Serenity near home: Treehouse Point

Sometimes what you need is a little fresh air. Lately, I’ve been pretty stressed out and on-the-go. Plus, I’ve been having health problems of the you-so-don’t-want-to-know variety.

Erica McGillivray at Treehouse Point in a treehouse.
Me at Treehouse Point in a treehouse.

Friday was ExOfficio’s creative launch, and I went with the team to Treehouse Point in Fall City. A little piece of paradise outside with treehouses. Yes, real treehouses which people can rent to stay in. Continue reading “Serenity near home: Treehouse Point”

My Trip to Virginia and Washington D.C.

From October 2nd to the 10th, I was on vacation. (And sadly, I’ve been sick since my trip ended due to flying in a human petri dish.) I pretty much scheduled everything back to back. Thanks again to Jason’s parents, Jason’s grandma and great-aunt, and my friends Leslie and Katie for hosting us. We appreciate it. Since I’d never been to Washington D.C. before and am a huge politics buff and love museums, I was tourist-tourist all the time. I took almost 500 photos.

I think my favorite museum was the American Indian Museum, which shows both the history and current lives of American Indians. Don’t miss it if you go to D.C. And this is my favorite photo:

Erica McGillivray on the steps of the Supreme Court.
Me on the steps of the Supreme Court.

Our schedule:

  • 10/2 — Arrive in Virginia Beach, VA at Jason’s parents’ home
  • 10/3 — Breakfast with Jason’s parents, brother, and godparents at yummy Turkish restaurant. Visit Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA. Doug and Carolyn’s wedding and after-party
  • 10/4 — Rest day
  • 10/5 — Visit Brian’s house, Matt’s work, & travel to DC to Leslie and Katie’s home
  • 10/6 — National Mall: Natural History Museum, National Art Gallery, Capital, Library of Congress, and Supreme Court. Delicious dinner at Lebanese restaurant with Leslie and Katie. See monuments at night and FDR Memorial.
  • 10/7 — National Mall: American Indian Museum, African Art Museum, and Sackler and Freer Asian Art Galleries. Drive to Fredericksburg, VA to Jason’s grandma’s house. Dinner with Jason’s entire paternal family, no joke.
  • 10/8 — Breakfast with Jason’s grandma and great-aunt. Drive to Virginia Beach, VA to Jason’s parents’ home. Rehearsal bbq for John and Christine’s wedding.
  • 10/9 — John and Christine’s wedding
  • 10/10 — Fly home to Seattle

Below you can find my other photography. Continue reading “My Trip to Virginia and Washington D.C.”

Sprinkles Around the Web 9/24-9/30/10

Sprinkles from around the web

Yes, it’s back. Here are links that I’ve enjoyed in the past week from around the web. Your mileage may vary.

• First, go nominate @geekgirlcon for the best non-profit over on the Mashable Awards.

• Second, Happy Queer History Month! Or LGBTTIQQA (did I miss anyone?) History Month, if you prefer that.

Me

I bruised the heck out of my foot. Sprained it or something. I had to walk with a cane all last week. Ouches.

Books

A review of Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation. Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman have edited a book about young people who are transpeople and gender queer and RJ’s review just makes me want to read it more.

Writer Greg Rucka gives a preview of Chapter 2 of his new Queen & Country book. I love Queen & Country and am so excited that Rucka’s writing it again. Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 9/24-9/30/10”

Belltown Pageant 2010

Erica at the Belltown Pageant
Me, eagerly waiting. (Photo by Jason)

On Sunday, I went to the Belltown Pageant. The Belltown Pageant serves as a sharp contrast to the Miss America Pageant as the winners, Mr. Belltown and Betty Belltown, must present their best Belltown spirit.

Some contest had talent. Other were humorous. Some were low-brow. Some were classic. And there was some nudity and dildos involved. There were lots of jokes about Belltown’s notoriety as a neighborhood filed with a vibrant nightlight, the homeless, and no police patrol between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.

Overall, it was a lot of fun. The Belltown Pageant definitely goes on my list of awesome things about Seattle. My friend Steve, who participated, didn’t win the title. Which was sad. And my only other criticism was that the Pageant lasted 4 and a half hours, until 12:30 a.m. on a school night.

Erica and Jason at Belltown Pageant
Me and Jason are amazed. (Photo by Emily)
Erica, Holly, Rya, and Steve at the Belltown Pageant
Me, Holly, Rya, and Steve entertain ourselves during intermission. (Photo by either Emily or Jason)

Slideshow of my photos of the contestants trying to win either Mr. Belltown or Belltown Betty.

Sprinkles Around the Web 5/28-6/10/10

Sprinkles from around the web

Two weeks worth of links and other things I found amusing, insightful, or otherwise useful around the web. Your mileage may vary.

Me

• A photo of me on the set of ExOfficio’s Spring ’11 photoshoot. Yes, that’s how far ahead the fashion industry works. (I’m the one with the braid and my back turned.)

• Okay, not really me, but my good friend Steve. His Batman, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Sandman tattoos were featured on Geeky Tattoos.

BP Oil Spill

We Just Tore Up Our Contract with Mother Nature. Chuck does a good job at collecting all the various links about the BP Oil Spill. Warning: He does become ranty at the end, and he’s a horror/fantasy writer so things get graphic.

Leroy Stick – the man behind @BPGlobalPR. Why a fake Twitter account is a thorn in BP’s side and how they seem more concerned about their PR and stocks than the Gulf Coast being destroyed.

