Spontaneous reunion

(What's with all these people from my past coming back into my life these days? Should I be paying attention to signs?)

And this wasn't even Facebook-related.

I got a call today that an old friend of mine was going to be in town for one night. He's traveling with Mike Watt and the Missingmen, oddly enough, and they're doing this crazy cross-country tour where they pretty much play every night. Tonight they were here, at the Doug Fir, just over the Burnside Bridge. Tomorrow night they'll be in Vancouver BC. It's kind of nuts.

It's a Monday. You people should all know by now that I am not the kind of person who comes home from work, waits around a couple of hours for a phone call, then throws on Levis and drives across a bridge at 7:45pm just to reconnect. I'm good with a phone call, really, especially when I have strict rules about bed-times and routines.

But this is different.

It's always different with him.

I don't know what it is about a guy I've known since I was ten years old, dated when I was 19, and haven't seen or heard from consistently in 25 years, but whose birthday I always remember, and whose old phone number I haven't forgotten, and who comes to mind whenever I hear anything by Husker Du or X (which is surprisingly a lot). He's not the kind of guy that keeps me awake at night, the memories aren't so earth-shattering that I would pine for him. There's no pining at all. Weeks, months might go by without him even coming to mind. But if I know he's around, well, I just go see him.

Because I have to. I don't know what I believe about past lives, but I do strongly believe in the connections we make in our current lives. I know that for whatever reason I am inexplicably and forever drawn to this guy. Not in any kind of sexual way, I mean, not anymore I guess, it's not that kind of an attraction. Wait. Maybe it is. Or maybe it WAS and that part just became familiar, second nature, so now I don't think about it like that anymore. The end result of all of this is that he's out there, and if he's near me, I just go see him. Even on a Monday night at 7:45 and across a bridge.

I didn't stay for the show. I sat in the bar with him, and then we went backstage and to the green room while he put away his stuff, then we stepped outside for a smoke and so that he could give me a CD. I don't think I followed 85% of what he talked about (and he talks a LOT), but it almost didn't matter. I drove home feeling like whatever my showing up meant to me meant a thousand times more to him.

And it wasn't even that hard to do. I don't know how many people I would do this for (you guys are probably thinking "What's the big deal going out on a Monday?", but believe me, for me, it's pretty big), but there are a few. Lately they have been coming back (coming AND going, but that's just a pattern I have to learn to live with), and though it makes me happy, I have to wonder what it means.

So I'll go to bed (late, I might add, have you seen the time?!) and feel good and remember the good times and the times in between then and now, and know that the good ones in your life, well, they come back. Maybe it means something and maybe it doesn't. And that's okay, because right now, I just feel good.

Back at it

Well, here it is. Last day of my vacations. I have mixed emotions about getting up to an alarm, showering expediently, and sitting at a desk, especially how it relates to doing it at work. I've accomplished very much and very little at the same time these last ten days; I'm hoping to accomplish very little today. As a matter of fact, I'm hoping that I don't even have to shower today (the hair is looking rough but I don't really NEED to go out for anything..). The good news is I work for two days and then have a weekend, but I'm not going to lie to you when I tell you working a full week next week might pretty much kill me.

It's amazing how few things faze you when you don't have an agenda. Like waiting for my car at service yesterday. Or sitting in line at the Dutch Bros. Or picking the entirely wrong line at the Target (when I'm NOT on vacations I find myself mentally thanking the gods that I never applied for that concealed weapons permit). It was nice having so much free time on my hands and taking that little jaunt down to Eugene, but I guess all good things come to an end. And frankly I don't want to get used to not having anywhere to go because we all know what that means, especially in my industry.

So I guess I'm rested if not tan, and I suppose it's time to book air for the next actual vacation, the one like I'm used to, where I go somewhere with a pool and lay down next to it for eight hours every day. My skin is so white (I haven't ventured forth to tan due to Frances-less) it might just burst into flames when I get out there, but it's a chance I'll have to take. God knows I don't want my skin to heal or anything..

Quick jaunt south

Thursday I had the opportunity to go down to Eugene for the University of Oregon Women's Football Clinic. This clinic is designed to give women the basic understanding of the game as it pertains to the Oregon way. I know plenty about football, but the opportunity to be this close to the coaches and tour the facilities was too good to pass up. Maura was planning a trip south to drop off some items to her daughter, so she came with me. We met up with that Sara and Tootie from work, and all in all a good time was had by all.
I actually learned some things, which kind of surprised me but kind of didn't. Maura and I stayed the night and the next day did a lap at the bookstore, met Tootie and Nostraduckas for breakfast, and then took a lap of the campus.

I haven't been on campus in YEARS, and I may be biased, but it's just a fantastic campus. I don't know how a kid touring the school (and a recruit visiting the facilities) could ever say no. Say what you will about the amount of money spent on the facilities there, but if you were an athlete alum that had a shit ton of money to contribute, you'd contribute it to your own alma mater, too.

It was a great 24-hour jaunt, and a good time on every level. And it never hurts to get a little bit more fired up for Duck football.

Do I really have to say it? GO DUCKS!

Off

Determined to make something out of this vacation, I am waiting patiently to leave for a little over-nighter to Eugene. I won't elaborate too much about it because I kind of have the shakes (not sure why, it's not anticipation or anything) (or even too much coffee). I promise to take pictures. I know I said I would earlier this week but I just didn't quite get around to it. Now you all can see what I-5 South a couple of hours looks like.

I'm probably not going to Ontario this weekend because suddenly it's snowing like a big fat bitch over Mount Hood and it's probably a safe bet that going over passes this particular April is a bad idea. I should have known. I'll be alright with the decision, though, because apparently I don't feel like I've lounged enough this week.

Also I will not be having my additional Frances-less surgery on the 21st as planned. Instead it will be May 12. Maybe. The doctor wants the swelling to go down some and me to wear this stupid sock more. All I know is it BETTER HAPPEN THEN because I want it to be a memory by the time I board a flight to the desert.

I'll be back tomorrow or Saturday with an adventure I hope. Stay tuned.

Tuesday Tuesday

The cleaning frenzy continues.

Though I wouldn't exactly call it a "frenzy". The bedroom hasn't looked better since I moved in here. Clutter-free, vacuumed, dusted, organized. How long do you think THAT will last? That was Sunday's chore, so Monday, since I showered early (very necessary), I decided to go buy a Kindle and some groceries and relax a little bit. Taking a big fat nap at around 1:15 in the afternoon means pretty much I am not doing anymore cleaning for the day, so, yeah. I wouldn't call it a "frenzy".

The other day while racing to get to that Sara's house so we could hit the PSU Farmers' Market before the bell rang (?) I found myself behind a van whose driver either a) was still drunk or b) brought in a ringer when it came to getting his driver's license. I can't stand that. You're on a road where there is no going around someone and they are fucking around or lost or drunk and have NO IDEA what they're doing or where they're going. So I think what I'm going to do is run down to the DMV and grab about fifty Oregon Drivers' manuals, and every time I encounter an idiot going below the speed limit or turning on their left blinker to go right or not going at a green light, I'm going to pull up alongside them and hurl one of those drivers' manuals at them. I think it would be more effective if their window was opened, but I gotta at least try. I figure fifty manuals would last me about a week. I don't know if I could ever survive a career that involved driving all day. Just getting to the supermarket is enough to put me over the edge.

Today is a rare day on this work-less week because the forecast calls for sunshine. That makes me happy. And since I have bathrooms on the list for today, I figure I'll knock those out, shower, and maybe hit the outside world so that I have some picture content for TtheD. Wouldn't you all love to see what Portland looks like in April?

That Marita and Dave are delivering photos from their vacations in PdC and Tulum as promised. I'm sad that I'm not there. But there's no place like home. I guess.

On the Frances front, the wound appears to be healing. It didn't drain nearly as much as it had been in recent weeks (you love to hear this, don't you?) and it is itching a lot (isn't that a sign? I don't often have big gaping holes on any part of my body so I'm not sure if this is normal), so maybe we're turning a corner. It still hurts a lot though. I'm pretty tough, so it's no big deal (right.).

Well, blogging for me is the big procrastination tool, so I better get to it. Cleaning, that is. I refuse to let this week pass me by without some major accomplishments on the home front.

Plans

So I'm off for the next 10 days or so.

When I requested this time I had huge ideas of meeting that Marita and Dave in Cancun. One glorious week at VCI and then three days in Playa del Carmen. I researched, I almost booked. And then I realized I'm not some kind of Rockefeller so I didn't book. I probably could have pulled it off, but, finances being what they are right now, it would have set me back even worse than I am now. Plus with Frances* and all the grief she's been giving me, well, I'm pretty sure I made the right decision. Except right now Marita and Dave are there and I'm here and it rained last night. So despite it being the right decision, it still sucks.

So what to do with these 10 days yawning in front of me? Well, cleaning, for one thing. I'm not a really MESSY person, per se. But I'm also not like my sisters, at all. I used to make fun of Maura by saying she'd wipe down the coffee maker after she made a piece of toast. But really, it's probably better to be that frantic about a clean kitchen than to be how I am. Sure I wipe down the counters after I cook. I do the dishes. But I leave them "soaking" in the sink and drying on the drainboard (I run the dishwasher only when I find I am out of coffee mugs, so that's maybe once a week) for days at a time. And stuff piles up on the breakfast bar. It's sort of cluttery. There are too many small kitchen appliances on the counters and I rarely put the scissors back in the knife block. My kitchen looks "lived in", if I lived with three or four people. But I don't.

Living with kitties, I get kibble thrown about and fur on most surfaces, but that's just a part of life. There are kitty toys and strings and stuff they stole off the shelves scattered on the floors of every room, but I really only pick them up right before I vacuum. And then I put them back. Because the kitties get pretty bored hanging out while I am at the keyboard or elevating Frances or at work.

I guess my point is that for the next seven days I'll be cleaning. I'm pretty proud of myself for having done a bunch of laundry and cleaning off that blasted dresser that I use as a catchall for anything I may have worn in the last few days. The sheets are about ready to go into the laundry and I'm seriously considering emptying the vacuum canister and going to town on the bedroom floor. I figure if I can attack one room a day, I'll be in great shape to leave on Saturday morning.

Saturday Barbie and I are going to Ontario to visit that Helen, who, despite a broken arm, has agreed to put us up (put up with us) for a few days. Now that I-84 isn't a solid sheet of ice it's time to head back east. No big plans over there but I'm secretly plotting to get them to both go to Boise one day. Boise! The big city! I haven't been there since 1995 when I cruised through with a friend who drove back with me from Ohio. And even then didn't count since we just stopped at a bar and had a drink. I just want to see what it's like.

Meanwhile, here's what's new with the flipping situation on my leg: So the big gaping hole isn't really healing (I don't think anyway) and I ended up ruining two pair of pants with all the drainage (nice, right?) and it's not like I'm made of money so I called the advice nurse who suggested I come on by ~ I am now on antibiotics even though they did a culture and it is NOT infected, per the doctor, but my ankle below the hole is red, angry and swollen and it hurts like crazy all the time, and they demanded (after several more calls) that I wear support hosiery, to the tune of $35, which would have bought me another pair of pants, to keep the swelling down. It's an enormous pain in the ass and I'm not sure they'll go in and get the rest of Frances on the 21st like they wanted. I just am tired of this big gigantic wound and all it entails. And pain. I'm tired of that too.

So in theory, with all this time on my hands, I might actually blog some more this week. By the looks of things it won't be that exciting of stuff, but you never know what might happen when I throw myself out in public. Stay tuned.
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*Frances is what Whitney and I named the second nose. We named it a long time ago, and it's important to note that this is FrancEs, with an "e". Currently she is often referred to as Frances-less, but not as often as she was, because I know there's more in there and what is left is not letting me forget that she's still around. My leg hurts like a bitch.

Why I'm happy and why I'm not

Happy:
(Pay no attention to the really bad hair - I had just walked to Starbucks and, imagine, it was raining.)
I won the college basketball tournament bracket at work. I'm happy here because I won $200, despite having to split it with Nostraduckas. But, hey, I know nothing about basketball, college or otherwise, and actually don't like the sport at all, and I'm still $100 richer than I was Friday. I'm still broke, though.

Not happy:

I'm not linking to it this morning because I can't bring myself to look it up again, but the "60 Minutes" segment Sunday about the mortgage industry and all the fraud* going on there as it pertains to foreclosures pisses me off. Google it yourself. It's amazing that this was happening and they ACTUALLY THOUGHT they could get away with it. I mean, clearly they are, but now people know about it. Not that THAT'S going to do any good. But how the hell do you fix THIS mess? Good God we're all going to hell.

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* The fraud to which I refer doesn't have anything to do with originators and the shit they put on people's loan applications to get them into these loans to begin with. I still stand firm with the whole idea of "IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT, DON'T SIGN YOUR NAME TO IT." I still believe that if 100% of these buyers that feel like they were "forced" to get into loans they couldn't have a prayer of paying back just had a set of balls big enough to say "No" we wouldn't be in the mess we are in. But seriously, google it and it may just piss you off, too.

Bah

It's nothing for me to get up early on a Saturday, but 4:45am is probably pushing it. Today is the annual ALTA seminar for those (some) of us in the escrow world. I won't explain what it is except that I have to go because we're required to have x amount of education hours to do what I do and I have one. I'll get the rest of them today, but it means getting up at 4:45am and doing all the things I do on a regular work day. It also means not being able to grocery shop until tomorrow, and not hitting the Target until later, and a bit of grumpiness during my favorite part of the week, and a myriad of other things like figuring out if I can get away with wearing my slippers or how I'm going to get more water than what I've brought or finding something to wear that doesn't look like a potato sack.

I'm bitching because that's what I do, but I shouldn't be because this time NEXT week I'll be on vacation for ten days. I thought I was going to Cancun, you see, but my bank account decided otherwise. So instead I'm taking a couple of small road trips and cleaning. And just being on vacation. That'll be nice.

So there isn't much new except moving around from branch to branch some. I have a little bit of a crush on a guy that works in the building I worked in this week, but all I really got to do was some minor chit chat with him. Crushes are harmless (and I'm not altogether sure that the guy isn't gay, so this one may be COMPLETELY harmless, or worthless, one of the two) and give me some sort of motivation to shower every morning. I don't have them nearly as much as I used to, but that could be age (or bitterness, or both. Or even the fact that the one person I WISH had a crush on me is largely avoiding me).

Right now my only real work-related project (besides this that gets me out of bed and showered so early on a Saturday) is giving that Sara a list of rules that I feel is in her best interest to live by. She wrote some down (and named them Joyce-isms, which is the second time someone I work with wrote a list by that name, and the other list wasn't as nice as this one) and so I hope that when she remembers (learns)the rest of them she'll have a nice little list that I can post here. I think it's best for everyone to live by most if not all of these rules. Because clearly I am 100% confident that I am right about everything.

So, because it's Saturday at 6:19, and I have to leave in 40 minutes, I will sign off by wishing everyone except the people I will be seeing later a happy weekend. Somebody has to have a better reason than this to get up and shower.