Winging it...Wine-ing ...Miley-ing it.. MLKing it....

I have not been watching TV at all for about a week, though i did watch my DVR of Project Runway, so this is going to be very random and i might be missing some important shit. Here we go. Maybe y'all can fill in some blanks for me.  Wine tonight: Fume Blanc by Ferrari Carneros... 

1. Oh-Em-Gee... are we going to war with Syria? If not for Comcast i would be living under a rock. Things go through my mind...like the end of the world, at the very least, reinstatement of the draft..... scary. i want to know more, but i almost don't want to know more.

2. Oh and on the other side of the news spectrum.... we have ...Miley Cyrus. Are we really going to keep talking about this? I hope not. I watched the YouTube of her wack performance. The creepiest thing about it for me was the stuffed animal people, bears or whatever they were. She is 20 years old. She's not a virgin. And helllllloooo, it's MTV!

3. Having said all that. I am so freaking glad she is not MY daughter. The dude who made a hit out of that stupid ass song Achy Breaky Heart deserves this as payback for the year 1992 when i had to hear that song ad nauseam.

4. Who here watches Project Runway? louie i know does because she turned ME on to it. It's a great season so far but they got it wrong trying to kick off the deaf dude. The black bow tie dude is freaking me out and might be the reason i have to go back on my blood pressure meds!

5. I entered Thug Kitchen's contest to win a super cool knife. I sent him/her/them the link to my blog post May 31st of how TK might write out a recipe for Bacon Wrapped Tator Tots. (Sorry for the redundancy for you Facebookers). I thought it would be funny that Thug Kitchen writes a vegan blog and was asking for an entry about cooking and in their own words 'whatever' to win these prizes. Oh and it had to be 300 words or less because TK doesn't want to read a bunch of essays but i figure if anyone breaks the rules it would be Thug Kitchen. I am so sure my blog post is something like 900 words! Y'all know how verbose i can be here! The contest ends Sept. 6th.

6. Google has got to be one of the coolest places to work! Especially the employee who gets to do the graphics on the Google daily logo. Today is the 50th anniversary of MLK's I have a Dream Speech and i just had to put this up.

7. I've been thinking about my post-retirement work lately. I think if i win the Thug Kitchen knife then maybe i could maybe apply for a job there. I don't believe for one second that Thug Kitchen is written by one dude anyway. It's by a team. I think they need me! Even if i am a carnivore. (Did i spell that correctly?)

9. I am going to misnumber this one in honor of ummagumma. Are you still reading here miss Robin?

Sort of an honor of the 50th anniversary:This photos is from a couple of days ago. I ordered this t-shirt for both of my nephews,  (my sister's son, Chris) who had a baby girl a few weeks ago, (and my brother Troy's son, Brian) who is having a baby boy in October.

Notes to Self: 
Sunrise: 6:23 am.
Sunset: 7:59 am .... so sad... first time under 8:00 pm for awhile!
All time blog views: 47,556
Page views last month: 1053
Shout Out: amulbunny and Swiss!

Random Summer's Waning Post...

Posting this photo will make sense if you read through

I have no idea what to write about, but it's been TWO WHOLE WEEKS since i have changed this blog and it's time, even if i bore all of y'all. (i don't think I have ever gone that long this year.)

I'm just going to wing it....

1. My new favorite musical artist i've just discovered is Nick Waterhouse. (Best Song: Say I Wanna Know). If Amy Winehouse and Dan Auerbach (sp?) from the Black Keys had a baby, he would sound like Nick Waterhouse.

2. I really like my music kind of stripped and raw and not with a lot of synthesized sounds, or background strings or horns or chorus-y singing. Nick Waterhouse sounds like he recorded this in his mom's basement. Maybe he did. (He only has one cd/record or whatever we call them these days.)

3. I just read Bad Monkey by Carl Hiassen. Hiassen cracks me up. A woman in the novel responds to the main character Yancey this way when she feels he is hitting on her at their first introduction: She casually drops it that she is married to a sniper on the SWAT team. (She isn't.) I thought what a great way to deflect a come on from someone you want to get away from.

4. Not that i need to use any lines like that anymore, but they might have come in handy when i was a waitress in a sports bar back in 1986.

5. Which is incidentally where i met Brian, my husband today. He used to come in after the photography class that he taught at the college where he is still working. He asked me out. I said no. And he never came in again. We finally hooked up again 6 years later after my divorce from my second ex husband.

6. Next week is my last week at work. At least full-time and no longer with benefits and my regular salary. I do go back, working on a time sheet in mid-September . I will work 18 hours a week, 3 days a week (Yay! FOUR DAY WEEKENDS!)  They need me temporarily while they figure out what to do in our office. We are considering merging with another office but that could take up to a year. So i might be there for awhile, but then again i could be done by December.

