Rebecita and KT - blogging into their golden years

Clown college, now with ducks

2012-01-26T03:28:00.001-08:00

Back to school! Already super pleased with the organization/communication skills and involvement of the professors, compared to last semester. Thank god. All I've done so far really is sign in on the first day, read the syllabus, and introduce myself. But for my information literacy seminar, we got to play with a screencast tool we'll be using. Please enjoy the silly test video I shared with the class:

QUACK!

(Picture credit: Katie and Inder)

Introducing Miss Sydney

2012-01-21T20:49:00.001-08:00

Blog bragging rights! This week I got to hang out with new mamas Ruth and Lauren and meet baby Sydney!!! Lauren was in town for a round of residency interviews, and they managed to squeeze in a couple hours to lunch with me at the Ferry building. Cue big smiles. (Not so much from Sydney. Shoving one's fist in one's mouth requires concentration after all.)

Smooches and safe travels, ladies.

3 days, 1000 miles

2012-01-05T17:54:00.001-08:00

Fresh back from a whirlwind back-to-school roadtrip to Marfa, the strangest 1900-person-minimalist-art-town-in-the-middle-of-nowhere that you've ever been to. It was my second time and my friend D.'s first time, and in spite of spending almost as much time driving there as we did being there - as well as being sore afflicted (we... may or may not have had to visit the Marfa Country Clinic to get antibiotics for strep throat. Both of us.) - we still managed to cram in all the existential giraffe dumpsters (caption: "GOD?"), back room shuffleboard (I was the reigning champion), converted school bus snack bars, observatories, and posing in the desert as we could have hoped for.

After 8 hours on the road last night we rolled back into town, I slept for 3 1/2 hours, and then I woke up and started my first day at my graduate assistantship. I spent the entire morning sternly telling myself YOU MAY LOOK LIKE THE WALKING DEAD (Editor's note: I totally did.) BUT THEY HAVE NO IDEA HOW STUPID YOU ARE RIGHT NOW. HOLD IT TOGETHER. It seemed to do the trick because everything worked out well.

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go to bed.

To kids from 1 to 92

2012-01-04T01:03:00.000-08:00

Welllll, my holidays this year were basically a blur of selling all the books in the world and not having any time to put new ones out or breathe and the christmas music is eating my brain cells and oh my god is it 2012 yet... oh it is? *collapses*

I can't complain though. Here on E 23rd we did manage a lot of quality time playing board games, watching Joe play with his new trains, and alternating between christmas and banjo music on the record player.

Santa enjoyed his Christmas cookies by the light of my menorah.

Joe and I made a Tardis!

Tardises? Tardii?

Joe was particularly excited to squeeze his little people inside the funny blue boxes. Sorry, plastic lady, we don't quite possess the technology to make them properly bigger on the inside.

By the by, is it too much to hope that none of you noticed my complete failure to send out a single holiday card or present?

Yeah. Sorry! I'm working on it.

2 conversations I had today

2012-01-04T01:02:00.000-08:00

Conversation 1
10 year old boy: So, which book do you think has more action?
Me: Well, let's see. One has a picture of kids running for their lives on the cover, and the other one has... a cute cat. Probably not the one with the cat.

Also, the same kid's review of the book Sounder: Yeah, they just kept talking about being poor! And what they ate. They barely mentioned Sounder.

Conversation 2
Me: I can tell you rode your bike to work today. I deduced it from your pant cuffs.
Coworker: Nicely done, Mr. Holmes!

I should mention that a) I've somehow become way more obsessed with the BBC show Sherlock than should be legal b) I was listening to a Sherlock Holmes audio recording on the way to work and c) I must be stopped.

Adorable AND delicious

2011-12-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was continuing a crossword puzzle that R had started and discovered that in response to the clue "Kind of salad," he had written "KOALA."

Um.

???

Anyways.

In other news, I was offered a graduate assistantship yesterday which is 100% COMPLETELY AWESOME in every way except the one where I have to start working as soon as 2012 arrives, instead of pretending like I'm rich and famous and not doing anything for the first two weeks of January. But paychecks keep me in Ikea furniture, so I shouldn't complain.

This is my last full week of the job I've held for almost 6 years. That's... weird.

Hope Wednesday is treating you all nicely!

This season in numbers

2011-12-06T19:34:00.000-08:00

1... email I have received so far from my upcoming Master's program's Director of Student and Community Affairs which included the acronym "LOL."

5... people who ate Richard's turkey at the Thanksgiving dinner we hosted, of which the attendees (including us) consisted of 4 ominvores and 2 vegetarians.

15... days until I take my job and shove it! (By which I mean leave amicably after giving my boss more than 11 months' notice.)

22... degrees warmer than Central Texas that WMass is right now. (That was a weird sentence.) I am enjoying the sensation of not being able to feel my fingers while it lasts.

193... times (give or take) since December 1st that I have listened to Susan McKeown sing "Auld Lang Syne." I blame Jenna.

I'll conclude this post with... goats. Obviously. These are from our trip to the Austin Rescue Zoo this fall! There were lions and other animals more awesome than goats, but the threat of them eating Richard & Rebecca meant I couldn't get a good shot of them petting one...

Thanksgiving turkeys

2011-11-24T23:11:00.000-08:00

Remember that child-size turkey costume that R bought for himself for my birthday?

Yeah.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at Rebecita & KT!

This week in book news, or Things that I liked in spite of themselves.

2011-11-22T17:07:00.000-08:00

1) Dear customers. Stop coming into my bookstore - that JUST OPENED and is doing well - and lamenting the death of Borders and preaching that the death of bookstores, books, and western civilization is nigh.

Well, they must have got my memo because a customer MADE MY DAY yesterday.

Me: Sorry, we don't have a copy of that.
Customer: Can you tell me where the nearest Borders is?
Me: (Wonders if she has been living under a rock, or whether she uses Borders as the Coke of bookstores?) Welll, all the Borders have closed, but there's a Barnes and Noble at the Hacienda Crossing.
Customer: What do you mean all the Borders are closed? Since when????????
Me: (Ooook. Rock it is.) Well, it was gradual but they closed the last stores a few months ago. Sorry! I'm surprised you didn't hear about it, it was a pretty big story.
Customer: No, I've been living in Australia for the last year! Oh my god! I can't believe there's no more Borders!! I'm so shocked!

This went on for awhile and we laughed about it. Ha ha ha. Oh man. So good. It shouldn't be so satisfying to break bad news to someone.

2) Hey, I actually did something worthwhile in library school! I might have... learned something? About libraries? We had a group project to pick a problem facing our field in the next few years and compile a resource list to address it. My group actually chose my question, which was: As we anticipate the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, how can libraries best serve returning veterans?
So, that was awesome and I got to read about all the positive things libraries and veteran service groups are doing. Am I the last one to hear about googleforveterans?

3) I don't have any fixation on the 1960s and am somewhat tired of the fuss over that decade. But somehow the last two books I read were both about assassinations in the 1960s. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable and 11/22/63 by Stephen King. The second bears special mention today, for obvious reasons.

This was my first Stephen King! I know! Just, horror isn't for me. But I was super into this story. You know, stay up too late, almost miss my BART stop into it. Despite the JFK marketing angle, he doesn't play a big role, instead he's more this elusive figure that history happens to turn on. It's more about Lee Harvey Oswald and an exploration of the darkness in us and our relationships. And, you know, time travel! Highly recommended.

Registration is the best part

2011-11-15T20:38:00.000-08:00

Remember how I wasn't actually disproportionately excited about registering for classes last semester? Welllllll that was before I suffered through two DECIDEDLY lackluster courses. I've kind of learned SOMETHING, but mostly from the research assignments, because both professors and their curriculum materials are a complete waste of space. I knew what I was getting into, because the program has an extremely robust database of professor reviews. They're the first 2 of 3 required core courses, and when I couldn't get my first choice professors I just chose the ones that were reputed to have an easy course load. Because I was legitimately worried about juggling school with full time work.

Ha! To liven up my ranting, and to express how little I had to worry about, here's a photo of my textbooks. Which I have NOT CRACKED and yet I am running nearly 100% in both my classes. What's that quote again? Hell hath no fury like that of a student who has paid hella $$ for unused textbooks? Yeah.

(Even looking at those textbooks long enough to photograph them was too boring and angry-making. I had to throw my shiny new jam cookbook on top to get through it.)

Welllll, it's going to be a different story from here on out, I can tell you. Now that I have a freaking choice, I plan to categorically avoid any classes whose reviews fall into the following categories.
1) CLOWN COLLEGE! Both my current classes fit into this stereotype. I would call this review of my management class GROSSLY generous in its praise: "If you're looking for a relatively undemanding class with thought-provoking reading and discussion plus easy grading, this would be a good choice." This one is more like it: "Dr. Sawyer is very nice, but I am sorry I took this class. I believe libraries were mentioned maybe twice during the entire semester. This class is an easy A, but it's mind-numbingly dull and in my opinion, has zero relevence."
2) NIGHTMARE! A disturbing number of reviews contain this phrase. Sometimes it's because the professor is completely disorganized (assignments/grading standards are incomprehensible, doesn't know how to work the online portal) and/or absent (traveling, not replying to email, not grading anything before the semester is over). Sometimes this is because they're an amazing, expert professor, but their expectations are insane. "Astronomical workload" "4-5 x more work than my other courses." Scary.

From this day forward, I, Rebecca Edwards, being of sound mind and body, swear that I will ONLY, and I cannot emphasize this enough, ONLY take courses from professors who get rave reviews across the board. ("Favorite teacher," "learned more from this professor than any other," "wish I could take more of his/her courses." Yes.)

Anyway, back to the point of the post, which is that I was REALLY looking forward to this, my registration day. I'm kicking off my Onwards and Upwards Professors of the Year Only pledge with the following classes:
• "Information Retrieval" Last of three prerequisites. It's about... databases? I don't really know. But the professor is reputed to "make a dull subject interesting" etc. I'll let you know...
• A seminar on teaching information literacy. What? Me take something I'm interested in, qualified for, and is a marketable skill? With a professor who is "everything you could want from an online instructor?" That's un-possible.

I also made a fancy spreadsheet to map out the rest of my credits. With two courses each semester and one each summer, I'm on track to graduate with my MLIS in the spring of 2014! This sounds simultaneously a crazy long time from now in a galaxy far away, and super soon.

Guess who's going to clown college, too?!?!

2011-11-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

[UPDATE: OMG, once again, after weeks of inactivity, we have once again managed to post within 21 minutes of eachother. And Rebecca scooped me!!]

The following Texans have both been accepted into their respective graduate programs. Effective January 2012, this blog will be all-student, all the time. I can smell the procrastination already...

Clown College ^3!

2011-11-08T20:39:00.000-08:00

Guess who just got accepted to UT's social work program?????? (Yes, I'm totally stealing Katie's thunder because I already had this blog post open when she shared her good news on facebook.) On the heels of Richard's acceptance to Texas State! Yay, all of us being in school again gives me such warm fuzzy feelings. It's just like it's the year 2000 again! Except now we do our homework BEFORE we watch Richard Dawson on Family Feud.

Seriously, my recent trip to Austin was basically equal parts singing and studying, with some wine-ing down and rescued animals thrown in for good measure! I basically spent the entire time resisting the worldwide conspiracy that is trying to make me move to Texas. Because.
1) Natalia moved to Dallas that exact weekend! I miss that girl! But it's for her dream job. Sigh.
2) The company I work for is based out of Texas and has eight zillion stores there! Including one about 3 blocks from Katie and Richard's house. (I dragged Richard there to pick out his own extremely belated birthday present.)
3) So many lovely singing friends! And did I mention the wine-ing down?
4) I so want to always do my homework at the coffee shop where Richard is newly installed as barista. With distractions in the forms of free tea and visits from Katie.
5) Guys, I go to online school.
6) The Austin rescue zoo!

This... is the only picture I have from the weekend.

Duck hands!

Chicaaaaaaaaaaago

2011-10-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

It's true. Sometimes I do things like go to Rebecca's hometown without her.

If anyone is wondering how they can win my undying love, see below.

2011-10-22T17:21:00.000-07:00

OK, guys, I keep giving Katie shit for repeatedly visiting my hometown without me, but I may have to take it back. Because this just arrived in my inbox, via my mom's phone.

THORNE MINIATURE PILGRIMAGE!!!

Which makes my dewey so unclean?

2011-10-16T19:49:00.001-07:00

Oooh, she's alive! Make sure you scroll down for adorable pictures of Rebecca and food and her mom. In the meantime, in anticipation of Rebecca's forthcoming trip to Austin and the ensuing singing weekend, I've been waxing nostalgic about other singing buddies who I don't get to see nearly as often. So here's a clip for you of all of us in 2009(?) doing what we always do when a Wojcik comes to town: singing "I Am A Stranger Here Below." (Actually it's just the final verse. I spared you all the first 7, and left in Bill's profound theological question at the end. You're welcome.)

L' shanah tovah

2011-10-16T02:14:00.000-07:00

Remiss blogger here! It's a good thing I have no social life, because work and school are filling up every second of my day. If you want I can post repeatedly about how much I hate reading about management theory?? Yeah, that's what I thought. Instead, I bring you late new year's greetings!

My Very Special Rosh Hashanah, in two parts:

1. Picking apples in Sue's sunny yard + honey = very sweet new year.

2. Feasting! If you haven't made Aushak lately, you really should. Yummmm.

Seven for September (belatedly)

2011-10-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

So I know it's not quite such stuff as this blog was was made on, back in those heady days when we were always driving across the country and refusing to live in the contiguous 48, but here are some things that are keeping me entertained lately. (In the interest of current events I'll let Rebecca, as the Mac user in the family, handle the Steve Jobs eulogy.)

