Do I Look Like My Dog?

Research by UCSD suggests that I do.  Resemblance appears to be greatest between owners and purebred dogs.  Maybe if I was squinting...or 1/4 my size or...

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/6241

Below is a link to some pretty funny pet/owner look-alikeness.

Please share your pictures!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=642qxehEcGg

Self-Circumcision

Is not the topic of this, my latest blog. I simply wanted to see how many men I could get to my blog using this word. Why do men grab themselves and cross their legs trembling in fear when they hear this word? Maybe they’ve heard the story of Abraham, who was commanded by God, at the age of 99, to circumcise himself…in public. He did try to negotiate his way out of this one by the way, unsuccessfully. Who could blame him for trying?


But again, this is not the topic of this blog. Stick around fellas. There’s an article I’d like you to read before you continue.

http://twilightsingapore.com/2010/07/10/twilight-news-real-estate-tycoon-tom-barrack-colony-capital-llc-deconstructs-twilight/

So we woke up around 7am, an unspeakable hour when on vacation; ate the egg whites, sourdough toast, bacon and o.j. provided by room service and headed over to Budget rent-a-car (I don’t know if this is their official name). We got quite a deal through our concierge and after a few calls to Amex and Travelers confirming insurance coverage, we were ready to cruise…in the PT Cruiser.

We had all the maps we needed to get halfway around Washington state and a date with a Ferry in an hour. I’ve never before driven a car onto a boat, but let me just say, it was rad (as my generation would say) or stupid (as I’ve heard this generation say). Either way, it was friggin cool. I felt like singing “A Whole New World” from Aladin as I looked out into the Puget Sound, but figured I’d save that for the Olympic National Park…or Forks. The Ferry food, again, not to be confused with Fairy food (which is briefly described in Fool Moon by Jim Butcher) was surprisingly palatable. If you’ve read my previous blog about our Ferry to Victoria, you remember that I assumed all Ferry food to be created equal, and I was very, very sadly mistaken.

We drove off of the Ferry in Bainbridge Island and began our two hour drive to Port Angeles. It took this long because in that there neck of the woods, the highway lines are maintained. And boy were they maintained. We waited with everyone else for that line to be re-painted.

Why were we driving to Port Angeles, a small and less-than-impressive port town? Well, because Bella bought a book, was harassed by drunk, crazy men and saved by a stunning, young vampire there, that’s why! And boy does Port Angeles do all they can to profit from their debut in Twilight. If you've done any research on the topic, you know that NONE of the movies were filmed in the real Port Angeles, nor was any of it filmed in the real Forks. Various locations in Oregon and Vancouver served as replicas of these towns.

As you walk the handful of streets in Port Angeles, you follow a map, provided by the town, to all the different locations Bella stumbled upon.  There’s actually a store (Dazzled by Twilight) dedicated to the book, selling everything you could possibly put Edward and Jacob’s face on.  Don't leave your children unattended.

I ran into Carlisle and Jacob there and the rest just stood in the windows looking pale and concerned. The department store where the girls went for dresses, actually went out of business before the book could save them. There were some really creepy alleyways and a couple of bookstores, but more importantly, there was the Italian restaurant (Bella Italia) where Bella and Edward had their first date. Also, just down the road is the movie theater frequented by the teens of Forks. We had a seriously delicious mocha from The Veela Café, unfortunately not mentioned in any of the Twilight series. Well, after taking a handful of photos and feeling a little disappointed by the blahness of the town, we got back in the cruiser and started on our way to Forks.  

 

Having made the drive from Port Angeles to Forks, I couldn’t imagine wanting to see a movie badly enough, or needing a dress I couldn’t knit myself or craving Italian food desperately enough to make that kind of a drive more than once. But then…we drove into Forks. There is really nothing there. I used to think Bella’s mom was a real piece of work, leaving Charlie and all, and then I walked around that town for an hour and thought, I feel ya, sister! Sorry Charlie. I’m outta here! The people and businesses of Forks have undoubtedly benefitted from the whirlwind of traffic created by the books, but I have to say, the people living and working there seem a bit indignant about the presence of Twi-Hards (or as my neighbor calls us, Twi-Tards). Sure they make $40 a head on disappointing tours (which we opted NOT to do) and sell who knows how many burgers a day at Sully’s drive-in, but really, they seem somewhat insulted. And to be honest, it is quite a disappointing little town. Good thing vampires and shape-shifters are around to spice things up. Oh wait, that’s not real. Well, they always have Port Angeles. The good news is, the profit brought in by us loony outsiders has allowed for the remodeling of the school!

