Recent Posts

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Thanksgiving with my family: The Epilogue

We asked my grandma to tell the story of how she and my grandpa met.

It was a blind date. She and her girlfriend had been set up with two guys to go to a new years party. Grandma said she nearly stepped over her friend so that she could have my grandpa because the other guy was really short and grandpa looked like Jimmy Stewart.
The party was at my grandpa's apartment on the 10th floor. Grandma got rip roaring drunk and threw up over the balcony. She then stumpled into my grandpas room and passed out on his bed. When she woke up, a girl said to her "Nice to meet you Nancy, I hope to see you again when you grow up."
They were married 4 months later. They've been married 58 years.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Thanksgiving with my family pt. 3- Balls Out!

While I went to tea, Pat went bowling with my uncles, dad and brother. Then, they came home and apparently my dad developed a craving for Jager. So as I'm coming home from tea my dad is making a liquor store run.
He comes back and my dad, brother, and boyfriend drink a bottle of jager one shot at a time at our kitchen table.
None of them are seeming as drunk as they should so my dad lets us know that he has some tequila in the garage. My mom says, and I quote, "aha! Tequila! Balls Out!"
Tequila does not happen, instead Pat and I watch our stories (American Horror Story and Walking Dead) On Demand, sober up, and then drive home at midnight so that Pat can watch his English soccer game in bed in the morning.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Thanksgiving with my family pt.2- The Great Tea Debaucle


