picture advisory

Here's a goodbye summer/hello autumn mosaic until I can get it together for a post with more words. (There has been an unfortunate confluence of furniture rearrangement and mild flu-like symptoms. In weaker moments I think they're of course connected (CDC ANNOUNCES: Don't move your furniture), but then my rational mind takes over and reminds me that I just have naturally bad timing.)

The weather has been crazy here: sunshine in the morning, rain (RAIN) in the afternoon, and then tonight TSUNAMI ADVISORY! (but as they've been very careful to point out, it's just an advisory, not a warning or an alert.)


I like this one because the hose seems very summer emblematic - plus you can see both my crazy fallen-over beans and the trapped tomatoes which are reaching for daylight.

Julia struck

Today at the library I helped a girl who is far more soigne (at age ELEVEN) than I will ever be. Young Miss thought she might have a movie on hold, but as it turned out, what had arrived was Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She was so excited when I handed the book to her I thought she was going to faint. (To her mother or aunt or grandma or female adult companion: "It's here! it's here!") It was a nice new copy, too. I hope she makes a huge joyful mess in pursuit of something delicious.

(so much more to tell, but none of it goes as well with the friday cooking dog.)

(but there were neck tattoos and banjos and a flimflam flirty amateur weatherman.)

(I thought Dollhouse was very interesting tonight.)

(and now I really want to go finish reading my book! adieu, adieu, to you and you and you.)

UNRELATED:

1. I got my hair cut and it looks really good -- it's getting long which is kind of freaking me out, but mostly because the last time my hair was this long on purpose I was in the second grade and wore braids all the time. (it's not that long now, but it is below my shoulders.)

2. Today I participated in a comcast customer service phone call that lasted over an hour. It was horrible until it got better, but the better part didn't happen until 45 minutes in. This depleted my awesome haircut mojo by a significant amount, but I anticipate a comeback!

3. I'm kinda dorkily excited to see Drew Barrymore's roller derby movie Whip It, although I'm disappointed that it's banked track instead of flat track. Flat track rules!

4. INARTICULATE EPIPHANY!

5. There are more pictures to show and things to say, but it's later than it seems and I have to go to sleep or turn into a black-eyed crabby no-sleep zombie, which, as fun as it sounds, is not on my agenda for this week.

6. I've thought about item #1, and realize that I LIE! I had long hair throughout much of my childhood, but I've been thinking of my second grade school pictures for some reason. (probably someone said something somewhere about school pictures.)

7. Repeat the sentiment and commas of item #5! good night for me, but by the time this appears it will probably be good morning. (After a while you start to smile now you feel cool/ Then you decide to take a walk by the old school/ Nothing is changed it's still the same/ I've got nothing to say but it's OK/ good morning, good morning, good)

shake it

I am in such a good mood! possible causes:

1) the sun is shining

2) I got enough sleep (last week = insomnia week)

3) hopped up on the caffeine!

4) see above

Today is also the day I reinvestigated poladroid. SO FUN! I had some images from the state fair that I thought could benefit from a little polaroid funkiness, et voila! I'm generally way too lazy to do any photoshop anything on my pictures, but this is fun because a little camera spits out the picture on your desktop.


LOVE the sea dragon! There was a lot of screaming, but as you can see it's also the kind of ride that little kids will go on. It's a dragon! With a viking on top!


The colors changed more on this picture than any of the others I tested. It's way more purple than the original, but I like it! This was from some Mardi Gras "ride." I'm not sure what happens in it. There's a lot of white fake iron filigree, mirrors, and New Orleans style jazz from the outside. I have no idea what goes on once you surrender your ticket.


The sun was so bright! (this is where that polaroid touch comes in handy and adds a little interest to what was a fairly static bright sunny sky background.) The poladroid darkened the sky a lot here, but I like it.


Wheeeee!

