Sunday, November 8, 2009

Juxtapose: Good manners and tits

(Note:I wrote this post on Nov. 8th and forgot to actually publish it. Someone pointed out to me that I was slacking, so I figured I'd finish it, then post it.)

So, because of a string of random happenings I ended up at a strip club last night. I don't really like strip clubs, I've been maybe two other times. I even have a general rule about strip clubs (necessary in a place like Portland where they are more common than starbucks, no kidding). My general rule is I don't go, because in order to go to a strip club you have to be drunk,I can't get drunk enough to go to strip clubs because then I wouldn't be able to drive myself home, a convenient and honest excuse NOT TO GO TO STRIP CLUBS. Last night it didn't work. I went sober.

It wasn't fun, I ended up having to hang out alone (awkward AND irritating), but that's not what this post is about. It's about manners. As we got there I was re-introduced to two friends of a friend. They are both laid back, Asian girls and I get the impression they do a lot of drugs. But, they are both socially acceptable, they follow the normative behavior of the culture. The societal expectation that fit the re-introduction is the prescribed greeting, "It's nice to see you again." Follow that with a handshake or quick hug. Manners after all, are what allow us to know how to interact with one another and this is important. However, in the exchange of pleasantries, as we shook hands and said the correct phrases a naked chick was sliding up and down a pole approximately eight feet away. All her assets in full view, performing for the room, an obvious deviation from socially acceptable.

Strange.

Understand, I do get that the whole idea of a strip club is a bit outside the norm. Or at least is dubbed a socially acceptable way to indulge in a little voyeurism, but the polite interactions, in such a seedy setting was more than a little ironic and for me was the high point of the night.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Oh my! Kittens!















I’m allergic to cats. They make my eyes swell painfully and I can’t breathe. But, my allergy is nothing compared to that of my brother and my father. All of us, mother and sister included are allergic to cats. That does not mean I don’t like cats or am not reduced to cooing and stupidly sighing at kittens like the ones playing in my back yard.

A momma cat has set up a home between my house and my ancient neighbors. She was living in their wood pile until Vicky, sweet though ancient, decided to barricade the pile to hopefully force them all to leave. It hasn’t worked, momma cat simply moved herself to my side of the fence, taking refuge under my arborvitaes and kept the kittens in the wood pile.

She made the move a few weeks ago and Sam actually first made the discovery. I let him out and then heard an angry hiss. More than a little convinced that he had stumbled across a raccoon or opossum I rushed out to see if I could interceded before my dog got is ass kicked. All 10 lbs of the momma cat (she is a slight thing) was reared up in panicked ass-kicking mode and Sam was motionless. I shoo-ed him inside and gave Momma cat run of the back yard. For about two weeks she’s been guarding the back entrance to the wood pile and Sam has been giving her a wide berth.

Until I looked out the back yard this morning, I wasn’t sure how many were living in that space. There are three, currently playing between the potted plants on the tables in the back yard. And I don’t know what to do about them. I’m sure they won’t survive the winter and Vicky is sure they are too feral to be taken into the humane society. Animal control offered to catch them, fix them and then bring them back. I have no idea what that would accomplish, I mean besides preventing further litters. I’m not sure how it’s going to keep them alive, as it gets colder. I have an old dog crate, I’m thinking of seeing if I could waterproof the thing and add a blanket. Ugh. These babies are too cute and too skittish.

(This one ran back to the fence as soon as it heard me at the window.)

Sunday, September 20, 2009

an obvious lack of compromise


Anyone who reads this blog has seen this room. Either in pictures or in person. I love that I have a "study". I also love that it's this amazing color. I have already expressed my love for the black chalk board paint. The paint in my house is a testament to not having to compromise. It is girlie and if I was sharing this house with someone else it might look more subtle. Then again, maybe not...it's a rather exciting thing to ponder. However, it doesn't change the fact that when/if I ever get married I want to be wearing a dress this color...it's called Altar of Roses.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

i need more chalkboard space


Once upon a time, approximately six years (or seven, I can’t figure the math out) I was sitting through new teacher orientation at my very first big girl job. Now, this group of teachers hired by Kitty Hawk that year was impressive, of the approximately seven of us, four of them are still working there and if I hadn’t been so completely over Texas, I’d probably be there as well. I do love middle school and punk Hispanic boys…but I digress. At this particular meeting, which I was actually paying attention to, a function of it being the VERY FIRST teacher meeting I’d ever been to, the man running the meeting, and in charge of getting the new teachers settled in the building was a practicing Buddhist history teacher who wrote a book about something Texas related. I’m digressing again. I remember him talking about being new to teaching and new to the building and how the relationships we’d form would probably grow to be the best friendships we had, built on the commonality of this crazy job.

