About 8 months ago, I decided to buy a bike. Since I live in one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world and live right downtown, I thought it would be a good idea. I could take my bike places instead of walking, driving, or braving public transit in Fareless Square.

So I got on Craigslist and found a used bike for $60. I asked Alex to come with me to get it, because the guy selling it lived in Clackamas. Not only did I have no idea where Clackamas was, but I definitely did not want it to be the last place I was seen alive. And clearly, Alex would save me from any harm. We borrowed Amanda’s car, threw the bike in the trunk, and then stored it in Alex and Talia’s garage until the weather was nice enough for me to ride it home.

Yesterday was a pretty nice day. I woke up at 10:00 and wasn’t planning to do anything until 1:00, when the Plastics were meeting for lunch before our Brewfest marathon day. Sounded like a good day to take the bus to T&A’s and ride my bike home.

I found enough change in my room to buy a bus ticket, since the only cash I had was in $20 bills, hopped on the bus and got off by their house. As I was walking through the McDonald’s parking lot, I threw my bus transfer ticket away, since I would be riding my bike home. I don’t think I need to add a foreshadowing note here for you to see where this is going.

Alex and Talia were out, but they gave me the combination code for their garage. I got the bike out, closed the garage, cleaned all the dead spiders off the wheels, hopped on the bike, and immediately fell over when the pedals wouldn’t turn. After I cleaned myself off and checked to see if anyone had seen me (they had), I flipped the bike over and noticed the chain was, as they say, completely FUBAR.

While repeatedly telling myself what a self-sufficient and resourceful badass I am, I assessed the situation, figured out (roughly) what the issue was, and tried to fix it. I wish I could say I fixed it MacGuyver-style with a ballpoint pen, a piece of gum, and some dental floss, but all I really had to do was put the chain back on the gears the right way, which took me about a half hour. I rode down the street and back, but the bike was making all sorts of weird noises.

Side note: Alex and Talia’s next door neighbors have a daughter who’s about seven. At the same time I was struggling to figure out how a bike could break when it hadn’t been touched in 8 months, she was teaching herself to ride a unicycle on their street. I have never felt so worthless in my life. Every time she passed me, she said hi just to rub it in that she could talk AND ride a unicycle at the same time.

I called Alex and asked where the nearest bike shop was, imagining that I could just ride over there, get some screws tightened quick-like and then ride home as planned. To make this ridiculously long story a tad bit shorter, I will reveal some information I didn’t have at the time: The nearest bike shop was actually 7 blocks away from where I was. Alex, however, sent me to where said bike shop was located TWO YEARS AGO, approximately a mile away. So I walked my bike there, worried it would break again if I rode it, putting me through a very embarrassing wreck. Then I called Alex and told him there was no such bike shop at the intersection he gave me, which he didn’t believe. I called Brian and had him look up the address of the place. Then called Alex and asked him if he was confused and meant to send me to the closer place, to which he responded, “Well yeah, there’s one there, too, but I swear there should be one where you are.” (The more adept of my three readers may wonder at this point why he didn’t send me to the close one in the first place if he knew it was there.)

Anyway, I called the place, found out they moved while Alex wasn’t looking two years ago, and walked my bike back towards where I started. When I got to the shop, I told them what I thought the problem was and they said they needed to replace the part, which would take at least a day and cost me $28. Could I come pick it up tomorrow?

So that’s how I ended up standing on the corner of 20th and SE Powell when I was supposed to be at lunch, covered in bike grease and sweaty as hell, carrying a bike helmet and lock, kicking myself for throwing away my bus transfer ticket. I didn’t bring any bus money with me and wasn’t really interested in begging for it at the 7-Eleven. I called Ben and Amanda, who graciously offered to come pick me up, even though they had literally just driven by that exact spot five minutes ago and were now on the other side of town. I decided to walk up Powell while I waited for them. In the process I found some really interesting places in SE Portland I wasn’t previously familiar with, including a place that has a whole cement lot full of bouncy castles, one of which was shaped like an elephant and full of children bouncing and screaming in delight. At one point I was texting Amanda to tell her where I’d walked to, when I ran into a tree branch. Face, meet tree branch. While I was standing on the sidewalk laughing at myself, I heard Ben and Amanda yelling “MEGO! MEGO!!!” from their car. I ran across a busy street to get to them, opened the car door, and seeing that the back seats were folded down, dove into the trunk.

