dear asshole in the truck in front of me

Despite what you may have been told, ownership of a truck the size of Mongolia does not, in fact, entitle you to drive like a meth-addled monkey. Indeed, neither your state license nor the vehicle title conferred on you the entitlement of squashing everyone in your path as if playing your own real-life version of Frogger. Perhaps that was a feature advertised to you by the salesman at time of purchase, in which case I would advise you to file a claim of fraud against him, since trying to run me off the road isn't going to be of much help in that regard.

It may also surprise you to learn that riding 2.57 centimeters behind my bumper for three miles and flashing your brights at me doesn't actually make me go any faster, especially when both I and the cars in front of me are already going faster than the speed limit. I apologize that five miles an hour over the speed limit simply isn't fast enough for you, but since my vehicle doesn't possess the capability for, you know, physically pushing the vehicle in front of me out of the way, your efforts at getting me to do so are sadly ineffectual.

And although it might have seemed temporarily satisfying to cut around and in front of me as soon as traffic opened up, it was not necessary to attempt to remove my bumper when you did so. You may be under the mistaken impression that my bumper was an optional and unwanted accessory on my vehicle, but I assure you that I do actually wish to keep it attached. Interestingly, bumpers mitigate the damage to the vehicle in the event of collision, so that makes them a very nice feature to have.

Lastly, I realize that flipping me off in the rear view mirror was your way of providing feedback after all that you had suffered while driving behind me on that stretch of freeway, and while I applaud free expression, you may wish to reconsider how you choose to make your opinion known. In fact you may wish to follow my own example of a smile and a wave as I passed you a few minutes later when that nice highway patrolman pulled you over. Just a suggestion.

Sincerely,

The Driver You Harassed On The Way To Work This Morning

signs that it's time to go back to bed and try again tomorrow

but the day wasn't all bad, thanks to a rare snow fallYou put your bra on inside out, wondering all the while why it's so hard to get on, and spend the entire day feeling like Something Is Not Quite Right.

The breakfast that you could've sworn you packed does not, in fact, exist.

You wonder what that annoying clicking sound is as you drive to work, only to realize that it's the turn signal that you forgot to turn off three exits ago.

You repeatedly enter your debit card pin as your computer password, getting increasingly irritated at someone in IT for no good reason.

Every attempt at drinking water from your water bottle has resulted in water dribbling down the front of your shirt and caused you to check for a hole in an insulated stainless steel container instead of, you know, your head.

My life, ladies and gentlemen.

lunch, black strawberry:

• salmon cake
• pumpkin seeds
• green beens sauteed in sesame oil, with black and white sesame seeds
• peas
• carrot sticks
• candies made by Chef Sal: nougat (with dried cherries and pistachios), chocolate caramels, and mango gelees

tragedy and triumph

The tragedy: my mom sent me a package for my birthday that was supposed to arrive last Saturday (18th) via FedEx. The package, I would learn later, included the last quilt my mom made (hung on the clothesline "so it would smell like home"), a very valuable ivory carving from a family friend she had received when she was a girl and that I had always loved, the carousel horse music box she had handpainted when I was younger, and her Depression glass candy dish that had been on our receiving table at our wedding.

When the package didn't arrive, we looked up the tracking number to learn that their records show it having been delivered at 8:24 AM on the 18th, delivered at the front door of our address, no signature requested. Which was impossible, because Sal was home Saturday until mid-afternoon and no one came to the door, nor were there any delivery trucks on our street all morning. The delivery driver confirmed a few days later that he had accidentally delivered it someplace else but couldn't remember where.

A week of checking with neighbors, multiple contacts with FedEx (including via Twitter), and their delivery driver checking a list of addresses in our area with our house number have turned up nothing, and the package is now officially unrecoverable. My mom and I are both heartbroken. (The tiny blessing in this is that at the last minute, she reconsidered including her diamond ring or my great grandmother's amethyst ring in the package.)

The triumph: So that has been a dark cloud over the whole of the week, tinging everything else. But life marches on, and so did we. Saturday, we finally made it to OMSI for the BodyWorlds exhibit, which is closing here soon and which Sal has wanted to see since the first exhibit that came through the year before last. ProcrastiGirl also wanted to see it, so she joined us for a fun Saturday afternoon and evening. Which worked out really well, because I had absolutely no desire to see the exhibit, so that gave Sal someone to go with, while I headed next door to the planetarium to indulge my inner astronomy geek.

Afterward, we stopped at Guardian Games for the first time, after hearing my friends from Nerd Night (aka neighborhood game night) rave about the place for months now. Stepping through the door was like crossing into Nerdvana. Their inventory is ridiculous (they advertise 14,000+ games in stock), literally wall-to-wall games of every sort imaginable, with game tables and vending machines set up in the back, and staffed by the most sweetly helpful game geeks ever.

They had in stock all three of the games we were thinking about getting for ourselves: Dominion, Pandemic, and my most recent obsession thanks to last week's Nerd Night, Last Night On Earth. Sal and I debated about what to get for at least fifteen minutes, and nearly walked out of there with all three when it became clear it was going to be a Sophie's Choice situation, but reason prevailed and our bank account heaved a sigh of relief, and we walked out with Pandemic and consoled ourselves that we would be back soon. Well, and also consoled ourselves with Zombie Fluxx (because even Fluxx can be improved with zombies). And my own set of swirly purple and pink dice, which means I am officially That Girl.

lunch, Paris slimline:

• last of the spicy meatballs
• boiled eggs
• carrot sticks and peas
• tangerine
• pumpkin seeds

proof that it takes very little to turn things around

Yesterday I was having...well, not a bad day, exactly, but a pretty intense one. Many things going on at work that needed close attention and I had (stupidly) scheduled 3 appointments for the day, two of which were in quick succession. Those latter two were late in the day, the second one ending just before I would need to leave for Nerd Game Night, which was a bit of a drive and would be at a house I hadn't been to before. And somehow in between all of that and before leaving for game night, I needed to stop at the store for chips and salsa (game night is a snack potluck), get the cats fed (incuding enough time for Smaug to rinky dink around while eating, because she's a true diva), change my clothes, pack today's bento, and have some dinner.

The grocery store was such a zoo that there were even lines at the self-checkout. I get up to the checkout and realize I've forgotten my purse, which has both my debit card and my reusable grocery bag.  Great, just great, I thought. This is the Universe telling me that today is not my day. It's time to go home, change into my jammies, crawl under the covers, and wait for tomorrow.

And then I remembered that I just randomly happened to have a few dollars in my pocket that might, just might be enough for my items. Which was kind of miraculous beause I never have cash. Not only was my cash juuuuuust enough to cover my purchases, the total came to an even dollar amount, one of the items on my list of "Things That give Me A Cheap Little Thrill". I love it when totals come to whole dollar amounts! It's like the Universe coming into balance, double underlined, with a red check mark.

So I headed to game night feeling a little less frazzled and played Fortune and Glory for 4.37 hours and then Forbidden Island and geeked out on LOTR and the adorableness of cats and everything turned out all right in the end.

lunch, origami squares:

• sausages
• molded egg
• roasted root veggies (with more under everything else) - parsnips and chiogga beets roasted with some onion, garlic, dill, and a little olive oil and salt and pepper
• steamed broccoli
• Golden Nugget tangerines
• sunflower seeds

and then we said "open", and everyone went bananas

Whew! We have officially survived the week of All The Things and are now on Day 2 of our Winterfest Vacation, aka Two Glorious Weeks (And A Few Days) Of Not Working Dammit.

