This (Amberican) Life

There's so much I could tell you.

2011-08-20T16:02:00.001-07:00

But instead I'm going to tell you only this:

You are extremely sad that you don't live here and therefor can't eat this ice cream.

It's like summer in your mouth. Or a shandy. Seriously. Come visit, you will not be sorry.

Called out.

2011-05-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

I keep getting called out by Jenny, and it's starting to be embarrassing. How long since I posted anything? Ummmm..... What can I say? I have nothing to write about! Okay, not exactly true, but most things get shared on Facebook or by email or in hours-long phone calls or via Twitter (gasp!) or the couch for Fancy Lady Writing Group (whenever any pieces actually get finished, which for me, I am loathe to admit, is rare). I feel as though I have nothing to report. Apparently, nobody from the old bloggin' crowd has much of anything to report. We have ceased amusing each other in the interworlds. Updates about children and angst and developments and whatnots have slowed to a crawl. I suppose everyone is busy living their lives instead of chronicling them. It's fine. I mean, it is what it is, right?

Except, of course there is a lot going on! People are building businesses and moving to Hawaii and starting school and putting themselves out there and traveling and producing sweet babies and raising adorable and brilliant children and buying houses and having 50th wedding anniversaries, recovering from trauma, mourning their fathers and trying to figure out what they want to do when they grow up (or turn 60, whichever comes first), seeing estranged family members, ignoring estranged family members and I don't know, all kinds of stuff, good and bad. All that blessed good and terrible messiness of life. It's a weird time we live in and so much hopeful positive delicate weird change is swirling around mixed up with the terrifying and the fear and threats of destruction across the planet and the cosmos. "May you live in interesting times" says the proverb, and boy howdy do we ever. Arab spring, climate change, Palestine, space program, elections, economies, China, food systems, ocean of plastic, peak oil... I have to stop the list, it's making me palpitate.

With a nod to the dangers of ignoring the bad to our own detriment, I must say that these days I try to focus on the goodness, the possibility, the promise, rather than the worrisome fearful terrifying and uncontrollable things. Do your best. Work with what you have. Make good choices. Don't stress to the infinitesimal details of each decision. So much is outside our reaches anyway. What am I trying to say, here? I really don't know anymore, but I feel like a beer might help me figure it out.

What takes up brain space now, in pie chart formation.

2010-01-06T00:48:00.000-08:00

And on that note...

Girl.

2009-12-14T23:26:00.000-08:00

Etsy Makes Me Seethe With Envy.

2009-11-01T00:37:00.000-07:00

Not material envy as much as creative envy, but seethe with it I do. Have you perused the site? It's the creative girls' wet dream, er, I meant to say a creative girl's Ebay, heh, yeah. It is also a bridal jackpot of crazy goodness, by the way (but that's a post for another time - and possibly another blog? I don't know, I'm still debating on that point, will keep you posted).

It, Etsy, is totally amazing. But it also makes me squirm with discomfort, as I spend far too many hours clicking next-next-next on the infinite returns to my search queries. I squirm because a) I have no money to spend on such non-essential things just now and b) it's not really the time, GlobalFinancialMeltdown-fully speaking, to be on the consumer kick (except it is, because that might help solve the whole insane crisis just a tiny bit, but then again see point a). On the other hand: it is supporting individuals in the economy; it is almost all art; it is helping to foster a more regional and/or alternative economy (in some cases more than others, I suppose, but especially here in Portland where a lot of the Saturday Market vendors have etsy pages) beyond the reach of the Walmart/Big Box/Trendoid culture that chewed us up and spit out in Roaring 90's/Insane Aughts. Still, I personally should not be augmenting my wardrobe (have fallen in total love with that crazy 18-in-one dress, oy! Am I nuts? I'm a little nutso, right?) at the moment, or fantasizing about all the lovely hand painted dishware I want to possess. Nor should I be spending all these hours imagining MAKING all the lovely handmade items I'm lusting after in the etsy coffers.

Because c) that is really what it comes down to. Not only to I want to own these things, but really I want to MAKE them. But with too many things on the old To Do list as well as the hey-that-would-be-fun project list (and far too many items uncrossed off of both, I might add) as well as the continually pushed back things-I-keep-meaning-to-get-to-like-buying-a-house-and-having-kids-and-stuff stuff, it would be insane to start yet another is-she-really-going-to-finish-it? project or fifty-three. However, since that's never stopped me before (and since I think we're pretty solid on the first-comes-love-then-comes-marriage-then-comes-baby-in-the-baby-carriage - who knew I'd wind up being so traditional? ha ha) please keep your eyes out for cheap plain white dishware for me, won't you? It's all part of the new kitchen in the new house that we will totally get around to buying one of these days soon.

On a semi-related note, I'm reading this vaguely self-helpish book by Barbara Sher called "Refuse to Choose" (yeah, yeah, don't judge, it's an awful name I know, and sadly the subtitle is even worse) that posits that some people (she calls them "Scanners" - I suspect someone could really use a verbiage coach to help polish her brilliant ideas, I'm just sayin') are naturally disinclined to choose a single focus, direction or profession. They are, instead, predisposed to fits and spurts of creative energy, ideation and inspiration, but are inhibited by an increasingly specializing and speciality focused society that requires a single focus or direction at one time and doesn't allow for much jumping around, and, well, blah blah blah and so forth (it's actually a good and useful book, I really am not intending to mock it - though I may just be saying that because it totally justifies my entire existence, but anyway...).

So there's an exercise in there that has the reader draw a floor plan/map of their home and then walk through it and write down every project (conceptual, finished, barely started, never past the supply-purchasing phase, all of it) and mark them down in each room where they sit/live/were conceived of/etc. And I must say: As an exercise? Totally. Effing. Fascinating. As a reality check? Honestly a little depressing, because man is that floor plan jam freaking packed. You would think by looking at it that the only things furnishing this place were unfinished craft projects, stacks of scribbled on paper under strange art materials, undulled tools, and dusty instruments.

Of course any and all creative/crafty/planning energy these days is all being siphoned off into the tubular world of Wedding Planning (duh dun duuuuuuuum!). And work stuff, client web sites and marketing writing and project planning, of course. Of course? Um, yeah, not really. It's all about the wedding "art and vision" right now, I'm sad to admit - seriously, I'm *that* girl all of a sudden. Example: Mark and Jess brought the kids over in their costumes tonight and caught me watching videoed photo montages from random weddings. Complete with heartstring-tugging background music. In the dark. Oy. At least it's all internet these days, no trees were harmed in the making of this bridal porn!

And that leads me back to the oh-so-many wedding related things to discuss. Venues. Kilts. Girls, I have some ideas about your ensembles. So, probably going to create a moment-in-time blog for the discussions of all that biz. Not sure I can stomach it living here. We'll see.

It's all good, nothing need be decided now. The only thing I need to worry about now is my addiction to all things Etsy, DIY and bridalscape smut-y.

I Blame Facebook.

2009-10-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

When you've started blogging purely to keep up with bloggity-blah and distant friends, and then all of those up-keepers end up on Facebook, chatting and photo-sharing and thumbs-upping away, why would you bother to continue with the keep-ups-ing in the blogosphere?

That's right. You wouldn't.

Unless you had a kid or two, and lots of non-MyFace addicted or non-tech savvy family and friends needing to be kept informed of the goings on in the non-electronical areas of your life.

Unless you maintain a semi-anonymous persblogonality while in the throes of law school, as a place to comment on culture and happenings and random thoughts and all the unspeakable gossips of the intense campus/community/field into which you have begun to dip first your toes and then all the various appendages into, and about which you would not dare risk snarkifying in the SpaceBook realm due to the long, long, loooong memory of the oh-so-mature folks and future colleagues therein (but which really must be shared with friends, family, and the world at large because OH COME ON, PEOPLE, SERIOUSLY?!!).

Unless you simply want to write it all down and remember because your brain, well, your poor rusty brain is beginning to forget the day-to-dayness of it all and it would be nice to have a record of just what the eff all the time has been spent upon...

But if you started tap tap tapping away in a blogger window not just as a connection to the far-scattered friends and loved ones, but as a connection to the words that tended to escape, to the page and to the pages, and to the Giant Bubble Machine of a world out there, with so much going on every minute - spit out at you via RSS feed or Headline News or Alerts in the inbox - well, Facebook doesn't do a very swell job with all of that, I'm afraid. In fact, I'd say it manages to almost instantly (within a few replies, anyway) trivialise or diminish most everything posted or discussed within its pages (and I say that despite the experience of having the very choicest news of MJ's death being broken to me via Twitter/FB feed from a cousin in Italy, a full 30 minutes before CNN changed their headline from "grave condition" to "DEAD" - - - of course that's a moral of the story for another time). You may disagree. That's fine, I'll allow it. Let's chat about it over on my wall, shall we?

But really, I should never have stepped away, because Facebook (though I do love you, you sweet, innocently addictive crackpipe you) is no place for the in-depth, for the thoughtful, for the lengthy.* It is a place for photos, photo-essays even, edged with storytelling captions, but lacking any graciousness for the story itself. It is the land of the virtual connection, the shorthand, the easy way to reach out and click "Like!" and let someone know you are thinking of them, that you know they are out there, that you give a shit about what they are doing and saying and snapping and sharing. And for this I maintain many, daily, truly heartfelt appreciations and admirations. However, it is hardly the venue for the longer, harder, dare I say fancier braindumps and certainly not for the writings and the by-products of the (now rare) ass-in-chair, brain-to-hand scribblings, tappety-tappings or snip-snap cut-n-pastes. It's no place for the actual, I fear.

So I blame Facebook. And the sweet flood of relief of post-inauguration America-the-Beautiful that made it okay not to think but. at. all. for a few months in the blissful thereafter. And I blame therapy, of which I've certainly had too much by now.** And laziness. And indecision. And travel to California. And not getting into graduate school, AGAIN. And ambivalence. And efforts elsewhere, in strange small piles of intention and (in)action. And oh oh, gardening, the garden! I totally, lovingly, longingly blame the garden! And about a million fluid ounces of love and contentment from the constant stream of houseguests that fluttered through our giant drafty house from May to October (love love love).

But now there is no excuse. And barring babies and grad school or any tangible plans at taking over the world with my verve, vim and vigor, I'll just have to stick with what pours out of the pockets between the cranium and the sacrum and see what takes shape back here in this blackness.

So - Hi. How've you been keeping yourself these days, months and years?

*I claim none of those but the third. Ahem.

**Though I can justify the time in years (if not the money in dollars) by the simple math of twice-a-month = double the length of the process versus the standard once-a-week analysis. Right? Right.

Auf Wiedersehen.

2009-01-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

Don't stumble on the way out, deary.

Hi, I love you.

2008-10-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, hi. Hi there. How're ya? Ya good?

See, I know it's been a very long time. And I actually have a lot to say to you, my sweet Interwebs, but things have been so so so so so busy lately, that I haven't been able to sit and organize any thoughts (let alone the photos, oy the photos!) to send your direction. I will try, I will. Very soon.

When? After I'm done packing for our move to the giant house this weekend, and have finished the 2500 word article I have to write for one class, and written and practiced the 10 minute story I will be presenting orally (snicker) for another class, and have trained the new girl at the Wellness center, and read three loooooong books for school, and workshopped 7 articles for the first class and read some Flannery O'Connor for the second, and previewed tons of good/bad/heinous submissions for the Portland literary magazine I've committed my eyeballs and exceptional discernment (ha) services to each week, and organized the next meeting for my writing group (that I've COMPLETELY dropped the ball on, you guys, I'm sorry - I'll make it up to you with fancy drinks and an extra large deck on which to smoke your wicked writerly cigarettes), and cleaned my old small pretty apartment, and cleaned my new giant weird house, and phone banked at least once more and hosted my awesome Obamania brother for a post-election decompression, and hopefully having thrown the celebration of the century after the Election in a few weeks. THEN I will sit and put it all down here for posterity. For myself. Because I'm old and I have started to forget things. And for the five of you who might be curious as to what's been happening all up in these here Northwest parts.

So I will tell you about the new house, and my Facebook addiction, and Josh's birthday, and the weird coincidences that have been happening lately, and the dream I had about Jojo giving birth to twins (actually a very fun dream, all things and strange subject matter considered), and perhaps I will have more interesting stories to tell you. For the moment, all my words have been reserved for the classes I impetuously signed up for a few weeks ago.

In the meantime, lacking anything of substance, please watch the following, compliments of Z The Wonder Volunteer, who keeps me well liquored in the lubricating grease of campaign and peripheral greatness:

I know you won't judge me when I confess to thinking these two too skinny Ruskies are hot. Especially not after you hear the "I love you" at the end. I love Al Gore, or whoever invented the internet. I don't know how I lived a life before it came to be.

The Great Schlep.

2008-10-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Makes me yearn for some retired grandparents in FLA. Oh well. I'll have to be content with the wary California voting pair that I do have. I don't think they really want to vote or Obama, but they will. So you don't have to worry about Cali. Phew!

What Kind Of Special Bus Rider Are You? Vote!

2008-10-02T00:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Bex for this one. I am essentially too lazy to email five friends, so instead I'll post here, for my five friends to see for themselves.

Of course my five friends are truly the chorus to which I am preaching as I know y'all are already registered and ready to go, chomping at the bit to cast your ballot. Let's hope it counts.

Weirdest And Probably Least Significant Synchronicity Ever.

2008-09-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

I just had the weirdest experience sitting here at my lovely computer perusing the latest news in the global financial titanic sinking mess of an election season (my favorite quote so far in my 7 minutes of surfing: "“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” President Bush declared Thursday as he watched the $700 billion bailout package fall apart before his eyes, according to one person in the room." Very confidence inspiring, so eloquent).

Anyway, in my internet wanderings, I happened across this disgusting bit of indigestible information, in photo form:

This is a photo of a McD's hamburger. From 1996. No no, not the photo. The photo was taken recently. But the hamburger was purchased in 1996. No joke.

How totally disgusting is that? It reminds me of the Snoballs (yellow, by the way - is that not somehow very very wrong to color those suckers yellow? maybe not, cause who hasn't pissed in snow, right? but this, this can probably be considered wrong) that Sara from N&T gave me as a housewarming present in 2002, that still sit on my shelf today. They are dusty and the packing is getting a little swollen (outgassing?) but are nonetheless intact. I'm saving them for the apocolypse.

So I'm reading the accompanying article (tirade, really) about nutrition and how gross and chemical fast food is, particularly burgers like this self-preserving one, when I suddenly became aware of a song on the radio that I thought was just ambient vocalizing is instead starting to sound a lot like the word "hamburger" being chanted slowly and repeatedly. Funny, I thought. I must be thinking about the word 'hamburger' and thus imprinting that on these weirdo didgeridoo-like sounds being emitted from KCRW.com.

Um, no. Suddenly the slow mild string of low consonants and vowels changes and very distinctly prounounces a long guttural "Cheeseburger" several times in a row, followed by a line of "Big Mac Big Mac Big Mac" and I have a momentary out-of-body experience where I wonder if maybe I'm still asleep and dreaming? What's going on here. I'm looking at a hamburger and being serenaded by a supremely not-normal, not radio-worthy ditty: an ode to meat patties. What the hell? What is going on? Am I manifesting some kind of weird trip? Am I creating my universe? Where am I? I must be sleeping. This is too weird.

It only took a minute to snap back to reality and run off to the playlist feature at KCRW.com and discover that no no, they really were playing a song about the humble (lowly?) hamburger. It was just one of those odd coincidences in life, where two random pieces of your day line up perfectly and practically talk at you with a hammer-bang of consciousness. Usually these sorts of synchronicities have more meaning, however, and I feel like I glean something interesting from the awareness of whatever intersection is laying out before me. Hamburgers, however, I don't know. I am having a hard time figuring out what I am supposed to walk away with from this one-step-off-moment.

Any insight you can provide would be most appreciated. Here, go listen, then stare at the above photo while doing so. Let me know what you come up with.

V. Important.

2008-09-26T08:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Bex for this one. I think it's important enough to repeat here. Why aren't we seeing these clips, these images of Iraq in mainstream media? I have no doubt it would make a difference in the polls.

F.

Best Of Intentions.

2008-09-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

I had every intention of posting a photo of a mid-summer Farmers Market haul, a sort of "this is what $20 bux'll get ya in Stumptown" sort of thing, prompted by a convo I had with KDog last week in Ventura... But alas, in spite of the blogg-o-guilting, I just can't find the photos.

I know they are around here somewhere, but as I'm drowning in technology and everything looks and sounds the same to me half the time ("Oh this is the 1Gig micro sd card in an adapter, huh, have you seen the 80meg sd card anywhere, cause it's got my summer photos on it") and Joosh has no discernable system of organizing all the little bits, I'm totally lost. I'm nearly certain I backed up all the photos before he left on his roadtrip (dispatches from which I am clearly extremely late in updating, heavysighwhatever). However, I can't find the USB stick onto which I think they were copied, nor can I remember on which of the three laptops (in various states of disrepair, lest you get the wrong idea) we have floating around right now did I make extra-super-duper-secure-thirdly-backed-up back ups? So. Um. Moving on until tomorrow when I can bug my tech guy to please please pretty please find my photos please and thanks!

So instead, I want to tell you about two exciting things.

