It's my intention to post almost every day. Seriously.

I have ideas of things to write about but then it's a matter of sitting down and organizing my thoughts and then constructing some sentences that sound at least halfway coherent and possibly finding a few links. But then I'm at home and I'm tired or have already sat in front of the computer all day or whatever thing I wanted to write about earlier doesn't sound half as interesting and before you know it 4-5 days have gone by and no new posts. Whether I'm making excuses or apologizing, you be the judge.

On Friday night we saw Los Lobos at the Vancouver Jazz and Wine Festival or whatever it was called. Excellent evening. We enjoyed refreshing adult beverages and a variety of foods. It was a nice crowd but not crowded. The air was cool and a bit breezy.

We had chairs and a nice place to sit but after a couple of songs I wanted to go up front so I dashed up to the concrete in front of the stage and the rest of our crew joined me a half song later. While we were dancing and carrying on, people were shouting requests and Bob said "Mr. Fantasy" which he'd heard Los Lobos play before. A kid in front of us -- about 8 years old -- was dancing with his hippy-ish looking folks and he looks at Bob and goes, "That's Traffic. Mr. Fantasy is Traffic." Three cheers for that kid's parents that their 8 year old son knows Traffic. "They do it too," Bob told him, meaning Los Lobos and the kid turned around and shouted, "Mr. Fantasy!"

I'm trying to get the fridge emptied out. We're having Priscilla over for dinner tonight and making a quasi-fajita thing we've invented. I suggested it because I had 3 bell peppers in the fridge and this seemed an optimal way to get rid of them. Little did I know my spouse ran over to the farmer's market yesterday and picked up 6 (SIX!) bell peppers. On what planet do 3 people eat 6 giant bell peppers for one meal much less 9 which is what we now have? That man needs constant adult supervision.

This morning for breakfast I had some honey Greek-style yogurt from Trader Joes with meusli and some blackberries that I harvested from the backyard last night. It was excellent.

I'm off to take care of some chores.

I finally posted a photo of my Star Wars purse, made by Liz at Bolsa Bonita.

The dang critters keep eating my pumpkins. You'd think they'd give up if they didn't like the first one but no, they have to take a chunk out of every one. I've got a couple that look like they'll make it but they won't be perfectly pretty. Pumpkin vines are crazy. I think I have two plants and they have taken over the garden. That and cucumbers.

Here are a bunch of odds and ends that I've scribbled on paper and then never sat down to write about.

1. Obviously I've never done my train story and the moment is gone now. Here's more info on the Lewis and Clark Explorer. We had a wonderful day on the train. The folks who run the train are total Lewis and Clark geeks and train geeks so lots of fun information. The photos of our day are here.

2. In the midst of all my cleaning and throwing things away -- which is still going on, I am finding things that I bought and have never used. This causes me a great deal of distress. I imagine there are lots of folks in this world who do this regularly and hardly think twice about it but it makes me feel bad to be wasteful. I have software I never quite figured out and books I've never even cracked and clothes I wore once and hated but left in the closet in case I would wear them again.

3. Bob got a new car. I need to take a photo of it. It's a Honda Accord and he reports it's like "riding a pillow of air."

4. I took some of my knives in to get them sharpened. I took my old chefs knife to a potluck thing because you know how there are never enough knives, serving spoons or towels at a potluck? Someone thanked me for bringing such a nice sharp knife and this was before I got it sharpened. It was like a butter knife. I can't imagine what her knives are like at home. The first time I used it, sharpened, I managed to whack a notch in my index finger. I'm taking the rest of my knives in this week.

5. My note looks like it says "air" or "Giv" -- can't imagine what I wanted to say about that.

6. Bob got me the new Bob Mould on emusic. It's fantastic. He's going to be in town in October. Can't wait.

I've been scanning old family photos this weekend. Last time I was in Orleans I took a couple of photo albums home. The albums have lost their adhesive and the photos are jumbled up. I bought some photo-archive boxes and clear plastic sleeves and I'm taking them from the jumble, scanning and then putting them in individual sleeves and into the box. It's way more labor intensive than I imagined.

The scanning process takes too long to sit with each individual photo. But there are a couple of menus to click through and no step takes long enough that you can turn away and accomplish something else. I've gone through 3 pages so far. Only about 16 more to go.

Watermelon Waterfall
Yeah, sure that makes a nice picture but it wasn't so nice if you were there.

Let me start with the beginning of the day, which was quite nice. Bob and I decided to go into Portland to do a bunch of various errands/activities. We went to brunch at Dragonfish. We haven't been there in a long time and always find it yummy and we both had fancy cocktails in a tall tiki cup and we felt like we were getting away with something, like we were on vacation until we decided: Every day is vacation.

