27
Jul, 2005

words of wisdom i found in a book for teens

“There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens and what we do.”

“I never got where I am today by supposin’ I was goin’ to lose…”

–Terry Prachett, Hat Full of Sky

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27
Jul, 2005

up on the roof

so, we needed to replace a section of gutter on our house. and we have trees that shed lots of little bits. and it’s rained here recently. so, rather than immediately fill our new gutters with all of the little bits that were piling up on the roof, the man (should we call him mr. happy or mr. stuff?) asked me to hop up on the roof and sweep the bits down to the ground. we have a very large, not very steep roof. some parts of it are quite high off the ground, but the slope is so shallow that i’m not totally freaked out to stand up there. usually, i have a quite active fear of edges. heights don’t really bother me, it’s just the edges that overlook long drops. see, my brain has this irrational fear that my body will suddenly mutiny and throw itself (carrying my brain along) off of the edge and down the long drop and splat at the bottom. but up on our roof, i only get the slightest zing of vertigo, just enough to make me feel a little giddy. but i can get past that because i love the novelty of being on the roof and not having to cling on for dear life. i love the idea of someday having a picnic up there. i love the new perspective i get from being on top of the house. everything looks so different. i balanced carefully across some open beams to the roof of my carport to sweep the bits off of that roof. it’s a pretty wide beam and not that far of a fall, but it still made me a little bit nervous in a “this is really actually pretty safe as far as risky things go” kind of way.

other roof memories for me include being on the roof of a house in the dominican republic watching the sun rise one morning after a long night of dealing with someone who had had too much to drink and kept waving a knife around, threatening to harm himself. the sunrise felt so clean and hopeful and i was so happy that we’d all survived the night unscathed. i also remember sneaking out of the dormer windows of my cousin’s house on an oklahoma summer night when we were all younger, sitting on top of the roof and joking around. my cousin put his hand on top of my head and moved it around and asked “do you know what this is?” and when i asked what, he most likely wanted to say the classic answer, “it’s a brain sucker and it’s starving” but what he actually said was, “it’s a brainless sucker.”

hmmm…maybe i will have a picnic on the roof tomorrow night.

Posted in summer, trip down memory lane | Comments Off on up on the roof
26
Jul, 2005

my favorite summertime sandwiches

my favorite simple summer sandwich is sliced ripe tomato, yellow cheese (colby or cheddar), and a thin layer of mayo on wheat bread.

my favorite, more complex summer sandwich is on cinnamon-raisin bread. it has pineapple cream cheese, maybe some jalepeno jelly, thinly sliced smoked ham and alfalfa sprouts. i know it sounds a little weird maybe, but…yum. i have all of the ingredients with me today except for the bread. must make a quick run to the piggly wiggly before lunch….

Posted in summer, yum | 1 Comment
25
Jul, 2005

desktop wallpaper

ok. i’ll admit it. i love desktop wallpaper. i love to change my desktop wallpaper. i do it probably about once every six weeks or so. ever since our trip to europe, i have been using a lot of the “arty” shots that i took–mostly around paris.

my favorite source of free, non-commercial wallpapers is here.

and my favorite source of free, but commercial wallpapers is here. these change seasonally and are really nice photos. i usually take them into photoshop and get rid of the um..bits i don’t want to see.

anyone else have favorite desktop wallpaper?

Posted in fun stuff, stuff that makes me smile | 1 Comment
25
Jul, 2005

ginger’s favorite movie

last night, we were watching winged migration and ginger walked into the room. there was a small songbird hopping around on the screen, making appropriate songbird noises. ginger immediately went into the semi-crouch mode that we normally see on windowsills and proceeded to stare more intently at the television than i’ve ever seen her do before. she parked herself right in front of the set for the next few minutes, twitching her tail and following the birds on screen with her whole head. when the views switched more to big v’s of geese flying through the air, she eventually lost interest and wandered off, but while she was interested, i almost thought she was going to make that “ack-ack-ack” noise that she usually makes at passerby avians. we thought maybe we should buy it for her for christmas.

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22
Jul, 2005

art that makes me drool

today, a friend and i biked to paoli, a little town about 15 miles out or so that is a popular biking destination. last year was the first i had ever gone to paoli and even in the last year, it’s gotten cuter. there are now 3 different art gallery-type things, something called the “schoolhouse shops” and (drool) an art paper store. luckily, single sheets of wrapping paper do not travel particularly well on bikes, so i was able to overcome that temptation (my poor friend had to suffer through the store while i explored the nooks and crannies). there is also a lovely cheese shop (love wisconsin) and an ice cream shop (see previous parentheses). we checked out all of the art galleries and bought some cheese (the ice cream shop wasn’t open yet) and were just about to head back to the city when some artwork caught my eye in the fanciest and largest of the galleries. “hey,” i said, “that’s the same artist that’s up in your crazy neighbor’s house! the same one who did her painting of rabbits and devils and stuff!” now granted, that description doesn’t sound all that attractive, and this link doesn’t really do her work justice, but it will give you an idea. i love this woman’s artwork. it is rich, rich with color. it is shiny and smooth. it is surrealism, but it is my favorite kind of surrealism–very realistic looking paintings of things that don’t exist naturally, or at all or at least realism with a twist. everything she paints looks beautiful to me, no matter what the subject matter is. it calls to me from across the room and i could stare at her pieces for hours. on the two times that i’ve visited my friend’s crazy neighbor i have, indeed stared at her painting for as long as i could without seeming rude and my eyes still weren’t sated. sadly, the painting that caught my eye in the paoli artisan gallery was $2500. a little more pocket change than i’ve got. there were some smaller pieces for $500, but i’m not even sure i can really justify that and they don’t have quite the awe-inducing, jaw dropping power of her larger pieces, they’re more like a postcard to tease you with reminders of her larger works. i wish she had her own website so i could drool over them more. i wish she made smaller pieces (like maybe necklace pendants!) that i could afford and not worry that they were but pale reminders of her larger pieces. i would wish that she would agree to have some of her works made into posters, but i don’t think they would have quite the same effect. instead, i’ll just find her work wherever i can and drool at it in the gallery for free. sigh.