All of these were done with a much smaller version (rather than original size) that I just dragged off of my flickr page. I think they look good this size, but once I go bigger they get fuzzier than I'd like. I'll have to experiment some more.

blackberry new moon

It is the new moon (no moon) tonight, which made me think maybe this is the night for pictures from the last full moon. There were bears, briars, brambles, berries and bovines. (no actual bear bears, but they came up in conversation more than once. Like, "do you think that could be a bear in a cow suit?" or "do you think a cow this close is as dangerous as a bear from far away?" or "how do you evade a bear anyway?" followed by "I can't believe nobody knows! Get in the car! Get in the car!") There was also one cow that was making a very unusual fog horn/car alarm sound which was really disconcerting, but since he wasn't a bear it wasn't too worrisome.)


Bec, Leslie and I (the usual sauvie island berry crowd) went out to the wildlife portion of the island where a person can pick berries for free. Since we weren't beholden to any stupid farm hours, we went later than usual and stayed until it got dark. It was lovely. There were cows ranging all over the field that is right next to the most convenient blackberry bramble; these cows were not constrained by anything. Cows are huge up close and in person, in case you were wondering. We mostly got along, although there were a couple who were cow-suspicious and gave us the cow-eye (like a stink eye, but with more cud chewing).


After we were done picking berries (it was getting dark, the cows were getting bold), we went across the road to look at the sun setting on the river. So pretty!


as the sun went down, the moon came up. This picture gives only the vaguest notion of color and placement; the actual moon appeared about 5 times bigger and closer. While the sun was still nominally around, the moon was flashing in and out of these hazy low clouds. Everything was purple and gold except the cows, who were black and brown and red and seemed indifferent, although maybe they were just waiting for us to leave before they started jumping over things.

The moon was heavy and low and in those moments it really DID look like it could have been made of very fine cheese or ivory or something else delicious and/or valuable. As we drove back around the island it got higher and whiter, reflecting on fields and herons taking flight, illuminating the river and the houseboats and generally contributing to one of the loveliest moments of my summer.

goings on and whatnot

Fear not, I haven't been in a 5 day rage blackout or anything. No rampaging around with building crushing footsteps shooting lightning bolts from my fingertips or fire from my eyes. (although that would be cool!)

I've been getting stuff done -- WOO! (seriously, it's exciting.) Not just any old stuff, but stuff that is minor and stupid and easy, therefore all the more annoying when I don't do it. Once it starts to get annoying, I do that super smart thing where I begin to RESENT IT FOR EXISTING, dig my heels in and want to do whatever it is even less, even though doing it would, if not make rainbows and a choir of singing woodland animals appear on my doorstep, at least make me a fraction less crazed. (you know, I'm really not so sure about that woodland animals part of this story. I'm pretty certain that even in my Heaven is Smiling Upon Me fantasies, there are no singing squirrels. Because I know how it is! My singing squirrels would only sing hair metal ballads or maybe just Copacabana, which would be funny at first, but would then become some kind of existential torment.)

Anyway! I now have a new unexpired email password for work, I have an appointment for a haircut, I have uploaded all but the very most recent pictures in my camera, I have updated some etsy stuff and am ready to do some more, I have done some very basic groundwork for future projects and much much more!

But enough of that. I have to go to bed and read for a while; I've only got a couple of days to finish reading Little, Big and I'm just over half through. It's so good! but dense in parts, so it takes a little longer to work through it. I'm not complaining, I just wish I'd started sooner.

Maybe that should be my new motto: START IT NOW. A stitch in time saves nine, blah blah, sage wisdom, proverb, proverb, aphorism, accepted truth, learn it now or learn it later, when the student is ready the teacher will appear with yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there, music and fashion were always the passion at the COPA!

strange days weather report

Two days ago the heat came on by itself in the middle of the night because the temperature dropped so low; tomorrow's going to be in the nineties. Today everything made me angry, which was disconcerting because generally I'm not an angry person. (I wish this was because of my superior moral fiber, but it's because I'm too lazy for angry person drama.) But apparently every now and then even lazy people get mad. Today I was horrible -- I watched myself stomp around and be stupid and unkind -- terrible. As soon as I said the words "I'm angry at everything today," a little switch flipped and I felt like I was back in control of myself, until that pain in the ass Sad Jen came and wasted even more of my time. Fortunately, once I found out that freaky weather times were afoot I pretty much got over it. Hooray!