With all of my 23-year-old sense of superiority, I scoffed at this idea. I had friends, thank you very much. He told us to look around, I looked around, that maybe one person in the room would prove to be among our best friends.

I looked around and wasn’t impressed. I did have, the immense luck of getting a job with someone I had gone to undergraduate and grad school with. I did not know her as an undergraduate, but with seven of us in a program we definitely had spent some time together over the course of my master’s year, but I was much closer to other people in the program. She was okay, a history teacher from a small town in south Texas, I imagined that we had very little in common. I couldn’t foresee becoming friends.

Of course, I was wrong.

Ed Miller, Buddhist history teacher, turned district office worker, where ever you are, you were right. This picture is proof of my wrongness and how right he really was. I made a small tally every time I talked to Erin this summer. I started it when my year was over and stopped when I started up again. I can’t be sure it is correct, that I recorded every two minute call, or call I received when a certain someone was driving north or southbound 35 (because really, is there a better time to call someone?). But, it’s roughly correct, and amuses the shit out of me.

So, here’s to be wrong, especially when it means I got a crazy wonderful friend out of it. And here’s to another school year, my seventh. The plan is to post once a week. Here’s also to grand ambitions.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

More fun than a soapy wet


hedgehog?


No smart words, just a cute picture. Work has started; my summer was so good I'm almost okay with that.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Buying a surfboard

I'm in a buying a surfboard sort of mood. Not an actual surfboard but a metaphorical surfboard. The sort of thing that becomes a vehicle of self determination. I met a guy once who had moved to California from the east coast and though by day he was a mild mannered (and very square) accountant, he decided that he wanted to be a surfer and so he bought a surfboard, began surfing and with that simple act became what he wanted to become. Crazy simple.

That's the mood I'm in. Maybe it's the beginning of the school year approaching. Which does signal the end of sloth and a necessary adherence to a schedule, is a new beginning and a sort of freedom that comes with having a schedule. Responsibilities are not inherently bad and I'm almost ready to pick up my fair share again. With that is a responsibility to myself. That's the most exciting (and scary) one. I do love the idea of deciding who and what you want to be and how you want to live your life and then trying to make it happen. And I'm in the sort of mood where I believe in all of it.

I'm going to go do something about the god awful pink bedroom. It's a start.

Friday, August 7, 2009

It was not my intention...

...for any part of this blog to be a forum for me to work out ideas that are currently inhabiting my WAY TOO obsessive brain. But, some of what I'm writing this summer is an attempt to do just that and since my writing and this blog WERE supposed to be supporting one another, I'm posting what I'm writing and writing what I'm thinking about.

So, I don't know if you've heard of the Fat Acceptance movement or the fatosphere, basically a bunch of websites/blogs devoted to reminding people that fat people are in fact people. I read a few of them, I ignore a bunch of it, but much of it ties in with a lot of feminist ideas that i definitely believe in.

So I read this post: http://www.therotund.com/ , the one about Limbo and now I'm thinking... i can hear you "oh god, when will she go back to school and get a life" and the answer to that is, not yet, but soon. (I'm kidding, anyone reading this may roll their eyes at me out of love and but always ridiculously supportive of me, more than I can imagine that i deserve, but more on that later).

But, there are a few parts which bear consideration: (The italicized parts are direct quotes from the post.)

Fuck deserving it. Okay a good starting point. Who decides what we deserve? obviously we do. And the answer we give ourselves is based on a million factors from major (I worked for my degree I deserve to get a job i love) to minor (I look like shit today, of course the checker at the store was a jerk). But, and she goes on to discuss this but, how do we get to that part where we aren't continually judging ourselves.

Questions of what we’re worth, what we deserve…. They seem oddly religious in foundation to me. Or going back to the old reward system. You can only love yourself if you deserve it. I know the ideas of karma i was playing with earlier this summer do not take into account the idea of deserving, in fact that's almost contrary to what i was talking about earlier, but it is related to the idea of projecting an idea of yourself and what you deserve out upon the universe. How often do we overanalyze events in order to find a REASON they took place, and more often than not, we blame ourselves.

The other idea here is that it is a fundamentally religious question. Do we "deserve" love, of a god figure, of a partner, of our friends, of ourselves.....and if we do, how could we possibly believe it. Maybe I am speaking too broadly here. Too generally, but so often self love is so damn hard, the other people in our lives have so much more forgiveness than that which we offer ourselves. And it is so much easier to forgive someone else than ourselves.

She ends with advice: So, here’s my advice for the limbo period: You don’t have to have come to any conclusions, you just have to table the matter. And then treat yourself the way you would if you already loved yourself. Treat yourself well. And kindly. And treat other people the same way. And it will sink in. So, the answer, according to this beautifully written piece, patience and faith. Really? That's it....Oh good, I was hoping it would be easy.

