clumsygirl: art + craft + tomfoolery

2010-06-21T15:21:00.001-07:00

I have awesome friends.

The last few weeks of school got really crazy there for a bit. I was sick, we lost The Bug, grading was going nuts, I was still having meetings (even on the last non-final day of school! wtf!), room decisions hadn't been made for next year and the other teachers were freaking out and I seemed to have plans for every single night. And, you all know how I find it impossible to cancel on anyone, no matter what. I was a bit overwhelmed.

So, it's done.

I got the opportunity to hang out all day with Ms.Can Do Kitchen herself on Thursday. We had breakfast at Broder (a Scandinavian place on Clinton). They had delicious breakfast. Mine was served on a tiny, square, cast iron skillet with a tiny potholder.

Then we went to Mississippi and looked around. Meadow was awesome with salts, chocolates and flowers. They even had bitters. Ms.CDK bought some cardamom bitters, which should be fantastic in whiskey! We saw baby chicks at Pistil, too. We tried to head to Branch, but were too early. So, Pat let us chill with him at Cork for a while, telling us amusing stories and letting us sample some wine. I bought a very fancy beer for Mrpants and Ms.CDK bought some blond Lillet. Very fancy. We eventually got to head over to Branch, and had very yummy snacks and whiskey drinks. I loved the Dark & Stormy. Mm... gingery. Ms.CDK had an amazing mint julep in a tiny silver cup. A lovely day.

On Satuday, the ladies met up at my place and we did about half of the FoPo Garden Tour. It was really fun seeing all of my neighbor's back yards and talking to them. I didn't have to be sneaky about trying to see their chickens and back yards.

One woman had a lot of really cool flowers, and one she didn't care for: The infamous Corpse Lily. It's really big (4' tall and the lilly was larger than two hands put together), and when it blooms it smells like rotting meat. Madness.

After the tour, most of the ladies went their separate ways. Nerdygirl and I went downtown to Powell's to the Regretsy book signing. The author was very funny, although she mentioned that when she pitched her idea of a crafting version of antique road show to Comedy Central, they not only passed on the idea... but they told her since Sarah Silverman's show wasn't doing too well, "We aren't working with women right now." WTF? Her response, "Well, we both have warm blood, too. Perhaps you should stop working with all mammals." What the crap? Sarah Silverman represents all women now? Comedy Central, you're full of crap.

Anyhow... we left the book signing, had lunch at Rogue and then went to explore Vino Vixens on Powell. I swear VV uses time-lord technology. They are way bigger on the inside than you expect. There were six rooms inside a place that I thought would be able to hold six people. Very unexpected. We ended the night at Kennedy School with pizza, beer and Hot Tub Time Machine. As Nerdygirl said, "It's nice to a see a new 80's movie with John Cusack." Go see it.

This was an awesome way to start Summer. And shortly, I'll be leaving for three weeks of London (and a weekend in Copenhagen). I love this plan.

2010-05-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

We lost the Bug yesterday. He was 15. I will miss him terribly. He was with me since I was 19, and moved through 10 different houses and apartments, including one log cabin. He was full of spite, tried to bite everyone, wanted to dominate the world, and I loved him.

I'm heart-broken. RIP tiny Bug.

2010-02-18T09:05:00.001-08:00

Stop motion projects are finishing up. I have three more on the way, but I thought I'd post the first I received. They're not super polished, but we were doing this as more of an experiment.

2010-01-28T20:38:00.000-08:00

Wheee! I received the first monthly shipment of my 500-count colored pencil set that mrpants got me for the holidays. It's so freakin' cool!

Let me list for you (from light to dark) the names that were assigned these colors (Each pencil has a color name! Squeeee!):

cyan, indian princess, pastel turquoise, east of eden, green puff, summer sea, bluegreen velvet, celtics, bobby shaftoe (!!!), rivulet, garden club, parrot, snow pea, sister susan, california passion, drizzly afternoon, glacial lake, zuni stone, porcelain blue, hawthorne valley, red-tailed cat, dugong, spring green, deep aquamarine, prussian blue.

2010-01-23T10:14:00.001-08:00

Two things... first off, I've had to turn on comment moderation as I received a bunch of Chinese spam this morning at around 5am. So, comments will be a little slower to appear.

Secondly, I'm going to yoga this morning. The wee little yoga place has a wee little woman who plays a harmonium during her ohm chanting. It's kinda odd and funny, and I like it. Who doesn't like a harmonium?

Thirdly (I lied, there's three things), we're having a tree from Friends of Trees planted today in our parking strip. January seems like a cold, cold time to do tree planting to me, but that's the date we received. We bought a Flame Leaf Maple. Should be pretty.

Wish me luck on learning Flash on Sunday. El Chucabra offered to help and is coming over.

2010-01-21T18:22:00.000-08:00

Is this not the coolest? It's felted merino wool, in the shape of river stones, made into a funny little rug. I love it. It's crazy-town expensive, but awesome none-the-less.

I haven't posted in a while. Things have been busy. Yesterday was the last day of the term, so I had a kazillion things to grade and final grades to post. I also presented at the semester awards for the art department. I didn't want to go back over to the 'Couv at 6pm, but listening to the stories about the kids that were nominated was pretty rad. There are some amazing individuals at our school. The whole scene left me feeling pretty good last night.

Which was nice, 'cause today didn't go quite as well. I had to convince one kid that the advanced level class was not the right place for him (he cried.). I had to send three kids away because they flunked level one (one cried). I did my annual review process with my yearbook kids (two cried), and had one girl drop yearbook. sigh... Now I have a headache.

Also, I'm worried. My first period room got switched, and we won't have the animation program installed for at least two weeks. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with kids. I have 27 boys in a room at 7:45am for an hour, and no way to start them on animation stuff. I'm debating between starting a group project stop motion lesson or a single person flash animation lesson. I don't know how to do either... so I'd be learning on the fly, and probably staying late at school for the next few weeks. How hard can flash be, right?

suggestions? advice?

2010-01-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading a book today. I started and finished it today, which happens when I have no other obligations in a day. I can devour a book in one sitting. I can understand, body and soul, when an author describes "surfacing from a book." There were two particular paragraphs in this book that really struck me. After reading one of them, I had to stop for a moment. It made me tear up a little. It also made me text a friend who is also terribly fond of books.

"I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything."

2009-12-23T13:27:00.000-08:00

The Yarn Harlot recently blogged about the holidays... which I'm reposting a bit of below. I thought it was interesting. I like the focus on the mid-winter shift towards the return of day light, the winter solstice. I find it interesting that a kazillion different cultures, beliefs and religions all celebrate at the same time of the year, some purposefully following older rites and celebrations, some not. I like the idea of so many different peoples celebrating at the same time. Warm up your winter, light a fire, eat some food, hug your neighbor, the light is coming back!

Happy Solstice, everyone.

"The Return Of The Light

These weeks are the darkest of the year for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, each day we have a little less light. Each day things are a little colder, the sun rises later, sets sooner and darkness overwhelmingly outweighs light, while it gets harder and harder to take a good blog picture of yarn on the front porch. (Maybe that one is just me.) For many of us, our moods head in the same direction.

Luckily, Northern humanity has figured out a way to get through:
Christmas. Solstice. Yule. Hannukah. Humanlight. Kwanzaa. Saint Lucia Day. Diwali. Yalda. Dong Zhi.

All over the world, people gather their loved ones together, light candles, decorate their homes, put up trees, share a meal or exchange gifts with each other and all of their celebrations have one thing in common. They are celebrating (among other fine miracles and beliefs) the return of the light. All of these holidays happen on or around the time of the solstice. The magic day that follows the longest night, when the planet swings far enough over and whether you can feel it or not....the days get longer. Sun wins over moon. The earth begins to warm and another long dark winter is on it's way out. (You may have noticed, what with February being what it is in Canada that this process is fairly gradual.) The balance shifts. "

2009-12-16T21:41:00.000-08:00

Today was the staff's Christmas breakfast. Free food and coffee/juice available to any staff who wanted, before school and during 1st period.

I was reading Crazy Aunt Purl's blog today, and was reminded of how different this workplace holiday celebration is from my old company's bacchanal. This year there was pleasant coffee and treats, a fake fireplace and fake tree in a classroom, holiday colored paper decor and xmas tchotchkes all around.

Those of you who have heard about The Company will know this is a far different story from holiday parties past. At the very least, the school celebration starts in the early morning instead of ending then. Also, I suppose it goes without saying that there's no booze and strippers at school at 7am, right?

Winter Break in two days (not that I'm counting down...)!

2009-12-10T16:36:00.000-08:00

I admit it. I totally concur. I am a type nerd, a type nerd who enjoys spoofs of Lady Gaga songs.

Anyone seen the Christopher Walken version of Pokerface? Also hilarious.

2009-12-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

First things first! I don't know if you've all heard, but the Oregon Human Society just rescued not only 100 dogs from a place outside of Burns, OR... but also rescued 118 dogs from a "breeder" in Tillamook. That's a lot of dogs! If you'd like to help out, but can't adopt an additional pet, the OR Humane Society accepts donations online. Simple, easy, and is a huge help to the people who are making a difference in our community.

Give today!

This video features an adorable little guy. I just want to hug him. The music's not bad either.

2009-12-08T13:43:00.000-08:00

Blah, blech! I've been home sick for two days now. I had a heated, but sleepy, argument with myself this morning about whether I should go to work. I first instinct is to suck it up and go. Go team puritan-based, American work ethic! But then I started arguing with myself. If I am still contagious, I will get kids sick. They will miss school and de learning. It will spread, and I will possibly get it again. Also, the school has made multiple announcements trying to convince people NOT to come to school when they're sick. And, after checking a while back, I have one kazillion hours of sick time saved up, since I was terrified of taking a sick day my first two years. I also realized that all my kids were in the midst of projects. They didn't need any lectures or new info, and were just in the simple work phase of their projects. A sub wouldn't hurt anything.

So I stayed home today.

Several rounds of Nyquil later, I woke up at 1pm. I think my sore throat has finally given up the ghost. Yay! Now I'm just congested, which I can deal with more easily.

In my internetting, I have discovered several delights today. These are awesome knitting needle bags. I want the big interchangeable needle case and the large straight needle case. So pretty! So useful! So organized!

I also acquired some new fonts for my computer and deleted some I didn't want. It was thrilling and very satisfactory to delete stupid Comic Sans from my computer. I tell you, you should all try it.

I also have had time to finish up several secret xmas knitting projects. Yay! I will share photos once I have given them all out.

Ok. Back to my kleenex convention.

2009-12-05T12:45:00.000-08:00

This morning I looked around me and realized I was surrounded by clutter. I also realized it was all stuff that I was working on or in the process of enjoying. Behold: my mess...

2009-12-03T13:49:00.000-08:00

If anyone is interested....

Yearbook adopted four foster children for the holiday season. These children are looking for new clothing donations to be sent to them as Christmas presents. If anyone would like to help us out, we looking the following sizes/gendered clothing by Monday, December 7th.

Melton is male, age 10: clothing sizes 10-12
Joel is male, age 8: clothing size 10
Ciara is female, age 2: clothing size 24 months
Miguel is male, age 13: clothing size 14-16

Also:
1 remote control truck
2 remote control car
1 clock/radio w/ an ipod dock feature
1 hot wheels garage
Age appropriate toys for a 2 yr old girl

2009-12-02T17:48:00.001-08:00

Today ended with document tampering, fire drills and crying freshmen. As such, I am posting an awesome photo to combat the foo.

Here are my folks on their honeymoon at ~~Yosemite~~ Yellowstone in 1965. Yes. My pops had a broken ankle during the wedding, too. (photo courtesy of my mums)

2009-11-21T11:06:00.000-08:00

Ah... the weekend. Also, only two school days exist between me and the upcoming 5 day holiday weekend. Very, very nice.

A random collection of tidbits:

1. We went over to North Portland last night and visited Mr.P. at Cork, and did some wine tasting. It was fun, and tasty. My favorite wine was, of course, the one that comes with a $54 price tag. Foo. We also took home some fancy salts and some schmancy balsamic vinegar. Then we jumped over to Concordia Alehouse, which was also nice. They have a huge selection of beers, and their food portions are ridiculous. It was fun.

2. I recently read this funny, little, short story with drawings and thought I should share it with all of you. It's adorable.

3. I had a very satisfying feeling yesterday, as I was gathering up graded artwork to return and/or put up in the hallway display area, looking at almost finished art projects and 3D animations... About 98% of the kids in my classes are doing fairly high quality work. I'm so pleased. People, kids and adults, that come across the work unexpectedly keep mentioning how excellent it all is. It makes me very happy.

That is all.

EDIT:
I've posted some pics of the student work on flickr, of which this is one of my favs.

2009-11-08T11:05:00.000-08:00

Things are crazy up in here!

I am moving up in the world of knitting. I am no longer knitting only flat, square things. It's terribly exciting. I am creating toe-up* socks!

