Heart of the American Indian Woman Conference 2007

More Photos here.

Boy, my notes on the event are crapola. There is extensive coverage on my thoughts about driving and then a jumble of notes on what we did interspersed with any random idea or observation that might have floated through my mind while I was sitting in a folding chair during the programs.

This is the organization's 18th gathering and I should volunteer to put together a website for them because I can't find doodly to link to. The organization was created to encourage women into leadership in Indian Country and they meet all over the country. There were tons of Oklahoma folks there.

I heard about it in January and at first I wanted to go but then I waffled. Sometimes inertia gets the best of me. My dear husband gave me a nudge and so last week I left the office early Wednesday to drive out to the coast to The Mill Casino which is owned and operated by the Coquille Tribe.

The weather was drop dead spectacular the entire time. When we're driving south it's usually dead of winter (holiday visit) or the dead of summer (August visit). I can't remember ever seeing so much green driving through the Willamette Valley. The sun blazed out at the coast, too.

The main program was all day Thursday and there were tons of speakers who spoke about the organization, networking, local traditions and tribal issues. Wilma Mankiller was the keynote speaker and she was awesome. The real value of the gathering was meeting so many people and normally I'm not very good at that kind of thing but I did my best to throw myself out there and I ended up meeting tons of interesting women including 4 Karuk ladies who live in the Coos Bay area.

Friday was an all day bus tour and I wasn't up for that so I got my gear together and headed out to the beach to visit with the Pacific and then headed home with a quick stop to view elk.

Man, this is a boring post and I don't have time to pep it up right now (or any idea how to do that) but I will leave you with this story.

At dinner on Thursday night we had fry bread and at the end of the table was a giant bowl of pink fluffy stuff that I couldn't identify. A woman in front of me said it was mousse so I enthusiastically spooned a big plop onto my plate. Later, at my place, I stuffed a big forkful into my mouth. Turns out it was cranberry butter. The Coquille are big into the cranberries. It was delicious scraped onto my fry bread. Startling by the huge forkful.

Wild Waters
I'm back. The conference was fantastic but, sadly, the most gorgeous man in the world was nowhere to be seen. Or, he's hit on some bad times and I no longer recognized him. But that was the only disappointment. The rest of the gathering way exceeded my expectations.

I'll write more about the event later and I have lots of photos.

Meanwhile, I'm back to my usual tricks and fretting about all the things I need to do and as I fret, I'm completely paralyzed about what to do first and how to prioritize. Wilma spoke about this very thing although she was speaking in the context of accomplishing something for your people and I'm talking about just getting the house cleaned up and some dahlias in the ground.

The big news is: look at my pumpkin sprouts!

I planted the seeds last Sunday. I took photos every twelve hours because the seeds sprout so quickly you can practically stand there and watch. First you see a green dot in the soil. A couple hours later you can see a bigger green dot. Next thing you know the first two leaves are unfolding.

I'm going to do a whole photos stream from seeds to pumpkin pie in November.

Isn't there something appealing about time-elapse photo projects? Don't you love the movie montages where they take the rundown old shack and transform it into a bright cheery home for the orphans? Or the fat, frowsy nerdgirl gets contacts and a haircut, does some sit-ups and puts on some tight jeans and suddenly looks like Scarlett Johansson?

Since the sun is out, I think gardening should be today's main project.

Fresh Dates
One project on my list that I can't seem to get to is to the seasonal cleaning of the clothes closet. One brilliant thing about our house, that I don't think we understood the importance of when we bought it, is that we each have our own closet. I'm not sure how spacious it is by average woman standards but I'm not a woman who needs racks and racks of clothes so for me, the closet is perfect.

It took me years to figure this out but when winter is over I take all my wool stuff to the cleaners and then take the clean, plastic-wrapped stuff and stick it in the back of the closet. Then that first blustery day in November I have clean warm clothes to wear. I used to shove them to the back dirty and nothing like pulling out dirty clothes from 6 months earlier when you need something to wear.

I don't have very many outfits to begin with and now I've put most of them away. But I've never pulled out all the spring/summer stuff and checked that it's cleaned, ironed, mended and/or has matching parts. So every morning I have to scrounge around to find clothes and basically just recycle the same 4 outfits over and over. We'll see if I'm inspired to clean it this weekend.

This afternoon I'm taking off for a Leadership Conference for Native American Women hosted by the Coquille Tribe. The most gorgeous man I have ever spoken face-to-face with in my life was from the Coquille Tribe. I have high hopes for this adventure. Plus I haven't done anything like this in ages and could use the pick-me-up. It's at least a 4 hour drive and I get to pick all the music so I headed for the basement in search of the mix tapes. I found the college music tape, the Cathouse tape and a tape my sister did for me and a tape one of her friends did for me, both featuring stuff like Throwing Muses, Screaming Trees and a lot of Bob Mould.

One more musical note: last night on The Tube they showed the Talk Talk video. Amazing coincidence or cosmic voodoo?

I'll be offline until at least Friday night. Enjoy the rest of your week.

Life is a Mix Tape, But Not Anymore
I got my first grown-up record player when I was 13. My first two albums were: Frampton Comes Alive and Wings Over America.

I loved music when I was in my teens and twenties. Insanely loved. Every time I moved the last thing I did at the old place was dismantle the stereo and the first thing I did at the new place was set the stereo up. I needed my music.

I loved to buy 45's. I loved records. I loved discovering new bands. I loved concerts. I loved to read and write about bands. I read all kinds of magazines like Creem, Spin and occasionally bought a NME plus never missed a free issue of any weekly, BAM and so on.

I spent hours making mix tapes. I also taped my albums for my car and spent intense amounts of time creating the labels, custom decorating, giving them special names. I had a whole math system so there wouldn't be a giant empty gap at the end of the tape. In Rob's book, they just threw stuff at the end of a tape to have music at the end and I sometimes did that but it completely violated my sense of logic and order and plus when listening to the tape I'd suffer an internal cringe when I knew the song was going to cut off abruptly.

