Cats

Hekter T. Phoodle
(or, a Cat Resume)

Employment:
Laze-About, Principal Director: birth-present. Job duties include yawning, stretching, occasionally purring, and generally burning minimal calories.
Picky-Picky Cat Food, Nose-Upturner: since memory began-present.
Hello, Kitty! (American Realist) Very Cute Kitten: Age 0-6 months.*

Special Skills:
1. Dandy Danderifier: I spread dander and make people sneeze just by living! This is awesome. You should think so, too.
2. Regeneration: Hair is my specialty. I can shed enough hair in 1 month to clog any vacuum cleaner. Twice.
3. Baleful Hiss: I practice at least 3x daily. Key is to follow the hissing action with:
4. Inscrutable Stare: No blinking. Ever.
5. Expert Shredder: Anything you don't want sliced to ribbons with my genuine, non-imitation, did I mention, not fake, claws. The sharper the better!
6. Meowing: Scorning the stage rendition of my species.
7. Rhyming:  Meow::cow, bow, row, dhow, frau, how, Mau, now, ow, pow(wow), sow, tau, vow, wow.
8. Look, Ma! Kitty Litter: Use kitty litter as directed. Most of the time. 
 9. Purring. Perhaps I should have mentioned this first. I have received 3 Inappropriate Length Purr Awards.
10. Hunting. Self-explanatory in urban or non-urban environments. No further explanation is given.



References:
1. Puss In Boots
2. Cat Lovers Anonymous (ask for V or K)
3. Fiendish Felines

here comes the rain again

falling on my head like a memory

We had a vacation of sorts: it was shorter than implied when I signed up for vacation days in June*, and longer than expected when the boss handed out updated scheduling info in mid-August. In summary, after three and a half weeks with nary a raindrop in the waking hours, here comes the rain again. It started yesterday and continued today and will probably continue until...well...June of 2012. Already I miss the sunshine.

In just a few weeks, the memory of sunshine and warmth will become a near figment of my imagination. I will wonder if natural vitamin D and UV ray gathering is something only in movies or in archaic books. So I will hold on tight to the memory of no down blanket on the bed and the option of wearing socks everywhere and being even approaching too warm with all my might in the hopes that it will carry me over to next 'summer.'

*Actually, I signed up as soon as daylight savings took effect in 2010, but I knew that was a little early to begin to hope, but I just had to do it.

taking care of business, and working overtime

Yesterday I went grocery shopping at 3:30 pm.

"Why aren't you at work?" you might have asked me if you saw me in the store.

The answer is that I went on an airplane ride, and as the day was mostly gone anyway when my flight got in, I decided to take a much-needed break.

As I was in the store, something weird happened to me: I started to dance. A little soft shuffle as I went past the eggs. A crossover step past the ice cream. I was humming. It was weird. Which prompted the thought: "What's going on here?"

The answer was simple. I had worked a shorter day than usual. I actually had *energy*. And because I was at the store at 3:30, and not at work, and I hadn't even taken the day off, it felt marvelous.

It might have been partly the novelty of it, or the fact that I was 'playing hooky'. (Though if my boss had been in the same situation I'm sure she would have done the same thing...it's just that I checked my blackberry a few times, and she might have looked at it all night.)


So I took the break where I could find one, and I enjoyed every last shuffle-step egg-walk frozen food groove second of it. 

Buckets

Bucket List for Portland

Restaurant                      Destination                          Tourist Activity
Screen Door  11/12                Crater Lake                        Powell's City of Books 10/10
Veritable Quandary 1/12         Newport 3/13                     Pittock Mansion 2/18/13
Marco's Cafe  2/13                 Lava Lakes                         OMSI 7/11/12
Andina 10/12                          Seaside                               Jet-boat on the Willamette 9/24/12
Fat City  10/1                         Multnomah Falls                 Saturday Market 9/12
El Toro                                   Hawthorne                          Portland Swifts
Mother's  11/12                      Dam                                    Portland Art Museum 1/4/13
Salt and Straw 6/13                Smith Rock 7/13                International Test Garden (Roses) 9/12
Jake's                                      Woodburn Outlet 9/12        Chinese Garden 2/13
Nel Centro                               Astoria                               Japanese Garden 10/11
                                                                                          Zoo
                                                                                          The Grotto
                                                                                          

