Asleep on the Subway

This link is for bro-in-law Scott who took a photo of me sleeping on the DC metro: a website called Asleep on the Subway. He could have submitted his picture to this site. But I had the last laugh while oh so innocently letting me look at it on his camera right after taking it I pressed the delete button. oops.

The caption on the site under the picture above was funny: "Seven days after you read this blog post, this woman will attack you through your computer screen." Oh internet! You make such mean fun of us all.

Circus Posters Museum

Circus Posters

I was cleaning out some old links on the 'puter and found this one. I don't remember where I found it or how many years ago but it's a wonderful way to spend some time online if you like this sort of thing. These posters are so lovely.

PianoLand Tales: Ink Splotch Rag: I Give Up.

I've been trying to learn this song for a while now and it's just not happening. Here's Bryan Wright playing it well:

I'm kidding really. I'm not giving up yet. But it's going to take longer than I originally thought. Debussy's Clair de lune is coming along however much to my surprise. But that Ink Splotch is a hand killer. There's this part where multiple chords use every single finger and my hands hurt just thinking about it.

For now I'll just have to drive family and friends crazy by playing The Entertainer over and over again. I've got that one down pretty well. Some day I'm going to take Willy to the Scott Joplin Festival and dork out with a bunch of other ragtime fans. If I see Bryan Wright there I may just have to dork out over him too. He's crazy good. Here he is again playing the song from the bar scene in Star Wars as ragtime:


In other news - it appears that Willy and I are getting an Organ! Because we need at least one type of each instrument in the world in this house.

Online Personal Libraries

I've been thinking of joining a social cataloging ap for books so I could find out more recommendations along the lines of my likes / dislikes. But I'm a little burnt out on learning new web aps and while sign up is easy - I don't know if I want to put forward effort for Library Thing, Goodreads or Anobii.

If you're a happy member of any of these please let me know what you think.

I joined Goodreads as 'dog food sugar' and it wants to call me "Dog" as first name, "Food" as last. 'sugar' is lost completely. "Hi Dog" greets me as I sign in. Oops. That's an unfortunate error.

For now I just catalog my books in Google Books.

I found out the Weekly World News is on Google Books so I may just stick with them. I used to loved to read this! Around 1989 when I was a little lost in my early 20's, I would get a bag of frosted animal cookies (yeah I know) and the latest copy of The Weekly World News and -voila! - I'd feel better within the hour. What better way to make a slightly depressed angst-y young me feel better about life than this.

Kitchen Update

Well we haven't done much with this yet. Brother in Law Scott drew us a prospective sketch and eventually we'll draft plans and all that. But for now it's functional and bright and Willy and I are content with that.

I've taken some time off line for a little bit as you may have noticed. Thanks for coming back. I've been working a lot, spending time with family, trying to make it to the gym... all that good stuff. More on all that later.

Unplanned Kitchen Demo

I've always hated these cabinets. Before you say, but Kate - they're so cute - they're fooling you with that cute 1940's style scolloped piece above the sink, know that they are masking obscene disfunction. I won't waste your time listing the ways just trust me. I've lived with them for 10 years and I know.

So last week Willy and I, well, mostly Willy, just yanked them down. It was rather exciting. It's amazing how fast you can tear something down. We were just sick of them, and the inertia the created in the kitchen. We decided to just take action. Sure, maybe it would be good to have a plan of action, and we do - a loose one. Very very loose.

Part of the fun was finding what was underneath. There was a window, an outlet and what may be the original wallpaper to the kitchen when it was build back in 1925. What nut case covered up an ungrounded electrical outlet?

Learning Spanish: Attempt #1,236,501.

Yes I've tried many times to learn the Spanish language. This current attempt has a little fervor about it however, so I might make some actual progress.

Willy and I are watching the news in Spanish and we practice vocabulary lists together, which is sort of strangely romantic and fun. And I'm abusing all my work friendships with Spanish speakers. Other things I'm doing or plan to try:

1. Get out the label maker and mark everything in the house with its Spanish name.

2. Blip.tv via Hulu and poke around on YouTube

3. Check out all the apps and podcasts for Spanish on my iPod.

4. See what my local library has to offer.

5. Maybe I'll watch Destinos.

6. Or listen to the Foreign Service Institute's course online.

7. Perhaps the BBC has a good program.

8. Take this free online class via the Open University which has classes for everything. Look through some of the free online language courses listed here for Spanish. Also check out Learn Spanish.com.

