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No posts since October, huh.  That's awkward.  What to do?

Well, last weekend contained Valentine's Day.  Here's a sandwich and salad ncd made me for lunch.  Sandwich = roll toasted with olive oil, then add turkey, tomato, avocado, pepperjack chez and put back in broiler with top part of roll for toasting/melting. Liked it so much we also ate it for lunch on Sunday and dinner on Monday.

Rewinding a bit further, I finished reading "The Road" at 1 am on 

Groundhog Day.  It was a haunted way to start year 28 so I ate a cookie (I didn't eat it in the bathroom, I just set it on the sink momentarily for safekeeping--the stark cookie/milk/sink contrast seemed appropriate which probably says something about my state of mind), drank some milk, and read "Catch 22" until I shook the haunting enough to go to sleep.  

More soon...

...No, really...soon.

Our new place

Once clm left us for higher, drier climes and thinner air, we lived in Cry-STAHL for a month, then found this place and moved in time for September. Today I told Trisha that I feel a little bit like we live in a dollhouse and someone might fold it open at any moment just to mess with us. Let me show you what I mean.
This is what you see when you walk through the front door. Sometimes my computer's in the bedroom where it belongs, but today there was a fantasy basketball draft and if you had come just a few minutes earlier, you would have seen Nate's brother at my computer and 5 more laptops (with associated male drafters) plugged into the power strip that's lying in the middle of the floor. This is the dining room and the doors that go to the hallway (left) and the kitchen (right). Just got that jade plant back from a friend who lives a couple blocks away. She kept our plants until the first freeze and then called us to say that the house looked like a jungle and there would be nowhere to stand at the party she and her roommates throw every Halloween so could we please come retrieve them? Plants look better than they have ever looked. I think they will regret the change in custody.
That is the rest of the dining room. I wiped the window down inside and out this morning. We don't really get any direct sunlight so every little bit counts. The other great feature is that fence you can see through the clean window. We have a band of squirrels roaming the neighborhood and there is inevitably at least one perched on that fence and usually several more visible, usually battling each other or grooming their tails. This band includes a fancy pantsy albino squirrel who has not yet posed for a picture. Keep your eyes out, though, it's coming.
This is our kitchen from the other door. It is, in fact, a fun-sized novelty kitchen. The window in here got cleaned today, too, before I got distracted by the egg bake and catalogs that Trisha brought over when she showed up to visit while the draft was on. Not-so-great features of this kitchen include a stovetop that has spots that are so hot they will BURN you if you touch them even when the range is not on. When the range IS on, it smells like gas. Also, cupboards do not close all the way. Great features include our gigantic magnet collection. I'm working on breaking up my Shakespearean "hate" and "love" sets to add to the magnetic poetry already on the side of the fridge. Another great feature of this room is the giant picture of The Phantom (of comics, not this opera) over the stove (not pictured).This is our hallway gallery. Ncd made it; I enjoy it. It includes the triumphant return of the "Bobblehead Hall of Fame" which has laid low (in a box) since we moved from Pleasant Ave to Emerson Ave, but now it's back, leaner, meaner, and better than ever. At ncd's birthday party we tried to get rid of the HOF rejects, but surprisingly we found almost all of them hidden around our house once the guests left. Weird.
This is our bathroom. The lighting is great, but the water in the shower is never, ever warmer than lukewarm. Hideous. Do you think I can make it through the entire winter just kneeling by the tub and washing myself racoon-style? Well, cast yer vote and I'll let you know cause that's my plan.
This is our bedroom. Note the bookcase headboard. That is how you know we hold membership in the M****n clan. The bed is two Ikea twin beds screwed together. I have only torn my leg open on the exposed boards once in the two months we have lived here. Major, major success.

And this is our backyard. Not shown in this picture is the dumpster where ncd saw his first raccoon...when he threw a trashbag on top of it.

And this concludes your tour of the new place.

Still hangin' on!