I had originally just purchased a book on the subject and attempted to start without any guidance. I had taken the book, some plastic dpns** and some yarn with me on our Japan trip, since I knew that the plane ride was going to be insanely long, and I, historically, have a hard time sleeping on planes. This attempt proved problematic. I had a very crappy looking toe of a sock, with giant ladders*** running through it.

This is the figure-eight cast on, which took me four hours to learn on my own.

This is my in-flight knitting set up (notice the drink!).

This is the resulting horrible ladders of ugliness.

So, I talked Nerdygirl into taking a toe-up sock class with me. She and I took a 3 day class at Yarngarden last month. It did help to have someone there who could look at the project in my hands and diagnose what I had done wrong, then fix it for me. The teacher was very skilled, but a little brusque. (I had imagined a knitting instructor to have a bit more warmth.) I did manage to finish a sock with the help of the class. It's not the prettiest sock, but it is complete. Unfortunately, I didn't buy enough yarn to make two of the same kind.

Here is The First Sock, in all it's finished, stripey glory.

Anyhow... I am now working on the next sock. I need to practice my gauge measuring as well, as the first attempt was far too wide. I had to frog the whole thing and restart this morning. I don't mind too much, as it gives me more practice with the whole process. I'd rather it fit correctly. This is not a practice sock anymore. I'm using a yarn colorway I purchased at Blue Moon Fiber Arts called Knitters Without Borders. A portion of the purchase price goes to Doctors Without Borders, which I think is rad. We'll see how the colors turn out in sock form. Sometimes I'm not a fan of variegated yarns. As of last night, it looked a little like pink, white and purple-brown leopard spots. What do you think?

Toes Without Borders Sock

*Toe-up indicates socks that are knit starting from the toes, rather than the cuff at the top (which is standard). You can try them on as they progress and make adjustments on the fly.
**DNPS = double pointed needles.
**Ladders are weirdly spaced lengths of stitches which gape with big holes.

2009-11-02T20:18:00.000-08:00

The halloween party went terribly well. Lots of kiddos in cute costumes knocking on the door (accompanied by many, many adults), lots of tasty food, lots of friends in fun costumes, all of mrpants' homebrew (2 different kinds of kegs!) were consumed and good times were had by all.

I'm sure I'll be updating the flickr shortly, but in the meantime here's our costume pic.

2009-10-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

This is a model that my independent study kid, Luke, started last year. He finished it up early this year and then started in setting up the rigging and creating a walk cycle (complete with lighting, shadows and backdrop). He's pretty rad. I hope this gets him into an awesome post-secondary school. Look how cool!

2009-10-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

I meant to post about this earlier, but got all caught up in doing stuff. Last week was awesome. It, once again, re-affirmed why I live in Portland. Let me list a schedule for you:

Monday - went to the Bagdad Theater for Science Pub, which was a lecture by a gent from Laika about using 3D animation and 3D resin printers in the stop-motion film, Coraline. Super interesting, and I got to hold part of a Coraline face!

Tuesday - finished making yearbook page layouts with the "creative team" staff after school. They had brilliant ideas, and super work ethic. yay!

Wednesday - Went to a talk hosted by Cyan and PNCA, wherein Matt Stinchcomb gave a lecture on who Etsy is and why it was created, how it runs, etc. Very inspiring and interesting. He mentioned that looking at numbers and demographics, Portland brings a large amount of Etsy sellers for a city our size. We're right up there with the big cities like LA, Houston, NYC, etc.

Thursday - Art Club kids decided they're going to be making and selling custom ceramic mugs. Need one? Only $9!

Friday - was Friday! and there was no school (in service). I got permission to go to a Photoshop training at the Oregon Convention Center, so didn't even have to go out to the 'Couv.

Saturday - Kicked off Portland Open Studios.

Sunday - had breakfast with K at Bar Carlo, and then headed out to Sauvie Island to get pumpkins, caramel apples, mini donuts and beer by Captured by Porches.

Portland is rad. I wouldn't want to live too many other places.

Cupcake Craft Night: monthly!

2009-10-04T19:18:00.000-07:00

All Hail! The monthly Cupcake Craft Night is now commencing.

Starting October 2009, Cupcake Craft Night will occur on the third tues of every month. Interested parties will arrive at Casa de Pantalones around 6pm and stay until 10pm. Cupcakes will be on hand, as will various beverages. Additional snackables and drinkables will welcomed.

Anyone is welcome to come to Cupcake Craft Night, even if they're not sure they have a craft to work on. We can always haul out the glitter and glue, or they can just eat, drink and be merry.

The first date is October 20th. Hope to see you then!

2009-09-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

an advertisement, from Norton Antivirus peoples (apparently, all I do is post videos now.).

2009-09-16T17:37:00.000-07:00

of zombies & weddings

2009-09-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

We went to a wedding yesterday. The ceremony was at Cistus Nursery on Sauvie Island. It's a gorgeous nursery, with tons of really interesting and beautiful plants. The day was gorgeous as well, if a little warm. We arrived at 6pm, and soon the sun started to go down, spreading that really incredible, golden color all over the trees and plants. Birds were flying in wee flocks through the brightly colored clouds and everything was impossibly pretty.

Our friends had a lovely, very personal, very original ceremony. They had been married in a courthouse officially a few months earlier, but her parents and family weren't able to get over from Germany at that time... so they had the ceremony yesterday. They had a friend do an introduction that they wrote, in a story-telling format. Then they sang their vows to each other in a song they wrote together (being they are both musicians). They invited the audience (family and friends) to repeat after them the pronouncement of husband and wife ("by the power of this community, we pronounce you..") and I thought it was very powerful and meaningful for people like us, who are non-religious and want something a little more heartfelt than the state of Oregon make a pronouncement. I very much appreciated and enjoyed how they put the ceremony together.

The original invitation was sent as a secret spy mission. We were supposed to gather intelligence on these two spies, as there were rumors in the intelligence community that they were going to be selling a mysterious vial at this location, all of this activity disguised as a wedding ("A damnably ingenious cover, we have to admit.").

Shortly after the ceremony and photo taking was completed, another event unfolded (cue dramatic music)...

Every one disbursed quickly after that. Later the guests gathered at their house, where a zombie party was held, complete with The Phenomenauts and The Punk Group playing. It was a fabulous party, and an awesome wedding reception. The bride's family all wore tshirts that said "german zombie meat" on them, which was hilarious. There were lots of fun zombie costumes, and make-up available for those who needed it. Excellent food and a fun time had by all.

impossibly precious

2009-09-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

OMG.

It's not often I say OMG. But, holy monkeys! This is the most precious thing I have seen in a while. Even better that I saw it at Portland loves: local. Not only that, but the maker of this adorableness has an Etsy site (and ya'll know how much I adore Etsy!) wherein they sell this business. Gah! Unfathomable cuteness. I adore my city.

smelly

2009-08-31T21:58:00.000-07:00

Today I felt like wearing perfume. I used to wear perfume all the time, but I am currently out of perfume. My sister gave me something recently, but it ended up smelling like baby powder on me. It was decent in the bottle, but as sometimes happens... your body chemistry may wreck havoc with a scent.

I used to have two scents I would use regularly. The first was one of those that you used to be able to mix up yourself in the Body Shop (I think it was the Body Shop). It was two parts vanilla to one part peppermint. It made me smell like cookies and spice, which was fun when I was in my early 20s, but I wouldn't wear it now. I'm a little too old to smell like cookies.

The second was my all-time, absolute favorite scent, which I would wear again in a heartbeat. Le feu d'Issey by Issey Miyake. It was spicy and fresh, delicious and complicated and enticing, all at the same time. This gent describes it as follows on his blog post, "Miyake lent heat to this composition with sichuan pepper, amber and benzoin - yet with a delicate hand, he reduced the volume on the combustible warmth with golden Japanese lily, bulgarian rose and milk accords."

I bought my first (full size) bottle in the summer of 2000, at the end of my trip to Switzerland. I adored it immediately. Turns out, not many people liked it besides me. (Which kinda makes sense, as I don't like most perfumes.) It was released in 1998 and discontinued three years later. I did not realize this in time to get any more full size bottles. When I ran out several years later, I could only find the wee 1.6 oz bottles, and they were selling for around $30. I bought one, and was frustrated with the expense and the smallness of the amount. Now, two years later... it's gone. I am so sad. I did a brief search tonight, and found that the wee 1.6 oz bottles are selling for $50 or higher, and the full size bottle that I originally purchased is now going for $250. I am not fancy enough nor crazy enough to buy perfume that expensive.

They still make the "light" version of the scent, but it really doesn't hold a candle to the original. I've been hunting for information on something that might be similar, but have only found a couple names. I think I might have to take my list of possible substitutes and head off to a perfume counter someday for some sniff tests.

I miss my perfume.

Kyoto, Japan: last day

2009-08-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

So, we got up fairly early our last day in Kyoto and checked out of the hotel. We were fortunately able to leave our luggage at the main desk, as we had one more adventure to attend to in Kyoto.

We caught the subway down to a much more southern area of Kyoto. The neighborhoods started to look like little towns, not part of a big city the further south we got. We were headed to the Fushimi-Inari Taisha, which is a hillside shrine established in the 8th century and dedicated to the gods of rice and sake. As agriculture has waned in importance throughout the centuries, these same gods now serve as representative of successful business as well. It's a very popular shrine. People still come here frequently to pray and light candles. We saw several business men, with their bluetooth headsets or cell phones, heading up the hill to pray for success in whatever deals were going on in their lives.

Fushimi-Inari is notable because of the hundreds and hundreds of red Torii gates (or arches) that wind their way in tunnels up the hillside. Each one is donated by person, establishment or family and they seem to be replaced by new ones as soon as an old one crumbles or rots. They are all carved with names or (we think) Buddhist sayings on one side (the down hill side). There were a couple of stone Torii gates as well.

Fushimi-Inari also has dozens (maybe into the hundreds) of Kitsune, or stone foxes. The foxes often have a large key in their mouths, which is supposed to be the key to granary. Foxes are supposed to be very supernatural, and are known to frequently possess people by entering their bodies through the undersides of their fingernails.

The shrine was absolutely gorgeous and we took one kazillion photos. I'll post a few here, but you'll just have to go look at flickr.

After coming back in to Kyoto, we went and had lunch at a soba (buckwheat noodle) place that we had been attempting to find for the entire time we were in Kyoto. We finally managed to hunt it down and have lunch there. This particular place has been in the soba noodle business for the last 300 years, and boy do they know their business! Brian and I both had their specialty, cold soba noodles with dipping sauce. It was super delicious. Very simple, very clean and very yummy. The restaurant itself was so pretty and cute, with a traditional entrance and lots of tiny rooms that opened into each other with sliding doors, and wooden stairs and such.

That was the end. We caught a shinkenzen back to Tokyo, and then road a subway almost to our hotel, and then a cab for the rest of the way to our hotel in Narita (where the airport is located). It was pretty late when we arrived at the hotel. Our hotel was fine, but it was obvious that it's glory days were well past. I'm sure it was an awesome hotel in the 80's. The whole time at this place felt a little surreal, especially after noticing that the hotel across the street was called "Hotel Chapel Christmas" and had santas crawling all over it and a giant, blue xmas tree with blinking lights on the front of the building. We said our goodbyes to Andrea, as she was heading off to Bangkok the next day, slept and checked out the next morning. The hotel had a shuttle to take us to the airport, where we flew back to Portland.

goodbye Japan. You were awesome. I'm coming back sometime, but not in August. How 'bout I visit you in the spring, with the cherry blossoms? k?

Kyoto, Japan

2009-08-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

Kyoto:

Our final leg of the trip was to Kyoto, which used to the be capital of Japan (prior to Tokyo. Notice how they sound like the same word, but backwards?). Kyoto is very different from Tokyo and Osaka. It's a large city, but it's not a business/financial center like Tokyo, nor is it a manufacturing center like Osaka. Mostly, it deals in tourism. It has many shrines and castles, and huge swaths of the city were untouched by the bombing in WWII. It's also smaller, geographically, than the other two cities. We rapidly discovered this when we went for our first walk. We had marked the map and headed off... and suddenly, we were in the right place. Just like that. Kyoto is very, very walkable. We only took the subway twice, as we were heading out to the outskirts.

The first night, we got our tourist on. We had been visiting loads of sites, shrines, temples and markets, but hadn't done anything super cheezeball touristy. I forced Brian and Andrea to come with me to this crazy theater thing called the Gion Corner Theater. It was in the Gion part of town, which is where the geisha's neighborhood is located. It was a theater that showcased seven different artistic skills that geisha use, learn or know about. There were a metric sh*t-ton of Italian tourists there. Two giant touring buses unloaded on the front steps and we were hearing more Italian than Japanese in and around the building. They started with showing the audience what a tea ceremony for a foreign visitor would look like, as a woman prepared tea for two Italian teenagers. Then two older women on samisen played a song, and a third put together an ikebana flower arrangement. After these three activities were done, a man in a vibrant "chinese warlord costume" came out and did a very halting, dance with symbolic arm motions as a whole band of older gents performed ancient, traditional Japanese instruments and drums. The dancer's costume included a lion mask! Next, two geisha came out and did a dance to traditional Japanese stringed music in their kimono and full makeup. Next up was a humorous play (in Japanese, but very physical comedy), of a kind that used to be performed in between the very symbolic and serious Noh plays. Two serving men were tricked into being tied up by their master, so they would be unable to secretly drink his sake stash while the master was gone. The servants find alternate ways to still drink the sake and much hilarity ensues. Finally, and I was very excited about this as we had missed our opportunity by one day in Osaka, they performed a Bunrakku puppet play. Bunrakku was the blue collar theater, back in the day. It involves large puppets (half human size?) that are operated by several performers all dressed and masked in black, against a black background. One guy operated her head, one her legs and one her hands. The puppet was gorgeous and very intricate and the movements were incredibly lifelike. I enjoyed this performance the most. All in all, while the theater was tourist-tastic, I enjoyed seeing all these performances.

After we went for a walk around the Gion neighborhood, which was beautiful all lit up at night. Many of the houses are still the traditional, two story, wooden and paper screen style from pre-WWII. It was so heartbreakingly beautiful, I never wanted to stop walking around at night. We eventually found a place to eat in one of the beautiful buildings, and had a tasty meal with all kinds of different little plates of food. I like the (cook at your own table) mushrooms with garlic butter, the spicy octopus salad and the charcoal grilled shrimps. We walked home past all the little shops, and through a teeny, tiny little alley that was filled with beautiful, subtle restaurant fronts, lanterns and paper lights, fountains and pebble work. The teeny alley was many two-three people wide and not available for cars or bikes. Some of the side branches were even smaller (and lower headroom).

the next day Andrea and I went to Kyoto Castle, which was really gorgeous. It had enormous stone walls and moats and gardens. The castle itself was more of what we would call a palace. It was all wooden, with sliding screens. The screens had been painted with very intricate gold leaf, with peacocks, hawks, tigers and flora. We didn't walk into the rooms with the tatami mats, but rather around the perimeter on the wooden "nightingale" floors. the nightingale floors were built specifically so that they would squeak when someone walked on them, so alerting the guards that someone was coming. It was a very different kind of squeak. We walked around the garden afterwards, as the castle was closing and the grounds themselves would be closing soon. We saw some guys in traditional edo-period costumes coming into the park, and were very curious about what was about to occur after the tourists left and the park was officially closed. Never found out though. It was super hot this day, and man... after looking around the garden, I barely made it back to the hotel without expiring from heat exhaustion. It was funny, in one of the resting ("lounge") areas in the park, there were the ever-present vending machines, but these were all empty. Except for the last choice drink which was a grape fanta product in a can the size of a wee V8 can, that included some kind of jelly-like bubbles at the bottom. Not very quenching, I tell you. Later that evening, we went out for noodles and a funny, little place around the corner that wasn't all touristy. The guy at the counter was very helpful, but I still ended up accidentally ordering curry noodles for Andrea (she really doesn't like curry). Whoops. My cold soba noodles were decent, though.

The next day, we got up a little earlier in the morning and headed on a walking tour of Kyoto city landmarks that Andrea had found. We took the subway down to the southern part of town and started heading north on foot. (Again! Amazing how foot friendly Kyoto was compared to other cities). We walked up and up and up a hill, past a cemetery with an amazing view of Kyoto. It happened to be the beginning of the weekend of Oban, the Japanese day of the dead. So this particular day was the day that people went out to the family plots and refreshed flowers and gifts, and scrubbed markers and such. There were a lot of people out. The path eventually led us to the (almost) top of a hill, where there was a complex of Buddhist temples. There was a water shrine as well, where people were lined up to drink or wash their hands in the water. I thought I read that it was devoted to unmarried girls, with some kind of it-will-help-you-find-a-happy-marriage deal associated with it, but I'm not sure now. It was way up in the hills and had a couple really nice views of Kyoto. There were also little stone half people/gods/? that were all over the grounds. It was kinda like the upper torso of a person. They were super worn, though, so it was hard to tell. A lot of them had red... well, bibs? aprons? tied around them. Very picturesque.

We climbed down this hill and walked onto a merchant street, selling lots of tchotchkes and snacks. We stopped in a place that sold bowls, sake sets and tea cups because they had a little cafe upstairs. We had some cold beverages, and Brian had ice cream. It wasn't as hot this day, but very very very humid. It was fun to people watch. For some reason, the guy outside our shop kept pouring water onto the sidewalk in front of the shop. It didn't seem very dusty, and didn't seem like it would be cooling anything down. We were a little confused. We kept walking down funny side streets, stopping in shops, getting snacks and just looking around for a long while.

Eventually we hit another spot where there was a temple that had been built to honor a widow's husband. Three of the original buildings were still onsite and functional. One was very beautifully painted on the inside ceiling. The whole complex was gorgeous, with pine trees, bamboo, a pond and little wooded areas. There was an old covered wooden corridor/bridge called "The Reclining Dragon" as it curved up a hill, and the roof tiles made it look snake like. We crawled around there for a while, and then headed back down the hill.

At this point, I was pretty much done for. We caught a cab back to the hotel. Our cab driver was super friendly and pretty hilarious. He knew we were American, and asked if we were from NYC (which was a common question!). We tried Portland, then Oregon, then Seattle all with no recognition. We tried West Coast... but couldn't remember the word for west. So we ended up saying we were from California, "Oh! Cali-For-Ni-Ah. yes! yes!" Brian used his smidge of Japanese to say that it was very hot, and comment about the streets being small (as we almost took out a lady's poodle when going around a zigzag corner). He was very agreeable, laughing at our use of Japanese and pointing things out along the way, "old, old...very, very!" like antique shops.

The next day was check-out day for Kyoto, and I'll leave that to another posting.

Nara

2009-08-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Japan, Nara:

We took a day off of Osaka to go out to Nara. Nara is a fairly small city, maybe the size of Astoria or Longview. It's not a big city by any means. What it is, is a town full of shrines and temples! It's pretty much the jackpot, in terms of templey-ness. Nara also was getting the tail of Typhoon Morokot, which meant that we got absolutely drenched, even with our umbrellas. We were soaked all the way through. I don't think that there was a dry spot on me, as whatever hadn't been rained on, got sweaty... because it was still hot and humid. Crazy.

We went there specifically to see the Todai-ji temple, in the Daibutsu-den Hall, which is a giant 527 ton bronze Buddha sculpture inside "the world's largest" wooden structure (an awesome temple hall). It was gorgeous. The whole thing, inside and out. The grounds were beautiful, the layout was delightful, the temple was super impressive and the Buddha statue was breathtaking. I was so glad we decided to spend the day coming to Nara.

A funny thing about the temple: there's a ceiling beam that has a hole down at the bottom. Apparently the hole is the same size as the nostril of the Buddha statue. Also apparently, if you can squeeze your body all the way through the whole you are guaranteed a place in heaven. It was a small hole. We saw two teenagers manage it with a great deal of squirming and wiggling.

We also wanted to see the Nara deer. Here's what is said about Nara's tiny, spotted deer: According to the legendary history of Kasuga Shrine, a mythological god Takemikazuchi arrived in Nara on a white deer to guard the newly built capital of Heijō-kyō. Since then the deer were regarded as heavenly animal to protect the city and the country. Snack vendors sell small biscuits to visitors so they can enjoy feeding the deer. Some of the deer have learned to bow in response to tourists' bows. They nudge, jostle, and even bite for food.

Yeah... the deer were adorable, until you had food in your hands. Then they were slightly menacing, and very pushy. I was a sucker, and bought some deer biscuits. They immediately mobbed me and started nipping at my waist and shoving me with their head (and antlers!). We bought ice cream cones at one point, and had to run away from the deer who were trying to steal our ice cream cones. Very aggressive with the crunchies, but very adorable.

Osaka

2009-08-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

Japan, Osaka:

Sorry for the delay in posting the rest of the story. I got caught up in the weekend!

Anyhow... Osaka. So we took the shinkenzen (bullet train) to Osaka (accidentally got on the one that stopped at all the stops, instead of the express, but it was still a nice ride. Only added about 45 minutes or so.). The shinkenzen is awesome. There's a bullet train to all kinds of places, and there is literally a train every 10 minutes. It's amazing. I was so impressed with Japan's public transportation system. The railway stations were enormous, but you could get just about anywhere on a train. The ride itself was delightful. We got to see a lot of countryside, and it was beautiful.

We landed in Osaka in the late afternoon, and took a cab in to our hotel. The cab driver told us that there was a fireworks celebration that evening by pointing at the sky and making boom-flash noises, which was funny. We saw a ton of people (whole families, down to the toddlers) dressed up in their kimonos, headed off to see the fireworks.

Osaka had a whole different feel to it, almost immediately. There were tons of bikes everywhere. There would be 100 bikes in a row on the sidewalk, but none of them locked down to anything. They'd usually have a cable through the wheel, so you couldn't ride it... but nothing prevented people from picking them up. Also, people just rode their bikes in whatever they were gonna wear to work. I didn't see any lycra tights, or fancy bikes, nor any helmets for that matter. People rode on the sidewalks, not the main streets. You'd also see the women (in their 4" heels, of course) in pairs on bikes. One woman would be pedaling, and the other would standing (on the wheel spokey-things, or the pannier platform) and holding on to the driver's shoulders. Amazing.

Osaka has this amazing nightlife and food culture, too. We went, every night, to eat at the Dotomburi Arcade, which is this area of town where there are a kazillion wee little restaurants and shops. The streets are pedestrian only, and some are skinny, little alleys. There are lots of crazy, neon and flashy signs (kinda like a tiny Las Vegas) or crazy statues on the buildings. People are out front, yelling and trying to get you to come in to their restaurant or shop. I loved the giant, moving restaurant sculpture. So fun.

People seemed a little more relaxed and down to earth as well. Less suits and ties on the men, less schmancy dresses on the women (but always, the 4" heels).

Our hotel was tiny. It's possible that I've had rooms on trains about the same size. Our bathroom was one solid piece of plastic that looked like the room had been built around it. I woke up in the middle of the night one night, because I thought Brian was bouncing the bed around... turns out we were having an earthquake. I was the only one that woke up for it, though. It was fairly far away, but did some damage at the epicenter, and ruined part of the southbound freeway. Made for some mucky traffic and increased shinkenzen use later in the week.

We went to the Osaka Aquarium, which was really nice. It was super busy, because it was raining that day and all the Japanese tourists went there, too. Did we mention that we got two days of crazy rain because of Typhoon Morokot? It rained fairly heavily in Osaka (and poured buckets the next day in Nara, but that's the next tale). So, yeah.... an earthquake and a typhoon. Just call us lucky!

We also had high adventure in a Japanese mall. Andrea's camera got smashed at some point in our Tokyo kareoke adventures, and she needed a new one. We talked to a American and a Brit we met in the street and they gave us the name of a large department store where she could use her credit card (Did we mention that hardly anyone in Tokyo takes credit cards? It's cash all the time, only.). We trucked on over there and muddled around for a while, until we found one she liked, that also had an English language feature. The store people were very helpful, even if the purchasing procedures were a little confusing (we had four people help us.). Successful camera buying. We celebrated by buying bagels for lunch, which were very tasty.

We only had about a day and a half in Osaka, and spent most of that at the Aquarium and Dotomburi Arcade, both of which were rad. I loved the giant puffer fish (fugu) sign/lights outside the fugu restaurant. The aquarium was delightful. They had two whale sharks, which is just incredible. You'll have to go to my flickr page and see all the photos. I can't do it justice in words.

All-in-all, I love Osaka.

Japan_day6

2009-08-20T05:47:00.000-07:00

Japan, Tokyo: day 6

This was our last full day in Tokyo, and we were tired. Whew. We had made prior arrangements in the week to go out with Nikola & Philippe this Friday, so we decided to take it easy during the day, as we'd probably have a long night ahead of us.

We slept in, and then went downstairs to attempt to use the hotel's free internet. It was a little difficult, as it was 100 yen per five minutes (and you had to keep feeding it coins), and the whole interface was in Japanese. The keyboard was also in Japanese, or occasionally French, as Brian found out after hitting some random key sequences. Difficult, but not unmanageable.

After that, we headed over to one of the hotel complex's lounges that faced the park and the koi pond - giant windows of giantness. We camped out and played gin rummy and drank several gin & tonics, which were excellent. Andrea and I tried out the "assorted sandwiches" as well. It was a lovely, fun afternoon.

Then it was time to go out. We met Nikola at a subway station close to her house or her work, I'm not really sure which. It had looked like rain when we left the hotel, and by the time we got to our rendezvous point, it was pouring buckets, thundering and lightning. Brian got some excellent video of the storm. We walked across the street and went to an Izikaya's (which was run by a Brit). There we had our choice of yummy, delightful Japanese foods, Japanese beers, sake, sho-chu* and, of course, Guinness. The restaurant was tucked up under the train tracks and was very cozy. There were several westerner tables going on, but also a lot of Japanese people... which I thought said good things about the food. The food was great, especially the tempura (Kambocha is a Japanese pumpkin-type squash that is lovely as tempura.) and the sauted mushrooms. I love how many different kinds of mushrooms they serve. Nikola also ordered me a Japanese drink summer specialty: sho-chu. Sho-chu (or shochu, not sure which) was translated on the menu as "rough distilled spirits." They served it in a pint glass of ice, 3/4 full. It also came with a wee, glass coke bottle of carbonated water, a metal juicer and a sliced grapefruit. Order of business = juice one half of the grapefruit and add to pint glass, top off with carbonated water and stir. Refresh as needed. It was not bad, and very refreshing on a hot night. Andrea isn't a fan of the sho-chu, but I was ok with it.

