wienermobile five

So many things! But I find myself once again at the very tired end of a long day and I should go to bed RIGHT NOW, but... I saw the Wienermobile today!

so here are five things:

1. I saw the Wienermobile today. license plate reads: WEENR

2. Am reading The Magicians and it is off to a rollicking start.

3. I should write a book post soon (beyond the wordstock post and the Chabon reading post that I have queued up in my mind), but for now I'll say that I had confused The Egyptologist with The Historian in terms of length and thought there's no way in hell I am going to read The Egyptologist, which is too bad because it sounded interesting, but now there IS a way in hell (and on earth!) that I may read it because it's only 400 pgs., not 400lbs.

4. I failed to get into the Read the Classics class for Swann's Way, but I'm on the wait list. But I think I may drop that too, because I'd pretty much need to abandon every other thing I'm reading and devote myself to that for the next little bit and I'm reading too many good things right now. Sorry, Marcel.

4a. while checking the mighty google to make sure I was spelling Marcel correctly, I came across one of those quotation sites that plucks greeting-card gems from literary brainiacs. This one was at the top of the page and I like it: A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves. I'd love to see the Mary Engelbreit illustration for the following: Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.

5. Today I discovered a new thing to take pictures of and this new thing is everywhere if you squint your eyes just so. Hooray! Details (and photos) to follow. It may not turn out to be very interesting, but it gladdened my heart while I was out with my camera today.

parking lot quandaries

Tonight, after hearing Michael Chabon at Powells (more on that soon - it was lovely, as usual), I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some diet coke. (I know, I know.) As I was going in, I saw a lady pushing a wire basket heading to the front vestibule. She stopped in an awkward to get around spot and tried to get the attention of people going in and out. She buttonholed someone else and I, feeling like I'd just skated away from something unpleasant, walked right on by. She was still there on the way out, talking to yet another someone else -- I had my keys in one hand and a case of diet coke in the other. It was pretty clear at this point she was asking for money, but I was all set for the dash to my car. I got 3/4 of the way there when I heard "excuse me. EXCUSE ME" louder and louder and knew she was talking to me. I turned around, thinking for one fraction of one second that maybe I'd dropped something, or maybe she was talking to someone else. Of course not.

She quickly caught up to me. "Can you help me out? I need to buy diapers for my baby and I don't get my money until Friday." This seemed fishy as there was no baby, but I held my keys in my mouth and started digging around my bag with the hand that wasn't holding a very heavy case of diet coke. I didn't say a word. She said, "my name is Pamela, it's nice to meet you." I said nothing and handed her a few dollars that I'd fished out of my wallet. She said thanks and god bless and beat it out of the parking lot.

I handled this so poorly! My instinct is that this was a brazen shakedown; once she got me to stop there was no graceful way to get out. I knew I'd have to give her money since I knew I had cash in my wallet. On the other hand, maybe her story was true! Just because aggressive panhandling in front of Albertson's isn't the first thing I'd think of if my baby needed diapers doesn't mean she wasn't in a crisis of some sort.

To be completely honest, I do wish I'd managed to get to my car without turning around (I'm having some Orpheus empathy -- it's hard not to turn around!), but I also wish that I'd acted with more kindness and true generosity instead of fear and irritation. I gave her a few dollars I won't miss, not out of the kindness of my heart but to be left alone. It was stingy and I'm sorry I didn't know the right way to navigate that interaction.

scouring wind

wind wind wind! this wind is the cold sharp kind that scrubs away the last remnants of summer. Mother Nature sent out enforcers -- the season must turn! If summer won't go of its own volition she'll make it go, by force if necessary. Tender plants desiccate in front of my eyes like a sad sesame street timelapse; it's ridiculous how this upsets me, even though I know it's the way of things. They must die to be reborn, but I'm bummed out nevertheless -- I even feel bad for the spiders. (You can imagine a soundtrack of sad folk music if you like, but I've been listening to Jens Lekman and other Swedes as a buttress against the weather. They can be melancholy and sunny at the same time. I'm not sure how they do it.)

