Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Hey, yeah, I know, I know. Sorry. I've been really tired lately, OK? I'm not used to waking up this early. So cut me some slack, OK? I'm talking to you, 3-4 regular readers of this here blog. Yes you. Quit the emails. I'm here and I'm blogging. Sheesh.
Er.... lately not much has been happening. I saw Austin Powers and it was very disappointing. It wasn't nearly as good as the last 2 were. The Goldmember character could have been much, much funnier than they made him; the jokes were, in some cases, fairly old and tired; some of the main characters seemed a little forced; and it dragged at bits. I mean, it was amusing at points, but I came away feeling very empty and unfulfilled, comedy-wise. Whatever, seems like everyone else I've talked to really liked it, so what do I know?
Wow, did you see that magnificent use of semicolons in the previous paragraph? Wow. Sometimes I amaze even myself with my unparalleled grammatical prowess.
The original story for the movie Bladerunner was written by Philip K. Dick. It was. There is no possible disputation of this fact. I could swear that Philip K. Dick is mentioned in the movie credits. He wrote the story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which is the exact story of the movie at parts. Philip K. Dick. Bladerunner. Arielle and I are going to have to watch the movie at some point and figure this out once and for all, 'cause otherwise it's just going to drive me nuts. Wacko. Insane. Etc.
Er-r-r-r-r-r-r-r....
I have a hard time imagining anything more boring than the 2002 Minor League Scouting Notebook. But this is what my brother reads. He won't read interesting books like Harry Potter or Catch 22 or anything else that's good. He instead diligently applies himself to a book of minor league baseball statistics. Insanity? Undoubtedly.
The clouds right now are light purple with salmon edges.
Today in Surreal Painting I had Hard Days Night by the Beatles stuck in my head. I have no idea why, since I haven't heard it in ages, but it was really very badly stuck in there. Of course, I was falling asleep into my oil paints at the same time, so the exhaustion and fumes may have contributed.
This utter lassitude was oversome when Arielle, Paula and I went down to the first floor to consume sugar and hang out in the school store. It's air conditioned on the first floor. Bastards. It is ungodly hot way up on the fifth floor, and the heady scents of oil paint and turpentine that linger leadenly in the air just make it worse. And the painting I am working on is one of those paintings that, the more you get done, the more depressed you get about the way that the painting is turning out. Very unfortunate. Yet, such is life, non?
Yesterday on the T I saw a girl with a baby. The baby was cute enough, I guess, as babies go. Personally I can't stand the little grubbers, but other people on the train were smiling indulgently at the nasty little thing, so I surmise that it must have been cute. Anyways. This girl looked like she was about my age. Maybe a few years older. This girl was probably still in high school. Waaaaaaaay too young for that baby. She was holding the baby in one arm and trying to silmultaneously apply lipstick and hang onto the pole with the other. It was sad.
It is not a good idea to say "Hi-YA!" or "Are you serious?" in MassArt. It is likely to earn you a very hard smack. This is the way of things.
Have you ever seen The Jeff Corwin Experience on Animal Planet? It's a good show, a little bit like The Crocodile Hunter, only more diverse and less annoying. It also has the immeasurable advantage of starring Jeff Corwin. Jeff Corwin is from Boston. He also happens to be rather attractive. Thus, an enjoyable program.
I wonder where everyone is? Where they aren't? What they are and are not doing? And other such things.
The model that we had today in 2D/3D Fundamentals was terrible. We were doing portraits, see. So the model didn't even have to keep particularily still, just so long as her face was still. That was all she had to do, keep her head and face fairly immobile. And, I mean, that's not so unreasonable a thing to ask for, is it? She's getting paid, for cat's sake, to sit still and be a model. So you would think that she would be able to sit still and be a proper model.
Alas, this was not the case. She could not keep her damned head in the same position for more than a few minutes. She kept on looking up at the ceiling or to either side, or twisting her neck around in wild contortions. She yawned, she chatted, she rolled her eyes, she grinned and grimaced and totally changed the position of her mouth at least 15 times, she puffed out her cheeks, she shifted around so that the lighting completely changed, and she generally made it impossible to do a proper drawing.
It was as though she didn't even realize that we were drawing her. I mean, cat damn it, woman, sit still and look at the same spot on the wall! Even I know that you do that to keep your eyes in the same place, and I'm not a freaking model! Choose one expression and stick with it! Don't shift around in the light! In short, don't move your catdamned head when you're a model for a class doing portraiture! Duh!!!!
