2008 Book Wrap Up

For years now I have been keeping a "Books to Read" list. It is full of old favorite authors, authors or books people have suggested or ones that caught my fancy. I don't even bother to count how many books are on it anymore...somewhere around 1500, I think. When I find an author I like, I like to ready everything they've ever written. Every couple of months I go through and review and update my list. Now that I use the library almost exclusively for my reading material, it makes it very easy to just pull a title off the list, put it on hold and go from there. I've been following this pattern since I started my books to read list back in high school in '85 or '86. There are titles on there that have been there for years and never been read. I don't want to take anything off because I might miss something really great if I do.

Well, this year I shook things up a little.

I did all kinds of things in 2008 that I haven't done in ages in my reading. I know you are all going to think this is really weird, but us bookworms get set in our little reading ways and it takes a lot for us to change. This year I went hog wild and just let myself browse and pick books off the shelf that caught my fancy that weren't on my book list. *GASP* I know, it's shocking, isn't it? Not only that, I allowed myself to choose a book by its cover. *GASP* *GASP* I even chose a book just because I liked the title. *scream of terror* I really went out of the comfort zone on that one. And - this is the really weird one - I started choosing books based on the PUBLISHING COMPANY. *fainting dead away in shock*

And you know what? It was great. I found some amazing authors and some terrific stories I wouldn't have ever read because of my strict adherence to a 25 year old habit. In my browsing, I came across a bunch of short story anthologies and discovered some authors that I really, really liked. I read some of their regular novels and found some great stories. I was introduced to a publishing company called Brava (part of Kensington books) that had so many great authors that I started going to the library and just pulling out books published by them, knowing there was a good chance it would be something I liked.

I was really on a paranormal kick this year. I love books about magic, vampires, were-animals, fairies, and all those great fantasy-type topics. I like them as romances or romantic/comedy/mysteries most of all. My favorite paranormal author that I found this year was Kim Harrison (thank you Shiloh, for the suggestion). I just fell in love with her Hollows series and go so caught up in the stories. I can't wait for the next one to come out. Alyssa Day, Sylvia Day, HelenKay Dimon, Candace Havens, Angela Knight, Kathy Love, Katie MacAlister, and Erin McCarthy were some of my other terrific finds with a paranormal bent. Oh, and I also read (well, listened to, actually) Eragonand really enjoyed it. I can't believe a 17-year-old wrote that book. Amazing. I'm in the middle of listening to the second one in the series called Eldest.

I discovered a couple of great mystery authors. Dana Stabenow writes a couple of mystery series about people that live in Alaska. I've really enjoyed the peek into this mysterious and fascinating land. I also discovered Lisa Scottoline who has a mystery series involving an office of lawyers in Philadelphia.

As far as just plain old fiction authors, I discovered Christopher Moore. Well, his books actually fall under the paranormal umbrella because his books are about some really weird stuff. His book You Suck: A Love Story was one of the ones I chose by its title. Any book that starts out "You bitch, you killed me! You suck!" has got to be good. I highly recommend any of his books that I've read so far. They have made me laugh out loud.

The book that made me think and disturbed me the most was The Ungodly by Richard Rhodes. It's a fictionalized story about the Donner Party and really brought home what the pioneers had to go through to get the West settled.

I just about finished listening to all of Dick Francis's books this year. I think there are two more titles on his list that I haven't read. I'm sad about that because I think he's a terrific storyteller. He's getting up there in age and I'm afraid we won't have too many more new titles of his to look forward.

All in all I finished the year with reading 115 books and 82 audio books. Not exactly my best year quantity-wise, but I enjoyed every book I read. Even the Dog the Bounty Hunter biography.

Merry Christmas!

Okay, it's official. I'm sick of the snow. I've been stuck at home since Friday night and am now throughly sick of the white stuff. Greg & I tried to shovel the car out today to go to my parents to celebrate Christmas and he threw his back out. I did mention it probably was a bad idea for him to shovel snow, but he knew I wanted to go and made the extra effort for me. And now I've broken him.

So I hope everyone is having a better Christmas than we are. I'm paying bills and cleaning off my desk. Wow, do I know how to celebrate the season or what?

I need to go charge my camera battery so I can take some more snow pictures. It's pouring down snow right now and because it's starting to melt, everyone has huge icicles hanging from their roofs and cars and lights. They are very pretty, actually, but I wish they'd go away!

Huh, the first white Christmas we've had in a zillion years in the Portland area and I just want it to go away. I'm so ungrateful.

Letter From Santa

Dear Friends

I have been watching you very closely to see if you have been good this year and since you have I will be telling my elves to make some goodies for me to leave under your tree at Christmas.

I was going to bring you all gifts from the 12 days of Christmas but we had a little problem….

The 12 Fiddlers fiddling have all come down with VD from fiddling with the 10 ladies dancing.

The 11 lords leaping have knocked up the 8 maids a-milking, and the 9 pipers piping have been arrested for doing weird things to the 7 swans a-swimming.
The 6 geese a-laying, 4 calling birds, 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves and the partridge in a pear tree have me up to my sled runners in bird shit.

On top of all this, Mrs. Claus is going through menopause, 8 of my reindeer are in heat, the elves have joined the gay liberation and some people who can’t read a calendar have scheduled Christmas for the 5th of January.

Maybe next year I will be able to get my shit together and bring you the things you want.

This year I suggest yo u get your asses down to Walmart before everything is gone.

Love,
Santa

More Snow

I went out today and tried to play in the snow. That was a mistake. There was a layer of ice on top of the 7 inches of snow that was out there. I walked down the driveway and back and was done. The stupid ice hurts when it breaks around your ankle.

So it's snowing pretty hard again today. I'm thinking I won't be going to work tomorrow. At least I'll have the laundry all done and folded and put away. Maybe I'll finish cleaning my closet, too!

The neighbors snow men with real snow on it!


Looking down the street.


My car. Lots more snow today, huh??


Oh, and by the way, for those of you who saw the pictures I posted of the pets the other day and think we treat Zinger like a step-cat and make him sleep in the old icky box instead of a nice cushioned bed like the others, I have to tell you that everyone fights over that bed. Carmen & Sophie have nice soft beds with heated pads in them, but everyone prefers to be in the old Costco box with the heated pad inside. I have no idea why it is the choice spot in the office but it is. Zinger gets really annoyed when he wants to sleep in the "hot box" as we call it and there is a dog in it.

More Pictures for You

Snow!

Well, the weatherman finally got it right. We've had snow off and on all week, but today it has finally decided to settle in. It has been snowing all day long. At the moment it is about 26 degrees and snowing pretty hard. We have about 5 inches on the ground here. I took some pictures to show you. They aren't anything great, but they get the idea across.

Looking out across and down the street.


My car. It was all uncovered when I got home yesterday. What a difference 24 hours makes!


Carmen looks pathetic here, but she was really in between barks to get me to throw the frisbee and quit taking stupid pictures.


