VHS tapes OR How I spent My Summer Vacation OR I Think It Might Be Love

For my sixteenth birthday my parents bought me a little TV with a built-in VCR, and man did I love it. Suddenly I could tape shows and watch them whenever I wanted. And if someone was watching TV upstairs, no biggie, I could go downstairs and watch something else. My TV even had a timer setting that would turn it on automatically, so I used it as an alarm clock, sleeping with the remote under my pillow. That's why I was so confused when I learned that John Ritter had died. I heard it on the early morning news when my TV turned on, but then I fell back asleep, and it worked its way into my dreams. So when I heard the news later that morning, I was sure I had made it happen. I dreamed he died, and then he was really dead. Heaven help us, no one was safe!

Mostly though, I watched a lot of TV and TV on DVD. That Christmas I got the second season of Gilmore Girls, and so during the post-present-opening-lull that comes Christmas afternoon when you've already given up on leaving the house because it would mean having to shower, my brother Rough Draft and I watched Gilmore Girls. After nine straight hours spent loafing in the dark watching the the antics of Rory and Lorelai, we agreed to take a break in order to get something to eat. Five minutes later, having consumed some crackers and water, we re-glued ourselves to my little TV screen and finished off the season.

Then there was the time that M-Lite started cleaning her room. With her bed a mess of clothes and items to be sorted, she came downstairs to sleep in my room where I had not one, but three beds set up. It was only supposed to be for a night, but it somehow stretched into a month. She kept all her things upstairs, but every night she'd come down to my room to watch TV (we tried to get into Cold Case) and end up staying there.

Nearly ten years later, I still have my little TV. I keep it in my craft room so I can have something on in the background while I work on things, which means I also have a small collection of VHS tapes. Too small, in fact. Because while I don't mind popping in and out of the room to rinse out paintbrushes during entertaining-but-mostly-just-stupid movies (Center Stage), there are others that I'd feel guilty for missing a single syllable of (Little Women). It's a problem of both quantity and quality, and the only solution I could see was getting my hands on more VHS tapes.

Today I was at Goodwill looking for a dresser, and while I struck out on that front (only ugly couches as far as the eye could see) I came across a bin of movies on VHS being sold for, get this, 10 for $0.99! At that price it was all I could do not to fill up my trunk!

Shall I tell you what I purchased? In no particular order, here are the gems I saw fit to buy:

1. Fiddler on the Roof (tradition!)

2. His Girl Friday

3. Great Sports Moments of the 80's (for Optimistic.)

4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings

5. Titanic (a total guilty pleasure movie)

6. The Great Escape (I've been wanting to watch this for weeks, and there it was!)

7. Mouse Hunt (Optimistic.'s family hates this movie (for obvious reasons), so the look on his face when he sees that this wretched movie has crossed the threshold of our house will make it ten cents well spent.)

8. Hook

9. How The Grinch Stole Christmas (I would touch this film with a 39 1/2 foot pole)

10. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (an absolute classic)

11. Hockey Fights & Big Hits (also for Optimistic.)

12. Grease (also one I've been meaning to watch, not because I like it, but because I got a line from it stuck in my head and I won't be able to get it out of my system until I watch it through.)

13. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (This is a collection of four episodes and it's a big deal that I found this, because on the back cover there's a picture from my all-time favorite episode of Dudley Do-Right, where Snidely Whiplash makes a suit out of Marigolds and gets away with committing his evil deeds because Dudley's allergic to him. I might die from happiness, people.)

Not purchased (through tremendous self-restraint) were Gargoyles ("What could make claw marks in solid stone?"), Blank Check ("It says all you can eat, not all you can eat here"), and Rookie of the Year ("Hot ice! That's right, I heat up the ice cubes. It's the best of both worlds!"). All in all, I'm very pleased with the mix I ended up with. And now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I've got some movie-watching to do.

