Zip It Hello Kitty
OMG Yay!!!!!!!111!!!!!!!
Sorry. I’ve had quite a bit of sake and beer.
But yay! Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.
I’m just sayin’.
Bonus: Hello Kitty, not just for girls anymore.
Rock! Death! America!
Littering our noise on the EarthArchive for December, 2007
Out To Lunch
Dear old and leathery ladies in the bedazzled denim vests dining at Mark Lindsay’s Rock and Roll Cafe on Wednesday - your fur coats are infinitely more offensive than the Motley Crue ‘Girls Girls Girls‘ video playing on the big screen. Thanks for causing a stink and ruining my good time of trying to guess the ’80s video by sight alone (the volume was turned down on the televisions) because you are a bunch of fucking prudes.
Cue Jacque Cousteau Voice-over
Our garage and garage-adjacent areas are all covered with a multitude of blue tarps, giving parts of our house an undersea feel (not to mention blocking two of our exits from the house). They just got the plans approved by the city, and started doing some work in the basement so they can put in a post to support the addition.
The office…
The mudroom…
The bathroom…
Birthday With a Bang
XM wanted to be sure she got something extra special for her third birthday - three stitches on the forehead! She somehow went from the rocking lazyboy chair to a heap on the floor, taking down a wood t.v. tray with her. After spending some time bleeding all over herself, we proceeded to wait three (the magic number!) hours at the ER before she could get stitched up. Thankfully she was in remarkably good spirits in the waiting room, where she sang “Shake Shake, Booty!” for everyone. She was amazing while they did it. I guess their magic numbing gel really works, and she earned a lollipop and a teddy bear for her trouble.
Open:
Closed:
Maybe Just a Half a Drink More…
After all, I’ll need something delicious to drink with these cranberry-pistachio-white chocolate biscotti my Mother-in-Law made. My whole house smells divine.
Don’t Wanna Be Taught To Be No Fool
The state is all in a kerfuffle over the possibly illegal full day kindergarten tuition. O is in full day, because of the immersion program, and all I hope is that they don’t screw it all up by the time XM goes to school.
He is still doing freakishly well in school, though his enthusiasm is waning somewhat. He groans in the morning when he realizes he has to get up for school (somehow this is different than the weekend mornings when he gets up all by himself happy as a clam at the exact same time), and he is looking forward to winter break. His Mandarin teacher is impressed with his mad skillz so far, and was quite surprised to learn that he does not have a native speaker in the home (I’m thinking XM doesn’t count). He is doing really well in math as well, and started out the year reading at the end-of-first-grade level. Go Owen!
Somehow, he already knows how to say butt in Chinese. Some days I wish for 24 hour kindergarten. Maybe just once a week.
Kids These Days
I’ve been trying to find a way to keep a list of the songs that go on and off of O’s playlist. It started out pretty heavy with songs from The Wiggles, They Might Be Giant’s album “No!”, and songs from For The Kids. He was three when he heard Cake’s “No Phone” on the radio, and wanted it on his own music. Many of those songs have been replaced by others that he has heard on movies, on the radio, on Guitar Hero, or just by us playing it. The most current additions are at the bottom of the list.
Gluttons for Punishment, or We Don’t Need No Stinking Garage
I think after beginning the third construction project of our home-wner lives, we will either have become very good at finding a decent company, or will never ever do any construction ever again.
After a bit of a shaky start, we have finally started demolition. The plan is to convert the small garage space to a living area, with stairs leading up to a larger second floor area. This will serve as a small living space for our in-laws, giving them a sitting area/living room and a bedroom. The bedroom they are currently occupying will become a play room, and eventually one of the kid’s own bedrooms.
My apologies to Opatrick the opossum, who will now have to find another place to pilfer cat food.
Boughz and Beerz
We drove back out to our former stomping grounds to get our Christmas tree on Saturday. We haven’t been out to get a tree for a couple of years, and we hemmed and hawed about whether to get a fake tree, or a tree at a lot, before deciding to return to Bob’z U-Cut. I’m so glad we made that decision, because it was another fantastic experience with them.
