what's with old bands?

Suicidal Tendencies are in town tonight. Are these guys not like 60 years old by now? I can only assume they've been wasting away on their funds raised in early 90's and are finally in need of more money but too prideful to apply for a position at the local grocery store. Doesn't everyone need a bagger or checker?

It's that snow day today. I forgot to schedule an appt so I could miss it. On top of all I have going on, one of the last things I need on my plate is needing to stand out in front of work in my snow gear, smiling for the "photo op" with the chickens.

moving sucks.

Hi. I'm moving this week and I can't.wait.for it to be over. Why is it that I fill my life with things so I'm always busy? Moving is a huge undertaking: the packing, the cleaning, the purging, the opening and closing of doors, walking down stairs, the driving across town ... so why do I add more to the equation? Maybe it's habit, maybe it's because I pressure myself to get so much accomplished. Whatever the reason, it's likely going to result in me getting sick.

Can I tell you a little bit about my iphone? Gadgets are an unsecret obsession of mine and the iphone is bursting with ways to make me giddy. Though I must say, Apple HAS to be adding a flash and camera options to the next version. That would be my only complaint.

...fine, back to work.

gobble, gobble me.

Can't get enough of stretching. It might have been the cartwheels, maybe it was the practicing of backside 180's, or maybe it's the sheer fact that I haven't really done anything active in nearly two months. Slacker!! Jessie and I were just stretching for almost a half hour and I'm still worried about collapsing on the first run.

It's fun up here. I like riding with the girls, we have the perfect amount of people.

Oh and in case you were wondering, I don't think I can eat for at least a week. Don't know how I'm going to get breakfast down, but knowing the way my body works I'll have to eat something or will be hungry an hour up the mountain. We had an incredible feast last night - doing the leftovers tonight, yum! Between 13 of us we drank like 14 bottles of wine and definitely dented the supply of beer. Brandon and I hotboxed in the bathroom which I think kept my drinking under control. That was random fun - we found the weed stash that somebody else left. You know, when you find that little bit left and are going home but you don't want to throw it out? So you leave it as a treat.

I'm thankful for my friends. Life is so much richer with friends that love and support you for who you are. Going around the table last night saying thanks, it was so touching to hear the resounding love and appreciation we all have for each other and where we're at in life.

Seeking out granola and yogurt now.

my cat.

Begonia is killing me. All week she's been waking me up around 4am with her banter. I don't usually have coffee during the week but it's saving my life today. She howls and runs around chasing a bottle cap, it's a small version of hell. I love her to death but sometimes wish I could toss her out the window.

Having a hard time at work today. Between the kitty banter and excitement about leaving town, I want to sluff it off until Monday. Hopefully I packed everything. Went to the Nabob with Natalie last night and we had a bottle of wine. Didn't plan on doing that, it just kind of happened. First we were served an "off" glass, which I guess Nat is a connoisseur of pinot noir so she knew it wasn't right ... bartender apologizes and comes back with a couple of deep pours. Hummus and edamame later, we're on to glass no.2 which is where we ended up finishing the bottle. I arrive home pretty buzzed, running around trying to pack. There's a good chance I forgot things, and I am definitely going to run into a fashion crisis. Right now I'm worried most about my yarn count and needles. Just as I typed that I realized I do not have my swiss army knife.

And I forgot my recipe! Gahh.

tiny ant operas.

Joy to rubidoux in the the middle of the night
Bourbon and a pistol in the dash, out of sight
What did you expect
Romantic call of why
Just empty desert light

Friday's show was so fun, really glad I found tickets and a date to the show. Two is most always better than one you know.

Saturday was an experience all in itself. Steph and I kind of putzed all over town, we're good at keeping ourselves occupied.. Started off at a new breakfast place, then two u-turns and we had newspaper in hand to seek out something to keep us occupied for the day and possibly night. I love Stephanie, she read probably five pages aloud to me as I drove into the deep south, seeking out Fabric Depot. Which, by the way, might be the most spectacular place to shop EVER. (ever!!) They have literally walls of fur, the cotton & linens are organized by designer, not color AND their canvas/outdoor fabrics section I could have gotten lost in. We're having Natalie's 30th there.

After the fabric freakout, we stopped by my sister's and I think she was a little HO? I didn't ask but she was out late, was originally signed up for a barcrawl... nice work. She lives in a super cute apartment but the coffee shop below is run by nazis. First, she orders some four-dollar-job coffee drink, I order my tea next. She hands the nazi a free coffee punch card and the girl promptly decides to not charge for my $1.20 tea but we'll pay for the coffee. Thanks? Then I ask for an 8oz. but apparently they only make 12oz. teas - so I ask that they only fill it up about halfway. The stupid girl behind the counter is so set on giving me this huge cup for my little cup of coffee. Not like I asked for a discount for using less paper or anything. We didn't tip.

So excited for Whistler. I feel like it's been forever since I've ridden. I tried packing last night and kept forgetting where things were. Dinner is going to be great. That's one of the things I love about Whistler and Thanksgiving. We make these large-scale dinners and feast, then we eat leftovers for the next four days. Come home from riding, pull out some beans and turkey and cranberry and voila! Instant delishousness.

Gotta work.

it's gone.

The couch is 100% gone. Vamos, outtie 500, AWOL, absent, not there at all. My throat is hurting from the spray paint but overall I am happy with this situation. Never seen anything like tonight, destruction within a confined space like that. I'm really surprised the neighbors below didn't come up knocking, especially when the jigsaw was starting up. There's no way they couldn't have heard that. Thanks to Joseph for providing the start of the ruckus - I'm not sure it could have gone down properly without the saw.

Not sure what's going to happen with me this weekend. If craigslist doesn't work out for cwk tickets, the show Stephanie is going to sounds like fun, too. Then Saturday... why am I not in the mood for the Showbox? It just sounds too big. Like a fuss, much ado that I don't want to put up. I really want to dig into that oilcloth. Every time I see one of those bags I want.

Begonia is sitting on the arm of my chair, purring motor. She must have been scared out of her mind when the debauchery was underway. Poor thing.

When's the last time you had animal crackers?

flowers & wine.

It's virtually impossible for me to head out for quarters and come home with just that.

My home already has a collection of greenery. Flowers make it sing just that much more.

three hour tour.

I'm back, wooo. Stoked to have woken up at 5:30 today, stoked to have flickr STILL uploading my 730+ pics (on hour four, for the record), stoked to wait an hour to eat at Coastal Kitchen and even more stoked to have today off and not be at work yet. For as floatily tired as I am, the stoke factor is pretty high.

Yesterday was a haul. Up at 5am, flight delayed by an hour then technical difficulties in the cockpit make us go back to the terminal or whatever, which delays us another 90 minutes. By the time we get to Atlanta we've missed our connection so we finally touch down in Seattle at 7:30 (which would have been 10:30, Panaman). Get home, promptly purge contents of packed bags all over bedroom floor. Head down to the Dandies show, which was fun. Think it had been four years since I last saw them? Spent most of the time chatting and catching up but saw/heard most of the show, they played a lot of the ones I wanted to hear. After that was over it was up to the Cha Cha, which I was on the fence about but was hoping to get on a regular schedule so I went. By the time we got there I was pretty tired. Getting in an argument made me realize I needed sleep so I left. Not really into the verbal pong over drinks.

Too hard to be typing right now. It's already enough effort to think, and I should stop now so I have some wits about me when I go for groceries. Out.

no and then.

back in panamà. not even that sure where to begin.

bussed from chitrè to here. got to jeff´s, went online to learn there is only one flight to san blas daily and it leaves at 6am. thank god for knowing that! did laundry, ate cookies and was up until a tad past midnight. woke up at 4am. four a.m.!! got stuff together, caught a taxi right off, which we were not anticipating. taxi took us to a supermarket because we had read about kuna yala not having much in the way of fruits and veggies. dropped at the airport, purchased round-trip tickets to some island off in the San Blas and sat around. tickets were about $90. this trip would have been a lot cheaper if we´d just stay in one place but am sure glad we got around as much as we have. rental cars and planes are definitely my way of preferred travel compared to those busses. though i agree with morgan, i do love me some second-rate bus travel when i can.

it´s late here and i´m pretty over being online so i´ll have to chat it up about san blas on another post. the islands are unlike anything i have ever seen. the water is so crystal-clear and turquoise, the islands are so spottingly tiny, it was like something you read about but are sure is exaggerated. and it was overcast most of the time so even my photos won´t do it justice.

next time i need to mention:
- old town panama (buildings, flan, history)
- lightening storm in san blas
- snorkelling
- rain storms
- epidemic of stoned taxi drivers in the city
- seeing the canal
- hammocks
- how much i´m going to love laying on my own bed again

say what in four hours?

back in panama for a second. waking up in four hours so we can catch the only flight offered daily to san blas islands. yikes! doing some laundry, trying to find that ride from the airport home on saturday... not banking on internet being available anywhere in san blas.

long day of travel today. feels good to be showered and sleepy in an airconditioned place.

can't believe we are about to embark on the last leg of our journey! it has been a grand ride though. will be good to end it on a sandy beach note. sounds like the relaxing is off the hizzy in them thar islands. i can't wait!

delicious with green.

