Look, there! Isn't that Elton John? Or maybe Olivia Newton John? And there's JOHN DENVER!

Goodwill is a never-ending stream of good times:

Goatymom is coming to Washington!

I’m super excited! I get to pick her up from the airport tonight at 8:30, and then we have five uninterrupted days of awesomeness ahead of us.

There will be sushi, there will be hiking, there will be a bike ride or three. There will be thrift stores.

Oh yes, there will be thrift stores.

I’m so stoked to see her! It’s been over a year since she’s been here, and in that time we’ve removed the nasty pink carpet from the trailer, and added a beautiful front porch and some plants. “Beautiful” being in the eye of the beholder, remember.

So as is customary when we see each other nowadays, we had our phone call yesterday morning:

“So, mom, whatcha doin’ tomorrow night?”

“Oh, I don’t know. No plans, really. Why do you ask?”

“Well, you wanna come over for dinner? Maybe spend a few days?”

“Yeah! That sounds like a great time!”

Of course, the airplane tickets were purchased long ago, and this is nowhere near a surprise, but I look forward to this conversation every time we get together.

Look forward to photos!

Graduation!

Cyndy graduated from high school today, and the sun came out just in
time for this photo.

Congratulations to her and her friends! They’re off towards new
adventures, and they’re soon to find out that life just gets better
and better after high school.

Our first CSA haul!

Today we picked up our first CSA box from Whistling Train Farm, and if this is any indication of things to come, we’re going to be eating really well this summer!

Two kinds of onions, shelling peas, pea shoots, beet greens, salad greens…I think that’s it for this week.

Off to go make a ham omelet with peas and onions!

Today's highlights

• Figured out how to execute a fake French manicure that looks neither trashy nor “done”.
• Drank a six-pack of off-brand beer that packed a heck of a punch.
• Petted a rescued Barred Owl named Hooligan. He was so soft! And trusting!
• Showed off the vintage viewmaster reels of Daniel Boone, ’60s Disneyland, and Gullivers Travels that were in the bottom of my purse.
• Took a crack at “Asshole Golf”, got a hole in one on my first try.
• Made a very straightlaced man blush to the roots of his hair.

The goat tower

If I had a herd of goats, I bet they’d like it if I built one of these for them.

The Thirtieth Year Project can see the finish line.

You all know that I write more than what appears on the front page here, right? That the Thirtieth Year Project is less than a month away from completion, and has become bigger than I expected that it would when I started?

Yes? Good. I’m glad you’re reading it.

But, I’ve been thinking more and more lately about what I’ll do when it’s over. Should I wash my hands of the whole daily blogging concept? Should I move on to the next idea and carry it out until my next birthday?

I’m leaning towards daily blogging, new topic.

Suggestions? What would you like to read or see in that space for the coming year?

I project the countenance of a small Mexican woman.

Yesterday, I met my friend’s boyfriend for the first time. My first thought upon meeting him is that she needs to get a new photograph to carry in her wallet, as he looks nothing like the photo she showed me.

Very pretty blue eyes on that one.

Apparently, he had a similar reaction about me. He hadn’t seen a photo of me, but from Leah’s stories he had always pictured me as a small Mexican woman. He was surprised to find a tall blond sitting in my chair. 

This pleases me to no end! As it turns out, I’m a small Mexican woman on the inside!

They make a cream for that.

I swear to all that is holy, if I hear the song “Sex on Fire” one more time, I’m going to chuck my radio right out the window.

DIY clogs, first pair.

So I went out for eggs and milk this evening, and while I was running errands anyway I headed into the Goodwill for a quick look around.

I didn’t really need anything, but these three leather belts caught my eye…all leather, rough edges without any stitches. One of them even had a gold floral pattern silkscreened onto it.

And then, like lightning, the idea for turning old belts into a pair of strappy clog sandals hit me. Seriously, I jumped about a foot in the air and let out a big grunt…other shoppers may have thought I was feeling a bit “unwell”.

I bought them, brought them home, and in the time it took Randall to make dinner I nailed the belts to the alderwood bases. If you recall, I purchased the bases from an established clogmaker a few weeks back. I’d tried other materials for the uppers, with limited success.

Because they were built around my foot, they fit like a dream! I’m on the lookout for brightly colored belts now for the other two pairs of bases.

I’ll be photographing a tutorial for the next pair, whenever I find enough leather.

It's official!

I have been accepted into the radiography program that I’ve been talking about for approximately forever! I’ll be starting on May 3, 2010, so a year from right now I’ll be a full time student again!

I guess that Dolly Parton outfit at the interview went a long way.

Weekend of memories.

This past weekend, Memorial Weekend here in the United States, Randy and I went to eastern Washington for a weekend of flying, barbecuing, and generally having fun with a group of friends.

