Cutest Boy I Know.

While trying to find a photo of a previous Hanukkah bush (the first that Josh and I had in Berkeley, that had a super funny Dr. Seuss-like crooked bend in the middle), I came across these sweet snaps from last summer's camping trip at Lost Lake with the Watsons:

How unbelievably adorable is this kiddo, I ask you? He's like the poster child for the tremendous fun and good times involved in camping. Look at this face:


Such a sweetheart, and so good during our adventure! This was during some of the worst of the family business drama that I was dealing with over the summer, and this little man never failed to put a smile on my face through it all. I think I might have written down some of the gems he came up with during this trip, if I can find them I'll post them (after all, why should such a dollface be limited to public embarrassment from just his parents, right? Honorary Aunties with blogs should be allowed to kvell, too).

Speaking of public embarrassment, I also found some photos from New Year's Eve Y2K (what Millennium Bug?). I am still deciding if I will post them, a la Bex's "Old School Photo of the Day."

I am leaning toward yes. We'll see.

Why pine?

Joosh and I were discussing this question as we went to pick up a tree last week. Procurement and decoration of a tree is the next step in our sorta Jewy, sorta Atheistic/Agnostic,
Shut-up-Fundy-cause-Jesus-Was-a-Liberal (And Please Step Away From the Walmart Swag Pile'o'Hypocrisy) version of The Holidays. The inner Hippie wrestling to burst forth from within (getting stronger every year we live here, and every minute closer to the official childbearing years, I must say) wanted to get a live tree, but the Realist who understands that I live in a small apartment wrestled control of reason and rationality, and off we went to one of three tree farms scouted on the Internets that won me over with offers of hot cider and/or free flocking.


Just kidding about the flocking, kids. Can you see me getting that white sh*t on my Hanukkah Bush? Meh. (And yes, I know it's a Christmas Tree, but even though I am more of an I-heart-matzo-ball-soup Jew than a temple-goer, I must still refer to any holiday trees as Hanukkah bushes. And again, yes, I realize I am not fooling anyone. Whatever. Look away). But the cider, I would never kid about cider.

So on the last day of Hanukkah - sorry, fellow Chosen Peeps - Joosh grabbed the Crackberry and I, the camera (but not cash or my checkbook) and off we went for an hour or two of tree-hunting adventure. Or several hours, as it turns out that in a well-pine-treed area such as our new home state, it is few and far between out in the countryside off-the-beaten-path tree providers that accept credit cards. Luckily we had the aforementioned Crackberry, and it led us on a long and finally fruitful goose chase to a WAY off the beaten path tree farm that happily accepted the old plastic AND had cider (I had all but given up hope on the cider after four tree farms that were all cash-or-check only).

We were greeted by a super cute dog - um, Lab, maybe? - and a jolly old guy who sort of laughed when I asked if he accepted credit cards. I thought for sure he was scoffing at me since we were something like 14 miles from the main road and had just slip-slided up a super freaky muddy gravel road and was I kidding with a question like that? But then he said "Little lady, we have everything here but wagon rides. You want it we got it... 'Cept the rides, of course." He looked past me, eyebrows raised, I assume looking for the crestfallen faces of the wee one(s) I must surely have dragged all this way on a weekday afternoon to enjoy the funtimes of a U-Cut tree farm. "Awesome," I said, and waved to Joosh that we were good to go. Jolly guy looked puzzled as Joosh rose from the car, and was clearly baffled by us at this point... either that or he was trying to work out a hard math problem in his head, but I am assuming that we were the source of his does-not-compute face. That's okay. We are, of course, used to it by now!

"Okay, well, great, so over there you got your Nobles, then behind the pond you got your Dougs, Frasers and your Nordmans, and of course the Grands," he pointed and swung his arms in all directions. "Anything with a yellow tag is a Grand, so watch out for those." He gestured toward the price list, spraypainted on a white board next to the Get-Yer-Cider/Pay-Here canvas tent. Grands were $40, any size. Ouch. (Granted, that is A STEAL compared to what we paid for trees in CA, but during this downsized holiday I was planning for a tiny tree, coming in at no more than say $15 or $20). Other trees ranged from $4 - $6 bux per foot, extra for the white stuff, natch.

I moved to grab one of the grizzled, rusty, mud-caked hand saws hanging from a makeshift bike-cum-hacksaw rack, and Jolly guy stopped me with a dismissive wave. "Those are pretty, uh, hard to manage, and it's pretty muddy out, so unless you have your heart set on pulling yours down all by yourself, you can just holler up at us and we'll come out and chain it for you."

Score! I love the heartiness (hardiness?) of the Do-It-Yourself experience at UCut farms, but I love it even more when I don't actually have to get muddy during the DIY-ness of it all.

The search. In our eight years together, Joosh and I have had five trees, I think? And every year, including those when we traveled and did not select a tree, we have argued over the nature of what merits a good holiday tree. I can't keep the names straight (especially here in the Northwest where there are more than just Doug firs and Nobles found on lots in Ventura, for example), but the main difference comes down to bushiness. J loves those very needle-y, very full, classic pine triangle trees, where the ornaments sort of hang but mostly lay nestled against the backdrop of thickly crisscrossed needles. I prefer the more sparse look of the Nobles (the name of my faves, I can of course remember), where there is room between the elegant branches spiraling out from the tree trunk, and the ornaments hang freely down between them.

I usually win the argument (not sure how, come to think of it, it can't be purely based on the repetition of the words "elegant" and "classic" and "refined" and "more aesthetically pleasing, duh" over and over - it's probably more because he feels silly putting his foot down over something ornamental and temporary... either that or he just likes to make me happy more than he likes to win... nyawww) but this year, I thought I should maybe throw him a bone and get one to his liking.

