Happy Explosion Anniversary

I don't know where you were 26 years ago today, but I still remember my brother's birthday picnic being completely ruined by the ominous and toxic plume of ash sent our way by Mt. St. Helens. The fact that it happened on his birthday has been very convenient, as it has made me remember the exact date that the eruption took place and that knowledge has served me several times during Trivial Pursuit matches. To celebrate the event, I'd recommend 1) Mixing baking soda and vinegar to make your own volcano in the comfort of your own home (or better yet, someone ELSE'S home), or 2) Binge drink so much that a vomitous volcano erupts right out of your mouth. Have fun!

(And happy birthday, Jayson! And if you're going to do one of the above, I'd recommend the first one--I'd much rather clean up vinegar foam than puke and I'm not willing to clean THAT up for you, even if it IS your birthday!)

Mission Impossible: Laughing quietly

Over the weekend, we went to see Mission Impossible III. We decided to go see it at a boutique theatre in Vancouver, Washington and between the overpriced theatre and the ridiculousness of the movie, the evening was just slightly more enjoyable than sitting through three hours of church. (Plus, at least the refreshments at church are free--$5 for a pop!?! Give me free bread and water any day!)

First, the boutique theatre: We had no idea how much a movie cost here when we came up. We were just enamoured with the idea of sitting in big leather recliners and putting our feet up on the ottomans in a theatre. Half the group had bought their tickets before we did, so we couldn't back out when I was told that our two tickets would cost TWENTY-EIGHT FRICKIN' DOLLARS!!! That's the annual wages for a Bangladeshi worker! Plus, my brother was put out because after he'd stood in line for a pop and sat down in the theatre, a waitress came in and asked if she could get us any refreshments. At $14, she should have given us foot massages during the previews and peeled us some grapes. All in all, it was an interesting, albeit overpriced, experience. Jayson captured it perfectly when he said, "That was the first time I've been to Vancouver, Washington, and after that, I'm never coming back."

Now on to the movie: Ugg, several groan-worthy scenes had Margaret and me laughing in incredulity at the sheer absurdity. The movie was filled with them, but the best example is Tom Cruise being revived with CPR and just when you think he's dead, he springs up, grabbing a pistol and checks out the room to make sure there are no bad guys. I would think that there would be SOME lag time to get your bearings if your heart has stopped beating for over a minute. Evidently not Tom Cruise's! I'm not that alert ever after I've drunk 96 oz. of Diet Pepsi! Jayson had a good time, though. It was his second time watching the movie, but his back had been hurting him so he took a hydrocodone (the preferred drug of Rush Limbaugh) and said that the movie was much more enjoyable with narcotics. I believe him--my brain was in the "on" position and I just found it mildly entertaining.

This has set the stage for me to be either really impressed by or really disappointed by The DaVinci Code tomorrow. One thing's for sure, though: we're going to see the movie in Portland--if I want to sit in a leather seat, I'll just bring a leather jacket to sit on.

Only YOU can prevent yard fires!

This morning we were awoken at 6 am to someone from down the street banging on the door yelling "Neighbor! Neighbor!" (That goes to show us that we should meet more of our neighbors, since that was the only thing she could yell to us... what can I say, we're reclusive) Anyway, neither Margaret nor I were coherent enough to realize that it wasn't a dream, and my brother, who was visiting, ended up answering the door. When he came to the door, she frantically told him that someone had thrown a cigarette butt on our planting strip in front of the house, and since it's been hot and dry here, the bark mulch caught fire and was smoking pretty bad. She had run down to her house to get a rake and bucket of water, but needed more water and was banging on the door to ask about a hose. Actually, that was pretty diligent of her to do--I probably would have just peed on it--kidding. Margaret, alway pragmatic, upon hearing about the fire, first asked if the blueberries were okay. Yes, Margaret, they were--but the dandelions and crab grass will never be the same. The fire got put out, but it's really incurred my wrath that a stupid smoker just carelessly tossed that butt on the ground and started the fire. Do they really think that that's not littering? Just because their lungs are trash-filled and burnt black doesn't mean they can do it to my yard! The neighbor pointed out several times that the cigarette butt had bright red lipstick on it, so now I'll be scrutinizing every woman and drag queen that walks by our house smoking. I just need to think of a just punishment for them for making our front yard smell like a camp fire and for waking us all up so early--I only wake up that early on Tuesdays so I can frantically pull the trash out that I've forgotten to do the night before.

