 |
 |
 |
 |
 Canuck Cousins |
We
are fifty dollars poorer, but we do have costumes for Halloween.
Pictures forthcoming. (No, I'm not going to tell you our costumes yet.) The crowds at Value Village and Display & Costume were deplorable as expected. At least they had people out directing traffic. Jason stopped by to visit his truck, and he walked in as Sean was walking out - it was like the opening credits of Three's Company, except they looked the same. |
 Hobbes |
 Traffic going into Display & Costume |
 The mess from last night. I took this picture and went to bed. |
I am still freaked out about this.
• link
10-29-03
 I love tasks like this. No, really, I do. |
Tara
came over yesterday to hang out while her car was getting fixed.
We had tea and green bean casserole. It was yummy. Joe and I counted out over $120 in change later that night. He's opening a savings account with it. Tonight I made a banana cake with bourbon frosting. I need frosting lessons. The cake may look gross, but Sean says it's a winner. |
| We
were out of eggs, so Sean had to go to 7-11. Then we had no cream
cheese for the frosting, so I had to go to 7-11. Oh Thank
Heaven. I'm having issues with the layout of my site - I think the news page should be the index/home page. Is that too plain? There's no space for pictures. It seems as though the index and news page, currently, have the same information. The problem, though, is that every page on my site has this header - many of them a different design, and I'm not willing to re-make them all. So basically, my question is, what would now be on the news page? Local Seattle news? I'm not a newsy type of site. What else fits the category "news" on Daymented? Does any of this matter? |
 A whole airline bottle of Bourbon |
...and that, kids, is Dayment's stream-of-consciousness for the day. (I used to have writing skillz)
• link
10-28-03
 |
Scanning
a bazillion pictures today. I wanted to find a picture of Justin to
wish him a happy birthday, and I hoarded a boxload to scan. I've been
at it for three hours now. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN, wherever you are! To the left is Rob, Justin, Joe, Shane, and Mike, before any of them had potbellies. Or, in Joe's case, any fat on their bodies anywhere. They were Sean's groomsmen for our wedding (which is another set of pictures I need to re-scan - the wedding page is still a bit small). The Daymented Message Board is up - if I have not sent you an e-mail invite, please let me know. |
Remember when I did that Hot Hot Heat video? You can download it here from Mtv. It's called "Talk to Me, Dance with Me" - see if you can find me. (Hint, if you know the band, there's a pretty obvious shot of me behind Dante - the other far away shots with the whole crowd showing three levels - I'm on the top balcony grabbing the railing. All other crowd shots, I could be anywhere.)
• link
10-26-03
This
weekend did not go according to plan, but we still had a good weekend. My Mom left Saturday morning and I thought I'd stay up for the day, but Sean had an early meeting at work, so when he came home, he took a nap. Meaning: I took a nap. That evening we expected Andrea and Saen, and we hadn't heard from them, but we went ahead and cooked up a storm. Joe is back from his two-week visit with Jean in Juneau, and SJ showed up later with a bouquet of flowers and some more food, and since there were four of us instead of six, there were tons of leftovers, which was just fine with me the next day. We taught SJ how to play Settlers and she rocked. |
 |
 |
Sunday
morning I went to the Rosebud
to meet up with Erica
(who does fun artwork like this),
and since my previous night led me to expect a no-show, I decided
to wait out in the front of the restaurant, instead of getting a booth.
I'm glad I did. She didn't make it. I left fifteen minutes later, alone and unfed, to go back home with a whole day of nothing to do, for a change. This ended up being a blessing in disguise, as I finally sat down and worked on Sarah's site for the three hours it took to complete all the changes I wanted to make. I'm happy with the changes, and it's not often that I can focus on just one task for that long - and it needed to get done. I also had some wonderful leftovers from the night before. Hee! Sean and I have a new building project for the house. He came into the office this evening and said "I want to build something - what do we need?" Is my life great or what? |
For those of you who have been in our house: you know the big black table that Sean and Shane built for the living room (well, heh, the one pictured above)? We're going to make a matching bench and shelving unit thingie for the big front window in the living room, replacing the long white shelves that run along the window now. This way we can seat even more people in the living room. And it will be the same height as the low windowsill, with a raised level on each side for the window plants. This whole get-up will be eight feet long.
