Giant cowboy around here somewhere

It happens every year, usually in February: all of a sudden it is spring! It's like nature knows that we are shriveling up into a disgusting wet corn flakes mush and so it does us a quick solid by giving us a freaking gorgeous few days just so we don't run amok and dissolve. The fake out will not last long, and we'll be back to drizzle fo shizzle (oh yes I did just say that) but for now, I am not going to think about that. For now it's just SUN! SUN! SUN!

 

The weekend started off by us having a meeting about death, because, you know, we are badasses. Not really. Part of our beginning of the year stuff that we do is to go over our financial plans for the future, including updating our retirement plans, insurance policies, etc. WOO! We're a couple of party animals, I know. Anyway, our financial guy (I still find it so weird that we have one of those) was going over some things with us and it always throws me, having these conversations, because I feel like he should start our meeting by saying "It's about to get REAL, YO." Because that guy can break it down. He's all "so, statistically, we have to plan for you" he points at Nordic Boy "to die at about 84, and you" he points at me "to die around 96." Um, sure. Yes. I suppose we do. And we'll be damn lucky to have it happen that way. And we're being so responsible and adult to map this out and make sure we are taken care of. And our plan is a good solid plan. Good on us. And also, by the way, and I probably should have said this up front, but GAHHHHHHHHH.

 

I mean, yikes-o-rama, you guys.

 

Anyway after that I proceeded to spend the rest of the day in the sunshine having giggly girl fun with Biogirl. Because I kind of had to, after that.  First off, we drove southward to see the boots and hat in Ox Bow Park. Those are sculptures, for those of you who don't know. I have to make that clear since it would not be out of the ordinary for us to take a field trip to look at actual boots and a hat. Anyway. Turns out, nothing will make you forget about your own mortality like a giant pair of cowboy boots as big as a house. We took silly photos and laughed our heads off, in that way where you don't even really know what is even so funny, but dang, it's just HIGH LARRY US. We then went to have tea at a little tea shop that boasts over a hundred tea varieties. I am a serious tea lover but somehow I ordered one that pretty much tasted like dirt (this is where I cannot help but hear Nordic Boy's mom's voice in my head saying the ever-wise "God made dirt and dirt don't hurt, honey"). I think I got lucky at that choice though because our tea menu was talking about a whole line of teas called Poo Air. So at least I didn't drink that up.

 

Sunday I decided to get my ass out the door to check out the Jason Wu collection at Target. Listen, some people have the Superbowl and others have Jason Wu at Target. Priorities. By the time I got myself there it was seriously picked clean. There were like three pieces left, I am not even lying. Ok, so I got there at lunch time. I am ridiculous enough to make a date on my calendar to show up to Wu opening day but not ridiculous enough to go wait in line first thing in the morning. Everyone draws a line somewhere. But really, folks,* I am not kidding when I said there were three items left.

 

Nordic Boy and I rounded out the weekend by making a big Indian dinner (well, ok he made it) and watching old Deadwood episodes. What could be better? And no, neither of us watched the Superbowl, but I did learn something about football and the Superbowl this week and I am going to share it with you. I have learned that no one needs to hear the following phrases regarding the Superbowl ever ever again, and they are: "I only watch it for the commercials," or "I don't watch the Superbowl. I don't even know who's playing." I have to shamefully admit that I was, twice this week, that person. The one who says those things. Getting my passive aggressive smugly on, people. So classy! It seems that I too have an inner hipster doofus that longs to be freed and turned into a Portlandia skit. At least I haven't gone to the "the half time show sucked! they should just not even have one!" place, because that place is truly unbearable. Anyway, as soon as the "I don't even know who's playing" exited my mouth the second time (or actually my fingers, since I was typing), I wanted to call it back in, but I couldn't. So I am hereby using the power of my blog to recall that sentiment. Just go back in time, erase erase erase, and done. You didn't know my blog had that power, did you? I know, pretty cool. I should probably use it for something more concrete, like going back in time to convince 9th grade me to stop tucking my pants into my socks, but I thought I would start with this one.

 

I'm going to go run around in the sunshine now.

*Sorry I called you folks.

 

O brain where art thou

I feel so far away from my blog these days. Anyone even still checking this thing? Blog friends can you hear meeee? (Please sing that in a Barbra-in-Yentl sort of way, if you don't mind).


I have been in one of those spirals where I have been franctically busy for 80% of my time, and so then the remaining 20% I just hide in my house doing nothing but crossword puzzles with my blanket and Jon Stewart. (Not that Jon Stewart is with me under my blanket, but listen, I wouldn't kick him out if he was).

