I am in three March Madness basketball pools this year.  As of last Wednesday, I was ranked first in two of them and second in the third.  Then Syracuse lost and suddenly I have no chance of winning anything.  I’m not really bitter – I’m actually glad that all the 1-seeds didn’t make it into the final four like last year.  The past few years have taken the Madness out of the tournament, but I’m glad 2010 brought it back.

Anyway, I have also discovered some other non-sports-related brackets this year that have helped me waste time during the month of March.  First, there was the Cakes vs. Pies competition (Go Ice Cream Cake!).  Then there was the Bracket of Evil (I still can’t believe that Prop 8 and Glenn Beck didn’t make it out of the first round).  But then Galen introduced me to the Name of the Year competition, and I’m hooked.

Here’s the deal.  These guys collect nominations all year long for the Name of the Year.  Then they verify that the nominees were born with that name and didn’t choose it (legal name-changers and nicknames not allowed).   Then they arrange them in a bracket, with each of the four regions named after past winners – Bulltron, Sithole, Dragonwagon and Crotchtangle, and let the competition begin.  Want to know how they seed the names?  Listen to the podcast.

To see a list of past winners, including my faves, Honka Monka and Barkevious Mingo, check out the Names of the Year.

Galen and I spent the weekend in Arizona with his family (photos and stories coming soon!) and he asked his siblings and parents to fill out their own bracket while we were on vacation.  I’ve got mine here… But I was just thinking I’d open it up to all of you.  Who would be in your final four?

Note: The competition has already started.  Go to the Name of the Year Blog homepage to check in on its progress AFTER YOU VOTE on your final four in the comments section.  NO CHEATING!  DAD, I MEAN IT!

When my brother and I were little, we had a lot of fun. We giggled a lot, laughed at each other and made up games that involved using our laundry chute for just about anything other than its intended purpose. Life at our house was pretty good.

But that’s not to say we didn’t have our sibling moments. For instance, when my brother learned his middle name, Kurt, he didn’t get it. “Kurt” was not a word that he had heard before. It wasn’t a thing in his world. But you know what was? Curtain. So he started telling people his middle name was Curtain. Clearly my parents were just confused when they were saying Kurt. They meant to say Curtain.

Being older, wiser and bossier, I made fun of him for this. The kid voluntarily named himself after drapes. I was his older sister. I knew my role.

However, he apparently knew his, too. So my smaller, cuter and more annoying brother started calling me the one thing that drove me nuts: “Little Megan.” Anyone who knows a young kid knows that calling them a baby or a little kid is the worst thing you could do. And to have the insult come from your younger brother was just too much.

At some point, you’d think we’d tire of such things.

Fast forward to 2008. Pete’s birthday is coming up, so I ask him what he wants. He says he’d like a subscription to The New Yorker. I order him said subscription, send it to the apartment he shares with two of his buddies, and address it to Peter Curtain. I giggle to myself as I imagine his roommates reading the address label and asking him how he pronounces his middle name, and is it Irish? (Who am I kidding? They’re dudes. They probably laughed out loud and asked if his parents were drunk when they named him).

Mego: 1. Pete: 0.

Okay, one more leap in time to last weekend. I recently had a birthday. And I received a Powell’s gift card in the mail:

That bastard tied the game up.

Me: “Hey Galen, can I bring my laundry when I come visit you this weekend so I can do it at your place?”

Galen: “Sure. No problem.”

M: “Okay cool. Do you have detergent? I can bring some if I need to.”

G: “I have detergent.”

M: “Awesome. Do you have dryer sheets?”

G: “No.”

M: “Okay.”

G: “Are those useful?”

A tiny pot of clover!

I just planted these little clover seeds a couple weeks ago. They were looking awfully festive this morning.

“For each petal on the shamrock
This brings a wish your way-
Good health, good luck, and happiness
For today and every day.”

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!

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!)

It may have taken thirty-eight minutes, but I did it!

I realize this is not a fast pace, but my only goal was to run the whole way, and I did! In the time it took me to run 5k, Galen ran the 8k.  We were proud, exhausted and (very quickly) cold:

So we went to a pub, ate lots of food, drank black-and-tans (it was a St. Patrick’s day-themed race) and then I came home and napped while Galen tried to entertain himself. Turns out it wasn’t as rough of a morning for him.

I definitely have a ways to go before the 8k in a month, but as you can see, my enthusiasm was overwhelming this morning at 7 AM (6 AM, if it weren’t for Daylight Savings!):

(Yes, that’s frost on the windows. It was THAT cold.)

Well, it’s been almost two months since I started my running routine.  I’ve tried to run at least three times a week, but have been occasionally thrown off course by a cold, a busy social schedule and Galen introducing me to LOST.  Did you know there were 25 episodes in just the first season?  And there are SIX SEASONS?!?!

But I digress.  The 8k race I’ve been planning to run is on April 18th.  I decided I needed a warm up race between now and then, so I signed up for a 5k on this coming Sunday.     My ONLY goal for Sunday is to run the whole time.  It may take me an hour, but I’m going to try my hardest never to walk, even though my “tired run” is slower than my walking pace.

So I thought this would be a good time to update you, Internet, on the things that I’ve learned.  In case anyone else is thinking about taking up running because they hate it and they want to be overly prepared before embarking on such an adventure.  (A.K.A. The list I Wish I’d Had Two Months Ago):

Gear:

• Shoes.  I’ve learned these are very important.  I spent $100 on my running shoes, which is about $80 more than I wanted to spend, but it was totally worth it.  I went to Portland Running Company, where the sales guy watched me run up and down the block in various shoes until we were both comfortable and happy with the result.  (I actually left the place horribly embarrassed not only by the size of my feet, as usual, but by the way he said, “Oh interesting.  Usually people with flat feet pronate, but since you’re also pigeon-toed, it looks like you actually supinate.”  It may be interesting to you, sir.  To me, it just makes my feet more freakish.)  Anyway, I’m very, very happy with my shoes and the sales people were super nice and helpful.  It’s not their fault I have a foot complex.
• Long sleeved Nike Dri-Fit under shirt.  I know there are millions of brands that make these moisture-wicking shirts, but I happen to live closer to a Nike outlet than a grocery store, so it’s the easiest place for me to shop.  I love running outside even when it’s chilly and/or raining, so this is a must.  Although, if you’re like me and do laundry rather infrequently due to inconvenient laundromat hours, I might recommend buying a few of these shirts.  The smell after a use or two is downright foul.
• iPod shuffle.  Perfect little thing for listening to those Couch to 5k podcasts I was telling you about.  I have a big iPod, too, but bought a shuffle for running.  You can get them pretty cheap on the refurbished Apple website.  They’re so light and easy to run with and mine even clips to my clothes.
• Nike running watch.  Galen got me this for my birthday and it’s great.  It has tons of features I haven’t even figured out yet.  Plus it’s so sleek and cute.

Tools:

• In addition to the Couch to 5k Podcasts, I’d highly recommend checking out MapMyRun.com and FavoriteRun.com.  They’re both websites created to help people find good running routes in their areas.  In my opinion, MapMyRun is easier to use when you want to figure out how long your run was or if you want to make up your own route.  FavoriteRun is easier to navigate, however, if you’re looking for run routes that someone else suggested.  Either way, they’re good tools.

So, armed with this gear and these tools, I head into the world of 5k races.  Wish me luck.  And if you see a tall, awkward girl running like Phoebe from Friends in downtown Portland on Sunday morning (or afternoon, for that matter), please don’t tell her how unnaturally large her feet are.

In general, there are “dog” people and there are “cat” people. Of course, there are a few who are both and a few who are neither, but most people are one or the other. I think it’s the same with wine and beer. I am a dog and beer person.

I think there are three main reasons beer people (like myself) have a hard time drinking wine: quantity, thirst and bubbles.

1. Quantity

When I order a beer at a bar, I get a pint glass. A full one. For twice as much money, I could get a wine glass that’s about half full. When I take a drink of beer, I can take a big one, even two in a row, and it’s delicious. If I try to drink wine the same way (and, unfortunately, I have) it is not at all enjoyable. Which leads to my next point.

2. Thirst

Wine does not quench your thirst. Beer does. I realize beer dehydrates you, but it still quenches your thirst. I don’t like drinking water (which is a completely different rant), so if I’m going to order a drink, I’d like it to be one that actually does what a drink is supposed to do. If I order a glass of wine, I need an additional something to drink, which is even more expensive (but hopefully the second drink will come in a full glass).

3. Bubbles

Beer has bubbles and wine (with the exception of sparkling wine) does not.  Bubbles make everything better. Point: beer.

But recently I’ve been wishing I knew how to appreciate wine, so my friend Julia and I took a wine class yesterday. The class is called “Wine 101: Head First into Wine” and was taught at The Wine Cellar. We found out about it through Groupon and ended up getting a sweet deal.

There were about 16 people in the class, and at the beginning the instructor told us that he encouraged audience participation.  He had a basket full of wine corks.  Whenever someone in the class asked a legitimate, wine-related question, he would give them a cork.  At the end of the class, the person with the most corks got a $10 certificate for the wine shop.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but to Julia (my mild-mannered, incredibly sweet, gentle and somewhat shy friend) the gauntlet had been thrown.

While Julia asked lots of very good questions and collected her corks, I learned the following things, among others:

• what decanting wine does, and why you do it.  I also learned that only red wine is decanted.
• what tannens are.  And what to do (decant!) when a wine tastes too tannic.
• (thanks to one of Julia’s questions!) what “legs” are.  Also: our instructor told us that people who discuss the legs of wine are similar to people who use acronyms excessively – they just want to sound like they know what they’re talking about.  But in reality, the information is useless.
• if you open a bottle of wine and leave it open overnight, it’s like aging it 5 years.  If you leave it open another day, that’s like 10 years.  If you leave it open overnight a third time, it’s disgusting.
• wine was originally supposed to be consumed alongside food to enhance the taste.  However, Americans have begun drinking it like a cocktail, so much heavier, full-bodied wines have become popular.
• wine from a specific region tends to go very well with the food from that region.
• why 3-buck Chuck is so cheap.  Basically, if there was such thing as “Big Lots” in the wine industry, it’d be called Charles Shaw.
• many more interesting things that I can’t think of at the moment.

Also, I had wine I liked!  And it wasn’t too expensive, either!  He told us the prices of all the wines we tried and they were all relatively inexpensive.  At the end of the 90-minute class, Julia had 8 corks in front of her.  One of her questions was so good that a fellow student lobbied for her to get two corks for that question.  Needless to say, she won the competition and took home a great Tempranillo that we tasted for $2 out-of-pocket.  She graciously offered to share it with me.

So, wine may still not compare to beer in the areas of quantity, thirst and bubbles; but I have learned to enjoy it and learned enough about it that I won’t be totally embarrassed when Galen and I go wine tasting.  I kind of wish I could go back to France and tell my host parents that I’m not as much of an American idiot as they thought I was!

Today’s quote comes from a really cute birthday card I got today in the mail from my friend Abby. (I know, I opened it a day early, but it’s so exciting to get something fun in the mail!)

“We don’t stop playing
Because we grow old;
We grow old because
We stop playing.”

- George Bernard Shaw

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.