More Pictures of Cute Wedding People

Serious practicing went on during the rehearsal. This is how to walk back up the aisle with style.

This is the site of some very arty wedding photography involving some lovely old columns (lovely professsional photos to come soon, I'm sure). Also using the columns this afternoon: a homeless dude and his sacked-out dog. And a dumpster. With Dave in the foreground, classing the place up a little.

I just like the fun being had in this snapshot. Action photo. Movement. Light. LIFE. (Ode to Ingmar.)

"What do we do with our hands? Let's just hold them out in front of us like this. Perfect."

Daughter-In-Law Successfully Procured

Adorable couple posing at the Skidmore Fountain during Saturday Market. Why not?

Adorable wedding party members enjoying a pre-wedding beverage. Why not?

Some random parent and grandparents waiting around for some wedding action. Isn't that foxy silver haired lady wearing the most adorable dress?

Adorable wedding party milling about at the Skidmore fountain for a good reason, I'm sure.

The wedding was short, full of friends and good wishes, and a few laughs. The bridesmaids were lovely and teary. The groomsmen were goofy and warm. The groom was handsome, funny, and fashionable. The bride was beautiful, funny, and relaxed. It was obvious to everybody in attendance that they chose each other well.

The party afterwards was happy, all-inclusive, and full of the best family and friends. I danced like an idiot, but I wasn't alone.

If you don't count the gorgeous bride and groom, I'm going to have to give the Cutest Dancing Couple award to my parents.

Although I may be biased.

I heart Dean and Jenny. They work hard and play hard and know some stuff. And like the best show dogs, they have great bloodlines. They are going to go places.

Brain Activity Level Down to Minimal

Dean and Jenny's wedding is on Saturday. Everybody's starting to come into town. Constant grocery shopping has begun.

Dean and Jenny sent invitations out to pretty much everybody thinking maybe half would show up. Turns out this wedding is the hottest ticket in town. It will be standing room only.

My crossword puzzle powers have melted away along with most of my reasoning powers.

I heard a Flight of the Conchords song today on Fresh Air ("The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room"), and I honestly thought it would make a cute song to dance to at the wedding.

1990 Match Sprint World Championships

This is for Becca. If you ignore the fact that it is 1990 and hence the steroids are practically dripping out of these guys (especially Mr. East Germany), this is a good example of match sprinting. It's got a little bit of everything.

Another Sport I Am Bad At Watching

I consider myself a highly visual person, being a painter of canvases, and a hater of auditory devices such as the telephone. But when the action speeds up, such as in sports, I can't seem to keep up. I like my visual stimuli to stay put while I process.

A lot of my action-watching retardation comes from a lack of participation in sports as a kid. Being a bottle-cap glasses-wearing geek, I was useless at sports involving balls coming at me. I would invariably miscalculate the spot at which the ball would land, and swish at the air frantically. I'm sure it was the huge refraction caused by the bottle caps, but even with later contacts, I was never able to catch up with my peers. I stuck with non-ball activities such as cheerleading and goofing off.

Where was I? Right - it seems that experience in playing a sport helps one to watch it later on. I enjoy football, and I've gotten much better at watching the plays evolve, but I'll never match Drew's ability to watch the entire field and predict the outcome of a play long before it is over, as well as catching all the holding, blatant cruelty and other hijinks that non-players like me never catch.

The same holds true for track racing (cycling, not running, you rubes). I'm getting much better at spotting the hooks, chops and other mischief involved in a good, brutal sprint. But I'll never be able to watch it at the same level as those who have participated in it. Again, Drew must explain some of the stuff I miss.

Soccer wasn't a big sport when I was growing up. Not that I would have enjoyed it enough to pursue it. The few times we played it in gym class, I developed a serious disinclination to having my shins kicked. We ventured into Portland a few times to watch the first (NASL) Timbers play when we were in high school, and that was fun, mostly because it was a night out in the city for a group of young hicks. I doubt that we paid much attention to the game.

Now that the Timbers are back and Dean has attempted to bring me up to speed regarding both the Timbers and European futbol competition, I have been trying to watch fast enough to keep up. It's easier on TV with the magic of instant replay to understand stuff like offsides calls, and to catch the sneakier fouls and more dramatic dives, but at the ball park (or the pitch, as you cricketty types might say), I am left two steps behind.

I like soccer. I like the mass drunken singing, the fast pace, the small crowds compared to football, and the cozy atmosphere of PGE Park. I just need to see more games to develop faster eyes. Mine tend to drift around aimlessly until I miss something important.

Saturday night was perfect for soccer. Perfect weather. Fun friends. Alcohol. Cracker Jack (you really should try a little Cracker Jack with your Pinot Grigio). Easy hypothetical access to the field if you were inclined to practice a little streaking.

And the capper: a win over an English team. Sweet.

I Feel Gritty

So I wander into the Magic Ring of Origins Salespeople today, a safe enough adventure as long as you have your wits about you. Normally, I can get in and get out with a nice tub of moisturizer without succumbing to their assurances that my face wouldn't look quite so disastrous if I were to use some of their make-up. But since my skin rejects make-up like a mis-transplanted liver, I can usually fight them off.

Unfortunately, lately I've been weakened by the spectre of an upcoming wedding - a happy enough occasion, but one in which I must smile for pictures - something that makes my face seize up into fright masks worthy of a tribal art display.

An hour and a half later, I've been facialed, massaged and painted until I open my wallet and just let them take what they want.

Jacque tried valiantly to make foundation look like anything other than cheap latex paint set too close to the heater. When she had done all she could think of, she gave me the mirror with a really nervous look on her face. She had just never seen make-up try to escape a face before.

