You're Doing It Wrong

I did get the taxes done. I ran the numbers in February and when I saw that we owed, I put it away.

Since I came home from the trip with money it seemed a good time to square that away. The tax bill was less than I remember so that was nice. I guess.

I also finally cleaned the oven. Inhaling oven cleaner must have taken 10 years off my life. I had a terrible headache. But the oven looks great and as soon as I finished I went straight into the backyard since it wasn’t raining and puttered around the weeds.

By the time I came back in it was close to dinner time and I attempted to rally and get a bunch more photos prepared but I lost interest quickly and decided to watch that last episode of Lost waiting for me on the DVR.

I don’t know how anyone gets anything done. I crossed two things off the list (taxes, oven) but have added at least 10.

More trip tales to come. When? Who knows.

New York City Part I

Geez. Everything takes longer than you think. I’ve been working on this forever and this is only part 1 of who knows how many installments.

I’ve got the first round of photos up on Flickr. More to come.

Bob and I have a long list of places we’d like to visit and New York City comes up in every conversation. I can’t believe it took us this long to make it there.

For his 50th birthday he wanted to see the Allman Brothers at the Beacon theater and their NYC run happens during Spring Break so we had the perfect excuse to make the trip.

On Wednesday (3/21) we hopped on a jetBlue red eye at midnight and tumbled off the plane at JFK a few hours later at 8:00am NYC time. The airfare was cheap and it sounds dreamy but I don’t sleep well on planes so this isn’t my favorite way to travel. But hey, it’s vacation.

We took the Airtrain to Jamaica Station and then bought our $24 for the week Metrocards and headed into Manhattan.

We had no problem finding our hotel but our apartment wasn’t ready yet so we dropped off our luggage and headed out into the NYC morning.

We found bagels and tea and fortified and then headed to Times Square. It was cold. Cold enough for coats which I didn’t have. I was primed from our winter but my head and ears felt like they were going to fall off. There were still muddy piles of snow on the ground from the week before. We stopped at a souvenir shop and I picked out a hat. The guy knew what I wanted and cut the tag off for me. He said he had other customers doing the same thing. This is the best hat to cover my ears that I’ve ever had.

We got turned around several times. How can you not? What are the landmarks, tall buildings? I’m sure you get used to it but we weren’t there long enough to do it without a lot of head scratching.

We headed to our first exhibit at the International Center of Photography. It’s Martin Munkasci who more or less pioneered the idea of action in fashion photography. The photography center also featured a Henir Cartier Bresson exhibit.

Bob grew up with a professional photographer in the house and has a much better knowledge of photography than I do. I first learned of Bresson at an exhibit on one of our Europe trips and I got him right away and it was love at first sight. There is always something going on in his photos. I described it as movement. In the exhibit he says he learned from Munkasci that a photo could tell a story.

This particular exhibit came about because he was captured during WWII and presumed dead. A museum in NY prepared a memorial exhibit and when Bresson escaped and found out, he wanted to contribute to his retrospective. An amazing collection of photos.

At this point we could get into our room so we went back to get settled and I took an epic and completely life altering nap which made me feel 110% more human. When we left to go out again, it was at least 15 degrees warmer. It was crazy but we didn’t complain.

We found a Japanese restaurant and ordered big. A family friend of Bob’s lives in NYC and he met us for dinner. After dinner, we took a little walk in the theater district and found the Lyceum theater where we had tickets to see Inherit the Wind. I know squat about how theater works but apparently our show was a preview. It was fantastic. Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer. And it’s a really great play.

After our show we walked around the theater district. It rained a bit but the city was more active than earlier. Lots of people. High energy. Cars. Cabs. People. Pedicabs. Horse carriages. Police on horseback.

Portland has police on horseback and I always thought it was a bit ridiculous but here I can almost see where it makes sense. A horse might get around where a car cannot. There was a big truck charging down the street honking. He pulled up right behind a woman police officer on horseback. She hollered at him to get the fuk off her ass.

I Love This Town!

