YARR!

My D&D group is starting a new campaign, in a world geographically like Portland. I gets to be a swashbuckler this time round, a half elf named Moaria Theoden, or "Mo". She is going to kick booty. I drew a pic for my CS, if I scan it, I'll post it.

It's Been an Exciting Evening ...

Here at Wild Jungle in the City.

Really, what next, a deer?

My First Ride

No, not my first car.
I am going to do the Bridge Pedal this year. I am gonna do the 8 bridge route, which is 24 miles. It will prolly kick my butt a little bit since part of the route is over the Marquam Bridge, which is high over the river. The rest, should be alright. It;s not a race, it will prolly take me about 4 hours, but it sounds like fun.
Every year, at OMSI, when I would drive into work on the day of the bridge pedal, there would be this silent mob of bicyclists crossing bridges, and it just seems so, lovely, idyllic, I donno, communal. So this year on August 12th I will be doing it instead of watching it and wishing I was riding instead of working. =)

Meet Kitty

Kitty is a stray who has been living in our yard, along with other yards no doubt, for longer than we have been here. She seems like one who has lived a grizzled life, her tail is well mangled and part of it was lost at some point, she walks stiffly. Her instinct is to run away from people. She is a funny looking little tabby, she is tiny, maybe with malnutrition, she had a little patch of black on her chin that with her big, round golden eyes,makes her look like she has a constant expression of surprise on her face. She is likely older than 8, but it's hard to tell since a stray has a really rough life. She hangs around the yard, the compost bin mostly, and under the huge shrub that divides our property from the neighbors.

I used to shoo her away, until I realized she may be keeping the yard rodent free. Then for awhile we had another stray, I am not sure where she went, maybe someone took her in, for she was a lovely cat, just very, very thin. I started to leave food out for them. Not every night, just when I rememberd to really. And then last week, Kitty started to show up every other night, sitting out near the food dish and under the bushes. She would run away when I would go feed her, but then she'd come out and eat.

Soon, when I fed her, she'd meow, and I'd meow back and we'd "talk" a bit. I would talk softly to her and feed her and then giver her space. Then I would sit by for a bit while she ate. She'd hiss softly sometimes but stopped running off, though she was still easily startled.
Last night she came up to me a sniffed my hand.

Today I got to meet her and she is all wary affection and acts like a soul who knew what is was to be loved and was then abandoned. Like she once had a nice warm house and people who doted on her while she was young and cute. Like a cat who finds itself out on the street after a landlord discovers their tenet is keeping a cat and the tenant can't find her a home. Or like a college student who is always on the move and doesn't have time for a pet anymore. Whatever happened to her, she once trusted people, was once loved, and now she trusts me, and it looks like I have a new pet cat. That wasn't my intention. I Just can't stand to see them starve. But now she has let me touch her, and I can't go back. I think she is fixed, I have seen no kittens or increase in local strays, although that could just be because we have no Toms. But no doubt she has heart worm, tapeworm, fleas, maybe ticks, maybe feline leukemia, I have no idea if she had ever had vaccinations or whatnot and I don't think Pixie or Max OR Kitty, would be welcome to an outdoor stray coming in. This makes most medical care moot.

So I will care for her outside for now. Someday, when we move, I will collect her up and take her to the humane society, where they will fix her up and find her a home. Poor Kitty.
I can't think of another name for her either. Maybe someday she will tell me.

Oh bother.

So I lied, I should have said, see you in less than 24 hours. I got home around 1, read till 3 something, slept till noon, went to get food around 1 and started reading again. A break here and there for this or that and I was done by 9:30pm. I can say nothing about the book, for that would be inappropriate. I will say I am really sorry I read it so fast, because now, it's all over. The last book, read. No more story! End of a series. I can only imagine how poignant this moment would be had I been there from the start, if I had started reading these when I was 11, the year Harry entered Hogwarts and had grown up with the books. As an adult who waited, several years, to read the books after the first movie came out, it's still unlike anything I have ever experienced with reading, ever. And I had started reading The Wheel of Time books a year or two after they began when I was 15. (and gave up on at 26...rat bastard, grumble grumble Mr. Jordan, grumble.) Nothing had affected me the way these books have. Not Tolkien, not Meredith Ann Peirce( She has her own very special place however.) not MZB, not Pullman, Rice, Carey, Weiz and Hickman, McCaffrey, Gaiman (gasp.) Nope. In my 29 and 9/10ths of life, Harry Potter has been unique, amazing, special and magical in ways no other book has ever been.
And the tale is told.
No more words to behold.
Just well read tattered covers
that will look more careworn and
well loved than the others
as I re-read them again, and again
and again.

thank you JKR, you have left a legacy.
I know it had to end, I am glad it did as authors are wont to not let go, but the best writers know when to end their tale. And that every tale should have an end.
It just all came to soon. Must, read, slower. next time. =)

I am a HP Fangirl

Powell's has outed me, can you find E-beth and me? hint- Second pic of the "throngs" of people waiting in line. (We, all of uis, Adam and David, E-Beth and I, are in another pic too, in the store, but we are hard to make out.)
This blog post details what Powell's does to make this such a fun and magical night for everyone in Portland. They do this stuff at all thier stores, even the airport Powells' had some fun going on.
Thanks for the memories Powell's! It was magical. =)


and now, I can't belive I am reading the.last.book. I am not sure I really want to...then it will be over.

