Good Luck With That Itch

Posted on March 3, 2005 by Pamela

I’ve haven’t been riding MAX for 2 full weeks yet and I’ve already flipped off a driver.

What is wrong with these people?

She can see me running up the stairs. (What sort of crack team designed the Vanport TC? There is no short way to get to the train platform from the parking lot. In fact, if you didn’t crawl through the bushes, there would be no short way to get across the parking lot.) She can see me holding my ticket out and plunging it into the validator.

I turn around and the doors slam shut and the train drives off? WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT? The 5 seconds it would take for me to get on the train would seem to fall into the category of basic human decency and not even a small inconvenience to anyone anywhere.

(Other Bob, if you can enlighten me, I’m waiting.)

I was furious. She got the bird. I said numerous colorful bad words and no one could even hear BECAUSE THEY HAD ALL JUST TAKEN OFF ON THE TRAIN. I kicked the SINGLE bench that TriMet deigned to put at my stop. And I put a curse on the driver.

Good luck getting rid of that itch lady.

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Yodeling Never Hurt No One … ‘Cepts Them that Had to Listen to It

Posted on March 2, 2005 by Pamela

Good Effing God.

I’m still adjusting to my new schedule. Seems like I’m always rushing to get out of here and getting home later. And I seem can’t manage to get a proper breakfast in me or a proper lunch made. I’ve been sustaining on Girl Scout cookies (thanks WKB) which is not my preferred way to eat.

So you are getting a very phoned in Wintergrass wrap up.

Wintergrass has gone the way of Bumbershoot which is to say it’s too freaking crowded. I don’t understand humanity’s tolerance for massive crowding. Why would you want to fight your way to an event and be humiliated by parking and then wait in line and pack in to see something and then wait in line again every time you wanted a corn dog or to take a pee?

People do it. Not for me. Seriously, I’ll skip my own funeral if there isn’t spacious seating and parking right out front.

Having said that, the weekend worked out just fine. We picked up Priscilla and cruised up to Tacoma on Saturday. We managed to catch a nice set at the church before heading back to the main room at the hotel. We saw some more great music before we went to dinner and met Aunties and Uncle and then Bob and I managed 3 more sets before we staggered to our lodgings in Fife. We met the family again for a terrific breakfast, hit the road and were home in the afternoon. I even did some yardwork in the late afternoon sunshine.

Bluegrass does a body good.

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Being Paul Westerberg

Posted on February 25, 2005 by Pamela

Also in all the activity this week, I never got around to my review of the show Saturday night so this will be a half-baked commentary.

The setlist is here.. He played pretty much everything I would have hoped for in the time space allotted. I could not have been more thrilled with any live show anywhere.

Paul’s audience, I kid you not, was about 10 guys to 1 girl. No wonder he doesn’t tour more. When I told Bob that Paul was coming to town he said, “Is he going to finish the songs?” and I chided him for slamming my guy. I sort of chuckled when Paul didn’t finish a song the first time. I stopped counting at 7. So Bob was right, big deal. Bob’s bands play one song for like a whole hour. Why is that so much better?

At one point Paul says, “Do you want to hear a Dylan song or Kiss Me On the Bus?”

I’m drawing a blank here. Too much stuff for one week. It was a great show. Every minute of it.

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Final Wrap-Up of Work Move

Posted on February 25, 2005 by Pamela

On Tuesday I slept in as best I could and dragged my sorry ass to the new office where it took me 6 hours to file some documents in tribal court because first I had to dig out of my temporary office so that I could move around and find things. Then I had to find the documents. Then I had to set up my old stand alone computer and printer. (We’re not on the network yet and don’t have voicemail — this whole transition could probably have been handled better but we’re there now so we’re all dealing.) Then I had to find envelopes. Then I had to find a stapler. You know the aftermath of moving is always chaos until you can get everything organized.

I should also probably mention that, so far, the new firm is super fantastic and everyone has been friendly and helpful. And here’s an advantage to the move: there are other people to take care of things. I don’t have to do all the problem solving. This is fantastic.

I left early (4pm) because I was still so tired I couldn’t think straight. I slept about 11 hours. Weds and Thurs were long days. I’m still adapting to it all.

I don’t have paid parking downtown anymore so at present I’m driving to the park and ride and taking the light rail (yellow line). It’s not a big deal but it’s a major pain in the ass to get used to a whole new routine. The ride there has taken shorter than expected (usually 45 mins. door to door) but the ride home has taken longer than expected– usually a full hour. I’m still figuring it all out.