1) My brother Z is in day one of a five-week stint as a sort of local organizingCaptain for the Obama campaign, organizing throngs of out-of-state and local volunteers in Nevada. He's staying in some lady's Vegas house, along with his old roommate and basically working 7 days a week supporting teams of canvassers, phone bank callers, etc. He's staying in said lady's guest house, actually, with a pool, jacuzzi, tennis courts, the whole shebang... but likely he'll not have time to enjoy these much, it would seem from his schedule so far. It sounds like they have a shit-ton of work to do, all day, every day. I saw him online at midnight, and he was still at the headquarters after a long day. Mmmm, Politics. It's going to be intense. But all this work is so important, and really seems like it stands to make a difference. As he put it on the MyFace: Gonna turn it blue for Obama! This is so exciting.

2) Which brings me to: Opportunities to make a difference without giving up 5 weeks of your life...

I'm really impressed with the Obama campaign for all of its innovative strategies toward volunteers, outreach, connecting with the masses of voters who are out there, who may not be engaged, who may not have access to accurate representations of the campaigns, folks who may get all of their information from the absurd sound bites into which much of the issues and policy nuances have been reduced. The simple act of phone banking, including the request to bring your own cell phone (free weekend minutes!), and the fact that you can sign up to make calls from home in your own time (whaaaa?) is amazing.

Check the website: there is probably a phone banking timeslot open in your area this weekend.

Another goodie that I just found out about is detailed here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/organizing/gpl9km

It's essentially filling out postcards with a few words about why you support Obama, putting .27 cent stamps on them, and mailing them en masse (bulk envelope) to campaign headquarters in swing states, where volunteers will address and mail them locally to undecided voters (I think). Maybe this is totally simple, but I think it's totally brilliant. The fact that we can all spend 15 minutes and $5 bux, in our own time and do something positive for the campaign is terrific.

Here in Portland there is a gal organizing a group Postcard-ing event at a local coffee shop. As the cards should be state or locally focused (the personal touch?), she is going to have some sort of handmade card printing situation - Gocco? - plus some cards already dry and ready to be filled out in case you're short on time. Rad. I am truly impressed.

I hope you might have a few minutes to purchase and fill out a few postcards, in this case prior to September 30, but also keep checking the MyBarackObama site for updates.

Here's why:

If you care to know about some of the crap going on behind the scenes, or just in case you are at work or school or the kids are napping and you're reading this with some time on your hands, I will leave you with two articles that totally made my blood run cold. One of which I am especially trying to take with appropriate grains of salt, but both of which leave me terrified all the same. There is a significant internal battle being waged in me this minute and pretty much all the time, between the forces of good hopeful optimism (all my Peace Studies/all you need is love/namaste understanding of the universe) and the rotten fungal spores of FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) that multiply like infectious bacteria in my heart.

As with so many things that have happened in the last 8 years, I keep thinking: this can't possibly be. How is it that we find ourselves here? On every level - civil rights, privacy, torture (TORTURE!!!), environment (acceptable amounts of toxics in our food and in our bodies and melting icecaps, rising waters, shifting weather, dead oceans, lone-star-state sized plastic-filled gyres in the Pacific... the tips of the icebergs), healthcare, economy, energy, integrity of the election system, foreign policy, the war, veteran treatment, infrastructure, secrecy, blatant horrible croneyism, disaster capitalism, the bankrupting of the future... This. Cannot. Be.

So let's try to make sure that it will no longer be... that would be great. And I hope it's not too late. Because according to these two, we're in even bigger trouble than you might think:

Per RFK, Jr. ("Is your vote safe?") we are sliding down the slope here, Sisyphuses, all of us. And we all responsible for making sure our fundamental system of demanding change - the act of voting - is intact. We've already been sold electronic voting machines, which are a total effing unverifiable crock bought sold and managed by Republican interests, and now hundreds of thousands of mostly democratic voters are being scrubbed from the registration rolls. WTF, America?

Per Naomi Wolf (my grain of salt taker-with-er), Sarah Palin (don't EVEN get me started on this lady, jesus christ) is the Trojan Horse of the Police State Apocolypse. It's a tad bit conspiracy theoryish, but on the other hand, so many things that I would have chalked up to tin-foil hat-wearing kooks have turned out to be horrifyingly true so maybe she's a Cassandra and not a harpy.

Oh, and also (this is totally why I shouldn't blog late at night - I cannot be trusted to maintain coherence or frame of reference or keep it under a million words of rambledom), I suggest listening to some Naomi Klein interviews about all of the Wall Street bail out shenanigans going on right now.

So I had the best of intentions for a nice easy short and sweet entry of fruit and veg from our kick ass local market, and instead you get this half-hopeful & yay-we-can-do-it/half-dismal we're-in-for-more-puke-worthy-rides-on-the-shit-coaster post and all I can say is something about the road to hell being paved with all my bests and leave you to go about your business.

Happy Friday (?).

Double check your registration status. Then go buy some postcards, write a few nice things on 'em and mail them to Ohio. Do it for the children.

Dear Small World of Mine - A Treat for You.

2008-09-08T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hurry up and go to this website and watch this video before the woman responsible for it yanks it and puts up something else.

Bite My Cookie .
http://bite-my-cookie.blogspot.com/

BMC, whose web site you'll visit by clicking above, is one of my favorite ladies in Portland. She is fierce, a firecracker, a connector, a scrape-the-lining-of-her-insides-out-for-you-if-you-need-it, a ball of energy and chaos and giant-hearted snark. She's funnier than sin. She has the most adorable family (this is heresay, or blogsay, I guess, as I've not actually met them yet) and a neverendingstory of stories to tell that will make you cry with hysteria. Also, she makes the best cookies in all the land. Hopefully she's going to have a rad website selling these cookies in the next week or two (if someone you know and love can get her ess-aytch-eye-tea together ay-ess- ay-pee).

In the meantime, she's just had the ultimate crapperfull of a hellish experience in business wherein all of her talent and energy and huge vats of effort got swallowed up by The Man (in the collective patriarchal sense, as well as in the penis-bearing-personage pissing absurdities on a years worth of bloodsweatmoneytears sort of way). I think she's trying to sit still for a moment, water the roots at the base of the pruned bush, so to speak, gather her strength for the next thing. But in the meantime, she offers periodic treats on her site, but just like the incredible cookies she bakes, you've gotta run and get em while they're hot. I can't guarantee that what you'll see when you click above will be the video to which I am directing you, but hey, don't shoot the messenger.

So go, run, click, do it. BMC recently took down her archives, which were time-suckingly entertaining (and which I used to read long before I met her at work by happenstance one day, long before I realized that she was BFFs with an LA blogger, Rebecca Wolf, long linked on this site that I'd been reading for months and months.) Anyway, you unfortunately will not have the honor of experiencing those BMC, days-gone-by, belly-laughing posts, but please, please please go watch her darling 4 year old give a life lesson about what it means to be four. It is beyond precious, absolutely sums up four years old - and the important bits of life in a nutshell, really - in under a minute and a half.

Ps - I got two hours of sleep last night, due to an early morning airport run for Le Mama and some damn inconvenient insomnia involving a terribly unnecessary late night fixation on h'ors d'oeuvres (because I am retarded) for this weekend's shower-to-end-all-showers for our darling Joj, so please forgive if this entire post makes no sense, which I suspect it may not, but am too wiggy to double check. Bottom line, go watch the vid - I can't imagine you'll be sorry.

So Pretty Much The Same Methods Apply For Governing As For Grooming...

2008-09-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

Further Dispatchings From The Roadtrip On Which I Am Not: Day 3.

2008-09-04T00:35:00.001-07:00

Day 3: Reno to BFE. Er, Eureka, Nevada. 243 Miles.

Hwy 50 and 722 Junction. Made a wrong turn.. and then a wrong turn again. Then had to back track.. Ah well.. This is on our way to Austin NV.

[The terrific and talented Todd. Teaches Tai Chi. Does some wicked energy movement with acupuncture. Tells scads of disgusting dirty jokes. Thinks farts are a riot and a half (KDog, I hear you giggling over there). Ladies, he is indeed single. Line forms to the right. Don't push.]

International Cafe in Austin Nevada. And the city.... er town... um.. village? Hamlet? Our waitress was charming enough.. in that classic rural way. what was especially endearing is when she brought us out our veggie burger I asked which one was the no tomato. She dug around in the stack of plant matter and said that well they both had tomato but she said could take them out. I said it was ok and just had the [finger prodded] veggie patty. [All I have to say is: "Kiss my Grits" because what else is there to say?]

This is a poster that was in a door of the local hardware store. Not sure what the storm is that it warns to be prepared for.. or why 2008 is so important. Maybe somebody can explain? [Come on all you GOP-loving, gun-toting, evil-smiting, storm-weathering readers of my blog - Bexy, Mark, Mama - give the rest of us liberal shaloobs some sugar, don't let us be caught out in the storm without shining the light of illumination and salvation upon our heathen breasts. Please?]

This is some where between Eureka and Ely (pronounced E-Lee) in Nevada.

Oh and the last picture is of some locals that came out to check us out. [You can almost sense a slackened jaw, and I don't mean that rudely - honest.]

Nothingness. But so nice.

It is hard to convey with these pictures how truly empty it is out here. At first it is kinda boring, riding for miles after miles and it is so empty. Then when you stop and take your helmet off, it is so quiet. And that is so weird, how quiet and how empty nothingness is.. then it so... well awesome and nice and well very cool. I don't think I would like live here, but for some reason, it refreshes my soul a bit.
NEXT UP: Day 4 - photographic proof we need a better digital camera.

Dispatch From A Roadtrip I'm Not On: Day 2 [Now With Brackets]

2008-09-03T12:51:00.000-07:00

Joosh's words as they streamed in on the intertubes. [My comments in brackets].

Day 2: Klamath Falls to Reno, to meet up with OMT. 271 Miles.

Hitting the road. 10:31am. [Looks like he's pulling out of a gas station. Nice that gas prices have dipped, but I hope it doesn't put America back in their SUVs.]

42 miles south of klamath falls on Hwy 39. I think that is the back side of mount shasta. [At first I thought he was retarded - I mean joking - but if you enlarge the pic, the tip of a glacial-topped mountain does indeed rise above the rest smack in the center of the photo, just to the left of the tree in the middle of the frame]. 215 miles to go. Cold, windy but beautiful.

This [gravel] will slow you down when you ride on two wheels.
Eagle lake 25 miles NW of susanville.

There are a lot of sea birds here. A bunch of pelicans just flew over head. [254 miles from the coast, mind you.]

Hopefully there is some good food in the next town cuz I'm starving. [You can imagine, I'm sure, how hard it must be for a vegetarian to find decent food on the road? Especially the more inland he gets? I wonder if this will be the thing that breaks him...]

From Nevada looking back at California. [So standing in Sodom, looking back at Gomorrah? Commence with the hookers.]

[Joosh and OMT met up in Reno and stayed with a friend of OMT, an interesting sounding fellow basically manages his wealth for a living. (Why wasn't that an option on my career aptitude test in High School, hmmm?). He is modest, drives normal cars, no flash, but does own a hill in Reno on top of which is a house with exceptional views. That is the only thing I know about him, other than that his wife is a teacher and that they were kind enough to put up the stinky sweaty roadsters for a night. Gracias, nice humble rich stranger man.]

So vicarious road tripping: Are we having fun yet? Oh just wait. Just you wait and see.

Next up: Further traverses into the interior, into the more misunderestimated sections of this great nation. Places you and I might not want to live forever, but people do. People do.

Dispatch From A Roadtrip I'm Not On: Days 1 & 2

2008-08-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

"There she is... Miss America." Honda ST1100. Don't remember the year.

Joosh is off. I am abandoned for a two-week venture with OMT* that will see them travel Easy Rider-style through several states, ending up in South Dakota (Wounded Knee, and no, he won't be burying any hearts, I already asked and he rolled his eyes mightily in my direction). About 200 - 250 miles a day. Sore bottoms will abound.

So that we may all enjoy the sights and sounds of this, our great nation, as they roll through, I offered something of a vicarious blogging situation wherein Joosh can send photos and some brief information, and I will in turn share it with you. I had hoped to speak with him at length in the evenings in order to fill out the narrative a bit, but since this is day two and that has not yet happened, I think that maybe I'll just go ahead and make up the stuff to fill in the gaps. Kidding. (Mostly).

Day 1 - Portland to Klamath Falls. 296 miles.
Joosh kept calling Klamath Falls "Clackamas" for some reason, which is only like 12 miles away. It was confusing. Also? I always thought there were two M's in "Klamath" but I guess I was terribly wrong. Huh.

He hit the road after a morning of dawdling and packing, around 1:30pm. Off to Clackamas Falls. I'd had a super hearty laugh when at one point he sat down and I noticed a seam looking a little precarious in the crotchal region of his jeans and said, "You want me to fix the hole in your dick... jeans?" He looked at me quizzically and said "Nooooooooo. Thanksssss." In my weakened state from all these days and days of being sick in bed, I have clearly lost my ability to communicate. But man I could not stop saying the word "dickjeans" (because oh yeah, that's a word now, people) and cracking up. Which was excellent for phlegm loosening, let me tell you.

There was some sort of big Washington/Oregon game in Eugene and rolling through was apparently quite trafficky and unfun. This photo was taken just south of there (if I'm not mistaken). I suppose we're to admire the bike and notice the long road ahead.

Salt Creek Falls.
You stay? You pay!
The Ranger would only let him stop for a minute to put on warmer gear (it was about 54 at this point). Otherwise he'd need to pony up the $5-a-day day use fee.

Odell Lake.
Just came over the pass.
It was cold.
Got down to 47.

This is my favorite dispatch from the road so far. Here, let me quote: "Sketchy rest stop 68 miles from klamath falls. Put on the rest of my warm gear. There was a really scuzzy looking old guy that kept asking me if I needed anything. He said he could make me a really good deal. He didn't say what he was selling and I wasn't gonna ask. Unfortunately he got really irritated when I tried to take his pic. He didn't seem to have a car so I don't know how he got there. He took off when some state troopers stopped to use the facilities."

Shall we wager whether this guy was selling drugs or a BJ? Hmmmm? If Joosh was wearing full leathers, I wouldn't even have to ask the question because Helloooooo, Papa Bear.

God, he's going to kill me if/when he reads this post.

Moving on.

Upper Klamath Lake.

About 7pm.

15 miles to the lovely hotel I had found on Hotels.com and booked for him. The Maverick Hotel. (Very timely, yes? What with the old coot choosing his unexpected running mate, proving he's just a jolly old independent spirit like always? Ugh.)

The hotel got some good reviews for being way cheap and shockingly clean and tidy for the degree of cheapness. I reserved a non-smoking room for the boy at $45 per night. Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me? I rock.

Then came the food finding:
What passes for Pra Ram in Klamath Falls (left).

And Mango with Sticky Rice. Hold the mango. So, um, sticky rice. With cream white goo sauce on it. And no mango. Even though he ordered mango. It happens. I guess. Right?

So listen. Vicarious blogging Day One while G-chatting with my brother about this ridiculous election and Tom & Jerry cartoons and other highly important matters (is Sarah Palin's Down Syndrome baby her daughter or her - gasp - GRANDDAUGHTER?!?!) has completely worn me out. We're gonna have to pick up this party again tomorrow.

Love you, babe. Be safe out there on the wide open road. Watch out for hookers in Nevada and Mormons in Utah. And vice versa (I know they can sometimes be hard to tell apart - Katherine Heigl, I'm looking at you).

Day Two. Klamath Falls, OR to Reno, NV. To be continued.

*OMT is "Old Man Todd" - not to be confused with the much younger BabyDaddy Todd or BDT, who also lives in Ventura. BDT is a good long story for another time.

Shout Out To Scout (And Other Random Pet News).

2008-08-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

A shout out to Scout. Scout Bakken, that is.

After being sick in bed for five days, I finally went out for a brief spell this morning, to have breakfast with Joosh at an establishment we've taken lots of visitors to, mostly because it's cheap and has giant plates of goodness, but also because their motto (printed right on the menu) is "You Eat Here Because We LET You" and I like a little sass with my fast-breaking.

As we left our neighborhood, I thought how nice it would be to take a walk again, recalling that my last walk was a super one with a darling darling dog named Scout, a Norwegian Elk Hound (who knew?) with a terrific personality.

If you know me, you know I'm not a dog person, but I am partial to this sweet one and did indeed find myself wishing that Scout was available for some walkies (as Joosh and I call it when we take a stroll around the 'hood - and yes, we say it in sort of a sing-song pre-school voice: "Walk-eeeees" because that is how we behave when not in mixed company, I am both proud and mortified to admit to you here). If I can get Scout's parentals to pass over a photo, I will post it here, because she's truly a darling and unusual creature, often getting stopped and admired by strangers everywhere she trots. I was glad to have the chance to hang out with her while Moms and Pops were at a Wilco concert in Bend last weekend.

* * *

In other animal news, my stepsister friended me on Facebook yesterday. We've not spoken nor had any real words since her brief reply to my "Happy Birthday" email of last December, where she basically said thanks, and told me that I should write to my father as he'd probably like to know that I was all right. Ugh. Since when does she care about my dad? She despises the man (though she says he's good for her mom - which I have no opinion on either way). So she and I have never talked about last summer, she's never asked to hear my side of the whole fiasco, and she's still fairly dependent on the folks for support while she's finishing school in England, so I don't expect she'll ever broach it. Plus she pretty well freaked out last time I revealed a story that didn't match up to the official version she was given, and couldn't handle that her mother had conceivably lied to her, and started to short circuit in a very unpretty way. Subject was quickly dropped before new meds had to be ordered.

