Days sure do fly by when there really is no reason to know what the date is. Caitlin and I both have about a week off of everything during the Thanksgiving season and we lived it to the fullest. For some reason I found myself in a yarn shop twice so far during the break. I believe there have been 4 Danny-Caitlin Team escapades to a yarn shop and every time it gets better. The first one was some sort of misunderstanding because one of us (I bet you couldn't guess) received an e-mail the day before Thanksgiving stating a 40% discount on select yarn. Without proper inspection of the dates we found ourselves on the other side of Portland standing in the doorway of a nearly empty 40% discount sale at a yarn store only to find out the big sale wasn't until two days from now. The obvious sale day being black Friday, but I guess we didn't have our logical thinking caps on that day.
Well Happy Thanksgiving to the loyal readers of the blog. I am thankful there are at least 5 people 1,800 miles away who are going to read this and know I'm thinking of you. I did miss the traditional family gathering for Thanksgiving with the Dunn Family, which I heard had a great turn out. I do regret there is a whole lot of extended family I will be missing due to my absence at our gathering. Hopefully everyone got a very informal greeting from me delivered by my mother since she was the most convenient one to relay the message for me.
Thankfully somehow Caitlin managed to make friends who are willing to accept she comes as a package deal with me, and we went to our good friends Skylar's house to celebrate. We fit perfectly since the number of family members missing for them was two, a son and daughter, but the only thing was we couldn't fill their shoes. Their family averages a height of just about 6'4', so we are happy to let everyone know we were the tiniest family members they have ever had.
The dinner was very traditional with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and green beans. Feeling very at home with all of the food, and the snack table with MM's I definitely ate nearly to my bodies bursting capacity. The meal was full of laughter as Michael filled Caitlin and I with delightfully detailed tales of his past. They have obviously been told numerous times because Skylar and Barbara were very keen to speed up the story by butting, or eliminating any and all tangents possible. It all added up to a great family meal with two very hospitable and energetic adoptive parents. Michael even taught me how to carve a turkey. I think I am going to mark that down as some sort of odd right of passage in my life.
After dinner we played a very simple, yet competitively addictive game. It includes dice, betting and a whole lot of lying. Oh yeah, and totally whooping Caitlin at it too. WOOO!
After the evening of magical weight gain we decided to walk it off and shop on the notorious Black Friday, greatest day of the year for consumption, greed, and the newest facet, sticking it to the man. Oh yeah we totally did the Portland thing and shopped the crap out of local stores. We couldn't help it really. Caitlin joined this club thing where every time you shop at certain stores you get points you can redeem for prizes, and points were TRIPLED! WHOA! We now have the equivalent of 3 free vegan ice cream cones and we are going to love each and everyone one. Why on earth would we want Vegan ice cream? I don't know, but they're free so I don't care. There are other things we can get, but that just kind of stands out.
There are a number of downsides to our adventure. First of all we went to the crummy yarn store first, and then also I bought 2 presents and I'm broke, one of those being a gift from the store just for showing up. Sorry family it looks like you will be sharing gifts this year.
Another odd thing happened also and I'm a little ashamed of my reaction, but it was just so weird. We parked the Corolla in metered street parking, and as we were paying a man in a V12 Mercedes pulls up in front of our car. He proceeds to parallel park and as he backed up he decided to pull forward only after his bumper proceeded to connect and push the Corolla back. We were pretty caught off guard. Not knowing if it actually happened we discussed pretty loudly next to his window if we saw what we thought we did. I couldn't tell what the guy was doing, but I imagined he was trying to wait us out so we go away. It worked, because as he sat in his car an kept his head down we decided no damage was done to our car so we left. I regret not making a scene, or doing something memorable.
Well of course I have written too much for a reasonable blog entry. I will wrap it up by saying I am thankful for the Family, Friends, acquaintances, and strangers who have effected my life or on the off chance I have effected theirs. I am thankful that moving to Portland has provided me with challenges and opportunities not available back home. I am also thankful I have people near or far who deem me as a worthy person of their time, effort, thoughts and prayers because that gives me something to smile about when the sun is gone for weeks and I get swore at by grumpy old random men who want to dump poopy toilets off at work. I pray everyone can be as healthy, successful, and happy as I am because of the opportunities, and people that make my life interesting. Thank you world.
