Happy Anniversary!

Today is my hubby and my 17th anniversary observed. We actually got married on June 27, 1989, but my dad was buried on June 27, 2003, so my husband thought it'd be a good idea to move our anniversary to July 31, which was the day we moved into our apartment in San Francisco. He didn't want our anniversary forever marred by the memory of dad's funeral.

I posted a picture of the Grateful Dead because without them, Brian and I would never have met. He has been a Deadhead since 1978 when he saw his first show in Pittsburgh. He has done extensive travel around the USA following the Dead from place to place over the years. I didn't become a Deadhead till 1987; my first show was in 1988. Brian happened to move next door to another Deadhead, named Jef, who I was dating off and on during the summer of 1988.

At the Dead shows in Maine over 4th of July weekend, I went to Jef's campsite but he wasn't there at the moment. A guy at the campsite said to me, "Do you have an extra ticket for tonight's show? It'll be my 85th show". I said, "Actually I do have an extra ticket" and he said, "What do you want for it?" and I said, "$20, what I paid" and he said, "I love you!" That was Brian. He and I became really close friends, even while Jef and I dated more seriously during the early winter of 1989. Then it hit me, I was in love with Jef's best friend!! Then I found out Brian had been carrying a torch for me since before Christmas!! Jef was totally cool about it, thought Brian and I would make a better couple. So Brian and I eloped on June 27, with Jef as my "Man of Honor", my friend Holly as "Best Woman" and Jef's then-7 year old daughter, Alicia, as "Flower Child". We honeymooned on Dead summer tour w/ Jef and Holly for 5 shows. Jef's still one of our dearest friends in the entire world, although I feel ancient now that Alicia has married and started a life of her own; I still think of her as 7.

When we got back to Cape Cod after tour, we loaded up a UHaul and hit the road for San Francisco. It was a fantastic trip across the country; we had such a great time. We arrived in SF, found an apartment right away, and moved in on July 31, 1989. That's when we officially started our life together and what an amazing ride it's been!

My parents were really really mad at me for eloping, but I couldn't see any other way to have the wedding that I wanted. I am from a big Italian family and have been to my many of my cousins' weddings. The thought of having to do that, being on display in church wearing a white gown in front of tons of people was terrifying to me. It's just not me. My parents also would not have been on board with my saying, "by the by, I'm getting married today, care to come along?" So I made the decision to elope and I have no regrets. The kind of amusing thing is that I'm sure a lot of family and friends whispered to each other, "it'll never last". Guess I had the last laugh after all.

So happy anniversary honey! I love you heaps and bunches!

23 days till Vancouver!

Just have to start the day w/ a cute photo of Vincent. I never get sick of this shot.

Our stupid home computer crashed yet again, so I have not been able to get onto the Molly.VDO blog in days....so I hope my fellow bloggers will stop by and see that I'm still alive and well, or pass on to the "Molly gals" that I'm still out here. For some reason, I can't post on Molly from work anymore.

Sometimes I have this wonderful fantasy of taking my home computer and hurling it through the plate glass picture window, & watching it shatter all over the driveway. Unfortunately, it would be a very costly and environmentally unfriendly temper tantrum. Still......it makes a nice fantasy.

Only 23 more days till I leave for my annual "It's All About Me!" trip to Canada. This year I'll be visiting Vancouver, just up the highway about 150 miles or so. Usually I go to Victoria but always take the passenger-only ferry, and stay one night. This year I can drive and I'm staying a few nights. Val is going to be in Alberta the same time I'm in BC, but unfortunately we'll be about 1,000 miles apart. Pity - it would've been fun to hook up and do lunch! I'm looking forward to shopping and photography. If the weather is nice, I am hoping to take the tram to the top of Grouse Mountain and the helicopter ride from the summit.

The big question is whether or not I'll be able to summon up the courage to cross the Capilano Bridge, a swinging footbridge over a gorge. I've been known to take unnecessary chances for the sake of photography, so odds are I'll suck up my fear and just do it.

















The weather is lovely today - only supposed to top out at about 73 and there's a nice, cool breeze. I've gotten my first flashes of fall in the past few days. Yesterday was cold, windy and rainy, perfect for staying in and doing crafts. We moved all our stuff out of the Neilton place on Saturday and it's like a load off my shoulders.

Have a great weekend!

Another tshirt off eBay. I would never buy these, but I think they are humorous.













The "natural air conditioning" (fog/clouds) is finally back in the area, so the temps have cooled off to the high 60's to mid 70's, thank god.

We are renting a UHaul to move all our stuff out of the Neilton property on the Olympic Peninsula, since it has now been sold. We're sorry to have to sell it since it was a nice piece of land, but we just never get out there, esp. with the high cost of gas. It's at least a 2.5 hour trip one way. Still, we made some $ on it in a year so that worked out well.

