Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Just another Christmas Past

It's good to be home, to see the parents and sleep in a house that smells like a home should smell, but at the same time, it's just all awash with memory—lovely, happy, sad, and most of it a long time ago. Looking through the Christmas books my mom had out in the big basket, I found two in particular—one was inscribed, "To Ariel, 1982" the other, 1984. The first I was just a year old, the second I had barely turned three, but I can hardly explain how vivid those books still were. The first, done in big, broad-stroke watercolors showed snow-blanketed farms, kind-eyed palomino draft horses, and a man and woman seeking shelter in a 1970's American stable. In spite of the premise, the book exudes an absolute, impenetrable stillness and warmth—I can still even hear my mom's inflection as she read certain words, though the words and story themselves remain rather vague. The same is true for the second book. Tapping into the layers of imagination and depth that I gave certain illustrations when I was a child, the emotion of the story is more vivid than either the pictures or the tale.

But if there are ghosts of Christmas' past folded into the pages of the picture books, then there are also a few hovering around the lintels. The whole place is awash with melancholia and echoes. I walked outside tonight to go to bed in the upstairs office and heard the jingle of a collar in the rose garden to my right. Out of the dripping, slimy plant skeletons I expected a furry black and white cannonball to blast— Baaaa-zaaaaaam!!—but, of course, no Luther kitty. Another fleeting individual in and out of my life, and one sorely missed.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Just shy an alligator tear....

You can feel the egos swell and collide in our office today.

I imagine that the tension and built-up animosity would be tangible to even an outside observer.

The dark space underneath my desk is looking quite attractive at the moment--perhaps if I crawl underneath I can just avoid the whole thing.

That's not to say that my own ego isn't involved in this whole debacle, I'm trying not to be a little snot about the topic at hand over my e-mails, but it's more and more difficult as the minutes tick by. Especially since each e-mail I receive regarding the situation (ok, any of the SIX different ones currently being hashed out) gradually appears in the middle of my screen with the header and first line before fading away--just the teaser of another hackled, prickly entry into the whole conversation (thank you Outlook, gah).

Email could possibly be the death of polite society--or at least of business decorum. The tones that people insert into their e-mails by the mis-use of a word or phrase are enough to nullify any pleasantries that might occur in person. As D and I have discussed regarding the poor decisions we've made about having serious conversations over instant messenger, there is too much room for willful misinterpretation. What can be intended as deadpan or serious, sweet or teasing, or even polite and well-spoken can all be lost based soley on the recipient's mood of the moment.

Add to that a history of disagreeable interactions (oh the stories I could tell), the selfish short-sightedness of a sales team only out to make a commission--no thought spared to the fact that the money they contract with clients doesn't really "count" until I deposit it into the company system, and the ongoing misconception that my department is out to only harass their clients and badger and bully them unnecessarily, and you come up with a very unpleasant work environment.

***

I never used to buy into Astrology as anything other than an amusing game. My little brain still doesn't when it comes to the logical details of it all. Of course, it's easy to be a realist and enumerate all the reasons why astrology and sun signs, etc are ridiculous nonsense. I'm still not sure how much I believe the daily horoscopes, etc.

That said, the more time I spend around it, and am reminded of it by people who are a smidge obsessed with the topic (my boss at the EG, for one), the more I am impressed by how astute some of the personality traits attributed to different signs are. I'm not referring to it on a day-to-day "The Moon is in Venus so Don't Walk Under A Bridge With Yellow graffiti Or An Infectious Man will Cross You" sort of way, but rather to the different characteristics I see in myself and others of particular "signs."

God, I sound like a follow-Your-Bliss hippie.

"Hey baby, what's your sign?"

As the years go by, I see more and more elements of my personality that align with "Libra" qualities. Of course, I don' t think that I'm entirely defined by this system, but the coincidences are surprising. Even more so when you look at the descriptions of Libras with other signs. I just about passed out when I read how accurate of an interpretation the Libra/Pisces combo was for my last relationship.

