Home Improvement Wrap-Up, Part 2

Things I've learned about Home Improvement.

1. Joint Compound, which I call Magical Compound, is my friend.

I think Magical Compound might have changed my life. Making holes in the walls isn't quite as scary because I can fix them. Even big holes. There was a major crater outside our bedroom door. Now: fixed! with Magical Compound. I have a few more dings in the bathroom and hallway I want to fix before I put the Magical Compound away. Having said that, I have to admit that I winced as I was re-hanging my pictures. Those pretty, smooth (relatively) walls. How can I put holes in them and cover them up?

2. Everything takes longer than you think it will.

I broke the job into what I thought were small manageable projects thinking I'd spend the morning doing the day's project and in the afternoon I could do other things like work in the yard or make dinner. Instead, I worked the entire day and only accomplished half the project and spent the evening on the couch whimpering with a damp washcloth on my forehead.

Even putting everything back. I had expected to have the time to be all organized about it. Instead I was throwing everything in as fast as I could, thus creating a new project for next weekend: organizing. (Organization is what keeps me tethered to this world.)

3. Everything looks shitty before it dries.

If you've been following along, you know that I've shrieked at every point of the process because it was harder than I thought and didn't look too great. But each step makes the step before it look better. Then you get all your stuff in the room and you don't see the little bloops in the corners and your eyes aren't drawn to the edges and it all looks great.

It's like making pie crust. It's all crumbly and falling apart and you have to patch it to get it in the pan and patch the top and it looks shitty. But then you bake it and it's brown and smells good and tastes even better and it doesn't matter. Yes. Pie crust is a metaphor for everything.

4. No matter what anyone says, wallpaper is a bitch to remove.

5. Your hair gets dirty.

6. Drywall is hard to cut.

7. Home Improvement gives you rich material for blogging.

Home Improvement Project Wrap-up Part 1
I'm too tired for the full wrap-up. Today I hustled to get my stuff put back in my room.

I was amazed how all my books fit so easily on the shelves until I discovered a giant box of books stashed in a corner and then I couldn't fit the books in to save my life. Doesn't this violate some law of physics? I had hoped to approach the room re-stocking with more time and organization rather than shoving stuff everywhere that it will fit. But what can you do? I've learned that Home Improvement takes at least ten times as long as you expect. At least I finished this weekend.

In short: now that it's over I am very pleased. I can see my biffs. When the sun hit the pitted wall I saw what a poor job I did of smoothing it. But, by the time I get all my pictures, etc. up, I don't think it will look that bad.

I still have to purchase and install closet shelving (remember: where this project started) and I have a few other ideas as well so I'll do more photos next weekend.

At least the weather was horrendous this weekend so while I was trapped inside, I didn't feel so bad.

On the other hand, I was out in the yard this afternoon and saw clusters of giant weeds and items that needed dead-heading and I need to take the tomatoes out of the walls-of-water while I still can and get them into cages. So, still lots of work everywhere.

The Project Is Nearing Completion
I'm a little disappointed. Anywhere that a dark color and a light color meet pretty much looks like crap. I am pleased with the colors, however. I tried everything to make the seams look good: various painting applicators, tape, different barriers and even painstaking patience, often a combo of these. I'm hoping once I get all my stuff in the room, the bloopers won't look so bad.

What does look great: my drywall patches. More photos to come.

Here's my ceiling painting outfit. I didn't have a cool bandana to wear over my hair and I pondered my baseball caps but I didn't want to wreck any of them. At last, all I could think of was a shower cap so I used that. When I worked on the ceiling it felt like paint was getting in my eyes so I dragged out the goggles. The face mask was a strange crutch that helped keep paint off my face.

I'm in clean up / exhausted sit on couch phase.

More tomorrow.

It is SO Rocket Science
Why can't I be a natural at something? Why can't something come easy to me?

I thought I hated removing wallpaper. I'm starting to think that was the fun part. This paint thing sucks ass.

I got my primer layer on. I made an incredible mess. I'm guessing primer can live with some sloppiness. How am I going to make the real color look good? How do you get in the corners? How do you make the brush marks look smooth? How do you keep from touching the smooth part you just painted? Will this paint ever come off my hands? Thank God I read those web tips that included: cover your hair.

What about that extender thing? I felt like I was an I Love Lucy episode, wonking that stick back into everything. Where was the conveyor belt with the cakes? I keep feeling like there's a hidden camera and I'm the entertainment for a painters convention in Miami. They can hardly get up from the floor they're laughing so hard.