The day after Thanksgiving, my aunt and grandmother invited all us girls to tea. Legit tea. With crumpets and whatnot. I was actually excited about this adventure because if we're being honest I've wanted to attend a real tea party since I was cognizant.  Apparently the tea houses that my family usually goes to were closed that day, so we made reservations at a tea house in Albany. At 12:30, Samantha picked me up and I left Pat at the mercy of my parents while I went to tea. My mother chose not to go. Tea is "not her thing."
We arrived at the tea house-we being myself, Samantha, and her sisters/my cousins Jessica and Randi- at roughly 1pm. My grandmother, aunt Wendy, and cousin Ivy were waiting for us. This place looks like your grandmother's house. But with even more fake flowers.
There are about 6 tables and two of them are deuces. So at capacity, there are 25-30 people in there. They have 3 people working. Pretty good ratio, I thought. Our server comes over to take our tea order. Without being an asshole, I'd like to explain that she had a lisp and was clearly not learning at grade level. So she had to point at teas on the list instead of explaining them to us because she couldn't pronounce the names. In the grand scheme of things this is clearly not something to be upset about and I'm sure its much more inconvenient for her daily life than it was for our tea time. How to run a tea house tip #1: a serving position which regularly involves explaining the process of high tea and the varieties of tea may not be the best career path for someone with a speech impediment.
She takes our tea order. I picked "almond bar tea" which is supposed to taste like an almond bar. We are investigating the table and find two little signs printed on bright cardstock. The first is a strip of paper which reads something close to "due to our making everything from scratch, food may take longer than expected. We thank you for your patience." I may have fancied up the grammar a bit but that's the idea. We are not a group of people that appreciates being thanked for our patience before we have granted it. The second sign says "This is a no cell phone zone. Thank you for silencing or turning off cell phones." At least four of us are in the process of checking into foursquare/facebook. But our cell phones were probably on silent, so that's good.
The tea arrives, two pots at a time. One of which is nestled in her armpit as she tries to maneuver the other onto the table without dropping the cozies. She manages to spill tea on my grandmother and in her purse. Luckily grandma's jacket was pretty solid and not taking any shit from this girl and grandma didn't notice till she walked away and Ivy so kindly wiped all the tea off of grandma's arm. This continued two tea pots at a time until all 7 of us were served our tea. How to run a tea house tip #2: buy a freaking tray. The tea was by all accounts delicious. Mine was wonderful. The tea pots were pretty cute, although covered by hand made and reversible cozies that took up half the space on the table.
Our server came back to take our food order. There was an a la carte menu but also you could order a traditional tea service at different levels. Wendy, Grandma, Ivy and I all ordered the "fancy tea" which included sorbet, finger sandwiches, savory pastries, sweet pastries, scones, etc. The server kept asking us what kind of soup we wanted. Ivy eventually pointed out to her that it didn't come with soup. We added it on anyway. Randi and Jessica ordered the "petite tea" which was the same thing minus sorbet and sandwiches. Samantha ordered a salad with no cheese. At this point it is probably 1:45pm.
We didn't get any milk with our tea, which is apparently not acceptable. This was my first time at tea but I was informed by those more wise than I that there is supposed to be milk. We only had to ask all three of the women working at least once. It has become clear at this point that the three women running this place are sisters and that our unfortunate server has been given this position because her sister is the manager.
At this point we're all chatting and enjoying each others company and have decided as a group that this place is a little off but that our tea is delicious so that's okay. As we start condensing our tea pots to the middle of the table to make room for our sorbet, somewhere in the mass of cozies a tea pot spills. It is my grandmother's tea pot. We start collecting our tiny napkins to soak up the mess. The smaller version of our waitress shows up after watching us for about 3 minutes with a towel and hands it to us, taking our mass of soppy napkins away. She doesn't come back with more napkins.
We end up going to the front of the room to ask for more napkins. She brings us five. Grandma notes that all three of these girls "fell off the same turnip truck."
A three-tiered tray arrives with our "fancy tea" goodies on it. Tasty sandwiches and little pastries. There was four of each treat so we divvied them up and started nibbling slowly until the other food arrived. They were quite good. However, if you're going to make a point of your food being made from scratch, try to keep the stickers from your pre-made baked goods off your serving plates.
Then the lady who I assume is managing this establishment (when she's not carrying an infant around on her hip) brings over our check. We let her know that we still have soup coming and three more meals. She says something about how they're just bringing the check out early because they were so busy earlier. Right.
So all of a sudden we have soup and Samantha has her salad-covered in cheese. She doesn't send it back because it is about 2:30pm and who knows when salad number two will arrive.She spends the rest of the time picking the cheese out of her salad and becomes really frustrated. I totally understand this. When you're trying to make a dietary choice without making it everyone else's problem and you do what you think is the easiest possible thing for everyone and order simple- and they screw it up anyway, it's incredibly frustrating.
The "petite tea" goodies have not arrived. 2:45pm, nothing. 3:00pm, nothing. They've completely squandered the patience they pre-thanked us for. We're nearly done with our food and Wendy goes up to the front to ask about the other two meals. Randi and Jessica have resigned themselves to a fast food stop on the way home at this point but we at least want it taken off the check. Our wonderful waitress argues with Wendy and tells her that the petite treats were on our tray as well. This is clearly not true since there was four of each item, not six. How to run a tea house tip #3: If you're going to lump 6 people's meals onto one tray in order to save yourself a trip, let them know so that they can double check your counting skills.
Samantha has a minor break about her salad but for the most part we are all in good spirits- just a little flabbergasted. My grandmother is scandalized. Not because they spilled tea on her or because it took them nearly five minutes to help her clean up her tea or the hour wait for our food- she can't beleive that they haven't cleared any of our dishes. And they haven't. We all still have sorbet dishes and soup bowls and little plates. Not one thing has been cleared. This is another symptom of really poor server training.
The lady with the baby on her hip tells my aunt that they took over this business a year ago and are still getting the hang of it. Clearly. I ended up being glad that my mother didn't come because after serving for most of her life she has limited tolerance for poor service. Very limited.
This brings me to the fact that if anyone wants to open a tea house with me, I'm pretty confident I could run circles around these people.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thanksgiving with my family pt.1- Strength in Numbers

