One of several men with whom I share a shower.

I read a hilarious article a while back about the realities of bird ownership, and, until two weeks ago, thought that the answer to the question on bathing would forever describe how our birds felt about our attempts to get them wet. When we would try to approach any of them with the spray bottle or bring them to the shower, they would shiver in terror and fling themselves to the floor. Once we got them into the shower, they would clamp down their feathers so tightly that the water would merely bead up and roll off, like off of a freshly waxed car. But, as one of the most important things that a bird owner can do to help keep their birds' feathers in good condition is bathe them, we kept trying.

On a recent morning when Cyril seemed particularly dry and dusty, was losing a large number of feathers and was bristly with new ones, I thought I'd help ease his suffering a bit by drenching him to the nostrils. Apparently, molting is a pretty crappy, itchy process and the water helps to soothe the skin. I brought him into the bathroom with me on his portable stand and set him on the edge of the tub. Now, ever since I taught him to wave for a treat, he picks up his left foot and touches his beak whenever he sees something he wants. He also turns around in a circle, just like we taught him, thinking logically that a treat will follow, that smart chicken. So, I'm in the shower, and he's waving and spinning and leaning towards the water, which I'd never seen him do, so I picked up the perch and brought him close to the spray. He spread his wings, fluffed up all his feathers, opened his mouth and stuck his head underneath the showerhead. He delightedly shook and fluffed and flapped and squacked and drank and was so happy that, when I tried to move him so I could take a shower myself, he kept yelling and leeeeeeeaning and flying back to me and tangling himself in my hair. I must have held him in the spray for ten minutes. Of course, Christian was in Whistler for a work trip, so he missed the little show. I kept hoping that Cyril would want to shower again, but in the times that I had brought him to the bathroom since, he hadn't shown much interest, until yesterday. I always say good morning to the birds as soon as I get up, and I noticed that Cyril seemed twitchier than usual, so I got the perch and took him to the bathroom, hoping that he'd want to shower. As soon as I set him down on the tub, he started to lean and wave and turn. When I turned on the shower, he fluffed up and started to pace, so impatient. I picked him up on his perch, got in and stuck him under the showerhead. Thankfully, Christian was home this time and caught the bliss on film:

He refused to leave the shower until he was so wet that his tail feathers were dripping. You've never seen anything so scraggly as a wet parrot's ear hole. I then, of course, had to give him a little blow dry, which he also loves, and, like a dog, tries to eat the air as it's blowing in his face. I only use the low setting, of course. He was still slightly damp when I got home. I'm hoping that I can get him to run through the sprinklers this summer.

I know.

I know! Geez, I've been working on a painfully horrifying enormous grant that is due next week but will most likely kill me beforehand due to the stress of it and not being able to sleep because I dream about trainee tables taunting me because no one ever wants to give me their information and I have to beg and promise cookies and ask my bosses to go after people to find out from where Bob Smith recieved his bachelor's degree thirty years ago and I've had La Boheme which will seemingly never end either because this is the longest opera run in creation and I really hate this show anyway so it's just torture to hear the same shite over and over again five nights a week (at least the money is good) and we have birthday parties and baptisms this weekend and a cheese festival that I'm probably going to have to miss although that makes me cry because I love cheese more than life itself and we have to go to Eugene next weekend to meet Sasha and I'm taking the following week off to recover but I have a travel class I don't know if I should reschedule because they only happen every few months but I want to stay in Eugene to take Sasha to the vet to get her checked out (we can't have her if she'd make the poopers sick) and I haven't had the time/energy to vacuum and Mom and Dad are staying with us this weekend and oh shit, I forgot to change the bedsheets in the guest room and I haven't planted the tomatoes, pumpkins and cucumbers we bought last weekend and they're going to die and WHEN THE HELL will I get a chance to do that? Oh yeah, NEVER.

Project Object

I could spend the rest of my life just knitting for the boys.



With models this cute, I could make a killing selling baby knitwear. I love this little sweater. Love. It. I wanted to carry it around with me in my pocket and take it out occasionally when in a bad mood. Of course, the hat was too small for the giant head. I think I should start taking orders now.

A birdly update.

I've been emailing back and forth with the coordinator of the Eugene Exotic Bird Rescue about Sasha, the second mini-macaw they have at their rescue. She is tame, but somewhat cage territorial, as many birds are. That's an easy fix, though, with patience and persistence. Samantha, it seems, will need special care for the rest of her life as she has never been handled or trained. She would, unfortunately, be beyond our capabilities as bird owners. We have made plans to travel to Eugene over Memorial Day weekend to meet Sasha and be interviewed for taking her home. Adopting a rescued parrot is not for the timid or easily intimidated. We have to sit through a rigorous cross-examination, have a home inspection and attend a pet care/behavior class in Oregon before we can bring her home.

I'm always nervous when contemplating getting a new pet. I don't want to neglect Cyril or the little poopers, and I don't want to keep adding to the zoo to satisfy some inner need to be loved. I also don't want to be those people who don't have a square inch of home not occupied by an animal of some sort. I think that ship has sailed, however. The new cage for the little ones is, of course, massively humongously oversized, and removes any sense that we had decor in our house before we started decorating with feathers and poop. I simply cannot wait to remodel. We're going to build a sun room onto the back of the house, behind the kitchen, where the bird cages will go, surrounded by plants and chairs and near a dedicated sink. This plan is all that's keeping me going right now. I can't live in a pet shop forever, despite all evidence to the contrary. I just hope everyone will still want to come over. I'm getting a little embarrassed.

Over.

It's all over. The other driver in my birthday accident has signed a release of claim. It's done. No more threat of legal action. It's appropriately sunny out right now.

Let the betting commence.

Meet Samantha. She has gimpy feet. The parrotlets will be getting separate cages, which means the other half of the large cage will be free. One of you stands to make a tidy sum of money betting against how long it will take me to wear down Christian. I'd give it a month.

Sucking it up.

I really do hate auditioning. Every time I have an audition, I think of a million reasons why I should cancel, i.e., I don't know my music well enough, they won't ever cast me, I'm too chubby for any role, I'll get nervous and forget my words, blah blah blah. A few days before auditions, I get so nervous that I have trouble sleeping and am a wretched cow to Christian. I get convinced that I don't know what I'm doing and that the auditors are going to roll their eyes and tap their pens and say "thank you!" pointedly in the middle of my first phrase. Then, I show up at the audition (well, today's audition) and the auditors are SO NICE and friendly and amazingly cool and chatty and hilarious that I'm not nervous and I actually sing OK, and it doesn't matter if I don't get cast because I feel good about how I did. Mostly. If I don't think too much about how I sang. Shit. How did I sing?

A fox in every fable.

A few years ago, we went to Flatstock at Bumbershoot, where I fell in love with the prints of Eleanor Grosch, a rock poster artist who was not only adorable but incredibly talented. She has done many series of posters of varying artisty subjects, but her posters of Aesop's fables had me drooling. There were only two in the series of four left by the time I got to her booth, so I bought "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Fox and the Crane". Christian recently bought the 2006 Print Annual, and lo and behold, there were two of the prints, which I can now say are award winning when people ask about them. I couldn't remember Eleanor's name, and so I never got to see the series until now. I cannot stand that "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" and "The Fox and the Crow" are sold out and I cannot add them to my sad little art collection. It took me two years to get the prints I do own framed, but now that they are and they look so gorgeous, I want all of them. All. And she has prints of birds. Be afraid, Chris. Be afraid.

Not so crumbly, anymore.

My hair is blonde, my house is clean, we booked our December trip to Disney World (and the Travel Channel is having a Disney World program marathon tomorrow), I bought pretty fabric to make my first dress, I finished my first solo grant budget and Shelly brought me a cookie. Improvment is noted.

My world, she is crumbling.

The Steel Pig on 89th and Aurora is closing. I dyed my hair a catastrophic color. The weather continues cold and soul-crushing. Christian gets to go bowling during work while I try to figure out why my NEA never got processed and why I'm being told only five days in advance that a budget is closing. The sweater I've been knitting Christian for six months is coming out too small. I have no solo gigs lined up for the indeterminate future. I need a cookie.

Chicken on the Brain

We took Cyril for his teeny tiny head x-ray last Saturday. We were told to leave before the procedure and go to breakfast and they would call us when it was over. I think they didn't want me standing in the waiting room wringing my hands, muttering and asking if that horrible shriek I just heard was my sweet baby without whom I'd be nothing and could I please go into the back and hold him while they did the x-ray? I'd wear a lead vest and hold him very still. No? Fine.