Since we won't be traveling to see family, and since it will pretty much just be the two of us for what is usually a very active and busy holiday full of clan members, I thought it would be nice for him to have the tree that makes him most nostalgic and feels most like Xmas. And also? I, um, sort of blurted out something totally assholio in parking lot of the first tree farm (prior to being turned away for our lack of more than $12 in cash). I am ashamed to admit that in response to his "If you want to, we can get a tree you like, we can skip a bushy one" I said something like "No no, that's okay, we can get your ugly-ass bushmonster ghetto tree." I am cringing right now. I don't know, it just came out. Not with terrible venom, but definitely without any forethought whatsoever. And after that, well you can bet that nothing short of Joosh screaming loudly and repeatedly that he REALLY HATES THE BUSHY KIND would allow me to select anything else on that farm but the most piney, bushy, needley, ornament-nestling thing I could find.

So here it is:
And again, in case you missed it (shorter when next to a human, yes?):


And in it's final resting place, all decorated and purty:


On the way home, with the car all filled with sweet crispy pine smells and the earthy mud crusted on my shoes, we continued to discuss the original issue at hand: Why pine? How did that happen? I had a feeling that I used to know, and that it had something to do with Pagan symbols or something, but then maybe I was getting easter eggs and xmas trees mixed up. So out came the Crackberry and onto Wikipedia I ventured. But guess what? I still don't have a satisfactory answer. Partially because Wiki pages are full of crap, and partially because the Wiki explanation of the origins of the Xmas tree was SO BORING that I completely lost interest before we'd left the gravel road of the tree farm.

And now, sitting in front of my tiny cute (bushy) tree, I totally don't care anymore. Pass the eggnog.

Happy Hanukkah, Goyim.

Happiest of Hanukkahs, folks.

For you, a gift, the gift of the miracle of light:

It's the little menorah that could. The very one purchased with Bex at Noah's Bagels on Solano, in Berkeley, like a million years ago (um, more precisely: eleven years ago).

Don't you like my fetching pastiche here, arranged around the fire in demonstration of the conflicted struggle between Boho Artiste and would-be Business Woman, the oppositional forces of which I am obviously grappling with on a daily basis? To wit: Oh wait, this is the wrong photo. Dang. This is the one I took with my camera phone, because I could send it to myself by email because I can't find the thingy (you know, the thingy) that lets me pull photos off my camera and put them on my computer. I do know the name for it, but it escapes me just now. I'm very tired. Be quiet, I do too know the name.

Anyway, okay, well in this photo you can see only a tiny piece of my Boho/Business identity crisis, namely that there are two phones and two business credit card settlement notices on the table (long story there, not important or interesting, except that there will be cash back, oh yes there will be cash back); as well as my expensive and pillar-shaped "Deluxe Hanukah (sic) Candles" from New Seasons; a chestnut that I found on the street and thought would be a cool thing to do something cool with (like what? Your guess is as good as mine at this point); and my little silver piggy bank Christmas tree ornament that I think I may have accidentally stolen from Target because it was not on my bill post checkout, and was more in my purse than in my shopping bag when I unpacked the goods at home. Hmmm.

(Not shown and/or just beyond the frame of the cameraphone version of my desk: camera; watercolors; post-its; biz credit card; biz receipts; web site how-to book; artsy "To Do" pad from Powell's; knitting needles - I suck, in case you were wondering-- bead project; pretty paper for folding interesting paper boxes with which I had reasonable success for Jess's shower; ten printouts about how to market using Facebook - gag, not for my own business, fyi -- and of course my giant 22" LCD monitor. Please hold all judgments until the results of the duke-it-out match have been tallied in full and new business cards - or artist cards! - have been printed).

So anyway, the focus of the photo, the menorah. It's moved with me 8 times so far, and been lit probably 9 out of the 11 Festival of Lights'n'Latkes since then. Not bad for a $6.99 little bitty from the bagel shop.

Two years running I couldn't find candles that fit the wee holes, and both years Joosh whittled the ends of the candles to the right size. Once they were giant thick 'oh no the electricity is out' candles, and he fully slivered them down to practically matchsticks. Every night. That's like, 2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9, so what 42 candles total? How cute is that (especially for an anti-semite, right Ma?)?

Unfortunately, bad jew that I am, I ALWAYS forget the third and fourth to the last words of the candle-lighting prayer - l'had'lik neir - and have to go look it up on something like Jew Faq (dot org). Thank g-d, once again, for the interwebs. I would be a shiksa without it.

And speaking of (the interwebs, not shiksas!)... In addition to the Hanukkah wishes I want to say a mighty Congratu-effing-lations to Bex on completion of her first semester of the brutality that is law school. Dude, you are 1 down and only 5 to go. And you are a rockstar.

I feel like I had very deep thoughts to share with you all about my acupuncture treatment today, but unfortunately anything remotely deep and/or sensical has fallen straight out ma heed.

So I will instead share with you my new haircut and wish you good leftover latkes tomorrow morning.

You like? I went to a salon that specializes in curly hair. The camerphoney quality of the photo, on top of the low lighting (of the menorah flame in an otherwise dark room, thank you very much) doesn't show all the magic that is the separate little spiral curls out from the top of my head, but trust me, they are luscious. And of course they are nothing that I will be able to recreate tomorrow, but that's okay. Just for tonight I will love them like they deserve to be loved, and tomorrow I will lament their loss and see if any of my ridiculous hair product (that I never use because hello, I work at home and who cares?) can reassemble anything even remotely similar without the shudder-inducing crunch of mousse, as is the standard when trying to coax out the ringlets.

And yes, I'm wearing a pajama top. And yes I wore it all day. Whatever. At least I wore a skirt, and not PJ bottoms, as I've been known to wear in places like Andronicos and Baker's Square and Spat's. The only bad thing about the PJ top wearage today, actually, is that there's this ridiculous little bow at the bust, under a line of lace, and I wonder if my new haircutter lady (tats, pin-up girl style, etc) thought I was some sort of Holly Homemaker. My hair was a teensy bit Baby from Dirty Dancing when I first walked out, which was not what I had in mind when I said I was "looking for a bit of a change". We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Unavoidable, Really.

