The Rude Thing About Life

I paid a bunch of bills this morning. That’s not the rude thing about life, though it is a rude thing about life. Bills, they have to be paid.

I put a butternut squash in the oven just now, because I don’t want to subsist on fast food and eating out, but I’ve long been too brain-dead to focus on cooking. Another thing that is rude, but not THE rude thing about life.

Except, really? They both are part of the rude thing about life. The rude thing about life is that it goes on. I haven’t heard For My Broken Heart in years, possibly as much as a decade, but a tiny piece of it has lodged in my head and reminded me “the world ain’t gonna stop for my broken heart.”… Continue reading →

A Time for Everything

It’s a snow day here in Portland, Oregon. We got somewhere between six and nine inches of snow last night. Maybe even more, but given how bad I am at estimating sizes of things1, I won’t try harder to be sure.

It’s not the first snow day we’ve had, but somehow it feels more like a snow day than any other. Maybe it’s how damn much snow is out there, or maybe it’s how quiet it is inside. I’m not sure. Nor am I sure if I care to figure out the “why” rather than just experience things as they are. In this case, it’s a snow day kind of day. I have tea. I have an urge to write. My tea is in a new, fabulous mug from the fantastic Deb Cooperman, and it’s encouraging my tea-ing and writing.… Continue reading →

Not My Father’s Beer Adventure in PDX!

When Leslie of Not My Father’s Beer asked me to, effectively, write a guide for beer tourists in Portland, Oregon (PDX) I nearly laughed right out loud. First, it has to have been done before. Probably a bazillion times. And second, I had just barely moved here! What’d I know about the Portland beer scene, other than it’s reputed to be fantastic?

Then I “well actually”ed myself. I just moved here and I do know a thing or two about beer. I am basically a beer tourist in my own town right now, but I’ve been here long enough to lay down a few roots and get to know a few people, and I’m starting to get it moving. That makes me the perfect person to write such a guide!… Continue reading →

14 July 2014 Garden Photos

Bill and I left town for about two weeks. When we came back, our garden had gone kind of wild. Others were watering for us, and may have harvested a few things. I don’t know. I did, however, take a bunch of photos. There’s a sample below, including a tomato I’d like diagnosed, please! If you’d like to see more, just click through any photo to get to the image within the flickr set & poke around!

After we took all these photos, we went to dinner. Then we came back and harvested a ton of green bell peppers. I’m going to demand Jen share her stuffed pepper recipe.… Continue reading →

More Garden Photos

On Sunday, I called my father and he accused me of only calling out of “an overdeveloped sense of obligation.” This was a load of crap, of course. I called him out of a perfectly tuned sense of obligation. Eventually, we both agreed we could maybe call one another more often.

Then he asked for garden photos and I said he clearly wasn’t reading my blog. To which he admitted, but then pointed out I could be more aggressive about sharing. So, I’ll do that. And I’ll put up a few more photos, because I love him and I think he’d enjoy them. Also, because I enjoy sharing them.

This isn’t my usual view walking in, as I tend to enter from the southwest, not the east.… Continue reading →