Stuffing Face With Spicy Coconut Milk Noodle

It's sort of amazing how many of my posts could accurately be titled that way, as that is what I am doing pretty much all the time.

The important part, of course, is to leave room for the Sparks at the end.

Hello! It's Friday night, the biggest party of the year will technically start in a little over an hour, and I am not showered OR dressed.

And the party is happening at my house.

I am pretty much ready, if by "ready" you mean "sitting at the computer still wearing my coat, stuffing my face with Spicy Coconut Milk Noodle." But like I said before, it's amazing how many other words in my life--like for example "working", "writing", and "cleaning" can all mean "sitting at the computer stuffing my face with Spicy Coconut Milk Noodle."

But seriously, folks. I've never been this ready for a party in my entire life. The bathroom is CLEAN clean. You could eat off the floor. So is the kitchen. I have my costume all ready. (The theme of this pary, besides "Holy Shit Aarwenn is throwing her first house party in two years," is, "Back to School!") I have a keg, arranged for, picked up, and paid for. It's in my Jeep now. I don't have keg cups or mixers, but people are bringing those. I have very few munchies, but people are bringing those too. (SPECIFIC people who know their tasks, not just random people that I hope remember.) The apartment is cleaner than it's ever been, including the day I moved in. My neighbors have been warned of the party, I've wiped down all flat surfaces in all rooms, I've de-furred the apartment and the dog, I've even gotten my hair done.

-Post broke off here, as the LT showed up with all sorts of things, and the party commenced!--

It's now Saturday afternoon--late afternoon. The party went well, although it was a little small since apparently half of Seattle is out sick. We had plenty of people here anyway--the kind of crowd where you can't really keep track of all the conversations, and I'm sure a lot of things happened that I didn't even see.

On a more updated note, Tukwila PD found the LT's motorcycle! LT and I arranged a long and complicated plan to go get it, as we now have two people and three vehicles on this side of the water. The plan, which depends on ferry times, probably won't be complete until nine or ten tonight, and that's just in time for us to go to ANOTHER party.

Sigh.

Also, I'm currently stuffing my face with Spicy Coconut Milk Noodle.

The Lord Giveth, and the Lord Taketh Away

Or maybe it’s more appropriate to say that we are in a continuous cycle of giving and taking. Feng Shui teaches that we really own nothing on this earth, not even the bodies we stand up in, as we certainly can’t take our possessions or our bodies with us when we die. So an appropriate response to any theft is to take a deep breath and say, “Well, they’ve come for it.” “They” being some representation of the world outside us or around us, some element that helps themselves to our possessions without notifying us, and “it” being some element that we expected to hang on to for the indeterminate future.

And after this weekend, the LT can say, “Well, they’ve come for the motorcycle.”

I'll put that more plainly: the LT and I came back from Beerfest to discover that his motorcycle was stolen, the wrenched-off ignition lock lying in the street.

Yes, he has insurance. Theft insurance, even, which you have to pay extra for with a motorcycle because of this very possibility. Yes, I was very attached to that motorcycle and am rather sad that we can’t ride it anymore. (That we know of. SPD may find it—the nice officer who came to take Mark’s statement about 1:07 this morning said the chances were better than average that he’d get it back. I’m not so sure.) In fact, my own father owned a motorcycle when he and my mother got married, which was stolen not long after they were married. He never replaced it.

The awful part is that LT has worked twelve hours a day every day this week and been called in to work twice in the middle of the night on top of that. (And last week, and for the next two weeks.) I put in eight hours of overtime myself, not including my normal tutoring. I was insulted at Beerfest by a boy who told me I needed acne cream. (Maybe if I repeat it enough, the sting of this remark will eventually dissipate.) Two lines of girls—the line I was in and an upstart line—both in line for the same four porta-potties almost got in a knock-down drag-out brawl, resulting in me comforting some gorgeous tennis-player-type blonde who was crying over being called “ferret-faced” by some female who was apparently shallower than Saran Wrap. Four security guards crossed their arms in front of the four porta-potties, sending in one girl at a time after that.

Fortunately the whole event paled in comparison to our triumphant entry, the LT and I able to buzz in for free and, more importantly, past a line that was miles long. (In any big city, free admission pales in comparison to being to skip the line or achieve free parking, for example.) A group of us went out for really good Thai food, disdaining to feed ourselves on fair food at Beerfest, and today, the ‘Hawks beat the Bengals and the Steelers beat the 49’ers. Next week, the ‘Hawks play the 49’ers. Should be an interesting game.

