The article recently published at Smithsonian.com is titled, “The Science of Sarcasm? Yeah, Right.” and it is lovely.

It is weird today. A nice weird. I usually do up holiday dinners and we have a crowd of some kind come over. But this time we decided to just have it be us and not make a big deal out of it. I am going to cook today – Cornish hens with wild mushroom and wild rice stuffing, roasted brussel sprouts, candied yams, and blueberry pie – but we aren’t cleaning or doing much of anything except lazing around by the fire reading. I’ve already called my family and so the day is entirely ours to enjoy.

I’ve gotten through the odd blip at work and have this amazing perspective. I took a day to think about things, came up with a plan, and laid that plan out thoughtfully and I am in a comfortable place. I am infinitely grateful for my life, and my job, and so many things in life. Most of all I am grateful for Mike. We support each other and love each other but the greatest part of our relationship is how much we laugh. So much laughter.

I am sitting here typing this up and I have one of our dogs cuddled up with me; across the room is Mike reading his blogs and laughing out loud every so often with our other dog curled up next to him. It is such a blissful moment and I am taking the time to notice it and savor it.

Last night I was tidying up the house in anticipation of my friend Ross visiting for the weekend. I put my sunglasses away because I figured it would be a very long while before I needed them again. I am very happy to report that I was wrong. I stepped outside to take a picture of the rolling hills, the blue sky, the green grass, and the pretty trees – some of which are wearing their fall colors. I hope the weather holds all weekend, but if not I am still grateful for this spectacular fall day. Sun! Yay!

I also recently had one of the best meals I have ever had at the restaurant Kin. I hope they do well since I’d like them to be open for a long time to come.

Tomorrow I hope to eat breakfast at Hellser’s and lunch at Clyde Common.

I am SO looking forward to this weekend which, lucky me, starts tonight!

I heard from one of my good friends back in Boston yesterday that she and her husband of several years are separating. She is managing it, is grateful for her job with great co-workers, and her friends around her. She acknowledges it is painful, but she is a kick-ass person who has a lot going for her and she will go through it with pain, but also with grace.

At the same time it is impossible to avoid this bullshit about Kim Kardashian and how she is “somber” and she went out with no make-up. Ladies, we all know that if you are a person who wears make-up regularly, and suddenly you don’t, it is usually to fool idiots into believing your fakery of… whatever. Fake-called in sick to work yesterday? Show up the next day, sans make-up, and everyone will see how you are bucking up and may even still be sick, poor thing, but are soldiering on. It is the oldest trick in the book.

You know what? Fuck you and all of your bullshit, fake-Kardashian people. I’m supposed to dredge up sympathy, or even some semblance of I give a shit, for this 72 hour joke of a marriage to people who seem as shallow as my dogs’ water bowl at the end of the day? And don’t even get me started on how some people out there still consider this joke-of-a-marriage more acceptable than two same-sex people who are committed and work hard at their relationship getting married.

Give me a break.

In other news…sort of related…

I was reading a blog today and in it the person was getting very excited to meet his dream-girl traveling all the way from Scotland (to Seattle) and he was ready for some public snogging in the airport followed by a hot and heavy weekend filled with canoodling et. al. I miss that feeling.

Of course I don’t miss the crappery that relationships in your 20’s can be. The bullshit, the whining, the flakiness, the fickleness….but enough about me.

Sometimes Mike and I will go out on a Friday or Saturday night and bump into a part of the city or a place that is meat-markety. The desperation. The skimpy slip dresses and no coat in 30 degree weather. The faint tinge of desperation. And some douche-bag behavior. We usually look at each other and thank god we are not in our twenties anymore.

We fully appreciate the true intimacy of a good and healthy relationship in our 40s. It is a wonderful thing. Plus, I am the lucky girl whose boyfriend can still get her weak in the knees.

But sometimes that shaky roller-coaster, butterflies in the gut, quest for the perfect Friday night outfit, hair-just-right, adrenaline rush of the uncertainty…well sometimes I admit that I do indeed miss that. I remember it clearly from when I was meeting Mike for the first time face to face.

Then I think about how sick I was recently and how my wonderful boyfriend made me laugh about  things; things in my 20s that I would have been mortified my boyfriend even knew about me. And I remember that in my 20s what I have now is exactly what I was looking for.

Okay, maybe in my 30s. In my 20s I was mostly just having crazy, irresponsible, selfish fun.

Recently we went to see Jeff Beck live here in Portland. Occasionally I see something and in the moment I’m not feeling all that into it, but then I end up with a delayed reaction after it is all over.*

In the moment I wasn’t sure how I was feeling. I am pretty sure in the middle somewhere I was a little bored. I was also a little bit mystified by everyone screaming and yelling and jumping up. Mike and I have a snarky attitude towards people standing up as a sign of how overcome they are with a performance. It is like an epidemic here. Portland is giving it away to everyone which, to me, cheapens it…but I digress.

Jeff Beck is undoubtedly one of the greatest guitarists of all time. I was pretty jazzed to be able to see him live and the man has still got it. But I am a singer and it is harder to get me to invest in instrument-only work. It isn’t impossible of course. At the core I love music and am incredibly impressed with people who can play instruments. Pieces like Joe Satriani’s “Cool #9” comes to mind, and Mike continues to introduce me to some very good ambient music that sparks my own creativity. But the endless wailing of the guitar after a handful of songs just sort of…well…bored me a little bit.

When we got home Mike and I talked about the performance and I mentioned that it was a little strange that I once again saw a Jeff Beck performance and walked away talking about the amazing bass player. That is when it hit me though; Jeff Beck not only travels with some kick ass musicians in their own right but he is thrilled himself to play with them and also showcase their talent. It was as much their show as his. This is where I became incredibly impressed with him. I picked up no real sense of ego from him, just a love of the music and the performance and the collaboration and the experience. Which at this point in his career is nothing short of miraculous. Mike and I commented on the contrast of Jeff Beck to Robert Plant. I’ve seen one too many interviews with Plant to be comfortable with the man. His ego indeed has grown to magnificent proportions. I could be generous and think that maybe it is the editing of the interviews that is giving the egotistical slant, but at the core I’m not convinced. Plant has been similarly traveling with some stellar musicians in their own right, but you never quite lose the sense that they are just his back-up band.

So hats off to Jeff Beck. It felt like an honor to see him and I’m really glad we went. Some nice person put a video of Rhonda Smith’s solo, the bass player traveling with Jeff Beck up on YouTube. This video is from the performance in Canada which was the show immediately preceding the one we saw in Portland so it is essentially the performance we enjoyed seeing.

*************

 *A lot like the movie Valhalla. When I was watching it I wasn’t really sure what I was watching (except I distinctly had the thought that it seemed impossible that someone that filthy and with one eye could actually still seem hot). It was only later thinking about the film that I decided I really liked it. One Eye was supposedly the savage barbarian, but in the end he was really the only one to retain his humanity.

The health update is that my body would really like to continue to reject food but has reluctantly started processing it again. As long as I eat small meals that are light in nature (no red meat for example) my body is handling it fairly well. If I don’t eat light/small I am either immediately, debilitatingly, nauseous and have to lie down or I break out in a sweat, get stomach cramps and have to lie down. I just reread that and it seems more sad than it really is. I’m actually doing a lot better.

Some things I/we did since my last post:

•  Went to see Jeff Beck in concert
• Carved the rest of our Pumpkins
• Escaped the potential trick-or-treaters with our annual Halloween dinner out
• Ordered my favorite, and hard to find, tea in bulk online
• Made chicken and lentil soup
• Booked a trip to visit my sister in San Francisco / Redwood City

It occurs to me each one of these things could be its own post….so more on these things later.

For your viewing pleasure, a really funny picture of my dog with her rawhide “stogie” hanging out of her mouth.

I’ve been ill. I’m not talking run of the mill flu – which I had the week before thank you very much. I’m talking about break out in a sweat and don’t stray far from the bathroom ill. And today it is going on four days. Some improvements in the last day: I am no longer running a fever; I am no longer thoroughly nauseated right after eating food; my kidneys haven’t shut down yet; and I no longer have to take pain meds religiously every four hours to manage the pain from someone beating me with a crowbar in my sleep. Some downsides: no improvement in spending less time in the bathroom; a massive sinus headache; and an intense wish that the makers of the tissues “Puffs Plus with Lotion” would start manufacturing toilet paper.

I’ve been managing to work until about 2pm each day and then I go home and crash. A coworker recommended taking this super probiotic called Bio-K because it helped someone else she knows who recently also had the Black Plague (The Crap Plague? Have I coined a phrase?) and it helped her. So I shelled out twenty-six bucks for a six-day dose and I am currently pinning all of my hopes on it.

In between trips to the bathroom I managed to at least have a little fun and carved a pumpkin with Mike and our friend Michelle V. That was about the only light this week. Well, that and having a wonderful boyfriend who is being sweet to me and at least making me laugh about my situation.