| Poem for Tuesday and Endless Winter |
[Feb. 9th, 2010|12:23 am] |
( The Fit )
Nothing exciting to report here except that the small snowstorm we were supposed to get on Tuesday evening is now expected to be a major storm lasting from midday Tuesday through evening Wednesday and dropping 10-20 inches of snow on top of the snow we already have piled everywhere. My father took my kids out for pancakes, then to watch National Treasure on his big TV; ![[info]](http://piktures.deadjournal.com/userinfo.gif) apaulled was working from home, so I stayed and had lunch with him, then worked on chores until mid-afternoon, when we decided we had better visit the drugstore and food store before the next storm hit.
After spending the better part of an hour in line (and we didn't even buy toilet paper, though we couldn't have gotten fresh produce if we'd wanted to -- they were completely wiped out of lettuce, peppers, etc.) Then we went to my parents' for dinner and to retrieve the kids -- we may not see them for days, since we all may be snowed in again. Came home and watched the season finale of Heroes -- are they off till September so early? And are we positive they're getting another season, given the decline in plots ratings? ( Spoilers. )
( Get Used To It ) |
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| Poem for Monday and Super Bowl |
[Feb. 8th, 2010|12:06 am] |
( Money Talks )
We had a very quiet morning courtesy the Blizzard of 2010, which has left many local roads impassable and most parking lots unusable. My kids' schools have already been closed for the next two days, and since we're supposed to get another storm with another 4-5 inches of snow on Tuesday night, that may not be the end of it. My parents finally got their power back, as did my oldest friend, who sent an e-mail announcing that her family's annual Super Bowl party was on, though they couldn't get the foot long subs and chicken wings they usually serve so there would be more of an emphasis on shrimp and cheese. I would have been delighted to go no matter what we ate, but she warned that her neighborhood hadn't really been plowed, so we might have to park several blocks away and walk. The prospect of walking back and then driving home on slippery roads after dark made us nervous enough to decide, reluctantly, that we probably shouldn't go.
So we had our own Super Bowl party, for which Paul served homemade low-salt tortilla chips and cheese dip, plus veggie buffalo wings, hummus and pita, fresh bread with peanut butter, and homemade Mississippi Mud Cake. We were all rooting for the Saints here, mostly because we love New Orleans and felt that the city deserved to have something nice happen, though as Maryland residents we also have some residual resentment toward the Colts for sneaking out of Baltimore in the middle of the night. I like Indianapolis's new coach, I like Peyton Manning, I'd certainly have rooted for them over Dallas or Philly, but it was the Saints' turn. ( More Super Bowl blather. ) Now we're watching the news, warning us that local roads are still bad and will get worse when temperatures go below 10 degrees tonight...
( Morning After Snowpocalypse ) |
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| Poem for Sunday and Snow Everywhere |
[Feb. 7th, 2010|12:02 am] |
( Sunday Afternoon )
The Blizzard of 2010 dumped more than two feet of snow overnight and all day Saturday, which did not break the 1922 storm record but that is fine with me considering that lots of people died in that storm from roof collapses. We lost power briefly during the night, resulting in our sleeping late since we couldn't tell what time it was, but we were lucky -- my parents and several local friends had no power for hours. Mostly we had a quiet day interspersed with snowy kids coming in and out -- we recruited them for a lot of the shoveling, particularly dumping the snow off the deck before it could bring down the deck. The neighborhood was quite quiet and peaceful considering that the plow got stuck in the middle of the night, so they sent a smaller Bobcat-type thing to scoop up piles of snow and dump it in bigger piles off the middle of the street, which did not make it possible to move vehicles any distance, as a couple of our neighbors discovered.
