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ARCHIVES:
SEPTEMBER 2005
Wednesday,
September 28, 2005 -- I have too many projects going on right
now. Isn't that how all blogs start to end?
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Saturday,
September 24, 2005 -- I went to work today and left feeling
like i had tackled a huge overbearing burden. ok. maybe I tackled
1/8th of the burden, but still, that is just fine.
Not one single drop of rain here from Rita. You suck, Rita!
OH, maybe you're wondering how Girls Night Out went?
Thoughts:
1. I forgot how much people like to drink.
2. mmm....calamari
3. Should have at least put some heels on.
4. How are are these drunk people getting home?
5. Met a crafty gal
6. mmm....potstickers
In the back section of the bar was an area called Manicures and
Martinis (for $10). Most of the gang took advantage of that, but
I did not, but i like the idea, but i don't like martini's, but
they had cool vendors there selling jewely and bags, but maybe they
would have let me do Margaritas and Manicures, but they said the
manicures were fast and sloppy, but you get what you pay for.
---
Wednesday,
September 21, 2005 -- We watched the new MARTHA last night on
TLC and if you haven't seen any of these, then you need to make
an effort. Now that she's out of the clinker, she's all funny and
relaxed and your best friend. I already miss the snooty refined
lady. I mean, don't we have enough fun-loving low brow entertainers?
Please bring back the one lady that's super loaded and knows how
to be classy.
-->DARN! i just realized that we missed an opportunity tonight
at the mexican restaurant to order a hurricane rita on the rocks.
I love making the waitress think that i'm trying to be funny and
make them have to laugh.
-->In other news, a gal at work invited me to a Girls Night Out
tomorrow night. It'll be some work people and some other ladies
that I don't know, all heading to a bar downtown after work. The
gal that invited me hasn't heard my speech yet -- i don't think.
The speech is given when I meet someone new and they think i'm like
them and that i like to go out, stay late, and drink. And then I
have to sit them down, and give them the speech.
I can remember when we first met Public
Realm and his wife. I can remember them calling and wanting
to meet us downtown at 10:30 on a friday night. They had left that
message on our machine. Snail and I looked at each other and said,
"Ummm, yeah, we have to have the talk with them.." So,
i called them back and told them that we don't really go out or
stay up late but we'd be happy to meet them for dinner at 7:00pm
some night. We all went on to become great friends.
Anyway, back to Girls Night Out.....Yeah, i'll be there. It'll be
fun. I'll be underdressed. I'll order some food. I'll get a Dr.
Pepper and then i'll drive home and get in bed at 10. I don't even
care. It's not like I am old now and don't DO the things I USED
to do. I never did those things to begin with so, its all old news
for me. The same story.
I can remember many a night --way back when I DID try the 'going
out' thing. Standing in some noisy, smokey backyard or club in some
uncomfortable shoes with my allergy eyes and making small talk.
And i'd be thinking about how though I may be miserable now, I know
that later, at some point, i WILL be in my bed and how great that'll
be when I finally get there.
Sweet, sweet bed.
---
Monday,
September 19, 2005 -- These are the toes of my right foot..
As you can see, no trouble here. Just some toes in the state they
were meant to be.
Below,
you'll see my right foot inside of a new shoe that I wore to work
today. You can see that my right 4th toe is getting stuck on my
shoe as I walk. The skin is sticking to the leather. It sounds gross,
but that's how it is. I mean, i guess if my feet were covered in
hair, then they would glide around the inside of my shoes like butter.
As it is, its more like going down the playground slide, on your
bare butt.
By the end of the day, I was thinking this:
(The
shoe is more like a clog and not really something that a sock would
look good with.)
Tomorrow, I'm wearing sneakers. Wednesday, I'll be ready for more
pain.
---
Thursday, September 15, 2005 -- (longest sleepypie post EVER)
Let me tell you about my favorite part of our vacation to the great
northwest. It was our second day staying in Olympia and Snail really
wanted to see where the land meets the ocean so we headed straight
west.
