I want my flippy floppies

WTF is going on today?!?! I braved the storm for a run after work and nearly lost an eye due to leaves, and twigs flying into my face.

"The National Weather Service forecasts about one inch of rain Tuesday in much of Western Washington as an unseasonable wet and windy system moves through the Northwest." Thank you, Seattle Depressing Times. Good thing all you had to do was Ctrl + V from an article you posted November 17, 2009. UGH.

I flew in from SoCal late last night (apparently my last chance for the tan) and drug myself out of bed at 5:30am only to get pelted in the face by an icy rain during a mad dash to my car that nearly hydroplaned on the way to work. My patagonia-clad barista chick had the nerve to say, "well, I suppose we needed it it." "Yes," said triple grande soy vanilla latte mid 50's woman in keens and 'life is good' t-shirt, "I suppose Washington wouldn't be so pretty without all this rain. I can't wait for fall." SHUT UP! How are you people so delusional?!?! Double tall americano with room and make it snappy. Yes, I'm aware I'm not wearing a coat. No, I'm not cold. You won't see me in a coat until mid-October.

FYI, listening to "I'm on a boat" on repeat during a dark and dreary drive through the seatac/des moines/federal way abyss does make things just the slightest bit better :)

Neck Pain

I’m 26 years old and am in the midst of recovering from a quarter-live crisis. Inhibiting my recovery is the fact that for the last year or so, I’ve been suffering from debilitating headaches that I believe are the direct result of working at a computer for 9 hours a day. I thought things like this weren’t supposed to happen until you actually got old. “Cry me a river,” you say, “I work at a computer all day too.” OK, but have you spent the last 4.5 years of your life hunched over a 13” laptop screen with your wrists at your chest like T-rex? No. All of my sick leave this year has been due to headaches. Otherwise I’m a portrait of health and beauty. My 27 year old friend has the same problem and is considering seeing a chiropractor. At 27. Ridiculous. What is going on? Computers are killing us.

Eastern Washington

I really love eastern washington. Every time I cross over the pass I just get a little happier. You're generally guaranteed to have much better weather than the west side. Even if you're in a blizzard, you at least get to enjoy that little bit of adrenaline that comes with a near death experience. The climate does wonderful things for my hair, things cost less, and the people are just a tad friendlier. Not to mention the endless outdoor activities. Plus, there is something about traffic jams on I-90 that just brings out the craziness in people. During a recent trip to eastern washington, I saw/experiened some things that just don't happen on the west side.

1. Homemade bluetooth. "screw ya'll and your cell phone laws. I ain't buyin' no hands free device. I'm going to steal my daughter's headband and duct tape my motorola razr to it."

2. Vans full of 16 year old boys. This has happened more than once. I don't know what it is about mom's gold minivan that makes teenage boys think that women 10 years older than them will find them attractive. Literally mom's minivan--the license plate was "MYT MOM."

3. Homemade sunshade. Towel jammed into the window as it is rolled up. I'm not making fun--pretty smart, actually.

4. McCain/Palin bumper stickers. Ugh. Republican party, why are you doing this to me?!

5. Road sodas. Not entirely uncommon elsewhere, but do we really need to open the back window of the truck and pull out four BL's on the freeway? C'mon.

6. Girls from Seattle who think it is funny to wear American flag swimsuits. oh, wait...

Running

After an ill-fated attempt at the Seattle half-marathon 2 years ago, I'm back in the game. Despite swearing that I would never run anything longer than a 10K ever again, I've managed to not only sign up for a half, but purchase a plane ticket in order to go run it. (I also have sworn that I would never travel more than 2 hours by car to compete in a running race.)

Anyway, I think I'm starting to get obsessed with running again. It is probably partly because I have 4 friends that have confirmed they are running the race. And I get to go to Mailbu in November while the Seattle half runners worry about whether or not it will snow on race day. So, now I can't stop thinking about how long it is until the next time I can put on my lululemon gear and attempt to look cute running around greenlake.

Interestingly, my half marathon training started just one day before I started training for Oktoberfest. (FYI - one trains for Oktoberfest by drinking 'das boot' every Thursday.) What is more problematic is that the height of my half marathon training overlaps with Oktoberfest itself (yes, the one in Germany!). I'm not really sure how that's all going to work out, but hopefully I live through at least one. Both are pretty questionable at this point.

Caffe Senso Unico

You're from Seattle, huh? You must drink Starbucks all the time!
-No, not really. It's really not that good.
Oh....have you had dunkin donuts coffee?!?! It's soooo good.

Dbag.

Non-seattleites don't know that its really not that cool to like Starbucks anymore. If you're meeting new people in Seattle, they always ask what you favorite coffee shop is. Starbucks is the wrong answer. Nobody says that. That's like going to Red Hook and asking if they have Bud Light on tap. And, if you DO like sbux, you need to explain yourself. "Well, I go to Starbucks every day, but Stumptown is probably my favorite --it's just so expensive!" Perfectly acceptable.

CAFFE SENSO UNICO is amazing. It is the only place in Seattle where I can actually get a cappuccino that tastes like it was made in Italy. I'm going be pretentious and say that I know this because I drank a cappuccino for 27 days in a row in Italy. omggggg! Eatpraylove!