So we had a quiet, relaxing day, mostly reading and catching up on computer stuff -- I uploaded a boatload of stuff to Google Docs, only to have it alert me to a previously unmentioned maximum number of files, and now it not only won't let me delete some so I can add others, it won't even show me the largest of my folders, arrgh. In the afternoon when most of us were sick of basketball, Paul -- who made Ethoipian food for dinner, mmmm -- suggested that we put on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and although it was never my favorite, I never say no to Lucius Malfoy with his hair tied back. The kids wanted to beat some Chocobo level in the evening, so we listened to classical music and had cats snuggled in various spots. The real question is whether we will be able to get out of the parking lot on Sunday to go to my oldest friend's Super Bowl party, and even if we can get out, whether her street will be plowed sufficiently for us to park there.
( Scenes from a Snowpocalypse ) |
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| Poem for Saturday and Snowpocalypse |
[Feb. 6th, 2010|12:48 am] |
( The Winter They Bombed Pearl Harbor )
The snowpocalypse arrived right on schedule, starting innocently enough at 10 a.m. with some powdery flurries. The kids were dismissed from school two and a half hours early and walked home in slightly heavier snow; Adam promptly went over to a friend's for most of the afternoon, while Daniel chatted online with the members of the robotics team responsible for hardware, who are having a weekend-long sleepover at the home of one of their families so that they can get the robot built. Paul was home several hours early too to work from home. We bailed on going to my parents' for dinner when we realized there was going to be more than a couple of inches of snow on the ground and the county asked people to please stay off the roads. I worked on a bunch of projects, including a review of "Schisms".
( Yet More Snow Pics )
fannish5: ( You're Fired ) After dinner -- jacket potatoes with spicy cheese and veggie bacon, which actually crumbles better than other bacon -- we watched Smallville's "Absolute Justice" (which I keep expecting to see on a vodka bottle). I am not nearly familiar enough with superhero lore to have an opinion about the Justice Society and how it was portrayed; my major point of interest is that Hawkman and Dr. Fate were played respectively by Michael Shanks and Brent Stait of Stargate and Andromeda respectively. My favorite moment was ( this tiny spoiler, and a bit of squee. ) |
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| Poem for Friday and Native American Art |
[Feb. 5th, 2010|12:49 am] |
( If Truth Is the Lure, Humans Are Fishes )
I spent an awesome few hours with cidercupcakes, who came over for lunch and brought Avatar: The Last Airbender, about which you are all in big trouble for not telling me that Jason Isaacs played the voice of the first season villain. Having been subjected to many, many years of Pokemon and Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh movies, I am skeptical of kid-oriented anime in general, and American-made anime just sounded scary, but it has delightful characters, especially the women, and so many moments when one can quote LOTR, Harry Potter and Star Wars that it's just pure fun. I can't decide whether the main trio reminds me more of Harry, Ron and Hermione or Ash, Brock and Misty, but I like them a lot, especially since Katara gets to do more cool stuff than the other girls. And there are flying bison and seals with turtle shells and magical carp and mouse-eared lemurs, and Sokka has to learn to fight in woman warrior's garb. So it's really all good.
The rest of my day was spent preparing for the snowpocalypse, which is supposed to arrive late morning tomorrow and bury us under two feet of snow by Saturday night. I wanted to get some packages to the post office beforehand, and both kids ended up staying late at school -- Daniel for robotics, Adam to make up a math quiz. Hopefully we have enough milk, toilet paper, hummus, cheese, etc. to survive -- Paul helpfully bought lots of junk food in case we can't get out of the neighborhood to go to the Super Bowl party, though we made it despite a big snowstorm a couple of years ago, so hopefully the fact that we now have more food in the house than is reasonable will keep the snow under control, like washing the car to try to make it rain. Both kids brought home excellent report cards and we spent a lot of the evening talking about schedules for next year, plus college stuff, when we weren't watching the Trek episode I need to review tomorrow (evil alien story "Schisms"). They only just went to bed so I am disorganized and hoping they have school at least for a couple of hours before the storm arrives. Since there will likely be snow photos over the weekend, here are some pictures of my in-laws' collection of Native American art from their travels in the southwest:
( Native American Art ) |
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| Poem for Thursday and More Snow |
[Feb. 4th, 2010|12:19 am] |
( Chinoiseries: Falling Snow )
Guess what? It snowed again! And my kids had no school, since half of the four inches that fell overnight arrived during the hours when the superintendent had to make a decision about whether to close the schools or merely delay them. It might not be such a big deal that they missed another entire day except that they'll have to add days to the school year if they miss much more school, and we have a huge storm predicted for Friday-Saturday -- the weather service alert says 12-20 inches! Naturally, the kids were not sorry; older son slept till nearly noon, younger son went out to play in the snow and ended up at a friend's house from lunchtime till dinnertime.
