room.

It was the best mammogram warm-up show ever.

Indigenous Peoples Day
I thought about linking to some inflammatory anti-Columbus Day stuff, but I’m not going to. I don’t have a problem with Columbus but I don’t understand why there is a federal holiday in his honor. And crediting him for “discovering” America is a stretch.

But today I’m focusing on positive things like how awesome it was to have my closet all turned over and re-organized for winter. Now I can easily find my closed-toe shoes, fuzzy sweaters and wool slacks. Now the weather is probably going surprise us with one last warm sunny streak and I’ll need to dig out the linen slacks again. *And I won’t complain a bit.*

People are already talking about NaBloPoMo which is National Blog Posting Month in November where you post every single day for a month. I did it last year and was the grand prize winner. It was a drawing, not like someone judged my posts. I think that might sound ungrateful but not my intention: it was awesome.

I decided not to participate this year. I loved all the extra traffic and comments and I loved reading so many other blogs and making new friends. However, I’ve got some other projects that I need to prioritize right now and I can’t afford to invest that much time hanging out on the Internet. Even as I’m typing this, I’m trying to talk myself into it. Something about the structure of having to do something every day appeals to my inner dictator. We’ll see. But probably not.

Goodnight Garden

I’ve been prioritizing some indoor projects and have missed a couple of sunbreaks that would have been good opportunities for some yardwork.

Bob and I went for a walk this morning under grey skies and blowing wind. When we got home I figured I’d better hop out there while I could. At least it wasn’t too cold.

I brought in the hoses and tidied up a bit in front. Then I pulled up what was left of the garden and dug my first big compost hole of the season. I usually dig 3 or 4 big holes in the garden and rake the leaves and apples and garden compost into it and cover it back up and next spring I’ll have the same rock-filled dirt I have every year. It’s an amazing process.

I always wonder what would happen if something weird happened in my neighborhood and the authorities came to my door: “Ma’am, Google-satellite indicates unusual digging activity in your yard. We have a warrant and are bringing in a backhoe. Then they’d dig up my apples and leaves and tiny green tomatoes and make a big mess.

I pruned up the dahlias. They are still bravely waving their colors in the driving rain and whipping winds. I also dug up some stuff that was finished. At Easter my mother-in-law gave me a pot of pretty purple tulips and I finally found a spot to put those in the ground. There’s plenty left to do out there but at least I’ve made a dent in it.

Now I’m so tired I can hardly see straight. At least I got my cardio in.

I realized I never ate anything so I’ve got some soup brewing on the stove and I’m going to make some tea and take a break and then I’ve got to get into the indoor stuff. I started organizing the closet this morning and I’m at the point where’s everything’s piled around on the bed. I have no choice, must take care of that before the day is over.

Next week I’m trying the bus fulltime. We’ll see how it goes.

Photo: Bug that was living on the barbeque.

A Pocket of Cellulite

We celebrated my cousin Jeff’s birthday on Thursday night. I took another series of my award winning photographs. This is the birthday man with his record player cake made by his lovely bride, Meredith. If you look closely, it goes to 11. We had yummy Mexican buffet and the cake was delicious and I enjoyed plenty of red wine, which will not surprise my three loyal readers. Meredith’s post on the festivities can be found here.


I did not have the best week of my life and Friday seemed to be going in the same direction. I won’t write out the whole gory story here but we had made an appointment to get a part replaced in our furnace and at about 8:15a we got a call telling us they couldn’t come out until the week after next. After a bit of back and forth, me not at my most kind and friendly, they made arrangements for someone to stop by and re-evaluate our situation and in the end they said it was fine to use our furnace with the broken part. We had warmth once again.

There were some other trivial frustrations and I didn’t help matters by taking on some extensive cooking projects. At one point, after a clumsy scooping maneuver with a giant spoon that sprayed casserole all over my range, I thought to myself: “Crap, when is something good going to happen to me?”

About 5 minutes later, something did.

