i will be with you when you lose your breath...

i spent the weekend on the jersey shore, of all places, wandering the beach, eating lots of good food, scooping up multiple scoops of ice cream, drinking coffee, chatting with coffee shop owners/patrons/their dogs, and galavanting up and down a massive wooden boardwalk under looming, windy, out-of-season beach houses.

why, you ask? well, duh - jeff mangum of neutral milk hotel was playing a solo show for the first time in ages. at the show, someone yelled out at one point, "you saved my life." i think that sums up how people feel about neutral milk hotel and this one damaged dude.

"oh, comely," from 1997: oh comely, i will be with you when you lose your breath chasing the only meaningful memory you thought you had left.


and he really did blow us away. i smiled a lot and sang along almost the whole time. it was better than i could have hoped. he played "little birds," which was painfully beautiful and which he had played live only once before, years and years ago. give it a listen: http://walkingwallofwords.com/previously-unreleased-track.html.

and then there's "jersey shore gone wilde." i have no idea how this has escaped my notice until now. drop it like it's hot, girl:

 

i'll probably just have to listen to some jeff mangum live and solo for a while. there really aren't any recordings surfacing just yet from this recent show, but a girl can dream. i might have to look into the all tomorrow's parties festival he is curating in england in december... wouldn't that be a dream?



i was so glad to get home, though, to my cats and my chris. :) of course, this morning i woke up with a sore throat. but oh well. the weekend was fantastic, the leaves are in full fall color, and things are good.

i miss you, i'm going back home to the west coast...

whenever i head west, this song invariably gets stuck in my head. it's a problem. coconut records, "west coast:"


today a week ago, i was so, so happy to board a plane in portland, oregon, to head back east. it was a long, excellent trip... but mostly, i missed home by a week and a couple of days in. but i saw some amazing things while i was there.

japanese gardens, portland.


steps at the japanese gardens.


i bought a new ring. cargo in portland is a fantastic store - and right by rogue pub and distillery on flanders!


i loved all the bonsai trees at the lan su chinese garden.


an old growth forest on the coast.


my second trip to rogue - i like beer.


we took a dinner boat trip on the willamette.


me at the lan su chinese garden. each of those buildings was designed and built by chinese designers and builders (duh!) in china, then disassembled and reassembled, piece by piece, in portland by 90 or so chinese workers. amazing.


CHEESE!!! at the tillamook creamery. in addition to beer, i also love cheese.


waterfall, i like your colors.


my buddy, my buddy. wherever you go, i'm gonna go.


oh man... voodoo doughnuts. serious yum for just $1.50. i was boring and got the portland cream (this little guy). i did NOT sample such wares as "triple chocolate penetration."


this is an accurate representation of my first day on the coast - classic oregon, in other words.


ominous clouds.


ominous logs.


the sun came out for just a minute at cannon beach.


so many starfish at cannon beach.


so many anemones.


and some more starfish.


and my last day on the coast was sunny and fantastic.








as they say in portland, please bike responsibly.

i don't hardly know her... but i think i could love her...

current jam: crimson and clover.


just got done with a trek through the eastern caribbean.


and i am happy.

heartbeats and apples...

today's jams: the knife, heartbeats. i just love the little 70s-looking kids skateboarding in some quintessential california neighborhood.


mirah, apples in the trees.


chris and i are going to look at houses in broad ripple on thursday! and a week from today, i will be sipping a pina colada in roughly 80 degree temperatures! hopefully with three - count 'em, THREE! - little umbrellas in it.

latest projects of the life variety...

looking for houses. looking for jobs. eating salads and dishing about the latest haps. planning art opening trips. planning gardens. feeding the worms. living more sustainably. and knitting things!

this is an accurate representation of me at my house on any given night (oh, and my new favorite sweater - knitted with the girl friday pattern and eco wool).


a cozy winter sweater... just in time for spring. that's how i roll.




