"Olivia! At least wait until I die!"

I'll give you $20 if you can guess what I said to elicit that response.
(This excludes you, Sara Myers, because we just discussed this.)

Okay. I'm just going to tell you.

1. This is a photograph of an apple. This particular apple has been put through my mom's apple corer that simultaneously cores the apple and slices the fruit in a spiral. This core got stuck so my mom stopped partway through and cut off the part that was already sliced.

When I walked into the kitchen and saw this on the counter, I burst out laughing. "What?" my mom asked. I picked up the apple, nearly doubled over. "Do you see this thing?" Her smile was quickly replaced by that look she gets when she's trying to be scornful but is actually secretly amused. "Yes I see it," she said. "And I know what you see, but I don't see what you see." You couldn't pay her for better quips than this.

So at this point I was basically on the floor (I know, it's really not that funny). "I'm putting this on my blog!" I gasped. "I already posted that you did the hula!"

And that's when it came: The Gold Nugget of my month. "Oh God, Olivia! At least wait until I die!"

I most certainly will not, Mother.

So That Happened

This has been quite the week. Buckle your seatbelts.

1) I'm currently taking a break from filling out my ballot, which I have not actually begun to fill out yet. The first thing I did when I reached for the voter's pamphlet was accidentally drool on myself. Nothing says "I'm a mature and capable citizen of these here United States" quite like expelling a huge wad of spit onto my own chest.

2) The other morning I was halfway to Seattle on the bus when I realized I'd forgotten to put on deodorant.

3) Two days in a row when I arrived at work, my keyboard was missing. Rather than search for it around the office, I sat down at another computer. Several hours later, one of my editors walked by. "Hey Olivia," she said. "Just felt like moving today?" All of a sudden it seemed very very childish to respond, "Someone stole my keyboard!" I just nodded.

4) I just found a typo on my ballot: "This proposition would authorize King County to fix and impose an additional sales and use tax of 0.2% spilt between the county (60%) and cities (40%)." I am glad, though, that they've done their math correctly. Those two percentages do indeed add up to 100. So at least Washington state has that going for it. Update: I found the same error in the voter's pamphlet. In a way, it doesn't matter now if Dino Rossi becomes our new senator. We can't even spell "split."

5) I spent all day Thursday transcribing an interview the senior editor had recorded using a dinky ghetto tape recorder. A tape recorder. Remember those...from back before the Big Bang? So I plugged in my earphones but the sound was only coming out of one ear. Off to a great start. The interview took place in a coffee shop, so if I had the volume up too loud there was too much background noise, and if I had it down too low I couldn't hear the woman's responses. I swear the barista was trying to sabotage the interview, because every time the woman started to say something that sounded like it might be important, the milk steamer would start or someone would shout out an order. From the constant stopping and rewinding--often upwards of 30 times to decipher a single word--I doubt I got more than ten minutes into the tape. At one point, after listening to one line approximately 25 times, I was convinced the woman said "seat in Vermont." Of course this made absolutely zero sense in the context of the question. I had another intern listen to it, and on the first time she was able to tell me that the correct phrase was "meet with her mom." Why am I the worst transcriber ever?

6) I was filling out the crossword this morning (and by "filling out," I mean reading a clue, deciding I have no idea what it even means, and moving on to the next one). The clue for 1 Across was something along the lines of "These two letters spell confection." In my head I was trying to envision the logo for pure cane sugar. I knew it was pink and blue and started with a C. I wasn't positive, but I was fairly certain the second letter was W. I asked my mom, and rather than tell me the answer straight out she launched into the jingle from the Hawaiian cane sugar commercial that used to run when she was a kid, complete with hula moves. (In case you were curious, and as slow as me, it's C&H.)

I Googled "Hawaiian cane sugar commercial" to see if I could find any images from the commercial my mom used to watch. This was what I got. A small Asian mongoose.

7) My magazine sent me to a production of Hamlet last night at the Seattle Center so I could review it in a blog post--not this blog (obviously). In an email I'd received from the guy in charge of press passes, he said he'd have my "tickets and press packet" next to Will Call. I should have registered that "tickets" is plural--meaning MORE than one--and invited someone to go with me (although I didn't really have anyone to invite). But no, I went alone. And boy did I feel like a tool when on opening night the only empty seat in the entire theater was right next to me. (Regardless of that embarrassment, it was still hands-down the best performance of Hamlet I've ever seen. I encourage you all to go at once. It runs through December 5th at the Center House Theatre.)

This is Darragh Kennan, the grieving and sardonic Prince Hamlet in Seattle Shakespeare's production. I am so totally in love with him...even though he kind of looks like a creepy hybrid of David Spade and a young Mr. Rogers. Hamlet has never been this sexy. (Sorry, Kenneth Branagh. I still love you too.)

I'm pretty sure that's all the awkwardness for this week. Well, it's definitely not, but it's all I can remember. I'll try to do better next time.

Poetry Corner Monday (and Grape Crush Pics)

Look. I'm actually posting this on Monday.

Old Men
by Ken Hada
(taken from The Writer's Almanac for Oct. 25th)

I make it a point now
to wave to old men I pass
old men standing in shade
of a yard, maybe
a daughter's place
where now he's just a tenant
trying to understand role reversal.

