Random updates

Got my H1N1 shot yesterday, now still need to get the seasonal flu shot. My dr didn't seem to have any, so guess I'll be standing in line at the drugstore or something.

Bun Jovi got adopted already, boo. But at least now I know I would consider a fiber-producing bunny...I hadn't really considered it before...all the fiber bunnies I've seen at shows in Oregon are gigantic scary bunnies. I'd rather have a smaller one.

We're getting a washer/dryer today, woo hoo! No more going to the laundromat!

I can't forgive Kool-Aid for the fact that they stopped making Rainbow Punch back in the '80s. That was the best flavor ever, I remember I could drink an entire pitcher all by myself in one sitting. Nothing tastes as good. Nothing.

Sunday morning coffee post

Eggnog in my coffee this morning, yum.

Less than 4 weeks til the wedding. Guess we better wrap up the final planning. Soon. I'm very excited about the road trip. We are taking 3 weeks off to do the whole thing, and have no concrete plans after the wedding at this time, so it's fun to have all that freedom.

My sister was vehemently opposed to me making my own wedding cupcakes. I don't think she thought my cupcakes are lousy, just that we don't need to be thinking about cupcakes the day before the wedding. She found a baker that has a reputation for making simple, elegant cupcakes, and we're looking into that instead.

PH and I were amusing ourselves by looking at the local humane society website for pet adoptions. We found a wooly bunny that I thought was very cute. His name is Bun Jovi. I have had all bad luck with pet bunnies in the past. They were always mean, they kicked and bit. I have heard of other people that had adorable pet bunnies who were box trained, but I've never seen such a thing with my own eyes. Well, Bun Jovi claims to be sweet and box trained. He produces fiber ($!) so you have to brush him every day. We are considering sponsoring Bun Jovi until we get back from our wedding and can go meet him and see if he kicks and bites. We are getting a housesitter while we are gone, but I wouldn't want to ask him to groom Bun Jovi every day for 3 weeks.

I started my coffee this morning while playing video games, so I'm out of coffee already.

Sunday morning coffee post

Thanks to everyone for all the kind words we have received about Miss Jack. She was more than a pet to us, she was a huge part of our daily lives. Thursday was very sad, but we are feeling better now and glad she is not suffering, glad for the short time we had with her since she had such a fun and sweet personality.

PH says we must reconsider our pet scenario. Meaning, we can't ever just have one pet again, because when it dies, then you have none. So, expect a menagerie someday!

It may sound strange since we've only been here 2 months, but I'm looking forward to leaving the mountain house someday. Not the mountains, just this house in particular. Living here is an excellent lesson in what we don't want. A house without a foundation or basement means SKUNKS LIVE UNDER THE HOUSE no matter what my landlord says. ("We've never seen/smelled a skunk in the last 15 years!")
The house is big, i.e. bigger than anything we've ever lived in before, so I find it hard to keep clean and warm, though perhaps if I weren't working a day job I could find the time.
The deck is huge, lovely, and uncovered! Who would do that in an environment where it rains at least 8 months a year?!? I long for a covered porch so I can better enjoy the view and fresh air without getting wet! We have a patio umbrella, but it's not waterproof...do you know how difficult it is to find a waterproof patio umbrella? It is impossible! I have been looking ever since we moved to Oregon! I will have to try restaurant supply, maybe...I know I always see them at restaurants...
And since there is no covered porch, you would think there would be a mudroom. Nope. One door opens right into our living room and the other goes right into the kitchen. I have to clean the kitchen floor every single day because in spite of the rug by the door there is still mud and pine needles everywhere. This is less visible in the living room as I suspect the carpet is hiding the yuck. There is no convenient place to stop and take off your shoes by either door. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Yes, the people who built this house are from L.A.
The land is on a forest-covered mountain, so it is not set up for gardening or farm animals - another reason we won't be staying forever.

The good news is that in living here we have seen so many rural properties for sale right here in our beautiful neighborhood. I mean just on the way to the grocery store there are currently about 10 properties for sale, and this trend continues pretty much everywhere I go in this area. It is very exciting for us, and I hope with the real estate economy the way it is that this supply will keep up through the next couple of years when perhaps we will be able to enter the market.

