The best (true) ending to a story ever

After a mightily expensive Thanksgiving holiday, the gent and I decided to spend the last two days holed up in the apartment watching Six Feet Under and not spending money. To keep ourselves from going totally insane we devised outings for each day. Last night he suggested we get all gussied up. I put on a dress and my most ridiculous earrings and high heels and make up and did my hairs. He donned his nice black shirt and white tie. Where did we go in all our finery, you ask? Erm... we went to Blockbuster for more Six Feet Under.

Today we decided to go for a walk. People always ask, "Oh, so you live by Mt. Tabor?" when we tell them our apartment's vicinity, but we've never actually seen the thing. We decided to head in its general direction, passing scads of cute Portland hobbit houses on the way. It's so weird for it to be on the cusp of December and yet have roses and dahlias still blooming. Flies are even alive here. I got bit by a mosquito, for goodness sake.

We kept hoofing it into further elevations above sea level, pausing every so often to look back at the mist-covered hilltops and mountaintops. Finally we reached Mt. Tabor Park, where a seemingly endless series of stairs cut into the hillside. Panting, we stumbled to a bench at the summit and encountered the most wondrous site through a gap in the pines. Snow-covered Mt. Hood was bathed in a pinky-orange glow, and there was so much thick fog that the 36 miles between the two peaks looked like a gloamy lake. A crowd of people paused their jogs and bike rides to behold it. The view was truly spectacular, and of course I didn't have a camera to capture it for posterity. This is the closest thing I could find on the interwebs:


Then, on the way back home, I found $15. No, seriously, I was just minding my own business when I saw three Abe Lincolns staring up at me.

The First Annual Neenuh Saves Thanksgiving

Is there anything more terrifying than hosting a conglomeration of your peers for a dinner on a day devoted to a certain fowl you've never handled in its flesh? For the purposes of this blog post, I'm going to answer my own rhetorical question with a resounding "No. There is nothing."

It started out being just me, the boyf and my big brother who were to gather at my extremely humble (read: mouse's shoebox-sized) apartment. Then six more Portland orphans said they wanted to come, two of whom later retracted that wish, so in the end we were seven. According to my father's turkey math, that meant a 15 pound bird. I agonized for weeks over the accompanying menu. Should I follow the Food Network's lead and make something irrestibly gourmet (but still a little gross) out of offal? Should I infuse my mashed potatoes with truffle oil? Would people laugh at me if I crowned the yams with a crust of gooey marshmallows?

In the end, I went traditional: my customary pear and goat cheese appetizers, a pear and toasted walnut salad, broiled asparagus, cranberry sauce with orange zest and gravy. Our guests contributed two kinds of stuffing, mashed taters, two kinds of pie and booze galore. I wanted to make rolls, but the stupid store didn't carry the delicious Pillsbury roll mix my ma favors, and that's the only flava I dig. I wanted to make my customary orzo with roasted vegetables dish, but I'm po' and the turkey was real spendy, yo. I wanted to make an elegant galette or meringue surprise for dessert, but, well, I just ain't got the skillz. So wha'? You don't know me! Sheeeeeet...

When the brother arrived from Montana on Wednesday night I put him to work preparing our fowl friend, whom I'd christened Giblets, while I supervised. I made sure he didn't miss any nooks or crannies as he washed the bird, and I helpfully dropped paper towels on it from a distance of three inches so he could pat it dry. I squeezed lemon juice, again from a safe three-inch height, on the bird's exterior whilst he handled moistening its innards. Same goes for the freshly ground nutmeg, salt and pepper: I sprinkled, he rubbed. Then Brother Bear covered Giblets with some plastic wrap and let him slumber for the night in the fridge. Lesson learned: you don't have to actually touch a turkey to make it, so long as your brother will let you have all the credit.

The next morning we encountered our sole catastrophe of the day. The rack that accompanied the roaster I purchased last weekend had handles so protrusive that we couldn't shut the oven door with it inside. Of course, we only discovered this travesty after settling Giblets ever-so-carefully boob-down on the offending rack, so we had to lift him up and away before improvising with a ring of tin foil. Phew. Crisis averted. After his first hour in the oven we began our campaign of slowly drowning him in 2/3 cup of wine every 20 minutes. Fast forward five hours and this is how he turned out:


The meat was practically jumping off the bones, my friends. Even the white meat was juicy and the image of perfection. Even our guest the professional chef was impressed.

