Big News

So last night Andy, Dominique, Vin, and I met up at Macaroni Grill for dinner. YUMNESS. That is like my favorite local place, by far. Then we stopped by REI since Dominique didn't know what snow shoes were, so we had to show her. They were holding the Backpacking 101 Clinic that I so wanted to go to, but oh well... we had better things to do! So we went to Mio Gellato down in NW again... that place is so frickin' good. Yuuuuuum. After that we decided we wanted to play pool, so we went to Henry's Tavern. I love that place too. It was a night of places I love! We played 9 ball 4 times and each had a chance to win... what could be better? I really am getting SIGNIFICANTLY better at pool. It's almost shocknig really, I made some great shots and even the boys were impressed. So that put a smile on my face.

Then I came home and decided to call Vin... I just asked him a lot of questions about our relationship and what we're really doing. He made it clear that he's not interested in dating (allegedly anyone, though I argue that if you find the right person nothing will stop you from dating them) anyone right now and he doesn't see that changing anytime soon. It was a long conversation and I learned a lot... I am clearly not getting into anywhere near the detail that I'd like to here, but basically we're alligned now and know exactly what's going on. I guess it's really not big news, it just feels significant to me because now I know what I'm doing with my life. Sort of... not really of course. :-)

Work's been great tonight, things are going well, goodness abounds. Nothing else to report really... maybe tomorrow!

Bend Birthday Backpacking Bonanza!

So the two day workweek flew by... I had lots of stuff to finish up and take care of before I could get out of there, so I was busy busy busy.

Thursday Andy and I went to Chipotes for dinner, yum. And we ran into Steve on our way out, so that was super fun. I love that I've been in Oregon long enough to "run into" people. That's always super cool!! Andy and I had a really good conversation, I enjoy spending time with him.

Wednesday and Thursday night work Andy (a different Andy) helped me with my rowing technique on the rowing machines. He is an excellent rower and used to be on his college rowing team, so he gave me a lot of good pointers. Definitely helped my workouts overall!!

Then Friday I did some food shopping for backpacking and went to REI to get my backpack and sleeping bag rental and a few last minute layering things, then I came home and started packing and organizing and whatnot. Vin came home from work around 4ish, so we packed up and headed out for Bend!! We stopped north of Salem for food and gas, and Vin decided it would be a good idea to teach me how to drive stick on the dark mountainous road late at night. YIKES. LUCKILY, I have had Patrick as an amazing teacher in the past, so I've had sooooooome experience, but not a whole lot. But actually I was completely fine driving until we had to stop, then I got kind of flustered because there were so many people around and couldn't get going again. By that time Vin was more awake so he took over. Patrick will be the first to tell you that I'm great at driving stick until I get flustered, then it's nearly impossible for me to get into 1st. Grrr. Oh well. I will master it some day. :-) Friday we spent some time hanging out with my family friends and packing up our backpacks and then went to bed.

Saturday morning it was up and at'em at 8:00 AM!! We had a good breakfast and loaded up the car and got out of there, heading up to the mountains by about 10 or so. We started our birthday backpacking bonanza at about 11:45, and it was snowing by about 12:30. We had a quick lunch at 1 and kept going, then realized we were a lot further along than we thought but that we had missed a turn 1.4 miles in (we were wondering how it was almost 2 and we hadn't made it 1.4 miles). We were about 7/10 of a mile off of the path, and it was snowing really heavy, and we were already on the backup GPS batteries. So Vin, being the wise and more experienced one, told me that my birthday bonanza was not going to get to go on. It was too risky to not be in the right place, have our tracks possibly be covered, etc. About 5 minutes after we turned around, we ran into a party of 5 that was going to summit Middle Sister (we were just going up to base camp). They had 2 GPSs and tons of maps, and they're like "we just don't have any brains!". I laughed and the one guy was like "that's right, you should laugh at us. Be glad your boy is the smart one who is turning around". But they headed on, and we encountered 5 other people along the way in parties of 1 and 2 who were headed up too. We did find the right route on our way back down, so we pointed some people in that direction so they wouldn't be lost too (8 / 10 of the other people had already missed the turn though). That's the danger in hiking in the snow though, you can follow tracks and they may or may not be the right ones. Once one party screws up (and Vin and I were not the first, we were following other tracks) it's easy for other to as well. So we went back down to the trailhead, set up camp there, and then drove to a lookout about 15 minutes away, hiked up to it, and tried to watch the sunset. No sunset = sad. But oh well. We went back to camp, made some dinner (Vin's a decent camping chef) and then Vin made me go to bed at like 8 PM on my birthday! But it was cold and for some reason he was tired (seriously no idea why) so too bad for me. I was still soooooo happy that I got to go backpacking though, I really wanted to do it and it was awesome overall, even though it wasn't an ideal situation. It snowed 12 inches all in all that day and night, so we were actually probably smart that we came down. Sunday morning we had breakfast at a crazy little place in Sisters (the town near Three Sisters) and then headed back home and took a nap. (not home, but to my dad's friend's house). Then we got up and did some shopping at the outlet mall, mountain shops, etc. and had dinner at the Deschutes Brewery, a little pub in town. It was decent and Vin loved the beer, though it was not my favorite. It was decent. Then we saw Hitch -- GREAT MOVIE!! Super funny, and we both enjoyed it a lot. Highly recommended for BOTH genders.