The guy who sold me the Professional Paint Kit (why not the Paint Kit for Dummies?) said I could reuse that fuzzy paint roller cover thing. I think he was high. Isn't paint supposed to make you high? It's not working. The only thing keeping me going is the overwhelming desire to be finished. I'm going to the hardware store to buy about 100 of those fuzzy things and throw one away every half hour. And a smaller paint brush. The professional one isn't going to cut the detail work.

Meanwhile, I did end up getting desperate to plug in Frodo. Look at my amazing kitchen computer station. This is the most not-ergonomic set up ever. But I'm so desperate to avoid painting a few more minutes, I had to fill you in on the latest.

The Onion Strikes Again

Many Native Americans Still Hold Traditional Beliefs About White Man

(RE: Home Improvement Project: continues slowly but surely. I think we're going to have paint on the walls VERY VERY soon.)

Burning Arms
The minute I got home from work last night I changed into my work clothes, put Frodo and his various paraphernalia (keyboard, mouse, cables, cords, power strips, modem, etc.) in a safe place and got to work on the sanding.

Is there any part of Home Improvement Projects that doesn't make your arms feel like they're about to burst into flames? Even my Yoga arms couldn't save me. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page for some crazy arm balance poses. Yes, I can totally do that. For about .05 nanoseconds before gravity kicks in.)

I took periodic breaks to see what Jack Bauer was up to. I don't think I'm going to watch 24 next season. I've had my season of free-for-all TV and now I want to cut back again. 24 is always the same thing: "We need X. X is impossible to get. But we must have it to save American lives. Okay, give me 10 minutes."

Back to the sanding, it would have been helpful to know how magical the Joint Compound is and how responsive to sanding because I could have saved a lot of time from my meticulous application and careful scraping and smoothing and fretting over the lack of smoothness. Sanding makes everything smooth.

It also would have been helpful to know that bathing would be an absolute necessity after sanding. I had to wash my hair twice yesterday.

Last night, where I needed a second Magical Joint Compound application, I was fearless, even developing my own method for getting joint compound into corners which involved a dollop of compound and an index finger. The giant hole that I patched looks poorly but I'm praying the magic of paint to make it look less craptastic.

More sanding tonight. This or this are most likely where I'll get my colors.

Yoga Miracle
This is going to be the last post with photos until Frodo comes out from under the tarp.

I had a yoga miracle today.

I parked in my usual spot, at Yoga Bhoga which shares a parking lot with Nostrana and something catches my eye as I get out of the car.

It's one of my favorite, irreplaceable pair of earrings. I cannot believe my eyes. I didn't even realize I had lost them.

They must have fallen out of a pocket. Some kind person place them on the curb of the planter. And they sat there for an ENTIRE WEEK.

And since I am a creature of habit, I parked in the same place and happened to see them.

How fabulous is that?

Thank you thank you kind person! You have restored my faith in everything.

Thunder and Rain and Joint Compound
Before I write what I intended to write, I have to tell you that it's just started raining and the sky is rumbling. The light breeze coming from the window smells fantastic: like minerals and candy and summer. I've just got out of the shower and started sipping from a glass of wine. This is a great moment after a long tiring day.

Now let me tell you about all the crap moments that came before it.

No, just kidding. But you notice I haven't been here so I must have been on the Home Improvement Project. I worked very hard this weekend, mostly even having fun but this afternoon I got discouraged and for about a 1/2 hour (or as my cousin Lisa would say: half of an hour. She had a big birthday yesterday: Happy Birthday Lisa!) felt like I was going to cry.

The worst part is that all my stuff is in chaos. I'm working on my room. My room contains all my stuff which means my books, notes, reminders, files, craft supplies, computer, calendar, photos, artwork, yoga mat and meditation area. Everything. And it's all put away right now in boxes and on counters, all over the house. I don't know where anything is and I can't do anything. That part is making me the most crazy.

I spent all day Friday and Saturday washing the walls. It took forever to get the wallpaper off and then when I started washing it took another forever to get the wisps and titanium adhesive cleaned off. Plus it made my arms feel like they were made of noodles. They still feel like noodles.

Today I apprenticed with the joint compound and the patching and spackling. I really want to do a good job but it seems like there are more and more problems. Cracks where there shouldn't be cracks. Stuff chipping off metal. Crackly paint that doesn't behave. I now completely and fully understand why people do a half assed job on stuff like this. One wall where I removed wallpaper is completely pitted. I don't think it's all from the wallpaper I think the person who put the wallpaper up originally had another plan and gave up on it. That was a half bucket of compound right there.

