A little depressing French music for your morning...

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Hello, Internet.

(For the two of you who were worried, the mail lady battle continued, but I persevered. The mail box has now been relocated to the other side of the porch, and the "tree" is no longer Public Enemy #1. I just roll my eyes at the mail lady.)

Questions on Sunday afternoon:
1) Why do I get six or seven bug bites every time I am outside for longer than 10 minutes? Note that this is not pregnancy-related; it has happened for years.

2) Why did a bunch of yellow jackets decide to build their nest inside our bedroom window frame? Operation Yellow Jacket Removal is in progress, which means I have to sleep in the other bedroom. I do not like change.

3) Is the destruction of Yellow Jackets any indication of the result of the UGA/Tech game come Thanksgiving weekend? At that point I will be 9.5 months pregnant, so I doubt I will care.

4) Why is growling suddenly the preferred method of communication for my Sunday School class? I do not like having to say things like, "Speak, don't growl," repeatedly.

5) Why are vanilla malts not considered part of a balanced diet? There has to be a way to put vitamins in them, so that they are like broccoli, only yummy.

That is all for now.

Wow.

This was the highlight of the day, for me. At first, I thought it was going to be this, but Reverend Lowery just did me in. I've sung that song many times, in many places, with all kinds of folks, but hearing him say those words on the steps of the Capitol - wow. It's just been that kind of day.

My cousin is awesome.

Really, all of my cousins are awesome. (Hi Brian, Robin, Jenny, Bethie, Laura, Meridith, Amy, Greg, Steph, and Abby!)

However, my cousin Beth, who blogs at Glimpses, has really set the bar pretty high for the rest of us. Her mom passed away last month after a long battle with colon cancer. You can read more about Aunt Susi & her life here. In honor of her mom, Beth has started a fund to help people get the health care that can prevent this kind of suffering for others.

We've heard a lot about how everyone is tightening their belts this holiday season, but I'd like to think that rather than cutting out giving, we're cutting out the unnecessary stuff, instead.

Just something to think about.

Sometimes you just can't think of a good title.

(I never made my second graders title their pieces of writing unless they wanted to. Sometimes, we talked about how a title could help your audience know what was coming, but sometimes, it was okay to leave it off. I'm hoping that I haven't inspired a rash of {untitled} poetry when they hit adolescence.) I managed to take this picture from the car at a stoplight - I was amazed at the way the sun was going through the tree, practically in a perfect circle. I felt like Monkey.


Last weekend, my husband Lindsey's sister Ashley married Kevin. It was a very pretty wedding. This is Lindsey, Ashley, and Lindsey at the reception. (Why Lindsey has a sister named Lindsey could be an entirely separate post. Or novel.) We had a great time, mostly since Ashley & sister Lindsey's stepfather is a stitch and a half.

This lovely gal (Caroline, for the uninitiated) is on a two-week trip through Vietnam. I am more than slightly jealous (though only of the trip, not of the shots she had to get before she went), and know that she is learning, seeing, & doing amazing things.

Things here are mundane, which is lovely. I'm going to become very well reacquainted with my cube over the next few months, so I promise I'll be a better blogger. :) Heck, maybe I'll even make something.

Happy Saturday.

Right up there with 1936, 1968, and 1980.

A lot of people like to say that the Olympics shouldn't be political.

Obviously, they often have been (see the examples in the tile for proof).

No fan of China, I don't know what I would have done if I had been in a position to compete or not compete this year. There is really no point in my worrying about it, since I lack athletic aptitude, much less ability and skill.

Nonetheless, I was a little self-righteous about the fact that despite continued evidence that the Chinese government is NOT doing what it said it would before the games, and that it IS taking fairly inhumane steps to keep controversy out of the games, not too many people seem to care.

Thus (yes, I just used THUS in a blog post), it was with great pride that I heard what our American team decided to do. I'm sure it's all over the TV tonight; it was all over NPR this morning. But just in case you've missed it, here's a link to a really beautifully written article in the Post.