I felt so bad for her I bought everything but the foundation.

My face currently has so many layers of goop on it, I'm going to have to take a bath before bedtime so as not to ruin the sheets.

Man. I'm still working on this "being a woman" thing. I should have it down by the time I hit menopause.

Welcome Back, Decemberists

The Decemberists are back in Portland. They rocked Troutdale Sunday night. I know because I was totally there.

They could use a better whale puppet, though. I could make one for them.

Oh, Right, THAT'S Why I Don't Ask for Help in the Garden

We bought four large, round, fluffy, expensive pines today to go in the front yard. So large that I would still be out there digging holes next week if I didn't get some help. Actually, I probably would have been the first recorded death by pine if I had tried single handedly to get them out of the back of the truck as well. They would have found me, eventually, in the driveway, under a large potted pine, half eaten by wild bunnies. But that's not the story.

The story is that we only needed three large, round, fluffy, expensive pines. But my need for help required the use of Drew, and the use of Drew required the purchase of a fourth pine to replace the one that he broke. How do you break a pine? You drop it on its head while forcing it out of its pot by turning it upside down and shaking it. Turns out that when you drop a 100-pound pine on its head from a height of about three feet, many of its limbs break off. Then you have a pine stump. An ex-pine, if you will.

The best part of the experience was listening to Drew try to explain to the garden center helper, who speaks English less than fluently, how he broke the pine. The poor fellow could not comprehend how Drew did such a thing, because it never seemed to occur to him that someone would treat a plant that way. All of a sudden, it was like Drew was shopping for a second puppy because the first one wouldn't wake up after he squeezed it too hard.

We promised him to take better care of the replacement pine, but by then he had written us off as another couple of bizarro Americans.

Guilty as charged.

All In

So Dean and Jenny are going all in.

Putting it all on the table.

No guts, no glory.

No pain, no gain.

Insert poster phrase here. My favorite: New Zealand Rocks!!!!

Oh, to be young again. And brilliantly talented. And now, motivated.

The earth shudders under his feet.

Can you feel it?

Wet Cats

Wet cats are funny.

Wombats!

Today on Wild Kingdom, I learned that wombats are under siege. Under Siege! Apparently they dig tunnels, sometimes in pasture land, and the owners of the horses/cattle/sheep get all huffy about it. Get a grip, Aussie pasture owners! The wombats were here first!

In fact, one of the kinds of wombat, the excellently named Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat, is critically endangered. There are only like 90 of them left.

This is a baby wombat in a hat. An "embattled wombat" according to Wild Kingdom. So get off his case. He's fricking embattled.

I enjoyed watching a group of "wombat crusaders" (Wild Kingdom's words, not mine) catching Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombats at night for a study. Three rather round crusaders and one skinny one. Guess which ones stayed in the truck and which one went chasing after wombats with a butterfly net a total of 24 times?

Yeah, the skinny one.

Wild Kingdom. Exciting. Wombat rich. And crusading. Catch it.

Second in our Series of Life Lessons

Brought to you today by Annie and Scotty.

Oh, you could just take off. Find the fence gate ajar one night and realize that there is nothing between you and bottom-dwelling debauchery of the blackest kind.

So you take off running. Hey, your friend is doing it. Never mind that your friend there has never been quite right in the head - fears cats, hates exercise, and humps guys. But you go along for the ride.

And soon you are the one in the lead, diving headfirst into a long, hard night of partying, howling at the moon, chasing tails, and getting burrs stuck all up in your short hairs.

In the morning, feeling shame, hunger, and thirst for something wetter than water, you head for the light right ahead. It's a church. And there are children. Loud, loud, happy children. It hurts. But kids are a welcome change from some of the characters you met last night, so you smile and lick faces as expected.

Until you hear the unmistakable sound of the law. "Are these the strays you called about?"

Then the sound of the steel door slamming shut behind you. You are pretty sure you deserve this, as bits of the night's depraved offences pop up in your damaged memory, but you are scared nonetheless. You've had it so easy. You don't know the rules in the Big House. And the noise! You are afraid the noise will surely kill you. Or in some way lead to your death.

And then there she is. Your savior. You didn't think she could forgive you this time, and yet there she is, asking you to get in the car. She doesn't look happy (how could she after bailing you out of jail?), but she doesn't have that scary look either.

The hangover will not go away, your feet hurt, and you don't know where all these scrapes and bruises came from, but you are home. She feeds you and lets you go out again, to the same fenced yard you took advantage of last night. But it hurts so bad, you just lay down in the soft grass and sleep.

A Belated Graduation Speech

The Proper Sacrifice.

Since the times when we were still puzzling over whether our bear skin made our butts look fat (and delicious on a spit), it has been common human knowledge that if you want something, you have to sacrifice something for it. Whether it is a goat, a bushel of wheat, your money, all your free time, or all your energy and some of your skin, sacrifice is the only thing that brings us closer to our goals.

The only problem is that there are no guarantees in the sacrifice game.

You could spill the blood of all your goats onto the dry, cracked, dusty ground in honor of your rain god, and yet he may still be angry about that crack you made last winter about building an ark and he may just spit on you and your dead goats instead.

You could spend your whole life training to win the Tour de France, repeatedly pulling some other schmuck up mountain after mountain, waiting for your big break, and when it comes, your handlebars may just come right off your bike and send you to the hospital and to the back of the line.

Especially for those of us of the younger persuasion, the sacrifices asked of our goals can sometimes be enormous and the payoff seem beyond the horizon.

And yet, to give nothing means to get nothing in return. No gain. No prize. No food. No money. In the end, when you line up your sacrifices with what you have gained, it is clear that the more you give, the move you get.

