megolomaniac

I spent so much time with family last month I’m calling it Family February. What did you do to celebrate?

Galen is lucky enough to have some family members (grandma, uncle + family, sister + family) who live in the Portland area, so he/we get to see them fairly often. His mom comes to Portland about once every couple months, too, so everyone stays well-connected. Recently, I’ve also been able to spend some additional time with Galen’s sister and her family, which has really been wonderful. (She has two awesome little kids that I absolutely adore, conveniently…). One weekend last month, Galen’s uncle was in town from California as well, so I got to meet more great relatives.

However, no one has as many relatives as I do. Or at least, that’s how I feel.

The reason for the “Family February” designation is because I was lucky enough to have not one but TWO of my cousins come to Portland last month. President’s Day weekend, Emily and her man Arthur drove here from Missoula to sample some of the wonderful things the Rose City had to offer, including VooDoo Doughnuts, good coffee, delicious microbrews and bike rides in the rain. I was out in the sticks visiting Galen for most of the weekend, doing couple-y things for Valentine’s Day, but got to catch dinner with E & A on Friday night:

(Photo by Arthur – www.arthurinthesky.com)

Then, the following weekend, my cousin Kevin, his wife Jen and their new baby Molly came to Portland, escaping the Snowpocalypse in the East and catching some unseasonably warm sunny days in Oregon in February.

Molly and I bonded while her mom and dad shopped at Powell’s.

She is so cute you just want to eat her up.

(Photos by Jen – www.jennifermcmenamin.com)

Thanks so much to all this year’s participants in Family February! You are all welcome back to Portland anytime. (And for the rest of you – come visit soon!)

Do you have a sibling?  Do you ever wish you could get back at them for all the damage they did to you (both mentally and physically) while you were growing up?  You don’t want to do anything horrible, of course, just give them some lasting token of the childish emotions you can’t let go of?

I’ve got an idea.  You know that terrible nickname you gave your brother or sister when they were younger that still embarrasses them to this day?  Teach your kids to call them that.

Believe me.  I’ve got an Aunt Tuna.

Yeah, you read that right.  My mom grew up calling her sister Tuna after a mysterious incident involving a cheerleading uniform that both of them still laugh about but refuse to retell.  My aunt has a real name that sounds nothing like Tuna, but I only learned that when I was about ten years old.  It still weirds me out when other people use her real name.  My mom calls her Tuna.  My brother and I call her Aunt Tuna.  My step dad calls her Tuna.  You get the point.

Recently, I asked my mom if she had a bit of a “gotcha” moment the first time one of us said the words “Aunt Tuna,” as if this was some type of retribution for all those years of annoyance and frustration her younger sister put her through.  (Can you tell I’m the older sibling, too?)  She thought about it for a minute and then said, “I’ve always called her Tuna.  I can’t imagine calling her anything else.  So why would I teach you guys to?”  I suddenly wished my younger self had come up with a better nickname for my little brother than “Bud.”

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In early December, we went to Tennessee to visit Aunt Tuna on her farm in the mountains.  I hadn’t been there in ten years, so it was interesting to see how many things were different and how many were exactly the same.  She has the same horses but not the cows; she lost three dogs but got a puppy and a new cat.  The house was just like we left it, although I had grown so it seemed to have shrunk.  It was also the first time I could remember being there in the winter.  There’s something fascinating to me about frozen mud and kudzu vines that survive the frost.  These are not winter concepts I am familiar with.

Aunt Tuna’s house (in summer):

Aunt Tuna and Toby Kramer (the gigantic puppy):

Other photos from the farm…
The most inviting chair in the world:

Snow! And kudzu!

The tin man sits on the covered porch of a southern home, admiring the fresh snow.

Last but not least, my mom sent me this photo of us on a hike.  From left: my brother, me, my mom, Aunt Tuna (notice the dress with leggings and red rubber boots.  Always a fashion plate – even when the rest of us are bundled like the kid from A Christmas Story, add hiking boots).

I have twelve cousins on my dad’s side of the family.  There are 14 of us total and I am 7th in the birth order.  The age difference between the oldest and youngest is almost exactly 30 years and we’re pretty evenly spaced over that time.  Even with this significant age span, we’re a close bunch.  Our relationships morph and change over the years as we go through different periods in our lives and move across the country and around the world, but we all get along and look forward to the time we spend together, whether it’s at Waterton or Christmas or other visits throughout the year.

