dogearedgirl

The times, they are a changin'

Hello, faithful readers. If you are here, wow, thanks. You, my friend, are a trooper. I haven't given you much to look forward to lately. Life took over, and all of a sudden it's a *whole different year* than it was the last time I blogged. Sheesh.

No excuses. I'm back now. Lucky you.

Life, she has been full lately. Many complex and wonderful things have transpired. I have been very, very busy. We did Eugene for the holidays, and spent a lovely new years eve at home, with our lovely friend Camille. I woke up elated at the prospect of a fresh start, and in love with life all over again.

Today begins a new leg of the journey.

Here's to a thrilling 2009.

crime rice

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit with my brother and his girlfriend, who now live in Washington state. (Which is much much farther away than San Francisco, for the record.)

We went out for some fabulous Thai food on the last night that I was there. When the waitress asked what kind of rice we would prefer, my brother and his girl ordered brown, and I opted for white. Despite the fact that I habitually order brown. When my brother’s girl asked why it made any difference, my brother said something along the lines of- “We were raised hippie. Eating white rice is considered somewhat of a crime!” Discussion ensued on how the hippies are, of course, correct, in that white rice offers almost no nutritional value, while brown rice is all kinds of good for the tummy and other parts of the body. In the end we agreed that while the good things are good for you, and should be eaten as a rule,* the less good things can induce much greater satisfaction- a thrill akin to, say, committing a crime? Not that I would know, as I am an innocent, doe-eyed, do-gooder of no ill repute whatsoever. Naturally.

We talked about rice and hippies until our delicious tea arrived. When the rice came, we deemed my bowl, “crime rice.” The other two ate their good-for-you rice, and I deeply enjoyed the crime I was consuming. (Crime is especially delicious under Spicy Tofu Pad Thai.) We left with full bellies, big sated smiles, and lots of leftovers.

That was a long way to go to get to this-

Today is my brother’s birthday. FELIZ CUMPLEANOS, MI HERMANO!! Eat some crime rice!! Feel that mad thrill!!

Everyone else, I encourage you to indulge yourself in your crime food every now and again, whatever it may be.

*For the record, I had rice last night, and it was brown. It felt wholesome and pure, and not like committing any sort of crime, whatsoever. Solid.

paint your cat

If those extra thousands are burning a hole in your pocket, or you just want to empty your U.S. bank account before it all bottoms out, here is what to spend your money on.

Yreka- home to the absurd

Upon making our annual trek up I-5 yesterday, on our way to Oregon, (home of my in-laws,) Wifey, Brother-in-law, and myself decided to stop for lunch. We were coming up on Yreka, spotted a sign for a decent sandwich joint, (a chain store, but better than most off ramp grub,) and pulled off of the interstate.

We waited in line for approximately twenty minutes. Apparently, since that guy Jared lost all that weight munching on foot long subs, that is what the ladies in small towns now do for some racey, Saturday afternoon delight.

After watching two bottle- red, sixty year old, fantastic sisters/twins/help meets order FOUR FEET worth of double decker meat on meat on meat, topped with pastrami-but-lord-don't-you-put-that-mustard-near-my-man's-meat, I wasn't convinced that I was hungry anymore.

Nevertheless- I ordered up a "veggie delite*," six inch sandwich, on whole wheat. That alone got my a hairy eyeball from the sandwich maker. Then, I realized it should be a foot-long, as I was splitting it with Wifey, and sandwich- dude seemed to relax a bit. (Not because he was relieved that the cute girl in the corner was with me... rather, I think, he thought I might survive, after all, if I ingested a foot's worth of veggies, rather than a mere six inches. At this point, he knew something I didn't about said sandwich.)

Then, it happened. We got as far as a foot of whole wheat bread, when I, with a friendly, non-chalant smile, said, "could I add provolone? Oh, and avocado, if it doesn't already come on the Veggie sandwich?"

I do not think this is an odd or difficult request, as far as veggie sandwiches go. Pretty straightforward, actually. Well, clearly, I do not live in a town of absolute absurdity, as this nice sandwich dude does.

This was his response. And I quote:

"M'aam, we don't have any call for avocados in this town." His face showed no alarm or concern at his recent utterance.

"No call for avocados?" I stammered.

He could see my brain breaking, and my complete disillusionment, confusion, dismay.

"Well, I mean, I'd like have to go make some from home, or something..." He said, not thinking anything of it.