Then she “pulled him over.” I asked Bob to stop so I could watch. I asked him if it would be rude for me to walk over so I could watch more closely. I doubt anyone would care but I didn’t do it. We ended up at the House of Brews where earlier we’d had a dispute because I wouldn’t eat a hamburger and drink a beer before going to a play. The place was near our apartment. It was crowded and smelled like stale beer but we found a seat and our server was an adorable young woman. It was the kind of place I would have loved in my 20’s. I still liked it on vacation. While we were in there I realized that at my current age, I’ve been legal to drink longer than I was not.

There’s loud music and basketball on the TV. Cute boys. Good people watching. We try the Brooklyn Lager.

Super Fun
We’re back and a fabulous 10-star trip.

And look what was waiting for us when we got home. I noticed them in the dark when we were pulling our luggage out of Priscilla’s trunk at midnight last night. Lots of daffodils in the backyard as well.

When I told my college roommate, Trish, that we were going to make our first trip to New York City, she said: You are going to love it and hate it. That sums it up perfectly.

I thought I’d get around to it today, but turns out, I’m dead tired. The trip was fantastic but not relaxing. My husband is quite the task master. I’d be nudged awake in the morning: “I brought you a bagel. We need to be on the subway in 20 minutes.” When it was my turn to pick something to do it was usually a nap or some sort of nap variation. You know, sitting down to eat, rest or partake of an adult beverage.

I’m going to write an epic or a couple of epic posts this weekend. Also, photo stream.

On the plus side, and I hate to even mention it lest I jinx myself, I’ve been sleeping like the dead. Nothing like marching all over New York City from 9am to midnight to get a body in the mood for sleep.

Since we got home so late I took off work today. We unpacked and worked on the laundry pile. Sorted out mail. I tricked my husband into going to Target with me. Since we’ve met I’ve never asked him to go on stupid shopping expeditions and I noticed he had plenty of things for the basket but he still couldn’t resist the urge to complain. Then we bought a carload of food. Then I dealt with the car shop on getting my bumper repaired. Then I did a bunch of yard work because it was sunny and a perfect day for it.

By 4pm I was exhausted again and braindead and could only prop myself in front of the TV and catch up on a few shows.

More coming up soon. But first: Cadbury eggs have gotten smaller! They should be smaller because geez, that was a huge load of sugar intake but what a world. All the candy is getting smaller.

[Can you believe it? It’s even in Wikipedia.]

Our parking garage at the office has tandem parking. The person who arrives 2nd must leave his keys with the parking attendant who will move the car as needed. I arrive early in the morning so I’m always in the first spot. I’ve made friends with the parking attendant and if the garage isn’t too busy at the end of the day, he has my car clear by the time I leave. Today was a busy day and several people were waiting with blocked cars, including me, so I thought I’d take a few photos of the cars while I waited. They didn’t turn out as groovy as I’d hoped.

My sweetheart and I are about to go on an adventure and I’ll be offline for a week. I might check in tomorrow before we take off if time permits and if I come up with anything interesting to say.

I looked at my vacation time today and realized I haven’t taken off any significant time since August. No wonder I’m so cranky about work.

I’m really looking forward to real vacation time in a brand new environment and no work or commute or housework or Internet to distract me from having real world adventures.

I bought another camera card. Probably way bigger than I’d possibly need but I didn’t want to have to delete photos mid-trip or feel like I have to hold back. I’ve also got my usual pile of mini-notebooks to carry with me to take notes and draw goofy little pictures.

These are brand new socks. I’ve only put them in the wash 4 times. Shouldn’t socks hold together longer than that? And that big hole popped out magically in my shoe between the time I left for work and arrived at the office. I shook my shoes off at the office so I could fold my feet under me on my chair and was a bit horrified to see my big fat toe, which in this photo looks like a lightbulb, poked out. Buying cheap stuff is hardly ever worth it.

We’ve had a series of crises as we’re trying to get ready to be away. Well, crises is a bit dramatic. We’ve had a pile of chores that needed to be tended to. Bob fixed our fence which disintegrated in December during a wind storm and we never got around to doing much about it.

If you check that post from December it also mentions this fender bender where this lady destroyed my front bumper. Long story short: we’ve made no progress on the matter. I admit I sort of dropped the ball in terms of following up but her insurance was hard to deal with and apparently she was uncooperative with them and meanwhile I have a big fat cracked bumper. I finally called my insurance company and got the ball rolling on that.

