I'm over stormwatching on the coast

I was a blogger no-show this weekend because The Man and I were out of town. We joined his parents Friday afternoon at Gleneden Beach for a short getaway. The weekend included shopping, good food, some games, and lots of reading. We stayed in some friends' beach house that I estimate was built and forgotten in about 1970 (this will come into play later). It was cozy and slightly warm, a nice alternative to the hissing surf less than fifty yards away (twenty at high tide). The Man and I went a short distance on the beach once, though we didn't venture beyond some packed sand. We had a nice time overall and are thankful we had the time with his family.

EXCEPT for last night. I'd seen the weather report right before we left. The weather man was predicting a slight disturbance moving through late Saturday night. Maybe I was paying attention to the forecast for the valley, or maybe I got interrupted... whatever the case, I missed the forecast for gale-force winds, upside-down rain, and panic attacks.

About 10pm Saturday night, The Man and I decided to go to bed. We snuggled to keep warm in the drafty bedroom, and I think I fell asleep for a half-hour or so. About 11:30 or 12:00, I could hear some heavy rain pattering on the windows. I am a native Oregonian: rain on the window makes a soothing, wonderful, awesome noise. After listening to the "tap, tap, tap" of rain, I started hearing a louder popping noise. It always corresponded to the wind, "whrrrrrrr WHRRRRRR! pop! pop! pop! WRSHHHHH! pop-pop-pop-pop! POP!" The noise sounded like it was coming from the window at first, like a branch was hitting the glass panes, but once I sat up, I realized the noise was coming from overhead. I layed back down and tried to snuggle, to pull the blankets over my head, but the wind wouldn't let up. About 12:30, after a solid half-hour of creaking and popping noises echoing throughout the beach house, I awoke--yes, awoke--my sleeping husband to inform him that I was thoroughly dissatisfied with our sleeping arrangements. Musty lumpy bed is one thing, intermittent skylight another.

He held my hand as we peered out the windows to confirm that there wasn't an offending branch scratching the siding or windows. We couldn't really see outside at all with it being dark and trees moving every which way. I pulled him out into the front room to look out the huge plate glass windows. We moved our blankets out of the noisy bedroom to the couch where I attempted to even close my eyes. The wind screamed down the fireplace, howled through the stove vent, and set the roof to popping every second for at least two hours. The tide had gone out, and the surf didn't look much heavier than usual, but the wind pushed so hard on the glass windows that they bowed and domed, bowed and domed. Exhasperated, exhausted, suffering with a migraine, and terribly fed up with the whole situation, I reasoned that if I was going to die, I was going to die in bed. We moved all of our blankets back to the bedroom where my husband tried to calm me down over the roaring storm.

I've never been through a hurricane or tornado, though I've seen, heard, and even felt a couple good wind storms. A 60-mile-per-hour gust up the valley gets stopped by trees, buildings, hills, and all sorts of little things. A gust that big on the coast has nothing in its way. I checked NOAA, and KATU confirmed, the biggest gusts at Gleneden Beach last night were over 80-miles-per-hour.

We never did lose the roof. Between prayers, general pleading for my life, and my husband trying to get me to go to sleep, I was up until 2:30am. The storm gave one final kick around 4:00am, and I slept then until about 7:00am. It was a very, very long night.

I don't know how people who live on the coast can stand windstorms, but I am officially over stormwatching on the coast.

Snuggly Warm

I despise the new fad, the "Snuggie," but I do appreciate being warm. The Man and I have finally outgrown or worn our childhood (and college) blankets. We got some great bedding for our wedding, but we didn't get any good blankets. I love flannel, and I was going to make a flannel blanket for him, but he wanted a special print, so I ended up making him a blanket out of fleece.

Fast-forward a few days. We were snuggling on the couch, maybe watching a movie or reading together, I forget why exactly. Whatever the case, we discovered that one fleece blanket was not going to be enough. Okay, I discovered it. He was toasty warm under his blanket.

One night this week I went to the store. I picked out some fleece for myself, matched another color for the back side, and bought it. I took it home, trimmed and stitched it, turned it, whipped the opening, and BAM! no more sharing.

Now I'm snuggly warm.

But I do NOT have a "Snuggie." (Well, I do, it's called a robe, and I can put it on backward and save myself the damn $15 those things cost.)

Mario Bros. Last Name

The Man and I came up with an interesting question at lunch today. What is the last name of the Mario Bros. from Nintendo's famous game? The last name isn't Mario. The game shouldn't be called Mario Bros. Mario is a first name. Mario's brother is Luigi. The game could have been called Luigi Bros. as easily. Is anyone making sense out of this? Mario's name isn't Mario Mario. Luigi isn't Luigi Mario. It's just Mario and Luigi with no last name.

They are not the Mario Bros. I don't think my sister would appreciate it if I referred to us as the Jaggy Sisters. That would just be silly. Yet the name stuck, Mario Bros. I'm going to call them the Luigi Bros. and give Luigi his ten nanoseconds of fame.

...just sayin'.

Crispy Eska-ho

My dear sister has coined a new word/phrase that I believe ought to be shared with everyone. I give her full credit for the term as I had no part in its creation.