also, for my mom's 60th birthday, i had her pick out a pattern and yarn color for whatever sweater she wanted. she picked the melrose peacoat, a wonderfully easy, fun, quick pattern. it fits her BEAUTIFULLY - although, sadly, i didn't get a pic of her in it when i gave it to her a couple of weekends ago. still, here it is, the full view:


scrumptious, cotton-blend, bulky yarn = dream knitting.


in other news, i will soon be snorkeling with fishies in the us virgin islands! i required a floppy sunhat for the trip:


and some sassy shoes:

i'm going to jersey, baby!

my very wily friend, carrie, alerted me to this amazingness: all tomorrow's parties festival, curated by portishead. most notably, on monday there will be a solo show by jeff mangum of neutral milk hotel. this is a band i remember very distinctly dancing frenetically (and probably drunkenly) to during my college days. he hasn't played a large, public, live neutral milk hotel set in over a decade. until... NOW.

tickets went on sale this morning at 9 am EST. by about, oh, 9:15 am, the solo show was sold out. and my wily friend and i procured 4 tickets between the two of us! aw, yeah...

"in the aeroplane over the sea."


"ghost."


"my dream girl don't exist."


looks like i'll be heading to new jersey in october! SO EXCITED! i love these types of trips - on a whim, with excellent people.

2011, the first!

first "things that are awesome" posting of the new year! happy happy!

things i like: girls that say "yumyum" after any description of tasty food encounters. as in, "the pea soup was very good, YUMYUM."

painting with maps (artist: matthew cusick):




recipes for panda bread! i almost wet myself when i saw this (visit the source for the recipe).


thierry legault's amazing international space station transit photos (his copyright language scares me a little bit, but you really should click here to see what i'm talking about... if you know what's good for you).

my new air plants and presidential air plant holder:


the decorated lions at the art institute:


thinking of ferris bueller's day off EVERY SINGLE TIME i see these windows:


super fantastic 3d art:


three floyd's and its delicious beer!


especially when they turned up the "mood lighting..."


xoxo. here's to a fabulous year of more awesomeness.

oh, expedia... shame on you...

i am perturbed at the moment about something afoot at expedia.com. earlier today, i received a message saying that they were giving me a $50 credit on my account after a displeasing stay at a hotel in louisville, ky, this past february (the days inn central, to be exact). it turns out, the $50 is actually hush money because they also removed my review from the site. the first email reads, in part, "Please know that since the review you submitted was handed over to this department, it will not be posted to the site." um... why would it be removed exactly?

let's discuss this hotel, shall we? by "displeasing," i mean that we arrived at what appeared to be a prison, got to our tiny, disgusting room, and actually almost decided to eat the $75 or whatever we had spent just so we could stay at a hotel where we felt safe and didn't think our car was going to be robbed. bordering the fenced in parking lot are a highway, a liquor store, a convenience store, and a discount cigarette store. the area was sketchy, and i have stayed in some sketchy places. we tried to walk to a bar on the other side of the freeway, and we actually turned around after two blocks because we were afraid. i was with a 6'2", able-bodied man, by the way.

this was all before i realized the next evening that i also had bedbug bites all over me from the room. in short, if i were a person traveling alone, i would absolutely want to know about the safety concerns, and any sane person would want to know the hotel has bedbugs.

fast forward to today - apparently, expedia has a system for removing negative reviews from their site. when i tried to resubmit my review, it barred me from doing so since i hadn't stayed there in six months. gee, i wonder why it took them so long to get back to me on my negative review?

this is troubling, particularly in the case of a place that has bedbugs and safety concerns. after expressing this to expedia in a follow-up email, i received a "response" that basically says, "sorry you feel this way, if you need anything else let us know. glad you're a customer!" right... the $50 doesn't cover the cost of my very scary, bedbug-ridden room, and you're not even going to let me post an honest review for my trouble?!

long story short, expedia apparently buys people off instead of dealing with health and safety concerns of their featured hotels. following is my initial email back to expedia.com and the response i just received from expedia's "customer service" about my concerns. remember, the review highlighted SAFETY ISSUES and BEDBUG PROBLEMS; this wasn't a "my room smelled moldy" kind of problem.