Most of these tapes are long gone. I made a dance tape freshman year in the dorms that I'm pretty sure is in the basement and I should dig it out because if it still works, I bet it would be hilarious. The only bands I remember for sure are on it are Talk Talk and Flock of Seagulls. One drawback of cassettes is my last boombox died so the only cassette player I have is in the car.

My best mix tapes were the series I made in the late 80's with hairbands. These were the Cathouse tapes in honor of my favorite club and featured songs from bands like Guns N'Roses,, Faster Pussycat and Warrant. I gave them names like "Cathouse Strikes Back" "The Return of Cathouse" and "Cathouse Steak and Pita Hut." I think the original Cathouse tape is in the basement but all the others are gone. Heidi says she still has some of them.

I have no recollection of making or receiving mix tapes as any part of mating rituals which is a central theme of Rob's book. The person I remember exchanging tapes with the most is my sister. Now that I think about it, I can't remember a single friend who was as fanatical about music as I am. Of course, I made up for that later with my choice in spouse and he is the king of all things music in this lifetime and the next 10.

The reason for this long introduction is that I am the exact opposite now. How can that even be possible?

I rarely listen to music except when I drive. And even then it's mostly just the radio and I switch around stations until I find a song that I like. I get maybe 2 new cds a year and listen to them once or twice and usually it's a project. As in, "Oh, I should take that new CD out of the case and give it a listen." Darren sent me a CD a week or two ago and I said, "Great, I can't wait to listen to it." Then I set it next to my computer and totally forgot about it until he asked me what I thought.

If, in my 20's I had digital music and the Internet, it would have completely changed my life. Burning CDs and making playlists – that would have been awesome. Now it seems like a lot of trouble. My only playlists are the albums except for one called "current faves" that I've never updated. I don't like "shuffle" because I don't like hearing a random track from "Attack of the Clones" (yes, I'm a total nerd and have all 6 Star Wars soundtracks on my iPod) and then Replacements and then some cheezy Top 40-ish dance track from a compilation and then some mellow mind-numbing music that I keep on there if I get anxious on a plane. If I'm going to listen to a mixed bag, there has to be thin thread of logic why the songs are together.

I don't take the time to find new bands although I'm always happy to discover a new song I like. But I hardly ever buy stuff because I figure I'll never listen to it. I love the idea of the Apple Store and buying singles songs I like, but refuse to buy anything with DRM. The last music I heard that really rocked my world was Camper Van Beethoven an album that I've had in my collection for 20 years.

I know it's not age because I know tons of people my age who are music fanatics. I still like the idea of music. I love Pandora but I don't think I've logged on in a month.

When I was in college I had a woman friend who told me as I got older I'd enjoy the quiet more and get used to the sound of my own thoughts. I think she was right.

Mixed Media Monday
Right now I'm reading Love is A Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield given to me by Hannah. I didn't intend to read this book right now because I'm still reading The Leopard that I started last weekend plus I went to the library and brought home a stack of fun books and started reading some of those plus I bought a couple books and started reading those. I normally don't start 10 books at once and I'm not sure why I'm doing it now but I suspect it's some sort of knee-jerk reaction from the four months wasted with The Fortress of Solitude and besides, it's good for my brain to be fed from so many different directions. I intended to just read the first chapter of the Sheffield book and you know how it goes sometimes, next thing you know I was "one more chapter"-ing until dinner.

The book is a memoir where everything relates to the author's love of music. Sorta like Nick Hornby. Each chapter starts with a cassette label with the song list of a mix tape.

Now that I've started writing this I realize that discussing mix tapes is going to have to be it's own separate post because I have a lot to say about this. I'm going to try to write it tomorrow. I have a gnarly week at the office because I have a lot to do and I'm taking some time off so not very much time to do it.

So quickly: Mad Hot Ballroom.
Have you heard of this movie? It's a documentary about these kids in NYC who learn ballroom dancing in school and the schools compete against each other. It's fabulous. The kids and their teachers are amazing. Recommended.

Lost
Anyone else finding it funny how so many people seeming to be finding their way to this island?

Sourdough
Remember the sourdough? It's been neglected in the fridge for almost a month. I fed it on Saturday and it just sat in the bottom of the bowl doing little so yesterday I fed it again and put it in a plastic canister (can't think of a better way to describe and didn't think to photo the process), then put the container in a dish with warm water and tented it. This was the method suggested at class and I have no idea why I didn't try it sooner. The sourdough loved it. It doubled and fourpled in volume exactly like it was supposed to. I made some biscuits that were a huge hit and put the rest in the fridge. I'm going to give the bread making another go next week.

In the 80's during the big hair band era I spent my weekends hanging out on the Sunset Strip and a small portion of my professional life working on music videos for a variety of performers but a lot of them were hair bands.

I don't like to use the word "collect" because it wasn't like I was out on the hunt, but I did manage to accumulate a small collection of guitar picks which I was pretty excited about at the time. Of course half of them don't say the name of the band and now I can't remember what band they came from. If I was really clever I'd think up a word for it like worthless nostalgia or collectible amnesia that conveys the sense of saving something that has personal importance only to forget what it is rendering it meaningless. There's probably a great philosophical nugget in there somewhere because don't all our material objects eventually become meaningless?

I've been sitting at my desk all day accomplishing things and dinner is in 3 minutes so I'm in no position to put together a coherent discussion.

The far left pick, no idea but looks cool so let's say The Cult. I worked on the first video Extreme ever did. I remember talking to Gary Cherone and him telling me how crazy it was to be in Los Angeles making a video. Tesla was a favorite that I'd seen in concert. You think after hearing the song 1000 times at the video shoot, I would remember which one it was but, nope. Guns N'Roses was a huge thrill as they were the biggest thing on the planet at the time. And Jailhouse was my favorite local band (dang, even found a photo) who I would go see every time they played. I still have the t-shirt. I think I even have a cassette somewhere with some Jailhouse songs.

