Pretty Much The Funnest Thing Ever

The weekend before Halloween, Jay and I rolled on down to the county fairgrounds to peep some cyclocross racing. One of my friends was participating in a race that day, and I was anxious to check it out. Cyclocross races usually happen in the fall, and are short, multi-lap races that take place on a wide variety of terrain - pavement, dirt, mud, woodchips - and often feature obstacles that require the riders to dismount, shoulder their bikes and get to hoofin' it.

Even better, there's a whole scene for those of us that don't do the racin' thing. Especially when it's a cyclocross race put on by Cross Crusade. Boy howdy, do those peeps know how to throw a party! They've got coffee and cider, waffles and fries, BEER, and more cowbell clangin' than you can shake a stick at.

I think it's SPECTACULAR.

Here's a shot at the starting line - tons of riders ready to tackle the course.



It was a little drizzly that day, so the course was slightly soupy in spots. Right off the bat, we managed to find one of the more challenging portions of the course - a steep, slanted section immediately followed by a right hairpin turn. We watched rider after rider after rider wipe out on that turn. And it was super dooper fun to watch.

Here's my pally, Mike Tucan (silver bike), after successfully navigating that crazy hairpin turn like it was nuthin'. He was rockin' that race...until his chain jammed up with mud, and broke the shiznit out of his derailleur.

Fortunately, he didn't have to run far with his busted-up bike before he hit a lil' ol' pit stop and was able to finish out the race with a loaner bike. Here he is towards the end of the race, tearin' ass through one of the livestock barns. He managed to finish out the race fairly respectably despite the blasted derailleur.

So, in conclusion, I highly recommend you check out some of this cyclocross action. 'Cuz it is definitely just about the funnest thing ever.

Don't You Get All Judgy On Me.

Look, ever since I became an aunt to the cutest lil' baby boy EVAR, I've been working on my aversion to all things kidlet. I think it's coming along quite nicely. I haven't plotted the untimely demise of any crying toddlers in the lobby at my place of employment, I've curtailed the nasty faces I used to make at ugly babies in shopping carts at local grocery stores, and most impressive of all (to me at least) I've actually held some wee babies that are unrelated to me.

This is big, people.

Despite all that progress, there appeared something on the innerwebs recently that caused me to come damn near the pants-wetting level on the laughter scale. I'm sure that I should be assuring you at this point that no wee ones were harmed in the making of this video, blah blah blah...but I'm not gonna do that. I have NO IDEA what happened to this lil' unattended toddler. But my gawd if said toddler didn't look gott damm hilarious flyin' about like a freakin' rag doll.

It's funny, y'all. Deal with it.

Releasing My Inner 13-Year-Old Fangirl

The countdown is officially on, y'all.

The countdown to New Moon, that is.

I'm happy and not even a little bit embarrassed to report that I'll be attending the world premiere of the second installment of the Twilight Saga on Thursday at midnight. And I won't be alone - oh no, I won't - I'll be part of a contingent of 30-something females, all geared up to sample the deliciousness of vampire and werewolf abdominal muscle displays. Because that's what Twilight's all about. (Look it up - on Wikipedia. Wikipedia never lies.)

Behold:

The fangirl club has been frantically exchanging email links in the lead-up to the premiere, but there's one link in particular that needs to be shared, nay, celebrated...

One of my fave author/bloggers, Jen Lancaster, posted The New New Moon, a retelling of the book featuring dolls modeled after the main characters in the movie. And it? IS AMAZING.

Behold, Part Two.

Feeling Muy Pathetico. But can still speak Spanglish. So there's that.

I've been struck down. By the hamthrax.

Or something. I'm not really sure. But this is what I know...I've been in pajamas for four days straight, and my days consist of napping. And reading. And thinking about eating. And napping.

On the plus side, I've re-read books 2 through 4 of the Twilight series in the last three days. The bummer part is that mah mans was home on Monday and Tuesday this week, fighting off the same malaise as me. I thought it would be fine, the two of us just posted up in bed, tryin' to get better. But instead I was surrounded by the coordinated snores of husband, dog and kittygato.

Not relaxing. Like, at all.

Instead I've been cocoonin' it up on the comfy sofa, wrapped in blankets and with everything I need in an arm's radius - remote, cell phone, potent cold meds, box of tissues, Gatorade - and of course, the best sick remedy ever -

THT

That's right, folks - it's time for the big guns - tea, honey and TEQUILA. And I daresay it's time for my next dose right about now.

Love and sniffles forever...

That Was It.

During the whirlwind weekend Shaz and I spent in Boise, one of the non-Halloween activities was to going to see the Michael Jackson behind-the-scenes concert movie, This Is It. There was a lovely sense of occasion going into the theater, mainly due to my ginormous diet coke (I swear to jebus it was a 2-liter) and these fancypants passes we all got with our tickets.

I know MJ was a lightning rod for passionate discussions his last several years on the planet, what with the whole abuse allegations, the mystery surrounding his veiled and costumed kids, and of course, the whole being a total freakin' weirdo thing - but that man was an artist. And that fact was made abundantly clear when watching This Is It. He had a gift for music, for dance, and for putting on one helluva show.

That series of London concerts he'd been planning before his death would have been un-freakin-believable and it's sad we'll never get to see his vision fully realized. But we've got This Is It, and that's something special.

Giddy on GLEE.

So I'm pretty much convinced that Glee is the best thing to hit the teevee in forevers. I love almost everything about the show (Finn's dorkitude is not my fave) but I'm especially enamored by this video featuring Puck singing Sweet Caroline.

