Travelogue - Tuesday (8/8)

Had lunch at a restaurant that's been in Bend since the '30s, the Pine Tavern. It has two actual pine trees growing through the dining room.

Behind the restaurant, flowing through the heart of town is the Deschutes - this quiet stretch known as Mirror Pond. The park is Drake Park and runs along the river for about a mile or so with amazing homes on either side.

Overlooking Drake Park and Mirror Pond, this is one of many homes I'd be happy to relocate to.

This lady works at a nearby gallery, keeping it tidy throughout the day.

Oh, wait, no, that's a new piece. I call her Gladys.

This dog will sell you tickets to stuff.

This dog is Sampson and will only talk to you if his mom says you're OK. He's a very sweet puppy who works with his mom at a clothing boutique. Most of the clothes they have would fit Sampson or small people who work in carnivals.

Travelogue - Monday (8/7)

I think vacation is working. I think I'm unwound. I'm cleaning my room, the kitchen, the house, doing laundry, reading books I've meant to read for months - things I didn't have time/energy for before this trip north.

Either I'm relaxed enough to be able to focus on stuff like that, or I'm kidding myself and feeling twitchy about having so little to do. Being away from home, I don't have much else TO do.

I'm ready to get home to my giant man boy and my fuzzy children. A little more northwest unwinding to go, and then I'll be in the car going very fast towards California.

Something the deer haven't eaten yet.

Amazing thunder/lightning storms came through Monday night - tried like hell to get a bolt, but no tripod, lots of clouds and too much ambient outdoor light to work around. The storm went on for hours - giant bolts covering half the sky at times.



Playing with zoom.

Smoke makes dramatic sunsets.

Travelogue - Sat/Sun (8/5-8/6)

We had dinner with neighbors Sunday night. Really interesting people, and their son is a well-known comic book writer & artist (to those who know comics, that is ; ). They came by for cocktails and then we agreed to caravan to dinner.

The neighbors drove away and my father went to shut the back hatch on our car in the garage so he could pull it out into the driveway. He was lowering the hatch as I was about to get into the back seat when I heard him calmly say, "Oh dammit." When I looked up, blood was pouring down his face. Instead of shutting the hatch, he slammed the corner of it into his noggin, resulting in a deep cut.

I ran him into the house and grabbed a towel. Amazingly, he managed to hold his head out from his body to prevent bleeding on his nice shirt, but as he tried to rinse his head in the sink, it seemed to create more blood. It was a spectacular pre-dinner show. Who knew Dad was such a bleeder?

I kept thinking, what will the neighbors say when we show up late with my dad's head bleeding profusely?

The bleeding subsided after some pressure, then we threw a band-aid on his dome & headed out to chow. Dinner was great, but throughout the evening, I kept noticing the band-aid getting redder and redder. After dinner we convinced my dad to stop at an urgent care clinic to see if they thought it might require anything more than hydrogen peroxide & a bandage.

Turns out the "urgent" care clinic is more of a "hope we're open when you need us" clinic - closed after 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays. We reasoned that my dad would likely still be alive in the morning and if the cut was still bleeding, he'd go back to have it looked at.

As luck would have it, it's already starting to heal and he found an actual doctor to look at it today. Doc said it was doing fine and commended our field dressing & first aid skills. My mother is now known as Nurse Ratched.


That's blood on the floor of the garage.


That's a nice slice of prime rib.

It's strange that just about every time I'm vacationing with my parents, something happens that results in one or all of us getting hurt.

When I was 15 we took a small RV all through the Pacific Northwest and I got my thumb smashed in the door. Then when my dad stomped on the gas pedal I was thrown backward into the corner of the fridge, right between the shoulder blades.

Then at one campsite we were picking blackberries and a swarm of bees came upon us. As I was sprinting back to the RV, I heard my dad yelling, "watch out for snakes!" That wasn't a great time.

While on a road trip in Europe not so long ago, we went to get the car out of the hotel garage and noticed a chlorine smell, but didn't think much of it. As the elevator descended to the garage the smell got stronger and stronger.

Soon we were choking on chlorine gas and running for the emergency exit. Concerned that our car and luggage were left unattended, we all held our breath and ran back in to get the car. Why? I have no idea. We're Americans. We can't leave a perfectly good car AND luggage in a garage. That's stupid.

After waiting for what felt like a day or the garage gate to open, we drove around front and went in to tell the manager they were poisoning their guests in the garage.