1) After talking a big game for the past year about how I was going to copy Rebecca's life, I finally did it! By which I mean I submitted my school application. Presumably sometime between tomorrow and the day the program starts in January I will find out whether or not I have actually been accepted to UT's non-clinical social work Master's program. ~~If you actually care~~ Mom, this is what non-clinical social work means. In conclusion, if all goes well, in 2.5-3 years I should be a clown. We'll see.

2) Jeremy-my-one-Jewish-friend-in-Austin and I rang in 5772 with a big-screen showing of my favorite Mel Brooks movie. Two words for you: Richard Lewis. SOGOOD. (Postscript: I feel compelled to add that for reasons completely unrelated to the Days of Awe, Jeremy & I may also end up breaking our - well, my - Yom Kippur fast with a home screening of Sister Act. Don't ask. I know I know, the early 90s called, it wants its terrible family-friendly comedies back.)

3) Speaking of so-bad-they're-good movies about singing Christians: Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah are in a soon-to-be-released choir movie together. I'm sorry, could you not hear me? DOLLY PARTON AND QUEEN LATIFAH ARE IN A SOON-TO-BE-RELEASED CHOIR MOVIE TOGETHER. Jeremy and I have basically already pre-ordered our tickets.

4) And while we're on the subject of pop culture, I would be remiss if I didn't keep you all updated on the latest buzz about my supermodel obsession Andrej Pejic, which is that he's been invited to Buckingham Palace next Thursday to meet the Queen of England and everyone on the internet is dying to know whether he'll wear a suit or a dress. I promise I'll post pictures. Even though you don't care. Really it's just an excuse for me to look at pictures and blame it on you.

5) Did I mention I went to New York? And Washington DC? I didn't take any pictures which means I can't blog about it which means it probably never happened. It'll just be a secret between me and my new H&M clothes.

6) I seem to have had another cocktail honorarily named after me because it's the only one I ever order and I'm apparently never friends with people who know the names of cocktails, which is just as well because I definitely don't. In college, a "Katie" was vodka & cranberry juice but these days, it's vodka & grapefruit juice. Just so you know. I can't promise anyone at a bar in Austin will bring it to you if you ask for it (also, apparently it's actually called a Greyhound? Lame.) but if you ask me for a Katie I will be honored and totally make you one. Actually, we'll probably be out of juice or vodka or both, because we always are. But I'll take you somewhere you can get one.

7) Finally, this past September was brought to you in memory of Margo K. and Sandra G., and in honor of brand-new baby Sydney. Comings and goings. Lots of love to all of you in our extended blog family... now go hug somebody you care about.

Candles coast to coast

2011-09-20T01:17:00.000-07:00

I didn't even mean to travel on my birthday and make everyone celebrate with me, but it was kind of awesome. Here's a quick tour.

Newton, MA. I shared a cake with Becca, my cousin's girlfriend who has my name and also a bday the day before mine. Dinner was preceded by schoolwork and a gorgeous bike ride by the Charles, and followed by a slideshow of Joey and Becca's epic travels (Israel ---> Nepal and pretty much everywhere in between.) The next day started out with a proper birthday brunch for Becca in a Cambridge park and ended with newlyweds Andrea and James! (And Foster the cat, lasagna, and ceramics Made By Us! It was kind of amazing. I adore having friends who don't hate me for disappearing for two years, where we can pick up right where we left off.)

Oak Park, IL. Post Indian feast with my mom, Dennis (photographer) and the Bridges. We had massive camera/phone failure and could only come up with this awesomely florescent semi-candid. I kind of love it. Not pictured: my dad + more amazing food + Manu Chao. Oh yes. Chicago is good to me.

Oakland, CA. Back home! Where a lovely card was waiting for me from Nancy. Which was immediately appropriated by Joe. As a tunnel for his trains. You know, as one does with birthday cards. (I did try to take it back, but he made sad faces and waxed poetically about the "yellow flowers" on the card. Our household is pretty much in thrall to adorable train fixations and multi-word phrases these days.)

I'm looking at you, Brown Cow

2011-09-17T04:31:00.000-07:00

So, there's lots of birthday madness to post about, but tonight I just have time to share this with you. At lunch today I was innocently finishing off my tub of lemon yogurt when I read on the back the most amazing recipe. I won't include the title or list of ingredients so as not to ruin the narrative flow of terror.

Combine the shrimp, mushrooms, and grapes in a large mixing bowl. [I know, right now you're hoping I'll just stop there. I'm not sure I can think of three ingredients less likely to mingle pleasingly in a large mixing bowl. But it just keeps going.] In another bowl, stir together yogurt [lemon yogurt, you recall], rosemary, and parsley. Gently fold the yogurt mixture into the shrimp combination. Place one lettuce leaf and an avocado half on each serving plate. Fill the avocado halves with the shrimp and yogurt mixture. Top with ground pepper and serve.

A quick google reveals that shrimp stuffed avocado (made with lime and cilantro, and NO YOGURT, LEMON OR OTHERWISE) is a perfectly cromulent Colombian appetizer. This version, however, reminds me of that Sweet Valley Twins book wherein Jessica enters a pineapple-recipe contest to win a trip to Hawaii, but she can't bother to actually cook anything so she makes up a pineapple upside-down cake with, like, tuna and hot sauce or something. Then when she actually wins the trip she feels guilty the whole time.

AND it reminds me of another book I just read about cooking at the turn of the century, a period in which ambitious women who still couldn't get out of the kitchen did terrible things to food in the name of science and modern civilization. Monochromatic meals were the height of fashion and any food item could become a salad by the addition of mayonnaise or, even better, gelatin.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the author of this recipe can only be a repressed Victorian female scientist trapped in the body of a lazy middle school student ~~thanks to the cursed ring the Unicorn club found on the beach in Hawaii, no seriously, that's the plot.~~ And I hope they're losing sleep over it. Now, someone please make this recipe and prove me wrong.

Happy birthday Rebecca!!!

2011-09-12T06:40:00.000-07:00

Today, in honor of the 29th anniversary of the date of birth of the woman without whom this blog would have an entirely different name, I bring you this photo from the archives. Scene: the year is 2003. Rebecca has just turned 21 and is being feted by a bunch of people we either actually liked or felt obliged to invite. I know she looks kind of bored in this particular party shot, but trust me, there's no greater certainty in life than the fact that if Rebecca looks apathetic, she's actually having a really good time on the inside. Also, this picture prominently features both her awesome hair and proof of the occasion, in the form of the birthday-themed whiteboard decorated for us by Lauren and Ruth.

So happy birthday to our favorite Rebecca... may we celebrate a million more birthdays with you over the years!!!

grapes of the summer are low on the bough

2011-09-06T09:17:00.001-07:00

Happy September! In honor of my most hated time of year in all of Austin, I will proceed to say NOTHING about the weather in this post. Swear to god.

So anyways. While the most obvious consequences of selling our car may still be the watermelon-shaped holes in our life, there have been other significant changes as well - like the fact that now when I get offered something like, oh, say, a ride to Ikea, I say "YES" and am in their car buckling my seatbelt before the offerer has actually even finished phrasing the question. It does make me a much more decisive shopper, though, when I know I have just one shot at bringing home the perfect piece of furniture. Like this one!

The Before shot follows for your home decor voyeurism pleasure (as we all know, the only way I can ever motivate myself to do anything - including but not limited to washing dishes, cutting my hair, and/or assembling Ikea furniture - is with the promise of Before and After photos). R&I continue to make dubious headway toward Actual Grownuphood by finally getting rid of the gross computer desk that our landlord gave to us when we first moved to Texas with only the clothes on our backs. It's done its time in several rooms over the years... pretty much everything we own has been shoved into this desk at one time or another. Most recently it's been loitering in the kitchen pretending to be a pantry, but we knew the dirty truth. So long and good riddance!

And finally, as Rebecca mentioned, we recently held a brief blog reunion in Reno - we were out there for my cousin's wedding, and Rebecca braved a 10-hour round-trip Greyhound ride to spend less than 24 hours with us because we made her. Well, she mostly volunteered, but we would have made her even if she hadn't. It was everything a weekend should be - excessive food, gold rush tourist towns, casinos, a brief cameo at Reno Pride (we totally walked past the park where it was happening! I made everyone sit around and wait for me while I paid my $5 admission and walked through, because I've basically never met anything gay that I could resist. You heard me.), pretty parks, and drunken family time. Awesome. Here are the Texas ambassadors with my dad, all gussied up. I believe this was shortly after the ceremony and shortly before the bride & groom rode in on an Xtracycle...

Happy cat dreams to you too...

2011-08-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

Oh man, online school is awesome. I may have no study skills whatsoever, but at least I actually get MORE work done when I'm bleary and don't want to get out of bed until noon. This morning I finished all the work for my one credit "social networking" class, in which I did things like create yet another blog and watch 32487346 tutorials for 2387645 online tools I will need for my studies. (Which reminds me. The above is an image I downloaded from one of those tutorials, because it was too bizarre not to, and now I can't even remember the context in which it maybe slightly made some kind of sense???)

I've also learned that it is possible to max out the amount of hours I am physically capable of staring at this screen, that such a threshold is not only theoretical. It's kind of cutting into my recreational online reading, but that's probably for the best. I'll try not to let it cut into my blog time anymore though :)

Work has also been just non stop crazytime, with every student and their mother (literally) descending upon us for textbooks and endless reading lists. It was such a relief to step out into the non-virtual non-book world for a rare Friday Night Out on the Town. Why oh why don't I see live music more, and why don't I go to this lovely intimate venue that's an easy bike ride every freaking night????? (This is really a rhetorical question, in that I am pooooor.) Just listening to some tunes and sipping a cocktail in the courtyard while waiting for natalia to show would have been enough, not to mention the rockstar performance by rupa and the april fishes. It was one of our rare warm summer evenings, so the ride home was maybe even the best part. Oakland just SMELLS so good at night. Yum.

Flashback to last last weekend, when we took a blog field trip to RENO!!!! I spent 10 hours on the greyhound listening to James Herriot (could anything possibly be more soothing to a weary traveler?), crashed Katie's cousin's pre-wedding BBBQ, patronized Donut Bistro, and won $7.20 on my second 40 cent bet! I quit while I was ahead. So long, Nevada.

And it was all yellow...

2011-08-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

1. Dear god I had the most boring training today. If it gives you an idea, the sexual harassment seminar was the most educational session.

2. Leaving no doubt to his new favorite color, Joe has pretty much been monologuing thusly all week:

"Yellow yellow yellow yellow. Yellow yellow blue! Yellow yellow yellow!"

At least he's well prepared to answer phone calls from certain of our readers.

Me: Hello!
Joe: Yello!

Also, he made some creative body art tonight that I desperately hope Inder has photographically captured. It was not yellow.

3. There's really nothing more satisfying than writing a scathing book review. Especially when you can slander the author.

Speaking of 100% carless...

2011-08-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

We sold our car! For real! Ulp.

With both of us due to become students starting in January (as I have perhaps previously mentioned, neither of us ever make major life decisions for ourself, we just wait to see what Rebecca does and then copy her), we're trying to pinch pennies, and we'd been talking about selling the car for a while. Then the car totally heard us and felt unappreciated and sent us hideous brake failure in retribution. I'll skip the part about how I was on a main road at the time and how our emergency brake doesn't exactly work and how I was talking to my mother on the phone when the brakes stopped responding ("I'M PROBABLY ABOUT TO DIE, MOM, BUT IF NOT I'LL TOTALLY CALL YOU BACK IN 5 MINUTES") and just appreciate the fact that I had already finished the part of my drive that took place on the highway, that I was 2 minutes from home, and that barely any cars were on the road - allowing me to basically roll (through one 4-way stop, heh) at 5 miles per hour down several residential streets and into our driveway. Anyways, it seemed like as good a time as any to put our carfree lifestyle into action. If we can manage to be bus and bike commuters when it's BEEN 100+ DEGREES FOR 22 DAYS IN A ROW AND COUNTING, we can surely make it work forever.

But how will we bring our watermelons home? HOW WILL WE BRING OUR WATERMELONS HOME???

We interrupt this prolonged period of blog silence...

2011-08-03T12:23:00.000-07:00

...to bring you some old photos. Mostly since I don't have a vintage movie reel of cute dancing candy bars that will encourage you to leave the theater or otherwise entertain yourself while nothing happens on the main screen. Here are a few that I pulled off an old computer while I was back home. Takin it back to 2003-2004...

Moms get the computer chairs. Daughters get the basketballs.

Recovering from four wisdom teeth's worth of general anesthetic. Watson looks like he's there to comfort me but actually he's just taking advantage of the extra-padded couch.

The bear coat! This is the giant coat that lives by the front door of my parents' house in the winter. Let all who are cold, enter and put on the bear coat.

A rare shot of me in my a capella days. Hint: I'm the white girl with brown hair.

And lastly but not leastly, an original Richard Lee - as I recall, this was my desktop background for at least a full semester of college. Don't you just wanna hug that thing?

On the homefront

2011-07-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

1. I was reminded that I hadn't brought my bike into the house when, a few minutes ago, I heard a bright "ding!" from outside the window. Thanks, Joe! Ringing the bell on my bike isn't quite his favorite thing in the world anymore, but it still ranks pretty high up there. He also likes to point at all the parts on the bike and have me name them, much like with his 1001 Trucks book. Peddle! Chaincase! Tire valve!

Speaking of which, did you know this blog went 100% carless for awhile? I assume Katie and Richard are still making extra grocery bike trips for watermelon. (This appears to be their largest car-free concern.) After hearing their story of brake woes, I promptly came back from MA to (less dramatic) tire failure. I eventually got those new tires I'd been putting off, but in the meanwhile I enjoyed the excuse to just rely on Old Blue for a solid couple of weeks.

Pro: I hate driving and have been missing the bike commute I had at my previous jobs. It turns out to be surprisingly doable despite having shifts as early as 8 am and as late as 11:30 pm.
Pro: Also, it's kind of creepy how quickly I got all summery and toned just from a lame short bike ride, especially given that I generally use this as an excuse to come home and eat pizza and cookies for dinner. I probably shouldn't be surprised that replacing ass-sitting in the car for an hour each day with vaguely human movement in the outdoors will have that effect...
Con: It's really quite easy to do the whole transit commute thing... assuming you don't want any space in between work to, you know, live. Good times.
Con: Double bike-->bart commutes on mondays, to work and singing. Well, mostly the one freaking hill up to the singing space. ZOMG THAT IS THE MOST EVIL HILL EVER.

2. With my erratic work schedule, I haven't been able to get to the farmers' markets like I used to. I hear you can buy fruits and veggies at these places called gro-ce-ry stores, but it's not something I ever remember to do. So I've been having serious produce withdrawal. Fortunately, this finally gives me the excuse I've been looking for to sign up for a CSA! Yay! I can't wait for the first delivery, which is obscenely close to home. Speaking of obscenely close to home, I finally found someone with local eggs who'll trade for jam!

(She had to delay the delivery, and ended her email with: "The up side is that the eggs will be only hours old. I hope this isn't a problem.")

3. I officially registered for classes! Woohoo! Confusingly, I didn't get very excited about class shopping. If you knew me in my college days, you'll realize that this is probably a good sign, in that it won't end up being the high point of my semester. Also, it's just the core required classes. I did look up professor reviews and essentially chose the sections with the ~~best ratings~~ smallest workload. For the record, these classes are:

LIBR200: Library and Society (AKA Libraries and You, or "Did you know your chosen field of study is Very Important, thereby justifying all the money you are about to spend?")
LIBR204: Information Organizations and Management (This one cracks me up because they describe it as: "Identifying distinguishing characteristics, culture and relationships of information organizations. Emphasizes theories examining the interaction between human beings and the organizations in which they work." But apparently this is a fancy way of saying we read pop-business books like Who Moved My Cheese.)

OH and I almost forgot the newly required 1 credit course.
LIBR 203: Online Social Networking (I'm pretty sure this is exactly what it sounds like. I also think they pretend it's Beyond Cutting Edge, but actually they use this course to weed out students who don't know how the people got into their computer screen and hence shouldn't actually be enrolled in a distance learning program.)

4. When I went out to take a picture of my eggs for illustration, Joe was giving new meaning to the phrase "all-terrain vehicle."

5. Also, I forgot that I had taken a picture of my buried treasure.

By which I mean Crouton stole an energy bar from me, buried it in the backyard, and dug it up again a week later. And yes, it was still sealed, and yes, I ate it.

Forget our golden years, this blog is going back to school

2011-07-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

In the literal sense that Katie, Richard and I are all going back for various graduate degrees. Eek. I'll be the first to take the plunge this fall, when I start ~~clown college~~ the MLIS program "at" San Jose State. I've been pretty much ignoring this fact, which I learned today from my orientation video is actually the recommended strategy.

I encourage you to click through to at least see the first slide. "And what you're seeing in front of you is in fact one of the entrance gates to San Jose State University and if you were coming to campus, that's probably one of the gates that you would actually walk through." Then they remind you that you're going to be sitting in front of your computer like a schmuck instead.

Anyway, I'm still stuck on the later slide where the lady with the nice accent tells you to enjoy your summer holiday, relax, and generally live like you were dying. "And I'd also encourage you not to get too worried. These are your last wonderful months of freedom and once you start into the program, you're going to become a very frenzied individual." THAT'S YOUR PEP TALK???

Vacationland

2011-07-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

4th annual Canada Day book report (by way of Bastille Day)

2011-07-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

25! It's a nice, round number, sure, but it's a new low for me. Never (in the arbitrary 4 years I've been keeping track) have I read so few books in the months from Jan-June! Woe!

It's ok. Shake it off Edwards. Look, a chart!

So many non-traditional formats! Ooh, ahh!

1) The return of audio! It turns out the reports of the death of my stereo were greatly exaggerated. There's a funny story about my new trusty mechanic and my embarrassing rube goldberg-esque method of breaking things in my car, but that's not the point here. What's the point of this list item Rebecca? I like lists. I mean, look, I listened to 4 audiobooks just in the last couple months! Once I remembered that I would rather have a broken stereo than listen to dreamy literary fiction, all was well. Please do yourself a favor and check out Will Grayson, Will Grayson on audio.

2) Graphic novels! I read one! For the first time ever in life!

3) E-books! Like the good Librarian of the Future* that I am, I downloaded the Stanza e-reader for my ipod touch. I was skeptical of reading on a small screen but I actually found it to be super easy and natural. Sure, you "turn the page" more often, but this just involves a tiny thumb motion with the hand that's already holding the ipod. This means you can even read while eating, you know, ribs! Or some equivalent messy vegetarian food item! Genius! And my carry-on bag was so light on my last trip. Like audio, I wouldn't prefer to read anything too meaty in this format, but for travel and lunch breaks it's totally blowing my mind.

4) Oh yeah, plus some of those old-fashioned paper things that I spend all day carting around. Those are pretty good too. Especially riveting non-fiction like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Country Driving.

*Trademark 2011 Richard J. Lee, laser eyes and robot dog included.

The best part about pulling old files off of old computers...

2011-07-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

...is finding amazing gems that you haven't seen since 2005. Like this written transcription of an actual conversation (AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION, people) that occurred between Richard and Rebecca, circa sometime in college:

REBECCA: "I can't decide which picture I like better because they're totally different."
RICHARD: "I can judge two totally different things... like sports and emotions. For example, I like baseball more than compassion."
REBECCA: "Do you really like baseball more than compassion?"
RICHARD: "Well, I like baseball more than patience. But I like patience more than hockey."

PS Apologies for neglectful blogging lately. My excuse is that I am busy having East Coast adventures involving most of my readers. Is that good enough?

Our shelter from the stormy blast / and our eternal home

2011-07-06T11:06:00.000-07:00

Is it wrong that my best memories of singing this weekend are 3-part harmony in the car with questionable recall of the poetry? Tied with 4-part late night harmony in PJs?

In between our private harmonizing we did squeeze in time for the 11th annual PVADS and the 10th annual Harp of Ages sing at Laura's! If I did my math right, that's 21 years of 11 shapes!

And in between all those shapes we also found time to do a lot of nothing, which is what we do best. Mmmmm.

And even though it wasn't too hot I got to stick to benches with my favorite altos and eat a lot of watermelon.

And I am still full of potluck goodness and Mahoney home cooking.

In conclusion, WHY DIDN'T I TAKE MORE VACATION TIME???? WHY??

Still blogging by proxy, with more visitors!

2011-07-03T21:06:00.000-07:00

Well, as usual I'm too overstimulated by my western mass adventures to blog about them properly. Ok, full disclosure, I slept in and barely left the house today. But there's a lot going on here! For more on this, let's check in with Dan, who continues to do a better job of blogging about our lives than we do, despite being on the other side of the country.

Also, we squeezed in a visit from Ruth, Lauren and their Little Kicker! We love love love them, but we hate the pictures of all of us, and we lack Richard's mom's photoshopping skills, so here's the two most photogenic members.

eating nonfood keeps them mean / but they're young forever

2011-06-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

Drag prom! This photo is marginally more awesome than the one I put on Facebook only because you can see J's sheets in it, which match my Richard's tie to perfection (as well as Carly's beautiful handwoven cuff, which you can't actually see in this picture but just imagine it). I feel like it's all very Berlin-brothel-fabulous.

It's clearly time to blog because a) I finished my last stats exam this morning! and b) apparently Rebecca just posted. And we are nothing if not creepily prone to deciding to blog during the same 24-hour window after weeks of not saying anything.

So it turns out that procrastinating on your homework is actually as poor an idea as it was the last time I was in school. Haven't they managed to invent a way to make that not a bad idea yet? I spent the past five days doing pretty much nothing in my spare time except catching up on homework and studying for three tests. When I fell asleep I saw P-values and critical intervals floating before my eyes. (No for real. I did. It was sort of charming and awful at the same time.) And then it all paid off when I took my last exam this morning and remembered the amazing amazing feeling of being a student who's DONE WITH CLASS... it's almost sweet enough to make me decide that applying to grad school isn't a terrible idea. It's a better idea than blogging instead of doing homework, I'll give it that, but I still have my doubts.

Anyways, yeah. Being a student again. That was weird. Although I did slip back into the role disturbingly easily... all my old staying-up-late skills came back with a vengeance, and I remembered how to draw boxes around my homework answers like a pro. I even passed a note to a friend today. Like, an actual note on a piece of notebook paper! 8th grade Katie would have folded it into one of those awesome triangles where you tuck the ends into themselves, but whatever, I had to draw the line somewhere.

So yeah, one more day of work, one happy hour date, some final packing, and in 31 hours I'm Massachusetts-bound! Woo! I'll leave you all with a highly seasonally inappropriate picture of my destination. Good night!

visitors, and blogging by proxy

2011-06-29T01:26:00.000-07:00

Wow, I suck as a blogger. Let's let a couple other folks pick up the slack, hmm? Fortunately, this has been a good month for visitors! First up was our only blog sibling, Mr. Dan Mahoney! He braved Ayn Rand, socializing with strangers, evil United computers, and brunch with meeeee! I got to eat pancakes with three ex Brown fencers and talk about people getting married and having babies, like we're some kind of grown ups or something. Then I sent them on their way to pick up ninja turtle cake toppers*. This is a wedding I can get behind. For full coverage, I highly recommend you see here. SPOILER ALERT: I give Dan the best. book. ever.

Next was my daaaaaaad! We had amazingfuntimes as usual, mostly involving OMGsomuchgoodfood. I kind of don't remember how to feed myself after he comes to town. Also, we went cherry picking! Here's Stu with a full cherry belly.

Cue my alter ego. I'll let her ramble about cherries and quote excessively from a children's classic.

* Overheard in Bookstore
Little Kid pointing at DVD: Are they bad guys?
Mom our age-ish: No, honey, those are the Ninja Turtles.
Kid: So, they're the good guys?

But no one will ever see my poem

2011-06-12T23:48:00.000-07:00

Hi guys! Thank god Katie's been in a stats-induced procrastination phase or this blog would be even more echo-y lately.

I just read a book about Writers, which never ever fails in making me yearn to be a Writer. This one happened to about angsty teen (ziiiiiiiiine!) writers, so I felt completely justified in writing my very own angsty teen poem, and even more justified in snickering at it. Then I remembered that I have a blog where I can blog instead of trying to Write, so here I am.

If you didn't know, I have this kind of ongoing existential crisis wherein I wish I could write pretty words instead of just read them, but I just ain't a born writer. Writers are always talking about having a compulsion to write from a hyperbolically young age, and writing lots of crap for years before they ever wrote anything worthwhile. That really really really does not describe me. I am a born reader and a born singer, but I've never kept a journal and never written anything creatively that wasn't assigned. I really wish I could blame my fourth grade teacher who gave me a D or something ridiculous on a totally awesome time travel story I wrote, but it didn't actually crush my creative spirit or anything. Anyway. Do you think there's a way to become a born-again writer? That doesn't involve, you know, putting in a lot of work?

In other media news, after being sick a zillion times this spring, I finally ponied up for a netflix account so I could stare at the teevee while hacking. Mostly so I could watch BSG, which I inhaled until it completely lost me at the beginning of season 3. (Did it jump the shark, or should I not lose faith?) Also Katie and I have a mini gay film festival going (I don't think film festival means what we think it does.) As she alluded to, this blog heartily endorses Plan B. Go forth and watch, and you too can join in with our ~~highly cultural discussion~~ obsessive googling of unknown Argentine actors!

I'M POSTING TWO DAYS IN A ROW THE APOCALYPSE MUST BE UPON US

2011-06-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, I just have more homework to do. Or not do, clearly.

I'm on the chapter about ethics in scientific experiments, so I figured I'd take this opportunity to examine some ethical quandaries in my own life...

ETHICAL QUANDARY 1: My friend's theater collective is hosting a drag prom fundraiser later this month. I plan on going with some friends, and I also told two of my interns about it. Neither of them is quite of legal drinking age yet. Bearing in mind that this is a) a DRAG PROM, people, and b) organized by bunch of drama queens, I am working under the assumption that if said interns attend, they will have no difficulty procuring alcohol. If that's the case... am I responsible for making sure they have a way to get home safely? I mean, they're 20, it's not like they're 13 - but I did invite them. Please design a scatterplot illustrating the relationship between the interns' level of intoxication and my responsibility for them, and determine a formula for the least-squares regression line that will predict at what point I will be obligated to take their keys away and find them a designated driver. [Editor's note: I'm not quite actually ~~nerdy~~ awesome enough to create a fake scatterplot based on this blog post, so I just cut and pasted one I'd already created for my homework. But isn't it purty?]

ETHICAL QUANDARY 2: Is it morally reprehensible for me to be obsessed with Andrej Pejic even though he's only 19? But I mean seriously, can you blame me?

2a: On a related note, I recently rewatched But I'm a Cheerleader and realized to my horror that I'm almost definitely too old to find teenage Clea Duvall hot anymore. OH THE HUMANITY.

2b: The other day in class I was chatting with my new friendship (whenever we have to do partner work our teacher always tells us to "Make a friendship! Talk to your friendship! Figure out what the answer is!") who's probably in his early 20s, and I made a joking reference to doing such-and-such "now that I'm old," to which he made one of those feeble polite social protests, like "No no, you're not..." Wait what??? Wasn't that supposed to be a joke??? As it turns out, I'm now so old that people in their early 20s feel the need to reassure me that I'm not so old. Nice. It actually gives me a new feeling of power and authority. DEFER TO MY WISDOM, WORLD.

