Back today from three back-to-back trips. All good. But tonight I'm ready for an early bedtime. It's not the trip and traveling that's hard. It's not doing all the regular chores that makes it hard. (For example, we have 2 apples and canned goods and nothing else to eat in the house.) Also, I'm done packing and unpacking for awhile.

I'm looking forward to a few weekends close to home. I want to put some TLC into the yard among other projects.

I just posted book #24 and I should finish book #25 tonight -- which means I am exactly on track for the 50 book challenge. I thought I was behind and was plotting to hammer through a couple of graphic novels or perhaps pick up a few YA books at the library.

Book #25 is a book Bob gave to me which is a collection of essays about Star Wars. There's a 5000 word serious essay about why Boba Fett is cool. Pam Porn.

Star Wars Post of the Week
I have all six soundtracks on my ipod.

FATHER'S DAY POST
I did a Mother's Day Post so I thought it only right to do a Father's Day post as well -- but b/c of the travel I'm running behind schedule. Besides that, Dad is in Germany and eating Fischbrotchen and who knows what other yummy things and not crying about his tardy Father's Day Blog.

Item #1 - We had bring your daughters to work day awhile back and one of the partners brought his daughters in and everybody was coming up with copying and stapling jobs for them and my heart was really with these girls because what could possibly be more mind-numbing than an office all day long with people helpfully giving you copying to do like this is fun? (Aside: when I was a girl, we didn't even have copy machines! We had those mimeograph things which is a great joke in Fast Times at Ridgemont High which I bet half the people don't get any more.) Much as I sympathized, I was dying to take them aside and tell them what I had to do when I went to my Dad's work when I was a kid.

We had to sort screws. This is not a joke. Dad had 10 pound coffee cans of screws and nails and whatever and we had to sort them. And this was not an approximate sort of job. If we mixed up the 5 and 3/10ths with the 5 and 1/2's that was wrong. Welcome to mind-numbing.

Item #2 - When we were kids Dad had a pet Black Widow that we kept in a pickle jar. I want to say its name was Jackie but maybe it was Blackie. That makes more sense. We fed it flies that we shocked with a fly swatter. That spider lived FOR YEARS in our pantry in Agoura, California.

Item #3 - and this is the pay off item. When I graduated from college we had a group to Santa Barbara and this included Auntie Ivy (Grandma's sister) and Uncle Al and I guess Grandma and the family. It's all a bit dim by this time. After the graduation we went to the Santa Barbara Biltmore for brunch. And this was a 10 star brunch -- I mean, you plotted very carefully what you were going to eat and how much and how fast because you wanted a bit of everything. They also served champagne which pretty much made the rest of the day a wash but that doesn't figure into this story.

For some reason, with all this spread of incredible food, Aunt Ivy couldn't find anything to make her happy. Also, it wasn't cheap. I think it was like $45 in 19** dollars. We had a wonderful server who knocked herself out, carrying over the champagne bottle and taking care of us and trying to make Ivy happy. Ivy wanted fruit but the 3 giant serving trays and bowls of fruit that were set out for the guests were somehow not right. It was like it was cut into the wrong shapes. So our wonderful server went back to the kitchen and got Ivy a special plate of fruit cut into different shapes which still wasn't right. (And I swear when I get old I'm going to be just like this and I can't wait.)

When the whole thing was done we were all leaving -- and here is where the great lesson from Dad comes in -- I saw my Dad find the server and very discretely give her a $20 bill and thank her for her help.

You did good Dad, thanks for everything.

Hi Kids:

I'm home in the middle of 3 back-to-back trips. The fun part is super fun but all the packing and unpacking and coordinating real life with being away is tangled up and a bit of a strain at the moment.

San Francisco Story #1
As overheard in the San Francisco Apple Store:

Guy Walking into Apple Store Flashing New iPod Shuffle: Hey, I just got this. How do I get music on it?
Apple Store Employee: Do you have a computer?
Guy: No.

San Francisco Story #2
Bob and I are sitting at the counter at David's (sadly, best URL I could find) eating our dinner. I'm to Bob's left. And older couple sits at the counter to our left. When the man gets up to pay he comes over and stand in between us and tells us that his kids are leftys (me) and he always tells them that if a lefty marries a righty they can eat holding hands. I tell him that we sometimes do.