And for those of you who have not been in our house (Dad), you will just have to wait for the pictures.
• link
P.S. Suggested sections for the Daymented Message Board?
10-25-03
Pickles and Lyrics and Deftones
 |
 |
Last night Jon and I headed to the Paramount to see if we could score some scalped tickets to the Deftones show. As soon as we rounded the corner from Pike, we saw the line - it wrapped all the way up Pine and over the overpass. Yikes. Once we got to the intersection of the Paramount, we saw scalpers on each corner yelling "tickets!" and we pulled over. This guy said "Sixty dollars. Each." and we said "HAHAHA!!!!" we talked him down to $70 for both and I still felt a bit ripped-off, but since I've never seen the Deftones and I've been a fan for seven years, I gritted my teeth and we paid the man.
Once we had the tickets we parked in a lot and then walked over to the board to pay - $12 evening rate! Ugh! No wonder we found a space! We went back to the car and parked a couple blocks away for $3.
We walked all the way to the back of the line and I was still nervous that the tickets were fake, but we met this guy in line with us who said that a whole batch of tickets went on sale the night before (it had been sold out a week before) so I then relaxed. So note: if a show is sold out, try again the night before and the day of the show, some tickets may sprout up again. I wish we had known that - we would have saved $20.
In line I went off about VH1's new show called True Spin. Actually, it was just this one episode that made me go off. The pretense of the show is this: VH1 talks about some song and asks if you know what the real meaning is. The last song on the episode was "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors. They go through all these subtle hints and then they give you the multiple choice answers. Was the song about (a) actually turning Japanese, (b) being so happy and in love it's like turning Japanese (wtf??), or (c) masturbation. And I'm yelling at the TV "DUH! Who doesn't know this! DUH!!!" Then the show actually gets the musician/band to discuss the real answer, and there's the lead singer of the Vapors (I'd like to point out that this was current, and he still has the same haircut), looking right into the camera, saying it's (b) being so happy and in love it's like you're turning Japanese, and I just go nuts. "He's LYING!" And Sean's like "Baby it's okay" and I'm going "NO! It's NOT! He's LYING! EVERYONE knows what this song is about!" So I'm thinking the guy is totally embarrassed about this racist pun OR he's like a total reborn Jehovah's Witness or Quaker or something and he's denying everything, like Donna Summer in her Christian 80's phase (do you remember that? She comes public and says "All gays deserve to die from AIDS because that's God's punishment for it" and then a few years later she says "Whoops, sorry" and the boys go back to grinding with "Love to Love you Baby") So as you can see, this still totally bothers me. Totally.
Deftones were good. Loud. I'd tell you more but I'm too exhausted from Googling "turning japanese" lyrics +masturbation.
Andrea & Saen will be here (from Vancouver) tonight so I better get the second bedroom ready.