Also I decided to remove the entire closet infrastructure so I can install my own which will be a bunch of shelves for all my crafts and boxes and yoga supplies and junk. I don't need to put clothes in here. Turns out the infrastructure was installed to withstand Armageddon (is that supposed to be capitalized?). There were Paul Bunyon nails of a size I didn't know exist, keeping these wood fragments bonded to the walls. So I basically destroyed large areas of closet to get them out. We'll see what the Power of Joint Compound can do.

What you need to be aware of is that I am going to start sanding very, very soon and when I do that, my extra limb, Mr. Frodo Computer, will be put in another room, safe from The Dust. And Frodo only works in my room because that's where the DSL hookup is.

Hm. Well, now that I think of it, maybe he can be plugged in elsewhere but that would be like the kitchen and I already have my crap taking up every conceivable corner. I'm not sure I want to put Frodo in the kitchen. We'll see how twitchy I get without him. (Aside: seeing all my stuff all over the house is making me want to get rid of it which would be perfect because I started this farking project so I'd have more storage for my stuff.)

I can access my email and blog from my work computer so it's not like I'll disappear but I won't be quite as reliable.

I'd make some sort of goal statement here except I don't want to jinx myself. The Home Improvement Project will take as long as it takes. Stay tuned.

Free Girl
Yesterday on my way home from work, I pulled behind this truck on the off-ramp. (Are you allowed to drive with your small child in the bed of your truck, ever? Not to mention on the freeway.)

She waved and then held up this sign: free. She held up the sign with great determination the entire time I followed the truck. What was free? The young girl? The truck? If I wasn't so tired I could probably come up with something clever.

PSU Native American Students Salmon Bake

Oh Mama, I'm in fear of my life from the long arm of the law
I hear a lot of Styx on the radio which doesn't bother me as much as hearing Billy Idol or Duran Duran. Most of the time I like it. But not as much as I like hearing ELO.

Styx was one of my favorite bands in high school. (Go ahead, laugh. I've never pretended that I have remotely hip taste in music.) I remember crying bitter tears into my pillow to the soaring keyboard melody of Babe because some random 15 year old loser guy rejected me. Or that weird dance I went to at a neighboring school where they played Renegade over and over. In the beginning slow part you'd sort of wiggle around like some goofball modern interpretive dance and slowly bend your knees until you were wiggling and squatting on the floor. Then when "The jig is up, the news is out" part started we all jumped up and started dancing.

Of all the albums in my collection, Paradise Theater is one of the few that I can distinctly remember buying and listening to for the first time.

I got it in Westlake at the record store next to the grocery store where my Mom was buying food. Those were the days when there were little record stores owned by regular people who liked music and wanted to make a living selling it and music came in big cardboard envelopes with black shiny disks inside. The disks were wrapped in paper that often including lyrics, photos or interesting information about the band. These were called: liner notes.

When I got home I took it over to Sheila McCusker's house on Timberlane Street in Fountainwood and we peeled off the shrink wrap and put it on the entertainment system in the living room and we sat there and talked and looked at the liner notes while we listened to it.

Oh, it says that Paradise Theater came out in 1981 which makes sense because "Best of Times" was our graduating class song. I was friends with Sheila in 8th grade. Maybe I'm confused with The Grand Illusion. So much for my vivid memory.

One of the songs I heard recently was Mr. Roboto and it's hard to believe this was ever a good idea for a song. It sounds like someone accidentally swallowed a keyboard and then shat the song out the next morning. It's fun to say: Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto. Domo. Domo.

But the lyrics are super dumb and, like the joke about Caesar, I never understood it.

It says stuff like:
I've got a secret I've been hiding under my skin
My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain I.B.M.

<…>

I'm not a hero, I'm not a saviour, forget what you know
I'm just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control

<…>

I am the modren man, who hides behind a mask
So no one else can see my true identity


And then the great reveal:
The time has come at last
To throw away this mask
So everyone can see
My true identity...
I'm Kilroy! Kilroy! Kilroy! Kilroy!

What does that mean?

According to my guide to life wikipedia this song comes from the album Kilroy was here.. I must have moved on from Styx by then because I have no memory of this album.

