The LBC

Before Dawson had a creek and Ryan moved to the OC there was . . . LBC.

LBC, also known as Little Beaver Creek, was the road I lived on in high school. And unlike the Creek and the OC, it definitely did not warrant a television show. At the time, it was 90% dirt road that made about a five mile loop off of the highway. The nice thing about living out on the LBC was there were a bunch of other kids out there. It was almost as good as living in town, except instead of living blocks apart in town; you lived either 20’s (as in acres) or miles apart.

This past weekend I was up visiting my brother and we were reminiscing about high school. After comparing the number of times we lettered (I was the clear winner), how we extricated ourselves from having to practice with the band but still played at away games and our half-assed attempts at competing in the Science Olympiad, our talk moved on to life on the LBC.

One of the things I’m most remembered for amongst my friends is doing something stupid while driving. Living in a small town, three people had called my parents before I even made it into the parking lot at school. Thus, my punishment was my car being taken away for a couple of weeks. So I did what any smart ass teenager would do in that circumstance. Knowing that my parents fully expected that this meant I would have to suffer the teenage embarrassment of riding the bus to school, I called my friend Seth who lived just down the road and asked if he could give a ride to school for the next couple weeks. Since he was likely to run into the same problem eventually, he readily agreed. The parents were not pleased with this turn of events, but knowing they hadn’t been specific and I had outmaneuvered them, opted to leave it alone. They’d probably be even less pleased if they knew I had a bet going with my friends as to when they’d get tired of picking me up and driving me around and give me my car back.

I know I wasn’t the first kid, or the last, to get their car taken away for being a dumb teenager. In fact, I’m pretty sure it happened to every kid on LBC at some point. And we all offered each other rides when someone lost their car for a period of time. Unfortunately, not only did we all live up the same road, a whole lot of our parents worked together and all of them knew each other (small town thing again). Once the story of how I outsmarted my parental units got out, any time a kid lost their car, an additional punishment was clearly stated, “And you will ride the bus. Riding to school with someone else is not an option.”

So while we never had an opportunity to bond together while standing outside a school board meeting shouting “Donna Martin graduates,” the kids of LBC were there for each other when it mattered. Which was usually when one of us was carless for being an idiot.

Knockers

When you go to the same gym every day at the same time, you start to recognize the people that keep the same schedule as you. These become people you smile at in passing, grumble with in January when the New Years resolution people are taking all the cardio machines and stare awkwardly at trying to place them when you see each other outside of the gym. Some of them are characters and make going to the gym an experience. There is the really tall guy who wears really short running shorts. The guy who always changes the angle of the rowing machines for no particular reason. The girls who run, and I use the term run loosely, with their hair down and perfectly coifed. And my current favorite character . . . Knockers.

One of the great things about Knockers is she stands out in a crowd. So much in fact, that when I mentioned seeing her at the gym to a co-worker who frequents the same gym, she knew exactly who I was talking about. Complete strangers would be able to finish each others sentences when trying to describe this girl. Person 1, “The one who wears,” Person 2, “that hot pink scrap of nothing?” Person 1, “And who never,” Person 2, “actually sweats?”

Knockers got her nickname for obvious reasons. She is the Pamela Anderson of the Pearl 24 Hour Fitness. You know how guys watched Baywatch because it had large breasted women running with no support? Yeah, that’s Knockers. She has giant implants, and wears a tiny, spaghetti strapped hot pink tank top and no bra. When she runs, even I can’t help but stare at her. It’s similar to watching a car accident, where you can see it happening in front of you and know there is nothing you can do to stop it. One, or both, of those fake boobs are bound to come flying out of her top at any minute.

While I watch her in amusement (because if you wear a tank that covers less than a string bikini, and try to run in it, you deserve what’s coming to you) and wonderment that indecent exposure hasn’t yet occurred, my favorite part might be watching the people around her. To be more specific, to watch the guys watch her run . . . without falling off their cardio machines. Yesterday, a guy spent his entire time on the treadmill with his head turned sideways just staring.

Thank you, Knockers, for making it easier to figure out which guys attending the Pearl gym are actually straight. And for giving us gym goers another form of entertainment beside our iPods and TV. Because if the TV in front of us is set to Oprah instead of ESPN, you can be damn sure we’re staring at you while you run.

Bras

You know why women are addicted to shoes? Because they always fit. You can gain or lose a few pounds and your shoes will still fit. You can have a pair of shoes for 10 years if you want because unless your body undergoes some strange metamorphosis, like pregnancy, your feet stay the same size for most of your life. Thus you can amass massive quantities of shoes on the assumption that you're going to be able to use them until there are holes in the soles.

