Moot climbed into my luggage for the trip west. Smuggling an alligator through airport security was a lot easier than one would think. Perhaps they’d heard of her. Getting her into a restaurant was considerably more difficult. She startled a scream out of the waitress when she climbed in through the window.
Once inside she shared a drink with Me. Note the two drinks. Hence the fuzziness.
From there she hung out with Cerise and waited for Louis to come pick up the popcorn maker.
She claimed to have made this sign for the airport but I’m sure I saw OH’s hands in there more than once. 
She also helped GP with Merry’s garden.
but that was exhausting work and she required a little more energy.
Scope found some snack food for Moot down at the market 
but she was more interested in Tanji’s Sweet potato treat. 
The dog refused to share so Moot wandered of to discover why someone would wrap a tree. 
I never did hear the answer to that one.
There were plenty more adventures that wonderful weekend in Oregon but as time wore on, and her energy wound down, Moot found a sign in the mountains that it was time to go home.
This just found in Scope’s purse. A self-portrait Moot drew depicting a lovely lunch at McMinimins. Weebils wobble but they don’t fall down. 
June 27th, 2008
I arrived in Portland late Friday night to be greeted by McB and Orangehands holding up a “Dr. T” sign. I burst out laughing. That right there just about describes the weekend for me. Lots of laughter and smiles and hugs.
After collecting Mary and my luggage, we headed back to Mary’s house where the guessing of who people are started and didn’t end until late the next morning. I’m fairly sure I failed this test of CBness, but they let me stay anyways. :+)
The rest of the weekend was full of good conversation, and lots and lots of the afore mentioned laughter and hugs. I didn’t take very many pictures until Sunday afternoon when six of us (Cary, GP, McB, Lou, Pam, JenB and me*) went to the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park. I could innundate you with pictures of roses, but I will try to restrain myself. They were beautiful and amazing! And a special thanks to GP for the lesson on roses!
I think I’ll stop now. Hope you enjoyed your visit with the roses!
June 25th, 2008
I’m too tired to write a coherent post, but the comments are over 100 and inquiring minds want photos, so here’s one for you. Yes, that is our own darling Scope in Oregon with CMS! It was a wonderful surprise.
I think everyone survived, but it was a lot of work having that much fun. I don’t mean the cooking or housework, because that was all done by kind helpful CBs. I mean meeting friends that I’ve never seen before, and talking and laughing and hugging and talking and laughing some more, sometimes until two in the morning. That’s work! I loved it.
And yes, we did make it to Powell’s. In fact, I’m a little puzzled about that bookstore. When I walked in, I heard an announcement over the loudspeaker:
Attention! If there’s a minister or a wedding officiator in the store, would they please come to the Information desk in the Gold room? Thank you.
What the heck was that about? A woman was 9 months’ pregnant and suddenly realized that she really, really needed to get married right now because her water just broke? A man who got the love of his life to say “yes” and now wants to rush to the wedding before she changes her mind? It’s one of those things that you have to wonder about.
Too tired to write more. Later!
June 23rd, 2008
I opened my mailbox yesterday to find an envelope from my mortgage company. Not normal but not Earth shaking, until I opened it. Inside was a $75.00 check. It was one of those computer generated ones that uses an entire sheet of paper, and has lots of space for an explanation, but nothing. Well, there were some internal codes, but nothing that could be interpreted by a normal person. Got online last night to see if I could figure out what was going on and it was a refund on my escrow. I think I would have preferred that it be applied to my mortgage, but I’ll take it and recycle it back. Yep, the mortgage payment is going to be $75.00 bigger in July than usual.
I already pay more than my actual payment is supposed to be. I apply an additional $28.17 toward my principal each month. It’s not an enormous amount, and it won’t get my mortgage paid off ten years early, but it’s a little something, that at the end of the year actually saves me a couple of hundred in interest, which over the life of a thirty year loan can be big money.
I wish I could say that this is something I was so smart as to come up with myself, it isn’t. My parents have done something like it for years. In fact they managed to get their thirty year loan paid off in just over twenty years by applying a little extra each month to the principal. Does anyone else do this? Not just the mortgage, but other things that over time add up to big savings?
