Please don't get mad at me, but this is a really really really really really really really really really really really really loooooooooong post!!!

Ok, so I’m here in Portland, but there’s this password thing on my aunt’s computer that won’t really let me go anywhere without a ‘guardian’ to babysit it. Very annoying. By the time you read this, my aunt may have disabled it, because she thinks it’s annoying too.

I guess I’ll just start with Friday and go through the present, updating when I can. I DO have e-mail access here, and limited blog access (limited by time, lol), so feel free to e-mail me or something if you want and I’ll reply when I have time (or can get over this stupid password thingamy)!

So, Friday – I drove all the way down here!!!!! After running a few quick errands, we were on the road, and traffic was terrible. I almost got run over by a semi who decided he wanted to be in my lane and didn’t care if I was there or not I guess, but, we’re all still safe and alive and here. We stopped in Vancouver and had dinner with Lucy and Lindy and Co., which certainly didn’t last long enough!! I miss you guys already!! But we consoled each other with the thought that the sleepover is soon. ;) Lindy and me dancing to My Favorite Things….and trying to hide me when it was time to go…We arrived at my aunt and uncle’s fairly late (nine or nine thirty), but got here before them since they were doing something at church. They pulled up about thirty seconds after us and let us in, where we stayed up talking for an hour or so, something we’re all very good at! I read the first chapter of David Copperfield, then turned in for the night. Nancy and Richard now have a bathroom with a shower downstairs, which has been nice when sharing between five people!

Saturday morning we had breakfast with Mythraie, this year’s team leader for the India 2008 team, to hang out, and also to talk about my possible involvement on the team.

*deep breath* It looks like I ‘might’ be going.

*screams*

I MIGHT BE GOING!!!!!I MIGHT BE GOING!!!!!I MIGHT BE GOING!!!!!!

SOOO, there is the Visual Communications team, which does all of the pictures, videos, interviews, and articles, etc. for the website people can view back home, and the Report night, and stuff like that. They provide training for writing and photography!!!! Training!!! Mythraie seemed very positive about me fitting in on that part of the team, especially with the people I would be working with. One door open! Now I need a guardian…any suggestions?
January is a very hard time for my aunt to get away from her office, and she’s not sure she feels called to return this year or not yet. I put a bug in my cousins’ ears, Marcus has been before and Lissa has been with this church to Kazakhstan. Who knows? I know that if God wants me back there, He will raise up a guardian for me, and the financial support too. PLEASE KEEP PRAYING!!!

After breakfast, we got ready to go up to Mt. Hood for some hiking, which didn’t really turn out as hiking, ha-ha. We puttered around the lodge and checked it out, then we went up this trail that goes pretty much straight up for a long time. After about a half mile Uncle Richard decided that was enough for him, and I decided to stay with him off to the side of the trail on a rock (don’t worry, no annoying little people yelled at us!), since I had just been hiking at Paradise and we’re all going on Mt. Rainier next weekend. We made great plans for growing ginormous pumpkins next year and roasting all ten thousand seeds!!!! He’s retired, and very much into gardening. We decided to go to church on Saturday night instead of yesterday morning, since it was on our way home and the timing was pretty close to perfect. We were a little early, but got drinks at the coffee stand and hung out in the lobby for a little while until service started; I got an Italian soda. I tell you, those are just addicting. Like Starbucks double chocolate chip fraps. It’s when I’m at the coffee stand and the movie theater that I realize just how much of a teenager I really am. :)

We came home and played Oh Heck! also called Nertz (multiple-person solitaire; multitaire? Where you all build on each others’ aces), which seems to happen every time we get down here, and I won!! which is the first time I think that’s ever happened! It was very exciting. After that, everyone except Dad and I were tired out, so he and I stayed up and watched Contact on his laptop for a few hours, then went to bed. I was so tired at this point that I didn’t read at all. :( ah well, more time for that later.

