The Floors I Missed
Our building has 20 floors and we're on the 18th and since my inquiries about a PamExpress elevator to 18 have been ignored, there are often stops. And I don't care, just how big a hurry am I in and what's the alternative? A rope ladder?

However yesterday I got on the elevator with 5 other people, all going to a different floor. Plus we stopped at an upper floor to let someone on, and he got off at a different floor. So now, including my stop, I would visit 8 floors, my world record.

Except, two floors below my stop, I stopped yet AGAIN for some people who needed to go up one floor. (Our building has the stairs locked which I'm sure has something to do with security and I think is a bad idea, not that anyone cares what I think.)

When the people got on I laughed and said, "You're killing me. I've stopped on 10 floors. I just feel sorry for all the floors I didn't stop on." And they, being humorless and young and world-weary plus stuck with the task of delivering big books between floors (and apparently needing *2* people to do this) glanced at me snittily and said, "uh, hope your day goes better," as they exited.

Cake Maker
This week FoodDay's cover story is about making pretty cakes. They recruited a couple of pastry chefs, a floral designer, an artist and a couple of small children to remodel a frozen food section cake. The idea is for the busy person to have a simple way to make a pretty cake. They include a cake recipe as well, for when you're feeling extra ambitious.

I can't decide whether I should save this or not. I save something out of the food sections of both papers pretty much every week. Sometimes I save the entire section. I have a drawer in the laundry room and when it's bursting, I go through and wonder why I keep saving all these things. I toss a bunch but I always refile a bunch because I know I still want to make them. Back in the drawer they go.

I'm not sure about the cake thing. I rarely make cakes. If I'm going to bake I'd usually rather make a pie. Or I make some chocolately thing for Bob.

But these cakes are so pretty. I could bring one to a party and everyone would be impressed at what a pretty cake I made. But I never go to parties. And if I do, I don't always have time to make something and I get irritated with Bob if he volunteers me.

But they look so good. Might as well keep it for now.

Also an article about mangoes. My sister has a terrible allergy to mangoes. She can't even think about them. Hopefully, she isn't reading this because her eyes might swell shut. For years and years I avoided mangoes because of this however I am not allergic and don't share a kitchen with her and it's not like she even knows what I eat or would care if she did.

Last year I ate some mango sorbet and then I bought a mango at the grocery store and turns out: mangoes are yummy. I like mangoes. (Family in-joke here: Mongo like candy.) I do not like papayas. I think they smell like barf. Not sure where I was going with that. Better see if there are any other articles I need to save.

Holiday's Yoga Center
Yesterday was the big celebration of the end of Holiday's Yoga Center downtown. This has been my yoga home for 10 years and I'm very sad to see it end.

The celebration was fantastic. A number of people had the opportunity to tell the story of how they came to find the center. The room was packed and we had a bunch of different teachers lead us.

After the practice we had a social time and music and snacks. More people came. A couple who met at the center arrived with their little girl. I ran into people I haven't seen in a long time.

It was a good lesson in celebrating change.

Since I'm here, I'll tell the story of how I ended up at the center. I had noodled with yoga for years and years and taken a few classes but never found anything I stuck with. I read a story about Power Yoga with Beryl Bender Birch and when I bought her book, the cashier at the bookstore asked if I was one of Holiday's students. I didn't know what he was talking about.

Later Beryl came to town and I went to see her at the bookstore and she mentioned Holiday's name as a great teacher in town. Now I'd heard her name twice. This was also the time I was ending my independent life as a single person and moving in with my future husband and I wanted to have something that was just for me. So I told Bob I wanted to start taking a yoga class.

I've been at it ever since.

Muffin World
I briefly thought of doing a Wampa / muffin picture. Boy, put muffin into a search engine for images and see what you get.

The Oregonian hired a new food editor about a year ago, Martha. And although she's never been my favorite I've warmed up from somewhat dissatisfied to neutral.

This week she wrote about rescuing the muffin and how the crap [my word] that you see in the coffee houses today is so abysmal. She doesn't even touch Costco and I don't know if they even still make those pallets of muffins but I can't imagine why they'd stop. Ook. You could wring one out, add vinegar and use the output to dress your salad. Those things were (are) nasty. Martha complains about dry, crumbly and too sweet and she's spot on but also add oily. Should a muffin be moisturizer?