Ok. Disclaimer. Saying all these things. I'm hyper-aware of how simple it is to take a vague paragraph using vague terms and make it form to your life like spandex to a fat woman. But I don't think I'm an idiot, and I don't think I'm grasping at straws.

***

The segue back to the original point is this: as a Libra--or as one who avoids conflict, prefers harmony, and likes to see everyone get along to the best degree possible-- this office environment shakes me to the core! It's so aggressive, so antagonistic, and so mean-hearted that I want to curl up into that little ball under my desk (I have a pear for lunch! I'll be ok for a few hours at least!) and only come out once everyone is gone.

I try not to let it upset me, but sometimes the tension gets to be too much. It just makes me want to cry.

*big SIGH*

Ok, back to it. I still have a zillion things to do today.

Monday, October 10, 2005

I'd always expect something like that from you, Ariel...

So Saturday night I was involved in a dinner party with a few near and dears. We were lamenting something, perhaps the circumstances under which I broke my foot... and I said that, really, it was rather tragic as I had no brilliant story to go along with the event. I stepped off the curb wrong, and that was that. Lame start, lame end, and finally, lame foot.

One of my friends pointed out that she was suprised by this... considering the crazy things that happen to me in my life.

I started thinking about this... do crazy things really happen to me all that often? It doesn't seem that way to me, but perhaps I'm the one with the misconception. That said, I relish good stories. I just love to have a new mad-cap thing that happened at work or to someone I know that I can pass along to amuse the troops. Does my affinity for things like this lead others to believe that I lead an international life of mystery? Because, to me, it all seems pretty pedestrian.

As an example, I will outline my weekend for you.

Friday: I worked at the Employment Guide until round about 3:30, went and got some food, ate it, went by the bank, talked to my mom for an hour on the phone, got ready for work, left home, went to work, worked at Starbucks until about 1:30am, then drive home, and went to bed around 2:30am.

Saturday: Got up around 9:15, showered, took the streetcar down to the Farmers Market where Devon and I bought some lovely Bosc pears for our cobbler/crisp that night, bought some flowers, went down to Pioneer Square to hear David sing harmony for the group "Per Se," heard Pt. Juncture, WA and bought their EP, walked up to Powells, bought a Spanish grammar refresher book, walked up to Freddies, bought a few things for that night, walked up to NW 23rd to the liquor store, walked home, speed-cleaned the house, threw together the cobbler, got dressed, met up with James and Celeste, then went and had our Progressive Dinner Party. We finished that up around 12:30-1am, Devo and I drove James home, then went and drove around the city for a while (gorgeous fall night), went to bed around 2:30 exhausted.

Sunday: Got up around 11, picked up a book I'd been reading lately and wanted to bust out, read a ton of that, cooked breakfast (eggs and leftover cake!), showered, went an spent a few hours with David and Emily, came home, completed a few exercizes in my new grammar book, fell asleep in the cooshy chair, woke up around 10pm, watched the news, got up and put away a ton of laundry, went to bed around 1am, fell asleep closer to 2am.

And thus, here I am today, at the office as usual, trying to stay awake and alive, despite the fact that I left my bagel on the counter at home, and our boss came back three days early from his vacation (Embarassment! I wore jeans to work today, thinking he was out until Wednesday. BOO.)

What's on the agenda for a Monday?

Ariel, in her role as the A/R goddess of the EG has to:

Fax some deposit reports to Home Office...
Complete a few detail aging reports to distribute throughout the office...
Complete my weekly aging report and flag the clients I need to call this week...
Compile the newspaper mailers to send to the other cities...
Make a few important, immediate A/R calls...

No deposit today, since it is Columbus day. No mail today since it is a holiday.

Go home around 1:30pm, scarf some lunch (remember? I forgot my bagel!), do some dishes, take a brief nap, finish my closet project from the night before, then do some Spanish grammar, apply for a job or two, and get ready to ride my bike down to Starbucks--it'll be the first time since the broken foot that I'll have ridden it! I'm so excited!! I work from 8pm-12am, and then I pedal home, go to bed, and get ready for Tuesday!

