The Residual Sugar

I sometimes wonder if we're the only people who live in a funhouse world where bees take over your wood stove, raptors fly in to your bedroom, bike rides require shooting earmuffs, cats weigh 23 lbs and don't know how to clean themselves, and vacuum cleaners are gateways to Hell. Does this all happen to you and it just doesn't seem important enough to tell me?  I'd love for you to share. I'm starting to worry... This past Wednesday our evening started typically enough. I got home from work, Carolyn was just putting the granola in the oven. OK, let me stop there. That's normal around here. About 3 years ago Carolyn made granola from a magazine recipe. It was so good she kept doing it and now my mother and sister are making it as well. It's mostly mixing dry ingredients and baking. It's dead simple. It's posted at Epicurious . You should try it. Anyway, it's midweek so we're having a simple dinner. Hamburgers. As normal and all-American as a me

Um, ew? I'm not sure how to take that. It's another long race report. Sorry. Just be thankful it's not the "Linfield College catalog database update for 2013" report that I was thinking of doing. Uh huh. You're welcome. Last Friday I gave myself a little mini vacation by jumping in the Subaru, going to work for half a day, going to Les Schwab for an hour to get a flat tire fixed, going to OVS for an oil filter for the tractor, driving through rush hour traffic in Portland behind a truck with the worst mission statement ever, getting re-routed because of an accident for miles through suburban Olympia before arriving, at about 7:30 p.m. at the starting line for the Capital Forest 50/100. Vacation, as a concept, seems to still be eluding me. I did this race a couple of years ago and I remembered it as being challenging but manageable, very well supported, and filled with friendly racers and volunteers. I'm happy to report my memory wasn't play

Some years ago, about the time Carolyn's eyesight started to get bad, she discovered I liked vacuuming. Since she couldn't see how bad I was at it, and I had the opportunity to buy a machine that did something I would otherwise have to do by hand, it was a win win. Since then, pretty much every Saturday, I've had a date with a purple and red (Linfield colors!) Dyson to mitigate construction dust and cat dander. Vacuuming had the additional benefit of completely freaking out the cats so I've been pretty much guaranteed a cat-free afternoon simply by rolling the purple and red monster out of the closet. It's been a steady, reliable machine over the last seven years. It's had a few scrapes. OK, the handle broke off. Carrying it upstairs is like wrestling an unhappy toddler out of a shopping cart. So maybe it's not in the best of shape. Then there was the bee thing. All those sucked up honey bees from the wood stove exacted one last act of vengance on me by