She also touches on the scone, but that wasn't the theme of her column but I'll take it on. Jeez, coffee shops make shittyass scones, too. (Not Great Harvest, by the way.) I had one at a, ahem, popular coffee spot one time and it had this hard sugar glaze. Remember those Hostess fruit pies they used to sell at the grocery store? They probably still do. I haven't eaten one in at least 10 years. I remember the chocolate one was pretty yummy in a slumming it sort of way. But remember that sugary glaze on those things? This scone had that, only hard. Why?

Martha had some recipes and a good idea which is that since muffins are best baked fresh, making the batter and leaving it in the fridge and then baking as many as you need. I'll have to try that.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, that writing thing went pretty well. It wasn't any easier and I'm not sure where I'm going with it, but I liked doing it. So there.

Traveling with the Wampa

Here's the Wampa checking out Devo at the Run Hit Wonder. You get him in the right shoes and he can run like nobody's business.

Wampa helped Erin pack the van when she moved to Utah. She's back in Cali now. I heard he wasn't as helpful on the return trip.

Wampa loves hippie music. Here he searches for a hoop while checking out some grooving tunes at High Sierra Music Festival with Matt.

Wampa loves little sausage sandwiches at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.

Wampa lurks outside Billy's office but nothing can distract Billy from the trusty handheld.

--

Okay, I think I've wrung about all the fun and games we can get out of the Wampa. I've got a post to write about muffins and then I need to get a chicken a roasting. Wampa loves roast chicken.

Mr. Wampa, Protester
Yesterday I had the Wampa visiting the Neuners in Partnachklamm Gorge. I decided to do a whole travel series on the Wampa.

Here he is at the Thanks For Not Buying Fur parade in Portland:


I have many more Wampa travel photos to show you, but it's going to have to wait because I swore to myself that I wasn't going to spend the whole day goofing around on the computer. I'm going to do some writing. Yes, you read correctly: writing. Then I'll waste time goofing around on the computer this afternoon.

Belated Birthday

Look at the cool box of loot I got for my birthday from Steve and Denise. Somewhere a kid is crying because the Star Wars store is empty.

My favorite item:

The Wampa (from Episode 5, in case you forgot {that's Empire Strikes Back, the one released second, in case you don't understand how the numbering works}) He looks like a yeti vampire. I love him.

High Anxiety
Yesterday I had a doctor appointment and I would love to tell you all about it but my husband recoiled and shuddered and curled into the fetal position when I explained it to him so I'm guessing you wouldn't appreciate it either. Let's just say it's amazing what the human body can grow in out of the way places that can be removed with a little yank and then stuck in a jar to be studied later, and leave it at that. (The dr. is going to study it, not me.)

Bob is on spring break and he came downtown with me yesterday and he wandered around while I worked and we met at the doctor's in the afternoon. I took the rest of the day off so we could have some adventures. First, we went to Henry's and had a snack and I had a beer.

Nothing tastes better than an adult beverage in the middle of a week day. I've said this before but it feels like I'm getting away with something and for about 3 minutes I wished my life could be like this all the time: wandering around having adventures and sneaking a beer in the middle of the day. But I realized if I could have a beer in the middle of the day whenever I wanted (which I suppose technically I could), it wouldn't feel special or taste extra good.

The real purpose of this post is to tell you without spoilers, about the movie we saw, Match Point, which Woody Allen's latest. I do not think this is a bad movie but I found it brutal to sit through.

I am an anxious person and go to a great deal of trouble to create a life with as little distress as possible. That's why I like to be appallingly early to the airport, always put my keys in the same place when I come home and compulsively organize and tidy all my stuff so that I can easily find things.

This movie is a slow, steady burn, cranking up the tension one tiny notch at a time for two hours. I could feel my blood rusting behind my knees and my hair turning grey. This guy makes a mistake and then more mistakes and even more mistakes trying to fix the other mistakes and who's going to find out when and how? Brutal. If I'd been watching at home I would have turned it off. I couldn't wait for it to be over. Just stop the tension, please. I can't separate anxiety as entertainment and anxiety, period.

