Some Inspiration for Tomorrow

While part of me is a Bukowski hater, I have to admit that he made horseracing sound fun. And Marguerite Henry did too. And for that matter, all those horse books I read when I was a kid. I was recently looking into being a jockey (new career path) but I found out I would have to lose about 15 pounds and that dream was squashed. Portland Meadows is hosting the Oregon Derby tomorrow, along with some sort of showing of the Kentucky Derby, and there will be music and hat contests and racing and all that. I'm imagining kids with balloons and people drinking whiskey furtively out of flasks and men in cream linen suits. I'm going to win money.

*Hat by Lady Diane Hats (Insane. For all your custom hat needs.)

Cats, Cats, and More Cats

When I was a kid I was really into writing and illustrating children's books. I had this theory that only children should write children's books. Sadly my publisher was also my mother, so circulation was extremely limited. Many of my books were first edition one-offs published on xerox paper pilfered from my mother's office. Included in my published works was the highly sophisticated Cats, Cats, and More Cats. It was loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood but as the title suggests, it incorporated cats, an animal I apparently loved at the time.

I still like cats. I don't have one. I'm not sure that I want one because the poop thing freaks me out and I don't like fur on my clothing. But with all the talk of me becoming a cat lady (seriously, like once a week someone brings this up. Usually a close friend, like they are seeing warning signs or something), I have been paying more attention to cats and their place in the world.

What freaks me out more than poop and cat ladies are cat boys. I'm not saying any guy that owns a cat is a creep. I love cats too. It's the guys that are really, really into their cats. There is something decidedly unmanly about some guy telling you a really cute story about something his cat did, complete with paw pantomime hand action and a little voice. It seems to me that cats become replacement girlfriends for these guys. And again, that freaks me out a little. This blog pretty much sums it up. I can't look at it for very long; it's painful.

Japanese Magic

It's rare that a music video truly captures a moment, a feeling, in this case a country. This is just like my life in Japan. Not to mention the soundtrack for the robot unicorn attack video game.

Baby Ape Cave

So, this is especially trivial but last night Jocelyn and Charissa and I were walking over to Free House (new favorite bar on Fremont and 14th?, delicious drinks, well-priced food, nice soundtrack, and foosball) and I thought I stepped in shit. I didn't. It was moss, or a leaf, or something like that, but this led me to say that there is nothing worse than stepping in shit. Which I immediately amended. There are many things that are worse to step in or on. We started naming things. This game ended with: having to travel through the entirety of Ape Cave (the difficult section) except for it is completely carpeted with babies. Not even dead babies. Live babies that scream and cry out and try to cling to your shoe laces as you stomp on their faces in an effort to reach the end. Sick right?

When I was younger my parents would take us to Crane Prairie Reservoir out in Central Oregon. We would camp and fish. I have a million great memories from that place and the best was all the little baby toads that came out in early summer. We would catch them and play with them. Hours of fun. One year they were so numerous they completely covered the shores of the lake and you seriously couldn't walk anywhere without stepping on tiny baby toads.

It would be like this, only with babies. And dark and echoey due to the cave factor. You would go totally insane.

Ape Cave!

I grew up in the Willamette Valley and I had never heard of this place until last year. Currently the longest continuous lava tube in the western hemisphere (until proven otherwise), Ape Cave was first discovered by Lawrence Johnson in 1947 and was explored by a group of boy scouts called The Apes (hence the name). It was awesome.

I am kind of a martyr. When something is physically difficult and I am uncomfortable I am usually kind of into it. I don't sprint around tracks until I puke or anything, but there is something pleasant about finding your way out of a difficult spot. So Ape Cave has two portions. The first portion we explored was pleasant, flat, and populated. We went to the end. We came back to the entrance. And then I took my brother and Nathan (visiting from San Francisco) down the hole of death. It was 1.5 miles and it felt like eight. After the third enormous rock pile we had to climbed and descend, Nathan said, Okay, now I'm going insane. And I began to worry that Nathan and Laurence would kill me if things got tough. And then they actually said they would. My worries were confirmed. My headlamp was weak, my feet tired, the rocks sharp, and the darkness and the unknown, it all starts to wear on you. Even though I had done some research and was reasonably sure there was an exit at the end, I didn't know for sure. And while I was enjoying it, I was also thinking that we might not get out at all, and would end up pale bones piled up in a dark corner. Laurence fell down one of the rock piles and got wedged in between two boulders and I had to pull him out, we passed an enormous group of whining 6th grade boys, a teacher fell on Laurence (he seriously received the brunt of the trip), we clambered up the 8-foot lava fall (seriously just a huge 8-foot wall looming in the darkness) and finally Laurence told me to shut up because I kept saying we were almost there and we weren't. And I'm not going to lie, my brain was jumping to Lord of the Rings comparisons on a pretty steady basis, though I mostly kept them to myself. And finally we reached the end. It was sensory overload on the outside, our eyes were shocked by all the bright and detail and then I realized that my headlamp had a brighter setting that I had failed to use.