Do You Realize?

Let's Try This Again...

I just couldn't stay away.  It's been more than a year since I last posted, the night before our oldest, beloved dog died of a massive cancerous lung tumor.  Some things have changed, some are the same.  What's happened since then?

Poogan died quite traumatically in my arms a few hours after my last post at the veterinarian's office.  

My vehicular bad luck continued for another couple of months.  I was rear-ended a third time, and then I was front-ended by another. Yes, you read that right. I was waiting to exit a CVS parking lot behind another car. As she pulled out into the street, I pulled forward. When she was almost completely pulled out, she braked, put the car in reverse and backed into the front of my car. What kind of moron does this? The kind whose moron boyfriend drops his keys out the window into the street while the car is moving, apparently. Only, instead of continuing forward motion & pulling into the next parking lot ten feet away, she decided to put the car in reverse & back her car back into the parking lot, regardless of the bright red vehicular obstacle in her way.

We had another full battery of neuropsychological testing for Youngest, who has gotten an "upgrade" on his diagnosis.  The new flavor of mental illness is "schizoaffective disorder."  In a nutshell, he has the distinction of symptoms of both schizophrenia and some sort of affective, or mood, disorder (in his case, bipolar disorder), and that he can experience the symptoms of both at the same time or independently of one another at any given time. I know, upgrades are usually exciting to win, but for some reason I can't quite muster up any fervor for this one. Maybe it's the raging paranoia or the complete and utter lack of ability to connect with reality, but that's just a guess.

I never did post about our experience with Youngest and the residential treatment center, but that's okay, because he may be going back. We had a slightly emergent situation arise at school yesterday, and he's spending two days at home, and we have a slightly emergent Saturday double scoop of psychiatry bright and early tomorrow morning.

After more than a year of cheating on Louis trying another purse, we replaced my Louis Vuitton Batignolles Horizontal bag.  I even tried a different style of LV bag, but I carried it for two days and took it back for the perfect bag for me, the same exact one some skank stole that was stolen.

I made Jello shots for New Year's Eve again... all different flavors this year, none of which I really remember.  I also didn't take photos because my camera was doing crazy stupid things (which were later alleviated by purchasing all-new data cards).

We still love our water-saving toilets and energy/water efficient front-loading LG Tromm washer & dryer. And I still owe a review of the washer & dryer.  And we have a new Energy Star GE Profile refrigerator to love.

We got a new really damned annoying precious puppy.  His name is Keller, as he is very visually impaired.  His name was thisclosetobeing Merkin, as he is a black kinky-haired poodle. I will gripe blog about him a lot, I'm sure.

I finally went back to college!  I'm a Cougar! (This status has nothing to do with my age or my age preference in men.)  I've been wanting to do this for quite some time now, and I'm on my third semester of part-time classes.  

I'm still a master procrastinator, and I'll still probably only post sporadically, especially when life gets crazy. Which it does quite often here.

New Year, New Stuff

Hello, faithful (and not-so-faithful-but-who-could-blame you) reader(s)! I've had one or two kind people tell me they miss my blog. Thank you. To be honest, I miss my blog. I haven't written in a good long while, mainly because I've been content, but I miss it. So, my New Year's resolution is to start the blog up again, even though I'm still happy. How's that sound?

Don't answer that so quickly in the positive. The second most asked question I've been getting from Facebook friends lately is: How did you make those amazing looking Jello shots you have photos of from New Year's eve? So, today I'll share with you the wisdom of Jello shots. See? All that excitement over the return of my wit & wisdom, now wasted on Jello shots. Sorry.

As you may imagine, Eldest is home from college. When she learned we would be going to  Paul & Vera's for New Year's Eve, she made the oh-so-collegiate suggestion of making Jello shots. As someone had made some at a not-that-long-ago party and I remembered them being somewhat of a crowd-pleaser, even with our mostly-middle-aged friends, I decided that might be a fun, if not exactly good, idea. But, I also decided I wasn't going to produce boring, half-assed Jello shots either; if I'm putting in the time and effort to do this, mine will be memorable.

