On Saturday, we went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Their spotlight exhibit was called LEGO: The Art of the Brick. Check it: While touring the rest of the museum, we found a curved mirror. Tee hee hee. And when Gary held his head in the right place, he pulled off a very convincing impression of Kay from The Sword in the Stone...
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Oregon is so unbelievably beautiful. I am so lucky to live here. (Late-April-Jody sings a much different tune than Early-March-Jody, who was having emotional breakdowns over the enveloping gray and incessant rain.)
On Saturday morning, Gary and I went to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. I adore rhododendrons because they're basically giant bushes that grow wedding bouquets. You just pluck off the end of a branch and shazaam! You're ready to walk down the aisle. When you think of Magic cards and the people that collect / play with them, you probably have a certain stereotype come to mind.
Well, slap that stigma on my forehead because I learned how to play Magic last night! AND I now own two decks of cards!! At Mercer, I had a colleague that was a Magic enthusiast. He never brought it up unsolicited, and he never went on and on about it, but despite him being as normal as he could about it, the fact remained that he liked Magic, and that meant that some people overlooked his good qualities due to the stigma of being a Magic guy. And let's face it. It's easy to do. I myself had a certain perception of Magic players. Because I've met some in my day and they were...interesting. But, as I reasoned to myself, chess club members also tend to have a certain eyebrow-raising reputation, yet most of us can agree that chess is a respectable game and that not all people who enjoy chess are strange. So it would only be fair if I gave Magic the benefit of the doubt until I learned it with an open-mind. Last night, Gary and I did just that. We invited my former colleague and his wife over for a game night and they taught us how to play Magic. Then I asked all sorts of questions because, regardless of your opinon of it, the Magic phenomenon is facinating. At the end of the evening, they gave us two sets of cards to play with. How nice is that? Although I highly doubt I'll fall in love with Magic or ever be able to hold my own against any Magic gamer, I'm glad we learned how to play, and I'm sure we'll have a fair amount of fun with our little basic decks. We bought a couple of wool blankets for emergency preparedness purposes. They're great because wool is incredibly warm and stays so even while wet, but there are two downsides to wool: it's itchy and you can't wash it. Gary had the idea of doing a sort of quasi-quilt covering for them, so I hauled out a bunch of old T-shirts, cut them up, and sewed them together to make this: Great idea, right? WRONG. Old T-shirts are the worst (the worst!) to work with. Never again.
I didn't used to believe in the whole "green thumb" thing. I mean, just follow the instructions on the seed packet, right? How hard can it be? I can't grow things. And I live in Oregon. Last year, I really tried with our veggie garden. I really did. But when I started the seeds outside, the slugs ate them as soon as they spouted. When I started them inside, the soil got all moldy and the roots died. I googled how to fix these problems. Nothing worked. This year, I'm taking a different approach. I sprinkled lettuce seeds in the dirt and said, "Grow, dang it." Then I threw some squash and pea seeds into a sandwich bag with a wet paper towel and said, "Figure it out." I was rather surprised. I guess they respond well to verbal commands.
Now let's see if they survive the slugs... Check out what I found on the world wide web (from http://trextrying.tumblr.com/). [Click the images to make them bigger.]
Nugget's friend Anabelle came over to play today. And this is why he loves her: In high school, Stephanie and I were part of an extracurricular called Model United Nations (MUN). Every year, there was a big conference in Salt Lake City called RHSMUN, where high school students across the region convened to debate world issues (oh man). Mostly we just loved staying in a hotel and wearing fancy dress suits and, best of all, eating every meal at a mall food court. Steph hung out with her friends (and stalked Bangladesh because dude, he was hot) and I hung out with mine. But one evening, we ran into each other in the hotel lobby and she told me the funniest thing. "One of the delegates is from Oregon," she told me. "We asked him what people from Oregon are called and guess what! They're called Oregonians! OREGONIANS!" Wow, did we get a good laugh at that.
Flash forward ten years. I'm living in Portland, Oregon, working for a big fancy actuary consulting corporation. Not only are my colleages professionals, they're freaking geniuses. One day, my coworker Greg popped his head into my cube and asked, "Hey, what are people from Utah called?" "Utahns." "Utahns? UTAHNS?! Seriously?" "Yeah, seriously." "Ha! No way! Hey, Weber, did you know people from Utah are called UTAHNS?!" He walked away to spread the word. And wow, did they get a good laugh at that. This morning, the doorbell rang followed by a few loud knocks. Since this is clearly code for "I'm a delivery guy dropping off a package", and since I wasn't looking especially attractive (I'm a girl; I care about such things), I decided not to answer the door. But then it occurred to me that we weren't expecting any packages, so I peeked out the window to see if it was, indeed, a delivery man. It wasn't. It was the police. I answered the door.
(It's troubling to point out here that between the time I realized there was a policeman at my door and the time I found out why he was there, I didn't have a solitary worst-case-scenario enter my head. All that came was, "Ooh, how exciting! Police!" So bummer. I guess I'm not a fully matured woman yet.) "Does Gary Henrie live here?" "Yes, but he's at work." OR DEAD?!?! (is what I should have been thinking) "I just wanted to let you know that some of your mail was stolen." The police officer handed me a crumpled, torn, was-wet-but-now-it's-dry envelope with my handwriting on it. It was a from the check I had sent out two days earlier. "Wow, thank you," I replied, thoroughly surprised (and rather impressed). "How did you...?" "A city worker found a box of 10 or so stolen envelopes in a box outside." He gave me a pamphlet about identity theft, I thanked him, and he left. I wasn't terribly miffed about the check: it was for a minor amount, plus I phoned up Wells Fargo and put a stop-payment on it. But, as my mother's voice in my head pointed out, my account number is out there, deviously scheming ruin to my life. Don't worry, Mom, I'm on it. But to be honest, I'm not terribly convinced of the wily fiendishness of the thief: 1) really? leaving the remains of your crime in some box outside? *raised eyebrow* 2) he clearly has no idea how to open an envelope properly (see photo evidence) 3) YOU WASTED A PERFECTLY GOOD STAMP! If you're going to steal from us, please, make use of the goods. Yeesh. |
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