Seattle Fun - Archie McPhee

Archie McPhee may be the greatest crap store ever! So great that it's actually two stores...one right next door to the other. Monica and I spent well over an hour just foolin' around in there. Too much fun! Other than the fun stuff you see us playing with and all of the crazy novelty stuff you would find in a Spencer's type store, there's....junk. Leftover stuff from the 80's, leftover mechincal pieces, and some of the most random stuff you would never think to find in a store. And the bag my purchases were given to me in....a paper cosmetics bag straight from 1989, mauve and sea-foam green and all. Anyhow, here's some fun pictures from our adventure!

Argh!

When you've got a really big booger...

Elvis, the mullet years...

Who you callin' chicken?

Pardon?

Ahhh!

When I grow up, I want to be Robin Hood!

Monica wants to be Heidi...

Thaaat's creepy...

I could be a model...

Space Master Monica

Home

Well, I'm home from Seattle. I had a BLAST! Monica and I did almost everything on our itinerary, plus a few extra things. Bumbershoot was totally the highlight and seeing Mike Doughty as the last show topped it off. The burlesque show was also one of my favorite parts. Not only do I know how to pole dance (thanks to Katie's bachelorette party), I now know how to twirl booby tassels! As for all of the other things we did, I think I will write about them later (hopefully this weekend) and post them on my other blog.

So now I'm going to crawl into my warm squishy bed, which I have missed dearly, and watch a movie before crashing early. It's amazing how exhausting a vacation can be!

Monica and I at our first Bumbershoot concert of the weekend

Countdown

I officially begin my Seattle trip in less than 12 hours....10 hours and 40 minutes to be exact. I'm almost packed and most of my chores are done. I just finished laundry, but I still need to do the dishes, take out the trash, and water my plants. I think two out of three will be waiting for tomorrow morning! And for the moment, I don't feel so excited. Or maybe that's not right. I'm just tired I guess and it won't feel like an actual trip until I'm on the plane. So maybe I should say my trip officially begins in 13 hours and 32 minutes. (obviously I'm excited or I wouldn't be counting down).

Monica and I have quite a list of things to do this week. Besides the 3-day music and art festival (see below) we will be hitting all of the famous Seattle spots, like the Fremont Troll, Gas Works Park, EMP, Space Needle, and Pike Place Market. Some lesser known places we will be going are the Underground Tour, Olympic Sculpture Park, Waterfall Park, Woodland Zoo, Ballard Locks, Museum of Glass, and we will of course ride the SLUT (I'll explain with pictures later). On top of THAT, there are a number of parks we are going to go to, like Golden Gardens Park, Magnuson Park, Green Lake, and the Arboretum. And I can't forget our shopping adventure to the cupcake store, the cookie cutter store, and Archie McPhees. Yup, we're actually going to attempt to "DO IT ALL!" We're so serious about this, not only have we made a list, but we've turned that list into a Google Map and then into an excel spreadsheet Itinerary! A few things did have to be left off unfortunately, like riding the Duck and the Pacific Science Center. But, I suppose we should leave something to do for next time...

Anyhow, our little discussion here has pumped me back up again, so I'm going to go finish all my chores as quickly as I can and get to bed so I can begin this adventure! A real vacation! FINALLY!

I'm going to Seattle!!!!!

In a nearly last minute decision, I've decided to go up to Seattle to visit Monica and go to a big three day concert festival. I'm sooo excited! I'm pretty much the only one who hasn't been up to visit her since she moved about a year and a half ago. The best part is, I get to spend a whole week up there! I'm leaving the 27th and returning the 3rd of September, so I'll be there over Labor Day.

And the festival is going to be AWESOME! It's Saturday-Monday at the Seattle Center (where the Space Needle is). There's 20 stages with bands, comedians, and performing arts shows plus visual arts exhibitions. Oh, and a burlesque cabaret. We're going to see Mike Doughty, The Old 97's, Beck, Jakob Dylan, STP, The Offspring, and whoever else sounds good. I think we're also going to check out some comedy shows. I really want to see Zach Galifianakis and "Yoga Bitch". I just can't stop telling you how excited I am!

