Adventures in Housekeeping

In Which I Discover How to Treat a Rust Stain

...Sadly, AFTER I tried to treat it with bleach. Bleach had just whitened my sink and I was about to use it on my bathtub. Why wouldn't I splash a little on a rust-stained counter?

Because the oxidizing action in bleach SETS rust stains, which are themselves a reaction of metal and oxygen. I can't believe I have a degree in chemical engineering and still didn't think that one through. Now instead of a small rust pan-ring on my counter, I have a large orange diagram of an ameoba.

In Which I Set My Kitchen On Fire

I've flirted with this for some time, as I often turn my oil on very high even for non-high-heat things like sauteing, but finally it happened: the oil in the pan caught on fire. Nice big orange fire, too--nice red flames. I looked at my pan, and said, out loud, "My kitchen's on fire," very calmly if I do say so myself. LT, who happened to be at my house at the time, rushed in. I said, "Oil fire," he looked around for anything solid (NEVER put out an oil fire with water!) I handed him a gigantic bag of baking soda, which was not open. "Knife," I said, handing him a knife. He opened it with a few cuts and dumped the baking soda on the fire. Crisis averted. Later he said, "At least I know you don't panic in a fire," and I appreciated this, although I felt pretty panicky at the time--I had to have him come in and put it out!

In Which I Make Soda Bread

I am not Irish at all, but between my name, my reddish hair, and my strong angular features, I swear something weird happens when I walk into an Irish bar. Suddenly my freckles show up and my hair glows real, actual, red; fiddles start playing in the background. I've had people ask me how long I've been in the States. I should learn an Irish accent just to give them a thrill. (Often I pretend to be Irish, actually, even in real life, because no one believes me when I claim I'm a mix of various Scandinavian countries with a little Native thrown in.)

Anyway, even if I'm often mistaken for Irish even though I'm not--that doesn't mean I can't make soda bread, long thought to be an Irish invention when all they had was potatoes and no yeast. It can be made with any kind of flour, gets its rising action from a combination of vinegar and baking soda, and doesn't require special dough rising cycles--you just throw the dough together and stick in a pre-heated oven. Since Titan ate my second loaf of bread this week, I went ahead and tried soda bread instead, since I have several more days to go before I can visit the grocery store--and even when I do, I can only spend negative thirteen dollars. Yes. I am over The Grocery Budget. It turned out fine, although a little heavy. Next time I might glaze the outside, which will give it a crisper crust, and actually mix the wet and dry ingredients separately, which will allow more overlap of the baking soda and vinegar. The taste is quite nice, though--a nice sweet flour flavor. (No yeast taste. Odd.)

In Which I Learn to Apply Contact Paper

I always thought contact paper was for frumps with too many cats. But then I saw some very nice applications in some of my favorite design magazines, and I looked at my plain brown shelf in my kitchen, and I thought, "Hmmm!" So I ordered some nice black and white checked contact paper, looked rather like the pattern used on racing flags, and also threw some tan and green printed diamond paper in for good measure. (It looked vaguely harlequin-like on the website.) The rolls came in about two weeks ago; I cheered at the black-and-white, frowned at the tan-and-green, and let the rolls site under my entry table for weeks. Finally, yesterday, I had a chance to clear off the ugly wooden shelf and apply the black and white.

It's surprisingly hard to apply a very, very long sheet of contact paper with no wrinkles or bumps, but I managed it--I peeled one end off first, stuck it down evenly, and then peeled the paper from under the patterned side in stages, pressing as I went. No, no pics--sorry. But boy, does it look good!

In Which I Learn How to Clean My Gas Stove

My particular gas stove top is a bear to clean because the pilot lights are always on, meaning that any sort of cleaning spray I use immediately fumes up--not to mention even the littlest stain on the stove is continually baked onto it by the heat. Finally I hit upon the bright idea of filling a plain spray bottle with water and just spraying the stove down constantly--this got off a majority of stains, especially with a little elbow grease. For tough stains, I sprayed enough water to make a pool on the stove and sprinkled in a little cleaning powder. And then I applied lots and lots of elbow grease. And hey, presto--clean stove!

Even the LT noticed.

And finally, a product plug: the Pet Hair Removal Sponge. (Brand shown is not quite the same brand as the one I have, but the sponge looks identical.) I got this almost a month ago after the pet store guy had rave reviews for it, but I wasn't ready to try it until yesterday. (Who knows why?) I can tell you: IT WORKS. It is absolutely amazing. The pet hair clings to the sponge and balls (or threads) up, eventually rolling off for easy removal. I cleaned the futon and Titan's bed with no electricity, and no "blowback" from the vacuum! Amazing!

Next trick I plan to try: putting aluminum foil on the sofa to prevent Titan jumping up on it. Will it work? I'll share it here.

