Another Summer-End Flurry of Activity Chez Tracy

The great question...which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?' - Sigmund Freud

After some quality horn-locking and soul searching this summer, Drew took a long look at this question and answered, "a shed."

Actually, this is not a bad answer. I believe a garage is for garden tools, garden implements, and yard waste containers. Drew believes it is for road bikes, mountain bikes, cross bikes, dirt bikes, motorcycles, and tools to keep said two-wheeled vehicles in tip-top shape. Garden stuff just creates clutter, which he cannot abide.

In the heat of this friction, the "shed" answer doesn't look so crazy.

So, during his late September-early October vacation block, which he had originally planned to use for some (more) dirt bike riding, he and his friends, who swore that, with their help, we could have a better shed, built in a day, from scratch, for less money than it took to buy a ready-made or kit-made shed, fell upon the side yard with lumber, saws, earth-moving equipment, muscle, and some (some) brains.

When the day was over, we had a ten-by-twelve dance floor. Guess it takes longer than a day after all.

Day Two: walls!

Yes, it rained. Almost every day.

When the week was over, we had most of a shed, but much less money in the bank than we would have if we would have gone with the ready-made job. However, these are fire fighters, and they know what it takes to build something sturdy. We could use this baby as a storm shelter. Make that a fallout shelter. This thing has more studs than the house does.

...and a couple studs on top.

No, it's not quite done yet. It needs a coat of paint and a door latch. But it's a shed that wasn't there a week ago. So it's beautiful.

Test Your Awareness: Do The Test

This is worth sharing. Dean says Do The Test.

A Post As Exciting As Watching Plants Grow

So we had these bushes bordering the back yard. When we had the fence installed in the fall of 2005, we were able to clip them back from the property line almost to the foot required by the fence installers. That was the last time anybody (other than the odd squirrel or bunny) was able to get between the bushes and the fence.

The bushes came out of this winter looking like a bunch of dead sticks, as appealing as poisoned blackberry brambles along the highway. We had seen them weather several winters without any discernible loss of leaf, so we started thinking about how to replace them. Then they rallied in time to push out a record-breaking growth spurt, taking over not only our yard, but sticking through the fence and ten feet into the sky, so annoying that our shy, also-quite-pigletty neighbor started asking about our plans for them.

I had to hunt for pictures with the bushes in them, because we keep forgetting that before-and-after shots require you to remember to take before shots. This is what the bushes looked like last year.

First we tried cutting them back. We hired this done, thankfully, because it took the gardeners a full day to cut them back to fence height, and to try to cut them off the fence. It turned out that they had grown so close to the fence that it was impossible to make them look neat. And the things vined up from the ground, making them look like four-foot-tall weeds.

So we made the decision: Off with their heads. And bodies. And roots. The gardener cut them out and the stump grinder came at 8:00 on a Saturday morning (sorry neighbors) and obliterated the last traces of them. What was left was bare and ugly.

As regular readers know, Scotty enjoys helping me take photos. Here he is directing the shot of the newly bare fence.

Now comes the do-over. After some garden shopping and web surfing, we chose Euonymus (the short ones) and Arborvitae (the ones that look like Arborvitae), both which grow up, but not so much out. The corner is reserved for a pine tree. We're thinking white pine.

Directly across from our neighbors (we live on the corner of a cul-de-sac, making our back yard their side yard), we opted for some more fluffy flora - pampas grass and a nice Colorado Spruce. Here's Drew, trying to turn the best side towards the house. I'll have you know I dug about half of the holes for these plants, including this one (Drew was too busy building me a shed - more on that later).

There's more re-landscaping to do: planting the corner pine tree, making the pilgrimage out to the wilds of Hillsboro to buy clumping bamboo to replace the wisteria-destroyed fence in front of the master bath, and then doing something about ground cover to keep from cleaning muddy paws all winter.

Sounds like award-winning blogging to me.

The Lush and The Ridiculous: My Recent iTunes History

As I downloaded yet more music today, I noticed that my taste in music could be called either eclectic or schizophrenic. You make the call. Here are some recent downloads.

Washed Out - Life of Leisure.

I learned about Washed Out from the wise Young Americans at The Sound of Young America. It's big and lush and small and intimate. Synth-y and homemade-y and soft and loud. Listen.

Don Edwards - Goin' Back to Texas.