Thankfully, the worst of the wind seems to be over. Last night was so loud I hardly slept at all. My bedroom is upstairs, my bed partially under a window -- this is lovely when I can see the stars or the sunrise, but not so soothing when all I can see is tree tops whipping around in the hazy orange gas station/volcano light produced by street lamps combined with heavy, rain-bearing clouds. BUT, the wind (which is still around) seems to be transitioning to the old familiar RAIN, which is actually wonderful for sleeping. Hooray!

The wind isn't all bad -- I went for a nice long walk (wind at my back) and since it was cold I wore my coat, which means I have pockets again! Walking with minimal pockets is a drag.

Anyway. Here are some pictures from today's walk:


It's been a while since I've been out to the usual places -- partly due to laziness, partly because I was trying to complete some stuff at home, partly because of my ankle, which is still tender from my fall in AUGUST. All of this is bad and I could easily feel guilty about it, but instead I will say that being absent for a couple of weeks made differences that much easier to spot! This tree was green and now it's yellow!


I love the tree drama -- the wind usually comes after the leaves have mostly turned and it sweeps them all away. Right now, I'd say that they're only about 30% turned. Maybe coming early means we'll have colored leaves for longer. (I said maybe!) It did blow many acorns right out of their caps, though. (probably part of some squirrel conspiracy.)


the bundle of leaves that this leaf was part of was INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL. Pictures aren't even close. It was almost neon.


These were all taken today within an hour of each other. The wind was blowing clouds in and out. This was an out moment. I do like the jaunty blue/red/orange thing going on here.


I like the the light.

Now that fall is really truly I can deny it no longer here, I should take the time to make a couple of autumn resolutions: 1) stay hydrated 2) get enough sleep. There are many more, but I figure those make an excellent starting point.

micro wordstock update

wordstock weekend is over! It was fun and fine, but my butt is tired from all those hours on convention center chairs. (Convention center chairs are deceptively evil. They look like regular, benign, inert chairs, but after two hours they reveal themselves as pure upholstered malevolence from some furniture showroom IN HELL.)

Michael Chabon is reading at Powell's on Wednesday so it feels like book week just keeps on going, which is fine by me. (The chairs for readings at Powell's are EVEN WORSE, but I solve that little problem by standing up.)

ANYWAY - more to come shortly! For now know that WWI came up more than once, and that despite all his entertaining foulmouthed braggadocio, James Ellroy is a bit of a delicate flower.

island afternoon

Gratuitous photo post ahead!! These pictures are from last saturday on Sauvie Island.


I think this looks fake - like tilt shift or made on a little photo set with cotton balls for clouds. Okay, maybe not tilt shift. I went here to tilt-shiftize it the lazy way to compare, and it just looked blurry on the bottom. But tilt shift is fun to play with! I could tilt shift something then send it through the poladroid. Hmmm.


These strawflowers are crazy. They really do feel dry like straw. If you were to pick this flower (well, travel back in time one week and pick this flower), it would look more or less the same in six months! Dustier, probably. At least at my house. Maybe a little faded, but otherwise unchanged. FREAKY. Honestly, nature is the freakiest.


corn! High as an elephant's eye, for sure. A really tall elephant. Although I think the actual ears of corn had already been harvested.


these are not giant sunflowers, but they sure are pretty.


some kind of barn/silo/rust situation. I like it.


white, aka moon pumpkin! MOON PUMPKIN. The world is full of wonders.


Here's a still photo of what it looked like to be driving on the beachy side of the island. (corn on one side, river on the other side.) The clouds were out of control.



...and here's a five second video! The sun was shining and my sister was driving like there was a bomb in the trunk that would explode if we took a sharp corner at less than 50 miles per hour. The flickr conversion degraded the video, but even the original's color flashed negative. I think the color issue is partly because the sun was SO BRIGHT and shining right into the camera's digital business.


