This has been quite the week for the non-human inhabitants of Animal Planet. I already described in (way too much) detail about the moving and the rearranging and the cleaning. We've spent the last week amused by Kali's antics in the vivarium as she climbs around and explores. She fell off the top ledge on a couple of occasions, and the resulting THUMP sounded painful - she's really quite big - but it didn't seem to phase her a bit. She's kind of cat-like in her ability to climb up and her inability to climb down, but I'm sure she'll improve with practice.

This entry, however, is not about Kali.



We got Cheeto (our male bearded dragon) on March 19th of '06, and he was about 18 months old when we got him. We got Lucy (our female bearded dragon) on August 13th of '06, and she was about eight months old at the time. So, they're about three, and a year and eight months, respectively. They've lived in the same tank since after Lucy's quarantine period was over, which was about a month after we brought her home.

There are two different schools of thought about letting beardies live together in a single tank. Most say to keep them separate until you're going to try to mate them. Our vet said that Cheeto could probably use some company and to see if he would accept a room mate. We would separate them if they weren't thriving together, but they've gotten along fairly well, for the most part. About once a day Cheeto beards and stomps and bobs at her, and she waves her little arms and does a submissive gesture with her head. Every now and then Cheeto tackles Lucy and tries to mate, and she waves her arms at him and doesn't respond the "right" way, so Cheeto lets go (the horney little sucker) and peace resumes.

Here comes the news.

Last night I heard Calvin yell at Cheeto, and I came into the bedroom to see him (Cheeto, not Calvin) pinning Lucy and biting the fleshy skin at the back of her neck, which is what males do to put females in the right position for mating. Usually Lucy indicates to him that she doesn't want any of that business, and he gives up after a moment. Except last night, he wasn't letting go. He was bearding a lot harder and darker than usual, and turning a bright caramel color. We moved to separate them - usually just the act of reaching in to pick Cheeto up gets him to let go. But he wasn't letting go at all. Each time I picked him up, he picked Lucy up along with him. So I let them go again.

Which is when Calvin noticed the ::bow chicka bow wow:: action going on under Cheeto's belly. And we noticed the fact that Lucy was holding still for his attentions. They both turned BRIGHT - her orange, him a caramel milky vanilla. They held like that for a moment, and (I kid you not) Cheeto's eyes rolled back into his head. He just lay there on his side behind Lucy's tail, um, glowing. And Lucy just looked back at him as if to say, "That's what the fuss is all about?"

Calvin and I were all, "Wow!"

And then we were like, "Ewww..."

And then we were all, "Huh!"

We're pretty sure that was the first time (if not one of the first times) that they've had a successful mating. Over the past two days we've noticed that Lucy was acting differently; eating more, being much more active, and doing slow head bobs (her "come hither" look) at Cheeto when he was doing his mating dance at her. Basically, she's been acting much more receptive to his advances. To his delight, I'm sure.

And then they did the deed.

So! I read up on breeding bearded dragons last night...

Laura: "'The male dragon inserts his penis... called a hemipenis...'"
Calvin: "You mean he's got a HEMI???"
Laura: "Yes, dear. '...called a hemipenis, into the female's...'"
Calvin: "He's got a HEMI!"
Laura: Sigh.

Now I have to watch out for signs if she's "with egg", and set up a nesting box for her, and get an incubator, and... and... and...

If this mating was successful, she should lay eggs in about 6 weeks, then 50-70 days after that they should hatch. Just in time for the holidays!

Um, and then we'll have to figure out what to do with them all... but they'll look like this, so I'll bet they'll go fast.



Heh. Dude, my lizards totally had the sex.

Labels: lizards

Posted by Laura at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

Hey Calvin! Remember this???

Labels: best things, humor, video

Posted by Laura at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments

There is a definite feeling of satisfaction that I get when I'm caring for my animals. However, I have had MORE than enough of cleaning/rearranging/messing with the lizards tanks and vivarium. Last Monday I completely changed out the bedding (rabbit pellets) in the beardies' tank and cleaned all of their "furnishings", and wiped it off inside and out. Marie helped me to move the tank into the bedroom from the dining room where it's been residing since Calvin and I went to Maine. And then there was the messing with the lights and heat sources since I had to unplug them all and plug them in again. While I was doing this I stuck Cheeto and Lucy in the bathtub to hang out.

