friends

( Towards Kiyomizu )

I spent a very soggy Monday with

dementordelta, who braved traffic through flooded Virginia to get here. Sadly, because of the rain, we could not go see goslings or Great Falls or anything scenic, and I didn't feel like fighting with traffic being rerouted in the rain so we just went to the mall for lunch. But then we spent the rest of the afternoon watching hot men -- first Daniel Radcliffe in the deleted scenes and interviews for My Boy Jack (I must say that Kim Cattrall really impressed me in the latter; it's so nice to hear her talk about something other than Samantha, though she's the only thing I really loved about Sex and the City).

Then I wanted to show her Captain Jack on Doctor Who -- I still like his character better there than on Torchwood, though the latter grew on me last season -- so we watched "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances," followed by Jack's farewell and the Doctor's regeneration in "The Parting of the Ways." My children came home in the middle of this and insisted that we watch the Dalek army, too, so younger son could show off both his new stuffed Dalek and his remote control action figure. And then I had to show Delta "The Shakespeare Code," partly because of the Globe Theatre and the actor playing Shakespeare, partly for all the Harry Potter references. And she brought me seahorse socks, a penguin magnet and a fantastic book on Legendary Britain!

( Frying Pan Farm Park Piggies )

We had turkey burgers for dinner and I got four loads of laundry done over the course of the day, though none of them are folded yet. I also did some work on my bookshelves -- we have a new six-shelf bookcase down the basement for the books that have piled up on various tables, and I moved some stuff I never look at down the basement so I could move more art books and poetry upstairs. Every time local basements start flooding, I get the urge to move the heavy art books off lower basement shelves, even though we had to replace the rug and put in a sump pump not long after we moved in. At least the noisy drain cleaning of last week seems to have been well worthwhile: our cul-de-sac did not flood!

'Boston Legal' Gets Fifth Season!

[May. 12th, 2008|09:31 am]

This is sufficiently good news to warrant its own post. Reports suggest cast cuts are likely, but I don't care -- as long as Spader, Shatner and Bergen return, they can continue to play musical supporting cast. I'm not attached to any of this year's additions nearly as much as I was to Paul and Brad but I still love the show.

Also, since this is a gratuitous post of fannish joy, here are photos of the Daleks my mother-in-law knitted for my sons. It's an adaptation of the pattern formerly posted at Entropy House that seems to have disappeared.

( EXTERMIKNIT! )

Poem for Monday

[May. 12th, 2008|12:39 am]

[

Current Mood

sleepy

]

( The Hand )

I spent Mother's Day with my parents and in-laws, with my husband doing all the cooking and nearly all the cleaning, so it was a very nice day even though the weather was miserable! Paul made monkey bread and eggs benedict casserole and waffles for brunch, then w*e went to Brookside Gardens for the annual Wings of Fancy butterfly show, but the wait to get in was so long that we ended up just walking through the conservatory looking at the flowers and plants. Then we came home, played Mexican Train Dominoes and had dinner -- coq au vin, noodles, French bread, green beans, salad and derby pie. So I ate very well. *g* My mother got me Crocs (which I had told her I wanted); my immediate family had already given me my gift, a Nikon Speedlight, which I used to take family photos.

( Brookside Gardens Color )

We spent twenty minutes carrying defunct computer equipment from our basement out to my in-laws' truck in the pouring rain; there's a group of people in my father-in-law's church who takes old equipment and fixes it for kids who can't afford computers, and we had stuff down there dating back to a Mac Color Classic. So I got very wet and spent the rest of the evening sitting around in sweats watching Evan Almighty on HBO, because that is a totally entertaining movie with lots of animals that shows corrupt politicians the error of their ways, and really, how often do movies about God do that without turning all repulsive like The Ten Commandments. That would be a much better movie if the plagues were things like elephants blocking the overseers from tormenting the slaves and Pharaoh distracted by penguins swimming in the Nile.

