Elite Designers Against IKEA

"Look beyond the chair to see the soul of the chair. When you see it you will cry, as I did"

Click here to read more of Van Den Puup, and his wonderfully insightful quotes.

Stuffed Up!

I haven’t felt like posting cuz
I have the worst head cold/sinus infection. Blech! We spent most of Sat. helping our friend tear out all of the walls in the first floor of her house. She had 5 inches of water into her first floor – not to mention her entire basement – during the flood last month. The inspector said she had mold starting to grow behind the baseboards into the walls, a huge health hazard. So it alllll comes out. It’ll be like a whole new house. In the end it will look great, Saturday it looked like a bomb going off in slow motion. 74 yrd old plaster, lathe, insulation and dust everywhere! We looked like coal miners we were so dirty. Of course we wore those rinky dink blue mouth covers – shades of SARs. But I think enough got past to irritate my sinuses. It was worth it though- fun smashing up walls! And she really appreciated the help.

Fri. night we finally got to the Haunted Penitentiary. It was fun and freaky. Imagine walking thru an old, creaky, rusty, dilapidated jail, which really did have a lot of people die in it, 98% pitch black for 45 min. (It looks exactly like the jail in “Shawshank” built in the same time period.) I was the lucky one in our group that got locked in a jail cell alone. yay. One room had fast strobe lights going – people covered in blood banging on metal with hammers and bloody body parts, like a f’d up video. Another had a strobe that went off about every 3 footsteps. So you were in the dark for a few, then could see people ahead, then dark, then see people running around, then the chainsaw started up. That I didn’t like. Hate chainsaws.

What to Wear this Holiday Season

Someone just sent me this:
Gem Sweaters
I can't begin to accurately describe how funny this is.
Please whatever you do - click on the "Beats" link.

Dig around and find her homepage - girl is a trip.

How K made my day

Yesterday was just a normal go-thru-the-motions kinda day. After work I stopped by my folks to pick up April. Left with the wonderful miserable feeling you get when dealing with a chronic clinical depressed person and the people who live with and love them. Extremely pissed off, sad, angry, sorry, helpless. Helpless being the worst. Hard to conceive why the idea of picking out a color of paint for the walls is so overwhelming it can’t even begin to be dealt with as it MUST be the right color. (left out OCD as well) And must be done themselves, no use trying to help, then you get frustrated and start to belittle…being hurtful won’t make them want to deal with it any quicker. (Normally wall paint wouldn’t be such an issue-said walls need painted as they had been replastered from a roof leak.)

So got home feeling crap. But in the mail a package from K was waiting for me. (K, N and I have known each other since we were 10) Something for my b-day that she said “was just you” and she had to buy it. Tore it open soon as I got in the kitchen. Funny card and a plastic bag with a cd shape in it. Immediately thought “too thick, must be a compilation” followed by “has to be the Clash!”. Which it was! K is the only person that has ever got that I love the Clash. Amazing that she bought me this and remembered. Awesome present. Popped in the cd and played “Train in Vain” (ok – cheesiest tune, but is prob my favorite song. Ever) And then shit - I started to cry. How hormonal am I!? Listening to it made me remember being 17/18, Jr./Sr. year in high school, for my 18th b-day K had got me the Clash’s Greatest Hits 3 cassette set. That was what -16 years ago? Suddenly 34 just seemed to hit me. Made me miss her. I don’t talk to or see her nearly often enough. Not even close. So as a weepy mess, I played the cd while I read and drank wine. And loved listening to it again. Very awesome present!

Tuesday Blahs

I've spent all day
yesterday and today trying to think of something clever or interesting to write. The rainy and cold season of Fall has set in and it seems like it brought with it the Grey Blahs. In an attempt to shake it off I cooked fajita's last night with burrito shells from scratch - I haven't made them in ages. We made a fire and watched a dvd in the living room. It was nice and cozy. We both commented that sometimes it seems like we should have to get up in the morning and pack our bags to go home - that we couldn't possible live here. Our house has a ski-lodge feel that is nice - if a ski lodge had tons of plants in it.



Oh - the DVD was - don't laugh - "The Day After Tomorrow". Entertaining. Silly. Wish it went more scientific instead of building a few lame extra characters. If it's 100 below zero - how can you look thru binoculars without gloves on?

Tuesday night is "Wing night" at our local neighborhood bar - The Alpha. Not great wings, but cheap eats and we usually see a bunch of friends out. It's a great old wood paneled bar with dead animal heads mounted and hung everywhere. Sounds sick when you write it out - but it has lots of character. I think 3 or 4 huge moose (meese) heads.

Cross your fingers and I might have an interesting story by Thursday!

April with Halloween eyes.

"Give me your food.""

(She got a check up today and actually is doing really great. All her blood/enzyme levels are good! The not eating could just be her stubborn attitude)

But I don't want...

to have to turn the furnace on.
It finally got cold enough last night to turn it on. Fall is here and cold. Notice I've posted a few pics of what Fall looks like up here. The day I actually have a camera and noone remembered to cue the wildlife. Or donkeys. Damn it.

Overheard a conversation here at work this morn. Someone was explaining to another what IKEA is. How can you not know what that is? (like ir or hate it - you know OF it) See what I mean about small town Americana?

Here's another movie coming out in Dec. I think looks flippin great! Esp. if you like "The Royal Tannenbaums".

I added another site to "Blogs I Like" (catchy name eh?) It's the blog of our friend Jerome. He and his wife live in Va. outside of DC and are two of the funniest people we know.

View off our deck.

Road up the hill thru our neighborhood.

Nothing Much

Remember it is West Virginia...
there will be periods when nothing much goes on to write about. D is doing a fly-in fly-out to DC today for work. He might go to Philly for the weekend for an Eagles game, so I might have a weekend alone. A nice thing to have from time to time.

We had dinner with friends last night. She of the couple is a best friend and former room-mate. He of the couple is my boss. Which is nice at work actually. She gave me a great NYC street vendor knock-off Tiffany's necklace for a b-day present.

April isn't feeling well. Or I should say worse. Won't eat all her food. A bad sign. Normally she'd eat even if a small animal had bitten her leg and wouldn't let go. Time to get another blood level check. (Not time or mood to go into details - but she's been ill since March) So bit of a downer thought pattern lately as to her life expectancy, etc.

• Duran Duran have a new CD out
• Previews for this movie look good
• Going here Sat. night for a Haunted House

Weekend Omnibus

Sunday
I had a great birthday! The past 2 or 3 years D has failed miserably with this event. This year he did outstanding! A card, cappucino, biscotti and the Post-Gazette in bed. Then up to Pittsburgh where he dropped me off at the bookstore so I could take my time while he went to the sporting goods store. Bought two good books: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (as suggested to me by Baba) and Angry Houswives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik. Looks to be a chic lit, but it's about a bookclub and I'm getting around to starting one. And it was hard to keep it to just 2!! So many good books to read...I just love bookstores. I could spend the day and a paycheck in one. Ok - so then we went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Which serves SOooooo much more than the 36 flavors of cheesecake they have on the menu. The menu is a tome - they offer so many diff things. We ate so much it hurt. But I have lovely leftovers for lunch today. I had Bang Bang Chicken and D had a burger the size of his head. So overall - wonderful day. Oh - and the added humor that my parents plain forgot it. Asked what the 'big occasion' was that we were going to 'burgh for - "um...my birthday...." Look on their faces was priceless!

Hobo and Esmerelda
Are the two donkeys one of our crazy neighbors owns. They're rescued donkeys from the Grand Canyon. Every so often, they decide to go on walk-about on their own. Usually end up in our yard or at the end of our drive. Sat. I went to take April - the beagle - for a walk and saw them out. I hadn't made friends w/ them yet so I ran back and got a pear to offer. Walked over to them and Hobo the jake (male donkey) was sweet. Took it right away. Esmeralda the jenny (female donkey) however started sniffing and circling around April - now frozen in fear of the large 'dog' checking her out. Damn donkey started it's ears back to bite/kick her (!) and I started yelling. They both ran away then. Eeeeawwwing loudly. Stupid things. Then this morning I looked out our bedroom window and jumped out of my skin. Not expecting to see a large grey donkey standing by the window.

TV Killers
We have now killed our third tv. Second 27"er in about 2 months. Must be our aura. We went looking for a new one and ended up drooling at the wall size 7 grand flat screens. In our dreams. Back home - D took the latest victim apart, found the blown fuse, and hoping replacing it will fix it.

Now back to our regularly scheduled work week.

Commercial Astronauts and Sub-Titles

We watched a show on Discovery
last night about the Ansari X-Prize. The team from Scaled Composites won it. I'm so glad I watched it. I've just assumed it was really no-big-deal. It got a small by-line on all the online news stories. The show was in three parts and the story it told of what it took to reach the goal was amazing. My dad was a jet pilot, so I've always loved hearing stories about flying, I love the movie the Right Stuff, I read Chuck Yeager's autobiography. Oh yeah, my husband works for NASA! (for real) I just thought it was incredible seeing these guys take off, hit 5 G's 8 G's? and at one point the only computer navigation system on board goes blank. The test pilot flew it straight up into space by keeping his head straight and keeping the blue of the horizon in his peripheral vision. If it was black ahead he knew he was straight. And he's going supersonic in a machine made of composite coated fabric basically! It's just amazing. They did it for 20 million and Russia is still behind in their parts for the 'International Space Station'.

The test pilot that hit space first was Mike Melvill. He became the first Commercial Astronaut. How cool is that? He was a test pilot for over 25 years. The FAA even gave him official wings for it. He let M&M's out while he was floating to show people he really had hit zero gravity. It was just so cool to watch. And such a shame it wasn't more newsworthy. I told D he's like Zefram Cochrane - but real.

I know the US has caught a lot of grief lately, so I liked seeing that it was the US team that won. Especially without the government (I know, I know - backed by the spoils of Microsoft)The pilot was an Aussie I think if that helps! Ok enough geeky space talk.

Warning - just because a movie has sub-titles does not mean it will be good. I drank coffee before bed last night - no idea why - so wired -I began watching "Like Water for Chocolate" on IFC. Still not sure if it was quirky - or just bad. Full frontal nudity though if you're interested.

Signing off - it's my birthday weekend and looking forward to spending a day in the city! Museums and shops and food and bars oh my! (Pittsburgh)

Hi and Why

What I hope to get out of this...
• vent my thoughts/ideas
• stay in touch with friends
• use my brain - sometimes I don't feel like I am
• feel a bit more global - I miss that about DC

Things I want to do...just randomly...this is my first blog, so I used a template - actually the same one my friend used...which makes me feel lame as I need to get my designer butt in line and create my own (for now I just wanted to get started) ((and anyways I liked it)). I want to post pics of the house, things we do around here - just show people how beautiful it is up here. Also show pics of the area. The good and the bad - the small town Americana that it is. I also have this concept that everytime I go for a hike, I'll see one cool natural thing. And I always do. That's the dorky stuff I want to share. (ex. my main traffic congestion this week was a flock of wild turkeys blocking the road off our hill) And I like to cook - so post recipes.

And to all the friends that live far off - and we/I just never get around to calling/emailing this is a great way to feel connected.

What I DON'T want to do is get stressed about this...soooo easy for the Libra to come out and over organize it or over analyze...'now should I write that? no, no edit, edit, there - that's better - i don't sound like an idiot NOW'...lord.

So anyways there it is. And get ready to mock - the next post will be about space.

So Here I Am

My first Post.
As lame as this may seem, I'm actually pretty excited by this. I read everyone else's blogs all the time. It's very voyueristic. Not that I think what I have to say is interesting enough to be considered entertaining. It should be fun. Cathartic at the least.