mgmt-kids

this song makes me wanna dance!

happy birthday, michelle-y!

michelle celebrated her birthday earlier this evening (which would make it july 29th.) we went to the mgm casino and ate at palette, the buffet. this is no ordinary janky buffet..this is actually good. it was great because we got it comped and we ate until our bellies were full. 

afterwards, michelle demonstrated her ability to look like a badass gambling at the black jack table using hand signals and everything. i, on the other hand, lost my twenty dollars in less than four minutes and refused to play with any more money. i would rather spend my money on something i can use or eat. :)

sunny morning

i love hot mornings full of sunshine. that's when i take my cup of tea and go out onto our deck in my pajamas. sunday morning i had a jelly donut cupcake and tea for breakfast and read the watchmen (which is awesome and coming out in the theaters soon!) lucy wanted to join me so badly that i actually allowed her to (she's an indoor cat)..she LOVED sniffing the fresh air and exploring new territory. of course the minute she heard the slightest noise, she darted back inside.

musique

i just heard this song and i'm in love with it. it's called "senegal fast food" by amadou & mariam. enjoy!

francais

sadly, today was the last night of my twelve week conversational french class. i learned quite a bit of useful information and i plan on continuing it in january when madame rickel is teaching french deux. :)

for this evening's class, we all brought something in that related to french cuisine. i took the liberty of making a flan and it turned out delicious! 

quack.

(picture taken from bbc.co.uk.)

meow.

it's funny that cats have such a limited vocabulary. meow. reow. mmrrr. it would seem that they'd be frustrated with such little to say, but no. they're laid back, slick and easy-going most of the time. and they get so much across with such few sounds. a high pitched "reow!" from lucy means, "i'm hungry!" a gutteral "mmrrr" from penelope (when directed at lucy) means, "get out of my way, biatch." and of course the "prrrrrr..." means, "ahhh. i'm a cat."

dreams are a tease

i woke up about 15 minutes ago from an awesome dream. i had an assignment to put black eyeliner on flea from the red hot chili peppers for a performance at the dia. i was staying in a hotel room adjacent to the museum and he came there...as i was putting his makeup on, we started talking and totally hit it off. before he left, we posed for a picture that i was taking of ourselves..except, instead of a camera, i was holding a can of hairspray and ended up spraying myself in the eyes. 

anyway, flea doesn't know it, but we have a connection...that i'll forget about tomorrow. 

sweet girl.

a favorite

one of my favorite pieces at the dia is this painting by edgar degas called "violinist and young woman" ("violiniste et jeune femme tenant un cahier de musique") painted in 1871.

perfect.

"bloom" by sam spenser.

we are in america. remember?

i found an apartment that i can imagine myself inhabiting. it is so cute! i pictured myself making tea in the tiny kitchen and taking it to the living room next to the high windows and just reveling in the fact that it's my own space. 

of course being from an old-fashioned family, i knew this would not sit well with my parents. i am more concerned with getting some sort of half-hearted approval from my mother, so i sat down with her yesterday for a talk. 

that did not go well. she basically asked me if i hate her. i had to laugh at that. why can't they get it into their heads that coming to america over 25 years ago would ensure that their children would grow up to be AMERICANS? 

i am excited to have found something i can afford and that i actually want to live in, but that feeling is being overshadowed by guilt and frustration. 

ginnie springs

(michelle doesn't like this story very much) 

once upon a time, a group of young adults from michigan drove to high springs, florida, the home of ginnie springs..a natural lazy river that boasts 70 degree water all year round. there are caves underwater where seasoned divers flock to explore the natural hot springs. this group of kids thought it would be fun to get into their swimming gear and walk to the opposite end of the river so that they could float all the way down with their newly inflated rafts. during their short journey they walked amongst 500 year-old trees and came across insects who looked more like robots with machine guns for arms than anything else. they finally got to their destination and entered the comfortable springs. each person laid on their raft and they were off. 

it was gorgeous...leafy trees surrounded the river, some with ropes dangling from them which tarzan impersonators probably placed there. the sounds of insects filled their ears and dragonflies accompanied them, but it was okay...after a few minutes they became part of the scenery and were welcomed by the relaxed group. only one person from the group was mildly freaking out the entire way. she didn't like the sound of the insects or the turtles sunning themselves on logs that resembled snakes. she didn't like dragonflies who wanted to land on her arms and sunbathe with the rest of the group. she didn't like being out in the open for all of nature to observe her so easily...to possibly have an imaginary underwater creature graze her legs. 

it was when the group reached their destination that things got out of hand. 

as they swam towards the end of the river into one of the boils, someone from the group spotted a snake in the water. its head was above water and it was swimming rather quickly towards the group. there was mayhem. each person from the group of ordinary kids became professional olympic swimmers. some were trying to distract the fall of man but that only made him angry. water was splashing in every direction and voices screaming and swearing filled the air. the one member of the group who wasn't having fun in the first place was full on sobbing. 

of course they all made it to safety and at that point everyone was laughing, except for one person from the group. she was still crying and wanted to go home. everyone else wanted to do it again! 

so, that's the story of ginnie springs. 

i am craving another adventure.

*photographs taken by jonathan landis, a member of the group.*

me & michelley

*check out my mom's glasses! she looked ancient!*

where was chris during all this? hiding behind the couch drawing on the faces of our dolls? taking handfuls of dirt and shoving them into his mouth? perhaps he was gathering worms from the sidewalk to slip into poor michelle's shirt. 

our strange earth.

life is just amazing, isn't it? it never ceases to blow my mind. look at these funny fish! they're called balloon lumpfish or lumpsuckers. they have adhesive pelvic fins in which they use to attach themselves to whatever they're living off of at the moment. these fish are living off a balloon in an aquarium in japan. (of course they're freakin' adorable..they're japanese!)

water.

(pictures taken from bbc.co.uk)

christopher-pierre joseph gabriel

baby chris, or as we used to call him, E.T.

a bewildered looking chrissy on nana mary's lap in their uber 70's home in jacksonville, florida.

nobody told us to say cheese. (cliff, me and chrissy.)

little christopher had no idea he was to grow as tall and thin as mr. giraffe.

chrissy doing what he was born to do. play with pink toys.

argh.

i HATE grammatical errors...especially in print. i mean, didn't you proofread your three line sign???

use a coaster!

i saw these avril loreti coasters on apartment therapy and they reminded me of renee and michelle. by the way, playing scrabble with michelle is NO FUN. she somehow gets eighty-seven points with three-letter words. 

ancient love

this was my first visit to castillo de san marcos in st. augustine, florida (the oldest city in the u.s. founded in 1565 by spanish settlers.) i've always felt a connection to st. augustine. perhaps it began in the spring of 1980 when this picture was taken. 

pictured: my uncle lawrence, my adorable young mother, me, my dad with too much hair on his head, my uncle johnny and my aunt gloria bernadette.