Now that it's over I can tell you it is a brilliant film. Great writing. Fantastic acting. Jonathan Rhys Meyers (better known as the dreamy soccer coach from Bend it Like Beckham around my house) is especially good. But should you see it? I don't know.

Rubberlame
This morning I sent Rubbermaid a message telling them that their Seal n' Saver product is flawed. I don't normally do this, which I explained to them, but after wrestling with the stupid cake saver this morning and uttering my favorite cuss word: godf*kingdamnittohellpieceofsh*tmotherf*ker, I felt they'd earned it. (Technically the epithet wasn't uttered, it was shrieked at high volume because I was very frustrated and in a hurry to get out the door to work.)

They've changed their product and since my dear husband has this very tiny flaw of leaving food savers in the trunk of his car for extended periods of time with food product still in them until even bleach won't banish the odor thus rendering the item fit only for garbage, we need to replace the older and better designed product, with the new blue-lidded product which is all they have at Fred Meyer (other than cheapier, crapier food saving items.)

And the updated version of the product sucks. As I explained to Rubbermaid in my note, we have small, medium and a cake saver version of the updated verision and they are consistently difficult to get the top on. "This is a design flaw and should be looked at," is what I told them, which Bob thought was hilarious.

So their reply is to give them the product number. WTF? How is the product number going to help anything? I already told them that ALL products with the blue lid are difficult to close. I am an able bodied person with strong hands and arms. What is a differently abled person going to do? What about my mother-in-law? is what I actually asked them.

I knew it was pointless when I sent my first message, which could only be sent after filling out an extensive data-mining form including needing my phone number to which I replied: HA HA HA HA.

Inventions
If I could invent something, I would invent, I guess it would be software, that can calculate how stuff fits on the page when its going to be printed and will not print the last page with only one line. Have you noticed when you print stuff from the web or email there is always the last page with almost nothing on it?

Pretty in Pink
We have HBO again, now that the Sopranos are back.

Yeah, premium channels! I scanned through the movies for stuff I've been wanting to see and impulsively taped Pretty in Pink which I have not seen in I don't know how long. Has to be over 10 years.

It was released in February 1986 which means I was basking in the light at the end of the tunnel of my college education. I have zero memory of my first time seeing the film but I suspect I liked it a lot because I loved Sixteen Candles (84) and Breakfast Club (85) and had some sort of girl crush on Molly Ringwald which is hard to imagine right now.

Two things I do remember about Pretty in Pink was being hypnotized by her amazing accessories drawer, shown in the opening credits and the soundtrack.

On the former: she was poor, yet had oodles of beads and hats and belts. I wanted those accessories. I think I still have the single extra-long strand of plastic "pearls" that I bought for .99¢ at Express at the mall. My quest to amass an impressive accessories collection ended quickly probably because I wanted to spend my money on other things, I was too lazy to scope out thrift shops and garage sales and I didn't really want another box of crap to lug around every time I moved.

I obtained the soundtrack through a prehistoric method of illegal song sharing that involved taping a vinyl recording onto a cassette tape. I listened to it in my car for years. Psychedelic Furs, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Echo and the Bunnymen and New Order. Still a classic.

My intent in watching the movie now was to see how well it holds up after 20 years and the answer is: I don't know. Am I watching as my grown up self who no longer squanders valuable brain real estate worrying about accessories or the politics of being under 25, or as my 22 year old self who wanted to have cool bracelets and a cute guy to notice me and oh God, was a fully functioning human being in the 80's which are flawlessly preserved in this film in a way that is simultaneously horrifying and exhilarating. (Hair! Clothes! ak!)

The story was then and still remains, completely stupid. A girl from the wrong side of the tracks, which is hamfistedly driven home by an establishing shot of a train chugging slowly across the screen and passing in front of a dilapidated shack, falls for a cute, rich guy, played by Andrew McCarthy who between this movie and St. Elmos Fire, we all loved and then something happened and then there was Weekend at Bernie's and we drove him from our minds, seemingly until forever and then there was Kingdom Hospital and we remembered him and swooned all over again. The guy likes the girl. The girl wants to go to the prom with the guy. But oh, the other mean rich kids, mainly Steff, played in a classic pouffy haired performance by James Spader, try to drive the young lovers apart.

