Onward

Why, hello there.

I have lots of random photos and stories from the past months that I’ve been meaning to share here, but I haven’t really been in the mood. Not for any real reason, I just feel so busy all the time. GAME OF THRONES IS NOT GOING TO WATCH ITSELF! But I do have things to post. Presents to gloat about. Cakes to show off. Dog shenanigans to share.

Honestly, most of the silence is because I haven’t been taking pictures. Like, at all. We even went on vacation and I took just three photos. It’s trauma from putting together the “slideshow” of my dad to show at his memorial service. Now whenever I take a picture of someone, I think of death. Cheerful, right? Trying to get over that. Till then, enjoy some photos of non-people! And maybe one of Stephen covered in fake blood. Because that doesn’t imply death at all!

First, of course, a doggie update. Hugo has gone from this:

I love when you can see wagging tails in dog pics

To this:

Hugo eats his wheaties. And his poop.

I can’t believe he was that small when we moved in. Or that he was ever small, period. He is huge. Pretty much everyone who meets him makes the same joke of “Hugo? You mean HUGE-o!”

He’s still super goofy, which is wonderful. This

. . . became this

I don’t even know what he’s doing

Cosmo is also adorable and smoochable, still, of course. SPEAKING of Cosmo:

Cosmo is fancy!

I commissioned my amazingly talented friend Karen to paint Cosmo in a suit, and she only laughed in the nicest way, and she did an AWESOME job (this photo really doesn’t do it justice, the lighting in my house is terrible). I absolutely love it. Shot to the top of my “things to save in a fire” list.* And she’s working on one of Hugo! Yep, I have a commissioned portrait of Cosmo wearing a bow tie. And Hugo is going to be wearing a fedora.

The vacation I mentioned was to Portland, to see Bruce Springsteen. It was fantastic. We stayed in a hotel that had a mural of John Lennon’s face on the wall.

everytime I looked at it I thought “oh, PORTLAND.” And that is the face Stephen made when I said “look like John Lennon.”

We hung out with my friend Kristi and her dog Steven. That was really fun. If I was normal I would have pictures of the amazing Ethiopian dinner we went to, and Kristi being cute choosing ice cream flavors from the amazing ice cream parlor she took us to, and then MORE pictures of Kristi being cute with Steven. But I’m not normal, so all I have is one blurry phone picture of Steven mid-prance. But he is enough cute on his own.

getting some rump rubs from Kristi

Portland rained a lot, (SHOCKING) but we had some great food and it was very chill and relaxing. Also, it’s a town that has orange dog statues, and yes, I really want to move there.

he’s even smiling!

The highlight (and the whole point) of the mini-vacay was Bruce. Or, BBRRUUUCCEEEEEE, as he’s known to his fans (that was my facebook status the day after the concert, which was the day we saw Kristi, and she said a bunch of her Portland FB friends had the exact same status. Ha!).

We were in a killer location on the floor. Which you can’t tell at all from this terrible picture I took with my terrible phone. Bruce is jjuussssttt behind where the guy in front of me’s hand is, you can kind of see Bruce’s back. Just look for the spotlight and the space where every person’s iphone is pointing. Which is way closer than it appears here.

he’s RIGHT there! I promise!

I can’t even explain how phenomenal this concert was. One of my all-time favorite musicians/song-writers was encouraging me to sing along with him to some of my all-time favorite songs, while he was standing close enough to make eye contact with me. Not that we DID make eye contact . . . but man, at the time it felt like he made eye contact WITH MY SOUL. It was life-changing. My feelings were probably akin to what normal people feel when their newborn grasps their finger for the first time. The three-hour concert was one of the most completely pure, fully sincere, wholly un-cynical moments of my life.  The energy and love in that room was unbelievable. Seriously. People WORSHIP this man. We stood next to some Italians who had been following him around for the past 50 shows of his tour. Italians! English isn’t even their native tongue! Springsteen: the universal language.**

Since about March(ish?), Emily and I have been having mini-movie parties. We trade turns picking a movie then hosting a theme night. We’ve had some great themes and epic foods, especially when introducing each other to movies we haven’t seen. Emily had never seen Jaws! I know! So August was Jaws movie night at my house.

I’m very proud of my vegan shark cake

remains of Jaws’ kill. Why is the hand larger than the torso? Why did Jaws eat all the toes off the foot? These are the mysteries of the deep, my friends. The ocean tells no tales.

da dum. da dum. DADUMDADUMDADUM. Just because the cake is vegan doesn’t mean the shark is . . .

shark attack victims. Some of them are more upset about it than others.

Emily’s contribution! a fruitful man-eater

everyone got into the sharky spirit!

and I mean everyone.

yeah, the whole point was to show off my cake decorating in those first photos, which don’t really do it justice. I was so proud, because I am SO bad at that, but it actually looked good! We’ve done some other great ones . . . here’s the spread from Halloween (when the move was Trick R Treat):

the jackolantern is a punch bowl!

I need suggestions for January, if anyone knows a good wintery movie. I’m thinking maybe Winter’s Bone, but other than a lot of bone-shaped treats I’m not sure what the food theme would be. Also it seems lazy to choose a move that has “winter” right in the title.

Speaking of shark attacks . . .

messy!

Stephen and I went to see the musical Evil Dead for the second year in a row. We went with our friends Lonnie and Marie, and we sat in the front row, and we all got drenched in fake blood. Lonnie and Marie LOVED the show. At one point I was worried Lonnie’s head might pop off, he was laughing so hard. It was really fun to share it with them, and a lot of the same actors were back this year, which is always fun to see that they must love the show too, to do it again. Anyway, the blood! THE BLOOD. Ridiculous. It was just chocolate syrup and food coloring, but it got everywhere. I had to throw out my contacts because they were dyed red when I took them out. It was great. Stephen looked especially gory, I think because the shaved head made the blood stand out. When we were walking out the show’s cast was standing in the lobby, kind of doing a meet-and-greet, and Ash (main character) saw Stephen and starting laughing and pointing at him. Which is always nice to have a stranger do, whilst you’re covered in blood (it was great).

gratuitous picture of puppy snuggles (GPOPS)

And that’s it for now. I was gonna write some house updates, but I have to leave SOME suspense for the next post. There are walls that have been painted and bookcases installed and holes dug in yards by certain dogs and all kinds of craziness! Edge of your seat now, aren’t you? I’ll try not to let another million months go by before an update. What will happen to the internet if I don’t post dog pictures, after all? I don’t think we want to find out.

*More evidence of how I think in morbid, death-ish terms now: while admiring the amazingness of the painting, a voice in the back of my head was like, “after I die and all my possessions are given to a thrift store I hope some really awesome goofy teen buys this painting and hangs it in their bedroom on Mars.”

**I really wanted him to play “Terry’s Song,” which was my main contribution to my dad’s memorial service: the lyrics were printed on the bulletin and the song played during part of the photo DVD. But it is probably best that he didn’t because I would’ve collapsed in a puddle of emotion on floor, and then contracted a polio-syphilis hybrid disease and died because the floor was super gross.