Have you ever been walking in Corvallis (or another city, these people are everywhere) and spotted one of the rare orange people? I'm not talking like "I see orange OSU people," but literally orange-tan-colored skin. The awkward color is usually accompanied by platinum blond hair and sometimes streaks of black or pink for good measure. The "crispy" part of her term comes from the fact that these people spent waaaaay too much time under the fake-sun broiler.

BUT! Her term includes a subset of these crispy people. These special people choose to wear Ugg boots (or cheap knock-offs in most cases). Super fake-n-bakers that like you to believe they spent too much time in the sun... in Alaska. Not that sunburns can't happen in Alaska, but the whole orange-skin-bleached-hair thing kinda throws a loop in my image of the typical Alaskan.

Also, note that we have nothing against Eskimos. It's the Eska-ho look that we're trying to discontinue here. Especially the Crispy Eska-ho look. *shudder*

Yet One More

I've been sitting here trying to think of what to write for half an hour while watching The Man try to defeat the last bad guy in an insanely annoying video game. He died once already. It's been a long night.

The Man had a job interview last week for a position he really wanted in Portland. The call came today while I was home for lunch: no job offer. But the company really liked him and wants him to apply for another position they're opening. He lost out to an internal hire, so it's not like he didn't hold his own... it could be that the company already knew who they were going to hire. Little comfort anyway.

We had comfort food for dinner: homemade-from-scratch mac and cheese. Thinking a root beer float isn't far off.

Dear Food Network

I'd like to make a few suggestions in your programming. While I adore Good Eats and Unwrapped, I'm not so fond of your general show line-up. The shows are okay, I suppose, but the food people dream up and put on TV, well, not all of us can really do that. Not all of us are EVOO connoisseurs, and some of us just can't afford the good stuff. Plain ol' canola oil is going to have to do the trick. Peanut oil? Are you kidding? Safflower-lavender-parsnip-and-cow-tongue oil? Seriously, if I can't cook it either with vegetable oil--the off-brand stuff--or no oil at all, I don't cook it.

Many of us don't exactly splurge on sea salt when we can get the Tub o' Salt with the umbrella girl on it for 1/10th the price. And let me tell ya, sea salt and table NaCl taste pretty much exactly the same. It's salt. And it's really not that good for you in large quantities, so stop using it in every freaking recipe.

Why do all of your shows feature half- or under-cooked meat? There are a few of us in the world that actually like our meat cooked. We like no pink. We like juicy, flavorful, amazing DONE food. We take the time to prepare food that isn't going to kill one of our family members because some butcher can't keep his knives clean. We get our meat above the high temperatures that kill bad stuff and make the food taste better. The only meat that should be pink when served is salmon thankyouverymuch.

Oh, and what is it with all the fish? I live less than an hour from the Pacific Ocean, but there's no way I can afford to cook fish more than once a month or even once every few months. Halibut? Are you really considering what some people earn? Maybe you should try highlighting fish sticks, the cheap yellow-box kind, covered in Tabasco, mushed up in some rice, and shoveled down with beer. Because I bet more than a few people live on fish sticks and rice.

Calm down with the garlic, chill out on the grilling, and for all that is holy, please knock off the food competitions. I don't care who makes the best banana chili, I just want recipes and ideas of things I can actually afford to make for my little family. Not meals that serve 18, not super-fancy table settings, not six-ingredients-or-less, and not something that has to be done in 30-minutes (can't stand that woman!). Normal, ordinary, make-it-on-the-weekends comfort food for two or four people that doesn't kill my budget. That I don't have to go to five stores to find all the ingredients. That isn't mexi-japanese.

Oh, and fire that Bobby Flay turkey. I don't like him.

First Annual Traditions

It cracks me up when I see something written as the "First Annual" anything. Something can't be annual until it happens at least twice. The first incarnation of a-hope-to-be-annual event is simply the first occurrence. It's a one-time thing. In the second year, something could be called annual, and by the third year, sure, but not in the first year.

I've been thinking about traditions lately and the traditions I've been forced to face. We broke a few traditions at our wedding. We didn't have a garter or bouquet toss, nor did we have a vocalist sing songs or a big, tall wedding cake. We aren't planning to save a piece of the wedding cake for our first anniversary. We didn't leave for the honeymoon the night of our wedding. I didn't get a wedding band to go with my engagement ring. The Man wore his wedding ring before we were married. We're not really big on following all of those traditions--they didn't mean anything to us.

And yet we're Catholic. Our faith is, almost by definition, traditional. We rely on centuries-old doctrine to define our values and beliefs. We look to ancient traditions to help us understand our modern faith, our modern world. The Man and I are surrounded by tradition that we love.

People have asked me what our traditions will be. What will we do to "traditionally" celebrate holidays or "traditionally" usher in life events. I ask, how can we decide ahead of time what we will be doing two or three years from now that will be traditional? Wouldn't that be a forced tradition? What if we do something one Christmas morning or for an anniversary that we don't want to do the next time around? How exactly do traditions get created? Should traditions be created for traditions sake?