Part of what I like about this post, and some of the equally well thought out and written comments is that it acknowledges that so many people are trying to work out the same ideas and issues. I think framing it in the idea of Fat Acceptance is slightly limiting. It's a human issue, dealing with ourselves and the ugly parts we have a difficult time forgiving. When it is letting go of those labels and living and thinking and writing and being (or whatever your particular thing may be) is the only way we are going to move forward to whatever we might hope to become. and really, the continual process of becoming sort of seems like the most i can hope for.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

dog sitting



I just got through dog sitting this super cute pooch, Ru. He and Sam spend so much time together they basically ignore one another's existence. Occasionally, Sam will realize that Ru is much cooler than he, and get pissy and try to tell him what to do. Ru for the most part will just back off and Sam is again content with the world.


Here are the two dogs, Sam in adventure dog mode on the jetty in Astoria and Ru covered in sand after obsessively chasing a stick.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Sugarland Concert

I have empirical evidence.
Apparently it does not matter if you look like either your sister or your mother. Dorky dancing is genetic.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

A sense of place


This is a picture of the view from my mother's favorite rest stop.






Now, it does amuse me that my mom even has a favorite rest stop...but only a little because I have one too, but that may be another post. This rest stop is on highway 14, which runs along the Columbia River from Vancouver to the Umatilla bridge crossing. Highway 14 starts out green and lush and ends up in the dry high desert and this rest stop is at this edge, where the trees begin to give way to the dry gold grasses.

The bigger idea here is that if this is the view from a rest stop why would anyone want to live anywhere other than the north west. It was 105 degrees in the Portland metro area yesterday. We headed west on 26 to avoid the heat; it worked. In and around Rockaway Beach it was not only cooler, but overcast and foggy. (In case you were wondering, you do still need sun block on overcast days). Driving up and down the coast, I was struck by that thought. This is the most beautiful area, how could I ever want to live anywhere else. Obviously, I don’t live at the coast, but I love the fact that the place where I’ve chosen to put down roots is in such a centralized location that I am able to access all of this scenic variety.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Happy 29th!

Ond of my closest is getting music for her birthday, music that I like, music that she will like and some stuff we should both be amused by. I’m listening to some of it now. She is that certain type of friend who understands that although you may purchase- for them, brand new cds – protectively shrink-wrapped and sealed- it makes no sense whatsoever to send off the music without 1. previewing it and 2. burning it.

As I listen, I’m getting musically induced goose bumps for all sorts of reasons. Flashbacks to honkey-tonks in college. A flashback to Terri Hendrix show, happily lesbian friendly and so we packed them in and a very specific image of a friend of mine sitting on a low wide step. The bar was out off Woman Hollering Creek Road. I was so fucking lost. I couldn’t find that road or bar again in later years, although I know it’s there. The world I’d stumbled into was beautiful and confusing and I had no idea how I’d got there. I knew I was a million miles from home and that Shiner made it all okay. Another friend, S, was there, a strange sort of anchor those first few years. Equally lost. Equally displaced. A kindred soul who talked and laughed me through those years. My first roommate also, who taught me what charisma was, personified in a five foot frame. I can see each of them moving around that bar.

Some of what I now hear brings me to Ragweed concert probably two years later, At Floore’s, impossibly crowded- it had poured- a Texas sized storm all day and the show was moved indoors. The music was too big for the ceiling and we spent the whole time avoiding the cowboy hats and trying not to be stepped on. It was early still, probably 2001 or 2002 so the shows had not yet come to be dominated by obnoxious UT frat boys as later shows (and yes, I saw a few) two or three years later, would become. I remember the crowd being mixed, but that may be a mistake of memory, I don’t really know.

The show was loud and much of it sounded awful. Sound was bouncing off the widows and ceiling, much of which was covered by tin tiles, and it was humid- sticky and crowded and there didn’t even seem to be enough room on stage for the band. But, they played for hours. No mistake of memory there. At 1:00, after we’d heard them cover Ring of Fire, before the death of Johnny Cash (later, they stopped playing that particular cover), it was ruccous and intoxicated, we called it in.

It had stopped raining by the time we made our way back to the car. The music and sweat still filtered out, slower now, the night was showing. What I’m listening to right now belongs to a night like that. And, thinking about a night like that, I am, uncharacteristically, stabbed through the heart- missing Texas and maybe that messy 21-year-old uncertainty that made nights like it so beautiful and real.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

July 20th Post


Alternate title: Ode to the Columbia draft 235 (draft number approximate).




(I've been writing love notes to this river for as long as I can remember.)

My favorite place on the river is not a secret. It is a patch of sandy shore north of the dock at Snyder road and south of the dead end at Ferry. It is almost impossible to see- save from the actual river traffic, which is morning has only consisted of a single jet skier. Not surprising- it’s a Monday before 10 o’clock. But, in July, it is already hot, saved from uncomfortable by a breeze blowing from the north along the surface of the water.

Weekday mornings are my favorite time to inhabit this particular place. I’ve never run into anyone, in the evenings and weekends it would probably be full- with young people looking for literally a place away from older disapproving eyes- my own eyes would be viewed in exactly the same way, self centeredly assured that they are all individuals and I could never have come looking for what they now seek. I’m sure I believed the same.

I loose focus in Richland. Not that this summer I am focused on much of anything but place and history and family often send me off kilter and I feel like I am constantly looking for a way out and for someone to love me. I’ve long since found my way away- strangely close to the far away banks of this same river. That river, though a scant ¼ mile in proximity is beyond my home range. Inaccessible. And I silently thank those army corps planners of the 1940s for designing Richland with public spaces along the river. Because my spot may be private right now, but a grill, a fire pit and inscriptions of LOVE remind me that it is home to other people’s musings and escapist tendencies. I don’t make use of it often, but I’m glad it’s here to share when I can.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Chalkboard Inspiration



The flowchart trys to keep up with the train of thought.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Adventures in plant identification volume 2


Just a picture and an id for today. Too tired for much else. Dancing at the Fez last night. They had air conditioning!

A mock orange blossom, also known as philadelphus lewisii.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Green and garlicy


This post is only sort of about pesto sauce.









Really, it’s about how much I love my food processor and how surprised I am that I used it. I don’t think I’d ever considered that it might be handy or necessary before I started cooking with an artist friend of mine from high school. After living in Vancouver for almost a year I found out, through her mother, that she was living, two exits over I-5 in a great north Portland house. I was invited and then luckily found myself there on a fairly regular basis.

With her help and sometimes her roommates and other friends we would occasionally create mulit-course feasts, usually Indian food, once Greek, and a few times chutney. One time, at my apartment, tamales. The food was always great but there was also something warm and inviting about being asked to someone’s house to prepare a meal, to cook. It was hanging out with a purpose and at the end we all got fed. So much better than going out, at the end we all ate what we had, together, prepared.

One time when four of us worked around her kitchen, prepping dinner. It was summer, but not too hot outside, but the smells of cooking onions, aromatic basmati rice, and spices like mustard seed, coriander, cumin and cardamom, being warmed in the oil filled the house. We drank gin and tonic while we shared counter space, passed ingredients and flipped back and forth in the pages of her recipe book. I was in charge of the food processor and made pastes of ginger and onions, minced cilantro, chopped onion and jalapeno. Her tall foreign roommate wandered down from into our mix and was awed by the movement and smells. He grabbed a beer and a place on the floor and became a stationary part of the movement.

I was awed too, I had come to her house seeking comfort, and the food and easy conversation gave that to me. I was mourning, again, a relationship that had never ever worked, no matter how many times I had prayed it would. I’d dropped him off safely, with his dogs and his love, and cried in traffic, all the way from Salem. I arrived early. The artist’s roommate had correctly appraised my mood and without asking too many questions stood beside me and washed and peeled onions from the garden as we made small talk and waited for her to get home. Unlike, the previous 36 hours, once I had crossed into their home, I was loved and accepted just as I was. They had never made me feel like I wasn’t enough, or that I was too much or that what I was, was somehow wrong.

Dinner was amazing. And we laughed and dragged it out and all ate more than we thought possible.

After that meal, I needed a food processor. If you could make evenings like that with one, then I wanted one, got one and use it all the time. Currently, it is making the picnic type food I eat all summer. Things that I can keep in the fridge and eat cold like chutney (that recipe for another day), pesto sauce and baba ganoush.

Three things are true about this batch of pesto sauce:
1. It is more expensive to make it than to buy it in bulk from Costco. I don’t care. I picked this basil from a farm where I bought fresh raspberries, I toasted and slightly burned the pine nuts and I like making it from scratch.
2. It is the best pesto sauce I’ve ever had.
3. I don’t have a recipe. For things like this, or salsa or baba ganoush I put in the ingredients in rough proportion and then adjust to taste.

Here is what goes into pesto. Throw it all in and modify to taste.
1. A large bunch of basil. Washed and picked from the stalks.
2. Approximately ½ cup of olive oil.
3. Approximately ¼ cup of pine nuts (toasted preferably).
4. About 3 cloves of garlic.
5. Approximately ¼ of shredded parmesan cheese.
6. Salt and pepper.

If only it weren’t too hot to boil ravioli.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

two and a half bottles of wine later

Last night was a repeat of the previous one. With a few exceptions, first I got to play host. Secondly, this was an almost unbroken stream of stories, laughing, conversation, and cursing. I think we probably made my brand new neighbor, a Lutheran family and youth minister, blush, because truck drivers probably would have been blushing.