I have been conducting a little scientific experiment this week and it is this. I have been trying to prove that I have a finite amount of brain space, and once that space is used up, I become a complete and total blithering idiot. Ok, so I haven't been trying to prove it, so much as just proving it unintentionally.

First of all, Delium was over for dinner the other day, and he was telling me about this movie shoot that he was on (have I ever mentioned that one of the many things Delium does is be an actor? I feel like I have somehow never mentioned this fact, but that can't be right), and he was going on about how Bubbles was in this movie, and how he got to meet him, and it was so awesome. And the whole time he was talking, I was thinking "Michael Jackson's chimp is still alive? And he is in movies now? And Delium is hanging out with him? WHAT." Yeah, well he was talking about the guy who played Bubbles in The Wire. Which, if you had been there and heard the context of this story, would have been totally clear to you. I was excited about 2 degrees of separation from The Wire, but disappointed about there not being an awesome chimp story.

Brain space- that one wasn't so bad, right? That was earlier this week- Monday. It gets worse.

The next thing that happened was that I was telling Nordic Boy a story, and I wanted to say that I thought a certain thing ever since I was a kid. So, I could have said "Ever since I was a kid..." or I could have said "Since I was a kid..." Either one. But somehow I tried to say it both ways together, and so I said "Since ever since I was a kid," to which Nordic Boy was all "wait, what did you just say? Since ever since?" And I looked at him like he was a nut bucket and said, "UM YEAH. Since ever since I was a kid, I..." And he said, "since ever since? What is that?" And I honestly couldn't process what was wrong with saying it like that. I hereby declare it ok for you to sing "Since ever since you've been gone" whenever that Kelly Clarkson song comes on.

Then, at the end of my work day the other day, just before leaving, I was emailing with two of my friends about having them over for dinner. They have never been to my house before, and so I was typing out my address, and the more I looked at it, the more I was convinced that that wasn't my address. And the more I that I thought that, the more that I couldn't think of what my address really was. Finally, I had to open Google maps, type in what I had written, and map that shit out to see if it matched up where I live. AND IT DIDN'T.

I had to google map my own damn address people. And then it was wrong.

This weekend, you may find me with my blankie and dvr episodes of Jon. If I can figure out where I live and get home ok.


                            

Everything Counts

Whoopsie! Where's the blogging, lady?

Something will happen soon. Or later. Well, at some point.

Until then, please make your Monday a little more fun by watching this adorableness.

Hamma Jamma

Things that are making me happy today:


1. The Pointer Sisters medley that was sung, by all members of my household, at 6:45 am this morning.

2. The fact that Brandy and Monica are coming out with a new duet, although it will never be able to top the sweet action of "The Boy is Mine."

3. A friend telling me about a person he once knew. First name Richard, last name Shaver. And he preferred to go by Dick.

4. The relief I felt when I realized that the red substance all over the inside of my bag was just juice from the swiss chard in my lunch and not bloody gore.

5. Biogirl's vintage cookbook that is filled with disgusting photos, including this one for baked ham covered in green jello mixed with mayonnaise.

First, a photo of the ham. Second, a video of the jam.

Occupie This

The snow has melted off faster than it got here, and the weekend was covered in a mud-flavored Slush Puppie. Are Slush Puppies still a thing? I have fond memories of getting one of those (cherry flavored, not mud) with a pack of grape Now and Laters at the Kmart cafeteria when I was a kid. Oh yes, our Kmart had a cafeteria. Class out the ass, people.


Crisp new snow for a couple of days had us running around outside like nutcases, but the slushy mess had us sticking close to home for most of the weekend, other than a trip to work for me. And then, oh yeah, we also went to this party where there was nothing to eat but miles of pie.

For those of you who may not know, today is National Pie Day. (To which, the obvious reply is: isn't every day National Pie Day? And yes, you may have a point there). In its honor, Biogirl threw a party whereby she served pie and more pie. And also, asked guests to bring pie. Is this not the most genius party idea ever conceived? Methinks it is.

Our friend Heather has a little girl who is 4. Throughout her young life, we have gone to their house on a myriad of days. Sometimes just to hang out, sometimes for a meal, sometimes for a party. She, on the other hand, has only been to Biogirl's house when there has been some sort of party going on. And so in her eyes, Biogirl's house is the Land of a Thousand Vittles. Biogirl's parties always have a nice spread happening, so to a 4 year old? Yummy goodness as FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE. And since she hasn't seen Biogirl's house in its non-party state, I think that perhaps in her mind, she is all "I don't know what is UP with that crazy lady's house full of food everywhere you look, but I'm LIKIN' IT." This time, when it was all pies? I am sure it took the magic to a whole new level.

