For my birthday, I decided I wanted a hammock. My apartment complex has a HUGE deck/patio area on two different levels, which was part of the reason I wanted to live there. Since we actually had sun last week (!) I realized that I’m going to want to spend pretty much all my time outdoors here pretty soon, and a hammock would increase my enjoyment of that time exponentially.

The only problem is that there aren’t any trees on the deck, so I’d either need to tie the hammock to the railing, which would mean it would have to be in one of the corners… or I’d need a hammock stand.

Okay, so after I find some good cheap hammocks online, I search Craigslist for a hammock stand. No luck. I turn to Google products… Lots of results. When I sort them based on price, the cheapest one is this (click on the image to enlarge it):

Which is exactly what I was looking for, obviously.

It all started a couple weeks ago, when I got an email from my stepdad.  He works for a company that employs mostly men and their work involves fairly physical (and skilled) labor.  Apparently every year employees can do peer fitness tests and try to beat their personal bests from years past.  This year, when the guy in charge of the peer fitness program sent out the email announcement saying it was coming up in January, he included a link to a motivational video from a few years back of the peer fitness trainers showing the rest of the crew “how it’s done.”  The guy who wrote the email noted he was sorry he hadn’t been in attendance when the video was recorded, but listed the names of the three employees who had been videotaped.

Motivational Fitness Video.

I thought the whole email prank was so funny that I lay in wait for the perfect time to pull the same stunt with my friends and/or coworkers.

Much to my delight, within a week or so, our HR person sent out an email to the entire company saying she wanted to decorate the first floor bulletin board with photos of “how the employees of The Foundation spent the 80′s.”  She said there would be a contest for the best photo.  Her email went to the entire company.

I almost immediately responded and chose three of the (very few) men I work with to call out.

I know how Matt, Sean and Dave spent the 80′s, I said, because there’s video of it. Then I included a link to the video and all its spandex and aerobic glory.

It was about 4:30 on a Friday when I sent the email, and Matt and Dave were both already gone for the weekend.  (Sean responded almost immediately, asking if Dave had told me about the Reunion Tour ’09 plans that were in the works.)  After sending it, I got a little nervous that the guys might not think it was as funny as I did… so I sent a separate email to them saying that I chose to pick on them because I knew they could take a joke, and I hoped they weren’t offended.

Which brings me to today’s story.  I felt that since I threw Matt, Sean and Dave under the bus for a good laugh, it was only fair that I embarrass myself in front of our coworkers to make the playing field even.  Being an 80′s baby, I have access to very few of the photos of me from that decade.  However, I do have the electronic copy of this gem:

That’s right.  This is a photo of me wearing panda earmuffs that match my brother’s slippers, with a fake plastic stethescope in my belt loop (funny, considering how many real ones I had available to me), strangling my brother with a look on my face that says, “Nothing to see here…”  I mean, when he was strutting around with cheeks like that baring so much diaper-midriff, how was I supposed to compete for attention?

Today’s guest blogger is my friend Anne (names have been changed to protect the innocent).  She sent me an absolutely hilarious email the other day with a story from work, so I asked her to tell it to the world, as it were.  If you have ever worked for someone you GREATLY dislike (like we have), then you will probably understand why she and I laughed so hard at this.

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you… Anne.

I work for a small engineering company employing around 40 people. Our CEO is a tall, swarthy European man with a thick accent. He is aggressive and short tempered. My co-workers euphemistically refer to him as “direct” and frequently talk about how “refreshing” it is to be dealt with in such a straightforward manner. I suspect these coworkers have daddy complexes, because I do not find it refreshing to witness my colleagues being berated.

Recently, our CEO was giving a presentation at our all staff meeting when someone asked him a question which prompted him to go looking in “my recent documents.” His computer screen was being projected, and so I could not help but notice that his list of recent documents included several unmistakably pornographic document titles. One was a jpeg file called “cum tits.”

The meeting went on for almost two hours after this and I appeared to be the only person who noticed.  I am pretty sure I turned bright red.  I was struggling to hold it together.

After the meeting, I googled “cum tits” and “aerospace” to see if it is some kind of industry lingo and got no hits. Then again, that would not have explained “pussy party.”

Instead of a funny story or anecdote, I am going to tell you what happened to me today between the hours of 2 and 7 PM.

I was driving back from Umatilla when one of my front tires popped like a balloon. Of course, I’ve been meaning to learn how to change a flat ever since I was 15, but haven’t quite gotten around to it. Plus, I was off the side of Highway 84, which isn’t a great place to learn, especially if you’re teaching yourself.

