Monday, March 15, 2004

• Portland has a serial bank robber, a woman with blond hair who wears a baseball cap. She pulled off her eighth robbery over the weekend.

   

  From KATU news:

   

  ST. HELENS, ORE. - The Blond Bandit has apparently struck again.

  The bank robber, for whom Wells-Fargo is offering a reward of as much as $5,000, is suspected of stealing from a branch in St. Helens.

  Beth Anne Steele, spokeswoman for the FBI's Portland office, said agents think Saturday's robber is probably the same woman sought in seven other robberies and attempted robberies in Beaverton, Gresham, Milwaukie, Portland and Vancouver.

  As in other robberies, the 5-foot, 2-inch woman presented a note demanding money.

  "She's very low key, very normal. There's nothing unusual other than she's a woman," Steele said prior to Saturday's robbery. "She walks into the bank, hands the teller a note and walks out with cash."

  Despite her nickname, the woman has been described both as having blond or light brown hair. She is 25 to 40 years old, and weighs about 130 pounds.

  She wore an Anaheim Angels cap during a March 1 robbery in Portland.

  ***

  Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that she's being called "The Blond Bandit?" It sounds so 1930, doesn't it? Or maybe even earlier, like Old West. And so sexist. You'd never hear a man called The Blond Bandit. Whenever I hear about this on the news, it's reported almost as a novelty, like look at this cute little woman robbing banks.

  In other news, it was a very low-key weekend, which was definitely what I needed. I spent lots of time at the dog park. The kids' basketball wraps up tonight and tomorrow night. Yesterday afternoon I folded about 100 loads of laundry.

  The Practice is 1000 times better with James Spader.

  eFairy asks: How is Blue Shoe (the book I'm reading, by Anne Lamott)?

  Well, eFairy, I've never been a huge fan of Lamott's fiction.  I loved her column on salon.com and her non-fiction books, but her fiction has just never grabbed me. Thus far, Blue Shoe has failed to grab me as well. A friend bought it for me when it first came out and I've started it a couple of times and decided that this time I was going to read it, for sure.

  I picked it up this morning so I could read it on my lunch hour, but I put it down somewhere between my nightstand and the front door, and I couldn't find it when I left. I have a few paperbacks in the trunk of my car, so I settled on A Theory of Relativity by Jacquelyn Mitchard. She wrote The Deep End of the Ocean, a book that hooked me good in the beginning, but after I was about 2/3 of the way through it, I was hoping for a fiery crash involving every single one of the characters. I'm not optimistic about this book, but I'll give it a shot. When I find Blue Shoe, I'll probably go back to it.

  I got on the scale today, thinking I had lost weight. I've actually gained 4 pounds.

  I just dreaded going to work this morning.

  Another nice day in Portland today.

  Currently Reading A Theory of Relativity By Jacquelyn Mitchard see related

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