My friend and I had every intention of going out, leaving, making good use of her babysitter. She came in ooo-ed and ahhhh-ed over the house we sat down and started talking. A half of an hour later I suggested we open a bottle of wine and move to the back yard.

We fought off mosquitoes, layered on clothes, took break to snack on the wide variety of picnic food (including the pictured pesto) I have stocked in my refrigerator over the summer, decide we need to hang out as much in real life as we both do in our heads, and oh then wow. It's one in the morning.

I love summer. The garbage man at 6:45 this morning? Not so much.

(pesto, post tomorrow, my camera is currently too far from the computer.)

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

stupid crazy girl

So, I posted for almost two weeks straight. I even had a topic and every intention of posting last night (pesto sauce), but an impromptu offer of a bbq, complete with patio table fire pit, consumed my evening. It was a much more interesting plan; I didn’t get home until after one, without actually knowing how that happened.

Anyway. I have a friend who has read much more extensively in eastern types of philosophy and often has a much broader and kinder outlook on the world than I do. She and I have talked about the idea that everything we have in our lives is a result of what we are outwardly projecting to the greater universe. On consideration, this train of thought is tied directly to my insomniac post a few days ago, but I didn’t grasp the connection until I sat down to write it. I have been playing with this idea for most of the day. So, the idea, and again, I’m paraphrasing, is that if I am stepping into impossible dating/relationship scenarios then something in my action or though pattern is projecting that that is what I want.

We get in our live that which we outwardly project.

Okay, I can go with that idea. But the one that follows becomes problematic. What exactly am I projecting that is yielding such depressing results. One is forced to examine the negative thoughts, which often spin uncontrolled inside our own heads. In other places I’ve called it the crazy girl in my head. Different than my own consciousness this crazy girl’s outlook on the world is negative and really when it comes right down to it, she’s mean, and I am most often the recipient of her attacks. No, this is not a public airing some inner psychosis. There are no voices in my head, but this crazy girl is the personification of my self-doubt and all the ugly inner speech that I may have bumping around in my brain.

The question still stands. Am I, who is proud and strong, projecting these thoughts that are bringing about these impossible or just plain silly situations or has the crazy girl hijacked the mic? Have the negative thoughts, self-doubt and self-flagellation become that which the universe picks up on? And if so, the next question is how to change it. How to reassert my own voice the one that will bring about the results that I want?

Monday, July 13, 2009

dog photo....


lame excuse for a post, and not what I had planned but spending the afternoon watching movies and drinking wine has sapped my creativity. But, it's okay, it was a social activity. If you plan on drinking all afternoon it's much better. This is a photo from a few days ago. Sam was actually invited to the laying around activities, but the command decision was made to leave him at home. His normal place was taken by a border collie puppy named Geoff. This was probably a good thing. Sam isn't particularly fond of puppies.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

It's a good thing I generally sleep well

Laying awake last night from 4:30-6:30 I was toying with the idea of karma. Because, it has been suggested, that karma is in fact, fucking with me.

Karma in abstract, because this morning while I was unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep I my working definition of karma was sort of a universal tit-for-tat. You do what is right and good and moral and your world will reflect those life affirming thoughts and actions.

The internet expanded my working definition a bit and I’m now no less uncertain but can see that the pop-culture idea of karma on which mine is based is, not surprisingly, an oversimplification. Most interestingly, I read that in the Buddhist tradition that karma itself is a force, equal to natural forces and that karma is (and I got confused here and may have screwed up some details) divorced from the individual doing the act and the act itself. If I’m understanding it right, it is more the will to do the act, either good or bad.

Most importantly it is not a sense of fatalism, quite the opposite.

Now, this ties into the other idea I was playing with this morning, instead of sleeping: control. In my case the need to constantly, affect change to bring circumstances of my current life in-line with my desired existence. How does a person maintain balance between these two mostly conflicting ideas. I guess the quick answer is that they cannot be aligned. The need to control would seem to interfere with an idea that what you do will somehow be reflected in your own life, but I wonder if the problem is with the negative connotations I have just associated with the word control.

Yes, I should control my life. It’s mine. I take ownership of it and I dictate what happens. There’s nothing wrong with that. The problem therefore would be in being overly concerned with the results piece. If I am living my life (being in control) in the ways and means I believe to be correct, then I should not worry about the outcomes because they should naturally and (if one were to go along with a Buddhist thought pattern) reflect back on me in a “good” (not an especially inspired word choice) way.

To break it down: karma may be fucking with me, but I shouldn’t stress too much about it.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

I've got a thing for colored glass











(A pretty picture for today!)