And I Was All Worried That I Had Nothing to Post

Once upon a time, (aka a few weeks ago) the lovely and breezily elegant Kristy had a burst of creativity. She suddenly remembered her old corporate seminar days, and offered a very lucky ten people the chance to field Deep and Important Questions from her and answer them on their blogs!

And I thought, What a fabulous idea! I love talking about myself and answering random questions, and I love Kristy! I will volunteer! And I did!

And then I completely forgot about the whole thing.

But never fear, Kristy. I have finally answered them. And let me just take this moment to say that it is Kristy, and Kristy ALONE, who got me into this fabulous world of blogspot and introduced me to Crazy Aunt Purl, and my life will never be the same again. (Also, apparently Firefox spellcheck doesn't recognize Blogspot or Spellcheck as words. That just seems wrong, somehow.)

Without further adieu, onto the questions!

1. You've been kidnapped by crazed plastic surgeons. They will release you, of course, on the condition that you let them perform ONE feat of cosmetic surgery. What do you do?

This one is super easy: my...okay, no it's not. My boyfriend reads this blog!

Um...think, Aarwenn, think...well, okay, I'll just be honest. I would have them slim my thighs. If I could change one thing about my body, it would be my thighs--I know, I know, they're muscled and womanly, but hey. She asked me.

2. Poof! You are The Queen of Kingdom Fabulous. You have devoted royal subjects and are allowed -- as is the decree of this land -- three servant-like people who are on-hand all the time. Each of them have very specific roles; they each assist you with a specific duty. The question is, if you did have three people who tended to you every day, taking care of one of your needs, what would those three things be?

This one, too, seemed easy until I tried to answer it! Hmmmm, three servants, three specific duties...okay. I would have one collect all the dog hair in my house. Her job would be defined by dog hair, be it bedroom, bathroom, sofa, on the floor, on my clothes, whatever. She would be the Anti Dog-Hair Zen Master. I would have another one do my laundry, if that's not too many subtasks under one--she'd wash, dry, fold, and iron. Laundry Zen Master. And finally, when I wasn't racing my many motorcycles or sports cars, for everyday driving, I'd get a damn driver! All I want to do is read while I'm in the car! (Too many years of being an only child and accompanying my mother to work and back, I fear.)

3. What's the hardest you ever remember laughing?

During Bambi, at the ice-skating scene. The image of Bambi losing his traction on the ice and skidding into a snowbank with Thumper on his nose STILL makes me giggle.

4. In what role was Michael Keaton sexiest? Why do you think so?

I have only ever seen Michael Keaton in one movie, and it was Batman Returns. Therefore.

5. What's one bit of trivia that you know and love to be able to throw out every now and again to (maybe) perhaps the company you're in?

76.4 percent of statistics are made up on the spot! No? Okay, I admit that I told people that a few times, and then the joke got very old--which didn't deter other people from telling me the same joke, apparently. My favorite new statistic for environmental supporters is this: in Puget Sound alone, the Lazy B's employees drive a total of ONE MILLION MILES A DAY.

It's pretty amazing.

The author would like to thank Kristy, Blogspot, and most importantly...people like you.

New Blog Widget Announcement

Don't pretend like you didn't notice, you totally did, I saw you look over in my sidebar.

Moving on.

The absolute BEST thing on the internet today--seriously, you can skip everything else, except maybe perusing my webspace--is this article in Wired. I have reprinted the entire thing below, because the risk that you might not read it if I left it as a link was just too much to bear.

Narcissistic Blog Disorder and Other Conditions of Online Kookery
Lore Sjöberg

The AMA recently suggested that perhaps gaming addiction should be considered as a sub-category of internet addiction. This is a step in the right direction. Clearly "internet addiction" doesn't begin to cover the realm of bizarre and pathological behaviors the internet inspires. Herewith a list of afflictions and syndromes I feel should be added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, or perhaps the DSM IV.Ib.

Narcissistic Blog Disorder

This disorder is characterized by the creation of a blog in which the individual consistently denigrates not only the opinions of others, but the very fact that others have opinions, saying things like "nobody cares what some overpaid starlet has to say about global warming" and "nobody cares what some crusty career politician thinks is wrong with society today." Simultaneously, the individual assumes that people do care about what he or she has to say, in spite of the individual's only political or activist experience being watching the movie Dave twice.

Bookmark Loop Disorder

Web bookmarks remain a popular way to waste time when one should be working. You check a site or two, get something done for a little while, then check your bookmarks again. Careful research, however, has shown that at a certain point the list of bookmarks grows, the "get something done" period shrinks, until the reader goes directly from the end of the list back to the top, just in case there are new updates. Once entered, this "bookmark loop state" often cannot be broken until a couple hours after a sane bedtime.

E-mail Gullibility Syndrome

Adults who preserve a healthy skepticism when people knock on their door asking for assistance or political support often lose that sense of suspicion when they first receive an e-mail account. Every caution about the dangers of kiwi fruit, every warning that the U.S. Congress is about to outlaw Santa Claus and every plea for assistance from deposed royalty is treated with utmost credulity and, where appropriate, forwarded to a dozen of the recipient's long-suffering friends and family members. Luckily this is usually a self-resolving disorder, disappearing after two years or $30,000 lost, whichever comes first.

