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Thursday, December 30, 2010

2011

This will be the third year I've posted this quote and I have yet to find something that so perfectly captures my hopes for a new year

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."
Neil Gaiman

I won't say resolutions, but this year, I want to:

Learn to knit. I want to use giant needles and fat soft yarn like my friend jbox to make super cozy amazing scarves and eventually blankets.

Open an Etsy shop. I like to make things. It would be fun to sell them to people. Even if it was only a couple people.

Learn how to use a digital camera properly. I have to get a new camera first, but then I want to learn how to use the buttons and the settings. Too many amazing photos have been lost to blurry and dark ignorance of how to take a picture!

Take a class at Night Flight. Doesn't this look awesome? My company gave them a small business loan and I so badly want to take a class. Spring, mayhaps?

Start a collage book. This is inspired by two people. The first is miss Ricci Cande who is one of the most creative people I know. She does collage books all the time. The other is miss Michelle (always all up in my inspiration grill) and her two friends Laura and Anna who have an amazing little blog called Someday Hopes. I especially love it because most of their someday hopes are also my someday hopes. Anyway, I want to keep a collage book similar to their blog.


Happy 2011!






Tuesday, December 28, 2010

A Ridderbusch Christmas

I really loved Michelle's post about images of Christmas and thought I'd try to take a few pictures of my Christmas with my family. So I'm already being a copy-cat and on top of it, I was just looking at her blog and it turns out we both must have discovered the same wonderful retro camera app. So Michelle, thanks for the inspiration and also, great minds...

Christmas with my family is pretty low key these days. I spend most of Christmas Eve day wrapping gifts for everyone. We go over to my Grandma's house and eat deviled eggs (or if you're me, crackers dipped in the yolk of the deviled egg), cookies, cheese, crackers, etc and open gifts from extended family. Oh and drink. There's always drinking.
This year, my lovely and amazing cousin Samantha made Camp Ridderbusch T-shirts for the whole family. I can't remember how in-depth, if at all, I've described Camp Ridderbusch but it is an annual gathering of madness and mayhem. It is amazing. All of the cousin's T-shirts say "I understand that you think you are right" which should probably be our family motto. I know it's mine. One of the best gifts, ever.

We spend that time together and then we all go our own ways to celebrate with our immediate family. It's kinda nice to still get that big family get-together but then be able to just go home and celebrate your own way. My family opens gifts on Christmas Eve. We started doing this a few years ago because one or both of my parents was always working on Christmas Day. We go home, make a drink or pour a glass of wine, and sit down to open gifts. I really enjoy our late evening. It was also nice to be somewhere with lots of decorations. My mother (however begrudgingly) covers our house in Christmas decorations every year and since I've been moving during Christmas the last two years I haven't had my own so I really miss them until I'm home.
Below is a picture of my mom's Christmas tree. You can't see it but the woman has something like 5 layers of ornaments on that tree. It took her days and days.


So, we opened gifts. My most exciting score was a variety pack of hot sauce. Seriously, I'm really excited about it. I promptly fell asleep IN my pile of gifts with Joseph. He was tired too. We've been moving and were tuckered out. This isn't him sleeping but it is him being adorable.



My favorite thing about opening presents on Christmas Eve is that we get to just relax and enjoy Christmas day. I slept in and my mom made bloody marys to start the day off properly.

My dad then made us a late breakfast of banana and walnut pancakes, eggs and sausage (for the meat eaters). His boss brought over some hand pressed cider too, which was fantastic.


It's all about the food. Mom totally made egg salad sandwiches for lunch, too. Fat and happy, is what I was. We went to see True Grit (always go to the movies on Christmas) and then I drank wine and read my new book until dinner. Note: the book is very interesting. I read it with a highlighter and pen for taking notes.


And for the grand finale...MORE FOOD. My parents made an amazing dinner of ham(which I didn't eat...although it took a lot of willpower. It's usually my cheat of the year.), brussel sprouts, chop salad, and the most amazing scalloped potatoes. Fatter. Happier.






This post is missing the usual quotable moments that my family so obligingly provides for me whenever I'm with them. Those little tid bits are in my notebook at home and will, I promise, be shared.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

beautiful people

coincidental continuation of beautiful couple stalking today.

