friends

( Monday )

We spent most of Saturday at the Maryland Science Center, which has the phenomenal Da Vinci - The Genius exhibit, an enormous traveling collection of reproductions of machines, artwork, writings, and devices either designed and produced by Da Vinci or proposed in his notebooks. My personal favorite part was a roomful of exhibits concerning the Mona Lisa, which was photographed extensively by a French photographer who designed a camera specifically to take high-resolution images without needing light that would damage the canvas -- he was able to prove, for instance, that the sky was originally painted with lapis lazuli, meaning that when Da Vinci painted it, it would have been a deep, glorious blue. There were reproductions of the painting showing how it looks under infrared and how the colors would have looked during the Renaissance, which makes the painting seem much more contemporary. There's also a reproduction of the back of the painting, which has some inexplicable marks on it, and an entire wall of close-ups of the Mona Lisa's eyes to show how the photographer proved she had eyebrows and eyelashes when she was first painted. But the entire exhibit, which has hands-on machines that kids can try, movies on the Sforza Horse and Vitruvian Man, and a long feature at the end with Mark Rylance playing Da Vinci.

Since we were in the museum, we also went to the planetarium show on dark matter, which talked about new theories about the Big Bang and the Large Hadron Collider's work in figuring out whether we can create particles whose existence we can't yet prove. Then we went up on the roof to the observatory, where the telescope was aimed at the sun, which had visible prominences but no sunspots that we could see. The Science on a Sphere projector was showing a film about the sun too. We visited the Chesapeake Bay exhibit, the dinosaurs, the weather station, and the hands-on science lab on the first floor before leaving for Silver Spring, since Daniel was going to his robotics team's alumni dinner at the Macaroni Grill there. Originally we had planned to drop him off, but we ended up parking in the lot connected to City Place Mall since we arrived early, and we decided we should go to Lebanese Taverna and shop while waiting for him (Burlington Coat Factory is still having a big sale and wasn't very crowded, and the mall has a terrific holiday display with model trains, Santa, and exhibits on Chanukah and Kwanzaa).

( Maryland Science Center )

We missed today's football games entirely but I understand that Maryland lost and Georgia beat Georgia Tech, so no big loss...and Notre Dame lost again! If anything else happened in the world or online, I missed hearing about it. Will try to catch up tomorrow.

Poem for Saturday

[Nov. 28th, 2009|12:36 am]

( Ocean )

We spent Black Friday as far away from the mall and box stores as possible -- we went hiking along Rock Creek Park and Lake Frank at Meadowside Nature Center. It was pretty chilly when we left home, since it was overcast and windy all day with occasional fits of rain, but the sun came out just as we reached the lake, so we had some gorgeous views of the winter trees and ducks. The park has some building ruins in the woods and some reconstructed cabins near the outdoor education buildings, and we walked the long loop since it was so nice out. We also stopped at the Oriental Market because younger son wanted to get red bean paste for sandwiches -- most of his friends at school are Asian and they all share food, and he prefers their lunches to his own.

( Meadowside Nature Center )

fannish5: ( Holiday Gatherings )

Speaking of holiday gatherings, we had dinner with my parents and my sister's three daughters -- my sister and her husband always go stay in a hotel the day after Thanksgiving, having had enough of family togetherness -- most people had leftover turkey, stuffing, etc., I had half a bagel with tuna fish and sweet potatoes without the melted marshmallows this time. Having watched the end of Auburn's sad late-game loss to Alabama, we opted to skip more football and watched Princess Mononoke instead -- environmental-themed stories with strong women being much more my thing anyway, and my kids never saying no to a movie where wolves, elk, and boars are major characters!

Poem for Friday

[Nov. 27th, 2009|12:34 am]

( Wood )

Like many U.S. residents, I spent most of the day celebrating Thanksgiving -- Paul's parents arrived at our house early in the afternoon, we spent a few hours with them, then went over to my parents' house where my sister and her family had arrived the day before yesterday. It was a pretty traditional meal -- turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce. I ate only minimal stuffing and potatoes to avoid excess salt -- one thing for which I am profoundly grateful is not having had a migraine for the past six weeks, a situation I did not wish to ruin by overindulging -- not a big sacrifice for me anyway, since roast turkey isn't my favorite, and I made up for it with lots of sweet potatoes, which are my favorite Thanksgiving dish (my mom makes the kind with melted marshmallows on top). Here are some photos of the festivities:

( Thanksgiving Dinner )

We missed the beginning of the Paul McCartney concert, which was very abbreviated anyway due to all the commercials and interview clips -- I am planning to buy the DVD, since it's the same set he did in D.C. minus "Michelle" and with the addition of Billy Joel singing on "I Saw Her Standing There." His voice didn't sound as good at Citi Field as it did at FedEx field -- maybe he gets better the more he plays. He sure didn't sound like he planned to retire any time soon, which makes me happy! On Friday the funeral for the owner of the Washington Wizards will take place at my synagogue. I met Abe Pollin once when I was a kid, when the Washington Bullets won the championship -- he walked around letting people see his championship ring. He was one of the good-guy team owners, and he will be missed in Washington.

Poem for Thursday

[Nov. 26th, 2009|12:12 am]

( Thanksgiving )

My kids had a half-day of school, so I didn't get a lot accomplished on Wednesday -- by the time I finished reading the paper, buying the SPP Scottish sheep farm for myself and Adam, figuring out where I saved last year's holiday address label file, talking to the vet (who said that if Rosie's appetite had returned, she was probably fine through Thanksgiving...and her appetite has returned with a vengeance), and talking to my doctor (who said my liver on the ultrasound was normal, huzzah!), Adam was already home. Both kids were in and out during the afternoon playing with friends. I still don't have printed address labels, but I haven't bought stamps either, so I need to do both next week! I had no time to fiddle with photos either, so here are some older pics from Seneca Creek State Park a couple of weeks ago...

( Seneca Afternoon )

Musically, this week's were my favorite episodes of both Glee and Eastwick, though I remain utterly unmoved by the characters on the former -- there are the ones I don't like very much, and the ones I totally can't stand, with the ones I like best (Mercedes, Artie) getting very little air time, and the ones who most make me want to smash something (Terri) doing the same stupid things over and over. ( Spoilers. ) As for Eastwick, I still can't warm up to Joanna, but Roxie more than makes up for that, and I'm so glad Penny is playing a bigger role though I'm also sad because how far can it go with so few episodes left? My big accidental revelation, though, is that the guy playing Jamie, Jack Huston, is Anjelica's nephew, John's grandson! How did I not know that! ( Spoilers. )

Happy Thanksgiving!

Poem for Wednesday

[Nov. 25th, 2009|12:42 am]

( The Big Sleep )

I had lots of plans for Monday, but Rosie was sick from 3 a.m. on, so I got very little sleep and then decided around 10 a.m. that it was time to call the vet, since she not only hadn't eaten her food but was showing no interest in trying to steal Cinnamon and Daisy's food (usually she heads in the kitchen to look for more food mere seconds after throwing up). So I took her to the vet, who wanted me to leave her for a couple of hours so they could get some fluids into her and do a more thorough exam than merely concluding that she yowled when someone pressed on her belly -- something I could have told them anyway. They said she would probably be ready to go home by 6 unless they found some reason she needed to stay, so I ran out to Office Depot to get address labels for holiday cards, then came home and spent the rest of the afternoon working on our family 2010 calendar now that Shutterfly is finally having a buy one, get the rest for half price with free shipping sale.

The vet said she thinks Rosie has pancreatitis, though apparently it's hard to diagnose without a sonogram, which is both expensive and time-consuming (they couldn't work it in today, though they'll do one tomorrow if she isn't keeping food down by then). Her CBC was normal except for an elevated liver enzyme which the vet suspected was from the pancreas pressing on the liver. She gave her antibiotics and an anti-nausea medicine, and sent us home with more medicine that we must give her twice a day orally (joy). Since Daisy was due for her rabies shot, we brought her with us to pick Rosie up, so now we have two cats who think we are evil and cruel. Meanwhile I have not heard back from my doctor about my tests, but the calendars have been ordered and the holiday address labels are a work in progress, so I will just try to catch up on everything else over the long weekend.

( Huntley Meadows Park )

Poem for Tuesday

[Nov. 24th, 2009|12:46 am]

( Reading Between Points A & B )

I had an early appointment for an abdominal sonogram whose results I won't have for a few days -- possibly till after Thanksgiving -- and for which I had to fast, so although it was completely comfortable compared to a pelvic sonogram (no full bladder, worst I had to do was hold my breath for ten seconds), I came home lightheaded and very thirsty and have felt sort of sleepy and off all day. The fact that it was a very gloomy, rainy Monday probably contributed to that; I don't mind the rain or the chill, but it felt like it was never properly morning, let alone afternoon. So I did laundry and worked on holiday cards, and when the kids came home, I watched Adam spend hours struggling with his math homework while discussing the pitfalls of Animal Farm.

I feel like I need a refresher course in Heroes even to have an opinion on whether anything is making sense these days...no one in my family could remember how Arthur Petrelli died, for instance, or how similar Peter's power is to his (Peter's has changed over time, yes, in how many powers he can have at once and how recently he has to have touched someone, since he lost them all and got it back again twice?). So while I was happy to get Petrelli and Bennett family drama over the Thanksgiving table, which will certainly make any family annoyance with my own relatives seem extremely minor, at this point I'm just watching for a couple of characters and really hoping this is the last season so they can make some attempt to wrap up their many loose ends.

I watched Buffy's "Surprise" and "Innocence" while folding the laundry, which I blame partly on

cidercupcakes and partly on New Moon because I'd remembered being irritated when the episodes were new at the "lose your virginity and your boyfriend will turn into a soulless demon!" theme, and given all the Bella-bashing, I wanted to see whether Buffy looked better by comparison. Buffy curls up and cries when her boyfriend dumps her, too, but she has a wonderful support system that Bella lacks -- a mother who loves her, friends who will do anything for her, a Watcher who believes in her and is completely devoted to her. Bella has a dad who doesn't understand her, an absentee mother, and a best friend whose lust for her gets in the way of whatever support he can offer her...a terrible situation, of course she's no Slayer, and I don't think the films are suggesting that Bella should cling to her virginity as the last vestige of her self-esteem -- it's more that she can't get Edward to do what she wants.

( Little Bennett Park )

Poem for Monday

[Nov. 23rd, 2009|12:55 am]

( Anecdote of the Field )

November seems to be a bit lost -- or, rather, September seems to have arrived -- and we had yet another gorgeous day of sun and warm temperatures, so we went to Huntley Meadows. The animals there, at least, seemed to know what season it was, since all the reptiles were either hibernating or hiding and there weren't any herons or egrets out fishing, though there were fish and geese and ducks and songbirds and insects. I usually start to feel light deprivation around this time of year so it's been really lovely having so many brilliant sunny days to spend outdoors.

( Huntley Meadows, November )

The Redskins and Ravens were both doing well against the Cowboys and Colts when we got into the car to drive home, but when we got there, they both managed to lose. Rather than suffer through any more football in the evening, we watched Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, which has instantly become one of my favorite movies -- if you want to see Amy Adams be fabulous in a film from last year, spare yourself Doubt and watch this! It stars Frances McDormand, who is also terrific, and Ciaran Hinds, who is always delightful, but I had no idea that Pushing Daisies' Lee Pace was in it (playing a Brit!) and Shirley Henderson, who plays Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter movies, has exactly the same annoying whiny little-girl voice. ( Spoilers. )

Poem for Sunday

[Nov. 22nd, 2009|12:37 am]

( Watermelon in the Afternoon )