Man, that just pissed me off.
Gettin' kinda dark. Get up and turn on the light. Sit here and wallow in my own laziness. Hmm. Decisions. I think I shall opt for wallowing right now.
I really hope that it's cooler out tomorrow.
Where in space is Carmen Sandiago? Huh? Huh? You gonna tell me or you gonna keep me hanging here all day?
There's a giant, bright blue, steel balloon dog in the MFA lobby. It is unspeakably cool.
I. Do. Not. Like. Anime.
And the people in my comic book art class who do kinda freak me out a little.
Can you say 'obsession'?
I can.
Mais, à l'autre main, Tintin! Ah! C'est une bonne bande dessinée! Hergé, oui, il est l'homme.
*big despondent Sigh*
Oh, well, that's long enough for now, right? Yeah. That oughta hold ya.
Till next time, then.
8:17 PM
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
arright.
i'm really, really tired right now. but i feel like i hafta blog, because i haven't blogged in a while. i feel obligated. sigh. anyways, i'm really tired. i already said that, didn't i? yes. there it is. anyways. no capitals today. too tired to use the shift key on a regular basis. tough cookies if you don't like it.
o man, i haven't written about pittsburgh yet, have i? no. oy. there's so much. but i'm so tired. um... pittsburgh is the city of surly businesswomen. i kid you not. knot? no, not. it was kinda freaky. parts of pittsburgh looked like detroit and were kinda sketchy, but parts had awesome architecture, like this building called the ppg center, which was this giant blue glass castle. it was cool. i doodled alot of the buildings and bridges i could see during the baseball game i got dragged to. i dunno who won or anything, i was too busy drawing to watch silly baseball.
ummmm, what else? o yeah, dick cheney was staying at our hotel. on our floor. o. mi. gawd. yes, it's true. there were police everywhere in the lobby, and there were secret service agents in the lobby and on our floor. they were polite and they nodded to my little brother when he went to the elevator and nodded at them.
there was even a police dog. he was very big and very well-behaved, and he had a very bored handler. i sketched them while i was sitting, bored, in the lobby. a pittsburgh police man chatted with me and my mother in the lobby. he was very nice. my mother was flipping out because there were police everywhere in pittsburgh and she thought that that meant it was an unsafe city. i dunno, i kinda liked it, it was comforting.
we saw carnegie mellon. the campus was eh, but they have the exact programs i want. so i think it's on the list. ya, definitely on the list.
er... what else, what else? went to the andy warhol museum, which was really cool and had this huge exhibit of lp covers by all these different artists for all these different groups. it was a great exhibit. then it rained really hard and we got really wet.
um. yup, that was pittsburgh.
so.... quoi d'autre?
o yea, massart! ha ha! the reason i am so freaking tired. see, i have to wake up very very early to make the insanely early train i need to take to get there by 8:30 in the am. then i don't get home till like 6 in the pm. rather tiring. but it's really fun. the teachers are cool, for the most part.
my drawing and surreal painting teacher, connie, is a real character. she's nuts but she's funny and very nice and she's completely obsessed with her old teacher, who i guess is named conger metcalf, believe it or not. what a name. anyways, she thinks rather highly this fellow, and it's fairly amusing to behold. her teaching assistant is this very nice, very blond grad student named rebecca. the model we've been drawing from for the past coupla days is named richard. he's very slightly sketchy in some undefinable way... he's always taking 5 minute breaks where he grabs his bag and runs from the room to do cat-knows-what in some hidden sector of the building.
my issues and images teachers are rebecca and some other woman whose name is matvah or mahvat or masvah or something along those lines, i can't quite remember. it's the shortest class of the day, only one hour long, but it's interminable. maybe because it's right before lunch. maybe because they ask us to define ourselves and think deeply about art. o well.
my comic book teacher is named matt. so far i find him to be intelligent and capable as a teacher. he makes good suggestions and he hates comic book artists that exaggerate muscles so much that the characters look deformed, which has been pissing me off ever since i 'discovered' comic books. his teaching assistant is this very nice woman whose name escapes me at the moment.