On our way home, we stopped in Sequim, a sweet, small town between Port Angeles and Bainbridge Island. They have lavender farms all over. I wanted to run through them with my arms stretched out like Julie Andrews. I settled for some pictures. We also drove up to Port Townsend to stroll around. I would highly recommend this port town over Port Angeles. It reminds me of Carmel with it’s quaint little shops and the sounds of cranky seagulls overhead.

I must say that the best part of that day trip were the views of the Olympic mountains and the unbelievably blue waters at their base. I could drive for days with those views outside of my windows.

For the fellas, I hope you enjoyed the article provided earlier. I know some of you have secretly enjoyed the Twilight Saga. For the rest of you more-than-macho men, though you might imagine it to be, I doubt it’s worse than self-circumcision. Give it a try…the books I mean.

Utter Contentment

Kitty Meow Bartholomew Fisher saves his hunt and catch craft for the wee hours, saving his days for sun-bathing on every available surface.  I love this cat.   

13

I don't know how it happened, thirteen years passing by.  One night, thirteen years ago, at 11:47 pm, I held her for the first time.  Now she slips through my fingers, finding her own way.  She's pretty amazing.

This was taken at 11:47 pm on August 7th...13 years to the day.  I fell asleep five minutes later :)

Food

So it would seem that a good portion of my life these days revolves around the pursuit of good food. Funny considering the overabundance of issues I've had with food in the past. I remember one terrible time in history when I made sure my diet didn't exceed 500 calories. Ridiculous. These days, my palate has been spoiled. I don’t count calories, just taste, and not any old filet mignon will do. It had better melt in my mouth and be adorned with some decadent gorgonzola crust. Not to say that a warm Cinnabon won’t do the trick. I have dreams about Cinnabon.

I didn’t realize how food-centered our lives were until we took on the challenge of a 21 day cleanse, for the sole purpose of feeling better. Believe me, there would be no other reason to eat only fruits and vegetables, a protein shake and 95 supplements a day. I was diagnosed with lupus, in tremendous pain and desperate. It was a start. But I digress. There we were, looking at a bowl of steamed veggies and I snapped. I was enraged and on the verge of tears…utterly depressed. It seemed absurd to have such emotions over food, but for the last five years, in a daze of romantic ecstasy, we’ve indulged in every possible bite of heaven encountered (Cinnabon not excluded). Mind you, we share everything…portion control. Believe me, most portions these days are more than enough for two. Jeff protested at first, but both of our waistlines have thanked me since. Back to the picture. Having partaken of the likes of butternut squash ravioli, soaked with butter, sweet in the middle; chocolate bread pudding, soft and rich and partnered with French press decaf; medium-rare, buttery filet mignon topped with the aforementioned gorgonzola crust; and fresh tuna carpaccio, drizzled with innumerable flavor-infused sauces and spread out around a stack of crab meat…that pathetic bowl of vegetables threatened to destroy me. And as delicious as food has been, it wasn’t the taste alone I’d grown accustomed to, but the experience, the excitement, the pleasure. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, there is nothing exciting or pleasurable about a bowl of steamed vegetables, I don’t care what concoction you drizzle over them.


So we survived nearly 21 days, cheating only with hummus. When I told a friend I had cheated she thought cheeseburger, steak, milk shake. No, hummus. I was in a lot of pain and wanted to do this right. On day 18 we were sitting at Club 33 in Disneyland and there was no way on God’s green earth that we were ordering vegetables. And so, we were back. And it was delicious!


By the way, so that you don’t salivate in vain, I will list the restaurants that house the beautiful creations mentioned above. The butternut squash ravioli is from Sisley Italian Kitchen, the chocolate bread pudding is served at Maru Sushi and one of the best steaks I’ve had is found at Salt Creek, all three located in Valencia.

Needless to say, our Seattle itinerary heavily included finding the best food the city has to offer. We asked around, we read reviews, we sat on the hotel bed for a while trying to decide where to go. When we landed I was starving, like I’m going to hurt someone if food isn’t in my mouth in the next 10 minutes starving, and the closest place to us was The Cheesecake Factory. You don’t fly to Seattle to eat at The Cheesecake Factory, but there we were, and ashamed for wasting a meal on what another Seattle chef later promised us was more than likely frozen salmon. Oh well, the frozen salmon did the job and didn’t taste half bad either. We later ate at a place called Tilikum Place Café, a small café rated in Seattle’s top 10. The most enjoyable part of that experience was the squash blossoms stuffed with some ridiculously tasty cheese. The rest was, eh, okay. The view was oddly charming and made me feel unbelievably happy. Though I had the epiphany, once more, that wherever I go, there I am, and daily life in Seattle would eventually have me traveling elsewhere for a vacation from reality.

