Wednesday, August 31, 2005

It's meme season

1. Number of books I have owned: I'd guess in the hundreds. Shockingly, I've never counted. Probably because I'd feel like I own an insufficient number if I did. Talk about complexes.

2. Last book I bought: I bought three at once - Walk Two Moons, Number the Stars, and The View From Saturday. I think. I might have bought something as a gift since then.

3. Last book I completed: the aforementioned Self Portrait: Trina Schart Hyman. The last full-length book was The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell.

4. Five (or more) books that mean a lot to me:
(not in order)
1. Pride and Prejudice
2. The Maggie B
3. the dictionary
4. Four Quartets
5. Psalms

5. What are you currently reading?
1. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer)
2. Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott)
3. Brat Farrar (Josephine Tey)
4. The Midwife's Apprentice (Karen Cushman)
5. The Common Reader (Virginia Woolf)
6. The New Yorker

6. To which 5 bloggers are you passing this on?

Whoever feels like it.

This kid cracks me up. Toni, are you jealous of her shoes? Posted by Picasa

I don't think this looks like me, but I can't figure out who else it would be. Posted by Picasa

Q rides in style in her Radio Flyer. Observe how she uses my purse as a pillow and her mom's as a footrest. Posted by Picasa

I don't think I'll need to water while Katy's gone. (This was Monday) Notice the flourishing tomato plant! Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Middle child

I dreamt that I overheard my mom say, quite casually, that she'd given birth to three boys before she had me. When I confronted her, very upset, she said that she had been very young and given them up for adoption.

I don't know what was stranger about this dream - how painfully upset I was, or the fact that my dream-mother had three accidental pregnancies before the age of 23 (when she met my father).

The other day I was thinking about ways in which it would have been nice to have an older brother. But three? God help me. I'd make a horrible middle child.

Business casual

I'm crossing my fingers that I won't have to wear my uniform at all next week. Repeat after me, folks - business casual. I love my uniform, you know I do, but a week without it - beautiful. One day, tops. It will make the packing so much easier.

I've got pictures of the rain to post later. It was like our own little hurricane. But later - it's past my bedtime.

Monday, August 29, 2005

odds & ends

I just read this Self Portrait (yeah, yeah, enough already with the Trina Schart Hyman, sorry) and I wish there were a picture of it because it's fabulous. She talks about bicycling through Sweden when she was young: "The mist came up, and the lights in farmhouse windows came on. I knew then that I wanted to go home, but I had no home to go to - and that is what adventures are all about." It's illustrated, naturally, and quite fascinating.

It's still raining. I might have to go for a walk.

What are you having for dinner? And why should I have the same thing?

The thing I like about blogs is how all the writers have stories. And they're in the middle of them. And every time you check in, anything could have happened. Something big, or something boring, or a tiny thing that you relate to. And you never know until you get there.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Make it ship shape

I have this great desire to write a sparkling something. The kind of something where later I'll look back and think "that was a lovely moment that I captured." I have a feeling that is not what this will be. Those things always happen when you least expect it.

Time is stretching out in front of me strangely these days. All that end of summer stuff. Friends coming and going, life, death, blah blah etc. I'll have the apartment to myself for a week, then I'll be gone for almost a week. Katy and I really will be keeping up with each other on our blogs.

My week away is a combination business trip (doesn't that make it sound classy?) and vacation. I'm going to something called "trace school." It has nothing to do with pencils and tracing paper and everything to do with the job I don't talk about. As luck would have it, this "business trip" is taking me very near where Lis owns a home. Did you know I'm friends with people who own homes? I am. Several. But I've never seen hers, even though she only lives 3 hours away.

Then Lis, Toni and I will fly to San Francisco together, all in a little row on the plane, and it will be 6:00 am and we will be very tired. And Laurel, hopefully taking her phone with her this time, will pick us up. And we will gab, and laugh, and eat lots of ice cream - all those things that college roommates are supposed to do when they reunite.