ANYWAY.

Here are two videos that I think suit this time of seasonal transition, especially the Wild Beasts video. I know it was probably filmed in England, but it looks just like here right now. (Although I've yet to come across a grove of falsetto monks, I'm sure they're out there.) My sister pointed out that Great Britain is at a similar latitude or some other equator related factoid. She likes to bust out the science and technical terms (particularly concerning geology and roadway construction) but the thing you should know is that she's perfectly comfortable making shit up and passing it along as fact. I call this her "Dr. Science" mode. That being said, she's often right, which I think she is about this.



Okay, every time I hear the words "dusty library" at the beginning of this Camera Obscura song, I get a little huffy on behalf of non-dusty libraries everywhere. I know this is silly. You know what makes me laugh about this video? Her french sailor conveniently wears a cliche striped french sailor t-shirt! and is beardy in a french way. (I don't even know what that means, but I know it's true.) Anyway. This video features much european cavorting, but it's european cavorting that flits from giddy to melancholy as is appropriate for unpredictable weather.

nine nine nine

NINE! (from the state fair. I didn't imagine that the first picture I'd post from there would be of a dumpster, but this is what happened anyway.)

Today was an interesting one at work, but most of them are one way or another. On the whole, people were pretty great. For every cranky guy stomping in bitching about bad manners, there were three adorably evil/sneaky library children.

AE/SLC 1: baby, striped footy pajamas, recently mobile, ran like a gazelle to the door at least 3 times. He was softly giggly (rather than shrieky or crying) and easily apprehended. He is finding life hilarious so far.

AE/SLC 2: girl about 7, at library with visiting grandma. Grandma clearly thought there needed to be more grandma intervention since the girl forgot her library card, (FUSS AND HOVER FUSS AND HOVER) but the AE/SLC managed to get across to grandma that she should just chill and STFU, but she did it without actually being rude to grandma. These are important life skills!

AE/SLC 3: child of indeterminate gender, just tall enough for hair (curly, curly!) and eyes (grass green) to be seen over the counter, sliding a library card in my general direction and waiting with a little hoppy dance for me to scan the damn books already. (said thank you.)

CRANKY GUY: Why don't people say thank you anymore when you hold open a door?! (kind of pissed, has line between his eyebrows that indicates he probably focuses on these perceived injustices more often than is healthy.)

ME to cranky guy: non-committal "oh! Let me get your DVDs" (he thinks I'm agreeing, but what I'm really thinking is that you shouldn't do nice things for people (especially strangers) because you expect some kind of acknowledgement or reward, you should do them for the pleasure of doing them! The "you owe me" headspace is always disappointing. I agree it would be nice if people were more polite in general, but getting mad about it isn't going to get you there.)


another nine! I was worried I wouldn't have enough. (I need three.)


one more! this feels like cheating since I know I've posted it before, but that was ages ago.

victory!

I got all eight hundred million billion pictures that were waiting to be uploaded, uploaded! (actual count < 200) Now I just have the ones in my camera currently, which I plan to do SOMETIME SOON. They include the state fair and summer's last gasp blackberry picking. Woo! I have even put a plan in place to prevent photo backlog from getting this bad again. Yes,it's true! I've made elaborate plans and alternate elaborate plans for things that would be done already if I'd just sit down and do them.

(this photo is of face rock, which is awesome and near Bandon.)

here are the stairs down to the beach:


and this one gives you a sense of how big she is:

not so fast, missy

I was all set to post one thing, but I was typing along and thought no, that's not right so I got ready to do something else that was a quote or a poem or something and that wasn't right either, so why don't I just say nothing you might be wondering with good reason, but sometimes a person just wants to say SOMETHING, just like how sometimes a person wishes to remain silent. You have the right to remain silent. (me too.)

