You're Doing It Wrong

Ug, what a wretched day. People can be so aggravating. If you can conduct business in a pleasant way or a nasty way, why not just pick nice. I don’t understand. And if I already sent you the crap you need, don’t call me and ask for it again. The biggest crime in the PamUniverse is wasting my time.

Remember the story about the Patio and their fancy-shmancy baby turnips and Mew England marinated veal strips with kiwi vinaigrette? There was an article in the paper that they are trying to re-vamp their menu to make it more accessible and cheaper. Wah! I am a restaurant activist. I think they should offer me free visits to check out the new menu and give commentary.

I’m having some insect issues. What does this mean? First I saw an ant in my room — of course while I’m doing my yoga practice. The next day I saw two and if history has taught me anything, that means the whole trail of swarming ants taking over is not far away. So far, hasn’t manifested. Then yesterday I was mixing my breakfast muesli which I make with oats from the bins and then adding in trail mix and the trail mix bag was filled with fruit flies. Gave me the heebees. I had to toss everything in a bag in a bag and then, like bleach the container and now I don’t want to eat that stuff. My favorite breakfast, ruined.

Tonight we watched part of this VH1 Behind the Music thing on 1987. It was too damn funny. They talked about current events/politics and related it to music. So you’ve got the stock market crash of 1987 cut to: Bon Jovi. And then they do a big Iran-Contra bit cut to: Beastie Boys. The simplification of modern history. Too funny.

I viewed the history part with an odd POV because there I was post college person dealing with a supposed adult existence and I was so friggin self-absorbed — these history events seem like a dream. Ah, to be in my 20’s again. Just kidding. Wouldn’t go back for anything.

I don’t know who reads this or how often, but I don’t assume I have too many regulars. Regardless, I find that I am always editing myself — things that I wouldn’t hesitate to write to myself in private I wouldn’t dream of alluding to in this space. And when I was thinking about this – I wondered what my purpose was, I mean, why shouldn’t I edit myself? Do people really want to see the unedited brain dump of any person willing to throw it out there? Especially someone like me who spends so much time analyzing her brain.

It’s been a great weekend so far. Friday night I went with Bob to the Waterfront Blues Festival and saw a band called something like Wild Magnolias from New Orleans and I called them “Las Vegas Indians” because of their outfits. It was super fun — I love events where all ages of people are having a good time dancing and enjoying music — is there any other artistic medium that compares in terms of group interaction?

Yesterday we went to Tacoma to visit Phil to talk about RTG XI and then we went to the Washington State History Museum to see the Woody Guthrie exhibit which I cannot more highly recommend. What an amazing life. Even if you have zero interest in folk music, you can’t ignore his amazing contributions or the impact he had on so many artists. I found it particularly ironic that such completely non-American artists like Billy Bragg and U2 had so much to say about him. I mean, can you imagine someone like Steven Tyler talking about some random British guitar strummer from over 50 years ago?

The Museum is amazing in itself. A beautiful facility, well built and nicely organized. On the one hand I was sad to see it so dramatically underused — a Saturday and it was a snap to park in the lot and we could cruise the exhibit at our leisure without worrying about other visitors — so at the same time I was happy to enjoy it without pushing and shoving and being annoyed by people in my way. I’m not into folk music but it made me want to invest a little time listening to his work.

I don’t know why I always think I have can post only when I have something to say. Why can’t I just sit here and type if it pleases me?

Yesterday I got myself worked into the most godawful snit which made me feel like crap all day long. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the effort since I don’t seem to becoming any more evolved or any better at asking for what I want. In fact, I just sit here and beat myself up for wanting anything. I know, veering awfully close to a public confession of neuroses — wasn’t the world a lot better place when people kept these things to themselves and it was considered impolite not to?

Happy 4th. Today we’re going out towards Mt. Hood for a gathering and then on the way home we’re going to Jimmy’s for a party with a band. I think it will be a fun day.

I’m going to take a few minutes here and catch up on some blogging things and not boring things about my new domain which is the center of my computer existence right now, but I’m sure mind-numbing for you to read endless updates on.

