Aunthood

So holy cow I'm an Aunt. That's right; my brother and his wife Amber gave birth --

Wait.

Scratch that. Try again.

My sister-in-law Amber gave birth on Tuesday to a nine pound eleven ounce beautiful baby girl who she -- and now my brother can come back into play -- and my brother named Kairi Nicole.

That makes ME an aunt -- and of course, this new life in my family is all about how me. Aunt Amie.

Cue girly squeal. I finally got to head up to Tacoma for a quick day trip to see her and the new parents and man oh man oh man.

As I was telling my friend Matty, there's absolutely nothing like a teeny tiny little hand wrapping itself around your finger...and not having even cover a fourth of the length of your finger. It gives you a feeling that totally just eradicates everything sucky that's going on in the world because you've got this adorably innocent and gorgeous little person who's just content to do nothing but rest in your arms, wrapped in a fuzzy pink swaddle and just hold onto your finger.

It was at that moment when Matty sounded that it seemed like I was ready for my own.

Dear god no. I might already love this teeny baby with more gusto than I ever thought I could have for kids but I am by no means up for having any of my own. I'm totally down with being the cool Aunt Amie, the psuedo-hippie (To my family's standards anyway) who has a psuedo-shaved head, wears sandals in the rain, walks and bikes everywhere (Yeah...getting my bike fixed. Woot woot) and prefers acupuncture over western medicine. I'll be the family member she can escape to. I'll buy her lots of cool stuff and teach her the ways of Portland: Good coffee, good beer and good food.

See...the fact that I want to teach my five day old niece about coffee and beer CLEARLY shows that I am so NOT ready for motherhood. Aunthood should suit me well.

Congrats again to my brother and Amber.

The Web

No. I'm not talking about the internet.

So...if you're a tech-savvy super nerd (Ahem, Walker), feel free to stop reading now because my story of the web probably isn't going to interest you.

That said...


I'm talking about a different type of web...the spider web.

It's everywhere. Or rather, to be more realistically and grammatically correct, they're everywhere.

August and September mark one of my favorite times of the year to be a Northwest (Okay, fine...they're all over Stumptown) Portland resident because spider webs are in absolute overabundance (Yes mom, I know you're cringing and wondering how I ever came from your loins but, come on, by now you should know that I'm a psuedo-hippie -- to Spokane standards, anyway -- creature-loving nerdy  hipster. I mean, half of my hair is shorn for crying out loud). I first fell in love with them -- and noticed them, to be honest -- at the end of last summer when I was taking a lot of early morning, have-to-get-out-of-the-house-or-else-I'm-going-to-go-crazy walks. Still shining with early morning dew, the spider webs, which decorate bushes, trees, building eaves, fire escape stairwells, road signs and everything in between, simply shine in a glorified omnipresent beauty that's just radiant.

And the spiders that dabble in the middle of these five and eight and thirteen inch webs (Yes, I've measured and taken photos) just hang out, asking whoever stops in jaw-dropping awe in proud mockery, "Yeah...what have YOU done today?"

Turns out...usually when I have the chance to really admire these webs, my answer is, "Eh, not much."

That's how it was this morning, anyway. After a night of tacos and tequila with Walker and Jason, I was..admittedly...a bit slow to the start of my morning. Usually, during the work week, I'm up at 4:30, running by 5 when the spiders are rebuilding their webs after a night of human destruction.

How do I know? Because I'm the one breaking the random web strings flailing like silent assassins from the the trees. They attack my face and brush my cheek with such eerie vengeance which, regardless of how much I don't mind spiders, freaks me out. If anyone saw me karate-chopping with my arms while running up Lovejoy and Cornell at five in the morning, I'm almost certain they'd believe I was yet another neighborhood crazy.

But this morning, as mentioned before, was slower, recovering from a celebratory night with Yeyo (QO landed quite a few jobs lately...woot woot), so instead of an early morning run, I went on a regular-morning (i have to believe that 8 a.m. is 'normal' morning time) walk around the neighborhood while talking on the phone. It was nice...taking time to notice the beauty of nature that, despite living in the city, surrounds me.

Big old spiders. Big old webs, glimmering in the big old sun that danced behind big old clouds in that big old sky.

It was pretty and calming and nice to realize that, even though I'm typically a hustle-bustle, go-go-go individual, the power of nature never ceases to amaze me.

Lost: Attention Span

If I were able to focus for long enough I'd like to make a poster:

LOST!
Have you seen my attention span? I can't seem to find it anywhere and am fairly certain that it was either stolen or, sadly, it ran away from me.

Last seen: Oh, weeks ago, probably prior to my first day off from work either in Northwest or Southwest Portland.

Reward: My sanity.