We did go to breakfast, but came back before they called as I couldn't stand it any longer. They had to file his beak after the x-ray and, before we left to eat, had luridly described the procedure as if it had been devised in the mind of Pinochet (they made it out to involve a vice and an industrial metal file) just to set me at ease. I love being mocked by medical professionals. It makes me place such confidence in their skills. Anyway, he came through the anesthetic for the x-ray fine, but they had to resedate him during the filing (with no vice, thankfully) as he was too worked up to be held still (the office manager, David-with-the-lovely-accent, told me later that he went to the back to comfort Cyril because he was hollering so much), and they had to remove quite a bit of beak to correct his bite problem. I have never seen an animal look so betrayed and confused as when they brought him back out after it was all done. His slightly drugged expression made him look exactly like the big-eyed children in 60's velvet art. His beak looked beautiful, all even and pretty, but the vet told us that it looked as though he had a problem with the joint that made his jaw too loose, which would explain the overgrowth and his constant yawning and scratching of his jaw. The radiologist who read the x-ray would later confirm that the filing could correct the problem and it wouldn't become permanent, which was a relief.

We found out on the trip to the vet the first time that Cyril gets carsick in the back seat (the similarities between him and me are now getting slightly disturbing), so he rode on Christian's shoulder on the drive home, swaying slightly but letting us scratch him in what I assume was a comforting way. He recovered completely, though, with the unexpected bonus (in his mind) of now having a much sharper beak with which he can chew through his hateful flight suit. Pictures of that hilarity will be forthcoming.

My boobs, stage left.

A fellow singer posted on the Forum that a photo from the Tacoma Opera production of Beatrice et Benedict in which I played Ursula is on the homepage of Opera America, the industry's main organization. That is my gleaming white chest next to the head of the ingenue. Hey, I'll take fame any way I can get it.

Why do the Ides have to be in March?

Would the Ides of June just not sound as threatening?

Lest you think we are neglecting the birds...

I give you chicken helper:

He's very useful to have around the house. He's a far more effective paper shredder than, well, the paper shredder. And this is his reward:

Well, my reward, anyway. He's not overly fond of the snorgle.

We recently made a purchase that we're hoping will contribute to Cyril's portability and cleanliness:

Yes, that little hole goes over the waste disposal unit, and the discs of cotton are, well, diapers. Do you want to see a tutorial of how to use this suit? Go here. Prepare to laugh hysterically thinking about how it will not be remotely that easy to get that thing on Cyril.

Oh, and by the way, he has to have a head x-ray on Saturday. Yes, a head x-ray. A little, tiny head x-ray. Apparently, the crooked beak could be a bone abnormality. Say it with me. A bird. head. x. ray. Imagine the little lead vest.

It's a special gift.

Not everyone could lock themselves IN their car, necessitating crawling over the emergency brake into the passenger seat while in a dress and heels to be able to get out.

Why, oh why did I get out of bed this morning?

Nope, not possible.

It's simply not possible for a child to be this adorable.



Three for three, I'd say.

February Lows

I've been feeling very low as of late, with the unresolved accident and the dismal weather, so I haven't been able to muster much energy to post a brilliant and ripping description of my England trip, but I was recently given two bits of post-worthy hilarity to keep me going:

1. Every time Sandra Lee flashes her cleavage, the portal separating our world and Hell cracks open a little wider. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so.

2. We banned the Electric Slide from our wedding reception. I'm glad, as it could have engendered a lawsuit if we posted the video online.

Ah, American culture. You never fail to give me succor in times of woe.

I'll give you irony, Alanis.

I just found an amazing and apparently quite fabulous retailer of women's boots that lists and carries sizes by foot and calf size. Good God. It's like my these designers have been shopping with me and wanted to ease my pain. I wish I had known about it before I went to England as their original shop is in BATH. I was eating buns when I could have been buying boots. There is no justice.

Why I hate professional sports.

There will be more about England when I have time to post with pictures. However, I learned a very valuable lesson on my flights home yesterday. When flying with a stopover, don't ever fly through a city whose football team is playing in the superbowl, especially if you have to collect your baggage, clear customs and reenter the airport through baggage check, take the train to another terminal and THEN pass through security, because no one will be there to perform any of the jobs that make the above mentioned things possible.

Apparently, all vital staff either called in sick to work or would only do their proscribed duties between plays or during commercials. Only four immigration officers were working, though a weekend, our bags were unloaded only a few at a time and over an hour was spent waiting at the carousel while passengers escalated in anger and frustration, as most of us had short windows of time in which to catch our connecting flights, only six people were working the bag re-check once through customs, only one horrible woman was working information and no one was directing passengers to their proper terminals once through customs, as the terminal we flew in to was only international flights and all other domestic flights were in one of three other terminals accessible only by train. With only moments to spare, I made it to my flight, only to wait for an hour on the plane as bags were being loaded by most likely only one person, who must have used merely one arm as the other one was, to all probability, occupied by vigorous fist-pumping and high fiving. Then, the airport was apparently unable to find anyone to push the plane back from the gate to allow us to get underway. We made it to Seattle a half hour late, exhausted, dirty and frustrated.

I will now become precisely that type of person with whom I could never sympathisize: one who purchases a direct ticket despite the savings of many dollars on a flight with a stop over.

Walt Disney World, November 11-18, 2006: Day 5

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The day dawned bright and warm. And muggy, which felt really good on my poor lungs. Seriously, this stupid infection needs to die. Perfect for exposing ourselves to the elements. After a short bus ride to Typhoon Lagoon, and emergency purchases of shades and waterproof sunscreen, it was time to face the lines of other exposed bodies.

C: I likened it to the popular notion of nudist colonies: fantasy vs. reality. You quickly realize that you’re seeing way too much of EVERY kind of body, young and old, thin and thick.

There were some unfortunate bathing suit choices as well. Muffin tops are not a product of pants alone. Every bathing suit bottom on both men and women needed to be about two inches higher. People, your natural waist is not your enemy. I also realized that there is no such thing as a perfect body. How people look in clothes is wildly different than how they look in no clothes. Even the thinnest women looked gaunt and crepey. The only people who look truly good in bathing suits are the young. Women try their entire lives to look just as they did as a 16-year-old, but it really is impossible. And smoking REALLY doesn’t help. Man, a lot of people smoke.

But, the slides and attractions themselves were very fun. C:

We chose not to go on only the “Humunga Cowabunga” which is one of those “get in a tube and drop straight down 3 stories into a tub of water” rides that we tried in Edmonton and were not amused. It’s more of a “Dude, I am so going to impress you” rides. It’s a wedgie factory. Not comfortable. The highlight for me was the wave machine area, where a giant wave gushes at you every few minutes. I can sort of understand the “despite it all, our kids had the best time at the hotel pool” stories. It was a relatively relaxing trip. Then back to the hotel for a nap. Felt good.

I have to admit that I wasn’t in the best mood all day. It was the fourth day crash after having hit the parks for twelve hours a day the previous three days in a row. Also, being in a bathing suit makes me anxious and makes me feel too exposed. However, the park was very pretty and the new “roller coaster” waterslide was a hoot.

After showering and napping, thank God, we wanted to get all of our shopping for ourselves and everyone else done, so we hopped the bus to Downtown Disney for dinner and a huge amount of spending. We ate at the Earl of Sandwich, which was surprisingly good, despite the plethora of cranky hillbilly ladies. Man, in the past two days, we’ve seen more hillbillies than you can shake a stick at.

Now, if you’ve never been to the World of Disney, you’ve missed the biggest tantrum-inducing, consumer temple the brilliant merchandising minds at Disney have ever produced. The good thing about that store, though, is that you can get everything in one place. So, shopping accomplished, we wanted to see a movie as we haven’t seen one in, well, more months than I can remember, so we decided on Borat, and sweet holy God, it was so hilarious and excruciating. I won’t get the image of two grappling naked men out of my head. Gack.

We were so bloody exhausted by the end of the movie that we took the bus back to the resort and fell dead asleep almost immediately. There’s nothing like fresh sheets when you’re really tired.

Walt Disney World, November 11-18, 2006 Day 4

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

We again experienced that strange sensation of unexpected fatigue this morning after only being up until 1 last night. I mean, geez, what happened to us? We just couldn’t get out of bed. We scheduled Epcot for today, and left the hotel at around 10:30 AGAIN, getting to the park at 11. We left the resort without eating breakfast, but I at least remembered to get coffee, and man, what a difference. Now, Epcot is divided into two sections; Future World and the World Showcase. Future World is basically that, with rides on the furthest edge of realistic technology (differing from Tomorrowland in that TL is all fantastical inventions with little basis in current science; Future World uses existing technology in a fancier way than most people would see every day). (C: Or in other words it’s a place where science fiction becomes…science fact!) There are many rides and shows in Future World, the most important, in Christian’s mind, being Mission: Space. I don’t know if you’ve all heard about Mission: Space, but it’s quite the thing. It’s only two years old and is a bit of a leap in Disney ride planning. The ride building houses two enormous centrifuges, with four seater “cockpits” fixed onto the outside of each, containing seats, video screens and buttons and gadgets to seem like a shuttle command module. The storyline is that guests are new trainees for the flight to Mars, and have to help pilot the ship. Now, the ride is a motion simulator, but with one added feature. When the ride film shows the ship taking off, the centrifuge begins to spin, and creates the same G forces as a liftoff. The ride proved to be very intense, much more intense than Disney and most of the early riders anticipated, and much vomiting ensued, not to mention a few heart attacks and one very sad death due to a previously undiagnosed heart condition. Consequently, another version of the ride was added, so one of the several centrifuges doesn’t spin, merely runs the film and moves in a motion simulator manner. We had two very adorable and befuddled elderly people in our cockpit. However, I now realize that taking even the weenie side was a stupid, stupid decision. I hate motion simulators. Hate, hate hate. I used to be able to ride my beloved Star Tours over and over, but one ill-fated ride on Back to the Future at Universal ruined my ability to enjoy a simulator ever again. Thank God I hadn’t had breakfast yet as it would have been money wasted. Still, the graphics and set are pretty well done. At least, I think they are. I was a little too queasy to pay too much attention.

