They're Doing It Wrong
I'll start with people who aren't doing it wrong. The yummy deli in downtown Vancouver is called La Bottega and right this moment I am full with treats from their delicious lunch menu. (That website could use just a teeny bit of cleaning up. Maybe I can offer to trade for food!) It's a deli, it's a wine shop, it's a sit down restaurant that was SRO today for lunch. We shared a grilled pesto salmon salad and a large serving of smoked mushroom ravioli and I picked up a couple pounds of ravioli to take when I visit my Mom and Dad. It's located on Main in the old Hank's Tavern.

So in the category of people are assholes item # 1430. On Wednesday as I took my yoga clothes out of the trunk I noticed that there was some peeling paint on the rear bumper. Remember back in April I took the car in and got all this body work taken care of and it was three different claims. Someone hit me, someone hit-and-run and I, uh, scraped something. I'm not obsessive but I like to take care of my things and the car was starting to feel like a dented tuna can so I finally took care of it and after all the deductibles and taxes and charges and extra charges, let's just say it cost about the same as one paycheck on a bi-monthly payday schedule.

I drove by the bodyshop today to have them check out the peeling paint and turns out my car was hit again. He showed me where you can see on the bumper how something hit it hard enough to make the bumper (plastic) bend and crack the paint. Then I remember that when I pulled out on Wednesday, the car behind me (remember we have tandem parking) was a Hummer. Probably didn't even feel hitting my car. Thanks guy! Or gal!

I hate to ignore it because what's a small bit of peeling paint now is no doubt going to be a crap looking bumper three months from now. I asked the body shop if there was a temporary fix so it wouldn't get worse — I know zero about car bodies but there must be some sort of something they could seal it with. If there is, there was nothing they were willing to do for me without a claim and an estimate. So there you go. I don't want to spend any more money the bumper of a 2001 car with 75,000 miles on it.

Next item. My dear husband turned 50 in March and one of his relatives thought it would be funny to get him a membership in AARP. As a spouse, I'm a member, too. I'm still in the process of owning the whole middle age thing. I don't want to be a member of a retired people club. Especially since the retired people club has been blitzing us with piles of unsolicited mail for insurance and crap like that.

I'm hardcore on not getting junk mail and catalogs and we get very little. This afternoon I decided to log into their webpage and drop them a note opting out of all these mailings. And of course there are only two ways you can contact AARP: mail and phone. Evolve or die, AARP!

So I phoned and here's where they invested their technology dollars: a phonebot to answer the phone. Remember how much I loved the Sears phonebot? It was awful. It was like reading my request one letter at a time. I got tired of dicking around and pressed the magic zero and my bot said, "I'm sorry. You didn't answer my question about what you had for lunch. If you had baloney and cheese, say: baloney and cheese."

I screamed: "I want to talk to a person!" (I really did shriek very loud so imagine a cat in a blender type voice when you read the above.) And the bot said, "Would you like to speak to a customer service representative?" And I said "Yes!" and she said, "I'll get someone to help us." And that is not a typo or error, the robot said she'd get someone to help us.

Aside, and I wish I could find the URL, but recently I saw an article online said that often phonebots are programmed to recognize swear words so if you tell the phonebot to f-off, it will transfer you to a person.

Dimitri came on the line and was happy to help me out with my request and supposedly, that problem solved. So what you learned here is that if you don't want to talk to a phonebot try screaming and swearing. The laugh you get when it works will diffuse your frustration.

Final item of the day. You know how there are stereotypical categories of certain types of cars and driving behavior? The aggro pick-up truck that can't go less than 25 MPH over the posted limit who zooms up on your bumper and terrorizes you and giving you about three seconds to change lanes before swerving around you and then flipping you the bird like you're the bad guy driven by the guy wearing a baseball cap? The pushy Subaru that absolutely has to get in front of you even if you've already let a car in or have to slam on your brakes but then gives you a wave like we're all so friendly driven by a woman with bobbed hair and a labrador in the back? The luxury sedan with the person on the cellphone drifting around in the lane and not aware of the concept of turn signals? I have a new one to add: the lame Prius driver. Hello! You aren't going to save the planet by ignoring your accelerator. (It's not getting any greener! ha!) Or hey, I'm giving you close to three car lengths, go ahead and change lanes. You're safe. Jeez.

The Awfulizer
Last night I woke up at around 1:30am with what Bob would call "a flippy stomach." I got up and drank some bubble water and read for a half hour and everything settled down and I turned the light out.

And then tossed and turned with a few segments of troubled napping for the rest of the night.

My middle of the night brain and my regular brain are completely different beasts. I lay there awfulizing about the most random things that don't even make sense. Like what if we both get sick and both lose our jobs and go through all our savings and have to grow our own food in the backyard and wolves roam the neighborhood and the vampires win and … .

I even realize that my middle of the night brain is just trying to freak me out while it's doing it but still, I get all agitated and my heart races and I can't sleep. Then I heard random sounds that worried me. One was like a gnat shivering. I kept thinking I should get up and investigate. Or another sound was like someone was going through our bills and papers in the kitchen. Because that really could happen in the middle of the night.

About 2:45a I heard my neighbor's car start and I had to wonder what he was doing at the hour. Was he going to work? What kind of job starts in the middle of the night? Is he a security guard? Convenience mart? Maybe he just had insomnia and needed a drive. Good thing he has me worrying about it for him.

Then as I drifted in and out I had bizarre dreams like people were reaching in the bedroom windows and stealing my things and this dog that was running around the neighborhood that we had to catch and then random stuff about this person that's famous for no clear reason who just got out of jail. It was a long night.

Implosion
On the way to lunch the elevator stopped and the UPS man *and* the Fed Ex man got on. "Whoa!" I said. "Isn't this like when Superman goes back into the past and he can't be in the same room with past Superman or the Universe will implode?" And the UPS man said: "It's not that bad."

Research show people who worry a lot are more likely to develop memory problems than happy, shiny people. Great. One more thing to worry about.