It had to happen eventually, don't you think? After this and this, we've finally come to this:

Sutherland Sentenced to 48 Days in Private Jail

Kiefer Sutherland has been handed an early Christmas gift - a Los Angeles judge has agreed to let the actor serve jail time at a private prison. Sutherland feared he'd be spending Christmas behind bars at the notorious Twin Towers facility after he was sentenced to spend 48 days in jail for drink driving. But the 24 star learned he'll be required to serve his time at the Glendale City Jail on Wednesday. Sutherland, who wore a black suit and tie for his court appearance, must complete his sentence by March 30. The actor pleaded no contest to DUI on October 9. Judge Stuart M. Rice also sentenced Sutherland to five years probation, and insisted the star must complete an 18-month alcohol education program and attend weekly therapy sessions for six months. As WENN went to press, Sutherland was being "processed" and booked into the Glendale City Jail. (imdb.com)

I guess the only thing I can say is that Kiefer is damn lucky that his show is already in hiatus due to the writer's strike, because I expect that Fox would be in a position to demand a punitive shitload of his Gin money (or Scotch, from what I understand) if he were responsible for their millions-on-millions of dollars hit show (really? still a hit? huh) being held up, back or sideways while he sits, shaking from withdrawals, in the pokey.

On the plus side: private prison, maybe a private cell? Perhaps our hero won't have to worry about protecting his anus while hunched over in the fetal position, suffering the aforementioned shakes!

Shnow!

We had the first flurry of snow last night. It was beautiful (as it will probably always be to a Californian living in a place that only occasionally sees the white stuff). Joosh and I drove up into the hills by the zoo and took turns throwing fresh, clean little snoballs at each other.

Pardon the blurry photo. It was taken with Joosh's new Crackberry, which has a tiny bright white LED that it uses as a flash in the dark when taking pics. It's not high quality, but it does do the trick.

The snow smelled really good - super clean, and mildly herbal, like babies and sweetgrass. I was impressed with nature for creating such a lovely nosegay on frozen water. Very nice.

It is supposed to snow again tonight after 10pm and there's a 60% chance on Saturday as well. Pretty crazy that snow used to be an every few years event around here, and yet we've had significant snowstorms each year that we've been here. Thank you global warming and your interestingly shifting weather patterns.

In other news, I'm in a ridiculously foul mood today due to the idiotic project that will not die (if you say "Timeshare" to me, you are going down, Sucker). It's the goddamn Energizer Bunny, with the whole 'keeps going and going and going." Never was a person more over something than I am of this little venture.

Strength, Camille.

Cutting your bytes into smaller, easily chewed pieces. You are welcome.

So I tried to break up last night's mega brain-barf-on-blog post into smaller, attention deficit-worthy, bite sized pieces (I don't have the stamina or attention span for posts like that one, why should you???). I also hoped to correct my ridiculous photo positions and formatting, but I'm sorry to report that I have grown tired of such things and it will all have to wait.

Also, apparently I just risked outing TeabaggerT as a workday slacker (which is not to stay he doesn't stay up all night working, it's just that he claimed to be playfully working in the middle of the day and I thought maybe that statement needed some air quotes around it " ") and now I feel terrible because I posted my zinger in a place where his co-workers can spy my facetious handiwork. Crap.

On the plus side, I was able to instigate a multi-threaded conversation about bezoars, which I think takes not a little bit of talent.

Ketchup, part 2: Trip to California, subpart B.

And shortly the All Hallows Eve, full of sugar and expensively-suited small people running up your steps, was upon us.

Halloween-y at Joosh's mom's place. Nephew Liam, being the damn cutest giraffe you'll ever see. Except that his outfit was a tiny bit too tight and he kept trying to yank the crotch free. Technically he was a bit of a skeevy giraffe, I guess.



And still later in the week I drove through parts of LA previously unknown to me (Irvine, Santa Ana, godforsaken places one and all) to see El Jefe, with whom I'd been working on the aforementioned ridiculous project for the last few months. We were supposed to go the Oceanography center, but when I arrived at about 1, there was a police blockade, so we renegotiated our plan to involve mediocre pizza and a park for some fun times.

The kids were along for the ride, and if you know Jefferey and his lovely wife, you'll know at first glance that these two are literal chips off the old blocks. May I present Mini-JLG and Mini-CSH:


They are incredibly funny and absurdly smart. And it's probably a good thing they are home-schooled, because they are the kinds of adorable precocious who would get their hilarious butts kicked and their brains shrunk in public schools (yes, even the snotty la la schools in So. Cal!).

Here I asked them to make their kookiest craziest grossiest faces. This is what they came up with:

With a smidge more prompting (grosser! crazier! C'mon!):



Ash conquers the rings:



Autum(nal) conquers the rock wall:















El Jefe conquers Dana Point (while rocking the ever-sweet 'Refugee Facial Hair' look, apparently grown during the wildfire evacuation the previous week):




The entire family (sans CSH who did not join, but was surely wearing them within a hundred miles of us all the same) wore Crocs. I found this funny.



Hipster parents and their hipster spawn, taking over the world one dress-over-jeans or punked-out-hoodie outfit at a time:

(Please note the evidence of California's real estate market shining on the hilltop in the background, just above jeans/dress girls head).

I didn't get a good shot of the possibly older women dressed youngisher (so of indeterminable age) in tight leopardy-slash militantish yoga wear who Jefe insisted were a lesbian couple. I had hoped you might weigh in on the subject. They were wearing Neimen Marcus versions of ghetto caszh, basically. And I disagreed about the couple thing. But Jefe also thinks that JK Rowling outed Dumbledore (who is CLEARLY not gay, not that there's anything wrong with that) in order to make the actress who plays Hermione feel better about the fact that she is, in fact, a total lesbian. So take his assessments with a grain (or several) of salt.


Prior to the arrival of the other kids in the photo above, I had a total "That kid is STILL on the ESCALATOR" moment with this aging skater punk dad and the daredevil egg-onment of his progeny.

It might be too small to see without enlarging the photo to full size, but man, I could practically hear the bones breaking, precognitive echoes playing over the voice of Brodyman in Mallrats in my head. A few minutes later they busted out a skateboard and went to town. No, no helmut. (God help me, I'm an old old old lady).