As we hadn’t eaten breakfast (see above), and had eaten nothing resembling breakfast in the preceding two days, we skipped the remainder of Future World and made out for the World Showcase, which is basically a thinly-veiled means of putting all the Americanized versions of exotic fare in one place in the guise of a permanent World’s Fair. It’s beautiful and charming and completely sanitized. Canada, the UK, France (with much joking about the proximity of the two, separated only by a mock English Channel), Morocco, America, Italy, Germany, Japan, Norway, Mexico and China, all boiled down to maple syrup and mounties, fish and chips, pastries and perfume, fezes and belly dancing, funnel cakes and presidents, fettucini alfredo and Carnival, beer and crystal, anime and sushi, trolls and Vikings, Acapulco and guacamole and, finally, acrobats and a pagoda. This isn’t quite the order of the pavilions, but we made it to them all, and loved every one of them. There was a particularly hilarious show in the UK about King Arthur, sort of, held in the street between the tea shop (Hobnobs!) and the heraldic shop, involving reluctant audience members dressed up and asked to ride imaginary horses, which the absurdly macho guy playing Galahad wouldn’t do. He only wanted to saunter. His poor wife.

But back to breakfast. Now, I’m a pastry whore. I’d give my virtue for a Napoleon. So, it was only logical that we had to eat in France, where nothing has ever tasted so good as the Napoleon (virtue intact, though), amandine, ham and cheese croissant and cheese plate we snarfed. I don’t know what it is about French pastry cream, but it’s sweet without being insulin-shock inducing, creamy without being greasy and filling without being gut-busting. The poor French boy CM that had to watch us eat must have had every evil, gluttonous American stereotype reinforced, and I totally don’t care. At the end of my life, I’ll remember those pastries.

Each pavilion has some real beauty, and offers a non-threatening way for xenophobic Americans to get a tiny taste of other cultures. I hope that some of the show makes other guests want to go to China, as I now want to do. We need our minds broadened. If only they served real Chinese food and not sweet n’ sour chicken, but one thing at a time.

There were some surprisingly authentic things about the pavilions, such as the astonishing mosaics in Morocco, commissioned by Disney and done by Moroccan artists sent by the Moroccan government as emissaries, a sod roof in Norway, sans goat, and some almost disturbingly young acrobats in China. Hello, bordering on exploitation, anyone? However, the almost appallingly awful El Rio del Tiempo in the Mexico pyramid sort of set the realistic meter back a few. Fortunately, the kitch factor made the ride quite enjoyable.

I actually could have done with a few more hours to linger more, but we had reservations at Le Cellier, the steakhouse in Canada. Thank God I listened to the other obsessive compulsives at the Disboards. Reservations were a must on this trip, even in the off-season. We wanted to hit one or two more rides before dinner, and the second of the three new rides at Epcot was open late, the new Finding Nemo attraction at the Living Seas. Both Christian and I were just so tickled by this ride. You hop into a clam-mobile, much like a Doombuggy, and ride past sets and rear-projected screens detailing the newest adventures of Mr. Lucky Fin, and it was just lovely, and sweet without being toothachey. And why do they have manatees? Oh yeah, because THEY’RE THE CUTEST CREATURES IN THE SEA. I love them so and want to jump in and hug and kiss them and make all of their problems go away. They make me want to cry with their sweet, innocent faces and auto-valve nostrils. Giant pooperheads.

Sniff. Anyway, we were so tired by dinner that we honestly didn’t know if we’d make it, but Godalmightlyinheavenabove, am I glad we did. I want to die by drowning in their cheese soup. The filet mignon was the best I’ve had, and yes, that includes Daniel’s Broiler, and the crème brulee sampler was, well, burnt sugar bliss. The restaurant is housed in a faux cellar, go fig, and was cozy and romantic and not at all designed to keep us awake. Lovely, but not lively. Still, wonderful and I’m glad we went.

However, shopping when exhausted already and ready to lapse into a meat coma is a really, really terrible idea. We did find some gifts, but had forgotten how to speak by the time we left. We were reduced to grunts and hysterical giggles.

But, a charming and happy, happy day all ‘round. I have decided that Epcot is groovy and neat in all things, even in, well, especially in the glossiness. We had some lovely conversations with CM in environments sort of vaguely like their home countries, and the day was gorgeous. A wonderful fourth day of vacation and third day in the parks. And we were only witness first hand to six tantrums. Still, until today I had never actually seen a child flail and thrash quite that dramatically. That kid should have a career on stage.

Tomorrow: Me in a bathingsuit at the water park. Gack. Be prepared for hysterical sobbing. The watusi cattle outside say good night.

DisneyWorld Diary Day 3

Continuing on from last month (sorry, got distracted with December Drama), here's more of our Disney vacation diary:

Day 3
Monday, Nov. 13, 2006

It seems that staying up late the previously night has the unexpected result of making us tired the next morning. Go figure! As Magic Kingdom is really THE park, the original, the most magical and ride-packed, we wanted to spend a good chunk of time there, so that was our first park in the morning. Well, sort of morning. We made it there around 11. Of course, I had to get IN to the park, which was much more difficult than usual. I’m utterly cursed. My card didn’t work the previous night, and so I replaced it back at the hotel, and the NEW card didn’t work either. Growl. Thankfully, the CM just ran and got me a temporary card. All the rides were walk-ons AGAIN; Space Mountain, 10 minutes. Splash Mountain, 20 minutes, Winnie the Pooh, 50 minutes (although we didn’t bother to wait in line for that one. 50 minutes?? Forget about it). Yeah, what the heck is with that? We ate, and can I tell you, every place that sells burgers should have sauté pans of onions and mushrooms next to the ketchup. It took us a while to get going, but we also wanted to actually SEE the parks rather than merely run through screaming KEEP GOING!! WE NEED TO MAKE MEMORIES, DAMN IT! This time, we just watched other people do that. Can I just mention, though, that Christian apparently has a tantrum filter that I don’t possess? He also has a muffin top filter. Why do I notice these things? We did decide to keep track of all of the hilarious/terrible/memorable things other guests said while touring. The first one that we actually noted was yesterday on the Jungle Cruise when a woman said to her mother that her husband and daughter were currently on Pirates of Penzance. Of course, they were also the ones who held up the ENTIRE line so said husband and daughter could catch up.

I find Tomorrowland a little depressing if I’m in it too long, as the fine detailing and beautiful architecture of the other lands is so spoiling, so I made Christian leave after we saw Buzz (again with the crappy scores) and Stitch’s Great Escape, which was much more amusing than advertised, and made scornful comments about the “High School Musical” pep rally. We made the enormous mistake of using the bathrooms in Fantasyland (at 3 pm, prime tantrum hour) but REALLY wanted to go on Splash Mountain, my perpetual favorite ride, but we forgot our ponchos we bought for $.89 at Target before leaving home, so we had to beg for Mickey Mouse ponchos, and had to also swear that we weren’t just using them for exactly the purpose for which we WERE going to use them. I wanted to shake my finger at the little clerk and tell him that, if he had spent the first day of his honeymoon in wet underwear, and not for any good reason, that he would buy a poncho, too. The ride broke down, but we spent the half hour waiting (yes, whoopee do as the first time I rode Splash we waited two and a half hours) talking to an adorable and extremely well-spoken young girl and her younger sister, who kept us amused by stories of their hillbilly hometown. Other people were jumping ship, not wanting to wait for the ride to be back up again, but we knew that the line would be all the shorter because of it, and we should just wait. You know, I really am so cynical about some things, but that damn ride kills me every time. I’m usually grinning like an idiot and giggling at the bees and swinging, singing possums. Worth the wait. We had to leave the park at around 6, as we had a 7:50 pm dinner at the 50’s Prime Time Café at MGM, and then stay for the Extra Magic Hours.

I have to say that the whole Evening Extra Magic Hours, while wonderful and a really efficient use of time, they would have been much more useful when I was in my 20’s. I’m so old and fat that I have no stamina any more. However, dinner was delightful. The food was fine, but the diner is designed to look like 50’s kitchen interiors, and the waitstaff acts as your mother/sister/cousin and lectures you to eat your vegetables, gets mad if you tell on them (our waitress stole our silverware from another table and we were tricked into telling on her and boy, did we get an earful!) and generally acts like a louder version of a normal family. (Christian: I also accidentally touched a waitress as she was speeding by with one of my grandious, ill-timed arm gestures. For the rest of the evening she would yell “coming through” and “don’t touch me!” anytime she passed by to the kitchen.) Apparently, it used to be much more boisterous, according to our dining room neighbor. Guests would be made to stand in the corner, wouldn’t get dessert until they ate their vegetables, would have to sing a song about elbows on the table if caught, etc. It’s still a pretty hilarious place to eat dinner.

We made it on Tower of Terror, which is just such a brilliant ride, Rockin’ Rollercoaster (0-60 in 2.8 seconds, not 2.3.), Magic of Animation, the Great Movie Ride and browsed through the shops in the two hours we had remaining after dinner. I had a epiphianic moment when I realized that I need caffeine and Tylenol to make it through the evening. As I usually have an IV tea drip on most days of the week, I can’t figure out why it took me two days to figure out why I was cranky in the morning.

When the park closed, we made one of those idiotic mistakes that make your feet seem to decide that they simply no longer want to be associated with your body and suddenly hurt so much that you know for certain that they’re just torturing you because they can. We ended up having to make a huge and ill-advised loop around all of the bus stops because we went the wrong way out of the park gates. God, we were tired. We made it back to the resort and crashed like the sugar-crazed children we are.

We cannot let the lorises down.

There is nothing on earth more calculated to pierce you through the heart than a tiny, big-eared mammal, neglected by the scientific and ecological community, brushing the edges of extinction and so rare that only one or two have ever even been photographed. Now, add 99 more of his or her strange and wonderful bedfellows, and you get this.

Now, it's not only the painfully adorable and absurdly fluffy that are in real danger of being lost to development, toxicity and deforestation. Take a long look at little Mr. Marsupial Mole. Furry, but odd and slightly disturbing. And yet, I still want to fly to Australia, find him in the desert, put him in my pocket and bring him home with me. I'll build him a habitat just like the one we built for Gwendolyn, except sandier. I'll pet his little leathery face and give him bugs on which to chew.

And Mr. Slender Loris? This guy is related to the peanut in my avatar, my favorite animal at the zoo, little bowling ball butt, Senor Stinky, Mr. Mouthful of Stuff that Makes You Itch. I cannot forget him, upon whom Golum is OBVIOUSLY modeled, right down to the opposable thumbs and long spindly middle finger. Him, I'll let sleep in my bed. He can use my blankie I've had since I was two. Those knobby arms need something cozy. I'll knit him a sweater, maybe. It's cold here in the winter.

We'll be visible from space.

This is the first of two hats I'm knitting for my England trip with the Jujinator.



Julie will wear this one, whereas my hat will be purple with a red pattern. This way, if one of us gets lost in a peat bog, we'll be really obvious to rescuers.

I am the beastmaster.

We rock the clicker training. I've already taught Fritz and Cyril to turn around in a little circle on command. Cyril picked it up almost immediately, which was surprising, not because he's not smart, but because he has the attention span of a long bean. The video is done in the style of crappy/blurry as we took it using the regular camera instead of the video camera, as the VC is no longer compatible with modern computers. It WAS cutting edge when we bought it seven years ago. This shall be a good excuse to buy a new one.

I shall wear a top hat and satin pants to lead my circus.

I'm a winner!

It depresses me how excited I am that I won Zuma on Sunday night. Is this the greatest accomplishment of my life? No, but still, I WON ZUMA! Take that, sun god.

In other news, I've started training the birds using a clicker, which, if you've watched The Dog Whisperer, you know what I'm talking about. But then, you've watched TDW and should be ashamed.

The theory is that you use the clicker as a "bridge stimulus" to let your animal know that what he's done is correct and a treat will follow shortly. Now, clicker training is heavily dependent upon the reward system, which only works if your animal likes rewards. Cyril will work with me and take his rewards for about five minutes and then he gets fed up and wants to go back to his cage. Pierre hardly eats anything and will only take a seed an hour from my hand, but Fritz, he surprised me. He let me work with him for a half hour and was such a little champ that, by the time we were done with our session, he'd let me touch his back without biting me and he would turn halfway around to get a seed.

I want to teach them all to play dead, pull a bucket up for a treat, pick up their toys and fly to me on command. I shall then open a circus and charge admission to earn back the money we've spent on bird treats.

Three hours I'll never get back.

In an effort to stave off escalating panic regarding the accident on my birthday and our insufficient insurance coverage, I tried to win Zuma last night by starting at the beginning to stockpile lives and try to get to the end with lives to spare. It's my life in a nutshell right now that I lost on my last life, on the last level, with four balls left. I hope this isn't an omen.

Spoiled, and undeservedly so.

Why are some Christmases so much better than others? This Christmas was, well, just really fantastic. The lovely in-laws came down on Christmas Eve, and we spend a hilarious and hysteria filled evening with the family at Mark and Shan's, watching the kidlets do laps around the kitchen, dining room and living room, screaming in glee from the effects of sugar, avarice and Yuledite cheer. I love watching little kids open presents. They get so excited just when they see the first corner of the box they start quivering and shrieking before they even know what it is. We gave Kyan a little shopping cart, which he pushed around for the rest of the night, picking up all the toys and accessories he could find, like a 1950s housewife. He just needed the pearls and a twinset.

We open presents Christmas Day, and I don't know what Christian was thinking when he went shopping, but I got not only a Compact Oxford English Dictionary, but a Bernina sewing machine. Now, most women wouldn't really like to receive a dictionary and an item of domestic importance for Christmas, but this is THE dictionary to end all dictionaries and the sewing machine, it has an AUTOMATIC NEEDLE THREADER. I don't have to lick my thread and get the point of the needle stuck in my finger when I feel the need to hem something. I no longer need to knit my sweaters together as I can now sew them (after they've been blocked on the blocking board I received from said lovely in-laws), and make a tidy, shiny, pretty, neat and fancy edge that will never unravel. And, using my loupe that weighs about seven pounds, I can look up the definition, etymology and first known written example of each digitally programmable stitch I use.

I'm very excited. I now truly am Little Suzy Homemaker.

Still in the running.

As most of you already know, I was in a car accident on my birthday, last Wednesday. It was a collision with a man on a Vespa while I was turning left across Aurora to get to Steel Pig for a birthday pork sandwich. The other driver was apparently fine, which is a miracle, but due to HIPAA regulations, the police were unable to give me his name or the name of the hospital where the ambulance took him. I have not heard about his state, but the paramedics were fairly certain he wasn't seriously hurt. It was an accident, pure and simple, as the two stopped lanes of traffic that gestured for me to turn kept me from seeing the man, who was very small in stature and was hidden behind the hoods and roofs of the lanes of traffic. It was horrible, and I never want to have anything like that happen to anyone I know. I additionally and not as importantly missed my Seattle Opera principal audition. I had a hard time thinking about this audition the day it was supposed to take place and for several days afterward, as the welfare of the man on the scooter kept my mind pretty much occupied, but once the worst of the anxiety after the accident was past, I became more and more upsent that I had missed my chance to be heard for real roles with such an important house. I thought that I wouldn't get a chance to be heard again until the next round of auditions in two years time, but I was told tonight that, despite not having sung for the General Director, I would still be considered for appropriate roles.

'Tis the season to be jolly.

Welcome to the world, Blewett 3.0.

Declan Joseph Blewett was born to my brother, Mark, and his wife, Shannon, yesterday:














The little burrito is another behemoth, weighing 9 pounds, five ounces at birth. I think whatever the hospital bathes new babies in should be classified as an illegal substance due to its mind-altering properties. Has anything ever smelled as good as him? No.

My parents and Shannon's parents are all in town to help. Mom and Dad are staying with us, and I awoke this morning to Mom standing on the stepstool in the kitchen, the contents of my entire spice/tea cupboard spread on the counter and Mom scrubbing the shelves and reorganizing all the contents by type and frequency of use. "This is fun!" she said. She then wanted to iron my clothes and I'm wondering what the house will look like when I get home. Will she have reupholstered the couch? Remodeled the bathroom? Who knows. Anything is possible.

An indigestible problem.

Cut it out, tie it up, fill it with sand and have the Fire Department decommssion it, I don't care. I just want someone to fix my stomach so I don't have reflux anymore. Singing today felt as though I had sandpaper glued to my cords, rough side down. I feel like I always have to clear my throat, acid bubbles constantly nto my esophagus and I feel wheezy all the time as my trachea is irritated.