( Are You Sick Of This Yet? )
By then the streets were clear, and Paul, who had worked at home doing phone conferences all morning and computer stuff all afternoon, took them to Cici's Pizza while I went to meet gblvr at Tara Thai, where I had the fabulous seafood panang curry. Then we went to Bath & Body Works, which has a delightful new sandalwood fig aromatherapy scent, though I had gone to buy wonderful Twilight Woods shower cream while I had a two-for-one coupon. And then we went to Target to grab a couple of little things and I don't know how that dress got into my cart, honest. |
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| Poem for Wednesday and Groundhogs |
[Feb. 3rd, 2010|12:40 am] |
( Pescadero )
I had a delightful if uneventful Imbolc/Feast of Brigid/Candlemas/Groundhog Day -- in fact, I did not leave the house. I saw the bad news early from Punxsutawney Phil, before I looked up the Oscar nominations, in fact (and I will confess that, while I will root for Avatar to win Best Picture, it's fine with me if Bigelow wins Best Director or even Tarantino -- I just don't want George Clooney's latest male mid-life crisis drama to win). My day consisted of excitement such as working on moving the entirety of a fic archive to archiveofourown.org, which means getting codes and doing imports for several other writers; emptying and reloading the dishwasher; and finally getting the laundry folded, which I did while watching The Graduate on TCM. I've seen it many, many times, and even wrote a paper on it for a grad school seminar on film and popular music, but I never really focused before on Anne Bancroft's cougar-print clothes, hee. Since those of you who are long-time readers of this journal know that I love groundhogs, here is a small celebration of them:
( A Celebration of Groundhogs )
Paul loves finding recipes to celebrate various holidays even if they're holidays that we don't celebrate personally, so while I would gladly have settled for cheese, winter squash and poppyseed muffins for Imbolc, I certainly wasn't going to complain when he announced that he was making crepes with ratatouille for La Chandeleur. (He made them with yellow squash, so I got my winter squash anyway.) Then Adam decided we should watch Ratatouille since we'd eaten it and he and Daniel had finished their homework. While we did that, Paul made chocolate crepes for dessert, since he was on a roll making crepes -- a recipe from Cooking Light, meaning they only had way too many calories instead of way, way, way too many calories -- not that that stopped me from having two of them. Hail Brigid! |
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| Poem for Groundhog Day |
[Feb. 2nd, 2010|12:21 am] |
( Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve )
On Monday I went with my mother to visit the Bar Mitzvah photographer, and eight months after the event, I have finally ordered an album and a couple of individual photos. I am very happy with how it looks, too -- I sent a whole list of little things I wanted and the photographer did them all. I only got home a few minutes before Adam did, so I didn't get a lot else done (the laundry is STILL not folded), but I did clean up my LiveJournal and Dreamwidth tags -- some of them had far more than 100 items and I had to make a sequel tag for each of those, then move the appropriate entries. Here are a few last photos from the New England Aquarium, including many jellies, a leafy seadragon, a representation of the pollution in Boston Harbor, and of course a penguin:
( Boston Jellyfish and More )
I'm trying to think of something meaningful to say about Heroes, which I enjoyed because it was yet another backstory episode about Noah Bennet even though it's very clear they just keep reinventing bits of his backstory as they go along and don't even try all that hard to integrate it with what we already know -- I just love watching Bennet and Claire together, though ( spoiler. ) I liked the Peter-and-Sylar storyline this week, too, despite the fact that we were yelling suggestions about ( spoilers. ) and things just went downhill from there.