Sunday morning we slept in, and then after breakfast Dad and Richard and I hit the chipping and putting green at a nearby golf course for practice. We came home and ate lunch, then all drove over to my cousins’ house and visited for three or four hours. We don’t get to see them very much, so that was a real treat, plus they make chocolate and brownies and truffles and stuff, which is an added treat, ha-ha! I was remembering all this stuff from when I was little and my cousin would play with me. remember…

the first song you ever taught me on the piano? three guesses! not mary had a little lamb, no. not twinkle twinkle little star, no. Jesus Love Me, yes!

remember when I was so small you could bench press me? “I’m too weak now.” and I’m too big now.

remember when I would try to tickle you, and it never worked? but you could always tickle me.

We talked for a while, but then they had to go to a Bible Study and my parents had to go home, so we all parted (alas! parting is such sweet sorrow!). Aunt Nancy and Uncle Richard and I went to uwajimaya’s (sp? Word tells me it’s wrong) and got a whole bunch of things I can’t pronounce. then Nancy made this limey Thai soup for dinner that was…umm…interesting. It’s wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t my favorite. Had quite the kick to it. We also had these other – things. I don’t know what they were called either. they were these little sweet buns (I think Japanese) with a lotus root filling. I liked the bun part, the filling was ok. Uncle Richard mowed the lawn and set up a stake for a target, and we did some chipping with golf balls to see who could get closest to the pin, just for practice. Later on, I read a little more, and then raided their OLD bookshelves. Pretty much every book of which has about half an inch of dust on top. I had noticed some books earlier that looked like old classics in a set, which is exactly what they turned out to be – now Anna, don’t freak out on me or anything. WEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh wait you’ve never seen the gazebo scene have you?

Dickens, Stevenson, Poe, Scott, Eliot, Austen, Hugo, Thackeray, not to mention a whole shelf of just Mark Twain!!! I was pretty much in heaven, because you had to open each book to see what it was; the outside only said the author. So I spent a good half hour getting my hands dusty in all these wonderful old books. (anna what have you done to me???) I’m bringing home a couple on indefinite loan…won’t my mother just be thrilled? The COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE and also about six or seven of Stevenson’s books in one volume. both are about fifty pounds each, and I don’t know how I’m going to get them back home, but it’s all the same. I’m certainly coming back with much more than I left with!

Sunday night my grandpa was in town, because he had to work on a boat early the next morning in Vancouver, so he crashed here for the night. That was kind of fun, even though we only talked for about an hour before he had to go to bed. It was still nice to see him again. Late that night as I sat up reading David Copperfield, something caught the corner of my eye, something moving. As my gaze followed it I realized that it was a huge spider. If you don’t know, spiders are my biggest fear – no funny business around spiders. It was probably about three inches in diameter though, really really big! Well here I’m caught between two fears: getting close enough to kill it, or having it alive in my room. Obviously I had to go with my first choice, but oh! what to do?!? Thankfully the room I was in was rather like a throw-things-in-here-until-we-get-to-them room, with a few large books. I stretched a trembling hand toward the book, which was also toward the spider, and had one of those moments where you hear the sound and don’t realize that it’s you screaming for a moment. Completely involuntary. I caught the book and smashed, not thinking or caring about the volume of the scream and the thump (no one woke up, anyways). I couldn’t lift that book up all that night, and, shaking, I tried to focus once more on David Copperfield, glancing up now and then at the book as if I half-expected to see the arachnid climbing out from under it in full force again.


Early Monday morning I woke up to the sound of my Uncle Richard’s voice coming under the two-inch crack below the door. Kacy…..Kacy…..it’s time to get up. We…have…to…go…walking. I rub my eyes. walking? It’s got to be like three in the morning or something. before I can turn to check the alarm clock I never set, He says IT’S SEVEN O’CLOCK…… ugghh! Seven? oh yeah, I did sign up for this didn’t I?

