26 July 2009
14 July 2009
07 July 2009
The Plight of the Single Woman
This past weekend, I visited some of my favorite paintings at the Tate Britain. One painting caught my eye this time around, Mariana by Sir John Everett Millais. The painting was originally exhibited with lines from Alfred Tennyson’s poem "Mariana":
She only said, ‘My life is dreary– He cometh not!’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary–I would that I were dead!’
Upon reflection, I can only say that things have not changed much for the Single Woman in the last century...
02 June 2009
Ugh...
What a complete disappointment. The ONLY good thing about international flights is the possibility to watch lots and lots of movies for free (and edited!). I just finished leg one of an international flight and the movie options were all TERRIBLE:
Bride Wars (anyone for 90 minutes of women turning into sterotypical #@%es?)
Inkheart (who names the main character Mo "Silvertongue" Folchart?)
The Reader (how depressing can one movie possibly be?)
New in Town (everything funny was in the preview)
Coraline (creepy creepy animation and you can't convince me otherwise)
I did watch New in Town, but not even Harry Connick, Jr. could save it. What a waste of a flight - I actually had to try and sleep.
Here's to hoping for something decent on the way home.
Bride Wars (anyone for 90 minutes of women turning into sterotypical #@%es?)
Inkheart (who names the main character Mo "Silvertongue" Folchart?)
The Reader (how depressing can one movie possibly be?)
New in Town (everything funny was in the preview)
Coraline (creepy creepy animation and you can't convince me otherwise)
I did watch New in Town, but not even Harry Connick, Jr. could save it. What a waste of a flight - I actually had to try and sleep.
Here's to hoping for something decent on the way home.
13 April 2009
VINDICATION!
Ha. When I picked up my first Cadbury Creme Egg of the season, I knew something was up - it definitely felt lighter.
Now thanks to BJ Novak, Conan, and my good friend Jackie, the truth is out...
Now thanks to BJ Novak, Conan, and my good friend Jackie, the truth is out...
11 March 2009
Two Flights, Thirty Hours, Ten Movies
So, over the course of the flights to and from Asia, I watched eleven movies. If I had to sort them:
Good: The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Action Packed: Eagle Eye, Quantum of Solace
Guilty Pleasure: Australia
Wierdly Fulfilling: Henry Poole Is Here
Meh: Twilight, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Wish the sex didn't ruin it: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Ignore the enticings of the beautiful people on the screen: Vicky Christina Barcelona
Avoid like the plague: Annie Hall
Good: The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Action Packed: Eagle Eye, Quantum of Solace
Guilty Pleasure: Australia
Wierdly Fulfilling: Henry Poole Is Here
Meh: Twilight, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Wish the sex didn't ruin it: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Ignore the enticings of the beautiful people on the screen: Vicky Christina Barcelona
Avoid like the plague: Annie Hall
15 February 2009
NICMO?
Today, we had a munch and mingle after church - someone had brought homemade sugar cookies with Valentine's messages written on them in frosting.
They were pretty standard - "Call Me," "Luv Ya," etc. One of them had us scratching our heads, though. It had "NICMO" written on it. Now, the assumption we made was that this was a variation on "NCMO" (non-committal make-out) which begged the question as to what, exactly, the "I" would stand for?
These were some of the suggested interpretations:
Non-Immersed Commital Make-Out
Non-Interested Commital Make-Out
Not Interested in a Commital Make-Out
My favorite, though:
Non-Intentional CRAZY Make-Out
I can't wait for my own NICMO...
They were pretty standard - "Call Me," "Luv Ya," etc. One of them had us scratching our heads, though. It had "NICMO" written on it. Now, the assumption we made was that this was a variation on "NCMO" (non-committal make-out) which begged the question as to what, exactly, the "I" would stand for?
These were some of the suggested interpretations:
Non-Immersed Commital Make-Out
Non-Interested Commital Make-Out
Not Interested in a Commital Make-Out
My favorite, though:
Non-Intentional CRAZY Make-Out
I can't wait for my own NICMO...
06 February 2009
Mmmm...Cadbury...
Technically, I saw the first Cadbury Eggs of the season three weeks ago at a Sheetz gas station on Route 29. But, since I don't go to Monticello every weekend, and even I can't justify driving 68 minutes for chocolate cream-filled deliciousness, I had resigned myself to waiting until after Valentine's Day to eat another one.
Imagine my surprise when I saw them at Giant's today...I almost cried at their appearance a whole week earlier than expected. Since I am not giving up chocolate for Lent this year, I promptly bought four of them. I ate one on the way home but almost choked on the shell when I glanced at the receipt and saw I had paid a dollar per egg.
I can't quite give them up, even at that steep price. So, I am now rationing them and hoping that prices fall as Easter gets closer.
On a related note - I would like to query my fellow Cadbury Egg lovers - is it just me or have the eggs shrunk since last year? They feel significantly less hefty in the hand AND what I used to have to eat in three bites now takes only two. One if I open my mouth really wide. Maybe the recession has hit the Cadbury Chocolate company? Raising prices and shrinking the product, hoping we don't notice in our frenzy to purchase during the limited time the product is available??
Imagine my surprise when I saw them at Giant's today...I almost cried at their appearance a whole week earlier than expected. Since I am not giving up chocolate for Lent this year, I promptly bought four of them. I ate one on the way home but almost choked on the shell when I glanced at the receipt and saw I had paid a dollar per egg.
I can't quite give them up, even at that steep price. So, I am now rationing them and hoping that prices fall as Easter gets closer.
On a related note - I would like to query my fellow Cadbury Egg lovers - is it just me or have the eggs shrunk since last year? They feel significantly less hefty in the hand AND what I used to have to eat in three bites now takes only two. One if I open my mouth really wide. Maybe the recession has hit the Cadbury Chocolate company? Raising prices and shrinking the product, hoping we don't notice in our frenzy to purchase during the limited time the product is available??
20 January 2009
Let! Us! In!
Yesterday afternoon, Rachel managed to beg/borrow/steal two Inauguration Ceremony tickets in the "Purple Section." O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
We came out of the metro this morning to total chaos. Crowds of people milling around, no signs anywhere, people hawking everything from t-shirts to laminated calendars, and not a red-hatted volunteer or policeman in sight. After walking aaaaaaall the way through the D Street/New York Ave exit tunnel for 395, we found the end of the line for purple ticket holders where we waited. And waited. And waited some more.
It became clear, after 45 minutes, that waiting our turn was going to be a losing strategy. So, we developed a new strategy - Rachel would walk ahead and blend into the line. Then I would follow, after a discreet waiting period. Some people might call it "cutting" (and we witnessed several public sessions of booing from other crowd members to try and shame "cutters"). We just called it "getting onto the Mall to see the Inauguration."
Coming out of the tunnel at 10:53 AM, we found all kinds of rumors flying around. The security machines are broken! They've closed all the gates!! The Mall has been taken over by aliens!!! We just carried on.
30 yards away from the Purple Gate, we found ourselves stuck again. Close, but there were still about a thousand people in front of us with only 17 minutes to go. We were literally inching our way forward, en masse, as all thousand of us tried to squeeze through a gate only five feet wide. The closer we got to the gate, the closer we got to our fellow crowd members. At one point, unable to reach my pocket for a kleenex, I was tempted to wipe my nose on the coat of my newest best friend, standing just a few centimeters in front of me.
A lady with a bullhorn started periodically shouting "Purple tickets only - all others please leave" at which point everyone in the crowd would begin waving their tickets, chanting "Purple Tickets! Purple Tickets!"
As it inched closer to 11:30 AM, the cutoff point for getting onto the Mall, the crowd began to turn ugly - people were shouting "Let Us In! Let Us In!" The lady with the bullhorn threatened to close the gates, people started shouting "No Pushing!" And then suddenly, after an impossibly tight squeeze, we were through.
After fighting through the crowd, jumping a fence to get to the South Capital lawn seemed a small price to pay for an unobstructed view. We were in place just in time for the opening prayer.
We came out of the metro this morning to total chaos. Crowds of people milling around, no signs anywhere, people hawking everything from t-shirts to laminated calendars, and not a red-hatted volunteer or policeman in sight. After walking aaaaaaall the way through the D Street/New York Ave exit tunnel for 395, we found the end of the line for purple ticket holders where we waited. And waited. And waited some more.
It became clear, after 45 minutes, that waiting our turn was going to be a losing strategy. So, we developed a new strategy - Rachel would walk ahead and blend into the line. Then I would follow, after a discreet waiting period. Some people might call it "cutting" (and we witnessed several public sessions of booing from other crowd members to try and shame "cutters"). We just called it "getting onto the Mall to see the Inauguration."