And who said I had anything but the average pedestrian life?

Monday, October 3, 2005

Pretty thing #2

Some days, you get out of bed, and the sky is still dark. It's cold in your room, and the shower is so hot that it makes your face feel dry and crackly when you emerge back into the cold world. You putz around your room, your eyes still adjusting to the bright light of a fluorescent bulb, and go through your little morning routine. Pants, socks, brush teeth. There is the sound of running water through the pipes in the wall of someone upstairs flushing a toilet. All is quiet, and sterile, and dry.

Then you open your blinds.

Outside, the first shards of sunlight have broken through the net of branches and shattered over the roof of your building, they lie, scattered, on the little circle of green grass that splays like a throw rug between sidewalks and parking lots. The trees are still dripping from last night's rain, and the helicopter seeds from the maple trees scatter the sidewalk, soggy, abandoned, the left-over troops from a failed invasion of earth by sky.So starts another day. A day of tests and failed appointments, of white lies and black moods. People toddle along, bobbing their hair aimlessly to the rhythm of their curt footsteps, lost in their own whirlwind of thoughts and preoccupations that whiz off them, spiraling to the ground.A foot lands on a sodden maple helicopter. Water oozes out and the delicate hairs and wings crush and break under the weight of so many worries, hopes, and obligations. Who looks? Who picks up the brave little souls that spiraled to the ground in a gust of wind and inspiration? Once, they, too, thought they could fly.

Thus goes the way of so many small things in our lives, memories, deep thoughts, acquaintances... they soar for a moment, then fall, still and sodden to the ground.

***

I wrote this my senior year of college; Fall 2004. I found it the other day and liked re-reading it. I was obsessed with my thesis on the construction of "self" and "identity" in Hamlet at that point (or if I wasn't, I soon would be, so close enough). I was also dating (vaguely) this goony boy from the internet. It was a pathetic attempt to get over the whole James thing, as I was recently back from abroad and dealing with the whole face-to-face seeing that person every day at school issue. Fun, fun, fun. That seems like such a long time ago. Anyhow. Yeah. That's that.

Pretty thing I've written #1

To one who I hardly know,

It’s another lonely evening in my life. I shouldn’t think about you, but the birds singing under the cloudy sky seem tug at the strings in my heart. The disjointed notes, so far from a melody, tease it out until I’m stretched out the window, pulled into the warm early evening air. Yes, it’s still light out, and the day hovers just outside the window full of other people and stories and other chances to make the world different.
But me? I’m here with a sad smile on my face listening to the birds dripping like liquid drops in a dish of water behind me.
There’s a moment in the course of the day, usually very early or not so late, that the bird song echoes off the pavement. It ripples around the open spaces and wraps itself among the branches of the trees.
You’re not for me, and I’m definitely not for you. Perhaps there was a moment, a brief evening in time where our hearts were teased out like the birdsong echoing in the night to ricochet back and forth across the sky and the street.
* * *
Who’d have known that the birds sing in the city? Who’d have known that one could hear them? Certainly not me. I’ve lived my life tightly tucked in the arms of the sweet country stillness. There wasn’t ever any other, nor did I want anything else. The trees and the woods and the innocence of the frogs in the pond, they cradled me in their arms and rocked me to sleep every night.
Then I moved here. The air teems with people. They are to my right and to my left and behind me and above me and over there and there and there and there… There is not a private moment, not even when you’re alone. An energy moves along the streets and passes down the hallways. At first it frightened me; I found it exhausting. Gathering the various folds and layers of the skirts of my soul, I held them tightly in, high above my knees, so that no one passing by would trample upon them. That was always a danger, to be stepped on. But now my arms don’t grow as weary. Perhaps my skirt gets shorter as my credentials grow… I’ll be America’s corporate banker before you know it.


