Electrolicious

How can I say this? Lately, I’ve been feeling proud of my portraits. It’s become a part of my job, and I’m really enjoy it and trying to not look like the totally clueless self-trained bumbler that I am. It’s slow going, but I feel like I’m getting better and have less results that I’m just like “oh, oops. FAIL!”

It was one year ago today that I drove with Dawn over the Cascade mountains to go meet Sassafras. We looked like a pink-haired lesbian couple, and my first encounter with Sassafras was watching her hop out of her foster-family’s pick up, and immediately skulk away with her tail tucked.

Dawn, who’s worked with service dogs and knows dog behavior better than I do, immediately identified her as a submissive and therefore good dog — her first impression has proven to be absolutely right. I asked the foster family a couple cursory questions (Q: “What’s her big flaw?” A: “She’s needy and just wants to be on your lap 24/7″) but I was pretty much immediately smitten.
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While in Missoula this weekend, we saw a guy in a cowboy hat on a trike sort of like this one. The trike was covered with silver mylar fringe and muti-colored flags, fluttering and glittering in the spring sunlight.

Hey, I thought to myself. A burner!

Dre’s dad nodded towards the biker and said, “That developmentally disabled fellow rides all over town.”

Dance classes can mess with my head.
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I’ve been traveling a lot these past six weeks, which always seems to happen to me in late winter/early spring. I come out of this not-unpleasant seasonal affective disorder hibernation and all of a sudden trips appear out of the blue and it’s all HURRY, HURRY YOU’RE GOING TO MISS YOUR FLIGHT ZOMG WHERE’S MY ZIPLOCK OF 3 OUNCE FLUIDS AND WHAT DID I DO WITH MY CLEAN UNDERWEAR? Granted, I’d had SXSW planned for several months, but the two random trips to NYC in late February and then early April were both total surprises that came out of nowhere. And now we’re headed to Missoula this weekend for my sister-in-law’s baby shower and the whole family going to an Elton John concert. (!!!)

And of course it’s already time to start blocking out summer weekends for various camping trips, hikes, festivals, vacations, weddings, etc, and Dre and I are going to finally cash in some frequent flier miles and maybe go to Buenos Aires this fall, and ZOMG WHERE ARE MY CLEAN UNDERWEAR?!

As I was browsing the produce at the grocery store, Dre sidled up behind me and said, “Ooh, we should finally get that pizza slicer we’ve been needing.”

“HELL YEAH!” I said, perhaps a little over enthusiastically because seriously: we keep talking about it, but never remember to actually buy one.

The art school student/grocery store employee stocking shelves a few feet away from me glanced up and said, “Wow, I guess you must have really found some great fruit.”

I explained, No no — pizza slicer, forgetting, finally remembering, very exciting, etc. Right about at that point, Dre walked up and dropped the new slicer into my grocery basket. I grabbed it, lifted it up, and said, “See? SLICER!!”

Produce guy chuckled and, as I started to wander away, he dryly commented, “I hope that helps you slice the pizza of your dreams.”