***update***
Powell's blog also has this post from the other day, vbeutifuly written from an employee. it really moved me how well she captured the event and what it means for reading, books and literacy, and also that of a layperson seeing somthing magical in an experience they are outside of. Pretty cool a little book can cause so much frevor. It outsold the movie's opening weekend!

See you in a few days....

Livin' la Vida Verde

So I have been changing some things in my life lately to be less impactful on the earth. I do think that small changes we make as individuals will do the most for preserving Earth's resources and such in the long run, small changes made en masse drive larger social change over time. If we all do what we can, within our means to be more eco-friendly, we do right to ourselves and our good earth.

I have been trying out some new things and have adopted some others to the point of habit. Things like composting and gardening for example. Recycling, reusing. etc.

But there are other things too. And since lately I have been reading and discussing these things in the Greencraft forum on Ravelry, it's on my mind.

For instance, I have stopped washing my hair with shampoo. Before you go EWW, I still wash it. Just not with soap, exactly. Sodium Bicarbonate IS a detergent of sorts and it's a base, both of which soap is too. But baking soda is not sodium laureth sulfate and dyes and perfumes. And you use only a little. Like a tablespoon twice a a week, it breaks up dirt and scrubs dead skin of your scalp, rinses off product if you use it, but preserves your own natural oils.
Your body takes care of itself. The oils your scalp produces are stripped away and replaces with "conditioner". This is bad for hair and unnecessary.
Then i rinse with a cider vinegar solution. This is an acid, but a very mild one, we eat it, for example. It detangles and makes hair shiny and nice. You don;t use the soda and vinegar at the same time btw. ;) And you don;t use them every time you shower. My hair looks very healthy now, and it is soft and shiny and I don't think I will be going back to shampoo. My scalp is no longer itchy from the perfumes and synthetic stuff in shampoo and conditioner and I will be saving a lot of money since a bottle of vinegar and a box of soda will last for months and months. I use a little essential oil, like jasmine or orange after washing to make my hair smell nice, 'cause i do like that aspect of shampoo and conditioner. There is a lot more here about this sort of hair washing process.

I also got a diva cup, my sister got something like this years ago and I was all, ugh, whatever, but I am now saving a great deal of waste from landfills and sewage treatment and it's really, I think, healthier for you. More or less. I also ordered some Lunapads. Apparently lots of women are using both these products, as evidenced by the ravelry group I am in. I've been thinking about switching for a long time and so now, I'm in.

I have been air drying my clothes. I already wash them in cold water, but now that it's summer, using the dryer seems especially wasteful. In the winter, it's like drying your clothes and heating the house at the same time, which seems economical to me if you are using a heater anyways, two for one ya know? run the heater a bit less. Now I only dry things that take a lot of time to air dry such as jeans and towels. Everything else gets dried. It means a bit more ironing, but the energy and heat produced by ironing a handful of things seems minor compared to running a dryer that needs two runs to dry one load of laundry.

I have been very very good about riding my bike this summer and I hope, with the finding of good rain gear, to keep it up after the winter comes. I have found some good routes to avoid traffic and unsafe streets and the exercise is proving a good benefit, i have already been losing some weight and definitely have toned up some muscles. Not to mention, I am saving a lot on gas, not that i spent much to begin with, but now I am spending even less.

I feel better too, much more relaxed and energetic. It's really nice.

Furminated Max and other things...

So I was reading someone's knitting blog and they have a dog and they got this grooming tool called a FURminator. I looked at the website and read about what some others have said and it has quite the buzz going on. So I found a PetCo, they sell them, and got one. It's like 40$. Or 30, I forget. Anyways for a comb, it's expensive, but it is so much MORE than a comb. Check out Max here, a shorthair, and the ghostly pile of formerMax behind him...



Pretty stellar, and this was only a minute or two of brushing. Pixie and MAx BOTH got real calm and sedate and happy while being FURminated. It's like they KNEW that all the hair they want to get rid of in this 98 degree heat was being magically removed for them and with no messy hairballs to deal with. They love it. and man, I do recommend wearing clothes you don't mind pet hair on and a non-carpeted surface as this si rather messy. If you have (or think you have) pet allergies, you will know for sure after this. (oh yes, you will....)
Pretty awesome though.

And on a side note, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is amazing and the best HP movie yet I think. AMAZING!!! I HAVE TO SEE IT AGAINANDAGAINANDAGAIN!!!
that's all I shall say.

OHhhKAy...

It's not tomorrow. That would have been Friday but here it the continuation of "More later". I have just been rather busy. But tomorrow, one might expect a spoiler free Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix movie reveiw, oh yes they might!
I drove out to lovely, lovely hood river and picked cherries. I picked rather less cherries than I had planned because; one, it was in the 90's and therefore very hot and two, picking cherries is hard work. It involves a precipitously tall latter with one skinny little leg to balance the ladder portion of the whole contraption. Tripods are, in fact, the most stable set of legs one can have, and therefore, this is a very effective way to build a ladder. However, it looks more precarious than one would wish it to. You must ascend this ladder with a harness bearing a kidney beanish shaped bucket, a picker bucket. This harness and bucket set up leaves your hands free to climb ungangly ladders and pick persnickety cherries.

YES! cherries are persnickety. You see if you want the cherries to last, to not rot, mold or anything, the stem must remain on the cherry. A ripe cherry will happily disengage it's stem, but the stem will not so happy disengage the tree limb you are attempting to rend it from. Cherries grow in bunches with their stems firmly attached to the tree. So when attempting to remove a cherry or three and their stems, it is more like than not, the cherries will fall to the ground and you will have nothing. SO apparently, you rip the WHOLE bunch off the tree limb, there is a node from which all the stems protrude that will detach from the tree limb with care, leaving you a nice bunch of cherries you can then carefully remove stem by stem.
You do all this while not letting tree limbs snap at you or away from you and not falling out of the tree.
I got to 8 lbs. and had quite enough thank you. True, they are 1.50 a lb, but they are also 1 1/2 hours away up a tree in 90 degree heat where they are more than happy to stay, thank you very much. So I think maybe the 2$ a pound you can find them for at markets or some such, is more than reasonable.
It is very fine jam however. And a tasty fruit snack too.

Oh so cherries, yes, and adventure. I might do it again, if it was with other people and not 90 degrees out.
So then I went for a hike. It took a bit of hunting to find the trailhead I was hoping to tackle, but find it i did. By then it was 5 pm and peeerrfect weather for hiking. I loved it. I had the trail more or less to myself, unlike the conditions on the Multnomah Falls trail down the road which was swamped with people. I saw waterfalls and plants and pikas and it was just marvelous. I <3 the nature.

Then Thursday , the marvelous Lady J and I went out to Savuie island for more berries. We need more berries? We'll not any more I think... well, I donno, can you ever have too many berries in season? This is a serious thought problem folks. So we picked berries, raspberries, marionberries and blueberries. bushels. ok maybe just flats. A lot. ok?!

And then I made more jam. I now have a larder of jam and a freezer half full of berries. I am a bear. Grrr. I am hording them away for winter.

Then I got a new vacuum. All I have to say is, thank the vacuum gods for that. Uh, or our jobs. Whichever, the old vacuum was a lemon. Eureka Altimas look like a good deal, BUT THEY AREN'T. I am now the proud owner of a Bissel Lift-Off Revolution Pet. That is a long worded way of saying the Bissel version of the Dyson Animal for fraction of the cost. It's wonderful o have a clean floor again. it practically looks like we had the rugs cleaned.

End of story.

More later

I had fun today, it was a wonderful 4th of July and I will write more tomorrow, as I am having more adventures and will have more to say! For now, I suggest peaking at Photographia for a whole mess of new photos from today.

The Power of Compost

A tale of wonder and great feats of nature:
When we moved in to this place I started a compost bin and blogged about it in naturalista, I think. Anyways, this spring i moved it to a more hidden and less space occupying location. I turned the dirt the the patch of ground where the compost bin WAS and sowed wildflower seeds. This part of the story might be familiar.
So anyway, there were lost of sprouting things and a big mess of pumpkin volunteers that I dispatched in one way or another. I left two in there, for kicks. And now that it's two months later, there was a lovely verdant patch of plants about knee high and I was anticipating a bower of wildflowers. Well, I ignored the fact they looked a "little" like tomato plants. But of course, they ARE tomato plants, tonnes of them, all volunteers that sprouted up long after I started all my precious little heirloom seeds indoors. I weeded them out, since I want wildflowers there and not tomatoes, but here is the kicker.
The tomatoes are like FOUR times the size of my starts. I kid you not. and the pumpkins I left in there? About 6 times the size of the ones I moved. That garden bed of mine that I so lovingly and backbreakingly amended apparently does not compare to the power of hard compacted clay soil that has had compost happening on it for a year.

Volunteer cherry tomato. The result of the seeds from fruit that was composted last fall of a start plant purchased at Home Depot last year. This plant and it's ilk grew this big in one month. Maybe 2. Same with the pumpkin.

My cute 3' high heirloom tomato lovingly sprouted and tended and transplanted beginning in march.


So the lesson here to day is, compost! Not only that but maybe USE the compost instead of move it to add to your dirt like I will next year...*sigh*