New Years Resolutions

Got any?

Here are mine:

• Stop saying "biznatch" so much. It's not so uncool it's cool — it's just uncool. And there is no added irony because of my intense whiteness. Yet so much fun to say. To wit: Biznatches be all up in my biznatch. (See, it is sort of like business. But it's biznatch)

• Use the Sonicare brush 3x/day. Stop using the leopard print manual brush. It is dead and useless. But it's leopard print! Okay, I'll save it for travel. And always brush before bed.

• Get the AP style for "O.K." changed. What the devil is "O.K." supposed to stand for? It's not, it's a word on its own. Also, continue fighting the AP overlords on the style for "Internet" and "Web site." So dorky. We don't write, "There are a lot of programs on Television" or "Circulation is down for all Newspapers except one."

• Become a crime-fighting ninja. (Hey, I'm trying to fight the Associated Press style manual — this is far more achievable, considering you can get throwing stars and nunchucks in tobacco shops.)

more important information

Read "The Echo Maker" by Richard Powers.

John Hodgeman (Hodgman?) is overrated. But I'm glad he's making a living and all. Pretend pretention has a place in this world.

"Consider the Lobster" is a much better essay than it has any right to be. But some of the other essays in DFW's book are a hodgepodge of footnotes. I wish he'd find a way to work his digressions INTO his essays, because in spite of the fact that he's a damn good writer, I think he could be better if he'd get over the footnote thing. Also, in his portrait of a talkshow radio host, he could very well have let the guy hang himself with his own rope, the footnotes were a little too pushing of a "take" that all readers (i.e. me) were picking up on really early.

I managed to do laundry today AND dishes AND garbage. I am letting the itty bitty spider build its web between my TV and cable box. For now. It's almost Christmas, after all. And I'm working The Eve. How saintly am I?

300 posts so far, plus big ups for vermouth

What the heck is vermouth anyway? Even when you put it in a martini there are people who get upset that they aren't drinking straight gin/vodka. Well, last night I had some vermouth as an apertif (I was curious how horrible it was, considering all the bad PR it gets, so I poured out a little, which led to a little more, which led to, oh, why not have an itty bitty glass — hey, that glass was a little bigger than I thought) and although it was sweet vermouth (whoops, got the wrong one at the liquor store) it was kind of herbally and I'm pretty easy to please in the alcohol department, and I have to say, don't playa hate on the vermouth.

There has to be a reason d'etre for sweet vermouth, though. I am not much of an apertif person.

I'm on the naughty list

Well, friends, it is Christmas of 2006 and once again I find myself on the naughty list. In hindsight, thinking back over the year gone by, I can understand why kindly old Mr. Kringle would choose to put me on his blacklist *again* but I thought I might as well explain why to people who only have seen me for brief spurts, where my image maintenance overdrive can compensate for my naturally malicious nature.

In retrospect, here are the things I shouldn’t have done this year, limited to what items I can remember.

• It was wrong of me to throw that annoying rich girl in the pool, stolen the insecure guy’s teddy bear, made out with that sleazy bike messenger and to have stolen the frat boy’s wallet. It was also wrong of me to cheat on the immunity challenges. But then, the greater wrong was going on that reality show in the first place.

• Knocked over that liquor store. Even though I never got caught. How was I to know that Santa doesn’t need charging papers or any other official evidence to prove my naughtiness? Apparently he just knows.

• Gotten in that fight with the window washer. Let’s be frank, he was a total ass. He totally deserved that shove I gave him and, really, the 15-story drop he would have had if he weren’t wearing that OSHA-mandated harness. Goody-effing-two shoes. You know he’s on the nice list.

• Peed on the mechanical bull. I was too drunk to be scared, and apparently too drunk to be continent, too.

• Broken up K-Fed and Britney. Yes, yes, you all thought I was doing you a favor until you saw where Brit started hanging out with Paris Hilton and not wearing panties. Those two walking venereal diseases deserved each other, and my machinations (producing and encouraging the K-Fed single “Popozao”) were apparently undertaken in a fit of misapprehension. And I inflicted “Popozao” on everyone in the U.S. for about a minute, which felt like an eternity, and for which I truly deserve punishment.

• My program encouraging trade protections for the national drug business. All I wanted to do was encourage the use of meth and pot manufactured by American farmers and chemists, who are suffering with all the cheap stuff flooding in from Mexico taking away their market share. Trying to get organic certification for American icky-icky was pretty silly, considering you smoke it anyway, and that's bad for you.

• Beating the "Yummo!" out of Racheal Ray. Frankly, I hope she got on the naughty list for cutting me with her sudoku knife. That finger reattached just fine, thank you.

• Encouraging those endangered humpback whales to beach. Who knew that you could use whalesong to get on the naughty list?

• Imported a couple of foreign ladies for unpaid brothel work. But they had free room and board and, hey, they are in America, best country in the mothertrucking world!!!

• Dismembering that hitchhiker. It’s not like I killed him and I figured this would go down as an anatomy lesson. But noooooo. Not in Santa’s book.

• Keeping that library book that the librarian didn't check out.

Look, Santa, things go back to zero come January, right?

You ever wonder ...

What ambient Christmas music would sound like? Or what protools layering and digital rejiggering might do to seasonal music?

Wonder no more.

So gross. This year I was actually wondering if techno+carols could = stuff that does not annoy at the mall/airport/grocery store. I guess I was wrong. Besides, it must be hard to create a new way of envisioning a holiday "mood" that does not have those specific referants to the season — the sleighbells, I suppose, is what I mean there.

We are all condemned to hear that "Wonderful Christmastime" song for the rest of our lives. Or "Greensleeves." Or whatever holiday novelty song you are doomed to hear in your own personal hell. Along with that "I'm a bitch!" "empowerment" song. How did a song with the title "Bitch" end up being appropriate for soft rock stations? I ask as I'm listening to it in a very cozy, homey cafe.

Speaking of bitches, I finished MoDo's "Are Men Necessary?" and was kind of surprised to have her ending the asking with a big thing about Hillary Clinton. I'm not exactly sure what that was all about, but with all the things that actually have a chance of disappearing in the world and all the things that really don't have anything to contribute to the world at large, here is a list of nouns that "Are _____ necessary?" might apply to better.

Frogs (they're disappearing at a rapid clip. Maybe we better not justify their existence before they go)
Holiday songs
Individually wrapped cheese slices
365 of Racheal Ray's recipes in one place
undeveloped beachfront properties
cafes sans free wifi access (no! they aren't!!!)
Thomas Kinkade paintings
Thomas Kinkade "illuminators"
Thomas Kinkade-inspired "novels."
payday loan centers
unwaxed floss.

Amazing books!

Read "A Disorder Peculiar to the Country." Ken Kalfus. Very good. Disturbing.

Watch "Thank You for Smoking" and "Why We Fight" and think how much more interesting "Thank You For Smoking" would have been if it were set in the world of "Why We Fight," which posits that the military industrial complex seeks its own justification for existence through baloney wars.

I had some other ideas but I totally forgot what they are.

Also, I'm looking for a recipe for an appetizer that travels pretty well. I've been bringing the bacon bean bundles (sooooo much better than they sound) to the McMillans' Turkey Celebration for the past few years and they've been popular, but this year I've got an hour or two driving ahead of me and I need a backup.

More from Mexico

That's the girls in the golf cart. Carol was a bang-up driver.

I didn't mean it like that.



Sibling bonding at work, over fresh cocos frios.



This is an ancient Maya tradition or something. I got parallax from having to use the viewfinder (it was sunny out) and it came out with this odd look. But I kind of like it.



Mom and Cindy rockin' the shops.



Here we are, learning about the soccer-basketball-human-sacrifice game that swept the Maya nation back in the day. Better than BASEketball, I bet.

Back from Mexico

So Cancun is a really big, thrashed, overdeveloped city with all sorts of overdeveloped areas around it. Very cheesy. And the Isla is getting pretty darned developed and we were in the developedest hotel there. But it was really really nice and I didn't even care that I was the biggest gringa around.

The Carribean sea is so beautiful, I can't blame people for wanting to visit. And the fish are neat. I went snorkeling with Ed and Doug at El Garrafon — the cheap place, not the $50 a day place — and the fish were pretty spectacular. They're kind of used to people bringing little jugs of fish food out and using them to attract them, so they will swim up to you. And then Ed threw fish food at me and the fish were all over me. Ew. So. Gross. Big ole floppy yellow and black stripy fish with their fish mouths going glop glop glop at me and their unblinking eyes.

Here are a sample of the photos I took:



Doug is so relaxed. He got pretty badly burned, though. People, use your SPF 50s on the first day!



Ha ha. It was so funny that first day. The boat was called "Turista!" Like the illness! We were so naive.



Rob is so darn cool. He and Carol Jean made it all happen.



You can't climb the Mayan ruins anymore. Some people think this is a real loss. They are jerks who don't mind fat American asses trotting up and down the limestone, wearing it out and scratching their names into the walls because they can and they'd like to think they're as significant as some extinct culture. That is a symptom of the American Cultural Virus that, coincidentally, could be found on the bus back from Chichen Itza. It was showing a Wesley Snipes vehicle, "Unstoppable."

I made everyone get up at 5 a.m. to get to CI, by the way. I am a damn martinet when I'm put in charge. And the bus didn't leave from Cancun until 9. It's like that episode of the Dog Whisperer when the Great Dane who is naturally a follower is put in charge by his stupid owners. I'm naturally a follower. I can't help it.



Pasty person at Tulum! Watch out!

