Port Angeles Adventure

On Sunday my friend Allison and I went on a day trip to Port Angeles. Our motivation was to visit a rock shop Allison had previously visited and thought was awesome and worth going to again. I was up for it. It's not like I don't enjoy myself a good rock shop ;). We left at around 10:45am to catch the 11:30 Edmonds-Kingston ferry.

A bomb sniffing dog checking out the cars in the ferry line.

We made the ferry just fine and then drove to Port Angeles. The Woolly Mammoth Rock Shop was our destination. We arrived there to find that the gates that lead to the parking lot of the shop were closed and locked. On their business card that Allison had it said that Sunday hours were noon to 5pm and it was around 2pm. So I went ahead and called the phone number on the business card to double check what was going on. A guy answered who sounded a little disgruntled and unprofessional mumbling about a 'retarded owner' and 'bull****'. He then asked if we were the ones parked out in the driveway (he could see us from the shop) and I said yes. He decided to come out to give us his new business card as his rock shop was going to be moving into his house. As he got to the gate I guess he decided we seemed like nice gals and opened the gate and said we could just go ahead and look at the shop anyway, even though it was closing and they were in the process of moving it out. The whole time he keeps rambling about the owner of the property, who also happened to be his business partner. Many choice words muttered as I'm sure anyone can guess.

Allison and I were very grateful that we didn't come all the way to Port Angeles from Seattle for no reason. We start looking around the shop while the gentleman that let us in keeps disappearing taking phone calls from his soon to be ex-business partner in which his voice keeps raising and profanity can be heard. The gentleman's wife eventually comes out and kind of lingers around as we are looking and starts talking to us. She was very nice and kind of stressed out that her husband was having such a bad day and she was also very apologetic to us for having to experience it. She also let us know that we were going to be the last customers ever to the store and that she would give us a deal on anything we wanted to buy. At some point another gentleman enters the store and it turns out that he's the brother of the property owning business partner and according to the gentleman that let us in he was there to possibly 'rough him up' or scare him. The gentleman a little bit later comes back in and is telling his wife that the other business partner called to tell him that he called the police because the gates were open and I guess since he was the land owner he was able to decide that the other guy couldn't have customers on the property? I'm not really sure. His brother probably told him.

After that everyone got more tense and antsy. Allison and I decided to pick up the pace so we could leave just about the same time that the wife told us we may want to leave soon as the police were now there. So we both picked out a pair of earrings that were made from a meteorite that fell into the Gobi Desert in China (cute and nerdy) and she took $6 off the price which was nice of her. We then left and said goodbye and waved to the police officers (who waved back) who were talking to the wife and the property owner (and his brother). The original gentleman that let us in escorted us out to the car and apologized about everything that was going on. He was understandably embarrassed about the whole situation and how he was responding to it. Anyways, so that was the rock shop!

On to lunch! We circled the town I think 3 times? Since the whole town is one giant one way circle...so once you passed something you had to go all the way around until you came to whatever it was again. We had lunch at a cute little restaurant Chestnut something. Chestnut Inn? We ate and then went down to the water front of Port Angeles. There are a bunch of random art sculptures down there.















There was also a nice little pier with a look out tower at the end that we climbed so we could get a little higher and take some pictures.





Semi-lastly, we found the actual Italian restaurant (La Bella Italia) in Port Angeles from the book Twilight. They are definitely milking the publicity, but I would do the same thing if I were them! It's not quite how I pictured it, but it worked. There was also an article in the window where apparently Stephenie Meyer (the author of Twilight) paid the restaurant a surprise visit in June 2008. Oh, and they also offer a special with the mushroom ravioli. You order the mushroom ravioli and you get a free coke. Twilight fans will get the humor in that.







In the end I had Allison stop at the Walmart in Port Angeles so I could see if they had any copies of the Twilight dvd left for sale. They did! I just thought it would be cool if I bought my dvd from Port Angeles. Ok, so not cool, but for me it was more exciting. They were out of the special delux blahty blah version so I had to settle for the normal 1 disc $17 version..which is the one I would've gotten anyway. That Walmart also had a ridiculous quantity of random Twilight merchandise strategically positioned right next to the dvd fixture. In the parking lot Allison's car wouldn't start, but I guess it has that problem on occasion so she just has to wiggle the connections to the battery. Her car did this again as we were trying to start the car when the ferry line was moving to board the ferry, so poor Allison has to rush out to pop the hood and wiggle the connections in the pouring rain so that the people in the cars behind us didn't have to wait. Very dramatic. Then we came home and the adventure was over. The end. More photos of our adventure can be seen in my flickr photostream.

Dino Day 2009!

Here is a picture my friend took of the lucky museum employees that got to work Dinosaur Day 2009. It is our busiest day of the year. This year we had over 3000 visitors smashing our last year's totals of around 2100 which was our previous record for attendance. I'm sure there were fire codes broken for maximum occupancy at some point. Also, we were all given free t-shirts for working the day (the shirt sported by all of us in the photo). One of our dinosaur focuses this year was on Triceratops which also makes its appearance on our shirt. Some people weren't fond of the color of the shirt, but I loved it! But then again I've never really been fashion forward...

Zoo Butts!

So Reid and I went to the zoo today with Reid's friend Don. Don's girlfriend is a zoo keeper there and so we got a behind the scenes tour! It was a lot of fun and very informative. I got to feed tapirs and birds (and of course I got pooped on) and pet snakes and see where all the animal's food comes from and eat at the zoo food court. That last one is something anyone can do, really. We also got to see animal butts! For non butt photos see my flickr photostream.


Hippo butts!


Wallaroo butt!


Zebra butts!


Guinea something butts!


Jaguar butt!


More hippo butts! They couldn't be bothered to get up to do their business...

A Movin' and a Shakin'

Here are the exact texts that Reid and I exchanged early this morning.

5:31am Melissa: Was there maybe just a really small earthquake? The bed was shaking but the washer's not going...the shower door was shaking a little too.

5:32am Reid: washer probably stopped before you started listening...i do that a lot

5:33am Melissa: did you have it running at 5am?

5:34am Reid: sorry...want it to go in the dryer when i get home

5:36am Melissa: you suck...i thought my life was more exciting

6:27am Reid: ha we DID have a 4.6 earthquake...good job you're exciting again

6:29am Melissa: I'm awesome...5:25am...I KNEW I didn't hear the washer...=P

6:30am Reid: ;-)

Back at the Burke

Finally I get to work back at my happy place! After two and a half months of having to cut my hours to work only on Saturdays (and then the last couple of weeks of not working at the museum of all) I am finally able to work at the museum again. Basically my job as an underling only allows me so many hours I can work per year and last year I started out working too many, so by the end of the year I had run out (my year starting with my hire date which happens to be January 11th). I had to pick up a 3rd job at the University Book Store. The job was decent, even if the pay wasn't.

So anyways, when I came in to work the back desk receptionist showed me a hilarious picture. Basically our PR (public relations) person for the museum was doing random searches online for pictures that people have posted that related to the museum. What she found was the following.



Now as you can see, the picture in itself is not that funny, BUT the description the guy gave to the photo is. The person who took this picture has no affiliation to the museum and doesn't know who was in the picture. The gentleman in the photo that the guy so kindly refers to as 'douchebag with no coat' is my boss. So the PR person printed out a copy of the photo and circled my boss and jokingly wrote "Who's this douchebag?" and put it with the bask desk receptionist for all to see. My boss has a good sense of humor and thought it was funny. Actually he was the one who told me to go and look at the photo since I missed it on my way in. A great way to start the day. Oh, and he didn't really get hit with the snow.

Booksies!

Escape. I loved this book! AND significantly to me, it is one of the few non-fiction books I've read. Don't judge me. I like to use reading as an escape from reality, but this book was so far beyond reality as I know it that it didn't seem real. For lack of motivation to write a stylized personal review of the book...this is what the google synopsis says the book is about...

"The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs."

My favorite word to describe this book is 'fascinating.' I couldn't stop reading it. In fact I pretty much read this book straight through The Dark Knight. I really admire her fleeing an abusive/unhealthy relationship based on a religion of which was her whole world and the only thing she ever knew. I can't imagine how difficult that would be. Something that really ticked me off was her oldest daughter Betty who not only made the escape incredibly difficult for everyone, but then when Betty turned 18 (four years after they had left) she decided to return to the FLDS. Yeah, that's a smart lifestyle choice. I'll hold myself back from going into a rant about that.

Other books I have read (somewhat) recently that I enjoyed were The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See and of course the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer because I'm a dweeb.

Let's Balance it Out..

In contrast to my last post I thought I would list some things that make me happy--just to prove I'm not always a downer.

--I love when it gets dark at around 4pm. Some people find it depressing, but I really like it! Then it gives people more of an excuse to turn their Christmas lights on outside which I also really enjoy. I'm just glad I don't have to help put them up or take them down.

--I thoroughly enjoy the smell of books. It's not just a paper smell; I have more than enough experience working in a copy center and that smell doesn't make me happy. I'm a book sniffer. It comes with a lot of funny looks from any witnesses, but I'm ok with that.

--Lighting candles all around the house. Not only does it mask the smell of our lovely canine friends, but it gives a happy atmosphere.

--The guy that lived in this house before us never cancelled his subscription to National Geographic nor changed his address. Reid and I have quite the collection sitting in the bathroom. Free maps are cool.

--My stepmom Barbie taught us how to lamp work so now I can make my own glass beads whenever we can get to Spokane! AND I miraculously didn't burn myself in the process. I've been wearing my 2 beads that I made during our last visit lately as they both turned out red and I own a lot of green clothing. Holiday spirit and all, but this is my way of doing it without a garish sweater covered in sparkle snowflakes and pom pom snowmen. Or snowwomen. I don't discriminate.

--I love watching What Not to Wear. I love watching Stacy and Clinton make fun of people before they get helped. It is hilarious. Reid says he doesn't like it, but he secretly does.

--There's a lady who works at the bookstore with me (I'm not sure which department as it is a BIG bookstore with a lot of different sections) and my first day I was in the breakroom at the same time as she was. There is one little trash can with a tiny amount of counter space near it. She was hogging both the counter space and the little trash can by peeling her orange. I needed to unwrap and throw away the packaging for my microwaved 'gourmet' meal, so I set my stuff on the closest table and unwrapped it there still waiting for the trash can. When she was finally done she turned toward me and her eyeballs popped out of her head and she said with her teeth all clenched up "I'm sitting there." Apparently I had sat my stuff right where she was planning on having her lunch while I was waiting for her. I said, "Sorry...I was just waiting for the trash can...I'm moving." She didn't move at all or tuck her eyes back in her head and said "I'm sitting HERE." I kind of laughed at her because at this point she was clearly and undeniably psychotic and socially retarded. I left her alone and she ate all by herself as it seemed no one else wanted to sit next to her. Every time I've seen her since then she looks at me like she's both scared and angry and it always makes me laugh. Some people are special. She only looks like she's in her 40's so she's not one of the crazy older people that work there...not sure what's going on there.

--Reid has made some really yummy REAL mashed potatoes a couple of times now. He got a bag of potatoes for under $2.00 I think. He was really excited about it. He's been such a good boy babying me as I whine and don't feel good. I love you Reid!

This is already too long for people to want to read it so I'll shush.