Shiny Happy Car
Yesterday was my busiest day at work that I can remember in eons. At the old office I took all the incoming calls so if it was a busy phone day, sometimes I couldn't get anything done.

At the new office the receptionist directs the attorney calls to the attorney or their voicemail unless the person wants to speak to the assistant. Yesterday, everyone wanted to speak to the assistant. Plus some new things came up for me and some old things that I thought were gone came back and I ended up jumping around all day, took a 15 minute lunch and didn't fool around at all. It was great and the day flew by.

Two quick updates. #1 — my car is finished and pretty again. Excellent to have it back. They did a very nice job but it's hard not to feel a teeny bit wistful about how much more fun it would have been to spend that money on a plane ticket to somewhere exotic. They also made the inside smell like new car again. I didn't know that was possible. #2 — the great ant elimination continues. I tried to take a picture of the shop to show you the carpet of ants of every shape, size and wing configuration that is spread across the floor but the outcome didn't look too impressive.

I had some more comments on yesterday's post. One is that I realize I write a "Why Can't I get Anything Done?" post at least every other month. This is an ongoing issue that a number of years ago felt like "I never have any time." Now I feel like I have time but can't get anything done. Perhaps it would be a valuable exercise to explore the difference is but either I don't have time or I should put it on my list.

I can remember being in my 20's and spending oodles of time sitting in my room listening to records or sleeping in Sunday, reading the paper with a pot of coffee, going out to breakfast, then coming home and taking a nap. I have no recollection of worrying about getting things done back then.

Using what I learned from my "Get More Done Than Ever Before!" article I read yesterday, I made a list of three things that I wanted to do this weekend that would give me a sense of accomplishment. None of those things is blogging about ants so I'm off.

There is No Spoon
I feel like I've been spinning my wheels. Forever.

This is not a new feeling and seems to run in cycles where I feel more and more mired in the routine every day crap until finally something comes along to shake me out of it. Then life rolls on again until the next cycle of stuck. I should probably be careful about complaining about this because there are all kinds of bad things that could shake things up and that's not what I'm going for.

I thought the NYC trip would stir me up a bit more but not really.

I'm having a hard time articulating myself this morning. This week has been extra long. With one car I've been leaving earlier and we've had something going on after work every night this week. And I have a couple of huge projects at the office that require a lot of brain juice that I'm trying to keep reeled in.

What happens on these longs days is I start to think about all the things I want to get done on the weekend when I have time. Then when the time finally rolls around I'm tired and my brain is squeezed dry and once I've run an errand or two and run the laundry then my motivation vanishes and I end up organizing my envelope collection in front of the TV.

I was going to go into a thing about the big rocks first and blah blah blah being productive. But really, productive compared to what? I have too many internal rules. I should spend all day Saturday finger painting. (Even just joking about it is giving me a small coronary. Finger painting? But how will all the stuff get done?)

Just now when I plugged "big rocks first" into a search engine to find a link to that story I got a bunch of hits on productivity articles. Does anyone else find it funny how many online sites are devoted to ideas for productivity? You could spend all day doing nothing except keeping up with the latest on productivity.

The reason I bring up productivity articles is that I can never resist the urge to read an article that promises to teach me the secrets to be more productive. It's sort of like all those articles I read between the ages of 15-35 that promised to teach me the secrets of losing weight.

I already know: There is no secret. You have to do it. Weight loss? Burn more than you take in. There is no secret formula of grapefruit and cauliflower that's going to make it easier. It's not like pie crust where there might actually be a secret like chill the butter or roll it out between two sheets of wax paper (which totally didn't work).

I already know if I want to get stuff done I have to do it. My big productivity tip, which I have trouble implementing: want to do less stuff.

Some Books and Stories I Liked As A Kid
1. Paranormal Stories. I loved stories about the Bermuda Triangle. The missing air patrol – how could they have just vanished? And I loved the stories about abandoned ships that were found with warm cups of coffee sitting on the table and bacon frying in the pan but no sign of people. I also read everything about UFOs, Atlantis, ghosts, Big Foot and the Abominable Snowman, and Loch Ness monster. I also had a book that told about unexplained mysteries like people who walked under a ladder and disappeared. But sometimes you might hear their voice if you stood near where they disappeared.

2. Bible Stories at the Dentist's Office. My family never went to church when we were growing up (or ever). My sister and I went to Sunday School a little bit with our babysitter but overall my exposure to Bible stories was minimal. My dentist office had these big books of illustrated Bible stories which I loved and looked forward to reading every time I had to sit in that waiting room. Of course now I'm drawing a big blank on the stories I liked except Androcles and the lion. The other part I remember is when Jesus floated up into the sky to Heaven. This caused me a bit of worry because I wanted to know how far he floated and was he scared when he got up high and could this happen to me and what sort of outer space/heaven transition was there and how long did it take to get there?

3. Guiness Book of World Records. Is there any kid who didn't LOVE this book? I always wanted to find a record I could break. Remember the photo of the guy with the crazy long curled fingernails? I also remember The Who had the loudest rock concert. I was always fascinated by the oldest living people and the oldest lady who'd had a child. One of the editors was on the Daily Show and he was funny. He said people send them all sorts of weird stuff like huge pieces of skin or stuff he didn't even want to talk about.

4. 1972 World Book Encyclopedia. We had a set of encyclopedias that were handy for homework projects. No Google in the Seventies. There was a human body section with several clear pages with a slice of the human body so you could see bones on one page, muscles on another page, guts on another page.

Long Week Ahead?
I'm not sure how this happened, but it's only first thing Monday morning and I'm already feeling a bit frazzled. I hope I can shake it off otherwise this is going to be a long week.

I forgot to mention earlier that I enjoyed Jonathan Lethem at the lecture and also officially gave up on his book and put it in the "to return" pile. He has a non-fiction collection and I'm going to give that a try someday.

Meanwhile, I recently found Shorpy which is "a photo blog about what life a hundred years ago was like: How people looked and what they did for a living, back when not having a job usually meant not eating." It's very cool and I highly recommend checking it out.

More About Ants and Reading (as different topics)
It's hard to feel good about yourself when every time you walk out the front or back door you see a giant pile of ants staggering around in crooked circles. Whenever people charge me a large sum of money to solve a problem I've diagnosed myself on a matter I have zero experience with I'm always worried I'm getting hosed. Not this time. I didn't realize there were piles of giant ants living around the front door or back door. The ants I was calling about are (were) on the side of the house. How close they came to conquering us.

The sun is out but I see clouds and I have some work to do out there so I'm going to cut my planned post short.

I finally finished my book, Annie Proulx, Accordion Crimes which brings me up to 4 for this year.

Years and years ago I started a notebook where I write authors, titles and notes about books I wanted to read. Most of them come from book reviews but also from recommendations, best books lists and books mentioned by guests at Arts & Lectures.

This morning I went through the notebook to see if any titles sounded good right now. I also make notes if I decide not to read the book. Maybe I picked it up at the library and decided upon closer inspection that it doesn't look like something I want to read. Or I make a big check mark if I've read it and write what I thought of the book which ranges from "awesome!" to "okay" to "dreadful."

I found that Entertainment Weekly was consistently unreliable and even the starred reviews were books that I could barely hold in my hands for 5 pages. Esquire Magazine once printed a comprehensive list of books everybody should read and most were literary classics but the kind of literary classics that you've barely heard of and I was rarely tempted by the list.

After I finished Accordion I started a book called The Leopard which I've seen mentioned in The Week numerous times and so far I like it. That should keep me busy until I have time to go to the library with my new list.

Members Only
So did I mention I'm now apparently a member of AARP?

Uncle Marvin and Aunt Marvin thought it would be fun to buy Bob a membership for his 50th bday and me, as the spouse, also gets to enjoy the "benefits, advocacy and information on again for people age 50 and over." Yay!

That was sarcasm if you missed it.

You know when I'll be ready to join a group of old people? When I get to be a tribal elder. They always get to eat first and younger people bring them a plate. They also get to sit in the front all the time. I'm going to make sure they also always bring me a drink.

But I'd like to enjoy a few more years of middle age in the meantime.

Also, I'm glad Antman warned me about seeing more ants in the house right after the treatment because there is a major giant ant convention going on by the front door — not even the area we'd originally called about.

They aren't looking like the happiest ants in the world and I really do hate killing things but at some point you have to draw a line around the living space. They can live out there in front foliage as much as they want but inside the house is off limits.

The Antman
This afternoon the exterminator came. When I was a kid there was an exterminator company that had a guy holding a giant hammer he was going to use to smash the bug. I always wished we could have that at our house.

The guy that came to our house didn't have a giant hammer but he was cool and had a good sense of humor and obviously knew what he was doing and took the time to explain it to me which I really appreciated. Who doesn't like learning about bugs?

The first thing he did was ask me about the carpenter ants. I said they were huge and black and some had wings and that they apparently liked to eat each other because I saw one crawling around waving half the body of another. He said, yes, if you're having ants over for dinner, damp wood and ants are their favorite. Then he asked where they were.

I was a tad embarrassed and I told my sister this story earlier and made her promise not to tell our father but now I'm going to tell you all here. About one hour before we were scheduled to leave for the airport for New York, I opened the shade in my room because I was looking for stuff and couldn't see very well and natural light seemed like a great solution.

Instead what I saw were giant winged ants boiling out of a crack in the windowsill. Bob and I looked at it together and being the proactive and competent homeowners that we are, we killed the ants that we could reach (and some with wings flew away!) and slapped a big old piece of tape over the crack and then went on vacation and never gave it another thought.

About a week after our return I thought maybe I should revisit this because it would sure be embarrassing if our house fell down because we were too lame to deal with it, but the tape was working great and as long as I kept the blind closed I didn't even think about the ants slowly devouring our home. But I finally called and made the appointment and now I had to show the guy that I was holding the ants at bay with tape.

He said that this kind of problem solving was not uncommon. He told me all about ants and how they like railroad ties (part of the landscaping) and how they like to hang out in the nice warm walls when its cold and pointed out a bush I could cut back so they couldn't hop on and eat some aphids and then jump into my room. I couldn't help think how popular he must be on his kids' show and tell day, standing in front of the room talking about bugs.

I asked him if I had to leave the house while he filled it with poison and if there was any danger of me growing a second head and he pointed to his 2nd-head-free shoulder and said not to worry about it.

Another problem, apparently solved.

My sister found this letter in my Grandma's stuff and sent it to me. You can click on it for a larger view.

I wrote this when I was 7 years old. Even then I knew about the concrete detail (four dollars, ballerina on the cake, yellow room-although I use the passive voice and I knew my Dad was painting it.). I also love that I signed it "Pamela" because back then I was Pammy. I must have thought I was being very grown-up. But what really kills me about this letter is that my Grandma saved it all this time.

Carless in Vancouver
I am finally taking care of the bumper damage from the uninsured lady who hit us in December. I figured while the car was going in I might as well take care of the other ding (not my fault) and scrape (my fault!) so I did a bit of back and forth with insurance and the body shop and all I can say is this is a big incentive never to hit or be hit again.

I am car-less for 8 working days. I know zero about car body repair but it seems like an awfully long time. Since my person at the body shop asked me at least 10 times whether I had rental car coverage and I never once made mention of needing a rental car I suspect some rental car kickback incentive to drag the repair out as long as possible.

We can live on 1 car for a week and a half and have developed a highly complex program to trade off the car along with various combos of walking/picking up/dropping each other off, public transportation and/or relying on kind colleagues for rides.