After volunteering at Hebrew school, Adam was invited by a friend to Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary to help take care of the animals and take part in a vegan Thanksgiving feast, so we took Daniel to Little Bennett Park to see if we could find the Mound Builders Trail, which we missed last time we were there because we parked in the wrong parking lot. This time we found the correct lot, but we had a different problem: the trail we had planned to hike to reach the Mound Builders Trail went through Beaver Valley, and the beavers have dammed up the stream and flooded it! So we took a slightly longer route, which ended up being delightful since we went past a property that once housed a mill and still hides the ruins of a farm in the woods, following the creek to the enormous nests that the Allegheny Mound Builder ants have constructed. Then we circled the long way around back to the car. It was a cool but not cold day -- overcast, so it never got as warm as forecast -- and there were still plenty of insects singing even though it's late November.

( Little Bennett Park )

Here is my belated review of "I, Borg" which I appreciate all the more after seeing more recent Star Trek. In the evening we watched what I believe is the last two-part Sarah Jane Adventures episode of the series, "The Gift" (I haven't heard whether it's been picked up for a fourth season, does anyone know yet?). I think the wedding two-parter was the biggest of this series, and I'm surprised they didn't save it for the end, but I can't say that I'm sorry, because I really think Sarah Jane stands on her own without the Doctor and proved it to myself by watching the often-bad and purely delightful K-9 and Company which I obtained from a generous soul who did a transfer from videotape of the episode made when it was broadcast as a Christmas special. The fact that I'm saying I loved it despite the atrocious witchcraft storyline, which makes Eastwick look downright progressive where Wicca is concerned, ought to tell you how much I love Sarah Jane Smith. ( Spoilers. )

Poem for Saturday

[Nov. 21st, 2009|12:31 am]

( An Enigma )

I saw two movies today -- one in the theater, one on DVD. Both of them are installments in huge fandoms and enormously popular with lots of people. So I just want to warn people now that I thought one of them was not very good and one of them was not very appealing. If you are a rabid fan of the Twilight books or the Star Trek reboot, you may not want to ( click behind the spoiler tag. )

That is all I am ever going to say about the reboot. Lest all this criticism should make it sound like I did not have a nice day, I want to say that I really did -- I met

perkypaduan early and we waited for the theater to open so we could get seats, and she gave me an early birthday present -- the crystal from Sedona that I'm wearing in the photo below. Then

gblvr joined us and we howled through New Moon at inappropriate moments, then we all went out to lunch at Potbelly with

gblvr's former boss whom I've met many times, then

gblvr and I walked to Target together where I found penguin socks, plus Smallville season eight on sale for $18.99, and I got her Star Trek as an early Christmas present, which is how we ended up watching it together (watching it with her was really fun for me, both because her affection for Pine, Urban and Yelchin is infectious and because she didn't snap at me for harshing her squee, which I am certain I did).

Speaking of Smallville, I have fewer complaints about the roles for women on that show, which seems to me a very sad reflection on the Star Trek franchise, because while I will be the first to agree that Tom Welling can't act any better than Robert Pattinson, all three of the female leads are wonderful. Yes, it is possible I am rationalizing because I adore Lois and Clark together, the same way I know people who love Bella and Edward together rationalize loving Twilight, which really does not bother me! The fact that we don't get a new Smallville episode again till January 22nd is forgivable because ( of these spoilers. ) We watched Sanctuary too, not my favorite because Magnus seemed so much not to be a player for so much of the story and the ending felt like a cheat, but I really like Kate and I love Will's loyalty.

gblvr designed the buttons we're all wearing in the photos below. I made them using the button maker that is my one remaining souvenir of having run Kate Mulgrew's fan club; I forgot that it was in my house when we dissolved the club, so it was still there when I found it two years later, and it has been put to excellent fannish use in the years since.

( My Fangirly Day )

Poem for Friday

[Nov. 20th, 2009|12:08 am]

( Psalm 104 )

It's already 11 p.m. and except for watching the Star Trek episode I need to find time to review tomorrow between New Moon with

perkypaduan and

gblvr, lunch with the two of them plus another friend, and dinner with my parents, I accomplished none of the things I planned to get done today. In fact, I overslept, having been woken up by a sick cat at 3 a.m., thus causing me to miss getting the rare Superpoke Pet chicken plushies for myself and younger son, and I'm way late on e-mail and comments and stuff because I was playing with AO3.