According to Wikipedia: The album's storyline (set in the future) centered around a has-been rock star, living through a disguise of his own, "Mr. Roboto" (according to the album's lead-off song), and caught in a world where music itself has been outlawed.

I still don't get it.

Et tu, Brute?
When I was a kid I had a joke book which after a lot of head scratching the past couple of days, I've decided was written by Bennett Cerf.

It was the usual stupid jokes that kids think are funny except for this one that I never got that went something like:

What did Caesar say when Brutus asked him how many hot dogs he had at the forum?

Et tu.

Of course I didn't get it. It was explained to me and I still didn't get it. I remember reading this joke repeatedly, trying to figure it out. I can still see the line drawing with two guys in togas with leaf-crowns on their heads, holding hot dogs and one holding up two fingers.

It's a not even funny joke to begin with and then trying to pass it off in a children's book?

What I Didn't Do This Weekend
Ah. What a weekend.

Friday, woke up with the bright eyes, the bushy tail. Did a vigorous yoga practice and then pooped out. Cleaned my recipe file while watching all my shows.

Saturday went to Farmer's Market with Bob and ate pelemini and some wonderful Pecan Breakfast Ring that some nice people visiting from New Jersey shared with us. We bought some flowers for Priscilla and not enough rhubarb for the two pies I expected to make. Also asparagus, carrots (poopy quality) and I picked up something that probably isn't going to work as a birthday gift.

When we got home I saw a guy a few houses down going door-to-door with a clipboard and felt that the best thing to do was take my Margaret Atwood book, Oryx and Crake, to the backyard and read it sitting in the sun so I wouldn't hear the doorbell and be forced to ignore it while feeling a twinge guilty, as if not wanting to answer the door to random strangers who ask you for money makes me the bad guy. Turns out, reading in the backyard is splendid. The air was cool, the sun warm and sounds of insects and birds. I had to sit there until I finished the entire book.

The book is tough to put down. It's set in the future shortly after a global bio-disaster. Between this book and the recent movie about bird flu that I didn't watch but heard about and saw clips of and other media flame-fanning flu-disaster stories, I've decided that if there is a global pandemic: I want to be one of the first 10 people who dies. When there are still hospitals and opiates and they can keep me comfortable while my lungs melt and there will still be time for funerals and mourning. I don't want to die in the middle, when the infrastructure has collapsed and people are keeling over on the street corners and no one cares. And I certainly don't want to survive with no electricity and food and roving Lord of the Flies gangs. (If you're a young person, say under 15, and you're reading this and you're scared, keep in mind that I'm crazy and totally just kidding.)

In the afternoon we saw a movie called Art School Confidential by the same team who did Ghost World a movie we both loved. Art School was a wee bit disappointing. It had classic, hilarious moments and is worth seeing but over all the movie didn't hang together.

We saw a trailer for movie that I fell in love with on the spot called Little Miss Sunshine. It stars Toni Collette, Steve Carrell, Greg Kinnear and Alan Arkin and looks like one of those movies that is simultaneously hilarious and heart-breaking. I can't wait.

If you've been reading very carefully, you'll notice that what I haven't mentioned is the old Home Improvement Project. With incredible athleticism, I completely ignored it for two days. This is not how projects get done.

Sunday, I had to act. I peeled more wisps of wallpaper off the walls for hours until my arms felt like they were going to fall off. (Yay, I'm just over halfway done.)(That's a sarcastic yay, if you didn't get it.) I tore the moldings off -- what are the moldings that go in the middle of the wall? Do they have a name? I don't like them and tore them off. I also took the closet door infrastructure off because I decided I didn't want a closet door. At first I thought: I shouldn't do this, what if later someone wants a door? Fek someone, this is my room!

Also I finished clearing out about 99% of the stuff in there so I can work around it. Now I can't find anything and we have piles of books and crap stashed all over the house. Do you think I won the lottery? There's no way to tell since I can't find the ticket. (Actually, I saw the billboard on the way to work and the jackpot amount indicates a rollover, but what if I won 2nd?) More importantly I can't find the list of questions about the Home Improvement Project for Auntie and Uncle and Aileen when I see them tomorrow.

Once I got good and dirty and tired, then it was time to make the strawberry rhubarb pie for Mother's Day. I thought about having a beer but for once had the foresight to realize that wasn't going to help anything. The last 2 times I made strawberry-rhubarb pie, I had oodles of rhubarb leftover. Plus I have a giant patch in my yard. So I only bought a few supplemental stalks.

I went to my patch and although I have robust leaves, once I started groping around the stalks I realized they were like pencils. There was never going to be enough for 2 pies. (The second pie was for the visit tomorrow). Once I started chopping, I realized there was barely enough for one pie.

I re-dubbed the project strawberry pie flecked with rhubarb, wrestled with the crust as per usual and decided that for the visit tomorrow I'll make a pound cake, slice the rest of the strawberries and we'll have that instead.

We took dinner over to Priscilla, including some yummy halibut and roast asparagus with bleu cheese and balsamic vinegar and had a nice dinner. Priscilla liked the pie because she likes strawberry and but rhubarb not so much, perfect. And, no doubt like zillions of other sons and daughters all over the country, Bob helped Priscilla enroll in her Medicare drug plan. Deadline: today.

China Visitor's Guide
The Banterest visited China. Hilarious stuff like this classic: Using the Squat Toilet.

Rule One: Exhaust all other possibilities.
If you are truly in need and condemned to use the squat toilet, comfort yourself with the knowledge that you are several thousand miles from friends and family. No one has to know.

Proceed as follows:
Most stalls do not have toilet paper. This is the best time to realize this.

Nerd Bait
This week David Spade did a bit on his show about DVD extras, collector editions and deleted scenes.

He said that studios put out DVDs with different covers and call them collector editions. He calls them: Nerd Bait.

The line that got the biggest laughs was on deleted scenes. He said there's a reason they're deleted. "It's like saying you want the shit they left out of the hot dog."

(The picture above is of the Portland Library and has nothing to do with content of this post.)

Over A Weak Fire
Last night was grocery shopping night and we were both running late. Bob had a meeting and I was going to pick him up at school so we could go forage for food together.

But there was a stall on I5 and only one lane could get by, so it took me an hour to get home and by then Bob had walked 9/10ths of the way home so we didn't hit the store until after 7pm.

We forgot the list. We were tired, hungry and just trying to get it over with. The whole thing was not optimal for effective grocery procurement. (The next day we were laughing because other than buying batteries and "lots of juice" we didn't get anything useful.)

As we finished up, tossing a few onions into the cart, we tried to figure out what would be dinner. We didn't want to do any work. We both sidestepped over to that heat table thing with the bright lights and sweating roast chickens in plastic bags. We shrugged at each other as if to says, 'Sure, if YOU want to.' We stuck one in our cart.

When we got home we put leftover microwaved rice on a plate, tore off chicken meat and poured on some juice from the bottom of the bag. We hoovered it, looking at each other as if ashamed to admit it. "This is good."

Tonight I picked the rest of the meat off the chicken of shame and made a peanut sauce and some udon noodles that I've had in the cupboard for ages and finally used. The instructions are as follows (edited very slightly for length.)

1. Loosen Udon and put it in an ample boiling water. Boil for about 20 minutes (do not steam it for the food served in the pot).
2. If steam for about 10 minutes over a weak fire by keeping the lid covered, gentle and nice Udon is ready. You may enjoy the great variety of dishes according to your preference, for example.

We did.

Are They Just Messing With You?

1. Almost every morning between 7:15 and 7:45 am, when I am sitting at my desk at the office, a squadron of emergency vehicles with lights flashing and sirens blaring zooms through downtown. Is there really an emergency almost every morning?

2. Does anyone get how to cut a mango? I bought a nice big pretty one and this morning I attempted to slice it into a container and what really happened is that I chopped at juicy pulp and carved a bit of bright orange slush at the bottom of the bowl. It tasted fantastic but overall was a long run for a short slide. I think the champagne mangos have more fruit on them and are half as big.

3. Hey you! You commuting on I5 northbound out of downtown Portland between 3pm and 6pm when the car pool lane is in effect. You are the only person in your car. You are in the car pool lane. You are zooming by all of us with your blinker on as if you are trying to move out of the lane.

You are not fooling anyone.

I Am Not A Natural
Good effing God. What a sorry project this has turned out to be. At this point, I think our only solution is to move.

Working with drywall is like working with pastry dough. I was supposed to cut out (at a bevel!!!) a piece and use that to recut where the hole is so that the piece fits into the hole. It was like the pie crust recipe where they tell you to fold the dough into quarters and then unfold it into the pie plate. CAN'T BE DONE.

And the small hole didn't work because I didn't buy the right thing and I didn't like the stuff I bought. So I didn't even get to use my putty knife.

As I was sitting on the floor swearing and trying to remember how to put the drill in reverse so I could remove some screws (this was after taking about 10 minutes to figure out how to put the blade in my new utility knife) Bob came in to tell me he was going to Dinners Done Right to make us some dinners for the next month. Nice role reversal, eh?

Since the drywall was a bust, I went on to the wallpaper, first scoring it with my paper tiger and then spraying it with some warm water. Then I stood back and waited for it to fall off the wall.

Apparently this wallpaper was installed with a titanium alloy adhesive. It took forever before I could even scrape a tiny corner up and it's coming off in wispy fragments. And I'm not sure, but I don't think that's even a real wall underneath. It looks like a prop from a grade school play about a land with no real walls. Assuming I ever get all the wall paper off, I'm going to be sanding and/or priming and/or patching these "walls" for the rest of my life. Especially if I keep complaining about it and not doing it.

It's safe to say I'm not going to going into the home improvement business anytime soon.

Fennel Is Produce, Fusilli is Pasta
I just got home from Home Depot. Now I know what a man feels like when you send him to the grocery store for fennel and fusilli.

As I have written before, we have never done any home improvements and my best idea for a reason why is that we don't want to.

Recently I've been on this crafts thing. I want to make everything. I have zillions of ideas for cool things to make and how to decorate myself and my surroundings more creatively. I would make a list of the crafts but it's pretty much everything except ceramics. And soap carving. And macrame. But pretty much everything else.

So far I've been big on looking at books and websites and looking for classes. The only class I signed up for so far, sewing, was canceled in winter and not offered in spring so I've been meaning to go to the sewing store and just buy a bunch of stuff and try to make something see how I do. I've bought a few crafty things but I don't have a good storage area so I had this idea that I would make over my closet with shelves.

Then I realized if I was going to do that I should at least paint the closet first. Then I realized if I was going to paint the closet, I should probably paint my whole room and now it's turned into a Home Improvement Project.

I broke it down into small parts to keep from getting overwhelmed. I'm going to need to patch drywall. There are nail holes and some scuffs and one good sized hole the previous owners used for a cable. And there's a large hole from what we will call, a situation.


I also need to remove wallpaper, figure out what the hell is wrong with this leaky window and fix windowsill and pull up carpet in closet and put something else in there. Then I can get started on the painting part. But I figure once I get my feet wet I'll be inspired to do other projects around the house.

This weekend was the planned drywall fix weekend and I did my homework which involved looking at 3 different online tutorials and making a list of things I would need. Then I went to the store and looked at all the stuff and got psyched out and left empty handed. My next step was to consult with my next door neighbor and my Dad and this morning went to Home Depot (because we had a gift card there.)

I had to call Dad once from the store, but look at all the swell loot I got:


I didn't get it in the picture but a very nice man named DW "found" me some drywall scraps. He asked me a few questions and quickly figured out that I don't know what the hell I'm doing so he very helpfully made me two (2) scraps so if I screw up one, I have another chance.

My first putty knife.


Now I have all my stuff home and spread out on the floor. It's more fun documenting this than actually trying to do the work. I guess I'll try the small hole first and see how I do.

Stay tuned for updates.

I Don't Know What I'm Talking About
I remembered what I was going to write earlier.

Bob and I watched a fantastic move last night : Breakfast on Pluto. It was a teeny bit like Big Fish but not really. I don't know how to describe it but we were surprised how much we loved it. Great music. Fantastic tone. It has a lot of heart.

It was directed by Neil Jordan based on a novel by Patrick McCabe (which I didn't learn until writing this post) who wrote The Butcher Boy, a book that I read a long time ago and made a big impression on me, and became a movie which I never saw.

The lead performance is fantastic and I kept telling Bob, It's the guy from Match Point. Wow, you can't even recognize him. It doesn't even seem like the same guy. And that guy is Jonathan Rys Meyers who also played the dreamy soccer coach in Bend It Like Beckham.

I watched this incredible performance, trying to find a trace of the soccer coach or the fantastic performance in Match Point and was speechless.

This morning I put the DVD into this envelope and learned there was a good reason he was unrecognizable. Because the actor in this movie was Cillian Murphy. DOH!

Mr. Murphy is another great Irish actor, (der, they all look alike, those pretty Irish boys) who was in Batman Begins and another odd favorite 28 Days Later. When I say odd, I'm not referring to the movie which is a great piece of filmmaking. I refer to my own reaction because it's a zombie movie. Not normal movie food for me. But really a brilliant film.

My other update is the fantastic dinner we made tonight.

Bob found a great piece of salmon at the farmer's market. I had a recipe for baking that involves butter and Worcestershire sauce. I had a shallot that was rapidly aging in the fridge so I sliced it and added it to the mix. We roasted asparagus, too. And we had some strawberries that I sliced and sugared earlier this afternoon which we put over ice cream. Fantastic. The house smells incredible.

It's Saturday, it must be Chore Day
But I'm sitting here typing.

Yesterday I got all the dahlias in. I lost a lot in the "I'm going to divide my dahlias this year disaster (scroll down to Mar 2)." But I had plenty left and I bought a bunch of new ones which you will get photos of later this summer.

Do you ever go out to the yard with more tools than you come in with? Where do those tools go? I like to use a cheap kitchen knife for lots of stuff and now I've been through 3. I looked through the compost and everything. Now that the dahlias, garden and flowers out front are done, I'm losing interest in gardening. That must be why my yard always looks only about one third done.

This morning I started a new book and I can hardly drag myself away. If I'm going to be unproductive, I might as well go finish it. It's book #2 of Midnighters. Nothing better than a book you can't wait to get back to.

I'm working on my painting project which I will write more about tomorrow. I'm taking apart my room which feels like the end of the school year in college where you take down all the crap you've taped to the walls and goofball mementos you've nailed up all year long. Except in this case, it's been about 8 years since we've moved into the house.

I had more when I sat down but now I'm drawing a blank. I guess I should get back to work.

Why, Why, Oh Why Do I Go To Jantzen Beach?
Every time I try to buy something in Jantzen Beach, I regret it. It's an awful, awful place.

Today I was all hot on this home improvement project that I will write more about later plus I had several lists for several stores for things to help out with this project.

Jantzen Beach Target is a big store filled with nothing you need but lots of cool things to buy. I got totally distracted from my mission although I did do valuable reconnaissance for future home improvement projects. I only managed to find one thing that I was actually looking for, plus a few other things that kept it from being a total wash.

Then I made the super critical error of going to my most loathed big box worthless chain store: Office Despot. I used to buy the office supplies there because it was an easy place to stop and even then I always complained about what a bad store it was.

One thing I wanted was Magic Markers. Do they even exist anymore? Did Sharpie buy up all the markers so it's Sharpie or nothing? Because I didn't want a Sharpie. I wanted a Magic Marker and there were none to be had. I also like these certain neon highlighters that had to be bought by the dozen, so I nixed on those. I wanted those cardboard magazine holder boxes and they had a super ugly one available only in a 6-pack (I figured I could collage them and make them pretty) or some sort of simulated leather thing that was also super ugly in a 2 pack. I know I've seen nice looking magazine boxes. I probably should have looked at Target.

I found one other thing on my list and went to the only line I saw, you know, the old slow guy who also has to answer the phone while all the other employees are running around doing godknowswhat? He had some complicated deal where he had to credit something and recharge something else and while he was sorting it out, I chatted with the other customer. Ten minutes later they get it all finished and old slow guy says: I'm going to ask you to go to another register. We're closing up.

Me, aghast: After I've been standing here for 10 minutes?

Then, like the perpetual Ms. Congeniality that I am, I put my stuff on the counter and said: I have a better idea. I'll spend my money somewhere else. And I stomped out.

Which, yes, really showed him. Because now I've been in Jantzen Beach for almost 2 hours and I have accomplished almost nothing except getting cranky. Damn you Jantzen Beach!

I Forgot To Include This Below
I found this doing a research project this week.

IRS Publication 525 Taxable and Nontaxable Income actually says this:

Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income.

Unoriginal Content

Fantastic News!!! (not the part about Legos) This September: Original Unaltered Trilogy on DVD
Fans can look forward to a September filled with classic Star Wars nostalgia, led by the premiere of LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy video game and the long-awaited DVD release of the original theatrical incarnations of the classic Star Wars trilogy.

Fungal Infections Found in Users of Eye Products
A Wall Street analyst is predicting Bausch & Lomb will be forced to issue more product recalls after the Centers for Disease Control determined that almost all of the company's ReNu eye care products were linked to severe fungal eye infections.

Apparently real Eau de PLAY-DOH – Play-Doh perfume
Those fresh-from-the-can, full-of-potenial, childhood memories. Now in a convenient spray.

