Vacation!

Debs and I are leaving today for a 10-day trip to the Wallowa Mountains in NE Oregon. It’s quite beautiful over there and I’m really excited! I have been working quite a lot these past two months and I’m feeling worn out. I’m REALLY looking forward to some time off!

This is more like it

June in the Pacific Northwest is always an iffy month. Some years it’s quite pleasant, while some years the weather lives up to its reputation of drastically improving starting July 5 and not a day sooner. We’ve had a few decent days so far this month, but on the whole it has been cloudy and cool. Our longest day of the year is Thursday, and it has always seemed discouraging to me that the wonderfully long days leading up to June 21 are usually not very nice, and by the time the weather DOES start getting nice, we’re already on the down swing towards shorter days.

But today, finally, the sun returns and the temperatures rise again, so we can be thankful for that.

Eight Facts About Me

Oh, I’ve been tagged by my friend for the 8 Facts About Me meme that I’ve seen going around lately. Okay, here goes.

1. When I was in elementary school, I was allowed as part of my lunch one small baggie of whatever brand of cheese puff snack was popular at the time. I loved them so much (junk food has always been a weakness) that I occasionally lied to my mother and said that someone stole them from my lunch so that I could have another serving as an after-school snack.
2. I still miss college. It was the best four years of my life and I have never been happier before or since, for many reasons that could fill several blog entries. Although I’m glad to report that I’m fairly content with my life at the moment.
3. I LOVE the smell of coffee and I really enjoy sniffing my way into coffee shops. However, I can’t stand the taste of it. I can’t drink coffees or lattes or espressos, and I can’t eat coffee-flavored candy or coffee ice cream. I like tea a lot, though.
4. I have been trying online dating for several months now (with very mixed results) when I came to the realization that although I don’t mind being an independent woman who hikes solo and goes to movies alone, I also think things like that would be more fun with a partner. I am secretly envious of the couples I see hiking, or holding hands at the movies.
5. I am deeply moved by the beauty of Mother Nature. Sometimes I think the world around me is so beautiful I will die from the joy of it. On the flip side, people who have no interest in keeping the world beautiful make me very angry.
6. I spent my third birthday in the hospital with the first illness I’d ever had since birth. I had never had so much as a sniffle until right before my third birthday when I picked up a bad throw-up bug at the pediatrician’s office during my sister’s well-baby check-up. I threw up so much and so often that I ended up in the hospital with dehydration. I actually have very vague memories of being in the hospital, though I fortunately don’t remember what a complete wreck my poor mother was.
7. I LOVE history. During 2002 and 2003, I was addicted to the History Channel. I printed out the schedule at the beginning of the month, highlighted all the programs I wanted to see, then watched as many as I could and taped the rest. I spent much of my free time doing this. Unfortunately, I have poor memory, and I remember almost nothing from all those interesting shows I watched!
8. I’m an oddity in America in the fact that I don’t care at all about sports. I can’t play sports either. In fact, the first day of P.E. in high school we had to play baseball and no one ever bothered to explain the game to me. When I went up to bat, I stood really far away from home plate, and when someone corrected me, I then stood ON home plate! It’s funny now, but at the time it was rather traumatizing, as was all of P.E.!

Those crazy college kids

You may think I’m crazy, but when I watch this video, I really miss college. Fun like this happened all the time in college. The real world…..well, it’s not this fun.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present my cousin Chris and his crazy college friends in Hall Jousting.

I love the smell of wet pavement

At 6:30 p.m., it is just now finally starting to rain at my house, after they had predicted it would rain all day. It was gorgeous all last week, so I suppose I can’t complain about some rain today and the days to come. We need it. And besides, I do love the smell of wet pavement right when the rain starts after a period of dry weather. And it’s still warm out! That’s the best part!

Fireworks fun

Last night was the big Rose Festival fireworks show in Portland, so I went down to the waterfront with my sister and her boyfriend. It was SUCH a pleasant evening after the really warm day we had yesterday. We were down there for about an hour and a half before the show started and it was really pleasant to sit out there in the warm evening. It was quite crowded, though, but that’s to be expected. The fireworks were set off from a barge in the Willamette River and they put on a good 20-minute show with a spectacular finale. Very cool. I love fireworks.

The fireworks were supposed to be synchronized to music, which we could hear faintly from the Waterfront Village. But I’d say the fireworks were accompanied by music, not synchronized to it. I’ve seen fireworks shows synchronized to music in Vancouver, BC, and there is nothing like it. Totally amazing. I’ll never forget the first summer I was up there and saw the fireworks competition. The soundtrack to one of the shows included the Andre Rieu rendition of “Amazing Grace,” a powerful arrangement involving bagpipes and symphony. Fireworks blasting into the sky in perfect step with the rhythm of that beautiful music – right on queue! – was one of the most spine-tingling experiences of my life. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I can’t wait for this year’s show!