Monday morning we got up and packed up the car, had some breakfast, chit chatted, etc. We decided to go to Smith Rock State Park (actually we decided that Sunday) so we headed up that way. CLOUDY. Boo. It was cold and crabby and some members of our party (not mentioning any names) were tired and crabby so we decided just to do a little hiking and then head home. It was muddy and slippery, so I actually wasn't all that unhappy that we went home. Up near Portland though, it was BEAUTIFUL!!! 60 degrees and sunny in FEBRUARY! You can't ask for more than that! So we stopped along the way at Timberline Lodge near Mt. Hood and took some pictures, since Vin took them I'm sure they'll turn out beautifully. He really is talented. It would have been a PERFECT day for the PCG, but we were smelly and gross so we went to Vin's, unloaded, and then I went home and checked emailed and showered and whatnot. We grabbed Qdoba for dinner and he worked on his Myth TV while I read the Mountaineering book he gave me for my birthday. It was pretty cool to read while he was there, because I asked him a lot of questions and it was a pretty cool discussion. Definitely lots of good discussion this weekend, there were certainly highs and lows but it was great overall! I can't wait to get back out backpacking, hiking, snowshoeing, etc. :-) Three cheers for birthday bonanzas for many years to come!

The Aunt Julie Weekend

So, Saturday we went to Chipotle, where Vin was absolutely charming... who knows where that came from?! He said it took a LOT of effort. Then Aunt Julie went to bed since she was exhausted from flying all day, and Vin and I watched Alias. It was REALLY weird this week... I don't know what the deal was with that.

Sunday, it looked like it was going to be sunny... great. Only it wasn't! So we went to Hale's for breakfast, then got Vin and went to Pittock Mansion and the Rose Garden... not such great views, so it was a little underwhelming. Then we drove along Skyline for a while and then dropped Vin off and then went to Powell's. THEN we picked Vin up (lots of back and forth Portland to Beaverton) and went to Portland City Grill... man I love that place. As always! We had 1 or 2 new things for me and of course many different appetizers. I like when Vin goes because we get to have lots of stuff because he's a hungry growing boy. Then Vin, Daniel, and I watched Ray at his house.

Monday, Julie and I went up to Seattle for the day. We went to Pike's Place, then to eat at a great restauraunt on the pier. Then I bought some tuna, tulips, a painting, and some Italian sausage for Vin. Good times. Then we drove home and had a lovely dinner at Chili's and went to Michael's to get a frame for my picture. Then I just played on my computer and talked to Julius. Vin was in a "bad mood"... apparently he hates Valentine's Day, though I had no idea.

Tuesday, THE SUN WAS SHINING!!! We went to Seaside and Astoria, and it was cold so we just saw the ocean and then grabbed some hot chocolate in Seaside, then drove up to Astoria and ate lunch there out on the Columbia River. Yuuuuum more seafood. :-) Then we basically drove back, but we stopped at Montinore Estates on the way back. We tried a bunch of wines, and I bought my pinot noir chocolate sauce that I've been wanting and a bottle of their 2002 Pinot Noir. Yummy. :-) PLUS, since it was sunny, you could see Hood, Adams, Jefferson, and St. Helens from the vineyard! Julie was absolutely thrilled, and so was I that she finally saw it. When we got back I met up with Vin at REI to do some pre-shopping for the weekend, and then I went to Macaroni Grill with Julie. Yuuuuuuuuum. I really really like that place. Then more chatting online, then Vin stopped by after his movie around 11:30. It was like he was sleepwalking, we were trying to plan our trip but he was psycho. He's one of those people that when he's tired he just basically falls asleep. Weird.

Today I took Julie to the airport (sad) and then I went to REI in Portland and then REI in Hillsboro to get some stuff. YAY lots of good purchases. I enjoyed it much. Will make a few exchanges Friday when I get my rentals but for the most part I'm pleased. Lots of goodness going on!

And now, a two day work week before BEND!!!!!!

Aunt Julie is here!!

So, just a quick update... yay for Aunt Julie being here! I woke up around 12:30 per usual Saturday morning routine this morning, then went to "The Q" (Qdoba) with Vin. Then I went and picked up Julie and then we went and drove all through the Columbia River Gorge and saw Multnomah Falls, etc. All of that good crunchy Oregonian stuff. No seriously though, it was good times. Then we came back home and she's seen my apartment and ranted and raved. :-D I love being ranted and raved about, woo hoo and stuff. It was way good times. Then we looked at scrapbooks and now she's checking email on my other computer. Then we're going to Chipotes for dinner, because I haven't had enough "fresh mex" Mexican food yet today (yeah right). So that will be fun, then I don't know what to expect for the rest of the night, probably just a chill evening in. Maybe I will do some more ruminating! :-) Happy Saturday!

Sorry, I can't delete it

Sorry, I can't delete that double posting. It was posted with the Blog This! icon on the Google toolbar, and for some reason it won't let you delete those posts.

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So this is going to be a little bit more personal and share more of myself with you than I usually do, so don't read on if you're not prepared for that.

Today I had three pretty interesting conversations with three Oregonian friends... Adam, Addy, and Andy. It was a day of 4 letter A names. Very very interesting. This post doesn't really concentrate on those conversations, but it does discuss some of the things I've been thinking about in general lately (and one of the conversations had a lot to do with this post, the other two did not). I don't even really know what to think, but it definitely had me thinking a lot about myself and who I am. I've been thinking a lot about it for months, but it was kind of cool to have these random conversations with different people. One of the things I think about a lot is my job, and how sometimes the hours frustrate the heck out of me. The other day I had a horrible day at work and I was just like "man, I want to leave this company, leave this state, go somewhere far far away and be doing something far far different". But I forced myself to take a step back and realize "hey, the grass is always greener... NO JOB is perfect". I'm a very firm believer that you shouldn't be doing a job you're miserable in... what's the point? There are too many other important things in life, and you spend way too much time at your job to be miserable. But at every job, you're going to have good days and bad days. And I'm very thankful for the job I have. I absolutely love it, love the people, love what I'm doing, everything is great. I'd really like to be on a normal day hours schedule, but that will come in time. Looknig at the big picture, I'm thrilled to be here in this state, with this company, and with these people. Over a year of thought and prayer went into this job in particular, and almost two years of thought and prayer went into my job in general. This is where I really thought I should be, and I need to look on that and remember that, because it's important. I'm here for a reason, not by chance and not because there were no "better" opportunities. There is one opportunity that consistently sticks out in my mind as "better", an opportunity that I spent 2 years thinking about, and yet here I am. That's important, I need to remember that. When I get sick of being here and miss Greek IV peeps, DZ people, PHS people, A-Hall people, etc... I need to look at people like Keith, Kendra, Addy, Kristie, Vin, Andy, Adam, etc. that have been put in my life and bring such great joy to me here. Granted I don't see them all very often, and part of that is a function of my hours, but that's okay. They're here.

Something else that I recently discovered was totally cool! I've been pretty blessed for the last 8 or 9 years in terms of jobs and things like that. I've had a lot of good things "fall into my lap". Sophomore year I randomly found the job at the bank when I wasn't even looking, and it was one of my favorite jobs ever. Junior year I got paid a lot more than I should have for being the editor of the yearbook. Senior year I had the awesome Killian babysitting job. They all randomly happened. And whenever I get a little stressed out about money, God's like BAM and provides like randomly huge amounts of money. What's up with that? A few weeks ago I was worried about money for a few different things, and I called Russ up and was pretty upset because of some things that had come up financially. He talked me through it and helped me clear my head... and a few days later two pretty awesome financial things happened, including a much better tax refund than I expected. WOAH. So then I was like "what the heck God, why do you always hook me up when some people struggle so much?" And I kind of realized that He really does know us all so intimately that He knows exactly what we need, as individuals. People deal differently with money, they handle it differently, they manage it differently, etc. None of this money is ours anyway, so He just chooses different people to manage it for Him at different times. He's always blessed me with a reasonable amount and I have always tried to completely acknowledge that and make decisions based on that. It was cool to realize not only does He know that I'm the type of person that maybe needs more money (money influences my relationship with God and it's always been interesting), but He knows that He created me to be a good manager of money, and so He trusts me with it. A lot of Christians that I know really struggle a lot with money and God challenges them with that in different ways than me, so I was like "don't you think I can handle less money?" And then I realized that maybe that's not the way He created me. We're all different, and that's what goes back to the Him knowing us intimately piece. He gives us exactly what He can handle, and I adore Him for it. Something I realized my senior year is that in a lot of ways, it can be MORE of a challenge for us to have more money, because we have to manage it better. It would have been easy for me to take a job where I made less money, because I wouldn't have been able to do some of the things I can. But I realize that that is one of the many reasons God wasn't so all about that... He wanted me to do great things.

A few more random thoughts on this topic and then I'll be done. At a conference years ago I heard a speaker say "maybe God wants you to be a missionary, or a pastor, or blah blah blah [all 'Christian' type stuff]... or maybe He wants you to go out and make a lot of money, then give it all away". Almost immediately I knew that was me. God has enabled me to make a lot of money... and then share it with people who need it. It's kind of cool, actually. That's one of the reasons I'm here, dude. One of the man. :-) I kind of talked about this in one of the conversations I had today, and the person I was talking to was like "hey, that's really cool that you say it's actually easier to make LESS money... that's true, I just hadn't thought about it before". So lesson of the day: yay for God. Yay for Him being so good in my life.

There's one other thing that was the topic of my other two conversations today, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to share it with the world yet. I'm not sure if I should either. But I'm thinking about it, and maybe it will come in the next few days, at least in an edited fashion. We'll see. :-)

My aunt is coming to town tomorrow (in about 12 hours!) so my posts might be somewhat limited in the next few days. I'll see what I can hook y'all up with and if not expect an awesome updated detailing all of the fun on Wednesday. I love y'all so much. Mwah.

Just work

So I'm just at work tonight, which typically means I have nothing really new and/or interesting to say at all. I slept a lot today again, trying to recover from the nasty little cold I have. Woke up, made some chicken noodle soup, folded some laundry, chatted a bit. Then of course came to work. ~5 more hours left in the day. Wow now it's about 2 hours later, only 3 hours to go! Woo hoo. :-) Very pleased. Anyway, had some fun talking to Andy, the one I work with... he cracks me up. He's so high quality. So that was enjoyable. Other than that, goodness all around. :-)

The Three Day Week

Last night = Way too much fun. :-)

Seriously it was an awesome night out! Andy, Vin, Geoff and I all went to Chili's for some YUM dinner before going downtown. It was stellar. Then Andy went home 'cause he had an early meeting this morning, and Geoff, Vin, and I went back to Vin's for a little bit before heading downtown. We parked near Kells but didn't see a lot of people there, so we wandered over to Voodoo Lounge (where I went the first night I met Vin) and went there for the night. I had so much fun, it was seriously one of the best nights I've had in a looooong time. Huge shout out to the boys for being the barers of fun, definitely owe them. I missed having Adds around, but hopefully she'll be back soon. Actually she requests that we go down there, so maybe we can get that to work sometime soon. March 12th might be a good weekend for that. So far away though. And actually Addy has finals that next week so taht might not work out. Oh well, soon enough, soon enough. :-)

This morning I woke up soooooo sick. My throat is way sore and I'm all stuffed up and YUCKY. Thanks Adds for making me sick. Oh well, I just woke up for like an hour, then I went back to sleep all day with a humidifier in my room, so I actually felt much better. Than I grabbed some dinner with Vin and Daniel, yay to Chipotle. We wanted to get free burritos for this weekend, so at least we have that going for us. YUMMY. :-) That's all for now I think, more soon as always. I'm trying to get better about blogging, it's just so much more fun when other people are doing it too, or at least commenting!

Is it cheating?

To completely copy someone else's blog? Addy's blog is soooooo good, I just have to copy it for you.... I'll adapt it a little to make it more enjoyable for all.

Top Ten Reasons Sunday was AWESOME

#1 - Adds coming up to Portland to see me and The Vin
#2 - Superbowl Sunday in general.
#3 - Geoff being the sweetest guy in the world!!
#4 - Secret Kelly and Addy giggle fest every time we get together
#5 - Chevy's Monday afternoon with The Adds
#6 - Meeting and making comments about "Vaulted Ceilings/Platter/Owl Ears, Goldfish, Old Man, Kramer, etc." Those were all names we came up for people.... awesome good times.
#7 - Another batman movie? what?!?!? Batwoman will be stoked for sure.
#8 - Trecking all over Hillsboro for some hot tub usage... it didn't work out.
#9 - Cali King Style Bed full of Burrito-ish-ness- and then followed by some karate chop action.
#10 - Yikes to our own verision of THE OC Sunday night - serious drama fest.

Welcome to Andy!

First off, we need a huge shout-out to Andy, my newest reader. I'm a huge fan of Andy because he's expanding my horizons. Yesterday he had the brilliant idea to go to Caffe Mingo on NW 21st (remember what a fan I am of NW, particularily 23rd and 21st) for Italian. SO GOOD. We were big fans, even Vinnie, the "Italian", approved. I'm the token girl, Vinnie's the token "Italian" dude, and Andy I suppose is the token Asian guy. It works out well for us I guess. We're diversifying, adding more women to the mix is the next way to meet the diversity goals. Andy thinks we should aim for 50/50, I'm more of a realist and think that maybe a 60/40 or even 66/33 men to women mix is appropriate. Or at least what we're going to get, considering we're all engineers. But anyway, dinner last night was amazing, and then we went to Mio Gilato for dessert. Yuuuuuuum.

Y'all, remind me to tell you the story of the bits in about 2 weeks. You'll be amused, and then I can start telling you when I give bits and get bits. But without the background, I'll tell the short story of last night, at Mio Gilato they give you these cool cups, which Andy and Vin like to reuse (like for salsa, etc.). I however like the spoons, even though they're not nearly as valuable as the cups. So Vin and I negotiated, I gave him my cup for his spoon and 5 bits. Good deal for me, because I spent 2000 bits Sunday night so I was way lacking on bits. I need to be ahead because then I have that to hold over his head. :-)

Anyway, going back in time a little bit, last week was HORRIBLE at work. Dude seriously nothing good came of it. It was my 4 day week which was bad to begin with, but to top it off, the factory was not running well so I had to focus on that all week rather than getting real work done. Not that that's not real work, but it's not stuff that I personally have to do and have deadlines for. So there has been a lot of working at home this weekend, thank goodness for laptops. And to top it off, at the very end of my week, a woman at work called me "unprofessional" and "non-constructive". She didn't really call ME that, but she said that a report I had written (or really just summarized) was that way. A co-worker of mine told me to brush it off, that she's just that way. So I did, but I was still perturbed and hard a hard time falling asleep after work. Oh well.

The Super Bowl party Sunday made up for it all! Adds was in town so goodness was had by all. We seriously had a super great time, hanging out with lots of friends, watching the game, drinking, and laughing. It's always so fun when Addy comes to town because we are just hysterically laughing the whole time! I love it!! :-) So yes that was great. Then Addy and I went to Chevy's for lunch yesterday, yuuuum. Chevy's is ALWAYS good.

Now I'm starving and need to eat lunch, and I know I should be good and eat at home but I'm not inspired. I might do Qdoba, I'm kind of addicted to their quesidillas. Is that spelled right? At any rate, Andy's going to introduce me to Indian food, Latino food, and who knows what else. In return, I will introduce him to the Portland City Grill, and that should be worth LOTS of new introductions. We all know how much I love that place! :-)

So, this was a better blog than most I think, so maybe I'll have a few good ones coming along here. Tonight's Fat Tuesday, who knows what the evening shall hold for us...

Still thinking about houses...

So I've been doing a lot of thinking about houses still, asking people at work and seeing what they think. It's proved to be quite interesting. I've been doing a lot of thinking about a lot of stuff actually, learning some good lessons and doing a lot of reflecting. Just realizing I guess that the world isn't this neat little bubble that I have myself in and have always had myself in. Everything isn't just black or white, there is a whole heck of a lot of grey out there. I went for a great run today and was able to clear my head, my new thing is "clearing my head". I think all of these thoughts are just cluttering up my mind and occupying too much space and memory cells. Ha, this is a weird post. Just reflecting!

I'm better now

Okay, so after I almost threw my computer out the window when I lost my blog yesterday (which would not have been good because it was my work computer), I'm feeling good today. Here's the weekend in review (my looong weekend!!)

Saturday: Went to Vin's during the afternoon to hang out, though I am completely blanking on what we did. That's really bugging me. Then we were driving to somewhere to do something else (I think we were going to REI) when his friend Brian called him and asked us to go downtown for dinner with him, so we did. We met up with Geoff there and had a yum dinner. BUT the boys were so annoyingly glued to the TV. We were in kind of a sports bar like place so they had their eyes on the screens the whole time and I got a *little* annoyed towards the end. Oh well, what can I say? I could sit at home if I wanted to stare at the TV. But then Geoff, Vin, and I went to a bar in Lake Oswego (a south suburb) called RAM. We played pool for almost 2 hours, it was great because I am horrible at pool so it was nice to be able to give it more of a chance. I learned a lot about the angles and stuff and the guys were like woah you've improved a lot tonight. So hopefully I'll be able to hang onto those skills going forward.

Sunday: We went to Qdoba for lunch and then to the amazing REI. YAY so fun. I got a great new shirt. Then I went and looked at a bunch of new houses and townhouses all day and then went to church that evening. Then I went on my FAVORITE Sunday date night -- Portland City Grill. I'm very skilled at finding good seats there. Since we don't go to the restaurant but just go to the bar section for happy hour, you have to scope out the good seats. Window seats are ideal but hard to come by... but tonight there weren't any seats, even the other seats in the bar area. Just bar seats... so we sat at the piano bar and Vin was like "let's just go sit at the regular bar" and I was like "but those people are getting up!" and practically ran over across the bar to window seats where people were getting up. So basically all but 1 time I've been there I've had a window seat, and the other time I had a pretty good seat at a tall pub table so I could still see out. And the window seats are just better because they're like low comfy chairs and they're good for talking and chilling. We had a long wonderful date and drank and ate lots of yummy food. Soooooo amazing. I'm still smiling.

Monday: I spent most of the day copying files from my computer to my external hard drive in preparation to reformat my hard drive which is being super obnoxious at the moment. So we'll see about that one. Then I went with Vin and Andy downtown to Papa Haydn, a dessert place on NW 23rd, which is the yuppiest street in town. Soooo fun. I love 23rd. I had a port and a white chocolate mint cake. I was like "ugh, too much chocolate, I'm going to die" and Vin was like "let this be the day, marked forevermore, that a woman said she had too much chocolate". Teehehehe. Seriously though, UGH.

Tuesday: I had a meeting in the morning, and I also watched 24 in the morning and 7th Heaven this afternoon. I also cleaned my whole apartment, went to go see In Good Company, did laundry, and paid my bills (the 1st is always the big bills day). So much gets done on my days off when I put in a little effort! Then I went down to Southeast (Portland is not like Chicago with the names of the areas, we just have Southeast, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest, the West Hills) for the intro night for this hiking class I want to take (www.mazamas.org). I really really think I'm going to take it, I'm so excited. Speaking of the hiking class, I should specify that it's a CLIMBING class. Andy, one of my favorite co-workers, has this big joke with me about hiking class and how they're going to teach me to walk. It's left right, left right, left right, etc. His wife carried on the joke saying "no honey, they also teach arm coordination, how to swing the right arm forward when you take a left step". We laugh about this often, and also make fun of each other for being crunchy Oregonians. He eats very crunchy food so I make fun. And he wore a recycling t-shirt the other day when we were working out (we work out every day at 4 AM) so I made looooots of fun of that. He even admitted that it was way way crunchy. Haha. Anyway it's a huge joke and I'm like the crunchiest person of all time and I'm going to meet horrible crunchy people at this class according to him. And I think his wife thinks I'm horribly crunchy too, so I have to redeem myself at the winter party. I have to be wonderful and perfect and elegant and gorgeous so she knows how fabulous and yuppie I really am. We'll see. Oh, but one of the funniest parts of the whole story is this her great-grandfather was a FOUNDING member of the mazamas! LOL... she makes fun of her own family's stuff.