We ate, we drank, we sang songs, we played charades, twas a resounding success. The end.

In which I discuss pop culture phenomena

Hey there. Remember me? I'm that jerk Neenuh who hasn't posted in nearly all of November. I don't know what to say. Actually I do. I just ate a large bowl of edamame. I am stuffed. Also, I have been Twittering a lot, which is so much better when I just have a nubbin of a blog idea, not enough flesh on it to merit an entire blog post. So, really, you should thank me for my hiatus because I've spared you from having to read 600 words of me expounding on such topics as, "my shower didn't have hot water for two days," "I am in constant need of quarters for laundry" or "I do office work at my office, surprisingly."*

Anyway. Now I'm going to talk about Twilight.

The last time I encountered a pop culture phenomenon of this size it surrounded the Harry Potter books, and you bet your bippy I'm glad I jumped on that bandwagon. So when one of my coworkers started reading Twilight and gushing about how vampires+teen+romance=crazy delicious, my resolve to sit this trend out shriveled like George Costanza's undercarriage in that one episode of Seinfeld. I checked the library's website to put a hold on the book, but saw that 643 citizens of Portland had gotten there first. "Fine," I seethed to myself as I instead went to the bookstore to purchase the cheapest mass market paperback to be had with plans to sell it back at a loss once I was finished. "That's JUST fine."

After trying to wrap my head around a seriously deranged book featuring some breed of alien/ evolutionized monkey that eats humans, reading this fluff was a relief, if somewhat of a disappointment. It is not a good book. It's poorly written and more often than not had me smacking my head in disbelief at its god-awfulness. The thing that pissed me off most about it was the fact that Bella, the main character, has absolutely no discernible personality traits other than the fact that she's clumsy. Why the heck is she worthy of a hot piece of undead vampire booty? The boyfriend pointed out that she's probably written that way so every love-starved lass who reads it can imagine that it's her that all this is happening to, that somewhere there exists a universe where she is the point around which things turn. I agreed and then tried to convince him to reenact the pose on the book's cover with him as Edward and me as Bella.

I finished the book on Friday, just in time for the movie's premier. I spent the entire weekend struggling to decide whether I wanted to spend $7.50 on what every review I read told me was going to be utter crap. The biggest reason I wanted to see it was to see what Edward's hot vampire siblings looked like. Finally, my buddy called me this morning on pretenses of finding out the plans for the first annual Neenuh Saves Thanksgiving, but I was able to get out of him that his real motive was to ask me to go to Twilight with him. Not wanting to disappoint my buddy, I sighed and said I guessed I could probably go to the movie... if he REALLY wanted to.

I'm only sort of embarrassed to say that I 100 percent enjoyed myself and that I'm 3000 percent in love with Robert Pattinson. The movie was so much better than the book. New York Magazine agrees with me. But don't think you should just skip the book and see the flick; much of my enjoyment derived from seeing what I'd imagined played out on screen. I'm afraid it's both or nothing, folks.

And now, having fulfilled my blog duties, I am going to turn my full attention to the Travel Channel show about the tribe in the Pacific Ocean where they wear g-strings made out of twine. It's a pivotal moment: the boys have just been circumcised and one of the women is trying to decide whether to drink an abortive potion made out of tree bark that her husband concocted for her. Circle of life at its finest.



*All true stories. All things I've Twittered about.

A feast fit for a mooch

I'm sure we're all tightening our belts in these troubling economic times. For example, I have refrained from seeing all but the essential movies in the theaters (don't worry, Keira; I'm waiting till The Duchess comes to a second-run movie house), sold some itchy but gently used sweaters to a "recycled fashion" store and all but quashed my already nearly non-existent social life.

But my greatest savings have come from changing my food habits. I don't really eat lunch anymore. I wait to see if there are any goodies left over from the various meetings my co-workers host, and at the very least there's usually a sprig or two of grapes and this delicious cheese that's a little nutty and a little crunchy. That tides me over until I can get home and eat a delicious, cheap burrito (recipe below).