I think this is the same barn I posted earlier this summer - the barn dance barn/death by inconsiderate snake barn. It is totally overgrown ON THE INSIDE, which is just insane. Maybe I didn't see it right. Maybe I should go back and look.

I spent more time on Sauvie Island this summer than I have in years. I think it was a good plan and I hope to do it again next year.

try reading out of order

Work has been busy this week, which is great because I like work and I like getting paid, but it means that my BIG PLANS to get a lot of stuff done in the garden before it starts raining will have to be accomplished tomorrow! I'm looking forward to it, though. It's supposed to be raining by Saturday. Deadlines are good.

Today was fun. I had lots of sweet/funny/charming patrons and only one entitled asshole, but I got to politely school him so that was fun too.

I think my favorite patrons today were j/ya-reading ladies of a certain age. (j stands for "juvenile", which straddles a pretty wide range of reading levels. ya is "young adult" which, as a category, varies wildly in terms of sophistication.) Anyway! Lady #1 plunked down the second Twilight book on the counter and announced: "you want to try something wild? try reading these out of order! I started with the last one, if you can imagine that." She was having a good time with it. Maybe she read all the flap about the last book and wanted to vet it for her grandkid/ward/whatever and got hooked in. Whatever the case, she is going to get to the bottom of this vampire romance business one way or another.

The other lady was KILLING ME with her insistence that she did not want to get drawn into another series that was not finished already! Her grandkids got her "sucked into this stuff" which was mostly j fantasy. She had about 5 books from one author and wanted to make sure that if they were part of a series, that the series was complete. She was not interested in waiting for some writer to bang out the ending - she wants to know NOW. (there was then a hysterical sidebar about how she understands on one level why J.K. Rowling might have needed to take time off to have her baby, but it really pissed her off because she was WAITING for that book.) Anyway, we figured out what we could figure out, and I told her that when she burned through this series, she should check at the reference desk and have them help her find more completed series.

In other book news, Wordstock is this weekend! I can't believe it. The dates keep moving around - first two years it was in April, then in November and now in October. Whatevs, Wordstock! I will be attending despite your best attempts to keep information from me. I have yet to figure out my schedule, but it doesn't matter; I always have a good time. This year I vow to write it up in a timely manner.

In a cruel twist of fate, the Friends of the Library annual book sale is also this weekend! Maybe it's not a cruel twist of fate. Maybe it's actually really convenient since the place where they're having the sale isn't that far from where Wordstock will be. Hmmm.

are you cussing with me?

We're supposed to have a hard frost sometime soon, but I didn't pay enough attention to know if it's tonight -- I sure hope not because a lot of my houseplants are still outside. (Please let it not be tonight.)

I still have everything everywhere as the result of painting a dresser and trying to move furniture and getting sick all at once. (aka: the most wrongheaded mutli-tasking I've attempted in a long while.) I'm s-l-o-w-l-y getting things back together, but work has picked up so everything's pell-mell what the hell around here. But that's okay because it rhymes.

More soon including: fascinating library trivia, my deep thoughts on America's obsession with police procedurals, recipe for happiness (chief ingredient: greek yogurt), explanation of my deep abiding hatred of tiny urls and much, much more!

I saw this preveiw for Fantastic Mr. Fox at the movies this weekend and it cracks me up, even as I wonder if Wes Anderson only ever listens to the same five records.


here's a link to another one featuring pure wild animal craziness.

news as it happens

There are about a million little swifts flying past my window right now. (I could be wrong about the species, but they are small and fast with swift-pointy wings.) They sound so cheerful but I think they actually might be having an argument. Birds! and their worms! Okay, I just looked up swifts and these birds are more swallow than swift, although I don't really think they're swallows either. I guess I'll put off writing my massive and definitive encyclopedia of birds for a while.

HERE ARE THE FACTS: There are attractive singing birds flying by my window. They may or may not be cheerful themselves but they make me happy.

Next up on the eleven o'clock news: squirrels climbing giant sunflowers.

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.