***

I like this one too. I didn't know when I wrote this my junior year of college that I'd someday end up applying for a job at a corporate bank. Funny how life works. I think my skirts have gotten longer since then, though (for the record), though they (and I!!) have certainly have gotten cuter (trust me on that one). Anyhow. I think this is pretty, too. I miss those days when I was expected to do so much "technical" or "school" writing, that a little creative interlude like this one was candy. I miss school. :(

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Call a tow truck... I locked my keys in Starbucks...

The story does lose a little moxie when one gives the punchline away in the title. They got away with that trick in the movie The Aristocrats, but I'm no comic Hollywood genius. I know you've heard various incarnations of this story before, but bear with me, this version might be new.

We actually got out early yesterday. It was quiet as a mouse in the store all night long. Not even any good crazies to liven things up. When Brian the security guard dropped in to check on us before we closed, he asked how things had been. I had very little that was interesting or funny to impart, so I just shrugged. Oh. Well there was that one guy. The one that came in waving his arms and turning in circles while muttering silently to himself. He was dressed in a running suit (polyester of course), thick bleary glasses, and had a couple of furry adornments attached to his belt. They looked like giant lucky rabbits' feet--except about ten times the size. Fox tails maybe? Who knows. Maybe Jesus really was telling him to get coffee.

Without the normal hustle and bustle of madhouse customers demanding gooey extra-caramel concoctions until the wee hours of the morning, we were closed and shut in a mere 45 minutes. This is a far cry from the days when closing took an HOUR and 45 minutes, thankyouverymuch. Remarkable how a slight shift in the weather and starting up school again scours downtown of its evening strollers.

We bid one another goodbye in front of the store, and set off in our different directions. Jess rode her bike, Kraig hoofed it up Broadway, and I hobbled on my foot-and-a-half past Nordstroms up to the parking garage. I felt Smart. I'd parked in SmartPark. It was probably the last time for a few hours that I'd feel anything even resembling "smart." I'm still recovering, in fact.

I casually slide a hand around to the corner of my bag where I always deposit my car keys, preferring to have them in-hand before I venture into the garage. Not there.

Huh.

I stop, lean on a newspaper box. Maybe they are in the bottom of my bag?

I root around.

Nothing.

I check the various other myriad pockets of my messenger bag--mind you, this is a very large satchel, stuffed with work clothes, newspapers, and other sundry items. After no luck, I'm incredulous. I've never misplaced my keys, and despite fears of such in the past, have never left them at work! I pull all the clothes out. Check the pockets of my pants, shake out my apron, etc. No luck.

Not even my cell phone turns up. Why? It's locked IN my car, three flights above me in an empty, echoey SmartPark.

With all my phone numbers safely stowed in it.

I could digress right now on how cellphones are a blessing and a curse, how now that I have a "contact list" I never bother to memorize any phone numbers any more, how tragic it would be if anything even happened to it and all my numbers were irreparably lost, but I know you've had those thoughts before yourself, so you'll know how it felt to stand outside on a city street corner at a loss for what to do next. Call the housemate? No... don't know her number. Call the supervisor from Starbucks and ask him to walk back and let me in? He, too, is safely stowed away in my phone.

The brain starts buzzing. Should I take the bus? That means waiting on the bus mall for 45 minutes with all the tweakers. No thanks. Should I walk home? That means hobbling up Broadway and Burnside--the two arterial streets in West Portland known for their "questionable" loiterers. As a woman, on her own, with a broken foot, I decide for the third option, I'll hail a cab!

I do so. The driver is an older gentleman, thick Eastern European accent who I chat with about the misfortune of my night. He rationalizes that it's a good thing I live relatively close, at least, so that the cab fare wouldn't be too expensive.

After being dropped off in front of my apartment I am relieved to find that the front door is open, and the boys in the first floor unit are still up smoking on the porch. Good news. One more key that I don't need to use tonight. Only one left to go which also turns out to be a non-issue, as one of the extra doors to our place has been left unlocked.

