You're Doing It Wrong

Bob and I used to walk on the nature trail all the time. (If you click on the link, that’s not a great photo. It’s more nature-y than that.)

We went over the weekend to see if we could find trillium and hit the jackpot. Lots of pretty flowers.

Still too cold and muddy to make yard work enjoyable. Weeds love the rain. Every time I go out there I want to pass out from anxiety about how weedy it is.

Last week when we were walking around downtown, some kids gave us a handful of snack bars as a promotion.

I opened the banana one and said, “Ew, this is nasty. Try it.”

Co-worker said, “Uh, no?” but I convinced him to try a bite. He agreed it was nasty.

I hate to throw away food with all the panhandlers downtown. When I suggested we give the rest away co-worker said, “That would be mean.”

A photo from the Ave. which I include for my CW family.

We did a quick trip to Seattle last weekend.

Well, we were invited to a Sounders game and, of course, I wouldn’t want to miss that. I love the Sounders except when they play the Timbers.

The game was really fun. We had an awesome dinner. Andy and I took turn cleaning the bottom of the New Orleans Famous Barbecued Shrimp bowl. I think the ingredients are butter and magic. Then we headed for the stadium where all the craziness was going on.

It rained during the half but no fear, I had my plastic pants (complete post on the plastic pants, coming soon). Our seats were rain free but still, plastic pants. Seattle had about a million shots on goal but no score in the first half which was very exciting but I was glad it wasn’t my team because I would have had a heart attack. They managed to get one in in the second half.

Really fun time. Thanks Hannah and Andy.

We spent a day running around visiting people we don’t often get to see. We also saw fantastic photography exhibit at the Henry at University of Washington. It was photos pre-WWII by the Seattle Camera Club which was mostly Japanese immigrants. It was a mix of portraits, nature and miscellaneous.

A great day.

On Sunday Bob put me on the train to come home and he stayed to attend a conference.

I had a relaxing trip home and got to finish a book and saw two bald eagles. I always see bald eagles when I’m on the train.

Today was a day of problem solving. Ants in the house again. Another set of window blinds broke. I bought them all at the same time so I guess they’re all going to poop out on me. More stuff I’m too lazy to type out.

Bob and I went on a long walk and I have trillium photos for later.

Remember this? The I’ve seen few photos of myself I’ve hated more post?

Well, it gets better.

I’m one of those people who can run a stop sign in the middle of nowhere at 3 o’clock in the morning and get busted for it. I can’t get away with anything, ever, which is a good incentive to always follow the rules.

I did this stupid photo and then I hated it. And then, even though it’s on Flickr the photo wasn’t associated with my name so I figured it would be easy to forget.

But they’re having a contest and four fans get to be on a billboard. And they (whoever “they” are) narrowed it down to 100 finalists. And guess who made the final 100?

I know, amazing. I am the last person who wants any attention on herself and look what happens.

So you know what? Fark it. I own it. I am a Timbers fan and here is my badass photo:

There is no chance I will win and I don’t want to but since this photo refuses to die I’m afraid it’s going to be backwards day and the person with the least amount of votes, which I’m pretty sure is me at this point, is going to get on a billboard or painted on the side of the stadium or something else so I’m trying to cover myself.

If you’re on Facebook get your ass over there and like me: Timbers Contest.

Or maybe if that doesn’t work go to my page and there should be some links there. It’s called We Are Fans Portland Timbers Billboard Contest. I think you have to like the Timbers first and if you do that you’re probably going to want to hide them because they post a lot of stuff.

I don’t know what the moral of the story is but it’s in there somewhere.

UPDATE:To vote you need to “like” the Timbers first. Don’t you love how this social network stuff has us jumping through hoops like trained poodles?

Downtown Portland by the Park Blocks.

Bob and I finally updated our phones. Bob got an iPhone for his birthday.

I’ve been violently against texting, mostly because I see it as one more annoying thing to interrupt me, but I caved. Who would have guessed that the person annoying me with texts would be my husband?

