I N T H E N I G H T K I T C H E N 7.14.2001
2 Things 1 I took the cat and some white paper and a red pen and I went out back to let the cat play in the grass. I pulled the folding chair into the sunshine and set to work on rewriting parts of my resume. In the distance I heard the plinking of an ice-cream man. I cocked my ear trying to determine the tune. He was playing a plinking rendition of "Every Day." And then as I listened I heard, even further in the distance and up the hill, an older male voice (probably gardening) warbling out the tune: Every Day, it's a getting closer. Incidentally, this is the song that I sing in moments of absent-minded joy. I don't know why but if I need to sing a little song, this is the one I sing. Sometimes, if I'm feeling silly, I'll sing "I Will Survive" because I know all the words. But, "Every Day" is my standby. What's yours? Every Day seems a little longer. 2 Last night, I drove to Laurie's to watch some Sex in the City reruns and as I approached her house, I passed an elderly woman looking stocky with heavy shoes, a coat and a kerchief. She struck me as being the caricature of an old Russian woman. She was swinging a large black purse and walking along at a measured pace and her mouth was moving as though she was singing a little song. As I came right up next to her, I noticed that she was aiming her purse so as to whack rampant dandelions right on their fluffy, yellow heads. I wonder what she was singing. 7.13.2001
Rainy Day Stories In a fit of house-cleaning mania, I redid the Rainy Day Stories intro Flash graphic. Check out the new one and, as always, let me know if it doesn't work in any way or if it looks funky. I'm worried that the color on the bottom is too dark for some monitors. For comparison, you can still see the old Flash intro that I did in Flash 2.0 and was my very first finished Flash movie. I'm trying to get Flash work and that piece is my only bit of Flash that is publicly viewable on my site. There's other stuff hidden away that needs to make it into portfolio format but I'll work on that next. 7.12.2001
Portland Activism  Isn't that a lovely shade of green? 7.10.2001
Grab Bag Run! So, a couple weeks ago I was sitting here at home type-typing away at my computer and I heard this noise. It was more of a feel-it-in-your-chest sort of thing but there was a sound, too. It was a big noise. It was like "BOOM... *shudder*......... BOOM ...*shudder* .........BOOM ...*shudder* ........BOOM ..." And my first thought was: 'Footsteps?' and my second thought was: 'A Giant!!' and my third thought was: 'A Giant? What is wrong with you, brain? You hear a BOOM and you think it's a Giant? That is about the most useless feedback you have ever given me.' I told this to T. fairly recently as I had continued to turn that over and over in my brain. It helped to tell someone about my silliness. He laughed. I wonder, though, if I shouldn't keep some of these things to myself. + + + Taj Mahal My Dad is one of those people who can get pretty anxious and worked up. I get a lot of my anxiety from him. Nurture trumps nature in this case. However, he's been doing remarkably well since he retired in being calm and generally much more permissive and easy-going than when I grew up. Anyway, he'd been doing quite lovely the entire time I was there but for some reason was getting pretty irritable before we headed out to the horse farm. I think it's because the whole family was going and we were just all over the place and not operating like a well-oiled, military machine and he was afraid we'd be late. So he is grump, grumping and the tension is rising... And, let me pause for a second and ask, what is it about dads? They have such an ability to dominate a room and an atmosphere. Is your Dad like that? Anyway, the tension is rising and we're finally in the car and we're on our way. It's total silence in the car because no one wants to tick off my Dad and we're driving and driving (this is Montana, remember, lots of open spaces) and then we pass this road up to a ranch house and at the entrance to the road they are working on this very elaborate wooden archway. And, my Dad says, sneering: "That gate is so nice, you'd think they were building the Taj Mahal." ....silence.... Then my Mom says: "Gee, honey, you're in a good mood today." .....silence..... Only my Dad could turn a potentially sweet comment into that. Several years ago, I accused my Dad of becoming an old curmudgeon in his retiring years. He's doing better but I think he still indulges his inner cranky bastard. So, I tell T. this little story and we both get a good laugh out of it. Now, everything is the "Taj Mahal" with us. "That dinner looks so tasty, it's like you're serving it in the Taj Mahal." "Your new shoes are so fancy, it's like you're going to the Taj Mahal." "That beer was so tasty, it's like it thinks it's being drunk at the Taj Mahal." And so on, and so forth. We are afraid that we'll accidentally bust out with it when visiting my folks. 
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