Excellent long weekend. Today was a cooking day and I made my super gumbo recipe. The one that takes half the day. It's ready now, and smells too good. I just have to wait until half time ... or do they call it something else in basketball? I also made cornbread. Yesterday I made cookies so I can have homebaked in my lunch and on Friday I make cream cheese brownies and a pot of soup. I'm done with cooking for at least a day or two. I finally upgraded my system software so I'm running 10.3.4 and I got the security patch. I also upgraded my stuffit and I read the ebook I bought about customizing Panther or Tiger or Wildcat or whatever the bitchin name of my OS is. Bob and I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in the theater -- liked it a lot, didn't love it and Phonebooth on DVD -- it was fun but, um, what was the bad guy's motivation again? We also got the yard cleaned up and mowed and weed-eated (thanks mostly to Bob) and I caught up on some odds and ends like writing a snail mail to Kim and cleaning out a couple of cupboards. And I read a story by Dave Eggers about climbing Kilimanjaro and I will state yet again, with great confidence, that I never want to take up mountain climbing. It's such a relief to not have that on the list.

Major tragedy. Have I confessed how addicted I am to Angel? Meaning the TV series that just ended. (Pam’s review of series finale: “I wouldn’t have done it that way.”) If an Angel dvd is in the house I can do nothing else until I’ve watched at least one episode. I’ve been getting the discs from netflix and I’m on the last dvd for season 2. I finally decided to go ahead and order season 3 although I’m getting into some stuff I’ve already seen. I’ve barely seen any of the early Buffys so I’ve got plenty to look forward to. Today, the dvd arrived: broken and unwatchable. I’m so bummed. No Angel this weekend.

This weekend is great but lazy. Been sitting around reading and loafing. Did some errands. Dropped a couple hundred bucks at Bed Bath & Beyond. Seeing as I only go in there about once every five years I decided to get everything at one time. Bought new summer duvet and shams; complete new flannel set for winter on clearance -- 1/2 off and a totally cool design not the usual ugly orange or pink flowers that they usually have on clearance. Bought extra pillow cases as all of ours are so old and worn you can see through them; new placemats -- ours were in tatters AND new towels. I've never used anything so fluffy. Our old ones (dating from the late 80’s) are paper thin and unraveling. This is great.

As regular readers may or may not have picked up, there are about 3 bands in the last 10 years that I have expressed a remote interest in. And Velvet Revolver is a band I'm interested in although they may qualify before the last 10 years ... . Among the modern age bands that I like is (are?) : 3 Doors Down, Puddle of Mudd and Nickelback. AND HOOBASTANK. And Bob informs me, via Rolling Stone magazine, that they hail from my old stomping grounds and I looked it up and its true:

"Formed in the mid-1990s in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura Hills, while the quartet was still in high school, Hoobastank has since grown into a songwriting machine."

How cool is that? AppleStore ... here I come.

I have a bunch of notes of things -- I'm just going to cram it into one theme-less entry. (ha ha)

I'm thinking of making a coconut cream pie. Does that sound Gilligan or what? I've never made anything like that but I like coconut and it sounds good and there's a recipe in Cooks Illustrated last month. I don't know. The writers group is coming over on Saturday but I already decided to make a different recipe: cream cheese brownies. I haven't had those in forever and it sounds good. I'm also making chocolate chip cookies. I was going to make them the weekend I got sick and I don't like any cookies except homemade anymore and in the afternoon I am always craving a few cookies. Today I had to settle for saltines.

Yesterday we had a postage due package so I sat in the lobby with the postman while he sorted the mail so I could wait for our stuff. He asked what we did and I told him federal Indian law and he was interested and wanted to know what tribe I was and what sort of stuff that entailed. He asked if my tribe had a casino and I said no but they were working on one in the I-5 corridor and he said: so I guess you'll be rich then. Is that really where we're at? That the rest of the world assumes that Indians are rich from gaming? If interested, the National Indian Gaming Association has excellent statistics on Indian Gaming. Please check your stereotype. Thanks.

So Sopranos this week. aiee! We knew it was coming but it still hurt. I won't post any spoilers here, but if you've seen it you know what I mean.

Finally, I went to breakfast this am with my college friend Woodward and I drank real grown-up coffee (about half a pot) and I can see why this is so addictive. I was on fire until about noon when I crashed big time.

According to the new blogger this is my 450th post. Who has read them all?

You know how when you get sick, the foods you ate before you got sick don't sound so good? I read this thing about how this is a biological response b/c back in the prehistoric days when man didn't have newspapers and TV to tell him what was bad for him, he learned what foods were bad by eating them, getting violently ill and then having a strong aversion to them ever after. So how this relates to me is I got sick on Sunday afternoon -- just after my critical main weekend favorite snack food grazing period. All my favorites sound yucky. *AND* we had gone to a party and I drank primo keg Hefewizen. Now, a general list of foods that sound bad: cheese, crackers, nuts, tortilla strips, beer, strawberries, salad (carrots, etc. by themselves sound fine). This is a tragedy.

I went down with some gruesome gastro-type virus on Sunday. The previous weekend we were in Seattle to see Spike Lee at the Paramount and to have Mothers Day with Bob's family. I guess I never wrote about that. When we returned from Seattle, Bob went down with some crud and later we heard Steve and LeRoy (Denise's dad LeRoy, not Uncle/Boss LeRoy) had gone down with it, too. Almost a whole week went by. I thought I'd ducked it but no. I did not. I won't horrify you with the details but I'd miss this one if you can. I stayed home from work yesterday and seemed like a perfect time to watch the commentary track on my Lord of the Rings DVDs since I've never had the time to do that. Well, it's not that I don't have the time but if I'm going to spend time in front of the TV, generally I watch something that I haven't already seen numerous times. Turns out there are FOUR (4!) commentary tracks on the DVD (FOTR). I picked the cast one and it was hilarious. I don't see myself getting through all of them in this lifetime although I would like to hear Peter Jackson's commentary. And then there are still another 2 movies. I haven't even looked at the special features on Two Towers yet.

I'm feeling a lot better but my appetite is still wonky and not much sounds good. I've eaten two bowls of soup and a half an apple. I'm a little wobbly, to say the least. I brought my yoga clothes to the office and assumed I'd be going to class after work but then I was stapling some documents and had to sit down to rest and figured that would be my workout today.

I read something about poor old krispy crud can't sell all the donuts from here to eternity because the "low carb" marketers are so successful with their stupid trend and people would rather gorge themselves on red meat and bacon. Thank God Indians LOVE carbs. For our working lunches at CDA casino Day #1 - we had 3 kinds of pasta with marinara and about 4 kinds of meat and I think a few bell peppers and mushrooms and super buttery bread -- the early folks all took two or three pieces so I missed out -- my flat ass is bummed. Day #2 if you guessed deli tray you are wrong! It was about 4 different variations on tortilla: actual steaming hot tortillas, tortilla chips, taco shells or taco salad shells with about 3 kinds of meat and some lettuce and stuff. And lots of cookies for dessert. And the bottomless glass of pop. Too bad I don't drink it anymore.

Since I finally got my archives to work properly I periodically go back and read my old posts and some of them are damn funny. Why isn't my blog read by devoted legions like some of the popular bloggers? I've read some of the most inane blogs. Sample: "I just woke up and turned on my computer and got a bowl of cereal and sat down here and now I'm typing this." Who cares, little boy or girl?

I found this old post where I tried to make manapua. It's hilarious. Recently, some random stranger emailed me for a bao bun recipe - apparently finding me via this post. Did he not read the whole thing?

Last item: new fantastic gossip must read site.

Okay so it turns out I'm an idiot. My trip was not to the Coeur d'Alene Resort it was to the Coeur d'Alene Casino which are on opposite ends of the planet (well, if you're in Idaho). DOH! In my defense, my conference materials, printed by a federal government agency, did not contain the word casino anywhere -- which probably has something to do with public policy and not an intentional desire to confuse me. Also, in my defense I will point out that although in some places the casino (like on their napkins) refers to itself as a resort hotel, when you're looking at the big neon sign out front the word "resort" is nowhere to be seen. In their defense, I will point out that The CDA Resort is a big fancy place with not a lot of emphasis on Indians and what the hell would the government be doing hosting an Indian employment related conference there? It didn't make a lot of sense at the time, but what the hell, I had dropped my normal completely cynical view of the feds and applauded them for wrangling such a swank place.

Anyway, all would have been fine if I would have stuck with my informative piece of paper with the conference info, which included the correct number for my reservation and transportation arrangements. But I decided to make sure I had transportation, seeing as how I was arriving in Spokane after 9pm and didn't want to be stuck there so late. So I went online and used the Resort webpage to grab the number and called and what do you know, they didn't have me in the system. Good thing I called. Look for the dark blue van when you exit the baggage claim.