update, 4/08:  she now has a website where prints are available for purchase and you can see more of her works.  sadly, neither the alice in wonderland one and the devil/rabbit one that i’ve seen in the past and loved are on her slideshow.

Posted in fun stuff, stuff that sparks a glow in my soul | 2 Comments
22
Jul, 2005

kitty thunder

early this morning, the man and i were suddenly awoken by the sound of thundering kitty paws, up the stairs and under our bed. i saw, out of the corner of my eye, a puffed-up tail, so i figured maybe they’d had a fight, but i hadn’t heard any yowling which is unusual. we went back to sleep. when i woke up, i got ready for my day and then came back to the bedroom to say goodbye to the man. i noticed that my pop-up windshield sunscreen was sticking out from under the bed. it had been by the door last night, waiting to be put back in my car. i said, “honey, did you put my sunshade under the bed?” (i guess i wasn’t quite awake yet, this was a strange question) and he said no and then it became clear to us why the cats had run under the bed and why it had been so much louder than normal. there is an elastic loop attached to the sunshade to hold it closed (supposing one could close it in the first place). our best guess is that some kitty got stuck in that loop and freaked out because this giant sail thing was attached to it and ran under the bed to hide/try to get rid of it. i surely do wish i’d had a video of that.

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21
Jul, 2005

slow and steady…passes some people who are walking

tonight i ran my second 5k race. in my first 5k race (sometime around st. patrick’s day), my goal was just to run the whole thing, no walking. i was thrilled to acheive that in about 36 minutes. tonight, i started somewhere near the middle of the pack and was pretty quickly passed by about 297 people. i think i was in the last place spot for awhile, but there might have been someone behind me–i didn’t bother to look back in case there wasn’t anyone there. then, i passed someone! granted, it was some kid who was having a pretty bad sounding asthma attack and his dad who kept telling the kid to catch up and walk next to him, but hey, i passed them! then, a long while later, i passed two middle aged women that i had been chasing for awhile when they dropped to a walk. i kept on running and almost caught up to a guy who was walking, then he started running and pulled away, but i eventually caught up to him again (ok, he dropped to a walk again) and passed him too! now i was on a roll. runners were walking like flies! by the last stretch of the race, i had passed 17 people and at least 3 of them were running when i passed them. (ok, one of the guys passed me right at the end–i think he couldn’t bear to be beat by a girl, so i guess that means i only passed 16 people?) and the big news is: i beat my last race time by 4 minutes! i ran 5k in 32 minutes and some seconds! woo hoo, me!

Posted in sporty stuff, summer | Comments Off on slow and steady…passes some people who are walking
21
Jul, 2005

music to rush by to

after our trip to texas, i lost a post (computer glitch, grrr) and couldn’t remember what it had been about and have been a bit distracted ever since to think that i lost a happy thought. i know, i know, i should adopt a more zen-like approach and let things go (like when mom and i worked on a puzzle that weekend until 2 a.m. one morning. we weren’t even halfway done yet, but because we were in a borrowed gathering room, we couldn’t just leave it and finish the next day. so, we tore it up and put it back in the box. futile? yes. unproductive? yes. but, like raking patterns in sand around rocks, mesmerizing and relaxing.).

that being said, i think i remembered my lost happy thought, so here it is! enjoy!

upon arrival at the chicago airport on the way home, there was a man playing a flute in one of the underground tunnels that we had to pass through to get to the shuttle center. he was playing “if i were a rich man” which i thought was wonderfully ironic. as we passed by and down the hall, he segued into the sesame street theme song. i wondered if a kid had walked by to inspire the tune switch. it was very cheerful.

he reminded me of the subway musicians we saw in paris and london. there were quite a variety of instruments and musical styles and it was interesting to me that some of them seemed to have regular spots that they played in. in the short time that we used the public transportation systems while visiting those countries, i could still sometimes recognize that we’d been in certain stations because i recognized the musician or the music. sort of like aural landmarks. i specifically remember one guy in paris who played some sort of synthesizer instrument (looked like a stripped out violin) that added in accompaniment background bits while he played “i did it my way.” is it muzak if it’s live?

Posted in fun stuff, la la la!, stuff that makes me smile | 3 Comments
21
Jul, 2005

the golden slippers

late last night as i was biking home, past the creek, i saw some people fishing. this city has some really dedicated fisherpeople. you can see them pretty much any day (or, apparently, night) of the summer on docks, leaning over bridges and sitting beside creeks. i had never seen anyone at this particular spot before, but what caught my eye were a pair of shiny gold pumps slouched beside one of the white plastic five-gallon buckets that they use to haul away their catch. i didn’t catch a glimpse of the woman (or at least, i assume it was a woman who had worn them there) because it was too dark and i was biking by too quickly, but i had to wonder what the rest of her outfit looked like.

Posted in stuff that makes me smile, summer | Comments Off on the golden slippers