Sunshine On My Shoulders

Posted on February 17, 2007 by Pamela

My Beautiful Sunny Living Room
Today is one of those magical days we get around here, usually a bit later than this, when it’s warm and sunny and unbelievably perfect. You could never appreciate it unless you’d spent the last several months dark and cold and damp and knowing full well that from now until July there will be plenty more of the same.

I just went downtown to pick up our vegetables and everywhere I looked there were people walking or biking or pushing strollers or playing with dogs. Even the squirrels smiled and waved when I drove by. That’s why I’m going to spend the day inside watching television.

Just kidding! I’m going to go for a walk and take pictures and do a bit of yardwork. Maybe vacuum the inside of the car. Maybe even read for a bit on the front porch, one of my favorite things to do when it’s sunny and not too cold (or warm, depending).

I don’t spend a lot of time reading the newspaper for a lot of reasons but one major reason is that it’s so negative and doomsday. This morning I read 3 great stories.

(1) There were some hijackers on a plane. They didn’t speak French so the pilot made an announcement in French telling the passengers what was going on and warning them that he was going to do a bumpy landing and when the hijackers fell over, to be ready. He did exactly that and the passengers kicked the hijackers asses. Excellent!

(2) A champion paraglider was caught in a thunderstorm and lost control and flew higher than Mt. Everest. When she saw the weather situation she radioed her ground crew and basically said, “I’m toast, it’s been nice knowing you.” She even lost consciousness but later landed and lived. Cool!

(3) There was a local story about some people who lost their dog. I know this happens every day and this story was in the paper because it happened to a newspaper reporter. Still. They put up fliers and a bunch of people helped them and they found their dog. Another happy ending.

To end this story, I will tell you that I got in bed at 8:30pm and slept until about 7:30am. I think this is going to be a super spectacular day.

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More of the Same

Posted on February 17, 2007 by Pamela

This afternoon I went to see a new movie called Music and Lyrics which I’m not going to recommend until it comes out on cable and then only if you like Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore and dopey romantic comedies where the leads have no chemistry but the pure force of their personalities make the show worth sitting through.

The review in the paper gave it a C+ and that’s about right. It said the movie seemed long and that’s also right. Regardless, it was a nice way to spend a couple hours yesterday afternoon since I like Drew and Hugh and dopey romantic comedies. Everyone made fun of me when I saw The Lake House, too.

The movie opens with a parody eighties video that is spot on and totally hilarious and you can see it right now on YouTube. I recommend you watch that.

This weekend I’m going to drag the sourdough out again and see if I can make it do anything. And I’m going to work on this sleeping thing. The situation seems to be improving. I still wake up in the night but fall back to sleep more quickly. Also, rumor has it that tomorrow is going to be warm (60 F!) and sunny so I’d like to scratch around in the yard a bit. I wish it wasn’t so muddy.

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The Darkness of Night

Posted on February 15, 2007 by Pamela

I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about this anymore and I had such a great night on Tuesday night. Something like 7 solid hours of zzzs. Then I got cocky. This morning I woke up at 3:30am. Just me and the dark.

While I had all that quiet thinking time, I tried to come up with a good Valentine’s story for you. I don’t have any super great or super bad tales to tell. Last year’s story about dinner with my high school boyfriend is the best of the bunch.

I sort of remember a Valentine’s that was probably 1989 or 90 when I went to see Faster Pussycat at the Roxy by myself. I could be making up the date and I spent about 3 minutes yesterday researching it and had no luck and didn’t want to dig any deeper.

The club was packed and it was an awesome show (whatever day it was) except this bitchiass photographer who came along and put a steel box camera case or whatever on the floor right in front of me and stood on it. And not for a minute to take a few pictures but she wanted to park there. Unfortunately, it was a rambunctious crowd and my elbows and the elbows of other unhappy fans flew about until missy photographer moved on.

Bob and I don’t like to do anything special for Valentine’s. It’s a stupid “holiday” invented for profit and disappointment. I usually bake him something fun and seeing as how Valentine’s landed on Wednesday and there was no optimal baking time, I’m going to make something fun this weekend. I found these wacky raspberry flavored chocolate chips at the market which is one of his dream flavor combos so something with that.