                        





Bucket List for Seattle: (will be edited as needed)
Restaurant                      Around Town                                  Event or Day/Road Trip 
Anthony's 8/11                  Paddleboating on Greenlake 8/11       Gasworks Park     7/12
Molly Moon's 7/11           Golden Gardens  3/11                         Dan's Broiler 7/12          
Cafe Presse 9/11              Swimming in Greenlake                       Bremerton 3/12                                  Burgermaster 7/11            Hockey game                                     Vashon 8/11
Dan's Broiler 7/12            Uwajimaya (again) 2/13                     Clipper trip to Victoria
Jade Garden                      record at EMP                                   San Juan Islands 5/19/12
Etta's 3/11                         Elliott Bay Books 4/3/12                    Ellensburg Rodeo
Salumi 8/22/12                  Karaoke                                          King Tut Exhibit 8/23/12
Poppy 2/11                       Lake Chelan 3/11                             Puyallup Fair 9/11
Cafe Presse 9/11              All SPL locations                               Mariners game 6/12
Tin Table 4/3/12              Emerald Downs   7/14/12                   La  Conner 4/7/12
Molly Moon's 7/11           Fremont Troll   2/11                           Road trip to Whistler
Toulouse  1/21/11              Frye Museum  8/24/12                     Deception Pass 4/7/11
Mora's                              Space Needle 4/12                           Whale Watching Trip 5/19/12
10 Mercer                         Show at the Paramount                     Port Townsend 3/12
Five Spot 2/12                   Uncle Elizabeth's 3/31/11                 Olympic Peninsula (Port Angeles) 3/12                     Boeing Factory Tour                        Tulip Festival  4/7/11
Saltoro 10/11                     Seattle Jazz Vespers 10/11               Anacortes  4/7/11
Pink Door  4/6/12               Seattle Symphony                            Deception Pass 4/7/12  
13 Coins 4/27/12                Volunteer Park 7/12                        Gig Harbor 4/12
Serious Pie 7/10                  Smith Tower Chair 8/15/12             Bainbridge
Barking Frog                       Olym Sculpt Grdn 4/12                    Mt. Rainier Forest
                                            Bumbershoot                  
                                            Sounders game                            
                                            Dusty Strings    
                                          UW Arboretum 8/11 
                                                                                                 
                                           
                           

Items that caused me to make the Seattle list:
Pike Place Mkt * French Crepe Place * Wild Ginger * Lola's *  Dahlia Lounge * Green Leaf * Elephant & Castle * Snoqualmie Falls * Ballard Locks * SAM * Ipanema * Machiavelli * Argosy Cruise * Gorditos * Tilth * Tango *                          

San Francisco(ish) Bucket
Sausalito 5/6/12                               California Science Academy  12/11        SF Zoo
Union Square 12/4/11                      Ferry Building                                        Exploratorium
Golden Gate Bridge walk 5/6/12      SF Symphony 5/5/12                             Windiest Road 5/30/12
Lands End                                       Giants game   6/28/12                                Monterey Aquarium
Tcho Chocolate Tour
    

SF Items that caused me to make the SF iteration:
Amoeba  * whale-watching * Palace of Fine Arts * de Young * Legion of Honor * Napa * Pier 39 (don't forget elephant feet/ In n Out) * Ghirardelli Square * Alcatraz * Grace Church Cathedral * La Boulange * Stacks * Hayes Valley * Prospect


Bucket List for New York City
Guggenheim
Central Park
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Frick Collection
Statue of Liberty
Staten Island
Carnegie Deli
Museum of Natural History
Museum of Modern Art
Show on Broadway
Times Square


Bucket List for Chicago
Architecture Tour
Art Institute
Millennium Park
Wrigley Field
Museum of Science & Industry
Shedd Aquarium
Field Museum
Miracle Mile
Top of the Hancock Building


