You're Doing It Wrong

Watermelon Waterfall
Yeah, sure that makes a nice picture but it wasn’t so nice if you were there.

Let me start with the beginning of the day, which was quite nice. Bob and I decided to go into Portland to do a bunch of various errands/activities. We went to brunch at Dragonfish. We haven’t been there in a long time and always find it yummy and we both had fancy cocktails in a tall tiki cup and we felt like we were getting away with something, like we were on vacation until we decided: Every day is vacation.

From there we headed for the mall to Eddie Bauer to use a gift certificate. Did you know there are about 13 trillion kinds of jeans? Different colors, washes, denims, cuts, waists, lengths — too many choices. I chose boot cut even though I don’t have a boot. Bob got jeans, too and a bunch of clearance stuff. They had some deal going where we got 30% off the clearance price plus 50% off the second pair of jeans and since we spent more than $75 we got a $25 gift card to use next month. I’m not sure how they make money. They also offered us an additional discount if we opened a charge card. Jesus Christ, enough with the charge cards already. I don’t know where I’ve shopped lately where they weren’t shoving a charge card down my throat.

On our way back to the car to drop stuff off, we stopped at the coffee place that starts with S and ends UCKS b/c Bob wanted an ice tea or mocha-frappe-tea or whatever $4.00 alcohol-free product they’re pimping this month. While we were standing there a parade went by and I ran outside to see what it was about. It was a “don’t test on animals” parade. Those animal lovers are a busy lot. Last time I was downtown on a not workday there was a “no fur” parade.

Next stop, Multnomah Library. They are doing a big thing with Native American authors in August and September in honor of a new research collection of Native American Fiction. We went to see our friend Liz Woody read and talk about writing and books. After browsing the library we decided we’d had enough and headed into miserable traffic which I guess is a regular feature in the afternoons even on the weekends. We arrived home blissed with our otherwise wonderful day.

What we didn’t know, was that our kitchen was about to turn on us. Last weekend I made peach gelato which was godhead so I wanted to try another gelato this weekend. Priscilla wanted to get a watermelon at the Farmers Market and for some reason was attracted to a 21 pounder which we split. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try making some of it into gelato seeing as how I had a half a dinosaur egg taking up space in the fridge. While I de-seeded (un-seeded?) a food processor bowl full of watermelon, Bob prepared our stuffed peppers that we also bought at the market. I whipped up my watermelon and left it in the processor bowl because right then dinner was ready.

We sat down to our peppers from our favorite food vendor at the market — the guy is one of Bob’s former students. I took one bite and the rice was hard. Also the meat looked a bit pink. Do you stuff peppers with raw materials? Bob decided to cook them more so I went back to my watermelon and [long string of obscenities omitted]! It had overflowed the bowl and ran down the counter. Watermelon juice — what is stickier than watermelon juice? (Okay, probably honey, but what else?)

It ran into every drawer — the utensil drawer, the ziploc baggie drawer, the drawer with pieces of the mixers and processors and doo-dads AND the cloth napkin/placemat drawer. And not like dribbled. Like pooled. Plus on the floor. I had to dismantle everything and wipe it off (Bob helped) and in the process EVERYTHING got damp with watermelon juice. Meanwhile, we had the second round of peppers and I still wasn’t convinced this was ready to eat. I wasn’t there when the cooking instructions were given but I can’t imagine what we could have done different. It was too scary, I wouldn’t eat it.

I went back to mopping up my sticky kitchen and tossed what was left of my watermelon into the ice cream maker. At this point the sound of the ice cream maker made me want to brain somebody so I quit about the time it was watermelon milkshake. Nothing to write home about.

Later Bob grabbed a glass out of the cupboard and another glass hopped out and shattered on the counter and floor. An exorcist is coming tomorrow.

I finally got rid of my guitar. I purchased it on my birthday in 1985. I wanted it for my birthday but my Mom gave me an espresso machine instead so my friend Jim took me to House of Drums and helped me pick it out.

I bought an acoustic guitar a couple of years earlier and had been taking lessons. I wanted to play like Eddie Van Halen and what I love about my 22 year old self, who was not a brave or confident person, is that I took my new guitar to my teacher and brought tablature from Panama and told him that was what I wanted to play. It never occurred to me that this might be a bit beyond my reach. I don’t think my present self would be so fearless but I’d like to think I still have some surprises left in me.

I do not exaggerate when I tell you that I had virtually zero talent for the instrument. I practiced — not endless hours since I was a student and working and everything — but I practiced every day and even after a couple of years I could not play anything worth listening to.

Life went on and I played less and less and eventually years went by where I’d never even opened the guitar case. I don’t know how many times I’ve moved in the last 20 years and wondered why I was moving those things yet again. For a long time I thought I might pick it up again. Then I thought I might sell it. I asked Jimmy (different Jim than the one above) about it a few times. I also thought at some point I’d run in to someone to give it to and there have been a few candidates.

A year or two ago I read about Rock and Roll Camp For Girls in Bust magazine and that seemed like a potential home for my guitar but I never did anything about it.

In the last couple of weeks while I’ve been on this tossing everything binge, I cleaned out my closet and pulled those dusty boxes out once again and decided it was time to finally do something about it. I dropped off my donation at Mississippi Records and sent an email to Rock Star Camp let them know about it and express concern over the old and crustiness of my gear and ask about a tax receipt because the guy at the record store said I’d get it from them.