Another huge boon to my mooching has been my live-in companion's propensity for securing free meals at fancy restaurants in the past week. On Wednesday we went to Nutshell for a media dinner. They had just changed their menu and wanted the local scribes to sample it in hopes of scoring some free press. This blog doesn't net very many readers in their favored demographic (people who actually live in Oregon), but I'm going to do my part right this very second.

The restaurant specializes in vegetarian tapas, or small plates. They brought us a never-ending series of deliciousness, most paired with a sample of amazing wine. I think we had about five glasses, which, needless to say, made me quite the convivial dinner companion. These were my favorite dishes:

-Crispy rice fritters with avocado puree and sweet chili sauce
-Creamy Bluebird grains farro with Brussels sprouts, mustard, apple and roast garlic
-Fuji apple salad with beets, Marionberries, pinenuts, peppermint and muscatel vinaigrette
-Leek and potato flatbread with blue cheese cream, gremolata and spicy pears

Then for dessert we had pieces of a chocolate fudge with hazelnuts in some magic cream sauce. Oh. Em. Gee. To die for. But I'm still alive.

On Friday we decided to spend our Halloween at Siam Society due to my inability to imbibe (see story below). My companion had received a $20 gift card there from his bosses, and we fortuitiously arrived 10 minutes before Happy Hour ended so we were able to nosh delicious eats for a grand total of $19.75. I had the Siam Society Burger (house ground steak, seasoned with spices, melted gorgonzola cheese and homemade cilantro aioli) and he had the Peanut Sauce Pizza (homemade peanut sauce, mozzarella, gorgonzola and fresh vegetables). When we got the receipt back we discovered we still had $30.25 left-- it was a $50 gift card! Hooray! More mooching!

Because of all the money I saved, I'm sorely tempted to violate two of my new rules and take my Sunday buddy to Nutshell for some lunch. I can't stop thinking about those brussell sprouts...


Delicious, cheap burrito:
Spread a few tablespoons of refried beans (one can lasts for many, many delicious cheap burritos) on a tortilla. Put another few dollops of black bean and corn salsa atop that. Sprinkle with shredded cheese. Either pop it in the microwave until the cheese is melted or, if you're industrious, put it in atop a baking sheet in an oven preheated to 350. When the cheese has melted to your satisfaction, remove your 'rito from the heating implement and top it with some iceberg lettuce (again, one head of lettuce lasts for many, many delicous cheap burritos). Roll that sucker up and love it.

My inability to imbibe, explained:
I had a bad toothache that started last weekend. Assuming it might be a vestige from the hack job my hometown dentist did on me before I left Minnesota, I decided an appointment would be prudent. My new dentist resembles Michele Bachmann. She discovered after sticking a fancy camera in my mouth that I've been grinding my teeth hardcore-- my aching tooth was nearly down to its nerve endings and there was a visible crack in another. She prescribes me an anti-inflammatory and a muscle relaxer, both of which will apparently turn my innards to goo if I mix them with alcohol. For the long term, though, she wants me to get a $500 mouthguard, which I can't really afford in these troubling economic times but should probably get anyway because it will prevent me from being a toothless hag in the future. Fin.

Porque mi casa?

I heard a rapid succession of knocks at precisely 10:30 on this Saturday morning. Assuming it was just the punks on the other side of our bedroom wall nailing yet more things to their soon-to-be tattoo parlor, I ignored it. After all, they had been sanding, banging, clanging and presumably hurling things at our paper-thin shared wall until quite late last night. Maybe they had slept there and decided on an encore immediately upon waking.

But then I heard it again.

I slipped out of bed and tiptoed stealthily to the door for a peep out of the eyehole. I spied a blond woman in a burgundy suit. Perhaps it was my landlord, coming to evict us for leaving my ugly flip flops--a vestige of my frenzied Wednesday of mopping and scouring surfaces--on the porch one day too long. Giving up, the lady stuck something in the door and left. I waited until I could no longer see her, counted to five and unlocked the door to see what present she left us.

It was a two-page color pamphlet entirely in Spanish, entitled, "Le gustaria saber la verdad?" Based on my vast internal Spanish dictionary I would guess "gustaria" has something to do with liking (like "me gusta horchata"), "saber" means saber, and "verdad" means green. The liking of the green saber? Huh?

As I pondered this, a corpulent, mustascioed man in a three-piece suit moved in sight of my porch and spotted me. He motioned to his lady friend to come quickly, but I quickly closed and locked the door before they could speak to me. I scurried back to the bedroom to show my spoils to the boyf and attempt to translate the brochure.

