JOY!!!

Guess what opens in Olympia today!!!!! Trader Joe's!!!!!! I am not ashamed to admit that leaving Trader Joe's behind was one of the sadnesses of leaving Los Angeles. By the time we left California we were pretty much exclusively grocery shopping at TJ's. In fact, when we decided to make the move one of the first things I did was do a search for the nearest Trader Joe's to Winlock. It was an hour away in Vancouver - too far for regular shopping. Before we even left Los Angeles I sent a message pleading for TJ's to put a location in Olympia - not that I am taking credit for this or anything. Olympia is the nearest place to us that makes sense for a Trader Joe's. I am not sure that Chehalis/Centralia could support one. Today is our lucky day. Olympia is only marginally closer than Vancouver but we find ourselves going north more often than south so this is a good thing.

Joe's Os for everyone! ($5 Cheerios can suck it)

The Heart of the Home has Arrived

One of our more extravagant purchases during this whole shebang. Here is my lovely American Range.

Do you remember the Dodge Neon billboards from the '90s? The ones where the car looked all happy and said "hi"? That is what our toilets remind me of!

A Sad Little Affair

In an attempt to cash in on Chehalis' Krazy Dayz, the shuttered bowling alley next to the laundromat hosted a garage/yard sale. I was pretty stoked to have something to entertain me while fluffing and folding

Drew was with me. The first thing we saw sitting outside in a box were used beauty products. In the photo below it is difficult to see but that bottle of Lubriderm is 1/4 gone and has a sticker price of $2. Ewwww!I was interested in this duck - for maybe $3 or so. It is marked at $20 - a pair. There were no other ducks to be seen.

Does anyone know what these felt covered pieces of wood are for? They are for sale for $2.

Flares: $2 each

Easter comes early this year!

These were a steal at only $3 but they are kind of short for me would probably make my butt look fat.

Everything in this pile is a quarter. I defy you to find something in there that you would cause you to part with $0.25

And finally, what would you pay for a state of art cassette player boom box complete with am/fm radio? $30? I thought so.

I need one. Well. I need many actually.

@ CafePress

Yes, Please

Yeah. I want one. Don't need one. Don't have a place for one. And yet, I want one. Doesn't mean I should buy one. Probably won't buy one. I guess what I mean is I am glad something like this exists. Makes the world a nuttier place. And that is a good thing.

Yes. I am a consumer. I consume.

I try not to go too crazy purchasing a bunch of stuff I don't need. Once in a while I end up with a pair of shoes or a shirt that wasn't on my shopping list but for the most part I keep my consumption to a minimum (I wonder if Matt will laugh when he reads that last sentance). I surprised myself yesterday while in Portland and left a store called Cargo with this in hand:

A life-size ceramic bust with bugs painted on it? Yes! Absolutely a must have. I don't know how I have managed so far in life without it. As I was carrying it to the car (I didn't have them bag it) a passerby remarked, "well, you don't see that everyday." Precisely.

I am warming up to Portland Part 1

This post is a little late in coming. Last week I convinced Matt to take a half day off work and come to Portland with me. The way I see it, he has spent so many weekends in Los Angeles for work he can spare a few hours for me on a Monday afternoon. The purpose of my trip was to get some running shoes. No, I am not running. Yes, I am walking with the hopes of working up to running later. Does anyone else feel like their body was not put together in the right manner to run? Nothing about it feels natural to me.

First stop of the day was lunch at Wildwood.

Wildwood is a restaurant opened by Chef Cory Schreiber. He specializes in recipes utilizing ingredients from the Pacific Northwest. I am ashamed to admit that I can't remember what we ate other than it was moaningly delicious. My entree was akin to liquidy/cheesey/creamy ravioli with greens on top. The combination was sublime. In the chef's eyes I probably committed a cardinal sin by not eating the hunks of fried bacon dotting the plate but, eh, dead flesh, not for me. I didn't realized there was bacon from reading the menu description and I wasn't about to send the beautiful dish back. We noticed on the way in the Wildwood has a cookbook. With each bite I was more and more inclined to buy it. What absolutely convinced me to make the purchase was dessert: Hazelnut Chocolate Turnovers - caramel sauce, hot fudge and butternut crunch ice cream. Sounds like a pretty generic collection of ingredients but the crust was hands down the best I have ever had and the total package took the sum of parts into the stratosphere. Matt agrees.