So I still have not rewatched "The Waters of Mars," and am going to shamelessly pillage things I already said in conversations with my kids and

ethelking, but before I forget, I need to declare my undying love for Adelaide Brooke and express confusion why the Doctor did not simply grab her and abduct her on the TARDIS the minute he laid eyes on her, which is what I would have done. Why did the producers have to cast a 12-year-old companion for the upcoming 16-year-old Eleventh Doctor instead of Lindsay Duncan? Of course they'd probably write her with all the limitations with which they saddle Sarah Jane Smith, since apparently older men can be cool though not older women, but I'd take it: it's no secret that I love Sarah Jane more than I love any of her Doctors, and this latest installment just cements it. ( Spoilers. )

I did like tonight's FlashForward despite no Janis; I like the philosophical musing behind the question of whether finding out that someone was going to love you and change your life would make you fall in love with them before you'd even met them, no matter who they were or what they looked like, and I like the way even what looks like a happy vision of the future can lead to a hellish present, particularly for a parent.

( Maryland Animals )

Poem for Thursday

[Nov. 19th, 2009|12:42 am]

( Exercise )

Wednesday was supposed to be my catch-up day, but the wonderful

gnomad provided me with an Archive Of Our Own account code early in the day, and I spent far too many hours figuring out how things worked there. In the afternoon I had four loads of laundries to fold, and because of a conversation with

ethelking about "The Waters of Mars," I ended up watching "Tooth and Claw" and "School Reunion." I'd forgotten how good that season was -- I was still in mourning for Nine, I wasn't ready to fall for Ten (nor to have Rose fall for Ten), and ironically he seemed almost lightweight compared to Nine then -- hah, what a change in perspective watching now! I had remembered "Tooth and Claw" being quite dark, so I hadn't recalled, for instance, the Doctor's line about thinking Sir Robert was probably happy to have his wife away and be surrounded by tall muscular men. "School Reunion" is just wonderful from beginning to end, not just bringing Sarah Jane back to the franchise, but giving us Anthony Stewart Head as a giant conniving bat who wants to rule the universe with the Doctor at his side, and who can blame him?

So speaking of Sarah Jane, I promised notes on "Mona Lisa's Revenge," although I don't have a lot because on further consideration I don't think the episode deserves the attention. ( Spoilers. ) And I also promised notes on "The Waters of Mars," but I will save those for tomorrow since I need to talk about tonight's Glee, at least for long enough to say that I am sure it is wrong how much I loved the ( spoilers. )I must confess that my favorite part of the entire hour was the Burger King ad with the old ladies and the construction workers fighting over Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. I am Team Buffy all the way, and couldn't care about that franchise, but I hope it's true that burly guys are arguing about Robert vs. Taylor!

I've always liked Johnny Depp, but I've never thought he was the sexiest man alive, though I much prefer him in his 40s to his 20s. Here are a sitatunga pair at the Maryland Zoo enjoying the gorgeous November weather:

( Maryland Zoo Marshbuck )

Poem for Wednesday

[Nov. 18th, 2009|12:54 am]

( Sad Verso of the Sunny ____ )

I am still totally behind on everything because Adam wasn't home anywhere near the time he usually arrives, prompting a flurry of phone calls, first to the parents of his friends (who didn't know where the kids were), then to the school (which wasn't answering the phone), then to the county to see whether something happened to the bus, before Adam finally got around to calling himself to tell me that he'd stayed after school for a couple of hours for viola sectionals but he was going to catch the late bus home. So the laundry did not get folded. Then we went out to dinner at California Tortilla (and Baskin Robbins for the kids) because the middle school was doing a spirit event where local restaurants were donating a percentage of profits, so I was chatting with people and didn't get anything done in the evening either.