General Bucket List
Uffizi
British Museum
Michelangelo's David
Stonehenge
Brighton
Bath
Scottish moor

Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Ice Cream (Alphabet, Alliteration Style)

acerbic avocado angle
bucolic butter bites
cosmic caramel crash
dervish dandelion dangle
elusive effusive eggplant
frenetic finicky feeding *this is what it started with. It kind of went on a tangent from there...*
green grape gusto
hibernating horseradish hop
iridescent irresponsible icing
jicama juxtaposed jam
killer karma kumquat
linger longer lychee
moonpie melon madness
nefarious niggling nerfherder
opulent organic orange
pandering praline prickle
quizzical quirk quart
ruby radiant radish
stuffed strawberry scone
triumphant twitch toffee
unexceptional uphill upside-down-pineapple
vulnerable venerable vanilla
winged watermelon whale
yummy yellow-yam
Xanadu xanthum x-ray
zealous zinnia zest

Still Life of Fruit

Or, Summer in America (minus melons and berries*)

Courtesy of local farms, California, Australia, and Chile. And Bangladesh (if you count the glass).

*chances are I would have these, too, if I was buying groceries for more than one person, and/or had a larger appetite.

blink of an eye

Life can change in the blink of an eye. Think about all the things that happen in a blink:
1. a sneeze
2. light from a lightswitch
3. a beesting
4. accidents
5. reading words on the page to find out you have a horrible disease
6. realizing you're in love
7. a perfect baseball pitch
8. popping a balloon
9. burns (not sun)
10. recognizing an attractive person
11. getting your contact lens out of place
12. firing a sapphire bullet
13. cutting yourself
14. smelling fresh air
15. smiles (except slow ones)
16. turning off rap music
17. clicking to buy a plane ticket somewhere (to the ones I love, most preferably)
18. changing the channel on the tv
19. opening a new firefox tab
20. seeing "you've got mail"

just to name a few.

Sometimes blinks seem to last a lifetime, like slow motion bad movies. Sometimes blinks zip by. Some blinks you'll remember for the rest of your life, and some of those, you might never fully recover from. 

Blink. 

Blinkety blinkety blink blinky blinkini blinkykink blinky blink.

Stuffy-stuff-stuff

1. The days wherein having a convertible in Seattle is a good idea are probably < 30 in any given year.
2. If you're going to wear socks with your sandals, make them gold toe socks.
3. Needing a light jacket in August is weird,
4. Crabs are wonderful and various. And there are a lot of them in the Sound, judging by a 1/2 mile walk along the beach yesterday. (Of course, all the ones we saw were dead, but still.)
5. Being a good communicator is really hard. Communicating with known entities can still be hard...people change, and so your communication style has to adapt or die. This might sound gross, but someday I hope to perfect the cockroach communication style - it can survive anything, even nuclear war.
6. Cream is amazing.
7. I now know where the phrase "losing weight" comes from.
8. Strong cores are preferable to weak ones.
9. Laughing makes every day better.
10. Music can really change your mood. I was really tense at work for the last few days...on Tuesday, I was on my way home and heard a version of this song. If I hadn't heard it, and found it on the net, and played it nearly continuously, I would probably have gone crazy somewhere around Friday at 3 pm and maybe considered finding one of the windows that have the little circles on them that indicate you can smash them outward. I didn't know that before...that even though it doesn't look like the windows open at all, the ones with the circles have "one time opening" capabilities.

R&R...or Railroad Crossings

I miss the sound the train made at night when I was sitting on Emmy's porch, or even my own, for that matter. The long lonely whistle somehow managed to always seem forlorn-sounding...it was always saying, "I'm sad, come back" and never "I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm almost there, wait for me." There was always a sad ache in my heart and sometimes I got goosebumps even though it was warm outside.

But the sound still reminds me of home. Reminds me of warm summer twilights and violin lessons and trips to the city. Counting the cars with my sister on road trips. Drivers ed classes..."every 90 minutes, a train accident happens." Which is why I have one of these on my keychain.

But now the yellow, which, by the way, is public domain as the Feds own it, doesn't remind me of railroads and the dangers of failing to come to a halt when the clanging of the bells and the cherry cough drop semaphore warned me to.
Now, double R's remind me of:
RR: rest & recuperation
RR: for Rosc and Ridj: two men I love (though in very different ways) that I have grieved for losing them within the last year
RR: ready to rumble
RR: the noise that K-lo can't make with her tongue in Spanish, so she always looks for a synonym so she doesn't have to try. (Example: instead of carro, she says automobil)
RR: a good ranch name. It could be Double-R, Rocking Ridgepole, Rambling Ranchhouse, Ruminating Ram, Ridiculous Rhymes etc.

I'm at a railroad crossing in my life. The train is coming. Will I stop and wait and count the cars? Will I rush for the track and get held up and wait impatiently? Will I become the victim of a railroad crash because I tried to squeeze past? Will I squeeze past successfully and listen to the wail and say "can't catch me?" Time will only tell. Here's to hoping that RRs continue to mean good things in my life.

they don't make 'em like they used to

I am in a (re)structuring phase of my life. I'm trying to do little things, to help me on the margins, which will hopefully lead me to small happinesses, which will in turn hopefully lead to leaps of joy. (But I have to get in better shape first, or I might twist an ankle or pull a muscle in my wild abandon.)

Part of doing this is doing things to take care of myself. So I'm making some changes. I decided I was going to get a fresh start.

First step: Crosstrainers. I hate shoe shopping, mostly because my feet don't fit into any old shoe, so I don't even like to try. I'd like to think I have Cinderella's capability of capturing the interest of the prince, but sadly, the feet of one of her stepsisters. (Shh. Don't tell him yet.) So I thought to myself, "Self. This isn't so hard. You've worn this type of shoe for years. You saw some for sale just a couple months ago, but for whatever reason, you did not buy them. Buy them. The time is now. The bell tolls for thee, well-worn footwear!"

So I got online, to my favorite retailer. You all know what company I speak of. I look online. No footwear. None. I check other places. I even am thinking, "whatever, I will pay a ton of money plus obscene shipping and handling to get this problem taken care of. Nothing!!! So now I am like Shoeless Joe. Soon I will be limping about in the rain. I must fix this problem, but I must finish this list first.

Second step: Rainjacket. For where I live, I need the following: a. water-resistant and/or -proof; b. extended hood; c. knee-length; d. wind-resistant; and e. (for me) under $150. I would say $100, but read on. I go online to what used to be my second-favorite clothes retailer, but is steadily gaining on the #1 spot. It has 2 L's in it. I search for 3/4 length jacket. Five choices come up. None of them looks like the old coat I have. I call the customer help line. No, they don't make them anymore, and yes, now they all are ugly and $150. I am desperate. My rainjacket doesn't keep out the rain anymore. But I'm not desperate enough to buy one in pink. The lady says they have my size in Very Berry. I say I think I'll try the size bigger in Bright Elm. She says there aren't enough left to have them on the website, even, so I jump at the chance. Big mistake. Literally. The reviews say the coat runs big. Gah.

Third step: Replace loved sandals. I have these sandals that I love to wear. They're the first pair I've ever worn and liked that had something between my toes. Do they sell them anymore? No. Did I buy the first pair online? Yes. Do you sense a pattern here?!?!?!? I'm telling you, people, if you shop online and find something you like, buy a zillion of it and store them in the back of the closet or even under the sink if you have to, or you might end up like me. But it gets worse!

Third Step: Replace Slippers. Not any slippers. Wicked good ones. Only they don't make 'em like they used to. Who wants backless slippers?!?!??!!? Mine have a hole in them after constant wearing in the cold NW winter. Six months ago they didn't have the style I wanted, looks-wise...now they have an approximation, but there's just enough of a back to be annoying, and not enough to actually keep my Achilles warm. Yes, my Achilles gets cold. Doesn't yours? So now I have to buy UGLY ones for $60, or have my feet perish in the cold and dreary winter. I need black. And white. And comfort. And none can be found at reasonable inconvenience.