Snarky Amber over at MamaPop says:

"I already had a glimmer of a crush on Noah Puckerman when he showed Rachel Berry his guns, but by the second refrain of "Sweet Caroline," I was fully prepared to go Mary Kay Letournou all over that fine-lookin' Jew. Thank GOD the actor who plays Puck, Mark Salling, is of legal age."

Oh, I second that business, Snarky Amber. YES INDEED.

Meet Bucky, My Next Door Nerdlet

Changes are afoot at my place of employment.

Mainly, the dude that sat next to me retired, and a new dude moved into his spot. I call this new dude Bucky. Kinda like the name you'd give a Labrador Retriever. Bucky's a tall, strapping fellow, and about the friendliest guy you'd ever wanna meet. You kind of want to pat his head and load him up on a bunch of sugary treats, just to see how wired up on goofballs you can get him before he starts running around in circles and collapses on the floor.

Bucky was hired to fill the position left vacant when one of my favoritest people ever resigned to move to Idaho. Initially, I wasn't too excited about this interloper, and truthfully - it's taken me quite a while to warm up to him. He just finished his second year working here, and I'm finally ready to consider him a homie.

The first day he moved into the cube next to mine, he tried to do that whole talking-to-me-over-the-cubicle-wall thang. I had to immediately shut him down and said that biznaz was not acceptable - he could walk his ass around and into my cube, or he could talk to me without eyeballin' me over the wall. And those were the only options. 'Cuz otherwise I was gonna start throwing things at him like paperclips and staplers.

Now, the average bear would likely sit back down in their office chair and mutter something about that bizzatch next door and perhaps inquire as to who exactly she thought she was. But Bucky? He just laughed and accepted my brand of crazy as part of the deal.

So I've decided he's cool.

Mainly because of this:

He doesn't stare me down over the cube wall and make me feel like a four year old anymore, but from time to time he'll do something crazy like post up on his desk top and try to scare me with loud noises and animated facial expressions. And sometimes...very, very occasionally, it'll crack my shiz right up.

And anything that makes you laugh til you cry while at work? Well, that's just fun times right there.

Is this for freaking real?

From the fabulousness of I Love Local Commercials by way of Blogtown PDX, and I love EVERYTHING about it.

Everything.

Am Total Domestic Badass.

I ain't no happy homemaker.

No, really...I never really picked up on the whole cooking thing, or the sewing thing, or the, ya know - giving a rat's azz about any of that domestic stuff.

My sister would regularly prepare gourmet meals from her head - no recipes needed - back when it was her weekly turn to prepare dinner. What would I make? Tacos. Exclusively tacos. I could manage browning some hamburger and choppin' up the toppings, but that was pretty much the extent of my meal prep skillz.

Back when I lived in Eugene, I worked full time for an engineering firm while I was in school. At Thanksgiving every year, the company would give each employee a big ol' turkey. I had no idea what to do with such a thing, so I trucked its frozen carcass back home to Portland as a Thanksgiving offering to my moms. She insisted on showing me how to prepare and cook the turkey.

Mom explained that the first step was to remove the neck and gizzards and stuff inside the body cavity of the bird. I placed the turkey in the sink, peeled off its plastic wrapping and prepared to plunge my hand inside to retrieve those unappetizing bits. And as I looked down at the turkey there in the sink, with its wee pokey-looking wings and fleshy legs...I freaked the funk out.

"Mooooommmmmmm! I can't do this!!!" I yelled. She came into the kitchen and asked why not. "Cuz it looks like a baaaaaayyyybeeeee," I replied, most likely looking wild-eyed and panicked. Mom looked at me for a beat, completely dumbfounded, and then took over with the bird whilst I repaired to the living room to cry and rock myself in a dark corner of the room.

I have never attempted to cook another turkey. And to this day, when I get a hankerin' for a chicken salad sandwich, I prevail upon Jay to strip the meat from one of those rotisserie chickens. I don't even like eating WINGS, people - it's boneless skinless chicken breasts or nuthin' for me.

But this summer, I had an unexpected urge to learn a little something about canning. I'd helped my sister can some pickles one summer, but really - she did all the work. I just added some garlic and red pepper flakes and fresh dill to the jars - she knows better than to assign me anything more complicated than that.

So I joined forces with Renee to see about canning some tomatoes. Fortunately, we live right on the edge of an incredible expanse of farmland, so we were able to head 20 minutes south of my house and immediately surround ourselves in fields and fields of tomatoes, ready for the pickin'.

Mmmm...tomaters!

Jay came along to help with the pickin', but quickly grew distracted...

by the cute lil' pygmy goats by the barn

Pickin' tomaters is a filthy business

We thought we might have picked about 30 or 40 pounds of tomatoes, but it turned out to be closer to 100 pounds. Yikes.

The process itself was pretty easy...score end of the toms, drop 'em in the boiling water, peel, chop, throw in a pot to simmer down a bit, then throw some in a jar, seal and water bath. The only problem was that we didn't have nearly enough burners on the stove to accomplish all these tasks in the rapid-fire manner at which they needed to be completed.

Enter the husbands.

Renee's fella Romo suggested that we move the water bath process out to the patio and use their wood-fired grill. Jason was recruited to carry the heavy 9-jar rack out to the grill. And it worked like a charm.

My lil' helper!

Romo guards over the grill

It was a fun lil' process and Renee and I both ended up with jars and jars and jars of tomatoes that we can make into spaghetti sauce and salsa and...oh, there's just so many options! Jay and I recently enjoyed some damn fine steak and bacon chili made with the canned tomatoes. And it was fabulous.

There might actually be somethin' to this domestic business after all...