This Thanksgiving, Pat and I went to my grandma's house to celebrate with the Ridderbi.
We camped out at the snack table until dinner started and then made our way to the kids table. Yes, we still sit at the kids table and I personally prefer it. I suppose we could call it the cousin table but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.
My cousin Samantha has recently become vegan. This makes three cousins that are at least vegetarian, plus my aunt Wendy who is a part time vegetarian. Because our numbers have grown, the family has started creating things for us to eat- we had meatless stuffing, for instance. And the potatoes didn't have bacon in them. I have to tell you, I'm pretty pleased with this. The first year I stopped eating meat I think my only choices were green bean casserole and fruit salad. Delicious, but not exactly the full thanksgiving experience.
The real gem though, was the Tofurky that Samantha prepared. It looks awful. Grayish brown color, little cat butt where the packaging was twisted at the end. But it was actually delicious. For serious! So I had a bonafied vegetarian feast on thanksgiving and was thankful for soy, science, and for strength in numbers.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Phone Photos

I love this. Pat's cousins were trying to be sweet and take a photo of us. The iphone wasn't cooperating so I got bored and started looking at the city. Pat got bored and started looking handsome.

Pat and I saw North by Northwest in a little park near downtown. Never knew it existed. Also, that movie was fantastic. I don't know why I haven't seen more old movies.

Pushkina took me to a Ducks game. She even bought me this hat. She's a great Pushkina. We sat next to people who were too large for their seats and were surrounded by cranky folks who didn't like to cheer. So we cheered for them.

bathroom photo at work. I know. Lameo. But I think this is my new favorite outfit.

Pat and I in Seattle at the Gas Works park. I'm bad at taking pictures of us so you can barely see the old machinery behind us. We took a really lovely nap in this park.

Barn Dance

On October 1st, I had my first event. Not the first event I've worked on, but the first event that was actually mine. There's been some turmoil at work, which I won't go into, but it felt really good to get an event under my belt and plus it was super fun.
The event was a Barn Dance and Pig Roast in our Grand Hall which is actually an old Arabian Horse barn so it was perfect. I spent hours cutting and stringing pennants and we used a fork-lift to get 7 1,000lb bales of hay into the space. I arranged flowers for 30 tables and spent hours planning and tracking details. We had a line dance instructor, live band, and DJ. I spray painted little tiny plastic farm animals gold for the centerpieces.
Over 200 people came and folks really enjoyed it, which is the point (that and making money, of course). Pat line danced for over an hour which was, bless his heart, one of the more ridiculous things I've ever seen. Melissa came. All of the Shadypeak boys came, and so did my parents and my friend Jake who brought his lovely girlfriend. It was really great to have people there supporting me and being enthusiastic about something that I really enjoyed creating. I was pretty busy/exhausted/in work mode and didn't take many pictures but when we get them back from the photographer I will definitely post them. The one above is the only one I took. Before we had tables or really anything in there besides pennants and hay.


My mother is going to kill me for posting this. She doesn't always look like that.
Jake and Krystal. Pretty darn cute, right?

Pat being wonderful supportive boyfriend. Also, there's a bull outlined on the back of his shirt. The photos below are of Pat and I dancing at the end of the night.  Photo 1: Aw how sweet.  Photo 2: Inappropriate!
           

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Sea Lion Naps

I had a wedding in Pacific City this last weekend. Pat kindly accompanied me and lent his assistance in lantern and paper crane hanging. He's handy that way. Pat, Myself, the planners, and their husbands all stayed in a lovely beach house near the Pelican Pub where the wedding was held. They had something like 6 different Michener books. It took a LOT of will-power not to steal them. Hardbacks. That match my copy of Caribbean. Maybe not everyone knows how wonderful Michener books are. Well, they're wonderful. Put one in your brain. This one or this one are my suggestions.
The wedding was small and super easy. But there was of course one obnoxiously drunk gay man who insisted on serenading the bride and groom. Which in itself, isn't necessarily bad. However, his song choice was strange, if not totally inappropriate. China Girl, by Bowie. I don't think that there was a single Chinese or otherwise Asian person at the wedding. So strange. Besides, I think it's safe to assume that any song with the word 'swastika' in it is NOT a wedding appropriate song.
We had Sunday to ourselves and Pat suggested we go to Bob Straub park. It was cloudy but not cold and we actually had a really nice 2 hour walk on the beach. Because the beach isn't one of the super popular ones, I found all kinds of treasures. Totally legit sea shells and my first whole sand dollar! Pat helped me treasure hunt. There were also little jelly things all over the beach but they didn't have tentacles. I had to investigate most of them. Some were orangey. One blue one. Lots of clear ones. Still very curious what they are. The internet has not been able to answer this question in a satisfactory way.