Coming out of the tunnel at 10:53 AM, we found all kinds of rumors flying around. The security machines are broken! They've closed all the gates!! The Mall has been taken over by aliens!!! We just carried on.
30 yards away from the Purple Gate, we found ourselves stuck again. Close, but there were still about a thousand people in front of us with only 17 minutes to go. We were literally inching our way forward, en masse, as all thousand of us tried to squeeze through a gate only five feet wide. The closer we got to the gate, the closer we got to our fellow crowd members. At one point, unable to reach my pocket for a kleenex, I was tempted to wipe my nose on the coat of my newest best friend, standing just a few centimeters in front of me.
A lady with a bullhorn started periodically shouting "Purple tickets only - all others please leave" at which point everyone in the crowd would begin waving their tickets, chanting "Purple Tickets! Purple Tickets!"
As it inched closer to 11:30 AM, the cutoff point for getting onto the Mall, the crowd began to turn ugly - people were shouting "Let Us In! Let Us In!" The lady with the bullhorn threatened to close the gates, people started shouting "No Pushing!" And then suddenly, after an impossibly tight squeeze, we were through.
After fighting through the crowd, jumping a fence to get to the South Capital lawn seemed a small price to pay for an unobstructed view. We were in place just in time for the opening prayer.
The Department of Homeland Security got $17 million for planning the Inauguration's security arrangements. We're going to put in a bid to the US Government to do the next one for $10 million...we'll save the USG $7 million and save everyone who attends hours of waiting and having to shout "Hey! What would Obama do?!"
17 January 2009
Mayhem, Part II
Apparently chocolate dipped dry-roasted crickets are quite crunchy and fall into "parts" in your mouth when chewed and not swallowed whole. The legs, in particular, tend to hang around for several minutes, mostly between your teeth.
11 January 2009
Thornyhold by Mary Stewart
I just finished "Thornyhold" by Mary Stewart. If you paid any attention to my reading list last year, you'll have noticed that maybe a fourth of the books were Mary Stewart books. I can't quite put my finger on why I love this author but I am so eternally in debt to my roommate, Sarah, for introducing her to me.
Although the fact that the love interests usually say things like "my dear girl" before they take the protagonists into their arms for a kiss is a good start, I think that my real love for these books comes from their utter predictability.
I pick them up knowing that there will be a plucky young heroine. She will start out on a vacation/begin a new job/move to a new town, sometimes accompanied by a friend/female relative to provide support and comic relief. There she will meet a stranger who is rude to her. This man will turn out to be her employer/the next door neighbor/ex-boyfriend/husband-disguised-as-a-spy who is ruggedly handsome, with tanned and calloused hands but an educated sensibility. Together, they will embark on a dangerous mission, usually to solve or prevent a murder. Helping them on this mission will be an especially precocious youngster and a cat or dog (or both). Most times, a slatternly woman will get in the way of their obvious but unspoken and growing love. In the end, all misunderstandings will be swept away when the stranger saves the plucky young heroine from certain death, takes her into his arms, and gives her a kiss that stops time.
I remember when I was a teenage, I used to pray every night that I would be graced with a vision of my future husband. Just his face, I would ask, even just a glimpse. Then I could sit back and relax until I was introduced to that face and I would know - he's the one! Suspense has always killed me and to not know what my life would be in five years, ten years, forty years or who I would be sharing it with seemed unbearable.
But these books? I know exactly what will happen...the details change a bit, but the outcome never does. Everything is happily ever after, riding off into the sunset, satisfactorily resolved.
So, until my fervent prayers of youth are answered and my dreams send me a vision of my future, I will continue to turn to Mary Stewart for predictable comfort. On that note, 'Madam, Will You Talk?" is calling so I'm off to find out what will happen to Charity Selbourne, an extravagantly lovely war widow, and her amusing, irreverent artist friend, Louise Cray, when they arrive in the South of France expecting a conventional holiday only to encounter a young man of thirteen who is having trouble with his dog and holds a terrible maturity behind his grave eyes.*
*FYI - that last bit is an almost verbatim quote from the flyleaf of the book and I swear I didn't read it before writing the above commentary on why I love Mary Stewart.
Although the fact that the love interests usually say things like "my dear girl" before they take the protagonists into their arms for a kiss is a good start, I think that my real love for these books comes from their utter predictability.
