Super-sized

The Letter S is now up on GLL. I have way more than 5 songs this time, and I'm sure that someone will mention some other song and I'll say, "Ahh! Of course!"

I found that this time around, many of the songs were so wrapped up in a mix of personal/fictional/just plain good songwriting that it was a challenge to untangle everything and get a coherent few hundred words out. The 5 main songs are some of my most favorite songs ever, and being that close to something makes it hard to articulate, I suppose.

Anyway, enjoy.

OH! Nearly forgot!

Cograts to Jenn and Kate who graduated from Gonzaga, masters and law degrees intact and ready for new efforts in conquering.

Also congrats to Amanda on this year's grad school 4.0. You have far more discipline than I.

Just another day on the calendar

Ah Mother's Day, the holiday I usually forget I qualify for. Tyson had to work today, Grace threw a giant fit while I was on the phone with Tyson's brother, which continued until my mom called (she needed a nap), but both she and Jack are napping now. A present in itself. They've both been a little cranky lately --- Jack's teeth are just barely under the surface, and Grace has been getting up early for whatever reason. So even though today is just like any other day, I did get to sleep in, I had an onion bagel for breakfast, and Tyson's off tomorrow. We'll go out to lunch somewhere, but I'm not sure where yet. Also, since we got our stimulus money, I can get my hair cut/dyed soon.

By the way, the government thinks I am worth $193. (That's if Tyson+2 kids equals what the news says they equal, but I don't know how they scaled it to income. I was surprised the amount ended in an odd number.) Apparently, working really hard but not actually receiving a paycheck means I'm supposed to stimulate the economy less. You know, cos them wimminfolk with their baby breedin' should just keep quiet and like it.

/sarcasm

However, we can take care of a few things that we've been meaning to do now for...ever... and that's nice. I'll take $193 over nothing.

In other news, it seems that the bunny has decided to stay in our yard. He lives under the car sometimes, but I think that he likes that we don't do much to our grass, so there are plenty of dandelions to eat. We need to mow, but it's not totally unruly yet. The lawn care business-owning neighbors are probably tutting anyway, ha.

Jack is awake, and very unhappy about it. Gotta run.

Oh, and I updated the dairy page a couple of days ago because those soyjoy bars really pissed me off.

Create something out of nothing

The groceries situation is pretty feckin bleak around here. I basically have lots of cereal, oatmeal, a little bit of cheese, rice and lentils. And chicken broth. I'm thinking soup is on the menu again. The beginning of the month always seems a little bleak.

Would you believe that I've made my own bread lately? I know. The domesticity of that about kills me, but the bread I normally buy is at Costco, and it's so out our way to go to Costco just for bread, and buying other bread is usually more expensive and not as good. So, faced with no bread one day and no great urge to get some, I made a loaf. And it turned out okay, so I made a second loaf, which turned out even better. Amazing, yet so out of character for me. Now I'm out of bread again, but also out of yeast, so if I want bread, I either have to wait and buy some tomorrow, or wait and buy yeast tomorrow (probably do that anyway), OR find a recipe that doesn't require it today. Decisions, decisions.

It isn't as labor intensive as it might sound. Sure, you have to wait awhile for it to rise and everything, but the hands on time is hardly 15 minutes. Almost makes me feel brave enough to try bread bowls again.

Anyway.
I barely finished my library book before it had to go back today -- The Book of Other People. It was a collection of short stories edited by Zadie Smith, and it had a lot of authors I already read. Nick Hornby sort of phoned it in on his offering, and I'd read two, maybe 3 (seemed vaguely familiar), stories in the New Yorker already. Overall though, it was a good one. Jonathan Lethem sort of wants to make me want to chuck it all in cos he's so good at what he does, but I guess a little motivation never hurts.

That joke in Juno about cello players who read McSweeney's? Hilarious.

I said to Tyson: "Maybe that's why after high school all those sorts of guys started up conversations with me like we were great friends, despite the fact that we hadn't had a conversation since middle school."

The above may not make sense if you haven't seen Juno. Also, I'm probably assuming too much.

I'm having sort of a disconnected day. Can you tell?

ARRR!

R songs up on GLL.

Swoon-y, lusty, thoughts on the atypical high school experience, memories pulled out of nowhere, movie soundtracks, the obligatory Oasis song.

