I liked the sky so I took this picture.
I still don’t have time for a real post so I offer the following conversation with co-worker:
Me: I ate 3 chocolates so far this morning.
Him: Sheesh.
Me: The bag says a serving is 4 pieces so I haven’t even had a whole serving yet.
Him: They must be small.
Me: Yes, I bought them because I thought I could just eat one and it would be satisfying.
Melissa Clark had this recipe on her website this week. It’s so pretty I had to try it. I didn’t do the braiding that she shows. I made two long strips and twisted them together. Mine looks good, too, although as usual I was doing too many things at once and it probably got a tad browner than it needed to. Tastes fantastic.
Don’t have time for the post I planned so instead I offer a conversation I had with my husband last week:
Him: Guess what? I got Henrietta Q. Wigglebottom to speak at my class!
Me: I don’t know who that is.
Him: You don’t know who that is? She’s the preeminent discoverer and inventor of some sort of random computery stuff that is completely amazing. How can you live with me and not know who that is?
Me: I don’t really listen to you.
Did you know these even existed? I didn’t. I looked at them longingly at the grocery store and then remembered, “I’m a grown-up, I can buy whatever I want,” and I threw them in the cart.
I have been having the strangest dreams lately. Last night I dreamed someone excavated our backyard. I was so relieved that it looked fine when I looked out there this morning. I also keep having dreams where I’m wearing no pants. And every time I’m mortified, but no one else seems to notice so I just pretend like there’s nothing wrong.
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I was supposed to have company this week and planned to take a day off. The company didn’t pan out but I still had the time off so I did something today that I haven’t done since I can’t remember. I spent the entire day writing. I didn’t do chores or errands or administrivia. I started when I woke up and stopped when Bob got home from work. I did take a break to exercise. It was pretty amazing although this story doesn’t seem to want to be finished. I am sure to be filled with seething resentment tomorrow when I have to do chores and errands and administrivia.
*
Did I ever write about how I put the mouse on the left side at the office? One week my mouse arm was really painful so in a fit of desperation I switched it. I’m a lefty for most things and can’t imagine why I started mousing with my right hand. My sister does, too. I learned to use a computer at home, it’s not like someone set it up that way for me.
I can’t believe how fast I adapted to it. I was already about 80% after a couple of hours. It took a little bit to get used to the left-right clicking. Last week I decided to put it back on the right and then I was completely confused and wonky again. I put it back. So now I mouse on the left at work and the right at home.
Like the gorilla? The tiger doesn’t even face the same way as the picture. They’re awful but in a wonderful nostalgic way.
In my early days of feta cheese eating, I bought Athenos: http://www.athenos.com. Seriously, check out that link. That website is hilarious.
But then at some point I switched to the Trader Joe’s cheapie kind. A couple of weeks ago we were having company so I decided to cough up and pay 3x more for the real deal imported sheep’s milk feta: it is like a different food. It is so amazing and delicious. I want to put it on everything.
Remember this photo? (From this post.)
I was doing some online shopping and this one shop had vintage sweats for $112. Yes, $112 sweat pants. I had to look a few times to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding that.
But I still have the sweats from the photo above (although you can almost see through the seat) – so I already have vintage sweat pants, right?
Yesterday I cleaned out one of my vegetable beds. I yanked out a sunflower and look what was underneath!
I somehow invented the sunflower potato.
When I was flopping around last night at 2am unable to sleep, I tried to think of names for my new vegetable: potato flower (nah), sunspud, suntater, sun potato (eh), sun nugget. I’m leaning toward suntater but I’m still working on it.
Meanwhile, it is now documented so I get full credit for developing this agricultural game changer.
Also yesterday was round 1 of apple sauce. We are going to be consuming gallons of this stuff in the next month.
As you can see, the apples aren’t very pretty. But they make up for it in volume. This bowl represents a fraction of what’s out there.
Normally I rake the ones I don’t use into a pile and after I put the garden to bed I bury them in there to compost.
However, there are so many, I’ve already dug auxiliary trenches in another part of the yard and buried about 9 buckets worth.
I need some livestock.
I’m going to can some, or jar some, as some folks like to say, but I think I might still have a pint or two from last year.