7. We're a union office and like the Democrats we have too many players and everyone has a say and it just slows down the whole damn process. I keep saying that sometimes we just need a good despot to get things done. I have a feeling i could be there awhile but  I feel fortunate that i have this opportunity to ease into retirement and hope by the end of this gig that i will have it figured out what i want to do.

8. I'm leaning towards working in a wine bar and forgetting about going back to work in the schools, though i do plan to volunteer again.

9. For ummagumma. Saw her on Facebook. Wonder if she still reads here!

10. Over vacation I stopped taking my blood pressure (July 19).  Since then I've checked it every day and it's remained normal and it was normal at my doctor's office yesterday too and on record there. So it's official : Work actually made me sick. That's all i can think of. Retirement, just the thought of it,  is making me healthy! (It could also have something to do that i've upped my average mileage on my runs.)

11. Let me bore you with my latest scary dream, it's a recurring one and i put it here for history, just in case it happens:  I'm in the car and my niece Kylee is driving and we are on a freeway bridge going into a sharp turn and as she turns the corner i start to tell her to slow down  but i'm too late and we go off the bridge and as we are going down i say out loud very calmly, "I always knew this would happen someday." and i wake up. (I was never so glad to wake up at 3:00 am.)

12. Sometimes i think that water will be involved somehow when i finally do die. Or a car. Or both. Personally i liked the idea of a heart attack, one of those kind that you die before you hit the floor.

13. Speaking of my second ex-husband: I saw him the other day and it was just perfect. (I worry i will run into my exes at Albertson's after i've been running and looking straggley, they don't mean anything to me and i know i shouldn't care, but i do...really who wouldn't?)  Anyway i was sitting at the bar watching my now husband's band play at this waterfront restaurant/bar. He came in and we saw each other at the same time. (I haven't seen him in probably 8 years, we've been divorced since 1992  and i was the one who wanted out.)

And i went over and gave him a hug. He asked why i was there and i got to say "I'm with the band." hahahaha... I have ALWAYS wanted to say that since i was a teenager!... And i pointed to Brian and said 'my husband is the one playing the drums." And did i mention he was alone? He even had to make a disclaimer that he was just popping in on his way to something bigger. (I'm sure that's why he left quickly after his only drink.)

14. Oh yeah, and i had just had my hair done by my stylist the day before and it looked better than i can ever make it look by myself. He looked okay i guess. Not as bad as i thought he would since he is 11 years older, (which would make him 67 years old).

15. It's been a great summer in our Pacific Northwest. The very best on record! Everybody's talking about it. I don't even mind that autumn is starting to come because we were treated with so much sun these past months that i almost miss the rain.

OMG, i can't believe i really have nothing to say and yet here i am on #15, but not exactly riveting stuff for so many points.

Oh yeah and i almost forgot... How about that John Oliver?  He did an awesome job on The Daily Show! My prediction: I think Jon Stewart is going to replace David Letterman any day now and John Oliver is going to take over The Daily Show and i told my husband that i bet that it's already in the works between the networks and this was a test run. I'm sure David Letterman must be getting close.

Notes to Self: 
Sunrise: 6:17 am
Sunset: 8:08 pm
High temp: 83 degrees
Total page views last month: 1053
Total all time: 47,387

Stuff i give a shit about

The other night when my husband Brian and i were outside on the patio playing cards, enjoying the summertime and drinking wine we were talking about work because we were both back to work after our vacation. And he brought up something about a meeting he had to attend where they talked about quote core values unquote. (He is communications and marketing director for a small college where we live.)

In the union office where i work we use that term often too. And i have always hated terms like that.

And so  i said, "I HATE those kinds of academic professional termages.... (I can make up words like 'termages' because it is MY blog.)

I added, " they should quit calling it 'core values' and instead call it  "Stuff i Give a Shit About and i am Ready to Kick Somebody's Ass If They Don't Feel the Same Way".

Isn't that a more provocative way to get somebody's attention about quote core values unquote?

And i made a quick note to make this my next blog post.

So here it is. Let's talk about Stuff We Give A Shit About. (And i really don't know what i am getting ready to say, but here i go:)

1. I give a shit about having enough money to save for my future, to make my small home nice, and getting my hair done, and eating well, and helping out family members to some extent.

2. I want to be able to keep running, at least until i am 60 years old. That is my goal. But in truth, i hope to be able to run longer than that, and i say that even as i HATE running. But it makes me feel younger.

3. I give a shit about feeling younger than i am.

4. I give a shit about looking and feeling and thinking younger than my age, and i think that is not going to last much longer, maybe two years.

5. I give a shit about my family being people i love hanging out with.

6. I give a shit about people i work with who are ethical, strong, healthy minded and fun.

7. I give a shit about good TV like Newsroom. The Daily Show. Parenthood.

8. I give a shit about great music. Van Morrison never disappoints me EVER. (He is playing right now as i type.)

9. I give a shit about being married to a man who gets me. Who finds the good in me when others don't and tells me about the times he sees that in me, even if it is a small thing.

