First Year

I'm a little late at posting about our 1-year anniversary, but technically I'm still on vacation until Thursday.

Rather typical, plans did not turn out as expected. We had this great plan to spend the week at the beach followed by a trip to the Columbia Gorge and see Multnomah Falls.

Well, we slept in (no snickering laughs, you!) and I decided, why not see the Gorge that day since it's only half an hour away. So we left behind the suitcase and drove beyond Portland into the beautiful Columbia Gorge. If you ever come up here, you must experience this drive.

We got to Multnomah Falls, which Matt had never seen but I've been to once. It's the second tallest perennial fall in the US, and you can see it from I-84, really amazing! It's romantic, watching the waterfall and standing on Benson footbridge that crosses the pool which separates the first fall from the second. Lots of people get married on this footbridge. It's very romantic if you can ignore all the tourists.

Well, then we decide, let's take the one-mile hike to the top of the falls. We're young, we've marched Hollywood Christmas Parade for crying out loud, we can do a one-mile hike.

(Can you hear the ominous thunderclap yet?)

Well, this trail is not at all difficult. It's made for tourists, paved good, well kept, has benches at the halfway point, offers some great views, but it is quite steep. If you're in fair shape, it's doable. Tourists travel it all the time, even little kids. However, Matt is a self-proclaimed "mouse potato" and I badly injured my knee two years ago. I didn't think anything of it. I mean, that was years ago, right?

(Surely you hear the ominous thunderclap now!)

So, we made it to the top. You really can't see over the edge, but you can see where the water dumps over, and "Little Mulnomah" Falls just before the big drop. Being the adventurous idiot I am, I kept going off the trails (ignoring signs all over not to do such a thing) and I was just about to jump over the railing and peek right over the edge of that waterfall. Luckily, I have a strong husband who knows me too well. He would not let me hop the railing. Boo on him, but it was probably a good thing.

Then... came walking down the trail. No more than a hundred yards of that sharp decline, and I feel a stabbing at my knee, then the quick instinctual reaction of muscles tightening around inflamed tendons, making the whole joint stiffen. We jokes about needing a ranger to helicopter me out, and just pushed on. The more we went, the worse the pain got. Soon, I couldn't bend my knee at all. It was on fire! Matt was holding on to me because I kept losing balance.

And then I heard the pop!

*cue ominous thunderclap!!!!*

I knew that sound too well, ingrained in my memory from the injury I took at work in 2004. A loud pop, loud enough for others around me to hear, a pain in the knee, then everything seems okay... until you take a step forward. It happened two years ago, and it happened again. I waited for the initial pain to go away, then tried taking a step. And then I nearly fell.

There was no way I could go on, we were still 3/4 of a mile away, and it was almost night. Well, Matt wasn't about to leave me alone on the trail, we had no clue who we could call (plus we were so far out, our cell phones probably wouldn't have worked), and I was being my usual stubborn-ass self, so I pushed on.

30 degree grade, night quickly making everything dark, bugs coming out for the night (and a snake which I almost stepped on), no more tourists on the trail, and I'm holding onto Matt, putting almost my whole weight on this poor boy who hadn't done any hiking since he was a boyscout, whose idea of a workout is walking across the street to the pub.

Well, I'm sure you've seen enough movies to know how this turned out. Me hobbling, barely able to put any weight on my left leg, yet having no other choice but keep going, Matt realizing he had muscles he never knew existed, darkness all around, forest noises creeping us out. What was supposed to be a simple one-mile trail took us almost a full five hours to finish. We got back to the car some time after eight. We went to a nice restaurant, enjoyed the rest of the night, got back home, and crashed!

Next morning comes... and so does the pull brunt of the pain. Matt's muscles wage a rebellion, my knee refuses to bend, Ibuprofen becomes more holy than the Shroud, and out comes the booze to dull the pain. A jug of rum and a few beers later, we're both hobbling like a bunch of old fogies. No way we can make it to the beach, nor do we have any desire to do anything besides rest and sleep.

And that was our anniversary, romantic and painful, but not in any S&M way. We're still recovering. Matt seems to be walking better, but my knee is pretty bad off. I can't go see a doctor, because I'm not on Matt's insurance yet and we have no money. So I keep it heated and iced, Matt waits on me, I get to lay around and read.

Wait a minute.... this has turned out to be a pretty damn good anniversary after all!!!!

Here are some pictures we took.

The view from across the highway. I wonder how many truckers even notice it's there.


