No time for a real post. And, frankly, all I could post about right now is bitter disappointment about last night's Roddick match (*sigh*) as well as concern and horror for what folks on the Gulf Coast are dealing with. Yeeg.
So, instead, pixs from week 5:
Sometimes, there is screaming. Forgive the blurriness. It's hard to hold both the camera and a writhing anaconda.
And, sometimes, there is quiet puzzlement. We like quiet. Mmmmmm...quiet.
You scored as Simon, the Doctor. Simon Tam, a former well-to-do young surgeon and bachelor extraordinaire.
You gave up everything to help your sister, which I respect.
However, you are also pompous and talk too much, which I also respect.
FiREFLY QUIZ created with QuizFarm.com |
Link cherry-picked from Adam.
This morning we went to Café Imperial. It's this grand café in an Art Nouveau style so what I am about to say may surprise you. You're allowed to whip doughnuts at people. Day old doughnuts to be exact. For sixty U.S. dollars you can buy a bowl of stale, hard doughnuts and throw them at anyone you would like. This comes from a novel written during WWII by a Czech humorist that broke down all people into three categories. 1. those who would look at a bowl of doughnuts and think nothing, 2. those who dream of throwing them and 3. those who would actually do it.
I finally managed to watch/listen to the Old 97's Live DVD. Let me be the first to openly admit that I *love* this band, would walk through relatively hot lava to see them and, if my life were different, I would follow them around like some weird Dead groupie. And if I did that, I wonder what I'd sell from the back of the beat-up van. Tie-dyes and bongs wouldn't really work. How about Shiners and gold teeth?
Given this, I was disappointed by the DVD, if only because it reminded me how different the experience of live music is vs. the experience of the recorded stuff. I mean, I love CDs and the like, but nothing beats a show. And the Old 97's live are technically not so great -- lots of bum notes and weird harmonies -- but in person the live act is electric and that is impossible to capture.
The disc reminds me how old we're all getting. I think everyone in the band is married at this point, most have a couple of kids. Drummer Philip is started to look like a paunchy banker. The music has gotten more mature, too. Which is a good thing, simply because you can only have so many songs about how Rhett has screwed up his love life. But I miss the balls-out fire that the boys had when they were boys. It comes out when they play the old stuff, like "Four Leaf Clover" and "Doreen." And I'm reminded of when I used to have that kind of angst and rage and passion. I miss it a little. Yet I love what I have now, too. It's an amazingly mixed emotion that the disc dredges up. "Wistful melancholy" kind of touches on it. There's something else there as well and I don't have the right word to pin it down with.
Still, it's a fun ride, even though it makes me pine for both a live show and a different time. The doc that follows the show is informative and light, if shorter than I'd hoped. No regrets on the purchase, frankly. I'm just more affected by the whole thing than I'd anticipated. Weird.
When feeding the Dude, I like to have some kind of noise on. Usually, it's the Food Network or Discover or the Travel Channel. Yesterday, it was HGTV and the Carol Duvall show. Frankly, most of the stuff on the program is the kind of crafty crap that makes me cringe. Every now and again, tho, she'll focus on some cool artist or craft. Brian Jewett is one such. I covet the ticket bowls and the garden hose cacti. And so should you.
Today, classes start at SUNY-Oneonta (aka SUCO). And, yes, I'm teaching two sections of the same course this term. Yes, the baby is only five weeks old -- but we gotta eat and pay bills and get out of the blasted house. I'm looking forward to being irritated by undergrads again. Yes, this is not a good sign.
The sticky bit is that the Dude can't start at the Diva's wonderful day care/preschool until Sept. 18, which means that we have a few weeks of baby juggling ahead of us. Fortunately, the Hub's dept. head seems to be OK with him carrying the Dude about the theatre in a Baby Bjorn while I teach. Or, at least, if not approved, hasn't object too strongly. Some days, we actually will have friends/family here to watch him (the baby, not Scott), so that we can avoid exposing the boy to theatre at such a tender age. Our hope is that this one won't be attracted to the stage and will do something more sensible with his life. It is too late for the Diva, who knows how to find her light and command attention.
Posting might be sparse, except when it isn't. Still not sure how this will all play out. It's a fluid process, this baby thing.
Oh, and before I forget, we all went to a three-year old pal's birthday party over the weekend. The weather was gorgeous and the b-day girl's backyard was full of little girls in party dresses. It was a hoot.
Of course, we had a camera.
The birthday girl.
Our girl...and I'm feeding the Dude in the background. (And speaking of our girl, she insisted on taking a bath in the baby tub last night. It was a tight squeeze, but she forced her way into the thing. So do you think she might be regressing a bit now that her brother has arrived? *sigh*)
There are 227 days till your next birthday on which your cake will have 35 candles on it.
Those 35 candles produce 35 BTUs, or 8,820 calories of heat (that's only 8.8200 food Calories!) .
You can boil 4.00 US ounces of water with that many candles.
Find out that (and more) about your birthday here.
We are starting to discover what the aliens want. They want baths...
and shoulders...
(could these jammies *be* any cuter?)
and goofy grins...
and really big chickens.
New (actually, it's an adapted Austinmama column) Parenting Imperfect column here.
With the Diva, I spent the first six months obsessively watching Martha Stewart Living and (hangs head in shame) MTV's first season of Sorority Life. Not only would I watch them -- in fact, would time my whole day around them -- I would watch each episode even if I'd seen it nine dozen times before. Consider MSL and the UC Davis girls my comfort TV. I am not proud. And I blame my sad state on prescription drugs and sleep depravation -- but mostly I blame the sad state of daytime tv. It's no wonder shut-ins lose touch with reality. It's a scary, strange world if you can only view it through the idiot box during daylight hours.
This time around, my must-watch shows are The Daily Show and (hangs head in shame) America's Next Top Model. Thanks to both Netflix and our DVR, I don't have to plan my life around my telly. And, no, Jon Stewart isn't nearly as comforting as Martha Stewart, but he does make me feel like my brain still works. And, yes, Top Model is very silly, but, dang it, it's also very good in the same way that Project Runway was good. Not only is there glamour and random cat-fights, there are also real lessons about how the industry works. It's an industry I find fascinating, frankly, which must amuse the crap out of anyone who sees the way I dress on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, only season one of Top Model is on DVD, dang it. After next week, I'll have watched them all. Then what? How will I fill my quality trash TV time? It's too bad we don't get the Game Show Network, cos they're re-running all of the seasons of The Amazing Race that I didn't see. Hrupmph. Don't the evil higher-ups at Time Warner know that mothers of babies need something to watch?