And for the first time since Tulane University's Green Wave football players were co-national champions in 1998, I am ready to cheer for somebody.

Well done.

Just in case you need some happy today....

Brought to my attention by the incomparable Ali Edwards.

Make sure you watch long enough to see the kids breakdancing - in Bhutan.

Seriously, they should TELL you about these jobs when you graduate from college.

I mean, he's standing ON the freaking Cape of Good Hope. WOW. And how in the world did he get to the DMZ, much less inside some sort of military post there?

old friends

Did you know that I have adored these two since I was very small? My parents had this record, and I had it on tape, and now we can all listen, thanks to the Internet (complete with transition into what we all know as Feelin' Groovy). Lindsey bought me tickets to their reunion tour here in Atlanta, and Paul wore a fairly ridiculous almost-midriff-baring shirt that did not take away from how awesome they still are, always have been, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. Something my father told me when I was very small (along with the fact that if I was mean to him we would go to the New Dad Store, and I'd have a new daddy, which would make me cry AND behave) was that S&G were wonderful because they sounded as good live as they did recorded, and vice versa. He also used this logic to try to explain that one never needed to see them live. ;)

Actually, Art Garfunkel ranks on my top 5 most transcendent live musical experiences of all time:
5) Art Garfunkel, Riverbend, Chattanooga, 2002
4) Better than Ezra, Tipitina's Uptown, New Orleans, Mardi Gras 1999
3) Cowboy Mouth, JazzFest, New Orleans, 2002
2) Torrence Welch, Georgia Tech Orchestra, Atlanta, 2006
1) Wild Women Blues, Paris, 2001

If you really care for me to annotate this list, I could, but I doubt anyone really wants me to.

Anyway, the old friends thought came because I talked to an old friend on the phone tonight, making plans for our NOLA adventure later this summer, a phone call inspired by the amazing things I have heard at the reading conference over the past few days, that reminded me of my much more socially active college self, all of which has steeled my resolve to go back to the classroom after one more year in this job.

With any luck, by this weekend I'll have processed everything enough to write a decent narrative about what I learned, which I will probably post here for anyone who might be interested. I know you'll be waiting with bated breath.

Eurovision 2008: Croatia

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, we can now fully understand why my people left the old country. I ended up here because of this article about the current French entry in the Eurovision songwriting contest. While the singing is actually interesting, and pretty good, the visual effects here are just plain bizarre. The end is my favorite. Straight from "Fiddler on the Roof," folks. We won't discuss who won last year's contest, and I sure as heck am not going to link you to it. :) I'm sure Petey will be able to figure out why.

In other, much more serious, news, this is not a good story to read. I look forward to the day when our country puts this sad behavior behind us.

Etc.

Very belatedly planning Spring Break - we're going to Florida for my great-aunt & great-uncle's 50th wedding anniversary celebration, and discovered last night we're staying close to the Everglades, so we're adding a day to the trip to explore the swamp. (Say a prayer that the gnats won't be Jurassic, just dreadful.) Then, we're driving up to Sarasota so that Lindsey can see a pretty beach & green water before heading back home to do some house & yard projects. Whew!

Meredith from Like Merchant Ships linked to this post at Morning Ramble, which linked to this post. Great food for thought, especially at this time of year when we're all trying to clean & organize our lives.

A random email today provided this site, which gives some frightening stats about what we're putting on our skin... I looked up my allegedly "natural" moisturizer, and found some scary details. Obviously, I don't know the chemistry behind all of it, but let's just say that I will definitely be examining some different options for the summer....

Finally, this isn't my tragedy, so I'm not going to dwell on the details, but one of my brother's friends lost his father last night in an accident. Keep them in your thoughts, if you don't mind.

Crazy weather, etc.

Spent all morning figuring I was going to meet my death on the 17th floor of a downtown building, since it's hard to get down 17 floors before a tornado comes, & now it's nice enough to sit outside on the porch swing. Interesting weather for Ash Wednesday, isn't it? We're off to church later this evening. My best Ash Wednesday story is from the year I studied abroad. Pete was in Paris visiting, and in our pitiful attempt to fast, we *only* had McDonald's fries before going to Mass at Notre Dame that evening. Having thrown caution to the wind, we then decided to cross the bridge and eat at La Castafiore on the Ile St-Louis. I also remember that for some reason the priest who applied Petey's ashes put them ON TOP OF HIS BANGS, so he had no ashes, while the priest who applied mine clearly thought he was a better priest for covering my entire forehead with a sooty mess that in no way resembled a cross. Fortunately, it was Northern Europe in winter, so it was dark.

In all seriousness, it was depressing to wake up this morning & realize that some people will remember yesterday & today not for the excitement of a *real* election, but for sadness & loss. Let's remember them, especially today.

You know you're a social studies geek when....

...voting almost makes you cry.

Now - let me explain. For those of you who don't know, we live in what could technically be called "the hood." In fact, I often call it that myself, mostly to alleviate the concerns of people who think we own a half-million dollar home. There are houses in our larger neighborhood in that price range, so when people hear where we live, that's what they imagine. We live in the not-quite-as-nice portion of the area, which we actually prefer, since our neighbors are: a) friendly; b) not millionaires; and c) the kind of people that do their own yardwork. (I just returned from a work event at the Ritz-Carlton on Lake Oconee, and let me tell you, I have ZERO desire to ever lead that lifestyle. It was ridiculous, but I digress.)

Back to the almost-crying. I don't know how it works elsewhere, but in Georgia, polls are traditionally staffed by civic-minded retirees. They take their jobs very seriously, and some of them look old enough to remember when women got the right to vote. Since we vote electronically, it's very impressive how tech-savvy some of these ladies can be!

Anyway, our neighborHOOD is very racially integrated, and the voting lines today were no exception. What made me almost cry was the thought, though, that most of the people running the polling place were not able to vote until they were well into adulthood. Thanks to the wonders of Jim Crow, the ladies running my precinct would (I'm guessing) probably not have gotten to vote for President until 1968 - at best. And since some of them probably could have voted for FDR in his first term, that's really terribly sad.

Now, you might think, if a system has disenfranchised you for that long, & generally only worked to hurt you for no reason other than the color of your skin, you would probably disengage & say, "forget it." But for these ladies, that didn't stop them. I would love to know about the changes they've seen during their lifetimes, and if they realize how important it is that they are doing the job that they did today. Instead, I just smiled & joked with them. The oldest lady was teasing everyone about having filled out their verification forms wrong, & that we were going to break her fingers off because she was having to do extra writing. I thought that was hysterical, and when she got to me, she started singing, "Mrs. Brown has come to TOWN." That got a big laugh, of course, even though it's not the most original joke in the world.

Moral of the story - if you haven't voted yet, go do it! (And if you don't know for whom to vote, call me & I'll tell you. :) And I hope, L & M, you noticed that I didn't end that last phrase with a preposition.) Should you need more convincing, head over to Amy's, & read her thoughts on voting, too.

Paying it forward.

These words came today, from the Feather, living it up in the Big Apple. Some of them are very involved old stories, so I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say it made me seriously cry & be very grateful for her. So, in the interest of the season, here are some wishes for you:

smiles, hugs, hot chocolate, chocolate kisses, mistletoe, cozy slippers, ladybugs, blue boxes, butterflies, peace, traveling mercies, cheese fries, milkshakes, Camellia Grill burgers, Newberry-medal books, whiskers on kittens, Mardi Gras beads, snowflakes, belly laughs, creek wading, notebooks filled with the best parts of great lectures, hot fudge, red wine, Milktray, a bridge in Prague, butterscotch lifesavers, handicrafts, prayers & starlight.

Because really, y'all, if one quarter of this came true for one quarter of the planet, it'd be an amazing day. :)

Trees!