Today we end Daylight Savings Time and even though PH was overjoyed that he got up an hour early, he's still going to be late for work (as usual). ha

People often ask me how I am feeling. I feel fine in that I am not throwing up. However, I also feel like I have the flu at least 50% of the time in that I have an indescribable lack of energy, dry mouth, hunger combined with lack of appetite, and general aches and pains all over. All I can say is that I don't feel like "me" and it's very frustrating as I feel like I will never be me ever again. I hope that is an exaggeration but I have no way of knowing. I am starting a prenatal exercise program today and if I do not fall asleep in the middle of it we will see if that improves anything.

This impacts the wedding planning, which I'm basically doing by myself due to PH's work schedule. Thank goodness it is nearly done since it is about a month away. I am feeling some focus today, so I'm going to try to finish up the wedding budget and hope we have enough money left over to actually get to TX and back. We still have not booked any hotel rooms and I know I need to hurry up and do that before our hotel of choice is sold out.

Coffee's out, time to do chores and budgeting now.

Jack: Feb 14, 2006 - Oct 29, 2009

We are heartbroken by the loss of Jack today. We miss her so much, already. She was the best cat in the whole wide world.

I guess some energy has returned, because I've worked 8-hour days for the last 3 days. Unbelievable! Wedding is in 45 days and we still haven't quite determined how we're getting there (drive or fly or train or ?). I suppose part of that was that the funding priority was going toward the venue rental and the food and the photographer. In the wedding industry, everyone wants to be paid way in advance, and I guess I understand why, but it's very challenging when the party is planned in such a short time frame. PH pretty much has his heart set on driving, but that means a LOT of hotel bills. I'll have to think about this later when I haven't been working all day and otherwise stressed out.

So simple a child could do it

I have made a decision about the wedding. It is one of the top 3 decisions that all the wedding planners tell you NOT to make. But Dallas has left me with no choice.

I am going to make my own wedding cake.

Ok. really, I am making cupcakes. But it is one of the decisions that all the magazines and websites say not to do, and apparently is very tempting for many brides, but they say don't do it even if you are a professional cake baker. But I looked at about 50 cupcake websites for the Dallas area, and about half of them have gone out of business and the other half did not have any designs that impressed me.

And then I recalled testing cupcake bakeries in Chicago and Portland and also deciding in all cases that my own cupcakes were better.

The odd thing is that the designs I have in mind are extremely simple; so simple that I'm sure a child could decorate these cupcakes. And yet I could not find a bakery that seemed up to the task. So, I say, if a child could do it, then why not me. Why not me in my hotel room the day before the wedding?

Wedding invitations - don't try this at home

I told PH that for our next wedding, we won't be printing invitations at home. My printer can't handle cardstock and I just found it to be a big pain and they didn't turn out very good. I wouldn't probably have gone with an engraver or anything, but if I knew then what I knew now, I might have ordered from etsy or someplace like that instead.

Here comes the rain again

It started raining yesterday. Pouring cats and dogs, actually, plus we have the joy of high wind here on the mountain. Still, it's a nice change from the incessant sunshine we've been experiencing since July. :)

I'm trying to hunker down and feel cozy, but I'm sicker than yesterday and pretty miserable. I remember a time in my life when I had energy, but it's hard to imagine that will ever come back. In the meantime, the stressors in my life just continue to pile up, which I'm sure does not help my overall health.

Today was my first prenatal appointment. My new doctor seems more relaxed than my old doctor. I had another ultrasound to check for heartbeat. The doc saw heartbeat and The Bun jumping around. Then they took a whole lot of blood from my arm, which now hurts. Doc says I need to get both flu shots, even though I told her that I don't have any interaction with people. She probably didn't believe me since I was clearly suffering from this cold, which is on Day 9. I have heard that whatever this is going around lasts about 2 weeks, so, few more days of fever and sleepless nights to go, I guess.

I heart Carbonite

I use an online computer backup service called Carbonite. I have subscribed to them for about 2 years now, for $50/year. They backup all your files offsite so you can restore them if you accidentally delete them or your computer crashes.

As we know, my computer had a meltdown recently. When I got it back from the computer geek I was happy to see I didn't need to reload iTunes. It opened and all my songs and playlists were there.

Or, so it would seem.

Yesterday I finally spent some time reloading programs onto the newly wiped computer, and when I was done I figured I better plug in my iPhone/iPods and get them synched with some music I'm considering for the wedding. That is when I found all of my files were actually gone. The song lists were still there, but when you clicked on a song to play it, suddenly iTunes decided the song was not actually there. First it told me there were 100 problems. Then 300. Then I realized iTunes was not being truthful with me and every single file was gone.