ANYWAY, my point here: She told me, in our Facebook chat, that my folks in Mexico have adopted two little sister kittens and named them "Fanny" and "Mae."

Which at first I thought was completely adorable and Jew-y and sweet. Then my sister typed: "Get it?" Oooh. Reallllllly. Huh.

I imagined them in their brand new 3000 sq foot slave-labor-built, staff-serviced fiefdom looking down over the ex-pat dominated and newly yuppified old town of San Miguel while people all over the US are losing their homes from the shitty decisions that resulted in things like the Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac meltdown and how the worst is likely still to come and how they moved South to exploit the cheaper services and healthcare available on the backs of the indigenous in Mexico rather than fight for something better here (and they had it just fine, here, by the way) and man, I just wanted to voo-doo dollhouse their new crib down the side of a mountain.

Saving the kittens, of course, because excepting the insensitive reference, little sister kitties named Mae and Fanny would be nothing short of idiot-smiles and awwwwww-worthy adorable.

Oliver William is Heading This Way!

2008-08-28T15:14:00.001-07:00

Sorry, please to forgive the ridiculous pun. But my brother just recently turned me on to the absurd farewell that goes something like "Time to make like a fetus and head out" and it somehow seems appropriate to use in this crazy moment when I've been told that a certain mom-to-be is fully dilated and ready to birth her babe any minute! So very exciting.

Wishing you all the best in the universe, Doc and Mister Doc. We're all so excited to welcome Oliver.

100 Things to Consume Before You Die.

2008-08-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

This list is the 100 things that Very Good Taste thinks everyone should eat at least once in their life.

Instructions were:

1) Bold all the items you’ve eaten. (Except bold white doesn't really look very bold, so I've made them red, unless they are blue, which indicate active links to explanations, some of which are DIS-gusting... you have been warned).
2) ~~Cross out~~ any items that you would never consider eating.
3) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison - mmm, had some of this fried up in Crisco at Jojo's aunt and uncle's house in a remote part of Oregon in the summer between Junior and Senior year of high school. Right before I stepped on a nail and punctured the arch of my foot through my cheap ass Payless ankle boots (which are totally popular again, strangely enough).
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros - what Californian hasn't eaten these? Maybe one's who don't like eggs or beans. Maybe.
4. Steak tartare - tempted to cross this out. Not a big fan of beef, so raw beef? Hmmmm, no. But I suppose I could try a tiny bite in the interest of culinary adventure.
5. Crocodile
6. Black Pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp - Jessica, look away.
9. Borscht - I could live on this for a few weeks. The food of my people. With sour cream. Delicious.
10. Baba ghanoush - mmmmm.
11. Calamari - in many many many preparations. Tentacles and all.
12. Pho - not so much of the beef stomach-y varieties, but some really good rich brothy goodness sans intestines.
13. PB&J sandwich - I think it's weird that this is on here. But that's cool.
14. Aloo gobi - yes, ma'am, veddy veddy good, ma'am. (that is not racist, shut up).
15. Hot dog from a street cart - Before reading "The Jungle" in 11th Grade, yes. Now, hot dogs in general? Not so much.
16. Epoisses - many a runny stinky cheese have I eaten, and from the description, I'm sure that I've ingested this one. The color was particularly disconcerting, knowing that something bacterial in nature came up with the exceptional shade of orangey pinkishness on the rind.
17. Black truffle - but of course.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - True story: Went to Korean food the other night with niece Heather and her BFF Spencer (before their shitty car wreck in Crescent City) and among the varieties of wine was Blackberry, Pomegranate and Wild Mountain Berry. I was very excited about all (Korean wine? Fruit flavors? Whaaa?) and settled on the Wild Mountain Berry, because, well, I don't really know. It sounded exotic and wild. Out comes the bottle on which appears the words "Wild Grapes" along with a picture of grapes similar to the one on a bottle of Manischewitz. And guess what the wine tasted like? Yes, it tasted like Passover. But I've had some fabulous elderberry wine in Scotland, so I can at least check this off of this very strange list.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries - are you kidding me? My favorite summer activity in this lovely new state of mine.
23. Foie gras - don't judge. It was in the very foodie San Francisco 90's. If there were protesters then, I didn't notice them. And by the way? It's totally delicious.
24. Rice and beans - More than is necessary, I'm sure.
25. Brawn or head cheese - I wish I could say that I'd not tried this, but since I'm sort of a try-everything-once kind of gal, I have indeed had the displeasure. No likey.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper - does smelling one count?
27. Dulce de leche - yummo.
28. Oysters - smoked, fried, raw, stewed in seafoody concoctions, scrambled in an omelet, but in general I am very ambivalent about them.
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda - not to my knowledge. A mix of anchovies, garlic, walnut oil, cream? Into which you dip roasted veggies and whatnot, similar to a fondue. I think I would remember that. Sounds good. And yet not at the same time.
31. Wasabi peas - why is this on here?
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl - more times in more places than I can possibly count. Probably never again, however, considering the wheat content of both sourdough and most variations of chowder. Wah.
33. Salted lassi — Does a mango lassi count?
34. Sauerkraut - not a big fan.
35. Root beer float - best sleepover dessert next to a sundae bar. Also, a bunch of local breweries here craft their own rooty brews, and damn if they aren't f-i-i-i-n-e.
36. Cognac with a fat cigar - I suppose separately doesn't count? Together sounds wretched.
37. Clotted cream tea - thanks, Britain.
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O shot - Yes.... (shudder)
39. Gumbo - awwww hawwww, sho' have.
40. Oxtail — Oxtail soup count? Then yes. Thank you, Scotland.
41. Curried goat - better than you'd think.
42. Whole insects - not on purpose! Actually I did once eat chocolate covered ants. I guess that counts.
43. Phaal - sounds dangerous to eat curry that hot, but what do I know.
44. Goat’s milk - unfortunately (thanks, 1979, thanks Mrs. Gooches). It is not an exaggeration to say that it tastes (or used to taste) like goats smell. Which is to say: unpleasant.
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more - awwww yeah, and I highly recommend it.
46. Fugu - blowfish. Have not yet intentionally tempted death while eating. Clearly something to consider.
47. Chicken tikka masala - yes, and I love it and I must give credit where credit is due, which I think belongs to Tisa Read for ordering this one during our Indian Food/Watching "Friends" nights back in Berkeley.
48. Eel - surprisingly delicious and quite un-slithery.
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut - overrated.
50. Sea urchin - not really a fan, I must say.
51. Prickly pear - besides the one I grabbed off a cactus while drunk (it looked smooth in the dark) and the sliver from the bottom of a fermenty drink, I've not actually had much experience with these.
52. Umeboshi - not sure if it counts, but I did eat one of this that was sitting at the bottom of a bottle of fermented plum sake. And it was rad.
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald's Big Mac meal - I can't f*cking believe this is on here. Even worse? I now have "Two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese" in my head. Wah. And yes, I ate many of these in the dog days of my mother's returning to school when I was a child and having to spend a lot of time in the car driving all over the valley for various errands and crap. I'm sure there are still pieces of Mickey D's beef lining my colon. Though now that I think about it, I was more partial to Fish Filets. Good times.
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV - I am not a super beer lover, but living in a town nicknamed "Beervana," consuming things in this category happens on a pretty regular basis.
59. Poutine - this cheese curd and gravy covered french fry dish sounds totally horrifying, but I'm assured it is delish. I'm sure.
60. Carob chips - raised on these babies. Don't knock it till you try it. And no, it's not anything like chocolate, no matter how many times yer mom tries to tell you that it is. But it's still tasty.
61. S’mores - oh, god, how I miss these. Someone needs to make a gluten-free graham cracker.
62. Sweetbreads - sadly, yes, at some fancy restaurant in SF years ago. Eh. Don't really understand why this is a thing.
63. Kaolin - edible clay, huh? Pass. I suppose I'd try it if magically appeared in front of me, but wouldn't go out of my way to procure such things.
64. Currywurst - um, urban dictionary has a lovely definition of this, which I suggest you not click on if you have a weak constitution. "Cheap and unhygenic whore" I can live with, but the rest of the explication is disgusting. In food terms it's a curry sausage of some variety and photos on Google do not make it look particularly appetizing.
65. Durian - our friends Alan and Hillary have sampled this and did underscore the foul smell, but said it tasted much better than you'd expect from something described as "vomit-scented" and specifically prohibited from being opened in many public places.
66. Frogs’ legs — tastes like chicken.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake - all of the above, like the classy classy Carnie I've always longed to be.
68. Haggis - yep. Definitely liked the vegetarian version better than the real thing, but honestly you mix enough grains and herbs and spices into pretty much anything (heart, lungs and stomach included) and it'll start to taste kinda good.
69. Fried plantain - so so so good. Especially with black beans and rice and grilled prawns or Caribbean fish stew. Especially in Amsterdam and Berkeley.
70. ~~Chitterlings~~ - uh, pass.
71. Gazpacho -
72. Caviar and blini - thanks to that post-college catering stint, a wealth of adventure in up-and-coming culinary and asshole arts.
73. Louche absinthe - who hasn't, now that it's back in the U.S.S.A?
74. Gjetost - This cheese is awesome. Bex and I ate a bunch of it back in the Berkeley days. (Thank you, Andronicos, and maybe Winter for having Norwegian friends and knowing about it?). It's like a slightly sweet, slightly carmel-y cheese. Very very good.
75. Roadkill - I'm not going to be unhappy if I leave the planet without having knowingly eaten roadkill. If you have a few minutes, watch this lovely Top Gear excerpt on the topic of eating roadkill in America. Love it.
76. Baijiu - pretty sure this is the rice wine we drink at Korean restaurants. Sake is better, in my opinion.
77. Hostess Fruit Pie - I really wish I'd never had these, because just thinking about them I get that weird slick feeling on my tongue and the roof of my mouth that inevitably appeared immediately after swallowing. God.
78. Snail - lots of garlic, lots of butter, no slime quotient to speak of. Not bad.
79. Lapsang souchong - for those days you crave the exquisite and delicate nuance of burnt rubber tires.
80. Bellini - I can't for the life of me remember who introduced me to these. I'm thinking it was a Davis Girls event back in college. There should definitely be more Bellini drinking in life.
81. Tom yum - All the time. There's a fabulous little hole in the wall bar down the street from the office I frequent on Mondays and Tuesdays that has a terrific happy hour, including a giant bowl of Tom Yum or Tom Kha for $3 bux. Rad.
82. Eggs Benedict - Especially love it on a bed of spinach or a roasted tomato, or in the case of one seriously awesome hangover-curing-restaurant, on a risotto cake! Yes!
83. Pocky - excellent to serve at Asian themed parties, also good snack for the movies. You Venturan's can get them at Mama Ya's near Target, and in Portland don't bother going anywhere but the mega-mart of Asian ingrediants, Uwajamaya.
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant - shit. How about the tasting menu at 3 different 1-Michelen-star restaurants? In that case, done.
85. Kobe beef - does the Kobe beef burger at Rogue Brewery count? Yes? Okay, done. But I'm not a big beef fan, so it was likely lost on me.
86. Hare - if this is different than plain old rabbit, then no. If not, then I've been there/done that.
87. Goulash - AND paprikash.
88. Flowers - boatloads.
89. ~~Horse~~ - honestly I would have a hard time eating this one if I knew what it was there on the plate.
90. Criollo chocolate - well having read up on this single origin chocolate, I'm now quite exited to try it!
91. Spam - sad but true.
92. Soft shell crab - Easy peasy. And yet not at the same time.
93. Rose harissa - never heard of it, but feel as though I should have.
94. Catfish - Oh yeah.
95. Mole poblano - Ooooooh yeah. Friends of my mom, Tamis and Beto, once came for Thanksgiving when we were living in Ojai and Beto made Turkey mole with the leftovers and even though I could barely chew due to being super sick with a terrible ear infection that the ER doc thought was meningitis, I remember this mole with much fondness.
96. Bagel and lox - Are you kidding? What kind of Jew would I be if I hadn't yet had this one. Plus, I practically lived on bagels and lox in the early college/ free-leftovers-from-Coffee Bean days.
97. Lobster Thermidor - well this sounds totally disgusting, but maybe it's not. I'd certainly give it a shot.
98. Polenta - a staple in my house. A million variations, all terrific.
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee - Meh. Really didn't see what all the fuss was about.
100. Snake - I feel like I have tasted snake, but am at a loss to come up with where or when. So.... I guess not. I'll have to give it a go sometime. Maybe. Mmmabye not.

I'm sure there are million more items that could be added to this list (especially after I remove the ones I deem unworthy of holding a position). Why are oysters on here, for example, but not Mussels (with Frites)! I could probably rant about the omissions for a while, but I won't. Instead I'll end by saying that I will always accept more suggestions, so please pass them along at your leisure.

In Memorium.

2008-07-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

A truly wonderful man died this week.

His name was Mick Murphy, and he was an exceptional person - larger than life, full of stories, always meeting and befriending new people, bringing groups of strangers together for smashingly good times, regardless of the activities of the day. A world traveler, writer, devoted husband to an ailing wife, he was the sort of person that was keenly interested in what was going on with you, made you feel like the only person on the planet worth knowing and talking to at that moment, taking in your stories, pulling forth an anecdote or helpful piece of information to the topic at hand. And always laughing, lots and lots of laughing.

Mick was a friend of my Dad and stepmother for almost 25 years, and I'd see him and his lovely wife Laura during summer and holiday trips to Oregon. We went on several adventures, hiking up to Mt. Hood, berry picking, picnics and outdoor concerts at Washington Park and the Riverfront. He was the master of finding fun, free events, and terrific Happy Hours in Portland, "Pub Meals" he called them. I ran into him in Trader Joes 7 or 8 weeks ago, and after a bear hug and a "We don't hear much from your folks down in Mexico these days" (to which I replied "Well, neither do I, so what are you gonna do?") he asked when would we get together for a Pub Meal. He said that he and Laura had both been recovering from a bout of pneumonia, but that as soon as they were all clear and back up to speed, off we would go.

We exchanged a few emails, then a long silence and the next thing I know he's gone, within a week of finally receiving a correct diagnosis. The lingering pneumonia was not herpes in the lung or any of the other random and seemingly implausible ills hypothesized by the medical folk. It was lung cancer that had metastasized to his ribs. Until this illness, he was a robust and incredibly young 82 and I thought there were going to be several more good years before a decline. There is so much that I take for granted in this life. It's shocking to confront. How very easy it is to forget how absurdly fast things can change. Especially when you are 32 and a lot of things have not yet sunk in below the surface tension of your life.

When I was much younger I had a crush on Mick, a Grandpa Crush, I guess you could say, and longed for some of his charm and good nature to rub off on my father. I know my Dad respected and looked up to this utter gentleman - gentle man - who was about 20 or 25 years older, and I always thought that perhaps Mick could teach him a thing or two about being a man, a husband, a father. I guess maybe it doesn't work that way. Admiration and emulation, respect and edification, are not necessarily bound up with each other. I suppose it's never too late, as they say, but I am not holding on to any hope. To be a better version of yourself, a more fully developed person in general, you actually have to want to be, to desire the most evolved state you can imagine for yourself. Mick, it is clear, was just that sort of person - a "suck the marrow out of life" kind, and a learn-all-that-you-can, be-all-that-you-are-able, taste-all-that-can, live-the-best-you-might, love-beyond-the-capacity-you-thought-possible while wandering through this mortal coil. A rare man indeed.

I attended the memorial on Sunday. It was beautiful. Mick's children, who have filled so many of his stories over the years, are wonderful. His Grandchildren are wonderful, shining stars even on a darker day. Everyone had such sweet, raucous, hilarious stories to tell. I could not stop crying.

One dear friend of the family told a story about sitting with Mick in the last day or two of his life, and his taking her hand and telling her that it is all amazing. I am paraphrasing, of course, but in essence he said that life is amazing, living is incredible, and even this dying is wondrous. It is ALL amazing. Leave it to Mick to be excited, not to leave this world, his beloved family, his fading wife, but having no choice in the matter, to remain excited to learn about what it means to be dying. Oh my god.

On the program from the service was an Emerson quote that struck me and even in the weeks after I started this post, has stuck with me vividly:

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

I've taped it to the side of my computer screen. I hope you might take this one with you, too, and maybe think of Mick, someone you never met but who had a thing or two to pass around about the simple and yet ever complex topic of living life.

Be well wherever you are, Mick. I'm so glad I had the pleasure to know you.

Diabolique Biologique

2008-06-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

After a hard year of nothing good, a year that came after another two filled with nothing good (save a few notable exceptions), I saw and said good bye to my Dad today. One year to the day since his calling the police on the love of my life, since telling great ghastly, life-altering lies to "the authorities," to a lawyer, to his wife, to me, to everyone, we met at a cafe, I said my peace (my many pieces, perhaps), and bid him farewell.

His morning message said "Hi, Amber, it's your Bio Dad..." which is a very weird thing to say. He followed this up with the fact that he would be in town for the rest of the day and the following morning (though he had already been here for nearly a week) and did I want to get together for a cup of tea? Which also struck me as a weird thing to say. The entire message = very weird. It's saved on my phone, if you care to listen. I value your opinion.

I'm not really sure why I decided to see him in the end. But I found myself on the phone, returning the stilted message, agreeing to meet if he could make in the next hour. Ten minutes later, Chai in hand, there we are sitting across from each other as if we had anything else in common but the mysterious coding that produced this particular nose, fair skin and graying strawberry hair.

