Story Time

Alex has told me this story a couple of times now, and it seems to me that it has been for the same reason in both instances. Take from it what you will.

Alex boats with his father, and on one excursion his father relayed to him some technical advice. When boating, you want to be going faster or slower than the water's current in order to be in control of your boat. There are times when you settle back and let your boat turn and twist in the lazy waters, taking in the serene life around you, talking with friends. But when you hit white water, you must be a force in the tumultuous currents, letting the water spin you out of control will likely get you killed.

There's a time and place for being outside of the current; for knowing its not something you are just going to ride out.

I hope you find this helpful, too.

Snow Days and Pancakes

Its Saturday, not Sunday. I'm aware of this. The snow has not thrown off my calendar that far. Though, the only reason I know this, perhaps, is because I was supposed to go to work today. In fact, I even got up at 6am to get ready and have time to catch the bus to the Max Station downtown and to then catch a bus from the Max Station in Beaverton to work. 

It was snowing when I woke up, but I would not be deterred. I bundled up, checked the bus schedule online, and headed the two blocks north from my apartment to the bus stop. One man stood at the bus stop and we waited silently together. No bus. My one solace was how beautiful the snow was under the street lamps (yes it was still dark out). It looked like large flakes of glitter falling from the sky, and the sidewalks had hardly been walked on by anyone but myself. It was rather pristine and lovely, though cold.

I finally came home at 7:30 and woke up Alex to drive me to the Max Station in the snow. I checked the weather which said that snow was supposed to pick up after 10am. I called the music school again and listened to the voicemail message stating that classes would be held. It was probably the 5th time I had called that morning. Alex rolled out of bed, got dressed and headed out into the cold morning with me once again. 

It didn't dawn on me until then, to call Claudia's cell. I didn't want to disturb her home on a Saturday morning, though I'm sure her husband still gets up early on that day, so I had waited. As Alex started the engine (which does indeed start now!) and pulled out our virgin set of chains, Claudia and I discussed how the school would not, in fact, be open today and how it wasn't worth the risk of being stuck in Beaverton again to ride the Max out. I'm really glad the bus never showed up.

Alright! Bright eyed and bushy tailed for nothing. Alex decided he wanted to go for a walk in the morning snow, so long as he was awake already. So we did. 

The one pitfall of said walk was that we passed a place serving breakfast (something our town is known for) that smelled of warm pancakes. I was all for heading in for a bite, but Alex was both not hungry and also wary of spending anymore money than we had due to the snow. It was probably for the best. It just meant that I got to be creative in the kitchen when we got home. 

I found a recipe for pancakes online, and it sounded like it would work alright, but I was feeling more adventurous than that. We tend to end up with little bits of odd and end ingredients because we buy in bulk, so I climbed on the counter and pulled everything down from our baking shelf. White flour, wheat flour, cake flour, oatmeal, walnuts, white sugar, sugar in the raw, powdered sugar...  All down and strewn about the counter. I love having counter space again!

So, the recipe I based my work on, was as follows:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 1/2 cups milk

2 tablespoons melted butter

mix together, blah blah blah, etc.

I only used this as a guideline for eggs, baking powder and butter. You'll have to forgive me because I didn't actually measure anything. I'm pretty decent at getting doughs and batters right for consistency so when I'm experimenting, I tend to just have fun and forget the measuring utensils.

This is what I used, and my rough measurements. I used bold face type for the pertinent information:

Short pour of oatmeal from the bulk container into the Cuisinart: roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup

The remainder of our baggy of walnuts: roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup

The remainder of our baggy of wheat flour: roughly 1/2 cup

The remainder of our baggy of what I believe was cake flour (hard to tell, it wasn't marked): probably more like 3/4 cup to 1 cup

Blend that in the Cuisinart for a bit to break down the oatmeal and the walnut bits. Pour the mix in a large mixing bowl and add:

Some random amount of baking powder: about what's listed above, maybe a Tablespoon

Some random amount of salt: probably 2 teaspoons, maybe a Tablespoon

2 eggs (hey, an exact measure!)

Stir to mix.

Then add non-fat milk and non-fat creamer alternately into the bowl to get a very bread dough like consistency. I have no idea how much; maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of each or so.

After the doughy consistency was reached, I added the butter: about 1/2 stick melted.

Stir to blend and then add more milk (or milk and creamer if you like) to reach a pancake batter consistency, should be about the same as cake batter. 