First we stopped at the grocery store for some treats and a cooler.
We ended up in an small ocean town that was lacking in people and
good weather. We drove out onto the beach but it was so sandy, cold,
windy and we didn't even bother to get out of the car. After that,
we needed some lunch and finding something suitable was a task that
makes or breaks relationships. It was just past a normal lunch hour
which meant judging the merit of a food place by number of cars
in the parking lot was out of the question. I was putting my votes
in for McDonald's for the sake of something familiar. Snail won
the toss and we went to a local teriyaki place. The food was fine
and there was 80's music on the radio.
The
drive to the coast had been a good hour and neither of us would
have been satisfied heading home from there, so we figured we may
as well head north which would lead us up along the coast and into
the national park.
The next closest thing on the map was an area called Lake Quinnalt,
which appeared by comparison to have lots of parks and trails and
things.
About an hour of driving through nothing (tunnel of pine trees)
and with no signal on the radio, no cds cause we're too stupid to
bring any. We were quite happy to reach our destination.
Around the corner of the first bend, we saw this gorgeous 1920's
mountain lodge. Complete with moss on the rooftop. It was magical.
Its the kind of place you dream about staying in. It reminded me
of the Dirty Dancing resort for some reason. It had an edge of late
summer creepyness in a good way. We parked and walked through the
lobby to check out the lakeside.
Out back is a huge sprawling green lawn with random adirondack chairs
and vacationers lounging about. Down by the water there were paddle
boats, more chairs and the big beautiful blue lake. There were rabbits
hopping around but no hobbits.
(the
white that looks like sky is actually the lake water in the photo
below)
We left heaven on earth and took our picnic (which we didn't see
fit to indulge in at the crap beach) to a cozy rain forest table
and ate proscuitto, jarred artichokes, bread, cheese and greasy
potato chips.
It
must have been around 5ish at this point and looking at the map,
we were finally where we wanted to be on the olympic peninsula.
On the west side. We would have been crazy to drive all the way
back to our hotel room.
We marched our tired butts right over to the perfect of perfect
crispy cool pine lodges and got a room for the night. **I highly
recommend a spontaneous vacation from vacation.** A simple trip
to the tiny mart across the street provided us with some critical
toiletries (this is as close to camping as i plan to get in my adult
life) and we were all set for good times.
It was truly fun and weird to not be back at our hotel. I nearly
felt like I should call them and let them know that they shouldn't
wait up cause we wouldn't be home that night. I got over it a moment
later.
When we checked in, the lady had shown us a map and pointed out
that we could take a further drive around the lake, reach a bridge
that crosses the river that feeds the lake, and possibly see some
elk. It was around sunset and we made the trip passing a few Kinkadean
houses, more pine trees and hunters. The road ended and we continued
on the gravel path for several more miles. Reaching the bridge at
last, the sun was nearly setting. The light was super and the sight
was something to behold.
No
elk were spotted, but it was stunning. I love this barren/river/mountain/rocky
situation.
When we got back to our lodge room, we ate the rest of our picnic
for dinner (skipping the "reservations only" $30/plate
dinner set up). A few rounds of ping pong in the basement game room
and a couple of Khalua and cream beverages in the dark glowy woodsy
lodge concludes a perfect day.
Thank
you, romantic Snail.
---
Wednesday,
September 14, 2005 -- Tonight, Mayor Naggin was on Larry King.
He said, "Heroes and Sheroes" when referring to the people
helping the citizens of Louisiana.
Seriously. He did. People, for real. He said it. He said "Sheroes."
Tuesday,
September 13, 2005 -- We had a great time tooling around the
Seattle area. These are my thoughts in no order:
1. People up there drink SO much coffee.
2. Pine trees. Pine trees. Pine trees.
3. I love a free hotel breakfast bar.
4. We visited the first nordstroms and shopped.
5. I love rain forests and moss.
6. Seattle is hillier than I thought.
7. I love being an adult and having the freedom and the means to
travel whereever whenever.
