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The One About Cheese
This morning as I stood in the dark, waiting for the bus, I had almost convinced myself that I didn’t hate it. Then there was a snafu getting on and a stoner kid sat on me. I’m not interested in elaborating on either story. But the net result was, I still hate it. Later the stoner kid, who was young and kinda cute in a Joseph Gordon-Levitt way, fell asleep on my shoulder. I pondered the inappropriateness of it but let it go. I mean, he’d already sat on me.

He woke up and was embarrassed and apologized. I told him he needed to go to bed earlier.

Last night we had about 10 new people at yoga. It’s unusual for that class to be packed to the rafters, except for the first two weeks in January, and it’s unusual for so many new people all on one night. We were chatting in the lobby and someone commented: “Wow, big class tonight,” and my teacher said, “Yeah, what the hell is going on in there?” I suggested that she make the class really hard and about halfway through when sweat was rolling down my sides and I was weeping while I tried to balance on what was left of my spaghetti legs, she came over to me and said, “How am I doing?”

Also my appetite is cracking me up because I feel like I’m hungry all the time and it’s always for something really specific: a tub of macaroni and cheese, a grilled cheese sandwich, a half-block of melted Tillamook with chips, crackers, pretzels or any other remotely similar product: English muffin bagel, heels of bread saved in the freezer for making croutons or bread crumbs. The magic ingredient is cheese.

A couple of weeks ago we were at a get together and someone was talking about how great Trader Joes Mac and Cheese is. She said they don’t have it anymore. I was at TJs and I spotted Mac and Cheese and grabbed a box. A man left his cart and hurried over to where I was standing and said, “I noticed you’ve got the Mac and Cheese. That’s the best Mac and Cheese I’ve ever had. We love it and they don’t always have it.” I went back for a second carton.

This weekend I decided to pop one into the microwave and you know how Homer Simpson eats like he’s shoveling in giant gobs of food as fast as he can? It was that good. Cheesy, buttery goodness. I made myself stop halfway through, whimpering. And saved the rest for Bob who agreed it was delicious. Now every time I’m hungry all I can think about is that Mac and Cheese.

We Haven’t Located Us Yet
On Saturday Bob took me to see The Darjeeling Limited. Wes Anderson is one of my favorite directors and I always look forward to his movies and make a big deal out of seeing them. Rushmore is my favorite.

Being a big fan, I loved it, but it’s not one of his stronger movies. I saw a review somewhere that said it was like a parody of a Wes Anderson movie and that’s not a bad description. There were a lot of really cool moments but I’m not sure the whole thing hung together.

I loved the characters. It was nice to see Adrien Brody in this role. I loved the setting and the train. Large chunks of the music were completely annoying. Loved the Bill Murray cameo. If you’ve liked other Wes Anderson movies, I’d say go for it.

Yay, the pumpkin crop is finally in. There’s one more out there that I’m hoping will make it. It’s still too yellow to bring in and I’m guessing the temptation will be too much for the bad kids on Halloween. But maybe they won’t notice it since it’s still attached to the ground and not sitting on my porch with a flashlight in it.

We’re giving some away and some I will enjoy looking at on my counter and at the end of the month I will butcher them for food. It’s tough being a pumpkin in this house.

I had another super busy weekend. Today was going to be my lazy day and the laziest part was the long walk Bob and I did this morning. I took a bunch of photos which I’m sure I won’t get around to putting up until I’m procrastinating on something else.

I think I found a coat. Not too long ago I thought it was a good thing that I could view clothes on a store’s webpage, that way when I got to the store, I’d have an idea of what they offer and what I want. Turns out this is a complete waste of time because then I have an idea in my mind what I want and the store never has that item. Or if it does, not in my size, or only in orange.

What are the chances of having a good retail experience downtown? I think about 25%. It’s like the store are smaller representations of the good stores they have out in the suburbs. Do I really want to get in my car and drive for an hour for a bigger selection? If you know me, you know the answer is no.

A number of years ago this was all a lot easier because at some point around 30-ish, I was resigned to being frumpy. I felt that I was destined to be frumpy, I’d embrace frumpy and that frumpy was a perfectly fine place to be. I bought clothes that were “good enough.” I liked cheap. If it fit, fine.

At some point in the last 10 years I had an experience which I think we can trace back to this trip to Las Vegas where the girls made me buy a Miracle Bra instead of the $8 Hanes sports bra I was used to and I was transformed. I’m really simplifying here but I haven’t put on a Birkenstock, since.

Now I do not want to look frumpy and I’m really picky about my clothes which is a huge pain in the butt for a person who likes to shop in a hurry.

