Dos Pictoras

See how fast I'm learning Spanish? Muy caliente! Train de la ligne roja!

Anyway.

Here are some treats for your retinal enjoyment:


These are some scary vegetables I picked up at the Farmers' Market this Saturday. On the left we have what I'd like to call the "fractal fruit" (even though it's clearly a vegetable). On the right we have some gigantic string beans. I forget what their name is, but I feel like I thought of Hannibal Lecter when I saw the sign, so I'm going to guess they're fava beans. In the middle we have some de-pod-ed fava beans birthed from a pod as long as my forearm.

Having never seen their like in real life nor the Food Network, I was forced to postulate as to their prepration. I decided to steam them and afterwards coat them with butter, salt and pepper as if they were succulent ears of corn. The fractal fruit tasted like a hybrid of broccoli and cauliflower, so I'm going to guess that's what it was. I liked. I don't think the fava beans steamed long enough, and they were rather chewy and mealy rather than crisp (like a pea), so I was not a fan.


It's Windchill! Just kidding. This little critter is parked on the sidewalk across the street from my new office. When my coworker and I were on our way to lunch on my first day I guffawed and pointed, and she informed me that this was part of a public art project that we had funded in all probability.

I guess this stuff is what they mean with the ubiquitous bumper sticker encouraging locals to "Keep Portland Weird." I also guess I'm going to have to start "getting" art real soon here...

Cooktress, meet Technology

I've had nothing but free time this past week, since the job I secured on Monday doesn't start until tomorrow. I've spent nearly all of that time cooking, cleaning/laundering, reading about Sylvia Plath or watching episodes of AMC's Mad Men . In other words, I am learning to become a housewife straight out of the early 1960s-- albeit under the tutelage of Ms. Plath, one with rather consuming emotional problems.

I mean, after doing laundry I ROYGBIV'd the boyfriend's tshirts, for god's sake.

In an effort to get back to the culinary ascendancy I achieved in college, I've been busting out all the old standbys: orzo with roasted vegetables, curried chicken salad, zesty tomato soup and black bean soup. I've been getting creative with leftovers, too, taking the ingredients Ma bought for a salade nicoise when she was here and turning them into mashed potatoes with a mushroom-shallot sauce and avocado-feta paninis.

Creating a dish last night, however, threw this cooktress for a loop. We were invited to a vegan potluck. I can do meatless dishes no sweat, but no butter? no eggs? no milk? That eliminates nearly everything from my canon of cookery. I finally settled upon a dish of yams and broccoli and nearly sliced my phillanges off trying to cut through those blasted roots. I wasn't confident in the vittles' quality, and made sure to tell my host.

My related my tale of the futile search to a fellow guest.

"I near tore apart my cookbooks looking for something to bring!" I said.
"Do you have the Internet?" she asked.

Oh, snap.

You should all move to Portland

I've just finished a whirlwind week of moseying westward, settling into my new abode and sightseeing-- Holy Hannah, did we sight-see. I've said it before, but this time I mean it. I friggin love it here. This is a first-blush kind of love, where I look past all the area's faults (such as its seeming moratorium on employing me) and turn them into pluses (such as the fact that being a bum gives me more time to explore).

In my five days of being an Oregonian, here's what has made me kvell about the place:

Getting around: Oh, public transit, I love you I love you I love you. I prefer to travel by train, and the ones I've been on thus far have been clean, swift and decorated with quirky lines of poetry. There's a "fareless square" downtown where, you guessed it, you don't have to pay a fare to travel. The highways bear good signage, so me and Sir Lostalot have been able to navigate the city a few times without ending up 40 miles from where we wanted to be. And the drivers are so NICE. A few days ago the boyf needed to make a right turn into a left turning lane and a car in that lane waved him in in front of him. Amazing.

Occupying ourselves: Every weekend there are two huge markets-- the Portland Market for your organic produce needs and the Saturday Market (also on Sundays) for all your artsy fartsy homemade wares needs. We went to both yesterday, and I was in hog heaven. Supposedly the farmer's market goes all the way to December. Ma picked me up some medicinal honey to help cure my horrific allergies. I had some on my toast this morning and have been more congestion-free than I've been all week.

Great outdoors: This place has it all. Mountains to the east, ocean to the west, plenty of parks and waterfalls in between. I'm an indoors kind of gal, but I've enthusiastically embraced all Mother Nature has to offer here.