He sent me a text that said: Long friction day.

Quickly followed by: Frolic.

Me: Don’t understand.

Him: Frickin.

Him: Spell check is too efficient.

My texting victory was when I responded to a text message while co-worker was talking to me. “Hang on a second.” Revenge at last!! He’s always texting or emailing when I’m trying to talk to him.

Downtown, Portland. This photo came out all blurry because I couldn’t be bothered to stop walking while I took it. This is my attempt to salvage with some arty Photoshop dial-twisting.

A couple of weeks ago I had one of those horrible days which, briefly summarized, involved major things being broken and no one showing much interest in helping me fix them.

I held it together for awhile but eventually I had a meltdown and did what anyone in my position would have done, I got a sleeve of Girl Scout Cookies and sat in front of my computer and looked at bathing suits.

I’ve written about trying to find a bathing suit before, (2007, 2004 and 2001), and it’s always an ordeal. Also, I didn’t realize until I looked for that URL that it had been 4 years since I got my last one so I guess it was time. I only wear a bathing suit about 3 times a year so they last forever.

I looked at a bunch and then, for me, impulsively bought one. If only technology disasters really could be cured by buying clothes. The bathing suit arrived and the bottoms were the wrong color.

At first I thought I must have screwed up my order but even the order sheet said “blue” and the bathing suit in the box was nothing resembling blue.

All my time and energy is in use right now. I don’t have the stamina to solve one more problem. I spent about ten minutes trying to decipher their return policy. They have at least 5 brands shipping from the same place and there are different rules and I’d have to call and I’m sure they have a phone tree and some halfwit would take my call and tell me how easy it will be to return if I just do these 10 steps. I haven’t even started and I hate it already. After 48 hours of indecision and me carrying the package back and forth to work (which of course was a box, why cram a bathing suit into an envelope when you can ship it in a box?) two times, I said screw it.

My bathing suit will not match.

This is a little notebook Bob found that he got from his Dad’s job a long, long time ago.

All week I’ve been thinking how nice it would be to have a weekend day with no rain and how I would really take advantage of such an opportunity to get out and do work in my yard.

Right this second it is not warm but it is sunny out there but I don’t have time so I figure Mother Nature will punish me by not having a dry weekend day until July. It’s supposed to starting raining, hailing, thundering and gusting later this afternoon perhaps by the time I finish typing this. So maybe it isn’t such a great opportunity.

Tonight is my soccer team’s first ever game in Major League Soccer. We’re playing last year’s champions on their home field but that’s no reason to panic. It’s live on Fox Soccer Channel so you can watch it with me. We’re getting together with some people and I’m cooking which is why I can’t garden right this second.

I always think the days when I’m going to unplug will be lazy but it turned out the opposite because yesterday I did all the stuff I never do because I’m on the computer.

Right after exercise I drove to the mall. The entire area around the mall is a haven for orange cones. I went to NE Portland which I don’t know well but any strategy I attempted to avoid orange cones just brought me to more orange cones. I didn’t even know there were that many orange cones in the whole world.

Once at the mall, I burned through almost all my gift cards. I got 5 pairs of pants, Sees Candy, vacuum cleaner bags, panties and bras.

When I got home I processed the last two pumpkins and I cleaned out a bunch of cupboards. I reorganized all the towels because it seems like anytime I want a nice bath towel, all I can find are the crap towels. I cleaned out a bunch of other linens, too, and the Tupperware cupboard.

I did 8 loads of laundry. I made dinner and baked a pumpkin bundt cake for tonight.

Then I was totally beat and staggered off to bed at 9:01pm. Then I woke up at 3am and couldn’t get back asleep and annoyed Bob. This morning he said, “What was going on, you were like a monkey.”

I like to put my feet on him when I’m trying to fall asleep and he kept moving away.

