Saturday, August 26, 2006
Dean thinks Lowly Worm is an inchworm, but I say he's an earthworm. Who's right?
Posted at 10:05:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Friday, August 25, 2006
It's RAINING. I still haven't stepped foot outside, OR gotten dressed, but I made an entire skirt from start to finish this afternoon! Whilst listening to Friends & Neighbors -time Radio Hour (Bob is in rare form!), and some other great stuff. Like "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," "Blood In My Eyes," "Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie," "Stay A Little Longer," & "Hallelujah, I'm Ready To Go."
Posted at 4:07:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The skirt is made of that fabric I bought on July 28th. I obeyed my Note To Self and made the zipper shorter, but it's nearly too short! I can just barely slither in. Other than the small inconvenience of slithering, the zipper is superb. I stole it from a lousy skirt that I bought for less than the cost of a zipper at the consignment store. It's mango-colored, and the skirt is dusky pink, so it's a great combo (not that the zipper shows much anyway, since it's invisible). The skirt fits me perfectly (I followed my homemade pattern and it worked) and the shorter zipper lies nicely, but there's still something a little odd about it. I think it's because of the linen-y / raw silk-ish texture of the fabric. And my too-stiff bottom hem. Instead of flowing around like my red-patterned shirt does, it sort of sticks straight out in a triangular configuration. Hmmm. We'll see.
[Edit: Well, I guess it passes. I wore it to dinner at ION, and Dean declared it his new favorite skirt. (!?) He likes the "dishtowel" texture. It is very comfortable.]
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Posted at 11:45:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The Boonstra of the week is an especially amusing one, for obvious reasons. (The review is of Snakes, of course.) It's really not much of a headline without the "that I almost cried" part, though.
And here's a scan of the Bob in New Britain thing. It's such a sweet picture, but, really, what's up with newspapers using photos of Bob that are over 40 years old to illustrate articles about stuff he's doing now?? Like you're really going to go to a concert and expect him to look like 1963? Bizarre.
(The picture above is from yesterday. I just like it. Maybe because I look like 1990, but with longer hair.)
Dean says we fly over that baseball stadium all the time. It's in the part of New Britain that's right next to Berlin. My fav. song on my airplane playlist is "3rd Base, Dodger Stadium" (from Themetime Baseball) because I always see so many baseball diamonds from the air. Well and also because it's such a beautiful song.
What the heck?? There's an ad in the Hartford Advocate for a Bob Dylan concert on August 29th (the same day Modern Times comes out) at the New Britian Stadium. That's probably less than 10 miles from where I live.
Posted at 3:38:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Oh, I had the best dream. I forgot all about it, but I pried it back out of my brain just now. A postage stamp vending machine had been installed at Borders (it was actually sort of a combination of Borders and the post office, because it looked like Borders, but the East Berlin post office people worked there), but instead of having current stamps, it was stocked with incredibly great old stamps!! There were categories like "flora and fauna" and "sea life," and I could see them all vividly through the glass. Some of them were real stamps that I recognized, like those gem/mineral ones, and airplanes, but one of the coral reef designs was actually based on a Queen Triggerfish illustration from my Charly Harper book (the sea whip looked great!). I was, of course, very very excited, and I had $125. in small bills cash in my wallet.
Posted at 1:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The only problem was, the machine wasn't working properly, so I'd try to choose one type of stamps but some other kind would come out. (It was one of those vending machines where you punch in numbers to select which item you want.) I was going to go over to Shruti and Cindy who were working the Borders cash registers, and ask to exchange them, but the line was insanely long. So I returned to staring through the window, ogling the stamps, deciding which ones I wanted.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Moan. Kimball Farm's lobster rolls are so great. I said to Dean (while eating mine and involuntarily whimpering), "It's a good thing they don't base the price on how good it is. It would probably be about $100." (They are actually only $12.50!!! Impossible. There's got to be at least one, if not two, lobsters worth of meat in there.)
Posted at 10:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
How do they make them taste so good??? It's inconceivable.
We tried the butterscotch ice cream this time, and it was quite tasty. Sort of like butter pecan, minus the pecans (I like the pecan element, but it violates Dean's "hard foods" principle). We finally found the ideal portion to order: kiddie size. It's not on the signboard, but it exists. For the first time ever, we were able to finish! Sharing, of course. Kimball Farm is very generous with their ice cream (as with their lobster).
There was a cool old car show/gathering/competition/something going on, but I didn't really get to check it out since dusk was approaching, and you know what happens at dusk at Jaffrey. If you don't leave, your plane turns into a pumpkin. I caught a couple glimpses of some Hudsons, though (maybe not actual Hudsons, but close enough).
The airport manager thought Dean's name was Bean. I was cracking up. Dean = Mr. Bean! He should've told him Delta Echo Alfa November. I'm going to be really sad when I finish reading Heat.
Just started reading Bill Buford's Heat, and it's great. (I knew it would be.) I want to buy it when it comes out in paperback.
Posted at 12:58:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
God. I do adore Dangerous Liaisons. From beginning to end, it's such a perfect movie.
Posted at 11:24:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Last night I was reading Raffles, and thinking of Valentine. This afternoon, I put on "Love and Theft" in the car and played it twice through. The entire afternoon felt like intense déjà vu, and I don't even know why. It felt like September 2001. It was not disconcerting, exactly, because it wasn't especially unpleasant, but it was very distracting. I don't know if it was something unique about the weather, or if it had to do with the music (perhaps the combination of the two), or some other influence entirely. It wasn't anything specific, either--just a feeling. It felt like five years ago.
It's hard to believe I've been keeping this blog for nearly five years. It doesn't seem like that long at all. But just think, five years ago, I wasn't flying, I had never been to Hawaii or St. John, hadn't learnt to scuba dive, had never even snorkeled, and had never met a live sea urchin or the Gifford Pinchot sycyamore. But I was looking forward to buying "Love and Theft" on the day it came out, just as I'm looking forward to Modern Times.
Eight bottles of Grand Marnier a day??? Wow.
Posted at 12:54:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I've listened to the Dog episode of Themetime an inordinate number of times, because I brought it out to the car. Played it both on the way to and the way back from the Gs Saturday. It's good company. Today I got a superb hardcover Golden Guide to flying in the children's section of the library. Had to pry it away from Dean. It's not a Zim, but it's like one. I should read it, if I can be linear enough. Couldn't fall asleep until about 7 AM this morning, and my brain and eyes were really messed up when I woke. Also it was COLD. I narrowly avoided that dark glasses wearing child molestor-ish dude at Starbucks today. He always tries to chat me up, and it gives me the creeps. Fortunately this was only the third time I've encountered him. My eyes hurt again. Wallace & Gromit reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse.
Posted at 12:13:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Finished the Nancy's review this afternoon, so I'm finally 100% caught up on TFF (other than the "coming soon" FAQ, that is).
Posted at 2:18:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Drove to Eastford yesterday for a fantastic visit with the Gs and David's family. Super glad they were able to come up one more time before school starts for Hunter. We had a campfire and made s'mores, David & Duke swam in the lake, and the Gingers, David, Hunter and I played catch with the old softball (it was really fun and I was actually good at it!) (!). I think Hunter had it in for me, because he kept winding up and throwing really hard whenever he tossed it to me!! Dad was trying to teach him how to catch (i.e., keep his eye on the ball and not jump away from it) and he improved a lot! Hunter also showed me his book on how to make fancy paper airplanes and instructed me on folding one, and gave me about four different styles of hugs (including a massively crushing one) when I had to leave for home. :-)
The Gs gave me the box of American Bricks, with a couple of other items tucked in it (I had to wait until I got home to find out what they were), and made David & Marilou and me go through the Christmas ornaments to split them up. We took some, but made the Gs keep a core set. The only one my dad cared about keeping was the star; he said no one could have that. They wanted us to take the icicles, but we refused because we both really wanted them but also both thought the set of four should not be split up and that Robert should have them just as much as we should. (Diane doesn't like glass ornaments.) We wanted them, but we didn't want them. We wanted them on Mom and Dad's tree, not ours! We also refused to take the jointed paper lady that we both love to hate. How could any one person have her?? That's insane! David wanted the snowmen and seemed really pleased when I said he could take them--he said he felt like I had the trump card as a result! I took the mushrooms (both clippy and non-clippy) but let Hunter have the nicest clippy mushroom (there were six in the set, but some are semi-broken) since he was fond of the "shrooms" and wanted one. (I would have given them more, but he said he only needed one.) I like knowing one will be on their tree, while the rest are on mine. We each took a clippy bird (I let David have the nicer one, which is silver with a pale gold wing; mine is silver with a green wing) and Mom and Dad kept the red-winged one and the peacock. We each also took a few other things that weren't subject to negotiation (like my hand-painted red ball). David and Marilou were going to take the pickle, but Mom vetoed it when she found out, because I gave it to her. There was no fighting or biting at all! [Oh, and David took one of the red-painted Christmas boxes, to keep his ornaments in. They were originally beer boxes (from Germany, I guess?). There was a yellowed 1960s newspaper in the bottom of the other one, and he took that to go with it.]
Everyone came out to see me off (and help carry the boxes and all my vegetables that we picked in the garden), and I said "Me go now" when I got into my car. (Hunter said something like, "What the heck does that mean?")
I wish I could hold it all in my memory--just, little things I can't capture and I know I will forget. Talking with David and Marilou in the quiet after-dinner twilight out in the sunroom; trying to skip stones and throw acorns into the fire; watching Marilou tease Duke on the steps of the outdoorium and listening to him giggle; David's dark wet hair sticking up in every direction after his swim, Marilou commenting about his bare skin being marble-pale and Duke's being golden ("you're so tan--you look Hawaiian!"); David telling about the out-of-body-experience dream he had after Mom & Dad's e-mail; climbing on the rock and seeing the bluegills looking up expectantly, begging for bread crumbs; watching the tomboy in Mom come out in her madcap softball bluffs; and Dad saying, 'You know I have to tell you to drive safely." It was such a great day. I really really hope there will be more like it in the future.