After dinner (which took several hours, and the restaurant was close to closing. I love Japanese style dinner eating. So leisurely!), took a cab over to a place near Roppongi Hills. We went up to the 7th floor of a corner building (while Nikola kept saying, "Hmm... Is it the 4th floor or 7th floor?") and rented a kareoke room. It proves to be cheaper to rent the room with an all-you-can-drink clause, than to try to rent the room and buy a pitcher or two of beer... so that's what we did. Nikola is trouble with a capital T, I tell you what. It was super fun. Philippe met up with us after he had done his after work, work-drinking duties and we sang and drank (Nikola insisting that anyone who sang had to have a shot of straight sho-chu) until 4am. We got in another cab and headed home while the sun started to come up.

An awesome night. Nikola & Philippe rock it.

Japan_day 4 & 5

2009-08-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

Japan, Tokyo: Day 4

We started off day four by heading out on the subway to Asakusa Temple & Market. The market started off just after the entrance to the temple. The entrance was tall and amazing. The market was mostly covered and filled with teeny, wee, little shops off all kinds of touristy stuff. It was interesting to see that while the entire complex was overrun with tourists, we were still some of the very few westerners, although we saw an entire tour group from somewhere in Africa (the women had very colorful dresses and headwraps). Since the Obon holiday was coming up, we were starting to see more and more girls in kimonos at temples and shrines. Eventually we saw loads of men, women and children in kimonos (especially in Osaka and Kyoto).

The market was super fun, if especially muggy. Japan must have an incredible electric bill in the summer, as each of the little stalls was open to the outdoors, but still had a/c running in the back of the shops. Brian purchased some kind of Japanese treat that was fried dough with the adzuki (sweet bean paste) inside. It was pretty good, but a little too hot for fried foods. The temple was beautiful on the inside, but was undergoing cleaning or somesuch and covered with a tarp (again with the painted tarps, every vacation I go on!). There were beautiful painted ceiling panels. The temple hosted a golden statue of the Buddhist goddess of mercy, which apparently was fished out of the river in 523 ad or somesuch. There was a pagoda of tallness in the complex, as well as a gate that had giant lanterns and straw sandals. Very cool.

We also walked through some of the side streets next to Akasuka, which had little merchant shops that weren't part of the official market. It was interesting and very picturesque. Quite a few of the shops were closed, and those that were had gorgeous paintings on the closed shop doors that I loved. Andrea pointed out that I was taking photos of places that had "no photo" signs (that I totally didn't see.) Whoops!

We went from Akasuka to the river and caught a boatride down through Tokyo Bay. The boat ride was very fun and the a/c was very welcome. I was just about done in by the humidity at Akasuka. It's hard to express what the weather was like. It wasn't actually all that hot. It was the humidity that was terribly oppressive. It was a little like walking into the bathroom after someone's had a hot shower going for a while. The moisture stuck to your skin and pressed upon you. I think the weather, for the most part, stayed in the 80's... which I'm normally fine with. It was just that humidity.... no me gusta.

Anyhow, the boat ride took us to Hamarikyu Onshi Teien, which was a lovely park on the bay. We took a lot of photos of trees and herons and ducks and such. A little bit after we arrived, they started playing music over several speakers in the park which meant they were closing. We only got to see about half the park. We walked a ways back to the subway, seeing a street fair of some kind with a band playing and giant tv screens of people dancing about. Fun stuff.

We went back to the hotel, cleaned up, and headed downstairs to one of the restaurants in the hotels. It looked like it might have a view of the forest garden park attached to the hotel, so I was interested in eating there. Turns out, it was poolside with a bit of a view of the park. It was very pretty, and a little fancier than I expected. We were the only westerners there. It was a table-side grill place, but since all of grill "sets" (almost every restaurant had a "set" of somekind) were mostly meat, we just ordered a ton of side dishes. Some very yummy salads and other items. Then, as we were completely tuckered out, it was off to bed.

Japan, Tokyo: Day 5

We did several museums on day five. We headed off to Akihabara first, wandering around through the electronic sales neighborhood. Brian was very pleased with finding the radio parts center, with tiny little stalls of bits and pieces. We saw the little girls in maid outfits handing out flyers for different stores and yelling about sales. It wasn't super crazy yet, as it was still midday. I noticed that besides the maid girlies, Andrea and I were the only women I saw for quite a while. Interesting. We shopped at a game store, Andrea buying a ds game and I bought a wii game (we'll see if I can figure it out at home.).

We started the museums with the Garden Museum, which used to be the home of the uncle of the emperor at the first half of the 19th century. He apparently loved art deco and western art. The mansion was gorgeous, if an interesting combination of art deco style building and Japanese detailing. The exhibit "Sublime Stitching" was very interesting. I'd seen something similar at the Portland Museum of Craft a year or two ago, but this was all Japanese artists. The garden surrounding the museum was very pretty as well. We left this museum and headed to the Roppongi Hills Tower for the Mori Art Museum. The Roppongi Hills Tower is the tallest building I've ever been in, at over 53 floors. The Mori was on the 52nd floor, and featured an exhibit by Ai Wei Wei, a contemporary Chinese artist who I had heard of, but never seen any pieces by. I was pretty excited to see this. He did a lot of reassembly pieces. Bicycles reassembled as sculpture, pieces of old temples reassembled into sculptures of China, antique furniture reassembled into new shapes. I liked it all a lot. We left the exhibit and went to the "City View" option, which was a floor mostly devoted to a viewing station, windows wrapping all the way around. It was amazing. Andrea wished we could have been there at night, but I really enjoyed seeing all the parks against the city and seeing the building stretching to the sky line. Awesome.

We went back to the hotel, cleaned up, left Andrea to her own devices and met Brian's friend from Eugene, Reiko for a few drinks in Shibuya (or maybe Shinjinku? I can't remember). Very fun talking to her, and a fun little Japanese place to have beers and snacks. We had a device about the size of an etch-a-sketch, which was a touch screen menu. Reiko ordered several little snacks for us. A good way to end our evening.

2009-08-18T01:02:00.000-07:00

Gah... ok, I'm having some trouble adjusting back to our time. I accidently stayed up until 4:30am last night reading, fell asleep during this afternoon and now am super awake. brian went to bed immediately after coming home from work today and is still sleeping. Gargh.

Anyhow! Day 3!
We took many photos in our little hotel forest-garden-park, as it was very pretty. There was a koi pond, a waterfall, several creeks running through it, a tea house a shrine and a giant bell. Very cool. Also, the steps of doom, which we had to descend to leave and ascend to get back. You know those type of old steps which are slightly uneven and just a bit to wide to just take one step? Those were the steps of doom.

We went out to Ueno Park, which contains several restaurants, a zoo, many shrines, a temple, 4-5 museums and a large 5-7 story pagoda. It also has a temple/shrine in the middle of a lake which was filled UP with lotus flowers and ducks, turtles and carp. Very pretty. It was also very hot.

We walked around the park, saw the temples and stopped at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art. The art museum seemed like a good bet, but alas... it was not. They had a traveling egyptian exhibit, which we skipped, and a local oil and watercolor exhibit, which was terrible. I'm pretty sure it was student art. It was fairly trite and uninspiring... but did have A/C, which was very much required at that point. We also had a snack at the museum cafe. Brian & I ate icecream (black sesame ice cream! neat!) and Andrea had a sandwich.

We made our way out of the park and went in search of the Ueno market, which we found eventually. It was mostly under the train tracks, crammed into these tiny streets and corners. It was pretty rad. They were selling all kinds of crazy things. Andrea said last time she was there, people were selling all sorts of crazy embroidered clothing, with giant designs of craziness. This time, the specialty was used or faux military surplus stuff. Very odd. Brian purchased some dried things and some crackers. I bought some tea and some socks (men's size, of course). At one point we were about to turn a corner, and I totally smelled melon but didn't see any anywhere. It was crazy making! but, we found a guy around the corner selling pineapple and melon on steeeeek! It was delish. The market was awesome. I liked it a lot.

We went back to the hotel, cleaned up and then met Nikola at the dog statue at Shibuya. I guess it's a real meeting place for Tokyo-ites, as there was a kajillion people waiting around to meet other people. We went up to the 2nd floor of a starbucks and did some people watching as the lights changed in this giant pedestrian crossing station. Amazing.

We went out to eat at a place in Shibuya that Nikola knew about. It was on the 14th floor of a high rise. Very cool little place. Seemed like you were on the ground floor of a traditional place, but was fairly filled with westerners. I guess it's pretty popular with the english speaking crowds. Food was fantastic. I really like how the japanese organize dinner. You order a couple wee dishes (they'll have 2-5 pieces of your item), some drinks, and eat for a bit. Then rinse and repeat. Very fun and very leisurely. We were there for a couple hours, and the two japanese gents at the table next to us were there well before us and didn't look ready to go at all when we left. We went up one floor and had some japanese whisky (yum!) and beers at a bar with a view of Tokyo. So beautiful.

Nikola got a call a little later from her husband, Philippe, who was with some of his coworkers at a kareoke bar. We decided to meet up with them at Smash Hits, a westerner kareoke bar. It was the tiniest kareoke place I'd ever seen. Nikola spoke spanish with the bartender. It had stadium style seating, maybe four or five rows that could fit about 4-5 people each... so if you really crammed, you could maybe 30 people in there. So small. The kareoke book was incredible. It had all kinds of music (devo, tmbg, liz phair, arctic monkeys, rammestein, the smiths, etc.). My favorite to sing was the smiths, "bigmouth strikes again." Andrea and I sang a few bon jovi and gnr songs. Philippe and Brian hit it off and sang rammestein, which was awesome. We stayed there until about 2am, and closed the place down. Philippe and Nikola were troopers, staying up that late on a school night.

so much fun.

Japan Day 2

2009-08-18T00:46:00.002-07:00

First thing, we went and had breakfast at a crazy "american-style" place that mostly sold pie (canned fruit salad pie anyone?), but also had pancakes. Funny.

We headed out to Mitaka station to get to the Ghibli Museum. I had purchased reservations for tickets a long time ago. I guess they limit the amount of people allowed inside during each day, so we purchased the ticket reservations for a specific day. We walked through a park from the station to get there, got a little lost, but managed to get photos of the Totoro sign posts along the way. Very fun.

The museum is awesome. The displays are very cool. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in Hayao Miyazaki's work, or animation in general. The building is fantastic and I loved it. We also got to see a short that was produced only for the museum, and there was a giant display about the new movie, "Ponyo by the cliffs by the sea." Loved it! No photos allowed inside though, so you'll have to make do with outdoor photos.

We walked back through another part of the park and I got eaten alive by bugs. Seriously. I ended up with over 12 giant bites on my legs. Outrageous behavior, I tell you. We went to another park that had a pond, carp, ducks, a shrine and a (closed) zoo on one side. It was very pretty.

We got back to Shinegawa station and had sushi, which was yum. Brian and I got a very odd little appetizer as well. It was served almost cold, and had a texture like a custard or soft boiled egg. There were mushrooms, green onion, potatoes and other items in the bottom. I didn't really care for it, as the texture was off for me... but the flavor was nice. Our sushi came with miso and we also had several beers. I see know why the Japanese have these very light, almost (to me) flavorless beers. It is just too freaking hot to drink anything heavier. Dinner was lovely, our waitress was entertaining (very wee little old lady, who was training a new server boy). She would RUN everywhere and was very severe with the trainee.

That was it for the day. A good first day out in Japan, though.

Japan Day 1

2009-08-16T17:43:00.000-07:00

Ok... two posts in one day? Madness! But here's the scoop for our first day in Japan.

We caught our flight out of PDX to Narita in the afternoon. Strange how you can lose a whole day in international travel. The flight was fine. One screaming baby, but not terrible. I got the first part of a sock knit up. Brian had some Japanese beer. We watched Monsters VS Aliens.

Arriving at Narita, we purchased a SUICA card. The card came with a ticket into Tokyo on the N'EX train (the Narita Express) which went directly to the subway station outside our hotel. Sweet. The Suica card could be filled and refilled with yen for all subways in Tokyo as well, and has a 10 year expiration. We highly recommend this set up. It rocked.

We took the N'EX into Shinegawa station and walked to our hotel. We could have waited and caught a shuttle, but it was only two blocks to our hotel. We got a little lost on the way there, as our hotel is part of a complex of five similarly named hotels (Sakura tower, the Prince Takanawa, the Grand Prince Takanawa, and (ours) the New Grand Prince Takanawa). A little confusing. We managed to check in with a minimum of hassle and finally met up with Andrea around 7:30pm on Aug 2nd. We went for a walk, supposedly looking for food (which we never got around to) and had a wet, enchanting walk through the garden park attached to our hotel. The garden was gorgeous, the lighting was magical, the pond beautiful and the cicadas were impressively loud. It was a good start to our first day, but we were tuckered and went to bed fairly early.