New fave site: Vegan Lunch Box Sample menu item:
For lunch I made cream cheese spirals: wholegrain dough spread with vegan cream cheese and a sprinkle of chopped fresh herbs (basil, parsley, thyme, and dill), rolled up like a cinnamon roll, cut it into slices, and baked.

I read this not because I'm vegan but because I marvel at the time and trouble this woman goes through to prepare her kid lunch. I don't put this much effort into my own meals. If I had kids and I made them lunch and they were vegan, those poor kids would be eating almond butter on celery sticks every day.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Yesterday I thought it was a fluke but this morning I had to wonder. Why are my pants baggy and my arms can barely fit in my shirts? How did my ass shrink while my arms got fatter? Is is possible I've finally achieved my goal of looking like Popeye?

The shirts I wore today and yesterday are for warmer weather and had been in the back of the closet since September. I got crazy and washed them before wearing them instead of wearing them all wrinkled and spotted from when I shoved them in the back of the closet last Fall. Then I carefully ironed them. I only iron about 3 times a year so this is indeed, big news.

So where the armhole shrinking part comes in, is that I buttoned the cuffs and both shirts are the style where you roll up the sleeve up to the elbow and there's a little tab you button to hold them up. If I had my camera handy I'd show you a picture. It looked very nice and neat while I was ironing but the buttoning makes the opening too small for my Popeye arms.

I'm almost always running late on Wednesday mornings for reasons that aren't clear so I unbuttoned the tabs and rolled the sleeves down, unbuttoned the cuffs, shoved my puffy arms in and then put on a sweater over the droopy sleeves. It's a fantastic look.

Someone Else Hates Them Too
Look, a blog called: ihatecapripants.

Take The Computer Out to the Wood Shed
I don't know what to tell you people about the redesign. When the weather is nice, I'd rather be outside working. And after busting ass in the yard all day, the last thing I want to do is sit at the computer.

The other thing working against us is that Frodo's color display has gone all plonky again. This happened at the end of last year and I made some calls and it's not uncommon with the eMac and I can't remember precisely what it is, a tube or board or something, but for what it would cost to fix I could be a third of the way to a new computer, so why bother?

Bob and I talked about buying a new computer and Frodo must have heard because all of a sudden he flickered a few times and color was back. He's out again so playing with photoshop, photos or anything with colors is a drag. Bob needs a new computer, too and we're not made of money so I'm not sure how we're going to proceed. I'll probably deal with it as is for awhile longer.

One project I managed this weekend was I did all my mending and hemming and I cleaned out my closet and drawers. It seems like I just did that but there were dustbunnies the size of VWs in the closet. For someone who loves to throw things away, I have a hard time in the closet. I have several items of clothing that I rarely wear and would never miss except they were gifts and I don't want to get rid of them. There are shoes that I haven't worn in decades but I hang onto: just in case I need a pair of heels. Which I haven't in decades. I did grab my heels to wear with my holiday outfit and they didn't even fit. My feet have shrunk. I was going to toss them yesterday except they don't take up that much room and they are a link to my eighties rockergirl past. They are part of the PamSmithsonian. I don't need that much new stuff. Maybe a pair of light pants and definitely a pair of shoes.

So did anyone else notice all the crusty old songs broken out for TV shows this week? Probably not since no one has my exact show scheme. (I'm glad we're getting to the end of the TV season as well, because when the weather is good, I don't like spending a lot of time in front of the TV, either.) Did the Doors just have some sort of meeting of the minds in terms of pimping out their music for TV? I have a vague recollection of something but too lazy to look it up right now.

Riders on the Storm was in both Invasion and Alias. Music should enhance the viewer's experience (see: Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola) not bring attention to itself (see Invasion, Alias). I thought Riders was a bit distracting on both shows although it was used to better effect in Invasion. It had nothing to do with anything in Alias. Supernatural had Carry On My Wayward Son which was also distracting and one of my favorite songs when it came out. I'd listen to it over and over and over and over and over and couldn't imagine there would ever be a moment when this wasn't my favorite song. I still like it.

The Sopranos also had a classic song but I can't remember what it is and my attempts to track down that information led to sites with popup ads -- and I refuse to look at sites with popup ads -- and a couple of other sites that were downloading so slow they were going backwards. That doesn't have anything to do with the work walk out today, does it?

Last tidbit this morning I have the thermostat turned incredibly low but the heater bumped on the last two mornings. And, there was ice on my windshield.