I've already called the Brazil visa company four times today.
It was supposed to be here a while ago.
And, well, it's not. Here, that is.
Don't panic.
I've written a haiku on the subject:
Waiting for visa
Blogs endlessly to distract
Tufts of hair will fall
tying and team roping.
In 1949, the Lakeview Junior High Basketball, the Honkers, traveled to Alturas and placed third in a tournament. Here is a picture of them. Note the young man in the upper right corner with "ME" written by his face. His name is Ed Reed, and for a measly three dollars at Goodwill, I acquired a scrapbook of his athletic accomplishments from Middle School to High School. This is the first in a multi part series entitled: The Life and Legacy of the Honkers.
If you click on it, you will see the picture with greater clarity.
If the urge should strike you to read the latest chapter for my work in progress, click here.
Here are the beginning paragraphs:
"Randy liked to watch the slow brown waters of the Mississippi River. When he and Ava were first married, they had taken a trip to the Delta, to the place where the river flows into the Gulf of Mexico. It had been hot there, smelling of dead fish washed up on the shore. They walked along the beach together holding sticky hands. He had caught a puffer fish in a bucket and brought it to Ava. She had laughed, looking at its little face. The spaced apart eyes staring blankly as if it were all the same to him, Gulf or bucket.
They had made love that night, he still remembered it. She had tasted like salt, and he ran his mouth up her neck sucking it off her. She had seemed so beautiful to him then, full, like a ripe plum. He loved to take parts of her between his fingers and squeeze as if he were expecting juice. "
I'm officially a convert and have uploaded some old pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68164225@N00/
Feeling a little vindicated. From the good folks at Merriam Webster:
Nauseous:
1 : causing nausea or disgust : NAUSEATING
2 : affected with nausea or disgust
"Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is an error for nauseated are mistaken. Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usually after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous in sense 1 is much more often figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseated is used more widely than nauseous in sense 2."
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nauseous
"... Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)--they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighbourhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming;to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn't pick it up (it was a joy meant for somebody else--); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along overhead and went flying with all the stars,--and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves-- only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them."
Rainer M. Rilke
Words.
Adventure: 1.an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks
2.the encountering of risks
3.an exciting or remarkable experience
Adventurous: disposed to seek adventure or to cope with the new and unknown
Adventuresome: Inclined to take risks
Venturesome: (Did not realize that this is a word, although it makes perfect sense)
1. Involving risk: hazardous
2.Inclined to court or incur risk or danger."implies a jaunty eagerness for perilous undertakings"
Venture: 1. To expose to hazard: risk, gamble
2. To undertake the risks and dangers of
-some: characterized by a (specified) thing, quality, state, or action
ad- : to : toward -- usually ac- before c, k, or q
Ah, words. I'd say Griffin and I will mostly be adventurous in our undertaking. Although I like anything with the word jaunty in the definition. Trying to think of a brilliant way to use all of these words in a sentence. Added that last part about ad- for my linguist friend.
jaunty: sprightly in manner or appearance
"Nor is it seemly, after wiping your nose, to spread out your handkerchief and peer into it as if pearls and rubies might have falled out of your head." Della Casa, from Galeteo 1558.
This is a poem by Dylan Thomas that Dr. Barker used to quote all of the time in class.
To pass this information along:
Dr Barker, one of the gentlest souls alive, has just gone through a round of chemotherapy. If you'd like to send him a card, here's his address:
Dr. Nick Barker
1600 Fairy Dell Trail
Lookout Mountain, GA. 30750
Just in case you weren't satisfied by the other skydiving pics...
Here are Tina's. 
To see the album:
http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a330/themoopoint/Skydiving%202007/
For more photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68164225@N00/
There were more photos of Matt and Tina, but it turns out that there are reasons why you should not date a non-photographer.
17 days until I leave for South America!
If anyone has any good traveling tips, e-mail them to me.
I am so excited.
I'm working with Habitat for Humanity tomorrow on their New Columbia build.
http://www.hapdx.org/newcolumbia/index.html
I got my renewed license on Friday for massage therapy.
I'm thinking of expanding my practice to include things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY3T84ae1Eg&NR=1
Tina, Matt, and I are going skydiving tomorrow.
I can hardly sleep just thinking about it!!!
After working in Santa Barbara on a shot for Yamaha, Matt is finally back in town. Here are pictures of him on his motorcycle.
Just in case anyone (cough, Tina, cough) didn't get that this is a joke, I'll clarify that Matt works on a team that photographs these type of shots. And I ripped off the picture from the internet.
The plump girl in front of me wears black tights that end above her ankles. She is wearing a mini skirt that is illegal in three states. The skirt is navy with varying color polka dots on it. Above that sits a bright pink tank top and on her head a large bandanna and oversized glasses.
Speaking on the phone she says, "Yeah, he was like wearing this corduroy suit. It was awful."
That's right folks. In a long anticipated appearance, Tina Lee will be arriving in Portland at two o'clock today! I seem to be developing an Asian fetish.
Yes, that's right. From my backpacking trip last weekend I have a systemic reaction to Poison Oak. That's why I'm looking so buff a muscular--it's the steroids.
Other alternate titles to this post:
Baby's first systemic reaction
On Steroids and Leprosy
Giant pus covered sections of my body
Unclean! Unclean!
We are here to pump you up!
Adelaide Brown
WR 513
Craig Lesley
On the back of the house, where the sun doesn’t quite hit the wall, the shingles had begun to rot. Wet, they had fallen off in places or were covered in moss. Tin Man had removed the spoilt shingles and had nailed on new ones. Poppa thought it would be character building to have Ted and Lenny help paint them.
“Where’s Ted?” Lenny asked meeting Tin Man on the back lawn.
Tin Man shrugged. “Saw him leave not too long ago. Must be playin’ baseball with some friends.” Tin Man squatted beside a bucket of paint and opened the lid with a screwdriver. He picked up a stick and started mixing.
“That’s not fair!” Lenny protested.
Tin Man poured some paint out into a shallow container. “Oh it’s alright, Lenny. It’ll give us more time to spend together.” He winked. “Grab a brush there, mouse,” Tin Man instructed. “Let me show you how its done.” He dipped his brush into the paint and then moved it against a wall of the container. “You wanna make sure the paints real even, so it don’t drip.” Lenny moved her brush awkwardly, it slopped a bit. “Not quite,” Tin Man told her. He put his hand over hers and mimicked the movement.
“I think we should wait for Ted,” Lenny mumbled.
“Naw,” Tin Man said looking squarely at her. “He’s just havin’ fun. He’ll help next time.” Tin Man walked over to the wall and motioned for her to follow. “Alright missy, now the key to a good paint job is to paint in all the same direction.” He ran his brush down a shingle. The paint glistened, wet.
Lenny began to paint hurriedly, on the part of the wall farthest from Tin Man. “Whoa there,” he said, coming over. “You gotta be careful. As my Daddy always said, ‘All good folks paint with even strokes.” He stood behind Lenny closely. Watching her move her arm up and down.
“You got it now,” he said lightly swatting her bottom.
Lenny shifted her hips away from him. “Ted should be here,” she blurted. “Maybe I should go get him.”
“What’s the matter, Lenny?” Tin Man moved closer to her. “Don’t you wanna hang out with you ol’ pal?” Lenny looked at him uncertainly. “Honey, you hang out with me every time I do a job here. I know you like me.” Tin Man grinned. “Don’t you like me, Lenny?”
Lenny nodded slowly. “It’s just that, you know, its not fair.”
“Ted’ll probably be back by lunchtime. Maybe he forgot” Tin Man told her. He walked back and picked up his brush. “I’m sure he’ll be home any minute.”
Tin Man started painting on the opposite side of the wall, making his way towards Lenny. He painted quickly. Smooth, sure strokes. Lenny couldn’t reach very far up the wall. Bits of paint flicked into her hair, and a long drip made its way down her arm.
She went to get more paint and Tin Man met her by the container. He leaned over and put his face next to hers. “I’m gonna go get Ted,” she told him, putting her brush down in the grass and stepping back. “He should be here. I’m gonna tell Poppa if he doesn’t come.”
“Lenny,” Tin Man seemed to be getting irritated. “You’ve already said that and I’ve already told you he’ll be here when he gets here.” He picked up Lenny’s brush. “You can’t put this there. The paint’ll dry and you’ll have grass stuck to the bristles.”
“Sorry,” she whispered.
Tin Man didn’t seem to hear. “Besides, nobody likes a tattle tale. Your Poppa’ll probably be madder at you for tattlin’.” Lenny didn’t say anything after that. She daubed more paint on her brush and went back to her section of the wall. Tin Man went to his side, humming songs. He turned to look at Lenny often.
When they met in the center of the wall, Tin Man told her. “You just paint the bottom of this section and I’ll reach over you and paint the top.”
“I think I need a drink of water,” Lenny told him.
“It’s almost lunchtime,” he responded. “We’ll take a break after we finish this part.”
“But I really have to go to the bathroom,” she said, pressing her legs together and making a face.
Tin Man eyed her uncertainly, “Alright, then. Just come back out when you’re done pissin’.”
Lenny entered the house and heard Ted making a sandwich in the kitchen. He had just gotten home.
“Where’ve you been?” Lenny said angrily. “I’m gonna tell Poppa you haven’t helped paint. He’s gonna be real mad.”
“What are you talking about, Lenny?” Ted said, taking a bite of his sandwich. He kept talking, his mouth full. “Nobody told me we were painting today.”
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