So that's about it. There were many other activities on the California trip, of which I did not manage to photo document any further. Visits with grandparents, brothers, mom, dad, step-brother and fam (where I broke the news about the fact that one of their Halloween pumpkins was covered in the recalled "Aqua Dots" beads, you know, the ones that turn into the frickin date rape drug when ingested? Thank you, China, you piece of shit, and thanks all you nutjob USA consumers so desperate for cheaper and cheaper crap that you don't give a rat's ass about where it comes from, how it gets here, what the impact is, etc, until your own spawn are threatened with immediate comas or a case of lead poisoning. Grrrrrr. Though I should offer the caveat that the Aqua Dots were not at all cheap, they are absurdly expensive, actually - I guess you have to pay extra for a drug in your toys that some people actually want and pay good money to procure on or before date night).

Hmmm, I seem to be getting bitter and crankypants. Perhaps I should leave off about now. I meant to end with a tribute to my love and yours, Mr. Ben Harper, who graced us in Portland with his harmonious presence last week, but my account of the lovefest, it will have to wait.

Congrats to Bexy on her last day of classes for the first semester!!! Crazy fast, this semester flew by. I've yet to try the New Year's Drink contender recipe yet, but I will do so soon. There's always the sweet Saphire nectar to fall back on come 29 December, right? Congrats, honey. You are totally rocking the school of law.

Ketchup, part 2: Trip to California, subpart A.

Trip to California: The Cemetery Visit.

My favorite Un-Niece, Hedrita. Joosh's older brother's daughter. She let's me call her "Cookie" just like the Jewish Tante I've always wanted to be.

She and my youngest brother are the same age, and went to the same High School and according to what I have gathered on Facebook (The MyFace, I call it), they refer to each other as cousins. But if Joosh and I actually did get married, she'd be my niece (by marriage, but still) and my brother would be... her uncle-in-law? My brother would be Joosh's Brother-in-Law, and Joosh is her uncle, so wouldn't that be it? Uncle-in-Law? Maybe they'll have to stick with cousins. It'll be much more fitting for the day when they get drunk at a party and make out and I have to tease them incessantly by calling them "Kissing Cousins". God, I hope they don't find this blog. They will kill me.



On Sunday, the day after we arrived, I went with the not-in-laws to visit the family cemetery plots. Our friend ML here in Portland has been doing some Geneology research (she LOVES it, apparently - ask her about the Royal Family line, go ahead, I dare you), and Joosh's mom is in that sort of family reckoning stage of life, so armed with two notebooks and some vague plot numbers, off we went to the most beautiful, most glamorous, possibly the most would-be-expensive-land/ currently-occupied-only-by-dead-people-not-able-to-enjoy-the-million-dollar-view I have ever seen. Right on the bluffs at the edge of Santa Barbara, this no doubt used to be the outskirts of town. No longer. It is smack dab in the middle of Oprah territory, huge swaths of gravestone-dotted prime-ass real estate, totally gorgeous. Breathtaking.

First we went to the park where Jojo got married and had ourselves an old-fashioned picnic full of mayo and cookies and lunchmeat, etc. Char made fabulous hummus for her (shockingly) vegetarian brother (meat family, very very meat family) and the jackass refused to eat it. I found out later it was because he thought the roasted peppers were tomatoes, but that may or may not be the full truth of it, one never knows.

At the park, we totally annoyed some hippie dippie group of Food-Not-Bomb'ers having some sort of free-out in the center by the turtle pond. Apparently we sat down too close to their food collection area or something, and they kept looking at us with decidedly un-peaceful expressions. Peace and love kids, peace and love. Hopefully we redeemed ourselves when several homeless looking dudes came over and asked for food, saying they'd been told there was food to be had by the tree (all I saw were sacks of uncooked potatoes, by the way, and a fuck-off HUGE clear hefty sack of hard-tack looking bagels with a double knot at the top that people kept picking up and putting back down again). We gave them food, and they were excited.

Best moment by the tree: An adorably overeager college student came over and dropped a brown bag off on the other side of the tree (where the bagels and potatoes and oh oh, I forgot to mention the rotten looking bell peppers! were) and turned to us with a jaunty little informational sing song: "Butternut squash! From my garden! Organic! Tra la la!" Oh Peace and Conflict Studies peeps, how I miss you.

So up to the Ritz Carlton of cemeteries. It took us a while to find the right plots. In fact we had to flag down a groundskeeper. It was a Sunday, so the main office wasn't open, but there was a tour of some kind being led around the grounds. I was exceedingly annoyed by a super disrespectful woman wearing a green and black striped witches hat throughout the tour. Show some respect, lady, jesus. I seriously wanted to yell at her, but settled for sneering whenever she passed. I'm not sure if she noticed or not. It was sunny and there was lots of squinting, so I highly doubt it.

Here, for your amazement, are more cemetery photos (I'm obviously having trouble getting images to rotate, but it's too late at night for me to bother with it, so apologies for the neck cramp in case you care to turn sideways for viewing).











Bury me here please. Oh wait, I want to be cremated, or neptuned or something. So scatter me here, or in that beautiful sea off the bluffs from here. Or just think of me fondly when you pass by.

We managed to find both family plots, but there's a bit of a mystery about the Sprouls because there are 5 people listed on the records as buried in the plot, but only 3 names appear on the newer looking headstone, and the dates of birth and death appear to be off slightly. Hmmmmm.

At some point when I am feeling less "What am I going to do with the rest of my life" and more "Nancy Drew" I may attempt to get to the bottom of this like the super sleuth I know I can be in my heart of hearts. I suspect it will be a nice chunk of a novel one of these days, from all the stories I've heard so far. (And you thought YOUR family was bad?!?).

Ketchup, part 1: Oh, Canada.

There's no good reason for me not to have been updating with photos and interesting ("interesting" perhaps) tidbits for the last month (and them some). I'm lazy, I suppose. Or just really really really lost in my own head, so much so that I have a hard time putting the speed-of-light/off-they-rush-into-the-ethers thought bubbles out on the page in readable words. Plus it's pretty much Bexy that reads this little vanity project, and we talk weekly, so c'mon, whatevs, right? Except my visual descriptions of photos can only go so far, I would assume... So here are a bazmillion catch-ups for the last month or 6 weeks or so:

Trip to Oh, Canada.