I forget that it’s there and it gets shoved back behind the cans of chicken broth and pinto beans.
We both had apple sauce sprinkled with granola for breakfast and it was terrific.
1973. Me and my sister on the slip and slide.
This summer, the kids across the street got a similar thing and I heard them out there squealing and laughing one afternoon.
This morning I bought 150 bulbs, half tulip and half daffodil. Take a second to jot down your guess for how long it takes before I whine about buying all these bulbs. When I do that post you can see how close you were.
One of the problems is I need to do some major excavation out front to make space for the bulbs. I don’t mind yanking the old dried up stuff out but the problem is that as soon as there is open dirt, all the cats from miles around shit there. The past couple of years I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving all the dead stuff in until spring.
But also, 150 – yikes. Then I have to wait all winter before I can enjoy the results of my work. Worse case scenario I’ll just dig one big hole and dump them all in.
Look! I have tomatoes. All this many.
And there are at least that many more that are almost ready for picking.
Bob said, “Wow, those came on fast.”
I said, “It’s September 100th.”
For contrast here’s my kitchen on September 6 last year.
Did I ever write about my jeans shopping day? My favorite jeans are one year away from disintegrating and for my replacement jeans I accidentally bought saggy Mom jeans. I decided I was going to go out and find some fancy jeans that would make me look like a stylin’ lady.
I tried on at least 30 pairs, all different brands and styles.
Not one pair fit. Not even close. They were all tight in the butt and/or thighs and gaping at the waist. I finally gave up and figured I’d try again another time.
A couple weeks ago I said screw stylin’ and went to Eddie Bauer. I knew which size I needed but of course they’ve changed their sizing scheme.
All these stores have a complicated scheme of pants styles.
There’s another store I shop at and they now have 4 styles. It’s like: the Metropolitan- slim at the waist and thigh, firm through the hips; the Sassy – slender at the thigh, low at the waist and full through the hips; the Henrietta – higher in the waist than the Sassy but lower than the Metropolitan, straight through the hips; and the Flirty – slim at the waist, firm at the thigh and relaxed through the hips.
I wanted to send them a message that said: Fire your translator. Nobody knows what that means.
At Eddie Bauer I tried on the Sassy, the Curvy, the Rainier and the Bainbridge. And then I had to pick from classic blue, Puget blue, faded, ultra-faded and the ranchero fade. Not to mention skinny, boyfriend, bootcut, slender cut, relaxed cut, beefy cut and astronaut cut. Of course they didn’t have what I needed in the store but I could order it from a phone in the store to get free shipping, plus a coupon for trying on 15 pairs of pants plus a buy one get one for 50% deal.
They finally arrived. I love my new jeans.
My most recent publication “The Last Willow Stick on the River” is finally out and available if you know where to look. You can order it directly from Yellow Medicine Review. It’s a journal of indigenous poetry and prose. The guest editor is Steve Pacheco.
I’ve read it cover to cover and there is some terrific stuff in here. In particular, I loved the poems by Tiffany Midge and Paul Rowly and the prose pieces by Carter Meland.
Also, Prime Books has come out with an edition of Future Lovecraft which includes my story “Lottie versus the Moon Hopper.” The anthology was originally published (and still available) by Innsmouth Free Press. The Powell’s link has the wrong cover. The book looks like this. According to the Powell’s page the book is in the Burnside store. I need to go over and look at it. This is a personal milestone that I can find a story I wrote in a book at Powell’s bookstore. Silly, maybe, but still cool to me.
Finally, updates to my ebook collection Red Tape Stories from Indian Country.
It’s still available for Kindle at Amazon and every other format at Smashwords.
But wait, there’s more. You can get it at
the itunes store (I’m in the itunes store! Another silly personal milestone) here it is at the nook store, Kobo and the Sony ebook store. Maybe even other places I don’t know about.
If you have any trouble tracking it down, drop me at note at pam(at)pamrentz.com and I will help you out.
And thanks to everyone who supports my writing. It’s a slog sometimes so it’s always nice to hear that someone checked out my work. I appreciate it.
I’ve been on semi-hiatus for the summer but I am just now kicking back into gear. Hopefully I’ll have something new out there soon.