OK. Come see me now.

On the Oregon Trail, Part 1

Yesterday the gent and I left our dear Minnesota to go Westward, ho! We spent a nearly unbearable nine hours getting from there to here (which would be Dickinson, ND, natch) with nary an incident beyond a speeding ticket and a North Dakota rain storm so fierce I feared for my life. But we survived the brutal river fordings and cholera epidemics, and for that we must be grateful.

(Aside: I just discovered iTunes U and I'm totally in love. Yesterday we listened to an Australian university's lecture on Harry Potter and the Holocaust and a Stanford lecture about the rise of French awesomeness. Last night we went a little nuts on the downloading (they're free!) and got podcasts on everything from Bob Woodward discussing the media's impact on politics to the art of reading a poem. Sigh... I love getting learned real good.)

We made our home last night at a bed and breakfast, a type of lodging which is quickly becoming an obsession of mine. Hey-- they're often cheaper than regular hotels, the rooms are nicer, the owners are always quirky and you get a lovely and filling breakfast.

When we arrived at this one the owner, Quinta, greeted us at the door, which opened upon her handmade jewelry shop. Sparkly. Then she led us through the house, where we saw the fancy library:


The lovely dining room:

Our room's mini keg (it's the German Room and all Germans have mini kegs-- didn't you know?):

And then this:


Discuss.

Tech-splosion

I smell like stale coffee shop. I have for three and a half days now, ever since the possibilities of my world became limitless with the addition of portable electronics to my life.

I've always been kind of slow to catch on to technology trends. I didn't own a cell phone until the beginning of my sophomore year of college, when the fad had trickled down to become the latest necessity of the middle school set. My first mp3 player came two years later, but I wasn't ready for the status that came with an iPod's white earbuds. Instead I got a matchbook-size player that could hold six albums, play the radio, record weird conversations on the bus and my boss' cackle and hook onto my jeans pocket with a handy clip.

On Wednesday everything changed. Ma got me a MacBook for my birthday, and it came with a free (after rebate) iPod Touch. I used a birthday giftcard from Pa to get cases for both at Best Buy, as well as $40 of iTunes gift cards. iLoggedOn. iBrowsed. iBought.

Suddenly my 25-hour car ride to Oregon is looking much less bleak, because I have several episodes of Gossip Girl and conversational French podcasts to keep me company. I can finally listen to the Jenny Owen Youngs cd I've searched for in vain at every music store I've visited for the past year. And I can update you, dear readers, on the sometimes-boring minutiae of my life whenever and wherever (as long as there's free wifi).

The events of July 2, 2008

1.
I'm at the dentist for what feels like the bazillionth time in the span of a month. The dentist comes in and sighs his customary "Oh, [Nugget]." He has another dentist come in to use a different anesthetic technique since I had so much trouble with what he'd given me the last time. As Dentist 2 shoots it in my jaw, my heart starts racing. A few minutes later, and the poison has yet to deaden me. Dentist 1 sighs again and shoots me with another needleful, and it feels like the needle is tearing tissue. Finally I can feel the telltale signs of Novocain, but my lip doesn't go numb. The numbed area includes my left cheek and eye, though. Dentist 1 decides this is good enough.

As he begins his work, tears start streaming out of my left eye. He asks if he's hurting me. I tell him I'm just having a lot of trouble closing my eye. He and his assistant emit sounds of surprise and concern. "That's why I don't use Dentist 1's technique," he sighs. "It seems he's paralyzed your facial nerve. But don't worry; it will go away. And if it doesn't, you just call me right up!" This is not comforting.

Because I'm not numbed in the right place, the drilling he's doing hurts. A lot. Tears start to stream out of my right eye as well, and Dentist has to keep pausing to daub my eyes with my paper bib. He does a hasty job on the filling, and when taking out a spring-loading instrument from my mouth, it pops into my afflicted eye. "Oh, my God. I want to go home just as much as she does," he says. "I wouldn't be surprised if you never come back to the dentist." I try to keep the blubbering to a minimum, but can't contain myself when seeing my gentleman caller in the waiting room. He, who has never had a cavity, takes one look at my face and resolves to start flossing five times a day.

2.
I'm boxing up my earthly possessions in advance of the big move Out West. The GC tapes 'em up and drives away with 'em so his mom can ship 'em with her mega-discount from UPS. After he's left I realize I have approximately three outfits to last me until the boxes and I meet again. Five if you count my prom dresses.

3.
Ma Nuggs and I head to Barnes and Noble to test drive my brand-new MacBook and brand-new iPod Touch (free with rebate!). Bro Nuggs helps me discover the wonders of video chat. Aside: Ma has been destitute since last Friday because all four of her chitlins were scattered to the exotic locales of Japan, Missoula, Tucson and Shokoppee. The prospect of being with yours truly whilst video chatting with her firstborn was a joyous one indeed.

Ma isn't used to this fancy technology. She talks WAY more loudly than is necessary, so all 20 patrons of B and N's cafe discovered that my mom won't be able to stay at my aunt's house in Seattle "BECAUSE THEY ONLY HAVE ONE TOILET IN SERVICE!" Bro further exacerbates the situation by slowly leaning toward the camera so that his eyeball, nose or mouth take up the entire screen. Ma guffaws till the cows come home. I cower.

4.
While out with some (now former) co-workers, we decide to move from an Irish pub to a sports bar near the paper. As I'm driving along downtown's main drag, I hear a woman shouting. Then I see a man with blood all over his face putting a woman in a stranglehold. A second woman is shouting, "He cut me! He cut me!" Another man, who I don't think is involved in the situation, shouts at the first man to let the woman go. I come to the conclusion that the first man has a knife and is about to slit the woman's throat. Since I am now merely a Samaritan (temporarily on leave from ink-stained-wretchhood), I call 911 and tell them what I saw.

I get to the bar and ask my co-workers if they'd seen what I had. They hadn't, and the city hall reporter decided it was breaking news and rushes out to cover it. Our higher ed reporter follows suit, removing her heels to run the few blocks barefoot. When they return they say one of the women had been performing sex acts on the man, expecting a $20 payment for her services. When he reneged a scuffle ensued, and he started biting her.

Back at the bar, we sing and dance to classics like "Like a Prayer," "Toxic" and "Hit Me Baby One More Time." During the latter we discover City Hall Reporter is a human version of those nylon blow-up men frequently seen at car dealerships.

5.
I'm extra careful to drive exactly the speed limit on the way home in Ma's dented minivan. Nevertheless, a state trooper turns his lights on and pulls me over once I've gotten off the highway. This is my first pullover experience, and yet I'm eerily calm. I fish my drivers license out of my purse and sit very still in the car's blinding search light.

He approaches and asks for my license. "What seems to be the trouble, sir?" I ask as innocently as possible. He tells me the light above my back license plate has gone out. Seriously? They stop people for that?

I guess yo’ lips weally aw impotant

Before this month, I hadn’t had a dental check up in an embarrassingly long time. My visits home while I was in college rarely coincided with my dentist office’s hours, and I’ve spent most of my post-college life without insurance. Facing another unknown span of time of being uninsured when I move to Portland, I figured the time was nigh for a cleaning.

As is to be expected, I had kind of a lot of work to be done… enough that required multiple visits. I returned to the office this morning to get fillings on the upper right and lower left sides of my mouth.

“Oh, Nugget..” sighed the dentist I’ve been seeing since I was 5 as he hunkered in beside my gaping maw. He injected each side of my gums with the longest needle I’ve seen in my life (though I was looking at it cross-eyed so I may have misjudged it). Tears streamed out of my eyes as he wedged the needle ever-deeper.

He left to give the Novocain some time to do its magic, and when he returned a few minutes later was disappointed to hear that only one side of my mouth was numb. He shot my left side with yet another needle-ful and set to work on my right side.

As I lay there, swallowing tooth dust and listening to the gurgling of his belly, the reporter in me couldn’t help but ponder what the life of his dentist was like. Was he judging me right now? Did he have a favorite procedure he was doing after lunch, the thought of which was getting him through the day? Have the prices of dental equipment stayed fairly steady throughout the years or have the companies conspired to artificially raise prices? Does he feel morally superior to orthodontists?

When he finished he asked how my left side was doing. It tingled a little, I told him, but it was nowhere near as dead as my right.

“Well,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, but that’s going to have to be where we end today. There’s a safe level of anesthetic I can give you and we’re bumping up against that. You’re going to have to come back.”