So every day we weigh our sacrifices. How much to give. How much to keep. How much to expect others to give. It's a tricky equation, and the answer is only given after the test is over.

In the end, you always get something from your sacrifice. You may not get what you asked for, but spit is wet. And Tour de France fitness and paychecks are nothing to sneeze at.

So get up early again. Go to practice again. Study more. Volunteer more. Give more. It's all sacrifice, and everything comes of sacrifice, and nothing comes of no sacrifice.

I think God likes the smell of sweat.

A Clark County Fourth: Shucks and Awe

The house is ever so gently pulsing from the huge "Biggest Show West of the Mississippi!" downtown. Meanwhile, I'm guessing somewhere in the range of $100,000 is going up in smoke around me in north Clark County tonight. Explosions the size that used to serve as the big community extravanza in my home town of Vernonia. Here, they are being lit by kids. And enough firecrackers in between to sound like automatic gunfire. It's constant and from all sides. If I circled my house from outside, there would be no direction I could look where I couldn't find a big, local, fiery blossom in the sky.

Annie is handling it as well as can be expected. I'm just waiting for it to end. And listing the things they could have done with their money. Like buy a clue.

It Was the Worst Chris Isaak Concert Ever; We Had a Great Time.

I remember first hearing Chris Isaak on the radio around the time of the first Gulf War. David Lynch used Isaak's song Wicked Game in his really slimy, slimy movie (and I mean that in a good way), Wild at Heart, and the song got some good air play. We've been fans ever since.

Rockabilly is not my kind of music. There is no other music on my iPod that matches the Chris Isaak tracks (with the possible exception of some early k.d. lang), but when somebody has an exceptional voice, I put aside my ever-so-sophisticated tastes and listen.

I don't remember when or where we saw him in concert for the first time. It might have been out at Chamboeg Park, where they had a beautiful outdoor amphitheater that was a great concert venue until either neighbors or the Clear Channel Evil Empire closed it down, but that's another rant.

The point is, we have been to maybe five Chris Isaak concerts, anywhere from the pompous Schnitz to the Spirit Mountain Casino Bingo Hall, and this was the worst, but only for one reason: it was about 90 minutes long.

The concert started at 6:30 , which seemed early for an evening concert, but it was another outdoor venue with, I'm sure, its share of fun-killing neighbors. I thought maybe the early start would give us plenty of time, but they closed the place down at nine sharp. Nine! And since Isaak did not take the stage until the first act had whiled away about an hour, that left very little time for monkey business.

Isaak has the best stage chatter of any musician on the circuit today, and probably half of the stand-up comics. But the shortened concert left no time for the usual highlight of a Chris Isaak concert: the long, winding, deadpan and salacious saga, told with a sense of pity and understanding, usually starring a band member, and involving any or all of the following:

• a flesh-colored Ford Probe;
• a local dive of questionable repute and cleanliness;
• a double-wide trailer;
• suspiciously orgasmic noises;
• cool whip;
• what seem to be poodle hairs; and the inevitable closing with
• (Baby Did a ) Bad, Bad Thing.

Despite the missing stage chatter, the band was on top of their game, Isaak's voice was smooth and effortless, and the crowd (due in some part to the fact that it was held on the grounds of a brewery and the drinks were delivered to your blanket by lovely beer/wine girls) was ready to celebrate.

It was great while it lasted. It just didn't last.

My view. I stood up a lot.
The view to my right.

Photo Essay with No Redeeming Value Whatsoever

Here I am relaxing on the patio this evening and enjoying the view of my new shoes. They are so cute, they (a) make my feet look TINY and (b) take the focus away from my white (as the god of the Celtic people intended) legs.

Here is Coco, trying (and failing) to relax on the patio. She meows and meows to be let out, and once she gets her wish, she decides (understandably) that the world is a messed-up place and she wants back inside where it's safe.

Here is Drew enjoying the view of me on the patio in my new shoes. Again, understandable.

Here is one of the blooms on my hydrangea bush, which is sadly hidden from view in the side yard. I post this here to help to rectify the injustice.

It's Quiet Here in Once-Rural Clark County

...Except for the week preceding the Fourth of July, when they reenact the Revolutionary War nightly.

I would go to bed, but it would be of little use. I'll just go finish my book until they get tired of blowing things up. Usually around midnight.

Nighty-night. Yikes, that one was close.

The Campaign Against All That Is Ivy Continues

I am slowly winning the Ivy Death Struggle, and quickly becoming a source of neighborhood entertainment. At least I met another neighbor today. And may even get another ivy pulling job out of it.

Hear me now and believe me later: no one would do this for money. Only for their own bullshit household ownership craziness. They couldn't offer me the amount of money it would take for me to do this for someone else.

However, for entertainment value, I'm sure it's not unfunny to watch me pull vines, then pull harder, then give it everything I've got, then watch me stumble backwards as the vine finally gives way.

The pulling and backward-dancing is probably nothing compared to watching me go to town on the roots with a pickax that probably weighs more than I would normally bench press (if I had been anywhere near a weight bench in the last three years). For a while, I was lifting it straight up in the air, balancing it there for a moment, hoping it didn't fall too far back and compromise my tenuous grasp on my balance, and bringing it down somewhere in the vicinity of what I was aiming for. Then, if I got a lucky hit, prying the roots out.

Then I remembered seeing the big, burly guys making a nice arc with their pickaxes, using the head like a flywheel and using its joe-mentum to do the damage. So I practiced that method for a while. I might have been using my energy more wisely, but whatever aim I had going for me was gone. I'm sure it was deeply entertaining.