The happy end of this story is that I made it to lunch about a half hour late, showered and wearing different clothes, and enjoyed about 6 hours of the Brewfest with my ladies. However, just when I was starting to forget how strange my life can be, I ran into all of my brother’s friends from high school standing outside the bars downtown. It was after midnight, I was walking home from the post-brewfest party at Berbati’s and once again heard someone yelling my name in the street. My brother’s buddy Aaron is getting married next month and his best man lives in Portland, so the bachelor party was an entire weekend of debauchery at the Oregon Brewers Festival (sprinkled with visits to bars and classy strip establishments). My brother is in the wedding, and would have been here if he didn’t have to be in school. So the boys decided I needed to represent him at the bar. I ended up spending the next four hours drinking and hanging out with them.

A broken bike, a brewfest, and a bachelor party. Sounds like a nice little Saturday.

This week, I’m headed to one of my favorite places on earth:

Every year, for 62 years, my dad’s family has been going to the same hotel in the same city in the Canadian part of Glacier National Park for a vacation. As his brothers and sisters (of which there are 6) began to grow up, get married, and have children of their own (and he did too, clearly), it became an annual family reunion. And I look forward to it all year. I have 12 aunts and uncles, 12 cousins, 5 cousins-in-law, and 2 baby cousins (which is the term we use for the children of your cousins). And almost all of them are at Waterton every year.

Over the years, the fun was extended from a weekend to a full week. Now we go up on Monday and come home Sunday. Not everyone can go the whole time, of course, and every once in a while someone can’t make it at all one year, but that’s the great thing about going every year: you know you’ll see them all again next time. Festivities include a tennis tournament, a golf tournament (this year we even added a bad pants competition), and occasional bocce or softball games. There are lots of hikes, of course, and a huge barbecue to close the whole week. The BBQ usually ends with a lot of tipsy family members singing along to Sweet Caroline very loudly and dancing around a fire while emptying their bottles of Molson Canadian and Kokanee.

I may have time to update the blog while I’m at Waterton, but even if I don’t I’ll have lots of great stories and pictures to share when it’s over. In the meantime, I’m off to drink too much, get sunburned, and hopefully win the bad pants competition…

Let’s play catch-up. Here are the things that have happened in my life since last we met that I have deemed blog-worthy (in a list, of course):

1. I went to Idaho. And it was hilarious. Besides passing a store in the middle of Pocatello (population ~55,000) called “The Gun Barn” and another one that was a giant warehouse with these wares listed across the side: “Camping – Boots – Knives – Camo – Gifts,” it was a great experience. My dad aptly dubbed Pocatello “the town that time forgot” after driving through downtown and feeling like he jumped into 1955.

Other things to note about Idaho: They call baked potatoes “Bakers.” As in, “Whadya want on yer baker?” There are also lots of Mormons there. Everywhere you turn, stores are selling CTR rings, ties, necklaces, and wristbands. I got carded at our hotel bar and when I told the bartender I’d have to go back to my room to get my ID, he responded with, “You’d understand if you were from here.” The regional high school rodeo championships were also in town and all of the cowboys and girls were staying at our hotel. They even set up a fake calf in the atrium to practice their roping skills.

The wedding reception was at Tiffany’s parents’ house, which is a beautiful ranch about an hour outside of Pocatello, near Aberdeen. When we were driving on the long dirt road out to the house, passing by miles and miles of potatoes, sugar beets, and wheat, my cousin Kristin started singing, “We’re from the country and we like it that way…”

2. The Sixth International Barbecue Symposium took place. Anyone who went to Lewis & Clark knows that all meetings, gatherings, or even organized conversations are to be called symposia. For instance, if you do a search on the website for the word “symposium,”, you’ll get 4 website suggestions and 85 articles on everything from the “Third Annual Multicultural Symposium” to the “Environmental Affairs Symposium” and the “Law Review Symposium.” So, naturally, six years ago, my friends decided to start the annual Barbecue Symposium, which consists of lots of friends in one place, drinking, grilling, and playing in the sun for one whole day. This year we even had 4 guests of honor fly in from out of town. Overall it was a great success. And if I had to sum up the day in just a few photos, they would be these three. At one point, I decided to nap and then rally for more flip cup. I love me some flip cup.

3. I went to a Share the Road Safety Class in order to get the cost of my Illegal U-Turn ticket reduced by $115. And it was totally worth the two hours of my time. Highlights included them showing us this video to convince us to watch for cyclists, and the woman next to me getting in a bit of a fight with another person in the class about her ticket. “That is TOO illegal! Otherwise I wouldn’t be sittin’ here in this damn class!”

4. I bought the new Coldplay CD. And it was a let down. I’ve never been a huge Coldplay fan. I didn’t DISlike their music, I just didn’t search it out or buy their albums. (I just checked to see if I had any Coldplay on my computer. Until last week, I had 4 songs of theirs and I’m pretty sure I got 3 from my brother and 1 from a Christmas mix my cousin made). I really liked the song on Kanye West’s latest CD with Chris Martin on it, so I thought maybe I should give Coldplay a chance.

Jason told me to check out their website and download the free song. (He’s seen Coldplay in concert and probably has all of their CD’s). I downloaded Viva La Vida (the one on the iTunes commercials) and really liked it. Then I saw this political emotional rollercoaster of a video and decided I’d probably buy their CD when it came out. Well, I bought it. And it pretty much all sounds like their old stuff. I still like Viva la Vida, Violet Hill, and Lost?, but the CD was a waste of money. In fact, I’m pretty sure the song 42 is actually just In My Place with a few different words.

5. I started internet dating. It’s true. So be prepared for all sorts of embarrassing/stupid/painful stories on this here blog. And to start it off…
On Saturday, at my friend Kate’s wedding, Jason (that’s right, my EX) came up to me and said that he’d just received an email from eHarmony letting him know that they’d found a match for him. Her name is Megan, she’s 25, 5’10″, and she’s a fundraising event planner for a non-profit here in Portland. She’s very close to her family and enjoys happy hours and microbrews. I coolly responded with, “Wow, she sounds pretty awesome.” And then mumbled something about loving the song that was playing and ran off to dance.
When recapping this story to my friend Ben, he said if eHarmony thinks Jason and I would be a good match, that’s just proof that the system is totally fucked. I’m trying to stay optimistic.

This coming Saturday, my uncle John is getting married for the first time at the age of 47. I’ve spent the better part of the last few days trying to figure out what shoes to wear with my new fabulous dress and working out a way to slide a Princess Bride quote into the ceremony without completely embarrassing him in front of his new in-laws.

But I’ve also been exchanging emails with his soon-to-be wife, Tiffany, who I don’t know very well, but have spent some time with and always liked. She’s unconditionally sweet and pretty quiet, but she’s outdoorsy and fun and she and my uncle seem really happy together. She’s not particularly girly, so I’ve been curious to see what her wedding will be like. I sent her an email a couple weeks ago offering to help with anything I can this weekend. In her emails, she’s been a riot.

Last Friday I told her I’d be getting into town late Wednesday and I’d be happy to help with any prep stuff after that. She replied:
“Have you called into work sick yet? You can come and watch me parade around in my dress. I do this nightly — but, I don’t tell John about it. Exhausting being the princess.”

Then today, my cousin Kristin and I told her we’d help with the centerpieces at the reception. Kristin asked how Tiff was holding up:
“Things are going OK here – I’m just down to small stuff mostly. Hair extensions, collagen for my lips, fine-tuning my tattoos, … and shoes – I don’t have the stupid shoes yet!”

This is gonna be an awesome wedding.
______________________________________________________________

*Update*
The day after I posted this, I was chatting with Tiffany online:

T: I was thinking today that you’d be laughing at me
M: Why?
T: I was sitting around with Nair on my legs and whitener on my teeth
Oh, and Nair on my lips
M: I’m laughing already
T: So now I’m sitting around with Neosporin on my lips
a slight rash
Crap!
(I mean above my lips, of course) (I’m not that strange)
M: You poor thing!
That sounds terrible
T: I admit I’m a little worried
Oh well. I need to go mow the lawn. I’ll see you tonight!

