Viva, Viva, Henderson...

I have now been to the land of glitz, glamour, gambling and strippers twice in my lifetime. I have yet to walk "the strip" and am not one bit disappointed with this oversight. I will do it some day, really, but in my head I am 50 lbs lighter and am wearing swankier things than the birks, t-shirt, and shorts I opted for this trip's wardrobe. Really, I figured I would be spending 99% of the time in my swimsuit, so no need to dress up, right?

My god it is HOT in Vegas. I mean, this is me, having grown up in Los Angeles? (The asphalt so hot it is sticky?) Having spent a summer in the Sea of Cortez? (Hello sea water 100 degrees and EVAPORATING before my eyes) Having been 5 inches (okay maybe a foot) from flowing lava in Hawai'i?

There was a super spiffy weather-monitoring-machine thingie for my benefit -- or maybe theirs so S & B could enjoy the look on my face whenever I picked it up and said such things as, "OMG, it's 115 degrees outside!" Thank the good lord for the invention of A/C.

It was so hot you could smell the desert foliage DYING. Mix that with all the smoke filtering in from the LA fires and you'll understand why my eyes are still bloodshot. Well, that and maybe a couple of other things like sunblock, lack of sleep (yey enchilada rolling at 2AM! hot tubbing at 1AM! cheap red-eye flights! -- There is NO ONE on the freeway at 3 AM on a Sunday, except other cabs coming from the airport, just in case you were wondering.)

Surprisingly, I am not lobster girl! I am, however, breaking out in hives and a rash like there was no tomorrow thanks to the lack of moisture + cat (new addition to the house I had no previous knowledge of) ++ CHLORINE (there were children at this party...many still in diapers...) +++ the nerves I cannot control while traveling...

I am seriously considering chemical intervention. I had a very tall cool glass of white wine with dinner* before the trip to the airport and man, was all the insanity easier to deal with.

*Hot dogs and salad--I love having small children around, no adults sans children I know EVER have such yummy things as chicken-hot-dogs or Teddy Grahams on hand!

There are pictures...somewhere. But it might be considered evidence by some. And no one really needs to see me in my swimsuit. Besides I have a couple knitting projects to put finishing touches on, and that is much more fun than looking for cords, adapters, and dealing with photoshop.

So This Time I Really Am...

Off to Vegas (baybee, Vegas*). Though technically I'll be just outside of the whole spectacle celebrating a birthday party and splashing in a pool. But it's much more exciting to say the "v" word than Henderson, right? Unless, of course, you are from there, and no I am not dissing it at all, promise.

Have a great weekend!

It's supposed to actually get "hot" here...yes, just my luck to miss it...all summer in a weekend...

*No, I have no idea why I have to keep adding that "tag-line" every time I write or speak** the word "Vegas" (baybee, Vegas). It's some sort of sickness, I think.

**Yes, when my boss asked me where I was going, I did indeed say, "Vegas, baybee, Vegas," and he did not fire me.

Really, Not Dead In a Ditch!

Or fired.

I cannot explain my absence. I did not run off to Vegas (baybee, Vegas) or Tahoe or the Nevada desert for some good ol' fashioned burning of precious resources...I was just...doing...um...hmmm, what was I doing?

There was knitting and nekkid people and coffee and kites and maybe a little alcomohol, but not in that order.

Happy Solstice!

Did you miss it? They have a parade here and everything. I think it's to convince the sun that really truly, if he comes out? People will celebrate! And wear pretty sun dresses! Or fairy wings!

On Saturday James & Laura & Andy & I braved the frighteningly large amounts of people to go take a gander:
This is the grand marshal, or something. It's almost safe for work if you don't enlarge it. The non-official start of the parade includes naked people on bicycles, usually painted, sometimes au natural. Many times scary.

I was going to bust out all the pictures of the nekkid people, but they're all over the inernets by now. Or here. Besides, what I really wanted to show you all was the shot Andy got of the people on the other side of the parade route TAKING PICTURES of all the skin! Only I can't seem to find that one currently, so instead I give you:
Some Spaghetti and Pirates, cuz they go together like sha-na-na-na na-na and rickety-ding de dong.

Let's just say I started my work day today by ripping a big hole in my thumb with a paper clip. Does this explain my mood a wee bit?

Have a zombie:
Then after I stopped the bleeding I found out I would have to do the data entry as some-a-body was too ill to come in to do their work. That did not bode well. Not especially as today was the official start of my "end of the month" insanity. I start a week earlier than everyone as I have to make sure the long distance, credit cards, and cell phones get paid and reconciled. Fun times, I know. I can sense the jealousy from here, stop it.