Though I had been aiming for Italy, I was way to busy with my last project (did I say project? I meant to say debacle) to plan and execute such a trip for Joosh's 35th birthday (yep, 35, not a typo). But I did promise the old man that we'd get out of the country, and so out of the country we went. After pit-stopping at the Peet's in Vancouver, WA (conveniently located just off the 5, and open quite early, thank you Peetniks), we drove up I-5 to Hwy 101 and enjoyed the beautiful scenery all the way up to Port Angeles where we hopped a 90 minute Ferry to Victoria, Vancouver Island, Beautiful British Columbia, Canada (hard to fit on a post card, eh?). I saw two small whales on the voyage over, so it was already a terrific trip for me. The only bummer was that our coffee and pastries from 7 that morning had pretty much worn off by 1 but the items they passed off as food on the boat was sadly lacking in a) substance b)nutrition and c)anything without meat contained therein.


Joosh's "mmmmm" face at the only vegetarian items we could find, nachos and sliced veggies. I am eating a super gross chicken sandwich (cold) with a piece of pineapple slickering across the boiled chicken surface. Mmmmmm, indeed. Oh well, what can you do. Next time I'll bring a picnic.

Here we are on the Ferry, blowin' in the wind* and fairly freezing. Joosh may have been wearing shorts (quelle suprise) but I can't recall for sure. (Please excuse his fuzzy neck - the last time I buzzed his head, we forgot to attend to the neck region. It was about an inch longer than the hair on his head. Ah well, all the more to gross out our North-of-the-Border compatriots, I guess).
Actually, maybe the neck fuzz was why we were so harshly questioned at the border crossing! In retrospect, it probably wasn't that harsh, but somehow I felt like I didn't have the correct answers, and that I looked obviously guilty each time I looked at Joosh to see if he was going to answer the interrogator or if I should. Guilty of what, you ask? Absolutely nothing, unless toting a bottle of California champagne over the border is a crime! Authority figures make me nervious, I guess. Even 5'3" slender women in funny hats. It was the clipboard. And her cold cold stare.

We arrived in the afternoon at our first night's destination, Fairburn Farm, in Cowichan Valley. I found it through this website, and as it reminded me of the Agritourismos of Italy, I thought it would be a fitting locale. Plus, you know, Water Buffalo. How could I pass that up?

It was a lovely, old-fashioned, low-key, mellow, not particularly quiet between the rooms sort of place, but incredibly restful otherwise. (Like, the gal at Orangette went there on her honeymoon? Um, quiet sex only, in the cold bathroom, I would think, unless you wanted your neighbors to have an earful of your wheeeeee-we're-newlyweds!!!!!!!!). One bummer for me was that I selected our room because it had a jacuzzi tub, only to find out it was a jacuzzi tub for one. Duh.


This is the only remotely decent shot I have of our room, and it is both blurry and vaguely psycho. Better photos on the owner's website, I suppose.


This is the view out our window.



These are two very tired, very wind-blown, pretty darn hungry travelers. Dinner was not scheduled for a few hours, however, so we napped.

Dinner was amazing, I thought. Everything was local, most of it grown on the property. Unfortunately the vegetarian entree lacked any panache because it was just the fish dish without the fish. So just vegetables in a non-fishy broth. Probably boring. Sorry, honey. My fish was awesome (smoked something or other, monkfish, I think? I can't remember but it was perfect). The salad was the last of the heirloom tomatoes (uh, oops) with water buffalo mozzerella cheese (I gave Joosh my cheese and took his "vile" tomatoes) and incredible balsamic vinegar and smoked salt (kill me delicious). There was an AWESOME risotto with wild mushrooms with a slab of sauteed squash (very meaty, a bit buttery, yum). And the desert was an incredible butternut squash tart - rich, creamy, delicious, perfectly lightly spiced, gah! - and honeyed semi-freddo. Dude. So good. Did I take a photo? No. I loves me some food bloggers, but any ability in that department has yet to make itself known in my pic-taking skills to date.

I didn't get a photo of the Water Buffalo running by the window at breakfast the next morning, either. You can view them here or here. They were, no other word for it, rad.

I did ask Jooshy to take a photo of the garden while I paid the bill and asked for a recommendation for that night somewhere else on the island (oh hey, did I mention we were there on Canadian Thanksgiving? Yeah. We were. Cause I am an EXCELLENT planner that way). He got half the garden, maybe a 1/3:



We took a mini-ferry (held 18 cars, we were number 18 in line an hour before it left, and they took USD, for which I was extremely thankful since had about .35 Canadian on me) to Brentwood. We could have driven, but Mara at the Farm had suggested the Ferry, and thank goodness she did because they closed the trans-Canada highway in both directions right at the off-shoot for this Ferry, just before we got there. I tried to figure out why, but never did get the story.

The baby ferry (Joosh is standing next to our car):



We ended up at a new upscale spa at Sidney Pier where Mara had recently done some consulting. It was just what you'd expect of a newly developed seaside town, right along a new and perfectly landscaped strolling promenade, with the requisite "steakhouse" on the water, and what looked like Timeshare Condos (gah!) stretching along the shore. We ate a late lunch/early dinner at the restaurant, and I watched a Vietnamese couple pull crabs out of traps at the end of the pier. We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening chilling in the room, staring at the water and watching Canadian TV (tons of commercials for, about, or referring to Hockey, no kidding. They truly love that icy madness up there, man. Even the commercial for like, the local coffee chain, was about Hockey).

We got up early and headed back for Victoria, not sure if we'd get on the early Ferry or not. Apparently all the Canucks were headed to Washington to take advantage of our ridiculously depressing dollar (on par with Canada's while we were there, probably worse now, but I truly cannot bear to look right now) on what was essentially their "Black Friday". Enjoy your lead poisoning, suckers?

Back on the Ferry (Where's Waldosho?):



Oh look, there he is:



Taking a slow leisurely drive back to Portland, we stopped here:



And here:















And saw this:


And this:


It was beautiful, peaceful, restorative, restful, and just a long long drive. When we got back, it was back to work for both of us, though the viability and certitude of my particular project was crashing to a close. Well, my involvement anyway. Que Sera, apparently.