Use a ladle to add the batter to a preheated cast iron skillet. I had set this on low and sprayed it with butter flavored cooking spray (yeah, blasphemy, I know (and I don't care)) for a few minutes before adding the batter to let it gain some thermal energy. I also put a ceramic plate in the oven on warm to keep the pancakes warm as they finished since I can only make one at a time in our 8 in skillet. Someday I will get a big kid skillet.

They came out a little dense, but very good. Nutty and flavorful with just a bit of syrup on top: divine! It was actually almost like a nutty muffin. You could probably make muffins out of this same recipe. I'll try that next time!

The snow continues to fall and I am full of nutty pancakes. We are supposed to get 3-5 inches today and I have a feeling that the weather report might actually be correct this time. However, they also might have underestimated. 

'Til the next weather report!

Mid-week Arctic Storm Update

Just a quick note to keep you up to speed with the great white north I seem to live in.

Today was the first day I went to work all week. Part due to a lack of car and part due to a fear of being stranded in Beaverton should the light rail's lines freeze over again. The music school has been closed. Beaverton Public School District has issued an announcement every evening repeating yet another day of no school for the kids. I bet they love it. I bet their parents are up in arms. 

Today was the first day Alex went to work all week as well. UO and PSU have been closed on and off all week, sometimes opening late, sometimes not at all. I have a feeling very few public schools will be open if it snows again tomorrow, seeing as how its the last day before Christmas break anyways.

I spent about 40 minutes getting to work. Worked for two and half hours on re-enrollment applications, then headed home. Another 40 minute commute. I would consider the commute excessive if I wasn't so damn bored. Once the snow stopped this morning at 11am, I got out of bed and said "sure, why not, I'm not doing anything better with my day". So Alex and I boarded the 15 Bus and headed into town.

Downtown doesn't even look snowed on. Granted, the sun actually came out today while I was down there. It was a nice day for a public transit commute, all-in-all. 

So 2 and half hours of my usual 30 at least this week. Better than nothing. And Saturday is looking decent, so I might get 8 hours there too. A third of my hours is better than I had hoped for after Sunday's fiasco. 

Speaking of Sunday, aka my car, it is up and running again after a rather expensive repair. Luckily the new starter has a good warranty on it, so it might be worth the extra cash I spent. The shop was quick, friendly, and willing to go through a price breakdown for us. I want to believe they did the best they could for my car, but that goes without saying. No one wants to pay an arm and a leg for repairs and believe it was a bad choice. 

We bought chains the following morning and Alex got me a cupcake for breakfast. Yes, I said a cupcake. Cupcakes are a necessary factor in recovering from car trauma. And a delicious factor as well. We also got coffee. We also stopped at an asian market and got the makings of onigiri. 

Onigiri: oh-nee-gear-ee

Onigiri is composed of umeboshi (oo-may-boe-shee) a sweet sour partially dried plum, wrapped in a sushi rice ball and folded into nori (nor-ee) which is dried seaweed. Its the most delicious thing ever! Ask my mother if you do not believe me. She had them at a restaurant called Biwa while she was here (bee-waa).

So, now that there has been much in the way of food therapy lately, I believe I am mostly recovered. Poor, but money doesn't make you happy. Onigiri and cupcakes do. And I have those. 

Remind me to share my umeboshi song with you the next time I see you.

Much love!

Sitting on a Winter Wonder Freeway

How dismayed were you to miss having a blog related e-mail show up in your inbox yesterday?
I too was dismayed that I missed blogging yesterday. It was not intended.

The weekend went something like this:

Thursday I worked all day and awaited the arrival of my mother, sister, and brother-in-law. We went out to dinner and discussed the imminent snow storm approaching our neck of the woods. The news was calling it an "arctic storm" which sounded a little extreme to me. Apparently the last big storm of 92 was called the "wild winter storm". They've at least gotten more creative.

It rained Thursday night and a good part of Friday, it was cold, but it was the usual winter fare here. We spent a good part of Friday seeing the sights of Oregon. We first went to PSU, both to pick up Rox and also for Alex and I to run a few errands. After acquiring information about financial aid appointments and returning library books, we headed up to the Japanese Gardens. In a cold rain in the winter, the gardens are empty. It was perfectly serene and lovely and easy to navigate and appreciate without any other visitors. 