Hi all.  I'm up late trying to make something impressive for the tough-to-please writers in my second "mod"...that's "hour" to everyone I know.  I will be showing them a clip of the movie, "Stranger Than Fiction" tomorrow in which Queen Latifah's assistant character gives Emma Thompson's writer character the business (something like: I've helped 20 authors complete 35 books and I have never asked the publisher to extend a deadline.  I don't like loud music, I won't tolerate narcotics, but I will help you finish your book...)  Anyway, they are suckers for film clips and I know they haven't seen this one and most of them will think it's lame, but it serves my purposes exactly and I'm quite sure I'll nab a couple of 'em by comparing myself to Queen Latifah!

Here's a picture from the brunch the Sunday after ncd's youngest brother's wedding last weekend.  Sweet--there's an ephelant on the coffee carafe!  

I'm more than halfway done with my student teaching placement and almost halfway done with the part where I teach full-time.  Last week, my cooperating teacher suggested that I talk to a teacher who's going on maternity leave in February to see if she's lined up a long-term sub yet. I saw said teacher in the copy room this morning and she seemed like she'd at least consider me as a possibility.  That would start in February and extend through the end of the year.  That would be sweet.  Well, that's it for this update.  I've gotta write lesson plans and get meself to bed.

Love yous.

I'm alive!

I'm also loving life.  Just got our internet up last weekend and it has been running...sometimes.  Still, it is veeery good to be connected to the series of tubes again.  I love student teaching.  I love it.  While you are waiting for future posts, I am putting this out there.  It's hobo cat.  I saw hobo cat approaching while I was standing on the bridge across the greenway.  I ran to the other side and captured this image.  All hail hobocat.

Finally, Vacation!

So imagine it is August 1st (because it is in this post). ncd and I learn that Humphrey Terminal of the MSP airport thinks it would be a nice tribute to fill the flower beds with electric purple something-or-other to cheer on the Vikings, I assume. I wish I had taken a photo of this phenomenon because google images renders nothing. We flew into Seattle's airport after a flight that was so hot it almost caused me to spontaneously combust. ncd maintains I was asleep the whole time, but that is inaccurate, I was awake an accutely aware of the dangerously high temperature inside my skin. It should be noted that the mechanism for homeostasis in my body is broken. This has been observed on numerous occasions. Simply drinking a cool drink usually requires speedy application of a wool sweater, just for starters.

But I digress. We got a cab with a very friendly cab driver who was originally from India and held forth on the unspoken rules of cab lines and the responsibilities of both drivers and passengers in those lines. Then he told us about his horoscope and his son's. Where he comes from, parents hire a specialist to issue a horoscope shortly after one's birth. His said that he would leave the country. But there was a back-up: if he did not leave India, it said he would be a police or military officer. His son's horoscope predicts that he'll be a millionaire. After that, he quizzed us, "What do you think karma means?" and then explained to us how our idea was correct. Eventually we found our way to my cousin, a, and her husband, b's, house. We found our room on the tippy top floor with their surf boards leaning in a corner, turned out the homemade lamp glowing softly through colorful glass, and fell asleep.

The next day (8.2.08) the four of us set out to walk a trail that wound around Talapus and Olallie lakes. b took a dip in the lake, but the rest of us stayed dry. Actually, it was perfect t-shirt weather when we were moving.

We stopped for lunch atop a ridge from which we would have had a view of Mt. Rainier had it not been deliciously misty. As we snacked on Hint of Lime(R) chips and passed around the sandwich fixings the Gray Jays began to flutter in as if this were a scene from The Birds. a squinted her eyes at one and said menacingly, "I see you," before turning around and commenting on their aggressive habit of stealing food right out of one's hands if one is not vigilant. Several moments later, she felt feathers on her cheek and Nate was flinging chips into the rocks and cursing at one.

We arrived back in Seattle with time to change our shoes before a dropped us off at the Safeco field for the Mariners-Orioles game. All during our hike, ncd held forth on Seattle sports answering questions and addressing topics ranging from the fan capacity of baseball vs. football stadia to the selling of the Sonics. a + b keep up on sports as much as I would if ncd were not around to keep me well-informed on all things athletic (which is to say, not at all). ncd was assuring b that we didn't need dinner as we'd eat at the game and was shocked when b imagined aloud the pricey hotdogs we'd eat at the game. ncd assured him that one of the points of visiting stadia far and wide was to sample the unique local fare. Indeed, we had some famed coastal...um, garlic fries...AND this delicious chowder bread bowl!

ncd was excited to see this guy pitch. I see from his uniform in the picture that his name is Hernandez.

I was excited to see him warm up by throwing 80-90 mph pitches about 12 feet away from me.

ncd: excited that I agreed to get tickets 13 rows behind home plate.

me: excited to be close enough to see forms that can be plausibly interpreted as humans rather than GI Joes dressed up in baseball uniforms. Also, baseball is much more interesting when ncd is telling stories about the origins of the guy pitching, tales of the hitter's injuries, and sordid accounts of various trades, weaseling, and squabbles of the shortstop, left-fielder, and 1st base coach. I am, of course, making all of the "specifics" up because I am not some sort of genius repository of riveting sports facts like ncd. I did successfully recite the numbers that correspond to the players' positions...and got, like, 8 out of 9 right. So maybe I am a genius...

ncd: excited that they show what has happened thus far in an inning on a screen in case you were gone getting beer and your SO doesn't know what the hell is going on and can't fill you in

me: excited about the wave.

ncd: hates the wave (there's a very principled argument behind it) but grudgingly admitted after 5 times around the stadium that its strength and continual sychronization was "pretty amazing. If we were in Minnesota, the upper deck and the lower deck wouldn't be able to keep it together past the gap in the outfield." Seattle, consider thyself praised with faint damning.

me: excited about the rally jig

ncd: amazingly...excited about the rally jig. Says something about people winning him over with committed rally jigging.

While we wait for this mean machine we try to visit Pyramid Brewing (right across the street from the stadium), but I had left my wallet and I.D. in my other bag. Don't worry--this will all come wackily full-circle in the end.

But back to the back end of the Corolla: b assembled this custom trunk with diamond plate and mad welding skills. For some reason this makes me find the sticker depicting the impish jedi, labeled "toYoda", displayed on the dashboard quite appropriate. I'm still working out the metaphor between Yoda and this uniquely equipped car, but I'm sure it's all going to come together for me once I sit quietly for awhile and channel the Force.

To be continued...

Limbo

You guessed it, andi, CLM and clm both reside in the west now. clm's longterm plans are up in the air, but getting to that altitude, I've found, always helps a girl get her bearings.

Mom and Dad helped us ALL move out (a Herculian feat which also required help from one of ncd's brothers and our friends, a-tiberius & drizzle). ncd and I, however, had nowhere to move our stuff. After a skirmish with Pods, we ended up renting a storage space and taking some stuff to drizzle and rf's house in Crystal (cry-STAL, as drizzle calls it). They are graciously letting us stay with them and their dogs. The move happened on a Thursday, just to make things complicated...and on Friday evening ncd and I left on a week-long vacation we attached to our friends' wedding in British Columbia.

Our first stop was Seattle and with any luck I'll be able to post that installment this afternoon.

Thursday, July 31: Elegy for the Emersonian Era

When we moved into our duplex a couple of years ago ncd hauled a load of stuff to Goodwill. When the hippie guy working there asked for his address, ncd gave him the new Emerson Ave. address which prompted hippie to reveal that he also lived on Emerson and to elaborate, "It's the Emersonian E-ra." Dude. And now the Emersonian Era has drawn to a close for us.

You might imagine that the Emersonian Era drew to a close after a battle that involved unicorns and trolls. Perhaps you're thinking that good triumphed against evil, or at least that a wizard shook hands with a nyad at the newly established river border between empires. Little do you suspect that 2 fearless humans traveled cross-country to have a summit with their middle daughter on topics ranging from philosophy/theology to reckless and wanton mistreatment of the environment. Fearless Huwoman and her youngest daughter had to visit a medicine man for advice on their ailments. It was discovered that Fearless Huwoman suffered from a pink eye and was given healing herbs. Fearless huwoman's youngest offspring could not be helped. It is well-known that red hair obscures a healer's ability to examine one's aura. However, it is also generally accepted that the few red-haired offspring who manage to survive usually become powerful enchantresses with special power to heal themselves and others.


To be continued...