Fandom

• Apparently, there are people out there making shows for me, including RuPaul’s Drag U and Men with Brooms: Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 5/28-6/10/10”

Adventures in the Windy City

I went to Chicago last weekend. Jason’s cousin Heather was getting married and we took the time to have a mini-family reunion as it’d been a while since we’d seen Jason’s parents and brother. We then took part of Sunday and all of Monday for sight-seeing in Chicago proper. My full photo set.

Here’s some photography I took of Jason and his family. And then, of course, the photos of me were taken by others.

On Sunday, we headed into Chicago and went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Lincoln Park’s a free zoo in the middle of the city. It was packed as the day was hot and everyone was outside. I love looking at animals, but wow, do people need some lessons on biology and not to be rude to animals. Continue reading “Adventures in the Windy City”

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Recap

The Olympics were awesome.

Jason and I drove up to Vancouver on Monday to my friend Sarah and her sweetie’s home. (Unlike all those suckers who waited in long border crossing lines on the weekend, we breezed through.) They were fabulous hosts and we had a lot of fun with some geeking out. I made these chocolate soufflé cupcakes with mint cream as they are gluten-free for Sarah and the cupcakes were a delicious hit. We went out to awesome Thai food that night and explored some of the highlights of Vancouver Olympic Nightlife. Including standing in a large crowd watching ice dancing and everyone getting emotional. (Jason and Brad were so stoic.)

The next day, we got up early and I was a bad guest who can’t handle the morning and black tea on an empty stomach and got sick. Fail. But I was all better by the time Jason and I trudged off to find the bus to take us to Curling! We just followed the masses to the arena.

And to our complete surprise, we had 1st row tickets! Like you had to be banging a curler or disabled in order to get better seating. We saw Canada vs China (Canada killed them); Norway vs Great Britain (Norway had fabulous pants); Sweden vs Denmark; and Switzerland vs France (they were closest to us). It was awesome and a lot of fun. We drank overly expensive crappy Canadian beer and tried not to yell “Sweep.” (It’s rude to yell while the stones are moving as the players need to hear each other.) I did find it interesting that a lot of non-English speaking teams’ skips mixed their native language and English while making calls.

Some lovely older Canadian women tried to explain curling to us, until we informed them that we knew all about it and had even played it before. They said we could be honorary Canadians for the day. I was also amused by the guy next to me over explaining curling to his 10-year-old daughter when she asked questions. She got on her cell at one point and informed whoever was on the other line that curling “was kind of interesting, but boring.” Adorable.

Then Jason and I went to forage for food near the hockey arena. We ended up eating sushi and watching Canada destroy Russia in hockey. (Poor Ovechkin!) There were a few very loud guys yelling every time Canada scored. We were afraid sushi chefs were going to lose fingers.

We then went to see the Slovakia vs Norway hockey game. It was awesome. Again, I was surprised that we had 5th row tickets. We were to the left of the player’s benches. There were some crazy puck bunnies (hockey fangirls) trying to get the Slovakian players to notice them by throwing themselves as the players during warm-ups.

Only six minutes into the game, one of the Slovakian players was checked to the head and neck and went down. The EMTs came out and hauled him away. And then they cleaned the blood off the ice. It was weird because no one said anything over the announcements the entire time; even after, they only ever announced the penalty the other guy got.

Anyway, the rest of the game was great. It was 3-3 until the 3rd period when Slovakia scored another goal to win it. The crowd was going nuts the entire time. Though it was funny how people cheered for almost everyone or, you know, waved their Canadian flags. Slovakia was definitely the better team, overall. Two or three pucks ended up flying over the glass into our area and then at the end, a player tossed a stick and three rather large men fought over it. The guy who got it’s girlfriend was embarrassed by his behavior.

Oh, hockey, you are awesome sport.

If the photos weren’t enough, there’s video too. Video I took on my phone. Curling is so much easier to video than hockey.

We had a great time, lovely hosts, and everything went pretty smoothly. Winston missed us a lot.

Re-Cap: Bunny Sitting

Erica and NibRecently, Jason and I bunny-sat for one of my co-workers and his wife as they vacationed in a tropical paradise. The rabbit in question’s name is Nib. Nib is a black Mini Rex, which means he’s extra soft as his fur doesn’t have any guard hairs. It also means that when he gets stressed, he molts.

Nib is a very spoiled rabbit. His favorite treats include corn chips and books printed before 1960. Both which aren’t rabbit friendly. But he also like hay, apples, and carrot tops.

For those of you who don’t know, I used to raise rabbits when I was growing up. My first rabbit was an Easter gift when I was 7, and I showed them in 4-H as soon as I was old enough. Going to college was an exercise in not having pets.

Books aside, Nib was a good little rabbit. And also very cute. He liked to run around our condo and snuggle on the couch. Okay, maybe he was actually trying to eat whatever was on our plates.

This was also my time to convince Jason that if we get a pet, we needed to get a rabbit. (Rabbits are the best.) I think Jason really enjoyed having the rabbit around. But I think that he also wants to wait until we have house, specifically a library where we can store all our books and is a no bunnies allowed zone.

Now Nib’s home and I’m sure being extra super spoiled from his parents. Continue reading “Re-Cap: Bunny Sitting”

More Snow

We survived the Snowpocalypse ’08, only to see more snow last night. And freak out.

Thankfully, the warm sun has melted everything. But here are some photos from the last snowpocalypse. The one that caused me to work from home, Jason’s original flight out to get canceled, and for us to go a little stir-crazy when our DVD player went belly-up.

Nightviews:

Nightview Seattle in snow Nightview Seattle in snow Continue reading “More Snow”