She Can Do The Splits



I took this photo for Keetha's benefit. Our traditional Christmas morning breakfast: huevos rancheros. This recipe looks close to how we do it. And by we, I mean my sister and Mom.

Yesterday I couldn't find some notes. I was positive I knew where they were so I kept checking the same place over and over even though they weren't there.

In the process I found a folder with ancient old journal stuff. Part is a travel journal from I think Fall 1979. The other is stuff from the 80's. Some of it is hilarious and some so pitiful I can't believe I never burned it.

There may be excerpts coming up.

I was reading the obituaries in my historical society magazine the other night. They're really sweet. They always have a photo of the person young and then the person old. They're always well loved people with interesting lives.

One of them was for this lady who died in her late nineties. In the first paragraph it said that she had lettered in basketball and had participated in gymnastics and could do the splits.

I ran to find Bob and said: Please put that in my obituary. "She could do the splits!"

Best Christmas Ever!

Back from holiday. It was fantastic.

First, check out this photo of Bob with the Grinch. That was from Idaho.

If you don't remember, last Christmas was ruined. We had such bad weather we didn't get to see family. We had no tree and barely any presents. We did have a nice dinner, just the two of us.

This year totally made up for it.



We had an uneventful drive down. We ran into a tiny bit of snow on one of the mountains but otherwise, clear sailing.



My Dad made this for my Mom. I said it should be in a museum.

We went mushrooming with Mom and Auntie.

I've never been before. We tumbled out of the car and in about three seconds Mom took off up the steep, heavily brushed and leaf-slick mountain in one direction and Auntie took off in the other. I tried to scramble along stupidly wearing my giant coat, carrying my camera in one hand and my pen and notebook in the other.

When we went to the next stop, I didn't make that mistake. And I found my first mushroom. A Tan Oak. The photo is on Bob's camera. I show it later.



Later Erin showed up with the world's biggest lap dog.



This is a sign at Somes Bar at Hwy 96 and Ishi Pishi Road.

Every day we went on long walks with hills so we could keep eating and still fit into our pants.



Klamath River

The river was running fast and pretty.



For Christmas we all got big piles of books.

My Mom said, "Let's cancel dinner and sit around and read."

But we didn't.



Here's the Pamily at dinner. People love it when you take photos of them while they're eating.

Great time. Glad to be home. I'm going to the office tomorrow and then taking off until Jan 4. Yay.

Happy Holidays 2009

Holiday newsletter is as close to complete as it's going to get.

You can find it here: PamNewsletter v19

It includes a holiday story that you can find here: The Pie Maker's Curse.

I'm going to go offline for a few days enjoying the holidays. Back soon.

Christmas Party Season

Bob and I got to go to a Christmas party (work related) in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho a couple of nights ago. We flew from Portland to Spokane and the Resort picked us up and brought us to town.



Lake Coeur d'Alene

We arrived starving. We threw our bags down and set off for a little walking tour.



Fifth and Sherman

One of our super powers is finding great little restaurants in new places we visit and we did great on this visit. We found Scratch where we had a huge lunch and rank it in our top ten restaurant meals of all time. Even factoring in that we didn't eat much all day until then. Smoked trout appetizer with some sort of cheesy-heaven dip, smoked lamb French dip sandwiches and signature salad with spinach, brie, candied cashews and pepper bacon.



We did a bit more walking around and then returned to our room for a quick nap before the big event of the evening.

The boat trip though the Christmas lights to the North Pole. I liked the sea monster. I also liked the Grinch but we need to wait for Bob's photos.



We saw both Mr. and Mrs. Claus who greeted all the kids by name. Then they made it snow and then lit the largest living Christmas Tree in the world. They had a ton more lights but by then my hands were cold and I didn't want to take them out of my pockets for more photos.

The music was a super dramatic version of Carol of the Bells.



We cruised back to the hotel and had a fabulous dinner which I could only eat about 7 bites of because of the giant meal earlier. Remember when I was young and could eat two pizzas, a loaf of bread with peanut butter, a carton of ice cream and a package of Oreo cookies? Sometimes I miss those days.

Not really.

We have a quiet weekend at home to get geared up for the rest of the holidays.

Ice on the car's sunroof. (From Idaho trip)

Broken

I wish I had a spreadsheet from my whole life that would show how many books I ended up never buying because the moment I had my wallet in my hand the book was only available in hardcover.

Minor tragedy. We had someone come over and work on these leaking problems we've been having. They can't guarantee it because there's no way to be sure how the water is getting in. Whatever they did, didn't work.

Boo! This is at least the fourth attempt, this one being the most extensive. They said if this didn't work they'd need to start pulling up siding. You know what's not in the budget right now? Siding.

Bob and I are headed out for a little xmas adventure. Hopefully photos and details tomorrow.

Kootenai River, Idaho

My Girls

I can't tell you how hard it's been not to write an update after every single episode of the Gilmore Girls. I get those DVDs and I sit in front of my TV with my knees under my chin and my fists pressed against my mouth and I repeat over and over, "I love this show. Why isn't everyone watching this show?"

And they were. In 2000. I'm watching a show that was a hit almost a decade ago. Bob said: you're revisiting the decade through your show. This is the chickiest show ever. It was like it was invented for me. There was an episode where they went to see The Bangles.

Thank the world for DVD. I am going to have one excellent xmas break. I am only on Disk 6, Season 1. There are 36 disks left. 30 if I skip season 7 as I've been advised.

I promise I won't keep talking about it.

In other news. Have I recommended My Cardboard Life? It makes me smile almost every time I read it. I think you should check it out. I know, I hate when blogs try to tell you what to do, but this is trying to make you smile.

I'm trying to get into the holiday spirit and yesterday I wrapped a few gifts that I'd bought. At least I started.

We had this giftwrap roll that was still in the plastic. I unwrapped it and it had texture, like a sand painting. I wrapped my gift and the tape wouldn't stick.

What kind of moron invents gift wrap that tape won't stick to?

I had to get out some packing tape and put giant strips of that on it. How pretty! And I'm afraid to move it because if the tape doesn't stick I'm going to have a major hissy fit. Woo! Christmas.

Also, still annoyed by that chestnuts and open fire song. I don't care what version it is.

BUT, in Spokane I went to Cabelas. It is probably one of the top 10 stores on the planet. It's huge and filled with outdoor stuff. There was an aquarium. There was a shooting gallery. There was a giant room with guns. There was a diorama type thing in the middle with tons of stuffed bears and deer and elk. AND while I was there, they played Mannheim Steamroller my favorite Xmas music ever.

The Butt Post

Our office building management sent us a questionnaire last year. Maybe they do it every year. Last year was our first year here so I don't know.

They asked for suggestions and I suggested some sort of butt can for smokers. No matter how you feel about smoking, people do it. They have to do it outside and if there's no place to put the butt they throw it on the ground. Then there are oodles of butts all around when you walk outside the building.

I didn't think it would be a huge drain on building resources to stick a butt can out there and empty it once a day.

Apparently someone agreed with me because one day as I walked in, I noticed a butt can sorta like this one. Great.

Then the next day the panhandlers had knocked it over and spread the butts all over the ground looking for some tidbits to smoke.

And that was the end of the butt can.

I call this one: Wind Chill. We went for a walk yesterday afternoon at Vancouver Lake.

On Friday I was searching for an easy slow cooker recipe because I was going to be gone in the afternoon. Yikes there are bunches of crap recipes online. I ended up going for a slab of beef and a bunch of vegetables.

Last night we had leftovers and when we went to bed I asked Bob if there was any meat left.

Him: Yes, a piece about as big as a baseball.

Me: Wow, that's a lot left over still.

Him: My fist, it's about as big as my fist.

I'm trying to visualize this since it wasn't that big a piece of meat to begin with. How could we have such a big piece left?

Him: A baby's fist. It's about as big as a baby's fist.

Me: A baseball, your fist, a baby's fist? None of those things are remotely the same size.

Then we couldn't stop laughing and I told him he was bad at descriptions.



Dahlias

Now that I'm so old, every time I have a funny ache or a weird rash that doesn't go away after two days, I get paranoid that this is the beginning of something awful. And that six months from now when I finally go to the doctor carrying my head under my arm, he'll tell me if I had just come in when I got the funny ache, we couldn't have avoided all this.

Yesterday in the shower I found this ginormous bruise on my leg. I have no idea where it came from. And last week when I was standing in front of the mirror trying to make my bangs fan across my forehead instead of curling up like a mustache, I spotted a nice purple bruise by my elbow. I don't know where that came from either.

But I am really clumsy so just because I can't remember bashing into something doesn't mean I have bruising skin disease. Maybe I'll just try to pay better attention.

Here's a photo of the "to read" pile. It's actually over 2 months old and some of that stuff has been cleared out with new stuff added. But I'm too lazy to bring all the stuff from the various piles around the bed, nightstand and other reading supply annexes and stack them in one handy place for a new photo. (Is there some funky plural to annex? I'm too tired to look right now.) But aren't the Han Shot First bookends awesome?

Sorry if the titles are blurry. I think the stack on the upper left is the magazine pile which is greatly reduced since that time. I'm going to read like a fiend over xmas vacation.

On Friday I had to run just a couple of routine errands but about fifteen minutes in I was confident that I never have to hear "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" ever again. Why is that song so annoying?

I've had another busy weekend. I'm so tired I can hardly see straight. I still haven't cleaned off my desk. There's a stack of "you have to do this" notes which I'm planning to ignore.

They're Out To Get Me

My desktop computer took a dump this morning because hey! I have nothing better to do than frick around with a computer. I don't think it's serious but I don't have time to deal with it because I'm going to an appointment in 3 minutes. Before that I was rushing around trying to get my dinner in the CrockPot so I could relax this afternoon.

Check out this gadget I saw an ad for last night when I was reading a magazine at 2am while I couldn't sleep. (Yeah, body way to go, teasing me with a couple of good nights and then betraying again. Thanks.)

The thing is called Zeo. It's your personal sleep coach.

Quote from the ad: "Why is it important? Knowing your ZQ allows you to make the adjustments necessary to sleep your best every night and feel your best every day."

WTF?

I'd love to rant longer but I'm running out the door.

It's True, I Used To Be Big On Virtuoso Guitarists

The big news is I slept through the night two nights in a row. I'm back among the living. Now if I can just get my email inbox under control and muster up some interest in Christmas shopping, life will be back on track.

I've had another favorite lyric sitting on my desk and I keep forgetting to write about it.

It's from Yngwie Malmsteen. I remember this particular song because Yngwie never had a very great band but Joe Lynn Turner sung on this album. I realize that, at the most, one person reading this right now has any idea what I'm talking about but stick with me because here comes the lyric and it's awesome. It's from the song: Riot in the Dungeons.

Oh, I feel something coming
Looks like a riot in the dungeon
You stand and die or start your running
'Cause there's a riot in the dungeon.

I know. Read it out loud a few times. It's a classic.

Coincidentally, I was reading an ancient notebook this morning looking for story ideas and I found this note:

Yngwie Malmsteen songs are like those Anne Rice talking head books. You keep waiting for something to happen.

Well, after one hour the night before, four hours last night was positively refreshing.

Just kidding. It's going to be awesome productive at the office today.