*Every time I say or hear the phrase "Blowing in the wind" I think of K-Dog and her awesome impression of Jodie Foster in the movie "Nell"... "Meeee, Nellllll. Bloooooowin eeennnn da weeeeeen" in a tone most akin to something like an actual deaf person forming unheard words (or more simply, kind of like an unkind person doing their best impression of a mentally handicapped child). Killed me every single time. J and I can still crack each other up by imitating K's spot-on mimicry of Ms. Foster's "Oscar, please" attempts to capture the 'specialness' of the Nell character. Full disclosure: I never saw the movie, but I just know in my heart of hearts (and from previews, I guess) that K has it down pat.

Hellfire.

Bex wrote about it earlier today. I've been following the updates online since talking to the Goldstein clan while they were being evacuated from Encinitas, texting them updated road closures on the route to Palm Springs, where they were headed to Grandma's. Southern California is burning all up.

This map scares the shit out of me. Right now there are TWENTY fires listed from Santa Maria to San Diego. The satellite photo posted by Bex reminds me of this one from a few months back of the Greek islands. Is it really a coincidence that all of these fires are burning all at once?

Living in the cool wet climate here, it is easy for me to forget about how the hot dry Santa Ana winds make you feel like you will spontaneously combust at the next spark on your skin or static charge through your hair. Yes, gale force winds (hurricane wind speeds, according to NPR) and the dry parched chaparral that practically wills itself to burn - part of the landscape life cycle - are completely conducive to these types of fires, of course living in California there are out of control fires almost every year. But look at the map, look at this sat photo:



Is that how it happens, really? Do 15 or 20 fires spontaneously erupt in a two day span up and down the lower left of a state?

I don't know how many people have died so far, nor how many homes have burned. I know the fire crews are worn out and that people are scared and that there are no answers that satisfy anyone at this time. One fire commissioner said today that several of the SD fires will probably just have to burn down to the water's edge, that there are simply not enough resources to win the battle on every flaming front at this point. Which reminds me - where's the National Guard, and don't they usually come out and assist in local disasters like this?

Oh yeah.

I bore me. Care to join?

It poured today (shocking for Portland, I know, alert the media).

I wore Birkenstocks, a skirt and a beer sweatshirt (the one with Rasputin's image, that gets me lots of guys staring at my chest and saying "That is an AWESOME beer" and lots of girls staring at same, trying to figure out what the hell they are seeing, as The Unkillable's head sort of gets crammed in the bra-fashioned concave between the twins - the girl-staring is usually followed by a sneer, by the way, and yeah, I totally get it). So after walking around for a few hours like this, I was both proud of, and disgusted by myself. And not a little bit uncold.

Sun came out for a bit. Second rainbow in as many days. Nawwwww.

There was some sort of weirdo streetside snowboarding-in-October event today in what I did not previously know is known as "one of Portland's most famous alleys" (due to its location off the backdoor of a well-known strip-club), at the top of the North Park Blocks. I couldn't get a super good look at the action due to the throng of parka-ed and knit-capped young people standing around drinking the Redbull, Rockstar and other energy drinks being thrown at them by the "savvy" flash marketing teams crowded around the busy block in their slick marketing vehicles, but from what I could gather, there was essentially a fake-snow covered skate ramp and lots of daredevil youngins jumpin around and hollering and cheering for apparently amazing feats of snowboardery. I thought about trying to get a closer look, and perhaps a camera phone snap or two, but the weed smoke started to make my eyes burn (were that it were not true, but yes, I am obviously settling into utter old ladyness without even the hope of trying to fight the inevitability) and I was crankypants hungry (see above), so we kept moving on to the always-reliable if not funnily named Thai Peacock for late lunch/early dinner.

While enjoying veggie Pad See You and Pra Ram (listed on the menu with the words "It so good" after the description, and truly it is so), and watching the Red Bull Mini parked outside get mobbed by Trustafarians in dirty ripped pants and super expensive looking, Ready-for-Aspen-Mimsy? snow gear, I suddenly understood the context for something that I'd witnessed earlier while standing in Peet's, waiting impatiently for the condiment station to clear:

Four early-teen boys in what appeared to be coordinated down snow jackets (not rain jackets, mind you, but the fluffy puffy and totally unwaterproof fancy jackets that always make me think of Coco Chanel because of the cross-stitching) and ski hats (one boy in yellow jacket/yellow cap, another in purple jacket/purple cap, etc) crowded around the condiment cart trying to docter their beverages. Their ensembles troubled me, but as I had not yet had a drop of coffee, I didn't possess the powers of concentration needed to focus on the troublesome bits, nor the brain power needed to try to resolve it by coming up with plausible explanations for who they were or why they were there. Rich kids staying in the Marriot above, fully unclear on the concept of Portland as wet but not freezing, is the best I could come up with before forgetting the question altogther in my utter annoyance at how long the little pishers were taking to pour milk and sugar into their drinks. How hard is it to put some shit your cup and move along, hmmm?

I heard one of them say "No no, she said she likes it 'Light and Sweet' so put more cream in it" as he tossed three more sugar packets to the one pouring the milk (Whole milk, by the way, not cream or half and half). Purple Cap said "What does that even mean, anyway?" and Orange Cap repeated it "Light and sweet, you know, Light. And. Sweet." as if Purple Cap would get it if repeated to him several times in rapid succession. I involuntarily snickered, but I swear it was not about teen boy stupidity, but rather the fact that I so badly had to fight the urge to say something to the effect of "She likes it light and sweet, like her men!" At the slight snicker, Yellow Cap realized I'd been standing there waiting and seemed to get a bit desperate to move on. He poured more milk in, then more sugar, then more milk (and again with the Whole milk, which if you know Peet's coffee, you know is about as likely to lighten the cup as my pointing to it and saying "light and sweet, light and sweet" over and over again). Finally I couldn't take it anymore and stepped up with some elbows between the boys and grabbed the half and half jug to tip into my cup so I could get the hell out of the strange universe into which I had inadvertently stumbled. Orange took notice of my choice and totally punched Yellow in the arm and said "That's not even cream, you idiot, gawd" and rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner in my (or maybe Rasputin's) general direction as he grabbed the cup and poured a bunch of coffee into the trashbin next to the counter. "Yeah, but why is it called 'Light and Sweet?" said Purple again.

Let's hope it was the gange, yo, because otherwise I continue to live in fear for the future of this once great nation.

What must Google think of me?

Have you noticed much about the Google ads on the side of your Gmail account, when you are reading your harmless, innocent, email messages? I happened to take a closer look at mine the other day...

While viewing a message from the Hyatt Regency RFP for event services in Tampa, Gmail gives me the following off to the right:

Kits, Buggles, Gear
www.coastalwindsports.com
"Life is better when it blows"

Followed by:
Find Married Swingers
"Married but Feeling Unfullfilled? Find local like-minded partners".
(I'm NOT linking to that one here, sorry Mr. Burton).

And finally:
Special Event Favors
"Say it with favors: Unigue and Elegant Favors and much much more..."
(Again, not linking, because some of those favors are way NSFW).

Wow, what must Google think of me??? Obviously that I'm a wh0re, for one thing. Wow, whatever I did to lead you on or piss you off, Google, I'm sorry.

In other news, I can't believe I wrote 18 paragraphs about fermented juice last night. Apologies to my myriad fans.

You would, wouldn't you.

I have periodically been mistaken for a hippie. No, no dreadlocks to speak of, I abhor patchouli, and it's been over a decade since I was anything close to a practicing vegetarian - but still somehow the misconception tends to crop up. Is it my flower child middle name (something to do with songs made by the wind, ahem), the fact that I majored first in Women's Studies and then in Peace and Conflict Studies (at Cal, for gods sake!) or perhaps my penchant for Birkenstock sandles and not much make-up? I don't know, but somehow it's an assignation that I can't seem to shake.

If you know me, though, you tend to realize pretty quick that I'm generally not so much in the realm of the typical hippie spectrum. (I think I am too mean, frankly, to ever be accepted in the group hug, plus I'm really big on daily showers and I find overzealous commitment to anything extremely annoying - not that I am generalizing, or anything).

So if you know me, you might think that I would not subscribe to weird food concoctions, health supplements, vitamin regiments, etc. You would think that I would not participate in things like Raw Food and Veganism and wheat grass juice and tonics (unless it's the tonic that goes into my Sapphire GT, ow!). And for the most part you would be right. Therefor, you would think that I would roll my eyes in disgust at the apparent nastiness that is Kombucha, the so-called latest and greatest in rejuvenating, restorative, revitalizing, replenishing, regenerating health tea.



Jojo once asked me if I knew of and/or liked this Kombucha stuff (pronounced kom-BOO-cha). I replied with a vehement "Blech, God, NO!" having recently had the disgusting experience of purchasing what I thought was a light, sweet, refreshing juice beverage, and taking a swig of what appeared to be a rotten and expired version of the anticipated light, sweet, refreshing juice beverage. I was SO pissed. I thought for sure it was another case of my once beloved New Seasons (like Andronico's bred with Whole Foods but cheaper and with fewer evil hillside bitches making clucking noises at you in the checkout line for wearing your pajamas to the market) selling something a bit too close to it's expiration date. Only later did I read about the whole fermentation process, the enzymes, the live cultures, and other details that served to further gross me out. All I knew was that it tasted like the bottle of grapefruit juice you bought to make your friend her stupid Madras drink for your cocktail party that she didn't show up to and which you thought didn't get opened, but really it did, so a few days later after you've finally gotten all the party mess cleaned up and you are too poor to go buy a better mixer for your remaining vodka, you think "Hmmm, maybe a Greyhound" and you open it and take a swig of the now-rotted, pruney, near-carbonated juice and then gag in the sink before cursing the jackass party attendee who opened the bottle for no reason, didn't use a drop and then didn't put it in the fridge. My kombucha "juice" was vile. A small swig put me in a foul mood for several hours.

So I vehemently, adamantly, cursedly claimed my utter disgust for the stuff, never even asking if Joj liked it (obviously she'd brought it up for a reason, right?). Even if she had sung it's praises on high, it never would have occurred to me to ever pick up another bottle again, even though I continued to be mildly attracted to all the pretty colored bottles and new delightful sounding flavors that appeared on the shelves (I mean how can you resist something called Passionberry Bliss or Cosmic Cranberry? I managed.).

Well, I'm over thirty now. And I can't even begin to describe what that magic number seems to be responsible for creating in my rapidly aging body (good times, real fun, let me tell you). So I read about Kombucha in a women's health book and was convinced by the nurse practitioner author to give the swill another shot.

It is a miracle from the depths of all things disgustingly fermented for food, beverage and health purposes. Knowing that I was going to be swallowing something that had the effervescence of expired fruit matter, I was prepared to give it an honest evaluation, and my god, it's amazing. The first Cosmic Cranberry, I'm certain, got me mildly drunk, which was a nice bonus (it does say .05% alcohol by volume is a possibility, right on the side of the bottle, so look out you lightweights). But it also seems to have fulfilled all the promises also on the side of the bottle: aids in digestion, metabolism, immune system, appetite control, liver function (this one is hard to assess, but I feel less toxic, so I'm going with it in the yes column), body alkalinity (man this is a big deal these days - more on that later), anti-aging (jury is still out here, though my skin feels better, but my crows feet have not flown away or anything), cell integrity (hm, sure, why not) and healthy skin and hair (totally!).

I don't mean to shill for a company that might just be peddling promo material instead of a nutrient-rich elixir as advertised, but it is the fabulousness of my life right now. If you can avoid the slimy, egg-whitey strands of live cultures floating around like loogies in the bottle (cause you WILL gag when you start to suck a string down, I assure you), these crisp, tangy, sparkling, fruity beverages are awesome for, oh hell, I'll just steal from the label already: restoring balance and vitality.