So I called AAA, and I’m amazed they didn’t greet me by name, considering how often I’ve been calling them recently. They asked me where I was so they could figure out where to send the tow truck. I had no idea. I told them I was definitely somewhere between Boardman and Arlington. They informed me this was a distance of 25 miles, which is not particularly helpful. They said the tow truck would be there in 30 to 40 minutes.

Then an incredibly young and incredibly sweet state trooper stopped by to make sure I was okay. I told him a tow truck was on the way, but I didn’t know where I was. Rather than look at me funny, he told me exactly which exits I was between. I resisted the urge to kiss him and instead called AAA back.

I sat in the car on the shoulder and waited. I watched in the rearview mirror as trucks came around the corner behind me and tried to give my car some space when they passed. I almost freaked out when an “oversize load” (A HOUSE ON A FLATBED TRUCK) came around the corner. Luckily, there wasn’t anyone in the left lane, so the house truck could move over. At this point, I got out of the car, stepped over the rail and walked around on the hillside for a while. I called Galen and asked him to tell me about the Seahawks game so I had something else to think about.

The tow truck came and the driver had most of his teeth. He also brought his wife along, which I found rather amusing, (because I was a little delirious and) because I was feeling a little vulnerable as a lady all by myself and wishing I had a buddy… and then he brought his wife. He asked where my spare was and then got really pissed off that there was stuff in my trunk on top of the spare. (The rather funny part is that I had already moved most of the big stuff into the back seat so it wouldn’t be too bad). I mean, really, who puts shit in their trunk?

He got the spare out and informed me it was flat.

He tried to inflate the spare, but the little valve thing (technical term) was broken. He had to tow me to the nearest town (ten miles) to get a part to fix the little valve thing. On the way, he explained to me that I can call a junkyard and buy a spare tire that isn’t flat for $25. His wife started smoking a cigarette in the truck and he asked her if it was “one of the ones she found.”

We got to town. He got the part, fixed the spare, put it on the back tire and put the good back tire on the front. (While he’s doing this, his wife very sweetly offers to get me something from the gas station across the street. I didn’t know if they sold liquor, so I said no thanks). The guy told me the old tire was shot, then threw it in my trunk. I asked him if I could drive all the way back to Portland on the spare and he said it would be totally fine – I shouldn’t think about it. Which, of course, made me think about it the entire 140 miles back to Portland, while I drove ten miles UNDER the speed limit.

You may remember my post about Galen’s adventure with my spare car key.

Well, last weekend Galen was in town again (did I mention he was a good boyfriend?) and I was planning to host a housewarming party on Saturday evening. He was going to be hanging out with family and other friends on Friday night/Saturday morning, so I got up early on Saturday to run errands before he came over. I wanted to get the house ready for the party but didn’t want him to have to help or deal with me as I ran around like a crazy person.

My first mistake was thinking I could get up early and go to Ikea to just get a few picture frames. This is like saying you’re just going to “run in to Home Depot to grab a few nails” or “drop by the Goodwill on 82nd to get a plain white t-shirt.” Somehow, I only had to sit down and take a breather ONCE (on a very comfortable and colorful couch) and I managed to get in and out of the overwhelming awesomeness that is Ikea in about an hour. This can only be attributed to a miracle or a wrinkle in the space-time continuum.

So I get out to my car in the parking lot (which measures approximately twelve times the size of the store itself) and unload my bags in the passenger seat. I check my to-do list to figure out what my next stop will be. I then put the key in the ignition… And it won’t turn. Confused, I pull out the key and stare dumbfounded at one of the most frightening things I’ve ever seen:

That’s right. I had broken off THE ONLY KEY to my car.

Many thoughts ran through my mind at this point. Which is probably why I sat there staring at the key stub for what must have been at least five solid minutes. After I had finally come to terms with the situation and had convinced myself it wasn’t a dream, I called AAA. They ended up sending a mobile locksmith who created a key to my car FROM SCRATCH and saved me from the blazing heat in the giant Ikea parking lot. The best part of the phone call, though, was after I explained my situation to the nice man at AAA and he said, “I see. And do you have a spare key?”

“I did. And you’ll never guess what happened to it.”

Considering I’ve barely mentioned Galen (the new boyfriend) on this blog, I am hesitant to tell the following story, lest you all judge him unfairly. So I am going to preface it with this: Galen is fantastic. He is a wonderful, funny, sweet, good looking and intelligent guy, and I’m very lucky to be dating him.

Now, the story.