Like pants, shoes are slightly frustrating in that you can wear any number of sizes depending on who makes the shoes. For example, in running shoes I wear an 8 because my feet swell when running and I value my toe nails. In a pair of dress shoes, I tend to wear a 7 or 7 ½ depending on the type of dress shoe, if it is cheaply made or not and whether or not it will stretch. What do shoes have that makes them superior to all other forms of clothing? They come in half sizes, so you’re almost always guaranteed to find some that fit.

You know what else should come in half sizes? Bras. I have a number of friends who would argue that bras are a waste of money anyway, but anyone who actually needs to wear a bra would agree with me. After shedding a few pounds, I find that my current bras are too big. Yay! So I did what any girl who cannot shop in the actual Victoria Secret store because all they carry are push up bras or scraps of nothing, I hopped on the website and ordered some in a smaller size. Upon arrival, I discovered that like pants, I was between sizes. Are you freaking kidding me? All I’m asking for is a bra that fits! I’m left trying to make the decision of a bra that is too big or a bra that creates the boob version of a muffin top. Neither is flattering.

If you think about it, the bra sizing system is completely ridiculous. Nothing else that we wear comes in sizes A through F. Those are letters that go on a report card, not on your bra. Plus, it goes against everything we’re taught growing up. In school, everyone wants an A and if they had given out AA’s in school, I’d have wanted one of those too. No one wants an F. Except in bra world it is completely backwards. Everyone wants to be a C or D, something that did not fly on my report card growing up. It’s completely unnatural.

So while we’re re-doing the bra sizing scale because it is ridiculous, we may as well make it more useful. Let’s add half sizes, because the only people I know who fit into a bra perfectly don’t need to wear them in the first place.

Karma . . . What A Bitch

When the news about now “not so Silent Bob” getting kicked off a Southwest flight for being too large to fit in a single seat, I found myself intrigued and read many opinions thoughts and articles about the fiasco. Ironically, I found myself in the opposite situation the next day on a flight to San Diego. Assuming that the plane doesn’t crash at some point during the flight, there is little worse than eyeing the seat numbers as you walk down the aisle of an airplane, and realizing that your seat is next to the giant person taking up their own seat and part of yours.

Large people must hate having to sit next to me because as soon as I see where my seat is I think to myself “Son of a Bitch!” and I’m 98% sure it is perfectly reflected on my face. I consider myself a medium sized person (short plus not stick thin equals medium) and I am uncomfortable in an airplane seat, so I can’t imagine being tall or overweight and having to fit into an airplane seat. I realize that large people are incredibly uncomfortable physically, and are likely fully aware that everyone getting on that plane is hoping that their seat is somewhere else. I felt bad for the large man sitting in the middle seat because he was clearly aware that half of his body was in my seat and half of me was in the aisle.

Most airlines have a rule that as long as you can get the arm rests down and buckle the seat belt without an extender; you technically fit into one seat. That is a load of crap because a person with broad shoulders doesn’t even fit into a seat correctly. We’ve all heard of a muffin top, right? When the fat rolls spill out over a pair of pants? The same thing happens over an arm rest people, except it goes both directions. The arm rest is like someone squeezed a tube of toothpaste from the middle.

To be fair, I have an exceptionally large personal space bubble, so I don’t like the fact that I have to sit next to anyone on a plane. But I really don’t care for other people taking up half my seat as well as theirs. I am incredibly uncomfortable touching strangers to begin with, I am even more uncomfortable having to touch legs or arms or shoulders with them in a confined space. I paid for a whole seat and I would like to use it. If you’re a hot single guy, we can negotiate arm rest usage.

As I was boarding my return flight to come back to Ptown, I realized that I had managed to seriously piss off the airplane gods. 19E. A middle seat, because that was all that was left when I bought the ticket. In 19D and F . . . . two people who were triple my size. As it turned out, they were husband and wife, who bought tickets with a seat in between them. I’m sure they were perfectly nice and also uncomfortable, but my body was physically sore the next day from being cramped into a tiny space while trying not to touch anyone else. Anyone larger than me would never have even fit in there.

While this is going to make me appear to be a very insensitive person, I’m taking the opposite side of Silent Bob. I understand where he is coming from and if the people on either side of him were okay with his being there, he should have been allowed to stay on the flight. But as a person who fits into the seat, I paid for my whole seat and I want to use all of it.

I have a long flight coming up in about six weeks. After the last experience, I’m a little nervous about the seating arrangements since my karma seems to need some redeeming. How does one get back on the good side of the airplane seating gods?

Stars, Stripes and Maple Leafs

Every two years, I become obsessed with the Olympics. I love watching them, hearing the stories about how someone overcame severe injury to race for gold or even how an entire poor city pitched in to buy their Olympic hopeful a pair of shoes. I’m a total sucker for all things Olympics, from the clothes on the athletes and spectators to Bob Costas (anyone else think his hair is looking unnaturally dark this winter?).

I always thought it would be an amazing experience to go to the Olympics as a participant. During the opening ceremonies, the commentators talked about how the majority of athletes there don’t have a chance or hope to medal, but are simply hoping for a PR. I would be perfectly happy with that. Alas, I’m one of those people who is athletic enough to be average at almost all sports and don’t excel at any one in particular.

While watching skiing the other day, I noticed a few skiers who had dual citizenship and were skiing for the country they had not grown up in. In this case, they were skiing for Australia and New Zealand rather than Canada. I always thought my dual citizenship would come in handy when the Middle East got their nuclear weapons together to bomb the US, I never considered athletics! That’s not entirely true, I have a friend from college whose brother wrestled for the Canadian team in Beijing since they also have dual citizenship. But who wants to be a wrestler?

All of this led me to wonder what could have become of my Olympic dreams if I’d been a dual citizen of say the US and Ethiopia. Or some other African nation that isn’t known for their winter skills. Instead, I have to have citizenship in two countries that are huge and always produce a ton of athletes and medal counts. I’d be quite an Olympic anomaly representing Egypt in the winter Olympics!

Alas, the Olympic dreams of my youth are gone. I’m content to be a spectator and watch people with amazing athletic skills dominate. Lindsay Vonn may win an Olympic medal, but I went to my high school prom. While it’s fun to wonder what it would be like be a participant, I’m quite happy to be at home cheering on my Stars, Stripes and Maple Leafs.

Sugar and Starch and Sweets, OH MY

I find myself torn . . . between wanting to be thin and not wanting to put a bunch of chemicals in my body. The obvious solution would to be to undergo hypnotherapy and re-train my brain to love eating vegetables and to dislike sugar. But let’s be realistic, vegetables are never going to taste like cake.

Somewhere along the way, our food sources became so convenient that we’ve managed to throw health out the window. Instead of making dinner, we can buy chemicals in a box that will turn into dinner with a little heat and water. Instead of having dessert for special occasions, we’ve become trained to crave sugar and dessert every single day, if not after every single meal. We’re surrounded by commercials telling us to bring home a bucket of fried chicken for the family or pizza or that eating a $5 sub is good for us.

I was such a picky eater as a child that I’m pretty sure I exhausted my parents to the point that there wasn’t a lot of effort put into teaching us how to eat appropriately. Just the fact that there was something I would eat was a mini triumph. So after years of eating whatever I wanted, and finding my pants a big snugger each year, I find myself having to re-teach myself how to eat. An interesting concept for a person having been responsible for their own eating habits for about half their life.

Transition number one, must eat more fruits and vegetables. Seriously. I have to eat them. I’m starting small though, at least one fruit and vegetable a day (sadly, this is quite an increase in my previous habits), and I’m attempting to eat salad twice a week. I really don’t care for lettuce as it turns out. It tastes like dirt and it makes me feel like a damn deer.

Transition number two, reduce the amount of starch and sugar I eat. Why? Not because they aren’t good for you. Which they aren’t. Mostly it’s because they make me fat. Which leads me back to the chemicals versus fat topic. The chances of me giving up desserts and baking are slim to none. But there are a lot of substitutes for all that delicious fat and sugar that can make desserts with less calories. But with less calories comes more chemicals. For example, have you tried cool whip lately? I hadn’t had it in years, but in an effort to curb sugar and calories, I tried a drop of cool whip with my strawberries the other day. Delicious. They can do amazing things with chemicals now days.

I know it’s better to cook and bake with natural foods, but how clean are our “natural” foods today anyway? Everything is injected with hormones and sprayed with chemicals. And because I love my desserts, I’m making the case for chemicals occasionally. As one person with a serious sweet tooth, I am perfectly capable of making an entire batch of natural cookies and eating them all. Note that I said I’m capable of doing this, not that I actually do it. Most of the baked goods end up in the bellies of my male coworkers. While chemicals aren’t great for you, they will help to not pack on as many pounds with the dessert. And the extra pounds are bad for your health too.