"Hay alguna esperanza para los muertos?" could only mean, "Do you hope the dead eat hay?"

"Como encrontrar la felicidad?" must be a query about how I plan to encounter happy times.

"Jesucristo dijo en oracion a Dios: 'Tu palabra es la verdad'" I roughly translated to mean, "Jesus Christ said in an speech to God: 'You probably are the green.'"

In the midst of the fun translating game, I happened to catch sight of myself in the mirror. My hair had used last night's hairspray and my pillow to concoct a rooster-like pompadour. My eyes were rimmed in black due to my failure to wash my face off last night because I fell asleep immediately after guzzling a glass of red wine. My pink-and-white striped nightshirt was festooned with kitties, Eiffel towers and the phrase, "Oh, mon amour!"

I may not know what the brochure meant, but I can translate with confidence exactly what the look in that hombre's eye was saying when he glimpsed me: "Guapa mamacita!"

Some stories about knitting

This headless form is me, and the coverlet in which I'm ensconced has been my labor of love for the past month and change. It consumes all my non-work waking hours. Even when I'm not working on it, it glares at me from my purse and chides me for not being more industrious. As a result, I've had to renew my copy of The Feminine Mystique from the library no less than three times. I just don't have time to read anymore. When I'm on the train, I'm knitting and listening to a podcast. When I'm home, I'm watching yet another episode of Iron Chef America to occupy my brain whilst my fingers knit and purl themselves into a near-arthritic condition.

Here are some facts about my blanket:

• Its girth has increased so much that I can no longer schlep it around in my quite roomy purse. I had to buy a new tote bag bearing the visages of Portland's many bridges because my Nina Totin' Bag is, unfortunately somewhere back in my room in Minnesota.
• It's length has grown correspondingly with the decrease in temperature, so I can snuggle in it while I knit it and be quite cozy.
• Knitting=friends. People on the train and bus are always EVER so curious about what I'm making. Their first guess is usually a sweater, which I find kind of silly. Even obese giants would swim in the amount of fabric I've created. They are also often quite keen to tell me about how their mothers used to knit, they themselves never learned and now my generation is "bringing it back." Yes. That and sexy. It's what we're here for.
  
• My plan for the blanket was to have a big chunk of maroon, a band of teal and then an equally big chunk of maroon. I belatedly realized that I am a skein short of maroon, and I am in just a tizzy about what to do about it. I've done exhaustive Internet research and it appears there isn't a yarn shop within a hundred miles that sells the brand and color I need. Oh, for my Yarn Lady of old.

Well, the ol' woolly wench is staring at me again, urging me to finish the row I started so the above picture could be taken. I bid you adieu.

I Just Can't Help Believing

I got myself into trouble during my job interview, when I insisted to my soon-to-be boss that I'm most definitely a morning person. While it is the absolute truth that I'm an early to bed, early to rise kind of gal, that statement meant I was precluded from yawning or being bleary-eyed when I first arrived at the office. It also meant I would have to dispel of my ample morning rage before I reached the front doors every morning.

This morning, for example, I was livid at the following:

-The weird, powdery smell that emanates from my porch
-All the puddles I had to step around
-The tennis shoes in my backpack strategically poking me in my aching lumbar
-People on the train who use the adjacent seat to store their belongings
-The woman who swiped the seat I'd been eying for a good two stops
-The man whose earbuds were blaring thumping rap beats
-The clipboarder who approached me and asked me to sign his stinking petition. Some places should be sacred, people!

I exited the train only to be slapped in the nose with the dank smell of rained-on urine and began to mentally curse my maker. Then I saw this...



... and the King gave me a little religion.

Death to all (fruit fly) infidels!

I am a killing machine.

In the past week I have massacred an entire sect of annoying, tiny insects that somehow got the idea they had the right to munch on my hard-earned fruit without my permission.

When we first moved in there were one or two of them that we easily shooed away when they perched atop the highest peach in our fruit bowl, but they started multiplying relentlessly. It reached critical mass last week when a winged contingion rose up when I attempted to select an apple from the bowl for lunch. These weren't just any apples. These were my beloved Akane apples purchased from the not-inexpensive farmers market and lugged home on a train and a bus whilst uncomfortably balanced on my hip. This, my friends, was personal.

Thus began my surprisingly accurate killing campaign. Though I lack any semblance of hand-eye coordination in other endeavors, every fly I set my sights on ended its life between my two palms of justice.

Though I doubt fruit flies can fit a brain inside that meager corpus, I decided to start playing mind games with them. I moved the fruit bowl from the kitchen to the dining room. When they discovered my ruse I came up with a new, better one: I covered the bowl with an upside-down paper bag. Success! The methane gases could get out but they couldn't get in. Lacking a food source, several of them migrated to the bathroom where they began living off our toothpaste. Every morning I offed another two or three and was glad the boyf gets up later than I do so he wouldn't hear me and think I was applauding a recent feat of quite another sort.

I am proud to say that I have seen but a handful flitting through our apartment this entire weekend, and every single one met its maker in my hand...ful.

Dos Mas Pictoras

God I'm good at Spanish. I went to a play this weekend that was half in Spanish, half in English, and I understood pretty much everything. People were begging me for translations and I had to be all, "Dude. I'm enjoying art here. Learn how to be 100 percent bilingual on your own time."

On to my Dos Mas Pictoras (which are not to be confused with the original Dos Pictoras):


I went to Salem on Tuesday for a work event in one of the state government offices. My cohorts and I were stationed in the lobby, and the sculptures pictured above were in my direct line of sight. You can't tell from this picture because I cropped the living daylights out of it, but these pewter ladies and gents are suspended a few dozen feet in the air, closer to the multi-story ceiling than the floor.

My first thought upon seeing them was, "Omigawd Harry Potter." (Warning: Book 7 spoiler ahead.) Remember how in that epic battle in the Ministry of Magic the wizard figures in the fountain come to life to battle the forces of evil? I was terrified--TERRIFIED!-- that scene would replay itself during my work day. Granted, several of the figures are inexplicably missing their lower extremities, but I have no doubt they could inflict serious damage if someone brought them to life. And it wasn't too far from the realm of possibilities, either; I was in a DHS building. Who knows what kinds of creepy stuff they're experimenting on in the bowels of that structure.

And now, the dos-iest pictora:


Not nearly as epic as the first, but still a good example of Weird Portland (or, as I like to call it, Wortland). We came home from a watering hole last night to find this scene in the street behind our apartment, where a pack of feral cats likes to roam.

Kitty woke up when I took this snap. Sorry kitty.

Fin.

Back to working out and having fun-- with just us gals!

I re-joined Curves last week in an effort to get all healthy-like. My new club is quite nice. It boasts a stretching machine, which my old club had tried in vain to win during a citywide food drive, and two stair stepper stations that measure your heart rate. Yesterday I got up to 166 beats per minute, which corresponds on our heart rate poster to 85 percent. Percent of what, I don't know; but that's a solid "B."

Though I appreciate being in fancy surroundings, I miss sweatin' with my favorite oldie*: my ma. I used to go nuts on the recovery stations (platforms interspersed between the machines where you're supposed to do cardio), flailing my limbs instead of jogging half-heartedly in place (like most of the ladies do) in an effort to get her to crack a smile. I'm left with doing my little hops and sporadic cheerleader arms.

I have yet to encounter a Curves-inspired diorama, but the music at my new athletic home has been a bit on the odd side. On Saturday it was cracked-out Broadway show tunes put to a techno beat. Yesterday it was Hits from the Late Nineties. "Smooth Criminal" from Alien Ant Farm was on there, as were a number of J.Lo hits. Then they played a song with the following lyrics:

"So come on, shorty
If you think you can roll
With an iced-out playa
Ballin' outta control"

I'm sure the sexa- and septuagenarians populating the place really enjoyed that one.


*Just kidding, Ma. You're not old. It was just a really great opportunity for a "jeu des mots," as they say.

Keep your hands down if you're not Sure

I'm just going to say it. I spent a majority of Thursday with neither antiperspirant nor deodorant to shield others from my pheromones.