I actually had this one finished a few days ago, if you can believe it. The way personal stuff feels weird to write about, but I can't really dial it back and still talk about the music in the same way. Usually, anyway.

S is going to have a full roster. So I better get crackin on that. Some of my all-time, regardless-of-letter, favorite songs are in S.

Go forth!

"Stick your shoes on and then out you crawl..."

Oh, it is one of those days. I took Tyson to work today because Jack was down to his very last diaper and very last bit of formula. Everything runs out at once, never enough gas money, blah blah blah, insert the same complaints across the nation here.

I'm a little cranky today. Sorry. I haven't been sleeping well despite the fact that at any given moment I feel like I could curl up and nap. I think switching Jack over to bottles is throwing my body all out of whack. I know it's been two months, but it's really only been the last couple of weeks that we've been down to once at night with me feeding him, and even then, I don't know what he's getting out of it other than making me feel like a human pacifier. He is sleeping better though... Now if only I could get him to do it on his own better...

Grace woke up at some ungodly hour because not only did I have to hear Barney in my half-sleeping state, there had to be at least one other show she watched before that on PBS. Barney comes on pretty early, which I'm usually thankful for because that means we rarely have to make a point to avoid it. Of course, tell a kid "Oh you probably won't like Barney," and what do they want to watch first chance they get? Yeah. Rebellion starts early. I'm not sure what it says about me that Grace knows how to turn on the TV and get it to the right channel, but then, we only have a couple of channels. Hey, it's PBS. Leave me alone. ;)

Anyway, since she got up way early, she's beyond cranky, therefore improving my mood, of course. I told her that if every word coming out of her mouth was going to be a complaint, then I really needed her not to talk for just a couple of minutes. Sometimes I just have to cut it off rather than negotiate. Then she fell asleep in the car, and here we sit in the Hasting's parking lot and I mooch their wi-fi from here.

I've been poking around the options as far as Seattle goes. Does it make more sense to just have me go by train? What's gas going to look like then? If I go by myself, I'd have to stay overnight, which makes the cost go up a little. If we all go, would we pay all that gas money and would probably turn around and leave without staying over? Seems like a waste to blow the gas if the kids are going to spend essentially a long day there and then be cooped up in the car, but staying over means extra costs too, more than just me staying. However, it could be fun to poke around Seattle just for a day, even if we were going back late at night. Our van isn't the most reliable either, not to mention the air conditioner is dead. I don't know. Weighing the options. Thinking aloud. I don't have any problem going myself (could be sort of fun, really), but I wish there were a midnight train/bus I could catch home. Stay tuned, I guess.

In other news, Tyson's mom is coming to visit over Memorial Day weekend, since she hasn't seen Jack yet. I'm sure both kids will ham it up wildly in their way, ha. Tyson and I will get a chance to go out by ourselves that Saturday. Plans for Iron Man and then Prago (I could get with some dancing...)? Zola (supposedly a sight to see) ? We'll see. We don't get entire evenings to ourselves very often.

I'm not sure what else we'll get up to, but I imagine the weather will have officially warmed up by then, so I guess anything is an option.

My mom's going to visit Luke and Amanda the week before, and they're going to do a few days in Disneyland, since obviously, there's nothing to do in 29 Palms. I'm not sure when I'll get to see Luke next, but maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas?

All right, the car is getting warm, my battery is fading and I'm hungry. Guess I should go wander into Roseauer's... Maybe Heather's working.

Jack and I are definitely related. ;)

I'm 4 1/2 months on the right, Jack is 7 months on the left. Contrast and compare. (Oh, and that's my grandma holding me, if you're not already familiar with her.)

Amusing (to me, anyway):

1. Woke up yesterday morning to Grace sitting on the edge of our bed with the TV on. Tyson says: "Grace, it's Saturday morning. What are you doing watching This Old House?"

Grace: "I want to watch the building show!"

Later that afternoon she says, "Mommy, I wish I could watch the building show all day."

2. Put on "Bonehead's Bank Holiday" and Jack will say, "ya ya ya ya" along with the chorus.

3. Jack also makes noises that sound an awful lot like "good" when he is offered rice. "Good. Ya ya Good." *slaps bowl* "Good!"