Alex's school was next to meet up with Joe at the Duck Shop there and see where the magic happens. There was less magic and more mess in Alex's studio than there might have been during term. Joe and Rox parted ways with us then, and my mother and Alex and I headed to the Museum of Contemporary Craft. Its more of a gallery than a museum, but it was remarkable. The current exhibit is called Manufractured, and its essentially ordinary household objects shown in a unexpected way. Our favorite example was the bowl made out of partially melted plastic army figurines. 

A Pendleton store happened to be right near the museum, so we stopped by there as our last venture of the day.

Saturday was a trip to Eugene in the early afternoon. It was nice enough weather, though chilly, but that's to be expected.

My Uncle's retirement party was exciting, especially in surprising him. We had pizza and soda and cake, played some interesting quarter games, and chatted. After the party, Alex and I headed out to see friends, hit another (younger) party, and sleep in a garage, none of which was exactly planned out, but that's the way its always rolled when we see friends.

Sunday! Blog day! That was the real excitement. Alex and I awoke early. I expected icy roads and a slow trip back to Springfield to pick up my family, but it was actually rather warm for that early hour. The roads were wet, not slick, there was no ice, and little snow to be seen. We left Eugene to sunny skies. I slept in the back seat and awoke, not to blue skies and puffy white clouds, but dreary snow. Portland had been hit.

We were a ways outside of the city still and in one of the passes between the valley and the city, when we decided chains were required. In fact, we may even have been ordered to chain up by the Amber Alert signs normally designated for catching child kidnappers. They must not work on snow days either.

The chains took a little maneuvering but we got them on and piled back in the car to finish our trip. But wait? Why won't the car start? 

Try again.

Nothing.

Again. Well, it clicks, the battery is coming on at least a bit, but nothing.

Call AAA.

Call a friend. He brings a truck battery and we hook it up. Still nothing. The engine won't turn over.

Call AAA back (we hadn't cancelled our initial call, but no one had shown up yet). They say someone's on his way. Its been two hours.

We wait in the friend's VW on the heated seats. No tow truck.

Call AAA again. Oh, you say the driver couldn't find us and picked up someone else, huh? Oh, well that's nice. Thank you. Yes, we'd like another driver to come.

Back in the VW. We flag every truck that comes by, finally it was a AAA truck. But not ours.

NO, NO you are NOT leaving us. We don't care what the dispatch center says. 

We went to my boss's house behind the tow truck (also my brother-in-laws mother). She had chili and brownies waiting. I spent the night there and called some Honda specialist centers this morning. I found a very highly rated garage online that was within a cold walk from my apartment and called AAA again for a tow. Judging by the wait the previous day, I assumed that when they said 3:25 ETA they meant it. We got a call from the dispatch center at 12:25 after our food had been left at our table at IHOP. The truck was outside the house by my car waiting. Yes, they would wait for us to get there. Our breakfast was quickly shuffled into boxes, the check paid in cash, and we were back at the house in 15 minutes. 

And thus the saga ends. The car is at the shop. I will report on this shop's awesomeness after my car returns. For now, I am cold and tired. A hot shower and a nap await.

Lets hope for a better entry next week.

  

Round Two

I've been writing a lot lately, and not just here. I've been thinking a lot lately, which I would gather is the cause of my writing. 

See, I've been in a bit of a slump, though I would rather not let most people know about it. This is why you've heard very little on the subject. But those little gripes here and there about my apartment, those were the clues that life was wearing me a little thin; and not literally thin either. I promised that this would not turn into a "woe is my life" saga that my family would have to drudge through weekly to find the scraps of information on my life buried beneath the drama. I'm not a big fan of writing about my drama anyways.

I love writing. I love writing well. I love poetry, story-telling, and writing about my personal epiphanies (which I swear are very deep and philosophical). Drama, though I despise writing about it, tends to lead to that last bit of writing I enjoy: life lessons. When I learn something new about myself (or rediscover it, as the case more often is), I enjoy writing it down, as though I am a great, unknown philosopher, whose work will one day be uncovered, leading of course to my postmortem fame. 

If you're gonna dream, dream big.

As the dust of the drama begins to settle, I see myself a little clearer. The problem with this being that I'm not quite sure I like what I see. This happens with us all, I think: we get caught up in life and get going so fast we forget to stop and ask ourselves if we really like what we're doing and what we see in the mirror everyday. I, for one, get caught up in other people and this tends to make my inner blindness far more effective. Leave it to me to perfect self-deprecation. 