We have a carpenter ant infestation. I opened the blinds in my room and the troops were bursting out of a crack in the window sill. Crap. This is exactly the sort of home owner problem that we both are terrible at dealing with. I’m omitting lots of details but I have multiple follow ups to do on this item.

Sears still hasn’t finished with my vacuum. I was given a bag of plants identified as Lilies but looking like Iris to me (like I’m such a plant expert) that I threw into the ground tonight in a chilly wind. I’m still waking at 3:30am. I need to clean out the stuff that will go ooky from the fridge. Water the plants. Make sure I have weather appropriate clothes. Technology charged and updated. Current reading materials.

Ah, but vacation. Vacation. Vacation.

I need to clean my oven and every week I write myself a note about this with other things I want to remember on the weekend and every weekend I can’t find my note until Sunday night when I don’t have time. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

We’re traveling for the first time since the whole liquid ban whatever on planes. I just checked the TSA website to see what the current restrictions are and I can’t even fathom how stupid this is. It’s hard to believe there is anyone with a brain cell working on security in this country.

Dillon Creek, California.

This is my cheater post that I’m really doing on Friday but Saturday is my no computer day.

This is about two things that earlier I thought I would probably not write about because I wasn’t sure how they would sound.

#1 — is my bad customer service experience. I had planned to never mention it again, but I’m going to tell you the outcome. The company is called Moonstruck Chocolate and if you want to buy your fancy chocolates from a company who cares a great deal about customer service, this should be your first stop.

This is a Portland based company. I’ve never tried them before and I stopped in to pick up something for my chocoholic husband for his birthday. I was unhappy with the customer service which I thought was subpar especially for something like chocolate. Have you ever been to See’s? If not, I’m very sorry. Those ladies practically vault over the counter to hand you a free sample of super butter chocolate brickle surprise and ask you if you’re familiar with the cherry-chocolate white truffle rum-raisin delight or the new sparkling butter-fudge ripple nut spectacular.

But I wanted to try something new for Bob and I purchased a pre-made box and jetted off an email complaining about the customer service which I characterized as unenthusiastic and uninterested or something like that.

Not only did I receive an apologetic email. I got a phone call asking all the details of my experience which made me a teeny bit embarrassed since I was young once and I’m sure I had my worthless moments when I was manning the register for the Jack-in-the-Box on Kanan Road in Agoura. The point is: they made a major point of wanting to make it right so I will fer-sure be going back although I hope those kids don’t look me up and throw rocks or drinking chocolate at me if they see me in the future.

#2 — is even harder to explain without sounding a teeny bit like an asshole. Like those actresses who tell about how hard their life was because they were so beautiful or rich people who go on about their difficult life with money floating into their hands.

From about age 15 to 35 my feelings about my weight were something that colored every aspect of my existence. It was the extra 15-40 pounds that killed my life. How that changed would be a ten page post that I’m not going to get into right now. The short version is that lots of inner work and yoga and a great spouse and just time healed all that and several years ago I finally settled into a weight that felt like it was right for me. No more agony of worrying about losing weight.

Then last year at this time my digestive system melted down and it became much more difficult to overeat or even enjoy yummy stuff that’s fried or fatty or I feel awful. For example, Bob’s birthday celebration was at a Mexican Restaurant and they brought out the giant plates of chips with huge globs of heavenly melted cheese and I ate like 4 bites and had a hard time falling asleep later with all the churning in my innards.

This week I ran into my favorite clothing stop Ann Taylor Loft where about 80% of my wardrobe comes from because those clothes fit me and because my Mom gives me a gift certificate there for xmas every year. I had an adorable young girl named Jasmine helping pick out stuff.

I explained to Jasmine that I needed everything because by this cruel twist of fate, the Universe was making me lose weight easily now that I was old and married and didn’t care quite so much and none of my clothes fit me. She gave me this horrified look of betrayal and said, “My Mom said it was harder when you got older.” And I said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”

We picked out a boatload of pants and tried them all on and they were too big. She came in to see how I was doing and I said I had to try a size smaller and she said: “You have to tell me about this yoga class you’re taking.”