So back to the coat. I have paper thin skin and I’m always cold and I have a long cold wait in the dark for the bus. I need a good coat. I went to the department store which was a complete waste of time and made me mad. So when I got back to the office I jumped around online and I found a coat that I thought would work. It’s cute, it’s in my budget, it’s waterproof with hermetically sealed titanium clasps and turbo-wicking under-carriage. I pretty much decided on it and then I noticed it’s good for -40°. I don’t know. Our most brutal cold weather usually hovers around freezing. We get some gruesome wind. It’s a damp cold. But -40° seems overkill. I can wear my bathing suit to work under my coat.

I think I’ve talked myself into it since -40° according to whom? I’m always cold. This may be the coat that I wear to bed at night. Now I have to find some -40° boots.

How To Keep A Lizard Warm in Winter
Yesterday morning I looked at the weather forecast as I was leaving the house and there was a possibility of rain in the evening. I actually considered leaving my raincoat at home. DOH!

I decided to bring it because I’ve learned that in this part of the world, “possibility of rain in the evening” means “possibility of rain in the next 5 minutes.” Sure enough, by 3pm there was a driving mist blowing through town. You’d be surprised by the damage a fast-moving, high-volume mist can cause.

The bus was late and it took awhile for Bob to pick me up when I got to our side of the river so I ended up standing outside in damp clothes/shoes for almost an hour.

At lunch today I’m going to buy myself an expedition weight floor length monsoon-proof parka and turbo-dry self-heating boots. I hate waiting to begin with. Waiting and being cold/damp is my kryptonite.

Kiss Me On The Bus
I’m feeling like everything’s on the brink of veering out of control. I have to keep taping notes to the wall and making lists to preserve the illusion that I’ve got it all reeled in. I think I’m mixing my metaphors, but whatever.

I know hearing about people’s dreams is super boring but last night I dreamed (dreamt?) that I bought a grocery store in another state. I met the sellers and wrote them a check. Then I realized I was an idiot because I didn’t even check the financial statements or work out a transition plan and now we owned a business and we had to move and what about Bob’s job? I was so happy when I woke up.

Yesterday I tried an alternate connector bus, just so I can experience the range of options. (Bus backstory here.) I’ve been impressed by how nice everybody is: drivers and passengers. Everybody says good morning and thank you and a couple times there were traffic jams and the bus would take some fancy detour and the riders would all tell the driver what a great job s/he did. I don’t have extensive experience with public transportation but I’m guessing it’s not always like this.

Yesterday, the alternate bus driver was scary. She had bleach-blonde hair and looked as if she’s smoked 400 cigarettes a day for the last 40 years. I knew the route but didn’t know where the stop was so I asked and she sorta jerked her chin down and growled, “Safeway.” The alternate bus runs more often but the stop is about a 20 minute walk from the house. I don’t mind walking but when the weather is horrendous, 20 minutes might as well be 20 hours. We’ll take it one day at a time.

Pour Some Sugar On Me
I think I already have a post with this title but that’s going to have to do. I’ve been busy loading up all my new friends into my Google Reader so I can spend the next 6 weeks reading blogs 24/7. I’m not complaining.

Last night was the Def Leppard Reunion movie and dinner. And it was fabulous. Jenny made cookies that everyone ate too many of and we had pizza and popcorn and we watched what is probably the best cheesy movie ever made. It was cheesy in a way that made you love it. Meredith’s review of the evening is here.

Just in case you’ve never heard of it, Hysteria! The Def Leppard Story is a movie about the band with actors, not a documentary. Anthony Michael Hall plays Mutt Lange. It’s set from the time the band gets together through the making of Hysteria. If you’re a fan of the band, you’d have fun watching it.

Incredible sunrise and looks like a gorgeous day for putting in 108 bulbs. Too bad I’m at work all day.

Where Does All The Time Go?

I can’t believe it’s already Noon on Sunday. I haven’t managed my time well this weekend at all. But I did some good reading.

Last night we watched The Wind That Shakes the Barley. It’s a great movie with great performances but it is a very hard movie. It’s set in 1920 and is about Ireland fighting for independence. Cillian Murphy is really good.

But it’s a long movie, it’s brutal and people have to make terrible, heart-breaking decisions. I don’t mind hard movies but I was not up for this last night and by the time it ended I was cranky and mad at the filmmaker. Plus my dinner disagreed with me and sipping ginger tea, my favorite remedy in such situations, wasn’t helping.

