You're Doing It Wrong

Bob came in my room the other night and said: “This webpage stuff is a major time suck.”

Yeah. I know.

Since I had so much success redoing my main pages, this morning I decided to tackle a few fixes on my last 2 xmas newsletters. The 04 version is a major mess.

05 was pretty easy to fix, I figured out how to center a few things and tweak a few others.

Thinking I now understood how it all works, at first I thought I’d just re-engineer the whole 04 layout since I can’t figure out what I did in the first place. But then I’d have to redo photos and I didn’t want to get that deep into it. That probably would have been faster.

The point being I spent most of my day trying to unravel my page layout and had little success and very little satisfaction. All for a page that no one ever looks at.

Oh well. I am learning a lot. Maybe the 06 version will be a snap.

My Tomato Farm
Today was my biggest harvest day. This is what I got.

Try not to be underwhelmed. It’s almost mid-August. I should be groaning under the weight of my harvest. There are 4 plants out there plus another 4 volunteers.

That’s it.

I can eat them as fast as I can pick them. How am I going to make sauce and soup with this pitiful crop?

I’m already tired of the garden and it’s barely started to do anything.

My theory is that the heirlooms don’t pump out the results like the .69¢ Fred Meyer variety. Normally I buy a few cheapies and a few heirlooms but this year I went all heirloom. One of the plants hasn’t even given me one ripe one and the green ones look all tiny and deformed.

This is not what I’d hoped for.

Bad Pizza
As has been documented here, my digestive system is not what it used to be.

I have to be careful about stuff with fat. It’s built in portion control.

Last night, I came home late from yoga and was fried and wanted something quick and yummy so I chose this pizza.

Holy moly, digestive system on fire. I ate half of it and it wasn’t huge. And sheet-howdy if I didn’t taste that freaking thing for a full 24 hours. I can still taste it. It’s still burning me. I told Bob how miserable I was and he’s afraid of it, too.

The leftovers sit in the fridge. Holding court. We tremble in its shadow. Bad, scary pizza. Bad.

My Bedroom: Senior Year
(Note: we are having major technology problems here at casa pam and bob. I am imbibing massive quantities of cheap Trader Joe’s red wine to combat my frustration: always a good idea. We’ll see if the problems are sorted out before I throw myself on my pillow in tears or start driving around because dammit: I own this town!)

I was out and about downtown this week and saw some Sbiccas (shoes) in a store window which helped inspire this post. My Sbiccas were one of my fave shoes ever. If they had my shoes in the window, I might have bought them again.

I was a big fan of the Love’s phallic-ly packaged fragrance line back in those days. I loved Baby Soft (pink) Didn’t it smell like cotton candy? I also wore the Lemon Fresh (yellow) and Rain (blue) and I had the Musk (brown) but it wasn’t my favorite.

Frampton Comes Alive was one of my first two albums. The other one was Wings Over America. I think Wings is still in the closet. Frampton was the unfortunate victim of sunlight when I moved my turntable next to my bed and it warped. (The disk with “Show Me The Way”)(Why doesn’t the radio play old Frampton in place of Billy Idol, once in awhile?) I would love to own it again if I could get it on eMusic. No one has ever looked as cute as Peter Frampton on the inner fold of that double album. (Except Fabio Cannavaro, of course.) For 8-tracks I had a Rod Stewart and Air Supply.

I wish I could remember the story about the clothes hanging over the chair but I’m a total blank on that one. I still use that desk, although in a different configuration which I would love to link to except the technology seems to be hiccuping again. I still use that desk lamp. UPDATE: try this link scroll to the home improvement photos.

Awesome Green Suit
I did a million things today. I’d write a list but you’d be jealous. One thing I did was finish scanning a huge stack of family photographs.

I was tempted to put a bunch of humiliating old photos of my cousins up because they don’t read this site and aren’t here to defend themselves. But I resisted. (And besides, tomorrow is another day.)

But I had to put this photo up. It’s a picture of me and my sister walking into the Pearch Creek Property but the real star of the photo is the unidentified person in this killer green checked suit.

If I had to guess, I’d say it’s Aunt Trudy. (My grandfather’s sister, if you’re joining us late.) What a kick ass outfit to be wearing in Orleans (or ever). I love it.

Publishing this (this being the remodel in case you haven’t been by lately) is probably premature since I haven’t double-checked anything and the links are going to remain forked up. Also: I still have no idea what I’m doing.