My uncle goes walking twice a week with this group of elderly people (he’s the youngest of them I think, so no, I’m not calling him old ha-ha) at a mall near here. Since Nancy’s taking the week off, we decided to go with him on Monday and Wednesday, which we had done once a loooong time ago when I was down here (like two years ago or something, you know, a long time). Nancy and I do our own pace, much faster than everyone else though, so we walked together and basically ditched the rest of the people. The first thing we did on coming to the escalators was to promptly go up the down escalator, which proved beyond a doubt that Up is, in fact, Down. Aren’t I smart? Experimental proofs people, that’s what this world needs! So we pant (er, I mean walk) around the second floor for a while, then met up with everyone else for coffee and chatting. Met a few nice people at our end of the table too!

After walking we went to Heaven. Oh, for those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, Heaven is Barnes and Noble bookstore, where I have a gift card! *waves gift card in the air* oh wait, there’s no money on it anymore….drat. *tossed gift card* *waves books in the air* SO, there’s no sales tax here in the wonderful state of Oregon, which is why my ever-clever mother suggested I use my gift card here. Oh, the only downside to this particular earthly form of heaven is that their LotR section sucks. a lot. But you know how a few months ago I wanted to learn how to write short stories, and basically no one knows how to? I got this complete stories of Franz Kafka book; supposedly Kafka is the best from what I’ve heard. some Russian dude I think. Anyway, that was fifteen bucks, which killed my gift card, but was well worth it. Then I found the ten buck thing I couldn’t live without. I was on a Dickens high pretty much the rest of the day. YES, I said Dickens. Did you guys know that Dickens wrote short stories? He did he did he did!!!!! *jumps up and down* and I’m not talking like the Christmas Carol short stories, I mean like five to twenty page short fiction stories. which are incredible, like anything else Dickens wrote. Stevenson, step aside, thou art being dethroned. Make way for Dickens! (sounds like make way for ducklings…) So that was only ten dollars, and even more that worth it!! I heart Dickens!!!

yes I’m done.

Oh yeah, we actually did have to leave Heaven, despite my pleading to stay almost forever in the classical lit section. but there was the fabric store to be visited! Not like we bought anything (not like I had money), but we got some ideas for this selwar kameez I want to make soon, so that was cool. Later on…let’s see, what did we do? I think maybe we went for a walk, and that night we watched The Greatest Game Ever Played (a golf movie, but super-good, even my mom and my aunt liked it, and they don’t really like golf!). I moved into the bedroom with a bed in it, which is a lot nicer than sleeping on the floor, let me tell you! And no spiders that I’ve seen yet…

Tuesday, yesterday, let me see. I slept in till about nine, then got up and took a shower. (very interesting day so far, right? I knew you would all want to hear about this part especially.) Here’s the exciting part: Uncle Richard has a lathe (that’s the wood-turning thingies that go round and round and people supposedly make cool things out of hunks of wood), and he is really really good at making bowls and candlestick holders and spoons and vases and whatnot on it, so every time I come down for more than a weekend, we make something on it. This year it’s a box with a lid on it, which we started yesterday. It should be finished tomorrow, and hopefully will turn out nicely. We spent about two hours doing that, and then my cousin and her two boys (two and five years old) came over for lunch, and to go to the Body Exhibit at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Something Interesting….JK! Oregon Museum of Science and Industry I think). It was at the Science Center earlier this year, the one where they have real cadavers on display to show the different body systems, but then it was gone and we didn’t get to see it, so we saw it yesterday. Had a ton of fun trying to explain bones and muscles and nerves to my five-year-old cousin, as you can imagine. yeah….no comment. It actually wasn’t too bad. After I finished explaining nerves to him, he looks at them and says “they’re like electrical wiring!” seriously….this is not my life, this is not my life.
The exhibit was really neat though; I’m glad I went. They even had a camel with the digestive system kind of cut out; it was a really big camel too! And at every cadaver, my cousin turns to me and asks “can he see?” because they have eyes. so how do you tell a five-year-old that the person’s dead and can’t see? umm….

We came back home and had a feast of corn on the cob for dinner. On the way home my other cousin (Marcus) calls and says he and his wife (Lissa) want to have dinner with me, only me, on Thursday. My heart does a double flip; this has never happened before. Why only me? He says they don’t ever get to see just me, it would be cool. I think so too. They’ll pick me up, I choose the restaurant. We joke on the phone – I can’t drive by myself yet, you know that! So just fly your helicopter over here, right? Yeah, when you get that jet-pack you’ve been raving about Marcus, then I’ll have my helicopter. Alright, we’ll have a race to see who can get it first! Sure, I’ll get right on it. I’ll talk to my dad about that. Actually…maybe my grandpa instead, better chances there…

So it’s settled, Thursday night, dinner. then my mind starts doing double flips too – What am I gonna wear? oh my gosh, my mind reprimands me. This is your cousins, for crying out loud, they want to see you, not your wardrobe! ok, ok, well there is that skirt Nancy just gave me….whatever. who cares? I’m going to have a great time. I have to choose the place? I don’t know Portland! umm, umm….yeah, know any good Indian places?

I just wonder, is there more? Do they want to talk about something specific? it was so sudden – do they want to just hang out? why only me? Am I over-analyzing this? Probably.

I need to stop. I know I’m going to have a great time, my mind just keeps getting in the way trying to figure out my awesome cousin who is so, so, awesome, so awesome he’s mysterious sometimes. like, you just don’t know what he’s thinking. enough about my cousins, I’m rambling again.

Tuesday night we discovered it was a friend/neighbor’s birthday, so we cooked up a pie and brought it over. But she was out doing something, so we sat outside and ate half the pie and drank lemonade, talking to her husband and son for a while. Steve and Mary I think, and Matt is their son (no laughing Anna, he’s not a Die Hard-type geek lol). Matt just graduated. Matt is really cute. So we sit their looking at the professional graduation photos of this really cute boy for like ten minutes. nice. then we go home.

I am so fifteen this week.

We went to Blockbuster on the way home and looked for Newsies, but it was out, so we decided to watch Little Women instead, which I brought. Nancy and Richard both liked it, even though Richard literally left the room during the forty-second opera scene and missed about fifteen minutes of the movie while waiting for it to finish. I’m guessing Phantom of the Opera won’t be a winner with him? After that I read a tiny bit, then went to sleep.

This morning we went walking again with Uncle Richard, but abstained from the bookstore, however not from going up the down escalator and down the up escalator several times! My aunt says when she can’t do that anymore, then she will be old. We got several, er, interesting looks, but thankfully didn’t run into anybody. We came back home all in one piece, then Uncle Richard and I went to the driving range, which I would rather not comment on right now. something went all screwy with my grip and the balls were not doing what I thought I was telling them to do, which is always frustrating. Hopefully all the bad shots will be gone for our nine holes tomorrow!

notice how I keep switching between present tense and past tense? It’s very interesting.

After we came home, Aunt Nancy and I went to the store and bought a few things, including peanut butter with which we made peanut butter cookies, currently hidden in my room from my diabetic uncle! they turned out really well, despite my aunt insisting on putting nuts (walnuts no less, not even peanuts!) into them. We then spent about four hours making Indian food for dinner, which was very fun and very good. :)

After dinner Nancy and I went for a walk, about half an hour, and after digging through her bookshelf some more, I then decided to continue work on my blog post, which I am sitting in the “Nerd-hole” doing right now. That would be the tiny little closet of a computer room. So now I think I’ll post this…

We’re coming home on Friday!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!! I miss you guys…*pouts* but the sleepover is soon!

I may not post again before we get home, or I may. I’d like to tell you all a little bit about their house, but I seem to only get the feel for it at certain times, so maybe tomorrow. We might be going to my cousin Leslie’s house in the afternoon, or maybe not, so I guess it somewhat depends on that. Talk to you all later!!!

~Verya~