I'm going in to a new doctor next week to have an upper endoscopy, a pressure test and a 24 hour pH monitor. I'll then have a consultation with the doctor to see if I'm a good candidate for hiatal hernia repair surgery. Cross your fingers for me.

If only we had loam instead of oak.

When I get home from work, the first thing I do is let Cyril out of his cage. I hear the rustling and impatience as soon as I open the door. The top of his cage has a "playtop" held open by a wooden perch, which he only sits on when we wants to be the highest being in the room. He usually waddles over to the little birds' cage and flaps for a few minutes, whether to establish that he could, in fact, gobble them up with one bite (although he's afraid of Fritz since the great October toe-biting incident) or to exercise, I don't know. He then climbs back into his cage, retrieves a pellet, climbs back out again and perches on the very front of the top of the cage and eats the pellet, holding it in his three toed foot, occasionally losing his balance from leaning over too far while trying to catch a glimpse of me in the kitchen, as I may be making him up a sumptous meal of beans and cooked squash. Mmmmm. Lima beans. He looks like a little spectator at a ball game, eating popcorn with one hand (foot) while watching the game with the one eye not facing the back wall. It must be hard to have monocular vision.

When we bought our first bird, all the books warned of the parrot blast radius. As parrotlets are so tiny, the amount of mess they created was equally tiny. However, Cyril is a medium size bird and makes a medium sized mess, right in front of his cage; a constant rain of bits of pellet, bits of his breakfast, bits of treats from the previous night, all in a little, filthy pile in front of his cage, into which I step every time I walk by, and then track into other parts of the house. I find broken pieces of nut shell in the bathroom, and not from my own consumption. Now, I know that the biological purpose of this disturbingly barbaric means of eating is to ensure future generations of the jungles and forests that are parrots' natural habitats, but my living room does not need to be planted. The food he eats wouldn't be good for growing anything, anyway. Well, maybe the squash. It grows well in Seattle living rooms, I hear.

I won't have to draw a line up the back of my leg.

I was browsing through Interweave looking at the impractical and odd designs, and a little article about the knitting exhibt at the V&A caught my eye. Scroll down to the bottom and note that there is a pattern to knit fishnet stockings. Yes, FISHNET STOCKINGS. I must knit them. They'll hurt the soles of my feet and leave little liney imprints on my legs, but I'll have KNIT them. Myself. And then I'll have to knit the balaclava for Christian. It's just so "defending the homefront".

Walt Disney World, November 11-18, 2006

Sunday, Nov. 12, 2006
Day 2

C: We started Day 2 at Animal Kingdom. First up upon rising was a dash to Expedition Everest (heretofore referred to as EE). We hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, but upon seeing a short line we decided “what the heck.” It was probably a wise decision in hind-site, as the ride was one of the more “extreme” rides in WDW. EE is, as usual, immaculately themed as a Himalayan base camp/Buddhist temple, with ratty prayer flags all over the place. Actually, quite dirty looking, but authentic. There are many sacred prayer bells hanging in the queue to reach up and clang. Or at least I did, prompting other teenagers behind me to do the same.

S: And every other person in line plotted how best to kill Christian for starting the cacophony.

C: We sat in line for about 35 minutes, which to date has been the longest line we’ve endured!

S: We found out that every line was shorter than the notice stated, and EE is a really fast loading ride, so the wait was really too short. I wanted to see the theming better.

C: After EE came “Flights of Wonder,” a live bird show.

S: And all of our friends gasp in shock! The Salases went to a bird show? I never would have thought it!

C: This has been my favorite attraction so far, as it featured…PARROTS! First we heard Oscar the amazing talking Amazon Parrot sing “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandee” and “Camp Town Racetrack (Oh, the Doo Dah Day),” complete with vibrato.

S: It was so adorable! I can’t even think of anything snarky to say about it. The handler had to follow his head with a microphone since he swung his head back and forth as he sang.

C: A buzzard buzzed within inches of our heads, and one lady held out a dollar bill at arm’s length for a bird to steal.

S: I wish I had been the volunteer as it was a rose breasted Cockatoo, one of my favorite birds, and I think I could have made it out with the bird in my arms before anyone noticed.

C: Finally a spectacled owl with enormous eyes came out and stared at us, and she was the outright champion of the staring contest, defeating all comers.

Other highlights were the Kilimanjaro Safari, in which we saw and photographed many an animal, (unfortunately blurry due to the bumpy ride), including the elusive lion, and “Dinosaur” in which we traveled back in time to save an iguanadon!

S: Same ride vehicle as Indiana Jones in Disneyland, more noise and fewer snakes and rolling boulders.

C: All rides and shows had mercifully short lines.

S: No kidding. Everything was a walk on and Fastpass machines weren’t even running.

C: God bless the off season! But one casualty is that we missed a lot of that special Disney theming. For instance we sprinted through the Yeti museum at EE so fast we couldn’t stop to read and even see most of the pieces. Poor us…

We then bought a Pal Mickey, which turned out to be well worth the $65 we paid for him.

S: I love him and feel the need to cuddle him constantly.

C: Pal Mickey reacts to microchips embedded around the park to inform us about where the short lines are around the park, locations of animals and fun facts. Our own personal tour guide. Case in point: as we were leaving Animal Kingdom for the day, Pal Mickey perked up and vibrated repeatedly, reminding us about the parrots and anteaters we should’ve been looking at. We looked around in confusion, and eventually found the somewhat hidden side exhibits of wallabies, pygmy deers, rhinoceros iguana and other exotic fare. Unfortunately we ran to the Macaw areas just after they had retired the birds for the night. But we shall be there again.

S: Apparently, they’re not caged and hop to and from their perches and the fences surrounding their enclosures. Hello, people, how am I supposed to refrain from kissing them?

C: Next it was back on the bus for a short trip to the Ticket & Transportation Center, and from thence onto the Monorail for another quick jaunt over to the Magic Kingdom. It’s always quite an emotional moment seeing those damn spires of Cinderella’s Castle, and Suzy shed a few tears.

S: Yes, I’m a giant weenie.

C: Walking onto main street, seeing the castle and the newly erected Christmas decorations was an amazing site.

S: And, I cried again. It’s just so GORGEOUS! And huge. Huge, huge, huge. And Gothic. Preeeeeety.

C: We got there for “Extra Magic Hours” around 6pm and thanks to our ticket package were eligible to stay until 11pm that evening.

S: Per tradition, we started with Pirates (our review of the Captain Jack additions is that you can barely tell. The animatronics are very, very good, and I didn’t feel that the storyline had been compromised. We went next to Big Thunder, which just so rocks…

C: … and then we ran onto Space Mountain, which turned out to be an excruciating experience of “almost but not quite.” We were all buckled in and heading down the track to the main coaster, when the ride shut down due to someone unloading too slowly, and stopping the whole ride. The long and the short of it was that they had to reset the ride, and turned the lights on to do it! It has been one of my dreams for the last few years to be able to see Space Mountain with the lights on. Unfortunately, we were still in the dark tunnel and stopped at the top of a short, dirty tunnel that led into the actual ride area. All I could see was a few tantalizing feet of wall at the end of the tunnel, bright in fully-lit glory! We sat in our little toboggan-like spacecars for about 20 minutes before the ride was reset and we could ride…with the lights off! If we had only walked a little faster…Ah well. I suppose the magic would’ve been ruined…

S: We unfortunately were kept company by CM Manly Cheesy Guy McKnowitall, who was quite the blustering buffoon. He didn’t even know that Rockin’ Rollercoaster goes from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds, not 2.3. Sheesh.

We had time for Buzz Lightyear (seriously pathetic scores all ‘round) and were so exhausted that we stumbled to the Monorail and back to the TTC to head back to the resort. Apparently, there is a gate slightly to the right of our view of the savannah and the animals migrate back and forth from our savannah to the neighboring one at night and in the early morning. We had gotten very lucky in that, every time we are in our room, we see giraffes and zebras and antelopes of all kinds and wildebeests and other wonderful creatures. Not the same thing as moving them from game park to game park, but the closest we’ll ever get without having to actually get dirty and sweaty.

I just can't bear it.

I know I'm a hypocrite. When I read a story like this, and get so crushed by it that I tear up whenever I think of the tiny parrotlets which were the first ones I ever saw in real life, I know that I should give up eating meat. I mean, a story in a David Sedaris book about how he tried to drown a mouse that had been injured but not killed in a mouse trap made me cry because of the mouse's suffering, so how can I still consume animals that are killed in more terrible ways than these poor creatures in either story? This is particularly timely the DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING. I love turkey, to eat, I mean. I don't love turkeys, per se, as pet-like animals in their own right, but how do I reconcile the love of one type of bird for my disregard of the welfare of another type? Maybe this is why we should all hunt for our food. If we had to look our dinner in the eye before shooting it, we'd eat a lot less meat. Of course, we'd never have to HUNT cows, as they are, well, stupid and would just stand there, but can't we kill them humanely? I could eat them, then. Raised humanely, killed humanely...wouldn't that solve the problem?