I have the house to myself now. And it's raining, and I have a cup of coffee on the table next to me. And we engaged in a heroic fit of cleaning last night, so there are oodles of clean surfaces and stretches of floor unhindered by crumb or dust. Katy and I also did one of those closet cleanouts where half the stuff goes in the Goodwill bag and the other half is given to your roommate. I got a couple of skirts and Katy got a pair of black pants that I've never worn and don't know why I bought. I need to run around and take some pictures. I'll be back later. You can expect a lot more in the way of babbly posts from me, now that there's no one around to talk to.

I was tagged by Katya and when I was almost done the computer ate my post, and this is what was left

10 years ago: I was 14 and about to start high school. I don't remember much else. I was trying to read Treasure Island. I was excited to start taking French. Yeah, life was exciting.

5 years ago: I was about to start my sophomore year of college. Hmm...I'd just broken up with a boyfriend, I'd done a lot of house-sitting over the summer, I'd started doing writing exercises with Bee, we made a lot of top 5 lists, I'd moved into the dorms early as a backup RA. Today I found out that Cody, who was a neighbor & friend in the dorms that year, died this spring. Right before she was about to graduate. She had cystic fibrosis and I knew from before I met her that she probably wouldn't live past her 20s. But she went across the country to college anyway, and made friends, and threw herself into things. She was always in and out of the hospital. We would worry about her, but she never wanted peopel to know that she was sick. She had more energy than most people I know.

1 year ago: I lived in a different apartment in the same neighborhood. I worked at the same jobs, but a different schedule. Katy lived under the stairs instead of having her own room.

Yesterday: I made my weekly pilgrimage to the eye doctor (a story for another time). Got my third kind of trial contact lenses. Window shopped at the mall. Mourned the lack of solid white t-shirts. Worked. Came home and drank gin & tonic and watched Six Feet Under.

Tomorrow: I get to work at 8 am! But then I get off at 2! And have no plans for the afternoon at all!

5 snacks I enjoy: trail mix, chips & salsa & avocado, chocolate covered pretzels, popcorn with brewer's yeast, artichoke dip.

5 bands/singers that I know the lyrics of MOST of their songs: the Beatles, Dar Williams, John Vanderslice, Ryan Adams, Bob Dylan (well, not most but a lot).

Things I would do with $100,000,000: pay off my student loans, buy a house, help out my parents, stop working full-time, take friends on a vacation.

5 locations I'd like to run away to: definitely the ocean - Irish coast, Greece, the Oregon coast; London, Vienna (I just read The Star of Kazan and Vienna sounds great - in the early 1900s, of course).

PS I wrote this on the 26th, so the whole "what I did yesterday thing" is outdated. In case anyone is keeping tabs on me.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

The 1936 Flying Season

Hi there.

Yesterday I was at the library, checking mended books to make sure the pages aren't falling out anymore, and I got totally distracted by this big illustrated book about the Hindenburg. I realized that I knew nothing about the Hindenburg, so I started reading, and pointing things out to my coworker (like the tiny tiny portion of it that was actually inhabited by passengers, and the fact that they keep referring to things like "the 1937 flying season" - how posh!) and then looked at the clock and saw that I was late for my desk stint. Such was the fascination with the Hindenburg.

Today I went looking for a plain white t-shirt. You know, an all-purpose white shirt that goes with everything. But the shirts? They are all see through. Incredibly see through. Every detail of my bra. What's up with that? Can anyone explain it, or tell me where to find a regular shirt?

I'm watching Six Feet Under while I type this. You know a new season came out if I'm watching something during the day. Also, I'm eating some birthday cake leftover from my 4th cake. Four birthday cakes! This is the life. Thanks to having two jobs, I get two work birthday cakes.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

In a beautiful pea green boat

Just now I found myself tidying the tupperware. One basket for containers, one for lids. They live in the "laundry room." Once I'd obsessively straightened them, tossed the extra yogurt container lids in the recycling, and put the baskets back on the shelf, I wondered to myself, "what did I come in here to do?" Because I sure didn't go to the laundry room to straighten tupperware.