I learned about Don Edwards in a boutique shop in Sunriver, Oregon in the early nineties. I heard yodel-y coyotes and needed to hear more, so I bought the cassette (yes! cassette!) that the shop was playing and put it into the cassette player in the car. I was disappointed at first to learn that I had to wade through a lot of cowboy music to get to the coyote part (no one-song purchase iTunes option - prehistoric!), but soon we were all singing about the sleepy Rio Grand, and those line shack blues. That cassette is long gone and Don Edwards became a Bend memory like the smell of sage and juniper.

Where did I hear those coyotes again recently? I don't remember, but it sent me straight to iTunes. I now carry Don Edwards around in my hip pocket, and can hear that wooo-yip, wooo-yip woo coyote song any time I want. I can also hear musical screeds to barbed wire, asphalt and bankers (a favorite line: "while progress toots her greedy horn/and makes her motor buzz/I thanks the Lord I wasn't born no later than I was") Technology is bizarre and wonderful in that it brings me music about the evils of technology.

Regina Spektor - Far.

I find that Regina Spektor is best loved and understood by women. Men tend to find her music a little twee. Yes, her lyrics can be a little, um, adorable, but her voice is so easy and slippery, and her tunes allow it to slide up and down the scale with such carefree pleasure, it practically makes me skip down the street.

Moby - Wait For Me.

I have a lot of Moby in my library, but nothing since 18, which was released in 2002. But his new one, Wait For Me, was getting much better reviews than his last few, so I gambled on it. It's nice. Like Play and 18. Very much so. I put it in the playlist labeled "chill," but I don't find myself seeking it out for album-long listens.

Ting Tings - We Started Nothing

I should listen to this more. I just don't dance enough.

Franz Ferdinand - Tonight

Franz Ferdinand makes great music for your running playlist. I need to run more.

Juana Molina - Una Dia

Do yourself a favor and listen to the title song (you can listen at her MySpace page at the link above). I learned about her from WNYC's Radio Lab, which I listen to via podcast. They are nothing less than obsessed by her, which is easy to understand for a geek, as her music is woven with layers and layers of sound that she creates single-handedly. The result is both high-energy and hypnotic at once.

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks and Moondance.

I don't know why I felt I needed to have these in my library after all these years. He was really before my time, and has been a radio station given all my life, but after hearing a story about the band that was put together for his Astral Weeks recording sessions, I needed to be able to listen with more than a car radio attention span. Worth it. No wonder everybody who won Grammys in the late 70's and 80's thanked him along with their families. He was new. And different.

I recommend listening to music. Pretty much anything, as long as it has not been featured on the MTV Music Video Awards, or, for that matter, the Grammys.

But The Decemberists are still my favorites.

Hollywood Speaks Out to Help Insurance Companies

Aaah! Sarcasm overload! Still worth it.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

9.12 DC TEA PARTY - MARCH FOOTAGE WITH INTERVIEWS

Dean brought this to my attention. I wasn't going to watch it to the end, because I didn't think I had it in me to watch 9:30 of hate. But it is actually fascinating and enlightening. I don't think there is a cure for this kind of Fox misinformation being gobbled up whole. Is there? I don't see any laws banning Fox News anywhere on the horizon. And there certainly won't be any efforts to tone such hate mongering down, because it sells too well. It sure is disturbing. And disappointing.

In Which I Put Baby In A Category

So Drew and I were talking about drivers who put us in danger in small, everyday ways. This was on the way back from the beach, and we had just been bullied back in a merge situation by a dude who promptly slowed down and turned off the road, and then, not too much later, we slowed to let a swerving map reader decide which exit to take without taking us out in the process.

We came to the conclusion that there are two categories of dangerous drivers: those who drive with a chip on their shoulder, willfully putting others at risk, and those who are oblivious to the danger they pose to those around them, and in fact, are often oblivious that there even is anyone around them. My opinion was that we often miscategorize the oblivious by assuming that they are aware of the havoc they leave in their wake.

And then.

And then.

I was driving south in the left lane of a four-lane road when a gold colored Taurus-style sedan swerved into my lane from the right lane, giving me just enough time to slam on my brakes to avoid rear-ending her, who then slammed on HER brakes to wait for a car to go by in the opposite direction, and then pulled a U-turn right there in the middle of the road.

I was understandably shocked at such reckless behavior and wanted to know who just risked my life and my insurance rating to save seconds off her drive time. I craned my neck out the window as she hit the accelerator heading north to see (with my icy glare of doom) a twenty-something blonde in a pair of those hilariously enormous designer sunglasses.

And the look on her face was one of such serenity and composure, it has left me puzzled. Did those sunglasses not allow her to even see me, making her Category O for oblivious? Was she out to scare me, making her a Category R for road rager? Or did my alarm, and her back bumper, just not register in her list of things to be concerned about today? Should we add another category - a Category A for self-centered assholes? And why wasn't she driving a black SUV, so we could all anticipate her douchebaggery?