And tomorrow I get to work from home, a wonderful thing, and I get to try out a new salon on Friday (Vain, for those playing along at home) and most importantly, my BACK TO SCHOOL! Party is on Friday, and drinking games galore, fifty of my closest friends in costume, and a brand-new (to me) Polaroid camera to record the events will chase away a lot of ills. And even if it doesn’t, I keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The Only Phone Calls I've Gotten On My Landline Are Telemarketers, Or, Fall Reminds Me Of Aging

And I have no idea how to retrieve my messages anyway, so this is probably as it should be. Oh: and once I called myself--only to see if my phone number works.

It does.

I could summarize this week, but instead I'll say that I am really REALLY looking forward to this weekend, which I suspect will be amazing. Tomorrow night, the LT and I will be volunteering at the Fremont Oktoberfest, which I think will be some work, but also a blast, and then Saturday we get to actually GO to Oktoberfest! For free!

Sunday I think we have something or other. (My apologies if whoever we're spending time on Sunday is reading this. You're important. I swear.)

On the Radar This Week, or, What This Post Is Really About

I've been spending all my free time (what there is of it) with my old friend Beau Prichard, who besides having a brand-new book out, is also starring in Conor McPherson's St. Nicholas, an engrossing drama about a real prick of a theater critic (but aren't they all?) who ends up working for vampires and discovers what real evil is. (I can't help but wonder if Mr McPherson got in a few personal zings against theater critics that may or may not have lambasted him in the past.)

It's a one-man show, and Beau is in the process of learning his lines, not an easy feat when it was written by an Irishman with apparently no grammar school education; the changes in tense throughout are appalling. He keeps me in Sparks Light and I pace around his apartment in the Central District, wearing holes in the rug, or occasionally stretching between paces, hearing my joints pop. His roommate, a real darling whom I would have fallen for were I five years younger, pokes his head around corners and makes sarcastic comments between riffs on Guitar Hero. It's all very "we'll look back on this one day and laugh", or at least it would be if Beau and I both weren't closer to thirty than we are to twenty. Still, I'm proud of him--the man can actually finish his novels, something I've yet to do--and as life expectancies lengthen, we have more and more years to make our own paths rather than needing to hop on pre-made ones to save time.

Not that Beau is particularly behind--he's not. As I said, he's written far more novels than I have and actually has one available to sell. And my perspective is skewed, too. One of the reasons I love living in Capitol Hill is that it keeps me with one foot in the art scene, one eye watching people who have carved out unusual lives for themselves and don't seem burdened down by guilt that they're not Type-A enough, and half my brain on my novel. The other half of my brain, of course, is focused on nanotechnology, giant lasers, and chemicals galore. The other half of my brain is stressing that I won't put my name on a patent or make sweeping changes in the Lazy B before my car loan is up (the end of my short-term goals). The other half of my brain is constantly pushing myself to do better and better things while I'm this young, racing against the clock.

In addition, people keep getting married on me, which can (in my darker moments) contribute to my sense of urgency. I do also realize that just because some of my friends are married doesn't mean that they have their lives any more settled or have necessarily accomplished more. (I mean, marriage is a big accomplishment, don't get me wrong. But it's not necessarily a good analogy for winning a patent, or writing a novel, or starting a full-fledged acting career. I don't know if you can ever really cross marriage off on a list titled, "Things Done.")

However. In the midst of all this strife, I recently devoured "Alone in the Kitchen With An Eggplant", a wonderful collection of essays written by authors who love food and cooks who love to write, about that extremely personal of issues: cooking and eating for and by yourself, and only yourself. I read every single word--parts of it I even went back and read again--and it's so wonderful. Not just because I get to peek into the private lives of some amazing people and some of my favorite cooks, but also because like a good music anthology, it almost accidentally covers the extremely complex relationship that humans have with food, both good and bad, and the specific periods of life that such relationships recall. I read about apartments the size of postage stamps and cooking setups with two burners and no kitchen sink, meaning that Laurie Colwin had to do her dishes in her bathtub, I read about mothers getting angry about secretly consumed carbohydrates, and about the best salsa rosa ever, one I intend to try immediately if I ever go back to cream. Indeed, the best essays were part food and part memoir, times of extreme loneliness at 26 and wondering what effect the hash had on the food at the ripe old age of thirty. It's essays like that that I live for, reminding me that perfection is impossible--especially in my kitchen--and that one's life at 26, even though it seems settled, may not even resemble one's life at 30, which is good because that's after my short-term goals are over and I think I'll want to do something else.

