Tonight we went to a Portland Timbers Game. It was so fun (It was also $1 beer night). They've renovated the park and I was only there once before for a women's world cup game but I guess it's more earthquake safe now and lots of other nice amenities. I note that there are lots of women's restrooms. Timbers won. I'm ready for more stuff at PGE park.

re: elvis birthday
If I had half a brain I could probably do some tricky link to this post but just look below or in the archive or something.

Anyway, when I was in Orleans I asked my Mom if she could remember where she was when Elvis died and she totally remembered the Alpha Beta and music store. She said I told her (that part I don't remember - I thought she came into the store and my music teacher told her) but cool, huh? And she said the music store was in Woodland Hills off Valley Circle and now it's totally different and I would never recognize it.

I have a yahoo account and everytime I log in my ad is for diet products. Today they tell me I can lose 20 pounds by October 29. Do you think this is true? If I lost 20 pounds I'd be awfully skinny. What would I have to do? I mean, if I ate nothing but celery and V8 juice, it might be possible, but how healthy would I be?

So has anyone been following the shark attack thing in Florida? Every time I log in there is another person who has been half eaten off the same beach where like, 9 people have been attacked in the last week. C'mon people, if you knew all these people had been attacked by sharks, why would you go swimming? I can barely swim in ocean waters where no sharks have attacked ever. What are people thinking?

But then, I just made a pie while wearing a dry clean only shirt. What was I thinking?

I'm back. I forgot to blog that we were going on a vacation that involved no computers so there would be no new stuff for a week+. We went to Orleans and hung out with the family and swam and played some rowdy poker games and hiked to Indian Rocks and ate a lot.

Yesterday was my first day back at work and lucky me - a semi jack-knifed and fell on its side on the Marquam Bridge and completely blocked I5 south. I already had left late and then I had to buy gas (Pam travel hint: fill your car with gas and keep a small stash of cash for when you return from vacation -- you will be happy you did.) Since I get off at the Morrison Bridge before the accident I didn't think there would be much of a problem (doh!) so I stayed in the left lane and completely ignored the signs that said we would be diverted to the 405. Freeway blocked off at 405 so I got stuck in the huge car-jam trying to get onto 405 and a good time was not had by all. Anyway, an hour later I got to work and I could see the accident site from my desk and realized at least I didn't get stuck right behind the truck and have to sit on the freeway for two hours.

It's situations like this that give you time to reflect on your life and I used this particular incident to ponder: am I drinking too many liquids in the morning?

I heard on the radio this am that Elvis died on this day 1977 so I just wanted to tell you I can remember where I was when I heard. I was born in 1963 so I was 14 and I was at my oboe lesson. I think it was in Woodland Hills. I can see the music store in my mind and my music teacher was named Jacques Robinson. It was a funky mini-mall and I think the grocery store was an Alpha Beta -- but I can't remember precisely. I just remember my music teacher telling my Mom and she was shocked.

I just checked and now my posts are all showing up. hm, magically fixed and I didn't do a thing.

I wanted to tell you one more thing. We have this problem in our neighborhood with people stealing the recycling -- the bottles and cans -- on pickup day. This bugs me -- probably more than it should -- but the recycling pickup is a business that provides a service. I don't save my bottles and cans for the neighborhood riffraff. Bob and I started putting our stuff out in the morning -- and even then one time Bob put it out when he left in the am and I left an hour later and it was all gone. This week I had a ton of stuff and I put it out the night before because I had to leave extra early for work -- the jackass(es) took the whole bin. We used to have a bin of each color and now I have two brown ones because the criminal left me an empty brown one when s/he took my green one. What a loser.

I don't know what's going on with my blog. My posts don't seem to be appearing on my page and I'm not in the mood to try to figure it out.

I just wanted to tell all my loyal readers that I FOUND A FRIGGIN BATHING SUIT. Yes, it was $80 and no, I don't LOVE it, but I like it and it covers all my naughty bits and that's going to be good enough.

We saw Patti Smith and Sleator-Kinney in Seattle last weekend and I never even mentioned it. Great show.

I have been so friggin busy I didn't even log on for almost 48 hours -- that never happens. Completely busy weekend. I went to writing workshops all day Friday and Saturday.

Today I got up early and did the bridge walk. I wanted to do the 8 mile but I only did the 5 mile because I had a severe need to pee and for some reason the organizers seemed to think that like 6 stalls for 5000 (or however many) walkers at the station just after the Fremont Bridge would be plenty. I saw this gigantic line and decided to just walk as fast as humanly possible (which wasn't too fast seeing as how there were all these other people walking) until I could get back to the office. But I got to walk on the Fremont Bridge (last year photo) and that made me happy but it was a lot more fun last year with Bob.

Also today I watched this movie Cruel Intentions which was my relaxation 90 minutes. Completely twisted and hilarious in terms of the over the top clothes and housing. Then I ran a bunch of errands and then I did yard work and got all the various containers (garbage, recycling, yard debris) ready for tomorrow morning. So now it's almost 9pm and I JUST got out of the shower. I'm going to the coast for work tomorrow so it's off to bed for me.

More On Bathing Suits
I tried one more time to find a bathing suit. I've probably tried on 30 or 40 and I've found maybe 4 that fit but I didn't like them enough to pay $80. I don't mind paying $80 for tiny bits of cloth if I like them. But if I'm just buying something to cover my butt when I swim in the river, I'm not so inclined. So I figured I'd just safety pin last years on me and make do. Well, I decided to get some sun this afternoon and safety pins aren't going to be much help, that thing is so stretched out. I don't know what I'm going to do now.

I thought this week would be a lot more productive than it ended up being. I have no idea what I did but it kept me busy. I did manage to clear one or two things off my desk so I'll just be happy for that. On Monday I had lunch with Liz and suggested we go to Abou Karims. She agreed and we had the Mezza for two. On Wednesday I had lunch with Don for his birthday. I thought about AK's but then thought, no, I can't go to the same place twice in one week. So I tried to think of other foods that sounded good but the only thing was hummus so we went Abou Karims and had the Mezza for two. I have no regrets.

Bob is at Shasta seeing String Cheese Incident. In a possibly related story, I woke up a 3am and couldn't get back to sleep. I tossed and turned for an hour. I have been having all kinds of problems with my various email addresses and domain and so forth and as I tossed and turned, I had an idea and decided to go ahead and get up and try it.

Once I get on the computer, I'm history in terms of getting back to sleep.

So I somewhat resolved my computer problems and I read a bunch of The English Patient and at 5am I decided to try and nap a little. I think I dozed but then I thought I heard someone in the garage so I jumped up with my heart pounding and then figure out it's just people packing a moving van on the street. So now it's 5:30am and what's the point of even trying to sleep? So I threw in laundry and looked at the paper and did a nice long jog/walk.

Hi: I was cranky today. Am I crankier than most? Or just more honest about it?

I'm feeling much better now but then, there is about a gallon of beer involved. Well, whatever works, I say.

So Little Friday-- I'm taking a day long workshop next week to work on this. I have all kinds of homework to do but the biggie was re-reading the manuscript. I was expecting to cringe a lot more. There are a couple of chapters that need a lot of work but overall I think it still works. The homework is definitely opening up some ideas -- it's just how much work do I really want to do on it at this point? And the answer is, I'm not sure.

Tomorrow is errand day and Saturday we go to Seattle for a party. More on these stories as they develop.