Meanwhile, I leave work at 6pm and go to PDX and use the economy lot which I haven't done in a while and forgot my secret routine. But I found a decent parking space under a light and near a bus shelter and I boarded the bus and here's the perfect cute family coming home from vacation and here's the perfect angelic blonde child, 3 or 4, tops, who has "to go." And here's Mom, infant strapped to her belly, toddler balanced on the seat beside her scolding her for not going earlier when she had the chance. (Like that's going to help now, Mom!) Oh no, now Emma is crying. "Don't think about it!" (Like that's going to help now, Dad!) You can see where this story is going. Altogether now: "Emma!" Mom is horrified. Emma is sobbing. I'm practically sobbing as deeply buried childhood pee accident trauma floods to the surface of my fragile adult psyche. Mom makes little Emma stand there so the seat doesn't get wet. We arrive at their bus shelter. The kindly bus driver gives me a look and then goes back to survey the damage. Mortified Mom confesses the trouble -- like we had no clue. The bus driver helps them de-bus. Poor little blonde Emma in her wet shorts carefully climbs down the steps, Mom still scolding. I catch Emma's eyes and try to give her an encouraging smile but all I can think about is her in therapy 20 years from now, relating this experience complete with the MOCKING LADY ON THE BUS. Emma, I'm on your side. Swear! Poor kid.

Back to MY humiliation (and my theory that EVERYTHING is foreshadowing). So I get on the CDA Resort van and the driver tells me that I don't have a reservation. Well: Of Course I Do. They hear my confirmation number and with great confidence tell me that no, I don't have a reservation. I sit there staring at my information sheet while the horrifying realization that I have made a terrible mistake washes over me. Is there any way to get out of this without looking like a complete moron? No. They want to take me to the resort which turns out is miles from my destination and they want to offer me a room which is going to cost me personally twice as much as the room the government has already paid for at whatever place I'm supposed to be going. I get on my phone and turns out another ride is coming for me. The nice van driver is at all times completely professional and kindly takes me to a different terminal (and kindly accepts my generous tip). Later I have to hike back to my original terminal because I'm being paged on the airport system "Paula Rentz, please meet your driver." It's a black stretch limo. I ride with three people from Ho-Chunk, where Bob and I went a couple years ago. I get to bed at 11:30pm. Hours past my bedtime. The next morning I relate this tale to the people from the government agency with a big "hee hee ho ho" and I'm complimented on my sense of humor. What else am I going to do, cry?

One thing I forgot to write about Gladiator yesterday is that with a name like Commodus that evokes "commode" or "common" how could you succeed? Whereas Maximus sounds powerful like a super-duper condom or maybe, a winning racehorse or the biggest tankard at a coffee house: would you like: large, grande or maximus?

Alias is trying my patience lately. It's the same show every episode. Some sort of looney Rambaldi artifact (Rambaldi: not that interesting) that either CIA or Covenant has to get and whoever gets it loses it to the other in a big fight scene with explosions. Vaughn has lost all my sympathy. Jack bagging Lena Olin AND Isabella Rosselini is tough to buy and now did they really tell me that I now have to wait 3 weeks for the season finale? Gee, I hope I remember to watch it.

The next week is going to be crazy busy. It's the first of the month so I have all that stuff to finish up at the office and then tomorrow evening I fly to Spokane and shuttle to the Coeur d'Alene Resort for that training I do every year that I complain about. I get home Thursday night and we have more plans this weekend and Monday Robert and Heather are getting married.

I have been in an advanced negative mood for several days now and when I think about writing here I can only come up with a range of thematically linked rants like about jerkoff entitled SUV drivers on cellphones driving like idiots who don’t even wave politely to say thanks when you award their bad behavior by letting them cut in [these are the same people that back in high school were only your friend when they were copying your homework] or the same folks running around Trader Joes with their cellphone headsets gabbing away [“look at me, look at me”] while blocking three quarters of the cheese display and I won’t even get into the national or global stuff. I need to focus my energy on more postive things.

On that note, I’ve been digging around in the yard and I didn’t lose all my dahlias in the big freeze. I’ve found sproutage in all three key dahlia areas. I still haven’t planted my new bulbs — according to the directions I can do it this month. I want to put them on the east (?) side of the backyard but the soil desperately needs to be amended and we have to finish cutting back the hedges. Bob just bought a hedge cutter — after living here 5 years. You can bet those hedges are out of control.

I finally saw Gladiator which I never saw on big screen because of the violence and sheet-howdy. Good call. That was one gory picture. Those ancient Romans sure had nutty ideas about entertainment.

Here’s a Bob story. He took his bike in to get it tuned up and when he went to pick it up, he realized that in the new tuned up condition he couldn’t get the front tire off as easily (or something like that) to get it in the car. So he decides to put it in the trunk and tie the trunk lid down but then he realizes he has nothing to tie it with: no bungees, no rope. What can he use? (how Bob is this?) He ends up finding an old cable from a Zip Drive and it worked like a charm.