Poem for Sunday

[May. 11th, 2008|12:24 am]

( Dead )

Not having had enough of sheep last weekend (because how could anyone have enough of sheep, really), we went Saturday once the rain stopped to Frying Pan Farm Park's Sheep and Wool Day, where we got to see all the animals at Kidwell Farm -- a 1920s dairy farm, with alpacas, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, horses, and of course sheep and cows -- plus the blacksmith shop and country store on the premises that sells fresh eggs and cleaned wool from the farm. There were crafts -- I made a lanyard weaving loops of fluffy yarn over my fingers -- and sheep shearing all afternoon, plus a chance to visit with and pet this year's lambs. It wasn't very crowded in the craft tent, where people were demonstrating dyeing, carding, spinning and knitting, and the weather was gorgeous, mostly overcast and not too chilly. Some baby animals for Mother's Day:

( Frying Pan Farm Park Sheep & Wool Day )

Adam was being amusing this morning and asked what if Daisy's name wasn't really Daisy -- the people we adopted her from told us that it was, but what if they were wrong? So I was quoting Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats to him about the naming of cats, and we ended up deciding that we should subject our children to the DVD of the London staging of Cats whose date I have been unable to ascertain but it must have been the 1990s; it has Elaine Paige, the original Grizabella, and Ken Page, who played Old Deuteronomy on Broadway, and John Mills, who was not the original Gus but is probably better known than anyone who did. I haven't watched any version of Cats in a decade -- since before I had cats or saw the Russell Hotel! -- and it was enormous fun.

Happy Mother's Day, if you are a mother or have a mother or know a mother...I will be with my mother and mother-in-law, meaning my husband has been put in charge of the festivities! *g*

Poem for Saturday

[May. 10th, 2008|12:47 am]

( Self-Portrait )

I was going to have lunch with

cidercupcakes, but it was rainy and miserable all morning and she had to work in the afternoon, so we decided to postpone a week. I expect to be well-fed for Mother's Day, and we had dinner with my parents (barbecue chicken, mini potato knishes) so it's probably just as well if I did not eat out again! I wrote a review of "The Vengeance Factor", the episode I did not remember at all, and howled and cheered at Katha Pollitt on Backlash Spectacular!

fridayfiver: ( Buy Me Flowers )

thefridayfive: ( Meaning of Life )

fannish5: ( Rereading & Rewatching )

( Maryland Zoo Animals )

Friday night TV was wonderful -- I was going to watch Battlestar Galactica no matter what because of Nana Visitor, but I actually enjoyed the episode more than the last, oh, twenty or so, even if it's no Sarah Jane Adventures. The second part of "Warriors of Kudlak" did such a lovely job paying tribute to Star Trek, too. ( Spoilers. ) I'd seen "Planet of the Ood" before so I had the annoying experience again of noticing cuts, but that's still a fantastic episode, so many moments I love. ( Spoilers. ) Then there's BSG. Where the women are still batshit crazy. Should it make me feel better that most of the men are at least moderately batshit crazy as well? ( Spoilers. )

Poem for Friday

[May. 9th, 2008|12:26 am]

( She-Fox )

Let me begin by mentioning the awesomeness of the Platypus. And presales for Great Big Sea's Fortune's Favour start Friday at noon. And yay Wil Wheaton --

vertigo66, what shall we do the night the Star Trek movie opens? Go out to dinner, then watch "Amok Time" and "Requiem for Methuselah"? *g*

Today I had the pleasure of lunch with

perkypaduan, followed by the first hour or so of the director's cut of American Gangster, though she had to hit the road so we will finish it next week. It was not immediately apparent what, if anything, was added in that first hour, but I only saw the theatrical version of the film once. I also helped son a bit more with his web page and captioned photos on Picasa and contemplated things I need to buy before we go on vacation at the end of next month, like another bathing suit and some shirts that are nicer than t-shirts but don't need ironing and hopefully an inexpensive skort. I loathe shopping for clothes.