Cleo


Zinger was the only one of us with any brains. He chose to stay inside. He does like his creature comforts!


Sophie eating snow. I tried to get a picture of her nose when she came up since it was covered in snow. You'll just have to imagine it.<

Running in the snow.

Simon's Sister's Dog

Christmas Carols for the Disturbed

* 1. Schizophrenia --- Do You Hear What I Hear?

* 2. Multiple Personality Disorder --- We Three Kings Disoriented Are

* 3. Dementia --- I Think I'll be Home for Christmas

* 4. Narcissistic --- Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

* 5. Manic --- Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and.......

* 6.Paranoid --- Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

* 7. Borderline Personality Disorder --- Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

* 8. Personality Disorder --- You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why

* 9. Attention Deficit Disorder --- Silent night, Holy oooh look at the Froggy - can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

* 10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder --- Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingl e Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

It's Frickin' Freezing, Mr. Bigglesworth!

It's cold. At the moment is is 22 degrees (but feels like 8 degrees according to the weather.com site) and the east wind is blowing up a storm. We are under a winter weather watch. The TV news people are in raptures over the endless discussions of ice, cold, wind, wrecks, and school closures, as well as never-ending talk of the weather ofthe future. Will it snow? Will there be ice? More closures? They are just about needing a cigarette they are so excited.

While I completely enjoy the snow, I despise all the drama that comes with it. Even worse, this time I didn't even get any snow or ice at my house and everyone else did. So I got all the drama without any of the snow. What's up with that? It was like someone drew a line in Vancouver about Mill Plain and all the people at the normal elevations north of that line got nothing. Oh, we got a few flakes on Sunday, but they didn't last long.

The dogs think the world is coming to an end. They are ready to move to Hawaii or anyplace where the temperature hovers around a comfortable 80 degrees (I just checked it and it's 74 degrees in Honolulu at the moment - at 4:30 in the morning). They don't get out of bed much when it is this cold.

Okay, more later.

A Christmas Funny

My friend Sarah sent me this. It's too funny not to put up here. Thanks, Sarah!


I hate to be the one to defy sacred myth, but I believe he's a she. Think about it. Christmas is a big, organized, warm, fuzzy, nurturing, social deal, and I have a tough time believing a guy could possibly pull it all off.

For starters, the vast majority of men don't even think about selecting gifts until Christmas Eve. Once at the mall, they always seem surprised to find only Ronco products, socket wrench sets, and mood rings left on the shelves. On this count alone, I'm convinced Santa is a woman. Surely, if he were a man, everyone in the universe would wake up Christmas morning to find a rotating musical Chia Pet under the tree, still in the bag.

Another problem for a he-Santa would be getting there. First of all, there would be no reindeer because they would all be dead, gutted, and strapped on to the rear bumper of the sleigh amid wide-eyed, desperate claims that buck season had been extended. Blitzen's rack would already be on the way to the taxidermist. Even if the male Santa DID have reindeer, he'd still have transportation problems because he would inevitably get lost up there in the snow and clouds and then refuse to stop and ask for directions.

Other reasons why Santa can't possibly be a man:
-- Men can't pack a bag.
-- Men would rather be dead than caught wearing red velvet.
-- Men would feel their masculinity is threatened having to be seen with all those elves.
-- Men don't answer their mail.
-- Men would refuse to allow their physique to be described, even in jest, as anything remotely resembling a "bowl full of jelly."
-- Men aren't interested in stockings unless somebody's wearing them.
-- Having to do the Ho Ho Ho thing would seriously inhibit their ability to pick up women.
-- Finally, being responsible for Christmas would require a commitment.

I can buy the fact that other mythical holiday characters are men: Father Time shows up once a year unshaven and looking ominous. Definite guy. Cupid flies around carrying weapons. Uncle Sam is a politician who likes to point fingers. Any one of these individuals could pass the testosterone-screening test. But not
St. Nick. Not a chance.

Closest Book

My friend Marika had this on her Facebook site. It was so cool that I stole it to put it on my blog.

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your wall.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.


Mine was:
By three this morning my body was a vibrating mass of nerve endings, and I'd never felt so satisfied.
-Charmed & Dangerous, by Candace Havens

Oooh, steamy!

Elf Disco

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I don’t know how it happened, but somehow it is December, the tail end of 2008. All I can say is thank goodness it’s about over. This has been the worst year for so many people I know what with family losses, money losses, illnesses, and everything falling apart. I’m glad the year is almost over and we are starting a new year soon. The only good thing that happened in 2008 was the We Live and Breathe Letterboxing Extravaganza – and that was a BLAST!

I’m a little behind in posting, aren’t I? I had most of last week off and didn’t manage to post once. I had my endoscopy/colonoscopy last week. That was fun - NOT. It actually wasn’t bad at all, since I was totally asleep and didn’t feel a thing. The worst part was the prep. You don’t want to know, you really don’t. I can post pictures from the procedure (not the prep) if you want, but I got a lot of flack last time over the pictures of my insides.

Well, Thanksgiving is over. Mr. Grumpy Pants and I didn’t do anything special. With his dietary restrictions now, he can’t have much besides meat and veggies, so we did without the traditional Thanksgiving meal. My parents were with my aunt and uncle on the East Coast and the in-laws were doing their own thing, so we just stayed home and cleaned the kitchen. Wow, do we know how to celebrate or what? We made it through Black Friday and I didn’t go out at all. In fact, I think I sat on the couch most of the day on Friday knitting and watching “Deadliest Catch” (I get really caught up in that show for some reason) and didn’t contribute one red cent to the economy that day. Yay me!

My parents came to get their kitties on Sunday. You have never seen a more relived cat than Patches was to see her people back to rescue her from the blue-room hell (the room they were staying in is blue and we call it the blue room. Not very original is it? Should we rename it Bob or Ted or something?). They were so glad to go home. I think Zinger misses them, though. He was pretty sweet on Jassmine.

So now that it is December and the days are getting shorter and I’m getting up in the dark and going home in the dark it’s time to think about the big holiday. I’m sure that it comes as no surprise to anyone that knows us, but MGP and I aren’t doing Christmas this year. No tree, no lights, no presents, just business as usual. We have so much other stuff hanging over us like the huge debt, MGP’s health, a huge to-do list and not enough energy to keep up with daily life that we aren’t going to add Christmas stress to our plates. So, please, if you were planning on getting me a gift, please don’t. I’m not going to get you one and I already have too much stuff. Unless you’d like to contribute to the “Pay Kris & Greg’s Debt Off” fund, I really don’t want or need anything. But it’s sweet of you to think about us.

Guests

We have two guests at the Leibrand household this week. My parents have gone to Connecticut to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle, so we are babysitting their two cats, Patches & Jassmine. My parents are glad the cats are staying with us. The cats themselves are not happy about it one little bit. I’m not entirely sure they will ever forgive Mom & Dad, and they haven’t even spent 24 hours at my house yet.