San Francisco Story #3
In the Airport on the way home I use the restroom. The automatic flushing toilet flushes once when I enter the stall, once when I sit down, once when I reach for toilet paper and once when I'm actually finished. Now that's efficient.

San Francisco Story #4
We go to the Haight on bus route #7 to go to Amoeba. On the way home a woman alleges to be disabled and wants the driver to lower the step to get on the bus. The driver says it's broken and she can't do it. She tells the lady to buck up and drag herself on the bus. The lady complies, bitching and moaning the entire time. She hobbles to her seat and complains. A whole bunch of yelling goes back and forth until the rider screams, "That's enough. Leave me alone." The driver says more and she screams again, "Leave me alone." The lady gets off at the next stop. A guy moves his seat and sucks up to the driver telling her how great she is and she whines how her bus is broken and it's not her fault. (Well, yelling at the customers is.) At the next stop a lady claiming to be an advocate for the disabled gets in her two cents worth before exiting the bus. It's an eventful ride.

--

Meanwhile, I have tons of crap piled all over my room and emails bursting out of the box and a "to do" list that stretches a page an a half. My bangs need to be trimmed. I have gifts to buy. I have a Father's Day entry to get to. It's all coming. Stay tuned.

Bob and I went to the Quinault Beach Resort on Tuesday night. Turns out we drove into a tsunami warning. ("You're not actually going into an asteroid field?")

We kind-of heard about it because we stopped at a gas station in Chehalis and the clerks said something about an earthquake and tsunami warning.

It never occured to me to feel worried about this. The news reports love to make everything as dramatic and frightening as they can:

"Your entire family at risk from breathing air. Tune it at 10pm and find out why and what you can do about it."

By the time we arrived any danger that might have been was already passed. Apparently most of the staff had fled for the hills leaving about a dozen fearless gamblers ready to riot in the lobby as the gambling floor was closed off.

By the next day everything was full steam ahead.

Can someone explain to me why Network Solutions (I'm not going to link, if you're interested, they're easy to find) puts a cookie on my machine that expires in 2073?

I'm not even going to be ALIVE then, much less using the same computer.

Yesterday's FoodDay had a feature on people describing their favorite kitchen tool.

The Microplane grater is a big favorite. I love mine too, but honestly, how often do you need citrus zest? We also use ours for parmesan cheese but still, I don't use it enough to call it my favorite. Several people mentioned items I have, but hardly ever use like a silicone mat which I am going to put into more regular rotation.

My favorite kitchen tool is my silicone spatula. I use it for everything. Scraping the last of the batter from the mixing bowl, stirring the vegetables in the saute pan, finishing off the yogurt in the big carton. I have the old school plastic spatulas too, in several sizes and depending on the job, those get used a lot too.

But I love the silicone one because you can use it for hot stuff without fear of it melting.

My other favorite kitchen tool is my chef's knife but it desperately needs a trip to the sharpener. I've been meaning to do this for about 2 years now and never seem to remember to bring it with me to work. Or I do remember it (carefully wrapped in a towel and stuffed in the bottom of my bag) and then I don't have time to get to the place. Then I have to take it back home because what if I need it?

I bought a Santuko last November when Mom and Erin were coming for Thanksgiving because I figured with that many cooks, we'd better have plenty of good knives. I like it a lot too but the chef's is my favorite.

Bob drives me crazy when I find him chopping carrots with a paring knife or maybe the boning knife that came with our woodblock set of knives that we got when we got married. When I explain how much better it would be to use the chef's knife, he thinks I'm being bossy and trying to make him do it my way.

Here's an assortment of items.

The braintrust that is the Oregonian recently wrote a cover article about a study which concluded that college graduates with degrees in science or mathematics start jobs with a higher salary than graduates with liberal arts degrees. Is this really new information? I seem to recall this being true when I graduated from high school.

Bob had a party here last weekend and some brilliant person brought a bag of CapeCod brand potato ships: sea salt and cracked pepper flavor. Excellent food discovery. I could not put the bag down and I'm not a major chip eater. Find these and try them.