Optional funny ending: I was with Tut-Tut just last night (maybe at some point in the future I'll open up a school for girls) and I was having her write an essay on technological changes and how they've improved--or ruined--our lives. She was having a hard time thinking of an example. "What about texting?" I said.

"But texting's not NEW," she said in tones of great disgust. "Texting has been around FOREVER."

I Remember Very Few Things About This Week

I worked a lot.

However I DID actually find time (a long lunch hour on Thursday, the only free time I've had ever) to work on the long and long-suffering cleaning project (did I mention I was de-cluttering my house?) and I found some things of note:

My power bill, unpaid.

Bus schedules that became inaccurate a year ago.

Several wedding invitations, most of which I went to, but without actually sending the RSVP card because I lost it

Several cable bills, all of which I paid online

Pilates/Yoga studio fliers from a year and a half ago

Receipts, saved from a time when I meant to track everything I bought

Cards I bought for people and never sent

A lease agreement from two and a half years ago.

And hordes of other things.

Also today, for the first time, I am pleased to announce that I have a house phone line for the first time in two years, maybe longer. It came as a package with the rest of the cable stuff and I got it, and then I had to track down a phone, and THEN I had to track down a BATTERY, and THEN I had to remember to set the handset on the actual charger. And once I had done that, after I got to wonder why it was dead a few hours later, I realized I also had to plug the phone base in to an actual plug on the wall. Who knew? I now have four extension cords running off of one socket in a series. And that reminds me: I should probably get renters' insurance.

The point of this post: I only had my house line for six months before I started using it! Once I found it under the piles of paper, of course.

New! Shiny! And it Moves!

Check it out, right to the right of this main space. The LT will soon be an LT in the RESERVES. Yes, the Reserves. Not Active Duty. He will soon be a member of the Reserves.

How soon, you ask?

Great question! Check out my handy-dandy Countdown! -->

Apparently I Have Really Ugly Clothes

I have this bag of clothes that I'm trying to sell to consignment or second hand shops and I've been turned down twice. I will have to donate them, not that that's a bad thing, but I can't help but feel slightly rejected. My clothes are so ugly that even secondhand shops won't take them? That can't be good. Maybe I've been walking around wearing ugly clothes this whole time and no one told me. (Tut-tuts! I expected more out of you all!)

Seriously, what is the good of hanging around teenagers if they don't tell you when you're out of fashion? It's possible that they think I'm too far gone to be saved, in which case, I might as well let myself out to pasture now. On the other hand, they are certainly handy for keeping up on on musical tastes. I was in the dance club on the cruise ship with all the girls, and I knew EVERY single song that was played. On one song, Ali asked me, "Okay, so what's THIS song?"

"Souljaboy", I said, with authority, trying to act like I'd known the song for months, when the truth was I had heard it for the first time with New Tut-Tut just a few days before. See? Teenagers ARE good for something!

On another note, the LT had my new computer all ready for me when I got back, it's awesome, and I'm typing on it now. Everyone thank the LT for keeping me sane. (My previous computer was almost ten years old, and that is just ridiculous for a computer.) The problem is, the chair I'm using for my computer desk is far too tall for it, and I had never realized that before because I didn't spend enough time at the computer. Now that I'm more sucked in because of my awesome new computer, I realize that there's terrible glare on my screen and sitting here for hours on end will make me bent double before my time.

Of course, I could just sit here less, but we all know THAT'S not going to happen, so I'll have to find another chair! Darn, more stuff to buy!

Too Tiredf to Spell

I wrote a post on the other blog and tried to use the word "excellent". After spelling it wrong four times I had to have google correct it for me. And the typo in the title is accidental, but I thought I'd leave it because it was so apropos.

Hello from San Jose! I was in Miami two days ago and the Bahamas two days before that. My brain is actually emitting a buzzing noise when it tries to think, like a very old computer that sounds like its chewing gravel when it has to run more than two applications at once. (Speaking of very old computers, the LT is building me a new one as I speak! YAY! Thank you, LT!)

I was home for about four hours on Tuesday, between spending all night in a Miami airport and taking off again for my business trip to San Jose. Fortunately here on the West Coast there are Starbucks galore, oh so handy if you're trying to stay awake in a business meeting. Also let me just say that I absolutely love Miami and plan to convince the LT to move there. Nobody tell him, 'kay?

Pictures:

Titan wearing his vest, five weekends ago.

LT and I on the beach in Seaside, Oregon, four weekends ago.

Leslie and I ready to go out, three weekends ago.

Titan wants to go out, too!