8. Turkish savory pastries.
9. I love to eat a nice dinner with Snail, outside on a patio overlooking
a marina, eating crab cocktail, drinking my new second favorite
reisling, watching the sun set.
10. I love when I forget to bring the camera.
11. Should have eaten more bacon.
12. I love hotel rooms.
13. Slugs.
14. Your "Chinatown" is their "International District."
15. Pull-tabs.
Otherwise, its a bit sad to be back. How can you come back from
vacation and NOT be sad, someone please tell me.
Oh, remember that Pommes Frites place that we were going to go?
Yeah well, that didn't work out. You see, we had the street address
and we found where the place SHOULD have been. It was clearly NOT
there. So, tired and tired of walking, we decided to hell with it
and popped in a coffee shop for a respite. [ Snail, meet Cafe
Mocha. Cafe Mocha, meet Snail. ] We asked the gals there about
it, who told us that the fries place was around the corner and in
fact, NOT where it should have been (numerically speaking). Of course
we went to check it out and found the place to be without clear
signagae, empty (having just opened for the day) and we got that
vibe. The bad news vibe and decided to walk away. Its clearly more
of a late nighting drinking/eating fries place and being the first
customer of the day and the only customers wasn't very appetizing.
From there we headed to the Japanese Gardens.
Monday,
September 5, 2005 -- I finally used my mini bundt pan yesterday
with great results. I mullled over making an official bundt pan
recipe, but nothing was grabbing me and frankly i didn't want to
have to make a trip to the store. So, i made my cupcake mix and
poured some of it into mini bundt pans. They came out like a charm!
(note the lovely cake plate that my mother in law gave me!)
We fly out tomorrow for the NW part of the country. I've never been
up there and I'm excited to see it. I hope the trees are tall and
the sea side cliffs are rocky. Snail printed out some info on a
Pomme Frites place and other than that, there is no agenda. Yee
haw! Talk to you in a week.
Sunday,
September 4, 2005 -- I am completely doing nothing this weekend
and i'm enjoying the hell out of it. Normally, I am always either
at work or painting or belly-aching about painting. It sure is damn
nice to just do whatever and nothing such as watching endless Hurricane
coverage, working on my blog and painting my toes. We leave on Tuesday
for Seattle and I feel like I am having a vacation before vacation.
I wish I could completely resist the urge to comment on the Hurricane
situation but I can't. Mainly, I am waiting for someone to make
a map showing roughly the areas affected. They keep having reporters
from other states and from many towns and sorry that I don't have
towns of the gulf coast memorized, but i don't. A. Show me
where these places are so that I don't have to get up and look it
up on the computer and B. Cobble together a rough stab at
a map showing us big blobs of the zones that were hit and you don't
even have to make a distinction between flood-affected and hurricane-affected.
I think a generalized map would help me and others visualized the
size of this ordeal. i guess one of the news organizations will
get around to it at some point.
Also, i find it very curious that we didn't see any (that I know
of) major network primetime coverages of this tragedy. I wouldn't
expect 24-7 but I would have expected maybe a few hours of primetime
an evening. I know there are plenty of people without cable news
and its hard to imagine the little amount they are seeing about
this.
Lt general
Honore, you can save my life, anytime! This guy is the bomb.
I just overheard an interview with him and the news lady asked,
"Sir, do you have an estimate on how many people may still
be stuck in their homes or in their attics?"
"Well, if I did then we'd have gone in and gotten them by now.
We're Americans; we're not stuck on stupid." .............Beautiful.
Snail did a 1-minute 1-man performance piece last night reenacting
this week's events, with a Justice Rehnqist finale. Wish you could
have seen it.
I just caught wind of a bbq tonight. I think i may have no choice
but to whip up some cupcakes.
AUGUST
was a lovely month > Check it out
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