lists within lists, ohmy

• Today is my sister's birthday. 31! Happy Birthday Emmy!
  
• Tonight, I *finally* finished The Secret History. I think I began reading it in March? Such an accomplishment for my slow eyeballs. It was quite worth the time spent. Anyone out there read it and, what'd you think?
  
• Next on the reading block? Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You. I have a very short loan period on this one - as it came interlibrary (I'm borrowing it from Key West; this thrills me).
• I can read that book fast - seeing as after Monday I won't report to work FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK.
  
• Sub-list: week off and, what will I do?
• Been contemplating the nablopomo for July. The theme is food. I'm trying to be in the kitchen more. Not that I intend for this to become a foodie blog...but maybe it will at least make me post + pack a lunch daily. Yeah.
  
• Photos! I edited several from my jaunt to Portland but I want some of them printed for family.
• THRIFT.
• SHOP.
• EXTRAVAGANZA. (3 bullets for one activity: I am serious.)
• Ritual home cleanse.
• Dream of setting up sewing machine / riding bike.
• Lounge / love / pull weeds / read magazines.
  

• Well, I just want to start reading my next book.
  

oregon : roses in bloom

You know I love my roses. My surprise trip to Oregon* a couple of weeks ago had me all over the state: Portland (home town), Eugene (college town), and Gearheart (town on the coast). No matter where we went, we packed our roses - picked from the garden in Portland. Here the roses are in Gearheart, getting fresh Pacific Ocean air.

*My little sister graduated from college so I surprised her and flew home for her ceremony. Wow, she's amazing! More pictures to follow...

bloggerversary

3 years!
Does this warrant Veuve?
I always know the answer to that question.

hey cranky old lady SUCK IT

There's a stack of magazines THIS BIG I need to go through - evidence that I don't know exactly where my time goes, but that there are some Dominoes and Dwells and Sunsets and Budget Travels reminding me it isn't spent on them. Boo.

Have you ever met a real Wicked Witch? I did, yesterday. Her teeth were gray and snaggled. She burned a hole in my heart with her words. This is the aftermath of yesterday: I will never be the same.

on going about it all wrong

When I was in Portland last week, it occured to me that I don't start a lot of things because I'm afraid I won't immediately be an expert or understand what I'm doing (i.e. with cooking, craft, quilting, biking, marathoning, etc). Do you know how sad this was for me to realize? It made me so blue. Anything I start, from here on out, is going to take some time. I'm completely okay with that. Mistakes, you are more than welcome in my life. I'm not afraid of you anymore.

something new: your why answered

I'm a few days shy of blogging for three years. Without a doubt, this is one of the things I'm most proud of; yet it's mostly an anonymous accomplishment (in reality, only my sisters and Steve know about this; hi guys!). I began blogging thinking I could take a stab at the preppy culture I was obsessed with in June 2005 ('duck motif' was a too obscure reference to The Official Preppy Handbook). In one of my first posts, I took a very cheap shot at a couple featured in the hoity-toity Town & Country Wedding pages. I was new at blogging, so I used their *real* names and included *their photograph* without disguise. They (or someone who knew them) found the post and returned approximately four times, shuddering I can imagine, over the course of a week. It made me feel awful when I discovered that. I pulled it. Around that time I gave up on the preppy thing. I'm still obsessed - a sociologist of the upper American echelons I will always be - it's just not that cool to blog about and sticking with a theme? That's hard work (you who can pull it off are my heroes). Thereafter the Town & Country incident, I found my mundane little life intensely more interesting to write about and three years later I still do. But the duck motif url was getting old, three years old, and I needed to change it to something a little more fitting.

Here's to a few more years, at least. Thank you for coming and for coming back. I heart you all.

you found me!

A change was long overdue.

return of the madge

A secret trip to Portland had me occupied for the last couple of weeks...photographs and commentary to follow.

 

May all of you lovely folks have fantastic Fridays and long weekends. 

 

Happy Summer!

 

 

welcome traveler

Was it really two years ago that we drove out to Montana? Impossible! These two pictures were taken in a chapel that was enveloped by this gigantic pharmacy in South Dakota:

wheeze

What happens when you are stressed out? You get sick.

I spent almost the entire day sleeping and/or coughing. I came up for air long enough to watch a couple of from-the-library flicks (27 Dresses + ONCE). I nary watch a rom/com but I knew I could throw 27 Dresses in, pay attention only halfway and still be an above average viewer. As for ONCE, we watched it over dinner and thought it was quite delightful.

Unfortunately I've been lazy about reading lately. However, that's changing. In my car, I'm listening to Her Last Death (by Susanna Sonnenberg and read by her, too), reading The Mistress's Daughter (A.M. Homes) and A Charmed Life: Growing up in Macbeth's Castle (Liza Campbell). I'm a sucka for memoirs - always have been - and thankfully I've stumbled upon three of equal greatness at a time when I needed a swift kick in the reading department.

the next stop

So, last week at work was torturous - I was pulled in 1,000 emotional directions and it shouldn't be that way, but it is. There are times when I think I'm actually driving a public bus disguised as a public library. I work in a lovely place, but I'm always a few yards from very tense situations and then really meaningful interactions with folks, e.g. the slippery slope of porn and the man who is practically jerking off at the computer. Folks having shouting matches over cell phones. Kids following a developmentally disabled teen around the library, laughing at him and taking pictures of him with their cell phone cameras. The missing child. The crying mother. The sheriffs looking for him. He's five. The phonecall from a man who is crying and tells me that the library has done so much for him and he doesn't have much to give but he'd like to give something. A used book? Would that be enough? I put the man on hold for a few short seconds - a coworker says to me in this time, "Librarians don't do anything around here." It wasn't sarcastic. And then I finished the week with the young child (maybe 6 tops?) who wants to look up her friend's website ("Dub Dub Connor Dot Com" she thinks it might be). He has cancer and he is 10 and he is brave.