Atemporal Fad Disorder

The desire to participate in an internet fad is considered by psychologists to be a natural, if sometimes unfortunate, aspect of human nature. Some individuals, however, appear to have a clinical inability to recognize the fleeting nature of fads, and continue to attempt to participate after everyone else is sick to death of the whole thing. The current diagnostic criterion is "the use of the phrase 'all your base are belong to us' in any non-ironic context" but in 2010 it is expected to be expanded to include any suggestion that a photo depicts a cat interacting with an invisible object.

Pugilistic Discussion Syndrome

In this curious form of aphasia, the subject is unable to distinguish between a discussion and a contest. The subject approaches any online forum as a sort of playing field, and attempts to "win" the discussion by any means necessary. The rules of the imaginary contest are apparently clear to the individual as he or she will often point out when others break them, but when asked to outline these rules the individual is reluctant, perhaps not wishing to confer an "advantage" on any "opponents." The conditions for winning are similarly difficult to pin down, although in some cases the individual will declare himself the winner of a discussion that, to all others, appears to be ongoing.

Amusement Identify Disorder

This is a sort of inverse cousin to Pugilistic Discussion Syndrome, in which the individual has difficulty distinguishing between an online game and real life. The individual sees his or her online character as being as "real" as the individual's real-world self, if not more so. One manifestation of this disorder is the tendency to treat game accomplishments such as impressive magic items or guild leadership as the equivalent of real-life accomplishments like pursuing a successful career or raising a family. In addition to impairing the individual's personal growth in the real world, this disorder also makes them extremely boring at parties.

Huge props and credit to Lore Sjöberg, in case you didn't notice his name earlier. According to his bio, Lore was born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjoberg eventually overcame these handicaps to suffer from at least two of the above afflictions.

The blog author herself also suffers from at least two specific afflictions in the list above.

In Which I Put My Skills to Good Use

Scene

It's 11:30 pm. I am reading, the LT is sleeping next to me, getting his beauty sleep so he can impress the interviewers tomorrow. (The LT's civilian job search has begun! What will I call him when he isn't an LT anymore?)

I myself am getting sleepy, and Titan has to go out one more time, so I get up, grab a sweatshirt, leash Titan, grab my keys, forgo shoes, and slap my hair up in pigtails to get it out of the way. We step outside. Titan does his thing. I look at my keys, shaking them to get the door key to hang down right.

The door key does not hang down.

I look at my keys more closely, and as I do, whispers of conversation come back to me:

"I'll be done with my interviews around 3 pm tomorrow," the LT said.

And I said, "Why don't you just take my keys, since I'll be home later?"

And the LT took my door keys off my key ring and added them to his own, and my mind I thought, 'I'll have to grab those when I take Titan out later', but that's as far as the thought got.

And so here I am, outside, no shoes, locked out of my apartment, with a dog, at 11:45 pm.

SHIT.

Titan and I run around the outside of my building, and a few other buildings. I yell the LT's name several times, as loud as I dare, waking up several dogs and by proxy, their owners, but no one's head pops out of their window. I throw rocks at my own window. No movement. I knock on my own front door and my neighbors' windows. Nothing. It's 11:55 and I'm stuck. And then I look up, and see that the window in the main hallway--a floor up--is open. And my porch is surrounded on two sides by a wooden trellis, attached to some columns. I shake the column. It appears pretty steady.

Which is how I ended up climbing up my porch at 11:45 pm in barefeet and pigtails. I bellied up to the roof of the porch and then raised the window sash in the hallway. Getting into the window is actually the hardest part of the whole process, as it's shoulder level to me, but I get my head through first and heave my butt through, and pretty soon, I'm standing in my own hallway.

Glory day. I go into my apartment, get my keys, run downstairs, retrieve Titan, run back upstairs to my apartment, set down the keys, and crash into bed.

The End.

Blargh, Or, Camping, Part One

It's Tuesday afternoon, I didn't bike to work, I'm stuck here for awhile, and I just got a text message from my friend "Bobby" saying, "Traffic is hell."

Great.

So, let's talk about the time my Jeep almost met its demise!

But first, the set up. Camping with the LT, our friend Dave, his friends, and three dogs a few weekends ago was completely awesome. We rolled into camp Saturday afternoon, set up our stuff, and let Titan roam in the water.
(Not shown is when I threw a tennis ball into the fast-flowing glacial river for him to get and he jumped in after it, and then I realized that he might swim after that tennis ball for longer than I could see him, freeze, seize up, and die. LT ran down two campsites, hoping to catch him, and I ran one campsite over, screaming Titan's name at the top of my lungs--until he came bounding out of the river bushes, apparently having forgotten all about the tennis ball. My dog has more sense than I do.)