More Day1 photos at Flickr. I recommend looking at them as a SET, as that's the only way they are viewable in chronological order. I'm making sets for each day/city.

2009-08-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

We are back from Japan! I'll be posting some more extensive descriptions of our trip, along with photos soon... but I thought I'd let everyone (all five readers) know that I'm putting up all my photos, plus some of mrpants' and my sister's photos on flickr shortly.

Things I was surprised by:
How easy it was to get by with no Japanese.
Cicadas; they are loud and crazy making.
How much I was capable of sweating - I had no idea.
How quiet people are on mass transport.
That rush hour on the subway still wasn't as crazy as I expected.
That the suburbs in Narita could easily be mistaken for Beaverton, if you ignore the signage/language differences.
That EVERY young woman was wearing at least 4" heels, up and down stairs and escalators and through rain-slicked cobblestone streets.

Things I knew about, but still amazed me:
The humidity was intense. Hot weather, fine... humidity, wow!
There really are vending machines everywhere!
Tokyo is gigantic.
So much politeness.
The amount of crazy signage in Tokyo.

Things I loved:
Cold water in vending machines.
How beautiful everything was.
How clean everything was.
The cuteness of deer.
kareoke.
Hanging out with my sis for two weeks.
Nikola & Philippe, they should come to Portland to visit.
The Ghibli museum.
The cute! It was everywhere!

Things I didn't love:
pickled plum.
weird custard/gelatinous soup thing.
the amount of mayonnaise in things.
The strange lack of quality at some art museums.
typhoons and earthquakes.
Bug bites, for serious, I hate them. My legs are a mess.
Also, tripping over suitcases in the night.
Catching a cold.

2009-07-26T12:13:00.001-07:00

This summer is just crazy busy. I have finally turned in all of my online, snail-mail and etc. homework for my certification. I'm waiting on the receipt of the snail-mailed essay, and then I just need to take in all my fancy paperwork and have it signed off. Soon I will be certified as a CTE teacher with a residential certification that will last for the next 5 years. Whew!

In other news, our garden is finally producing! We've eaten three of our zucchinis, picked three peppers and one tomato, picked all the dragon tongue beans (and shelled half so far) and have used a ton of our herbs. Here is some proof!

Also, we had my secret squirrel friend up this week. We went and had dinner at Sweet Basil, just off Broadway... and it was phenomenal. We had a dish with prawns and asparagus, coconut vegatables, and a salmon dish. It was incredibly delicious. Also, their backdeck is delightful. it's covered with a trellis of grapeleaves that is just beautiful. While it took a while to get seated, it was well worth the wait. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Last night we had some folks over for bbq. After deliciousness, we set up a projector, a bed sheet and the wii and played some outdoor GIANT wii. It was super fun, and I will have to do it again. The Mariokart action was exceptional, as we could finally have four players who could see their karts and the road! Neat!

2009-07-21T20:28:00.001-07:00

photo project

2009-07-18T18:29:00.000-07:00

Good gravy!

So, having finished the matching hat and scarf for Mrpants, I decided to attempt socks v.2. During winter break, I received a much-wanted book titled, "Toe-Up Techniques for Hand-knit Socks." I had already made my first pair of socks. They turned out ok, if not perfect. They used a fairly thick wool and were made with size 6 needles. So they were pretty chunky socks. I've since felted them, and they fit much better and look nicer. The fuzziness hides a lot of imperfections (...like the fact that one is inside out halfway up).

Anyhow, being that I am the (not-so) proud owner of a set of cankles, I wanted to knit socks on which I could adjust the ankle/leg width. Also, you can just keep knitting up and up with toe-up socks, and get knee highs if you have enough yarn. That sounds like fun.

So I attempted to start the toe-up beginner sock today. There were three different techniques in the book for casting on the toe. I tried all of them. I think, in all, I attempted the cast on more than seven times. At 6:15pm, I finally manged to get a perfect cast on.

redonkulous.

2009-07-13T21:28:00.001-07:00

Driving to Tacoma every day for a week sucks. It sucks.. a lot. Also, forgetting to put gas in the Prius, because you've been getting up and hitting the road to Tacoma before 6am every day for a week also sucks. Be-CAUSE... then you run out of gas in Tenino, in the middle of the construction zone on I5. And then you are two hours late to the last day of class. All of this sucks. The class itself was not too bad. Teacher was very cool and kind. Other classmates were fairly decent. Materials were a little silly, but some ideas were jotted down for future use.

Today's class and travel to and from Tacoma sucked. The teacher was horribly confrontational and rigid. The classmates were defeated and/or cowed by her. No me gusta.

Things that don't suck:
Brian made beer!
Our new bedroom is awesome.
Brian took me out to dinner and Pix tonight (yum!).
Cats are fuzzy and cuddly.
I finished Brian's scarf.
Brian made my headache go away by rubbing my head.
I'm going to see the new Harry Potter at the midnight showing tomorrow.
We have large tomatoes that will get red soon.
I went to the Oregon Lavender Festival on Sunday, and bought Pear-Fig-Lavender Jam.
We're going to Japan in two weeks!

Also... we saw this scene when the Empire Strikes Back was playing at the Bagdad a while back.

2009-07-08T18:35:00.000-07:00

Something I picked up from my class this week:

2009-07-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

After being so grumpy about the craigslist people... I decided to find something to cheer me up. Mrpants and I just finished watching all of the Doctor Who fourth doctor series with Tom Baker. Here's a clip from the very beginning, after Tom Baker becomes The Doctor. My favorite part, "You don't want to stand here burbling about my ears."

2009-07-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

I love using Craigslist as a way to get rid of crap. I love posting things for free. We got rid of a ton of stuff last time we moved, by just leaving it on the porch and posting photos and the address of the old house. We said "Come get it. First come, first serve." It was terribly efficient.

I've been trying to get rid of our old bedroom furniture. We thought we were going to take it to a friend's garage sale last weekend, but got bogged down with stuff and didn't make it in time. So, I used Craigslist. We decided to try to make a little cash off the the furniture this time, instead of freebie-ing (not a word, I know!) everything. I need to rethink my wording next time. It's 5 days later, and I still have most of the items. One guy asked me if I took credit cards over the phone or delivered. What? Does he not understand that craigslist is like an electronic garage sale? What the h? I was baffled.

A guy came and paid me for the bed, but is having trouble rounding up a way to get it transported (Surprise! A four poster bed will not fit in the back of your Subaru.). So it sits in my hall. At this point I want to mail him a check for his stupid money and re-list it. Which I will do he doesn't show up today. The point was not to make cashmoney, but rather remove said items from the vicinity of my house.

A woman wanted to buy both dressers, but can't make it over until tomorrow.

No one wants the shelves. I think I'll put a free posting up for them. Anyone need some Ikea lack shelves in beech? They're the short ones, 3 feet-esque.

A guy wanted my black metal cart thingy, called to make sure I still had it and got my address. Then he arrived 10 minutes later, paid me and took it. That's the way it's done, people! Take notes on metal-cart-thingy-guy. He rocked.

Anyhow, I'm irritated. Next time, my ad will read: "(item) for sale. Photo included. Size is _____. Used. Price is ___. Cash only. No delivery service available. No reserving or holding items. First person to arrive with the means to remove the (item) is the new owner. No holding or reserving (item). Purchasers may arrive anytime after 10am on (date) at (my address). Post will be removed once item is no longer available."

2009-06-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

Did I mention school is out? And that the Santa Cruz peeps came to visit? Goodness, it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks. Let's see...

I managed to finish school without strangling any children. I did, however, kick out a boy during the art class final, and separate two others. Jerks. I mean, really, if you're failing a class, you have no intention of doing anything productive in class, you don't enjoy being there, and you skipped at least 40% of the class so far anyhow.... why show up for the final? I was ready for the seniors to leave, as they were all spazzypants. But, once they were gone, the maturity level in the room drops by way more than it should. I missed them almost instantly.

But, it's done. I had two after school meetings that went well. We, of course, want to meet more and get more collaboration done. We've asked the PTB (powers that be) if we could get paid for another piddly 5 hours... but I'm guessing we'll get a no.

The Santa Cruz contingency came to town as well. They were here the last three days of school, which made it a little crazy for me, but not too bad. Funny that, if we hadn't had snow/bomb scare days, I would have been down with school a week earlier and had more hangout time with them. Oh, well.

The summer adventures are starting. I've decided to overhaul our bedroom. I hate how it's set up. I hate the furniture. I'm tired of the paint job. So, we're gonna haul out our bedroom furniture and take it to a garage sale and P&S's this weekend. Then we're gonna go buy some bedroom furniture at Ikea. In between the furniture, I'm going to clean and repaint the bedroom. I'm hoping to do most of it by myself, so as to not put out the pants. He will have to help me with the furniture moving, the bed dis-assembly and painting the ceiling. I think I can do the rest myself. I have two solid weeks of no obligations in which to get it down. As long as I don't get caught up playing Super Mario Galaxy too much, I should be ok.

I've also been planting some more stuff in the garden. The veg is coming along nicely. We have Dragon Tongue beans getting long and stripey. The tomatoes are starting to fill out and the peppers have loads of flower buds. The cukes and zuchs are getting really big leaves, and (cross your fingers) I haven't lost any herbs yet. It was a close call with the woolly thyme, but I think I saved it.

Anyhow, there are loads of pics on flickr. I think, in fact, I'll go take a few more of the tomatoes and beans no that my allergy medicine has started to kick in.

2009-06-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

There's only five days left! I have an awards ceremony to attend to tomorrow night, as well as a meeting of the new yearbook staff after school. Monday is planning for Art Studio curriculum next year. Then Tuesday, the Brooks arrive! Yay!

I took some photos of our garden today. The lilies my mom brought me are especially pretty. I'm having a hard time deciding where to plant them. The kitchen garden is going like gangbusters. We have two kinds of basil, two kinds of oregano, marjoram, spicy orange thyme, leeks, garlic chives, green onions, woolly thyme and garlic. I'm pretty excited.

2009-05-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

Good lord, this was a busy weekend. I didn't expect it to get as busy as it did. We had originally simply purchased tickets to see Anthony Bourdain speak at the Keller Auditorium. But, then there were also tickets to Cinematic Titanic available. So, of course, we had to get those as well. Then, it turned out this would be the same weekend that my friend, Lish, would be coming to ptown. Whee!

So, Anthony was pretty rad. He tried an experimental format with us... that didn't really work out as well as he wanted. He explained that he wanted us to call bullshit on him whenever necessary. He ranted about a few subjects (Alice Waters, Vegetarians, etc.) and was, I think, expecting us to pop up and call bullshit on him. While Portlanders feel fairly strongly about many a subject, we are also extremely polite. I think, perhaps, he picked the wrong city to attempt this with. He didn't get as many arguments as he wanted, and instead it sparked a lot of bullshit-calling on other commenters and such. A little odd. Also, the Q&A lasted a little too long, and people seriously need to get their shit signed after the show... not while he's answering their questions. So pushy.

Cinematic Titanic was awesome. Of course, we had forgotten that the Starlight freaking Parade was on the same night. We were a half hour late to the show... but still made it in time to see the movie part (Danger on Tiki Island), which was terrible and terribly funny.

It was awesome to see Lish. I hadn't see her since her kiddo, Gryphon, was barely a year old or so. He's now five, and very into Star Wars. She was here with Jromy & Jen, who are moving in from DC and were scouting for houses. I think they found a few nice options (although I hinted heavily that the apt between Hawthorne and Belmont on 29th would be rad.). Since we were busy in the evenings, we were only able to give them a place to stay and take them out to Bar Carlo for breakfast. They, of course, visited Powells, got some Stumptown and some Voodoo Donuts on their way out of town.

Lish is one of the peeps I met in Seattle while working at the bookstore up there. She moved from Seattle to New Orleans for grad school exactly one week prior to Hurricane Katrina. She spent a long time living in crappy temporary housing in rural Mississippi (which she doesn't recommend.). Jromy had been living with her at the time, so they had lots of stories about what life was like in the south, post-Katrina (eep!). She has since graduated, written a novel (awesome!), sold a novel, and is writing a second book.

I can't wait for Jen & Jromy to move here in July. They will be a welcome addition (and I will possibly see Lish more often?).

2009-05-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not yet... but my sister is taking mrpants and I to Japan in August for two weeks! I'm terribly excited.

Mrpants saw this awesome theme park yesterday that we're trying to include in our plans. It's a historical Japan theme park. Everything is from the Edo period (costumes, villages, shops, plays, classes, parades, etc.). How freakin rad! One of the events is described as such:
"The most beautiful and educated lady in Japan, Yoshino, is coming to Edo all the way from Kyoto to develop Yoshiwara, the famous red-light district.She will make a gorgeous parade with her servants as people welcome her.But we received a report that the remaining radicals are going to attack her. See what’s gonna happen!"