.... Every kid's an original, I say.

Meanwhile, back at the farm

Look who wandered into our yard today.

Photos

I thought of you, Kristen.




This is the guy Tyson pointed out looked like a younger, dark-haired version of the guy from New Amsterdam.


More photos can be found on my flickr page.

Leeeeavin' (leavin!) onnnn that 3 a.m. trip to Portland... (leavin' on that a.m. train...)

Officially, we love Portland. I'm sad that we couldn't spend another week there, but sadly, we're not made of money and the kitties would be very irritated with us for leaving them so long. So, we're back as of around midnight last night.

Grace, as expected, loved the train. Even though we left at 3 am, I probably didn't get her settled down to sleep until about 4:30 in the morning. What finally got her quiet was, "Grace, maybe you don't think you will be cranky later if you don't sleep, but I will so can you please, please be quiet for just a little while?" Cranky mothers cannot be taken lightly, so she finally went to sleep. Jack didn't really care what we were up to, so he went right to sleep. He just seemed glad to not be in his car seat. We got into Portland around 10 am, went to the hotel, and flopped out on the beds for a little while. We stayed at the Waterfront Marriot, which was really nice. Going up in hotel class just a little bit always seems to guaruntee that the staff actually pretends to care about you, which is nice. Also nice was that the hotel was part of a green program, which meant no chlorine in the pool. Hooray for that. Grace's skin doesn't need any encouragement to be irritated.

From there, we hopped the streetcar and then the bus to Trader Joe's. I think maybe we were at a smaller location --- how nice to have more than one location where you live, or even one --- and we picked up some bagels, bread, peanut butter, Joe's O's (cheerios), bananas, and the pound-plus bittersweet chocolate bar. Grace picked out an apple and a yogurt for lunch, and Tyson and I decided to see what the Pharmacy Cafe down the block had to eat. At this point, we were just famished, so when our giant burgers with fries showed up at our table, it was heaven. I also had a giant cup of coffee. We headed back to our room, and everyone napped for a little while. We ordered pizza from Bellagio's (delicious) and then went swimming. Jack seemed a little confused at first, but ended up really liking the water. He would even tip his head back and let us help him float, which is more than Grace will do. She had floaties.

Saturday, we did a lot of walking. We walked from our hotel all the way up to Voodoo Donut and the Saturday market. Tyson got this massive apple fritter thing that had caramel, peanut butter and chocolate on it. Took him all day to work through it, even though I helped a little. Grace wanted a maple cake donut after she realized they didn't have the cocoa puff one that day. I just ordered my favorite-- devils food cake with chocolate frosting. We wandered through the market and sat down to eat our donuts before catching the bus to Powell's Books.

I swear, I could spend just a week alone inside the bookstore. If only I had money to blow, I could have walked out with ten armfuls of interesting stuff. However, since we were trying to do the trip fairly inexpensively, Tyson and I refrained from looking too much and just let Grace and Jack look at things in the kid's section. Grace picked out a book called D.I.Y Kids that has all sort of fun projects in it (decopage your own purse! make your own stuffed animals out of socks!), and Jack ended up with a book about colors, except all the colors are Andy Warhol paintings. He really loves books already, which is promising. He'd slobbered all over the book before we even left the store.

From there, we ate a late lunch at Cha Cha Cha, a taqueria we'd spotted on the way to Trader Joe's. We ate a place in San Francisco with either the same or a similar name on our honeymoon. This wasn't quite the same-- the SF place was more Cuban, and this was Mexican, but oh man was it delicious. I got a huge veggie and rice burrito for $4. Tyson had some sort of shredded beef platter with fresh salsa and tortillas, and Grace ate chicken nachos. It was a ton of food and cost less than $15 with tip. Jack would pretty much stuff himself with Mexican rice all day, if he could. The weather was great and we sat outside.

As a special aside to Wendy: There was a guy also eating there who looked like a younger, darker-haired guy from New Amsterdam. I thought of you. I stole a picture of him while taking a picture of Grace, and I'll get it up here soon, but I haven't looked at it yet to see if it's any good.

We went back to Trader Joe's for a bottle of wine, some gluten-free cookies for Tyson's friend who dropped us off and would be picking us up from the train, and some sunflower seeds to munch on at the zoo the next day.