But check out my progress so far, losers:

And if you prefer prettier ivy death:

That's right, folks, June 30 and I'm almost to the telephone pole. Which means I'm not even half way done. But I could be a third of the way done. If you're generous with your measurements.

This is piglet, signing off and heading for the tub.

Wait, Wait, I Need a Nap

If you listen to NPR's current events funny-game show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on Saturday morning at 11, you will not hear me in the audience, but maybe you will feel my enormous presence through your radio (and I say enormous because I have pictorial proof that my mirror lied to me about how large I looked before going out last night).

I met seven people whom I had never met before, although I have talked with them many, many times through the magic of Adam Felber's blog, Fanatical Apathy. It was like we had all known each other for years. A weird feeling when you are looking at strange faces (well, a little strange).

The panel for the evening consisted of Roy Blount, Jr., down-home raconteur and author extraordinaire, Amy Dickinson of Ask Amy column fame (and funny as hell), and Adam Felber, author of the novel Schrodinger's Ball, TV writer, and comedy improviseur extraordinaire.

Thanks to Adam's A-list pull, we all got together after the taping to guzzle champagne in the richer-than-thou meet-and-greet after-party, then headed to the nearest bar to commence the after-after-party, hang with Adam and guzzle some more.

Adam is the nicest guy in show business. If you don't know about him yet, just wait longer, because you will.

We pulled up to the homestead around 1 a.m. and the alarm clock went off at 6 a.m. No big thing. Enough coffee and I stop wobbling. Luckily, I was not tasked with anything particularly thinking-intensive today because experience has taught me that I can generate a paper storm of legal disaster when I have a bad brain day at work.

Drew served as my chauffeur for the night. It would have been deadly dull for him (being that he is not In The Know re: Fanatical Apathy lore), but for Brian Davis of Becca and Brian fame, who kept him entertained with stories of their cool, cool 15-month trip around the world.

Now Drew is ready to hit the road. Actually, he is currently on the road, headed for the track, thinking (no, hoping) that it will be dry enough to ride tonight. Good luck with that.

Olympically Training Son Boastings for the night: 2

NOTE: The track stayed dry while it rained all around. But Drew got beat by a couple girls. Again. At least they were the fast girls.

Did I Mention?

I'm trying to find ways to work into the conversation that my son is at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs this week.

• "That will be $16.95." Did I tell you that my son is at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs?
• What did I do this weekend? Oh, nothing. Although on Monday, we took Dean to the airport so he could fly to Colorado Springs to work out for the National Team coach at the Olympic Training Center.
• Waiter? My chicken isn't thoroughly cooked. It's as rare as your chances of going to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Where my son is.
• Hi, I'm sorry my son couldn't come with me today. He's at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Working out with the National Team. What? I know he has never come to work with me before. I'm just saying. If he wanted to come with me, he couldn't. He's really, really training.
• Oh, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. Let me call my son and tell him about your loss. He's at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs this week, so I will have to text him, because I'm sure he's way too busy Olympically training to pick up the phone.

I'm open to further suggestions.

Show and Tell, Volume II

There is a beach at Yaquina Head that is made up of little black pebbles. Makes for a nice contrast.
I found this bear in a newspaper photo of a bear caught in a tree in suburban Medford, I think. It needed something, so I added the camera. Makes him look like he has a story to tell.
The idea for this crane came from a sculpture at the Maryhill Museum. Since the sculpture was grey, I added color from my own imagination, so I wouldn't try to spot one of these cranes in the wild. They grow only in my head.

Show and Tell , Volume I

This is what Dean looks like after he finishes his finals, starts a rigourous new training schedule, works all day, and then has a few beers.
This is Chauncey, trying to squeeze some more cute out of this unsuspecting child. No children were harmed in the making of this photo.
Bike racers can eat as much food as you have. No matter how much food you have. Norrene and David getting a well-deserved rest from feeding a house full of bike racers.

If Ivy Doesn't Kill You It Will Make You Stronger. And Your Hands Uglier.

• It's a good thing I was never big on hand beauty, because I'm developing some wicked ivy-pulling callouses.
• Some day I'll get me one of them manicures.
• I am officially the most whitest person in the world, as I managed to obtain a sunburn while bent over pulling ivy from 5:00 p.m. to 6 p.m. You know, in the evening.
• I was so heavily damaged last night from watching two hours of European cycling that I had several recurring dreams about being forced to watch bizarre French You-Tube videos involving lots of quick shots of random objects and French cyclists hollering at the camera.
• Tomorrow we're off to Eugene to help Mom & Dad move some stuff to their new digs in Longview, the place of my birth (I wonder if there is some kind of plaque).
• If you ever find yourself in Longview and hungry, I can fix you up with a place that serves the best halibut fish & chips in the universe. Just don't expect ambiance. Or, you know, clean tables.
• It's almost show and tell time. Watch this space for more paintings coming soon.

In Which We Clean Up and Succumb To Temptation

The party was excellent. A couple dozen superior beings, ranging in age from two to seventy-seven, came, feasted, toasted The Dean Project, drank beers, wine and juice (but not from sippy cups, because we are too grown up for that), and generally partied. Not a late night. Since it was Sunday, the celebrating was compact and dense. Like an earth-friendly flourescent light bulb.

Annie and I are both recovering from our own folly.

Annie managed to lap up a gob of barbequed chicken fat off the bottom of the grill (while more melted fat dripped onto her head). Being hosts, we were off hosting while she managed to Hoover up what later that night became clear was upwards of a quart of black, charred grease. By "later that night," I mean twelve-thirty, and again at three-thirty. And by "became clear," I mean because we got to see it again on the carpet.

