It was only like 80 today and I'm already too hot. (It may have something to do with hot ridiculously hot my computer gets too.) It's supposed to be 95 tomorrow. 95! but back down to 68 by Monday. Ah Portland... I had actually forgotten what naturally hot air felt like. I'm not kidding. I went on a little walk to mail a letter today and I was just giddy. I skipped through a sprinkler. Well, around it really. But it is too hot. I hate shorts and I think I may be low on work-appropriate skirts. Seriously: this is the thing I have most to worry about right now. Life is pretty good. (Yes, the sunshine has activated ALL of my serotonin and I'm freakin' high as a kite on Love For Everything In The World Oh My God It Was So Beautiful Today. Aren't you glad I'm not an actual drug addict? Can you even imagine what I'd be like on meth or heroin?)
Also, "For your blue" is a really sweet song. If Pete were ever to write a song about me, that's the kind of song I'd want written about me. It's just nice and fun and sounds like someone who both loves his wife and enjoys spending time with her. Fancy that!
Oh, double also: Pete wins. All other husbands can just quit; it's over. He is, hands down, the best ever. This week when I casually asked if he had any ideas for dinner, he volunteered to run to the store and get the stuff for galettes and berries for dessert. So we had buckwheat crepes stuffed with ham and gruyere and topped with an egg for dinner and raspberries over vanilla ice cream for dessert. He also vacuumed, took out the trash and even though he was dead tired, made extra crepes before he went to bed so we would have some for lunch the next day (crepes reheat very well, by the by). So yeah, Pete wins. Also, he smells good.
It's late. I'm rambling. Did you know kids get high off Axe body spray? What is wrong with them! This is quite possibly the funniest thread ever. Old ladies are adorable!
Edit: the last paragraph and the last statement in the penultimate paragraph are not related. Pete just naturally smells good. And he's not huffing. I don't secretly fear for him or anything. Although given his reaction to when we've idly smelled Axe body spray at the supermarket, imagining him trying to huff the stuff is pretty funny. It would be all grimaces and sneezing.
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Friday, May 16, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Weather, TV, Books - I have opinions!
Far be it from me to criticize the navigational abilities of weather, but I feel that we may need to stage an intervention. First, hurricane force winds and rain and flooding in NW Oregon. But okay, it's off the ocean, and the ocean is, if anything, powerfully unpredictable. Maybe even weather can't help that. But now a tornado? In VANCOUVER? I mean, that's just crazy talk! And it turns out there was an even more devastating tornado in Vancouver in 1972.
Momentary digression: I just saw an ad for the Portland Bridal Expo and it had some of the WORST film ever. The final images are of a "bride" traipsing down the runway and then a freeze frame right after she's turned. It's shot from below and at an angle, so imagine that her head is a straight vertical line at the center top of the shot; her body is a straight line from her neck to the bottom right corner of the screen, but turning in the middle so there's an almost nausiating sense of wrongness; her right arm is (if I remember correctly now) swinging out ahead of her from her far side, aimed towards the lower left corner; and her left arm is bent at the elbow, forming a triangle with her hip as the base and her elbow as the apex. The bouquet is in her left hand, looking stapled to her hip. And all of this is shot from below, so there are shadows under her chin and nose. It's a bridal expo, people: it's filled with people who know how to favorably photograph any bride in any light. But no: you picked the guy who usually shoots the car show because he knows the layout of the Expo Center already and will give you a discount if you buy him a hotdog.
Also, I've been reading a lot lately because... well, sadly, not because I love to read (which I do), but because of the writer's strike and Pete having Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect and now The Orange Box. [Fox 12 Morning Show update: one of their on-the-spot reporters is in a rented tux, dancing with a woman at the Expo Center. I think it's a very stiff box-step foxtrot. Oh God: he's trying to rumba and is doing that little twirling your hands and then shaking one to the side on the final beat thing. ::shudder::] I've read a lot of PD James mysteries, which I highly recommend. They're smart, James Doesn't try to prove to you that her detective is smart through gimmickry (like one writer who made a point of telling you that her main character had a 180 IQ, a perfect size-8 body and connections to Mossad in the first chapter of every book), they don't encourage you to solve the mystery yourself -although you sometimes can- and they don't usually end in the detective squaring off against his foe in a mano a mano battle to the death. I would start with an early one, like "A Mind to Murder" or "Unnatural Causes" before reading some of the later ones, like "The Black Tower" or "Death of an Expert Witness." The best of all (in my opinion, and of the one's I've read) is "Original Sin." It's like a thick set of character studies and is ultimately a rumination on the nature of family, personal loss, cruelty, revenge and forgiveness. But it helps to understand the main detective (Dalgliesh), although it isn't necessary to follow the plot.
I also just read "Stardust," which is a very sweet fairytale for adults because it has some cusses and some sex - but tasteful sex! It took about four hours to read, so if you've got a flight to take, it's the kind of paperback you can read on the plane and leave for the next passenger.
Yesterday I finished "The Golden Compass" and now I'm on to the second in that series, "The Subtle Knife." They're really good - fantasy adventure stories starring children without ever being cloying or new-agey. I picked them up because I was told they made fundamentalist christians mad and I had to know what all the fuss was about. The first one is more, "Oh, and also, in this world the Church is more like the Spanish Inquisition Church than the Church of today, and that's bad." But the second one is proving to be more, "And religion in general is a bad thing, tearing apart the universe and sending jackbooted thugs to your door." But we'll see. Mostly they're just really fun to read without making me cry (::coHARRYPOTTERugh::).