Essentially I told him that I wasn't interested in investing in our relationship any longer, that I regret the amount of time and energy I'd put in over the course of my life (from early childhood on up to a year ago) trying to bridge the giant gaps between the two of us, as well as between me and his wife. I reiterated something I'd said last year, that I was glad to have at least seen behind the curtain and to know who they both were and what they were capable of (not just how they treated me or Joosh, but their employees, other family, friends, John Q. Public of their clientel), though I wish the lesson could have been shorter and less drawn out. I am dense, or naive, too hopeful and benefit-of-the-doubt-y, or probably all of the above. I said that while I wish things would have worked out differently, overall I am exceedingly happy to have stepped off the "Scott and Jeanne Showboat." Life is good on this side of the shitstorm-filled river.

In a nutshell, he disagreed with my perspective, told me that he has "deep and connected relationships with lots of people" and would like to have one with me. However, survey says: not possible. And I told him as such.

One moment that will live forever in my memory of this meeting is when I said that some people - Joosh, for example - only have one parent, and it's up to that one parent to be somewhat selfless in order to provide everything for their children, raise them up as best they can, etc. So here I am, with a whole bevy of parental units, the majority of whom end up being shockingly narcissistic, self-centered, not at all focused on their children, and what are the statistical odds of that happening? His reaction? Nope, not denial. He totally laughed, and then smirked in this strange shoulder-shrugging, "what can you do?" sort of agreement. Christ. Just like the time he offered up "Well she knew who I was when she married me, what did she think was going to change with a ring?" when I asked why he was such a cheater (blatant, blatant, cheater), as if it was matter of poor judgment on his wife's part, rather than a fuckface flaw of his.

So yeah. What can I say? Just what I said to him, which is that he's my father, I'll always love him for that reason, but that I'm removing myself from the dysfunction junction that is the life he leads and leaving the inadequate and unhealthy relationship dynamic until further notice. I know they say that blood is thicker than water, and you can choose your friends, but you can't choose family, and yadda yadda yadda, but with respect to the institution of familyhood, I am opting to disagree. Life is too damn short to spend in on this kind of treadmill.

Welcome Home - Hey, Why So Smug?

2008-06-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

I must apologize for the fact that I left you with the erupting ovarian follicle photo for the last two weeks. Dreadful imagery for such an interesting and life-creating thing. Certainly not something one wishes to contemplate on a daily or even weekly basis. It did serve as a good reminder that I am out of Vitamin E and Evening Primrose Oil, however.

I'm back from California. It was a lovely trip. All-consuming, though. Portland and work and the blogosphere (you) and the election and 1000 words a day and everything from the normal (mmmm, "normal") realm of life ceased to exist, sucked up by the mighty Pacific and all the sunshine you could ever want. (More than enough sunshine, actually: hot and sticky, all day every day, soaking in through newly burnt skin, through sweat-stained and inappropriately dark-colored clothing, through steamed-open pores. Beautiful, yes. Omnipresent, of course. Gratuitous, I'm thinking so). Busy as it was, and packed full of visits and events and dinners and lunches and hellos and goodbyes, it was also that dangerous sort of rockabye that cradles and then crushes the fool who slumbers in its embrace. Ah Ventura, how you lull me in to your warm gentle bath, only to slowly boil me in a soft stew of complacency and meh.

On Monday, our last day in town, Joosh and I walked on the beach and strolled the boardwalk for a spell. Feet in the sand, toes in the water, it was perfect. We talked about how easy and kick back Ventura felt this time around. How totally busy and packed the trip was, but also how simple it was to get around (unless you try to leave the city proper, and then all sorts of freeway and timeschedule planning hassles ensue, but of course it was always thus), to see people, to come and go and chat and connect and blah blah blah. For Joosh, I think it was how easy it is to get things done and accomplished - the bike project, the Fiat 1100 project, the Fiat spider project, work projects at his main place of business, etc etc - that appealed to him.

For me, it was how simple and easy it was to see family, friends, to chill and hang out and catch up. Portland is isolating, a bit, because of our age bracket (and the fact that we moved here after our twenties), our inclination to work from home, our lack of children or outdoor pets, our tendency to sneer at and alienate strangers, my propensity for deep and unwavering judgement from a distance... I kid. Mostly. But really, it's true that we are far away from family and all but two of our dearest friends (four, if you consider Seattle to be nearby, which I do and I don't). So it was nice and life-affirming (as in: yes, I am still alive and connected to people on this planet) to be in such close proximity, with so much easy access, to loved ones. I do miss that. (Hey, come visit!).

And then, as we were walking back to the car, shaking the sand from our feet, Joosh pointed out a tree that by all counts should be considered to have green leaves, but appeared to me more like a dusty brown-green. I looked up at a palm tree, searching for a more vibrant green. Nope. How about the hills? No, totally brown, with a few mustardy greenish trees dotting the landscape. Even the grass growing in front of the seaside condos was a kind of dull washed out color, more of an impression of greenness than anything that could be considered truly verdant. Back a the car a receipt from the previous night's meal fell out of my pocket with the keys. $41.25 for two people, consisting of a not-fancy (but delicious, I'll concede) cheese plate, a salad (better than most Ventura attempts at classy fare), and a martini.

And suddenly, I remembered life here. It's all green, all the time. The air is fresh. None of that why-so-dusty?/everything-needs-a-rinse feel to it. There's about a million different activities/events going on each week (just this weekend we've got the Organic Brewers Beer Festival, The Artichoke Folk Festival, The Cowboy Junkies at the lovely theater at the Zoo in the middle of Forest Park, and a million other shows with KCRW featured artists and local heroes alike, as well as a few book readings, several plays, art openings and a gaggle of $3 second-run movies at sweet old theaters serving beer and pizza in addition to the usual popcorn/candy/soda lineup). And, most importantly, $41.25 in Portland means three people, three full meals made from fresh locally grown organic ingredients, three or four beers, and maybe even a dessert.

I truly miss you, one and all. But damn, it's good to be home.

Not Exactly What I Pictured.

2008-06-11T20:51:00.000-07:00

Wow. You know, ew, but also wow.

** Updated to make a more obvious link to the BBC article from whence this lovely photo came. Please click here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7447942.stm

Also, if I were going to title this photo, without knowing anything about it, I would call it "Vitamin E gel cap erupting from the backside of an eyeball." I would, of course, be very very wrong.

Fun With Analytics.

2008-06-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

Did I mention that I have been writing 1000 words a day for the last month or so? I have. With moderate success (if by moderate you understand that the middle ground between super great and unbelievably horrible is just that).

Actually, I have been tremendously successful at the actual writing of 1000 or more words every day. I've only missed one night since I committed to the daily activity. Ass in chair, blah blah blah. This does not mean that I have been writing 1000 GOOD words or strings of words each day. But whatever, it's a start.

The very first day of writing these grand or so words, I wrote something to read at my writing group, about the process of committing to the page and all the shit that floats up for writers sitting down to write. Well, all the stuff that floats up for ME sitting down to write, anyway. Not surprisingly (because apparently we writers are nothing if not unoriginal in all the shit that floats up around the process, the act, the desire, the actuating, the ass-sitting, etc etc), it was some pretty familiar stuff for my fellow wordsmitheons: I got plenty of positive feedback, and a lot of head-nodding and amens around the table.

Afterward, a gal that I particularly like (the instigator of the nerdy ladies board game fun) grabbed my paper and a red pen and bracketed six or seven sentences or segments that she felt particularly stood out. Right on. When I got home and did the casual math, I was running about 10% good, stand out stuff, to the remaining 90% comme ci comme ca stuff. Honestly, I'm fine with that. And if 10,000 monkeys pounding on 10,000 keyboards will come up with Hamlet in 10,000 years (um, isn't that how that goes?) then surely one girl, at one keyboard, in 10,000 nights can come up with something usable in 10% of all that scattertyped text, right?

So here's the problem: Procastination. It's insane to me how very much I resist the task at hand. I can sit in this fercockt (probably not the correct yiddish spelling of this, my favorite Grandpa word) chair all night long, and read all y'alls blogs like 18 times over, ignoring my real-life to-do-lists and the blank page in front of me, read read read and catch up on CNN and Buzzflash, and write a few words, and head over to Facebook for some Scramble and some spying on my friends and family, and then tap out a few more words, and then go scare the crap out of myself with stuff about the environment and warming and the war and the conspiracies (oy fucking vey, the conspiracies of those that are conspiring and not yet geting caught, holy hell) and the sea of plastic in the Pacific and the damage done and doing and gonna do, and then go write a few more bits (in a decidedly lower tone) and then back all y'alls blogs, and then internet-stalk people like Julia Kernochan from Junior High (she's a Yale-educated lawyer on Senator Schumer's team, if you must know) and back to Buzzflash and on and on and on. (I can imagine one or more of you sitting there with your wee one in your lap as you try to read my overly long post here, in the few spare moments you have to catchup on web bizness, thinking that clearly I need a child in order to stop having infinite time to not focus on the thing that I sat down to accomplish, right? Right. Sorry.)

My ultimate point here, however, is not about my fierce and ridiculous need and ability to procrastinate, but rather to talk about my latest good time in the avoidance realm. Bex treated me to a lovely procrasty show of her own (oh Veronica, oh Logan, how I miss you so) and then I thought about how much I feel that her blog is written just for me (by the way, writers are apparently giant narcissists, so look out) and then I started thinking about what others might think in stopping by her site and then I thought "hey I wish there was a way to find out who was visiting a site, that would be funny" and then I immediately recovered my brain and remembered the miracle thing known as Google Analytics.

I signed up with the old Analytics tool back when I created this little vanity project. And I couldn't figure out if I'd inserted the tracking code correctly (it did not seem as though I had), got super annoyed and then gave up on the effort (shocking, I know). I've not logged in since that day. But hey man, what a perfect procrastination tool!

And indeed it was a sweet little surprise treasure trove of goodness. So much information! More than you could ever need/want/take in/make use of in a million years. But lots of helpful bits and bytes and bites. Here, my friends, is the tastiest morsel:

The top ten (er, eleven) searched keywords/phrases that have led people to This (Amberican) Life this week-

11) anna beth chao.
10) Important stuff to know in life.
9) I'm going to ride my bicycles and roller skates.
8) 3 month old drool.
7) momby porn. (that is not a typo. momBy porn. someone should really spellcheck their blog, am I right?)
6) Sun chips flying pig. (nice)
5) scurvy more tests and diagnosis. (wow, sorry dude, that sucks)
4) Chastity-belt. (hahahahahahaha)
3) sucktastic. (um, ha).
2) 1950's aprons.
1) momboob. *

God I loves me some interwebs, I really do.

And guess what? 947 words, suckers, yeah!

But now I need to wrap it up and go watch last week's BSG cause apparently the 5th Cylon is revealed and it's bugging me that I've gone this long without seeing it but Josh grabbed a crap copy and then he grabbed a super nice, super huge copy that wouldn't play on the computer we've got hooked up to the projector (have you heard the expression "the cobbler's wife wears no shoes?") and then the final copy was just right, but Sunday I babysat* and Monday I procrastinated too long into the evening to allow for viewing and now tonight I'm coming dangerously close to same. So au revoir, mon amies. I hope you enjoyed this last segment of rambling smack wherein I tried to up my word count to make up for all the numericals above, which really shouldn't count toward the sum word total, don't you agree?

1097 give or take.

It counts.

*As it's related to the otherwise baffling search term "momboob" and the aforementioned babysitting, this might be a convenient time to tell you about a mortifying thing that happened while babysitting the wee Watsons on Sunday. Except I just wrote it and it's a million miles long, so I'll make it a separate post, backdated, and thus appearing below. Enjoy.

Are You Stronger Than A Three Year Old?

2008-06-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

So about the asterisk, above. I was sitting for the wee Watsons, see. Having never been in charge of both of them at once (how do parents do it one at a time?) I was a little nervous. It worked out for the most part - My big secret to success is jelly belly's and reading stories in extra exciting and ridiculous voices. Both kids were enraptured. And apparently both slept pretty soundly through the night, so yay for Auntie Amby and her crazy Winnie the Pooh readings.

But first, first, in the early nervous moments, when Sarah was hungry and attention-requiring and Jakob was not hungry and attention-starved, I was snuggling Sarah and rocking her and making funny noises at her while Jakob was watching Sesame Street. Sarah was clearly getting hungry and started pawing at me and rooting around in the chestal region. At one point she snagged my top with her wee fingers and pulled with gusto. I laughed and dipped her again, trying to adjust my dress while tickling her tummy. She was positioned horizontally to me and I dipped her and blew a raspberry on her tum. When I came up from the dip, with the bundle of baby pressed in my arms, Jakob was looking at me, with wide horrified eyes. "Why are you doing that?" he asked. "What? Tickling her?" He shook his head and glared. "Why are you feeding her WITH YOUR BOOBS!?!" I looked down. It did indeed look as if I were feeding her, from where he stood especially. Hi. Never a redder shade of blush was I in all my life, I'm sure of it. I died. I stammered, as if caught doing something naughty, feeling horribly guilty, trying desperately to fix my dress and blubbered that I wasn't feeding her, that she was just laying sideways and we were playing, that I wouldn't breastfeed her, that's Mommy's job, etc etc etc. I was MORTIFIED. Jakob looked at me with narrow eyes, clearly not believing a word I was saying. Oh the horror, the shame. Called out by a three year old for something I was not actually guilty of doing. Changing the subject, I sing-songed that it was dinner time and how many Dino Nuggets did he want, tra la la? Later we walked to the store to look for Pez for his free-from-a-nice-but-unclear-on-the-concept-saleslady-in-an-antique-store Pez dispenser, but ended up with the Jellies, which did fit in the dispenser, but kept shooting out onto the sidewalk, and distressing the poor kid along the way. Luckily all that walking, talking, lamenting the lost Jellies (there were more, don't worry, I'm not that mean), and story reading eclipsed the earlier horror (for me, anyway).

Jess told me that the next morning she heard Jakob talking in his sleep: Something about "Amber, Amber" and Jelly Beans. I told her that I was relieved it was the jelly beans that crept into his tiny psyche, and not the misunderstanding about the inappropriate boob feeding. God, I would die.

They Might Not Have Been Whores Back Then, But...

2008-06-10T00:07:00.001-07:00

Jesus H. Does this not seem a little whore-y to you?

I suppose it's slightly redeeming that they waited until after Hillary dropped out to start kissing and telling for a small bills on the internets?

Ladies, where is your self-respect? It's going to take a shitload of one-ninety-niners to buy that back, I gotta say.

Yucky.

But... it's BRUCE.

2008-06-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

Hey. Hey you. You like Bruce? Bruce Springsteen?

Really? Cause I thought everyone loved The Boss. C'mon, baby: He's. THE. BOSS.

Well, whatever. You should like him. If you don't, for whatever crazy anti-80's, I-hate-people-from-Jersey-and-guys-named-Bruce-and-men-shorter-than-five-feet-nine thing you got goin on, I have to suggest you check out his album called "The Seeger Sessions." It's been on constant rotation - er, stream - over here for a week or two now. (That and Modest Mouse "The Moon and Antarctica" but not in the same breath of time because that would, of course, be weird).

But "The Seeger Sessions" people, it's a gift. It's a little treasure, I'm telling you. Yes, it's the Seeger sessions, as in Pete Seeger, and yes it's a wee bit folksy (um, okay, it's almost all folk songs) but it's all done up Bruce-like and man does it just totally capture something. I don't know if it's his gravel voice, like he's been chewing rocks (but in a good way), or if it's the enthusiasm of the instrumentation, or if it's just the joyous energy of the singing, even in the saddest lyrics... I can't put my finger on it exactly, but if you have any love for Bruce baby, and any tolerance for songs like "Pay Me My Money Down" and "Jesse James" (two of my faves), then check it out.

Be forwarned, however, about the second to last track, which I'm sure you probably heard back in aught Six: "Bring 'Em Home." Yesterday this song prompted a long, drawn out fantasy involving my joining the military, somehow surviving boot camp, then shipping out to go (with a very sketchily detailed plan of action, mind you) and save all our brave but forgotten, unseen and unheard-from soldiers in Iraq. Sure, it's an obvious song for the poor heartstrings, but it's totally not a cheap shot. The way his voice implores the listener to bring em home, man... it makes me burn, trachea to tailbone, all through my core.

I wish all music was like that.

Well Played, Frito-Lay.

2008-06-06T23:35:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Joosh flew home from Ventura on the ever-reliable Alaska Airlines/Horizon Airlines Burbank-to-Portland flight. As usual, beer and wine was complimentary (a shocker in this era of spendy spendy but more than bare bones travel - American is now charging $15 for checked luggage, for pity's sake!). Unusually, the choice of snack was interesting.

So interesting in fact, that Joosh grabbed me a sample of the latest "here eat this and don't complain a lot please and thanks" food item being handed out by persons with thin-lipped smiles and extremely well-sprayed hair.

What was so tasty and compelling that he sweetly brought me home a bag? So-called "Veggie Chips" from a brand called Flat Earth, in an unassuming Tomato Herb flavor. They were delicious. And they were fascinating, because they advertise themselves as having a full 1/2 serving of vegetables in every portion. Further investigation into the nutritional contents showed 2 grams of fiber and 2 grams of protein, as well. Hmmmmmm.

