Happy New Year!

Thursday

(illus. by Edward Gorey, 1994)

(my new old 1920s kimono)

We're deep into the post-Christmas lazy days here. Today I'm going to a screening of Jim Henson's fantastic puppet film Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas at the arts center and then to a VIP tour of the Jim Henson exhibition. I got lots of knee socks for Christmas.. I know it sounds boring, but I'm really excited about them.

Merry Christmas to all...

...and to all a good night.

We have spent our Christmas eve eating fondue, drinking nog-aritas and dancing to old vinyl. I hope your Christmas is just as merry, wherever you may be.

ghosts of Christmas past

I suppose the jetlag is officially over when the insomia kicks in. I had a very good day.. I got to play with my sisters and some friends, drive home with the huge moon hanging over the desert while singing loudly to the car radio, and eat freshly baked Chrismas cookies barefoot in a middle-of-the-night kitchen. Not sleeping is a small price to pay.





And this is quite lovely, too.

Happy Christmas Eve!

in mediis rebus

I realized I forgot to say we got home safely... but we did. I've been busy riding roller coasters, spotting unfortunate hairdos, eating free tortillas, being sung to by young men in bellhop outfits, attending Christmas parties and becoming irate over the use of CGI instead of prosthetics in blockbuster movies. Other than that not much has been going on here.

winging it

I'm tuckered out from celebrating my Dad's birthday and going out with my sisters and tree decorating and picking out a microscope (and other things) for a little girl who was on the Salvation Army's Christmas Angel list. Tomorrow we're going to California to play for a few days. In the meantime, here is a Flickr pool of bears in ill-fitting hats to keep you entertained (courtesy of my lovely sister Brie from whom many a delightful link has come).

tree!

Our Christmas tree quest was successful last night. We found one in the first place we looked, which is unusual for us as we have very particular tree criteria. It has to have enough gaps between branches to accomodate our silly number of ornaments and be big but not TOO big. We have marks on the high ceiling from past years when we've gotten carried away.


(If a tree falls on your sister and there's no one there to hear her, will she still scream?)

lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them

I've spent most of the day helping to decorate my parents' house for Christmas, and am now waiting for my sisters to arrive so we can go pick out a tree. There's also a meteor shower tonight. It's been years since I've gotten to lie out in the back yard wrapped in blankets and watch shooting stars.. I'm excited.

jiggety-jog

For anyone who might have been wondering, I arrived in Arizona safely, was filled with margaritas and Mexican food and put contentedly to bed. We had to sit on the runway for almost three hours before taking off, making my long flight REALLY long, but we all survived. I'm certain the pilot said "by the power of Greyskull!" over the PA before asking the flight crew to check the doors. It's just about time for breakfast now, even though my body thinks it's the middle of the afternoon. sigh.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Tomorrow I'll be winging my way across the ocean to Arizona for Christmas and New Year's. I think I've packed everything I need to.. what I need now is some sleep.



To the Valley contingent, I can't wait to see you.. less than 24 hours!!

your closest exit may be behind you

I'm spending the day packing and getting ready to fly tomorrow. My sister posted this a couple of days ago but it amused me so much I had to put it up it too. If only all airport staff were so sardonic. I think I payed more attention to this than I ever have to safety announcements I've watched on planes.



I love the nun at the end. Nuns on my vacation make me very happy, especially at amusement parks.

once I ran to you

Today I saw a woman in the post office with a fake baby trying to pick people's pockets. When she was caught she put the swaddled doll down on the floor, horrifying several nearby women who thought the baby was real. Also in the post office was a woman who looked like the Ghost of Christmas Present if the Ghost of Christmas Present was a stunning French-speaking African woman with good taste in scarves. The pièce de résistance however was a Pearly Queen I spotted dancing to a live version of Tainted Love.



Just imagine!

insomnia

I should know better than to have coffee in the evening... I keep telling myself not sleeping will just ease my jet lag in a few days' time but I don't really believe it.

twinkle twinkle little snail

fishy

I've just been checking out travel insurance. Evidently getting hijacked while on holiday is worth £500, while a cancellation of said holiday is worth £5,000.

hmmm...

Wednesday, again

It's been a good afternoon. I finally managed to devise a satisfactory jewelery travel storage solution and bought myself a Conrad novel for the plane like a good little existentialist. The booksellers' tables on the South Bank were covered in pages flapping in the wind and I saw a man who looked like Samuel Beckett dressed as a 1950s American farm hand crossing over the Hungerford Bridge.

you are getting very sleepy...

I've been out again listening to nice people make very nice music. There's a video I took of some of it over here.

That's all, I think. Off to bed..

you will know it is time to turn the page when the chimes ring like this

My sister sent me a link to Lookybook today.. it's a site which lets you view entire picture books online. It's still small and the selection isn't amazing but the idea is a good one. I found some books I used to check out from the library when I was younger as well as some I had never seen before.

I spent a large part of my childhood in libraries or up trees or under the covers in the middle of the night reading library books. I had a conversation recently about how nice it would be to have a Lovefilm/Netflix style online library so you could borrow anything you wanted. If anyone ever decides to make one it should have a browsing system like this one.

I declare

I dare you to watch the drummer in this video and not feel better about the world:

more human than human

I trekked to south London today with one of my favorite people to see the final cut of Blade Runner. It was stunning. This was the first time I've seen the film at the cinema and it was amazing to be able to see all the detail in the costume and set dressing. That kind of film design is rare now. I think the widespread dependence on computers to create images means the artistry of film is being lost. Beautifully crafted models, matte paintings, props and textures... it made me so happy to watch, but also frustrated with makers who don't make "real" things anymore.



(click for larger images)