Galen lives about 3 hours east of Portland. He and a few of our friends participated in the Hood to Coast race a few weeks ago, which started on a Friday. Since the team had to meet in downtown Portland at 6 AM on said Friday, Galen drove over on Thursday evening and stayed with me that night. Our plan for the morning was that he would get up and take my spare car key, drive my car downtown and park it there. Then I would take the bus downtown (a few hours later) and pick up my car before work.

So, Galen’s alarm went off at 5 AM and I slept as he showered and got ready for the race. Before he left, he asked for directions to Safeway and I told him how to get there and which bridge to take to the west side. He took the spare key, I wished him luck, and he left. I went back to sleep.

Then my phone rang. I saw it was Galen and figured he’d gotten lost on his way to the grocery store.

Megan: “Hello?”
Galen: “Disaster.”
(Pause).
M: “Huh?”
G: “Umm… I broke your key.”
M: “What?”
G: “Well… I put your key in the car door and it wouldn’t turn, but you said it sticks sometimes, so I turned it harder… And it broke off.”
M: “You what? Wait, where are you?”
G: “Right outside your apartment. I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m so sorry… I… I’m going to come upstairs now.”

After I hung up, I tried to process everything that had happened. I was still mostly asleep, though, so nothing was making sense. I went to the front door to meet Galen, who had just come inside.

“Umm,” he said, “It gets worse.”
“What?”
“It’s not your car.”

I stared at him, incredulous, as he explained the situation.

The night before, I had pointed at the street and told him where my car was parked. When he got up in the morning and went outside, it was dark. He went to the place I pointed and found a Nissan, so he tried to unlock the driver’s side door. Then the key broke off and he called me to break the bad news. After he hung up and started walking away to meet me back upstairs, he noticed that the car parked behind the one he was standing next to was ALSO a Nissan. And it was mine. He was standing next to a car that was the wrong color and model, and he had just broken my spare key off in the door.

Back up in my apartment, he asked me if I had any pliers. He wanted to try to pull the small bit of the key out of the door. He kept apologizing and I kept telling him it was totally fine, we would get it all worked out. He left with the pliers and I kept trying to wake up. When he came back, I was expecting more bad news, but he had successfully and easily removed the small bit of key from the OTHER Nissan. I offered to drive him downtown, since I was already up and it was close to 6:00. He was still feeling bad when we got in the car, but after about five minutes of driving in silence, he turned to me and said, “I just broke your spare car key off in SOMEONE ELSE’S car door.” And we both giggled uncontrollably until we got downtown and he got out of the car.

It is no secret that I am a stranger to anything that happens in the kitchen. I have grown accustomed to checking the date on every single item I pull out of the fridge after learning the hard way (many times). I call having cereal for dinner “cooking.” I don’t know the difference between broiling and baking. My friend Ben even made fun of me one morning when I read the instructions on the back of a package of bacon before frying it. This isn’t to say I can’t cook – I’ve made a few dishes on various occasions, and when I put my mind to it, they turn out pretty good. The thing is, I don’t really enjoy it enough to put in the effort. My standards for food are so low (I am perfectly happy with sandwiches and cereal for most meals) that I don’t feel inclined to do much above and beyond the easiest thing.

When Brian and I went through the kitchen the other day and divided our belongings, these are the things we decided I owned:

- microwave (1)
This was given to us as an apartment-warming gift from friends who somehow ended up with two microwaves.
- toaster (1)
We actually don’t know who bought this, but Brian let me have it, which was nice of him.
- pint glasses (13)
Most of these were pilfered from pubs in Ireland during the summer of 2003, when I was “studying” abroad.
- cereal bowls (4)
I’ve had these since college. They’re the best bowls for cereal I’ve ever used.
- small plates (3)
My mom gave me four of these as a gift when I moved into my first apartment. A couple years ago, we found out one didn’t bounce.
- ice cream scoops (3)
I bought one plain one for myself, then my mom gave me one with a cow on it, and Talia gave me an awesome green polka-dot one.
- apple slicer/corers (2)
I have absolutely no idea why I have two of these.
- cheese slicer (1)
Can’t live without it.
- bottle opener shaped like a frog (1)
Best birthday present ever – thanks, Amanda!
- cupcake/muffin tins (2)
One regular-sized, one for minis
- cookie sheet (1)
I do love to bake.

I thought this was pretty telling, not to mention funny. I was talking to my mom on the phone about the move, telling her about splitting things up, and she asked me what I needed to buy for my new place. I said, “Well, most of the kitchen stuff. It was funny, Mom. We split all of our kitchen things up the other day and guess what was in my pile?”

“Let me guess.” She said, “an ice cream scoop, a bottle opener…”

Silence.