This the best I can do on 5 hours of sleep.

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Sleepless in Vancouver (WA)

Posted on February 13, 2007 by Pamela

My Loaves
This is ridiculous. I crawled in bed at 8:50pm and fell right to sleep. Then I woke up at 12:30a. I was so thirsty I drank two tankards of water. Then I tossed and turned for a couple hours. I can see why people turn to drugs for this problem.

My finished loaves were about a C+. They tasted okay, hot from the oven, but the crumb was nothing to write home about and the crust was hard and not pretty.

I will endeavor to write about something other than insomnia and bread baking tomorrow.

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The Science of Sleep

Posted on February 12, 2007 by Pamela

Three Loaves
Whenever I can’t sleep, I always think it’s something I’m doing wrong. Those cookies I ate. That glass of wine I drank. Those vitamins I took. I think sometimes the body just doesn’t want to sleep. There’s nothing to blame this latest bout of sleeplessness on. Except possibly thinking too much but I don’t want to get into that now.

My sourdough came to life somewhat yesterday although I don’t think it was as active as the professional baker would like. But after babysitting that bowl for three days, there was no way I was going to put it back in the fridge until next weekend.

I did the math on all the fermentation and rest periods and figured out the latest I could start the bread and still get into bed at a decent hour. Of course I calculated wrong and needed an additional one-hour-fermentation periods and since I didn’t want to stay up until 11pm, I cut all the wait periods short. I was still shaping loaves after 9pm.

This recipe calls for 12-24 hours in the fridge and then straight into the oven. Initially I thought I’d bake them this morning but since I didn’t get them into the fridge until so late and I leave the house for work at a dark and ungodly hour, I decided to wait until tonight.

In sum: I’ve been working on this since Friday morning, cut corners pretty much every step of the way and still have no freshly baked sourdough bread for my efforts.

This morning I found concrete bits of dried dough in various places around the house. Also, new knife update: I managed to slice a finger on my left hand. 8 fingers left.

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A Knife is Not A Toy

Posted on February 10, 2007 by Pamela

First Cut with New KnifeAs predicted, I whacked my finger on the new knife’s first day out but it took awhile. I stayed blood free until my final dinner task: putting together the salad.

I injured myself on the first item so our salad only had fennel and greens.

My sourdough is a big disappointment. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong. I followed the instructions exactly and got a big ol dried out ball of dough with gunky flour chunks falling off of it that did not expand whatsoever although it smells nice and sourdoughy. I re-fed today and looks like more of the same. Tomorrow I’m going to feed again and add 50% more water and see what happens. If it is still does doo-doo I’m going to stop by the bakery next week and see if they can give me any tips. I’m thinking my kitchen must be some sort of Sahara-vortex which renders all of my baking projects overly dry. I’ll see what the professionals think of this theory.

Close Up of the WoundTired as I was yesterday I didn’t sleep for crap last night. Woke up at 3am, wide awake. Dropped off again at 5am and woke up around 7:30am not feeling at all rested. We’ve got a hot date tonight to meet friends for dinner and then see Merle Haggard I’ve got to be up for that. My nap utility is on the fritz — I used to be a champion napper. As soon as the Olympics made it into a category I expected to be team captain but lately I settle down with my blanket and stare at the inside of my eyelids for 15 minutes and then give up.

I finished book #3 this morning. I’m having a tough time this year. I worked on Fortress of Solitude for several weeks and only made it to page 60. It’s just not clicking for me. In the meantime I bought Eat Pray Love (book #3) and gobbled that up. I am now developing a small stack of books that I’m determined to read yet when I pick up I have no problem putting back down. Books that lots of well trust people I know enjoyed. I think I’m going to give Fortress one more try before it goes back in the pile.

Tomorrow is going to be the computer free day so I’ll see you next week.

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Bread Baker

Posted on February 9, 2007 by Pamela

Sourdough Starter
Wednesday night I did my bread baking class, which I expected to be awesome and I loved way more than I expected. It was the advanced class which means that we worked with sourdough for our leavening instead of yeast.