The Man and I sat down and discussed the traditions we grew up with and considered whether or not to continue those traditions. We talked about doing them because of what they are or what they mean to us, and we decided that we each come from some unique and meaningful traditions. Christmas isn't Christmas to me without sugar cookies, and Christmas isn't the same to him without stocking stuffers (for a couple examples).

In the end, our decision was easy: we aren't going to force traditions. We aren't going to follow a recipe for making our holidays the same one year to the next. If we want cinnamon rolls on Thanksgiving one year and pie the next, it doesn't matter to us. If we like having cinnamon rolls, we'll have cinnamon rolls. We're not going to make traditions so that we can say we have them: we'll have traditions because we love them.

Do you have traditions, and if so, how did they come about? What do you think of forcing traditions?

Seattle Underground

What you see here is a bit complicated. The left of the picture shows a boardwalk created for the underground tour. Between the wooden boardwalk and the brick wall is the original sidewalk to Seattle. The brick wall is part of a storefront to a meat market (or that's what they told us on the tour). The "ceiling" is the substructure to the current Seattle sidewalks. The current street would begin approximately over the boardwalk, maybe just to the left of that. For scale, the height of the "room" would be maybe twelve feet from concrete sidewalk to wooden rafters. The space widthwise between the brick wall and the wooden boardwalk would be maybe fifteen or twenty feet.

What fascinates me most about the underground is how different parts of the sidewalk and buildings have settled. Some places are very level and even, and other places are scary. Nothing smelled funny, though, so at least it seemed less eerie.

Photo taken on our honeymoon to Seattle on October 20, 2009, on what I estimate to be a 3-second exposure. The photo is a good estimate for actual lighting in the underground.

The New Holy Water

The Catholic Church has made some changes in light of flu season this year. We have been told to not hold hands during the Our Father. We aren't supposed to shake hands or exchange physical greetings during the Sign of Peace if we have had any flu or cold symptoms in the last twenty-four hours. Some parishes, especially large ones, have stopped offering the cup except for people with gluten allergies who aren't showing symptoms of being sick (St. Mary's still offers it, but I don't see many people partaking). Parishes have also been encouraged to change the Holy Water frequently, thoroughly cleaning the basin or font between each filling. I know that these changes may not coincide with Tradition, but I'm pleased that the Church is responding in some way and helping ensure the health and safety of it's visitors and members. St. Mary's even installed hand sanitizer dispensers near each entrance.

This weekend as I was walking into the church to find a pew, I noticed a man walk in behind me. He walked up to the hand sanitizer dispenser and received a dollop of goo. He smeared it all over his hands then made the Sign of the Cross. A few people started giving him a funny look. He must have noticed because the next thing I heard was, "What? It's the new Holy Water!"

Girl 1: Laundry Shelf 0

I recently put up a shelf in my laundry closet. A single wire laundry shelf just like I imagine a few hundred million people have in their laundry closets. The shelf is not important in this story: it's the "putting up" part that matters.

I've been living in my apartment over two years, and each week when I've tried to do laundry, I have had to reach waaaay over and behind my laundry hampers to reach the soap or the dryer sheets. Though the stretching is probably good for me, the stretching became obnoxious. I can't keep the soap on top of the dryer as it just shakes right off. So, after seeing the simple shelf on sale for $7.89, I decided my stretching days were over.

When I got up the next morning, I sized up the project. Seven screws, seven wall hanger thingies, one shelf, and no way to get the wall hangers into the wall. Grr. The Man and I do not have power tools of any kind (not that we don't believe in them, we do, we just can't afford them yet). We did our many errands for the day before stopping at my parents' to borrow one of Dad's drills. He asked me, "Do you know how to tighten the drill bit into the drill? Do you know what size hole you need to make?" Yeah, sure, whatever Dad.

Sunday morning arrived, and I fixed myself on getting that shelf put up. I eyeballed the hole placement after drawing a level line. I put the drill bit into the drill. Power on! Power off. Uh... um... crap. See, I've watched my father use a drill probably a thousand times (honestly, no exaggerating). I understand how they work, and I know what they do. It's not like I was picking up a loaded firearm without any gun safety classes (I even took out my contacts so I could use my polycarbonate glasses as safety glasses while drilling). But watching Dad poke holes in walls is nothing like doing it myself. I understood, "finger on trigger, bit to wall, push." I guess I didn't understand how all that was supposed to go together.

The Man, from his vantage point on the couch behind me, giggled. He paused his video game to watch the disaster unfold. I turned around and pointed the drill at him and pleaded, "come help me?" He smiled, "nope, you're doing just fine killing the wall without me." I pouted. He begrudgingly walked the ten feet to show me how to poke better holes in the wall. It's not that I NEEDED his help, but I'm glad he was there to help. I finally grew some... confidence and drilled the other six holes as I'd marked.

I screwed in six of the seven screws (one screw arrived to me mangled, so I just left it out of the hanger thingy). The shelf popped right on, brackets attached, and I had meself a shelf! The cleaning rags have a new home, and I no longer have to bend over to get soap or dryer sheets or dryer balls. And I did it all by myself. Except that first hole. I had to make his hole bigger, so I vote his doesn't really count anyway. So there. ;)