I know I said I'd already taken pictures of all the tulips but then I noticed these out back. I don't normally buy such weird looking flowers and these, while a pretty color, look like they fell into the garbage disposal. I don't know what to think.

This has been a super busy, but not terrible, week. But now I have about 10 trillion things to catch up on and I've made a list which means that there is little doubt tomorrow will be a bitter disappointment. Oh, and I have 1,150 words to do tonight to make my monthly goal.

I'd really like to finish this draft of a story I'm working on. I need to exercise. I put on my jeans earlier this week and could barely zip them. Yikes. I've almost completely ignored cooking lately so I'd like to make something decent to eat. But also healthy due to the shrinking jeans problem. I've got more yard things to get going. I started reading The Yiddish Policeman's Union which I keep referring to as The Yiddish Policeman's Ball. I like it so far and can't wait to dig in. Too many things. And a new Asimov's arrived which means I'm now three issues behind.

We'll see how I do.

I don't know how they sleep at night with all those dandelions in the yard.

It took until late Saturday afternoon for my digestion to return to normal. Too much rich dairy. Sometimes I miss the iron-clad innards of my youth.

My last comment about motel doom: there was one point during the middle of the whole thing where I looked at Bob and said, "You know this is going to be really funny later."

Every time we were in the room together yesterday we would start cracking up.

In case you're wondering, the worst hotel room we've ever been in was in Frankfurt which was another time we didn't plan for a room in advance and just wung it. I suppose there's a lesson to be learned.

The story at the link doesn't do it justice. The room wasn't ready when we arrived so we had to leave our luggage and come back after dinner. When we returned they took us through some sort of storage yard to this horrible dinky room which was probably a converted garage or shed. It was dark and raining sideways so we didn't want to leave. I don't remember it being stinky. The TV was broken and the bed was like two pieces of plywood set up on bricks (slight exaggeration). We shared the wall with some sort of belly dancing place so it was noisy. There was a table with a glass top and if you touched it, it slid off.

Bob went to take a shower and it was one of those handheld showerhead dealies that you can either hold or hook to the wall. Bob got the water going and then shimmied into the tiny shower stall and when he put the showerhead up the hook broke and the showerhead fell and since the room was so tiny it actually fell out the bathroom door and onto the glass tabletop which fell down and there was a spray of water in the middle of the room.

That actually was funny at the time. But only to me.

Update: here's Bob's review of Leonard Cohen.

One part of the Motel Doom story that I forgot to mention is that when we got home we clutched each other like we'd just survived a grenade attack.

Motel Doom

Have you ever been in a situation that felt wrong, but because the person you are with doesn't question it, you don't question it either? Then later you end up having this conversation that goes something like, "Omigod, I thought the crabcakes tasted funny, too, but you were eating them so I figured it was just me."

This story is like that although it doesn't involved crabcakes.

Bob and I went to see Leonard Cohen on Thursday night in Seattle. A couple months ago Bob called me at work and said, "You know I never do anything like this, but this is the last musical icon on my list that I must see." We took time off of work and made the trek.

It was spectacular. I'm sort-of glad I went in not knowing what I was getting into. It was like three hours of church, but I mean church in the sense of people gathering together to have their spirits refreshed. This is yet another wonderful experience my husband has brought to me that I never would have discovered on my own. Poor Bob. The concert he got to discover because of his wife was Ratt.

I will link to Bob's review as soon as it's up. (Leonard, not Ratt.)

We used the trip as an excuse to visit friends and relatives that we haven't seen in long time. For the first night we stayed in a nice chain hotel in the Capitol Hill area. (I don't know Seattle very well so geographic things are approximate.) This is the kind of hotel that asks you to join their frequent user plan and has a giant wall sized display in the elevator telling you about all their local hotels.

When we checked out we asked if we could make a reservation for one of their other hotels that was more convenient to our plans. The guy said their system didn't work that way but he could write down the phone number for us. The events that follow are clearly this man’s fault.



Actual postcard from lobby with slight photoshopping by me.

