Laundry List

Yeah, I know. I haven't written in awhile. Shame on me. Go ahead - you can slap my wrist... Hey, what's everyone gettin' in line for? What's with the rulers? SQ, PUT DOWN THAT PADDLE RIGHT NOW!!

Okay, forget the wrist slapping, knuckle rapping and arse spanking... let me get down to business and fill you in with what's new.

Took a short vacation and went to Portland, Oregon. Most people, when they think of vacations, think of skiiing at a mountain resort. Or maybe getting away from it all to somewhere warm and tropical, a place with white sand and strong mai tais with pink umbrellas and pineapple slices on the rim of their souvenir glass. Not me... I go where there's rain. So, no one was more surprised or disappointed than myself when I get up to P-town and nary a drop of moisture falls on my head. Not even bird pee or fly spit. No-thing. In fact, the day I got there, it was in the high 90 degrees. WTF, man? I wanted to head up to the cooler weather. If I had known it was going to be a friggin' oven up there, I could have stayed home and melted and saved myself the greenbacks.

Anyway, it was good fun being up there. I have a few (hundred) cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, in-laws, out-laws and other assorted members of the cast and crew that showed up to welcome me into the Pacific Northwest with open arms, soggy kisses and much cheek-pinching. (I swear - do we have open casting calls to recruit extended family members??) After the introductory to-do, a few select cousins (aka my partners in crime) took me into the seedier parts of Portland, where I felt much more at home.

Speaking of seedier parts of the city, there is a very interesting phenomenon at work up there. I asked to go to a dive bar, much like my beloved Landlord Jim's in downtown San Diego. My cousin, Doug, looked at me, eyebrows raised and explained that their dive bars were in actuality, really bad strip clubs with names like "Jiggles" and dancers that reminded one of one's mother. Factoid: Oregon has more strip clubs than any place in the US... So, they (they being Doug & his brother Danny - hooligans after my own heart) took me to one of the smaller McMenamin's places, since the McMenamin brothers have a monopoly on everything related to beer, drinking and entertainment. Not that I'm knocking that - the places are actually very cool. Everything from rehabbed welfare houses to little hole in the wall taverns - all revamped and redecorated and revitalized. It's nice that the menu is pretty much the same across the board (Yum! Cajun tater tots!). And I like what they've done with the places - very enjoyable. In fact, I wish they had a few of those places down south. Although its probably good they don't because I drank so much beer on my trip that I was perpetually buzzed and water-logged. (Beer-logged?) I guess I can do that on a vacation, but a way of life? No thanks.

Anyway, I attended a family picnic, went to a couple of get-togethers, met up with some friends, went to a Maktub concert at the newly rehabbed Doug Fir (thanks, Sammy!), drinking, drinking and mo' drinking, wandered around downtown taking pictures and spent my final evening watching Eddie Izzard with Danny & Dougie in my drunken, water-logged exhaustion. Yep, good times were had by all... already planning my next trip.

I know I promised to really catch you up on what's been going on lately, but since the trip, everything is pretty hazy.

So, what's up for the weekend? Tonight I plan to go pay a friend of mine to pour hot wax on all my tender parts and rip off whatever sticks. Sounds like fun, huh? This weekend is also the Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival. To you all, it may sound like fun. To us Temecul-ites, it is one method of coping with having to live an hour outside of San Diego.

Next week I am giving a presentation for my mom's church group on "Things to do in San Diego." What do I tell them? "Ladies, here is a list of all the best dive bars in the downtown area." *Sigh* This is going to be more difficult than I thought... Also on the agenda for the next week: Palm Springs and a birthday celebration/potential orgy. Just something to jog my memory and tell you about it...