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."

William Shatner Reads Sarah Palin's Farewell Speech

Conan O'Brien - a flash of genius right here.

What I Did This Weekend

I harvested green beans, peas, and blueberries from the garden.

I watched Coco the Basement Cat get stuck in the handle of a paper bag.

Scotty and I, once again, rebelliously trespassed upon the nearby McMansionland walking trails. We are scofflaws.

What I Didn't Do This Weekend

The Seattle-area Marymoor FSA Grand Prix started this past Friday morning and went all weekend. Drew and Dean drove up Thursday evening. I stayed home to work. But here are some pictures that Drew took.

Dean and National Championship Team Sprint partner Kelyn Akuna National Pez Eating Champion Jamie Carney talking about chicks mapping out strategy.

The Thunderdrome Cycle of Violence? Why yes, it belongs to me.

The sprint podium. The second place guy had to get back to Portland for his job. (Jobs. Lame.)

Dean behind the motor and atop the Thunderdrome Cycle of Violence. It's metal.

Thighs that size take more rest than normal size thighs. And extra caffeine.

8 MILES WIDE

ALERT: Not suitable to blast at high volume at work. Or near my mom.

Storm Large makes me want to go on a diet and grow 8 inches taller. Oh, and laugh. She also makes me laugh. Sing along, everybody!

Summer Photo Dump July 2009

Drew and Tessa jumping up the stairs. It's totally fun, from what I hear.

The Great AVC Weekend of 2009 is in the bag. More friends and family than I knew we had. As usual, I worried so much I forgot to enjoy most of it, but I'm sure I'll look back on it fondly.

I also took some pictures during our Hopkins family reunion late in June. But most of them turned out to be of either Drew or scenery. You don't have to tell me what that means. I know.

Homey lake front cabin, needs some TLC, comes furnished with outdoor sofa and indoor raccoons.

Drew demonstrates the proper pointing technique for the beach.

Triathlon numbers. It turns out they don't wash off easily.

No, he didn't do the whole thing - he just did the bike leg of a team effort.

The TV in our room at the Sunriver condo was totally Space Age. This is going to sell for big, ironic bucks some day.

Join me next time for exciting garden shots!

Strippers in the Wild and Wine in the Hood on the Fruit Loop

So we cashed in our raincheck yesterday from the weekend when I got sick and we took off for the Fruit Loop, the Chamber of Commerce name for a scenic loop of highway through the Hood River Valley, which has beautiful views of Mt. Hood and miles and miles of adorable orchards. Pears, peaches, apples, and these days, ripe cherries.

It was one of those days. The sky was blue, the sailboards were shoulder-to-shoulder on the Columbia, the mountain was doing its best Majestic Cascade Lifestyle Magazine pose, the windows were rolled down, and the cherries were ripe.

But, um, practically speaking, with a back yard full of blueberries, rhubarb, zucchinis, salad, and baby green beans and peas, how much fruit do two people need? Luckily for all of us, there is also a healthy sprinkling of wineries on the Fruit Loop as well.

We stopped at four tasting rooms and managed to find something worthy at each one.

The White House, a multi-winery tasting room and fruit stand, is a little museum display its own self, as it was built in 19-oh-something and has the photographs to prove how a century ago the Hood River Valley was cleared from virgin primeval forest to the Disneyland of Fruit that it is today. Our choice (and here I must make a note to you red wine snobs that red wine gives me screaming headaches): White Salmon Vineyard 2004 Spicy White (a mix of mostly Chardonnay with a touch of Gevurtztraminer for spice).

We stopped at Mt. Hood Winery's new tasting room on the first day it was open. So firsties! It's quite a showroom of a tasting room. Beautiful carved multi-wood bar and Mt. Hood practically barging in the windows, somehow bigger and more impressive inside the room than outside. I hope the wedding they had planned for that afternoon went off okay. (Really? A wedding on the first day you're open for business? Ballsy.) Our choice: Mt. Hood Winery Estate Grown and Bottled 2008 Pinot Gris (grapes enjoy mountain views as well, so the label implies).

Cathedral Ridge Winery also has a lovely bar in their tasting room, a very nice pourer (pouresse?), glasses that reputedly explode upon onset of a peevish mood, and actual grapes on site. Important, I think, for credibility, if not for actual use. They will be honored to know they are this year's winner of Most Pretentious Yet Unintentionally Funny Back Label Sentence ("We are rich in fruit orchards, wild game and fish, and we vinify our wines to embrace these flavors of the region, and to be enjoyed with family and friends.") Mmmmmm, wild and fishy. Our choice: Cathedral Ridge 2007 Pinot Gris.

And finally, we come to the smallest and ugliest of the tasting rooms, one lovingly crafted from the corner of their tin shed, that of Hood River Vineyards. And yet, here we meet most of the characters from my next screenplay, Sideways and Upside Down On a Pole, the story of a young, tanned, surgically-enhanced-to-the-point-where-I-doubt-that-she-could-swing-a-golf-club stripper in a crocheted dress with enhanced boob-viewing capabilities, who meets a gullible young Hummer driver with daddy cash, who finds herself, implausibly, in a tiny wine tasting room with a veteran oenophile at the pour, who is tasked with finding a wine that she can learn to enjoy. I'm sorry we didn't stay long enough to see if the final option, the bing cherry dessert wine, was to her liking. But it was getting crowded in there. Oh, and our wine choice? a Hood River Vineyards 2005 dry Oregon Riesling (only they spell it "Reisling" on the label - for reals. This is backyard wine making at its best).