We started plotting our trip and timeline while we were visiting her in DC last weekend, and have ramped up the planning this week. We've been making hotel reservations and doing research. We're collaborating on Google Maps to mark our hotels and all the sites we want to visit. Anyone have more suggestions about what we should see or do?

View Japan trip in a larger map

2009-05-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

We're back. We made it through our whirlwind tour of DC for my sister's graduation. We saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the WWII memorial. We went to the Smithsonian's Museum of American History (although we only made it through one floor). We went to the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Gallery & Sculpture Garden.

We thought we'd stay at Andrea's place, but felt like we were crowding her. So, we did a quick internet search (hotwire and orbitz) and found a hotel about a block away that had just been renovated. We got an awesome deal, and when we went to check in... they upgraded us to a suite. The hotel was gorgeous. It was all modern and awesome. We felt like rock stars.

We wined and dined through DC and got my sister through her graduation ceremony. The ceremony was good. They split up the graduates into sections, so it wasn't very many people and went quickly. Very cool and very schmancy.

A good weekend, long plane rides and all.

2009-05-14T21:54:00.000-07:00

Visiting some folks... We're off to DC tomorrow to see my little sis graduate from Georgetown. I'm not used to flying across the country for a weekend. It feels crazy. Whee!

2009-05-06T10:57:00.001-07:00

Look how awesome. This is the title frame for one of the advanced 3D groups' team collaborations. I'm not sure what the name of the short clip will be yet... but I will definitely let you know.

2009-04-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

Also, beans!

2009-04-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today we had brunch at my mentor teacher's new house. She retired at the end of last year, and I've heard not a peep from her between now and then. She had a sick sister, and her parents (who were in their 90's) both passed on this year. So, it was a turbulent time for her. In the middle of the this past week, I looked up from wrangling squirrels... and there she was! In my room! Yay! She passed on the invitation to brunch. She's such an amazingly gracious lady. Her house is beautiful, elegant, creative, artistic and super-impressive. She had it almost completely renovated, but did a lot of work herself. She tiled the masterbath on her own (with a really neat arching tree shape made of contrasting tile). She built her own decks after they hit the top of their budget for contractor work. She made the accent tiles for her kitchen in the ceramics room at school, prior to retiring. She built a two story chicken coop, and an outdoor cat coop. I can't say enough about her and her new home.

In any case, mrpants and I were inspired to finish up the front yard planting when we came home. I think I have everything (except zinnias, which will come later in the summer) planted out front. I may put in some scarlet runner beans to replace the passion flower... or I may not. We'll see. Mrpants finished planting the artichoke, the bronze fennel and some trailing euphorbia. then we planted a few herbs and mrpants starting planting our tomatos and peppers. Only four tomoto plants this year (two amish paste, one roma and one juliet). Six peppers were planted, and I can't name all the types we got. Since we moved the rhubarb, we have room in the second raised bed now. We're going to fill in with some extra soil, and then I'll plant some zucchini and cucumbers.

All in all, the yard is looking so much better. Last year, it just didn't get enough time to get going between ripping out the grass in the first week of April and the start of growing season.

Look at it now!

2009-04-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'm coming up with a fan-freakin-tastic new 3D project for the level two kids. It will be awwwwwesome. More details later.

Images obtained from:
1: mustache key hook
2: beard competition
3: mustache ring
4: mustache glass

2009-04-09T16:18:00.001-07:00

A longer post today.

I was in a training all day today. Part of our training session included observation of a sophomore, American history class. The teacher was fantastic. Not only was the lesson great, but his methods, lesson plans and general classroom management was methodical, controlled, thoughtful, humane and interesting (and sometimes funny & snarky).

The class was learning about the Cold War. They were in the middle of the section and had discussed McCarthyism, the arms race, the space race, communism, the Soviet view of capitalism and more.

As part of the discussion they watched the following clip.

Today's focus was on how the Cold War affected the national consciousness, or the mental & emotional impact of the Cold War on American citizens. They read articles discussing how a culture of fear had been produced among children and teens, and discussed how these kids grew up to be in positions of power in the waning years of the Cold War. They discussed how a lot of what happened with McCarthyism wasn't constitutional, but that fact was overlooked and why. (Is any of this starting to sound eerily familiar?)

His parting thought for the kids (Tomorrow he's having them do some written responses.), was a comparison between this clip encouraging kids to protect themselves against nuclear fallout with newspapers, and people today being forced to remove their shoes at the airport to protect against terrorists. "So when your grandkids see films of you at the airport with no shoes and they ask, 'Gramps, why were you standing in the airport in your socks?' what will you tell them? You were protecting yourself against terrorists?"

It interesting to me to compare these type of film clips with the types of movies (Red Dawn is not instructional, admittedly) that I watched in high school on movie days, or with subs, or whatnot. Bert the Turtle tells the kids that everything will be ok, if you just follow directions and stay alert. The overall message is that you can do something to protect yourself against danger. Bert's trying to keep people from feeling hopeless (Even though the whole notion of newspapers against radiation is obviously ridiculous.).

The post-apocalyptic scifi books I was reading starting when I was 11 or 12, The Day After, the Mad Max movies, Red Dawn, War Games, etc.; all these things I put in my little tween brain... They left me with the distinct impression that it didn't really matter what I did, or what we did, since the whole world was going to 'asplode and disintegrate anyhow. It seems to me, and feel free to disagree, that there was a certain time period wherein children/teens were exposed to a lot of information about how dangerous the world was but weren't given any ideas on how to fix it. This is, of course, my view. I don't remember a lot of information or ideas on empowerment, or citizenship to change the world, or anything of that nature. I remember people telling us to be scared. I remember movies showing us how bad everything was and/or could be. Kids today seem to have the same kind of ridiculous, "don't panic" kind of messages being sent to them as Bert endorsed.

This leaves me wondering two things:

1) We are called Generation X, the slacker kids, the apathy generation. Where does this reputation for not doing anything come from? Does it have anything to do with growing up at the end of the Cold War? "There's nothing we can do (to stop the bomb/change the world), why bother?"

2) I've discussed with some of you in education, how many kids we see who are afraid to try anything. They prefer to sit in their room and watch tv or internet. Is this a new generation of fear? "There's nothing you can do (to be successful/keep from being hurt/find happiness), why bother?"

I don't know. Lots of thoughts today as I watch kids learning.

I'll leave you with an impressive list of post-nuclear apocalyptic fiction:
list of wikipedia post-apocalyptic fiction

2009-04-08T19:24:00.000-07:00

Out of the mouths of squirrels:

Flittery teen girl referencing some random thing:
"OMG! That's, like, the cutest thing ever!"

SB (in the room 'cause he got kicked out of history, again.):
"No way. The cutest thing ever is snoring puppies. I'm way metal,
and even I was like, 'ohhhh...""

2009-04-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

The last of the cat beds are done. I used the Kitty Pi pattern by wendyknits.com for all three, with some minor adjustments for amounts of yarn and such. As soon as I put the last one down on the floor, Bug came over and claimed it. So far, he has claimed all three. I see the tuxedo cats sniffing the beds, but neither of them has sat in them. I just made three cat beds for Bug. sigh...

Last night we went over to Sierra's place for a sloe gin fizz party. I'd never had sloe gin before. It was a little weird. Many of us agreed that it tasted terribly familiar, like some kind of punch we'd had as kids. But it was a little too sweet and too odd for me. It made my stomach turn after a little while. Sierra had mentioned that smoking jackets and fun hats would be more than welcome at the party. While neither mrpants nor I have these items (how can be!), Mr.Ransom surely did. Here he is, in all his festiveness.

Tonight... to Chopsticks II for Kareoke, even tho' mrpants is sick and doesn't think he'll be able to sing. Poor kiddo.

2009-04-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

I was going to be soooo clever. Clever and witty. Erudite, even. But now I've consumed four rum & cokes (w/ lime!). The clever (what little there was) has left the building.

I feel no guilt for my rummy-coke-y-ness. I'm on spring break. Thppppttt.... also, mrpants made some super yummy vegan (we're out of eggs, and both wore our pajamas all day) pumpkin bread. Delish!

Mrpants has caught the second wave of sick. His sick was split in half and had a breather between, unlike my CONTINUOUS FOUR WEEKS of sick. In any case, he feels like the uck. It seems like he's starting to feel a bit better, what with the baking and all. He also made veggie chili today, with roasted acorn squash. It, also, was delish.

Not a bad day in all (for me!). Woke up late. Played a little solitaire in bed on the iphone. Had loads of delicious coffee. Ate bagels w/ jam. I love jam. Read a book. Finished felting the last cat bed and fixed the socks I knitted a zillion years ago. Ate chili. Drank rum. Ate pumpkin bread. petted cats of silliness. Internetted.

Boring for others, but awesome for me. This spring break has been fairly busy so far. As much as I like my "in-laws" (and I really, really do), it was nice to have a whole, entire day that I wasn't obligated to go and do, or be, or entertain, or any such.

I was planning on doing some gardening today, but as the weather was iffy most of the day, I really couldn't be bothered. I do have pea seeds soaking, tho. So I need to plant them soon. Also, the weeds in the front yard are getting out of hand, and the passion flower vine has apparently not made it through Snowpocolype 2008. Some yardwork is definitely in order.

To conclude, I present you with a contrast and compare of my most recent celebrity crushes. (Yes. I'm twelve. Shuttup. But oh... they are so hot and tall and brilliant and clever!). I convinced my nephew to pick The Graveyard Book as his plane-home-read this week, and made sure the sis-in-law knew to netflix Coraline when it became available. I also pointed out Bourdain's book at the bookstore, but I don't think it's really her gig.

yum.

2009-03-30T16:47:00.001-07:00

Busy day today. First official day of spring break, and I had errands to fill up the entire day. First the vet and then back out to school to finalize a handful of proofs that the kids didn't get done.

I woke up with mrpants this morning and took Kiwi to the vet. She's been licking the fur off her right foreleg and her belly... 'cause she's crazytown. She's also a tricksy little bugger to get in the cat cage. I had to do some bait and switch tactics with wet cat food. Once in the car, she cried the whole way to the vet. She also had an accident in the cat carrier, which made her cry more. Poor little empty noggin cat. The vet performed a series of investigations and we'll get some results back on Wednesday to see if a few more things have been ruled out as causes. So far, we know it's definitely not fleas, mites, rashes or fungus. I'm putting my money on crazy....

Also! We have a new addition to our family! We got a Roomba! Yay! I've been wanting one for years. It's pretty rad. We're still playing around with the settings, but if everything goes well, and the little guy performs up to standards and expectations, there's been a discussion of also getting a Scooba!

Happy Spring Break!

2009-03-25T14:33:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some thinking about summer again. My sis is taking mrpants and I to Japan for two weeks in August. I'm super, super excited. It's someplace that we've both always wanted to go. Mrpants has been doing some sporadic studying of his Japanese. I'm in charge of researching and obtaining tickets to Studio Ghibli. Sis is looking at purchasing plane tickets soon. It's gonna be rad.

On a more day to day basis, I've been fiddling around trying to put together some good examples for my Art Studio kids. I usually like to use student examples, as they fit the skill level appropriately. When I have to make the examples myself, I find that I either take the project too far and the kids think it looks too hard to do... or I don't take it far enough and they think it's little kid stuff. It's hard to find a balance, something that won't scare them but also will hold their interest. I've put some of my attempts up on flickr (as well as some of the previous projects from students). As it's portraits of kids, I'm not posting them here for the world to see... you'll have to be my flickr friend.

Two days until Spring Break!

2009-03-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

Well then. Today was exciting. I had possible WASL proctor subbing, but all the peoples showed up to work and I was excused (yay!). Then I met with the art lady and we collaborated on projects for my art studio class, which was a nice experience (even tho' I was dreading it a little). I taught a few classes. SB stopped by to tell me about how he "dominated" his senior presentation panel. Then I went over to the other high school and learned a few more Lightwave tricks to teach the advanced kids (They'll be sooo impressed!).

I left there about 4:30pm, yawning, and heading to the vet in NoPo to pick up thyroid pills for the Bug. Done. Paid for. Good, good. Stopped to get gas at Lombard and Interstate, as the gas light came on. After which, the car wouldn't start.

Oh, mighty Honda! Why dost thou let me down? I had such faith in the Honda. Faith which was repaid by clicking noises and automobile-esque mocking. sigh. I had to get help pushing the Honda around the corner and out of the way, and wait for some jumper cables and jump to arrive. Fortunately, mrpants is a brilliant hero-type.

Afterwhich, I promptly took mrpants out for Mexican food and margaritas. What a busy day.

Also, I've finished the first (of three) felted catbeds for chilly, complaining kittens (quite possibly the Bug complains frequently about the uncomfortable nature of the heating vents, and their plastic gridding.). He loves it, especially when it is placed over the aforementioned heating vent.