I went to the Apple help desk and I tried every single suggestion they had for restoring my files, and NOTHING WORKED. I was very dismayed because I had lost 2000 files, and of those, over 300 were digital purchases only. (I didn't realize how much money I spend on iTunes before now.)

I could not remember if Carbonite backed up music files, but I checked anyway out of desperation. Well, they do! And I got them all back! And all my iPhone apps! And it was easy!!

http://www.carbonite.com/

Sunday morning coffee post

So, after my computer crashed, we went on a brief trip, and immediately upon return from that trip I developed a bad cold/low-grade fever which knocked me out until pretty much this morning. Stupid airplanes. How can I catch up blogging when so much has happened? I'll just write til I run out of coffee.

The purpose of our trip was to tell our family the big news: we are getting married in December and we are expecting a baby in May. That's right, most people drop those kinds of announcements one at a time, but we do both together!

The wedding will be in Dallas, where my sister lives. We've actually been planning a wedding for quite some time. When we learned about the bun in the oven, it forced us to choose a date right away. We talked about just getting married here, but we really wanted our families to be there and since none of them are in Oregon and most of them are in TX, it seemed easier for everyone if we moved the location. We also talked about not having a wedding at all, but it was hard to abandon the ideas that we had been planning for so long, knowing that we would never have the chance to realize them again. Some of the ideas did have to be abandoned (my dream of bringing in a full orchestra and big band (yes, we were seriously planning to do that)). But our plan was always to have a Christmas wedding, and so we find ourselves organizing and paying for a wedding in only 2 months. I see now the brilliance of having a year-long engagement - it's kind of like a layaway plan for the wedding. I suspect PH may have to go with a stand-in wedding ring until I can get him the real one he wants later.

We are looking into flying into Dallas on a one-way ticket, and then driving back home as a kind of honeymoon. We'd visit the grand canyon and Sedona and Las Vegas. Initially PH had suggested driving both ways. On this last trip (that produced the cold), we had yet another tearful incident at the airport with TSA and it was with a heavy heart that I admitted that I think I'm willing to give up flying now. PH had enough of TSA long ago. So he said, we'll fly one more time (to our wedding) and that's it. And I said, really, we don't even have to fly then. He liked that idea. But, it will take us several days in TX to get our marriage license, so we may fly anyway to reduce the amount of time PH has to take off from work. Although, he says he doesn't care how much time he takes off since he gets paid vacation. I don't know. This is something we're thinking about. I hate TSA and what it represents and what we have become. PH says he doesn't understand why everyone just allows themselves to be treated that way. I said it's because TSA can prevent you from getting to your plane on time, or at all. I didn't argue because I wanted to go home. I regret it now, but now it's too late.

Being sick when you have a bun in the oven means you're not allowed to take any medication at all. PH went to talk to Pharmacist who said he would not recommend anything except Tylenol every now and then. Since then, a couple of moms have told me Robitussin is ok, but now I am mostly better. The fever was the worst. You have to watch it, because if it gets too high then you're cooking The Bun and that is bad. But mine stayed low, but just enough to annoy the hell out of me, make me feel like my eyeballs were boiling and I was breathing fire through my nose and mouth.

We got satellite TV this week. We don't have a broadband connection here in the mountains, so our previous method of watching TV on the internet wasn't going to work here. My favorite show is LOST and I didn't want to miss the last season, which should start up in January. So we got a move-in special on a satellite dish, and it's all set. It came with a DVR. I decided I do need to learn how to use it, because there's so many commercials on TV I can't stand it. I also found that there isn't much on TV at all. I suppose when LOST is over we may just cancel the dish. I'm not sure. I thought I would like HGTV but it seems that all their shows are like lifestyles of the rich and famous, except they are marketing the shows as if we are all rich and supposed to relate to this. Remodels of 5000 square foot homes. Re-do your backyard for $40k. How to buy a vacation home abroad. etc etc. Nothing I can relate to. I loved this Canadian show I used to watch called The Painted House. And the same designer later did one called Facelift, which was like Extreme Home Makeover before EHM existed. I loved it because even though the before/after was always pretty extreme, it was also do-able for the average person. HGTV doesn't have any shows like that, from what I can see. I've also found that our local PBS is so far not as good as KCET. I suppose nothing is. But I was kind of surprised because OPB funds a lot of PBS programs nationwide, so I thought they must be kind of good.

Coffee's out, so am I. Going to try to make today a workday to make up for the week and a half that I've missed. (Well, can't say I missed it, haha.)

