You-ooo-oooo

We were arguing about whether it's Feliz Navidaaaa or Feliz Navidad. Yes, it's a HOPPING New Year's Eve, but that's because I am not feeling well. My bad.

So anyway I resolved that via google, then I came across this, the most (unintentionallly?) hilarious music video I ever saw: All I want

What is it about this video that makes it SO bad?
Hmm, maybe

• the go-go dancers in the background, doing the retro dances
• the shiny choir robes
• the white boots
• the fact that she does NOT look into it at all
  

Adios... drive safely...

More white stuff

Here's one I did correct... but I tried it with the basketball hoop shot and just don't like it as much on that one.

Snow day

Isn't it still supposed to be basketball season?? If it's Monday morning, we got snow, or at least it seems so the last few weeks.

We got at least a foot of wet, sticky snow overnight. I love the way it outlines the trees, but not the way it clings to a shovel...(hah! as IF this girl will touch a shovel today - that's what I have kids for...)

It sure seems like it's going to be a LONG WINTER.

How do you like this shot? Should I have corrected the blue cast? Cropped it differently? I took a few frames of different variations, horizontal /vertical etc., but I think I like this the best. I'm hoping to improve my photo taking skills beyond "point at it and press the button" this year. Most of my pictures are nice but average, and I'll like to dial that up just a little.

Sunday art

Lazy today. I noticed this artist on Blogger Play the other day. Nice, isn't it?

Cristian Iancu - this is his blog; google didn't give me any English results (he is Romanian). So he's a mystery.

But take a stroll through the blog, there are some nice photos. I like Parcul Cismigui.

Big Game

This is for a contest over at http://www.officetally.com/.... go visit if you like The Office

De-funk-ifying

I'm in a crappy mood. Well, I've worked my way up to semi-crappy, with tea and homemade raisin bread. Various reasons for the mood, all of them things I don't want to get into here.

So, today the better eating/ less drinking wine starts again. Enough is enough! No more big piles of cookies, and I'm going to get on the treadmill today at 1:30. (Assuming my garage floor really IS dried out from our recent flood which I won't talk/weep about further, but I will check that floor carefully firszzzzzt.)

Only 154 days until the next Freihofer run. Twenty two weeks. So if I walk for a week, then add 1/7 of a mile of running each week on the days I run, I can do this right? I'm sure that's not a proper training plan but it's kind of funny, isn't it?

We are watching the football game tonight, since we don't have any other plans, and we'll probably have some family over to just to hang out. This will motivate me to clean a few things up (and clean out the fridge, which is scary since everything is completely crammed into it to defend against the mice)

Speaking of mice... we killed four... the traps have been undisturbed for 3 nights. Cross your fingers for me. BLAH.

I need to get back to my cleanup projects. Didn't get very far yet. Still have a few days before the madness of school starts again.

I'm also figuring out some sort of "grid" for the game tonight (like a football pool) that won't involve money but will involve prizes the kids might like (ex: who picks the entertainment we all watch/listen to on the way down to NYC, and back)

Lucky girl

look who is apparently taking off Jennifer Aniston's stockings this Christmas.....

Happy New Year indeed!

This is actually a COLOR photo...

The sky is gray. (Or is it Grey? Nope, no new Grey's again this week. No new Office. Sulk. )

I went through one of my favorite running parks today... you can't see it very well in the photo (which I took on my blackberry) but every branch is slightly outlined on top with a fresh dusting of snow.

My projects for the next couple of days:

• Enjoy the decorated house, drink wine and eat cookies (this behavior shall end on New Year's day! back to the treadmill!!)
• Go through my digital photo folders from this year. Upload any that I haven't printed to Snapfish, before their 9 cent sale ends. Move this years photos into an archive folder and back it up
• Go through my file drawer and pitch the papers I don't need. They're choking the life out of me. My desk always looks horrible, we really don't have enough room for all of the PTA and basketball league papers along with our OWN bills/ etc... I need to get a jump start on this while no little people are demanding attention on their homework.
• Speaking of PTA, I've been playing tag with one of the other officers... we are sending back and forth a list of things we STILL need to manage this year, adding things as we think of them. This includes fundraisers, family fun things, and so on. It's a long frickin' list!
• After that, I get to try to sort through the piles of stuff in my scrapbook area. Things are a mess because we take my card table down to put the tree up. There are piles of things all tossed back there and it's killing me because some of the piles contain folders of very old photos.
• I have new KOTM stamps to play with, along with the distress embossing ink and other stuff I bought recently. Wheee!