I'm short on time this morning but I have to mention the most fabulous dinner I had last night at the Salmon Creek Brewery. It was a chef special called something like Shrimp Diablo which was grilled shrimp in a creamy, Cajun-y spiced sauce over pasta and was so delicious I haven't stopped talking about it. I wanted the hoover the whole plate but save enough a little taste when I get home tonight.

Everybody Gets Egg Salad
I think I wrote about this last Fall. I phoned our heating oil company then to see if they could top us off so we'd go into the cool weather with a full tank. The woman who took my call got sort of bent out of shape about this. "You want fuel, now?" she said like it was a crazy idea.

I won't get into it but I've had run ins with this woman before about our service plan. I'm not sure what her deal is but I would argue that she's not striving to provide her customers with superior service and products... on time... every time... and always with a friendly smile.

I told her that on autofill they always got us at Christmas and tax time when we already had a lot of other expenses. At current rates it's in the range of $600 to fill the tank.

Since we're on the autofill program she said it would cost extra to fill the tank in October so I said, forget it we'll do it your way and sure enough, December 15 we find the bill with notice that our tank has been filled.

Now it's April. We've never got a second fill. We're at less than a quarter tank. We're using less but we still need heat. They supposedly use some complicated program based on our usage records multiplied by the daily low temperature and divided by the square root of the full moon on a Sunday after the vernal equinox. I don't know how it works but I am finding it an astounding coincidence that after I specifically mentioned Xmas and tax time being bad time for fuel delivery that that's precisely what we're getting.

Bob decided to call them to find out what was going on and order 100 gallons rather than a full tank. He called me after he talked to The Dragon Lady and said: What IS her deal? The poster child for anti-customer service insisted to him that we didn't need fuel and couldn't possibly be that low. Like she would know better than us, right? She said our usage had changed and something about the ratio and blah blah blah. What, were they planning on delivering fuel in May when we don't need it until Fall?

Bob had to insist and they agreed to deliver this week at the higher price which will cost us a huge extra $8. Our service contract expires in the summer and The Dragon Lady will just have to enjoy not providing customer service to some other people.

Meanwhile, I noticed yesterday I have a nice, slightly swollen gash on my nose. I have zero idea where it could have come from. I haven't been playing contact sports or falling down drunk. No one has thrown anything at me. My best guess is that I hit myself in the face during yoga on Monday night. Denise kicked our butts.

We did the Star Wars Easter Egg kit wrong because I didn't read the directions but apparently there was something you put on the eggs before you cook them and it looks really cool. I cooked the eggs in advance thinking I was being a big planner and so then it was too late.

The sandwiches look delicious.

What Happened to Reading?

Can it be true that I've only read three books this year?

How can this happen? I'm thinking I need to run out and buy some flimsy paperbacks. Maybe a thriller or murder mystery or a young adult book with vampires or dragons. Just to remember the feeling of finishing a book again.

Right now I'm reading Accordion Crimes by E. Annie Proulx which fulfills one requirement in that it's been on the shelf for years. Besides I love Annie Proulx. I also haven't totally given up on The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem even though I've been reading it (or not reading it) for roughly 2 months now and I'm only on page 67. I took it to NYC thinking maybe that would get me in the mood but I never had time to read on the trip and when I did, I was usually reading the travel book and wishing I'd picked it up earlier.

The problem with Fortress is that I need to quit because it's just not working for me. Two months and 67 pages is enough. However, Lethem is the Arts and Lectures person on Thursday and if I really like him I may leave it on the nightstand and make one more try. The problem with Accordion is that even though I'm enjoying it, it's not the kind of book you can just pick up and read a page or two and it's hard to read when one is tired or has had a couple of glasses of wine which is me at least 7 nights a week.

[Update: I just checked and I wrote the exact same thing about Fortress 2 months ago except I was on page 60. What is wrong with me? I think the NYC trip convinced me to keep it on the nightstand. Maybe I'll pose this during the Q&A on Thurs: "I've been trying to read Fortress of Solitude for over three months and can't get past page 67. Should I quit trying?"]

On my days off I like to read in bed in the morning but if Bob is around he likes to talk to me and also, reading in bed all morning tends to start the day off on an unproductive note. I then proceed to an uninspired yoga practice that I quit early, daydream during my meditation, flip through the newspapers, catch up on a TV show or two and so on like this.

When I'm in the middle of a fantastic book that I can't put down I carry the book everywhere and read before work, at lunch hour, after dinner. I haven't carried these books around. My other problem is almost everything else on my "to read" shelf is a heavy literary tome so I'm not in a hurry to pick up something new. How did reading turn into a job?

I need to finish Accordion, preferably this weekend and then regroup on the reading program meaning I need to find some books I'm excited about.

On a quick side note: Bob and I watched Borat this weekend and I did not love it. Sure I laughed. I laughed a lot. But some of it was uncomfortable laughing. Short review: too mean. Related: one of our favorite food vendors at the Farmer's Market is from Kazakhstan and they used to have a big sign that said so. This year they have a generic ethnic food sign.

Brulee Panic
On Saturday I scanned a couple of creme brulee recipes and picked the easiest one and left the cookbook open on the counter with the ingredients. I ended up not getting to it on Saturday so yesterday morning when I got up, I whipped up the dessert.

The basic recipe is simple: Warm heavy cream in a saucepan. Add vanilla. While it heats whisk some egg yolks and sugar together. Add cream to yolks. Bake in individual cups in the oven in a water bath.

I didn't re-read the recipe, just threw the stuff together. The recipe called for a cup of sugar and I dumped it in and as I whisked, I then re-read for the next step and saw that OOPS. I only needed 1/2 cup sugar. The other half was for the topping. I panicked and splashed more cream into the saucepan thinking I'd just double my recipe. But then I found that I only had three eggs left in the fridge that weren't hardboiled.