My current favorite blog is Get Rich Slowly a money management blog. I’m finding money management being at the front of my mind more and more since I bought the house. No one warned me of this.
June 18th, 2008
We’re running out of room and I’m not sure who is next or when so…
I thought I’d just share: I have committed my Stupid Moment (not quite as bad as the Darwin Award) of the year. CMS wrote nine days till countdown, and in my head I started counting and went no, no, isn’t it the week after that? So I looked up that beautiful invitation Mary sent us and yep, I am leaving the 19th of June.
Which is where the stupid moment comes in, as I told my friend- after checking the calender- that I could drive her to the airport the 19th. *stupid crown is lifted and placed on head* Thank bob it turns out I’m driving her to the airport the 18th instead. (She also had her Stupid Moment too, thinking if her plane leaves LAX at 1:30 am on the 19th she needs to arrive in LA the 19th so I can drive her that night).
Anyway, it’s not too big a deal. She’s checking in wih two other friends and if they can’t then I’ll just be dropping her off earlier- which, in LAX is not the worse move ever. But seriously…you may all laugh. Cause we’ve been talking about this for how long and I’m just noticing? (In the good news section, it means I get to spend mroe time in Seattle and with my godfather in CA).
BTW: wapa congrats on the gramma and Good Luck finding jobs people and ((HUGS)) to those that need them and glad Bryan and Co are ok and hope everyone else is too and thanks for the book recs and I’ve heard people use a’ight (teen “gangsta” guys) and yeah.
BTW2: Finished another final (I did ok) and now just have one more to go. Which is good, because obviously my brain isn’t anywhere close to par.
BTW3: Didn’t put a title in so it didn’t publish when I hit it, making this Little Stupid Moment. 
And to throw out a topic, what’s been some of your Stupid Moments? (Don’t worry, I have a lot more)
June 11th, 2008
Yes, I made that word up. I think it means the study of typos. You know typos, right? Those are those sneaky things your fingers do when your brain isn’t paying attention. I have some that I do so consistently that I now do a search for them. Like “resposne,” which is supposed to be “response.” For some reason my fingers just want to switch the n and s around. I don’t know why. For a while I tried to convince people that it was French for something, but that never really caught on.
I also used to have a lot of trouble with “does not.” I’ve gotten better with that one over time. The problem there isn’t with switching letters around, or even misspelling the words. That is to say, they are still words and there are still two of them; which is why spellchecker never catches it and why I eventually learned to go back and do a search and replace. A global search and replace. A global replace requires a great deal of confidence that you really, really don’t want that word in there. Many, many sentences on many, many subjects have I typed over the years. The topics and the jargon have also varied greatly. But I can say, without any hesitation whatsoever, that this will be the first time ever that anything I have typed has deliberately included the words “doe snot.” Some things you just know.
And that’s the real problem with spell check. It only checks to see if you are using real words, not if they are the right words. What is really needed here is think check. I need a database that won’t assume I have so little couth as to use certain words even if Webster says they are okay. I have issues with Webster, along with the folks over at OED. They’ll accept anything that has “common usage.” I say “common” ain’t exactly something to aspire to. Just because everyone is saying it shouldn’t mean that it’s acceptable. Take that word I used two sentences back … go ahead, I’ll just wait here while you figure it out.
Did you know that “ain’t” is now considered grammatically acceptable? Huh. Not the way I was brought up. It isn’t even a proper contraction. A contraction is a combination of two words. Such as “isn’t,” which is “is not” with the “o” removed. Curiously enough, “isn’t” is supposed to be shorter to say than “is not”; except you’ll notice that it’s the same number of characters and syllabels so what exactly we’re saving with that one I’m sure I don’t know. But back to “ain’t.” What is that supposed to be a contraction of? If I went around saying “ai not” instead, would the gods of grammar smile upon me? I don’t think so, either. I suspect it was supposed to be “amn’t” for “am not” but someone mistyped it and now it’s all over the place. All I’m saying is that if the English speaking world can get used to saying “ain’t” instead of “am not,” then they’ll accept any danged thing.
What typos have plagued/entertained you? Resposne, si vous plait.
June 8th, 2008
All my recent globetrotting, especially my trip to Morocco, has got me thinking about travel. Specifically, thinking about how going and seeing and experiencing new places, and interacting with new people and cultures prompts change. How it’s changed me.
Travelling has had a huge impact on my life and on who I am today. What stands out the most is a trip I took to Japan with my church youth group the summer I turned 15. (Actually, I turned 15 in Japan. On the day I got to weed in a rice paddy.) This was my first experience outside the US. I was fascinated by Japanese culture and the people I met. By the end of the almost 3 weeks, two lifelong goals were firmly entreanched in my heart. To learn Japanese so that I could speak to and get to know all these people and to return to Japan to live for a while. I did study Japanese and I did get to go back to Japan for a semester abroad as a college student. Although my Japanese is beyond rusty (and I was never fluent to begin with), the lifelong love of language that grew out of studying Japanese led me to my career as a computational linguist. Would I have found a career that was an equally good fit had I never gone to Japan? Perhaps, but I definitely would be a different person than I am now.
On my recent trip to Morocco, I was again struck by the sense that I was missing out because there are so many people that I couldn’t talk or communicate with. This is what always seems to hit me the hardest when I go to new places where English is not the first language. To me, language is the best tool to see and understand other people and cultures, and I feel so lacking. A cab driver in Morocco asked if I spoke French. I told him no, and he pointed out that it is very useful to know for travel there. I agreed, and told him my Japanese wasn’t getting me very far. He got a chuckle out of that. So this time, it’s French that I’m yearning to know. Aside from Morocco, they speak it in lots of other places. I’m older though. Can I make the time and energy to study and learn and expand my horizons even more?
Although I’m not sure that travel can be beat as far as things that expand our awareness and understanding of the world and the people we share it with, it is far, far, far from the only way to expand our horizons. For we readers, books also hold a treasured place as a way of pushing out past beyond our own experiences. How have you been changed by places you’ve travelled to, either in real life or through the pages of a book? And where else do you turn to expand your horizons?
June 5th, 2008
Does this mystery guest write … In Death ?
Hot new author catches rays.
Bwa ha ha ha. Another masterpiece. Done yet?
Bless her heart, she came down out of the attic.
Where are those men in uniform?
Where’s the math?
So, here are members of the Chesapeake CB Whack: JD, RSS, Kim, McB, Dee, GP, not in order of pics. Do you really thing I’d make it that simple?
All convened on Friday. RSS fixed an enchilada something from a recipe of, Ta Da, Susan Albert Wittig for supper. Excellent! Salad, pasta salad contributed by JD and McB. Tossed salad. Drinks of choice. (Editorial comment: You all can just forget those mojitos. Blark!)
The evening and next day were mostly devoted to CB choice. Reading, writing, napping, discussing books and whatever. McB took a trip in the GeekMobile to the gas station. She had to wipe her feet and promise not to touch anything. GP laced yellow Crime Scene Do Not Cross around the gas station to keep the riffraff away while pumping gas. McB demonstrated kind interest in the GeekMobile and associated GeekMobileGoddess. Gas for 310.1 miles was 5.699 gallons, at 52.1 mpg.
Breakfast started at 5:00 AM for GP, noonish for Dee. See? RSS designed our weekend to make everybody happy.
Supper Saturday night was, Ta Da, chicken marsala. Superb! And, get this! The recipe was in a seafood cookbook. Of course, drinkie poos of choice. Broccoli to offset the ill effects of the drinkie poos.
Then we entertained each other while watching the lightening crash around us and thunder boom during the tornado alert. Those fireworks over the Chesapeake Bay are spectacular! Luckily, we experienced no tornadoes.
Dee and Kim had to leave, but the rest of us continued to discuss whatever until 2:00 AM. So GP celebrated by sleeping until 5:00 AM. Then woke up RSS and McB about 6:30 AM to say goodbye. Am I considerate or what? Whatever happened after that RSS, McB, and JD will have to tell about. I continued my evaluations of each and every roadside rest area I could find.
Minutes respectfully submitted,
GP
Bryan, my link URLs don’t match your documentation. So please make pics bigger!
June 1st, 2008