My parents’ cats aren’t real fond of Greg & me to begin with. When we go to over to my parents house, we usually have Carmen and Sophie with us and P & J really don’t like that those dogs come into their home. My dogs just like to sniff them and if they happen to run the girls are happy to chase them, although we immediately discourage that. We’ve managed to train them that when we come over it’s time to hide. By association they don’t like us any more than they like the dogs, although Patches can be bribed with turkey into pretending to like us on occasion. I think if they thought hard enough about it they would be like Si and Am in Lady and the Tramp and play all kinds of mean tricks on the dogs. Luckily for the cats, the dogs never stay too long at their house. Unfortunately for P & J, they are now at the evil dogs’ house.

I brought them home last night after work and just left them in their crates in the living room for a while so everyone could get used to everyone else without the danger of anyone getting hurt. Patches probably has a sore throat today from all the growling she did. Jassmine tried really, really hard to become invisible or maybe she was hoping the towel inside would turn into a magic carpet that would take her home. Either way, they weren’t happy. Carmen & Sophie stuck their noses over for a sniff and got hissed at for their efforts and pretty much ignored them from then on. “More cats, big deal,” they seemed to say. If there hadn’t been further fussing anytime the dogs walked by, they probably would have forgotten all about the newcomers. Cleo acted like she didn’t really care that the crates were growling and hissing at her and just gave them a look. Poor Zinger, like most males, was completely clueless about the intruders until he walked by the crate and it hissed at him. He just about came unglued. I didn’t know his tail could get so fat.

P & J are staying in the spare room for right now and they aren’t very happy about that either. They didn’t want any of their favorite treats last night, thank you very much. They didn’t want to be cuddled or soothed. They didn’t want any water or their cat box. They did not want a guided tour. They just wanted to be crabby and left the hell alone to plot revenge on my mom & dad. When I went in this morning to check on them, it sounded like there was a leaky tire in there with all the hissing and growling going on when they saw me (all other household members are banned from that room). Patches was mad enough that she took a couple of good swipes at my hand when I put her bowl of food by her.

Poor kitties. I feel so badly for them. They are so unhappy. Hopefully in a day or two they will assimilate into the household and feel better. For now, though, they are very un-happy campers. Check back for more updates soon!

My Life In 101 Questions

101: My FULL name is: Bookworm
100: I was born in: California
99: I am really: Tired.
98: My phone is: Annoying. I love answering machines and caller-ID.
97: My eye color is: Hazel
96: My ring size is: Little – maybe a 4?
95: My height is: 5’3”
94: I am allergic to: Stupid people
93: I was born on: Thursday
92: I am annoyed by: Stupid people
91: Last book I read: Every Which Way But Dead by Kim Harrison. If you like books about witches, vampires, pixies, and were animals, I highly recommend Kim Harrison’s books. Last audio book I listened to was Eragon by Christopher Paolini. I really enjoyed this book. It’s amazing to me that a 15-year-old wrote it.
89: My favorite Holiday is: Halloween
82: The last 3 cds I bought were? One of the Boys by Katy Perry, ‘80s British Gold, and Prometheus by Michael Allen Harrison
81: Are you living at home?: This is a weird question. Where would I be living, in my car?
80: Do you have any siblings? Nope. Only a sibling of the heart, Deb



- Do/Do Not Believe In –


78: Love at First Sight? No. Attraction at first sight, yes, but love? No. You have to pick up someone’s dirty underwear a few times before you figure out if you love them or not.
77: Luck? Yes, I think so. I at least believe in bad luck. Some of it you make yourself, some it of happens.
76: Fate? Yes. There are too many weird coincidences that happen without some sort of plan. And it isn’t asked here, but I believe in Karma too. I’ve seen that proven time and time again. And I like My Name is Earl.
75: Yourself? Interesting question. I’ll have to think about this.
74: Aliens? Yes. Do you really believe the weather balloon/swamp gas explanations? Me either.
73: Heaven? Absolutely, although I’m not sure I believe that Heaven will be like we’ve all heard about with clouds, angels singing, and manna everywhere.
72: Horoscopes? No, but I do enjoy reading them for the entertainment factor. There is something to personality types based on astrology, though.
71: Soul mates? No.

- Which is Better? –

70: Hugs or Kisses? Hugs
68: Phone or online? Online every time!
67: Blondes or Brunettes? Who cares?
66: Hot or cold? Cold. I love to snuggle up in a nice blanket when it’s chilly out with a whippet curled up by me trying to hog the blankets.
65: Summer or winter? This one is tough. My first instinct was to say winter, but I like summer, too. So how about we compromise and say fall?
64: Chocolate or Vanilla? Vanilla with chocolate topping. Why should I have to limit myself to just one?
63: Night or Day? Day for letterboxing, of course. I found myself thinking the other day that I might like to work a night shift though.
62: Oranges or Apples? Apples
61: Curly or Straight hair? I think if you have hair you should just be grateful and not worry about it.



- Here's what I Think About –


60: Abortion: Should be a personal choice not a political agenda. Who am I to say whether it is right for you and your circumstances or not? I think the best medical care should be available for everything and we don’t get to pick and choose which surgeries are appropriate or legal.
59: Assisted Suicide: I am absolutely for it. I’ve always thought it was awful that we could be kind to animals that were injured or very sick with no chance of getting better by putting them to sleep and we couldn’t do the same thing for people. I totally understand that there is a point for people where living becomes too much. There should be a kind and humane way to end suffering. I also don’t think this should be a political platform.
58: Legalizing Marijuana: Go for it. And tax it. Heavily. We tax alcohol and cigarettes, so why not stop prosecuting people for using weed and just let them have it and pay a hefty tax for it? I think we’d come out ahead in that. Besides, I’m tired of paying my taxes for other people, so let some of the druggies pay their own taxes for a while.



-Today Have You-


57: Hugged someone? Yes, I gave Zinger a hug this morning.
56: Saw someone? Of course. I’ve seen about a zillion people today.
55: Who is the most accident prone person you know? Deb.
54: Who makes you laugh the most? My pets. They are better than TV when they are having fun.
53: What’s the last movie you watched? Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (if I had known I was going to have to admit that to the world in general I might have watched something else. J)
52: What I don't understand is: Why people have to be so mean? Can’t we just be nice to each other?
51: The most unsatisfying answer I've ever received is: “Because.” And also, “They aren’t College Station cockroaches, they are Bryan cockroaches.” If you want to know the story behind that you’ll have to ask me sometime. Oh, and also “You shouldn’t have brought your wife to the job interview.”
50: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: Leave home? What does this mean? Am I going to be captured by aliens since I said back on number 74 that I believe in them? Or does it just mean when I leave home for the day? Or is this quiz aimed at a younger audience still living with their parents? Hmm.

49: The thing I'm looking forward to the most is? Getting my butt whipped in Word Twist by everyone. I live for that.
48: Things that make you mad: Stupid people, animal abusers, stupid people, bad drivers, stupid people, politics, stupid people, unfairness, stupid people, the government bailing out companies that made bad business choices, stupid people, money troubles, stupid people, people that cut you off traffic, oops already covered that one, stupid people. I reserve the right to add to this list later.



- What did/will you do-



47: Yesterday? Work, picked up my parent’s cats, drove, went home, ordered a pizza, finished my book, went to sleep
46: Today? Work
45: Next Summer:? No plans yet.
44: This weekend? Laundry, dishes, cleaning, and other fun chores.
43: People call me: Kris, Krissy, Bookworm, Wormy, Hey You
42: The person(s) who knows the most about me is? Greg and Deb
41: The most difficult thing to do is: Beat Sarah at Word Twist
40: I have gotten a speeding ticket: Nope
39: The first person I talked to today was: Greg
38: The one person who I can't hide things from: Greg. That man knows if you even think about hiding something or fibbing. He is so good at reading me. It’s a blessing and a curse.
37: Last time someone said something you were thinking: I can’t remember. But I did pick up the phone to call someone yesterday just as they walked through the door to see me.
36: Right now I am talking to: My computer.
35: What is your dream job? Not having to work and being able to do whatever I want.
34: First job?: Babysitting, house cleaning, ironing, yard work

33: I have these pets: The Wonder Whippets, Sophie and Carmen, officially known as Dreams on the Sofa, Fch, SC, OTRM, SR and Dreams Caribbean Blue, JC. Also 2 cats, Cleopatra and Zinger (who don’t have official registered names or letters behind their names but aren’t any less special because of it).
31: The person that makes me cry the most is: Greg
30: Best sound in the world? Silence
29: Who makes you happy? Lots of people make me happy for different reasons.
28. Which Golden Girl would you be? Probably the little cranky one.
27: Myspace or Facebook? Facebook. Come kick my butt in Word Twist if you want. My profile is under Midnight Flamingo
26: Mexican food or Chinese? Mexican, baby
25: My favorite color(s) is: Green
24: Last time I cried: When my grandma died.
23: My computer is: Full.
22: Favorite food: I like too many foods to have just one favorite.
21: Last person I got mad at? Probably Greg. Or Cleo for running out when I opened the door.
20: Your secret crush? Don’t have one. I’m an open book.
19: Favorite place? In bed on clean sheets with snuggy warm whippets cuddled up next to me and a good book.

18: Favorite Song? I like too many to have just one favorite.
17: Paper or plastic? Paper
16: The all-time best movie(s) is: Independence Day or The Rock
15: The all-time best feeling in the world is: Sneezing. Yeah, I probably need to get out more.
14: What color is your hairbrush:? I have several. One is purple, one is green and two are black.
13: Favorite shoe: Left.
12: I lose all respect for people who: Don’t wash their hands after using the toilet. Ewwww.

11: What do you hate the most: Anyone who abuses or are mean to animals and people smaller or weaker than they are.
10: Color of your room? My room is almost the exact color of the Hotel Del Coronado – pink. And no, I didn’t plan that.
9: TV channels you watch? USA. I have 900 stupid cable channels and most of the time I can’t find anything I want to watch.
8: Best Feature in the opposite sex / same sex? Kindness, compassion, intelligence.
7: Best feature in you? Stability
6: The worst pain I was ever in? Breaking my ankle last summer
5: Favorite TV Shows: NCIS, Two and a Half Men, My Name is Earl, Monk, Scrubs, Pushing Up Daisies,
4: My favorite celebrity: Ashley Whippet, the first Frisbee Dog. He rocks and I don’t have to worry about disagreeing with his politics or beliefs or defending him when he makes a stupid movie or gets arrested for drugs or alcohol. He was a whippet, he loved Frisbee and how much cooler can it get than that? I love how dogs look at life anyway.
3: What's your religion? Christian
2: Who broke your heart? Is it broken? I hadn’t noticed.
1: biggest regret: Not going to college and getting a degree

World News

There was a headline on CNN yesterday about the Jonestown massacre and it got me thinking. November 19, 2008 is the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre. This is one of the first big world news stories that I remember hearing about as a kid. I was 8 when it happened, and like most 8-year-olds, I was completely and blissfully unaware of what was going on outside of my little world. I was busy with 2nd grade and my My Friend Mandy dolls, and being jealous that my cousin Debbie had a Lite-Brite and I didn’t. It came as quite a shock to learn that there were nasty things out there in the big world.

I don’t have the best memory. Somehow I didn’t get the Van Vechten memory gene that allows one to retain everything from the events of the day right down to the temperature and wind speed. I mostly remember seeing the dozens and dozens of body bags being loaded (or unloaded) on the planes on the news. I got pretty scared about it, although now I don’t know why. It wasn’t like it was going to happen to me. All I remember about it was that a bunch of people were in a cult and their leader was nuts and made them drink poisoned Kool-Aid. I had no idea why this happened or what lead up to it or anything. In fact, I remained in complete ignorance about this until yesterday when I realized it was the 30 year anniversary and remembered how it affected me when I was a kid. I then went and did some Googling and found out that my original 8-year-old assessment was pretty darned accurate, even if it didn’t take into account the socialism, communism, racial and economic equality, politics, and other crazy stuff.

Once the memory vault was opened about news stories from when I was a kid, I remembered what was probably the very first major news story I remember – the crash of a PSA plan in San Diego on September 25, 1978. I don’t remember if I heard the crash or not (now that I’ve read more about it, my memories are getting confused), but I remember seeing the smoke rising up in the sky and that it was smoky for a long time. I remember hearing about the body parts falling from the sky. That creeped me out to no end. Strangely, I don’t remember much more about this. You’d think I would considering the planes fell out of the sky practically in my back yard (okay it was miles and miles away, but still in the next town over) and the news people would have been all over that story like white on rice.

The last big world news story I remember from when I was a kid was Brenda Ann Spencer. Remember her? She was the girl that invented school shootings. On January 29, 1979 (my 9th birthday) this little darling strolled outside her house with a gun and proceeded to kill two people and injure eight other students and a cop at the elementary school across the street. Why did she do such a thing? “I don’t like Mondays,” she said with a shrug. Later on she pulled the “I was abused as a child” defense and then the "I was on drugs" defence.. She’s up for parole for the fifth time in 2009. Want to be she doesn’t get it…again?

So let’s hear your memories of events from childhood. Deb, I particularly interested to hear how these 3 things effected you since you and I are close to the same age and two of these things happened in our home town.

The Spoiled Under 30 Crowd

Some things that come through my email are too good not to post up here. Enjoy this one. And I apologize for all the excamation points.


If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... Uphill... barefoot... BOTH ways

Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up,there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn utopia!
And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!!

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen!
Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself. Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like call waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was...it could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know. You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games Like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!

And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on. You were screwed when it came to channel surfing.

You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK For cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove .... Imagine that!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

Craziness

I'm not one that is too fond of shopping, as I may have mentioned once or twice on this blog. I don't ever get up at 2:00 in the morning to wait in line for the great deals the day after Thanksgiving and I think waiting in line with a billion people to buy stuff at a slightly discounted price is highly overrated. I know people that have gotten great deals doing this, but it has never been my cup of tea.

With that said, I went to the Craft Warehouse Open House on Saturday. I've never been to one before and was amazed at how many people were there. It was a total madhouse. The event started at 5:00 and I got there just a few minutes afterwards. There was a line already to get in that went down the sidewalk and around the side of the building to the back. I waited in line for about 40 minutes, but I enjoyed listening to the people around me and soaking in the atmosphere of excitement. Employees came down the line with candy canes, coffee, hot cider, and other goodies that kept us going.

I didn't really need anything at Craft Warehouse, but the 40% off one item and the 2 $5 off a $20 item coupons were burning a hole in my pocket. I ended up only getting a few things. The project containers I had been eyeing were on sale for $10 instead of $20, so I picked two of those up. They had stamping ink on sale 4 for $10 so I replenished my ink stock for letterboxing. I also found the perfect thing for tracking my stitches in knitting (a ribbon holder thingy) and picked up a couple of alphabet stamp kits.

They had prize drawings, special sales, refreshments and all kinds of stuff inside the store. It was packed with manic women and their long-suffering men looking for the best deals possible. It was pretty fun over all. I did end up having to wait about as long to check out as I had to check in, but I guess it's all part of the experience.

My main problem is I love to organize and start projects, but I'm not so good at the follow through to completion part. Oh, well. I can dream, right?

I Hate Being Sick

Being sick sucks. I've had a cold for about 2 weeks now. Sniffles, sea-lion barking coughs, green snot, yellow phlegm, the whole thing. I stopped at Walgreens yesterday to buy some more cold pills, cough meds, and cough drops to get me through the rest of the week. I was annoyed to find that all the good cold meds have been taken off the market because of crazy crack addicts who do something mysterious with it to make some horrible poisonous substance. WTF? Why should I suffer because some bozo makes illegal drugs using the good cold pills? I already have a cold and feel rotten, why don't you kick me while I'm down?

Then, while the clerk was ringing up my stuff yesterday, she goes "And can I get your birthdate?" I told her what it was and asked, "I assume you asked that because of the cough medicine?" When she said yes, I said, "How old do you have to be to buy cough medicine?" She explained that you have to be over 18 now to buy cough medicine because of "substance abuse."

I must really be getting old. When I was a kid you used cough medicine to control a cough, not to get high. It never would have occurred to me that I could drink a bunch of it to get high. Who wants to drink a bunch of it anyway? It all tastes nasty. Like the geeky girl I am , I had to go Google "cough medicine abuse" to learn anything about it. This was a good site for info. This one was good too. Now that I know more than I ever wanted to know I have come to the following conclusions:

1. Parents need to do a better job supervising their kids.
2. Kids need to go back to the more "natural" drugs of marijuana and coke and quit mixing up dangerous concoctions that make it so innocent cold victims can't buy medicine to treat their colds because a bunch of liberals are trying to save your stinking sorry undeserving asses.


It is my opinion that you are going to want to get high really, really badly in order to drink a bunch of cough medicine. I'm sure there must be something better and easier to get/use.

That's just my opinion.

A Look Inside

I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but my new doctor has diagnosed me with severe anemia. This could explain why I'm so tired and lethargic all the time. Anyway, she wanted me to have an endoscopy done to check my esophogus, stomach, and small intestine to make sure there wasn't anything in there that was causing a small amount of bleeding and contributing to the anemia. So off I went to the gastroenterology doctor, who was about 12, to have a camera crammed down my throat and have pictures taken of my guts.

It was a weird experience.

They gave me these lovely happy drugs that made me really sleepy and docile. I wasn't totally unconcious, but very, very relaxed. I only remember choking and having them tell me over and over to breathe through my nose. Then I woke up and they gave me a diet Coke. I don't remember putting my shirt on or half of the doctor's debrief.

I was sure that my reading public would love to see this. So, here's what my insides look like.


The results came back and said that my small intestine does not have any evidence of celiac sprue (I guess this is a good thing as the doctor started his letter with "I'm happy to let you know...") and my gastric polyps did not contain any abnormal tissues and my stomach didn't have H. pylori bacteria. On the minus side, there is a spot they couldn't see because I was fighting to cough and they want to look at better, so I have to go back in for another one. This time they will put me out all the way. Since we are going that route, they want to do a colonoscopy too. Whatever, let's get it all in at once. Can we tie my tubes, take out my appendix and any other extra parts there might be while I'm in there? You know, like taking the car in for a tune up?

Thank Goodness That’s Over

I am so glad that the whole election thing is done. No more annoying “vote for me!” commercials. No more annoying “vote for me!” junk mail. No more annoying electronic “vote for me” phone calls. Now we just count. And wait for the country to fall apart when Obama wins. Yes, I live in a blue state but vote red. I can admit it. I hope I’m wrong about the big O, but I don't think so.

Does anyone else but me think he’s goofy looking?

Okay, with the election thing out of the way, I can move on to my other favorite rant this time of year...Christmas decorations. You may recall that I am a firm beliver in celebrating each holiday as it comes. Therefore, you may not celebrate Thanksgiving before Halloween or Christmas before Thanksgiving.

So I went to the mall tonight to get some library books and found that Penny's has up their Christmas decorations, Vancouver Mall has up their decorations, and Santa's house is in place. It's so, so wrong

What We Do On a Rainy November Sunday

Shopping

I went clothes shopping over the weekend. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I loathe going clothes shopping. But my closet has turned on me and suddenly everything I own is either too small, too annoying, has a stain on it, has a hole in it or some other problem. Not to mention that I needed to make my wardrobe a tad bit more professional to go with my new job duties.

So out to find professional clothes I went. Now, I don’t normally go to the mall. I go to Vancouver Mall only because the closest library is there and I just walk through Penny’s and get my books and leave. Well, occasionally I’ll stop at Paradise Bakery for a cookie, or Taco Time. But for the most part I hate malls. If I do need something I generally go to the store I need and right back out again. I’ve bought Weekenders clothes for the past few years with the occasional foray into Catherine’s (which isn’t so bad since it’s just one store). But now that Weekenders is no more I can't do that.

What a friggin’ pain.

My first mistake, unbeknownst to me, was I chose Columbus Day weekend to go shopping. It was a lovely day, cool and sunny and crisp with fall in the air. I figured everyone would be out at the local pumpkin patch getting their pumpkins and running through the corn mazes. That’s certainly where I wanted to be. But no. They were all at the mall. All at the mall taking my parking places. All at the mall letting their kid wander around unsupervised while they pushed the stroller at a snails pace in front of me. All at the mall strolling 4-people across and not moving for anyone.

My second mistake was choosing to shop at Clackamas Town Center. I grew up with CTC. I remember when we first moved up here my parents and I went through the building before they were done with construction. I spent a lot of time there as a teenager, since that’s what you did in the 80s. I worked in that mall from 1988-1994. The mall and I knew each other quite well back then. Well, no longer! The whole place has changed. I might as well have been on another planet for all the familiarity I felt there. About the only thing the same was Sears, Penny’s and Nordstrom’s being in the same place. They took out the skating rink, removed the big trees from the center, updated the look and feel of the whole place, and basically made it unrecognizable. It was really quite a shock.

My third mistake was in thinking that I would just browse around the mall rather than going in with a plan.

My fourth mistake was in assuming that there would actually be professional looking clothes available in my size everywhere I looked. Why is it so danged hard to find a dress these days? I like dresses better than skirts because they come complete. I don’t have to pair it up with a shirt that matches or whatever. Did I mention I loathe shopping for clothes? It’s mostly because I am really bad at coordinating things. Once you do find the hidden dress section, you have to eliminate all the stupid looking ones that were designed for someone who wears a size 8 and been expanded to fit someone who wears a size 20. This, as you might imagine, is not always a good idea. There are times when this is a disaster. Most of the stores carried disasters in one form or another. After walking the whole mall looking for fat girl clothe stores and gazing in amazement at the things selling as fashion in the skinny girls stores, I finally ran some professional looking clothes to ground at Penny’s. Then I had to find the dressing room, wait for the 70 people in line in front of me, pick my way over all the discarded clothes in the dressing room and try everything on.

To save you from the painful step-by-step drama, suffice it to say that I did manage to find several nice outfits. They were all on sale and, miracle of miracles, the lady that checked me out offered to ring up my 3 outfits as separate purchases so I could use the $10 coupon that was in the paper (that I didn’t even know about) on each one. Wow!

After CTC I went bra shopping. I loathe bra shopping even more than clothing shopping. I got it right this time, though. Instead of wandering aimlessly around a department store trying to find my size (which is invariably on the bottom. Why do they put the big ones on the bottom rack? You’ve got to assume big ta-tas usually mean big girls and we don’t like to have to squat to find our size on the bottom row in the back. Make the skinny girls bend over!), I was smart and went to Just Like a Woman, a store that specializes in bras. I went in, marched up to the counter and said, “I hate my bra. Can someone please fit me properly for one?” So I got to work with Amelia or Amber or someone who was really nice and measured me up and brought me a selection. Cool thing about this is they fasten the hooks for you so you don’t have to stretch out all the muscles in your arms trying to hook them yourself. And they are good at what they do, so they can tell you if there isn’t enough coverage or whatever. I didn’t look at a single bra myself. She went into the back and came in with a selection and let me try on as many as I wanted.

So I survived my shopping trip with a couple of nice outfits and two new very expensive bras. Didn't get to the shoes, but that's okay. Shoes I can do.

Citizenship

I discovered today that I don’t deserve to be a US Citizen. I took the US Citizenship Test here http://usgovinfo.about.com/blinstst.htm. This was a sample test with 100 questions. I don’t know how they score them, but assuming if you get part of the answer wrong it’s all wrong, I got 23 wrong. That’s 77% for you math people. I think I read you have to get 80% to pass.

Go take the test and see how you do then come back and tell me. NO CHEATING, now! Answer it as if you were really taking the test.
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Now that you have taken it, let me clue you in on a few things.

Some of these questions are very ambiguous, even for a person who speaks English. For example:
Q. What is the United States Capitol?
I answered Washington DC, thinking they meant the capitol of the US. The real answer is “the Place where Congress meets”

Q. Who is the head of your local government?
Do they mean city, county, state, or federal government? I answered the Governor, thinking they wanted the title, but they actually wanted to know the person’s name. I still don’t know what the correct answer is, because it just says “insert local information.” Which local???

Q. What is the elective branch of our government?
They didn’t want a description but rather the names of the positions that make up the elective branch of our government (president, vice-president, cabinet, etc)

2. I think I need to go back to school on more than a few.
Q. What is the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America?
This one is embarrassing. It’s not the Nina, the Pinto, or the Santa Maria, just in case you wondered.

Q. Who elects the President of the United States?
Strangely enough I actually thought the people elected the president. Turns out it’s the Electoral College. Why do I vote again?

Q. How many changes or amendments are there to the Constitution?
There are 27. Apparently the right to go into a bathroom stall and be able to close the door without having to stand on the toilet has not been approved yet.

Q. Can you name the thirteen original states?
Um, no. Maine and West Virginia were not part of the original 13, just so you know.

Q. Who is the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court?
It’s not Rehnquist, which is what the answer book says. Just so you know, it’s Roberts.

I didn’t know how many representatives we have (435), how many times senators and congressmen can be re-elected (no limit), what year the Constitution was written (the musical for 1776 pretty much stops after the Declaration gets signed, and therefore the majority of my knowledge. The answer is 1785). I also got the question on what the Emancipation Declaration did wrong. Had they said Emancipation Proclamation I probably would have gotten it right. I’m not even going to tell you what I wrote down for that answer it was so dumb.



3. Some of these questions are just politically dumb.

Q. Name one purpose of the United Nations?
The correct answer is NOT “to be blood sucking leeches on the universe and make the United States always be the bad guy.” Huh. Who knew they were actually there to provide economic aid to countries? Did we get any of that aid lately when we had our hurricanes? I wonder.

Q. Who was Martin Luther King, Jr.?
What? What does he have to do with the US Government? I thought this was a weird question to put on here. It’s like asking Who is Paris Hilton? Just a famous person.

Q. Whose rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
I thought the answer was so obvious…US Citizens. Apparently, it is EVERYONE citizen or not. Huh.

Q. What is the most important right granted to US Citizens?
I said freedom, but apparently it’s the right to vote. Um, see who elects the president question. My vote doesn’t count

In My Inbox

INSTALLING A HUSBAND

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs such as
. Romance 9.5
. Personal Attention 6.5

and then installed undesirable programs such as
. NBA 5.0,
. NFL 3.0
. Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.
Please note that I have tried running Nagg ing 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,
Desperate
*****************************************************************************>

DEAR DESPERATE,

First, keep in mind,
. Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while
. Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.
. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1.
. Please note that Beer 6. 1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0-program These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend:

. Cooking 3.0 and
. Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck!

Sigh. It's Over.

I know, I know. It's been over a week since I went to Live & Breathe and I haven't posted a thing about it. I know you, my faithful readers, have been dying of curiosity to hear how the weekend went. Well, your wait is over. Here is the low down on the biggest letterboxing weekend EVER!

In a word, it was FANTASIC! I had so much fun. Live & Breathe was amazing. I have never been to an event like it.

I took Thursday - Monday off from work for this little shindig. Thursday I worked around the house getting things prepped and ready for Greg for while I was gone (laundry, dishes, dog food, etc) until about 12. I was supposed to meet up with Maiden1974 and pick up some folks from the airport and do some boxing, but that didn't quite work out, so I just went out for a few boxes on my own. I picked up two boxes in Orchard's Park, two at Leach Botanical Gardens (which is beautiful, by the way), attempted one at Willamette National Cemetery, attempted one at Happy Valley Park (and still didn't find the stupid thing), and picked up one at North Clackamas Park.

After that, I didn't do anything worth discussing. :-)

Saturday I got up bright and early and headed over to pick up Happy Papaya. We drove out to CCC and got two boxes there (Papaya got 3) then headed out to the camp.
Once we got there (after picking up a box outside the gates) we checked in and headed to our cabins. Marmy conscripted me to help with room identification and I found out the room I was supposed to be in only had 2 beds for 3 people. Rather than worry about that, I headed out to box. I ended up sleeping on the couch in one of the cabins, but since I hardly slept at all this wasn't a big deal.

Basically the next two days can be summed up thus:

Letterbox with group of people.
Eat.
Talk with fellow letterboxers and exchange.
Letterbox with more people.
Duck in the bathroom for a quick pee.
Letterbox with more people.
Eat.
Exchange.
Letterbox.
Laugh and have fun.
Letterbox.
Eat.
Sleep.
Letterbox some more.

I came home with the worst letterboxing hangover.

I was too busy talking, boxing, and generally having a good time to take more than about 3 pictures so I don't have any to show you. You can go on Atlas Quest and look at the pictures other people posted, though.

So here are the stats from the weekend:
Total stamps in new book = 251
Letterbox finds = 133 (which gives me 966 finds)
Exchanges = 32
Hitchhikers = 2
Postals = 4
Cooties = 3
Travelers = 32
Event Stamps = 48
Steps taken (all 3 days) = 60,410
Miles (all 3 days) = 22.883
Calories (all 3 days) = 2487
Wounds = 1 (small blister from ankle brace)
Hours of sleep = 6

When can we do it all again?

I'm Ready to Live & Breathe!

Less than 48 hours and the fun begins! I can't wait! I can't wait! Ican'twaitIcan'twaitIcan'twaitIcan'twait. Did I mention I can't wait?

I've spent the evening searching for all the letterboxing stuff I own - just to make sure I have everything I need. Amazing how it is spread over such a wide area. I can't find my original signature stamp and my button from a gathering long, long ago. Once I find those two things, I'm golden!

I am so looking forward to this weekend! Three days of letterboxing. Nothing to do BUT letterbox. I hear there are 200+ boxes hidden for the event. Woo hooo! If that's true, I can reach my 1000th find this weekend.

So my sweatshirt came today as well as my logbook. Yeah, I cut that a little close, but it got here. It will be so cool to have one logbook for this event.

I bet you can't wait until Monday and I blog all about it, now can you?

Vote Now!

The Oregon Zoo is letting the public vote on the name for the baby elephant. Here are the choices:

Amul: Hindi for "priceless, of inestimable worth."
Bao: Chinese for "precious treasure."
Duc: (rhymes with hook or look): Vietnamese for "good, moral, desire." (Also is a portion of former Trail Blazer Kevin Duckworth's name, honoring the late basketball player.)
Hugo-Tu: This name honors the baby's mother, Rose-Tu, and maternal grandfather, Hugo. Hugo comes from the Germanic word for "mind, heart or spirit" and Tu is Vietnamese for "tree."
Samudra (nickname Sam): Hindi for "lord of the ocean." (The calf loves his baths!)

The voting goes through September 11th, so hurry to cast your vote now!

Carmen's Fortune

Greg & I had chinese food delivered the other night. Someone dropped the bag holding the fortune cookies and one of them must have gone under the counter. I heard crunching in the office today and looked over to see Carmen snacking on a fortune cookie. Her fortune read "You will be traveling to distant lands for business purposes."

Have you ever heard a less likely fortune in your life?

Wow! Five Years!

A very important event happened on September 1, 2008 and I forgot to blog about it. Can you guess what it is? I celebrated 5 years of letterboxing!! Wow! So I thought I’d better do an entire post about me and my letterboxing. So here it goes.

How I Got Into Letterboxing.
It’s all my friend Rinda’s fault. Rinda, or Sleepy Whippet as she is known in letterboxing circles, who I know through whippets, came out to have lunch with me at the Roadhouse in August 2003. When we were leaving, she said something about going to Blue Lake Park to find a letterbox. I thought she was talking about the mailing stores, and proceeded to tell her there was one up the road. She then explained letterboxing to me. I think she was looking for Der Mad Stamper’s Blue Lake box that day. I don’t know if she ever found it. I was very intrigued.

A few days later she invited me to go letterboxing with her at Milo McIver Park. My very first box was Clackamas River, by the Paisley Orca. I don’t think this box is still around, sadly enough. We did the “Making Faces” and “Jurassic Park” series that day. I logged 13 finds that day including finding a hitchhiker. I was totally hooked. I even stopped for another one on my way home from McIver.

I didn’t even have a trail name picked out yet when I did this. Or a stamp. I bought a butterfly stamp and just signed in as “Kris.” I’m not sure when I decided on Bookworm as my trail name, but it wasn’t too much later, I guess.

I didn’t carve my first signature stamp because I was too eager to get out there and box, but I had my first sig stamp made for me by Stamp Connections. Here is the image I used:



I conned someone, probably Maiden1974, into carving my second signature stamp for me. I can't find the image at the moment, but I'll post it sometime soon.

My third and current signature stamp I carved all by my lonesome (mostly because my friends that are better at carving than me had caught on to my little trick and made me do it myself). This is the one you will see out and about now. I can't find this image either, so you'll have to meet me at the Live & Breathe event to get it!

I had big plans of changing my letterboxing name here for my 5 year anniversary. I thought and thought and thought to come up with a name that sounded really cool and was totally me. I had a terrific name all picked out…Midnight Flamingo. Isn’t that great? I don’t really know what it means, but I think it sounds extra cool. I like flamingos, I like hot pink, and anytime you put an adjective in front of a word, especially Midnight, it sounds nifty. I carved a stamp for it and everything. And then Mr. Grumpy Pants asked me who Midnight Flamingo was and said it sounded like a porn star name. I’ve rather lost my taste for it now. So I guess I’ll stay Bookworm. I don’t know what my letterboxing friends would call me if I did change it.

Since then, I have racked up a lot more finds. By my count I’ve found 820 letterboxes. Here are my stats as recorded by me:

Placed: 16 (includes travelers)
Found: 820
Exchanged: 289
Hitchhikers: 73
Postals: 152
Cooties: 103
Travelers: 108
Event: 95


Atlas Quest has this totally cool feature that graphs and charts all the things that you’ve entered in to their data base. Not all the stamps I’ve collected are listed on Atlas Quest and I haven’t gone in and added the missing ones. This is really cool, too:

Total unique finds: 524
Total days since first find: 2,006
Total days with finds: 150
Finds per day: 0.26
Finds per boxing day: 3.49
Percent of boxing days: 7.5%
Best day: 54 (October 1, 2005) (this was the Joker’s Wild Gathering)
Most consecutive days with finds: 4 days
Longest find drought: 191 days (This must have been when I had my broken ankle)

There is more cool stats, but I can't get them to copy over in a readable format, and I don't feel like retyping it.

Here are a few pictures of me letterboxing for your entertainment.

This is one from my first letterboxing trip (I think). That's me, my mother-in-law Ann, and Rinda

Baby Elephants

I can't get over how cute our new baby elephant is. Look at him wiggle his little ears and throw that trunk around.


Things are much better since this video was made. Mama & baby are together and all seems well. Yay!

While looking for more pictures of the new baby, I found this file footage from 1962 when Packy, the most famous Oregon Zoo elephant, was born. I thought you'd enjoy a look into the past.

Help Wally Come Home

I know someone famous! This is such an awesome story with a happy ending. Susan, the hero in this story and I work in the same department. She is the nicest person on earth. She was trying to brush the whole thing off as nothing, but as a puppy parent, what she did was amazing. And look at all the things that had to come together to make this work.

Yay Susan! You are a true hero.

New Words

I learned some new words this weeked.

Aug-tober: October-like weather in August.
Our weather has been so much better for the past week or so. It’s been cool and rainy…just the way I like it. The local weather people have been calling it Aug-tober since it seems to be similar to our usual October weather. Since October is my favorite month here in the northwest, that is okay by me! I can't wait for summer to be over. It's pretty much sucked anyway.

Cankles: Legs with no disernable tapering between the calf and the ankle.
Apparently I'm out of the loop on this one. Look, I even found a diagram!

New Baby

Did you see that we have a new baby elephant at the Oregon Zoo? The little guy was born on August 23rd.

He had a rocky start, with his mama kicking him a few times right after he was born. Well, after 22 months of pregnancy and 30 plus hours of labor, and pushing out a 286 pound baby, I’d probably want to kick him, too. The keepers say all is well, but they haven’t put mama and baby back together permanently yet. I guess the little guy has nursed some and she has snuggled him, but the keepers are being very cautious and keeping them separated for the most part. They’ve showed a video clip on the news with the baby bawling for his mama. It’s really heartbreaking…he sounds so sad.

He doesn’t have a name yet. What’s a good name for a baby elephant?

Isn’t he cute? Look at that teeny little trunk.

I Know, Put My Earmuffs on the Cookie

Well, last night was the last musical for the Broadway Rose Theater summer season. Julie & I went to see Night Club Confidential. It was really well done, as always. Not one of my top favorites, but very enjoyable.

It was kind of cool to see a couple of the local actors we've seen in other plays actually in the audience behind us. I have to admit to sqeeeing like a girl (inside of course) when I realized Joe Theissen had just held the door into the building for me. And Julie, the baby-faced actor sitting with him was Bryan Hunt. Ha! I knew it was Bryan! We are such groupies, but from afar. We don't actually talk to them or anything. Gosh no!

I hate it when our theater season comes to an end. Lakewood Theater's season ended in June and we've already seen our first play of the new 08-09 season, Three Musketeers. I had to miss the middle play for Broadway Rose because of my grandma's memorial service, so I feel like it got over really quickly this year.

As those in the know will be able to tell from the title of my post, my favorite musical of the year was Avenue Q. Then The Full Monty. Then Les Miserables.

I just watched the Sweeny Todd movie with Johnny Depp. I thought it was pretty good. It was better than the Phantom of the Opera movie, that's for sure.

I love live theater. Luckily there is always more to look forward to.

Hey, I Got An Idea!

Hey, based on my last post about Wills Carrier, I got an idea.

If someone was really clever, she would get her great friend Pupp to carve a stamp series like Maiden’s Teacher’s series of all the people that have made my life better because of their inventions. We could have

Willis Carrier – AC

Washington Sheffied – toothpaste in a collapsible tube

Tim Berners-Lee – Internet

Dr. John Pemberton – Coca-Cola and thus diet Coke

Ely Whitney – come on, you guys ought to remember this guy!

William Seward Burroughs – Calculator

Alexander Graham Bell – you’d better know this one!

Who else shall we add to our list?

Willis Carrier is My Hero

It's hot. I hate it when it gets this hot. We've had temperatures in the 100s the last two days. I'm a big baby about being hot, which is why I live in an area of the country that is normally cool and rainy. I actually like that.

Yes, I realize that I live, work, and drive in air-conditioned comfort. That doesn’t mean I don’t notice when it is 100 degrees outside when I’m walking the 10 feet from my car to my house. I still get hot then. And all I can see is the dollars flying out of my bank account for the AC.

But who is Willis Carrer, you ask? He is the angel that invented AIR CONDITIONING!

August 2008 Trip to the Beach Part Four: Marm-vana

Continuing on with the story...

After a stop at the grocery store for more food, we drove on to Marm's house. Marm's beach house is totally awesome. I think she said it was built by her husband's parents in the 70s. She goes down there all the time and it's so well set up for a group of people to visit, with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and two main living areas, a huge kitchen, two big decks...ahhh. It's Marm-vana (you know, nirvana at Marmalade's house - Marm-vana)! The house is in Pacific City, up on a hill that overlooks the ocean and the..., well, here. Let me just show you.

Here's the house as you drive up the steep curving drive to the house. Right next door (behind me as I took this picture) someone is building a new beach house. Wonder how much that cost 'em?


Here's part of the inside looking towards the kitchen. I only wish my kitchen at home was so big and so well equipped. Man, they have EVERYTHING! Bread maker, crock pot, coffee maker, you name it it was there. Oh, wait. There wasn't a tea kettle. I know what I'm getting her for Christmas now!!

Notice all our crafty stuff on the tables.



This is the main living area. This picture is kinda blurry because I was hurrying. It's full of big squashy chairs and couches with the best blankets I have ever used.


This is the room I shared with Miniles. I slept on the left side. Miniles was the best roomie ever. Everyone said there was a lot of snoring coming from our room, but neither of us heard the other. I think they were making it all up. :-)


Here is what you can see if you look off the deck. Pretty nice, huh? That's Cape Kiawanda there and Haystack Rock or Cape Kiawanda Rock. It's kind of confusing because there is a more famous Haystack Rock up in Cannon Beach.


Peeking through the trees at the ocean.


Kiwanda Rock. Pretty, isn't it?


There is lots of wildlife at Marm-vana. Birds come and visit the feeders all day long. I guess there are a bunch of neighborhood stray cats that think Marm's house is the bees knees, but I only saw a brief visit from one kitty. Marm's a softie, can you tell? Here's a birdie at the feeder.


Along with kitties and birdies, Marm-vana boasts masked midnight visitors. We were treated to a visit from a family of raccoons, mama, papa, and two babies. I have a zillion pictures of them that didn't turn out all that great, but they were so fun to watch. Miniles had brought some peanuts for them and the little critters adored the treat. They would climb up the railing from the lower deck and cautiously peek over. The babies were pretty shy, but mama and papa raccoon would let you toss more nuts to them without running off. We spent a lot of time ooohing and cooing over them.