Furthermore

Twice in the past week I have found myself brought to tears while contemplating whether a certain relation will still be with us next Christmas. Do I save the cards from them, that were given to my kids? Because these might be the last cards. This is an example of the dark, morbid thoughts running through my mind these days. It's kind of hard to Fa la la la la around that kind of mood.

It's a tightrope on many levels - how much help to offer a fiercely proud individual who is not MY parent, how much to say to that person's children - some of whom are in denial, some of whom are compensating by doing things that I truly believe MEAN well, but are overwhelming and not quite what that individual wants. None of whom are doing things that I really think NEED to be done. (Ramp to the back door. Railings, grab bars - this is where the pride comes into play. Those are things that "Old" people need. I once heard a remark --not directed at me -- something to the effect of "What do you want me to do, sit in my chair and wait to die?") It's so hard to explain risk-avoidance to someone who hears "lost independance".

The party's over

My living room looks like a bomb went off. I haven't quite cleaned up the mess from gifts that we brought home from Brother In Law's. I was slightly disappointed there; it turned into "let's just get these gifts open" and I don't think people got to enjoy the reactions of recipients. So much time shopping and planning and wrapping... whooosh. Over.

Not a lot of surprises for me this Christmas... except for the mice. Four and counting. Everything possible is in tupperware. Dammit, dammit, dammit. In almost 20 years living in this house we have never had them consistently coming up from the crawlspace through to the area under the kitchen sink. Ugh. The worst was the one who got HALF of his little head caught in the trap... the visible eye was bulging and I was SO happy that I was the one who got to pick THAT up. Merry Christmas to me. So much for my faint hope that it was A MOUSE that we had to deal with. It's apparently an entire fucking Rockettes line of mice.

I spent the day barely getting anything done. It shot by... my vacation is over and I don't have anything exciting planned until ... spring. There is laundry to be done and programming to catch up on and a host of PTA-type headaches waiting for my attention.

Bah humbug.

To each his own

Stanley comes from Polish heritage (we occaisionally sing a Polish hymn or two...) and sent me

Zyczem wam wesoly swiat Bozago Narodzenia, i Szczesliwego nowego roku.

which of course I replied to with...

Frohe Weihnachten und glückliches neues Jahr.

Bits-scotti

How to NOT make biscotti... spread the dough out so it's loaf shaped. Logs, dammit, logs.

The "dough" spreads while it bakes. Boy does it spread. And when a foolish baker tries to cut those spread out loaves, even with a great big serrated knife, the slices will break and she will curse.

And then when she tries to turn the slices while she toasts them, a few more will break and that's because she forgot to chop the cherries and so the overall structural integrity is NOT sound, and she will drizzle white chocolate all over more than just the broken biscotti.... oh well. They still taste good.

Thoughts

Is the year over yet? I really sucked at the MSN year end current events quiz. Ooops. Moving on...

• I would have LOVED to have seen this in person - darn. Or even on tv. With all of the billions of CRAP tv shows on (I'm looking at you, Heidi & Spencer) can't we have something better now & then?
• I recruited a new choir member today. Let's see if she shows up. She seemed really interested. And an alto! Yaaaaaaay.
• The soprano with the really REALLY LOUD voice (but beautiful, clear and REALLY high range) who blew out my eardrum the other night is a good sport - she presented me & a friend with a 1/2 set of earplugs each (we stand on either side of her). It was awesome.
• I really love giving little tins full of the cookies I've made, to special people. Stanley & Bette got theirs today at choir. :::checking my watch:::: I think Bette probably ate hers by now.
• Carly 1, Mice 0 (do we give them points for stealing peanut butter off of two traps? Or just me, for KILLING THEIR LITTLE RODENT ASSES... ? Snap!)
• I'm into the punch list stage -trying to remember the last minute little things I need to do today and tomorrow. Luckily for me this includes the "what is everyone wearing, no really" drill. My son brought home ONE good shoe for the vacation from school. We checked and the other isn't at school. I sent him to Target to buy one shoe. Think that will work?

