Cheap Art

Teardrods in My Eyes

2011-09-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

Lyrics to Country Roads by John Denver, verbatim, from a free song lyrics website:

Almost heaven West Virgina blue rich mountain,tended to old river

Live is older than, older than the creek, younger than the mountians

Brolling like the breeze

Country roads take me home to the place I belong West Virginia

Mountain mama, take me home Country roads

All my memoires, I get around her, by this lady, stranged to blue water

Darking dusk see, paint in all this sky, mister taste the Moonshine,teardrods in my eyes

Found at the bottom of a slightly more comprehensible set of lyrics at a different site:

LUCK IS WHEN PREPERATION MEETS OPPORTUNITY

It never hurts to add an extra dog or two.

2011-09-10T23:57:00.000-07:00

When people hear that I write and illustrate greeting cardsthey always, I mean ALWAYS, say “That sounds like fun!” And I’m not going todeny that there is a lot to be said for working in your pajamas and seeing theproduct of your labors on the gift store card rack in the Minneapolis airport. It alsodoesn’t hurt to get royalty checks on work you did 5 years ago. Royalties aremy friends.

The flip side of the coin is that you work very hardon products that might not, probably won’t, sell. Ask any freelance artist inany medium. And it’s surprisingly stressful. For one thing, when you're thinking, and this job requires a lot of thinking, it looks like you're not doing anything. Modern society requires that, unless you're inert in front of the tv, you need to be doing something. Something visible.

So. I was always the kid who drew pictures. In kindergartenI remember another girl asking if I would draw a horse for her. I’m fairlycertain is wasn’t a very good horse, considering I still can’t draw horsesworth diddly. My high school notes were liberally festooned with doodles. I drew my own cartoonChristmas cards.

But, here’s the thing. I didn’t think it was Art. I went tothe University of Oregon where the painting teacher pretty much told us toexpress ourselves and then she went somewhere and drank coffee until the termwas over. For that, my parents paid tuition? One time I asked a friend of mine who was a successfulpainter to tell me the difference between a painting and an illustration. Shesaid illustration is about the subject matter. A painting is about the paint.That, I thought, is a very clear definition. My work is about the joke, son. So. I didn’t find out I was anartist until I was 37 years old. How did I know? I finally got paid for doingart. Until someone else put a value on my work, I didn’t value it myself.

In 1990 I moved in with a money-centric man who couldn’t fathomthat I did elaborate greeting cards just for my loved ones. For free. Hebadgered me to submit my work to card companies until, just to silence the nagging, I assembled a dozen samples and mailed them out to several outfitsincluding Recycled Paper Greetings. Imagine my astonishment when four artdirectors wanted to buy my stuff. Who knew? Twenty years later, the IRS thinks I’m anartist, even if my old painting teacher doesn’t.

Quite a few people have told me I should teach cartooning.My reply has always been a terrified look and the observation that no one hasany idea how many false starts, how big a pile of eraser shavings, or how manyembarrassing sketches it takes to produce a completed cartoon. But today I had a stab at it when I was invited to talk to a group of very funny ladies who have an annual gathering and invite someone to teach them something. Last year it was a mason bee expert. This year they got me. I told them all the stuff above and made them draw their hands without looking at the paper and heard, in turn, their hilarious senior (literally) prom and life drawing stories. And one of them offered to give me her exceedingly glamorous shoes. Today, the learning went both ways.

Are You Happy Now?

2011-06-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was awakened at six a.m. as, outside my little house, some guy yelled "Are you happy now??!" accompanied by a loud bang. Later in the morning I found a metallic green cell phone lying in my yard that had parted company with its battery. A short search in the bushes turned up the battery which I installed and which permitted us to read a few of the text messages chronicling the lead-up to the six a.m. phone-fling. The apparent owner was pictured, sans clothing, among the phone's photos, but I didn't recognize her as being from the 'hood. Her contact list included such characters as Dave(Hippy), clearly she knows a variety of Daves, and Ass-Munch Monhagen. We couldn't decide who to call to report the phone as found (Dave? Ass-Munch?), and now, sadly, a night in the rain and the dwindling battery have rendered it useless.*

* Editor's note: after this blog entry was composed the phone dried out sufficiently that I was able to call "Mom" who, when I explained the circumstances, sighed heavily and said, "I'll tell her." I swear I could hear her rolling her eyes.

My Town

2011-02-20T22:20:00.000-08:00

I really have a yen
To go back once again
Back to the place where no one wears a frown.
To see once more those super-special just plain folks in my Home Town.
from My Home Town by Tom Lehrer

There's something so jolly about those dancing Statues of Liberty with the big arrow-shaped TAXES signs who gyrate on the corner from January until April 15, grooving to their iPods in their pointy green tiaras and matching robes. They're the best thing about being stuck at an interminable light during tax season.

But only in my neighborhood, home of two murders in the last three years and a recent police shoot-out over a stolen squad car, have I seen a guy in a conical purple wizard hat, adorned with silver stars and crescent moons, dancing his heart out with a sign reading Guns and Ammo.

Keeping the Marmaduke in Christmas

2010-12-21T09:01:00.000-08:00

I would be the first to admit that I'm not a big fan of Christmas. Just when we had all had it up to here with political ads, shazam, Christmas ads. The newspaper weighs 10 pounds.

But everything has a silver lining and by silver lining I mean giant, internally lit, inflatable yard decor. Within dog walking distance of my house there's a rooftop Santa on a motorcycle, Frosty the enormous inflatable Snowman, a six-foot snow globe, and best of all, Marmaduke. I mean, what's more Christmasy than Marmaduke? Second best is the potentially-inflatable Santa down the road apiece who has yet to be inflated. He lies, face down, in a capacious field as though he has overdosed on sugarplums. All that's lacking is crime scene tape.

Fa la la la la.

But Do I Need to Know the Secret Handshake?

2010-12-05T14:34:00.000-08:00

From an online review of a local Portland Eagles Lodge, posted August, 2009:
"Okay, seriously. I don't know why the rest of you don't join the lodge. We raise $$ for charities like the Oregon Food Bank and the Giving Tree; the booze is cheap; friendly service; free wife, and very soon a public computer terminal; pool tables, shuffleboard, Golden Tee; and hey, if you're not sold yet, we've got live bingo action and square dancing."

Now, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't require the live bingo and square dancing as long as I got the free wife. No more vacuuming for me.

It's the Little Things

2010-09-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

Falling asleep on an airplane and, when the flight attendant comes by, the guy on the aisle doesn't get any cheese crackers for you. Or maybe, just maybe, he gets your crackers and eats them himself.