Momentary digression: I just saw an ad for the Portland Bridal Expo and it had some of the WORST film ever. The final images are of a "bride" traipsing down the runway and then a freeze frame right after she's turned. It's shot from below and at an angle, so imagine that her head is a straight vertical line at the center top of the shot; her body is a straight line from her neck to the bottom right corner of the screen, but turning in the middle so there's an almost nausiating sense of wrongness; her right arm is (if I remember correctly now) swinging out ahead of her from her far side, aimed towards the lower left corner; and her left arm is bent at the elbow, forming a triangle with her hip as the base and her elbow as the apex. The bouquet is in her left hand, looking stapled to her hip. And all of this is shot from below, so there are shadows under her chin and nose. It's a bridal expo, people: it's filled with people who know how to favorably photograph any bride in any light. But no: you picked the guy who usually shoots the car show because he knows the layout of the Expo Center already and will give you a discount if you buy him a hotdog.
Also, I've been reading a lot lately because... well, sadly, not because I love to read (which I do), but because of the writer's strike and Pete having Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect and now The Orange Box. [Fox 12 Morning Show update: one of their on-the-spot reporters is in a rented tux, dancing with a woman at the Expo Center. I think it's a very stiff box-step foxtrot. Oh God: he's trying to rumba and is doing that little twirling your hands and then shaking one to the side on the final beat thing. ::shudder::] I've read a lot of PD James mysteries, which I highly recommend. They're smart, James Doesn't try to prove to you that her detective is smart through gimmickry (like one writer who made a point of telling you that her main character had a 180 IQ, a perfect size-8 body and connections to Mossad in the first chapter of every book), they don't encourage you to solve the mystery yourself -although you sometimes can- and they don't usually end in the detective squaring off against his foe in a mano a mano battle to the death. I would start with an early one, like "A Mind to Murder" or "Unnatural Causes" before reading some of the later ones, like "The Black Tower" or "Death of an Expert Witness." The best of all (in my opinion, and of the one's I've read) is "Original Sin." It's like a thick set of character studies and is ultimately a rumination on the nature of family, personal loss, cruelty, revenge and forgiveness. But it helps to understand the main detective (Dalgliesh), although it isn't necessary to follow the plot.
I also just read "Stardust," which is a very sweet fairytale for adults because it has some cusses and some sex - but tasteful sex! It took about four hours to read, so if you've got a flight to take, it's the kind of paperback you can read on the plane and leave for the next passenger.
Yesterday I finished "The Golden Compass" and now I'm on to the second in that series, "The Subtle Knife." They're really good - fantasy adventure stories starring children without ever being cloying or new-agey. I picked them up because I was told they made fundamentalist christians mad and I had to know what all the fuss was about. The first one is more, "Oh, and also, in this world the Church is more like the Spanish Inquisition Church than the Church of today, and that's bad." But the second one is proving to be more, "And religion in general is a bad thing, tearing apart the universe and sending jackbooted thugs to your door." But we'll see. Mostly they're just really fun to read without making me cry (::coHARRYPOTTERugh::).
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Am I in the southern hemisphere?
The date: August 11. The time: 11:30pm. The place: Portland, OR. The temperature: 59 fawking degrees! I'm not kidding: I'm wearing a hoodie, jeans and tennis shoes, and we haven't taken the comforter off the bed more than three times this summer. Or whatever you call this season. Maybe "The Sunny Season" to differentiate it from the prior "Gray And A Little Rainy But Fresh Season." After "The Sunny Season" comes the "Gray And A Little Rainy But Everything Dies Season." And then finally the "Cold And Gray Season."
I shouldn't complain. I hate heat and humidity. This is just shocking, that's all. And that's all I have to say on that for two reason: 1) There is a spider on the ceiling and I must get Pete to do something about it; 2) The overhead light is flickering irritatingly (and suddenly!) and it's quite maddening.
Oh, but before I go: I went to the Portland IKEA yesterday and today. It is really weird to go into a place I associate with Europe and the east coast and see it filled with local yokels. Not to put too fine (or judgmental) a point on it, but that place was just loaded with morbidly obese Oregonians today. It was depressing. Like a Future Stroke And Diabetes parade. If I were ever going to hand out nutrition information leaflets, I think I would start at IKEA. Not that I'm the picture of health or anything myself; my BMI sets me comfortably in the Overweight range and if I get any more sedentary I think I might qualify as a pet rock. BUT... it was bad. It made me worry about Oregon and the health of her citizens. How is it possible that we're so fat as a state when we're living in one of the greatest places on earth for sport (where it's 59 degrees at night in the goddamned summer!)?
I shouldn't complain. I hate heat and humidity. This is just shocking, that's all. And that's all I have to say on that for two reason: 1) There is a spider on the ceiling and I must get Pete to do something about it; 2) The overhead light is flickering irritatingly (and suddenly!) and it's quite maddening.
Oh, but before I go: I went to the Portland IKEA yesterday and today. It is really weird to go into a place I associate with Europe and the east coast and see it filled with local yokels. Not to put too fine (or judgmental) a point on it, but that place was just loaded with morbidly obese Oregonians today. It was depressing. Like a Future Stroke And Diabetes parade. If I were ever going to hand out nutrition information leaflets, I think I would start at IKEA. Not that I'm the picture of health or anything myself; my BMI sets me comfortably in the Overweight range and if I get any more sedentary I think I might qualify as a pet rock. BUT... it was bad. It made me worry about Oregon and the health of her citizens. How is it possible that we're so fat as a state when we're living in one of the greatest places on earth for sport (where it's 59 degrees at night in the goddamned summer!)?
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