They seemed annoyed at us and said they'd check it out, but we were convinced they thought we were raving idiots. They gave us bottles of Evian and sent us on our way. We drove for an hour with the windows down, coughing, trying to sooth our burned throats with French mineral water and cold air.

Another time in Portugal, my mother had the mussels and really shouldn't have. She spent that night in the loo, cursing the restaurant, the Portuguese and our lack of Pepto Bismol.

It's a rich tradition - vacation means adventure, and with adventure, comes the risk of injury. We go boldly forth and keep our first aid kits handy.

Travelogue - Friday (8/4)

Lazy black eyed susans in the front yard - lazy, cause all they do is stand there in the sun, doing nothing. Kinda like me this week.

Happened by a Pierce Arrow convention... one of many gorgeous cars we saw on our way into the High Desert Museum.

A bobcat resident of the High Desert Museum - not so much a musem as an animal rescue/rehabilitation and educational institution. They take wild animals injured or confiscated from dumbasses who thought a bobcat or lynx would make a good pet, and if they can rehabilitate them back into the wild, they do, and if not, they create an optimal environment for the animal to live out a healthy, comfortable life, while teaching anyone who will listen how to live as one with nature. They have lovely historical exibits, too, but the best part about them is their work with animals.

This guy was taken from a dipshit who thought a bobcat would be a swell pet. There's another beautiful cat there, a lynx, who was found out in the wilderness starving to death, after another asshole had removed its canine teeth and had it declawed. The lynx is now healthy & enjoying his days at the HDM.

The job I'd really like to have is that of hunting down these morons & shooting them full of incredibly painful things - bullets, nails, razor blades, really any sharp, harmful things, then maybe pouring gasoline all over them & lighting them on fire.

This is Moki - Moki was found as a baby otter without any sign of her mother. After some time trying to find her mother, she was rescued & brought to the HDM where she spends most of her time playing or sleeping.

One of the amazing birds of prey at the HDM. Some of their birds sustained injuries (hit by car, power line, etc.) that prevent them from being released back into the wild, others were confiscated from idiots who thought they could keep a red tailed hawk as a pet.

A beautiful boy - can't remember the type of hawk - ruffled hawk, perhaps? I was too distracted by how gorgeous he is & wasn't listening.

A giant lava flow, now used as an informal firing range and we think is the same place where every New Year's Day, the locals find an old beater car and tie the steering wheel in place all the way to one side, throw a cinder block on the gas & let it go, then they all shoot at it from the top of the surrounding ridge. I love country entertainment.

Dinner at 38 Degrees - one of the best dinners I've had.

Fantastic vino, from the other home country.

I don't remember the rest of the night... lots of fresh air, wine... Zzzzz

Travelogue - Thursday (8/3)

On a lonely highway...

95 @ 3:30 & not even to the heart of the valley yet

somewhere in northern california

4:20

takin the house out for a drive

all sorts of fun near redding, ca

experience a galaxy

lake shasta

finally into the mountains

mt. shasta from the south

passing mt. shasta

approaching dorris, ca

upper klamath lake

still driving... and driving... and driving...

finally home

It's Not *All* Shitty

I realized the other day, there are a few things that aren't completely shitty.

I love working downtown - it's a great environment for someone with a mild case of ADD - there's just about anything I could need within a few close blocks.

There's great shopping, food and walking all over this area. Though it's more colorful the closer you get to the klassy Market Street theaters. Kla-ssssey.

So, there's that.

In the It's Very Shitty But Not Too Bad department, some asshole got a hold of my bank card number and tried to charge $1,400 on some French computer/multimedia site this past weekend. Thankfully my bank put the kybosh on it & the charge didn't go through, but now the account has been closed & I'll have to get a new card/account, etc.

They didn't get to my money, but now I'm out a bank card & will have to update several billing accounts - most of which I can't remember offhand. Then there was the fun conversation with customer service when I learned I wouldn't get a new card for 7-10 business days.

It's physically impossible to procure such a card from an actual bank branch - it must come from the magical vat of plastic cards located somewhere overseas, I'm guessing. I was hoping to be on the road by Thursday, so I harangued the guy until he found a way to express it to me. He totally didn't have to - I was so unpleasant he should have hung up on me - but I'm glad he helped me out.

Now I just need the new card to get here.

Hawks & Kayaks

Heard the very distinctive cry of a baby cooper's hawk the other morning & dashed outside with my new 300mm lens. Pretty sure it's a cooper's hawk. The lighting wasn't too good on a foggy morning at 6am. I'm hoping he'll be back soon.