ETHICAL QUANDARY 3: When R goes backpacking in Colorado later this month, is it acceptable for me to do all the things he usually tells me not to do, like eat in the bedroom and turn the air conditioning down two degrees? (Please send all responses to me privately. I suspect he's monitoring this blog.)

Homework break!

2011-06-11T19:32:00.001-07:00

So I'm taking a blogging break in the middle of catching up on statistics homework, which makes me all kinds of nostalgic for the excessive timewasting I used to accomplish back in my actually-needing-to-do-homework-all-the-time days. Ah, those halcyon years when Rebecca was always next door and couldn't be happier to help me not write that French paper. However, the bright side of taking four years of humanities classes is that math homework is SO SATISFYING. You answer problems, you get some numbers, either they're right or they're wrong and there's nothing you can do about it, and BAM you're done. Brilliant! No trying to figure out the best way to make that elusive point, no skimming novels you haven't read even though you're supposed to discuss them in class tomorrow, no IMing Rebecca the terrible thesis statement you just wrote because it's 4am and you can't manage to write anything that's not hilarious. Also, I get to answer problems with titles like "Thin monkeys, fat monkeys." Why wasn't I an Intro to Statistics major???

(Also, bonus points because my teacher is from Argentina just like my new favorite movie! Plus he says enjoyable things like, "I won't be grading your tests until this weekend. In order to grade I need my couch. And my cat.")

In other news... the countdown has begun for East Coast Extravaganza 2011! I even finally bought a new laptop (literally the first computer I've ever owned that wasn't a hand-me-down or a shared machine... oooooooooohhhhhhh so shiny) in preparation for the "working remotely" that is my excuse for taking a GIANT-ASS vacation and leaving my poor interns to their own devices for three weeks. (Ironically, one of them is only in Texas for 10 weeks to intern with us, and normally lives in Westfield.) Somehow I just have to sweat it through the rest of June. So. Much. Sweating.

Okay, bedtime. I look forward to further communicating with you all at a future date in between calculating monkey fat.

I can totally make it till October, I can totally make it till October, I can totally make it till October...

2011-06-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

As we roll into my least favorite season, I am making an effort this year to stay positive. Not a guarantee. So anyways, here without further ado I present to you:

~~Ten~~ Nine Things About Texas Summer That I ~~Love~~ Usually Remember Not to Be Entirely Ungrateful For:

1) The honey in my giant honey jar never solidifies and always pours like a dream.

2) Getting out of the shower is entirely painless because the bathroom is never cold.

3) We always know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow (99 degrees and humid) so we never have to think about what to wear.

4) Sweating isn't embarrassing because everybody does it.

5) Frozen margaritas.

6) If I time it right I can cycle 2-3 loads of laundry on and off the clothesline in a single day, and have everything be dry.

7) We can go on vacation to other places that are actually beautiful during the summer and not feel like we're missing anything.

8) My bread rises really fast.

9) Frozen margaritas.

10) I ran out of things.

Oh there will be a market in that day...

2011-05-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

Judgement Day, pfft. It's Bike to Market Day! Actually, I kind of forgot about it until now, but it's a good excuse to be nostalgic about last year. You remember, when I got extra excited and created a loop to four participating stores. The mission was to seek out new bike paths, free stuff, and discounted groceries. Commence commerorative picspam.

My quest began with the Food Mill, the small Oakland natural foods fixture.

I hadn't biked there before - or since - because it's literally uphill both ways. It wasn't the most auspicious beginning. I conquered the hills but then the store was just totally devoid of pomp or circumstance surrounding the occasion. (Don't let the picture fool you - the festive bike parking is a daily feature.) Also, the cashier's chosen topic of conversation was the biker who was killed in the neighborhood recently. Thanks dude. Oh well, once reminded of the existence of the event, the manager came through with the free giant pack of in-house cookies. Yum. Also, I found malted milk powder!

I had better luck at my next stop, Farmer Joe's. Finally, some pomp.

There were some great guys from EBBC and the neighborhood association tabling outside and doing free bike parking. Plus the swag was by far the best here, I got a whole tote loaded with fruit and sundry. Even the lady hitting me up for change outside was cool, asking about my bike and recommending a rack/pannier for my groceries.

Then there was a brief stop home to unload. Then off to the Alameda Natural Market. I love the ride along the bay, in all its industrial splendor, and over the drawbridge.

(And last year I was still in blissful ignorance of the dead cat surprise.)

ANM wins for best signage!!

Last but... actually, yes. Least. I hit up Whole Foods, which offered no discount, just a measly free container of trail mix. With raisins. And the ride was hella windy. But at least I finally remembered to stop off at the Oakland Museum on the way and take a picture of their awesome installation of planters.

And thus ended a grocery-ful day. Always a good day in my book. And I had friendly chats with fellow bikers and bike-adjacent people. But did Market day inspire me to "make it a habit to bike to my most routine destinations?" In a word, no. I was one of the few who showed up because I already wanted to do that. The event just didn't have much presence - I don't think the casual shopper even noticed anything was going on, except maybe at Farmer Joe's. I got the feeling it took a backseat to the 2834786 other events scheduled for bike week/month. That's ok, but why settle when you can't spit in this town without hitting someone passionate about bike and food culture? Get those people with the crazy bike blender out front! And why was the panhandling lady the only one who offered me helpful advice about carrying my groceries??? How about some more targeted outreach, demoing racks/panniers/bike baskets or something. Maybe if I ever get around to getting involved with the EBBC I can help rev things up a little. Today, well, I'm just going to go pick up some free cookies.

Synchronicity. And apes.

2011-05-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

So YET AGAIN I seem to have posted within 24 hours of Rebecca. Out of consideration to the noble book widget, I've pre-dated my new post - you'll have to scroll past Mr. Garfunkel to find it. This is just a placeholder. But because no good reader should go unrewarded, I will use this placeholder to share with you a recent R quote, since I know those are your most favorite.

"Every time I see a giant crate, I imagine there's an angry ape inside of it."
-Richard

I'm pretty sure he was just saying that to make me laugh. But the scary part is I'm not entirely certain.

Slow Reading

2011-05-17T02:04:00.000-07:00

Because book list keepers get all the hot chicks.

OK, I may have started the annual book cover widget tradition on this blog, but KT is the one who's been keeping the flame burning. Forget 2010, I never even posted a 2009 report! There was some perfectionist reason I can't remember anymore, but I'm calling it.

(Sadly, blogger seems to hate the goodreads javascript widget code all of a sudden, so you'll have to take my screenshot's word for it.)

Things I have done this month: May 2011 edition

2011-05-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

1) Registered for my first math class since 2000. This should be... fun.

2) Watched a performance by a Hungarian-Canadian cabaret singer costumed in a bra, shorts, high-heeled pumps, a kitchen apron, and a boxing helmet. Inexplicably, it was not actually awesome.

3) Bought my plane tickets to MA. July 1-20, people!

4) Admired the continued astounding cuteness of the nephs and their sister (new neph):

5) Discovered the complete 1.5 seasons of The Critic on DVD at the library. Turns out that the five scenes I've been quoting for the past 15 years were in fact the only parts of that show worth remembering. But who can resist all those charming circa-1995 hand-drawn characters and excessive Jurassic Park references?

6) Consumed my weight in tortilla chips and mixed drinks. I have no regrets.

7) Been obsessed with the Andrej Pejic Dossier cover:

8) In the grand tradition of those who came before me, attempted to make yogurt and ended up with a spectacular jar full of sweet, lumpy, watery milk.

9) Agreed to go see Bridesmaids with R, where we waited in line behind two dyed-blondes drinking bright pink cocktails in fluted glasses. You can't make this stuff up.

10) Counted up all my currently-checked-out unread library books (14).

In sum: school, music, travel, nephs, nostalgia, junk food, androgyny, cooking, chick flicks, reading. Rinse and repeat. I kind of love my life.

Happy Dan's birthday!

2011-05-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

In honor of the anniversary of my little brother's birth, and because I was surely neither the first person nor the last to wish him a happy Mother's Day today (ha ha get it? cuz it's Mother's Day! I'm so clever), I would like to make amends by posting adorable pictures of him on the internet. Let's start with two of my most favorite. They were taken in the same era, but in two completely different places, and clearly on two completely different days (as evidenced by the otherwise identical different-colored shorts). I can only assume (and my vague memories support this theory) that he spent the entirety of 1989 wearing that yellow shirt with boats on it and one falling-down sock.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, some Katie And Dan Through The Years highlights. From the top: me doing what I used to do best (squashing Dan's face), best outfit ever (no not me, although the purple sweatpants are hot stuff; I was actually referring to the tool belt, hard hat, and inexplicable single padded mitten), Halloween (please thank my mom for my amazing homemade Olive Oyl costume), my college graduation.

And finally, because it is in fact Mother's Day, let's have a little appreciation for the people who made this adorable specimen. Good job, family.

Another fine evening at home

2011-04-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

R (slicing cucumber into his salad): Do you want cucumber in your salad, too?
K: Yes please.
R: But I thought you don't like cucumbers in your salad.
K: No I love cucumbers, I'll eat them in anything.
Pause.
R: Oh that's right. I'm the one who doesn't like cucumbers in my salad.

Never a dull moment, folks. Never a dull moment.

Sunday morning coming down...

2011-04-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

... from the Golden Gate singing. So pleased. So tired. But I have a photo tutorial for you!

Book fail.

But - duct tape! Who knew it came in Denson red? (I mean, Denson Red™)

Happy book = happy singer.

I'm off to sing again in Half Moon Bay. I've kind of been living for this moment, when I get to sing and not do any work to make it happen. Can I please only travel to singings from now on?

Oh, one more photo.

Registration supplies. Just the necessities, you know.

Since last we spoke

2011-04-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

Houseguests!

Birthdays!

Seders!

Swimming! (I have no idea why I look like I hired a third-rate photographer to pose me as if I were getting my school picture taken.)

Happy spring, friends and family.

Also, in spite of the fact that no less than three of you told me about lists you were thinking about leaving on my last post, only Ellen managed to actually do so. She will be receiving a special Rebecita & KT prize, to be determined by the bloggeresses.

My life. I mean, what is my life?

2011-04-13T00:31:00.001-07:00

Remember those halcyon days when Katie was only shamed into posting by threat of being pushed off the page by my ramblings? Yeah. It's not that I'm just not into ~~you~~ blogging, it's more that I'm working 6 days a week. I'd be more than happy to share the lurid details behind the scenes at HPB, but I'm afraid that when I check the blog stats I might start getting negative (imaginary?) hits. Seriously guys, no one wants to read a montage of me up to my ears (literally) in books, watching training videos, and engaging in our most common form of workplace bonding - frozen dinner comparison. No, really, we talk about our frozen dinners. A lot. If you were wondering, no-noodle lasagna (tagline: "Because sometimes noodles just get in the way!") is exactly as good as it sounds.

Also, the Golden Gate is coming up in omg under 2 weeks! While I'm shockingly unstressed, considering the amount of things I'm supposed to be making happen, my free-time-montage is perhaps only marginally less boring than the workplace one - it's mostly commuting on BART, listening to Joe torture the dogs, and doing lots o mundane convention related tasks (buying office supplies! opening bank accounts! emailing with/about crazy people!) The cherry on the top of this life as Snoozy McEveryman is that I have jury duty tomorrow. (Which in California means I don't have jury duty but that I have to check in 5,000 times before they tell me that.)

In conclusion, the most interesting thing I can think of to tell you is how much I love Ken Jennings!!!! I never even watched him win his gazillion dollars, but I'm completely under the sway of his hi-larious smartypants progressive-but-church-tithing-mormon powers. If you used to run home from school to catch the 3:30 showing of Jeopardy, and your idea of a dream Sweet 16 party was to create your own Family Feud game, you'll love his book too.

Lists PLUS blogreader challenge

2011-04-07T11:44:00.001-07:00

So most of the time I find McSweeney's a little too drunk on itself to be a satisfying read, but I did spend an inordinate amount of time this afternoon browsing their entertaining Lists section, which has inspired me to revive one of our favorite regular blogging cop-out features: the list. Here are just three of the many, many possible lists I could have subjected you to but refrained from.

Things Richard Has Given Me For Past Birthdays:

1. A wooden plaque commending my outstanding achievement in the field of excellence.
2. A life-size cardboard cutout of himself.
3. A child's turkey costume, size L (actually intended for him).

Animals I Hate:

1. Our landlord's dog
2. Birds
3. Horses

People I Started Following On Twitter Last Week:

1. My brother
2. Rosie
3. Neil Patrick Harris

Okay, readers, whoever leaves us the best list of their own in the comments section wins a special as-yet-to-be-determined Rebecita and KT prize. Make me laugh. MAKE ME.

Um, at least she's following her heart?

2011-03-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

Last weekend brought a whirlwind visit from my dad. Among other Austiny sights and sounds (Tex-Mex, margaritas, Wildflower Center, Tex-Mex, margaritas, Ginny's Little Longhorn, Tex-Mex, margaritas, Town Lake Trail) we took him to see some roller derby. You don't need any more commentary on roller derby than already exists on the internet, so instead I bring you 30 seconds of the halftime show. My friend Jeremy suggested that at least it was better than strippers? Watch our video and decide for yourself.

Oh yeah, and it's called "hoop dancing." I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse.

Spring break!

2011-03-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

So, did I mention that in addition to getting the same job I already have, I also got the job I used to have? Yeah, that one. The one I hated. But it's just once a week - I've been volunteering on Wednesdays since January, and now they're actually paying me to be an aide. Except today school's out. Someday I'm going to stop pretending that I will spend my days off any other way than, well, off. But I did finally get around to making that mason jar soap dispenser!

