Yodelling Llama

Several times this week, I avoided work during ordinary work hours, usually at the insistence of my boss. For example, I sampled the first episode of the second half of the sixth season of “The Sopranos” in the middle of the afternoon. Also, I chatted up a door-to-door organic egg salesman, politely declining to support his anti-”corporate” philosophy by virtue of his five dollar a dozen price tag. Finally, I had the same reaction as Kermit in the following video:

If you haven’t seen the original 2 Girls 1 Cup, I hesitate to recommend. On the one hand, it represents one of the most disgusting things I’ve witnessed since my days on “The Medium.” On the other hand, it represents one of the most disgusting things I’ve witnessed since my days on “The Medium.” Certainly not for the faint of heart. But well worth it, if only as a one-minute endurance test, a bona fide cultural phenomenon, and a source of dreams. 2girls1cup. With a dot com.

D and I drove to Bellingham on Thursday for a lovely Thanksgiving meal with my father’s wife’s sister’s family. Drove back to Oly on Friday. Drove down to Portland on Saturday to see D’s cousin in the hospital. Drove to IKEA and purchased a new desk. Drove back to Oly on Sunday, taking back roads most of the way, so that the desk, strapped precariously to the roof, did not cause the Saturn to float. The back roads from Portland to the Sound involves triple time. Boy are my clutch muscles tired.

D and I went birdwatching today out in Grays Harbor County. The first location, Bottle Beach, was absurdly hard to find for a state park. The “entrance” was a gravel pull off with a “road closed” sign, with an obscured tiny “entering state park” sign. A goodly number of birds were seen, however, including dozens of green-winged teal, long-tailed duck, and northern pintail.

At the second location, in a state park in Westport, we captured pelicans, sanderlings, surf scoters, western grebes, cormorants, and dunlins. Lunched in Westport proper, taking in the off-season flavor of an RV-centric tourist trap, and marveling at the early stages of gentrification. The marina is actually quite bustling, even in the winter; shame about the rest of the “town.” Still better-feeling than Ocean Shores, though.

Drove down the coast, stopping off briefly to appreciate the very pretty Pacific County Courthouse. Much nicer than the ugly concrete block structure I usually practice in. Incidentally, Pacific County, especially Raymond and South Bend, actually has a healthy feel about it that most other Western Washington resource-extraction-dependent counties (e.g. Grays Harbor and Mason) lack. Anyone have an explanation?

Driving back, just before we entered Chehalis, the overpowering smell of shit hit us, and didn’t leave until well after we’d gotten on I-5. After watching other cars, windshields covered in vomit from the inside, careen into the embankment along the roadside, and after breathing through our shirts for tens of minutes, we became resolved to find out, from a distance, what caused that smell. After some brief research, we’ve discovered that the Chehalis residents do notice the shit smell, are offended by it, do not know its cause, but are paying someone to find out. Best guess of the moment? It’s the wealthy people’s fault.