It’s amazing how a major disrupt to the routine has impacted my entire existence. A routine is something you don’t have to think about. So all this new stuff is occupying more of my limited brain bandwidth so I ended up forgetting all sorts of loose end, misplacing things and flaking out on stuff. And having all these oddball anxieties like opening a drawer in the morning and thinking, “OMIGOD, I must replace all of my underwear.”

Today is the first day in about 2 weeks where I don’t have to do anything or be anywhere. (Well, I scheduled a massage, but that’s hardly onerous.) I need to get my act together but the couch is so inviting and I have fresh Buffy…

Tomorrow. Tacoma. Wintergrass.

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Moving Part 2

Posted on February 24, 2005 by Pamela

On Friday we decided to go ahead with the move on Sunday and give the bird to the oppressive rules of the condo association. There are reasons why this wasn’t a great idea but we had to get this done.

Then, about midday, I was informed that the new building would let us move in on Monday I went back to all my phone calls to reschedule for Monday. The mover informed me that all his trucks were scheduled. Now what? He said we could pay a truck rental fee and he could put together a crew for us. Whew. Dodged that one. Everything was back on track for the Monday move.

Closer to the end of the day I was informed that we couldn’t move into the new building until after 3pm. So AGAIN I have to call everyone and reschedule the move time. Keep in mind that I still had an actual job to do, other moving type arrangements to make and packing 13 years of a law practice. Also keep in mind that Friday is normally a day off for me.

Monday rolls around. I drove to the office at 7am to work on packing. The movers show up at 1pm. Moving always takes longer and is much worse than you expect and this time was no different.

We arrived at the new building at around 5pm and the loading dock was occupied by the people who are remodeling the office space that we’re moving into. My office isn’t ready yet. Also, when I entered the building the security officer informed me that the freight elevator was broken.

If I hadn’t already vented considerably via my tear ducts at various points during the week, I probably would have lost it completely at this point.

A guy fiddled with the elevator and got it working again but we still had to wait for the remodel crew to finish up.

We were finally able to get in there and we worked like mad and I got out of there at 8pm. I can’t remember the last time I was that tired.

Bob had a nice dinner waiting for me which I ate as quickly as I could, whining like a little kid, “I’m so tired.” I staggered off to bed because Tuesday would be my first day of work at my new office.

More to come.

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Moving Part 1

Posted on February 23, 2005 by Pamela

I know, I STILL haven’t had a chance to update all this stuff. It’s becoming like my writing notebook on a trip. I’m so behind I don’t even want to start. I’m going to try to give you a brief version.

I have had the same job for 13 years. In fact, tomorrow is the 13 year anniversary. We’ve always worked out of a small residential condo on the river and the entire staff has ranged between 2 and 3 people, including me. There were lots of days when I was all by myself.

In the very beginning, I wasn’t always pleased with this as I had just moved here and had no friends and lived alone and then went to work alone and I felt like loner hermit girl. But eventually I grew to like it — turns out I thrive on alone time.

About 3 years ago there was discussion about merging with a larger law firm. I didn’t hate the idea but to be honest, I didn’t really want to do it. Since then we’ve been on and off whether this was going to happen culiminating last month with a “this is absolutely happening in February” and when I’d finally gotten used to the idea there was a day or two period of “this is absolutely off” followed by a “it’s on and we’re moving this Saturday.”

So to sum: a lot of change being swung back and forth.

We didn’t move that Saturday but we looked at the calendar and February wasn’t a good month for me to move since I had weekend activities so we finally decided on Mon Feb 21 since our clients take the federal holiday and it would be minimally disruptive to them and we could get the move done before March.

So I made a bunch of phones calls: movers, phones (there were additional complications with moving the phones which I won’t go into but required at least 10 phone calls), their office, our building management. Everything was set.

On Weds of last week, I was informed that the building didn’t permit move-ins on the weekdays. (For the record I did ask MORE THAN ONCE if there were any special rules about moving in I should know about.) Since the movers were still available Sunday I decided to cancel my plans and try to do the move on Sunday. I made all my phone calls to reschedule everything and then learned that the building we were in would not schedule a move out on a Sunday. (It’s a residential place, apparently the residents don’t want people moving on Sunday — I don’t know.) As of Thursday night we had phone calls into both managers hoping to plea for some sort of exception.

There’s more to this story which I will get to later but I’ve got to get moving now if I have a hope of getting to work on time.

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Paul Fans

Posted on February 20, 2005 by Pamela

Hi.

I know I said I was going to tell you about my rotten day. You know how when you’re in a rotten mood, you want to tell everyone about it, but it seems like too much energy?

And it seems like too much energy now, but I promise, I will bitch about it later.

Meanwhile, I’m doing hours and hours of yoga this weekend for a workshop which is helping me keep my head together.