After this excitement, I got a much-needed beer and of course, I immediately started to climb things:

I'm grinning here because of the peanut gallery offering helpful suggestions and betting on my success.

In Progress.

Which way is the river?

Success!

Later that night, we played some pong, outdoors in the cold, lit up only by a motion detector light, which fortunately read our flying pong balls as "motion".




The next morning:


Now. As it was a nice, sunny morning, we had no special plans for the day, and I had a Jeep, it occurred to the three of us that off-roading would be, yes, the perfect plan for the day.

LT pulled all non-essentials off Helter, including the doors, and we set up a rest spot for Titan--notice the dog bed in the shade under the top.
This is immediately what he did--he had played a lot the day before!

So the three of us, with snacks, sweatshirts, water, and most of us in long-pants, headed off to explore the logging trails of the Wedge Mountains.

Helter in a field of wildflowers.

Everything still going fine, in spite of my sudden decision to climb a ways down this mountain and then back up. (Not shown.)

Here's the problem.

Let me point out that I was actually not driving at the time. It was the LT who--with additional thanks to Dave and I, whom agreed that we could make it--was unlucky enough to try to dodge a big downed tree, only to discover that the hillside was not quite as solid as we thought it was. See that, how the ground slopes away under the car? That's not so good. I'm leaning waaaaaaay out up the mountain, trying to fight the feeling that I and the Jeep were about to roll off the cliff at any moment.

We tried and tried. I'm driving in this picture because the boys got out to help push or shore up the mountain. We tried everything, and we ARE engineers. Eventually we decided that every time I started up the Jeep and tried to drive her, more of the mountain slipped away underneath. We were stuck.

I was trying not to cry; we had taken a risk and it turned out that the consequence was going to be pretty big. I had visions of a strong wind coming along and rolling my Jeep down into the valley. As we walked away from her, every boom made me jump. Fortunately we at least had snacks and water, but it was now 4 pm and the temperature had dropped considerably, as it tends to do in the mountains. 911 came and found us, a sheriff with a great big handlebar mustache and and a distinct lack of attitude; he bumped up mountain roads for forty-five minutes, in his pickup, loaded us into the back, gave me a fleece, and started driving. I wasn't too sure how I would see Helter again.

In the Sheriff's Pickup.

Part 2, on its way!

Hi, Everyone! Still here!

And I have some excellent posts coming up, including the time my Jeep slid down a mountain with me in it, and how I feel about country music.

Also I have been very frugal--or at least kind of frugal--and I will post about that, maybe in the other blog.

Hope everyone's weekend has been great!

What Country Music Means To Me (Or, Blogging the Relationship #17)

I am sitting downstairs in the LT's house, reading some email and enjoying my Saturday; he is upstairs at his desktop computer, filling out some paperwork for the upcoming hiring conference (!) and blasting the new CD from Sugarland.

Sugarland, for those who don't know, is a relatively new country group built out of a lot of old-time country stars; I think every member is at least 30. But that's not the point, although it's an interesting side note. I know this fact because the LT, being from Texas, really likes country music, although that's not ALL he likes, Thank BLOG. I have been in places where they played nothing but country--see my recent trip to Texas--and in places where the old joke, "We play both kinds here--country AND western!" would apply--seriously. And I can tell you that if all he liked was country music, I'd spasm up, shrivel up, and possibly die.

I'm trying to think of a good way to say "But that's not because I don't LIKE country music" without actually saying it, because saying that--after saying I'd die if all I could listen to was country--seems contrary. It's not that country music is bad music--as a matter of fact, I'd venture to say that they have some of the best voices in the music business. It's more that country music is such a...a...whole self-contained universe that doesn't mix well with other genres. There's mashups of rock and pop, rock and rap, pop and rap, hip-hop and anything, classical and world music, heavy metal and classical, even. Country--with the County Music Awards, Country Music Television, and special Country Shows--doesn't mix well with anything else, and more importantly, it seems like it doesn't WANT to mix with anything else, if indeed a genre can even be considered to have wants. Country music is stand-alone. Where all other music genres are advertising, indeed flaunting, their crossover appeal, country music is not doing any such thing. It is proud to sound the same, look the same, and act the same as it did forty years before. Very little has changed.

*Note: There is certainly pop-country crossover, Shania Twain, the Dixie Chicks, and most recently Carrie Underwood being examples. But they all sounded country, even on their pop songs--it's more that pop stations played a few easy-listening country hits than country stations suddenly started playing pop songs.

*Note: I'll probably never forgive the country music world for what they did to the Dixie Chicks.

And because of that--the fact that even when a country artist can be considered "pop", she's still first and foremost country, I feel that country music can be a cold and ungenerous place, and what's more, it seems to speak to a whole area of the country that is cut off, geographically and mentally, from the rest of the world. The very name, "country"--whose country? Down-home country? Backwoods country? To me, that would imply easy-going and nice people, but the kind of people who turned on the Dixie Chicks because they publicly said they didn't like our president are NOT easy-going and nice!