It was several minutes later when I realized I'd gone to get the screwdriver (which lives behind the baskets) to put up my swanky new "The Owl and the Pussycat" lightswitch plate, a gift from Bee.

This is just so, so sad.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Serenade

Someone is playing the harmonica outside my window. I feel like I'm being serenaded. People should wander the streets playing the harmonica more often.

And I wouldn't say no to something sweet

Yesterday I started reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which I keep wanting to call Incredibly Loud and Incredibly Close...except once I hit the second Incredibly I know something went wrong). A couple of points:

1. I like the cover. Covers are important, even though blah blah we're not supposed to judge. Lest we be judged?

2. I don't know how to pronounce his name and it bugs me.

3. At my library, employees receive all their holds in their inboxes. Unlike ordinary mortals, we don't have to check our accounts or the main hold shelf to know we have something in. It simply waits for us to show up for work, like a gift in our box. I love this. Except if I order something and it has an obnoxious cover that I'm ashamed to have coworkers see in my box. The upside is when a coworker recognizes a title and puts a sticky note on the book, like this: "Jess- I LOVED this book. Tell me when you're done. -J" She even dated the note. What a perfect way to start a book!

4. I keep loving sentences or phrases and want to write them down, except the book just pulls me along and suddenly I find myself pages later with no idea where the sentence is anymore.

5. I just found one: when Oskar finds the vase, and stands on his Collected Shakespeare to reach it, but falls, and his mother doesn't hear him because she's busy laughing with a friend and "cracking up too much," Oskar says he, "zipped myself all the way into the sleeping bag of myself, not because I was hurt, and not because I had broken something, but because they were cracking up" (page 37, for those who care). What an idea. One of those metaphors that you instantly recognize even though you would never come up with the same description yourself.

6. Which I think it was makes me fall in love with books. When I recognize some part of myself, or my experience, or the world I live in. Not the big, general world, the blue ball in space, but the world that I actually live in. The tiny details. Seeing them in print gives them collective weight.

7. And yes, the heavyhandedness grates on my nerves a little. It's so much, this book.

I'm not writing enough. I don't like myself when I don't write enough.

I'm trying to figure out what twenty-four feels like. So far it tastes like oatmeal and coffee and looks like a clean room.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Eyes in the back of her heart*

Goodness, I'm not sure what I have to say this morning. I had a thought as I was falling asleep last night, and I almost turned on the light to write it down. But I didn't. And now here I am.

I was hoping to take some fun pictures at Bee's party last night, but we were out on the dazzlingly clean patio and there wasn't enough light by the time I got there. I hate to kill people with the flash. I got some fuzzy ones of Q that maybe I'll turn all artsy on you.

I love parties where a huge variety of people gets together, and somehow it works. Grade school friends, high school friends, friends of friends, new friends, children, and tons of food and chocolate cake. Where you can drink some wine, get a half gallon of raw milk as a birthday gift (and leave it in the host's fridge - oops), discuss foreign films, the demolition of local tacky taverns, being constantly in the company of others, olives, landscaping, the county fair (with a two year old), move to another table to get away from a fishing conversation, and make faces at a baby.

For all that I'm a mean introvert, I love getting to know people. Quirks and tastes, observing them. It's an odd experience getting to know a child as her personality emerges more and more. I was just looking over an old notebook from May, when someone asked me if I "got" Q. If I understood her. And I said, unhesitently, yes. Yes, I do. What I know of her, I get. She's a tiny kindred creature. As I said to her mama last night, "I always knew Q and I had a lot in common, but now that I see she loves olives, I know it was meant to be."



(The photo is actually of her eating blueberries, but she did the same thing when she found the olive bowl. I tried to feed her bits so she wouldn't have to deal with the pit, but creature that she is, she demanded big ones.)

*Thanks to Richard Peck

Thursday, August 18, 2005

swimmydipping

Last night I went swimmydipping.* It involved nostalgia, an almost full moon, climbing a fence, the obligatory nudity, splashing, and joking about how it's a good thing there was no camera or we'd be tempted to put pictures on the blogs. Um, no. Definitely not. But it was lovely and freeing and relaxing and I recommend that everyone try it, especially under cover of darkness and without getting caught.

*a new jessmonster-ism.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005


Obligatory photo of friends being uncoordinated for the camera. Sorry, if there were a more flattering one I'd use it. Just kidding, Jessmonster loves bad photos. Posted by Picasa

Katy with an offering of pomegranate. Posted by Picasa

A pivotal moment, I'm sure, on the Lewis & Clark Expedition. I particularly like the swirly sun to the right, and how you have no idea at all what's happening in this scene. Posted by Picasa

Poor fish. They had no idea what was coming. All these people eating them. Although, allegedly, the Expedition got so sick of salmon that they preferred to eat their horses. Is that a salmon? I wish I could tell you. Posted by Picasa

This is pre-coffee Katy in a bank. No, a bagel shop. No, a bank.  Posted by Picasa

Vault Entrance. Proof. Posted by Picasa

blog fodder weekend

I'm sitting here chewing on a piece of mango and I think to myself, why not blog about the beach? Why not indeed?

1. My entire birthday celebration happened this weekend. Birthday, you say? Actually, it hasn't happened yet. In fact, today I had to think hard before realizing the fact that it's actually next Monday (donations in lieu of flowers, please) and not already come and gone. With my family I ate a lovely salmon, roasted red potato, and home-grown corn on the cob dinner (with non-home grown ingredients coming from "the Four Seasons" as my dad was quick to point out. That would be the grocery store that the rest of the world refers to as New Seasons. My father is, um, special). I also got a present! Can you guess what? And I'm sharing it with all of you!

2. Despite being almost-native Oregonians (here's a confession - when I see people with that little bumper sticker of an Oregon license plate that says "native," I am jealous. Aren't I a native at heart? Sadly, not in reality) we mis-packed for the beach. We've been living in the 90s. We were just getting used to how to dress for Summer Weather. And then the beach is cool. Chilly. Cloudy. Foggy. Absolutely gorgeous, in other words, but we were unprepared. I had a long sleeved shirt. Beth had a sweatshirt. Bronwen had a jacket and a sweater. Katy had, um, tank tops and shorts.

(By the way, that whole bit earlier about the mango is now a complete lie, since it's hours later and I've been out and had a gin and tonic (just like the queen) and come back home.)

3. Due to our lack of adequate textile preparation, we spent a lot of time indoors. We had some activities planned, like drunken Pictionary, but that was abandoned in favor of just talking. And talking some more. And eating.

4. (Being some things we talked about, in alphabetical order) Adoption, Aging, Alcoholism, Bearing One Another's Burdens, Bloggers, Depression, Education, Frivolous Laughter, Idle Talking, Lewis and Clark, Living in Sin, Mental Illness, Names, Parents, Politics, Relationships, Retirement, Secret Eating, Sex, Siblings, Waldorf Schools, Water Tower Houses.

5. We had heard rumors that there were a lot of birds in Seaside. Due to an excess of anchovies, according to our sources. We saw no anchovies, but there were in fact a large number of birds. See photo below, an attempt to capture the bird swooping overheadedness. It was a miracle there was no poop in our hair.

6. We found two parallel lines of potpourri and rose petals and dried pomegranates on the sand. It remains a mystery. Photos of Bee & Katy enacting an engagement scene to follow.

7. I got drunk. The first time I've ever been certifiably intoxicated and not just tipsy. It was okay except for the room spinning when I closed my eyes. For once I was the one being mocked instead of the one doing the mocking. What has become of the Jessmonster?

8. We visited the Lewis and Clark statue where they gaze towards the ocean and make notes in their journals. Someone shared the fact that Meriwether committed suicide after the trip, but William went on to do great things, as it were, politically. While looking at the statue from a distance I proclaimed the man on the left to be Lewis, as he looked more melancholic, and lo, as we approached and saw the inscription I was proved right. It was a proud, proud moment. I didn't actually take a picture of the statue, just random things around it. To follow.

9. We tried on goofy hats, a must on any seaside jaunt.

10. We finished off our trip with breakfast at a bank-turned-bagel shop. Bronwen's keen eyes had spotted the bagel sign the day before, and as we approached we were all struck with a realization: the sign says bagels, but if that wasn't built to be a bank you could've knocked me over with a seagull. I didn't quite manage to capture the bank-spirit in the pictures, until we went to the bathroom and passed the vault entrance. Thinly veiled behind a screen. Photographic evidence to ensue.

The End. I will now go back to talking about normal life, having squeezed as much blog fodder out of 49 hours off work as is humanly possible. Okay, I could have squeezed harder but I'm not going to lower my standards that much.

Monday, August 15, 2005

What I Did on Summer Vacation

So I wrote this blog entry? Talking about my 48 hour vacation and how I spent it at the beach in the fog? And all the talking? But blogger ate it. I'm taking it as a judgment on blogger's part. "Jessmonster, you can tell a better story than that. We shall eat your post and force you to start afresh." And you know what, that's what I'll do. In the morning, after I sleep. You see, I came home from Vacation (or, The Day Off) and had to go immediately to work. Thusly, I am tired. A few pictures to whet your appetite.

the birds! Posted by Picasa

obligatory blogger taking picture of blogger taking picture of blogger taking picture of... Posted by Picasa

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Snort

Beth
You're Beth March of Little Women by Louisa May
Alcott!


Which Classic Female Literary Character Are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

As if. I need to retake this sucker.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Big one!

I'm currently watching (and by watching, I mean reading blogs, updating my blogroll, and blogging while glancing occasionally at) the worst film version of Jane Eyre ever. The 1934 version. Did they even read the book? It feels like someone read the book, described the plot to the scriptwriter, and they ran with it. Bertha Mason? Apart from the screaming and pyro tendancies, she's pretty normal. Jane finds out about Bertha and she looks at Rochester petulently. "Why didn't you tell me?" Her face is pretty blank throughout the whole movie. And oh, what a long way editing has come since 1934...Um, and are those British accents they're trying for? It's not really clear.

More berry picking this morning, blackberries this time. Q was excessively fond of them but couldn't get many herself due to the brambles. Which led to me picking and her saying, "Blackberry! Big one!" at regular intervals.

Apparently she dressed herself this morning in 3 pairs of shorts - two of the pairs were only on one leg apiece, and the third pair was on both legs. She showed up at the berry patch with a pair of shorts on under pants.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Summer wasting

I'm back on a blueberry picking binge. I don't quite know what to do with all of them. But I can't resist going with Q and Mrs. K.

Q: "Go on a walk now. Come on." She comes over and takes me by the hand.
Me: "Really?"
Q: "YES."

I was picking in a bush today, totally surrounded by branches, with all sorts of things falling into my pail (don't you wish I had a blueberry pail like Sal? So the berries would go kerplunk? But I don't. Just a plastic container. I lie sometimes). And when I came out, the bobby pin I'd put in my hair this morning was missing. Sorry, Katy. I stole a bobby pin and sacrificed it to the Blueberry Patch of Eternal Memory. (Shouldn't there be a St. Someone of the Blueberry Patch? An agrarian, peasant saint perhaps?)

Most of the berries are small and shriveled now, but they're sweeter than at the beginning of the summer. Seems appropriate - they start out huge and not quite sweet, like the summer, and as we get closer to fall the berries throw out a last hurrah of tiny sweetness. Summer's almost over, but at least the berries are sweet. And the blackberries are getting ripe...

Bee and Soph are apparently considering a food blog. With lots of people posting recipes and ideas, perhaps on themes. I say do it. The sooner the better, cause I need some ideas.

Speaking of themes, Bee and I had a conversation somewhat like this last night on the phone.

B: "We could make a nice dinner out of the french fries and mozzarella-tomato-pesto salad at Lauro. What do you think of my scheme?"
J: "What do I think of your theme?"
B: "No, scheme."
J: "Ah. Theme would've been funny. 'Tonight out theme is Mediterranean...'"