During the summer I entered a fiction writing contest sponsored by Wordstock Portland’s big book fair. I got a notice that I made the top 10. My story will appear in a publication for the fair and they will announce 3 winners at the festival. Yay! I haven’t submitted anything recently, but I’ve been doing this writing thing for a long time and have never had even the tiniest smidge of recognition outside of teachers or writing group so you can imagine me bouncing off the walls for the rest of the evening.


Today we went to a wonderful brunch to celebrate my yoga friend Tonya’s 40th bday and afterward we went to the mall to see if we could find work clothes.

This is at least my fourth outing for work clothes and I can’t find anything that I like or that fits. Help!

Pam’s latest fashion tip: don’t bother with petites. There is never anything good in petites. I kept wandering around thinking: where are the cute clothes? And I really want wool because I’m half lizard and us reptiles get cold in the winter.

I found three pairs of pants to try on, different brands, all the same size on the label. One I couldn’t get over my knees. One I could zip, but it was so tight you could see the pocket of cellulite on my right thigh that looks sort of like Jesus eating a candied apple. The last pair, a higher price brand name, was totally baggy. I also tried on a sweater that was scratchy as if they were trying to make it uncomfortable. So aggravating.

Also, right outside the fitting room there was a TV playing football. “Why would they do this?” I could hear football as I was trying to relax and enjoy girl time and clothes trying on. As I left I saw a man sitting there watching the game. I stopped and looked at him and said: “OH! That’s why they have football playing here.” And he lifted his arms as if signaling a field goal. Classic.

One more thing: they had a couple racks of something called tummy tuck jeans that made me want to throw myself in front of train. Can you imagine strutting out in your jeans and someone saying, “Hey those are cute, what are those?” and you have to say: “My tummy tuck jeans.”

Pumpkin Shakes!

Yesterday was a monumentally crapola day. I don’t even know where to start or if its worth the bother. I’ve been mad about something that I’m not going to get into here but for three nights in a row it resulted in the thing where I wake up at 3am and can’t get back to sleep. And for reasons that I’m not going to explain right now I had to take the train to work yesterday and I hate the train.

The trip in wasn’t bad but the trip home was less than delightful and this smug patronizing jackass fare inspector was giving this woman a hard time about getting her ticket validated. It had nothing to do with me but he was such a jerk about it my blood was boiling. He moved on to a group of high school age kids and one of those kids didn’t have a validated ticket either. As officer fare inspector tried to fill out a ticket the kid couldn’t find his ID and couldn’t remember where he lived or what his phone number was. And he was very earnest about it. Meanwhile, his school mates took pictures and movies and cackled. One of the kids moved to sit across from me and he said, “I’m going to put this on Myspace.” It was awesome.

The moment the train dropped us off the sky opened up and raindrops with an individual water volume of a gallon each began dropping out of the sky. Of course I’m too cool to run but I did anyway and a bucket full dripped off my rain coat and into the front seat as I wrung out my bangs. Then it took a half hour to get on the freeway. I timed it. Okay, I exaggerate, it was 27 minutes from the time I got in my car at the train station until I was actually driving on the freeway.

(Quick explanation — the train doesn’t go across the river so I have to drive to the train station to the park and ride.)

But the day was about to wildly improve.

In the morning, as I got on the freeway, I passed Burgerville and the sign out front said: Fresh Pumpkin Milkshakes.

I’m too lazy to link right now but on this site my love of all things pumpkin has been well documented. I’ve also written about how I never eat fast food and consume, perhaps, one hamburger a year. But, I wanted one of those shakes.

I picked up Bob from work because he had walked to school and it was now raining about 6 feet a minute and his kayak is in the repair shop. I suggested a little burger love for dinner and he was on board immediately.

The pumpkin shake was FABULOUS. It tasted actual pumpkin-y and not too sweet but yummy spices. If you live near Burgerville, run out and have one. If not, I will go have one for you. The burger was yummy, too. AND we were done eating and all the refuse cleared away by 6pm. I can see the appeal of this fast food thing.

