Thai one on...

Today has been a series of ups and downs. This morning I had the great pleasure to talk architecture with a reporter from the Austin-American Statesman working on a story about a building I wrote a National Register nomination for eight years ago. He found my name through my blog so that was cool. Not cool was getting to the confrence 10 minutes early, only to find 1) that almost all of the breakfast food was gone and 2) that both the sessions I was interested in were full. Portland has a strict policy that if a breakout room is full there is no standing room..I ended up coming back to the room and worked on some emails and course stuff. I tried to go to the second session of the morning only to be foiled again.. Full...

At 2:00 central I gave a long-distance lecture to my tourism class using a webcam. That worked out pretty well, and I had just enough time to catch lunch at the conference..WRoNG! They were out of lunches when I got there. They were about 50 short.. talk about mutiny. There is nothing so bad as 5o interpreters who are hungry and waiting on food...I finally was able to eat and did actually get to attend a pretty good session over technology and interpretation- using iphones, gps, and ipods to do tours at museums and nature sites.

Afterwards I met up with my good pals from High School and got to hang out at their awesome home. The highlight was a fabulous 4 course meal at a rocking Thai place. Pad Thai, Drunken Noodle, Tom Kha soup and spring rolls..yum..plus good company and the most adorable little boys ever..

Unfortunately as the evening has worn on, I am working on a raging sore throat and earache..I'm hoping that it will be gone by morning..I've got a bookstore and a whole street full of vintage clothing shops calling my name.

It's a new day

The sun is shining, the birds are singing and best of all- I'm going to get to see Kealy this weekend! Woo-HOO!!

I had a hard time sleeping last night because I kept thinking of all those books.. just sitting in that enormous bookstore, calling my name. I'm taking a tour of Portland's China town tomorrow, but hopefully I can steal away for a few more hours at Powell's. It must be love...

Portland

I'm here in Portland, and guess what? It's raining! Last night, after a full day of travel, I wasn't so sure that I was happy to be here. I gave my presentation to a packed room today and I think it went okay. I had a few questions from the audience and no one threw organic tomatos or recycled plastic ware. A few thought on Portland:

1) It's beautiful. There are gorgeous trees with leaves every shade of red, orange and yellow.

2) It prides itself on its sustainability. I ate dinner at a Burgerville last night. The menu featured sweet potato fries or regular, organic pumpkin shakes and non-hormone crazed beef..

3)People are generally very friendly and pretty talky.

Tonight I ate at this crazy restaurant called Sushiland. It had a conveyor belt resplindent with sushi, nigiri, edamame and more. I had a spicy crunchy tuna, miso soup, edamame, a veggie roll and a tempura shrimp roll plus a Black Butte Porter for $11.50. Can you believe it? Next stop was Powell's books. Apparently it is the world's largest independent bookstore. At 68,000 square feet of heaven, I can't imagine anything any bigger. I was there an hour and didn't make it out of the children's section.

I'm hoping to catch up with Kealy over the weekend and tomorrow night some friends from high school are taking me out for Thai food. I miss my family - Red Menance, the Snapper, Scotty and of course Jingo too.. as you can see, I'm salving my wounds with GOOD FOOD!

remembering October

I've gotta tell you. I am ready for a change. Not the political kind, although I gotta say that is pretty exciting, but a change from feeling the damp cloud of sadness that came with the month of October this year.

At the beginning of the month we lost my mother's sister.. my aunt Bettye. My aunt had been ill since a stoke nearly two years ago. She was ready to go, even though the rest of us weren't ready to let her go. Her death was a surprise to me, though it shouldn't have been. My uncle, who had been her partner for over 44 years, held up remarkably well at her funeral. I offered to write the obituary, but he decided against an obituary. As it turned out, I ended up writing the eulogy, which the minister read verbatim over her grave at the funeral. It wasn't written to be a complete eulogy, and I left out some of the things I remember about my aunt: that she would always kiss our hands, close them and say "lock it up, lock it up" when we would leave their house in Dallas. That she used cameo soap. That she liked to have her feet rubbed. She never had children, and my sister and I were her closest neices to my knowlege.

I had been thinking of her, missing her most of the month when we lost our dog Pogo. So many people have sent cards, sent kind thoughts and said comforting words to us. One of the sweetest cards said that "one day we will be able to remember his antics and laugh." I know it is true..we had so many good times with him.

So as you can see, I'm ready for a change. I'm ready to get going with November.

Ike!

Well, we made it through remarkably well, considering that this image is just about 75 feet from our house. We, unlike so many of our friends and famillies, have power. We were only out of power from 12:30 p.m. on Saturday until about 7:30 p.m. I have no idea how that is possible, but I'll take it.

Our neighborhood was hit really hard, with massive trees down everywhere. The Daily Sentinel has some good pics of the path of Ike as it made its way through Nac.

Last night we had some folks over for an electricity party, and my parents are staying with us. Now for the clean up!

Hunker down now Y'all...

I'm interested in where the term hunker down originates from. I don't recall hearing it much outside of old war movies until we waited out Hurricane Rita last time. Even thought the digital sign at Walgreens' consistently reminds us to by a NOAA weather radio for only $29.99, we still only have our regular old battery operated AM/FM deal. During Rita, we all came into the front living room, turned the radio on and listened as announcers took calls all over East Texas from those who were hunkering down. A typical call went like this..

Announcer: "Howdy, you are on KFROG FM. What's it like where you are?"
Caller: "Well Sammy Bob, the missus and I are hunkered down here in Broaddus. We're at my Aunt Lil's watching the pine trees snap like toothpicks at a Catfish King"

Since NPR had abandoned the airwaves we were stuck with *gasp* E. Texas commercial radio during the duration of Rita..Caller after caller noted how they were "hunkering down".

This time around I'm making sure we have all the essentials:

batteries - check
flashlights -check
diapers - check
Books 3 & 4 of Twillight - double check

I can't think of anything else we'd need to hunker down...

(really) wish you were here

Greetings from Anchorage! I'm on day 4 of my 10 or so day trip and I am experiencing something I haven't had since I left Texas.. Quiet! There is a pretty big group of us here, including my major professor and her family, another graduate student and her extended family and a researcher and videographer. All in all it has been pretty good. Here are the Highlights so far:

• Staying at this place in Cooper's Landing, and having a morning hot tub soak next to this unbelieveably blue river.


• Eating well. We haven't eaten out once, but since we have some Taiwanese folks on the trip, they are making some really fantastic dishes. Tonight was a vegetable soup that was really good. I also had a famous Reindeer dog from M.A.'s hotdog stand. Grilled onions, cream cheese, reindeer...what more can I say?


• The scenery. Too bad photos don't do it any justice.


• Rees has had a good time. Today she went with all the kiddos to the Alaska Zoo. She's also hiked on the back of someone up to the rapidly receeding Exit Glacier.

The Lowlights:

• Being away from my husband and family


• Having to work, and not being a tourist. Interviewing is hard for me,and I'm a little uncomfrotable approaching people.


• Not being able to hang out in Anchorage, or go on a charter boat out of Seward


• Getting up early and working until midnight or later

Being away from Rees during the day and missing her adventures
Not making the fab joint birthday of Chrissy and Mary

I'm hoping to post more later...here are some pics from the trip so far.