The week of crazydom was not without its fun, however. Friday was the long-awaited holiday party at my office, and you will perhaps be a little surprised that a company party could be described as "long-awaited", and in some years past, I would agree with you, but this year...oh this year, I have a story to tell.

Way back in August, the Executive Team decided to "go big" for the end of the year party in recognition of everyone's hard work. We upped the party planning committee's budget for food, drinks, and decorations. We also decided to do swag bags, since our company has never really had products with our name and logo on them before. The swag bags would include a reusable shopping bag, a really nice insulated steel coffee tumbler, an insulated steel 1 liter thermos, chocolate bars with our logo imprinted, and polo-style shirts with our logo embroidered.

But that was only the start.

We usually have a raffle drawing every year for prizes (usually gift cards), but we wanted the prizes to be really big this year and for everyone to go home with something great. We couldn't send everyone home with a big screen tv or anything, but we could make the raffle prizes pretty spectacular and then surprise everyone who didn't win with something awesome, too. And when I say "spectacular", I mean it: 2 iPod Touches, an XBox Kinect (w/an NCAA Football game and the Michael Jackson Experience game), 2 Kindle Fires, 2 16x zoom cameras, an HP laptop, an iPad, 2 Kitchenaid Professional stand mixers, and a 50" plasma screen TV. For the remainder, the committee was given a list for shopping for the surprise gifts so they would know what we meant when we said "awesome": cameras, iPod nanos, Garmins, Kindle Touches, Wiis, Keurig coffee makers, cookware sets, and a food processor. (The Executive Team was in charge of the big gifts, so that even the committee didn't know what they were.)

So the committee has been on a series of shopping sprees for everything on their list for the last two months, increasingly running out of room as our storage unit. Space became even more of a problem for the raffle items, since we couldn't even let the committee members see those. At the end of the Executive Retreat on Tuesday, we assembled all the swag bags, then had to cram them all amongst our cars' trunks. But it was coming together and we were downright gleeful about what was about to come at the end of the week.

The committee worked their tails off all week getting the conference room decorated for the party (last year was the first time we did it at the office, and they made it look really terrific; this year, they outdid themselves). Wednesday, the committee and the Executive Team wrapped the surprise gifts, hiding things inside other boxes so nothing could be guessed. We stacked them all up along the far wall of the conference room, and I'm pretty sure that when everyone filed in at the start of the party, they assumed the prettily-wrapped stack of boxes were just for decoration to hide the IT station that runs the projector and sound system in the conference room. Little did they know....

The raffle gifts were set up on tables at the front but covered with cloths when everyone came in, with the swag bags all lined up underneath the tables. Once everyone was seated, we welcomed them to the party, took care of housekeeping (party schedule, turn off cell phones, etc.), then showed them the contents of the swag bag that they would be getting at the end of the party. We then announced how the raffle would work -- everyone got a ticket, which they would place in a bag in front of whatever item they wanted to try to win, and we would draw from that bag for that item.

And then the fun began. We slowly revealed each item. The iPod Touches were first and got a surprised gasp, and it just kept escalating. By the time we got to the iPad, the room was a constant buzz, and when we showed the TV, everyone flipped out.

After everyone had a chance to mingle and put in their tickets, it was time to eat, followed by a fun Mad Libs style game at each table. And then it was time for the main event.

The raffle items were a huge, huge hit. As terrific as the raffle was, however, the best was yet to come. "But wait! There's more!" we said. Pointing to the pile of boxes in the back that most everyone assumed were just for show, we told them that the they were in fact not for show, and that we would draw all the tickets of those who hadn't won, and when their name was called, to go pick one out of the pile. There were only two rules: don't shake any of the boxes, and don't open them until we tell you to.

Getting through the remainder of the names took awhile, and I think everyone assumed that whatever was in the boxes would be something okay, but nothing nearly as great as the raffle items. Maybe another swag item, or a set of knives, something like that. Nonetheless, everyone was still having fun.

Once everyone had their items, we gave them the go to open their boxes, and the next two minutes were the best two minutes of chaos pretty much ever. You know what it's like when kids are allowed to just go berzerk on Christmas morning and open packages all at once, and it's just a flurry of patterned paper and exclamations and noise and excitement? Now imagine that in a room full of adults who weren't expecting it at all, and who had enjoyed a glass (or two) of wine and beer, and you will have an inkling of what it was like for that two minutes.

It didn't matter that they weren't all iPads or stand mixers. They were nice gifts that no one was expecting and in many cases, wouldn't necessarily buy for themselves but really wanted. We encouraged people to trade if they got something that wasn't as useful, and by the time everyone left, I think they all ended up with something they were glad for. I tried to talk to as many as I could to find out if they had fun and to hear their individual story about whatever gift they got. For several, it was going to make a difference for an otherwise tough holiday -- a Wii for kids who wanted one but wouldn't have gotten one otherwise, or an avid reader who was struggling with sight issues but couldn't justify a Kindle, or a new set of cookpans to replace the mismatched set that were older than I am. A laptop that would make it possible to work from home, an iPod nano for someone who wanted but didn't own an iAnything (exact quote), a camera for someone who could now take nice pictures of the new grandbaby.

There's nothing I love more than giving gifts, except perhaps giving them to someone who really needed that little boost of magic and hope and joy. I've been blessed with some really wonderful gifts in my life, but nothing is ever quite as fulfilling as being able to do that for someone else. And Friday afternoon was some of the most fun I've had in quite some time.

Best. Company Party. Ever.

As you can imagine, the week was so busy that I'm behind on posting bentos, so there's some catching up to be done here:

Tuesday's lunch, Paris slimline:

• shrimp sauteed with garlic, toasted sesame seeds for garnish
• kale sauteed with garlic and caramelized onions (wow, lots of garlic today)
• brown rice
• sunflower seeds
• carrot sticks and steamed broccoli
• satsuma sections

Wednesday's lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• boiled egg,
• shrimp sauteed with garlic, toasted sesame seeds for garnish
• garlic butter dipping sauce in the little cup
• kale sauteed with garlic and caramelized onions
• brown rice underneath everything
• apple slices
• carrots and celery
• sunflower seeds

Thursday's lunch, Fit 'n Fresh:

• romaine lettuce
• boiled egg
• carrots, celery, radishes
• apple slices, mandarin
• sesame seeds

sometimes, you just need a good scare

Despite some questionable choices for entertainment, we had a lovely weekend.

Originally, Sister was supposed to come for a Girls' Weekend, during which we had planned to spend being all arty in the studio, then spend the evening watching scary movies and eating junk. Slumber party ftw!

Okay, about the scary movie part: I don't consider myself a scary movie person, but in reflecting on how many movies (and shows...Dexter, The Walking Dead, American Horror Story)  I enjoy that do have some scary element, it seems I'm into a good scare more than I thought.