The virus that ate Windows

A couple weeks ago my computer started acting weird. I was getting popup ads when I didn't used to, especially since I use the popup blocker. I knew something was wrong. Then I started getting the blue screen of death and my computer would reset itself. It started losing files. It wasn't able to run everything that it could run a few weeks before. So I took it to a geek storefront and I told the guy that I had a virus. He took a look and said, yep, and it ate Windows.

It was pretty easy to clean and reinstall Windows, but doing so wiped out all my software, which I now have to reinstall. This is not so easy when you can't find all the disks. I've torn the house apart looking for the software I need just to connect to my own printer, but no luck. So I have to download it from the HP website, which has literally taken all day since I don't have a good broadband connection.

All this is why I haven't posted in a while and have no pictures to share. Soon the blog will be back to normal, I hope.

All dressed up in stardust and tinsel

I can see why people would have been inspired to dress up their Christmas trees with tinsel. The little Christmas trees outside my kitchen window are covered in dew, and the sun is shining on them. They are so sparkly! Each dew bead looks like silver, and glints in the sun. They're even prettier than indoor trees.

Mailbox

I timed a walk to the mailbox and back. It takes 15 minutes. I used to complain I would die of exposure during the winter during a 3 minute walk to the mailbox.

I freakin love H&YY

You know the kid who freakin loves coloring?

Well, that's how I feel about Hoops and YoYo. They are a couple of characters featured in Hallmark cards. They are so hilarious I can't get enough of them. I first heard of them when my friend started sending me e-cards featuring H&YY. Then the other day I was in the grocery store and happened to notice they had audio cards featuring H&YY and I had to stop and open every single one and listen. I was rolling in the aisle, all by myself. I bought a bunch of them (friends, act surprised when you get them). I had like $200 worth of groceries and people were lining up behind me, but the checker had to stop and also open up every single card and listen to it. It was weird, but since I was laughing so hard at H&YY I could not glare at the checker and tell her to hurry it up, please.

Sea Lions in Salem

Yesterday we went to the Oregon State Fair. They had a show called Sea Lion Encounter, and we went to see that. For $25 I got to go up to their pool and have one of them put her nose on my face for a "kiss". It was so fun. See my FB page for a photo!

The sea lions and their trainers were from Monterey. I was happy to see such "famous" sea lions come to OR. I wonder how they travel. Like, what kind of vehicle.

Cheddar then, cheddar now, cheddar always

We're now all moved in and finally have an Internet connection. Not really anywhere close to being unpacked, but it will get done eventually.

The week before we moved, PH's mom came to visit. We took her all over the state. Every day was some sort of road trip or adventure in Portland. We drove through the Columbia Gorge, saw Multnomah Falls, showed her the mountain house, hiked in the forest, visited the Indian casino and the Tillamook cheese factory,

went to the beaches at Lincoln City and Cannon Beach, ate dinner riverfront in Astoria and watched seals playing in the water, climbed to the top of the Astoria column,

visited the Portland Saturday Market, and took a dinner cruise on the Willamette River.

At Cannon Beach we saw Haystack Rock,

which I'd never visited in person before. I always wanted to see it since it's in the Goonies. It turns out that you are not allowed to swim out and climb Haystack Rock. A lot of animals including 8 species of crabs live on the rock. I guess that is why you're not allowed to climb it, but I'm not sure. What I do know is that you would die of exposure before you even got to the rock, and it's not even very far out. But we waded in the water and it was so cold that it made your bones ache in a very bad way. See, in this picture we are barely in the water, but this caused enough pain to make us scream, "HURRY UP AND TAKE THE PICTURE!"

Longing for a normal day

We haven't had a "routine" day around here in I don't know how long. August had more interruptions than I've ever remembered having in a single month. Some of them welcome and some of them not so much. I am looking forward to finishing the move to the mountain house so I can try to establish some kind of routine again. Tomorrow is a packing day, and then the moving truck comes on Friday. I have to be back in Portland on Monday for further interruptions. Then maybe normal-ish...soon...

We're on a road to nowhere

We had our first misadventure at the mountain house. Last weekend we decided to spend a night there. Moving day isn't until late next week, but we've started to bring a few boxes here and there, and we had enough stuff moved to "camp" at the house for a night. I took one car to the house and PH took the other one to work. He called me in the middle of night to tell me that he had actually run out of gas between the hospital and our house. When he realized he was too low and there are no gas stations anywhere near our house, he drove into our nearest town. There, he found there were no gas stations open 24 hours. So now we know we have to plan ahead, and also stock up on gas at our house just in case. I can only imagine having guests over who don't realize how much gas it will take to get to and from.

Life in a Northern Town

I've been calling the water district all week to get service established at the mountain house. For the last couple of days I just got an answering machine. An actual machine, with a tape in it. Saying, "you've reached Mark at the water district" etc. When I first got the machine, I Googled the water district to make sure I had the right number. They don't have a website. But all the white pages listings I found had the number I was dialing to be the correct number. So I guessed "Mark" was customer service, except when I listened to the whole message he said he was out in the field working on an outage. So he's both field and customer service.

I spoke to him today and got everything established in about 30 seconds. He didn't want my phone number or social security number or anything. He asked me to send a check, but didn't put any restrictions on timing. He didn't want to know if I ever had utility service in my name before, or where I work. I found the whole thing amusing and bizarre. I told my new landlord and they said they call him Mark, the water dude. So I guess he is field, customer service, and the entire water district in one person.

Our new landlord says we can get package deliveries at the mountain house with no problems. Also we are allowed to play music as loud as we want because no one can hear it.
I think I might start with Foo Fighters' Everlong. The plugged version, of course.

Things we will not have at the mountain house:

traffic noise
noisy neighbors
neighbors blowing cigarette smoke in my house
light pollution

Things we will have:
flying insects

Need to get more screen doors and bug-killing paraphernalia.

Movin Right Along (Hey LA, where've you gone?)

Even though our lease is up at the end of August, and we've been looking for a rental house closer to PH's work, I'm still surprised to announce that we are moving away from Portland this month. Partly because it happened so fast, and partly because the place we're going to is darn close to a picture I've dreamed of my entire life.

PH has been watching the rental ads for several months now. Occasionally, we go and look at one. It always seems nice in the ad but turns out to be infested with rats in person. A couple of weeks ago, he found another ad that seemed like what we wanted. It's 25 miles from the hospital, which is farther than PH would like but closer than we are now. And it's rural, which we really wanted. When he saw the ad relisted a couple times, he contacted the landlords to make an appointment to see the place. Sometimes he goes by himself, but this time I was able to take a few hours away from work to go too.

We drove on a rural highway past miles and miles of beautiful farms. Then we turned off the highway into a hilly area. After a few miles we found our street, headed toward mountains covered in trees. Then the street ended. We found a gravel drive that had our address on it. So we kept going. A long narrow gravel road, uphill. We stopped at a beautiful house, but that turned out to be the landlord's house, not the rental. We had to drive further up the mountain to the rental house.

When we got there, and I saw that the house was clean on the outside, I made up my mind that I wanted this place. I didn't even know what the inside of the house looked like. I just knew that there were no next door neighbors, and the house had a deck around it and it was on a mountainside with an unbelievable view on one side and literally zillions of acres of unoccupied forest behind it. I mean, unoccupied by humans, of course. The only reason I didn't offer to buy the place right then and there is that the land is not suited for gardening or farm animals. There isn't really a huge area that is flat and/or cleared. The landlords told us that previous tenants had tried gardening before, but the deer just eat everything.

We looked at the inside of the house and it was big, and clean, as well. It is a manufactured house. It's not anyone's dream house or anything, but it is clean. Three bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 dining areas. And a garden shed outside. So there is definitely room for us.

It's all electric, and they told us the power goes out every winter. It's a good thing we make preparedness our hobby. Now we will see how well we can live when the grocery store is not 5 minutes away. I wonder about the narrow gravel road. I know they obviously got the house up that road somehow. But I also know the trash truck doesn't go up there. I think about the big UPS truck and wonder if might just be better to get a mailbox rental in town. I wonder about our big propane tank and how it's going to get filled. I wonder how we're going to deal with trash, now that I think about the fact that the trash truck isn't coming. I wonder what part I will play in the network of 3 houses on the road (including ours), and if I will like my part. What is an everyday normal lifestyle for some is going to be an adventure every single day for me. It feels like a dream.

Garlic and Jelly Beans

We have just returned from a few days in northern California, where we visited the Gilroy Garlic Festival and the Jelly Belly Factory.