Well, I need to quit procrastinating...

Sunday gallery - 3 hours early

I have to chose Raphael this week because I love this... it's Christmas-y, and I know Suzy LOVES cherubs like the ones at the bottom.

I also want to learn more about him... but, I am soooo tired from making cookies, that I can barely read. (The height of lazy is not mustering the energy to read a wikipedia article)

I am done.

Done with shopping wrapping, baking, and I have to string one lighted garland over my patio door and then decorating is done too. Every bit of food possible from the cupboards is in tupperware. Traps are waiting for Mickey. Eff you, vermin.

Oh, and my penitent son cleaned most of the house. Funny - Santa comes around the neighborhood on the fire truck, but didn't stop by our house. I think they KNOW. (He's not home, don't worry. The incident is over, he's done his labor, and Nana's silver tea set hasn't looked so good in years.)

Sunday afternoon I will sit on my fanny and actually enjoy myself - watching a movie, perhaps.

Enjoy your holiday. If for some reason, this holiday sucks for you, hang in there. Next year will be better. Right? Right.

A story in three nearly identical sentences

"Mouse crap?"
"Mouse! Crap!!"
Mouse: "Crap!"

Christmas playlist

This is what I'll be shuffling on Christmas Day

• Chris Botti - December
• Josh Groban - Noel
• Diana Krall - Christmas Songs
• Manhattan Transfer
• a little Trans-Siberian Orchestra (just a song or two, like Wizards in Winter)
• The New York Catholic Chorale (saw them perform, the director has a phenomenal voice)
• annnnnd.... the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack

You?

D'oh of the day

I watched "The Shot" today while I was eating lunch. If you haven't heard of it, it's Reality TV with photographers, random "judges", etc. I accidentally came across it, and really liked the shot of Joss Stone that "won" the episode.

They mentioned a contest near the end of the show, something about Take Your Shot, and I didn't realize it was a sweepstakes. So this photo popped into my head, and I wasted about 15 minutes finding it, only to realize I can't enter it. So, enjoy it.

I took this picture almost 3 years ago on the first really warm day in March, when I finally got the kids outside to test out the scooters they had received for Christmas. The digital camera was new and I did a bunch of fun stuff that day ( a multi frame of my daughter swinging, that I later collaged onto one scrapbook page, and so on.)

I know it's just the start of winter (brrrr) but think SPRING!

It's 3a.m. I must be lonely

...which would be why my daughter initiated the "go to mom's elbow, pause for brief interim, then run to bathroom to barf" drill

It made for restful sleep from then on, as you can imagine. Who the hell booked them both for 8 am dentist appointments today? Oh, wait.

Yesterday was a vague blur of making projects I should have done weeks ago. A calendar for my mom, with pictures of the lot of us (including my bro & sis whenever possible). A plaque for my son's new cleaning business (gag gift... but he loves the Shark and I have to say it DOES work pretty well... and he will be cleaning all afternoon and tomorrow morning to work off his Santa transgressions this week at school... ) and another gift that involves printing out photos, arranging them on a tray from Michael's, blobbing "ModgePodge" all over, and hoping it really WOULD dry clear.

After that I made cookies (Scotchies, which have pecans, white chips, butterscotch chips, and some scotch whiskey...a family favorite here) and headed to choir. When I got home I had to help wrap presents that had just been purchased within the past couple of hours for friends at school. You can role model all you want, but some people don't take a hint. Sigh.

Today it's wrapping time. I should be done by just after lunch. Then, more cookies, if I feel like it. If not, oh well.

Please come home

Please? Thursdays aren't the same without you....

So this is how the Grinch's mama felt

Apparently my dear, sweet, baby child has been talking a lot in school lately.

About how Santa isn't real.

It's FUN to find this out while you are chaperoning the school choir's annual Christmas caroling. While walking for 90 minutes with wet slush enveloping your toes (despite the boots) and no wine in sight, anywhere.

Oy.

I need to go download the song "I'm getting nuttin' for Christmas"...

Handy bag

I don't have the purse gene. I can't stand carrying a big bloated purse that you could count on to help you survive a lengthy expedition. Phone, debit card, maybe a chapstick.

So I was happy to find this this purse by Chloe Dao. (She won Project Runway, season 2) Actually I noticedthe purse in Office Max. I don't GO purse shopping. I don't roam about Macy's, caressing Coach bags. I'm mystified by that.

It has more than one place to tuck my blackberry, and also pockets perfect for the iPod. (I've been meaning to write a "dear john" letter to my iPod...it's been replaced as my favorite techy gadget, and your comments on this blog now are sent right to the 'berry... but when I get off my increasinly large ass and start running again, it'll be Mr. iPod all the way... )

Four dozen socks

...three of his sister's shirts, two Halloween costumes, and one athletic cup in an overcrowded kid's dresser....

yeah...my attempt at a 12 days of christmas spoof sucks but that's what I got for MY gift today. I couldn't take it anymore, I pulled everything out of his dresser and sorted it. He was jamming stuff into it everyday... andI'm tired of seeing him come home from school and put on shorts.


So... Christmas in a week. Ready?? I'm going through my list of "things" - cards, gifts, cookies, what is everyone wearing... I think I'm in good shape.

Bits of fuzz from my brain's lint trap

Thoughts, in no particular order

• Hell yes... I will see this movie
• A 2 hour delay means the bus will come two hours after it normally comes. So turn the tv off and get your coat on, dammit. Do not argue with me that "it means school will start at 10." I know that. You still get the bus WAY before that.
• If you sleep with a snorer you may find yourself musing, (okay, fantasizing) at two a.m. some morning about being in a cartoon. Your spindly Olive Oyl arm will slide out from under the blanket, reach under your side of the bed, and come up with a gigantic rubber mallet which you will swing with a "BAM" effect (bright colored letters, filling the screen). The offending party will either vanish into a smoking cartoon hole in the floor (leaving a jagged edged mattress) or will be a flat, non-snoring object. Either way.
• On that subject (sleepus interruptus) , who drunk dialed me from Ohio at midnight the other night? All I could hear on the voicemail message you left me was the singing.
• I have now consumed all of the refridgerated cookie dough which I made 8 days ago. That's not good. I never baked ANY of it. I think at some point I knew I'd passed the middle of the tray, uh, the point of no return. At least it had no eggs in it.

Obviously not well thought out

A true story - yesterday I went to my friend's house. They have a new puppy. He's kind of a big dog (lab) so they started working with a trainer who taught them to say "Off" when he is jumping or too excited.

So my friend started yelling at the dog when we came in the house, to try to get him under control.

The problem?

The dog's name is Jack.

Just a quickie post

So here's the stamped cards I made as teacher gifts. My daughter is driving me crazy... but that's another story("What are they?" "Note cards." "But what for? My teacher won't understand" - Senora recently became a citizen and I'm pretty SURE she will get the idea! Geeeeez.)

Two variations on background paper. Gold ink and embossing powder (this went from "ugh" to "hey!" when I heated the powder. ) Stamp by Rubber Soul.

Two variations (ran out of brads) on a piece with stamp by Stampin' up. I love this stamp, sometimes I color it in with markers (after I stamp). This picture's blurry because I rushed.

This one I embossed with white powder (stamp by inkadinkado) and that came out great. The background ones were a watermark ink plus distress powder... even though I heated it, it's slowly filtering off. Whoopsie.

This is my favorite, hands down. Stampin' up teddy bear.

I believe this is a stamin' up stamp... I had a complicated mistake when I first started, where I stamped a bear absolutely upside down on the card (it's not oriented the way the sticker on top is! d'oh!) so I cut up that card and turned the bears the right way and so on. This was a leftover scrap. Oy vey. But it's cute with the background paper and brads.

The basket below is also from stampin' up, and the larger flower is a clear stamp by Rhonna Farrer. I used some distress ink and embossing powder on the background flowers because I wanted them light and somewhat scuffed. I'm not exactly sure the products were idea for a stamp with this much detail. It was fun practicing though.

I didn't go all out with these... mostly because I had to make a bunch, and wanted to keep it fairly simple. I have five people (two teachers plus consultant teacher, secretary, principal) so I took a random selection for each one.

White noise is too loud?

So I had a brain flash today, I can make a few stamped notecards as a gift for each teacher. Good excuse to play with my stamps, inks, etc.

Of course my embossing gun is TOO LOUD (think barely a hairdryer...) for the princess, who is now sleeping.

Pictures will be posted when they're done. I basically pulled out a few stamps, I will make 3 or four of each design. Nothing all elaborate and distressed and stuff. A simple embossed image on cardstock, stack that on printed paper, then I'll put it on the card with brads or eyelets.

Stay tuned..

Wasn't I supposed to rush home with my treasures?

Well I got my shopping done today, but not without that precious moment where you want to pick the nearest cash register up, and heave it like a shotput.

Something about waiting in line to purchase something that caught my eye... blah blah store within a store couldn't go to any other register, blah blah blah...waiting an hour...

Anyway, I'm done. Good times.

Quithmuth

"I tan't wait till Quithmuth day" is my favorite goofball Christmas song

Suzy likes "There's something stuck up in the Chimney" ( animated )

What's yours?

(No fair mentioning Dominick!)

All I want for Christmas Is One of Everything

I bought a unmounted "Thank You" block of rubberstamps from Green Grass Stamps. It came in the mail yesterday- awesome.

So I had to figure out this and then, looking at all of THIS page made my head explode. Because I want one of each.

Meaning, of course, that when I go to the craft store tonight (a trip which is only to buy DECOUPAGE GLUE, only, mind you...) I need to BRING CASH ONLY. Because I'm in a shopping sort of mood!!!!!

Don't pester me with that silly technicality of how I'm supposed to be buying gifts for OTHER people right now.

PS: My daughter is stuck today on Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You" which is okay (an "urban" radio station here played it notstop to do a fund drive for charity - they wouldn't stop , until they reached their $$ goal, heh...) but I would rather have joined in the choir for something like "Jesus, Oh What A Wonderful Child".

Thump

My day more or less started with a thump. As in, I was sitting at a red light (for at least 10 seconds, long enough to put in my NYS mandated hands free device and dial my phone and say hey to a friend) and this crazy chick literally pulled up behind me and bumped right into my car. Because she didn't SEE me there, or something. I was on the phone with my friend and I literally swore and said "Someone just hit me" and hung up... way to freak out your pals. (Sorry!)

I pulled forward a tiny bit, got out and looked at the bumper and she rolled her window down and said "Sorry" in a "please, I know I'm stupid, don't shoot me or anything" sort of voice, so I let it go. Mind you, this was before we got ANY snow.

I was checking the timecard system today to see how much sick/ vacation time I have left. I have 0.10 hours remaining designated as "sick time." Yes, that is six minutes. Thank you. Just about enough time to go to the bathroom, puke, and GET RIGHT BACK TO WORK. I do have four days of vacation, so all is not lost.

The snow started right around the time that I left work. I left because Suzy is sick. She's got bronchitis and some other goo-type stuff going on. I called to check on her and she mentioned she was out of kleenex and blowing her nose on toilet paper, and THAT JUST WILL NOT DO. Not for my baby sister. (I don't care if she IS 35.) Besides if you keep doing that, you run out of TP and that is NOT good.

