Sign on Red Cap Road, Orleans CA

End of Summer

This has been a weird month. The vacation part was fantastic but most of the rest of it I've been at loose ends mostly for reasons I can't explain. Some of my woes I've brought on myself but we're not going to get into it here.

I have tiny post-it notes everywhere with things I wanted to post about but I kept thinking I'd wait on those things until after I did my vacation post. Now I'm sitting here ready to do the vacation post and I don't really have much to tell.

We did the usual stuff which involves sleeping in (and I'm sure Kira will shudder to learn that sleeping in on vacation in our family is like, 7:30a.) We went for walks. We ate breakfast outside. We read books. We went swimming and we visited with lots of fantastic family members that we don't get to see that often.

I didn't get sunburned. I didn't get poison oak. I did get mosquito bit but not terribly. They always get me on my feet and knuckles. I sprayed bug juice all over my feet and wore shoes and socks at dinner and they still got me.

It was still really good and I wish I could have had a teeny bit more time. I feel like I barely got started and it was already time to go.



Grubstake swimming hole on the Salmon River

It might be seasonal or it might be connected to that "loose ends" thing but I keep feeling like I have to get everything organized. I don't know what I have or where everything is and I suspect there are lots of thing we don't need that would be fun to get rid of.

This feeling applies mostly to my closet, the kitchen, the garage and my bookshelves. Oh, and my bathroom cupboards. At the same time, when I had time to tackle a portion of one of these projects, I squandered it on unproductive sitting around. I guess that's what's called being lazy.

One thing that happens with the kitchen is that I accumulate weird ingredients. The kind of things that you have to buy a whole jar of to use one tablespoon for some crazy recipe that you only make one time.

Like roasted peppers. I had a jar of roasted peppers around forever and I finally used it up in salads and on pizza. Then I decided they were so good we'd start using them all the time and I bought another jar and they're just sitting there. This isn't really a problem to be solved, just telling how it is.



Klamath River, upriver from Orleans

I think one of the best naps I've ever taken was on vacation and it was before noon. There is something really decadent about taking a nap a few hours after you've gotten up. That's a Bob specialty. Get up early. Go for a long walk. Eat a big breakfast. And then take a nap. I don't usually do that.

I used to never get under the covers when I took a nap. I thought a nap should be distinguished from regular going to bed. But lately I've found that taking off my pants and crawling into bed really enhances the experience. Which reminds me of a Simpsons where Homer took a nap in his car and took off his pants first. I don't nap in the car. I also don't nap after 5pm unless I'm going to be out late and I try to never let that happen.



I injured myself holding the pistol the wrong way. Don't try to do it like you see on TV. Then I shot this giant bullet or shell or whatever out of something. I was so excited about shooting guns I took terrible notes.

One time our next door neighbor asked us whether something would bother us. I can't remember what he was up to -- re-roofing his garage or something. I told him that unless he started a rock band or rendered fat in the backyard, it was unlikely he would bother us.

Earlier this weekend I heard a rock band rehearsing somewhere close by. I hope this isn't a regular thing.

Our previous next door neighbor (on the other side) had a snarly awful dog. It would get into our backyard and bark at me which I thought was rude. Our new next door neighbors seemed to have recently acquired a snarling dog. I'll be out in my PJs in the morning, holding my tea and wandering around enjoying my flowers, pumpkins and tomatoes and the dog will hear me and then barrel up to the fence and growl and snap like a loud scary Godzilla. It also howls at sirens. I kinda want to throw rocks at it.



I love the bulletin board in town next to the post office. It always has political stuff, lost pets, free pets and odd stuff for sale or trade.

Most of this weekend was catastrophically unproductive. Today I pulled myself together and got some writing done. And a few administrative type things.

I also have a long list of chores that are maintenance or repair oriented. I'm a C student in repair skills. I can usually do just enough to fix something or patch it together to limp along a bit longer but I rarely know what I'm doing. Those chores tend to stay on the list forever because I don't want to take the time to gather information, figure out what tools or parts I need and then figure out the damn problem.

Today I descaled my showerhead and cleared my bathtub drain. The scaly showerhead did not deliver water in a focused spray and the slow drain forced me to stand in ankle deep water during my shower which completely wrecked what should have been the best part of my day. The showerhead was easy once I figured out how to get it off the pipe that comes out of the wall. Dropped it in a bowl of white vinegar and tried to figure out what to do with the drain.

