Rachael

Okay, I’ve GOT to show you this. This is what our pocket vegans Kira and Rachel made us for our wedding present. I haven’t been showing presents, because it’s kinda overwhelming, and I don’t know where to start. But you gotta see this:

Isn’t that awesome? Claudia, put your arm down. You can’t have it. Red and orange and yellow, baby, with polka dots and flames. I can’t imagine a more perfect quilt.

Also, Harriet likes it:

It’s hard to take a picture of a red/orange/yellow quilt, and it’s even harder taking a picture of a black dog, but this one just worked on my camera phone. Too bad we only have a dog-head. I think the dog-body’s around here somewhere….

The coffee thing works! I think I have to work on the ratio of milk to water, and it might be better to heat the milk separately and shake (I’ve tried both today), but it’s GOOD. God bless coffee.

I’m having a pajama day tomorrow, folks. Today I have organized bills (note, organized — must work on paying them soon), cleaned the entire dang house, from top to bottom, gardened, weeded, mowed (erg, with our dull push mower. That’s for the birds, I can tell ya), and taken a shower. Oh, and washed every piece of fabric that we own. I worked hard ALL day so that tomorrow I can do NOTHING. Really, nothing. I’m going to watch TV, and I already bought pizza, cheese and bread, salad, good cookies, milk, orangina, and chocolate covered pretzels. (Oh, lord, look at the planning.) I have Elizabeth I, Gilmore Girls, and Everwood saved on my buddy TiVo and I have some movies, too. I’m not answering the phone, looking at email, or doing ANYTHING that I don’t want to do, that doesn’t give me pleasure. So, no mowing. That’s for sure.

(Also, to those of you loves that gave us prezzies, I just ordered the thank you cards. We’re late, but they’ll be coming. Every day, we have fun with Our Things. We don’t need anything else, I can tell you that. Yay!)

Oh, here are the pocket vegans at the wedding:

And I love this one, Rachael and Rachel (there were four at the wedding):

All right! Off the internet and onto the couch!

All right. I have a major confession to make, and it’s one that Lala could scarcely credit when I told her recently. It is this: When we were in Seattle, I had my first latte.

Yes, it’s true. I’d never had a latte before. I’m good with all the blended coffee drinks, lovin’ my mochas and cappuccinos, and I also heart good old strong coffee, well roasted and well brewed. I’d only never had a latte because I thought it would be boring. Milk and coffee. Whatever.

Wrong.

Had my first latte at Vivace in Seattle. Way to start an addiction, man. Damn.

So this is  what’s freaking me out: I have a Bialetti. You know, the little Italian stove-top espresso machine, which is nothing more than a tiny strong percolator. See it here:

I love this. It was a wedding gift, and boy howdy, do I love it. (I also have a small one that I got at a hardware store in Venice years ago.)

Okay. So a coworker of mine has this one, link here:

This one you add milk to, dude. You pour milk in the top part, water in the bottom, and end up with latte in your cup. It doesn’t look any differently constructed than my Bialetti, just different lines.

The question is: What’s to stop me from adding milk to the top part of mine while heating and doing the same? Any ideas? I don’t want to burn it up, and I know that can be done (I read the Donna Leon mysteries, after all). I don’t see why it WOULDN’T work, but tell me what you think, okay?

I loves me a latte.

Lala blogged. And she’s way funnier than me, so go over there. I’m lazy, and at work, and I feel like I’m fighting something off. We were at Longs yesterday, shopping for gardening stuff, and I got all weepy and overwhelmed with the choices presented to us. I couldn’t IMAGINE gardening that whole yard, and carrying all that stuff home, and planting and weeding and and and. I only get that overwhelmed when I’m sick or close to it — otherwise, I’m a workhorse and happy to wear myself out with Too Much To Do.

So, in an immortal typo I made once, Bleha. (More bleah than bleah.) Go say hi to Lala and enjoy your Sunday, my ducks.

https://rachaelherron.com/lala_blogged_an/

I remembered something funny that happened in Canada. You know how bad my memory is (or do you? I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it. It is. Ask Ryan, she knows), so I’m glad I remembered it.

For the honeymoon, we flew to Vancouver. It was my first trip to Canada, and I was excited to stand on new foreign ground. Then we went to Seattle for the weekend. Then we went back.

So we’re-entering Canada in our rental car. There are two cars in front of us — one at the customs booth, and the other car in front of me is stopped at the red line. Lala’s idly flipping through my passport, looking at stamps.