Spring Break!

Whose adventure?

2011-03-26T00:33:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! So I got a new job! It's, well, it's the job I already have. But I get to keep it! With, like, more money and benefits. (I was just a temporary employee before, which sounded fine to me back before borders imploded and I had some hope of finding a fancier bookstore position a little closer to home. Now they can pry this job from my cold dead fingers.)

To celebrate I give you a few of my favorite shelves.

Postbirthday check-in

2011-03-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

Greetings from this side of 29! I had a lovely birthday long weekend - easy on the work and heavy on the SXSW. Which involved large amounts of free things including, in no particular order: walking, Izzes, Owen Pallett, ice cream, and bands I'd never heard of.

Tomorrow I take over the filial blogging reins from my brother when my dad arrives for a brief visit. We're hoping all the margaritas will distract him from the fact that it's already 90 degrees here. Um, welcome to Texas?

Systems maintainance, my nemesis

2011-03-20T01:30:00.000-07:00

No, Rebecca, the internets say. You cannot do your taxes. You cannot confirm your credit card. You cannot bank online. You can't write a goddamn book review. You are not allowed to be productive after midnight PST.

Apparently I need to find a job as a systems maintainer, because that's the ONLY time I feel like being productive.

Ahem. What I meant to say was.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!!!!!!!!!!

Because she was too popular to be there in person, I present in her honor the sequel to Richard's Pho Tour. In which we learn you can get a side order of the good stuff (aka tendon.)

Only five people will appreciate this

2011-03-11T12:34:00.000-08:00

But for them, it's worth it. Behold one of Dan's holiday presents to us. We're waiting for the right moment to begin hydration. As those of you who met the dearly departed Johnny Advice Bear know, growing your own legend doesn't happen overnight.

In other news, I've been on a home-improvement rampage lately (the kind that doesn't actually involve fixing anything, just doing things like making homemade frosted glass by Elmer's-gluing white cotton to the windowpanes... you know, the usual). As part of my campaign to get my mom to make us curtains (after careful study, I have concluded that the ability to sew a straight line is not, in fact, genetic), I took a few pictures. Thought I would share with you one of the many differences that five years can make. Because as you well know, there's nothing I like more than before and after photos. So without further ado, I bring you 2006... and 2011! Not too shabby for a couple of kids who moved to Texas in a Saturn.

The musical fruit

2011-03-05T02:13:00.000-08:00

So, Inder has a scheme to make 2011 the year of the bean! Fresh shelling beans that is. Obviously, I couldn't be more pleased with this plan. I got so spoiled in Ecuador, where bags of freshly shelled beans were a convenience product in every small food shop. (Having never before even considered the existence of such a food item! But there's no turning back. It's like discovering that pasta exists pre-dried, or that beets exist pre-canned.) And by freshly, I mean sometimes I actually had to wait for the proprietress to finish shelling the latest batch. Fortunately you can also find a few varieties of fresh beans in our local farmer's markets come summer. Black eyes peas are most common, and the cannellinis are my favorite. Can't wait to try whatever comes up in our backyard!

In celebration, I've posted some of my file photos of the gorgeous fields of shelling beans down at Phipp's. My dad and I were there for the u-pick berries, but I never leave without a few too many dried heirloom beans. (OK, so they aren't pre-bagged by Ecuadorian matrons, but they DO sell over 75 varieties.)

Now, off to order seeds for Pickle Patch 2.0!

Marching into March

2011-03-01T11:33:00.001-08:00

1. R posted a handful of photos from our midwinter/early spring sojourn to all the fair states of the west coast. Behold.

2. At this year's clothing swap, I designated the kitchen and couch as no-swap zones by marking them off with lines of masking tape on the floor. The good news is that since the tape pulled up all the stain on the floor, it's already pre-marked for next year's swap! Heh.

3. Due to major flooding and ensuing renovations in our office, I've been mostly working from home for the past month. OMG WHY HAVE I NEVER BEFORE HAD A JOB THAT I COULD DO IN MY PAJAMAS???? My new goal in life is to rearrange the rest of my life so that I never have to get dressed ever. Our office will ostensibly be usable again in the next couple of weeks, but now that I've had the taste of blood I'm not sure I can go back...

4. On Sunday I watched the Academy Awards in the company of two Justin Bieber dolls, two South Africans, and a girl who told me that my secret celebrity crush* has an ugly face. It was one of the randomer Oscar nights of my life.

5. Your favorite blog authoresses (and honorary blogger Richard, RIP Smarch) may or may not be plotting a rare July east coast appearance. Stay tuned for more details.

*Hillary Swank. Since I know you were dying to ask.

Stu in the Bay

2011-02-17T23:18:00.000-08:00

This month I've been fighting off visitors seeking refuge from blizzards in bee-yootiful California! Last Friday I squeezed in a lunch with my aunt and uncle in Berkeley on my break, then went straight from work to pick up Katie and Richard for their first not-eaten-by-a-convention visit to Oakland!

But I'm getting ahead of myself, I should mention that I first roused myself from my cave of unemployment for a visit from my dad back in January, which turned into a whirlwind of bay area cultural delights. I can't completely reconstruct the awesomeness, but I'll try.

There was cinema - ranging from our second annual father-daughter screening of Jeff Bridges drinking heavily to an unscheduled viewing of the last 2/3 of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World on PBS (you try looking away from all that classic car destruction) to a brilliant Cukor film, part of the Noir City fest at the Castro. Not to mention the screening of Awake My Soul at the Swedish American Hall.

There was food, food, and more food. We spent an afternoon just noodling around the mission (actually managed to get on the same bart train as my ex-coworker, who was, yes, going to work. Awkward.) that started with pupusas and ended with house-grown olives (and house-grown goat for my dad!) at Pauline's Wine Bar. We also ate our way through the other sides of the bay, including my favorite spot in Oakland and an amazing Indian-Mexican fusion place in Sausalito.

And let's not forget The Great Outdoors. If forced to choose a highlight from the weekend, I would have to say finally biking over the Golden Gate Bridge! When unhypothetically forced to choose, my dad agreed. Actually, he said he was amazed to feel comfortable biking in San Francisco to get to the bridge, which was the hardest part of the whole thing. We went out of our way to rent a beater for him from the Bike Hut, which I can't recommend highly enough. The awesome dude there even fixed my own bike for me. With a mallet.

Well, dad, thanks for the high times. But I still haven't forgiven you for the dead cat surprise.

Rebecita & KT - blogging from the same laptop

2011-02-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

As Linda pointed out, R&I are indulging in some rampant, indiscriminate traveling right about now. First stop: Bay area! R&R are currently making the most of their mornings by earning a respectable living wage and/or going for a run around the lake; I on the other hand am doing what anyone would do given a few hours to kill on a beautiful sunny day in one of the most spectacular places on earth: blogging in Rebecca's bedroom with the curtains closed.

Vacation highlights so far have included waking Rebecca up with our snoring, scaring 19-month-old Joe (he keeps pushing his dump trucks into Rebecca's bedroom and then slowly backing away with a frozen smile on his face each time he realizes that she's not alone in here), brunch with Greg B., and a long beautiful stroll through Golden Gate Park. Obnoxiousness, terror, food, and aimless walks: pretty much everything a proper vacation should encompass. I have no regrets.

Okay, off to make something of my life! Or at least change out of my pajamas...

In which Katie guesses wisely

2011-02-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

Please enjoy this transcript of a telephone conversation between your favorite bloggers, which took place at approximately 7:30 PST this evening.

R: I have good news and bad news for you!
KT: Bad news first.
R: No, it's the same news! And you only get one guess.
KT: Ummmmmmmmmm
R: It's exactly what I KNEW was going to happen riiiight before my aunt and uncle and you and Richard came to visit the same weekend.
KT: You got a job!
R: I got a job! Guess when I start!
KT: Tomorrow!
R: Tomorrow. Guess where I'm going to work! It's your favorite store in Texas...
KT: Goodwill!
R: No, but it is next to the Goodwill.
KT: Half Price Books!
R: Ding ding ding! You can come to work with me when you visit.
KT: Don't let me buy anything!

That's right folks, I have a job. (A low paying job with a long commute. At least they're opening a new BART station essentially right next to it.) And the people rejoiced.

then fold thy wings and stay

2011-01-31T23:49:00.000-08:00

11 minutes til February! Must... post... more than once this month...

So, January. This has been a month of staring at the wall interrupted by bursts of awesome california fun. So confusing.

Over MLK weekend, I made my first ever visit to LA, which might not actually count because I didn't set foot outside of San Pedro. The occasion was the All-Cal convention, and it turned into a veritable singing retreat. I drove down in a van with some other bay area singers and stayed in the hostel on site. And when I say hostel, I mean this:

It was rented out just for singers - the mattresses were wicked uncomfortable and as squeaky as they come, which was pretty much the best recipe for insomnia I can think of, but it was otherwise completely free of your regular hostel hassles. The convention was kind of a perfect storm of an amazing class, obscenely gorgeous weather in an obscenely gorgeous place, and low-key quality time with new and old singing friends from the west coast and beyond (notably - Texas invasion!) Good lord. If you haven't been to sing at Angel's Gate, I'm not sure what you're waiting for.

If this actually means anything to you, and you've somehow missed the all-cal spamming on the fasola list, youtube, etc, please enjoy the ultimate O'Leary experience:

As if that weren't enough, I got to catch up with freshly-moved other Rebecca on her birthday weekend. I totally owe her one for indulging me in the "I'm in town! By which I mean an hour away from you! With no transportation!" She came all the way to me, meeting me as the singing ended (Actually, it ran a bit late on Sunday, so juuuuuuuust in time for the announcements and the parting hand. You know, the best part of the weekend and the most fascinating for visitors! Yes.), armed with a file folder of local points of interest. I love all my lawyer friends.

Then it was back to real life, by which I mean back to being poor and unemployed. Cue ~~watching Korean dramas on hulu and developing bedsores~~ operation jobsearch!

Next up, my dad + bay area bee-yooty.

Five years ago this week...

2011-01-28T10:46:00.000-08:00

...we moved to Texas! And the rest, as they say, is history. Who on earth would ever have guessed we'd end up here? Or that Rebecca would end up in California? How far we've come since college...

SMRT

2011-01-21T12:32:00.000-08:00

So you know the kind of semi-hip food establishment where smug tattooed employees write obscure pop culture trivia questions on their chalkboard menu and if you answer it correctly you get some utterly insignificant discount on your order? I totally knew the answer to one of those yesterday! And its original title!!! Thanks, Wesleyan Film Festival. My college education finally paid off big time. Unfortunately, I only noticed the question after I had paid in full. I knew it was too good to be true.

But don't worry, I'm not the beret-wearing excellent rememberer I make myself out to be. Why, just last week I managed to drive straight through our car's 123456th mile without even noticing. Which wouldn't be at all sad or pathetic if I hadn't spent LITERALLY WEEKS in eager anticipation of this momentous event. (No, for real. Every time I got into the car I would look at the odometer in gleeful anticipation. It takes SO LITTLE to entertain me it's truly amazing.) This is really only my second car, and Briana and I have the blurry illegible photographs and the epic story to commemorate my first car's 123456 - it's a tradition! This time I didn't quite go the Peter Mulvey route of resetting the mileage counter 789 miles before 123456, but I did reset it 78.9 miles in advance and threatened Richard with everything from divorce to certain death if he so much as touched it. Then the big day came, except I didn't realize it was the big day, and didn't actually remember it again until it was 4 miles too late. FOUR MILES. FOUR. MILES. FOUR. I don't think anyone except Briana can fully understand the scope of this tragedy.

In conclusion, I mostly don't remember anything.

Another year, another book widget

2011-01-11T14:08:00.000-08:00

This blog loves books! I figure before I go back to school and stop having any time to read ever (and Rebecca goes to ~~clown college~~ library school and gets to only talk about books), I'd better take up as much blog bandwidth as possible with pointless book rambling. Here are my 2010 reads, in descending order of quality, not necessarily proportional to the quality of the cover art. Oh man. So many bad half-dressed covers!

A slow start

2011-01-08T02:07:00.000-08:00

I have been laying looooow these past couple of weeks. Items of interest?

1) I promised a final report on Read Out 2010. I finished several straggler library books, enjoyed one recently gifted book, made some progress on the nonfiction tome, and started the ubiqitous Girl With a Dragon Tattoo. In fact, Inder and I LITERALLY read out the year, putting down our books as the fireworks went off in the neighborhood... the kitchen clock was a minute slow. Anyway, I only completed 4/7 books. I suppose that's a pretty respectable weekly bookcount, and it boosted my 2010 booklist by 10%! Further stats coming soon.

2) On Monday the holiday was over and I had to go back to work! Which is generally bad enough but, wait, didn't I quit????? Sadly I had agreed to come in and clean my stuff out and chat with the new teacher. Actually it was great... it was therepeutic to throw out reams of old papers, I had all the time in the world to properly sort through the fun projects we'd completed and put them in the kids folders for posterity, and the new teacher gets my stamp of approval. Best of all I was able to spend AN UNINTERRUPTED HALF HOUR drilling multiplication with one student! Actually helping kids, how I've missed you! I've said I'll continue to come in and help out once a week, schedule permitting, so we'll see how that goes.

3) I've somehow made a habit of catsitting for Natalia and then not having been organized enough to have vacated her apartment before her return. Fortunately, she doesn't seem to mind the welcoming committee. In fact, fresh from an overnight flight from chile, she jumped on her bike and joined me on my errands! Would you believe this was actually the first joint ride I'd been on since getting old blue*! Not that N and I are strangers to riding together, we used to ride to CAST camp together every day. In fact we spent that heat wave summer of 1995 pretty much glued to our bikes.
*I have a dilemma here, in that I shudder when people name their bicycle friends, but I do feel the need to find some synonyms to shake up the bike blogging. I'll work on it.