I also cleaned out the water dragon's vivarium (who also hung out in the bathtub... not at the same time as the beardies), which includes dragging the shop vac out of the garage, sucking all of the water out of the pond, filling the pond back up, sucking out the water again, filling it up again... seven or eight times until the water runs clear, then filling it up to the top. I usually have to empty out the shop vac once or twice in the process. I also vacuum out all of the misplaced bedding and poo, and wipe off the three-sided plexiglass walls of the enclosure - inside and out. Finally, I refill the water in the humidifier used to keep the environment tropical inside the vivarium. All in all, cleaning the vivarium takes me over an hour - both of them combined was a good two hours.

Today we are preparing to move Marie's ball python, Kali, into the vivarium. We have decided we want to keep Kali ourselves and have therefore snake-napped her, in a manner of speaking, in that Marie didn't take her with her when she moved out. So now she is ours, and she's getting a more spacious home. Meanwhile the water dragon, who is tiny, is trading spaces with her into a much more size-appropriate tank. This tank will sit on the stand underneath the tank holding the beardies.

This tank swapping business means that I have to completely sterilize the vivarium and Kali's tank, because the detritus of different reptile species do not mix well with one another. Kali and the water dragon could get sick from one another's cooties if I just put them in each other's tanks without cleaning them first. Today I shop-vac'ed much of the bedding out of the vivarium, sucked out all of the water and removed the rocks from the pond, scrubbed the pond basin with soap and water, rinsed and cleaned the rocks and replaced them, vacuumed out the nooks and crannies of the bark lining the back of the vivarium, scrubbed off the three "rock" shelves, and wiped down the interior and exterior plexiglass.

Finally I sprayed the interior down with disinfectant. This of course means that the tank has to sit open for a while to air out. Which, in turn, means that I had to deal with some logistics in order to make the water dragon comfy. He (she? we still don't know) couldn't very well stay in the bathtub all day. SO! I had to set up an interim tank in the bedroom. This involved dragging the tank that was hanging around out back into the bedroom, cleaning it inside and out, dumping some bark in the bottom, finding a pan and filling it with water and putting it in the bottom, arranging various furnishings and silk plants, finding covers, a UV lamp, and a heat lamp and arranging those, then soaking everything down in order to create enough humidity before finally putting the water dragon in it.

This evening Calvin and I are going to the pet store to buy a few more things that we need, then we'll put Kali in her new home. THEN I get to remove all of the bedding in Kali's tank, clean and disinfect it, put the water dragon in the bathtub, move all of the stuff from the temporary tank to the permanent one, set the wrought-iron stand up in the bedroom with the water dragon's new tank on bottom and the beardies' tank on top, and FINALLY put the water dragon back in her (his?) new home.

At which point all of the animals in this house had BETTER be damned happy.

Labels: home, lizards, pets

Posted by Laura at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

Okay, this is turning out to be the best day EVAR. I enjoyed the thunderstorm this morning from the safety of my covered patio, then Calvin got up and we had some coffee and spent some quality time (ifyaknowwhatimean) (andithinkyoudo). Then we got dressed and went for a ride on the motorcycle in the 80-degree weather (!), and went to The Good Egg for pancakes. THEN when we got back we watched TV for an hour or so before crashing for a two-hour nap.

This day has just been a combination of all of my very favorite things. If the trend continues, this evening Calvin and I will cook together in the kitchen while dancing around to 80's music. Then someone will stop by with that pony I've always wanted.

Labels: best things, home, journal

Posted by Laura at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's nearly 4:00 in the morning. I'm up. It's raining; the fat drops are hitting the skylight like pennies. The thunder is still off in the distance quite a bit, but the wind is starting to pick up and soon, I'm sure, our house will be in the thick of it.

The quiet of the pre-dawn house and the muffled sounds of the storm could be serving to make me feel lonely, but instead I feel content. Happy, even. I love it when it rains. It's almost worth it to be awake for it at four in the morning. The cat, blinking at me through squinted eyes at the sudden appearance of light, might disagree with me.

I don't mind insomnia when it's a novel thing. Calvin and I went to bed at about 10:30 last night, so I got about five hours of sleep before I found myself awake, suddenly. Instead of tossing and turning and bothering him, I decided to (quietly!) grab my laptop and move into the living room with my pillow and a sheet. Oz, asleep on the couch, look rather affronted when I turned the light on. But the words rummaging around in my head must out, so light there must be.

Right now, I am happy. In a few hours Calvin will be up and we will be drinking coffee and reading the paper and conversing about what's going on in the world. I love being on this end of the weekend.

The rain is coming down hard, now.

Labels: insomnia, journal

Posted by Laura at 3:56 AM | Permalink | Comments

Holding myself accountable over at Operation::Goddess. Again.

Again.

Labels: Op:Goddess

Posted by Laura at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments

Fallout Boy is suiting my mood today.

