A new blog project

What: A picture food log. I will take a picture of everything I am going to eat.
When: July 1 - July 8

Where: Wherever I eat!
Why: To keep me honest. If I know that anyone in the world can stumble upon this and read it (what if Will Smith does?), I don't want you to know that I eat Funyuns and cheesecake all day (which I don't...that much). 
How: With my crappy phone camera. I think I set up mobile blogging, which will be short on words because my phone texting ability is nil & it's mainly just to send the pictures without a lot of hoopla.

Please be critical. Please comment that I eat crap. (Because I do! And I need to stop!)

Making stuff up

This is my father-in-law's (FIL's) entry.

If my lovely husband is reading this, feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken on how this unfolded.

For anyone who reads this, you likely don't need a refresher, but I feel compelled to give you one. There are these things in the world called FACTS: the date you were born, what the Dow Jones closed at today, actors who played parts in movies, etc. Then there's opinions, which are what you think or feel or believe. It's great to preface these things as such, but not necessary. "I think lawyers are scuzzy." That would be an opinion.

Then there's shidizzle you make up and pass off as facts. WHY?! I have no freaking clue. I do not understand why people (FIL) do this. You look like a dolt to people like me who appreciate facts.

Scene: Daughter is watching the rather new version of Scooby Doo. Shaggy sounds exactly the same as he did in the old version. 

Me: "That sounds like Casey Kasem!"

Husband: "I thought he just died." We later discover he thought Casey Kasem was Dick Clark, who did just die.

Me: "I didn't hear that. Dick Clark was the one who just died."

FIL: "Yeah, Casey Kasem died. He shouldn't have died that young. He was only 65."

Me: Scrunches up my forehead because even if Casey just died, he's got to be older than 65. He was the voice of Shaggy in Scooby Doo way back when. But still, I'm pretty sure I would have remembered hearing that he died.  "Are you sure he died?"

Husband: Gets out his phone and Wikipedia'ed Casey Kasem. "According to Wikipedia, he's still alive and 80 years old. Yeah, I was thinking about Dick Clark."

FIL shrugs shoulders.

I cannot figure out why FIL makes shidizzle up All. The. Time. If you're going to make stuff up, then at least make stuff up that can't be easily proven wrong.

Paula Deen's sister is killing me

My in-laws have been here for over a week, and this is my first plea for mercy. Today's entry will be about my mother-in-law (MIL).

I think I'm going to die. My stomach has been in agony for over a week. I've gained 10 pounds in a week - if I was brave enough to actually step on a scale, I could easily prove this to you.

My weakness: I'm an avid member of the clean plate club. I hate wasting food. Like I start getting jittery if I throw away food. I know myself, and I know that I'm a member of the clean plate club so it's just best to make enough for that meal. I like enough leftovers for a meal or two if the original meal is something I really, really like.

MIL's weakness: She loves making enough food for twice the people that are actually going to show up. I'm not sure WHY. Based on my observations, neither she or her husband likes leftovers. Nearly all the food that survives the meal uneaten ends up in the garbage, which makes me jittery. So I feel obligated to eat it. And despite being dairy and gluten intolerant, every meal has copious amounts of butter, bread & cheese. What's with a freaking appetizer (for 8 people even though only 4 are there), 5 side dishes, and a homemade cake for every meal?

(Cue stomach cramps that are going on Day 10)

S's parents, in my opinion, are very wasteful people. I try so hard to be resourceful that I seriously want to scream when I see them so needlessly waste money and food and energy. Don't leave so many lights on! Do you really need to do that many loads of laundry with all that fabric softener? How can you want to go out to eat when we have so much food that's going to mold in the fridge? Why must you open and close the garage door to leave the house when you can just go out the front door?

(Cue heart palpitations)

I have inspiration for a week-long blog project. How about take pictures of everything I eat for the next 7 days? It will aim to keep me honest and (hopefully) make my tummy feel better.