Second Hand Rose
Hey, remember the half price rose I bought? I didn't have huge hope for it but it is the source of the peachy looking rose. The bush is about 3 feet shorter than the other roses but it's blooming and no other roses are close to that color. Ah. Personal satisfication from gardening.

Meanwhile, I think I've wrung all the entertainment I can get out of that dahlia. Now that it's here, I have to say, it's not my favorite. It looks like a carnival rather than something based in nature. But the pink one. Gorgeous. I'm calling it the lotus dahlia.

I've had this funny little bump on my left foot on the outer part of the heel. Just like a very faint blister and whenever I have bare feet and my left foot is folded in my lap, I rub it.

Today I noticed that it was bigger and possibly a bit hard and even hurt a teeny bit. I think it's a plantar wart.

As soon as I realized that I thought, "Great, a blogging story," because one time I had a horrific plantar wart, partly my fault because I was young and didn't really clue in there was a problem until it was very advanced and it hurt to put my shoe on. This was back in the 80's and we couldn't diagnose things on the Internet. And I should clarify the treatment was horrific, the plantar wart was just big and painful.

But just out of curiousity, I did a little search and already wrote about this in 2001 when apparently I had a plantar wart outbreak. Also on the left foot. Funny, I have zero recollection of this. Is this what getting old is like? Thank God for blogging. I got rid of them back then, I can do it again. No cause for alarm. I wish I wrote what I did to cure it. Hopefully that stuff you buy at the grocery store because that's what I'm going to do this time.

It Doesn't Look Like It Knows What It's Doing
I can't blame it though, we've had some fairly violent rain today. Who'd want to bloom in that? I'm glad I wasn't out watching a soccer match.

I spent the past two days working on a writing project and I'm reminded how much time this sucks up. And, now my brain feels like mush. There were rewarding moments, too, but I'm not close to finished so I'm going to shower and see if I can grind at it until dinner.

Last night we had two giant salmon steaks from Alaska courtesy of coworker. I made Auntie's secret barbecue sauce which includes butter, lemon juice, garlic, butter and a few flavorings. The main ingredient is two cubes of butter. The sauce smelled fantastic and should be made into perfume or room spray. I told Bob we could dip our shoes in it and they would taste terrific.

I expected my digestive system to revolt terribly after the butter assault but nope, we did fine. There's a utensil in the dishwasher that still smells delicious so I can pull it out and close my eyes and dream of yummy salmon.

Dahlia Watch Continues
Look, there's a purply-pink dahlia in the background that's kicking its ass. I think when this thing finally blooms it's going to be as big as my head.

The other day I wrote that when people say they don't read, I can't understand what that means.

I recently read an interview with an up-and-coming young singer and she said she never eats vegetables. I find this equally alarming. What does she mean? She won't eat Brussels sprouts or boiled cabbage? Or never. Like, not even salad? Does she eat fruit? I can't imagine not eating vegetables. I finely dice carrots and turnips and add them to my chili.

[That sound that you hear is 3/4s of the population of Texas keeling over at my blasphemy with chili.]

You know when you're on a road trip and you've been eating pizza and burritos for a few days and when you finally find a decent salad somewhere you're practically weeping with relief? Sometimes if I'm eating a lot of junk food and feel sort of blucky I eat a carrot and feel about 90% better.

—

There's a wildly popular online retailer that I'm not going to mention by name but I have made it a point of pride to avoid doing business with them. Then my local retail situation changed and online retailer bailed me out in a pinch once so I've turned to them a couple of times.

God, they're lame.

Let's say you find an item you might want, you'll see a little highlighted area where they tell you if you buy in the next few hours, it could be in your hands two days later. Then you order stuff and find out that super fast delivery costs about 150% of what you're saving by using this online store. So you figure on regular delivery and you do your order. Then at the last minute they say something about how this order can't ship for a few days. Huh? Well, you think you've lived this long without it, a few more days don't matter.

Then comes the day when you buy a gift over TWO WEEKS in advance, you do your checkout and all is well except that today, close to a week later, you get a notice that part of your order has shipped — just part, not even the whole thing but don't worry, they won't charge you for extra shipping — and that they expect it to arrive about a week after the date you need it for your gift. WTF?

If I use these people again, please beat me with a stick.

—

Finally, our neighborhood does an annual yard sale day and zillions of families have a yard sale at the same time so people can troll the neighborhood and stop and find sales on every street corner. I'm not sure how it's organized because I was never aware of this until last year when a friend who lives in the neighborhood adjacent asked me what date the big neighborhood sale was and I said, "Huh?"

This weekend is the weekend and I only know this because on the way back from the Farmer's Market this morning we passed about 15 yard sales. Our neighbors across the street had one going.

I'm not a garage sale person. Give or visit. No specific reason, just not my thing. I was surprised by the constant stream of cars all day long. I sat outside and read my book for awhile so I could study it up close.

More than half the cars were super nice, new, expensive cars. Yeah, I realize that garage sales are for everybody I was just surprised by the giant shiny SUVs and pickups and the tuna boat sized Cadillac. The other observation I have is that the average visitor didn't seem to take much effort in parking. They'd just stop about 4 feet from the curb, often blocking our driveway or the driveway across the street and get out and start looking around. It wasn't like they were there for very long but still, how hard is it to park at the curb?

I love to get rid of stuff. Maybe we can do this next time.

The Plumber Saved Our Lives

Look at this stinker, holding on for dear life as if blooming was a crime. If I was a flower and my person ran out into the yard twice a day and looked at me and pleaded with me to bloom, I'd go for it. I wouldn't linger in this stunted phase. I bet there's some sort of lesson here like I'm supposed to ask myself: where am I holding on instead of blooming? Come on already, flower. We all want to see you in all your glory.

There's a new deli in Vancouver and I'd love to link to an URL but I only know the name phonetically: La Bottega. It was Bob's idea to pick up dinner there and he gets 100 gold stars. This place is fantastic! He got a sampler of tons of lunch meats. But that's not all. They have soups — which you can buy frozen. I like to make soup and don't think it's a big burden and find most purchased soup to range from icky to works-in-a-pinch. Bob brought home a frozen jug and then a sampler for tonight.