Message sent to expedia.com, 12/9/10:
While I appreciate receiving a $50 credit to use in the future based on a bad hotel experience I had earlier this year, I am concerned that my review was removed from the site (Customer Case ID: E-******). People considering staying at the Days Inn Central/University in Louisville, KY, should absolutely know that we received bedbug bites while staying there, the rooms were awful, and we were afraid for our safety and our property. If I had been traveling alone, I would have turned around and left it was so bad, and I have stayed in some questionable places - as it was, even traveling with another person, we almost left because we were scared to stay there.

I have no idea why my review would be removed from the website. Again, if I were a single woman traveling alone, I would certainly want to know about safety concerns, and anyone would want to know about the bedbugs. I would appreciate it if you would put my review back online; I appreciate the $50 credit, but I don't know why that would require you to remove my review.
Me

Expedia's non-response response:
Dear You,

Thank you for contacting Expedia about your hotel reservation.

We appreciate your thoughtful comments and we are sorry we disappointed you on this matter. We are also happy to know that you count on Expedia.com for your travel plans. We rely on customers like you to provide us with the information we need to continue improving our services. To this end, we will share your comments with the appropriate department. We hope you will visit us again, at www.Expedia.com.

If this does not answer your question or solve your problem, feel free to reply to this message or call us at 1-800-EXPEDIA (1-800-397-3342) and reference case ID: M-******.

Thank you for choosing Expedia.
Expedia Customer Service Team

i'm guessing i won't hear anything more back. so let's recap, shall we?
moral of the story #1: never stay at days inn central in louisville, ky, unless you like bedbugs and fear.
moral of the story #2: stop using expedia or at the very least double-check user reviews of your planned hotels with an independent source, such as yelp.com. if you see one negative review on expedia, who knows how many more were deleted?

ETA: this is probably fairly common - i mean, corporations in general are focused on making money, not the safety of their customers. however, i've always had the perception that i could at least use user reviews as some sort of baseline. apparently, not so much. seriously, it was so bad that we snapped photos out front before we sped away as quickly as possible the next morning. i probably would have looked even more pissed here had the bedbug bites started showing up that morning:

snoop dogg is my life coach...

bringin' it way back: drop it like it's hot.


other things i like: my worm bin and my pioneering worm, juanita:


accidental reflections of red bridges that make me look EEEEVIL:


dressing in fall-camo - can you even SEE ME in this pic?! i didn't think so.


the storytelling chair at the nc botanical gardens...


in which i tell stories like this:

electric blankets and israeli reggae...

i heard reggae sung in hebrew today! and you know what? i liked it.

i also like this: "sleepyhead," passion pit.


and packing tape room design is pretty cool:


other things i like: TODAY. i like today. i spent the morning at the bloomington handmade market spending way too much money and the afternoon driving around town in the cold, clear sunshine with a good, good friend, chatting away, buying toilet paper and chocolate, and generally enjoying the world. AND i now am the proud owner of an electric blanket. time for snuggles!

speaking of snuggly, i finished a new hat on a whim. i needed some instant gratification, and this was almost too instant. i started it one night, finished it the next.


other things i like: my new worm bin. they turn my food into magical, plant-nourishing worm poop!


my healthy army of green plants:


metal tree leaves: did i mention we took our first big trip out to north carolina?


life-sized chess pieces: the horse was my favorite.


plants that eat meat:


flowers pretending to be globes:


weddings of dear girls and boys:


trees with gigantic leaves: i would like to read in a hammock under this tree every day.


blooming flowers in october:


the west end wine bar in chapel hill and this fantastic painting, which watched over us as we sipped:


adventures in crockpot cooking: butternut squash and pinto bean chili! YUM.


tonight, creamy potato stew is on the menu for the people:


and fresh fruits and veggies are on the menu for the wormies!


and, of course, in a list of things i like, let's not forget chris: