bamboozled

at the suggestion of my good friend r, who is doing my makeup for the wedding, i set out on a mission to buy myself some new, good-quality makeup. for someone who tries to get away makeup-free as often as possible and whose current collection is a hodgepodge of some good stuff and mostly drugstore stuff, a lot of which dates back to when i lived in northwest portland in my little apartment, this was a daunting task.

the mission started on monday after work. i rode my bike out to the valley river center (the non-shitty mall, as opposed to the gateway mall, which is kind of the shitty mall). i was mildly horrified to find out that even the non-shitty mall does not contain a nordstrom. there is, in fact, no nordstrom anywhere in eugene. one macy's, lots of jc penny-type stores, no nordstrom. welcome to middle america, i guess, huh? so i went in to macy's where they had three makeup counters i would go to (prescriptives, mac, and clinique..all the rest was the old-lady makeup). there was one woman running all the counters. she had on the exact opposite of the look i wanted: bright red lipstick, bright purple eyeshadow, blush with actual defined borders, and painted-on dark, dark, really high eyebrows. i kind of hovered around for a while and then ran away like a chicken. i'm sure she would have been just fine and gotten me what i needed, but i wimped out.

i went back yesterday at lunch. i walked with my sunglasses on and pretended to be on the cell phone, so that i could scope it out first without anyone asking me if i needed any help. the makeup counters all had their own representatives this time, and the women at the mac counter were actually fairly normal looking. i went over there and told them what i needed (that i'm getting married in august, that a makeup-savvy friend is doing my makeup, and that i want a fresh, natural, glowing look). i ended up in a chair getting my face done by a very friendly and helpful person named megan. it was actually a really fun experience, sitting there being made pretty and chatting with the makeup girls (it turns out one of the makeup girls just had her own wedding at edgefield in february...she said it was an amazing place to get married...). i looked--and i seriously never say this about myself--gorgeous at the end of it! i know it is designed this way, but i got all caught up in the whole experience. three hundred (!!) dollars, four new makeup brushes, a set of false eyelashes, and a whole bag of makeup later, i feel much more prepared but slightly dumbfounded.

i love my chair

there is a lot to complain about with my new office--for example the high divider walls, the lack of natural light, the apparent prohibition of staple removers anywhere in the building, the fact that work units are scattered throughout the building instead of grouped together, the fact that you have to have a doctor's statement in order to qualify for a phone headset, etc--but my desk chair might just make up for all of it. i LOVE my chair! i am sitting in it right now loving it so much that i have to interrupt my work to blog about it. my first day here i was introduced to "the bowling alley," which is what my desk neighbor calls the long, narrow, spacious supply closet. my desk at that point was only equipped with a straight-backed, straight-legged chair (not an office chair), so along with pens and file folders, i picked up a discarded desk chair in the bowling alley and wheeled my supplies back to my desk on it. the more i sat in it, the more i loved it. it didn't take me long to realize why i loved it: it is huge!! it seems like at one point it was a special order for a really big, tall man (think shaquille o'neal) who didn't fit in a regular desk chair. it has a tall back and i can lean waaaay back in it, kicking my heels up on my desk like some c.e.o. in a corner office while i read my case files. i can comfortably rest the entire length of my forearms on the arm rests. but best of all i can sit cross-legged yoga-style in my chair with plenty of room to spare. i am so in love with my chair!

summerfest

saturday afternoon i had free wine, cheese, beer, reggae, jazz, and blues in a field in the sun amongst oak trees and grape vines. i was in heaven. despite some recent technical difficulties (the contractors putting the new facility together cut a whole bunch of corners and earned ninkasi a big fat "DENIED" from the building inspectors, setting them back two weeks worth of production), ninkasi brewing company has somehow become "eugene's hometown brewery" (http://www.07summerfest.com/, under "summerfest microbrews"), and is featured at just about every eugene event. one of the perks of being "eugene's hometown brewery" is that everyone connected with it gets free tickets to everything and free beer once we get there. this particular event was summerfest, and it was held at my favorite place of the week--the secret house winery. poor matt and jamie were stuck in the brewery literally from 7 am until 1 am friday, saturday, and sunday making up for lost production time (the inspectors finally gave them the go-ahead friday afternoon), but the rest of the ninkasi crowd were headed out to summerfest. it sounded fun, and since i'm still feeling like the "new guy" here and missing my portland friends a bunch, i went along, thinking it would be a good way to get to know these guys better. once i got there i kicked myself for not bringing my camera, because it was gorgeous there! the event was all day, but we got there at 3:00--just in time for the free wine tasting hour. this was held in the wine cellar which was lit up with twinkle lights and candles, and it included complimentary cheese and other yummy hors d'oeuvres. the 1999 pinot noir was my favorite. very smoky and smooth. after the wine tasting, we bought a couple bottles of wine to share and laid out a blanket on the field to watch the bands. it reminded me a lot of the cathedral park blues festival under the st. john's bridge that happens every summer--good local talent, a family-friendly atmosphere, the smell of summer floating through the air, and a pervasive feel-good vibe. after the event, right at twilight, one of the winery's owners showed us around their impressive garden. it made me want to live there! they are having a wine and blues festival in august, and there will probably be some concerts out there too. ani defranco played there last year. there is a website--http://www.secrethousewinery.com/--but it doesn't show much. i wish i had brought my camera so i could upload pictures and show you, but i didn't (though now i have it in my purse wherever i go), so you'll just have to come see for yourself sometime!

city in the country

i love it that you can go from (albeit small-townish but definitely not without culture) city to full on, outdoorsy, llamas-and-sheep country in just seconds here. there are no miles and miles of freeway through acres and acres of strip-mall suburb. (well, except for springfield, but that's only in one direction... but anyway...) last sunday matt and i got up, made breakfast, loaded otis in the car, and drive for no more than 20 minutes to get here:

(yes, i finally learned how to upload photos onto my blog. i know, a monkey could have figured it out, blah blah... :) ) this is at the base of spencer's butte, which is just south of eugene and an absolutely gorgeous hike. i was going to post some of the pictures that i took once we got to the top, but for some reason i can't make those ones upload--i think because i used the "panorama" feature on my camera and my computer doesn't know how to translate that, and i don't have a monkey around to help me figure it out--but take my word for it, it was breathtaking. the last quarter-mile or so is pretty much just climbing up rocks to get to the top. aside from the spectacular view, what impressed me was that otis is a) extremely agile and adept at scrambling up rocks, and kind of reminded me of gollum from lord of the rings and b) very tuned-in to his people, and could recognize that matt and i were not so agile and therefore was careful not to pull us up or down the rocks but instead waited patiently for whoever was walking him to find their footing before making the next scramble.

rodent update

remember the "beaver" that was living in my yard? well, it turned out he was a she, and she was a pregnant nutria. now there are six nutria--the mama and five little fuzzy puffballs that i would be absolutely in love with if i didn't know what they would grow up to be--living under our back deck. i turned in a report to my landlord on may 30th, and again today, so we'll see what happens with them. the landlord assured me that they would be humanely trapped and released, which i'm glad for. as much as i despise nutria, i don't like the idea of killing a mama anything and its babies.

because i'm a nerd, and because people in california reading this might not be familiar with nutria (i wasn't until i went to college in salem), i googled them. nutria...disgusting enormous rats...have their own website: http://www.nutria.com/. seriously. it turns out they aren't even supposed to be here in the first place. some dumbass fur trader imported them from south america to louisiana, where they were released "either intentionally or accidentally" into the swamp. then, apparently, a HURRICANE picked them all up and dispersed them around into mississippi and texas. since then (jj, you'll be interested in this part), they have reportedly caused "extensive damage to louisiana coastal wetlands." the website pretty much only talks about louisiana and it's neighbors, so i have no idea how they went from damaging the gulf coast to damaging my back yard. i did learn, however, that "the generic name [myocastor coypus] is derived from two greek words (mys, for mouse, and kastor, for beaver) that translate as mouse beaver." so i was right: there is a beaver living under my house!

ninkasi brewing

it just occurred to me that i should probably provide a link to the website for whole reason i'm in eugene in the first place! anyway, you can read all about ninkasi brewing and it's creator, matt's friend (and mine) jamie floyd, at the following website:

http://ninkasibrewing.com/

it's also now a link in my blogs-to-check-out section. i was just looking at the site myself a few minutes ago...i had no idea ninkasi was available at so many portland bars! i definitely recommend going for a taste. it's mmm good!!

don't bank with washington mutual

consider this a public service announcement: washington mutual is evil and they will rob you blind.

1. there is a 6-transaction monthly limit on my washington mutual savings account. fine. they charge $35 if you do more than 6 things with your savings account in a month. also fine. last month i took out a lump sum of $200 so i could pay the guy who came to fix stuff on the house when we were getting it ready to sell. i got my statement this month, and it shows that SEVEN smaller sums--totalling $200--were taken out on seven separate occasions, and that washington mutual charged me $35. this is the second time this has happened.

2. matt got me a new pair of running shoes at the adidas store for part of my birthday present. when he went to pay, the store's system was down. it evidently took the guy at the cash register a while to figure this out, because he kept swiping matt's debit card. finally the system came back online and generated a receipt for the amount of the shoes. two weeks later matt found out that he was several HUNDRED dollars overdrawn. he called washington mutual. he found out that he was charged for the shoes as many times as that guy in the adidas store swiped his card. once he was charged enough to deplete his account, each additional swipe cost him a $35 overdraft charge. he tried to explain to the customer service guy what happened. he was told that the only way to fix it was to go into the adidas store again and get someone there to call wm with him. he went back to the adidas store. he an adidas clerk called wm several times and spoke to several different customer service representatives. each one had something different and apparently useless that matt and the adidas clerk needed to do, "then call us right back." finally, they got a manager at wm. it turns out all they had to do was get an authorization code from the manager at adidas. when they asked why they weren't just told this in the beginning, the wm manager basically told them that people aren't trained on how to handle that type of situation until they are managers. WHAT??!? literally three hours later, the charges were removed. the however-many $35-a-piece overdraft fees were not.