While I was hoping to find a YouTube tutorial that would show me how to take my drain apart instead I found this how to make a simple tool to clean your drain instructions. I couldn't even find a proper piece of plastic and used this tiny thing about as long as a pencil that attached my new designer dish scrubbing brush to the paper display thingy. And it still worked like a dream. I'd give you the gory details but I don't know if you've just eaten and it was pretty gross.

Later I rinsed off the showerhead and re-installed it and I had a fabulous shower before dinner.

Possibly my favorite photo of me ever taken: I'm holding Uncle Barry's hunting pistol which I've just used to ruin that chair. I'm wearing my Clarion West t-shirt and you can see my notebook and pen in my pocket. Writing research! I've written a couple of stories that concerned guns and I know nothing about them. OR, I knew nothing about them. I got to shoot a bunch of different guns on the trip. It was really fun. My main note was: guns are loud.

Guns . . . In Space

We're back!

And we had a fabulous trip.

Hopefully I'll write more and post about it later. I have some notes but I can't find them right now. My entire life seems to consist of things I intend to do later.

Short version: we swam and visited with fun people. We ate lots of stuff. We went for long walks, many of them involving steep hills. We went to parties. Really great trip.

I intended to write a long post about it today but somehow never got around to it. We took today off because it's our 13 year anniversary.

I intended to post a new wedding photo but I don't know where the photos are and the scanner is put away. This is the photo I posted at our ten year.

Today we slept in and then went out to breakfast for crepes. I had the Nutella and bananas which was fantastic and also my sugar allowance for about 3 months. I felt fantastic and talked really fast for a couple of hours and then crashed pretty hard. We did our grocery shopping and then in the afternoon I made green sauce using the tomatillo stash from the yard.

I also peeled and sliced up all the cucumbers for a salad I never finished.

This evening we went out to an event with the Vancouver Chamber of Commerce. We walked over there and tried out foods and wines and had a really fun time.

Fear of Driving

I think I've written before that I have some issues with anxiety when I drive. It's hard to explain. The anxiety doesn't follow any particular rules and it's not every time I get in the car. Generally it has to do with unfamiliar places.

Someone suggested GPS and I was telling my mother-in-law this along with a story about going to this place that was way out bumfark Oregon that I didn't know and trying to find my way home in the dark. She showed up a few days later at the house with a GPS. (Isn't that thoughtful? She also makes delicious cookies.)

I'm still getting used to it. The first time I took it when I already knew where I was going just to hear how it worked. Then I used it again this weekend when I was truly and completely clueless where to go.

I don't think GPS is going to save me.

Partly because even though I understand it's a machine, it still feels like a person. I was first using the lady's voice. This was when I already knew where I was going. I didn't like the route she was trying to get me to use and was going my regular way. Every time she said, "recalculating" I felt like she was judging me. And I swear she was getting sort-of shrill, "Turn left, turn left, TURN LEFT."

"I'm not going that way," I told her.

I changed it to the Australian man voice so the GPS is now named Hugh (Jackman). This weekend I had to navigate around this major freeway re-paving that cut off the main route to where I was going. There was no way to explain this to Hugh and he kept trying to re-route me back to the place I was avoiding and then after awhile he just shut up, like he was mad that I didn't follow his suggestions.

And he tells me, "In .3 miles turn left on ramp." I know fukall what .3 miles is. I need him to tell me, "Get in the left lane right now. Not the far right lane. The outside left lane." But later he took me down some bizarre back alley and then my destination was right there. So he helped but there was still anxiety.

I'm headed for the hills and will be offline for about a week. Photos of adventures when I return.

Stop Me When I'm Passin' By

I lived in two different houses growing up, both in southern California. We had an ice cream truck in both those neighborhoods. The second neighborhood was deep suburbia.

At the first neighborhood, when I was little, it worked like this: When you heard the music, you had to run and ask your Mom if you could get something. If she said yes you ran out to the curb as fast as you could and stuck your hand out so he would stop. If your Mom said, no, then you'd run out and stand by the truck and hope someone else's mom took pity on you and got you something. Otherwise you had to watch your friend have an ice cream while you just sat there which seemed tragically unfair at the time.

At the second neighborhood I was already babysitting and had money but was often too cool to stand around buying ice cream from a truck with the babies.

The trucks were like white delivery trucks with a big open window in the side where you'd order your ice cream and the ice cream man would pull them out of freezers built into the truck. The truck had pictures on the side of the different choices. They also had candy. There was this one kind of ice cream that came in a cardboard cone. The ice cream part covered colored plastic stick with an animal that would be revealed when you finished your treat. If you got a white stick you got a free ice cream. It might be you had to get a white lion or something, I can't remember that part.