My oldest cousin, Molly, passed away suddenly four years ago.  Since then, I’ve tried hard to hold on tight to every memory I have of her.

…One year at Waterton, she rented a surrey with my cousin Emily and I, who must have been about 10 and 9 at the time.  We weren’t quite tall enough to reach the pedals, so she had to do most of the hard work.  She knew we really wanted to go for a ride, though, and we needed a grown up to take us, so she offered.

…She always made me feel special when I was younger by telling me how cool it was that we had the same initials.

…Molly was the first person to explain divorce and step-parents to me, long before I gained firsthand knowledge.  Looking back on our conversation now, I know how hard it must have been for her to explain to someone so young what it’s like to have two families, and I’m particularly grateful for her patience with me.

…I remember when she explained to me what an Irish claddagh ring was, what it symbolized, and I bought one soon after that because I wanted to be like her and wear it all the time.

…She came through Missoula one time when I was in high school and visited us.  She had just been in the hospital for what sounded like a stroke and had just started taking blood thinners.  She had a few bruises on her legs and arms and I remember thinking how incredibly upbeat she was.  She told me the bruises were a little annoying but she felt like a million bucks.

…In every single memory I have of my cousin Molly, she was happy, laughing and overflowing with charisma.  I thought of her as someone who was always looking for the next adventure and I admired her in so many ways.

On December 4th, just ten days ago, my cousin Kevin and his wife Jen had a baby girl.  And they named her Molly.

As my cousins have started having kids, I love spending time with the babies and talking to their parents about what life is like with children.  I look forward to many years of being the fun older cousin who teaches the little ones new games and buys them ice cream when their parents aren’t looking.  I’m sure I’ll tell them stories that will bore them to tears sometimes, but hopefully I’ll also be the person they invite to sit at the kids table at Thanksgiving because the rest of the grown ups are so boooooring.

And I hope with all my might that Molly, Eamon and Liam (who are all babies and toddlers now) are there for my kids when their feet can’t reach the pedals.

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?

Hippo Hardware: Check.

Blazers Game: Check.

Bad family photo: Double check.

This has gone well.

Tom is coming!

That’s right – my dad is coming to visit this weekend. And I am no small amount of stoked.

Top Five Things I Want to do with my Dad this Weekend:

1. Go to Hippo Hardware. It is the Tom in me that appreciates that place.
2. Go to the Japanese Gardens. I’ve never been there except one time when my dad came to visit me in college and we tried to get in 15 minutes before closing time. When they said no, we tried to climb up on a park bench to see over the walls. I think this time we might buy tickets.
3. Go to a brew pub… Can’t decide… Hopworks? Rogue? Ack!
4. Go to the ReBuilding Center. He may find something he didn’t even know he needed (highly likely).
5. Catch up, have fun and laugh. You know… the usual.

Any other suggestions? These probably all won’t happen, but they seem like good ideas!

This video reminds me so much of Out to Lunch in Caras Park in Missoula, it’s not even funny.

(Alternate titles for this post include, “It’s a Long Story” and “I am SO Big Time.”)

I think most people who start blogs have blog-idols. I started my blog because I wanted to be more like the following people:
1. Holly
2. Blythe
3. Abby

Abby and I went to college together and I consider her one of my closest friends. She was the first friend I had that started a blog and I am continually impressed by her writing and insight.

Blythe is actually the woman who let me in to college, which is why I often say that she is responsible for every good thing that happened to me after the age of 18. She also recently moved back to Portland, and I’m proud to say she allows me to occasionally play with her son Theo, the Cutest Toddler Ever. Blythe’s blog is always interesting not just because she’s funny and smart, but because she writes about everything from having a baby in Germany to her memories of growing up in a small town in Montana to what she thought of Natalie Portman’s dress at the Oscars.

Holly is the only one I don’t actually “know” in the traditional sense of the word. She and I don’t actually have much in common, other than we’re both brunettes with blogs who enjoy shopping and board games. She grew up in multiple foreign countries and now lives in an amazingly well-decorated apartment in San Francisco. I grew up in one place (Like one of my favorite T-shirts says, “Missoula, Montana. A place. Sort of.”) and now reside in an apartment where all decorative pieces belong to my roommate except the random paintings I did and the license plates I turned into a coat rack. Holly has a fiance she has been in love with and lived with for years. I’m rockin’ the single life and living with a gay man.