The guy who is just too important to shut off his electronic devices when it's time to take off (phone) and land (laptop). Incidentally, this guy probably has cheese cracker breath.

TV news that promises "Next! Exclusive video of the amazing rescue of a camel from a sink hole!" and then plays another entire segment with commercials at both ends before you get to see the camel video.

A center-seat passenger on a plane, age, oh, maybe 25 or 30, who feels compelled to put together a Lego® jet plane that requires pages and pages of instructions and involves cocking her elbows in the faces of her fellow travelers as she roots for the requisite Lego® and much rummaging around her fellow row-mate's collective feet for parts that zing into orbit during the deconstruction phase.

Coworkers who sing along with their iPods.

People who repeatedly say "maybe I'll be there", but can't expend enough energy to call to say they're not coming.

Cilantro.

Product Placement

2010-08-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

Those Dirt Devils®, they really do the job when you have a big mess to take care of.

Marketing 101

2010-04-20T23:33:00.000-07:00

Heard as I drove along, half listening to NPR, my attention mostly elsewhere, "This segment brought to you by Barnes and Noble, offering the Nookie Reader." Say, what? Did I hear that correctly? The Nookie Reader? What? You can only download Jackie Collins novels? If I had been paying attention to popular culture and its attendant gizmos, I'd have been aware of the Nook eReader, a recent addition to the proliferating family of digital book devices. But I don't (pay attention, that is). Someone, somewhere, in the B and N marketing department must be giggling.

Menu item for the upcoming "Senior Prom" at the local senior center "Herb Roasted Airline Chicken". No kidding. Airline Chicken. Will they serve it on a styrofoam tray? Does it bounce? Will the next event feature "Elementary School Cafeteria Weiner Wraps"? It turns out, if I had been paying attention to food (which I don't, pay attention, that is), I'd have known that airline chicken is a type of cut that fits nicely on airline food trays. Regular people can get it without getting on a plane. Who knew?

Lately I have been obsessed with all things diaper. Pee containment has come a long way in the last thirty years. So far, in fact, that it seems to have come full circle. Almost. The young women in my life are having babies and, bless their environmentally responsible hearts, they are going to upholster them in cloth diapers which, in the modern world, are a little elusive. Babys R Us has them, but you know what they don't have? Pins. Or "snappies". Or any other way to keep them on the baby. The clerk suggested I look for pins at Fred Meyer (One stop shopping!) I haven't checked Freddies for diaper pins yet. But I know they have duct tape.

All We Have is Now

2010-03-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence. Albert Einstein, 1952

A few days ago my companion and I were following a car adorned with a bumper sticker that read:

"ALL WE HAVE IS NOW".

That's not as pretty as "Today is not yesterday, today is not tomorrow" or "The journey is the reward", big favorites I saved from my 2005 Little Zen Calendar, and I was moderately disappointed when I found out it's actually a song by the Flaming Lips. Nonetheless, it's a darn good philosophy, particularly if you want to justify polishing off the leftover chocolate chips. Carpe Nestles.

Simon's Cat

2010-02-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

Why did I not know about Simon's Cat until today? Everyone on this planet needs to go look at his transcendently wonderful short animated films. You can watch them all in less than 10 minutes. Go now. It will make you happy.

'nuff said

2010-02-05T21:25:00.000-08:00

I'll Be Right Back

2010-01-23T22:55:00.000-08:00

My friend, David, sends me his essays from time to time, seeking my 2 cent's worth which I am happy to supply since, in return, I get at least a nickel's worth of things to ponder. His latest, tentatively titled "Travels in My Three Pound Universe", expounds upon the disconnect between our physical and mental selves, to which he refers as Me and Me.2 (or I and I.2 and/or You and You.2, as appropriate, but isn't Me.2 fun to say?).

I can't speak for anyone else, but my Me.2 is in the driver's seat virtually 99% of the time. There may be those rare Zen moments when Me stops to drink in some physical sensation (i.e., being mindful of the moment which is harder to do than it sounds) but, mostly, I live in my head. And my head (ok, mind), while remaining firmly attached to my neck, goes on journeys from which it often returns only reluctantly, dragging its feet and looking back over its shoulder.

Anyway, David covered all this in his essay better than I can. However, it reminded me of how unnerved I was around the age of 13 when I first became aware of how seldom Me and Me.2 were in the same neighborhood. I thought I was nuts. No one else, I thought, can possibly feel this way or they'd be talking about it. That I could find myself in the middle of ~~a game of dodge ball~~ (ok, that's a bad example - during dodge ball Me was front and center trying to save my skin by hiding behind Shirley Crawford) eating a sandwich and feel like I had just returned from some lengthy mental journey that felt like it must have taken much longer than the allotted lunch period was, frankly, terrifying.

Years went by and I didn't seem much crazier than anyone else - more anxious, more shy, certainly - but not crazier. When I finally got around to discussing this with a couple of people it turns out we pretty much all feel that way in varying degrees. A friend told me her mother called it "sitting on a cloud" which, hands down, sounds better than "being a lunatic".

Someone needs to explain this to children. I can't be the only one who was frightened. And while they're at it, they can teach them to draw by employing the right sides of their brains - which is just about as mindful of the moment as you can get. It's a nice vacation from feeling crazy and everybody's drawings turn out great.

Pugshot

2010-01-18T20:27:00.000-08:00

Today has much to recommend it. Today is Martin Luther King Jr's birthday. Well, probably not, but close enough for holiday purposes. And today the tv news showed a woman being pulled, alive, from a collapsed building in Haiti after being trapped for six days. And today Poppy, previously known as Puppy, became available for adoption through the kind services of Pacific Pug Rescue.

Puppy, who I shall commence calling Poppy in honor of her bright future, was sold to an eighty-something couple who lived on a busy road and have an unfenced yard. The "breeder", and I use the term loosely, passed her off as a pug, the closest thing to an upholstered concrete block as you can get in dogdom. How odd, then, that she clocks in around 75 mph as she makes the circuit through living room, dining room, kitchen, over the back of your chair, between your feet, across the dining room table, and ricochets off your chest. Pugs, unlike Poppy, do not normally require the use of a salmon net to retrieve them when they escape into the wild blue yonder.

As much as they loved her, despite the gouges from loving ~~claws~~ paws and the occasional broken pelvis (whoops! bad dog!), said eighty-something couple agreed to give her up as long as she went to a good home. I called Pacific Pug Rescue and by lunchtime Poppy, who it turns out, is a Boston Terrier with a possible smattering of pug somewhere in her lineage, went to stay with a lovely foster mother named Vicky who has a pug and a seven-month-old Boston Terrier.

