This weekend

I'm going to the forest. I'm soaking in the hot springs.
There is nothing you can do to stop me.
So there.

I love being the boss of me.

I am obsessed with Todd

I feel I must explain. I have an extremely boring job. I have calculated the time necessary to complete all the tasks assigned me as somewhere around 2 1/2 hours. Per week. I have to be here to answer the phone, and that is my primary function overall, but other than that, my time is almost maddeningly my own. I have internet access to a certain extent (no myspace or youtube) and have tried to devise various methods of edutaining myself all damn day.

I discovered that the internet filter that thwarts certain online activities seems happily to allow pretty much every google module I try to access. Hence, this blog and my new favorite web plaything: iGoogle.

I have my favorite blogs up there (word to Lyza and LOLSecretz), my news from the BBC, Wiki, weather, a game of hangman, a sticky note to myself which tells me to breathe and smile, my calendar, and various other time killers all arranged into a pleasingly readable format. And I have applied a theme to all of this goodness.

And that's where Todd comes in. You see, my theme is the Teahouse. It depicts the activities of a little Japanese fox during the course of his day, which is timed to coincide with Pacific Standard. So each morning, Todd sits out on the dock and does his fishing for the day, then at about 9am he rows his little boat across the pond and climbs the ladder to pick some oranges. By 11 he's settled down to eat his charming little lunch, and in the afternoon, he's doing the wash.

He's such a productive and well-ordered little fellow, I am slightly jealous of his industry. Not to mention the 2 hours he seems to have for lunch. I follow his progress back and forth across the pond and wonder what he does at night, since I have to go home, and don't have the internet there... I like to think the teahouse lights up with soft illumination at about 8pm and maybe Todd sits out on the porch stargazing until at 10 or so he snuggles up on his futon and drifts into sweet foxy slumber.

I heart Ira

There is a near-constant competition going for the spot of my imaginary boyfriend.

It's not just that I'm fickle (although I can be) but also that whenever I am confronted with sensitivity and intelligence, and, well, hotness all in one package, I find it hard to resist.

Of course, this combination is exceedingly difficult to find in any readily available men, so I resort to having many moments of profound devotion to people I will never meet or interact with in any significant way. I like this idea. They stay just as I imagine them and provide me with fodder for my daydreams about intellectual conversations and political debates and artistic collaborations. Heady stuff.

My original I.B. was Zach Braff. He's been displaced for a while now, but most recently, I've been thinking Damian Lewis from "Life" on NBC was a good candidate. He's so damaged. It's hot.

His character is clever and resourceful but also displays a vulnerability I find pretty fucking compelling. I really like the show, and figured if I got in early, I could claim to have been in love with him well before the legions who will no doubt flock to adore him could start clamoring.





But then I went last night with some friends to a Q & A sponsored by OPB to promote the new book: The New Kings of Non-Fiction. Which is an anthology of stories from several well-regarded non-fiction writers, edited and compiled by Ira Glass.

Ira was submitting to a round of what must be fairly typical questions about how he makes stories, and decisions about stories, and how this new project on Showtime is different than being on the radio, and he offered intelligent, insightful, funny, and meaningful answers to all of these questions. I suppose being an interviewer must make it a bit easier to be the subject of questioning: you know what plays well.

But after a fair amount of this went on he decided to turn the tables on April Baer, the local newscaster assigned to conduct the Q&A (self-identified as one of the starry-eyed communications-major types who love him). Ira asked her if she was the one who did the local commentary which accompanied Morning Edition, and if that included traffic. April admitted that, indeed, that was her. Ira then pointed out that doing the traffic in Portland presented a particularly existential perspective on life...

"I mean, when you say 'It's stop and go from the tunnel to the cemetery,' doesn't that really say something more about life? It sort of sums it all up right there. And then sometimes, you mention something about some curves? I mean, it seems like that pretty much says it all..."

Game, set, match. Ira wins.

Unbelievable Deliciousness

Ok.

We all know I love bacon. And we all know I love waffles. What's more, we know that I love bacon waffles and proselytize on their behalf as frequently as may be.

But today, everything changed.

Meriweathers, NW Portland, Bruncheon. Mimosa: excellent. Menu, perusing with mild interest. I already ate this morning, but we're celebrating, so I'll consider having more than my drinky.

And then my eyes fall upon the most compelling combination of foodstuffs I have seen suggested in many a long year: Fried Chicken and Waffle.





When the plate arrives it is drizzled with syrup, a substantial leg of chicken is perched atop two slices of bacon which are, in turn, nestled on a crisp and fluffy waffle. Hells yeah.

To describe its savor, its sweetness, would be to cheapen its sacred impact on my flavor receptors. Oh mama. It was arguably the most delicious thing I have ever put in my mouth.

Hot Diggity.

Rightness, as opposed to wrongness...

BWAHAHAHAHA

Ahem

The Lessons sunk in skin

Owl medicine is about vigilance, seeing through the darkness, and shedding that which is no longer required. So, then.

I'll carve it on my spine and hope to remember what I needed to gain from this and discard that which hinders me.

And it is as close to a name etched in my flesh as is likely to ever be...

My daughter the Diplomat

I think it is a safe thing to suggest that we as humans are well served to consider the impact of our communications carefully. Sometimes in our haste to secure a particular outcome, we fail to consider the possible ramifications of our words. I know this happens to me constantly and it is a lifelong lesson for most people.

Apparently not for my eight-year-old.

Because she, she is canny in the extreme. She knows, for example, a staggering variety of curses and epithets, yet you will almost never hear one slip. She pretends to be oblivious to their existence, let alone willing to sink to their use. I know she knows them because I curse like a sailor. Just ask her, she'll tell you. And though she is ready to turn state's evidence on her loving mother in a heartbeat when it comes to the use of profanity, she continues to use the language of the sweet little child I want her to be. She does this because I will bust her ASS if she does not.

But this morning, I was treated to an entirely new level of tactical planning on the part of my child. It is one thing to operate under the halo of obedience, but this, this transcended mere self-preservation and displayed something more.

You see, she is too old to believe in the cultural mythologies I have gone to such pains to instill in her wee little head. My own mother, a powerfully crusty cynic of the most virulent stripe, was adamant in her unwillingness to entertain such notions as Santa, the Easter Bunny, or most pertinently in this case, the tooth fairy. Of course, she does believe in SASQUATCH, but that is neither here nor there.

When I became an adult and had a child of my own, I decided that the whole idea of a pantheon of benign gift-givers was a relatively desirable thing to have in your life as a little person. I knew that my own inexperience with this arena might have made me more eager to participate, but what are children for if not to compensate for one's own misspent childhood?

So I set about assuring her about Santa et al. and all was going well. The first rumblings of confusion on her part came when she was about 3 and she asked rather pointedly, why the tooth fairy wanted all these old used teeth, and why did she get different amounts of money from the tooth fairy when she was at home vs. at her father's house. I quickly explained to her that the tooth fairy was using the teeth to make crafts. And that market forces determined the value of the teeth at any given time as supply and demand were bound to fluctuate, so you could never tell just how much the tooth would be worth to the fairy on a given occasion. Way to use a childhood mythos to slip in an economics lecture.

She seemed to accept this explanation readily (which might also have been the result of the following internal dialogue: I have no idea what this crazy person is babbling about... ohh candy!)

At any rate, we haven't had any further conversations about the role or motivation of the pantheon in a while, apart from the "Sarah says Santa isnt real" to which I reply; "Sarah doesn't know everything."

Fast forward to present day. I know she knows these people do not exist. I think she KNOWS I know she knows. But we play along together because we both get something out of it: in my case it is a minor bolstering to the ever-more-quickly fading belief that my child is still innocent and fully able to enter into an alternate reality without question as to its validity aka- belief in magic. For her, well, she gets stuff. So.

So she lost a tooth last week. Wednesday to be precise. I wasn't home when this happened, and her Grandmother (the other non-crusty one) failed to mention it to me so I could act accordingly. When Aria woke up in the morning she mentioned to me that A) She had lost the tooth and B) Demand for crafts must be waaaay up so as to keep the tooth fairy from making to our house to collect her tooth.

Ahem.

So I assured her the tooth fairy would surely be around soon to get her tooth. We put the tooth in an envelope and I tried to make a mental note to take care of it that night. And then, she left for her dad's and I completely forgot.

And then this morning I rose to find this note sitting on my vanity:








BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Because you see, she realized that someone needed to be reminded that the tooth was languishing under her pillow, yet she also knew that she couldn't come out and say "Mom, hurry the hell up." or in any way imply that she KNOWS there is no tooth fairy, because she realizes if she does that, the end of the tooth fairy payments will have arrived. She instead opted for her only viable course of action which was to prod me to remind the tooth fairy about her wayward tooth. And it worked. I slipped into her room and slid the envelope from its place beneath her sleeping head and left 4 shiny quarters in its place.

Communication, so subtly crafted. That's my girl.