Happy Imbolc, Candlemas, and Groundhog Day, whichever one(s) you may celebrate! And hope everyone who celebrated Tu B'shevat over the weekend had a lovely celebration, since I forgot to say so beforehand. |
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| Poem for Monday and A Bit More Boston |
[Feb. 1st, 2010|12:32 am] |
( Blue Pitcher, Empty and Full )
Though our street was pretty well plowed by Sunday morning, we had a pretty quiet weekend in deference to the snow. We had planned to meet my in-laws in Ellicott City to go to the train museum and some of the antique stores, but both of them have colds and we weren't thrilled at the prospect of looking for parking in potentially unplowed streets and lots, so we agreed to postpone. Other than a visit to the Bethesda Co-op for assorted organic stuff our Giant doesn't carry, we didn't accomplish a lot. I didn't even get the laundry folded.
( Boston Museum of Science )
My parents invited us over for dinner, so we went -- I had a crab cake, younger son had a veggie burger, everyone else had hamburgers -- then we came home so younger son could record music for his orchestra playing test. We also watched the Grammys, where we were happy to see Stephen Colbert, very entertained by Pink's performance, reasonably entertained by Lady GaGa and Elton John, happy Beyonce had a good night award-wise, amused by the Michael Jackson tribute only because we still have our free Super Bowl 3-D glasses so we could see the effects such as they were, and impressed that Taylor Swift decided to conduct herself as a musician rather than a showgirl in the nearly-nonexistent clothes most young women present were barely wearing -- I am not particularly a fan of her music, though I got a kick out of her wanting to sing with Stevie Nicks, but I am impressed by how she conducts herself as a celebrity.
My kids may or may not have a two-hour delay tomorrow...the county hasn't told us yet. Sigh. Happy February! |
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| Poem for Sunday and January Snowstorm |
[Jan. 31st, 2010|12:04 am] |
( In a Beautiful Country )
The weather reports Friday night said that we'd get a couple of inches of snow on Saturday. "A couple" turned out to be about, oh, six. It started in the morning just as Adam was heading for Hebrew school to volunteer and Daniel was heading for robotics; both were dismissed early, and the county closed all school buildings for the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday because there was so much ice on the roads. I never even left the house, letting Paul pick up the kids while I did laundry, coded and uploaded a bunch of stuff, and made sure the cats stayed off the heating vents. Here's what things looked like from our doorways:
( White Winter )
In the evening Paul made lentil and couscous pilaf with yellow and green squash for dinner, then admitted he'd been in the mood to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone since we got back from the exhibition in Boston. I never say no to Harry Potter, though I liked the first two movies less than the next four, and I haven't seen the first one all the way through in several years -- certainly not since I read the seventh book. I still love the adults in it but it completely creeps me out seeing pre-teen Ginny talking to pre-teen Harry, and Hermione is totally Ron's mother; I knew Harry married the popular red-haired girl with the big family for obvious reasons, but I never thought before about Ron's mother issues, which I think are more pathological than Harry's even though Harry's the one with the huge family trauma in his past. Draco is somehow much less unnerving as a little boy than the trio. |
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| Poem for Saturday and Museum of Science |
[Jan. 30th, 2010|12:29 am] |
( Visiting Paris )
Not an eventful Friday since I feel like I'm coming down with a cold and deliberately took it easy. Slept late since I had cats snuggled against me on both sides so it was nice and warm. Did some reading. Made tuna with peanut sauce for lunch and had very helpful cats underfoot. Watched coverage of the conviction of the murderer of Dr. George Tiller. Wrote a review of "Relics", the Next Gen episode with Scotty -- definitely not my best review since I am fond of the episode but still think it could (well, should) have been so much better, using brilliant writing rather than viewer nostalgia to drive it, and I didn't want to tear it down but I did want to consider all the reasons I didn't actually like it all that much when it first aired.