I know that “nothing tastes as good as being thin feels,” but cake tastes pretty damn good. I realize that the correct answer here is the ever present and boring “everything in moderation.” Of course, realizing that cancer is how I’m likely to go someday anyway, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to thinking that if I’m going to get cancer anyway, I may as well be thin!

For the Love of Ptown

As a kid, I remember watching television shows about people who lived in big cities, specifically Manhattan, and thinking that it looked pretty cool. One thing always stumped me though . . . how did they get their groceries? I was used to my mom coming home with a car full of groceries, possibly 8-10 bags at a time. How did someone in a city without a car get their car full of groceries?

It wasn’t until I moved to a downtown neighborhood where everything I needed was within walking distance that I figured it out. You don’t buy 8-10 bags of groceries at a time, you buy what you need for a few days and can carry. And durable, reusable grocery sacks are a must.

I was in college when I decided that someday I wanted to live in the neighborhood I live in now. Of course, there are a lot of things I decide I want to do that I don’t follow through with. Sometimes it is still a bit of a shock to me that I followed through and am living exactly where I wanted to ten years ago. Coming from a very rural background and then transitioning to the suburbs, moving downtown was a bit of a change. Instead of driving everywhere, I walk 90% of the time. Everything I could possibly need is walking distance from my apartment. Grocery store, gym, coffee shops and restaurants, hospital, and even a recently discovered cobbler. Now I am so used to the downtown lifestyle, it seems weird to get in my car and drive somewhere.

I was talking to a friend on the phone not too long ago and he was asking about Portland’s real estate and if we’d been hit by the downturn or not. As he lives very far away, I was confused about the sudden interest in my neighborhoods real estate market. Turns out, he’d like to have a get-a-way place in a neighborhood like mine, where you can walk to anything you’d need or want to get to. At first I was shocked that this guy actually wanted to walk, as I typically heard nothing but complaining when he was in town and I dragged him around the neighborhood on foot, but after some thought, it made me realize what a cool lifestyle I had right now. I was living in a place where someone else wanted a vacation home.

That conversation opened up my eyes even more to my great neighborhood. I found myself enjoying my lifestyle even more. And finding a cobbler a block from my dry cleaner only enhanced my appreciation for my neighborhood. I have all the downtown living amenities I could possibly want, plus I am only a 15 minute walk (or a 5 minute drive) from the biggest inner city park in the country.

There are times when I wish it was easier to get a car full of groceries, but a decade or so after watching people living in big cities and thinking that looked pretty neat, I’m quite pleased with the way things have worked out. It’s not Manhattan, but my section of Portland is pretty freaking fantastic.

Convenience, eh?

I wrote my very first check when I was in second grade. No, I didn’t have a checking account at the age of eight, but my second grade teacher decided to teach us how to write a check for some reason. I don’t recall why Mrs. Calvert opted to tear out twenty some odd of her own checks and teach a bunch of eight year olds how to fill out a check, but that was just part of what made her awesome. That and the fact the she always had red vines.

The main point here being that I’ve been writing checks for over twenty years now and I don’t find it to be that troublesome. In today’s world, where you can get everything online from clothes to bills to food to things you wouldn’t want to be seen purchasing at an actual brick and mortar store in front of strangers (much less a potential acquaintance), I find myself paying more and more things via debit or credit card over the internet. Bills and clothes and airline tickets, not so much the unmentionables. After doing so much shopping, etc. online, I was unsurprised to find that the State of Oregon would allow me to pay them the $50 in taxes I still owed them online.

As I was clicking through the website getting ready to hand over my debit card information, because it just seems wrong to pay your taxes on a credit card – even if you are getting rewards, I noticed a small little disclaimer. They wanted to charge me a convenience fee of $2 to accept my online payment. As I am not opposed to writing a check and believe in the investment that is the Forever Stamp, I’m unclear how charging me an extra $1.50 ($2 minus the cost of a stamp) is convenient for me.

I already think that I pay too much in taxes and here they were, trying to swindle an extra $1.50 out of me. So instead of “conveniently” paying online, my cheap self wrote the state a check and mailed it in. Have fun dealing with the extra paperwork government suckers. H – 1, Oregon – 0 . . . not including taxes.