Pictures from backstage at the Wilco Concert, three weeks ago

Miami, looking gorgeous, last weekend.

And yes, I will post more pictures from Miami! Coming soon!

After I sleep for twelve hours.

Notes from the Miami Airport, 12:25 am

Do not forgot cute quotes from this cruise weekend! Too late. (We said a lot of really funny things--I think--but I forgot them all. Dangit!

Spanish television appears to have a lot of actual making out on it. I ended up watching some silly reality television show about matching up couples due to their astrology sign, and even though most of the questions were standard dating questions, they showed a “successful” couple in flashbacks who appeared to make out constantly. Although it was odd, it was neat. American dating shows often stick to a chaste peck during TV time and then flash forward to the sex part.

Speaking of television, I can see why non-native speakers can teach themselves English by watching television. Especially television with sub-titles. Since reality TV is equally bad in Spanish-speaking and English-speaking countries, it was easy to figure out what questions they were asking—and then match the questions to the sentences flashed on the screen at the bottom.

Speaking of, again: Maybe I could have used a little more of that TV watching. My Spanish is, yes, pretty bad, although after a few days in Miami and on a cruise where most of the guests were bilingual, Spanish and English, I picked a little back up. (Of course, my ORIGINAL plan was to work on my Spanish long before the trip with The Intern Who Is No Longer An Intern, who speaks Spanish fluently—having spent many summers in the Dominican Republic—but we all know how well my pre-planning works out in general. Honestly, I just never got around to it.) In any case, I was faking it well enough by the end of the trip that two very nice boys from Mexico told me my Spanish was excellent. And while I tried to appreciate the compliment, I knew they were either kidding me or just plain wrong—I couldn’t even remember the word for “rain”. (I was trying to say it rains in Seattle. In case you’re wondering, gentle readers, it’s “Hace joviendo”—“We Have Rain.”) (A lot of Spanish phrases, literally translated, sound like badly-written commercial jingles, I don’t know why.)

Okay, so I was told by a nice older lady here at the airport that my Spanish was good, but I must admit she had an ulterior motive. She was selling me coffee. (Perhaps she wouldn’t have worked so hard to flatter me if she knew how likely it was that I, personally, would buy coffee.)

All in all it was a great weekend, in fact a fantastic weekend, both the parts in Miami and the parts on the cruise, and especially the parts with my girlfriends and ESPECIALLY the part with a Miss A. Klinger, who was my buddy the whole trip and whom I should really email more, and especially fly to L.A. to see the first chance I get.

But of course, it was also just as amazing to see Anna Banana, one of my closest sorority sisters of all time, and also my old roommate Noaillese, who roomed with me for two years. Now that I am sitting in a lonely Miami airport at Oh-Dark Thirty I keep thinking I hear their voices, and yes, I realize how crazy that makes me sound.

My excuse: it’s been almost a week since I slept more then four hours per day, including naps.

I have talked with the LT twice, both of us laughing from exhaustion (he went on a two-day backpacking trip, and by the way I should ALWAYS call him when we’re both this tired, he thought all my jokes were funny) and arranged most of my trips for the next three days (I won’t be home until Friday) and have at least some idea of what I’ll be doing here at the airport for the next seven hours. (Sleeping and watching movies.) I am so tired I am ready to fall over dead.

Ah, Family

Me, packing up the Titan Tote for his trip to grandma's house: "Oh, there's a bottle of wine in here."

My mom: "Oh, good! I'll take that! It'll be something for your grandmother and I to drink on the drive home."

Me: "Yeah, if you actually did that, I'd be really impressed. And then I'd call the cops."

Mom: "Some friend YOU are."

My grandmother, joining in on the Aarwenn trash-fest: "Yeah, thanks a lot, lady. Who are you anyway?"

Me: "Okay, I'm taking the bottle of wine. For myself. THANK you very much."

Mom: "Typical."

Who says we're not related?

Also.

Claire, my Tut-Tee, has expressed her opinion that my Blogging the Relationship posts are not as exciting as they used to be. "Spice it up," were her exact words.

Whatever.

In retaliation I say: I know ten times as many words as you do.

It's Already Been a Week? WHAT?

I saw my Number One Tut-Tee today. "You haven't blogged in awhile," she said, and I said, "I've been busy!" She accepted my answer, which is a good thing because if she had pushed the subject, I would have said, all self-righteously, "I just blogged, like, yesterday!"