Impressive, right? Usually you have to purchase sea shells this awesome.

Other beach happiness? Stepping on those sea-weed balls and they make that awesome popping sound. Which, makes me think of these super awesome little yellow balls with spots that me and my brother used to love to step on at my grandparents house in Hugo. Everytime I tell people about these expecting that they too will recall the childhood delight of annihilating these crispy little balls, I get blank stares. And I am crushed. I have thought for years that I made these things up. Sometimes I have really realistic dreams. BUT, the internet has come to my rescue. This, my friends, is a Gall.


See how festive it is? How poppable it looks? The inside is kinda furry. It turns out that this is basically a little protective home that oak trees create for larvae of various insects. This is the only picture of a Gall that I've found that looks exactly like the ones I used to step on. I think that I was stepping on dry dead ones.

UH, apparently kinda all over the place on this one but. CHILDHOOD MYSTERY SOLVED!

Back to our beach stroll. We came upon what looked like a dead seal. Which was sad but also I wanted to investigate. I was crouched next to him looking at his adorable dead little face when he opened his eyes and lifted his head up. Totally not dead! Pat kept his distance but I went over to the little guy(not little) and started saying "heeeey buddy. whatcha doin?" He didn't answer me, but he did raise his fin at me. A friendly greeting, one would suppose. I did back up a little when he started to stand up. Pat then said that we should probably head back. I was worried that he was all by his lonesome and stranded on the beach or sick. I couldn't leave the little guy in distress so I googled and then called stranded mammal hotlines until someone answered at the Seaside Aquarium. I described our friend and the nice man told me he was a sea lion. And here's the best part. Sea Lions take naps! Seaside Aquarium guy told me I probably just woke him up from a nap and he was groggy. Apparently when they get sick of swimming, they plop themselves on a beach for a snooze. Aquarium guy said he'd send someone out to check on him anyway but I was already very happy that I'd met a sleepy sea lion and not a dying one.

They have the cutest freaking faces.
Once we got back from the beach, we decided that food was necessary. When we parked at the restaurant, Pat noticed that next to us was a truck that held the biggest dog I have ever seen. So naturally, I snuggled him. He was amazing. He was still there when we came out so while Pat walked around the corner for an energy drink I creepily hung out next to someone's car and snuggled his giant dog.

That is my hand. I do not have tiny hands.

So, good beach trip.


Groupon Cat

Things that I love about the Groupon Cat: everything, his gold "groupon" chain, his bed is a cloud, he's always got his mouth open.

Here are a few samples of the wisdom bestowed upon frugal consumers by the Groupon Cat (Marty? I think it fits). 




Thursday, September 15, 2011

Cousin Road trip

Most of my family lives within an hour's drive of me. I'm lucky that way. It's easy for us to spend holidays and birthdays together. My uncle Ron, Aunt Wendy, and baby (she's 19) cousin Ivy live in California. We get to see them about once a year. They've been trying to get some of us to come visit for a while and finally my cousin Samantha took some initiative and planned a weekend for us to go. It was quick since neither myself or my brother could take more than a day off. Samantha, Andy, myself, and Samantha's sister Randi drove down on a Thursday night, arriving at about 4am. (This is not the first time we've made this drive. When I was still in high school, Samantha, Andy and I drove down to Sacramento for a couple days during spring break. To this day, I can't hear Remix to Ignition without thinking of that trip. Samantha honked her horn all the way through the passes to keep the deer away.)
Before our drive, we stopped at WalMart to pick up some essentials like massive amounts of junk food for the drive. I decided to get a subway sandwich at the in-walmart subway. There was one lady in front of me and the woman working was sweating and ranting about how busy she was because the kid who usually works with her is on drugs so she had to send him home. Fair enough, but since there were just two of us standing there, I didn't really see how she was so overwhelmed. The woman in front of me ordered a pizza because the rotten kid she was with was refusing to eat vegetables. So the subway lady puts the pizza in the oven and just stands there, staring at the oven, waiting for it to cook....she waits the full 3-5 minutes for it to cook which happens to be roughly the time it takes to make me a tuna with spinach, olives, lettuce, and cucumbers on wheat. She doesn't address me until the pizza is cooked, packaged, and paid for. She makes my sandwich and then when I give her my card makes fun of my last name, asking me if high school was awful. My last name isn't dickmouth, okay? It's Ridderbusch. I don't think it warranted the reaction. When I walked away, she was discussing my horrible last name with the line that had formed while she waited for that pizza to cook. I digress.
My brother managed to lose his wallet at about 1am at a rest stop. So I called the highway patrol and the security at the rest stop which happened to be run by Seven Feathers Casino and the nicest rest stop I've ever been to. Everyone was very helpful but nobody found the wallet. Bummer, Dude.
When we got to Sacramento, we took a nap and got up 3 hours later to get on the double decker boat that my uncle had rented for us to hang out on for the day. We got to lounge on the lake and eat all the great food my Aunt Wendy packed for us and just hang out together all day. It was really relaxing-just a great way to spend the day with my cousins and uncle. I did manage to fall asleep on the top deck, completely frying my back, ass, and legs. And I also lost one of my favorite clip-on earrings because I forgot to take it off before I jumped in the water. Gotta take the good with the bad right? Wendy had delicious enchiladas waiting for us when we returned.
The next day they got us bagels and then us girls went vintage-shop roaming while my uncle and brother had man time or something. We spent some time in old town where my aunt insisted on continuing what was turning out to be quite a fat-kid weekend by buying us tons of candy and taking us to lunch.  When we got home, we laid out at the pool and played Kinect. Which I kick ass at, by the way. If someone has one they don't want, send that puppy my way. Dinner outside, a nice family walk, and smores in the backyard ended our day. Oh, and I dropped my phone in the pool that day. I put it in a bag of rice hoping it would heal itself but while I did get it to turn on, it wouldn't stop vibrating and was just generally ruined. Which is why I now have an iphone, as mentioned several posts ago because I do things out of order. Sue me.
Another thing that happened is that my brother bought a turtle. He does shit like that. I think it's name is burt, having to do with a conversation earlier in the weekend about hazelnuts/filberts and how only an Oregonian would EVER call a hazelnut a filbert.
We got up Sunday morning and began our long drive home, which included stopping at the Seven Feathers rest stop to try once more to recover Andy's wallet. And, YAHTZEE! They had it. Pretty awesome.
 I really enjoyed spending time with my cousins. Samantha and I always have fun together and Randi just moved back to Oregon so it was nice to have her there. And I even enjoyed my brother who is so old these days (he's only a year and a half younger than me but still) and is always hilarious. Ivy is so grown up, too. There are pictures of me holding her as a baby so it's weird and awesome that she's now a beautiful, smart, and sweet as can be college sophomore. 






Thursday, September 8, 2011

Camp Ridderbusch

Even though I didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked at Camp Ridderbusch this year, it was still great to be there. Had drunken silly fun with family on the first night and a couple really nice last-two-at-the-campfire-nights with Pat. He and I also found a really great little beach with starfish and sunshine and a quirky little stairway leading down to it. Scrabble with my aunt, singing disney songs with my cousins and brother, and getting to hang out with my uncles were a few highlights.
Queen's Bicycle was playing.
Cousin time. My brother's hair is getting RIDICULOUS.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Ladies lovin ladies

Women are notoriously awful. I don't mean overall. I mean to each other. My friends and I have had to remind ourselves to retract our claws when a new woman walks into a room or even comes close enough for us to smell her stripper perfume and get dusted with her slut glitter (see? that just happened. It's like I can't even control it. retract.) I maintain that judging people is necessary and natural. And to be fair, if I can see the crease of your ass, if your skin is pumpkin hued, or if you're wearing more makeup than clothes, then I am assuming you have low self esteem and immediately dislike you.  However, there are perfectly nice girls that don't deserve the wrath of other girls. Probably the majority.
The point of this is that I try to compliment other women on a regular basis. Their shoes, hair, whatever. Because girls are not nice, and its really refreshing to be complimented by another woman who isn't your mother or best friend. Sometimes you gotta give a lady a little love. This wisdom brought to you by the lovely girl who told me she loved my skirt(that everyone I know hates, but I love). Thanks lady, and nice shoes!

Jamboree

So, this is incredibly late but Melissa, Box, and I went to Jamboree this year. For those of you who aren't oregonians and/or country fans, Jamboree is a three day country music festival. This year the headliners were Ronnie Dunn, Lady Antebellum, and Darius Rucker. We arrived Thursday evening and set up our very very minimal camp-chairs plus beer plus tent. We have learned our lesson. Canopy (read: shade) is necessary. Table, also necessary. We survived with a lot of sunscreen and creative cooler-as-table arrangements.
Friday we started drinking at 9am. Yes, I know that this seems like an obviously poor choice but to be fair we were not the only ones. Beer pong and flip cup with fellow campers commenced at about 11. It gets a little blurry after that. I do know that we made our way to the festival, I bought a hat, we ate some food, and I fell asleep. Combination of unnecessary morning drunkness and extreme heat meant that all three of us were donezo before the main act of the night started. We rode the bus back to our camp site and were sleeping by 7:30. Good thing it was Ronnie Dunn that night.
Day 1:



 Saturday we woke up and vowed not to drink till noon. This we accomplished. Before we went to the festival we took a stroll to the little river running near our campsite and sat in a shady field to escape the heat. At the festival we met up with Beth and Koddie in the beer garden, where we stayed until LadyA. It was a lovely day of beer and country music and sunshine. Lady Antebellum was wonderful. I sang loudly. However, I did not drink enough water that day. I ended up throwing up in a porta potty while waiting for the bus to go back to our site. This is not something I recommend. The combination of the smell, the fact that I was throwing up, and the ass hole pounding on the door telling me to hurry up really made for an unpleasant experience. On the bright side Jbox bought an AMAZING hat that day. Also I bought a trucker hat for a buck fifty or something.
Day Two:




 Sunday was more low key. We packed up, went to Safeway to charge our phones in their starbucks, met up with our friend Maggie, hit the local dollar store for some spray bottles(it was SO hot all weekend) and then went to see Mr. Darius Rucker.  Again, time was spent in the beer garden with Beth and Company. Darius was really wonderful. He gave us a good mix of his country stuff and the Hootie classics. Again, I did a lot of loud singing.I put my arm around Melissa during his cover of Space Cowboy. She doesn't like to be touched but sometimes I choose to ignore that fact.
Day Three:







 And hey guess what? NO SUNBURN.



Monday, September 5, 2011

Catching up on catching up

It's labor day and I am outside on my deck with honey roasted peanuts, bubbles, hookah, bubble tea, Joseph, and Finch. It is a good day. I sat down at about 10am to get caught up on documenting/blogging all the things that I've been doing lately. Two hours later, I'm finally typing. It's easy for me to get distracted by other blogs/facebook/twitter/pinterest/tumblr.
Let's start with how I'm having an incredible summer. It's been very full and consequently has gone very fast. I can't believe that it is September(although, hooray for new Greys and Fringe this month!). I haven't even decided what to be for Halloween. Usually this decision is made many months in advance. My room mates and I have a record of pretty epic group costumes. We have a couple ideas but haven't settled on anything solid yet.
Wicked Witch, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, Dorothy. I look deranged.

Tinkerbell, Captain Hook, and Peter Pan. This is admittedly not the most attractive photo of us.

Halloween Party? I hope so. I LOVE decorating for halloween/throwing halloween parties. I just don't know where we'll find the time.  Between boyfriend, work, and super-packed weekends I feel like I never see my wonderful room mates. It's come down to planning room mate togetherness dinners.
Other new things- I got an iphone. I've been complaining about it a lot.  I switched to ATT on a plan with Pat. It'll cost me less per month and I think it's a good small couple step. But oh Verizon, how I miss having service everywhere. And I am having a hard time getting used to my iphone. The Droid operating system made so much sense to me. Talk about #firstworldproblems. On the happy side I love the apps and I love having a phone that actually works. My old one (which finally met its death in the bottom of a pool) was barely functional. Also, instant instagram addiction. As if that wasn't predictable.


Thursday, August 11, 2011

Birthday Fun

I turned 24 last month and my lovely friends and boyfriend helped me celebrate by being wonderful people and being very sweet to me.
A few friends had a gathering at Shadypeak and I totally overdressed and shot a potato gun and smoked a bunch of swisher sweets. I know, kinda gross right? But I was celebrating. Don't worry, I've been coughing ever since and probably learned my lesson.
Pat and I went to a beer and cheese pairing at Rogue which was delicious and then to Andina for some tapas and the most delicious pina colada I've ever had. Pat made me try ceviche. For those of you that don't know, it's fish that's basically 'cooked' by being marinated in citrus juices. The acidity cooks it or whatever. Anyway. SICK. I eat fish mostly because I have a weakness for canned tuna and beer battered cod. Biting into ceviche was like pulling a fish out of the water and chomping down before it was dead. The texture, the look of it. Yech. But besides that, it was a lovely evening.
And then the next morning when I got home, my sweet room mates had made me cute signs and left me a piggy bank. The piggy bank is full of contributions from some of my closest friends so that I can get a tattoo. Pretty freaking awesome gift.


This is one of my favorite dresses. It's a $2.50 Goodwill Find.
Also, Jason got in a bicycle accident and tore up his face.
He doesn't normally look like that.
Yes, that's a star sticker on his face.


Andina was very cute/I bet the food is great.
Our appetizers were really good...besides the ceviche.
And this Pina Colada...yuummm


Sage advice for my 24th year includes: Don't get pregnant, don't ride your bike with a sleeping bag on your back (that's how Jason got hurt), don't smoke 1/2 a pack of swisher sweets, Do eat more burritos, Do be naked more often, and learn how to rap.


Now I actually have to get on top of my shit and decide what my tattoo will be...

I'm excited for 24 even though I'm starting to get scrunchy face wrinkles.
But besides the getting old part, I'm pumped. Pretty darn happy these days.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Clouds

We haven't had the summeriest of summers here in the Willamette Valley. Last week, it was misting outside and about 65. Even for Oregon, that's a little strange in August. Things have warmed up in the last week or so but I took these photos last month of how awesome our clouds are. That's what I'm getting to, our awesome clouds which are the silver lining to not having warmth and sunshine during the summer. I have a thing for good clouds.
I like my clouds shadowy on one side with sun on the other so that they look painted into the sky. And I really like the ones with the flat bottoms and the lumpy tops. Yes, I know there are legitimate scientific names for all of these things but if you want cloud science wikipedia that biz-nass. If you want pure cloud love, then looky here:



Yay for my camera phone.