I think maybe I am transferring my wonder at the pie party concept onto a 4 year old. Probably.

Anyway, there was mushroom quiche, and spinach quiche, and sweet fruit pies, and samosa pies, and pizza pies, and pumpkin pie, and tomato pie, and pot pies...well. You get the picture. In case you don't get the picture, here are some pictures.

And also the people were nice and the conversation good and the laughs were plentiful. Yadda yadda. PIE.

(Ok, I feel the need to explain that last one. Biogirl's dad once had a painter paint a portrait of her when she was little. It is universally acknowledged that the result is creepy. In fact, I don't think the creepy nature of the portrait quite comes through here. Anyway, most of the time the portrait lives in storage. But when Biogirl throws a party, the portrait comes out, usually with something to say. I love that portrait).

Consumables #57

During this week, also known as Dysnowpia 2012 Seattle, many folks are feeling cabin fever. I am hoping that your cabin fever has to do with having your kids home from school and maybe a lack of being able to drive to the store, and does not have anything to do with a for reals blizzard out there or someone busting your kneecaps Misery-style. For some reason when I hear "cabin fever" I always think about Pa Ingalls having to tie a string from his front door to his barn so that he can hang on to it and not get lost in the snow storm, or Kathy Bates and James Caan. I don't know why. I'm just saying, I hope that if you have cabin fever, it is normal people usage of that term, and not me-usage.


For all the cabin-fever-or-not that has been happening this week, I have been light on the consuming, but here's what I've got.

Movies:
Beginners
I thought this was so sweet. Ewan McGregor could not be more charming, and Christopher Plummer was delightful and their relationship just made my heart feel all squeezy. It made me cry a bit.

The Recruit
Sometimes if Nordic Boy is waiting for something- like for me to get ready, or for a friend to come pick him up- he will flip the tv on and find a movie and watch it, just for the ten-fifteen minutes he has to wait. Earlier this week, The Recruit was on tv, so he watched a bit from the latter half of the movie. A day or so later, he was waiting again, and he turned the tv on, and The Recruit was playing again, but it was at an entirely different point in the movie, so he watched ten more minutes. He did this about four times all week. First of all, whatever tv channel that was? Wow, showing a real commitment to Farrell and Pacino there. Second of all, how can one stand to watch a movie all chopped up and in the completely wrong order? I don't care what the movie is, that would drive me insane. At any rate, I saw a fair amount of this movie by default this week. Shockingly, it seemed disjointed to me.

TV
Downton Abbey
Bates' low self-esteem stuff is starting to drive me crazy. And also, Maria Doyle Kennedy really has cornered the market on unwanted-wife roles, what with this and then the whole Queen Catherine thing on The Tudors. That's quite a specific niche.

Parks and Rec
THANK GOODNESS YOU'RE BACK.

Project Runway All Stars
I can't decide how I felt about them having to do an outfit for Miss Piggy. On the one hand, Miss Piggy is awesome. On the other hand, really? They had to design an outfit for a Muppet? On the other hand, I like it when something unpretentious happens on Project Runway. On the other hand, the fact that the designers all gushed and treated it so seriously was weird. As you can see, there were a lot of hands in my argument with myself on this.

Books
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
If Beginners made me cry a little bit in a sweet way, this one made me cry a lot in a sad way. I want to say it was unbelievably sad, but really, unfortunately it was believably sad. The story was well told, and had a lot of access points in it- it's got history, and science, and racial issues, poverty issues, and genealogy, and ethics, and law, and journalism, and family dynamics. All of it works, and works well together. Nicely done, Ms. Skloot. And p.s. I love saying your last name.

Happy Friday!

Snow Day

Seattle is shut down, y'all. It started dumping snow on Wednesday night and it hasn't let up at our house yet. We tromped around all afternoon. I came home with straight up icicles in my hair. I'd almost forgotten what that feels like.

