You're Doing It Wrong

I found out the bus stop has been remodeled. This is the real bus stop for the kids in Orleans. Sorry for the confusion. I’ll try to get a photo with the xmas lights when I’m down there next month.

If you’ve never divided dahlias before and you think you’re going to run out there, dig ’em up, sort them in the garage, stick them in a box and then be nice and warm inside, sipping some wine and reading your book in an hour or two, you are sadly mistaken.

I had no idea what a job this was. I started in the front where the bulbs have done squat probably because the soil is completely dry, boiling hot in summer and a major catbox for the neighborhood. I dug those up in a flash and they emerged much as they’d gone into the ground.

Then I started on the back. omigod. Shouldn’t there be more warning to people? It was like a Stephen King novel where the dahlias took over the world. I think it will be four years in Spring since I put these in the ground. Maybe five. What if I waited a few more years? Are there abandoned farms from the olden days with dahlia bulb masses the size of Vermont?

Look at the size of this thing. (Actual not-Photoshopped photo. That’s our lawnmower in the background.)

Am I really supposed to wash all these things off and cut them apart and carefully put them away, with labels, for spring? I don’t want to. I’m already tired of the job and I barely made a dent in it. It was cold. And washing them made it colder.

Look how much I have left:

I wanted to have some to share. Now I’ll be paying people to take them. Begging them. If its sunny tomorrow I’ll put in another hour or so, maybe.

Me Hanging Out with Star Wars

What I Hate About Yamhill Station
I ALWAYS make sure that I have my train ticket in advance. This has to do with not missing the train and having to stand there for 15 minutes because I had to buy a train ticket while the train came and went. I also always make sure that I buy my tickets (10 at a time) in the morning or at my lunch hour, not on the way home.

The train station on the way home is near a mini-mart and is a hot spot for panhandlers, scammers and if I can just say the word: losers. I do not want to have my wallet out in this area.

But on Thursday morning I didn’t think I had time before the train arrived. (The recorded message said I had 3 minutes and those piece of crap ticket machines TriMet has sometimes take more than 3 minutes.) Turned out the train didn’t arrive for like 11 minutes, but who’s counting?

I totally forgot on my lunch break so now I’m stuck buying a ticket in scumville after work. Rather than putting in my $20 for the 10 tickets, I opted for the 1-way ticket and got my 2 singles out ahead of time: so I wouldn’t have to take my wallet out.

And sure enough, I don’t even have a button pressed on the machine and some scumbag is rushing over, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, “Ma’am? Ma’am?” Like that’s more polite when you’ve got your hand out. WTF? Yeah, I know some people have hard times. I’m not totally without compassion. But I’m not going to hand money over to people just because they ask and I don’t like being bullied at the ticket machine.

Sometime after I graduated from college I had a party called the Bridesmaid Promenade. The girls were instructed to wear a bridesmaid dress (the bride always says: you can wear it again) and the boys were instructed to wear bad ties. I would love to take credit for this idea but actually it was Trish.

The featured beverage was the upside down margarita. You sit in a chair and tilt your head back while your friends pour the ingredients into your mouth. Then they take a towel and cover your mouth and gently shake your head. (And imagine what “gently” means after you’ve gone a few rounds). Delicious.

This is a drink to enjoy in your youth. Fortunately, I did.

I didn’t have a bridesmaid dress at the time so the dress in the photo is my prom dress. It was pink with hand-painted flowers. It was later damaged by water leaking in the closet. Otherwise I’d probably be wearing it to parties still.

And yet another picture of my sister, this time with a soggy upside down margarita towel to go with her smile.

I call this one: A Day Without Potter.

Bob just came upstairs where I was stirring our dinner: creamy peanut chicken stew. The recipe jumped out at me as a Bob-ultimate. When he saw me cutting something out of the food section he unenthusiastically asked what it was and when I told him he lit up like a 5 year old on xmas morning.

Just now, when he came upstairs he said with great energy: Honey, I can’t understand how anyone can’t like the Grateful Dead.

I made a loud sigh and said: How long have you got?

This morning I read in the paper that Harry Potter was going to be in high def. at Cinetopia and I’m no crazed fan but I thought it would be fun so I ran over there and well, first of all, I was already very impatient. Everybody has to drive 20 miles below the speed limit or 20 miles above the speed limit. No one can drive a speed that I like and it made me a little cranky. So I pull up and there are about 10 cars in the parking lot plus a fire engine out front and I’m thinking: COOL. But then I get to the window and there is a small crowd of people, all older than me, and the huge electronic sign that says what’s what is dead and then I hear “sold out” together with “Harry Potter” and I’m like WTF? Did each car in the lot carry 15 people?

I’d already done enough driving around for the day so I said screw it and went home. I don’t know what the fire engine thing was all about. And if a showing of Pride and Prejudice was playing anytime in the vicinity, I would have gone so Cinetopia, get that sign working.