One of the things that surprised and gratified me on this trip were all the incredibly fit, young, attractive people who had all tanned to a deep brown and had their hair sunstreaked so they were the same color all over. They were Japanese, Brazilian, European (North and South), Israeli, and possibly Visigoth. And then there I was. Pasty and not terribly petite. I felt like the Wilmoth clan was the mid-way marker between these demi-gods of attractiveness and the fat old American people in loud clothes. Unfortunately, as the poem says, "things fall apart, the center cannot hold." Someday I will be a fat old American woman with her shorts all bunched up in her blazingly white, fat thighs. Wearing white Keds with scrunched down pink socks.

No, I feel a duty to try to maintain the center for as long as possible.

More photos next month, when I get my bandwidth back!

Is Cancun cheesy? Is it fun?

That is a question I will be exploring over the next week. So come back and do find out if Cancun is cheesy, fun, etc. and if the addition of my family there contributes to either quality.

On a side not, it's gray, dark and frigid here. It's the perfect time to get the heck out of Dodge. Well, I'm sure January might be better, actually, as it's sort of one of the really low points on the winter dark and wet spiral.

More book review stuff

Read "Night Watch" by Sarah Waters. There is a reason it was the favorite for the Booker Prize. And as to Meegan's concern that it would be too pat, too easily wrapped up? No, it isn't. The novel goes backwards in time, so you see the whole cast of miserable people finish miserable and start fairly miserable, too. Waters' power of description is incredible. There's a part where an ambulance driver in WWII-era London is driving through a bombed-out street and Waters compares the drift of debris to bubbles settling in stout, and there are other wonderful little pieces like that in her book.

I'm picking up the Booker winner, "The Inheritance of Loss" by Anita Desai's kid, today at the library, so I guess I'll get to see why it won now.

Also flipped through Simon Winchester's "Karakatoa" and thought it was a little too formulaic for my tastes. Plus I already get plate techtonics and don't think it's too mindblowing and in need of popular science description for the target audience of the book (i.e. wannabe nerds like me).

Another book I read, and this will be one you can't necessarily get a hold of, is "On the Harbor," a local history book by my publisher and this guy I used to know. And I have to say, the first time I heard "local history book" I figured it would be one of those squat, aspen-green covered things with a whole bunch of text squished together and narratives that were all intertwined with dreadful boring dates, because local history doesn't always have the best enthusiasts. But no. It's a really lovely book with photos, sidebars, graphics and all the other good stuff about newspapers. And honestly, I should have known better when I was thinking it because both John C. Hughes and Ryan Teague Beckwith have impeccable journalism taste and Ryan in particular was always interested in coming up with new ways to present information. And my God, Grays Harbor has a lurid, fascinating history, and the journalism instincts to find the "telling detail," and to present information bravely, trusting the reader, really make the stories accessible.

So the one story I read about three or four times last night was "Who Killed Laura Law?" It's a murder mystery from 1939 that has never been solved and probably never will be. It was a flash point between "Red" (serious instigator types) and "White" (more conservative) Communist factions in town and between the Commies and the local business tycoons. And it's probably because there was so much tension and suspicion and bad actors that the murder of this young mother wasn't solved.

So, the two books I haven't been able to put down lately are "Night Watch" and "On the Harbor." Make of that what you will.

Book Review part Duh

Okay, "Carry Me Down" wasn't that great. Plus everytime I picked it up I thought of that song that goes, "Tie me kangaroo down, boys, tie me kangaroo down." And that was possibly more than you wanted or needed to know about the workings of my mind.

Next up: "Night Watch" by Sarah Waters, who previously introduced the lesbian Victorian circus novel to the stage with "Tipping the Velvet," which was a BBC production featuring the chick from "MI-5." I read the book and that was enough Victoriana for me. I expect "Night Watch," which appears to be nothing like the AWESOME-O Russian movie "Night Watch," to be about the same as "TtV" but WWII-ish. Which is to say, kind of awesome in crazy detail but not Russian "Night Watch" awesome, where people's heads blow up and there is an ensuing showdown between the forces of good and evil to be continued in "Day Watch."

So here's one of the beautiful views I am occasionally exposed to.



That's the beach at Westport. It won't look like this for long. Development will not be stopped. Money seeks its own level and development capitalizes on any authentic energy until it sucks it up, converting it to money. Perhaps it's an authentic neighborhood, or nature or something historic that gives an area its energy. That energy is so quickly converted to cash it'd make your head spin.

Dad went to the David Letterman show in NYC while he was at his pitchfest '06, No Print outlet Left Behind campaign and was really impressed with Xhibit (though he remembered his name as "Ingredient?") who appeared to be a humble rapper, giving props to his fans. My dad is so weird, people. A 60-y-o white man who loves to listen to rap and, last I checked, Imus. Basically anything shocking. Which explains why he thought the song had a positive message and not an ego-aggrandizing one, I guess.

Book Review time!

I finished a book! Two books! I'm feeling pretty good about that, so here's my personal, non-binding opinion of two Booker Prize nominees.

"Mothers Milk" Edward St. Aubyn. The names don't get Britisher than St. Aubyn (pron. "Sin Awbin"), and this book is pretty darn British, too. So although it contains a slimy psychiatrist elite academic sees-himself-as-a-third-person emotionally distanced father, it has its upside. Namely, the precocious older son of his who narrates the first quarter of the book. The beginning is a grim but hilarious piece of reminisence on birth, and it would be really too much to ask the rest of the book to be as good. And it can't be, but it's really darn good, even though it's a bit misogynistic with bad mother characters. This book still rocks, though.

"The Secret River." Kate Grenville. In the secret garden, the little lonely girl found a run down former monument to beauty and, uh, stuff (it's been a while). In the secret river, a transported Englishman finds a pack of aboriginals he can't understand, a bunch of jerks who are exploiting each other and has a wife who can't stop talking about going back to England, where their life was painted as even bleaker than in Australia. The book would have been better if people hadn't been quoted like this but rather in the usual way. I'm not sure what contemporary writers think they're doing with their free use of italics and punctuation.

I'm starting "Carry Me Down" (author? can't remember) and it's so far about a boy who knows when people are lying. Well, if "Blink" wasn't enough, here's the fictional version. And that's good enough for me. Because Malcom Gladwell may be full of himself (and he is!) but I still like just about everything he writes.

In other news, these guides are pretty good when it comes to helping me know something about going to the Cancun area: Moon handbooks, Rough Guide and Hidden Yucatan.

In incredibly shallow news: did anyone else notice how the Others have a really stringent planning code for their creepy suburb? There must be all sorts of homeowner association covenants governing the color and size of homes they can build. And boy are they hateful to outsiders. It's like Maumelle, Arkansas all over again. Because I definitely got the feeling some of the people in Maumelle would have loved to put a bunch of people that they considered outsiders into former dolphin holding tanks.

Organic FMW

So I got around to tasting the Organic Frosted Miniwheats that Kellogg's is pumping and I thought I'd give a report.

The first thing I noticed is that the box is significantly slimmer than the regular box. It holds 15 oz as compared to FMW's 19 and 24.3 oz boxes and costs more than, I'm pretty sure, either box. I bought it on sale — two for $6 — and that is typical of the sale price of both the other sizes on and off during the year. So it is a bit of a rip-off.

Of course, organic consumers purchase these products for their virtuousness (perhaps the slim box is a tip-off to the marketing — thinness is a virtue in our gluttonous society, but it also is a great way to try and make money by putting less product in packaging) so there is a bit of an expectation that in buying something rare(ish) and virtuous you have to pay a premium. True, there are fewer organic wheat fields than conventional wheat fields, and it's easier to grow organic wheat once a year (winter, less weeds competing for resources) than twice. And organic yields aren't quite up to conventional — which means pumped full of petro-chemical fertilizers. But organic yields are, in many cases, 90 percent of conventional, so there's not exactly a shortage, shall we say.

I also read that organic fields use blood bone-type fertilizer, so if you don't like the idea of dead animals touching your organic, possibly veg mouth, well, you have a choice to make. Because when you think about it, there are dead dinosaurs in those conventional fields. On the other hand, there is no gelatin in the sugar coating; it's straight organic cane sugar. It's not corn syrup like you get in the regular FMW.

So organic sugar isn't too tough to grow. Sugar isn't one of those crops that is destroying the ecosystem (yet! Brazil, if sugar protections are eliminated in this country, might become a major ethanol producer, using cane sugar instead of corn like here in the U.S. There is significantly more energy in cane gasoline than corn gas, so it would be the most desirable product on the market. And it is likely that the world's (read the First World's) hunger for energy would encourage growers to destroy the tropical dry forest (read: not the rain forest, cane doesn't need a lot of water to grow so it's low-impact on irrigation, at least) to plant cane fields (this was a Friedman column I actually bothered to read the other week), but I don't think more organic FMW would be nearly as damaging as cane gas) but it's not corn, which takes up an inappropriate amount of resources to grow.

But it is taste where the organic FMW failed. They are like those Post knockoffs. Little, tough, dense, insusceptible to milk. Thier color, a darker brown, is unappetizing unless, I guess, you're a German health nut. The sugar melts off right away, don't expect there to be any FMW worthy of waiting to eat till the end of your breakfast (or dinner) with the last bit of strawberry because that nice crust of sugar coating still remains. I wonder if this aggressively healthy taste and texture is part of the plan, or if the nice people at Kelloggs really tried to make it so these were as identical as possible to their cousins (which I noticed after I finished the organic box looked awfully yellow, like a donut or something).

I'm probably going to continue to buy regular FMW since I feel they taste better and are more appropriate to my budget, which has an outsized FMW expenditure level anyway. Also, I don't like the food-elite bull that the slim, green-topped boxes create. I am not to be marketed to in such an obvious way. If I didn't already know that the packaging cost more than the cereal inside (for the regular stuff and probably, I'm assuming, the organic stuff) and that UDSA organic isn't necessarily the highest standard of all for organics (plus it is the distance the wheat is shipped that also makes up part of the healthy earth equation — how many petrocalories did it take to get it from the farm to the bowl? Was it more than the regular stuff? This is something I feel I ought to know) I might be persuaded. But I'm not.