This was the response:

Oh, man...we need guitars and especially amps more
than you'll ever believe! No worries, we have a great
volunteer-repair-person who loves getting treasures to
work on! I'll stop by Mississippi and send you a tax
receipt out on Monday.
Thanks again!! rock on,
Misty

Totally made my day.

There was a story on boing boing about this guy getting hassled by security for trying to take pictures of a public building in San Francisco. Security followed him around the building and tried to prevent him from taking photos from a public sidewalk.

So he responded by doing what any child of the digital age would do and organized a flash mob to meet at the spot and everyone took pictures of the building. I love it.

I don’t know if you know about Wikipedia — this has become a recent … what’s the word I’m looking for. Obsession is too strong. Fixation?

It’s a free encyclopedia and anyone can give input. And it covers all kinds of random things. Not just like the economy of Sweden or who invented paper.

I recently ran across a brief discussion about the reading order of the Narnia books and I go along with the folks who believe that they should be read in the order they were originally published and not in Narnia time chronology as they are currently packaged. This brief discussion cited an Wikipedia article that discussed this which you can find: here.

Please read the above because it’s freakin hilarious. It’s a completely straight-forward, dead serious summary of Narnia as if they were writing about Tunisia or Elizabethan England or other actual real places in history. I’ve read the Narnia books at least 10 times each and I learned new things. Did you know the Telmarines might have descended from the pirates from the HMS Bounty in our world? There was a portal in a cave on the island. I know, startling new information. I also didn’t fully grasp that Narnia is flat — which is pretty sad considering that Dawn Treader is one of my favorites in the series.

And let’s consider for a moment and this is high geek if ever there was such a thing what was going on at the end of Dawn Treader when they were heading for the end of the world: ” … and the sky, a greenish-grey, trembling, shimmering wall and it turned into a wonderful rainbow of colors. … What they saw–eastward, beyond the sun–was a range of mountains … these were warm and green and full of forests and waterfalls … .” and eventually Reepicheep vanishes into a sea of lillies. Contrast this with what Gandalf says in Return of the King, about the end: “The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it … white shores… and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.”

I don’t know.

I leave work at 6pm and now especially with the new commute situation (e.g. taking the train) I don’t get home until almost 7pm which means making me in charge of dinner preparation is not practical. Plus Bob’s commute is about 5 minutes (when he’s working and he’s off this summer) and he gets done with work (most of the time) way earlier than that so on weeknights Bob is in charge of dinner.

We usually figure out the menu in the morning. On weekends I try to make things with leftovers and we have a freezer full of Trader Joes stuff and we always have a big bowl of salad going so we figure out some ideas of things he can make. Bob is good cook and learning more all the time but he doesn’t do recipes that require lots of steps or advanced skills.

Last night I came home and he had the leftover chicken thing in the oven and some pots on the stove and I opened one and there were about 4 tablespoons of peas being steamed within an inch of their lives.

I had harvested the last of the peas from the garden over the weekend and taped a note on the refrigerator that said: “eat corn peas” so we wouldn’t forget to eat the fresh yummy stuff.

I was a teeny bit disheartened that he’d opted to cook the living shit out of my fresh pretty peas but it was done so I replaced the lid without comment. He saw me and proudly points to the sign on the fridge: “I saw your note.”

“Good,” I said.

“Yeah … that’s the last of the frozen peas. We only had a little bit.”

“Frozen peas?”

“Yeah.” He taps the note again.

“Why would I want to finish the frozen peas?” I go to the fridge, open the produce drawer and show him the bag of the fresh peas. “I meant these peas.” (Also note that the corn was still in there not being eaten.)

“You taped the note on the list with the stuff from the freezer.”

And this is true. I have a list on the fridge that roughly represents the contents of the outdoor chest freezer so we know what we have when we’re planning.

“So?” We spent the next several minutes doubled over in laughter. Then he said:

“I ate some last night, too.”

—

In a completely unrelated story, yesterday I walked to REI from my office which is a VERY LONG WALK because I wanted to get some new yoga clothes and WTF – they had hardly anything and it seemed like it was all on clearance which means it was all either XL or ugly colors so I went over there for nothing.

On my way back to the office I stopped at See’s and bought a pound of candy as a consolation prize.

Bob said, “I love it. You went to buy yoga clothes and came home with See’s instead.”

I have so many notes here of things I want to add, but I’m not quite there yet. Also, still to come: photos and narrative on the train journey.

Here’s a tidbit for now:

We rec’d an item in the mail this week that our waranty on our KitchenAid mixer was about done and do we want to extend it. I set it aside to examine more closely although, don’t they tell you to buy the KitchenAid mixer because it lasts about 30 years?

It comes with an addressed “no postage necessary” envelope and while I was gathering together a weeks worth of stuff that I’d “set aside” I noticed that the envelope was for “Priests for Life” in Staten Island, NY. There’s even a boldfaced notice with three (3) exclamation points informing me that my stamp will help PLF save more Moms and their babies.

I can’t tell you how long I looked back and forth at the KitchenAid form and the envelope — trying to figure out why the Priests are running the warranty program. Finally Bob comes up and says: the direct mail company screwed up. That’s the wrong envelope.