BANG!

I shot the sheriff… but I did not shoot the deputy.

You might be saying these very words when you come over to our place and play our new game “Bang!” with us. Every player is assigned a role at the beginning of the game (sheriff, outlaw, renegade, deputy) and you must play your cards right to fire shots at your opponent. The roles are secret except for the sheriff, so it’s your goal to figure out who the other players are so you can shoot them before they shoot you! But if you’re the sheriff, you better not kill off your deputy or you’ll lose all your cards!

It’s a pretty fun game and has just the right mix of chance and strategy. We had a few friends over the other night to play.

 

 

In the end, even my Winchester couldn’t save me.

January Jones on SNL

January Jones hosted last week’s Saturday Night Live, but her comedic craft doesn’t seem to be as honed as her dramatic. Too much “Mad Men”. Below is my favorite skit, although she did make a lovely (albeit flatulent) Grace Kelly in the “Rear Window” skit.



Also, I knew the SNL performance stage was small but it looked especially tiny when they crammed a band AND the four members of the Black Eyed Peas onto it. And props to the BEP: if your main singers aren’t going to play instruments then they better be high-energy and dynamic, and they were quite entertaining to watch even if Will.i.am was using Autotune (someone must’ve learned from Kanye’s SNL performance).

Taylor Swift on SNL

Taylor Swift hosted Saturday Night Live last weekend and this was my favorite skit.

Encounters of the creepy kind

For the record, I Googled orb spiders to find a picture for this post but got too creeped out and had to close the page.

We all know that moms will do anything for their babies, right? Last weekend, I helped a friend clean up her deck where a bunch of her cardboard boxes had fallen victim to the recent rains. We pulled one of the boxes out from the wall and discovered a fat beige orb spider sitting on the other side of the box and crouching over what appeared to be an egg sac. My friend didn’t want to kill the spider so I coerced it onto a piece of cardboard and flung it a few feet over a four-foot cement wall that separates her deck from the grass. The grass on the other side was at the same height as the top of the cement wall (her apartment and deck are below ground level) so I watched the spider crawl away from us. The egg sac suffered a less fortunate fate and we continued breaking down boxes. About 10 minutes later, I turned around and that SAME spider was crawling back over the wall toward us. I’m no spider whisperer but she looked pretty angry. I might have screamed. Even though the spider obviously held a grudge, we nudged it back onto a piece of cardboard and flung her further this time. She didn’t return (at least in the next half hour while we were still there), so here’s hoping that neither of us will be haunted by mama spiders looking for their babies.

Let's go on a tour

We have friends in this weekend from out of town, so we get to play Seattle tourist! Everyone does the same thing when they visit Seattle so I'm guessing our pictures will include the following:

• Posing with a fish-thrower
• Everyone piled on the bronze pig at the market
• A bottom-up shot at the base of the Space Needle
• Posing at the original Starbucks, A Moment in Time in the background
• A shot at Gas Works Park, the city in the background
• A shot at Kerry Park, the city in the background

Any other suggestions? Now if only the weather would cooperate...

And time goes on

When I was in eighth grade, all the eighth-graders were paired with first-graders as reading buddies. My first-grader and I hit it off, and I babysat for her family through my high school years. Now that first-grader is a high school senior and will be traveling to Seattle tomorrow to check out my alma mater, Seattle Pacific University.

It’s not that I feel old, because I don’t. It’s just strange to think that my little first-grader is not so little anymore, is in fact a good eight inches taller than I am, and ready for college life.

And time goes on.

Hacking through red tape

I’m so tangled in red tape I can hardly move.

After the wedding, I changed my name on all vital documents except for one: my car registration. I’m not sure how this slipped through the cracks but I didn’t deem it too important, even when I renewed my tabs. Online renewal removes the possibility for awkward questioning by city clerks (and my tabs were expired anyway). Little did I know how this would come back to bite me.


We’ve moved into a neighborhood where most of the street parking requires a zone permit unless you want to park blocks away or risk a ticket (and you WILL be ticketed). The requirement for a permit is simple enough: a copy of your car registration and a copy of a document proving you live in your specific neighborhood zone, i.e. a lease agreement or an electric bill. Fair enough. One problem: the last name on your car registration must match the last name on your other document. My names don’t match.

So change your registration, Heather. I’M TRYING. My car is a leased car, which has made this process all the more difficult. My first rational thought is to go to the Department of Licensing. Makes sense, right? I checked their Web site and learned that if you are leasing a car, you must change your name with the lienholder of the vehicle. I switch course and contact my lienholder. They change my name in their system and tell me they will send me a copy of the registration in the mail, as they cannot fax it. Great, I say.

Three weeks go by and I have received nothing. Meanwhile, we’ve moved and received our first ticket. I call back my lienholder and explain the situation. Now they tell me that they cannot send a car registration as only the Department of Licensing has those. Cool. Maybe you shouldn’t have misinformed me three weeks ago? They say I need a power of attorney form to take to the DOL office, and can then change my name. Great, I say. They tell me they are faxing the form and I should get it within the hour, for sure by the next day. In the meantime, I call the DOL to make sure this form is what I need to change my name.

“Oh you don’t even need that form!” is her pert reply. “You just need to come into an office with your marriage license and current ID, and a copy of something that shows you changed your name with the lienholder.”

“Ok…” I say. “Maybe your Web site should be a little more specific as to your instructions for lessees.”

“It is a bit confusing,” she says. To say the least.

I never got the fax from my lienholder, but I went into a DOL office today with all the documents they told me to bring. I was promptly informed that I needed the actual title of the car. But I don’t HAVE the title because I don’t own the car! Well, the clerk says, your lienholder needs to give it to you so you can bring it in and change your name. The clerk suggested sending in my mismatched documents to the zone permit office anyway. “They should be able to put two and two together,” she said. To which I reply in my head, I’m not too sure of that, YOUR office doesn’t seem to be doing too good of a job.

By now I’m near tears at this whole debacle. All I need is a blasted parking pass. I called back my lienholder, and they told me they wouldn’t send me the title. We went back and forth, and the customer service representative finally agreed to put me on hold and see if they had it in their office. She came back a few minutes later and told me that she found it; would I like it faxed or mailed? Who says I can’t get things done? The fax is due to arrive in my office today or Monday. The saga continues.