You're Doing It Wrong

I think someone (?) spread a bucket of gravel on the gravel part of our driveway. It seems like a bizarre, random thing to do, but there is a fresh patch of gravel in the middle that’s different from the rest of the gravel. Why would anyone do this? Is it a hint? Is our gravel tired looking to someone? Some utility has been doing some work on our street — maybe they had an extra bucket they needed to dump somewhere so they just tossed it on our driveway? It doesn’t make sense any way you look at it.

Bob and I decided not to do Arts & Lectures this year and try some new things instead. The first thing we did was join the Portland Art Museum and saw that modern art show.

For the holidays we got a flier from them that they have a members night with music and cheese and wine and we could check out the European Masters exhibit. That was Wednesday and we decided to go but Weds am I noticed that you were supposed to RSVP. I assumed it wasn’t that important but I called just to make sure and good thing because the event was full.

Instead, we went to see Ghostworld at the KOIN. We loved it. If I would have seen it before Halloween I would have dressed up as Enid. Maybe I’ll dress up as Enid for Christmas.

I can’t believe I forgot to write the latest on Dearthlink. I got a call shortly before Thanksgiving and the guy assured me that I no longer needed to worry about being sent to collections, that they’d gotten information from Teleport that confirmed that I’d prepaid up to the date I said I’d prepaid to.

The call was quite a shock seeing as how I’ve provided copies of items that prove I prepaid twice by fax and once by snail mail as well having a lengthy, unpleasant conversation over the phone with a “customer service” person who assured me that my account was settled.

I saw Harry Potter on Friday. I felt about it the same way I felt about the books: I liked it, I didn’t love it. I didn’t sense that it was an instant classic. The special effects were great and the casting was great. It was completely fun. There was just some level that I didn’t connect to make me love it.

It’s been endlessly raining and storming and it’s starting to get to me. We haven’t been able to go for a walk for several days. Today we saw a break and by the time we put on our shoes it was raining again. We went anyway and it was too wet and cold to be enjoyed and I was happy to turn around early.

I’m working on Pam Newsletter 2001 and I can’t find anything interesting to write about. There weren’t any good pictures either. I’m not sure what this means.

I made cookies this afternoon and I think my oven is disintegrating. Everything takes longer to cook than the directions say. I’m not in the mood to deal with appliance repair at the moment.

I keep telling myself I am going to blog every day, but when I sit down each morning I can’t even think of the most mindless thing to say. I think there are higher psychological implications.

Check out this site. I don’t know why but Bob and I think this is hilarious tonight.

This morning I was looking for something in the freezer that I was positive was in a square container. It’s the leftover 1/2 of a can of pumpkin that I used to make pumpkin scones. I want to make them again this weekend. I looked in the freezer twice and couldn’t find them until I realized they were in front of my face in a round container. I think there is a lesson in there somewhere.

Tonight on the Daily Show (which took a million years to load with DSL) Jon Stewart said something about John Ashcroft being in a charisma vortex. “Charisma vortex.” I like that.

I’m back at home after the holiday. The Thanksgiving part of the trip was great but the travel was completely screwed up. The trip down was just slow because of heavy traffic and darkness and rain. The trip home was gruesome.

On Saturday we left Orleans at around 9:45am in the pouring rain and by the time we got to Happy Camp it was snowing. Oh, also before Happy Camp we had to stop because there was a fresh slide and we had to get out and move big rocks out of the road so we could drive by. It snowed the entire drive to I5, slushy but heavy and accumulating. At the 96 I5 junction we stopped at the rest stop to see how the road was and we were informed that Siskiyou pass was a mess, chains required and that two semis had jackknifed southbound and it was an ever-loving mess and gee, didn’t they feel sorry for us having to go that way. It would probably take 3 hours to get over the pass.

Since I moved to the PAC NW I have been paranoid and ever watchful of winter weather on trips to California. And on this trip it never occurred to us to even check.