I don’t think it’s all me. I think the clothing industry is insane and just keeps making stuff up to massage the American woman ego. I read somewhere that a movement to follow the European standard was quashed because an American woman would never buy a size 32. I would ! I would love to not spend the first 30 minutes of every shopping trip just figuring out what my size is.

I’m not going to make any excuses about being comfortable about my weight since it was a long, hard journey to get here and with all my other head trips, it’s not like I’m frolicking in an eternal unicorn paradise. But whenever I feel like some goal is completely impossible, I think about how many years I thought I would never feel normal about eating and body image and it feeds my hope.

What a long and hectic week. One night I got home at 5:30, two nights I got home after 8 and last night I got home at 9:30.

Domestic chaos abounds.

However, the sun is out and the garden calls so I’m off to the garden center.

I leave you with this thought about Battlestar Galactica.

I can’t remember exactly but I think there are only 40,000 humans left. Yet every time President Roslin does a press conference, there are like 40 reporters. Does that population really warrant a press corps of that size? There must be plenty of other jobs that need doing. Manufacturing. Everybody needs clothes and toothbrushes and soap. Where is that stuff coming from?

Yes, I realize this line of thinking is very Clerks but my mind actually works this way. Like the cylon Six and her fancy underwear after her romps with Gaius? Where did that come from? I realize the cylon manufacturing would be separate from the human, my point is: who has the time and energy to make silk lingerie when you’re fighting in space?

I had a such a great sleeping week last week I thought I was home free but this week my body’s alarm clock is back on 4am except for yesterday when it was 3am. Maybe this is seasonal. Maybe I’m supposed to be coming out of hibernation and getting up early and plowing my fields and bringing calves and lambs into the world. I’ll have to go to Fred Meyer this weekend and get some.

Today’s technology gripe: don’t you hate it when you do something like send an email, post a comment, or publish your blog and your computer says: Wah! That didn’t work.

Then you do it again and now you’ve done it twice? That happens to me all the time.

There was a day when I loved to fire off a bad customer service complaint letters but these days I often find that I’d prefer to use my time and energy for other things. However, on Monday I had a bad experience that rubbed me the wrong way enough that I wrote a toasty note about it. It wasn’t a huge deal but it was an expensive item and I had trouble getting help and when I did the person was completely worthless to the extent I thought I should apologize for bothering her.

I sent an email and my computer freaked out and said I wasn’t allowed to do that which seemed odd. I waited 24 hours and heard nothing so I resent the next day. I still have heard nothing and now I’m sure both messages went through and they think I’m a shrill harpie with nothing better to do than complain about their $7.80 an hour staff.

Well maybe I am.

Yesterday morning I took the bus because I was meeting Bob downtown later and he could take me home.

There was a passenger who broke the all time record for shortest time period before I want to strangle a complete stranger. She could not stop talking to the lady next to her and there was nothing too boring to skip over.

She had a catalog and went through it page by page: “I have a sheets like this. Mine are 400 count and a lighter blue. I paid $89.99 which was a great deal. Usually they’re $109.99 but I had a gift card and a coupon and I used them together. At first they weren’t going to let me but I made a fuss and they did it. The edges are started to wear. And it has a coffee stain. It made me so mad. Gladys and Wilbur Hinkewiggle and their daughter Penelope stayed with me. They didn’t watch for things. They stayed for 10 days. We went to Mt. St. Helens. It was raining. We had pancakes for breakfast. I had blueberry syrup … .”

Are you ready to brain yourself yet?

She didn’t wear a wedding ring and I wondered if she ever stayed up late on a Saturday night talking to her cats and wondering why she was still alone.

I left the office at lunch time and met Bob at South Park for a fantastic fancy lunch. I had the steelhead special which was served with potatoes and these roasted onions that came with long green stems and were delicious but hard to eat. At one point I had a big blob of onion dangling down my throat half gagging me while the rest of was stuck in my mouth and had to resort to drastic measures which were pretty gross to avoid choking or gakking up part of my lunch. If you happened to see that, sorry. I was truly embarrassed.

After lunch we stopped by the museum to see the Elliot Erwitt exhibit which was excellent and then back over the river to El Presidente where Bob had an informal birthday party. A whole bunch of people stopped by to wish him well and eat nachos and drink margaritas. Excellent celebration day.