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Category Archives: doing it wrong
New Trail Cam
I can’t remember how long ago the trail cam died. It took me forever to replace it and then it took awhile for me to put it out there.
I haven’t seen shots of the backyard in months and the first time I pulled the camera card all the usual suspects appeared: skunk, both opossums, bunnies, and raccoons.
Look how many raccoons — five? Most of the clips don’t have this many. Busy night for the raccoon family.
Woo! Girl
The Backstreet Boys are doing a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas. They were big in the mid-90s and I was never a huge fan. But a clip from this tour showed up in my social media which is how I know they are still performing together.
I thought I had more posts about the Woo! Girl (Here’s One) but they aren’t coming up in my search.
The Woo! Girl is a person who we have run into at every concert we have ever been to. She’s usually sitting in front of us or behind us and she enthusiastically screams WOO! during the whole show.
When I was younger, I thought the Woo! Girl was there to punish me. But now that I’m older, I love having the Woo! Girl show up and do her thing. We can be Woo! Girls no matter how old we are — the Woo! Girl brings the enthusiasm and joy to the show.
A clip from this tour showed up in my social media and I cracked up when I heard the Woo! Girl still doing her thing.
Me All Starry Eyed
Screenshot used w/o permission from artist’s youtube
Asia was a super group in the early 80s made up of people that only old people and the stray youth that likes classic prog rock has heard of from Emerson Lake & Palmer and Yes. I had their debut on cassette and listened to it a million times in my 1972 Karmann Ghia.
The Internet says there was a second album called Alpha that sounds vaguely familiar but I don’t remember following them after that. The Internet also says the band as remained active almost continuously since 1981. I did not know that and honestly haven’t thought about them in years until I heard them in Fred Meyer last week. Kind of like Gray’s Anatomy — this thing is still on?
I was delighted to be reminded of song. As we were leaving Fred Meyer I said to Bob: Do you think you can find Fred Meyer Friday Morning Playlist on Apple Music?” (I don’t have Spotify.)(I have Apple Music and don’t know how it works or how playlists work. I do manage to pull up obscure music from the 80s and Apple Music tries to find things to recommend based on that.)
I said: Did you hear that song by Asia, the supergroup from the 80s?
Bob said: I did. It was terrible. I wanted it to stop.
The song is called Only Time Will Tell. It starts out with a bright synthesizer opening, like a graduation march, that then slows down into a moving heartfelt ballad about an ending relationship. I remember driving around singing this to myself after my senior year boyfriend dumped me right before prom.
I love it.
RIP OZZY!
Approximately 1990, Hollywood.
Can’t believe it. What a legend.
EDITED TO ADD:
I restarted my memory and came up with the story to go with this picture. The photo was taken at my job where we rented film cameras. This was for a video for Bill Ward who was the original drummer for Black Sabbath.
Here’s the video. You can see Ozzy wearing the jacket in the video:
I got in trouble because they asked us if they could do camera tests in our facility but really they were filming these inserts for the video and didn’t have to pay for it. I was in my 20s and an assistant. What did I know? Where were my supervisors?
We got to hang out with Ozzy for the day. I was too shy to ask for a photo. A colleague asked and that’s how I have the photo.
Fated Mates Podcast
If everything goes as planned I will be on today’s Fated Mates podcast. Actually Pen Name is on the podcast. I talk about my romance books and writing as a Native author.
I really love this podcast and I was so thrilled to be asked. I enjoyed talking to Sarah and Jen. But also I’m paranoid that I’m not very interesting. I did my best!
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Potatoes on the Loose
I harvested my first figs yesterday. Four more today. And we’ve harvested 2 tomatoes.
Everything is delicious.
What do you think is going on here?
Bob and I went to see the new Wes Anderson movie, The Phoenician Scheme, a week or two ago and afterward had some dinner. This was outside the restaurant.
Potatoes escaping? A potato sack incident? A potato fight?
We’ll never know.
I had grand plans to write an actual post tonight but my administrivia took too long and I had a technical snafu and I need to get off the computer and off to do other things.
I did do a bunch of writing this weekend. More information when I get further in.
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The Stacks
We love Wes Anderson and loved the gift of this book. We also love Project 562 which was photography project that that photographed all federally recognized Tribes and Alaska Natives villages although when we got it, we thought our niece’s photo would be in it. I think she was in the Instagram feed and that’s how we got that idea. She’s not in the book but it’s still a really awesome collection.
Then I went to the Portland Art Museum to see the art of Oscar Howe, a Yanktonai Dakota artist from South Dakota and I loved his art. I loved it so much I went to the exhibit twice.
I normally would not buy a book from an art exhibit but I couldn’t help myself and I distinctly remember saying to my husband: I don’t want to become a household with a giant stack of coffee table books.
You can see how that’s going. No more coffee table books.
This was in the sculpture garden during our New Orleans trip. It reminded me of our book stack.
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New Orleans, Last Day
Tennessee Williams wrote Streetcar named Desire here.
After two full days of conference, we had one last day. Our flight was later so we had time in the morning to do a few last things.
We went to the Cabildo which was built under Spanish Rule and served as the site of the Louisiana Purchase transfer ceremony.
There was an extensive exhibit about Marquis de Lafayette who is an important historical figure that I feel like I don’t know much about. I put a note in my “to be read” list to track down a book about him. Also, I went through the exhibit backwards so I was trying to piece together the significance without context.
We also went to the Louisiana State Museum, Presbeytère where there was a great exhibit about Hurricane Katrina and lots of interesting Mardi Gras info. (That all is made out of Lego.)
As we made our last walk through the French Quarter, we stopped in to the French Quarter Visitor Center for a little bit of music and looking at plants.
Then it was back to the airport. I like that the cabs have a flat rate but man, those drivers didn’t want to chat or do anything except get back and forth from the airport as quickly as circumstances allowed.
I hope to go back but not sure I’d want to see the French Quarter again. I was a huge Anne Rice fan so I’d like to see the Garden District next time.
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New Orleans, Day 2
We had one full day in New Orleans to have fun together.
We planned to take the street car to the New Orleans City Park and as we walked out of our hotel we saw the street car coming and you know how you panic when you haven’t done something before and we ran to catch it.
Once we were on it I pointed out that I hadn’t had any hot drink to start my day.
Bob felt kinda bad and when we got off the street car we walked around where there was nothing except a mini-mart. Bob offered to go to the mini-mart and I said: I’M NOT GOING TO A MINI-MART FOR MY TEA. I’D RATHER HAVE NOTHING.
So we walked into the park and there was a Cafe Du Monde! I even had a cafe au lait which is probably my first cup of coffee in at least ten years. It was okay. I’m just not a coffee person. The beignet was delicious.
We went to the New Orleans Museum of Art and stopped for a snack afterward and then went to the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden which was fantastic.
Such a variety of sculptures and a lovely place for a walk.
Do you spot the travelers in this photo?
After this we went back to the French Quarter and we went to something but I can’t remember what. I don’t take notes on trips anymore. But Jazz Fest was going on so we walked near the venue and wandered around a cemetery while listening to some of the music.
It was a fun scene and I was glad I wasn’t going to a huge music festival.
That night’s dinner was a bust. We walked around and couldn’t get far enough out of the touristy area and ended up with expensive and super generic food. The server was nice so when he asked me how my food was, I didn’t say: boring.
I have a few more photos. We’ll see if I get them up with any final stories.
New Orleans, Day 1
MISSISSIPPI!
I had the opportunity to go to New Orleans for a work conference and I took Bob with me.
We went a day early so we could have some adventures.
We arrived on a Saturday around dinner time. I don’t know how the lines are drawn. Our hotel was either adjacent to the French Quarter or part of it.
We managed to find an amazing dinner and then we wandered around. There is terrific music or art or something cool to look at in every corner. It was a bummer I was so tired from traveling because I pooped out early. But we still heard a lot of fun stuff.
While I enjoyed the French Quarter, it was like of like visiting Las Vegas. It’s easy to have enough. Bourbon Street is loud and smells like weed and sour beer. The food leans heavily to fried. You need to watch what you do in the heaviest tourist spots. But we had fun.
This was an epic salad with blackened red fish that was delicious.
More photos to come from the Sunday adventure.
Monday the conference started. I don’t remember ever being at conference with such a stuffed agenda. I went downstairs at 7:30 to eat and business started around 8, there was activity during the lunch meal and we didn’t stop the last session until 5:30pm.
There were breaks but they were long enough to get out of your meeting room, find something to drink and use the bathroom and then make your way to the next meeting room.
It was a great conference and I’m still sorting through my notes to figure out what’s useful for us.
If you’re wondering whether we talked about AI — we did. A lot.