So, thanks to the people who do big things like fomenting social change and reuniting families. But, thanks also, to the people who scoop poop at the Humane Society, and the volunteer surgeons at the Feral Cat Coalition, and thanks to the rescue groups who even take in rescues that don't quite fit the profile. Thanks Vicky.

Always Take a Camera to Costco

2010-01-12T23:01:00.001-08:00

I guess they wouldn't call them Veggie Veggieballs. That would be redundant. Accurate, but redundant.

Why I Don't Want to Be a Kid Again

2010-01-02T23:14:00.000-08:00

The film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are perfectly captures the frustration, fear, meanness, savagery, and helplessness that is childhood. With big fuzzy monsters. And a kid so obnoxious that women everywhere will be gobbling birth control pills.

Some things are just better on paper.

It has a PG rating. I think it stands for pretty grim.

Party Town, USA

2010-01-01T23:16:00.000-08:00

My friend, M, went to the Benson Hotel for champagne and dancing to a big band on new year's eve. She thought for a couple of days in advance about which dress to wear, and tried to get to bed early the night before. I went to Astoria. Oregon.

We started at the Pig 'n' Pancake for a little visit with friends passing through town. The wait staff kept giving us meaningful glances and heaving heavy sighs, so we didn't linger. They wanted to go home. A Pig 'n' Pancake official locked the foyer doors behind us before we even had our jackets zipped up against the (periodically horizontal) rain. Our friends set off for Long Beach. We went looking for debauchery or a reasonable facsimile thereof. With dancing, please.

Astoria is dotted with a variety of bars, pubs, and restaurants. One promising doorway had a portable fence like the one that keeps you in line at the bank - only they didn't have anyone to keep in line. And, besides, they wouldn't let us in because one of us left home without a driver's license. Being, clearly, decades past legal drinking age (face it, Oil of Olay can't work miracles) wasn't good enough and the conscientious bouncer turned us away.

In the end we dropped into a waterfront lounge and, lo, on the table was a card advertising dancing in the banquet room! What we found was a fresh faced DJ with enormous headphones playing electronic music to a virtually empty room, save for one medium-small girl in a party dress perched on the edge of a chair swinging her legs to the beat. A tiny disco ball twirled on the ceiling. Never being of a mind to pass up a dance floor with plenty of elbow room, we asked the DJ to look in his library for something suitable for swing dancing. He knit his teenage brow and allowed as he might have some Rat Pack music.

Good enough. We shed our shoes (the dance floor was carpeted...) and got right to it - a little east coast, some one step, a dip here and there - and darned if people didn't stop and look. And then they came in. And then they danced, too. Even when the DJ played YMCA. At midnight the restaurant staff brought us plastic hats, horns, and tiny cups of champagne. It was just dandy.

Happy New Year, loyal readers. Both of you.

We Shall, We Shall Not Be Moved

2009-12-05T09:42:00.000-08:00

Last night I climbed into my time machine and went back to 1970. A room full of people with scrawny ponytails (men) and lumpy dresses (women) sat, rapt, in the candlelight, on mismatched thrift store furniture, listening to a man sing without moving his lips. It's a style that's thrifty with the alphabet and doesn't expend much energy. Consonants, particularly at the end of words, are discouraged. "Aay wah to lay doww besiii you..." (and, honestly, am I the last person on earth who cares about lay and lie?). It made for excellent napping on a dandy thrift store sofa while waiting for the band we really wanted to hear.

Said band was billed as a dance band. And so it was. Unfortunately, it was not a dance audience. A modest space for dancing had been cleared on the excellent hardwood floor and the band leader announced, first thing, that it would be a good thing to move the tables back as far as possible to make more room for dancing. Imagine the imposing stone faces of Easter Island. Now imagine them sitting around a dance floor, impassive, in lumpy dresses and inadequate ponytails, arms (if they had any) crossed. That's how much they moved. Not at all.

The most recent season of Dancing with the Stars introduced some new dance genres and team performances and last night's exercise has inspired an idea that I think is worth sending in. Obstacle dancing. The audience moves their chairs onto the floor and throws down random clothing items like stocking caps and jackets. Coffee tables with sharp corners ramp up the excitement. A wandering Labrador retriever pulls in the family demographic. They can hold the preliminaries in Portland, Oregon. The course is already set up.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

2009-11-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

November 2nd Newsweek article, The Devil Loves Cell Phones, and subtitled, Silence isn't just golden -- it's heavenly, rails on about cell phones, yelling TV pundits and Twitter, but nowhere does it mention the Devil's most insidious weapon: Christmas Muzak®.

I don't shop. Oh, I buy stuff. But I don't shop as a form of entertainment. However, I am a devoted mother, and when my son and his intended bride asked me to look for a birdcage as a wedding decoration, it became my mission to unearth the personality-plus cage of all cages. The best one is on ebay, but by the time the auction is over it'll be too late. Thus, I felt compelled to go to brick and mortar stores. In shopping malls. In November.

Note to Pier One Imports, Michael's Arts and Crafts, and the antique mall: If your Christmas music is boring holes in my brain like a cross between mad cow disease and a railroad spike, I can't think about purchasing your products. In fact, that person sprinting out the door that you think, considering the speed, must be a shoplifter? That's me.

Darwin at Work

2009-10-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite stories from a fellow blogger: Man standing at the freeway exit waiting for a handout. He's holding a square of cardboard... with nothing written on it. Subliminal message? "Will work for Sharpie."

How many times have you wondered - where do the cardboard sign people get those nice black markers?

For about a month, I have been involved with helping someone get off the street and into some sort of life - a life that the most of us would regard as sorely inadequate. Just a warm, safe place to stay. Food to eat. An address.

A number of years ago, I attended a dinner party that included a well-to-do real estate broker and his wife who were clad in matching Planet Hollywood sweatshirts. The conversation turned to prisoners in state custody and the education in social skills and job training provided to them on the taxpayer's dime. Said real estate broker maintained, hotly, that our money was being wasted mollycoddling prisoners. Make 'em do their time, pay their debt to society, and then kick them out and let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps and if they pulled hard enough, by golly, they could be just like him! (hopefully, without the sweatshirts) But, I digress. Sort of.

