Groaning Shelf
I've been meaning to take a picture of the "to read" shelf to show you. At first I was going to make it more organized. Then I was going to leave exactly as it normally is. Then I moved stuff around just a little so you can see more books. You can click on the photo for a bigger version if you want to see the titles better.

This is by no means the complete stack of books to read. This is just the main stacking area and where I look first when I'm ready for a new book.

You can barely see The Grapes of Wrath behind the middle stack between the Argonath bookends that came with one of my DVD purchases. There's another paperback in there called something like Fire in the Morning which I've been carrying around for years and have moved to the bedside table more than once but still haven't managed to read. Wrath I bought a couple of years ago thinking I wanted to read it again to see how my perspective has changed after reading it 20 some odd years ago. Every time I pick it up it seems so hefty and the print so small I resolve to read it again later.

The Anne Rice is also ancient. Around the time I got it, I read about 3 stinkers of hers in a row and could never bring myself to start that one. But I can't bring myself to chuck it without at least trying the first 20 pages just in case it isn't another stinker.

On the left buried at the bottom is an Alice Munro collection of stories. I'm easily drawn to chubby short story collections but rarely seem to read them. I suppose I should drop in and out, reading a story here and there. But that upsets my yearning to approach a book as a single project to be read from beginning to end. Alice Munro writes wonderful stories.

Under Alice is a book you can't see called Daughters are Forever by Lee Maracle, who I used to see at Wordcraft Circle events but haven't seen in a number of years.

Hopefully I can finish a book today and get started on that pound of Potter.

Breaker Moron
Last weekend our garbage disposal gave its last gasp just as my parents were driving up. We gave Dad a hard time like it waited until he was here to give up the ghost. Dad checked it out and confirmed: ding dong, the garbage disposal is dead.

Bob bought a new one at Sears and made arrangements for it to be installed because we don't know how to install things and Dad has gone home and Uncle Joey is in Arizona or Texas or whatever, same thing.

The installer person was signed up to come today after 1pm. For some reason I didn't want to be sitting around on my ass when this person came over so I decided this afternoon would be a good time to sweep out the garage. So there I was sweeping spiders with my hair full of dust when the truck drove up.

I had the new disposal set out and the area under the sink all cleared out and the guys got to work and things moved quickly from fine to disastrous.

I'm not an electrical professional and when I describe the problem, I know you're going to be thinking, "That it doesn't sound right. Those wrench jockeys didn't know what they were doing. You're hopelessly screwed and the electrical integrity of your entire house is broken beyond all reckoning. You might as well turn your wallet upside down and empty it out because it's going to take jillions of dollars to fix this." So in advance, thanks for the input.

Apparently the garbage disposal and the dishwasher have some wires crossed and even if you turn the disposal off from the switch it's still on. And there's some sort of mickey-mouse thing going on under the sink. And they couldn't believe no one has gotten shocked or the house hasn't burned down. The disposal can't be wired up until an electrician looks at it. And we can't use the dishwasher now either. And the breaker attached to the dishwasher also controls most of the lights in the rear end of the house (the house's ass) so now our kitchen is a dark and godless place where we have no disposal and must wash dishes by hand.

As of now, an electrician has been called. The garage has been swept clean. AND the drainer is full of sparkling dishes which can be viewed using the light in the dining room.

Hitching Post in Northwest Portland

You're So Inane
This is my post about reading Cosmopolitan magazine but first I wanted to mention that originally I was going to rename this site: Your Doing It Wrong. I thought the intentional "your" with "doing it wrong" would be funny. But I figured the 3 people who end up here by accident and don't know me would assume I was an idiot and maybe I am but I don't want someone to think I'm an idiot because of bad grammer.

Just kidding. Grammar.

Back to Cosmo and this is going to be short because sadly, I don't have enough time to tell you about each of the zillions of goofy articles.

For some reason we get bales of stupid magazines at the office addressed to "Strategy Event Manager." If you're thinking to yourself: what the hell is that? Join the club. What is a strategy event? What functions would this manager perform? Do other law firms or companies have strategy event managers? Is it a fulltime position? And even if so, why would this person need Cosmopolitan or other fashion magazines that are actually barely veiled catalogs pimping stuff to buy with some filler that consists of advice that makes you stupider after you read it?

I don't have any answers but last time a fresh Cosmo showed up in the lunch room, I grabbed it. It has Christina Aguilera on the cover and teases us with a new column, "sexy v. skanky, " the promise of 30 sex boosters to make sex even sexier and Patrick Dempsey (Dr. McDreamy) photos that "could cause cardiac arrest." Let's look inside, shall we?