I was skeptical, as I often am about non-food food. You know, the food that isn't really food, but rather something processed, stewed up and extruded, then baked or fried or otherwise made to mold permanently into the shape of some kind of food and then heavily marketed as food (Kraft Bagelfuls, anyone?). I'm not big on this sort of thing. But damn if these not-chip chips aren't damn tasty! And I would be totally lying if I said that the whole vegetable/protein/fiber angle didn't hook me, line and sinker. Someone did their focus group research, yo.

So after eating these tasty jibs, I say casually to Joosh that we should get some sometime. Then I promptly forget about them.

Until last week when I: a) find the empty Flat Earth bag in Joosh's shorts pocket and b) see an ad for the little buggers on Television while cradling the sweetest baby on earth (no, the baby has no bearing on the story, I was just holding her slumbering little infant bod while viewing the commercial, hence it was a good memory). The ad was a little confusing for me, something about pigs flying and the impossibility of the product, making me feel like they were offering something too good to be true and therefor must be so - I don't think that's what they were going for, right? I was supposed to feel happy and astonished that the claims were SO true, that pigs were flying. Instead I just felt like I was being made fun of. Still... the veggies, the fiber, the protein, oh my!

So the commercial reinvigorated my interest, and the folded up bag in pants pocket sent me out on the quest. Actually, it sent me talking again about going out on the quest. Which made me mention them to Jess, which then made Joosh make me go out on the quest last Sunday night after we left the Watsons house. (I say quest, by the way, because our regular market was not on the list of stores where these chippies are currently being sold, so we had to go to the big ole chain store we rarely set foot in, except for gum, Glamour magazine, and butter spray for popcorn... truly it is an effort not often made by the likes of me).

And here's what happened on the quest: Enter the store. It's the size of a Super Target and the harsh white lights are eye-ball searingly bright. It's fairly empty, as it's getting on toward closing. (Not entirely empty: there are a bunch of random single people walking in a sort of daze with several items stacked haphazardly in their arms, as if they came in to get two or three necessities for the coming week, didn't grab a basket, then remembered - or were suckered into needing - seven other items along the way to procuring the original two or three items, but refused to grab a basket, instead balancing six to nine items precariously in their folded arms. Three times I hear the thumps and slaps of items dropping out of piles onto the linoleum floor, followed by muttered curses, sighs, and in one case a drop-kick as a woman punted a box of trash bags to the self-check out aisle rather than risk bending over with all the crap clutched to her bosom. Hey, I don't judge - I can totally relate).

Back to the quest: Walk in store. Chuckle silently at, I mean, in solidarity with fellow shoppers. Head to chip aisle. Make first pass, scanning up and down the shelves. Make second pass, scouring each shelf in each section. Retch at a few of the new products that have cropped up since last noticing the cumulative category of non-tortilla chips. Have momentary nostalgia for Funyuns, a staple of swim team days back at the Santa Monica YMCA. Immediately regret nostalgia with memory of oniony chlorine swimwater burps and the associated taste of fear, being yelled at by crazy swim coach who would bellow "LACTIC ACID, YOU NEED LACTIC ACID BURNING THOSE MUSCLES OR YOU'RE SHIT" leaning over pool, two inches from face, mid-backstroke.

After third pass down loooooong chip and snack aisle, remember that this store places all its "healthy" food in the back, so as to not offend mainstream shoppers, or perhaps to singleout and shame all healthfood seekers. Skulk to hidden Where-Non-Preservative-Filled-Food-Goes-To-Die area of store and scour their chip section. Notice that Cheetos has a "Natural White Cheddar Puffs" in a bag that looks suspiciously like Barbara's Natural Cheddar Puffs. Think that makers of non-food food are getting very clever. Feel simultaneously impressed and disgusted. Continue search for magical fiber filled veggie chips, to no avail.

Make Joosh look up product on his Crackberry, except have trouble remembering the brand name. Mention flying pigs, something about earth, and the fact that they are chips with veggies and fiber. Because he is magical (or because their SEO people are fantastic) Joosh finds the Flat Earth web site, and suggests that they should be in the "Healthy snacks" section of your local grocery. A mild annoyance that has been creeping in at the edges of this misadventure rises significantly. Snap at Joosh that there is no "Healthy Snacks" section, except where we are standing. Sniff dismissively when he suggests trying "the granola bars aisle." Whatever, dude. (Ignore sudden craving for Quaker chocolate chip granola bars, a staple of soccer practice back in the 80's. Mmmm, orange wedges and Capri Sun. Feel the need to start humming "Like a Virgin" but resist same).

Upon final perusal of helathy chips and snacks section, become further enraged at the entire quest and prepare to storm out of the store. Until Joosh says "Why don't you ask someone where they are?" Because, hello, that's not how I roll. Ask "Do you not know me at all?" and remind him of my guy-like tendancy to not want to interact with store employees or people on the street in order to ask for things like directions, guidance, or advice. Note the disappointed look on his face (cause he's sure as hell not going to ask someone, sure bet!) and decide to ask employee on her knees in the popcorn and snack crackers area. (Ignore sudden craving for Ritz crackers with peanut butter). The crackers are directly across from the cookies arena. Ignore Joosh when he says he has a sudden craving for Oreos. Don't notice that he disappears as on-knees store employee with coke bottle glasses asks if she can help find anything.

Describe chips, forgetting the name again, but mentioning earth, and servings of vegetables, and fiber. Employee says "Oh, well, I'm not sure if these are the same, but there's something like that on aisle 17, try there. And if not, try the healthy snacks area in the back." Grrrrrr. I smile and thank her and head over to aisle 17.

Have you guessed what aisle 17 is all about? Let me give you a hint: Jolly Green Giant. People, it's the vegetable aisle. Start laughing out loud and look around to see if Joosh has followed to this delightfully ridiculous discovery. He has not. Marvel at the scene. Stacks and stacks of canned veggies, topped by a row of furit and veggie chips, as if they were truly another variety of veg. Consider that the marketing department for the makers of this product are total geniuses, and don't even bother to feel sheepish at being shepharded in such a manner. You are a sucker. So what? These critters are delicious. Opt for three bags: Garlic and something, Cheese, and Apple Cinnamon.

Go look for Joosh, who finally appears with a pack of gum and a magazine. He looks a little bummed, until he sees the triumphant chips on the checkout stand. He's been looking for small snack packs of Oreos but was not succussful. (When it looks like he might go pick up a regular size package of the cracky little circles, remind him that they are made with lard, and that if his brand of vegetarianism isn't going to allow thai dishes with even a drop of oyster or fish sauce, he's sure as hell not going to be purchasing a shit-ton of rendered animal fat sandwiched between two chocolate wafer cookies). Distract him from the oncoming existential -ism crisis by telling him about the awe-inspiring placement of the long-sought after veggie chips. He is not a believer in the tale. Drag him to aisle 17. Watch his eyes widen at the scene. Crack up anew.

The kicker: Joosh picks up a bag and examines the back. Veggies - check. Fiber - 2 grams, check. Protein - 2 grams, check. Vitamins - check. Calories to fat grams - eh, not too cringeworthy, about the same as other chips, except with veggies, so better, right? Check, check, check.

"Oh. Huh," he says.

"What?" says I.

"Flat Earth is Frito-Lay."

"Ha ha, sure." I am sure he's just being funny. I turn over a bag in my hands. Nope. It's funny alright, but not intentionally.

Nicely done, Frito-Lay. Well played. I surrender.

Pass the not-chips, please. Did I mention they have a half serving of vegetables in every portion?

No Longer In Danger Of Becoming A Friendless Joyless Luckless Misanthropic Shut-In.

2008-05-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

My first two years or so in Portland, I knew exactly six people. Two of these were the dear dear Watsons, friends made years and years ago when we were young (babies, all of us) and childless (them) and extremely proficient drinkers (mostly me).

Another two knowns were my hapless co-workers at the ridiculous excuse for a company owned and operated by my coo-coo-for-cocoa-puffs Dad and Step-mom.

And two of the six, of course, were my family-business-owning folks. Who promptly decided to MOVE TO MEXICO three months after I got here (the myriad problems this eventually brushed up against most certainly contributed to the fact that I continued to know only the same few people for months and months and months after they moved away... but I digress). So soon it was down to just four people.

I worked a lot while employed at the parental units' company. On the weekends, Joosh and I would run around town and have fun as only the two of us can, but never in any kind of branching-out-and-meeting others sort of way. Often I would get drinks with my poor tortured co-workers, Happy Hour bitchfests, running, jumping, diving into sorrow-drowning cocktails after work. But as much as I love these women (more than a year after leaving Crazy, Inc. I still adore them), they are a generation and/or two ahead of me. Our lives are very different and so more often than not it was less socializing, per se, and more bitterly complaining about the encroaching insanity at the office. Other than that, until the Watson's moved here, in fact, the most out-of-work socializing I managed was with periodic out-of-town visitors!

In short, the moral of the intro story here: Not exactly an instant social butterfly in my adopted home state.

Until now, that is...

Not only did I meet incredible people in my writing class last Quarter, I've managed to force about 60% of them into continuing to be my friends and associates by starting a writing group and demanding that they gather to read and listen to me, um, I mean to each other every other week. So far so good.

In addition, one of the lovely ladies I met in the class started what she calls "Nerdy Ladies Board Game Night" and involves a rotating group of about 30 gals who gather five and ten at a time at a local pub on Sundays and Wednesdays to play board games. Last week we played The Game of Life - Simpsons version - and as in the real deal, I was excellent at making money but more exceptional still at losing it. I did manage to get away with only having one child, where another gal had to get a second car to tote around her giant clan, but she actually ended up having a pile of a million and a half bucks in spite of all the college and orthodontia and whatnot, so maybe there is something to the whole "have a litter" mentality. But this is beside the point! The point is, I met new people! I ventured out! I socialized! It was amazing.

And so. Between these intellectually stimulating pursuits and the myriad people I'm meeting at the Wellness Center (free massage, free acupuncture, free chiro, free! free! free!) and in the strange world of business networking* I am clearly on my way to being the absolute Belle of the P-town Ball. Appallingly, I don't have the wardrobe for it, I'm afraid to admit. And since Wellness Centers pay well in free treatments but not necessarily in greenbacks, well, I'm rather poorly equiped to span the bridge between student-y/bordering-on-slovenly casz and creatively proffesionally artfully well put together. Well put together has never been my strong suit. This is my only complaint in all the newfound goodness, and therefore I am not actually complaining. That would be ridiculous.

*I don't even know how to describe this weird phenom called networking - there are networking groups of 10, 30 (100!) who get together every other week and, like network, and then once a month a bunch of these smaller networking groups gather together in one giant room to network with each other and though it all seems absurd, tons of work is passed around and met about and contracted and completed and paid for or traded. I have already been contacted by two potential new clients, and I've only been to one networking event, not even as part of a group (cause ps - they cost money to join!). Oh strange and unusual new world I've stumbled upon. I know people have been so-called-networking for years and years - wasn't it like the power word of the late 80's? - but that it still goes on, and that it is not just a code word for getting shitfaced drunk with peers and writing it off, I don't know, I am a little mystified.

Hey Buddy, Can You Help A Brother Out?

2008-05-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

My (awesome smart talented funny quiet hard-working self-sufficient clean non-smoking and non-pet-owning) little brother is graduating from UCLA next month. This means that a) I'm really old and b) dude's gonna be looking for non-student housing come Summertime.

I thought I might post a little inquiry out to you LA-based folks to please keep your eyes and ears out for any sweet living situations you might come across in the hot and heavy areas of the former City of Angels. You know: a roommate situation, a soon-to-be-vacated apartment that he might obtain to share with someone, a guest house, a spare room, wild tiki-inspired living quarters and a cabana-boy position for your rich Hollywood step-grandma, whatever.

He's gainfully employed at a law firm (considering law school, smart cookie that he is) and tends to go snowboarding on weekends during the Winter, and sometimes home to visit the folks in Ventura. He can make full meals from un-preprocessed ingredients (that's more than I can say for some of my friend's husbands, by the way!), knows how to clean up after himself (again, rare in some populations of husbandry, I'm sorry to report) and I'm almost certain that he's grown out of the annoying stage of always coming into your bedroom and interrupting when you are on the phone with your best friend talking about who to ask to the Backwards Dance. Pretty sure he knocks on closed doors these days instead of whining outside of them to be let in, as well.

I jest. He's terrific. (He was terrific even when he stood outside the door whining, I was just too teenaged and retarded to know it). At this point, I can say without reservation that he falls solidly in the pre-Mensch area of the manspectrum and I have no doubt he would be a fabulous roommate/housemate/subletter/tenant.

So. Holler if come across anything of note. Thanks in advance for your housing and brother related attention. Much appreciations from me, your friendly (un)neighborhood domicile-y Yente.

Can't Resist.

2008-05-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to pass this on to 10 people. But y'all hate fwd:fwd:fwds, right? So here you go.

Please peruse at your leisure. Then talk to your Republican and/or Conservative Democrat friends and neighbors who might not be paying close attention - the mainstream media isn't! - and let them know that McCain has lost most, if not all, of his credibility. (And no, I'm not saying that based just on this cleverly edited video. I have at least 20 reasons off the top of my head, but don't really feel that this "lighthearted romp of a blog" is an appropriate venue. I'd be glad to email you a diatribe or two worth of Why For's, however, so that you too can effectively win an argument against a Head-in-the-Sand-er any ole time).

Suspicious.

2008-05-12T23:14:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon the following blog and was VERY suspicious that it might have something to do with a dear friend of mine. Having investigated further, I see now that it is likely just a giant coincidence and does not relate directly to her dear cat-loving, legal-geeking self. But for those of you in the know, how could I NOT think that an ASU Law Blog with Ross in the name and featuring something called "Law Cat of the Week" showcasing the cats of ASU law students was somehow related to our dear Bex?

This will only interest you law geeks - one in particular - so move along if your name doesn't start with an R and rhyme with Hecka:

Ross Blakley Law Library Blog.

(Oh, no, no, it's my pleasure, you are truly very welcome, my dear).

And while we are on the subject, congratulations times ten billion on completion of your first year of school, Honeypie. I am infinitely excited for you, even more so by the fact that you are now free to talk on the phone for five hours in a sitting again.

On a related note: I'm pleased to report that I now know how to pee without any splashing sounds echoing in the phone. Totally. Awesome.

How to Amuse a 3-Month-Old.

2008-05-11T22:21:00.000-07:00

Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, I've been hanging out with the sweetest little gal you'll ever meet. You are probably familiar with her from the Watson family site linked at right. Her name is Sarah and she is a doll baby, utterly and completely. Already at 3.5 months, she's got a total personality and basically cracks me up all day long (except when she's tired/cranky/desperate for the Momboob I cannot provide and/or having pooplosions out the top and sides of her diapers... during such times she more threatens to crack me than to crack me up.).

We have good times, me and the babe. She generally sleeps at least three of the eight hours we spend together, sometimes even four (during which times I try to sleep also, with the help of a magic spit-up covered sweatshit that blocks out all light and allows me to stay slumbering and motionless on the couch so as to not wake the wee Sleeping Beauty with unnecessary activities like walking, talking, going to the bathroom, what have you). Our days start early (not as early as poor Mom and Pop, I know) and usually breaks down to an hour or hour and a half of fun and food in the morning, followed by two hours of nap, then about 2 hours of food/diaper changing/play time and another hour or two of naps, then more food, more diaper changing and intensive efforts on my part to amuse, bemuse and delight, finally falling into desperate attempts to distract and pacify in the final half hour until Mama and the Twins come home to make all Sarah's dreams come true with the afternoon nursing sesh.

We've developed several fun and amusing games to fill the non-food/non-diaper related hours between naps. One game involves a mild version of peek-a-boo with her swaddling blanket floating down through the air toward her while she's lying on her back. This usually gets me some smiles, a few excited leg kicks, and sometimes that adorably weird sucking-in-air thing that babies do when they feel wind on their face (which usually means I'm getting a little too zesty with my blankie-waving, actually - "Take it easy" as Bex would say).

Another game consists of my laying on the floor, knees bent toward the ceiling, with Sarah sitting on my tum, back against my legs, while I sing ridiculous songs about her smile, her fingernails, her drool, whatever. Last week I somehow got a Sunday School song in my head (at least I think it's a Sunday School song, having never been to Sunday School myself...), the one about Noah and it goes something like "Who built the Ark? Noah! Noah! Who built the Ark? Brother Noah built the Ark!" An absurdly folk-songy version can be viewed here*. It is to this tune (approximately) that I sing things like "Who's got the drool? Who's got the drool? Sarah! Sarah! Who's got the drool??!? Baby Sarah's got the drool!!!" while moving my legs to the left and my torso to the right, snuggling Sarah one way or the other and giving her a little tickle to emphasize "Baby Sarah's got the drool!" I am proud to say that this little shaker produces hilarious giggles, the sounds of which melts my frozen heart like sunshine and kittens and unicorns and rainbows all wrapped up in a box of World Peace. Gah. She kills me.

I won't bore you with the other so-called games as they mostly consist of my pointing out completely non-interesting things as if they were unequivocally fascinating, or making insane faces worthy of an asylum escapee, with appropriately deranged sound effects, etc. We also do a fair amount of "reading" books, which she's actually quite content with at this stage of the game, taking in each page with interest and curiosity... look out: beauty AND brains, double whammy, right Pops? (And Daddy just jingled the keys to the chastity belt he's planning to strap on her in a decade or so.)

