Major Tragedy
My desktop computer just died. As in completely and totally nothing but a hunk of metal dead.

Good news: we bought the AppleCare for three years!

Bad news: my 253 photos from Thanksgiving and my writing I did today are stuck in there.

Let's all agree that it's probably just some tiny little thing that takes 5 minutes to fix and doesn't destroy any data.

Best Thanksgiving Ever, So Far



We saw three bald eagles on the drive home. THREE!

Two on the Klamath, at the same time. This is one of them. The other in the Willamette Valley.

We left at 9am and stopped in Somes Bar for coffee, stopped for bald eagle photos and stopped again for fog photos which I will post tomorrow or later in the week. We ate giant plates of Mexican food in Roseburg and when we hit town we stopped at Safeway for groceries before we went home.

I'm beat.



This is Shadow, the world's most popular dog, moments after being given a rubdown in the river because he rolled in something so stinky it made Erin gag. Later, in the car, he sat behind me and I wept real tears due to the stench. Imagine you bought a hundred pounds of greens and totally forgot them in the fridge and then when you finally remembered to take them out they were all slimy and stinky and just then, 100 camels farted in the same room. It was bad. He had to have another major scrubdown when he got home.



This is Shyboy, the world's biggest scardicat. His origins are sad. Someone threw a bunch of kittens over the side of the road or something and he was feral but my folks were endlessly patient and turned him and his brother into nervous domesticated cats. His brother, Friendly, met an untimely end a couple of weeks ago in the clutches of a mean dog(s). (This is rugged country, folks.)

Shyboy has been sort of needy ever since. He has sat in my lap exactly two times in history because he's anxious around strangers. Of course this weekend it was while I was very busy working on getting my NaNoWriMo words done and did not want a cat in my lap.

I'm also including this shot because of the watercolors of me and my sister way a long time ago when we were little.

Destination: Klamath River

I couldn't find my list of things I want to post about this morning and now I don't have time to write anything good.

I'm going to be offline until later this weekend.

Enjoy your holidays.

You Read That Right: Envy

This is from an actual postcard we got from the company that makes the Congressional Directory we use at the office. The directory is compact, easy to use and I think everyone should have one. (No, they aren't paying me to say this.) It has everything you could ever want to know about the government. Each state starts with a picture of the state and its population. For example, Idaho has approximately 1.5 million people. It lists the governors, senators, representatives and brief bio and contact info.

It has tons of info you didn't even know you were interested in. U.S. Senate Cloak Room – (D) or (R)? Call them right now. Congressional committees, cabinet officers. A handy map of Washington, D.C. And tons of things I'm not going to mention. It's fun to look at even if you don't need it for your job.

But envy seems a stretch.

* * *

New Rule

If your backpack needs its own seat on the bus then it needs to pay full fare.

The List

This is what I did today:

Wrote 2630 words

Dug up those weird purple bulb-things that grow into tall yellow flowers

Raked all the leaves and buried the compost into giant holes I dug in the garden

Went on a lovely sunset walk with Bob

Made 40 tamales.

And finally had Bob take this photo of the giant coat for Eden beautiful zombie girl of Chicago.

Confused Snail

A couple weeks ago I was getting something from my car when I noticed this display on the front door. I never saw snails with shells up here until they magically appeared in my own yard. And now they're breeding. I can't get the snail bait out there fast enough.

What was it thinking? Do snails think? It really thought it would be a good idea to go up my my front door with some sort of distracted side-tracking in the middle and then perch above the front door?

Is this considered lucky in some cultures?

It disappeared the next day or rather returned to the bushes and ate some snail bait and the good luck is over.




I'm still depressed about Twilight. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should go back and see it again. Maybe it won't be as mediocre as I remember.

The First Video Game You Can Play With Your Butt

The title of this post came from a commercial during my wait for Twilight. You can't make that stuff up.

I wish I could have a conversation with the stoner that set the line-up of trailers that went before Twilight.

First was Harry Potter. Okay. Then there was a trailer for a horror movie called The Unborn that made me want to crap my pants in fear during the few seconds I had to sit through. Then was a dumb "boys go to cheerleading camp" called Fired Up.

Then there was a series of trailers that stand for the proposition that you can put up any turd with thumping music and lots of quick cuts and make it look plausibly decent: Valkyrie (Tom Cruise, already know how it ends); something action-y with Dakota Fanning that looks like Hong Kong X-Men, one more that I can't understand my notes.

I'm sure you're dying to hear what I thought of Twilight.

Didn't hate it. But didn't think it was too good. There were some very satisfying moments for fans of the books but the script and the direction were tragically awful. Some of the modifications worked. I loved the high school kids. I loved the baseball scene except I could have done without some of the effects. I loved the big fight scene at the end except that ever single second of it already aired on the previews. They should have dragged that out a bit more.

I thought the movie wrecked my favorite part(s) of the book which were the big Port Angeles dinner and drive home and the trip to the meadow.

My most ginormous peeve is that Jacob did not speak anything like a reservation Indian. Reservation Indians have very distinct ways of speaking. You would think that for the one movie of the year that had actual Indian parts, they might have done a TINY bit of homework and got that bit right. I'm available for consultation if they want help with the sequels.

So as a fan: yes, worth it. Satisfying. Loved the first moment Edward appeared on screen.

But overall: could have been better.

* * *

Last night we saw Annie Leibovitz at Arts & Lectures.

My dear husband gave me a documentary to watch which I grumbled about. He wrote about it here. I don't have time to watch the shows I want to watch. I don't need anyone feeding the pile.

But I came home Wednesday and stuck it in the machine and was completely captivated.

When Bob came home I had to tell him he was right and it made me enjoy the lecture that much more.

Bob's review of the lecture is here

She read from her new book coming out and showed a bunch of slides starting with early in her career and touching a lot of her most famous photos.

I very distinctly remember the John Lennon and Yoko photo. And I very distinctly remember John's murder. I don't remember those things happening /together.

An amazing career. We talked about it and agreed it was the right personality and talent at the right time.

I had a third topic for tonight but I can't remember right now.

Booty Call

If someone calls me and seems to know who I am but I don't recognize who they are, I will normally just keep talking until I figure out who it is. I very rarely ask, "Who is this?"

The other night my cellphone rang around eight pm and I thought I recognized the voice but I wasn't sure. He started with one of those breathless, "Heys!" which I returned. Then he asked how I was doing and I said fine and asked how he was doing. He asked if I was still at work and I said no, I was at home. How about him? He said several other generic chatty things that were too vague to make a postive ID.

Then he said (Joey Tribbiani voice): Are you still interested in hanging out tonight?

And I said: "Uh, I think you have the wrong number because I haven't the slightest idea who this is."

And he said bye and quickly hung up.

The Man In the Office Next Door

I mentioned before that there's a gap in the wall between me and the office next door so I can hear that guy over there.

Here's what I've learned so far:

His name is Roger.

His cellphone rings the Lone Ranger music. For obvious reasons, this makes me uneasy.

He keeps irregular hours.

He has chronic cough.

He tapes up a lot of stuff. I hear that SKRIIIIT sound of tape every afternoon he is there.

High Anxiety

I'm thinking I should see a hypnotist or something about my driving anxiety.

I've always been an anxious driver but it seems like it's getting exponentially worse. Like if I have to go anywhere off my normal beaten path I have to go through all these extra preparations and if there's the slightest unexpected blip, my heart races and my knees tremble.

I keep asking myself what exactly am I anxious about? It's not like a terror about accidents although I do have an exaggerated fear of skidding into a vehicle in front of me. I'm committed to safe following distance.

I don't know how to explain it. It's like I'm afraid all the other cars will beat me up if I do something wrong.

Skidmarks
I found the scribbles of genius in my coat pocket this morning. Yay. I had intended to look there but since I was having the world's busiest weekend, and the weekend did not involve any rain, I never got around to it.

Yesterday on the way home from the candle party the traffic came to a screeching halt at the bottom of the Marquam Bridge. I figured there was something going on at the Rose Garden Arena and we'd be past it soon and cranked my Scorpions Rockers and Ballads CD a few notches and didn't worry about it.

But when we got to the Rose Quarter, I realized that everyone wasn't getting off the freeway. I also noticed that the only cars coming from the opposite direction were coming from the onramp.

I felt a little bit queasy about this because if the freeway is totally shut down, it can't be good. Then we curved around and there was an RV sideways - completely blocking the entire southbound freeway. (To clarify, my side wasn't blocked, we were lookie-loos.) It was so perfectly sandwiched in there, they were still trying to sort out how to tow it. There was maybe a 3 foot space between the back end and the freeway median.

It didn't look bad enough that anyone was hurt, only a pain to clean up. This morning I looked for skidmarks on my way in to see if I could figure out what happened. It's a spot where three lanes goes to two and looks like the RV had to brake hard probably because some jackass zoomed around on the right, and then skidded perfectly sideways.

I found this last time I downloaded photos. I took it from the yoga studio parking lot two weeks ago. Two weeks later the rain was pounding down and all the leaves were gone.

On Thursday on the bus on the way home I had a great idea for solving a story problem I'm having. I scribbled it on the back of the grocery list I was holding since I was making a stop on the way home.