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True

This weekend we celebrated Nordic Boy's birthday. It was quiet, full of love and sweetness, just like him. It snowed a bunch, and we took walks in the silent neighborhood, sometimes turning a corner to find squealing kids sledding down empty streets. We ventured out to a show downtown, and we ate some fancy meals in low lit restaurants that were mostly empty due to the weather. His mom and sisters called him up, and so did my folks, all to tell him they love him. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and he said he just wanted to see me and his two besties, so we had Biogirl and Delium over and ate and laughed. Biogirl made us waffles one morning and I went to a fancy bakery to find us some cake. He bought himself a present that only he would be super excited about: a dust vac that hooks right up to his power tools so the sawdust is collected before it hits the ground. Who buys themselves a dust vac for their birthday, I ask you?

The same sort of dude who thinks knots are way cool, that's who. When I first met Nordic Boy when he was just a kid, we would go to the local bookstore and he would pore over this big book, about knots. I have teased him about it for years and years. This honker is gigantic- it's got to be a 10 pounder of a book, at least it seems so. Paying for it would have kept us in Taco Bell burritos for literally two months, so buying it was out of the question. Even now, when we can afford that book, he has never bought it. It's something he'll go look at in the store every once in a while, even all these years later. He's had a long and true yearning for that book, and the fascination has never waned. This year, I bought it for him. The delight that this purchase brought him will make me smile for just as many years, I'm pretty sure.

I also took our old deck of cards out of the closet. This deck of cards has been with us for almost two decades. The first thing that Nordic Boy and I ever did together was play cards with that deck, in my very first little apartment back in Illinois. I love that deck. So I wrote out, on each card, one thing that is awesome about that dude of mine. It was hard to limit to 52.

Happy birthday, sweet soul. You rock my socks.

Consumables #56

I have noise-cancelling headphones on right now, and then I decided to chew a piece of gum. Have you ever done this? Hearing gum chewing inside one's own head sounds disgusting, and kind of like a washing machine.

Yes, this is your one-stop shop for high cultural commentary such as that.


Here's what be up! I'm too lazy to put in the links today. Shoddy blogmanship, I know.

TeeVee
Downton Abbey
Nordic Boy is catching up with Season 1 right now, and it just about blew his mind when Maggie Smith was all "what's a weekend?" He was like "God DAMMIT if I could be that rich, to not even know what a weekend is!" He sort of couldn't stop talking about it for a while after that. So Mind? Meet Boggled.

Luther
First of all, let's just get it out of the way by first off saying that Idris Alba can make one want to get dirty in your skirty. Ok? We good on that? He's hot and we don't even need to talk about it. Idris, Stringer Bell, Luther, I don't care WHAT your name is. I feel like I might have talked about this show before, since I started watching it a while ago, so forgive the repeat if I did that. This was a little more on the creepy side than I usually tend to watch, but I stuck with it. I think Alba carries it and I'm not just saying that because of the hotness. I liked the whole Silence of the Lambs vibe it had going on.

Movies
Young Frankenstein
This is one of the first movies Nordic Boy and I ever watched together and we hadn't seen it in a while. It makes me all goopy remembering us watching the first time. "Ovaltine!" To me, that's romantic.

Contagion
I so did not understand the point of this movie. There was a virus, it spread, people died. I just kept wanting to say "...and?" It was fine though.

Books
All nonfiction this week!

Just Kids, by Patti Smith
For some reason I wasn't expecting this book to be that good. I don't know why. But it totally was! I love it when that happens. I was not overly familiar with Smith (I mean I know her stuff, but am not a fanatic) so there was a lot of interesting stuff that was news to me, and I found her not at all like I thought she might be.

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Vaillant
I can sum up this book by just saying this. Do NOT, whatever you do, FUCK with a FUCKING TIGER. Don't steal food from him, don't mess with tiger babies, don't insult him, don't look at him funny, just DON'T DO ANYTHING. Because that tiger understands who you are, and can find where you live, and can smell you from a long ways away, and will wait for you and remember you for years and you will not even see it coming and then WHAM he will jump out and eat your ass to the bone and then find anyone else that you have been hanging with that smells like you and eat THEIRSELVES TOO. If you have to mess with a lion, ok. If you have to mess with a bear, so be it. Just NOT A TIGER. The end.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Stay clear of tigers.

Cold gray Januar-ay

The thermometer says it's not really that cold, but my body disagrees. It feels colder than the thermometer says. I know, talking about the weather is ceaselessly entertaining. I have been trying not to hole up in my house too much. To that end, I did the following.

1. Brunched out with pals twice.
2. Shopped (ok I just went and touched the clothes) at Horseshoe.
3. Supported Biogirl's pie problem by tagging along with her to A La Mode.
4. Did some rounds around Green Lake.
5. "Helped" Nordic Boy plant a new terrarium (hey, I watched him with waves of encouragement emanating out of me. That's totally helping).
6. Ok, I'm not going to lie there was also lots of holing up and staying in, but effort was made.