But while I’m on the topic of Harry Potter, I just want to say, FINALLY someone has said it.

I'm going to be the first one brave enough to step forward and admit it: Daniel Radcliffe, i.e. Harry Potter, is growing up to be a stone cold hottie.

Of course, someone is not old enough to be HP’s mother and I should probably be arrested. She has one of those countdown-to-legal-age clocks but I’m too lazy to figure out how to put one on my site. I mean, why would I do that? I’m just reporting what she said.

I had three items I wanted to update you on. HP was one. Sony is another:

I’m not tech-savvy enough to explain this worth a damn but if you buy CDs as in music, from Sony and put them on your computer you need to educate yourself on the following: Part I and Part II. My best explanation is that the Sony discs install some sort of evilware on your computer. This is a super bad idea on many levels and hopefully they will get in big trouble.

The third thing I can’t remember and Bob is upstairs wanting to tell me something and looking for food so I’m done for now.

I have so many things for you. Tomorrow I will catch up. Maybe.

This thing is happening where I wake up at 3:30am and can’t get back to sleep.

Sometimes I drift in something that resembles sleep. Then I nod off about 8 minutes before the alarm goes off. Just long enough to slip into a deep enough sleep that the alarm is like swimming out from under a pool of pudding. That dragging ass feeling is with me all day.

That was yesterday. I put in a long day and Bob and I did the grocery shopping after work. We stopped to pick up something for dinner and while we waited it was like torture. You know when you go on an overseas trip? And you’re on your way home and you end up with some horrific 4 hour layover in Minneapolis? And then it’s delayed? And by this point you are so tired you are close to weeping. (When this actually I happened I think I did weep but airports are horrible places what with those stupid TVs blaring at you from every corner.) You’re almost home. But not quite. This was sort of like that.

Anyway, last night I slept like the dead. I even slept in a little and came in to work at the leisurely hour of 8:45a.

This wasn’t what I was going to say when I sat down to type. What I was going to say is that I am SO HUNGRY this morning. Abnormally starving for me. If someone came in my office with a huge greasy meatball sandwich right now — I would eat it.

Did I ever tell you the one about the hippy kid I met a long time ago back in L.A. somewhere around the time I moved into my first apartment?

I don’t know that we actually met as much as he glommed onto me during a show – which I can’t for the life of me remember the content of. I vaguely remember it being in the Valley but I also remember David and Karen being there and I can’t think what show could possibly have convinced Karen to go to the Valley.

The guy was incredibly young and not my type on any level but at the time I knew nothing about setting boundaries or being clear in my communication about, NO and somehow we ended up hanging out. This part is a little cloudy. He probably manipulated me into giving him a ride home.

He was a very happy little hippy but his circumstances were a bit heart crushing. He lived in a week-to-week motel in Van Nuys. I recall a lot of chain-link fence in the area. He made money by painting address numbers on the curb in residential areas.

I’ve never seen that around here so I will explain how this works. You, as the homeowner, would receive a notice in your mailbox telling you that your curb would be painted. If you didn’t want it painted, you were to tape the notice over your old faded numbers. If you did not, or forgot, someone would paint your house numbers on the curb. Later the painter would come by and collect some money … not much, maybe $7. The idea was this would help emergency vehicles find your house.

This was how HippyBoy made enough money to go to shows and do whatever he did.

We went out one time. I had to pick him up. It’s hard not to think that my wheels weren’t a big part of the attraction. We went to see the Purple Turtles. If I’d only known then that this was a preview into my future I might have paid better attention. If you think I’m not into hippy bands now, you should have seen me back in the 80’s as knockdown drag-out fulltime 100% rocker girl. It wasn’t my thing and he wasn’t my kind of guy. But he was into it and there was nothing I could say that could convince him otherwise.

It got to the point where he’d call the answering machine and leave endless messages. I could be out working late or at the grocery store and there’d be these pitiful messages imploring me to please pick up. Not to shine him on. Etc.

I think I finally got mad at him, or maybe he gave up. But sometimes when I’m with Bob at one of these massive hippy gatherings, I wonder if HippyBoy is still blissing out to the scene.

I found a picture of that bus stop. Sorry I couldn’t get one with the Christmas lights. [aside: seriously, this took me half the afternoon and I don’t know how to make the “bus stop” more pronounced. Give me time and I will be the Photoshop whiz.]

When we were at Bob’s Red Mill yesterday Bob (mine, not the one with the Red Mill) picked up some pornographically named treats called: Betty Lou’s Chocolate Covered Golden Smackers. Insert your own joke here.

This morning he ate his. He said, “This is like a really good power bar. You can try some.”

I took a bite and said, “This is like a really good Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.”

“Yeah,” Bob said, “But those are already good.”