We had this red pepper something soup which tasted fabulous. Lick the bowl delicious. We were under the impression that it was vegan but I can’t imagine what you could put in vegan soup that would make it so rich so I’m guessing that “V” stood for vegetarian and it probably had heavy cream and butter in it. We’re not vegan or even vegetarian so that’s not an issue but if I had been paying better attention I wouldn’t have eaten so much.

I had trouble falling asleep and woke up in the night with more rumbly stomach and thrashed around a bit. Bob was dead asleep but I heard him say, “Just go back to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Very sweet.

This afternoon is the big Def Leppard Reunion get together for Hysteria! The Def Leppard Story. And I still haven’t had time to check the tape so I hope it’s functional or else we’ll have to fire up the turntable and dance to Pyromania, instead.

Cascading Chores
I’m having one of those days where every time I go into a different room, I see another thing I need to do. For example, I decided to bake some pumpkin scones so I went into the laundry room to the pantry annex to get a new bag of flour and while I was there I realized there was some laundry that needed to be folded and put away but first I needed to make the bed (because I fold and organize into piles on the bed) and on the way back to the bedroom, I remembered that I was starting to sort out some recipes to figure out what I want to cook in the near future and I went to pick those up and when I went into the living room, I saw a pile of magazines that I needed to finish looking at and then the tea kettle went off and I went to pour some tea and saw that I was making scones. Etc. You know how it goes.

My scones came out goofy and I think it was the butter. I didn’t use cold butter, I used butter that had been sitting on the counter for a bit and there’s some bake-ology science about cold v. room temperature butter and how they act in baking which I don’t know enough about to explain but enough to figure this was the problem. Also I used way too much pumpkin because the recipe called for 3/4 cup and I had about 1/2 cup leftover and it seemed stupid to save 1/2 cup of pumpkin so I threw it all in there.

They taste delicious which is the only thing that matters.

My pulled muscle in my back is still bothering me. It’s an icky pain, too. Sometimes it seems to seize up so that I get tears in my eyes. It bothered me so much yesterday I considered whether I should call my doctor’s office. The thing is, it’s limited to a specific area and I know it can’t be catastrophic since I can do a 90 minute intense yoga class and it doesn’t bother me. Pulling, carrying things or any sort of muscular left arm things bother it. What’s the doctor going to say? Keep off of it? Take Tylenol? Other than the possibility of better drugs, I can’t imagine what I would gain from a visit to the doctor.

I took fistfuls of over-the-counter remedies yesterday which didn’t seem to offer much relief. In real life I take about 5 pills a year. I’m not a big pill taker. I got a stomach-ache and finally read the directions and apparently you’re not supposed to take that many. I slept fine and it feels better today and by better I mean, it’s a mild annoyance with moments of eye-watering burning rather than the other way around. I’m going to assume I’m over the hump.

The Definition of Clusterf*#K
This morning I woke up at 5:30a and heard the rain pounding on the roof and knew the commute was going to be a pain in the butt. I left later than I normally would because I was driving to a friend’s. I was parking at his house and then I could go out after work and pick up my car at his house.

There was humongous gridlock trying to get on the freeway and I had a honker behind me. Dude, there are a million cars who all want to get on the freeway. What are you honking at?

It took 40 mins to get on freeway — it’s about 2 miles. Plus another 15 minutes to get over the bridge and through the bottleneck at Delta Park for a total of 1 hr 10 minutes to get to my friend’s about 8 miles away. I listened to How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb in its entirety.

I’m not good at gridlock. It makes my heart race. Especially when people are honking. I can feel years of my life shucking off as I sit there clutching the steering wheel. It’s not like I’m in a hurry to go. It’s like I’m absorbing the frustration of every car around me. That’s my super power.

There’s local radio show doing a “vote for the band you’d most like to see do a reunion.” The only catch is: you can only pick a band where everyone is alive. My choice is The Replacements. They lost Bob Stinson but played awhile with Slim Dunlap so I think I’m good.

But the #2 choice this morning was Oingo Boingo and they played “Only A Lad” which I cranked and it got me through a few miles in a happy buzz.

I saw Oingo one time at Westlake High School in 1980. Danny Elfman had them turn on house lights because kids were spitting on him. Suburban high school kids trying to be punks. We thought we were so cool doing the pogo. This was around the time Suburban Lawns, Romeo Void, and Missing Persons were playing the clubs. Ah, the good old days.

I see online that that show, the Westlake H.S. show is a bootleg and I have got to get my hands on that.

My 108 bulbs arrived and we’re scheduled for cold and rain all weekend. Hm. Wonder what I’ll do?