I'm definitely not a horror movie fan (although I've seen my share), and want no part of the really gruesome torture-type horror movies that have been all the rage the last few years. But! I do love a good suspense flick, and grew up on Hitchcock films thanks to my mom, who is a fan.

the cat creature from that episode of Scooby Doo...even looking at it now give me a shiverHowever. I am also seriously afraid of the dark, and basements, and I live in an old house, which is the holy trifecta of terror, and I have an intensely active imagination. No, I mean a really active imagination. Like, so active that an old episode of Scooby-Doo gave me a recurring nightmare well into my adolescent years. Scooby-Doo, you guys! So if there's a movie that has a reputation for scaring people, people who are generally pretty jaded about scary movies and not easy to freak out, that is a movie I will add to my "Do not watch this movie on purpose or by accident for that way lies badness" list.

Two such movies that I have therefore assiduously avoided: The Ring and Paranormal Activity. When the TV previews are enough to make you freak out, that's a good sign that the movie in question is not for you.

But I, in a sudden burst of inspiration for something fun to do, proposed to Sister that we should watch these two movies together. We are both very much alike in the scary movie department, which means we spend most of the movie with our eyes covered and ears plugged. Yet somehow, I thought to myself, "You know what would be really fun? To watch a scary movie with someone who gets just as freaked out as I do, and be cowards together and then not be able to turn off any of the lights. HEY I KNOW WE SHOULD TOTALLY WATCH THOSE TWO MOVIES THAT ARE GENERALLY AGREED TO BE PRETTY DAMN TERRIFYING."

Brain damage. It's seriously the only explanation I have.

In the few days leading up, I was having serious second thoughts. I even offered Sister an out -- under the guise of concern for her, not admitting my own trepidation, oh no -- but when she replied that she was really excited about it, I started to realize I may have made a big mistake.

A last minute change of plans may have saved me from myself, however. When a friend offered to take the Fabulous Miss M for the weekend, Guy joined us for a fearsome foursome of fun times. It meant that Sal would have someone to do fun stuff with while Sister and I were holed up in the studio (the fun stuff, as it turned out, being a pub crawl for most of Saturday afternoon) but more importantly, it meant that Sister and I would not be watching the aforementioned scary movies by ourselves, AND even more importantly, that neither of us would be relegated to sleeping alone in wide-eyed terror, paralyzed in fear at every stray noise and imagined monster.

So the movies weren't quite as terrifying as I'd long feared. The Ring was scary and disturbing, but won't scar me for life, thankfully. Paranormal Activity was scary, too, but there were long stretches of boredom and annoyance (and if you've seen it, you know why) that diluted it -- basically, all the same problems that The Blair Witch Project had minus the shaky handicam.

Which is to say, we survived! No nightmares, no sweat-soaked sheets, no shaking awake of our long-suffering husbands in the early morning dark with terrified whispers of "Did you hear that?" Maybe they'd been built up far more than they could live up to, or maybe we're not as easily affected. Are we getting braver? Less easily-scared? More mature?

Probably a combination of all of those things. I mean, my fear of the dark is far less acute than it used to be, and living in an old house means getting used to unidentified noises if you want to keep your sanity. Plus, all those movies and shows have probably built up my tolerance levels.

But I won't be going into the basement any time soon.

tomorrow: Part 2 of our lovely weekend, which will include a recipe from Chef Salvatore.

wicked fun

So at the last couple of neighborhood game nights, the game du jour has been a collaborative RPG called Arkham Horror. It is, in a word, awesome. There are eighty bajillion little cards and intricate character stories and monsters and big bads and weapons and MATH and COLOR CODING and ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS and OMG HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS GAME EXISTED BEFORE. Oh my little rational mastermind heart goes pitter pat just thinking about it.

Both the night following the first time we played, as well as last night, my dreams were occupied with Lovecraftian monsters and figuring out how many die I need to close a gate and strategizing what combination of Fight, Sneak, Lore, Will, Speed, and Luck I'm going to need for the next round. CLEARLY THIS IS A SIGN I NEED TO PLAY THIS GAME ALL THE TIME.

lunch, Paris slimline:

• smoked sausages
• boiled eggs
• green beans (more underneath the sausages and eggs)
• carrots and celery sticks
• dark chocolate with orange zest
• dried cherries

like a girl at the ball, and my dance card is full

The crazy train that has been our lives (and more specifically, my life) has slowed down from "death defying" to "breakneck", and our/my reward for surviving is a pile-up of several things we've been looking forward to for a long time. A trip to the coast, time off to write, Hall-Smiley family time, apple festivals, wedding cake judging competitions, and more.

And things kick off this week with an awesomeness double-header: neighborhood game night tomorrow and Thursday night season premieres (Community, Parks & Recreation, The Office, and 30 Rock) with ProcratiGirl. Look at me being all social butterfly up in here.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• potato soup (srsly, I made a vat of it Sunday night)
• carrots & celery
• Honeycrisp! apple
• dried cherries and cashews

summer begins to have the look, peruser of enchanting book

Fall is definitely here. It's my favorite season, all bright, crisp days and cool, clear nights. Or gray and rainy like it was this weekend. I love everything about it, from the smell and feel of the air to the turning leaves to the heavy sweaters and abundance of produce and craving for hearty comfort foods. And, joy of joys, Honeycrisp apples!

We were fortunate to not have a whole lot on the docket at Hall House, which meant that I could spend most of the day curled up in the library with a new book, and fall asleep in my chair for an impromptu afternoon nap. It also meant time to get laundry done without it feeling like a chore (folding while watching movies), and to stay on top of the dishes (always a challenge without a dishwasher), and to write for a good long stretch of time while Sal helped a friend harvest their hops (and coming home with a nice bounty as a result). It was the best sort of weekend, a combination of productive and leisurely, cozy and restful and restorative.

With such weather that makes a person crave hearty comfort foods, it's little wonder that Sunday night dinner would be something thick and creamy and served with crusty artisan bread and likely to put a person to sleep after two overflowing bowls full. Which we totally didn't have. We also totally didn't follow that with a slice of opera cake and a dollop of malted chocolate ice cream. We're all about moderation here at Hall House.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• oatmeal with raisins and maple syrup
• Honeycrisp apple slices

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• potato soup (potatoes, spaetzle, corn, celery, dill)
• peas and carrots
• Honeycrisp apple half
• opera cake

title taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickenson, "Part Five: The Single Hound, LXV"

it's just a flesh wound

I took Friday off and headed to the coast to get away from the mid-90s that've plagued us for the last several days. (Seriously, we have had some cracked out weather this year.  Highest temps of the year in September? And we still never hit triple digits, which we usually do at least once or twice. I should be thankful that at least it didn't approach 100....) Just me, some good music, a few snacks, a book, and the open road.

Heading west was the right idea. It was 25 to 30 degrees cooler in Astoria, with a heavy fog bank sitting just a few miles offshore all day and all of Cape Disappointment enveloped in mist. I opted to head to the other side of mouth of the Columbia at Fort Stevens, all around the Jetty Lagoon and up to the observation tower at the South Jetty. (Where I could see across to the river and the North Head lighthouse where we were just a couple of weeks ago.)

see more pics here

While I was on my little Kerouac-esque sojourn, I made the mistake of checking G+ and saw that Sal had posted a pic of an injury sustained while he was test riding a new bike. Beneath the pic of his hand, all scraped and bloodied, he added the note, "Honey, I'm okay :-)". Which are usually the words that precede "I'm at the emergency room". He wasn't, thankfully, but I still worried about him all the way home.

