Glacier Blue

Heart-Shaped Meatloaf! Heart-Shaped Meatloaf!

I'm on the newly-formed 'Fun Committee' at work. I've always kept the birthday list and made sure the birthday person has a card and a cake. Yep, I'm good (you do know I'm kidding) and that's why I'm now listed as 'Birthday Specialist Wendy Gilson'. Can I put that on my resume? Or could you maybe greet me one day with a hearty, military-style 'Good morning Birthday Specialist Gilson!' I'd really like that.

Fun fact: If I had been born in Iceland,I would have been Wendy Albertsdottir (Albert's daughter). Or perhaps Wendy Alsdottir. Very few Icelanders have an official family last name.

In my office this afternoon, there was a meeting of five people gathered in a small room to plan a fun February event (That's right! It was the Fun Committee!) We decided on a Valentines Day potluck. I suggested we go for maximum schmaltz - pink, white and red, too many hearts, gooey sentiments, the whole nine yards. As logic would dictate, this needs to extend to the food, so that's why at about 4:15 PM I was excitedly shouting "Heart-shaped meatloaf! Heart-shaped meatloaf! I'm going to make a heart-shaped meatloaf!

It will be frosted in ketchup (Valentines Day red heart...). Now I just need to go to Michael's to get the appropriately-shaped pan.

Reykjavik City Pond

Geyser

Geyser is the only Icelandic word in the English language. Now you know! It means to rush forth, or erupt.

Some do so in a less-dramatic, more continuous manner.

The geyser field is in an area called Haukadal, in southwest Iceland.

I think I'd have to visit another planet to find a place more interesting than Iceland.

First Day in Iceland

After taking the 'Flybus' from Keflavik to Reykjavik, it was about 9:30 AM. And dark.

My hotel room was not ready, but I was nicely offered a go at the breakfast buffet. Nothing beets a good breakfast (yes, there they are in the upper left)

Breakfast was actually quite good. I had skyr with my corn flakes (or whatever twenty-letter name there is for corn flakes in Icelandic). Skyr is a cross between milk and yogurt, and way better than either.

After breakfast it was light outside, and a perfectly pleasant 42 degrees. I walked down to the harbor.




Clean air, clean water, mountains...I was falling in love.

Iceland

I'm leaving for Copenhagen tommorrow. I'm so deeply in love with Iceland I don't want to leave.

Ok, I'm in Reykjavik

It's 9:30 AM and pitch dark.

Such is life at the 66th paralell.

The sky has thus far ignored my pleas for northern lights...

Hvar er ég að fara?

Where am I going?

Hint: It's the northern-most capital in the world.

?

Girl at Clinique counter: "I always thought Iceland had hot weather year round."

She then went on to apply plum-colored blush from my cheekbones to my eyebrows.Maybe I should have bought it. Men like women with giant purple streaks on their face, right?

Under the Sea

I used the underwater macro setting on these shots. There is an ocean of visual elights in these balls. I may buy a third one; probably purple.

Weft to My Own Devices

Clip in hair extensions are called wefts.

Just getting that out of the way.

Here is a bag of hair with only one weft, I mean left. Actually I mean both because one weft is left.



I bought this bag o' hair because sometimes my hair looks ok short (as in photo below, taken Saturday night. That's me on the left). But...it's too layered and too short and not growing fast enough. That's why I coiffed up $84 for said bag o' hair, which I have not yet worn.



I've haven't worn it because I found out that wefts of long, straight hair look sadly mullet-like with short, layered hair.

The only thing weft to do was bring the hair into work and drape it on anything resembling an animate object:

Peace on Earth and Goodwill

We are having an ugly Christmas sweater contest at our All Staff meeting tomorrow.

Do I love spending 90 minutes to drive the 25 miles home from Tukwila on a Friday evening? Do I love sitting through boring meetings? Do I love the inevitable "Fun!!!!" group activities? Am I irrationally happy about the ugly sweater contest?

No, No, Usually not, and Absolutely.

I didn't own an ugly Christmas sweater, but $6 and a trip to Goodwill fixed that:



Yes I know the picture is sideways. Am rushing off to work, and will fix later. Trust me, it's no less tacky right side up.

Femtio

Femtio is Swedish for 50. I know I should be learning Spanish, but I find Swedish more interesting. It's interesting, absurd, and somewhat horrible to be 50.

I spent my birthday (Monday) in Portland with a short trip to Seaside on the Oregon coast.

The Oregon coast remains an 'it' spot for me. I can think of few places I love more.



My friend Mike was also nice enough to take me to lunch at McMenamin's. There are few restaurants I love more than McMenamin's. When I moved to Oregon in 1998, McMenamn's pubs felt good to me right away. We went to the one at Murray and Allen, right down the street from where I lived in Beaverton.
Mike is a computer and electronics genius and has applications on his Ipod Touch that I didn't know were possible.



More later and *note to self* pictures from Argosy cruise on Lake Union.

Nice Hoobies

I've been perusing Scandinavian singles ads. Why? Who cares why. The point of this post is best expressed by this 43 year old gentleman from Reykjavik:

"I’m Icelandic and lived 15 years in the Sweden’s. I write some and read and talk in Icelandic and Swedish, but I promise you ,you will laugh sometimes for some words come out wrong, but hey, its good to laugh."

Ja, it is. So I present the following Icelandic dating site gems:

"I am 6 feet tall and i have a brown eye ball,and also a round face."

"I'm mechanic and have always work wery mush"

"I grew up in Reykjavik. I spend my time with my son and at the jim and studien."

"I'm just looking for the right girl. I want to spend the life with her."

"My hoobies is camping cykling and ATV and snowcross "

i dont what to write here, is this enough? i dont know man!"


I love that last one.

And 'hoobies' is my new favorite word.

Time and Weather

Tonight's time and weather is brought to you by...Perimenopause!

The time is 1:45 AM. The weather is cloudy with intermittent 300 degree hot flashes.

The forecast calls for continued memory loss "His last name was....um... um... hold on...OMG, I can't believe I forgot this.... um...oh yeah! Berndtson!"

We recommend a time travel vacation to a 1980s destination, preferably at a time when you were reasonably thin.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming (a phrase no one under 35 would understand- but that's ok because you're a decade and a half older than that, and before you know it you'll be getting discounts when you go to the zoo!)

Good night and sleep well.

The Unicorn Flu

Overheard by brusque, manly-man type: "I'm not feeling good. Maybe I got the pig flu."

Sorry to hear it manly man, but pig flu? Eww.

Not to hog (wha ha) too much space with this, but here's another non-kosher snippet:

Coworker #1: My boyfriend is home sick with the flu
Coworker #2: "Oh no. Regular or....oink oink?"

"Regular or oink oink?" Don't get me started on how many ways that is not an ok sentence. Not ok. Soooo not ok, Ugh! . Ok, I'll get over it.
In a few years. I hope.

Let's face it, Swine flu is simply a disgusting name for a disease. And while -to it's credit- it may not conjure nasty, rabid hog-like imagery, H1N1 doesn't exactly trip lightly off the tongue.

Enough Swine flu. Enough H1N1. More than enough (even though it was only one instance "Oink o... No, I'm not even going to finish that one.

I hereby propose a new name: The Unicorn flu.

If one is fortunate enough to contract Unicorn flu, gentle white mythical steeds with gossamer wings will transport them through rainbow-filled skies to utopian destinations. Where everyone is healthy. And no one says "Regular or..?"

Unicorn flu.

Admit it. It's better.

Space Flower

Remember all the photos I took a while back of my beloved fiber optic nightlight? I'm at it again.

Happy Halloween

As in I actually had a happy one.

Halloween last year? If you are seized with the desire to know how bad Halloween '08 in Jacksonville, NC was, ask me to tell you the vaguely-amusing fried pickle story.

You want to hear it now? Ok, basically a hot-out-of-the fryer, lightly-battered pickle wedge saved my life. I thought it was fried zucchini and then I bit into it and realized I was in the deep south and it was a pickle and it was just funny dammit, at a time when nothing was very funny at all.

I'm easily wounded emotionally, but all it takes is something like a fried pickle to bring me back.

Overall I'd say I'm lucky.

Halloween this year featured a fun party at work. The pic is of the orange and grape Kool-aid - made with half the sugar- and ginger ale punch I brought. That's white plastic bats frozen in a jello mold of Kool-aid in the middle. If I could spend my days doing things like freezing white plastic bats in Kool-Aid, I'd be a very happy woman.

I went to a party Halloween night with a pirates and princesses theme. I went as a JAP (Jewish American Pirate). Other than telling you the costume involved skull and crossbone stockings and a dollar store tiara, I'll leave it to your imagination.

Peninsula Highlights

Last week one of my coworkers came in with a new haircut and color. A magical, double-take, is-this-the-same-person cut and color. Said coworker lives in Bremerton, on the peninsula. Exotic territory to me. The hair salon she went to was even further out. After two and a half years in Tacoma, I'd only made it as far west as Gig Harbor, right over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It was time to see the peninsula, and it was time to get my magical cut and color. I'd had my hair dyed about three weeks ago. The shade of red approximated vomited-up tomato soup. I hadn't realized I hated it that much, but yeah, it was bad. The Asian stylist was not impressed with my cut either. "I hate your bang" she said, flicking at the thick, blunt-cut curtain over my forehead. "You look like eight year old." She shoved my bangs aside disdainfully. "Who do this, Super Cut?"

She was more charming than I'm making her out to be, and I trusted her. I shrugged and told her to do whatever she wanted. "I always do!" she laughed.

She worked faster than anyone at the more glamorous salons I usually frequent. After spending 20 minutes or so slapping thick purple goo onto my hair, I was sat under a dryer so hot it turned my face burgundy. Will suffer for good hair. When the timer went off she removed one of the foils and studied a strand. "Too yellow! I hate yellow!" Back under the helldryer I went.

When she was drying my hair, she held up a lock to show me the bold highlights. "You see this? Now you can see this, right?" I had to agree. It was like seeing a thick stripe of white paint on a red barn. From outer space. I knew I was going to love it.

She then went on to cut my hair. The aforementioned 'bang'? With one diagonal swoop with texturizing shears, a giant chunk of hair fell onto my lap. I picked it up with detached, morbid fascination. More volume got razored out, which was fine with me. My hair is more than thick enough, and less drying time sounds delightful.

The cut and color came out awesome. The peninsula was pretty cool too. I have pictures of neither for you. But I do have a map:

Driving Directions from 319 N Tacoma Ave, Tacoma, WA to 9222 Silverdale Way NW, Silverdale, WA

Stepping on it

I think I know why I've been photographing stairs lately. Stairs represent climbing toward something. Incremental but steady progression. Moving up toward a goal. Everything I've haven't been doing.

Career-wise, relationship-wise, everything-wise, I've been waiting for escalators - Yes, escalators! - to appear out of nowhere and with their gleaming pearl banisters transport me to my lofty, nebulous, extremely-unrealistic goals,

Should happen any minute now.

Autumn

Zen Autumn

"Where do I go from here?"

Get it? The puffin is on a cliff, overlooking the sea (Ok, a ledge at the zoo) and he's wondering if he can fly...and if he can't, then where is there for him to go? It's a metaphor for my turning 50 and...

I really shouldn't post such silly drivel on my blog.

I otter know better.

In My Element

Divided

Romance

Want to hear all about how depressed I am?

I didn't think so.

You get to anyway: I'm stuck in a holding pattern with my job and have no idea how to get out. I miss Adam. A lot. Ever gone two or even three nights without sleep? I don't recommend it.

Also not recommended: turning 50 when you still - after all this time- can't figure out what most have figured out by 30 (or certainly 40).

Some of the platitudes hurled at me regarding 50 have been vaguely amusing. Most have just underscored how odd I am. My 50 is not your 50.

I have two months and two weeks to go. A lot can happen in that time. Maybe my 50 will not be my 50.

Fair Assessment

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