Anyway, the mission was to deliver jam to friend of the blog Alex, who it turns out lives essentially in the shadow of AT&T park.

Then from there I went straight to the embarcadero bart to head home. Wow, I was just not prepared for this routine commute turning into a stunning sight seeing jaunt along the water, under the bay bridge and past the ferry building. On a gorgeous, sunny afternoon. How easy it would have been to just keep riding all the way along the bay trail and across the golden gate bridge! This is not an ugly place I live in.

Holiday bam!

2011-01-01T18:47:00.000-08:00

Happy 2011, loyal readers! Let's close out 2010 with some final holiday cheer and then good riddance.

My brother masterminded a Secret Santa exchange this year for all of his disparate friends and acquaintances (see, this is what you missed by not participating), and Richard's Secret Santa somehow knew to get him an electronic puzzle game whose sound effects will haunt my waking and dreaming moments until he stops obsessively playing and/or I make it disappear and then gaslight him until he believes he never received a Secret Santa present.

And a couple of highlights from last night, including new year's biscuits and our perennial NYE companions K&L being meta with a photo of themselves on our loveseat last December 31.

And lastly, a ghost of Christmas past: my brother went home for the holidays and sent me this photo of one of our favorite holiday traditions: the matching hollow fabric Santas that our grandparents gave us one year with clear plastic stomachs so you could see the bounty (I'm pretty sure it was just cheap candy, but I don't actually recall) within. If you grew up in a house like ours, there was only one possible way these Santas were going to end up.

Survival of the fittest, folks. Survival of the fittest.

Now, let's bring on 2011!

Smell you later, 2010!

2010-12-30T23:10:00.007-08:00

What have I been doing with the waning days of the year? Watching trucks on youtube with Joe, eating out of the pantry while the farmers' markets are closed, keeping Natalia's cat company, and listening obsessively to this song.

And let's not forget Read Out 2010! I never made up for the slow start but with one day to go I'm 4/6. I know what I'm doing tomorrow... I'll meet you with a final report next year.

As for this year, I am not sorry to see it go. Between my job woes and not getting to travel much, 2010 didn't give me much to write home about.

But I DID accomplish my one resolution!

I also made perfect latkes, took my first trip to Tahoe, chaired my first sacred harp convention, fangirled over the census, attended the most tempestuously awesome wedding ever, inadvertently created a monster, and rode my bike a lot.

Happy ringing out the old and ringing in the new, everyone.

Thanksgiving 3/3: Am I still talking?

2010-12-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

I can't remember what else I was going to say about Thanksgiving at this point, other than to post some miscellaneous pictures.

1. Ahhhh yes. The Art Institute.

By which you know I mean The Thorne Rooms!

A few of the rooms were decorated with period holiday miniatures, for the first time ever. This was of course the perfect opportunity to inflict Rebecca's Complete Guided Tour on my mom... you may remember my dad had this dubious honor last year. We did all the European rooms, ate our smuggled snacks at the fancy new cafe, then did all the American rooms. My mom is now converted to the wonders of my all-knowing guide book, with its gorgeous 15-minute exposure full page photographs and design history and anecdotes about bibles you can actually read and clocks you can actually wind. Mwa ha ha.

2. My flight on Sunday wasn't until the evening, so my dad and I found ourselves with the afternoon to kill and the previously mentioned perfect fall weather. So we headed out for a short hike in local favorite Thatcher Woods, a forest preserve alongside the Des Plaines river. (That's pronounced "DESS PLANES" for all of you east coast liberal francophones, by the way.) Shockingly, I don't think I'd been there in more than a decade! I think I recall a sophomore class council trip to pick up garbage?

Busy beavers!!

3. So, growing up, my south Oak Park hood was hardly rough, but it wasn't exactly a posh destination. The closest commercial strip had a decidedly fading-small-town-main-street vibe to it. You had your local grocer's, your butcher shop, your christian video store. My friends and I wore down the pavement walking to the Avenue pharmacy to buy the early 90s equivalent of penny candy. Sometimes we'd stop in at the laundromat on the corner of van buren and oak park and buy grape pop from the vending machine.

The butcher was the first to fold and the video place the last. The fabled pharmacy sat empty for years and was recently leveled into a parking lot for the grocer, which survived to stock organic produce for the young hipsters who live in the newly renovated apartments with solar panels on the roof. And when I'm in town the corner-that-doesn't-smell-like-laundry-anymore is always a good opportunity for me to tsk in nostalgia at the signs of the times. But until now, it's merely enjoyed several modest reinterpretations as coffee shops. Look, it finally graduated to a full on bar and grill run by former Oprah producers!

But where will I buy my grape pop?

Read Out 2010!

2010-12-27T02:45:00.008-08:00

Mmmm, unemployment. All the time in the world and no money to spend it on. Well, there's always the printed word to curl up with, right? And boy, is the to-read pile getting scary around here. I'm in the middle of two books, but neither are quick finishes - one is in Spanish and the other is a non-fiction tome. I have a stack of requested books from both Oakland and San Francisco libraries - no renewals. AND I have another stack of books I brought home from Chicago, thanks to early Hanukkah presents and giving some love to old bookshelves.

photo by m glasgow

So on Saturday I challenged myself to a read-a-thon. An average of a book a day til the end of the year! That's 7 books to pad my skimpy booklist this year. So far, well, I'm 0/2. I made some progress but didn't finish anything. Time to put on the coke-bottle reading glasses and get serious. I'll keep you posted.

Hey, anyone care to join me in Reading Out 2010??? 5 reading days left...

Meanwhile, I've been pumping myself up with year end booklists and podcasts. I don't think I've read one book published in 2010! (Uh oh, I smell a bonus challenge!) Tell me, dear readers, what was your favorite book of the year?

christmas in ca

2010-12-26T19:33:00.005-08:00

Another christmas eve with natalia! Please note her festive sweater with "Feliz Navidad" adornment.

Joe, in true form, was more interested in putting his presents back in the stocking or chucking them into other containers than he was in opening them.

A giant stocking teaser. To see the size of these things, and for more on Joe's new fleet of trucks, check out Inder's blog.

His stocking was hung by the heater with care

2010-12-25T18:30:00.008-08:00

Actually it's technically a heater/air conditioning unit. Don't worry, Santa still found it.

I bought R a mini-tree this year (the nice gentleman at the tree lot carved it himself out of a bigger tree) and my mom sent me a boxful of family heirloom ornaments (in my family, heirlooms include a plastic Homer Simpson wearing a Santa hat). Just look at that Christmas morning smile!

R did some hasty wrapping of my presents this morning, using the first newspaper-like thing he was able to fish out of the recycling bin. The irony is not lost on me.

Gathering my booty.

And last but not least, please take a moment to appreciate one of the presents that Santa left for Richard. It's a ROBOT TEA INFUSER, PEOPLE. A ROBOT TEA INFUSER. I don't use the word "hero" very often, but I may be the greatest hero this holiday has ever seen.

Merry Christmas to all!

Thanksgiving 2/3: blogging about home is like biking about architecture?

2010-12-21T23:11:00.020-08:00

One of the things I was really looking forward to this Thanksgiving was tooling around on my dad's fancy bike again. Man, does that feel good in between non-stop holiday binging.

The weather was icky and cold at first, but finally the Sunday after Thanksgiving dawned a perfect fall day. As I rode through the golden afternoon light, I swear every family in town was out raking leaves before the snow came, it was positively Norman Rockwell. ~~I'm not actually sure if such an iconic image exists, but you get the idea.~~ Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about!

(Warning: I've been reading too many bike blogs and drooling over the test rides and gorgeous photography. I'm sort of channeling that here... just minus interesting bike knowledge and a fancy camera. Apologies!)

My dad is luckily not a huge guy, so I can ride his bike without feeling like I'm going to topple off. But where's my step through frame?

Besides being a men's bike, this Specialized Tricross is SUCH a contrast to my vintage Raleigh. It has exponentially more gears, first of all! I just threw it in something that made it feel like work. Whereas mine is solid steel, this has an aluminum frame with carbon fork. Mine is ever so reliable, but ponderous to get going and then is quite sensitive to any steering. The Tricross is delicate but actually steadier. It feels almost spring loaded and then floats along the ground, practically under its own power. It's really screaming to be ridden with no hands. Which is a good thing, because I'm not used to drop bars! The angle was actually very upright, not aggressive at all, but the distance of the handlebars was a bit much - well, duh, the bike is just too big for me! But it was a pleasure to ride for a short distance and it seems perfect for my dad. Because I'm a meddlesome kid, I keep encouraging him to use it for more rides around town and not just sporty leisure riding - it's designed to handle both.

Speaking of urban cycling, having ridden a lot more around Oakland and San Francisco in the last year, and kept my eyes open for bike culture in other places, I was so curious to see how bike-friendly Oak Park is these days. As kids we used to ride everywhere, but I don't remember there being any kind of safety awareness - other than lots of nagging to wear my helmet. Well, it's no Portland, but there's certainly way more visibility! There are bike lanes and bike routes and lots of signs to remind people that cyclists share the road. Even in the cold I saw a good representation of serious commuters with panniers and all.

My mom lives just a few blocks from all the Frank Lloyd Wright homes. I took an impromptu bike tour/photoshoot. Enjoy!

The Home and Studio, where all the foreign tourists were starting their walking tours.

333 Forest Ave. Right about here a mom and young son passed me on a tandem.

318 Forest Ave.

6 Elizabeth Court. Until I passed it I'd forgotten that my friend lived here in junior high. I actually had several friends who lived in FLW homes, which made me fairly jaded. They're not that comfortable on the inside, you have to buy fancy period furniture or what's the point, and you have to get historic approval to, like, fix your roof. Plus, you have silly people taking pictures on your lawn all day :)

Design aside, if you haven't read Loving Frank yet, well, hadn't you better hop on your bike and pick it up today?

Marley was dead: to begin with.

2010-12-21T01:29:00.004-08:00

After hitting the snack table at singing tonight, I have christmas cookies running through my veins. I can't get enough of Carolyn's pfeffernusse, but I didn't exactly argue with the guy who told me that my cookies were the best he'd had all season. (I posted the jam thumbprint recipe over on that other blog.)

Other signs of the season? Inder's mom came to town with crocheted stockings for each of us! They are comically large. There will be pictures. Tonight we decorated our beautiful fluffy tree. Last night I listened to the beginning of A Christmas Carol while writing the last of my christmas cards. I started out with a public domain version, but it just seemed a shame to waste Dickens on an American accent. So then I got all excited about Patrick Stewart's version. Everyone promises that you won't miss anything for the abridgment. But right off, he cut out that fantastic doornail digression about how "the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile!" I may have to actually go to the library if I want a decent unabridged recording. Well, for free. Have I mentioned that I just quit my job and have no money and it's Christmas? Yes, I may be able to work up to a good Humbug!

8 from ATX

2010-12-17T09:27:00.009-08:00

1. A somewhat ungodly portion of my December free time has been or will be spent drinking large amounts of alcohol with people and/or singing traditional Christmas carols. Season's greetings, y'all!

2. R recently bought himself a tube of Colgate tri-color toothpaste, which means that now every time he brushes his teeth it's preceded by a "So... how many colors does YOUR toothpaste have?" To which I am forced to shamefacedly reply, "One." And then he nods smugly and proceeds to squeeze a little more onto his toothbrush.

3. Another one to file under Okay Fine, Sometimes Texas Is Sort Of Everything Massachusetts Thinks It Is: "Fresh off of his bizarre 'terror babies' tour, [State Rep. Louie] Gohmert has previously said that expanding the Hate Crimes Act would lead to widespread necrophilia, pedophilia and bestiality and that health care reform would force Americans to use contraceptives against their will, just like a non-existent government program to 'put condoms on wild horses.' Gohmert was also very concerned that sexy Miss USA lingerie photos would lead to 'economic chaos,' adding that men dressed similarly in garter belts would be protected under the expanded Hate Crimes Act." Ladies and gentlemen, American democracy at its very, very finest.

4. I need a new bookcase for our bedroom (storing books is my responsibility, since R fails to see the point in buying books... unless you're going to use them for something practical, like propping up the ancient laptop so it can ventilate properly or burning for warmth in the winter) and I've 90% decided to actually buy a new expensive pretty well-crafted piece of wooden furniture to fill the need. This is terrifying because a) I might have to actually go somewhere besides Goodwill to accomplish this, b) I have an inexplicable fear of any furniture that's too heavy for me to pick up under my arm and run out of the house with should the need arise, and c) I have such a glaring lack of financial sense that I'm really only partly convinced that investing $200 in something that will last 50 years is cheaper than spending $40 on something that will fall apart in three years. I wish that was more of a joke than it actually is.

5. Look at Carly's beautiful scarves! Don't you want one?

6. I finally made a decision about my future! Sort of. I think I may be applying to UT's social work grad program for spring 2012. Which means we'd definitely be staying here until 2014, at which point I would be qualified to do exactly the same things I already do, possibly for $5000 more per year. Again, I wish that was more of a joke than it actually is. But I'm excited about it, and it also means that with Rebecca heading to ~~clown college~~ library school, this blog has the potential to turn into the best thing since Back to School. You know you're excited.

7. Okay, these are up for a limited time only (since I try nobly to refrain from posting unclothed pictures of other people's babies on the internet... but sometimes it's hard!!!). One of the presents we brought back from Ecuador was a hat for our favorite tiny Austinite, and J&J sent us a couple of shots of her posing with it. I'm pretty sure our entire vacation was worth it just for these photos:

8. We've finally reached that time of year when our uninsulated house lets in the chill instead of the hot, and my pajamas consist of long underwear, flannel pants and 3-4 thermal shirts. A few more weeks of this and I should be fully recovered from my annual summer heat PTSD! Just in time for spring...

