Category Archives: Me Me Me!

This is all about me. Posts in these categories are personal reflections, updates, narcissistic ramblings, and whatever else I choose to be self-centered about. So there!

Want to support a great cause?

Posted in Day Trips, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel by

Sure you do! My friend, Rebecca, is celebrating five years of being cancer-free by climbing to the top of Mt. Adams. During the past five years she has been supported by (and in-turn supports) an organization called Casting for Recovery, which is a national 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that supports breast cancer survivors through a program that combines fly-fishing, counseling, and medical information to build a focus on wellness instead of illness.

Rebecca is planning her climb this September, and the donations she receives from climb sponsors (she’s hoping to get $2000) will be given to Casting for Recovery to support other cancer survivors. Please visit Rebecca’s Hike-n-Fish blog to find out more about her climb, or click HERE to donate. Thanks!

Mt. Adams, by Rebecca Young

An Evening with the Freak Mountain Ramblers!

Posted in Entertainment, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Music and Dance by

And, by Freak Mountain Ramblers, I don’t mean my family…although my family was there with me. Anne and Paul invited me to join them at an outdoor concert just a few blocks from where I live, so I took them up on it. Anne and Paul brought a picnic dinner and my niece, I brought warm chocolate chip cookies (to win over my niece), and the Freak Mountain Ramblers brought the Grateful Dead cover music and washed up hippie dancing with juggle sticks. It was a nice change for an evening – the weather was perfect, and it was so close to my house! Ahhhh…I love northwest Portland…



Yup, he’s still going!

M is for…wait for it…

Posted in Animals, Career, Me Me Me!, Non-cats, Travel by

…Montana! Ha – I’ll bet you thought I was going to say M is for Marci! But I didn’t – I know, shocking, right? Well, it still is for Marci, but as I initially stated, M is also for Montana. Which is where I went just a couple of days after Chris and I returned from Alaska (July 13-15). I flew out to Kalispell, which is just outside of Glacier National Park. I’d only driven through Montana once, several years ago, so the whole place was pretty much new to me and I will say that I quickly learned that M is also for Magnificent. Yes, Montana is indeed Magnificent, Majestic, Marvelous, and M-pressive!

My trip was only Tuesday through Thursday, and much of the time was spent in a meeting room in Whitefish, just a stone’s throw from Kalispell. I was there for a bull trout recovery planning meeting and while it was slightly dry (as opposed to wet, which fish tend to need), our group did get outside one afternoon for a drive up Grave Creek in the Kootenai watershed. We were only a few miles from the Canadian border, which you can see in this picture – there’s a line cut through the trees to mark the interface of our countries. How’d you like that job, trekking through some of the most rugged land in our continent to cut down and maintain a tree-free line?

The Canadian border from the headwaters of the Wigwam Basin.

The following day I was able to spend a couple of hours driving around the south end of Glacier National Park. I found Lake McDonald and the views of the mountains particularly stunning, but the drive through the forest was interesting too.

Lake McDonald, with several peaks in the background (from left to right, Mt. Vaught, Mt. Cannon, Mt. Brown, Little Matterhorn, and Edwards Mountain).

Large portions of the forest had burned in wildfires which made the trees look like skeletal toothpicks – you might think this would be not so picturesque, but you could see the topography of the landscape really well instead of just driving down a thickly wooded corridor. Additionally, seeing the forest regenerating with new growth and baby trees was a reminder that forest fires are a natural part of ecosystem processes, and that they benefit the native species that have evolved to survive with fire as a part of their environment.

One of the burn areas. Note the burned, branchless trees in the background; the vibrant green groundcover is nearly a monoculture of lodgepole pine treelings that are about 2-3 feet high.

Anyway, the water there was incredible – aqua blue from the glacial till – and we took advantage of a shady spot next to the Flathead River to enjoy lunch (I accidentally left my prescription glasses there and had to return for them after realizing they were missing a half hour down the road…oops!). I’m glad I got to see the area, and now I understand why bull trout like to live there!

McDonald Creek – note the beaver lodge on the right that has been there for decades! I’d like to live there too if I were a beaver…

Really? For *this* Dress? Really.