This suddenly seems very abstract which is what happens the closer I type to the later it is. (I'm not going to fix that. Deal with it.)

So instead I will sneak in more pictures. SNEAKY! These are summertime pictures. Let's celebrate summertime and miranda rights on this, our labor day weekend.


Swimming Hole! I didn't think these actually existed outside of nostalgic children's fiction or R.E.M. songs! It was just as wonderful as you'd hope it would be, except the water was so frigging cold that I admired it from the edge. "that's some hole!" etc. etc.


They have to put the sign on this bridge, because once you're on it the temptation to jump is strong. Like force field strong. Like 1000 imps pushing at the bottom of your feet strong. Like juggling powerful helium balloons and a cannon ball strong. (don't parse that one too closely.) What I'm trying to say here is that there's a lot of motion in the architecture of that bridge. It's built in! It's the kind of thing where until you're standing on it, you think "goddamn! you people should stop jumping on the bridge: there is a SIGN that FORBIDS IT." Until, like I said, that moment when your feet meet the wooden bridge and it's like walking on the moon! bouncy, buoyant and suddenly who gives a damn if the campground cops come and point their finger and tell you to stop? I mean, they're going to have to run across this bridge to catch me (which will be very bouncy) and I could always swing on a vine and get back to the other side or maybe I'll just live in some kind of clackamas county CAVE and only come out at night to jump on the bridge. Yeah! That would show them, whoever they are. Does it count as jumping if your feet never fully leave the bridge? I think not. I could win in court.


tomato haul -- this was taken on august 20th, right before heading to the beach. It was 90 degrees by 10AM in portland, it was 48 degrees at the beach. I had to put on MORE SHIRTS. But the tomatoes still tasted good, even in the fog and cold.

three for color

I'm almost 2/3 (well, probably more like 5/8) done uploading my pictures -- I'm well into the August beach trip, which means I'm closing in on catching up. Hooray!

Here are a few pictures from the Shore Acres Botanical Gardens. (Did I know Oregon had a state park like this? No, I did not.)


Pretty blue! My fresno aunt is very snobby about these flowers (I can't remember their name) and won't put them in her garden because they use them for planting in the median down there. I think they're lovely.


I love the fancy leafed begonias a lot.


from the monkey puzzle tree.

circumventing the ruiner

Happy September! When I was out for a walk today I noticed that the squirrels are ramping up their food hiding program and the acorns are getting really big. It's sunny and in the low 80s (80's? eighties? 83 degrees?) here today, but will probably be raining tomorrow. This sun/rain sequence will get shorter and shorter until it's raining all the time and the sun is just something I heard about one time. Fall is nigh!

(See that kind of ridiculous escalation there? it brings me to my next point:)

My next point: The biggest ruiner of my own good time is me. ME! Fortunately I figured this out a while ago and usually make course corrections before it's too late.

me to me: you are just a big ruiner.
my sensible reply: you're right! I'm sorry. let's have ice cream.

(this sounds like a good solution, such a reasonable compromise, until you can't do the button of your pants anymore. It's like a double reverse ruiner move.)

ANYWAY. I'm not as quick as I'd like to be at catching my own plan spoiling plot foiling fun ruining tricks, but I'm getting better all the time.

The most recent trick I've caught myself in is the List of Hideous Tasks Loop. The tasks themselves are mostly tedious rather than hideous (make appointment for haircut, upload pictures to flickr, take junk to goodwill, etc.) but I put them off, drag them out, and generally torture myself for no apparent reason. The dread of this list lurks behind every fun thing I want to do. "I want to sit outside and read in the sun, but I should probably return 3 months worth of diet coke cans so I can get my deposit." And then I end up neither reading NOR returning 3 months worth of diet coke cans. (longer than 3 months! and it's 5 cents per can! I have a small fortune just sitting in the potting shed oppressing me, when it should be buying me books or at least more diet coke.)

