Where's My Ghetto Blaster?

Volunteer Watermelons
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

This could more aptly be titled, 'Since You've Been Gone'. So, yes, Since you've been gone I've watered the lawn. There are some parts that we will not have to water until the year 3000, but fortunately those parts are NOT near the basement. I've managed a few meals on my own. The result has been a house that smells like fish, and a car that smells like cow. Drive thru cow. I listen to music in the basement via the first floor. Ipod and I have not become BFFs in your absence. I put away the dishes- I was hoping they had some Mary Poppin's capabilities. I'm more than ecstatic to know that you are residing with hippies in our nation's capitol. I only wish we packed you a tie-dye'd shirt so you could mingle.
I'll say I love you NINE times. I'll be you're cherry cola- AND you owe me ten bucks. Yo' Mamma!

The Stage.

Pre-DC
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

Robert starts his stage at the Mini Bar today- exactly three hours ago since we are so west coast here. I hope that his hotel isn't too cockroach infested. I hope that they are nice to him. I hope that he learns a lot. And if you were here, I would tell you that I am praying all about it. Go MC Hammer!

Notoriously Cherry.

Cherry.
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

Bomb red wine from Mattawa of all places. Two days without Robert and already I've managed a handful of 'Geez I haven't done this in a LONG time'. I've taste tested several drive thru joints and concluded that Jack in the Box is a grease bomb created by the devil. Ugh! At least it doesn't inspire constipation. I fed a stray cat. Robert's totally groaning right now. It had maggots in its eye, so I felt sorry for it. I'm praying it died shortly after, and hopefully not in my garage. And finally, I climbed on top of our shed to water the tomatoes. Now Robert can forgive me for feeding the maggot cat.
I went grocery shopping yesterday. The refrigerator is full of treats such as sour cream, wild caught Coho salmon, chicken breasts, decadently CHEAP ice cream sandwiches, cream cheese (I'm addicted to Philly smeared pretzels! low calorie, I know), crispy!!! red leaf lettuce and chunky bleu cheese dressing. How do people decide what bleu cheese dressing to get? It all looked so mayonnaise-y and bland. But of course I still had to get some.
Robert's message on the answering machine was disappointed to know that I was out dancing it up only several hours after he had vacated the city limits. I flailed my bat wings around A LOT to Chuck Prophet, insisted that John Mc Cain was my guilty pleasure (HA! But sheez what a bunch of dirty looks!), hugged a lot of people (weird!), and generally basked in free beer. I kept chanting- 'I love my friends, I love my friends!' Why I couldn't get even the simplest Charles Bukowski quote right I'll never know. It could have had something to do with the fact that zig-zag bike riding is a specialty of mine post-midnight, and I didn't have to sleep with earplugs for the first time in a long time. Cheers to the single life- 48 hours down, 178 to go.

Burning Down the House

Burning Down the House
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

Robert's off to Washington DC tomorrow. Leaving me footloose and fancyfree! What's a woman to do with an overgrown yard, an empty refrigerator, dull steak knives and a dirty Buick? Already my meal prospects look totally awesome! A lazy carnivore held hostage by vegan love- perhaps I should splurge on a Fry Daddy and munch on corndogs for the next seven days. MMMM! I wish I could tell you about the exciting escapades I have planned for the next week, but in reality I'll be catching up on work without the guilt of knowing that someone's asleep on the couch waiting for me to come home. Three cheers for unwavering FOCUS!!!
If you're wondering about Barbie's plans, I think she's having a kegger on Saturday. She mentioned that Chromeo and The Hold Steady are cruising in after they play at the Capitol Hill Block Party. And sheez! Her hair already looks fabulous, AND she's topless. She really knows how to start a party. HAHA.

BEES ABOUND!

BEES!
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

Bees are mobbing the sunflowers. Looks like the tomato factory will launch at full throttle in about two weeks.... salsa festivus!

Too Wicked CUTE!

I went to the party!
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

I'm sure Ben's friends would DIE to know that he was included in a blog post that contained the words, 'cute', 'pink', and 'japanese cosplay', so we'll try to keep it to a minimum. An evening like most non-others. A triple date with three generations of couples. The eldest? Well, they did talk about diarrhea and veal. LOL. The mid-kids? They were alright. They played some games, jammed out to weird '80s casio-rock, reminisced about the olden days (breakdancing lessons?? whaa??), and are proficient at air hockey. The young ones? The young ones are wicked cool... they conversate with adults (not easy! for reals.), laugh a lot, play a mean game of miniature golf, and can talk about wine (huh?). These two professionals made it all look so easy! AND they were properly captured in just one click.

Happy Birthday Hayley!

sakura!
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

Hayley turns 14 today! woot woot! So much changes in just one year. Bangs!, boyfriend, braces, piano virtuosity, anime obsessions, high school!, sewing skills, the existence of the pepperoni planet and hair lengths. There are some things that don't change! Tofu (with soy sauce please), jeans- all the time!-, flip flops, nano-da, drawing ( and more drawing), candy hoarding, voice dubbing, cosplay, being the sweetest and most considerate!, and disliking sweat. I can count on one hand the times I've heard you whine- and most of them happenned at Yellowstone National Park. You're such a trooper- remember playing the piano for little jack and the beanstalks?! And you put up with most of your father's and my tomfoolery- what?! you don't LOVE pickle ball??? or laugh hysterically at trying to impale your boyfriend with a frozen carrot??
You've got the patience of Job, and your easygoing attitude is the bees knees. I've had a blast just being around you. We've come a long way from fighting over cleaning your room, recovering from a trillion mosquito bites and spelling showdowns- ugh!

We've finally arrived at eating cheesecake (I won't leave it in the refrigerator ever again!), spontaneously driving somewhere for 3 HOURS!!, flying kites through the poopship explosion, getting your hair chopped off- and chopped off again!, playing charades, taking a bazillion pictures of anything!, Blades of Glory (I wished I could have died!), and the list goes on and on.
Watching how dedicated and happy you were sewing your costume made me so proud of you! You're *almost* too awesome. I can't wait for another year, and never did I expect that this family thing would be so cool. Happy Birthday Lady! On to another fun year-I'll be sure to put it on the calendar!!!!

the runt.

the runt.
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

my cat smells like laundry detergent.

Summertime

summertime
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

Its on crouton! We're drinking toddy and making sangria, sleeping with only a tablecloth draped over us- its way more crochet!- dragging the sprinkler about constantly and feigning only a shimmer of interest in food that requires a droplet of sweat. I finally broke, and am wearing flip flops for the first time since 5th grade. In the time before electricity we called them THONGS, but we don't now for the most asinine reasons. It helped that I had a crisp 5 dollar bill, and still had 3 dollars left to spend on 'Ass kicking Work Lunch' - Lay's potato chips. Deductively flip flops are only $2. I love to point out to everyone that my 'shoes' are only a dollar per foot. They produce about a dollar's worth of work. I could get more sweat equity out of duct tape and two slices of cardboard. Laziness!!!! Ah ha! Summer rages on! To all my summertime friends; Baby would be pleased as punch to sit in the corner if she could only listen to MMJ's 'Evil Urges' over and over. You can play some air guitar and sing falsetto. Cheers!

fish eye

fish eye
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

the original. its only fair that its represented. oh man! this is becoming all too easy...

fish eye return

fish eye return
Originally uploaded by wendysteere

goof! flickr and blogspot love each other. cheaters! i'm such a novice, everday is a miracle! if you were here the day i learned to copy and paste you would have peed yourself.

Housecleaning with Integrity

Domestic bliss started Saturday at about 5p.m. Robert had spent most of day turning the house from what my mother would describe as 'looking like a tornado came through here' to waxed, scrubbed and smelling like furniture polish. YUM! And then to top it all off he filled it with flowers and made dinner (as he most always does). The freezer has one less brick of Ahi tuna, and the Owajimaya bounty we collected last week in Seattle is now all consumed. This week? Top Ramen+ popcorn??

We'll Chase the Devil Tonight

These two marauders were up to serious shennanigans! When I pulled my bike in at midnight, the rustle in the bushes was a teetering lurker trying to keep a semblance of seriousness.

A giant piece of glass and some go-lucky pranksters, ends up in ten stitches and a mexican stand off of 'No it was YOUR idea' finger pointing. At least one Deadhead now knows the exact date of his last tetanus shot, and his Phil Lesh shirt will never be the same. An early morning casserole dish of mole, some 7-11 ESBs, Eagles of Death Metal, and a whole lot of laughter seal the night with a kiss.

HEAT- I can take you on!

The heat finally got me. In a week full of gas guzzling adventures, yesterday was the pinnacle. Unshowered, half dressed, with haphazardly thrown vacation articles in the backseat, Hayley and I tore out of town. Destination: Cooler Oasis. I even forgot to bring a map. The air conditioning went out in the Buick at about milepost 42, of our 200 mile odyssey. Ah, leather seats, I love the way you cling to the back of my sweaty legs! We ate drive thru food, sucked down water from Slidewater's bubbler, and remembered the three most important things; our swimsuits!, sunblock, and cash. Did I mention our awesome attitudes? All afternoon, we had huge grins on our faces, trudging barefoot up a cement hill, gazing out over glistening Lake Chelan wavy in the 98 degree heat, and then careening blissfully through smooth, fiberglass tubes filled with ice cold mountain water. We even shivered while we waited in line. Ahh!!!

she bakes! beat that charles bronson!

Hayley baked a cake from SCRATCH!!! Yes, you can bow down and worship her right now. I thought she'd use a box, and left her change to buy some yellow cake mix at the drugstore, but alas- she whipped whip cream by hand. Huh! So, Robert's birthday was a hit, and it appears from the above snap, that Hayley is ready to graduate from high school. Yipes!

Any Sunday

Wimbledon dominated the alarm clock this morning....Robert set it for 6am so he could watch the marathon that suffered through rain delay after rain delay. (I secretly SCREAMED for joy when Nadal won.... always the underdog! I don't love Hoosiers for nothin' dammit!) The 'stay-cation' was finally and abrubtly confused for a 'clean-cation'. Hayley and I turned the basement into a new biosphere. Hayley busted out her mason jar + golf club war weapons and held no prisoners. The one fortunate (a whole winter of entertainment!) eight-legged mother spider was set free in the backyard. The unfortunate were trapped in a vacuum bag and are now eating each other's legs for dinner. Nature+Man. Who the hell can beat it?

We watched 'Get Smart'. I enjoyed an encouraged bucket full of well salted, and evenly buttered popcorn. We ate a delicious vegan dinner and played a perfectly civilized game of ace-hole. Robert bought a ticket to DC, whispered all of his birthday desires into my ear, and then promptly fell asleep before the end of 'mystery theatre'.

Dear Go-Go's; Stay-cation is all I ever wanted. Eat that fools!

'Staycation' me arse

Or as Hayley would say, ' my butt'. While the rest of the free world was enjoying a holiday without petroleum the Steeberts trio hit the highway in search of patriotic freaks, purple mountain majesties, and pyromaniacal firework displays. Our Buick landed in Tacoma at Ingrid and Joe's replete with the 'great food experiment', two tents, taco bell+starbuck's pillage, and of course the ever worshipped Ipod.

We checked all the boxes of our un-stay-cation: Friends, Freaks and Fireworks. We saw an old friend- and by old, I mean OLD! - unearthed a crab hotel on Vashon island, snickered at pirates on Alki Beach, squinted at a Tall ship battle royale, watched two amazing pyrotechnic displays- NEAR! OOOHHH! FAR! WOWWWW!!!- and alliterationally talked about farting. This vacation ends navigating the only roundabout in Yakima listening to the last song of Robert's 'Alphabet Tour' of the Ipod- Widespread Panic. Why did it sound so much like the un-'z'-like Phish?? Yzey Anastasio maybe?

Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Me posing with a treasured vodka blended beverage on Ingrid and Joe's porch in Tacoma.
I have resolved to hit buckets of golf balls from an unnamed driving range. I'd prefer luminescent multi-levels, looking out on a metropolis. We could all go after a hard day's work, knock back a few dirty martinis from frosted stemware and laugh about the reagan years. I'll elevate myself to apple orchards, memorizing the words to most danzig songs, and shooting a thirty-ought-six at stationary spray paint cans. I'm sure if you put a five gallon bucket next to that hole, my chances of nailing it just skyrocketed. Thanks Julie- I have confidence that spring will come again! I have confidence in ME!