Hope everyone's having a lovely December! And remember, kids, hold off on all that necrophilia and bestiality until the Hate Crimes Act is actually passed. Just a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood blog.

I'm dreaming of a lego Christmas...

2010-12-13T00:40:00.004-08:00

On the 11th night of Hanukkah...

2010-12-12T21:20:00.001-08:00

Yes, you read that right. We lit 11 candles last night. Hanukkah was extra miraculous this year to accommodate our schedule. It's never happened before and I'm sure it will never happen again, but I fried the PERFECT latkes. You know, that legendary light texture that sort of defies being created by large quantities of oil. mmmmmm. Well, I'm a latke traditionalist, but my guests were actually more ravey about the keftes de espinaca - even Joe ate something green for once :)

And the biggest hit of the night?

That's right, it was the Hanukkah banner kit that Richard got me for early-fake-Hanukkah. Tacky craft projects, they really tie a party together.

don't forget to eat your hanukkah cheese, ladies...

2010-12-08T01:27:00.011-08:00

image/post brought to you by wikipedia (king of the universe, who has sanctified us with its trivia...)

I'm sneaking a little Hanukkah celebration into our world cultures theme at school. Basically we're going to admire my Israeli map beach towel, eat gelt, and make our own dreidels! Of course I had to look up the hebrew letters and what they mean for the millionth time. I love that in Israel they sell them with a different fourth letter, changing the acronym to "A Miracle Happened HERE." And if ever there was a custom this household could get behind... "There is also a tradition of eating cheese products on Hanukkah that is recorded in rabbinic literature. This custom is seen as a commemoration of the involvement of Judith and thus women in the events of Hanukkah..."

Speaking of crying babies...

2010-12-07T03:24:00.003-08:00

My mom asked me to post this. Guess who?

Thanksgiving 1/3 - approximately 3428756 calories consumed

2010-12-03T02:33:00.011-08:00

I also made a Thanksgiving visit to the ancestral homeland! Unlike Katie, I don't have a demanding public to entertain - there's no extended family there, just the parents, and not a SINGLE friend I keep in touch with these days. But somehow I squeezed in enough excitement that this post has turned into merely the first in a trilogy. Or maybe it's just that my blog prolificacy (?) is directly proportional to my level of procrastination.

Anyway, I may not be itching to move back, but damn I eat well in Chicago. I'm always wined and dined at the best new spots in town - this time it featured vegan, small plates new school Mexican, and brunch at the cheese shop. Thinking on it, ALL had seasonal menus featuring local produce. It's so awesome to see other places besides California rocking sustainable foodie scenes. And in true chicago style, it's noticeably less precious.

OK, my dad totally called me on being one of those people that takes pictures of their restaurant food, but hello, I had to prove the existence of a ROASTED CAULIFLOWER SANDWICH!!! Genius.

Honestly, I would have been perfectly content to stay home and eat out of my dad's pantry - he's the one who gave me the preserving bug, and now seems to have caught it back from me. Just to give a hint, our last meal featured roasted tomato/red pepper soup (one of his DOZENS of frozen pints!), pasta tossed with homemade pesto (also frozen), and salad with the last of the stored summer tomatoes (farmers market, chilled on back porch.) I also admired my mom's extensive container garden and ate some of HER stored tomatoes (garden, picked green and ripened packed in newspaper)!

And I haven't even mentioned Thanksgiving! I had my first tofurkey and my annual pie bliss. The Bridge family wins points for being serious brussel sprout lovers. Next year I'll bring double. Recipe: Roast with oil, salt, and pepper until caramelized. Drizzle generously with maple syrup.

Me + new grandma Sue + Lydia (1 mo)

I love how Nick and Katie are all "Are you REALLY taking a picture of our screaming baby??"

The world is smaller than a needle's eye...

2010-11-30T13:21:00.002-08:00

So I spent last week in the northeast. This involved eight breakfast, lunch, or dinner dates; three states; five children; two dogs; two grandmothers; staying up until 2am with the help of several enablers every night; a Thanksgiving dinner; a sing; nine boxes of adolescent ephemera; a gay movie; a walk in the woods; and so. Much. Dessert. In short, it was everything a visit to the northeast should be. Except maybe three weeks too short. And way too far from Texas. If you live far away from me, whether or not I saw you last week, please note that I'm loving you HARD this December to make up for all the time we don't get to spend together. The world is just too big.

In which Rebecca is awfully wholesome. And Joe likes jars.

2010-11-22T01:51:00.006-08:00

Yesterday I actually did every single thing on my to-do list, including getting up at a reasonable time, cleaning several rooms, and hosting a canning workshop! Phew! Normally I would have to follow that amount of productivity and socializing with being disgustingly lazy for at least 24 hours. But today I biked to alameda in between rainstorms, made some jam gift tags, roasted beets, and now I'm looking for thanksgiving activities to do with the kids. (Thanks, sfusd, for scheduling furlough days for incredibly random times instead of say, the friday after veterans day or the rest of thanksgiving week.) Ooh, I totally want to make this! I know I grumble about work, but unlike most programs we have a pretty good supplies budget. I mean, I can actually get reimbursed for making a turkey out of fruit!

So, yes, the cranberries have been sauced. More coverage and recipes on the jam blog.

Don't let this video fool you - Joe's very experienced at putting on the two piece lids on and taking them off. He'd just rather pop the button. (Or, you know, put just the ring on and then stick his little paws directly into the jar. That's also popular.)

Full service library

2010-11-17T22:19:00.004-08:00

OK, so I got this mysterious package in the mail yesterday. Upon closer inspection, it was from... the Oakland Library?

I opened it to find a work folder I've been missing for the last month. OK, that was nice of them. It had my address in it, but I'm a little confused that they a) they bothered to mail it instead of maybe checking my library info and calling me. And b) it's not just sitting in a lost and found bin full stop. But that's not actually the weirdest part. I give you the full contents of the box:

Yes, the cash-strapped Oakland Public Library, which was just closed on Friday due to budget cuts, spent $5.72 to send me random old books. John Grisham, anyone?

Mom it's broken...

2010-11-13T21:23:00.004-08:00

So, I may not be the MOST cranberry-sauced obsessed cook around (am I the only one who remembers Adam Carolla ranting about it and giving out his homemade recipe on Loveline?) but I'm doing a good impression of it lately. My cranberry sauce canning workshop is next weekend. OK, maybe "workshop" is a fancy way of saying that I'm going to put up some sauce with the help of a few singing friends, but that hasn't stopped me from getting way too excited about it. If you're not following By the Spoonful on facebook, you're about to miss out on a weeklong retrospective of cranberry sauce Americana. Just sayin. Here's the teaser...

"Cranberry sauce a la Bart!" Oh, innocent second season Simpsons.

Point of order

2010-11-05T11:31:00.003-07:00

Please note: In that incredibly annoying way I have of always obliviously posting within 12 hours of Rebecca... well, I seem to have done it again. Only this time I actually checked to see if she'd posted first (the way Richard is always telling me I'm a bad bad friend for not doing), and so instead of making my post jump on top of hers, I reset the time to make it appear right under hers. All this is to say, please keep scrolling. Thank you, and good night.

O that I knew the secret place

2010-11-04T22:02:00.001-07:00

I may be back from Texas but somehow I feel even more on vacation. Tuesday/Wednesday was a blur of last minute voting decisions and various crushes of people (election day, dia de los muertos, giants victory parade.) Now I'm catsitting for Natalia, whose new place is just a few minutes from work, so I'm staying over here to cut out my commute and do my best impression of city living. Today I got a SF library card (I took advantage of the Mission branch's spanish language collection and checked out more Christie in translation!) and ate pupusas and asian pears at the farmers' market up the street. Let's just ignore the part where I worked in between there, ok?

Backing up to actual vacation. My head is still buzzing with the cooper book. The singing was starting to look reminiscent of western mass - three babies who were born since I was there in January! Not to mention the older kids who did a fine job of leading. Twas lovely to see the usual Austin gang as well as a crowd of visitors from Portland. Much tex mex was eaten. I was showered with presents for 3 nights of hanukkah! Texas mosquitoes are evil. Finally watched some baseball on Sunday night. (On mute, because nothing is worse than listening to baseball announcers fill time. We turned the sound on for God Bless America and promptly wished we hadn't.)

On Monday I finally dragged out my cell phone and remembered to document something for posterity:

On our way to pick Katie up from work, we took a short walk by the creek. Here's Richard and the scenic... power plant.

Hello, guitar sculpture.

Kicking back with a Topo Chico.

Anniversary cookie!! Happy 2 years of being married and confusing texans by not going downhill!

This cookie kept taunting us by looking like an ice cream sandwich but not actually being one on a hot day. Not that it stopped us from devouring it.

After lunch, with a few hours before my flight, we remembered that we don't actually know what to do for fun that doesn't involve the above. After much discussion we ended up playing hearts in Zilker Park. Which, when followed by an impromptu wade in Barton Springs, made for a surprisingly respectable Afternoon Out in Austin.

Can't wait til February when Richard and Katie make their Triumphant Return to California!

Now if you'll excuse me, here are my plans for the rest of the evening:

K&R Relive Rebecca's Year Abroad Part III: Quilotoa Loop

2010-11-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

The third and final installment! In which our heroes are yuppies and spend four days at a beautiful eco-lodge. (But Rebecca told us to!)

Lupine beans are a big crop in Ecuador, which means pretty lupines everywhere. Raise your hand if you can't ever see lupines without thinking of Miss Rumphius.
This, my friends, was the view from the mirror above the sink where I washed up every morning. I know right?????
This is Richard riding a horse. Her name was Lluvia and he loved her more than life itself. I kept looking over and he would be adorably patting her flank and stroking her mane. It was almost, but not quite, enough to make me forget about how I hate horses with the fiery hatred of a thousand burning suns.
This is me on my horse. In case you are not adept at reading my facial expressions, this is a fake smile of rage and terror. And we hadn't even started riding yet. It was contorted in some variation of this look (though generally with less fake smile and more rage and terror) for the entire four hours we rode.
This is the view when you're sitting on the (composting) toilet. It's a bad exposure, but out the window are miles of rolling mountains and cloud forest. The little garden is full of herbs and flowers and the sink drains straight into it (biodegradable soap, natch). I can only assume there are hundreds of photos with this same view posted across the internet by former travelers who stayed here. It's a pretty excellent way to pee.
Inside the cute 3-floor dorm where we stayed (these are the beds across from ours. Ours looked much the same, only trashed with our belongings from the second we arrived until the moment we left).
R, swing, balcony.
Lake Quilotoa. It's actually even bluer than this, if you can imagine.

Okay, I swear you've heard the last about Ecuador out of me. Onward!

What's orange, black, and green?

2010-10-28T22:00:00.002-07:00

"A Giants fan on BART." I'm not what's been annoying me more this week, that piece of humor courtesy of the creepy BART announcer guy or a school full of kids, those most fairweather of fans, chanting "Let's Go Giants!" every two minutes. /hating on baseball

Speaking of the Giants, I'm off to Texas! I could not be more pleased to be skipping out on a day of work and a weekend of halloween festivities. The only dressing up I'm doing is in my convention dress. Which, I might add, is already safely stowed away in my suitcase! Unless I stay up all night blogging, I might actually sleep before my flight, gasp!

After listening to Steve Goodman all night, I'm clearly obligated to sign off with his baseball classic.

This week in popular culture

2010-10-25T14:42:00.004-07:00

Don't worry, I'm so neurotic that I'll never be able to sleep properly at night until I post the third and final installment of Ecuador pictures, much to the relief of all of our readers who stopped caring that we went to Ecuador two months ago, if they ever actually cared at all (they didn't). But I've been bombarded with enough multimedia overstimulants this week that I actually have some marginally interesting things to write about, so I figured I'd better not let them go to waste, or else put off blogging about them until two months have passed and all of our readers have stopped caring about whether or not I actually share them, if they ever actually cared at all (they didn't). Just last week I...

...got convinced to go to the Texas Book Festival, where I got (amenably) dragged to a panel by grammar nerds Ben Yagoda and Roy Peter Clark, which wasn't nearly as awful as I was terrified it would be. Pretentious, but jovially so. And if you go hear a talk by grammar nerds without expecting it to be pretentious... really now. It's your own damn fault. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the Capitol lawn with my festival companions instead of going to any other panels. We all agreed we'd gotten the better end of that bargain.

...went to see indie music's prettiest Episcopalian.

...cashed in on R's free passes to the Austin Film Festival (he's been getting them for the past couple of years in exchange for his graphic design skillz) to see a couple of pre-release movies, including "The Company Men" (if stories about 6-figure businessmen losing their jobs and having to sell their Porsches really tug at your heartstrings, or if you want to see Kevin Costner play a pretty convincing carpenter with a pretty convincing Boston accent, this is totally the film for you) and "Make Believe," a documentary about teen magicians, which R&I loved. LOVED! Oh man. So, so excellent. It's by the team behind "King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters," so you KNOW they know how to do an incredibly geeky story right.

Okay, off I go. T-minus four days till the universe once again converges to bring your two bloggeresses (that word seemed like a good idea in my head, but on screen it's really just too close to "ogress" to feel flattering...) to the same place at the same time! Next stop: Rebecca in Texas!

Mental state approaching blog-worthy!

2010-10-22T00:41:00.005-07:00

Thanks to...

1) I had some quality bonding with coworkers over a pointless event we scrambled to organize, followed by burritos and beer at a random dive in the mission. (Where, as the only patrons, we sat at the only table in the joint, conveniently located half a foot from the photo booth where some guy was alternating between halfheartedly prodding at the innards in a repair attempt and watching the giants game.)

