So That Happened

It appears that I'm making a game of introducing segments to my blog that I promptly forget about. (I'm pulling a TBTL, if that means anything to you. Which it probably doesn't.) Considering my recent hiatus, you'd think I would have a veritable cache of awkward and embarrassing moments stored away for self-exploitation. Is this the case? Absolutely not. Am I going to share my lack of news with you anyway? You betcha.

1. During the Sounders/FC Dallas game on Wednesday night, Dallas earned a questionable corner kick off of what should have been a foul against Seattle. As the player positioned himself to take the kick, you could hear one man in the stands screaming, "BOO! BOO! BOOOO!" I immediately squealed. Why? Because the exact same thing was shouted by this woman:

Romantic comedy nerds will know her by name as the Old Lady in The Princess Bride Who Shouts "Boo!" Though I have just added the entire FC Dallas roster to my mental hit list, I am grateful to the conniving player who elicited such an exclamation of hatred from my fellow Sounders supporter. I am also considering adding the rest of this woman's jeer--"Rubbish, filth, slime, muck!"--to my repertoire of sports insults. Maybe I'll toss it in after the requisite "You suck, asshole!" following a goal kick by the other team's goalie. (I don't make the rules, I just abide by them.)

2. I went to put on my exercise shirt the other morning, which I so sanitarily keep crumpled in a damp ball on my floor until I use it the next day, and out of the left sleeve crawled a gigantic spider. I let out a yelp and dropped the shirt, but managed to snap a quick photo before the satanic arachnid scurried away: 

 

3. I have now watched this movie four times in the past week and a half: 

I'm not going to explain what "this movie" is. If you are reading this and have even so much as passed me on the sidewalk, you should already know. You should also know that I plan on watching it again tonight.

4. I have just learned that Christopher Meloni, aka Elliot Stabler on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, has retired from the show. He is done as of last week's season finale. I texted my friend Lindsay, with whom I made SVU fan t-shirts in high school. Here is the gist of our conversation. It's edited; I couldn't help myself:

Me: Christopher Meloni is leaving SVU. I am beyond consolation.

Linds: Now I'm miserable, too. That is a waste of my 11-year dedication.

Me: Seriously. We made shirts!

Linds: I'm about to draft up an angry ass letter!

Me: Please do. And mail it to Dick Wolf.

Linds: I'm gonna send him his horse's head in a box. A big box.

Me: Make it a series of tiny boxes. Don't have the decency to keep the head intact.

As you can see, we're serious about our SVU. What makes us the angriest, though, is not that Christopher Meloni is leaving but that he's leaving before his character develops a romantic relationship with his partner, Olivia Benson. Move over, Shakespeare--Dick Wolf is the new master of tragedies.

5. I have a map of the world hanging on my wall with pushpins indicating the states and countries I have visited. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (my fish) live on the shelf directly below the map. Because I'm extremely paranoid that my cat is going to jump up onto the shelf and swat them out (which, if you've ever seen my cat, is a complete joke), I have a square of plastic mesh attached to the top of the bowl by a rubber band. Occasionally a pushpin will drop from the wall and get caught in mesh. It's a convenient system. Except when I remove the mesh to feed R & G and accidentally knock a pin--or two four--into the bowl. I'm pretty sure my fish hate me.

6. I just shared this with Lindsay (aka half of my readership), but I will share it again because it has quickly become my favorite dream, narrowly edging out the procession of Sesame Street characters marching through my house during a fire. Last night I dreamt that Mariskay Hargitay (pictured left) and I were paddling through a salt marsh in dog costumes. We docked, deciding we wanted to explore the nearby outdoor grocery store. As we were weaving through the aisles, Mariska spotted a group of co-workers from the office. To avoid being seen in our canine costumes, we snuck into the arctic penguin exhibit at the end of the aisle. (Because you often encounter zoo displays in outdoor grocery stores.) We snuck away from the store and headed down the hill to our rowboat, but not before some man in hunting garb commenced to pelt me in the neck with foam darts from his quiver. Evidently I found that an opportune moment to ask Mariska if she was in love with Elliot Stabler, to which she responded, "Of course. But he doesn't love me." My heart broke. I woke up.

Blue Cheese in the Bathroom (or, Cous Cous Graduates!)

My cousin Naomi is now the latest member of the Gibbs clan to earn a college degree. She graduated this past weekend from Whitman in Walla Walla, and my parents and I drove down for the ceremony and a mini family reunion with Naomi and her parents. Way too much happened for me to regurgitate everything, so here's an abbreviated version:

 1. Wine tasting at Dusted Valley Winery. We must have sampled eight wines and posed for close to 8,000 photos with Graduation Bama, who dug his old graduation gown and cap out of his closet for the festive occasion. (I realize I managed to pick the one picture from this outing that does not feature a wine glass.)

2. Thai dinner. Here we are singing one of the songs, probably "Sisters," from White Christmas. We also paid homage to the classic movie with renditions of "Snow" (complete with sound effects), "Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army," and "What Can You Do with a General?" That was also the evening of the Great Water Mishap--allow me to explain: our waitress supplied our table with a single carafe of ice water. There were six of us, so we finished the water fairly quickly. We asked for two more carafes, at which point we were told that they didn't have any more. Toward the end of the meal--I'm talking right as we were paying the check--the waitress appeared with the extra carafe that they supposedly did not have. (Our existing one was half full at that point, so we weren't exactly parched.) Not only did she leave the second carafe, but she came around with another pitcher and filled all our empty glasses...and then left the pitcher.

