Cold Spaghetti

I’m researching thermostatic valves and fixtures for the bathroom (we’ve got to be able to get them cheaper than the crack-smoking local supplier!) and I decided to put the ‘tube on actual live TV on the background, something we do only when staying in hotels. The guide showed that South Pacific was on, and while it’s not my most favorite musical, (I prefer the actors from the original stage recording) it does have some of the finest music of any musical, so I put it on.

But what is this??? It’s a television re-make with Harry Connick, Jr. (as Joe… sort of believable, but yet unbelievable that they managed to make a man so naturally pretty look so damn awful on screen) and Glenn Close. As Nellie. Seriously, Glenn Close! It’s not the age that bothers me… it’s that she’s not acting her age. She’s dumbed the part down as if she’s “acting” young and it comes across as totally stupid. Just change a few words and add a few pounds to Honey Bun and work with it. But Bali Ha’i? They cut it in half. And Some Enchanted Evening? One of the most beautiful songs of the American Theatre? Utterly destroyed. As painful as that Kristi Lee country-take on Lennon/McCartney on American Idol. In a world with so many wonderful tenors, I have no idea why they didn’t cast an Emile who could sing the part.

Some things are just sacred, people, and the MUSIC is what is sacred about South Pacific. The plot? No way, baby, have a field day. I’ve always hated that Joe gets killed (if not, he may recognize his idiocy and marry poor Liat, whose role is just to be used and abused, ’cause a white guy can’t marry a woman of color, can he? That alone is good enough reason to NOT use the original plot in this day and age.) So change that end. Let Joe live, play up an aged Nellie if you want to go that way (something I like, in theory), and have a big wedding at the end with Bloody Mary throwing the party!

The IRB head-honcho (note: not his official title) sent email notification that my dissertation has been granted Full Board Approval (meaning the recently received consent form changes were accepted), as of TODAY. The Official Letter will be ready for me to pick up in their office next week.

Green light! GO!!

Um…. could someone please remind me what comes next?

25 years ago: “Wow. Those big kids are SO COOL.”

15 years ago: “Like, do you need a keyboardist?”

5 years ago: “Look, Honey! Remember when we were all funky and offbeat and alternative?”

Today: “Wow. Do you think our kids will be that plucky when they are teenagers?”

Two chains of traded snack day brought me to bringing snack tomorrow… the last school day of the week for the kids and the day of their hunt on the levee. Did you hear that the Rainbow Chicken lays eggs on the levee for kids to find? Yup, it’s no lie!

A few months ago, teachers and students sent home a pleading request that we parents step up our snack offerings beyond the cheese & cracker rut. Based on a sample of pure convenience, I have discovered that this request gave all of us parents Snack Anxiety. It’s a formidable threat to our sanity.

Paul and I have dealt with this by making blueberry crepes (Paul did this — and at one point, lifting the top of the blender up without the base and spilling crepe batter all over himself with one of our favorite cookbooks going out as a causality). I’ve been going the D-I-Y route with snacks… cream cheese on muffins with veggies and fruit cut up to decorate (clown faces! ladybug picnic!)

Now the challenge was Spring Theme.

Tomorrow’s snack offering: plastic eggs filled with yogurt raisins (current preschool fave), dried cranberries, goldfish, and banana chips. This is for the morning egg hunt… 2 eggs per kid with extras for teachers. Afternoon? Cream cheese sandwiches cut in spring shapes. I meant to shave carrots and have them be cream cheese and carrot sandwiches… but I ran out of steam. Instead, they’ll get served with a bag of carrots.

My Mom was worried about doing the halfway pick-up and drop-off tomorrow due to the ominous weather reports coming in. That, and her major organs were shutting down to accommodate the extra energy required to watch our kids. So, Paul drove us both out to Gulfport tonight to meet my Dad… who handed over the kids. They’re baaaack!

On Tuesday night, my Dad took Will to see the “Horton hears a Who” movie. (Paul: “You saw ‘Horton hires a H… nevermind.”) Upon entering the movie-plex, Will turns to my Dad and says, “OH, PapPap… I smell some DELICIOUS POPCORN in here!” Tricky little rascal, that one. So, Will tells us, he and PapPap watched the movie — with popcorn AND A SODA!! Will reminded us of both (the popcorn and THE SODA!!) once every 10 minutes during the entire ride home. The SODA was always discussed by Will in all caps.

Kate is covered in boo-boos which require band-aids. These are microscopic boo-boos, which no one else can see. But don’t try to tell her that she’s fine. She’ll say OWWWWEEEE over and over again until that band-aid is applied.

Will told us that he couldn’t brush his teeth tonight because he had been at Granna and PapPap’s for SO LONG that he didn’t remember WHERE the bathroom was in our house!! Luckily, Paul and I, senile as we’re getting, managed to remember for him.

Kate is talking more and more. In general we understand about half of what she says, mostly because almost half of her speech is the word “MY.” Examples from tonight include:
“My Bath” (The tub in Granna and PapPap’s bathroom)
“My Daddy’s Phone” (Paul’s cell phone)
“My Baby” (Her name for herself)
Kate slept in both nights at my parents’ house. She also went down to sleep easily and slept through the night.

She has never done any of the above in our home.

This just in…

Dear Holly,

Congratulations! You have been selected as a 2008-2009 New Orleans Schweitzer Fellow. We are looking forward to the contribution you will make to the community, your class of Fellows, and The Fellows for Life network.

Hooray!!!

I have been playing with the idea of getting a second camera body for awhile. Switching lenses all the time isn’t the easiest thing and after the secondary mirror incident a year ago and my Dad going through an Er99 with his 350D, I’ve been thinking more and more that I need a back-up. With the Peru trip coming up fast, it’s been on my mind more and more.

The dilemma: pay $200-300 to fix the secondary mirror on my 300D or buy another Canon body for about the same price?

Today, I bought a used 10D for $300. The shutter looks to have been actuated about 6000 times, so I figure I’ve got at least 10,000 more shots on it before mirror lock-up should even be a consideration. (Granted, it seems you can turn back the odometer, so to speak, but I don’t think this occurred based on the history described by the seller; the number reflected his story perfectly.) I’m psyched and geeked up and ready to go out loaded with two lenses ready and waiting!

Next toy: TRIPOD. Suggestions for a very light, compact, travel-friendly tripod welcome!

Today’s Growabrain had a link that caught my eye. I thought, could it be THAT Lake Worth? Yup. It was. What a pleasant surprise to find that I had found one more legacy of Babs through a popular blog

Thank you, Barbara, for continuing to remind me that investing in your local community is one of the most worthwhile and lasting gifts.

We met my Mom in Gulfport this morning and were back before noon. Paul instantly got to work on the house. (I worked on healing.)

Paul got the electrical lines ready for the A/Cs. Part of the renovation includes putting the units on the roof, on a platform Paul will build. You can see the wires he ran below. It was difficult to determine exactly what to run, as A/C installation information is difficult to find — the pros want you to hire them to do everything. Paul settled on 2-circuits with each one handling 40 amps, bumping it up from 30 amps in case we get a bigger unit. The big wire on the left is going up to the roof for the A/Cs… the wire on the right is for a smoke detector.

This is our future shower! It will be huge — 4×4. We’re going to do thermostatic valves and overhead European shower head (we’ve done this before and consider both a must). We are thinking of putting in some jets (we have incredible water capacity because each side of the double had their own 80-gallon tanks which were kept when the home was combined) — we’re not particularly interested in using jets often (think of the water waste — ugh!) but are thinking that it may be an extra touch to pay off later. I admit: it would certainly feel good on my back about now.
This is the shower bed. Rather than making a mud bed, Paul found this model online. It’s made to be solid and not have the leak problems of the mud bed… it’s ready to be laid and tiled over. It’s huge — 4×4.
The roof. Hopefully, he’ll get to do the second coat in the next week or so. You can see the work he did today here… trimmed out roof, vents, and A/C electrical boxes and supports with the hardie trim pieces. The electrical lines are done and ready!
More trim. The Hardieplank boards will be delivered tomorrow. Maybe he’ll start hanging this week? We have to decide on a paint color for the house, too. We are thinking of going ahead and painting the hardie and then re-doing the rest of the house piece by piece as we re-do the walls. So we may have a backwards New Orleans’ paint job… the BACK of the house will be redone instead of the front! We are thinking of a very very pale grey blue with white trim and dark dark dark blue black shutters. We’re between two white houses so we like the idea of a little color.

If you only read one blog post this week, let it be this one.