We had heard of the garlic festival when we lived in So Cal, but never made it up that way. After driving up and down I-5 several times the last couple years, for our move to Portland, the garlic festival was given higher priority on our weekend travel list. We love garlic and it sounded yummy. When I told people we were going, I got lots of great advice from everyone who had been there before. It's a 3-day fest, from Friday-Sunday, and one of my friends recommended going on the Friday to avoid the Saturday crowds and traffic. That plan worked well with PH's schedule, and it was a good plan. Although, Friday did seem pretty packed with people. I heard one of the vendors saying that Friday is usually the "slow" day, but that this year's Friday was definitely not slow. So, I can't imagine what Saturday would have been like, and I'm glad we got there before all the food had sold out.

Our first stop was garlic bread, made with garlic grown right there in Gilroy. So, so delicious. The first thing I noticed when I looked at the garlic bread, was that the spread seemed to be an olive oil, rather than butter. The second thing I noticed was that they were NOT skimpy with the garlic. The bread was covered with crushed, soft garlic. We each got 2 slices and they lasted about 2 seconds.

Then we headed over to the next booth to get garlic steak tacos. Also delicious. I am getting hungry just writing this.

Then we headed over to "Gourmet Alley" to try some more high-end fare. We were told that the scampi was to die for, so PH ordered some and declared that it lived up to its reputation, and was worth the drive from Portland. I don't really like the texture of shrimp, but I had a bite and admitted it was absolutely delicious, if you could pretend the squishy shrimp was a squishy clove of garlic.

There were arts & crafts vendors and garlic shopping as well, of course. We bought braids of local garlic to bring home, and a souvenir beer mug. They didn't serve garlic beer. I thought they might, only because I have been to the Oxnard strawberry festival where they served strawberry beer.

People dressed up festively. Garlic Tshirts (from previous years' festivals, and a "Stinkerbell" shirt), beanies shaped like heads of garlic, garlic jewelry. An old man came dressed as a garlic bulb, wearing a cowboy hat decorated with garlic braids. It was fun to see so much love for garlic.
When we were stuffed, we left the festival and walked around Gilroy. Gilroy is full of the most polite people I have ever seen. Near the festival park, kids set up stands selling water, or sometimes just giving water away. People in their driveways said hello to us as we walked by, something that does not happen in our current neighborhood here in Portland, which we always comment as being one of the most annoying/rude things about our neighborhood.

We ate dinner at one of Gilroy's many, many, many Mexican restaurants. Were we happy to see Mexican food. It was awesome. It was early in the evening and so at the time, we shared the restaurant with only one other table, a group of locals who were exceedingly friendly and polite as were all the other locals. I guess that is normal for a small town? I am not used to it. And let me be clear, it wasn't the annoying kind of friendly where they are talking to you nonstop when you want to be left alone. They really were both friendly and polite. I couldn't help noticing it.

The restaurant was located in a section of Gilroy labeled "historic". I assume it was indeed historic, but it was strange because it was mostly vacant and there were notices taped up in all the storefronts. "No occupancy" by order of some local bureaucrat, presumably because of the separate "Warning: unreinforced masonry building" notices, which were taped up next to the cryptic "This place is important" signs. For every 10 vacant storefronts, there might be one that was still occupied. So, I wasn't entirely clear on what was going on. I wondered if the "no occupancy" order went into effect only after the vendor had moved out, due to the economy or whatever? It didn't seem like the vendors were forced out due to the URM status, since there were still a few that held on, and it didn't seem that those storefronts were retrofitted when their adjoining neighbors were not. And "this place is important". I don't remember who placed the signs, but it wasn't the Gilroy Historical Society. I thought it might have made a bigger impression if they explained why, or what the issue was. A Google search and visit to the Gilroy Historical Society website turned up no explanation as to what is going on on this street. Although clearly the depressed economy is a major factor in the huge number of vacancies, it still appears that there is some red tape holding up the seismic retrofitting or some other issue preventing occupancy. Yet the GHS website shows a meeting agenda from last month that makes no reference to this street or this issue at all.

The next day, we went to the Jelly Belly Factory and took the free tour. It reminded of our tour of the Tillamook cheese factory, but also felt a bit like Willy Wonka when we saw candies on conveyor belts traveling from who knows where to who knows where. It was pretty cool. Here is a picture outside the factory.

We bought a ton of jelly bellys, probably enough to last us for a year. But we couldn't help it!

We learned that the Jelly Belly Factory used to be in Portland before it was in NoCal. But it wasn't the Jelly Belly Factory back then. They hadn't discovered Jelly Bellys yet. They made candy corn. They had to move because of the weather, among other things. I will have to find out where the candy corn factory used to be.

