Hopelessly Lost.

I keep forgetting to mention this...

D and I are hooked on 'Lost'.

I had no intention of ever watching this show. When I first heard about it I thougt it was another reality show. I knew several people that were hooked, and one even said they thought it seemed very much like something I would like. I just didn't think so.

Then I watched one episode. I 'somehow' managed to watch the next, but this time I pulled D in with me. That's all it took. This show great. The best part is how deeply layered everything is. You have to watch the rerun episodes, because you miss things. Everything is connected. EVERYTHING. This had to take ages to write, and I feel pretty confident the ending won't be a let down. The only thing I'm already worrying about is if they bring some kind of conclusion to this season, how will the following season be able to keep up the suspense?

There's lots of speculation about what the island is...pergatory, everyone is dead but one, it's an experiment, all in comas. I'm going to throw schizphrenia into the lot. Not that it makes any sense, it's just one way to account for all the people, all being connected, if they were all inside someone's head as personalities.

Giddyup!

Last night was my volunteer orientation at the stable. I had fun. I, along with the other two volunteers that showed up, scored 100% on our Horse Safety tests. Nice to know I can compete with two 13 yr. olds. (if they were even that old) But they were cute girls, and really excited about helping out. Fairly timid around the horses though.

We got to know a bit about each of the stable horses, lead them around, get them out of the pasture and into their boxes for their evening feed. Now it's just schedule a time whenever we want and we can show up to help. It sounds like I'll get to ride a good bit, and they even mentioned being able to take English lessons for free when possible.

The two girls running it have go to be exhausted though. 12 hour days and it's just the two of them running the stable with 10 horses. They've had to do a lot of maintenance and repairs around the place themselves as well. Having 20 yrs on the other volunteers, maybe I'll get to help them out with some of the things they really need help with.

So far my favorite horse is Heidi. She's have Quarter and half Draft. Not sure what kind of draft but she looks a bit Belgian. HUGE. Chestnut with blond mane/tail. Hoping I get to ride her. The buckskin I like is 27 yrs old!! That's ancient. But she's frisky for her age. And yes - one of these days I'll take pictures.

Tired Tuesday

Wow am I wipe dout today. Traveling all weekend and then all the medical goings on of yesterday have me worn out. I'd love a coffee, too bad I swore off it. whimper. whimper. The constant rain and gloom isn't helping. But at least the trees are budding up. We should have leaves soon.

Well my mom got thru the surgery just fine. The Dr. said nothing looked wrong went he went in, but she had adhesions/scaring that might have been causing some trouble. I hope this cures what's been wrong. My dad said last night it would be our luck to go thru this and her not be better for it. She's in a lot of pain from the surgery itself. I think she thought that since it was laproscopic surgery, it wouldn't hurt, or hurt that bad. She already has zero pain tolerance, so she must really be hurting. Not sure when they'll send her home.

April's vist went better than planned. I was really worried she had heartworm, which is fatal. She just had run of the mill horribly disgusting tapeworm. ICKKKKKKK. She gets one giant orange pill and it magically goes away. Got out of the vet for under $200. I was amazed. Odd to be thankful for a $150 vet bill.

And now back at work, I have so many boards to order and still have 8 or 9 for the end of the month to start designs from scratch. I do have one thing to look forward to this week, tomorrow I go for volunteer orientation at the stable. Not sure what all it will entail but it'd be nice if we got to ride a bit.

Yucky Monday

I haven't posted in awhile as nothing much to say, and been really busy. Here's the part where I could go on a diatribe about work, but don't feel like it.

We went to Philly for the weekend to visit D's family. Nice quiet visit, played with the kids and ate a lot. Went to the longest Catholic mass ever. Then his sister had an Easter brunch for the whole family that was huge. SO much food and it was all yummy. I even ate the blood pudding, which the Irish side of the family brought. It wasn't bad.

People Medicine:
But right before we left for Philly, my mom went in the hospital again. She hasn't felt well since Christmas and it's seriously pissining me off that noonem, drs, seem to do anything or take her serioulsy. She's dropped like 30lbs with out trying since maybe fall. She's had ongoing stomach issues, which lately have been 2 solid months of constant nausousness. Non-stop. They run a test, then wait a few weeks, then maybe run another test. So last Thur. they finally admit her. I don't know if if helped, but I called N about it. You don't realize it when you're ten years old, but having a friend that grows up to be a doctor has benefits. Especially one that has The Indian Connection on her side. Her dad apparently cornered my mom's Dr at some function Thursday night. She's now had at least 2 big tests done and I don't know how many blood tests done. Normally this might not mean anything, but it was over Easter wknd, and I don't think much usually happens on holiday wknds in hospitals. Anyways, whether or not calling on a friend helped or not, mom's finally having her galbladder out today sometime. Keep her in your thoughts if you could. I hope she feels better after this, she really needs to.

Dog Medicine:
Gross. We left April to stay with my dad while we were gone. She'd had a cough that's been building up for about a week, I knew I needed to take for a check up when we got back. Well now I have to get her to the vet today. She looks fat as a tick and doesn't seem to feel good at all, apparently it's cuz she's full of....worms. Ugh. !!YUCK!! Talk about heeby jeebies. Just gross. So now I have to fit in a vet visit (I'm guessing a $200 vet bill today) and get to the hospital for mom's surgery. And deal with the disapprovong look at work when I take a half day.

Wine, Horses and Robins

Friday night D & I went to a small - wait - the only art house type movie theater in our area. It's an old converted church. They usually do plays, but to generate money, they've started to show the movies the Multiplex in our area would never bother to show. We finally got around to seeing Sideways. It was a great movie. Laughed a lot. Afterwards, you couldn't help but crave a glass of wine.

Oglebay Park is the large park/resort that I've mentioned before. It's a few miles from our house. Gorgeous great big park, lake, playgrounds, golf, lodge and a stable. The stable had been closed, but I had read that it recently re-opened and were looking for volunteers. I've always wanted to, so I showed up to their Open House Saturday. The new stable manager is a girl younger than me who seems really nice. She brought all her own horses. They won't start boarding til fall. I got the tour, and then just walked around petting the horses. I will have to say, most of them look like they fell off the glue truck. I guess you don't really want a racehorses for 9 yr old girl to take trail rides on. It also looks like the new manager is taking the stable the Western route. For years it has always been ENGLISH. (my preference) Interesting to see how this goes down in our area. Most of the horsey people around here are the posh variety that spend shitloads of money to buy, board, and train horses for their children to keep busy with. They used to hold dressage and jumping events. Seems like cutting and barrel running is next. Oh and before I go any farther, I'm not the posh vareity of horsey people. I'm the "always dreamt of owning one but never have now would just like to unwind from work and be around horses" type. So we'll see if they call back to say I can volunteer. The part of the form that said 'List any reasons you can't ride" I filled in with " Trying to get pregnant, so can't ride if I do, or if I think I might be, but willing to ride any other time". Yeah. They might not call.

Sunday book club was canceled as noone could go but me. Rescheduled. I have to say I'm surprised how many people have bitched and moaned about reading this month's book, Bridget Jones the Edge of Reason. They really had a hard time with the brit slang and the format. I didn't mind it, but she's just irritating. Much more so in the book. Which I don't get. It so obviously was written just to cash in on the first book & movie's success. So why does the screen play differ so much? But I should check the Publish dates to see when it was written.

And as Sunday was the first official day of SPRING (yay!) I woke up this morning and saw my first Robin. Sure sign of spring. (to which my Dad said, oh no, they've been around for weeks) sigh.

DC

Our trip to DC last weekend was such a welcome break. I used to think the reason it just seemed dismal and grey here in WV was because it must have been the same when we lived in MD, but we didn’t notice it as much because there are more buildings and less hillsides, wooded areas to show brown and grey. Not so. It was blue skies and sunshine the entire weekend in DC. Gorgeous weather.

We spent Sat. afternoon just visiting. Our friends are renting a really cute house. It was great to see their little girl and play with her. Either she did remember me, or just wasn’t afraid of me, cuz she took to me right away again. She is so damn cute. Scrunches up her nose when she laughs. D really wanted to go to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I figured there was no way we were getting in. Historically on a weekend, that place has a 4 hour wait. Sure enough, we get there – 4.5 hour wait. Which is basically saying “we don’t want your business”. If we had said “Sure! We’ll wait!” we would have been seated at 11pm. Instead we ate at Tara Thai. Which even if it is a bit of a chain, is so yummy.

Sunday just relaxed and hung out, then all headed down to the Mall to practice being tourists. We parked along the outer edge of the tidal basin. We could not have been farther from the museums, unless we were actually in Virginia. But it was a nice day to walk. We had lunch at the super touristy Pavilion, then ditched the guys. My girlfriend and I took the munchkin and hit the Natural History Museum. I love this place. I never tire of going there. Always something new to see. This time they had three new exhibits: Mammals, Story of Sikhs, and Orchids. It was also good to just catch up with my friend and have girl talk as we went thru the exhibits.

We got home and G made Chicken Gel Fraise. I have no idea how you spell it. Phonetically it sounds like Jell Frazey. Whatever. It was delicious. Oh and D bought our favorite Dominican beer for dinner. Mmmm. Then the munchkin went to sleep and we sat around the dinner table and had some of the best conversation I’ve had in months! We talked about everything. The pope, religion, HIV, Africa, England, America, the Middle East, vacations, accents, moving, parents, friends, etc. It was so good to talk about something other than where the new WalMart is going. I miss them so much.

Monday our friends went to work and we dropped of D’s MD plates finally. How he didn’t have a fine is amazing. Then lunch at California Tortilla. We drove through our old development. I told him I think what we do sometimes is confuse missing the area with the feeling of really fond memories. I loved living there, but I wouldn’t want to go back. I had to drop D off in Alexadria for a conference then drove home. The drive was a nice wind down. Good to get home, but glad we got away for a bit.