I think, all told, there were about fifteen people in attendance, at various points during the weekend.

Saturday afternoon, we got a phone call from Cort, who told us that our friend Hugo was not going to survive the day, and if we wanted to say goodbye we’d better call right now. We hiked out into the wheat field where our phones had the tiniest bit of reception, and called Hugo in his hospital bed in Guadalajara.

Randy talked to him first, and then he handed me the phone. Hugo sounded the same as always, laughing and talking my ear off, telling me that he’s been doing some thinking. I guess finding out that you have just a couple of weeks to live makes you think pretty hard.

He said he spent some time looking out of his window at all of the people hurrying by on the sidewalk below, and thinking about the fact that every one of them will be facing death someday, even if not in the same way he’s facing it. He also said that he was glad to have me in his life, that he was happy to have been part of my life, and that our trip down to Casa Milagros for our wedding was one of the best times he could remember having in that house.

I could tell he was getting tired, and I didn’t want to take any more of his time away from Antonia, so I started to wrap up the conversation.

He said he loved me, I said I loved him back, and then we said goodbye.

I’m not certain at this point if he’s passed away yet, but I do know that I’ve talked to him for the last time. He’ll be missed, by more people than he could ever think would miss him.

Puppy in my office!

This seven-week-old Labradoodle spent yesterday in my office. His name
is Murphy, and he's still at the wobbly stage.

Coincidentally, there was also a seven-week-old baby there too for
about an hour, but apparently the puppy trumped the baby on my
priority list. Jess took care of the baby, I had dibs on the puppy,
everyone was happy.

Also, got my hair cut yesterday, with very satisfying results.

I feel some summer coming on.

Those of you who know me, even in passing, know that I’m not happy unless I’m juggling at least two projects.

Well, we’re gearing up for summer, and I’m planning all sorts of ways to recycle the fabric from two too-flimsy-to-fly paraglider wings. Grocery sacks, strong but light! Comforter filled with synthetic down! Windbreaker!

I think the comforter is the winner at the moment, but I’d welcome any suggestions you may have. There’s a ton of fabric from two gliders.

Also, in my quest for cute summer shoes with the limitation that they must be wood soled clogs, I’m not finding anything suitably adorable in my price range. Therefore, I’m going to make my own. I’ve procured three pairs of clog bases in my size from Anna clogs, and I’m sketching leather configurations for the tops.

SO EXCITED! I’ll post photos, don’t you worry.

"Are you from Canada?"

When I mentioned to this group of hikers that their dachshunds were
about the tenth such intrepid hiking doxies that I’d seen today, her
only response was “Are you from Canada?”

Another guest post!

Oh boy, do I love making lists!

And spring cleaning!

Put them together, and you’ve got the scenario for a guest post over at the Secret Society of List Addicts!

Swine Flu...are you panicked yet?

I’ve been following the Swine Flu coverage in the media with a curious ear, but not a panicked posture. In general, my distrust of the American Media trumps my interest in its topics; watching the two years of election coverage and various other blown-out-of-proportion media circuses have soured me on trusting FOX news, or even CNN, on matters of public concern.

Part of the problem is that many media outlets underestimate the intelligence of their viewing audience, and dumb down their reports to meet the (presumed) cognitive abilities of the American public. While this undoubtedly helps many people get a grasp on what’s going on in the most general sense, it also has the unfortunate effect of oversimplifying to the point of making everything black-and-white, good-or-bad, life-or-death.

When popular media outlets give reports of Swine Flu deaths, there is always the implied “and it could happen to you!” in their grave delivery that sends many people into worry and panic. What they don’t say is that billions upon billions of people do not have Swine Flu, and that most people who come into contact with the virus will make antibodies and will never show any unusual symptoms. However, that doesn’t attract an audience, so the fear-mongering continues.

The Scientific American has been a very valuable source of information for me, and the article that has helped me the most was an interview with Chris Olsen from the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.

In the interview, he starts with some basics, such as “what constitutes a pandemic virus is when a virus enters the human population—a virus we’ve never seen before in human beings—while everyone is simultaneously susceptible.” This is perhaps the best definition of “pandemic” that I have heard yet, and illustrates that nobody had antibodies for the H1N1 Swine Flu virus at the moment it transferred to humans.

Is it worth panicking about? Taking into consideration the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, up to 1/3 of the world’s population may have been infected, and of those who were infected the death rates were 2.5 to 5 percent—up to 50 times the mortality seen in other influenza outbreaks. That works out to about 50 million people who died from the Spanish Flu, and in that regard, consider that 1918 was before antibiotics had been discovered. It is likely that most of the people who died from the 1918 Spanish Flu succumbed to pneumonia caused by opportunistic bacteria who took advantage of their flu-weakened immune systems (National Institute of Health website). Considering the medical advances that have been made in the last 90 years, panicking at less than 200 people dead from Swine Flu is unwarranted.