I took lots of notes and would tell you more except I am so tired right now I can barely keep my eyes open. A couple of details that I will mention are that the first thing they did when I walked through the door for class was take my coat and hand me a glass of wine: then I was certain it was going to be great. While there I bought a kitchen scale which will hopefully help me troubleshoot my perpetual baking problems, and a big new shiny chef’s knife, pictures of my gouged fingers will surely follow. The people in the class and the teacher who is the head baker at Pearl Bakery were TOTALLY into it. We learned a lot in a few hours. Then we made sandwiches with our bread and asked more questions and visited while we were eating.

The teacher is doing a pie making class in Spring and I plan to be the first one enrolled.

Meanwhile, I fed my starter a few hours ago for weekend baking and I think I already screwed up but we’ll see. I always panic during new cooking/baking adventures.

Downtown Portland
I got home at 10pm on baking night and took awhile to wind down and get to sleep. Then off to the office the next morning and then we went to Arts & Lectures last night.

The speaker was Suzan-Lori Parks who was fantastic – very funny and very real. She didn’t seem to take herself too seriously. Told great stories. I’ve never read anything by her but she read a little bit at the lecture and now I’d like to track down some of her stuff.

But again, we got home late and I was wired and couldn’t fall asleep right away so I’m a little drag-ey ass today. I’m going to go try napping and see if I can perk up a little for the rest of the afternoon/evening.

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Baby’s On Fire

Posted on February 6, 2007 by Pamela

When I was in high school, one of my favorite albums was Sammy Hagar, Standing Hampton. I made a tape for my car and listened to it at least a 10 times a day when I wasn’t listening to Journey or Styx (please click on the Styx link and look at the band photo. Ooooh. I can’t stop laughing.) or Triumph or some other awesome guitar rock.

I saw Sammy live my senior year, at the Fabulous Forum with rockin’ opening band Night Ranger. Was there ever a better time to be a teenager than the early 80’s?

With all the recent Van Halen whoo-ha in the news I heard Sammy Hagar on the radio and I tried to remember the last time I heard Standing Hampton. It’s probably been 20 years and I’ve been yearning to hear it again. But I don’t want to buy it. I already did. I just don’t know where it is although I’m sure it got the boot during a move. Lugging records around was always such a pain. I want to see if it sounds good now even though I couldn’t have even told you the name of one song on that album. Until last night.

Last night as I shuffled out of my yoga class there was a old but shiny Honda Accord with the windows rolled down cranking “Baby’s on Fire” in the parking lot. Right in front of the yoga studio. Do you love it? I need to get my hands on that album.

Meanwhile, that song brought back another long and deeply repressed memory of going skiing with my lame high school boyfriend (“bf”) and his family. Sometimes memories of my own person lameness startle me. It’s making me shudder to even type this story. You know when you’re out doing something and there’s a group of people who are so stupid and clueless that even years later you’re still talking about it? That was us on this ski trip. I’m probably going to have to turn out the light and sit back with a washcloth on my forehead when I’m finished with this.

I’d never been skiing and bf had been once. His parents got a cabin in Big Bear and I was invited to join them for a ski-tacular weekend. We rented our gear in the Valley somewhere and I got whatever they recommend for beginners. I didn’t know what I was doing.

Since the bf had already been skiing once, he advised that I didn’t need to take a class. I could just learn from him. I had no ski clothes, so I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. No hat. No gloves. I put on my skis in the parking lot and scraped along until someone noticed the stupidest and most clueless person alive and advised that perhaps that wasn’t the greatest idea and I should take the skis off immediately, aim the pointed ends to my chest, then fall on them.

I never did catch on to the idea of getting off the lift so I went straight from the chair to a full frontal face plant. Every single time. I spent the entire day falling down. My jeans were soaked. I was cold. Why do people like this? I wondered. I exaggerate little when I say I hated every single second of it. I did manage a very basic snow plow down the bunny hill and then to stop: face plant. I never did figure out where the enjoyment was.

Back at the cabin, the bf decided to light the fireplace. WHOOSH went the gas. I can’t get this lit. Can you get this lit? How the hell do I get this lit? He sticks his head into the fireplace with a lit match and WHOOSH. The fireplace is lit. So is he. He was not hurt but his eyelashes, eyebrows and top of his head were singed to a stinky crisp. Thus: Baby’s on Fire.