Speaking of which, one time my parents had slaughtered an animal and had thrown the head into the garbage, but it was the day after the garbage man had picked up, so it just festered in the garbage can for a week in the summer heat. On the day of garbage collection, my brother set his alarm clock early so he would be up to watch the garbage man's reaction at seeing--and particularly SMELLING--the rotting pool of ichor that was surely at the bottom of that garbage can. Evidently from the trash collector's reaction, it was worth his while to get up so early.

Crazy Hawthorne guy

I guess I've earned my Hawthorne credentials today--I got on the bus with a full kitchen garbage bag and no one even gave me a second look! I would have thought that someone carrying around a bag of garbage who didn't smell like urine would have been noteworthy. Actually, the bag was full of moss (I know--random, but it is for centerpieces for an event my work is putting on) that I had bought at Wal-Mart some huge, faceless conglomerate. It all worked out, though, as I'd much rather people see me carrying around a bag of garbage than be seen carrying Wal-Mart bags!

Perils of public transit

Yikes--I think my stars have been out of alignment since yesterday afternoon... at least pertaining to public transportation--which planet affects that? Probably Pluto, since that's the one who's too cheap to just buy another car and insists on "saving the solar system." My problems started yesterday coming home from work. I saw the bus at my transfer and it was just pulling away, but it got caught at a stop light, so I ran up to it to catch it before the light turned. And when I say 'ran' I mean it--I'd just talked with Margaret and we'd planned on meeting at a burrito place near our house and I was very anxious to meet up with her to eat there. They have these delicious burritos with meat, peas, potatoes and... oops, sorry about the tangent--back to the story. I stood in front of the bus door for a few seconds before the bus driver looked over at me and SHOOK HER HEAD in the international sign for "Not a chance!" Evidently that's not allowed, but still--here's a huddled mass standing outside her door yearning to get on. How much effort would it have taken to push the frickin' button to let me on? Like a SECOND and maybe a third of a calorie of enegy! I stood there a moment, in disbelief, then walked back to the curb and waited there for a bit before the light ever turned green! I was so aggravated. I wished that when she pulled out into the intersection that she'd have hit something so I could have told her, "that wouldn't have happened if you'd have let me on your bus." Alas, that didn't happen. Where's kharma when you need it? (And don't go saying that this was kharma happening to me because I'VE been good!)

Fast forward to this morning, when I was running to catch the bus and the bus driver didn't see me and shut me in the door! She apologized, but I couldn't help but think that there's a conspiracy going on here.

Finally, when I transfered to the train to get to the office, it was delayed because someone had put a spike or some other sharp object on a seat and the transit people had to take care of it. I guess that signals to me that Pluto has shifted out of this 'death-bringer' phase, because if it were still in effect, I would have sit down on that spike and contracted some disease from it or be in the hospital right now. Instead I'm tethered to my office computer.

Comic strips that need to die already

This past few months, the local paper here in Portland has been trying out a few different comic strips and now that they're done presenting them, they're offering a vote for which one to choose--and one of them is reruns of Peanuts! With all the talent and new ideas out there, I can't believe they're offering that as an option! That's like people rather reading some old thing like the Bible rather than some fresh new ideas--like the DaVinci Code.

Also in the paper this morning was this little thought from David Letterman:
"Today is the 75th anniversary of the Empire State Building. This is a great historical fact: The Empire State Building is the only American landmark to have ever had a giant ape on top of it. Unless you count Maria Shriver as a landmark."