One more note: even thought I annoyed him at night, Bob gave me $9 worth of emusic that expires today. I picked a few songs and was down to $5 when I found Foreigner’s greatest hits. I didn’t have enough money so I saved it. I’m sure he’s going to look at his saved list and think, “What the hell?” because he’s not a Foreigner fan.

The Schnitzer from the park blocks.

Yesterday was like a feel-good technology commercial on the bus. After we’d boarded a elder Asian woman came to the door and said the route number of our bus and then the route number of another bus that has an overlapping but different route. The bus driver tried to clarify which bus we were and which bus she wanted but they went back and forth without much success.

Finally the bus driver said, “Someone, help.”

And the passengers at the front of the bus immediately began to help by speaking very loudly and repeating what the bus driver had been saying because you know, if a person doesn’t understand the language, volume helps.

[This reminds of the time Bob and I were coming home from a trip and we were going through security at the Munich airport. There were at least three major levels of security and this was the third one. There was this woman working in security who was shouting at me in German and making vague gestures that offered me no clue to what she wanted. Anything I tried just made her yell louder. I finally said, “You can yell as loud as you want, I still don’t understand.” I think she just liked hollering at people. Obviously we weren’t the first English speaking people to go through security at that airport.]

Finally the lady decided to get on our bus. She was a tiny adorable elder carrying a backpack at least half as big as she was.

Sorry, she repeated a few times, as she boarded, but you could tell she is one of those old people who isn’t embarrassed by anything.

She sat down next to the passenger across from me and immediately started a conversation using the half dozen words of English she knew. The passenger was a guy who was pretty funny. She said she was 77 and he told her she looked great. Then I think there might have been a misunderstanding because she said she had 48 grandkids and he said, wow, that must make Christmas tough.

She said she was Chinese and he figured out which flavor she spoke and then said, hey I want to try something.

He took out his iPhone and started translating questions which displayed in Chinese characters that she could read. She nodded and laughed. It was so cute.

Later she whipped out a phone to call her daughter and after talking for a minute handed the phone to her new friend. He said, yeah, just hanging out on the bus with your mom. She’s pretty cool.

Then he clarified that she was on her way to the correct bus stop and how long it would be before we got there.

Sometimes random moments with strangers can make your whole day.

Last Sunday I heard Bob let out a whoop in the kitchen and I ran in there and he was very proud to show me this pancake.

I’ve got a daffodil. It’s out front being rained on. Some of my neighbors have a lot of daffodils but mine always seem to take their time. I can see a few more on the verge. One of my favorite spring moments.

This evening I made the total Pacific Northwest amateur error. It wasn’t raining so I took my raincoat off and left it in the car.

I was only going into the market. I had a short list. I’d be out in a few minutes.

When I left: Monsooning. Sideways. Or is that what monsooning means?

I had to wring out my purse when I got home. I feel like I spent half my week walking around with wet pants. I’m in sweatpants now with fuzzy socks and soup re-heating on the stove so I’m happy.

I’ve had a computer intensive week so I’m going to unplug for 24 hours and see if I can revive my poor mouse arm.

Looking north on SW Broadway, Downtown Portland

I’m having trouble getting my act together. It’s gray and drippy and all I want to do is drink cocoa and stay in bed and listen to Air Supply.

I exercised and now I’m tackling my administrivia so I think I’m back in forward motion.

I’m going to bake bread this afternoon. I’ve never used this recipe and I just looked it over to make sure I time it right.

One of the steps is, “cover the bread with a clean kitchen towel as it cools.”

I love this instruction.

Who would cover their bread with a dirty towel?

Katie was in town last week and we met for dinner. We tried Little Bird for dinner and it was fantastic. When they brought these rosewater macarons with our check we spent about 5 minutes cooing over how adorable they were before we could eat them.

Last week we had a day with a high of 57 and I wanted to come home and throw all my winter stuff in the back of the closet. I also looked at bathing suits and tanktops online. It’s way too early to be so optimistic about warm weather and if I move the winter wardrobe I’ll just jinx it.