My suspicion that he was hurt worse than the pic showed was confirmed later that night, when he arrived home from work limping. The hand was the least of his injuries -- he'd landed on his knee, which was now swollen and bruised, and sprained his ankle. And then spent the night on his feet on a concrete floor, with neither injuries bandaged.

So we've spent the weekend keeping everything iced, compressed, and elevated as much as possible. Of course, he's an irascible patient, stubbornly insisting on getting up to do things instead of letting me do them for him, and arguing every time I tell him to sit still. Guy, Sister, and the Fabulous Miss M were here to visit for the weekend, and nothing was going to stop him from playing at the park with Miss M, not even a moderate injury. He seems genuinely surprised to find out he's both mortal and destructible, and it's seriously the Knights of Ni all up in here.

lunch, Laptop Lunch:

• enchiladas
• salad (romaine, tomatoes, carrots, celery) with dressing in the condiment cup
• red grapes
• berry swirl cheesecake that Sal made and that I am officially in love with

whose slender roots entwine altars that piety neglects

Oh the adventures we have had! So many to tell you!

Like Wednesday night's neighborhood game night, hosted at our house. Or Friday night catching up and watching stuff with ProcrastiGirl. And yesterday, Sal rode in the Bridge Pedal, which is a bike ride that covers 35 miles and ten of the city bridges (including the St. Johns Bridge). (Which means Sal logged almost 55 miles, since it was 9+ miles to the starting point and then the same distance home.) And afterward, we did up a big ol' batch of stir fry on the patio, because life is ridiculously good.

Saturday, while we took our time over the brunch Sal made, talking about what to do with the day, we decided we were long overdue for a driveabout. We were getting a late start, so we needed a closer destination than, say, the coast. We decided on Vernonia, since we haven't explored much of the Coast Range that lies between Hwy 26 and Hwy 30.

We often pack a picnic for a driveabout, but didn't have much in the fridge that wouldn't take some prep time, so we decided instead just to grab a few snacks and our water bottles and go. Daylight was burning, after all. (You'll note I didn't say "sunlight", as it was overcast almost all day. But still temperate and nice, so no complaints here.)

Vernonia is situated in a little valley in the forested hills of the Coast Range. (Which sort of makes it a mountain town if you consider the Coast Range mountains. We don't, but the rest of Oregon does, so.) We took the Scappoose-Vernonia Highway from Hwy 30, a two-lane highway winding through deep, dark (I mean dark) forest and up and over the hills/mountains.

the Nehalem River at Hawkins ParkIt's a nice little town, a bit bigger than I imagined, with a slightly-larger-than-a-pond lake at one end and the perennially-flooding Nehalem River running through the middle. We stopped at Hawkins Park, which sits right alongside the river. They've built an ingenious little dam there to create a nice swimming hole (in lieu of a city pool, presumably), complete with a concrete embankment so you don't have to walk in dirt to get to the water, a ladder over the side down into the deep end, a wooden lifeguard stand, and a charming bank of lockers. They even used a water diversion to one side to create a wading pool for little ones. It wasn't warm enough to draw swimmers while we there, not even brave ones, but it wasn't hard to imagine what it must be like on hot summer days.

Setting for a creepy horror flick? Do we commit the mortal sin of slasher films and go investigate the creepy abandoned building? Yes, yes we do.We headed to the lake next, where there's a nice paved walking path that skirts the perimeter. About a quarter of the way around, there's an abandoned building off the path about a hundred feet. According to the placard on the walking path, it's an old fuel house for a now vanished cedar mill. (The "lake", as it turns out, is the old mill pond.)  It stored cedar chips to stoke the mill furnaces. It now has trees growing inside it. I love the poetry of that. Of course we had to look inside. And if I had woken up that morning with the intent to have an adventure, I couldn't have planned a more perfect discovery of treasure.

inside, a marvelous surpriseThe interior was like something out of a story. All four concrete walls completely intact, seven trees growing around the interior's perimeter, with sword ferns and bracken ferns and vine maples spreading out in the corners. The walls are decorated with colorful graffiti in more imaginative style than mere tagging, collectively creating the effect of a mural. And every sound echoes so that you speak softly and sparingly. A row of concrete platforms running down the center look like old stone seats from some ancient pagan ritual site, one that's so old that no one knows for certain just who built it or what they built it for, and combined with the simple peaked roof gables and the light slanting in through the trees, it has the look of a cathedral.

We still had some time before we needed to head home, so instead of our snacks, I suggested the restaurant that had caught my eye as we drove through town. It was really the word "brewery" that caught my eye, because Sal loves few things more than trying a new beer in a new town wherever we go, and I have had long experience looking for the signs of such things.

The Blue House Cafe, Espresso Bar, & Brewery, as it turns out, was just as much of a treasure as the mill ruin had been.The interior is charmingly decorated, all yellow and cobalt blue, with delightful touches here and there (like the beaded curtain made of wine corks and the blue painted nail heads throughout) and an ingenious outdoor seating area. It's a quaint restaurant serving time-tested family recipies and run by people who obviously care very much about what they do.

Their menu is largely Mediterranean and everything sounded wonderful, although that's one of the toughest cuisines for me personally since there are usually several key ingredients I just can eat. (Feta, kalamata olives, lamb, gorgonzola, pepperoncinis...I could go on, but it's just depressing.) Which means scanning for something innocuous or that doesn't have too many ingredients to ask them to hold, all the while wishing I could eat more than my frustrating palate allows.

We settled on the zataar flatbread, one with feta (for him), one without (for me). No idea what zataar was, but it was an adventure and that means you have to try things without knowing everything that's in them. He ordered their porter, I ordered a lemonade. Sal said the beer was decent, though nothing to write home about. The lemonade looked more like iced tea when it came, but I wasn't feeling particularly picky so I took a sip anyway. It was indeed iced tea, but so good I was glad for the accidental mix-up. It was infused with fresh mint and sweetened with brown sugar, so it had a delicious, crisp summery flavor that was most refreshing.

PLEASE SAL FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THIS FOR ME I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER AND EVER AMENOur order arrived and with the first bite, I was in love. The flatbread was handmade and still warm, the zataar (a blend made of thyme, sumac, sea salt, and sesame seeds all ground together very finely) was mixed with olive oil and spread on the toasted flatbread, then topped with fresh tomato, cucumber, and onion. It was, in a word, heavenly. It may possibly have supplanted bruschetta as my favorite summertime treat. I'm still thinking about that meal two days later, and thinking a day trip to Vernonia may just have to be on our regular excursion list from now on.

You always take a chance on a driveabout that your search for adventure will end up being an uneventful day's drive in the car to nowhere in particular. You'll take your chances with the doubtful looking roadside cafe and it'll turn into a bust as often as naught. You'll point to a place on the map and arrive to find nothing much of interest. You'll have car trouble that is funny in retrospect, but anything but enjoyable at the time.

Still, even the least eventful driveabouts have their special moments: the hilarity that becomes a future in-joke, the music that imprints the moment just so, the odd sign or bizarre sight that makes you both go, "Did you just see...?" If they didn't, we wouldn't keep taking them. But every once in awhile, the search for a bit of adventure will turn up a little bit of mystery and a little bit of magic alongside those memories, and then you're hooked for life.

see the full set of pictures here

lunch, Paris slimline:

• stir fry (chicken, collard greens, baby bok choi, green beans, onion, garlic, broccoli, and a special sauce blend) with jasmine rice and crushed cashews for garnish
• cucumbers and carrots in rice wine vinegar
• a few bites of zucchini-sweet potato bread, courtesy of the neighbor who brought it for game night lst week
• blueberries (from our bushes!) and cherries

title taken from "Among the Ruins of a Convent in the Apennines" by William Wordsworth

party all the time, party all the time, party all the ti-ime

And now you'll have that song in your head all day. You're welcome.

We had an inadvertent weekend of parties, hootenannies, and shindigs. As in, we didn't really plan it that way, it just sort of happened.

Witness: Friday was my company picnic and yesterday was a house warming* followed by the monthly neighborhood Happy Hour potluck. As if we're all trying to cram a full summer into the considerably shortened season we've been stuck with this year.  It's surprisingly exhausting kicking back and having fun, but doubly so when you're making up for lost time by tripling up on the festivities.

I know, right? These are just tough problems to have....

*One of Sal's coworkers was celebrating being back in their newly-renovated home. They had had a fire in their basement that caused extensive smoke damage to the rest of the house and necessitated basically gutting it and rebuilding the inside, as well as having everything that could be salvaged cleaned and restored. It took 14(!) months, but their house looks terrific and you would never know that it had been the site of such a terrible event. Since their house had already been warmed quite enough by the fire, thankyouverymuch, the party was actually a "house chilling".

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• Tuscan roasted turkey breast, with a bit of romaine lettuce to eat it with
• carrots and cucumbers
• rosemary roasted potatoes
• cantaloupe and cherries
• garlic dill cheese curds
• cashews and dark chocolate-covered raisins

on losing a bet

Because I lost a bet, I had to pack a bento for a coworker.

My friend and co-worker Tony, who has worked at my company almost as long as I have, rides his bike to work every day. Because of Sal's passion for biking, and his own impressive work commute, I've picked up a lot about the whole lifestyle of being a cyclist in a car culture (and more specifically, being a cyclist in Portland's very active cyclist culture), which means that it's one of the topics Tony and I talk about when we're avoiding work bored picking on each other chit chatting in the midst of being totally productive and not in any way wasting time.

It was during one of these totally productive and work-related conversations that I said that I thought that the saddlebags Sal uses are bigger than the ones Tony uses. Even though he's never seen them, Tony said they weren't, that they only make one size. Call it the sibling nature of our relationship, but next thing we know, we're betting on who's right. WHAT CAN I SAY IT WAS A MORE PRODUCTIVE DAY THAN USUAL.

At stake: two Green & Black's chocolate and almond bars if I win, a bento packed by me if he wins. And because he's an accountant down to his very DNA, and the importance of precision and accuracy were drilled into me by my engineering professors -- which means we are both monumental nerds -- we proceeded to very carefully measure the dimensions of his saddlebag, each of us verifying the reading of the ruler and making careful notes, along with stipulations as to exactly where the measurements were taken along the body of the saddlebag. I WASN'T KIDDING ABOUT THE PRECISION AND ACCURACY PART OKAY.

I brought Sal's bag in the following week and we performed the same measurements. Even though Tony said when I brought it in, "Well obviously it's the same size. I won't humiliate you by measuring it." And I was all, "Respect the rules of the bet, yo." Besides, my ME professor would have my hide if he knew I hadn't verified my measurements.

So I lost the bet. In the meantime, he had ordered his very first bento box thanks to that presentation I did a couple of months ago. And when it arrived, he announced that the first lunch to be packed in it, the inaugural bento, as it were, would be the one I packed to discharge my bet obligation. NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING. But also: awww.

Tony's lunch, Concorde XL:

• salmon cakes
• sushi rice with green beans and carrot shapes for garnish
• corn as gap filler
• stir fry mixed veggies (green beans, onions, red pepper, broccoli, mushroom)
• carrot sticks as baran
• part of a Pink Lady apple, and raspberries and blueberries picked from our own bushes!
• strawberry Pocky

my lunch, purple bento colors

• salmon cakes
• sushi rice with carrot shapes for garnish
• steamed broccoli
• part of a Pink Lady apple with corn as gap filler
• Rainier cherries with raspberries and blueberries
• strawberry Pocky

It was a real challenge to fill such a large box (900 mL), especially for someone whose dietary needs are much different than mine. I stuck more closely to the 3:2:1 guideline than I do for mine, We'll see if it ends up being enough for him....

an azure depth, a wordless tune

the view from Cape Meares on a sunny, windless dayContinuing with recounting our vacation adventures, though it took a little longer than anticipated....

After leaving our cabin at Oceanside, we made the requisite stop at Cape Meares. It never gets old no matter how many times we go, but the weather was particularly nice and there was no wind, which is significant up on the bluff where the lighthouse is located. Sal hiked down to the lighthouse again, but I opted to stay behind on a bench overlooking the cliffs to read while I listened to the birds. I didn't end up reading much, but the meditation of sea and sky was what I was really after anyway.

We didn't have to go home right away so we decided to head north on 101 and come back on 26, since we hadn't been up that way in awhile and there was a coffee shop Sal wanted to visit in Cannon Beach. (One of his former students recommended it, and they grind their own beans, so.) It was perfect weather for the drive, clear and temperate, and since it was a weekday, traffic was light (versus the summer weekends, when it can suck mightily). Up through Rockaway Beach, Nehalem Bay, and Wheeler.  We took a lazy drive through Manzanita, happening upon a darling cottage that happens to be for sale and made my heart go pitter pat even though it doesn't have a view of the ocean. Then up Neahkahnie Mountain to one of the viewpoints to take a few pictures, the wind calm and the sky blue and clear.

Arcadia Beach, among the pics added to our vacation gallerySoon we were at Arcadia Beach, our old stomping ground. We used to make day trips to this beach pretty regularly before we started doing overnight stays at Oceanside, but haven't been back in awhile. It was like seeing an old friend, standing on the bluff overlooking the beach, and we decided we should resume those occasional day trips, because this was our ocean home, too, the place we made our own when we first got to Oregon, and a piece of us will always be there.

Then it was on to Cannon Beach. Traffic and tourists usually make Cannon Beach a place we avoid, but as I said, it was a weekday and neither the traffic nor the tourists were significant. So we had a lovely little drive through town. Unfortunately the place we were looking for was closed, but we found a wonderful bakery not far away. It was the perfect place for an afternoon treat -- pastries and coffee/hot chocolate -- before heading home.

After an evening to relax and a night in our own bed once again, we were ready for our Day of Portland. This has become our summer vacation ritual, that we dedicate a full day to just knocking around our beautiful city as if we were tourists. Except, you know, awesome. We don't have a rigid plan, just a list of sites we want to see, restaurants/food places we want to try, and shops to visit. The list is always longer than we could manage in a week, let alone a day, but it gives us lots of things to choose from as the mood strikes us.

Peninsula ParkThis year's was more of an itinerary than in previous years, thanks to a map of ideas Sal sweetly put together. First, was a stop at Chop (shows up as Tasty & Sons on the map because it's in the back) for fresh sandwiches and other necessities for a picnic. Then we headed to Peninsula Park to enjoy it all.

Peninsula Park has an extensive rose garden on one end, just there and open to the public. No gates, no fences, just a gorgeous manicured garden with a fountain at its center and benches all around for people to enjoy. How incredible is that?

It's beautiful any time (especially summer and fall), but the day could not have been more perfect, which made it wonderful for a picnic. And for a stroll afterwards, with of course lots of flowers for sniffing and taking pictures of.

Because he's incredibly thoughtful, Sal remembered that I've always wanted to stop at the Beverley Cleary Sculpture Garden, so he included a little side trip to Grant Park. We took a stroll through the park and sat for a bit at a table near the statues of Ramona, Ribsy, and Henry Huggins while kids played in the fountains that are part of the sculptures.

the Burnside Bridge with the Steel Bridge behind it, taken from the Eastbank EsplanadeThen we were on to the Eastbank Esplanade for another stroll -- there was a lot of strolling taking place on our day of Portland -- up the river a bit. It happened to be the first day of the Waterfront Blues Festival across the way at Waterfront Park, which meant lots of people, as well as boats and yachts all anchored near the shoreline to hear the music. Lots and lots of people, since summer basically exploded all at once that day after months and months of no spring and summer.

And because we really haven't had a spring or summer, I wasn't in the habit of remembering sunscreen. Which meant that I had a pretty snazzy sunburn happening by the time we finally headed home. Thankfully, we'd spent as much time in the shade at various parks as we'd spent in the sun, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been. But I definitely got an overdose that had me a little too pink for a week or so.

For the rest of our vacation, we simply enjoyed being at home with the good weather, all the windows open and making the most of the yard (FINALLY) being fit for civilized people. We read books on the porch swing, played in the studio, brewed some beer, wrote some more chapters, took late afternoon naps, watched movies, and just generally relaxed for a few days before it was time to jump into the routine again. That's the nice thing about making your home your castle: you don't have to go anywhere to get away from it all.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• crockpot stew -- potatoes, carrots, onion, celery, kale, fava beans, roast pork
• steamed broccoli
• cherries, cashews, dried mango, and dark chocolate covered raisins

title taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickenson, Part Two: Nature, "LXIII"

when the salt and blue fill a circle of horizons

the sun finally appears at the end of a grey dayTonight is the last night of our Summer 2011 vacation at Oceanside. We'll be back in a few months in the fall, and we've been doing this seasonal Oceanside vacation thing for years now, but it never gets any easier to leave.

And I do mean years. As we were unloading our stuff when we arrived at the cabins, one of the proprietors was returning from a walk with a new employee. I was in the cabin putting things away as Sal was coming up the steps with the last load of stuff, and I heard her greet Sal warmly, then introduce him to the new person. "This is Salvatore," she said. "One of our regulars. You'll see him and his wife every three months. Like seasons."

sunlight on the cliffsExcept this year -- we skipped our March/April visit to save up so we could take the Olympic Peninsula trip for Sal's birthday. She noticed, too. When I went to check in a little later*, she remarked that they'd missed seeing us this spring. It's nice to be known like that. To be someone's regular.

*The front office was empty when we arrived. But we come so often that they just leave the cabin to our door unlocked knowing we'll check in at some point. Which is why we were able to start unloading the car and get settled in before they got back.

our vacation spot is so awesome it includes a tunnel to a secret beachWe had mostly gray sky for this trip, and a whole day of rain today, but it was comfortably temperate, warm enough that we could keep the windows open day and night without getting chilled. And we did get several hours on the beach despite the intermittent sun, with little wind. Enough to get a bit of sunburn, even. And today, which was rainy until late in the evening, we squeezed in a pleasant stroll on the sand. We snapped some pics and even made a short jaunt through the tunnel to the secret beach on the other side of the promontory before the tide got too high.

ending in sunburstOther highlights: continuing our tradition of starting a new show, which we watch once it gets dark and we're eating a late dinner or snack; starting a special book saved for the occasion -- The Wise Man's Fear, in my case, which I've been waiting for more than three months to begin and that's a testament to willpower, people, because goddamn, this series is brilliant; afternoon naps with the window open and the sound and smell of the ocean as we fall asleep; Sal's homemade cookies and orange chocolate chip scones; and of course our special crockpot roast stew, which no matter how many times we make it at home never tastes quite the same as it does at the coast.

But then, I guess that's true of a lot of things.

title taken from "North Atlantic" by Carl Sandburg

conveniently dependent

Several Michaels crafts stores in our area were recently hit with a massive PIN-stealing scheme, including the store that's just down the road from my office. In the last week, there's been a rash of people reporting fraudulent charges on their bills or being notified by the fraud department of their bank of attempts to charge, including several people in my office. I've certainly visited the same store multiple times in the period mentioned in that article, so I've been monitoring my account closely. But while I was fortunate not to be hit by any illicit charges, I discovered yesterday that my debit card had been cancelled by the card company.

It was done as a preemptive measure across all their accounts that were on the list of compromised cards (which means my card was cancelled but Sal was unaffected), but just the sheer number of accounts involved meant that notifications are taking longer than they would normally.  Which meant that I discovered it when I tried to renew an online account and called the bank.

So grateful that what could've been Very Bad has become nothing more than inconvenient, with minimal hassle on my part. But yesterday was definitely a lesson on just how dependent I am on my debit card. I never carry cash and the couple of credit cards I carry are emergency-only. I don't really purchase much except for semi-regular trips to New Seasons for groceries, but it would be no hardship to curb those until my new card arrives.

Or so I thought. On my way to an appointment yesterday, it suddenly occurred to me I'd have to use my credit card. Annoying, but whatever. But then at the parking meter, I was stymied. I did just happen to have cash (one of the rare times I do) but it was a $20, which the machine wouldn't accept and I didn't have enough in coins for the length of time. Did I really want to put that couple of dollars on my credit card? I didn't really have a choice.

Even Sal had a hard time making the adjustment. Upon my relating the unexpected challenge of being without my debit card until a new one arrives, he suggested just getting cash back the next time I was at the store. "Um...I don't have a debit card...?" I said. "...oh, right," he said.

Funny how incorporated into our lives this convenience has become, that we would be so challenged when it disappears, however briefly. And a good lesson that maybe I need to make it a habit to carry at least a little cash more often.

breakfast, bento colors mini green:

• oatmeal with maple syrup and raisins
• blackberries and half a red grape (trying to make a sort of flower), with more grapes underneath
• mandarin sections
• molded egg half, with more mandarin sections underneath

lunch, deli club:

• mini sausages (with carrots underneath)
• steamed string beans as "grass" and carrot flowers for garnish
• molded egg half, with more carrot pieces underneath
• grapes on picks
• mandarin sections

tales woven of enchanting yarns

Saturday, a friend I met through Prompt came over for dinner, which necessitated getting the house whipped into some semblance of presentability, since it would be her first visit and I think we all know how important that first, er, introduction to my home is to me. The side benefit of which is that the house looks and feels so great, which we then get to enjoy for however long we're able to keep it up. (I always have to laugh at myself, because when the house is all clean and nice and pretty, I tell myself that this time, this time, I'll be better about putting things away and staying on top of the chores like dusting and vacuuming that make such a noticeable difference in how the house feels. Even as I know that my best intentions aside, I'll inevitably peter out and then start wishing for a magical housekeeping fairy to just come keep my house clean for me.)

She arrived, beautifully arranged basket of flowers in hand (flowers that she picked from her own garden and arranged herself), gorgeous mohair pashmina thrown over her shoulder.  The weather obliged with warm air and clear skies so we could sit on the patio (for the first time this year) to enjoy cheese and Sal's handmade crackers(!) and breads while we talked.  Then dinner, which she was uniquely suited to appreciate since she once worked as a professional waitress at a famous NYC restaurant. And Sal made a great dinner, not overstated or pretentious, but just what he does best:  exceptional ingredients thoughtfully put together.  (And dessert was totally amazeballs fantastic:  mini chocolate bombes with a ganache coating and two decorative tuille cookies artfully placed on top, with fresh berries and a berry coulee arranged around it on the plate.)

My friend has two qualities (among many) that make her a delightful dinner guest: 1) a life straight out of a book, chock full of eccentric (and obscenely talented) characters and extraordinary adventures; and 2) a storyteller's gift for the well-told tale. By the end of the evening, I felt like we'd been given some secret treasure and fully expected her to fly off on a magic carpet. No magic carpet, but she must have sprinkled some kind of enchantment around while she was here because here it is Monday and the house is still in perfect order.

lunch, Paris slimline:

• Yucatan roasted turkey breast
• steamed broccoli
• corn
• blackberries
• raspberries
• Pink Lady apple
• cashews and dark chocolate covered raisins

and day was breaking, a panoply of song

on the way home, a glimpse of the foot of Mt. Hood via Hwy 26REMEMBER THAT TIME WE WENT TO THE DECEMBERISTS CONCERT AND IT WAS PRETTY MUCH THE BESTEST EVER IN THE HISTORY OF CONCERTS AND/OR THE UNIVERSE?

Hahahaha guess what we just saw them again. Yes, it has been three months. Yes, we are becoming whatever the Decemberists version of Dead Heads are, or like those people who follow Phish all over the country (Phish Phans?). Other people aspire to elected office, or getting a Ph.D. We have achieved three Decemberists concerts in nine months. Our parents are so proud.

Rodrigo y Gabriela tearing the hell out of those guitarsIt wasn't intentional, mind. February's concert at the Schnitz was so freaking fabulous that we were satiated for a good long time. And we had already been quite content after the September concert at Pioneer Courthouse Square. But then I found out that they'd be at the Memorial Weekend concert series in Bend, AND. AND. It was really the AND that was the clincher. AND...Rodrigo y Gabriela would be opening for them.

I just. You guys. The laws of physics, you can't escape them. You just have to resign yourself to the laws of physics. That's why they're, you know, laws.

Okay, see here's the thing. Way back in prehistory, like, four or five years ago, The Decemberists were on this tour called "The Long and Short Of It" Tour. In which they would play two nights of concerts at each venue, one night of some of their long songs, and the one night of their short songs. But in one venue on that tour, they would actually play three nights, and that third night would be songs that ticketholders for that show had requested. And that special venue was, as you have probably guessed, dear reader, the Portland venue.

A'LKSJDFLDAKJ;LFJA;JLDKJA;JFAJSLJFLASJDFKLA;DJ

Well obviously, we had to go to this thing. And it was dicey, because you had to buy tickets for each show separately and those shows sold out in minutes. But because my concert ticket fu is second to none, I snagged us tickets for all. three. nights. And yea, there was much rejoicing.

the railroad bridget that goes over the 300 foot chasm at Peter Skene Ogden State ParkBut the Universe had not finished smiling good fortune upon us. A week later, I found out about a Rodrigo y Gabriela concert that would actually be about three weeks before that, and despite the fact that we had used up our entire concert budget for the year on the Decemberists' tickets, this was another concert that could not be passed up. I mean, have you seen that thing Gabriela does for percussion on guitar? Again, concert ticket fu, and I emerged victorious with tickets, and holy crap, we were mighty chuffed about these concerts to look forward to.

About a month later, the Decemberists tour was cancelled due to serious illness. And lest we try to take comfort in the other concert, the Rodrigo y Gabriela dates for Portland were cancelled due to illness. Pride goeth before the fall and all that crap.

So you see now why we had to go to this thing? Even though it meant traveling on a holiday weekend, something we try to avoid? And it would be at an outdoor venue in Bend, Oregon in late May, which would be the opposite of going south of hell in August? And that this May in particular was likely to be freaking freezing thanks to the bizarro world weather we've been having all winter/spring? DO YOU SEE HOW THE LAWS OF PHYSICS ARE IMMUTABLE AND UNFORGIVING?

sitting at the park, eating our breakfast and watching the ducks and geeseSo to Bend we did go. And it was goddamn fucking cold as hell, and they confiscated our camp chairs for being too tall so we had to sit on the cold ground without a blanket or anything, and there was a wind blowing, and NONE OF THAT MATTERED BECAUSE IT WAS GODDAMN FUCKING PERFECT OKAY. Rodrigo y Gabriela were mindblowingly amazing and they tore that place up with nothing but two acoustic guitars, and then The Decemberists came out except it wasn't Colin it was Rainn Wilson pretending to be Colin and then they busted out into "The Infanta" and they finished with "The Mariner's Revenge" in the first encore again and then did Sal's favorite "June Hymn" for the second encoure and srsly? OMG SRSLY I LOVE THEM FOREVER AND EVER THE END.

the Deschutes River @ Drake ParkWe also managed to finally hit Deschutes Brewery for lunch prior to the concert, despite a one hour wait, so we can finally say we've been there. (Good burgers, though it was all a bit overhyped, imo.) And while we waited, we stumbled on a nifty geeky used book store with a special love for geeky collectible toys and action figures and a whole comics section and a very nice selection of fantasy for being such a tiny store. And for breakfast before leaving town, we hit up a wee coffee shop hidden in an alley that roasts its own coffee, thanks to a tip from our neighbors. And we picked a lovely park in the Old Bend neighborhood to sit and eat our breakfast, right there next to the Deschutes River.

But I'll have more pictures about that tomorrow.

lunch, origami squares:

• crab
• sushi rice
• peas
• corn
• cherries
• mango

the heart of the earth is emerald dark...

...and pulses beneath liquid crystal...

This is Lake Crescent. It's located on the Olympic Peninsula, between steep sided mountains carved by glaciers. It is 624 feet deep, only five miles from the Juan de Fuca Strait as the crow flies yet contains not a drop of saltwater, and is so clear that you can see to a depth of 60 feet when the water lies still. Storm King, the mountain that forms its southeastern shore, is an ancient Native American god who was angered by fighting between warring tribes and smote them all with a cataclysmic landslide that split the lake in two.

the lodge as seen from a rowboat

(click to see the full set of pictures)

As an early birthday present, I whisked Sal off to a four day getaway to the Olympic Peninsula. First, to Lake Crescent Lodge, where we stayed in a quaint little cabin no more than 30 feet from the lake shore. We dangled our feet over the dock, rowed a boat across the lake to Pyramid Mountain and back, took the self-guided walking tour through the old growth forest that surrounds the Lodge, read books in weathered Adirondack chairs, sipped hot chocolate in the Lodge's enclosed verandah, and spent the evenings curled up in massive chairs made from logs, playing Monopoly and Tri-ominoes and nibbling on the delicious treats we crammed into a cooler for three full days of meals. Fruit and veggies, cold cuts and cheeses and crackers, Sal's homemade rolls, homemade cherry-almond scones, homemade chocolate chip cookies, my own fried chicken and pasta salad. And beer, of course. Never forget the beer.

Our trip began Friday as we made our way to Olympia, then turned westward to explore the Olympic Peninsula, a first for us both. We made a leisurely way along the eastern edge of the Hood Canal, then glimpsed the Olympic peaks as the road turned inland. Closer and closer, and finally to Sequim, and then to Port Angeles. We didn't spend time there, but we plan to go back, with a sidetrip across the Strait to Victoria.

Saturday night from our cabin's porchWe arrived at Lake Cresent early Friday evening, with the sun shining and bright blue sky. The weather held for Saturday, too, so we had plenty of time outside. But of course the rains arrived, as they inevitably do, Saturday night and it came down in a ceaseless downpour all night, and all the next day. We left Sunday a little before noon and continued westward on our planned trek to explore the peninsula.

old growth forest from the "Moment In Time" trail near the lodgeWe had reservations for another Lodge, this one on the Washington Coast, but it was less than a two hour drive from Lake Crescent and we still had hours to kill before check-in, so we decided to take a side road north and far to the west, to maybe see the westernmost point of the contiguous United States, Cape Flattery.

Perhaps it was the heavy gray sky and the constant rain, but this was not a nice drive. It's beautiful -- thick forest and most of the way, right along the northern Washington coastline, only a dozen feet above the water. But the signs of human habitation here are...depressing. As if the people here have long since given up, and no longer care about the place they call home. The few little towns are empty shops with boarded doors and broken windows, economies far past saving, junk everywhere, and hardly any sign of human activity. It started to feel as if we were at the edge of the world, and it came with a deep-seated panic and disquiet. We turned around before we reached the end.

me doing my best vampire impressionBack on 101, we continued to Forks. Yes, Forks. It's unavoidable if you're making the trip we were, and it's the last chance for a grocery store and (reasonably-priced) gas for more than 100 miles if you're headed south. The town itself is small but nice, and reminded me of a small Tillamook. The drive down their main street was lolarious, as expected, with every business either incorporating"Twilight" in its name somehow (my hand to God, "Twilight Campfire Wood") or proclaiming "get your Twilight [food/shirts/memorabilia/quilts(!)/gear/ etc.] here!" But god bless them for making the most of the tourist opportunity and hey, who can bedgrudge any fans a pilgrimage to their mecca? Whatever floats your boat, even if it's Twilight. (Although I srsly lol'd at the hotel sign on the way into town that said, "Edward Cullen didn't sleep here!" OH HOTEL MARKETING DIRECTOR I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.)

one of several of the "oldest in the country" very old trees in the Hoh RainforestWe stopped at a local pizza place for lunch -- avoiding the Porto"Bella" speciality pizza -- and then next door to Thriftway for some ice and a few items to add to our food stores. Then we were on the road again through forests even more ancient than before, the rain clouds so low we couldn't see any of the peaks to our left. Unlike the Oregon Coast, 101 is inland for most of the drive so you can't see the ocean as you drive. Still very beautiful, though.

gray and rainy at the coast, just the way we like itWe decided to make the 20 mile side trip to the Hoh Rainforest. Well worth the drive and there are several places to stop and see something beautiful and amazing, like enormous, ancient Sitka spruce and Douglas fir. At the visitor's center, there are multiple trail options, both short and long, easy and hard. Unfortunately, it was late in our afternoon and the rain was coming down hard (and it was cold) so we didn't stay as long as we might have otherwise. And honestly, that side trip up north had deflated us both a bit.

some of the great masses of logs along the bluffs of KalalochThankfully, Kalaloch Lodge, where we were staying for the night, wasn't much further down the highway once we made our back to 101. Perched right on a bluff that overlooks the ocean, we were in a genuine log cabin that faced northwest with an unobstructed view of the beach and water below. (It also had a picnic table right outside the door, which was one of the few times I wished it wasn't raining so we could sit out and eat our dinner with the ocean right there.) And although the weather made it too chilly to go down to the beach, it was perfect for curling up for a smorgasbord of goodies* while we soaked up the view just as we had the two nights before at Lake Crescent. Except this time, our cabin came complete with a wood-burning stove and split cedar logs and kindling. Thanks to Sal's superb firebending skills, the stove got so hot that we could crack the windows enough to hear the surf without getting cold. We fell asleep to the flicker of firelight and the steady roar of the ocean.

*(Both Kalaloch and Lake Crescent Lodges feature restaurants with terrific menus, which I'd love to try if we get a chance to go back.)

The weather did finally clear a bit as we were leaving Monday morning, long enough for me to snap a few more pics of the ocean, this time with blue sky and no rain-speckled camera lens. The rain stopped by the time we reached Humptulips (best. name. ever.) and we had sun for the rest of the drive home once we got to Elma. Thanks to our terrific neighbors, we arrived home to find the house still standing and the cats sleeping contentedly on their cushion by the dining room window, with only a bit of shredded paper on the floor as punishment for leaving them.

What an amazing, amazing trip. We haven't done a trip like that -- someplace completely unknown to us and somewhat isolated -- in a long time, now that I think about it, and even in just a span of three and a half days, it disconnected us completely from our daily life and routines. We've gone a little too long without a vacation together, especially without a recharging trip to the coast, and we were reminded why we try to get away every few months, even just for a weekend. How blessed we are that something so vitally important to us both is something we can do.

Happy Birthday, Sally. Every day with you is a gift.

see the full set of photos

a Google map of our route

clearly, i've lost my mind

And so anyway, because I obviously don't have enough to do, I decided to host a presentation for my coworkers to talk about bento. As in, I voluntarily decided to prepare and give a presentation about my lunchtime pastime for the people I work with. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN. Srsly, brain, give a girl a chance to just be a lazy sod for awhile.

This is actually an idea I've been knocking around for quite awhile, and then thought about for another while, and then came up with a plan and thought about that for awhile, and then finally decided to just go ahead and do it. See, I now have a small group of coworkers who attend the unveiling of my lunches each day (if they're around and I don't go to the park to eat) like some kind of weird but fun Hollywood event. I'm constantly getting questions about my lunches -- even though I don't eat in the kitchen -- and enough people have expressed interest in trying it themselves that it just seemed like it could be a fun idea that people might find useful.

I sent out an initial email last night just to gauge the interest before committing to anything. I've had 17 responses. That's about a third of the company. Holy crap, you guys.

So I've set a date (three weeks from tomorrow; I am crazy) and planning has begun. Seriously, there's going to be a PowerPoint and everything. This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices.

lunch, lunchbot duo:

• my totally awesome potato salad (potatoes, vinegar, oil, salt, dill)
• snap peas
• molded -- and dyed! -- egg
• murcott tangerine
• broccoli as gap filler

special snack, cute animals sidecar:

• another molded -- and dyed! -- egg (although it apparently didn't mold long enough, since it's lost most of its star shape since I first did it last night)
• murcott tangerine
• Sally's very delicious angel food cake