A Trip to the Oregon Outback, done Clue Style

[ariestess]

Let's look at the murders, one by one...

Umm...

• Mr. Boddy :: Last week Thursday, I started my LoA. I also went to see the doc for my 4 month follow-up. Let's see... Weight was 291 lbs, so I'm still maintaining. Not losing, not gaining, but maintaining. I can live with that, but I'm gonna need to start trying to trend that toward losing more. The nurse said my BP was 114/88. I thought I heard 140/88, but she said "not too bad" and 140 would not constitute "not too bad", so I think I misheard it. Then doctor-man took my BP about 10-ish minutes later at most & it was 110/88. He had me do a blood test & if those results are okay, I don't have to go back for 6 months. At this time, I also got my FMLA updated to 4 days/month. [And I need to get that paperwork faxed in still]
  
  
• The Cook :: We headed down to Oregon on Friday after amyrayh got done with work. We had a pretty good trip down. Got to see a couple pairs of Osprey along the Columbia River, which was awesome! And then, as we were about 15 miles south of The Dalles, OR, we found ourselves driving next to a Microwave fire. It was around 8 or 9 at night, so getting dark. And within 20-30 feet to our right, there were not only smoldering trees and embers, but actual fucking flames! That was a sobering fucking sight, let me tell you!
  
  
• Mr. Boddy [for real] :: Saturday morning was beautiful as we started our trek to Richardson's Rock Ranch in Madras, OR. I probably haven't been there in at least 7 years now, and have been wanting to take
  shatterpath & amyrayh there for quite some time now. Our GPS got us a wee bit lost. See, the rock ranch is situated on an actual working ranch. And the GPS decided that every fucking little dirt road on said ranch was a legitimate road & kept wanting us to go down roads that basically said "private property -- fuck off!". Finally, we were all getting frustrated as hell [I was even saying to forget it and just go on to our next destination], so we headed back to Madras, then followed the signs to the rock ranch. It was just as fucking awesome as I remembered. amyrayh even came home with a 10" cutting machine for working with our geodes and obisidian pieces [more on this later]. And I got to see baby bantam chickens and baby peacocks! *squee* AND we saw deer by the metric fuckton, about 2 dozen wild turkeys, a little chipmunk, and assloads of raptors, too!
  
  
• The Motorist :: After that, we had brunch at the one-week-old Sonic in Madras before heading out toward Bend, OR, and the obisidian fields of Glass Butte.
  shatterpath & amyrayh went there last year and brought back a metric fuckton of obisidian, including the singers, also known as needles. They're kind of hard to explain, but this site & this site do a good basic job. we found lace and mahogany obisidian by the assload, and also some silver sheen. We don't have any pictures of our trip there because pictures just DON'T do the place justice.
  
  To say that my mind was blown by the obsidian fields is a GROSS understatement. Even with the warnings from
  shatterpath, amyrayh, & miashael, I still wasn't prepared. It's literally all over the place. You crush small pieces underfoot as you're walking or when you drive over it. And I ended up not actually collecting much of the obsidian. It was a wee bit too strong for me, considering it's one of my biggest power stones. So I collected some sage and a branch of juniper [with berries] instead, so I can make some smudging wands. And yes, I asked permission for and thanked the plant spirits for every single bit I gathered, and I didn't take more than 25% of any single plant. The juniper tree didn't give me that branch willingly tho': I got covered in sap and "bitten" several times, including one tiny sliver that didn't come out until like Tuesday!
  
  
• Yvette :: Saturday night was spent in Corvallis, and we all crashed pretty damned quickly and hard! I was on a 4" foam mattress on the floor, which was just a slight step up from sleeping directly on the floor. And this was purposely done. I'm not a driver, so
  shatterpath & amyrayh always get the good beds when we do this kind of trip. And then Sunday morning, we headed out to pick up will_i_am_oak and his mom to hit the Oregon Coast Aquarium. amyrayh has never been there. The boy had a great time showing her everything. He even got himself a little puffin stuffy with the money we gave him for doing well in school last year. The puffins were showing off for him, diving off the rocks, and splashing him like crazy...and the zoo folks said that the puffins are NEVER like this! I got another harbor seal stuffy. His name is Splish. He's adorable!
  
  
• The Cop :: After we dragged ourselves from the aquarium, we headed up to Lincoln City, where we had lunch at Momiji before heading out to my beach. I think the beach is called 7 Mile Beach, but it's always just been "my beach", as it's where I first stepped out onto the Pacific Coast and experienced the Pacific Ocean for the first time back in 1998. The boy was gonna skimboard, but it was too windy and the Old Man [aka Poseidon] had the waves pretty damned whipped up. I'm still surprised I wasn't completely soaked from head to toe, actually, particularly because this was the first time I've been back to my beach since I got my tattoo that cemented my commitment to Him [and Ariestess] last year.
  shatterpath & amyrayh were attempting to fly the hammerhead shark kite we bought last year with random success...until the wind ripped it out of amyrayh's hands and sent
  shatterpath diving for it. In the end, the boy caught it and helped me wind the string back up, then we headed home so the boy could start school on Monday.
  
  
• The Singing Telegram Girl :: Monday, we got up at a relatively decent out and made our way up to the Tillamook Creamery. 2009 is its 100th anniversary and we were NOT going to pass up the opportunity to celebrate that! We had a yummy lunch from the little cafe there, and each got a cone to have some of the best ice cream in the universe while we took amyrayh on the tour to watch the cheese being packaged. This was the first time that there were people working on both sides of the packaging, which was awesome. We bought a bunch of cheese [squeaky cheese!!!], milk, and souvenirs. AND we got 2 100th anniversary reusable bags and a flattened 100th anniversary penny. It was definitely a good day, Tator!
  
  We also stopped at Arcadia Beach, which is
  shatterpath's beach. And when we hit Seaside? We fucking hit paydirt, yo! There was still a Big Dog outlet store there that had the five magical words that Spotty loves :: STORE CLOSING EVERYTHING MUST GO. *heh* Yeah, we ended up with about 20 shirts for about $130, which is about 1/3 or so of what we'd normally spend for that many shirts, even in the outlet store. After that, we drove across the Astoria-Megler Bridge before tooling our butts on home. We actually made it home by about 1930 that night, which was at least an hour sooner than
  shatterpath had expected.
  
  While on the trip home, we listened to Eddie Izzard, Christopher Titus, and Weird Al. Oh, and we began re-casting the movie Clue, which kept us in hysterics for several hours... And now, I feel I must share our re-casting...because when we win the lottery, we're SO going to find a way to get this remake done.Wadsworth :: Eddie Izzard
  Col. Mustard :: Jack Black
  Mrs. White :: Megan Mulally
  Mrs. Peacock :: Goldie Hawn
  Mr. Green :: Tony Shaloub
  Professor Plum :: Kelsey Grammar
  Miss Scarlet :: Angelina Jolie
  Yvette :: Lucy Lawless
  Mr. Boddy :: Bill Paxton [channeling Chet from Weird Science]
  
• Wadsworth :: Upon arriving home, I began the task of catching up on everything. I was at skip=160 on Dreamwidth [which including all the
  kink_bingo stuff] & skip=340 on LiveJournal. I have been a completely and utterly lazy bitch since we got back. Laundry's mostly done. Not put away yet, but mostly washed/dried. The painters have started on getting the outside of the house painted, but random bits of rain have kind of kiboshed that. And I've gotten completely sucked into the games on Facebook. Particularly the fucking Zoo game! Evil! But so damned fun! And I just got confirmation this morning that I have Labor Day off, so I don't have to go back to work unitl Tuesday. Fuck me, but Tuesday's gonna suck ass!

But if you wanna know who killed Mr. Boddy, I did. In the hall. With the revolver. Okay, Chief, take 'em away. I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife.