goonies never say die

Friday, we celebrated our 16th anniversary.

We actually celebrated all weekend. Friday was dinner in Astoria at a favorite restaurant on the water, then to our hotel with a lovely view of Youngs Bay. Saturday, a leisurely start of late morning coffee and pastries at a hole-in-the-wall cafe, a bit of shopping, a visit to Fort Clatsop. Then a pretty drive over to Fort Stevens, where we picnicked on the beach and read and sketched for a few hours. The day was dry and temperate despite a fog that hung heavy and low, which made the whole day feel deliciously still, as if everything had just sort of...paused for a little while. Sunday morning, brunch and a stroll through my favorite art gallery before leaving for home.

At the last minute on our way out of town, and despite a soaking drizzle, we acted on impulse and took a quick detour to drive by The Goonies house.

The Goonies, you see, are part of the reason I fell in love with Sal. On our second date, when I sheepishly confessed a secret wish to live in Astoria someday because I loved The Goonies and maybe kind of hoped I'd discover my own well-creased map that led to adventure and treasure and pirate ships, Sal didn't laugh. He squeezed my hand and confessed he maybe kind of had the same secret wish.

A month before our big move to Portland, we came out for the first time to register Sal for culinary school, look for a job, and find an apartment. We had five days to accomplish everything, and a budget so tight that two loaves of bread, a package of deli turkey, a handful of apples, and small jars of peanut butter and jelly had to stretch for a week's meals. Sal's admissions coordinator tipped us off to a small local motel that was clean and quiet and affordable. We walked a lot.

Sure that we were in over our heads, we were country mice in the big city, just trying to keep from being run over. But being terrified can be good for you, and it was incredibly good for us, that terrifying and terrifically exciting adventure, that leap from the safe to the absolutely unknown. Our lives were never the same, in all the best possible ways.

The last day of that exploratory trip before we had to drive home was our fourth anniversary. Sal was officially registered for culinary school, the beginning realization of a lifelong dream. No job or place to live yet, but I had completed the registration process with a temp agency, and we were hoping to hear we'd gotten the apartment we wanted. We'd survived the city all on our own, and we were making it happen, this intrepid new future of ours. We'd managed to set aside a little bit of money to splurge on something more than PB&J for our anniversary and we had lots of reasons to celebrate. So that afternoon, we headed west on Sunset Highway for a late afternoon lunch in Astoria.

We had only just gotten the hang of two of the main freeways and the streets immediately around our hotel. Driving west, to parts even more unknown, felt like we were driving to the edge of the world. As if we might go flying right off into the starry black if we drove too fast. On our map, I wrote, "Here there be dragons."

But the edge of the world, we discovered, wasn't an abyss stretching boundless past a sharp cliff of earth. It was an ancient sea breaking on verdant mountains, breathtaking and serene. No pirate ships, but no dragons, either.

We were still trying to absorb this monumental change we were undertaking. For a week, we had ridden a fine edge between elation and outright terror, both of us wondering at times if this dream was too big for us, too much for us to hold. But on that anniversary, as we stood along a dock railing watching ships bigger than buildings slide through the water like glaciers, deep blue sky overhead and deeper blue water below, our hands clasped tightly, if only to anchor ourselves to the ground, the realization hit more viscerally than ever before: together, we could face anything. Even flying off the edge of the world.

We've been looking back a lot recently. Marveling at how far we've come, how much more we became because of the leaps we took, the chances and the risks gambled to turn our dreams into this life, this wonderful life. So there was something neatly, perfectly circular about celebrating our anniversary in Astoria this year, in our special together place, our edge-of-the-world place, our we-can-accomplish-anything place.

The place that we discovered adventure and treasure with a well-creased map.

in which i let my inner fandom nerd off the chain

Lunch first, then geekery...

lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• Thai peanut chicken (grilled on skewers)
• couscous with caramelized onions, green beans, and sesame seeds
• sugar snap peas
• cherries
• raspberries (from our yard!)
• chocolate-covered candied almonds**

**Okay, so this is pretty much the best thing ever, made by Sal, of course. They're almonds that have been roasted with a caramelized coating, cooled, then rolled in dark chocolate cocoa powder. They're totally cracktastic, and no matter how big the batch, it never lasts long.

On to the squee! This is a quick rundown of all of the non-TV geekery in which I have engaged in the last few months, and my ratings thereof:

Movies:

• The Hunger Games: A -- Loved it, despite the changes. When the countdown started in the arena, I damn near had a panic attack of OH NO THEY'RE REALLY GOING TO DO THIS NOW I AM NOT READY.
• Cabin in the Woods: A-  -- So thoroughly and hilariously Jossian that there was no way I wasn't going to enjoy this. Plus, Chris Hemsworth, freshly post-George Kirk, so cute. And Topher!
• AVENGERS OMG: A -- Who would have ever thougt that the Hulk would steal the show? I have never cared about the Hulk in any incarnation ever. Holy crap, Bruce Banner, you win the universe. (Thank you, Mark Ruffalo.) Plus, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark as nerdy genius buddy cops! Being all science-y and stuff! And Natasha and Maria Hill, not objectified or fridged! And Thor, Thor, Thor, Thor, Thor! (WHAT THE HELL CHRIS HEMSWORTH YOU ARE NOT EVEN REAL YOU ARE A PHOTOSHOPPED VERSION OF A HUMAN MALE.) And again, Joss' fingerprints were everywhere (for good and bad). Speaking of Joss, I had one GIGANTIC issue with this movie, the same one that someone else already tackled much better than I could have, so go read that instead.
• Snow White and the Huntsman: B -- Kristen Stewart cannot act for shit, and there were some plot gaps that were ridiculously lol-worthy, but it was fun and pretty and also Chris Hemsworth, which is all that needs to be said, really.

(It was a seriously Chris Hemsworth-y run, there. Thank you, movie people, for the 1-2-3 punch of hotness.)

• Brave: A++++++++++ -- OMG I LOVE EVERYTHING THIS MOVIE CHOOSES TO BE. A central character who's a girl! With agency! Who saves herself! And a mom who isn't evil! Or dead! And a story about a mother and daughter and how that relationship is complicated and hard and wonderful and also did I mention this story is set in Scotland and also that every detail of this movie was made specifically for me?
• The Amazing Spiderman: B+ -- Wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as I did. I have no particular loyalty to the previous franchise, but was kind of mystified about why they were rebooting so soon. But wow, that was fun. I see from various reports that there was a lot of butchery done to the script due to studio politics stuff behind-the-scenes, which would explain some big gaps that I was wondering about, as well as the lull in the middle. But despite those problems, I still enjoyed it more than the Tobey MacGuire version, which I didn't not like, so my reaction was a surprise.

Music:

• Waaay back in May, ProcrastiGirl and I saw Snow Patrol in concert, and I died of ecstasy. I was maybe 20 feet from Gary Lightbody. He was just, you know, there, right up there, just being adorable and Irish and amazing. And Nathan and Johnny and Tom and Pablo, all of them just kicking ass like it's a regular thing that normal people do, which it totally is not. And I heard my all-time favorite, favorite song* live, and they played for 2 hours and came out for 2 encores, and Gary's voice was gorgeous from start to finish, and everyone who said they are incredible live was so totally right. Setlist:  "Berlin (Remix)", "Hands Open", "Take Back The City", "I'll Never Let Go", "Run", "Hands Open", "This Isn't Everything You Are", "Crack the Shutters", "New York", "Set the Fire to the Third Bar", "Shut Your Eyes", "Chasing Cars", "Chocolate", "You're All I Have", "Called Out in the Dark", "Fallen Empires", Encores: "Lifening", "Just Say Yes"

*Arguably. I have so many favorites, it's like picking a favorite kid. But "Run" appears in almost every playlist I make, so.

I also just finished reading The House of Leaves, so my cult-pop geek cred is restored. Wow, that book was like putting your brain in a blender and hitting puree.  I haven't worked so hard to read a text since my engineering days (I'm looking at you, Differential Equations II). I know I probably didn't even catch half the embedded codes and riddles and cannot wrap my brain around the idea that a single person wrote that book. Mind officially blown.

we are human beings, not human doings

contemplations on life, the universe, and everything, from under the apple tree on a perfect summer eveningAutumn is my season, but I seem to develop amnesia about summer. I enjoy summer, too, but I tend to remember the hot days and sweaty nights more than I do the heartachingly gorgeous days of just-the-right temperature, maybe a lilt of breeze to make the windchimes sing a little, a bit of smoke from the coals in the grill, and a whole day to just be. Perhaps I forget so I can have the joy of rediscovery every year, a gift to myself that reminds me about blessing and peace and abundance. A reminder about my cup, so full.

Our long vacation endI come home from the beach each time with rocks and shells stashed in pockets. I tuck them around the yard in little collections like this, under fern fronds and other secret green places to remind me of the ocean. Sal calls them Bitty Vignettes.ed with the holiday last week, but I've been determined to carry over a piece of it into my every day. Trying to leave the office earlier than I have been lately, spending time on the patio and the front porch and the back porch, reading for a bit during the daylight instead of only at bedtime. Setting aside some daily burdens for another day, trimming that to-do list to the essentials, and then trimming some more.

We've been spending our weekend days in a similar routine: breakfast on the back porch, our weekend NPR shows in the background, cats demanding scritches behind the ears and good morning wake-up snuggles. Then to the patio at some point for most of the day, and to the front porch sometime after dinner to enjoy the last sunlight turning the bridge gold, and to the back porch when the bugs finally drive us to the protection of screens. We read, we sketch, we write, we grill, we talk, we putter in the yard, we sit idly by. Such a luxury in lives that are harried and hurried, too much of both. It's good, all this just being time.

I always think of summer as the season of going and doing, and I love going and doing. But there are also the lazy days, the sit-back-and-enjoy days, the I-think-I'll-take-a-nap-in-the-shade days. I needed the reminder.

lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• Thai peanut chicken (grilled on skewers)
• fried rice
• carrot sticks
• sesame green beans
• cherries