Have a great weekend everyone and stay cool!!!

Q T Pie

Thanks to Google for these spiffing new pics that I had not yet seen!! The last one is especially tasty.

Fort Bragg & Mendocino

These are 2 of my favourite places in the world. The first photo is of Mendocino, on the Northern California coast. It's a very cool town, with lots of awesome shops and gorgeous old homes. Mendocino was the setting for the TV show "Murder She Wrote", and served as Monterey in James Dean's "East of Eden". Vincent D'Onofrio fans will recognize it from "Dying Young". The next photo is of the rocky Mendocino County coast, and the 3rd photo is of the top of the old Masonic Hall.

Just up Highway 1 about 7 miles is Fort Bragg, where my husband and I used to stay. It was "our place" whenever we wanted to get away (about a 2-3 hour drive north from San Francisco). The sunset photo of Noyo Harbor is the exact view we had from our hotel room at The Wharf. The bridge over the Harbor is Highway 1, which stretches from far Southern California to north of Fort Bragg, at Leggett, when it joins Hwy. 101.

The next photo is taken from the bridge, looking down at Noyo. The Wharf Hotel is in the center of the photo, and as you can see, the hotel is built over the water on pilings. Each room has a small deck and it was very relaxing to watch the boats coming and going, or watch the harbor seals playing.

The last photo is of my favourite place in Fort Bragg, Glass Beach. It was an old bottle and glass dump and now is a treasure trove of beach glass. My very first trip to Glass Beach, I was so greedy that my camera fell out of my pocket and broke and I didn't even care. I had so much glass stuffed in my jean pockets that the pockets ripped and I split the side seam of the pants. That trip has now gone down in history as "The Greedy Grab at Glass Beach". I have jars full of the cool beach glass and bits of pottery and ceramics I found.

Bad Cop, No Donut!

Blast and botheration!

I was thisclose to calling in to work today, tell my bosses I needed a mental health day. They both know I've been kicking it around, taking a day off that is. But no. I decide to come to work. And what happens? I get pulled over for speeding on Highway 16!!! I was allegedly going 61 in a 45. If ever there was a time I wished Bobby Goren was real and I had one of his courtesy badges, it was today, "why yes, my boyfriend is Detective Robert Goren..."

"You may want to think twice about giving my best girl a ticket, officer."

So my day has started off pretty damn shitty and I'm SO not in the mood to be here. The one good thing is that I work for lawyers, and Steve has a great record for getting clients out of speeding tickets. I have yet to see him come back from Court unsuccessful. Steve noticed that the cop didn't have me sign the "acknowledgment of receipt" so that will probably work as the technicality to get me off. I even asked the cop if I was supposed to sign it and he said "no."

It's not the cost of the ticket that pisses me off; $153 is some cash, but it's the auto insurance that's gonna go sky high. I haven't had a ticket since 1995 when we lived in California. Brian got one up here but they let him do "diversion" where he pays the fine but is put on a kind of probation, where he can't get another ticket for 5 years or else it'll be reported to our insurance. I'm hoping that is what will happen to me.

And all I can think while I'm sitting there is that one of our friends is going to drive by on her way to work (up the street from me), see me pulled over and send my hubby a "guess who I saw" email before I even got a chance to tell him myself!!!

It's hot

Africa hot.....Tarzan couldn't stand this kind of hot.....I don't think I can stay here if it's gonna be this hot..... Biloxi Blues

Oh to be at Cannon Beach right now.

It was so hot this weekend that we spent the entire 2 days in our house, all the blinds down, A/C cranked, watching TV and I finished up a couple of craft projects and set up the next project (a scrapbook of Sagan). We sold our place on the Olympic Peninsula and have to spend this coming Saturday moving all our stuff. We hated to sell the land, but it's just not working out for us. We never get out there and we keep paying someone to mow the grass. Oh well. We still made some money on it so that's fine with me.

I saw this tshirt on eBay. Thought it was pretty cute. Blogger's been super slow today and sometimes unable to upload my pictures. I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.

TGIF

I'm so glad to see the end of this week!! It's going to be in the mid-90's all weekend up here, quite a shock after having a fairly cool summer. But I guess we shouldn't complain, given what the rest of the country, and world, have been experiencing with their weather woes.

Val's been watching "Adventures in Babysitting", where Vincent plays the character "Thor". I found an illustration of the mythical god Thor....Vincent's much cuter.

Happy Hump Day

Need I say more?

Good morning handsome!

