balderdash (is what she writes when she's got nothin' else)

it seems that not only are the verification words more word-like, they're getting more poetic as well. my definitions, however, not so much.

catmodea - small matted furballs left around the house by the cat after she grooms herself.

sliftemi - the taste left in your mouth after licking an envelope or a stamp.

unbrines - the last little sad pickles left in the jar and pushed to the back of the refrigerator, only to eventually be thrown out.

secueds - linguistic term for mild versions of swear words adapted from ones that had a religious origin. e.g. "cheese and rice" instead of "jesus christ" and "oh my goodness" instead of "oh my god."

keddlip - that sad little quivering lip sported by disappointed children. from the danish root "ked af det" (to be sad about something).

complue - low-level administrator who unwittingly helps a shady businessman commit his white collar crimes. not important enough to be an accomplice.

ementar - the weepy, slightly thick moisture that collects in the plastic on cheese that's been in the fridge for too long.

sphectum - an instrument for measuring quantities of phlegm. (not that i know why anyone would want to do that).

matracc - to become entangled in office politics.

pernies - people who take home food from a buffet.

wigimper - one who repairs wigs.

pholoof - an expression of relief to still be alive upon completion of a marathon or triathlon. (as if i'd know.)

dribloa - a pitcher that doesn't quite pour right, but always dribbles on the tablecloth.

crilec - a person with a chronic injury caused by excessive use of a hand-held electronic device. as in: "she used her iPhone constantly and now she's a total crilec."

cheedi - young people gathered on a quiet residential street smoking and setting off firecrackers when they should be in school. i was lucky enough to get a photo of some cheedi yesterday:

just far too many hairballs and stuff lurking in the back of the refrigerator to be poetic this time.

kabul safer than wal-mart

dang. for the second time in a week or so, i'm reading about deaths at wal-mart. i knew that wal-mart was evil, but this is getting ridiculous. employees, who are already not treated well by their employer, are trampled to death as they open the doors. and now there's talk of other employees who tackle poor shoplifters (who are probably desperate, sad people in the first place) and kill them.

when i was in college, i went to wal-mart. i liked that they were open 24 hours. you could go there at 1 a.m. to buy your cleaning products and avoid all the freaky crowds. tho' you didn't really avoid the freaks, since that's when they were there, wandering the aisles, muttering to themselves and gesturing wildly. still, that's when i chose to go. something about breathing in the chemical smell and the reassuring whirr of the floor polisher just had its appeal.

but, then somewhere along the way i read barbara ehrenreich's book nickle and dimed: on not getting by in america and i decided not to go to wal-mart anymore. and i haven't set foot in one since 2003. of course, it helps that where i live there aren't any, but even when i'm in the US i avoid them. and my dad, who just turned 75 yesterday, has NEVER set foot in one. i'm so proud of him for that. of course, it didn't help my resolve that i spent a number of years working for the world's largest container shipping company and that wal-mart was a major customer (they had a whole fleet of key account managers hanging out in arkansas). however, i had no direct association.

but this latest rash of madness and mayhem at wal-mart further reinforces it for me. i'll definitely not be setting foot in one again now, i don't care how bad this financial crisis gets. i'll just make do with less cleaning products. and i'm sure with the economic slowdown, it's only going to get worse for wal-mart workers--kept on part-time hours so the company can avoid paying benefits, paying only minimum wage, all so we can get the jumbo pack of paper towels for $1.99. and we can see how much they care about the safety of their customers. no thank you. i'd rather walk through downtown kabul. which is probably actually safer these days.

scanned 120s

because i'm having a bit of trouble getting my scanned photos to move anywhere (like from iPhoto to the flickr uploader or from my desktop into lightroom), i decided to see if i could upload them here. strangely, i can. so here are two of the first roll from my wonderful rolleiflex camera, for your viewing pleasure...

yes, that is a superman cow. 

and yes, i must have had the negative in the scanner backwards b/c his "S" is backwards (or is it her?).

i will get better at this, i promise.

late afternoon sunshine over the north sea.

one day on boracay

quasi-WTF:  tiny little sailboat with a swedish flag, seen off boracay, philippines november 2008.