She’s hilarious, though, and I love her stories. Last year, I read about Holly’s attendance at a conference called BlogHer and thought it sounded like a blast. Lots of female bloggers interested in similar things getting together and talking. Great, right? So I looked into this whole BlogHer thing and thought it sounded interesting. I decided I might want to attend the conference someday to see what fascinating things I could learn.

Jump to December, when I was home for the holidays and my mom told me she had talked to her mentor about me. She said she was talking to him about ways to connect with other people who do what she does (of which there are none in Montana). He recommended she start a blog.

So she told him about her daughter who had a blog. And he told her about his daughter who started a company for women who blog.

When she came home, she told me about her meeting and said his daughter was one of the founders of BlogHer. Had I ever heard of it?

It was as if she just told me her mentor was Justin Timberlake’s father.

I couldn’t believe I was separated from one of the founders of BlogHer by only 3 degrees. I immediately got online and decided I would like to support the BlogHer community in any way I could, considering I now felt connected to them in a different way (i.e. we were both somehow related to Montana). I signed up for a bunch of stuff on their website. One of those things was their advertising package. They had a waiting list, so I didn’t anticipate hearing from them anytime soon.

However, I did. And it turns out in order to host their advertisements I had to host my own web page. So you can now find me at megolomaniac.com OR continue to use the old address and it will redirect here. You might also start noticing ads on the right-hand side. Think of them as a way to support my illegal-parking habits.

When I switched my blog over, I had to redesign the site, too. (Sort of a bummer, but I’m getting over it). I don’t know if this is what it will look like forever, so don’t freak out if the scenery changes in a month or two when I have more time and patience to figure out what the hell CSS code is. In the meantime, enjoy the flowers.

Any and all feedback is always appreciated!

My cousin Kevin was on MSNBC. Like, the national TV channel.

He’s kind of a big deal.

I had the most amazing experience yesterday at a hardware store. I know how that sounds, but I’m not joking.

It all started a few weeks ago when I got my new Oregon license plates. I decided I really wanted to do something fun with my old plates. I have always thought license plates were pretty cool – I’ve kept my old ones whenever I’ve had to update and I even bought an awesome French plate when I was studying abroad. (I found a store in Cannes that would print them for you!)

So I decided to hang my license plate collection on my wall and attach hooks to some of them. I needed to buy some hooks, so I went online looking for the closest hardware store. I came across Hippo Hardware, which is locally owned, so I decided to check it out.

This place was unlike any hardware store I’d ever been in. First of all, the building covers approximately 30,000 square feet and is divided into 3 floors and one large entry room. The entry room is chock-full of every kind of hardware piece you can imagine, from hooks and pulls to doorknobs and mail slots. The various items are stocked in drawers (some labeled, some just waiting to surprise you), cabinets, shelves, and wall mounts. Just walking in the door is a completely overwhelming experience. They have new, used, broken, rusted, and handmade styles of… everything.

The other three floors are divided into plumbing, lighting, and architecture. However, these labels only loosely describe what you can find there. For instance, the plumbing floor may include bathtubs, sinks, and toilets, but it also features incredible antique fixtures for bidets, for instance, and an old school drinking fountain. The lighting floor was pretty amazing, but I definitely spent most of my time in the basement looking at doors, windows, ladders, and awesome decorative heating grates. The entire establishment sort of makes you feel like everyone’s grandparents emptied the contents of their attics (and various pieces of their houses) into the same building and then hundreds of people spent years organizing all of it. I mean, they even had a lime green toilet. And if my grandma didn’t own that, it’s only because she didn’t know it existed.

I walked around the place with my mouth agape for almost an hour, until they pretty much kicked me out (20 minutes after closing time) and it never even occurred to me to take photos. There are already lots on flickr, but I’m planning another trip back there next weekend to take a few of my own.

I do want to note, however, that the staff was incredibly friendly and quite funny. They not only let me roam around long after closing time, but they were very helpful and continued to joke with each other all afternoon over their paging system. I’ve never seen a group of people have so much fun working together and providing customer service. They seemed downright excited to hear about every customer’s project and the crazy things we had all dreamed up before coming into the store.

It’s hard to believe I left with only the hooks that I needed and not a ladder or window pane for my next craft project (although I’m already planning what I’m going to do with those items). Unfortunately, I was rather limited in my selection of hooks due to the placement of the holes in my license plates, but I’m very happy with the final product.

Hippo Hardware, thank you for helping me honor my Montana roots while supporting a local Portland (AWESOME) business.