But making a poster takes so much work; I'd have to pull out markers and paper and scissors and be all creative and stuff.

Yeah, stuff.

Then I'd have to walk around, in the rain, carrying dozens of copies of my poster and a staple gun (Which I'd have to get from somewhere; a girl just doesn't own one of these) without simultaneously getting distracted by the blooming daffodils or friendly construction workers or lurking transients and avoiding eye contact with babies and old men who think I'm 'cute and artsy' with my short hair and big, billowy scarves.

Which reminds me, I think I need a haircut again.

But if I get a haircut I'll want to get it dyed. Like red or, if I'm feeling really ballsy (yeah, I went there), platinum blonde.

I don't know if I could go blonde though.

I used to want to go super red, like cherry red.

I was once magenta which was pretty great, though not as great as when I dyed my high school track coach's gray mullet purple.

Hey--he said I could.

Wait, where was I? Yes; my attention span.

It's weird; I've always been someone who can sit down and focus and for some reason, over the past month, I've been unable to really just

sit. down. and. focus.

I surf websites like a Vegas dealer hands out cards; shuffling back and forth between news sites, shopping sites and that damned Facebook. I flip amongst the eight tv channels I have like I'm an aging salt-and-pepper haired and moustached man (Yes Dad I am alluding to you here). I can't make up my mind, mainly because my mind is running on all eight cylinders even though it's really not going anywhere.

Maybe I'm just in a funk. Maybe I'm burnt out.

Maybe my brain is just so full of ideas and thoughts that my mind constantly bounces from one to the next by sheer involuntary accident, being unable to move without tilting in between stored memories. It's time that I expunge my brain of these ideas, onto virtual paper (ahem, my much neglected blog) so that I can, perhaps, find my lost attention span.

Contributing to society one cupcake at a time

I'd like to point out that despite marking the near completion of week two on 24/7 pain meds that I haven't been totally worthless to society. Sure, I've loafed around, unable or unwilling to move more than three times within 10 hours, and have read, written and worked less since the start of the new year than I did in the past three months. Regardless of the fortnight's incredulously sedentary happenings, I'd like to take this blog post to highlight the one truely productive activity I completed: Baking cupcakes.

My friend Clara celebrated her 25th birthday on Thursday and I, despite loathing the celebration hooplah that accompanies some of society's most ridiculous "holidays" like Valentine's Day and disregarding anniversaries, love, love, LOVE birthdays. There are few things better in the world (free things, real mail and surprise flowers) than getting the one day to glow, shine and relish in glorious pomp and circumstance the fact that you came into this world, crying, slimy and naively ready to conquer anything. It's even better when others recognize that day, whether by today's standards of a simple text message or Facebook shout out or by good old fashioned baking.

In Clara's case, I chose all the above, inserting inside jokes about bad Van Morrison cover bands through Facebook and a quick "I'm happy you're my awesome friend who takes care of me when I'm in horrific amounts of pain and doesn't say anything when I get nervous because I'm about to show you my naked bum" Happy Birthday (About the naked bum: Clara took me to her home on Tuesday when I was in major pain crisis at work and helped me change into pajama pants. I was wearing a thong and my modesty, despite my Level 10 pain, came through. Clara didn't mind.). But neither digital message nears comparison to how much fun I had baking cupcakes for Clara and the rest of Friday's Pottery Barn gang.

I decided, while sitting in front of the computer at my new job  on Thursday afternoon thinking about how hungry I was, to make milk chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. After rushing home before my boyfriend met me, we headed to the store for supplies (A task not easily done after 10 hours of working on a continuous stream of vicodin) and set ourselves to baking. We painstakingly ripped open the Betty Crocker box of cake mix (Which we found out, thanks to Walker's iphone that you can buy it in bulk on Amazon for way, way cheaper) and transformed that mysterious brown powder into deliciously rich, yet light and airy, cupcakes by substituting buttermilk for the water (A trick I learned from the cupcake giftee herself).

The frosting really topped the cupcakes off (no pun intended). While I might cheat and use box mixes for the cake from time to time, I never go store-bought with my frosting. For my peanut butter frosting I trusted myself to my Joy of Cooking book that I got as a Christmas gift three years ago (When my knack for cooking and baking really began to flourish).  The recipe is as follows:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (Although I bet chunky peanut butter would be good too if you like a frosting with some texture)

3 oz. cream cheese at cold temperature

1 1/2 TBSP butter softened at room temperature

3 TBSP cream or milk

1 tspn vanilla

Mix above ingredients until smooth (I'm talking baby bottom smooth. If your butter is too cold you'll end up having little chunks of butter hiding in the frosting which is a bit rich unless you're Paula Deen).

Add in 2 2/3 cups powdered sugar, one-third at a time and beat just until smooth and desired consistency is reached.

Now, for all of the baking supplies I have (which pales in comparsion to Clara's. That girl puts me to shame, which is probaby why her blog is aptly named Bite Size Love), I learned -- with the peanut butter, cream cheese, butter and milk already in my yellow Kitchen Aid mixer I've appropriately named, "Happy," -- that I was missing vanilla.

"Just put in peppermint. Nobody will notice," Walker suggested after peering into my pitiful baking drawer that I was crazily rifling through, wishing that vanilla would secretly appear.

I stared deftly at my grinning boyfriend whose sarcastic suggestion reminds me that there's always room for improvising. I thought of my Royal Icing which I use for sugar cookies, recalling that I substitute lemon zest for vanilla, simply because I like a less-sweet frosting and that the three cups of powdered sugar that recipe calls for is sweet enough for Willy Wonka.

"Uhm, I'll just use lemon zest," I said with wavering confidence.

It turns out, zesting about 1/2 of a large-sized lemon and adding that into my frosting was an awesome idea. And of course, I should have known the tart and nutty combination of lemon and peanut butter was going to be a winner from the get go: Three summers ago while on a rainy July day-trip to the coast, my now-ex and I traveled through Seaside, picking up salt water taffy at a Tazmanian Devil rate (I love the stuff, what can I say?) before locking ourselves in his Subaru to read Harry Potter for the day (It was raining and there was nothing else to do and the 7th book had just come out that day).

One of the salt water taffy stores sold peanut butter-lemon salt water taffy, a combination that made us both simultaneously skeptical and interested (It happens when you're both foodies). The taffy was phenomenal; the richness of the peanut butter is warm to the palate, a definite comfort food treat that makes you close your eyes and think of curling up with your sweety under a blanket next to a fire while its snowing outside (hey, I can do cliche fantasies, too). But the tangy pop of lemon adds a kick of tango fun, morphing that romantic fireside snugglefest into something a bit -- Yes, I'm going to go there -- sexier.

The sexy snugglefest session was indeed the perfect topping for the richly light buttermilk milk chocolate cupcakes. The milk chocolate added the third cornerstone of taste perfection, the sweetness, to the unexpected harmonious duo of salty and sour.

But the best part of the cupcakes? The sprinkles of course. As Clara and I firmly believe, you can't have a cupcake without sprinkles. Okay, okay, you can; but why would you want to?

And so, while I might not have been the friendliest of neighbors (I've been rude to the nympho above who recently got a TV and in her typical loud fashion, has to have it on at an ungodly high level), the best family member (I've barked at my mom and ignored calls from my sister because I've been in so much pain and pathetic agony) and especially the best employee (I haven't helped a guest decorate with Pottery Barn accessories or furniture in weeks!), I was at least able to make my friends and coworkers a little happier, one delicious cupcake at a time.

Shingles

Disclaimer: This blog was written while under the influence of vicodin and benadryl. That is all.

It's been far too long since my last post and for that, I apologize (To who am I apologizing, I'm not entirely sure, perhaps the two followers I have). However, this little blog of mine, which I began less than two months ago as a way to rant and, perhaps reduce, stress in my life, had to take a back seat because I have been dealing with stuff much larger than online writing.

That stuff would be Shingles. Yes, on Christmas Eve I noticed, after taking my bra off and changing into pajama pants to watch Knowing (The latest Nicolas Cage movie that, big surprise, lacks acting talent and a plausible plot line), a few small red bumps on the right side of my back. I showed my mom who insisted, for the sake of my sanity, that I need not worry.

She also said she thought it was Shingles.

Like any good American who thinks he or she is a doctor, I looked up shingles on the Internet to confirm my mother's diagnosis. Shingles are (or should I use 'is?' After reading through pages upon pages of online Shingles literature, I have yet to come to a consensus on whether I should use 'is' or 'are' but, considering that Shingles ends with 's,' thus making it plural, my grammatical instincts tell me to use 'are.') caused by the same virus as the chicken pox. Little red blisters pop up in clusters on one side of the body, usually the back, trunk, chest and stomach, and last for weeks, morphing from red hot bands of hellatiously painful blisters to oozing pustuals of pain and disgustingness to flaking and scabbing sheets of grossness. Shingles are further accompanied by sharp lightning-bolt like nerve pain.

In my case, the actual shingles aren't that bad. Sure, I've got no fewer than six major bands of shingles, all in varying stages of pain and ooziness. The worst part of my case of Shingles is the nerve pain. Blinding pain shoots across my right rib cage, crushing me and making me unable to breathe. I'm pretty certain that J.K. Rowling had Shingles pain in mind when she wrote of the searing scar pain that Harry Potter experiences whenever he is near Lord Voldemort.

Shingles are my Lord Voldemort, that's for sure. They're ugly, they're useless and stare at me with such blatant irony that I can't stand it (Lord Voldemort, much like Hitler, was ironic and hypocritical in the fact that neither were 'pure bloods.' Yes, I've just likened my Shingles to Hitler. Again, I've got a cocktail of medicines floating around my blood stream). The irony in my Shingles is the fact that 20-somethings don't often get Shingles...

...unless they're stressed out. So my stress -- over finances, family, work, boys, you name it -- has not only caused me emotional pain; it's now causing me actual physical pain. Of course (Which is actually the exact reaction my friend Jacob had when I told him about my Shingles). And now I'm in so much pain (Okay, currently I'm floating on cloud nine with just a few itchies) that I can't work. If I can't work, I can't bring in money and if I don't bring in money...well, then the entire vicious circle of stress begins all over again.

Sigh. I'm just glad I have vicodin so I can stay relaxed, even if it is artificial.

Laundry Money

Every time I come home I always take inventory of what my parents have laying around. In what can only be described as the utmost moochiest of mooching, I gather up and load into my car at least half of the items I make note of. Over the past five and half years since I began (And yes, finished) college, I have permanently borrowed from my parents house the following:

Razor blades (Although to my credit, I bought my own for the first time last May)

Mascara (My mom buys the fancy schmancy kind from Macy's where she always receives 'free' gifts in return for her $100+ purchase)

Baking supplies, including cookie cutters, a flour sifter, measuring spoons and (my favorite) sprinkles

Towels (Both of my parents are a bit OCD when it comes to certain items. For example, my father has more guitars, boats and CDs than any solitary person could possibly use. My mother's obsessive collecting is a bit more practical; she has more towels than any two people could ever, EVER use.)

Socks (See above regarding my mother's aforementioned obsession with towels.)

I also always, always gather change. My parents' house is decorated with random vessels -- urns, vases, baskets, bowls, you name it -- of change; lots and lots of change. Throughout the past five or so years I'm fairly certain that, thanks to my change gathering ability whenever I am home, my parents have paid for more of the laundry that I do in Portland than my own toiling has. I figure they aren't going to miss it, since all the hundreds of dollars (I'm really not exaggerating here) in silver and copper are simply cluttering their house. Plus, I'm their daughter and they shouldn't mind helping me out a little bit, regardless if they are aware of their formidable contributions or not...right?

Right.

Despite everything, this trip home was no exception to my kleptomaniac endeavors. While I mostly scourged the house for photographs, I also managed to fill up a Ziploc sandwich-size baggy half way full of quarters. Without counting it, I took the baggy (shame-free) to the bank where, for the first time in two days, I pulled out my debit card and deposited the quarters.

The damage? $28.75. That's enough to cover laundry costs for two months....or a full tank of gas...or a week worth of groceries...or two weeks worth of coffee...or five weeks worth of beer.

It's also a fairly solid sale shopping trip to the Gap.

Decisions, decisions.

Fatherly Advice

I'm home in Spokane for my 'weekend' off, taking a much needed and long overdue break from trying to be a real, live and responsible adult. After a short five hours, I got home and just finally felt...relaxed. I've been so stressed out (see my last blog entry) as of late that I realized, upon entering the familiar warmth and comfort of my parents' house, I haven't taken a good, long breather.

After tucking into a good dinner, the family sat around the TV watching (God forbid) the CMAs (I know one person of all my Portland people who listens to country. I love her to death but I just can't do country). During one of about a million commercial breaks, my dad turned to me and asked me about my writing jobs.

"I've only got one, dad."

"Oh."

"But I'm looking. Always looking."

And here's where my dad, who usually offers such sage and logical advice, suggested to me something that I never thought I'd hear come out of his mouth.

"Well, why don't you get a job as a cocktail waitress?"

Granted, trying to get a job as a cocktail waitress isn't a bad idea. After all, I have my Oregon food handler's card even though I've never worked in a restaurant. Waitresses can make pretty decent money and I would definitely love the influx of cash tips (as would my baristas who I have been tipping less). I could work evenings as a waitress while keeping my day job at Pottery Barn and still continue to write for the Regence Group (and any other writing job that I stumble upon). My father's next comment is where the sage and wisdom and all-around fatherly protection falls away:

"It'd be perfect. You'd make good money and you can meet a guy."

Job recommendations and love life advice. Apparently, they go hand in hand for my father. And what's more, my father thinks it's a good idea for me to get a job where possibly intoxicated men can (and apparently to my father, hopefully will) hit on me.

Perfect.