thefridayfive: ( Theme Songs )
fannish5: ( On My Side )
( Boston Museum of Science )
We had dinner at my parents' -- seafood for most of us, tofu and a veggie burger for Adam whom I think ate more than the rest of us combined -- then came home for the return of Smallville, which I enjoyed a lot now that there's a Lois & Clark. Plus it was an Oliver-centered episode, and you know what that means -- excuses for Justin Hartley to take his shirt off! ( Spoilers. ) Now we are watching the weather, which is warning us about piles of snow on Saturday. |
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| Poem for Friday and Boston Aquarium |
[Jan. 29th, 2010|12:51 am] |
( Consumed in Grace )
The major event of my day was picking up Adam early from school to take him to the dentist for the filling of a cavity right under the band for his braces, undoubtedly caused by the braces -- it was originally supposed to be filled last week when he had his orthodontist checkup, but I had to move the time because of his math midterm, and they needed him in on a day when the ortho techs could remove and replace the band around the dentist's work. Since I had already concluded that I was going to accomplish nothing important in the morning, I got SPP spa plushies for myself and Adam (the penguins with cucumbers over their eyes are too adorable to resist -- it's so Denny Crane and Alan Shore!), made a bunch of appointments for the kids (their pediatrician is the sister-in-law of their eye doctor and I had to call both), and did some reading. I'm in a trashy historical fiction phase if you're wondering why I never even mention book titles. Have some New England Aquarium photos:
( Boston in the Water )
RIP Howard Zinn and J.D. Salinger. Paul made zucchini, sweet onion and pepper tart for dinner, which was awesome (well, except the onion part but I pick those out of almost everything), then we all watched Next Gen's "Relics" -- the Scotty episode. I remember I thought it was somewhat overwrought despite the nostalgia factor the first time I saw it, but I really enjoyed it this time -- that moment when Scotty goes onto the empty bridge of the NCC-1701 on the holodeck is just so well played. I miss the days when I accepted all of Trek canon as, well, canon, even obvious inconsistencies like Scotty thinking Kirk must have come looking for him when the first Next Gen movie made that impossible...now I have entire series finales and entire movies that I just don't count. |
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| Poem for Thursday and Shopping Stuff |
[Jan. 28th, 2010|12:01 am] |
( Diagnosis )
I had a very nice Wednesday that turned out more self-indulgent than I had intended. I went to Kentlands in Gaithersburg because it has several craft stores right near each other, including a bigger Michael's than the one nearer my house, a high-end bead store with gorgeous semi-precious beads that I wouldn't trust myself with, and the bead store where dementordelta and I get our little glass animal beads that also has knock-off Pandora charms 3 for $1. There is a nice vintage/consignment shop in Kentlands too, where I found a pretty Brighton purse for $25 and a Lilly Pulitzer sweater for $30, but the purse had a fraying strap and the sweater was stained under one arm, so it was easy for me to resist because I got this shirt with tigers playing in cherry blossoms in the mail today, having paid $9 for it from an Etsy seller -- whoo! (I also have a bag made from Tiger Lilly fabric like this, only larger and with fabric straps, for which I paid $15...I love Etsy.)