The long-awaited trees have been finished & photographed. First up is the black IKEA tree. Lindsey actually had the rather smart idea to put our folk-artish ornaments on it. (And please excuse all these photos - I often fail to plan ahead, so I had to use (GASP) artificial light to get these.) I personally like the way it looks in front of the fireplace.


This is the real aluminum tree Lindsey bought for me last year. Prior to that, we had a silver tinsel tree, which wasn't nearly as pretty (or as cool). Most of these ornaments are vintage, with a few vintage-looking new ones thrown in. Part of the reason for the folk art tree is that those ornaments look kind of ridiculous on this one. Eventually, we might get to have a real tree for our "other" ornaments, but that's way off in the future. When I take this down, you'll get to see the specially engineered holder for this sucker. (Buying one without a stand = $much cheaper$.)

Here are some of my favorite ornaments. The reindeer is a new one this year, bought during the McDonough Christmas Shopping Spree.


And finally, here is the button tree. The buttons were Lindsey's grandmother's, and the fabric is from Kimono of the Month. I went ahead & bought another styrofoam cone, because I'm quite sure I'm going to have to make another one. Soon. ;)


The green fabric you can barely see under the IKEA tree came from the Intown Quilters in "Decatur." (As in practically to 285, so it has a Decatur mailing address, but is nowhere near downtown Decatur.) Now I know what a fabric store is supposed to look like. HOLY COW. All that vintage-inspired/reproduced stuff you yearn for from Reprodepot & Superbuzzy? They have it. Along with rows & rows of batiks, Japanese fabrics, African prints, Amy Butler's patterns... WOW. It's enough to make you want to quit your job & make a quilt. They also have a really nice thread selection & cool toys from Clover. I actually showed a great deal of restraint, buying only the fabric I went for. (I will, however, be thinking of other projects soon, so fear not.)

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

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?

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.

Help needed, s'il vous plait.

#1) Let's take a moment, fellow Georgians, and be grateful for this rain.

#2) Anyone know where to find a LOT of buttons at a CHEAP price? As much as I *love* Etsy, I'm not paying $3.00 + shipping for 12 buttons! I need orange, green, and maybe brown. I tried google, failure ensued, and Ebay is too daunting. HELP!

#3) My swap packages are in the mail. That's a relief. I had some serious swap angst this go-round, and then a technical disaster in my trick or treat swap that had to be overcome.

#4) Lindsey is at church, which means I am about to whip up my very favorite bad-for-you processed food: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, original version. Or, if you are Canadian, you call them Kraft Dinners, apparently. As usual, ignore the video (the car isn't even a Chrysler!), and listen while you surf.



When I saw BNL in New Orleans during my freshman year of college, they had boxes at all the entrances for the macaroni & cheese that people like to throw during this song. They asked that you deposit your box of mac & cheese for donation to a food bank rather than wasting it all over the arena. When I saw them later at Lakewood (sigh...it will NEVER be HiFiBuys to me), they didn't have the boxes. WHAT HAPPENED? People quit being hungry? I think not. I still love the band. Call me a loser.

Weather.

Weather never comes when we need it. I think it's always been that way - read the Bible, or Little House on the Prairie. We have rain, and we need it desperately, but they need it in California, too. Barb, who hosts the Purse Project, lives in San Diego.

This is what weather can do:

I'm totally co-opting my friend Barrett's personal tragedy to make a philosophical point. It's all just stuff, right, Bear?

This is the result of Katrina, and the failure of a canal floodwall. Those, in case you don't know, are managed by the same Army Corps of Engineers that seems powerless to do anything to mitigate the effects of our drought. In both New Orleans and Atlanta, there is definitely an argument to be made that we've tried too hard to control the environment for our own purposes, and now its fighting back.

Nonetheless, at this point, the damage is done. We need to figure out more sustainable solutions for the long term, but we also need to plan for what the next few months will bring.

Can you tell I've been alone in the dark & dreary weather all afternoon? It's uplifting, isn't it?