Today I bought and broke in a new carpet cleaner, and Annie spent the day outside cleaning out the rest of her stomach, barf by barf (aside from the time she spent in the bath tub getting the chicken grease removed from her head).

I succumbed to my own delicious poison: chocolate cake. It's like taking a sleeping pill. A sleeping pill that tastes like chocolate cake. I need to eat it, then I get a window of about 30 seconds to get up and do something active. If I miss that window, I fall asleep. Then I wake up craving more cake.

I ate a piece of leftover cake after lunch today and made the mistake of settling down with the National Geographic for ten minutes, tops. Two hours later, I woke up craving more.

Yes, I ate another piece. But this time, I ate and dove outside and starting pulling ivy before the narcolepsy could take hold.

Happy Monday. Watch out for the cake. And steer clear of chicken grease.

Celebrate Good Times. You Know, Come On.

BBQ tomorrow at our house. We're celebrating:

• Father's Day.


• Dean's completing his Associate's Degree in Fire Fighting, or, if you like, the Skills of the Fire Gladiator.


• Dean's team, the small but wiry Team Rubicon - the Fightin' Rubes - who have the collective heart of a collective lion.


• Dean's general awesomeness in being selected to go to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado to perfect The Skills of the National Team Gladiator.

Come on up and play. I'm going to go clean the bathrooms now.

Those Darn 16 Words

Enjoy.

If I Don't Answer the Phone, It's Because I'm Outside Playing Sisyphus

I'm going for it this summer. I'm taking this crap out, vine by vine, a little bit every day. It's hard to tell, but this is a corner lot, and the ivy continues around the corner.

I started on Wednesday by spending an hour pulling vines while listening to the Vines. I spent another hour on Thursday and maybe a half-hour tonight. So far, I've cleared maybe five feet.

I'll still be at it in September (probably down by that light pole) and by that time, the first part will probably be growing from the leftover roots.

I Want a Self-Entertaining Dog

I bought a pool for Scotty last summer because with his collie hair-do, he starts panting at 72 degrees and by 80, he is mostly melted. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a typical collie, which means he's typically freaked out by water.

Another reason why dachshunds rock. Nothing freaks them out except the doorbell.

If You Lived In Portland You'd Be Here By Now.

Here we are in Forest Park, a great big forest on the top of the city of Portland. Right there. That's why Portland is the best.
Here's a good reason you should never leave home without checking to see that your bra is doing its job. Fair warning, girls.

My Son Needs a Bumper Sticker

...that says Keep Back 200 Feet.

Another Idea Swiped From Another Blog

So Mo Rocca asks what's your guilty iPod secret? I have pleeeeenty. Here are some.

• I Can't Tell You Why by the Eagles (yes, Drew. There is shame in this.)
• Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel 65
• The Chain by Fleetwood Mac
• What Is Love? by Haddaway
• The Blue Train by Linda Ronstadt
• Don't Call Me Baby by Madison Avenue
• Come and Get Your Love by Redbone, and the most guilty of all:
• Ring my Bell by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.

Beat that.

I Need a Bumper Sticker

Your kid might have made the Dean's list, but my kid made the Track Cycling National Team coach's list. And his name is Dean.

So, sorry about your kid not being as awesome as mine and all.

Really Good Photography. All Year.

Have you found 365 Portraits yet? You will be busy, happily staring at this site for two hours, minimum. ("You" being Dean and Jenny, not so much Drew. There are no motorcycles.)

BREAKING NEWS/BREAKING NEWS/BREAKING NEWS

The people have done spoke.

It's Over. You Need No Longer Avert Your Eyes.

The Grey Ghost is gone. Long live the Gray Ghost.

We left it sitting in the Humane Society parking lot, knowing that they will lavish upon it the same love we have given it over the past 6 years. Namely, none. None love. Just hard, hard usage by an impatient, speed-obsessed young driver.

Now it is free to live out its last years on the Humane Society Farm for Retired Vehicles. Or sold at auction for parts.

We don't even seem to have any photographic evidence that it ever existed. Just the memory of the smell.

Godspeed, Grey Ford Ranger of Danger. You shall roll into parked cars no more.

There's Kleenex in the lobby.

This Is No Joke: You Are Our 10,000th Visitor!

Okay, it's a joke.

I Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself.

I bring you this wonderful bit of Real Time with Bill Maher. If you don't subscribe to the podcast yet, do it now. Even if you don't have an mp3 player.

Except that they just went on hiatus until August.

And finally, New Rule: Jimmy Carter must be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay.
Last weekend, former U.S. president and current Al Qaeda operative--Jimmy
Carter, launched an unprovoked attack upon democracy itself by telling an
Arkansas newspaper that the Bush Administration has been the worst in
history.
And people were shocked... Arkansas has newspapers?!

But, once again, we were sucked into a phony controversy about who said what
and how it hurts George Bush's feelings. Because when you hurt George Bush, you
hurt America's feelings; and when you hurt America's feelings, you hurt the
troops. And when that happens, Tinker Bell's light goes out and she dies.

Now, as for Carter's assertion, I was up all night on Wikipedia doing an
exhaustive study of former presidents. And while other presidents have sucked in
their own individual ways, Bush is like a smorgasbord of "suck." He -- he
combines the corruption of Warren G. Harding, the war-mongering of James Polk,
and the abuse of power of Richard Nixon.

Nixon got in trouble for illegally wiretapping Democratic headquarters.
Bush is illegally wiretapping the entire country!

Nixon opened up relations with the Chinese. Bush let them poison your dog.

Herbert Hoover, who was literally named after a machine that sucks--sat on
his ass through four years of Depression, but he was an actual engineer. And if
someone told him about global warming, he would have understood it before the
penguins caught on fire.