Not sure, but I'd rather not do the research to find out.

This Cat Does NOT Like Jazz

Labor Day Rabble Rousing

Working Class Hero by John Lennon

John Lennon was post-Beatles and rich by the time he published this song, but he obviously still had a chip on his shoulder about his early years.

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
by giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
Working Class Hero is something to be
Working Class Hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
Working Class Hero is something to be
Working Class Hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
Working Class Hero is something to be
Working Class Hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religon, sex and T.V.
and you think you're so clever and classless and free
but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
Working Class Hero is something to be
Working Class Hero is something to be

There's room at the top I'm telling you still
but first you must learn how to smile as you kill
if you want to be like the folks on the hill
Working Class Hero is something to be

Yes , A Working Class Hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

Inch = Mile

So I come home from a walk and confess to The Captain that I was daydreaming about traveling the country with a trailer. Seeing New Orleans and Savannah and Taos.

This, as I suspected, got him excited. This is something that he has been talking about since he got his first trailer hitch. In the womb.

However, I did not suspect that this comment would morph into a shopping mission for a touring motorcycle. No, I did NOT say I wanted a touring motorcycle, or that I wanted to tour the US from the back of one. When asked, I said I would try to ride on the back of a borrowed motorcycle one more time if he thought it might change my mind about motorcycles.

The Captain seems to think that since I might enjoy touring the country in the comfort of a four-wheeled, enclosed, air conditioned vehicle with snacks, music, books and iPhone at the ready, that I wouldn't mind taking it one step further. Outdoors. Keeping my balance on a stool going 70 miles an hour, wearing ten pounds of leather and fiberglass for protection, looking at a helmet in front of me.

Yes, I have ridden on the back of a motorcycle. The Captain has had motorcycles before. I have even ridden my own motorcycle or two. I did not enjoy those experiences. But he seems sure that given a soft enough back seat that my opinion of holding on to someone else who is holding on to some handlebars will be (a) exciting, (b) comfortable, and (c) interesting enough to pacify someone who squirms on a car ride of more than one hour and must have a book either in her face or in her ears to keep her brain soothed enough for continued earthly existence.

Stay tuned. Someone is going to learn something. But who? And what?

Those Geese are Cooked

Saturday at Aunt Dolores' House

My Aunt Pat, who is limited, aerobically wise, by a bum heart, turned 80 yesterday, much to her doctors' embarrassment, who have been giving her six months to live since the Clinton administration.

I went to visit her today over at my Aunt Dolores's house in Beaverton. I had never been to her house before, so I had to Google map it and worry about it a little, but I made it even though the 405 bridge was closed this weekend (again), which I should have remembered but didn't, so it took me twice as long with all the traffic, kind of like this sentence.

It's always so mortifying to realize how happy your Aunties are to see you, when it has been so long since you bothered to visit them. They are really sweet people. And, you know, it's not that much time out of your charmed little life. And it's not that they haven't invited you before.

Ah, well. Another thing to resolve to be better at in the future. Get in line, Aunties. Right behind washing the windows, painting twice a week and vacuuming the house every day.

So You Think You Can Ride a Bike

Doooood. Try this one.

$3 Movie Review: Star Trek - The Other Movie

Here is a copy of my iPhone notes I made while watching Star Trek at the Mission Theater on Tuesday night. I deedled away on my iPhone as an attempt to let Drew enjoy the movie in peace. But sometimes I just blurted out my inane snark anyway. A Logorrhea of Lameness. (Me. Not the movie.)

