You're Doing It Wrong

Last night we saw Nickelcreek and this was one of the best shows I have ever seen in my life. Keep in mind that I am, at best, a lukewarm Nickelcreek fan and when I heard their 2nd cd for the first time, about halfway through, I told Bob that if there was a song about a unicorn I was throwing the thing out the window. But last night’s show was spectacular. They played for three hours. They played two encores and then for the last two songs they played completely unplugged. They invited the remaining audience to scooch up towards the front and the audience was very quiet and they played two songs (sorry I never know the names of songs). I thought I was going to cry. Completely amazing.

I thought I was going to Tacoma today to work on stuff for Returning the Gift but Phil said he doesn’t need me today so I’m going to continue to work on this stuff from home. But meanwhile, I now have all day to work on my various projects. So what do I find myself doing but completely wasting my time sitting here catching up on WWW reading.

You can read the short name analysis for Pamela which is scarily right on. I should read some other names of people I know well and see if they match. You can look up your own name here: http://www.kabalarians.com/gkh/your.htm.

Robert sent me this story: Urban Death Match by a bike messenger — stressed me out just reading it.

At some point during my travels, I found Davezilla and bookmarked it and this morning I actually spent a very short time there and managed to dig up some very entertaining URLs.

Tonight we went to a lecture at PSU called The Shamans of Prehistory: New Perspectives on World Rock Art. This was my idea because I have this fascination with petroglyphs. I did not expect this to be a popular event so you can imagine my surprise when we arrived and the ballroom was packed to the gills mainly with retired age couples in L.L. Bean-wear who were very passionate about the subject matter. The lights were on in back when they started the slide presentation and I thought we were going to have a riot. The ballroom was completely full so we ended up in the adjacent room — the equivalent of the nosebleed seats, except no elevation. Jean Clottes, from France and David Whitley from the US. They talked about rock art at sites in France, South Africa and California and in particular about the role of the shaman in creating some of this art. It was a lot more interesting than I’m making it sound.

A brand new 76 station opened on the corner of 39th and Main St, right across from this gigantic Arco station. I detest that Arco station. I don’t understand how Arco can sell its gas so much cheaper than everyone else. But the station is ALWAYS super crowded and it’s a huge corner so there are always people zipping around at 180 mph to get the most recently vacated pump or to zip into the convenience market for a beef stick or 82 oz. pop. Also when I used to go there and I’d go inside to pay the people that worked there could never be bothered to look up or make eye contact or return my “Good Morning.” I’m sure working at a gas station isn’t the dream job of most people but you can make your little corner of misery a wee bit brighter by enjoying friendly people. So I switched to the Chevron station on Mill Plain which was more expensive but less crowded and the people who work there much nicer.

Now there’s this new 76 station. When they opened their regular gas was $1.29 to Arco’s $1.24. I noticed Arco would still be packed while there was no one at 76 and I couldn’t believe that people would want to wait in line to save .05 cents on gas. Let’s say your tank needs 20 gallons. You mean saving some time and aggravation isn’t worth a buck? I have noticed more people at the new station in the last week or so. Yesterday I saw that Arco had dropped down to $1.21 and can’t help but wonder if this is a reaction to the new station.

Last night I had this really depressing dream. It was like I was an old woman and I was in an assisted living place. I think this comes from watching the The Sopranos and Tony’s whole thing with his mom. The woman who assists me keeps telling me what I’m doing. I’m standing there and she says, “You just got home. Would you like to go to bed?” And I say yeah. I get in bed and it has this depressing worn pink quilt on it and as I’m getting in bed I’m thinking that I don’t feel so old. I get up again and I’m standing there and the woman says, “You just got up,” and it annoys me because I’m not daft. I don’t need her to tell me what I’m doing.

I’ve finally been cleaning up some stuff on pamrentz.com. I deleted the old stuff and updated a bunch of files so the directories are semi-normal. I think it’s pretty much up to speed right now.

Today has been hideously lazy. We woke up at 5:30am (not on purpose) and got up and went through a whole waking up routine and then ended up going back to bed. I did a little work in the yard and have enjoyed a few refreshing adult beverages. Now I’m going to watch those last two episodes of The Sopranos (1st season).

I am feeling a lot better this weekend. Last week I felt like my head was going to explode — long story, no need to go into it here.

On Thursday I left work early and we went to Salem to see Jamgrass at the Oregon Garden. The show started at 6pm and we got there at about 6:10pm. The venue is a beautiful grassy bowl and when we arrived the full family scene was out with lawn chairs and picnics and all kinds of people kicking back enjoying the music. I heard someone say they ran out of beer before 8pm — I don’t know for sure but a new act came on each hour and by 8pm the family scene was slowly clearing out and “the tribe” was bouncing around and dancing along the fringes. By 9pm when Yonder came on, the lawn chairs were gone and the area in front of the stage was crammed with dancing fans. My first Yonder show — finally after several close calls — and I can see why Bob and Walker are such huge fans. They’re wacky, funny, talented and very cute.

Yesterday I had the day off and for the most part I kicked back and caught up on some odds and ends and then watched several more episodes of the Sopranos. I’m almost done with Season 1.

Today we went to the Farmers Market early and I’m about to go to the kitchen to get the stuff cleaned up and put away and start making some fun food for the weekend. Tonight I’m making peach ice cream. Other ideas for the weekend are grilled vegetable sandwiches on homemade Focaccia, hummus and salsa. We’ll see how far I get.

Yesterday I checked my page and noticed that it’s all goofy and there are dead links. Funny, because those links weren’t dead when I put them up. I checked my directories and the stuff was gone. How does this happen? Actually there is a whole bunch of stuff in there that looks goofy — duplicate files and stuff that I don’t remember putting back up there. So a project for the next week will be to get that all cleaned up and reorganized. I’ve been spending all day on the computer at work so when I get home I don’t even want to look at a computer.

My latest thing is The Sopranos. Am I the last person on the bandwagon or what? Auntie bought the first season and it’s been traveling around the family and finally made it to our house and Bob already zoomed through it and so it’s been sitting here. Last Saturday I wanted to watch a movie so I started watching Kiss of the Dragon and about 20 minutes into it I decided it was too violent. So then I was going to finish watching Phantom Menace since the DVD player is back upstairs — but the cables to attach it to the TV were not so I was like, “Hm, what should I watch? Hey, here’s this box with the Sopranos.” And ever since I run home from work every night and park my butt on the couch to watch some more. I LOVE Tony Soprano.