It was called something like hot portabella mushroom and it was lick the bowl without embarrassment fabulous. He says they also have frozen entrees. I'm so excited about this place. I don't mind if it costs a bit if you can have something delicious to eat when you're too tired or busy to cook yourself. I'll find out their name and address so that just in case one of my three loyal readers is passing through Vancouver, WA one day, they can support this fabulous business.

Today the plumber came to fix the leak under the sink. I can't remember if I wrote about this already. One day I noticed that all my cleaning materials under the kitchen sink were floating in a little lake. This happened the same day as my alarm was on the fritz and I was all worried that venus was transiting uranus and all my mechanical stuff was going to hell.

This was cool plumber guy who replaced our faucet. It's all shiny now. We had a bad O-ring or something like that. Maybe multiple O-rings. And we got a new squirty thing. Then I wiped underneath the sink and put all my cleaning stuff back and it's all good.

When you have someone coming to your house to install or fix something, do you worry about making an impression? I don't worry about having a spotless house because on the worst of days my house is still a B+ but I worry about looking lazy. Isn't this crazy? I always want to look busy, like I'm in the middle of an important project. Sweeping the garage or revising the Magna Carta.

This is so sad to admit but I even worry what the mailman thinks. Like I'm so sure he's walking around keeping tabs on what people are doing. I think watching TV in the middle of the day is egregiously lazy. Unless you're sick. Then guilt free TV for days! But it's like I'm really getting away with something if I turn on the TV in the afternoon and if I hear the mailman, I mute the TV so when he puts the mail through the slot he doesn't hear the TV and think, "Swine!" Especially if it's sunny out.

Hot Italians
Look at my potatoes. And turnips although the turnips aren't too wonderful at this point. They get wormy and woody and have a weird tang.

On Tuesday night we went to an exhibition soccer game between the Portland Timbers and AC Milan Primavera AC Milan's under 21 team. I love to watch cute Italian boys playing soccer and these did not disappoint, although they were all born around the time I running around the Sunset Strip chasing after hair bands. The Timbers are cute, too and some of them were even born in the 70's so I can oogle without feeling like dirty old grandma.

When we planned to go to this game, we invited Priscilla and Aunt Betty. Then it turned out Bob had a work thing in Spokane and wouldn't be home until 7pm the night of the game. We asked at least a half dozen people and couldn't find anyone to take the ticket so Bob decided he would take the train from the airport to the stadium, find my car and dump his bag, and meet up with us late.

I killed time at the office until 5:30 and then moved my car closer to the stadium. It was still early so I went in the park and figured I have something to eat and drink and kick back and watch the boys warm up. I had what had to be the nastiest bratwurst on the planet. I've been spoiled by the farmer's market sausage sandwich of the millennium. This thing had a soft squishy bun like the kind that sticks to the top of your mouth and the only choice was regular yellow mustard which, to use a new expression that I learned, tastes like Satan in my mouth. I like spicy brown. And the sausage itself was greasy and texturally challenged. I almost chucked it after one bite except I paid $5 for it and I wanted a cold beer and I am finally old enough to have figured out that drinking and not eating = bad. I picked around the mushy bread and ate most of it and then got a $7 Italian beer that was featured at the park.

I had about two sips and then there was this tragic thing that happened that would take too long to explain but I fell (completely and totally sober) and a large splash of beer went up into the air. And of course this happens when we're sitting in the front row so I turned to the fans and say, "Wait 'til you see what I have planned for the half." The bad weenie and fall/beer spray set an off tone for the evening.

I did enjoy the game. The Timbers' mascot is Timber Jim a lumberjack who runs around with a chainsaw. I'm not making this up. It seemed to amuse the Italians. Our seats were over the dugout where there's a wide concrete ledge (with a puddle of my spilled beer) so Timber Jim came up and did his thing right in front of us. Is it safe to wave around a chainsaw over people's heads? It was so close we could smell the gasoline. Then he did his drum thing about 2 feet from my face. And damn I didn't have my camera with me. Timbers won on penalty kicks. I'm not clear why an exhibition match needed to go to a penalty shootout, but it was fun to watch.

Questions Answered

1. There must have been a power incident on Sunday because the answering machine and the computer for the digital cable were screwed up. I think this is why my alarm didn't work yesterday.

2. I talked to my neighbors last night and they said it's fennel and it's taking over.

3. Last fall I emptied my compost bin into the garden and dug it under. Unexpectedly, I'm growing potatoes. Coincidence?

4. I wrote this whole thing about not writing stuff about people that might make them feel bad and then yesterday wrote an uncomplimentary post about my ex. boyfriend the Amway actor with the crap car. Perhaps I lied.

5. That dahlia is hanging on for dear life. Last night I went out there and one tiny petal had come loose. It's supposed to be 80's today and there better be a flower when I get home.

Malfunction Junction
I had an alarm malfunction this morning and I still don't know what happened. My alarm has two settings and I set them a half hour apart (5:00/5:30) and turn them both on. I usually snooze a couple of times with the 1st one but get up before the 2nd one goes off.

This morning I woke up on my own and took a quick glance and figured I doze for a few until the first alarm went off. Then there was a time warp or something because next time I looked at my clock it said: 5:59. But I thought it said 6:59, the time I am usually sitting at my desk so I leapt from horizontal to sprint and ran out to the kitchen to check that clock. Then I had to sit there and count on my fingers for a second because I had to make sure it was a workday and then remember what time I usually leave for work. (6:30)

I was late, but not that late. I can get ready for work in a half hour including making my lunch. I hustled and all is well except I can't figure out what happened to the alarm. It was definitely on, both alarms. I haven't changed it recently. The am/pm wasn't screwed up. The sound was working. It's unlikely that I would have been hitting snooze for an hour and not remembered. It's a mystery.

