Crazy Bus People

So, today it was my turn.

I ride tri met to work and back home at the end of the day.  I've so enjoyed it with it's community feeling.  Granted, most of my fellow bus mates use the bus from necessity.  Haunting DUI's restricting their movement.  But I love the camaraderie.  The faintest smell of two days ago beer spilled in the frenzy of imbibing.  But I love the avoidance of traffic and parking.  The slightly deranged drug seeking bearded woman asking if she can borrow someone's cell phone to call in a prescription.  But I love the watching the other people on the bus try and find a response to the query.  I love the interaction between the commuters and what I have affectionately deemed the bus "lifers".  

Well, today was my turn.  A slightly deranged chinese man got onto the bus and sat right next to me on a half full bus.  He had three boxes of cigarettes and could not resist asking me over and over again to confirm how beautiful the yellow was on the boxes.  Even though I did emphatically answer "Oh yes, they ARE so beautiful" each time I was quarried.  I just thank God I was only two stops away from home. 

They did a great job!

Websites with testimonials are never to be trusted. Well, almost never. When you have testimonials like this, you know the person who put together the website is top notch.

http://www.blackcatplumbing.com/clients.htm

Separating Accounts

Holli and I have figured out how to separate our accounts so we can post individually to our blog and to make comments on other people's blogs. This is kind of a test post.

Weddings and Pirate Fests

This weekend, my friend Jessica married Joonas.  Well, they had their ceremony anyway.  It was a very nice event, and it was good to spend time with Jessica and her family.  It was also fun to meet Joonas' family who flew in from Finland, and Jessica's friends from other times in her life whom I've heard a lot about but never met.

Over the weekend, I also had a chance to go shopping for costume.  So, as I've mentioned, Steve and I are going to Europe - the instigation for that trip is our friend Rik is turning 40 and 1.5 years ago, he invited us to his birthday party and we said we would go - so we're going.  

We got our official invitation in the mail and it's awesome, so I wanted to show you all.

That's Rik's face on the parrot.  heh.  

Both Steve and I are very excited about this party.  hooray for pirate parties.

I got to see August this weekend.  It was fun.  I made a new game with him.  I had him laying on the couch next to me, and I would pretend to ignore him.  then, when he was sufficiently fooled, I would look at him and start poking his rib area with my pointer fingers and going up to his armpits - he would laugh and laugh and laugh - then, I would start with the ignoring again.  He liked it.  He's getting so big - 15.5 lbs now.  whew!

Parker had a close call this weekend as well.  He was outside playing with my dad and chewing on sticks.  He got a small one caught in his throat and he couldn't get it out.  Steve had to pin him down and reach in and grab it out.  I was freaked out and I almost started crying - but I'd already had my makeup done for the wedding so I held it in.  I thought he was choking on a ball and couldn't breathe at all. 

It was scary for all - but he is fine and to prove it, he wanted to show you what a good dancer he is.  So with that, feast your eyes on him and me dancing tonight and have a good day!

Top 10 new things Steve and/or I did this week

10.  We tied furniture that we bought at IKEA to the top of our car and drove home with Steve holding onto the furniture through the sunroof so it wouldn't slide off.

9.  We went to Winco, which is kind of like going to a different country because no one speaks English and everyone acts as though the beef is going to run out if they don't push you out of the way first.  It reminded me of standing in the ticket line at the train station in Paris - and the woman behind me felt like she was going to get her ticket faster if she crawled up my bum during the entire 45 minute wait.

8.  We stayed in Portland for the weekend.  Okay, that's not entirely new, but it's been a long time.

7.  I sang with the choir at the church we've been attending.

6.  I became mildly addicted to fantasy football message boards trying to figure out who to start on my roster this week.

5.  We made it to bed before midnight every single night this week.  This one's kind of boring, but I'm running out of new things that we did...

4.  We had lunch with Graham and Donnie from my work on Tuesday, and bid Donnie a fond farewell as he headed out to Egypt.  Yes.  Egypt.  As in the Nile.  and Cairo.  Egypt.

3. We finally got the last of our books put away on shelves, instead of being stacked behind the couch.  That's new, right?

2.  I gave Steve a haircut.  Really.  And it didn't suck too bad.

And the #1 new thing Steve and/or I did this week...