You know it's bad when I, the lover of all food, am wanting to stop eating. I'm dreaming of a day when all I drink is water and all I eat is fruits and veggies. I tell ya, I feel like crap, and I think my MIL is trying to kill me.

SF

In Chinatown - can I EVER take a straight picture?

Last week I spent some time in San Francisco. It was awesome in 4 ways:

1. I haven't gotten out of Washington State in 2 whole years, so I was getting a little stir crazy and wanting to see some new and different scenery.

2. I got to see friends.

3. I didn't have to share a bed with anyone. (I ordinarily share a queen-size bed with two people--not like THAT...the third person is my daughter.) A whole bed to myself is quite a novelty.

4. I got to titillate my rampant nerdy ways.

Talking specifics about #2 from above violates my blogging practice here (family is fair game though). #3 isn't terribly interesting. And talking specifics about #4 also violates my blogging practice here.

Thus, I will tell you about San Francisco from a Washingtonian's point of view. My mom would tell you that it was my second visit to San Francisco, but since I didn't have bladder control quite yet on my actual first visit, I'll say that THIS was my first visit.

I suppose when you build up something in your head, the actual can't compete with what you think it will be like. The Golden Gate bridge was cool. I wish I had gone on an Alcatraz night tour (soooo creepy). The Wharf is pretty. Chinatown was neat. But other than those things, the city itself was more ho-hum than I expected.

Sirens were going all night long. People were outside screaming and fighting all night long. Everything is so small. I'm sure these are qualities of all big cities: feeling like you're on sensory overload and feeling claustrophobic. There weren't trees in the city; I was hard pressed to even find an open space with some grass. The literal and metaphorical space seemed to be so overwhelmed by people that I couldn't catch a breath.

I enjoyed walking in the city. Being cooped up in a small hotel room at night and crammed in a conference room during the day made me want to spread my wings in the evenings. I covered quite a bit of territory each night on foot. I walked to the wharf (west a couple of miles), went through Nob Hill and Chinatown, went about a mile south, and then looped back to the financial district. I loved walking through the city and seeing people in the laundromats or bars going about their normal, everyday lives. I enjoyed watching the NCAA game at the downtown pub. 

Living in a big city wouldn't be my first or even second residence preference. It is nice to not need a car when you're in the city though. I like being close to the big city for the amenities, but I appreciate the slower pace of my day-to-day life in suburbia.

Seattle has a different feel to it. I don't think Seattle's as claustrophobic. We have parks even in the middle of the city. The people seem less aggressive here. 

What I realized during this trip is that I could make it work. If I had to live in the city, I'd learn to get by and not resent it. I realized how self-reliant and resourceful I am. I could navigate BART seamlessly and walk around seedy areas. I could figure things out (with the aid of my trusty phone GPS). I can learn. Traveling by one's self is a self-empowering endeavor that I really did like.

And I'm still sighing about not knowing about the night tours at Alcatraz. I would totally go back just to do the night tour.

San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge

Approaching the Golden Gate Bridge - again, never a straight picture

Her

So it's Father's Day, and you know how sentimental I am, don't you? I ooze it from every pore of my being, and you might think I will either talk about my extra special husband or go on a sentimental diatribe about my father.

But that's not why you're here, right? And you know that I don't do sentimental, right?

So I'm going to talk about homewreckers. Or, well, one specific homewrecker.

S's brother, if you'll recall (I'm presuming you're a long-term reader and I'm too lazy to reference old entries so your choice is to 1-remember 2-nod along or 3-try to catch up), cheated on his wife this woman. We'll call her A because it stands for her name, and it can be Amelia or Anastasia (like in Fifty Shades of Grey) or Annie. Or some other name that starts with A like Alyssa.

Their "thing" started up about a year and a half ago. Last May his wife found out. Since then, S's brother has been lying low with his new love A. After the year mark, it seems like he's now bringing A out to his family. In the past couple of weeks, he's introduced her to his boys, his parents, and his siblings. I suppose it's their big "coming out as a couple."

None of us were fans of his wife AT ALL, and we're all bored and curious, so we're intrigued by the homewrecker/girlfriend/new love that we finally got to meet.