Training wheels. D starting to look pretty comfortable with a stroller as we walked around the tidal basin.

The Jefferson.

The Washington.

The Mall.

Mall side lobby of the Natural Hist.Museum. This is my favorite museum. I never get tired of it. This is actually a real mounted african elephant. It's huge.

White Orchid. There was an orchid display going on while we were there. Very pretty, but I thought they were delicate? Can't figure out how they kept them all alive.

Lion at the entrance to the new Mammal exhibit. It was amazing. Blew away what you think of stuffy animal exhibits at museums.

A Reticulated Giraffe.

Hippo!

Friday Fun Links, Movie Mentions, Outta Here!

I think I mentioned earlier that we finally got around to watching "Napoleon Dynamite". There is no in-between, you either love it or hate it. I laughed my ass off. So to celebrate the stupididy that is Napoleon, find out who you are. I'm Pedro & love Holy Chips and building cakes or something.

Here's a fairly cool link, The Zoom Quilt. It takes a minute to load. I think it might have been a college art project? But it's fairly well done, and the detail is great. If you do it too fast you get queazy.

The other night I watched two movies on the IFC channel:
Storytelling- which had an F'd up sex scene and overall just bad
Love & Sex - basically an Indy Chic flick, but I liked it. It made me like Jon Favreau even more. And I'd never been a Famke Jansen fan, but I liked her in this. It was sweet but not stupid.

Tonight we're going to a charity/fundraiser/shindig, then tomorrow morning we're off to DC for the weekend! YAY! Can't wait to see our friends, eat lots of ethnic food, drinks lots of G&T's, play with their darling baby girl. Maybe going to see the new Museum of the American Indian, or just walk around the Mall, I don't care how cold it is. Just as long as it's not WV for a weekend.

Weeeeeeeeee!

I finally got my Wacom tablet. This thing is wonderful! How the hell have I worked without one for this long? It makes you feel like an idiot for not buying one sooner.

Hats

Women parade in colourful masks at a rally in Manila on the eve of International Women's Day and the 100th year of the feminist movement in the Philippines.

and we're back to Monday

Weekend highlights include:
Friday evening giant happy hour beers at West Texas Roadhouse. A truly horrible restaurant. Beer was yummy and cheap though. Followed by a quick stop at a gallery opening for our neighbor (and my former college advisor) Mr. Peace. Some really nice work on display, which I forgot to take pics of. Ended up at the Alpha. Nice time, the jukebox was free - until we left to find a flat tire. Glad D is really handy, even somewhat inebriated.

Saturday, quiet day at home. Had wings at our friends house, finally watched “Napolean Dynamite” and played Taboo. Highly recommend “ND”. Weirdest movie, but I laughed outloud constantly. Taboo highlight, when I couldn'y say "eyes" for the word "sunglasses" for some reason "occular region" flew out of my mouth.

Sunday, cleaned out closets looking for junk to get rid of in spring garage sales and ironed clothes for D to take on his trip to Omaha today. Omaha. Who has a conference in Nebraska? My dad said “isn’t that where the nuclear silos are located?” Could be.

Evening Walk

Feeling a bit down and blue yesterday - yet another month of infertility - so when I got home from work I went for a walk out along the farm road. It was sunset/dusk. Very pretty. Very quiet. I walked all the way out to the farm where our neighbor keeps her animals. The home of the random ponies and donkeys. The mustangs were out last night. They wouldn't let me pet them, but whinied when I walked away. Which did something to set the donkeys off, because they started 'HEEHAWing' incredibly loud. Whoops. Maybe I shouldn't mess with livestock I don't own...

Posted a few pics below.

Taking picture of this tree when...

...this guy walked up next to me out of nowhere. (He's a mustang stallion from one of the wild horse round-ups out west)

And then the other mustang showed up. It looks like she's shedding all her skin, but it's a ratty old blanket that's falling apart.

Faded deer tracks in the snow at dusk.

Sunset glow

Proper Punctuation

Here's a link someone sent me yesterday that had me in stitches. Anyone that's ever had to deal with a client via email should appreciate it. (I've only just now seen this, I have been told it's been around for awhile)

World Book Day

Tomorrow is World Book Day. I just updated my bookclub's blog with an article that has a great list of books. I was in Barnes & Noble the other day and I could've easily walked out of there with an armload of books. I'd love to design book jackets. Love walking around looking at all the designs, which unless you already know of a book, is what sucks you in to pick it up. I've been reading a lot this winter. New stuff and re-reading old books. We had a question in bookclub, what book have you re-read the most? No one had ever read a book more than once. I found that amazing. I re-read books all the time. That's why I like to buy them. But also read really fast, so I churn thru them fairly quickly. Baba mentioned she was reading the 5th Harry Potter, and I seriously felt like some escapism, so I re-read the the 4th and 5th last week. Might seem like a waste of time, but it was relaxing and I'd rather do that than watch TV. Not much else to do in February around here. But a friend loaned me a book, so I'll celebrate tomorrow with a new read.