Here's a few more Star Wars thoughts. That universe was a dangerous place to live and especially to raise children. Everything is located on the precipice of something and there are no fences or safety devices anywhere to be seen. Every ship lands on some flimsy platform or sometimes just docks at a window in some skyscraper and the pilot has to jump from the cockpit to the balcony. Then the whole Utapau planet civilization lived in deep holes with different, unfenced levels and nothing but water and rocks at the bottom. Obviously the Galactic Senate did away with liability claims. And what about that Jedi gunship that tools about Coruscant high above the city with a giant door open (who knows, maybe there isn't even a door) and Mace and Yoda and the gang sit right in the door, dangling their legs in the air. One drunk guy in a space ship drifts out of his lane and bumps the gunship and there go the Jedi sprinkled to the ground.

I've also been thinkging about Ian McDiarmid who plays Palpatine/Darth Sidious. Other than Star Wars he's a frock film sort of guy, so you have to wonder. Maybe he's at a garden party with the neighbors and one guy is talking about how he developed some new rocket science that will change humanity and another guy is like a miracle surgeon who rebuilt a baby's heart. And then Ian chimes in, "I kicked Sam Jackson's ass in a movie." I would totally do that if I were him.

Finally, have you heard of the movie, Elle Enchanted? I don't know why this movie wasn't a huge success. It's Cinderella by way of the Princess Bride as done by some folks who are no strangers to mind altering adult recreation. It's wonderful. It has a huge musical number in the middle to Queen's "Somebody to Love" and another one at the end to "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." Charming film. Great for a rainy afternoon.

I did a good deed yesterday.

I tend to be suspicious when strangers want something from me. I realize we all have moments when our cars fail in inconvenient locations or we realize our wallet is gone when we need money and we have no choice but to rely on the kindness of strangers.

But then how many stories have you read about the nice people who stop to help someone and end up being clubbed over the head and robbed? Or how those people who stand by the freeway with their phony sad sack signs make $10-20 an hour, tax free?

On the way home on the train a woman sat behind me and asked where she should exit. Her truck had been impounded downtown and she needed to get to Jubitz truck stop. I wasn't completely sure but I told her what I knew.

A few moments later she offered to give me money if she could use my cellphone. (Have you heard the stories about people kindly lending their cellphones only to have the person run off with it?) I let her use it and refused her money.

She eventually told me her tale which goes something like this: she's a truck driver and she's gotten a citation related to her load a some time ago and the company she worked for never took care of it so technically, she's not licensed to drive in Oregon. She was pulled over in Portland because of something with her trailer and when they discovered the license problem, they impounded the truck.

She had moments to get her stuff out -- when she's on the road she lives in the truck. The company she worked for fired her on the spot. So she's basically stuck with whatever she can carry and no transportation or friends or family near by to help out.

She had gone to the truck stop and offered to clean some people's truck in exchange for some cash and they asked her what was going on and she told her story and they were going to help her out and let her ride with them and help her get a job with their firm. (I guess hiring a truck driver isn't like hiring a surgeon or investment banker.)

We chatted about truck driving and so forth. She seemed like a decent human being. She said she loved books on tapes. Who lies about liking books? It came time for me to exit at the park and ride. I knew offering a ride would be the right thing to do but I was still a teeny bit nervous about misreading her and also it was a long day and I wanted to get home and get something to eat.

I wasn't sure how far the truck stop was from the train exit but I thought it might be a long walk so I went ahead and offered her a ride. And she was grateful and offered gas money, which I refused and I dropped her off without incident. A little plus offering in my karma bucket.

If you're finding yourself with a shortage of ideas on books to read this summer, check out Rebecca's Pocket with zillions of links to different summer reading lists. Then tell me what you find.

This is an article about how the paparazzi sell their pictures. Odd business.

Here is the URL for Oceanic Airlines which is the airline in LOST. I haven't time to check it out much but if you're a fan of the show, it will keep you busy this summer.

This is an abridged version of the Revenge of the Sith screenplay. And in this case abridged means parody. It's funnier if you've already seen the movie.

I'm off for another busy day at work.

I had heard about this but not the details and Bob sent this to me yesterday. These guys did an elaborate U2 hoax. It's hilarious.

One thing I love in the new office is the production room. Its where all the supplies are plus the giant copy machine. There's also a big table to spread out the work and it holds staplers for small, medium and large sized stapling, small and large staple removers and machines for punching either two or three holes. Plus all kinds of stuff I haven't needed to use yet. It's awesome.