After lunch we made our way over to the Portland Running Co. A helpful clerk had me running up and down the sidewalk in a variety of shoes until we found the pair that kept my ankles from rolling in and messing with my knee and hip joints. Matt said he found it funny to watch my gangley self running back and forth in front of the window. I came away with a really fast lookin' pair of silver/purple/white shoes. I swear they work better if they are pretty.

A quick stop at IKEA for another CD shelf and we were on our way home. We had signed up to stuff envelopes at the Lewis County Democratic Committee offices. How delighted are we that there is such a thing!

A boring week

With a precious few highlights. Most of the week was spent in front of my computer - sometimes I was working and sometimes I was pretending it was a fire up to which I was huddling because I am COLD! Today Tom is coming over and we are going to figure out how to better close off the living space in here from the garage bay. Brrr. This week wasn't all blah. We got a new/old tub. I had been trolling the internet and home improvement shops looking for a bathtub I liked. I couldn't find anything I was willing to soak my bones in for less than $5000. Call me picky but I want a bathtub with beautiful lines. I demand form and function of my bathroom fixtures. Anyway, up in Centralia there is a place called the Northwest Tub Company that specializes in refinishing and reselling old tubs. The lions share of their inventory is clawfoot tubs but I already had one of those and wasn't interested in using it. So we traded in our clawfoot for this beauty: I have christened it The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. One last note on the week, Matt and I went up to The Olympic Club in Centralia and spent the night there for our anniversary. Ooooh, fancy, a night in an ancient hotel w/ shared bathrooms a mere 20 minutes north of our house. Whatever. That's what a homebuilder's budget and anxiety levels have reduced us too. It was fun in all sorts of weird ways. The bartender a the Oly club was a spaz. Always talking, always asking questions. Complimentary with our room rate were tickets to the movie theater in the complex. We saw Stardust (words can't describe the mess this movie is) and I now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. I am not sure how that movie went over with the locals. The movie goers sure looked like good ole' boys and the movie's "acceptance and love for all (yes, even gays)" message might not have been what they were expecting. We at a ginormous pile of tater tots while watching the movie. Tater tots seem to be a recurring menu item in these parts.

The morning after our movie marathon we did some lightweight antiquing. That is where I ran across this alligator bag.

Words fail me.

American Dream

Look! It's our first "traditional" roadside mailbox. (would you like an order of 2.5 children and a side of dog w/ that?). The Postmaster came out personally to make sure we placed the box in the correct location.

Porland part II

Matt and I went back to Portland on Saturday. No reason, just wanted to get out and see something new. We went back to Food Fight for some groceries. This time I was smart and brought along a cooler bag w/ ice packs so we could buy perishables.

After Food Fight we weren't sure where to go. Someone mentioned the Hawthorne area and we passed Hawthorne on the way to Food Fight so we headed in that direction.

Hawthorne in general seemed a bit too hippy dippy for our tastes but a closer inspection led us to some places we will certainly revisit. First up: a gem of an Indian market. It is called India 4 You but I can't find a link or address to post. Matt bough a can of Petha (a pureed white pumpkin dessert) and I bought some frozen Rasmanlai (milk based dumpling-like pillows of goodness). Further along down the street we stopped in at Powell's bookstore for some browsing and then hit Pastaworks next door where Matt did some damage in the wine department and I bought a book to help us figure out where to go on our next visit to Portland (eat.shop.portland). After Pastworks we stopped in at Bridgeport Ale House where Matt had a few beers and I read the local weekly. Our last stop was Pho Van Hawthorne, a very noisy place for some very hungry vegetarians to eat some very tasty Vietnamese food. We started w/ crispy veggie egg rolls w/ ginger soy sauce, followed w/ more egg rolls (plus noodles) for Matt and curried tofu & rice for me. The picture above is of my Ginger creme brulee and Matt's Vietnamese coffee. Delish and Pretty all at the same time.