I see that my archives are completely bungled up, too. And I’ve been doing this all afternoon and am tired. Don’t look at the archives. I’ll fix soon. UPDATE: Fixed!

Meanwhile, check out the husband link. Bob was domained today.

Pendleton Roundup 1925 by Frederic Allen Williams

Hey, did you know about the New York Public Library Digital Gallery? It’s amazing. I looked at the pictures of Indians first, but there is tons of other stuff.

NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 480,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.

This is the kind of stuff that makes the Internet good.

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Plogic At Its Finest

Several weeks ago I constructed a primo Target list. I compiled from other lists. I cross-checked with my to-do list so that I could grab items for various projects, gift giving and domestic tranquility needs.

It was a beautiful list and I had it in my hands when I got in the car to go to the store. When I arrived at the store it was gone.

I looked in my purse. I looked in my bag in the trunk. I took every single thing out of my purse. I took every single thing out of my bag in the trunk.

Yes, I was frustrated because I couldn’t find my list but it wasn’t the end of the world. I was more aggravated because how could that even be possible that a list can disappear like that?

I looked in the ashtray and took everything out of the glove compartment. I looked in the cracks in the seats. I looked under the seats, in the backseat and in the little pockets in the door. I could not find that list.

I repeated all the above steps several times just because I knew with 100% certainty that I’d had the list in the car. There was no way the list could have vanished.

At last, I gave up and developed a weak theory that it had blown out the window. It had been open at one point. I was probably so absorbed in driving/climate control/music selection that I didn’t notice my beautiful list, flying into the wind.

I bet you know where this story is going. Earlier in the week I saw some scrap paper back behind the passenger seat and last night I picked it up and set it on the front dash so I could put in recycling. When I finally turned it over on my way into the house I saw that: IT WAS MY LIST.

My beautiful list, sitting there mocking me right to my face. How is this even possible that you can tear your car apart looking for a list that isn’t there and then it appears?

The only explanation: time travel.

Yesterday Bob and I went to see the new Woody Allen movie Scoop. It’s hilarious. If you hate Woody, this probably won’t change your mind. But if you’re ambivalent or like some of his movies, I think you’ll find this entertaining. It stars Woody, Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman. Scarlett plays this nerdball aspiring journalist and Woody plays a goofy magician named: Splendini. They are hilarious together.

The theater was about 90% full which was amazing. Usually when we see a Woody Allen movie it’s just us and a couple of angry looking foreign ladies. It was fun to see it in a big crowd with everybody laughing. Plus Woody’s demographic is people our age or older so everyone was well behaved except the lady next to me was unable to go the full 96 minutes without eating something from her bag which was wrapped in crinkly paper which she unselfconsciously took her time peeling off. Also, I hate the sound of other people chewing so it was extra distressing for me but luckily she ate pretty fast.

There were two trailers for movies that looked good, another surprise as normally during the trailers I’m looking at Bob and going, “That’s a movie?” I even did that yesterday with some stupid looking poker movie which, based on the trailer, I think is about a charming young woman played by Drew Barrymore who falls for a dreamy guy (the guy from the Hulk) except instead of having a job, he plays in poker tournaments and has Daddy issues and in the suspenseful climax, plays in the World Championship Poker Match and the last two players are he and his dad who is OF COURSE played by Robert Duvall. Please.

The movies that look good are The Science of Sleep directed by Michel Gondry who directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and which stars Gael Garcia Bernal who was in the The Motorcycle Diaries. During the trailer I leaned over to Bob and said, “I love it already.” (And by the way, congratulations IMBD for adding those hideous animated mortgage ads to your site. They look like shit, bravo.)

The other movie is called Trust the Man and stars Dave Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup and Maggie Gyllenhaal and is about friends and relationships looks funny and good.

After movie time we went to the park where the Hawaiian festival was going on and were hoping to score some killer dinner even though I really wanted to eat leftovers at home because the refrigerator is too full. Sadly (or gladly) the food vendors had been cranking out the food all day and all that was left were two pitiful looking banana lumpia, some panini and some yakisoba. Not sure how panini fits in with the Hawaiian theme. I’m guessing someone coughed up a bunch of money for a panini machine and needs to pay it off. I was not about to stand in line for yakisoba so we had leftovers served in taco shells at home. It was awesome.