The person I've been helping isn't an ex-con. This person just made a lifetime of dumb choices that put him where none of us ever expect to be. A dear friend of mine, concerned for my sanity and pocketbook, told me, "Don't get involved. There's always someone who will take care of these people." But, you know what? It's not true. Here's what happens if you are homeless, penniless, ill, and have no transportation. You can stay in a shelter for the night, 1. if you know where to go, 2. you manage to sign in between the hours of 5:45 and 6:30, 3. you have a TB card, and 4. your name gets called in the nightly lottery for beds. You can be seen in the free clinic if you can be there on Thursday night between 7 and 9 pm. (Hmm, we need to do some tests! Come back in a week, and try to not die in the meantime.) A wonderful entity called Northwest Pilot Project (seriously, they are a blessing for some) will help you find housing if you are willing to come back day after day and wait for 5 hours in the hope that you'll be one of the four people they can see that day. Oh wait, they can't help you find housing if you have no income. You might be able to rent an SRO (single room occupancy - got to learn the jargon) if you have $40 for the application, no criminal record, and good credit. The waiting list for subsidized housing is over a year long unless you're a pregnant woman, HIV positive, or in a recovery program (note to self: plan ahead!).

And don't ever, ever, ever lose your I.D. Nothing happens without identification.

I don't have any answers. The real estate broker would probably tell me this was evolution doing its job and I'm messing up the program by not allowing the weak member of the herd to be taken down by the wolves.

(Note to self: buy Sharpies)

Fish!

2009-09-11T00:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I was going to talk about health care reform, but considering I ate tuna casserole for lunch and fish and chips for dinner, I will, instead direct you to my new blog Everything Fish. It is especially appropriate for those blog visitors that are more right brained, i.e. heavy on pictures, light on words. And besides, it will give you whole new vistas of artwork you might want to take into your home to cherish, adore, and pay me to make for you.

Details, details...

2009-09-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

The last line of a job posting on today's craigslist:

Candidate must be detail oriented, personable, and must have excellent communication and organization ski

On the Road Again

2009-08-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

A little something for everyone at this Battleground, Washington business:

Tackle Box
Wedding Events

Which rivals my favorite that used to be on the north side of Hwy 30 between St Helens and Rainier:

Tanning
Toning
Saw Sharpening

Things that Make Me Laugh

2009-08-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

Sign I saw today:
Writter's Group

One for all, and all for one.

2009-08-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

This evening as we came abreast of the bar at The Refectory (home of the Sunday night blues jam), I heard a spirited conversation between the bartender and a customer. "I'm no f***ing Dooh Mahs", declared the bartender. My first thought was that he was referring to his writing style as being unequal to that of the author of The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas. As we passed on by, however, the sentence concluded with something about a huge flat screen tv and I realized that, while he was not squeamish about shouting out the F word in the workplace, he apparently just couldn't bring himself to say dumb ass.

Things to Ponder

2009-07-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

The other day, as I reflexively emptied the change from my cocoa order into the tip jar at the coffee shop, I wondered, not for the first time, why do we tip baristas? We don't tip the people in TacoBellMcDonaldsBurgerKingArbysKFC, who probably earn a smaller wage and lead lives several degrees more miserable than attractively apron-clad coffee workers in nice grease-free, polished wood environments. They don't make several trips to our table to take our order, explain the daily special, deliver our order, or top off our water. And they don't even give us a nice scalp massage like the hairdresser or get up at 3:00 a.m. like the paper boy.

What is the rate of PTICTD* among ice cream truck drivers? (Whom, I might add, don't get tips...) My across-the-street neighbor drives an ordinary looking Scion, but when he starts it up Scott Joplin's The Entertainer begins tootling out the window. I hear about four bars before he drives away and another four when he returns. Be he must hear it a billion times a summer. That can't be healthy. He has it easy. The ice cream truck I heard at a local park plays Pop Goes the Weasel. But it just plays the first line. "Round and round the mulberry bush, the money chased the weasel." "Round and round the mulberry bush, the money chased the weasel." "Round and round the mulberry bush, the money chased the weasel." He never gets any closure. Does he wake up at night screaming, "The monkey thought t'was all in fun, POP goes the weasel!"?

*Post Traumatic Ice Cream Truck Disorder

Plays Well with Others

2009-07-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

Oh, what a jolly place is the dog park. A chance to frolic with Misty, Clancy, Lulu, Harvey, and Touch-My-Ball-I-Bite-a-You-Face. Leo and I had spent a peaceful 30 minutes in the small dog corral with Misty, Clancy, their mother, and the chatty transvestite who hung over the fence trading pit-bull-bite stories with me. We agreed, it's usually not the dog, but the owner, who creates a troublesome pet.

Misty and Clancy headed home, so Leo and I shifted over to the general inmate population consisting of a sheltie, a lab pup, some Heinz 57s, Lulu, a recently adopted 13-year-old husky mix, a goldendoodle, and a Belgian Shepherd. When Leo, 15 pounds soaking wet, took a sniff at the Shepherd's ball she abruptly morphed into the Jaws of Death, leaped on Leo and appeared to be reducing him to so much canine confetti. Leo screamed as though his short life was passing before his eyes, the owner ran over and yanked her dog away, and Leo took off like a missile. Three other dogs, innocent bystanders, thought that looked like a lark, and followed him in hot pursuit. Leo surmised they were all in on the murder plot and took a chunk out of Lulu's face when she bowled him over.

Once the fracas came to a halt and everyone examined their respective dogs, the shepherd's owner apologized profusely, "I've been working on her 'ball possessiveness issue' for two years". Oh-kaaaay, so you bring her to a place full of dogs and, well, balls??

Now, who has the behavior problem? Hmm?

Crappy Hour

2009-07-07T23:07:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we were looking for a happy hour. It wasn't really the right time of night or right day of the week. I had never tried it, but a nearby restaurant always displays a huge sign facing I-5, prominently advertising half-price appetizers, the details of which had never lodged in my consciousness. Considering our poor timing, it seemed like our best chance. My companion was dubious.

The bad news is, we were too late as well as too early for the half-price food. The other bad news is the restaurant in question was Hooters.

Now, there are a couple of drawbacks to Hooters, depending on your point of view. I don' t believe anyone would dispute the fact that the food is fairly disgusting (if it isn't battered and deep fried, it probably has bacon on it), but to make up for that they charge a lot for it. A soda is nearly $3 and a side of french fries is nearly $4. The aspect that might be disputed is the ad- or disad- vantage of being served by young women clad in the most patently uncomfortable looking outfits outside of Las Vegas. They have clearly been advised to not bend over the tables, so they are forced to squat or perch. The outfits are completed with a pair of miniature shorts in permanent wedgie mode.

Midway through our not-half-price meal, a little knot of waitresses clapped for our attention. "Listen up, everyone! Join us in singing Happy Birthday to Ryan who is here to celebrate his 13th birthday!" Note to Ryan's parents: Your responsible adult license has just been revoked.

2009-06-29T23:42:00.000-07:00

Someone in Australia just purchased one of my Cheap Apolitical Pagan door signs (Hi Shari!) so I decided to put her address in Google Maps to see where my sign was going to make its new home. Through the magic of Google Streetview, it appears my sign will be posted on a red house with a tile roof in Whyalla, South Australia. Sometimes Google Streetview doesn't get the right house, but I'm going to assume it did this time, because I'm an optimist, and besides, how will I ever know if it's wrong. Right?

But the best part is, Google Maps gives me directions from my house to hers. First I asked for walking directions. There was a warning at the top that said, "Caution - This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths." It's 12,833 miles and will take 171 days and 22 hours. There are 922 separate instructions, three kayak trips (Note: how does Google know that I have a kayak?)(And don't I get to get out and walk a little in Indonesia? It seems not.), and steps 110 through 867 are in Japanese. On the other hand, the driving instructions say it will take me only 53 days, 23 hours and cut 822 steps out of the process. The kayaking instructions stay the same.

Isn't that wonderful?

Goldilocks

2009-06-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

Whilst tidying up my old email graveyard, I ran across this reminder of what makes America the place it is, as recounted to my friend, David, a few months ago:

I just recently learned of the bench-to-table ratio as manifested in the modern American restaurant. My daughter and I went to a McMenamin's near Lloyd Center and did a Goldilocks routine. In the first booth in which we sat, both of us were miles from the table. Moving to the next booth, the table was a little closer, but still not within eating distance. Moving to booth three, the table is within an acceptable distance of our torsos with plenty of room for, say, a small child on our laps. When we inquired about the inconsistency, the waiter rolled his eyes and told us, "Most customers don't fit in a regular booth."

Which also reminds me of the big tub o' root beer that showed up in my car last week, purchased at a handy mini-mart on a sultry day. If the cup is too fat for your cup holder, that's too much pop. Enough said.

Three Things

2009-06-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

Studies show that learning new things delays the onset of dementia (as does doing things with your fingers so, presumably, blogging will keep me cogent for decades to come).

Yesterday I learned three new things.
How to prime my lawnmower.
What causes monkeyface.
How many calories are in a pint of Hefeweizen.

Every time I start my lawnmower I count on the possibility of two things: I will dislocate my shoulder yanking on the starter cord. I will have a heart attack yanking on the starter cord. As an act of kindness, my lawnmower brake cable disintegrated last week, sending me, cable in hand, back to the lawn mower rehab clinic where I purchased said mower from the slow-talking, possibly Arkansas-born, mower guru. When I observed that starting the thing was likely to lead to my premature death, the mower-guru said, "Do ya prime it before ya start it?" "Uhhh, prime it?", I replied. He led me back through the lawn mower cemetery until we found one with sufficient superstructure that he could point out the priming button. Knowledge is power (mower).

People who only buy grocery store strawberries, those large, gleaming chunks of seed-studded Styrofoam, won't know what I'm talking about, but real strawberries sometimes look funny. They're bumpy and small and wall-to-wall seeds at the tip. I thought I had neglected my strawberry garden by poor watering (ok, I did) but the Philbrook Farms strawberry farmer told me that's called Monkeyface and it happens when the weather gets cold and the bees stay home in turtlenecks and long johns and don't go out and pollinate the berry flowers. His berries looked just as pathetic as mine.

The third thing I learned yesterday was that Hefeweisen beer has a whopping 1300 calories per pint! Wow! Jeepers! Holy cow! The best part of this factoid is that it is wrong. My source, a beer-drinking person who should know, was not, I'm pretty sure, pulling my leg. However, I looked it up. There are 210 calories in a pint of Hefeweisen.

There. Now you might have learned something new and my fingers are extremely alert.

The Magic of Macys

2009-05-18T22:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Macy's Management,

We need to talk. Customer Service means giving service to customers. It does not mean sending them down a forest path; a path so circuitous, so frustrating, that you hope they will just give up and go home.

Here is what happens if you call Macy's Customer Service number. You make three or four layers of choices, you key in your account number (because when you choose the option to speak the number, they can't understand you), you key in a portion of your social security number, you get put on hold for a very long time, and then you get a human being... in India. Who can't hear you. You try the whole process again, thinking there must be something wrong with your phone. And they still can't hear you. Even if you yell, which, by now, you are most certainly doing.

So you decide to get in your car and go to Macy's where, it turns out, there is NO customer service department. Instead, there are two beige telephones that, when you lift the receiver, connect you to the Customer Service line where you make three or four layers of choices, you key in your account number, you key in a portion of your social security number, you get put on hold for a long time, and then you get a human being... in India. Who can't hear you. Even if you shout.

The best thing to do, at least in Vancouver, Washington, is to go directly to the Wedding Department and speak to a lovely woman named Heidi. Heidi also has a beige telephone at her large, quiet Wedding Department desk with which she can call the people in India. Oddly enough, when Heidi identifies herself as a Macy's employee, the people in India can hear her.

That must be the Magic of Macy's.

It's May, It's May, the Lusty Month of May

2009-05-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

Until a year ago I was under the impression that the lifespan of the average household goldfish went something like this:

Day 1 - purchase 49 cent goldfish (or, alternately, lob a ping pong ball into a jar and bring one home from the fair in a cruelly small baggie)

Day 2 - admire goldfish swimming enthusiastically around the bowl

Day 3 - note that goldfish has developed a serious list

Day 4 - flush goldfish down the toilet

But that was before I had outdoor goldfish. They still started out as 49 centers. But, now, after two years and two seasons under several inches of ice they are hale and hearty and lookin' for love. According to ehow.com, it isn't easy to determine the gender of the average goldfish. However, I'm pretty sure I have 3 males and one female since Goldie was being hotly pursued by Larry, Moe, and Curly last weekend. Larry (or maybe it was Moe or Curly) sidled up to her and shimmied most alluringly. I'm counting on being a Grandma again, soon.

Dance Like No One is Watching

2009-03-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

The capacity for having a good time is all about attitude. The notion we all hold as gospel, that the homecoming queens and football captains of the world are having a better time than the rest of us by virtue of their dazzling looks, just doesn't seem to hold water.

Last night the dance hall was awash in celebrity sightings. We had Hoss Cartwright, Larry the Cable Guy, Grandma from the Golden Girls (who, I declare, could shake her thang), Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, several incarnations of Roseanne Barr, circa 1990, Festus, a high kicking Gandhi in a disco shirt, Ozzie, Harriet, and a tall, white Steve Urkel. Did I notice these people because of their famous faces (and hats)? Well... yes. But I also noticed them because they were out on the dance floor for every single song.

