gobble gobble

Getting-ready-for-Thanksgiving playlist:

qooc

"I don't have a turkey costume, one; and two, where the hell did that come from?" -- Mr. Galore to Mrs. Galore

work

What I've been up to at my job:

1. I was interviewed in Running Times and deemed to not be "puritanical and preachy" as the interviewer had feared.

2. I narrated this video, which is now being shown at some college film festival somewhere.

3. In researching the second item for this column, I learned that it is possible to play Lemmings on the internet.

4. There's a picture of me in this slideshow.

5. I, along with the rest of my building, was mooned at length and with great enthusiasm by a woman in a hotel room across the street.

By the by, I'll be shifting job responsibilities starting next week, moving from the editorial department for a time to concentrate on becoming intimately knowledgeable about the new website we plan to launch in February.

hot hot heat

We recently had a bit of a water heater mishap. It involved much wetness. We spent five days in the company of fans and a dehumidifier, which were very noisy. And we were told to keep the heat up to speed up the drying. So we turned the thermostat on the lower level to 72 degrees. And the middle level turned into Florida.

Kudos to Friend Jon B., who uncomplainingly spent a night in the tropics.

father knows best

Father Galore escaped left Indiana and came to visit us a few weeks ago!

First we met him in Portland, where he joined us in dining with many of our favorite Portland people (who also happen to be some of our favorite people, period).

Then he came up to Seattle, where the first order of business was to sample the most delightful of its many delights.



Father Galore was there to comfort us following the sad demise of Jack.


The loss of Jack was the sort of difficult time wherein the only consolation is a new day planner.


Then it was down to Tacoma for Friend Katie's volleyball game. Her team was very much the underdog, and then they won, and then I was hoarse the whole next day. Here she is serving faster than the speed of light.


Victory beer!


Oh yes, and Brother Galore joined us for a voting party, which seems to have turned out quite well.


I unfortunately don't have pictorial evidence of the evening that Father Galore walked a mile back to our place in the pouring rain wearing his scooter helmet, but I'm sure it was a sight to behold.

We miss Father Galore already and can't wait to see him, as well as Mom and Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and Cousins Galore, at Christmas.

contentment

We talked last Sunday about busyness, and saying yes and no to things, and how fulfillment can come from choosing what you say yes to, instead of letting your priorities be driven by what you feel forced to say no to. So I thought about the things that I say yes to:

• relationships -- especially the one with Mr. Galore
• community -- especially the Mennonite one
• living lightly on the earth
  

... and was pleased to discover that I do in fact tend to arrange my priorities around these things, and this may explain why I feel satisfied and content with my life right now.

I'm so content, in fact, that I could just hug a rack of feather boas.

qooc

There is a lot going on, a lot to blog. So, uh, look for that soon. In the meantime, some quotes out of context:

"I had a good idea while I was tipsy. Which means it has an asterisk. Which means it's like two good ideas." -- Mr. Galore

"That was very wise, and very unlike you." -- Mrs. Galore to her father

Yes We Can

reasons i love ballard, #2188

If it's good enough for the New York Times, it's good enough for us.

boo!

His name is Jack. Oh, we're so creative.

ok fine

Remember when I blogged about Friend Ashley and I was like "everybody thinks we are the same person but we are not, no sir, no way, no how"?

And then later I blogged about pants hats?

Um, yeah. She apparently put this on Facebook two weeks ago:

today (h/t: rob bell)

Mr. Galore: "Are you blogging again? Nice! You are a machine!"

Be that as it may, the real reason I've been blogging so much is that we finished watching season 3 of The Office and don't have season 4 yet. So our evenings stretch before us, Office-less and bloggable.

This morning we were late for church because we were watching dough turn into doughnuts on the conveyor belt at Krispy Kreme. This afternoon we bought purple carrots at the farmers market. Tonight we had Brother Galore over for a birthday dinner of chili and pineapple shakes. (Uh, that's chili, and pineapple shakes.) Then we discovered something is horridly, smellily wrong in our downstairs. That aside, it was a good day. We needed one of those.

In conclusion, here is a happy watermelon:

more randomness

Galore Household Rule 17.iii.b: When cleaning the house, one must wear a hat made of cut-off pants.


Our creative picture-taking pretty much guarantees us a future in professional photography.

two wheels

By the way, I have a bike now. I try to ride it as little as possible. Smiles can be misleading.

Love, Grumpypants

Solitaire

An auto-related business that Mrs. Galore and I frequently walk by in Ballard (it shall remain nameless) has a set of rather large windows that allow people on the street to see into the customer service portion. It just so happens that their PC monitor is facing the window and on several occasions (I would guess in the ballpark of 5 to 8), we walked by and observed that the same employee was always playing solitaire. It got to a point where we would call out "solitaire" and then look in the window only to have our prediction confirmed. Ironically, after our big east coast extravaganza, we walked by on Labor Day, again expecting to see some solitaire in action, only to be disappointed with someone gazing at a spreadsheet. How backwards is that?

Not to pass judgment, but it makes me happy to have a professional position that offers more to keep me occupied during the day and that also doesn't require staring at spreadsheets on a holiday. That is all.