Oh yeah we also have hummingbirds at our feeder! The Anna's Hummingbird to be exact. I love being a hippie! Woot
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Update
First I am happy to announce the lifelong challenge of defeating the Dark Lord of Evil Ganon has come to a close. Yes, it was a miraculous afternoon, rainy, cloudy and cold, where I spent a number of hours plugging away at the gameboy to complete the last 4 dungeons of my epic quest. I must say Caitlin's response to my victory pose upon completion was far from congratulatory. If you look at the last post about my adventures in Hyrule there is a picture of the stance I attempted to replicate followed by my rendition of the beautiful melody all Hyrulian's know as the "hey look what I found" sound. A shake of the head and probably a mental note of how she can insult me someday was all I received. Either way I can now continue with my life and face more challenges now that I do not have such a burden to carry any longer. Thank you for all the believe and support I have received. I never would have made it without all of you, the man near the grave, and the old woman, who all contributed to my saving the land. And real people also.
Well besides the things I do when I am alone, Caitlin and I attempt to do things together. Well with my poor planning skills usually anything I suggest is not even considered because some people require 14 hrs of preparation to think about all the things there is to plan for when doing anything simple. For example: what to wear, (even though a clothing option could have been planned weeks in advance the moment of departure will come and then the clothing will be too fancy, too casual, and often times just not catchy enough), directions (even though most plans have very little time restrictions, and we have a gps if we don't know long beforehand we can't go because "Danny's lack of planning"). Now for the example Caitlin and I were going to the Humane Society to see the Guinea Pigs because we have been considering getting a pair of the little rascals. We got there and the place closed. Pretty much that quickly, so ha ha! victory to Danny's planning because Caitlin's failed. Not too bad we both realized that Piggies may not be the best because there is the possibility of Caitlin being allergic to them and me returning to being the Nerdy kid with asthma once again due to their peculiar "stuff" they release into the air.
On the way back I suggest going to the nickel arcade I've been dying to visit but the response was "I really don't feel like doing anything tonight." That was fine. I'm reasonable. So I began to mentally prepare myself for a relaxing night of the two of us just chilling. Still on the way back after I had transformed my attitude into "home" Danny she received a text. Next thing was "Skyler wants to know if we could go to a bar." Wait a minute! My plans were killed because the lack of going out enthusiasm, and now Skyler simply asks about just a bar and boom the desire of an outing is reborn? The explanation I was given is something around the lines that she doesn't want her friends to see her as a not fun "poop" (her word choice), so I concluded she just doesn't care that I know and live with this "poop" of a party person all of the time. Therefore, because I have been with "Relationship Caitlin" for 5 years now she is comfortable fusing that attitude with "fun pooper Caitlin" because she has nothing to prove to me and I do not deserve very much effort to keep the latter title hidden away in a closet somewhere for me to discover only when "nearl dead Danny emerges." I feel I may have brought this on myself though. Now that I too have become comfortable with the relationship I have allowed to see my true form, none other than "Dorky Danny" who loves rocking video games and dislikes taking frequent showers because they seem to pointless if I don't move all day. So it seems that we have accepted the worst the other has to offer, so I believe things are looking up.
Though there is one aspect of my Dannyness which is growing in me and developing everyday. That being "Danny, The lover of Peanut Butter." We bought two large tubs of it, one for her one for me, because she didn't like the fact I have been spooning out gobs of rich gooey goodness for weeks. But that even came into conflict when I found my jar empty and hers unopened. It's just so good! So I busted into hers and made a sandwich. I vowed to myself, which I have found with food my word is not very strong, that I would never eat straight from her jar, and I haven't, but it was still seen as crossing the line. I'm in the doghouse as far as going to the kitchen goes, because she knows I'm up to no good.