10. I give a shit about have a lot of unencumbered time to do what i want.

11. I give a shit about electing the right person in the political world.

12. I give a shit about being around generous people who aren't self absorbed and who don't always talk about themselves.

13. I give a shit about a great bottle of wine that i've never had before.

14. I give a shit about that first cup (and only cup of the day) of really strong coffee that my husband brings me in the morning when i first wake up.

15. I give a shit that right now, as of this moment, every person i love and care about is healthy. As far as i know... at this moment.

The Best Version of "Hallelujah"....and stuff ladies talk about while on vacation with wine!

August 1, 2013 Iron Springs - l to r: Sarah/louie, her daughter Emma, me, Julie/jj. I finally figured out my self-timer on my camera, which is why i'm laughing, i had to jump in quickly!

Just got back from a three night galpal trip, or as Emma likes to call it, "The Ladies' Vacation". (Emma is one of two non-family people  who i would be willing to adopt as my own daughter. I posted on this sometime last spring on this blog.) We went to Iron Springs on Copalis Beach, which is one of the nicer Washington ocean beaches because the cars can't drive between the inlets so there are fewer cars. Plus the cabins are very cool. (My husband and i were there earlier in the month.)

Here's what we did:

1. On the last night we played every version of the song the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah" on our iPods. We had them by: Rufus Wainwright, k.d. Lang, Jeff Buckley, Brandi Carlile, JJ Cale. (I thought i had Jackie Greene's version, but didn't.)

2. We then voted on k.d. Lang's version as being the best. (Check it out and see if you don't agree.) Emma sort of likes Brandi Carlile's the best, and i might put her second, equal with Jeff Buckley's.

3. Then we gave some shit to Emma (who is 25 years old) for not knowing that Leonard Cohen wrote it.

4. Weird than none of us had Cohen's version. We found it on YouTube and then understood why.

5. We also drank 9 bottles of wine during the three days. We cooked every meal, steamed clams, marinated flank steak on the BBQ and pasta with homemade pesto and proscuitto. (We eat well on these trips and don't mind cooking. )  It was funny that we all brought goat cheese and granola.

6. We talked about lots of stuff. How young men are terrible in bed, family dynamics, actors we like and actors who irritate us, how to fix education (Emma is a teacher too, so we are all in education).

7. We also talked about how size doesn't matter (though louie didn't participate in THAT conversation, being that her daughter was present).

8. We talked about vegans vs. vegetarians and how irritating it can be to cook for them. Emma used to date a vegan and it was a stressful trying to come up with T-Day vegan dishes. I know, cause i was there.

10. We tried too late to make a drinking game out of every time that Sarah and Emma shared a funny endearment about Ron, (louie's husband, Emma's dad).

11. We watched The Big Lebowski and even though we had all seen it, Silver Linings Playbook.

12. I think we all agreed that Bradley Cooper is someone we would date.

13. louie and i played a card game Speed, for quarters. We were evenly matched, each winning four quarters. (We forgot to have our playoff. Too bad because Julie and Emma could have laid bets on who would win.)

14. We completed a 513 piece puzzle that had three missing pieces and three dog chewed pieces and entirely too much white.

15. We took two long walks on the beach. I ran once, but not long, i hate beach running, so boring going out and back.

16. We played Qwerkle and louie won one game and i am not sure who won the second. Emma kept score. We have to ask her.

17. We talked about how hard it must be to date when you are 50 - since this is what Julie is doing. And then laughed about what if you are dating someone who needs to sleep with one of the sleep apnea machines that makes you look like an aardvark. (How does one look sexy in one of those?) But if Bradley Cooper needed to use a sleep machine it would be okay. Though I realize he is not 50 years old.

18. We weren't careful of our language. Emma had the best quote. "She always uses the F-word more in July" ....(in talking about her mom).

19. We talked about our future....with the exception of Emma, i think we are all ready to be done with our jobs. But worried about what we want to do. Julie maybe Peace Corps, Sarah - uncertain, me - watching a lot of TV, taking bowling lessons, archery lessons. (I'm the least ambitious in the group, not embarrassed to say.)

So come tell us: what are YOU doing on YOUR vacation?

Notes to Self: 
Sunset: 8:43 pm
Sunrise: 5:50 am
All time blog views: 46,610
Shout Out: equeyaya....cause i know you love the song Hallelujah too!







Above is Alexandra from the X-FActor that louie is talking about.



Above is Swiss's link of Hallelujah of the guy's singing together. I actually like this one better than Alexandra. But i still think kd lang does it best.

Coming soon... a new post. i think tomorrow.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation. I actually did more than make my bed and fill up the ice cube tray!!!!