The Big Green House

Thursday, July 31, 2003

 

If I had a rocket launcher

It�s that time of year again. The fucking Blue Angels are back, scaring the shit out of dogs and cats throughout Seattle, tying up traffic across the lake and around town, and endangering the lives of everyone in their flight path - which goes right over Science Manor, as a matter of fact � all so the dimwits of Lynnwood and Kent can be dazzled by the loudfastshiny. Between that and the hydroplane races, every simple-minded yutz from here to Vancouver will be out in force, sucking up the Rainier, getting third-degree sunburns, and inflicting their sugar-demented offspring on an already rattled public.

Man, I hate this bullshit with a passion. Something like this might have been appropriate 40 years ago, when the population in town was relatively small, but now it just doesn�t make any kind of sense at all. If you absolutely must do something this wasteful and stupid, do it out away from population centers, because while those guys are very good at what they do, they�re not immune to making mistakes.

Needless to say, Science Girl, Lucy and I will be out of town for as much of the weekend as we can get away with.

bmarkey 7/31/2003 05:45:00 PM

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

 

Book �em, Danno.

More hotness today: 93 degrees, again. It was so hot that I brought Lucy to work with me tonight so that she could take advantage of my employers� air conditioning. I�m grateful that, given my mechanical-goat-replaceability-quotient, they don�t mind her being here. It�s a win-win thing: people are always happy to see her here, and I don�t have to worry about coming home to a dog-shaped pile of ashes after work.

I also appreciate their allowing me to wear aloha shirts to work. OK, I know what you�re gonna say, and you can keep it to yourself. I happen to like aloha shirts � they�re fun, they�re cool (temperature-wise, anyway, although I would argue that they fit the bill sartorially, too), and given the state of menswear, it�s one of the few places I can add some color to my wardrobe. A lot of color. I would wear them every summer�s day, if I could.

The ironic thing is, I�m not a tropical person at all. I spent a couple of weeks on The Big Island in 1980, and I�m sorry to say that it�s just not the place for me. (Although it was an interesting setting in which to see Apocalypse Now.) The whole time I was there, I could not get the stench of rotting vegetation out of my nose. Snorkeling was fun, but other than that I really have no use for the beach. And I�ve already mentioned my aversion to heat and humidity. Give me the shirts and you can keep the islands.

The only real drawback to the aloha shirt is price. As a rule, they cost way too much, so I usually get mine on sale. The last couple of shirts I�ve picked up have been $10 wonders, but I think up to $40 is relatively reasonable. I ain�t gonna pay no $50-$250 for a rayon shirt that�s gonna wrinkle the first time I look at it wrong.

And then there�s the displeased-girlfriend thing. See, Science Girl puts up with them, but I know that she thinks they�re too loud. Usually I�ll go along with her on things of this nature, as she has impeccable taste � witness her fianc�e - but on this matter I put my foot down. Most of the time.

Addendum, 7/31/03: My good friend cowboy_sally says that this is a gender issue. Let me ask this question � is there another context in which I, as a straight male, could get away with wearing, say, a lavender shirt with hibiscus and plumeria on it and not attract scorn from the unenlightened and/or concern from loved ones and employers? (Actually, now that I think about it, just about every time my sexuality has been questioned by strangers, I�ve been wearing an aloha shirt. What�s up with that?)

Repent, you say? Never! If I have to choose between looking like a human peacock and being the boring drone in the white/off-white/daring French blue button-down shirt every day of my working life, you know I�m gonna be flyin� the rayon every chance I get. Is it wrong to want to inject a little color into the workplace? Is it wrong to step outside the dull male dress sense and have a little fun? I ask you, is it so wrong for me to want to be pretty?

*runs dramatically out of room*
*slams bathroom door and locks it*
*sobs uncontrollably into yellow shirt with volcanoes and dragons on it*


bmarkey 7/30/2003 10:17:00 PM

 

Other than that, how did you like Dallas, Mrs. Kennedy?

It is hotter than seven kinds of hell tonight. The temperature hit 93 degrees today, which is pretty close to the hottest it�s been since I moved here. Hot enough to where it doesn�t make much difference, anyway. I�m guessing that it�s cooled off to maybe 85 by now.

My job tonight reminded me of the time my boss at a completely different job informed me that I could easily be replaced by a mechanical goat. (Yes, that really happened, although I like to think that he was exaggerating for effect. When I�m honest with myself, in the deep dark night of what passes for my soul, I know that he was, in fact, correct in his assessment of my responsibilities. Then I roll over.)

The Big Green House, being the oven that it is, has not released much heat at all. Lucy has flopped in front of the big fan. She hasn�t really moved from that spot since we got back from our after-work walk. She�s a much happier dog since she got her hair cut, but that doesn�t mean that she�s happy right now

Science Girl is over at Science Manor, still working on getting things ready for the big move. Things would probably have gone quicker had some of the contractors actually turned in the bids they promised us before we left for vacation. As it stands now, it is just within the realm of possibilities that we might start moving before September is over.

She gave me a haircut today. Have I ever mentioned how entirely sexy I think it is that my wonderful fianc�, in addition to all the other remarkable things she does, cuts my hair? And she cuts it well, too. I�ve never looked better than when she�s trimmed my otherwise insubordinate fur.

And me? I�m sitting here in my tartan boxers and a green T-shirt, sweating like the proverbial pig and finishing off the last beer in the house. On the stereo is, ironically enough, The Long Winters� new CD. Since this is the first time I�ve listened to it I don�t feel right saying much about it, but I will mention how disturbed I am that I�ve just now noticed the similarities between the singer�s voice and that of the guy from Counting Crows.

Other than that, everything is just about perfect.

bmarkey 7/30/2003 01:27:00 AM

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

 

Sorry I forgot to give you the mayonaisse

Reading Richard Brautigan always makes me want to take a bath. (Not, I hasten to add, in the same way that reading Ann Coulter* makes me want to take a bath; with her, it�s more of a decontamination than anything else.) I find Brautigan to be very relaxing, and so I associate reading him with soaking in the tub. Actually, that�s usually how I read him.

I don�t know if Brautigan was much for soaking in the tub, himself. I like to think so, but then I like to think that I have something in common with people whose work I admire. It�s entirely possible that he actively despised bathtubs. I don�t really know.

I can tell you how I discovered RB. I was in junior high school, and very keen on learning anything to do with fishing. Girls did not seem to be very interested in me, so I devoted myself to the sporting destruction of trout. It was something to do.

Fortunately for the trout, I was a piss-poor fisherman. I would fish for hours on end; occasionally I�d get a nibble, but it was a very rare day that I actually caught something. As it turns out, I was really more interested in being out in the woods, away from people, just me and the stream and the trees and the clouds. And the fish.

I didn�t realize this until years later. Countless miles of fishing line, numberless lures, and more salmon eggs than there are hairs on a dog, all in the service of my being alone in the mountains.

But that�s not the point. The point is, at the time I thought that I just wasn�t using the right fishing technique, or perhaps my tackle was not what it should be. So, I spent a lot of my non-fishing time going to the library and checking out books on various methods of fishing. It was during one such search that I stumbled across Trout Fishing in America.

It was an eye-opener, as they say. I didn�t quite know what to make of it, at first. Although it did mention trout fishing throughout the book, most of it was completely outside my frame of reference as a suburban thirteen-year-old boy. And yet, I found it strangely compelling.

The various references to fucking didn�t hurt.

As I made my way into high school, I kept an eye out for other books by Brautigan. Used bookstores never let me down � before I graduated I�d found Revenge of the Lawn, The Abortion, The Hawkline Monster, and Willard and His Bowling Trophies. I�m thankful that I didn�t read In Watermelon Sugar until I was in my thirties. It would surely have put me off RB for good if I�d come across it any earlier. As it is, it gives me the itch. When people tell me that they don�t like Brautigan, I just assume that they read that one first.