Namaste, kids, may the 'boocha be with you.

Mama Said.

I don't know about you, but my mom always said that all horizontal stripes (and most plaids) were to be avoided. Here's why:




Jesus, H. I know Charlotte has always had herself a wee bit of junk in her trunk (in the Baby-Got-Badonkadonk, not the Martin-Lawrence-in-Big-Momma sort of way) but this dress makes her look like someone took Dakota Fanning's waist and shoulders and stuck it on Beyonce's hips and thighs.

Not sure what you did to piss off the SATC stylist, Ms. Davis, but you might wanna consider apologizing A. S. A. P (and by apologizing, I mean sending something from Tiffany's, not a florist shop). In the past, if you looked crappy, it was 25 minutes of screen time, maximum. With the feature-length film in production, and with this as the first evidence of how you will be dressed therein, it could conceivably be over an hour - possibly more, depending on the pithiness of this particular resurrection- of you looking like fat-thighed death. You are cute as a button, really, there is no reason for this. Go make nice. Like now .

Chuck = Dumb Name

Joosh has delivered unto me some new crack. I hesitate to post the url here for fear that all my millions of readers will flock to the site and overload it's systems and therefor deny me my new habit. This. Would. Be. Bad.

However, in the interest of sharing the love (and getting you to be my co-dependent crack using partner so I don't feel so bad about imbibing alone), I will tell you that if you use the abbreviation for television, and you add a hyphen, and then you type the word for something that connects two things, or the thing that chains are made of (and as we know, chains are only as strong as their weakest this same thing), and then instead of writing dot com, you type dot and the abbreviation for company and then another dot and then the abbreviation for the other name of Great Britain, you will find yourself at a beautiful, masterful, endlessly entertaining bounty of time- suckage material, both currant and vintage.

I really should not be telling you about this, especially you myriad of friends and relatives that are in school right now, but if it can bring you one ounce of the fun times it has brought me so far (and I've only known about it for a week), it will be worth the risk of my being responsible for your having to take Incompletes in two classes due to your time spent on the above-hinted-at site.

It is this site, this place of Wonderment-and-Punky-Brewster that is responsible (along with the recommendations of Bex, of course) for my newfound love interest, Veronica, a perky blond from Neptune, California. It is this site that allowed me to watch and be baffled by what I assume is the NYC answer to The OC, a little drama called "Gossip Girl" (which, by the way, super sucks, and managed to mortify me in many many ways, none more so than by the fact that the parents of the high school kids seem like they are barely older than I am - uh oh, Botox-io).

Anyway, this site is both good and bad, and I do fear it will cause me not to be able to say "I don't really watch television" anymore and get away with it (as if I could ever really get away with that one, right?).

BUT (and this is what I came here to tell you today), because of this site and the little fuzzy red "updated" next to it's myriad bounty, I discovered this show:

Chuck.

This is show is all about everything I have ever loved on TV. This show has elements of X-Files, 24, Arrested Development, Clerks/Mallrats (okay, not technically TV), Firefly, and The Office, just to name a few. If you can get past the main guy's not-even-remotely-disguised impersonation of our beloved Jim (John Krasinski) from The Office; overlook that the blond gal is sort of a Portia de Rossi/Ben Stiller's Wife knock off (actually, to be fair here, she's way better looking than both of those gals) and that she has sort of distracting teeth (though honestly I'd rather be distracted by her bunny teeth than by Portia's eyebrows and the fact that she sleeps with Ellen, but nevermind); not dwell on the weirdness of there being another show on TV with an unextraordinary, nebbishy, nerdy guy working in a "Big Box" type store suddenly developing an extraordinary life (but thanks to the evils of the devil, instead of the evils of the US guvment); and totally ignore the fact that entire thing is COMPLETELY implausible and ridiculous (less so than 24, though, so you viewers of that ongoing explosive pile will have no trouble suspending your disbelief, I hope), then you will love this little oeuvre.

It is exciting, it is funny, it is laughable, it is relatively suspenseful, it has cute boys and girls in it, it has crazy driving (in a Fiat Punta, Joosh pointed out to me, which are all over U.K and Ireland, but rarely seen in the likes of LA, and if they were they would be mistaken for, like, Ford Aspires, and by the way the name reminds me of a spanish curse word, but again, nevermind), absurd computer geek inside jokes and kick-ass fights, stabbings with poisoned hair accoutrements and other stunt-type hat tricks. But most of all it has our long-loved Jayne back on the airwaves*.

He didn't get a lot of play in the pilot episode, but what little he did get promised good things to come. At the end of the show, dressed in the full-on dork uniform of an Almost-But-Not-Exactly-Best-Buy employee, he has the old Knowle Roher/Jayne Cobb look on his face that I predict bodes well for future episodes. (Can I just say, though, I really liked Adam Baldwin better when he had some more meat on his bones? This gaunt faced/intense/trim/lean/angular/craggy thing he's got going on doesn't do it for me quite the same as the brawny doofus from Serenity. Wah.)

So yeah, "Chuck" is super dumb name for a show, as far as I'm concerned (then again, with this tagline: "an offbeat look at spies in their 20's," what the hell would I have called this show?!?), and Chuck's sidekick with the really crotchy facial hair is so far not deserving of airtime, but Chuck is darling and Jayne rocks almost anything, all the time, ever, oh and ps this show, as with so many others, has figured out that music is important to the likes of us and so the show has a very KCRWesque soundtrack. What's not to love?

Thank you tee vee dash ell eye enn kay ess dot see oh dot you kay. I am forever (for this week, anyway) in your debt.

*I just looked at Adam Baldwin's imdb page more in depth and he was on some crappy looking show last year called "Day Break" that I never heard of, and in addition to some other junk, he was on an episode of something called "Invader ZIM" and played a character called "Shplooger's Customer". I am dying.

**Update. I should have suspected from the name, but alas, I am not savvy in the ways of non-live-action television: "Invader ZIM" is indeed a cartoon, er, um, 'scuse me, I mean an animated series. Ahem. But seriously, who am I to judge, anyway... Brother's got to pay his mortgage, just like everyone else, right?