Portland and Me

My mom works for an airline, so I'm able to make reservations, and only pay for the flight if I actually get on it. My boyfriend has that same ability. A couple of years ago, he said something or someone said something that lead to us taking a trip to someplace where we didn't know where we were going.

Our anniversary is in August, so last year, we started planning a trip to someplace where we wouldn't know where we were going until we actually got to the airport. I did a ton of research to figure out where the airline flew to non-stop, somewhere not too far away, so we didn't spend our vacation on an airplane. After a lot of back and forth, we finally wound up with five options: Albuquerque, Boise, Las Vegas, Portland and Seattle. So I gave my mom those options and those dates and told her to only tell me when we should arrive at the airport that Saturday morning (Saturday's are a better time to fly than Fridays).

The night before we packed for every kind of a weather we could encounter. It was summer, so nothing was too drastically different, although Vegas was supposed to be very hot, of course. And we couldn't take anything but carry-on luggage, in case it wound up in once place and we wound up in another. But we were only going for three days, so we figured we could handle it.

So we got up very early on Saturday morning and drove to LAX. Once there, he went to go stand in the security line and I went to get our tickets. I waited for the machine to tell us where we were going.

Good news! Albuquerque! Bad news! Thunderstorms there had delayed our plane by about four hours. Our short amount of time would be wasted by waiting, and there was no guarantee that the thunderstorms would stop.

I felt bad because it meant waking my mom up at around six on a Saturday, but I called her to see if she could help. In the meantime, we went through security.

She booked us on a flight to Boise. It left in around an hour. While I myself had picked Boise, and I knew that there'd be plenty of hiking to be had, along with inexpensive motels,  I did feel a little disappointed.

I was still on the phone with my mom as we passed the first gate, and leaving out of it was a flight to Portland. I asked her to see if there was any room on it. She said yes, two seats left, but warned me that getting out of Portland, even early on a Tuesday, like we planned, wouldn't be easy. But we decided to be optimistic and get in line for Portland. And so began our Portland adventure.

Tomorrow: Part II

Weddings and Me

Weddings I have attended:

1. In second grade, I was the flower girl for a family friend's wedding.
2. In early high school, I attended a family member's wedding.
3. In 2005, I attended my then-boyfriend's boss' wedding in Capri, Italy.
4. In 2007,  I attended my former roommates' and very good friend's wedding in California.
5. In 2008, I attended a friend's wedding by going with someone who had a plus one available, I myself was not invited. That was in Marina Del Rey.
6. Later that same year I attended my boss' wedding in Wisconsin.
7. In 2010, I attended my boyfriend's friend's wedding in Los Angeles.
8. Later that same year I attended the reception of another one of his friend's - the wedding was fam only.
9. Last month I attended another one of his friend's weddings in Santa Maria.

I think that's it ...

The one in second grade was held in the couple's back yard. That's probably why I want my own someday wedding to be outdoors.

I can tell you what I wore to every one of those weddings. But I won't.

The one in Italy was beautiful. Lots of money went into it. It took place in a Catholic church, with Mass and everything, then a reception in the outdoor pool area of a hotel. I waited all night for someone to get drunk and fall or jump in. Never happened.

Number four took place on a ranch. I thoroughly enjoyed it - people I loved gettin' hitched, outdoors, tasty food, fun dancing. There was also a pig.

Five was at the Ritz Carlton and very formal. I danced so hard I hurt myself and had to take an ice pack with me to work on Monday morning.

Six was where I met my boyfriend. So it's a fav.

Seven was a lot of fun and dancing too. Outdoors. Friends to drink with.

Eight was a lovely reception and the bride had an amazing purse. Afterward, we went to a classic small-town Wisconsin bar. Fascinating.

And nine was quite lovely. That's what the picture's of. Also kind of a ranch setting. The music was okay, but not my favorite for dancing to. I hung out with the bartenders and heard their stories.

I might plus one my way into another wedding later this year. We'll see.

Gardens and Me

So here is my little garden on the balcony. The plant in the foreground is a dumb cane which I am baby-sitting for a couple friends while they live in San Diego. I have heard, though, that they enjoy living there so much that they may not move back here. But I'd rather not be stuck with this plant for the rest of my life (if taken care of, these plants live for generations) mostly because it needs to live inside during the winter and I don't really have a good spot for it.

On the top left is a succulent/cactus thing. It has spines but not very sharp ones. It is a plant I recently inherited from a friend of mine who has moved to Portland and later this summer will move to South Korea to teach English. Along with that plant, I also got the small plant on the top right, the plant in the middle of middle shelf and the one on the bottom shelf. All succulents.

Top middle was supposed to be something ... but whatever I planted, it never took. I recently gave up on it, and planted some basil, which is just now sprouting.

