My friend Ginny had her Freedom Fest tonight… a party to celebrate her divorce being final.

It started out with food, then a “pleasure party”, then a video of a guy getting a Brazilian wax job (yikes!) and then a video called Puppetry of the Penis, which features two Australian guys on stage doing dick tricks. There may have been more, but Jessica and I left during the last video.

The most interesting part was the pleasure party. I’m not exactly inexperienced when it comes to vibrators, but some of these things were *wild*!!!! They had so much going on that I can’t imagine they would actually do the job; I think they would be more distracting than anything else. Not to mention the quality of these things is usually so poor that they probably would break after two weeks… I bought a few things but no serious electronics. :)

At one point a live waxing demonstration and a male stripper were both on the agenda as well, but apparently they ended up getting dropped. Or we left too soon, hard to say.

All in all, a successful evening; Ginny seemed to be enjoying herself, and nothing too wild and crazy happened.

At the time I told Christina I would be part of her Race for the Cure walking team, I had no idea how much of a workout kayaking would be. So I didn’t really realize what I was getting myself into. Here I am, up eeeaaaarrrlllyyy on a Sunday morning, muscles sore from head to toe, getting ready to hop on the Max. I hope I don’t sleep through my stop… it has never happened before, but conditions are prime for it today!

Now that my hands have had the night to think over what they did yesterday, I have callouses. Exactly like the ones I had from the monkey bars in elementary school. I was proud of them back then; they showed I had really done something. Now it’s just a little bizarre. Next time I go kayaking I need to wear gloves! That’s what the real kayakers do, apparently, but no-one told us.

No-one told us a lot of things, actually, which is how many folks in my group came to be wearing running shoes when we had to step in water to get in and out of the boats, no-one brought water or snacks, some were way too warmly dressed, etc etc. Our guide didn’t even have any band-aids, or any sort of a first aid kit at all. Although we had a great time and no-one got hurt, I think that guide company is an accident waiting to happen…

Spent the day out kayaking with Jessica and a group of her friends in Scappoose Bay. We had a great time but it was *hard* work. I’m not as tired as I expected to be but it’s starting to catch up to me now (at 9:51 pm). I would have expected my arms to be tired but by far the most tired and sore part of my body so far is my hands.

Between this and the white-water rafting, I’m realizing that I am more of a water sports fan than I ever realized. I don’t see me surfing or sail-boarding any time soon, but I definitely want to spend more time doing this sort of thing next summer. Hmm, I wonder what the opportunities are like around NYC??? More research is needed…

Last night Mark and I saw Steel Magnolias at the new Venetian Theater in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon (not a spot normally known for night life). This was not the movie but an adaptation for live theater, done by Bag & Baggage Productions.

My only reason for posting about it to this worldwide audience is because I want this page to come up in Google searches and I want to tell people to *go* *see* *this* *play*. It was absolutely excellent, and I really want to see Bag & Baggage succeed. They deserve it.

From the sublime to the ridiculous…

Mark wanted to go someplace new for dinner, so we went to Hall Street Grill. I’d heard good things about it but had never eaten there. The food was excellent, the prices to match; it’s scary how normal it seems to spend $100 on dinner for two these days.

The first “first” of the night was that I ordered salmon for dinner. As in, a piece of fish, with vegetables. Alex, if you’re reading this you should be extremely impressed; this was a lifetime first. Mark had halibut cheeks and I ate a bite of his too. Whoda thunk it? :)

After dinner Mark wanted to go out somewhere, and suggested a place called Stars. He’d been there before and said it was a topless bar. Ok, been there, done that, no big deal, so we went there. Except it turned out to be a fully nude bar, which made it a little more interesting. I was able to review a wide variety of different boob jobs and waxing styles. :)

The only other time I’ve been to a place like this was in Las Vegas, 20+ years ago. As I recall the girls there were more professional, and the men in the audience under much less self-control. This place was far more laid back (no pun intended :) despite the loud, bassy dance music.

Probably the most interesting moment of the evening was the one dancer who took an interest in me. Not sure if she was just hoping for tips, or if I was actually her preference. In any case, it was an interesting experience to have her dancing for me… she has nice, soft hair, and it smells good. :)

Not a place I’m dying to go back to, but it was an interesting experience and I’m glad we went.

Much afoot lately… things have been really busy here at Chez furfly (that’s the name of my company, for those who don’t know).

Hey – I notice almost no-one is clicking through to read the rest of this post. It’s a long one so I put most of it behind the cut – you need to click on “continue reading” to see the rest.

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Last Friday night Sherri and I went out dancing. At my age that might seem like trying to reclaim long-lost youth, but au contraire – as far as I can recall it was actually the first time in my life that I’ve done such a thing. Yes, I led a very sheltered and boring life in my 20s…

We went to Lola’s Room, where they do 80s on Friday nights, and we had a blast. They have a big movie screen and play the videos for each song, most of which I never saw the first time around. Wow, do they look a) young and b) ridiculous! And I used to think George Michael was such a hottie! Yuck!

The great thing about Lola’s is that the crowd is very Portland, very low-key. Some people dressed up, others dressed down, some normal, some weird, all very mellow and accommodating. Elbows bump, drinks spill, apologies all around (this happened around me so many times that the floor was sticky by the end of the night). No-one cares who you are dancing with; there were obvious gay couples, many straights, lots of groups of friends. And plenty of people dancing alone, too.

Aside from one 20-something nerdy guy (all he needed was a pocket protector, trust me) who asked me to dance late in the evening, I was my usual invisible self. Sherri got hit on constantly, though not by anyone she was actually interested in; two of them were even married. I think I’d rather be ignored than deal with the guys she was dealing with, but one of these days I really need to figure out what I’m doing to make myself so completely unnoticeable.

Aside from it being lots of fun to dance around (and sing along, natch) it’s also great exercise. We were there from 9:30 pm to 1:45 am and moving almost constantly. Who needs aerobics class??

Read on for the story of how someone tried to break into my house, and how the police response was, so far at least, underwhelming.

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