As best of the entire height as I could get. It's VERY tall.

Here I am!



Handsome!



Matt said my hair looked like a waterfall.

Looking down from the footbridge at the secondary falls.

We had some great views of the Columbia Gorge on the way up.



There were signs everywhere not to go off the path. When do I ever follow directions But lookie what I found. Purdy!


This is the first of the three falls, at the very top of the big falls. Matt was getting creative with time lapse and stuff.

Looking down from the very very top of the falls. You really can't see OVER it, not without climbing out of the observation deck (which I nearly did and Matt stopped me, he was worried I'd slip) so I just reached out as far as I could with the camera and snapped.

The two of us at the top lookout. Notice I'm already taking pressure off my left leg.


It was very late by the time we got down, but Matt still wanted to take some pictures. I think this was the halfway marker or something, since there's still some gloaming light. It's really weird how the water seems to light up at night, considering there are no lights around, not even on the trail, which was very frightening, I'll tell ya!

NaNoWriMo

November blows in with crisp, autumnal aromas and the sound of a thousand novelists furiously tapping away at keyboards across the world.

It's that time of year again: NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month.

I'm not blogging much about this event, because my fingers are nearly bleeding from all the typing I've done over the past week. All I'll say is I'm working hard to make that 50,000 word deadline, and I have a horrendous case of writer's block at the moment (thus the blogging). Both me and my sister have entered. We'll see if either one of us finishes.

Pirate's Last Meal

Want some grub and grog to feed yer hearties that's pirate-themed? Here's a little somethin' I've cooked many a time, and everyone loves it.

What ye be needin':

Some form of meat, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, lime juice, pepper, a big plastic ziplock bag to mix it all in, and of course RUM!

First off mateys, forget measureage. You're a pirate! Pirates don't have cute little measuring spoons! We dump in however much we want. So dump in lots of soy sauce and worch... worshe... worchest... whose-chest? YARRRR! Lots of that good stuff. It should fill an inch or two of the baggie.

Then dump a bit o' brown sugar in there, not too much, half a cup or so, enough to make it like wet sand... wet sand on the salty beaches of a Caribbean island! Arrr....

Then dump rum in there, maybe a jigger's worth, smartly now, no wasting the grog! Squeeze a lime wedge, or get those bottles with lime juice and squirt some in there. Then shake enough pepper to taste but not too much to make you sneeze. Freshly ground pepper is best, but we're pirates, we don't have the pleasure of gettin' the finer things in life. Shake that baggie up. It should be like quicksand, avast!

Toss in what vituals ye want. I likes me deshelled shrimp, but it can be chicken too if'n ye wants. Whatever pleases yer fancy.

Zip it nice and tight and let the meat soak in the marinade for an hour in a cool spot, like down in the dank corners of the bilge, but ye can use the refrigerator. Then flip the bag and soak another hour. You're getting the flavor of pirate-musk in there, not something to rush.

When the meat is nice and flavorful, take it out of the baggie and grill it up good and hot. No raw meat now, mateys! Get sick from the rockin' of the ship, not the cookin'.

You can serve it with whatever be to yer liking. I like to serve it with a side of brown rice with pineapples. Pineapples really enhance that erotic... I mean exotic flavor.

Exotic, you know, like palm trees swaying and a three-masted schooner anchored offshore, sipping your mai tai as you watch the sea gulls fly by.

Speaking of mai tai, the grog is important too. Vituals must have the right grog. Rum, of course! You can serve something fancy-like (mai tai, daiquiri, pina colada) or be simple and just have a rum and coke. Or just rum! If you're one of them landlubber teatottler sort, no worries matey, the rum in the meat cooks out, no alcohol there, just flavor, and you can down it with some pineapple juice if it pleases ye.

So that's my recipe. Simple because it's adjustable. You can toss other spices into the marinade, like cayenne and ginger and other fancy-like things, but we're pirates! When did you last hear a pirate complain that he's out of ginger? Arrrr!

This is what I use, simple and savory. Savvy?

Rock the Angels, Trumpet Man

Rock the angels, trumpet man!

Maynard Ferguson
(May 4, 1928 - August 23, 2006)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My first exposure to Maynard Ferguson was high school jazz band. We played Birdland, MacArthur Park, Chameleon, Gospel John, and others. Mr. Pergola played for us his Maynard records. Our trumpeters' eyes just bugged! The rest of us were left in serious awe. Since then, that screaming trumpet has tickled my ears and boggled my mind, but always made me smile with teenage memories.