This is Bobby H. I've been creeping on his lookbook for a while now.

This is Keiko Lynn. His girlfriend.

Had been thinking of starting a lookbook for those days when I'm especially pleased with my attire but then I look at people like them and don't want to muss up lookbook with my sub-par wardrobe.
I wonder if there's any way to get invited to their wedding. The styling would be phenomenal.

This is an obnoxiously perfect couple and their obnoxiously adorable blog. Their baby is also beautiful. For a baby, anyway.

5 most common regrets

worth reading.

Turkey Drop

Moment of Silence for three celebrity couples announcing their splits this week:
Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens- I love high school musical and I also kinda loved them.


Micheal C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter- Brother and Sister on TV and husband and wife in real life. I'm just saying this better not effect Dexter next season.

And saddest of all, my favorite hollywood couple- Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson. They're such a perfect storm of sexy. Apparently not anymore.


Normally not really into celebrity stuff but all three were actually people who I had googled in the past so the stories caught my interest. The Turkey Drop strikes again! Just think of all the millions of dollars these people are saving in Christmas Gifts!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

I need you to run a Jeff Goldblum

Hilarious people make work bearable and even enjoyable.
We have a process called “intake” which is basically when someone sends us a project idea and I look up all the census info and put it into a few forms and blah blah blah boring tax credit financing stuff. Anyway, I recently watched Jurassic Park and Independence Day and had Jeff Goldblum on the brain. I was making myself an intake checklist of sorts. I like to spice up documents of that sort with random celebrities or themes. So naturally, I made it Jeff Goldblum’s Intake Checklist. It looks like this:

So, since I made that list, when Audrey has a new deal she’ll email me and say ‘can you run a Jeff Goldblum’ or ‘JG please’. Today, Audrey (who also put the dolphin pictures all over my desk when I first started) needed me to do Intake on a new deal. I opened my email to find Jeff peering at me. No words. Just Jeff letting me know that some intake needs to be done.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Being an idiot is expensive and time consuming

I went to the Multnomah county courthouse today to see if I could get a $190 speeding ticket reduced.
The speeding ticket itself wasn't actually that idiotic. 53 down HW99 at night. Apparently the stretch I was driving through was a 24 hour construction zone with a 35mph speed limit. Bummer. Anyway, I was about 10 minutes late to the courthouse and then it took me another 10 to find parking. I parked in between two cop cars but double checked there was no sign on my space or anything. So I paid the meter and went to the courthouse. Went through security and ran to the traffic violation area, stressed out of my head for being late. In my mind, they would surely call me out in front of everyone, including a judge in a white curly wig, and tell me how irresponsible I am and that they would be, in fact, doubling my fine.
This didn't happen. It turns out they give hundreds of people tickets with the same court time on them so really, I was just late to wait in line. FOR TWO HOURS. And there were still at least a hundred people behind me. The wait itself wasn't actually terrible. I made friends with the guys around me and we played Angry Birds.
About an hour in I realized that my parking meter was expired. The guys held my spot while I ran out to feed the meter. There was already a ticket on my car. Dammit. So I put a bit more change in and headed back. I didn't even look at the thing. Left it on my windshield.
I go through security again and this time they decide that my bright pink pepper spray is contraband. It's not like they could have missed it the first time. Maybe I looked more threatening after an hour of waiting in line and running to my car in the rain to discover that I'd be lucky to break even on this adventure. Whatever the reason, they told me I had to get rid of the pepper spray. So, because my car was several blocks down and I didn't have time for this bullshit I hid my pepper spray in a 'free newspaper' box outside, under a bunch of portland tribune's or something and went back.
When I returned, the guys had so nicely held my spot and really only moved about a foot in line. After all the waiting was over, they reduced my ticket by about $30. Now this is a reduction, and I'm grateful, but dammit. They told me I could schedule a trial in one or two months. For what, maybe $10 more reduction? I mean, I WAS speeding so I can't really plead not guilty. So I take the reduction, bid my new friends adieu and call work. At this point I've missed over half the day so I'm forced to take a full day of PTO which could have been used for something way better like laying in bed all day.
I retrieved my pepper spray from its hiding spot and headed down the street to where I was parked. On my car, is a second ticket. There are two tickets on my car. I let out a soft 'shitfuck' and get in the car to read them. They are both for parking in a police only spot but one is for $40 and one is for $70. I took pictures of the spot because god dammit it's a parking spot!!! there's a park and pay thing right there and there's no marking WHATSOEVER that says I can't park there. Now, in the three spots around me there are signs that say police only. But not on my spot. As I'm pulling away I notice at the end of the block there is a sign wrapped around a pole that says 'police parking this block only 12-8'. fuckity shit. Normally I would notice such a thing when I was parking but because I was so worried about being late to wait in that line for two hours I missed it. Idiot.
Let's recap. At this point, a $30 ticket reduction has cost me:
$110 in parking tickets
3 hours of my life
8 hours of PTO

So when I got home I decided to call and ask about an outstanding parking ticket because I'd received a letter demanding payment of $151 within 10 days. The only ticket I remembered getting was for $150 for parking too close to a fire hydrant. I was outside what was left of the yellow paint but apparently that doesn't matter. You're supposed to measure that shit yourself. But anyway, I knew I had this ticket I just hadn't been able to pay it. It was, however, slotted in my budget for payment on December 20th. I was getting to it, I swear.
I call and actually the man who helped me was very nice. He told me that the $151 was actually for a $30 ticket I got in JANUARY. I don't even remember the existence of this ticket. In addition I have...wait for it...$544 outstanding on the fire hydrant ticket. Well, fuck me. Idiot.
So I set up a payment plan of $75 a month starting in January. Oh and also, they will take my tax refund to pay for those two tickets. So, awesome.

Dear City of Portland, thank you for the following lessons:
1. If you can't pay something, call. Tickets are not T-Rex's and they can see you even if you don't move.
2. If you are planning on going to court to get a reduction on a speeding ticket: bring a book, take an entire day off, and make sure you park in a parking garage. The streets aren't safe. Also, leave your pepper spray at home.
3. Never, ever, ever park ANYWHERE near a fire hydrant.
4. Don't be an idiot.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Why I love Hugh Grant


Besides the fact that I actually enjoy his movies and find him incredibly charming, I also love that he is completely aware that he plays the same role over and over again. Not only is he aware of it but he's not ashamed. I saw him interview with Oprah once and she asked him why he acts if he hates doing it. He basically said 'you people pay me millions of dollars to do something I'm rubbish at. Why wouldn't I do it?' In fact, if you see him interviewed you'll realize that for the most part, he just plays himself in each movie. Which is fine with me, even if he did get arrested for hiring cheap prostitutes and sometimes is photographed at college bars drunk out of his mind and way too old to be there. He's dashing and I adore him.
Running list of people I'd like to have dinner with: Mike Rowe, Ryan Seacrest, and Hugh Grant. Now that's a party.

Below, some more wisdom from HG.

"I did it as a joke job for a year after I left university," he says. "And I was so bad in the first things I did, I thought, `I've got to do another job to prove that I'm not quite that bad.' And that's gone on for 27 years now."

Hugh Grant insists he doesn’t like acting. So why does he do it? “Because I’m not really good at anything else,”

“As it is, I have a limited range as an actor—light comedy. I have never been a fan of romantic comedies and yet, that is what I have ended up mostly doing,” he said with a shrug.

"I kind of hate it. In fact, I hate it quite a lot - all acting, but especially movie acting."

"The truth is, I'd never seen a Cary Grant film. Since then I have watched his stuff and it's astounding, but I don't see any similarity between us. Except for the fact that I'm told he used to wear ladies' underwear, which is something I also do. "

"Most actors really love it, that's what they want to do. They burn to do it. And so they'll read a script and think, that's an interesting part. And because they love acting, that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which it very often is."

"Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I know that syndrome. I fancy offices, so there must be something wrong with me. Even the window cleaner intrigues me. It's a very sexy environment."

"I don't think there's much point in putting me a deep, dark, heavy, emotional film because there are people who do it so much better than I do."

"I cling to the fantasy that I could have done something more creative. Like actually writing a script, or writing a book. But the awful truth is that I... probably can't!"


Monday, November 29, 2010

Scrooged





is easily my favorite Christmas movie. Followed by Rudolph and then the Grinch
Yay for lights on houses and an excuse to stir cocoa with a candy cane and everything being decorated and the smell of pine.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Today

I forwarded to all of the folks in the office the link below.
http://commissionerleonard.typepad.com/commissioner_randy_leonar/2010/11/portland-oregon-sign-coming-soon.html

In response, Nathan sent:

How do you think they chose which letters to paint first? I would have gone with a left-to-right approach. Or maybe even right-to-left. But the skipped-first-letter-outside-in approach is innovative and I never would have thought of it, which, I guess, is probably why I’ll never be a sign painter.

Nathan gets his shoes shined for fun. He makes his own note-taking paper. He takes his girlfriend to birthday breakfast and then surprises her with a special cake after work. Also, he’s hilarious. I asked Nathan to write a MANual. But he’s hesitant. I’ll keep trying ladies, I’ll keep trying.


In completely unrelated news, this is a real life facebook status that came up on my news feed today:
“*baby’s name* actually chewed the piece of cheese I shared with her! She used to just put it in her mouth & not eat it.. Wow!”


Ooookay. Dear facebook, we need a baby filter. I have friends that I love and whose lives interest me-who also have babies. However, not only do I not care about cheese chewing abilities of infants, I’m pretty irritated that it’s on my newsfeed. I don’t want to filter this person out of my social networking life but the ounce by ounce weight update of the child is really interfering with my ability to efficiently stalk people I never talk to.


Dear obsessive baby status updater: If you happen to be reading this, I love you, I just don’t care how much she weighs today.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Reasons to invest in pepper spray

So I’ve written on here about my homeless friends, the lovely men who tell me good morning every day. They’re still around and I still enjoy them thoroughly. However, with daylight savings comes the fact that when I leave work (and within a couple weeks, also when I arrive at work) it is dark and scary. My strategy is usually to have headphones in. I find that scary folks are less likely to talk to/at you if they think you cannot hear them. However, I like to be aware of my surroundings in these situations so I don’t turn my music on until I get on the bus. One especially pleasant gentleman last night told his friend that he was going to “bend her over the stairs and fuck her till she cries”. Her is me. And me was scared. I pretended I didn’t hear him because I didn’t want to encourage any sort of interaction. Resisting the urge to run my ass up the stairs I just stared straight ahead and strolled on. Last week I was coming into work in the morning and I nodded and said good morning to a man while crossing the max tracks. He started saying all the usual things and turned and followed me to my building. He tried to follow me inside but there was a security guard inside the lobby. I found out recently that one of the women who works with me was slapped by a homeless woman right outside our office. She just walked up and slapped her in the face. So basically, I’m a little uncomfortable with this situation. I’m thinking about buying some pepper spray. We have security in the building that we can call to walk us out but they need at least a half hour notice and we don’t always leave at the same time. We’re going to have a ladies meeting at work today to discuss how to make the situation safer but I really don’t know what can be done. In my paranoia I looked up the crime statistics for Old Town/China Town. This did not make me feel better.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Weddings are pretty great.

Yesterday I worked my third wedding for my internship. I'm loving it so far. Even if I miss my weekends.

Being involved in someone's wedding is a really interesting experience. When you've got that coordinator name tag on, you become intimately involved with the entire operation and therefore the entire family and bridal party. It is ultimate people-watching. While our brides and grooms have been so different and great to work with- what I have really loved is meeting their families and friends. I meet, work with, and observe these people on the day of their sister's/brother's/son's/daughter's/grandchild's wedding. Their emotions are high and people react so differently. There are proud sisters and jealous best friends and relieved mothers (one said to me at rehearsal: "this is the last daughter. They're all married. I've done my job." Funny way to see it, I thought. A little 'Mrs. Bennett' even. But it occurs to me that a lot of people still feel that way) I also love watching the way two whole families interact. The ability of a Michael Jackson song to unify a group of people is pretty impressive. Journey also does the trick.
It's very easy to forget that people live in completely different ways. That seems like a silly thing to say but I forget often that even people who live in the same country or even the same region, with roughly the same socio-economic status and even the same ethnic background often view the world/live their lives in so many different ways. You get to learn a lot about people in observing the way they celebrate things-especially a marriage. For some it is a very formal recognition of commitment. For others it is a party about love. While working these weddings I've been thanked repeatedly, I've been ignored, I've been hugged, I've been treated like 'the help', and I've also been pulled onto the dance floor by the bride and groom. I guess the point of this, if there is a point, is that people are really interesting, and different, and intriguing, and I feel very lucky to be able to interact with them on a day that is so important to them.

And with weddings on the brain- enough about people. Here is one of the most wonderfully styled weddings I've ever seen. I'm just so in love with it. I want to pause it and walk around inside like they do in Big Fish.
I've also come across some fantastic wedding party photos today. I adore a creative/unique wedding party- especially when they all look genuinely happy.



And also, umbrellas and parasols are wonderful.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

I love my ducks


and the fact that I can count on them every week for a mood boost.

And also, the matte black helmets are I think as sexy as a football helmet can be.

Jelly Shot party anyone?

This is awesome. Thank you NOTCOT

Jelly Shot Test Kitchen

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Eating Animals

I'm currently making my way through Jonathan Safran Foer's book, Eating Animals. Because he usually writes fiction, I find his book to be much more enjoyable than other books I have read on the topic of food choices. There is a voice. There are also, however, facts. Facts upon facts upon facts.
The most important point and the one that I have not seen addressed nearly as clearly and as well in other books covering similar topics is this:

The forgetting that people must do in order to eat meat.
People must purposely avoid the knowledge of what happens to their food before it becomes food in order to continue justifying it to themselves (or to avoid confronting the issue all together). This includes my best friends, my parents, and most of the people I respect. Most people refuse to read/watch/listen to things that will tell them about their food because they know that if they knew, then making the conscious decision to continue eating meat would go against their ideas of what is right and moral.
It tastes good and it is familiar. To know, and to be forced to consciously confront the issue of what that taste and familiarity costs, would be inconvenient. To face the idea that your food used to feel and think and suffer (as it certainly did. 99% of the meat consumed in the US is produced on factory farms. Every single animal on those farms suffers every day) in a real and honest way makes most people extremely uncomfortable.

Here’s the rub- if you are knowingly evading the knowledge, then you are knowingly choosing to participate in something that you think is wrong. If you felt good about the choice, you wouldn’t have to protect yourself from the reality of it.

If you're not willing to think about that- think about this:


Antibiotics.

We have to get prescriptions for antibiotics from our doctors because if people used them too much, then we'd build up a resistance too quickly. The idea is to only give them to the people that really need them so that we can use them longer.
Factory farming necessitates that animals be fed antibiotics preemptively, routinely. The conditions are so terrible and the animals have been bred/genetically modified into such distortions of their natural selves that they CANNOT survive without a constant stream of antibiotics. And then we eat them. Human resistance to antibiotics is skyrocketing because of this practice.

Epidemics.

If you’re still reading at this point, then maybe you’re willing to think about this a little more. Get a hold of this book. Read the chapter called Influence/Speechlessness. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Seriously.

Shitwater flavored Chicken

Part of processing 99% of the chicken you eat (the chicken they sell to you at Red Robin and the chicken your grandma makes you for dinner) is to cool the dead chicken after processing by submerging it in water. ‘Farms’ use this practice (despite how gross I’m about to tell you it is) because it allows the carcass to absorb water, therefore making it heavier and increasing the profit.
Fun Fact: Feces are considered a ‘cosmetic blemish’ by USDA health inspectors. So, when the machines used to slaughter and dismember your dinner hit the bird’s intestines and feces are released into the inside of the bird, the health inspector sends it on down the line and into the cooling tank. It’s fine, the damage is only cosmetic. The water in these tanks has been deemed ‘fecal soup’ because of all of the filth that comes off of the chickens and floats around in the water. This is the water that the farmers want absorbed so that they can get higher prices. Afterwards, they will douse the bird in chlorine in hopes if disinfecting it and then inject it with MORE liquid- usually broth or flavoring- to make it taste the way you expect it to and to further inflate the weight and therefore the cost of the chicken.

Done preaching for now. I’m not going to sass you if we go to a restaurant and you order a fatty cheeseburger. I’m not perfect. I’m just saying that if you’re willing to eat it you should be willing to at least know about it.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Someday

I will be able to afford beautiful vintage gowns from Xtabay and I'll feel so pretty I'll hardly be able to stand it.






Monday, October 11, 2010

Dear Joey,

It is 3:30AM. I have been on my feet, working for free, for 15 hours now- on 4 hours of sleep(because you were whining and kept me up). I came home, expecting some accidents because I had to leave you at home so long. I was feeling really guilty about you being all by yourself all day. And then I felt even more guilty when all I saw was one pile of Joey crap. 15 hours and only one pile of crap. No puddle to clean up. I was ecstatic. I was thinking, Joey Monster I love the shit out of you. Then I went to grab my newly washed comforter so that I could go to sleep. It's wet. In fact, it's urine-soaked. So are all of my other blankets that were sitting underneath it. Melissa is the only other person with a key to my apartment and she is in Bend so I know she didn't pee on my blankets. That just leaves you. And since when do you get up on the couch to pee? This was deliberate and malicious, Joseph. I'm hurt. So now I'm loading up laundry at all hours of the night and bundling up like I'm going camping since you peed on ALL of my blankets.
Nobody deserves this, Joey. Probably not even Hitler.

No I take that back. He's probably on the short list of people who deserve to have every single blanket they own pissed on and find out at 3:30AM when all they want to do is sleep. It is a very fucking short list.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Just another night with the fam

My brother and I were harassing my mother. Pretty standard operation. I don't remember what he said to warrant such a serious response but she came back with:

"I'll curse your colon."

My brother: --blank stare--
Me: --blank stare--

...

My brother: Well you know what mom? I wish only the best for your colon.

And no, there is absolutely NO context here. I have nothing to offer in the way of explanation. Nothing.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Okay, so Scarlet has got some competition



Double competition really. Because Joan, is fucking fantastic. And Christina Hendricks, is also fucking fantastic. She's out of control sexy and also...this letter to men that she wrote for Esquire is perfect.
Planning to be Joan for Halloween. Need to find a gold pen to wear around my neck.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

That's all.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Thanks, April.

Amazing!! It told us that April prepped our pizza. Then it told us when she put it in the oven! Then it told us when she inspected it for perfection. And then when it was delivered (BY APRIL!!!! omg it was really her). It told us it was here. Thank you Domino's.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Two weeks of lovely

This week I've been grumpy and so I'm going to go ahead and reflect on the two weeks before, which were just lovely.
Going to work in sections, backwards. Whatever, I do what I want.

Eugene Celebration
This last weekend was spent in Eugene with Jessica and Jason. Friday was a mellow evening at the Eugene Celebration (Jason and I were exhausted from camping and Jessica was/is deathly ill). Saturday morning Jason was kind enough to feed us at the dorms. The dorms still smell strangely homey to me. Especially dorm stairs. Ohhh, housing, how I sporadically miss you. The afternoon was spent getting our amazing feathers. Still love them.(plug: Jesse at Imagine Salon downtown did them!) Then Jason fed us at the dorms again. This is probably good because otherwise we wouldn't have eaten as we have no dolla dollas.
Drinking(loko) began at eight. Jessica puked and rallied at 9. Green housing water bottles were filled with vodka cran at 9:30. From there I have no idea of time. I wonder why.
We made our way to the McDonald to see Beats Antique who I had never heard of before but man oh man what an amazing show. I was sore for DAYS from dancing. Now, this is partially due to my trying to keep up with/dance with Jason. This cannot be done unless you have numbed yourself to pain. Which I had. But you will pay. And I did.
After the show we made our way to Jameson's (where everybody knows your name) for water. Yeah, we congregated around the water cooler. It was necessary. Here, we met up with some friends of Jason's. There is a girl, we'll call her Lowselfesteem. There are two guys. We'll call them Jasoncurious and Likestomakeoutwithjessica. Blah Blah Blah we're all tired we walk back to Jason's. He has been causing gay man drama on facebook all night and the moment we walk into the building he runs into the office downstairs and says "I gotta check my facebook GET OUTTA HERE." Right, the rest of us head upstairs.
I crash on Jason's bed, which is where I had planned on sleeping that night. Jason's bed is quite large, as it is two dorm beds pushed together. So when Jess and Likestomakeoutwithjessica laid down on the other bed, I didn't think much of it. But wait, why is someone touching me? Oh look, it's Jasoncurious. And Lowselfesteem is behind him. They want to have a cuddle party. I kid you not. I'm resisting and Jasoncurious tells me that I am the middle piece of bread in the Big Mac and that I'm crucial. Crucial.
He then tells Lowselfesteem that she is the bottom piece of bread. The ass of the sandwich if you will. I feel bad for her sorta. I am now in a spooning sandwich. A Big Mac made of people. I fall asleep, half expecting to wake up in the middle of an orgy.
Luckily, Jason comes in and basically tells everyone to leave. Jessica gets her wits about her and decides that we need to go home. Yes. Yes we do. On our exit, I hear Jasoncurious (who has a girlfriend but apparently sleeps with Lowselfesteem regularly.) asking Jason if he'd like to fuck. No thank you Jason says. I linger in the room until Jasoncurious gets the hint and peaces out. Jason will ask in the morning why we all left him alone in his room.
Camp Ridderbusch 2010
There was a Ridderbusch flag. There were many flag ceremonies. There was tequila night. There were people passed out on the hill. There was much hullabaloo about Jason and I and our hookah. There was beautiful beach time and myballsjustcrawledupinsideme river time.
My family rocks.
There was also a wedding (congrats Davebob). With a nacho cheese fountain. During the reception we made a HUGE scene by insisting that all the Ridderbi take a photo together. Screaming people's names across the reception space was probably the best way to accomplish this.
The week before
So, the week before my vacation just happened to be full of wonderful. My company picnic at Oaks Park was on Friday. So, I got a half day at work which is ALWAYS awesome. Melissa was my plus one (duh) and we went on rides(screaming the whole time 'we're too old for this!!!') until we almost threw up. It was really fun. At the time. I had to go home and sleep for 3 hours to recover. We also got our faces painted by a CRAZY lady. I asked her for swirlies with gold. She drew rainbow hearts with squiggles...uh? swirlies are not squiggles. sheesh.
Thursday was tofu sloppy joes and Comedy Central with the man friend. Lovely except Joseph has jealousy issues about his dog and had to be put in his kennel for the evening. You win some you lose some.
Wednesday was really wonderful. Pushkina suggested that we go out to Edgefield to see a free show from a guy named Ben Smith(download his CD if you like country). He's delightful. We swooned. We sighed. We vowed to take a trip to Texas. The weather was gorgeous. There were lights in the trees. Our server was a bit of a twat and I had to go through a lot to get some tots in my body but besides that, wonderful. It was just overall a really great evening with my life partner.
Tuesday was also man friend time. But including man friend's man friends-who I freaking adore, and who were gossiping like 13 year old girls. So, more fantastic in my life.
Monday David Z suggested sunset and wine at Tabor. He's so full of good ideas, that man is. He told me about his trip to Hawaii (jealous!) and we watched the sunset over Portland and it was happy and pretty and perfect.
Freaking great week. Two weeks. Freaking great life actually. Yay for being surrounded by amazing people.

And now, photographic evidence.

View of Portland Sunset from Mt. Tabor


Ben Smith breaking our hearts at Edgefield.


Pushkina with her rogue iris and me with my rainbow hears (wtf)


Snuggle time at the beach. Jason was so lovely for being my manpanion for the whole camping trip.


Beats Antique. During their encore. With terrifying animal masks on.


Jess and I at Jameson's lovin up on eachother. Those glasses don't have lenses. They belonged to Jasoncurious.
Hey folks, if you're reading this regularly, I finally added a follow button to the page. So, if you feel like clicking the button, you can.
k bye.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

You know you're poor when eighty nine cents in your bank account is cause for celebration


Instant mood lift?
Grudgingly (and really with one eye closed, sort of turning away from the computer screen- the same way you look at things that are really terrifying or disgusting) logging onto your bank account to see exactly how screwed you are only to find that you have just barely squeaked by.
No overdraft fees for me!!

Monday, August 30, 2010

oh sweet baby jesus.


Saturday, August 28, 2010

feathergasm

Jess and I just got back from the Imagine Salon in Eugene, where we got feathered. A wonderful man named Jesse did it. If you would like to try such things, I highly recommend him. We both just let him have his way with us and it turned out incredible! The pictures don't do it justice.


Joie de Vivre

Ali at a pair of aviators has a running series of 'joi de vivre' lists and she featured mine this week. You can take a look here. In other news, really really lovely last two weeks of my life. Will post about that when I get back to my home (right now I'm in the Eug/on Jess's futon for Eugene Celebration/FEATHER EXTENSIONS) but in the mean time, here's Joseph enjoying our vacation. He's at his grandparents house for the weekend and I kinda miss having someone to yell at constantly.

Friday, August 20, 2010

You sure got a pretty mouth


I work in the White Stag building, ie the Skidmore block, ie the “Made In Oregon” building. The door to my office is under the Burnside Bridge. Each morning I get off the bus to the sweet smell of urine and each afternoon I step over the folks camped out on the bridge so that I can get to my bus stop. My encounters with the people who call the Burnside Bridge home have been varied but not scary or particularly unpleasant. We get to watch fights from our windows in the office and a couple times the police have even used our lovely view to catch shady characters. Also, I’m complimented constantly. Some compliments are… colorful : ‘girl you sure got a pretty mouth’, ‘look at the way them boobies shake up the stairs’, ‘Hey! Hey you! Girl! Blondie! Pretty girl! Get your fine ass over here!” But, some are lovely: “you look very nice today”, “look at that smile! You have a great day”. The lovely ones come from the gentlemen outside the rescue mission. There are about 5 guys (the number keeps growing. It started with one guy-my bodyguard) that wish me a good morning every day. I smile at them and wish them a good morning and generally they tell me to have a great day or not to work too hard. When I first started my job about 9 months ago, I got off the bus and there was a fight about a foot away from the bus door. One of these wonderful gentlemen stepped in front of the fight and basically guarded me through to the stairs. “Don’t you worry sweetheart, they’re just being idiots” he told me. These guys have by back. And today, I get off the bus and everyone tells me good morning and then 5 or 6 different people warn me to be careful on the stairs. I get this confused look and my bodyguard tells me “I’m real sorry darling but someone uh, well uh, just be careful.” Someone shit on the stairs, is what he was trying to tell me. Shit. On. The. Stairs. And it was right in my walking path. If my friends hadn’t been so kind as to warn me, I would have been texting away and probably slipped and fallen in stair shit. I love these guys. I keep forgetting to ask their names but I will remember one of these mornings. Moral of the story is to make friends with the local homeless because they will warn you if there is shit on the stairs.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

can't get over it


New Obsession/Need: Feather Extensions

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

uh, what's up August? (and also, a bit of a rant)

Working Monday through Friday has the bizarre side effect of making time fly so fast that you're not even really sure what year it is, let alone what month. My days feel about 30 years long but my weeks and months are blinks.

I think it’s because I'm always just trying to get through five days, 4 days, three days, holy shit it’s Thursday, oh Christ only 8 more hours…until the weekend. And then it’s Monday and I need facebook photos to even prove to myself that I did indeed have a weekend.

Which brings me to…how the FUCK is it August? Seriously. My mind is blown by this. Not only is it August but the month is almost half over. It makes me afraid that I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be thirty and not know how it happened.

Most of me wants to run away to a country where they won’t turn me over for defaulting on all of my debt and just wait tables and live in shitty little apartments and have adventures and be stinking poor. The other part of me says knock it off crazy face. That part is winning. What I really need is to win the lottery and pay off all of my debt so that if I want to be a crazy face I can (first I'd have to buy a lottery ticket). There are just way too many strings attached to me right now and it sucks. I can’t even join the Peace Corps/WOOF/other-awesome-opportunity-abroad because I’d have no way of paying on my credit cards/private student loans/ car while I was gone.

As terrible as I am at being an adult, in other ways I’m also way too good at it. Too settled, too responsible. In a few weeks I’ll start my internship which will take up my weekends. Super excited to be working towards a career that I actually want but also hating that my limited adventure time is going to be eaten up by more responsible adult activity (and unpaid at that).

So basically, this is me complaining about things I can't change (existing debt) and things I could change but won't (being a big fat chicken/taking on an internship). Just complaining. Sometimes you have to, you know?

I googled 'stock photo office worker'




NO. Absolutely not. Nobody working in an office looks like that unless they all stopped working to talk about the tiger tattoo their boss has on his hip or perhaps the 90's dance music video that their other boss appeared in briefly.



Now, that's more like it. I feel you, Danica (totally could be her name right?). I feel you.