If I were forced to describe RB�s work (and I�ll tell you right now that I cannot conceive of any circumstances under which I would be forced to do so, but let�s just play along), I�d say that it was gently surreal, always well-intentioned but with an undercurrent of melancholy. This is also a fair description of large portions of my life, and probably goes a long way toward explaining why I like him so much.

*If you think I�m going to feed that flaming attention-whore�s ego by linking to her in any way, think again. If you really want to know anything about the tragic waste of protein that calls itself Ann Coulter, you�re gonna have to look it up yourself. Be advised, though, that you�ll want to scrub your brain with steel wool afterwards, to wash out the ugliness. dong_resin sums her up nicely here.

bmarkey 7/29/2003 01:41:00 AM

Friday, July 25, 2003

 

Summertime Blues

Summer is making me torpid. I just want to sit on the porch with Science Girl and tug on another in a series of Red Seals as we wait for autumn to arrive, while John Coltrane gently dissects �My Favorite Things� on the stereo and Lucy moves from shade to sun to shade again in her ongoing pursuit of the ideal snoozing site. They don�t pay me for that, however, so here I am.

I�ve figured out why the 97 degree days in California didn�t bother me nearly as much as the 80 degree days in Washington do (and feel free to sing along if you know the words): it�s not the heat, it�s the humidity.

Yep.

When the well runs dry, you can always bitch about the weather.

Or you can go to the Ballard SeafoodFest, which we will (more than likely) do on Sunday. SG can get her fill of fish snacks and I can get my groove on to Wylie and the Wild West. Actually, I wouldn�t mind seeing The Squirrels on Saturday, but Lucy has an appointment with the groomer at 8:00 AM sharp. I will probably be wiped out for the rest of the day, but that was the only time they could squeeze her in & the poor little critter is burning up in this heat. It always comes back to the heat.

bmarkey 7/25/2003 07:09:00 PM

Thursday, July 24, 2003

 
Apparently I�ve run out of things to write about.
If you think I�m kidding, take a look at that last entry.

bmarkey 7/24/2003 09:09:00 PM

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

 

Master of Pop-Tarts

I stopped by the grocery store after work last night to pick up a few things. One of the nice things about shopping after midnight is that I�m spared the usual �lite rock� muzak QFC plays in their attempt to pacify the consumers into spending more. The night crew tends to favor one of the two butt-rock radio stations we have here, cranked up to �block all conscious thought� decibel levels. Not my first choice in radio but I�m just there to pick up some supplies and get out, and, as I�ve mentioned before, I kinda like a little butt-rock every now and again.

As I was headed down the cereal aisle I heard a lovely little acoustic guitar piece which sounded very familiar, although I couldn�t place it right away. It also sounded a bit off, compared to what those boys usually listen to at that hour. Perhaps management had been on them to tone it down a bit? I was staring vacantly at a box of Cocoa Puffs when the electric guitars kicked in and I realized that what I had mistaken for a pastoral ode to farm living was in fact Metallica�s �Fade to Black�. Mr. Hetfield growling about teenage suicide as I shlepped past the baby food and disposable diapers made my shopping experience just that much more surreal.

It�s the little moments that mean so much.

Hey, speaking of meaningless coincidence and pretentious melodrama � today marks one whole year of The Big Green House. I urge you to celebrate in an appropriate manner. Formal wear is optional.

bmarkey 7/22/2003 07:16:00 PM

Monday, July 21, 2003

 

Quest for ribs

We chose to avoid all the peoples at the Bite. I saw the huge line of cars on the freeway yesterday, all trying to get off at the Seattle Center exit. Given that it was hot & humid all weekend� yeah, we made the right choice.

So what did we do? Well, Saturday was devoted to hydrology, on a very small scale. We installed a new drip watering system at Science Manor, on the hillside in the back yard. We had to finesse it a little, but it works just fine now. After that, we tried out the new pressure washer on the old-growth moss on the front sidewalk � it now looks like we poured new cement.

Fascinating, no? Wait, it gets better.

Sunday was all about barbecue. Jones Barbecue, specifically. I�ve been hearing nothing but good things about them for so long now that it all reached a sort of critical mass in my head. I woke up acting like some pig-eating zombie, chanting �MUST�HAVE�BARBECUE� at random intervals and drooling much more than usual. Through sheer repetition, I was able to convince Science Girl that she, too, must have barbecue. She refused to drool, though, even a little.

So we set out for Columbia City, our stomachs a-rumble in anticipation of the spicy meaty treats soon to be headed their way. What we failed to take into account was the fact that Jones� summer hours, on Sundays, anyway, are 3 PM to 10 PM. We didn�t realize this until we pulled up at the restaurant at 2:30. Oops.

Well, no matter. I knew that they�d recently opened a second spot, in a mall in Bellevue. Back in the car, up I-5, over the 520 bridge and into the scary suburban hell that is the Eastside. We eventually found parking at the mall, wedged in between two mammoth SUVs. After ten minutes spent trying to navigate our way out of the hideous Crate & Barrel store we entered by mistake, we finally got out into the mall proper � only to discover that we were at the wrong mall.

Well, shit.

Fortunately, SG had her cell phone with her; she called the Columbia City shop while I silently berated myself for jumping to the wrong conclusion as to which mall to go to. Armed with directions to the right place, we set off across town, nearly aflame with hunger by this point.

I was going to say, �To make a long story short�, but I see that that ship has already sailed. At any rate, we picked up the ribs, brought them home, and feasted like nobody�s business. The meat was falling off the bone, and while the sauce was thinner than I�m used to it sure was tasty just the same. And it only took us three hours to pick it up!

Hey, while we�re talking about going a long way for a good meal, I�d like to take this opportunity to give the folks at Chapter and Moon, in Fort Bragg, a little shout out. We ate there while on vacation, and I�d have to say that it was the best meal we had on the entire trip, bar none. I�d link to them but they don�t seem to have any sort of web presence. Should you ever find yourself in Fort Bragg (the one in California, that is; should you wind up at the one in North Carolina, you�re on your own), head down to Noyo harbor & look for Chapter and Moon. Yummy yummy yummy. I can personally recommend the applewood-smoked pork, and the taste I had of SG�s meatloaf wasn�t too shabby either. Nice people running it, too.

bmarkey 7/21/2003 10:35:00 PM

Friday, July 18, 2003

 

Bite me

The Bite of Seattle is this weekend. We haven�t decided whether or not we�re going to go. On the one hand, it�s an opportunity to get some yummy food from places that we may not have heard of/couldn�t afford to patronize otherwise. On the other hand, there are far too many people attending (they�re expecting 500,000 attendees, according to the P-I), so lines are impossibly long and food runs out.

We went to the Seattle International Beer Fest last Sunday, only to find that virtually all of the IPA was gone by the time we got there. Crowds were much smaller than we anticipated, but that may have been due to the rate at which the beers were running out.

Tasty snacks versus the crush of sweaty strangers� it�s a tough call.

bmarkey 7/18/2003 09:12:00 PM

 


I knew my days on the ranch were numbered after the cows ate my hands.

bmarkey 7/18/2003 05:59:00 PM

Thursday, July 17, 2003

 

Red Red Wine

I moved to Sacramento from Monterey at the tender age of 21, chasing a relationship that collapsed within about three months of my arrival. (I�m not gonna bore you with that story, so relax. Instead, I�m gonna bore you with something completely different.) A friend from Salinas who�d made a similar move a few months before I did (with similar results, if memory serves � where would we be without cheap coincidence?) got me a job bussing and washing dishes in this great little caf�/wine bar/wine shop where she was waiting tables. Until I started working there, my exposure to wine had pretty much been limited to the occasional glass of Mateus Ros� my parents had let me have as a teenager & the odd bottle of jug wine here and there. And I do mean odd; jug wine has vastly improved since then. It used to be that you could drink it or use it to strip paint, depending on your mood.

The caf� was small enough that everybody did a little bit of everything there, so it wasn�t long before I was making espresso, assembling fruit and cheese plates (including one for the current, if somewhat tenuous, Governor of California), and pouring wine. Since the list of wines available by the glass changed every Thursday, we had employee tastings every Wednesday so we�d know what we were pouring and could therefore (theoretically, at least) answer any questions from the customers. It was a chance for us to compare notes, learn about wine from the owner (a great source of knowledge, and a swell guy to boot), and get a little loopy before work.

This was my introduction to wine in bottles that didn�t have screw tops.

The great thing was that everybody�s opinion was given equal time, whether it was someone as inexperienced as myself or one of the staff who actually had something of a clue. There really wasn�t much in the way of snobbery, at the tastings or in the day-to-day running of the place. We were encouraged to have fun. The atmosphere was always loose, and I think that�s one of the reasons why the place was as successful as it was. We were always packed, and we had a hell of a lot of dedicated regulars. And while we carried some pricey wines (this was the only place I�ve ever worked where I was able to taste a wine that cost more per bottle than my rent was at the time � a 1953 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, if I recall correctly; it was pretty fucking amazing, but no wine is worth that much), no one was looked down upon because they were buying a bottle of plonk.

So when the place finally closed* and I went out into the world again, I took away a sense of wine being about fun and enjoyment, rather than something to be squirreled away as an investment or used as a status symbol.

*I heard many different theories as to why this happened, and since I frankly don�t remember what the official reason was I�m not going to repeat any of them here. If you lived in Sac in the early Eighties you probably know where and what I�m talking about.
bmarkey 7/17/2003 08:40:00 PM

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

 
Sorry, kids, no time to write tonight. It's a busy time at work, plus I'm mulling over a few ideas I've had kicking around in my head for a few weeks now. Perhaps I'll put something up after i get home, or maybe tomorrow before work. We'll see.
bmarkey 7/16/2003 10:05:00 PM

Monday, July 14, 2003

 

Drinkin� wine, spodee-odee, drinkin� wine

Wine, to quote someone somewhere, is a Good Thing. It�s just a shame that, in this country at least, there�s such a large amount of bullshit involved in people�s perception thereof. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the only thing I can think of more chock-full of the potential for hand-wringing and pretension is poetry - and let�s face it, no one ever caught a buzz from �Ode to a Grecian Urn�. Nobody you�d want to sleep with, anyway.

Americans are, by and large, brought up to fear wine. A lot of this intimidation stems from the formal role wine has taken in our society. That�s fine, up to a point; sometimes it�s good to have a little extra meaning to things. Toasting someone with a nice glass of wine carries a little more weight than doing so with, say, Kool-aid. The problem starts when people are so cowed by the sense of mystery and complication associated with the selection of a wine that they just give up, go down to the Wal-Mart, and buy another box of white zinfandel. Or, if they�re feeling adventuresome, maybe a bottle of merlot. And while I�ve capped on both of those wines at one time or another, the truth is that good wine is wine that you like. If that�s what you want in the way of fermented grape, more power to you. There is, however, a wide, wonderful world of really yummy, really interesting and not-really-expensive wine out there, once you get past that initial panic.

Enjoying good wine doesn�t have to be rocket science, nor does it have to be stuffy. It can be as simple or as complicated, as formal or informal, as you want to make it. I�m no �expert� by any stretch of the imagination, but I (usually) know what I want and I know how to get it. With a little research, anyone can. It�s gonna involve some experimentation on your part, and at some point you�re probably going to have to find a wine dealer whose taste you trust, but the payoff is fantastic. And you don�t have to go broke getting there; I very rarely pay more than $15 for a bottle of wine, and there are quite a few Science Girl and I have found for less than $10.

So get out there and start drinking. Wine & Spirits magazine is a great place to start looking for ideas. They tend to focus on the more reasonably-priced yet well-made offerings on the market. My advice would be to give the Wine Spectator a wide berth, as they�re mostly about the so-called �wine lifestyle� � pricey bottlings, expense-account restaurants, etc. There�s a place for all that, but it ain�t in my house.

(The above rant was inspired, at least in part, by this story, which made me happy last Friday when I first saw it. I have no idea what their wines taste like, but I wish I�d known about Roshambo while we were down that way. Anyone that wants to demystify and de-snootify wine is OK in my book. Huzzah!)

bmarkey 7/14/2003 10:49:00 PM

Friday, July 11, 2003

 
I am a horrible failure as a doggy daddy.

First, I cruelly abandoned Lucy for two entire weeks whilst Science Girl and I went gallivanting all over the west coast. IN THE CAR. Granted, I arranged for the best dogsitter I could think of - someone who would treat Miss Dog as if she were one of her own pooches - but the fact remains that I left our dog at home and went to many parks, some on the shore and some full of large trees, without her. IN THE CAR.

And then today, while we were out walking around the neighborhood, I let her down again. I allowed her to stick her nose under a fence belonging to a rather possessive black lab. He bit her, causing her to scream as if she�d been set on fire. As I bent down to see if she was OK, she stood there with a �what happened?� look on her face, her lower jaw quivering as if she were about to burst into tears. Blood slowly welled up from the cuts on either side of her snout. I scooped her up and rushed back to The Big Green House to further assess the damage. We must have been quite a sight, as I was walking as fast as I could & she was alternately panting and licking the blood off her face.

Once we got back home and I had a chance to clean the wounds, I saw that they were all superficial. Easy for me to say; it�s not my face we�re talking about. She�s got a small cut just under her right eye, a couple of longer ones between her nose and lip on the right side, and a small one on the left side of her muzzle. All very shallow, and all had stopped bleeding by the time I cleaned her up. She�s still kinda shaken up, though; she spent the rest of the afternoon before I left for work under the bed. I was able to coax her out with her traditional �leaving for work� snack; if she hadn�t come out for that I would have been worried.

As it is, I�m just guilty as hell.

bmarkey 7/11/2003 06:07:00 PM

Thursday, July 10, 2003

 
Big corporate wing-ding here tonite, so probably no time to write. Look, I know how lame this week is turning out to be, blog-wise, but sometimes these things can�t be helped. Besides, how much are you paying to read this? Then I�d say you�re getting your money�s worth, wouldn�t you?
bmarkey 7/10/2003 05:24:00 PM

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

 
I�ve been wracking my brain trying to think of something to write about, but frankly� I got nuthin�. I guess I�m not quite back in the regular life, non-vacation groove just yet. That�s not terribly surprising, I suppose, given that this was my first real vacation (as in �get out of town for an extended period� vacation, versus my usual �take a week off and look for another job� vacation) in about, um, fifteen years. Give or take. I may physically be in Seattle, at my desk, but mentally I�m in a cool, dark forest, looking straight up a thousand-year-old redwood tree and listening to it creak in the wind. Which would, I have to admit, beat the shit out of being at work.
bmarkey 7/09/2003 08:13:00 PM

Monday, July 07, 2003

 
Hi. I�m back.

I have to say that I�m not terribly inclined to write much about our vacation. We drove down the coast and back; it was fun, far too short, and that�s really all I want to say about it at this point.

This may or may not change. Science Girl has expressed some interest in writing a few things about it, and I�ve encouraged her to do so, but for some reason I don�t feel like going in to too many details about our trip right now.

I will, however, share a few things which I learned along the way:

I really love the Northern California coast. I knew this already, but I had to re-learn it.

When Science Girl says she�s feeling �heat stroke-y�, it�s best to believe her. (Not to worry, she�s fine. She�s just not used to 97-degree weather.)

If you run a restaurant, it�s not a good idea to let your patrons wait 45 minutes before telling them that the bagel with hummus they�ve ordered was delayed by a blown oven fuse.

Red Seal Ale is my favorite beer. (Again, I already knew this but had to be reminded since it�s so damn hard to find up here.) Lagunitas IPA is very good, too.

Oregon always seems to be The State That�s In My Way. Which is totally unfair to the fine people living there, but it does seem to be the case for me. Astoria and Portland are nice, though.

bmarkey 7/07/2003 07:48:00 PM