This morning I took the bus to work. I love my dear husband because he’s smart and has a great sense of humor and he gets me and even though there are domestic chores that he doesn’t care about or think are very important, he will still do them because he knows it makes me happy. But sometimes he makes it difficult not to kill him. At 5:30am as we staggered out of bed yawning he asked me what time I wanted to leave for the bus transit center. 7:00, I said.

At 6:55(!) I heard the shower downstairs go on. I had to double check because that did not seem possible. Nope. It was. Fortunately, he’s a boy so he can go shower to front door in 15 minutes plus I had the car running for him in the driveway.

Magical Laundry
More than once in the last 11+ years I’ve been married, I’ve told my husband I don’t mind doing a majority of the laundry but I don’t want to have to empty pockets, turn everything right-side out and dig around in his closet for hangers.

I ask you: if someone would do your laundry under those conditions, wouldn’t you do back flips for joy?

Just this past weekend I told him that after 11 years, I no longer hoped for any progress in this area.

Last night, for the second time in a week, I’ve pulled laundry out of the dryer and a $5 bill floated to the floor.

I figured it had to be magic.

I told Bob about it. I said, “I hope the bills get bigger.”

He looked a teeny bit sheepish and said, “I don’t think they will.”

Roots and Berries
Several weeks ago there was a story in the paper about this woman who was lost in the woods. I’m too lazy to look for the article so I’m re-telling the story from what I can remember.

It was a great story because she was in her 70’s and after a big search over several days they found nothing and gave up. Two guys on the rescue team, on their day off, decided to go out and look a bit more and found her and it was like 10 days later.

Her family was at home planning the memorial. When they called the husband, “We found your wife,” he said: “You mean her skeleton?”

She was in bad shape but last I read she was recovering.

But that’s not why I’m writing this. One of the rescuers or doctors or whatever made a statement that they weren’t sure what she survived on in the woods, maybe roots and berries.

Seriously, is there anyone outside of a trained outdoorsman who would recognize an edible root out in the woods? If you were out hiking and got hungry and turned out you left your Tanka Bar in the car and you thought, “man, some delicious roots would really hit the spot right now,” would have the first clue what to look for?

I don’t have any outdoor training but I’ve spent time a lot of time in the woods and other than wild onions which I’ve only seen in one very limited location (see photo) I wouldn’t know the first thing to eat. Even the berries part could be treacherous because I remember seeing some pretty red berries in the woods and my Grandpa told me he wouldn’t eat them because he didn’t see the birds eating them.

I just thought it was funny that the spokesperson thought this lady might have eaten roots.

Nothing to Post: Just Typing

This is a giant hole in the ground in the center of downtown that will someday be an improved public transportation hub. Right now it’s just a pain in the ass although I make it a point not to take my car anywhere near this area and do the pedestrian thing so it’s not really a pain in my ass.

It rained most of the weekend and most of the night which means standing water on the highway. It rained this morning as I left the house in the dark. So we’ve got dark, driving rain and standing water. What does that equal?

Crazy drivers.

Zipping and weaving between trucks. A van that needed to get from the onramp across three lanes to the fast lane, right now! I don’t know what you’d call it but where I get on the Morrison Bridge I have my own lane, I don’t have to merge. The people already on the bridge have a painted “divider” so they stay in their own lane where it meets mine and then have to change lanes if they want to get in my lane. This morning a guy (in a Subaru! Of course.) drove right over the divider because he wanted my lane and then had to swerve to miss me since (a) it was my lane and I was in it, and (b) the only place I could go is over the rail and into the water. Sheesh, people.

Update on Orhan Pamuk, Snow (further explanation here, books #27, #28 and #29): this was among my few goals for the weekend to finish this book. I only picked it up once, last night and I read one chapter. I also checked the page count and I’m not even halfway. Oof! Is this going to be another Fortress of Solitude? I’m not ready to quit yet. I think I can get through it, possibly practicing some speed reading techniques I learned on some cheesy website. I’m snickering as I write that because speed reading means I skim my eyes over the words with about 3% comprehension. Hannah’s going to send me a note and tell me to quit. I’m so ashamed.