Last week I read a brief blurb something about Amway which reminded me of my boyfriend right after high school. We went to H.S. together but didn't start dating until after graduation. This is the same boyfriend who who burned his eyebrows off on the ski trip from hell.

I suppose you could make an argument for the entrepreneurial spirit but I think he was looking for an easy way to make a buck and it was always some random thing. At one point it was acting. When he made this announcement I did that deep sigh / eyeball roll combo which caused him to get defensive and say that was exactly what his parents did. I can't remember how this started but as I recall there were classes. ($$$).

[Aside, I think he actually was an extra in something and I remember watching Body Heat quite a few years ago and there's a bar scene with an extra that looks like it could be him. Except the movie came out in 1981 so he would have been 17 so the math doesn't compute.]

This guy was a disaster with money. Not like living beyond his means or running up debt more like poor choices and more poor choices. He bought a red convertible Fiat -- just the car an 18 year old guy should drive. I mean yes in terms of the fun. One of my top 3 driving experiences of all time was driving his car back from Santa Barbara, where I was in college, to Agoura, where we lived. That's about 70 miles along the Pacific Ocean and it was dream sequence heaven. But the insurance must have been insane and I can't remember if he got tickets but I remember two fender benders and endless, endless repairs.

There was a joke that Fiat stands for "Fix it again, Tony" and it was true. That car always needed $400 worth of something so the b.f. was always scrambling for extra work or in debt to his Dad. He'd always say, "Once I get this thing fixed, that'll be it." Until the next weekend.

Then he thought taking acting classes would lead to tons of money. Then there was Amway.

I can't remember the chronology or who dragged him into that mess but again, me with the eye-rolling and him on the defensive. You have to pay to start out and I'm sure he used his last few bucks or borrowed from his Dad.

What I remember was going to a meeting. And we went around shaking hands meeting sponsors or directors or agents or whatever the lingo was. At some point the new recruits were introduced and had to march across the stage and for some reason, someone thought it was a good idea if I walked with him. So there we were standing in front a room full of grown-ups cheering for Amway. Oh, so humiliating. No big surprise, he never made even enough money to cover the starter kit.

Photos: my front yard flowers, a future tomato and there's the future dahlia.

Clutter Warrior
On Friday I was going through the kitchen counter pile. You know the one where bills and infozines from your bank or insurance or old people organization pile up along with reminders and clipped recipes and things you need to file elsewhere? I like to do this every week so nothing falls through the cracks and so there isn't a giant pile of crap in the kitchen. My husband wouldn't touch it until the power was cut off if I wasn't around.

He started to tease me as I tidied, momentarily ignorant of the fact that I enable him to remain blissfully ignorant, and made up some sort of song about me organizing.

"I'm a clutter warrior," I said. "All I need is a cape and mask and I can be the superhero fighting clutter."

It seemed funny at the time.

My camera works. Every time I put batteries in there it beeped and the display said, "Batteries exhausted." How do they think I feel? I tried every battery in one pack and then on a whim switched to an entirely different brand and it worked fine. It would be more helpful if the camera said, "Camera no like Maxell" but guess that's a lot to ask when you buy the cheapie one.



Photos: my backyard future sunflowers, the mystery plant that has that wispy stuff like fennel or dill on the top and a long root like a white carrot. Anyone know what it is? And a rose.

I finished Annie Proulx's 2nd Wyoming stories book Bad Dirt yesterday (#14). It's really fabulous. I read Close Range several years ago and there were two stories that really stuck in my mind. I don't know the name of the first one and I'd go pull my copy off the shelf and look it up except I can't find it. I've accused my Mom, Sister, and co-worker, who grew up in Wyoming, of having my copy but they all say no so I'm going to buy myself another. It's a story about a man driving in a snow storm. The other story was Brokeback Mountain.

Doni and I were talking about this book one time, this was way before the movie, and she said, there were two stories that stuck in her mind and it was the same two. The new collection also has two stories that really stick in my mind. The first one is called Man Crawling Out of Trees and it's about this couple that moves from New York to Wyoming and try to fit in. The couple have a bitter relationship that sets the tone for the story, but there's a moment in there simultaneously hilarious and pitiful, that says a lot about the woman character. The other story is called The Wamsutter Wolf about this poor trailer folk barbecue that goes from bad to horrifying. My. Great stuff.

I'm always around people who read. My extended family, including the kids, with very few exceptions, all read. My husband reads. When I hear about someone who doesn't read I can't understand what that means. Not ever? Or, only the paper and magazines but not books? How could a person not read? I get personally anxious when I see a person get on an airplane without something to read. Why would you do that? Airplane reading is great reading because there's nothing else to do. When I get on a plane I often have a variety of books because I don't know what I'll be in the mood for or whether I'll finish something. Any flight over 2 hours. Mom once told me she only takes one book on a plane. "What if you finish it?" I asked, aghast. "Sometimes I do," she said.

I love books and people who love books. Whenever I talk about cutting back on my TV shows it's always because I want to read more. Check out this Flickr group of people's reading piles. I took a photo of my reading pile last September.

(click the photo for larger view)

[I need to take a new one because I've already read half of these plus even on the big photo it's hard to tell what some of the titles are.]

Brokeback Camera
My camera is on the fritz. I've only spent about 30 seconds troubleshooting it so it might not be broken but merely need a good nudge to get it to do what it's supposed to do. I hope it isn't broken because don't want to spend an afternoon trying to figure out when I bought it and what paperwork exists and if there's any kind of warranty and how many days too late am I to take advantage of that.

And when I say paperwork, I mean digital file because I bought it via Internet and the file is somewhere in this machine. Does anyone understand how the Mac desktop search feature works because I find it consistently useless. It brings up 10 trillion things that have nothing to do with anything and keeps refreshing itself or the one item that I want disappears. My point here is that this is not a project I want to deal with today or pretty much, ever. So work camera, work.

It came up because I just ran out to the backyard to take a few photos for here since I have a Dahlia that's about to pop. I've been watching it all week and I think it needs one more nice sunny afternoon and we'll have bloomage. I'm hoping today's the day. Here's a photo from last year to tide you over.

I also wanted to try to do some sort of self-portrait to show off my new yoga clothes. I know it's hard to believe an old lady is wringing so much from a new yoga outfit. It arrived on Wednesday and even though I just got home from class and was ooky I tried it on and it fits like a dream.

I practiced in it yesterday to make sure there were no surprises like that one time I wore a yoga top that was fine in the dressing room but in class, during the first upward dog I thought my girls were going to pop out of the neckline. Not the kind of thing I want to worry about during yoga.

The new outfit works great. I'm thinking about buying another one now that I know my size and they have so many styles. The waist on the pants is a tad on the low side. I felt back there a few times to make sure my crack wasn't hanging out and turns out not even close. I guess this style is to show off those lower back tattoos that 4 out of 5 women in class seem to have.

I'm not violently against tattoos but I don't love them either. I think there are some that look nice but others perplex me. There was a gal in one of my yoga classes that had a giant bowling pin on her arm. Why would you want that? I'm glad tattoos didn't go mainstream until I was out of my 20's because at that age, I'm sure I would have gotten one and I'm sure I would regret it now. I used to joke that I wanted to go into business doing tattoo removal because it's got to be a growing industry. But the thought of spending my days smelling burnt skin isn't too attractive.

The top photo is from one of the few successful parties I've thrown in my life. That's my roommate Trish and I think she was more responsible for the success than I was. It was a halloween party post college and furniture got broken and everything.

The Yoga Clothes Miscalculation
I haven't been inspired to write anything lately. I keep thinking some great story will pop into my head but it's not happening. I don't want to write about the Sopranos finale because I know my Mom hasn't seen it yet and she's one of my three loyal readers. What I will say about it is that I love that it's generated so much discussion and now I've had some time to digest it, I think it was completely perfect. Also, I still own that Journey album, on vinyl, and I'm going to crank it this weekend.

I've been in the market for new yoga clothes. I'm sure I've written about this more than once already. When I practice at home I wear cheap stretchy pants from Target and old ratty sports bras. No one's watching so I don't care what I look like. But at class I like to look halfway decent and make sure that there are no flesh bulges around the elastic. I could probably write a whole post about the evolution of my yoga clothes but it would be hard to make it interesting.

Here's a short version anyway: I started in baggy shorts and huge t-shirts. Must hide the body. I progressed to a black leotard and leggings so that for the next 8 years of class I looked like a lady from a 70's yoga book. Then I found a cute outfit at REI that had loose fitting capri pants in athletic breathing stretchy fabric and a racerback style top with a yoga-y mandala thing on it. I thought REI was going to be my new yoga clothes store. Last time I went there they had one rack and everything was brown and XL.

For the past several (ahem) years, every time I'm in a department store I check out the workout clothes to see if there is anything that looks good and everything I found was black and plain and boring or if it was even close to try-on-able, it wouldn't fit.

So I started trolling the Internet doing the online shopping thing and I hate to buy something without trying it on. I'm a chubby small and a scrawny medium and a tall petite and a short regular. I'm sure I've written about this before. My online shopping had iffy results. Things would either not be available in what I believed to be my size or was way too expensive or maybe the style looked like it might be okay but really needed trying on first. I finally found really cute stuff on Prana.com and after looking at every single thing in every single color for about 9 months, I placed my order last week.

I got notice that it shipped last week. I can't remember the day but I was sure it would be here Monday and if not, then absolutely on Tuesday.

Remember the Calvin and Hobbs when Calvin ordered the propeller beanie and ran out to the mailbox every day? This is how I was with my Moo Cards and this is how I am with my new yoga clothes.

But they aren't here yet. And I didn't wash my clothes from Monday's class. My petri dish clothes that I carelessly tossed to the bottom of the closet thinking, "I'm getting new yoga clothes, I can wash these next weekend" have been solidifying stench for two days.

This summer I'm taking 2 classes a week. Mon and Weds so I have class tomorrow and now I have to do a load of laundry specifically so I have something non-stinky to wear tomorrow. This was especially cheeky because I don't even know if the new clothes are going to fit.

That's the update. These are photos from the scanning project. I wish you could see my outfit in the puppy picture because it was a jumpsuit. I hopped in and zipped. And it was red. The bottom photo continues my series torturing my sister with her goofy expressions. Ha ha. As if I'm looking like the queen of the realm with my goofy hair.

Pam and Jenny Ready to Go Off Into The Sunset In Their Bitchin Green Station Wagon
Drippy weekend. Bob thought I would be happy that it rained on the parade yesterday.

There was a big hoohaw in the paper this week because of saving seats for the parade. Over the years the city has allowed people, even issued tips, to tape-off sections of sidewalk to save a space for the parade. Last week one of the city commissioners made a statement that he didn't like the seat saving thing because people from the suburbs got all the good seats and it wasn't fair to Portlanders.

I think parades are stupid so I don't care either way. But I thought it was unreasonable to characterize this as a problem caused by "outsiders." Did he conduct a survey to see what ratio of Portlanders to others were getting all the good seats? Portlanders can (and I'm sure they do) put down duct tape, too. His remarks created a lot of discussion and some group decided to go out the night before the parade and pull up all the tape.

I would come out on the side of no saving seats but to change the rules in the middle seems like a recipe for chaos and hostility on what's supposed to be a celebration for everyone. You know, community building, fun for the whole family. If I was the Mom of this situation, I would have said, forget it. We won't have a parade. Everyone go to your room. But Mom Nature took care of it instead and it rained on the festivities.

I wouldn't say I was happy. But I did think there was some sort of karma thing going on.

Yesterday I watched Aliens while I went through some recipes because heaven forbid should I ever sit for 5 minutes without organizing something. I discovered I have at least 17 recipes for brownies, 9 recipes for pudding and 7 recipes for mousse. Also, Aliens is scary good fun. The recipes are the cut-out recipes from the paper/magazines that I stuff in a file. That doesn't count what's in my recipe books. I don't like to make too many fancy desserts because if it's in the house we won't eat anything else and we need to eat vegetables sometimes.

I didn't get rid of anything but I grouped them together and I set aside some things I wanted to try. Then I used the last of the yummy chocolate that Shay gave me from Scotland and added some bittersweet and I made brownies. My dear husband is very close to the end of the school year and needs all the encouragement he can get.

Last night I got out my Photoshop folder thinking I'd try to learn something new and I did this tutorial that I've tried at least two other times and my result always looks like crap. I did it three more times with three different photos solidifying my knowledge of making work paths, turning them into selections and filling them, but creating ugly weird looking blobs that I am not going to share with you. Instead you get this picture of the future Thelma, Louise and Babydoll, ready for some crazy adventures.

Today's still too gloomy for yardwork although we got a nice walk in this morning. I'm baking oatmeal bread and getting ready for the Sopranos big finale in a couple hours. How many times do you think I'll cover my eyes and say, "I can't watch?"

You Stepped on My Spirit Turtle



Tallships. I couldn't stand back far enough to get a decent photo. I don't think there's been a better time to own a ship that looks pirate-y. They're probably all booked for the entire summer. When the ships came in the rumor flying around was that these were the ships from The Pirates of the Caribbean movie. But I could swear I saw blurb somewhere that the ships from the movie were in NY for Fleet Week.

I don't think I've had a summer off since the seventies but I still get a little thrill whenever I hear Alice Cooper "School's Out" on the radio in June. That feeling of the whole summer off and anything could happen.

Right now the Rose Festival is going on in Portland. There are at least three parades and a big carnival downtown that used to be called the Pepsi Scum Center (Fun Center) and now is called the Wamu Waterfront Village (Waterscum Village?). Rose Festival means that the weather will immediately go bunk. It's a common joke around town but totally true. It's been glum and drippy every year I've lived here. Maybe once the big floral parade had sunny weather.




Here's where I loaded up on curly fries and bacon cheeseburgers before riding on the giant spinning bears of doom.

Today Sears is supposed to come and fix the dishwasher. We set the appointment for between 8a-12pm. The guy said that the repairman would call when he was on his way and if I didn't answer the phone, he'd assume I wasn't home and I'd have to reschedule. A robot ( a different one) called last night to confirm my appointment and about an hour later a person called to say that unfortunately they were running behind (How did they know that last night?) and my appointment would be between 1pm and 5pm. So basically I'm chained to the phone all day.

Small price to pay for a machine to wash my dishes and I probably would have stayed close to home anyway.




Turtle in the petting zoo and current conditions at the honey bucket.

A couple weeks ago Alien and Aliens were on cable and I taped them both to watch later. This week I watched Alien. That is a damn good movie.

It came out in 1979 which means I was 15. I wouldn't have gone to a scary movie anyway but I remember people talking about it. I saw it for the first time a couple years later on this new fangled thing called a VCR. Back then when you rented a movie you had to give a credit card guarantee of something like $75 before you could take a movie. I thought it was scary then and I thought it was scary last night. I have never watched the part where the thing bursts out of John Hurt's chest.

Last night I told myself I was going to watch it but when that part came up my hands flew over my eyes and I just cracked my fingers a teeny bit. I can't help it. Bob got home for the last 20 minutes and while he was fixing his plate I asked if he wanted to watch the end with me.

"Has the panty part been yet?"

"No."

"Good." And he rushed to fill his plate and sit next to me on the couch. Sigourney Weaver's tiny panties. Of course he wouldn't miss that. "Possibly the best low angle shot in all of cinema."

Sears, Salads and Spam

Dang! It's happening again. My domain was hijacked for spam. The mailer-daemons are flying in. Why me? What did I ever do? Probably because I complained to Sears.

Remember the salads I made last Friday? I've been eating them ever since and yesterday, as I scraped the last scoops into little containers to take to work, I was thinking: there is no way I'm going to want to eat this one more time. But you know, I'm all thrifty and don't like to waste things, etc. Sure enough, lunchtime came around and that was the last thing I wanted to eat.

So I ate some carrots and Wheat Thins (Big) and some sort of nut-granola bar that's been in my desk since Christmas and hoped that would tide me over. Nope, by 3pm I was starving and I ate some more salads. At the end of the day I took the little bit leftover home and threw it all away. No one should have to eat the same thing more than 5 days in a row. Unless you're stuck on a deserted island or some other dire circumstance.

Have you ever read survival stories where the people had to eat raw lizards or something like that to survive? And you're thinking, "I'd never make it. I'd never be that hungry." I don't want to be tested on that one.

I called Sears to set an appointment to get the dishwasher fixed. They said we have a repair warranty until 2009. How foresightful of us. We bought it in 04 and usually when they try to sell us an extended warranty I stick my nose up in the air. If they tricked us into buying it, yay them.

When you call Sears they have one of those creepy over-caffeinated cheerleader robots that answers the phone and makes you say what you want to them. I don't like talking to a robot in the first place but since it didn't seem to accomplish anything except give me something to play with before I got a live body, I don't see what the point is.

Which is faster?

Robot: Hello! Thanks for calling Sears! We want to help you! Please say your selection!. For example! If you want a repair! Say: repair!

Me: Repair. [I refused to say it with an exclamation point.]

Robot: You said you wanted repair! Is that correct!

Me: Yes.

Robot: Great! You want a repair! We want to help you with that!
[etc … ]

OR.

Phone Tree: Please select from the following. 1. Repair.

I press 1.

-----

Then after all that the first live body I talked to asked me all the exact same questions and to punish me for asking, "Huh, why the robot if you ask me all the same questions?" after I answered all the questions she transferred me to someone who could help me who asked the same questions all over again.

Yeah, everyone, including the robot, was nice but why waste so much time and energy?

I tracked down their customer service comments and sent them a nice little note and I took the liberty of speaking for everyone when I told them no one liked their robot. I got a form note back apologizing for any inconvenience and thanking me for my input. That's me, helping improve the world through plogic.