3. I don't have any photographic evidence of this next one, but it's the namesake of this post so it must be included. Before dinner at the Thai restaurant, we had hors d'oeuvres in our hotel room. The previous weekend I had gone to the Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market with my friends and had been given strict orders by my mother to purchase a "nice" blue cheese to take to Walla Walla. I am not what you might call a connoisseur of blue cheese (in fact, I hate it), so I had my friends try various samples and help me choose. Fast forward to the hotel room. My mom opened the plastic wrapper encasing the wedge of vile cheese, and immediately the room was ripe with its odor. I find the smell nauseating, so I insisted that the cheese be located not on the desk with the rest of the spread, but in the bathroom with the door mostly closed. When my mom was explaining the food (because apparently a plate of wasabi peas and a bowl of rice crackers require an explanation), she announced that there was "brie and mozzarella on the desk and blue cheese in the bathroom." My extended family, bless their hearts, didn't even bat an eye.

4. Naomi (Cousin Gibbs, Cous Cous) graduates! While we were waiting for the ceremony to begin, we were serenaded by the musical stylings of the Walla Walla Orchestra, who cycled through all the requisite songs for such an occasion: "Sweet Caroline," "Hallelujah," "Build Me Up Buttercup," and everyone's favorite quintessential graduation ditty, "Poker Face."(Seriously. I have video.) Aside from the remarkably bizarre commencement speaker who dedicated her speech to female gangs and the prevalence of women in prison, it was a lovely ceremony. 
 
5. Dinner at T. Maccarone's, where Naomi and I went for brunch when I visited her in February. Because it was a Gibbs/Margoshes outing, chaos was bound to ensue. First, my aunt asked for a glass of prosecco. They were out. Then she ordered carpaccio (I forget what kind). They were out. Then my uncle ordered a spring salad because it advertised having a soft boiled egg. When the salad came, there was no egg. He asked the waiter who said--you guessed it--that they were out. When we'd finished the meal, the waiter brought the dessert menu. "You can have anything you'd like," he said, "but I'm told we're out of..." and proceeded to list each one of the six desserts. "Just kidding!" he said, and left us to our decision. 

I'm trusting that my dear cousin will inform me if I've neglected anything of note. 

CONGRATULATIONS, NAOMI! I LOVE YOU!

Lilac Season

Sun is once again taking up 15 minutes of the evening news. Correspondents are approaching sunbathers at Gas Works Park and asking them how they feel now that it's finally above 63 degrees. People are wearing shorts and tank tops in weather that would be considered frigid anywhere else in the country. They're neglecting sunscreen. Their skin is on fire.

They're happy.

And me, I'm spending my days sitting under our lilac bush with my eyes closed, inhaling the fragrance of everything beautiful. It's finally lilac season. There is nothing lovelier, nothing more perfect, than this flower--delicate, aromatic clusters of purple sagging from their branches like springtime grapes. Life is unfurling. I am surrounded by golden evening sunlight and air so sweet I wish I never had to exhale. I am discovering the perfection you can't see. I am allowing myself to breathe. 

I am happy.

That Toddlin' Town

I've often thought that if something is good enough for Frank Sinatra, it's good enough for me. This time, that something is the toddlin' town of Chicago.

I want to move to Chicago. I have never been to Chicago, but I want to move to Chicago. My parents have tried to subtly suggest that perhaps I should reconsider. My mother doesn't think I would like Chicago (direct quote: "I don't think you would like Chicago.") My dad wants to know if I'm planning on visiting before I move, to which I respond that I didn't visit Melbourne before I moved there, and that was the greatest year of my life. (I have no qualms about broadcasting this on my blog because I happen to know for a fact that my parents won't read this until I'm dead.)

I love me a good coastal metropolis. That alone is a reason to move, but I've got more. Everything wonderful in this world is in Chicago: Ira Glass; Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!; an elevated train (which, in my opinion, is the most astonishing advancement in public transit ever); the tallest building in the western hemisphere. Oh, and a giant reflective bean in the middle of the city. It's like Chicago was built to my exact specifications.

I have spent the past month or so absorbed in daydreams of what my life would be like if I were to pack up and move across the country. I would go running in each of the city's 552 parks. I would attend at least one live taping of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! every month. I would ride the El every chance I got. I would retrace the steps taken by Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman in the romantic comedy While You Were Sleeping (which I may or may not have watched three times last week). Also, I would take up yoga. 

I went to the library the other day and checked out a guidebook to Chicago. I read it front to back. Twice. And then I checked out two more. I've researched jobs and apartments on the Chicago Craigslist. I even--and I consider this the most blatant pro-move indication--knew the answer to the Thursday crossword's clue: "The heart of Chicago, with 'the'."

Nevermind that I don't have a job. Nevermind that my life has collapsed into a by-the-minute routine in which I make sure to finish my breakfast before 8:00 on the dot and then sit down to read for an hour so I can be fully digested in time for my run, which lasts from exactly 9:10 to 9:40, unless of course I have chosen my short run that lasts until 9:25, or my medium short run that lasts until 9:31 and 30 seconds, or my short long run that lasts until 9:34. Nevermind that you couldn't even use binoculars to see the time in my life when I might potentially be in a position to move. 

I am going to move. 

I am going to move.

I am going to move.