( Kentlands )
I have nothing profound to say about the State of the Union, which I watched with my (understandably) cynical children who were disappointed we didn't have a drinking game going for each standing ovation so they could watch us keel over during the first 15 minutes. I am delighted that Obama renewed his pledge to overturn Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but I don't understand why he is waiting for Congress -- Truman knew better, he used an executive order to integrate the armed forces, and while it's true that technically a successor could have overturned that, in practice it would be really difficult. I'm utterly skeptical of any promises concerning the economy at this point, particularly since the Republicans refused to applaud even for things that were at one time their own proposals, like tax breaks for corporations that keep jobs in the U.S. And although I appreciated the balanced look at the problems of the past year, I've seen whining already that Obama didn't give us a pat line about how the state of our union is strong...so what hope is there for bipartisanship or even grownup discussion, really? |
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| Poem for Wednesday and Maryland Science Center |
[Jan. 27th, 2010|12:28 am] |
( Sonnet - To Science )
I spent a wonderful afternoon in Baltimore with dementordelta and rubyrosered, whom we met at her new house and from whom we received the grand tour before we headed into the city. We met Delta's friend Sam for lunch at Harborplace (where I got an order of fish and chips -- well, mashed potatoes -- big enough for three people). Then we went to the Maryland Science Center, since this is the last week of the terrific Da Vinci: The Genius exhibit; we had the place practically to ourselves, so we could go through slowly and read all about the mechanical devices and art on display. (The detailed study of the Mona Lisa remains my favorite, though I also love the hands-on machines and the long film about Da Vinci's life.) Afterward we visited the Chesapeake Bay and dinosaur exhibits and saw the planetarium show on dark matter.
( In Baltimore )
After leaving rubyrosered at her house with her boyfriend, family, cats, and envy-inducing computer setup, dementordelta brought me home and apaulled fed us sweet and sour tofu. Then we watched John Barrowman and Barry Manilow singing "I Made It Through the Rain" together in this YouTube clip before she had to go home. My family watched two episodes of How The Earth Was Made -- "The Rockies" and "Death Valley" -- on the History Channel, but hearing about all the insect eggs in our food grossed us out sufficiently that we turned off Life After People. |
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| Poem for Tuesday and Potomac Crest |
[Jan. 26th, 2010|12:33 am] |
( Address to the Toothache )
Nothing major happened to me on Monday -- the kids had no school for the end of the semester, Daniel went anyway for an all-day robotics build session, Adam came to Bagel City with me to get bagels and spreads both for lunch and the rest of the week, I stopped at the mall with him to exchange something I've never worn, and that was all the excitement other than the weather, which included periods of torrential rain alternating with periods of clear skies and sunshine. My county has a flood warning for areas bordering the Potomac River, which is expected to be at or above flood stage by Wednesday morning, so here are some more photos of Great Falls from Saturday when the water was high but not jumping its banks:
( Potomac and Canal )
I had to fold laundry in the late afternoon so I put on Peter Pan, which I've been meaning to rewatch since we went to the Maxfield Parrish exhibit a few weeks ago -- Parrish was obviously an influence on the art direction, which is spectacular -- plus it has Jason Isaacs as incredibly hot sexy shirtless Captain Hook, and adorable Mr. Darling who suffers humiliation at the hands of bankers, kids and dog alike, culminating with his declaration of belief in fairies in front of his business superiors. We watched Heroes, but the seesaw has me completely numb -- I no longer care whether Sylar wants to be good or evil, I no longer care whether Samuel is a psychopath or just an average guy with anger management issues and superpowers, I don't care whether Peter is off his rocker or just full of himself, I don't care whether Matt is naive or a total idiot. I'm really hoping this is the last season so I can say I saw it through to the end. |
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| Poem for Monday, Football and Petco |
[Jan. 25th, 2010|12:47 am] |
( What is Broken Is What God Blesses )
Daniel once again had robotics -- expect the same report for the next several weekends, until the build season is over -- so Adam got to sleep late, I got up and read and puttered on the computer, and none of us bothered getting dressed for outdoors till after lunch. We needed to visit Trader Joe's for butternut squash soup, hummus, and other necessities, and I wanted to go to Michael's to get split rings, so we made a couple of stops on the Pike and a gratuitous visit to Petco since it was right nearby:
( Petco Pets )
We thought about watching the Emma miniseries, but decided to record it instead so we don't have conflicts with the Grammys and the Super Bowl. This left us free to watch the nail-biter of a Vikings-Saints game. I will root for either of these teams over the Colts -- I'd have had more of a dilemma if the Jets had won, particularly since the host of the Super Bowl party we attend every year is a passionate Jets fan -- but we only half-watched their game around dinner, whereas we all watched Brett Favre play his heart out. The Superdome deserved a happy event after Katrina and the city of New Orleans did too, so I don't have any complaints; the fact that neither the Cowboys nor Eagles was in the NFC championship pleased me enough that I didn't mind if the Ravens weren't in the AFC championship! |
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| Poem for Sunday and Great Falls |
[Jan. 24th, 2010|12:20 am] |
( Earthquake )
Adam volunteered at Hebrew school this morning and Daniel went to robotics, so we had a quiet morning and I got some reading done -- not to mention some book arranging, since I still haven't put my birthday and Chanukah books on shelves, though I also haven't read half of them. When Adam got home, we had lunch, then went to Great Falls, where we figured the Potomac River would be cresting after all the snowmelt -- and indeed it looked spectacular, completely covering the rocks that we could see when we were there in the late fall, though we had to trudge through quite a bit of mud to get to the bridges. There wasn't ice melting on the C&O Canal because the canal has been almost completely drained in that area, probably to avoid further damage to the walls and towpath, but a bit past the turnoff for Olmsted Island, the canal had water and there were ducks and a heron enjoying the warm-ish afternoon:
( Great Falls January )
In the evening, after vegetarian chili for dinner and confusion about Daniel's date plans that turned out to be for naught since the date is actually Sunday night, I spent Saturday night in important intellectual pursuits...oh, who am I kidding? I watched Twilight on Showtime. The dialogue is as bad as I remembered from my one theatrical viewing, the Pacific Northwest still looks beautiful -- I'm not sure why they replaced Catherine Hardwicke as director, I think New Moon is a much less beautiful movie, though the pacing is better -- and there's still nothing in it that grabs me enough to make me want to try the book again, since everything I really like about it is visual or screen chemistry (I groove on Robsten, and Carlisle can play doctor with me whenever he wants). After the movie, we watched the U.S. women's figure skating championships, but it was obvious from the time we turned it on that Sasha Cohen wasn't going to make the Olympic team, and I haven't really been able to make myself care about skating since all the rule changes and judging scandals of the past many years. Didn't watch the SAG Awards -- I only wanted to see Betty White! |
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| Poem for Saturday and Adorable Penguins |
[Jan. 23rd, 2010|12:51 am] |
( Return! )
We had a winter weather advisory this morning in the county, so even though we just had occasional fits of snow and sleet that didn't accumulate, I stayed close to home in case the schools closed early. Daniel technically had the day off, since exams finished on Thursday and he didn't have any make-ups, but he wanted to go in for robotics, and Adam had a final day of the semester -- they both have no school Monday, though Daniel will probably go in for robotics again. I wrote a review of Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Man of the People", one of the worst episodes ever, and we had dinner with my parents...probably the last time I will have my mother's excellent chicken piccata, since Adam has announced that he wants to be a vegetarian and I told him that I'll stop eating poultry if he does. (He's giving up seafood too, which I am not; given that I can't have much sodium or much soy, it would limit me to very few things I like that I can eat quickly.)
fannish5: ( Workplaces )
We watched the Hope For Haiti Now concert, which I really enjoyed. I'd already given money to the Red Cross, so I didn't plan to call the celebrity phone bank, which I found the most irritating aspect of the whole thing, anyway -- do we really need to listen in to Reese Witherspoon's "I'm so charitable" chitchat? But in most other ways, I thought the concert was less self-aggrandizing than the post-9/11 fundraiser, and some of the performances -- Stevie Wonder's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," Jennifer Hudson's "Let It Be" -- were really moving, as was Chris Rock reading Muhammad Ali's message because Ali's Parkinson's is so advanced. Nothing that happened on any stage, though, had the impact of Anderson Cooper's segments in Haiti. Afterward we tried to watch Spartacus: Blood and Sand, but the hot sex did not in any way make up for the excess bloodiness, cheesy camera work, and endless use of gratuitous profanity (and if you know me at all, you know I am not easily offended on that count). It all seemed much, much too frivolous and silly.