So, I was out waaaay too late last night. It has been a day of sloth, although I did manage to take the dog to the dog park (maximum energy expenditure by him and almost none from me), retrieve my ID (no, it was not left at the bar), buy a 10 foot ladder (that may or may not have been stolen property) for $50, and read almost all of the 12th Stephanie Plum novel. I will also water my yard as soon as I push "publish post".

Friday, July 10, 2009

12 minute post...that's all the time I have, as I am a

procrastinator.

The intention of this was to post every day and surprise, I'm on a role. A goal I'm keeping, crazy! (Diet? Exercise? No, and No, but writing I can do.)But, the idea behind the goal was to write more and think of ways to incoporate that writing into and about what I'm already doing in my life. It's working...example:

When I bought my house I fully expected that on hot summer days I would need to sleep somewhere lower than my bedroom. My bedroom has low ceilings and an A-frame ceiling, as that same ceiling also is the roof of the house. There are two skylights which thankfully open and a widow on each side of the house to draw a breeze across. So far, I've slept pretty well up there and there have been several 95+ degree days. I put a fan against one window to draw in the night air and have no trouble falling asleep.

Staying asleep past seven in the morning is a whole different issue. A chorous of birds proclaim their existance on the electric line that runs outside my window. They begin asserting their place in the world at approximately 4:30. That's the first time I wake up. It is just getting light and I am usually able to roll over and return to sleep or just close the window. In case you were wondering, hitting the widow or yelling at the warbeling creatures is not effective.

At about six the dogs start barking. There are more than one and I am only sure of the homestead of one of the creatures. One is a large retriever looking thing that lives behind me. I have no idea why he is out at six in the morning nor, why someone would allow him to bark, and bark, and bark at such a dimly lit hour.

Actually, that's a lie. In Washington, in July, six in the morning is almost light. So, when the dog starts going off, it's harder to fall back to sleep. So, I toss and turn and turn and toss and eventually wait for the next round of roosters...metaphorical, not actual.

At 7:15 there are garbage men, or the recycling guys, I'm not sure who comes first. On nice days, which is almost everyday lately, there is a motorcycle, there's the train and some days there are screaming children. Who lets kids out of the house that early? Answer: obviously people who are trying to sleep.

So, to get back to my original goal, as I listened to the barking dog this morning, an practiced finding new and creative sleeping positions (I NEED a new matress), it occured to me that today's post would be about how loud it is in my neighboorhood every morning....especially when I have nothing I'm supposed to get up for.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Potpourii fairies?


This bag of nature goodies was on my front porch this morning when I got up.

Nice huh?

I love that there are three different types of naturally harvested goodness, pine cones, clover flowers, and pink rose petals. I also love that when I looked around at my neighbors they all had similar gifts waiting for them.Well, the ancient couple right next door didn't seem to have a bag, but I'm pretty willing to bet that they'd already taken their bag of treasures inside.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Oooo, a request, more cherry stuff and a bad photo


I'm ready to be done with the cherries. I bought too many and though the ones I seeped in syrup are both pretty and tasty (although I keep wanting to make black cherry margaritas out of them), I had one more container, pitted and picked over and couldn't decide what to do with them. Then, I got a request for more recipes, this is funny because there are approximately 3 people reading this blog, four on a big day (but, that's not the point). So, this post kills two birds at once.

It is no longer hot here. I actually had to wear a vest to the dog park today, so I figured I would attempt to "preserve" the cherries. I found this "No-Recipe Cherry Jam" which I pulled from the link at the bottom of this post. It really was that easy. I don't know why I'm still surprised when I attempt to do something and the final product looks exactly like what I was envisioning (this applies to cooking, teaching, and house-based projects). It is a little too lemony. But, it's pretty and has the correct consistency. Not a bad start, especially because I have a date to make more jam, strawberry, tomorrow.

Although, while reading the description of how this is actually made, I did wonder what a reactive stock pot would be? Treated with some sort of nonstick material? And what would it be reacting with, the boiling sugar? I have no idea. I'm sure the Internet knows. I'm also sure I don't care enough to figure it out right now.

None of these pictures turned out. It's impossible to see how bright and pretty it looks. Maybe if I spooned it over ice cream?

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2005/06/norecipe_yikes.html

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

No more bushy bushes,


This picture does not do justice to the mound of plant life I extracted from my garden today. Seriously, I worked outside all day, removing the boring bushes and then replacing them with all sorts of perennial goodness (echinacea, brght pink yarrow, coreopsis, blueberry bushes, a short squat variety of black eyed susans) and a few zinnias, African daisy's and portulaca's I couldn't resist.

No audience today, I'm prettty sure that over the weekend that apartment was emptied. I look forward to a poop free front yard!