Ulysses S. Grant let his cronies loot the republic, but he won his Civil War.

Harding...Harding sucked, but he once said, "I am not fit for this office and
never should have been here." So at least he knew he sucked. He never walked
offstage like Bush does after one of his embarrassing, language-mangling
press conferences--with that smirk on his face like, "Nailed it!" Or maybe
that's just the look you get when you have a showdown with the Democrats,
and you win. Like he just did with Iraq. You don't get to become the worst
president ever without a little help from the other side.

You know, I like Jimmy Carter, but when the -- when the Republican "fake
outrage" machine pretended to be so upset at his remarks, Carter did what
Democrats do, and backed down. He said his words were careless and misquoted,
and the sun was in his eyes, and his hearing aid went out, and he was molested
by a clergyman. Instead of looking them in the eye and saying, "No, I meant what
I said because it's true! And speaking as the first citizen of Habitat for
Humanity, let me take out my Jimmy Carter toolbox and build you a house where we can meet, and you can blow me."

I loved the part where the penguins caught on fire.

Calling All Portland Bohemians In The Know:

What's a good, comfy pub near the Schnitz (1037 Broadway)?

In Which I Satisfy the County and Cure Insomnia

Here is what my job is (do NOT read if you are at work, if falling asleep and smacking the keyboard with your head is frowned upon):

So recently I sent in two documents to the County to be officially recorded by the Bureaucracy of Authentic Documents, in order to render them Ceremonially Clean and Symmetrically Righteous.

A side note: our office normally does this via mail, even though the County Ministry which handles these authentications is right downtown, maybe three miles away, because if you enter the Ministry, you must take a number and sit down along with many people with various issues, including, apparently, loss of things like bathing rights, voice modulation, and child rearing skills, and then wait for the priviledge of getting to take another, better number. Time is money and odors are, apparently, free.

Where was I?

I sent in the documents, which had been drafted, reviewed and re-reviewed by one engineering firm, one real estate lawyer, one corporate lawyer, and one mediocre legal assistant.

1. Two weeks later, they sent it back because one document did not list the client's middle name. Honest.
2. They also said there was a new rule, which makes the client's entire property tax bill for 2007 (even the part that isn't normally due until October) due before they could process the paperwork. True story.
3. We sent the paperwork back with the client's middle name in the proper place and a couple thou for property taxes.
4. Two weeks later, they sent it back because we wrote the wrong Washington Administrative Code number down on the exemption code line on the Real Estate Excise Tax Affidavit Form. The same form they went over with a fine tooth comb previously and found the middle name fiasco. True story.
5. Tired of mailing the package just to get it back two weeks later, I marched down to the County Ministry of Silly Rules with my documents, took a number and sat down. Try to count how many times they would have sent the documents back if I had continued the mailing game:
6. The County Treasurer discovered a new "Clean Water" bill that had to be paid before the documents could be processed. I took out my wallet and paid the $23.10 (which, you might notice, had not been previously mentioned when they required the property tax payment).
7. After paying the processing fee and the new water fee, I got my Real Estate Tax Affidavits officially stamped and numbered, and I got to get a new number and sit back down to wait for an audience with the County Auditor.
8. The County Auditor found a plat map in one of the documents that had some small-font writing on it that might become illegible once scanned. I gave her permission to stamp the document with a dire warning regarding the possible illegibility.
9. Then the County Auditor frowned upon the Abbreviated Legal Description used in one of the documents, even though the Abbreviated Legal Description came from the County records. I changed it for her.
10. Then the County Auditor frowned upon a blank that was left blank in the document, even though it really did not compromise the recordability of the document. I filled in the blank.
11. Finally satisfied, she placed upon the documents her authentic and bureaucratic seal of acceptance, scanned them into the Database of Truth, and I was set free.

Yes, there is a good chance that if I had continued to mail the documents, and they continued to find one problem at a time, the package might have come back to me four times for a total of six times before they would have been tired of toying with me by mail and recorded the damn documents.

And that's one part of my job. I promise not to try to write about my job again. Your forehead might get hurt.

What I Did on my Memorial Day Vacation

We made Annie hike to Yaquina Head Lighthouse, and then we made her hike up the hill overlooking the lighthouse. You don't have to be a dog whisperer to read her face. It's a good thing we don't allow her to have firearms.Here we are watching baby seals. Annie is asking to be excused. Scotty wants to know what baby seal tastes like.
Here are some baby seals. There were more, tinier ones in the water of this sheltered pool getting swimming lessons from their moms. But they didn't show up very well in the pictures I took, so you will have to imagine them.

The Exploding Whale

There's another dead whale on the Oregon coast. Doubt if they're going to get out the dynamite this time, so you will have to watch this old footage and reminisce.

This Is Where I'm Taking My New Prius This Weekend.

Got to break in the Planet-Mobile with some dog snot, dog breath, dog hair, and sand.

My Smugness Factor just went to 11.

So I'm gonna be busy saving the planet.

Are you?

I pick up my new red Toyota Prius tomorrow morning. No, I'm not going to be cancelling out your bloaty, planet-killing carbon emissions. You're going to have to do that your own self.

And look for me to be making snide remarks about SUVs again.

So if you don't get killed in a global-warming-caused hurricane this summer, you can thank me come next fall, 'cause I probably saved your ass.

That reminds me, I wonder if the White House is going to make the weather service name this summer's hurricanes Barack, John, and Hillary...maybe next summer.

61 miles per gallon, baby.

With any luck, I won't have to talk to another car salesperson for years.

Conan - Bellybuttons

Because laughing is good for you.

