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I am an artist & teacher with a ❤ for visual expression, educational methodology, homesteading, & Jesus. My geek-love is The Joshua and we have three peanut-butters: Caleb, Jack, & Louritta.

My Brilliant Idea

08/11/2003

I’ve been listening to Yo-Yo Ma’s new album Obrigado Brazil. I love it. Especially track 2 and 9. Absolutely beautiful stuff. I liked Yo-Yo before, but now that I’ve been attempting to play the cello for three weeks, I really really think he’s amazing.
Anyhoo, Josh and I had a discussion a few weeks ago about who we thought was the absolute best living singer. This included many facets meaning that they are capable of sounding beautiful in a variety of genres, are creative, have done something profound with their vocals, and are innovative creators. The only musician we agreed on (and also agreed was the absolute best) was Bobby McFerrin. He kicks my butt.
So the other day, I was sitting in my car listing to Yo-Yo’s new album, admiring it and cherishing it, when I got this brilliant idea. What would happen if Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin made an album together??? That would be so absolutely cool! It would be genius!
Then I realized that they already have made an album. Oh, and I also happen to own that album. And I have the entire thing memorized.
So much for my brilliant idea. It’s still brilliant. Just a little late. Oh well.

120 Bottles of Whiskey in My Living Room

08/09/2003

Okay, so I don’t actually have the bottles. Or the whiskey. But I do have the containers that the bottles come in. They are tall cylindrical tubes with lids. I got them so my crafts students can make a decoupage project with them. I originally had them in my car when I thought, “Dude, someone is so going to break into my car to get 120 bottles of whiskey in plain view.” So, now they’re in my living room. The cat likes to climb on them. It’s funny because it looks like she’s in her special kitty kingdom (and by the look on her face, I think she really does consider it to be her kitty kingdom).
We went to Dave & Buster’s yesterday to celebrate Josh’s birthday. Josh and I played a game where we have machine guns and have to kill these evil green dudes trying to capture the president and take over the city. It was okay…but it made my hand cramp. I think that’s number 987 on my list of why I think video games are stupid–hand cramps. I also played Beachhead which is kind of fun as an arcade game (but sucky as a computer/console game).
I’m starting to design a new site for Hyde’s Art program this weekend. I’ll give you a link to it when it’s done. I have the layout down on paper already and the content is ready to go, I just need to get the code & graphics done. Plus, I’m going to try using some CSS and maybe some PHP so I’ll have to learn a bit of that too. I actually am enjoying web design, which is something I never thought would be a hobby (or even slight interest) of mine. Interesting.

Sweet 25!

08/08/2003

Well, today is Josh’s 25th birthday. A quarter of a century old. Holy cow. It seems so old and yet young (don’t feel old). Well, regardless, Happy Birthday to you my wonderful, dearly loved husband.
We’re going out to Dave & Buster’s tonight (kind of like an arcade for adults). While the food and friends are great…I always have to prepare myself mentally for video games. I have never been entertained by an arcade (which is interesting since my brothers could have spent an entire day in one if they had that many quarters). But, I have to remember that it’s Josh’s birthday and I can shoot a few bad guys (without first trying to understand them personally or attempt a peace treaty) for his sake. I think I would be a much better wife if I could muster up the attention span to play a video game for five minutes every now and then.
Interesting. I just realized that I’m the opposite of many others in my generation. Most of my students are absolutely fascinated by computers, game consoles, television…basically technology based gadgets. These gadgets hold their attention for long periods of time with little or no difficulty. Give them a book, and most of them are bored out of their minds in 5 minutes or less. I could read a book all day sitting in my papasan with an iced latte. Mmmm…caramel iced latte.
Yesterday, Josh, Brian & I all tried to go to the SFMOMA again. The Chagall exhibit was sold out when we got there (dangit!). So, we ate dinners at Chevy’s (which always makes me smile and think of good times with Carrie), then went to Brian’s house and played a game called Settlers of Catan. This is a game my Aussie friends Kami & Andrew have been trying to get us to play (mostly Andrew…he loves games) but the fact that they live in Australia makes a board game night a little difficult to pull off. Anyhoo…so we get to Brian’s and he pulls out a freakin’ tackle box full of game pieces and starts going off about various expansion packs and stuff. I’m thinking to myself – any game that uses a tackle box is no game for me. But, once the game got going, I actually really enjoyed it (and secretly am really excited to play it again…but don’t tell anyone I said that, it’s too embarrassing). The game ended with Brian winning and me yelling at Josh for trading with him and sicking the black baron on me multiple times when it was clear that Brian was about to win the game. But, enough about my husband trying to get me to lose games. 🙂
Well, I’ve spouted off enough for today. As my friend Kevin says, “This is what happens when you save up your thoughts for a week.” Except that he talks of more serious things than I generally do (on my blog anyway).
Oh…and I’ve also learned this week how absolutely important reading is for kids. But, I’ll spout off about that another day. Toodles!