I am so ready for summer to be over. I'm being forced to be inside in a worse way than snow ever did to me. Living for winter is totally throwing off my circadian rhythm. My inclination is to greet May with something close to ecstacy and October with something akin to dread. Right now I just wish to fast foward to, say, November 16th. That's a Friday. In November. When it will likely be in the 80's here. The 80's are acceptable when one is writing from 112. I would wish it even cooler, though... say the 50's that November represents in Maine.

Sigh.

I wish that when I shut the house down for the night (lights out, doors locked, TV off, etc.) it stayed that way. Instead I usually wake up (am awakened) several times in the night and discover Michael watching TV, talking on the phone, talking to other people in my house in the middle of the night, fixing food in the kitchen, going in and out of the back door a MILLION times a night because he's a dirty nasty smoker... at all hours. Today when Calvin's cell went off at 5:00 a.m. (GROWL), the TV in the living room was still on. The thing is, I can't sleep in a settled manner knowing that there are still people coming and going and stirring and MAKING NOISE all through the night. Will the front door still be locked, the garage door closed? Will someone accidentally let the cat out? Will I emerge from my bedroom at 2:00 in the morning in order to scold the noise-maker, only to discover three or four strangers along with said noise-maker? My home is not my own, and it's really frickin' getting to me.

I am doing purposeful things to adjust my state of mind. Today at lunch I walked the route through the campus buildings (see aforementioned note about having to stay inside, grumpety grump) and listened to my iPod. I just had to get away from my desk, because people (for some strange reason) are straight PISSING ME RIGHT OFF TODAY. The tedium of my job sometimes grips me in such an overwhelming manner that I am extremely close to giving in to the temptation to scream my head off, right here in the middle of the cubicle jungle. Or else I will kill that annoying cubicle neighbor of mine that talks at the top of his lungs all day every day and condescends to every person that he communicates with. Or maybe I'll send that nasty-gram BEFORE proof reading it, walking away, walking back, reading it again, saving it without sending it, walking away, walking back, editing it to remove all the references to "fucker" and "shithead" and "total complete asshat", and sending a final and much more professionally acceptable version.

Calvin is having, if anything, a much worse day (and week, actually), than I am. We have once again talked and dreamed of selling everything, leaving Arizona, and living off the land somewhere. Perhaps work for a convenience store. Grow our own food. Learn to like the taste of squirrel. Somewhere with fresh air and peaches. Something, anything, to end this rat race that we are currently enduring. We know we are blessed with great jobs that support our lovely home. But really, a double-wide out in the woods somewhere is starting to look MIGHTY appealing.

Technically, I own the land in Maine that my sister and her family currently reside upon. I could blaze a driveway and dig a well and set up shop right next door to them, and regale you all with tales of our mighty fine adventures. With the naked dancing around the bonfire with the beer and the chickens. Ay-yup.

Current "Fave" iPod playlist:

The (After) Life of the Party - Fallout Boy
Animal - Def Leppard
Black Sweat - Prince
Born to Run - Springstein
Dancing Queen - Abba
Shipping up to Boston - Dropkick Murphys
Everyday - Dave Matthews
Eyes - Rogue Wave
Girlfriend - Avril Lavigne
Glory Days - Springstein
Guitar - Prince
Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's
Hot in the City - Billy Idol
I Don't Wanna Be In Love - Good Charlotte
I Love a Rainy Night - Eddie Rabbit
I'm a Loser Baby - Beck
Makes Me Wonder - Maroon Five
Me Love - Sean Kingston (thanks to Marie for that one!)
Move Along - All American Rejects
Number One in Heaven - Nemesis
Oh, It's Love - Hellogoodbye
On the Dark Side - Eddie and the Cruisers
Read My Mind - The Killers
Scotty Doesn't Know - Lustra (Eurotrip Soundtrack)
Short Skirt/Long Jacket - Cake
So Alive - Love and Rockets
Steal My Sunshine - Len
The Story - Brandi Carlile
Sunday Mornings - Maroon Five
Thanks for the Memories - Fallout Boy
This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race - Fallout Boy
Turn on Me - The Shins
The Way You Make Me Feel - Michael Jackson
Where Does the Good Go - Tegan and Sara (my new favorite song)
Word Up - Korn

Labels: headspace, home, insomnia, music, work

Posted by Laura at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

Stolen from Heather's MySpace bulletin thingy... (I'm on my MySpace page about once a week and just about NEVER respond to bulletins there, but I'm not too lazy to cut and paste 'em here!):

25 sentences about you.

