And I would walk 5xx miles . . .

I've always liked I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers. I think it has something to do with the accent. Anyway, even though I think I walked 500 miles today and I would not walk 500 more I would consider hiking the 5.2 miles Jeff and I hiked today some other time.

We decided to go see Multnomah Falls today since it appears that for the foreseeable future we're going to have a good chance of rain every day. I think this means it's winter in Oregon. Or the rainy season. *sigh* :( I'm not very excited about that since near as I can tell the only good thing about a rainy day is taking a nap. And while I'm a huge fan of naps I don't think I need one every single day from October until whenever spring and sunshine come back to Oregon.

Anyway, back to Multnomah. It was a fun day. We saw lots of nifty things. We started at the Return Trail and hiked our way to Wahkeena Falls. On our way, we saw:

These adorable little purple flowers.


This really neat wall of moss that has water trickling down it. Even though it was gray and overcast the wall just sparkled in the light. Next time we go back, we're going to have a new pretty camera that takes better pictures so you can see it. As it is, pretend it's a wall that looks like Edward (or any of his family members) in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series.


Smurf houses! I assume next time we go back I'll actually be able to see the Smurfs in the houses with the new SLR camera we decide on.


And then we saw the Wahkeena Falls.


Then we hiked some more. And saw the Fairy Falls. Can you believe there's not a Wikipedia article about them? They were my favorite falls! And our camera seems to be on it's deathbed and is convinced that all batteries are dead, even if they're brand new so we didn't get a picture of them. Shortly after the Wahkeena Falls our camera died. That left us with pictures taken on our Blackberries. We figured they'd be scary, so we didn't take too many with them. And unfortunately they're not worth posting. :(

Next time I'll listen to Jeff when he suggests being conservative about taking pictures because we still have over 4 miles remaining on our 5.2 mile hike.

The rest of the hike was beautiful. The Wahkeena Springs were fairly unexciting. I was expecting water bubbling up from underground and it was just running out of the ground. There's no Wiki article about those, either. So I'll leave the googling of pictures up to you. On our downhill walk, we saw Ecola Falls which were neat and Weisendanger Falls. And seriously, what is up with Wikipedia?! You'll have to google them yourself, too. They were both gorgeous waterfalls.

At the bottom we finally saw Multnomah Falls, which were kind of the least exciting in my mind. They're very tall. And they're hard to photograph because they're so tall. They have a bridge that goes over the break between the upper and lower falls that is really cool. And at the bottom they have this fantastic little lodge (we're ignoring that I'm slightly miffed that it can be called a lodge but doesn't have rooms to stay overnight in) that has the most amazing smoked salmon fetuccini I have ever had in my life (well, technically it's tied with the crab fetuccini I had in Rapid City, SD when we were driving through there on vacation a million years ago).

Everybody needs to come visit us. My Uncle J did! He stopped by last night and took Jeff and I out for dinner. It was awesome to see him and we had a really good time. Summit performed her tricks and galloped like a horse through the living room. Food was excellent. Stories were amusing. There's plenty of Oregon to share!

Irony

So I got my copy of Breaking Dawn last night. We left around 10:30 and got to Barnes & Noble around 11ish. We walked in and got a wristband then wandered the store for a bit. They stated calling groups, and when they called our group we ended up being first in line. We waited a lot less than some people who had pre-ordered. It's kinda fun being one of the first people on the East Coast to have a copy of Breaking Dawn. My receipt said the time was 00:01.

The ironic part of all this is when I woke up this morning both Edward and Bella the Bettas had passed away. :(

It was not such a good way to start the day. The book isn't completely fabulous like the others were, either.

The upside is that we don't have any food in our apartment, so we ended up ordering Wings Over for supper. There don't seem to be many wings places in Boston, and they generally do a decent job. Oh, and also I got to eat Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast. We don't have it often, but it hit the spot. And because I was feeling sad Jeff let me get a croissant with egg & ham AND a double chocolate donut!

Bella-chick(s)

Bella is my beautiful female Betta. I don't remember exactly when we got her, but it was sometime after February when we got Edward, the boy Betta. They were in the same tank after getting bad advice that they could live happily ever after with each other, which was totally wrong. We put up a divider but she's a sneaky little thing and devised various ways to get around, under and over it to Edward's side. You'd think this means that she likes him, but instead she preferred to nip his fins and shred them up. :(

I finally got tired of it and went and bought her a little 1 gallon aquarium to live in until we move to keep the peace. She seems to like it there and is especially fond of her plants. Today, her heater finally showed up. So I changed her water and stuck it in, and hopefully soon (it's taking far too long, if you ask me!) her water will be a nice and toasty 78 to 80 degrees. That should make her happy.

Isn't she pretty?

Has anyone realized where I got my Betta's names from? :) And also realized what day it is? Jeff and I are going to a midnight release party tonight to pick up the last book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. I've been reading like a mad woman for the past two days so I could get caught up and sucked back into the series. I'm about halfway through Eclipse, so I'll make it with time to spare.

And the best part about the whole thing? There's a Cheesecake Factory that's open until 11:30 so I get cheesecake!

The Cats & MBTA

We've had Summit (the white cat, for those who don't know) for almost 3 years now. Mitzie (the tuxedo cat) has been with us for about 2 and a half years. Last night, they both plopped down in my lap for a nap - hey that was a good rhyme! - and cuddled up like this. In the time that we've had both of them they've never cuddled up together. I mean, Sum's got her head plopped down on Mitzie! We were amazed!

Remember my issues with the T that I posted about yesterday? Jeff recently signed up for Red Line Alerts from the MBTA. They send him an e-mail whenever there's an issue with the Red Line trains, which is the line he takes from home to work every day. He gets at least a few almost every day; we nearly died when we realized this past weekend he went an entire day with no alerts.

The real issues I have are that they happen so often, and the MBTA so underestimates the time that it will take to resolve the situation.

Yesterday there was a disabled train; the delay was supposed to be 10 to 15 minutes. They sent the first e-mail at 6:45 pm. At 7:47 pm, they sent the follow-up that said everything was now fixed. That is so not 15 minutes! And less than 2 minutes in a dark scary tunnel is more than enough to freak me out.

I also don't think it's necessary to post an alert saying they have a suicidal rider at a particular station. Can't they just say they have a rider issue? A medical issue? I don't need to know that they're suicidal; it just makes me sad. And now I have to wonder if that person is OK.

As a side note, where did my dictionary.com option go in my google toolbar? I wonder how long it's been missing . . . anyway, back to reading Twilight. I need to finish the 3 books before midnight tomorrow when I get to go get the new one!