to swing or not to swing

it's a full moon tonight and i have seen it coming for days in the crazy way people have been acting. It's been a ridiculous week, full of stress and drama. So I'm going sailing. In order to keep it light i am uploading 1 of 3 videos of me trying to get the courage up to swing from a vine over a ravine in St. Lucia. I don't want to spoil the ending, I do in the very last video actually swing. But the videos of me having an internal battle are funnier. Enjoy. I'm not sure why I have that freaky huge smile when i am scared...

sprout

These mushrooms sprouted out of one of our houseplants while ago. I have been looking for an excuse to write about them because they caught us so off guard. Where did they come from, and how?! My friend Josh and his wife had a little baby girl Madeleine Poppie enter their lives today. And she is a beautiful survivor. After 64 hours of labor, the whole family is exhausted, but ecstatic. These mushrooms grew out of nothing, out of nowhere in our apartment and showed Rob and I that there is a magic in life that we will never fully grasp. While our experience is so small compared to Josh and his new baby, there is a beauty and wonder in the emergence of life on all levels. Welcome to the world Madeleine Poppie. I can't wait to hang out with you. You are one tiny little miracle. 

Target Hates Women (but loves the color red)

I think Target hates women. There is absolutely no other explanation for the florescent lighting in the fitting rooms. It is their big middle finger to women of the world. "Oh hello ladies, were you wondering what your body really looks like? Ha ha ha (evil laugh) it basically looks like a pale, fat dead person!" But then again, I think this all stems from the bagel that i had for breakfast this morning. I NEVER eat bagels. My mom had this diet book that had pictures of comparisons of how many carbs different food items had in them. Basically it said that for ONE bagel you could eat an ENTIRE loaf of bread. That's how many carbs are in one bagel. So I pretty much never eat bagels. I much prefer eating something that would be very hard to compare. Like a granola bar. For this ONE granola bar... you could eat ONE BOWL OF CEREAL. When Rob is out of town, I inevitably eat poorly. I hate cooking (actually I don't mind cooking, I HATE dishes and I can see far enough into the future to know that cooking dinner means washing dishes too). So I make simple things that require few dishes and little effort. In addition to that I eat out every single chance I get. Eating out is pretty much my version of heaven. No dishes, no cooking, getting waited on, not even having to get up to get a drink... I love love love eating out. I have a friend in Chicago who is documenting every single thing he consumes for an entire year. It scares me to think about how many slim #4's from Jimmy John's that would entail for me. I've had at least 3 this month already. I know, I just had to allocate my expenses from my company card. It forces me to know exactly where I ate each day, with whom and how many times a month I have eaten pad thai (on average 4). Today I managed to stretch my company card funded slim#4 into 2 meals, splitting it in half and eating it for lunch and dinner. Mainly because I feel so guilty about that freaking bagel. loaf of bread. bagel. Needless to say, Target got none of my money for being so hateful towards women. Okay, that's a lie. I bought a shirt. But it was only $22. 







This is Jessup. He is the one documenting his consumption of food. If I find his blog I will link it. But the main thing about Jessup is his freakish multicolored sideburns. This was not done on purpose. This is just how he is. 

lost angels

I was in Los Angeles this week for work. I was fortunate enough to have friends let me stay with them so I didn't have to live in a hotel for once.  I have mixed feelings about LA. Sometimes I think it would be a good place to be for awhile. Sun all year round. The middle of it all. Good design, art, fashion if you look for it. Other times I fly in and see the smog hovering over the city and it makes me so sad. There are really amazing things in LA and some really terrible things too. I'm not sure if I will ever make the jump there, but I can appreciate it from a distant perspective. Especially because they have some vicious mosquitos there. I hate mosquitos. I am so allergic to them and currently i have 3 bites on my face, and 8 on my right arm. I'm assuming one got me while I slept. I wouldn't mind them so much if the didn't swell up to the size of walnuts and make me look diseased. Dumb Mosquitos. 

The next bit are shots of my co-workers home where the meetings took place. My favorite thing about him is that his dream in life is to completely go off the grid and live in the desert in a sustainable home. You can find hints of this in his decor. I also LOVE his plants. Envy might be a better word. 

So the woman in the car in the shot below passed us when we were on our way to the bowling alley. She had the most amazing collection of items on the dash of her car. My favorite being the jar of olives that HAD to be glued down. There was no other way it could stay in place! LA is filled with some amazing characters. 


Bradley and Allison were kind enough to let me crash at Bradley's place while I was in town. It is an absolutely amazing building, built in the 1920's, that Charlie Chaplin, as well as Jim Morrison both resided in at some time. Not only that, it is also located directly across the street from the Scientology Celebrity Center, and anyone who knows me, knows that scientology fascinates/terrifies me. Mia is Allison's chihuahua, that only has 3 feet (tripod!) which Allison refers to as "pea pod" and is the sweetest dog in LA as far as I know. Although I haven't done much research to back this up. But I'm pretty sure. I forgot to mention the hallway that goes nowhere, but then ends with an exercise bicycle from like 1970 facing out the window. I loved that for some reason. 

Bowling at the Shatto lanes...

The waitress button made me laugh, but it also made me a little sad for the place. There used to be enough business for this bowling alley to be able to afford servers for the lanes. 

This is the night we went out dancing at a club called Avalon, on "Tigerheat" night. Apparently Tigerheat is code for super gay night with shirtless male dancers. I have sworn off going to clubs since I lived in Italy. I have been great about upholding this pact with myself. The one night I broke that pact, in order to go dancing with work friends, the club did it's best to make sure I never came back. It was sealed when a Miley Cyrus song came on and people reacted like it was the freaking Beatles. The Avalon itself was an interesting building though.  

Allison and Mia Pea Pod

Mia and Brutus. Mia wanted to beat up Brutus, so she had to be kept away because Brutus kind of wanted to bite Mia's head off. and totally could've. 

Baby Puppy Oliver! With a mohawk!

Bye Bye Smog! Hello Seattle clean, mosquito free air!!!

collection from my monday

These things are real. and live in the Northwest

So when we first moved here, a friend that knew we were new to the Northwest kept telling us we HAD to go "Gooeyduck" hunting. Having never heard of "gooeyducks" and not wanting to look like an idiot, I convinced myself that it was an invented activity and an invented animal. There is no such thing as a "gooeyduck", that's ridiculous. I thought they were trying to get us to go out hunting for a non-existent animal to "haze" us in the Northwest. And then I was at the Asian market. and saw a large tank of Gooeyduck. THEY ARE REAL. and hideous looking. and enormous. Here's what they look like and a wikipedia definition:



The geoduck (pronounced /ˈguːiːdʌk/ "gooey duck"[1]), Panopea abrupta, is a species of large saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusk. The shell of this clam is large, about 15 to over 20 cm in length (about 7 to 9 inches), but the long siphons make the clam itself much longer; the "neck" or siphons alone can be one meter in length.

Native to the Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada (primarily Washington, British Columbia, and Southeast Alaska), it is the largest burrowing clam in the world, weighing in at an average of one to three pounds (0.5 - 1.5 kg) at maturity, but specimens weighing over 15 pounds (7.5 kg) and as much as 2 meters (6 ft) in length are not unheard of.
Geoducks are one of the longest-living organisms in the Animal Kingdom. They have a life expectancy of about 146 years, with the oldest recorded at over 160 years. Scientists speculate that the geoduck's longevity is the result of low wear and tear. A geoduck sucks plankton down through its long siphon, filters them for food and ejects its refuse out through a separate hole in the siphon. Adult geoducks have few natural predators, which may also contribute to their longevity. In Alaska, sea otters and dogfish have proved capable of dislodging geoducks; starfish also attack and feed on the exposed geoduck siphon.

Here is Uwajimaya the Asian supermarket where you can pick up some geoduck for dinner.




and here is the candy aisle, in which i picked up my menthol rose flavored gum. I wouldn't say it is gross, it just tastes exactly like menthol AND roses.

p.s. Katie- I'm not doing a full post on uwajimaya because I'm hoping that if i only give hints to it's enormity and amazing-osity that it might inspire a Katie/Seattle visit... Tyra this goes for you too. There are lots of really weird food items that you could buy and get obsessed with here, that you could offer guests and kinda freak them out with.  ie: Tyra:" Hey shelly, do you want some seaweed tuna flake chips? They are SO delicious!"  Shelly:"ummmmm no thanks...." 

Happy America Day

Thrift stores are a great way to really examine American society. I know I did a "Santa" episode from the Seattle Goodwill, but I don't think that really did this particular location justice. In celebration of Americana here are some highlights from my last trip. and also from my last trip to the "goodwill Outlet"... which the concept of blows my mind. Isn't the Goodwill by nature ALREADY an Outlet? I learned the difference yesterday.
p.s. From a merchandisers point of view this series represent the BEST and the WORST possible merchandising of Goodwill stores.
p.p.s. I apologize for fixating on Santa Claus. I can't help it. He is one scary old man.

GOODWILL 

Head to Toe 4th of July Outfit. I cannot believe those shoes haven't sold yet. In the midwest they would've been gone in a FLASH!



Kari models the latest in eyewear fashions. THe sick thing is that she looks so cute in them!



Patriotic Santa Flasher. Why Santa, WHY?





Something about that Santa on the top shelf is so comforting. As though he might teach me battle skills while also teaching me the art of zen...

GOODWILL OUTLET

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!