Superstar!!!

Posted in Entertainment, Music and Dance by

Much like Molly Shannon as her Mary Katherine Gallagher character, I have secretly yearned to be a superstar: worshiped by audiences, adored by fans, and lusted after by teenage boys who have posters of me above their beds. And yes, dear admirers, that day has come – for I have survived my very first bellydance performance.

Ok, I’ll admit that I was a bit nervous. I’ve been taking neo-tribal bellydance classes at Euphoria Studios for a while now and about a month ago we started rehearsing for the annual student show. There are three beginning 2 neo-tribal classes (which is the one that I take) that performed together to do a veil and improv piece; I had my doubts as to whether it would all come together or not because we hadn’t all practiced together in the performance studio (no mirror to watch everyone else!). But in the end, all of us coalesced into a colorful veil-spinning group that made it through the performance without anyone tripping on a veil or passing out. And I didn’t even get blocked by anyone trying to hog the spotlight from *me*! As if they even could…hee hee hee! :oP

Chris took some really nice pictures of our group and the other performers, and I was happy to have him in the audience cheering me on. Yes, I had my concentration face on, but I tried to remember to smile and shake it like the best of them! It really was a lot of fun and I hope that I get another opportunity to perform for such a supportive and enthusiastic audience.

A *Sunny* Weekend in Seattle?

Posted in Travel, Vacations by

Yes, I know I’ve gotten a little bit behind in my blogging. But I’m still here, right, so that’s a vast improvement from last year (and by the way, I’ve already surpassed the total number of blog entries that I wrote in all of 2009. Yay, me!). So in an effort to catch up, I thought I’d tell you the story of a sunny little weekend adventure that Chris and I took up in Seattle a few weeks ago.

We drove up on the afternoon of Friday, May 7 and made excellent time, narrowly missing the closing time of Starbucks (whew!) by convincing the drive-through attendant that he should definitely let us order a strawberry-banana vivanno smoothie. Additionally, I tried my first crispy bean burrito at Taco Time, which was excessively yummy and aided in padding my ass so that I am better equipped to enjoy long car rides. Chris had made reservations at the Hotel Monaco, right downtown, and we were lucky enough to receive a free upgrade to a suite…it even came with fancy animal-print robes and free honor bar treats (up to $10 value, please)!

On Saturday we summoned our car from the valet (Chris dials the valet…ring ring…”Hello, Mr. Sigman – will you be needing your vehicle this morning?”), who was named Mario and who, I’m fairly certain, was an undercover secret agent spy who only had the valet job so that he could grab a car to make a quick getaway which would likely involve jumping over an open drawbridge. Seriously, Mario was a bad. ass. with his shaved head, fancy suit, and little secret agent earpiece with the curly wire down the back of his neck. I decided that it would not be in our best interest to mess with him, so Chris tried to tip him well.

Anyway, we headed out for a delicious breakfast at Glo’s (coffee cake and huevos rancheros…yum!), did some shopping, then walked around the International District where we explored Uwajimaya, a huge Asian grocery store with all manner of sea creatures (yes, to eat), vegetables, boxed and canned goods, and household objects. They also had a food court area where I bought a couple of pork buns, but I can’t say that they were among the best I’ve had.

I also was told not to take pictures of the roasted ducks hanging behind a counter. But take that, Uwajimaya! I got me a hanging duck picture!

Later that afternoon we drove north of the city just a bit to say hello to Chris’ dad, Walt, who still lives in the house Chris lived in as a kid. It was nice to meet him, and the garden in his back yard was amazing – I especially liked all the rhododendrons (blooming in purple, orange, and white) and the several varieties of Japanese maple he had. After that, Chris and I drove down to Bothell to his mom and grandmother’s house where we met up with them and his Uncle Bruce. My hair was passionately molested by one of Cynthia’s kitties (Peep), who apparently has some sort of uncontrollable fetish. We went out for a Mother’s Day dinner at Grazi’s and enjoyed some delicious Italian fare. I don’t remember much beyond that because I think I was in some sort of food coma. So full!!!

Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day – warm and sunny. The day before, I learned that Chris had never actually eaten dim sum, so I found a reputable dim sum restaurant in the International District and away we went. Jade Garden was completely packed, but Chris and I were one of the few non-Asian patrons so I considered that a good sign. In the waiting area there were all these aquarium tanks full of crabs and fish and things that were still alive but waiting to be eaten. After about a half hour (Seinfield, party of four!) we finally got a table. The dim sum carts did their little parade and before we knew it, we were stuffed with *good* pork buns, shrimp balls, and other tasty morsels (but no chicken feet or black jello; although the pork noodles were flaccid and slimy). Success!

After brunch we (so sadly) checked out of our room at the Hotel Monaco and said farewell to Mario. But since it was such a nice day we decided to explore Pike Place Market, which was super-crowded with people who were also out enjoying the day.

It was a fine, fine way to spend the weekend, and I had a good time meeting Chris’ family. We’ll definitely go back to the Hotel Monaco and I recommend it highly! If you want to see all the pictures we took that weekend, you can view them in the slideshow at right, or here.

Mo’ Modeling, Mo’ Modeling, Mo’ Modeling!

Posted in Entertainment, Music and Dance by

In case you’ve been wondering how the whole belly dancing thing has been going, it’s been great! I’m taking a couple of classes each week between a few different instructors, all different, all amazing dancers. Ziggy (below, red hair) got me into modeling for an online belly dance clothing company; we did a couple of photoshoots in May, and it was a lot of fun getting all fancied up in clothes I would otherwise never get to wear! Here are a few shots of me doing my thang.

Ok, this last one didn’t make the catalog; I was just goofing around and the photographer snapped the shot. Dang it! That will teach me…maybe…

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!!!

Uh oh…boobies and bellies ahead!

Posted in Entertainment, Music and Dance by

I had some reservations about posting these next couple of photos on my blog, but I figured that if you’ve been reading Marcilicious this long, well, you probably have a pretty strong stomach and/or good gag reflex control. Don’t worry – you won’t get to see my actual boobies, just my bra, er… bellydancing costume, complete with belly. I started taking a new bellydance class and met a woman (Darcy) who has a henna tattoo business (Lady Henna – check it out!) and she asked if she could henna me up and put the pictures on her website. Woo hoo! Free henna and pictures! So, I headed out to her house and got all fancied up and Darcy applied henna goo to my tum tum and hand, which took about 2 hours. The pictures were taken on Fairview lake, and it was FREEZING (good thing that bra was padded, y’all, or you would’ve gotten to see even more of me than I’d be comfortable with). But I got a couple of good pics out of it, and Darcy is super talented and nice. If you’re in the Portland/Vancouver and want some henna work done for your performance or whatever, please give her a call!

PS – I’m still working on a post for you about spring break, but it’s long and there are a lot of pictures to sort through. And there will be video even! Of chickens and goats being milked! I know you’re excited…I’m working on it, so keep your shirt on (or at least your bra).

A New and Less Interactive Marcilicious Blog Feature!

Posted in Blogging, Humor by

Alright, folks – since my attempt at interactive blogging failed miserably (only SEVEN of you bothered to respond to my poll question about your favorite Girl Scout Cookie…for real…) I’ve decided to implement a new feature here at A Very Marcilicious Blog. It is a feature that will require much less effort on your part, aside from what energy it might take to lazily move your eyes from left to right (hell – and if that’s too much effort, just cover up one eye and use the other one) to read three lines of text. Yes, that’s right: I will be writing a weekly haiku for all my lucky readers to enjoy! You can find the weekly haiku off to the right side of this blog. The topics will be somewhat random, but feel free to leave a comment or send me an email if there’s a subject you’d especially like to see addressed with a haiku.

And for all who might’ve forgotten, a haiku is a three-line poem consisting of five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five again in the last. Got it? Enjoy!

So long, dear pup!

Posted in Animals, Non-cats by

This past Saturday we had to say goodbye to Teddy Bear, my pup who almost made it to age 17. Wow – can you believe he lived that long? He’d been having health problems for a while, but in the end I think it was the arthritis in his back and hind legs that got him – he apparently slipped and injured his legs and yelped every time he tried to sit down. I feel confident that it was the right time for him, and I’m so grateful that my mom, Nik, and Uncle Danny were there with him to the end. I’m sad that I could not be there. So, just for the Tedster, here’s a little poem to send him on his way:

Ode to Teddy Bear

O’ Teddy Bear, my geriatric pup
When we first met you were quite a hiccup
For my life was simple with two easy cats
Then you came along with your high maintenance combats
You whined and you followed and begged and were rude
All in the hopes of a morsel of my own human food.
But I realized soon that you just needed care,
So I walked you, fed you, and groomed your shaggy hair.
It was not long before you were my dog
Or I was your person (who remembers in this fog?)
You were ten years old when I brought you along
With me to SoCal – I didn’t think you were so strong
That you would survive all these several last years
But you did it, you lived through the blood, sweat and tears.
Sometimes I resented having you but now I’m glad
That I gave you more than you would’ve otherwise had.
I wish I could’ve given you a fuller life
Because you deserved better than days of dull strife.
My saddest moment came when I left you with Mom
But it was also the best because she helped you along
And she gave you attention, walks and love
And treated you with the softest kid gloves.
I hope you enjoyed your last several months
In doggy retirement, on all relative fronts.
I hope that your final journey was peaceful in pass –
And that your soul is sunny, playing in grass.
I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you in the end
But you’re in my heart, my short, furry, doe-eyed, devoted dear friend.

Just a quickie…

Posted in Animals, Humor, Non-cats by

I *do* have some fun things to write about, but since I’m a bit pressed on time, I’ll just leave you with this gem and say happy Monday. Now I’ve got to get back to mine (Monday, that is)…enjoy!

Montana Pole Dance!

Like it was even going to be close…

Posted in Entertainment, Humor by

There you have it, folks – samoas are in fact the best Girl Scout cookie EVER. Out of seven votes (ok, people, that is really pathetic in itself and I wonder why I even keep writing this blog…you’re lucky I like you guys so much…) 4 people voted for samoas and 2 people voted for more samoas. One person voted for “other”, and I happen to know that his favorite cookie is the tagalong (chocolate covered cookie with a peanut butter layer), but obviously, 2nd place wasn’t even close. Viva la samoa!!!

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???