The Days Of Wyrd

It was yet another family fun day, so we took a short road trip to the beach.  First we walked down the long windy Cape Arago trail to the beach below.  It was windless and warm and beautiful.  We wandered around the many kinds of seaweed that had washed upon the shore.  Seaweed with big balls on the end.  Seaweed that looked like dark green coral.  Seaweed that looked like a big long lasagna noodle. 

We discussed the many rocks, pointing to seashells that were buried perhaps thousands of years ago.  We looked for treasure, rough polished sea glass, tiny agates, and whole shells like chinese hats, snail shells (preferably without hermit crab or live snail inhabitants), and muscle shells, the hobo abalone of the coast. 

We taught granddaughter how to climb the rock, how to wade in the little waves, how to write everyone's names in the sand.  The little current Bend inhabitant soon went from "I am NOT walking on THAT!", to "oh look what I found!" 

After lollygagging back and forth about the beach, we went back up the windy trail and ventured back down the beach road.  A short stop at the sea lion lookout point.  Tried to teach grand daughter how to bark like a sea lion, my personal specialty.  No go.  She said, "I hope we never get one of those at our house".  I told her not to worry, sea lions were not personal pets. 

And then we saw, A WHOLE SCHOOL OF WHALES.  Which may have been only about 4 of them, we aren't sure.  But they were jumping and blowing and playing, and it was GOOD.  Several boats were circling them, but they didn't seem to mind at all.  Even though I have lived here all of my life, every time I see a whale it just seems like a very precious moment.  Such an amazing creature.  Something we haven't wiped out.  Yet. 

Posted by Wyrd at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The Deer Park Petty Zoo just south of Bandon is one of the many historical icons of the coast.  It's something every generation must be subjected to.  Much like the Dinosaur Park, or the Sea Lion Caves, or the House of Confusion.  They seem to have alot in common besides all that.  (1) They all suck.  (2) They are insanely expensive.

Mr. Wyrd and I took Derek and the granddaughter to the deer park on father's day.  One suggestion I have for my fellow blog fiends:  Do not feed the animals.  Unless you prefer trampling to living.  Another tip: don't pet anything even if it's a baby and they tell you too.  All of the babies at the deer park are mean.  They are wild animals and they don't like you.  Also, don't wear nice shoes, there is crap EV-ER-Y-F-King where. 

There weren't that many animals and the big cat cages reeked of urine.  Bleah.  Save all the money the deer park will cost you and rent some fancy home on the beach and go walking.   

Posted by Wyrd at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Or at least it seems, better than drinking out of school fountains.  Kind of like that 5 second rule that isn't true.  Probably better to be picking that M&M out of the toilet and eating it rather than to pick it off of the floor.

Posted by Wyrd at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It was great fun.  Especially considering that I started getting sick the moment I opened the door Friday morning.  Nothing spectacular at first.  Just a tickle and weight in my chest.  A slight cough that felt like a little cold.  I felt a little tired, a bit butt draggy, but that was to be expected.  I just set up a garage sale! 

Ms. TNT and Ms. Bronco soon showed up to assist me all morning.  Which was a blast.  We only had one poopy mouthy customer, who stomped off before I could throw her stinky ass off my porch.  I must have been a bit slow due to illness.  I was doing pretty well.  Then about noon I started getting worse.  I was choking back coughing fits and started feeling very cold, despite the fact that it was a beautiful day.  I went to bed early, and barely managed to drag my sick ass out of bed the next morning.  This.  Would.  Not.  Do.  So I pounded down every cold medication in the house and started sucking down herb teas by the gallon. 

By evening I was not getting any worse.  I managed to make it for three days, mostly with the assistance of Mr. Wyrd, who cooked me dinner and did the dishes and cleaned obsessively, and by Derek, who ran the sale like a pro and took money from people and brought me tea and water.  All in all, I did pretty well, but I was not my usual social self.  We decided we will have another one soon, since due to illness we didn't manage to get set up quite as well as we planned.  Still, we did well.  I sold lots of plants and random crap, made some money and managed to afford plenty of donuts.  How good can life be?

Posted by Wyrd at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All day Saturday Mr Wyrd and I set up the porch for our next weekend garage sale.  So far I only have about 200 plants out there.  Which is just some of the leakage from my bursting at the seams garden and greenhouse.  Did you know that watermelon seedlings smell just like watermelons when you transplant them?  I was truly amazed.  Today we set up the living and dining room.  Lining them with shelves and tables.  And a clothes rack or two.  Even though the garage sale isn't supposed to start until this weekend, my friends and family will descend upon me early, scoping out the best deals, trading, and bringing their own little pile of fortune for me to offer to the world.  Wheee!

In other news, I see that the world record for hot dog eating was shattered by a California Man.  Big surprise there. 

Oregon Democrats have had their way with both the Senate and the House passing this new contraceptive bill:

"SALEM, Ore. (AP) - One of the Democrats' priorities for the 2007 Legislature became law Wednesday when Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed a bill to give Oregon women health insurance benefits for their birth control pills.

The new law also will require hospitals to offer emergency contraceptives to women who seek care after a sexual assault."

There.  That should help slow the flow of reproducing Californians. 

Posted by Wyrd at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Because they are most often spent with a couple of my good girlie friends.  If we are not at my house, home base central, we are out running around, shopping, taking Grandma out, running errands, or just plain goofing off.  Though we had lots of in-and-out company, today was mostly about me and Miss Lee.  Or Miss Bronco Buster as I like to call her.  Because that's what she does. 

Our mission today was very SusyHomeMaker.  We made like 5 double batches of cookies.  We meaning, Miss Lee did all the work and I kabitzed and helped come up with cookie combos that sounded appealing.  As I cleaned my kitchen and did my laundry.  Lee made her famously good and easy cake mix cookies.

Her recipe is basically:

one box of cake mix

1 egg

1/3 cup of water

1 stick of melted butter.  

Melt the butter, cool the butter slightly, then put all the ingredients in a bowl. Stir until mixed, but don't overdo it.  With a Tablespoon or your fingers, drop globs or roll balls of cookie dough, (we made them rather small because they are pretty that way, and because they are so rich and sweet we would O.D. if we did not), onto an ungreased baking sheet.  Plop into the oven and cook about 10 minutes.  The only tricky part to these is not overcooking them.  We like to make these cookies soft and puffy, with a soft and chewy center.

We experimented extensively with different additions and different flavors and brands of cake mix.  Cake with pudding in the mix was not used.  The Betty Crocker mixes were slightly more gooey  with more cakelike results, and the Duncan Hines mixes were a bit more cooky like.  We added a whole (regular size) bag of chocolate chips or same quantities of other things to each cookie batch.  These are the kinds we ended up making:

Carrot Cake with Yogurt Covered Raisins ( I so do recommend these)

Chocolate Fudge with Dark Chocolate Chips (we added coffee in place of the water here)

Malt Mocha with Tiny Chocolate Chips (if you dont cool the butter enough the chips kind of melt slightly into the batter...I added two Tablespoons of powdered malted milk as well)

Some sort of Red Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter and Chocolate Swirl Chips. (Though these looked sophisticatedly retro, we wouldn't make these again.  They spread way too much.  They dyed everything red that they touched.  They just didn't taste all that interesting.) 

Plain Ole Yellow Cake Mix with Chocolate Chips.  (Especially pretty because we used farm fresh eggs.) 

Next time I'm thinking Pina Colada or Hummingbird Cookies.  Oh yeah. 

Posted by Wyrd at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Already I have been busy doing big people stuff today.  I know!  I amaze even myself.  I bought some saving bonds.  I'm really not sure why, I guess just because I can.  I don't really think they are such a great investment, but I'm not much at pissing off my cash at the casino, so I thought I would do this.  A purchase of stock that will make me more money (and therefore be riskier) is in my near future.  I'm not a rich person, but I save until I get about $1,000, then I DO something with it.  I always make sure Mr. Wyrd is my beneficiary, because I am lucky enough to have a very trustworthy man in my life, and I want him taken care of after I die of lung cancer.

Something about the full moon and the beginning of a season makes me want to be sure to get my little ducks in order.  

I have also had some HUGE epiphanies about THINGS.  Though I usually don't like stuck up big words, I like the word epiphanies because it sounds so much like "a piss on these".  Anyway.  It has become apparent to me, that being older makes you INCREDIBLY SMART.  I get sucked into very little drama anymore.  BECAUSE I SEE IT COMING.  I find that usually what people whine about is not what they are experiencing, but instead, the mayhem they are actually wrecking on others.  "I am just so stressed right now" usually means THEY are the cause of stress for everyone around them.  And it also provides a handy (though hardly believable) excuse for not doing what they should.   "I'm not trying to piss you off", interchangeable with "I'm not trying to hurt you" means they are INDEED trying to piss you off and hurt you.  It's like a comment that should trigger a big alarm that says WARNING, WARNING.  Then you wouldn't hang around to listen to the rest of the bullshit, you would just run like hell.  Don't aid in you own mind melding with thoughts of "oh this person just doesn't understand my position", or "this person is just having a bad time because of <insert multitude of pathetic excuses>".  The truth is, THIS PERSON, knows EXACTLY what the hell is going on.  They just need a little quite time in a rubber room.  Simple.

Posted by Wyrd at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)