The tough times do come, about 30 minutes before Mom comes home. We've had to get a little creative in that time as most distractions can be a little overstimulating, and there's nothing a working mom needs less than a screaming hot mess of a baby melting down under overzealous babysitter tricks. Periodically we end up pacing the house, or sitting on the porch, watching the electronic picture frame change images, or cars drive by, or the dog pee - simple things, watchful things, observational rather than participatory activities. I'm quite proud of one recent discovery, however, though I fear I may be creating a wee bit of a narcissist. My latest success, documented below, involves the use of my camera phone, with the shrunken image of herself shining back at her as she looks into the display of the phone console. Brilliant. Utterly captivating. It was a 25-minute staring contest. Check it:

In related news: How freaking cute is that face? J'adore.

But: you can tell that she's pushing the limits of happytime in this photo by the little swatches of pink above each eyebrow. When those start to turn scarlet, you better look the hell out, man, no joke. Also, the slash of pink on my chest? Angry baby nails, Yo, angry, angry baby nails. So yeah, look out, for serious. (Of course I'd let this one scratch my eyeballs from my head, she's just. that. perfect).

*Updated to say that it's not a Sunday School song after all... It's RAFFI!!! After half a dozen or more solid years of Raffi from '86 to probably '94, how could I forget? And now it begins anew. Already the strains rise in my head: "Bay-Bee, Buh-Loooooo-Guh". Oy. Luckily I've not yet been forced to consume The Wiggles or Dan Zanes yet, but I've heard rumor on the MommyBlogs that they are out there. Waiting. Watching. Biding their time. Ready to pounce. (More on all that - the explosion of motherhood, the insanity of mommby blogs, the ubiquity and the conversion of the interwebs - very soon).

Um, Snow?

2008-03-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

Snowed for about an hour this morning. Which I'm pretty sure is not normal for the end of March. It's cold and rainy now, with periodic chunks of ice and clumpy snow-like drifts mixed in falling slush.

Gorgeous though it is, I was really ready for spring. So were all the bulb flowers and tree buds and blossoms that have sprung up in the last few weeks. Sigh.

Maybe the big chill will be gone by the time I return from Sacramento on Monday. Bon weekend, y'all. Stay warm. Watch out for patches of black ice on the road.

Why The Thought Of Becoming A Parent Scares The Ess-Aytch-Eye-Tee Out Of Me.

2008-03-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

A writer here in Portland received the following message on his answering machine from his goddaughter/niece:

"Uncle Marc, it's Amy. I'm calling to find out why do bad things happen. Why do people get sick or have accidents? Or why do they fall in love with you when you don't love them back? And why is the oil on the ground rainbow-colored even when the sun doesn't hit it?"

I forgot to mention: the neice is six.

I. am. terrified.

If/when I can stomach the full leap into parenthood, I suppose I'll have to find some good godparent-types out in the world upon whom, along with Uncles Z and J, I can foist all the hard existential, metaphysical and otherwise unanswerable questions upon, as they inevitably come spilling forth from my child's mouth.

Until then, I quake in fear.*

*I suppose quake is a tiny bit melodramatic. I quiver, how about that? Tremble? Shudder?

I Ride My Bike, I Roller Skate, Don't Drive No Car.

2008-03-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

Please imagine a wee spotty Anthony Michael Hall singing to Molly Ringwald in the passenger seat of the front half of an old American car in a typical High School shop class garage as you read the following: "Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh, you say it's your birthday, duh nuh nuh nuh, it's my birthday too, yeah!"

It's my birthday! Or it was my birthday, several days ago now. (Thursday, according to the belated email I received from my Stepmother on Friday that said "Yesterday went by in a minute, and I'm only now sending you my birthday wishes" but truly, it was Wednesday). It was terrific, thank you.

The darling man who spoils me rotten at every gifty opportunity purchased a fantabulous bicycle for me. It's called "The Amsterdam" (from Electra), and yes I feel totally Euro riding it around. It has a sweet not-too-shrill bell and a light that generates power from the turning of the front wheel (which my grandfather says adds a twenty pound drag equivalent, but I am inclined not to believe him because this is the 21st Century and I am confident that the technology of such things has improved since the last time he had anything similar on his bicycle in the 1980s). The chain is enclosed, as are the gears, so no grease or catching of my skirts on moving parts (because when have you ever known me to wear pants, except overalls once or twice while fishing or carving pumpkins ten years ago?). All I need to complete the oh-so-EU package is some kind of saddle bag on the rear and maybe a wicker basket for the front.

The aforementioned darling, taking the shiny new toy down from the crusty old bike rack that lay neglected on the porch all winter and seems to have served as a nice shelter for several insect and arachnid families.

Wheeeee, biking! I am especially thrilled that my shoes match the bike. I totally planned that. And the fact that I look like I just woke up, put on a velour jogger over my nightgown and hopped carefree onto my stylin new ride? Completely intentional as well.

Earlier in the morning we went to breakfast, and I tried my hand at food porn photography:Not quite what I was hoping for. (It might have been helpful if I had remembered to take photos before digging in - smeared red pepper coulis is probably not attractive in any light, I would think).

Went for a swing around the hood. Nice day for it. Didn't fall off or kill myself: It's like riding a bike.

Napped. Chatted on the phone. Wrote in my journal. Read tarot cards. Chatted with Joosh. Hunted online for reviews of the city's best Carrot Cake - really just wanted the cream cheese frosting, and Portland's infinitely discriminating Foodies helped a sister out by continually reviewing different options based on their components, cake and frosting, instead of just whole enchilada. Awesome.

Headed out to "A Piece Of Cake" which was well-reviewed, conveniently close to the Watson's and claimed to be voted "Best Cake In Portland." Which is maybe not the whole truth, as it turns out. It was mighty fine, don't get me wrong, especially for the vegan and gluten-free options we sampled (yes, yes, I'm turning into THAT person, whatever) but I don't know that I would say best in the city. In fact, having satisfied the chocolate itch but not the Carrot Cake need, the next day I bought slices of Vegan Carrot Cake and Vegan Wheat Free Oatmeal Cake from New Seasons and both were amazing, much more satisfying than the carrot option from the night before. Maybe my error was in purchasing Cupcake cake, instead of Slices of Cake cake.

Anyway, went to Sushi at the old favorite. The kids did very well and the food was huge, fresh, delicious and cheap, as per usual (the best part though was the fact that Sarah and Jakob threw us into the parties-of-six-or-more category that can leave a cell number and wait somewhere warm to be called back to a ready table, instead of freezing our collective buns off outside with the rest of the shnooks - since the Watson's live so close, we kicked it at the house and then hightailed it over apres phone call).

Then back to the house for statements like "Ugh, I'm so full" and Jakob's cute attempts to stall bedtime, and a little bit of baby snuggle time for me.

The object(s) of my affection (the one in pink, with the round head, and the one in black, also with a round head, though the one in blue bearing a slight resemblance to Ben Affleck is no chopped liver and does tell a wicked story).

Can I just take a minute to say: Baby snuggles are the best best best. Followed by cupcakes. (Which were totally good, don't let my curmudgeonly withholding of the "Best In Portland" moniker deter you. The only thing that should deter you is the scary "Amby's-Kitty-Cat-Pee-Grandma" style decor of the interior of the shop... dusty old 1950's aprons, weird ceramic antique-ish tea sets, boxes and boxes and SHOEBOXES of random single cards for all occasions, including some in Spanish and Russian. I wish I'd taken photos. Oh wait, you can see a small one right here, but it really only scratches the quaint surface).

More bad food photos for you. Chocolate Cherry, Carrot, Lemon White Chocolate Chiffon, Chocolate Caramel and Chocolate with Vanilla Frosting. Three of these vegan & wheat free, if I'm not mistaken, but I can't remember which three.

We divided each in quarters and went to town, but were bested by 3 and 4 quarters each. I'm told that the next day Jakob said "I'm going to have one of Amber's cups!" which is especially cute since I didn't think he had even spotted them the night before. Smooth operator, and cute to boot.

The piece de resistance of my entire birthday, however, was this:

I keep opening that sucker up and giggling. Eventually it will probably stop making me laugh and start making me feel heinously old since that movie came out TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO. But for the moment I am still blissed out on birthday goodness, so who cares, years are just numbers and blah blah blah. And I loves me some Jake Ryan always and forever... even if I am now old enough to be a cougar to his high-school hotness (the only thing about this that doesn't send me screaming to the botox clinic is that the actor was at least 25 at the time of filming, and while maybe not totally kosher, that's still better matched with 32 than 18 will ever be - too bad I keep getting older while Jake is frozen in cinematic time). Sigh.

Happy Saint Joseph's Day.

2008-03-19T23:15:00.000-07:00

Once again, I have been completely spoiled, like the bratty brat brat that I always knew I could be. I will post braggarty photos of my bounty, fun and fortune tomorrow.

All in all, it was an awesome birthday - mellow, and sweet and full of good friends, good phone calls, good humor, good food, good times... good life.

Thanks for all the cards, phone calls, emails, presents and love. Feels like a million bucks. (Better actually, cause it can't all be hosed away by non-tangibles like the roller coaster stock market and bad mortgages!).

Cannot Wait For This (Warning: Nerd Alert).

2008-03-19T17:16:00.000-07:00

Oh, oh BSG. Where have you been all my life? What's with the bovine gestation-length hiatus, hmm?

For other fans, here is a normal, relatively milquetoast (yet still thrilling!) Season Four preview, below.

For other fanatics like me, explosive Season Four "Exclusive Preview" (with SPOILERS so if you haven't seen the end of S3 yet, beware) can be seen on this web site.

I am retardedly excited for the season to start, even though I am bummed it will be the last (I did see a headline somewhere that SciFi may be doing some kind of prequel involving life on Caprica or New Caprica? Not sure. Remind me to look up). At any rate, I love this show with the same feverish passion I held for "The West Wing." And that, my friends, is a muthalode'o'love.

Must. Stop. Blogging. LateAtNight.

2008-03-18T23:23:00.000-07:00

Apologies to all you lovely people who visit this little vanity project to see what's going on all up in Portland, only to find my not altogether coherent ramblings sprinkled liberally (and perhaps inappropriately) about. I just re-read the Whoring Monthly post, and it basically makes no sense. Especially not when compared with what was intended to be written there. Whatever. I would explain, but it's just not even worth it and plus, I am totally over it now. Hmph.

This One's For You (NSFW).

2008-03-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

Someone is turning in the following cover art (um, "art") for a final project today:

The assignment, I am told, was to create a magazine cover and related topical content (headlines, not actual content, thank you Jesus, although there really is a "How To" article to be included titled: "How to Steal Another Woman's Man and Suffer No Guilt").

It came down to a choice between this, The Journal Of Inappropriate Humor (featuring AR ad* campaigns, of course), Evil Overlording Weekly or the controversial Self-Hating Jew (a magazine for Jews questioning the policies of Israel's current government).

But Whoring Monthly, that's A + right? Especially since the students are to submit a document that demonstrates their own grade in one format or another. This student chose a Press Release, highlighting the simultaneous win of both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature, featuring the factoid that she (or he, you know, the anonymous student) received a BA from Cal, an A in Dangerous Words, and will be donating the proceeds of the unprecedented prize win to her (or his) International charity, Bitterroots.

*If you don't already know what this is, I'm pretty sure you don't want to, so please don't ask.

Scurvy fighting melons.

2008-03-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

Accompanying Joosh to the market just now - beer run, Brah! - I was overwhelmed with the urge for citrus. Not just any citrus, but red grapefruit. Which is weird because the only time I ever eat grapefruit is in the winter when we eat at this sweet homey cafe at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts that serves little slices of lemon, zucchini and carrot bread with 1/2 of a pink or red grapefruit sprinkled with chopped candied ginger. Outrageously delicious, but really not often on my radar. Rather than panic that I must surely have scurvy, I decided to treat the craving as related to a healthy sublimation of my former sweet tooth (er.... current sweet tooth, usually beaten into submission with a variety of strong arm tactics). So indulge the non-sweet sweet need, I would.

(Now that I think about it, I seem to recall that my sudden urge was inspired by staring at a bottle of Ocean Spray Ruby Red Grapefruit juice that looked AMAZING. In which case I was probably craving a Greyhound, but vodka is basically another form of sugar or at least on the not-so-healthful list, so too bad, Inner Lush, go twiddle your thumbs with Mr. Demonic Sweet Tooth over there in the corner or I'll be forced to pummel you).

I love to peruse the amazing produce section of my favorite spendy market, New Seasons. So much to see, smell, fondle inappropriately. In my quest for grapefruit, I happened upon several strange looking fruits that seemed to insinuate themselves as grapefruit-equivalent. One was extremely ugly. Indeed, it is called "Ugly Fruit" and with a name like that, how could I not take the large and unlovely fruit - the red-headed stepchild, if you will - home with me? But the Texas Red grapefruit called out to me as well. And I was scared that the unsightly citrus would taste of it's name, so as a precaution, I selected a star from the Lone State pile, too. It smelled fabulous. And of course, as I tried to walk away, my salivating palette made me pick up a gigantic sunshiney orb called a Melogold. It was too beautiful not to take home (I hoped it would play nicely with poor Ugly, and not increase its already sure-to-be intense inferiority complex). Excellent: A grapefruitish taste-off for one*, coming right up.

So I just ate the Ugly Fruit, and I am astounded at how delicious and sweet and weird it was. Like an orange, a non-sour grapefruit, and maybe some Naked Tangerine Juice flavored juiciness to it. Fantastic. I sliced it in half, and did the whole sectioning between the membranes thing (wow, that sounds gross, i never realized). And you know, it totally hit the craving. So much so that I can't really imagine cracking open the others. I suppose in a taste test one should really try all samples at once for comparison, but I just chowed down on that single luscious and unattractive globe. I am a happy, sated, non-borderline scurvy diagnosis girl.

Of course the best part of the citrus adventure was standing at the check out, with two large bottles of beer, and three SUPER large citrus fruits on the conveyor belt. We step up to the checker, who is cute as a button and maybe 23 or 24, fresh-faced as all get out, and he exclaims "WOW!! Look at the size of those melons!"

Which is not something a girl hears every day, right? Especially in reference to, essentially, three grapefruits, but nevermind.

I wish you could have seen the look on Joosh's face. It took a second for him to realize the kid was speaking about the actual fruit in front of us, rather than being inappropriately cheeky.

I looked at the checker and at Joosh (simmer down, honey!) and said "Well, that's not something a gal hears every day." Checker Dude looked confused - for a beat and a half. Then, with a large globe in his hand, he turned about as red as the inside of the grapefruit.

Ahhh, kids these days.

*Joosh doesn't go gaga for citrus things like I do. He's a little bit sensitive to the acidity, I think. Not as bad Teabagger and his super weird "Geographic Tongue" (vile!) but somewhere earlier on the road to such a thing from Joosh's description. Since I have to kiss that mouth, I don't force feed the acids, you know?

Ouch, dude.

2008-03-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah, what he said.

(This seems to be viral, not actually sponsored by the Chosen One as indicated, fyi.)

Ignore Travolta and his "Hair" - Watch the Rest.

2008-02-26T01:21:00.000-08:00

You probably saw this on Sunday. But I think it's worth seeing again. And again. Hence I'm putting it on my blog so I will watch it again. And again. And probably a few more agains after that.

The only thing missing from this, is after Glen speaks, Jon Stewart says something to the effect of "God that guy is so arrogant!" Nyaw, love you Mr. Leibowitz.

My screenwriting professor is IN LOVE with the movie Once. Juno too. Can't get enough. He joked that if Once had been made in Hollywood, they would have lived happily ever after immediately, and it would have been called Forever. (Side note: Read further down in his blog, he's kvelling about three excellent finished scripts. None of those are mine. Here, though, where he's talking about one-on-one emails with the slower of the bunch? Totally me. Sigh.)

It's a great class - very straightforward, very practical, and I love how simple storytelling is when it's all about what happens next. Let the actors detail the emotional layers, let the director "describe" the expressions, the scenery, heighten the drama, let the art director flesh out the pretties and the uglies, alls I gots to do is say who and where, make them say interesting multi-dimensional things, and move it the hell along with some punch. Sweet, dude. So different than fiction. Freeing, and yet informative for all formats, really: Because of this class, I might finally be able to tell an anecdote in proper order, without accidentally blowing all the tension and interesting bits at the beginning. Well worth the exorbitant tuition, I think.

Why write?

2008-02-26T00:43:00.000-08:00

I neglected to explain the random writing piece from a while back, "The Application." Perhaps I should.

I wrote it for a class, called (strangely) "Dangerous Words" and the prompt was to write a letter of application. The professor is pretty funny in the way he "assigns" things, and this was the first assignment (he calls them "5 finger exercises, as we're not supposed to spend a ton of time on them, and they should be short enough to read aloud in class). He basically said:

"Write a letter of application. For the class. As if I were going to select you based on the letter to be in the class. Which I won't, of course. But I will. So it's a letter of application. But you've made a mistake of some kind. In your letter, you are applying to something else. Like to be a slave working on the pyramids. Or something. So you've made a mistake. And you are applying. Okay?"

Ooookay.

So I came up with the idea of applying to be a scapegoat because I had recently dreamed a really wretched but cathartic dream about being made a scapegoat by my lovely and charming parental units (Portland contingent). It was originally much longer, with specific examples of my stellar skills as a bleeting heart (bwah ha ha, sorry, couldn't resist).

Anyway, that's what that's all about.

Now here's another assignment. Dashed off and unedited. In list format (we talk a lot about formats... this could have been an obituary or a letter to god, or Dear Abbey, or a want ad or any one of a million methods of delivery).

Why be a writer? Why write?