2009-03-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

I am very interested in talks given by experts in their own fields. This is why I love Ignite Portland, and hope to keep going to each session. Along these same lines, BoingBoing recently posted a video of a Stanford prof's lecture on human bio ethics that was really funny and interesting. BoingBoing also had someone go to TED this year and had several posts about lectures given there. I'm interested in hearing more TED talks after seeing this video of Aimee Mullins at TED. Her lecture highlights some interesting points regarding our definition of disabilities, sexuality, beauty, art and functionality. I also find it interesting that she was involved in Matthew Barney's conceptual art film and on the cover of ID... which is also usually focused on conceptual design. Thoughts or responses from the peanut gallery?

2009-03-13T14:03:00.000-07:00

I've set up a blog in order to display all the student work from my 3D classes. We either vote on who gets their projects posted, or I just pick a handful of really good ones. I've been trying to make sure I don't always pick the same kids, but some of the kids really put in more time than others. In any case, check out the projects! I'm so proud of my advanced kids.

http://ehs3d.wordpress.com

2009-03-06T18:07:00.000-08:00

I posted a photo of our first flower blooms of the year (yay! crocusi!) on my flickr. Very excited to see some flowers again.

In other very exciting news... I finally went to the freakin doctor's and got some prescription cough medicine! Yay! Sleep will be mine tonight!

Finally, I am relieved to know that I will only have to be concerned about in-state monkeys throwing poo and eating babies. No out of state monkeys to fear now. Thank you to my fellow monkey hater, Natalie, for bringing this urgent news to my attention.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Felonious Monkeys

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

2009-03-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

Man. I am so tired of being sick. I've had this cold for two weeks now, and yesterday it got worse. I had a fever and was dizzy and all kinds of yuck. I've stayed home from school for two days now. I hate this. I slept all day yesterday, until mrpants came home and fed me juice and medicine. The fever reducer stuff seems to work pretty well. I'm not feeling feverish today. I'm planning on going to school tomorrow.

gargh. Now for something more interesting... here's my Random Album cover from the recent meme floating around.

2009-02-18T18:51:00.000-08:00

A list.... because I'm too lazy to put it together in grownup paragraph format.

1. I think the N button on my laptop is breaking or something. Gah.
2. Roz wants to lie on the keyboard... perhaps these two issues are connected?
3. I created a school blog for the animation kids. We vote on who from each class and each project will go up on the site. I should put together an online voting dealio.
4. I made an advert for my 3d class and put it on the site. Watch it: http://ehs3d.wordpress.com.
5. I think I'm getting the current school cold. My throat hurts.
6. My fav kiddo, SB, seems to be in full effect again today. He's beginning to model some terrifying space rats for his next project. A little heart problem won't keep him down.
7. I finally got my art class kids to talk and smile today. sheesh.
8. I think I heard a new David Byrne song on the radio today?!
9. R and I think that we may have finally found a yoga instructor who is not ridiculous.
10. I have to get back to grading, and then to bed early. I had three kids tell me I looked tired today. eep.

ps - I finally figured out that the English teacher's band sounds like Matchbox 20. That's why it's so familiar, and moderately boring.

2009-02-11T21:09:00.000-08:00

A couple of weird things to today. My school plays song snippets during passing time, in a vain attempt to get kids to recognize that it's time to get to class. Today, they were playing something was neither the Beach Boys nor Celine Dion. After the first snippet, one of the secretaries got on the intercom and announced, "If you are enjoying the music today, please thank Mr.____(english teacher). This is his band, and he has cds for sale in his room if you want one."

Gah? Are we hawking the products of teachers' second jobs now? Avon is on sale in the math teacher's room. The pe teacher will be available for landscaping consultation after school.... I mean really! So weird.

One of my favorite kids (SB) was out for three days this week. Apparently he was climbing and got a blood clot, which moved into his heart. He was in the hospital for three days. So scary. He took many photos of himself in the hospital bed with his cell phone and showed to me saying, "Look how metal I am!"

And now for something completely different. (stealing lines from Monty Python and video clips from BoingBoing.)

2009-01-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

The semester is over. All hail the new semester.

I received some really amazing 3D work from students this semester. Here is a Demo Reel from one of my level three kids, and a monster project assignment from a level one kid. Luke told me that his alien's name is Steve, and he likes to eat donuts.

2009-01-21T20:41:00.000-08:00

Our Annual Coast Trip (tm) was fantastic, as usual. Our newest house rental was super choice, and included fluffy, comfy, nice sized beds for all, a large kitchen, a huge space, a pool table, giant tvs and couches, a hot tub and an amazing two-story view of the beach. Many photos at flickr.

Yesterday, my 2nd period class requested watching the inauguration. We put it on the big screen and listened to the swearing in. The kids were super excited, and several shushed the rest of the class when the swearing in ceremony started. I looked around my classroom and realized that, years ago (after becoming of age), only four kids in the classroom would have been allowed to vote. How weird is that? There are only four white males in my 2nd period... and now that I think about it, one of them moved here from Russia when he was tiny. I don't know if he would have been given citizenship back then. Pretty amazing.

Our band marched in the Inauguration Day parade. I finally got to see them march around 3:45pm or so. I'm excited to start harassing the band kids, band leaders and band kids' parents about photos for yearbook. What an amazing page that would make.

2009-01-10T19:27:00.000-08:00

Speaking of Coraline, it's highly possible I'm developing a crush on Neil Gaiman. I was first introduced to him when I read his collaboration with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, as a junior in high school. I've read almost all of his books since then. I just put a hold on the Graveyard Book from our dear Multnomah County Library. I've missed a couple of his children's stories (Wolves in the Walls, etc.). I haven't read any of his Sandman comics yet, but that will be remedied eventually.

I adore American Gods (especially after having been to the House on the Rock, which is a whole otherwordly experience), Anansi Boys, and his two short story collections, Fragile Things and Smoke & Mirrors. I liked Mirror Mask, and even Stardust. Although, I bet I like those two better as stories, rather than movies.

I also found this awesome video of Neil and Jonathan Coulton performing Creepy Doll, which I always get stuck in my head.

If he ever comes to Powell's. I'll just have to be there.

2009-01-07T21:09:00.000-08:00

Is anyone else as excited as I am about the Coraline movie?

2009-01-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

This has been the weirdest winter break. We were stuck in our house for six days, waiting for the snow to let us out. My mom and sis barely made it to Portland. Once the snow melted we spent our time in a flurry of family visiting. Saw more family than I've seen in years. Crazy.

One of our visits was out to my Grandma Lucille's house (aka: "gramma seal"). She and my mom had gotten out the old family photos albums for my sis and I. I spent a good deal of time taking blurry iphone photos of some of these. Super fun. I posted a whole, blurry pile of these to my flickr.

I present for your pleasure.... the Tompkins girls circa 1980 & 1984. Along with a photo of my great-great-grandmother, Magdalena Hartz Schmidt.

What can I say?

2008-12-22T17:54:00.000-08:00

2008-12-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

It just keeps snowing. Mrpants attempted to shovel the front porch today, but it immediately started snowing again, and most of his hard work disappeared. We're a little worried about how we're going to fetch my sister from the airport tomorrow... that is, if she arrives. We've seen snowboarders pulled by cars, cross country skiers, sleds pulled by bikes, and loads of kidlets and dogs tromping through the snow in our streets.

2008-12-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

Wow. It just keeps snowing. All the snow that melted away came back, and brought friends. We did have school on Thursday (even though it was snowing in the 'Couv most of the day). Friday was canceled, and so I am officially on winter break now.

Mrpants and I are tucked away in the house today. We attempted to go to the post office this morning (high adventure!), but our local po was closed. So... sorry everyone, but presents will be late this year.

I'll have to go outside later and take some photos from somewhere other than my front window. It seems that the side yard is getting buried, as the wind whips through there like it's a wind tunnel.

stay warm, everyone!

2008-12-16T20:38:00.001-08:00

oh, man. What a crazy day. We started off with lockdown drills, and then progressed into real lockdowns, then my classroom had to move to one side of our room, then the whole school evacuated to the stadium (which I might add, was very cold without a coat). After an hour of that, we moved into the middle school gym where I hung out with 700+ squirrelly squirrels for several hours of confined and enforced togetherness. The kids were finally bused home after four hours of crazy, and I caught a ride home with another teacher whose husband had mercifully come to pick her up, as the staff couldn't get to our cars yet.

oiy. another day in the life, eh? My coat and snow boots are still in the closet of my other room at school. I guess I'll fetch them tomorrow, as long as the weather cooperates and we still have school. All I ask is for one more day, so we can finish our yearbook deadlines. Wish me luck!

12/17 UPDATE: I went to school, and was immediately sent home again. The custodian literally waiting in front of the main office to shoo people away. School was canceled for today. I did go inside and fetch my coat, boots and thermos, as well as spent some time editing, compressing and sending off 85% of the yearbook pages that were due. The remainder rest in the hands of the editor for now. I feel much better about the whole thing, though. Now, I'm going to drink coffee and knit up a storm.

snow!

2008-12-14T15:04:00.000-08:00

2008-12-13T19:53:00.000-08:00

(sung to the tune of Chestnuts Roasting)
a little awkward, but I'm no lyricist.

Bug paws roasting by a gas fireplace,
my hot toddy's filled with good whisky,
student papers are piled any ol' place,
grading happens as the temp drops by degrees....

2008-12-11T16:40:00.001-08:00

a list:

1) I'm tired of my cold. I'm sleeping way too much.
2) How weird to have possible snow this early! I'm crossing my fingers for a snow day soon.
3) AbbeyChristine is my hero. Man, I love how creative people are, and I love shopping Etsy. It's awesome.

2008-12-09T17:34:00.000-08:00

So, I realize it's been awhile since I posted any student work. I'll start with two of the Andy Warhol, pop art, stencil projects we did. The kids did pretty well with this, although some of the younger students and students with learning difficulties had a very difficult time creating their stencils, and finding the highlights of the faces. I like giving them strangers or celebrities to work on, as they tend not to worry about making the faces "pretty" as much as if it was their own photo they were working on.

Next time I'm definitely doing smaller pieces of tagboard. I wanted to put a bunch of these in the art gallery, but we didn't have any frames that fit... and I couldn't afford to go out and buy any. Too bad. The work was great, and I wanted people to see it. I've also ordered some more cutting mats for the x-acto knives. We only had five for a class of 25 students. That made the whole project go slower.

Goals: students will learn the definitions of positive and negative space, while creating a stencil of a human face. (materials: tempera paint & tagboard)

2008-12-08T19:07:00.000-08:00

I went to benefit auction Saturday morning. It was awfully early for me, for a Saturday... but it was for a good cause, the AAUW, and was held at McMenamin's Edgefield. There was a tasty veggie quiche breakfast, lots of coffee, a silent auction and a regular auction. I won some hand-blown glass do-dads in the regular auction. It was terribly exciting.

2008-11-24T16:11:00.000-08:00

Seems like all I do is post photos of cats now, eh? Also... Why was my blogger page in Spanish today? Was it trying to get me to watch the 2nd Semester of Spanish Spanish Love Song again? Featuring Eric Estrada?

Have a good T-day. Eat yummy stuff. Enjoy time off from work.

2008-11-11T18:02:00.001-08:00

I had the day off today, which was very nice. Got some errands taken care of, bought some sock yarn and some cable needles at Yarn Garden. I want to try to get all my yarn needs taken care of at Yarnia, but needles & tools are not really Yarnia's stock in trade. I was just plain tempted by the sock yarn.

I also went to Limbo and obtained some cumin, which we were out of, as well as some fun chili powders, some fancy salts and some dried mushrooms. Limbo is fun. I love their "Wall of Herbs!"

I watched several British gangster movies today. Bug helped me watch. He did not, however, help me knit. In fact, he sat right on top of the knitting in my lap. I forgave him, though... because he was being the cutest lap cat in the world.

2008-11-04T22:26:00.000-08:00

Today is a beautiful day... let us count the ways:
1. I have hope again for our country. America has redeemed itself in my eyes.
2. Mrpants starts his first day of work at TheNewPlace tomorrow.
3. All the kids (ALL!!!) got their pages turned in on time today.
4. All the editors stayed until 6:30pm tonight finishing editing the pages.
5. There was beer when I got home.

(contented sigh)

I am going to fall asleep happy.

2008-10-30T17:37:00.001-07:00

This morning my alarm went off. I hit the snooze button and fell back asleep for about 10 minutes. No biggie. The weird thing was... when I woke back up and looked at the clock, I could not, for the life of me, figure out why I was up at 5:10am. I actually asked myself, "Why am I awake. It is very, very early." I felt like I had woken up at 3am or 2am. When you wake up confused as to why you're awake. It took me a few minutes to comprehend that this was my normal weekday wakeup time.

Such an odd thing. This is why Chester Coffeepot, my new friend who brews coffee automatically for me, is so vital to my morning existence (perhaps also vital to me not strangling children).

2008-10-28T20:34:00.000-07:00

I cannot express enough, how much I love autumn. I love the slanted, golden light that illuminates trees, leaves, cats and everything. I love the smell in the air. The mysterious crispness that gives me freedom from and sweeps out the thick summer air that hangs and oppresses. I love the colors of leaves and shrubs, and the evening sky. I love apples and cider, pumpkin carving and squash, and the end of the growing season produce. I love the imagination and play of Halloween. I love the cozy fireplace warmth, the snuggle of scarves, and the pile of blankets and cats on my lap while I read.