Stephen Hume of the Vancouver Sun compares the two outbreaks in the best explanation that I’ve seen. I tried to paraphrase, but he’s got all the information compiled so eloquently that I would rather quote him for a few paragraphs:

“It’s estimated that about 28 per cent of Canadians and Americans contracted the Spanish flu. Worldwide, an estimated 2.5 per cent of the sick died of complications, which made the pandemic one of the most lethal flu outbreaks in recorded history. Certainly it was one that imprinted itself upon human consciousness for several generations.

But there’s another way to look at those statistics. You might observe, for example, that they mean that even during the worst ravages of the 1918 flu, 97.5 per cent of those infected survived and recovered. Or that 72 per cent of the population — even in the absence of the sophisticated public health planning and infrastructure that Canada and the U.S. have since built — was not infected during the pandemic.

So, even if we had a repeat of the 1918 flu, the chances were seven out of 10 that you wouldn’t catch it and if you did, the odds were better than nine out of 10 that you’d survive.

That was during the worst pandemic of the modern era and one which occurred in the days before the instantaneous communications of radio, television and the Web enabled quick public health responses.”

That is not to say that the experiences of the families of the dead are trivial. Each death is a tragedy. But while one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. Unless and until the H1N1 Swine Flu grows in its scope to even a fraction of the impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu, it should not be a cause for panic. Proper hygiene and common sense measures, such as avoiding contact with people who are sick, and sneezing into your sleeve rather than your hand, are the day-to-day measures that we can take to avoid becoming ill. Beyond that, there is nothing else that any individual can do to absolutely guarantee that we will not become ill, and panic leads to stress which can lead to a compromised immune system, increasing one’s chances of sickness.

And that’s something to think about.

This crab lived for five more minutes.

This crab burrowed into the sand to hide from a mean old seagull who was intent on eating him.

Unfortunately, he lost.

Within five minutes of this photo, the seagull smashed the crab’s brains out on a rock and feasted on his innards.

This scene played out just outside our rental on the Oregon coast where, coincidentally, we will be killing and eating crabs in about six hours.

Update on Sunday, May 3, 2009 at 11:11PM by LJ

The crab dinner was fantastic! If you ever get the chance to boil crabs, the secret to making them easy to peel is to “shock” them in ice after they come out of the boiling water. It makes the flesh shrink back slightly from the shell, allowing it to be plucked out neatly.

Well, not neatly, but not as messy as it would be otherwise.

Interview on Friday May 1st!

No, not a job interview. Even better…it’s the interview for admission to the program I’ve been talking about for nigh on a year now.

This is pretty much the outfit, save for a few small details. The sleeves on my actual jacket are 3/4 length, but I couldn’t find an equivalent on Polyvore. My shoes are deep purple patent leather, with a 2” heel. And while I will be wearing a rooster necklace, it’s not the one that’s pictured, but the one that’s pictured is now on my wish list.

Wish me luck!

Interview for degree program by goatygoat featuring D&G blouses

Update on Friday, May 1, 2009 at 07:49PM by LJ

The interview went well, I have a 50/50 chance of getting in. At this point, I’ve done what I can do, and I’ll just have to be patient.

I should know one way or the other by the end of May!

Also, as I was sitting in the lobby waiting for my interview to begin, a tall young black man in a bowler hat and white suede shoes complimented my suit by telling me I looked just like Dolly Parton.

Gilbert Gottfried

Randy and I went out tonight for drinks and dessert, and while we were there decided to have an appetizer as well.

The establishment typically didn’t have appetizers on the menu, but our bartender friend fetched the best platter from the kitchen that either of us can remember…sauteed prawns and a big pile of caramelized sweet onions, beefsteak tomatoes, and a wedge of the stinkiest bleu cheese imaginable, all drizzled with balsamic glaze.

It went well with my 12 year Glenmorangie. Did it ever!

There were two really trashed young women sitting next to us, with one bar stool in between Randy and the fluffy haired blond in the see-through fluttery hoochie shirt (we’ll call her Tammy). Her friend (Faye) was a nondescript brunette wearing black from head to toe, and if there’s a differential of intoxication at that point, we’d have to say she was the drunker of the two.

Hard to tell, though.

Anyways, Tammy leaned over and squealed at Randy “Ohmygosssshh, you look just like my friend…Freddy!”

We asked her about Freddy.

Turns out Freddy’s 29 years old and looks like Gilbert Gottfried.

And the strange thing is, I think she meant it as a compliment.