Tuesday, January 30, 2007

MY days away from work!

I made it back from Paso Robles in relatively one piece. I am definitely dragging hiney but that is an acceptable problem for such a good time. I am sure you are aching to hear my stories so I guess I owe it to you to start from the beginning.

It was a Wednesday morning and I was mixing some cake batter up. I have to tell you that my arm was absolutely exhausted by the time I had stirred it long enough. I poured them into the silicone bake ware Aunt Wanda and Uncle Don had got for me. Let me tell you they work fantastic! I was not real sure when my dad would arrive but I figured I would have enough time to bake the cake and get it to start cooling before he arrived. I was however not sure if I should eat or not. So in my infinite wisdom I decided to wait. When the cakes had been cooling for a while and the monster that lives in my stomach was trying to claw its way out I decided to have a bowl of cereal. I poured the milk onto my raisin bran and after just one bite my dad came in. I time things well. I ate the cereal anyway and I made us a cup of coffee for both of us and then I iced the birthday cake, a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. We had a slice at that point and then we headed to Powell's. I needed to trade in a few books and I wanted to get some used versions of Chuck Palahniuk books. I like the guy he is a pretty entertaining writer but I hate that the cheap version of his book is the oversized paperback that cost around $13.95. I mean what happened to the $5.99 book? Ok, so maybe that version is now $7.99 but still!! If you do not think you know this writer he is a Portland based writer responsible for such great books as Haunted, Survivor, Choke, Stranger then Fiction and Fight Club. The last two books are now movies. So you may know him or at least are familiar with his style by now. So far I have read Fight Club (after seeing it of course) and Survivor. I am midway through haunted and was hoping to start another book. Anyway I had brought a sci-fi book and the Fight Club book to trade in and try to get enough for a used book for my impending flight. The Fight Club book is funny because it was the version a few years after the movie where Chuck talks about the success of the book, movie and the random things people say to him because of it. I had picked it up at Powell's a few months ago on the sale rack which means they have too many of that particular book and would like to get rid of it. I was in and out of Powell's several times and that book was always there. I had given up on the fact that this book would ever sell back to Powell's but being stubborn I attempted it anyway and they took it. As if that wasn't a sign! So I took my trade credit and I headed to the P section of the fiction books and looked at every copy of every book under Palahniuk and all of them were new. None of them were used. Then I remembered the movie Stranger then Fiction had come out recently and it must have driven people to the bookstores to find cheap versions of his book. So I headed over to another writer that caught my interest recently Augusten Burroughs. I had read a great book he wrote called Magical Thinking. It was like nothing I had ever read. They are all true stories which make them that much more compelling and the only used version I could find was of Magical Thinking. So far it was not my day. I headed back to the cook stand to see how my father was fairing with the cook books. He was looking for a cookbook that featured using a stand mixer to make things with. The weird thing is he wanted one with more then simply bread. I have worked in a kitchen before and I have used a large stand mixture for two things baking and making whipped cream..... Which is probably beside the point. Although it makes me have to ask: "When you decided to want, desire, pine and finally purchase a stand mixer what exactly did you see yourself doing with it?" I mean really I still can only come up with a few answers. I kept all these cynical thoughts for this blog for your entertainment and asked him if he wanted to use the trade credit towards a book but he had struck out and he wasn't really feeling like looking for anything else in this store. My dad and I both find Powell's to be a short quick stop not a long extended experience. I always go in there with a plan because I have an overwhelming urge to leave the minute I get in there. I always have to remind myself that people visiting the first time need time to explore the stacks. I mean where else do you get a city block filled with books in a multi-layered store. The sheer number of books is deceiving because I never can find what I am seeking and when I actually do find the book it is never used. Give me Barnes and Noble with big comfy chairs to melt into with a couple of books to peruse. So we were about to leave when I stumbled across a book I had been interested in a year or so ago that was titled "The Historian" it was on sale and with the trade credit it was only a dollar. We headed back to the car and off to this Vietnamese restaurant called Pho Huy. It is the best restaurant in Portland. I have never had a bad meal and I always leave wanting to go back and every time I can't finish I regret not savoring another bite. It is ridiculously good. Expect to go there if you come out to visit. Unless you happen to lie on the non-meat eating side I am not sure they swing that way. I will have to check into that. Then we headed to Barnes and Noble for some quality book time. A few hours later and several pages later we stumbled out of their with bleary eyes from all the text we had shoveled past our ocular cavities. We required sustenance and we found it at a Baja Fresh by stuffing tacos down our gullets. We headed over to get beer and limes at the store and ended up renting Iron Man along the way. The beers were tasty but Iron Man was a little lame. We followed that movie up with Over the Hedge which was very amusing much to my suprise. After that we hit the hay because my dad had a workshop the next day and I had some..... nothing to do. This seems to be getting long I will adjourn and continue my story tomorrow. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The funniest thing is Chuck Palahniuk's book Stranger Than Fiction has nothing to do with the movie. His book is all little true tales and stories while the movie is about a guy who is being controlled by a crazy writer... Sorry for being wrong earlier.

Unknown said...

The movie is written by Zach Helm. I have not seen the movie but the premise seems promising and potentially amusing.