Photo Madness

In one shot I'm taking a nice pic with Trav...
















...in the next suddenly I'm Jessica Rabbit.

















My sisters and I pose for a pic...

















...this is us a mere moment before.
















My sis and I thought it'd be nice to have a pic together by some pretty foliage, so we ended up...

...nuzzling leaves and...

















...crouching down by car tires and...

















...cutting off parts of our heads and...

















...finally getting it close to right while sitting on a sidewalk in front of someone's house. People walked by looking at us like we're crazy. I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time.




















Trav and I can't quite get it right...













































...so finally we both give up.















:-)

For the Trav Fans

It's the Bacon R. fam finger waggle.
















For those of you who know my little sis, Bryn, she is now a blonde!
















I keep forgetting to update you on the Israel itinerary. It is:

- Six days in Tel Aviv (Beach! Diaspora Museum, artists market, more museums, meeting with social activists).

- One day in Haifa.

- Two days in Galilee (visit Kibbutz, relations with Lebanon, Sea of Galilee & Tiberias, Jordan River, Golan Heights, and archeology excavations).

- Four days in Jerusalem (Israel Democracy Institute, Supreme Court, folk music, Yad Vashem Museum, Biblical Museum, Jerusalem Museum, touring and sleeping in the desert, and more).

- Two days in the South (Mazadah, The Dead Sea, Rotem Park Industries, Ben Gurion archives, and tour developing towns and communities in Southern Israel).

Yay! I'm super excited about all of it!

I feel like I have things to report, but I must go and make myself pretty for a night out of birthday celebrating for Ms. Em at the Kona Kitchen. Am looking forward to an evening out with the ladies lots, good conversation, fruity cocktails, and somebody (not me!) singing karaoke.

The online dating thing is going pretty well. I forget that dating-dating is fun! There aren't even any scary/silly stories to share yet, although I'm still mourning the loss of Choco. Who wouldn't?

More soon.

One morning while I was still asleep, Mols told Trav, in front of Bryn and FS, that I was still resting or something. Trav misheard (apparently), looked thoughtful for a moment, and responded, "Yeah, Mommy. Bacon is bossy." Needless to say, B and FS were totally cracking up and nodding in agreement. That kid has my number, but the truth is that he is way bossier than I could even try to be. During my stay he was constantly insisting, "C'mon Bacon! Let's pway!...Let's pway, Bacon! Let's pway!...Bacon! Magnadoodle!...Bacon! Books!...Bacon! Tooshies!!"

Tooshies is a game I accidentally made up for him. Somehow Trav and I ended up sliding down the stairs on our bums one morning one painful step at a time, and I made silly comments as I landed on each one like, "Ow! That really hurts my tushy!" Zozo would copy what I'd say and giggle lots. Later that day he headed toward the stairs shouting, "Tooshies, Bacon!" and we ended up playing it several more times. Now that I'm gone, Molly gets roped into Tooshies, much to her dismay. She commented on how she loves how I teach him these things and then leave.

Trav is funny when he wakes up in the morning. He now has a little toddler bed, but he won't just get up to wake up his mom or wander around. Nope. Instead he sits up in there and bellows, "MOMMA! MOMMAAAAAAA! MOMMAAAAAA!" until Mols wakes up and shouts back for him to come into her room. It's noisy but adorable.

Molly and I rented the Darjeeling Limited and 2 Days in Paris Saturday night. I really liked both. The reviews I'd read for Darjeeling weren't so hot, many basically called the film self-important crap, so I wasn't expecting much. While I can see that perspective--there were definitely contrived to the core story lines--I thought it was full of endearing moments and beautiful scenery. But, I say if you weren't already a Wes Anderson fan when you watch this one, it's probably not going to make you one now. I enjoyed Owen Wilson as the incredibly bossy older brother. (Even he is bossier than me.) And, both he and Jason Schwartzman had great lines. I loved Jason S. running through the hall of the train, after macing his brothers, yelling "Stop including me!" Julie Delpy's writing in 2 Days is so good, and I absolutely adore her character for being unabashedly messy and strange, yet so likable and hilarious, even when you're sitting there cringing over her actions. I'm in to movies that feel like real life, and this one definitely captured kooky family dynamics and complicated human behavior in relationships. Plus...the balloons.

I returned home to find that Emily had left me Shoot 'Em Up as a gift. Yessssss! Now I can watch testy, sexy Clive Owen any time I want.

I'm in Portland for a long weekend to visit my sisters and Trav. Time with the girls and Zozo is always good for my soul. Today, during breakfast, Trav turned to me and busted out with, "You're Megan R." It was so funny and cute, because until now he'd always just called me Bacon (never adding in the R like some other people in my life do), and now he interchanges Megan and Bacon.






