Also, I have to admit that I have a personal bias. I loved the Dixie Chicks and I'm not a big fan of country music in general, so when country music obliterated the Dixie Chicks, it just looked to me like country music was a whiny, rigid, and closed-minded genre that wouldn't tolerate any differences of opinion.

And then there's country music and the LT. He grew up with it, not only in his family but overhead at the mall, at gas stations, at Sonic, and on friends' radios. To me, hearing him sing along with it is just a reminder that there's a whole part of his life that happened before I met him, before he moved to Seattle and learned how to ski and met a girl with a Jeep.

But really, that's okay. I spent most of my formative years immersed in classical music and church music, often the same thing, and me playing King FM, our local classical station, and reminiscing, hasn't seemed to bother him any. After all, the LT knows a lot more than country, and so do his old friends that I have met--they listened to hard rock, and rap, and pop, and fell in love with alternative the same time I did, even though I lived roughly 2000 miles closer to the scene itself. Just because the LT has country CDs doesn't mean he doesn't have a lot of other CDs, too, and it's the same way with me--I have some Maria Callas, some Vivaldi, and some Dvorak, but of course I also have Luscious Jackson, Nirvana, Lily Allen, and all the popular and less popular bands I've liked throughout the years. As with all couples that meet (or re-meet, in our case) after 25, there's automatically huge parts of our lives that don't involve each other. And that is as it should be, and what's more, it makes us more interesting and (dare I say) better people.

The Best Thing on the Internet Today

From an amazing comic that everyone (especially math people) should read on a daily basis. Even if it's not updated daily. Bend the rules of space and time somehow, I know you can do it.

With huge amounts of credit to the xkcd webcomic.

Saturday Things I Love

Things I Love Today

ING Direct. I recently opened a checking account AND a saving account, which I did because I: a. Was really, really influenced by the commercials. b. Got a good recommendation from my good friend T-Town, whom I swear is still alive--she's just getting married.

(Full disclosure: Although I did actually ask T-Town BEFORE I signed up, I went ahead and signed up for my accounts before she actually got back to me. Who, me impatient?)

So far, the interest rate rocks, and when I had to call ING to get a question answered, I got an answer RIGHT AWAY. I mean, I got the automatic answering, and then I heard, "Please hold, someone will be with you shortly", and then RIGHT AWAY I heard, "Hello, my name is So-and-So. How can I help you save your money?"

Now that's impressive.

Anyway, she turned out to be super cool, and when I asked her how she liked working at ING, she said, "I. Love. It. I love it. They're the best company I've ever worked for."

Now, THAT'S impressive!

Dinner at the Wayward with a Vegan. I know a guy who knows a guy...okay, so I met a guy that I met over the internet at a vegan place. He's a fellow member of a vegan board, and I was dying to get some Wayward and also desperately needing a little bike fine-tuning, and so I rode over and met him and felt very, very buff. T-Town (see, told you she was still alive) called me and I pulled over and answered, and she said, "So, what's up?" and I said, "I'm on my bike on the way back from dinner."

It was awesome.

I Am Not Losing Weight, And I Don't Care

Or, In Which I Promise To Myself to Stop Talking About Losing Weight, The End, I Mean It This Time.

See, about two years ago, I started trying to lose weight, and you know? I kind of liked it, and I kind of succeeded at it. More than succeeded; I excelled. I lost twenty pounds in about...what...six months? About. I had fit into a size twelve, at my heaviest, and all of a sudden, I owned two things with size six labels. I fit into a pair of pants I hadn't worn since high school. And a bunch of things with size eights. I had some sexy-butt pants, and I fit into them, and you know? It was nice. Although I knew I was a long way from looking like a long-limbed Guess model, I looked at some pictures from then and I thought, you know? That's pretty skinny. I like that.

And so this time two years later, I started trying to lose weight, and I didn't really get anywhere, and I thought--what the hell? I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked at the scale. The scale said I was five, sometimes ten, pounds heavier than I had been. The mirror said I looked okay, and I was still fitting into my sexy butt pants--and even the high school pants, some days. So I weigh a little more, and I could stand to be a little skinnier, but you know? I still think I look pretty good. I'm petite, small boned--the LT can span my entire lower back with one hand--and all that mac and cheeze shows a little, just because I'm small, so that's no good, but I'm still pretty active, and therefore I can convince myself that the extra pounds are muscle, not fat, and that works for me.

Because last time I lost weight, I realized I was hitting the gym regularly--very regularly--which I loved, and counting calories obsessively, which I didn't love. And this time I canceled my brand-new gym membership, because I wasn't using it, and I'm not counting calories because I can't stand it. I feel dumber every time. And I hate feeling dumber.

And you know? Instead of gong to the gym, not that that's not valuable, or counting calories, which is barely valuable even at the best of times, I've been doing some pretty cool stuff.

Skiing and drinking on Cinco de Mayo

Helter and I climbing a rock, in the Wedge Mountains outside Leavenworth.

Me concentrating. (Off road-ing is hard!)

A very messy braid, and looking over the Wedges, at the snow level in late May.

Dave Fry and I taking a break on the frame.

Self-timed photo of the LT and I (in his full LT stripes!) in our hotel room, pre-Submarine Ball.

Official Picture.

After the ball, with my hair coming down.

See? And would I have time to do all that if I was obsessively counting calories and hitting the gym instead of, say, climbing great big rocks outside?

No.

Even Titan's ear thinks counting calories is ridiculous.

Back From Camping!

Titan and I are back in my apartment; he's snoring away on the futon and I made a pan of mac and cheeze, and successfully limited myself to one and a half servings. (Wedding season starts in one month!) My dishes are washed and my bed is cleared off, although quite a bit of stuff from camping is still sitting out, and it is 1:20 in the morning and I am going to bed.

A Flight of Fancy.

You know it is summer when you are not the first one to notice, when even your dog notices, and everyone in the city notices, so that on a sunny afternoon during the happy hour the conversation on everyone's lips is all the same, about how beautiful the weather is, and how summer is really coming to Seattle, and if you leaned to your left and jumped in on the conversation of the strangers next to you, you would know exactly what to say: "THIS is why we live here."

Titan and I are taking longer and more leisurely walks these days, partly because it's so gorgeous and partly because we don't want to work up a sweat. We stroll up and down Broadway, taking in the scene. Today especially was one of those days when I couldn't stop smiling, because it was so gorgeous, and everyone on the Hill seemed to agree with me. There were tons of dogs out, of course, and Cal Andersen Park was PACKED. There wasn't a spare bench or patch of grass to be seen in practically the whole park. Titan and I passed by an older gay couple with their dogs, Yorkies with matching bows (in different colors) and while I generally have a low opinion of the intelligence of small dogs, I have to say that these Yorkies were wonderfully well-behaved and had a distinct lack of neuroses. The men and their dogs were walking slower than Titan and I were, and the men pulled over, for lack of a better word, and their Yorkies stood patiently while my long-legged German Shepherd trotted by. I was impressed, and so was Titan.

We circled the fountain and I saw these words scrawled in chalk on the wall: HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN, making me laugh. The day was so pretty that I even SMILED at some COPS, although generally my relationship with law enforcement can be described as antagonistic, and the cops scratched Titan's ears as he sniffed at their bicycle wheels. Rounding the final corner by Volunteer Park, on the way home, I looked up at a window decal reading, "He's not MY president" and was startled to see a big gray cat watching me intently. A pink tea rose bush shone on my right side as I was passed energetically by a young woman, carrying a pink cello case on her back, and I was strongly reminded of the poor knights who have to paint the white roses red in Alice and Wonderland, and therefore knocked sideways when the young woman looked at her watch and said, into her phone, "I'm so late!" I wanted to say, "Oh, my paws and whiskers!"--but assumed she would think I was just talking to my dog, who does, yes, have paws. And whiskers.

I Biked to Work Today!

It was necessary.

Not long ago, I was tutoring three girls, for a total of eight hours a week, not including the driving time of three and a half hours. I was gone from my house about fifty hours a week, maybe more. And that was fine--I was making a little extra money, I loved all of my girls, and I had excuses to eat out because I was always driving somewhere!

The problem is, between the eating out, the driving around, and the occasional stops at Target while driving around (!) I don't think I ever broke even. Whoops.

While I didn't want to cut back on my tutoring--after all, I liked having more pretty things, and boy do I like going to Target--that decision was just made for me last week, as two of my girls apparently got LIVES, and decided they could no longer squeeze me in! BOO! (You two--if you're reading this, I miss you!)

And that is the problem with tutoring, especially tutoring for something specific, like the SATs. If you're good (and I am) you end up tutoring yourself out of a job!

Oh well. All good things must come to an end, and all that. The point is, with all this free time, can you guess what I've been doing?

a. Rebuilding my sofa so that it doesn't break anytime anyone heavier than I am sits down on it.
b. Sewing my ceiling valance.
c. Preparing my house for my houseguests at the end of JUNE.
d. Sitting on my butt and eating Mac and Cheeze by the panful.

(If you guessed a, b, or c, I AM a tutor. I can help you with this block about standardized tests. Call me.)

Therefore, biking to work was ABSOLUTELY necessary today. However, it does occur to me that perhaps I should have gotten on the bike for a few test runs, as the last time I remember riding a bike was in middle school, and I'm embarrassed to say how long ago that was. Perhaps jumping on the bike and riding for ten miles, the very first day I had ridden a bike in over ten years, was a rash decision.

And I do mean rash. Thoughts on bike-riding:

1. I either need to get a more comfortable seat or padded pants. Or both. Ouch.
2. Biking in full daylight seems pretty safe--everyone saw me.
3. I was worried about sweat. I do have a little sweat, but no one has keeled over yet, and most importantly, I have no sweat on my face--probably because of the wind.
4. DRINK MORE WATER.
5. Eat more fruit! For some reason, I'm craving fruit--I brought an orange with me, but sadly, it's mostly bad--I ate a few sections and threw the rest away. I'm dying for a banana. Why? WHO KNOWS.
6. Airport Way seems really flat in a car. It's not so flat on a bike.
7. If I had known it would be that hard, I never would have done it...
8...But I have a huge sense of accomplishment and might do it again tomorrow!
9. Pretty sure I'm taking the bus home--the few hills I had to climb killed me. And it's ALLLLL uphill on the way back.
10. I thought my bag would be pretty light, considering I took almost everything out except my computer and my food. It wasn't anywhere near light enough.

But hey, I burned calories and saved money, and I defy anyone to come up with a better way to do both things at once!

Because I have 486 weddings and a bachelorette party on a cruise coming up. And I WILL look good. If it kills me.

High Roller

I haven't talked a lot about it in this blog, but I've been trying to budget.

Okay, a little. I mean, I'm less cavalier about buying stuff now.

I swear! Really!

(Justpleasedon'tlookatmygrocerystorebill.)

Anyway, I did the unthinkable today: I both bought my lunch, unusual in and of itself, and I BOUGHT A BOOK. At full price. (Okay, not--I had a coupon, and it was on sale at Barnes.)

But to buy a book--NEW--off the shelf, well, I felt pretty indulgent.

And no, I can't believe I'm getting excited about this, either.

Apparently I Suck At This Whole Blogging Thing

Highlights for today:

I opened a Roth IRA! Thanks to the encouragement and butt-kicking in Suze Orman's latest book, Women and Money. This book was so good that I bought it at full price, AFTER I checked it out of the library. It's really, really good.

I have to go to the dentist. Hope he doesn't mind the fact that I just ate a whole tub of Tahini Sauce on a fork.

In Which I Celebrate Mother's Day and Learn How to Clean

To say that I am not organized would be sort of an understatement.

I am so disorganized, both in my tangible properties and in my brain, that when I decide I want to leave the apartment, I end up running back and forth from the front door to various places, picking up things I've forgotten, no less than four times, and occasionally as many as ten times, every time I leave the apartment, including quick trips where I just walk Titan to the end of the block and back. It seems to be impossible for me to decide, "I want to walk Titan", and then think, in geographical order, "Put shoes on, sweep through kitchen to grab plastic bag, bring phone and a few bucks, grab keys and leash off the hook by the front door, leash Titan, walk out door, lock door."

Instead I put my shoes on, THEN leash Titan, grab my keys, remember that I need a plastic bag, go to the kitchen with Titan still leashed, dig out a bag, set my keys down, stand there for five minutes as I determine if I need my phone and wallet, search for phone and wallet, walk to front door, feel around for my keys and realize I've set them down somewhere, search for my keys, hampered by the fact that Titan is whining because he's leashed and ready to go, run to the front door, go out the door, lock it, and get to the coffee stand before I realize that I've still left my wallet at home.

The very first day that I realized that I COULD, even, grab a bag BEFORE I put Titan's leash on was a big day for me, readers. I do not know how or why my brain works so non-linearly compared to everyone else, but my god, no wonder the LT has so much more time than I do! Were someone to stand over me with a stopwatch, I think I would cry to see how much time I waste running in circles in my own, 850-square-foot apartment, like a dog chasing its tail, not to insult dogs. Because even Titan has more sense than me.

Therefore, on previous cleaning sessions, I would: strip the old sheets off the bed, sit on the bed to pick at my toenails for awhile, suddenly jump up and put water in Titan's bowl, decide while I was there to wash dishes, get halfway through that and decide I should organize my shelves better, pull half of my spices off the shelves, see a can of soup that would remind me that I have a coupon for that very brand in my purse, find my purse, decide that my purse needed to be cleaned, dump everything out on the table, find a magazine, and sit down at said table with the magazine for the next hour.

You can imagine the resulting cleanliness of my apartment, no?

But I'm getting better. I found a site that is so cheesy I'm almost embarrassed to say I depend on it, but since I do, I might as well come clean (HA!): FlyLady. The terms are sort of cheesy, and the site is mainly geared to homemakers with kids, but the genius of the site is its special mentality: JUST. DO. SOMETHING.

Flylady doesn't tell you to make lists: she tells you to stick up post-its. Don't be perfect, she says. While you're stuck in perfection, afraid to start cleaning for fear you won't do it perfectly, someone with a less stellar job and five kids who has never even heard of Gloria Steinem has a clean house, a balanced checkbook, and food on the table. Who is really ahead, here?

Therefore, when I got the call from my mother, and learned that I would have 10 people crammed into my tiny apartment on Mother's Day, I relaxed. I had already been washing my dishes and making my bed on a regular basis, now I just had to dust, sweep, and wash the windows. I did it in order, first washing the windows, all of them. Then dusting and cleaning, all surfaces. Then sweeping the floor, thoroughly. I even went to the LT's the night before and watched a movie with him! The family showed up and the place looked quite passable.

If that's not a victory, I don't know what is. (I mean, I didn't take a shower or scrub my shower and tub, and I DID have to run to the convenience store on Mother's Day so I could get toilet paper and handsoap, but you know. Progress!)

And while we're on the subject of Mother's Day: my mother, for all the time that I've known her, has been completely useless after dinner. (Not ALL the time, and not right after dinner--she and dad pick up the kitchen every night, after all.) But about 8:00 pm or so, she will sit down on her bed, or maybe at the kitchen table, with a book and at 8:07 p.m., she is asleep and drooling. (Hi mom!)

My new ongoing really old, but still unachieved goal in life is to beat this genetic habit. So far my process has been abysmal. But last night, you know, I came home from Date Night, looked around, took Titan out, looked around a little more, and thought...hell. I can just go to bed.

And I did!

A Look Back and a Thank You

Sometimes, when I can't blog--when I know I should be because I'm all knotted up emotionally, or maybe when I'm not that knotted up but just a little twisted, and I can't start, I go back and read my previous posts.

Not because I think I'm that good. But because I realize how far I've come. And that's sort of inspiring, this reminder that I only know how far I've come because I WROTE IT DOWN, and therefore, this benefit jars me into blogging again, at least most of the time.

One thing I do notice: there are so many posts, especially over the winter, to which I got strings of wonderful comments that I did not deserve, especially as I barely responded to anyone. Karen Mc Cullaugh, alex, beth and merideth, ramblin' girl and glitter, kt, m.thom, I love all of you--and if there's someone I missed, please consider yourself loved as well. All of your comments kept me going, and I was in too dark a place to respond much or read any of your blogs; it was all I could do to get to work every day and force myself to go skiing on the weekends, which may seem like a luxury, but I believe was truly the best thing I could have done. I leaned on a lot of people during that time, some of them without even knowing: my fabulous landlord M, who insists that he did nothing altruistic as he charged me rent (barely) but I pay no attention to that because he offered his very private house at a time when I desperately needed a friend, and more than that, a place to stay. My friend "Bobby", who carpooled with me, forcing me to get up on days I did not want to, therefore ensuring my continued employment. My wonderful boyfriend LT, who I leaned on so much that I think he actually carried me at times. And the mountains, who froze the depression out of me, forced me to exercise, and allowed me to transfer my fears of dying friendless, dogless, and poor to a fear of jumps instead, a much easier fear to conquer.

And some day in the future, when I'm really down and no immediate comfort is handy, I'll look at this picture and think..."Damn, Dave really makes me look skinny! Awesome!"

This Just In: Trips to Target do NOT Clean Your House!

Shocking! Horrifying! But there it is.

I have been spending a long time away from this blog, not doing anything constructive, but rather reading OTHER blogs. I have been going to the gym, and I have been buying groceries and cooking the food in my house as opposed to buying food on the way to tutoring and back (or trying to) and I have been making my bed every day (most days) and occasionally doing dishes BEFORE I need a clean dish. (Although in the case of my large cast-iron skillet, this may never happen.)

Yes. I have begun the long and horrifying process of Self Improvement. AGAIN.

Because I have learned even though you clean your house once, it does NOT stay clean, no matter how much you wish and hope it will. Laundry does not stay done, dog hair does not stay on the dog. Once you lose weight, the pounds do not disappear to the wind, never to be heard from again.

Phooey.

Got An Interesting Email

My close friend Not-Aarwenn (she has the same name as I do in real life!) sent me an email just the other day:

Hi Aarwenn,

I was reading your blog, in which you raved about some stationary, which was linked to this other blog and then just a one more link later, I find a blog that has a great recipe for gluten-free cupcakes! What a day! :)

Not-Aarwenn

All I can say is, my life has not been in vain.

*And while you are reading this--you're on the internet anyway--please click here. There's several sites on the web that have a Click To Give Campaign, in which all you do is click, and the sponsors of the program give a little bit for each click. (It's legitimate--featured on Snopes.com and all that.) There's six sites, making twelve clicks in all (you have to click on the site, THEN click on the "Click here!" button) and it will make such a difference! All you have to do is click!

*Because you know (and all my co-nerds, I'm talking to you) that you'll spend easily that many clicks on ThinkGeek today alone.

A Tale of Three Butts

Dog Butt
LT Butt
More LT Butt, because this is MY blog!
My Butt

It looks like the sun is finally out here in Seattle, for at least a short time, and I am working from home, which gives me the chance to get a few things done around the house...and by "a few things" I mean "maybe put away stuff that's been sitting out since I moved three months ago."

Surely a trip to Target is in order?

You just want to go buy more stuff for the house, when CLEARLY I need more toys instead!