• That star ship is being eaten by a sea anemone!
• I'm glad they kept the old, dopey space shuttle design.
• Ooh, wrong answer! (this nameless dead-meat captain is about to get terminated for not knowing who Spock is.)
• (Of buildings built like stalactites on the planet Vulcan:) I want an upside down building NOW.
• (It seems Vulcan children go to school in giant glass muffin tins:) It's amazing vulcan children haven't developed skateboards.
• Who is Spocks dad? (Turns out he's played by Ben Cross. Been in a million movies, but probably doesn't get followed by paparazzi).
• Live long and prosper = fuck off (at least when Spock doesn't want to go to your hoity-toity Vulcan academy).
• Legend-making time! (And here we meet James Tiberius Kirk, getting his ass kicked by four big dudes for mouthing off and continuing to mouth off after his mouth is pulpy with blood).
• If they have jet Motorcycles in the future, you would thing they would have wet wipes (James Tiberius Kirk continues to discuss the pro and cons of schoolin' while covered in blood).
• So that's what technology gets us? Invisible hubs and spokes on Motorcycles? (Underwhelming).
• Facial tattoos equals badass (this is soooo movie shorthand these days - even in the future).
• Did Chris Pine get cast because he has the Shatner nose? Oh, he's not bad as Kirk, but that nose. It's eerie.
• There it is! NCC 1701! Ooh, nerd shiver.
• Oh, no! Not the red matter!
• Mano a Romulano (I believe at this point Kirk and Sulu are doing some hand-to-hand jujitsu on two Romulans whilst on a tiny platform suspended over Vulcan. Or something just as exciting.)
• Time travel is a big cop out. (Well, it just is. You can remake a movie a hundred times with time travel. Think Terminator.)
• Not convinced by New Spock. (It's true. His voice is way too high to be Spock. Nimoy has one of those booming voice-over voices.)
• I'll be monitoring your frequency. (This is my new favorite way to say goodbye to my loved ones.)
• Did the two Kirks have the same nose surgeon? (Really. That nose is just a little too wee.)
• I hope Steven hawking isn't watching this. (I'm no physicist but this is effed up.)

In summary, I thought the movie was entertaining, as long as I could unload the ridiculousness building up in my brain every once in a while. Sorry.

FP in an SB

Patton Oswalt. Cultural commentary with funny words.

Patton Oswalt on the KFC Famous bowls from Patton Oswalt

It's Coco Day

The damn dogs always get all the attention. They outweigh, outbark, outpuke, and outplay Coco, a kind of midgetty, curmudgeonly cat. Besides all that, she's black, which is a challenge to photograph without ending up with a camera full of black blobs.

But she does do some cute things occasionally, and even less occasionally when I have my camera handy.

So here are a sorry few photos of Coco.

Now it's 5:00 p.m. Time to feed the cat. I know because she is reminding me.

Infected - The Movie

I have an infection that I'm trying to clear holistically by drinking copious amounts of water and cranberry juice. I'm doing this not because I believe wholeheartedly in the shunning of western medicine over the gentler, less chemical superiority of alternative wellnessness, but simply because it's the weekend and I would prefer to stay clear of the Urgent Care Sputum Cesspool.

I'm not sure whether the sores in the back of my palate are due to the infection, possible water-induced hyponatremia, or possible fever-induced eating of too-hot jambalaya (I swear it wasn't hot to me, but Drew, the fire breathing oven mitt non-user, had to let it cool), but whatever the cause, they are a constant source of annoyance today. I can't seem to ignore the bumpy surface, and it's too far back on my palate for my tongue to do a thorough investigation, so I am constantly noodling around with my tongue to no avail.

Since I can't stray far from the bathroom in order to send all that cleansing water out the other end (I'm making up in toilet paper usage what I am saving in Urgent Care visit copay expenses), I am spending a lot of time folding laundry (unrelated but necessary), watching Netflix instant movies, and eating things that will momentarily mask the palate-scab feeling.

Speaking of movies, here are some that I have watched on Netflix recently and my ratings (Netflix rates movies on a five-star system):

The Real Dirt on Farmer John

I gave this one four stars, which may be a little generous, but I really enjoyed this story of a farmer's son, one part salt-of-the-earth farmer and one part bohemian drama school butterfly, who lost his father while still in his teens, and yet tried to keep the family farm going through his college years, his hippy years, the gobbling up of family farms by corporate interests in the 80's, and his own broadway style wanderlust. I had been wanting to get around to seeing this since it was released in 2006 and I'm glad it finally made it to the top of my queue.

Harvard Beats Yale 29-29

This is about a football game played in 1968. It seems to be a legend at Harvard and Yale that leaves hard feelings to this day. Very well-made documentary using film of the game and interviews from the players on both teams. Four stars.

Reefer Madness (with Rifftrax)

I thought this 1938 antimarijuana propaganda movie would be a prime target for Rifftrax, the audio auxiliary of snark from the cast of MST3K that can be added to lots of new and old movies to make them much more hilariouser, and it is, but never having seen the movie before, I was a little stunned by the bizarreness of the movie itself. One of those movies so odd, they really take no effort to poke further fun at. The movie itself left me shaking my head. That's just nuts. Three Stars.

Rescue Dawn

Werner Herzog's dramatization of the story of Dieter Dengler, Vietnam War POW who escaped to freedom through the Viet Cong and leech-infested jungle. Drew liked it. I enjoyed it even more, having previously watched Herzog's documentary about Dengler, entitled Little Dieter Needs To Fly. Also recommended. Four stars.

Hellboy II

Fell asleep. Even though I rather enjoyed the first Hellboy (I stayed awake), this one did not capture my interest in the least. (What? A magical elf kingdom? An evil pixie world? Are they trolls? Bat people? Zzzzzzz....) Drew liked it. One star for me, three for Drew.

Night of the Living Dead (with Rifftrax)

I like this movie. I like that it had a black hero in 1968, I like that Romero knows a thing or two about suspense, I even like that he doesn't spare anyone for the sake of a happy ending (Oops - did I say spoiler alert? Ah, hell, it was made in 1968. If you haven't seen it by now, it's your own damn fault.) Seriously, that ending gets me every time. I DON'T like how the women are all hysterical screaming fools who must be dragged away from danger by their dainty wrists. Okay, I know, 1968. Still. They got the race thing right. Deep breath. If you have already seen it, it's worth seeing again in the Rifftrax version (yes, the Rifftrax is integrated into this DVD, instead of being a separate audio file that you must sync up. Nice.) Four stars.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Oh, my God. Awful. One star.

Happy-Go-Lucky

Yeah, she's happy-go-lucky and all, we get it, but a movie still requires a plot. Two stars.

The Miracle of Dirt

This gets me every year, kind of the way the sun going down earlier and earlier seems to surprise Drew every winter. You put a seed in the dirt. Dirt. It's dirt. Bits of dust and rocks and rotting plants from last year, maybe some bunny poop and worms.

You mix in the rotting stuff and bunny poop, and maybe some extra rotting stuff if you have some. (This dirt is mostly clay, so this rented tiller was a back breaker for Drew. I think it would be a hoot to get one of those riding tillers for our two little ten-by-ten garden plots next year.)

You plant a seed and give the seed some water. Somehow the seed gets the message, and knows what to do. It sticks out some feelers, finds some of that dirt and water, and makes something out of nothing. Out of dirt, water and sun! What?

Here it goes! Whoops! Time to put down some mulch.

And before you know it, you are eating stuff that was dirt a few months ago. It boggles. Just boggles.

Scotty likes to sleep in the garden. The onions and green beans have suffered for it, but when I'm not around, I can't really shoo him out. I guess some people like to eat their garden vegetables, some just find them comfy.

Next year: less spinach (goes to seed too quickly) and more Swiss chard. And maybe get the onions in the ground a little earlier.

Some Assembly (and a few trips to the hardware store) Required

I spent the last two hours assembling an Ames True Temper 2388700 Hose King Hose Reel. In that time, I've managed to put it together to the point where I'm supposed to mount it onto the side of the house to finish the rest of it, but it's 7:15, I'm missing several screws, I have a few screws loose, and I'm spent.

I've managed to scrounge eight (8!) screws from the old coffee can that are close enough to the right size to work for the holes that the manufacturer forgot to include screws for. I still have to find several more, in two different sizes, to complete the kit that was supposed to be sent to me. I would send it back, but it's easier at this point to go to the hardware store than go to the UPS store.

I've seen this thing in action, and it's a pretty slick set-up. A real time and hassle saver. But I might have changed my mind if I had known how much time and hassle was required to install it. I'm not sure how many years I will have to own it now to make up for the money and effort I will have put into it. Think about it: how many times do you have to roll up a hose to make up the three+ hours it took to install the hose roller?

No, I'm not going to do the math.

Incomplete! Incomplete! Incomplete!

Okay, I owe my several readers much more than this, but it is past my blogging hour, and I'm still far behind in the general duties of living, so here are the first five shots that Blogger would let me download, and a promise of more to come.

These are photos from our recent trip to The Other Vancouver (BC), mostly so Drew could participate in the World Police & Fire Games, but we squeezed in a couple of goofing-off days in order to give the world a picture of a crazy dude who feeds raccoons in Stanley Park.

For reals. These raccoons were hissing and fighting with each other over this dude's scraps, but it didn't seem to phase him any. Man, those things are cute, but vicious and rabies-y.

The view from a fricking gondola, people! We were way up there. I wasn't scared though. This is a two-gondola-and-one-chair-lift loop you can take up in Whistler. Whew, it's like there's money just flying around in the breeze up there.

What country are we in again?

About a hundred forest fires going on in BC while we were there. Maybe good for sunset photos, but not so great for middle-of-the-day photos.

This one's for dad. This was the view from our hotel. It's a pretty busy little float plane "airport."