Geez, I don't even know where to start. Tons of ads. That's nothing new. Boy, they use green tea to sell anything now, don't they? Shampoo. Bath gel. I was at a restaurant that had green tea liquor and you could get a martini with all the benefits of green tea. If it's not green tea, products are stuffed with fruit, vegetables, herbs, nuts, aloe or soy. Bamboo shampoo. Cherry almond body crème. Soy aloe nail stuff. Poor me with a bathroom full of foodless products.

When it comes to make up you want anything radiant, glowing, shimmery, luminescent, sparkly, glossy. You get the idea. You clothes can be glittery, too. All the celebrities are doing it.

Lots of ads for diamonds. I guess the diamond backlash hasn't hit the glamour circuit yet. (ha ha)

They claim there's a fashion craze for boy shorts panties because they don't uncomfortably crawl up your cheek crease. That was not my personal experience.

Finally we get to the content. Of course I lingered in the Man Manual to make sure I'm up on the latest research findings. I learned "what his affection style says." If he caresses my head, that let's me know he cares. If he kisses my forehead he's sweet, loving, and perceptive. Perceptive? From a forehead kiss? Personally, if he kissed my forehead I'd think he was treating me like a little girl. The article is accompanied by beefcake guys with their shirts off and their pants unbuttoned smirking at the camera and not looking at the women that they care about and are so perceptive around.

Another great article has tips of things to say after sex. I had no idea this was an area for which tips are needed. If you need to lighten the mood you can make a joke and say, "So, what's your name again?" Write that down. It might come in handy some time.

For couples, there's a "how to" article on stroking his ego. Are you kidding me? Gush over tiny tasks? Flatter his fighting style? Tailor complements for him? I'm not sure what upsets me more the idea that there's a "how to" article or that someone thinks women need to pander to the male ego. How about this couples tip from me: be kind to each other. As much as possible. Just because.

Finally, there's a huge article on what men want in bed. I always thought they pretty much just wanted you to go to bed with them. So here's my tip for getting a man into bed: agree to go to bed with him.

I did find one product to try since I'm still a sucker for products. It promises to make me thinner, shinier, younger, sexier and it won't ride up my ass. Also, I'll be able to walk on water.

I thought LibraryThing was a fantastic idea for about 3 minutes.

LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.

Now it just sounds like another way to waste time on the computer.

Can you think of a reason I would ever need to access my "book catalog" from my mobile phone? (Assuming I could even figure out how to do that.)

Do I need suggestions what to read next? I just got another stack of books from Mom and a stack from Kathy. My "to read" shelf is one ethnically exotic and/or thematically heavy book club tome away from collapsing into splinters of simulated wood product as it is.

When am I going to input the collection I have now? I can barely keep up my list of 06 books read.

This is a fantastic idea that's not for me.

The Reader's Digest Version
Mom and Dad arrived on Thursday and we had an excellent meal at Priscilla's. On Friday I did my first class at Clark College while Mom and Dad went into Portland on their own. We all met up again in the afternoon for beer and food at Salmoncreek Brewery. I ate the Oktoberfest special and woke up in the night with mild unhappiness in my digestive region. It was still good. After dinner we went for a walk around the Fort (oof, not a spectacular webpage) and it was magic hour on a perfectly beautiful night.

Saturday we were off to the Market where we ate everything that wasn't nailed down including: pelmini, German potato pancake with carmelized onion, sour cream and applesauce, German sausages, little tiny donuts in cinnamon and powdered sugar flavors, eggrolls, crab omelette. I think that's it.

We decided to do the riverwalk and by the time we got to McMenamin's it was hot and we were thirsty so we had to stop and sit by the river and have a tasty beer. A shout out to the nice lady on the cellphone sitting next to us who thoughtfully spoke loud enough for us to participate. Sorry Uncle Joe died, diabetes complications, too bad. Good luck on that real estate deal and we'll keep our fingers crossed on the biopsy results.

After the market we went to Kathy and Steve's to see the baby and have a visit and then back home for dinner with Priscilla.

They left yesterday morning and I had another computer headache which I will not go into right now but I decided the best thing for me would be to work outside and get some sun. And Mom had brought me bushels of fresh vegetables from Orleans so I spent the rest of the afternoon processing: roasted greenbeans and chiles.

That's the update for now.

I'm Back!
My home computer came back from the shop last night and we fired it up and it works like a dream. I have so many things to fill you in on.