vegging in the sun, pondering whether i would regret not having any sunscreen (i would) and whether we could order beverages on the beach (we could). a young man sat down nearby and began a friendly chat. we'd been approached many times before this...fruit, ma'am? massage, ma'am? island hopping? perhaps a little peace wouldn't hurt, i thought. and so i wasn't particularly open to the admittedly harmless-seeming young man.

he asked our names and where we were from. i glanced around to see if he had buddies that would grab our stuff (the only things of value i had were my nikon and my new havianas) while he distracted us. he didn't seem to. he was thin to the point of being a bit frail-looking, but very sweet and smiling. he said he was a student.  when i asked what he was studying he said, "the word of god." oh boy, here we go, i thought. we chatted on and he seemed to want us to come to a service at his church (7th day adventist), but he didn't really push it very hard, just indicated that it would sure make him and god happy.

he used his fervent belief to justify his poverty, saying repeatedly that he was poor, but happy because he had god. and in all honesty, he really did seem happy. he was taking a week off from his college to visit a friend who had a place on the island. it was his first trip there. he wasn't wearing shoes, but his white shirt was crisp and clean. in the end, we gave him what remained of our fruit (we had gone for the "fruit, ma'am" lady). he didn't eat it in front of us, but was effusively grateful.

he said he hoped to see us in heaven. i remarked that i hoped it wasn't anytime soon, since i thought we should all have quite long lives first. he confidently and cheerfully said that oh, no, he was sure it would be quite soon. on that note, we decided we'd had enough sun for the day. i'd just really hate to show up at the pearly gates with a sunburn.

what i did this weekend

we realized this weekend that we now have more than 200m2 of house to use, but we spent most of it huddled together inside of about 6 of those square meters, which happen not to have electricity yet (electrician coming on thursday), making stuff by candlelight. paintings, a christmas banner (not finished yet, as my fellow crafters sort of drifted away on me), several pillows and a christmas french press cozy (for which i say a heartfelt thank you to melissa at tiny happy for her awesome tutorial).

i also spent quite a lot of time looking for my card reader so i could download pictures, but finally found it in the Wiimote basket (it has a cord on it after all, so someone threw it in there) after looking for it for 24 hours and putting all of the swear words i know together in refreshing new ways. husband said it was good for me to have delayed gratification. that made him very popular, as you might imagine.

i spent all of sunday in my pajamas, which felt like mad luxury. i love days like that.

on saturday, i scored an old kodak six-20 brownie D at the flea market for under $10. then i spent more than an hour researching ways of using 120 film in it. it did come with one old 620 film spool inside of it, so it just might be possible. fun! and more importantly, it prompted me to start my drawings of the stuff i buy already now:

saturday's fajita dinner was made entirely of things we had in the house (except for some avocados (which is what that bottom picture above is supposed to be--i don't have the drawing thing down entirely quite yet), which were essential for the guacamole)--including leftover chicken from a chicken i baked the night before. i was rather proud of myself for this, tho' we still throw away far too much food in this house. i've been thinking about it since reading about the high costs of wasting food in mankind mag.

i made the painting above. did you do anything fun this weekend?

rumors and randomness

i love the huffington post, they have the coolest rumors out there. like this:

caroline kennedy could potentially take hillary clinton's senate post.

and the fact that oprah is strenuously claiming she's not angling for a white house appointment surely means she is.  what will she be?

and tho' not really rumor, have you read the latest bob cesca column?

photographic evidence that the 90s are back. (that's a relief for me because i never really left them.)

and last but not least, hot pix of our coming president.

* * *

do you think that the people on CSI obsessively use flashlights because they're always wearing sunglasses?

i want a hippopotamus

we're a regular craft production line this weekend..we're making a christmas banner and have painted nearly a dozen canvases of assorted sizes (7 by sabin alone!). i unfortunately cannot show any of this to you because someone has hidden my card reader and i can't get the pix off the camera at the moment. while we're working, we're listening to a christmas playlist that my sis made last year when she was here. one of the best ones that on that list is this:



i know it's a boring video, but the others i found on you tube were very distracting and i thought you should listen to 10-year-old gayla peevey's voice, rather than being distracted by cute and/or ugly/disturbing pictures of hippos.

i'll continue the search for my card reader....