Let it be me

First, a notice. Henceforth, the boyfriend will be referred to as "Patrick Henry" (his choice), or "PH" for short (my choice), and I have to take down all the photos. You can still see him on FB if you are my friend. Otherwise, his job requires that we secure his non-work life a little bit more.

Last week I went to D.C. and had a great time. As soon as I got back, they have me working like a dang slave so that I do not have time to update blogs or go grocery shopping or housework or anything. And I really, really hate working 12 hours a day or really even 8 hours a day at this point in my career. Every time they announce there will be a couple of "actions" which is code for "layoffs", I say, "please let one of them be me" which some people find funny, and some do not.

So this was one of those 60-hours weeks and I'm not really even done with this week's work. So that is why I haven't posted much lately.

Here is a photo of me headed to a "gala" in D.C.

This here's the wildest ride in the wilderness

I managed to transfer my photos to a place I can get to them while my computer is dead. I am just frustrated now that I can't get my itunes to sync with my iPhone before I get on the airplane, but I hope to resolve that soon.

So on July 3 we went to the town of Hood River to go camping with PH's motorcycle gang in a cherry tree orchard. We got to eat cherries right from the tree, which we did until our mouths turned dark red.
One of the riders has a sidecar and he was letting us take turns riding. I did not know why everyone always screamed. It did not seem like it would be so fun that you would scream and holler. I found out it is because the sidecar naturally has a tendency to do a wheelie.


The rider who was hosting the party lives in a log cabin that is over 100 years old.
His house is on a hill, so his yard makes for sort of an amphitheater. He built a stage and hired 2 excellent bands to play that night. There is a beautiful view of Mt Hood in the back.

He also has 2 wolves as pets.
I really wanted the wolf to look at the camera instead of the food, but I thought better of taking his food away.

Nearly Missed

I was sitting at my computer yesterday when I thought I saw smoke appear as if from nowhere. Little wispy tendrils of smoke. Then it was gone. About half an hour later, I saw it again. This time I saw it was coming from my computer power cord, which of course immediately got unplugged. My laptop is pretty old, and where the cord connects to the power unit, it simply wore out and cracked. I am so lucky that I saw it happen. I could have not been home, or simply could have left the power unit on the floor as the cord is really long, and I never would have seen it. It was certainly a lesson in unplugging, as well as checking the status of "old" cords, or at least ones that get folded up and travel a lot.

I have 2 computer batteries, but neither one lasts very long. I immediately ordered a couple of replacement power cords, but it occurred to me later that even with rush delivery I am not going to receive them in time for my trip to D.C. next week. At first I panicked because I was planning to bring my computer to the DAR Library to do some genealogy research. But before the battery died I was able to copy my family tree over to PH's computer (which I'm using now), so no issues there. And I should be able to complete (limited) work on PH's computer too. So, no worries.

I'll have to post about 4th of July weekend later, though, because not all of my photos are on PH's computer yet...

It's not a small mountain, it's a volcano

This is Mount Hood, and way in the back I think must be Mount Rainer. (Click photo to make it bigger.)

We flew right past the mountain on the way home and the pilot didn't even say anything. I took this picture from my window seat with my iPhone. No zoom.

We're the party people, night and day

Here I am at 1:15am on Friday morning in Times Square. I know it's 1:15am because Melissa took a picture of the Times Square clock a few minutes later. I think I'm holding on to the newspaper rack out of necessity. But let's start at the beginning.

Here I am the previous Sunday arriving in NYC for the first time, coming out of Penn Station.

Penn Station is huge and connects with Amtrak and the New Jersey railroad and is very busy and confusing. It is how I imagined Grand Central Station would be instead. If at any time we would have screwed everything up, it would have been those first few minutes in Penn Station when we were trying to buy a Metro pass and could not figure it out. Luckily, a homeless guy came to our rescue and showed us how we were on the wrong floor led us to the right place and helped us buy our pass. At any other station we would have been fine, but Penn Station is nuts.

Sunday is a very good day to go to NYC for the first time. It is relatively quiet and empty, especially first thing in the morning. Once we had our subway pass, we headed downtown where there was no traffic at all.

This is St. Paul's Chapel, established in 1766. Though a large number of my ancestors are from New York, I did not really expect Manhattan to have any colonial buildings, so I was surprised to see it. George Washington was inaugurated in NYC, and visited this chapel on inauguration day.

From here we walked to Battery Park and took the ferry to Liberty Island.I like this picture that Melissa took.