His/her parents swooped in a few minutes later, silently gliding above me, up into the tree. Amazing. Felt very lucky to have all this literally in our back yard.

In other news, kayaking is not a low impact sport. We spent all day yesterday in a kayaking class. I've done some paddling in my day, several whitewater rafting trips, but kayaking is a whole other world.

Sitting in the boat on the calm water by the dock was easy - getting the hang of paddling & how tippy it felt - but then we paddled out into the channel. Waves! Teeny tiny waves at first, then a boat would go by and it felt like open surf.

The hardest part was rescue training where we had to dump over on purpose. I told our instructor I'd do whatever it took to never tip over. He probably didn't believe me, but I was serious. I was not happy about purposefully tipping over.

Sitting in his boat beside me, David said in that high-pitched Jerry Seinfeld voice, "But I don't wanna be a pirate," and I lost it. So I sucked it up and leaned over. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to quickly get out of the small "keyhole cockpit," aptly named - it felt about as small as an actual keyhole.

Thankfully, your body takes over. It knows it's going underwater and it desires to be above water, having not yet grown gills. Then I had to refrain from wiping my eyes too aggressively & pushing salty bay water into my eyes. And who knows what else. I tried not to think about that. My rings were super sparkly clean last night.

Anyway, all went well. We dumped. We maneuvered our way back into the boat - one way on our own, the other way assisted by our partner. We are now certified & able to rent/enjoy kayaks. After we buy a shitload of gear, that is.

I started wondering if certain sports are invented just for the revenue opportunities from all the gear. All the different types of water sport clothing, the wetsuits, footies, hats, glasses, pfd's, sunscreens, safety stuff, and then all the gear you might need if you buy your own boat. Crazy.

It was a great workout. Everything is sore - a true, whole body workout. We fell asleep around 7pm - a "nap," we thought - and woke up at 6:30 this morning.

Fog, Glorious Fog

(photo from the the Assoc. of Bioscience Financial Officers site - thanks guys!)

I hate being cold, but I was ecstatic to wake up to fog the past two mornings. Far from cold, it's wonderfully cool and mild, burning off by mid-day for a lovely afternoon. No jacket required, but no sweat-wicking clothes required either.

The city is still packed with tourons and it's getting old. It's fine if they want to linger where they stand and move slowly from one point to the next, gazing slack-jawed at all the shiny things - but be aware of your damn surroundings. Everyone seems to have lost the ability to know where they are in the universe.

Be one with the world - know where you are in relation to other things or people. Be fluid. Don't be a dense wall. Be accommodating. You'll make fast friends wherever you go if people don't have to trip over you or repeat "excuse me" seven times to get you to move your lumbering ass.

Once Upon a Time

We used to wear jackets. It used to be cold in SF in June and July. This stuff called "fog" used to blanket the city with its cooling vapors, making it almost too chilly. Which is why we once wore jackets.

jack-et (jak-it), n.
1. piece of clothing worn on the upper body outside a shirt or blouse, often waist length to thigh length
2. a removable or replaceable protective or insulating cover for an object (eg a book, hot water tank)
3. a police record



Next week's lesson: "coat" (kot)

Hot Enough?

This was Saturday - note the high of the day in red - 101.2 (shot taken at 5:30 p.m.):


And Sunday, in the car:

I'm feeling awfully proud of myself for having the attic fan AND the ceiling fans installed earlier this year. It's warm, but we're coping thanks to the space-age technology of moving air.

I called my mother on Saturday to tell her it was over 100 degrees. She grew up here and is stunned at the lengthy heat wave. She blames Al Gore.

Welcome to Rooty Toot Toot! Really fun knowing you're dropping by now & then.

Talk to The Pad

Thank, Ms. Crafty, for my new alter ego, and for the picture that I stole right off your blog, since I never got around to shooting my own.

I like how she seems to be looming over the department from her perch atop the plant. Carrying a very large hammer. Back off, bitches!

How apropos that this nasty week ended with food poisoning. I made it home just in time last night - no thanks to the hot, overcrowded, slow bart trains, full of tourons grabbing a free ride.

I wonder if bart is pocketing whatever slush they can by shutting down the AC in the stations as well as the cars, while federal funds support spare-the-air days. Every train was a death trap with people crammed into every spare inch of space. I'd rather sit in traffic for an hour in my own car than deal with this much longer.