Posted in Complainments, Me Me Me! by

Tell me this is not the most hideous dress you have ever seen. And I will tell you that, in fact, it was purchased from Bloomingdales.com for nearly $300. The dress is not mine, nor could you pay me $300 to wear it. Nor would I pass it along to any of you fine folks for free.

The reason you, dear readers, are subjected to looking upon this eyesore is because some *ass monkey* took it upon themselves to steal my debit card number (I still don’t know exactly how that happened, since I still have the card) and make several online purchases. Two from Bloomingdales, and one from the Apple Online Store. The purchases overdrew my checking account and I received an overdraft protection notice shortly after the second Bloomingdales purchase was made, so I was on the phone with my bank immediately. They actually were great – they refunded the money to my account, canceled my debit card, issued me a temporary debit card, and opened up a fraud investigation.

I also called the police about the matter, since it was unlikely that the bank would actually ever pursue a criminal investigation because the amount of money was so small (just under $500 for bloomies and I don’t know how much from Apple, since the charge was pending for $1.00 when I canceled my account). I wanted to know how people could get away with ordering something online, having it delivered, and *not* get caught. It turns out that they can give a fake address and when the order is returned to the shipping warehouse, they get an email letting them know that the delivery address was incorrect but that they can come to the shipping facility to pick up the package. Or, they can have things delivered to a P.O. box. And, it’s fairly easy to get credit card numbers to sell or give away – at restaurants when you give your credit card away to be run, sometimes an employee will just make a copy of it to keep. Or at a gas station. Or anywhere, really. So keep an eye on your card!

The detective called Bloomingdales to get information on the purchases, which had billing addresses in Kentucky and Texas (i.e., fake addresses), and a delivery address in Alameda, CA. But apparently, someone got nervous because they did a little research to find my work address, and changed the billing address to my work address. And for the second Bloomingdales purchase, they also changed the delivery address to my work address. Which is how I got the dress (which I plan to return, since it is not mine and I didn’t pay for it). Maybe they saw how quickly I caught the fraudulent activity and got scared; maybe they decided they didn’t want the dress after all – I don’t know. But it really pisses me off that Bloomingdales let the purchase go through even though the billing address didn’t match the one on my check card account…if they don’t need to match, why do we even provide that information when we place an online order???

So this begs the question…why would anyone risk prosecution, commit identity theft, screw up someone’s finances, all for such an ugly, hideous dress? The answer, I think, is that there are people out there who have horrible taste, not only in fashion, but in the way they choose to live their lives, with little regard for others and no concept of being accountable for one’s own actions. These are the leeches on our society, and they try to disguise themselves as normal humans with fancy clothes and expensive toys. It’s difficult to tell them apart from hard-working responsible decent folk, but evidently they often wear excessively ugly dresses.

So good luck with the whole karma thing, buddy – let me know how that works out for you. You apparently know where to contact me.

Playing Catch-Up

Posted in Animals, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats, Travel, Vacations by

Yikes! Time has slipped away from me folks, and I realized that with all the stuff going on right now I forgot to actually write about my spring break trip that I took with Chris. I posted a slide show of all the pictures on this blog a while back (you can see the pictures here), but I totally forgot to give you the inside scoop! So here goes…even if it is old news by now.

Sunday, March 28:

We started our road trip by stopping by the Hip Chicks Do Wine tasting room in Newberg where we sampled several yummy wines. However, we wanted to check out a few other places that were going to close at 5 pm so we kept moving down the road to our bed and breakfast, the amazing Abbey Road Farm B&B. The guest rooms are in converted grain silos and the grounds are amazing! Definitely check out the pictures. After checking in (we were the only people there during our stay), we went to downtown Carlton and stopped in at the Barking (a.k.a. Barfing) Frog (we weren’t impressed), and the Tyrus Evan tasting rooms. Then a nice dinner at Cielo Blue – terrific bruschetta and it was free, since the waitress spilled my water in my pasta and comped us the appetizer.

