Thursday, November 29, 2007

Ne me quitte pas - squared...

Lindsey's at the DeKalb County Social Studies fair till late so I'm making one of these & watching The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Yes, it's in French, but it's still good. (By the way, thanks to Sarah for giving me crafty ideas that I can do after work, with my brain on autopilot.)

This is THE song from the movie. The "ne me quitte pas" part, which translates literally as "don't leave me" is heart-wrenching.

Almost as heart-wrenching as this, the ultimate in French love songs. (Ignore that translation - it's rhymed to make it seem like a song, but you lose a lot of meaning.) Gahhhh - it's like Romeo & Juliet, it's so emotional. It's very smoky-cafe-in-the-50s, which could equally have been the 30s, with Hemingway brooding in the background. (Read The Sun Also Rises, & you'll get it, I promise.)

My favorite part:

Moi je t'offrirai (I will give you)
Des perles de pluie (The pearls of my tears)
Venues de pays (That come from places)
Ou il ne pleut pas (Where no one cries)
Je creuserai la terre (I will break the earth)
Jusqu'après ma mort (Even after my death)
Pour couvrir ton corps (To cover your body)
D'or et de lumière (With gold & light)
Je ferai un domaine (I will create a world)
Ou l'amour sera roi (Where love will be king)
Ou l'amour sera loi (Where love will be law)
Ou tu seras reine (Where you will be queen)


Explain to me why people aren't writing lyrics like THAT anymore. HMMMM?



Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Awwwww

1) I got to meet Owen; he is darling.

2) This is sort of not even close to how pretty it is in our backyard:

Our neighbor has a tree whose leaves have turned translucent yellow, but I can't get a picture of them from outside, only through the window on the sunporch, and you can imagine how well that turned out.

3) For those of you lurking out there from New Orleans, you'll love the Bud's Broiler part of this, and I KNOW it will make you think of me. :) It will also make you cry. (That warning is for Caro, so she won't read this at work.)

Monday, November 26, 2007

Eraser


Eraser
Originally uploaded by splorp

I spent today in a cloud.

Literally. (Sort of like in this photo from flickr, posted above.)

Up on the 17th floor, the fog didn't burn off until about 2:30 p.m. Crazy. Then, I went to the parking garage where it looked like everything had been sprayed with a fire hose. Having barely touched the doors or handrails in the stairwells (as they were covered with clammy dew), I reached my car, which was completely fogged up. That made backing up in the TIGHT spots of the parking deck an adventure!

And there's a big story on the news that PLANES HAVE BEEN DELAYED!!! Travelers are STRANDED!! People are ANGRY!!!! How DARE the airlines do this????

Um, take a memo:
If there's zero visibility at the 17th floor (WAY lower than you want your plane to be flying), how in the world do you expect pilots to take off? Seriously. I'd much rather park my little self in a pleather airport chair than experience the joy of hearing a pilot say something like, "well, ladies & gentlemen, I can't actually see the runway, but we're going to give this a shot & see what happens!"

Sheesh. It's like the people that get mad that they stop serving drinks during turbulence. Oh, please, let's endanger the flight attendants so that I can have the privilege of your $8 cocktail dumping all over my lap when we hit an air pocket.

I understand that I have flown a lot, and that there are many people who do not fly often. However, this is all common sense. It's not even a businessman's travel secret like walking up the escalators, or in Atlanta, going to the farthest car on the little train.

Thank you for your patience. It is appreciated. As was the rain.

In other news, I get to meet Owen, my coworker's new son, tomorrow!

In other, other news, I am definitely in for the Carter Center's talk about the Gulag! Andy Young is supposed to be there, along with President Carter. I'm quite sure I'll be basically strip searched at the door. Entirely worth it, though, to hear what they have to say. It'll be one of those times that I want to hog-tie certain ungrateful students from my past, so they can understand what suffering is, and why they should be grateful for the MANY blessings they receive each day as citizens of this country, and recipients of free public education.

Finally this evening (whew), everyone must go see Dan in Real Life. It is amazing. LINDSEY EVEN LIKED IT, and I don't think that's happened ever for a movie we've seen in a theater. Fans of Little Miss Sunshine will appreciate that our favorite Proust scholar can actually play a variety of roles. There are just sort of an insane variety of very funny & very touching bits all wrapped up in a PLOT. An actual PLOT.

Further, it will make you want to obtain a beach house in Rhode Island. And for that, real estate agents all over the tiniest state in the Union are saying a big DANKE.

The decorations are 75% complete. The tree (ALUMINUM FOR REAL, YO) is up, but the ornaments aren't yet on it, so you can't have pictures. Soon, though, very soon.

Happy week, folks.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Weekly Rundown

-Monday: Archaeology
-Tuesday: Fight with the Georgia Department of Revenue
-Wednesday: Last minute shopping (IKEA!)
-Thursday: Lunch with Lindsey's mom & this fantastic movie (which I will blather on about in a later post, probably)
-Friday: Sweetwater Creek State Park, as suggested by the very astute Monkey & Bean
-Saturday: Up VERY early to hit the major sale at Scrap Chic, followed by fantastic Italian (new find - woohoo!)
-Sunday: Visit from our friend Alan, who's in flight school in Mississippi, church, birthday party, house decorating....

Moral of the story: it felt relaxing to do so much.

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday - back to the cube in the morning.

:)

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Just in case you're wondering why Kinsley rocks:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9561005043

Yesterday = Much More Fun Than Today

One of the perks of my new schwanky job (stop laughing) is the amazing people I get to meet. Last Friday, I had a tour of the museum at the Carter Library by none other than the director of said library. He was President Carter's Undersecretary of State for Energy Issues, or some such thing, & has an encyclopedic knowledge of the 2nd half of the 20th century. He also used to live in New Orleans (whoo-hoo!). Anyway, as we're touring, he mentions that a survivor of the Soviet gulag is coming to speak at the Library in December, which prompts an entirely juvenile reaction from me - something along the lines of "oh, please, please, please, please can I stand in the back? I promise to be very quiet & no one will know I'm there" - so he says he'll see what he can do. (Here's hoping it works out....)

ANYWAY.

The point of all that is to say that I've also met a very groovy chica named Terri who is an archaeologist for the state DOT. They're excavating a site up in Cherokee County for a new bridge, and they're finding AMAZING stuff. And she invited me to go up & "help!" So, I was able to spend 4 hours yesterday digging in the dirt. I personally got to touch lots of shards of pottery (some of which was stamped with beautiful designs), part of an ancient pipe bowl (this was their favorite - apparently it's rare to find these), chipped quartz from stone tools, ancient daub (mud made into adobe-like building material), & a clay bead. Then, I got to "help" with this cool gizmo that shoots ground-penetrating radar into the ground (duh) to look for soil irregularities that might point to additional "features." (Look at me & the lingo - we're friends!) Obviously, they were very nice people to let me "help," and it made me want to be an archaeologist for the first time since about the 3rd grade. Naturally, I didn't have to do any math (beyond measurement) or chemistry, which made it seem much more attractive than it would actually be.

This is what the area sort of looks like:


Only right now it is GORGEOUS because of all the foliage. (Melissa's current favorite word, I believe.)


ALL of this beats my fun morning today, spent at the Department of Revenue for the state, convincing them that yes, we did pay our state taxes, and we can prove it! We can prove it because we have a COPY OF THE CHECK THEY CASHED IN JUNE. Amazing. Then, I got to buy a wedding gift that I didn't really want to buy because the one I wanted to buy was not at all worth the money. Sheesh.

This is a warning: if you are getting married anytime within the next decade, you might just be getting a gift card. It doesn't mean we don't love you, it just means that I don't think the things on your registry are worth the money being charged for them.

That sounded ugly, but I meant it in the nicest possible way.

Onward to turkey day - yippe. ;(

Monday, November 19, 2007

Technicolor Trees #1


Technicolor Trees #1
Originally uploaded by sarahblascovich
Directions courtesy of the genius (also a Sarah!) over at the Misadventures of Mama & Jack, these trees are fantastically speedy to create. Melissa had the genius idea of using vinegar & food coloring to make the more vibrant blue & neon green trees. We had a LOT of fun making this little technicolor forest.

Mom, Dr. Erin, & I had a lot of fun at the McDonough Square holiday open house yesterday. There were a LOT of vintage goodies for the taking, but we managed to share the love in a mature fashion. ;) Once mother dearest returns the camera to me after its trip to Virginia, you might even get to see some pictures! You can see pictures from our favorite store here.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Swag from Jeannie - Installed!

Isn't this awesome? It came yesterday, all ready for next week. I LOVE it, and have decided to name Jean Knee as Queen of Craftiness.

Ta-da!

In other news, I'm headed south, and will be seeing some of you very shortly - yippee! You have NO idea how excited I am....

Projects await!

Monday, November 12, 2007

she's back...

and sick.

The weeks of traveling, inadequate sleep, & crummy food have contributed, I'm sure.

Fortunately, today is a state holiday, so I'm working from home. (Thus the reason I'm up & posting before 8:00 a.m.) Hopefully, I can knock the illness out before I leave for Rome, um, TOMORROW. Yeah, right.

Fortunately again, that is only a one-night trip, and then I am h-o-m-e until January.

Moral of the story: I'm alive.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Please learn from our mistake:

when decorating with natural materials, be VERY cautious before putting them in your house. If, for example, you find some great-looking acorns, you might want to toast them in the oven JUST to make sure that little white wormy-looking things won't wriggle out of them onto your vintage tole tray.

This is the scene of the crime, restored to its previous blissful state via acorn removal activities.

We had a great weekend, and I am madly in love with the weather. Now, I get to leave it, & head down to south Georgia for the week. I'm sure when I get back it will be COLD, not just chilly, and the leaves will all have fallen off the trees. That's the way things tend to go around here.




In other excitement, the Halloween decorations are put away, and it's not even December yet. This is me turning over my new, highly-organized leaf. (I can hear all of you snickering, there's no need for that!)

This is the current version of the mantel for Thanksgiving. I really thought I had more vintage postcards with a harvest/fall theme, but obviously, I do not. I'll be on the prowl, so don't worry.

Have a great week - I'll be back within cell phone range on Friday. ;)