Portland

In the interest of fair play I must wipe my first Portland adventure from the slate. Portland just got it's first Ikea about a month ago. I needed to go there to price kitchen cabinets. FYI - Ikea cabinets are cheap to purchase but are very highly rated on quality by Consumer Reports. Now, as a reference point, we lived in San Diego when the first Ikea opened there and I don't remember any madness of the sort I encountered at the Portland Ikea. And as Los Angeles resident I used to enjoy a bit of minor complaining about what a pain in the ass it was to drive out to the Burbank Ikea and shop it's maze. Anyway, turns out I knew nothing of the true bottleneck potential of a visit to the Swedish Big Box.

First clue was the time it took to park. Second clue was the throngs of people heading in the door. Third clue - and I kid you not - was the man standing in the midst of his wife and kids who spread his arms wide and stated, "OK, now lets just ENJOY the EXPERIENCE". Dude, it's a STORE! This isn't Disneyland for cryin' out loud.

Trying to get to the kitchen department reminded me of trying to get to the front of the stage at a concert. Elbows were required.

Once I reached the cabinets I had the great fortune of stumbling upon an employee who was not with a customer!!! She took me to a computer and we began assembling my kitchen. She told me not to make eye contact with any of the number of people coming up trying to steal her from me. One lady even waved her estimate in front of us hollering that she was, "actually READY to PURCHASE her products, not just design". Sigh. I made it out fairly unscathed but I dread returning to make the final purchase.

I suspected that the Ikea errand would be bad, although I hadn't anticipated just how bad, and had planned a more enjoyable errand afterwards. Matt and I have, on occasion purchased goods from Food Fight Vegan Grocery. Not so much out of necessity because we had access to all sorts of stuff in Los Angeles, but more because we like what they do. Anyway, I Google mapped myself from Ikea to Food Fight for a bit of grocery shopping (because where we are living now is most certainly not as well stocked as LA) and a slice of coconut cake. After Food Fight I clumsily found my way to a Trader Joe's (Oh how I miss Trader Joe's!!!!) and then I headed home.

Portland part II

On Friday night Tom and I went to PDX to pick Matt up from his LA trip. Matt and I had planned to go out to eat after his arrival and we chose Pirate's Tavern as our destination. Then, on Thursday, Tom came by and asked if I wanted to go to Grandma & Grandpa's for the night, stay the day on Friday, and then pick Matt up. I said sure but we would need to take two cars unless he wanted to join us for dinner - and not just any dinner - a vegan dinner. (Tom's an elk hunter and this vegan business isn't really his thing). Anyway he said he would be happy to go to the Pirate's Tavern for some non meat deliciousness so that's what we did. The food was tasty and Walker, Tom's black lab, was able to join us at the table (on the patio) because the Pirate's Tavern is animal friendly.

So thumbs down to the Portland Ikea and thumbs up for the rest of my very limited Portland experience. I am looking forward to more exploration in the city.

Sorry for the bad pic. I didn't take the time to set it up. What's that in Matt's hand? It's a hammer from his co-worker, Tait. A very suitable gift. Also, Matt's annoyed with me for posting all sorts of dorky pictures of him. If he would ever grab the camera and take some pictures I would post those too but he doesn't so he is stuck w/ silly pictures of him on the web for all to see.

We made it!

Got to Winlock yesterday evening around 6:30pm. Our shed on the property was waiting for us. Kathy had a table of fruit, snacks and water set up to welcome us home. Let me backtrack a bit though and start the story from Los Angeles

We spent 14 hours packing up on Wednesday. We thought we were in good shape going into our last day of packing, having already pulled out and packed everything from every closet and cupboard and boxed up the kitchen. We were wrong. Stuff just kept multiplying. We took a break at 8pm and went to Sean, Xochitl & Finn's house for dinner and one last visit. It was a great way to spend one of our last evenings in Los Angeles. After dinner we came back home and put in another 2 hours of work.