I walked home from work without a jacket on today.

People, this is huge. This means it’s finally almost summer. Which means it’s time for me to make my annual “What I Want To Do This Summer” list.

1. Go boating on the Columbia with Paul and Jen as many times as possible.

2. Visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I mean, I love cheese, and I love ice cream. You’d think in the seven years I’ve lived in Oregon I would have made visiting Tillamook a priority. But the truth is that in that time I’ve only been to the coast twice, and neither time included a trip to the cheese capitol of my world.

3. Go to my friends‘ brewery on Flathead Lake in Montana. I had some of their beers last weekend when I was home (they brought about half a dozen growlers to a barbecue at my dad’s house and we finished them off in no time). They’re also throwing around the idea of naming a beer after my pops, which would be incredible. (They want to call it “Dr. Tom’s Pils”.)

4. I also think I may join a Dragon Boating team… Although the details are still in the works. But it seems like a great alternative to summer bowling (indoors when it’s 90 degrees? Yuck.) and kickball (doesn’t work with my schedule). It’s outside, I get to meet new people, and I get a little bit of a workout without going to the gym.

5. I can’t leave out the 6th Annual International Barbecue Symposium. An entire day full of grilling, eating, and drinking beer with my friends in Adam’s backyard. Could it get any better?

And, of course, I’m looking forward to lots of hiking and bikeriding, sunbathing with a good/trashy/interesting book, and beers on the deck. Not that I have a deck, mind you. But I know a guy.

*My friend Lindsay in High School thought those were the lyrics to the song.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKXFqGUGdTk&hl=en]

In case you’re wondering, I didn’t make a video with my brother. I gave my mom a stuffed animal pig that doubles as a slingshot and oinks when it hits things. Pete gave her a hand-carved wooden box from India. No wonder I’m her favorite.

My mom has learned how to text message, google chat and email. But the introduction of picture messages into our relationship has been by far the most entertaining.

For example, I received this yesterday:

“I took this at a coffee shop. The guy said it was Caughy’s equation. i think he is single. xoxo”

Ever been to Butte, Montana?

Butte is known for a lot of things. The spelling of the city is the butt of many jokes, including in films such as Toy Story and Beevis and Butthead Do America. Butte also boasts (or did at one time) the highest number of Irish people per capita outside of Ireland, which was cause for MTV to actually broadcast live from Butte on St. Patrick’s Day in 2002. It’s Evel Knievel‘s birthplace. It’s also the only city in the United States where possession and consumption of open containers of alcoholic beverages are always allowed on the street throughout the entire city (although not in vehicles). It’s a famous old mining town that used to have underground tunnels that connected the mines to the brothels so men didn’t have to go up to ground level and risk being caught by their wives. It was home to one of the largest and most prosperous copper mines in the history of the world. If you ask anyone from Montana, though, they will tell you that the trees grow funny near Butte, that the Berkeley Pit is so polluted geese have been killed just by landing on it, and that the people from Butte talk funny.

Butians, as they’re known, have an accent that I would describe as a mix between Jersey and rural Minnesota, but also very country. They say things like, “So I says to the guy, I says…” and they begin and end sentences with “you know.” They also don’t use the letter S at the end of words to show that they’re plural. For instance, you would be “shooting squirrel” instead of “shooting squirrels”.

One of my favorite Butian (pronounced B’yew-shin) words is “tret.” A friend of my mom’s once told her that she didn’t find out until she was in her twenties that “tret” is not actually ANY FORM of the verb “to treat.” She was so flabbergasted that she immediately told her dad, who promptly told her she was wrong. “Sure it is, Eddi. You know, like ‘My husband didn’t tret me right so I’m gonna leave!’”

The reason I’m telling you all this is because I think a woman at my office was raised by Butians. She was giving us a tutorial on how to use the new Microsoft Office 2007 yesterday and she was talking about those little squiggly lines that sometimes show up under words in Microsoft programs. She said that in the 2007 upgraded version, they not only have red squiggles for spelling errors and green squiggles for grammatical errors, they have introduced blue squiggles for contextual errors. (For example, if I typed “their” instead of “there”, I would get a blue squiggle).