Then I got groceries. Now I can't find my genius scribblings. I even looked through the recycling. I think I remember everything so it's not really a tragedy. But I wish I could find it. I might check the grocery bags.

I just did my daily word on a writing date with Kira. Now I'm off to hurry up and do chores before I go to the candle party with Kathy.

Non-Binding Agreement to determine whether removing dams on the Klamath is feasible.

* * *

I'm in the middle of the world's busiest weekend and need to head out the door as soon as I have a snack.

Yesterday was the first day I didn't hit my word minimum and today is looking more grim. Sure, I could be doing it right now but I'm hungry and need a power nap. (For the record, I did write, but only on a non-NaNo project that we read at writer's group today.)

Maybe when I get home tonight.

New Furnace
Turns out I'm about three weeks ahead of schedule on my regular holiday-overschedule hysteria attack.

I had a slight preview to this earlier this week. I had an errand to run in another part of town and I thought I'd invite a friend who lives out that way to join me and we could have lunch and visit and so forth.

I got out the calendar and realized that the only day I could do this errand before December 19th was today. And because I'm crazy and doing National Novel Writing Month and doing a related but different project for my writer's group which meets tomorrow in addition to regular old having a life, there was no way I could do lunch or visit. I ran out and did errand and returned and parked back in the writing chair.

But the panic started when I tried to figure out when to schedule our inspections for the furnace. We have to do two and we were advised that one of us should take the day off to be here for these inspections. But Bob doesn't have the kind of job where you can just take a day off so you can get some inspections and I shouldn't have to take a day off since I'm on a 4-day work week.

First I thought we could do it next Friday and get it over with. But you know what's on Friday?

Twilight. And I know it's just a dumb movie but I have been looking forward to that dumb movie for a long time and I want to be sitting in the theater downtown at the first matinee at 11am with my Team Edward t-shirt, and my Team Vampire baseball cap and my limited edition Bella and Edward Raisinets and my Forks Washington Commemorative Super Gulp and see my damn movie. I don't think I should have to miss it just because we got a new furnace.

Meanwhile, I have something every single Friday between now and December 19. I need to call and see if we can schedule it that far out, otherwise I'll suck it up and take a day. I just hate using up leave pay for something stupid like that. Or to make it even stupider, you could argue that I'm taking leave pay so I can see a vampire movie.

I bet I'm not the only one.

Random TV Trivia

John-Boy and Gibbs have the same Dad.

Just over a year ago when we had our furnace serviced we learned that some sort of doodad inside was cracked and our furnace's days were numbered. When we bought the house we knew the furnace had only ten to twenty years left in it so we weren't totally surprised.

We had the crack patched and it worked just fine last winter but I wanted to replace the furnace during the summer, when we were prepared, not in January when it died and it was 30 degrees outside. I am part lizard and do not like being cold.

We borrowed money for a home improvement project and we borrowed enough to cover a furnace and starting in June, Bob made the first calls to ask about buying a furnace. We ended up talking to a couple of sales people about our options and did lots of homework and at the beginning of October we signed a contract to set the thing in motion.

We have the money, we did everything we were supposed to do so I'm not sure why the installation didn't start until TODAY (and last we checked NW Natural STILL hadn't installed a meter) and we have to go for 24 hours without any heat. WTF?

Fortunately, tonight will be relatively warm for this time of year so thick fuzzy sweats and space heaters ought to keep us alive.

Guess What's for Dessert?

This morning Bob took me to a breakfast place that's a local chain. It's located in a strip mall between a laundromat and a payday loan place and has yellow walls and hard chairs.

After we were seated Bob said, "Isn't this nice?"

I said, "Remind me how we ended up together."

It's one of those places with a confusing menu where if you order just what you want to eat, say, 1 pancake and 1 sausage link, it costs about $9 but if you order the special with 2 pancakes, 2 eggs and 2 sausage links it's a buck cheaper and all the food you can't finish gets thrown away.

The monthly pancake special was pumpkin and it was delicious. But between my breakfast special and my hot chocolate I had more sugar and fat (two giant dollops of whipped cream!) and carbs than I'm accustomed to before Noon and as soon as we got home I had to have a nap.

Today's writing hasn't been worth crap and I'm fretting about wasting a whole free day without getting any work done. I'm going to keep my butt in the chair for one more hour and then light a presto log and goof off until dinner.

On the way home from yoga I composed a post in my head about the amazing personal growth I'm experiencing due to NaNoWriMo (18,217 words so far, if you're interested) but now it's almost 8:30pm and I'm tired and I just hoovered my dinner which was a salad and potato chips. Maybe I'll write it a different day.