There's two things wrong with this. First thing: My Brand New Tut-Tee (yes, a new one!) says "like" so often that in our first meeting I kept a Like O' Meter, so I should really be watching my own use of "like", and second, I blogged nowhere near yesterday. Even like, yesterday. I last blogged A WEEK AGO.

Dammit.

It's sad, really, because I've had lots of stuff going on. Tons of stuff to blog about. The LT has been gone--at his ten-year high school reunion, at the risk of aging him, and I've been doing lots of really neat things. Yes. Neat Things. I know adjectives, I swear.

I've been doing some home improvement, for one thing. I hope to (eventually) post a bunch of pictures from that. I spent a serious amount of money at IKEA. I hung out with someone I've referred to as "Dave's wife Julie" before this, but can now proudly refer to as "my friend Julie." I saw C, she of Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Sanity. Titan and I took ginormous walks. Oh yeah, and I went to work.

It's Sunday night, again, again. Titan is asleep next to me on the sofa, and I'm eating Garlicky Swiss Chard and Tahini Dressing, and for a full discussion of why tonight was the hardest cooking night ever, check out my Other Blog. I'm reflecting over the weekend, which is certainly not the first weekend I've spent without the LT, but rare enough that it's worth at least a little reflection. For example, on the night that Julie hung out, a guy tried to eat my arm.

I'll let that sink in.

Yes, a guy tried to eat my arm. It was was very bizarre. I have had nights before where men followed me around the bar and stuck their noses in my neck (my perfume, that I've worn for years, is a minor celebrity in my hometown) but someone trying to nibble on my arm was pretty new.

Although that level of attention can be uncomfortable, I have to say I hope this magic lasts until MIAMI!

I swear, I SWEAR, there will be a few more posts in the upcoming days before I leave. And on that note, I leave you with this picture of Titan in his vest:

Oh, whoops. Maybe tomorrow?

Hello, I Am Broke

But I had an EXCELLENT time.

An old friend of the LT's came into town this week, mainly just for vacation, and we had a great time going out and spending a great deal of money.

We ate out, we drank, we ate out some more. Then she and I bought clothes and ate out some more. And then...well, you get the picture.

LT and I drove her to the plane today and proceeded to do the only thing we knew that was free, i.e., eat leftovers from all the days we went out and then go on a long walk with the pooch.

As of now I am sitting on my sofa, thanking Blog that I get a bunch of new tutoring students AND (supposedly) my raise, because otherwise I'd be begging on the street. And I'm yawning. A lot. The Dawg and I are both exhausted. He was curled up next to me just now, and I tried to show Titan a recent (semi-recent) Mythbusters episode, entirely devoted to dogs, and although he usually reacts to barking dogs on television, in this case I may have been a victim of poor timing. On the screen, German Shepherds (Titan's own breed!) (mainly) did their guard dog thing, bloodhounds bayed, and Alaskan Malamutes (Titan's other breed!) howled, and what did Titan do? He snored.

Maybe I'll try again when he's more awake. The man is in his sixties, after all. Sadly, I don't have the same excuse, and I'm just as tired. 'Night.

Random Thursday Thoughts

Author's Tolerance Misplaced, Sense of Righteous Outrage Takes Over

I saw a bumpersticker on my way into the Lazy B today that read: "Marriage is One Man, One Woman. Visit: www.NoGayMarriage.com."

Someone who is more compassionate may have the courage to visit that site; I sure haven't. Much like I don't visit the site of the National Vanguard, or whatever the heck they're calling the Neo KKK these days. I just don't want to see that much hate before my first cup of coffee. Of course, it's possible that the owner of the car and bumper sticker simply believes anything his or her church tells him or her, and got that sticker out of a welcome packet, and hasn't done any critical thinking, so that this bumper sticker displays ignorance, and not hate, but I think it's unlikely.

But ignorance does happen. It reminds me of an episode several years ago in which a professor at University of Indiana Bloomington wrote in his personal blog, "Why don't they keep gay people from having childcare jobs, since they're so likely to be child molesters?" There was a huge storm following this post, in which several people challenged the professor to present his facts, and said professor was flabbergasted when people asked him for facts. Didn't everyone just know that gay people are child molesters? The poor guy was even more flabbergasted when he couldn't find any facts to support his assumption. The rest of the university was much more flabbergasted that one of their professors seemed to be unaware of the importance of "facts" in scientific research, and fired him. (Last I heard.)

Being Frugal Still Exciting to Author, Still Boring to Blog Audience

I have learned: driving down to the ferry after six and parking on the street, as long as you can manage to retrieve your car before eight am the next day, is the cheapest and fastest option to get to Bremerton. Parking: free. Time to drive: Maybe 12, the way I drive, if you head east on Aloha and take 12th Ave south all the way to Yesler.