But, I've finally cottoned to that little routine and I'm having a week of LoHT!! If I think of it, I'm doing it. Every time I cross something off, I feel a small but certain twinge of victory over the ruiner! Who is me. But you know, one thing at a time.

Now to upload some pictures.

(speaking of which, the picture at the top is a puddle picture from mid-august.)

how many nickels?

Easy Living is a 1937 film written by Preston Sturges, directed by Mitchell Leisen, starring Jean Arthur and billed as 'high society slapstick.' I liked it quite a bit but did not love it, although I would certainly recommend it if you like Preston Sturges or Jean Arthur or high society slapstick. The story begins with working girl Mary Smith riding to work on top of a double decker bus, only to have her view obscured by the very expensive fur coat that falls on her out of nowhere. (Nowhere turns out to be the window of a penthouse apartment, but she doesn't know that yet.) She puts it on, and suddenly everyone assumes she's a rich man's mistress. (She does try to find the rightful owner.)

On the coat throwing end of things, there's a husband in hot water; misunderstandings abound! Husband in Hot Water and Angry Wife have an Accused of Fecklessness (but handsome and intrepid) Son who stomps out of the penthouse to make it on his own (I'll show you!), while Mary Smith tries to figure out what the hell is going on and why everyone thinks she's sleeping with the rich old guy who let her keep the coat and bought her an expensive hat. (I like the way this was handled, surprisingly -- she's a nice girl, but not without a practical and sweetly mercenary streak. Rent is due and she lost her job because of all this and if he wants to buy her something, she'll let him.) Meanwhile, there's a cute boy working at the automat. You can probably guess what happens, but a surprise ending is not the pleasure in a film like this. There's a lot of barbed humor at the expense of Wall Street and bankers (everything old is new again!), but to counter that more cerebral fast talking there's a lot of double taking and slapstick falling down. I like it both ways in screwball comedies and this doesn't disappoint.

But let's talk about the automat! There is a fantastic automat scene in this movie -- Mary is all kitted out in her fancy coat and hat, but she's starving. Despite being installed in the Hotel Louis (by proprietor Louis Louis who thinks she's the old guy's mistress and is hoping to curry favor), despite her fetching hat, she is HONGRY and has very little money -- only the change in her pocket -- so she goes to the automat, which conveniently is open late and takes change.

I'm in love with the idea of the old fashioned automat; all that marble and frill for what's essentially a cross between a cafeteria and a vending machine. My first encounter with an automat was, no joking, in a Trixie Belden girl detective novel: the Mystery of the Blinking Eye. (Trixie and Honey stay at the Wheeler's fancy apartment and solve a NYC crime, I think something to do with smugglers and they end up getting chased through the U.N. --ANYWAY, the important part is they eat at an automat.)

I couldn't find any movie stills featuring the automat, so I had to make my own.


Mary's supervisor, about to rat her out to the boss for having a fancy coat. (this has nothing to do with automats, but I love the "you tramp" expression on her face, and of course the large Mr. Higginbottom on the door.)



This gives a general sense of the layout of the room -- lots of marble, lots of tiny little doors with categorized food behind. Some tables for sitting down, some tables for standing up. It looks like basic condiments are on every table. (salt/pepper, sugar, etc.)


hungry, but stylish.


dig the checkerboard floor and attractive waitstaff!


he recommends the pot pie, but Mary doesn't have enough nickels. (at this point, he thinks he knows her from some fancy society event. She thinks he's either crazy or just plain mean.)


but he persists and suggests that he'll open up the doors from the back, and pay the automat after he gets paid. (nothing can go wrong with this plan!) She's cracking wise because that's how you do in this kind of movie. Note the girl in the booth behind them: Wikipedia tells me that she's there to give change.


you sure this is okay?


uh oh. There has been some unauthorized/accidental lever-pulling in the back. (and a pretty great cafeteria-style kitchen fight!)


word gets out that the food is free. (I love the revolving door and the turkey leg in his hand.)


chaos, hot dishes, fruit salad, cake everywhere. This is very early in the food fight. (chaos is slippery.)


The drink station -- you can barely see it, but there are slots for nickels just to the right of every spigot.


I don't think this is the usual employee exit.


Time to go! (poor Mary, she barely got to eat anything.)


The aftermath. She's still hungry, but I don't think I'm spoiling anything if I tell you it works out okay in the end.

all the rest have thirty one

august is so long! I know it's just as long as most other months of the year (apart from september, april, june, november and february), but this august has felt like it's 10000 days. Mostly this has been a good thing -- I've read a lot of books and had a second beach vacation (I'm very lucky) and other fun stuff. But I've also been having a weird period of physical malady with twists, sprains, compression bandages, face band-aids and spectacular arm bruises. What's up with that? I won't even try to explain the weird headache stuff since I think 20% of this blog is full of it already.

ANYWAY, between having fun and injuring myself, I've been having all these ideas. One of the latest is that I'm going to start going to the movies again -- I pretty much quit for a long time for many reasons (biggest reason = inertia), but decided that the time to resume is now. I want to vote with my dollars! I'm lucky because portland has lots of places to see movies, including a variety of second-run (cuz I'm slow) and art house theaters. Anyway, my very modest goal is to try and see at least one a month in the theater. More if I feel like it, but let's not get crazy. I also want to watch more movies at home, especially since it's so easy for me to pick them up at work. (fellow portlanders: the library has a really great collection of dvds.)

But like I said, I'm all full of ideas and short on implementation. (being full of implementation sounds like a painful medical condition. Maybe being full of implementation but not implementing is what's causing my month of casualty -- if I would actually DO any of the things I need to do, perhaps I would stop falling down and walking into things, etc.) I need to break this stuff down into actionable lists! Or something. I did make a list on a whiteboard (it has categories!), but it's still too broad; despite running around and being busy, I didn't get anything crossed off. I need to put Make Detailed List on a list and mark it #1. But that's a job for tomorrow, day #9997 of August. I'm hoping to cross at least 2 things off the list and avoid any new injuries. I think I can do it.

here's an 8 second campfire for you (from beach vacation 1: camping). I roasted marshmallows over this very fire without burning myself! (I did spill hot chocolate all over my lap, but you know, that's another story.)

some things:

1. Print out some stuff from Feed Your Soul: the free art project via the Indie Fixx blog. Free prints for you to print out, look at, and thereby be cheered if you are cheered by looking at prints. (as I am!) My hands down favorite so far is this sweet swamp monster from Ryan Berkley of Berkley Illustration. (scroll down the Feed Your Soul page to find it.) You know Swamp Monster probably smells pretty bad and will leave fur and mud all over the couch, but he brought flowers and has such charming but nervous yellow eyes...

2. Celebrate summer as it wanes with this awesome mix made at the apex of the season by Kevin Robinson of Viva Voce. It's called "Kevin's Summer Mix," and I love the entire shimmery psychedelic thing, although I always skip over the radio spots. My particular favorites this very moment are Summer by Octopus, Going Down by The Moles, and Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi by Jacques Dutronc. Oh! Also Queen of the Moonlight Wind by Andy Roberts. There's even an old Tyrannosaurus Rex song I didn't know on there! The Who inexplicably sell milkshakes. You listen and you'll see. (via Local Cut ages ago)

3. I have solved the mystery of how zip cars stay clean. (it involves a van filled with New Car Smell and some elbow grease, which is not actually made from elbows and kept in a vat.) Another case closed! (you can imagine me dusting my hands of that pesky mystery OR possibly slamming a filing cabinet shut with a satisfied look on my face while the credits roll on my 70s detective show.)

4. Love this mostly photo tumblr: smut-to-go. (not that smutty, but eclectic and interesting.) love this all poems tumblr: Poetry 365, and this art tumblr: Saints, Warriors, Tigers, Lovers, Flowers, Art. I love having some mostly visual blogs in my feed reader, especially ones like these that are coming from a personal taste place and not a cross-commercial opportunity place.