You get authentic espresso at Senso, because the place is run by an adorable italian man who speaks to you in italian. Not only that, but it is the only coffee shop I've been to in this town that isn't overflowing with hipsters! I actually do love Stumptown, but my pencil skirt and 2.5 inch black pumps generate a lot of weird looks when I go in there. I'm sorry Stumptown patrons, but I just don't own Ray Bans and a navy blue vintage dress with a cruiser bicycle pattern on it. Forgive me and my PC.

Seriously, check it out. The raspberry cream cheese crossiants will brighten any dreary morning, and the espresso will stay in your veins for days. And they say "prego" when you get your coffee :) 6th & Olive downtown.

Protein

So, lately, I've been really into protein. I talk about protein fairly frequently and today, i put it in my coffee. Normally, I like to make fun of people who are really into protein by yelling things like "protein emergency!!!" or "mooooommmmm! get the protein!" One of my college roommates use to make protein pancakes for breakfast. Sometimes I would hide his protein and hold it for ransom. Sometimes I can be kind of annoying.

Today, I drove out of my way to Costco in order to purchase protein shakes. This is actually why I got the membership in the first place. (See earlier post.) No joke. The protein shakes are only like $2.00 each! I wandered around that store for an hour today and all I bought was protein shakes, a box of trail mix, and some gummi multi-vitamins for adults. Yes, only three things. I flew throught that line at the exit. Then I promptly ate a handful of gummi multi-vitamins for adults. YUM. And now I've had 10,000% of my Vitamin C for the day. whoops.

Layoffs

I've been laid off a few times in my life. It's never a good feeling, even if you hate the job. I was 16 the first time I got laid off. I worked at a cannery in the summers. Despite the fact that I spent the hours between 7 and 3 picking rotten beans off of an conveyor belt and/or chasing skunks/snakes/mice around so they wouldn't get in your canned beans, it still sucked to get sent home at the end of the summer. I never "quit," but as soon as all the beans were harvested, they started laying people off.


So, these are pears, but this was my life during the summers:

Anyway, now I get laid off every other month. One furlough day per month. The pay cut isn't too huge, but it is a giant waste of time. Case in point: I'm watching The View right now.

Generally speaking, I've spent most of my furlough time with my co-workers. Now, they're actually my friends too, so it's really not that weird. But, when you think about it, by implementing furlough days, my employer is getting free teambuilding. Kind of not fair, huh? More often, employers have to force these things and pay for fancy retreats.



So far this year, furlough activities have included:
Camping
Whitewater rafting
Me taking everyone's money during texas hold 'em
Paddleboarding
...we're only on the second furlough day.



Today was supposed to include wakeboarding, but the windy weather did not cooperate. Which makes me worry about layoffs during the winter. Days off are only fun so long as you have fun things to do...


Will I become an avid watcher of "The View?" Granted, right now, Snoop Dogg is on. I LOVE Snoop. LOVE HIM. Almost as much as I love Leonardo DiCaprio, Eminem, and Matt Hasselbeck. I'll have much to say about those three in future posts. Until then, I'll leave you with a snoopism I just heard:



Joy Behar: "Tell me, why do you need a chandelier in your car?"
Snoop: "Well, y'know, I'm a player. I'm a player at heart."



True dat, Snoop. Play on.

Yuppies

I think that I am one. I don't even know how it happened! What's next--will I become a hipster? A girl can only dream.

If you simply trace the last 24 hours of my life, it becomes pretty clear:

Yesterday, I went to my job that I mostly like where I get paid enough to support 1.5-2 people. Then I met up with friends who have similar (or the same) jobs at a hip french restaurant. We drank wine and used our iphones to try and "learn the language" in time for our upcoming vacation. I ordered quail for dinner. We took pictures of our dinner with our iphones. Then we talked about our iphones and whether or not we were going to get new iphones. I drove home in my cool-but-not-too-cool Mazda3 and chatted casually with my roomate about dating, religion, and economics.

After work today I went on a trail run in my fancy new shoes that I bought from a running store. Then I went to Trader Joes (this is key yuppie behavior) and bought fancy cheese, protein drinks and other vegetarian items. Now I'm eating the fancy cheese and drinking the wine. I have a blog.

WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? Ten years ago I drove a Ford Tempo and spent my evenings watching "Who wants to be a millionaire?" Five years ago I hadn't even heard of trader joes and I bought my running shoes at Big 5. Sometimes. Most of the time they came from Walmart.

Good? Bad? I don't know. I should probably go find a farmer's market or something.

Bears

Today, I encountered a bear in the wilderness. I use the term "encountered" intentionally. I've seen bears in the wild before, but it has generally been from the safety of an automobile. Or through the view of binoculars. Or I had a rifle and a bear tag. Today's bear was no less than 200 yards away, and all I had on me was a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sunscreen.

I was hiking today to Hidden Lakes in the N. Cascades. We had seen no sign of bears all day, and the trail was pretty busy. Luckily, my friend and I were being remarkably chatty. Otherwise, we probably would've walked right into him. He heard us coming, and scampered up the hill into the trees. By "scampered" I mean that he effortlessly ran through 5' tall brush and over some boulders the size of cars.

Scariest wilderness experience of my life.