I'm specialer than the slush pile.
So sorry, Internet. I’m away. I will respond to your blogs tomorrow. We’re having Christmas at our house today because we leave to California soon where we will have Christmas part deux (that’s right, right? The Spanish for two?).
But I don’t want to leave you hanging. Click here for two, count them DUEX!, Back Fence PDX videos from last week!
Okay, so if you’re here for the funny, I suggest you head out to any one of my regular commenters’ blogs. So much funny there, you’ll just want to stab yourself in the eye because those people are funnnnnny! See, no funny here today.
But I wanted to talk about abundance. It’s a hippie dippy term, but I’m going to use it. Because two days ago during Portland’s epic snow blizzard-electrical-ice-sleet-hail-end-times-cancer-storm, I dug up my dahlias. See, I planted dahlias in May (way too late) and they grew up tiny with a single flower each. Probably because I’m the world’s most inept gardener. So I pulled a couple up the other day and two of them had two tubers each on them. For those of you just getting here, dahlias are tubers (like potatoes) and they self-propagate by make more tubers underground so you have to pull up your dahlias each year to get more.
Are you all with me? Excellent. Oops…was that your upper thigh? Pardon me.
Anyway, I pulled a few up and was planning to pull a few more up but because Jesus was returning from the dead to punish Portland for its wishful (at best) thinking that composting and recycling every last thing will save the earth (it won’t, Jesus told me that burning as much fossil fuel as possible will, in fact, help the baby seals), but then it was frozen outside and I couldn’t pull the others up.
So I got out my shovel and dug those babies up.
And lookie what I got. That’s right, Internet, I got zillions of dahlia tubers! ZILLIONS! I mean it was like a tuber party…in my pants! I could not believe it. I couldn’t believe I planted a single tuber and got 35 millionty billion. It was totally awesome.
So, here’s my abundance tip for the day: plant dahlias, and do some digging. There’s treasure in them thar hills. Or yard. Or, if you’re metaphorically digging, the treasure will be in your heart or your brain or your pants.
So it snowed here in Portland yesterday. A lot. Like torrential amounts of snow. And it was very confusing. Steve took my car to work because I have an SUV and SUVs will save us all (not Obama, just so you know). So he took my SUV and Arch and I spent the whole day at home. THE WHOLE DAY AT HOME. Because according to RSG, one doesn’t ride a bike in the snow. Huh.
I actually got out some white paper and various markers and Arch and I did a bit of crafting. I also made Mexican hot chocolate (I’m Californian that way. I also stared at my hot chocolate and asked it moderately nicely to shovel my driveway and teach my son the Espanol because I was raised upper-middle class like that).
We also went outside and made a snowman.
Right? How awesome is that guy? That’s charcoal from our BBQ and Arch insisted on a carrot nose. Hello Frosty!
Here I am in the snow. The snow made me realize one thing: I must get my beauty regimen in order before I leave for California. Because, while I think it’s great that Portland doesn’t give a rat’s ass if my gray is showing and I’m wearing stripy wool socks with my Dansko clogs, California cares. California cares a lot. Particularly Malibu where I will lie for long periods of time on V’s porch and when I get too hot, I’ll lie inside on her couch watching home improvement shows and (here’s the best part) because she’s French, she believes in being a host and she says things like, “Melissa, can I brew you a pot of tea? And Melissa, do you need the other remote? And Melissa, please stop weeping, this Flip This House episode was filmed before the current economic crisis.” She’s good to me that way.
I also get to hang out on the beach with the teacup lab.
Here are the things to do before California: dye hair, fix feet so they are pretty, have Latvian woman pour hot wax on my body and rip it off, buy leggings and a few more short-sleeved shirts and a soft v-neck sweater. Dust off my Converse. Gather my knitting projects and some books. And get ready to re-lax.
Malibu, here I come!
My class was so awesome. I think I learned as much as my students. I have a really great grasp on what people are after now, so stay tuned. Long Lunch is about to take off!
First this happens tomorrow:
And, I’d like to introduce Mr. Fishie 2.0.