( More Sheep & Wool )

We had jacket potatoes with turkey stew for dinner and watched Smallville, which would have been fun if it had embarked on this storyline while certain characters were still alive and had developed it over several seasons, but now seems to be playing "Canon? What canon?" with its own second season on top of chewing up and spitting out the previous history of Superman as I understand it. ( Spoilers. ) The Next Gen episode I watched to review is one I don't remember at all -- it was like brand new old Star Trek! Fun! Political commentary Thursday made me want to throw up all over people I like, far more than the opposition, so I am going to ignore everything until the Democrats have a nominee and then hold my nose and vote for him or her no matter who it is or who gets disenfranchised, insulted, underestimated, marginalized or misquoted between now and then. Sigh.

Poem for Thursday

[May. 8th, 2008|12:09 am]

( The Water Queen of Jerusalem )

Not the most exciting of Wednesdays. I worked on html for a web page for my son, who has decided that he desperately wants his own domain for penguin photos and the like, but for some reason a photo that loads fine on a local html file won't work when I upload the file to the web (I think it's because his new domain forwards to a page on my web site, so there are essentially frames keeping the domain URL in place and the frames are somehow screwing with the tables). Then I took younger son to the orthodontist, where we got some bad news: not only do the braces need to go back on, but because it's considered a new phase in his treatment, with new molds and a new apparatus, we have to refinance and argue costs with our insurance. So it's painful for all of us! At least the braces won't have to go on till we get back from our long trip this summer so they won't affect what he can eat while traveling. He has one adult tooth that is refusing to budge from the gums because his mouth is small and it would just fit straight between the teeth but it's coming in at an angle, so there has to be more room. Sigh.

( More Lake Whetstone Geese )

I see that the Olympic torch made it to the top of Mount Everest...I have mixed feelings because of the Tibet situation but it's a neat idea to take the Olympic flame to the top of the world, though I was wondering how they managed to light it with so little oxygen. Climbing is one of my favorite sports to read about, though not people who think the 8000 meters plus mountains are the only ones that count and not wealthy amateurs who pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of losing toes, limbs or their lives in exchange for possible bragging rights. I made it up Mount Washington in the White Mountains, but I don't dream of climbing on Denali, let alone the Himalayas, though I would dearly love to walk around Mount Kailas.

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Poem for Wednesday

[May. 7th, 2008|12:31 am]

( The Water-Fall )

I got to get out of the house and have lunch with

gblvr, yay! We had grand plans to go to P.F. Chang's but it was so crowded that we said to heck with it and opted for the quicker pleasure of Texas BBQ (which cost a lot less and frankly I like as much as most Chinese, though now that I know about that vegetarian place, I have a new favorite restaurant). I also got to meet

wojelah, who shares my adoration of Donna Noble and did not run screaming when I admitted that I like Sam Carter better than Rodney McKay. Somehow while we were in the mall we managed not to notice the earthquake that hit the DC region, though on the scale of disasters I keep being grateful that I live here instead of in a major hurricane zone, tornado zone, etc.

( Samson the Baby Elephant )

Finally we watched The Golden Compass, which I liked well enough -- it's probably my favorite Nicole Kidman role ever, she's so much better cold and insincere, heh -- but I could also see why it didn't catch on as the next Lord of the Rings, Narnia, etc. I started to feel a bit Farscape about all the talking animals -- give us more Asriel, even if his name is ridiculously pretentious, already -- and I was really looking forward to the alleged Church-bashing and was sorry it was so subtle, and that the world was still so hierarchical and aristocratic in many ways. Just like in C.S. Lewis's books, there's a rightful hierarchy and a wrongful hierarchy even among bears! And I'm kind of embarrassed at what Pullman obviously thinks American stereotypes are like. ( On which note...election stuff. )

The pictures from Myanmar are so upsetting, but it's almost as upsetting that only now does the world media seem to notice that there are thousands of refugees already -- more than in Darfur, according to some reports -- and the government is actively blocking humanitarian aid. It's a nightmare situation on top of a nightmare situation.

Poem for Tuesday

[May. 6th, 2008|12:29 am]

( Executive Shoeshine )

Not a very eventful Monday; I mostly finished laundry, caught up on phone calls and tried to learn how to use my new speedlight -- an early Mother's Day present so I'll have it on our trip this summer and can hopefully take better photos of relatives, indoor scenery and the interior of the HMS Surprise. *g* Younger son came home from school all excited because he had found several caterpillars on the way; later, son's best friend came over excitedly to tell me to bring the camera because a bird had laid eggs in one of the nest boxes on their deck (received and painted as party favors a few days ago -- on Tuesday I am going to Michael's to get one of them!).

( Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival 2008 )

For dinner we had Mexican food to celebrate Cinco de Mayo (well, Tex-Mex, since I doubt anyone involved in that victory over the French had hard-shell chicken tacos and mini cheese quesadillas). Then we were going to watch The Golden Compass which

apaulled brought home on DVD last week -- he enjoyed the book -- but older son took forever taking his shower, so we postponed that. Fannish comment: ( 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' film spoiler. ) I'm so irritated that they're making two movies out of Deathly Hallows that I'm not feeling any particular desire to see Half Blood Prince, though finding out that the filmmaker may have more sense than the novelist about certain things makes me feel somewhat better.

Hope everyone is keeping safe from tornadoes, cyclones and all the other disasters that seem to be whirling around the world. I'm sad that Mildred Loving has died and still astounded that her lawsuit demanding the right to intermarriage took place during my lifetime. I'm hoping my kids are just as shocked and horrified one day to realize that gay marriage wasn't legal during their lifetimes.

Poem for Monday

[May. 5th, 2008|12:27 am]

( Opera Night at Caffe Taci )

Daniel was still recuperating from his upset stomach on Sunday morning and Adam was fed and entertained at the Hebrew school's birthday party for Israel, so those of us at home had a quiet morning and a relatively small lunch before deciding it was too gorgeous a day not to go out somewhere. Since Daniel was feeling much better, we went to Lake Whetsone Park in Gaithersburg for our annual look at the goslings produced by the goose colony there (previous years here and here). Lake Whetstone also has a great blue heron colony at the top of the tall trees in the center island, plus ducks and ducklings, cormorants, turtles, cardinals, red-wing blackbirds, barn swallows living under the boardwalk and many other animals. Adam found a caterpillar that accompanied up on our walk for a while on his arm. It was gorgeous and cool in the woods and there were birds singing everywhere.

( Lake Whetstone Gosling Tour 2008 )

For dinner Paul made jacket potatoes with chicken tikka masala -- Daniel doesn't eat that anyway, so he didn't mind having plain chicken and noodles -- then we all watched Doctor Who's "The Poison Sky" which I liked much better than its prequel for a whole lot of reasons. ( Spoilers! ) Then we watched The Tudors, which surprisingly dropped the opportunity to suggest that Anne had Catherine murdered -- I was so sure she was going to convince her brother or someone to poison Catherine, since she's talked about wanting her and Mary dead so often. But I was really glad they didn't go that route, even though they offered no explanation why Catherine died so young, apart from a broken heart. They're back to Henry being over Thomas More's death and turned on by Anne (son, who was in the room reading, asked why Henry liked to be choked during sex; I had no good answer immediately ready), so even though Jane Seymour is very pretty, it's not clear to me how they're going to work Henry into the murderous frenzy necessary to bring her to her well-known end.

I'm trying to find decent coverage of the British election, because our press isn't covering it for shit and the UK press is presuming more knowledge of British party politics than I have. Yesterday at the Sheep & Wool Festival, I told my mother-in-law that I wished someone was covering the Zimbabwe election controversy instead of garbage like Barbara Walters' love life, and a Muslim woman patted me on the back and said she was glad to hear someone who cared about real issues and then started lecturing about Rachel Corrie's foundation and the situation in Gaza. I almost bit my tongue off not arguing point for point...

Poem for Sunday

[May. 4th, 2008|12:48 am]

( Memory )

Saturday we took our annual trip to the Maryland Zoo's Breakfast With the Penguins, for which we had to get up very early and at which we got a bit sunburnt but it was worth it as always! This year there was a lot more food...in addition to all the breakfast meats and eggs and pastries, they had about eight varieties of bagels from a local place with several different flavored cream cheeses, plus fresh fruit and fruit juices as well as coffee for the adults and penguin squeeze bottles for the kids. (The penguins get smelly cold fish, so it's just as well there was no lox. *g*) There were two penguin ambassadors waddling on the grass and most of the zoo's 45 African penguins swimming around the penguin enclosure, along with some greedy gulls and a cormorant. This year, instead of bidding on a penguin painting, we bid on a private tour of the penguin enclosure to be held at a later date, and even though someone outbid us at the last minute, they offered to let us do it too for our bid price so we will be going back to see the inside of the enclosure soon!