Yet.

YMCA

I finally gave in and joined. And I took a Jazzercise class for the first time. It's not easy. There are lots of dancy steps and things. But I'm just going to have to get over not going to the Morgan Family Y and having Tuff E Nuff and kickboxing. The thing about Jazzercise is it isn't what you think it is; it's got the same logo — which right now looks bad because it's too-recent-retro to be cool, just give it five more years and it will look very retro-forward — but it's not the leotard and legwarmer outfit you remember. It's hip-hoppy and salsa-y and, to In-Grid's "You Promised Me" it has some weird jazz hands action that makes you look like a goofy Paris mime (I think that may be the intent) for a few 8-counts.

I can't believe I did jazz hands.

On the upside, I met a 60-year-old lady who has been doing Jazzercise for eons, and she has an unlined face, a spring in her step and a great, healthy glow. And is thin and seems pain-free. There must be something to jazz hands.

It's not just Christmas

I saw a woman putting up Halloween decorations today. Halloween, people. A minor holiday (though in my mind it is the best of all the holidays because it involves candy, dressing up and scaring people and none of the family "must have most perfect Thanksgiving/Christmas ever" drama) to be sure, so why start decorating more than a month in advance?

Perhaps I should alert the media (snicker).

I also think I'm going to have to get a microwave at Satan-Mart (there are none at Sears) unless I hie myself to Olympia. Which maybe I should do because really, I want one of those teensy cute ones in a bright color (red? So it matches my kitchen rug and the picture I hung? Or yellow?) instead of a big ole white boring one. I can't remember the writer who compared shopping at the Wals-Mark, as some Arkies do call it, to soviet-style shopping, but yeah, that about sums it up. Not that I'm a big shopper or anything, I just have had some good shopping experiences but they've never been at a Wals-Mark.

Speaking of paying for stuff in an un-fun way, I read the fine print of the Comcast stuff. They are going to charge me a rental fee for the controller that talks to my (unnecessary and actually in-the-way-of-recording-one-show-while-watching-another-unless-I-get-a-TiVo-or-TiFaux) cable box. Don't say I should go without — I need my cylons and doctors in lust and plucky teenage detectives and Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Speaking of whom, he has the best-written website. You should go there: http://www.dogthebountyhunter.com (I forgot the html code. OMG, I am BRAINFARTING in the LIBRARY!) and mute your computer. Seriously, these folks embrace their own PR in a way that makes them the most meta of the po white you-know-what. And I say that with total love in my heart. I mean it. I cannot get enough of the A&E show, I will watch it even when the Kill Bill movies are on (like last night) or any other time. I love it. I love Beth and her amazing shirt torpedoes and Pamela Anderson Lee hairdos. I love Lelands little Hawaiian accent. I love Tim, the quiet shaman who wrings information out of all the street sources even though he barely says a word (made all the more amazing by the fact that he, like Dog, is not Hawaiian-born; breaking into island culture, where they have a word, "haole," for outsiders, is no mean feat). And I love the Dog, who is spiritual but so pragmatic, so matter-of-fact. They all remind me of my nightclubbing days in Arkansas and the bouncers I knew. It is amazing how that old dead Russian writer's saying that the cops and the criminals are two sides of the same coin can be reinterpreted through Da Kine Bail Bonds. Dog is the coin. Dude! He IS the COIN!

I urge you all to consider donating to his legal defense fund at P.O. Box 130781, The Woodlands, TX, 77393-0781 (here's why he needs a defense fund) (I think this is how to hyperlink)

Anyway, there's a Dog special on A&E where the Chapmans speak. I look forward to totally agreeing with everything Beth says.

Joke's on me

So the day I moved into my funky fresh apartment was a scorcher. Like 90 degrees in an area that almost never sees that much heat. Sweaty and gross, I was deeply looking forward to a shower.

Imagine my surprise when the hot water never got hot. On a labor day weekend.

Now, water being what it is, cold water is just too cold to bathe in unless you're Finnish. So I sulked and decided to pat myself off with a washcloth. By chance, I was in the kitchen with the cloth in my left hand, causing me to turn on the hot tap with my right — it's cold, right? No, it was hot.

I have a Romantic Language-ish tap. The hot is labeled "C" and the cold, "H." In Spanish I suppose you could extend that to caldo y hielo (hot and ice) but it's not as appropriate as caldo y frio, and in French isn't it chaud and froi (fwah? Why can't all foreign languages be as easy as Spanish to spell?)? So, ha ha. Funny. A great relief to learn that before sleeping in my clean-sheeted bed.

I also learned that although there is cable of every permutation (HD, digital, regular, enhanced) in my building there is no internet. I am dying, people. I may have to break down and get the dreaded DSL. The library doesn't let me blog past 8:30 p.m. and I just discovered they play "rockabye and goodnight" come 8:15 p.m., which is about as PNW as anything I've ever come across.

Found a great place to rollerblade in Westport. Why isn't there an English word for "malecón?" Boardwalk doesn't cut it — a malecon need not be made of boards and goes alongside the sea, not into it. If you think of the English term that fits, let me know.

I will drop pics of the insanely beautiful drive to Westport I took; it's the kind of drive that makes you feel like God has blessed you with his own hand to see the cows and the sea all in the same viewspace. I'm sure they have these moments and particular ken of vistae in urban America or even Kansas, but I feel like I live in the best place in the whole world in the PNW.

Man, that lullaby stuff is distracting. Oh, it's "Simple Gifts." What kind of message is that sending? Tis a gift to have free library access? Yes, indeedy.

I have more randomness — including a disparaging discourse on the way BBC actors (especially the older ones) kiss. Ew! Just watch their faces go totally slack as they lean in toward each other. It's enough to make you want to "get sick," as the Limeys would say, all over yourself. Or just feel sorry for the whole of BBC-watching Britannia, with such a model of passion-free "snogging," as they might say. All Brits who read this be aware that you have some very hot snoggers among you who I'd name if "Simple Gifts" weren't playing and the librarian wasn't lurking around me, but BBC needs to hold an older actor not disgusting kiss workshop.

Maybe I'm too American, demanding titillation. Well, I gots the cable now, so there I go.

Moving day(s)

It came and went on what had to be the hottest two days ever in the harbor. It hit over 90 Friday before Labor Day and got about there on Saturday, which was when future-movers Carrie, John and Michael decided to put in a little sweat investment (moving studio furnishings to studio apartment) for a large sweat dividend later on (all will eventually be moving into houses of their own within the next few months).

John is a champion big truck backer-upper. He credits his mirrors for helping him get in a space with mere inches on either side.

Carrie and I moved the small stuff while Michael and John moved the big stuff, cashing in our estrogen cards. The thing is, the big stuff (two bookcases and the futon) was too big for the elevator while the small stuff wasn't.

They wouldn't even let me pay for dinner. Which was the extremely reasonable price of $33 including, I think, three beers.

Right now my apartment looks a little like a U-haul barfed in it. I got it tidy enough for Hugh and Jan to come over while I attempted to fix Hugh's computer. Let me say that it was far, far beyond my ability to fix. But I got him to learn how to do regular maintenance and never to respond to a prompt that he doesn't know exactly what it means. And I got a burger at Billy's out of it.

My arms and shoulders are tired of lifting things. More than the furniture, it's the stuff. The seemingly endless parade of marching with boxes of books or armloads of hanging clothes or bags of food that need to be moved. Then there is the stuff I needed to get to be complete — a garbage can, a dish scrubber (oh, man am I going to miss that dishwasher at Mike's. I mean it) a toilet brush, hooks for the closet and bathroom door. I really never want to move again at this point.

I guess I should get cable and internet service started. Funny, but there's a part of me that has grown accustomed to relying on the library and netflix and other people for entertainment. Of course, if I want to find out which sexy doctor (one of brains, the other with animals both big and small) Meredith Grey picks, I'll have to spring for it fairly soon. Man I watch some embarrassing television.

More Aberdeen OMG

Today in the library I was given an air assault by a serial farter. Big, trumpety wet ones, too. What is the matter with people!

I will get my apartment key next week and then I have to find willing/able movers on labor day weekend. I don't think that's going to work out, for some reason.

I am loving the heck out of Aberdeen so far. I described it in an email today as a honeymoon stage situation, where everything is new and all the articles are good and the personality quirks haven't gotten to either of us yet (except the gassiness of the library patrons. Seriously, people!) and we have yet to argue about anything. And that's kind of where I am right now.

My new place will be on the fourth floor of an older building, facing the bay. It's very cool. It's also a little bit smaller than my old space, so I'm ruminating on either getting rid of stuff or putting a bookcase in the small, narrow kitchen.

Another reason to love Aberdeen: Good electronics mojo. For the first time I don't have to get up and adjust the connection between the cable and the TV; the cable that sends the signals from the VCR, that is. Maybe it's because I put the VCR next to the TV instead of under. I have no idea. It's very nice to not have to decide if I want to get up and fix it or see if I can wait it out.

Because I have no cable, I am relying on Netflix, the DVD rental place of champions. Right now I'm watching "Rome," which is all the stuff they SHOULD tell you in seventh grade Latin classes. Actually, I'm pretty sure Florence mostly did (there's some pretty raunchy stuff (there is, where I'm at in the series, a completely gratuitous lesbian subplot, and that seems to be the way the BBC and HBO people like it) and hard-core suggested violence in the series), as you kind of can't avoid it when people like Herodotus wrote most of the history of the place and you had historic exemplars like Caligula ruling you. But it's fun to be reminded without the middle school atmosphere and grueling tests.

I still miss TV, but I'm doing okay without complete access to it, I guess.

Blogging difficulty

It's hard to blog when you don't have your own internet access. Getting to the library is a pain, but it is nothing compared to the agony I feel at not being able to check out more than three items at a time until I get a real residential address. There are books out there, people. Books that need to be read. By me.

I had my first actual story published yesterday (I don't count the Fair story because, well, everybody has to write about the fair). It was about the local gospel mission looking to raise money to fix itself up. You would not believe the amount of stuff to be stored in their building. The tour I took just made this anti-clutterbug freak out a little, to the point where the woman giving me a tour commented how overwhelmed I looked (today, at the women's facility nearby, which isn't quite as packed but also has lots of stuff in it). At any rate, I heard today that I got an ovation for the story from a local group that was getting a presentation about the mission's fundraising. Best of all, my editor/publisher was there.

I feel markedly unproductive compared to some of my coworkers, notable Steven F., who puts out copy like it was going out of style. He had three stories on the fair on his day to go and managed to crank out four or some ridiculous number today. I know I've only been there a week, but sheesh, I feel like a slug.

But I don't like to talk too much about work on my blog. It's inside baseball to you guys.

Instead, to the tragedy of forwarded mail. Apparently it takes two weeks for the Post office to collect, then, in one big bunch, forward your mail. And I have a Netflix DVD in there, so this is a money-wasting proposition for me. Especially since I won't have cable until next month. I also have a bank statement and a $50+ discrepancy between my checkbook and Quicken registers that is making me bonkers. I never have that big a discrepancy. And with all my free time I've had, what with no TV, I still can't parse where I have messed up. I am a little anal-retentive, so this is causing me a little distress. Not as much as the frozen enchiladas in green sauce I had the other night (they were much more like tamales, in my estimation, and the salt just about knocked me out), but some none the less.

I also found another NPR low-talker that enrages me. Public Radio International, anyway: Sarah Fishko. An occassional commentator for "On The Media," her low, un-enunciated to the extreme voice tends to forget that there are such things as consonents and vowels that are not pronounced as schwas. My iTunes will only turn up so loud, Sarah. You have to do some of the work here for me. I have an auditory processing learning disability, for pete's sake. It's very hard to go from the joys of enthusiastic but appropriate Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone to "the fish. Ko." (and yes, Meegan, I do feel an extra affection for Ann Taylor knowing that she makes her clothes in such a way that they fit me well and I can get them cheap at the Supermall).

Any more gripes? Anyone who got an email from my mom saying that I "razz"ed her about her weight should be aware that that is not totally true. I was supportive. Up to a point. People, I can only give you loving care and tender words that you poop on for so long before I start trying another tack. Negativity is the enemy of fitness, physical or mental.

Speaking of not accepting or understanding one's body and its potential, in this month's issue of Vanity Fair (sorry, no link to the story) there is a really deluded article about plastic surgery by Alex Kucinsky (sp? of the NYT). It's deluded because although it purports to be her talking about how she was such an addict to it (and hence not deluded anymore) there's this veneer of rich-white-person priviledge just oozing out of every sentence. Like it was cool to go for weekly microdermabrasion and laser treatments, but getting fat sucked out of her butt was really transgressive or not part and parcel of the same ridiculous, expensive trap of the Beauty Myth of the fountain of youth. And then she moans how she had to work from home for a couple of days after an (illegal!) injection of Restylane made her lip swell up. See, without "Reno 911" I end up buying magazines that disturb me (don't even get me started on "Real Simple." That is the apogee of American consumer faux-minimalism cognitive dissonance, and for a teensy example, it has a recipe for a "rustic peach tart" that includes a frozen pie crust!! This is supposed to be about the good life, food porn! Why the pre-made pie crust? And I'm not even going into why they offer up $500 "storage solution" bookshelves when they're allegedly promoting a simple lifestyle). I need cable. I need Jon Stewart and Louis Black. I need little, plucky Veronica Mars. I need those crazy Cylons. TV makes so much more sense than magazines, you have to be the stupidest snob ever to read magazines and ditch the TV.

Where was I going with this? Oh, I was trying to be positive.

Went to a sandwich shop in a year-round farmer's market today. I can get fresh-baked pies for $10 with farm-grown rhubarb, strawberries and other NW berries. I cannot be positive enough about carbs. Luscious, sweet carbs.

Also, the Hoquiam library is a gorgeous old building courtesy of Andrew Carnegie, tiny Scots-born robber baron. It is packed with Elton Bennet screens, and artist I really dig who hails from Hoquiam.

At any rate, more pics and grumbles (and maybe some nice things to say) later.

Aberdeen, OMG

So things are different here. I'm sitting in the library, using the WiFi, minding my own business, and some joker burps. Big, long, rowdy burping. Twice. Now he's farting. Oh the humanity.

The library isn't quite the promised land of quick hold gets that the Andrews-Strpinis family promised. I am 82nd in line for "Fiasco," and I can't quite seem to get holds on anything else. One hold at a time? Software bug? I don't know.

In other weirdness news, I washed a load in Michael's house's washer (where I'm staying until my apt. is ready to be moved into) and found a pair of panties from the previous owner.

This town has some openess issues.

And Tacoma was so nice when I left it. My landlord didn't prorate me for the week I stayed there this month, and didn't even bother to do a walkthrough. When I told her I couldn't get the scunge off the stove inserts, she waved it off and told me not to worry about it. Sigh. That makes three topics I'm too biased to write fairly about: the YMCA, Les Schwab tires (a Northwest chain, they lent me a tire when I bought chains in LaGrande, Ore. on my trip up and the guy who helped me put them on (without the $10 they usually charge to put chains on for a customer) noticed they were about to go) and any property owned by John Peranzi.

So there you go.

Unspeakable cruelty for your amusement

Pop on a pig in Pike Place Market.



Mom enjoying the ride on the Walla Walla.

And the cruelest picture:



Mom and Dad eating at Salumi. So gnarly to post eating pictures of your parents. I am a bad daughter.

Mom and Dad come for a visit

Well, the stupidest thing that happened is I didn't get a picture of them with Hugh and Janice. I suppose we were having such a nice time at dinner that it never came up.

But anyway. Mom and dad were good enough to sleep on an air mattress in my teensy apartment, and Friday morning we piled out to Bremerton to catch a ferry to Seattle.



Here's dad waiting. He and mom were so nervous about getting tickets. Silly parents! You just walk on as a passenger going east! It was a lovely day for a ferry ride, and mom decided when she gets old she'd just like to ride a ferry all the time. They are nice boats.

We ate at Salumi, which was just as good as everyone says. Mom hit up all the bookstores in Pioneer Square minus Elliott Bay Books, which is so big and so full of good books I was nervous we'd lose her for good if she went there. We missed out on the Underground Tour because mom was overheated and had to stand too long for her sandwich. I thought this would mean she was completely out of shape but a few days later I took her to the Supermall and she wore me totally out in the commercial hiking endurance test.



We also went to Ocean Shores, part of the figuring out where Callie is going to live come her move thing. It was cold, windy and there was a lot of trash on the beach. Plus you can park there. When I tell folks I'm moving to Aberdeen, they get all excited about being near the beach. They tell me, on occassion, that I can now learn to surf. Well, I have done a Polar Bear jump and I'm pretty sure the water isn't any warmer in the Pacific than Puget Sound. Growing up on the east coast and having grandparents from Florida has spoiled me completely for any other beach. I am not sure I can even mentally handle the idea of surfing in the Pacific Northwest. I feel so cold ... so ... cold.

I will put up more pics as I find them. I have a humdinger of dad on the pig at Pike Place Market somewhere.

The gift of a motto, courtesy "Miami Vice"

I have begun the Ultimate Purge of my apartment, which will culminate tonight in an orgy of clip-reducing. I have, seriously, about three bags and boxes full of clips I need to cut out, sort through and organize. Also some award plaques and stuff. Funnily, about two years ago I bought an organization system for them, which lies empty in the closet as well. Better late than never, and maybe this time I can keep it updated weekly (yeah, right). Already I have gotten shed of a bunch of junk that's been needing to be gotten shed of.

One of the pieces of paper I need to purge is a press invite to Miami Vice (if anyone wants to go tomorrow I've got a pass!) which is so hilariously written I feel the need to share key elements of it.

First, we start off with the sentence, "Ricardo Tubbs (Academy Award [and here they use the circled r but I think that's bogus] winner Jamie Foxx) is urbane and dead smart." Not that urbane and smart are synonyms or anything. "He lives with Bronx-born intel analyst Trudy, played by British actress Naomie Harris, as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders." Okay, Bronx-born intel analyst played by a Briton (but I'll buy that she's in Fla., although I think that's a lot of unnecessary backstory for "Trudy"). That is hilarious. And they're doing this dangerous work to ... identify a group responsible for THREE LOUSY MURDERS??? Maybe they should use their analysis skills and taste for danger to, I don't know, find Al-freaking-Qaeda? When is the last time the cops cared enough about drug killings that they invested like that in a case? Since when is a drug-related killing really that difficult to solve, come to think of it?

Anyway, Michael Mann's people continue thusly: "Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) is charismatic and flirtatious [which are not synonyms or anything] until — while undercover working with the supplier of the South Florida group [wait, isn't that who Tubbs and Trudy are working with? They are shipping drug loads, right? So they're working together already? What?] — he gets romantically entangled with Isabella, the Chinese-Cuban [ROTFLMAO] wife of an arms and drug trafficker. Isabella is played by Gong Li." What? Gong Li? "Raise the Red Lantern," "Shanghai Triad," "Ju Dou" Gong Li? Playing a Chinese-Cuban? She is the most classically Chinese beauty in the world which, I have to say, has a great deal to do with her popularity.

I also love how the whole of the backstory is laid out in ridiculous, willing suspension of disbelief-killing prose. But then we come to the film's philosophy. To wit:

"The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged."

This may become my new motto.

"The intensity of this case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one [this sounds suspiciously like the interpretation of a Gender Studies 101 student] — especially for Crockett in his romance with Isabella and for Tubbs in the provocation of an assault on those he loves." First of all, thanks for getting super literal, I needed that. And second of all, thanks for introducing the idea that Tubbs has more than one person who he either attacks or provokes to get attacked. Were these people his mixed-race lesbian couple of aged aunts who raised him with seven other babies of assorted other races and accent provinences when his parents died in a car crash during a freak snowstorm in Tampa? I don't think there was enough goofy-ass backstory provided.

At any rate, remember: The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged. Especially if you are an undercover cop, because Lord knows people attracted to cop work are never the slightest bit upstanding or legalistic or pragmatic or any other personality trait that might not be appropriate while doing undercover work to turn up the volume on.

Seriously, how can this movie not rock.

Last day at the Gateway rockin' the spot

Well, wouldn't you knw that my last day at the paper the biggest story in my two years of working the city hall beat came down. The city administrator got the announcement of his sacking sent out over the email. And I had a 9:30 a.m. meeting with a guy from Aberdeen who seems oddly amenable to the idea of me crashing in his (as yet unlived-in) house. So Kalyn and I were forced to collaborate. Poor kid has to take over the city beat with the Lifestyles and the education beats for at least the next couple of weeks. And isn't this the best time for stuff to be hitting the ceiling. She already had an emotional moment after talking to above-mentioned administrator; I told her (and I ended up telling him) my first day doing the city beat, and talking to that administrator, I just wept my little eyes out, but everything got a lot better quickly. That's right, people. I pulled a Mary Tyler Moore in the newsroom before. And he's not so bad. In fact, he told me I failed to meet his exceedingly low expectations to become one of his favorite reporters, and, yes, he's got us all ordinally ranked and I'm not number one (or two) but I'd rather not be any source's favorite reporter they dealt with ever. Except maybe some of my feature-y sources.

At any rate, my last day went down with some spot news. And, as I rushed to get comments and interviews, I realized, "hell yeah, I love this adrenaline deadline shiznit!" Which bodes well for the Daily World. Spot news, baby. I rock ALL the spots, call all the shots.

It's official

I'm leaving the Gateway for the Aberdeen Daily World.

I don't know what the hell I'm thinking either. Oh, wait. Daily paper, more money, I'll still be independent, managers who get my writing ... it'll be hard leaving my Tacoma community, but it's about time to move onward and upward.

In the meantime, I've kind of given myself an extremely rigid deadline for finding a place to live and move into. Oops. And I'm stressing to get all my work stuff done. Oops.

In better news, I get to judge a chocolate baking contest at the Key Peninsula Fair tomorrow.

Also, I made a delicious bread pudding. Here's what went into it:

Almost a whole loaf of banana bread (largish loaf) that had dried up a bit.
three egg yolks
one egg
two cups milk
one cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
vanilla
nutmeg

cut the bread up and put it in a glass casserole. Buttering the casserole is optional.

mix all the other ingredients, minus the vanilla and nutmeg, until blended. Then mix in the vanilla and nutmeg. Pour the custard over the bread. Let sit 30 minutes, then bake at 350 for 45 minutes covered, 15 mins uncovered.

The recipes called for bananas to be sliced up and layered with the bread, but that just seemed unnecessary to me. Also for a rum sauce to be made (rum, water, brown sugar and butter cooked together). If I could have changed anything I might have added an extra 1/2 cup of cream and milk mixed to extend the custard a bit.

But dang, it was good. Also I had two pieces of cake today (it was for my going away and said "Good Luck Lois At The Daily Planet," which is funny because I keep calling the DW the DP, and because I've always been a little obsessed with superheroes as journalists) and a pack of Reese's cups and a margarita and chips, so after tomorrow it's all salad and whole grains for a while. I'm a little strung-out on the sugar.

I want to get a place to live with a functioning oven so I can make banana bread and banana bread pudding. Yum.

Tacoma celebrates freedom with fights

So I went down to the Freedom Fair on Ruston on the Fourth of July during the day. What a crowd. I was simultaneously sorry I didn't bring a camera and glad I wouldn't have to worry about losing it in the crush of people.

As a Philly girl and civics nerd, I am perpetually disappointed by Freedom Fairs that do not feature a Benjamin Franklin reenactor or, in any case, pay tribute to our forefathers and their incredible wisdom and bravery in creating both the Declaration of Independence, the best breakup letter ever written, and the Constitution. Most celebrations are not unlike the Freedom Fair, gauche fair food for miles and stupid trinkets for sale like rip-off beanie babies and Ren Faire-style clothes. Freedom to stuff our faces and bloat out and buy clutter and shake our fat bellies like we're seductive, that's what the FF was all about.

And there were fat bellies. To the FF's credit, there was markedly less camel toe than at the Gig Harbor Maritime Gig. At least on this side of the bridge women are more inclined to wear clothes that fit. Not that they are necessarily good clothes. I saw one enormous woman in an unfortunate skin-tight tank top with an very very skinny T-back that showed an expansive tattoo of birds and flowers and skulls across her upper haunches, for example, and a man with a shirt that said, "If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong," which I just found unnecessarily arrogant and abrasive.

Perhaps the oddest shirt I saw was not being worn but was for sale, printed with an old tinotype of a Native American with a shotgun that said "The Original Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism since 1492." I just wondered if the vendor had any idea how that sentiment went along with 7/4.

Tacoma gets some pretty crappy vendors. The air show was pretty cool, though it got loud when the fighter planes came out from McChord and I turned around for home. The most interesting set up was a drum circle with additional drums so anyone can join in. Tacoma is not exactly Seattle when it comes to drum circle enthusiasm. Which is kind of cute when you see a couple of hippie types playing while little kids who are not theirs join in. But it seemed that the drum circle instigators were aware that Tacoma is not, indeed, a Seattle-esque city because they had a sign on some nice posterboard with multi-colored shiny paste-on letters that said, "TACOMA IS A PRAYING CITY." That cracked me up. Another sign, in marker this time, said, "STAY in SCHOOL," a message I found to be at odds with the typical drum circler lifestyle.

The plan was to go to the McMillans for their annual Fourth blowout. I was a little sweaty from walking about six miles, but I figured I was okay, I whipped up a Mrs. Cole's Congealed Salad (aka white trash salad: mix one container cottage cheese with one container Cool Whip, a drained can of crushed pineapple, a big handful of walnuts or pecans and a package of red Jell-o and keep cool) and headed out for the Key Peninsula in remarkably light traffic.

Well, that insured that I missed the riots that broke out later. And CNN, the Discovery Channel and USA Today have all called Freedom Fair one of the best tourist draws for family activity in the U.S. What. Ever. Seriously, scroll down on that first link.

"Police got reports about 9 p.m. of fights involving 150 to 200 people near Jack Hyde Park. Surrounding the fights were a couple of thousand people," reported the TNT. I figure they had had enough Andean music. How many times can a person listen to "El Condor Pasa" and "Llorando Se Fue," anyhow? Criminy that stuff was playing when I got there and when I left more than an hour later at Hyde Park. And I say this as a fan of Andean tunes.

Hugh's was calm until Cameron started setting off fireworks and one of the festival balls blew up in the container after failing to pop into the air. Good times.

So today I went to the library to return some books and as I was walking back heard a commotion from Wright Park. Apparently it was Out at the Park day, which I never would have known was going on if I relied on the entertainment section of my local daily.

Again, missing my camera. All the local drag queens were there, most of them looking hott. There's this one older DQ who wears a trashy take off on a poodle skirt and lace collared shirt ensemble, I have seen him before. But not the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who give away condoms and popsicles. They were awesome, with their habits and fake eyelashes tipped with beads. I also liked the Dockyard Dames booth, a roller derby team I briefly considered joining but didn't want to drive to Lakewood for. But there were more social service booths than anything and they're kind of boring.

No fights, though.

I swear as I left I heard a guy say, "The best thing is people can't tell when I'm drunk because I have Cerebral Palsy," but I could have been wrong because, well, he had Cerebral Palsy.

I've about had it with NPR low talkers

I listen to the NPR podcasts while doing my morning Sudoku and I've about had it with:

MEE-shell Norris
Sarah Fishko
Joanne Silberner
Scott Simon (except when he laughs and then he's loud)
That chick with the thick, plummy Irish-y accent on "On The Media." Blow your nose, you horrible woman. (I don't think she works there any more, but man I hate her voice)
Melissa Block
Lakshmi Singh
Bob Boilen

The worst thing about low-talking is not just that these horrible people let their voices trail off into nothing at the end of a sentence, but that their mumblemouth ways get grafted onto the people they are interviewing! Especially when they are interviewing the naturally quiet, such as museum curators, artists, musicians and librarians, who get a lot more NPR time than most professions. More horrifying, Scott Simon and MEE-shell Norris are about the worst of all, and they're hosts! The only thing Simon does with any volume or distinction is laugh at dumb jokes, often his own. And when I hear Michelle Norris mumble her way through and interview, her voice sliding down as if it were slipping away underwater, I feel like she's playing hide and seek with the listener. I can only crank up the volume so much on my Mac. It is the opposite of soothing. Melissa Block is her voice clone. Joanne Silberner sounds like she needs to blow her nose, too.

I guess they can't all be Liane Hansen. I don't know why she's religated to the Puzzle Patrol with Will Shortz, who has a fine voice himself for announcing.

Other good voices:

Brooke Gladstone
Bob Garfield
Sylvia Poggioli
Jim Zarroli
Don Gonyea
Ann Taylor
Steve Inskeep
Daniel Schorr, even if he has old-man-screamy voice on occasion and is kind of nuts

I just couldn't hold it in any longer. Norris and Simon are horrible talkers who drag their interviewees down into the sonic netherworld with them — their questions trail off into nothingness and their interviewees kind of tend to talk way the hell down at the unintelligible range with them. This is a shame. I demand they be dosed with caffeine. Otherwise people should quit emailing their stories so they don't make the podcast. They sound like they're jockeying for positions on the Ketchup Advisory Board. Maybe I'm just saying this because of my auditory processing disability.

In other inadequately functioning sense organ news, I finished reading my first large print book. It was unintentional; I put a hold on Robert Baer's "See No Evil" (after watching "Syriana," which was good, but not satisfying or particularly coherent) and apparently the library only carries this book oldie-style. You really feel like you're zipping right through since there aren't more than 200 words per page. Also, large print books are refreshingly free of a dust jacket, making them easy to handle. However, I have to hold the book about as far as my arms will stretch to approximate a text size approaching normal. Someone should work on developing a readable large print font. That sounds silly but I'm serious — at a certain size all the round bits look alike. You know those fifth grade girls with the bubble writing? It's like that. Or maybe that's just because I can see.

R.I.P. Shelby

Shelby was a good dog. He was kind of hyper as a young dog and eccentric as an old dog, but he was good. He wasn't patient unless you count how he'd beg for scraps — or how he'd lie down and rest all day next to you when you were feeling puny. He wasn't smart unless you count that time he dug a whole big bar of dark chocolate out of a bag on the floor and hid it behind dad's computer to snack on when he felt like it (thank goodness I busted him before he managed to eat more than a sliver of it). He was loyal except that if he ever got loose he'd really make a break for it and you had to catch him fast. He always cleaned up if you dropped food you were cooking on the floor unless it was onion or celery or some other vegetable. He was a good dog.

Shelby had a stroke yesterday, and that was pretty much it for him. The vet put him down and Doug and mom were there. He'd been having fits, and apparently he'd had some weird, sad behaviors the weeks and months before he died, so this was something of a blessing, especially with Mom and Dad planning to go out of town today (postponed a little). He didn't die alone, it wasn't painful, he lived a very long life (over 100 in dog years). And now he has gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds.

I'll miss that little booger.

I flew in a B-17

One of the coolest things anyone can fly in is not a JetBlue flight, though I hear you get your own TV, but a B-17 bomber. Known as "The Flying Fortress," this is the Boeing machine that made the company and, hence, the Northwest.



Lee, a commercial pilot himself, was freaking out with excitement. This is one of five things he wants to do before he dies, and it's always great to knock something off that list. We had to drive up to Mt. Vernon in a loaner van — way the heck north in Skagit County — before being flown to the Tacoma Narrows Airport.

We were flying with a B-24 (flown by a young Swedish woman, one of five B-24 pilots who still fly B-24s) and there were two old B-24-flying vets on that flight. Tears!

But we had a special vet on our flight, too.



Lee is getting Lois's signature on his $500 goatskin real bomber jacket, where he has autographs of famous aviators. Lois was a WASP back in the day, and was a test pilot for bombers. Jackie Cochran was her boss and she's met Chuck Yeager, but she's pretty great, too.

The flight was pretty incredible.



Clear skies, lots of sun, warm air. Much nicer than the weather most of our boys had to endure when they were bombing ball bearing factories. We never flew high enough to need to use oxygen masks, for one thing. And let me tell you, the landing? I have never been on a smoother landing. Never will. The bumps I felt I thought were the landing gears deploying, and I had to ask Lee if we were on the ground (can't see out the itty bitty windows). His response? "They don't let just anyone fly this thing." No doubt.



I'm a little disappointed in Lee here, because the shot I envisioned was wider, horizontal and took the scope of the hatch from the two massive guns on either side (with faux 50 caliber ammo belts). That would have been a lot better, said the one who does not make a living from taking pictures. I didn't want the glamour shot.

Anyway, I can't imagine having to aim the Norton device behind me — a sight so accurate it was removed from the planes between missions and locked away and was the first thing destroyed when the plane was shot down — while the guns were blazing. It must have been crazy loud during combat. The bombadier's hatch was pretty roomy, but you have to crunch down to get in it. The rest of the plane, especially the bomb bay, was tight (the catwalk had a big metal V coming down to hold it up; it was the width of my hips plus a millimeter). Lois was the only passenger who got to sit on a seat (in the radio room, which had two walls full of radio transmission equipment) and the rest of us were on little mats strapped in on the floor, leaning against a little mat on the wall.

Being in the B-17 gave me a better appreciation for some of the stories I've written. I even wrote one story about three men who were officers in WWII who ran missions on bombers, were shot down, survived that, evaded the Nazis for as long as possible, got caught, were hauled off to the Stalag, survived that, survived being transferred between Nurenburg and Mooseburg in the dead of winter with very little warm clothes and less food ... I just got a little taste of what it was like to be part of that story. And no one was shooting at me, and I wasn't in the freaky ball turret (which sometimes got stuck and, if you were in it when that happened and the landing gear was shot out, you were pretty much dead), so all the better.

But before I disrupt any sentimentality over the warbird, I have to say, I ran my eyes over it and took in all the rivets. They were probably all put in there by women, real-life Rosie the Riviters. It was probably tested and delivered across country by WASPs. It is a living reminder of a time when everyone contributed to the war effort, when people held scrap metal drives to help churn these planes out, when everyone did what they could to serve the effort. It was a little depressing; I could head to Target, drop $50 on crap and only when the radio came on realized, oh, yeah, there's a war on. And I'm one of the tuned in people. But then, dropping $50 on crap is considered an act of patriotism by certain officials, which is also massively depressing. During WWII, the American people didn't know the outcome would be that we would split the atom and become the world power, turning Europe on its ear. They had no idea they'd change the world. Crazy. So the B-17 is also an expression of naivete, it's the half-galumphing, half-astonishingly graceful act of an adolescent who is cocksure but totally clueless at the same time.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the B-17. And that being said:



Doesn't this look like the head of a big anime robot?

I've got a new habit

Salad.

But not just any salad. Salad with Marie's Bleu Cheese Vinaigrette salad dressing (sorry, it's a flash site so I can't link directly to it). It must have some sort of crack additive the way I'm craving it. I ate a big salad last night and thirty minutes later got another craving and ate more salad. Today I had another salad and since I'm out of greens am worried I'm unprepared.

It's hard finding this dressing, too! People must be buying it up or something.

At any rate, it's creamy, it's tangy, it's a little sweet — it's the ultimate salad dressing. Get it and all you need is a bag of lettuce. Forget the vegetables with flavor, you will want a pure hit of Bleu Cheese Vinaigrette. I'm thinking about slurping the stuff up straight from the bottle. My yearning for this stuff is stronger than for doughnuts, even Boston Cream, and that's pretty powerful if you know me.

Well, if Pee-Wee can marry a fruit salad, I don't see why I can't marry a salad dressing. It's only the next logical step in the way this country is going if some commentators are to be believed. And heaven knows I'd rather marry salad dressing than one of them!

Laissez les bon temps rouler

Well, there's a relatively new homeless guy in my neighborhood I've been telling stories on and maybe it's time to blog about him.

The first time I met the new guy, I was walking to the library to return some books and, of course, that route runs right past the Pierce County Alliance. Being a social services co-op, it's something of a magnet for the downtrodden, with their lumberjack plaid (men), acid wash (women) and dirty ponytails (both sexes), but even so this man stood out for his out-and-out goofy expression, with eyes sheltered beneath a veritable gable of a forehead. And his head, with a large chunk of it either shaved or permanently hair-free over his left ear from some sort of brain injury or operation.

As I was walking by, the new guy greeted me with a cheerful, "You're tall for a white girl!" He seemed to want to continue the conversation, even though we were walking in opposite directions, but eventually realized I was not stopping and said, "Well, I see you have to go ..." from a half block away.

At the time, I did not realize he was a new addition to the neighborhood, but I started seeing him often. At the bus stop, by the deli, the guy was around, often talking to himself or anyone who wandered within fifty feet.

It was about a week ago when my new neighbor took things to a level worth blogging about. It was a peaceful evening when I heard a booming, gravelly voice screaming, "I will arrest you, mother------! You are under arrest! That is right, this is the police and mother------, you are under arrest!" You would seriously not believe the volume and range of this voice. The rumbly, non-vocal-chord projected part of his voice would give most speed metal screamers a reason to give up. This was a devil voice. And I look out the window and it is my new neighbor screaming at the air! I had no idea he had that in him!

Well, the screaming was startling but when I realized it was him I settled down right away. He's got some sort of Broca's injury at the very least, but man, I wondered where he learned to talk so authoritatively of being under arrest.

So today I went to the local grocery store to get a roasted chicken (it was 85 degrees (in the PNW I call that "sunny with a chance of motorcycles"), I'm not sure why I got a wild hare for chicken) and there he was hanging out at that corner. Wearing a T-shirt, a jacket and a tie with two strings of shiny beads (silver and purple) under the tie. As he greeted me I said, "Happy Mardi Gras."

He didn't get it. I am probably kind of a jerk for saying it.

Also: After I finished writing this I heard him yelling again. Maybe he's not as cheerful in the heat.

When a blog is not enough

While talking with dad on the phone about the post I did contrasting "Pride and Prejudice" with "Brokeback Mountain," dad discovered my Blogger profile was the number one result for callie white (though not "callie white"). Well, if people are reading and linking you're sure doing it quietly.

At any rate, one of the sites I stumbled across is a sit that seeks to create a network that uses a web crawler to pick out people's names, titles and companies and complile them into a database. I am the number one result for "Callie White" on that site though also the only one. It cites 206 sources for deciding I'm worthy of an independent profile, most of them Gateway stories. They are a fairly random sample, but if you are interested here are some gleanings of non-Tacoma Narrows Bridge weekly updates.

An education story about censorship in two local high school newspaper: http://tinyurl.com/fdey6

People hate tolls, and although I didn't need a public meeting to tell me that, I was a little surprised with the level of heckling (even one of the anti-toll people got heckled): http://tinyurl.com/k8tss

Sometimes as a reporter, especially if you work in a small community, it is easy to get annoyed when land use issues drag on for an interminable amount of time. Obviously these issues are massively important to local property owners, but as a non-night owl when meetings go on for more than two hours I get a little testy and stories pop out that read like this: http://tinyurl.com/hkc7p

This was an award winner (for humorous article) that needs some editing, in retrospect, to keep the humor tighter: http://tinyurl.com/kecdm

Here's a cool artist and her story did a nice life-art symmetry thing: http://tinyurl.com/fztjx

The lede is good on this one, even if it's a generic local-girl-makes-good (and, to be fair, judging by how nice her parents' house was, they had the resources to make sure she could do good in her chosen field): http://tinyurl.com/zx4gb

WWII vets are my bread and butter. This story is complicated by having three equal narratives — and fascinating ones — but not only did the structure come out pretty well, I think it's pretty exciting and moving: http://tinyurl.com/h3vka

Here's a daredevil for you. This lady is a hoot, and this is my only feature to run on the Sports pages to date: http://tinyurl.com/zenus

This old column is on the display case of a local deli, which is an ego boost to me but also, considering the topic maybe depressing?: http://tinyurl.com/jatqt

This column takes on a *very* controversial topic and takes a really hard stance (just kidding!): http://tinyurl.com/ecbdv

This column really could have used some editing because I sound like a complete idiot in the beginning, making no sense, but at the end it finally comes together: http://tinyurl.com/hffgz (I was writing 120 inches a week in stories and doing more in briefs, which leaves the neurons frazzled)

This column is about going to a church sale with Janice, who I just love. A lot more than this column, but I think the details of the weird stuff people donate to yard sales have anthropological value: http://tinyurl.com/gmuwd

Here's a column where I fess up to past weaselishness: http://tinyurl.com/oruhf

This is the column that begat the controversy that caused me no end of pain and suffering. Well, it's basically ended now, and I have emerged with a head held high and a sterling reputation. What divine providence that it is preserved for all eternity here: http://tinyurl.com/p2787

Here are some stories informed by my time in high school volunteering for the Academy of Natural Sciences: http://tinyurl.com/zpmxg and http://tinyurl.com/gznqu and this column http://tinyurl.com/mzn3f

I just love Phyllis Beckley. She and her husband Jim are just amazing people: http://tinyurl.com/mvudh

When I wrote this there were no business stories about WiFi in the press to speak of. I was just obsessed with it since I'd gotten my 12" Powerbook with Airport and miffed at how few places there were I could nip into to get on the web, and apparently that's all it takes to be a journalism visionary: http://tinyurl.com/hetmv

This is the story from spending a day salmon fishing with old salts. Mr. Jerkovich died a couple of days before the story ran, which gives it a little poignancy: http://tinyurl.com/ff874

Here are some seniors talking about the good old days, but with a news angle: http://tinyurl.com/hm6dn

That ought to be enough to hold the most ravenous Monument reader who hasn't already seen these articles.

The race update

Oof. Like that was necessary. Not exactly the brightest moment one has during a race.

I came in 1,821 (out of a lot) with an overall time of 1:21:08, setting a pace of 10:54 per mile.

And I may be losing a toenail due to the race. Well, the shoes, really.

Good times.

It has come to my attention that Michelle's picture is up, and she is less than proud of it (she was my training partner). Also see Mike Leonard, ad director of the Gateway, and Denise, my Tuff-E-Nuff instructor. My friend Lindley was snapped at the start of the race, which is so much less fun to see than those of us snapped at the end. As a result, I look so much happier than my compatriots to be finishing the race. And man, was I ever glad to be done.

Because apparently running IS addictive

I've been checking out this site, which primarily is a compendium of PNW events. I'm thinking about doing more 10ks and 12ks — 5s seem to be over really quick. And there are a lot of triathlons and duathlons going on right now as well as marathons and half-marathons (which are a little further than I really care to go).

There's a 10k in Tacoma called the "Bank to Bay," but it's a day after a Fort Lewis muddy 5K with a lot of obstacles, which sounds fun too. Then, of course, there are a couple of "Bun Runs" which are sponsored by nudist camps and, apparently, clothing optional. Yes, I'm sure it seems like streaking on the surface, but in reality, I'm sure even the most die-hard naturists have to give comfort its due, if you know what I mean.

I also found a pace calculator, which let me know I ran the S2N in less than 11 minutes a mile. Not a lot less, but it was an ego boost just the same.

The race goes to the swift

I heard the red wave time was the clock minus 15 minutes, which gives me a time of about 81 minutes for 7.5 miles. That's not too bad considering all the hills.

Even though I never have to run again there is a part of me that now wants to run Five Mile Drive every Saturday. That part is definitely not located in my feet.

The race, it is run

I did it! 7.5 miles! I'm not sure of my time — it's going to be posted later on the website so I'll check back in. As I was coming around the final bend I heard a guy say "red wave's at 1:20:00," but the clock at the finish said 1:36:10, but the clock didn't necessarily start with the red wave, so, again, who knows. I'm pretty sure me and Michelle beat our previous times, though, at 95 and 90 minutes, respectively.

Here's what it's like to run the S2N:

Pre-race: Michelle: "I hope we beat him. He's got one leg." Callie: "Man, we'd better beat her. She's like 300 pounds." Michelle: "What happened to her leg?" Callie: "That's a varicose vein." Michelle: "You mean like a spider vein? (pause) We better beat her." Announcer: "And running on his 50th anniversary! Eric somebody! His time last year was 1:15:34!" Michelle: "What?" Callie: "We are going to have to let a lot of stuff go." Michelle: "That's crazy."

The Roman Centurion, representing Roman Meal Bread, one of the sponsors, is a guy from the Tuesday/Thursday Tuff-E-Nuff class. Why is he not running? He is a better runner than I am for sure.

Mile 1: The red wave is all scrunched up like crazy. We are going downhill. I am able to pass people. I pass you, Santa-looking man! I pass you, large-bottomed women! I pass you, gimpy runner! Going downhill is fantastic! Hey! Is that Lindley ahead of me? Maybe I can catch up ... no ... okay, see you at the finish, Lindley.

Mile 2: We are starting to break up a little. Here is "The First Hill." The most optimistic of the red wavers have to walk. I start sucking air. My second wind has yet to kick in. Ah, sweet zoo parking lot, you are flat. Ah, sweet downhill again. Oh, man here is the next hill. It is not too steep.

Mile 3: We are still going uphill! Every bend in the road, obscuring the view! It only obscures more uphill! Sweet Lord make it stop! I am racewalking and walking and jogging and Michelle is ahead of me, all energetic and young! Ah, it has stopped. It is kind of flat. Now I am running again.

Mile 4: Michelle has deigned to let me run in front of her. It is up and down and up and down and hey, more water! Racers are messy people who just throw the cups down. OMG we can litter! I am getting a cup! Running and drinking is hard! But here is a condoned act of littering! I just littered in the park, OMG OMG! And people say I cannot cut loose.

Mile 5: This is getting so much easier. Where has Michelle gone? She must be ahead of me. Must. Run. A. Little. Faster. Man, my hips are starting to hurt. I'm glad I took some Advil this morning.

Mile 6: My blister on my middle right toe is starting to hurt. Where is Michelle? Did she have an asthma attack and I don't know about it and now she's in the hospital? Is she ahead of me or behind me? She must be behind me.

Mile 7: This is weird. No Michelle. Well, if I'm in front, I must be haler and hardier than I thought. Man, that spot where my shorts rub against my thighs hurts. I can't believe I'm going to get a blister on my legs. That is horrible. When is this thing over with? Man, what course are we running? I've never been this way before. Another uphill? Oh man. Yay! Downhill! Oh no! I'm a little out of control! Uphill again! Okay, walk this one a bit. You can walk the rest of the way. It's no shame. Must. Run. Can run flat part. Run flat. Jettison extra weight. Lose articles, pronouns, big words.

Finish: Run! RUN RUN RUN IN!!! RUN IT!!! RRRRUUUUUUNNNN!!!!!!! Everything hurts but it's almost over! RUN, CALLIE RUN!!

Michelle made it in two minutes later. She had to tie her shoe, she said. Man, ain't no shame in the walking game. Or having double bunny ear knots. We get a free orange. It is Sunkist yet one of the best oranges I've ever eaten. I get two loaves of Roman Meal bread from a guy looking the other way. I don't need or want two loaves of bread, much less a kind that only has a single gram of fiber per slice. Overheard by Michelle: man: "we got a free loaf of bread and an orange for only $25!" We still wonder if S2N gives its money to a worthy cause. I think because we wonder it must not, unless you count the continued existence of the race, and that's cool when I think about it.

I'm going to get a burger now.

Tomorrow's the day

7.5 miles. I am so excited.

I am washing my race clothes in preparation tonight and am taking it easy. I had to run to the store for some laundry detergent — I apparently lost a whole new bottle, which I didn't think was possible — but other than that I'm conserving energy. Ate a big bowl of pho, which may not have been smart, and two pieces of bread and jam since I'm all out of Milano cookies, which is also dubious. Also I'm charging my iPod shuffle for tomorrow. I cannot recommend the shuffle enough. It's light and doesn't skip at all and the battery goes on forever and ever. Plus they're on bigtime sale right now at the Apple Store. If you exercise, totally buy one.

I also found a product that is called "liquid bandage" which I'm going to put over the place where I had blisters. I kinda got them to the point where they came off right before the race. Which really isn't cool because now it's tender skin that's exposed instead of the tough stuff that was there. Still, my feet aren't really ready for sandals or anything. They're still pretty gnarly.

Once I run this race I'll barely ever run again and, if so, pretty much only on flat surfaces. I cannot wait to kickbox again.

Also, I did not go ahead and try to create a race costume as a faux superhero. It isn't that I'm too shy; I'm too lazy.

Tough as nails

That's not necessarily me, but my blisters are toughening up. And all it took was patience and, for the right big toe, a nice big bleed that didn't leak too much but left it with a black-purple mark the size and shape of a malignant melinoma. My toes aren't completely ache-free, but now it's more irritating than debilitating.

The proof was in the nearly eight mile run I took Sunday. It was a test run of the Sound to Narrows, but I messed up the exit route so I ran longer than absolutely necessary. Which, at mile 7.5, is a big "bleah." The course isn't as horribly hilly as it could be, I'm glad to report, but it is a little confusing. Although my dogs were barking at me (and my face had turned spotty red in places that are not normally heat-ejection areas) so were my calves, hips and shoulders and everything else.

Today in the Y class I went about four miles on the "hill course," other, non-remedial runners might have gone about five.

After running eight miles I was stiff the rest of the day; it didn't put a damper on Miss Anora's christening party. Brownies, booze and lawn chairs are great post-run if you can't move hardly at all. She's cute, too, all cheeks and blue eyes.

What else is worthy of comment? Oh, this is pretty awesome. Saw another crummy Bollywood, "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai," which translates to "Something happens" and that's about right. I wrote a somewhat grumpy Netflix review and judging by the low numbers of recs on the third top-rated user review, means if my peeps hit it up I may just get the only grumpy Bollywood review on the rec list. That's a hint, Netflix users among us. And if that doesn't get you juiced up perhaps the fact that I point out the incest vibe will.

Presumptious much?

I was cleaning out my purse when I saw a strip of Safeway coupons — you know, the kind the store prints for you based on whatever you've bought — and noticed that one of them was for Always pads.

The kicker? At the bottom it says: "MAY WE SUGGEST: Ultra Long Extras with wings."

Presumptious much?

I would have been inclined to believe the suggestion was because the product was a source of professional pride by the Always people — or perhaps they're overstocked — but Michelle pointed out to me that all those coupons are very targeted and focused.

If she's right, that is a little too much corporate focus on my personal business for my taste.

OMG KFC

So gross.

Somehow I doubt "extensive" testing went into this. The picture is enough to make me want to barf. Just because it all ends up in the same place does not mean there is no justification for sides.

Funny, that

On my Flickr page I se I've had 100 views of a photo titled "Symbionese Liberation Callie," because I'm posing with a gun not unlike Ms. Patty Hearst did, followed closely by "Paramilitary Barbie (Well, Midge)" (me with two guns) and "Michelle with Rifle" (self-explanatory). At 80 views, the Russian sailors continue the military theme and "Lucas Skywalker," my previous most-viewed, has slipped to 70 views.

Lesson: If you want people to look at your pictures, put in some chicks posing with guns. Even when it's ironic, it's a draw.

Tacoma double rainbow

I just thought this was pretty cool to wake up to in March. I saw another double rainbow while running Saturday (Sunday? Sunday.) But it was closer together and didn't do the whole horizon stretch like this one.

Ramona wins an award

Here you can see my new haircut, a style I like to think of as Quimby Modern. Also you can see the dress my mom thinks is too inappropriate (a sentiment not shared by non-Puritans). Also in this picture, though it is very unsteadily taken, you can see my SPJ First Place award for spot news (basically, stuff you have to write really fast because it just happened — lots of plane crashes and murders are spot news stories. The story that won happened to be about 40 inches long. Yes, I write wicked fast and get all the good scoop, and that is why I am a winner) for non-dailies (but not alternative weeklies. Funny, but The Stranger didn't appear to enter this year, even after Dan Savage grumped about having to compete with The Peninsula Gateway instead of what rightly is the Stranger's true competition, Willamette Week and the Seattle Weekly. Also Willamette Week didn't really appear to have entered much if at all. Just that Nigel Jaquiss dude who's been racking up the legit journalism awards.

Oh, yes, I did run that day, but my back was what was killing me. Hotel dining chairs plus twisting to see screen plus 8 gajillion awards = lots of pain.

Oh yeah, the Gateway won more awards as a paper than any other in our division, I got the only first place writer finish (Jim Appelgate got design props but he's always a winner because his page design is the SHIZ), though Ric got a headline writing first.

Living the YA novel

The worst part about running is the blisters. I have blisters that have formed under previous blisters, giving one of my toes the appearance of a very young fetus, you know, when it's got a blobby head and all-dark eyes. I've got burst blisters that start oozing at bad times (like the dedication of the new Living War Memorial Park this morning while I was in sandals) and are bloody underneath.

Basically, I feel like one of those girls in the Young Adult novels about tweenies who want to be ballerinas and the main character takes a look at one of the older, more experienced girls' feet and they are reptilian and gnarled. I'm that girl but without the grace and tutu. Indeed, I feel weird running my little trotty, piston-like Shetland pony legs out in public.

Also, who woulda thought the first muscles to wear out when I run are the ones in my forearms. That makes no sense to me. But you can't really run with your arms dangling at your side. Or you could and say you were an Irish dancer, I guess.

More bloody toes

It's my own fault. After running this on Sunday I had blisters the size of potato bugs on my feet. So of course running this today (plus the near-mile to get to the Y, which I look at as a jump-start on my second wind) with my Y group (and Michelle, and really only Michelle since the others are super duper in shape and faster than greased lightning) busted a blister and aggravated the others. Damn my soft feet, unaccustomed to hard labor or drudgery!

If you check out the runs, look at some of the elevation issues. This is only the beginning of what awaits me at Sound To Narrows, I deeply fear.

In other health-related news, I have something on the order of five bags of salad that were on sale at the grocery store in my fridge. Do I want to eat them? Heck no. I want the FMW. But I've got to eat the salad before it goes bad. Damn you, healthy impulse!

Also, the weather is gorgeous. It's 60 degrees and sunny even though it's 7 p.m. If it were like this year-round I'd be a runner or something. I just know it.

Running on a full stomach

It's not the brightest thing in the world, but I'm giong to have to do it tonight. Since I didn't run last night. I was hashed.

The whole running thing is starting to get me down. Not only is the course going to be ridiculously long and dominated by uphill bits (and I am really great at running downhill and on level surfaces but not the uphill) but I'm not acheiving any of the results I wanted. According to people who support me, I'm packing on muscle at an unprecedented rate, not just blooming upwards in weight. Which is what it feels like.

But in the areas where I am excelling, I got my annual review today and I would quote from it and my boss's extoling my work ethic, prize-winningness, super repping skillz for the G------, etc. but I left it on my desk. And I got my annual raise. Let's just say Callie may be buying the six inch BMT on a day when it is *not* the special!!!

Speaking of prize-winning, I found out I'm going to win something from the Western Washington Society of Professional Journalists. But then, so is something the intern wrote. When the Seattle Weekly was in our circulation category — and not relegated to the brand new "alternative weekly" category (thanks, Dan Savage, for mentioning the Peninsula Gateway in your Slog entry on why The Stranger never enters the SPJ contest, as in "that competition is for papers like The Peninsula Gateway, and it's unconscionable that the Weekly puts itself in competition with such pissant papers." And that's not an actual quote, but there was a definite hint of we'd-be-fighting-below-our-weightedness, even though alternative weekly writers are well known for their modesty) — it was a little more special to get that plastic plaque.

So the intersection of work and running is coming up. One is going swimmingly, the other is a rough road, and Jake the sports guy says he's going to cover the S2N. With the camera. I'm running with the special slow people, it's doubtful I'll finish in less than 90 minutes, I tend to get very red in the face and my hair goes all poofy and crazy — this intersection of my competence and incompetence cannot meet or the juju will feel a confluence and infect my working life.

So I have to run harder than ever. 30th Street hill, prepare to be attacked.

4.15 lousy miles?

Apparently that's what it is to run from my apartment down to Old Town up the insane 30th Street hill (well, mostly walked at a brisk pace, that hill was) across Union, down 21st Street to I and then back down 2nd to Tacoma Avenue according to this helpful website. And no, Tacoma streets are not like the East coast, where flatness prevails and the platting was done by visionaries like William Penn so going from 2nd to 30th isn't a big deal.

Running is not my sport. I am so glad I'm not training for a marathon. The thought of doing that just fills me with vicarious nausea in the Sartre sense — the idea that I have the capacity to sign myself up for running a marathon makes me sick to my stomach. Also my left knee, both feet and ankles and my right shoulder (which will take any excuse to hurt) feel bad just thinking about it. Still, the last two miles of running were pretty easy and I didn't even really have breathing problems at all. If only the S2N were as flat.

If only the whole fitness transformation thing were working out in other respects; my body has lost and regained and lost and kinda regained a bit of the same five pounds. I think the real secret is to eat Cheerios instead of FMW for breakfast if you want to shed weight. They have fewer calories. Besides, you can always eat FMW for dinner. I do.