Instant Karma

There are very few times in life when you find yourself smiling over another person's demise, but when a guy tries to kill his girlfriend by parking his car on the railroad tracks and running, and then the train ends up flinging the car into the air and ONTO THE GUY, killing him, whilst the girlfriend, riding in the vehicle of death, survives, well you just have to smile, don't you?

I Could Use a Shower

This may come as a shock to you, but believe me when I tell you that car dealers will tell you whatever it takes to get you to buy a car on their lot, regardless of the actual truth of the thing.

Today we were told:

• Fords suck.


• Nissans suck.


• Four-wheel-drive vehicles get one mile per gallon less than two-wheel-drive vehicles.


• Toyota Corollas get practically the same gas mileage as Priuses (actual averaged gas mileage for Corolla: 35; averaged gas mileage for Prius: 55).


• Toyota Corollas emit only tiny amounts of pollution (fagettaboutit).


• Honda Civic hybrids aren't really hydrids, so they suck.


• Nevertheless, forget about hybrids and buy one of these 16 Corollas because they rock.

I feel dirty.

OMG, OMG, OMG

There was a Colin Meloy siting at Bike Gallery today, and I wasn't even the one siting. But I got to experience it vicariously, in hushed tones, over the telephone.

See you at Edgefield, Mr. Meloy!

Final Results: Rubicon Third in Overall, First in Spectators' Hearts

Jolly good show, Aaron and Team Rubicon! Go to trubicon.org for more info.

This Just In

If Jericho goes down, it will go down (characteristically) fighting.

Nuts to you, CBS!

For Those of You Who Thought Nothing Good Could Ever Come from New Zealand

First there's Aaron Tuckerman, the tiny wonderboy with the oversize ears, er, heart, currently kicking northern hemisphere ass in Arkansas...

Now there is the Flight of the Conchords, reputedly New Zealand's fourth biggest folk parody rock duo, coming soon to an HBO-tuned TV near you. BTW, they are looking for suggestions to name the first biggest folk parody rock band in New Zealand. The only thing I could think of was Stop Anthony Hopkins Before He Kiwis Again, or SAHBHKA.

I'm sure you can do better.

Is this the Year of the Kiwi?

Time will tell...

The Davy & Goliath saga continues...

Go Norrene, Aaron, Matt and everyone riding their guts out! We are cheering you on from here!

You can read about the team here.

David vs. Goliath Happens

Norrene and David (and Dean)'s little team that could, did yesterday.

Go Tuckerman, the little fella with the big heart-lung machine! Go bike racers with no posse, lawyers, agents, trainers, chefs (well, besides Norrene) or masseuses!

La, La, La, Not Listening

Sunshine, flowers, kids on bikes, dogs on leashes. Happy, happy, happy.

Do NOT look over here. It's just jerks fighting with bigger jerks. It's up to the judge to decide who's the bigger arsehole.

Go ride your bike.

I Kid Because I Love

They weren't supposed to go and cancel it.

Where else but in Jericho are we going to get nu-cu-lar bombs AND salt mines AND warring Kansas towns?

Skeet, we didn't even get to know all your dark secrets.

More Baby Cheetahs

Babies look cute for a reason.

So Smooth

Ah, Floyd. This is what you get.

A Living Will

If you ever find yourself at my bedside, and you notice that I have read a Family Circle cartoon without cursing in anger that it is still wasting precious comic space, or at least rolling my eyes (or eye, depending on my condition), please just pull the plug.

You Should Look At This Picture.

That is all.

Scotty the Bunny-nator

Imagine this as a brown, furry bunny.

So we went out to scoop poop this morning, Scotty and me. As Scotty rounds the corner of the yard (it has four!), he starts sprinting in his predator mode. No big woop. Whenever he catches sight of a cat or a bunny (we have quite a few resident wild bunnies), he goes for it as if he has a chance of catching them before they slip through the fence.

As if.

Pay attention, as-iffers, because Scotty managed to latch his snout around a fluffy brown bunny. The bunny was squeaking like a, well, I suppose like a panicked bunny, although I have never heard a bunny squeak before. It's quite disturbing.

Just as Scotty was about to shake it like a Polaroid picture, I shouted "no," and for once, he listened to me. I told him to drop the bunny and, again, oddly, he did. The two were stuck in a standoff, the bunny afraid to run, Scotty afraid to look away and lose his first live-caught prey.

Because Scotty and Bun were behind some vicious sticker bushes, I could not force him to do anything. So I tried calling. "Come, Scotty." He considered it, but abandoned the idea. I tried a little intimidation. I knocked on the trunk of the sticker bush with my poop-picking-up spade (an empty threat if there ever was one), and called him again. And he came. Really!

The bunny escaped with his life, although with much less fur than he had a moment ago.

So now you know. Scotty is deadly. To bunnies. Look at him with respect now, for he is a predator. He certainly feels more respect for himself.

You can tell.

This Just In

They're practicing for their comeback.

Turn it up to eleven.

Graduation Sounds, Wedding Talk.

Friday I was still shopping for a graduation present for Katie, my niece, whose graduation dinner party is the following day. Found a present, but not a good one by any means.

Saturday evening was Katie Day, as she is celebrating the successful completion of her double major in nursing and English. Actually this weekend is Katie Weekend, as the festivities at the University of Portland started at 9:00 Saturday morning with a special nursing graduation event, continued through some sort of mystical Baccalaureate Mass that afternoon, and will conclude Sunday with the actual graduation ceremony. Apparently, when the University of Portland graduates you, you stay graduated.

I, I might add, served as designated driver for Dean and Jenny for Saturday's dinner festivities. I only freaked them out with my erratic driving maybe twice.