WTF???? I could not live in such a crazy town. What does that mean? "Make some from home?" Did he mean he could grow some? Or that he knew how to make guacamole? Or that he DID NOT KNOW what avocados were??

Agape, I said to, by all means, just go ahead and put whatever veggies they DID have a call for in Yreka, into my sandwich.

Bib lettuce, olives and peppers. Yup. That's what "veggie delite," means in Yreka. (May I point out that two of the three veggies that are called for in Yreka come from cans? That leaves bib lettuce, as far as "fresh veggies." No tomatoes. No mushrooms. Bib lettuce.)

While it did turn out to be a good sandwich, considering our expectation was merely to get something that wasn't fried in a vat of oil, I cannot say that it was delightful. Nor, for that matter, "deliteful." The delight is in the avo, see. They should re-name their sandwich, "Bread with condiments and veggies. Veggies which are pretty adequate, considering this is a town in which veggies which house delight are not called for."  Or, more concisely, "Bib lettuce on wheat."

Just one more town that I could never survive in. No call for avo's... can you fathom it? Wifey agrees with me.

Brother-in-law, however, almost got left in the parking lot. He said Yreka seemed like his kind of town. He himself is one of those crazy Yreka-like folks, who has no call for avocados. At least he does not have his own township, on which to impose his crazy, discriminatory views.

I am still reeling from the trauma. When we are home safe in Oakland, I am going to buy out the first farmer's market table I can find. I am going to eat avocados until I am so full of delight, I want to eat something bland, like, say , bib lettuce. I tell you what- that will amount to a lot of avocados. Avocados, which, whether fruit or vegetable, always have a place on my sandwich.

*Can no one spell words correctly, anymore?

Gotta appreciate good taste

So, yesterday I was driving up Broadway, and upon slowing for a yellow-soon-to-be-red light, I looked over to my left. Pulling up in the lane beside me, was a bonafied ponytail-sportin' old white dude. Stratling his thin hog, this guy was a fashion plate if I ever saw one. It started at the crown of his skull- flowing long grey hair, in a loose ponytail. Holding his hair in place, as well as offering eye protection, this man had some leather, airplane-ish goggles from 1900 or earlier. I have blocked out or managed to forget his torso-wear, though my gut says there was a black vest with fringe involved. Below the waist- light blue, flood-ready denim, complimented with knee high white gym socks. The topper? (Though on the bottom...) White K-Swiss, for that Oakland flare.

He was damn sporty, and I kind of wanted to roll down my window, and ask him his life story. Instead, the light turned green, and I turned right, and he continued up Broadway.

Squirrel Poop*

We had a lovely time at girl's weekend. I am still fighting the plague, which makes me growly if I think about it too much. On Friday, Wifey and I opted to stay home, despite the tremendous temptation to get outta town, outta dodge, and join our ladies with their laughter and beverages on the porch. We stayed home and fought the plague. Saturday, we got up at 6:00 a.m. and zoomed up to the cabin- stat. We had so much fun in the twenty four or so hours that we were there. A long drive for a short visit, but worth every minute.

My plague reared up in an ugly way on Sunday morning, after a night of cavorting and revelry and not very much sleep. As one of the girl's pointed out, I had already been suffering for ten days. The one night of indulgence probably hindered my recovery by a day or two- but had I not gone to the cabin at all, I would have been at home with the plague, missing all the fun, and may or may not have still needed those extra days of recovery. And, BOY, would I be grumpy about it. So, the best cure for the common cold? Loud girls on a porch. Laughter, binging on delicious snacks, and a warm hoody.

*To answer the age old question- "If a squirrel poops from it's perch in a tree, and you happen to be sitting underneath it on the porch, will you, in fact, be pooped on and confused?"

Yes. Yes you will. You may even say something witty, like, "I think this tree is pooping on me!" You might think that by "poop," you are cleverly referring to twigs and acorns and all number of things that can naturally fall from trees. Alas, you will be wrong. In reality, you will have poop pellets sporadically spread over your shoulders, back, and favorite warm hoody. The one you *just* put on to fight the plague- never imagining the risks involved. Your eight friends with their eight beverages will laugh at you and help you, all at the same time. If you are fortunate enough to have friends as dear and lovely as mine, they might even ask you to stand there, covered in poop, while they study the squirrel feces- because who ever sees squirrel feces? They will tell you that, in fact, squirrels have pellet-poop, much like most rodents. You will be amazed. You will need to do some laundry, and wash your hair, but the memories will be...well, memorable.

Oh, and if your drink was sitting next to you on the table on the porch? Yeah, pooped in. Look before you drink.

**Wow. If you want to know more about the squirrel voiding process, go here. I take no responsibility for this. I just happened to google "squirrel poop***," and this was the first hit. Good ol' youtube.

***Something I would never have thought to do, if I didn't have the plague. But you know- you start to go a little crazy after being sick too long. That is my only explanation.

Blepharitis, the ADHD of my blogging mind, and other maladies

Nope, if you know what it is, fear not, I do not have Blepharitis. It is, however, one of my favorite newly acquired vocabulary words. Onomatopoetically, it describes how I have been feeling of late. BLEPH. Bleph, and like I have an -itis. So, the word is chosen for its' bleph, and its' -itis, and not because I have malfunctioning oil glands on my lid margins. (Yeah, I can feel ya going over to Google right now, to get the definition. Go, learn, and come on back.)

My other new word? Embonpoint. Yup. \ahn-bohn-PWAN\. Go look it up, too, but basically? Plumpness of person. Sufficient stoutness. Pleasing plumpness. (I typoed pleasing plumbness, which could work for you carpenters out there.) Chubbiliciousness. Fatty fatty bo batty of corpulence. Such a pleasing little word, isn't it? Reminiscent of Lala's favorite- callipygean. Which still trumps embonpoint.

You see, I have been working in a situation with many wee humans for the past month or so. While they are wonderful, adorable, cherubic, and dastardly, and I heart them, I am feeling a significant lack of adult comingling in my life. I would like to shake a hand, and not have sticky residue left on my palm as a result. I would be SO excited if someone sneezed NEAR, but not directly ON me. I would like to use two words in one sentence that DON'T have the same end sound. (Who speaks in rhymes*? I mean...really. It worked for Dr. Suess, but do we want the whole known world speaking that way?) So, when I hear a good, adult-type word, I get excited. Sad, no?

Furthermore, the wee ones have passed the plague along to me, somehow, though it was a sneaky contraction. Not like they handed me a plague-infested blanket or anything. I left on Thursday, feeling tired but alive. Then spent five days in utter misery, (two of them back with the wee ones,) and am still not right. The plague makes me feverish, tearful, uncomfortable, exhausted, and GRUMPY**.

The fever seems to make my blogging more disjointed than usual, if you can believe that. I'm more confused, anyway.

I missed another Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, due to the plague of lameness. Had to cancel dinner with my brother and his girl, too. These things bum me out. So much for comingling with adults. I am optimistic for next weekend- Girl's weekend!!!!

I keep having these notions of getting back to writing- real writing. I used to do that lots. Lately, with waking at an ungodly hour of the morning, and being gone alll the day, and many evenings, writing is more of a fantasy. But I keep getting those little whispers of inspiration here and there, which means soon I must carve out the time. Not to mention the rapid approach of NaNoWriMo... perhaps I will make time in November, if not before. Sigh.

I bid you Adieu. Or ado, if you like words that sound alike, but have entirely different meanings.

*Don't even go there- about the rhyming, and the sign language, and how most hearing people are convinced that works, somehow.... Torture. (Yes, there is such a thing as ASL poetry. Yes, it is lovely and visually pleasing, and often quite good. Often better than poetry in English, in my opinion, but that is neither here nor there. If you try to bend words that rhyme in one language around, for the express purpose of making them "rhyme," in another language, you lose things. Mainly, the message and meaning of the poem. But at least you have two words that sound or look the same....though mean nothing used together. yeah.) Seriously- take any two languages. Try to make something that rhymes and has meaning in one language, and make it rhyme and have the same meaning in the second. Wow, and if you succeed? Send it to me!

**Ask the lady who teaches rhyming and phonics, and all that juicy stuff. She'll attest to my grumpiness.

One kid to another

After seeing his peer leave the restroom, a boy inquires of his friend-

"So, there's no more pee in your butt?"

"Nope. And I washed it. And my hands. See?"

"My butt is out of pee, too."

And that was that.

*Elementary potty talk is at about the level of intelligence that I possess this week. Good thing I overheard the boys, or I would not have posted at all. Wash your hands.

It's not big, it's large

My boyfriend, Lyle Lovett,

has strung me along for months and months. He promised me a new album. Well, it is finally here! Wifey surprised me with it yesterday. Yay, Wifey! I got home from work, and there it was. Imagine my delight.