Monday, July 6, 2009

a victory any way I can get it

I love my yard; it’s huge, but most of the space is taken up by either grass, gravel, enormous trees or rhododendron bushes. The best and most sunny garden space is in the front yard, along a fence in a nice bed about four feet wide by twelve feet long. When I moved in it was filled with bushes that someone had obviously planted to fill the space. They are maintenance free extra thick bushy bushes. They are green, bushy, and I think they might turn colors in the fall. Other than being busy (did I mention they are bushy) they don’t necessarily merit much description. I decided that this space was much too valuable to fill with uninteresting bushy bushes.

Last week, I yanked the first two out. It took a little while and for most of it I had an audience. Across the street from me is a tri-plex structure, with two properties in front and one in the back. I’m not entirely sure who lives in the back but both units in the front have interesting characters. On the left are Lana and Dave. I think she is a stripper, and I’m really not joking. If not a stripper, than an aspiring one, or a proponent of stripper heels for all occasions. I’m not sure. I have no idea what Dave, her boyfriend, does other than wonder around in a white boy gangster getup. But, they both wave back at me and have attempted to plant vegetables and lay bark in a small strip of a garden in the concrete wasteland in front of their house. They also hung a large pot of hot pink petunias, so they can’t be all bad. But, neither of them were my audience.

Next to them, is, as they informed me, Annie, a very young very pregnant mother of three kids all under 8. Chloe, Skylar, and Kaden. Living in the same household is a big-titted pitt bull who wanders the neighborhood pooping at will and a young pit bull named Tank. A puppy and a baby, what is this woman thinking? According to approximately four-year-old Kaden (who has a slight speech impediment which led me to think the puppy’s name was Taint for a few days), Tank is a bad puppy. “He bites.” Kaden explained as the fawn colored puppy gnawed on my fingers. Why yes, he does.

Kaden was my audience. The two boys are a bit wild, both are super cute and have pierced ears and coast down the hill at scary speeds. I have observed them kicking at a bucket screaming, “Shit, shit, shit.” I assumed there was a spider or something equally worthy of profanity in the bottom of the bucket. I have taken to talking to Kaden who watches everything I do with an air of amused superiority. I was hacking at the bushes and he was riding up and down the street.

I pruned the leaves and branches back so that I could figure out how big the base of this plant really was and then started digging. I dug, lifted, dug, pulled, lifted, and dug for about 10 minutes. I was having very little luck. Kaden had stopped his bike on the street and was watching me. I pulled again to no avail. He was watching me, bemused.

“You think I’ll be able to do it?” I asked.

His grin was infectious and innocent. He shook his head, “No, you’re not strong enough.”

I had just been called out by someone barely out of diapers. He flexed his arm. “I’m strong enough.”

I bet you are kid. I dug, and lifted, and tugged some more and the whole thing came out. The solo member of the peanut gallery giggled and rode off.

In your face four-year-old.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

No rockets red glaring, but some fun pink fountains


I’m pretty indifferent to fireworks.

What I do like however, is watching people watch them.


The Fourth of July has never ranked very high among my favorite holidays or reasons to get together. I always remember being disappointed in the events as they actually unfolded. Happily, this year (and really the last several) was quite the opposite. At a party where I knew only a few people, I had a good time, surrounded by close friends and relative strangers who also turned out to beautiful, kind, funny people, who are examples of my favorite Portland stereotypes. It’s wonderful when people are both classic examples of what you think they will be AND surprisingly different. A happy irony.

Of course, this probably says much more about myself, as the one assigning those stereotypes and making those categorizations. Once I decided (about a year in) that I didn’t care that I wasn’t cool enough to live/socialize in Portland, people crackled to life both the stereotypes and exceptions. Amazing how much bigger the world seems when you are not overly concerned that you are not the center of it.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Adventures in plant identification part 1


Columbia Springs, a local environmental education non-profit, offers on a bunch of classes for educators. These classes are often all day workshops whose appeal is twofold first the topics are usually interesting, covering the environmental/nature themed gamut from owls, to geology, to salmon, to bats. The other great thing is that the full day classes often offer substitute reimbursement, which means the cost of the substitute in not taken out of my paycheck and I miss the entire workday for “professional development”.

I have taken no fewer than ten of these classes. One of the best that Amy (the organizer/teacher) has put on actually took place at Lewisville Park. I think the title had something to do with forestry and the speakers were a career national parks service forester, a woman doing her PhD on mosses and lichens and a professor from Lewis and Clark University. I wish I remembered his name but I was most impressed by this part of the day. He armed us with plant identification guides and we set out on a quick moving hour-long hike in which he had us watching for specific plants and stopping to identify unknowns. He would also stop us and play a sort of “What do you think happened here?” problem solving and group think sort of game. Like any good teacher, he never identified our ideas as right or wrong, but encouraged his class of 20 educators to keep discussing the answer. Yay! Best Practice!