1.  I told a woman at church that Steve's sperm is bad when she asked when we were planning to have children.  In front of the pastor.

When you're hot, you're hot.

Yesterday, I scored several good things.  The first was a free pizza lunch at work.  Of course, to get it, I had to sit through a guy from our firm's 401k program yak at me about "staying the course" and not pulling my money out of my retirement program.  Of course, little did he know, I've thwarted the whole system and don't have a retirement account muhahahaha.

After scoring the free pizza, I also scored a pair of Trailblazers tickets for that night - my name was drawn out of a hat.  HOORAY.  So, Steve and I went.  It was not fabulous but it was definitely an interesting adventure and different.  And, our friends Emily and Charlie have season tickets so we were able to get in touch with them and meet up at half time.  Emily is my current hero because she just ran the Portland Marathon.  Several years ago, apparently I talked her into running a 10k after I had run the Butte to Butte.  Of course, after I ran my 10k, I stopped and haven't been able to get back into it.  She stuck to it and I'm super impressed.  Steve and I said something casual about doing it next year.  I don' t know if it will happen, but maybe we'll get back into 10k shape, eh?!  Anyway, SCORE for seeing friends.

We took the bus.  It was the first time Steve and I had taken public transportation together.  It was very good.  I got a ticket to the Rose Garden and got a transfer ticket.  That way, when we left (at half time), I was still able to use my transfer ticket and didn't have to pay a second fare.  SCORE again!  

Yesterday, I was pretty hot.

This morning, I went to court first thing and was pretty successful with my motion hearing.  I'll take it!  

Our road adventures.

Last weekend, after driving back to Portland and nearly dying when a car decided that it had taken the wrong fork of a Y and just decided to stop IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREEWAY, until traffic was clear so it could do a clever driving maneuver and get on the correct fork of the Y. Thankfully, Steve's adrenaline assists him in helpful ways and he was able to bring our car from 60 to 0 in no time flat. Really, I thought we were done for. But we made it. Barely. And we continued on to our apartment

Our apartment building is pretty darn swanky. It's got its ups and its downs... but we like it and we're happy to be here for a year. It's 10 blocks from where I work, close to downtown, right next to the street car, walking distance to the train station... you really can't get a whole lot better. Except the parking. It's outrageously expensive to get parking here. So we didn't.

After our near death experience on the freeway, we were pretty happy to get home, park on the street just outside of the side door to our building (our favorite spot) and went upstairs to go to bed. It was, after all, very late.

We got up the next morning to go to church and walked outside. When Steve looked at our car and said "what the ____?!" I knew something was terribly wrong. At first, I thought our car was gone because I couldn't see it from where I was standing. But no. It was not gone. Rather, it had a dent the size of a saucer-sled in the hood. I kid you not. It was HUGE. After using our keen skills at logical deduction and reasoning, we realized that someone had dropped a ginormous water balloon on our car. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself.

You can't see the details all that well, but those orange things that look like leaves... They're not leaves. They're pieces of orange rubber, with a big ol' knot tied in one end. Yes, they are pieces of a water balloon. Needless to say, I was none to pleased. We reported the incident to our apartment manager and she was mortified. She said she would investigate and in the meantime, she would pleased to provide us with a parking spot in the garage, free of charge, for the remainder of our lease. SCORE. So, off we went.

A few days later, she called me back and told me that someone had fessed up to the stunt and was offering to pay for the damage. And we still get our free parking spot. Can you say HALLELUJAH?! I sure can.

So, onward we go.

This weekend, we went to Sunriver with my parents, Kim, Fred, and August. It was a nice weekend, with some hiking, some football watching, hot tubbing, and good eating. On our way home, we drove through Government Camp, and just before reaching there, some fellows on bikes cut out directly in front of us. What is it with people doing really stupid things. Steve, again, with his cat-like reflexes slammed on the brakes and narrowly avoided the collision. The car behind us nearly slammed into us and there may or may not have been a lot of "I HATE YOU" honking going on.

I kind of wish the guy would have hit our car and then it would match in the front and the back and we'd have a good excuse to actually get a new (different) car. But alas, we were not so fortunate. We made it home uneventfully the rest of the journey.

I hope we have no more road adventures for a long long time.

Good night.