Elwood

Merry Christmas

McCain-Obama Sign Score

Too nervous to count anymore (meaning - there are too many McCain signs for comfort).

McCain-Obama Sign Score

Sunday
Obama +18!!!

Sunday Sign Score

Obama +3

McCain-Obama Sign Score

Yesterday
I started counting the signs on my regular Country Club Hills-Clarendon route. The score was +3 McCain.

Today
+6 Obama!!!

And the Dog Store which has a running contest based on the sales of Obama and McCain dog cookies has it 79 to 34 in Obama's favor.

Waiting For Trick or Treaters (a little early)

Sleepytime

Moses Got the Mail First

Thought for the Day

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.

-Wendell Johnson

Now I'll just have to find out about the "Monster Study" and "General Semantics."

It's Official

After seeing the despicably limp "support" BC gives Barack on "The View" and on "David Letterman", it's official: he's a sleaze and I'm quitting the fan club.

Morning Visitor

This morning I had a guest -a walking stick insect perched on the glass of my front door. I was able to get a good look at him (her?) (it?). What I initially thought was its head turned out to be its tail (with pincers); its head at the other end has two antenna. At first I thought it was missing two legs but I think they are folded together at its head. Evidently they can grow missing legs back. The glass gave me a really good view. Here's a better picture...

Views of the Richelieu River, Quebec

Our hotel was on the shore of the Richelieu River which flows from Lake Champlain to the St Lawrence River.

Jean-Daniel's Garden

Earth laughs in flowers. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

More Old Montreal

Old Montreal

Thought for the Day

Men who never get carried away should be.
- Malcolm Forbes

A Montreal Dessert

This Little Piggy...

Arlington County Fair

I Hate...

The word "awesome" which is "awe-ful"
Telephones
Mice
Two-Tone Houses
Traffic
Martyrs
Hotels that remind me of "Psycho"
Lima Beans
Squat toilets
The road to Hana, and any others like that

I Love...

Anything British
Bubble baths
The "Miracle" on 34th Street
Foie Gras
Pandas (especially baby pandas)
Kangaroos
Waz & Lennie
The Beach Boys
The Beatles
Myrna Loy
Movies from the 30's & 40"s
Puppies
Brini Maxwell
Hats
Liver
Radios
Red
Fancy Hotels
The miracle on 34th Street

Thought for the Day

If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.

-Unknown, Sears Roebuck and Co., Consumer's Guide, 1897

Moses Is Always Happy

Brooklyn Bridge Waterfall

Photo by Adam Frucci

Fourth of July

Cake and fireworks right out back...

I Said It First

"Yes we can!"

Entourage: Season One

Hedonism- devotion to pleasure as a way of life: if you think this is a good theme for a tv show, you'll love the HBO series "Entourage." The writing is good, ditto the actors (are they really acting or is this reality?), and the show is never boring. But puh-lease, is this what we've come to? The pretty boy doesn't have a brain, the smart one is a wimp, and the other two are poor excuses for adult men who still find toilet jokes funny. Whatever happened to the term conspicuous consumption? Haven't any of these twenty-something "men" heard of helping someone instead of using money like it was toilet paper? It's all a joke to them- easy come, easy go, I guess. The only ones eager to help with the flushing are the even stupider bimbos clad "California-style." Is there a message here? Yeah, none of them have children (that we know of) so the species is safe. So far. I'll have to watch Season Two.

Chicago

Note to me: remember this day always.

Under Anesthesia

I got a bill from a doctor I never heard of. When I called to find out if my insurance was billed I was told that my insurance company had rejected it. Evidently they find the service (a radiologist reading an x-ray) to be unnecessary and this service does not meet the requirements of my benefits and is excluded from coverage. I am then told I am not responsible for this charge unless I agreed in writing to be responsible for the charge before the service was given. Evidently, I signed such a waiver while under anesthesia.

Edison Under the Banyan Tree

"Is this paradise?"...

...Kim asked.

A Favorite Mailbox

Edison-Ford Summer Homes

Why would Thomas Edison and Henry Ford build summer homes on the Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers instead of on the Gulf of Mexico? I couldn't figure this out until I saw their modest, very livable lovely homes. Edison (he came here first) imported a mile's worth of Royal Palms from Cuba to line MacGregor Boulevard leading up to his houses (he had two, one for him and one for guests). Ford liked visiting so much that he bought the house next door. I can imagine these two watching the boats go by on the river under the shade of the banyan tree and surrounded by beautiful tropical plants. It's a gorgeous place.

Sanibel Island

Sanibel Island is about a half hour's drive west of the Fort Myers Airport in Florida. I have rented a condo on the beach for a week and will be sad when my time is up. The weather is glorious and this is not even the "season"; in fact, many shops are closed for the summer and the traffic is minimal. There are no traffic lights and only one main thoroughfare so it might get out of control from October to Easter when the regulars are here. We have a beautiful shell-shocked beach (shells, shells, and more shells!) just outside our door.

A Visitor

I saw the cutest little bunny near my driveway. Moses walked right by and didn't notice him.

RIP

John A. Wheeler, Princeton professor, 1911-2008
See January 3, 2008 entry.
Festschrift complete.

Thought for the Day

"What happens when the future has come and gone?"
-Robert Half

The DMVee and Mee

Through the miracle of the internet you can now check all the Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) offices in Virginia for current waiting times. I decided to go with the 2 minute wait at the office which just happens to be my closest anyway. When I get there, there are lots of parking spaces and no line -so far, so good.

There’s not exactly a welcoming committee at the front desk. Okay, I’m patient. A couple of minutes pass before the woman at the desk filing (her nails, not papers) notices me and precisely at 11:38 AM I get my number: A038. (BTW, I have taken the DMV advice: go there in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of the month.) At noon my number is called; a sweet voice says “A038, service window number 3; A038, service window number 3.” And what awaits me there but a surly old Indian man too lazy to look up (hey, don’t we have a retirement age for foreigners?). He quickly highlights the question I didn’t answer (I am already a registered voter), tells me to try the vision test (passed), barks the fee, now $20, and then tells me in barely understandable English to sit somewhere that way -he points in the direction I am to move. So I move to the other end of the room and wait. And wait (what happened to the 2 minutes anyway?).

I have time to notice that I’m the only white woman here. Really. Although it is not crowded by DMV standards, out of the 70 or so people here I am clearly one of a kind. Abdul gets called, Ruiz gets called, Gonzalez and then Habib. Many of these folks are first-time license seekers and have the bulging plastic envelopes filled with their 5 pieces of identification documenting who they are. Don’t forget, this was one of the guilty offices giving out those fake Virginia licenses a few years ago.

Anyway, now it’s 12:15 PM and I am getting antsy. The woman who had A039 and was also just renewing her license has already had her photo taken and now has just been handed her new license. Is this reverse discrimination??? Monica, sitting next to me (hey, this can be a friendly place), asks me if I’ve been waiting long. We chat about Arlington (she’s a native), her two kids, blah, blah, blah. She wishes me a happy birthday (licenses in Virginia expire on your birthday); I tell her it’s a little early but she makes the point that she won’t be seeing me again so she’d better say it now. We both finally realize that the worker taking the photos obviously doesn’t like to walk to the other end of the building to pick up the “ready to photo” pile from the Indian guy, with whom we both had been dealing. Somehow the photographer finally gets our applications, takes our photos, and produces our new licenses. We say good-bye. We’re out of here for another five years.

PS. I look orange!!! Now what does that mean?

Who We Want, Who We Need

Thought for the Day - 9

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

In Case You've Never Read It

Daffodils - a poem by by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

A Glass (Shelf?) Half Full

And they make happy house calls.

St Patrick's Day

Menu:
Bubble and Squeak (I am an anglophile not an eire-o-phile.)
Kielbasa (duh?)

Post Secret

I iron other people's clothes.

Thought for the Day - 8

"America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week."
- Evan Esar (who is he?)

Beauty School

Tysons Corner #1 houses the Paul Mitchell Beauty School. Young female (maybe a guy or two) hairdressers-to-be, all wearing black, are willing and waiting to practice on you. Are you brave enough to be a guinea pig? Two hours (whew!) later and $12 poorer I'm glad I tried it.
PS- The teacher hovers over anyone wielding scissors. Remember, it's only hair.

Home!

Monday #2
Fiji to LA- 11 hours, 5 movies
Airport Lounge- 3 hours
LA to DC-5 hours, 2 movies
We crossed the International Dateline three times in 4 days.

"Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so."
-John Stuart Mill

Garden of the Sleeping Giant

Sleeping Giant Mountains, Nadi, Fiji
Raymond Burr, aka Perry Mason, bought 4000 acres of jungle on this island to cultivate orchids. It's a gorgeous but hot and humid garden.

Fiji

Bula!! Welcome to Fiji!
My "Beautiful Fiji" cocktail followed by sashimi under an Ice Igloo.

Hotel View -Samoa

Samoa

Wednesday #2 -Treasured Islands
We left Auckland on Wednesday at 5:30 PM and arrived in Apia on the island of Upolu, Samoa on Tuesday at 8:30 PM. On my second Wednesday, 27 February I went to Robert Louis Stevenson’s mansion (Vailima) about 3 miles outside of Apia. Although he only spent 5 years here (his last) he managed to have this beautiful house built. Here’s the house and the view from one of the bedrooms.


Thursday - The traditional Samoan house called a "fale" has no walls, just columns holding up the roof. As we drove by these houses in the night we could see their table and chairs, their double bed, and the ever present color TV. To make it even more interesting, their relatives are buried right out in the front lawn.

Last night we had dinner with the current Prime Minister of Samoa -a quiet man who loves Obama.
Friday -The picture below was taken at the place we had lunch on the south shore of Upolu. It couldn’t get any more beautiful.

Saturday
Left Samoa at 5:30 am, arrived Fiji Sunday 7 am (the flight takes about 2 hours but we lost Saturday since we’re straddling the International Dateline).

New Zealand

Monday - Wellington
Wellington is a small easily walkable city with a lovely old Harrods-like department store (much, much smaller though) called Kirkcaldie & Stains (see above). The city has a cable car which runs right up the hill to the University (see view below) and the Botanic Garden which has a rose garden and the most magnificent begonias I have ever seen.
Big begonias:




Tuesday - Dinners
We are having super dinners every night; I have eaten more oysters in the past four days than I have in my entire life. Last night we had dinner with a former Prime Minister of NZ -a charming chap who loves Obama.

Wednesday #1 - Auckland
A brief lunch stop here between Wellington and Samoa. Our friends have a lovely old house with a terrific view of the Auckland Tower and it’s nice to see this part of Auckland again and to catch up with F&L once again.

King Solomon's Mine

There's gold in them hills. Unfortunately, no free samples. Below, we climbed to the top of these vats where they separate the gold.