Boring wedding stuff

This is not my wedding dress



But I do look pretty cute in a Barbie wonderland bomb, no? This was me playing dress-up after getting the dress I'm really going to wear, and which was more than $1,000 less than this. I just asked the nice clerk at The Wedding Bell if she had something big, white, sparkly and poufy to try on just because how many more times am I going to be wedding shopping? Like, never.

So that mission accomplished.

Then, a week or so later it was on to Longview, where Kris has been gung ho about producing the ultimate delicious wedding cake. Apparently she's been busting out the algebra calculating the precise ratio of baking powder to batter weight for a 12" cake round (an uncommonly large size) and buying a thingy you soak in cold water then wrap around the cake pan to prevent the sides from cooking too fast compared to the middle. Actually, she bought two and McGyver'd them together. Then she did a test bake (judged by all to be a smashing success) with three kinds of icing options. This cake has been a challenge both mental and gustatorial!

The cake (which you can see here, and do check out the photostream, where it shows the steps to fill it and her hummingbird infestation) was coconut. The icing options were all coconut, rum-flavored filling inside, and lemon in and out. Ray and I absolutely adore all-coconut. We took that and the rum-filled leftovers home and I swear I ate a decent sized piece of cake twice a day for a week, and Ray had his cake, too. And ate it (goes without saying). Kris used the Alton Brown coconut cake recipe, modified for the cake size. It was also doubling as my pre-birthday birthday cake.

This is going to be the best-tasting wedding cake I've ever had. And all my lovely guests too. Kris is also making a red velvet cake for the "groom's cake." We're pretty sure there will be multiple servings per most people necessary because they're great cakes and the buffet will probably be serviceable buffet food.

So I had a dream last night that I had superpowers and there were these people who were also superpowered were out to kill me and they killed everyone I know and I found my old Philly house smeared with blood everywhere and I barely got out of there alive. That's where my dream kind of ended. Lots of my anxiety dreams have me running down this little path that cut through the block. Don't know why. That was a lovely little place when I was a kid, one I think back on very fondly.

But anyway, although my dream was technically a nightmare, I never really felt the kind of overwhelmed freaked-out feeling that I got at Macy's today setting up a wedding registry. I felt a little dizzy at one point.

I kind of picked myself up a bit and realized I was not spending this money, someone else might be. And I felt a little better and a lot guiltier. But then the bridal consultant showed us that almost all our items were under $50 (everything is basically on sale because there's a depression on), and even the sheets I said, "We're spending $200 on sheets?" about, are on sale so they aren't nearly that expensive.

Funniest registry moment was at the towel display.

Me: "I like these. Which colors you like?"

Ray: "These" (points to cranberry-colored towels)

Me: "No. And not the brown ones either. No more brown and white. I like these."

Ray: "Uh, okay, those are fine."

Me: "How many towels should we get? Four?"

Ray: (consternation in voice) "Four??!! That's a lot of towels. Just get one."

Me: "Who gets one towel? That's just weird."

Ray: "We don't need four new towels. We have a lot of towels."

Me: "Well, yeah, but getting one towel? One? Isn't the point to have multiple towels that match?"

Ray: (shrugs) "Yeah. Get two."

Me: "Okay."

Later in the car:

Ray: "I've been thinking about the towels. I have some towels that are kind of old. Maybe it's time to get rid of some of them."

The cheapest item is a lemon reamer (on sale, $3.99). On the website it just calls it a reamer, which, paired with its pic, makes it look totally naughty.

Oh, and it goes without saying that there is a non-profit that will be even more grateful for donations than we are, the 7th Street.

So there is your boring wedding stuff update.

Goings on around the Harbor

So Ray and I went to see "The Women" at Driftwood Friday night and poor little Cora Foss, in the middle of her little emotional scene while pounding the floor and screaming "MOTHER DEAREST! FATHER DARLING!" was interrupted by the craziest senior moment I've yet witnessed. An older lady in the third row appeared to wake up when Cora started her speech and yelped, "WHAT'S GOING ON!" Although it sent a ripple of annoyance through the audience, Cora kept going. Go Cora!!

Saturday night we went to the Hoquiam Shows Its Best auction where for my birthday Ray got me a ride with Besty Seidel in her Lemondrop, a BMW Isetta. The ride also entails a sundae at the Sweet Shoppe.

What I have been hinting for is a way to get a bedside table and lamp by my side of the bed for more convenient reading.

Speaking of reading, I finished three books this weekend!!! (one exclamation point per book). The first was "Authentic Happiness," about positive psychology. Basically it states that we all have a baseline of happiness and there's not much we can do about that permanently except volunteer more and do more fun stuff and work on our capacity to love and be loved. For people who do not have so many of Maslow's Hierarcy of Needs met that they can pursue these ways to be happy, well, tough luck. Actually, people in poor countries tend to be happier than people in rich countries. Seligmann, the author, posits something that comes close to why Mildred Kalish, who wrote the last book I read about growing up in the Depression on a farm and all the chores and stuff she had to do, loved her childhood. It had a lot of purpose, a lot of work that was challenging but accomplishable and although her folks were "hearty handshake Methodists" (i.e. they did not hug and kiss on meeting) there was a lot of security in the family.

Basically, we'll all have to be sustainable agriculturalists before we get back to being happy.

I also learned from the online assessments that I am in the top tier of happy people. I scored in the 80th percentile compared to my gender, age, occupation (probably even higher in these times) and zip code. Ironically, I am also among your more vengeful and avoidant types. If you've wronged me, chances are, I'm p.o.'d about it still. This is made even more ironic by my "core strengths," which include broad-mindedness and fairness/justice.

Perhaps this explains why I think I can write mystery novels. I KNOW why people want to murder. I don't DO it, of course (my style is avoidant, so if I'm not looking at you while you talk to me, well, if you have half an inclination to social skills, figure it out). But I understand. ;-)

Sign up and test yourself at www.authentichappiness.org.

In "Guyland," Michael Kimmel really does us a service by doing an anthropological and psychological study of a bunch of "guys." Male entitlement and frustration abound, and the misogyny he uncovers will freak you out. If you are a guy, you should probably read this, especially if you feel like your disgust with your situation hasn't found a voice, or that the ones that are popular, like Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh, are selling you a bill of goods that are too foul.

But absolutely the best read and the most enlightening was "The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw" by Bruce Barcott. Although he is perhaps too sympathetic to the protagonists of this real-life fight against ecological destruction, developing world corruption and the arrogance of multinational corporations that fly beneath the radar, well, the protagonists ARE fighting ecological destruction, corruption and arrogance, not to mention the undermining of a young democracy and the people's rights to know and to health. Read this book. If you like the writing of Michael Pollan, John McPhee or you just like the style of the New Yorker, this is a non-fiction book that you'll totally like and it will take you a little further than Pollan will on the meaning of sustainability.

So, ah, there you are. After my feminist screed on the dumbness of weddings I hope this is remarkably more positive and enlightening. Oh yeah, I am back to my happy baseline. The prospect of a ride in Lemondrop with Betsy has totally picked me up.

Weddings are STUPID

Part One. (Because I haven't read a single wedding mag or visited "The Knot," I am sure there is a world of crazy out there that I have yet to encounter.)

So weddings = supposed to register. Apparently the whole world will be waiting with bated breath to find out where Ray and I are registering. We are too, as we have no idea what an inventory of stuff we need would look like (indeed, we both seem to feel awash in stuff right now and willing to not own more stuff, or, if we do, to get it our own selves).

HOWEVER, should we register, the people who are interested are supposed to find out how? By seeing that we're registered on our invites or enclosures in the invites?

Oh Lord God Almighty NOOOOO!!! HERESY!

They have to learn by Word of Mouth.

Maybe that worked back in the day, when going from Aurora to St. Paul was a big deal (circa 1925 or so actual distance: about 17 miles. In people's imaginations: GOING TO EUROPE, info from GMR). Today, when I have family and friends all over who don't really all know each other, that doesn't work so well.

If you are a bride who ignores this etiquette rule, you are a BAD PERSON. Check out the comments here. And God forbid you ask for money! I dare you to type some query along the lines of "I'm a bride and want cash" in Google (there is some pro-asking for cash advice, but it's all "this isn't classy and it takes tact," and the comments are all bile). Even Chinese people get mad about it even though we've all seen that scene in The Wedding Banquet where the red envelopes come streaming in. (Note that if you are a groom you are presumed to have limited, if any, agency.)

So this means that people have to come up to you or your family to ask where you are registered. They are forced into a conversation about someone's wedding. Maybe they want to talk about it, maybe they don't feel like getting sucked into the mountain of crazy that is wedding talk from someone invested in a wedding.

Frankly, I come down on the side of, just tell me on the invite so while it is on my mind, so when it occurs to me, I can go straight to the Internet and buy you something. I cannot be trusted to remember to ask someone or even know whom to ask. I appreciate the bluntness and ease and do not need to do some sort of pearl-clutching over breached etiquette. I do not feel I have been assaulted by someone's greed. People who feel like they are being assaulted by a line of ink that reads, "we are registered at the Sharper Image" need to take some Prozac, grab a ladder and climb over themselves.

