feet on the brain is better than water there?

i do have feet on my mind. well, ok, foot. because, you guessed it! i'm not able to walk anywhere again. THIS TIME it's because i dropped a full bottle of vodka on mon pied last week and i now have a nasty, nasty bruise there.

still! this is not all bad. stuart maconie has been good company.

and i'm almost finished with the nancy jo sales book. ah, god it's so good! want to read the article it was based on? go read the article. 

it's so good that i will probably end up watching "pretty wild" as it's streaming on netflix. oh, i'll hate myself while i'm doing it, don't worry. (i will probably not make it through a whole episode, let's be honest.)

in other news, i might be planning another short trip out of fish armpit village. it's really getting to both me and leff again. la or sanfran seem doable. WHO KNOWS?! i certainly don't. any suggestions, readers? (don't say hell, i already live there. * ba doom ching *)

cat pot

this cardboard cat head came in a free cat food sample today. i think it is going to become an indispensable part of my arsenal.

huh huh. arsenal.

still in the middle of the new "ad" marathon

leff and i decided to call it a night after only two episodes of the new season. (it had been a long day. also, the pacing of this season is a little...different...so far.)

 seeing the "new episodes" still gives me the dizzies.

we'll continue with the bluths once leff wakes up.

did you know? my bag of candy beans had a bluth flavor in it.

taste the happy, michael!

in a little less than four hours, we'll be watching the story about a wealthy family who lost everything and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together.

and here is the cake

since we didn't have red food dye for a red velvet cake, leff decided to make me a neon neon velvet cake instead. it was a great choice! AND IT HAD AN OWL

here's the inside. it's very disco disco. and, as bunny has said, if i throw up, it will look pretty.

right, imma' go watch "wreck it ralph" and get drunk. THEN i will start getting ready for the "arrested development" marathon party! THIS BIRTHDAY DOES NOT STOP

I HAVE BEEN GIVEN SEVERAL OWLS

my birthday continues to be amazing in large part due to a video that i'm not at liberty to post here but, just know, guys, i REALLY appreciated the world wide birthday song! it meant more than you'll probably ever guess.

ANYWAY, you're here for the owls and not the sap. leff got me some, bwahahaha, owl mysteries!

i said to him, i said "how did you find owl mysteries?!" and he answered "i searched for "owl mysteries"?"

ever practical, our leffie. heh THANK YOU LEFF

shed, on the other hand, held r. stevens hostage with silly string until he gave me an owl! (many thanks to r. stevens for going along with what must have seemed a strange request. hahah!)

THIS IS WHAT WAS IN THE MYSTERY PACKAGE OF COURSE socks of everything that i love, pixel hearts, squid, robots, skulls AND OWLS SHED GAVE ME AN OWL (and pixel hearts and squid and robots and skulls! :D)

and i even complied with the note's request HOSTAGE SITUATION OVER PUT DOWN THE SILLY STRING SHED

(seriously though, THANK YOU SHED BESTEST OF BEST EVERS!)

and now leff is making me a cake! he keeps giggling so i can't wait to see how it turns out! pictures soon, of course!

OH YES!

how could i forget a picture of the decorations? because leff color coordinated the streamers to the beer label!!

seriously. SERIOUSLY! he is too awesome.

birthday eve dinner

leff and i had a midnight dinner last night to see in my 40th year. i lit all of the candles. christ, did THAT take a while! (whole set here)

we also cracked open the rakka beer! RAKKA BEER! 

if you recall, leff fucking brewed this for me about a a month ago!! !!!!!! he also made the label! HE GAVE ME AN OWL AND A DEER ON MY BIRTHDAY BEER!!

that porter is INCREDIBLY delicious! leff's got skills! (you are not surprised.) i can't wait to drink more. I WILL DRINK IT ALL i also can't wait for him to start brewing another batch! heh!

oh yes, DELICIOUS MEATBALL SUB for midnight dinner. 

i just cannot get over all of the wonderful things that have been happening in the last few days. THANK YOU LEFF!!

CRYSTAL SENT ME A BIRTHDAY COCK!

YOU GUYS can you hear me laughing my ass off, you guys? crystal sent me a birthday cock! THANK YOU CRYSTAL!

here it is wearing a cock ring.

she also sent me some tits.

SERIOUSLY WHAT IS HAPPENING THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME BIRTHDAY EVE EVER THANK YOU CRYSTAL!!!

mr f

it may be because i have "arrested development" on the brain (can you BLAME me?) but this penguin on the candy that leff gave me last night really reminded me of rita.

this is my card from bunny and destructo

i didn't want to post it at ipernity since i'm new there and, you know, GOOD FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND ALL THAT. heee.

YOU GUYS!!!

I GOT A PACKAGE THAT I CAN'T OPEN YET YOU GUYS! it is killing meeeeeeeeeeeee!!! (heh)

pretty sure i can guess who it's from but, in case i'm wrong, i will just say THANK YOU MYSTERY PERSON!!! for now and give proper thanks later.

also THANK YOU BUNNY AND DESTRUCTO!! the card inside the envelope is SO FUCKING WONDERFUL!! and i love the new stamp so much! you guys know about antenna, right? 'cause you should REALLY know about antenna.

you know what? turning 40 might not suck after all if you have good friends.

old tech on new tech is a massive idea

finished reading tracey thorn's bedsit disco queen last night. i will admit, i have never been the biggest everything but the girl fan (and UGH "missing"  drove me insane the summer it was out because it was on ev.er.y.where. all. the. time.) but i really do like tracey thorn.

ipernity test

HA WELL THAT WAS EASY! ignore what i said in the last post about things being sporadic here WE ARE BACK IN BUSINESS FOLKS GLITTER FUCKING EMOJI

all of the lanterns are finished early

give me your owl, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

you can see them all in this set. i mean, if you want to brave the ui at flickr. hahahaha god, what fucking ever. i don't even care.

but speaking of which, i will be cancelling my pro account and moving over to ipernity if you are interested in keeping up with my photos.

posting will be a bit sparse on this site until i figure out how to synch up ipernity to blogger 'cause i'm not paying for picassa. (i will probably throw some pictures of the bday party and the bday beer and stuff up here in some sort of recap though.)

see you soonish!

HERE IS AN OWL

HERE IS AN OWL, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

aw yeah, chittlings, bday week is in full effect. this weekend, leff got me a parade and a new british "quiz" show to watch. today SOMEONE GAVE ME AN OWL

i also got a card with puffins on it but i like the owl better. (they were from the same person. i'm not being an asshole by playing favorites or anything, silly.)

fun with mascots

eagle on the street, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

leff and spent about three hours on the porch today just watching the parade go by. i honestly didn't think that many people lived here, let alone marched in bands.

anyway, i particularly enjoy this clip because of the cougar guy.

parade day

parade horse, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

a word to the wise: don't live near a park if you like to sleep in on the weekend.

that being said, i don't particularly mind parade staging so long as i know about it in advance. because, trust me, if this is what you can hear while standing in the bathtub with the window open



you're not going to be catching any extra zzzzs.

only 10 more candles left in the project!

feather lantern, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

because my bday is in 10 days. D:

eegads, foresooth, etc. i am not looking forward to it.

anyway, whole set's here if you're interested.

duh duh duh duh duuuuuh, it's poirot, it's poirot

poirot, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

leff has the motion blur. it's like you can SEE the speed of poirot's little grey cells!

c'est vrai!

best postcard from berlin EVAR!, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

this is so true of casa rakkaleff that i feel like i should post it outside of our house as a warning.

thanks again, jens!

my lovely horse

my lovely horse, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

stuck in my head.

almost there

charlie, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

this bday project is still going strong. although, i must admit, i'm not so pleased that i will be reaching that milestone date in, what, 17 DAYS?! D:

still, charlie is cute, isn't he?

peely peel is chilly chill

peely peel is chilly chill, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

because it is WARM!

the ups guy might hate this weather (he told me. it is truth.) but EVERYONE ELSE LOVES IT especially flat peels.

having a hard time getting started this morning

alien tea, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

i had forgotten what it was like to sleep with the windows open. it's lovely and i don't want to get out of bed. not even the siren call of coffee is helping.

hooray!

ice cream bar, a photo by Rakka on Flickr.

it has been warm enough here for ice cream!

new mexico 2013, days 3 and 4

our last day in new mexico saw us heading north to santa fe.

UGH SANTA FE. beloved by old people. i am assuming this is because their dating pool is so much larger there. that town is FULL of greystaches. you know the ones, old dudes with grey ponytails, athletic socks pulled up to half calf, paired with "action sandals". the stench of entitlement. it is just like seattle only in the desert. THIS IS NOT A COMPLIMENT.

they do have a fairly decent donut shop though. whoo's donuts. yes, we went there because there was an owl in the logo.

the donuts and coffee were fine. the staff was, apparently, stoned. when the 45 year old white dude with dreads came into the store, we knew it was time to leave.

basically, if you find yourself in santa fe, I AM SO SORRY. also, fine, get donuts here. but i would not go out of my way for them again.

here is one thing that i liked about santa fe. these trees are nice.

but this mural is SO SHIT and FUCKING MYSTICAL and it was near an "art market" that had such shit. SUCH SHIT.  eagles and horses and fucking dream catchers. if i could vomit though my eyeballs, i would.

god, the composition. it just skeeves me out.

thankfully, bandalier was nearby so i could scrub the visual grotesqueness of santa fe from my head.

ahhhhhh. now that's better.

bandalier has pueblos and petroglyphs.  !!!!!  contrary to what this sign said, the area was not closed due to snow and ice conditions.

the rock here is very conducive to carving. since it is so soft, it is also pockmarked with holes. here is luther inside of one.

i couldn't believe that there were ladders available for climbing.

sadly, i am a chickenshit when it comes to heights but leff and his dino were able to take advantage of the opportunity.

he also took luther into some of the dwellings. if you squint, you can see the little deer.

georgia o'keefe got NOTHIN' on me.

i think this was my favorite petroglyph.

after all of the climbing around rock cliffs, the trail become positively serene. here is a stream that has caused flash flooding problems. it was very well behaved on the day that we were there.

honestly, i could have spent the rest of the day looking at petroglyphs. this type of visual communication is much more up my alley than the new age bullshit of santa fe. (also, the punk guy working the gift shop was cute and he did tricks. heee!)

still, we needed to head back to the abq. on the way, we passed valles caldera. here is my donut at the caldera.

and a video to give you scale. this place is HUGE! did it cause the lava flow at el malpais? I DO NOT KNOW



i DO know that the roads around the caldera can be treacherous.

and that the land itself is now used as a ranch. STAY SAFE VOLCANIC COWS

back in abq, we went to the frontier for dinner. it was all college divey and the staff was awesome. i could see eating here frequently if i was an undergrad at unm. the food was cheap if not really food?

idk, my sandwich was really weird. i ate it anyway because i we had a flight the next day which meant i wouldn't be eating for about another 24 hours or so. (what. i may fly fairly frequently but i still deal with flight anxiety. i just force myself to deal with it so i'm not always trapped in the pnw.)

that night i watched "mad men" for the first time on broadcast television. THERE ARE ADS?! how does anyone watch that show with ads?!

the next day found us back at the sunport.

this place. seriously. it looks more like the lobby of of dorm than an international airport.

and yet ONCE AGAIN people heading to seattle did NOT KNOW HOW TO BOARD A FUCKING PLANE. we were 15 minutes late pushing back. WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM FIND YOUR SEAT, SHOVE YOUR BAG IN THE OVERHEAD BIN SIT DOWN SHUT THE FUCK UP EVERY FUCKING TIME i take a plane back to seattle people fail to understand this. sweet fucking jesus. IT IS NOT HARD SEATTLE PEOPLE WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM

whatever. that flight is over now. and GOOD NEWS there is a new 7-11 downtown!! FINALLY A CONVENIENT CONVENIENCE STORE IN SEATTLE

leff and i were there in the first 15 minutes that they were open. THEY FUCKING HAVE TAKIS!!! NOW WE CAN HAVE HOT CHEETOS AND TAKIS WHENEVER WE WANT WITHOUT HAVING TO SPECIAL ORDER THEM DANG JONES we are moving up in the world

so yes. i am back in the pnw. and things are settling back down into the boring old routine. or at least they will once i finally finish peeling from sunburn and heat rash. THOSE are my favorite kinds of souvenirs. I MISS YOU ALREADY BLISTERY SUN