Good news! Paul & I have a place to live. We have been offered a 2-bedroom apartment in the University Heights neighborhood, and once the lease comes in the mail, all we have to do it sign it and we're good to go. We can officially move in August 22nd. I'm getting excited to move to Madison. I'm also searching for a geology/environmental consultant job at the moment, so if you have any good leads let me know. :o)

summer feels so good.

so much goodness through friends, my husband, and family. plus surrounded by the place i love.

Katherine & Erik are here for the weekend! :o) Lucky for us, we'll only be 2.5 hours away once we move to Madison....it's nice to know that good friends are semi-close by. We visited Mt. St. Helens today, which was having an "event" (not to be confused with an eruption)...steam and gasses coming up from the bulging crater. Pretty neat...I hadn't been there for 8 years, so it's changed quite a bit in that time.

Tomorrow is gonna be another hot one, so some eagle creek exploring will probably happen. I'm definitely looking forward to that. I love showing visitors the gorge.

wednesday was a lovely dinner with my cousin and her husband. a long time coming. and it was great.

julie and i did a night hike up angel's rest on thursday evening. quite pleasant, despite my exhaustion hiking up and stupidly wearing jeans on such a hot day. we arrived at the top just as the sun was setting and witnessed a lovely sunset, then made our way down as dark was falling. i need to do more night hiking!

next weekend is also gonna rock. an entire long weekend spent with ethan & nicole at netarts/oceanside. i love the beach. and i love having personal hours/vacation time from work. definitely a lot to be excited about in the past few days and upcoming ones.

Congratulations to:
Heidi & Jon
Katherine & Eric
Steve & Annika

...who all got married yesterday. I attended my sister's wedding and missed out on the other two, but I'm sure that they were amazing. I'm so happy for everyone.

I'm sooo exhausted. Haven't even taken a shower since the wedding. My hair is tucked into a bandanna to hide the hairspray craziness. I need to find the energy to clean myself up, and possibly do something productive until I crash in bed tonight.

My sister is getting married on Saturday!

It's almost World Cup Time

Although Paul & I are buying cable (to be installed Friday morning--with all the frills--a recorder, and high definition) for the next month to watch the World Cup, I just found out that the city of Portland is doing a lot to provide free viewing of the games to residents. Portland Parks & Recreation will be showing all games at two community center locations (one in english and one in spanish), and a huge LED screen will be set up in Pioneer Courthouse Square for the semifinals and final games! Awesome.

After having a hold on "The Greatest Old-Time Radio Shows of the 20th Century" Audio CD for many months, it finally came in. I am currently in the middle of the first show “The War of the Worlds” which was broadcast on 10/30/1938 and I have to admit, it’s pretty impressive. This radio play was adapted for radio from H.G. Wells story, but during the broadcast of this show in between 8:00-9:00PM EST in 1938 thousands of listeners thought that what they were hearing was true and became hysteric as they heard “first hand” reports of invaders from Mars attacking the Earth.

I can realistically imagine people becoming afraid and freaking out while listening. It sounds so real, and at a time when television and internet were not available, it would be hard to quickly disput what you were hearing in the “news” report. It sounds so authentic! Although the program was previously listed in the newspaper as "Today: 8:00-9:00--Play: H. G. Wells's 'War of the Worlds'--WABC.", I’m sure that many people did not receive the paper, or neglected to read the radio schedule—especially if they turned on their radio part-way in.

Check out this thorough site for 1938 news reports and other detailed information.

text of the radio play

To Stem Widespread Extinction, Scientists Airlift Frogs in Carry-On Bags

Even though the past coupla weekends have been low-key, they've been pretty good. Two weeks ago Paul and I went to Mt. Tabor and spent a few hours relaxing in the sun and then throwing the frisbee around. I love the top of tabor, especially on such a perfect day with lots of happy people strolling around enjoying the view and the park. There's always a few people that you see though that make you do a double-take. Like when two people stopped about 25 feet away from where we were laying, took out a huge horn (literally animal horn) and very slowly (but loudly!) proceeded to bugle away on it to three out of the four cardinal directions. It looked like some kind of ceremony.

Last weekend I spent at the beach at my grama's house with my aunt and uncle who recently got back from Italy and Malta. neat to see their pics from the trip. it rained all saturday and half of sunday, but that's ok with me because i love storms at the beach. luckly, my grama's house is on the oceanfront (with only some trees in the way), so I peeked outside every once and a while, but mostly I just read and chatted. Monday (Memorial Day), was a paid holiday (still can't get over the fact that I get paid to have holidays!), and Paul came home that morning after having his ods retreat at a differe spot on the coast. We had an impromptu bbq down at the willamette waterfront using my cute little orb bbq from ikea. nicole, ethan, sarah and kate showed up. had shishkabobs and enjoyed another marvelous weather day. short and sweet.

this weekend paul and i have no plans exactly. but tomorrow night is the monthly book club. today i read a ton (this is my month of reading!...4 books so far) and then paul and i went to the park to play tennis. now, mind you, i have not picked up my raquet in years. and though i played in high school on the tennis team, i am still pretty much a beginner/intermediate. paul was very patient with me. i forgot my inhaler, was allergic to the cottonwood furriness in the air and basically due to the fact that a) it was a hot day today and b) i am in the worst shape in my life, there were 2 times when i had to take a 5 minute break because my vision started becoming blurry and i thought i was going to faint. but overall, i didn't suck as much as i thought i would, and i really want to continue practicing and play throughout the summer.

pseudotusga menziesii

i now have the "grooviest" shirt ever thanks to my creative, graphically talented silkscreening husband!