Having lived in the heart of the Christmas tree capital of the world, we went through quite a few terrible tree farm experiences before finding Bob’z. The people at Bob’z are friendly and helpful, and they don’t “over-do” the experience for the customer. This year they have a bit more going on, having closed down their Portland operation. We picked out a nice sharp saw and a comfy kneeling pad before heading out into the field to find that perfect tree. Though our tree was just an inch shy of 7 feet, they charged us the 6.5 foot rate before shaking and baling the tree and tying it to the car.
We enjoyed some cocoa and cider by the big bonfire they have going before heading back home. They also have tree flocking (not just white, but pink too!!), wreaths, and mistletoe. We got there shortly after they opened and it wasn’t crowded at all. All in all, it was a really positive experience. And don’t worry about the weird things on the ground near the trees…it isn’t wild animal poop, just mushy mushrooms.
The tree is all decorated now (Mama Kitty came in and gave it her seal of approval), and it is looking pretty and snug, nestled in the best stand in the world.
Now if you live in the Portland metro area and you are in the mood for adventure when looking for a tree, you may want to try this little trick - drive around the rural roads of Clackamas County, near Estacada and Eagle Creek and Redland and Colton, and keep your eyes on the ditches next to the road. I’ve known many people that were happy to discover their Christmas tree in the ditch on the side of the road, having fallen off a big Christmas tree truck busy hauling trees to far-flung places. Enjoy a country drive and a free tree all in one go!
We also charged up the kegerator with a festive winter brew - Abominable Winter Ale from Hopworks Urban Brewery. The restaurant/pub portion isn’t open yet, but they have started doing some dock sales while they work on the rest of the operation, due for completion in early 2008.
Hopworks in a nutshell, from their blog:
Hopworks Urban Brewery is Portland’s first brew pub to offer all organic handcrafted beers, fresh local ingredients, eco-friendly and sustainable building, and a relaxed, casual atmosphere bringing communities together.
Pretty sweet, eh? The beer is delicious - slightly sweet with a nice hop balance and yummy hop nose. Can’t go wrong with 7% alcohol and 55 IBUs (though I’m currently still reeling from Laurelwood’s Grande Imperial IPA - 9.5% abv and 100+ IBUs. Whee!). Great for drinking by the tree.
Glints in the Night
I’ve been pondering who to thank for helping us discover Mike Doughty. I think I’m going to have to go with Joss Whedon, who created Buffy, which got canceled, which made me sad, so we started watching Veronica Mars to get our fiesty ass-kicking blonde female teen fix. In episode 2-20 (”Look Who’s Stalking“), right before Logan gives his pathetic, drunken speech to Veronica, the song I Hear The Bells came on. “I love this song,” Veronica said. And indeed, it was awesome, and we immediately got Mike Doughty’s album Haughty Melodic.
We went to the first of two sold out shows he performed last Friday night at Mississippi Studios. The place only holds like 75 people, and the sound was just so fantastic. It was a Question Jar show, so audience members were invited to put questions in the jar for Mike to answer. We sat right next to the stage, and the jar.
The show was just Mike on guitar and Andrew ‘Scrap’ Livingston on cello and/or guitar. The only adequate way that I can think to describe the show was that it fucking rocked my socks off. The sound and the songs were wonderful. The cello was an amazing addition and added a beautiful depth to the songs, whether he played it straight up with a bow or plucked at it whimsically. Mike is funny and smart and a smart-ass and he has a deep, resonant, gravelly voice slightly reminiscent of that guy from Social Distortion without the annoyance factor.
Mike would play, then answer questions from the jar, then ask “so, what’s next?” and people would shout out songs. He’d listen hard, occasionally saying “Naw, I still don’t remember the lyrics for that.” or “Are you fucking kidding me??!” Finally he would nod and say “Yes! That one.” and start to play.
Questions ranged from requests to tour info to the random and strange, ie: should restrooms be segregated by political affiliation rather than gender? Mike thought that in some areas that lean heavily one way or another, there would be huge line disparities like one sees at men and women’s bathrooms. I believe he said something like “no woman should have to pretend to be a Republican just to go pee.” Here is a bit of Q&A from our show (plus you get a good view of Scrap in action–he was fabulous and would answer some of the questions when Mike was tuning) - these people filming it were just to the left of us (and they were just using their camera with no zoom, this is actually how close we were sitting).
Have I mentioned that it was awesome? Yeah. I think I did.