Monday, March 29:

While I’m not normally a breakfast person, I was looking forward to a farm-fresh meal. John and Judi (the owners of the B&B, not my parents) cooked us up a fancy meal of grapefruit (topped with toasted coconut, maple syrup and a raspberry) and crepes (with whipped cream, strawberries and kiwi). John went through an exhaustive list of the tasting rooms and wineries we should visit, and talked about all the people running the wine scene in the Willamette Valley. He knew A LOT about wine and we felt a bit overwhelmed and baffled after all his recommendations. So instead of heading out for wine at 10 am, we decided to tour the grounds, which consisted of us harassing the chickens (ok, so we mainly fed them cinnamon raisin bread), making friends with the goats (we’ll see you tomorrow morning, ladies!), and having John show us around the Agrivino Event Center he built. After, we headed out to The Carlton Winemaker’s Studio where JP gave us a nice intro to the local Pinots (we liked Lazy River and Britton’s Basalt Block) – they have several wineries featured at that tasting room, so it was a nice tour. We then went just up the road to Cana’s Feast to sample their wines…and by the end of that visit we had blown our wine budget (but we have lots of really good wine to enjoy at home!). We drove through Dundee and stopped at the Dundee Bistro for dinner, then went back to the Abbey Road Farm for our second night.

Tuesday, March 30:

We managed to get ourselves up nice and early to meet Ricardo, the goat tender, for some good old-fashioned goat milking fun. At 7 am it didn’t feel like so much of a vacation, but hey, we did want our farm-lite experience. Sunflower the goat was very patient with Chris and my unexperienced hands, but we got the hang of it eventually. After all four goats were milked, we took our pail of milk down to the kitchen to Judi who set it up to pasteurize. We had a delicious breakfast of granola with yogurt and berries, VERY fresh eggs, chicken-apple sausage, potatoes, and zucchini bread with lemon-zest goat cheese.

After that it was time for us to head on down the road. Down that road we made a stop at the Brigittine Monastary (their website has an E-zine…an E-zine!!!) where we were greeted by a very friendly cat who led us to the chocolate truffle sales room. It was tended by a monk who had apparently not quite taken a vow of silence, but who made some sort of promise to use as few words as possible during the day. So we bought a couple boxes of truffles, nodded to the monk, and said goodbye to the cat.

We ate lunch at The Beanery in Corvallis, then visited my good friends Jeremy, Dana, and Autumn Monroe for a couple of hours. It was sooooo nice to see some old friends, whom I’m sure will be in my life for a very long time. They all looked well and I was happy to see that Autumn already has quite the biological vocabulary at such a young age! After that, we kept driving south and stayed the night at the Eugene Hilton. Nothing of note there, really, other than the fact that Sarah Palin would speak at that very same Hilton a month or so later. Boooo!!!

Wednesday, March 31:

We were kind of done with wine tasting (by that point our palettes were very confused) so we decided to head to the coast and stay in Newport for the next couple of days. After leaving Eugene we stopped to see a dreary road-side glassblower in Mapleton, activated my new (i.e., Chris’ old) iPhone in Florence (yay!!!), then drove North and checked in at Green Gables B&B in Newport (we’ve stayed there before and liked it so much we decided to stay again). My friend Julie (from grad school at CSU) lives in Newport so I gave her a call and we met her and her boyfriend Perry at Quimby’s for dinner and drinks – I hadn’t seen her since 2002! She hasn’t changed a bit and it was awesome catching up with her. After, Chris and I checked out a whale skeleton sculpture at a beach park, watched Stardust in our room, then…well, maybe I should just stop there.

Thursday, April 1:

Oh, Thursday. Spring break was going by too fast! We finished watching Stardust (which is a very good movie, by the way), and enjoyed a delicious breakfast in the Italian Cafe (part of the B&B) with food made by sisters Rhonda and Yolanda (or Rho and Yo, depending on how bold you are). We had fresh-baked orange-cranberry scones and sweet rolls, and a cranberry sausage quiche which was amazing…

Later, we went down to Newport’s waterfront which is apparently undergoing a major facelift judging by all the construction. We stocked up on our decade’s supply of salt-water taffy (2 lbs, a variety of flavors), checked out the sea lions on the pier, and window shopped. We had dinner at the Italian cafe – manicotti, chicken parmesean, and orange-chocolate cheesecake – YUM!!! We enjoyed a second night at Green Gables, and had a storm roll in which was reminiscent of the storm we experienced during our first stay. Very romantic!

Friday, April 2:

Breakfast was soooo good the day before that we had the very same breakfast on Friday. It was sad that our vacation was almost over, but as you can see, we took some good pictures and will remember it for a long time. Plus, on our drive home we had Combos! Pizzeria and pretzel flavor – yippee!!!

Our Recycling Program: A Smashing Success!!!

Posted in Career, Humor, Me Me Me! by

I’m so proud of the employees where I work. A few weeks ago, I noticed that there were plenty of recyclable items being thrown away in the trash in our break room, which prompted me to post a few signs pointing out that recyclable items should go in, well, the recycling containers that are about a foot away from the trash. I even used pictures of Terry Tate as motivators. I didn’t think it was working very well because every now and then I’d still see a tin container or plastic cup in the trash; however, this morning’s discovery has convinced me that indeed, there are some *very* dedicated recyclers in my office:

Ok, this obviously leads me to several questions. First, is someone really drinking vodka and making lemon drops at work? And second, why was I not invited to the party???

The Big Three-Six!

Posted in Entertainment, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Music and Dance by

Well, I know that turning 36 is a big deal for most people…it’s such a benchmark in one’s life…so when my friend Cecily from Denver wanted to come out for a visit over my birthday weekend I said “woo hoo! Let’s do it!”. And in fact, it was nice to see not just Cecily, but my friend Andrew from San Diego, and Chris (of course). It was an action-packed weekend, which I will attempt to briefly (or not so briefly, it’s all relative) fill you in on here.

Thursday morning (Feb. 25th, my birthday), Chris presented me with a very nice bottle of wine, two gorgeous hand-blown wine glasses, and a fabulous orange Jersey Shore towel (GTL, that’s what happens at the Jersey Shore, baby) (update: a week later he also gave me a purple/magenta dance top that I wanted – so thoughtful!). I had to go to work that day, which was also incredibly awesome (heh heh heh, rolling eyes now), but after work I met Chris at Melt on 21st right by my house for happy hour. Tasty tots and falafel sliders…yum! But that was just an appetizer really – we swung by the airport and picked up Cecily, whom I hadn’t seen since our adventure in the Chiricauhuas, Thanksgiving 2008 (check out pictures here). Of course, Cecily looked exactly the same as always. Chris researched a few dinner places and we ended up at Siam Society – tasty noodles and hand-ground curry all around. When we got back to my place Chris revealed that he had purchased an angel food cake from – wait for it – a bakery. No cheesy grocery store cake for me! It was soooo good – it had a very light buttercream frosting with raspberry glaze over it, and it even said Happy Birthday Marci on it! What a sweetheart Chris is…awww…

I decided to take Friday off so that Cecily and I could try to find trouble exploring the fine city of Portland. We hopped on the streetcar right outside my apartment, which we rode to Powell’s Books. I subsequently spent way too much money there, but then enjoyed some yummy pizza at Rocco’s for lunch. We then got back on the streetcar and rode it down to the aerial tram, which we rode all the way to the top of the hill – even though it was kind of rainy out, the view was still amazing. We rode the tram back down, got on the streetcar again, then looped around and did some shopping at Buffalo Exchange (start: the Great Fedora Quest). We eventually did the entire streetcar circuit, ending up back at my place mid-afternoon.

Chris picked us up and we drove back downtown where we met up with my friend Andrew, who I used to work with in San Diego. He was in town for a conference so it was good to see him; the four of us walked to Henry’s Tavern for dinner and a sampling of their amazing beer menu (over 100 taps!).

One of our prime objectives for Saturday was to find a fedora for Chris to wear that evening. We decided to hit a thrift store on Mississippi Avenue before my dance class, but alas – they were closed until noon. WTF??? Closed until noon on a Saturday? We waited at Fresh Pot in hopes of a surprise early opening, but that did not happen, so I outfitted Cecily in some bellydance garb and dragged her to my Beginning Neo-Tribal Bellydance 2 class. I think she may have been a bit nervous about it at first, but she has a strong dance background (ballet, tap, swing) so I knew she would have no problem…in fact, I envied her belly-roll skills! I just have belly rolls, no skills. But we had a good time there, nonetheless.

After class we met Chris on Hawthorne for some thrift store shopping. Cecily bought a dress for the evening, but even after scouring 3 stores, we couldn’t come up with a fedora. We did, however, eat a slllooooowwww lunch at Por Que No which was quite delish (albeit a little stressful since I had to scarf as soon as the food arrived so I wouldn’t get a parking ticket).

Cecily and I left Chris to come up with a fedora (and other outfit components) on his own, and later that afternoon, my brother Paul, Anne, and Adelaide came for a visit to my apartment. That kid sure is growing fast…and Abbey knows it (or as Adelaide calls her, “Dabby”). Clearly, the biggest draw for her in coming to my place is Dabby and the choo choo (aka the streetcar that runs down my street every 15 minutes).

The weekend highlight for me was definitely Saturday evening. I’ve alluded to us getting prepped for the night…and for good reason…I purchased tickets for me, Cecily, and Chris to go see The Royal Tease, a burlesque show at the Bossanova Ballroom on Burnside. We had reserved seating with dinner, so we decided to get all dressed up for the event. And as The Baroness says, “any occasion to dress is an occasion to over-dress”. Following that advice, I went over the top, wearing a flashy red cocktail dress, short black wig, and very high heels. Cecily looked smashing in her blue dress, and Chris rocked it with a fedora he purchased at a non-thrift store – it was a combination of leather and striped material – an excellent choice!

The performance was pretty fabulous, with lots of tassels, pasties, T, and of course, A. I think my favorite performers were Charlotte Treuse (amazing tattoos), and Inga Ingenue, who did a really cool toy doll routine and an incredible performance with two giant pink feather fans. The only bummer of the night was that we were supposed to get dessert with our dinner (red velvet cake and cinnamon gelato), but that part of the meal never showed up. And my vegetarian polenta was kinda barfy too, but Chris shared his pork loin and yams so it was all good.

The following day was the last of Cecily’s visit, as she had to hop on a plane first thing Monday morning to return to Denver. We enjoyed a nice(?) brunch at Joe’s Cellar diner (mmm…egg yolk!), the ambiance of which was moodily enhanced by a non-stop musical marathon exclusively featuring Queen and Led Zeppelin. Chris then drove us via the Columbia River Scenic Highway to Crown Point State Park where we stopped at the Vista House, then to Multnomah Falls. It was a gorgeous day so there were plenty of people there, but it gave us excellent photo opportunities. We ended up back at Chris’s house for dinner where he cooked up a delicious meal of home-made crab-cakes and put us up for the night (he lives closer to the airport than me). What a sweetheart!

I’m glad I have such good friends, and that they made my 36th birthday one to remember. If you want to see more pictures, click here. Thanks for hanging in there and reading this not-quite-so-brief blog entry!

Snowmageddon? Really?

Posted in Career, Entertainment, Me Me Me!, Music and Dance, Travel by

Are we really calling the storm that struck the East Coast over the weekend Snowmageddon now? Come on – yeah, some flights were canceled (uh, mine in fact), but really…I’d hardly say that the storm resulted in an armageddon-like disaster. Maybe we should ask the people of Haiti to chime in on this one? Did their natural disaster get a fancy nickname yet?

Yeah, ok, Dulles got some snow, but it’s not like they’ve never seen snow before. Wimps.

At any rate, yes, I had a flight scheduled on Sunday to Dulles (Washington, D.C.) so that I could take a course entitled “Resource Management Implications of Climate Change” at NCTC (the Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center). NCTC is in Shepherdstown, WV, which is about a 2 hour drive from Dulles and apparently currently inaccessible…so the course was generally canceled as well. About 7 brave souls managed to survive Snowmageddon and reach NCTC mostly unscathed (not sure how many emergency amputation were performed yet…news comes slowly when communications are down), so some of the sessions are being broadcast over the web, which I get to watch from work (which is what I’m doing right now…). On one hand I was really looking forward to the course (and racking up almost 16 hours of travel comp time – woo hoo!!!), but on the other hand, I was really not looking forward to spending almost 16 hours of my own time traveling. Luckily, I found out that my flight and course were canceled Saturday night, so I didn’t have to drive to the airport at 5 am on Sunday to get that bit of news. I was very tempted to just not show up at work this week to see if anyone would figure it out…but in the end, my conscience won the battle and I decided to report for duty.

On an unrelated note, I made my modeling debut a couple of weeks ago for a bellydance-wear company here in Portland. It was a lot of fun, but I think some of my pictures turned out better than others. For most of the photos I was wearing this humongous coin bra that made my boobs look incredibly huge – really, I’m more of a B cup kinda girl, and not the FFF that the coin bra makes me out to be. So, to satisfy your curiosity, here’s a photo that will also be featured on the back cover of Yallah magazine next month.

That’s me with the incredibly goofy look on my face and ginormous-looking boobs in the middle of the bottom row. But in case you’re wondering, I’m still dancing, still love it, and am getting a bit less sucky at it! :o) This is mostly due to the constant encouragement, guidance, and entertainment provided by one of my instructors, Ziggy (top left, yellow skirt).

My Blog Shall Not Be Forsaken!!!

Posted in Me Me Me!, Updates by

Let’s see – it’s mid-January and I’m already on my second post of the year. Not too shabby, in comparison to last year’s blog, but we can do better, don’t you think? I haven’t forgotten about my Ultra-Marcilicious blog – fear not! I’ve been waiting for a brilliant idea of what to write, but I’m sorry to admit that it’s probably not gonna happen today. Honestly, I haven’t taken any pictures or done anything that you would care too much about. I’ve been going to belly dance classes regularly, the odd burlesque/cabaret workshop, and hanging out a lot with Chris. Life has been good!

I have, however, put together a little share site on Shutterfly so that you peeps can easily see pictures and photobooks that I’ve assembled. It’s still under construction, but functional to a certain degree. Want to see it? Go here: http://marcikoski.shutterfly.com/

I’ll be taking a little trip this weekend, so hopefully I’ll have some new pictures to post soon. In the meantime, have a fantastic MLK weekend (wow – those are *MY* initials!), and send good thoughts down to all the people in Haiti. I’ve been having a hard time tearing myself away from the news articles and pictures of that whole scene…please donate and help if you can! Any little contribution can help save a life at this point (text HAITI to 90999 to make a $10 donation to the Red Cross – it will be billed to your cell phone).

Suck it, 2009!

Posted in Blogging, Me Me Me!, Updates by

Toodle-loo, 2009! It’s time you moved on. Based on my regular reading of MSNBC.com, it appears that most of the world had a sucky 2009. But I have to say, mine was pretty good. I had some adventures, moved to Portland, got a new job, made new friends. All good things, right? The only bad thing was that I didn’t blog nearly as often as I would’ve liked (ok, so it wasn’t the *only* bad thing), which is probably more of an impact on my disappointed loyal readers than anything else. Could that be the main reason that 2009 sucked for so many of you? If so, I’m terribly terribly sorry. I will try to make it up to you.

And to that effect, let’s just say that things are gonna change around here at A Very Marcilicious Blog. 2010 is gonna be BIG! I can feel it…it’s getting bigger already. The postings will be more frequent and more feisty. The pictures will be more scintillating and scandalous. The links will be more poignant and procrastination-friendly. There might even be a poll or two. And hell…there might just be another blog. Yup – I’m starting to think about another blog highlighting my adventures in online dating, which will be at least as entertaining as the New and Improved 2010 Marcilicious Blog. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, enjoy some newish pictures, which I’ve provided as slide shows to the right. If you’re reading this some time in the future and are thinking that the slide shows are not the ones mentioned here, click these links: Halloween in White Salmon and Christmas in Portland. Good times, everyone, good times. See you on the flip side!