My band director, Mike Pergola, passed away last year, and to lose such a mentor and a music legend so close together is sad. The world has lost a beautiful voice, but I know future musicians will hear Maynard Ferguson and be in awe just as I was when Mr. Pergola opened my mind to a new stratosphere of sound.

Hear that? It's opportunity marching away....

I'm bummed at the moment.

A local band called The Online Romance messaged me through Myspace and said they're looking for a French hornist for some recording sessions and wanted me to join them. I was like HELL YES!!!!! Then... wait, dammitall, I got rid of my horn! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! I've been so majorly down all night, now.

I like their sound too, very much the Northwest Indie sound (think The Decemberists). And I would LOVE to record! That would be so frickin awesome, total dream come true, you know!

But it had to be on the French horn, which I gave back to my college in May. Broke my heart to see the thing go, too! I had to tell them, sowwy, no hornie...

Wait, that sounded REALLY WRONG!

I didn't tell them that, honest! I said I'd love to, I like their sound, but I have no French horn of my own (I did not say "horny", honest!) but I have a mellophone and a trombone and a trumpet, so if they ever needed those I am SO there!

Chance #2 of becoming a recording musician, flushed down the drain.... :/

Okay, that's my sob story for the night.

Book 6 DONE!

Completed. Finished.

AT LAST!!!!

The 6th book of my series is all finished, clocking in at 521 pages. One monster of a thing to write, too. Not the length. It's actually one of the shorter book (hey, I JUST finished it!) It was just... I dunno, too many factors that I hadn't planned on, tangents I did not anticipate, and once I was near being finished, I realized I had loose ends I left dangling. So I've actually gone through this book three times with massive revisions.

I know I'm going to have to go back in there and straighten it out a bit, fix grammar and stuff, but the plot, the dialogue, it is all DONE!

And I am please. I was actually laughing as I reread the last third of it, a part I had written months back, but forgot about as I fixed the middle section. Little jokes, innuendos, things I totally forgot about suddenly come back, and I laughed reading them again. That's I good sign, I hope.

Most importantly, I am satisfied with the ending. That almost never happens. I usually screw off the ending, or write it months beforehand so that it doesn't fit with the whole developed plotline. This time, it fits the rest of the plot, it has a recurrent phrase in it which ties it to the other 5 books, and it ends with a bit of a metaphor, which made me warm and tingly to realize I even did something like that.

And I'm rambling to all you who have no clue what I'm writing. Let it suffice to all of you: IT IS DONE!

I now wait for my brain to get over the cerebral overload, maybe have a private party to celebrate this milestone (drinking can help kills those hyperactive brain cells), and then I plough into the last two books. These have been waiting patiently for 3 years, waiting for books 3-6 to be completed before I finished them. Now the groundwork is laid out, the final two books can finally take their shape.

But first.... I have GOT to get some sleep!!!

They Say It's Your Birthday

Rocking out to Beatles right now, looking at all the pretty pictures in my comments. Thank you, everyone (early, on time or late).

So... one year older (and deeper in debt). I feel no different. In fact, I had to ask my husband how old I was. 26? 27? 28?

Honestly, you don't pay attention to your age after 21. Up until then, you can't wait to be older, to be 16 and drive, 18 and legal, 21 and drink. After that great initiation of inebriating yourself into adulthood, age is of no further concern. There are no special perks of reaching 25, or 27, or even 29.

Thirty is another issue. At thirty, you enter a new phase in your life, that "thirtysomething" decade where the rebellious stupidity of teenage years and the laid-back optimism of your twenties is replaced with something heavier, a mortality which does not reached most people until then.

I'm not ready for that phase yet. Me and my mortality are good friends, but I don't like to visit him often. I'll let that association simmer another three years.

For now... wow, 27. So flat sounding. That's like asking someone where they went for vacation and they answer "Delaware." You reply with "oh, cool" and think what a lousy place to be.

But 27 isn't all too bad. You're not 30 and feeling aged, you're not 21 and wondering what all the fuss was about, it's just a damn beer! You're at a youthful point in your life where things are more settled, life is wonderful, maybe there's a special person in your life... or maybe you're having fun looking for them. For me, I have a loving husband, a caring family, wonderful friends, supporting associates, and I STILL WANT A KITTY!!!

Doesn't look like I'll be getting one for my birthday, either.