Hurricane Ridge

I went up to Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic Mountains with my mom last Saturday (this picture being one of the results:


This is "pre-burn." You see, I frequently forget to use sunscreen here at home, as there aren't all that many days in the year to get burned in Seattle, and the vast majority of the year, it's overcast or raining and I'm inside working at a computer. So in general, sunscreen is not entirely necessary.

Cut to the part where I'm hiking up an open hill with lots of sun - sans sunscreen - for the better part of 2-3 hours.

My shoulders look like the bottom of one of those dry lake beds - all cracked and flaky with deep breaks where the lack of moisture has split the mud into tiny islands. Except it's my skin, and it's itchy and gross.

It's no more than I deserve, I've read all the stuff about wearing sunscreen daily, etc - but at least I had a fabulous time with my mom and finally got outside. :)

New camera in use!

This Christmas, I bought my brother a starter camera kit, a Canon EOS 30D, with a good flash and lens (of his choosing). Here's one of the first pictures he took with it that he decided to share (he's the one on the left). Pretty fun stuff!

Holiday Busy-ness

One of the things I like most about the holidays is how busy I am.

One of the things I like least about the holidays is how busy I am.

My brother came back to visit, so I’ve been spending piles of time with him, and a friend that I haven’t seen in a year a half reconnected, on top of the regular holiday scheduling, plus starting a new job. They’re both flying back to their respective homes tomorrow, I’ve gotten more comfortable in my job, and the holidays are, for all intents and purposes, over. So now I have more time on my hands for working overtime.

This year has been very good for me. I am looking forward to how many great new things I’ll be able to do and try this year. I plan to continue with pottery, take a knitting class, a sewing class, and learn to swim this summer. All I managed this last summer was learning how not to drown with a little training board and how to float – but I was rather proud of that. Next week, I’m signing up for a gym membership and a personal trainer. I’m researching condos for my move in June, and looking longingly at a gorgeous cream brocade Victorian chaise that I know I can’t yet afford.

I hope you all have had wonderful holidays as well and done fun things with people you love.

Ich wünsche euch eine guten Rutsch in neue Jahr!

Almost Christmas!

This week has been long. After more than a couple of months sitting on my chair doing nothing but attempt to prevent myself from falling into a coma, going back to doing real work all day long was rather tiring. I was so tired, in fact, that I went to sleep at 6:30pm on Tuesday night after getting home from work.

Both because of the keeping busy part and just because, I LOVE my new job! I really like the people, I like the atmosphere, I like the style of the company, and I like what I do. I'm never bored, and there's always something interesting and amusing to see. Today, I ran across an email address: "hexenweib43" or something similar, which translates loosely to, "witchy woman." The funny part is that she was attempting to buy an electronic item on a new account with several bad debt relations. Not the most brilliant thing one could do and expect to get away with it. So, in case you're wondering - ordering electronic stuff online using free emails with silly handles isn't probably going to be successful.

I watched the Canadian Brass on Wednesday evening with my brother. They were about as schticky as I expected, but also just as talented as I expected. They are all wonderfully technically proficient, of course, and they put on a great show. I very much enjoyed it, and considering I spent only $16 for my ticket, I'm quite pleased with it.

I'm now back at home for the weekend. I have to go into work Monday, quite early. I'm planning on getting there around 7am, because I don't yet have an after hours pass to my building. Then I'll work through lunch and hopefully be out of there in time to beat it to the ferry dock. Thankfully, most people can't order anything and guarantee it arrives by Christmas if they order it on Monday, so there should be fewer bozos to deal with. Everyone else in my department is working this weekend, but since I'm still training, I would actually slow down the progress of my supervisor so I'm not working. I only feel slightly sad about this - and that only because I calculated how much money I make on overtime now.

I'm also looking forward to getting trained to work on business in France, just to see how much French I've forgotten. I do find it vastly amusing that the most useful portion of my Master's degree was my language training. We received an absolutely hilarious email from a customer that quite literally took me back to my days of reading German before it was standardized (essentially pre-1550). If there's a name for the sort of German that corresponds to the English a redneck on his sixth beer at 3am would use, it would apply to this email. It's difficult to misspell in German (at least, I think so, coming from English), but maybe 1/3 of this person's email was spelled correctly. Not only that, but it was utterly nonsensical even if you could read the whole thing well, which you couldn't. Really, an excellent way to start off one's morning. :)

I am told that tomorrow will be a day of baking and food preparing, so I guess my big plans for tomorrow are to bake some gingerbread and possibly go to a movie with my brother. I do like these sorts of weekends.

Happy weekend before Christmas, everybody!

Weekend tidbits

Well, I didn’t have carrot cake. Which makes me sad, because I love carrot cake and cream cheese frosting. I will simply have to make some next weekend, and pretend that I did it this weekend. :) We made peanut butter cookies instead, and mom ate ten of them last night. How she manages to remain so thin is beyond me.

My cousin and I visited our grandmas this weekend. Neither of us were very good about visiting once we got out of the house, and then when grandpa died, we felt guilty (for different reasons, I was out of the country, she thought she still had time to visit) and now we make time to visit the grandmas every year. We went to Port Townsend and ate at the Nifty Fifty’s – it used to be more cute, but now it’s run by what appears to be an Indian or Pakistani family. I have nothing against immigrants making good in this country, that’s kind of the point, but a fifties white bread America soda fountain/café with Indian/Pakistani servers? It’s just weird. We also did a little shopping which was detrimental to my pocketbook. Now that I have a job, I keep thinking I have money, which is not true. Alas… but the purse is delightful, as is the necklace, and I LOVE my new sweater coat.

I have only three days left of the evil commute. I move on the first of November, with the help of my Uncle P. and my mom (thanks, guys!). I’m looking forward to being within walking distance of everything – even the grocery store is only two blocks away – and within reach of easy bus lines if I have to go anywhere other than downtown/first hill/Pioneer Square area. I do love living in the city. :D

T.G.I.F.

Today is a rather nice fall day for Seattle. The air is nippy, it’s partly cloudy (although one can probably expect the sun to come out shortly), and there’s that lovely crisp freshness of autumn welcoming the coming winter that is lurking, undefinable, behind the long shadows of the high rises.

Today is also Friday, and as most offices downtown have a casual Friday, Seattle is a veritable sea of jeans this morning. I looked closely, and saw only one pair of black slacks entering the Washington Mutual building when I walked by. My building must be slightly more dressy because the woman in front of me going up the elevator was dressed in lovely black fishnet stockings, cute black wedges and traditional business attire. Still, I’m pleased with the amount of casualness I see – I doubt this would work very well on the east coast, which I’ve heard is far more fashion conscious than we are.

Today is also the first night of the weekend before Halloween, meaning lots of Halloween parties all throughout the area. My cousin is coming up to visit, and we will have carrot cake with cream cheese icing in celebration. I hope that many people will have fun this weekend. I read an ad recently in craigslist for writers writing about loneliness in Seattle. The ad contended that while other cities had their fair share of lonely, depressed people, Seattle has a unique culture of loneliness and depression. Some blame it on the weather, some blame it on the mouth-breathing males, some blame it on the stuck-up females. I do not agree with this hypothesis, however – but what do I know? I don’t actually even live in Seattle yet. Here’s to hoping there are some great parties this weekend and lots of people have lots of fun and feel lightness in their hearts.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Arty and stuff

My brother has taken some pretty neat pictures since he discovered how much fun using a good camera can be. He was messing around tonight and got this. He also got my fun fish gutting experience, which I have also graciously included in today's post.

Farmers and Fishes

Last night, my Aunt Tina (who is two whole years older than I am) invited my brother and I for an evening of fishing and fun down at the banks of the Missouri, which runs through the family farm in Montana. We decided to go fishing, which was okay with me, because I never catch anything. At least, not since I was 8 years old and I caught a foot long trout. That is my one and only fishing story.

So, it was getting cold and I wanted to put away my line - I had successfully caught a couple of stray weeds during the evening - and go sit down, so I picked up my pole and realized that it wasn't right. By right, I mean that it felt like something between a snag and nothing, so I thought that maybe I had a nibble. So, I jiggled the pole a little, just to test my hypothesis, and let out some string to see if it would unravel and it did. Then I got a little excited but kept my mouth shut, because one does not want to get excited about getting a fish, then pull out a leather boot or something similar.

I ended up with another foot long trout, and he was a rather scrappy little bugger. They have sharp little teeth. After we took it back to the house, Alan, Tina's boyfriend, helped me cut it open, then I gutted it and washed it out. It is currently sitting in the freezer, waiting for tonight's bbq bash at Aunt Loretta's.

Gotta say, that was some of the most fun I've had in a really long time. I will post pictures as soon as my brother can download his pictures at home. He also got a video of me gutting it - which was rather gross - but pretty cool, too. Plus, I left the head and tail on, so it looks super cool. :)

This morning, we went to a Farmer's Market in Great Falls. Lots of nifty stuff, had some strudel, bought some mustard, a necklace, some cherries, the various random things one buys when one goes to a farmer's market. Right now, we're waiting for the storm to finally burst (there's a tornado warning, apparently) and then going over to Loretta's for bbq. I intend to fully enjoy my fish!