Kitty sleeps anywhere....

When kitty passes out, she is SO out. Here she is while I'm working on my computer getting Pat's blog site up. She is a total ragdoll, right after I took this, I laid her on the table and went to the kitchen, then picked her back up when I was through. No eye movement at all.

Who has the cutest neice in the world!?

Josh and I do!!!!!

I got the day off of work today (which I traded for my weekend), so I could come up and visit Caitlyn and Gramma. Suburbia is conveniently supplied with a totally rad playground right across the street from mom's house, so we got to play around on some plastic rubble this afternoon. I can't believe that she actually still remembers me, since the last time we saw each other was Christmas. Her vocabulary is building every day, and I am particularly amused with her calling horses, "pussy!"

Farmers Market

Oo0oooh, I LOVE market season! The sun came out strong and early this morning. I got up at seven and had a mug of coffee before venturing on downtown to get fingerprinted at the sheriffs office. That was for work ;) I hit the market right when they were opening and wandered around looking at all the beautiful colors. Everyone was in such a good mood, and the weather is going to spoil all the food this weekend, so they were basically giving away produce. My favorite part of the market every week is Gumbo, the guitar/banjo/fiddle trio who play across from Wineopolis. I sat in the shade listening to them before picking up the rest of my groceries.

Above: Gumbo; Below: Walla walla sweet onions ($2/each), kitten included for scale. I bit into one of these like an apple when I got home - YUM!

Whoa, it's HOT

Many of you may be aware of the fact that summer came a little late in the Pacific Northwest this year. Approximately on the first day of summer actually..... We had a few days in February I think it was, where the thermometers read 33C or higher, but since then it has been near risk of frost every night. Well today there are several reasons to celebrate, 1. the thermometer did read 32 today in the shade! 2. I think I sprayed enough pesticides in the yard, and surrounding barkdust areas to actually rid this place of fleas. It was not a super dangerous pesticide - permethrin is synthetically formulated from a plant oil, but extremely effective at knocking out fleas. Before I started spraying the yard down with water and plant oils, I sprinkled boric acid all around my doors and windows to prevent the buggers from seeking refuge inside my house. Don't worry, Yoshimi has no fleas - she got a round of Frontline last week. I just wish they made something I could put between my shoulders to keep the fleas off. Ick. So I think the battle is won.... Yoshimi battles the pink robots, Molly battles the rat bastard fleas.

Another reason to celebrate, I have officially been offered a post-graduate internship with the DHS - Public Health Division, Office of Community Health and Health Planning (whew that's a mouthful). Woot! I will be assisting the office in researching ethics in human trials and HIPPA guidelines, in order to create a web based training program for the department. It is an internship, which means it will be for 12 weeks, but the great news is, I will have internal employee status, and get more than just my foot in the door! A reminder, my degree is titled, "Health Promotion and Education, Community Health". I think it's a good sign when your diploma has the exact phrase as the office you'll be interning in. I hope.

So this all sums up to one point: It's time to crack open a bottle of pink wine. Celebrate with an ice cold glass of rose... 'Cause it's freaking hot!!!!!

Last day at work

I have enjoyed working at the Plant Clinic so much, I can hardly describe what an experience it has been. I learned a ton about molecular science, plants, and conducting research, but I also learned a lot about myself, what I'm capable of and what I need to work on more. Coming into the final term of my undergraduate experience at Oregon State, I feel very prepared for whatever is out there for me.

Above: Preparing some samples for PCR.

Above: Lunch at Oasis with the M's on my last day.

itty bitty pillow hog

Somebody new to my home became very accustomed very fast. Yoshimi is almost exactly one tenth the size Alex was and she can hog ten times more the space he did. It's okay though, sharing my pillow with her isn't that bad...

This morning I went out to help bottle wine at Nuthatch. John and Jane always have a fun bunch of people helping out and today was no exception. I met some interesting folks and had a really awesome time learning more about wine. Today we bottled a syrah, and a temparnillo - both of which I helped with in the fall. It's super pleasing to taste it and see it get labeled and packed into boxes. Jane made an incredible spread for lunch, including three fritattas with chard and peppers in them. Yummmmy!

Yoshimi!

The kitten formally known as Annapurna changes her name to Yoshimi.

I'm changing the kitten's name.... I've been calling her kitten even though I said her name was Annapurna. Cecily and I were just listening to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and we all the sudden both went, "AH! Yoshimi!!! YeahhhH!!" So that's her name. I knew I would know when I knew. And now I know. So there. And in case you're wondering, Yoshimi is listened in babynames.com as follows: The Japanese name Yoshimi may be written with the characters for "rejoice; take pleasure in" (yoshi) and "beauty; beautiful" (mi). Other possibilities include "righteousness; justice; morality" (yoshi) and "truth; reality" (mi). Yoshimi is occasionally bestowed on boys but mostly used on girls.

Father's Day Weekend

Josh and I both got to dad's house within fifteen minutes of each other on Friday. We got to spend the whole weekend making dad's puppy forget everything she's been trained to learn the past six months and teasing my kitten with salmon chunks. On Friday night we rode the boat up to Oregon City to have dinner (see Dorkus Maximus posing below), and on Saturday we managed to pump up a bunch of tires and head out for a cruise in the sunshine.

We didn't really have a destiny in mind, so I took Josh and Dad to Oak's Bottom Public House. A fun little hole in the wall as dad would call it in Sellwood. Desiree took me there last year and I've been craving tatchos ever since.

If you love nachos, and you love tater tots, why not make a nacho but use tater tots instead of chips? That's exactly what these guys thought, and the result is something amazing and worth trying out.

It was awesome to get to hang out with dad and Josh for so long, and we really wished Wes could have been there with us. All and all, we had a really gorgeous Father's Day weekend and completed it with an outdoor brunch made by me. I didn't take any pictures, but I made english muffins, eggs benedict, chocolate chip banana bread, mini quiches, kefir smoothies, and a big big mess. It was delicious.

Summer. For real.

FINALLY summer has brought itself to stay. I hesitated to celebrate towards the end of last week, since usually a whisper of joy will bring the clouds back out. This has been the longest, grayest winter/spring I can ever remember in Oregon and the greater northwest. We have had record breaking cold temperatures and horrible delays in crops this year. Speaking of, the only thing doing well in my garden are my cold crops - broccoli and peas. I will have to replant my basil since it was too cold after I put it in and it has all rotted from the ground up now.

What really marks the beginning of summer is the absence of noise. It is Monday after graduation and the bike ride to campus this morning was pleasantly solitary. Corvallis is being infiltrated by chain, shit-hole stores, so I used my "Free Smoothie" coupon for Jamba Juice that we all get in the mail to mark a new opening. They only time I have ever gone there has been to use a free coupon. It's alright tasting stuff, but I hate the blood glucose spike I get from the 100+ grams of carbohydrates in the 500 calorie drink. Ick.

I am in my last week of working at the lab. It has been a really really great experience the past two years. Next week I start my internship at the Benton County Health Department. New leaf. Always turning.

Alexander

As a lot of you may already know, late on Thursday night, Alexander was hit by a car on Harrison Blvd in front of my house. He passed very quickly, and that gives me hope that he didn't suffer. He was such a blast to have as a friend and companion. Even my Blogger profile mentions my life in this cottage with him as my buddy. I don't think I even felt too lonely in the two years I have lived here (June 13th is two years exactly). When I brought him home for the first time, he hunkered down under the bed for a while, but I remember Phil coaxing him out with leftover meat, and Alex was an easy win.
I have probably written more blog posts about Alex than anything else, and I think I'm lucky to have documented the little guy so well.
On Sunday, Josh, Mom and I happened across an adorable kitten outside a pet supply store in Portland. I picked her up and within ten minutes had decided she would be mine. Yesterday the vet confirmed that she is about six-seven weeks old and in good health. If she's not running up and down the furniture, doing flips in the air, or shamelessly chasing her tail, she is sound asleep and purring somewhere near me. Like Alex, she likes to be with me whatever it is I am doing, and like Alex she is super talkative. I know I cannot ever replace Alex, but I am glad that I quickly found another buddy to share my house with (when Phil isn't in town visiting!).
Thank you to everyone for all of your support. I have had some wonderful, yet tearful conversations with many of you, and my heart is still aching quite a bit. I know I have many shoulders to cry on though, and now a new little purr machine to cry with too. She needs a name! But right now, I'm stressing out with finals, so I will name her when it feels appropriate.

How would you like your meatloaf? Wrapped in bacon.

Ahhhh.... Food in Portltand. Amazingly satisfying when you never leave Corvallis. Not that I don't love some of my regular places in Corvallis - like La Conga - but it's the beauty of the food that Corvallis lacks. Here are a few of the delicacies from this weekend.

Cute Italian cafe off of Broadway in SE Portland. Mom had the lunch deal (above), $10 for fresh mozzarella and tomato on a bed of basil and a glass of wine. I ordered a formaggio panini with a cup of Italian Wedding soup (below). Ooooooh, yum.

For lunch yesterday, Josh ordered the stuffed meatloaf, wrapped in bacon, with mushroom gravy. Daaaaaaaaaamn. Who ever thought of wrapping meatloaf in bacon is clearly a genius.

For Josh. And Phil.....

White & Nerdy from waymoby on Vimeo.

Stir Fry

I've been making stir fry a lot. Maybe twice a week. These snow peas will not stop growing! Anybody have any other snow pea suggestions besides stir fry with tofu and noodles?

How much do I love my job?

I'm working on writing up my protocols at the lab I've been working at the past year and a half since I am about to move on. One of the nifty machines I LOVE using is the Spectrophotometer. It has many different uses, but I use it for measuring how much DNA i have extracted out of a plant sample. While looking for product literature to write up my protocol today, I came across this video that the manufacturers made. It is SUPER nerdy and hilariously fun. Note: this will only be funny to Ashley and Desiree, or anyone else who has lab experience who reads my blog... The rest of you will probably want to skip it ;)

Scrabulous

Just a cute little screenshot of me kicking Josh's behind in Scrabble. Meanwhile, I typed a six page paper on couples who "swing" - and I don't mean on the playground - and made a gigantic pot of minestrone soup. Yum! Why is it still soup weather and it's almost June?

Success!

Bagels for the win.

Sorry for the super crappy camera phone pictures.... I have no batteries for my digital and this was too cool not to blog. On Monday i tried making bagels and failed pretty badly. They were totally flat. Even though they had crispy outsides and bubbly, spongy insides, it still did not seem bagelish at all. Tonight I motivated myself to try again. Yeast, flour, sugar and salt for 25 bagels are cheaper than six bagels at the store. So here is my second attempt and they are looking awesome so far. They are still in the oven but smell delish. I combined a few recipes to get a feel for how I should do it this time - thinking that I killed the yeast and also didn't boil long enough on try one. I'll let you know how it goes.

Mother's Day and Martinis

On Sunday mom, grandma, Uncle Doug, Uncle Daryl, Janet, Phil and I went out to dinner at Clarke's in Lake Oswego. It was stellar - all of us ordered the same two things except for Daryl. Lobster risotto or New York Strip Steak. All of our food was incredible and when the desert menu came, I jumped at the opportunity to try one of their espresso martinis. I went out last night and got ingredients to try concocting this at home it was SOOOO incredibly yummy. Now I have added an extra ingredient and perfected my own recipe.

Espresso (coffee) Martini

• 2 oz Super dark brewed coffee, cold (or espresso)
• 1 oz Vanilla Vodka
• 3/4 oz of Kahlua
• 1/2 oz of Peppermint Schnapps

Fill a 16oz drink shaker with ice cubes, add all the above ingredients and shake well. Strain into a martini glass - you'll get a beautiful creme on top from the shaking. It looks just like a freshly pulled shot of espresso.

Iraq Body Counts Exhibit

When I started college, this display went up in the spring time and one of the sections of the quad was filled with flags. The next year, the parimeter was lined with flags. This year, our ENTIRE quad is full of death. It is a sobering reminder that war is happening every single day. I think installments like this are very important for people to be exposed to, so they are forced to be reminded. (Link to OSU's exhibit on Wikipedia)

Pizza Night

Phil and I made pizzas tonight. We were going to make two and have a "Pizza Off" but we decided it's more fun to collaborate and not compete. Well, I just have to say, I won. Fresh, local pork sausage, two whole heads of roasted garlic, mozzarella and a super thin, crunchy whole wheat crust. MMmmmmm. Phil made a mango, tomato, feta, basil pizza which was also awesome. And weird. Did I mention mangos? The basil was really awesome though, and the mango went surprisingly well with the tomato sauce base.