This happens to me way more often than it should. I just have so many things to remember to do in the morning that slathering on that one essential product often slips my mind until it is too late. Once, when I was in high school, I decided to take drastic action to correct my underarm situation. I had my newspaper class first hour, which left me free to roam the halls as I pleased under the auspices of reporting. I went down to the girl's locker room (wow, this is embarrassing but I'm going to soldier through) and tried several lockers until I found one that had a stick of Sure prominently displayed and wasn't locked. I quickly coated myself and ran away, ashamed of the lengths I had gone to but relieved I wouldn't be The Stinky Girl.

On Thursday I realized my gaffe when I was about halfway to my office, and didn't want to ask the boyf (who was kind enough to give me a ride) to turn around since we were already running late.

When a gas station a few blocks from my destination proved empty of what I so needed, I resolved to spend the day calm and cool as a cucumber so as to not tax my sweat glands. The plan worked until the very end of my day, when a social interaction made me so nervous that I blushed several times and started "glowing," as my ballet teacher used to call it.

As soon as I was out of the office I hightailed it to a convenience store I remembered seeing whilst on past bus rides. I soon secured my desired product, but when I left the establishment wondered where a good place to put it on would be. I'm still 98 percent anonymous in this city, so I briefly considered slapping some on in the middle of the street. Thinking that too uncouth even for me, I hesitantly veered toward large trees and parking garages only to decide that'd just be too creepy. I ended up in the bathroom of a venue at which I was about to volunteer, and everything was well and good.

Attack of the clipboards

Portland is absolutely glutted with be-clipboarded do-gooders who sometimes stand three to a corner. They desperately want you to register to vote/ donate money to Obama/ save a dying child/ end petlessness.

In the block-and-a-half between the library and my train stop I side-stepped one man who wanted to register me vote (did it on Saturday), did a swoosh and dip to avoid a lady who wanted me to join Greepeace and ignored another woman whose heart's greatest wish was to register me to vote (I did it on Saturday! Sheesh!).

I was distracted by a street musician and totally fell into another clipboarder's trap. I didn't notice her clipboard at first, and removed my earbud because I couldn't hear what she was trying to say to me.

"Thanks for unplugging! I'm Jacquelyn. What's your name?"

Zounds! She asked me if I've ever thought of sponsoring a child. I told her I was actually sponsoring one. I don't know why I lied. Maybe it was because I've been approached by the folks at Children's International so many times I feel like the time I've spent listening to them is worth about the same as a sponsorship. Mabye it's because I have a friend who spent a day working for them and she told me what she thought about the people who said they couldn't afford to sponsor a kid. In any event, I regretted it as soon as the words slipped out. I suck at lying.

"That's great!" Jacquelyn said. "What country?"

Busted. She's a tricksy one. "Oh... uh... The Gambia? I think?"

"We actually don't serve children there," Jacquelyn said cheerfully. She went on to give me her pitch about how I can be a penpal with the child I sponsor, and actually go to the country to meet him or her. "Doesn't that sound great?"

"Yeah, that's why I'm sponsoring one," I said.

"So who are you sponsoring them through?" she asked.

"Um... I forget the name. A Christian agency."

"Really," she said, raising her eyebrow at my no-good, very bad, horrible lying self.

"Yep! Bye!" I said as I ran away.

Jacquelyn, if you're out there, I'm sorry for lying to you. You didn't deserve it. About a month ago I told one of your coworkers who managed to run into me thrice in the same day that I'd sponsor a kid as soon as I get another job or go full time, and I intend to keep that promise. Now if you could please get your ilk to leave me alone I'd be much obliged.

Eye of newt have I none

So a few weeks ago I decided to spend a random mid-week day off concocting Thai chicken curry as a surprise for the gentleman caller, and to do so I needed a mortar and pestle to grind the spices to a fine pulp.

After a fruitless multi-establishment search for the tools (shame on you, Martha!) I finally came across a 10-pound green marble model at Marshall's. I proudly lugged it home and mortar-d and pestle-d my little heart out and the curry turned out great, thankyouverymuch.

Since then it has perched atop the second shelf of the cupboard, silently telling me it's lonely every time I reach in for a cup or bowl. I just don't know what other use I have for it. The curry recipe was from my fancy cookbook, which insists that I go beyond the call of regular cookery; the rest rarely require me to do anything more strenuous than smashing a clove of garlic or de-juicing a lemon.