I don't know the science involved with the egg-to-cream ratio but it was already screwed so I just went for it. The dessert was very sweet, somewhat soupy but totally edible and that's the key to my cooking success.

Grindhouse turned out to be a perfect way to spend Easter Sunday. When I say it's completely off the rails, I'm understating it. It's funny and violent and gory and over-the-top and worth the time and trouble if you're up for a B-thriller double feature. Feature one is zombies with Rose McGowan and the machine gun prosthetic leg. Feature two is Kurt Russell as a crazy muscle car guy stalking beautiful girls.

The only bummer was that we got home about 4pm and then I had to rush to get dinner on the table and that made me cranky.

The decorating eggs were already hardboiled but I'd spent the morning with the brulee snafu and now I was peeling potatoes and organizing the chicken and making a salad and I had a loaf of bread going but the timing was fubar because the movie was so long. I wasn't up for one more thing that would make a mess.

Bob wanted to do it and did a great job although I think the idea of decorating eggs was more fun than actually doing it. I took photos, of course, and will add later.

Happy Easter
I'm cheating and posting this on Saturday. At first I wasn't going to do a computer free day this weekend but I changed my mind. We don't really celebrate Easter at our house but we decided for this year we will "celebrate" by going to see a Grindhouse matinee. Then I'm going to roast a chicken and potatoes and make some creme brulee and we're going to watch the final season opener of The Sopranos.

Hope everyone enjoys the day.

New York City Part IV: Final Installment

Photo set is here. I added a few more photos from Bob's roll.

On Sunday we slept in and then headed out to the Museum of Natural History. It was still cold and I needed my hat.

This is a place to bring kids and no one arrives without at least 7 of them, plus 10 strollers. Except us.

I liked the giant whale, the Indians (of course) and the dinosaurs. Especially the dinosaurs. Evolution lives here. You look at those things and you have to think about it: this was once a real thing with skin and muscles and it moved around and ate and pooped. Really cool. It was too crazy to eat here. Just a phalanx of strollers all moving towards the smell of food. We decided to try our luck elsewhere.

We walked around outside and found Calle Ocho. I didn't think it looked promising but Bob said he had a good feeling. When we walked in it was empty and smelled like a fraternity house. Then they took us to the back to a sunny room filled with people. The gal seating us said: "You know about the free sangria with brunch?" Us: "Huh?" Her: "Yeah, free sangria with brunch. Help yourself." A long table was filled with giant glass barrels filled with sangria. Yippee! The food was delicious and reasonably priced, too. Score 100 points for Bob.

We took a quick rest at the apartment and then met Corey for a walk around Greenwich Village and Hudson River Park. He had to man the box office for a Cabaret Show so he left us at Strand Books. One of the owners of Strand Books is married to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden(D) and he met his wife at Powell's in Oregon. Corey had told us this whole story and warned us about the "Powell's-ization" of Strand Books. And sure enough, the set up was mighty familiar right down to the red INFO? signs. Since we didn't know what Strand Book was like before, we were ambivalent about the whole thing.

Turns out Senator Wyden and Senator Charles Shumer (D-NY) were doing a book reading while we were there. I got to the top of the stairs and saw Senator Wyden and thought, "Hey, I recognize that guy." I don't know exactly what they were doing but something with health care because there was an employee in the back of the bookstore where I was looking at science fiction going off the rails about the irony of the Senator talking about universal health care at this bookstore.

Bob and I left the bookstore and headed over to St. Clements for the cabaret show. It was a fundraiser for gay pride events for the coming year. The food was spectacular and the entertainment fun. One of Corey's friends that owns the restaurant, Carolyn was in the show.

Later I commented to Bob that our entire day was a fundamentalist nightmare: evolution, democrats and gay cabaret.

Monday we grabbed a muffin at the Bouchon Bakery in Time Warner Center and then hit the subway to South Ferry at the tip of Manhattan. We looked at the long line stretched across the park for the Statue of Liberty (which I keep mistyping "Statute of Liberty" - I'm sure there's a good joke in there but nothing is coming to me.) I strongly dislike boats and didn't feel a strong urge to see the Statue of Liberty even if it wasn't off in the mists. I'm not sure what Bob was thinking but he knows how much I hate boats and didn't make a big deal about it. What a prince.

We headed over to the National Museum of the American Indian. The first thing I saw was a flier about Rick Bartow. Rick Bartow is Yurok and we were first introduced years ago by a mutual friend. Since then we run into him or his work every time we do anything remotely connected to Indian Art. I loved the museum and thought it was criminally empty after the long lines and big crowds we'd seen everywhere else.

Bob got us back to Grand Central Station where we had lunch at The Oyster Bar. I think this is the equivalent to having lunch at Fisherman's Grotto in San Francisco meaning sorta cheezy touristy but how can you not? I had the salad foursome with shrimp, crab, salmon and squid (Hi Lena!). Bob had Oysters rockefeller. We both had beers: Long Island Pale Ale.



I was losing steam by this time but not Bob. We were off to the Guggenheim museum which is an incredible building which I see just now on the Wikipedia entry was designed by Frank L. Wright. I should have guessed. It's a big spiral and you start at the top and work your way down. That's how we did it. The exhibit we saw was Spanish painters and was fabulous. But by the end I was completely dead on my feet and not the usual sparkling-fun travel companion that my husband loves.

He promised to get me to the room for a nap before our evening show and he did. For 20 minutes. I made the best of it and rallied and we went to the Iridium for a Les Paul show. Les Paul is 94 and invented the electric guitar and is a hot ticket. That little room was packed to the rafters. The first thing I did was point out all the exits to Bob.

The club had lots of rules like you can't hang your coat on the back of your chair but you can hang all your bags of crap. Kids are allowed and Bob thought the youngsters were the luckiest people alive.