This was all inspired by an NPR piece on the San Diego fires. They interviewed one lady, who was telling the few things she'd taken from her house at 4:30 this morning when she was told to evacuate. She listed the Bible, some pictures, clothes, jewelry, and get this - her grade book. That, friends, is dedication to the profession.

Contrasts

As you may recall, I joined Torrence on Sunday to see the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's live recording of La Bohème. (I'd like to apologize to all French speakers for the lack of accent grave over the first "e." Blogger won't let me. Hmpf.) (ETA: My own personal computer geek, Barrett, sent me the html to get the accent. He's really something.) It was wonderful, particularly this aria. Listen to it first, then read the subtitles. Hysterical, really, how gorgeous it sounds till you realize what she's saying! Torrence & I were talking about how hard it is to read & listen simultaneously. I, being a gigantic dork, also am trying to pick out words that are the same in French & Italian.

On the way out of Symphony Hall, two guys were discussing whether or not this was superior to RENT. RENT is (loosely) based on La Boheme, and ends equally darkly. I cried at the end of both, surprise, surprise from the girl who cries at butter commercials. Anyway, I'll leave the final judgment up to you. Here is my favorite song from RENT. Does it stack up?

PSA: Ignore both videos. They detract from the music. Click on the links, & listen while you continue wasting time on the Internet. ;)

In other world news, it seems like maybe there won't be a revolution in Burma. It really seemed like they had a chance this time. If you haven't read the amazing story of Aung San Suu Kyi, you really should. It's inspiring. She basically redefines perseverance.

Locally, a small measure of success was achieved for the Metro environment by some angry folks. Stone Mountain, in the midst of the worst drought in a century, was using 38 gallons of water PER MINUTE to make enough ice to create a snow hill for this winter. They were stopped today by some quality AJC reporting, and angry citizens. Gives you a little faith in our country.

Fall comes to the city - and the kitty.

Last night, we were *finally* able to sleep with the windows open. (I'll spare you the saga of the search for expandable, removable window screen. Just know that I prevailed, and we own them.) Our poor cat, who has had to become an indoor kitty since we moved into Atlanta, did not sleep. She went from one window to the next, and the instant she heard an acorn hit the porch, or the leaves rustle in the bushes, she jumped off the bed & ran to investigate. I do feel bad that she can't run & play outside, & enjoy the weather, but at least she'll get to sit in the window for a month or so.

I spent Wednesday through yesterday at noon in Athens. We went out for dinner in downtown Athens (home of the University of Georgia) on Thursday night, and it was so funny to watch the extremely dressed-up freshmen ready for a night on the town. Caro would have especially enjoyed that the boys were dressed up in KHAKIS. (gasp) I keep telling her it's an SEC thing, but she just doesn't get it. ;)

Further entertainment was provided by huge clumps of sorority pledges, ridiculously dressed so as to humiliate them. Now, I will own my sorority membership with semi-pride, but I was NEVER, and I do mean NEVER, forced to look ridiculous or behave stupidly to join. I wouldn't have stood for it, and neither would most of my pledge class. (There were three or four girls who WANTED to be hazed, but we weren't really friends, being as they were, quite simply, insane.)

I was a little jealous that all of them (I'm sure) were headed over to Sanford Stadium this afternoon to watch UGA beat Ole Miss. It is perfect football weather, bringing to mind this fantastic song. Ignore the video (unless you want to reflect on the deeper meaning of this song as sung by a Lousiana band (LSU kids, in fact) in relation to last season's Saints' post-Katrina success as New Orleans' team). I'll quit before I cry. And before I use any more parentheses-within-parentheses. BTE used to play every Lundi Gras at Tipitina's uptown, and it was always an amazing show. (At least it was the two times I went.)

Last night, we went over to East Atlanta Village for dinner, dessert, and a visit to the local bookstore. (Not to be confused with these less-local bookstores.) It was lovely.

I. Love. Fall.