Dean and Jenny were horrified at the sheer mass of children at the dinner, and the resulting decibel level. Which steered the evening's conversation toward how to word the upcoming invitations to make it clear that their wedding is meant for the over-21 crowd. I suggested calling it an "adult themed wedding," but they didn't go for it.

Speaking of their wedding, it seems they have found a minister to officiate, which lets me off the hook (me having been tapped as their website-ordained back-up), which is mostly good, but a little bit of a bummer, since I had a doozy of a speech percolating in the back of my head. Although if the wedding were to land on the wrong day, biorhythmically speaking, the Toastmaster Janice would have failed to show up, and the Stuttery, Pigletty Janice would have been stuck with the job.

Despite the children investation at the dinner, it was great to see every (adult) one, and holler family in-jokes, introductions of poor Jenny, and congratulations over the din.

On the way home, Dean pronounced Mom (Grandma) one of his favorite people ever. She certainly knows how to liven up a party.

It was also nice to come home.

Wild Dogs in the Park

Saturday morning was the local Humane Society's annual doggy fun run/walk, for which I annually volunteer, along with a dozen or so other hardy animal lovers. We were down at Esther Short Park at 6:45 in the morning, waiting for the hordes.

We were there at 7:00 waiting for the hordes.

We were there at 7:30 waiting for the hordes.

We were there at 7:45 waiting for the hordes.

We were there at 8:00 waiting for the hordes.

The hordes all came en masse at 8:30. Thanks, hordes. Way to require long lines and several dog and volunteer freak-outs.

The walk started at 9:00 admidst the wacky chaos of a thousand dogs and several thousand people.

I stayed a minute too long and got volunteered to count the donations. We counted $50,000, and wished for more. They need all the help they can get. Our shelter is a goner and needs to be replaced, but construction costs and daily shelter costs just keep rising.

Donate.

Humane Society for Southwest Washington.

Mother's Day Is Coming Up. Ever Thought of a Lanyard?

The Lanyard
by Billy Collins

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room bouncing from typewriter to piano
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the "L" section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word, Lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past.
A past where I sat at a workbench
at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard.
A gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard.
Or wear one, if that’s what you did with them.
But that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand
again and again until I had made a boxy, red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold facecloths on my forehead
then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim
and I in turn presented her with a lanyard.
"Here are thousands of meals" she said,
"and here is clothing and a good education."
"And here is your lanyard," I replied,
"which I made with a little help from a counselor."
"Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth and two clear eyes to read the world." she whispered.
"And here," I said, "is the lanyard I made at camp."
"And here," I wish to say to her now, "is a smaller gift.
Not the archaic truth, that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took the two-toned lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be that this useless worthless thing I wove out of boredom
would be enough to make us even."

(Thank you, Billy Collins)

TV as Entertainment

Skeet Ulrich, wondering if the fallout has affected everyone's brains. And if the TV audience is buying any of this.

I know it's a wild idea, but I do like to use TV as entertainment, but it takes some work from the viewer to keep it interesting. I like to interact with the "action" on the screen, helpfully pointing out instances where I notice room for improvement.

Drew enjoys this, as long as I don't do it, you know, aloud. So television viewing can be fun and challenging chez me.

24 is particularly juicy pickings this season, as the plot is silly, the dialog varies from patriotically wooden to expositorily unctuous, and acting is not strictly enforced. But be assured that everybody is really upset. And they're under the gun. And the perimeter is secured. Only not that secure, because "CTU" (the hopefully fictional "Counter Terrorism Unit" Jack Bauer works for) is the least competent agency since the Bush administration.

Also fun viewing (although not in the classic, ha-ha sense) is Jericho, about a small Kansas town (with suspiciously Southern California views) getting kicked around after the CTU helpers from 24 really eff up, and the terrorists nuke all the nice places to live. There seems to be only one family in town who are of average intelligence. The rest are either dumb-asses, dumb-ass and power-hungry, or just intent on milling around like sheep in the town square. There is one sheriff's deputy that I am pretty sure is a leftover Muppet. The only other exception is the mystery guy, Hawkins, played by Lennie James, who is probably a counter-terrorist good guy, but in possession of his own personal nuke, so we're keeping an eye on him.

Last night's episode ended with a looming battle with the neighboring town of New Bern, as national order seems to have devolved into a patchwork of warring city-states. Skeet Ulrich was last seen passing out weapons, conveniently offered by Lennie "Hawkins" James, to all comers over 16. I, personally, would have required an oath. It would have gone something like this:

I, state your name, pledge to the town of Jericho that I will fight to the death as long as the viewers don't get too attached to me, in which case I will fight until I get a sexy-looking cut on my face, and that I promise to be cuter than the New Bern residents so the viewers know who to root for.
One town, under CBS, in sweeps week, with access to the town salt mine for all.

And we must always end each episode with a rousing TURTELTAUB! as Jon Turteltaub's name appears, huge, for about a minute, on the screen.

What Gives?

I hereby present the first installment in my highly anticipated new series, "What Gives?" in which I ask the thought provoking, yet highly entertaining question, "What Gives?"

• What gives, when you get some paint scraped off your bumper, the dealership tells you it will cost you $681 to fix?
• What gives, when God makes dogs so cute and useful, and then loads them with skunk juice in what the vet calls their "anal glands," but must actually be God's Sense of Humor Bags, and then makes said bags highly susceptible to plugging and/or leaking?
• What gives, whenever you answer the phone with a humorous "yellow" or "how's it hanging," that the person on the other line is there to tell you some ghastly bad news about somebody's health and/or jail residence status?
• What gives, whenever you run out of wine, that your blog entries become dark and brooding?
• Ha Ha!
• What Gives?