What is not frugal: having houseguests. LT has old friends from high school in town this week, and we have eaten dinner out or had drinks every night so far this week. And I haven't had time to go the grocery store, so I'm buying my LUNCH, too. It's lovely, but terrible for the swimsuit figure (thirteen days until I leave for Miami!)

It's okay, I have totally given up on having a hot figure for Miami. I'll try to rock a Marilyn Monroe aesthetic.(Marilyn Monroe was a size 14, according to legend, although that probably translates to a size 10 in present-day vanity sizing).

Only slightly more tan, I hope.

Titan Receives Birthday Present, Not So Thrilled

But it does not matter, because I love it, and what humans think is all that counts, right? RIGHT?

Titan's birthday present was this K-9 Cooling Vest, the first piece of clothing he's ever owned. He doesn't much like wearing it, but the thing works like gangbusters--he doesn't even pant on hot days! It's really amazing. And it assuages my owner guilt that I don't make time to take him to play in the water every day, especially in the summer. And like I said. What I think is all that matters.

Blogging the Relationship, #18

The LT mentioned that I hadn’t done one of these in awhile, and that is indeed the case—but not because we’re not dating or talking anymore. I used to do them a lot, especially at the start of our relationship—we communicated well and were from very different backgrounds, so it was a kick to see how different—and how similar—we were, not to mention we spent every waking moment together, so there was a lot to blog.

Recently, things have been changing so much—LT’s getting out of the Navy! LT’s NOT getting out of the Navy! LT’s getting out in August! LT’s getting out in January—and we’ve had so many social engagements that a lot of our time has been spent strategizing, planning, and traveling.

Oh, and going to weddings. (The bane of my existence.) (Except for yours, T-Town.) But at any rate, we’ve mainly been doing stuff, not really chatting, and there hasn’t been much to blog that wouldn’t have required a map and a ten-minute explanation of the event, and no one wants that. Do you?

But just this weekend we got to run away together to Seaside. Yes, that is actually the name of the town. It’s a town…on the sea. Seaside. And it also happens to be the host of the largest amateur volleyball tournament in the country, and even though I hadn’t played volleyball since sixth grade P.E. and had bad memories in any case, one of LT’s old high school friends, now in Phoenix, is pretty big into volleyball and was going to this tournament, and the LT and I thought—why not?

So we ran away to the beach, leaving everything else behind, and had a magnificent time. I even played volleyball.

But the coolest part was that the LT and I got to…you know, TALK. When you’re stuck in a car with someone for ten hours round-trip, there’s not much else you can do. We talked about movies I wanted to see (Stardust) and meat substitutes (generally a bad idea) and our friends and what we’re going to do with his houseguests (LT has TWO ex-girlfriends coming into town, and they’re BOTH staying with him!) and fashion (!) and all sorts of stuff. It was nice.

And, of course, the hanging out on the beach wasn’t too bad, either.

Anyway, I'm now home with a dog who was spoiled all weekend by visiting family, a dirty apartment, and the worst traffic to hit I-5 since the Viaduct scare. And fifteen houseguests arriving. Fun, fun! If only the sun would come out.

My House is Filled with Fruit Flies and I Can't Take My Trash Out

Also I have nine things overdue from the library and some of them are CDs, and it's very gray here (this summer has been a much more typical Northwest summer than our previous summers, perhaps global warming is more of a myth after all) and for some reason neither the recycling nor the trash has been picked up from my apartment building in what seems like weeks, and I am not happy about it. At all.

However, in happier news, I did get to go to The Sale. Yes, THAT sale,, one of the main reasons to live in Seattle, in my opinion. I missed it last year and was distraught, much to the LT's bemusement, and was overjoyed that my aunt, my mother and myself got to go this year. We shopped until we dropped, and I haven't dared to look at my credit card yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm not in the poorhouse. Yet.

And in much MUCH happier news, I have bought a motorcycle helmet! The LT has bought a motorcycle, you see, and in order to ride on said motorcycle I need a motorcycle helmet, which I have finally bought last night and am super happy about it. It's plain silver, a full face helmet, and it's perfect.

Final note for Monday: RIP Aarwenn's microwave, which she bought not more than two and a half years ago and now refuses to cook. It does everything else--keep time, run a timer, all the lights come on--but it refuses to cook and the terrible Westinghouse people have screwed on the back with special fasteners that cannot be removed. T-Town, reading this, will remember that she and I had a similar issue with a Sharp Microwave that I ALSO ruined (with a baked potato) and she henceforth went out and bought a simple, twenty-dollar microwave that could be fixed if necessary, although of course it wouldn't be worth it to fix a twenty-dollar microwave.