I don’t think you can tell how heavy this apple tree is from the photo. I tried the photo from a few different angles plus some Photoshop tweaks but this is the best I can do. There are TONS of apples out there. I had the brilliant idea of trying to rent a cider press but apparently I should have reserved one months ago. We’ll have applesauce and compost.
Sloppy transition.
I bought a bunch of linen bags awhile back and it looks like these are magical linen bags. Every time I use them I carefully put my delicate piece of wash within, zip the bag closed and throw it in the wash. And every time I open the washer my delicate piece is tangled up with the regular riff-raff clothes and the linen bag is intact. I’ve checked the seams. The first few times it happened I assumed I was a moron and didn’t zip them shut. No, I’m sure I’ve been zipping them shut.
Maybe rather than magic these are self-(un)zipping linen bags. I still keep using them. My delicate things had better toughen up.
Here’s the crazy neighbor cat. Running over the second I step outside. I was there to take photos of the flowers and garden stuff.
Demanding. She was all whiny and trying to climb up my leg.
“You don’t even live here,” I pointed out.
Later it punished me by ignoring me. Sure, ouch, dummy.
I love this white dahlia. So elegant.
More dahlias. They aren’t quite as pretty as last year. I’m not sure if it’s mild weather or my lazy watering.
Check out one of the prettiest pumpkins. I have a decent pumpkin crop although the fauna has made a gouge in almost every one.
Does this look close to ripe to you? Looks close to me. I think this is the first time in my history that I didn’t get a tomato before September. At this point I’ll settle for anything.
Also: I learned how to make animated gifs today: Bright Dike back flip!.
Seattle game tifo with Clive Charles.
You’ve probably been wondering, what’s up with these Timbers she’s so crazy about? She never talks about them anymore. Has she moved on? Was that just a passing obsession? Is she now into collecting expensive purses or going to foreign film festivals?
No.
I still love the Timbers. I still go to every home game including the reserves and exhibition games if I am in town.
When I started writing this I hadn’t seen them win since June 24th. They actually won another game on July 3 but I was out of town.
They won big this weekend breaking an 8 match winless streak and sending the fans cartwheeling into the aisles.
Here’s how I was summarizing the season before that win.
Positive things.
I’ve been on the jumbotron 4 times! I visited the Timbers locker room! One of my tweets was on the jumbotron (at a reserves game). One of the Timbers retweeted me and one of the Timbers responded to one of my tweets.
We’ve gone through two buy-12-get-one-free pint cards and two frequent buyer slice cards.
I know what you’re thinking: “Uh, this positive stuff is all about you.”
That is true.
My beloved team is in last place in our conference. When I started this post there was only one team in the league with fewer points than us. By 1. Since Saturday’s win there are 2 teams with worse records.
It is rugged being in love with the last place team. Some team has to be in last place but it’s usually someone else’s team.
My team leads in all the worst statistics. We’ve never won a game on the road. We’ve lost games in the last minutes. We’ve lost leads. We’ve never come from behind. If there’s a miracle goal or a miracle play, it happens for the other team against us. We’ve had games where we made millions of shots on goal but none in goal. Too bad the game isn’t whomping the ball over the top of the net.
We hosted an exhibition game against EPL team Aston Villa. Almost the entire roster was out on the field which I loved.
Every week on our TV show we’re building on some tiny moment of non-horribleness. One game we tied 0-0 and they were talking about building on that. We tied on the road. We’re building on that. At least we scored on the road.
These are the things we’re building on.
But this team has the most loyal fans in the universe, including me. And they know it. Well, they don’t know about me personally. But check out the Army section:
Green smoke means GOAL!
I don’t mind if we’re not the best. I don’t mind losing sometimes. But holy moly, every game takes 10 years off my life because even if we’re ahead I can never enjoy it. I can’t trust my guys to keep it together. That lady screaming “whistle!” starting in the 79th minute is me.
I still love them and I’m still RCTID. This life and the next.
Check out Boyd’s smile. I also like media guy with his pointy finger. This was from an earlier match before Troy Perkins was traded to Montreal.
Lots more photos here: Timbers! Here’s the photoset from the Sounders rivalry match.