The table that surely won the Lousiest Time Award was occupied by four unsmiling women who watched, malevolently, through narrowed eyes as we danced by.

Incidental to this post, but remarkable in so many ways, was the woman doing a vigorous east coast swing in red 4 inch spike heeled pumps. How did she keep them on? How did she not break an ankle? To Red High Heels Woman goes the Evil Knievel award.

Crazy Neighbor

2009-03-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

Crazy neighbors are fun. My all time favorite? The irascible elderly couple next door that came out on the porch and shook their fists and shouted invective at the turkey vultures circling over their house. Second favorite? The lady who peered over the fence the first day my (now ex) husband and I moved into our house and asked if he would mow her lawn.

No one aspires to Crazy Neighbor status, but I'm heading that way all because of one long night of poo.

I like cats. They're pretty and soft and make nice house pets. But I don't own one, so why do I have cat feces in my securely fenced yard and, more significantly, in (and out) of my dog? Night before last I was awakened at approximately 2 hour intervals by my dog vomiting and/or passing the most foul brew imaginable. It invaded my dreams, trashed my quilt, and despoiled my carpet. Delicious, nutritious, but apparently indigestible cat poo.

Every day I see them scale my fence. Why do they care about my yard? Why aren't they home using a nice litter box? My dog doesn't defecate in their yard. Why should they be using mine?

On today's shopping list: mousetraps. Baited with cat food.

Good Advice

2009-03-03T21:56:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I went to a dance where out on the floor was a woman whose skirt was tucked into the back of her waistband. A woman sitting at my table said she had tried to tell her about it, but the skirt woman said, no, that was how it was supposed to be (it was a wrap-around model). A goodly time passed in which she danced many dances until, presumably, she journeyed into the restroom and got a good look at what the rest of us had been trying not to look at for about an hour.

The moral of the story: Do not dismiss the advice of well meaning people without full consideration. They may, after all, be trying to cover your ass.

Save a Dollar, Kill a Tree

2009-03-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com isn't just a great place to shop because of their vast product selection, great prices, and speedy service. No! They also have entertaining packaging, providing you're not a tree.

I ordered two Almay eyeliner pencils (because it was cheaper than buying them one at a time in the store and I'll use them eventually). (See previous post.) My pencils, two, arrived today in a box 19" x 13" x 5.75". But wait, there's more! Inside that box, surrounded by bubble wrap, was a second box 12" x 9" x 4". And inside that box was a third box 6" x 2" x 1.25". And inside that, my two little pencils - in blister packs. It was the Russian Doll of packaging.

Grow Your Own

2009-02-28T14:41:00.000-08:00

Lately the news is full of heartrending stories of people fallen on hard times as well as inspiring tales of resourcefulness that would do veterans of 1930 proud. There are articles telling us 10 Ways to Trim Your Budget! and How to Grow Your Own Vegetables!

I grew up in a thrifty family and am pleased to have produced two exceptionally thrifty children. We were cheap, and proud of it, before the current economy forced everyone to be cheap(er). This was brought home to me today as I wandered through Macy's with a $20 gift certificate in hand. First, I was in the Oregon Macy's to save sales tax. Second, I decided to spend my certificate after I saw the huge ad in the paper - 50% Off Already Reduced Prices! Third, I have three birthdays coming up in the next month and thought, "Whoa! I can buy someone a present without spending very much money." Alas, not even free money is easy for a truly cheap person to spend. I made my way from Jewelry, through Men's, Juniors, Shoes, Handbags and Kitchenware, and didn't find a single thing I thought was worth what Macy's thought it was worth.

So, still burdened with my dog eared $20 certificate, I went home and turned over my compost heaps. And in a couple of months I will Grow My Own Vegetables! like I always do.

Would you like some rubber bands with that?

2009-02-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

Every so often I toy briefly with vegetarianism, such as when I hear the chef on the cable tv cooking show describing the short, tragic life of the veal calf or when undercooked burgers kill a few people with e coli. Laziness always wins and I keep on eating whatever is easiest.

However, if you have the intestinal fortitude to be a vegetarian, I say embrace it whole hog. Tofurkey, Chik'n®, Gardenburgers®, and smoked-flavored textured vegetable protein corned beef are just sops to those who can't entirely divorce themselves from their carnivorous pasts, and I'm here to tell you at least one of those tastes really really really bad. That would be, sorry, Grandma Rose, the corned beef.

Portland Adventist Hospital, where I recently took my friend for knee surgery, is, as the name implies, run by vegetarians. You can't get a tuna sandwich in the cafeteria, yet they do have a "grill". It's the first thing you come to inside the cafeteria door, and if there is any pattern to my eating, it usually fits the first-thing-you-see method of menu choice. They were out of Chik'n® so I opted for a Reuben sandwich, not giving any real thought to what might constitute corned beef in a vegetarian restaurant. Now I know what happens to old surgical gloves. They steep them for three weeks in smoke flavoring and make sandwiches out of them.

Which brings me to my second, obliquely hospital-related, subject: Cable rates are going up! Six percent! Bring on the television interviews, the opinion polls, stories of hardship and woe. Now pan over to my health insurance bill, the one from Regence Blue Cross that raised the premium on my individual health plan with the gargantuan deductible by over 33% in a single jump (and, no, I didn't change age groups). Now pan over to the masses of people with no bill to complain about because they don't have any insurance. Cable rates. Pffft. Big deal.

Making the World a Better Place. In One Act.

2009-02-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

Some things are particularly wonderful because they're rare - things like enormous diamonds and four leaf clovers. Some things are rare, yet not wonderful, like two-headed calves and tsunamis. And then there are the rare things that are wonderful, but would be even more wonderful even if they were commonplace. And those things, if they were commonplace, would have a hand in ending war, bigotry, and hip fractures, not necessarily in that order.

Yesterday I was eating lunch with a kind man when I noticed that his focus had moved from our conversation to the sidewalk outside the restaurant where an exceptionally frail and ancient woman was inching her way into a huge SUV, having been relieved of her walker by her briskly efficient middle-aged (grand?)daughter. With the walker folded and stowed, said daughter skipped into the driver's seat leaving grandma, barely perched in the passenger seat, waving ineffectually at the car door in a vain attempt to close it behind her. The next thing I knew, my lunch companion had beamed himself up, reappeared on the sidewalk, and was unfurling the seatbelt for said old lady and closing her door. Everyone else, myself included, just sat and watched because, after all, she wasn't OUR old lady. Right? And that's too bad.

What ever happened to those "Practice Random Kindness" bumper stickers? (My theory is, because they actually read, "Practice Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty", they were just too saccharin to survive.) Nonetheless people, get out there and Practice some gol dern Random Kindness. Your waitress will say nice things about you. Ours did. And so will I.

Family Ties

2009-01-27T17:29:00.000-08:00

My town is a friendly place. Unpretentious, a little short on urban planning, replete with strip malls, but also populated with nice parks, a cute downtown, and a bike path along a pretty riverfront. All in all a good place to raise a family. That's why my heart was warmed a few nights ago when I overheard a young woman, enjoying an evening out with her middle-aged mother, "Are you hammered, Mom?"

The Circle of Life

2009-01-23T17:54:00.000-08:00

When you're looking for a receptacle for a bucket of dog feces that you've scooped up from the yard, how appropriate is it to find a nice big empty dog food bag on top of the garbage can? That, my friends, is the circle of life.

Hello? It's me again.

2009-01-18T21:50:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days have given me reason to ponder the presence of guardian angels in my life (or angles according to the misprint on the postcard sent to me by my dear friend and guardian angel). These celestial beings don't come clad in silver lamé with fluffy wings and a backup band, uhh, choir. More often than not, they need a haircut and they show up in yesterday's shirt because they know you need them now, not later.

Here's how it works. You tell them you're fine, just fine thanks, ok?, fine, and you don't need them.

And then they show up. Sometimes in person, sometimes on the phone, and these days, sometimes in your email. The effect is much the same.

A few years ago a friend's niece went through an annoying, new-age, guardian angel phase that I heard about in passing. As best I recall, the concept involved an invisible being that hovered somewhere in the neighborhood of your ear and kept you from being set upon by ravening beasts and/or being crushed by falling pianos. It's possible they might also have kept you from embarrassing yourself at parties. I'm not sure. Nice, but not practical.

I'm talking about the honest to gawd, three dimensional kind that shows up when your dog dies and doesn't care about the snot on their jacket. The kind that is there at the hospital when you wake up at 11 pm when they should have gone home hours ago. The kind that shows up on a 97 degree day to move your stuff and never asks where the pizza is. The kind that calls you after dinner because you sounded blue in the afternoon. The kind that finds a new guinea pig on Easter Sunday to replace the one the dog ate. (No, not that dog. A different dog.) Even the kind that tells you to suck it up get a life. That's what I'm talkin' about, Willis.

"Evangelical atheist" is the absolutely enchanting phrase I read on a recent blog commenting on the current "Imagine No Religion" campaign. Now, I'm not particularly political, seeing as how I'm far too lazy to stay current, much less analyze the material I have(n't) read. However, I have to hand it to the gang whose purpose seems to be to alert the general public to the notion of attending to creating heaven here on earth, especially if that includes caring for your fellow time travelers.

Sometimes, lying in bed at night, I make a mental list of the people I could, without hesitation, call at 2 a.m. on Christmas eve in the middle of a hurricane. It's an embarrassment of riches. Thanks.

Mixed Signals

2009-01-13T23:30:00.000-08:00

Recounted to me by my friend, Miss Miller...
Middle aged woman, devoted to her late, yet still beloved, cat wears one of those rubber wrist bands, this one bearing the message "Until we meet again at the Rainbow Bridge". Cheery young grocery clerk, making conversation, "How great! You're a supporter of Gay Pride." Consternation ensues.

The Houseguest

2009-01-12T13:18:00.000-08:00

Leo and I have opened an assisted living facility and, as everyone knows, the elderly can be a mixed blessing.

Our only resident is Sampson, a snowy haired gent who closely resembles a lightly upholstered football.

His primary hobby is snoozing.

Snoozing and eating. And scratching on the cupboard door where the food is stored, just in case there might be more eating to be done. You never know.

Sampson, or Sam as he likes to be called (he's embracing being one of the boys), was feeling poorly when he arrived. A little droopy and sneezy and blowing snot bubbles of remarkable proportions out of his nose. He took great exception to having his face wiped. Exception in the form of biting the hand that wiped him. The elderly can be so fractious.

Time and the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals have improved his health and hygiene to the point that he is all for taking an active role in whatever social life there is to be had.

Field trips.

Eating out.

Romance...

...that sometimes lands you in jail.

You Go That Way So We Won't Be Seen Together

2009-01-04T21:34:00.000-08:00

Over the last few decades, and probably before, there has been a great gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the (im)moral content of movies. But, has anyone addressed the morality of movie patrons?

The advent of mulitplex movie houses has put the souls of moviegoers in mortal danger. I'm talking about movie jumpers. (Is that a real term? I just made it up.) Those are the people who plan an entire afternoon around slinking from theater to theater to see as many movies as possible on a single, ridiculously expensive, admission ticket. A willingness to kill time watching the commercials scroll by in empty theaters, to watch 20 minute segments of movies wherein the plot was explained an hour before, and to transverse the connecting bathrooms again and again is required, not to mention a healthy disregard for the possibility that a lighting bolt may strike you dead or, more likely, the snack counter worker bee will call you out.

Karma is such that finding more than one watchable movie conveniently scheduled is extremely rare. So it's a little like eating all five of the Arby's five for $5 deal just because the sandwiches are so cheap. You don't feel very good, but you got a great deal.

For $3 you can see a movie at Jubitz or McMenamins or probably your neighborhood theater if you don't mind ratty seats. Save money, see a decent movie, and avoid the eternal flames of hell. What's not to like?

What Goes Around, Comes Around

2008-12-21T11:08:00.000-08:00

I'm flattered. Really, I am. Also annoyed.

To the people who swipe artwork and turn it into widely disseminated joke emails: At least have the common decency to leave the signature on the artwork. I won't sue you (probably) since you aren't making any money off the stolen work in question. And I know you figure it won't ever land in the mailbox of the original artist (wrong). But, maybe, just maybe, if you leave the signature on, someone might google my slightly unusual last name, Kadel, and go to my website and BUY some artwork.

My own work, uncredited, has shown up in my email twice in less than two months. The first one was for Halloween. I almost deleted the email, but for some reason I scrolled to the bottom (no pun intended, but it should have been...) and there she was.

The most recent one was turned into an animation (pretty nice job, art stealer, but you got the mouth wrong). Here she is in her original form, the one with the good mouth...

Now, go ahead, drag them to your desktop, add a cute saying, and send them to 10 million of your closest friends, but leave my name on them. OK? Thank you. Thank you very much.