We had a surprisingly satisfying mocha in Port Angeles (more on this trip later), but the food in Forks, well, never mind. But the almond butter, Nuttela crepe in Port Townsend, now that was unnecessary. The almond butter I mean…and maybe even the crepe. I could be content with life holding a large spoon of Nuttela everywhere I go.

We were starving aboard the ferry to Victoria, BC and ventured ordering one of their “meals”. I ate the packaged saltines, that’s it, the rest was inedible, insulting, prison food, cafeteria food, no, much worse. Want coffee? Don’t do it! And their public pitcher of water was ominous as it’s fill line swayed with the rocking Puget Sound. When we docked, we were on the hunt for something amazing. The Empress offered $55 tea, uh, no thanks (I considered it, to be honest). So we walked, and walked, and walked. We saw a beautiful cathedral and their funny walk signs and found a little French Bistro called Bon Rouge Lounge. Okay, so maybe it was the Dramamine. It brought on familiar feelings of starvation and the desperate need for a nap. Anyway, hands down, the most delicious food of the trip thus far. I ate all of the bread they put in that little basket and drank at least five cups of black tea with cream and honey. Our lunch was some kind of crazy ham sandwich on their house bread, smothered in some ridiculous cream sauce with a bowl of French onion soup on the side. Oh my goodness. We wanted to kick our feet up right there and snooze to the Frank Sinatra classics playing in the background. But we only had five hours to see EVERYTHING, so we dragged our bodies back outside. An hour later, another note-worthy mocha at a little place run by college students, who spent most of their life bantering at one of the tables, interrupted on occasion only by tourists like us. Jealous.

When we docked back in America, we headed to the renowned Metropolitan Grill. I was expecting to be blown away given the prices on the menu and the demeanor of our waiter. I was beginning to feel like a popper when he began telling us, ostentatiously, about our “fresh young asparagus” as he served them. Um, ok. So, maybe I’ve had too much steak in my life, but having finished our paycheck-priced meal, I felt myself longing for Salt Creek and their mouth-watering food at a reasonable price. I don’t even think they have fresh young asparagus, per se.

The Steelhead Diner in Pike Place Market was one of my favorite moments of Seattle life. I remember the company more than the food, but the crab cakes were amazing! The poutine (fries with gravy and cheese) everyone raves about was, um, bland. But the atmosphere was awesome. Where else do you get to eat while a man a floor below plays a saw? I’ve neglected to mention the breakfast in bed we had everyday. It wasn’t spectacular food, but hello? It’s breakfast in bed!

 

On our last day, just hours before our plane would take off, we stumbled into Ruth’s Chris for a farewell lunch. HOLY MOLY (I’m trying to avoid expletives). We ordered their hamburger and all I could say to the waiter when he asked was “this was ridiculously delicious”. What an awesome way to finish. The sad news is I couldn’t finish my half of the burger. Don’t fret, Jeff took care it.

Poetry Corner

Those Blue Pants


By: Rebecca Fisher

2002



He wears blue pants.

He wears them all of the time.

The same blue pants all of the time.

They are not the same blue as when he first bought them, as he has worn them so much.

Worn more than washed.


I can see where he keeps his few belongings in the back.

There is a line, worn and white around the edge.

The hems are worn too, frayed along the edge,

Lightly scraping the ground with each step.

At least two years old.


Is it more than just the pants?

He’s the same every day.

Washed more than I wear him,

A faded but similar color as when I found him.

A bit worn on some days.

Lightly dragging his feet with each step.


I think I’d be fine if he would just buy a new pair of pants.

Grey or black would be good.

Then he could change on the third day of each week and wash on the sixth.

That might help.


Use less soap and hang dry, I say.

Let’s go shop, I say.

Please, I say.

I’ll buy, I say.

I think I say too much.


I think he has a plan for the pants.

I think he does not want me to know the plan.

He likes that I don’t know the plan.

He won’t hear me nag or rag on his pants.

He likes them.

He says they fit well and make him calm.


I think of the pants on fire.

I think of them lost for good.

I think of him without those pants.


Fine, I say.

Keep the damn things, I say.

Wear them all you want, I say.

I won’t rag or nag.

But I will buy new pants,

And make you feel bad when you don’t wear them.