Today's post will be about another energy saving tip I read. It said you should take clothes out of the dryer slightly damp. They will dry as you put them away.

First of all, I'm not sure which is the "slightly damp" setting on my dryer. So do I stand there and check every five minutes?

Second, I've taken items out "slightly damp" because I had to get a move on and didn't want my stuff in the dryer any longer. I then hung them up and two days later they were still damp.

I think this is a lame tip.

Energy Solution

I've been hearing that energy is expensive. Yet almost every weekend I hear people leaf-blowing for what seems like hours.

I've also heard that Americans don't get enough exercise. Yet, there are leaves that need to be raked.

Why don't we team up the people who don't get enough exercise with the people who have leaves and rakes. Everybody wins.

My First Ever Embedded YouTube Clip


Bob and I went to Wordstock today.

The first thing I'd like to mention is that the parking situation was clusterfuk 2008. Apparently there were two other events at the Convention Center. Oblivious, I got in line, took my ticket and circled the tiny lot — who planned this thing? No one thought such a giant convention center could use more than — well, the website says 800 spaces with 2500 in the vicinity with street parking and such. I think they lie. Regardless, me and 100 other cars circled the parking lot for a half hour before I gave up and left. The overflow lot was full. By now my wonderful positive attitude was trashed and I decided, screw it, I'm going home. But then I got to the park-n-ride right before the bridge so I decided to park and get on the train and was in the venue 20 minutes later.

So I spent more time looking for parking at the convention center, than I did driving most of the way home and taking the train back in and walking up to the venue. While I walked to my event I passed two storm troopers and Darth Vader cruising down the hall. I have no idea what they were doing there but my inner geek squealed a teeny bit.

We saw Spain Rodriguez who does cartoon stories and then were in perfect seats to see John Hodgeman with Jonathan Coulton.

John Hodgeman is at the same time, nerdier in person, but a lot cuter. He has the best smile. The room was SRO and one of the organizers got on the mic and asked if anyone had empty seats near them to skootch in and then raise their hand since lots of people were looking for seats. "This is Portland, Oregon," he said. "We're friendly here." I've never seen anyone do that before and I thought it was a good idea.

John is completely hilarious and really quick. He was a scream during the Q&A. He joked about how his books are bunches of made up facts. But then he told this fabulous and heart-twisting story about how when you're young you dream about being famous and what that would be like. But eventually you get older and have a family and start doing something and you forget about the famous thing and if you're smart, you're happy with what you're doing. But then, what if one day after you've forgotten about fame, someone knocks on your door and throws you out there with no preparation whatsoever. He told it a lot better than I am. He refered to himself as a very famous minor television personality.

Jonathan Coultan is a longtime friend of his who is a musician and sang some songs. During the Q&A a little girl in the audience asked if he (Jonathan) would do the zombie song and that's how we ended the show. (See above clip.)

Things that Should Come in Pumpkin Flavor

• Jello
  
• Cough Syrup
  
• Licorice
  
• vitamin water
  

Things That I Put on the List Above and Then Found Out Really Exist

• Instant Pudding mix
  
• Toothpaste and Mouthwash
  
• Vodka
  
• Gelato
  
• See's Candy
  

I sometimes make fun of Bob because he has so many jackets/coats. A casual lightweight waterproof rain jacket. A heavy weight long dress coat. A mid-length medium weight sherpa shell. Every time he comes back from an outlet store he has a jacket to fit a unique niche circumstance.

I have: a raincoat with broken zipper, a heavy wool coat with torn pockets that I got at a garage sale for $1, a nice synthetic-something coat with leopard print collar that my Auntie bought me in Germany, and my new coat from last year, the power goose-down arctic expedition weight like-wearing-a-bed super coat.

I wore the super coat today. It's not really cold enough but I've been chilly in the plain old raincoat. I guess I can understand an in-between coat. But I can get by without it.

(Historical aside: yesterday was post #1500. Woo!)

New View
I walk three blocks from my office to reach the bus stop. On the way I pass the courthouse and I leave work at the same time they take the prisoners back to jail.

Here's how it works based on my extensive experience walking by while they do this.

Two shiny, windowless green trucks idle in the street. Two portable flashing lights on plastic stands are set in the middle of the street. One where I cross and one by the trucks. I guess you aren't allowed to drive right there while they're loading up.

Several well-fed men with mustaches and sheriff's uniforms stand around in strategic pairs, visiting. One well-fed man with a mustache and sheriff's uniform stands by the flashing light where I cross the street. One time, while I was waiting for the light to change, he held up his hand as if to tell me to stop or keep back. I guess he was assuring me he was relevant.