Apparently I didn't learn from that experience and did not check the back of my Westinghouse microwave, being distracted as I was from its gorgeous dark gray color and general Jetsons style. (Really. It was pretty.) One might also point out that I didn't respect its beauty enough, as I moved five or six times in the two years that I owned it and I can't promise I always treated it perfectly, probably leading to its early demise.

Too bad. It was a very pretty microwave.

Finally, a Day Off

...and I spend it by blogging, of course!

As everybody local has noticed, the Blue Angels are in town for Seafair this weekend, as mentioned here, (albeit nastily). But don't mind them--or mind me minding them--as I'm a little pissed at that blog anyway. That blog mainly covers 15th Street in Capitol Hill, and they wanted someone to take over the Broadway Blog, which naturally I jumped at...but did they pick me? No.

I hope that guy's good, that's all I can say.

I planned to wash dishes today--I really did--and then this morning (or maybe afternoon) before I was really too awake, I was about to start washing when my elbow acted of its own accord and knocked a wineglass off the counter, sending shards of glass flying everywhere on my kitchen floor, right as I was trying to feed the dog. I froze, of course--suddenly I had glass everywhere and Titan was calmly eating his breakfast as if nothing had happened. I moved his food out of the kitchen, checking it carefully (almost gone anyway) and rinsed out his water dish, which had what seemed like hundreds of little glass shards floating on top. Not having a broom and having run out of swiffer cloths, I had no choice but to vacuum, which may not have been the best idea, but it got the kitchen clean enough for me to leave, which I had to do to buy a broom.

Of course, I also happened to swing by the Wayward Cafe and eat a full breakfast along with a peanut butter-chocolate square, just like the ones my mother used to make, and also return some shoes and also maybe buy some hot rollers and ALSO, finally, buy a broom. But I swear all those things were necessary. I swear.

After the busy-ness of last weekend, with a wedding, camping, Capitol Hill Block Party, a family reunion, and tutoring, I'm looking forward to this weekend being slightly more chill. On the radar: LT, our friend Dave, myself and a few others hitting The Ave tonight. Nordstrom's Sale with my mother and aunt tomorrow morning. (A Seattle tradition.) Motorcycle helmet shopping (!) tomorrow afternoon. House party tomorrow night. An oil change. And, of course, tutoring.

And I swear that is slow compared to LAST weekend.

Pictures!

LT and I, dressed up,

Leslie and I hugging,

Myself, posing by a fountain.

Leslie and Eric got married at the Thornewood Castle, a gorgeous manor house here in the South Sound.



These two taken by the LT or myself.

This one taken from the website of Thornewood Castle.

It was really stunning.

Off to shower and primp--it's 4:20 pm, and the weekend is fast approaching!

What Can Keep a Girl Up at 3:30 in the Morning?

A MAN, of course.

And I refer to just one man: Mr. Potter.

Yes, I have finally got my hands on a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I have read it, and I should be beaten heavily for doing such a thing to myself on a work night. It is three thirty in the morning and my eyes hurt, and I am going to bed for the next three hours. Everyone wish me luck.

Wiped out and Working

One of the interesting things about getting paid for your brainwork, with its definite intangible qualities, as opposed to getting paid for more visible work like (for example) running around waiting tables, is that your work is definitely cyclical. Some days you get to enjoy the results of your brainwork, days on which you write reports, attend important meetings in which Decisions Get Made, and tell your boss things like, "The Air Filtration team loves me!"

And then are days--that stretch into weeks, that stretch into months--in which you sit on your rear, read some reports, and do basically nothing.

Or at least it FEELS like nothing.

And while those times are happening, I'm worried and stressed out. I read as much as I can, drop by my bosses' office, try to arrange meetings with people--and nothing happens. I sit on my rear for months and feel guilty about it, terrible slow-motion knawing-away-at-me guilt, but there's nothing I can do about the nature of the business, and that makes me feel out of control and stressed about it, like I'm drifting along a pretty lake and pretty soon, with no warning, a gigantic pleasure cruiser will come along, and WHAM.

That never happens. Although this happens every summer, this period of downtime, I haven't dropped the ball yet, no one has suggested to me that I'm not working enough. But the possibility that they might--that eats away at me.

So let me just say that even though I'm dead exhausted and working on my days off, the sudden upswing in activity--just as it always happens--is so much easier to face than a vague, terrifying anxiety, and therefore even though I have fifteen social events to attend this weekend and only 24 hours in the day and people keep scheduling meetings on my days off and I can't take a break for the next two months, I feel great.

Also, my friend BL is in town--a very old friend from college--and I fully expect to kick it, as the kids say, with both him and assorted friends and motley hangers-on every night this week, and it will be awesome.

Send coffee.

The Birds and the Bees

T-Town, who is not dead but indeed is married, emailed me today to complain about her lack of exposure on this blog. "I do not feel that I have done anything so grievous as to be demoted to a once a month supporting character in the drama of your life," she wrote, "and furthermore, I object to being referred to as "panicked" the morning of my wedding. I think I was quite calm, thankyouverymuch! So if you could simply print a retraction of the aforementioned comment about my mental state the morning of my wedding and begin to include me in more of your online life, that would be great. Thanks."

Let it heretofore be said: T-Town was NOT panicked on the morning of her wedding. In fact she was remarkably calm. I admit to stretching the truth to make a funny blog post, so sue me. Calm brides are just not as funny as panicked ones. I have spoken.

Moving on: I wrote that I had appreciated the laugh, and that the LT had made me laugh that day too, as he called me and said, "HIBABY!" and hung up, just like that. And she wrote the following, which is too good not to share:

"I'm glad I could make you laugh. I am sometimes afraid that people will not understand my sarcasm over the Internet, but you always seem to get it.


For example: here at the Pierce County Office, there tends to be three kinds of people:

1. People who have had their sense of humor beaten out of them by working for The Man
2. People who are so tired of working for The Man they communicate entirely in bitter sarcasm, and
3. People who are too stupid or too new to feel as though their soul has been eaten by The Man.

And the other day there was a post on the Intranet want ads that displayed all of this very well. It was a contentious debate over how to rid your house of unwanted bees and the war raged on for three days.

The original poster was a #2. He explained that he had bees living under his house and before he sprayed them with gasoline and torched them out, he figured he would ask if anyone had a better idea.

The next poster was a #3 and he explained that gasoline is noxious and would probably kill the bees even if you did not light it on fire.

The next poster was a #1 and she said that bees are harmless and valuable and gave him the contact information of five area beekeepers he could contact to come "reclaim" his bees.

The next poster was also a #1 who suggested that the original poster would be put on some type of arson watch list if he was not careful about his posts from now on.

Then the original poster explained that these are not honey bees and he had no real intention of burning his hose down he just wanted some advice on riding his home of bees.

Enter a new poster obviously a #3 of the "new" variety, who suggested Simple Green, actually a reasonable suggestion...

...And then another #1 responded with, "O M G PLEASE TELL ME THAT YOU ARE JOKING....GASOLINE !!!!! AND UNDER THE HOUSE NO LESS !!!!!!!!. TALK ABOUT YOUR STUPID HUMAN TRICKS !!!!"

It went on and on this way with people cracking jokes about "igniting a firestorm of controversy" and other people berating people for joking about arson until...

The only sane person finally suggested that the man with the bee problem should acquire some Mexican killer bees to kill the bees he has.

A perfect solution! The End.

All Discombobulated

...a word that is not used often enough, I think.

LT and I were talking on the phone a few nights ago, and our chat turned to upcoming events, and people coming into town, and more weddings and trips we were taking and camping trips and all sorts of other things, and by the time we were done I felt like I should have gotten out my calendar. But since I hadn't done that, I was going crazy trying to remember everything instead, and my brain is now twitched so far ahead that I just looked at this blog and was SHOCKED to see that I had only written five posts in July. And then I was even more shocked to realize that indeed we are only halfway THROUGH July, and I still have half a month to go!

Which is good, because although the LT and I have gone camping, taken Titan to the beach, and also Titan and I stroll through a wading pool on warm evenings, therefore celebrating summer in a small, citified way, we have not yet played around with the sailboat, an important thing to do as much as possible every summer. In fact, I have bought a new swimsuit for just such an occasion.

La la la. Onto Aarwenn Summer Culture.

Watching

Burn Notice and Psych, both lots of fun.

Listening To

Back To Basics

Handsome Boy Modeling School

Lakme

Blue Scholars

Tombraider Soundtrack

Eating

Fruit by the pound. Hooray summer in the PNW.

Drinking

Strawberry and banana daiquiris. With a little added spinach and flax oil, you can convince yourself it's good for you.

Hooray for summer!