I hate being "that person", but what do you do when you're in an uncharted city? You become a tourist and go and see all of the things you "just have to see" when you're there. You quickly find that you could have done without them, but how could you have known? The concierge said so. Your friends’ friends said so. The city guide said so. SO you walk around with a camera secured around your neck, ready to snap at any given moment, knowing full well that you look just like “that person”. A little embarrassed, but certain you’ll never see these people again anyway. You take pictures of absurd things that looking back seem to merely waste good digital space. You pay a shocking $18 for an elevator ride, though the views are spectacular. You spend more time up there than you might have because, well, you paid $18 and, of course, the sun is setting. Prime time for trying out your new Canon T21. You bob and weave your way around the other cattle and slide your lens between the metal wires that prevent some radical from throwing themselves from the top of the Space Needle to prove a point. And you take pictures. Lots of them, because everywhere you look is unfamiliar beautiful landscape. Even tall buildings (similar to those you drive past in a daze every morning) symmetrically placed and beautifully lit in the setting sun, are an artwork worth documenting. You quickly learn to use autofocus because your eyes no longer autofocus and some stranger is now the main focus of your photo and your husband is blurred in the front. You walk around the ledge, again and again, trying to take it all in before you go back down that elevator, surely never to return. Was it worth $18. I think so.

Walking through the Music Project left me feeling…like a slacker. Playing the guitar in one of their soundproof (thank goodness) studios for a whopping 10 minutes while Jeff hammered away at the drums, is the first time I’ve played in months. We rocked though, completely out of sync. We even harmonized awfully in the vocals section and I tried my rusty hand at the keyboard. I know like three chords. But anything sounds good on a steel drum! Their collection of vintage guitars was beautiful. I want them…all. But I settled for a picture of this guitar-tornado. I left feeling more touristy than ever and wanting to write a hit single.

We then took the lonely tram from Seattle City Center home to the Hyatt.  We closed the place down.  Seriously.  It was kind of eerie how quiet the streets of Seattle were at 10pm. 

And at the end of a long day of traveling, touring and taking 120 pictures; after five years and three days of the most blessed and adventurous marriage, we're more in love than ever.  Someone asked if we were on our honeymoon.  I didn't know we still looked as newlywed, sap-happy on the outside as we are on the inside.  I laughed and said, "five years baby!"

LAX

I've traveled a fair amount and have found the getting to quite tiresome. Buying tickets is no trouble at all as everyone is happy to take your money, which buys you approximately 20x16 inches of space for two solid hours. But how will you get to LAX? Will you park at and take the FlyAway, putting your life into the hands of the poor soul who drives this route countless times a day through the cutthroat lanes of the 405, having no qualms about "getting over" anytime necessary to make the schedule? Or will you bum a ride off a family member and offer to buy them a Starbucks’ upside down, skinny, half-caf, caramel macchiato and a pastry? Oh, and don’t forget the “thank you sooooo much!” You can also call for a shuttle. $85 each way. Need I say more? Another option, the option we chose, is to park at one of the myriad parking lots within a mile or two of LAX. The Marriot was the best I could find. $8 a day. Mind you, there were cheaper lots, but their business names alone had my car stripped and dumped in a ditch before we boarded. So the Marriot it is.

This is where my typical getting to experience was turned upside down. We left the house around 8:40 am, giving us an hour and twenty minutes to make it from Valencia to LAX. Oh, and it was a Monday morning. Jeff thought we needed to leave by 8, but always the optimist, I thought 8:30 would be perfect. And so we got on the road at 8:40. Would you believe me if I told you there was no traffic…no traffic on the 405 at 9 on a Monday morning? I couldn’t. We got there in about 45 minutes. This alone had me thinking that something was terribly, terribly wrong. We pulled up at the Marriot hotel and I kid you not, were on a shuttle to LAX in under 10 minutes. We dropped our car in valet, checked in, even used the restroom and the shuttle was just sitting there waiting for us. No hassle, no there’s been a misunderstanding about the ridiculous parking rate, no line. Nothing. Again, something seemed eerily out of whack. Our terminal was the first stop, getting us there two hours and twenty minutes before our plane took off. Thank goodness, I thought. That’ll give us plenty of time to get through that crazy security line. There were two people ahead of us and we were on our way to the gate before we knew it. You can imagine the scenarios going through my head at this point. I thought, If God has chosen this day to take us home, he’s at least made it hassle free. To take my mind off of my mind, I read. I had plenty of time. I just cozied up in the neck pillow I bought at the “we have everything” shop at LAX, sipped on my tea and read Storm Front by Jim Butcher.

All of my family has read this series and I felt obligated. It had its moments. I read while Jeff paced around (I think he was a little freaked out by the smooth sailing too) and played with our new Canon EOS T2i Rebel. I’ll need to take a photography class before I can properly use that thing and all of its workings. Jeff made a friend on board who had the same camera in his lap. I read about wizards while he learned about settings. A green tea, Eboost and tolerable bbq popper chips later, and we’re in Seattle…alive and well.

Tech Savvy

I am not.  But I get it done.