Mean Girls

Today's crazy news item that's surprisingly relevant to yesterday's news item in that they both have the word "rat" in them:

Judge finds girls guilty in poisoning attempt
A Lake County circuit judge found two middle school girls guilty of trying to kill two classmates by putting rat poison in their milk cartons. [Gee, in my day, students were just tormented or ostracized, with the occassional violent wedgie or swirly--which was fortunate for me, since I was likely on the receiving end. No one thought of POISON!]
Stephanie Quesney, 12, and Holley Sweeney, 13, were found guilty of plotting and executing a plan to kill two classmates they disliked. [I wonder what they would have done if they'd outright HATED someone?]
Authorities say Quesnoy and Sweeney put d-Con rat poison in the milk cartons of two other girls during the lunch hour at Daly Middle School last year. [When questioned about their motive, Quesney replied, "Like, LaFawnda wore the same skirt as me, like, FIVE times! Plus her highlights were totally off for her complexion." "It was, like, totally social triage," added Sweeney, "we we trying to put them out of their misery.]
When the two victims finished their drinks, they saw pellets at the bottom. The girls did not feel good and were taken to the hospital. [Initially they thought they had developed spontaneous lactose intolerance.]
The green, crystalline pellets of d-Con hadn't worked their way into the milk before the victims consumed it, authorities say, and no one was injured.

This takes the "Mean Girls" concept a little too far. Why can't kids stick with making other kids' lives a living hell rather than try to kill them?

Now Oregon's in the news!

Check out this article that was in the paper this morning:

MEDFORD, OREGON--The parents of a 6-month-old boy who was bitten as many as 200 times by a rat that the family found at a nearby creek were in the Jackson County Jail on criminal mistreatment allegations Wednesday.
Robert Horsfall, 21, and Maegan McCleary, 19, [Evidently they didn't teach rat bite prevention in the teen pregancy class.] took their son to the emergency room at Rogue Valley Medical Center in Medford with the bites early Tuesday, police said.
Medford detectives said the parents apparently believed the rat was a domestic breed, [Yeah, that's my first thought, too, when I see a bedragled rat along a creek swimming in germs with that "plague" look about it.] brought it home and kept it in a cage in the same room where they slept with the baby. When they awoke the next morning, they found that the rat had escaped and bitten the boy, police said. [Wouldn't the baby have made any noise? Mom and Dad must have been REALLY out of it--or sleep with really effective earplugs! And what's up with the rat not biting the parents? My theory is that they were so reeking of patchouli and BO that the rat wouldn't come near them, and can you blame the rat? Living on Hawthorne Street here in Portland, I sometimes have to cross the street to avoid that particularly foul stench.] He had from 100 to 200 bites all over his body, including his face, and was being treated at the hospital for infected wounds, police said. [That poor baby--now growing up with those scars on his face, he'll have to explain to people that they're RAT BITES! Nothing ruins a nascent political career like rodent scars.]
Horsfall and McCleary were arrested on suspicion of criminal mistreatment, child neglect and reckless endangerment. [Unfortunately stupidity isn't against the law, or they would be charged with THAT too! Well, it's a good thing it isn't, or our prisons would be even more overcrowded than they already are!]

Well, that racks up a stupid story from Wyoming a couple of days ago and now one from Oregon. I'll be on the lookout for someone doing something completely stupid from Idaho and we'll have a trifecta. Fortunately my tribe's General Council is today and tomorrow, so you won't have to wait too long.

Busted!

Dang it--my masterpiece of bathroom sign defacement evidently was too avant garde, as when I went in to that bathroom this morning, this picture shows what I found: a bare place on the wall where the sign used to be. So much for my viral marketing of the "gain the itch" campaign.

On a better note, Noah's Bagels is hiring--and since I've been looking for a job with little to no responsibility, maybe I should apply--one of the perks is free bagels!

Lax postings

Sorry I've been so sporadic in posting--at work I'm putting together a gala where we're expecting around 500 guests and it's got me going CRAZY. At times like this, I almost wish I had a job at McDonald's where I wouldn't have any responsibility and I wouldn't be kept awake at night thinking about all the things I need to get done before next weekend!