Oh, yes, the snake incident! My dad has a picture of the old Revolutionary flag with a snake and it says "Don't Tread on Me". We wanted to take a picture of it and print it out, to hang on cars and such, so we took it outside. As soon as we spread it on the ground, a tiny snake slithered from under it. My dad caught it and it was so little and cute! Apparently we have a garter snake that had babies. But I've never seen any until today. Until we spread out the snake flag. It was bizarre. And I think Zavi got a picture of the little snake slithering across the flag.

It is nice to see so many American flags around.
posted by Jann Woodard at 3:00 AM

Day 30. I Cheated.

I skipped a day! How dare I? Well, I was sick. Still am, actually. Tomorrow I will sleep in. Yay!

I got things done at PSU today. That is such a relief. There is more to do, but I have my student ID and almost all of my books now.

Let's see. Yesterday we watched movies.

Today, after PSU, we went to a rehearsal at my old college. Kinda missed it, but I saw some people and the remodeling they're doing in the theatre, and picked up a script, and paid for a trip to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.

Then we bussed to Hawthorne and had yummy Indian food, and things. Zavi explains it better, plus an explanation of a crazy-ish lady. I carried my tape recorder around and got some good soundfiles. I need to start labeling my tapes, though.

Now we are listening to Art Bell and it is scary because they are talking about war.
posted by Jann Woodard at 2:54 AM

Day 28. Gentleman, you can't fight here! This is the War Room!

I feel bad. Because I didn't write this last night. Also, I am still sick. That's why I slept through most of yesterday. But I did get up and watch Dr. Strangelove. And I got up to go out to eat. I am still eating okay. But my throat hurts. And I must have been half asleep when I signed up for some class yesterday that I didn't need to. So now I have to go to PSU and fix it. I have so much to do to get ready for school. I think thinking about it is what made me sick. Blurg.
posted by Jann Woodard at 2:03 PM

Day 27. I Really Did Speak Too Soon.

How bizarre and surreal. I'm going to try to go into some detail about today so that I won't forget how it went. On the one hand, I don't want to be boring and say things that everybody else is saying, but upon checking some other blogs, I see that no one else seems to be talking about it. Odd. I suppose we won't know for awhile how important this day really will be for us, but it could end up in infamy. You never know.

I woke up and practiced my katakana a bit. I have the first four sets of five characters somewhat memorized. I heard my grandma downstairs and headed down there after deciding I wanted to get up despite the happy Jackie purring on me. Well, my mom must have heard me and met me down in the dining room and said that something terrible had happened in New York. I went into the living room where she and my grandma were watching coverage of the WTO plane-crashing incident. I forget how I felt. I know I said "Oh my goodness". It truly was surreal. You don't really know what to think. And then I checked the news online and the first thing I looked for was stuff from Nostradamus about bad stuff happening in New York, but I don't remember if it was him or not who said something interpreted like bombings in NY in 2001. And then I worried about people who would start talking about the end of the world, because some people do that kind of thing.

Then we woke up Zavi to tell her, because they were talking about closing down airlines. And she was shocked, too. And I think we just sat around for awhile being shocked and wondering who it could be. We like to think that it isn't the obvious choice. But it's certainly not the Russians; I would know. Anyway, then my grandma took us to feed the ducks and the ducks and geese were just fine so we knew that the world wasn't ending just yet. It seemed quiet, though. Prolly because there weren't any planes. There were a couple of guys on the dock, listening to their car radio. One of them started talking about it and Zavi asked if there was any more news, and he said no, but that someone had said the number of deaths would be too high for the public to handle. It was very cool that one could ask an unclear question and everybody would have known what it meant that day. The ducks were beautiful and peaceful, despite their honking and rushing after food. They were very normal, so routine.

Then we were at home and I didn't want to just sit there and keep listening to the news. Actually, I kind of did, but I knew that in the future I wouldn't want to say that that was all I did on September 11th, 2001. Zavi and I wanted to talk to people about it. See their opinions and find some conspiracy theories. We wanted to see how it really effected people. I wanted to get people talking on tape. So we made a survey, a list of 11 questions for folks to answer about this day and how it effected them and what should be done. We put it on a clipboard and bussed to Hawthorne ($1.25) to find interesting people. We got two interviews on the bus, and then interviewed the guy working at our coffee shop. We ran into another guy who saw the clipboard and asked what petition we wanted him to sign, and we asked if he wanted to be interviewed. He hadn't heard about what had happened yet. Weird. He kissed my hand. Fortunately, I got the conversation with him on tape as well.

Zavi bought some apples at Fred Meyer and then we bussed back ($1). We got two more interviews on the bus home. I'm sure that the tapes will be fascinating in months and years to come. Portland's reaction to the WTO crashes.

The way this effects us the most, of course, is that Zavi is not leaving tomorrow. She's looking for alternate forms of transportation.

Koko was extremely worried this morning, but calmed down after being reassured. Virginia is quite worried, as well. Jackie's behaviour hasn't changed at all, for she is Queen.
posted by Jann Woodard at 3:37 AM

Day 26. Untitled. Again.

We didn't do much today. I made myself some katakana flashcards for one of the katakana alphabets. And we watched "Princess Caraboo," "Drop Dead Gorgeous," and a couple of episodes of LEXX.

Eee, tomorrow is Zavi's last full day here!!! *pouts*
posted by Jann Woodard at 4:08 AM

(scuttles back, embarassed)

Two things. We ate cheesecake weirdly. But if you are what you eat, and how you eat, then we are cheesecake weirdly as well.

And Zavi didn't say "Why are you only playing David Bowie?", she said "Why does David Bowie keep playing?" and I misquoted.
posted by Jann Woodard at 4:03 AM

Day 25. They're so Dyslexic.

Canadians, that is. We made a incidental stop to the Church of Elvis today and it was an experience unmatched by anything I've seen on this side of the television. It was otherworldly, in a cheap way. It was great. And up a lot of stairs. The lady accused us of being Scientologists and dyslexic Canadians.

And we went to the Saturday market and had some food and shopped a bit . . . my friend Kanako came along. Then we went to Powell's and Kanako found a good Japanese kid's book for me to help me learn the katakana alphabet that is generally used for American-sounding words.

Then we went to the Kennedy School's McMenamins for dinner. They were playing only David Bowie songs.

Zavi (to the waiter): Why are you only playing David Bowie?
Waiter: I don't know; 'cause it's his birthday.
Us: No it isn't; his birthday is in January; January 5th or 6th or something.
Waiter: (jumps back) Oh, okay, David Bowie fans here.

And then he told us about his dog that had two different coloured eyes.

We are cheesecake weirdly.
posted by Jann Woodard at 1:40 AM

Day 24. Whatever it is is smaller than a marble, but some people stick metallic stuff to it.

Today we went to Shrewsbury and I haven't been so thoroughly exhausted in some time. It's different than in past years, but the same too, and I just love it. The jousting was terrific. If I lived someplace with a Medieval Times, I would end up at it once a week. I took out my tape recorder and got some good crowd sounds and chants of "Patrick, Patrick, Patrick". Yeah.

I bought a little vial of "Peach Musk" scented stuff, and a bottle of Dragon's Breath ("Don't drink the Dragon's Breath!") and some yummy food. We watched the gypsy dancers and a musician named Hobbs, with a wolf mascot named Willomena. I can't spell that. Which reminds me that earlier in this blog I called Dorothy's chicken Belinda, and it is Billina, and that is quite unforgivable considering what a fan I am of the Oz books and all.

I must be tired lately.
posted by Jann Woodard at 1:45 AM