Crafts. Orleans trip photos. I did something I haven't done in 20 years and read an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. (It was free.) Wow - inane is too kind a word. You'll get the review here. Also, commentary on Sunset magazine - has it gone downhill? More discussion on things from the food section of the paper. My troubles finding yoga clothes. My mind at work: gathering vs. throwing away - what does it mean? I finished the Sabriel trilogy by Garth Nix. Short review: AWESOME! PLUS: I start my (Adobe) Illustrator class this week. Lots of new content, coming soon.

Meanwhile, I've got a big day today and Mom and Dad arrive tomorrow so not sure when I'm going to get to all this.

Home Computer: Still Out
Bob has scolded me for saying I don't have a computer. The laptop has moved into my room which is fine except it doesn't have my bookmarks, my address book, my programs or my files (recipes, help!). It also has a murkier screen and I have to do my email through my webhost's web-based program, which sucks titty. Also I find myself much less accurate with the keyboard and constantly going back to fix errors.

On the bright side: it is amazing how much time you have when you aren't farting around on the computer. I read a 500 page book this week, skimmed the daily papers, did tons of yoga practice. Today I was the queen of all things domestic and made a peach pie, potato salad and tomato soup. Tomorrow is apple sauce and pumpkin cake.

And I've been doing crafts which I will photograph and show you as soon as I can.

Bob needs the laptop back so tomorrow I will have nothing. I want my computer back but this is making lemonade from lemons if I've ever seen it.

Application Unexpectedly Quit
Yesterday was going to be a computer day where I practiced with my new software but my "application unexpectedly quit" problem escalated as problems of that sort always do. I tried some online forums to see if others had this problem and found that yes, others have. But no one seemed to have a solution. One person talked about memory being unseated which didn't sound promising.

I won't go through the whole bloody story but, among other things, I tried to use the repair disk that comes with Applecare then spent the next 2 hours desperately force-restarting my machine: just to get the stupid disk back out.

By the time I got my desktop back and could actually use my computer again, unexpected quits and all, I was short-fused and a danger to myself and others.

Meanwhile, I had a kitchen with rapidly ripening produce and other cooking things that could not be ignored. I put the last two squishy peaches in the blender with yogurt and made a smoothie for work. I had bought a bucket of plums to make a fresh fruit galette and when I re-read the recipe I thought: I am in no condition to mess with the food processor or pastry dough right now. But then I had all these ripe plums and I had to do something so I pitted and quartered them and sprinkled a bit of lemon juice and sugar on and put them in the fridge. Ignored the pears. Put away the potatoes. Roasted the beets for a quick salad.

The fresh stuff is fun. I know I'm going to be crying about missing it in a few weeks here. But it is a lot of work. I'm kinda over it by now.

On Saturday afternoon Bob and I went downtown to the Salmon Nation Block Party. It was a semi-spontaneous outing that we almost blew off and we were so glad we went. I have some photos but they are trapped in unexpectedly quit land. Perhaps I can add them in later.

The Block Party is an eclectic street fair/farmer's market extravaganza presented by, and in honor of, Salmon Nation citizens. It brings us together to inspire and educate, bridge urban-rural divides, and celebrate the people, lands and waters of the Northwest temperate rainforest.

Meaning, typical Portland event. Lots of people with kids and/or dogs. Lots of hippie types. Costumes. Excellent food. Tasty beer. Live music. At the end they had the Everyone Orchestra or something like that which means a bunch of musicians that Bob knew about. When they announced who they were Bob started doing back-flips. We went to the front and did a few rounds of the hippie jig. I told Bob I came perilously close to an entire summer without dancing with hippies.

Another thing I did this weekend was watch most of About Last Night a 1986 movie with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore that I'm sure I loved in 1986. I don't think I've seen it again since. David Mamet wrote the play that the movie was based on and he must have slunk into a dark corner with the check in his hand when he saw the finished product. Some of the cheesiest montages ever with awful, awful music. I'm about 75 minutes into the movie and there have been three montages already. A fair amount of nudity. Excellent opportunity to see Demi's real boobs.

The story holds up. Young people hooking up and everything happening so fast and the friends on the sidelines with their mild sabatoge.

One of the best things about the movie is the sweaters. Remember huge bulky sweaters that hung down to mid-thigh? This style was a boon for me at the height of my "full figured" epoch. I can see my sweaters right now. I got them at Xpress. One was bright blue and one was bright pink.

Another treat is Elizabeth Perkins who we now know and love as Celia on Weeds, playing frumpy best friend Joan. I love the women character names: Debbie and Joan. Nowadays the girls would have to be named Stevie and Tommy because in movies the girl always has to have a boy's name. (Start paying attention to girl names: Alex, Joey or Jo, Sam, Freddie, Mel, Max, Jo, Dani etc.) Can't wait to see how it ends.

Pirates!
I finished my project.


I think I like sewing. I made mistakes but found the problem solving fun. I'm going to try an apron next.

For the third time in 2 days I've had an application randomly quit while I'm in the middle of doing something. I don't like the sound of that.

I'm not going to recreate my post since it wasn't too exciting to begin with. Lots of stuff going on.

Be More Funny
Bob told me he had a new entry on his blog he wanted me to check out. I dutifully clicked on it and saw the title.

"I don't want to read about Lee Morgan and Woody Shaw," I said. "Why don't you write about something funny. Like when you spill something."

I don't even know who Lee Morgan and Woody Shaw are. I suppose I could read the entry or even ask, but you have to be careful about showing too much interest in my house. Next thing you know you're sitting down to dinner and there's some epic musicography queued up on the tube and stack of cds on the counter and maybe even some vinyl propped up on the stereo and giant book with a few pages marked sitting on the nightstand.

In other news, from checking my logs I can see that people searching for wampa (see also: wampa: ice creature) are ending up here. My dream come true.

Today's Lunch of Too Much
Today I brought a thermos with freshly made tomato soup, a peanut butter and nutella sandwich, a little container with sliced cucumbers and a dollop of roasted onion and gruyere dip, a little container with leftover green bean salad with toasted walnuts and feta, a little container with a diced fresh pear, a baggie with celery, carrot, turnip and red pepper sticks and a half box of animal crackers that I never ate last week.

Also in my office I have a stash of pita chips, wheat thins (big) and two breakfast cookies. Also a bottle of wine.

Beaten By Shelves
I don't want to talk about installing the shelves.

Let's just say if I ever meet the person who invented HangTrak ™ shelving I will skin him alive, draw and quarter him, light him on fire, pee on his ashes and then rinse them down the garbage disposal with sour milk and slimy greens.

On the con side I hated everything about installing them.

On the pro side I have tons of experience with the drill and have completely gotten over my fear of putting multiple holes in anything including my beautiful smooth and painted wall that I busted ass on in May.

At least they haven't fallen down yet.

I had to take a break in the middle of the fiasco to make tomato soup so I could at least feel competent at something.

I didn't even have time for the pirate pillowcase.

Something New Every Day
I'm still getting new dahlias. Might even be one or two new varieties before summer is over.

I can't wait to update you on all my projects this weekend. If doing projects means learning from your mistakes: I'll be a gold medal winner soon.

The pirate pillowcase is a winner. The first instruction is: "remove selvage from each fabric." WTF is selvage? Right there I had a 20 minute research project. Then I folded my insert strip and layered it with the right side of the pirates and wrong side of the cuff and carefully sewed my first seam with my the sewing machine. Success!

Except I had the folded insert seam upside down. Bob came in from downstairs and I announced, "Honey, I'm ripping out my first seam." I very carefully pressed everything out and repinned. And did the exact same thing again! A natural.

Bob came in from an errand and I said, "Honey, I'm ripping out my second seam."

We went to see Little Miss Sunshine (fantastic! hilarious!) that afternoon so I had to put my pillowcase aside. Who would have thought a pillowcase is a several day project?

This morning I picked up the stuff for my closet shelves. I bought a stud finder. And all kinds of brackets and anchors and supports.

Pirates and shelves. We'll see how I do.

Pirates!
Yesterday I went to Craft Warehouse to get some stuff for these little items I'm making (more information depending on how it goes) and I ended up finding all kinds of crap to buy. I got a little dizzy when she announced my total.

I've been wanting to learn to sew and have been dicking around trying to figure out how best to go about it. I wanted to take a class but that hasn't panned out so far. At the craft store they had a kit for making a pillowcase.

(I know some of you are laughing right now. How hard can it be to make a pillowcase? I have to start somewhere.)

It's going to have pirates on it.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted


(L) Luis, Geena, Lillian, Josa, Annie and Jack. (R) The fire fighting helicopter filling up in the Klamath. Bob took these two.



(L) Lyons Ranch, a lovely hike downhill through potential wild cat/bear country via (R) Bald Hills Road. These two by me.