Intermittently
I thought the weatherman said it was going to rain yesterday so I left my poor garden gasping without water another day. Then we had about three drops and I figured the weatherman didn't know what he was doing and when I got home last night I gave them a good splash. Now it's raining. How can I market this talent?

Isn't it funny when you've been using something for years and years and you just discover something new about it? I just learned, as of Memorial Day weekend, that the "intermittent" selection on windshield wipers can be adjusted to different speeds.

I'm a little nutty about windshield wipers. I like my windshield wiped but I don't like the sound of the wipers. [Why is this sounding like I'm writing about something else with clever euphemisms?] This is mostly when it isn't raining very hard. When it's pouring I just want to get where I'm going in one piece, I'm not focused on the schwimp-schwump sound of the wipers.

On Memorial Day I was driving my dear husband's car and there must have been a light mist going on and I had the intermittent wipers going but they weren't intermittent at all, they were just on. So I kept turning them off and then I'd get coated with mist and I'd turn them back on and they'd be going back and forth not-intermittently so I'd turn them back off.

"This car is stupid," I thought and I looked at the knob or dial or whatever you call it and I noticed "hi" and "lo" and gave it a twist and, Whoa! The wipers schwumped intermittently. Technology is amazing.

Higher Thread Count
Every time I look back at an old post I see something to fix. It's tough to resist the urge but I figure once I start fixing, I’ll never stop and I'm trying to keep this train moving forward.

I censor myself, here, according to a complex set of rules that changes regularly and can be understood only by me but the main idea is I don't want to write anything that would make someone feel bad. I don't assume that people aren't going see it no matter how remote the chance.

I may be breaking that rule with this story and it's not even such a great story to begin with but whatever. Here it is:

I think every marriage has that moment when you have to figure out how you're going to deal with differing ideas about major issues. I'll say the top three issues are: money, division of labor and child rearing.

This is about division of labor, in particular: cleaning.

I am a neat person. Some might say freak. I think not. I don't stay up late bleaching my kitchen counters and alphabetizing my spices. I just like everything wiped down and put away. My husband is not so concerned and can tolerate a high degree of clutter and things like counter crumbs or wadded up socks are invisible to him.

Who gets to dictate how the house is going to be when you have two extremes? Is it fair to either person to say his or her version of domestic order is the rule of the day? No. Our compromise has different components but one of the main ones is, we have someone who cleans our house for us every other week. This saves enormous amounts of marital strife.

Our first person started working for us shortly after we moved in together. She was fantastic. Reliable. Hard worker. I hardly ever saw her but we'd exchange notes back and forth to say hi and possibly leave special instructions or whatever. There was never a day that I didn't appreciate having her clean my house.

But at some point she got too familiar. She felt comfortable throwing things away. Old towels. The newspaper that you left folded up on the table. She moved things around. She hung things on the walls. She came up with creative storage ideas such as taking a cute container I had in the kitchen and filling it with all my cotton balls and putting it on the bathroom counter. It was not a see through container and I didn't want it on my bathroom counter so I put it back in the kitchen and I didn't figure out what happened to my cotton balls for months. And in her notes she added what she thought were helpful suggestions. "You need to get your carpets cleaned." "You need to get someone to fix that outlet downstairs." "You need to prune that Hydrangea."

When I arrived home on cleaning day instead of thinking, "Yay, I have a clean house," I'd be thinking, "I wonder what she's going to be after me about this week." It was a long slow burn, I admit, I shouldn't have let it get so far, but it all came to a head one week when she was scolding, excuse me, helpfully suggesting that I get some bulbs in the ground.

Meanwhile, I was unusually busy. I had work travel, family travel and fun travel all squeezed into a short time plus I had just finished a class and had been working on a big project in what was left of my free time. So I snapped. And I furiously scribbled out a note suggesting that I was an intelligent adult and this was my house and I would do things the way I wanted to do them when I wanted to do them.

She left a furiously scribbled note of her own and the front door key and that was the end of that. I felt terrible that it had ended so badly but also a little bit relieved. No more running around battening down the hatches on cleaning day so that things didn't get thrown away or put away where we could never find them again.

I became the primary cleaner again which rapidly turned into resentment and bitching because, I signed up for a partner, not a maid job. So my husband found us another cleaning person.

And she's fantastic. Reliable. Hard working. When I interviewed her I alluded to the thing with the notes and she said, "I won't leave any notes." And she doesn't. There is not one day that she's cleaned my house that I didn't appreciate it.

But there's this weird thing with the sheets. (I know, a 1000 word post about sheets. Can you believe it?)

We strip the bed on cleaning day and put the sheets in the washer and when we come home the clean sheets are on the bed. Last fall I bought some nice light pretty sheets on clearance and threw them in the cupboard for spring. We use flannel in the winter. At some point in spring I put the new sheets on the bed on the weekend and didn't strip the bed on cleaning day thinking this was a cue that the bed was fine.

I came home on cleaning day and the old sheets were on the bed. Our old sheets are a nightmare. Stained and worn through in some parts, frayed around the edges. If someone found a dead body in the garden I wouldn't think twice about wrapping it up in these old sheets.

The next cleaning day I put the new sheets out and we used those for two weeks and then the next cleaning day, the old sheets were on the bed. This happens every time. I've only had the new sheets on the bed for a total of 6 weeks because for some reason the old sheets keep ending up on the bed.

Last week I came home to the old sheets once again and was annoyed enough to change the bed and put the new sheets on myself. I suppose I could leave a note. Or I could throw the old sheets away but what if we find a body out in the garden?

Sopranos (Don't Worry, No Spoilers)

As of five minutes ago, our dishwasher is completely and totally dead. This is the first day I have allowed the air conditioner to go on. Could the two be related? Can't a girl enjoy both cool air and clean dishes, washed by machine?

It's under warranty but still, dealing with broken household things is never fun.