The adequate, forgettable, and occasionally regrettable

An interesting thing about Eugene is that it has streets named after presidents. That's not so uncommon, except Eugene doesn't just have the popular or well known presidents. They've got the standard Lincoln, Jefferson, and Madison to be sure, but they also have people like Hayes, Garfield, and Fillmore represented. My only beef with their system is that the presidential streets aren't in any order. In my mind, it makes the most sense to place them in the order they served, so if you're driving around looking for Harding and you come across Coolidge, you know you've gone too far. I also secretly hoped they'd have more than one street named after Cleveland in honor of his two nonconsecutive terms, but alas, they do not. So, here is a sample of the new improved set-up I am proposing:

Pretty snazzy, right? Also, where a president intersects with the street corresponding to his presidential number, a statue will be erected. That way when you come across a statue of a man stuck in a bathtub you'll know you're at the corner of Taft and 27th. Suggestions on how to pose the other presidential statues to ensure instant recognition are welcome.

The state of things

A month ago we left Provo, dragging all our worldly possessions behind us in a trailer. It's a 14 hour drive to Portland, but we were buoyed up by the thought that we'd probably never have to make it again. So we drove and drove and drove some more, and eventually arrived at Optimistic.'s folks, where we were planning on staying a few days until we could secure an apartment in Eugene. However, instead of moving into anywhere, we got jerked around and promised apartments that would never actually become available. This is because all realtors are lying pieces of crud. So instead of four days, we spent four weeks in Portland, and are now down in Eugene staying with some nice members from the ward because Optimistic.'s classes started today and his job started a week before that.

We did find a place (without the help of the many realty agencies we paid fees to), and I'm pretty excited about it, the only snag being that it doesn't open up until Oct. 1st, hence all the commuting and living with people we don't know. It's a triplex, with the owners living on site. Our apartment is built just off the side of their house, and then there's a third apartment upstairs and around the back.

Here's our apartment off to the side.

And a shot of the kitchen, which is pretty small, but there's a nice big living room, and you can kind of see off to the side there's a bonus room with sliding glass doors leading to the back yard.

And our bedroom upstairs has hardwood floors.

The hardest part of this whole excursion has definitely been having all our stuff in storage. I packed a very limited set of stuff to take with us, which means I've been wearing the same outfit to church for the last three weeks and I'm running out of Q-tips. All my books, movies, craft supplies, and pots and pans are packed away and I'm going a bit stir-crazy not being able to do any of the things I normally do. Worst of all, this weekend should have been my fifth annual Hobo Fest, which rather ironically can't be held because I don't have a place to live.

It's a sickness, people.

We're getting ready to move, which means digging all of our stuff out of our apartment's many nooks, crannies, abysses, etc. To say our apartment was built with storage in mind is an understatement. We have closets within closets within closets of stuff, most of which hasn't been looked at since we crammed it away almost four years ago. Today I decided to start tackling the office closet. (I say start to ease the pressure of cleaning out this monstrosity in one day).

Well, I got all the boxes off the top shelf and happened upon a box of 100 cassette tapes (super useful), as well as a big white envelope marked MRI. So I opened it up, and what do I find? Scans of my sister's brain from 2007.

People, today I must admit that my pack-rattery has astounded even me. I don't know why I have these scans. Maybe she gave them to me. Maybe I stole them from her. I cannot say. Most likely she didn't want them and I thought they might come in handy, but what sort of person thinks that? Who looks at their sister's old MRI's and thinks hmmm...I could make a chandelier out of that? Me, apparently.

-Genuine Draft
Pack-Rat Extraordinaire

Ahhhlaska

I am now back from our Alaskan cruise adventure, which was indeed an adventure owing to the fact that I got sick the night before we left for Seattle. The one week I actually had plans I got bronchitis. As a result I spent a lot of time coughing (things up) and ended up losing my voice for a bit. It was fun times. But, on to the pictures!

Here's Optimistic. outside our boat (the Sapphire Princess) in Seattle. You can tell from the fierceness of his gaze that he is impatient to get to the cruising already. Why? Because there is food on the boat!

Lobstee, no! You are not really food! You have too much to live for! Eventually I talked him down, and before we knew it we were off the boat and in Ketchikan, the salmon capital of the world.