This is a staple of movie and TV plot development where high school is a world of absolute black and white cruelty. I remember high school. I didn't love it. Yes, there were cool kids and not cool kids. Yes, there was meanness. But I never saw anything like the scene you see in every show where a cool kid will walk up to a not cool kid, trip him as he carries his lunch so that all the other cool people can laugh at him and then tell him that he's hated because he's [fill in the blank: poor, smart, of a certain ethnicity, of a certain religion, fat, handicapped, other]. I never saw anyone go to elaborate lengths to publicly humiliate a kid just because he was a nerd or especially because he was poor. The whole rich v. poor thing is more subversive than that and not like it disappears after high school.

Stupid story aside, what makes the movie so watchable is Duckie and to some degree, Iona (the loopy boss at the record store). Who didn't love Duckie? He had his own funky intro music. Remember the scene when he's in her room aching with his teen adoration for her? When he tells Harry Dean Stanton he plans to marry her? The Otis Redding number?

"I live to like you" he tells her after he finds out she's going out with the rich guy and his little Duck heart is broken.

As legend has it, the original ending was to have Andie and Duckie end up together but TEST AUDIENCES which much be a euphemism for dumbasses wanted Andie to end up with major appliance named, Blane. So Andie goes off with Blane at the prom and Duckie's consolation prize is a winking Kristy "I Ran Off with My Married Skating Partner" Swanson. I still hate the ending.

Two more things if you're still here reading what has turned out to be a marathon post:

Did you not cry when you saw that abomination of a prom dress Andie made out of the adorable dress Iona gave her? Tragedy.

I thought I blogged about this but can't find it now. Veronica Mars did an episode where they had an 80's dance. Meg had on this horrible dress and I was thinking: it looks like that terrible prom dress in Pretty in Pink. At the dance, Duncan appears, dressed as Duckie which was when I figured out Meg's dress was supposed to be the horrible prom dress in Pretty in Pink. To add an extra layer of irony to the whole thing: here we finally get to see a version of Andie end up with Duckie, yet on Veronica Mars we don't want Meg to end up with Duncan. We want it to be Veronica (to end up with Duncan)

Yesterday, I actually said this out loud to another person:

It's supposed to be nice on Sunday. 52° and no rain.

Eight Years Ago Today
We moved into our first house in Vancouver 8 years ago. The photos don't accurately show how extensive the moving team was. My whole family helped us move. Other than the 1 car garage, I still love our funky little house. And someday I'm going to paint it or decorate it and show it how much.

How Fast Can They Go?
The last couple of times I've used my atm card the animated window has advised me that I can get my money even quicker with some sort of myatm.com thing.

An atm transaction takes less than one minute. How much faster can they do it?

Shows That Other People Love That I Didn't

1. Sex in the City (watched at least 3 episodes and didn't work for me)
2. Seinfeld (watched and laughed occasionally but never went out of my way for it)
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm (you'd think we'd love this but couldn't make it through 1 ep)
4. Family Guy (ditto)
5. Six Feet Under (watched a few and liked but not enough to track down the whole series)

Obsolescence
Do you ever look around and mourn for stuff that we used to use all the time and is now disappearing? For example, phone booths. Or travel agents.

There's one thing that you'd expect to be obsolete. Something that the Internet and cellphones would seem to make less necessary. Yet somehow there are more than ever. I want less of these. I want to call someone or write an email and say: come on, enough already.

I'm talking about phonebooks.

I kid you not we have received at least new 5 phonebooks in the last month. Not counting the Portland books I swiped from [omitted] because a good set of Portland books can come in handy to the Vancouver resident.

We got a Verizon book, a Clark County book, several versions of the yellow pages including one "mini" book which is completely worthless. They're almost all completely worthless. I tried to find a sewing store not long ago and found TWO listed in my new phone books that not only were no longer in business but from the look of the moldy newspapers on the floor and dusty wires hanging from the ceiling, had not been in business for a long time. And this could inspire a whole tangent about how sad it is that sewing stores are disappearing but we'll save that for another time.

Where does one put all these phonebooks? Well, yes, the recycling is a good choice but let's say that you felt that phonebooks had valuable information that you needed to keep close by in your home. Where would you put them? Ours go in a drawer of an ancient end table. That drawer is now full and can accept no more phonebooks. Please don't send any. AND should we ever need something heavy to barricade the front door from zombies. We are good to go.

Plane Food
I'm reading Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace which was reviewed in the NYT yesterday. I didn't understand the review much better than I understood Fosty's 10,000 word review/article (the book is a collection of non-fiction pieces) on this book about English usage and usage in general. Both probably had valid observations but these got lost among the big words and postmodern deconstructionalist modality of principle (principal?) rhetoric. No one's going to run to the dictionary for a book review. Didn't one of those Strunk or White guys say something about writing clearly and so people can understand you without trying too hard?

When I started this post I intended to write that reading an article on usage, even one that was hard to read, has made me self-conscious about usage. But apparently not enough to keep me from complaining about two writers who are a jillion times smarter than me. Than I. Whatever.

My return flight from Las Vegas was at 8am and it was overbooked. You can't believe how many people are staggering around Las Vegas airport before 8am on a Sunday morning. Two people boarded the plane holding boxes with freshly made pizzas. I wasn't too happy when they sat behind me.

I wasn't even hungover and it smelled vile. Who brings pizza onto a plane at 8am? In Las Vegas?

The flight was overbooked and these folks had volunteered their seats so the flight attendant came and got them and took them off the flight. I looked at the girl next to me and said: Good. I didn't want to smell pizza for the next two hours. She nodded and said: I was thinking the same thing.

Born to Be Wild
Finally, here's the Las Vegas scoop. The story always loses steam over time. We'll see how I do now.

Heidi and I cruised into Las Vegas on Thursday (Mar 2) for a long-planned kick back weekend. I think the highlight was dancing on the bar at Pink Taco next to Paris Hilton with my skirt over my head. Then some chubby tan guy named Sal asked me if I wanted to sit in his lap. Just kidding.



The only thing that would have made it 100% perfect would have been pool weather. But it was 60's and I was outside without a coat which was good enough for me.

Heidi and I used to hang out in the 80's rocker daze so this was like the Return to Greatness Tour. HA. More like the Can We Stay Up Past Our Bedtime? Tour.

I asked if she might want to stop by the Hard Rock or would that be too cheezy? And she said, "The cheezier, the better. Maybe there's a band playing."

So I check out their website and turns out, The Cult is playing on Friday night. Could we possibly be so lucky? We saw the Cult back in 1990 at the Universal Amphitheater.



Friday night we're standing in line at the Hard Rock. A woman came up to Heidi and asked what we were standing in line for. Heidi: The Cult. The Woman: SHUT UP! I totally saw them in college."

Show was sold out. We plodded along in a line that stretched around the casino. We pass a guy with a broom who is sweeping up a broken beer glass by a machine. The patron plays on, barely lifting his feet. I tell Heidi I saw a guy at our hotel who won 14,000 on nickel slots. We try to figure out how much this is. Not as impressive as it sounds. But, better than a sharp stick in the eye.

The line drags beyond time. Arrogant attorneys behind us. ("If he was smarter, he wouldn't be a cab driver in Vegas.") Everyone at Hard Rock looks like someone. I see a Bono-be, a Nikki Sixx-be, a David Spade-be (?, yeah, I know). The attorneys tell a story about the bar at the Hard Rock at 4am. It's all high class call girls and super desperate men. One guy asks if they try to kick out the call girls and the other guy says, they're like cockroaches. You step on one and three more come in.

We finally get into the club and zoom toward the front of the stage. We both have earplugs. This is how far we have come.

Above the stage is a sign that says: Humanity is Instrumental.

If anyone knows what that means, please email me.



