Things I Love 24
Photo by Me.
- Warm weather! The sun! My AWESOME tan! (Seriously, I am the tannest I’ve ever been. Holla!)
- My increasing ability to eat something in a restaurant (or in this case an ice cream shop) and re-create it. Hello Birthday Cake Ice Cream!
- Cool Moon Ice Cream in the pearl. Go there now and thank me later.
- Tamales at the Farmer’s Market and Hibiscus Arnold Palmer’s.
- The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds.
- Making Vahid see why The Dark Tower series by Stephen King is my favorite series of books ever. Ever.
- Wearing shorts.
- 52 Stunning Long Exposure Photos.
Photo by Me.
- Built in bras in my halter tops.
- My super cute hat.
- Prescription sunglasses.
- Gabby is coming to visit in August! What! What!
- My blonde hair is finally growing in and is noticeable.
- The waves in my hair.
- Bright pink toe nails.
- World’s most amazing bridges. There are some killer photos in this.
- Watching Dexter over from the beginning.
- Psych is back for the summer! (Also: Karate!)
Found Here.
- Back massages. And foot massages. Really just massages is what I’m going for I guess.
- Reading Snow Crash.
- My summer is filled with Science Fiction.
- Day 983 of my captivity…
- Vahid’s goofy voices that he does. (My favorite is Marklar!)
- Going out to lunch with Allison and having girl time.
- Getting invited to a Passion Party and totally pushing the start time from 7 to 9pm because the Host and I were talking about Pirates and the fact that she is one! Pirates!
- Seriously, and she dances with fire. Totes awesome.
- Getting awesome new shoes at REI with a giftcard! Yay free shoes!
- Making Vahid’s friend come over so I can cook dinner for more than Vahid.
- White Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream.
- Going to the beach for the second time. Although I still have yet to make it to the Newport Aquarium.
- Arrested Development and having marathon watch sessions late at night with popcorn.
- Just enjoying the sunshine and good days.
I have a cat
Or rather there is a cat that roams around my apartment. I am fairly confident that it is a boy cat and that he belongs to someone in this complex. He’s just an outside cat. A fat one at that too.
This cat, who I’ve taken to calling Cat because a) I am unoriginal and b) I don’t know his actual name and c) what if I named him Tom and it turns out he should have been named like Lola because I was wrong in thinking it was a boy cat? Anyway, this cat lounges under the trees, under the cars, in the dirt in front of my window, under lounge chairs, and anywhere there is shade when the sun is out. He’s a very peculiar cat and by peculiar I mean a complete attention whore.
Vahid and I will go outside and lounge in the sun in the common area of the apartment and he will come RUNNING towards us for pets and rub his scent all over us. Then a girl will walk by and he is like ciao! And runs off towards her. He has tried to come into our apartment before and routinely walks us from apartment to car, car to apartment, lounge area to apartment, meowing the whole time.
His attention whoring ways aside it’s kind of nice to see him when I venture out of my apartment. It’s taken off the strain of not having a pet. (I don’t know how you people who don’t have pets do it. It is driving me nuts. No Mom, I don’t want Midnight, you keep that crazy cat.) There are plans being made to get a pet, but not until we move back into the city at any rate, and that isn’t happening until December or later.
I’m starting to think that when I move I might have to smuggle him out of here.
I’m just warning anyone who might help us move to be careful if you come across any boxes with holes punched in the top…
So I have a cat. Or at least I do until someone else comes into his line of sight.
And because this post is already kind of silly here are pictures of squirrels that I took the other day.
The Zoo
So I’ve been to the zoo twice now. I’ve yet to see the Rhinoceros or the Sun Bear but I’ve seen a lot of animals. If you know me you know that my favorite thing to do is to go the zoo (or the aquarium) or anywhere where I can look at animals really. So since Vahid and I found out that every second Tuesday of the month is $2 admission for the zoo we’ve been going. These are the highlights of both trips. (Also, click on any of the pictures to make them bigger.)
The Ocelot mid-stretch (I waited FOREVER to get a picture of this cat. Glad it paid off.)
The Lions.
Sea Lions.
Female Gibbon. (The males stay black while the females turn blonde during sexual maturity.)
Mandrill. (This is the male and this, believe it or not, a greeting.)
Dwarf Caiman.
VAHID’! And a Lorkeet. You can you feed them nectar and this one just happened to land on his shoulder.
The rest of my set is here complete with comments by a “photographer” correcting me as I named animals wrong.
Coming Home
“Watching my friends get married put me in a contemplative mood, I guess.” Vahid told me as he marveled once again that we ended up together. He does this from time to time, marveling at the fact that through all those crazy odds we wound up together. I don’t mind because it is crazy if you stop to think about it.
As I’m watching Vahid do my math homework I can’t help but marvel too. We have routines and schedules and quirks. I make dinner plans for the week and grocery lists. He cleans the kitchen and folds the laundry. We watch movies eating freshly buttered popcorn before bed. We get tamales every Saturday. We own a couch. (A comfy couch is anyone wants to visit. Just throwing that out there. (unfolds into a bed!))
I look at him (or the back of him as he punches numbers into my calculator) and marvel that through all those odds we ended up here, in this apartment (complete with crack-head neighbors!) in a suburb outside of Portland, merging our two lives together. It amazes me that we had (and still have) awesome chemistry. From the first date inside jokes were created, laughs were had, and our inane quirks were understood. It’s hard to put into words but from the start we were comfortable. It was like coming home.
Now we’ve entered into a new stage. Boxes were unpacked and books were mingled (duplicates were even set aside to give to Goodwill!) and life was ruffled but then the dust settled. We’ve settled into our routines and into our day to day life. We still have arguments and you-are-in-my-space moments of course but it wasn’t an adjustment. I didn’t have to get used to him living here, or get used to all of his things. It was easy. It no longer felt like an empty place I was squatting in, biding my time until something came along. Again, it was like coming home.
As excited as I am about the future we are planning (moving back to the city! Getting a puppy!) I am happy right now. Today was a good day, not because we went to the zoo, or I got him to do my homework for me, but because I was happy and I got to spend another day with someone I love. It was a good day.
Too often we get caught up in the shit, someone got fired, so-and-so are fighting, she thinks her boyfriend sucks, and on and on the cycle goes because it is so easy to complain. I do it all the time (I still complain about my old boss in California when Jenai calls me. Old habits die hard.) and I know it gets annoying.
But for all that I complain about (even on this blog) and for all that I’ve been sad about I am happy. I am crazy happy. My apartment is trashed, I’m exhausted from a day in the sun, my sunburn is super itchy, and work is getting ridiculous; I’m still happy.
I’m happy because at the end of the night I get to poke Vahid and tell him to roll over when he starts to snore, then I get to do it all again the next day. It’s like coming home.
The Beach
Vahid took me to the Oregon coast (my first time there! I think, I might have gone when I was little but I don’t remember) a week or so ago. We visited Cannon Beach and Seaside (Seaside is scummy) and I have some pictures to show for it. I also had Taffy but most of that was gone by the time we got back.
There was a little girl playing in the water (which was freezing! I found out later as I put my foot in the water) and making the seagulls fly into the air.
It being Oregon there wasn’t anywhere that didn’t have some trees. It’s not something I’m used to seeing on the beaches of California.
While walking along the beach (holding hands and being all gross) we saw a seagull terrorizing a family. It would swoop down near their heads and land just a few feet away from them and charge forward and repeat the whole process. The little boy and girl would raise their hands and scream every time it swooped down. I tried to get a picture of the attack process but this was all I could get (the little boy is in blue plaid):
Cannon beach was a lot of fun. It was full of Taffy and Ice Cream shops. (You better believe I brought home some taffy!) After spending some time there we ventured on over to Seaside. It was like light and day.
Or Quaint and Tacky. In Seaside we spotted several member of the new “Seaside Shore” show that I’m sure will be a hit to about a hundred people in Oregon.
This “Aquarium” features animals that are all alive! And you can feed the seals! There will also be a guy screaming seal noises at included at no extra cost!
While in Seaside I also took the scariest picture you can imagine. I’ll preface with a little story about a bird I call Bob. Bob is a seagull, a seagull who has a pessimistic outlook on life. Bob doesn’t like you. If you were to try and drive your car on the road where Bob is standing, he will play chicken with you and you will lose and have to drive around him. Bob will follow you from one Beach to another harassing you and your car the entire time. Bob just wants to see you die a slow horrible death. And this is Bob:
Enjoy your day and don’t have too many nightmares about BOB.