LiveJournal is always sending me status messages I don't want about questions of the day, yet somehow did not manage to get a text to me saying the site would be down tonight, so since I can't get at my photos from Boston that are in my scrapbook there, here is a gratuitous little blue penguin photo:
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| Poem for Friday and Undersea Wonders |
[Jan. 22nd, 2010|12:53 am] |
( The Idiad )
I did not get up early to shop for my Superpoke Pet, which turned out to be a very good thing because Superpoke had a power outage last night and did not release new items until 6 p.m. Eastern time. Instead I slept late -- 9 a.m. is quite late on a school day, though I got up briefly to say goodbye to my kids -- and made a bunch of phone calls before going to meet perkypaduan for Bagel City, Barnes & Noble, and Target (where I got a tuna bagel, a mini-wallet, and a $3.50 super-soft green sweater that I may never wear outdoors except on St. Patrick's Day but it will look adorable with my fuzzy froggie Grandma Pants).
In the evening, we went to a meeting at Daniel's high school about the magnet program -- summer internships and senior research projects, class scheduling, college testing, and all the problems the program is facing because of county budget disasters (fewer teachers, fewer electives, no bus transportation halfway across the county, etc.). The first and last segment were both relevant and interesting, but the bulk of the meeting was taken up by the guidance counselors reading word-for-word from their PowerPoint slides (something that would get my son a D on a classroom report). I don't know why administrative idiocy enrages me so much when I should just be resigned to it.
Got home late, read scary articles about likely long-term consequences of Thursday's Supreme Court rulings, watched a horrible Next Gen episode that I need to review on Friday, tried to figure out Daniel's schedule for tomorrow (no school since he has no make-up exam, but he wants to be there for robotics, but he doesn't want to get there on the morning bus since that's too early and instead would prefer to be driven during morning rush hour), so I am not in the best of moods. I think perhaps I shall go to bed and contemplate how lucky I am to have a cat smushed against my hip on a cold night. Oh, and for a smile, have some Paul Bettany.
( New England Aquarium ) |
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| Poem for Thursday |
[Jan. 21st, 2010|12:34 am] |
( Props to the Twentieth Century )
It was a day of appointments -- doctor for me in the morning, orthodontist for son in the afternoon -- so I have nothing exciting to report except that medical procedures suck even when necessary and my blood pressure was 110/70 in spite of being cranky about them, so it must be accounted a good day in spite of everything. Adam was originally supposed to see the dentist to have a small cavity filled that's directly under one of the brackets for his braces, then see the orthodontist to have the wires tightened, but his math midterm went right till the end of the school day so we ended up having to cancel the filling and reschedule. The good news there is that he's in the end stage of his braces -- they just need to straighten out two roots on the bottom and those come off -- and we rescheduled the dentist for another day.
After the orthodontist, I took Adam to get bubble tea, stopped at CVS to pick up a prescription and hair conditioner, then got home at pretty much the same minute that both Paul and Daniel arrived from work and school respectively. We had white beans with carrots and pesto pasta for dinner -- Adam has announced that he wants to become a vegetarian, and I told him a while ago that I would give up poultry if he did, so I am looking for low-sodium veggie recipes if anyone wants to share. Then we watched Pixar shorts on ABC Family...does anyone know whether that fabulous animated history of rats is an extra on the Ratatouille disc? It would be worth owning for that alone.
( In Boston ) |
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