Via a website that would make your inner science geek laugh out loud with drunken glee, one which used the scientific method for making Jello shots, I found some scientific tips for some decidedly above average flavored Jello shots. I also found some tips that should be common sense to anyone with taste buds and a shady past: apparently Jello shots made with gin or bourbon taste like ass. Umm, I could have told you that, and I didn't even have to waste the time, money, or effort to make the damn things!

So, armed with scientific justification, I headed to the liquor store. An hour or so and several wasted stops later, I began to cook. Following you will find the basics of Jello shots, interjected with all the tongue in cheek you can stand.

1. Don't assume you have enough room in the fridge for Jello shots. Be prepared to take out the milk, orange juice, butter and/or eggs in order to make room, hopefully a whole shelf. Don't take out the wine. Simply relocate it to another shelf; milk and OJ are more dispensable.

 

2. The basic recipe for Jello shots is 8 oz. boiling liquid (generally not alcohol if you want good-tasting shots), small pkg. of Jello, and 8 oz. of cold liquid (alcohol, schnapps, or alcohol/water if the alcohol is strong enough. This can be manipulated in many surprising ways. For example, I used Starbuck's espresso roast coffee for the boiling water and used unflavored gelatin to make a super yummy coffee/Frangelico/Starbuck's creme liqueur concoction.

3. There are a few options for dispensaries for Jello shots: real shot glasses (not an option if you're making 120 Jello shots in 8 flavors), little paper pill cups that are used in hospitals everywhere (which your husband should NOT be asked to obtain, even if he is a doctor and should be able to hook you up), or little plastic cups (which come in teenie weenie 1 oz., which I think some hospitals might use, and don't have lids, or 2 oz., which are used by restaurants nationwide and are called "portion cups" or "souffle cups" and have handy lids, making for easy stacking). We finally found our cups at the liquor store, of all places; I guess savvy liquor store owners know that their clientele might need Jello shot cups.

 

4. A tip that I did NOT get until it was too late, and one that will definitely be used next time? Turn the cups upside down before refrigerating. Otherwise, most will need to employ the "Finger First" method of eating the Jello shot (see below). Tipsy, this isn't a big deal. Sober, some may be squeamish. Drunk, some may not be able to pull this off.

5. For maximum fun, make a variety of flavors and colors. I used a variety of liquors and liqueurs and had a good representation of color from the rainbow. Be creative.

6. Still have Jello shots well into the party? Play a drinking game with them! We used a very simple, but very fun, game that someone brought (which I've played many times, sans alcohol, and it was still fun), and after two rounds, we were making headway! After all was said and done, we had approximately ten of our one hundred twenty shots still standing.

7. Do not assume that just because something is a liqueur and not liquor that it isn't strong. I didn't get the hint that 99 Bananas liqueur was 99 proof. Mixed with (New!) Tropical Fusion flavored Jello, it produced a shot that barely gelled at the normal recipe proportions and did amazing puckery things to people's faces .

8. Do not play drinking games with two different sized shots. Some will invariably insist on reaching for the teenie weenie size when it's their turn to man up.

9. Coffee-flavored shots are good when dropped in a cup of coffee. They melt immediately & give you super-caffeinated, somewhat alcoholic goodness in a mug.

10. Berry Blue jello, while very pretty, really tastes like kitty ass, and therefore makes shots that sort of resemble kitty ass and turpentine. Or kitty ass and suntan lotion, if you happen to mix it with Malibu coconut rum. I will continue a quest to find something that tastes decent with it because of its important addition to the color variety, but I'm not really hopeful.

