A Seattle summer, at last.

This place is flatter than three week old soda.

The weather has been so miserable since moving in--high temperatures, high humidity, followed by the occasional thunder, lightning, and rain--that I found myself mildly surprised at the recent turn of events. The skies have cleared and the mercury has finally dropped enough for a sane person to want to sit outside for a while.

With that, I actually ventured outside for a time today--walking along the shore when the tide went out and catching up on reading under the shade of a tree with my dog friend, Lola.

Lola has no problem wandering into our house, looking (really, searching) for some food handouts.

Between the cool breeze, warm sun interspersed with some clouds to keep things from getting too hot, it felt like the Seattle summer I never got to experience. Except for the bugs. Oh god, the bugs. All the various bugs that enjoy the taste of human flesh and blood.

In the three odd hours that I spent outside--one hour wandering in the water and two hours just sitting outside on my porch--I got bitten five times. Five big swelling bites. And since I've been in the South, it happens nearly every time I spend more than 30 minutes outside. I've been bitten so often that I've gone through half of an one-ounce tube of hydrocortisone that I bought about a month and a half ago. When I lived in Seattle, the same sized tube would last me so long it would expire before I got through a quarter of it.

But I'm whining and I should really stop. Just as when the cloudy days finally gave way to sunny days in Seattle, I really need to take advantage of the times when heat and humidity give way to crisp fall air--bug bites be damned.  Or I could just be more militant about putting on bug spray and arming myself with a fly swatter and citronella candle wherever I go, waging an all out one-person war against any bug that may attempt to make me its lunch.

Exploration! Destination: Yellowstone National Park

We're still on the road!

I am going to do you a grave injustice right now: I am going to attempt to sum up the entirety of Yellowstone National Park in a blog post. I know this will be a grave injustice not because I've been helping myself to some delicious Big Sky beer while I type this, but also because Yellowstone National Park is something you should definitely go and see for yourself. It is AMAZE-BALLS.

Jack and I essentially did a quick and dirty one-day round trip grand circle tour through Yellowstone--it was roughly 160 miles and it took us about 10 hours with stops for lunch, assorted dawdling, and picture taking. We hit all the spots that one would consider a "hallmark" of the park: The Grand Prismatic Spring, the "Grand Canyon" of Yellowstone, and (of course) Old Faithful. While they were definitely worth the stops, it was also a pain the major ass to deal with parking and the tour buses (oh god, the tour buses!). In the end, it was the smaller, more quiet spots that I enjoyed the most.

I call this one: Pensive on Yellowstone Lake

While we were driving through the park, I started keeping a little log book of all the things we saw and what we did. It turned out to be pretty handy because it did become a bit overwhelming, given all the things that you can see. Halfway through the park, Jack and I switched driving, so then he was in charge of the log book. I will share an excerpt below and see if you can tell who is writing what:

• Minerva and Jupiter Springs: Mineral rich waters from the springs hardens the trees, which makes them technically dead.

• Swan Lake: The more "traditional" shots of Yellowstone: Meadows and mountains in the distance.

• 1706: Joanne "toots" in the car. Twice.

• 1830: Petrified tree; Joanne's bad parking not noted.

• 4Jul2012: Mud volcano. Buffalo next to boardwalk. DRAGON!

Foul Bachelorette Frog

3 months? Maybe 2? I managed to stick to my weekly blogging goal for nearly three months (eh, it's probably closer to two months) before the laziness slipped in and I had better, more pressing matters to attend to...like sitting around watching the TLC's marathon on the anniversary of the Royal Wedding.

To my credit, I did do a lot of things in between all the lazy TV watching, which I shall summarize for you below:

To the Emerald City!
I went down to Seattle one weekend to hang out with friends and see some old co-workers. And it was the perfect weekend to be in town; it was like a TV show (or someone's very pretentious Pinterest account): Single gal in the city, crashing with two friends and their adorable Shiba in their loft in the heart of town, lunch at a delicious hole in the wall establishment, a bustling happy hour with hand cut french fries and $2 New Belgium beer,  brunch at a place that serves water in mason jars, dinner at a place where their water carafes are old whiskey jars, people watching at Cal Anderson, and Stumptown coffee!

On another time, I went down during the middle of the week (because I'm unemployed and I can) to meet up with friends for some quality girls time and Korean BBQ (and also some Musashi's with the last bit of cash I had left). Before I headed back up to Anacortes the next day, I managed to sneak in a trip to Cafe Besalu. I had a spinach quiche there and ordered a croissant and ham and swiss danish for the road.

Making a mess.

Girls Night All The Time.
While Jack was out of town, I took the opportunity to devolve into a college version of myself (poor nutrition choices bound by laziness) and forget any social manners I may have ever learned. Messy countertops? I'll clean that shizz tomorrow....maybe. Dinner of Hot Cheetos and maybe a salad? Don't mind if I do. Not shaving my legs for a week (or more). It's not sunny tomorrow, is it? Then I'm not shaving my legs!

I also gave myself a few more liberties, such as using both bathrooms in the most inefficient way possible. I like to use the toilet in the hallway bathroom, but I'm going to shower in the other one, because it has a nice shower-head (the kind that make it feel like rainfall). I also untucked the blankets and threw on a pink bedsheet. Then there was the watching of terrible television without fear of being judged (My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding? Uh, yes please!).

We usually only deal with this kind of wildlife. Not rabbits. That's something new.

Jack's Back! Time for all the work around the house.
One of the things I was actively avoiding while Jack was gone (but knowing full well that it needed to be done) was mowing the grass. Mostly because I'm not quite sure how this mowing business works (I've never done it myself) and also because lazy. So when Jack gets back, we get to doing stuff around the house--I'm weeding while Jack mows.

Twenty minutes in, Jack discovers that the lawn mower has gone over a little rabbit nest. The mom is toast, but we find three little rabbit babies. We scoop them into a box and Jack goes back to mowing the lawn, while I let my guilt seep in. I end up going through the phone book looking for advice on what to do. By the way: If you are using the MacGregor Yellow Book for Skagit Valley and look up Wildlife Removal, don't call that number because it calls a NURSING HOME. Boy, that was an awkward telephone conversation.

In the end we decide to drop off the babies at a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center up near Bellingham. So we take the box and throw in some grass and get going. Luckily the babies are in good shape when we get there, a bit cold since we were supposed to keep them covered with a blanket instead of in a box with grass thrown on top, but the lady at the center thinks they will be okay. Another successful, if slightly frightening, interaction with wildlife!

Jack's Belated Birthday Surprises
Jack's birthday came and went while he was down in El Centro, and outside of a text I sent him on that day, he didn't have much time to celebrate. And that's where all my pent up energy from not working comes in! I decorated his room in colorful (read: hot pink and yellow) streamers, wrapped his presents all nice and tacky like, and even baked him a cake. If you're feeling a little intimidated by my Martha Stewart-esque-ness, don't be--that cake was from a box with artificial canned frosting! Yum!

The birthday boy declined to be photographed with his cake.

Finally putting my high school film class skillz to good use

The soundtrack for this video might be a bit rough for sensitive ears. You have been forewarned.

When people ask me what it's like to live in Anacortes, I will say that it's nice and quiet and inevitably complain about the local deer gang that roams freely around the neighborhood. At first, they were cute and it was pretty novel to see wildlife hanging out in your backyard with complete disregard for private property rights. Soon, I started noticing the downsides--basically the animals were pooping in the yard, making it a veritable feces landmine and I didn't enjoy spending too much time in the grass, and eating the shrubs down to bare branches.

The romanticism of having wildlife so close to me wore off very quickly. I don't hate them outright, but it does get annoying when you're driving and there are deer in the road, but they don't bother to scuttle out of the way so you end up having to stop the car and wave wildly out of the window while honking your horn to get the deer's attention and, after all of that, they take their sweet ass time walking away.

First world problems, amirite?