Let It Snow

2008-12-17T08:04:00.000-08:00

I just love weather news. Not the regular weather report, I mean Storm Team Central, that relentless round of live reports by ruddy cheeked reporters in huge parkas stationed at freeway overpasses and high-elevation problem spots around town. I can't get enough of film clips of vehicles spiraling down hills in slow motion, ricocheting off parked cars and telephone poles. Rapes and murders disappear from the radar to make way for close-ups of reporters' boots scuffing a half-inch of gravelly snow.

When you live someplace that's basically gray for about eight months of the year it pays to make the most of what moderately interesting weather there is to be had. We don't have many tornadoes (ok, we had a little one this year that took the roof off Kentucky Fried Chicken, but that was God making a statement about obesity), and darn few hurricanes.

Ooh! It's snowing again. Gotta go turn on the tv.

It's the Hap-Happiest Time of the Year

2008-12-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, in among the Christmas cards and insurance ads, there was an envelope in the mail from Peaceful Paws, the pet cremation service where the emergency vet sent my beautiful little dog. Now, I have to think it can't be a cheery job, cremating a steady stream of dogs and cats, nipping a lock of hair to sell you later in the form of a paper weight or pendant, taking footprints from lifeless feet to make keepsake ornaments. There must be a level of callousness that these people have to achieve in order to go to work every day.

But the contents of the aforementioned envelope stopped me cold. The heading wished me "The Gift of Warm Memories... of Seasons Past with (sic) Gromet", but the kicker was the title of the poem to follow, printed in a bold font, Christmas Without My Dog. They had customized the heading and poem, misspelling both his name, Gromit, and his breed, schipperke.

I guess it was well meant. Later, after I regained my composure, I peered into the envelope looking for a page two that offered me the chance to buy some warm memories at budget prices, but they weren't trying to sell me a darn thing. All I can say is, Peaceful Paws, what were you thinking??

Damn Cocoa

2008-12-06T23:13:00.000-08:00

Cocoa and keyboards do not mix. My numbers are now limited to 456789. That's it. No one, two, or three. Also no decimal point, directional arrows, or forward delete key.

Now there is something on my Christmas list. Damn heartwarming breakfast beverages.

Starting Over

2008-11-30T09:31:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago I lost my best friend. We had known each other for 10 years. We went everywhere together, we slept in the same bed, shared the same friends, we loved to get fast food (he liked the drive through). Sometimes we showered together. People we know expected to see us together. Then, in the minute it takes for a heart to stop beating, he was gone. Unexpectedly. Too soon. He was an example for the rest of us: a perennially happy guy, curious, irrepressible, always on the alert for the next good thing to drop out of the sky. Big appetite, big heart, he never turned down the chance for a cuddle or a snack. I loved him with all my heart and I miss him every day.

Hearts are big places, and I'm working on falling in love again. We have only known each other for 10 days. But we go everywhere together, sleep in the same bed, and he's meeting my friends. I met him online. He was in jail. I was looking for love. These things happen. The funny thing is, I don't know his name. Sometimes I think it's Ollie or Otis. It might be Nick or Henry or Jack, Chance or Antonio. For a minute or two I thought he was Winston and for a couple of days I was sure he was Scooter, but that's just silly. So, we walk and talk and learn each others' ways and pretty soon I'll know his name. And I'll love him, only differently. And that's fine.

Crackpots in the 'Hood

2008-11-06T17:17:00.000-08:00

I know Vancouver doesn't have the corner on crackpots. After all I live here. But, on Monday, I stopped by a neighborhood grocery store to buy a friend some cold medicine. Normally I would go to a giant chain grocery to save money, but I was in a hurry so I stopped at a market that fell somewhere between Huge-orama-Foods and Mom n' Pop. On the sidewalk at the front of the store was a man on his knees, praying. Just like Christopher Robin: head bowed, hands clasped together. My first thought was, "Don't go into the store. This guy is going to wrap up his prayer session and blow away all the shoppers with an automatic weapon." I went in anyway. Remember? I was in a hurry. Inside, I made my choice (one box of generic DayQuill left! Score!), and as I rounded the last aisle I encountered Crackpot Number Two. He had a hood pulled tightly over his face so just his left eye was exposed and, with this single eye, he stared intently at me as I made my way from the back of the store, past him, to the checkout counter. Curious as I was, I lacked the intestinal fortitude to look back to see if he had swiveled around to look after I had passed him. Prayer guy, by the way, continued to loiter outside the store as I left, but had switched from praying to smoking. Maybe he had been praying for his lungs.

The Hazards of Drinking in Vancouver

2008-11-03T09:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a person needs a little pick-me-up in the form of carbonated caffeine. Such was the case last weekend as I drove down Mill Plain Boulevard in Vancouver and was faced with the choice of Burgerville or Taco Bell. Side by side, Burgerville was just a smidge easier to get to. What's the difference? Right?

Not right. Burgerville charged me a whopping $1.84 (or maybe it was $1.94, I was too shocked to register my exact amount of change) for an ordinary "small" drink. This wasn't one of those commemorative plastic bathtubs printed with action figures that won't fit your cup holders. It was just a regular, normal-person-sized, soda.

However, if, instead, I had turned left into Taco Bell I could have gotten a free Senior Drink with the purchase of any food. By purchasing one crunchy taco (which costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 89¢) I could have 1. saved a dollar and 2. offered the taco to the man with the cardboard sign at the freeway exit, thereby making the world a better place.

Just a note: you don't have to be all that "senior" to get the Taco Bell drink deal. Only fifty! I have years of free drinks ahead of me. Burgerville and I are through.

Boo.

2008-10-30T22:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have had this blog for a while without ever writing anything. I only got it because Blogger led me to believe that I couldn't read my children's blogs, Child A and Child B, not necessarily in that order, without signing up for one of my own. Now, years later, I know better, but still have the darn blog with a yawning hole.

Thus, my seminal post.

Why is it that adult females, and by adult I mean middle aged (mostly, though the perps fall across several decades), feel that Halloween events are a suitable venue for displaying acres of boobage and miles of thigh that are tastefully covered the other 364 days of the year? When I made this observation, I was at a dance. Thus, the acres in question were on the move - and, in a couple of cases, very tenuously contained.

This might be construed as sour grapes from someone who came dressed as a cowgirl (and joined rest of the herd of cowgirls, so aptly described by one of the cg's as the "what the hell am I going to be that I can get out of my closet?" school of costume design). Friday, officially Halloween, I plan to switch from cowgirl (perky) to Sarah Palin (scary, yet still perky). My date has steadfastly refused to be a caribou.