2) It turns out there's a nutrition program at the school with all kinds of cooking equipment, including hand-crank blenders! All our classes made refreshments for the above pointless event. Getting my kids in the kitchen, we had such a positive experience for once. I even caught some of the boys playing dress up with my grandmothers' aprons after the event. Little boys in pink polka dots! Swoon. I'm all psyched to cook with the kids every week, since the next theme lends itself nicely (world cultures.)

3) I finally transferred all my files to the new computer, which means I'm listening to neil young and tagging photos on picasa. I think you can guess what these are tagged...

Joe meets Octavia Butler.

Joe meets Patrick the Pup.

Joe meets blackberry jam.

K&R Relive Rebecca's Year Abroad Part II: Cuenca & Banos

2010-10-18T11:07:00.013-07:00

Quick, must distract Rebecca from her raisin phobia... Look, Rebecca! ECUADOR!

Lunchbox of horror

2010-10-15T00:44:00.005-07:00

The first sign that the apocalyptic new job had loosened its grip on me? I got my appetite back. Seriously, if you've seen me recently you know that I spent most of september on the inadvertent and ill-advised diet of biking a lot and being too stressed out to eat. ME. The second sign? Instead of being paralyzed with dread (on the way there) or locked in a spiral of mental turmoil and self-recriminations (return trip), I was able to pick up my book during my bart commutes. And in recent days, I seem to occasionally be able to get something productive done in my off hours. I changed a few light bulbs yesterday. Hmm, there really should have been some kind of joke in that... not sure I've recovered enough brain capability for humor. But I also cleaned up my room a bit, and I might even be up to blogging? Gasp?

Anyway, I found a lot of scary things while cleaning. The scariest? Not the dog pee. Not the lack of the check I swear I haven't deposited. No, the scariest was an old lunch. At first glance it didn't look so bad. The potato salad was probably toxic but there was no visible mold. The fresh fruit hadn't even rotted. But. Wait. Those used to be grapes! And now... they're... plump... juicy... RAISINS!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

K&R Relive Rebecca's Year Abroad Part I: Quito

2010-09-30T13:42:00.015-07:00

Okay, here goes. I'll try to stay light on the travelogue and heavy on the pictures because if you're anything like me, your bandwidth vastly exceeds your desire to listen to other people's vacation stories. You've already seen all our best Ecuador photos, as touched up and presented by Mr. Smarchetype himself, so I've only included outtakes here, plus a handful of uncredited pictures stolen from Sandy.

The first five-ish days of our trip were spent in Quito due to T&R's wedding and other auxiliary events. The first seven pictures below are sightseeing scenes from the lovely Old Town, including selected adventures from the Basilica (which provides breathtaking views of the city via a dusty catwalk in the rafters and at least 8 vertical miles of glorified ladders. I'm pretty sure my face looked like that for the entire time). We also visited two equator parks while we were there, the one that the actual equator runs through and the one that has the big fancy monument... but turns out the equator doesn't actually run through it. Whoops. Their bad. Below you can see our (accurately) cross-hemispheric high-five as well as Richard trying (ahem, and failing. Please note that I was the only gringo in our tour group who managed it. I'm so good at accomplishing meaningless things) to balance an egg on a nail, one of the many charmingly low-budget activities in which you could partake at the actual equator park. We did lots of other playing around town, and then we went to T&R's beautiful wedding, where we got teary and ate tasty food and danced a lot and then got tired (behold R's SLEEPY EYES(tm), captured for posterity!). Then we played around Quito for another day. Then we flew away. Stay tuned for the exciting next installment: Cuenca and Banos or, How Our Heroes Finally Managed To Go At Least One Place In Ecuador Where Rebecca Hasn't Been Yet.

Sorry for the blogsilence

2010-09-21T01:29:00.007-07:00

I've been wanting to chime in on the wedding madness and update picklewatch and and and.... But my brain is being eaten by the new job. I'll just say that I've been grateful for friends and fam repeatedly talking me down and distracting me with south indian dinners and bad movies and burrito lunches and a new computer and singing!

I offer an extremely belated l'shanah tovah to all, mostly as an excuse to post this:

Courtesy of the Magnes Museum's fabulous collection of vintage Rosh Hashanah cards.

Wedding madness 2010 recap, part 2

2010-09-16T14:44:00.006-07:00

Geez, that's some contentious commenting down below! To distract you all (and appease that portion of the huddled masses yearning to breathe free who believe a Part 1 should always be followed by a Part 2) I present to you: Part 2.

When we last visited with our heroes, they were making their way to the reception. Where we milled about in the lovely gardens of a pretty little farm and then were ushered hastily under the big tent for dinner with a warning that the storm was coming back. Which it did, with a vengeance. A lights-going-out, buckets-of-rain-pouring-down, hurricane-strength-winds-almost-tipping-the-tent-over, everyone-jumping-up-out-of-their-chairs-and-running-to-the-sides-of-the-tent-to-hold-the-walls-up, caterers-getting-drenched vengeance. There may have been thunder and lightening as well, although it really wasn't necessary to impress us.

But we waited it out, and ate dinner, and the brides' families started speechifying, and lo and behold the sky cleared and there was a massive double rainbow.

I mean really, what more does a wedding day need?

A few more outtakes. Plus the rainbow again, because really, it was just that awesome. Stay tuned for the next installment of WEDDING MADNESS 2010 RECAP, Ecuador edition...

Wedding madness 2010 recap, part 1

2010-09-08T12:29:00.009-07:00

So did we ever finish telling you about Lauren & Ruth's wedding? The ceremony was set to take place in the yard of Lauren's family's lake house on Saturday afternoon. When we were getting shuttled across in the pontoon boat from our rustic Boy Scout camp accommodations that afternoon, the weather stopped being hot and sunny and turned dark and stormy. Then it started pouring, forcing all the guests (with the notable exception of one elderly salt-of-the-earth gentleman - I think he was related to Ruth - who spent the entire storm standing in his flannels under the eaves, gazing out over the lake. So good.) onto the big screen porch to intrepidly wait it out. The string duo played on, giving the whole thing (as Richard pointed out) a vaguely Titanic-like feel. Er, in the best way possible...

Then came the hurricane-strength winds and golf-ball-sized hail. For, like, an hour.

During this time the brides graciously came out and entertained us and someone opened up the wine to placate the crankypantses. And we waited it out and finally the sun came out! And everyone dried off the chairs with bath towels and the beautiful windy ceremony got started only an hour late.

And then came the actual hurricane. But I'm out of blogging time. So I'll leave you with a big old-fashioned-serial TO BE CONTINUED... as well as a few photo outtakes. Sorry, they're not resized. Don't click on them or they'll explode your computer.

Yay wedding!

a new hope

2010-09-06T22:53:00.001-07:00

(Are we the only ones who've been watching the star wars marathon all day? Please envision the following post as written in yellow slanty streaming text. But without cgi.)

I may have only gotten paid for teaching 4 80-minute classes over the last 2 weeks, but I've been a busy unemployed bee. The seriously condensed version. I cleaned out my stuff from 2 old places of work. (Then I attempted to clean out my room to find a place to put said stuff, but only got to the stage of making things worse before it gets better.) I got taken out for lunch in Chinatown by old coworkers and treated to sushi by then-current coworkers. I volunteered at the Eat Real Fest - where I immediately got pressed into pouring overpriced local wine, which was a pretty sweet gig once I figured out how to pretend I had any idea what I was talking about. I read 4 books - mostly of the putting-your-own-problems-in-perspective genre that Inder is so fond of. I made pickles (picklewatch update coming soon!), blackberry jam, grape jelly, and I'm still splattered with tonight's batch of strawberry lavender. I took my bike on bart for the first time. I babysat Joe twice, helped Natalia move and survived our heat wave. I watched a lot of bad tv, with a sprinkling of awesome tv.

I angsted about not having a new job, and then I angsted over starting a new job. Oh, did I mention that I have a new job?? I start tomorrow. I'm teaching 2nd/3rd graders at a literacy after-school program. The commute is longer than I'd like but at least it's bike/bartable and I'm excited to actually spend some time in San Francisco. Oh, and I joined a choir! Which also starts tomorrow! I better get me some beauty rest.

ETA: I would be remiss if I didn't share this dioramarama specimen with you.

"I always focus on Imperial troops for my Labor Day images because I believe they best represent the spirit of the holiday," says Hayford. "No one works harder. And no one receives less respect or compensation. They work tirelessly until they expire."

bike + bounty

2010-08-28T23:59:00.005-07:00

My new wald folding basket is dangerous. Suddenly my eyes aren't bigger than my storage capacity at the farmers market!

Folds out of the way nice and tidy-like when not in use. But it adds some weight to the already hefty all-steel Raleigh! I'm starting to understand why people have more than one bike...

All that food looked decidedly unsexy swathed in plastic, so I thought you should get to see the bounty. Clearly I can't ever move. You're going to have to pry my California produce from my cold dead fingers...

Five from right now

2010-08-17T13:37:00.002-07:00

So one of these days I'll get around to cranking out some boring travelogues about our summer adventures. But in the meantime, I feel I should pay tribute to that time-honored OTHER purpose of blogs, which is to share lots of unrelated navelgazey drivel. In no particular order, some things that have entertained me of late...

1) From time to time I indulge my posthumous Phil Ochs crush by finding clips of him on YouTube, and I have to pretend I'm looking him up for reasons other than the fact that he's pretty, because then I'd have to acknowledge the nose job he got when he was young which made him way cuter, and then I'd be a horrible shallow person.

2) I'm testing for my brown belt in karate tonight!

3) Dan is coming to visit on Friday, just in time for the heat index to be at 110 every single day for the foreseeable future. Speaking of which, do we still live in Austin? Haven't we moved somewhere with better weather yet?????

4) A while back, in a vague moment of trying to be a better bi and feeling surrounded by straight people, I subscribed to a local bi listserv, which has proven (perhaps unshockingly?) to be a way lame combination of personal ads and people complaining that no one understands them. But I can't quite bring myself to unsubscribe because the truth of the matter is that the only other email I receive at that particular email address is from the Fasola list (national announcement list of Sacred Harp singings, for my non-singer readers playing along at home...), and nothing provides me with greater amusement than finding questions about manscaping and coming out to your spouse interspersed with announcements about upcoming hymn-sings in rural Alabama. It really never gets old.

5) Reason #463 why I am married to a 9-year-old girl: He spent last week researching the care and feeding of bunny rabbits in order to convince me that we should get one. Also, I'm pretty sure that all he wants for Christmas is a pony.

Okay I'm done. Just out of curiosity I wandered the dusty archives of the blog to find out what I was doing in August 5 years ago. Apparently I was busy trying and failing to identify constellations, crying when being made to hike uphill, and watching R eat salami. In conclusion, pretty much nothing's changed since 2005. It's a comforting feeling.

We were surrounded by uninhabited mountains as far as the eye could see, which gave us that nice dark planetarium feel. Between the two of us, we've taken five (5) introductory Astronomy classes, and the only damn constellation we could identify was the Big Dipper (although maybe we've just been looking at the Alaska flag too much). The weekend involved another partial climb up another mountain (if you're assuming that THIS one didn't end up with me in tears, boy were you wrong!), more marmot-sightings, and Richard's consumption of nearly a whole stick of fancy salami in a 48-hour period (he proclaimed himself the only man to go into the bush and return fatter than when he left).

Mas Ecuador, por favor!

2010-08-16T10:52:00.008-07:00

Richard edited and uploaded a small sampling of Ecuador photos... you can mosey on over to his Flickr page to see such gems as the secret holy water dispenser we stumbled upon in the back room of a famous church, the roast guinea pig that Richard & Paul shared, the view over Chugchilán from our fancypants eco-lodge, and so much more...

Provided, targeted, taught...

2010-08-11T01:12:00.005-07:00

I've got the computer all fired up for blogging because I've just updated my resume and switched all my Lincoln action verbs to the past tense! Sniffle! That's right, if you haven't heard the news, my beloved job has finally fallen victim to the budget crisis. If you recall my short and checkered history with OUSD, you know that I saw this coming before I was ever hired. Basically they have no money and I have no seniority, so that's that. I'm not exactly drowning my sorrows, but the timing could have been better. As in, I would have liked to have some closure with my kids instead of promising I'd be back next year! As in, I can imagine better ways to end my fabulous Minnesota getaway than to come home to a layoff letter! After I'd spent all weekend talking up Oakland and answering the question "What do you do?" Anyway. The point is I've got my verbs all straightened out and after years of constant ~~vigilance~~ job applicating I can do it in my sleep. I'm looking at several potential positions, they're pretty comparably low-maintenance and rewarding and low-paying and bike-commutable, which appear to be my criteria for getting excited enough to write a coherent cover letter. Wish me luck.

Not that I need luck, because I may have included the following reference in my application for a job with a literacy program. I think they HAVE to hire me now, don't you?

Back from Ecuador!

2010-08-10T22:18:00.004-07:00

We got back from Ecuador tonight, only to discover that Alexa - who'd been staying at our house for a few days while in between apartments - had left us an extra-special Cardboard Richard welcome-home message.

It's almost terrifying how well that robe fits him, no?

More soon when it's not 12:30am and my sleeping mechanisms aren't all confused from airplanes...

EDITED TO ADD: Okay, I promise not to foist excessive boring travel photos upon you (or, more likely, I promise to understand that when I do, no one but my parents and Rebecca will care) - but how could I go to bed without just a few teasers? They are, in the following order: the (fake) equator (we also visited the actual, honest-to-GPS equator but it doesn't have a giant wacky monument like the erroneous equator down the street does), Trini & Ray's beautiful wedding, Richard and his capuccino in Quito, and the first and last time I will ever let Richard convince me to go horseback riding. The only silver lining to that day was that now I can claim some real-world basis for my irrational hatred of horses.