Fourth Step Comfort jacket. I've got this seersucker jacket  that I wear everywhere. It's lemon yellow. I don't like lemon yellow. But it keeps me warm when I'm cold, and cool when it's hot, and so I wear it everywhere. I tried to see if they still made them, even when my mom told me she hadn't seen them in awhile. Do they make even an approximation? No.

Fifth Step: Suitcoat Jacket. I have two black ones. I lost weight so I thought I'd get another one. Do they have it? Nein. It's not even a sizing issue, it's just that they don't make them anymore.

Sixth Step:  Yoga pants. I have these black pants I wear a lot. I got them when I was 16. Feel free to cringe. But they are soft and lovely and don't have holes yet so I still wear them in public. Do they make pants like this anymore? No. It's all weird modal waists and 100% polyester or super skintight.

Seventh Step: Bookcase. I broke a commandment for years. I coveted a dark cherry bookcase that my mom bought, and then she gave it to my sister, and I always wanted it. It got left in Chicago. I'm looking online now, as I need some bookcases, and I realize that with inflation prices have gone up, but they just don't make them anymore!

Etc. Same with furniture like the stuff my parents have - they've had the same kitchen table since I can remember. I wanted to buy one like it for my house, when I have a house. But the company went out of business. My grandparents have some of the same kind, and they're about 40 years old. They're still comfy.

Why don't they make 'em like they used to???????

Result: Frustration!

I'll let you know if I find any replacements for the things I need for the things I love.

Emotional Elevator Analysis

This is my elevator analysis of how emotions can sometimes go, instead of numbers/trends, like at work.
Using work (or not) terminology:
Black = banker terminology (acceptable)
Blue = words I would use, but would get me a raised eyebrow for banker appropriateness
Red = words have zero place being in an underwriting

                                                       peak
                                                  float   descend                                                      skyrocket
         hill                            incline          slant                                                         /         flail     trend...end
     up      dip                rise                   dwindle              minimal/stable            /                creep
climb         flop        increase                  shin splints   slope                    \         /                
                      decrease                                     plunge                             plummet

Birthday

Yesterday, I thought of you all day, R. About your many good traits - the habits/processes I observed in you that I want to emulate; I also thought of your cheerful smile, your way with words, your love of buttery sweet goodness, and fresh fruit shakes.

I've decided that I don't like summertime heat because the last time it was hot, you were here, but so so sick, in the sterile-yet-seemingly-dirty hospital. The heat now reminds me that you are here no longer.

My heart and soul remember you. I know you are at peace, and that you stop by once in awhile to see how I am. I appreciate it, as I appreciated all the small (and big) things you did for me while you were here.

Happy would-be 29th, R.

Whirly Word Love

Here are the first letters in the first name of every person in my immediate family:
D S N T W A J R L D V K I

We love words. We heart them muchly. We syntax, debate, spell, and rearrange.

I downloaded an app on my ipod called "whirly word." It's kind of a stupid app but it can distract me while I'm waiting at the doctor's office for a few minutes, or waiting for a haircut, or waiting in the airport, etc.
The app gives you six letters in a wheel and you have to find all the word combinations that can be made from those six letters.

The rules are as follows:
1. The word has to have at least three letters;
2. Each letter given can only be used once per word;
3. No proper nouns; and
4. (I added this) No plurals.

In honor of the love I have for my family, here are the words made up of the first letter of the first name of the first circle of my family.

There are, of course, probably many many more words than these. Feel free to comment and notify me of ones I missed. Even if it doesn't mean love to you like it does to me, at least we share a love of words.

A D/D I J K L N R S T V W add dad ink jail kid lad nadir rad sad tad van was aid darn ilk jar kin laid nail raid said tail vast win ail dart irk jaw kind land nil rail sail talk vat wilt ant    dawn jilt kit lank nit ran sand tan vial wit arid dial kilt law rand sank tar viral wad aril did kiln lawn rank sat task vista wand art din lid rat saw tin vital wail avid drink link raw silk twin want list rid silt tidal wrist rind sin wink rink sink war sit ward slat wart slid wan slink wind slit star stink stir swan