Off I went to the store. I called her back just to make sure she didn't need any random embarrasing items (I rattled off a few specific ones) and then went on over, to find her wearing a surgical mask so she wouldn't get me sick. Cute. For Christmas, I gave her a shiny new humidfier to call her very own. She has been coughing so much her ribs are basically reduced to shrapnel, so maybe this will help.

Oh, and the snow. We got our asses kicked today. I have at least 8" of snow here. Blah. People don't know things like "brake OR turn, don't try to do both, dipshit..." so they annoy me. I was behind a tractor trailer from California, and I bet HE was even more pissed off than I was.

Good times.

I'm only saying that

...if Santa were too have a little TOO much hot buttered rum, and point Rudolph in my direction, and if I were to be run over by a reindeer, say, TONIGHT,

...I'm not saying that it would be a bad thing, relative to how the past 32 hours or so have gone.

Volunteering is a great thing. Usually. But sometimes it comes with headaches and leaves one saying "WTF was I thinking? Why did I get myself into this?"

I like to refer to this as "No good deed goes unpunished."

A note

Salmon Run Pinot Noir goes very well with the cookie dough that I mixed the other day and was going to bake Sund, uh, yesterd, um, today...

Bend over

Since I don't feel entertaining, due to things like "Oh my god why didn't she do that?" and "Did I really have to sit through that useless class?" (details not truly important...I'm sure you have your own to fill in the blanks....)

go here.... for more of the artist above (LOVE the Halloween candy one, dated September 13 or so...)

I found it when I ordered gelaskins.

By the way, the light switch covers I pondered recently came and they are beautiful. My Christmas shopping is nearly done. I love you, Internets.

Does anyone want to recommend games for my new blackberry? Aside from Texas Hold'em, of course.

For the Moms

In lieu of my Sunday art posting (oops!) I bring you one of my favorite cartoonists.


This is what the holiday rush feels like sometimes... (Close To Home)

Today I will be enjoying the 2 hour school delay (once the kiddos leave, that is) - I'll be sitting on my couch. There are cookies here.

Technically I'm working from home, but I'm very skilled at cookie /work juggling.

Elf you

I couldn't post yesterday, being overcome by the loss of Carotid Artery Guy. Dammit.


Well, actually I was shopping (shudder). I took the afternoon off from work, studiously avoided the two obscenely large malls in my area, and went to Target and a few other places instead. I am within spitting distance of "done" so I am deeee-lighted. I even had time to have a glass of wine. Oh yeah!


This morning I got up early to upload and order a book I'm making for my dad. Here's a screen of some of the pages. These are pictures of his dad, aunts & uncles, etc. By the way, Shops, I love you, you saved me $55 with that coupon.





Today it's (ugh) decorations everywhere in the house (two trees... Two. I don't want or need two trees. But other people in mi casa insist.)



I'll be making cookies while they do all of that decorating (the kids each get to have one friend over) and I'll be trying not to thing about trying on jeans. Bon appetit!

It always sounds like a great idea

... to check your email quick before work, until you see you have 13 new items, mostly school-related, even though you were ALMOST caught up at 11 pm

... to send a post card to A Recovering American Soldier, until you read this

... to clean your oven, except that one blob of food can fry the lower element and you won't have an oven for a month and you will get really sick of hamburger and chicken cooked up in a skillet (no matter what you add to the skillet)

... to have the weather on in the morning, until you actually SEE the temperature outside, then you don't want to leave the house

Stamping

No, not stamping my feet. Check out Tim Holtz and his "12 tags of Christmas" entries.

This could get expensive for me. I don't know if I'm into the whole ephemera idea, mainly because being a mom I have SO many photos to keep up with. But... Distress ink, distress embossing powder (when cooled, some of it flakes off ) . Hmmm. I need to go to Michael's. (The voices on my shoulders are saying "No, it's Christmas time" and "But what about presents for ME?")