When I was in junior high one of my friends was "friends" with the ice cream man and sometimes he would let her ride on the truck. The rest of us were never allowed to ride on the truck due to "insurance" reasons. I remember being kind of envious.

Now I think it's creepy.

Recently there have been a glut of ice cream trucks in our neighborhood which is walking distance from two mini-marts and a Safeway.

Every time I hear that winky-dinky ice cream truck music I run to the window and look. I've never seen anyone stop one of them. Every time it's a different vehicle. Some of them aren't even trucks. I saw a beat-up two door something and yesterday a minivan with the driver lighting a cigarette. I saw one that looked like the carts that Portland law enforcement uses except it was painted orange.

I don't think a minivan should be allowed to be an ice cream truck. Do they just open the back and pull stuff out of a cooler packed with dry ice? Is there a menu? I guess I should have stopped it and found out before doing this post.

Now that I'm a grown up and don't need to ask my Mom for money, I buy fruit pops at the grocery store. (I like lemon and lime.) And I eat one whenever I want, even at 10am or a half hour before dinner, usually sitting on the back porch in the sun.

Clark County Fair



On Monday I worked a half day and Bob and I headed out to the Clark County Fair. I'm not sure words can convey just how awesome it was.



What's a fair without food? The first thing I wanted when I got there was my peach milkshake. We've waiting in much longer lines. The advantages of going on a weekday. And still they were doing a brisk business. I can't imagine what it must be like on Saturday.



After my shake I was full and it was hot so I was worried I wasn't going to be able to eat anything else. Just what a person should worry about.



Check out the lady wearing the sting dress. I didn't even notice until just this second. I don't freak out around bees but the large quantity of bees loitering around the displays eventually made me nervous.



Hi Mr. Bunny! That wire cage looks like an awesome place to spend the day. They have everything at the fair. Tons of bunnies, chickens, sheep, cows. They also had an exotic animal exhibit with tigers and stuff and for the first time in my life I was like, "Where the hell is PETA?"



Look at this guy! He's bigger than my car.



I really wanted to see some baby pigs and we didn't see any pigs anywhere except here. And the sign for some sort of pig races. I'm not sure if we just missed them. Maybe Clark County isn't pig territory. Or maybe swine flu paranoia. I read today that there have been 11 cases of swine flu in the world resistant to Tamiflu and two (2!) were in the state of Washington. Awesome.

I still wanted to see baby pigs and was denied.



One of the top ten foods in the world: fried dough!



The featured program we wanted to see: jousting. I think it was called Knights of the Realm. In the beginning, one of the fair directors came out to tell us all about fair happenings but in the middle the audio died.

So they brought out the Boy Scout color guard and some lady walking through the mud in heels to sing the National Anthem. (Yes, before the jousting, not sure exactly how that works.) Except we couldn't hear her because no audio and Staind was doing their soundcheck at the amphitheater next door.



Turns out jousting is sort of like baseball or football meaning there's only a few minutes of action and then lots of filler. But they play a lot of "Lord of the Rings"-like music. The knights were cute and I'll watch anything with cute knights. It was a fun show but with lots of weird boring parts.



The last thing we watched was the dock dogs which are adorable doggies jumping into a big swimming pool trying to catch things in their mouths.

Other things we ate: baked potato, giant cup filled with fruit (me, obviously), double hamburger with grilled onions, roasted cashews. It was really hot otherwise I would have eaten more things. I wanted fried dough, and a corndog, obviously (hi Shane) and one of those giant fried onion flowers. I could have eaten a lot more.

Someone just tossed these in the trash. And yes, our garbage cans say: Vancouver Sparkles.

Rhinestone Cowboy

I just did a Target run. I bought a bunch of stuff like a purple sports bra and new kitchen dish rags because all of mine smell mildewy and gross.

My wedding anniversary is coming up and I thought I'd get my sweetheart a card. We both buy each other stuff all the time so we don't really celebrate couple-y events like anniversaries or Valentines by exchanging gifts. But I thought it would be nice to have a card to hand him.

All the anniversary cards at Target were huge tri-fold or mult-fold things with foil or rhinestones or whatever. And they were like $4.50. Not to be cheap but isn't it ridiculous to pay $4.50 for something that's going to be opened and then thrown away? For another few bucks I could buy him a CD or a book or 4 and a half things from the dollar menu at Taco Bell. Do they have a dollar menu at Taco Bell? I haven't been there since the 90's.

I didn't get him a card. I'll get some construction paper and make him one. Or maybe just write happy anniversary on a piece of scrap paper. Or just say it really sincerely.

TIMBERS!!!



I went to another soccer game this week. I love soccer. One more year until World Cup.



Check this out. Five minutes before game time and this is the women's restroom. There's no one in there.



My favorite co-worker is the one handing me a beer.



Delicious cheese product snack.



Timbers' Army. This part of the stadium was completely packed. One of these days I'm going to sit in that section because it looks super fun.



The Timbers mascot — is there any other team mascot that runs around with a chainsaw? I tried a bunch of times to get photos but this was the best I could do.

Timbers won 1-0. That annoying guy who sits behind me and talks during every single public arena event I attend was there in full force. He left for the john, which I know because he announced it, and right when he left was the only score of the game. Awesome!



The smoking section during the half. Packed.

Remember the volunteer squash shaped like a heart? How about shaped like an acorn?

We ate one acorn squash last year and tossed the innards into compost and we've got all kinds of squash volunteers. Actually, my sister identified it for me. She identified a few other things, too, including these big giant things with thick red stalks.

She said: "This is . . . you know what this is? This is . . . a weed." I kinda already knew that but I yanked them out right then because they were casting huge shadows over the cucumbers.

I also picked tomatillos. I have a few recipes stashed somewhere. This is another volunteer that I get every year and never seems to do anything with.

I'm a little scattered at the moment. The heatwave threw me off completely and then I got a chest cold. Last week I took it easy and tried to get it together.

I don't know what happened today. I was trying to get started and then it was 2pm. Then it was 4pm. The only thing I accomplished was making a loaf of bread to go with dinner. Everything else remains a loose end.



Pearl District

One thing I did was check in with our credit union just to see what's doing on. I got a "we don't support your browser" window with the suggestion that I upgrade to some cutting edge (sarcasm) version of Netscape Communicator. I sent them a note suggesting that they either get with the program and support some more browsers or in the alternative, they ditch a message suggesting people upgrade to an antiquated browser because it made them look like they didn't know technology.

I'm sure they'll embrace my suggestion like all of corporate American embraces my suggestions. By ignoring them or else with robot responses like "Thank you for contacting us. We strive to deliver great customer service. Sorry for the inconvenience."

Although a work related entity thanked me for sending a URL explaining URL shorteners. I forwarded my success to co-worker who responded, "Um, congratulations?"

The work of "You're Doing It Wrong" is never appreciated.

Tomato Harvest!

Did you hear a distant squealing this morning? That was me when I went out to check the garden and saw that I had three tomatoes ready for harvest. I ran and got the silk pillow and platinum clippers and carefully separated them from the vine while singing the harvest song of the golden tomato keepers.

I'm taking care of a couple of items and then shutting down the computer for the day.

I don't think I can make this into a story but I'm going to try.

There's a local sandwich shop that co-worker (jeez, I need to update his page for his stalkers) and have been to several times with great success. I ate a sandwich there once that I said should have its own national holiday.

Last time we went there we both got the same thing and it was a delicious but terribly greasy sandwich. The filling was greasy, the condiments were fatty and the thing was served grilled in grease. I barely finished two-thirds and co-worker finished his.

Neither of us felt right again for two days. I don't think there was any flaw in the sandwich, I think it was just grease overload. But now we're all traumatized about this sandwich place and this particular type of sandwich. Every time we try to think of something good for lunch this place comes up and then we shake our heads and say we're not ready to go back.

A sandwich tragedy.

Vancouver, WA, Franklin Park looking towards the Columbia River.

Clarion West Begathon Final Wrap Up

Words this week: 3296
Total for 6 weeks: 22,148
Submissions this week: 2
Total for 6 weeks: 4 *

*When I made this goal my intention was to submit two brand new things that had never been submitted before. However, during the 6 week period I ended up revising two different things to be resubmitted. So technically I submitted 4 things. But I only submitted one brand new thing never submitted before and I actually did that about 15 minutes ago which is being pretty generous with the cut off since the workshop ended yesterday. But at my house the week started on Sundays which means the last day of the week would be Saturday. Yeah, I like to make my own rules. That's why I want to be in charge of everything.

Thanks again to everyone who supported the cause. That URL one more time is clarionwest.org

I re-read my post from yesterday and it's nearly incoherent. Like my revised Beg-A-Thon Rules.

More photos from the new pocket camera: