Spinster Life Lesson #37: Learn to multi-task.

This blog writing thing would go a lot better if I wasn't also trying to watch the entire season of The Mindy Project in my two days off. It is hard to write anything in the two inches of space I've allowed myself at the bottom of the screen as this show plays out on the top 90% of the screen.

Question, am I multitasking right now? Or is this pretty much the lamest thing you've ever heard of?

It is also hard to write a blog when the dogs are in the backyard barking. Or trying to eat things. And trying to pull garbage out the cat door. It takes a lot of yelling out the second floor window of a house to get two asshole dogs to knock it off. I don't understand why our neighbors hate us.

True story. The neighbors name is Brie. Someone with my same name hates me which sounds more nemesis-ish than someone named Sally hating me.

I could hear some banging around going on out there just now, which prompted me to press pause on Mindy, stop typing, and head to the window to yell. Before even looking I screamed "Goddamn it you goddamn jackasses! Knock it off."

Which is when I realized the dogs were sunbathing and that a homeless person was going through our recycling.

Sigh.

So I have a new celeb crush.

When your best friend texts you multiple times to tell you about some hot dude on a TV show, you are bound by bro code to check that person out. And if it snowballs into wasting two days watching a TV show, then you should probably send that best friend a thank you card.

Early Summer: Use It Wisely

1. shrimp ceviche / 2. pickled red onions / 3. super duper yummy steak dinner

1. made a yellow banner / 2. planted herbs & flowers / 3. paper mobile

1. Seeley & the Bear / 2. Mondo the Grandma / 3. Mondo the Beggar

I'm so in love with summer. Or spring. I guess spring. Though it was hot, hot, hot for a few days. Now it is overcast and grey, as Portland should be.

But I used the nice days wisely. 

I cooked things.

I crafted.

I gardened.

And it was glorious. 

Four Days at the Coast.

Gather round, friends, it is time for the dreaded vacation slideshow.

Not really. But sort of.

On Monday, AM, IK, Seeley, Mondo and I set off on a little mini-vacation. Destination, Beverley Beach Oregon for a bit of camping.

It was a super fun blast. The weather was great. Beautiful. Not a drop of rain. We were prepared with several large tarps and a pop-up awning. But we didn't have a single drop of rain. Thank you, Mother Earth.

What follows is a quick re-cap of our fun and not so-fun adventures through some pictures I took along the way.

Most Photogenic: The landscape and horizon definitely take the cake for most beautiful part of the vacation. Both by day or by night, I always feel most myself while at the coast.

Best Part / Most Exasperating:  The best part of the trip was definitely seeing IK. He moved to Seattle at the beginning of the year. It was so much fun to see him and he had a blast. But boy howdy, is it hard to run herd on a 4 year-old.

On our last night, we sat around the fire telling ghost stories, which for IK's sake were really just stories that involved Casper the Friendly Ghost. I told a really long story about a little boy who secretly took a monkey home from the zoo and the monkey got away and was lost in the house. At the end of the story the little boy told his mom about the missing monkey and after Casper reunited them, they took the monkey back to the zoo. The End. Except that IK added this last sentence "And then the monkey sneaked back into his backpack and went home again."

Scariest Moment: On our first morning, I was cooking breakfast. I was not using my Boy Scout skills and being safe. Which resulted in a small incident with the grease in the sausage pan that splashed and burned my face. I was okay, my glasses saved my eyes. But now my face looks like I've been doing meth for the past year. If you hear a rumor about what a wreck I look, please defend my honor. This picture doesn't do the actual damage justice. I currently have what looks like open sores (burns) on my face. Sigh.

Best Side Trip: While we did hit up the Yaquina Head Lighthouse and had a yummy picnic, the trip was sort of a bust since IK was in major need of a nap. So in my opinion, the best side trip we took was into Newport. We ate some tasty ice cream, walked around the bay front. And saw these seals.

I was also able to buy an emergency nose stud as at some point on Day 1, the bar in my nose fell out. I spent a few days worried my nose piercing was going to close up. 

Most Miserable: While having a "category" for most miserable seems like a terrible thing for a vacation blog, the good news is that this goes to the dogs. 

Mondo was miserable because he was cold, something he solved by putting himself to bed in the tent anytime the sun went down. Seeley was miserable because she was on a leash. She also got in trouble a lot when she was off-leash because she really, really, really, really wanted to play with all the other dogs on the beach whether they were on a leash or not. 

Most Delicious: The food, of course! Despite some pretty soggy hash browns the first day, we did eat like kings. 

Most Missed: Sort of a throwaway, but technology! We actually used a real map at one point when I couldn't remember the highway that would cut us over the freeway and home through Salem. While luckily IK was able to play games and watch shows AM had on her phone that didn't require cell service, we were pretty much at the mercy of good old fashioned entertainment. Games and reading. Which was sort of nice. Except if you wanted to do something like Google "Tide Pools at Yaquina Bay." And we could recharge our cell phones in the car, which is how I was able to take several hundred photos of the beach. What can I say? I love the beach!

And now we are home. I'm headed to work in a little bit and AM has to drive IK back to Seattle.

It was a fun and fairly blissful four days away from everything and everyone. I can't wait to do it again!

I do what I want.

I'm clearly very concerned with my appearance. 

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than looking like a bum. I usually look like a librarian or a Goodwill (Industries) ambassador. I'm a spinster chameleon.

So when I show up looking like I put some effort into my appearance, people usually comment. I think they are trying to subtly encourage me to continue looking decent.

One day I showed up with some sweet romantic waves. A lot of people noticed it and commented on the general niceness of my hairstyle.

Well jokes on them.

I woke up with my hair like that. Mostly. A few bobby pins to pin up the back. Done.

Thank you to three whiskey sours the night before, a forgotten bobby pin - left in overnight - and the faint remnants of two day old hairspray.

Bobby Pins, Hair Spray, Whiskey Sours. I salute you. You are real American heroes.

I've been wearing this bright orange hat lately. The other night, my roommate AM joked "I can't wait for 2 years from now when you'll look at pictures of yourself in that hat and say 'what was I thinking?'" 

The problem with that statement is that I don't really have any shame about my appearance. I don't get dressed - up or down - for anyone but myself.

So I'm going to rock this orange hat until it falls apart. Or Mondo eats it. Whatever comes first.

Bry Hoeg, Reluctant Zombie Hunter

I'm very susceptible to certain types of imagery.

I see things and then dream of them later. I'm afraid of certain things and any reminder of my fears leads to dreams.

I spent a good five years of my life having continuous snake dreams.

I don't watch scary movies because I will dream about them later. There is no question, the things on the screen will haunt my dreams.

Yesterday I came home and sat down on the couch and reached for the TV remote.  As the TV flashed on I thought, oh yeah, I'm not supposed to watch TV. And then, there on the screen, was the unmistakable image of a zombie lurching down a dirt road.

"Yep. That's a zombie," I said, and immediately clicked the TV off.

I immediately knew that this zombie was a harbinger of bad dreams.

One might say, "Bry, you set yourself up for bad dreams by acknowledging that the zombie scares you and what scares you gives you nightmares. You told your brain to dream about zombies."

That is now how this works.

Every night when I fall asleep, I tell my brain to dream about Peter Dinklage or James McAvoy. Or Peter Dinklage AND James McAvoy at the same time.

And I never dream about either of them, let alone the oddest three-way ever.

Sometimes I tell my brain to dream about tropical vacations and cold rum drinks. And I never dream about beaches or booze.

Sometimes I tell my brain to dream about winning the lottery.

But I usually dream about yelling at people.

I don't like zombies. I don't like scary things. I don't even want to watch movies about zombies and Brad Pitt. But that's mostly because I haven't like Brad Pitt in a movie since he was a greasy, hipster, moonraker.

Or this very one scene in a movie in which he was sort of likeable.

So no zombies for me.

I decided, post-zombie shock, I should go outside and do some yard work, since that is one of the reasons I shouldn't be watching TV. Plus some hard labor would give me something else to think about, other than things that could eat my brains.

And then I got locked in the backyard for an hour and a half and completely forgot about zombies while I was trying to think of a creative way to get back in the house.

Long (and boring) story short, by the end of those 90 minutes, the garage was very clean and orderly and then I got a ladder and climbed in a very high window that should have been locked. No time to think of anything scary other than death by cold weather while locked in one's very own backyard.

So when I woke up in the middle of the night, sweaty and panicked, it was not because of Dinklage or McAvoy.

Nope.

Zombies.

I dreamed of zombies. Three times I feel back asleep, only to be woken in fear.

Zombies.

Ack.

I will have you know, in my dreams, I was very adept at snapping the necks of zombies. I was excellent at grabbing their jaws with a rake and tearing their mushy faces off their bodies. But I also cried the entire time.

When the shit hits the fan, you want me on your team.

Just bring Kleenex.