So we did. We had what I later referred to as a "balanced" meal of french fries (or pommes frites if you want to get all fancy like the menu), buttery mozzarella and juicy tomatoes, white wine, and port fig ice cream (from Pix - "pretty much perfect") for dessert. A balanced meal involving french fries? I think that should be our new theme.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

The Aftermath

I'm snarfing down some green beans I just made and thinking about all the things I've been saving up to blog about.

The quote of the weekend is courtesy of a parent overheard at the library, to child: "You wanna go outside where it's hot and there's nothing to do??"

Yes, it's hot outside. But nothing to do? Come on! That's what being a kid is about - finding stuff to do outside. Amusing yourself. Now, I'm pro spending time in the library, obviously, and it's a great refuge on a hot day, but please! Let your kids outside!

Yesterday I got paid to make catapults out of cardboard, rubber bands, and tape.

I did the whole "cry while listening to NPR on the way to work" thing on Thursday. And not even the "cry because there's a touching, heartwarming story on." No, it was the "listen to an actor/songwriter move from discussing his latest role as a rapping pimp to singing a Paul Simon-esque song he wrote about going home, and start crying" thing.

Did anyone else catch This American Life this morning? I heard a few minutes on the way to church, and they were just starting to talk about militant teen librarians when I pulled into the parking lot. I need to go back and listen to that one.

The houseguests have departed. They've left behind a jacket, a mysterious something under the couch, absolutely filthy floors, and a broken string on my guitar. Which is just great, because I have no clue about restringing it.

I didn't have any coffee today, and I'm kind of dragging. I don't want to be addicted. This is after yesterday's Intense Coffee Experience, involving something called toddy left in our fridge by a coffee fanatic guest - strong as a rope, and oh so good. I want some right now, in fact, but Intense Coffee at 7:20 pm? Bad idea. Very very bad.

Last night we grilled with assorted guests/friends, and then lingered at the picnic table drinking wine, some ungodly liquor, eating an entire jar of pickles (not simultaneously - first pickles, then wine, then liquor) and talking with the neighbors (the friendly ones, not the shotgun one). At one point our neighbor shouted, "I'm a lawyer, I'm supposed to be drunk!"

I'm looking forward to a little lull this week. Getting in a lot of reading, adequate sleep, and cleaning up after the storm damage (although not so much looking forward to the cleaning process, just the results).

Friday, August 05, 2005

Update on the 40 guests*

Our latest collection of guests is currently watching a loud, dissonant musical event on the television. Which startled me because, there are things on TV? I never turn it on.

Some of them spent the night in the yard, as Katy mentioned. Some are still asleep in the yard. Others went to the store and came back with a huge bouquet of flowers for us. They can stay anytime.

*Katy called me last night to tell me to expect "forty people staying at our house." I think we had five in reality, although it's hard to do a head count.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Six to Eight Black (Drunk) Men, Part II

Make sure you read Part I first.

So this was my involvement in the bachelor party of a wedding I'm not even attending:

After I got off work at night, I went home to quickly scarf down a leftover chicken skewer and noticed a lot of quiet, drunk men sitting in the yard, before heading off to Pix for a very ladylike evening of white wine and chocolate cake/truffle/vanilla ice cream concoctions (recommended by my old senior seminar classmate who works there). We were joined by sober, or at any rate calm male acquaintances. We lingered until midnight when they closed.

Then, as Katy mentioned, we went to pick up the guys. There were seven bachelors, and somehow we got the phrase "six to eight black men" stuck in our heads, although there were indeed exactly seven and none are black. But it seemed appropriately hysterical.

Bronwen tried to follow Katy and I as we careened madly across downtown, trying to locate the bachelors at their alleged locations. Katy left a succession of increasingly irate messages on Keith's phone when he wouldn't answer. Finally, we pulled into a gas station to wait for them to come to us.