I did finish designing and ordering my fannish holiday cards, which involved spending lots of time hunting through photos on my almost unusable desktop computer, then copying them to my portable hard drive so I could make use of them on the laptop. My family holiday cards have arrived, but they're a big disappointment for the first time from Shutterfly -- I wanted a photo from the Bar Mitzvah and used one taken by a friend, but the image looks much more blurry and overexposed on the cards than it did on the web preview. Adam wanted to see the Penguins of Madagascar, so we watched the Merry Madagascar Christmas Special at 8, which was silly but entertaining, like the movies. So the laundry-folding has been postponed till tomorrow along with e-mail, comments, etc. Apologies!

( Maryland Zoo's African Mammals )

Poem for Tuesday

[Nov. 17th, 2009|12:48 am]

( Stolen Moments )

I spent a delightful Monday with

dementordelta, who came to visit on this warm, sunny November afternoon. We had vague plans to go out to lunch and watch lots of Due South, but the weather was so gorgeous that we decided we really should enjoy it and went to take a walk at Great Falls down to Olmsted Island and the river. Then we met my mother at our synagogue's annual holiday boutique, where we looked at lots of gifts and jewelry and shared a tuna salad sandwich in the cafe there. And then we ate chocolate moose pops while enjoying "Starman" through "Body Language," meaning that we got to howl through "All the Queen's Horses" with my kids who stuck around to see Leslie Nielsen. Here are some birds from the zoo yesterday:

( Maryland Zoo Birds )

Watched Heroes, which keeps reinforcing my sense that no matter how irritated I've been with other shows that were just making crap up as they went along, ignoring or distorting their own backstories and changing the characters to fit the storylines, this one is in a class of its own. How is it possible that everyone has forgotten Matt's brief moment of fame wired as a bomb, even if it wasn't his fault -- even if he's been taken out of all the police databases, aren't there people who would recognize him from TV and react to him accordingly? I could go on and on and on and on. Tomorrow I will go on and on about Doctor Who but I am still playing catch-up from the weekend so I am going to put that off tonight! At least the Ravens won!

Poem for Monday

[Nov. 16th, 2009|12:59 am]

( Prayer )

We spent nearly all day Sunday in Baltimore, first at the Maryland Zoo, then at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The zoo closes for the winter months since many of the animals can't tolerate being outdoors, and the indoor enclosures there aren't designed for large numbers of visitors -- today, however, the weather wasn't a problem for anyone, since it was 70 degrees and sunny. We went through all three major areas (Africa, Chesapeake, Arctic) and saw the penguins, giraffes, elephants, chimpanzees (who were very playful), polar bears, otters, and dozens of other animals. Then we went to the art museum, which has an exhibit on Matisse as printmaker -- not my favorite, I must confess, as it's lots of very simple line illustrations of faces and nudes, none of the brilliant use of color that makes Matisse's paintings interesting to me -- and an exhibit on Baltimore's Edgar Allan Poe and the artists he inspired, which is brilliant, not only because Gauguin, Manet, Dore, and many other illustrators did brilliant adaptations of images from Poe's writings, but because there are brief summaries of his stories and poems to accompany the illustrations that are quite entertaining in their own right.

( Zoo Pairs )

We missed football in its entirety, which is probably why the Redskins won -- well, that and the Broncos losing their quarterback at the half -- and we spent the evening catching up on evil aliens with The Sarah Jane Adventures' "Mona Lisa's Revenge," which I did not love -- lots of stupid gender issues that this show usually avoids, and way too much adolescent behavior, from the adults as much as the teens -- then Doctor Who's "The Waters of Mars," which I really loved, even though I need to watch it again because I thought there was a significant inconsistency at one point and even though it both exemplifies and doesn't quite provide proper exposition on pretty much everything that bothers me about New Who; it suggests, at least, that the producers are aware of all the problems with the way they've constructed the character and his relationships with companions, particularly humans, particularly women, and may not let him or themselves off the hook. Plus the preview for the Christmas episode made me very happy. Proper commentary tomorrow, as I am really exhausted...oh but I don't want to lose David Tennant's Twittersode so here it is.