Some favorites

Now that the new hard drive is running and trustworthy and everything, I finally got my massive backup file of photos off of Bob's computer and, at Lisa's suggestion, installed Picasa to help me deal with it. I had used Picasa before, but hadn't kept up with it.

Now that I'm starting fresh (and Picasa has more features), it seems to be a handy thing. I've spent a lot of these vacation days organizing the folders on my computer and eliminating duplicates, and checking Picasa's face recognition picks and adding ones it missed so that the "sort by people" feature is pretty well set up. It's very cool.

Yesterday I stuck a bunch of my favorites into the screensaver file, and I thought I'd share a few particular favorites here. There are still several CDs of photos that were backed up in a different place and haven't been restored to the new computer, but these are some of the best photos from the batch I've been working with this week:

Oooh! Oooh! She posted!

Okay, I didn't expect it to be this long between posts, but there you have it. Facebook is really well suited to my online needs right now; I get to remark on the minutiae of my day and the issues of the day at will, and also keep up with many of my friends' goings on. And the commenting is much more interactive, and more of my friends are on there than ever read here.

That said, this is not an abandoned blog. I do expect to post here from time to time, especially when there are photos, because they're more accessible here than on Facebook. Well, kind of. Facebook is way better at providing access to all the photos, but the blog is available to anyone, even if they're not a Facebook friend.

ANYway.

What I came here to post was, my sister is in town and we discovered Ze Frank's Young Me / Now Me site, and we got Dad to scan some family scrapbooks, and here's ours:

Us in 1978


Us in 2010

Think he'll pick us for the book??

Recycling is good

Remember this?

Where I'm From

I am from a Snoopy lunchbox,
a rickety cart with a tiny black and white TV,
waxed paper and Strawberry Quik.

I am from the red house on Bayside Avenue
the rambling parsonage on the hill
the splintery-sided duplex
white siding in the suburbs.
Loyal Smutley, orange Volvo, fresh cut grass
Grandpa praying for unwitting sinners in the Sunday leaves.

I am from the woods behind the house
woodchucks, rat snakes, box turtles,
the allure of touch-me-nots--but only the fat ones pop.

I am from "not before six o'clock" on Christmas morning,
Saturday special breakfast,
From Earl and Louise and the far-off Moores.

I am from towering stacks of library books in crinkly plastic
and from moving boxes never unpacked.

From the marriage of "one right way" to "shades of gray."

I am from Sunday School, peace rallies,
boxes sent to a Mississippi family,
rice and tea like the children in Cambodia.

I'm from Tunkhannock, the Dutch rub,
brownies and maple walnut ice cream.

From great grandfathers black with coal dust,
a great aunt (or cousin once removed?) in France,
Nicholson File, Lincoln Bank.

I am from thick, crumbling sepia photographs:
Is that Grandma? Who's he?
Did they really take a picture of her after she died?

I am from jumpy, faded, silent home movies:
Mom in polyester and cat-eye glasses
Dad in shorts and knee socks, trips I never knew I took.

I am from a scrapbook for each child and another for the whole family:
Combing through childhood photos to recall
that couch, those shorts, don't you still have that teddy bear?

Scrapbook photos of a family reunion 30 years back, long-lost cousins.
Digital photos of another family reunion, cousins found.

The original post is from June 2006 (wow, I was blogging in 2006??), and can be found here, with explanations and links to the source material, and Mom & Lisa's versions in comments.

This came up today because Dad read me a (partial) version that he's been working on, and which he is welcome to post in comments here.

I may not sound like this in a few days, but...

For a family that's fixing to move less than a week before Christmas, we're ticking along pretty calmly here.

I took my commute on ... I think it was Monday ... to get myself from "How on EARTH am I ever going to get the girls presents they'll like and care about for Christmas?" to a simple, realistic and pleasing plan for how to do exactly that.

I shopped for stocking stuffers on my way home from work for the last couple of days, and I'm wrapping them this evening. I've also picked up a couple of immediate essentials for the new house, like an on-demand heater for the shower (most Costa Rican homes, including the one we're moving to, have no centralized hot water) and a pack of compact fluorescent bulbs. For the most part, the things we're going to have to acquire will come afterwards: curtains by me and some extra table/shelf action by Bob are the main ones.

We can't get a tree till after we move, so there's no dealing with that till next week. We've made a bunch of Moravian stars to decorate it with, we can string some popcorn, and I'll buy some lights and red balls. Voila, pretty, homemade tree.

The neighbor who sold us Bob's fridge when he moved here actually wants it back, so we don't have to figure out how to sell that or whether to move it.

I don't see doing a whole lot of packing until this weekend, since it's such a nearby thing and we can take the small stuff over ourselves either before or before and after the furniture goes on Sunday. Not like everything has to be boxed on a deadline for someone else to deal with.

The things I most want to have taken care of, aren't really in my hands. I was worried about scheduling with the girls while I'm off work, so I wrote the email that needed to be written, and now I just need to wait for a response. I'm a little concerned about the painting in the house, but it all sounded really good on Tuesday. Hopefully there's no problem there.

So...I guess I'll just get back to wrapping the stocking stuff and maybe make sure the wine from the other night hasn't gone off.

Came back to add:

I realized after I hit Publish, got the wine, and went back to the wrapping that the reason having a glass of wine while wrapping the gifts felt so right was that, nine years ago about this time, I was wrapping Christmas presents with Mom in my apartment in High Point, and she offered to pour us some wine. I only had a little because the big present we had for everyone that year (which Mom of course didn't yet know) was the news that I was expecting Julia, who was born the following August.

The one with all the reminiscing

Eleven years ago today, I had lunch with my Mom, and we bought a hairbrush.

We were waiting around to see if I was in labor, you see, and it turns out I was. I'd just had a prenatal appointment and the doctor, knowing I lived an hour and a half away by bus, suggested we not go home just yet.

So we had a (light) lunch at the Hotel Don Carlos, and bought a baby hairbrush at Mas X Menos (I can't recall that we ever once used it, but I'm sure the girls appropriated it for their stuffed animals eventually) and then went back to the clinic and were admitted. Well, I was. And Mom got to stay right up until I went into the delivery room. She brushed my hair for me.

Alex and I picked out the name "Robin" while waiting for the second checkup, if I recall correctly. I was wearing an enormous shirt with a very large paisley pattern. It was nicer than it sounds.

She was born in the late afternoon, and we stayed the night. I remember trying to get her out of the plastic bassinet beside the bed in the middle of the night. I couldn't reach it that well. I'm glad I didn't drop her.

We took her home the next morning, about an hour or so before Dad showed up at the hospital, having moved heaven, earth and office schedules to get an earlier flight.

We scandalized the neighbors (who told my mother in law on me) by taking the baby out of the house when she was just a couple of days old. Broke the quarantine, don't you know. "Quarantine" being derived from the same root as "cuarenta", meaning 40. That's the number of days you're traditionally supposed to be paranoid about the baby and avoid exposing it to...well, pretty much anything if I recall correctly. But I needed nursing bras and wasn't about to leave the baby behind when she didn't have any sort of eating schedule worked out yet.

She turned out okay, though. I don't think we ruined her.

The post on the day she's actually here to celebrate with us will probably be less about me and more about her, but she's with her dad today so I get to reminisce instead.

Okay, it's official. The Internet has *everything*

I remembered it, I Googled it, and two clicks later, BAM. It's Paddle to the Sea!

Time of the season

Lacking any particular point to make this evening, I looked back at our blogs from a year ago.

There was a lot going on, this time last year.

Things that make me think of Mom

Holly Near and women's rights



Meg Christian, Chris Williamson and flowers



Margie Adam and the Bosphorus



Happy Birthday!

Dear Alan Alda, You're still in good health, right?

Back when I was aware of Ed McMahon (86), Farrah Fawcett (62) and Michael Jackson (50) on a day-to-day basis, the news that each of them would pass away shortly before I turned 40 would have sounded reasonable to me; being young and immortal at the time, the prospect of entering my own 40s would have to mean that everyone, particularly people who were already grown and famous, would be impossibly old by then as well.

Turns out that's not the case at all.

Forty--as anyone who has attained the age can attest--is in fact surprisingly young, once you actually get there (week from tomorrow, thank you very much), and the adult stars of my youth are likewise, many of them, still entirely "too young to die" - except insofar as some of them still do.

Rest in peace, y'all.

Same ploy, different generation

When I was Julia's age, I remember once I put my dolls & stuffed animals to bed. I lined them up on the pillow and pulled the covers up to their little chins.

Yeah.

Mom saw straight through that.

"That's fine for today, but tomorrow you have to make your bed the regular way."

Julia's version of that is: It's not in the closet, it must be dirty.

Sorry, kid. Just cause you tried it on, or knocked it off the hanger, or even slept in it, doesn't mean it goes in the hamper.

Last year at this time

I stopped by the Virtual Pub at Shakesville and ended up having a brief conversation with a fellow commenter I'd seen around, but not really interacted with before.