And tonight is the giant Paul Westerberg love fest. We’re leaving in a few minutes.

You can find tour data here including the setlist which looks super fantastic, yay. And there’s a Seattle Times article. The tour only just started. Also there’s this blog and this guy also did an interview with Paul for the LA Weekly which I biffed on the link so you’ll have to find it yourself. Read it, Paul fans. Finally, Twintone has some classic vintage Replacements video worth it if you have the time to view a few bits.

Tomorrow yoga is only 3 hours (I know some of you are thinking, “only 3 hours?” but I did about 5 1/2 hours yesterday and another 5 1/2 today) so I can update you on the show AND bitch and whine about the rotten stuff.

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Dr. Zaius Dr. Zaius

Posted on February 17, 2005 by Pamela

I told Bob I wasn’t even going to power up the computer tonight so he said he would so he could download some Cheese which he is doing as we blog.

I had a super rotten day which I will tell you about later. You will agree it was rotten.

One thing that cheered me up was a rerun of the Simpsons. It was the one where Selma married Troy McClure and they have the bit with the Planet of the Apes musical and “Dr. Zaius Dr. Zaius.” If you know what I’m talking about, you are cracking up right now. If you don’t, you wish you did.

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Amazing Ability

Posted on February 14, 2005 by Pamela

It’s a shame I haven’t found a way to capitalize on this amazing ability I have to make it rain. Way back when I lived in Lake Oswego and was a runner, I could get the clouds to give way simply by lacing on my running shoes. (I should probably qualify my “running” as an activity that looked more like fast walking. I think, back then, if chased by blood thirsty wolves, I could possibly run a whole mile in under 8 minutes. But only 1. Then I’d keel over. Now, I don’t know what would happen.)

This weekend the sun was out Friday and I thought what a great opportunity to get out in the yard seeing as how last weekend when I tried to go out there, it started raining. But Friday I had a zillion other activities going on. (A guy came over to give us an estimate on air conditioning and we’re going for it, yay! I know it sounds unimportant now, but wait until August.) But in my mind I was thinking we’d have sun all weekend so I’d have plenty of opportunities.

Saturday was drippy but yesterday I noticed sun. By the time I finished my chores and put on my work clothes and stepped into the yard, the sky had clouded over and as I walked out there with my tools, the drops started to fall. At first I ignored it but that lasted about 2 minutes and I had to run back inside.

I started doing something else and then Bob came home and we noticed the sun was out again so we decided to go for a walk. We put our shoes on and bam, rain again.

Meanwhile, I put out a medal consideration cooking performance this weekend. Friday I did my rosemary roasted chicken with vegetables. Saturday I made a Russian style soup with potatoes, greenbeans and sour cream and sauerkraut. Yesterday I made my gumbo with cornbread. I bobbled on the dessert.

I like to make Bob a special chocolate thing every Valentines Day and this year I saved a recipe from the Oregonian for Flourless Lavender Chocolate Torte using this designer chocolate that wasn’t cheap. I don’t know what went wrong but the thing didn’t set up in the oven. It just boiled in the pan. I left it in 10 minutes longer than the recipe called for and finally took it out and figured we’d have choco-blobs. As long as it tasted good.

It did harden in the fridge and I put it on a plate and it wasn’t pretty. I generously sprinkled powdered sugar. It tasted decent. I don’t think brilliant, but it was okay.

Between that and the gumbo I woke up at 1:30am and nothing would get me back to sleep. I did finish book #6 hypocrite in a poufy white dress by Susan Jane Gilman which is a memoir written by a woman my age who grew up in New York and had all kinds of funny adventures. But now I have to get through the day on about 4 hours of sleep.

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What I Live For

Posted on February 10, 2005 by Pamela

Earlier this week I found all this great stuff about this book called Getting Things Done (Here is the author’s website.) I think there’s a software tie-in which is why all these internet geeks so excited about the system and improving their own personal productivity. And who wouldn’t be? This book must be great.

I checked it out and found some site (sorry, can’t find the link now, probably could if I was working the system) with a basic summary the principles of the book and basically what he’s telling you to do is make lists, stay organized, toss worthless stuff, file stuff to do later and keep your “to do now” stuff in a pile. Only he uses different words: you “capture” the stuff you need to do and put it in “buckets.”

I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe a magic wand, because my whole life is about making lists and being organized but the things don’t get done unless you actually do them. That’s the part someone should write a book about. (I’m being a smart ass in case there are dimwits reading this who don’t know the difference.)

If I learned anything it was that I should be writing books about being organized. I didn’t know this was salable information. I thought it was common sense.

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