It took me all of a day to notice this bit of decoration around the house. You know you have the best kinds of people cat sitting for you when you find little touches like this when you return. My skeleton looks so dignified with a scarf. 🙂
Thanks, Owen!
I come from a long line of rule breakers.
For instance, when I was a kid, the ‘rents once loaded the family into an RV for a vacation in Florida. While there, we drove through “Lion Country Jungle Safari”, one of those “drive your car through and see the lions” parks. While there, we broke every single rule the park had posted, except the one about pets not being allowed in the vehicles in the park, and that one was missed only because we hadn’t brought the dog with us. We called to the elephants (did you know an elephant’s cock can drag the ground?), fed the giraffes (up close, giraffe hide looks a lot like the coat of a boxer dog), honked at the lions, and even got out of the car. All things considered, having an elephant wrap its trunk around the RV antenna and rip it off should be considered “getting off easy”.
This doesn’t quite compare, but for some reason I was looking for all manner of rules to break on the airplane last night.
I didn’t give the safety video my full attention.
I did not put my computer bag under the seat in front of me.
I left my phone on during take-offs and landings.
I listened to my iPod during take-offs and landings.
I unfastened my seatbelt before the captain extinguished the seatbelt sign.
If only I had brought something to smoke in the airplane lavatory!
Yep, I’m a wild one, I am! *snark*
Home again, if only very briefly. Finding out the extent to which life has changed in my absence, before being absent again for an even longer stretch.
Wow, I love Portland Summers! In a town with real seasons, when the weather finally turns nice, the town just bursts into activities. Everyone is outdoors, there are festivals every weekend and more things to do than you can imagine. I have heard some amazing live music in Portland lately!
First there’s free live music on the patio at the Doug Fir on Sunday afternoons, featuring the Pete Krebs Gypsy Trio! They play jazz from the early 20th century, inspired by Django Reinhart and the like. Fabulous musicians that you can watch from as little as ten feet away.
Then I heard the Ditty Bops play at the Aladdin Theater. This is a new band (to me), but I’m really enjoying what I’ve heard so far. And the concert was just packed, and more fun than you can shake a stick at.
I ran into Pete’s crew again as they played backup for the Stolen Sweets in a free concert in Washington Park. The Sweets are the spiritual inheritors of the Boswell Sisters, tight vocal harmonies, and they really swing!
And then last night, I went to the Kennedy School to hear BED. This is a jazz quartet of vocals, guitar, stand-up base and trombone. I wouldn’t have thought a trombone would work in an intimate jazz combo; it’s hard to imagine how it wouldn’t drown out everything else. But, this guy was capable of playing so soft and smooth, he blended in with the rest of the group seamlessly and then stepped it up slightly for the solos.
And coming up, I’ve got plans to see Jonathan Coulton, Loudon Wainwright III and They Might Be Giants!
Despite being vaguely sore (#$&*), I did a massage last night, and I think it went particularly well. This is a long-term friend and client, but I only get to work on her about every six weeks during these work trips. She is still recovering mobility after shoulder surgery, so it’s definitely not a fluffy “feel good” massage. There are some moves that her body just can’t tolerate, and some challenges from muscles that are hyper-tonic from trying to shield her injuries. I spent a solid hour and a half on her, every bit of that on her torso and neck exclusively. She seemed very pleased with the results, but she’s generally pretty complimentary, so I didn’t get too excited by that.
However, the next morning, she reported having her best night of sleep in several weeks, which I took as a good sign. Best of all, I accompanied her to her chiropractor appointment this morning. I introduced this client and chiro several years ago, so I get to tag along on occasion, just to watch the chiro work, see what goes well and what doesn’t, what areas the doc seems to be focusing on. I was very pleased that the chiro noticed substantial improvements in the client’s shoulder mobility, and uncharacteristic looseness in her pecs and scalenes.
Yay! I’ve still got it. This only furthers my resolve to find further massage classes this fall so I can get my OR license. Even if I don’t ever plan to do massage professionally, it would be nice to be fully legit.
On a side note, watching a chiro do neck adjustments still makes me flinch. Nothing about that looks pleasant. Ick.
I’m usually not very shy about posting embarrassing things to my journal. But I find myself particularly mortified by what I’m about to say.
Let me preface it by saying, while I am by no means “in shape”, I certainly don’t think of myself as a couch potato either. I’ve been doing an hour on the elliptical at the gym three or four days a week, for months now. I’m an avid hiker, do pretty physical massages and generally am a “hale and hearty” kind of fellow.
But this morning, I am all achy and sore. From… *gulp* … playing a goddamn video game.
The Kabaña where I stay on my work trips to the south bay has recently been outfitted with a Nintendo Wii. Last night, I started playing the tennis game on it. Here I am, swinging and flailing with the Wii remote in front of the television, trying to nail that cross-court backhand with enough top spin to tear the fuzz right off the virtual tennis ball. I’m playing both partners in a doubles match, playing really fast volleys at the net, trying to smash down those big fat lobs my opponent keeps lofting over the net.
Maybe I should start doing something at the gym that involves my upper body, you think? Or maybe I should buy a Wii. 🙂 Or, more likely, both.
I’ll be hitting the Mississippi Station tonight for Monday Night Movies! Anyone wanna come with?
A friend and I went to the Clinton Street Theater to see a screening of a local indie film, The Auteur. The film is about a “past his prime” director of hard-core porn movies who is trying to recapture his past stature.
The writing was great, and the acting dead on. This was only the second public showing of the film, and there is still some work to be done on the color balance across the clips and the tone of the sound track. But the writing is sharp and the acting dead on. And the familiar shots of Portland made me smile.
I really enjoyed this movie, and I’m looking forward to seeing the final, finished product. When it hits a regular run, I heartily encourage you to check it out.
Hmm, second porn-related movie in a row I’ve seen at the CST. What’s up with that?
Sunday night I hiked Angels Rest with my friend Susan.
We started up the trail around 5:00 pm, going slow and taking several breaks for Susan’s hobby of letterboxing. I helped her plant a couple of new boxes, and was lucky to find a box as well.
We sat at the top for a couple of hours, swapping stories and waiting for the full moon to appear and enjoying a wonderful sunset against the Washington hills.
After we got sufficiently chilled and the moon showed no sign of emerging from behind the clouds, we started back down the trail, red flashlights in hand.
I did a moonlight hike of AR last summer with a big group of folks, and I remember sucking wind all the way up the trail. This time didn’t feel nearly as tiring. Which is a good thing.
Negative for HSV2, Hep B, Syphilis, Chlamydia and Gonorrhea.
Positive for HSV1 (cold sores).
All in all, just as I expected.
I went to a local clinic today to get tested for “everything” (FSVO) in the realm of STDs. Not that I had any particular reason to worry, but it’s something I think I should do periodically, on general principle. It had been a while since my last sweep of tests (too long), and I couldn’t even find the records from that one.
A friend recommended a clinic in the area that was especially sharp, and I made the appointment.
So, today I filled out paperwork, wrote out my name and address on no fewer than five forms (really, how lame is that?), gave two vials of blood, had a swab poked into my urethra (ow!), donated some pee and had my gums/cheek swabbed. Oh yeah, and I dropped trou for a total stranger and let her fondle my package.
After I was reassembled, I left the exam area of the clinic and returned to the lobby to fill out a release form so they could mail me my test results in a few days. As I’m standing in the lobby, the doctor who did my test came into the lobby and tapped me on the shoulder. “When you get done, can you come back to the exam room for a second?”
!
A brief moment of panic. “Fucking hell, what?” I mean, when you’ve just been tested for a suite of STDs, and the doctor calls you back no fewer than three minutes after you’ve left… visions of drug-resistant infections and culture dishes overflowing with growth ran through my head. “Uhhh, sure. Be right there.”
I finished the forms and went through the lobby back into the exam area. The doc saw me and came over. “I just wanted to tell you the HIV test came back negative.” My brain parsed the sentence about 57 times in rapid order. “Negative. She said negative, right? Right. Negative. Negative. That’s good. Right? Right. Negative.” She gave me a print out of the results and I was on my way.
Which is to say, even when you’re getting tested just because “it’s the right thing to do” and you have no real reason to expect to test positive for anything… it’s still nerve-wracking.
For what it’s worth, the visual and manual exams for genital warts and crabs also were negative. Everything else: Chlamydia, NGU, Gonorrhea, Syphilis, HSV 1 and 2 and Hep B have to wait for test results to arrive on Monday.
Sorry I couldn’t find on YouTube the Chappell Show skit of Q-Tip singing “It’s a VD Day!”