Finish the sentences:

1. I've come to realize that my ex: was wrong about every bad thing he ever said to or thought about me. I win!

2. People like me because: I'm good enough and smart enough.

3. I talk: with big words not because I'm trying to IMpress, but because I'm trying to EXpress.

4. I love: a rainy night. The song and the experience.

5. My best friends are : accepting and generous and sympathetic and tolerant and loyal and smart and funny and pretty and handsome and make me a better person.

(what happened to six, Heather?)

7. I lost : my childhood. But I gained my womanhood.

8. I hate it when : my hair makes me late for work.

9. Love is: the opportunity to become greater together than I ever would have been apart.

10. Marriage is: a study in patience, a practice in negotiation, a lesson in understanding, and a realization of happiness.

11. Somewhere, someone is thinking: whatever happened to my lunchbox?

12. I'll always be: trying to do better.

13. I have a crush on: Ozzy!

14. The last time I cried was: last Thursday when I wrote the entry about the bad anniversary.

15. My cell phone: is used for calling Heather while I'm in the grocery store.

16. When I wake up in the morning: I lay in bed for a while staring at the ceiling and thinking.

17. Before I go to sleep at night: I deal with Oz yowling his way into the bedroom with his "baby".

18. Right now I am thinking about: Calvin's side of the family.

19. Babies are: too far away when they live in Texas.

20. I get on myspace: about once a week to giggle at peoples' pictures, check up on the family, and say hi to my friends.

21. Today I: worked, cleaned the water dragon's vivarium, cleaned the beardie's tank, cleaned the kitchen, did the laundry, and dealt with some family drama.

22. Tonight I will: probably deal with some more family drama.

23. Tomorrow I will: work some more, go to the doctor's, cook, clean, and deal with life.

24. I really want: all the answers.

25. The person who is most likely to repost this: Jen, I bet.

Labels: blogthings

Posted by Laura at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

The anniversary of my Grandmother's death is on the 18th. It's been six years. If you had asked me before her passing if I could imagine a world without her in it for even one minute, I would have said it was impossible. But here I am, surviving after six whole years, and it still hurts.

Tears are closer to the surface around this time of year. Depression is harder to fend off. And I always think of Heather, whose own "bad anniversary" is this time of year, too. She lost her mom around the same time I lost Grandma. Her friendship and commiseration were a great comfort to me during the awful first months after Grandma's passing, and I hope Heather can say the same about my friendship.

Thinking about Grandma also starts up the homesickness, since my memories of Maine are part and parcel with my memories of Grandma. I went to Maine twice this year. I didn't visit her grave either time. I think I was subconsciously avoiding it. I feel like a bad granddaughter. But I think about her all of the time, so is that an equal tribute to placing flowers on her place of rest? I don't know.

I had a conversation with my uncle when Calvin and I were home in May. I think he was troubled that I miss my grandmother much more than I miss my mother. I think it upset him that my grandmother's death effected me in a much more profound way, than did the death of my mother. His relationship with my mother was an extremely close one. I think he understands intellectually, but not emotionally, that I didn't really bond with my mother the way I did with my grandmother. I hardly saw my mother when I was small - she died when I was 8, and my early childhood memories more involve other people taking care of me than my mother. My mother worked nights and slept days, and was often in the hospital. My grandmother, my aunt, and my sister all took turns taking care of me.

Then, after my mother passed away, I went to live with my grandmother. It was an easy transition, given how much time I already spent with her. My real childhood happened at Grandma's, with Grandma. So it's no wonder that her house is "home" to me, rather than the house I lived in with my mother. It's no wonder her memory is the one I conjure when I'm craving a mother figure.

Obviously, I still feel guilty. Guilt and death are often hand-in-hand, I've found. I didn't do enough, I didn't say enough, I didn't show enough. Even after six years, it eats at me. And, I suppose, even after twenty-five.

Labels: headspace, journal

Posted by Laura at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments

The theme song (cluck?) to Robot Chicken is stuck in my head.

Friday night Calvin and I went to the Tempe Improv to see Louis CK. We rode up on the motorcycle and suffered 105-degree heat after the sun went down (to which I am tempted to add "...for chrissakes"). I managed to spill an entire glass of ice water in my lap once we were seated, and I felt so much better I wasn't even mad at myself.

Going to see a comedy show is usually a sure bet for an entertaining night. Calvin and I have gone to the Improv a lot in our years together. In addition to Louis CK, we've seen Lewis Black, Christopher Titus (twice), Wayne Brady, Larry the Cable Guy, Mitch Hedberg (with Heather), Carlos Mencia (at the Dodge Theater), Ron White, Lisa Lampanelli, Robert Schimmel (twice), Harland Williams, and a bunch more that Calvin will probably remind me of once he reads this entry (did we see Jeff Foxworthy or Bill Engvall? I forget.) Calvin saw Eddie Murphy once, but that was before me. I wanted to see Eddie Izzard's upcoming show, but it's sold out. I saw Steven Wright once with my ex.

Anyway! We came home to some drama that we attempted to diffuse, and went to bed at around 2:30. I told you that detail so that I could ask you this: WHY does my body insist on waking up at 7:00 on a Saturday morning, regardless of how much sleep I have (or have not) gotten the night before? And WHY can I not convince said body to go back to sleep, after reasoning with it for a good fifteen minutes ("You got barely four hours of sleep. It's Saturday, you don't have to go to work. The bed is sooooo comfy...")? I just gave up and got up.

I did catch a nap later in the day, though. I love naps so much that I might just start getting up early on the weekends JUST to have an excuse to take a nap in the afternoon. (Hush, Calvin.)

Saturday evening we watched the first disc of the first season of Robot Chicken, courtesy of NetFlix. We laughed, we cried, (we didn't get some of 'em), it became a part of us. Seth Green is an evil genius. Some of the skits were SO WRONG. Which is precisely what appealed to us, of course. If there's any kind of sense of humor we have, it's a sick and twisted sense of humor.

(Case in point, I found this to be hysterical. I know! I'm sick.)

We also watched, like, three episodes of The Two Coreys (I watched under protest), and were then motivated to watch The Goonies and identify every familiar place we saw during our visit in Oregon.

Sunday Calvin and I got tickets to the Diamondbacks vs. Washington Nationals baseball game, eschewed the riding of the motorcycle in favor of the nicely air-conditioned truck (hello, heat advisory!), and found decent seats a stone (cup?) throw away from the beer.

The D-backs lost. Phooey.

Sunday evening we wisely took our other Netflix offering, "Shortbus", into the bedroom to watch. The film caught our interest after watching an Indi channel documentary on the history of film ratings (G, PG, etc...). Shortbus was described to be what the rating "X" was intended to be - adult content but not pornography (hello, search hits!). And I have to say, sensibilities aside, I really liked the movie. I couldn't describe it to save my life (well, not without blushing HARD), but I would recommend the film to OPEN MINDED people who aren't offended by a wholly sexual topic and sex scenes in which the parties are NOT pretending.

What an interesting weekend. Comedy, Robot Chicken, Coreys, 80's culture, a baseball game, and full frontal (sideal, backal, upsidedownal, rightsideupal) nudity.

Labels: humor, journal

Posted by Laura at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments

I am in the mood this morning to write about my husband. I frequently have these rather random warm-fuzzy fits but I don't always write about them at the time. I think I used to write a lot more "Oh I love him so" entries about Calvin, back in the days of the full-fledged journal. I guess I started figuring that it's all been said already. How my heart still patters when I look at his picture or hear him come through the front door. How I love to hear him laughing from somewhere in the house. How he calls me a bunch of times each day just because he feels the same need that I do to touch base when we're not physically together. How I just need to have my hands on him - anywhere on him - because his skin just calls to me.

You know, the stuff that bears repeating.

I don't know how many married couples are still in love, years into their marriage. They love one another, yes, but being in love is somewhat different. After five years of marriage and coming up on ten years of togetherness, the fact that I still enjoy his company every bit, if not more, than I did in the first months of our relationship; well, I think that's a pretty fantastic thing to be able to say. Calvin is absolutely and unequivocally my best friend, and there is no one else on the planet with whom I'd rather spend all of my time.

I've said it a bunch of times already, but I continue to marvel at his work ethic. He has a hard, sometimes physically demanding, always mentally challenging job. He has become the go-to guy at every company he's worked for, to solve and achieve and fix and figure out and negotiate and soothe ruffled customers. His sense of responsibility is staggering - so much so that I wish he'd shift some of that onto me, because he is NOT the ultimate provider of happiness and security, but he feels like he is. He carries that sense of responsibility with him to work, and is never one to say, "It's not my job." I LOVE that about him, because I hate that deflection of responsibility by certain people that I have and do work with.

Being married to Calvin is also a great responsibility, because he expects the same 110% effort that he gives. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't. I do try my best to take care of all the "wifely" things - I'm not offended by gender-defined "roles" in marriage and in the household. He's the "man" so he does the fixing and the building (and the painting and the wiring and the plumbing and the installation of ceiling fans). I'm the "woman" so I do most of the cooking, cleaning (though lately we've been back on the Friday/Saturday cleaning routine that we do together), bill paying, and life administration. The next time I feel like complaining about our division of labor, I would do well to remind myself of this:



This is a photograph taken back when we were remodeling the house in '00. Calvin refinished all of the kitchen cabinets, all by himself. He also did all of the interior and exterior painting, all of the fixture/light/ceiling fan installations, replaced/installed cabinets/toilets/sinks/faucets/fixtures in three bathrooms, and about fifty other labor-intensive tasks. Since the major remodel, he has also finished the garage, epoxied the patio, installed and wired the hot tub, and done a huge number of repair projects, both minor and major.

He is also the designated Bee Fucker Upper Mother Fucker.

So if I fuss because I don't feel like doing the laundry, I just remind myself that it could be much, much worse.

There are very few things that I don't love about Calvin. Which is not to say that we don't have our moments of strife. Those moments rarely rise above general annoyance or nit-picking. I think I can count on one hand the number of (figurative) knock-down drag-out fights we've had. And I know I can't recall the cause for most of those. The areas in which Calvin and I are the same (morals, sense of right and wrong, humor, values) more than compensates for the areas in which we are different. And even there, usually the differences work to smooth the way for our relationship. He's impatient, I'm patient. He's impulsive, I'm a planner. He's got a temper, I'm not easily provoked at all. He's complicated, I'm pretty simple. He stands on principle, I don't do that often enough. He stands up for me (or gets me to stand up for myself) when I would let someones treatment of me slide.

He's my perfect puzzle piece, and I like to think that I'm his. I couldn't and don't want to imagine my life without him. I'm more me with him than I am without him. He doesn't alter or change my identity, he enhances it.

Plus, he's really, really HOT.



I don't know, do you think I've adequately expressed how I feel about this man? I'll keep trying, regardless.

Labels: Calvin

Posted by Laura at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments

First watch this. Then, watch this.

Labels: video

Posted by Laura at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments

I just totally got busted dancing in my cubicle.

Labels: music, work

Posted by Laura at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

You know, as soon as I got the answer back from that company in Maine, I completely ceased to think about it at all any more. As many of you probably suspect, they did decide to go with another candidate for the position. As I told Dawn during one of our recent EPIC e-mail marathons, "They shall RUE THE DAY that they chose someone else!"

I wasn't even really that disappointed or upset, which is probably why I totally brain-farted about posting about it. When the contemplation of such a large life change is in the works, things hardly ever work out exactly the way you want them to on the first try.

So! C'est la vie. We have goals a-plenty right here in this house, right here in Arizona, to keep us occupied until this mythical Life Changing Event takes shape.

Labels: journal, Maine, work

Posted by Laura at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

I get to have this done over the next two days.

You know what this means, don't you? More. Fucking. Needles.

Dammit.

Labels: health

Posted by Laura at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments

It seems that as I get older I don't want to get up early for NUTHIN. Back when I was a child I couldn't sleep the night before a trip, so excited was I. Now? The alarm goes off and I could be going for a month-long all expenses paid trip to HAWAII, and I wouldn't want to have to get up to make a 7:15 a.m. flight.

But make the 7:15 flight (to Oregon, not Hawaii), we did. Calvin and I have been doing a LOT of traveling this year, and the whole check in and security dance is getting quite old. However, we were duly entertained by angst first thing in the morning, as we waited our turn at the automated check-in station of Alaska Air. The lines were suggestions at most, and a lady ended up cutting in line. Which righteously offended this guy, waiting his turn. So angered was he that he approached the woman, told her off in a VERY LOUD VOICE for being rude, then stood behind the woman, read her name off of the check-in station, and said, "This is JULIE, everyone! JULIE is the rude woman who can't wait her turn! Let's hear it for JULIE!" Thereby succeeding in drawing everyone's eyes, originally staring at Julie, to stare instead at him.

So, that was fun.

Calvin and I sat to a very nice elderly lady (who was reading a naughty romance novel, which cracked me up) on the plane. She very helpfully filled us in on details of our destination, in between short naps and munching on a very strange "breakfast cookie" provided by the airline in place of actual, you know, food. We landed in Portland at about 10:00, wrestled with the luggage, waited for what seemed like an ETERNITY in the line for the rental car, and then waited for another ETERNITY to pull the car out of the parking garage as the people at the gate in front of us made the lady checking the paperwork trot back and forth to the rental desk.

That was an awesome run-on sentence.

The hotel let us check in early, and after dropping off our luggage we set off on foot to find sustenance and beverage. Nosh, if you will. Thing is? Portland Oregon is MUCH bigger than Portland Maine, a fact which I suppose I twigged intellectually, but not consciously. So, not knowing our way around at all, I'm sure we picked exactly the WRONG direction in which to strike out on our quest for food. BUT! We finally came across a Rock Bottom, which while not the quaint native hole-in-the-wall we were looking for, afforded us with an opportunity to hoover and guzzle and generally be hungry piggies. We ordered a beer sampler, were rather chagrined at the sheer amount of sample glasses plunked down in front of us, then found the consumption of said samples to be easier accomplished than originally thought (really, one gulp each x 8 or 9 samples = about a full beer for each of us).

(I do hope my judgmental anonymous reader comments again. I shall have more than enough fodder for him/her by the end of this entry.)

Okay! From there we decided to wander down to the Beer Festival (more beer! Beer is good!). There were no lines to speak of, Thursday being opening day, and most of the Good People of Oregon were still working. We bought our plastic mugs...



...then started down one side and up the other, stopping at whichever station had the funnest name. There was Sweaty Betty Blonde, Donner Party Porter, Bitch Creek ESB, Pliny the Elder, Whoop Pass Double IPA, and Noggin Grog, to name just a few. I'm a big fan of IPA's, so I think my favorite there was the Alaskan IPA brewed by Alaskan Brewing Co.

Along with our mugs we bought twenty tokens for twenty dollars. I kept 10 and gave Calvin 10. One token for a "taster" (about 1/4 mug), four tokens for a full mug. We pretty much stuck to just tasters, to sample the most amount of beers without having to buy more tokens. The weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL - mid 70's and sunny, with a light breeze going. At one point we took our samples and sat in the (SOFT!) grass under the trees.



We must have sat there for over an hour, just enjoying the weather and people-watching.

After departing the festival, we went back up to our hotel room for a (ahem) nap. The beds were incredibly comfortable - the kind you sort of fall into and get consumed by. We were up on the fourteenth floor of the building (the Marriott on the corner of Washington and Broadway, for those Oregonians following along at home), where we could look across at the busily dedicated workers pounding away at their computers in the offices of the building across the street. (This one girl in particular in the corner office of the top floor was there late every day and even all day Saturday. The weather was so beautiful and I was tempted to go over there and drag her away from her work.)

We departed the hotel again at about 8:30 pm, marveling at how light it still was outside. I don't think the sun went fully down until about 10:00. We had dinner at Jake's Grill...



... then just wandered up and down the streets. There were these funky lunch carts EVERYWHERE, advertising food from every known nationality to man (plus CREPES!) that, alas, we never got a chance to eat at... and I also didn't take any pictures of them, which is weird, for me. We stopped at Tugboat's, a VERY hole-in-the-wall (nearly literally) bar, and then another place whose name escapes me at the moment but which I will probably recall before I am done writing this entry.



The next morning Calvin and I got up reasonably early, and I went off in search of Peets coffee (a shop was adjacent to our hotel - BOMB almond croissants, by the way) while Calvin showered. This is the routine when we are traveling together - I get up first and get showered and ready, then wake him up to get him going, and go off in search of coffee. By the time I get back to the room he's usually showered and dressed. A properly caffeinated husband is a happy husband. A happy husband is a happy Laura.

We claimed the car from the valet (hello, $26 a day! yeesh) and drove west on route 26 toward Cannon Beach. Along the way we hit a rest stop that, upon exploration, revealed a connection to Rock Creek and a little hiking trail.







There's something about being outdoors that makes Calvin want to take pictures of my nekkid butt ("Here I am, mooning the great outdoors..."), so we did that, but I'm not going to show you. Use your vivid imaginations. Just... be flattering, okay? Heh.

Since a croissant doesn't go very far toward keeping OUR appetites happy, we stopped at Camp 18 for some KILLER burgers (and beer, natch).



We received some very helpful suggestions and directions from our waitress, and made it to Canon Beach without a problem. I was completely geeked to catch glimpses of the ocean and Haystack Rock (GOONIES!!! Remember the scene where they line up the rock formation with the medallion?) from the road, and was totally in love with the place by the time we (finally) maneuvered the traffic and pedestrians of the town, found a parking spot, and made it down to the beach.







After wandering around the village at Cannon Beach for a while, we got back on the road and headed toward Astoria. The only thing lacking from our drive among the cliff-side houses was Cyndi Lauper singing that "Goonies are Good Enough". It was totally surreal; I kept expecting Mikey and the boys to come racing out to let the air out of Brandon's tires.