Yesterday I had my first run in with the giant copier. I had paper jammed in every flap and crevice and had to open doors and pull levers and twist knobs. Not as sexy as it sounds.

After it happened the second time I took my copying back to my office and reeled it off on the small machine in my office and sorted it on the floor, like the old days.

I'd offer a weekend wrap up but not a lot to see here.

If you've ever wondered about some of the bit players in the Star Wars movies, you can find an excellent reference at Wikipedia. Like that Jedi with the ginormous forehead's name is Ki-Adi-Mundi from the planet Cerea. I learned a lot of other things but I won't scare you with that right now.

I'm in the middle of a new writing project. "New" is a relative term since I've been talking about it for probably over a year and taking notes and doing research for the past couple of months. I've got about 25 pages so far but I'm jumping around as the images and ideas come and it's a slow go getting it put together in a way that I like.

Meanwhile, most of my spare time is focused on that which means that the yard is 2/3rds abandoned. The weather has turned downright cold and I never did get the walls of water on the two tomatoes that Priscilla gave me -- I never even went out and bought my own vegetables. I put a row of greens out there several weeks ago and I planted a zillion cucumber seeds and looks like I've got one sprout unless the slugs ate it. It's a poor effort.

A good thing is that all my programs are over for now and I am catching up on movies. We watched Jersey Girl which didn't do so well at least in part because of the whole Bennifer thing. It's a very sweet movie. Bob and I both enjoyed it. We also watched Kinsey which is well written and well directed and fantastic acting -- it's a good movie. But the story itself is nothing you wrap your heart around. Bob said something to the effect that it was more for history than entertainment.

In terms of reading, I missed a week on my 50 book challenge but at the moment I'm reading Field of Honor by D.L. Birchfield. I met Don at Returning the Gift in ... 1994 I think. It was in Neah Bay and he gave me the first chapters of this book to read back then. He was one of the first people to encourage me to write. He has other books published but I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. I'm about 80 pages in and it's hilarious.

I was planning on doing Noon Yoga today but I'm running late and can't bear the thought of schlepping a change of clothes along with all the other crap I have to take to the office today. And now I'm running late, as usual. See ya.

I saw Revenge of the Sith time this afternoon. For the third tine, if anyone is counting. I can find all the easter eggs like any geek worth her salt. Here's my question. (Possible spoilers if you've lived the past 20 years under a rock.) Wasn't there a lot of gossip and snickering about the Senator from Naboo becoming pregnant, her belly growing radically scene to scene and she wasn't married? Yet that dreamy Jedi Anikan Skywalker hanging about? Just asking.

Bob had a party with his posse tonight. The posse is his academic geeks from school. It's like my dream team of guys to hang out with. I got home around 6:30 and they were still here and we talked about politics and academia and pop culture and drank lots of booze. It was great.

I forgot to tell you earlier but I found a version of Prinzenrolle at Fred Meyer, Salmon Creek.

They aren't actual Prinzenrolle. They're like Knave-rolle or whatever. They're from Holland, not Germany and the cookie is a wee bit crunchier and the filling is a microclick off but hey, not complaining. I ate the whole roll within 4 days. They're a decent substitute when you can' t get the real thing.

Last night was the third night in a row that I woke up at 3am.

The night before last I got back to sleep and two nights ago I managed to drift in that cozy half-sleep space for a couple of hours which I figure is close to sleeping.

Last night the brain went on high-grind and I tossed back and forth. Now I'm tired and cranky.

When I take the train I've learned that sitting in the seats on either end of the car is the best spot. Less riff raff and out of the way of the flux of people getting on and off.

Yesterday the riff raff took up the end of the car. I have no idea what was going on and if I'd had a little more energy I might have asked because why would he go to all that trouble if he didn't want everybody to notice?

He had a tattered blanket spread across the floor between the seats and was meticulously measuring, cutting and taping strips of aluminum foil to the blanket. This operation blocked about 6 seats.

At the last stop out of downtown before the bridge he shouts for someone to hold the door (you can do that?) and exclaims that he's behind schedule. He hurries to pick up his box of aluminum foil, roll of tape, foiled blanket. Shouts about the door again. Still ends up missing it.