Three of them stumbled into the parking lot. No one would get in a car except Keith. Bee decided to head back to our apartment while we waited for the rest of them. She had two free seats, and after much shouting of "get in! Get in! Do you want a ride or not?" two bachelors were persuaded to get in her car.

I got a call from her a few minutes later.

"Are you almost here? Cause they didn't want to be in my car. They kept talking like I wasn't here and saying, "Fuck it, we're in some girl's car, where are we going?"

So much for acts of kindness.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (or downtown) we were trying to persuade two more guys into the car while the bride picked up the rest of them. We lured them in by promising to salsa dance once we got home.

Once we got home, there was a swirl of activity. Steve did indeed decide to walk to get whiskey, but instead came back with mismatched beer and six-pack holder. There was indeed a cat. In fact, it was the largest cat I've ever seen. Not the fattest, although it had eaten many good meals in its day, but the largest - large head, large eyes. It was a little spooky, and it made itself right at home. Katy, trying to play hostess, curtly took drink orders while we cowered in our seats. Eventually everyone headed off into the sunrise, except for Keith and the two bachelors who crashed on our couch/floor again.

I believe the lesson in all of this is: if they insist on having a bachelor party, make them take a cab both ways.

Also, it's really funny when your roommate's mom comes by with a check, and she finds the door opened by a strange man. At least everyone was dressed by that point.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Anything's better than parch isolation

I've got some new words I'm trying to incorporate into my vocabulary. I acquired them from Katy, who heard them from an un-nameable source. Suffice to say that they are fabulous. My new favorite words are fluential (you know, influential and fluid all at the same time) and multifacetless. As in, "George Bush likes to think he's fluential, but he's really just multifacetless." Aren't they great?

I recently heard of a certain member of the clergy (who's got some alliteration going on in his name - I know you're already a fan, Annie) who's a big fan of Rocky Horror Picture Show. As in, he only lets himself watch it every six months. That kind of fan.

And finally, welcome to our apartment, aka the newest hostel in the neighborhood. Some of Teeth's friends are in town for a wedding and are staying on our floor/couch at various times this week. In fact, Katy and I are now outnumbered by the menfolk. It's a strange sensation in your own estrogen-infused apartment. They do things like go out at 11pm while Katy and I head to bed, and walk halfway across town to go to a more happening bar (our neighborhood, apparently, is short on the happening bars), and are very tall. Although the tallness isn't something they do, they just are.

I just finished my lovely snack of a yogurt-strawberry-blueberry-mango sauce-peach smoothie, and now it's lunchtime. Somehow it seemed like there would be more time between lunch and snack. I guess I dawdled this morning, despite my 6:30am arising.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

freakt tha basil

In a continuing line of Freaky Thai Basil incidents (this one NOT involving the dumpster!) they have changed their name (although the same Lexus SUVs still sit in the driveway), put up a huge "grand opening" sign, and started locking the door an hour and a half before they close.

Apparently. Given that this restaurant is literally across the street, you'd think I'd eat there more than I do. Last night marked the second time I've attempted to obtain delicious Thai food from them, during normal business hours, and been denied. The first time was when they closed for Memorial Day weekend - fair enough.

Last night, though? The open sign was lit, there were patrons and waitresses in the restaurant, and the door was securely locked. Several signs proclaimed "grand opening special!" and "Mondays 11-9:30." It was 8. No one would open the door.

Thai food was obtained elsewhere, thank you very much, from the neighborhood competition, who graciously had their front door wide open and provided food! Like restaurants are supposed to do!

Monday, August 01, 2005

Two items of note

1. It's August??

2. How sad is it that Monday morning is much more relaxing for me than Saturday or Sunday morning? I think, "ah, Monday. Time to sip a cup of coffee, with cream skimmed off my raw whole milk..." instead of "ack, Monday." I also have to say that I was so exhausted last night. After my day off! After going to church, brunch, a haircut, Saturday Market, and giving a spa party. Sad.

3. (Shh, don't tell anyone I snuck a 3rd point in!) It's overcast. Thank the sweet Lord.