This morning, driving slowly through the cloudy, misty world, I popped Lyle into the CD player of Mr. Rental car. Lyle's blues matched the sky, and his large band surrounded my lightly-caffeinated head with booms and
beats and melody. The music made the commute peaceful, when the snail's pace of 880 would otherwise surely have made me fidgety and insane. My boyfriend has a nifty voice, and this album is a different style than his others. I am still mighty attached to the early albums.

Someday, Lyle will realize how much he needs an interpreter to accompany him on his tours. When that day comes, I shall run right out and buy some sexy cowboy boots, and I'll be ready. Til then, I am content to listen to his new album. After two times through, I think track two is my initial favorite song from this one. There are a couple of great ones, though!

So there you are. A blatant plug for my boyfriend. I am so happy Wifey got it for me.

The girls are alright, and they don't mind a little noon-time Jazz every now and again

You know what is great? Well, many things, really.

Yesterday I was in between jobs in San Francisco, around the financial district. I had a wonky hour and a half to kill- not enough time to REALLY do anything, as getting in and out of buildings for certain gigs requires ten to fifteen minutes of jumping security hoops. [Hello? Mr. Guard man? Big boobs tend to come with underwires. Underwires tend to be metal. I am NOT attempting to conceal weaponry in amongst my cleavage. I super pinky swear. So, when you wand me, because I have, no doubt, set off the x-ray-human-scanning machine thingy and my boobs beep, WHICH THEY WILL, EVERY SINGLE TIME, please, please, waive me in, and let me go and interpret. I can only imagine that with hundreds and hundreds of folks in and out of your highly-secured facility each and every week day, that I am not the lone bra-wearer amongst the roughly fifty-two percent of those bodies that belong to women. (You never know about the boys these days, either, frankly. A little neglige' underneath their corporate suits...just sayin'. It wouldn't be the first time that has happened.) Take a lesson from your OH, SO KIND AND FRIENDLY counterpart. Notice how he, politely, wands left, wands right, smiles, and murmurs something about feminine utilitarian equipment. Observe how it takes about four seconds, and I leave smiling, and leave him there- jolly, for the next lucky lady, cross dresser, or random weapon carrying individual.]

Ahem. So, I was beginning to tell you what is great. What is great is when you get out of said high-security establishment, and figure you've got over an hour to do something- something that is not work.

I was debating whether to gorge at one of my favorite lunch time haunts, (I work in that area often enough to have haunts,) or to take a walk, and try to ignore the beating sun on my uber white flesh.

Not starving, for once, I decided to start by walking up Market street to my bank. Wahoo! Errand running between jobs- so cool. After doing my banking, I wandered further up Market, but was unconvinced of any destination. I crossed the street, as it is always better to ponder things in the shade- which happened to be located across the street. Upon crossing, I looked back at the corner I'd just abandoned, and who did I see but an old friend who works in the area. I flagged her down, and we chatted for a minute. She was headed back down Market, to listen to free Jazz on the Plaza. Really, just a plaza. My friend, being a Jazz vocalist herself, was quite pleased about the whole thing.

Being fortunate in the melanin department, my tanned, chestnut brown friend found a bench with a view, smack in the sunny part of the plaza. She was kind- acknowledged my whiteness, and asked if I would be better off in the shade. I would be best situated in a slightly damp cave, most likely, or somewhere, ohh, like SAN FRANCISCO, where there is supposed to be a perpetual fog bank. As it was, I told her I would tough it out with her on the pigment-positive bench.

I got enough sun in those sweltering twenty eight minutes to last me for a couple of years. Still, good times. I hugged my friend, left her mesmerized by the blonde Jazz singer with her damn fine arms. (A few times as we were listening, my friend had sputtered cute things like, "Hey, that's a songI do!....I know every jazz singer sings it. Probably fifty people are performing it RIGHT NOW. But still..."
I assured her that she sings those songs the best of anyone.)

Having opted for Jazz and good company, rather than lunch, I grabbed a smoothie to drink on the return trek. I walked the fifteen or so minutes back to my afternoon gig.

As I approached the facility, I adjusted the girls in their feminine utilitarian equipment. I prepared to set off all of the beeps once again. I toyed with the idea of staging a bra burning out front. I went in, prepared to face the heavy artillery- armed with two underwires, pink, overheated arms, and a smoothie.

How nice to run into a friend on a sunny afternoon. It was a fine lunch hour, indeed.