From Liberty Island, we continued on to Ellis Island. Most of the buildings on Ellis Island are closed to the public. I think the one here is the hospital, but I'm not totally sure. I took this picture from inside the huge waiting/processing room. So far I have not found any of my own ancestors that came through Ellis Island, since most migrated long before it was open. But it was interesting.After the ferry returned us to Battery Park, we took the train to Grand Central Station, then got out and had some lunch. All the restaurants in NYC are Italian or Irish. We chose an Irish one.

Then went to SoHo and NoLita to buy perfume. Here is the perfumer mixing fresh juice for us.We were very impressed with the shopping in this part of town. I have never seen so many city blocks filled with beautiful things and yummy smelling food, all coming from independent stores. It would be very dangerous to live in this part of town.

It started raining, so we went back to New Jersey and got ready to go to work.

We returned to NYC on Thursday and got a hotel near Times Square. First thing we did was eat pizza.

We are at John's Pizza which is inside of what used to be a church. It's very cool and the pizza is yummy. Oh and I don't know if this is a New York thing or what, but everywhere we went, when you want your check you have to ask for it. They don't just bring it over. And they don't refill your drinks for free, either. You have to ask if you want a refill.

After eating our New York pizza we went over to the TKTS building in Times Square to get show tickets for the evening. We were hoping since it was a Thursday night that we would be able to see a Broadway show. We ruled out all Disney shows, Shrek, and shows where anyone dies. A lot of shows were sold out, but TKTS still had plenty of choices. Our first choice 9 to 5 sold out while we were waiting in line, so we chose Avenue Q instead. Here are some pictures I took of Times Square while we were waiting in line.

While standing in Times Square, we learned from the scrolling headlines on the CNN building that Farrah Fawcett had died, and I looked up the details on my iPhone. The iPhone came very much in handy while we were in NYC. The "GPS" feature works really good.

After we got our tickets, we took the train uptown to the very top of Central Park. The purpose of our trip was to find the Seinfeld restaurant. While we were walking there we accidentally came across the Cathedral of St John the Divine, which incidentally is the largest gothic cathedral in the entire world, according to my guidebook. We got there about 30 minutes before they closed the doors for the evening, which was so lucky. We spent the next half hour taking about hundred photos inside. I was completely amazed by this building. It was the most awesome building I've ever seen, including anything at Hearst Castle.

Finally made it to our destination, the Seinfeld restaurant.

Then we went back to our hotel to freshen up for the Avenue Q show. I think it was in the hotel lobby that we saw the headline that Michael Jackson had been hospitalized for cardiac arrest and had possibly died. We turned on the TV in our room and flipped the channels. Nothing had been confirmed yet. It took a few minutes to even find one of those "breaking news" interruptions and it only mentioned the hospitalization. By the time we changed our clothes and headed over to Broadway via Times Square to get to the theater, it had been confirmed. I knew it by the way people walking towards us suddenly stopped in their tracks, motionless, speechless, staring upward at the huge electronic displays overhead. People lifted up their cameras to take pictures. They were all focused on one thing. I turned around to see what everyone was looking at, though I already knew. The monitors were showing TV news with closed captions on so everyone could read that Michael Jackson was dead. It was strange to see everyone stop and read.

Avenue Q is a very funny show.

We went to dinner on Restaurant Row, then to a comedy club, which was really more of a comedy-craphole-basement. But the comedy was funny. When we got out, we walked past a subway station where a group of people were singing a Michael Jackson song and dancing. It was very festive. We headed back into Times Square to take some photos. There were still a lot of people, but it was definitely not as crowded as it had been around 7:30 when everyone is trying to get to the theater.

The NYPD location in Times Square is strangely neon.

Next door to our hotel was the wax museum. We had noticed on the way to Broadway that they had a Michael Jackson statue in the window. We thought it was very coincidental, but maybe they were just really on the spot and moved the doll 2 seconds after his hospitalization was announced. Anyway, that window became a hangout for news reporters and fans. The mood was celebratory, never like people were creating a shrine.

Here is a picture of Times Square at 1:15am. I think Melissa was taking a picture of the clock, but you can see a Michael Jackson headline scrolling on the left in blue.

Everyone's your friend in New York City

My first day ever in NYC!! And I'm very proud to say I did not get lost, mugged, or yelled at, not even once!! I'm here with a co-worker, her first time to the city too. We saw a ton of stuff and shopped and took photos and talked to the locals, and it was awesome. It is just so unfortunate that we have to work this week. When we checked into the hotel they gave us homework already. I'm sure I can not even think of work while I'm here...