the kids i'm taking the classes with are also very nice. they're from all over the state, so far as i can tell, 'though i don't really know where everyone's from. right. anyways, pretty much everyone has been really cool to be in classes with and to eat lunch with and to get hopelessly lost with, which we manage to do all the time, despite the fact that there are but 5 massart buildings, and we only use 4 of them. i got a locker today and i'm never going to remember where it is. sigh.
anywho. all is well at massart.
errrr...
not much else. i haven't heard from anyone 'back home' since massart started up. jess is coming home tomorrow night (hooray!) so maybe i'll hear from someone then.
leslie is in peru.
found my place with you
you're walking me through
long
dark
nights...
give me a light
give me the sunshine from your sky
give me a light
give me a light
ha ha. i love it.
well, now that my dead, dessicated body is slumping lifelessly with exhaustion over the immaculate keyboard of my glorious mac, i think i shall dessist. desist? i dunno. one o' those.
au'voir.
8:18 PM
Tuesday, July 16, 2002
OK.
I managed to get the last post up and visible. It took a great deal of cunning and skill on my part to outwit the cruel and wily ways of the Internet. It was a vast, epic struggle that deserves to be immortalized in stone engravings so that all who follow will know of my valiant travails. Actually I just hit 'Post & Publish' again and it showed up. But that took some cunning, didn't it?
In any event. I went to Portland last Sunday. Good times. We went on a boat ride with the most annoying family in existence. It consisted of two kids (named Roger and Heather), their parents, and a couple of grandparents. The grandfather was fat and loud and kept screaming things like "Rod-juh! Come heah Rod-juh!" "Look at that house! That's a million dollah mansion! How'd you like to clean all those windahs?" He also had a pair of binoculars, and every time the boat passed anything even remotely interesting he would shout to his family "Come heah! Look through the glasses! You can see everything with the glasses!" It was infinitely annoying.
But we saw a bunch of seals, so that made up for the family from hell.
Hm. In other news...
The mural goes well. It is being painted. It's pretty fun, working on it. So far the reactions to it have ranged from mild surprise, to pleased surprise, to confusion, to all-consuming rage (the Captain's reaction). Hopefully everyone'll like it when it's done. It seems to be a likable enough mural. Heck, I like it.
I got a brand new CD the other day. It's Dirtybird, by Tinstar. Incredible. Incredible. Omicats! It's so good. I shall have to sally forth and purchase more Tinstar CDs, that's how good it is. The third song, Sunshine, is so glorious, so magnificently felinely glorious, that there really are no words to describe it.
I reread The Stranger (L'Étranger) by Albert Camus. By finishing this book, I finished my summer reading list. The whole thing. Now I have to find other stuff to read. Hm. Suggestions, anyone? siamesecats@meowmail.com
Heading out to Pittsburg tomorrow. Joy of joys. I don't mind the ride too much, I just hope that my brother isn't too evil on the way. He does tend towards evilness quite often. It's not as though he's possessed by the devil or anything though. He's just naturally evil. It is his innate disposition.
Orgy is a very good band with a very bad name. I mean, really, Orgy? It's just stupid. But I like their music. I wish they would come out with another CD already.
O yeah, and that reminds me, I just put up some new links on the side of this blog, where the links are. Wow, that was coherent. Anyways, they're links to Music. Music with a capital 'M', because this isn't just any old music. This is Music that I like. Music that I listen to. Music that is good. Music that is very, very good. So maybe, if you're looking for some fresh new sounds (ha, that's so cheesy!), you can check these links out and who knows? Maybe you'll like some of it.
and never let this go
away
The other night a bunch of folks were at Liz's house. We were kind of watching some movie called Crumb. It was pretty bad. I mean, it was boring. And very sketchy. But it wasn't *good* sketchy. It just was bad. O well. Win some, lose some. C'est la vie, non?
and all the time is wasting
not today
but maybe tomorrow
I wish that my grandmother would stop sending me all these stupid chain letter emails. They're really starting to grate on my nerves. I have no idea why she's so obsessed with them, but she is. Argh.
I glance up and see the following books: A Discovery Guide to Rocks & Minerals, Favorite Greek Myths, Question and Answer Adventures: Coins, Tropical Fish, I Am an American, Kennedy Assassination, The Presidents. I don't know why those particular books are there. But there they are.
00ff99 has been designated 'mint'. Likewise, ff3333 is 'salmon'.
i was held
sarcastic silver swell
that day it rained
tough spun
hard won
now an ocean flower
aquarium
so happy to show us
but i ate the lotus
say haven't you noticed
well i ate the lotus
If you asked me to rhyme the word 'lotus', I would have had a very hard time with it. This is why I am not a songwriter.
Sunny out. Cumulus clouds, but not in any abundance. Not too hot. Here I am, bloggin'.
See? See? I'm blogging at frequent intervals. Y'all better be happy with that, and you had better not make me say 'y'all' again.
One more thing to say before I end:
cause you don't know what you're gonna find
too many people playing with your mind
yeah you know you gotta keep believing
dirtybird never lose that feeling
I end.
3:03 PM
Saturday, July 13, 2002
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
I know it's been a while since I last blogged. I know, I know, I know. I sincerely apologize to the two or three of you who regularly read this magnificent publication. I shall endeavor to be more timely in my postings in the future.
We are making a mural in the high school! 'We' being Corey, Rebecca, and I. It promises to be a very big, very cool, very visible mural. Cat knows when we'll actually finish the thing, but hopefully swift progress will be made before the summer comes to a close.
Talk so small I can't remember ever saying a word.
Today Izzy ate a small bug that had gotten into the house. He played with it for a bit and then gulp! it was gone. Of course we praised him for his hunting prowess. These are the sorts of things you must encourage.
The family is gone to see Road to Perdition. I didn't particularly want to go, so here I am. Blogging. Yes, that is the way of it.
My friend and I stick to the tired couches Please pass the time I found a dime under the corner cushion Wishing it was someplace else And so do I So do I
I got the MassArt info today, and apparently my electives are Comic Book Art and Surreal Painting. My first choices. I am quite pleased.
Hum. What else has been happening lately?
Since I blogged last I have seen The Bourne Identity and Men in Black II. I enjoyed both, although Men in Black was, it seemed, much too short. I thoroughly enjoyed Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity though. A great deal of enjoyment. Yes indeed.
Samurai Jack is a most excellent show. I recommend it. It's on 7:30 pm on Fridays and 9:30 pm on Saturdays. Saturday is today. If you're not doing anything in particular at 9:30, turn on Cartoon Network and share the love.
I hate waking up early. I really do.
Heading out to Portland tomorrow. Why? I have no idea. It's just another one of those times when my family gets these inexplicable migratory urges, and heads out to some random location in New England for a day. This little outing will be followed by the trip to Pittsburg, which promises to be a most glorious 10 hour ride. I will pack a great many batteries for my CD player. This is the secret to any successful road trip in my family.
I got a good idea for a new painting the other day. Maybe I'll work on it later today.
I adore Adobe Photoshop Elements. It is my friend. I can do all sorts of interesting things with it. And now since I have figured out how to get Woodrow to scan without too much trouble and complaining on his part, the photo editing capabilities of my computer are truly magnificent to behold. If only you were here to behold them.
I do hope that you are reading the webcomic Death to the Extremist. It is unaccountably interesting. I mean, by rights it shouldn't be. Yet it is. I find myself eagerly awaiting the next installment. I dunno, the appeal cannot be explained by any rational laws, but there it is. So go and check it out.
Magritte is cool.
Has anyone else ever heard of The Dambuilders? 'Cause I think I want their CD. Hm. Wonder when I can get down to Newbury Comics.
Did you know that I own Miami Dolphins checkers? Did you? Well, I do. So now you know.
The other day Jess, Kate, Liz, and I went mini golfing. Kind of. We got pretty bored of it after a few holes, so we just starting throwing the golf balls into the holes, and kicking them, and hitting each other's balls, and such. Then Liz hit my golf ball into the water, where it disappeared without a trace, despite the fact that it was red, so you would think that it would be easily seen in the water. But it wasn't. Anyways, then we drove home and Liz got her finger caught in this little hook thing on Kate's car and she couldn't get it out at all. So it was pretty funny. Then we went to my house with the intention of playing ping pong, but we were all too tired so we just collapsed in my room. Good times.
I hate playing chess with the computer. It always beats me, and then I am sad.
On the other hand, I like playing Hexxagon with the computer. I can beat it sometimes, and then I am glad.
Well, there's yer blog. Be happy, all. I will blog again at a later date.
Au'voir.
3:57 PM
Saturday, July 06, 2002
My god. It works. It really, really works. God bless you, Internet Explorer. God bless.
OK. Well, a lot has happened since that last blog (I mean since it was written, not since it was posted). For one thing, I learned that Lennox is actually spelled Lenox. One 'n'. Well, I didn't know that before. But I am too lazy to go through that whole huge last blog and change it all, so if you read it you can just imagine that every misspelled Lennox is actually Lenox. I hope that doesn't overtax your imagination or anything.
We went to see RENT. It was glorious. If you know about RENT, Mark and Maureen were great, Benny and Collins were terrible (totally different voices), Joanne was OK, Mimi was OK (I don't think she was Spanish at all), and Angel was OK but a little more butch looking than the original. If you don't know about RENT, you have no idea what I just said.
In RENT, Mimi is on crack. Throughout the play we (the joyous viewers) see little packets containing a white powder (crack. At least, it's supposed to be crack. I don't think RENT purchased actual cocaine for their play. I hope not, anyways). Liz completely missed that Mimi was on drugs. So I asked her, "Liz, didn't you realize she was taking drugs when she kept on showing us the packets of cocaine?" "Cocaine?" says Liz, "I thought those were condoms!" Riiiiiiggght....
Then we wandered around Boston. A man in a car made a very lewd gesture to Helene (it would've been really scary if there were only 2 or 3 of us there, but since we were in a big group, a flock if you will, it was kinda funny). The guy who gave Kate her drink at lunch winked at her and said he put something extra in her lemonade. We think it was vodka. A guy named Sam in Fanuel Hall asked us all to feel his hand, and told us that we too could have silky smooth hands if we got paraffin dips. We loitered for a really long time in American Eagle and I think they will hate us forever. Then we went to Bath and Body Works and used the Magical Bronzing Wand to add a little color to Helene.
Um. What else has been going on? Let me see, let me see...
Well, Leslie has been here. That's been fun. Leslie, Liz and I (ooo, check out that grammar!) have consumed a lot of ice cream this week. O yeah, and a bunch of us went to Richardson's ice cream, and there was a really hot guy there serving ice cream. Really, really hot.
Err... fireworks. There were some. The Swampscott ones were not overly enjoyable, partially because Swampscott has yet to master the art of firing off fireworks so as to not bore the crowd, partially because we were standing in the middle of the street, and partially because it was disgustingly hot out. Gross gross gross heat.
A little kid standing right behind us had lost his mother and the police were looking for her, but he didn't seem too upset about it.
We were wandering around after the fireworks and we saw a heavily inebriated mother. She was pushing a big cooler in front of her and towing a few little kids around. As she got up to us, she dropped the cooler and said "EXcuse me!" rather slurrily. She then whipped out this big light up sword thing and started waving it around. She was staggering all over and shouting drunkenly to her kids "Kidsh! We made it! Ha ha we made it!", all the while gesticulating wildly with this plastic sword. It was utterly hilarious.
Then we went back to Kate's house and Kate got yelled at by her mother for not being a good host. See, Kate made us get our own drinks. Isn't that just shameful? Anyways, her mother put her right, by yelling at her "Kate, you better not ever go into the restaurant business!" Now all of Kate's hopes and dreams of owning and running her own restaurant have been cruelly shattered. It was also utterly hilarious.
The next night we saw the Nahant fireworks. They were much better than the Swampscott fireworks partially because Nahant knows how to fire off fireworks in interesting groupings, partially because we had a good seat on the ground, and partially because it was nice and cool out. Well, relatively cool, anyways.
That night we had a sleepover chez Maura. It was really nice outside, so we stayed out there for much of the night. Maura's sister had some friends over for a while and it was very entertaining to watch them play basketball, because they were very good at it. Lessee... this is some of what happened, not in any particular order or any particular completeness, just as I happen to remember it:
-There was some swimming, some of it performed in rather inappropriate and, ahem, distasteful clothing.
-Then there was some communal showering, which was captured on film by one who was most definitely not taking any part in the communal showering (i.e., me).
-Helene fell through Maura's porch.
-Very odd music was listened to.
-Tyler tried very hard to get us all to go to 40 steps, and Maura was reminded that she was 'the hostess, not a guest!' and therefore not free to go cavorting all over the island.
-Jason almost ruined Maura's mother's day, by seeming to be in danger of drowning with not a floatie in sight to save him.
-Mars Attacks! was on very very late at night and way too loud.
-Liz's hair got more and more magnificent as the night progressed.
-The two male Drummonds had an intense basketball game.
-There was debate over Boston v. Route 128 in regard to ease and quickness of travel. Poor Jessica had some worrisome moments where this was concerned.
-A whole lot of water was expended on one side of the room, with most of it ending up on or around Noah (diligently applied by Helene and Stephanie).
-Dave fell asleep incredibly early, and was not even wakened by the water flying late into the night next to him.
-Vanilla coke was consumed.
-Meredith sat on many chairs at once, and ate an apple.
-Liz attempted to eat a Laffy Taffy with the wrapper on. This attempt was unsuccessful.
-Corey and Elise demanded (and got) a box of Cheezits, which was swiftly emptied.
-Sap got all over Leslie.
-There was snuggling all throughout the night. I won't say who was snuggling, because if you don't already know then you don't deserve to know. So take that.
And also, I got some pictures taken, so that always makes it better. I get them back on Tuesday. We also watched MTV Cribs very early the next morning without any sound, so that was fun.
Um, I guess that was about it. I can't really think of anything more right as of this moment. If you were there and you can think of anything else and you're totally indignant that I haven't included it in this glorious, ever-so-vital-to-your-life blog, you can email me (siamesecats@meowmail.com).
Then I got home. I was very very tired. I showered, and then I went to lie down for a bit around, oh, it must've been around 11. When I woke up it was around 4:45. The air conditioning had broken and been fixed in that time, and I had entirely missed it. Oh well.
S'all for now, I suppose.
2:58 PM
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Ha ha ha! I'm back! The problem must have been with AOL, because I'm doing this on Internet Explorer (provided free of charge with my ever-so-glorious Mac). Hopefully it will post arright. We shall see.
Alors, here is a blog I wrote when I was forced to go to Lennox. It's been sitting around on my computer ever since Blogger and AOL decided to enter into prolonged warfare. So here it is. If this works out, maybe I'll post more recent stuff a little later.
Today I had to go to Lennox.
Some of my mother's family lives out there, and some more of her family was visiting there, and of course they just couldn't stop by Lennox without seeing us. But naturally this didn't mean that they came to visit us, o no. We had to drive the 3 hours to Lennox in order to see them there.
The ride out was fairly uneventful, except that we got fairly lost once in Lennox, and we ended up going down every road in that benighted little town before we finally found the right one. And even then, we still missed the turn off for the house, so we had to go through some condos.
Also, I killed a fly in the car. It was still intact. We wanted to leave it there as food for my dad's prize white spiders, which he breeds in his car, but my mother removed it later.
As we were pulling in, we were conjecturing about the lunch that might be served to us. The last time we were there, there had been literally nothing in the fridge except for vegetables and a bottle of Grey Poupon. There had also been some suspicious purple bagels. And water. That was all.
This time, little brother Eli guessed, our hosts would have expanded their repetoire somewhat. He predicted that this would mean lemon slices in the water.
We walked into the house. The very first thing I see is the host handing someone a cup of water with a lime slice in it. I almost died.
The people with whom I was forced to socialize were as follows:
-My grandparents, up from Florida and one of them laying on the guilt trip because we 'never have time to go visit them'.
-Lenny and Judy, the hosts, who are insanely rich and don't do anything. Judy apparently was in the shower and didn't show up until maybe half an hour after we arrived.
-Aunt Jane and Uncle Warren, my mother's aunt and uncle, anyways. They're funny, they're very much New Yorkers. They were good for conversation.
-Maggie, the oldest of Lenny and Judy's children, who I don't think I had ever met, and who actually does do stuff. Also there were her small children, Rebecca and Marcos, who were cute as small children go. But you know my feelings on small children.
-Aunt Leila, my mother's aunt, somehow related to me, I always forget how. She is nice but I didn't see too much of her there, for some reason.
-Alan and his 5th or 7th or somethingth wife, whose name I forget and who never ever has said anything to me that wasn't about my hair. "I loooove your hair!" "Are you going to let that color grow out?" "No? Good for you girl!" Picture all that with a heavy accent.
-The nanny of Rebecca and Marcos, Sarah, who only spoke Spanish. The kids are bilingual, since their mother Maggie speaks mostly English, and their father Roberto (who was not there) speaks mostly Spanish. Since I don't speak Spanish, I did not communicate with this nanny.