Remember, for Archie’s birthday we got him a beta fish because I believed that these fish are the cockroaches of the fish world and when the endtimes come, it will only be roaches and tupperware and SUVs and beta fish roaming the earth. Right? Well, wrong, internet. Motherfucking WRONG.
What happened was, Arch is all Mr. Independent now and I’m incredibly lazy a full-time writer and Arch said, “I want to feed Mr. Fishie MYSELF.” Myself is Archer’s favorite word and I’m proud because he uses it correctly (it’s a reflexive pronoun, which means it can’t be used as the only pronoun in the sentence). And he uses it all the time. ALL THE TIME. And it sounds like this, “I want to use scissors to cut all the tags off my toys MYSELF!” Always with the capital letters.
So I was passed out from a heavy night of red wine and poetry writing and Arch went to feed Mr. Fishie. And oops he got too much food in there.
I looked in the little Fishie hexagon and decided that Steve would clean it when he got home Mr. Fishie would simply eat the excess food over time.
Next morning I neglected to nag Steve to clean the bowl Mr. Fishie had not eaten the food, but was in his little condo face first in the rocks.
And Steve calls me into the kitchen and all hushie hushie says “Mr. Fishie was like this [Steve places his hands on his neck and rolls his eyes back in his head] FROM ALL THE FOOD YOU GAVE HIM YESTERDAY. AND NOW HE’S DEAD IN ARCHER’S ROOM!”
And I said, “was it Maria Shriver or Jamie Lee Curtis who wrote that book Great Uncle Otis is in the Place with the Clouds and God and the 52 virgins? Do you think they have that at the St. John’s library?”
And Steve looked at me like he was pretty sure this was a job for Child Protective Services, but he vaguely loves me and maybe I don’t deserve the WORST PARENT OF THE YEAR AWARD.
“Honey, what are we going to do?”
So we decided to let Archie know that Mr. Fishie took a vacation back to the mall where he came from and that we’d go back to the mall and pick him up when his vacation is over. No biggie. Arch was cool with that.
So yesterday Steve took Arch to the mall and Steve showed Archie all the beta fish and asked Archie if he saw Mr. Fishie in there and Archie did and now we have Mr. Fishie 2.0. I hope this one is hardier (thank you Ken) than the last.
Thank you to everyone for coming and helping. Will blog more after I’ve had a few quiet hours.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, is Back Fence PDX. We’ve heard most of the stories (two more today) and all I can say is wow. They are just wonderful and the tellers are superb. We met Adam Shearer yesterday morning and heard two stories from him. Both were excellent and we chose the one best suited for the event, and invited him to participate in a future event if he wanted. I really wanted to invite him to pizza night around my house because he’s so cool and was great with Archie and just a mellow cool dude and I think Stever would like him too but I was like, “I guess I should think about my business and Back Fence fans or whatever.” See, Fan Club, I do it for you.
Tonight we meet Joan Hiller Depper. Just from her emails, I can tell she’s going to move into the girl crush realm with lightning speed.
So get your tickets. And steal this image.
Saturday is my class. So far, I have several extremely talented bloggers and writers signed up and I’m honored they trust me to teach them something. I can’t wait to do it and if you want to sign up, there are a few spaces left.
Sign up here. And, steal this image too.
And this weekend, this is happening:
Can you see that, Internet? I have a lot of California readers and let me explain that wee image to you as best as I understand it. That little gif means snow will fall from the sky. Snow, I think, is like fluffy ice and no two footprints are the same. Or no two icicles are pointy. Or mules can’t make more donkeys.
Here’s my point: I’m fairly certain that cold of this magnitude is the preparation stage for the apocalypse. Get out yer *unscented* candles and yer weapons and canned food because the 17 horsemen and their 54 virgins are on the way.
Just so you know.
The internet is tickling me this morning. First, Chris is blogging from his corpo-office job wearing no undershirt and so his nipples are visible through his dress shirt. Funny and h-o-t! Or c-o-l-d if he’s in one of those ultra-air conditioned offices.
Then, there’s Crissy’s interview (where she calls me a blog crush) at a blog called Cleveland’s a Plum. I didn’t know what Cleveland was either, internet, but it’s a piece of fruit, turns out.
And speaking of fruit, WordPress is all different now and I thought the themes would be different, they are not, but I’m sorely tempted to change my theme to Banana Smoothie, the description for which reads “A smooth two-column theme adorned with a banana. Very personal.”
I want nothing more than to be “very personal.” And so I will adorn myself with a banana.
Except I dislike bananas intensely and just taking that picture was an exercise in gag-resistance. (Guys, my gag reflex is almost nil — but bananas seem to trigger it.)
It’s odd about bananas because I love the banana bread I make and I like bananas cut up and bananas with peanut butter, no prob. But just a banana with the peel and the stringy bits = gag.
And this makes me dance.
When I was 19, we’d go see No Doubt at Slim’s in San Francisco and, I swear, for a solid semester I wore pin striped pants with suspenders and a white wife beater with a black bra because I needed to BE Gwen Stefani. Also, when I make a music video, I’m going to have cheerleaders too. And party people.
And I hate melon.
See, internet? My blog is personal. THANK YOU BANANAS!
And now for some words from our sponsor (me) –
You want this, right?
Steal both of those and put them on your own blogs, if you please.
Oh Internet, you know I love nothing more than doing it myself, or doing it yourself depending on your point of view. I love it. And because I knit socks, I have this thought in my head that I can do ANYTHING because I knit socks.
And Internet, you know that we bought our 1954 ranch house from the original owner who had done a major interior design update in 1978 complete with gray wood paneling on every single wall. So it’s been a slow process eliminating these minor style issues and making our house livable. And I’m the one who does the work because I’m the one who takes a look at something, decides in .05 seconds that that thing is driving me bonkers, and I HAVE A DEWALT POWER DRILL! Why not undo that shit?
Yesterday, I decided that the industrial florescent light in the kitchen needed to go. Why didn’t I do this sooner? Well, because when I ripped off the wood paneling in the laundry room, I replaced the florescent light fixture in there and for whatever fucking reason, every time I touched the black wires, my teeth hurt like hell. I remember that tooth pain and then finding that the light switch was ON through the whole damn light fixture swap out. It stuck with me, you know?
Not so much, though, that yesterday I drove to home despot like that witch in the bugs bunny cartoons with the hair pins flying out of her hair. I picked up a new light fixture and came home and said to Steve, “go ahead and cook dinner, I’m going to replace the light fixture.” It was 6, which means is was pitch black out here in Portland, and it was probably raining a bible-like torrential downpour. I don’t know. I don’t notice anymore.
So I pull off the florescent fixture and pull off the wire nuts and when I pull off the white wires’ nut, one half of the house shorts out. WHAT. THE. FUCK. The white wire is the neutral wire! So Steve’s cooking in the dark and Arch is like “duuuuuuuuuude, what the hell?” Or, that’s what I always think he says because he’s blond sort of stocky like a surfer dude and I’m pretty sure that when he’s 18, he’s going to move back to San Diego because PORTLAND SUCKS MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. At least that’s what I said to my parents about San Diego.
Now, Internet, I’d like you all to know that I have grown since the last time I replaced a light fixture. I’ve grown. I’ve learned that shocking the shit out of myself is *unpleasant* and I want to avoid it. AND our next door neighbor, who’s very cool, is a master electrician.
So I knocked on his door and said, “WHO’S THE MASTER NOW?!?” and I did finger guns at myself. And he came over and brought his tools and wire things and whatever else people use to fix things and he installed my light in about 30 seconds. He then looked at me, shook his head at me in disgust/pity, grabbed a beer from Steve and left. Our neighbor’s a manly dude and uses this hoover-like device to vacuum up his leaves and he washes his car and vacuums the mats and stuff.
And now I have a new light, but I bought the energy saving bulbs in the daylight setting and now I’m pretty sure when Archie naps, I’m going to point those babies at the counter, lie out Steve and perform LASIK surgery on him with nothing but my kitchen lights because they are BRIGHT. Back to home despot to get the soft white version.
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