As we headed out to one of our visits, we decided screw that hotel chain, we'd just stay at some generic motel on Aurora. As we drove I wrote down a couple of places that looked okay and we saw that there were tons and didn't worry about it.

Our visit ended in the late afternoon so we got caught up in clusterfukage traffic and we puttered down Aurora and finally saw one of the places that was strategically located and seemed to look okay when we drove by the first time.

Here's where the story is going to strain reader credibility, but you know, when you're in the middle of the story things are not always obvious. It's only later when you start adding it all up that you see how you were steered wrong and should have done it differently.

It looked sort-of shabby but we went in and it was cheap and we were tired and just wanted to sit quietly for a bit and the traffic was stacked up out front and I saw this lovely postcard and I thought how bad can it be? So when Bob said what do you think? I said, I guess it will be fine.

But as we're standing there I'm reading these signs posted everywhere about no guests and no loitering and no refunds (has there ever been a bigger red flag anywhere in the history of red flags?) my heart is telling me RUN! but my head is telling me to get over it, it was just one night and that seemed okay until we saw the inside of the room which is my top two grimmest hotel rooms of all time. Please let that not be "so far." Stained carpet, patched walls, tiny bed and smelled like smoker heaven.

"I'm certain someone has been murdered in this room," I said. But we laughed and convinced ourselves it wasn't so bad. We put our stuff down and went to visit our friends.

When we returned, the room was worse than we remembered. No hangers for our coats. The lamp didn't work. One towel. Bob went to get a new lightbulb and when he returned, I had my bags in my hands, "Let's just cut our loses and go to Travel Lodge."

He talked me out of it but he was upset that I was upset and he sat down in a Thinker pose if The Thinker was wearing a baggy sweater and looking completely demoralized.

"I can't figure out how this happened," he said.

I crawled under a bedspread that I'm certain was a table cloth for a smoking convention and tried to fall asleep and my digestive system went ornery. We ate a big lunch and dinner and both with rich foods and it was just enough for that gross indigestion-y nausea that makes it impossible to relax when you're trying to sleep, even in a nice hotel room. I finally drifted off for an hour or so and when I woke up Bob was up reading. I felt even worse and finally confessed to Bob and he went and found a cup in the lobby (free coffee station) because we didn't have one in the room and I drank some alka seltzer. Bob said, "Do you want to leave?"

And I said, "Of course not, we have plans tomorrow. Our friends will hate us and never invite us to anything ever again. Who drives for three hours in the middle of the night? We can live through one night in a shitbag hotel." (The conversation actually went on a lot longer and had lots of colorful parts to it.)

I still couldn't settle and I tried to read my book. I noticed a giant gap in the curtains and because it was one of the least sexy moment you can imagine, I turned to Bob and said, "You wanna have wild sex?" and he, who has never answered that question this way, even when offered in jest, said, "NO! I want to go home."

Then the room phone rang.

And there was no one there.

We got up and started packing. It rang again and I unplugged it from the wall. By 2:30am we were zooming through downtown Seattle and we were home and in bed by 5:30am.

We just washed our hair with gasoline and now I'm preparing to burn our clothes. What a weekend!

I saw four bald eagles today. FOUR. One at Burnt Bridge Creek and three on the Willamette.

These are the last of the tulips in my yard that you haven't seen before. My neighbor has some pretty orange ones. I keep saying I'm not going to buy any more bulbs but when I say that, I lie. Where's the catalog?


Do you ever drive by some ancient, ridiculous-looking old car and think to yourself: at one point someone was really excited about that car. They got a loan and drove it off the lot all shiny and new. And showed it off to their friends.


I saw an ancient brown Celica with flapping plastic serving as the back window. When I was in high school I had a boyfriend with a brown Celica that was polished and waxed about three times a week. (He and his Dad were nuts when it came to car care.) It was hard to imagine that junker was once a pretty car.

Here's another great family shot from the 80's.

I have a super busy week and a half coming up so I'm guessing I won't be here much. Who knows? It seems like whenever I say that the opposite happens.

Tired of pictures of the yard yet?

This is the rhubarb patch. It always makes a lot of leaves but the stalks remain puny.

Today I put the peas in the dirt and planted another row of greens, turnips and beets.

My rosemary randomly died. There are a few green sprigs but otherwise it's a giant brown bristly mess. Even though I never remembered that I had fresh rosemary or if I did, rarely wanted to run across the yard to get some when my recipe called for it, I still liked that plant.

I know the posts have been weak lately.

The last two nights I woke up at 4am and thought of really great stuff to write about. Then I never got back to sleep and now I'm tired and I can barely remember why I sat down here in the first place.

I'll skip the rant about the stupidity of the credit scoring system and my review of Knocked Up based on the first ten minutes when I turned it off in a huff (only a man would think this is the setup for a comedy.)

Here's my daily tidbit: I opened a new bank account and instead of sending me a box of checks (yeah, olde timey, I know) they sent me these flimsy cardboard sheets and I had to fold my own box. The box says "Keep your checks safe & warm." I added a wizard sticker that looks like Gandalf so now my checks can be safe, warm & magic.

Title-Less in Vancouver

Photo courtesy of peppergrass. Thank you for CC photos.

Dear Amanda: Lemon Cucumber are one of the special delights of summer. They are delicious little cucumbers shaped like lemons. One of my favorite memories is of eating lemon cucumbers with my Grandpa. Look for them in your farmer's market this summer. Or better, grow some.

Sometimes I wake myself up early on my days off. This morning I set the alarm more for Bob than me.

It went off and I clicked it off and Bob got up. I kinda drifted in and out until about 6am there was this strange sound that rattled the walls. Normally I would assume it was something Bob was doing. But I heard him say, "Huh?" So then I very carefully peeked out the window in case some sort of stealth vehicle was cruising out front. Nothing.

I love all the theories. The railroad. Police testing bombs. Sonic boom. Earthquake boom. I'm going with alien invasion or National Guard sonic boom.



This is from the bag of assorted tulips. I like them.

Today was a pretty decent day. I did my errands. Paid my property taxes. Made progress on a writing project. Baked cream cheese brownies for a dinner date tomorrow. I would have done some yardwork but it was one of those days where it's sunny for 5 minutes and then monsooning for 5 minutes. All day.



Look how sweet the pink ones look today. I never should have doubted them.

Every time I look in my backyard there are giant crows sitting around staring at the house. I finally put my camera on the kitchen counter so I could send a picture to Kira. But the minute I got it out, they disappeared.



The pretty red ones out front. Last year there were cream-colored ones mixed in. Do white tulips transform to red? That sounds like a fairy tale.

The moment I went outside to take this photo, an osprey flew exactly overhead with a fish in its claws. It was so low I could hear its wings beat the air. And it moved so quickly out of sight, I couldn't take a photo.

Chukchuk what am I to do for you?

After how many years I've been planting a garden I finally had the brilliant idea of starting my peas in the house first. Every year I put a zillion peas out there and the slugs eat then as soon as they sprout and I get the world's saddest pea plants. I'm going to put these out over the weekend.

Then I'm going to start my lemon cucumbers inside. I haven't had good lemon cucumbers in a couple of years.

I got out my garden book. Maybe if I spend some time actually reading it I can learn something.

Grump-in-ator

I am too grumpy to live. Not even related to taxes. I'm going to try to post with minimal whining.



This is Stumpy. I noticed him last year because he has such a freakishly short tail next to the other squirrels. Poor guy. I've tried to take pictures of him before but got nothing but a gray blur. I better send Carol a note and make sure she sees this.

Current trend: stores are having a tough time convincing us to buy stuff we don't need so they're focusing on things we need. In the last two days I've gotten two $25 coupons enticing me to change my prescriptions to a different pharmacy.

It's one of my missions in life to avoid prescriptions and at least for now, I'm doing okay.



These pink tulips are among my favorites. They've barely come out and they already look trashy and wind blown. What happened?

I don't understand why financial institutions (or any information collecting entity) insist on asking for every phone number known to man: day phone, home phone, cellphone. But then when they call you they leave a message only on your home phone. Where you aren't during the day because you are at your job. The job they asked about when they agreed to deal with your financial business.

I'm in the process of moving some retirement funds and I'm certain there will be a long ranty post about this in the future. I have nothing nice to say about WaMu investment services, if you're wondering.



Hannah gave me a waterproof tote bag a few years ago after reading this sad tale. It's been disintegrating for some time now and I've been searching for an appropriate replacement. I finally decided on this. It's not exactly what I had in mind but this thing is so durable, my heirs' heirs will be using it. And it was a good color for the acorn appliqué that Caren and Eden gave me.

On average, I'm in the office alone about one day a week. It never fails that on those days some random stranger wanders in. We're not a location where random people wander and it's not the kind of business that gets people off the street. I'm always a bit uncomfortable when it happens.

We've had several people looking for attorneys who were not us. The people would then ask me if we did the type of law they were looking for. Seriously? Hiring an attorney that you stumble upon doesn't seem like a good idea.

There was a guy who came in and started reading something that was on the table. "Can I help you?" I said. "I'm just delivering this phonebook," he said and he dropped the book with a thump and left.

Then there are the cold callers. I'm never going to do business with a cold caller of any kind, ever, except for small children who come to the front door of my home and want me to buy candy to support their ballet or trip to France with the Jr. Symphony. And that's not the same thing. It freaks me out when people come marching in the office and introduce themselves and shake my hand like we're old friends and then start asking me questions. Apparently the words "Indian Tribe" are magic because they went on their way without a fight.

I made the Black Magic Cake today for tonight's dessert.

Can you tell where the lid fell off of the shaker I was using to decoratively mist the cake with powdered sugar?

When I looked at the recipe this morning I realized I didn't buy chocolate syrup. It was cold and rainy and I wasn't about to put on clothes so I could go to the grocery store. I added some baking chocolate and a few extra ounces of buttermilk and hoped for the best. It came out great. Very dense, almost brownie-like.

This wasn't the best weekend of my life but I'm feeling okay about it now. I managed to clean another layer of stuff off my desk. The taxes are ready to go out the door. I was in a writing rut but Kira helped me break through this morning. The garden looks pretty. We had a fun Easter dinner at Priscilla's.

I'm ready for the work week.

First few few tulips are peeking out in the backyard.

I've had a wicked headache since I woke up this morning. I don't know what's going on. I did not drink adult beverages and I went to bed early last night.

I hope this isn't the prelude to some icky flu bug or my head being about to explode.



I like the daffodils with the little orange cups in the middle.

Does anyone else watch Bones and is it just me or is this season getting weirder and weirder? I can just picture a big pep talk for the writers, "We want bigger and better episodes. No character arc is too stupid. No idea is too crazy. No crime scene can be too disgusting." Then they dared each other to see who could come up with the most insane ideas.

"Bones and Angel will join the circus."

"We'll explore the art world with a body found in crushed car as a work of art."

"Something at Comic-con with people in costumes."

"Angela will become celibate and talk about it in every episode."

"Body will be all ground up and investigators will refer to it as chili con carne."

The above was the opener to this week's episode and I was eating my lunch. Gak. At least I wasn't eating chili.

Also this week there was this bizarre break in the middle where two of the actors explained what was going on during the episode.

I don't hate it I just think the renewed devotion to weirdness is worth noting.



The pink tree out front is finally blooming.

I used to use Tom's of Maine toothpaste that I bought at Trader Joes. Last time I bought toothpaste, Tom's was gone and there was a Trader's Joe's brand in its place.

I tried it and it tasted so awful it can only be part of dental conspiracy designed to make people avoid brushing their teeth. But I didn't throw it away because I hate wasting things. I finally used the last little bit. Yesterday I was at Freddie's and I found some Tom's and I've been brushing every half hour ever since.

Electric Light Orchestra

Safeway always plays fantastic music. It's not anything you would ever listen to on purpose but when you're in the store buying your daily supply of pasta and turnips you can boogie.

A couple of weeks ago they played this song that the Internet tells me is America:

You can do magic
You can have anything that you desire
Magic, and you know
You're the one who can put out the fire

I had this song on my brain for days and ran around the kitchen singing this until I got it confused with an ELO song called Strange Magic.

I get a strange magic,
Oh, what a strange magic,
Oh, its a strange magic.
Got a strange magic,
Got a strange magic.

I loved ELO when I was a girl. And I kept asking Bob if we had any in the house.

His answer: NO! He hates ELO!

So I went to the Apple Store and they have the Essential ELO for $10! And I told Bob and he had an iTunes card with money left on it. And he gave it to me!

I'm listening to "Can't Get It Out of My Head" right now. Is he the best sweetheart on the planet or what?

Update:
Me against the applemachine:
Are you sure you want the dorky America tune?
ME: yes
Apple: Give us your secret credit card code.
Me: here.
Apple: really? you want this song?
Me: yes, dammit.
Apple: We need the secret handshake and the secret codes
Me: here
Apple: and this is the song you want?
Me: yes, dammit. Stop judging me.
Apple: okay. I guess. So you want us to charge you for this?
Me: yes. For 1 freakin' dollar. Don't make me long for the days of the record store next the grocery store where my Mom shopped and I gave you a dollar for a single which was a tiny vinyl thing.
Apple: I guess, whatever. Shall we back this up for you?
Me: damn you apple overlord.

This photo is from Bob's birthday but you're supposed to be looking at an example of what the kitchen-dining room area looks like..

Update:I just want to briefly update yesterday's post to add that when I say " giant dining room and kitchen with an island and a giant laundry room with a half bath" I don't mean giant like a mcmansion or a ridiculously huge space. I mean a comfortable sized space for two people with friends or family visiting.

I have a great post idea but I decided to enjoy the last day of 70's sunshine (for now) and I puttered in the yard when I got home from work.

Then I cobbled together a decent dinner out of nothing. (I sauteed the beet greens I decided not to compost with a leftover leek and bacon and served over rice. It was surprisingly decent.)

Now it's almost bedtime and my eyes are drooping.

Reorganization

One of the things I did this weekend was organize the area we call the pantry annex. (Oops, first I typed panty annex. What is my subconscious up to?) Our house was built in the 40's with a dinky kitchen and in the 50's-ish they built an addition. I have no idea who "they" are but I have some issues with the way they did things.

The good part is they opened up the back of the house and made a giant dining room and kitchen with an island and a giant laundry room with a half bath.

I'm guessing that's when they built the shop, as well, and this is a giant unfinished room with all our junk: camp gear, boxes we haven't thrown away, boxes we're keeping on purpose, paint cans, gardening stuff, deep freezer, Pam's 80's hairband novel in a box, etc.

The bad part is that the kitchen was designed by monkeys. No human being would have thought that this set-up was adequate. The cupboards and drawers seem endless but when you start actually using them you notice that after you put a spatula and a wooden spoon in one drawer, you can barely close it. One saucepan and the shelf is full.

There is no real pantry or broom closet. We keep pantry type items on some shelves in the kitchen and more in the laundry room.

The annex is usually where we just throw stuff and cram it in and then when we're looking for something we hope we can find it back there.

I took everything off the shelves, wiped it all down and then categorized. We had 8 cans of pinto beans and 7 cans of fire-roasted chiles. But only 1 chicken broth, 1 red kidney bean and 1 garbanzo bean. We have two jars of applesauce that I canned in Fall 07 and a can of bamboo shoots that I bought for a particular recipe and have since decided I don't really like bamboo shoots. I guess I could give them to the foodbank but that just seems cruel.

There are tons of other items I'm not mentioning here. While I was doing all this I wanted to show Bob where I'd rearranged a few items because he's not good at looking for things. He was surprised to see the box of oatmeal and the two boxes of granola bars that had been out of sight and he'd totally forgotten about.

I usually don't like to buy flowers that are so fancy they look wrong. And I'm a big fan of the generic daffodil. But this one is called something like double tropical peach and it's kind of goofy but I like it.



Today was so beautiful it was painful. I sat on my front porch and read in the sun and I kept feeling like I wasn't enjoying it enough. I had to grit my teeth and strain to prove that I was worthy of 70 degrees.



These are another tiny flower that looked bigger and more glamorous in the catalog. They're still pretty.



Oh look, the lawnmower man. Every lawnmower in town was going this afternoon. The hum of America.



After dinner, since it was still light and you could go outside with a t-shirt on, Bob and I went for a walk. We had just left the house when a giant bird flew overhead.

"Look," I said, "It has a fish."

At first glance, I thought it was a heron. It landed on the streetlight in front of our house. It was huge with brown wings and a white underside and distinctive marks on its head.

It settled in to eat its dinner.

After a few moments we went back and sat on the porch to watch. After much discussion, we decided it was an osprey.



Bob finally snuck back in the house and grabbed the camera and the binoculars. We watched it for at least ten minutes. A few crows did a fly-by but it didn't even look up.

Sadly, my camera wasn't up to the task. But this was really cool to see and a great end to the day.

These flowers are actually about as big as the end of your finger. The photo in the catalog is like this and shows a blanket of purple flowers. Awesome, I thought and I bought a bag and the squirrels ate most of them and I have three little squirts. At first glance they look like colorful bits of trash at the base of the tree.

Yesterday was one of the most fabulous days you could possibly have that doesn't include a beachside lounge, bottomless margarita and a cabaña boy named Jorge to rub lotion on your back.

I slept in and then read in bed until Noon. Then I watched TV. Later I took a bath and read some more. Then I watched more TV. Eventually I made dinner and then more TV and then bed.

I did not do housework except at one point I forgot about that and found myself mucking out the cheese drawer in the refrigerator. And for the first time since mid-October I did not do one writing-related activity. And I ate candy and potato chips.



This is my rhubarb alien baby. Isn't it cool? I wish the whole patch looked like this.

One of the shows I'm watching is Little Dorrit on Masterpiece Theater. I was expecting to get bored and turn it off after half an hour but I thought it was fantastic. The cast includes Gollum, Martha (Doctor Who) and Gwen (Torchwood) and apparently the Mr. Darcy from the most recent big screen version who I did not think was nearly dreamy enough but I like him in this.

The whole series is at least 10 hours so I've got lots more to look forward.

I've never read Dickens, if you can believe it. We had to read Great Expectations in high school and I had a horrible time with it and really struggled. Then the teachers went on strike and the rest of the school year was canceled and I never had to finish it.

I keep thinking I should try again as a grown-up and see how I do.



Look at this giant box of stuff that is leaving this house forever. Yay.

I'm not sure the financial industry deserves to survive. Today I went to my bank and a nice young lady with scary bright blue contacts hollered a greeting to me from across the room after I'd been the only person in line and waiting for about 10 minutes. She asked if there was anything she could do to help me.

I told her I needed some cash and, I could be mistaken but I swear she identified herself as the stage manager and said she was there to help people if they needed to fill out forms to make things go more quickly.

It was hard not to suggest that what would make things go more quickly was if she'd get her ass behind the counter and open another teller window.

Today I need to get organized. I have about 600 loose ends sitting here and I'm going to tackle that and the bottomless email inbox and see how I do.

I took some other flower pictures but there's a rumor that it's going to be pushing 70 degrees on Sunday and sunny. It seems a lot to hope for, but if it's even half that good I'm going to take oodles of photos then.

This is the kitchen in the house I grew up in. I'm guessing this was taken in the 70's. Dig the dial-phone.

I found another great photo of my 70's bedroom to share later.

Meanwhile, for those following in at home. I finished the ginormous writing project I've been working on the last six months and it's ready to submit but the online submission is fubar right now and I've been wrestling with it for the past two hours. Bad words omitted.

I am taking tomorrow off and spending the day wearing sweatpants and drinking hot chocolate. I am not touching my computer.

I'll do some catching up on Friday. I'm still really grumpy.