Check out the website:

Other events in the workings:

• Concours d'Elegance - Helping out Merry on Saturday with signs, get to see LOTS of pretty (EXPENSIVE) cars
• Erika is visiting for a night on Saturday
  
• Camping - Mt. Madonna next weekend with Katie, Patrick, and Kelly
• Santa Cruz Boardwalk - Sometime soon after Seattle with the co-workers
  

Experimenting

I went to the grocery store with a list of ingredients for an old favorite (veggie enchiladas) and a few new dishes (home made pizza, chicken and dill souvlaki, and a pasta dish with peppers and mozzarella). Since the hour was getting late while I shopped, I decided that I wanted to make the pizza first. Trader Joes always has pizza dough ready to roll out and cook, so I went there to shop. But they didn't have any!!! So when I went to Safeway my choices were Pillsbury dough from a can or Boboli...I chose the Boboli. And to my surprise, it's not that bad.

I had almost forgotten that I actually do like making pizzas. I would never go back and do it as a job, that's for sure, but I love crafting my perfect pizza. Tonight I spread some olive oil and chopped garlic on the crust, then covered it with a thin layer of spinach, added a layer of mozzarella, a few crumbles of gorgonzola, chopped up chunks of a medium sized tomato, and then another light sprinkle of mozzarella. So easy and it's pretty tasty! A fresh crust would make it better, of course. I need to find a good home made recipe. Also, the gorgonzola was an experiment that wasn't too bad, but I think I would prefer my old favorite, feta. On the other hand, I'd like to try goat cheese too. I'd also like to try to make my own BBQ chicken pizza. I think that will be my next experiment!

Driving At Sunset

I took a drive out to Monterey to run some errands tonight and the sky was so beautiful that I had to share. The fog from PG was just creeping over the hill and high patchy clouds blanketed the rest of the sky. The gap between the two layers was a crystal clear blue, brighter than anything I've ever seen. The sun sinking low on the horizon made the high clouds glow a color that doesn't even have a name. Somewhere between rose and salmon is the best I can do to describe it. And it really did glow. Like some otherworldly light emitted from the heavens.

As I drove past Lake El Estero, the fading light reflected off the water in the most awesome patterns and colors. I decided to drive home along the ocean instead of taking the freeway. Every wave and ripple caught the light from above and mixed it with the deep darkness of the ocean to make new and fascinating colors in shades or purple and blue and pink. It was so amazing that it was hard to keep my eyes on the road as I followed the curves of the coastline. I wanted to reach Asilomar beach and pull over before the light faded, but no such luck behind a tourist who kept breaking unnecessarily. It faded right as I passed the Point Pinos lighthouse.

At the ending of such a hectic day the spectacle evoked so many emotions and brought to the surface of my mind so many thoughts that I couldn't even focus on one thing. I felt joy and peace and happiness and loneliness and frustration and sadness all at once. I thought about how I live in such a beautiful place but often forget about that in the day to day of life. I thought that even though it can be explained by simple science, every sunset is a gift from God. I felt sad that I couldn't be one of those people walking along the path hand in hand with a loved one or sitting on the sand with any or all of my best friends talking over the day. I thought about my day at work and how I felt confident that handled all the stress and trials that today brought well and accomplished everything I needed to do. I was upset that I didn't have even one of my three cameras with me. I thought about how much fun I had at the party on Saturday and how beautiful I felt in the dress I wore. I felt frustrated that I haven't been able to motivate myself to go back to the gym and that I don't know what to do to fix that. I thought about how lately my life has seemed like really great hours or even days with just whatever in between. Not happiness or sadness, just a sense of going through the motions and not really knowing what to do to fill the space other than the same thing I did the day before. Like I've almost forgotten that there's things I really like to do. I haven't baked or cooked or scrapbooked or hiked or gone to the movies in too long.

As I turned my back on the ocean and drove up the hill to my apartment a few sprinkles from those high clouds fell on my windshield and I resolved that it's again time to break the cycle. One day at a time. Tomorrow the gym and a big yummy dinner. Maybe Thursday I'll make banana bread or some other delicious treat to share with my coworkers. This weekend I will go somewhere with my camera and work on the scrapbook I started for Katie. But for tonight I will remember that I'm lucky to be where I am; in a place that can produce such beautiful sunsets and sunrises as this:

Things that don't really exist and something you probably didn't know

I'm not a big magazine reader. In fact, I often have an urge to buy one and then forget I have it, leaving it to collect dust in the magazine bin on the side of my couch. You probably wouldn't guess this however since I have almost an entire shelf on my bookshelf just of magazines. But by digging through them you would find out not that I buy a lot of magazines, but instead I'm a bit of a packrat and I keep them forever (or at least until I get that spring cleaning urge). You would also learn that I'm completely OCD when it comes to how things are organized as all the magazines are grouped together by title and then put in order by date, but that's a discussion for another day.

Anyhow, grocery shopping last week I again got the urge for a magazine. Usually I grab some cheesey girly magazine like Glamour or Cosmo, but I wasn't feeling that this time. I was instead drawn to the bright red cover with an enticing picture of abowl of pasta on it. A Real Simple magazine. Flipping through I came upon "20 20-Minute Meals." Now that's I something I really need. I love to cook, but hate to cook for myself. It just seems like such a waste of time. I feel like when I put a lot of work into a meal, its just not satisfying if there's no one to share it with. The recipes in the magazine are simple and for once, there are a lot of things I will actually eat! Not something that happens very often, if ever. So I bought the magazine. Three pages in, I was hooked. Not only is it colorful and friendly, there's lots of good stuff in it. But it's that third page entertained me that I want to share.

First was "8 Words to add to your vocabulary from The Daily Candy Lexicon: Words That Don't Exist but Should"

1. Crappuccino n. a poorly made coffee beverage that costs upwards of $4 (I don't drink coffee, but that's still funny)
2. Fearrors n. Dreaded dressing room mirrors that exacerbate every flaw on your body (I would disagree that these are instead public bathroom mirrors that aren't actually made out of glass and makes it look like your face is melting)
3. hybris n. Excessive pride based solely on one's hybrid car (unfortunately I only have filthis - excessive pride based solely on the amount of dirt on my truck)
4. Mapquestionable adj. Word describing directions provided my MapQuest that somehow cause you to drive in an enormous figure eight (So true! Ever since MapQuest tried to take me to a street that doesn't exist, I use Google Maps)
5. Mathzheimer's n. The inability to calculate a foreign-exchange rate without elaborate financial or tech support (Who does that? I would say that this is actually the inability to do simple math in your head after two semesters of calculus and one semester of statistics. I definitely suffer from this condition!)
6. Mouse trap n. An internet purchase that looks a lot different upon arrival than it did in the picture (makes me think of the pictures on fast food menus, but I guess that would be called a grease trap)
7. nontourage n. A group of undesirable sycophants. (Umm...sure.... I think this would be better defined as something a loser says to make themselves look like they have a lot of friends: "Sure, I'll be at the party and I'm bringing my nontourage" "so how many people will that be" "ummm, one...")
8. Yellular n. The loudness adopted in response to a bad cell-phone connection in the misguided hope that talking louder will improve it (yeah, that's it. There's also yellingual: the loudness adopted when talking to someone who doesn't understand the language you're using in the misguided hope that talking louder will make them understand you)

The second thing I read was on the third page was this:

"40 - The total number of dog days each summer. Technically, the dog days are from July 3 to August 11. They're named after Sirius, the Dog Star, in the constellation Canis Major, which shines most brightly during this period. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed the star was responsible for the heat and blamed it for periods of drought, sickness, and discomfort, or as we know them, bad hair days"

I've probably heard the expression the dog days of summer a million times, but I've never thought anything about it. I just thought this was an interesting tidbit to share. But at the same time, I must admit that the first thing I though was "That's how Sirius from Harry Potter got his name!" (for you non-HP fans, Sirius is HP's godfather who can turn into a dog) I know, I'm a dork...

But back to the grocery store and my magazine-buying urge. Apparently it couldn't be satisfied with just one issue. I also grabbed an issue of Backpacker. Now as much as I love camping, I haven't yet been backpacking. It's something I hope to do when I'm in a little better shape. But this was the "National Parks Issue" so I had to buy it. For a few years now I've made it one of my goals in life to visit all of our national parks. Ok, maybe not all, because there's a buttload of national monuments and stuff life that. But at least all of the major ones are on my list.

I haven't quite made it though this magazine yet either. In fact, I don't think I'm even 1/4 of the way through. I got stuck on a one page article on The Apostle Islands in Wisconsin on Lake Superior. The article merely gives three suggestions for activities in the park, but the picture of the sea arches at the top of the page spurred a two hour internet search for more info and pictures. This place looks awesome and is definitely now on my list of places to visit. I think paddling through the sea arches and caves would be an amazing experience! Apparently, there are also more lighthouses in the area than anywhere else in the country. And I might have to go back during the winter to see the ice that collects on the formations. Anyone want to join me? Check out the website:

Apostle Islands National Seashore

And here's some pages with pictures:

Someone else's blog

Superior Waters Project

Winter Cave

And now I just want to tour the great lakes