I took Grace swimming that night again, and we ate pizza again.

We took the light rail out to the zoo. The public transportation system in Portland is pretty much perfect. It's absolutely light years better than the one here. We overspent on our bus passes a little because most places we went were in Fareless Square, but oh well. Now we know.

Grace really liked the zoo, especially the monkeys and the chance to feed the lorikeets. Jack, however, was pretty bored. Aside from the fish, it was hard for him to get a good look at anything, and he found it hard to get comfortable in our rented stroller. Mostly, he fussed or slept, but we all still had a good time. I got a lot of good pictures I will get up soon. I didn't pet a pygmy goat this time though.

We went back into the Pearl district for dinner rather than eat in the zoo, deciding on the noodle place we saw right as we got off the street car. Jack enjoyed that more than the zoo, I think. He loved the busses and streetcars, and tried to romance anyone who made eye contact with him.

From there, we went down the block to Whole Foods to put together some trail mix out of the bulk bins for the ride home. We also had to buy Jack more cereal because he'd finished what we brought with us. Grace was so tired from all the walking, so we just went back to the hotel and watched TV. She had another yogurt, along with some strawberries we bought and fell asleep. Tyson and I drank our bottle of wine and ate some chocolate.

Monday, we checked our big bag right away at the train station, and then ate lunch again at the taqueria. I had a mole burrito that time that wasn't quite as good, but still very filling. We wandered around Powell's some more and then headed back for the train.

Jack was such a fuss on the train. It took forever to get him to sleep. I think he was just ready to go back, tired from all the new things to look at. Overall though, I think both kids did really well. I already knew that Grace was a good traveller, but Jack was a little untested.

We'd definitely go back. I'd go back next week, if I could. I highly reccomend taking the train too. Everything was so easy, and there were zillions of places I would have taken a look at if we'd had the time.

Pretty Good Timing

Both the Letters P & Q are up on GLL. Since I get back around midnight Monday/Tuesday, and I imagine I won't be doing any writing while on vacation, it was good timing that Q was up for next week. Seriously. You try and think of 5 songs that start with the Letter Q that you actually like. Obviously, the letter is quite abbreviated for next week. Maybe if I'm super motived, I'll get R done and you'll get something new for next week, but I don't know. We'll see how things go. I don't leave until late Thursday/early Friday morning.

Hooray, part 2!

Luke is safely back in California!

Should get off the ol interwub here so I can talk to him.

Ho-hum

I had a fantastic night out for supper club last night. Panini and mojitos over at Faythe's, where I had to eat piles and piles of bread to sop up said mojitos in order to drive myself home, where I promptly got into PJs and was in bed not long later. I think I've been fighting off a cold, and liquor was just making me naseous. However, I always enjoy supper club. I joked that my only friends in town were in that room. That's not 100% true, but it is true that I don't get out that often.

Scoot to today where we finally have to own up to some money issues, and we've realized our trip this week is sort of going to be the last hurrah (more or less) when it comes to fun. Have to get extra-serious and all that about where the money goes and... I don't know why I'm talking about it here, so nevermind. Moving on.

Thank god it's trying to warm up though. I can turn off the heat most days.

I thought I had sold my cello to a guy in town here, but then he never got back to me about having the money. Thankfully, other people showed interest, and I am waiting to hear from the next guy so that we can get that taken care of before we leave. There is an abundance of useful-but-not-to-us junk in the house, I really need to get rid of. Also unloaded some original gameboy games on eBay for which I'm awaiting payment. Sadly, the original gameboy itself no longer works.

Off to make lists, organize trip things....

I don't know why part of my brain was surprised.

Noel solo album?

To think that when I was 14, they all said I wouldn't still care by the end of high school...

Though I'll try to keep it dialed back since all but maybe one of you don't care, expect more Oasis-related thinking aloud now through... probably November, ha. Then you get a break until the new album comes out.


Did you all know Gavin Rossdale is putting out a solo album? Unlike Noel Gallagher, I don't actually have high hopes for it (I think I've played the Institute album twice), but that won't keep me from buying it.

I can't believe he chopped off all his hair. He's not losing it, so why? Why? I blame Gwen Stefani for all style-related choices. *shakes fist*

Thus concludes girlhood obsessiveness. For now.