• link
10-24-03
 The annoying cookies |
 My "new" books |
 Mom's "new" books |
Past
couple days have been food and books and cookies and Michele and Fremont
Troll and Peet's Coffee and Bick's Broadview Grill and Parents Night
at Six Arms (with Josh's parents and my Mom) and visiting Heather
at her mansion and I'm so behind I'll need a vacation after this week. |
 Parents Night at Six Arms |
10-22-03
| Amy
asked why there wasn't a picture of Mom yet. So here you go. I made the cookies today. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com and this cookie recipe was reviewed by 70 people as the bomb and I can't begin to tell you how much this recipe sucked. I know it's been raining like a foot of water in Seattle this week, but it couldn't be that bad just based on humidity. Ugh. Even the frosting sucks. Dig this: "beat 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar with a Tbsp. of butter and 1 tsp. of vanilla and mix until smooth". Smooth?!? Ten minutes later, my machine was still mixing this stuff, and it was still a bowl of powdered sugar. You know it's bad when even your Mom says "Um yeah, these aren't the best cookies." THEN I'm making these stupid bat cookies that have a big, difficult shape to them, and the dough is so gooey it took about twelve attempts to get just six bats. After that I made circles with biscuit cutters, but that was after I added about a cup of flour to the dough inadvertently with my twelve rolling attempts. Yes, I am totally bitching about cookies. |
 |
• link
10-21-03
 |
Everyone
go visit Styrofoam
Kitty and send her your well wishes. Last night we had the Germans over for dinner - Alexandra took this picture of me in front of the flowers they brought. The camera batteries are dying so it's a bit blurry. Dinner was wonderful and we had conversation that went from Munchausen Syndrome to foster care to amish to religion to....etc. Crazy. Cousin Jason's truck was stolen, then last night he gets a call from the police to say it's been found. But he goes to New York the next morning and he didn't want the truck |
 |
Oh hey Pinder, I am actually going to see the Deftones after all. Jon & I are going.
Today is book shopping with Mom and lunch with Jaisn.
• link
10-19-03
 |
 |
 Me & Marshall (does he look charmed?) |
After
this we went to Ballard and they were having their Street Fair and
it seemed as though every vendor had samples of Jonagold apples -
so we ate a lot of apple. Cool finds in Ballard: Jack
and Lulu Cards, DSix
Cards, and Port
Susan Bay Infused Vinegars (I liked Cilantro Lime, Mixed Italian,
and Grapefruit). We went to Sonic Boom Records so Mom could get the new Marshall Crenshaw* but they were on order. Then I tried to get Johnny Cash American Four (the one with Personal Jesus and Hurt) but they were out, and I wanted Outkast but it was $18 since it's two CDs. Both Mom and I walked out of there with nothing. Anyone have Johnny Cash or Outkast they can copy for me? * The new Marshall Crenshaw has him covering Prince's "Take Me With U". I'm really interested to hear this. |
10-18-03
| Ladies
and Gentlemen! It's! The New! Pantry!! Yep. Here it is, in all its shiny glory. Sean and I both have phantom door syndrome, where we reach for a door that is no longer there every time we go to throw something away. We will get over it. Mom arrived Friday and she was loopy from her all-nighter and early morning flight. I left her here that night and took off for Jon & Amy's Punkin Party, and I took too many pictures, so I made a whole page for it here. Another highlight to the party, not pictured, is Jon's AIA license which showed up in the mail that day. We can all sue Jon since he's officially liable now! Go! Run! Sue! Yesterday Mom & I hit the town shopping. I got some stuff at Old Navy, and a bag of kneesocks at Nordstrom. We also had these great salads at Nordstrom Cafe with romaine and bleu cheese and candied pecans and champagne vinaigrette. Yummy. (New addition to my wishlist is this in either Heather Green or Heather Orange. Or maybe black? Okay all three. Thanks.) Mom's focus for shopping yesterday was a cool outfit for the Marshall Crenshaw gig at the Tractor Tavern. She did pretty good. The show was great and we met him after and I took a picture with him - I'll put it online tomorrow - I'm feeling lazy now. Anyway Marshall's voice is fantastic and I got to hear Cynical Girl so all is well. And Mom wants to buy his new CD (he wasn't selling it at his show!!?!). |
 |
10-16-03
 The Laundry Closet |
Some
closet doors are better left on. The kitchen pantry is still drying, since we added Phase Two. I promise I'll post pictures when it's totally done. The house is ready for Mom - clean sheets in the second bedroom, a throw blanket on the couch for better October reading, an emptied bathroom drawer. She's presently pulling an all-nighter trying to get some work done before her flight tomorrow morning and we keep e-mailing back and forth. And speaking of October - it certainly has kicked in here in Seattle. It's been windy and rainy and swirly and, well, October in Seattle. Oh and hey - sorry the server was down tonight - it's still a work in progress. Greg switched everything from his server in Vegas back to our's at Jon's house, and it's been trial and error as Jon and I try to learn Linux. It will be worth it. Our mp3 stereo is currently playing Captain and Tenille's "Love Will Keep Us Together." The mp3s previous were Three Mile Pilot and Queens of the Stone Age. Sometimes it plays Frank Sinatra then Nine Inch Nails then the theme to the Jeffersons. Auto-DJ is so fun. This afternoon I was cleaning and I turned it way up for a Jay-Z song, but then "Afternoon Delight" followed and it wasn't so good. (Do you ever wonder if your pet knows a song and likes it or not? I mean, they hear the same songs over and over just like you do. They must remember how it goes.) Should I have my Mom do a Guest Entry? |
10-15-03
Blogger Meetup and Our Anniversary
 |
 |
I
made these cupcakes yesterday, but I didn't mention it in case Tara
saw my site. They were for her birthday, and three other Seattle
Bloggers have October birthdays as well, so I'm glad I brought extra
candles. I couldn't stay long because Sean and I had dinner plans. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Sean
bolted down the new shelves in the pantry, but we both thought we
could do more. So. We decided to remove the pantry door completely,
leaving it open at all times. We'll move the garbage can elsewhere,
and add another lower shelf. The quasi-contained floor area will be
the new cat food/water dish area, which will *hopefully* minimize
those dang cat food niblets that get dragged across the kitchen floor.
Sean painted some new blocks of wood to hold up the shelf, and we'll
just use one of the old shelves for the bottom one. Should open up
the kitchen a bit, too. I remove doors in my houses all the time - our garage is full of doors from the inside of the house; I'm surprised I hadn't gotten to this one yet. No more! |
10-14-03
 |
Quite
the dilemma. The blue wall in the office is hacked from wear and tear from the past two years. Or has it been three years? Okay, maybe it's been four... Anyhoo, Sean and I decided that we still had the paint in the garage, so we'd re-paint just this wall. There's a heater vent in this wall, but the duct work fell into the crawlspace before we moved in, so just cold air blows in. We taped a piece of cardboard inside the vent to keep the bugs out, and it's been that way since we've lived here. Whenever we paint this wall, though, it creates a dilemma, because the cats can crawl down through this hole into the house's dark underworld. |
 |
 |
 |
Which,
of course, Hobbes did. While waiting for the paint to dry, we went to Romio's for pizza, then hit Fremont to get the CD by The Faint, wander around, etc. When I got home, I went to the bathroom and heard Hobbes meowing. BELOW me. Under the floor. And now that he's in there, he's stuck. He's also covered with a new hat made of spider webs, dryer lint, and a giant leaf hanging on his left ear. It's completely wrapped around his head. Now, we do have a sort-of cellar/trap door thingy, which is covered by a big board in the backyard. But it's dark and windy, and Sean's on the floor talking to Hobbes and tells me to go outside and pull out the board so Hobbes can get out. And I make excuses like "What if monkeys jump onto my head?" and "What if there's a cheetah |
| down there?" Now you would think that my husband would scoff at me or roll his eyes or something, but Sean considers these as good questions, as he can't stand spiders or anything that "creeps" or "slithers" when it moves, so he's not about to pull out that board either. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
We
had to tear the vent out of the wall. (I'd like to point out the fact
that I didn't even know Sean had a crowbar, and now that I know, I
consider him MUCH more attractive than I did, say, this afternoon.)
It took him all sorts of work to get this vent out of the wall (at
one point the house made this horrible banging noise that sounded
like it came from the attic - and I actually thought we were adversely
affecting the entire structure of this house). Once this sucker was yanked out, we walked away until Hobbes was ready to come up. And while I went to the drugstore to get a video to tape Hot Hot Heat on Letterman tonight, Sean heard Hobbes asking for help, and he pulled him up. I missed the whole thing - including a picture of Hobbes wearing his new headwrap. |
10-13-03
| I'm
sure these are good, but honestly I don't even want to smell them
or I'll gag. Heather wrote about this recipe for chocolate chip cookies in this month's Martha Stewart Living magazine, and I realized I had the same issue in my car (I bought it because it had a question from Quidnunc and for some reason that made me want to own the issue). I rushed to the store for ingredients so I could make the same recipe, because Heather spoke so highly of it, and it is good. I say this only from my eating twenty giant spoons of dough. *bleehhhhh* I need better observation in the kitchen. |
 |
• Today I re-did the Capitol Hill Library page at work.