And about the air, at heart I am an energy conservationist. All this Al Gore global warming talk seems to focus on the size of cars and not so much on everything else. I was a kid in the seventies when we learned about saving electricity at school. Turn the lights out when you leave a room and don't run the dishwasher half empty. My sister had a badge that said, "Watt Watcher." A few years later California had a drought and we had to conserve water, too. Am I the only person scratching my head, wondering how having giant concerts all over the globe is going to raise environmental awareness?

Wouldn't a better idea be: stay at home day? All private motorized transportation would be prohibited. Only emergencies excepted. Everyone could ride their bikes on the freeway and/or stay home and read books or play board games and visit with their families and neighbors. How come no one has this idea?

I like my house warm in winter but I keep the thermostat low and wear sweaters and fuzzy socks inside and now that we've had a warm streak I've hesitated to turn on the air. Who decided the gold standard was 70 degrees for air conditioning? Is there anyone who doesn't carry a sweater with them so they don't freeze to death in the movies/office/mall/etc. during the summer? I waited until the interior hit 78.

Tonight, between 7pm and 9pm the temperature dropped about 20 degrees. I have windows open now. We have a cooler week ahead.

We watched the second to the last Sopranos tonight. Aiee! I came late to the Sopranos. We had some tapes that were floating around the family and Bob had watched the first season and said I would probably like it. I was relaxing one afternoon and nothing else was on so I threw in the tape and ten minutes into it, I was completely and totally hooked. I watched all 39 episodes of the first three seasons in 3 and a half weeks so I could begin with the fourth season.

Don't you love when that happens? I saw the first three minutes of Freaks and Geeks and not only did I love it, but I knew my husband would love it, too. I'm trying to think of other shows that hooked me that fast. Twin Peaks? Weeds? Battlestar Galactica? I don't know. Sometimes it takes me a few episodes to be sure.

Anyway, as this final season started I said to a friend that I didn't want this to end all depressing with everyone dead or in dire straits. And my friend said, "They're gangsters. I don't think you're going to get what you want." Okay. Good point. But still. This is a hard show. These last few episodes have taken years off my life. I have one eye on the screen and one eye on my husband and I repeat over and over, "I don't think I can watch this." (No spoilers but #@$! and *&^%!).

I have a hard time with movie tension. (e.g. Matchpoint, Punch Drunk Love.) Don't get me wrong. I think it's brilliant filmmaking when I'm squirming in my seat, biting my nails and my heart pounding. I just don't like it.

Each year we cancel our HBO when Sopranos ends and renew when Sopranos begins. This year they had a special deal (Hello, Comcast, always a special deal!) so now we have every single channel, soon to expire, for a special price. Thus, I am catching up on last season of Weeds. There's always something new to hook you in when you have cable. I love TV but I always have so many other things I'm up to when the weather is so good. I still haven't watched Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee which is no big surprise since I weep just reading the synopsis on the book's dust jacket.

My final comment of the day has to do with our yard. Remember I have this adult onset fear of dogs although I'll tell you, it's gotten a lot better. Our neighbors next door got a new dog and every time I set my weeding kit near that fence (which is really a hedge) and start to work, their dog comes running over and snarls loudly. He's gotten into our yard twice. He looks very sweet but that fact that he never wags his tail and runs up to say "hi" and instead makes mean barking noises means that I've generally avoided working on that already under-worked side of the yard. Today he was apparently not home or inside so I worked as quickly as possible, sunburn or tired arms be damned!

You Can't Have Any Pudding If You Don't Eat Your Meat

Tonight I made a dinner like I haven't done in a long time. I made two salads that I invented. One was a couscous thing with feta, cilantro, toasted walnuts and kalamata olives, the other one was a variation on a Moosewood Cookbook recipe. [Wikipedia even has the Moosewood Cookbook. Can you stand it? If I could, I would marry Wikipedia.] I used the Perfect Protein Salad recipe but swapped out the soybeans for garbanzos. I also have wheatberries and kamut berries. I know, seriously, I'm not making this up.

The berries are a million years old but apparently that doesn't matter. Take note survivalists. I haven't had much interest in cooking berries anytime recently except that this week I had some at lunch.

My normal favorite Wednesday Farmer's Market lunch is the sausage sandwich.But a couple weeks ago we saw someone eating a very interesting looking pita sandwich and on further investigation found a food vendor on one corner with some sort of lamb sandwich/salad thing that we decided needed investigation.

This week was the first chance we had to try it and first of all, the line was twice as long as the sausage line which normally stretches down the block. Last week we asked how many sausages they sell on a Wednesday and he said 300-350. Maybe 400 on a big day. We had guessed 400. Second of all, the lamb sandwich was $9. (The sausage is $4.50). Your nine dollar sandwich is a big pita with a scoop of salad that has garbanzo beans, wheat berries and some sort of tahini dressing. I don't have any tahini on hand and didn't see any at Trader Joes so I used the gist of the Moosewood dressing which was mayo, sour cream, vinegar, dill and garlic. I think the nine dollar sandwich also had a scoop of tabouleh or maybe hummus, I can't remember, and a little lamb kabob. It was good. But was it a great, worthy of nine dollars sandwich? Ehhhhh.

There's a restaurant in downtown Portland that we go to for a fancy lunch called, Carafe and they serve a lamb burger that costs about $9 but there you get to sit down and someone brings it to you and you get a cloth napkin and a plate, and it's crystal clear whose turn it is.

There was a little line snafu at the market and this woman had stepped more towards the pay area and away from the order area so when it someone approached to take our order they skipped her. No big deal. No one was ignoring her on purpose but instead of saying, "Excuse me, it's my turn," she did this loud throaty, "UH UH AH AH AH!" like you would do at the dog when he was trying to climb on the Christmas dinner table and lick the turkey. So instead of feeling bad, like, oh, we missed this lady's turn, we were like, "Geez, if that stick up your butt hurts, maybe you should yank it out."

It's back to the sausage cart for me next week.

For the rest of the dinner we had hummus and pita pockets and I made little falafel balls. The recipe made about 30 so we'll be eating falafel balls for a week.