Sure enough, the upgraded computer program, that is supposed to be the best thing since pre-packaged kids lunches, sucked major donkey private parts. (Cuz if you ignore my occasional swearing and girls-dressed as unicorns with the pasties above (I had to show you at least that much, right?); we like to keep it clean her in tactlessland.)

Seriously? Big computer conglomerate whose janitors probably make more in a month than I do in a year? If you are releasing a product? Make sure such "features" as asking the user if they want to run the debugger are hidden from view, 'kay?

And summer actually started today.

It was almost considered hot (by Seattle Standards), and I was stuck yelling at computer programs and making my office-mate think I am a bigger weirdo than he could have ever imagined, instead of doing this:
Yep, that's the back of my head...and the wee thing in the sky would be my kite.

I've been able to take her up a couple times now. And it is fun. And I think everyone should go fly kites. Maybe ones a bit bigger than mine so you can not worry about a big gust setting them free. Yep, I'm thinking about an upgrade...though the convenience and portability of the key chain will be hard to beat.

And for those of you who wondered if I was still knitting...and maybe what I look like 12 years on:

So I've Had A Post Since Wednesday...

Maybe even Tuesday...but it's on my work computer and currently I am not aware of where I might have saved it. I am hoping beyond hope that it is somewhere in my "C" drive instead of the nagging suspicion that I might have saved it on the common server.

It's my own fault, I have a folder in each drive named the same thing--insert my last name here--for ease of exporting files from the accounting program.

This has worked well for the last 8 months.

The same-named file on my hard drive has things such as my resume (you just don't know when that will come in handy) and multiple "notepad" files filled with my half-baked posting ideas, and maybe a sock madness pattern when I was doing that--pre tendon problems.

It's not like I might be fired if these ramblings are found, but I'm sure they will look at me with that, "Maybe she needs a little help, psychologically" if they did read some of these pre-posted blogs/essays I write about such topics as knitting, childhood trauma, kite flying, etc., et. al.

Sigh...we shall see. I'm spending my free time frantically searching today, so don't be all shocked if there are two posts in one day :).

BTW, everyone, in your lurking and non-lurking ways, say hi to JC, he's a new reader, old friend from one of those websites I posted about last week. I did it and contacted everyone I found. 4 out of 6 people responded.

Okay, must get to that job place.

"Let's Go Fly A Kite..."

So on one of my Saturday treks into Fremont I finally appeased my curiosity and went into this kite shoppe. I have to wonder, same as Andy, if they picked the location by chance, cuz Gasworks Park has some pretty fancy kite-flying winds going on ALL THE TIME. To the point where a picnic might not be too grand an idea at the top of the hill near the sundial, oh no. Not if you want to keep your hat.

Anyhow, the place is super-cool fun if you like the bright colors and cool wind-toy creations. And other stuff that I haven't played with since my Ren.Faire daze...namey Devil Stix. But I did not walk out the door with a set, oh no. Instead I fell hard for, of all things, a keychain kite:

Seriously? I was the kid with a keychain collection. I don't know why I gave it up, short of the fact that I realized I would never have so many keys as to necessitate the collection I was stockpiling. So, slowly but surely, I've used, abused, lost, and broken all but a few of them. And lately the keychains I do buy have GOT to amuse me. Like my Badtz Maru keychain, or my all-in-one compass-thermometer-whistle-magnifying-glass thingie. Or, a keychain kite. Specifically the lady bug keychain kite as stolen pictured above.

I will not lie to you, like most "combination" objects, it does a very poor job of being either a kite, or a keychain. But I would not let that keep me from flying my kite!

The first and possibly only kite I ever had was this wretched black plastic thing that I think was supposed to be a bat with big "fierce" eye stickers. Not only did the cross bar/dowel SNAP, as there was just no give the the plastic monstrosity, but I lost that puppy in a huge gust because no one ever told me I had to tie off the kite string to the end of the reel.

Yes, I cried.

Nope, never wanted anything more to do with evil plastic flying things with big sticker eyes.

But that was 2 dozen or so years ago (yipe). We grow, we change, we find cool key chains that carry kites in them.

Andy and I took that little bugger out last week? Week before last? The cloudy, sad, scary, windy days all seem to run together... As I said before, the ladybugs were not wont to take off in the bad poopy, yet WINDY weather. Andy had many words about my not-to-spectacular (yet super cool, it's a keychain!) kite.