Crushed at the thought of having to return yet again, I got into my car and drove back to the office. I called my mom to tell her what happened, and it was then I realized the anesthetic had finally started to work.

“I’m hoving a weally hahd time talking and my wips feel funny,” I told Ma Nugget, who responded with gales of laughter. “The woost pawt is I’m weally, weally hungwy. I hope I don’ hafta do any innavoos. Oh cwap! I havta cawl Woger Weinawt!”

I got to the office and tried out a few words for Krupskaya, and the sound of my voice made me laugh so hard I started weeping. I called my brother, who told me I sounded like I’d had a brain injury, and my boyfriend, who told me I sounded like a stroke victim.

My next appointment is next Wednesday at 2. Give me a call afterwards if you’d like a sequel.

The most wonderful time of the year

I've always taken my birthday very, very seriously. It comes in the middle of summer, so for 20 glorious years I was able to do nothing but celebrate my coming into being. No school, no work, nothing but birthday festivities.

That changed the year I turned 21. I was the newly anointed freelance editor at my college newspaper, but the managing editor called me at 8:00 that morning requesting that I regress to my previous position: administration reporter. The person on that beat had set up our monthly interview with the university president for that morning, but had broken her leg and was unable to follow through on her commitment. "She broke her leg this very morning?" I asked incredulously. No, Boss Man told me. She broke it last week. "Did she at least prepare some questions? I've been out of the country for three weeks and I haven't been following the news... I usually take weeks to prepare for these interviews." No, Boss Man told me. "DOES SHE REALIZE IT'S MY BIRTHDAY?!?" I silently screamed in my head.

This year I'll also be at work, but thankfully the day will be full of the respect my birthday demands. Apparently five months on the job qualifies me for a goodbye party* with a cake made to my specifications.** After work I'll meet up with a gaggle of buddies at not one but two venues, and the celebration will continue Saturday with a get-together for all my TC friends.

I am quite confident everyone I encounter on a daily basis knows Thursday is my birthday (I may have been shouting that fact out in the newsroom at random), and thus the day can finally return to the status it has held for most of my life.



*last day is Friday
**no frosting

Curly Hair Classy finds a home

In the past week I've happened upon two ponies in my house, gifts that my cruel family had bestowed upon me in lieu of a real, live breathing creature. The first was a pony-on-a-stick I received when I was nominated for Miss East (a title often mispronounced or misheard as "Miss Yeast" that was my high school's equivalent to Prom Queen). I bestowed that one upon Krupskaya's daughter, a girl I've never met but whom her mother makes beyond adorable in her blog.

Several in the office oohed and aahed over the creature (read: seethed with jealousy), so when I happened upon Curly Hair Classy I knew I had to be more egalitarian in my gifting. I know not when and under what circumstances I received this hunk of plastic, but allow me to regale you with her glory: she comes with three curlers, two styling barrettes, three pink curly hair extensions, styling glitter gel, a pink hair crimper and a (drum roll please) motorized styling wand.

This morning I let Classy graze on my desk while I emailed my coworkers with their mission. To win Classy, and make the child of their choice unendingly joyous, they had to email me a limerick by no later than 5 p.m. My father, an esteemed publisher of countless books of poetry, would be the judge to assure impartiality. Here are some of my favorites:

While many seek ponies to ride 'em,
I can't seem to stay astride 'em.
But ponies-on-a-stick
May just do the trick.
Falling off will just hurt my pride then.

An unhappy couple wondered what to do
They talked and talked until blue
They got a divorce
Fought over custody of Classy the Horse
But poor Classy was turned into glue

The poor pink pony walks a life of shame
Nobody wants her but who is to blame?
She's pretty 'n pink
But [Nugget] sure thinks
Curly Hair Classy's quite lame.

There once was a girl on a pony
She said, "My saddle's quite tony."
The horse took a dip
The girl took a flip
Then she wished the ground weren't so stony

I once owned a pony named Princess,
I got her through childish insistence.
Fat, sassy and brown,
She once wore a crown,
Then tossed it off quite a good distance.

Pa Nugget deemed the last one a winner, saying, "I think it's the best written example of a limerick. That first couplet, that's a real gem."

And a day of pony poetry fun was had by all...

Overheard in Duluth

An overweight man, in the lobby of the movie theater:

"The polar ice caps on Mars are melting. They gonna blame that on man, too?"