( Breakfast with the Penguins )

We walked around the zoo a bit because there is a baby African elephant, Samson, who only just began appearing in public this week, as well as a young giraffe and lions, cheetahs, cranes, a porcupine, chimpanzees, rhinos and lots of other animals in the Africa section. We stopped by the Arctic zone, but we didn't see much of the rest of the zoo because we had plans to meet my in-laws at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I had never been before, and was expecting a bunch of local sheep and a couple of craft tents -- I had no idea of the size of it, and it's entirely free, even parking! We walked through four enormous barns of sheep, alpacas and llamas, several of which were being sheared and primped for judging, as well as dozens of craft displays and at least three musical stages, on one of which Maggie Sansone was playing. My in-laws are just back from three weeks in the UK and brought us Cadbury, Scottish souvenirs and a bunch of little Vikings in honor of their Swedish heritage.

On the way home we stopped at Ikea to get a bookcase -- now that we know where it is in College Park, we can't seem to stay away -- and had an early dinner there since the food is so inexpensive and we'd skipped lunch due to the size of our breakfast. It would have been a perfect day except that against my better judgment I watched the Kentucky Derby when Paul put it on, though I'd said after Barbaro that I was through with horses racing, but I didn't stick to it after we visited Churchill Downs two summers ago. Now once again we have had to watch an animal die for a big-money race, this time on the track after coming in second -- "It's not supposed to happen," the trainer said, but it happens far too often and I'm done watching the sport and supporting that kind of treatment even passively from my living room. Older son ended up with an upset stomach from our crazy eating and hectic hours today, so it was a quiet evening at home with the kids.

Poem for Saturday

[May. 3rd, 2008|12:26 am]

( Pre-War )

My day was mostly chores -- laundry and reviewing "The Price", one of the Next Gen episodes that soured the show for me the first time around even though I'm enjoying it more on nearly every level this time through...amazing what several years of mediocre sci-fi TV will do. The kids had friends over after school since it's a weekend and therefore video games are allowed, plus they took part in a big water gun battle with half the neighborhood kids that left them soaking wet. We had dinner with my parents (salmon, mmm) and I captioned and organized photos. What was I going to do, read the British election returns and mourn the Wizards' playoff loss and fret about tornadoes?

fridayfiver: ( I'm Still )

thefridayfive: ( Nice Things )

fannish5: ( Resurrections )

( Cat-Napping Spots )

Watched The Sarah Jane Adventures, Doctor Who and then BSG because it was there and none of us bothered to change the channel. Still not liking the latter much at all but I have little interest in the CBS vampire show, not having fallen for a vampire since I was a teenager, and anyway I think that's on in the earlier hour. Sarah Jane delights me in so many ways -- I love seeing a woman older than me, not tied to any man, attached to a faerie child she rescued, surrounded by kids whose intelligence she never underestimates and whom she treats like adults. ( Spoilers. )

I'm so pissed at Sci-Fi for the cuts they're making in Doctor Who; this time I'm seeing the US TV versions much closer to the uncut ones, so they're much more obvious, so as much as I love the Pompeii episode, ( spoiler. ) BSG...well, I've said from the get-go that I really don't like Starbuck, I don't like the way she's written, I don't like the edge-of-madness shit whether it's divine inspiration or just plain being screwed up, and I don't like watching a show where I'm regularly rooting against a major female character but this series rarely leaves me feeling like I have a choice. ( Spoilers. )

Poem for Friday

[May. 2nd, 2008|12:23 am]

( In the Junk Store )

I actually got out of the house for fun today! I met

perkypaduan at the mall for lunch and very important shopping such as a glittery scarf at Hot Topic, bargain books at Borders and shampoo at Bath & Body Works (if they have discontinued the signature scent lines in favor of that Fekkai stuff, I am going to be so irritated!). Came home to get kids, my mother stopped by for a bit, I got my new Shutterfly books so read those and then played with photos for a while -- I have pretty much everything uploaded to Picasa that I want there, now I just need to organize and caption it all.

apaulled decided he was in the mood to barbecue chicken for dinner, so we used the charcoal grill for the first time this season, then made s'mores because how could we not, really?

