Monday, May 30, 2005

Public Billboard: Go Lindsey!!!

Go Lindsey! Beat Mary!

Please, Lindsey, give it your all. Get that fourth Major that has so eluded you in your illustrious career.

Show that world, who last year mourned your pending retirement, that your change in attitude brought some serious attitude.

It took Mary 10 match points to put away Schnyder yesterday.

Remind Mary how she can choke, how she has trouble finishing up.

Lindsey, show yourself why you chose not to retire and, instead, get yourself another step along the way to your most precious prize.

Get closer to an American winning the French Open. You deserve it.

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Atmospheric show

Last evening gave us a brilliant sunset.

J and I had gone to TKD, Home Depot, dinner and were heading home. The drive back was very entertaining.

To my right, the sky caressed a soft and buttery orange sunset. At the fringes hung small puffs of soft, pink wisps. I was captivated.

Then J pointed out the clouds to the east: billowing, long, reflective clouds of pink dusted with lavender with the largest glowing a radiant yellowish orange in the center. These few showy clouds covered miles of thankful territory.

I had to have a picture, particularly of the pink clouds. We raced home; I ran inside and got my camera. Too many trees at home, we went back out, seeking higher ground in a different neighborhood.

We rounded the corner, raced up the hill.

And promptly realized the lights had been turned off. Nothing ablaze. Intensity asleep.

Instead of our treat, we saw blue on blue puffy clouds, much likes these as painted by John Constable. Constable is a noted clouds/landscape artist, but we were on a mission to see something more in the noted atmospheric painter, J.M.W. Turner, spectrum.

Kind of reminds me of a Jimmy Buffett line. Of course.

I'm turning off the waterfall; the tourists can go home

Clouds go night night and I go home with no pictures.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Pink Poppy Plant

Bonus shot:

B/c this one is a favorite, I've uploaded what the whole plant looked like. It was over 3' tall. Stunning.

The only thing is that neither picture feel compositionally sound to me - but then tell THAT to Georgia O'Keefe, huh?

I'd like to go back to the park and check out what it looks like when these other buds bloom. That said, it is supposed to rain all week and I feel really lucky to have gotten what I did on Sunday.

Clematis on Brick Wall

Clematis with Hosta

Red Poppy Cluster


(Ignore my finger)

Pink Poppy

Dreaming of the extract....

and, as I wish I were Georgia O'Keefe, drawn to paint it.

Which of these would you like to see painted in soft pastel?

Red Poppy



This week's assignment is to bring a picture and paint it after watching a video from a known flower artist.

I'll upload a couple more - pictures I've taken in the last week - and you help me decide.

Your assignment is to vote in each picture's comments section.

[My favorites are the first and last. I'm especially curious about doing the bricks with the clematis, but I am enthralled by the idea of doing an O'Keefe-like red poppy. All in good time.]

Monday, May 23, 2005

Crash, but not a spoiler

We saw an awesome movie yesterday afternoon. We drug L to it, not giving her the choice, as she always declines seeing movies with me. Ha! She loved it as much as we did. Just like she loves every other movie I pick out that she chooses to go with somebody else, namely her mom - and after the fact.

Crash is something like Tarantino's Pulp Fiction or Inarritu's 21 Grams. It is literally a collision of lives with some fairly tight writing by director, Haggis, even if a couple of the many collisions weren't exactly probable.

Very much of it is racially and class based. All is subject to change, interpretation, the moment.

"It asks tough questions, and lets its audience struggle with the answers," comments Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post.

Hunter kind of missed the point.

For all his long review (which, warning, is over-revealing in some places), he could have take a cue from P who explained Crash so succinctly through this single scene: Matt Dillon's crooked cop character tells the younger cop that he will be surprised what he finds himself doing in the future.

That's the deal - it's not what you've done or been in the past or how you might be labeled - nothing serves as a predictor for what you find yourself doing in the future. Good or bad, all unexpected. The plot is that complicatedly simple.

As much as you might react to someone else's stereotype of you, don't fall prey to stereotyping yourself, either.

It applies to a lot of things. Everything.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

All biological all the time

I've had this theme lately.

Today it continued on its own.