I do have a few inkpads (Colorbox, rainbow, and a couple of petal pads). I just ordered the KOTM (SOLD OUT! It's only the 5th of the month. Wives are yelling at husbands today. Mark my words. ) as soon as I saw it because I was up until almost 1 am that night working on the photo book for my dad, and I just loved it and wanted it. (Gimme, gimme. )Anyway I realized that I have a TON of acrylic paint (See, MURAL...) and acrylic paint is apparently OK to use in scrapbooks with foam stamps of that type. Why didn't someone tell me this???

Well

It's like that old song, "What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours."

I still have 583 things to do but at least I am 99% certain that I'll still be gainfully employed come January 1.

That and a frosty Labatt made a big difference today.

thanks!

Harder to breathe

Today was NOT a good day. Much like a old hard drive, I am so fragmented that I can't seem to accomplish ANY task. And they multiply. They sit on my desk and expand like that foam that you spray in cracks, and it expands and expands and then no air can get through. And I count them and think "shit, there's so many." And the counting, the lists, it's just a way to avoid the doing and the nagging whispers of the other things that are on my mind.

People are bugging me. People in my family, from my work (one client didn't listen to my instructions, then when I did what I said he should do and it worked, he said "I guess all it needed was a woman's touch." Eff you, pal. Really.) From my kid's school, people taking things they aren't entitled to (from a Catholic school, dammit, aren't we supposed to be above this crap? why do you bother sending your child to this school, when you would so willingly steal?) and everything. Everywhere. Everyone.

I don't want to deal with people around me getting laid off and people harrassing me about the pre-holiday plans that *I* choose to make, and who I invite to my home, and who I don't, and what I do with my kids when they have days off. I will not be made to feel like an ungrateful person because I don't accept a "solution" that's horribly inconvenient for me and serves only the purpose of the person offering it.



You drain me dry and make me wonder why I'm even here
This double vision I was seeing is finally clear
You want to stay but you know very well I want you gone
Not fit to fuckin' tread the ground that I'm walking on
When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love
You'll understand what I mean when I say
There's no way we're gonna give up
And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams
Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe

And also

while browsing for my previous post (yes, these weekly art posts are mostly for me, I want to know more about art...less about Brit Brit, the Spice Girls, and so on...)

I found this index of online tours and found that it is accompanied by suggested music. (Latin! Whoo boy.) Actually right now I'm listening to part of Missa Brevis.

Sunday Gallery

Today's artist is Pieter Claesz. I came across Vanitas Still Life in my MOMA book, but when I googled it online for this post I found a slightly different image here (which is the one above, yes, but has other pieces of his work... I found the version in my book here. Confusing. Definitely different. So was this guy bored all winter? Who knows.

At any rate, for a more sophisticated analysis, you can chew on this:

Nearly all Dutch still-lifes include - to a greater or lesser extent - the aspect of vanitas, a lament about the transience of all things. It is often symbolized by objects such as a skull or a clock, as in this painting, where the effect is enhanced by an overturned wine glass and an extinguished candle. Claesz's metaphysical criticism concentrates on book knowledge and its futility in the face of eternity. The claim of the enlightenment that book contains knowledge, experience and thoughts that were permanently valid beyond the life-span of an individual is met with resigned scepticism. With hues of grey, brown and green that tend to add up to a general 'monochrome' impression, Claesz's still-life was painted at a time when European book market was going through a phase of considerable expansion.

- found it here.

An Office

if you are a fan of The Office, check out ...

An Office

the 2nd one is pretty funny

If I only had a time machine

This picture is my favorite thing in the world today. Going from left to right, I think #4 & 5 are my great grandparents. (My dad's mom's parents, to be specific). #8 is Helen, my other great grandmother on my dad's side. My father's dad's mom..... are you confused yet?

#9 is my dad's mother, and #10 at the far right is her husband, who is Helen's son. I think the others are Helen's other sons, but I'm not sure who the heck #2 is. Probably a wife; I have to compare to other photos but I'm sure it's not my great aunt.

When I was little, we lived in NYC with #9 & 10. He used to say to me, "Don't ever get married." and then he'd wink at me and I'd laugh. Hmmm.