REUNION
(why does that word look not spelled right?)
>The announcement for my 20 year HS reunion just went up and Cherie sent me the URL for www.classmates.com. Am I the last person alive who has heard of this site? Where have I been? I logged on immediately and was glued to the screen for like 8 hours until my eyeballs dried up and rolled back into my head. Almost half of my graduating class is listed. I’m having a hard time with the $30 gold membership thing — (a) on principle I don’t pay for access to web content; (b) I hate to pay for a year when I doubt I’d use it that much; and (c) I don’t think it’s set up very optimally and it’s slower than hell which was why it took me 8 hours and I managed to catch up on my New Yorkers pile while I was waiting between clicks to look at the info boxes of everyone in my class who had one. I’ll probably end up caving, but we’ll see. Maybe they’ll negotiate. I’d pay $12 for a year.

This whole development got me digging out my old yearbooks — and for some reason I can only find freshman year and senior year. My senior year has the last issue of the school paper in it with the senior wills and for some reason I don’t have one in there and I don’t know why. I remember writing one — but that could be a made up memory. I have no idea where the other two yearbooks are and I know my senior prom bid and the graduation program are stuck somewhere too. I don’t save a lot of stuff, but these things I did save. It’s kind of weird to be thinking about these people after 20 years — but it’s a good weird. I’m looking forward to the reunion since I missed the 10 year because I’d just moved up here and was about a trillion dollars in debt and my income was like 50 cents a week so flying down to LA was out of the question.

WHERE ARE ALL THE BATHING SUITS?
I have been desperately trying to find a bathing suit for a month now. I’ve been to the Jantzen store, that bathing suit store downtown, 2 different Nordstroms, 3 different Meier and Franks and a jumble of discount stores and I can’t find squat. At this point I don’t even mind paying a lot of money if I can find what I like. I want a modestly cut bikini and I want underwires in the top and I want cute colors, preferably dark. I can’t find squat. It’s either not my size, or it’s cut so half my ass hangs out or my boobs are bulging out, or else it’s really ugly colors. It’s been very frustrating.

THE PLUMBER
Last week we needed the plumber to come over because we had this incredibly slow draining sink that I had poured two different products “guaranteed to cure any slow drains” — one was a toxic-waste product and the other an organically friendly enzyme thing. Both were equally worthless. Also the faucet in our kitchen had turned into a trickle so that if you wanted to fill a pot with water to cook pasta, you could stick it under there and go an take a nap and come back and it would be almost full. The last thing that concerned us was our water bill showed our usage almost doubled the last two billing periods and we didn’t think we were using twice as much water.

Gene came over to look at our stuff for us. He is this cool old guy — who should be retired and he told us he would be in about 3 months. I liked him because he took the time to visit with us and asked about flowers in the yard and the sandwich creation that Bob was making and he knew some of our neighbors and told us about some history he shared with them. It was actually nice to have the plumber over.

So I am still up to my elbows in the big move over to my new domain. It’s a lot more labor intensive than I expected. The PamNewsletters are going to take forever. I have no idea when I’ll be finished but I’m thinking I’d like to spend some time outdoors today so it’s going to sit for right now. I think I did get the blog moved over and I need to do some testing to see how it’s all working.

I always think I’m going to have more time to blog later. I have a list of about six things that I want(ed) to put up here. We’ll see if I ever get that far.

Yesterday I registered my domain. The registration form was online and included a line for “organization” which I left blank because it’s just me, not an organization. Now that I think about it, I should have put organization: “superior” or “God-like” since being organized is the thing that keeps me glued to this planet. But back to the order form, it got kicked back to me demanding I fill in the line for organization so in an impulsive smart ass moment I typed in: Insane Genius Posse. Now I’m wondering how this is going to come back to haunt me.

Since I started my whole web-hosting thing I’ve been working on my pages for the re-launch and finally last night I viewed some of the pages in Netscape instead of Dreamweaver (where they look spectacular, for me), and they looked like crap. Since I’m a style sheet novice I’ve been trying to figure out if it will be faster to just bail on the style sheets and put everything back OR if I can tweak the style sheet and make it work. I’m thinking the style sheets are going away.

PERFORATION QUESTION

Does anyone know anything about perforations? Like on your bills. I mean, have you ever noticed how the perf that you tear for the little section you put in the envelope to mail back with your check — it doesn’t line up with the natural crease of the paper the way it’s folded to go into the envelope — like by about 3 microns? Okay, well I have noticed this and it’s on lots of different bills. This makes no sense, why not design your bill so it lines up? There must be some sort of techno-mechano reason that a form can’t be made that lines up the crease and the perforation.

Finally, I’m back here. I have some stories to tell but I was busy this week.

The backstory: last summer me and Billy started going to Happy Hour on Thursday (my Friday) at The Patio – outdoor tables on the Esplanade by the RiverPlace Hotel. The Patio closes in winter and since April, every time there was a nice day we’d start talking about The Patio re-opening. A couple weeks ago they put the tables outside and we were all in anticipation and finally they opened last Friday so yesterday was the first day of Happy Hour at The Patio. I had to look at documents on the coast and I was extremely motivated to get the job done quickly and efficiently so I could get back in time for Happy Hour.

We go to The Patio and we’re both starving and we’re all happy about first day out at The Patio and having a snack and then: WTF?

First of all, The Patio serves beer in 12 oz plastic cups for the same price as the hotel bar which serves beer in pint glasses. (The Patio is run by the hotel). We get the menu and where are the fun normal snacky bar snacks? No, it’s like “Baby New Zealand Artichokes steamed in Bavarian butter and Serengeti seared raspberries over a bed of wild marsh goatnut ricepatties and percolated snaplings” for $19.95. WTF? This is a friggin outdoor patio. So the gal serving us is helpful and sweet and we’ve already complained that they no long have MacTarnahans Ale and we have to get Fat Tire and I ask her about the menu and what happened to the snacky snacks and she explains that they have a new chef, from France, and how they still have snacky snacks but Americans might not recognize them as that. So she points out the “East Atlantic popcorn shrimp, served with wilted red pepper aioli and truffle sauce and capers” for $4.95 which I knew was going to be three little shrimp the size of my pinky-nail and not going to do squat for our hunger problem. So we’re sort of lukewarm so she points out the “Northern Idaho baby roasted potatoes” with some sort of Frenchy huey-palooey sauce that American’s wouldn’t know so they called it chili nut sauce and I look at her and I say, “Does this feel like a baby roasted potato moment to you?”

I mean, come on. We’re on a friggin outdoor patio — total black bean quesadilla territory, it’s like 80 degrees out and I’m drinking a beer and I’m going to order a plate of potatoes?

It was quite the disappointment. I felt bad because the gal was being so sincerely helpful although Billy suggested the whole “we have a French chef” routine sounded snotty. We ended up going back to the hotel bar and since we’re regulars there (“everybody knows our name”) we told them our issues with the menu and I’ll bet last night Pascal French Chef went home to his significant other bitching and moaning about those low brow Americans who want mini pizzas at the bar instead of the “Newfoundland foie gras pinwheels with roasted Arizona baby pepper syrup and unleavened croissant wedges.”

I finally finished my brick books! You know, the swords and dragons thing by Tad “insomniac” Williams. I liked the story but 3,000 pages is going to try your reader’s patience. Well, your reader who is not a regular brick-book-swords-and-dragons person. I was telling my Mom about the story this morning and she says, “Oh, so it’s like a good v. evil thing?” and I’m like, “aren’t they all?” Since I finished I’ve been finishing up my various odds and ends like New Yorkers. I thought our subscription had died and much as I LOVE the magazine, it’s just too friggin much when you only have limited reading time. But we got a (sigh) double issue yesterday so I STILL have a New Yorkers in my pile. There is no way to catch up. Unless you are in prison and I’m not making a wish here.

Yesterday I tried to cook these chili rellenos from Trader Joe’s. They come frozen and I followed the package directions and had them covered with foil and baked in the oven for about 30 minutes. When I took them out, the top still felt frozen. I threw them in the microwave for 2 minutes thinking that would do the trick and when I took them out they were still frozen on top. So I put them back in for another minute. Took them out — the top still felt frozen. Okay, what kind of food, or any earthly substance for that matter, still feels frozen after all this heating? I tried to scrape the top frozen part off the top and it was like a layer of frosty sponge. The relleno thing underneath looked hard and yellow so I ended up throwing the whole thing in the trash. It scared me.