The second day no one skied and his mom and dad were mad because we wasted such a great opportunity for so much fun. Then we sat in traffic getting out of there. Why do people do this again? For our final act of stupidness we didn’t have a ski rack so, I kid you not, we had the windows opened a crack and the skis stuck through perpendicular to the car and sticking out the windows on either side. At one point a police officer followed us and yelled at us over his PA. It wasn’t worth stopping us. He probably hoped natural selection would finish us off.

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Rock of Ages

Posted on February 4, 2007 by Pamela


(Grandma and Grandpa — probably around 1935 — just a guess.)
I am 43 years old and can count on one hand how many people close to me have died.

And of the people on that list, most died when I was young, or were far away in Germany, or played a part in my life when I was young but I rarely saw before they died.

I can remember attending three funeral/memorial services. Two of those were for my husband’s relatives.

My Grandma, who died on Tuesday, is the first person that I had regular lifetime contact with, that I’ve lost.

How can that even be possible?

I’m amazed and don’t get me wrong, completely grateful, although it’s not hard to fear that the second of half of my life is going to make up for it.

I didn’t have a spectacular relationship with my Grandma and I wondered how I was going to feel when this finally happened and I felt a lot shittier than I expected. And also angry. And I know all about the 5 stages of Grief but I wasn’t mad at her – she was 94! She had a good long life. And I wasn’t mad at God. She was 94! (And why have I decided that shittier has two “T”s? Maybe it should be shitier. But that doesn’t look right. Who gets to make the rule on that?)

I was just mad. About everything: coffee stirrers, red trucks, clouds. It made no sense.

I told Mom I wanted to help with the obituary and I wanted to submit something to the tribal newsletter. Being Indian was not Grandma’s thing, but she was an elder and our culture respects elders. And I want a nice story in the newsletter about my Grandma like all the elders get.

She was the last one standing (or, whatever) out of 17 children. There should be a medal for that.

So all afternoon I looked at what Mom had sent me about Grandma and I tried to figure out how to expand it and make it bigger and make sure that we didn’t miss out on anything she accomplished. What would she want to be remembered for? I didn’t want anything to be missed.

The part of me that was so mad at her for [redacted] remained silent. It’s not denial. It just realized all those things don’t matter any longer.

You read all these obituaries and everyone was well loved and brilliant and did amazing things and you wonder, what about all the assholes?

I’m not one who shies away from discussion of death and I’m always telling my husband what to do if I die young and tragically: “The password to my secret bank account is [redacted]” “No teddy bears at the side of the road” and “Don’t let them say I was so nice and great when I was really cranky and drank too much and had trouble finishing things.”

But unless you do something really dreadful (see Hitler, Stalin, Hussein) everyone gets a “bye” when they die.

Even Darth Vader was redeemed before he died. It’s a relief. I only want to remember the good things.

There’s a particular story about making apple sauce which I’m not going to tell here except to say it was not good. But this summer I canned my own apple sauce and as I was doing it I was thinking: my Grandma taught me how to do this.

Tomorrow is my no technology day. We’re going to celebrate Priscilla’s birthday with a day of football. (Bob said I could bring a book.)

Next week I have major events including my baking class on Wednesday and Arts & Lectures on Thursday. Not sure how much you will see me here but I will try.

As always: I appreciate all the comments and I’m visiting your blogs and photo streams but don’t always leave a note.

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Listen to the Plogic

Posted on February 3, 2007 by Pamela


Last night I was sitting in my room doing my computer thing and I hear my husband laughing hysterically in the kitchen. The laughter goes on long enough and with enough force that I know this is about me. Something I did is funny.

I wander in there with my “now what did I do?” face on and he’s holding this bag of chips and wiping tears from his eyes and telling me how funny I am.

The chips are almost gone and I clipped the top half of the bag off so I wouldn’t have to get half my arm greasy reaching into the bottom of the bag to get my chips. I can’t see the hilarity in this. Seems perfectly plogical to me.

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