I leave an alarmist note for my housemate informing her of the situation, and begging her to wake me up at 5:30am when she goes to the gym with the hope that she'll drive me down to Starbucks. Bless her heart, she does.

The two of us try to have an intellectual conversation about a matter of some seriousness in the car on the way to the Square. It's pretty hopeless. I've had 4 1/2 hours of worried sleep, sure that all the windows have been broken out of my car and that my cell phone was stolen, or that my keys are somewhere else (not Starbucks) entirely, or that I'll be too groggy for my interview the next day after working off of so little rest.

We arrive. I run down to the basement, greet the opening crew (who are all rather appalled to see me, the "perma-closer" there so early on a weekday), and dash to the bathroom. My keys await, safely napping under a green apron on the floor by my locker.

All's well that ends well, Shakespeare says (with a tinge of irony, once you've read the play). But my night ended without any more drama. Devon drove me up to my car. It was intact. My phone was there too. And to top it all off, the SmartPark people weren't there yet to charge me for a whole night's parking. I paid my normal fees (evening maximum), drove home in the early twilight, and tucked myself back into bed for an extra hour or so of fitful sleep.

This morning, dressed to interview, and whiling away the morning at work, the whole thing seems like one of those awkward dreams imbued with a sense of drama and urgency that never exactly manifests. You're with friends at a meal, or in a car, or at home, and you know there is something bad that is about to happen, but you don't know WHAT it is. Your dream is hazed with the heat-shimmers of an impending something, but that something never is fully developed. Only the sense of it.

Which is often enough.

I checked my purse six times this morning before I left the house to ensure that my phone, keys, and wallet were all intact.

Friday, September 16, 2005

What a beautiful day outside!

Of course you may beg to differ. I do understand that it's cloudy and 60 degrees outside. That's no matter. It's a perfect cloudy. The kind where out one window things are just gray and drippy, and out the other side of the building, when you look toward the city, a thick powder-puff of gray makes the tops of the sky-scrapers dissappear.

Now Portland doesn't have too much when it comes to big high-rise office buildings. You have the Pink building, the one shaped like a stick of deordorant, the one with the Portland City Grill in it, and of course a few more. Yet, on days like today, the city feels tall and important. Scraping the sky for real, as it were. The buildings are propping up the clouds.

Not having spent a great deal of time in a high-rise building (visits, that's all), I have to wonder about how interesting it must be to watch a cloud bank like that roll in. If you're in a truly large edifice, I would imagine that you'd be engulfed in clouds quite frequently in the winter. Not to mention engulfed in storms, too! How exciting!

It's probably not quite as exciting as it might seem at first, though. It's not terribly thrilling to fly through clouds in an airplane, after all. Just dense and grey and misty hour after hour. It's also not too great when you're hiking and you're up high in a cloud. Just looks like fog. I wonder why I feel like it would be any different up in a building. If I think logically, of course I know it wouldn't be.

I think it's the constant prospect of being inside something that is strange and opaque--clouds are just clouds, but maybe if you were standing still inside one you could watch pockets of air open up or something! Gaps INSIDE a cloud mass. That would be neat. Maybe there are gremlins that will appear out of the mist and suction-up with their toothy little mouths on your office window. No one talks about these things so I must presume that they don't exist.

(adding as an edit... check out that rad link to the Cloud Appreciation Society over to the right. It's so cool. The pictures they have are incredible, and if you do check it out, read the links about the morning glory cloud. Very cool.)

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Stoopid piece of shit foot.

(Also lifted from the bowels of e-mail hell)

So, I'm now the proud owner of one lame, gimpy, crippled, deplorable, damaged and gosh-danged broken foot. Fractured foot, actually, to use the appropriate term.