( Paradise at Brookside Gardens )

I thoroughly loved this week's Smallville; even without all the various people who are no longer with the show, it was my favorite in ages and ages. ( Spoilers. ) Also watched a bit of the Pistons-Sixers blow-out and the Star Trek episode I need to review tomorrow ("The Price," which makes Troi look really stupid, not one of my favorites at all), then tried to watch the news but it was all the death of the DC madam and Rob Lowe's nanny and Barbara Walters' affair with a senator. At least Ted Casablanca made me howl by suggesting that his readers write fan fiction about himself, Jake Gyllenhaal, Patrick Dempsey and Tobey Maguire, all of whom used to belong to the same gym. "Makes great reading material (and more)," writes Ted.

Poem for Thursday

[May. 1st, 2008|12:23 am]

( To Hold )

Once again I have no exciting news of my own so I'll just link to stuff I was reading today (somewhere in the world there must be something people are talking about besides celebrity indiscretions, political candidate antics, consequences of the NFL draft and the fate of the Grand Duchess Anastasia but I couldn't find it). I am ever in Hawaii, I want to go to Surfing Goat Dairy where people get to feed and milk the goats and sample 20 different kind of cheeses made there. And speaking of animals, I was reading about the escaped pig balloon and Paul says the funny thing is that it isn't the first time something like this happened -- when Pink Floyd shot the original Animals album cover with the pig flying by Battersea Power Station, the pig broke free and eventually landed in a field near Canterbury. And I'm sorry, but when I first read about the Greek "take back 'lesbian'" lawsuit, I thought at first it was a joke by The Onion and when I found out it was for real, I kept snickering rather than being indignant.

( National Arboretum Koi )

Actually I don't need to get going on Clinton, Obama and the idiocy that is the Democratic Party at present because Boston Legal did it for me...and the side story was about cloned beef on the market, brought by a woman with whom Denny falls instantly in love and rides horses. So it was a really divine hour of television. ( Spoilers. ) Happy Beltane!

Poem for Wednesday

[Apr. 30th, 2008|12:44 am]

( From 'The Prodigal' )

I did nothing but chores, so I have nothing exciting to report. Well, I did sleep kind of late because I had all three cats in bed with me, thus forcing me to contort into the kind of positions in which it is possible to sleep only if you have three cats in bed with you, but nothing besides that! I spent some time looking at The Old Bailey Online just because it's so cool that it's there (and after seeing the Sweeney Todd extras, I was really curious to see all the murder and robbery transcripts, not to mention Oscar Wilde's indecency trial. All of which makes me think of that father with the daughter in the basement in Austria -- if The X-Files had done that as a story, I would have said it was unrealistic and vile (I did say that about "Home"). There's no prison terrible enough for that guy. Ugh.

( Science Day Reptiles )

After he finished his homework, older son wanted to watch the Tenth Doctor Who devil episodes ("The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit") because he was in an Ood mood, so that's what we did tonight...Doc and Rose threatening to become domestic and the awesome black hole. I'm so relieved Obama publicly told Wright where to stick it -- I have zero tolerance for anti-Semitic bigotry, I don't care if you're blathering in the name of Jesus or liberation theology or some massive US conspiracy theory. And I have never given a crap about Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana, having boys with no tolerance for her or her music, but she'd seen the photos before she left the shoot and knew exactly how they made her look, and she is now trying to have it both ways looking sexy in Vanity Fair while claiming she didn't mean to look sexy...it's her prerogative to make money titillating pedophiles, but the one of her sprawled all over daddy with her belly exposed is more disturbing than the photo with the sheet and every adult handler knew exactly the messages they would send. Again, ugh.