So after my allergy medication took hold (yey spring), we took a walk yesterday afternoon to the kite shop so he could have a gander at the toyz...just to look, mind...and he walked out with this:And the sun was out, and the clouds parted, and yey, let's go to the park and use your big-person kite!

Except now that it's stopped raining for a few hours...the wind has died.

I just can't win.

ETA 6/17/08: All images swiped--to my hard drive, no hot-linking here, from B&C Creations site. You know, just in case you'd like a kite as well. I'd take a picture of Andy and mine, but "on the carpet" is just not as pretty, besides, as I write this...it is overcast and cold again...all summer in a day....

When I was 1 and 20...a Wise Man Said to Me...

Actually I don't know how old I was or remember if the person was male...or wise.

I just remember what they said...but not verbatim, of course, cuz that would require all those brain cells I killed in college, or my mom's memory, which I never had...

Forgotten person and I were talking about friends and friendships and they said that you get to a point in your life where the most important thing to you is finding a place to call Home, and seeking out and/or reconnecting with childhood friends. It's like a kind of taking stock of your life.

It seemed rather odd to me then, a person who was STILL friends with their "childhood" friends. Suzanna, were you there? Was it one of the OLG teachers?

Anyhow.

At 34, I can count on one finger the person I still keep in touch with prior to 8th grade graduation days... High School? Let's not go there, that subject is still a bit painful and raw. College? Counting Grad School and friends outside of classes that I made? I can come up with a handful, tops.

Where did they go, George? Where did they go?

Combine that with my J. Alfred Prufrock moods (I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled), and I am jumping at the chance to help out a friend to check out one of those websites where you might find old acquaintances.

So I've found six people from my decades of yore. But now the conundrum...do I actually contact them?

Reaching out to people I used to know? It's asking a lot from my inside self that would rather sit in her room and knit and read and not go out and mingle with the outside world. I am a hermit at heart. Posting my stuff for other people to see is a whole different universe than addressing an individual. Even electronically. I mean, what do you say?! How do you start?

Hi, we used to be friends then I fell off the planet and now I'm back again, a dozen (yipes) years later, how are you?

The best part of friends that knew you "back when?" We use to be able to just pick up where we left off...No big ole' fill-in-the-blanks. But that was when a couple months - a year tops - went by. It's easy to summarize a year in a couple of sentences.

12 though? Urrr...

There was one site I almost joined because my very first crush's name was in the list of people I might know. Can you imagine that one?

Hi cool guy I used to know and last saw 20 years ago before I had boobs or hips or could control my obvious fascination of you as I stared and stared at you from behind my those dorky glasses and oh yeah, braces! Then there were the bangs! You got to see them through their entire evolution! From the days they were worn short--that would be back before Betty Paige became popular...heh heh, you know, when we just called them Mr. Spock bangs -- to those wretched teen years I was a victim of BIG POOFY East LA BANGS! Yeah! THAT girl.

I am almost old enough to be able to do that. I mean, do you remember that "My So Called Life" episode where the mom was supposed to meet up with an old boyfriend and the anticipation and the worry and the "am I cool enough" and I am so old and then he can't make it cuz he has the snuffles or something? Cuz I might be 15 pounds heavier than I'd like to be, but he could be balding with a beer gut and 10 kids.

And HOW SAD is it that when I watched those few reruns on ABC.com (no longer there for me to link to, sniff) I empathized with THE MOM!!! "Do I dare to eat a peach!"

Sigh. It has been a long week. Happy almost Friday!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Xmas...In LA...

7:09 PM

Seriously, this is th kind of weather I've come to associate with DECEMBER in Los Angeles. But maybe a smidge warmer. It's like 50 degrees outside! Can someone tell Ma' Nature that it's JUNE now and that this is Seattle and not, um, Siberia? Please? I'm sitting here shivering in pants, a long-sleeved shirt, my pull-over FLEECE sweater, and yeah, my SCARF. That is just so wrong.

JUNE!

We're talking 2 weeks until SOLSTICE!

Aaaauuuummm....

Okay, let me instead distract myself by telling you about my Pippi Longstocking moment. Or maybe it's my Sex & 'The City', My 'The City' moment...(This post is quotation mark heavy, I hope I don't end up here.)

So as I was making coffee yesterday morning, I kept thinking about Pippi Longstocking and how she would never "fly" in today's world.