Anyway, thanks to Bistro Burger and what must have been unwashed lettuce in their chicken cesar salad. It coulda been the chicken - who the hell knows. I won't be ordering it again.

And all the cats are grumpy. This nonstop heat is ass. I don't mind it during the daytime, but fuck, please bring on the fog at night so I can sleep. Our attic fan is going to run for two weeks straight. Billy Martin forecasted a high of 80 degrees today. It's already 76 at 9:30. I think Billy needs to update his software.

Who wants to come over & dig a pool in our backyard? I'll buy the beer.

Reset

Maybe it was the Patron last night or the bacon at Sears. Today was weird. I kinda had a breakdown, to borrow the eloquent headline from this week's Onion.

It was all Jeff's fault. He asked me "are you OK?" and sure, I still have my hair and my lungs are working, but my eyes keep leaking.

I rinsed off my mascara with the natural cleansing power of tears and later on went for a nice walk. Had some sorbet. Got some sun. And now I'm planning a vacation. A real vacation. We'll find someone to fill in for me while I'm out so I don't come back to an avalanche of shit.

It's funny when you lose your shit at work. People treat you differently... they talk a little quieter and enunciate very clearly. They refrain from making any large, sudden movements, because at any moment, maybe I'll just start crapping my pants or peeing all over the furniture.

Maybe this is how insanity starts. One day you seem a bit more stressed than usual, laughing & crying simultaneously... and before too long, you're writing your manifesto in your own feces.

Flycatchers

I'm not happy about having a fly or two in the house, but I am enjoying the sound of four little feet landing back on earth after a giant leap into the air to snag a fly.

I love that the little one can't help the urge to hunt the buzzing prey, repeatedly rising from her lounging spot to run them down.

Coming home is the best part of every day. Especially after frustrating emails and being nearly attacked in a meeting for not being a mind reader. Had the person taken five minutes to have a conversation with me early on, all would have been handled in a calm, mutually-agreeable fashion.

Instead, I got to hear how what I provided wasn't at all what was expected, and how she was frustrated at having been over this four times already. Not with me, unfortunately, because if she'd spoken with me, it may have prevented her panties from being sucked up into her colon along with her head.

She seems to be forgetting that this project in particular has the entire company in brand new territory, and because it's not been well planned or thoroughly researched, we all have to work together to move forward, because no one has the script.

Thanks for the support. Thanks for thinking I hold the mystical key and am the one person who has all the answers. It's flattering, but you're really fricking off base.

Just a few minutes into the meeting, all I could think about was How can I get the hell out of here, NOW? It's so goddamn unpleasant.

All we do all day is fight. Fire fight, fight for the right thing, fight for someone to please make a decision, fight for time. Nothing is ever easy.

Today I tried to channel Charlie Sheen's character in Ferris Bueller - to not focus on what's happening or the people around me, but instead on myself & my own attitude. I tried. I really tried. By lunchtime the frustration took over. It's so overwhelming, it becomes impossible to put it out of your mind.

As a wise person said today, Tomorrow is another day.

Funday's Over

Very sad the weekend is over. Sad it's already mid-July and summer will be over in a blink. I hate the cold and hate the gray. I can't bear the thought of seeing days like today shelved for another year. I love perpetual summer.


Took a great ride today on many paths & trails - couldn't have been a more beautiful day.


Last night we enjoyed a delightful tasting at Hangar 1. Some of the best vodka I've tasted. Fuck the goose - we like this better and it's local. The people there are nice. They seem to love what they do for a living. Imagine that.


We kicked off the weekend with a nice breakfast out. Found a place with few fools and plenty of booths. Might become our regular spot, since every time we eat at Ole's my stomach hurts afterward, yet every weekend there's a stupid long line to get into that grease hole.

I expect it'll be a shitty week, starting with a redonkulous 3-hour meeting tomorrow morning. About what, I could not begin to tell you. But I can tell you it's going to be a giant waste of time with stacks of lame powerpoint slides.

Our group is imploding yet again. And if they don't get me out of the producer role soon, I'm not sure how much longer I can hold on. I want to stay. I want to stick it out & move on when I have things a bit more settled. But I'm not sure it'll work out that way.

I'm angry pretty much all the time now. All the shit that was lurking beneath the surface boiled over last week. It'll pass, but not right away. I want to go back & start over.

Left Early

Today I got up from my desk at 4:30, announced I was going home and I left. Everyone said a cheerful "goodnight" and I was out the door.