Life - It's Who You Know

Contrary to popular belief, I think a person could actually be an island. There are times when I even attempt to do so. My island though is surrounded by drawbridges so I can let people on and off as necessary. Sometimes I am truly and island and other times my life looks more like a bicycle wheel with spokes going off in every direction. While I do belief that a person can be an island, I also believe that the people surrounding you are what make life fun. And complicated and messy and troublesome, but more often than not . . .fun.

It turns out life really is all about who you know. And not just for getting a new job. I’ve had the opportunity to do some uncommon things in life based on the people I know. Sometimes it’s someone I know directly or sometimes it’s through a friend of a friend. One of the best things about knowing people – the potential to do things you wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to do. I’ve gone to countless games for free because someone was looking to offload tickets. A few weeks ago I managed to score tickets so close to the floor that it was inconvenient to look at the big screen. I’ve also been able to get into places the general public cannot, like the NIKE employee store, because I knew someone who knew a guy.

Sometimes knowing people is as simple as knowing which dish to stay away from at a potluck event. My mom brought home a plate of cookies from one of her students at Christmas time. When she offered them to us, my brother and I just stared at her until she confirmed that they were in fact from a good family. Sometimes it’s important to know which old lady likes to kiss instead of hug at the end of a church service. Or which weird distant relative to stay away from at the family reunion.

Another great thing about knowing people is the potential for travel. You can travel anytime anywhere, but it’s always been more interesting for me (and slightly less stressful) to do it with a local. I had a friend move to South Africa and sooner rather than later, I found myself chasing lions through the night in an open jeep while on safari in Africa. I’ve also found myself in Oklahoma, Alaska, Hawaii, New Zealand and other random places by visiting people.

Perhaps my most favorite however is the unexpected invitation. I have a friend who is away at graduate school for a couple years. Oddly enough, one of the things I miss most about him being gone is hanging out with his parents. So imagine my surprise when I received an invitation from his mom asking me if I’d like to attend a Blazer season ticket holder event. Where you get to hang out with the players. How great is that?

So as much as I enjoy my time as an island, the game of life is really all about who you know. Turns out there are some pretty amazing people out there and while the good ones are in my life for reasons other than the potential benefits I get, I’m not about to turn down an opportunity to meet the Blazers.

Travel Buddy, Where Art Thou?

A few years ago, a group of girlfriends and I took a slightly impulsive trip to South Africa. We had a friend living over there for a few months so we bought plane tickets and spent a few weeks traveling around the country eating odd things, going on safari, and swimming in the Indian Ocean.

The past few years have made it tougher to take such a random trip. Most of my friends are in serious relationships and are starting to have babies. It’s harder to pick up and go with kids in tow or when you have to buy two plane tickets. So I’ve found myself doing more and more solo traveling to visit friends and family around the country. Every now and again my friends get organized to do a group trip, but they seem to be getting fewer and farther between.

I enjoy flying around the country to visit various people but I’m starting to wonder when I’ll be too old to crash on people’s couches. When do I have to take that next step to be an official solo traveler? Where I go to a place that I don’t know anyone simply because I want to go there? I fear that day is rapidly approaching. Part of my issue with this is I am super frugal. I have more money saved up in a travel account than I do in an emergency fund, but I despise having to pay a double occupancy rate at a hotel for one person. Trips get significantly cheaper when you can split some of the costs with someone.

And then there’s the part of traveling alone where I’m afraid I’ll get sick of my own company. Then I’d have to talk to strangers. I don’t mind going my separate way for a while, but I enjoy having someone to eat dinner with and recount the day’s activities with.

What I need is a travel buddy. Someone who has a disposable income, has vacation days to spare and who isn’t too pregnant to fly. I’m sure the pregnant thing is a passing phase, but I have a ridiculous number of knocked up girlfriends who can’t fly right now. Where do I find such a travel buddy? Can you take out an ad in the newspaper? Can you online date for a travel buddy? Is it weird that I think more about finding a travel buddy than I do a significant other? Perhaps I have my priorities out of whack, but a travel buddy is a very special thing.

While this is something that is frequently on my mind, it all came to a head recently when I purchased an airplane ticket to Hawaii. Because I am at a stage in my life where I can impulsively purchase plane tickets. Luckily, I happen to have a friend who will be over there while I will, but I don’t want to be in a position of imposing too much. Plus I already sleep on their couch a lot. So I am thinking about getting a hotel for a few days and attempting to go partially solo. It’s like learning to ride a bike with training wheels. I have backup should I need it, but it would probably be good for me to practice going to dinner on my own, etc.

So while I’m debating that . . . anyone want to go to Hawaii?