You are probably beginning to wonder if I have some wonderful conclusion I am getting at, or if this is all you're going to get out of the "real" blog of the week. I have a good enough conclusion. It actually entails my last entry in part. 

I need to focus on me. It sounds selfish, I've always felt that it does, but its become apparent that there is no other way to really love yourself unless you work a little on making yourself lovable. I have so much potential to be a better person than this, but I spend so much of my time wrapped up in frivolities and superficial factors that I don't capitalize on it at all. I've lost my drive for art, for learning, for bettering myself, and this needs to change. So I joined a gym. I joined a Curves because I knew I could handle it, and that's what counts. Being healthy is important to me, it has been since high school, and what better place to start than enriching myself physically.

I'll focus on this step for a month. I'm beginning to learn that life changes take small steps and consistency to make them a substantial part of your living. Its a tough lesson to learn. Lucky for me, I like learning.

Bring it on, Life!

Its All In the Family

This week, my brain was far too productive. I apologize, because this means you will get a few entries in one slightly unsightly package; just slightly. 

To start, you may have glanced at your calendar at some point this week and, much like me, exclaimed "Oh shit, Christmas is in like 20 days! Shit and double shit!" 

Your exclamation might not have been quite as profane as mine.

I have, despite the doubts that profanity may have stirred, come up this year's fool-proof Christmas presents. Maybe not fool-proof, but at least thoughtful. I get points for thoughtful right? Thank goodness Santa only asks that I be nice, not wealthy.

Regardless of my own frugal Christmas plans, I realize that some of you may wish to take a different route. For this reason (mostly because I've been asked, not because I'm a money monger) I have compiled a list of useful gift cards of places that I know are in both Oregon and California (except one... sorry). If you weren't planning on getting me a gift, I totally understand. If you've already bought one, I'm sure I'll love it! If you still want to and have no clue what would be useful, its your lucky day!

Groceries:

Trader Joes (this is my primary shopping locale currently)

Costco (also a biggie on the list of places I acquire the necessary calories to live on (and some of the unnecessary ones too))

Safeway (Emergency shopping, because its across the street from work)

Treats/Eating out:

Starbucks, duh.

Quiznos (also across the street from work and makes for easy lunches or dinners when I got up too late to make one)

Chevy's (the first choice to eat out for my coworkers and I)

Books: (because we all know what my vices are)

Powell's (only located in Oregon, but click this for a link to gift cards)

Barnes & Noble (close to work... though apparently a Powell's is too. Why do people tell me these things?!)

Non-Gift Card Items

WARM SOCKS! (self explanatory)

Okay. Christmas. Check.

Now, I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anyone.

Promise?

I joined Curves this week.

Now, wait just a minute before you assault me with all of your claims of my great shape. You may like to believe that this sassy little red head you love and adore is too beautiful to worry about such trivial things as her thighs, but that's where you're wrong. Its not my thighs I'm worried about.

You know those annoying questionnaires the doctor's give you when you become a new patient (and anywhere that does medical exams, mind you) and that long list of medical problems you have to wade through and try to remember if Grandpa has the cataracts or Auntie May had the hemorrhoids? See, my thighs, they'll always be there when I look in the mirror, and no amount of working out is going to change the way my body is structured. I came to terms with that a long time ago. But Auntie May's hemorrhoids?! Those worry me. No, not literally hemorrhoids, but my family's medical history.

It would worry you too if you saw it.

I decided months ago that living a healthy lifestyle was important, I just didn't realize how hard it was to be consistent about it. I've always worked out in bursts and starts, taking off seasons off, and only working out outside of practice because I felt like it. And then, of course, once I stopped practicing all together, working out was just simply out of the question. I tried a few times to take running up again, but I was too busy flirting and getting A's then. So sue me.

Now that I'm not "chasing tail" as they say, anymore, my life has become a little sedentary. Working at a desk: the pitfall of an adult job! Ah teaching, how I wish for you to come sooner. But, while I wait for the day I can spend all day on my feet (....woot?) I should probably get used to doing it on my own. And Curves is very low on the pressure and high on the cheerleading. I like feeling good for doing very little. Baby steps, baby steps.

Curves is covered then. That concludes my whirlwind assault on your senses (including your good sense).

Considering the way my week is turning out, I'll probably post again on Sunday. I'm sure you're thrilled.

Tootles!