Here are all the siblings in Eagle park doing their best to look majestic/eagle-like. Most of them failed so we moved on to look at the gift shops where we had the pleasure of running into Sarah Palin.

This was a dream come true for Optimistic., but due to a restraining order filed by Ms. Palin earlier this year, he was forced to don a disguise so as to admire her up close.

Ah yes, she'll never recognize him now! After Ketchikan we went through Tracy Arm, which I'm told was beautiful but I chose to sleep through. Here's a picture Optimistic. took from the top deck.

After that it was on to Juneau where we ventured out into the rain to board a tour bus whose windows were so fogged up we couldn't really see anything.

But we trundled along and the driver gave us the scoop on the history of Juneau and after an enjoyable ride we arrived at the Mendenhall Glacier.

Yes, it's blue, and if you had sat through the movie at the Visitor's center twice like I did you'd know why. The big thrill of the visit was getting to touch a 250 year old piece of ice.

As a bonus I've included this guy who works at the visitor's center. Cool, right? Once Lobstee saw the ice there was no keeping him from it.

I had a lot of trouble keeping him from climbing into all the displays. He's full of mischief like that. Here he is crawling around in a bear's mouth. He has no fear that lobster.

Optimistic. was just as bad, as evidenced by the following picture in which he is shaking hands with a goat. They're ripe for blackmail, the both of them.

Our next stop was Skagway. Optimistic. was off zip-lining so I went to the Skagway Museum and poked around.

There were a lot of interesting artifacts on display from the time of the town's founding and I would have stayed longer if Lobstee hadn't managed to get us thrown out. Something about illegal gambling combined with the use of flash photography.

I say putting a roulette wheel out in the open like that is asking for trouble. Either way I was back on the boat before I knew it.

The next leg of our journey meant a few days on board as we headed for Canada, so we had a lot of time to hang out together. This entailed eating a lot of food and playing a lot of cards.

Check out this excellent hand. Several movies on TV later we arrived in Victoria, constituting my first trip out of the country.

We walked around, saw the sights, and spent a chunk of Canadian money on souvenirs.

And that was the end of the cruise. But unfortunately not the end of our trip. After we disembarked in Seattle we spent sixteen hours driving back to Provo in a gigantic SUV that ended up running out of gas 25 miles outside of La Grande. But that's a whole different story involving a tow truck driver, Weird Al, and talk of eel smuggling.

How I plan to hang pictures

Two things I want to have in my future house: permanent picture frames and photo corners.

The idea with a permanent frame is that it would be glassless, perhaps with a painted cork back or clips to hold things in place. But it would just stay where it is, fixed to the wall, and I could hang up the drawing of the week or something fun.

We've got a family picture wall in our apartment which consists of pictures with tape on the back stuck up on the wall. I like that it can be easily rearranged, but I don't like that the edges are always curling. So someday I'd like to install a whole mess of metal picture corners on the wall. That way I can switch pictures in and out while still having the whole thing be somewhat permanent.

That's all really.

The allergy sufferer's anxiety at the graduation ceremony

Lately my rhinitis has been bad enough that I've resorted to just sticking a tissue up my nose and walking around the house that way.* It keeps my hands free, which is nice, but it's starting to become a habit, and I sometimes have to remind myself not to do it in public.

I'm mostly at peace with the fact that I'm going to spend the next sixty years constantly blowing my nose, but that doesn't mean it isn't a bit depressing. I'm the person people say "bless you" to eight times before they realize the sneezing isn't going to stop so they drop the charade of caring already. I'm the person in the theatre or lecture hall that's blowing their nose so violently no one can hear what's being said. I'm the person everyone assumes is sick, and they judge me for coming out in public and making other people sick, even though what I've got isn't catching.

I know I'm that person, and I've come to terms with it, but I just this morning realized that next week I have to sit through my graduation ceremony, and depending on how much dust there is and whether or not the girl sitting next to me happens to be wearing perfume, I may go through upwards of 50 Kleenexes in the space of two hours.

Do I bring an entire box with me? Where am I going to put them all once I've used them? Should I arrange to have a small trash can placed under my seat? We don't have assigned seats. I'll have to carry it on stage myself. Am I bold enough to take the stage carrying a small lined trash can and an entire box of Kleenex? That's pretty bold. Why not just bring an ottoman and make myself at home?

And when we get up to receive our diplomas, we're not supposed to take anything with us. Surely I can conceal one or two tissues in my left hand? I don't need my left hand for anything, do I? Or is that the hand I take the diploma with while I shake the Dean's right hand? Maybe I can rubber band them to my wrist. How long are the sleeves on my robe?

And on and on it goes. Maybe instead of worrying about it I should just embrace it already and bring a gigantic red and white spotted clown hanky that I can blow my nose into as ostentatiously as possible.

In short, I have no idea how I'm going to get through two hours without making a spectacle of myself.

*I have a tissue crammed up my nose right now. It's bliss.

What they're teaching me in school

You should watch this. Right now.

And if you have time, this one.

And this one.

We're going to Eugene!

No, not that Eugene, this Eugene.

Come fall, I will be back in Oregon where I belong! Woot!

Who FRTD?

This Friday I get to go to an advance screening of the film I worked on last summer. You can see a trailer for "For Robbing the Dead" here.

Knowing that I'm finally going to see it now that it's completed and polished makes me a little bit giddy. It will take all my self control not to lean over to Optimistic. during the screening and poke him to point out the things I helped with (the shears on the table 10 seconds into the trailer? I picked those out.) It will be hard, but I will resist.

knit picking

Is anyone out there a fantastically gifted knitter/crocheter? I need to commission a scarf with a phrase knitted into it, which is very much above my skill level. Chances are, one of you must be a closet crocheter, so speak up now and I will be forever grateful.

All aboard the nap train

Dear World,

While fabric shopping, M-Lite and I discovered this awesome book. Someone needs to buy it for me for my birthday, but instead of giving it to me, hold onto it and make me the quilt. And then I will love that person for forever.

In other news, finals are done, but they were almost my undoing. Our computer died the Saturday before finals, right when I needed it the most for the typing of papers and take home finals. So instead of getting to do all those things at home in my pajamas I had to spend 13 hour chunks of time on campus, using library computers with keyboards whose keys jam up. Why won't you let me type the letter K? Why?!

But now I'm done, and can spend whole days doing nothing but reading and eating goldfish crackers. If you too enjoy reading and eating goldfish crackers give me a call and we can maybe get together.

cordially,

Genuine

It was itchy, but not unbearably so.

I finally went in for allergy testing and now know that I am allergic to three kinds of trees, sagebrush, cats, dogs, house dust, and mites. This does not bode well. The last time I looked outside there were trees, and the last time I looked at my apartment there was house dust. I took steps to remedy the dust situation on my day off yesterday and decided to give my living room a deep clean. I knew it would cause some allergic reactions, but would be good for my health in the long run. So I set about cleaning all those hard to reach, behind the furniture sorts of places and the result was that in addition to dusting every single item in the room I also ended up rearranging all of our furniture. I like the new layout. It's a lot roomier now that the entertainment center is against a wall and not chunking off a whole corner of the room, but I keep being surprised every time I go in there. Optimistic. was more than a little surprised when he came home from work, but agreed that the new scheme is nice.

In other news, I will be graduating in April, assuming I pass a few upper level film classes this semester and next. But now that the end is near I don't want to leave, because I'm finally enjoying myself. I'm taking almost exclusively film classes and I get to TA beginning screenwriting, which is a lot of fun. However, Optimistic. has been more than a little patient hanging around Provo for three years after his graduation and we have plans to get him into grad school in the fall. Places we're looking at include University of Oregon, University of Washington, University of Michigan, and possibly somewhere in Japan. I'm rooting for the northwest options, but we'll see.

Mein bratwurst has a first name

My sister H played tennis in high school, so sometimes I'd pick her up or drop her off at practice. One day I picked her up and she plopped down, sweating and completely exhausted, in the passenger seat. Then she asked me if she smelled bad. I told her she did, so she rolled down the window and made me promise to tell her if she ever had BO in the future. Sure, what are sisters for.

Later that day I passed her in the kitchen as she was singing the Oscar Mayer wiener song.

H: 'cause Oscar Mayer has a way with B-A-L-O-G-N-A!
Me (loudly): B-O!
H (frantically smelling herself): What, still?! I showered! How could I...
Me (giggling): No, not you - the song! It's B-O-L-O-G-N-A, not B-A-L-O-G-N-A.

H was relieved that she didn't stink and I was tickled to know that she really took my BO policing seriously, a power that I never did milk as much as I should have.

Up to the highest heights

This morning I saw a house with a kite string coming out of an upstairs window. Obviously the people who live there don't care that I could have walked up and flown their house away. Some people are so careless.

The best four dollars I ever spent

Do you remember dot matrix paper? I just bought a case of it for the sole purpose of tearing the edges off and making them into accordion snakes. I have 2300 sheets if anyone cares to join me.

The anniversary of our computer wedding

There are a lot of new people in the ward for the summer, which means a lot of new introductions, so I'm constantly being asked by people how long we've been married. It's like being on a loop, repeating "two and a half years, two and a half years" over and over again, when if I had the time I'd answer "three years" and give the following explanation:

When we were still engaged, Optimistic. thought that we should buy a car together, because in all likelihood we'd need one as soon as the fall and we both shared cars with siblings. I was hesitant, because it was such a big commitment, but then he reminded me about the other commitment I'd made, you know, to marry him and spend forever with him, and suddenly buying a car didn't seem like that big a deal. So he researched a bit and we went to go test drive some used cars. We found our car and were signing for it, when the dealer asked how long we'd been married. We admitted that we weren't married yet, but would be in six months' time. He gravely typed away for a minute and then informed us that he was going to go ahead and marry us in the computer.

"Just on paper. When you're applying for a loan it looks better to be married as opposed to saying 'Hey, I want to buy a car with this girl I just met at a bus stop.'"

That sounded reasonable enough, so I was entered in under my future last name and we signed for the car. They let us drive it away right then and there, which neither of us was expecting, so we spent a giddy evening driving it around Provo. Eventually we ended up stopping to get frosties and celebrated by eating them on a play structure in the park. And since then we've done it every year around this time to celebrate the anniversary of our car, which coincides with our anniversary of being married in a computer.

You're turning violet, Violet!

I'm at the point in my recovery where instead of having an ice pack pressed up against my face all day I now have to use a hot pack and chew gum. It supposedly helps ward off jaw stiffness. I don't normally chew gum, so I've found it hard to pick up the habit so late in life. I simply don't know what to do with a mouthful of gum. I'm not used to it being there, so my speech comes out all garbled. Also, I'm terrified that if I let my mind wander I'll revert to chewing it with a set of teeth that no longer exist, and that would be remarkably painful, so, constant vigilance! I know people who constantly need to be chewing on gum, but for me it's just another chore, like rinsing with salt water 4 times a day. Similarly irksome is the fact that brushing my teeth now literally requires both hands and a small flashlight.

Vacuum love

I haven't vacuumed our apartment in ages, simply because we have a crappy upright vacuum that seems to make everything dustier than when I started, and after having worked for facility services on campus I'm accustomed to using industrial equipment. Solution: we purchased my dream vacuum - a Numatic NVQ 380-22, or what the WILK custodial staff calls a happy vac. It has a small head that gets into corners, it moves around and under furniture easily, and it's super quiet. It should arrive on Thursday, and you best better believe I'm going to vacuum the crap out this place, quite literally. Watch this video to see why I love Numatics so much.

Applesauce and medicine. Oh boy! Oh boy!

My brother wins the admiration with the correct guess of "I'm not Grandpa!" Watch this Dexter episode and all will be revealed.