The movers were scheduled to arrive Thursday morning between 8 and 9. They showed up at 7:20 and caught us completely unprepared. We were scrambling to get the last of our belongings in boxes. It took 5 guys 3 1/2 hours to load everything from the apartment to the truck. With every load that went down the stairs I thought to myself "this is the best money I ever spent!" Once they were gone and we were left with an empty apartment I went to work scrubbing the carpets trying to rid them of all the cat puke - sorry if I offended anyone's delicate sensibilities. Once I finished spot cleaning, Matt went back over everything with a steamer. Looked pretty good if I do say so myself.

Thursday evening Andy and his friend Rick came over and we all went to see the new Harry Potter at Mann's Chinese. It was a good way to let our brains take a vacation from all the move worries. After Andy left and we went back into our empty apartment I had a sobbing spell. I will miss Los Angeles terribly. And I will miss living so near Andy. It was great to have the chance to get to know him while we lived in the same city. We spent Thursday night sleeping on yoga mats on the wood floor in the living room - not the best way to rest up for a 2 day road trip.

Friday we woke up early and packed the cars. Matt's car, Friq, was filled to the brim with our computers and my car, Fraq, was filled with cats. Una, Lily, Russell and Quinten were completely freaked out at this point. I hired a maid service to come to the final clean and they were still at it, under the watchful eye of our manager, Judy, when we pulled out of town at around 10:30am.

We had a pretty uneventful drive (the cats will tell you differently) up to Red Bluff, CA where we spent the night. As soon as we opened the cat carriers Russell and Quinten ran under the bed. Una and Lily took things much more in stride. In case you ever find yourself in Red Bluff and consider staying at the Cinderella Riverview Motel you should know the following - Negatives: the bathroom is the sort of dirty that never comes clean, the towels will take off at least one layer of skin, there are cigarette burns on the mattress. Positives: they allow pets (this may be a negative for you), there is a view of the Sacramento River, there is a tasty Mexican restaurant nearby but I don't know the name.

Saturday we slept in a little and got back on the road at 10:30 again. The cats were less willing to get in the carriers and were much more vocal on the road. They would tire themselves out with all the howling, fall asleep, wake up only to realize they were still in cages and still in the car and start crying all over again. A little more than halfway through Oregon the scenery began to change and I started to get really excited about our new life. Our new place is only an hour north of Portland so that town was a major milestone. The miles flew by once we made it over the border into Washington and before we knew it we were pulling into our driveway.

The cats were unloaded and once again, the boys ran for cover while the girls explored every nook and cranny. There were deer having dinner in the yard when we arrived!!! After unpacking we drove into Winlock for dinner. Not too many vegetarian options on the menu at the place we ate so we ended up with grilled cheese (velveeta sp?) and tater tots!! ha ha ha! I took pictures of the Winlock egg and one of the chicken statues in town and will post them when I get my own computer set up. I am now using Tom and Kathy's computer.

Got back to our shed and set up the air mattress. I tried to stay awake for Kathy & Sharon's visit but I was pretty drowsy by the time they came by to welcome us. Went to sleep to the sound of trains in the distance, birds and horses. Woke up in the middle of the night freezing on a semi-deflated mattress. Stupid air molecules shrinking in the cold! Sometime during the night the cats discovered that there is an upstairs and we could hear them wandering around up there. Lily has staked her claim on the upstairs. Whether it is because she really likes being out of the way or is too chicken to climb down the rickety stairs remains to be seen. Una came to snuggle in the bed. Russell eventually came and burrowed his way under the covers. When we left this morning to come over to Tom and Kathy's, Quinten was still in hiding under the shower that is under construction.

I feel good about everything. No more tears. Ask me in 2 months if I still feel that way. Love to you all.