Sights, sounds and experiences of the day

A coworker, in response to my new haircut: "BAM! Kazam! Shablam!"

***

Another coworker and I compete in a bubble blowing contest with what I have found to be the ultimate bubble blowing gum: citrusmint Orbitz. I think I win, but it's hard to say because we never seem to be looking at each other at the bubble's pinnacle. We sit too far apart to make muffled yells while wildly gesturing at our mouths.

***

I investigate a building a superior has told me holds a magic shop, an occultist and a faith healer. It is carpeted in turquoise, velvety-looking stuff and is decorated as a creepy bed and breakfast might be. I investigate the doors on the lower two levels, but most seem to be home to family counselors and therapists. I hear one therapy session behind a closed door: "So am I supposed to take the initiative and invite her to dance? Or is she supposed to sense my desire and approach me?" The second floor's ceiling is slanted like there are stairs above it. I try the door leading to them and find it unlocked. Maybe that's where the witch lives...

***

A girl who looks no older than 17 talking on her cell on the sidewalk: "You had your baby yet? No? What the (tr)uck?? (Tr)ucking push the sucker out! My babies were all at least a week before their due date. You're two days past yours! Well... let me know when you pop."

***

A man at my temple: "You're getting so famous."

***

My sister on the car ride home, in response to a conversation about what a good wedding song would be: "Mine would probably be, 'Jessie's mom/Has got it goin' on.'"

As promised

Diorama-rama

Oh my BFG. One of the ladies at Curves made a diorama of our workout room. It has these two mini Barbie-like dolls and a Jasmine figurine with limbs splayed in awkward positions atop cardboard squares meant to represent our cardio stations. This lady glued carpet to the floor of her display, and taped pictures of exercise equipment to the walls. I meant to get a picture of it after my workout last night but forgot. I just wanted you to know that something really, really good is coming.

Odd person #5: Conspiracies

I was interviewing a self-described ultra-conservative for a story I’m working on. We started off innocently enough, discussing her difficulty getting behind John McCain—he’s too liberal—and different vice presidential candidates he could choose that would make him a sure deal for her.

Then, at what I thought was the end of our conversation, after I’d delivered my courtesy, “Thank you for taking the time to talk to me; I appreciate your comments,” she wanted to go off the record.

What she’s really worried about, she said, was an alliance between America, Canada and Mexico that would make us one country with one currency: the Amerro. It would be run by a small group of powerful men and women who fly all over the world and whose aim is world domination. She taught the book of Revelation last year, she said, and it all made sense. She needed this part of the conversation to be off the record because she didn’t want people to find out about it and get frightened, she said.

When she finished she asked me to repeat my last name. “Oh! Is your mom [Ma Nugg]?” she asked. “I know her from [Ma Nugg’s place of work]. I’m very impressed with what she does for the Holocaust.” (Ma Nugg organizes an annual Holocaust memorial lecture.) “I just LOVE the Jews! I’m very pro-Israel.”

Odd person No. 2: Attention hog

Let me preface this post by saying that it will not be as hilarious as I intended because I seem to have left the notebook in which I chronicled OP2's behavior in my office, and I am currently in Arizona.

I was at a local cafe on Sunday to chronicle a jug band contest. After having done the bulk of reporting in the first two hours of this eight-hour jug-gernaut (hyuk!), I had just returned for the last half-hour to see who would be declared winner of the coveted Krumkakke Iron Trophy (second place won freshly caught steelhead... gotta love northern Minnesota).

After the champions were announced I ambled over to the man who seemed to be their leader and asked him if I could interview him for the paper. What follows is an approximation of what the gentleman said as he got close enough to me for me to smell that he had apparently bathed in gin that morning.

"What's your name?"
"Bob."
"Bob what?"
"Bob Dylan."

***

"What instruments do you play?"
"Well, I played the harmonica tonight, but I also play guitar. And spoons. And the occasional jug. And I blow a mean whistle. I've done washboard before. I also play the ham bone."
"The hand bone? What's that?"
"No, the ham bone. Like this: (slaps hand on thigh)."

***

"What does winning this prize mean to you?"
"Apple pie... mom... the American flag... getting the Republicans out of office... no, wait, say getting those goddamn bastard Republicans out of office... want me to keep going?"

***

"Well, I think those were all the questions I had for you."
"Are you sure? Because I sure do like the attention you've been giving me."