Also frankly, it seems to me that there is a lot of free-floating bride hate out there. This culture absolultely hates when women decide to remove their (purely theoretical) sexual availability from the public pool. They hate women having a "day." They do everything they can to denigrate and hate on brides in particular — like the groom has no agency in having a celebration that is "too lavish," "too weird," "too selfish" or too whatever, or worse, that he's being suckered by a succubus so his masculinity is diminished. Even if all the trappings of a wedding are patriarchal and so are its roots, I think it bothers some people that women are taking control over their weddings, as much as they are their marriages, their careers and their fertility.

It bothers folks that women are able to spend their own money on weddings, that we're able to obtain credit to pay for it, too (although, hello, not really the best use of credit). They don't like that we're able to pick who we want to marry. They don't like that we feel we should have control over our own weddings and get mad when we find relatives doing things like inviting people we don't know, imposing their own feelings that they had a mediocre wedding and if only we do what THEY want it will be perfect because sad experience has taught them, or just generally making brides mad. It's always the bride's fault, in their narratives.

I'm not saying there aren't immature brides, but I'm saying they are the vast minority and the stereotype that is used to make all us other brides cower in fear of being compared to them. I'm also saying that they are playing into the culture's expectations for them. You think the magazines and the bridal-industrial complex are playing NO ROLE AT ALL in the creation of the stressed-out, bitchy, entitled Bridezilla? You think they're innocent bystanders? NO WAY JOSE. It's another sexist method of control and they are playing right into it.

It's time to liberate Bridezilla. It's time to unhook her from the culture of consumption, to unhook her from her frightful associations. It's time to recast her. It's time that all that energy be harnessed for some better project.

Hawaii

Aloha.

We are back from bliss city, aka Hawaii, the most utterly relaxing and endearing place I've ever been to. To think I thought it would be cheesy.

The picture you see above is from Sunday, day #1 of the Maui Experience. Saturday was all travel (ran into the special services director of the Aberdeen School District on Saturday. We had the same flight. Both of us probably felt a little work-y due to that coincidence) and then a FABULOUS dinner at Sansei, where we had the two-person tasting menu of Chef Omakase's specialities, which blew my mind and taste buds away. The lobster and blue crab ravioli in truffle cream sauce knocked me out.

But Sunday was the first real day of vacay, and perhaps I was still chilling on the good vibes of Sansei, and maybe the awesome condo with Lanai (Hawaiian for "patio") view of the water (and whales, which were in Maui's waters by the thousands on their annual pilgrimage to mate and calve before heading back to Alaska to feed) put me in a good mood, but I think all the peak experiences of Sunday were a contributing factor.

First, there was the snorkeling. Big ups to Snorkel Bob's. The woman at the counter there was a snorkeling maven. She could tell my and Ray's feet sizes by glancing down, figured out his glasses prescription with a glance through his glasses and basically hooked us up. She also asked if I was from Kent or Gig Harbor when she saw my area code (253! Holla atcha gurl!). What? Ironically, two nights before we had gone to see Sarah Vowell she not only said she was now researching Hawaii, she thought one of the best pieces of advice she got in high school was to find people who do their jobs well — no matter what those jobs are — and watch them. It was a SV doubleshot. Sarah, when you hit Maui, go to the Snorkel Bob's by the Maui Tacos in Kihei and sit back for a show.

The snorkeling cannot be over-praised. And we didn't do the Molokini or anything. We just went out and about on the southerly beaches. The water was crystal clear, and we saw all kinds of crazy fish — parrotfish type fishes, bright blue ones with sloopy faces, little black and white ones with cool patterns, and even the humuhumublahblahblueblahblah fish. On day one, I realized when I was quiet that I was hearing something odd. Could it be? Holy cats it was. I was hearing the song of the Humpback whale. I alerted Ray, who thought I was crazy, but realized, yes, those are either the oo-ooos? and eeeee!s of the humpback whales or the screams of the damned. Because they do sound kind of like they aren't wholly, uh, positive. Or maybe I have negative associations with whalesong music by new agers.

The second day we saw sea turtles. Bigguns. And one floated up to say howdy. I was very intimidated, because s/he (how can you tell?) was big pictures don't do these beasts justice. Unfortunately, the ones I took were on film, so I'll have to figure out how to scan them to post them. I was left with some questions that will have to be unanswered due to Ray's internet not accessing some sites (like all the WaPo family, Wikipedia, etc.): Do sea turtles breathe air and water or just hold their breath a lot? And, especially when that one particular one came up, Do they snap?

Then Sunday night we went to a luau, The Feast at Lele, which is supposed to be the classiest luau on the islands. Yelp loves it, too. The first thing to happen, we get greeted with real orchid leis. Class achieved!



What'd I say? Classy! I kind of couldn't stop myself from saying that all night. We had front row seats because we booked a few months ago, and the view, outdoors, looking at the sunset and Lana'i (another island) and the beach, was just spectacular.

Then the dance commenced!



So graceful! The dancers were all so pretty and smiley!



This is a Samoan-style dance. There were all kinds of crazy moments, like when this one chick got out of a canoe that was pushed into shore and got up on an old stump and hula'd. From a canoe.



I think that was this girl. After a couple of glasses of Sauv blanc, half a Blue Hawaii and half a pina colada, I told our waiter, Shane, that if I could shake it like that I would never ever stop shaking it. Even now, less sodden with rum and bliss, I stand by that statement.

There were guys, too.



This guy is doing a Maori warrior style dance.

When the New Zealand stuff was about to start (it takes about 3 hours to get through the show, and the menu spills out bit by bit, and there is a ton of food that comes at you), the hostess announced that the Maori had to determine the intentions of the guests were good or bad, and that one man in the front row would be selected as our spokesperson (or something) and if he would please come up and take the peace offering then the warrior/dancer, then we would not be attacked (or something, the audio people were not very good about turning down the incidental music while the hostess did her spiel). Guess who that spokesperson was?



That's right. He was basically the middle-most dude in a row full of mostly ladies.

I can't even begin to tell you all the food that came at us. Fern salad, kahlua pork, broiled scallops, beef medallions, yes ... much of it was meat-based. It was insane. Luckily they were small plates and it was over the course of three hours, so while it was quite a bit of tasting, it was pretty reasonable in all.

Some Yelpers gripe and moan that the Feast at Lele isn't authentic. Forget authentic. Because authentic means standing at a buffet line for mac salad and, apparently, none of this:



That's my National Geographic shot right there. Notice how close the flame gets to his dried-grass "socks."

So obviously the night ended on a high note.

On Tuesday we went to Haleakala, a volcanic crater high up in the mountains.



How high was it?



That high up. Obviously we could only do about a mile of the Shifting Sands hike because although it starts off nice and easy downhill, it's out and back so back was uphill. Meh. I got as much sun this day as any of the other days were were out.

Also we didn't have much time before I did this:



Obviously that's not me. I do have a video on my camera, but my mac doesn't know how to get it out so I can show you all the massive funs I had swinging like ... well, not Tarzan, but someone who zips through the jungle. Here's an idea of me on the last zipline, even though it is someone else. We also walked across a swinging bridge.



Jim, who is hooking a tourist in, said that the zipline tours had inspired a lot of divorces over the years. Newlyweds come to Maui to marry, take the zipline tour, and boom, they are pissed at each other because they have never encountered what the other person is like when they are pushed to their limits. Although I think a lot of times the pushing to the limits may not be the fault of the zipline as one of the partners. To wit, Jim said one time he took a couple on the tour and while crossing that very bridge, which freaked the woman out, the man started bouncing the bridge. Not only did it freak her out more, it caused her front tooth to hit the pulley system and break in half.

I think maybe someone who gets their kicks freaking you out is not the ideal marriage partner. And I am absolutely 100 percent positive that this guy's knucleheaded tendencies had been on display before but she had not been the victim of them. Or they hadn't caused a chipped tooth. Whatever. All I know is Ray would never, ever intentionally flip me out and make me worry about my safety. He might get my goat in other ways, like by talking about how awesome Pat Buchanan is, or by tweaking me about liking Safeway over Top Food, which he deems "The People's Grocery Store." This is far and away more fun to put up with than redneck dumbassery.

Jim later told Ray that he has never read a book in his life ... "scratch that, I read 'James and the Giant Peach' in fifth grade." He made a lot of mentions of having "a girlfriend" in various industries on the island. He also told Ray he listens to satellite radio through his cell phone. He is a character for sure. Joe, the other, apparently more grown-up of the guides, has a background in production and told me he and his wife are going to do documentaries where they film old Hawaiians doing their "talk story," or tell oral tradition tales. I had mentioned my speciality at the paper is profiles of seniors.

The next day we did a whale watching tour out of Ma'alena with the Pacific Whale Foundation. The breeze was insane. We had to hold on to our hats. But we saw some crazy whale action.

There were seven (7!!!) breaches, where the whales leapt out of the water and thumped back in, five of them happening in a row. Why wasn't I able to catch that on compact flash? Gah, I dunno, but this is about as good as my photos get even though my eyes saw WAY better:



This is part of a "competition pod" of about eight or nine males competing for the, uh, whatever, of a female whale (who was with her calf). They were all bonking on each other to muscle their way into being her "escort" and there were tail flukes and aggressive dives galore. We could see the light turquoise water where their bellies were and where they were blowing bubbles (like throwing sand in an opponent's eyes, according to the first mate). The lady whale must have been a "hottie," the first mate said. I thought the idea of being aggressively pursued by eight males while with a child in tow would be kind of scary and hoped she'd make it out okay, even though Nature's Way is not, you know, people's way.