Having a much better day today, but the day is still young! Last night's USA "LOCI" was the one with the 3 teenagers who poison some of the church members, and at the end, Connie hauls off and smacks Bobby across the face. A short struggle ensues and Bobby says, "Ouch!" Something about that scene really turns me on. Hubby told me he wanted my hands on top of the blanket, where he could see them....lol

My best friend in Maine sent me a link to a website that has funny action figures. One of her friends wanted her to see the "Crazy Cat Lady" figurine, because she has 5 cats. Some of my fellow VDO bloggers love cats as well, so I thought I'd post the picture so everyone could have a good chuckle. This website also has a Bigfoot figurine which I am thinking about asking Santa to get me for Christmas. This is the link: http://www.entertainmentearth.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AU11377

Just another manic Monday

Is it wrong of me to wish that this switch plate had the switch opening more strategically placed??? I suppose it's better that it wasn't or else I'd have to keep the lights on in whatever room I installed the switch plate, which would of course be my bedroom.

My coworker is off work all this week, last minute, b/c her father got sick last week. I know, I know, I should be more sympathetic and all. However, when you are the only person in a very busy law firm, answering phones, trying to keep up w/ work and constantly being interrupted by clients who just drop in because they think we are sitting here, waiting for them to grace us with their presence, it's pretty damned inconvenient for her to take time off, especially when she was gone for 2.5 weeks at the end of June through July 6, then off last Thursday and Friday, and now off again till next week!!!

I am sorry that her dad is sick, of course. But my issue is with my coworker. She treated me like complete garbage in 2003, the year my dad died. She never offered any explanation for her behavior, despite my repeatedly trying to get her to tell me what I had done to make her so mad. It was so bad that our bosses noticed it and called her on the carpet to discuss it. I kept asking her why she was kicking me when I was down, how could she be so cruel to me when my beloved father just died, and all she'd do was give me a half hearted apology and a weak hug. But then it would start all over again. After the bosses talked to her, she blamed me for stabbing her in the back. Needless to say, I get along fine with her in the office now, but I did not forgive or forget how she treated me and I do not trust her at all. I never refer to her as "my friend" anymore, only as "my coworker". I don't really have a lot of desire to hang out with her outside of work anyway, we don't have that much in common.

Plus she's one of these people who LOVE to go to the doctor and treat for all of her aches and pains. She took 5 weeks off in 2004 for elective hand surgery, leaving me to deal with all the work, phones, etc. Now she wants to have knee surgery. I would never, and have never, take that much time off from work while I've worked in the legal field. No office I have worked in allowed much more than one full week off because of the workload. But she's been here for like 30 years, so she gets to do what she wants.

So if I'm not all that sympathetic to the fact that she has to take yet another week off for a family emergency, I have my reasons.

Resemblance??

Last night hubby and I were watching a Grateful Dead DVD from Shoreline Amphitheatre in California, from June, 1990. He and I were at that show, and we had 8th row seats that night.

Anyway, during one of the close up shots of Bob Weir singing, Brian says, "Vincent! Bobby looks like 'Bobby'!" After he pointed it out, I could see a slight resemblance when Vincent was very young, or perhaps in this photo from "The Cell". Does anyone else see it?

TGIF!

Happy Friday everyone! Have a great weekend!

The "Laminated List"

Anyone who is a hardcore "Friends" fan remembers the episode where Ross & Rachel made a list of celebrities with whom they could sleep, without the other getting mad. Ross laminated his list.

I suppose I really can't call mine "laminated" because the 5th spot rotates a lot depending on my mood. Celebrities who have made the list in the past, but have since been replaced, include: Bob Weir (Grateful Dead), Chris Noth, Denzel Washington, Kiefer Sutherland, Matthew Broderick, Val Kilmer and Joel Hodgson (from MST 3K). A couple of other guys who have made the list are John Barrowman (from the new "Doctor Who") and Kyan Douglas (from "Queer Eye"), but unfortunately for me, they don't like girls. John Barrowman is so good looking I could almost cry! lol

My current list features comedian Gary Valentine (from "King of Queens" and Kevin James' real life older brother), Keanu Reeves (also Canadian), Canadian actor John Pyper Ferguson (best known for his role Pete Hutter in "Brisco County"), Canadian actor (do you see a pattern here?) Peter Keleghan and the guy occupying the #1 spot, Vincent D'Onofrio.

Who is on YOUR list?

Cannon Beach

This is beautiful Cannon Beach, on the Oregon Coast. We vacationed here last August and I wish we were going again this year. It's known as a dog-friendly town, and Pepper had a blast running up and down the beach, meeting new friends and sniffing all kinds of stuff. The large rock is called Haystack Rock and these photos do not do it justice for its massive size. It's a bird sanctuary, so no climbing is allowed, and at low tide there are the most amazing tide pools I've ever seen.