Les Paul is old and has gnarled fingers but he does awesome with what he's got. He paces himself. There were lots of side bits with the various players and he did a long joke about his hearing aids. But he's dirty and hilarious and the music sounded great. The show ended too quickly.


After the show Bob wanted to go to the top of Rockefeller Center. I don't love heights. I know, I know. Who would want to travel with me and all my anxieties: heights-no, boats-no, crowds-no. He's a prince. I reluctantly agreed and then found out it costs $17.50. $17.50 to take an elevator up 70 floors. That is free money for those people. I bet on a good day there's a line for miles. I balked again but after some pouting and bickering agreed to do it.

It wasn't bad. At first I had to have my back to the inside and could only move by shuffling my feet but the cold wind numbed my head and also it was dark so I couldn't clearly see the hazardous depths where I might die if I managed to get flung over the 10 foot Plexiglas enclosure. The view was gorgeous and we ended up staying for almost a half hour.

Tuesday was our last day and we cleaned up and packed up and left our luggage in storage at the hotel and then went out for our last day. We found St. Patrick's Cathedral where the funeral for the lateJudge Richard Casey was going on so we stayed a little while to watch and listen.

This day was sunny and warm and a perfect day for walking around. Our last agenda item was the Public Library which is old and huge and historical plus has art and exhibits and is worth a visit.

Then it was time to get the luggage and head back to the airport and head home. Great trip but so much left we didn't see. Something to look forward to for next time. If you're still reading, thanks for hanging in for the longest post in history.

New York City Part III

A few last photos up on Flickr.

The whole set is here.

Saturday we slept in a little and then after a series of miscues on the subway, managed to find the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As we walked up the stairs to the entrance you know what I was thinking?

Damn! Why didn't I re-read From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler before the trip. I loved that book. They should have a Claudia and Jamie Kincaid tour of the museum. Maybe they do, we were too busy with our own agenda.

As you go into the museum on a Saturday morning, about 10 trillion people are right there with you. I thought this predicted future awfulness. Thankfully, I was wrong. It's so big that everybody is spread out. A couple of times we found ourselves all alone in a room.

The museum is gigantic and holds about 3 lifetimes worth of treasure. I was sorry I didn't prepare better so I could make sure I saw everything I wanted. We spent a huge amount of time in the museum completely lost. (Grade for signage: C+. Lots of room for improvement.) But there's cool stuff everywhere so even as we were wandering around to find one thing, I'd see 10 other things that we'd have to remember to go back to. That armor looked really cool.

We stopped to eat at noon and I expected to be elbow to elbow with other visitors fighting for the last soggy ham sandwich.

Wrong again. Nice, big and well run cafe. I had a yummy salad and a walnut-raisin wheat roll that I talked about for two days. I need to find a recipe. Bob had a grilled chicken sandwich. After lunch we went for the modern stuff.

Overheard one security guard to the other: "I'm a literary writer. I'm the new James Baldwin. Without the angst."

By the end of the museum day I was majorly dragging ass. It took awhile to find the right subway. Inside some soul singers played. The next train took forever while the train platform steadily filled with people. I hopped around whining my anxiety about the crowd and Bob reminded me of something I say to him about worrying about things that aren't happening yet. Touche.

The train finally arrived already packed. We all crammed on. I've never been so crowded in my life. The guy whose chest is pressed into my forehead says that this isn't as bad a Tokyo at rush hour. I made a mental note never to go on the subway in Tokyo.

Bob knew this was taking 10 years off my life so we got off three stations later. It was still cold but not bad and not raining. We returned to the apartment and I took an epic nap. We had a show to go to Saturday night.


Corey's friends had a restaurant not far from our apartment so we met him there and had a yummy dinner. Corey ran into another friend on the way to dinner and brought her along so it was a nice little group of people for our meal.

Corey wanted to check out the scene at the Beacon Theatre so he took the subway with us and taught us a bunch of subway tricks that would have been useful earlier. Sadly, there was no "scene" like you'd have at a Portland show so Corey left and we hung out in the lobby and had some adult beverages.

The crowd was mostly Bob-like people (grey haired and not spring chicken-ish). Also a lot of what I am going to call hip NY young people with hair and products. Not like the happy hippy crowd making grilled cheese in the parking lot that you'd find in say, Eugene. I found them a bit squirrely. The people in front of us had at least 6 rounds of $9 beers which meant a lot of back and forth. During the set break I caught up on notes in my little notebook and they told me I was making them nervous writing all those notes.

Bob wrote the second set list in my notebook: Come into my Kitchen Dreams, Elizabeth Reed, All kinds of jammy stuff (my characterization of the entire show), Mountain Jam, Dazed and Confused, Mountain Jam. Encore: Whipping Post.

They had three drummers and at one point Bob said that the drummer was so-and-so's son and I said, "Which one?" He laughed until tears came out of his eyes.

After the show the people in charge opened these side doors and we all headed down an endless ramp (our seats were in the upper balcony) where all the paint was peeling and after a minute of this, a bunch of guys headed back toward us and said we couldn't go that way. Most people keep going forward and we stuck with them. At the bottom a security guy held the door open and complained no one else could come out that way. Like it was our idea. Also, a number of the Beacon security people thanked us for coming and told us to have a safe journey home.

We found the correct subway right away thanks to Corey and headed back.

I want to explain why we were confused. All the trains said Brooklyn-Downtown. In the places I've always lived downtown was the city center so I thought Brooklyn and Downtown were two different things and couldn't understand what train to take. I've never lived anywhere that had an uptown. Priscilla tells me that Vancouver has an uptown but I've lived here 10+ years and I've never heard anyone refer to uptown. Also, it would take about 20 minutes to walk through the entire up/downtown so in my mind, it doesn't count. In NYC uptown and downtown is like uptown towards Central Park or downtown is like lower Manhattan. Maybe this sounds stupid but you ride around on the subway in NYC for the first time and tell me how you do.