Walt Disney World, November 11-18, 2006

What will follow in the next few days is a day-by-day diary of our wonderful trip to WDW last week on our belated 5th anniversary trip. The "C:" is Christian's entries, the "S:" is mine.



Day 1
Saturday, Nov. 11, 2006
C: Whew. We made it. The travel went mostly without incident. The alarm rang at 5:30, and we stumbled out of bed. Rich and Shelly were nice enough to drive us to the airport. Unfortunately, after grabbing the boarding passes out of Suzy’s purse, I didn’t zip it closed and when she swung it ‘round, her Treo cell phone fell out onto the floor, pieces skittering in all directions. I quickly put it back together, but alas the screen now had a giant diagonal crack going through the middle of it, and the “touch screen” function was damaged so that only parts of the screen could be clicked on…Oy. We did enjoy a healthy breakfast of Wendy’s sausage muffins.

S: We then bought 4 magazines and 5 books for reading material. I’ve apparently been out of the book loop for a while as I had NO IDEA that Susannah Clarke and Jasper Fforde each had new books. The downside is that we now have to schlep the books around. One thing we learned was that we should always print our boarding passes at home from the internet. We got our boarding pass for “Group C” which boards after groups A and B, each of which have around 50 people. So we were forced to squeeze into the second to last row for flight #1 from Seattle to Chicago. If we ever manage to sleep on a flight, the heavens will crack open and pour down manna. And everyone needs to take a shower and wear clean clothes when they board a plan. The androgynous girl next to us had obviously not changed her enormous men’s jeans in weeks and she smelled faintly of poo. Yay.

C: After a lunch of hot dogs in Chicago (S: With neon green relish! Hooray for regional cuisine), we parked in the “B Group” line for the hour wait before boarding. We were miraculously rewarded with seats in the second row, thank God, as getting off at the end of the disembarkation process is very traumatic for me. All went well and we enjoyed watching Spinal Tap, while excited Disney World-bound children kicked the back of our seats (S: over, and over and over).

Our triumphant arrival in Orlando came some 12 hours later (3 hours added for the time change). We were supposed to use the “Magical Express” service to take us to the Animal Kingdom Hotel, but after asking two different people in the airport for directions, we were getting frustrated. But we pressed on and by the third person we were able to find it, in another concourse at the very end of the (very long) hallway. Suzy was ready to call a cab, but I wasn’t about to blow $30+ bucks when the Magical Express was already paid for in our package. So a 30 minute bus ride and inspirational video later...

S: which is what FINALLY pushed me over into intolerable excitement, we were dropped off at the AKL, and oh heavens, it is so beautiful!

C: And lush and dramatic. The main lobby is an amazingly gorgeous slice of Africa, especially beautiful at night, due to the muted light from the Masai warrior shield light fixtures. We were upgraded from 3rd floor pool view to 4th floor Savanna view, which was a pleasant shock, and utterly unexpected. The only down size is that the room is at the very end of one of the enormous “octopus” arms of the hotel, so it’s a bit of a hike from the lobby, but we’ll be in walkin’ shape by the end of the week.

S: When we got our room assignment, I could see us in a few days, sobbing and weeping from exhaustion, footsore and weary, stumbling to our distant room, but it’s really not such a bad walk. We also have already seen a giant giraffe and big-horned cattle ambling by in the night! It’s actually a smoking room, but surprisingly not that stinky. There’s a faint whiff of smoke but the view is worth it. Man, seeing a giraffe amble out of the trees not 30 feet below you and no fence to peer over was just astonishing. And thus ended our first day of vacation, with the giraffes and zebras and Watusi cattle lowing outside of our room.

I swear there were brains in that tissue.

Have you ever had so much snot in your sinuses that when you blow your nose you feel as though you must be getting grey matter as no one person could ever possibly contain that much mucus in their head? I mean, it has to be stored somewhere, and the cavities aren't that big. It MUST be brains.

I got sick the day the show closed. Opening night went fantastically well, we were all very pleased, as was an audience member from another opera company who gave me her info and told me to call her for an audition. Does that really happen? I thought I had to be the eager young soprano clawing her way to the top to get that blessed phone number, not the 30-something mezzo who plays everything for laughs. Go figure. I woke up the morning of the closing matinee with that ominous feeling of needing to drink a lot of anything in the vicinity as my throat felt oddly dry and scratchy. I honestly didn't know if I would make it through the opera, but I did, only to have nothing left by the final note. Nothing. I couldn't even hum in the car on the way home. Thank God I had Monday off. Every night this week with the coughing and the heaving from the coughing. I got codeine cough syrup yesterday and had to restrain myself from chugging the entire bottle just to ensure that I would get enough sleep. I infected Christy when she came to commiserate with me on Monday and now she is feeling the snot love. I have a fear that I'm going to get to the airport tomorrow and start coughing and they won't let me on the plane because I'll sound like a plague carrier. I'm not contagious anymore, I swear by all things Godly.

Another blow to the ego.

I just read my new boss' CV. Harvard, Oxford, Phi Beta Kappa, Rhodes Scholar. I'm going to take a nap now.

Feeling fractured.

There is no better way to ensure a crushing blow to your overinflated sense of self that to start a new job and and tech week at the same time. Not only am I pathetically stupid at the office, I can't remember a damn thing about my blocking on the actual stage. Ah, I'm such a professional.

I started the new job last Wednesday, and everyone was unnervingly happy to see me. As I was getting the tour and being introduced to the other staff, every person I met greeted me with, "God! We're so glad you're here!" And apparently it's not my reputation that precedes me. I could be a reformed sociopath and they'd be thrilled to have a full contingent of staff able to count to 100 independently. However, as so often happens in new jobs, I feel pathetically stupid and woefully unprepared. My new job is several steps lower on the UW ladder in terms of both pay and responsibility than the last, but I feel as though I suddenly assumed the CFO position and am expected to have the company out of the red by next Tuesday. My God, these people are organized. They have levels of checks and balances the fussiest CPA would weep and rend his shirt over, and my nervous and over-wrought brain simply couldn't keep up on that first day. I was feeling a little concerned about expectations regarding my ability to function at a long-timer level right off the bat, so I addressed my concerns to the lovely woman training me, and she suggested I take it up with the manager, also new, and new to UW, as well. I was expecting to be told that I should be able to function fully independently by the end of next week, and was prepared to work some extra hours to make sure I wasn't letting anyone down. The manager paused after hearing my question and said, "Well, I would think six months would be enough time. Statistically speaking, even an employee coming from inside the same company needs six months to get up to speed." I must have had a look on my face of disbelief and bemusement, as she shot a glance at my co-worker and said, "Is that not enough time?" I started to laugh and told her that I was expecting a response more along the lines of, "Get your ass in gear by next Friday and you'd better have all those acronyms memorized or get out." We all had a hearty chuckle over that. I'm a little amused by my new boss, who is charming and lovely and has never really had an "assistant" before, and doesn't quite know what to ask of me. It feels odd to tell a woman with more letters in her degrees than I have in my name ask me to give her suggestions on how to best utilize me. What a change. Why did I wait so long to leave? Oh yeah, I'm chicken shit. Oh, and the whole Monday off thing? Fucking awesome.

We got into the Rialto last night, where we'll be performing this weekend. The house is this gorgeous old movie theater built in the teens, with walls the color of our dining room and plaster friezes encrusted on every immobile surface. Apparently, the dressing rooms are up some precarious and noisy stairs and there have been horrifying moments of, "Holy crap, that was my cue," with neck-breaking sprints down the clacking steps. As I'm on stage almost the entire opera and have no costume changes, I don't think I'll quite ensure my never being rehired by this company by missing a cue. I don't know what the future will hold for me with this company as I don't feel as though I'm singing my best, and the other cast members are pretty exceptional, but it has been a great and extremely well-run experience. One thing that can be God-awful frustrating for performers is working for a company that wastes time, both in rehearsals and on stage, and I certainly don't feel that way about this organization. I'm so damn paranoid, though, and I haven't heard any comments, negative or positive, about my singing, so I, of course, assume the worst. I expect comments from you all, dammit, after you come on Friday.

And now, I'm going back to sleep, because I can.

I don't want to file.

I don't, I don't, I don't! I've put it off for a reason. It sucks. I get paper cuts and end up dusty, cranky and sweaty. However, it's my second to last day and I don't want to leave this enormous pile of shit for anyone else. But, the thought is tempting.

Oh, and I got flowers today. I'm special.

Knitting for the Criminals

Miss Clara, a wonderful regular poster on the Singer's Forum (see sidebar), teaches a class full of underprivileged kids (lovingly nicknamed The Criminals), and some of us are going to put our yarn stashes and needles to good use and whip up some winter hats, scarves and mittens for these kids who sometimes go without even coats. I've gone to a couple of favorite free pattern websites and found these:

http://stitchcafe.com/freepatterns.html
http://www.knitroomboston.com/benshat.html
http://leftinstitches.blogspot.com/2005/12/dobby-hat.html
http://kisknit.wordpress.com/2006/08/31/fo-second-chemo-cap-plus-the-pattern/

And there are hundreds more here.

Let us know if you can help! I'd love to see enough hats for more than her classroom, or to provide enough for even next year.

Notice

I officially gave notice today. I'm finally quitting my job to work half time. Yes, HALF TIME. There are no two more glorious words in the English language to me right now. As a topper to the glory of working HALF TIME, I'll be working with the ever-fabulous Christy and will finally not be sitting in a hallway anymore. I'll have a door. A real door. Like a real adult.

Let the celebration commence!

The high price of success.

I have to sing a preview on Friday night at the SAME TIME as the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica. It's almost enough to make me give up singing altogether.

A remarkable woman.

We celebrated my great aunt Lois' 90th birthday this last Saturday. Lois is my father's father's sister, the youngest, and only surviving, of four children born in Butte, Montana to another incredible and independent woman and her adoring husband.

While I've known Lois and her husband Bob my entire life, I had no idea the true woman she was and didn't appreciate the life that she has lead for its bravery, uniqueness and dignity until I saw all of her friends and family gathered around her, heard their tributes and stories and watched the documentary Lois’ daughter Betty hired a filmmaker to record in which Lois told the story of her life with astounding detail and nearly unbelievable humor.

Lois is incredibly intelligent, and has lost none of her facultative abilities to age. In the documentary, she recalled with perfect clarity the Butte of her childhood, a city that in no way exists in the same form today, a beautiful and vibrant place of diversity and elegance. The city thrived on the livelihood of the "richest hill on Earth," the copper mines that brought immigrants from every part of the world and saw a social scene akin more to cities like New York and San Francisco than most small Western towns. One interesting aspect of Lois' idyllic memories of her childhood and teenage years is that she remembers the miners as dignified and gentlemanly men, men always clad in suits and ties who Lois says she never heard utter a swear word. But behind the veneer of civility laid the truth that Butte was known for being a city of easy vice, housing the longest running bordello in the history of the United States. It is a testament to my great grandparents that they allowed their children to only see the kindness and beauty of their city and kept them removed from the sordid. This must have shaped Lois’ character as she seemingly sees only the good and beautiful in those around her, and not the frailness behind them.

Lois was, I believe, and early and unwitting feminist. She was a basketball star, the only girl in her college class and a woman of moral certainty, as evidenced by the story she told of her first date with Bob, where he asked her, in succession, if she wanted a smoke, a drink or to get in the back seat, all three to which she said no, a feat hereto unmatched by any woman in our family.

Lois has lead a life that I could live only in the most ambitious of my dreams. She moved to New York to marry Bob in a ceremony that will be recorded in the annals of slapstick for an appalling cold with laryngitis, an exceptionally kind hairdresser, misplaced guests, shockingly cold weather and a never-to-be-forgotten announcement by Lois at her wedding dinner that all she wanted to do was go home and go to bed, said in the approximately thirty seconds she had her voice that day and during one of those lulls that appear in conversation at the most inopportune time. All of the bachelor guests of the wedding were thrilled by what they thought was a moment of ribaldry from an otherwise dignified woman and never let her forget her willingness to commence her marriage.

Poor and young, Lois and Bob lived a Bohemian life in New York where they would spend Saturdays touring the city with $.50 in their pocket and a candy bar for lunch. New York was cheap then, she said, and, since Bob had lived there for several months before their marriage, he knew how to show a girl a good time for free.

My favorite story that Lois told, though, had to do with the reason they left New York. She was home during the day and listening to a radio drama. The heroine was a young girl from a western mining town, which was amusingly appropriate. The heroine lived alone in New York waiting for her fiancé to return to her from his overseas travails. One day, she heard a knock at her door. She opened it to find her fiancé, who then tumbled to the floor. He told her that he had returned from India with backwater fever and had come home to die in her arms. Shortly after listening to his program, Lois welcomed Bob home from a day at the office, where he worked for Ingersoll Rand selling mining equipment. “Lois,” he said, “the company has decided where we’re to go! We’re being sent to India!” “No!” Lois replied, “you’ll die of backwater fever!”

But, to India they went, traveling on an ocean liner to Plymouth and then from London to Calcutta via boat and train. I can only imagine a girl, 22 or 23, having moved from Montana to New York and than to Calcutta, being asked to represent a major international company as the wife of the only American salesman, managing a house of servants and suddenly dealing with the outbreak of the second World War. They fled on the last boat from Delhi, captained by a friend who let them know, in code, that they had to be on his boat or risk being trapped in India. A 49 day voyage around Africa followed, with blackouts every night, the threat of torpedo attacks and the addition of 500 wounded rescued from Japanese U-boat attacks to add to the 1,800 already on board ship. They returned to New York and Lois found a phone to call her father, who cried in relief that she was alive. They decided that it was time to return home and drove cross-country on rationed gas with barely enough food to eat as the war raged on.

At this point the first half of the documentary ended, leaving me desperate to know what happened next. What I do know from this point on is only from what my father was told in one long evening of astonishing communications from the usually taciturn Bob. After their return to Butte, he was recruited by the Secret Service and joined the war effort. What followed were a series of the most remarkable and well-neigh unbelievable adventures that the two of them shared, almost always together.

I did not expect to come away from Saturday’s party feeling as though I had just witnessed a great and defining moment in my life. I also did not expect to be welcomed by Lois with such love and kindness, nor did I think that I would be given the gift of having her share stories of me from our times together in my childhood, times that I wish I could remember. My memories of Lois and Bob are always of a very kind and gracious couple who seemed to be somehow above my plane of existence, living a life of elegance and detachment. I had no idea that we were as loved as we are, and as valued, that their memories of my parents’ generosity in opening their house to visits gave them such pleasure.

Lois and Bob have moved now, from their large home on Bainbridge, and are living in a retirement home not 20 minutes from me. I cannot let this time go by without taking the opportunity to be witness to more of the remarkable woman that is my aunt Lois. What a rare and precious opportunity I’ve been given.

I've learned! I swear I've learned!

Please don't make me repeat this history:













I'll never get another perm, I promise.

This is what happens when you have a cousin (Camille, ahem, second from the left) who NEVER THROWS ANYTHING AWAY. This picture should have died a quiet and unmarked death.

The Other Side of the Stroller

As one half of a childless, married couple who spends the majority of vacations at Disney parks and has Lion's Lair membership at the zoo (comprising two adults, no children) I have come to despise the Stroller Commandos. Not your average baby transport engineers, but those who pilot their Gracos and Bebeloves, their Bugaboos and Peg Peregos with no regard for my ankles or personal space. They are the ones who use their offspring's conveyance to clear a path, to hurry dawdlers along, to make the point that they, the breeders, have more right to be wherever you both are than you do. "It's a children's park," they cry, "adults with no children should relinquish all right of way and prime seating to us, the NUCLEAR FAMILY!" They use their three or four wheeled mobile nap inducer to save spaces for parades, for fireworks, for the best view of the animals. They leave their nylon and aluminum perambulators in aisles for everyone else to trip over on the way to their seats in the front.

I am not fond of these people.

However, I found myself on the other side of the wheels this weekend while pushing my one-year-old nephew around the zoo while my four-year-0ld nephew toddled alongside. I found myself getting irritated when people wouldn't get out of my way. It was hard to maneuver that little Jeep wonder of collapsible convenience around slow moving adults traveling uphill, and I'd make annoyed, "Uh!" sounds in the back of my throat and sigh in the manner of a petulant teenager if I wasn't allowed to push to the front of each exhibit so the sweet lad in the seat could see. I didn't understand why everyone was taking so long to look at the gorillas when other people were obviously waiting, people WITH SMALL CHILDREN, children who had more right to see the animals than the obviously infantile adults who were there without children and who apparently needed to find some more adult hobbies, like football and scrapbooking. I nodded and smiled sagely at other couples pushing one child with another dawdling behind, touching and grabbing everything within reach, a fine pasttime as how else will they learn what will burn them if they don't pick up things that are shiny and red?

In other words, things that would normally cause my innards to reach temperatures only measurable by laboratory methods and boil out of my facial orifices became sources of mild amusement and patient understanding in the presence of my nephews. After all, the zoo is for KIDS.

Maybe I can take this new experience with me to Disney World in November, and not mind when I feel the plastic drink cup on the front of the rented yellow four-wheeler larger than my first car filled to overflowing with an obese five year old pushed by Wanda May from Kentucky who came down in her fifth-wheel with her seven other kids plow into my Achilles'. But I don't think my memory is that good.

Nail by Nail

We'd be done with the porch ceiling by now, except I gouged one piece of trim with a scraper trying to remove paint drips, which was one of my more brilliant ideas.














This is the best vista as it looks like it's done:















It is best to not forget to cut out the hole for the light fixture. Christian did a bang up (har har) job.



















Now, just more touchup. Please God, kill me now.

So, ye've come seeking adventure and salty old pirates, eh?

Today is the day where I want to strap on me cutlass and buckle me swash. I want to clench a dagger between me teeth and swing from the rigging. Yes, today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. If you want an excellent tutorial on how best to strike fear into the hearts of scurvy poltroons, go here. You'll never order a muffin the same way again.

No pictures of muffin-tops, as that would be too mean, even for me.

Collections that beg the question WHY:

One whole egg gave its life for this. Poor egg:

When I said knitting on hat pins, did you believe me? You should have:
What does the dip own? Will someone please tell me?

Astounding fluffitude:

No fair would be complete without juvenile bacon:

Demon llama? Where?!?

Our state fair is the best state fair.

Ah, the fair. That last great bastion of wholesome American 4H showmanship, that great stronghold of white trash family values, that veritable smorgasbord of all foods so lacking in nutritional content they have to all be kept in one confined space to limit their virulent spread...yes, the fair. Because where else could you eat a deep fried Twinkie, a Hawaiian Shave Ice, a double onion burger with some product vaguely approximating cheese but only glancing around the edges of foodstuffishness, fifteen corndogs and a elephant ear and still have room for a baker's dozen of Fair Scones? That's right, the Puyallup.

We spent ten glorious, footsore hours at the fair on Saturday. We ate, rode terrible rides that were only a hairsbreadth away from causing gruesome death and making some enterprising injury lawyer's career, saw some of the worst art ever forced upon the public, petted the angry llamas, marveled at the patience required to knit doll clothes on HATPINS, made fun of the fashion that only arises when teenagers of low intellect are given money to shop at Hot Topic and Rave, had our feet jiggled into numbness by the foot massaging chairs, saw some decent and desirable jewelry in a tiny hidden hall that had to be kept from the general public as they wouldn't know what to do with personal ornaments not made of dream catchers or their names bent into wire, saw Billy (Hill) and the Hillbillies, that venerable Disneyland ensemble that apparently travels the nation with one original cast member, one incredible instrumentalist who, in his daily life, plays the classical mandolin, and one disturbingly self-indulgent singer who sang Jesus-Is-My-Boyfriend songs to an enraptured and elderly audience, avoided the Avon Ladies who couldn't see that Shelly and I are NOT 55 and were in no need of their products but kept trying to give us brochures, won or attempted to win unfortunately and blamelessly frightening stuffed toys, and generally enjoyed the shit out of ourselves.

And we saw bunnies and piggies.

It was a grand day, all 'round. Pictures in the next post.

Damn that stupid baby.

The BBC just broke the news that it's another El Nino year. I hate that wretched upwelling. Words like "warm" and "dry" should never apply to the season that I personally associate with all 1,000 Eskimo words for snow.

Almost....done....

Stupid rain came earlier than predicted. We have to repaint the top of the railing as the rain ruined the fresh paint.















Imagine the steps without the blue tape. One more coat of white on the columns, one more on the step and deck trim, underneath the eaves, touchup and we're done. We still have to finish the porch ceiling and trim and also replace the trim between the red and white above the porch, but carpentry work is NOTHING compared to the horror of paint.

You know why it's red? I used my blood to paint it. We're never moving.

Come hell or high water....

we MUST be finished by Thursday. The weather is due to turn for the worse and everything must be painted and cleaned up by then. We woke up Saturday morning to sog, which delayed priming by a day, so the porch is only primed and partially painted, and that DAMN wreck of a board is looking more and more like a black eye:










The one and only thing that has been heretofore easier than expected is the replacement of the ceiling of the porch:










It's looking GORGEOUS and has been very easy.

I'm too tired and full of despair to write with emotion or color. We thoroughly destroyed the porch finish top coat with our ladders and stepstools, so that will have to be redone, as well. I'm grateful, though, that the stress of painting has usurped the stress of the day job. That's good, at least.

No, damn it, it's still not done.

No, the house isn't finished yet. I know, what have we been doing? It's never going to be done. I'm going to be 80, standing on a ladder with the small pail of red paint and a small pail of white paint, touching up the window frames with a brush that has been worn down to three hairs. The original red will have faded so much that it will look dusty rose and the white will be dingy and gray, but the window sills will still not be done to my satisfaction.

However, the porch work construction-wise is finished:
















Christian is caulking the tops and bottoms of every rail upright and I'll prime when I get home tonight. We're giving away some of the remnant wood, keeping what's viable and disposing of the rest.

We still need to figure out what kind of trim to put on the stairs, at the base of the siding and around the front, though.

The Spantex turned out to be a great color, the kind of warmish taupey color that will hopefully hide dirt. And no more heels stuck between cheap decking.





















I will, eventually, take the tape off that last remaining window, and we will replace the porch ceiling. We WILL. I swear.

I'm torn.

I have so many cute shoes with high and wedge heels that I've neglected this summer. They are going to think I don't love them and hide in the back of the closet behind my gowns so I can't find them once I can wear a heel higher than one my grandmother would wear to bingo.

We're all injured in the household. I tore a ligament in my ankle in a supremely graceless moment two and a half weeks ago, when I biffed it in front of the entire chorus on the way to the elevator after warm ups. It took me two weeks to get an appointment, and I was certain that I'd get a lecture from the physician I saw yesterday about how I waited too long to get in and how whatever I tore would have retreated too far into my leg to be retrieved by anything other than forceps and how I'd be lucky to not lose the leg below the knee. Instead, I just have to wear a brace for three weeks. I was sort of hoping for something more drastic that would keep me out of work for an indefinite period of time, but the brace is good for pity.

Fritz took a chomp out of poor little Pierre's beak yesterday. We noticed that Pierre was bleeding, and could see the bite marks on either side of the beak from the piercing mandible of death. I just don't know what to do about those two. We separated them last night, which made them both very meek this morning, but they were pretty distraught from being apart and called for each other from the time the sun came up this morning until when we reunited them. The cheeps were in my dream as a phone that wouldn't stop ringing. I don't want to come home to a gruesome scene of carnage. This species is just so damn chompy. I wish I could give Fritz a safe birdie tranquillizer to make him a little less willing to remove flesh from whatever living organism comes within fifteen feet of him, but I like his spunk, and he is an animal, and it's not fair to expect an animal to behave in a way that is counter to their nature. I feel like we're back to square one and the way it was when Stanze was still alive. And yes, I'm considering a behaviorist again. Mock away. I want happy pets.

Porchish Pictures

The new porch will be finished on Thursday. We had to again evacuate the birds from the living room as the stench of Spantex was close to overwhelming their wee birdie respiratory systems. Progress as of yesterday:














Now, I'm undecided about paint on the porch. Christian quickly photoshopped in white on the rail and columns, and you'll have to imagine this with white on the stair risers, too:
















The wood is still vaguely flesh-toned, but will be the same white as the trim in the end. I kind of want the painting to look like this, though:














Remember, white risers, not red. I just don't know.

I brought this on myself.

I'm a firm believer in equal treatment for everyone, meaning that money shouldn't buy better medical care or easier access to it, so I completely deserve the ridiculous hoops I've had to jump through to get an appointment to have my ankle examined, that poor little joint that was injured as a parting shot from the Levaquin, the antibiotic that should be used as a torture mechanism in third world terrorism campaigns. I called the foot and ankle clinic in the medical system where I work, and they told me that they were a referral clinic only, and that their coordinators would have to contact my physican's office to get said referral and then they would call me back to make an appointment. Well, I gave them all the info, called the other hospital, Northwest, where I had been seen for the infection that started it all, asked them to send my files and waited to hear back.

A week later, nothing.

I called today and was told that I couldn't be seen because there was no referral yet. Now, the same person I spoke with first time was the one I spoke with this time, and she told me that they would get the referral for me, but I had emailed my doctor just in case to cover all the bases. Alas, no referral. No call, no email, no scribbled post it note, nothing. I called my doctor's office, was transferred to the wrong person and then was told by the right person that my doctor hadn't been answering his emails so he must be out of town and it would take at least three weeks to get into the foot and ankle clinic anyway. She actually told me that they were referring patients out of the system. So, I called Northwest Hospital's ortho group, and the cheerful woman who immediately answered the phone asked me my name and number and said, "Well, we can see you this Thursday. Is that soon enough?" "Yes," I said, "and I love you."

TLOH Part Deux with Pictures

Why am I not embedding my pictures in the original post? Because Blogger is out to get me, that's why.

Before:














After:















I also found this whopper of a picture from when we first bought the house:
















And this is how it looks now:














Of course, it's still not done, but those hideous old windows? So thrilled they've gone to their final reward.