-Also there were two people, an old man and woman, who allegedly lived near where we were, and who allegedly were friends of someone there, but I don't think I ever caught their names, and I have no idea who they were.
-And of course my family was there. My dad and Eli talked sports at each other for pretty much the whole time. My mother tried to deal with her family, and I fielded questions about college or driving the whole time, since apparently, according to these folks, no high schooler can speak with authority on any other subjects.
You can imagine the good times we had.
Judy, when she emerged from the shower, had this weird thing on her arm. It was brightly colored and looked, well, it looked a little like one of those things you wear for tennis elbow, but not really. It was a lot bigger and more colorful. Someone finally asked her what it was. She said that it was for her tennis elbow, but she hated those 'ugly' tennis elbow bubble things. So she was wearing a wine cooler on her arm. A wine cooler. Goddamned rich people.
We also went on a walk on Lenny and Judy's extensive property, which includes lord-knows how many acres of forest, huge vegetable gardens, a large lake, and a swift brook. We were eaten alive by insects, tramped through what was probably poison ivy, heard encouraging stories about trespassing deer hunters shooting things and starting fires in Lenny's woods, and discovered a trespasser fishing in the lake, despite the numerous No Trespassing Private Property signs. Plus mud. Lots of mud. Ah, nature!
O yes, and we also dicussed in depth the lack of scorpions around here, but the proliferation of scorpions with lasers on their heads. My mother didn't believe that there were scorpions with lasers on their heads all throughout Massachusetts. Shows what she knows.
Then we went back in, and Warren and Jane decided to leave early, greatly pissing off my grandmother, who had apparently been under the impression that they were going to stay for dinner (Warren and Jane were transporting my grandparents). She left, although under extreme protest, shouting as she went out the door "I come up here and I can't even see my own children!"
We stayed for a little bit longer, since it was just my family, Lenny, Judy, Maggie, the nanny, and the kids. We chatted, Judy showed me some really cool costume designs from the Shakespeare company which is right out there, and my dad played ball with Marcos. Eli sat and sulked. Rebecca and the nanny had a tea party.
Then we went into 'town'. We went to a good coffee house and got coffee. We met up with Lenny there. Some kids were playing hackey sack near us. At one point they sent it flying over us, down a small cliff directly behind us, and perhaps into the parking lot below. My dad, Eli, and several of these kids spent a good 15 minutes searching for the hackey sack, which was later determined to have disappeared off of the face of the earth, going the way of Tupac. I thought that it had maybe gone down a gopher hole.
One of the kids was wearing a UMass Herb Fest tshirt, and really really really needed to wash his hair. He needed a hair cut too.
Then we wandered around and went to this really cool art gallery. I had on my Mass MoCA tshirt, and the artist at the gallery saw it and started talking about Mass MoCA. Turns out one of his pieces (a dog house with a roof made out of license plates) had been in a show judged by the son of Norman Rockwell (I forget his name), whose work I had seen at Mass MoCA. It was like a giant pyramid of plastic toys. Kinda cool if you like that kinda thing. We had fun trotting around the pyramid seeing which toys we could identify, and which ones we had in our own basement.
Anyhow the artist guy was really nice, and I wanted to get either a wooden beaver or a metal owl, but my mother chickened out and refused to get anything. My dad and brother sat on a bench made out of old tools and talked about baseball, which is their natural reaction whenever they get within 5 feet of an art gallery.
We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant that claimed to be a 'mexican restaurant and pizzaria'. I don't know how it was, I wasn't all the hungry, so I just had a salad and water.
Then we drove home. There was significantly less traffic, so we lost practically an entire hour. It was uneventful except that I got a sudden pressing urge to use the bathroom between reststops, and I almost went insane waiting for the next one. The Mass Pike really needs more rest stops. That's my official opinion.
O yea, and Lenny and Judy's house is right next to Tanglewood. The radio show Prarie Home Companion (which I love) was broadcasting from Tanglewood today. I really wanted to go see it, but my dad thought we would get home too late if we did. Sigh. Probably. Still, I really wanted to go. Alas.
Tomorrow I go to see RENT!!!! Again. Whatever, it'll still be glorious. I just hope it doesn't get too damn hot.
Hm. S'all, I think.
2:43 PM
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