We weren’t happy with this news, but what can you do? We drove to Yreka which had very heavy accumulations, not a whole lot of plowing happening, and we slushed our way to a tire store to buy chains and then found a nice Mexican restaurant and had a relaxing lunch and then went for it, figuring the pass was probably plowed and we wouldn’t need the chains and we’d just enjoy each others company and listen to books on tape and deal with it.

I do not ski, so have never been in a mandatory chains situation before and I found it rather thrilling. We pulled over in a long line of cars and trucks stretching as far as you could see up and down the mountain and put on chains in the wet and heavy snowfall. Do you mean to tell me we can send a man to the moon but there is no better way to make tires safe for driving in the snow? They even had a chain inspection station to see if you had them on. But no jackknifed semi and not even a lot of traffic. We breezed over at 30 miles an hour with our heads vibrating from the chains and finally got to Ashland, got the things off and continued home in what quickly became pouring rain.

It took us over 10 1/2 hours which is about 2 1/2 hours longer than usual but didn’t seem so bad when we heard my mother-in-law’s tale. She got stuck in the backwash of the Sea-Tac meltdown. She was in Orange County and her plane got stuck at Sea-Tac. To make a long story short she didn’t get home until 3am.

We have a rhodie in our front yard that didn’t have one bloom this spring. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. Probably underwatered in the summer and it’s probably depressed that all the cats in the neighborhood think it’s just shade for their cat box. (In case you can’t tell I am not happy about the vast amounts of cat shit that end up in my yard. If I wanted to pick up animal shit I could easily provide my own pet.)

This morning (yes, middle of November, butt cold, pouring rain) I noticed a bright pink flower right in the middle. Hopeful, yet depressing.

Yesterday I was cleaning off my harddrive and I found about 6 various version of Stuffit and related Aladdin software and somehow managed to delete every single thing. Long hassle ensued but I eventually upgraded to the latest version of Stuffit Deluxe and got it loaded up and backed up my computer. Oh, also my Norton doesn’t work since I upgraded my software. And I’m not even to OS X yet. I just upgraded to OS 9.1. I used to be the hip up-to-speed Mac person. Now I’m the one running after the wagon, barefoot, begging everyone to wait for me.

But the big news is that Bob took me to school for the big PMUG “You Don’t Know Mac” contest at Clark. And while we were there, we slipped off to some computer lab with a big projection screen and I got to use my Phantom Menace DVD special feature and download an Attack of the Clones trailer. It made me unspeakably happy. I watched it 3 times.

I always think I’m going to think of something good to say later. HA. This has been a strange week. I have been endlessly crabby so that even I didn’t want to hang out with me. I had one of those weather headaches where it feels like there is a balloon expanding up inside your skull. And all this random frustrating stuff like Merrill Lynch sending me a stupid note with an exclamation point, (it wasn’t the exclamation point itself that pissed me off but we don’t need to hear the whole story now) and getting the car insurance bill and seeing that none of the changes I talked about with the agent were on there. Are there any competent people in the world? I bet there are only like 3 and we can thank them that the world is even standing right now. I woke up feeling better this morning and I’m caught up on all my shows. Ffinished the last tape last night. My reviews: Angel, Buffy, Roswell — fabulous. Simpsons — uneven. Malcom — funniest show ever. XFiles — um, not sure yet. I don’t think that continuing to add more and more characters is going to save the show. I’m thinking that I will be glad to have that hour of my life back.

This weekend we went to Seattle and it rocked. We drove up on Saturday and met Matt, Kasey and Ruth in Queen Anne for fabulous Thai food. Then we went to Ken and Joyce’s and visited and stayed the night. On Sunday we had a good breakfast at Vera’s in Ballard and then to Archie MacPhee and I never thought I’d leave. Then to EMP where we waited in line for Quincy Jones to sign Bob’s stuff and later that day, a great Q&A with Quincy moderated by Elvis Mitchell.