“How am I doing so far?”

“I’ll talk to you later, Mom.”

So I decided to take matters into my own hands today. I needed to buy dishes and silverware. I also needed a cutting board, a cutlery tray, dish towels, and tons of other things, but I decided to focus on dishes and silverware today. Baby steps. After about an hour of shopping around at Target and Ikea, I ended up in front of the discount silverware section at Ross, hyperventilating. How does a person choose silverware? And how do they expect you to decide when you can’t actually see all of the sets, since some boxes are hidden behind others that aren’t the same? And if any of you happened to see someone standing in front of the silverware section for over ten minutes, would you think they were a total nut job?

Just reliving this experience is making my heartbeat and breathing quicker. I left the store with a set made by a company that promises “superior craftsmanship and design” and called it good. There are a few too many swoopy-curlicues on the handles for my liking, but I made it out alive. And with not only silverware, but dishes, dish towels and mixing bowls, too!

Baby steps.

If you had asked me, say, a year ago to make a list of things I’d be least likely to do in my life, “Attend an amateur body building competition” would probably have been right up on top of the list next to “Become a Navy SEAL” and “Compete in the Kentucky Derby…as a horse.” But my fabulous roommate Brian’s great boyfriend Ken, in a moment of questionable judgment about 8 months ago, decided to train for one such event. Which is how I found myself a couple weeks ago at a casino in western Oregon with Brian, my friend Kara and some of Ken’s friends watching a bunch of VERY tan, rather oily and slightly frightening people flex their muscles on a stage decked with neon and black lights.

First of all, let me explain a little about what “training” for a body building competition entails. Ken has not only been working out daily, but he’s been rigorously dieting for the better part of a year. He eats every couple hours and consumes very strange things: plain chicken with mustard, giant scoops of cashew butter, olive oil by the spoonful. He drinks protein shakes and takes vitamin supplements like they’re going out of style. And whenever he has a “cheat day,” he gorges himself on carbs and then crashes on the couch for a while until his blood sugar gets back to normal. At one point last fall, he made a comment about how he doesn’t eat for taste… So, I took it upon myself to pretty much ONLY eat for taste whenever we were together. He’d order egg whites cooked in Pam for brunch – I’d get Belgian waffles with ice cream and extra powdered sugar. I think it’s important to maintain the world’s equilibrium.

When my friend Kara told one of her coworkers that she was going to Lincoln City to watch Brian’s boyfriend Ken compete, the coworker responded, “Oh, so you’re going to support Ken? That’s so nice!”

“No…” Kara replied, “We’re going to support Brian.”

And I think he needed it. I mean, when Kara and I got to Lincoln City and met the boys at the house Ken had rented for the weekend, we almost introduced ourselves to Ken because he was so tan we didn’t recognize him. Only a very talented airbrush artist can make this:

look like this:

There were smudges of spray tan on all of the couch pillows, where Ken had taken a nap. Brian had a smear of bronze on his forearm where he had rested it on Ken’s arm during the night. And as Brian reminded us, “I’m Mexican! I don’t need this!”

The contest itself was surreal. We had to watch dozens of women with bleach-blonde hair and sparkly string bikinis flex their muscles and walk across the stage in VERY high heels (with clear plastic platforms) before the men’s competition started, but I think it just made us cheer even louder when we saw Ken.

There he is, posing while his theme song (Superman) blasted from the speakers.

His performance was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that he won First Runner Up in his weight class.

Do you think he knew I was taking his picture?

After each of the weight classes took the stage, the overall winners for both the men’s and the women’s competitions were announced. The female winner thanked her family – her husband and two teenage boys – for putting up with her throughout all of her training. “I know everyone’s here to celebrate the competitors,” she said, “but what we do wouldn’t be possible without our families and loved ones. They have to deal with our mood swings and crazy structured lives. They have the toughest jobs.”

So congrats, Brian. You did it. Maybe Ken will let you borrow his trophy for a few days.

Although you might want to wash it first, in case it still has spray tan on it.

I walked home for lunch the other day and stood at the big picture windows in our apartment, looking out into the park blocks as I ate my peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Sitting on the park benches, I saw a couple of flamboyantly dressed women, outfitted with sequins and feathers and ruffles (oh my!). Now, as the bumper stickers suggest, sights like this are not uncommon in Portland. So I didn’t think much of it.

That is, until I left the building to walk back to work and saw the aforementioned ladies (who turned out to be drag queens, unsurprisingly) in a group of other people filming what I later found out was a music video for this song. The group included a heavily-tattooed woman wearing a string bikini, another woman wearing a bear costume, someone in a superhero costume, and a juggler. (For a few photos, check out Byron Beck’s blog post here).