 

For those who want specific recipes, I don't remember specifics, as I was really just winging it myself. Generally, if I used a low-alcohol-content schnapps, I used 3/4 cup with 1/4 cup vodka to bolster the potency as the cold liquid. If you use high-alcohol-content liquor (or, you know, 99 Bananas liqueur), it might be wise to use water to cut the potency if you're aiming for palatable. The final flavors (and our clever names for them)? Maliblu (Berry Blue Jello with Malibu coconut rum), Cherry Cordial (black cherry Jello with vodka), Schnapps My Cherry (cherry Jello with Peach schnapps/vodka), Sour Midori (Melon Fusion Jello with Midori/sweet & sour mix/vodka), Emerald City (lime Jello with Midori/vodka), Tropicana (Tropical Fusion Jello with 99 Bananas liqueur), Just Peachy (apricot Jello with Peach schnapps/vodka), and Starbuck (unflavored gelatin, coffee, Starbuck's creme liqueur, and Frangelico).

Since I would be a bad person if I didn't state the obvious, don't consume all these Jello shots & think you can drive. They have more alcohol than you think in them. Have a Designated Driver, walk, or take a cab. Be safe. That is all.

A Tuesday Ten--Family Stampede Edition

I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but my family is coming out to Texas. Remember them? They will all be here, PLUS my aunt (Hey, Mimi! ) and my two rambunctious cousins, along with my dad's mother. Nine people. For almost a week. They'll be here tomorrow in time for dinner, I'm hoping. There's still a lot to do to get ready for them, especially my mom, who has special needs post-transplant. So today, to help me clarify things for myself, here are ten things I still need to do to prepare for my family's arrival:

1. Go to Whole Foods. Lots of fruit is on the agenda. And a water filter; there will be no bottled water, except Sigg bottles of our water.

2. Take the cockatiel to the vet's office and move the finch to our upstairs bathroom. My mom can't be around birds post-transplant. They stir up dust and potentially carry parasites that my mom doesn't need to be exposed to. I think my kids do, too; I wonder if the vet will take them, too?

3. Change the air filters on the air conditioners & vacuum. Sneeze less.

4. Visit Poogan in the hospital today. She will probably come home tomorrow, looking so fantastically like a Frankendoggie. I'm telling my little cousins and niece that she was being too loud and running around too much, so we cut off her leg; now sit down and SHHHHHHHH!

5. Finish shoving shit in the coat closet cleaning the downstairs. Clean the downstairs bathroom.

6. Mop floors. Obsess over a more efficient way to clean floors. If you're sticking the mop back into the dirty mop water, aren't you just swirling the dirt around on the floors?

7. Mow the lawn. Get some Agent Orange and kill this fucking nutsedge that's attacking my yard & gardens.

8. Move a different television set out to the outdoor bar. We're spending a lot of time out back, especially now that it's pretty. The other one isn't digital & we haven't cleaned behind it since we've lived here, and so to kill two birds with one stone, we took it out; I cleaned behind it, and we're replacing it with one of the kids' digital ones.

9. Plan the party we're having with our friends and family this weekend. Take a Xanax while thinking about almost twenty extra people in my house, smelling the ferrets (Oh! Clean the ferret cage is on the list, too!), inspecting my never-too-perfectly-mopped floors, noticing the dust I missed... yeah, okay, I know, they aren't really actually furrealz doing all that shit, but they are doing it in my freaking head, okay?!?!?

10. Did I mention take a Xanax?

Photo Hunt Saturday--Candy

Looks like I took a hiatus this week. Totally unintentional. Youngest is cycling again; there have been four separate therapies this week for various combinations of family members, as well as a huge medication change. Luckily, the medication change seems to be working; I even tested his boundaries tonight by telling him something he did not like and did not want to hear, and he didn't come unglued... success, however temporary, is a beautiful thing with bipolar children.

Now, on to the Photo Hunt! This week's theme is:  Candy. I took this photo in July 2007 while visiting Portland, Oregon. This was one of the most amazing doughnuts I've ever put in my mouth. I'd read about this little local place called Voodoo Doughnut, which makes weird original doughnut flavors (like Pepto Bismol, or Nyquil doughnuts, neither of which are still available because they might taste like ass for some weird reason). This is a Grape Ape, which is a glazed doughnut with vanilla icing, grape Tang-like drink powder, and purple candy sprinkles; sounds absolutely disgusting freaking amazing, huh? I have no idea what possessed me to pick this over, say, the chocolate glazed one with peanut butter Cap'n Crunch cereal, but I'm glad I did. If I close my eyes and concentrate really hard, I can almost taste this little jewel again... mmmmmmm...

A Tuesday Ten--Got Milk? Edition

On Saturday, Hubby & I spent several hours at a local farm whose incredibly tasty products we recently fell in love with. I wrote about this yesterday. If you haven't read it yet, do it now. Really. It will make you all warm inside.

During our time there, I learned a lot of new information about dairy production, and I learned a lot of  information I thought I knew about dairy production. Here's what I learned, in no particular order. As you'll soon see, a lot of hot button issues really simply depend on the dairy and their individual practices.

1. Mechanical milking is not necessarily bad for cows. In reality, there is no way to physically express all the milk from a cow's udders by hand milking, nor can a single calf drink all the milk in her udders. A milking machine most efficiently expresses all the milk, reducing a cow's risk of developing mastitis. As Todd Moore (owner/operator of Lavon Farms, which supplies the milk for Lucky Layla Farms' delectable products) pointed out, his cows show up willingly in the mornings at the sound of his voice to be milked. If the machines hurt them, they wouldn't be such willing participants.

2. Different cows satisfy different priorities. Just as different breeds of beef cattle produce different grades of meat, different breeds of dairy cattle serve different purposes. Moore's family farm has been raising Guernsey and Jersey cows since the 1930's. These breeds were chosen, Moore points out, because their milk is of exceptional quality, with high butter-fat and protein content, though the quantity is much less than other breeds. For example, Guernseys & Jerseys produce about five gallons of milk daily, whereas Holsteins produce at least twice that amount but of lower quality.

3. Pasteurization is necessary, but somewhat evil. We tasted raw milk while we were at the farm, and it was absolutely delicious. Unfortunately, the law prohibits any farm that has a creamery from selling raw milk in addition to the finished, pasteurized products, due to possible cross-contamination. Pasteurization, unfortunately, kills a lot of luscious flavor in addition to the germs. If run in a clean, safe manner, dairies can produce raw milk that is as safe as pasteurized, but the law is designed, I'm guessing, to protect consumers from the farms who are operating for quantity of sales, not quality of conditions.

4. "Antibiotic-free" is a marketing ploy which ultimately means nothing. Having organic certification means that we are guaranteed that cows are not being given a steady stream of antibiotics to try to prevent infections, thus possibly increasing antibiotic resistance in humans. Sounds okay so far, right? However, it also means that a farmer cannot give a single round of antibiotics to a cow who has a non-transmissable, but still painful, infection like, say, mastitis. Additionally, milk is so highly regulated that farmers have to submit milk for testing on a regular basis; if any antibiotic is found, the milk isn't accepted. Antibiotics very rarely will ever make it into the food chain; you may as well buy "gasoline-free" milk. Knowing your dairy is very important, as is being able to ask them questions. If you can't find a local dairy, try Organic Valley. They are a sort of co-op situation that works with individual family farms. Horizon Organic may as well be a factory farm; they've been questioned numerous times for pushing the limits of technicalities for their organic certification.

5. The national average lifespan of a dairy cow is a pitiful three years. I wholly believe this is due to the stress of constant antibiotics and growth hormones given to increase productivity; sooner, rather than later, those cow's bodies wear out. Moore's cows live fully twice the national average, and this cow, named Sybil, who was getting ready for an appearance at Whole Foods, is ten years old. And due to calf in June. Happy cows apparently live longer lives. Imagine that.