I pick them up knowing that there will be a plucky young heroine. She will start out on a vacation/begin a new job/move to a new town, sometimes accompanied by a friend/female relative to provide support and comic relief. There she will meet a stranger who is rude to her. This man will turn out to be her employer/the next door neighbor/ex-boyfriend/husband-disguised-as-a-spy who is ruggedly handsome, with tanned and calloused hands but an educated sensibility. Together, they will embark on a dangerous mission, usually to solve or prevent a murder. Helping them on this mission will be an especially precocious youngster and a cat or dog (or both). Most times, a slatternly woman will get in the way of their obvious but unspoken and growing love. In the end, all misunderstandings will be swept away when the stranger saves the plucky young heroine from certain death, takes her into his arms, and gives her a kiss that stops time.
I remember when I was a teenage, I used to pray every night that I would be graced with a vision of my future husband. Just his face, I would ask, even just a glimpse. Then I could sit back and relax until I was introduced to that face and I would know - he's the one! Suspense has always killed me and to not know what my life would be in five years, ten years, forty years or who I would be sharing it with seemed unbearable.
But these books? I know exactly what will happen...the details change a bit, but the outcome never does. Everything is happily ever after, riding off into the sunset, satisfactorily resolved.
So, until my fervent prayers of youth are answered and my dreams send me a vision of my future, I will continue to turn to Mary Stewart for predictable comfort. On that note, 'Madam, Will You Talk?" is calling so I'm off to find out what will happen to Charity Selbourne, an extravagantly lovely war widow, and her amusing, irreverent artist friend, Louise Cray, when they arrive in the South of France expecting a conventional holiday only to encounter a young man of thirteen who is having trouble with his dog and holds a terrible maturity behind his grave eyes.*
*FYI - that last bit is an almost verbatim quote from the flyleaf of the book and I swear I didn't read it before writing the above commentary on why I love Mary Stewart.
05 January 2009
"The Road from Coorain" by Jill Ker Conway
I finished "The Road from Coorain" while in the air, en route from spending Christmas in Pocatello, Idaho. As a brief synopsis, the book details the life of the authoress as she moves from a sheep ranch in the Australian bush to Sydney and on to Harvard.
It started out promising. Detailed descriptions of her parent's carving out a life in the wilds of Australia, building a house, raising, shearing and culling herds of sheep numbering in the tens of thousands, and trying to raise children that matched up to the ideal of colonial Britain.
When her father dies in an accident on the farm, her mother takes her from the bush to Sydney and enrolls her in a private school. She lets the reader into her private struggles to adjust to life with a mother eaten up by grief and frustration at the passive role society has assigned her, to the crowds and noise of the city, to peers who's worries revolved around fashion and boys.
The book started to lose me, however, in the last few chapters. As the authoress entered college and embarked on a path that would eventually take her from her beloved Australia. Here, it was almost like the historian in her took over - the text became removed, the language stilted. An 18-month-long passionate romance was glossed over in a few paragraphs. Her four year college career lasted a few pages. It reminded me of my journal when I am catching up months after the fact - all summary and none of the visceral emotion of the moment.
Despite the disappointment of the final few chapters, I loved the book. It opened a window into a time and place I will never experience. It made me want to get into a truck and drive on dusty roads. I finished wanting to spend an afternoon watching lambs frolicking in the bush. Thanks Emily - it was a great Christmas present!
It started out promising. Detailed descriptions of her parent's carving out a life in the wilds of Australia, building a house, raising, shearing and culling herds of sheep numbering in the tens of thousands, and trying to raise children that matched up to the ideal of colonial Britain.
When her father dies in an accident on the farm, her mother takes her from the bush to Sydney and enrolls her in a private school. She lets the reader into her private struggles to adjust to life with a mother eaten up by grief and frustration at the passive role society has assigned her, to the crowds and noise of the city, to peers who's worries revolved around fashion and boys.
The book started to lose me, however, in the last few chapters. As the authoress entered college and embarked on a path that would eventually take her from her beloved Australia. Here, it was almost like the historian in her took over - the text became removed, the language stilted. An 18-month-long passionate romance was glossed over in a few paragraphs. Her four year college career lasted a few pages. It reminded me of my journal when I am catching up months after the fact - all summary and none of the visceral emotion of the moment.
Despite the disappointment of the final few chapters, I loved the book. It opened a window into a time and place I will never experience. It made me want to get into a truck and drive on dusty roads. I finished wanting to spend an afternoon watching lambs frolicking in the bush. Thanks Emily - it was a great Christmas present!
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