I raise my forefinger
As I steer country roads or pass
Through tired neighborhoods.
Most return a wave or nod Howdy.
Driving gives you some perspective,
shows you how you might end up.

We allow something
now, especially those of us sitting
on porch swings, those
who never got around to going
somewhere, those
who still feel like something
somehow is missing.


In other news, here are some shots from Michael's recent grape crushes, including the enchilada party:

So That Happened

This post will be dedicated to a single event that took place tonight.

Necessary background information:
1) My brother Michael and his best friend/business partner Pasha left this afternoon for Eastern Washington where they will camp overnight and return tomorrow with two tons (literally) of grapes for their wine.
2) The phrase "punch-down" refers to a process during which the grapes in Michael's macrobins are punched down using a flat metal puncher-downer (technical term).

Circumstances of this evening:
At 9:30 my mom and I were the only ones home. My mom was downstairs in the study checking her email and I was in my room working on my article for Seattle Met Magazine. My mom heard a faint noise coming from the basement (where the winery is located) and became vaguely concerned. She looked out the window but didn't see a car. Then she thought maybe it was just me watching television. When she dissuaded herself of that conclusion, she came up with a game plan: Come upstairs, get me, grab a baseball bat, and head down to the basement. As she was entering the dining room on her way to the stairs, her phone rang. It was Michael. "Did I tell you Nate would be coming by to do the punch-down?" he asked.

My mom laughed and told him what she had been on her way to do. "I'm going to get you a shotgun for Christmas" was my brother's response.

This is my family.

Things I Have Recently Learned

1. Office Mitch is actually named Ben. I will continue to call him Office Mitch.
2. Putting a steaming tea bag over your eye to help soothe your stye is only a good idea as long as it is not lemon ginger tea. To be safe, if I were you I'd make a mental note to always do the opposite of what I do.
3. It's okay to stare at the sun as long as it's shrouded in fog.
4. I do not like it when someone runs up alongside the bus and bangs the window to get the driver to stop. I particularly do not like this when the window he bangs is inches from my face.
5. You know you listen to NPR way too much when the majority of quotes on your Facebook profile were taken from either the Wait Wait blog or the Wait Wait podcast.

To be continued...

Oh, Rumi

Evidently Poetry Corner Monday should be renamed Poetry Corner Whenever I Feel Like It.

This evening I was reorganizing my poetry books (what, is that weird?) and through some cosmic act of fate my Rumi book fell open to this poem. I'm stunned by how applicable it is to my life right now (starting with how I forgot to post this yesterday):

Sometimes I Forget Completely

Sometimes I forget completely
what companionship is.
Unconscious and insane, I spill sad
energy everywhere. My story
gets told in various ways: a romance,
a dirty joke, a war, a vacancy.

Divide up my forgetfulness to any number,
it will go around.
These dark suggestions that I follow,
are they part of some plan?
Friends, be careful. Don't come near me
out of curiosity, or sympathy.

The Cube Personality Game

My wonderful cousin, who is here this weekend because she has an interview in Seattle tomorrow, taught me an exciting activity called the Cube Personality Game. Unfortunately you can only "play" it once, but you can mediate it for the rest of your life, if you'd like.

Here's how it goes:

1. Imagine that you're on a deserted island. There is a cube on the island. Describe the cube. Where is it on the island?
2. Now imagine a ladder. What does it look like? Where is it in relation to the cube?
3. What is the vegetation like on the island?
4. There is a horse on the island. Where is it? What is it doing? What are your feelings about it?
5. Imagine an interaction between you and the horse. What are you doing? How does the horse respond?
6. There is a storm. Describe it. What do you do when it comes?

Okay. That's the game. Now here's the analysis (with my results and Naomi's):

1. The cube represents yourself. Naomi's was the size of a basketball, shiny solid metal, and had washed up onshore. Mine was the size of a small room and made out of clear glass.
2. The ladder is your career. Mine was wooden, leaning against the cube. Naomi's was wooden too, but old and held together by bits of rope.
3. The vegetation is your friends. Naomi had one coconut tree with a jungle in the background. I had three palm trees (one in the middle of the island, and two near my cube).
4. The horse is your mate. Naomi's was a "wild palomino," its hair wet with saltwater, whinnying. I tied mine to the tree.
5. Your interaction with the horse is how you imagine an interaction with whatever divine presence you believe in. Naomi managed to coax the horse to her and it breathed warm air into her hand. I fed mine carrots.
6. The storm, as you can probably guess, represents your problems and how you deal with them. Naomi stood in the rain next to her horse and waited for the weather to pass, making no attempt to hide. I hid in my cube.

Fascinating, isn't it? Naomi must have taught the game to at least six people last night, and it was really cool to hear their responses to the questions, and to see how they reacted when she told them what everything meant. When one of my brother's friend got to the vegetation question, he closed his eyes and talked about how all the plants on the island were going down in flame because someone had set fire to the underground rum cache. When Naomi told him that he had burned his friends, he felt genuinely awful. "Oh man," he said, "I thought it was all a joke so I just imaged a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean." Oh this is no joke, my friend. No joke at all.