The large plan on the top right is broccoli. It gets very wilty if I don't water it everyday. It has yet to produce actual broccoli yet, but it looks pretty rockin'.

Middle right in the red are sweet peas. They just started growing their buds, I only noticed them today. The plant itself looks a little rough - it has white spots and isn't climbing, but it might well pull through.

The middle of the middle shelf, besides the one succulent pot is all "Wandering Jew," which I got from my mom's hairdresser. You can just cut off a piece of the plant, soak it in a wet paper towel for a couple days until it starts to sprout, then plant it and away it goes. It's really prolific. I have an indoor "Wandering Jew" - all these outdoor plants are from when I tossed some old pieces into the dumb cane for fertilizer and it started growing. I eventually pulled it out so it wouldn't use up all the space and nutrients that the dumb cane needed. This plant doesn't really like being outside come winter, but we'll see what happens this year.

And lastly, in the back, on the left of the middle shelf are some mums that seem to be dying ... except their vines are still green, it's just the flowers that have gone brown. So I'm leaving it to see what happens.

I'm pretty pleased with my garden! Now I just need to work up the courage to ask my neighbor to water it while I'm on vacation ...

The Rose Bowl and Me

Last night I went to the Rose Bowl for the first time. I moved to Southern California twelve years ago, but I just never had reason to attend - my college had a football team, but we're not nationally ranked. And I've never done any particular activity that took place there.

But after having spent the last two years watching fireworks from windows or rooftops, my boyfriend and I decided that we needed a decent place to see some real fireworks. After viewing a commercial that extolled how awesome "Americafest" at the Rose Bowl would be, and all for $13, I was in.

Another friend of ours, C, decided to join us. So after spending the day lounging around her pool and bbqing, we grabbed some blankets and headed to Pasadena.

I generally refuse to pay for parking unless I'm running extremely late to something important (like that time I went to an Aimee Bender reading) or if street parking is just not going to happen (like Disneyland). This time, parking was $20, and it seemed ridiculous to charge more for parking than for a ticket. So the three of us agreed that walking would be just fine, and we headed off into the hills.

But Pasadena had us all figured out. There were cops, traffic enforcers and "police explorers" (high school cops) everywhere, along with blockades and street signs. After searching for awhile, we found an unattended, unblocked, unsigned street. We fretted for a bit, but eventually asked a cop if we could get ticketed. He said no sign, no ticket. Spoiler alert: we were not ticketed. Very nice.

But! We had parked two miles away from our final destination. A healthy walk, but the evening was nice and we all had decent shoes. Once actually in the stadium, we bought our dinner and got in line to enter.

And so chaos. We overheard some police saying that The Rose Bowl Stadium had understaffed the event, and while it didn't seem like that was necessarily right, it did seem poorly planned. There were too many people for the amount of seats they had open. In the end, people wound up sitting in roped off areas ... only to have sparks land on them. Kind of a mess, but nothing like San Diego from what I hear.

All in all, I enjoyed my time at the stadium. The fireworks were impressive and in our faces, my teryaki chicken was good, and no one started rioting (though there were a couple of jerks who seemed like they wanted to). Not sure if I 'll go back next year, though if I do, I'm taking the bus.

3rd Rock from the Sun and Me

So after a couple of Christmas specials that aired in 1989, part of the movie "Jezibelle" and a public access show about sign language, the tape that I mentioned in my last post also had part of an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun. I have very fond memories of this show.

It's the only show (as far as I remember) that my mom and watched together. She enjoyed everyone on the show, but she's a big fan of John Lithgow, which is what got her interested in the first place. Me? In freshman year of high school, I was pretty much happy to watch any new network show, especially NBC.

But I became pretty hooked as well. The story lines were smart and funny, the cast was great and I found Joseph Gordon-Levitt cute (even with long hair, which I have never been a fan of on men).

It is definitely over the top, but since it didn't take itself seriously, that's okay. Lithgow especially seems to really go for it. I know from watching "Cliffhanger" that he is more than capable of over-acting, but it works really well here. I also feel like Kristen Johnston is a great female roll model - she's aware of the restrictions society has given her, but because she comes from outside society, she just doesn't care. And no one can play an idiot like French Stewart.

The show ended in May of 2001, which would have been right around when I returned home from college for the summer. I guess my mom and I must  have been watching separately before that point, because I do remember watching the series finale with her but I don't recall feeling like I hadn't been watching up to that point. I thought they did a great job with the finale. Heartwarming and plausible. What else can you ask for?

The show also had Mark Hamill as a guest star at one point. So that rocketed it to a special, "Star Wars" place in my heart.

I've bought my mom the first two seasons on DVD as presents for various occasions. I suppose I should get her more. She lends them to me after she has them for a bit, but I'm really bad about watching TV on DVD. There's so much out there to watch!