We gaped at how BIG the mouth of the Columbia River is, and (after a couple of wrong turns where we were all, "We're over HERE and we want to be over THERE,") drove across the bridge over to Washington.







Back over on the Oregon side, we stopped at the "Ship's Inn", a restaurant recommended by our waitress at Camp 18, who's perfect and LITERAL directions ("...the road right before the Burger King in Astoria...") dropped us right there. Calvin had a crab cocktail, I got some short neck clams.

And beer.





By the time we finished up at Ship's Inn, it was nearly 5:00 and time to head back toward Portland. Calvin and I really enjoyed the entire road along 26. Lots of trees, rolling green fields and farm stands sporting cherries and fresh berries. We fail to realize just now NOT green Arizona is until we go to somewhere as green as Oregon. As long as we were there, the contrast never stopped startling us.

The next day (Saturday) we spent the entire day pretty much just walking around the city. We bought some more comfortable shoes at Columbia Sports, our feet having suffered from our poor packing choice of footwear. We had breakfast at Mother's, then went down to the open air market they hold every Saturday. We encountered a homeless man in a flowered dress and straw hat brightly decorated with fluorescent fake flowers, literally IN the dumpster we parked near, who had a very cheerful hello for us. We also were nonplussed to be confronted by a homeless man getting a BJ from a prostitute under some bushes literally two feet from the HIGHLY TRAFFICKED (by families with children, even) sidewalk.

They were too busy to say hello.

We only stayed for a few minutes in the market before leaving again - I think we were traumatized or something. So we drove around for a little bit, then took the car back to the hotel and hit a couple of restaurants and a brewery. We had dinner on the sidewalk (where most places had their outdoor seating area) at Jake's Crawfish and watched the comings and goings of the very fancy men at the gay bar across the street.



After dinner we walked around some more, and found ourselves back at that bar whose name I can't remember. SIXSHOOTERS! That's it. We sat outside (on the sidewalk again) and chatted with a couple of young men who were in Portland on an internship with Walgreens. While sitting there we deflected more requests for "compassion" from several more homeless men (and we would be more compassionate if they weren't buying BJ's and booze with their donated money - and I'm probably going to catch hell from someone for that comment). We also encountered two very fabulous ladies on their way to a party at Escape, who were kind enough to pose for a picture:



Sunday was our last day in Oregon, so after the wake up/coffee/checkout/valet routine, we drove up to Cameo's Cafe for a terrific breakfast (best bacon EVER), and got a parking ticket in the process. We spent the rest of the misty morning traversing the paths of the Rose Test Garden and the Japanese Garden in Washington Park.













Okay, so Portland? Is hard to get around if you're not familiar with the place. After we left Washington Park we went back down to the city proper to find this floating restaurant/bar that Calvin recalled from a trip he took back in the 90's. We could see it from the road but had a heck of a time figuring out which turn to take that would get us down to the riverfront. We finally figured it out, but we were cracking ourselves up with the sheer amount of wrong turns we took.

First stop was the Marina Fish House, the aforementioned floating restaurant. We sat outside on the dock and watched the ducks and geese competing for the french fries a posse of little boys were tossing to them. The movement of the dock was a little disconcerting at first. We enjoyed an hour of river watching while sipping some brews - my new favorite is now the Bridgeport IPA.



(Sometimes I just can't believe how handsome Calvin is.)



We walked up the riverside walk to the park end and made ourselves comfortable in the rocking chairs on the porch of Three Degrees. We could have stayed there all day long, rocking and sipping and nibbling on a cheese platter. Entertainment was provided by a huge flock of geese that was completely unperturbed by the multiple attempts made by small children to get them to scatter. As soon as we saw them we immediately thought of Marie, who as a little girl (and probably still now) would have made just such an attempt.





We still had a couple of hours to kill before we needed to leave for the airport, so we wandered back down the walk and stopped at McCormick & Schmick's for some lunch... and more beer.







Winding down to the end, now... we made it to the airport with time to spare... and then discovered that we had even MORE time to spare than originally thought - our 7:15 pm flight was delayed until after 9:00. So we hung out in one of the restaurants in the airport, looked at all of the pictures on the digital camera, had some munchies, and braved a nuclear neon drink.



So, our opinion of Oregon is that we wouldn't mind living there, but definitely wouldn't live in Portland city proper. It's not small town enough for us. The countryside is beautiful, though, with a branch of AcronymCo that's located right in the middle of some farmlands. So transferring is an option, though not in the immediate future. All in all, we liked Oregon, though it wasn't exactly what we were expecting.

Labels: booze, photography, vacation

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