But when this lady, who we’ll call Connie, explained the blue squiggle, she said this:

“It helps with words that are said the same but spelled different. You know, like “were” and “were”.”

[She actually pronounced both words the same. I couldn't figure out what she was talking about.] …So I waited…

“You know, like W-E-R-E and W-H-E-R-E.”

I swear to GOD she’s from Butte.

For those of you who aren’t lucky enough to have had the pleasure of meeting my dad, Tom, here is a little dose of his craziness. And another example of why I love him.

My uncle is getting married in Pocatello, Idaho, in June. (By the way, I’ve decided I’m going to start calling Pocatello “The Poke.” We’ll see if it catches on.) I have been looking at plane tickets to The Poke, and it turns out it’s much cheaper to fly to Idaho Falls, which is conveniently located between Missoula and The Poke. Thus, my dad can pick me up at the Idaho Falls airport on his way. Here is the email conversation we had about it today:
____
From: Mego
To: Dad
Should I fly in on Wednesday night or Thursday morning?
____
From: Dad
To: Mego
Wednesday night. Why not?
____
From: Mego
Okay, how about this itinerary (attached)?
____
From: Dad
Might not be worth it if you get in so late — probably get us into Poco at midnight. Might as well come Thursday.
____
From: Dad
Actually, either one would be fine. If we get in late, we could get up early and go to the zoo. Everybody’s talking about it.
____
From: Mego
Okay, I’m holding the Wednesday night reservation. I’ll book it tonight.
____
From: Dad
Most excellent.
___
From: Dad
Tautphaus Park Zoo
2725 Carnival Way, Idaho Falls; 208/528-5552

Lovely landscaping and a small yet varied collection of animals make Tautphaus Park Zoo a pleasant place to spend an hour or two. Highlights include kangaroos in an excellent Australian habitat, otters, penguins, and a duck pond where kids (and adults) can feed the assembled flocks. The zoo is located in one of Idaho Falls’ largest parks, and a small amusement park nearby is open in the warmer months.
____
From: Dad
* The Idaho Gateway Chorus, a barbershop singing group, is based in Pocatello.
* The Pocatello zoo features only native Idaho species and is located in Ross Park.
____
From: Dad
Pocatello has two sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI):

* Iwamizawa, Japan
* Kwaremanguel, Burkina Faso
____
All those links were in the email, too. And the one to the city in Burkina Faso doesn’t even link to anything. And I say that as if THAT’S the most ridiculous part.

I was walking downtown during my lunch break when a girl stopped me and said, “Is your name Megan?” I recognized her immediately. She and I went to high school together. She was a Senior when I was a Freshman – the only reason we knew each other was because I went to a dance with her brother Freshman year. Apparently she lives here now. Naturally we traded numbers and discussed getting beers together. I think we may have exchanged more words right there on the street than we did in all of high school combined.

My friend Amanda from home called me the other day and left me this voicemail: “Hey Mego, I saw your mom at the grocery store the other day. She was eating mini-Snickers out of a bag that she hadn’t purchased yet. When she saw me she said hi and then explained, “These things are so cheap – why would you buy a whole Snickers?!? $1.79 per bag! That’s practically free! Go get a couple!”"

My mom was here visiting this weekend, staying at the Hilton downtown.  There was a wedding at the hotel on Saturday, so we weren’t surprised when we got in the elevator to go up to her room and there were two guys in it, one of whom was carrying a tux in a bag.  A few floors up, a woman got in the elevator with us who had on a Griz sweatshirt.  I, naturally, started a conversation with her by shouting “Go Griz!”  My mom, slightly embarrassed, asked the woman where she was from.  Turns out she grew up in Billings but went to Missoula for school.  When she found out we were from Missoula and we started chatting, she mentioned that she was in town for her niece’s wedding, which was the one going on at the hotel that day.  Then the guy with the tux said, “Your niece is marrying my best friend.” and the other guy in the elevator said, “And I’m his brother.”