Top 10 Reasons To Write:

10) For truth. To get to the bottom of things, peel back the layers, find the ugly and the pretty. Or the nothingness, if that's what yields.

9) To lie. There's usually a nicer looking truth out there somewhere, an alternate ending.

8) To mortify and/or make proud a family of narcissists*, whose crowded stages scarcely leave room to register a speaking part, let alone a punchline.

7) For closure. To bury the myriad hatchets that have been slugged around for decades.

6) For revenge. Against those hatchet-throwers whose bloodied blades will never be granted burial.

5) For freedom. Free to embrace crazy like an accessory, instead of an illness, and live a stimulating life of euphoric highs and cavernous lows in the constant peaks and troughs of The Artist's thought waves.

4) To make trouble. As truth-tellers so often seem to. IF they are at all good at what they do.

3) To get better and better (hopefully) instead of just older and older.

2) To matter. Because we will all die one day.

1) To self-satisfy. Because it feels good to write. A singular, self-directed, pleasurable activity. Like masturbation. Or yoga.

And of course the follow up to this, again from the Prof: What do we avoid by writing, being a writer? (He said it a little fancier than that, and with a more ominous tone).

Top 10 Things to Avoid by Choosing Writing as a Career:

10) Mind-numbing day jobs and slippery corporate ladders.

9) The wretched and painful requirements that come along with having to answer to a higher-up boss type person on a daily basis.

8) Having to get dressed everyday.

7) Legitimacy in society as a "productive member" of same.

6) The boredom of a steady paycheck.

5) Health insurance and any illusion of security.

4) Predictability and the ability to plan for anything, ever.

3) Responsibilities of so-called "adulthood."

2) Expectation.

1) Human interaction.

Next up: How do I want to die?

Not looking forward to that one, I must admit.

Very truly yours,
Ass-in-Chair Amby

*No, not YOU. Of course not you.

So my birthday is coming up...

2008-02-19T23:52:00.000-08:00

Please and thanks.

Important Stuff To Know About Stuff That Like Fills Your Closets And Stuff.

2008-02-16T20:34:00.000-08:00

El Jefe Goldstein recommended this video to me a while back. It's simple, and probably preaching to the choir with all of y'all in this audience, but still important stuff I think. Well done, anyway - everything is clear, concise and woven together thoughtfully.

THE STORY OF STUFF

So maybe you can pass it on to your non-Hippie, heads-in-the-sand consumer "I want/I need/Gimme" family members and friends. But in a less judgey tone than I seem to be able to muster.

Food Porn Note

2008-02-16T00:05:00.000-08:00

I still love the site and all, but I must say that I think there is a bit of an unhealthy obsession with bacon and super strange bacon related products going on with the trendspotters that flock to Tastespotting.

To wit:

The bacon lattice, or bacon weave.

Bacon Vodka:

Bacon Cookie:

Bacon Kettle Corn:

Bacon Crunch Ice Cream:

Bacon Toffee:

Call me old fashioned, unadventurous, whatever, but I just can't get into the whole "Everything is Better with Bacon" universe of food thought.

Also, I'm sorry, but that Ice Cream looks like a pile of poo. I will admit, however, to being mildly (very mildly) intrigued by the bacon lattice. It's kind of pretty. I feel that it would look lovely hanging on the wall.

The Application.

2008-02-14T22:05:00.001-08:00

Dear Sir or Madam,

Though you have not yet advertised a current opening for the very important position that I am proposing to fill, I am certain that you will eventually have need of someone in this timeless role. I would like you to consider that – as history has proven - it is better to have but not need someone in this capacity, than to find yourself in need and not have a stand-in readily available.

I'm sure we can agree that it is terribly inconvenient to find yourself with acute blame on your hands. Perhaps for some action (or possibly inaction as often happens to be the case) that could have been avoided with better tools, or forethought, but lacking these, responsibility seems - quite unexpectedly - to be heading squarely for your shoulders. I must tell you: There is no need for you to accept blame or responsibility for any of your actions (or inactions) under any circumstances, ever. Even if it was your very finger on the proverbial button that brought everything crashing down around you, this was surely not your intended outcome. Therefor, why should you jeopardize your reputation, your standing in the community, your own self-conception of who you are and what you are about, in order to bear the burden of the resulting consequence? It is never truly your fault, it must never be so -- and that is where I come in.

I am strong: I can hold at least ten times my weight in the heavy, the irksome, the burdensome responsibility of bad choices and missteps (that, of course, you never intended to make) and I can do so without breaking a sweat, as I am in no way an insubstantial girl. Plus, I used to swim, and not to boast, but Atlas has nothing on these shoulders.

I am loyal - to a fault, perhaps - compassionate, idealistic, hopeful. No matter how many times betrayed, I am able to survive, dragging along with me the certainty that absolutely nothing that has occurred is anyone's fault but my own, and that next time, next time the outcome will most certainly be different. Some say I am naive, but I know I am fierce, tenacious, unfaltering.

I would carry your mistakes, your lies, your ropes of broken promises, to my very grave. I am to blame. Period. It is a truth I know in my heart of hearts, always. I would die again and again, never letting go, to see my commitment through, to carry your troubles to the bitterest of ends. I don't know the meaning of the word quit and I don't have the sense God gave me to shrink back from pain, to protect myself...

Look no further, I am your perfect Scapegoat.

Not only am I strong and thick-skinned, I am Jewish and as you may know, my people invented the very concept of strapping all the guilt, the blame, the terrible sins of the community to a lowly goat and sending it off into the wilderness or over a cliff in a ritual renewal during Yom Kippur (but why wait for atonement, absolution, until the High Holy Days, I say?). Also, I was born to a teenage mother, conceived, she once said, in order to save her life. So let me be very clear: you will not find a candidate for this job more bound to others and to this earth by the twin leather straps of guilt and responsibility, anywhere on the planet.

I would consider it an honor to bear your grievances, carry your burdens as my own, walk through each day wrapped in conflicts not of my creation. I hope you will see that I am an excellent candidate and I urge you to consider me for the position. You will not regret it (nor anything else, ever again).

Two unrelated things of great importance to share with you immediately because they are so dang important.

2008-02-14T00:55:00.000-08:00

First:

Why did this not exist when I was a Lollapalooza/Lillith Fair/outdoor all day concert goer???

Feh. How much could I have saved in a) Money spent on expensive-ass water, b) Time on quests to get ungettable booze and c) Tissues used to ferret out all the black crusty boogers created by dusty outdoor concert locations mixed with total and utter dehydration? I remember being SO PISSED when I had to toss out the water I brought to Lollapalooza (1994? is that right? Jesus, whatever) and then having to fork over $3 or $4 for a tiny bottle of lukewarm spitwater. Had I had this lovely water jug contraption to wrap around my own jugs, I would have been stoked! I also would have looked like a Russ Meyer movie, even more than I already might have with a perky high-school-breast-worthy D bra, but it would have been worth it.

Second:

Bex's friend and former co-worker, GPP (who I had the pleasure of re-meeting and dining with a few weeks ago in Portland when much of Peachpit showed up for Karen's wedding) made an excellent point on his blog about the direction of media technology that Apple seems to be pushing for/reinforcing with the release of the envelope laptop (as I've taken to calling it). I'm sure others have been talking about this, but since I'm living in a house that Linux built, the only Mac news I get is from one half of the Watsons, or from Bex. Anyway, so it's interesting to me that part of the Mac push basically takes for granted that media will continue the march toward file formats and away from discs, CD, DVD, whatever. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't miss floppy discs either, or VHS tapes. I kind of feel like I would miss CDs and DVDs though, but then again I watch TV online, use a memory stick instead of burned CDs and mostly listen to music from mp3 files instead of on CD.

Hey, so, like 20 minutes ago when I found these things and felt like I had to share them with you, I had a ton of really interesting things to say about them. And now, well, not so much.

So I'm done now.
Bye Bye.

Irony.

2008-02-10T18:54:00.001-08:00

Amy Winehouse wins Grammy for "Rehab."

I'm sure you've heard the song, right? With the chorus that goes something along the lines of "They tried to make me go to Rehab, and I said no, no, no."

She's the UK's own Britney of the moment, except instead of an "inbred swamp thing," she's a nice Jewish girl from London with the voice of a soulful black lady, a WASPy eating disorder and a ghetto-worthy drug problem to boot. And the reason she couldn't attend the Grammy's in person was in part because she was denied the Visa she applied for FROM REHAB.

Art, life, life, art. Bravo, to both of you. No no, take a bow.

Uh Mah Gaw.

2008-02-10T11:22:00.000-08:00

There are several sites I frequent where so-called "Food Bloggers" tempt me with their magical foodie material: Orangette, Gluten-Free Girl (even though these two are a little bit too high on life for a sometimes cynic like me to handle), Je Mange La Ville, Smitten Kitchen, etc.

Mostly I am inspired, sometimes annoyed, always drooling over what I find at these sites. Periodic attempts to recreate featured recipes have met with much success. Every so often I've noticed the long list of links to other food sites that adorn the sidelines of the above-mentioned food blogs, but I almost always hesitate to click through for further investigation because a) Who has time? and b) well, really it's just that who has time? The few I have clicked through in the past have annoyed me for one reason or another (too few photos, too much meat product, too heavy of an emphasis on muy expensivo ingredients, or more recently on things I just can't - or shouldn't - eat).

So I was utterly delighted when I clicked on a tantalizing sidebar link today called "Tastespotting" and found the mother of all food porn stashes. I've died and gone to -aholic heaven (insert noun there - sex, food, calorie, porno, whatever) with this site boasting hundreds of pages of large alluring photos and easy click-through links to the fabulous featured foods therein. I probably spent an hour clicking through the assortment today, dying anew with each page load.

Unfortunately, I can't eat about 70% of what's highlighted on each page, but F it, I can still imagine what each thing tastes like, especially all the crazy desserts (I've always had an unhealthy relationship to food, one might say, and this just continues the trend... but in my mind instead of on the plate. Better? Depends on who you ask, I'd bet). As for the 30% of food items in the world that are Acupuncturist-approved and with which I am free to cook up without restriction, I am totally inspired by the photos on this site. Coupled with the new "Veganomicon" cookbook gracing our countertop, I think we are good to go for a while.

On that note, I must to the kitchen, lemon and pea risotto is calling for stirrage. I leave you with the addictive food photos of lusciousness. Click at your own risk. Go ahead, click on it. I dare you. Tastespotting.com

Why the internets are weird (and why you should therefor watch "Eli Stone").

2008-02-09T00:53:00.000-08:00

A long time ago, in a lifetime that seems very very far away, I lived in Berkeley and had a job that basically entailed writing emails back and forth to friends all day in between surfing and reading all the new exciting "content" on the "world wide web." So fresh, so weird, so prolific, all those tech savvy folks who got themselves up on the net before it was fashionable (or profitable) to do so.

One early net writer was Pamela Ribon, of Pamie.com (formerly Squishy). I read her Squishy site pretty steadily until I left my job to go shack up with Joosh, losing all my at-work bookmarks and forgetting all about places like Squishy and Disgruntled Housewife and the Gallery of Regrettable Foods.

I rediscovered Pamie's site in 2005 and was entertained anew. She's written two books, "Why Girls Are Weird" (which I have not yet read) and "Why Moms Are Weird" (which I have, and quite enjoyed). She's also a head writer on the Christina Applegate vehicle show "Samantha Who?" (which, actually, is quite enjoyable as well). Well, she was a head writer until all these strike shenanigans shut down production.

{Excuse me a moment while I have a mini diatribe about the strike: As much as I'd like for the writers to win against the greedy bastages, be compensated fairly for their efforts with a piece of all the rewards that Web 2-point-frickin-Oh may potentially reap, and for the families of all the folks that provide support services to Hollywood to put back to work and be able to afford living in LA once again, I sort of secretly wish it would continue for many more months. I think that the only way America is going to wake up and get pissed at what is going on in the White House, in Iraq, in the future, in the climate, in the back pockets of government and corporations, etc, is if they are unplugged from the boob tube. Really, part of the reason this election cycle is so intense, I think - besides the fact that it's crazy historic, obviously - is because people are paying actual attention this time, being so bored of Reality TV and all. My theory is that if the strike were to continue through the Fall (no new shows until 2009 at the earliest), Bush and Cheney would be impeached. No, I'm serious, think about it. There would be enough people paying attention, supporting congressional efforts to file the articles, feeding on that sense of drama and tension in the story arc - it would absolutely captivate a narrative-hungry audience who just might be all the more interested by any connections they managed to make to their own lives, pocketbooks, futures, etc... Okay, ending the (not-mini) diatribe, have another episode of "Lost" to catch up on.}

Anyway, so Pamie of Pamie.com used to write for Television Without Pity (which was bought by Bravo/NBC, so insert sell-out joke here), where she apparently met and befriended this lovely lady, Anna Beth Chao from Hashai.com.
AB, as she is known, is hilarious. She has, of late, been using her Flikr account to update her adoring public, instead of her blog. I guess she's over it, the blogging. (On the plus side, her photos are perfect and her home decor is absurdly lust-inducing*).

One day, AB (who lives and works somewhere in the south, maybe Louisiana?) announced this bit of craziness on her flickr/blog: She was hired by someone (Greg Berlanti) whose show she used to recap (and mock) on TWOP to be a writer on his new show, "Eli Stone". What? That happens? REALLY???? Apparently, yes. I periodically checked up on her site and Pamie's to see what was happening at what they coined to be "TV Camp." There was no shortage of drool nor envy on my part whilst reading said updates.

As much as I read about the process, the road to the show, etc, I didn't read much about the program itself, so I didn't really know what to expect. All that managed to stick in my increasingly absent-minded head was the fact that Brit Johnny Lee Miller (the former Mr. Angelina Jolie, also known as Sickboy to anyone in high school or college in the mid-Nineties) was playing an American lawyer in SF. And since the strike began, I hadn't heard anything about it - I thought maybe it had already aired and been shelved.

No no, I was wrong. With the heralded return of "Lost" (Michael is the man Ben has on the freighter, and also the man in the coffin, bet you cash money), in sweeps Eli, which IMDB sums up thusly: " A legal drama centered on a lawyer (Miller) who begins to think he might be a prophet". This summation made me skeptical, but was intriguing enough when coupled with the whole behind-the-scenes-internet-stalking thing I'd been doing to make me want to tune in. So tune in I did.

I was totally unprepared for the hook, people. If you watch TV, you've probably seen the second week ads that blow the punchline of the first 10 minutes of the first show, but if you haven't, I totally don't want to ruin it for you. Let me just say that as the organ music rises in the beginning, and as Eli (and you, the viewer) finally puts it together what the song is, never in a million years did I expect that they, the writers/producers/whatever would a) pull, and b) get away with so well, such a stunt. I couldn't stop laughing: at Johnny's face (and white boy dancing in his underwear before going into the living room), at the scenario, at my own delight for being tricked by a TV show that lulled me into such a false sense of smugness thinking I totally had the show's number before it even started... terrific. Well done. Bravo, Berlanti, Bravo AB (and all the other nameless faceless writers whose flickr blogs I do not read).

I realize my track record for show recommending isn't stellar in this blog environment ("Chuck" disappointed me by episode two, but I was too forlorn to admit it here... I will say that I was reinvigorated in episode three or four, when Bob Ross from the PBS painting show got a chuckle-worthy shout-out, but I haven't watched any other episodes since. I hope I didn't steer you too terribly wrong. At least the actor who plays Chuck is adorable, right?). Regardless of my possibly questionable taste, episode one of "Eli Stone" is totally worth checking out. Those of you who loved "Alias" (you know who you are) will be pleased to note that Victor Garber appears prominently, as does Loretta Devine (every show is better with a sassy black friend or a snarky secretary, right, so her character is a double whammy).

Watch it. See if you are as tickled as I was. If so, you can thank the strange interwoven tubular tendrils of the internets for the fact that I even knew about it enough to watch, and thus pass it along to you. If not, well, whatever, sorry. What else would you be watching right now anyway, huh?

*I was inspired by AB's bookshelves and finally got around to organizing mine about a year after we'd moved in - maybe more than a year, actually. And Bex, sharp gal that she is, totally noticed that my books were organized by genre and color. I was simultaneously impressed with her and embarrassed for myself.

Whats I Beens Doin?

2008-02-05T23:14:00.000-08:00

Since December, when last I typed a peep*, this is what I've been up to (in general order of life appearance):

1) Heard this on the radio and cried for an hour in my car.

2) As a form of recovery from the above song-listening and crying, spent WAY too much time on this site, laughing hardest over the following in particular: Bacon, Emo (because it reminds me of a certain singing friend from the nineties), Balloon, and Devil Cat. I must admit that I am not laughing nearly as hard now as I was in December when looking at these initially, but Bacon still gets me every time. Also, someone told me that the bible is being translated into this language, the LOLCATS speak, so to speak. I didn't believe them. I was wrong.

3) Missed family at the holidays, but enjoyed a nice quiet time here in Portland. Kicked it with the Watsons. It was cool. Literally:

4) Tried to keep Christmas shenanigans to a minimum, and almost managed to succeed, until Joosh went out and spoiled the bejesus out of me with this:

(It's a giant Timbuk2 bag, the size and beautiful colors of which you likely are not able to discern from this hideous photo. It is big enough for all my schoolbooks, a laptop and most of my torso and shoulders, should I ever need to haul those around in a satchel).

And this:

(A keen-eyed rememberer of clothing named Jojo might be able to place the fabric from the quilt patch on the sewing machine. The flowery stuff. It was a hippie skirt. There may have been two tinkly bells on the tie at the waist, which I am not willing to admit to just now. It was a senior year thrift store find. I loved it long time. The black stuff is from a silk robe purchased in Chinatown, in college. Good times.)

So, me, I was very much spoiled. And I, in turn, got him a box full of foreign beers and a hand-made Shop Class metal arts type project craftily using wedding favor candy tins and rolls of self-adhesive cut-out magnet material (please. don't. ask). And pajamas, whoopee. So someone needs to get a real job and give someone else a nice Christmas in July, or something redeeming like that. Yeah.

5) Received several lovely items from AC, to whom I have still not sent my thank you note. Three items were for Joosh, and I have taken over all but one.

6) Started seeing an Acupuncturist, to discover that I suffer from "Dampness." Ooookay, then. At least it's not called "Moistness" since, as some of you know, I despise that word (yes, even when describing cake). Actually, the treatments, herbs and diet adjustments have been pretty miracle-working. I'm okay with not eating sugar (most of the time) but the bread, booze and fried stuff was not so easy to give up. When I partake of the above, however, I am So. Pissed. afterward. My traitorous belly punishes me severely, and I re-learn the lesson anew every time. Goddammit.

***Updated to say that Chinese Medicine is good for people and puppies, too. (Warning to women of childbearing age: clicking this link may cause spontaneous ovulation and/or immaculate conception from the cuteness of the wee child leading the post. The cheeks, holy, god, the CHEEKS. And the eyes. And the faces. And and and... Obviously I am completely smitten). But back to the canine family member in the Lalaland household: Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Lulu the super dog.***

7) Spent lots of time with these folks:

8) Had some excellent times (chats, fun, laughs, near-peeing-self-on-couch-misses, meals and entire host of other things we miss by living far apart from each other) with this gal.

9) Enrolled in two writing classes at this school. Began writing A LOT.

10) Waited impatiently for this little lady to arrive:

11) Attempted to try out for this but was foiled at the pre-tryout clinic by my Britney Spears Sketcher Skates (Damn you, Britney! Why you gotta put a weenie back stopper on your stupid skates?) and when offered a pair of replacements from a Breakneck Bettie (which smelled really bad, but were otherwise awesome - the skates, not the Bettie), I totally bailed out waiting for the second run of a sprint thing that involved running five steps on the toestops (front ones, BritBrit, duh) then full tilt boogie skating supa fast, then spinning and stopping short, again on the toe stops. Notice my words here: I bailed WAITING for the second run. I kicked ass on the first run. Then, while waiting in line for the second run, I totally toppled over just standing there, not even moving. Bottom line, I totally f'ed up my ankle on the Saturday before try-outs and was hobbling around like a dweeb with an ace bandage for days.

12) Was delighted by aforementioned ankle troubles when forced to miss out on actual trials, as I watched from the stands and subsequently understood them to involve thirty laps of fast skating BEFORE any of the timed trials, relays, etc. Had I not been hobbled, I would have killed at this, and then died, and then returned home after 3 hours completely deadxhausted, only to shower and turn around to head to the Watsons for Sarah's birth march. Okay, not a march, but it was in no way a fast experience. And there was some slow walking, almost a march, maybe sorta kinda a little. I kid: It was amazing. And I would have been suffering terribly and in no way able to provide any kind of support to Mama and Papa had I just been beaten down by all the bashing babes on blades. Er, skates.

13) Experienced the miracle of all miracles with Ms. Watson's birth. I swear I am STILL high from the whole thing. Jess was amazing, Mark was terrific, the baby is perfect. The entire event was totally mind-blowingly insane and scary and miraculous and great.

14) Continued to write lots more. Including a "please excuse my absence from class" paper about the fact that I was away giving birth. I'm sure that sounds bizarre, but we have to write these one page make-up papers about why we missed class, and they can't be true. So I borrowed heavily from what I had been witnessing whilst having to miss said class. My classmates responded well to the piece, though one gal felt the need to tell us all about how one thing "they" never tell you is that there is lots of poop involved in birth. (There was not in this birth, let me just clear that up right now). I told her, and thus the class full of people, that I had a lovely book, The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth (from the 90's, written by music producer Jimmy Iovine's sarcastic and not entirely unmean wife) which did indeed warn us all about the poop possibilities. The men in the room, with the exception of the one who wrote a fantastic "Dear John" letter to his masculinity** (I love him), were not super excited about our side conversation.

15) Decided to apply to this program at the above mentioned school (in spite of the fecal related feedback of my potential peers).

16) Did so, with the procurement of some very lovely last minute letters of recommendation and the crazy scramble to write/edit 30+ pages of material for submission (and an unquantifiable amount of constant patient support from my man - he's a saint or a masochist, I haven't decided). I don't know what he's doing in this photo.

So, yeah. Turned in app on 2/1/08.

Started to wait.

Am still waiting.

Will continue to wait.

17) Due to above decision, chose to skip a lovely Bay Area visit with the Davis girls in order to make a dent in the 30 pages, but did get to see this gal again briefly, which is always good.

18) Took this harder than I would have expected.

19) Fell suddenly and pretty hard for this guy. And this only added fuel to the fire (of my political support AND my wretched crush on young ScarJo, because I am a dirty old lady).

20) Got excited that my kid brother got himself a job (and tried not to think about the fact that he's starting at $4 an hour MORE than I was making as an emotional toilet bowl at my last job - not including commissions and non-existant bonuses, of course, BUT STILL). Congrats, moneybags.

And now, internets, I think we are relatively up to date. I have lots more to tell you about terribly unimportant things, but this will have to do for now.

Good luck to Grandma and her eye surgery tomorrow morning.

Happy Ash Wednesday to the rest of you. No sinning for 40 days (right? isn't that how it works?). Can you deal? No? Then come on over here and sit by me.

*The unforeseen stoppage in writage was due to the information that my mother has been alerted to this portal in the blogosphere by one or more of my careless brothers who left it in the browser of her computer "by mistake". Dork(s). It wasn't some big secret, just nothing I had planned to advertise until there was a delicious pile of baby or something equally splendid to advertise on these pages. Until then, I'd hoped not to think too much about the audience (future job offer prospects and the egos of people I still care about in life not withstanding). Oh well. Hi, Mom. Hope you got over that nasty flu by now.

**Oh my God, this guy is so funny. His piece was a total break up letter, to his masculinity, with the whole "it's not you, it's me" and "I hope we can still be friends" and it ended with "You know you're still my favorite to fart and shotgun beers with." So totally great. Unfortunately, as I was trying to give some feedback about the format, I said something to the effect of liking the whole "It's not me, it's you" bit, and how we could all relate to that and suddenly the class started laughing. It took me a minute to realize what I'd said. I started to correct myself, but then decided that, no, my slip was actually more apropos to any of my possible Dear Johns or many other interpersonal troubles: It's not me, it's you.

Cutest Boy I Know.

2007-12-19T23:15:00.000-08:00

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?

2007-12-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-12-11T21:17:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-12-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-29T13:03:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-11-28T14:54:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-11-28T14:49:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-11-28T14:36:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-11-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-10-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-10-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-10-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-14T00:25:00.001-07:00

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.

2007-10-01T17:45:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

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?

Sucktastic.

2007-09-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

I am a truly sucky blogger. It's true. So true that I've had to use 'truly' and 'true' in adjoining sentences, right out of the gate. That is some truthy truth. See, I thought it had been maybe two or two-and-a-half weeks since logging in some mindless sharing here, but no no. When I clicked over today, I realized: it's been over a month. Shiza.

This is pretty typical of me and projects. Fun or otherwise. Big ideas. Lots of thought/discussion. TONS of intent. A decent start, full of commitment and maybe a dash of ingenuity (I'm thinking of the millions of bead-store-necklaces that are sitting around half finished, not necessarily the bloggy blog here). But delivery? Um. Yeah.

I don't have any great excuses. It's only stupid Working On Work Projects stuff. And since I sit at my computer 10 hours a day some days (14 on more than few, I'm sorry to admit), it's not like I couldn't click over and login and dash off a post. Except I can't. Because I'd have to log out of my work Gmail and all associated Google docs (people, Google docs are amazing - a bit slow on occasion, but cheap and convenient... like my men). In logging out of work Gmail, I risk not only missing something time sensitive and critical (it's been one emergency after another, I'm telling you) but also having to log back into 25 spreadsheets and templates -that would be pure craziness- anytime I want to say something. Plus with the constant sitting and writing and stressing and staring at the (lovely and large but glaring) screen, I'm completely boring and have nothing interesting to say, can't even pretend to have anything noteworthy to note (hilarious conversations & periodic chat with Bex notwithstanding, but totally inappropriate for bloggage, I'm afraid).

But you know, popping in this evening, I realized something: I've lost time. Not X-Files lost, but like, blink of an eye/where is my-life-flying-off-to-now lost. I don't know what happened to our beautiful summer, or how the cold crept in and bit the leaves red and yellow and called in the Big Storm guns to battle the sunshine and shower us heavily in bursts throughout the day (super beautiful, I must say, but best of all: washes away all the damn crazy HUGE spiders that have invaded the building and the greenery around here). So suddenly there are only a few fragrant peaches and crapload of pears, apples, pomegranates, and other fall-ish fruits where the plums and plucots and berries spilled forth just a few days ago (or possibly a few weeks ago since I am obviously completely dissociated from real time right now). If I didn't have a calendar and had to guess the date, I'd think it was maybe Labor Day at most. So wrong.

But as far as blogging goes, it's not that I haven't made some attempt. In the past few weeks I've written and somehow not saved for editing the following posts:
Why Iowa is Great (a beginners guide)
Why Jakob is Great (an ode to the pre-three's)
Sneaky Subversive Movies and the Studios that Hide Them (until two minutes before the Oscars, forcing me to suffer "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" when I need some movie time but the screens are utterly bare.)
The Coming Recession.

I will likely not try to recreate these, with exception of Why Iowa is Great, but it will be sadly lacking in photos as my phone was an unworthy tool for capturing more than a few up-close details, and the fellow traveling with me through it's cornish hills and prairies can't be relied upon to send me any of his promised photos (from his dumb i-phone that totally didn't work anywhere in the entire state except Des Moines, by the way).

Oh yeah, that was another entry: Why iphones Are Dumb. I will likely skip that one too, so as to avoid the wrath of the growing Applafia.

Though it has kept me from participating in the blogosphere lately (writing or reading), the one good thing about current work is this: the utter ridiculousness that will make an excellent story one day, maybe even mildly amusing enough of a sitcom scenario to get a pilot made (but not shown, of course). The bad side of this absurdity is that some of the circumstantial hoopla is so totally implausible outside of something like an (admittedly poorly written) sitcom that you will think me totally trite and/or a lier if I try to explain it to you here in a factual rendering.

Bach'ing It

2007-08-25T01:22:00.000-07:00

Last month I went up to Seattle for a few days with my grandparents. Joosh (tm Rypinski) was not able to go due to work obligations and the substantiated rumor that we might be renting a tiny little hotel suite or 1-bedroom flat for all of us (I actually have an entire post about this, half finished, as so many things are around here, but it will have to wait). But mostly it was the whole work obligation thing.

As we were getting ready to hit the road, Grandma asked if Joosh would be okay by himself. I wasn't sure what she meant exactly, so she went on to ask if he could, you know, cook for himself, or would he (what, starve? eat cold cereal and uncooked ramen noodles for four days?) have to eat out every day. I laughed and said that no, he's very good in the kitchen, can make lots of good stuff, and even does the dishes. Don't worry, I said, he definitely knows how to fend for himself.

That's very good, she said. It's great that he can batch it.

Quoi? I was confused. Is that some sort of old-timey word for "cut it" or "make it" or slang for survival or something?

No no, she said, "bach" it, like bachelor.

Oh. Duh.

It was so cute how she said it, how matter of fact and proud she sounded: "It's great that he can bach it". The stories she then told about different husbands of various friends of hers, men who couldn't boil water for themselves, who would be utterly lost whenever their women went away, were totally hilarious. One gal received a phone call from her fella asking why the macaroni wasn't getting soft in the bowl when he microwaved it. Without water.

Grandma guffawed at the ineptitude of these many sorry saps and their poor beleaguered wives, and talked about Grandpa's cooking and that it's so important to know how to take care of yourself, etc etc. It was a surprisingly lengthy sermon on the independence mountain, I must say. But very cute.

Well as proud of J as she was (and me, by virtue of having chosen such an apparent rarity), let me tell you, she would be absolutely appalled at me this week. J is in the VTA and I am, ahem, Bach'ing It Up here in Bridgetown. And I am disgusting. First of all this whole working at home thing is awesome, but the utter busyness of late and the lack of anyone to make fun of me for wearing my pj's all day means that I am doing just that. Second, I'm never so much into doing dishes on the slowest of days, so those are piling up rather nastily (especially since my "dishwashing" usually consists of filling the basin with hot water and soap to pre-soak the intended washees, but then totally forgetting about it until the next day when what is left is a chilly, unsoapy, crud-filled, scum-surfaced pond of yuck in the sink that I usually can't bear to attack for at least another day). Also, I put a fan in the window of the living room that at some point blew hard enough (apparently of its own accord) to scatter a bunch of receipts and loose mail from the coffee table (also known as My Office) all over the living room. That was Wednesday. The fan is still on. The scattered items are still that, but perhaps more widely spread around the room.

I ate rice pudding for breakfast. I haven't had coffee in days. My main meal today was chips, black beans with garlic (god, do I admit this? that were still on the stove from the night before.... don't judge) and mango salsa. People, it's bad.

I've decided that it's really not me, it's work - I'm stressing about a project that is going to go live two weeks from today (and will involve my flying to Iowa for two days after Labor Day to train call-center answerers, how random is that?) and not only are there a million little pieces to take care of/keep track of, I just can't seem to let go of all the loose threads and dangly bits hanging out here and there not getting done by others or Indians (ah, outsourcing), and all over which I have absolutely no control. It really could be work. But in my heart of hearts, I know that really it's because I'm just not very good at bach'ing it anymore.

Don't tell Grandma.

Am and Gram at the (gorgeous) Japanese Garden in Seattle.

Out of the closet.

2007-08-22T23:47:00.000-07:00

I've been outed. In my haste, late last night, I forgot to switch my Google login info before posting a comment on the Watsonian blog. Bexy, the eagle-eyed future lawyer, of course spotted my odd moniker immediately and, well, now the pressure is on. I thought I might get away with skulking around the whole thing a bit more, but no. I am unveiled.

It's true that I've been saying "Maybe I should throw up a blog" for, what... at least four months now, I think. And it was back in Berkeley (ought three, as I recall) that I registered my first site with the intention of writing/posting something - anything - up on the bare white background. But again, no. Didn't happen. I was bested by the intimidating "Coming Soon" which taunted me, mockingly marring the nothingness. That particular domain expired by the time I'd been in Ventura several months and really didn't have much to say that didn't involve my nutball family relations or untellable gossip about old friends and former co-workers (CBTL5, I'm looking at you!).

But with Bextravagant taking the plunge, my interest was renewed, and my natural laziness toward invested creative endeavors started to abate. Plus I live in a pretty kick-ass town, so perhaps, just maybe, I thought, there would be a few more interesting things to write about than the non-stop back-brain chatter of my so-called "rich inner life" and the tragedy of near-Shakespearean proportions that had been unfolding in my work and personal life since my naive naive naive attempt to work with my crazypants family (PDX contingent).

The clincher, really, has been getting to keep tabs on what Bex was up to without our (now infamous in my household) marathon phone calls*. The daily treat of her various newsy finds and the diligent progress posts about the literal and figurative road to law school has been so terrific, while stalking Preggers through her Beancubation period was such a treat, and that's not to mention the periodic updates from friends and friends-of-friends further afield. All of this together in the tiny, webbed, blogosphere, that it seemed like such a perfect and totally modern way (jesus, I sound like I'm 80 years old) to keep in sort-of touch, share all the random good/weird/bad/fun/completely ridiculous/possibly very boring stuff and create a medium for some community connection without e-mail bombing 25 people or having the same conversations over and over (and over and over and over), or having to create a really ugly, assultive-music-and-nasty-wall-paper MySpace page.

So I finally did it, a few nights ago, while avoiding editing some text for a client's web site. (I accomplish so much of the Non-Vital when I am procrastinating the Immediately-Needed, it's truly amazing).

And now here I am. No matter how you slice it, I am definitely late to the Blogger-ing party, but that is typical with me and all things ever considered to be interesting or cutting edge. We'll see how it goes.

*Not that I don't enjoy our 2 hour and 44 minute "chats," but they are hard to commit to in the middle of work (or school) weeks and of course, weekend schedules are such that all of a sudden it's Monday, and I've talked to my Grandma twice and my mom at least once, but somehow didn't follow through on outbound dialing of the intended 510/805/now-480 call.

Same goes for you, Three-One-Oh Jojo, but with the miracle that is IM during work hours (where were you, sweet chat software, in 1998, when I sat for 8 hours every day with nothing to do but email friends absurd quizzes at their similarly boring, brand new, I-can't-believe-I-went-to-college-for-this-shiit job and wait impatiently for the replies to try and alleviate my growing sense of oppressive doom), I feel like it's less infrequent to be able to check in with you for a status report. Too bad you don't have a blog, too. Though it occurs to me that you probably couldn't have a blog, what with all the Hollywood secrets you have been sworn to never reveal. Shame, really.