After the show we were all keyed up and decided to have a drink and something to eat. We found a funny restaurant on 9th near our hotel and I had a piece of pie and a glass of wine and Bob had a giant plate of noodles with crabcakes and "healthshake" with cow milk instead of soy. Great day.

(That last photo is The Dakota if you didn't recognize it. We ran into a John Lennon love-fest in Central Park and had to pause for the cause.)

Update on the website snafus:

Thursday morning when I tried to check my email I got an error that said I had the wrong password. I tried logging into my domain controls and got the same message.

Normally when there are outages I don't worry about it because (a) I don't do business with my personal email or website and (b) it's technology, not magic so there are bound to be times when it doesn't work right.

The "wrong password" error worried me a great deal because I imagined Eastern European hackers had taken over my site and were using my bandwith to broadcast porn and now I was going to have yet another problem to unravel that would waste tons of my time and possibly cost me money.

I called support immediately and was assured that yes, there did seem to be a problem. ("That's funny, I can't log in, either.") And that they would open a ticket and send it to support. 36 hours later I finally logged into email and received 1 message for me and 4 spam. That leads me to believe that a day and a half worth of email is gone. I don't receive oodles of life changing email regularly but if you sent me something important on Thursday or Friday, perhaps you can resend.

Meanwhile, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

New York City Part II

More photos up on Flickr. Still a few more to come.

We spent about 5 minutes in the city before I said to Bob: "Let's never drive here."

It's hard to believe I grew up in Los Angeles and got my driver's license about 3 seconds after I turned 16 yet, I'm a high strung driver. Sad, but true.

Based on my observation from a total of 6 days, I would describe the NYC driving system as complicit anarchy. The first 15 seconds of a red light is a suggestion only. Gridlock abounds. Pedestrians go whenever they can. If a car/cab/truck is coming through they'll blast a warning honk. Pedestrians pause in the street to let the car/cab/truck pass through. If a car/cab/truck blocks the crosswalk, people go around. If a car/cab/truck blocks the intersection, everyone deals. The horn is used like a turn signal or brakes. No one seems mad.

I blocked the crosswalk near the office one morning and you'd think the fat man who had to walk around my car had had his birthday stolen what with the waving arms and histrionics.

Day 2 we took the D Train to Brooklyn to visit Corey at John Dewey High School where he teaches. We got on the train in Midtown at morning rush hour when 10 gajillion people were getting off and the entry and exit are the same thing so it was like swimming upstream. We had to throw ourselves into it.

John Dewey is a huge high school with 3000 students and a chain link fence surrounding it. Corey told us that they have 11 security guards onsite.

My high school was about 1200 and we had a lunch lady with a clipboard for "security."

Corey told us we needed to be expected and we were met at the security shack by the ultimate Sopranos thug reject. We told him we were on the list and the name of the person we were meeting. "I don't tink we have anybuddy by dat name," he said doubtfully. Because you know what? It makes perfect sense that two completely square old farts would be trying to sneak into a Brooklyn High School. He was disappointed that we were legit.

He waved us into the office and then started a mini-brawl with a young lady who was sassing him. I could hardly contain my giggles.

Inside we met Mrs. Scapetti, an older lady who hasn't taken any shit in the past 100 years. She issued us our passes and found someone to show us upstairs. The wide hallways had a line down the middle and all the lockers were roped off. Corey told us that their locker privileges had been revoked due to misuse and they had to carry all their books and junk.

We took a tour and met Corey's colleagues and Bob was able to talk to the technology guy about their program. Every single person we met said we had to go to Coney Island for a Nathan's hotdog.

So that's what we did. As soon as the train doors opened, it smelled like fried food.

I don't eat hot dogs. I can't remember the last hot dog I ate. But for breakfast, I ate a hot dog, fries and a Coke. And I liked it.

We walked around Coney Island which was pretty much deserted. There were still dirty piles of snow here and there. Everything was closed. Very few people. Mostly bums and what my dad would refer to as "scum bags." Everything looked run down. Lots of huge brick apartment buildings.

We had to use the public restrooms on the beach. I've seen worse but it was pretty gross. Bob's had no TP. He had to use the guide book. He showed me where the pages were missing.

Next stop: Prospect Park and the Botanic Garden. When we got off the train, it was raining.

We're from the PacNW. Rain doesn't scare us.

We found the gate and paid a the combo-price for the Botanic garden and the Brooklyn Museum. The rain grew more steady. We wandered the garden alone. NY was at least two weeks behind the PAC NW in terms of blooming foliage. Nothing but sticks. The rain progressed from delightful to discouraging. We took refuge in a pagoda with 6 other visitors. We all watched a soggy heron.

Next stop: Brooklyn Museum. The Judy Chicago Dinner Party just opened and was completely fantastic. We walked through it twice. We took a good rest in the cafe and did some much needed vegetable and beer intake then headed back into town.

For dinner we found the Delta Grill - Louisiana food. The beer tasted great after a long day and our food was wonderful. This was our only night without an evening show. We walked around town and met Corey for some tea and a snack. We were still fighting West Coast time so we hit the sack early. Big day on Saturday.

Worst Trip Reporter Ever
I did get the taxes done. I ran the numbers in February and when I saw that we owed, I put it away.

Since I came home from the trip with money it seemed a good time to square that away. The tax bill was less than I remember so that was nice. I guess.

I also finally cleaned the oven. Inhaling oven cleaner must have taken 10 years off my life. I had a terrible headache. But the oven looks great and as soon as I finished I went straight into the backyard since it wasn't raining and puttered around the weeds.

By the time I came back in it was close to dinner time and I attempted to rally and get a bunch more photos prepared but I lost interest quickly and decided to watch that last episode of Lost waiting for me on the DVR.

I don't know how anyone gets anything done. I crossed two things off the list (taxes, oven) but have added at least 10.

More trip tales to come. When? Who knows.