• Another legend leaving Las Vegas.
Oh and hey Seattle bloggers - I think I may actually stop by the meet-up this month. Hope to see you there.
• link
10-12-03
 |
 |
Our kitchen pantry has served us well, but with my new obsession with baking, I needed more space. There really wasn't too much to do - just cut new shelves that actually reach all the way to the door. I understand that the shallow shelves made sense for a kitchen pantry, for those who actually keep long-handled things in there, such as brooms and mops. We, *ahem*, do not have the need for such frivolous things, so we were able to extend the shelves all the way out. I had a leftover quart of red paint from my |  |
| wedding gifts (the plant pots - see last month) so I went to town with the red paint for the pantry. So it started as a kitchen pantry, and now it shall be the Pantry of Doom. I will update with a new picture once the oily paint has dried (it needs some touch-ups, too), and the new shelves are installed. |
 |
 |
| While
I was doing the pantry, Sean was installing some shelves in the garage
for his work area. He likes to build computers, so he has a bunch
of parts out there and it was getting pretty disorganized. My Mom
called during this time, and asked if he was wearing a toolbelt, and
was his crack showing? I said "...maybe." She asked for
a picture. Unfortunately, his crack was not showing, but she pointed out that with his past weight loss, his jeans are probably baggy, and he is wearing a toolbelt, so essentially, his crack should be showing. |
 |
...so
this picture is for her: |
|
| After
I finished painting, I discovered a huge blob of red, oil-based paint
on one of my two pairs of decent jeans. So Mom? Remember when you
mentioned you may want to go to Old Navy...? Yeah. I finished my trilogy by Penny Vincenzi - I must've read about 36 hours in three days. It was worth it. And now I'm off to do some web work for others, which is WAY overdue.... |
10-09-03
 |
I
have some very happy news to announce to the Six Arms crew - via the
entire internet world. Marc Pevoto & Sarah Rankin, after three years of blissful, childless marriage, are now officially pregnant. Sarah had some symptoms of pregnancy but wasn't sure until almost two weeks ago. Her first ultrasound was Monday - and voila - she is ELEVEN WEEKS pregnant. First trimester almost over! I got the blessing from Marc and Sarah to pass the news along to you all now. Oh yeah, it's Baby Party time. Go buy them something. |
10-08-03
 |
 |
Last
night Sean & I were blessed with tickets to see Queens of the
Stone Age in Vancouver at the Orpheum. Pinder
totally hooked us up with great seats, and as an added bonus, Mark
Lanegan is touring with them, so we got to hear those songs, plus
a new song with Mark singing. They played about three or four new
songs and I was happy with all of them. We got there from Seattle,
parked across the street, walked in, and the band started about
five minutes later. It was perfect. After the show we went to Cactus Club Cafe and I had a Spiked Frapp and that was perfect too. When we got to Shane's the Hot Hot Heat video (a VHS tape - Shawn's company edited the video - Shawn is Shane's roommate - are you getting all this?) was waiting for me, so we all gathered around the TV (VERY closely) and watched it, while I shouted "There's me! There's ME!" I'm proud of it - they dumped the whole scientist plot and just have us rocking out with Hot Hot Heat and the production is professional. It's the best HHH video I've seen yet. And you can see ME! |
 Frappalicious |
• link
(P.S. Pinder - I looked all over for a hot Indian guy wearing the coolest shoes EVER, but alas, I couldn't find you. You want to see a show in Seattle - I owe ya one.)