There are huge screens up by the stage and Verizon is kindly hosting text messaging to the screen. Damn! Why haven't I signed up for this? What could I get away with? The crowd is an odd assortment of the rote alpha male in uniform: jeans, starched buttoned shirt, untucked, and short hair spiked with product. 90% of the men in Vegas look like parodies of men in Vegas. A good number of women in absurdly tight pants, low waist with muffin top bulging over. There are goths with clove cigarettes, men with strange beard configurations. Not a lot of Heidi and me "we were actually there 16 years ago" types -- but a few.

The band finally rolls out and to be honest, for the first 5 minutes it's pretty Spinal Tap. The guys look like, "Fuk, I'm here to pay the rent."

That spazzy girl that's at every show is in front of us, pumping her fist with her now flabby tricep, flipping her hair and turning back to mouth the words to us. I wish I'd killed her 20 years ago when I had the chance. A guy with no hair grabs her ass.

The band comes to life after a few songs and the show is drop dead awesome. I remember almost every song. A highlight of the weekend. The only Cult I own is on vinyl. Maybe I'll download that instant Cult show from the Internet.



Most of the weekend was spent wandering around shopping and finding food. We bought Heidi a pair of Dansko's, the best shoes known to woman. Did you know there's a store in LV that sells 4 floors of crap with M&Ms on it? And it was PACKED? Even George Lucas has sold his soul to the devil/M&M and you can find stuff with Jedi M&M's (which admittedly, was kind-of cool). Also in the Aladdin shops they have a "show" which is a rain storm and I actually stood there and waited for it and watched it. Seriously. Like I can't do that at home?

Later we made a new friend. We stopped for a refreshing adult beverage and met a charming Irishman at the bar.



We had a good visit. It was his first visit to the States. We had a great conversation, not interesting enough to summarize here but I will say that at one point he told us that they call Condi, "daughter of Chuckie." HILARIOUS. I can't wait to visit Ireland.

I broke even. Better luck next time.

This was what was happening in Portland today. Aren't we done with winter yet?

I have many tales to tell not related to weather. Come back soon.

Look what was waiting for me when I got home:

Where in the World Is Pam?
Guess where I was this weekend?

Sorry, I haven't had good post in awhile. I think I have a good one here but too worn out to do it today, stay tuned.

A few highlights: sunny, coat-free weather; refreshing adult beverages; The Cult.

And meanwhile: congrats to Brian Van't Hul who won an Oscar tonight. I worked with Brian at Panavision a hundred years ago and was thrilled to see him on stage tonight.

Have I told you about my dahlia digging disaster? I have a hunch I did but no time to check or think of another story right now. I dug them all up in the Fall and was too lazy to process them further -- until I noticed they were shriveled and moldy on the garage floor.

I unclumped some, discarded oodles of moldy ones but there are still several big clods sitting on the floor in the cold garage where it's probably been colder than had I just left them in the ground.

Oh well. Ordered another $100 bucks worth. Just a reminder that Spring is on the way.

Saturation
You know how you get to the point where you never want to hear a song again? This is the problem with radio because it takes about 10 songs and plays them until you can no longer stand them. I don't get because I think the more a song is played, the more it sells. But why would you buy something you can hear on the radio 50 times a day? (Or on your ring tone or whatever the kids are doing these days.)

The only time I listen to the radio is in my car during the commute and I listen to about 6 different stations so this is less of a problem except for the 80's station.

I listened to a lot of radio in the 80's and I can still remember what songs I grew to loathe from overplay: anything from Tears for Fears Songs from the Big Chair; anything from David Bowie Let's Dance. I think I cried once when "China Girl" came on the radio one more time. Dire Straits Sultans of Swing, which apparently came out in 1979. Flock of Seagulls. Men at Work. I even got tired of "Heaven" by Warrant. I could go on but you get the idea.

Present day 80's stations do the exact same thing. They play the same 50 songs over and over. "Hungry Like the Wolf" sounds great when you haven't heard it for 20 years but put it back into daily rotation and you hit that saturation point pretty quick. I don't think I have ever turned on my car radio and not found a Billy Idol song playing somewhere. Seriously, does anyone ever need to hear "White Wedding" again?

Aren't there any good and rarely played 80's songs?