It was the first night in weeks I didn't stay late or go straight home to my laptop to catch up on two jobs. It felt wonderful.

Moments after leaving the building I was on an uncrowded train going home in bright daylight. After arriving home I curled up on the couch to finish my book with the Tour de France on the TV in the background.

It was great to be home so early in the day, but it won't be easy going back in the morning. I feel like curling up in bed to sleep for a month. After a good long cry.

Sunnyday

On our way to Alameda Point we witnessed this horrific disaster - a massacre of countless, innocent gummy bears who appeared to have been hanging out at a local gas station just before the weather turned fatally warm.

Looks like some tried to escape from what must have been ground zero (a magnifying glass?) but were overtaken by the heat and stopped in their sticky tracks. Devastating. Something you don't get over easily.

We continued on our way to what is still a blissfully empty ghost town to ride our bikes. On my supercool Electra Townie, I was cruising in comfort and style and could have stayed out there all day.

Heading back home, we realized it's only a matter of time before that land is developed and it will be a ghost town no longer. I hope future development stays caught up in red tape for decades.

So Long Crafty

Ms. Crafty is officially on her way, as we knew she would be. Sucks for us, great for her. One upside is the cake - her going-away cake made by Jeff. I didn't get to taste this particular wonder at my wedding. It was inhaled within moments while I was distracted by guests... but I digress.

It's the start of an exodus, I'm afraid. It's just a matter of time. It's become a nonstop circus of one ridiculous thing after another.

Last year there seemed to be a great deal of promise - a lot of people were motivated to turn it around and start moving things in the right direction. I think they've all been stuck in a meeting since last year 'cause nothing's changed, and some things are worse.

It's a classic case of thinking you're signing up for one thing, but it turns out to be something very different and not at all what you want to be doing. If I wanted to be a crazed fire fighter all day, I'd have joined the fireman's academy or whatever it is.

But anyway, bon voyage to the Crafty Goddess. Get 'em to move their headquarters southward & take us with you!

The Missing Link...

...Was standing next to me on the Bart platform tonight. Still a bit hunched over, not quite upright, he was jabbering on his newfangled cellular telephone to another unfrozen caveman telephone user about the unbelievable cost of veterinary care - something he must be intimately familiar with, being only partly human.

"I mean, why is it so expensive? It's only an animal! But heck, that's capitalism..."

And to the man next to me on the train itself, I'd like to thank you for killing whatever shred of hunger I had at 7:30 p.m. with your staggering BO. You make it easy to forgo dinner altogether. In fact, you made me forget all about dinner and instead all I wanted was a shower.

To the woman who was so loud on the phone today they could hear you in Canada, I'd like to ask that you practice speaking at a normal volume, also known as your "inside voice." Just because you're loud doesn't mean you're an effective communicator. It just means you're loud. And annoying. But mostly loud.

To the person who put super snarky comments in an early draft document, lighten up. No one's going to read your spam anyway, so there's no need to take it so seriously. Channel that energy into meeting new people. Enjoy an online chat, shop for shoes, go on a date. Live a little. No one needs to have a stroke before they turn 30.

Thank you to the nice woman at Peet's who always smiles when I order a small half & half and doesn't give me any attitude when I pay in change.

And to Ms. Crafty... when you go, I'll miss you dearly. You've been a fantastic partner in crime and it won't be the same without you. Who will I dish with about the incredulous madness? But I know it's not the end, just a transition. We'll always have IM.

FCK1NG H311

Power Bread

Found a new bread recipe book this past weekend and the new magic box is churning out what appears to be a way better looking concoction than what I've been producing from the manufacturer's cookbook.

Let's just say, previous loaves have resembled Irish soda bread without intending to make Irish soda bread.

The Box is churning out a whole wheat flax seed recipe - I love me some whole grain with the added protein (and fiber!) from flax seed. The magic box has a cycle where you can add mix ins, like nuts, seeds, chocolate chips or what-have-you.

I wondered, what if I threw in whole coffee beans and some almond butter at the Mix In cycle - then I wouldn't bother making toast. Just cut a slice and dig in - my morning meal all in one hearty slice.

And Happy Birthday America. We celebrated by watching the World Cup and the Tour de France. Tonight we'll open a bottle of French wine and have some Mediterranean olives, Italian, sliced meats, and some Dutch cheese.

To all the knot heads out there who will blow shit up to "celebrate," if you blow off a hand, let that be a lesson to you.