I Can’t Wait!

08/05/2003

Okay…I’m really excited for school to start again. I think that teaching Art is one of my all time favorite things to do and I really miss doing it. Most people look forward to the summers…I loathe them. (Then again, I may feel differently if I could actually stay home or go on vacations one of these summers). I feel more alive and connected when the school year is on because I am challenged by my students and invigorated by the curriculum. So…12 days before the teacher work days start up again and I get to be in my classroom. That, and it will be nice to actually return to the same place I taught at last year. My classroom is already mostly together.
Also, I’ve continued my cello lessons. I can now more-or-less play a successful double scale. I still feel awkward when playing though. It’s a challenging instrument…there are so many things to think about all at once.
Other than that…today is a normal day. I’m going to go swimming in a bit (as usual) and will hopefully get in a bit more cello time before my lesson later tonight. That’s about it!

Special Sticky Rice Day

08/04/2003

Alex (the girl I nanny for) had a friend over a few days ago. The girls were so adorable as they played and hung out. They wanted to have a tea party, so I showed them how to make real tea. They were so excited by this that they wanted to play a game where they were my servants and I was a princess of some kind. I wore a pink tiara with fake pearls on it. They brought me tea (just how I like it with a little sugar and milk). Then, they made me a lovely lunch of sticky rice and dry noodles. I heard the girls giggling in the kitchen and peeked my head in. There they were, sitting on the floor with the rice cooker between them. They used two giant wooden spoons to scoop into the pot and eat their rice (which was sprinkled with soy sauce). They were just giggling and having a marvelous time.
The kitchen was a disaster. But, I didn’t see the disaster until much later when the girls had moved on to another game in another room. At this moment, I was just watching them delight in each other’s company. And I felt joy.
I got the kitchen cleaned (for those of you who can’t let thoughts like that go). But I think about how wonderful those moments are as children…and how we need to remember to continue having those moments as adults. How sometimes getting out of your regular routine and just sitting on the floor with a pot of sticky rice, basking in the presence of your loved ones, is the best thing to do.

Gigli – A New Hit From Hollywood

08/01/2003

Gigli is the new hot movie opening this weekend. I hear it’s supposed to be a great box office smash. The critics are raving over this one. Here are a few of the things they’ve said:
1.  “I had a brief thought that the mundane inanity might be some Samuel Beckett-style commentary on the existential void. Then I realized that watching the movie put me closer to the existential void than they ever were.”
2. “Such an utter wreck of a movie you expect to see it lying on its side somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, with a small gang of engineers circling and a wisp of smoke rising from the caboose.”
3.  “The movie is pretty much as bad as you’ve heard, a tangle of badness so thick it’s hard to hack your way through and find the good idea that made writer/director Martin Brest think this was a story worth telling.”
4. “A recent episode of South Park suggested that a fourth-grader’s hand puppet could turn in a better performance than Ms. Lopez, and in the case of Gigli, it’s hard to argue.”
5. “I am giving Gigli one star and that is only because of Walken: if Brest were smart, when the film hits DVD, he should only release that scene and stick the rest in the deleted scenes section.”
6.  “An inert, toneless clunker… with the stars generating almost as much heat as Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley did in their public makeout sessions.”
7. “This is the first time I’ve ever attended a screening where the audience was screaming the word ‘edit!'”
8.  “Gigli is so horrible I had to go cleanse my palate afterward by watching Glitter.”
9. “The vow Jen and Ben should exchange is to promise to never step foot in front of a movie camera together again as long as they both shall live.”
10. “Jennifer Lopez plays a lesbian in Gigli, and Ben Affleck plays a heterosexual man, which means they have one thing in common: Both of them are in a crummy movie.”
11. “It’s a sorry statement, when the actor that has the most subtle performance is the kid with Tourette’s.”
12.  “Gigli rhymes with “really.” As in “really bad,” or “really offensive,” or “really wish I’d remembered my gun so I could just shoot myself now and end the misery.””
13. “Every generation gets the celebrities they deserve, but what have we done to deserve Gigli?”
14. “Gigli is so unrelentingly bad that people may want to see it just as a bonding experience; viewers (read: victims) will want to talk and comfort each other afterwards.”
15. “It makes Mariah Carey’s Glitter look like Citizen Kane.”
Funny thing is…I’m considering seeing Gigli just so I can be in on the crowd that can sit around and endlessly bash it. I want to think of clever satirical statements. Some of the critics even said that this movie is so bad that it’s funny. Maybe it will do well at the box-office because people really want to know what “bad” is. Something to determine the other end of the spectrum.
So, just for fun…I want to hear what your favorite Gigli bashes are. You can vote from the ones above or make up your own. Add it to the comments link below. I like the Citizen Kane one (#15). I think that one’s a seriously low blow. I bet the critic thought it out and saved it for many years… wanting to give it to the most awful movie ever. Congratulations Gigli. You’ve earned the best critic bash. Ever.

Tech Museum of Boring

07/31/2003

Today Alex and I went to the Tech Museum for fun and learning. Overall, I’ve found that museums like this are usually kind of boring, especially because some of the “experiments” they have to show things are completely unlike the real thing. For example, one exhibit attempted to teach how ultrasound can be used to destroy a kidney stone. For the exhibit you take this kidney stone & put it together, then hit it with a ball. Wow. Doesn’t that show you how ultrasound works? Isn’t that genius? I know if I had a kidney stone, I’d just want someone to throw a ball at me. That really helped me to understand ultrasound. So, basically, most of the exhibits were a bit of the stretch for the imagination.
On a lighter note, we did get to create our own website. It’s hokey, but we used the Tech’s templates and it is Alex’s first. Maybe next year I’ll teach her HTML. (Note: This website will only be hosted by the Tech for 3 months, after that it’s gone.)
Oh, and I also got to ride a Segway. IN YOUR FACE JOSH!!! It was neat, but slow. They only let me use the 6 miles per hour key. Not the 12.5 miles per hour one which, according to the museum lady, was too “zippy” for me.
I also got to see the Imax movie The Great Coral Reef Adventure. Well, kind of. Alex freaked out so we watched it from outside the door (which kind of ruined the whole Imax experience). She said the movie made here “feel like she was moving.” Apparently, it’s scary to move when you’re a seven-year-old. But, I’m forgiving, and it was kind of interesting to sit outside and still watch a sliver of the screen. She sat on my lap, causing my leg to fall asleep so I walked around strange for awhile. I hate it when you can’t actually feel your foot make contact with the ground.
So…that was my day. How was yours?

The Hours, Discussion

07/31/2003

I just finished reading The Hours by Michael Cunningham. It was one of the better books I’ve read in a long time. It was beautifully written and definitely deserving of the Pulitzer Prize it received.
To engage in discussion about the book, or to rant about related topics…click on the comments button below. Feel free to also post any questions you’d like for discussion.
The next book I’m reading is Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. If you’d like to read that one too, we could have some friendly discussion on it in a few weeks! (It usually takes me about three weeks or so to read a novel).

I Hate That Feeling

07/30/2003

I hate that feeling when you can’t tell if you’re sick or just really lazy. For the past several days I’ve felt feverish, cold, and very tired all the time. I’m getting an average amount (maybe slightly under) of rest. I’m keeping active (swimming almost daily, running around with a 7 year-old, etc.). I just feel tired all the time. No, it’s not mono. But then I wondered if maybe I wasn’t just lazy. Or crazy. Or lazy-crazy.
Can I get a prescription for that?

The Neighbors’ Cats

07/29/2003

The girl that I nanny for has a neighbor with three cats. The funny thing is that I’ve never seen them over at the neighbors’ house. They’re always laying on the step to greet me when I come in, laying behind the house when we go out to jump rope, and laying everywhere…just not at their actual house. Alex insists that it’s because they have a “big mean dog” (whom I also have not seen).
The funny thing about these cats is that I think their life revolves around trying to get inside of this house. Which means that part of my job is to keep them out. If any window, door, or random crevice is left open, you can bet the cats will dart for it and enter any way they can.
A few moments ago I was sitting here and looked up to see two cats casually walking across the living room as if this is their home and they’re just chilling out. I thought something was odd about it, but I couldn’t think of what. Then I remembered that they’re not allowed in here, so I chased them out. Turns out they had gotten in through an old dog door (the lid had been pushed off).
There have been times that I open the front door to go somewhere (seeing no cats in sight), turn to say something to Alex, then realize that they have snuck in under my feet. What do these cats think they’re going to find in this house???? Maybe they have hidden treasure.
Seriously, it’s crazy. Or maybe I am. I’m starting to see them and flinch at moving shadows and stuff. The paranoia of a cat-free house has set in. Now everything looks like a cat…the couch, the Barbie dolls, Cheerios…cats (they look like cats too). I have always liked cats, but now I think I’m going to start having horrible nightmares about them being evil and sinister and sneaky. I underestimated their sneakiness.

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