Yes, I realize I'm 34 years old and have no business thinking of Pippi Longstocking cuz that's kid's stuff...(maybe, more on that later) but I think it's the same as Andy busting out xmas carols whenever he whistles, or hums for that matter -- though he is rather emphatic about his hatred toward that particular holiday season, he just can't help himself! I don't think it's a case of "the lady doth protest too much," but possibly the amount of inundation of the songs and melodies in childhood in much the way that the aforementioned red-headed freak appeared in my constant weekend viewing of KTLA Channel 5 during my youth in LA!

Family Film Festival with Tom Hatten, anyone? Yep, a product of television as babysitter. I may have said this before (I'm super good at repeating myself), but it was probably one of the only ways I was able to experience "traditional" "American" "culture". (Just picture me doing the quotes with my fingers as I pronounced those words...) I am famous for being at the periphery of most popular cultural phenomena...

Take the movie everyone is talking about at work--okay, the OTHER movie people are talking about at work...in the world of "Who Are YOU in Sex and the City?" I don't even make the east coast cut. Seriously, when that show was actually on teevee and all the cool kids were talking about it, I was living on a sailboat the North Harbor in Santa Cruz, CA. The City? My "the city" was San Francisco. (PS, thank you creators of The Tick for that one.)

When my friends and I said we were going to "The City," everyone knew what you meant, 60 miles up the coast, SF baybee. And sex? In the City? So not to be too stereotypical, just plain honest, the only people I knew still having sex who were not college students were either married or living alternative lifestyles...so does it really surprise you that I was the one who said something like,"So the show is about Lesbian women?" (Oh L Word, were you even a gleam in your creator's eye back then, I wonder?)

Right. I was also a popular one at parties for the simple disbelief and awe I inspired that I'd made it this far without dying of super-uncoolness.

Wow what a tangent. Back to Pippi Longstocking.

I honestly thought syndication meant you lived forever. Is that because I grew up in LA watching the original Star Trek, Dukes of Hazzard, Popeye, El Chavo del Ocho, Gilligan's Island, and who knows how many shows that were out of the public eye for eons before I was even born?

How shocking is it then that no one under the age of say, 30 knows of those wonderful grainy Pippi Longstocking movies (tv show if you were in Sweden--or are lucky enough to know enough of the language to follow the serial shot in the late 60s)! They don't get my fascination... everyone wanted to be Pippi, boys as well as girls...

But now-a-daze...can you see her trying to compete with the likes of "Dora the Explorer?"

They made Pippi into some kind of cartoon a while ago...I guess cuz, you know, that would be WAY more acceptable than the live-action version. In the more frightening of conservative America, can you just imagine the freak-out parents would have about a 9-year-old girl dressed in what amounts to a long t-shirt, thigh-high stockings and a garter belt? Wow, that just sound wrong, doesn't it?

Much less the "lessons" being taught by this little girl who lives all alone! In her own house! With a horse! And a monkey! CPS would be all over her! Well, if they could outsmart her. Folks, those Pippi books and movies taught me one very basic fact: treat me like I'm a stupid kid and I will make you rue the day. Personally? I'd love to raise more kids with that mentality. Yet another reason society heaves a big sigh of relief that I'm not planning on having children.

What has all this to do with the price of tea in China?

Reminiscing, google-searching, and reading up on Pippi, Tomi, and Anika was much more fun than thinking about the weather.

And on another tangent:

June 14th!

But I won't bother to hope the sun is shining. It's not worth the disappointment...

9:29PM

The Smell of Cleaning Products In the Morning...

No, not this morning. This morning I'm procrastinating over a cup of coffee trying to figure out the best plan for getting a regular stream of visitors...

It seems the best way to keep the apartment as clean as it is this morning.

I mean, you throw a party? And sure your home is perfectly clean with all the right foods and flowers and such...but the next day? Along with the possible hang over? Is the mess. I hateses the mess.

But guests coming up to go out on the town in Seattle-ville and and then hang out until you fall asleep on the couch--okay, until I fall asleep on the couch as everyone else is still talking about cars and computers and classes and what-not (just can't keep up with the kids these days--shut up, I know Andy is older than I am...) and then somehow I get to bed and the next morning as we all sit around drinking coffee with only a few tell-tale bottles and glasses out? Yep, much more my style these days.

Washing an extra set of sheets is way easier than trying to get a wine stain out of the carpet ANY day. And the place is still so clean!!

Andy and I are not Pig-Pens or anything, but Dayumn, we are messy. I think it's that combination of always working + never home + L-A-A-Z-Y! = just kick it under the coffee table and no one will notice.

Okay, must motivate for work now...

This picture has nothing to do with this post, but I think it's about time for a visual, and besides, Laura said she liked how I stuck random Italy pictures into my blog posts..

Sicilian Painted Cart