I decided to stay up late and see about an eBay auction closing at close to midnight. Diddling around, I was looking up other stuff, just wasting time until...... they hit.

Hiccups wrack my body and I fear that the neighbors can hear or possibly even feel their quake.

I thought about going to bed after the eBay bidding got a little too exuberant, but I don't know how I could sleep. If I have my mouth open by accident, I sound like a screaming little bird seeking a regurgitated worm from mom.

Maybe if I hold that image, they'll stop. I've had enough protein today, don't need the garden variety.

Now my stomache is rolling.

Friday, May 13, 2005

My veil

Ever stick Vaseline in your eyes?

On purpose? Twice a day?

That has been my fate this week.

Funny how one morning of crusty eyes can be written off as allergies, even when I never get crusty allergy eyes. The second day, reality set in. It knew it had to be pink eye. (Yes, I know "conjunctivitis" and it is even a good biological word I can spell on my own, but moms say "pink eye.") I took comfort that I had left over Antibiotic Vaseline Crap in a tube, so no dreaded doctor's visit for me. I hope.

It officially began on Sunday with scratchiness, yet another Mother's Day gift. I began treating it on Tuesday morning when I had to call in the crud-busting jackhammer crew.

Since then, no make up, but plenty of grease pools around the orbits. Also since then, little blogging or email. I honestly dread opening Bloglines.

I've been careful and successful thus far in not spreading this to J. About two years ago, we weren't so successful. J and I gave it to each other, I forget who came first, then he passed it on to his father.

Hmmm, that might make my week a little more fun.

....Contemplating twisted plot to infect ex-husband with massive, oozing conjunctivitis....

(Yes, I know "pink eye" and it is even a good mom's phrase I can spell on my own, but deviant schemers who plan to spread fierce biological agents say "conjunctivitis.")

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

April showers?

This is usually a marshy lake with lots of turtles (spotted, painted, musk, snapping), frogs, snakes (Eastern Water Snake, Rainbow Garter, black, and others, none poisonous), muskrats, and tons of birds: egret, red winged black birds, great blue heron, barn swallow, and many others. Now it is dried mud full of geese footprints with the occasional beaver footprint. It looks like August, not April.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Yet again again

What a way to cap a lovely day!

We have a couple busy days ahead and I'm trying to catch up for our previous couple of busy days, too.

Laundry.

Do you see where this is going?

Dateline: Mother's Day on Sunday
Location: Mexican Restaurant
Items: Red and Green Crayons provided to occupy children

Fucking items fucking children hoard away and stick in their fucking pockets. Fucking Mex.ican flag design.

I did only have 4 pairs of pants. My jeans were taken out by brown last week, but I am not retiring them.

My gray slacks and cotton railroad pants were taken out by the obvious green and red crayon melts, as were 2 of my 3 (all I got, folks) towels. I have to retire them, b/c they appear to in a perpetual menstrual state now.

I wailed without tears.

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Ever helpful clerk.... yeah, thanks....

Last night when I went to buy the teacher gift certificates at B.ath and B.ody W.orks - and to cash in my own from my exMIL from Xmas (which was MIA, of course) - (fuck, not able to get my own pseudo Mother's Day gift) - the clerk mentioned the cash I was using for some reason. I told her it came from a class of first graders.

Alas, she's a room mom, too, at a nearby school.

She asked if I have a big banner up for our teachers.

Shit. Fuck. Damn.

No, but I have a 30' K mural still in the works after a week. It has zapped me of any energy I could muster.

I'm a sucky room mom.

Priorities! Son! Class! Teachers!

So, as planned, I then went to the grocery store where they have a pretty floral area and let J pick out bouquets of flowers. Even got an extra one for him to give his reading teacher - I know she hasn't spent as much time with him as his PE, music or art teachers, but she has made the biggest difference. Hers is a beautiful collection of miniature yellow roses.

And I got some poster board. Made a simple poster - with pretty Sharpees and, believe it or not, nary a pastel to be found. It isn't quite the same as a banner, but it is the sentiment that counts, right?

I'm tired.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Funnies from the most unlikely place

Laura Bush has a sense of humor - whodathunk?

See the whole clip here.

==

Now with updates and repercussions...

First Lady Laura Bush Under Fire for Comedy Act