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2013-06-19 16:03:52 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

DINKADY-doo-dah-date Night: The Not-Too-Fast 4 - Well, it's now official (as much as these more arbitrary demarcations generally are) that not only are we all "married" and stuff, but that in our ongoing dating-lives, +Andrew Wright have been hot-tomatoes together for 1/25 of a century.

When I was much younger, I read some Helen Fisher book about love and how our chemically dependent love-reactions max out and tend to cease at the 4 year mark. I think her theory was that this was about how long our paleolithic ancestors needed to successfully spawn a child and raise it up to a point where the mom could care for it alone AND both partners could increase their survival options by trowling for genetic diversity. Well, I guess we were too busy being "Paleo"  with our food processors and raw-meat-waffle machines to go the paleo love route, so happy to say that no magics... more »

2013-06-18 21:17:44 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Gov. Inslee: The temporary #SkagitBridge will open tomorrow. Our story updates here: http://seati.ms/12HSI7G

2013-06-18 14:31:51 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

A Very Special Anniversary #shoesday * - Four years ago,  +Andrew Wright  and I went out for dinner and dancing. We'd been "going to" tea and dinner and whatnot for a few weeks with no particularly decisive signals to denote the anticipated trajectory of these little excursions. I'd originally suspected he was a new dancer in town as likely looking for a partner as a ... well *partner, so I hadn't put too much pressure into the situation. The last time we went out, I did let my curiosity get the better of me and I just went ahead and kissed him. It seemed to produce a positive result, given that he subsequently texted me that he couldn't stop smiling all night. 

As these things are, it made this particular "date" feel like a somewhat decisive one: we could retreat into obfuscated ambiguity once more, or trudge ever on to those tricky littleen... more »

2013-06-17 15:37:18 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Single evenings lead to single mornings; ASICS become the cicadas of (W)right domain; our newlyweds take a dalliance in the country after a final hurrah for the PNB 2013 season, only to find kin and cookies; and some very good gossipy reflections with David Lynch's Collaborative Law Meeting. Coming up: Groping in the dark leads to some very arduous race routines; Fathers are Celebrated with only a modicum of swordplay; and DINKS take off again to run away the parental pressures of paternal hullabaloo!

2013-06-17 14:30:50 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

Peachy Kinvara DinkaSundayRunday and Other Athletic Adventures of the (W)right Sort - While yesterday was Father's Day, we did not actually spend the entire day in secret reveries of paternal adulation. I only know a few solemn chants and prayers, and my dad didn't want us interrupting his nice deep tissue torture massage anyways.

Andrew did, of course call his father. I passed along a "hello" and received a few hopes that Andrew soon would be celebrating his own Father's Day (no comment, except that one of the first times I met him, my father in law gave me an XXL t-shirt that was big enough "to wear should any life events take place <wink wink>"). I am not certain what the father's/mother's day etiquettes are for in-laws. Should there be a separate holiday for this? Maybe, so as not to take up a whole 'nother Sunday, it could just be a... more »

2013-06-16 16:14:47 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 19 +1s)

Because it is Father's Day ... ok ok there's that obstreperously contrarian part of me that finds these gender specific segmented holidays suspect; I always wonder if these days are a little harder for those with bad relationships with their (gender-specified) honored parent, those estranged from their children, and those whose relationships maybe don't fit the mother/father proscriptive manicheasm. AND, ok most of the tropes of what we do and the cards we give for mothers/father's day are pretty uninspired 1950's caricatures of any modern family or the roles that either parent plays. (I think a card making some kind of uncomfortable Rigoletto reference would be more applicable to my father than some baseball-fishing ridden card featuring hammocks and golf clubs talking about how he was always tinkering on automobiles in the garage...) Yadda yadda yadda

BUT then... more »

2013-06-15 22:26:42 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Are Americans flunking science?
A new national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences reveals that the U.S. public is unable to pass even a basic scientific literacy test.

Over the past few months, the American government has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars for economic bailout plans. While this spending may provide a short-term solution to the country's economic woes, most analysts agree that the long-term solution must include a transition to a more knowledge-based economy, including a focus on science, which is now widely recognized as a major driver of innovation and industry. Despite its importance to economic growth, environmental protection, and global health and energy issues, scientific literacy is currently low among American adults.

According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences:
... more »

2013-06-15 20:08:28 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

This morning was a bit quirky in (W)rightlandia in that despite being a Saturday we started off with our ordinary morning routine. I woke up the loris - or rather George the alligator braved that rise-and-shine with some increasingly invasive acrobatics - and left him some coffee while breakfast manifested in the kitchen. Andrew stumbled downstairs. We ate. He fondled his kindle a bit, inspiring the inevitable insistence that he entertain me by telling me the blow-by-blow of the internetz that day. We sat down to eat. We chatted about female promiscuity and - as is only fitting as I now compulsively document the mundane details of our domesticated lives on a public forum - perhaps touched on the NSA uproar with that sort of complacency one expects of a member of the electronically exhibitionist generation (in a world where my self-worth is intricately intertwined to the number of "likes"... more »

2013-06-14 15:34:51 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

Blinded by the Light or Groping in the Dark?  +Andrew Wright  recently commented that he suspects that I'm a bat. This I hope refers to my tendency not to turn on lights when moving through a room and not because he thinks I have rabies. I  even have a tendency to turn them off when I enter rooms (as a prospective task to accomplish so I don't forget to do so later). While I am sensitive to light due to my blue eyed bog creature heritage, it's not necessarily that I dislike the light, so long as it is not that wretched prison-chic fluorescent. I can even go to bed before the sun (stay asleep after it rises, is another issue). During the winter I even use a full spectrum SAD light in the mornings to keep me sane. But I do seem to enjoy turning those damned lights off. 

 Andrew, by contrast, is not necessarily somebody who would be able to navigate through our home withoutvisu... more »

2013-06-13 23:26:37 (19 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

This disturbs me... 

2013-06-13 13:16:40 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

Ahoy There Aboard the S.S. Singlelady And we return to another single-lady night/morn, with my beau off chasing gorilla point banana ominomisoawhatevers on a track in Redmond (I think they go there on their bikes and hunt Microsoft employees for sport - maybe the illusive "upgrade points" are awarded for bagging various programmers??) Ok, he did seem to return after I went to sleep last night. I mostly know this because he rather sweetly stirred and put his arm around me to cuddle in for some early morning snuggles... just about thirty seconds before my wake up time. So I like to think I really embraced the single-lady lifestyle when I let him hold me for fifteen seconds, then whispered "sorry" and eeled out of grasp, quickly sneaking out of the bed and then out of the house. Hey, at least I didn't go full walk of shame and come to work in a bedsheet, boxers, and one... more »

2013-06-12 21:03:22 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation:  Noah's Ark had nothing on the bed and purse that underwent the full cleansing typhoon of coffee and (later) milk, Phone Book snake oil salesmen warned us of the coming Canadian mediator-siege, and legal careers questioned. Coming up: Early Birdie's Singles Morn beats all but that mountain of Asics bestrapped with various laces, legs were kicked and bridge disasters overcome with bread at the rescue; and finally gossip dissected from a collaborative vantage point. 

2013-06-12 14:17:51 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

A Reminder About How I Liked Law School Mostly, But Boy Am I Glad to Be Done - A memory from my second year of law school...

After my neighbor's holding (or, to be more precise and avoid crash blossoming maniacally before even getting started, her version of the court's holding in the case we are discussing) is scribbled diligently across the whiteboard in broadly emblazoned lower-case, a pregnant silence falls over the room.

We expect the teacher to play his part in the strict script he has written us. A second later, he should ask my neighbor's neighbor to level a critique of the proferred holding. She will then stumble around, flailing out some minor commentary, perhaps involving the placement of a comma or the insertion of a new modifier to make the holding ever more narrow, precise and gosh-darned long-winded.

Instead he looks ponderously at the... more »

2013-06-11 16:55:33 (22 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Time for some more Collaborative Law Meeting Minute Snippets - When is it Gossip and When it is Constructive ?... After a healthy dose of #bluesday   #shoesday  visual frippery. Ok, I'm in a black books a la the 7th kinda mood today. But trust me the color on the 11th boots is gorgeous. Photos don't do it justice, but I'd happy rub my cheek on that boot (before it's been worn by people anyways).

Back-story So we are having this whole dialog in our practice group about conflict between members and setting up protocols for handling that. Recently we had a retreat and addressed some issues. One of the discussion topics that came up then and yesterday was gossip and the  insidious bar it can pose to group cohesion. I was feeling candid yesterday and admitted that I didn't find it always easy not to avoid tricking myself into gossiping in the name ofpr... more »

2013-06-10 21:56:30 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Ok, either my blogger stats are off, or a certain post of mine didn't make it to some of the regulars (only five people?), so forgive the reshare spam, but Exploding Milk is a grave concern and must be shared before summer!

2013-06-10 18:48:54 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

DINKADATE A D'AFTERNOON OF DIAMONDS (AND BREAD) - Yesterday was the final performance of our 2013 Season Subscription to the lovely Pacific Northwest Ballet. In other words: Date Afternoon in Seattle! We have certain little rituals... some of them are quite regular and perhaps involve the occasional morning when my rather serious-seeming husband plods deliberately down the stairs some weekend morning full of portent and clad in a robe I've affectionately called "the wizard robe," to proclaim in a very sombre voice "Rejoice, for your Husband has Arisen." (And there was much jubilation!)

Sometimes, are rituals are more strung across months and involve attending Bamboo Garden, the vegan Chinese place across from McCaw Hall, before lingering in the lobby area and judging various ballet-goers' attire.  And they often involve Mr. (W)right nodding off to the first... more »

2013-06-08 20:21:42 (17 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

A bit of a personal reflection about weight, image, and when "naturally healthy" maybe needs an oreo intervention. 

#wto   #sockwars  

2013-06-07 14:19:58 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Lest Anyone Think I'm the Shoe Fetishist in the Wright Household... These are actually all the same shoe: blue and silver Asics GT-(something). They're Andrew's preferred running model, although he desperately pines for the day when he can have more obnoxiously brite colors than the same blue/gray (he rarely buys at retail, so he gets what's available). I may point out that if you include his cycling shoes, vibrams, boots, blue-collar work shoes, white-collar work shoes, hiking boots, water-shield sneaker, dance shoes, etc. I think he actually does own more shoes than I do even accounting for the vestiges of my tango-shoes. We're at least on par. 

The bright and clean ones are brand new. He is intending to try his feet at a duathalon or two and has been doing fastidious research about ways to minimize transfer times between cycling and running. Trust me, triatheletes... more »

2013-06-06 13:02:45 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Because it's Ladies 'Morn and the Feeling's - er - Right-ooorrrn So as apt as timing can be, just after my lengthy discussion of our further DINKY domesticity (as manifested in gender-stereotypical apportionments of some tasks, like breakfast), track night moved my Track-Widow-singles-night from Friday to Wednesday. Naturally, I enjoyed my temporary singularity last night by reenacting the wild and crazy of my single years: I went to dinner with my mom, watched The Daily Show and made - prepare for this, because the details are a touch lurid - pinto bean hummus.

But the fun doesn't stop there. Oh no! See, the thing about track night - other than its recondite rules and rewards, and the utter quirkiness of its several race-formats - is that it's a bit later in the evening. By a bit, I mean that +Andrew Wright was definitely "out all night" in his little... more »

2013-06-05 16:18:45 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: 2 Date 2 Nights hit the big time with only a few exploding trucks and exciting car chases (but a whole lotta nummy food and quality time), passage to far flung lands opened to Ms. (W)right with a minimally painful photograph and a lot of waiting, lamaze-breathing gave birth to beautiful bouncing biceps (and quads and glutes!), and mystical simian bananas were awarded via points in the final pre-season track racing bonanza! Coming up: Sartorial splendors lead to maple-syrup mediations,  Noah's Ark sets sail again upon a sea of cafe au lait, savory snark supercedes timeliness, and the fate of housespousery is bandied about in the evolving apportionment of tasks. This hardly just in: being a 2011 law grad may still be better than having a Masters in 19th Century Croatian Literature, but less and less so every day that goes by... 

2013-06-05 14:41:03 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Would you like a little milk with your coffee flood?? So dedicated circlers with memories on par or superior to the average guppie's may recall that this weekend had some dark and damp moments in the bedroom (oh my!), as +Andrew Wright and I managed to paint the entire room ebony with melting chocolate and flying-jiving mugs of java. It appears that the universe wanted to greet such festivities with its own little ole!... or really I should say au lait.

My mother was the unfortunate bystander of these ongoing pranks, but the exploding milk-bullet was doubtless meant for me. We stopped by the grocery store yesterday. After some monumental consideration about expiration dates balanced against need, she decided to get milk. We put the milk in a bag with some orange juice. I had another bag of my own and was carrying both for a while, until she offered to carry one of the bags. Apparently... more »

2013-06-04 22:16:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

I'll miss Jon, but I'm kind of excited for a little bit of John as well!

2013-06-04 14:04:25 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

And it truly is unequivocally #shoesday  again - None of these weird four-day double-Wednesday-no-Tuesday weeks! I know what day it is. I wish it were later in the week, but I don't doubt that it's not. My oldest friend is in town for the early part of the months. We've known each other since we were both rather awkward and sullen little teenage creatures, travelled in Morocco together, lived together for about two years in our early twenties... so, you know, he may be the keeper of my past-selves more strongly than the twenty or so journals that still follow me around from those eras. Most of that is filled with a penchant for abstruse literary tastes, weird film, bouts of mordant palaver, an obsession with the video stylings of Miss Britney Spears, and maybe an equally strong obsession with bad/silly/crazy movies. 

Yesterday I granted myself early release from work so thatw... more »

2013-06-03 15:20:47 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Phew - we can be happy +Andrew Wright!  But only if the already croissant-winner of the family unit makes enough to let me cut back my hours from full time. Or, well, this only focuses on marriages with progeny. Maybe DINCs follow a whole 'nother sort of rules. On the safe side, I'd encourage any wealthy relatives that I've never met to (1) include me in their wills, and (2) shuffle off this mortal coil. 

2013-06-03 14:59:13 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

Going Bananas in the Analog-Virtual Ladies' Department Mr. (W)right may be an engineer, but he's spent sufficient time in the dance and theater worlds of New York City to have a whole new world of deliciously snarky meeeeeyow to him. It's one of his finer attributes, and one that balances his generally straightforward sincerity and pointed penchance for literality in all things. The odd comment that such and such a vague acquaintance (frenacquantancey?? Is that a word) looks like she's a drag queen aspiring to Cruella DaVillainosity whose hair could withstand a hurricane and whose makeup may require fracking to remove... well, it tickles my fancy from somebody who spends most of his time knitting his brow over the contradiction of actual reality and the thing I just said. 

In this mind-frame, looking at catalogs together over breakfast is a longstanding tradition that... more »

2013-06-02 13:45:48 (16 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Sooo Sorry 
Andrew and I indeed managed to escape the coffeepocalypse of June 2013 and get out for our run and gym and more and more and more. As we approached our parking spot, Andrew leaned a bit and collided with my arm (it was perched in the middle island between driver and passenger side). Knowing from years of experience that these unanticipated interactions annoy him (particularly during driving), and being socially primed to apologize to chairs let alone people for any inconvenience I may have caused, I uttered "sorry"before my brain even began to process the momentary encounter. Because I am also a fiesty little beast, I waited a tick and then added "... you know... for existing..."

Andrew, who had been silent through the prior nonpology, concurred, saying "yeah, I've always thought women apologized for too many things." 
more »

2013-06-01 19:28:27 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

It would be nearly the literal truth that this morning began with a SPLASH... Really, it began with waking up, though. And then there was some futzing around. I started some laundry, which ultimately began the juices flowing for our dark and damp morning. Our dryer has a few little quirks to do with its nobby bits. Namely, it won't turn on for me. Andrew, who has several years of stage rosin and steel bits crushed between his index and forefinger, rarely has a problem. But I essentially am consigned to big puppy dog eyes and imprecations. Usually, I admit defeat and ask Andrew to turn the dryer on for me eventually. I did so this morning, after only an hour of struggle (ok, a few minutes of struggle and then many more of "ignoring it until I thought it was late enough to wake Andrew up). It's hard being the man around the house in all those nauseating 1950's connotations. 
more »

2013-05-31 16:25:55 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Fascinating meditation on gender identity, sexuality and social norms. Always makes me wonder how I would raise my own sons, and what subconscious signals I might send to push them towards "masculine" behaviors without even thinking about it. 

2013-05-31 14:11:25 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Yesterday, we renegotiated our yellow pages contract with Jason, the Dex-guy. I am now listed under mediation as well as legal services. Apparently Canadians are coming across the border in droves to get their hands on Dex books, so maybe I'll find a nice niche mediating disputes over maple syrup and hockey soon! 

Jason wears a blue and pink pinstriped shirt. His tie stage-whispers "paisley" in a contemporary color scheme that echoes the lushest of persian rugs. Needless to say, his handkerchief is the same gleefully garroulous print. His suit, a sumptuous fuscuous matte, hugs his body in a decided slim-cut. His chest is just shy of cartoonishly broad against his slim physique. His hair cemented atop his head in a shellacked bouffant of ocean tide. I can't help but notice that, despite this parade of pomade and pomp, he is not wearing any socks! 

He aspires toa... more »

2013-05-31 03:02:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Mountains were run, mud mucked and mired, 90's rock ballads were belted in increasingly punchy hilarity, and bells were run when it ended in Fairhaven. Catatonia followed suit overriding memories applicable to the holiday. Coming up - the story begins and ends with date nights of the sort that could spawn a franchise. The international community may have to contend with Adella (W)right after all, and mysterious upgrade points point to a Track Season full of Cat 7 Orangutan precious bananas to go towards thwarting King Koopa once and for all!

2013-05-30 14:15:17 (22 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

Double-Date Score Supernova - Well, finally made it to the "real" Wednesday. This, of course, was my second Wednesday of the week. At least as far as I was concerned, since Tuesday heavily perfumed itself in humpday redolence. But, Wednesday was no shoddy sequel seeking to safely capitalize on the successful tropes of the first. No, it was far more of Empire Striking Back and Sending Love to Russia, while being 7 Fast 7 Furious (oh c'mon, you know you want to see Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, and The Rock crashing large vehicles in increasingly complicated and implausible choreographies of sheer impersonal TECHNOLOGY EROTICA). Except, well, nobody lost a hand, spiked anyone with poison boot tips, or crashed a fighter jet while towing a semi with a tricked out dirt bike...

Although +Andrew Wright  did get to play with a forklift! Since apparently EI is one of the bizarre... more »

2013-05-29 22:03:27 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Too much awesome for one single red carpet to contain. I don't know which one to stare at adoringly, but right now I more than ever SO very much aspire to be Tilda Swinton. 

2013-05-29 14:23:25 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

Welcome Wednesday - As often happens when there are Monday holidays, I'm all out of sorts about this pesky passage of time nonsense. I was unswervingly convinced that yesterday was, in fact, Wednesday. It felt like Monday, but I knew it couldn't be Monday, because Monday was - of course - a holiday. Still, it just didn't feel like Tuesday and I knew we were too close to just-off the weekend for it to be Thursday or Friday.

Nevermind that I went to the gym with Azita, a signature Tuesday activity (and Thursday, but as I say, I knew it wasn't Thursday). We've graduated our warm up from the rowers to the elliptical machines, to my delight. I am a very big fan of ellipticals. When I was at Saint John's, there was a miniscule little offshoot of a gym room, with a sprinkling of traditional gym equipment. As a passionate but introverted person, I'd gather up quite a... more »

2013-05-28 17:41:46 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Have you ever stopped working to check Facebook for “just a second” and found yourself still surfing the web an hour (and seven cat videos) later? You aren’t alone. One reason the internet can feel so addictive is its lack of boundaries and structure. You start by looking up one fact, which leads to an inquiry about another, which links to another. While you can train your willpower to be stronger, it’s a limited resource. Staying on-task while the entirety of the internet is at your fingertips can exhaust your reservoir of self-control. Do you have a strategy for limiting your internet time so you can focus, or do you surf with abandon? Share this post with friends, and let us know in the comments.

Read more about the effects of the internet on your brain here: http://bit.ly/10qfBKL

2013-05-28 14:24:33 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

The wrap up of all things Ski to Sea and +Andrew Wright getting muddy... and the recovery day afterwards. 

A Special Ski to Sea Edition. Andrew finds a last minute team, mud is splattered, dreams shattered, and bicycles mired in the quest for greater and grander glories!

2013-05-28 14:15:11 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

Post-ski-To-Sea-Debility: The Long Road to Recovery - Ski to Sea has skied, sea-ed, and trampled well into the annals of 2013 (the "real time" race results are even completely updated... almost... for most teams). Mud is starting to clump off of various vehicle wheels and sports equipment. Tales of glory and defeat have echoed through the hallowed halls of social internet, and photos have been reviewed and vetted for future use. Oh and somewhere in there, we had this little thing called Memorial Day, which I'm sure involved respecting and honoring those who have died in combat, but between the post-race haze and the crowds of movie-goers, it was a little hard to see. 

Yes, yesterday was a Vaseline-retted smear of weekend catch up, glazed staring, and mildly lamenting the fact that maybe we (W)rights had not had the complete "quality time" to which we aspire on... more »

2013-05-27 12:55:30 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

And the Ski to Seaman Charge Ever On (Towards the back of the Middle Third) As anticipated, the Ski to Sea blasted upon Bellingham like a Vesuvius of sportsmanship, funny costumes, and tempestuous weather! As expected, Andrew and I spent about four times as long waiting at the event than he ever spent leaving-"it"-on-the-course (actually, instead of leaving-it-on-the-course, he seems to have brought the course back with him, perhaps as a trophy?)

Yes, Ski to Sea can be as much a psychological test as a physical one. You arrive at a muddy crowded field at 11:00 a.m. You slog and wander, energy abuzz and sparking in the deluge. You attend your mandatory "race meeting" at 11:30 (or if you're the wife/fan club/bike wrangler, you hide in the car with half the contents of your home to keep you company - this ain't your first bike-wrangling rodeo, baby).
... more »

2013-05-26 13:15:16 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Ski-to-Sea Ya Later Alligator - Oh, yes, darling little alligator, 'Tis the portal into our drizzly early summer! Some call it Memorial Day, but here in these parts we cry out Ski to Sea! and perhaps thank the powers that be that Monday is holiday enough to push the snooze button several times from a bleary-eyed exhaustion. 

Ski to Sea has been a Whatcom County institution for over 100 years, although it has gone through several permutations since the first lumberjacks soloed a race from Bellingham to the top of Baker back to Bellingham by either (this is very important now) horseless carriage from one town or train from another. Back then, not only did you risk your life charging through uncharted back country with no training or special equipment, you risked running over a cow on your way back to the finish line and losing the entire game (I highly recommend the film, The... more »

2013-05-25 23:25:10 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Fascinating story of a strange condition, a medical mystery, the building of a community, and the way studying "rare diseases" is increasingly important for generalized medical knowledge/health. 

2013-05-25 18:05:47 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

As, we're now running and working out more often in the (W)right family, an age old connundrum that I still ponder. 

I find when I go to the gym, there's a scattered etiquette about public nudity in the ladies' locker room. There are, of course, special changing areas reserved for the particularly modest. These often have either curtains or those doors of whatever foreign material is rarely seen outside of public bathrooms and retail centers. I personally shy away from these. This is not so much motivated by amoral immodesty on my part, as much as the fact that they resemble women's changing rooms. Well, they are changing rooms. But these mimic those particularly cheap clothing stores that always have that terrifying combination of bad light and warped mirror that could depict a perfect-10 model as a geriatric obese hag of a rhino, and  which otherwise remind me of traumaticm... more »

2013-05-24 14:25:14 (19 comments, 1 reshares, 14 +1s)

Another (W)right of Passage Unlocked - I may now leave the country, ladies and gentlemen. Let the international quavering commence! Here are a series of winding stories to do with passports past. 

My father owns a beach house in the Gulf Islands. He purchased this just briefly before the more-so-so-than-great divorce. Originally, getting there was quite an ordeal. It involved driving up through British Columbia, taking a ferry to one island, inflating a tiny blue dinghy, and braving the open sea to get to our destination island. Since his lot did't have a dock, we then had to park on the other side of the island, pack up the dinghy and hike for what seemed to me on par with the amount of time the Hebrews spent wandering the desert (except with more plants). Usually by the time we reached his area, we could then sit around for a brief spell before having to head back. 
more »

2013-05-23 19:40:58 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Where do our food preferences come from? Tell us about yours.

2013-05-23 14:39:38 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

I love Tapirs almost as much as I love +ze frank
No, no, it's the other way round. LOOK at those stripey babies!
#tapirs  

2013-05-23 14:20:31 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

You Know What Happens After The Third Date - FORTUNE COOKIES!! In the immortal tradition of the last two weeks, yesterday night was the highly cherished and irrepressible (W)right Date Night. After all this promposal hubub, I did wonder if simply setting it up on our google calendars was insufficiently effective to create such an evening... should I have hired a SWAT team to storm Mr. (W)right's engineering complex (a place that makes gargantuan machines for use in aerospace and outspace, and home to a hive of engineers who all believe they are weeks away from becoming Iron Man) then shoot out "come to Chinese take-out with me? Luv A" in the wall near his desk? 

Despite my negligence in planning, Mr. (W)right made it precisely on time, a rather shocking event, considering the variable vicissitudes of (1) work, (2) traffic, (3) the Costco gas line, (4) caprices of our... more »

2013-05-22 16:01:17 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Having washed the taste of tainted dates and salty water from her palate, our heroine (oh yes she's always known she was!) charged forward into a weekend extravaganza memorializing +Andrew Wright's magnificent thirty-something transcendence. And, like the clockwork that won the Welding Rodeo, Andrew ticked-ticked-tocked right into 32 with great fanfare and little rest for the weary.  Iron was melted, steel smelt, baby-buggies tested on speedways, food devoured, and tango danced with a smattering of elan and eclat. Coming up: Max the Office Monkey protects us all during our lock-down, promposals are made without the harming of a single child or puppy, no attorneys were harmed in the making of the post about perils of the job (although many might have drunken themselves into despondent drowse), and - finally - the perfect rice is cooked... more »

2013-05-22 14:27:45 (14 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

The Little Zoji That Couldcouldcould... Cook Rice - Last night we took our maiden voyage on the SS DINKY Magic-Riceamajig, also known as Zojirushi (Zoji to its friends). Sure, we've had the thing since Saturday (well since earlier this month, but it's officially been unwrapped and gifted since Saturday), but it takes an awful lot of gumption to take that extra step and move the darned thing off the dining room table, verify the instructions are really what they appear to be (Japanese and French!! whoops, wrong page), clarify whether it is white rice/brown/cake that Andrew's planning to have with chili, and then take that final plunge with the plugging in and programming and whatnot. 

Oh it was a red-letter (kanji, with smatterings of hiragana) day, I assure you. Due to the aforementioned bustle of the adjoining weekend, we had designated Tuesday as "errand night" on... more »

2013-05-21 14:53:06 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

A critical love-fest I can get behind. I can be such a curmudgeon about pop-culture sometimes, I am rather delighted when I can be all positive and like DUDE!!

2013-05-21 14:29:10 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Lock-Down, The Perils of Being a Lawyer versus the Horrors of Promposal 

Being a lawyer is a perilous endeavor. There are the initial hazards - lawschool (and that "lawschol thirty" I've personally coined to describe the alternating emaciation or embiggening of all my classmates), and The Bar Exam. These both have been known to take keen tolls one one's psychological and physical health.

Then there's that middling "lawschool bubble" ensuring that all that hard work, lost love, and seared finances may have been better spent at benders and bonfires of lucre. That thing about how lawschools inflated their employment statistics a bit just at a time when the legal field was restructuring and the securities once held by a prior generation no longer... yadda yadda yadda. I'm lucky to have gone into the field with less ambitious eyes and fewer... more »

2013-05-20 14:13:07 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

Max the Office Monkey Is Ready for His Close-up - This is Max. He is, as the eponymous title and/or previous sentence may imply, an office monkey. He didn't always used to be an office-monkey. Much of his existence, in fact, was that of a cozy house pet. My first encounter with Max was several years back, when he blissfully rode along the side of a very fluffy pair of socks. How proud he was in those days, floating above the ground on a rainbow of fluff. Unlike many socks, his charismatic head in its magnitude, never saw the inside of a boot of the dirty hem of denim. Slightly pampered, he saw only the brims of slippers, over which his grin pertly scintillated and lit the room. Nothing could dissuade him from his quiet benevolence. Loyally as Lassie, he stayed close at heel in my evening reveries, proud of his place in the world and the responsibilities he imagined he bore. 

The socks... more »

2013-05-19 17:07:27 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Some days are just too epic not to be their own blog posts - pictures of the bday fun, and a narrative ready for the screenplay adaptation!

Time Sauters On and My Legs Feel the Birthday Burn, Let me Tell Ya 

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Dates contain unwelcome guests, but are always better at home. Food was chopped, hummus bastardized. One whole spanking POINT was earned on the battlefields of Marymoor and its Velodrome. And Andrew bade a fond farewell to 31, ready to make that bold leap into a thorough thirtysomething! And now for the stunning birthday wrap up!! Hang onto your seats, get out that coffee (probably Irish would help you most) and get comfy...

- As anticipated, Mr. +Andrew Wright went ahead with his plan to upgrade his age-points (see, I totally am learning from these track night recounts) and leveling into Category 32 Man. I... more »