nina turns 40

los perritos

My friend Val's book is out!  She will be on Seattle's own NPR station KUOW this morning at 10 am (my apologies for the short notice, but you can stream it later if you can't listen to it live) to talk about her adventures writing this definitive Northwest travel book for the dog owner.  Also on the air will be the founder of City Dog magazine.  Further proof that the pups are taking over Seattle, and all human and feline residents will soon be either booted out or reduced to nothing more than pooper scoopers.

If you are a dog owner and live in the Pacific Northwest or have any plans to bring yer mutt here soon, I highly recommend this book.  Val is a lively, humorous writer and I wouldn't want to bring my dog anywhere without consulting this tome first.

obviously, being comfortable is of no import to these people

I can't believe I missed watching this yesterday! Naked people riding bikes is a venerable Seattle tradition, and I need to get my naked thrills wherever I can these days.

Setting Free the Bears

The first time I read Setting Free the Bears must have been shortly after high school, since I discovered John Irving--as so many of us did--by reading Garp, which I devoured while on my first trip to Europe in 1980.  And while Garp impressed me as much as it did everyone, I've only ever read it once and I've read Setting Free the Bears many times over.  This book always reminds me of traveling.  It has a road trip in it for one, but I have often read it while traveling myself, so it captures for me that delicious sense of freedom and leisure and anticipated adventure that you have while on the road.

Here is the opening paragraph:

"I could find him every noon sitting on a bench in the Rathaus park with a small, fat bag of hothouse radishes in his lap and a bottle of beer in one hand.  He always brought his own saltshaker; he must have had a great number of them, because I can't remember a particular one from the lot. They were never very fancy saltshakers, though, and once he even threw one away; he just wrapped it up in the empty radishbag and tossed it in one of the park's trashcans."

The narrator, Graff, and the radish-eater Siggy end up buying a motorcyle together and hightailing it out of Vienna, later to return to carry out their ill-fated scheme to set free the animals of the Vienna zoo.  All the elements that later made Irving famous (there would be two more novels published before Garp) are present: that quirkiness that never goes overboard into cuteness or mere device, delightful plot surprises,  and an exuberance of language, but he's not trying so hard to be "John Irving, famous writer" as he seems to be in some of his later works.  It's a wonderful book, and I am pulling out my hair, because I seem to have given away my copy, and I want to read it again right now.  It's the kind of novel that justifies the artform.  Oh, yes, you say to yourself, this is why I read novels.

from the bitch and moan department

Thanks for the love, everyone.  I realized that what's really upsetting me about the move is not that I'm getting even more behind on my work, and not the stress of adjusting to yet another new boss, but rather that they are taking away the only perk they've given me in a very long time--my office.  I LOVED having my own office.  And now I must share a relatively small space with one and half people (and those half-people just sort of squick me out).  The whole person with whom I'll be sharing is someone I get along with much better if we have considerable distance between us.  And we won't have that, no, not at all.  Essentially, all the hard work that I've done in the last year, all the extra responsibilities and workload that I took on to prove myself, don't count because the people that I was proving myself to, the people who really know how much I've accomplished, are gone.  Now all this extra work and worry and stress is just seen as the norm, and we're giving you a half-person, so aren't we generous and supportive, and where's my report?  Ahh, the joys of corporate America.  I do love it so.

So, the book memes.  In my stubborn little way, I am going to bend and mold these memes to my own evil purposes .  But first, do go say happy 50th birthday to Grace. 

not quite meme-alicous

I have been tagged for not one, but two, book related memes.  One of which I've been procrastinating on partly because it reveals the true depth of my uncoolness, and the other one requires more thought than I am able to muster right now as I am in the midst of much work related stress.  Our office is moving, and I have yet another new boss to contend with.  On new boss' first visit to our office, which was yesterday, I got the dreaded phonecall from the kidlet's school, which always means something is not right.  The kidlet wiped out during PE and bonk-scraped his forehead on the concrete pretty soundly.  He turned out to be fine, but I did have to leave during the work day for a couple of hours.  No, Mr. New Boss, me being a single mother will not impact my work in any way at all.  My previous bosses and many of my colleagues are moms who know the dilemmas and difficulties of balancing the mommy/office diva roles.  Mr. New Boss may be a bit more old school.  Can't tell yet.  For reasons that aren't quite clear, I'm letting things bother/worry/stress me out more than I'd like.  Feel free to send me some good vibes.

Isn't this a beautiful, sensitive portrait?  Guess where it is.

Yup, on a garbage can at a bus stop.  Wow. 

The only reason I know about this garbage can at this bus stop is because I discovered a lovely gentleman jacking off in a hidden doorway smack dab at my usual bus stop, so I decided to keep on walking.  This is the kind of event that might make my mother tell me I shouldn't be living in the city, but she can't really say anything now because she just finished sitting on a jury for the trial of a high school janitor accused (and convicted) of taking upskirt pictures of the students there in a sweet little rural town. Think these two events have anything to do with my "sex education for boys" posts?  Hmmmm...

further proof that bloggers are the coolest

As if I weren't already excited enough about going to BlogHer Con--I mean we're talking about the chance to see and meet Heather Armstrong, Jory DesJardins (Pause), Halley Suitt, Roxanne Cooper (Rox Populi), not to mention Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By  and countless other happenin' babes--the divine Miss GraceD, who writes I Am Dr. Laura's Worst Nightmare, just invited me to stay at her house!  I offhandedly mentioned to her that I was sad that Kimberly couldn't go with me to the conference, and that she'd known some friends in the area where we might have stayed, but I was planning to go in any case, and within seconds she insisted I stay with her.  So, in addition to all her other magnificent qualities, we now know that Grace is warm and generous and exhibits poor judgement. Wow!  I'm blown away, and deeply grateful, and jazzed, and I can't wait!

Whether you've had a blog for years, or are just thinking that maybe it might be fun to start one, I highly encourage you to attend.

Update:  Oh! Oh! Oh!  I forgot Evelyn Rodriguez and Mel are also gonna be there.  See?  Ya just *gotta* go.

Update #2:  And fellas, if you haven't noticed, this is open to you as well.  Think about it: tons and tons of the smartest, hippest, bloggiest chicks all concentrated in one place and looking to get down and dirty--well, OK, so maybe they're not there for *that*, but still, if you like blogging, and you like women (and who doesn't?), then BlogHer Con is the place to be.