Something I picked up from my class this week:

After being so grumpy about the craigslist people... I decided to find something to cheer me up. Mrpants and I just finished watching all of the Doctor Who fourth doctor series with Tom Baker. Here's a clip from the very beginning, after Tom Baker becomes The Doctor. My favorite part, "You don't want to stand here burbling about my ears."

I love using Craigslist as a way to get rid of crap. I love posting things for free. We got rid of a ton of stuff last time we moved, by just leaving it on the porch and posting photos and the address of the old house. We said "Come get it. First come, first serve." It was terribly efficient.

I've been trying to get rid of our old bedroom furniture. We thought we were going to take it to a friend's garage sale last weekend, but got bogged down with stuff and didn't make it in time. So, I used Craigslist. We decided to try to make a little cash off the the furniture this time, instead of freebie-ing (not a word, I know!) everything. I need to rethink my wording next time. It's 5 days later, and I still have most of the items. One guy asked me if I took credit cards over the phone or delivered. What? Does he not understand that craigslist is like an electronic garage sale? What the h? I was baffled.

A guy came and paid me for the bed, but is having trouble rounding up a way to get it transported (Surprise! A four poster bed will not fit in the back of your Subaru.). So it sits in my hall. At this point I want to mail him a check for his stupid money and re-list it. Which I will do he doesn't show up today. The point was not to make cashmoney, but rather remove said items from the vicinity of my house.

A woman wanted to buy both dressers, but can't make it over until tomorrow.

No one wants the shelves. I think I'll put a free posting up for them. Anyone need some Ikea lack shelves in beech? They're the short ones, 3 feet-esque.

A guy wanted my black metal cart thingy, called to make sure I still had it and got my address. Then he arrived 10 minutes later, paid me and took it. That's the way it's done, people! Take notes on metal-cart-thingy-guy. He rocked.

Anyhow, I'm irritated. Next time, my ad will read: "(item) for sale. Photo included. Size is _____. Used. Price is ___. Cash only. No delivery service available. No reserving or holding items. First person to arrive with the means to remove the (item) is the new owner. No holding or reserving (item). Purchasers may arrive anytime after 10am on (date) at (my address). Post will be removed once item is no longer available."

Did I mention school is out? And that the Santa Cruz peeps came to visit? Goodness, it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks. Let's see...

I managed to finish school without strangling any children. I did, however, kick out a boy during the art class final, and separate two others. Jerks. I mean, really, if you're failing a class, you have no intention of doing anything productive in class, you don't enjoy being there, and you skipped at least 40% of the class so far anyhow.... why show up for the final? I was ready for the seniors to leave, as they were all spazzypants. But, once they were gone, the maturity level in the room drops by way more than it should. I missed them almost instantly.

But, it's done. I had two after school meetings that went well. We, of course, want to meet more and get more collaboration done. We've asked the PTB (powers that be) if we could get paid for another piddly 5 hours... but I'm guessing we'll get a no.

The Santa Cruz contingency came to town as well. They were here the last three days of school, which made it a little crazy for me, but not too bad. Funny that, if we hadn't had snow/bomb scare days, I would have been down with school a week earlier and had more hangout time with them. Oh, well.

The summer adventures are starting. I've decided to overhaul our bedroom. I hate how it's set up. I hate the furniture. I'm tired of the paint job. So, we're gonna haul out our bedroom furniture and take it to a garage sale and P&S's this weekend. Then we're gonna go buy some bedroom furniture at Ikea. In between the furniture, I'm going to clean and repaint the bedroom. I'm hoping to do most of it by myself, so as to not put out the pants. He will have to help me with the furniture moving, the bed dis-assembly and painting the ceiling. I think I can do the rest myself. I have two solid weeks of no obligations in which to get it down. As long as I don't get caught up playing Super Mario Galaxy too much, I should be ok.

I've also been planting some more stuff in the garden. The veg is coming along nicely. We have Dragon Tongue beans getting long and stripey. The tomatoes are starting to fill out and the peppers have loads of flower buds. The cukes and zuchs are getting really big leaves, and (cross your fingers) I haven't lost any herbs yet. It was a close call with the woolly thyme, but I think I saved it.

Anyhow, there are loads of pics on flickr. I think, in fact, I'll go take a few more of the tomatoes and beans no that my allergy medicine has started to kick in.

There's only five days left! I have an awards ceremony to attend to tomorrow night, as well as a meeting of the new yearbook staff after school. Monday is planning for Art Studio curriculum next year. Then Tuesday, the Brooks arrive! Yay!

I took some photos of our garden today. The lilies my mom brought me are especially pretty. I'm having a hard time deciding where to plant them. The kitchen garden is going like gangbusters. We have two kinds of basil, two kinds of oregano, marjoram, spicy orange thyme, leeks, garlic chives, green onions, woolly thyme and garlic. I'm pretty excited.

Good lord, this was a busy weekend. I didn't expect it to get as busy as it did. We had originally simply purchased tickets to see Anthony Bourdain speak at the Keller Auditorium. But, then there were also tickets to Cinematic Titanic available. So, of course, we had to get those as well. Then, it turned out this would be the same weekend that my friend, Lish, would be coming to ptown. Whee!

So, Anthony was pretty rad. He tried an experimental format with us... that didn't really work out as well as he wanted. He explained that he wanted us to call bullshit on him whenever necessary. He ranted about a few subjects (Alice Waters, Vegetarians, etc.) and was, I think, expecting us to pop up and call bullshit on him. While Portlanders feel fairly strongly about many a subject, we are also extremely polite. I think, perhaps, he picked the wrong city to attempt this with. He didn't get as many arguments as he wanted, and instead it sparked a lot of bullshit-calling on other commenters and such. A little odd. Also, the Q&A lasted a little too long, and people seriously need to get their shit signed after the show... not while he's answering their questions. So pushy.

Cinematic Titanic was awesome. Of course, we had forgotten that the Starlight freaking Parade was on the same night. We were a half hour late to the show... but still made it in time to see the movie part (Danger on Tiki Island), which was terrible and terribly funny.

It was awesome to see Lish. I hadn't see her since her kiddo, Gryphon, was barely a year old or so. He's now five, and very into Star Wars. She was here with Jromy & Jen, who are moving in from DC and were scouting for houses. I think they found a few nice options (although I hinted heavily that the apt between Hawthorne and Belmont on 29th would be rad.). Since we were busy in the evenings, we were only able to give them a place to stay and take them out to Bar Carlo for breakfast. They, of course, visited Powells, got some Stumptown and some Voodoo Donuts on their way out of town.

Lish is one of the peeps I met in Seattle while working at the bookstore up there. She moved from Seattle to New Orleans for grad school exactly one week prior to Hurricane Katrina. She spent a long time living in crappy temporary housing in rural Mississippi (which she doesn't recommend.). Jromy had been living with her at the time, so they had lots of stories about what life was like in the south, post-Katrina (eep!). She has since graduated, written a novel (awesome!), sold a novel, and is writing a second book.

I can't wait for Jen & Jromy to move here in July. They will be a welcome addition (and I will possibly see Lish more often?).

I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not yet... but my sister is taking mrpants and I to Japan in August for two weeks! I'm terribly excited.

Mrpants saw this awesome theme park yesterday that we're trying to include in our plans. It's a historical Japan theme park. Everything is from the Edo period (costumes, villages, shops, plays, classes, parades, etc.). How freakin rad! One of the events is described as such:
"The most beautiful and educated lady in Japan, Yoshino, is coming to Edo all the way from Kyoto to develop Yoshiwara, the famous red-light district.She will make a gorgeous parade with her servants as people welcome her.But we received a report that the remaining radicals are going to attack her. See what’s gonna happen!"

We started plotting our trip and timeline while we were visiting her in DC last weekend, and have ramped up the planning this week. We've been making hotel reservations and doing research. We're collaborating on Google Maps to mark our hotels and all the sites we want to visit. Anyone have more suggestions about what we should see or do?


View Japan trip in a larger map

We're back. We made it through our whirlwind tour of DC for my sister's graduation. We saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the WWII memorial. We went to the Smithsonian's Museum of American History (although we only made it through one floor). We went to the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Gallery & Sculpture Garden.

We thought we'd stay at Andrea's place, but felt like we were crowding her. So, we did a quick internet search (hotwire and orbitz) and found a hotel about a block away that had just been renovated. We got an awesome deal, and when we went to check in... they upgraded us to a suite. The hotel was gorgeous. It was all modern and awesome. We felt like rock stars.

We wined and dined through DC and got my sister through her graduation ceremony. The ceremony was good. They split up the graduates into sections, so it wasn't very many people and went quickly. Very cool and very schmancy.

A good weekend, long plane rides and all.