...Who else is around? Phydeaux Speaks | 07.27.07 - 9:19 pm Hey, Phydeaux. I'm back from the (real) pub, but I'm off to bed in a minute, lightweight that I am. Jennifer | 07.27.07 - 9:22 pm Sleep well, Jennifer (and I won't tell anyone what you said). Phydeaux Speaks 07.27.07 - 9:28 pm Hey, what'd I say? Jennifer | 07.27.07 - 9:29 pm *whispers* that you're a lightweight. Phydeaux Speaks | 07.27.07 - 9:30 pm Aw, hell, that's just fact. Beer goes straight to my head. Jennifer | 07.27.07 - 9:31 pm LOL LOL Phydeaux Speaks | 07.27.07 - 9:32 pm Snails. Want to hear something amusing before I go? I blogged my trip to Greece last month, and I've gotten a lot of hits from people searching for information on some of the places I visited. Tonight's winner: "Signs of the Acropolis" Jennifer | 07.27.07 - 9:33 pm That's funny!! btw, I read the posts of your trip and enjoyed them very much! Glad you made it home after all the airline BS! Phydeaux Speaks | 07.27.07 - 9:36 pm And, are there four hoarse men reading the signs? Phydeaux Speaks | 07.27.07 - 9:36 pm Well, there were prolly at least that many at the bar tonight... I'm all flattered and stuff that you read my blog *blush* Jennifer | 07.27.07 - 9:38 pm I enjoy it! As a resident of the tarheel state, I'm glad to see one who has escaped and is loving life (as you appear to be doing) in CR. Phydeaux Speaks | 07.27.07 - 9:39 pm Definitely. Coasting Richly is more than just a handle, you know. I like to think that my blog provided a kind of public service to that anonymous Googler - "Hey! Acropolis? What the...? That's not what I meant! Hmmm..." *reaches for dictionary* Could have saved them some embarrassment down the road, even. Or, you know, not. (Now I'm off to visit your blog. I can picture you but I'm not sure I've actually visited yr homestead, as it were...) Jennifer | 07.27.07 - 9:42 pm

Being wrong

Two random childhood memories:

• Arguing with Dad that he can't know that We All Live in a Yellow Submarine, by the Beatles, came before We All Live in a Capital 'I', by Sesame Street.
  
  
• Second grade: Sitting at a small table with three or four other students, being asked math problems by the teacher. She asks me 7-11. I know the answer is "minus four," but we haven't covered negatives, so I answer instead, "that's impossible."
  

Blast from the past

I was asked for help editing a photo today. The original was pretty bad, and the initial attempt to fix it hadn't ended well. But I could see the intent behind the editing, and I was impressed by the thought process it displayed.

That, naturally enough, put me in mind of this song (well, its intro):



Revisiting old Tom Lehrer songs was fun. But if just one person does it, they may think she's really sick.

And we all know what happens if two people do it...in harmony.

But if three people do it; three, can you imagine? Three people posting Tom Lehrer videos in one day? They may think it's an organization.

And can you imagine fifty people a day? I said fifty people a day posting Tom Lehrer videos on the Internet? Friends, they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is. The Tom Lehrer YouTube Video Movement, and all you gotta do to join is to post one the next time you sit down to write on your blog.

What? I'm fine. Really.
*Twitch*

High School Me

Looking for something else, today I came across a bag containing all the buttons I used to wear on my denim jacket in high school.

• A Commander Salamander pin (Freebie from a punk sort of store in Washington DC that became something of a Thing among certain groups in my high school. Much-prized items were brought back from Model UN and other DC field trips. [Ask my about my red silk salamander tie...])
• Another Straight for Gay Rights
• Practice Nonviolence
• Hard Rock Café (Freebie pin)
  
• Question Authority
• A flag of Japan
• No more Hibakusha (what that means)
• Love animals don't eat them (Picture of Winnie the Pooh)
• Four little buttons of the Wandering Fool (The symbol of my college. That's right. The Wandering Fool was the symbol of my college)
• A rainbow-striped pig (Always got the most attention of all my buttons)
• A little map of the world
• Military Intelligence Is A Contradiction In Terms
• Snoopy yawning with Woodstock on his head
• Extinct: Too much armour not enough brains (Picture of a dinosaur)
• Hard Rock Café again (classy purchased version)
  
• Nuclear Moratorium
• Snoopy Has Fleas
• Nuclear-Free Zone

The bag also contained (not from high school) two diaper clips - for securing cloth diapers without pins - and a bullet I found on the ground in either El Salvador or Nicaragua.

A Random Memory

I'm jogging (trotting?) up the stairs in our house. I'm about Robin's age - eight or nine. For some reason, I have a rubber band on my right wrist, which shifts as my arm moves up and down. It makes me feel very grown-up, this thing on my wrist, even though I'm fully aware that there's nothing particularly grown-up about it.

I've remembered that moment occasionally over the years; most recently, on Monday when someone reminded me of a task that I had to do later in the day. I usually remember errands and shopping lists fairly well without writing them down, but once in a while I can just tell that something is not going to stick. I decided to try the rubber-band-on-your-wrist trick to help me remember. It worked.