The only other folks I've seen make use of the tool are scientists and witches. I haven't needed to grind up pig liver to smear on a slide since 10th grade biology. Now that I've been there and done that, I don't really need to do it again. And not being a chemist, I have better things to do with my time than mixing up powders to pour into capsules.

I haven't been here long enough to develop enemies for whom I'd want to learn how to concoct the draught of the living dead, or any potion, really. So sorcery's out. Plus I'm fresh out of toe of frog.

[Sorry if you've already read this; it didn't post correctly]

Passive-aggressive Midwestern woman nearly resorts to full-blown aggression

A young Minnesotan very nearly lost her cool whilst aboard a Portland bus coming home from work Friday afternoon. Though normally a textbook example of passive-aggressivity, Neenuh insisted a combination of exterior factors caused the incident-that-almost-was.

She arrived at her bus stop at approximately 3:20 p.m., expecting the bus to come at any second. Nevertheless, she took a seat on the vacant bench and returned a call to her older brother. Soon afterward, a leathery older woman made it known that she wanted Neenuh to remove her lunchbox from the adjacent seat so she could join her on the bench. Neenuh obliged more than willingly.

Soon the woman, who was emitting copious amounts of vodka from her pores, began babbling incoherently while Neenuh attempted to converse with her brother. When the bus finally arrived a full 20 minutes later, the woman insisted Neenuh let her borrow her sunglasses for the next month and a half. Neenuh declined.

Once aboard the crowded bus, Neenuh made her way to the back and spotted a seat next to a pimply but otherwise harmless young gentleman. She contentedly switched on her iPod to listen to the latest installment of This American Life and cracked open a local magazine.

The gentleman began bobbing his head ever so gently, entering a slumber so blissful he lost all sense of propriety and personal space and began encroaching on Neenuh's. On a normal day, she would have ignored it, but this same gentleman was emitting gaseous odors of beef jerky, and she was in no mood to handle that.

She had passed a sleepless night and consumed iced tea at lunch (the caffeine of which disrupted her delicate countenance and gave her the shakes). A full bladder completed the trifecta known to cause Neenuh to lash out at unsuspecting boyfriends, family members and the occasional civil servant.

When heavy sighs and eye rolls directed in his general direction proved fruitless, she considered more drastic measures. She imagined slapping him across the face for allowing his gaping mouth to come dangerously close to her bosom. She considered shoving him squarely into the window. She mused about elbowing him in the gut.

Taking a deep breath, she refrained from any of these actions, instead deciding she could come up with a much more amusing culmination of events on her blog.

The offensive young man suddenly bashed his head into the seat in front of them of his own accord, immediately woke up and apologized to Neenuh for being such a neanderthal. He then revealed that to make up for his transgressions he would pay off her student loans, making her completely debt-free.

The only thing on a stick at the Oregon State Fair were corndogs...

... and they're supposed to be on sticks.

I went to what was supposed to be the Great Oregon Get-Together on Friday expecting to see all manner of local culinary delicacy and sights particular to this particular state fair. In my head I was preparing to be amazed by local girls' heads carved out of marionberries or Walla Walla sweet onions.

I have never been more disappointed in my life.

This was no state fair! This was a glorified carnival with an over-abundance of hot tub displays! This was an alternate universe where the only fried objects are things that are always fried like elephant ears and onion rings! Where is your creativity, Oregon?? Where is your soul??

What inspires you to create limp bread baby birds instead of seed art?


What compels you to dream up a menu for an event that doesn't exist and then set the table for it?


(The judges' comments for this entry were as follows: "You need a dessert fork. The large spoon above the plate needs to be repositioned so that the bottom of it is pointing toward the knife. Do you even need the second spoon?")

The fair seemed to draw that other breed of Oregonian you don't run into much in Portland. They are tattoo- and piercing-free, wear cowboy hats and boots and voted Gordon Smith into office. Exhibit A: the gentleman caller and I got roped into watching a 1.5 hour cookware demonstration where the chef warmed up the crowd by telling cow jokes.

"What do you call a cow with only two legs? Eileen!" she proclaimed triumphantly.

"What does a Japanese person call that same cow? Irene!" guffawed an obese, red-faced man wearing an American flag t-shirt.

Give me Sweet Martha's Cookies, hot dish on a stick, pickle on a stick, Princess Kay of the Milky Way and a hobnobbing politician over this sorry excuse for statehood any day...