She's not what I would have expected. But she's nice enough...even if she is a grandmother. She enjoys playing board games, which is a necessity in the family. All we do together is play games...and eat.

I started writing some thoughts about her, but then I thought that I would easily get in trouble on the interwebz, so instead I'll just say that she wasn't quite what I was expecting. Not bad at all, just different. 

And with that, good night.

The most expensive 2 minutes of my life

As I said in my previous post, I have a lot to write about. It won't necessarily be in chronological order because, well, my brain doesn't work like that.

Today I'm concentrating on the most expensive 2 minutes of my life. Now, you can argue that the most expensive 2 minutes was when I signed the documents to buy my house. And you'd be right technically. But what I'm talking about is the 2 minutes I purchased a service.

I've always wanted to skydive. Not enough to actually pursue doing it, but I'd be totally up for it if someone else would initiate it. Most things I'm fine doing by myself: going to a movie, walking, concert, traveling, etc. But there are some things that even I won't do alone. Skydiving is one of them. It's okay, call me a chicken.

An indoor skydiving place opened nearby called iFly (what's up, iFly worker who has to check out this post to see if I say anything inflammatory!!!). I see it when I drive up that way, but I didn't really check it out online. Again, skydiving (even indoors) isn't something I would necessarily do on my own since my husband is not one who's that much of a thrill seeker. I think he gets nauseous even thinking about amusement park rides.

But one of my friends brought up that she wanted to go. I was like, "Heck yeah!"

Life's been busy lately. Not necessarily an excuse, but I'm just giving context. My friend gave me instructions on how to sign up - she even told me what appointment to sign up for. I followed her instructions while I was at the grocery store. Reservations made, and then I moved on to the next thing. So it turned out that I didn't explore their website before going. I know the iFly building is tall, so I presumed they took you up to the top of the tall building with a parachute and then dropped you. Right?!

Not exactly. What fascinated me about iFly the most (holla, iFly worker!) is that they have a freaking incredible business model. They crank people through in such a way that they pretty much guarantee that they make $1,800+ per hour in revenue. I was trying to calculate their estimated profit while I was there, deducting for rent/salaries/expenses/etc. That kept me busy for a while.

Wait wait wait, I'm supposed to be talking about the experience. That's what the iFly worker is wanting me to concentrate on, not their business model. (But I would definitely want to talk about their business model if they would like.)

The experience was okay. I suppose I was expecting something different, I was expecting it to last longer (no jokes....), my mind was focusing on their business model when I was supposed to be thinking about how cool it was. Everyone else there seemed to be SO jazzed about the experience, including my friend, that it's kind of isolating when you aren't at that same emotional/excitement level. It's hard to describe, but I've often encountered that sort of feeling in a big group when everyone else is in a different mental place than you are.

iFly has you jump in this wind tunnel cage that simulates the free fall when skydiving. You do two 1-minute sessions in the wind tunnel.  Not much can go wrong. You could fall...two feet to the bottom of the cage. You might run into the glass of the cage while "flying." That's about all that can go wrong, so it's not terribly risky (probably good for their liability insurance). Their website does have lots of information and explains it pretty well if you want to see a better description.

It's not very long. It's not very risky. It's expensive (if you look at it as a cost per minute of actual flying). The iFly worker would tell you it's really an hour and a half. Well...they want you to watch other people do it for half an hour, they want you to get half an hour of "instruction" and then get your equipment on, and then you sit with your group for half an hour rotating one-minute shifts in the wind tunnel.

Would I do it again? Hmm...if I found a Groupon and someone else wanted to do it too, then I might do it again. Would I do it alone? Nah, it wasn't SO cool to do that I'd even do it alone. Would I do it for full price? Nah, it's not that awesome.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has done this and actual skydiving to see how they compare.

I O U

I have a pile of entries to do. So much stuff has happened in the last few weeks. The inane, the serious, and everything in between.

Sleep-deprived right now, will be back soon.