Let me know if you have other free online tips, good apps or podcasts. There's already a lot here to keep me busy but I'm always looking for stuff that others have used and liked.

Detektivbyran

Victor suggested that I would love this. He is right.

Sofi: a Complete Nutter

We just had a wonderful visit with brother in law Scott. Border collie Sofi - however - oh my goodness. What a mess she can be. I love this nutter dog but she. is. completely. insane. When it's just me and w she's fairly well behaved. But bring another person into the house for a couple days and she can't contain herself. She cannot get close enough to the guest. I think if she could she would crawl up peoples' noses wriggle around until she was in the middle of their brain and still be thinking: I can get a little cloooooser...a littleeeee closer!

A couple weeks ago when cousin Mark was here she was a little better, but now I think she was just honing her craft with Mark: perfecting evasive maneuvers that humans do to prevent her from crawling quickly into their laps and planting big slobbery wet licks all over their faces before they knew what was happening.

A request to anyone out there - PLEASE don't take this as a solicitation for dog training advice. If you don't have a border collie, and if that border collie is not a little nuts - then you have no idea. It is not the same as your lab mix. And then if you ignore that - do not preface your unsolicited advice with a reference to the Dog Whisperer. That show makes me insane.

Here she is - the object of my love and continual frustration, Sofi, commanding me via telepathy to throw the frisbee more. She is not too tired. She can do it even after she dies from exhaustion if I will just hold up my part.

Scooter trouble

Uh oh. The scooter won't start. I was off to go buy the dogs some food as the rain stopped and the little Honda would not start. So I kick started it - but it just shut off after a minute. Looks like the bicycle and I are friends today. I like to brag that Willy and I get along as a one car family. The scooter makes this possible. He has the one car today in Louisiana. I'm missing that convenience right now. As it is to rain all day. I wanted to go to the library, the store and the gym. I can do that on a bike in the rain, yeah? It won't be a miserable experience. It will be lovely, refreshing, the sky's will go easy on me. I'm trying to convince myself. As I write this the rain picks up the pace outside.

Red Road

I watched this yesterday and it was really beautiful and sad. Not for you if you're looking for the feel-good movie of the year. But if you're like me and you like stuff that's Scottish, dark, depressing, desperate, beautiful, tragic, then redemptive - then this is for you. So good.

A micro blog post about Facebook

Well it's turned out to be pretty fun. It is the death of blogs though - everyone is micro-blogging there.

A couple other thoughts:
It is wonderful to have found Jorgiana.
A lot of people I went to high school with list themselves as Conservative Christian.
People you don't know still want to be your friend.

Facebook

So I finally broke down and joined. I was resisting for a while. Thinking I was already late to the party - I'll just wait for the next social networking site. But yet another friend had asked if I were on there and I thought I was being silly - resisting. I should just join already. What's one more internet addiction? It was a little weird how easy it was to find people and for people to find me. And my friend Tricia had this great picture from our high school days.

I was being a brat that day. I actually remember being too cool for everything. I'm on the back row, sporting my 80's hair, my sleeves pushed up to my elbows, my head tilted - from irony - to the side. It's a little embarrassing now. Why did I have to be that way?

Sofi chasing water

We are working out in the yard a lot lately trying to get it under control before the weeds come back and take over again. Sofi, meanwhile thinks - we're outside for some sort of play time. Desperate to find play in anything - she figured out this new game: chasing water from the hose and trying to bite it.

backyard progress

here's a before and after of the backyard:

The yard had pretty much gotten out of control. Gosh it looks really awful in that picture. Then we worked with the guys next door who were building the fence for the new townhomes to build our fence, and they cleaned out a lot of the foliage with one of those big tonka trucks one day when they were taking out a bunch of the construction waste next to us. The builder has been really cool to us.

It was hard to let go of the plants - but it had really gotten out of hand and now we have a clean slate. Before it was really just for the dogs to poop in. Now maybe Willy and I can do something with this space. It's huge by the way. One of the townhomes next door would fit in our back yard.