Stall Selection

This post is to serve a dual purpose... Well, since my readership is so low, I doubt it will meet either of my goals, but HECK, I'm going on with it anyway.
Number 1: Is this normal?
So, at the new office there is a regular public bathroom. That is to say, there are stalls. Now, in this particular bathroom there are two stalls. Okay, so what I am wondering is: Do other people, upon entering a multi-stalled bathroom, start to analyze the situation to try to figure out which stall is used the least? I always do this with the goal of choosing the least popular (and therefore cleanest) stall. It goes a little something like this...

The first stall from the door - I never pick this stall because the people who REALLY have to go must almost always pick this stall.

The second stall - Now this is tricky... this is the stall my instincts tell me to go for. I don't know why. I wonder whether other people's instincts tell them that this is the one, too. The bathroom stall problem should be solved with logic, not instinct. Sometimes I use this stall.

The third stall - When I start questioning the wisdom of the second stall and the matter is urgent I sometimes go in the third stall, hoping that it is often overlooked in its nondescript placement.

The handicapped stall - Many times, I choose the handicap stall. Why? Because it is my hope that many people pass it by assuming it is for a handicapped person and not themselves or don't get to it because it is always (ironically) the farthest stall from the door. Also, the whole toilet is higher and it is easier to use "the hover method."

Special cases:

Really big bathrooms - There can be hundreds of stalls (it seems) in one bathroom in this day and age. When at the airport, stadium, etc. I tend to search for the hard to find section. When I turn the corner and marvel, "Wow! There are even more stalls over here!?!" I know that these must be the least frequented fixtures of the bunch.

The unflushed toilet stall - All other rules do not apply! Seek the furthest point away.

The occupied stall - When I have done my calculations and am going toward the "perfect" stall just in time to see some (germ-laden) woman exit MY stall, everything gets turned upside down. Going one stall beyond this one is too obvious; I go one stall before it (unless it is the first stall).

Unfortunately, as a woman, I am often forced to wait in line for the bathroom. In this case, I just take the next available stall, knowing that all hope was lost anyway (and that I will hover just the same).

Okay, I know this seems a little drawn out and all, but I promise that it is a honed and quick evaluation of a potentially dangerous situation. I always proceed calmly, without making a fuss.

Now, I must know (goal of the post #2)... Do other women do this? Because, if they do, the whole thing becomes a complex game theory problem of interactive decision making and I need to go back to grad school to figure out how to solve it.

My First Sock!!

I finished my first sock!

Yay! Now there's only one thing to do... Although, I fear the mate will look entirely different since I've learned so much (from my mistakes) making the first one. But, that's the endearing thing about knitting new things, after all.

Sunday Drive

Yesterday, Slav and I took a little Sunday drive out into the Columbia Gorge with the objective of hiking the Horsetail Falls trail. It is a really short drive out there and I had read many positive reviews of the route on various websites. Unfortunately, I forgot that Slav doesn't really like to hike very much and we ended up turning around after only 20min of hiking. On the plus side, though, we did get to the first waterfall, Upper Horsetail Falls.

Not the most successful adventure, but...

Last weekend, Slav and I went on a little adventure. In an attempt to escape the city's hustle and bustle, we headed for Mt. Saint Helens, which turns out to be kind of a long drive once you go through the park to the visitor's centers. It did not erupt violently while we were there, but it is still steaming away. Here we are:

Me, protesting the photo

Slav and the volcano, notice the steam

When we drove back out of the park to the campground, we discovered that it was full. Ugh. I guess we were really hungry because that's when we decided to drive to Seattle to get piroshki instead. After hours of driving, we ended up at a campground only about 30min outside of the city. It was quite nice, though we couldn't tell at the time because it was totally dark. What were we thinking!?!
In the morning we drove into Seattle and got breakfast before heading to the Japanese garden. We weren't overly impressed with it, but luckily there were some musicians there playing some traditional Japanese music. That really helped bring the experience together more. Here I am in the garden:

After some quiet time there, we headed downtown to the market, seeking piroshki. Instead, we ended up seeking parking, which was complicated because we were driving Slav's enormous van (yeah, the one with the sunflowers). Finally, after a traffic jam caused by "Breast Cancer 3 day" walkers and minutes that seemed like hours spent circling the area, we squeezed into a parking place.

When we sat down to eat our piroshki, they didn't taste quite as good as we had remembered them tasting. Dang it!

Disappointed and somewhat puzzled about how we ended up in this situation in the first place, we headed south toward Portland. The campground we ended up in was quite lovely, though it was owned by Pacific Power (located on the shores of their reservoir). Here we are at the campground:

This is the reservoir in the morning sun

Oh yeah, and we saw this van:

Mom and Dad, thank you for not being nuts.

You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up

I think that about a third of the fun of travel comes from the signs. I spotted this one while on the bike tour.

Summery Summary

So, yes. The rumors are true: I led bike tours this summer and fell out of basic communication with most people. The tours were in Oregon - on the coast and in the Willamette Valley, where we visited farms, land trusts, experimental gardens, all kinds of "green" stuff. And, no, it wasn't a big hippie gathering on wheels. It was everybody from everywhere that U.S. customs still allows to travel (well, not quite). I got dirty. I got impressive tan lines. I got to hang out next to campfires regularly. I got to ride bikes and wear spandex all the time. It was great!
It was a unique time to provide 24/7 customer service, which was sometimes overwhelming, and quite exhausting by the end. I was living a nomadic existence and was away from my cats, but overall it was a fantastic, inspiring gig.

Two things worth special mention:

My Co-workers. Katie and Jaye are fantastic humans! I probably wouldn't have met them otherwise, and I definitely wouldn't have spent so much time with them otherwise. Thanks for being totally awesome, and being helpful when I was feeling beat.


Bikes. Bikes are incredible. I learned so much about them this summer. I can fix more than I could fix before, and the things I could fix before I can do better and faster. I am a stronger rider now. And I found a seat that doesn't make me want to cry.

Wacky things happen.

Umm... What do I do now?!?


People can be a bit overprotective of their property.


Yeah, this is a "bicycle" with six legs. And it really works. And it costs over $12,000.

An unfortunate misspelling of Slav's name on a custom plating of his dessert at The Sweet Life Patisserie in Eugene.

Books I read:

Permaculture in a Nutshell by Patrick Whitefield
A good quick intro to permaculture. Presents the ideas in an easy to understand way, even though it is written specifically for the climate of England.

Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen
An anti-civilization activist who makes his argument rather well. Stories of what has been and has happened depressed, angered and mystified me while his vision of how things have been in "uncivilized" cultures and what we can hope for (if we dismantle civilization) was uplifting... though I kinda wondered if he turned the manuscript in to the publisher and they told him that he needed to give it a happy ending.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
The last one, of course. Good old Harry. Fun to read. Gripping and thrilling!!! How it all turned out... Who'd've thunkit? I could have done without the predictable content in the epilogue, but other than that it was super.

Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exuperey
Very highly acclaimed adventure memoire. I tend to agree with the bookstore owner at Cloud and Leaf in Manzanita, who placed it between the Adventure/Travel section and the Being Human section. More of a philosophical, reflective book, even though it tells the story of plane and piloting mishaps. A great contribution to outdoorsy culture. He (and his translator) has a way with words, to be sure.

Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial by Mark Harris
A brief look at the "traditional" way of doing a funeral followed by anecdotes and a quick how-to for each thing from cremation to home funerals to conservation-focused cemetery burial. A topic of interest for me since we all die sooner or later and we may as well tell our families a good way of dealing with the aftermath. I liked how he integrated the anecdotes in to provide a picture of what each option "looks like" for the mourners.