Oh, yes, I am writing that baby up and mailing it to myself, so don't think about ripping it off, bitches. It's got everything. Alcohol, sex and spelling. See you in Hollywood.

There's a Word For It!

Reason #2 Why I'm Not Signing My Dogs Up for Any IQ Tests

Annie is walking like she is walking on a carpet of Legos, which is how she walks when her arthritis acts up, which is what it does when she goes on a bender, running like a happy fool through the neighborhood. Scotty, the beta-dog jester, followed loyally behind, as always.

The fence gate was left open this morning. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure that it was closed last night, evidenced by the fact that the dogs did not get out last night. So some time during the night, the gate was opened.

Thinking of someone fiddling with our gate in the night and the aftermath of Annie's flight-or-more-flight tendencies makes me simultaneously glad that I have big dogs while wanting to drive them straight back to the reject bin I rescued them out of for putting me through this every time the gate is left open.

They were found maybe two miles away (as the collie flies), at the neighborhood sewage treatment plant. Luckily not IN the sewage treatment plant, but at the administration building, where a nice man tracked me down by their dog tags.

So Annie is a big hurt burger, and Scotty came back so hot he was unable for a while even to chew on some ice, which is his usual treat on a warm day, and with burrs clumping up his ruff, his tail, his hindquarters, and his front leg hairs. I got most of the burrs out, but I keep finding more, so this may be an ongoing clean-up job.

I'm not sure whether this means I have to check the damn gate every morning, but I will be for a while. And checking the locks on the doors and windows.

UPDATE (INCLUDES CONFESSION!): Drew says he's pretty sure that he left the gate open the day before while he was loading some yard waste into his truck. The dogs are just so, um, brainily challenged that they did not notice until the next morning.

Notes On Birthday XLVII

I've been away for a while. It was in your best interest. You don't want to read thoughts that are either jumbled, vacant, or snide. Why? Pick a reason. My pants were tight. The lawn needed to be mowed. The grapevines needed to be cut back. My eyes itched. I was in NO MOOD. The air felt soggy.

Do I have something to say now? Not really. But here are some thoughts on my birthday back on June 22 that I didn't get around to posting at the time.

• I got an iPhone 3GS for my birthday. Yeah, it IS that cool.
• Not only did Drew buy me the iPhone, he gave up HIS upgrade so we could get it at the discounted price. I gave him the Blackberry I bought last year. He's having much more fun with it than I ever did, so it's all working out.
• Most under-appreciated birthday gift this year: we still have the Prius. Drew, who still gets a little discombobulated driving around in a robot car, left it running (maybe running is the wrong word since it runs on battery when parked) on street parking in downtown Portland while we stood in line at the Apple store. Ironically, Drew worried about somebody stealing his cell phone out of the car while we were gone. When we got back to the car, the radio was still playing and the battery was on red. But it was still there! Thank you Portland, for not stumbling upon our doofy mistake! (We're still not sure whether it could have been driven off. There were no keys in the car. That's the weird thing about this car - the keys do not have to be in the ignition. They just have to be in the vicinity of the sensor in the dashboard.) I'm not sure whether the car was supposed to stay running like that but it did. Maybe I should re-peruse that owner's manual.
• While waiting in line at the Apple Store (while our car was patiently playing its radio and waiting for us to return), I saw somebody shake someone's bike helmet, like they were shaking their hand, because the bike helmet person didn't have a free hand. Very awkward moment when the hand-shaker realized that he had actually just shook someone's helmet, and he couldn't really get that moment back.
• Did we go out to a fancy restaurant on my birthday? Um, no. I got a craving for Burgerville at lunch time, and had no room for fancy food at dinner. So we had birthday cake for dinner. Hey, we're adults.
• I'm pretty sure I don't look a day over 50 (which is a relief, since I'm not 50).

Coco the Death Cat Takes Advantage

You know that nursing home cat who would sleep on the beds of the next-to-die? I have been under the weather since Saturday morning with a particularly nasty nausea-and-body-aches brand of bug, and Coco, who is not known to be particularly cuddly, has been on my lap pretty much 24-7. It's making me a little nervous.

Of course, it could be the fact that I have been stationary, under a comfy blanky, not a thing I'm used to doing on a summer weekend. But still. Does she know something?

Note This on your Calendars

By proclamation of me, tomorrow is National Nobody Needs Me to Do Anything For Them Day. 

I plan on spending it flouncing about, consuming internet entertainment, and eating sweet things. I may be dressed as a 17th century poet. Or a 300-pound disability defrauder. That part is still up in the air. 

Everyone is welcome to join the festivities, as long as I don't have to assist in any way.

I plan on making it an annual holiday, held on the third Wednesday in June. Years from now, you will be asking yourselves, what did you do on the first NNNMTDAFT Day? You may want to plan your day accordingly.