The Nordic Job

The Nordic Job: like the Italian Job only with Volvos!

So hey, you want to know what happened around Thanksgiving of 2011? Nordic Boy got laid off. It was so awesome, by which I mean that it was terrifically spectacularly not awesome.


I didn't want to talk about it then because (a) I have a rule about blogging about my work and so it hardly seemed fair for me to blab details about Nordic Boy's, but I just couldn't not talk about the details for a while there, so I thought I better just not mention it at all or diarrhea of the keyboard might happen. I have specific ways that I will talk about my job on the internets and they are super narrow parameters, mostly because I think that work takes up way too much of my brain already so why would I spend more time dedicated to this and also I just think it a bad idea to blog about work in general because there is probably some way that you will get your ass bit by that, or at least I would. And also (b) it was super stressful and Joel had just died in the fall which was still on our minds a lot of course so we weren't really feeling our most strong anyway and so we did something in our family that is akin to "circling the wagons" or "huddling up" but not those things because I don't like sports metaphors and circling the wagons makes me want to barf, as a phrase. Basically, for the month of December, we told people, but in terms of talking about the real stuff- how it felt, and what we were thinking- we kept that for the most significant peeps until recently.

But, now the huddling of wagons is over and I'm still not talking about Nordic Boy's job details, but the feelings stuff? Ok, in a nutshell.

I know that, unfortunately, being laid off is not an uncommon thing to have happen to people these days. Heck, I am from Flint where, when I was a kid, pretty much everyone I knew was getting laid off of something somewhere, so it's not even a new event in my life. I knew what the term "laid off" was by the time I was 4 years old. Still, it sucks. Su-hucks. It sucks because it makes you aware that sometimes, it doesn't matter how good you are at your job, how much of a difference you make while doing it, how much experience you have built up, how much expertise you have, how much your coworkers respect what you do, how well you are liked, how much money and efficiency you bring back to your organization, how much you completely kick ass all day every day, or how ridiculously hard you work. Nordic Boy was at the top top top on all of these fronts, and I am not just saying that because I think he's the cat's pajamas. Really, it's just an objective fact: he is all of these things and more. But keeping his job just didn't have anything to do with any of that. Not one little bit.

Seriously, you guys. Markets shifted and none of that awesomeness that he was bringing to the table meant a good goddamn. When it came to keeping his job, all that good stuff just straight up did not matter.That's fucked up when you have to think about it, and sit with it, and know it in your guts. That's a faceful of reality right there.

To use another sports metaphor, but only because it is so appropriate that I can't not, Nordic Boy took it like a champ. He really did, and not in a stiff upper lip way. He took it in, felt some feelings, and then moved on to what he could do about it and figured out what he couldn't do about it. Man, if we could package up his reaction to stuff like this, we would be RICH. Also, this is further evidence (as if I needed more) that he is who you want to have around when the zombie apocalypse comes. If the braineaters show up, you all need to hightail it to our house.

Before you all become too worried about the state of things around here (I should have said this right up front, sorry), we are ok, and Nordic Boy has found another job that he starts today. It's hard for us to know how to feel about this- of course we are happy and we want to feel proud of him for getting out there ("put yourself out there!" as the Bachelor always talks about) and making something happen that is positive and a great opportunity, which it is and we do, but I also want to make sure I acknowledge that there are so many other people out there losing jobs, losing homes, losing a lot, and they deserve good things too, pretty likely more than we do. I don't think, and I know that Nordic Boy doesn't think, that he deserves it more than them. I just have to say that and if you are someone that has lost a job and have not been able to find another one yet, good luck to you. Not an ironic, sarcastic good luck to you. (How did that phrase become so flip? "Oh yeah? Well good luck to you, sucker!") I'm not talking about that kind. I'm talking a heartfelt, sincere one. Good luck to you.

Anyway, this was kind of a big deal in our lives, even though the turnaround time was thankfully, luckily so short, and so I thought I would let you all know about it. As I said, he starts his new job today, and he's really excited about it, and again we're lucky that not only did he find something, but it's a something he wants to be doing. And super bonus: no more travelling! At least not on a regular basis. I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I get to see him every single day, and we get to sleep in the same bed every single night. SO COOL.

And to our peeps who were in the wagon huddle: super big ups, y'all.