Last night I was walking with Rebecca to the grocery store, and went to turn around to her to say something (well, ok, to vividly act something out that involved how silly it is when people turn to watch a hot piece of ass and walk into something and hurt themselves), and wuh-oh, where'd the sidewalk go? Evidently there was a big dip in said sidewalk where the exit to a parking lot came out. Foot didn't know about it. Foot bent in half in stupid chaco sandals as it fell over the rounded edge of the curb. Person attatched to foot heard a loud "SNAP" and said, "ouch.ouch.ouch" then laughed at the circumstances.

Rebecca insisted several times that we go back to my house and that I ice it then and there etc. In insisted that No, I wanted to keep walking to Fred Meyer. So I went to Freddies. By the time I got there it was hurting, SO SO SO bad I couldn't really even see straight. All I wanted to do was buy ibuprofin, an ice pack (which needs to go back into the freezer--REMEMBER that Ariel!), and an ace bandage for my foot. I was being very whiny and was casi-naseous.

I've always thought I was pretty tough when it came to your run-of-the-mill basic pain, and so the quality of this to make me whine like a baby was kind of suprising. I downed some Ibuprofin when I got home, and it then felt a lot better. Well, except for the big goose-egg swelling on the side of my foot that was somewhere about the side of a walnut-in-shell.

Well, this morning rolled around, and no. NOT better. I could hardly stand on it let alone walk or WORK. I somehow deliriously made it down to the EG job fair, and then sat down and sat that out all day. My boss took me to the hospital afterward, and they did xrays and all that fun stuff, and yes, voila, there appeared to be a fracture on my fifth metatarsal and maybe one on the fourth, though it was hard for the Doctor to tell from the pictures. He gave me a note to get a few days off from Starbucks, and suggested that I keep off it, elevate, ice, and ibu. Sounds about right. I have a prescription for Vicodin that I will be filling too. Ooolala. Not that I'm a prescription drug junkie (quite the opposite, in fact), but it's just protocol that when you get a vicodin prescription, you fill it! Duh! So, that's that I guess. I'll work again on Saturday, though I'm not sure what it'll be up for. We'll see. I feel bad bailing on them on an important night like that, but what can you do? my fut is der broken! Whee!

Anyhow. that's the update. Now to spend another boring night lazing about with nothing to do but watch tv and read a book. Woohoo.

Oh, I did get one of those crazy stupid elephant-shoes! Those are kind of fun. Except that I can't wear it because it hurts too bad to lift the darn heavy thing and it gets caught on the floor when I scuff it around. Dang!

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Le Tour de Sauvie....

(This was originally an e-mail shared with friends and family)


Aka... Lance-a-pants, eat your heart out! So. It's Sunday. It's gorgeous out. Celeste is back in town after a zillion weeks in France. I'm starting to feel like the only person I know who isn't going anywhere FUN any time soon. But! I do have TWO bikes: a mountain bike, and a little funk-o-rific ten speed Huffy I bought off Craigslist for $30. Cool!

So we decided to hang out. It's either the Zoo or Sauvie island. We opt for Sauvie. Celeste, being the good sport that she is sounds totally enthusiastic to bike around said island for the afternoon. AWESOME. So we load up the Isuzu, and head north.

It's a STUNNING day. Nice breeze, not too hot, but gorgeous out. We're pedaling along, and it's the epitome of pastoral bliss. Hell, there are even SHEEP. We ride and ride and ride and ride. Ten miles whiz past. Our plan was to stop for a water break, then head back and get some fruit/veggies at a stand on the way out, and eat when we got home. Thus, we did not bring lunch.

3 o'clock rolls around and we are ready to turn back. We've ridden a little ways down a gravelly road, saw some fantastic scenery, and are set for the ride home. When my chain falls off. Oops! Oh well, it's not the first issue I've had with this bike. The brakes are wonky, and as a result, only the front set currently function. We stop, I put it back on, and we're back in business. Except now it's not shifting. Well, it sort of it, but it's really laboring. And now my pedals aren't turning very well, and the tension is insane along the top part of the chain. Huh!

So, in a pique of bull-headedness, I pull over and start wrassling with it. What can be wrong?? I'm doing this and that, and it's just NOT working. So a group of three men our fathers' age pull over and ask if we need any help. I say that no, we're fine, and kind of laugh it off. They stick around, to my chagrin. I keep toying with the bike, to my amazement NOTHING I do is fixing the darn thing! Bikes are not intended to be rocket science! It's pretty straight-forward: pedal moves chain around spikey gears, bike goes forwards. I figure, I'm a smart girl, I should be able to figure this out. Minutes pass. Celeste is helping now, we're baffled, and the men are still standing on the other side of the road, congenially watching and taking a break.

Well, one of them comes over again, and with a laugh, says, "Well girls, last chance... my friend here is a bike mechanic after all...." Wha?? You never MENTIONED that! Ok, Ariel swallows her do-it-yourself pride, and hands el $30 bike over to the bike mechanic. He looks at it for about 30 seconds and says, "Well, it's not good. Your rear axle is broken."

Oh.

Ok.

So... now what?

Let's recap: it's now about 3:30, Celeste and I are ten miles north of my car on Sauvie Island. We have water, but no food (we last ate at, oh... BREAKFAST), and the temps are climbing. Oh, and one bike is BROKEN. And it's now HOT out on the pavement.

So. We start hoofing it. How long can it possibly take for us to walk ten miles? We figure two to three hours tops. Which sounds miserable. But what do we do? So we chug along. Now, keep in mind, under normal circumstances, we'd just leave one person behind and send the other one with th ebike to go get the car. But we're up by the wildlife refuge on the northern part of the island, and there are people practicing shooting guns behind us. Along with a few other sketchballs. So we walk.

And walk.

And walk.

After what seems like an ETERNITY we hit Milepost Seven. That means we have seven miles left to walk. It's about 115 degrees out now. Nice.

My mom calls at about milepost 5. She wants to know why I'm laughing when she asks how I am.

It's 156 degrees now and the blisters are emerging out from under my chacos. I'm also thinking about the amazing cancerous skin cells that are slowly morphing on my shoulders, cheeks, and thighs. I KNOW that I sweat off that spf 15 about 15 degress and 4 miles ago.

Anyhow, at this point, mom points out that it might be a good idea to just send one person to go get the car. With 4 miles left, we agree to that, and since I am the resident stick-shift driver, I hop on the bike and put muscle to pedal. 20 minutes later I'm at the car. And about ready to melt in a little puddle.

I consider stopping in at the convenience store for a cold beverage (and one for celeste), but it seems like it would be a cruel thing to show up with water, while she's still walking. In the sun. Waiting for the car. So I don't.

I pick her up, and we go and retrieve the problem child (chained to a barbed wire fence ten miles back), and then hit the fruit stand. Woohoo! Green beans and cold bev's! Awesome!

Then we drive home. I am pretty tuckered out. After a cold shower, I felt like a triathlete. Except for that whole swimming part.

So, everyone else have a good weekend? xoxo lovies! A

Update:

Update on Le Huffy Puffy:

Rode home from work last night... the damn chain fell off THREE TIMES while pedaling through the Pearl. Awww... isn't it CUTE? Do I need mention it was at 11:30 pm? Brilliance all around.

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Now I believe I will go cook and change the fish's bowl. Won't he be PLEASED? I would if I were he. Then I will get a beer and sit out and read. Brilliant. I wish I wasn't such a nerd!


Addendum: I never changed the fish's bowl. Nor did I drink a beer. But I finished the book I was reading! And I feel better for it. It was a trashy paperback anyhow. Total fast-food for the brain.

First time reader, first time writer.

Well, Mr. Internet, nice to meet you. What's a little Portland girl have better to do on a bright sunny day than set up an internet blog, I ask you? I've worked, I'll drink beer later, for now the internet serves as a cheap, satisfying date though which to indulge a little narcisissm. And we DO love ourselves now, precious, don't we?