6. Calves weigh between 40-100 pounds at birth. I never, ever would have guessed this. Looking at these "adolescent" calves, at about 12 weeks old, I wouldn't guess their weight to be 200-400 pounds, either. Guernseys & Jerseys weigh in at adulthood between 1000-1300 pounds.

7. Gestation for cows is nine months, the same as humans. Sometimes human intervention is required for calving, but most often cows handle delivery all on their own. Hubby, who is an anesthesiologist, and I found it quite amusing when Todd relayed that his wife, after giving birth the first time, came home and proclaimed that all the cows should be given epidurals when they labor.

8. Calves do not stay in the pasture with their mothers. The first surprise that greeted us as we drove up the driveway was the area where calves are kept. I wanted to be appalled; after all, the calves are kept tethered to their own individual "cow house" (my term) and the ground cover is large pea gravel, not grass. Upon inquiry, however, we learned that the babies are separated very early to prevent sickness. Just like sending a kid to daycare, if one baby, with a weaker immune system than adults, gets sick, it can spread like wildfire. After 10-12 weeks, the babies are moved to a pasture with other youngsters for a time before heading out with the big cows. The pea gravel was very clean, and the babies were well-fed and well-tended.

9. Horns are removed almost immediately. While many claim it is barbaric, it really is for the safety of the cows. If there is ever a "disagreement," these cows will fight to the death to settle it, so horn removal is necessary if the cows are kept communally in a pasture.

10. Cows are very smart and each has its own distinct personality. Some of them were timid, some of them were curious, some were very loving, and others were simply indifferent. (This one, whom we nicknamed Bucksnort, would snort and hop around if Hubby quit petting on her.) But all of them, Moore insists, are very, very smart. Do not be fooled by the somewhat vacant expressions (I personally consider it "serene," not "vacant"); it's all an act.

Lucky Layla. Lucky Me.

Very recently, during one of my regular trips to Whole Foods, Hubby and I noticed a display of drinkable yogurts, produced by Lucky Layla Farms, complete with a sign proclaiming them to be "Local!" Always happy to support Local! farmers, we picked up six yogurts in different flavors, even though the price was higher than your typical, more widely recognized (read: factory farm) labels. We figured that someone in the family would drink them, even if I wouldn't; I think yogurt tastes pretty gross (and the ickiness factor of the texture is off the charts). We didn't know how right we were.

Normally, when I buy yogurt (even those stupid "kid-flavored" devoid-of-anything-resembling-fruit Gogurt tubes), it languishes in the snack drawer of the fridge for two weeks before the last one is eaten. Our Lucky Layla yogurts were gone in 24 hours. That's one day, people! Even more impressive, I ate one of them... and I tasted everyone else's to test the different flavors... and I didn't barf or get goosebumps because it had a disgusting texture... in fact, I LOVED it!

We all fell in love with Layla that day, whoever she was (turns out she's a champion Guernsey). So much so, in fact, that during a subsequent trip to Whole Foods, we not only restocked on Local! drinkable yogurt, we also bought two types of Local! cheeses made by Lucky Layla Farms, neither of which we had any freaking idea how to use. We only knew that we loved Lucky Layla Farms, and they produced this cheese, and they were Local! so it was all good.

It was during one of these blissful yogurt drinking sessions that I started inspecting the labels of my Lucky Layla Local! yogurt. I couldn't find any indication about whether their cows were treated with Monsanto's (i.e. The Antichrist's) bovine growth hormone. I am disturbed by this additive, and I avoid drinking milk containing it; not enough data exists to fully know its long-term safety. Knowledge is power to me, and not knowing something means I feel quite panicky in certain situations. I need to know.

As such, I needed to know whether Lucky Layla was lucky enough to be rBGH-free. I emailed the two listed contacts on the website, to which I received a rather impressively prompt reply that, "YES!!!! Our cows are rGHB (BST) free. We are all natural from the calf to the cart. We graze our cows and do not use a confinement type operation." Joyous expressions on my part ensued. Then I read further in the email, from Todd Moore (who owns Lavon Farms, which produces the milk for Lucky Layla Farms, the actual creamery). It said, "Please feel free to stop by or e-mail with anymore questions." Oh, Todd, if you only knew; if you invite me, I will come to see a cow.

Through a series of emails with Mr. Moore, I asked if I could possibly, pretty-please come by the farm to take some photos and ask him a few questions. I would love to write about it on my small but clever blog. And so it happened that Hubby and I awoke at six freakin' thirty on a Saturday to make the trip to Lavon Farms.

I could barely contain myself driving up the driveway to the small store/office where I would meet Todd Moore, his wife Deeanna, and their boys. (I also met various parents, which is how a good farm should be. Everyone's a part of the good life.) Seeing cows grazing in a pasture, eating from troughs in a pasture, was heartening; this bucolic existence is too rare in the United States these days, and it is priceless.

During the next three hours, I learned a ton about cows and dairy production, including the politics and "greenwashing" practices of dairy production and the food supply in general. Moore was a great teacher, speaking frankly and patiently enduring all my questions. A lot of myths I, and probably half of America, had previously held were dispelled during that time. (In fact, those misconceptions will be the subject of tomorrow's Tuesday Ten list. It's about time for another one.) I had planned on our trip being something of an interview, which I would type up here, but the more we talked, the more it just became a conversation during which a lot of knowledge was passed (indeed, I grew very powerful).  We very much enjoyed talking with Moore and his family. (Todd, don't be surprised if we show up again soon. You have a new fan club.) Hubby and I left feeling that this was the best use of a Saturday morning we'd had in a good while. I also left with a renewed confidence in my decision to consume dairy products from ethically treated cows; in fact, some of the more rabid PETA activists could stand to learn a thing or two about ethical practices from these folks.

Come back tomorrow to learn Ten Things I Learned About Dairy Production.

You Learn Something New Every Day

While considering plants for our large outdoor pots, we were thinking sago palms in one set and replacement Rum Runner hibiscus in the others. Then we remembered Marshmallow's tendency to snack on everything she can get her teeth on (yesterday she ate cotton burr compost like it was cereal) and decided maybe(!) it would be a good idea to check toxicity of these plants for dogs.

A quick Internet search ruled out sago palm; even a small amount of this plant will cause swift renal failure in dogs. But hibiscus is a different story. There are conflicting reports. Some lists of poisonous plants have hibiscus included on them, some don't.  And so it was that I sat on the phone for fifteen minutes with the ASPCA Poison Control Center. Nevermind that we had already purchased the hibiscus online. According to the ASPCA vet I spoke with, the hibiscus will cause some pretty severe gastrointestinal upset, but it is not life-threatening to dogs. We decided to proceed with the planting and place some chicken wire around the plants until they no longer seem like a novelty to Destruct-o-Dog.

So, that's what I learned yesterday. That, and hard manual labor outside with only dogs for company is not nearly as much fun as with a friend, with, say, speech capabilities and opposable thumbs and an innate revulsion to caprophagia.

Photo Hunt Saturday--Delicious

I'm back and will post a more detailed post later, but first, today is Photo Hunt day.

This week's theme is: Delicious. Both of my photos are definitely tongue-in-cheek and are actually a series of photos; facial expressions are key in these (you can click on any of the photos and get a larger view). Each is of one of my kiddos trying a new and exotic food. (Disclaimer: The photo of Eldest was taken by another teen in her travel group to Europe, but I could not resist including it.)

The first photos are of Middle after trying escargot for the first time. He is the child who is most open to trying new foods. I took these photos at Epcot (in France, of course), in July 2005.

 

This is Eldest this past summer in Belgium after trying "some gross fish." (I never figured out what that "gross fish" was, but it looked pretty tasty to me.) She promised me she would try a new food in each of the six countries she visited, and this was one of them. Her greatest culinary experience abroad was discovering, for the first time after 16 years on this planet, that she liked ketchup on her fries.

In the Holiday Spirit(s)

Once upon a time, my husband & I would have never even thought about going to holiday parties. We're friendly people, you see, just not social people. This year we have/will attend three. Three different friends, three very different parties.

The first party we attended was a conservative affair, hosted by very conservative friends. Dressy, formal home, no babies/little kids, piano player, catered, a little wine & beer. Perfectly lovely. I even clean up pretty well & put on a good show of being civilized, and I never once goaded anyone into talking politics or religion. We love these friends (also our orthodontist... all three kids and hubby), and despite our huge differences of opinion regarding politics and religion, they've never made us feel uncomfortable when we talk about it. (We think maybe we are their only liberal friends, though.)

The second party we attended? Lots of boisterous adults, kids playing Guitar Hero, handmade (and bought) munchies, disco, and plenty of alcoholic cheer. No one thought twice about my letting Eldest have one drink even though she's underage (we're those "bad" parents who teach moderation and responsible use, not abstinence). I had waaaay too much alcohol (at last count, 8 Midori Sours, 3 Buttery Nipples, 2 vodka jello shots, and a glass of Muscato), and a lot of fun. The host, also a doctor, offered a thousand bucks to the first person to swim one pool length in their underwear. We are definitely not their only liberal friends.

The last gathering we'll attend (she would die before calling it a party) will be a Festivus celebration. In my friend's words, "when I care enough to do the very least." Complete with Festivus pole and food (and wine) from boxes, this party is always very laid-back and comfy. We can sit in the living room or in the floor & drink a glass of wine; we can dress up or dress down. It's all good. It won't be rowdy, and there will be plenty of intelligent conversations going on.

Here's to friends of all age, intelligence, religion, political affiliation, and sexual orientation. None of us would be who we are without them!

A Trippin' Ten List

It's been awhile since I've done a Tuesday Ten List (yes, I know it's now Thursday... our internet is acting fickle), and there's so much to share about my trip to Oregon, I decided to shove some of it all together. And so, here (in no particular order) are: Ten Terrific Things about the Trip.

1. Meeting my friend RedMolly (yes, I think of that as all one word, for some reason) in person for the first time. We had a splendid dinner at The Farm Cafe and then met up with her supercool sweetie & their boys for dessert. Here we are:
 

2. Staying with my friend Kelly, who is lucky enough to spend summers with this view out her front door:

3. Voodoo Doughnut, in Portland. They have the weirdest, wildest doughnuts I have ever heard of. I had the Grape Ape (glazed with vanilla frosting, grape drink powder, and grape sprinkles) and a Maple Bacon Bar (glazed with maple frosting and two pieces of bacon). Despite all my gustatory reservations, they were quite tasty, and very interesting: 

4. The Farm Cafe. Speaking of all things gustatory, this place is beyond measure. We started with a brie baked with honey and fresh berries, then fresh corn risotto with smoked bleu cheese.

5. Recreating above-mentioned baked brie with Kelly & eating it on the porch, watching the sun set (see photo from #2).

6. The Portland Rose Garden, where I snagged this photo, among others:

7. The Portland Japanese Garden, where I could have stayed for hours and hours and hours and still be discovering beautiful niches I hadn't yet seen.

8. Averaging 42mpg on my road trip home in my "deer" car Pru:

9. The Peace Fence in Ashland. I don't know how far it stretches (a looooooong way), but it involves hand-designed cloth panels expressing sentiments of peace for our planet. It is a lovely idea, and it transforms a plain chain-link fence into a beautiful piece of art.

10. Hanging out for an hour or so with three complete strangers in Ashland's Lithia Park. I asked if I could photograph them, they agreed, and soon we were all sitting around talking about all things environmental. Very refreshing, and it made me want to be an idealistic 20-something modern hippie child all over again.