Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

An eastern Washington (Prosser) high school art teacher posing as a nurturer of talent and self-expression narc-ed on a student that drew, among other antiwar drawings, a muslimy looking guy with GWB’s head on a stick, under a caption advocating the end of the war in Iraq.  The teacher was so unnerved by the violence in the drawings that he took them to the principal, who took them to the police, who notified the Secret Service, who took either a black limosine, black SUV or a black helicopter (or maybe all three) out into the sagebrush to question the seditious 15-year-old.

These (the school officials) are people who live less than 50 miles from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation…and they’re spooked by a 15-year-old kid with a pencil and a little lack of nuance in his satirical renderings.  Personally, I think it’s a toss-up as to which is scarier - Bush’s head on a stick, or attached to his body.  It probably functions equally poorly grafted to either host.  The lad was not expelled (the pen may be mightier than the sword, but it gets through the school’s metal detectors), but was given an undisclosed punishment.  I vote for repetitive viewings of The Passion and an essay on how we can channel our violent thoughts into positive art.

Well, I took the plunge yesterday and announced officially that I intended to lose weight.  This is a quantum step above some other short-lived efforts where I whispered to myself that it might be a good idea, if it wasn’t much of an inconvenience, to shed a few pounds.  These efforts included the obscure reference that has resided in the column to the left to “Column of Shame” that I put up last October.  Now that I’m “out” in the house, food availability will probably dwindle and eyebrows will raise if I’m apprehended in the kitchen without a clear non-caloric purpose.  Mrs. Perils of Caffeine, I should note, is trim, buff and a rock-climbing machine.

Historically, in order to remove my shirt out-of-doors or go out and buy new clothes, I should weigh 145 or less.  I’m laughably small-boned.  I stayed happily in the range of 140 - 145 for over 15 years.  In 2001 I started creeping up little by little, arriving at my present 155 - 156 sometime last year.  Not sure exactly why.  Might be from working out of the house and not getting the exercise I used to get walking from the bus stop or parking lot to an office, walking out for lunch at noon, etc, running from co-workers and supervisors that want to kill me.  I’m pretty active physically - I run 8 - 12 miles a week, do a Nautilus workout 3 days a week, plus a lot of collateral exercise on hikes, kayak trips and walks around the neighborhood, but I’ve lacked a lot of discipline in eating, especially when I’m out of town and eating more fast food.

I’m not doing anything branded like the Atkins or South Beach diets, I’m signing up for my wife’s old, reliable standby - the “Quit Chewing and Swallowing” diet.  I’ll limit between-meal grazing, and I’ll drink less, both to save the calories from the drinks themselves and to avoid the “eating” trigger that a couple drinks trips in my head. 

I hit the scale whenever I go my Nautilus club.  I’ll update the results in the revived Column of Shame at the left, and try not to post about it constantly.

Few people could have been more forlorn than Maurice Clarett last weekend.  He’s the Ohio State running back that challenged the NFL/NFL Players Association agreement that players have to be three years beyond high school graduation in order to be eligible for the draft.  He had received a favorable ruling, had hired an agent, left school and participated in combines and drills in preparation for this year’s draft, but was thwarted by a US District court a couple weeks before last weekend’s draft.  A last-minute appeal heard by Ruth Bader Ginsburg (try getting that kind of action for something important) was denied, and Maurice was left with nothing to do over the weekend except watch as a record 14 of his Ohio State teammates were drafted.

I personally think that players should be able to go pro any time they feel they’re ready.  I have trouble understanding OSU alums that somehow feel personally insulted that Maurice wants to flee the hallowed halls with such alacrity.  That said, I don’t feel too sorry for Maurice.  It took a major effort on his part to screw up the situation he had at Ohio State, where he had an injury-prone freshman year with flashes of brilliance, then got suspended for his sophomore year for taking money from a guy from his hometown with possible gambling connections, and for lying to police about the value of goods stolen from a car that a local dealer had “loaned” him.  He had an opportunity for a breakout sophomore season, erasing (or confirming) doubts about his brittleness, perhaps playing for another national championship and perhaps winning the Heisman.

But, if he was simply finished with the College Joe scene, he should have been able to enter the draft without restriction, and taken on his merits.  I felt for him a little bit as the rounds trickled by.

Seattle is blessed with two “alternative” newspapers.  The Weekly was established sometime in the mid-70s and for a long time was the rich-hip-elitist’s paper.  Where the dailies were writing about Dennys restaurants and barbershop quartets, the Weekly reviewed the top-of-the-line eateries, and took strong stands on the local arts scene, etc.  Businesses in the 80s started skewing their offerings to the “Weekly demographic”, boomers who were just then coming into significant disposable income.

In the 90s, The Stranger came on the scene with an edgier, sassier flavor aimed largely at Gen-X and -Y, people who went to clubs and in general stayed up past 10.  It is the flagship paper, for instance, for Dan Savage’s “Savage Love” column, and he has been the paper’s editor for the past few years as well.  What the Weekly probably didn’t bargain on, I believe, is that boomers, suffering an image crisis as they aged, began posing as Stranger-bait.  I know we do.

This started to bring the Stranger closer to the wheelhouse of the Weekly’s advertiser base, and their comparative circulations approach equivalence.  Whether as a result of this competitive pressure or not, the local publisher of The Weekly sold out to the Village Voice several years ago.

This week, after apparently arduous and delectable research involving several staff members and a couple hundred restaurants, The Weekly brought out a “dining guide” issue.  The Stranger must have a mole on the Weekly staff, because it was able to hit the street, the same day, with a “Restroom Guide” parodying the Dining issue, reviewing the city’s most picturesque rest rooms, with a cover photo closely mimmicking the Weekly’s.  Had the Weekly issue been titled “Restaurant Guide”, the effect would have been that much more apt.  I detected no crossover on the two lists - that is, The Stranger didn’t review any restroom of a restaurant that The Weekly reviewed.  That may have provided a prima facie test of the veracity of the restaurant reviews.  They need me on staff.

The Stranger did, however, provide a review of the restroom at The Weekly:

As a cultural space in the life of this city, it is a great restroom, as many current and former Seattle Weekly employees can attest, to go into and cry after being senselessly mauled by the interests of a corporation (a corporation that, by the way, has made huge contributions to George W. Bush’s relection campaign).  Finally, it is also a great restroom to emerge from having resolved to send an e-mail from your Hotmail account to the editor of the other, better-written weekly newspaper in town begging for work…

While The Stranger had its fun, obviously, The Weekly gets the lasting laugh: The Weekly’s dining guide is larded with food and beverage industry advertising, while the restroom guide features ads from Pabst and a tattoo shop called Slave To The Needle.

Still, ya gotta love it. 

and facing a desk that, in the words of the IT manager at one of my clients, badly needs to be “defragged”.

There’s a day-by-day journal of our junket in the category to the left.  I’ll shut up about it now.

It always feels like you’ve got one more day of vacation left on the day you check out, but the reality is that, with checkout at 11am, combined with the fact that we’re late sleepers and never pack in advance when it can be put off, it’s usually a ratrace just to get out in time.

One task is always making an entry in the journal in the room. I’ve never been able to figure out why everyone’s entries in these journals ends up effusively thanking the owners for the privilege of paying them to stay there.  Actually, we’ve been making payments on the place longer than they have - we should have a minority interest.

We like the place a lot, though, obviously.  It’s called the Ocean Haven Lodge, located between Yachats and Florence.  At right is the view from our window.  The suites are spacious and comfortable, with kitchens but no phones or tvs.  (What posting I did while there was done using my laptop connected to my cell phone)  The atmosphere is emphatically - maybe relentlessly - ecofriendly, which suits us just fine. Quiet hours 10pm - 9am, no smokers and no pets.

On our last full day here,  it finally dawned clear and stayed sunny, if a bit chilly, all day.  We decided to return to Cape Perpetua and take one of the 3 or 4 hikes that originate there, opting for the Gwynne Creek trail and its 8-mile round trip.  This trail climbs steadily upward through a forest of magnificent old-growth Sitka spruce and Douglas fir to the halfway point, then returns in a winding, gentle descent through a creek canyon.  Although you go several miles inland, you’re never out of earshot of the surf’s roar.

No hike in the northwest is complete without at least one slug encounter.

Well, we hauled the dang kayaks all the way down here, and daggumit we’re gonna use ‘em.  We discovered this little trip a couple years ago, called the Siltcoos River Canoe Trail, just south of Florence.  It starts in a freshwater lake (Siltcoos Lake - who’da thunk?), enters a river leading westward through forest and sand dunes, widens out into an tidal estuary and, finally, empties into the Pacific.  Distance one way: 3 miles.  We see a wide variety of wildlife on this paddle: kingfishers, deer, otters, ducks, eagles, ospreys.  This year, we got an extra thrill.  As we were paddling around a bend, I heard a crashing in the brush up on a dune, and thought it must be someone’s dog loose and out chasing something.  Then I heard a strange “gunk-gunk” sound, and then a mama black bear and two babies tore ass across an open stretch of sand and dove into the brush.

I immediately raised my camera to my face to try to catch a shot, and missed what my wife saw, the mama turn and stare pugnaciously back at us before disappearing into the brush.  I snapped blindly, not really able to see much through my viewfinder.  I may have caught her - see the cameo below and tell me what you think.  It was an odd place for a bear encounter.  We’d just crossed under the Highway 101 bridge, and into the Honeyman State Park.  All around are cottages and car-camping areas, not much bear habitat, to our thinking.

From there on down to the ocean, my wife’s serene little drift became a little tense, as she speculated about how well bears can swim (real well, as it turns out).  I told her I’d heard of damn few kayak-bear fatalities, but she remained vigilant.  Later, one of our friends speculated that, to the bear, a kayaker was probably like some exotic shellfish that was a pain in the ass to get out of the shell, but worth the effort for the soft little meats inside.

Returning to the boat launch, we saw several bass boats zipping around the lake.  One of the fishermen told us there was a bass tournament on Saturday, and they were out scoping out spots.  Don’t know why I kept thinking of Hiassen’s Double Whammy after that.

So, is there a bear in the shadows there? Tomorrow: UFOs of the Oregon Dunes!

I promised Keiko of Saunter and Repose I’d post a picture of a skunk cabbage, and here it is.  In certain moist hollows on the coast, they grow with abandon.  The pistil, or stamen, or whatever that penile thang is emerging from that prepuce thang has intricate rows of coiled polleniferous structures wound around it.  Hey, is it hot in here, or is it just me?  The plants have a slightly sulfurous odor, but it takes imagination and previous experience to evoke “skunk” from it.  The honkin’ shamrocks growing around it are equally amazing.

On Thursday, the clouds seemed to lift palpably, and every now and then a blue patch (we’re calling them “sucker holes”) appeared in the gray ceiling.

One of our favorite hikes here is in the Oregon Dunes Recreation area south of Florence. There’s a long strip of the coast from Florence south to Coos Bay that is comprised of sand dunes. The dunes start at the water’s edge and go inland for 1 to 2 miles before gradually becoming forested. Our hike is a 7 or 8 mile loop that begins in dense forest, emerges onto the dunes, crosses the dunes to the ocean. From there you hike a mile or so along a wide, hard-packed sand beach, then turn inland back across the dunes, and end up with a 3-mile walk through dense forest again. We love the variety of terrain, and the otherworldliness of the dunes.