From there we headed for the mall to Eddie Bauer to use a gift certificate. Did you know there are about 13 trillion kinds of jeans? Different colors, washes, denims, cuts, waists, lengths -- too many choices. I chose boot cut even though I don't have a boot. Bob got jeans, too and a bunch of clearance stuff. They had some deal going where we got 30% off the clearance price plus 50% off the second pair of jeans and since we spent more than $75 we got a $25 gift card to use next month. I'm not sure how they make money. They also offered us an additional discount if we opened a charge card. Jesus Christ, enough with the charge cards already. I don't know where I've shopped lately where they weren't shoving a charge card down my throat.

On our way back to the car to drop stuff off, we stopped at the coffee place that starts with S and ends UCKS b/c Bob wanted an ice tea or mocha-frappe-tea or whatever $4.00 alcohol-free product they're pimping this month. While we were standing there a parade went by and I ran outside to see what it was about. It was a "don't test on animals" parade. Those animal lovers are a busy lot. Last time I was downtown on a not workday there was a "no fur" parade.

Next stop, Multnomah Library. They are doing a big thing with Native American authors in August and September in honor of a new research collection of Native American Fiction. We went to see our friend Liz Woody read and talk about writing and books. After browsing the library we decided we'd had enough and headed into miserable traffic which I guess is a regular feature in the afternoons even on the weekends. We arrived home blissed with our otherwise wonderful day.

What we didn't know, was that our kitchen was about to turn on us. Last weekend I made peach gelato which was godhead so I wanted to try another gelato this weekend. Priscilla wanted to get a watermelon at the Farmers Market and for some reason was attracted to a 21 pounder which we split. I figured it wouldn't hurt to try making some of it into gelato seeing as how I had a half a dinosaur egg taking up space in the fridge. While I de-seeded (un-seeded?) a food processor bowl full of watermelon, Bob prepared our stuffed peppers that we also bought at the market. I whipped up my watermelon and left it in the processor bowl because right then dinner was ready.

We sat down to our peppers from our favorite food vendor at the market -- the guy is one of Bob's former students. I took one bite and the rice was hard. Also the meat looked a bit pink. Do you stuff peppers with raw materials? Bob decided to cook them more so I went back to my watermelon and [long string of obscenities omitted]! It had overflowed the bowl and ran down the counter. Watermelon juice -- what is stickier than watermelon juice? (Okay, probably honey, but what else?)

It ran into every drawer -- the utensil drawer, the ziploc baggie drawer, the drawer with pieces of the mixers and processors and doo-dads AND the cloth napkin/placemat drawer. And not like dribbled. Like pooled. Plus on the floor. I had to dismantle everything and wipe it off (Bob helped) and in the process EVERYTHING got damp with watermelon juice. Meanwhile, we had the second round of peppers and I still wasn't convinced this was ready to eat. I wasn't there when the cooking instructions were given but I can't imagine what we could have done different. It was too scary, I wouldn't eat it.

I went back to mopping up my sticky kitchen and tossed what was left of my watermelon into the ice cream maker. At this point the sound of the ice cream maker made me want to brain somebody so I quit about the time it was watermelon milkshake. Nothing to write home about.

Later Bob grabbed a glass out of the cupboard and another glass hopped out and shattered on the counter and floor. An exorcist is coming tomorrow.

I finally got rid of my guitar. I purchased it on my birthday in 1985. I wanted it for my birthday but my Mom gave me an espresso machine instead so my friend Jim took me to House of Drums and helped me pick it out.

I bought an acoustic guitar a couple of years earlier and had been taking lessons. I wanted to play like Eddie Van Halen and what I love about my 22 year old self, who was not a brave or confident person, is that I took my new guitar to my teacher and brought tablature from Panama and told him that was what I wanted to play. It never occurred to me that this might be a bit beyond my reach. I don't think my present self would be so fearless but I'd like to think I still have some surprises left in me.

I do not exaggerate when I tell you that I had virtually zero talent for the instrument. I practiced -- not endless hours since I was a student and working and everything -- but I practiced every day and even after a couple of years I could not play anything worth listening to.

Life went on and I played less and less and eventually years went by where I'd never even opened the guitar case. I don't know how many times I've moved in the last 20 years and wondered why I was moving those things yet again. For a long time I thought I might pick it up again. Then I thought I might sell it. I asked Jimmy (different Jim than the one above) about it a few times. I also thought at some point I'd run in to someone to give it to and there have been a few candidates.

A year or two ago I read about Rock and Roll Camp For Girls in Bust magazine and that seemed like a potential home for my guitar but I never did anything about it.

In the last couple of weeks while I've been on this tossing everything binge, I cleaned out my closet and pulled those dusty boxes out once again and decided it was time to finally do something about it. I dropped off my donation at Mississippi Records and sent an email to Rock Star Camp let them know about it and express concern over the old and crustiness of my gear and ask about a tax receipt because the guy at the record store said I'd get it from them.

This was the response:

Oh, man...we need guitars and especially amps more
than you'll ever believe! No worries, we have a great
volunteer-repair-person who loves getting treasures to
work on! I'll stop by Mississippi and send you a tax
receipt out on Monday.
Thanks again!! rock on,
Misty

Totally made my day.