10-07-03
Minty Fresh
 |
 |
 |
| So
I'm heading down to my car from my office this morning, but this guy
was crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, not moving. I climbed over
him and asked the little restaurant downstairs if they heard that
guy fall down the stairs, and they said "A guy fell down the
stairs?!" so I figured he probably didn't fall. I climbed back over him and noticed a bottle of Listerine near him. I called 911 and told them he was probably going through some sort of alcohol poisoning. One of the paramedics recognized him - they tried to get him to sit up but he couldn't move. They checked his vitals and asked him if the Listerine was all he drank - he nodded. "Have you been to the hospital for this before?" He nodded. "Which hospital did they take you to?" He nodded. "Okay buddy, we'll get you to detox." A minute later the ambulance arrived and they hoisted his crumpled body into the van. He was well dressed, clean cut. I've never seen him before. They left the Listerine by the stairs for us. |
 |
• link
10-06-03
 |
I'm
about 6,000 feet high in a gondola in Whistler when Cathy tells me
about
Roy Horn. At first I didn't believe her, like it was an urban
legend or something, but the more detail she and Sam told me, the
more I grew distraught. I decided that there was nothing I could do
until I got home and make some phone calls to my Vegas friends. It may seem silly that I am so upset about this, but I spent a lot of my forming years in Vegas, and good or bad, this is a part of my history and culture growing up. I called my Dad, needing a Vegas voice (even though he is now in Indiana), and as I was thinking I would need to justify my emotions for this, he said "I know, I |
| used
to have to wait for the elephants to cross in front of my car before
I could leave the parking lot." My Dad worked at the Mirage when it was under construction (he helped set up the sportsbook in the Golden Nugget, and then Steve Wynn brought him to the Mirage to do the same). He saw their very first show there, a special presentation for employees and VIPs, when they built the new showroom at the Mirage just for them. The tiger area at the Mirage is not far from the sportsbook. I am so very emotional about this. The employees have already been told to get other jobs. I cannot imagine what the strip will be like without them. Cyndi said the local news is constantly updating the |
 |
I was on a gondola in Whistler because we went to Scott & Shin's wedding this weekend. It was beautiful. The page for it is here.
P.S. As far as I know, the Hot Hot Heat video premieres on MTV tomorrow. I don't know what time.
10-02-03
Welcome to October!
|
Joe
picked up this magazine and said "I want these." I looked
all over for orange jimmies (those of you English people - it's
candy sprinkles - not condoms) and ended up settling for orange
sugar. The frosting looks clumpy and resembles something I'd rather
not mention - let's say it's the texture of ricotta cheese, and
I'll leave it at that. It's because I tried folding whipped cream
into butter frosting and they didn't blend well. Tastes fine, though. This next week is going to be crazy, to the point of me frantically rushing around when I'd rather be reading my book. On a good note, though, I finally get to meet Andrea from Mildly Obsessive and there are some other fun social events that I will update later.... |
But I do plan to take Mom to see Marshall Crenshaw at the Sunset Tavern.
On another note....
| It's
a rough day for my family today. Chad died one year ago. I never explained what happened, a year ago, and some people have asked. Chad was 19 and attending Indiana University in Bloomington along with my step-brother, Todd. He visited Todd's Frat House to borrow a book for school and rode away on his motorcycle, and that's the last any of us saw him. Everyone in northern Indiana was informed promptly - Wes and Val, then Dad and Kay, and Tim and Julie, and Burt and Alene, and everyone called everybody. Within an hour, my whole family was at Wes and Val's house. Nobody had been through this before - nobody knew what to do. Todd came up from IU and Laura came down from Northern Michigan, then later Nancy flew in from San Jose and I flew in from Seattle and our planes arrived an hour apart. Wes and Val's house was so full - not just family but friends of Chad's from high school, college, and church, plus friends of the whole family. They live at the end of a cul-de-sac and the cul-de-sac was full of cars lined all the way down. Nancy & I showed up just after the boys got their tattoos. |
 |