This morning we spent a lot of time playing, and then we spent the afternoon, after a quick stop at the toy store, at the Portland Children's Museum. It's a really cool place with lots of neat activities for little ones. We had a fantastic couple of hours exploring! The purple on my face is Trav's artistic face painting creation.

It's a musical sensation! (Sorry so dark. The room was very dimly lit and Mols took this quick clip with her camera.)



Back to play time, peeps.

Thanks to all my fabulous friends who made it out to the Bowling Party and/or the Hot Buttered Rum After Party on Friday. It was fantastic fun!...if I do say so myself. Of course, I might be biased because:

1. It was my party.

2. The boys kept lots of tasty drinks coming throughout the night. I did enjoy. Yum! Although, some of us got sloppily drunk and incoherent and later had to be driven home by a somewhat amused hostess.

3. I redeemed myself with one excellent game, actually tying with my Bowling Nemesis. I feel this made up for the 52 I got while playing against him this summer (he tripled my score that humiliating day. Hmph). We shall never speak of THAT again.

4. Travis charmed everyone, giving them "knuckles" when they returned from bowling.

5. It was a great group of people with lots of good conversation and laughter. We had one particularly entertaining discussion about sex & relationships, the differences between men & women in terms of what's important, and the ladder theory. I'd never heard of the ladder theory before. While I think there is definitely something to it, I take issue with the pie chart outlining the factors women use for rating potential partners. It's totally shallow and over-simplified. I guess. But, in spite of the creator's glaringly low opinion of and huffiness toward women, it's an interesting site to read through.

Molly and Trav leave tomorrow, and even though I'm sad to see them go, I will be meeting up with them again in K Falls in less than a week, so the trip to the airport and goodbyes won't be as hard as usual. Although this visit was prompted by a difficult break-up for my sis, it's been a pretty nice one. Mols and I had a delicious dinner at the all veggie Bamboo Garden Saturday night before going to a Thunderbirds game. She's taken yoga classes and caught up with friends. I've had so much precious one-on-one time with Zozo. He says so many funny things and makes me smile so much every day. He even went to the mall with me the other evening and was such a good boy shopping. We are so lucky. I just love that little guy.

Happy Halloween!

Mo! Mo! Mo!

So the rest of my time in Orlando was great. I enjoyed the remaining workshops and talks. Maria Klawe gave a fantastic keynote on Friday, and I met and chatted with a lot of interesting people. I appreciate Maria's enthusiasm and optimism about increasing women's participation in the field. She really understands the issues and brings a lot of energy to finding solutions. I've heard her talk before, and I liked her previous idea of convincing Oprah to do a show on women in technology. I wish I'd had a chance to ask her if she's made any progress on this, because I think that would be so incredibly awesome.

I had a ton of fun with my roomie Mira, a friend I'd been out of touch with for a while. She liked watching dippy shows and movies at night, eating junk food, talking about boys, and playing at Epcot with me. We went Friday night for the International Wine and Food Festival and had a blast trying a bunch of different things from countries like Turkey and Chile. We watched the crazily gratuitous fireworks and light show, visited dinosaurs with Ellen Degeneres, enjoyed a 3D experience in Honey I Shrunk the Audience, went on a mission to Mars, and basically had an excellent time being little kids again...You get the picture. Love the Mira!

My word shortening powers started working on peeps I hung out with at the conference. At one point in Downtown Disney, one of the women said, "I say we ditch this and go get our souvs!" I felt so proud.

Today Trav called me to talk about things we did last time he was here. He got very wrapped up in the splashing in puddles, but neither Molly or I could tell what he was saying until he started demonstrating stomping through puddles to her. He also likes to tell me about the bear in the tree. Or monkeys. I guess there is a bear or two who like to sleep in a tree outside of their bank, and Zozo loves to see them. When they drove by this afternoon, they were up there again but he called them monkeys. Molly reminded him that they are bears, and he seemed to get it, but as they drove away he turned and shouted, "Bye Monkeys!"

I've been working on fixing a leaky kitchen faucet on my own, and tonight I finally decided to throw in the towel and call the landlord. I just can't figure it out, and I'm bummed since I really wanted to do this myself. I'm a faucet failure! Boo.

While typing this I watched Randy Pausch giving a condensed version of his last lecture on Oprah, and it is so amazing. He is amazing. He just gets it, and I love it. I adore the piece of advice he has for his baby daughter about what to do when she starts dating. He says when it comes to boys to not pay attention to what they say but to what they do, as that will help her avoid the big mistakes. From my own experience, all I can say is yes. This is exactly right.