The Friday after Last Thursday.

You know it's a good Last Thursday (art walk in the hippie part of town) when you come home with a tutu and tiara and $125 lighter. And the morning after you have a hang over and can't find your purse.

Ah, the arts...

Oh weatherman, where art thou? I want to find you so I can kick your ass.

Since it's summer I keep the top off the Jeep to enjoy the 3 months of decent weather.  Since the top is off I keep a close eye on the weather to prevent myself from driving a swimming pool.  The extra weight of the puddled water really fucks with my gas mileage.  This morning on my daily walk with Rufus the Magnificent I noticed grey skies and upon returning to the house I promptly checked 6 weather websites to see if I needed to take preventive weather measures and was confident that I did not after 5 sites gave me the "fear not" and one pessimistic site gave me a slight chance of scattered showers.  This gloom and doom site promised that it was probably over-reacting and on second thought gave it a 20% chance of sprinkles before noon so seriously, don't sweat it.  So I took that as a sign to feel confident that the Jeep was safe from anything more than a light sprinkling of moisture, sure to evaporate before I even noticed it even rained.

Unbeknown to me it was raining the entire time I was checking today's weather, as well as the 10 day forecast.  Sometimes I think the convenience of technology gets in the way of solving simple issues.  Had I simply looked out the window I would know my Jeep was turning into a swimming pool.  Sometimes you have to be smarter than the weatherman. 

Right now the sun it out.  Screw you, weather guy.

Happy Birthday, Ramen!

I heard on NPR that Ramen Noodles turned 50 today! You know what that means, Ramen is younger than Madonna! Oh, and also that some of those 50 year old noodles are probably on a 7/11 shelf somewhere. Check your expiration dates, kids, because like Madge, those old noodles have overstayed their welcome!

Mid Summer's Night Dream

Last weekend the fabulously wonderful Roommate took me to fabulously wonderful Ashland for the fabulously wonderful Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Althought Othello, which we saw in the outdoor theater patterned after the Globe, was wonderful, problem is at 8:00 at night it was still over a hundred degrees out. At one point in the day the Roommate asked me if I was ok, because I was so quiet, and I told him "You know how my blow drier turns itself off when it gets overheated?" and he said yes. My reply was a point to my head with an added "Same thing here".

So, anywho, Othello was sweltering. Then Sunday afternoon we saw the most originally designed and inspired performance of A Mid Summer's Night Dream. It was visually amazing and the spin the director took on the delivery was insane, very modern and sarcastic. We all know Suz loves sarcasm.

Here's our Mortals after their night of frolic.

And here's our Mechanicals, planning their play.

Hippolyta and Theseus with their over the top furniture.

The Fairies, with Puck in the background.

And Oberon. Love the feathers, Dude.

Visually stunning! Modern dance music! Sarcasm! Fabulous costumes! A very fresh take on what could have been just another boring re-staging of a well known classic. Standing Ovation All Around! It was so wonderful and beautiful I actually cried at the end. Check it out, I insist.

Weather update

Remember on Friday when I was bitching about it being over 100 degrees here in Portland? Well, it's been raining and in the 60's since Sunday night, so needless to say I am leery about making any wishes right about now. Also it means my Jeep is a swimming pool---what fun!

A few weeks ago the Roommate and I participated in the Bridge Pedal, a bike not-s0-race including 8 bridges and about 24 miles. Today a neighbor gave us a photo of our "team". I look worn out, huh? I had gotten my front break replaced a few days before and the installer kinda fixed it to where the break pads rubbed the rim, unbeknown to me at the time, so I ended up working a lot harder than I needed to. For the whole 24 miles. In that light I will not feel guilty for not working out if I should miss a day or two in the next month.

More on my fun weekend later. Gotta pretend to go to the gym now.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

It is going to be hot in Oregon today and tomorrow, 103 each day. Now, Iamnot will tell you this is practically chilly weather by his standards, but I have a feeling Iamnot has central air conditioning in his house. The Roommate installed 3 window units at our abode yesterday, one in the living room, one in my bedroom (for Rufus, of course) and the third in his attic bedroom. When he plugged his a/c unit in the thermostat read 101---inside temperature. It is a chilly 68 as I type this.

Pool Party today at Miss Di's! See you in the deep end.

....and now in Political News....

Barack Obama got a huge pat on the back earlier this week when he led a crowd in a robust reciting of the National Anthem. He didn't miss a single word.

And on the too-ridiculous-for-words front, over the weekend John McCain spoke in front of a group of motor cycle enthusiasts (weekend warriors, and in Sturges, dude!) and really let that charisma shine. His cardboard cut out protested four dollar a gallon gas by revving up a bunch of Harley Davidsons. THAT'LL SHOW THE OIL GIANTS! And by damn, it must be working because I noticed yesterday that gas is at $3.99 a gallon here in Oregon! Good job, John!

It certainly dosn't take much to impress us, does it? We're doomed.

Flugtag

It was my intention to go to Flugtag and watch the competition yesterday, maybe get a few funny photos to post but the scene on the waterfront was unreal. I was stuck in the middle of a crushing crowd for 20 minutes trying to get half-way through a city block when we gave up and went to a bar instead. Today I checked Red Bull's Portland page and it seems they estimated the crowd yesterday at 80,000. That's ten thousand more than Obama pulled at a rally on the very same spot two months ago---but then Obama didn't serve beer.