In the photo are three things I love:
1) the tiny Bug
2) autumn sunshine
3) knitting

2008-10-22T18:02:00.000-07:00

Halloween is coming soon... in honor of our favorite holiday, riddle me this:

You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have:

1. one weapon.
2. one song blasting on the speakers.
3. one famous person to fight alongside you.

What are your choices?

2008-10-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

Take some time for pumpkins this month!

2008-10-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

As Addy would say, "aw, cwap."

Mr.Pants got laid off today. Totally unexpected. So... if you know of any telecom jobs in the pdx area, give us a jingle.

(sigh)

We're headed for the bar now. Maybe we'll see you there.

ps: Halloween party-fantastico is still on. Sat the 25th. Be there!

2008-10-14T17:55:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day to register to vote. If you haven't yet done so... be quick.

2008-10-09T11:34:00.000-07:00

(yawnnnn)...

Sleepy day today. I took today off work (personal days are awesome), because we went and saw Gogol Bordello last night at the roseland. It was awesome. and sweaty. and kinda stinky. and loud. and super fun! There was much dancing and raising of fists to the sky and singing.

You should go see them. Now.

2008-10-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

I did it. I replaced my old phone finally. I went big, too. I bought an iphone. It's pretty, and fun, and ridiculous. I spent this morning taking pictures of cats on my lap, adding applications (pandora, facebook and an air hockey game to start), and listening to music. I'm pretty freakin excited about it. Mostly... I'm excited about the calendar feature. This promises to help me manage meetings between my two departments at school, while remembering which days are early release, in service or days off, and juggling social engagements.

Yay! Calendar!

2008-09-24T16:07:00.001-07:00

I managed to scan a couple projects from Art Studio before returning them to the students.

Primary Goals: learn about symmetry, gradients, colored pencil technique and observation of line and detail.

Secondary Goals: thinking about self identification versus public impressions, first impressions and stereotypes.

Directions:
1. Get a partner to trace your profile using the shadow of the projector.
2. Create an exactly, symmetrical opposite version of your profile.
3. Fill in the right profile with things that describe you.
4. Fill in the left with things that other people would think about you, when meeting you.
5. Fill in the background with a gradient of two or more colors.
6. Cover the entire paper with colored pencil, using the techniques shown in the demo.

2008-09-20T14:51:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was national talk like pirate day. I attempted to get kids to talk like pirates all day, but wasn't super successful. Yarr, indeed.

2008-09-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time again. Tomorrow all the squirrelly squidlets will be back in the building, ready for trouble. At 7:25am I'll be in the stadium, with my sign... on the lookout for my first period kids. Wish me luck!

2008-08-28T18:07:00.000-07:00

Besides this song, Leslie Hall has another amazing music video about the movie Willow, with an unstoppable chorus. I suggest everyone check out her site, which includes information about her gem sweater museum.

The 100 Things List

2008-08-20T17:58:00.001-07:00

GOAL DATE: May 17th, 2011 (My 36th bday!)

My list of things for the 101 things project, featured on this site. I was looking through some of the lists posted on the master list, and was inspired by the folks who categorized their lists into sections. Categories are almost as good as lists, and combined together they are a superpower not to be equaled.

I've spent a couple days coming up with the list. Some of these items I will happily and easily accomplish. Others will be very difficult for me. I have until my 36th birthday to do them. Here we go!

TRAVEL
1.Spend Christmas with the family in London.
2.~~Do the train tour in Copper Canyon, Mexico.~~
(EDIT) Did a train trip in Germany instead (summer 2010)
3.~~Go outside the US in the summer of 2009~~ (Japan!).
4.Take a Brian/Crystal-only holiday once a year.
5.~~Visit Chris & Becky in Santa Cruz before they move.~~(EDIT: failed)
6.Go to NYC.
7.~~Make sure that six months don't pass before visiting the beach.~~
8.~~Have fun while in DC.~~

ENTERTAINMENT
9.~~Acquire Mario Cart.~~
10. ~~Acquire Mario Galaxy.~~
11. Host a game night every other month.
12. Go participate/enjoy an art event every other month (First Thursday, etc.)
13. Go to Iron Artist.
14. Smoke something in the smoker.
15.Take a vineyard tour.
16.~~Go to the Aquarium in Newport.~~
17.~~See a play (not at the high school).~~
18.Hang out with Bianca more.
19.See Natalie's kids.
20.~~Go bowling.~~
21.Go play miniature golf.
22.~~Participate in a neighborhood activity.~~
23.Take a cooking/baking class of some kind.
24.~~Take another painting class.~~
(EDIT) Took a photo class instead.
25.Initiate a science picnic at Trojan.
26.~~Host a knitting night again.~~
27.~~Host a cocktail party.~~
28.Host a murder mystery party.
29.Go to a trivia night somewhere fun with TheKidsWeLike(tm).
30.Do something the boy wants to do at least once per month.

BODY/HEALTH/SOUL
31.Take a yoga class during Fall 2008, during which I only miss ONE session. (EDIT: Fail)
32.Take one physical activity class each term.
33.Lose enough weight to make my back stop aching.
(EDIT: Back stopped hurting! But, didn't lose weight.)
34.Actually eat both breakfast and lunch on school days.
35.Acquire WiiFit and use it 2-3 times a week.
36.~~Only purchase coffee once per week or less.~~

ANTI-SLOB LIVING
37. ~~Actually get Christmas cards off to everyone in a timely manner one year.~~
38.~~Change cat boxes every other day.~~
39.Don't let two days go by without cleaning kitchen mayhem.
40. ~~Do laundry once per week.~~
41.Immediately put laundry away. (EDIT: getting better)
42.Vacuum and sweep once per week or more. (EDIT: Roomba!)
43. ~~Mop. Sometimes.~~

ENVIRO
44.~~Participate in car pool.~~
45.Re-use ziploc bags, by creating a re-use system that doesn't make me crazy.
46.~~Eat more local produce.~~
47.~~Drive less.~~
48.~~Stop using plastic grocery store bags (ie: buy a cloth one, if I've forgotten them).~~

FINANCIAL
49.Save up enough to have three months worth of bills in reserve.
50.~~Save up some travel money.~~ (EDIT: but used it on travel!)
51.~~Pay one extra payment on the smaller school loans per term.~~
52.~~See an accountant to get tax chaos organized.~~
53.~~Only eat out twice per week (this counts Friday happy hour as one).~~

HOUSE/HOME
54.Replace siding on house.
55.Finish painting kitchen chairs.
56.Paint kitchen table.
57.Paint all hallway doors.
58.Paint behind fridge.
59.~~Put up picture molding in living room.~~ (EDIT: changed our minds on this)
60.~~Paint trim in studio.~~
(EDIT) Switched and painted whole room + trim instead.
61.~~Organize studio (and clean).~~
62.Swap faucet in hallway bathroom.
63.Get someone to install tube skylight in hallway bathroom.
64.Determine whether window in bedroom bathroom in feasible.
65.Get new window installed in living room. (EDIT: got 1 quote so far)
66.~~Replace stupid patio door with something that works.~~ (EDIT: fixed!)
67.~~Fix paint job in bedroom (repaint or just do ceiling).~~
68.~~Organize trash and recycle bins in a unobtrusive and user-friendly manner.~~

GARDEN
69.~~Buy & install soaker hoses for front yard.~~
70.Set up rain barrels.
71.~~Finish south front yard.~~
72.~~Trim both trees more.~~
73.~~Move rhubarb to new home.~~
74.~~Plant and keep artichoke living.~~
75.Get rid of weeds in north space.
76.Plant hostas and other shady plants in north space.
77.Create path in north space (for meter-reader guy).
78.~~Make back deck usable.~~
79.Use compost from backyard.
80.Get hose pots for front and side yard.
~~Set up drip system.~~
~~put up side fence.~~

ART/CRAFT PROJECTS
81.Set up ceramics area in garage.
82.Use ceramics gear.
83.Teach one other person to use the ceramics wheel.
84.Use at least three of the waiting canvases in the studio.
85.Create 3 window paintings (for myself or friends).
86.Print homemade cards for birthdays and holidays.
87.~~Finish knitting two baby blankets.~~
88.~~Knit a pair of socks.~~
89. ~~Finish knitting Kenna's scarf.~~
(EDIT) passed off that scarf to R&K. Made whole other scarf for her birthday.
90.Knit a blanket for myself. (EDIT: started)
91.Knit a sweater.
92.Make a birdbath.

SCHOOL/JOB
93.~~Finish all required classes by end of summer 2009.~~
94.~~Organize certification paperwork.~~
95.~~Get at least one course organized to the point where I could have all lesson plans, paperwork, etc. ready for the next term without massive reworking or editing.~~
96.~~Make sure the kids are taking care of yearbook deadline, not me.~~
97.~~Effectively manage clean-up in art room.~~
98.~~Get tshirts for yearbook kids.~~
99.~~Help other teachers, but say no to at least one request per term.~~
100. ~~Have fun at school.~~

Before I leave off, here's a quote I found a while back, which I found highly amusing:

"Anything invented before you were 18 has been there forever, anything that turns up before you're 30 is new and exciting, and anything after that is a threat to the world and must be destroyed." ~ Jim Griffin (www.boingboing.net)

2008-08-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

wire sculpture by etsyian sparkflight

I may have mentioned that I love lists. If not... I lurrrrv lists. I love crossing things off lists. I love writing down the lists. I love putting bullet points next to the items. I just found this site 101 things in 1001 days. The Mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

I am excited about this idea. I love lists because I love goals. Especially goals with a deadline. I really don't function well without a deadline. I need that ticking clock to make stuff happen. I had my summer lists, of which I finished a majority of things... but not all. There were a few contingencies which didn't allow for completion of projects (ie: TheBug getting sick and the purchase of a Wii.). I did go through and mark all the things that were completed. Which made me all happy and warm & glowy inside as I crossed them out.

But with the 101 project, I can put some of the long term stuff on there. Yay! I love it. I am totally doing this. When I get the list created, I will of course post it. Until then, consider... what do you want to do/complete/undertake/pursue in the next 2.75 years?

2008-08-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

I have survived yearbook camp. I had three kids who paid and didn't show up for the vanpool in the morning. I still ended up having seven kids total. Since our class population is 14... I don't think half is too bad. I had two veterans, and the rest were newbies. One boy. They learned a lot of terminology, theories and general info about how yearbooks run. They bonded as a team (We have a fight song! It mentions guava.). They had a lot of fun, and got to meet other yearbook teams, as well as see other books and pages and hear a lot of yearbook info. I had one girl get sick and end up in the hospital for a few hours (either overheated or she's getting appendicitis) and my silly, little butterfly of a girl gorged herself on white rice, and was then sick for a couple of hours. All in all, it seemed to go well. Still, I'm not offering to drive a van full of them again. Those vans are too big and scary, and it's a giant red-tape hassle to do it. (Featured here is a pic of an anonymous yearbook kiddo whose face is hidden, so I feel safe posting this photo.)

In other news, I finally uploaded some photos of our July 4th - Canada Day BBQ at Johnny's. I have two weeks left until school starts. I saw a "Republicans for Obama" sticker on a car today. I got my hair dyed and cut. I love the color(s), but hate the cut. sigh.

2008-07-31T12:45:00.000-07:00

Our Mimosa tree is blooming. I love the way it smells and the way the crazy blooms look against it's green wee leaves. The bumble bees love it, too. There are so many of them careening aboot and bumping into each other and the blooms. It's very cute. I love how fuzzy bumble bees are, and how ridiculous they look when they are flying. They always seem just a little out of control.

It's been a weird week. I was supposed to go up to a 3 day class in Seattle last Wednesday, but TheBug got horrible sick in the night and that prevented me from making the trip. I spent the next couple days talking to the vet, and keeping an eye on him. He was so sad. I felt terrible for him. He seems to be better now, but we're starting him on his medication again today (smaller doses and a different delivery method). Hopefully it'll work better.

I went up to Tacoma on Monday, for the first in-person meeting of my online class. I have another session on Friday. Hopefully the a/c will be on, instead of the heat this time. It didn't make for a very helpful learning environment. I have most of my work finished for this class, but still need to put together a "portfolio presentation."
I'm finding it a little difficult to start on this 3-5 min. presentation, as her directions are not totally clear. I'm a little unsure what the goal of this presentation is supposed to be about. Ah, well. I'll include some of the 3D kids videos and I'm sure it'll all work out. With these certification classes, I'm finding that most of the instructors are not terribly tech savvy. So, if I flash a bit of tech at the them, they get super excited about it and are happy with what I've done. I've had instructors be overwhelmed by a simple powerpoint. Pretty weird.

Anyhow. I'm procrastinating. I have that plus some housework to do. If I get those all done, then I'm allowed to listen to my audio book and keep working on my knitting project. I'm hoping to have this knitting project done (or mostly done) before the yarn I ordered from Yarnia comes in for the next project. Gotta get workin!

2008-07-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

God! Goats are weird!