Unmitigated

Christmas, Snow, Books, Pictures, and Everything Else, Too.

These are some odds and ends floating around my head right now, accompanied by some recent pictures that defy neat categorization...

• I could easily have gotten all my Christmas wrapping done last night, but I copped out. Anyone out there with any idea WHY, please let me know.
• The annual Wayne County forfeiture/foreclosure list was published for three consecutive weeks, starting with the Sunday after Thanksgiving. As last year, it was over 120 pages long, and included more than 10,000 properties.
• I am nearly done reading David McCullough's John Adams, as well as Katherine Ashenburg's The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History. A dear friend has recommended and loaned to me her copy of Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice: Or On the Segregation of the Queen/A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, which I want to savor all on it's own, probably over this weekend.
• 
  This guy was making the most of the eaves on my neighbor's house, which were (sort of) sheltering the ground from the only heavy snowfall we've had so far. This is what the snowfall looked like from my window:

Back in October, when I participated in the pumpkin carving festival at Greenfield Village, I won a raffle prize, contributed by the village artisans. Here it is, dressed up a little for Christmas:

• Doesn't the vacuum cleaner make a lovely bokeh, along with the (then) undecorated Christmas tree? I would retake the shot, except I have managed to devour all of the jelly beans.
• One last shot, and I really must get off to work...

Merry Christmas, everyone, and I hope all are safe, healthy, happy, and warm.

 

 

Sketchbooks

My nieces, Abby and Annabelle, have been very interested in my sketchbook, so last night when I made a stop at the pharmacy/convenience store, I grabbed a couple of Crayola 40-page sketchbooks, and we have been discussing the rules of a sketchbook.

I mean, the fact that there are no rules.

Things one can do with a sketchbook according to Abby and Annabelle and me:

draw, color, write, journal, cut-and-paste pictures, add photos, make shapes, make lists, make pictures of your best friend, make smiley faces, make pictures of how you are feeling, write a letter, make calculations, write names so you can remember names of people who have moved that were your best friends, and many other things.

What would you add to a sketchbook?

 

3 Things That I am Stoked About

All of them unrelated, and in no particular order....

My new Freya Sport Bra from Her Room! It really works! Most sport bras are like wearing an ACE bandage wrapped around your chest. They may flatten out the wonder twins, but they don't prevent the painful bounce. This baby is built like a real bra, and secures the girls like never before! Yay! I learned about this from Jen on the Edge, who does her running on the hills of central Virginia. Thank the FSM the terrain here is flat...and I am not.

Next up, is the Moth Radio Hour, coming to a radio station near you! I got into the Moth because I have a  deep and abiding love for Mike Birbiglia (yo, Birbigs!) I can't get to New York to see his one-man-show, but I can hear his wonderful nerdy story-telling genius now on WDET (101.9FM) Monday thru Friday at 9 p.m. You can go here, to see if it's available near you.

And, I admit to saving the best for last, crow-girl Tera is having a contest. My evil, little heart does a pitter-pat when I see that Tera has put up a new post...because it usually has a new piece of graphic art for the Sketchbook Project posted. Even when she's not participating in that project, she has a marvelous collection of graphic art that I love, love, love. Right now she is hosting a contest looking for ideas for her sketchbook, and the winner gets something gorgeous!

 

Morning Musings

Isn't that a lame title for a post? It's just that I am sitting here, an hour before I need to leave for work, and I've read all my blogs for the day.

I tried to make a phone call to the insurance company, whose hours of phone availability start at 7:30 a.m. It is now 7:35, and the message says they are away from their desks for a meeting. The whole call center. All of them. I need to stop this now, because if someone else was whining like this, I'd be thinking, "Okay. Call back later. Problem solved, now please stop MOANING about it!"

Because I am such a good friend, that's why.

The day is looking rawther overcast so far, but I am okay with that. I find myself longing for some rainy, gray, autumn days. I long to wear sweaters and synthetics again.

Yesterday, at lunchtime, we went on a stroll through the village. We usually pick a building we'd like to see, something we've been reading about, or one we haven't seen in awhile, and stroll our nerdy selves out there to see. On the way back to the office after visiting the Mattocks House, which has a very sad story behind it, we saw a tent with some suffragettes making beautiful rosettes in royal purple, passing them out for those who wish to support the new-fangled idea of "Votes for Women." As members of the sisterhood, we each pinned one on, and went on our way.

One of the curators passed me in the hall, saw the rosette and asked, "Did you win a prize?"

Imagine the number of smart-a$$ retorts that flew through my mind in the time that it took me to say, "Oh, that?," and explain the story behind it.

It was a LOT. Dozens, I tell you.

Leave your favorite smart-a$$ retort in the comments...

Spin Cycle: Birthday and Anniversary Thoughts

That there button is a link to Sprite's Keeper, Spin Mistress of the Internet.

This coming Tuesday, the 10th of August, will be my 47th birthday and our 25th wedding anniversary. Silver, right?

A very long time ago, I worked in a Hallmark card shop. I was 19 years old, still deciding whether I gave a damn about school or not (turned out, not), and engaged to be married with no actual wedding date in sight. I fell under the spell of the greeting card. They were necessary for every occasion, even for non-occasions. I can remember re-stocking cards for silver and golden anniversaries, thinking that silver or gold anniversaries were for blue-hairs. 

At the time, I remember barely being able to visualize how old I would be at the turn of the century (36 or 37, depending on your interpretation of the first year of the new millennium), let alone whether I'd still be married after 25 years.

I knew that I was kind of young when we tied the knot, at least as compared to most of our friends, who were not yet heading down that path. I turned 22 that day, and Buddy had done so six weeks previous. In rebellion against tradition, and a bow to the fact that we were nearly penniless, I decided there would be no photographer, no band, no video, no DJ, no long white dress, no tux. Just a simple ceremony with friends and family, an informal buffet lunch, and a cake. Buddy had a best man, and I had a maid of honor (who was done up in total 80s splendor, blue eyeshadow and all). The wedding reception was held at an old stone farm house-turned-community center that we rented for $75 per hour, so we had to keep it to under 4 hours.

Here are some highlights of the day:

• It was 90 degrees outside, with nearly unbearable humidity.
• My brother used his video camera (VHS...the kind that you perched on your shoulder, because it was huge and heavy) to tape the wedding. Since it was on his shoulder for the ceremony, you can see the camera's picture gently move up and down as he breathes.
• Right as we took our first step down the aisle, my dad said, "You don't need to go to the bathroom, do you?" That's just the kind of cruel humor I was raised with. It explains a lot.
• My brother-in-law really knows how to cut a rug. He can clear a dance floor in 60 seconds with astonished onlookers.
• Some friends called Dominoes Pizza and had a delivery guy come in the hall hollering, "Pizza for Mary Wyatt!" My first thought was, "I didn't know Buddy had a cousin named Mary....oh...wait, that's me!"
• My darling new husband thought it would be funny to smash the cake into my face. And get it on the front of my dress.
• There wasn't enough food. Seriously. We had hired the mother of a friend, and told her we wanted lunch to be picnicky stuff...chicken wings, cold cuts, fruit, and potato salad-y stuff. And the caterer ran out of meat after about 3/4 of the people had been fed (we had invited 120, gotten RSVPs from 102, and 98 showed up...we asked the caterer to provide for 120 and they ran out after about 75-80). Thank goodness my sisters ran interference and didn't tell me or my mom until after the fact. My dad put a stop order on the check he gave the caterer, and left her a phone message saying he was going to only pay her 3/4 of the agreed total, since that was what she had provided. She got into a snit, and refused to even speak to him, so the inadequate food ended up being free.
• New husband and wife spent a significant portion of their wedding night at the State Theater on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, seeing REM live for the first time.
• The next day, we left for our honeymoon...in Cleveland. This was pretty much before Cleveland's rebirth of hipness, but there was a resort hotel there that I had always loved called the Aquamarine Lodge, and I wanted to go there.

Go visit Sprite's Keeper for more wedding spins.