I wasn't going anywhere near his prisoners and his gesture was not going to stop me from going my way. Several prisoners (Inmates? Is there a PC term I'm supposed to be using?) were brought out and got into the truck. None of them looked like George Clooney in Brother Where Art Thou?

Baggies for All
I think my sweetheart's dream job would be spending the entire day putting things into Ziploc baggies. He loves those baggies.

When we travel, we set a box out on the counter and use them for our electronics, bathroom supplies, vitamins or anything we're in the mood to segregate into its own Ziploc sealed pouch.

We have the following sizes in our home right now: snack, sandwich, freezer quart, freezer gallon, and I think 2 gallon storage bags.

The other day I dumped the leftover Halloween candy into a box and saw him come running with a baggie. I said we'd just leave it in the box but later I moved it into two small bowls that I set out on the counter.

When I got home from work I noticed the bowls were gone. "You put that candy in a Ziploc bag, didn't you?" I accused. He did.

Last week we had about 2 tablespoons of grated cheese leftover from dinner and he wanted to put that in a snack sized baggie. I thought he should just put a piece of plastic wrap over the container it was already in. The compromise was he put it in the baggie where the hunk of cheese was.

I once saw super-giant bags that were big enough for a sleeping bag or a barrel of leftover Halloween candy. I thought those would come in handy for something but since I couldn't think of anything right then, I didn't buy them.

Then we got that fish from Alaska which could really benefit from a giant Ziploc bag but I haven't seen them in the store since.

It's Okay. But Don't Go There.
Last week I met a friend for lunch downtown. As long as I've worked downtown, I've walked all over but I do tend to eat at the same lunch spots over and over. The new office is in proximity to a number of restaurants I've never tried so I'm trying to branch out.

I suggested a Greek place that I'd never been to. My friend said she'd been there and it was okay.

It was not okay.

It was tragically awful.

I guess it's a franchise which from their website appears to be growing. I'm not going to link since I have nothing nice to say.

This place was to Greek food what Chipotle is to Mexican food. Generically mass produced food that can be served quickly and cheaply.

You could practically see marks on the falafel nuggets from where they were punched out of the machine. I ordered some sort of lunch plate which looked exactly like a picture right down to the decoratively piped swirl of sauce.

As we were leaving I said, "Well, I never have to come here again."

Last night we went to a Day of the Dead party which goes on the list of the ten best parties of my life so far.

Tons of fantastic, amazing food. People brought stuff and no one just showed up with a bag of Cheeto's. I had this fish stew that would peel your face off and apparently others liked it because the entire giant vat was scraped clean in an hour. There were traditional Mexican foods that I don't know the names of and there was a tub of tamales that I didn't see until it was time to go. And they served a fabulous hot punch that's like apple cider only you add tequila.

At about nine a Mariachi band showed up complete with outfits covered with silver-bits and shiny boots. The party was in a tiny house packed to the rafters with tequila-infused people and next thing you know everyone was dancing and singing and carrying-on.

Super fun.

Twilight Prediction
This movie is going to be huge. Even if it's only a 2 1/2 star movie, it's still going to be huge.

It's going to be a phenomenon. And the talking heads on TV and journalists who need to fill column inches are all going to talk about it endlessly. And they're going to interview groups of mothers and daughters in Team Edward t-shirts creaming their jeans over this movie.

Here's why. If you look at a list of top earning films most of them are movies that primarily boys would go to.

Except what's on the top of the list? Titanic. What drove that movie's numbers through the roof? Women. Because of Rose and Jack.

And women are going to flock to this movie, too. It's the ultimate romantic wishfulfillment story and dopey as it is, it's appealing to women of all ages. Plus from the trailer it looks like they've amped up the violence so boys won't mind being dragged to see it.

Remember Dirty Dancing? The hot guy went for plain, ordinary Baby. All the plain ordinary women of the world wanted to be Baby. I remember loving that movie for exactly that reason, the plain girl got the guy.

In Twilight, (spoiler alert, ha ha) the hot guy falls for plain ordinary Bella. But he's not any ordinary hot guy. He's the most amazing, super-power hot guy of all time plus he has never been in love with a girl until he meets Bella and tells her, "You are my life now." No one has ever turned his head until he meets Bella and once he's met her, he doesn't look at anyone else. Wow. He watches over her. He protects her. He rescues her.

Who wouldn't be in love with this guy?

And the actor playing Edward, Robert Pattinson can kiss his old life goodbye after November 21. Nothing is ever going to be the same.

Also: I will be at the first showing on Friday, November 21. You can't even tempt me with the midnight showing because I can't stay up that late. But after that the line forms behind me.