The ship dropped a mic and we heard the singing of a single male whale (the girls don't sing, apparently). One on one, it was less screams of the damned and more comical. Fun fact: The Humpback whale males all sing the same song, which is 16 to 18 minutes long, on a loop, though not all in sync. At the end of the season in May or so, the song that the whales sing has changed a bit. Version 2.0, if you will, though I'm sure we're probably at version 300000.0 or so by now.

I love whales. I want to save the whales. In spite of their somewhat rapey courtship methods, they are probably better than most people.

Then Thursday we did a hike up Waihe'e ridge.



Those skies, do they look foreboding?

How about these?



Yeah, scream, Callie. The reason there aren't any later pics than this on the camera is because it started to drizzle at mile 1.something. By mile 2.0 it was coming down buckets. But there wasn't much longer to go so we pressed on and got totally soaked to the bone. Luckily, hypothermia was not a danger in the warm weather. But the trail was — that Hawaiian clay is slippery! We almost pasted our butts on it a couple of times coming down the eroded path. There was a little stream in the middle, and I found the ground there was as stable and flat as anywhere, so I just trod there and let my feet swim for a good stretch.

We had passed one couple on the way up, and as we came down we passed them again. She was, ah, decompensating a bit, and he was, ah, not very compassionate about it, wanting to push on. Ray heard her say, "I don't wanna do it!" followed by him saying, "If they can get through that mud we can." Well, you'll have to or you're stuck. And I don't want to overstate things, but I was quite the little mountain goat that day if you don't count the one near-fall where I pitched my water bottle a good eight feet into the bushes (recovered! No litter here!).

Our last day we spent going on the road to Hana.



Famously twisty, it is also famous for its banana bread vendors and waterfalls.

Who cares about waterfalls (don't go chasing them, people!) when you have this car?



Who'da thunk it?

And then there's Waipa something state park.



Beautiful. The water was so much more turquoise than is obvious in this picture.



A little more like that.

We did a little hike there. It was so pretty.

Then we made it to Oheo Gulch, aka Seven Sacred Pools, a marketing tool by a would-be east Maui hotelier. It was quite pretty, and although I was ready to throw in the towel after a mile in on the Pipiwai trail (scroll for good pics) for the sake of time to get back to town (the road is quite bad in both directions), Ray, whose worrywort tendencies were outdone by his desire to accomplish the mission of the hike (he had been going back and forth on the Pipiwai all day), insisted we press on.

And thank goodness he did. Or we would have missed this:



I, of course, immediately started quoting from the beginning of "Bring da Ruckus" ("Shaolin shadowboxing and the Wu-Tang sword style. If what you say is true, the Shaolin and the Wu Tang could be dangerous. Do you think your Wu Tang sword can defeat me? En garde! I'll let you try my Wu Tang style!") But when I got quiet, I heard the clunking of the bamboo all around as the wind rattled. Nice.

The falls were good, too, but my pictures of them are replete with false attachment. To wit, they look like they are pouring on Ray's head.

That was our last night at the condo. I loved the lanai.



See how sad he is to leave it? (In this shot, the camera is pointed mauka, to the mountain, while Ray is looking makai, to the water. Those are authentic Hawaiian directionals, people.)

We went to the Maui Beach Hotel, which is no Sea-Crest Motel (described for the den of iniquity it is on this blog back in March), but did appear to have blood on the curtains, a very hard mattress and not-so-good beach access. Also, it's in Kahalui, not Kihei, which, although it is clearly some amok development, I have developed a soft spot for because Maui would not be open to the middle class without it.

Oh, and check what I found that night at a cheesy tourist shop:



My name is getting more common, obviously. And no, I didn't buy it. I just took a picture. I'm cheap like that.

The next day we left. Sunday we came back to the Harbor. Are we recharged and ready to go back to work? Or will we just be that much more depressed for having seen what life can be like in a tropical island paradise? Only Monday will bring the answer for sure.

Until then, Shaka, brah. Drive Aloha. And a most sincere Mahalo to Hawaii and Maui. Truly, Maui na ka oi. (Maui is tops)

Clam excitement

After a headache that ran from Wednesday through Friday with little abatement and encroaching stress from work (mostly from the perilous position newspapers hold in our society and the means through which the industry, including what appears to be my somewhat protected cove in said ocean, is retrenching. Holy cats, people. It is bad out there. If you've ever thought it would serve your local paper right to go down in flames, well, be prepared to rue that statement, because way more people are going to see that happen in the next few years is my prediction. And if you think your paper's coverage sucks now, well, wait until staffs are truly cut to the bone. It is coming, people. Get used to it. Or buy a paper), and Ray's annual stress-out festival, we really needed a clam dig. And the WDFW provided, like a bolt from the sky!

The clamming was fantastic. Ray's brow actually lost its peaked-ness for a few minutes there, going after the wily bivalves in the sunny, warmish weather. I actually broke a major sweat under my neoprene waders. We picked up wine at the Westport Winery, and it was rocking. There was music, fresh-popped popcorn and a ton of people, proving that come the Depression, imbibables are probably a good bet. Craigslist can't infringe on that sort of profit.

Oh, Callie, you're such a downer, you say. Well! Is your food distribution center, which serves something like 11 counties, being forced to think about laying off its director, making her a client, most likely? No? Consider yourself lucky. (The interesting thing about the director is that she was once a client, and worked her way out of it and is on the Hoquiam city council and everything. Social services being stressed in a time of great stress. Agh. I can't take it. I'm Linusing out.)

We ground up the clams in the maiden usage of our Kitchen Aid and its meat grinder attachment, which I messed up a little in installing, causing clams to squeeze against the grind plate and excrete translucent pinky-gray water, but not to break up into chunks. So I fixed it. And the ground clams turned into fritters. And all was good.

And Ray and I watched "Get Smart," which was funny but had the unforgivable scene of Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway kissing. In the plot, she had recently had her face changed, so she requested she be deoldified and was really closer to his age, which was, I suppose, a fictional way to try to make us viewers not all feel kind of gross about the romantic subplot. Did he not feel like a sex offender kissing her? Did this not prompt a sudden and deep reevaluation of how women's looks, ageism and men's sexual entitlement are given gross leeway in our mass media images? Did nobody THINK OF THE CHILDREN????

I guess not.

We also played duets with banjo and clarinet. We are officially the dorkiest couple in the world. And all we need is someone to document it in video and I'll put it on the blog for the world to see us share our sick sad love in the key of B flat.

I recently finished "The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For," and I heartily recommend it, with the reservations that there are graphic depictions of dyketude in cartoon format, and if that freaks you out don't read it. If it turns you on, well, that's kind of funny. It is a lot healthier depiction of sexuality than most Manga, from what I've read. (If you click any of those links you are on your own buddy, I have not vetted them at all.) Alison Bechdel also wrote "Fun Home," and it is just fabulous.

So I can't access DTWOF from Techline, which Ray has taken to calling "Teakline," in which "teak" is Kris and Ray speak for spaz, or tweak, if you will. Someone can be "teaking out," and this was a slang word Kris made up back in the 80s, before there were tweakers who sometimes were tweaking out. I can't download my NPR most emailed podcasts. I'm almost salivatory in anger. I can't get the WaPo, either. Teakline, what is the matter with you?

Praying for an internet intervention.

Banjo Madness

So Tuesday I had a banjo band practice and I now am learning songs from two books.

After practice, I helped a frail and very elderly lady to her car, carrying her stuff for her. She tried to unlock her door but it was stuck, I tried to unlock it for her but it remained stuck. After 5 minutes of futzing with the door we decided to throw her stuff on the passenger seat from the driver's side. She was saying stuff like, "I'm going pretty good now, but my knees are on fire!" I felt so bad for her.

Another woman who had come to help her, and seemed mere minutes away from that same level of frailty, took advantage of the first lady's hearing loss to yell this to me over the top of the first lady's car as she got in:

"One time we went to a playout, and (name redacted) lost her teeth and glasses! She was like this (sucks in lips and squints)!"

I wondered what would happen to her once she got home, but since that's where she's most adapted and comfortable, I suppose she was better off.

Getting old is not for the faint of heart.

On feeling moderately better

Wedding scouting takes a lot of footwork. Even in the days of the Internet, there are some places you just need to see to believe, and since we have decided to shackle ourselves in T-town (for convenience's sake for my family) we needed to go check it out.

We started at this place called the Varsity, now the home base of The Vault, which used to be on Pac Ave. and had a really great venue. This one, eh, not so much. It's pretty, don't get me wrong, but the old one had a view of Puget Sound. But it has big windows to let in whatever natural light will avail itself to us. The food at the open house was pretty tasty, I could see us going with some variation on it. The owner, who looked like she'd been smothered by Claire's Accessories and only just fought her way out (I mean this in a good way), was a little hyper. I like that in a food service manager. Ray gets put on edge by people with manic energy. Yet he's marrying me.

Then we went to my good buddy Blackberry's house for enchiladas and more talk about colonoscopies and hysterectomies than you could imagine. Mrs. Blackberry showed me how she got her tummy tuck with her de-organization, and you know what? I'm not a plastic surgery person, but it was tight. No pooch on the hooch. Her naval looked real. I am adding tummy tuck to the short list of plastic surgeries I would consider if I get out of control sagged out bagged out as I gracefully age. Tummy tuck joins eyelid lift and structural hitching up of the girls. Let it be noted that I'm probably too lazy and afraid of surgery for any of the above.

Blackberry is a musician in a band that has played more weddings than you can shake a stick at, and he had some alternative suggestions for venues to hold a reception at. One of which I find oddly compelling though I have not seen its inside.

Luckily, Alicia is on the case and hopes to send inside pics soon. That's what I'm talking about. I got resources, and I work them like a good little reporter.

We also had our first meeting with Dave, the nice minister who will hitch us together. He asked us if we had a "vision" for our wedding, and we looked at each other in horror. I kind of went on a rant about how stupid most weddings are (I didn't mean yours, reader), and somehow all that verbal diarrhea (on the order of, "I hate how it's all about THE COUPLE, well, we're all together in this, and the whole world is sharing love, it's like we're in a river of love, but we're peeing in the river, and we're peeing love, and we're all swimming in each other's love-pee," but not quite so vulgar) transfigured itself into a vision of something that will be probably maybe not too awful. I'm not going to spoil the surprise, but when your honey gives you a, "dang! Nailed it!" look and the minister says, "You don't need to do all this homework after all," I think it's possible to say, oh yeah, we've got the makings of a real barnburner of a wedding. Prepare for shock and awe, y'all.

The chapel is also really pretty. The bridal-prep room doubles as the Muslim room because it is the only one with a washbasin. Take from that what you will, but the University of Puget Sound does not have any muslim students.

Alicia's kids are so freaking big now it's insane. How fast they grow up, yet I remain superfoxy and mentally 13 years old.

We did a chore at the Tacoma Costco and it was horrific there. The traffic, the parking, the people. Inside, it was like piranha feasting on the corpses of a lot of dead cows. The mall parking lot was crammed. What recession? At the REI, site of another chore, I was looking at a bottle and this random dude who was spending WAY TOO MUCH TIME going through water bottle selections completely denigrated the bottle I had in my hand (one of the few with a sippy top) to his lady, then said, "Oh, but you're going to buy that." I said, "Well, I'm not taking it packing, I'm using it indoors." Then, very quietly, I called him a name. I was quite stressed by the traffic and the crush of humanity that had descended on the commercial district of Tacoma, in my defense.

Either that shows I'm becoming an intolerant bumpkin, or that I'm the same old high-strung Northeastern chick I've been trying not to be. I need to remember that that dumb guy? As well as the old dingleberries who went left around Ray's car while we were about to turn left into a parking space and signaling we were going to do so (parking lots don't have passing lanes!)? They are all swimming in the river of love in my love pee and vice versa. Or something. We all seemed to be feeling pretty pissy, that much I can tell you.

But we're back in the safety of the low-traffic, uncrowded Harbor. And we're more confident about planning Hitchin' Shindig '09.

Mystery of FB

Who is this Shawn Rivera and why does he want to be my FB friend? We had a really big graduating class, and if he remembers me and I don't remember him I'll feel really bad. But considering his job and maybe mine he is into networking. And by networking I mean attention-getting.

What, me cynical? I have to be. The only other option is that my memory is shot and I knew this kid back in the day.

Ways to keep me up at night

Scene: late weekday night as my eyes are fluttering closed.

Ray: "What kind of music do you want to play at the wedding?"

Callie: "You mean you *want* to have a DJ now? We can dance?"

Ray: "No, I mean at the *wedding.*"

Callie: "Oh. I hadn't thought about it. Maybe we can get the organist to play 'Light My Fire.' "

Ray: (makes a comment that demonstrates his complete lack of knowledge of The Doors)

Callie: (Educates Ray about The Doors, decides not to bring up other organ-heavy song of the flower child age, "Whiter Shade of Pale.")

Ray: "Oh." (discussion of classic wedding song thingies ensues, as well as fact that we don't need to make any decisions right away)

Callie: "And then there's 'Ave Maria.' Remember on 'Reno 911' when Jim Dangle plays it on the banjo for someone's wedding? I would take that. Or if Here Comes Treble sang a cappella. Actually, that's non-negotiable for me."

Ray: "That's right, he played the banjo at that wedding. Whose?" (We couldn't figure it out. Thanks, Internet, for responding, "Clemmie.") (Ray rolls right over and falls asleep, while I ponder who got married on Reno 911 and really, what kind of song do I want to experience the extreme mortification of being propped up in front of everyone to? Banjo Ave Maria seems about the best option right now. In fact, the more I think about it the more I want it. If Thomas Lennon wanted to show up and play it that would be icing on the cake, but unfortunately, I think something that exciting might tip the wedding into "mandatory best day" territory, and I don't want it going there.)

Am I sick for wanting banjo wedding aisle music?

Left Behind

So today I went to the Day of Action, where a bunch of educators from eight local school districts got the day off to tell lawmakers that they don't want school funding cut. They did this in Olympia, which is known as a place that's kind of a pill to get around in and especially park, especially while the lege is in session and moreso when there are so many inaugurations going on. So my editor and I decide I'll drive down and park at the former Mervyn's at Capital Mall, where there will be shuttle buses waiting to take us to the event.

Mission accomplished. Total success. I got on no problem and signed in at the sign-in sheet. Which was heartening, as was the ditzy-looking bus monitor's announcements that we were on bus 153 and needed to remember that, it was very important, and we'd be loading the bus at 12:45 p.m. and returning to the lot at 1 p.m.

Well, the rally went a little faster than expected, because it was really cold and everyone was stamping their feet and it was windy and my face turned about three shades of red from windburn (my hands got even colder). So on the way back there was a ton of time for the 12:45 departure. I stopped in at Wagner's for a latte and a few minutes of warm air. Well, all of Grays Harbor ended up in there for lunch or lattes as well, so I chatted a little with the teachers. But I was soon a little overwhelmed by all the educators and felt surrounded by sources in a non-sourcy place so I had to beat it and I was on my little jaunt back to the buses. It was maybe 12:20/12:25ish (earlier than I had initially planned to leave), so I knew I had tons of time yet the pace I set was pretty brisk because so was the weather.

I could see the buses across the way on Deschutes. I was heartened by the fact that these people do field trips all the time and need to corral little kids — how hard could it be with self-regulating and mature adults? I wondered. Well, as I was a few clicks from the buses one of them took off. So I started booking it, startled as heck. As I just get to the buses another three take off.

There are monitors there, so I ask, "Where are those buses going? I need to get to the mall." And they say they don't know, what, like it's their job to make sure people are on the buses they need to be on?

"Where's this bus going to?" I ask. Montesano, it turns out. (I know this because the driver is right there and can answer) "Where are the other two buses going?" (no one knows.) Then suddenly THOSE two buses take off.

In a burst of common sense, I say, "Oh, well, those buses to the mall must be coming back, right?" I mean, you don't just leave that early and then not expect some people to show up a little late, I mean, that's just life, right? I mean, I wasn't even late!

"No. They're not." The finality and utter confidence with which this phrase was said was in total contrast to everything else I had heard to that point.

"That's crazy," I say. "The scheduled departure time was 1." I get looked at like I have autism or something. Why is this chick so obsessed with bus schedules? There must be some kind of perceptual problem in her head.

Holy crap, it's me and one bus to Monte. My car is stuck at the mall. My face is obviously the face of the freaked-out, so one of the monitors says, "Don't worry honey, we'll get you where you need to go. You just go back over where the U-Haul is" way down at the park, I'm not so sure anyone will be there when I get there "and there'll be someone who can drive you."

The hell I'm going to leave this bus and embark on a journey that could burn me. I also realize at this exact moment that my cell phone is charging on the table upstairs and NOT in my purse and if I need to call someone to find out which exact bus it is that runs to the Capital Mall and where the stops are I am totally hosed. I kind of just want to go all Keenan whateverhisname is on SNL and scream "FISSIT!" at the bus monitor. It is totally their fault that I am standing there at 12:30, a full half hour before the announced departure time, and there are no buses there.

The Monte bus driver tells me the mall is on his way and he can drop me off. God bless you, bus driver. So I get on the Monte bus and am taken to the mall. Ironically, even though my bus left at least five minutes after the other buses, we get there before the other buses — MY bus included. I'm walking across the parking lot as I see them come in.

Well, I'm relieved, but I'm also totally pissed off, and I really feel the need to tell these dummies that they had given fairly explicit instructions and there was a reasonable expectation that some teachers would linger in a warm coffeeshop before heading to the bus drop. So I found one bus monitor and said, "Is the bus monitor on 153? Because I got left behind." This other lady totally could not process that because I was here now, wasn't I? I may not have explained that the GOODNESS of ONE MAN'S HEART gave me a lift to a place not totally out of his way, but I was angry and confused and a little worried that other people may have taken these other people at, oh, I don't know, THEIR WORD. (side note: the teachers on the bus say sometimes on field trips they're so aware of having to get all the kids they forget the chaperones. No good deed, people. No good deed.)

So this bus monitor #1 is with me when I see the glassy-eyed bus monitor of bus 153. And I do mean that when you look into her eyes, you don't see in. They are as reflective as those of a fish, a drowned man, a zombie. Kind of like the way Roald Dahl describes the eyes of the witches in "The Witches." I am a little freaked out by them, but angry enough to say, "Hey, I was supposed to be on that bus. I got left behind."

And of course since I don't say I had to catch a lift, this chick totally cannot process how I've been left behind because after all I am right there. Here is a reconstruction of the incident, I speak first.

"Why did you leave so early? You said the bus would load at 12:45 and leave at 1. It's not even 12:45."

"That's right."

"Right, it's not even loading time. I wasn't late and you guys had taken off."

"Oh, well, if you check the time (looks at watch) see, it's 12:45." (this is not perfect, the real conversation was SO much stupider and head-banging than that it is literally too stupid for me to recall)

"Right. NOW it is 12:45, the loading time. I thought I had extra time to get to the buses. But you took off, you totally abandoned me."

"Oh I SEE what the problem is. I did a headcount. We had 30 people."

"You took my name down. Did you call the roll?"

"What? No. We did a headcount. I counted 30 people. And some people said they weren't coming back with us." (This is a rally of about 500 people. I would think the sheer number of people shifting whether or not they are going to get to the bus and maybe not getting on the same frigging bus would encourage a little bit of sensitivity to making sure we all get out of Oly)

"But you didn't wait. That didn't occur ..." I am so mad now I am literally shaking with anger.

"We had thirty people! (Laughs) That's what happened!"

"Well, are you going to send some buses back in case..." "No." Yet another incredibly final and confident phrase after so much stupid twitterpating.

I can't tell you how mad I was at these stupid bus monitors. The ONLY thing they have to do is make sure they get people back where they belong and they screw it up on what I think could be an epic level (how many other coffee-drinking teachers were there waiting until not the last minute, but something near that? Or even last minute). They are all the worst stereotypes of the kind of people certain public education hating types point to as problems in the system, people who can't do, so they teach. They can't even say, "Oh, crap, we left you behind? I'm sorry." They don't care how it happened, it was just clearly my fault for listening to their stupid instructions. Like every other dang encounter I had with authority in my K-12 education, there was no rhyme, no reason and no apology. But plenty of hypocrisy to go around!

The only thing I find less comprehensible than the stupid bus monitors are the teachers who all got back on time and none of whom had the common sense to say, "Well, wait a minute, we said we'd take off at 1, shouldn't a bus stick around and wait for any possible latecomers? This has been a big rally with a lot of people going in and out and we should take every precaution." But it's possible that they all just really wanted to get back to their cars so they could go to the mall or Target. Because they had the day off and I can't really blame them. I had to go to Target, which was next door to the mall, to walk off my frustration and look for shelf organizers (they don't really have them).

Note to parents: Don't ever be a chaperone on your kids' field trip. If you are left behind the teachers will think it's funny and possibly, from what I observed today, not go back to pick you up.

Again, THANK YOU MONTE BUS PEOPLE. Your kindness shown brightly among the dimbulbs and greatly relieved my mind.

Just whoa

Today I got to do a ridealong with some community corrections officers, you may better know them as parole officers. And just whoa. What looks like success in corrections is, well, kind of depressing. For example a filthy home is not necessarily a sign of failure. Even if it reeks of pee. Heck, the people don't need to be that clean to be successful, in the very broad terms of corrections, which basically means no drugs and no crime-doing.

So you can only imagine what it was like in the place where the one guy we saw who was *not* successful was living. Oh em gee to the max.

So we pull up into one of the skankier motels in town — which is DEFINITELY SAYING SOMETHING — and one officer warns me the guy we're about to see (if he's there) "has mental issues, and you'll pick up on that right away." Also, he's a level three (highest risk) sex offender. Now, he's not going to rape me while there are parole officers there, and honestly, he's not really the sort who's together enough to rape anyone. What he did, I sussed out from his nickname ("the Coffeestand Man"), was go through the Koffee Kat with his pants down (he likes to drive around with his pants down, as you will see in this story).

The officers (who are both huge dudes) knocked on the door and the dude comes out, leaning into the crack of the door so officers can't see behind (dude, you are under supervision, you don't get that sort of privacy and you know they like to do checks). His hair is greasy and long. His shirt is stained. He is a little belligerent, but has no problem with officers coming in. And the first thing they see is a couple of syringes on the table in front of the door, with some McKesson alcohol wipes, which I take as a personal shout-out to Ray's sister. Also, in the bathroom, there is a ridiculously skinny young woman with teeth that are black around the edges (ironically, she is lining her eyes with black eyeliner, so there's a weird aesthetic thing happening there, a mirror effect, if you will) who talks far too quickly and doesn't seem at all perturbed that parole officers are in there.

The room is filthy. There is cheese sitting out on a counter. There is filth everywhere. There is a supermarket-tupperwareish container full of cigarette butts. The bedsheets are greenish-brown from the filth. The whole place is just repulsive. One officer takes the dude out to the car to "talk to him," basically give his partner a chance to search without the dude getting aggressive. The other partner searches the room while asking questions to the woman, like who is she and what is her deal here? She doesn't have much of an answer for that, but she tells him, "I didn't even know that guy was a sex offender until one time we were driving around and he had his thing out and the cops pulled us over and told me."

If that doesn't make your head smart from the sheer cluelessness, the officer asked what she was doing with him and she said he gives her rides and he tells everyone she's his girlfriend. The officer also asked about the needles and she said they were her brother's, and he has diabetes (so naturally he scatters his needles all over, even in some dude's creepy motel room). He also asked how old she was and she said, "You think I'm underage? I'm 20." Given that crazy mental thing-out-driver is 60 if he's a day, I later asked the officers what they thought she was doing with him. They didn't even want to know. I guess they have enough to worry about.

One thing to worry about are needles. They are everywhere and they rightfully freak out the officers. There's even one under the bed, uncapped. Along with a big pile of porn, which is a no-no for a sex offender, so dude is going back to prison today.

The porn, I'll add, was generally of the "barely legal" type. One magazine advertised "100% real boobs" inside. The dead eyes of the girls on the covers was tragic. Did they realize when they posed for this stuff that mentally ill sex offenders who drive around with their dingalings out were going to be buying this? You don't suppose they felt empowered by knowing something along these lines? I felt awful for those girls.

There wasn't really anything to get on the girl, even though the officers found little tiny cotton balls and a spoon in the bathroom with a little tiny burned cottonball in it (apparently heroin users "filter" the cooked heroin through the cotton. I wonder how it is that they can heat that stuff up and then inject it into their veins at, presumably, a high temperature). Somebody has been using.

It was very depressing. And because the officers had to take him to Shelton right away, me and the photog ended up getting rides back to my car with Aberdeen's finest, who came to assist. The guy who gave me a ride turned out to be the Officer In Charge the weekend I worked who did not get back to me about the PUD truck theft, so he apologized. No biggie. I had my hands way too full that day, anyway. I drove like 90 miles to get a single story, going all over the county.

In all, pretty exciting day. If you have your mental health and a modicum of life skills, you should take a moment to count your blessings.

Is moving stressful for me? I report, you decide.

An actual conversation from Sunday, after Ray and I schlepped all my furniture over to his — our — place and were getting things oriented in "my room," which I am taking to calling "the lounge," "the reading room" and "closet overflow central."

Ray: It'd be easier to move this bookcase if the shoes weren't in the way.

Callie: What is this with you and my shoes? Because you have been after me about my shoes for, like, days now.

Ray: They're just all over the place. I just think it would be better if we got your shoe tree and put your shoes on them ...

Callie: Don't even blame the shoes. They are in discrete bags that can easily be moved into the closet and out of the way. Look (moves bag). Now, what is this thing with you and my shoes?

Ray: Well, you do have a lot of shoes ...

Callie: You don't get to judge!

Ray: Some of them look pretty crazy ...

Callie: You do not get to hate on my shoes. No. Stop right now. You do not get to go there. Now that they're moved do we get to move the bookcase?

And scene ...

Big news

Ray and I are making it official.



We want our relationship on paper, in a county courthouse, recognized by officialdom, ritualized and formalized. We want to be responsible to each other. If I'm in a car accident, his is the face I want to see when I come out of the fog of shock and narcotics. When I pay taxes I want our socials to be right next to each other. If I have to be put in an institution, his is the signature I want involuntarily committing me. When I come home after work, he's the one I want to tell all the stupid stuff that happened to me, except I've probably been emailing him as it all happens, but that doesn't matter, he wants to hear it again. He's the one I want to have private jokes with for the rest of my life. He's the one I want to bring orange-banana-strawberry smoothies when he has a cold and is miserable. He's the one I want to change headlights and windshield wipers and electrical switches for because Lord knows he can't figure/reach that stuff out for himself. He's the one I want to hike with, even though he sets a diabolical pace.

He's the one I want. That's basically what it comes down to. And he, in turn, wants me.

So it took a while to post all this because before I could have my Flickr contact here find out and maybe say, "Hey, didja know ..." so that word filtered back, we wanted to tell the person responsible for introducing us, Grays Harbor's yenta par excellence Betsy Seidel. So we did that after the 7th Street movie committee meeting tonight at, of course, Stiffy's Bar and Grill. Of course Betsy was super-excited, because that is how she lives. She is a high voltage wire, one that you cannot say no to. And thank goodness for that!

So anyway, although we've been "secretly engaged" for the better part of a year now, Ray didn't think we'd be truly honest-to-God engaged without a ring. Funny, I was fine without it. And funny, it took him until late fall to say anything about this. He just moves a lot more deliberately than I do. But I told him, whatever, buddy, I'll put up with an uncomfortable piece of jewelry on my finger if it makes you happy. Just make sure it's cruelty-free, and you don't even need to get a diamond or any kind of gem that has been ripped from the bosom of Mother Earth under uncertain humanitarian instances or toxic environmental ones.

Obviously I am the buzzkill in this relationship. But Ray went the Canada route, and he got me a beautiful, ridiculously nice rock that sparkles like Polaris reflected in the eye of a Canadian polar bear. Except this polar bear has beautiful compound eyes. Seriously, I thought I was one of them crunchy feminazi types and I put this bad boy on and I am completely hypnotized and I'm in my car impersonating Elizabeth Taylor. "WHITE DIAMONDS!" ::and moue::.

To give you a sense of how glinty this ring is, I was sitting a full three rows behind Andy Johnson of the Grays Harbor Banjo Band Tuesday, getting down to "Am I Blue" and "The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me," and he gets up to do the Band Business meeting. Well, one of the pieces of business is this, and as Andy's holding it up he says, "I noticed Callie has a nice new ring on her finger, when did that happen?" Way to put me on the spot. At my first ever meeting where I play with you guys. But seriously, I'm proud as heck to be engaged to Ray, so no lasting damage.

And of course the way he "proposed" (not like it had not been on the table, debated, discussed and even subject to the interrogation of this book, a process that took hours and days) was pretty cute. He used his knowledge of my undying love of Frosted Mini-Wheats, wrapping the ring in an old FMW box he did this to:



It was too cute. I could not say no, nor would I want to. Ray is the top, the bomb, the tonic to my gin, the milk to my cookies. And lest you wonder if he returns the sentiments, sometimes I think perhaps more strongly. Fact: Ray thinks it is cute when I forget I have Kleenex in my lap and I get up to do something and it falls on the floor. Whether this feeling will last forever is surely something I will be testing just because my PJs don't have so many pockets as his.

Anyway, it's been kind of hard to keep quiet, even though it has been out of necessity.

A nice side story: Apparently the ring came in before Christmas, in a relatively unmarked package, to Ray's office. The receptionist, wondering what the heck it was, opened it and quickly and abashedly gave it to Ray when she realized it was one of those kinds of rings. She promised not to say anything to anyone (ahem, she may have told one person, it came out later.) But dang, Ray left her to sweat it out for like a week and a half! That's cruelty!

When Ray finally told folks at work, it was at a much-belated holiday party (the weather here has been terrible) after they'd been talking about this story. "Well, I got engaged this weekend," he announced blithely. And thus began the commotion.

But if Ray thought this announcement would bring attention away from the holidays and back where it belongs, ahem, *us*, he was perhaps a little bit thwarted somebody else had a similar announcement. And I'm being circumspect about who it is because who knows if he's gotten around to telling anyone. But suffice to say, Ray and I are definitely the cuter couple.

Ray also heard stories about his coworkers' weddings. His boss had a wedding so elaborate there was supposed to be a petal dump from an overhead plane. But the wind is awful strong in Hoquiam, and the pilot misjudged and all of West Hoquiam got slapped with the petals of 1,000 roses.

Ironically, when I announced my impending nuptials at work, Kathy brought up the same wedding, and recalled being kind of embarrassed when a beefeater announced her arrival, as he did for everyone. I'm telling you, this was one for the books and should really be fictionalized. And so should my friend's dad's remarriage, where people were told to dress "as the spirit of love" and he and the bride came out in bright, primary-colored silk robes and did an interminable dance symbolizing their relationship while the non-dancing guests sat on the floor. Oh, yes, the ideas I have to work with!

Because, see, no matter how much I whine and beg, Ray wants a traditional ceremony in front of our friends, family and a bunch of people we feel obligated to invite just because. No matter how much I beg and whine for us to elope, he refuses to do anything but the sort of wedding where people have to show up.

I kind of tweaked my mom about it. She thinks I should wear my (much shorter and probably when she got married thinner) grandmother's dress (which is black so I'm down), but I told her I was wearing white sweats with "BRIDE" bedazzled across the butt. I also told her I wanted to get gay married. At least that way my marriage can be a threat to everyone else's instead of a marshmallowy non-ninja of a marriage. My mother, who I thought was also something of a feminazi, replied, "What on earth does that even mean?" Living in Arkansas, which recently passed a law banning gay couples from adopting which includes heterosexuals cohabiting, has really done a number on her.

Luckily for everyone I don't really care to have a "perfect" day. And luckily for everyone who will be invited (probably all of you reading this blog, even the people I don't know who stumbled across here accidentally), we actually kind of already have a day. I know! Four days in and we're that far ahead of the game (maybe)! It seems like July 26, so clear the decks.

Anyway, just wanted to share the good news.

Overheard (and tragically seen) at the Y

A naked woman, standing there nude, talking to someone else. And not making a move to cover or clothe herself. And standing awfully close to the other person. I was not the other person.

I wish I were that body confident.

Not that I am particularly, oh, concerned, but I jokingly have started calling my workouts "countdown to Maui beach body." I have, what, six weeks or so?

You know what will make you lose weight? Eating the stuff you have in your cabinet that you don't really like but bought somehow. Today I ate a few bites of Progresso's Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya and it was flat gross. So I saw a container of cottage cheese in the fridge — sellby date was 12/24 — and took a sniff and it seemed okay. So I ate that instead. It needed to be eaten, right?

I had a can of sparkling juice that has been in the fridge the better part of a year, too. At least that part was delicious.

Installing seats

Well, I had a fun weekend.

First: Ray and I helped install seatbacks at the 7th Street. We took some wrenches and screwdrivers and, as a team, attacked the six bolts per seat for about five rows' worth. I shimmied the bolts in the holes to connect the seatbacks with the infrastructure or whatever, and Ray slipped the nuts on then held the wrench while I tightened the bolts. My hand was swollen and achy from turning the screwdriver so we switched jobs and I tried to put the nuts over the bolts, but it was so incredibly annoying and tough with the seats not always exactly aligning and the screws only sticking a little bit out that after two seats I decompensated. Ray took me to the Sweet Shoppe for Chinese Chicken Salad, which calmed me down immensely.

Second: I did something else that leads me to nearly decompensate: I go shopping. I go to Ross Dress For Less, the discount place for namebrand clothes, so I can pick up some new ... oh, I had to get some sports bras. My old ones were starting to go and that does not make for comfortable exercise. I have had the old ones for years, for the most part, and wear them all the time so it was not unexpected that the Lycra was dying. But going to Ross was a nightmare. It was packed, and there were both activewear and clearance racks to look through. So when I'm ready to check out I see the lines are superlong, so I try to distract myself. I only see like five people I know, while holding a stack of workout underthings. Grrrrrreat. Love this small town living.

Third: I try to come back from the edge. Ray and I put a bunch of my books in his bookcases, which we have moved down from his room. With our books in them, no one can look at us askew as uneducated or bad readers. I still have books to go and bookcases to move in. Ray also goes through the books for some he may want to give away, one of which is the absolutely priceless Searchlight Recipe Book, compiled by Ida Migliaro, B.S. Home Ec, Zorada Z. Titus, B.S., M.S. Home Ec (take that Ida!), Harriet W. Allard, B.S. Home Ec and Irene Nunemaker, A.B. Journalism (putting it to the only use she could in 1955). (Ray assures me that at Harvard, they have Ars Bacheloris (or something) degrees, so she may not be with a 2-year degree, which only makes this sadder. She went to effing HARVARD (well, not necessarily, could have been Yale) and this is what she's doing and if you are thinking, this isn't so bad, you haven't heard the recipes yet!) In 1955. Most of the recipes come from "The Household Searchlight," whatever that is (apparently there was a Household magazine?). But I don't know why that institution would want to take credit nor why the homemakers whose recipes were nasty and/or treacly enough to get in would want their name there. No matter.

The frontspiece gives you an indication just how things are going to be inside. Why, is that a huge HAM with red-dyed baked apples? Is that a single head of cauliflower, totally unbroken up, perched on a plate surrounded by ... watercress and yellow snow peas? Yes, although I can't vouch for the snow peas. Is that a tomato on iceberg lettuce with bits of random meats and crackers in an apparent salad with an orange carved into a basket shape with pimentos on it? Yes, indeed!

And is that a ring of clear jello with sliced olives, pimentos, maybe some peppers, cabbage and ... I dunno, cat food, in it? With radish-flower and french fry bowtie garnish? Why, disgustingly, yes.

But what you want are the goods: "Callie, how nasty ARE the recipes?" Well, since you asked:

Carbonated Beverage Jelly: 3/4 cup Carbonated beverage
3/4 cup water
3 cups sugar (!!!)
1/2 bottle fruit pectin

Combine sugar, beverage and water. Mix. Heat rapidly to boiling. Add fruit pectin at once. Stir constantly before and while boiling. Heat to a full rolling boil. Boil hard 1/2 minute. Remove from fire. Skim. — The Household Searchlight.

Now, granted, that's not nasty, it's just weird. The sour milk cottage cheese, which calls for 2 quarts sour milk and an unspecified amount of cream, sounds nasty. Oh, yeah, the searchlight isn't exactly really good with amounts or directions all the time. Or howabout a Grapenut omelet, from the files of Rosalee Hollis of Hardin, Ill. (not married, because the married ladies all go by "Mrs." in the HS).

How about some creamed cucumbers? Pare 4 medium cukes, boil til tender, drain and coat with 2 cups medium white sauce. (The HS has three or four white sauces, only different in firmness.)

No? Why not fry them? Just pare and slice an unknown quantity of cukes in thin slices, soak in slightly salted water for 1 hour, drain and dry on a towel, roll in bread crumbs, dip in seasoned slightly beaten egg and fry until browned.

Maybe a squirrel stew? Rabbit pie? (only rabbits and biscuit dough, when it comes down to it) No? Would you like a glass of warm Beef Juice? A kidney bean hamburger? Or "city chickens"? (Two pounds pork, two of veal) Casserole of tongue? Liver Fricassee? Creamed dried beef? Pigs' feet? Maybe some sour cream prune pie for dessert? Or straight prune pie? Grape juice custard?

Where the searchlight's 50s sensibility really shines is the salads section. Boy do they like their mayonnaise dressing! On all manner of fruit salads, even! Lima Bean Salad, however, gets "boiled salad dressing." It also has a cup of shredded fish in it. Cabbage Pineapple Salad has those two ingredients PLUS marshmallows and mayo dressing! Consomme salad uses broth and water for the gelatin, then adds cabbage, pimiento, pickles and mayonnaise dressing to the mix, surely an abuse of every single ingredient in it. Lamb, string beans, grapefruit, pineapple and peppers (together) all get the floating in jello treatment. The prize-winning Cardinal Salad, with lemon jello, beet juice, vinegar, horseradish, celery beets and "onion juice," calls for mayo dressing. Thanks, Mrs. Ruth Shore, for concocting that culinary nightmare. Or howabout spinach in jello with hard boiled eggs? Wait — make that LEMON jello it's in. Whoa. Did the nuclear tests affect people's tastebuds for a couple decades or what? Or was it the Depression, and now that people had ingredients, they thought whatever crap they threw together was AWESOME.

The sandwiches. Oh man, here is a brief tour of the foulest things ever spread on bread (that is inevitably called for to be spread with mayo or buter): Baked beans mashed with pickles; ground peanuts and diced carrots held together with salad dressing (courtesy Eulalie Weber, Marysville, Kansas); prunes mixed with peanut butter and either lemon, honey or mayo; deviled peanuts (add in equal amount to deviled ham and some mayo); Beef, peanuts and raisins mixed together with mayo; Grapenuts (their spelling, and what IS it with the HS and Grape-nuts?) mixed with ketchup, dry mustard, cheese and tobasco; candied fruit, maraschino cherries and roquefort; cottage cheese and peanuts; raisins, coconut, shredded carrots, green pepper and mayo; cream cheese thinned with catsup; raisins, carrots, cottage cheese and mayo dressing with hot sauce. And for the finale, a truly horrific-sounding "Dutch Lunch," which must reference not only the famed cheapness, but also the incredibly bad breath of the Dutch. It consists of thinly sliced onion soaked in cold water for an hour, dried then soaked in French dressing then placed on buttered rye bread with sauerkraut. Just, whoa man. That isn't right.

No WONDER people were so much thinner then. Their food was appalling. I bet if you went on a diet of Dutch Lunches and creamed cukes you'd lose a lot of weight, especially if you're drinking beef juice with meals.

Personal Best

I broke the 800-calorie barrier on the elliptical at the Y. Yee Haw! I saw I was headed for my usual plateau of 792 and I cranked out the last five minutes, which are really supposed to be cool-down time. Mission accomplished at, I think, 802. I was so relieved to be over 800 I didn't really pay too much attention.

And instead of saying, "That's good enough," I hit the weights and did some serious upper body work.

What can I say, I'm going to Maui in 6 weeks. A girl has got to look good. Probably I should have avoided the red velvet cake Ray brought home and the buttermilk fudge that so badly needs to be eaten. But they needed to be eaten, people. And I broke the 800-calorie barrier. (Yes, I know what you are thinking, Internets, that I am deluded by the machine's false promises and seductive lies. BUT! I inputted my weight low to compensate. Quite low, too. And my heart rate was consistently way above what it really should have been. I not only flirt with the 85 percent of maximum, I crank it out way above that. My average heartrate was 176 (85 percent is about 165) and I topped out at 197, which is better than the 202 I can top out at on a hard sprint interval. And yes, I know the machine's heart rate monitor can be seductive, but it felt about right to me!)

Right now I am listening to "The Banjo Artistry of Myron Hinkle." He was a local guy who played the tenor banjo very well and started the Grays Harbor Banjo Band. A few recordings exist of his work with the famed Blue Banjo nightclub in Seattle and his combo, "The Banjo Multiples." And that compilation is now going to be in my iTunes. There are a disturbing number of train whistles used in the music. Hinkle died in 2001, but his music is now on CD, though only available through his daughter, Linda Hall. You can tell he was a disciple of Harry Reser, and yes, you should Google that name in quote marks with "Tiger Rag" to see some bad-ass tenor banjo playing.

At any rate, the music would be the perfect mood setter for, say, a screwball comedy set in the early 20s. Or something. It's pretty peppy Dixieland Jazz stuff. There is a song, "12th Street Bumble," a combination of 12th Street Rag and Flight of the Bumblebee, that his daughter told me was worth hearing. And dang, it will melt your face off, or whatever it is that banjos do. Remember, this isn't the five-string banjo, which is the traditional bluegrass banjo, it is the tenor banjo, which is usually used for rags and Irish folk music and more of a rhythym instrument, except not in the hands of Myron Hinkle.

Tuesday I am to play with the Banjo Band. Whoopee! I'm very excited about that. Soon I, too, will be cranking out the old timey tunes. Little do the Banjo Band, which is mainly seniors, know that I can play "Like a Prayer" (the chords, anyway) on the banjo.

Not Rockin'

So I have finally slogged my way through "Bridge of Sighs," a wonderful but insanely long book by Richard Russo, and I did it before the new year, as I had hoped to. So you can tell how exciting the new year was in Chez Kahler. It was so exciting Ray fell asleep at nine, apologizing as he drifted in and out of the Land of Nod.

Once I finished the book, however, I felt the need to do something more traditional than start reading another book ("The Wrecking Crew," by Thomas Frank, and it is sort of an angry/smart recounting of things I already pretty much know/figured out (i.e. marketing has helped destroy the American way of life being one)). So I said, "Sorry Bub," to Ray and flipped on the TV. Besides, I needed something to drown out the sound of explosions coming from redneck neighbors who are on our every flank. It was, at the risk of sounding completely insensitive, like a mini-Gaza Strip. As Ray and I moved stuff out of my apartment, the streets were littered with debris from M80s and screamers and whatnot. Also, we heard not a single siren last night. Way to keep on top of illegal fireworks usage, law enforcement.

So, pinned down in the house, with very very little worth watching on (nothing, really), I flipped channels. I caught some South Park. Boy was I surprised the other day when I found out one of the creators of that show got married. I had it on good authority (a former coworker's aunt who lives on their block in L.A.) that the two guys lived together and were gay together. And I suppose it made sense, in a small way, with their wearing dresses to whatever red carpet event that that was, and the whole "big gay Al" episode call for tolerance. I kind of looked on their work as a PoMo-homo kind of thing, where the very shrill libertarianism was the cry of today's liberated gay male, just liberated enough to be exactly the same kind of selfish and caustic comedian as all the other (straight) guys, but with more subversive messages. I mean, they apparently were living together and you never heard about them making out with starlets at the Viper Room.

Well, I guess Lori's aunt was wrong. Maybe working in showbusiness resets your Gaydar to a lower default point, just as attending a hardline church can cast a Christian sheen on a boy's interest in musicals and the performance arts as just a basic desire to use one's talents for spreading the Good News. How a Christian is supposed to use fame and wealth as a tool of evangelism for a religion whose central figure spurned both is something I wonder about. So I think people like Jessica Simpson are pharisees, so what?

Speaking of people who are deeply deluded, I happened to catch Dick Clarke's Rockin' New Year's Eve Party on TV. It has been handed over to Ryan Seacrest, who is super annoying. "OMG you guys, this party is so awesome!" Seacrest says. "It is just amazing!" OMG, Seacrest, why don't you tell us another 100 times while standing there with the Jonas Brothers, some Demi who is not Demi Moore, and what appeared to be a 13-year-old girl who was almost 7 feet tall. She's probably 5'6", since all TV types are pocket-sized, but I swear. Oh, she is Taylor Swift and she is 5'11", the same height as my mom, a little taller than me. I could totally take Ryan Seacrest and the eensy little brothers, though my knees might get chewed.

So there wasn't much to look at on Seacrest's platform of annoying young people standing there in the cold. !BUT! back in the studio was Dick Clarke, who had a stroke or something a couple of years ago and boldly or deludedly decided to get back in front of the camera. Holy cow.

This guy, Dick Clarke, was once the punchline for jokes about how he never aged, how he seemed preternaturally preserved as the years went by, looking the same in the 1950s as the 1990s. Well, those jokes are officially suspended for awkwardness. Clarke had a real speaking disability, which maybe he acknowledged in the beginning of the show, but his can-do attitude prevailed. He couldn't stop talking about how much he loved the annual party at Times Square, blah blah blah, all I saw was that his face looked ... different. I'm not necessarily talking surgery, but there was something about the combination of frozen muscles and pancake makeup that just gave him a very grim cast. His mouth was different, and the way it moved was kind of mesmerizing. It's not like anyone is able to move the top part of their mouth when they talk, but most people look like it is a little bit in motion when they are jawboning. Not Dick Clarke.

It was either the ballsiest thing this guy has ever done or he is flat out deluded. Because the contrast with his old self was so pronounced. Although early on I had the ungenerous thought that this was creepy, now I'm like, that's right, Dick Clarke, you go on with your stroked-out self! People need to see this stuff, this is reality, this is how it is. So Hollywood tried to apply some varnish, this was unshellackable at a very primal level (and the lacquer itself was disturbing). Pussycat Dolls, you intolerable stereotypes, take a good look, that is where you're headed. We're all going there. Hollywood can't hide it all. It was like the most unintentional disability-rights statement ever.

Also, Dick Clarke made out with a woman who must have been his wife. She was totally cute, in an old lady way, with a yellow bun of hair on her head like I Dream of Jeannie. Not only is it rare to see a televised image of old people macking, old and disabled people were macking! Hold the phone! I could feel America shudder, and I loved it! Nothing I can say would ever be as subversive as that.

Rock on, DC. I'm not sure what the intention was there, but hey, if you didn't know you had to be brave then I'd have to say you're a better person than I. Dumber, to a significant extent, but better nonetheless.

La Vida Hobo

Ever since about a week before Christmas I have been living at Ray's place, and for months and months before then I've spent all my weekends at his place. So while our living together was inevitable and we've been warming up to it for quite a while, the reality is my apartment has suffered.

In times past, when I didn't have a steady to do things with all weekend, I would get up Saturday morning, eat breakfast, read and then do chores until my apartment was not disgusting. Or if I was gone Saturday, I'd do them Sunday. Or perhaps I'd split them between all the dishes, cooking and straightening on Saturday and the mopping and scrubbing on Sunday with laundry at night, so I could fold clothes while watching Sunday night TV. What I'm saying is I had a routine, and there was only so awful a week's worth of mess could be. (Why isn't Ray's house a shambles considering we are spending weekends together? you ask — Ray has cleaners come in, a practice he considered suspending for our shacking, but which we have decided is probably worth the money for the sake of our relationship. Ray is also a neatnik who would never let a pot sit in the sink for more than a few hours. He just can't do it. It is against his constitution, which is highly teutonic.)

Well, that routine has been shot for a long time now, and my apartment is completely embarrassing to look at. It is like I've been camping there, but without the "leave no trace" ethos. It is a wreck, to speak plainly.

But since I'm moving, that wreck will have to come piece by piece to Ray's house. And hopefully be reconstructed here in such a way that it is clean and neat.

I've already been lugging my stuff over by bits and pieces. But today, Ray wanted to use his wagon to load stuff up more fully, and that means his coming over to start loading my stuff. Which he did, and although it looks like a hobo encampment sans hobos because they had to scramble in the middle of the night because the cops were going to raid them, he was fine.

I also turned in my official letter of resignation from the apartment. I will miss the water pressure there, but I'm sure the company, the central air and the dishwasher here will more than make up for it. Living with Ray may not be to everyone's taste, but living with a dishwasher is heaven, people. And according to multiple sources dishwashers are greener than handwashing.

Soon the hobo times will be over, and I'll become a Harbor yuppie once again.

An indie movie Christmas

Every year is a White Christmas for me no matter what the weather, since my name is White. But this Christmas was also what Doug Barker deemed an "indie movie Christmas" when I told him how it all went down.

It all started with bad weather.



This is the Saturday before Christmas. Ray and I decided the weather was too bad to drive around town, so we walked. It had already been snowy, but it was getting ridiculous. Sunday it would continue to be ridiculous, piling snow all over the place. The National Weather Service, by the eve of Christmas eve, was saying that the weather would be back to normal (rainy) come Friday everywhere, but that the Harbor and Seattle area would probably be decent by Christmas eve.

But we were going to Longview, which is closer to Portland and the beneficiary of a cold stream of air flowing from East Oregon down the Columbia River Gorge. So it was going to be a little snowier out there. But we didn't care, we didn't want to be trapped on the Harbor for Christmas so we headed out. We listened to a CD of Christmas songs, one of which was the Carol Bells by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. One of the few things I appreciate about TSO is that they make Christmas songs absolutely terrifying. Seriously, I cannot imagine why they did not spike this version with a little "Night on Bald Mountain." I think that's the piece I'm thinking of.

It looked like the Christmas angels were having a pillowfight by the time we got to I-5, so we pulled over and asked Ray's dad what it was like on his end on a hill in Longview. "Oh, it's really bad. It's like a blizzard. It's snowing so bad it's dark out here. I'd just turn around if I was you. Just go home." Kris' husband George, however, said he didn't think it was too bad, even though it was kind of snowing where he was. And the snow had tailed off by then so we pressed on.

Well, going down Kris' road it was obvious that we weren't going to be able to go up the hillside and we'd have to stay at her house, which is undergoing some pretty extensive renovating of the walls and was covered in drywall dust and smelled like primer. She and George were basically living out of suitcases in the three or four habitable rooms they had. Somehow, in her fairly small kitchen, she had managed to make a bajillion cookies. I'm not even kidding. They weren't the regular drop kind, either, they were all really elaborate sorts. Because a little home renovation will not stop Kris' compulsive Martha-Stewarting. It would take a much larger force, perhaps nature's own fury, to do that.

Speaking of nature's fury:



look at all that snow. Their house is at sea level.

So we go up to the house for crab louie that night and the roads are just so bad, but Kris, driving with chains, is a champ going up and coming down. So this bodes well for Christmas.

Except that on the way over for Christmas, Kris and George have a, ah, little argument about her driving early on and they pull a Chinese firedrill. And when it comes to who is the better driver in the snow, I'm going to have to give Kris the points on that.

We get up the hill and pull in and Kris starts making the tofurkey alternadinner she and George will eat. So Ray and his dad and I watch some of the Battle of Myrtle Street, a documentary about Aberdeen/Hoquiam football rivalry. It, ah, overreaches in some bits, especially when it intersperses clips from WWII soldiers storming stuff with assistant football coaches narrating how Myrtle Street (the boundary between the two towns, a completely anonymous-looking spot) is where the line is drawn, how you'd better be ready to do battle when you get to Myrtle Street. Because Myrtle Street is where champions are born. George takes this opportunity to call his son, who is in the Navy, to tell him about how the Germans have caught some Somali pirates. His conversation intermingles with the BOMS tape. There is a lot of war talk on this day of Jesus' birth, the promise to all mankind that we will be saved.

Dinner was lovely, early, though, so there would be daylight for driving back. There was pork loin, potato-leek gallette, stuffing, canned cranberry sauce and for dessert, a Yule log and a million cookies and the buttermilk fudge I'd made.

Then there are the Christmas presents. I got the water bottle I asked Ray for, yay! And then I got a lovely recipe book from my aunt Patti. But I looked through it and there was a picture of my recently-lost cousin Aaron with my now-gone grandparents and for a moment, I was like, oh, I'm okay, wow, that's good. Then suddenly I wasn't okay — I was bawling like a baby. Ray's dad, bless his Teutonic heart, continued to make awkward conversation about wrenches with George while I decompensated into tears. Oh, Aaron. I hope you had Christmas with GMR and BDW.

After the presents we headed back down the hill and George only nearly got us in an embankment once and the rear only slid out of control the one time, so it was all good. Luckily, he had Kris giving him helpful pointers about putting the SUV in low gear and going slower. It may have made my top 5 harrowing rides of all time, but I've lived in temperate climates my whole life.

Kris and George were out to Portland that same night, off to Vegas for a week, hopefully their snow will melt while they're gone so they can come back to normalcy. And Ray and I didn't want to take the risk that we'd be stuck driving back in worse weather the next day, so we headed back to Aberdeen, stopping for a brief check on his mom. I managed to soak my foot in melted slush getting across the street. The drive back took a lot of concentration, so no podcasts or anything. Just me occasionally singing a Christmas song.

We got back to the house and ate a salad for dinner then piled into bed and watched a couple of episodes of "Rumpole of the Bailey." I didn't get out of bed until absolutely necessary the next day.