In Soma right now, about an hour out of Santa Catalina. Here to do some webbing and seek out Maria´s. Nutella just isn´t the same without her.


Surf trip hasn´t been so much surf as we anticipated. Santa Catalina has (I think) five breaks in the area, we have found two. Point break is super rocky and sucks to walk out to. Morgan and I paddled out during a lower tide, when it was coming in, and it was sketch. Nobody else was out so we spent most of the time looking out for rocks under the water. Paddle in was a little difficult too, since the tide was coming in we couldn´t tell exactly where we had put in, but we made it.

Then we found out about the beach break, which was of course an easier in but also more of the type of wave we wanted to see. Long, even breaks. A little closed out but not bad. Could have used more push for sure. Every wave we went for was barely there and even with my nose pointing down I couldn´t get up. They weren´t too big, maybe 3´. The other obstacle was trying to use my camera. Hard to balance on a waterlogged 6´4 with a wave coming at you, while trying to position yourself down the line in just the right place where your friend may or may not be dropping.


Santa Catalina sounded like this total surf town in our books and from what we´ve heard. It´s definitely got the surf but not the surf-town feel that I was expecting. My experience has been mainly Sayulita, where most of the town surfs and the break is right there and there are surf shops everywhere. Not so much here. You don´t have to drive to the point or beach break but it sure makes life easier. Don´t get me wrong, there are locals that surf and the water does draw a crowd. It´s just different, that´s all.

Saturday we boated off to the mainland, I forget the name. It was a small, dirty town though and I was happy when we unanimously decided to hop a bus to David, where we would find a rental car and go. Bus ride was nearly five hours of hot stickyness and ipod time. We get into David, find a Hertz and are back on the road. I think we have an x-terra and it´s $280 for three days, including a drop off fee so we can leave it at Chitré.

Staying in Santiago was a hoot. There are no "nice" hotels, the most expensive one is I think where we ended up staying and it was I think $45 total for two dbl beds. We went into two or three other hotels (which were our only option) and they all smelled like cat piss or mildew stank. The first one we thought we could deal with but it was pretty nasty. I didn´t even want to take my shoes off, I´m pretty sure the cat that pissed in it was loitering outside as well. Morgan went up to the front desk to ask for another key, told the guy we didn´t want that room because it smelled like gato and he didn´t even flinch, just handed us another key. That room smelled strongly of cheap cleansing agents. While the three of us are in the catpiss room discussing our options, some other hotel worker comes in with this can of Lysol and starts spraying it, like that will solve the issue. I have a huge aversion to Lysol so I leave the room. We go back to the front desk and explain we want our money back. Guy nods, gets out the credit machine to refund the card. Even he knew how bad it was. After that we seriously debated sleeping in the car but for the sake of a shower we found a place that smelled like musty wood but was for the most part better than the first.


We survive Saturday night and hit the road, Santa Catalina as our destination. It was a pretty drive. Lots of cows and trees, some rain here but not too heavy.

Santa Catalina is tiny. I don´t know how they survive off the two small stores, basically two or three restaurants and the guy by the side of the road that grills up a different dish each day. Yesterday it was sopa de pollo but the day before it was grilled pollo with an offering of platacones, or fried banana. They are like french fries only a million times better. Served ém up with katsup and call me done.

I think today we are going to drive back up to Santiago, over to Chitré and drop off the car. Probably bus up to Panama where we hope to find flights (today?) to San Blas, where we´ll spend the rest of vacation before getting back to Panama on Friday for our Saturday flight home.

How quickly that breaks down the trip. Just like that, poof! No more Panama, back to the sitting at the desk and the scarves and American pace of life.

I´d be a liar if I didn´t say I´m pretty bummed on the lack of surf. That´s pretty much all I wanted to focus on, fitting in the culture and foods around it. Still having an awesome time - how can I not - but it´s strange being in a hot, tropical place and not spending more time in the water. Or even near the water, for that point.

Going to hit the road now. Well, after I get my hands on Maria, that is.

no hay olas.

we´re on isla colon, in Bocas. got in to Panama City late Tuesday and caught a plane up here wednesday afternoon - that was quite the ordeal, i´ll have to write a post just about that. there have not been waves, and we are going to hit up breakfast after this internet stop and find a taxi that will take us to the mainland. there we will hop on a bus that will take us to the pacific side, where we hear there will be waves. might be sloppy but we need to get on it. our plan so far is to bus to the water, find a place to rent boards and take it from there.

alexis did a great job pairing the three of us up for this trip. we all get along and we are all on the same wavelength when it comes to figuring out what to do. there are definitely opinions and priorities but nobody seems too hellbent on doing something that the other two aren´t interested in. it´s good.

turns out we chose to visit panama not only when there are pretty much no waves, but also during the one month where they celebrate 7 or 8 holidays. out of those, four are observed during the week we are here. they had halloween and today is the second independence day (one from colombia, one from spain). yesterday was day of the dead which is some sort of religious holiday. we spent a good part of the day on a boat tour going around the islands - only really stopped on cay zapatillas (national park, on isla bastamentos?) where the beaches were a beautiful white sand with an abundance of big-leafed trees hanging over the water. really beautiful, painfully hot. all the water here is green, turquoise and so shimmery. i couldn´t stop looking at it as we were cruising on the boat. stopped a few times for snorkeling which was fun but i couldn´t compare it to the aquarium of fish and life in hawaiian snorkeling. waterproof camera case was a successful buy and i can´t wait to get out on a board with it.

other fun thing we´ve found is the bicicleta rentals. spent a good part of thursday biking around the island, at least until morgan had it with her chain breaking and we were dehydrated. we were planning on biking about 14km up to playa del drago; thankful we didn´t make it there. had to turn around after nearly 4km (i think?) of biking in the moist heat - not to mention we had only half a nalgene of water between the three of us... smart, right? turns out that was a good move because we hopped on a colectivo bus and for $3 each we got a ride up there. it was beautiful and it felt oh so good to be bobbing in the bluegreen water. the road up there was full of hills and cut right through the land so it wasn´t too scenic. beautiful, yes, but not the same as looking out at the water and islands. and we would have been punching ourselves for having to ride bikes back. not the thing you really want to do after relaxing for a few hours and having a beer.

oh, back to day of the dead real quick. so we went on that boat tour, got back and felt like it was a good time to drink. went back to the hotel, showered up and the three of us finished off this bit of vodka we had in our room. so we´re buzzed, right. walking into town we run into alexis/morgan´s friend jeff, who we stayed with on night 1, and he tells us about this holiday. apparently you cannot buy alcohol all day. stumped. all the stores, all the bars, nobody is selling alcohol. we had seen a hostel out of town a bit the day before, so we rent some bikes and start biking out there. the sun is setting and it´s a pretty good time to be riding a bike. nothing beats the heat and humidity like a little cruising.

we get to the hostel and the barkeeper tells us he isn´t religious and doesn´t celebrate this holiday. we order up some panama cerveza (which is pretty damn refreshing, got to find me some back home!) and play some cards. we figure it´s still pretty early and another drink is in line, but our bikes are due back. remembering the broken chain of thursday, we order some bloody marys and a margarita. i don´t know what this girl did to the drinks but they were amazing. she put frank´s red hot in the bloody marys and ...wow. we kept playing cards but had to return the bikes. needless to say, that was a fun ride home. potholes everywhere, it´s pretty much completely dark save for the few street lights. highly recommend riding bikes at night in panama.

we managed to keep ourselves occupìed until midnight, when the drums started. oh!the!drums!!! watched those for 15 or 20 and found our way to what we think was the only bar open. it´s over water, with these planks winding their way around. no fence or way to hold you in, which i found interesting. so did these drunk people a few hours later, when we saw them tossing each other in. people just kept pouring in, i couldn´t believe how the floor didn´t cave in. we danced and got sweaty and came home around 4am. have i mentioned how nice it is to not have a watch?

walking here today we saw probably four parades under way. they are really big on the drums and horns here, i can´t think of when i enjoyed watching and listening to drums so much. snare drums, big big bass drums, drums i am not sure the name of. they have been practicing for these parades all week so we´ve gotten a fair share of seeing and hearing them. today was pretty cool though, all the kids are decked out in their matching outfits. the girls had some boots on that i need to find back home. i wonder if they use zappos.com down here?

gotta run to eat now. probably not interwebbing for another few days but this brings me up to date. chau!