And before things get long we and our friend couple went to comedy club recently it was great. My only fault of the night was when I was asked to drive Brian (a fellow asthmatic) to get his inhaler. I sort of blanked and said "I'm good." I claim I didn't know what they were asking, so I dropped the ball when I let Caitlin drive him while I sat stupidly with Skyler waiting for the show to start. Caitlin and Brian missed a solid 10 minutes. Whoops. Either way the show was great which I could tell because my chest and face hurt from laughing so much.
We also went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry for the Bodies exhibit. I don't get grossed out by much, but seeing a skinned human made me super conscious of all the functions in my body so as I moved everything just felt weird. I couldn't believe how awkward I felt. Cool none the less. I guess the best part was when they had a scan of someones stomach who had a life threatening case of constipation! You wouldn't believe the size of the monster growing inside of that persons lower abdomen. The reaction after the chuckle was of course "Ouch."
I find myself cold even though there is a lack of snow and real cold weather it kind of ruins the ego of being able to handle cold. I am mad that I am going to miss hunting this year, because Matthew is out chasing around (not shooting mind you) allegedly much larger deer than previous years have produced. Unfortunately for him I will not be there to get lost in the woods only to randomly spook a very large buck right in his direction. I am also going to miss the family Thanksgiving which is making me wonder if I will need to sing by myself "Now Thank We All Our God" wherever I may be at the time of Thanksgiving. Please enjoy family though "Jacob? Matthew? oh your the other one" isn't there this year.
Well besides the things I do when I am alone, Caitlin and I attempt to do things together. Well with my poor planning skills usually anything I suggest is not even considered because some people require 14 hrs of preparation to think about all the things there is to plan for when doing anything simple. For example: what to wear, (even though a clothing option could have been planned weeks in advance the moment of departure will come and then the clothing will be too fancy, too casual, and often times just not catchy enough), directions (even though most plans have very little time restrictions, and we have a gps if we don't know long beforehand we can't go because "Danny's lack of planning"). Now for the example Caitlin and I were going to the Humane Society to see the Guinea Pigs because we have been considering getting a pair of the little rascals. We got there and the place closed. Pretty much that quickly, so ha ha! victory to Danny's planning because Caitlin's failed. Not too bad we both realized that Piggies may not be the best because there is the possibility of Caitlin being allergic to them and me returning to being the Nerdy kid with asthma once again due to their peculiar "stuff" they release into the air.
On the way back I suggest going to the nickel arcade I've been dying to visit but the response was "I really don't feel like doing anything tonight." That was fine. I'm reasonable. So I began to mentally prepare myself for a relaxing night of the two of us just chilling. Still on the way back after I had transformed my attitude into "home" Danny she received a text. Next thing was "Skyler wants to know if we could go to a bar." Wait a minute! My plans were killed because the lack of going out enthusiasm, and now Skyler simply asks about just a bar and boom the desire of an outing is reborn? The explanation I was given is something around the lines that she doesn't want her friends to see her as a not fun "poop" (her word choice), so I concluded she just doesn't care that I know and live with this "poop" of a party person all of the time. Therefore, because I have been with "Relationship Caitlin" for 5 years now she is comfortable fusing that attitude with "fun pooper Caitlin" because she has nothing to prove to me and I do not deserve very much effort to keep the latter title hidden away in a closet somewhere for me to discover only when "nearl dead Danny emerges." I feel I may have brought this on myself though. Now that I too have become comfortable with the relationship I have allowed to see my true form, none other than "Dorky Danny" who loves rocking video games and dislikes taking frequent showers because they seem to pointless if I don't move all day. So it seems that we have accepted the worst the other has to offer, so I believe things are looking up.
Though there is one aspect of my Dannyness which is growing in me and developing everyday. That being "Danny, The lover of Peanut Butter." We bought two large tubs of it, one for her one for me, because she didn't like the fact I have been spooning out gobs of rich gooey goodness for weeks. But that even came into conflict when I found my jar empty and hers unopened. It's just so good! So I busted into hers and made a sandwich. I vowed to myself, which I have found with food my word is not very strong, that I would never eat straight from her jar, and I haven't, but it was still seen as crossing the line. I'm in the doghouse as far as going to the kitchen goes, because she knows I'm up to no good.
And before things get long we and our friend couple went to comedy club recently it was great. My only fault of the night was when I was asked to drive Brian (a fellow asthmatic) to get his inhaler. I sort of blanked and said "I'm good." I claim I didn't know what they were asking, so I dropped the ball when I let Caitlin drive him while I sat stupidly with Skyler waiting for the show to start. Caitlin and Brian missed a solid 10 minutes. Whoops. Either way the show was great which I could tell because my chest and face hurt from laughing so much.
We also went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry for the Bodies exhibit. I don't get grossed out by much, but seeing a skinned human made me super conscious of all the functions in my body so as I moved everything just felt weird. I couldn't believe how awkward I felt. Cool none the less. I guess the best part was when they had a scan of someones stomach who had a life threatening case of constipation! You wouldn't believe the size of the monster growing inside of that persons lower abdomen. The reaction after the chuckle was of course "Ouch."
I find myself cold even though there is a lack of snow and real cold weather it kind of ruins the ego of being able to handle cold. I am mad that I am going to miss hunting this year, because Matthew is out chasing around (not shooting mind you) allegedly much larger deer than previous years have produced. Unfortunately for him I will not be there to get lost in the woods only to randomly spook a very large buck right in his direction. I am also going to miss the family Thanksgiving which is making me wonder if I will need to sing by myself "Now Thank We All Our God" wherever I may be at the time of Thanksgiving. Please enjoy family though "Jacob? Matthew? oh your the other one" isn't there this year.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
I'm Back...Maybe...
Hello all!
I admit I kind of forgot about the blog and without Danny pestering me about it I haven't written in a while. Which mostly means you get to listen to Danny drone on and on about his life which is cool and all but I think a little more pizazz is needed. Not to get your hopes up that this entry will be amazing or anything, it could very well flop and be epically boring. But that's the risk you take in reading this ridiculous thing so hold on to your seats as you hear about..... Grad school! Food! Breathing! Air! And other such exciting things that are a part of my every day life :)
So grad school; it's pretty great so far! I loved the University of Minnesota where I did my undergrad but being out here at Lewis and Clark is a totally different experience. At Minnesota all of my classes (except Spanish) were usually 50+ people and averaged more towards the 75-100 range. I never minded this, I loved my education at the U and really enjoyed the massive amount of diversity I encountered all the time. BUT, Lewis and Clark definitely has offered a more tight knit community feel as there are only about 25-30 people in my cohort for my program. I've mentioned before how awesome so many of these people are and I continue to enjoy hearing their thoughts and opinions each class. My faculty is also quite amazing at well and in itself it quite diverse. They had a game night/social thing last week after one of our night classes and of course only 15ish people showed up (out of all 3 cohorts for our program!) but through playing Taboo with them and the faculty I'm so glad I stayed for a bit.
I'll be getting to know some of the faculty a lot better soon as I'm headed to Uganda for a trip at the end of April that will be led by two of them. I'm so pumped for the trip!! It will be two weeks at a school in Uganda that trains counselors and we'll be leading a seminar on some of our Western counseling techniques. I know that probably sounds bad to some of you because given the history of the Western world impeding on other cultures by introducing what we think is better/best has been quite negative. With all of that in mind, the two faculty members leading the trip have definitely put a lot of work in developing a seminar that will focus more on the basic techniques of Western counseling skills rather than on Western theories. There is still a risk of overstepping and bringing back a lot of those negative aspects of colonialism but we have a lot of work left to do (we will begin meeting once every two weeks or so until we leave) to hopefully develop a non-culturally-invasive curriculum. I'm so excited to be a part of this and to go to Africa! It'll be my third continent (fourth if you count the layover I had in Australia to go see Danny when he was in Fiji) that I'll have traveled to. Woop!
Ok so enough about that part of life. Danny has made it sound like our lives are super boring but I think that may just be his life... :) We've been pretty consistently occupied on weekends, nothing crazy but fun things nonetheless. I went to a Timbers game a few weekends ago (the local soccer team). It was so much more fun than any Gophers game I ever attended! No lie! People love soccer here and they have a huge cheering section. Amazing! Danny wasn't able to come as I went with my friend Catherine who has an position on campus for the student activities board (I think) so she helps organize things for the underclassmen and got free tickets to the game. Danny and I have also been hanging out with my friend Skylar and her boyfriend Bryan pretty frequently. Skylar, like Catherine, is in my program so we all see each other frequently. It's nice to have another couple as friends and Skylar and Bryan are just full of fun activities so I don't mind saying that I plan to cling to that like velcro.
Oh and we bought a waffle maker off of craigslist! Danny has been pestering me about that since we moved here. Apparently waffles have been on his mind for months and he has been trolling craigslist in search of the perfect one. Of course craigslist brings with it a whole slew of weird events when you have to go pick up what you're buying. This one brought us out to Beaverton (suburbish place) and we got really lost looking for the house. The address was marked waaaaayy far away from where the house actually was so we ended up driving around for much longer than anticipated. When we finally found the house the girl we bought it from wasn't home but her roommate was. He was in the midst of cooking up some ground beef and wasn't very informed about the waffle maker at all. He had no idea if it worked, how it worked, if you could wash it, how much it cost, etc. This led to a series of phone calls to the girl we were buying it from and we ended up buying it. BUT I have learned my lesson about what kind of money you bring to a craigslist deal. BRING CHANGE! Danny is usually the only one of us that usually has cash and it's always a $20 so when the guy said the waffle maker was $20 and it was a very dirty waffle maker, I wanted to bargain it down. Of course, though, we only had a $20 so there wasn't much use in bargaining. Next time we will bring all of our money in $1's. I hope.
Hmm so the waffle maker story definitely took up a greater amount of space than I anticipated.... I told you this whole thing can get really lame so you were forewarned.
Other interesting things:
-We have discovered WinCo Foods which is kind of like Woodman's but you can buy everything from bulk bins. Score!
-My school will be opening up its own counseling clinic where I will do my internship in my third year. It's going to offer Spanish counseling as well so I will have my chance to fulfill my dream of speaking Spanish with clients!
-It's rainy here...a lot. But it doesn't seem as bad as you might think. It just seems kind of normal.
-Biking is still hard. I keep thinking it will get easier. Lies.
-I will be home on the 20th of December and will be heading up to Minneapolis on the 31st/1st until the 3rd. I hope to see ALL of you!
-You know about Occupy Wall Street? We have Occupy Portland. They're in a park downtown and so far it's been pretty peaceful, especially compared to Oakland.
Well that's it! I think I have sufficiently attempted murder by boredom at this point. Hopefully you've survived but if you haven't I apologize! But if you haven't survived you're already dead and I have no way of apologizing so... Yep. On that note, I hope those of you still left breathing are doing great and I'll be seeing you soon enough!
I admit I kind of forgot about the blog and without Danny pestering me about it I haven't written in a while. Which mostly means you get to listen to Danny drone on and on about his life which is cool and all but I think a little more pizazz is needed. Not to get your hopes up that this entry will be amazing or anything, it could very well flop and be epically boring. But that's the risk you take in reading this ridiculous thing so hold on to your seats as you hear about..... Grad school! Food! Breathing! Air! And other such exciting things that are a part of my every day life :)
So grad school; it's pretty great so far! I loved the University of Minnesota where I did my undergrad but being out here at Lewis and Clark is a totally different experience. At Minnesota all of my classes (except Spanish) were usually 50+ people and averaged more towards the 75-100 range. I never minded this, I loved my education at the U and really enjoyed the massive amount of diversity I encountered all the time. BUT, Lewis and Clark definitely has offered a more tight knit community feel as there are only about 25-30 people in my cohort for my program. I've mentioned before how awesome so many of these people are and I continue to enjoy hearing their thoughts and opinions each class. My faculty is also quite amazing at well and in itself it quite diverse. They had a game night/social thing last week after one of our night classes and of course only 15ish people showed up (out of all 3 cohorts for our program!) but through playing Taboo with them and the faculty I'm so glad I stayed for a bit.
I'll be getting to know some of the faculty a lot better soon as I'm headed to Uganda for a trip at the end of April that will be led by two of them. I'm so pumped for the trip!! It will be two weeks at a school in Uganda that trains counselors and we'll be leading a seminar on some of our Western counseling techniques. I know that probably sounds bad to some of you because given the history of the Western world impeding on other cultures by introducing what we think is better/best has been quite negative. With all of that in mind, the two faculty members leading the trip have definitely put a lot of work in developing a seminar that will focus more on the basic techniques of Western counseling skills rather than on Western theories. There is still a risk of overstepping and bringing back a lot of those negative aspects of colonialism but we have a lot of work left to do (we will begin meeting once every two weeks or so until we leave) to hopefully develop a non-culturally-invasive curriculum. I'm so excited to be a part of this and to go to Africa! It'll be my third continent (fourth if you count the layover I had in Australia to go see Danny when he was in Fiji) that I'll have traveled to. Woop!
Ok so enough about that part of life. Danny has made it sound like our lives are super boring but I think that may just be his life... :) We've been pretty consistently occupied on weekends, nothing crazy but fun things nonetheless. I went to a Timbers game a few weekends ago (the local soccer team). It was so much more fun than any Gophers game I ever attended! No lie! People love soccer here and they have a huge cheering section. Amazing! Danny wasn't able to come as I went with my friend Catherine who has an position on campus for the student activities board (I think) so she helps organize things for the underclassmen and got free tickets to the game. Danny and I have also been hanging out with my friend Skylar and her boyfriend Bryan pretty frequently. Skylar, like Catherine, is in my program so we all see each other frequently. It's nice to have another couple as friends and Skylar and Bryan are just full of fun activities so I don't mind saying that I plan to cling to that like velcro.
Oh and we bought a waffle maker off of craigslist! Danny has been pestering me about that since we moved here. Apparently waffles have been on his mind for months and he has been trolling craigslist in search of the perfect one. Of course craigslist brings with it a whole slew of weird events when you have to go pick up what you're buying. This one brought us out to Beaverton (suburbish place) and we got really lost looking for the house. The address was marked waaaaayy far away from where the house actually was so we ended up driving around for much longer than anticipated. When we finally found the house the girl we bought it from wasn't home but her roommate was. He was in the midst of cooking up some ground beef and wasn't very informed about the waffle maker at all. He had no idea if it worked, how it worked, if you could wash it, how much it cost, etc. This led to a series of phone calls to the girl we were buying it from and we ended up buying it. BUT I have learned my lesson about what kind of money you bring to a craigslist deal. BRING CHANGE! Danny is usually the only one of us that usually has cash and it's always a $20 so when the guy said the waffle maker was $20 and it was a very dirty waffle maker, I wanted to bargain it down. Of course, though, we only had a $20 so there wasn't much use in bargaining. Next time we will bring all of our money in $1's. I hope.
Hmm so the waffle maker story definitely took up a greater amount of space than I anticipated.... I told you this whole thing can get really lame so you were forewarned.
Other interesting things:
-We have discovered WinCo Foods which is kind of like Woodman's but you can buy everything from bulk bins. Score!
-My school will be opening up its own counseling clinic where I will do my internship in my third year. It's going to offer Spanish counseling as well so I will have my chance to fulfill my dream of speaking Spanish with clients!
-It's rainy here...a lot. But it doesn't seem as bad as you might think. It just seems kind of normal.
-Biking is still hard. I keep thinking it will get easier. Lies.
-I will be home on the 20th of December and will be heading up to Minneapolis on the 31st/1st until the 3rd. I hope to see ALL of you!
-You know about Occupy Wall Street? We have Occupy Portland. They're in a park downtown and so far it's been pretty peaceful, especially compared to Oakland.
Well that's it! I think I have sufficiently attempted murder by boredom at this point. Hopefully you've survived but if you haven't I apologize! But if you haven't survived you're already dead and I have no way of apologizing so... Yep. On that note, I hope those of you still left breathing are doing great and I'll be seeing you soon enough!
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