The town was originally called Ecola, after the creek that empties into the Pacific. The Lewis & Clark expidition was camped at the mouth of the Columbia River and William Clark journeyed down to Seaside and Cannon Beach. In 1846, a Navy schooner, "Shark", wrecked while trying to leave the Columbia River. The cannon washed up on the beach, and in 1922, the town was renamed "Cannon Beach". I saw the cannon; it's not that impressive!!

Off the coast is Tillamook Rock which is the picture of the lighthouse. I do not believe it is manned anymore and I think it too is a wildlife/marine sanctuary.

Seaside is about 10 miles north and is way more "touristy" than CB, which is a bit more upscale. Seaside is fun though, with a lot of shops, boardwalk and lovely old carousel.

Random musings & an ethical dilemma

"His speedos must be cutting off the blood supply to his brain." Detective Alex Eames, "Zoonotic".

Our gas prices in WA are amongst the highest in the nation. I believe ours are the 4th highest. I know that our European friends and neighbors to the north in Canada have been paying an arm, a leg and half the other arm for gas for years, and I know they think, "suck it up America, welcome to our world." Still, the prices are shockingly high considering we are used to paying $1.50 a gallon.

Add to that a gas tax that the Governor slipped in last year, a .03 gallon increase each year for the next 4 years. The voters supported a petition to repeal it in the November, 2005 election, but the State put out TV ads stating what could happen to various roads & bridges were we to have a huge earthquake, and comparing our roads/bridges to those that failed in San Francisco in the 1989 quake. The voters got scared and ended up voting to keep the tax.

Last night I went to the Chevron station to put in $25 worth of gas in my car. I don't fill the tank anymore because I refuse to pay over $25 a week. The station's sign said $3.01 for regular unleaded. The pump I pulled up to still said $2.95. As I gassed up, I was torn. 99.9% of the time, I am extremely honest. I will go out of my way to point out incorrect change that's in my favor, or if something is priced higher than it scans. The right thing to do was to go inside and tell them that the pump didn't get recalibrated. On the other hand, that station charges .50 for air, and after big oil announced record profits last year, I decided, screw 'em. My savings only ended up to be a whopping .48, but since we had to use air for one of my tires a few weeks ago, technically I'm still .02 in the red.

I happened to mention to my hubby that I could tell I lost some weight (I've been cutting back and working out) because my clothes are really loose. Without thinking and trying to be supportive, he blurts out, "Yeah I noticed this morning that your ass seemed smaller". I shot him a look and raised my eyebrows. He got a mortified look on his face and started to stammer, "Not that I'm saying your ass looked big before....um....I mean....it's just that this morning....um" I said, "The correct phrase is, 'honey, you look like you've lost weight'."

Weiner roast

My former boss' wife emailed this to me. It totally cracked me up.

Couldn't help but post these pics

I'm bummed that the Vincent picture is so small, but when I saw it, all I could think of was Jack Benny.

I guess I'm probably dating myself if I can remember Jack.....

Our house, in the middle of our street

Here's a picture of our house, taken this spring. We got a good deal on it when we moved here in the summer of 1999. However, if we'd known that the town was going to explode with new developments, we never would have moved to Bonney Lake.




Sagan doesn't scare me, but I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one of his bites. We had to have this 6' fence put in after he escaped the yard 2 days after we adopted him!

This is a picture of Allan Yorke Park, at the southernmost end of Lake Tapps, in Bonney Lake. It's about a half mile walk from our house to the park.














Bonney Lake is definitely overdeveloped, but you can't beat the fact that Mt. Rainier is only about 45 miles to the east. As you can see, it towers over the town. Still, I'm glad we bought a house in the "old part" of town, in an already-established neighborhood.



Story of my life....

Baby you can drive my car....

Here's the link to look up which VDO movies/TV shows will be on television each month:

http://www.tv-now.com/stars/donofrio.html

Happy Friday!

Never a truer statement was made....but I'm glad I'm not the only one who enjoys a VDO addiction!

It was a nice, short week what with the holiday falling on Tuesday and most people having Monday off as well. I picked up Sagan from boarding and we were SO happy to have him back. The house was so empty and quiet without him racing around, crashing into stuff, trying to get into the garbage, etc. Unfortunately there are still a lot of fireworks being lit in the neighborhood so he was pretty manic last night, running from window to door to slider, trying to find the source of the noise. Then he'd shoehorn himself in between the CD cabinet and Pepper's bed so that his big sister could protect him. She, however, was not amused. I swear they really act like human children sometimes.

I NEVER get sick of this picture.

Have a great Vincent-watching weekend! Oh yeah, GO ITALY!!! Viva Italia!