The group was dancing behind the lead singer, who I didn’t recognize at the time, but later found out was none other than the locally and nationally famous Storm Large. As soon as I heard her belt the chorus line, “Myyyy vagina is eight miles wide… Absolutely everyone can come inside.” I began giggling. I was not the only person watching, but I seemed to be the only one who couldn’t contain herself. I continued to laugh as I walked the seven blocks back to my office, where I immediately told my coworkers about what I saw. As you can imagine, hilarity ensued.

I can’t wait to see the finished product. According to Storm’s website, the video will probably debut sometime this month. I promise to keep you updated.

It was February of my sophomore year of college – I was just getting back into the swing of things after a month off, wearing sweats to class to protest the dreary Portland winter weather. My dad called my cell phone and said he was in Canada for a med school reunion. He had been chatting with an ex-girlfriend and her husband, who was on the Canadian Film Board, and the husband said he might be able to get my dad two tickets to the Academy Awards. Would I be interested in going as my dad’s date?

We bought tickets to LA, I bought a marked-down prom dress at Macy’s and my dad rented a tux. He is morally opposed to patent leather, so he shined his best black shoes a little too much and wore those. We had heard on the radio and TV that the red carpet would be significantly shortened this year and the mood would be somber, to honor and acknowledge the war in Iraq that had just started. We took a cab to the Kodak theater. On the way, my dad explained to me that one of the tickets had his name on it, but the name on the other one was that of the man who got the tickets for us. Since the security measures had been tightened for the event, he wanted to warn me they may not let me in. I told him I understood but that if they didn’t I wanted him to go without me. He pretended to object, but then thanked me.

Sure enough, when we showed our tickets and our ID’s didn’t match, we were led to another room so the ticket taker could ask her superior what to do. When the ticket taker began explaining the situation to her superior, my dad began talking over her, not really saying anything. Repeating the same things. Not letting her make her story clear. The superior waved us off and said she didn’t care if the person invited had a different guest than he had originally planned. By this point, the ticket taker was too frustrated to try explaining for the fourth time that it was the guest that had decided to bring a different date. We were in.

The night was a blur. We stood in a large foyer with thick, plush carpet and watched the guests enter after they had been interviewed outside. I didn’t know what to do; I had never felt so awkward. People in tuxedos walked around with trays of hors d’oeuvres and martinis that were lime green or candy apple red. I reached for a lime green one and my dad took it out of my hands. “Do you know what that is?” he said, making a face, “Apple martinis are not good.” He didn’t even argue that I was only 20 (and barely).

My dad almost fell over when Meryl Streep walked in. “She’s, like, it for me, Meg.” I was in awe of Queen Latifah, although my dad and I agreed that someone lied to her about her dress. I saw a cute brunette I didn’t recognize in a beautiful sparkling baby blue dress with spaghetti straps that were digging into her shoulders and thought, clearly she’s not an A-lister or her dress would fit better. I was floored when I went to the bathroom and found that not only was there a person to hand you a towel after you washed your hands, there were lotion bottles and every type of spritz or spray you could ever need to freshen up. They also had a glass canister full of tins of mints like they sold at Starbucks.

We found our seats. We were on the left side of the stage about 10 rows back. The woman in front of me had a gravity-defying updo that commanded my attention. Steve Martin was hosting. Mickey Rooney stood up in the crowd to be introduced at one point. He was on the right side of the theater, about five rows behind us.

Michael Moore won for Best Documentary and started his speech talking about false election results. The crowd booed. The orchestra tried to force him off the stage, but he just talked louder. After the break, Steve Martin made a joke about Michael Moore being helped into the trunk of his car outside.

Peter O’Toole received the Academy Honorary Award. Watching the clips from his movies and the interviews in the montage before the award presentation was truly moving. He was incredibly gracious and funny. I couldn’t believe he’d been nominated so many times and had never won.

The Pianist won Best Director and the people seated directly in front of us all stood to clap. The woman’s hairdo didn’t move. At one point, an actress I didn’t know, Jennifer Garner, was introduced to present the next award. I recognized her baby blue sparkly dress.

Chicago took Best Picture and I was thrilled. We filed out of the theater and tried to find a cab among the limousines. We went out to a fancy sushi place where you sat on mats at a low table and the service was terrible. I was still so excited I didn’t notice or care. I could barely walk in my heels anymore and my dad still had a Meryl Streep glow. It was an amazing day, to say the least.