Last summer when I was in Arizona, someone dinged my car while it was parked on the street outside my house in Seattle. The inconsiderate someone didn’t leave a note or offer to pay for repairs, and I was too poor at the time to get it fixed (I’m still too poor). So the dent has bugged me every time I drive my car, which is only about once a week, so it has been endurable. The thing that really bugged me about it, though, was that the dent distorted my bumper enough that the clips on the car didn’t hold the bumper flush to the side of the car. I don’t know why things like that bug me, but they do. So this weekend I decided to take things into my own hands.
Continue reading ‘The poor girl’s guide to auto body repair’
Every once in awhile I have a bout of insomnia. Last night was one of those times. It didn’t help that the tapping I kept hearing outside my window reminded me of those creepy urban legends (or contemporary folktales, as we called them in my BYU folklore class) my friends used to tell me. You know, like the stories where the babysitter goes outside to check on a tapping noise and never comes back and the kids hear the tapping all night but don’t go outside to check on her because they’re scared, but then in the morning they go outside and see the dead babysitter hanging from a tree, her dangling foot tapping against the window. (Yes, urban legends are best told in run-on sentences). That sort of thing.
Continue reading ‘Can’t sleep’
The overblown, schmaltzy strains of Queen’s “We Are the Champions” filled my ears as I stepped through the doors of the 73rd floor of the Columbia Center in downtown Seattle. I had just climbed 1,311 stairs — 69 floors — in Seattle’s tallest building to help raise awareness and money (by the way, you still have time to donate) for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, but I didn’t feel like much of a champion. The first 60 floors of the Big Climb were pretty easy as I kept a steady, gentle pace floor after floor. But when the bracelet Maria gave me the day of Celia’s funeral snapped in half after catching on my pocket, I just wanted to be done, so I raced up the last nine floors. I was a sweaty, breathless mess by the time I got to the top, and I had awhile to wait while Meg caught up with me. Thinking time.
Continue reading ‘Big Climb’
I donated blood at a blood drive at my church today, and it went much better than my Halloween attempt. The guy doing the needle insertion popped it right into my vein, and I pumped out a pint in 5 minutes. As I was pumping blood, I heard the phlebotomist tell another guy, “Great start to the day — hard stick, got it on the first try.” I hit my 2-gallon mark today for Puget Sound Blood Center. I think if there hadn’t been so many botched needle insertions in my past, I’d be on about 4 gallons by now. Ah well. Let’s hope it goes this smoothly again next time.
This Halloween, I tried to treat Puget Sound Blood Center to a pint of clean, pure O- blood, but the phlebotomist played a mean trick and didn’t get the needle in my vein right, so my blood stopped flowing midway through my donation. The same guy has messed up the needle insertion before, so he’s one vampire who won’t get another chance to drain my blood. Boo!
My dad is terrific, but he hasn’t been very supportive of the plans my mom and I have to grow vegetables in the flower box on the south side of our house. I suspect it may be because he doesn’t want to eat any of the vegetables that the flower box may produce. Anyway, it hasn’t concerned him much that the chipmunks and cottontails have been stripping our baby plants of all their leaves. So while he was at Scout camp this week, I purloined his circular saw, a staple gun, some wire mesh and scrap lumber and got to work. I never took wood shop in high school, so the end result was no masterpiece, but it has kept our little plants from being denuded so far.
It was too late for the first tub; we'll have to replant
Man, it just keeps snowing here. Our stake canceled all church meetings today because the roads are dangerous, so Meg and I took another walk around the neighborhood to see what snowy shenanigans were going on. The neighborhood kids had found the perfect spot for sledding in the park a couple blocks from our house, so Meg grabbed her old snowboard and we joined in the fun. The weather forecast is saying six more inches will fall by tomorrow, so it could be quite the adventure to get to work. I was used to riding my bike in the snow on my mission, but I haven’t tried it here yet. I’m not sure that I will.
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It’s finally winter in Seattle! It started snowing Saturday night, so Meg and I took a short walk around the neighborhood to see the sights. Here are a few pics of what we saw. The last picture is from my ride home last week — the Christmas ships were playing carols over their loudspeakers for the crowd at Ballard Locks.
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Actually, my birthday came right on time, I just took forever to blog about it. Thanks to everyone who called or sent a card. I felt very loved. Even the folks waiting for the Interurban had birthday wishes for me. 
Meg made some fabulous chocolate pots de crème in lieu of a cake for me. All in all, it was a pretty decent birthday.
Cheers!
A bird rests on a telephone wire 25 feet above the road after feasting on juicy bugs all morning. At precisely 9 a.m. the bird sees a bicyclist a mile away approaching at 15 mph, enjoying the level road and lack of wind. What time should the bird poop in order to hit the cyclist’s shoulder 5 feet above the ground?
I haven’t figured out the answer yet, but the bird got it right on.
Last summer when I was in Arizona, someone dinged my car while it was parked on the street outside my house in Seattle. The inconsiderate someone didn’t leave a note or offer to pay for repairs, and I was too poor at the time to get it fixed (I’m still too poor). So the dent has bugged me every time I drive my car, which is only about once a week, so it has been endurable. The thing that really bugged me about it, though, was that the dent distorted my bumper enough that the clips on the car didn’t hold the bumper flush to the side of the car. I don’t know why things like that bug me, but they do. So this weekend I decided to take things into my own hands.
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