She says, "You’ve BEEN to Canada before! In April of 2001!"

"I have?" I am astonished at this news.

At that moment, the guy in front of me rolls forward towards the booth, and I’m so busy thinking about this new development in my past, that I treat it as if it’s a stoplight, and start to follow him right on up to the booth OVER the red line without stopping. I have no idea why Lala is flapping her arms and screaming, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" but I do, and later I’m very glad I did. We love our Canadians, and we don’t want to piss them off.

(The forgotten trip was just a long layover, but it was there, and I’d been to Canada, and I’d forgotten. Erg.)

Also: I’m trying to be more Canadian. It’s my new religion. Yesterday, I stopped my car to let someone back out of a driveway, and later I waved and smiled a pedestrian across a non-ped crossing. If everyone were more Canadian, it would be a better world.

I don’t have that much to say today. I’m at work, and my back kinda hurts (I think it’s from working out, new muscles being stretched, but it’s hard to sit for 12 hours at a time. Standing as much as possible today when it’s slow).

So today I’ll just give you my favorite joke of all time.
Say to someone, "Say knock-knock."
Your victim says, "Knock-knock."
You say, "Who’s there?"

Then fall down laughing.

Heh. Oh, wait, my coworker Khalil took a bunch of pics at the wedding — here are a couple more photos. (Also, go look at his work — he’s GOOD.)

Look at these cakes:

My oh-so-talented friend JoAnn made the big one, and it was WONDERFUL. And my little mama made the smaller one, a traditional New Zealand fruitcake, which was also wonderful, and luckily not many people ate it. I got to take the rest home with me. Ha.

This is one of my faves — I’m pretty much dragging her down the aisle. We’re married! We’re outta here! Woot! (Bored yet? I’m not, not quite…..)

The family, all of ’em. (Click for big.) Yay!

So. Not only did I start running, but Lala and I got gym memberships when we got back. We learned that Vancouver is not only about civil rights in marriage, and beautiful views, and extremely nice, helpful people, but it’s about FOOD. We ate at every opportunity, and boy, did we find a lot of those. We’d double back around a block in case we could increase our appetite and hit one more sushi restaurant. Just another scone. A little more gelato. I’ve never been so regularly full before in my life. I forgot what feeling hungry felt like, since I never gave myself a chance.

Then when we got home, we joined 24 Hour Fitness. I haven’t belonged to a gym in more than ten years, and things sure have changed in that time. They didn’t make me sign a contract! It’s month-to-month, which makes me feel better about the potential for flake-age (although we won’t flake, no, not us). Also, it’s pretty high-tech, and that’s a nice change, too. When you’re on one of the myriad cardio-machines, you can plug your iPod phone cord into the machine and choose one of the channels playing on one of the TVs hanging in front of you. Dude, the handles on those machines record your heart rate! That was disappointing, actually, because when I was on the elliptical I thought I was going to DIE my heart was going so fast. Then I looked up and saw that I was in the target fitness heart rate for AN EIGHTY-YEAR OLD MAN. This is true.

Running was a little rough yesterday, I must admit. I went to Mills, as I usually do. It was sunny when I drove up, a few clouds in the sky. I leaned out of the car to put on my running shoes. A few drops spattered my knees. I decided I was Hard Core and started running.

Dude. The rain came. The rain fell in torrents. Rivers. Sheets of water. The iPod was psychic, as it sometimes is (I swear Apple is not paying me for this blog). As I started running and turned the iPod on, the Old 97’s Blinding Sheets of Rain started playing. Then Rufus Wainwright sang about being cold, and then Abigail Washburn sang something about being miserable in the weather, and that’s about when I decided to terminate my run and head back to the car. I was slapped red by then, my legs and arms and face scarlet from the sheer speed of the water drops which were as big as VW bugs.

(It was at this point, when I was thinking about my life and how now that the move and the weddings are over, I can finally obsess on something else, I saw a big sign that said this: RESUME WRITING. My brain went Wow! Okay! I hear you! I will! Then I realized it was a class on writing a resume. Ahem.)

But still, technology and iPods rock. As do big anonymous gyms. (Also, the iPod now makes gyms okay to spend time in. I don’t have to talk to anyone, I don’t have to make eye-contact, and I don’t have to listen to their tunes. Nice.)

So today, no pics because darlin’ Ryan’ has taken care of them for me. Go see her. Yay!