It was in this class that I was first introduced to the plant guide I referenced a few days ago. And, in this same spirit that I include this photo. After looking through the book I find that this what is called a manroot or bigroot. According to the book, “the large size of the root s the source of both common names.” The book also informs me that this is a common member of the “other families” section of the plant identification book. I wonder what the criteria are to make it into the “other families” section as opposed to (and yes this is a real category) the “oddballs.”

Really, I want to make bawdy jokes at the name and spiny gourd shape, or “football-shaped bladders.” But, I feel to do so would simply be overkill. The spikey hanging ball is its own joke. Anything else would be redundant.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Adventure dog at rest (Lewisville Park)


Finally, it feels like summer, hot and clear. Not, too hot, but with crystal blue skies – sun glinting of the leaves and water, glaring off the rocks. Two rafts with two teenage shipmen in each, just floated/bumped by; they are now out of sight. I am now free to return to just my sports bra in attempt to get some sun on my rolls of white flesh.

Sam is happily bushwhacking, obviously feeling like quite the adventure dog as he tramps through the grasses that tower four feet tall. In an uncharacteristic move he is also trailblazing through the water and, with wet and muddy feet, over my book.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Happy (oh and 3 days, 3 posts)

Happy is the other current theme. Nice combo huh? Hot pink and happy. There was a brief depressed, angry, annoyed, and alone explosion over the past weekend, and if I think too hard about it it’s easy to fall into one of those four categories, especially when considering the black void that is my romantic life, but it’s day four of doing almost nothing. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Currently ranking in the top set of happy things in my world.

1. The dog park.
I am seriously convinced that any dog park would give Disneyland a run for it’s money in the smiley people/animals department. Where else can happy adults of similar dispositions stand around, and watch exuberant creatures frolic. I mean sure, I suppose that kids playing in the park might be similar, but with dogs there’s so much less responsibility. I don’t constantly have to worry if my dog is going to grow up to be a productive member of society. He won’t. Why? He’s a dog.

2. Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series
Young adult lit, maybe even a bit before that, but this series is great. The main character is son of a god, and hangs out at a camp for heroes, has a Cyclops for a half brother and a satyr for a best friend. Oh yeah, and if that wasn’t enough there are all these great esoteric Greek mythological references, none of which I can place but all of which are really interesting.

3. Summer
Not just am I not working. I’m enjoying my summer in not Texas, and while some people may espouse the virtues of the lone star state, and I miss the music, I’d be hard pressed to find ANYONE who would consider it a great place for a summer vacation. It hit 90 here today and might get up to 95 tomorrow, but there’s almost no humidity and the mosquitoes wait until dark to descend. The most taxing thing I’ve done all day was take a yoga class, at 10:30 this morning. How crazy when your workout can go anywhere during your day, it doesn’t have to be squeezed in between IEP meetings and getting home to take the stupid dog out.

4. Projectplaylist.com

This site is idiot proof and I don’t have to buy a darn thing. The best things on my list right now? Katy Perry’s, “Waking Up in Vegas” (which I especially love because the video has a returning character from Bones) and a live version of The Indigo Girls’, “Closer to Fine”. Cake’s, “Rock and Roll Lifestyle” also is on there, really because it makes me feel better about not being a black wearing, tattooed, hipster, and I always love the subtle irony of Portland radio stations playing this song.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

a fuschia themed world


I recently painted the walls of my study in this exact shade....Alter of Roses is what it says on the can. American Vetch, is what my plant bible, Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar and Mackinnon. This is the coolest plant book every with lots of random facts and interesting information, including but not limited to a recipe for wine using Oregon grapes and salal, two native evergreen plants. Normally, I'd side with mother nature over Walmart but truthfully Vetch sounds like a curse word.

The lion, because I know you're jealous, cost me 10 cents at a crazy yard sale somewhere east of Mount St. Helens.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Summer goal: post everyday


Day 1 of 1


I noticed the other day that cherries were on sale for less than a dollar a pound. It got me thinking about what I could do with them. My thoughts have been about strawberries and freezer jam, but at less than a dollar for a whole mess of cherries there must be something I could do with them. It couldn't involve actually canning though for two reasons.

1. I'm sort of afraid of it. I know in theory it's not hard but the specialized equipment is a turn off...even though there's not that much equipment.

2. I don't have either a pressure cooker or any canning supplies.


Luckily, the Oregonian helped me out. There was an article entitled "Summer in a Jar," written by Lynne Sampson Curry with ideas on how to seep cherries in simple, flavored syrups. I made four jars of the amaretto flavored cherries. Beautiful, and so easy. But, it will be at least two days before I can see how they taste, but I imagine ice cream would be a nice fit.