07.18.10
Oh, Hey There
Yeah. Long time no see. Me? Oh, I’ve been busy doing things. Flying back home to see my brother get married, visiting friends in Pittsburgh over the holidays, learning how to snowshoe, backpacking, cross-country skiing, visiting Portland and Denver…I think those are the highlights. And of course, taking tons of photos.
11.30.09
Displaced People of Wyoming Thanksgiving Extravaganza!
For Thanksgiving this year, I tried tofurkey for the first time. I used, with a few modifications, this recipe. I did not attempt to shape it into a turkey, because, come on, no one’s gonna fall for that. Overall, I was pretty satisfied. No one would mistake it for turkey, but it was turkey-ish. And our lovely hosts took some of the leftovers. Another first was Yorkshire pudding, which is not pudding at all. No, it is a delicious eggy biscuit sort of thing, and I’ve already made another batch in the few intervening days.
11.22.09
New Math
I have a serious aversion to math, nurtured by my complete ineptitude in it. New Math, however, adds a fun and witty twist to that much-maligned subject.
Like many awesome findings, I’m pretty sure I learned about this site from swissmiss.
11.13.09
Rail Yards
There’s something so romantic about trains. In high school, we would walk along the tracks late at night and talk about hopping trains without ever actually doing it. The hobo dream remained untouched for several years, when I would learn all about the ups and downs of unlimited freedom and open space. I like to return to rail yards when I’m feeling down.
11.01.09
Halloweeeeeeen
Truth be told, I was not as excited about Halloween this year as I have been in past years. I missed my friends, and thought about how much fun they were probably having in their far-flung locales. Me? I dressed up as a Persian cat: I wore a gold brocade dress, and cat ears that I made out of silk shantung. Black eyeliner worked well to create whiskers and a black nose. Mars was kinda freaked out when I put on the ears–suddenly, he didn’t know what to make of me.
During the morning, I passed out bookmarks and stickers to the parade of little dinosaurs and monkeys that were trick-or-treating downtown. My favorite costume was the baby dressed like a lobster, sitting in a stock pot and pushed along in a stroller by his/her parents, who were dressed like chefs. In the evening, we went out to eat–in costume–and then heard a few bands at a bar. It was alright. Nothing too amazing. Lots of Maxes from Where the Wild Things Are, so I’m glad I nixed that idea. There was an awesome bridezilla: a bride/Godzilla hybrid.
10.28.09
DIY Tarot Deck
Learning how to read Tarot cards has been an intention of mine for a few years. It just seems like a fun thing to be able to do. I decided to start by making my own deck, beginning with the 22 cards of the Major Arcana. Now, here is where knowing the symbolism in each traditional card would help. I started with a base image for each concept, and can add symbols as I learn about each card.
I cut 2.5″ x 3.5″ cards out of cardstock, sifted through my substantial collection of magazines for appropriate images, and rubber cemented those suckers on.
10.26.09
Roadtrip: Final Leg
Mount Rushmore is one of those ubiquities in American culture that I was not too keen on visiting, but it was right there, and my mom wanted to visit. The one aspect that I was interested in was its inclusion in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, but it’s not mentioned within the park itself. I did have to visit the dining room, and of course it’s totally different now. The U.S. government promised these lands to the Native Americans, then carved the faces of 4 U.S. presidents into that same land, using rocks that Native Americans find sacred. That encapsulates U.S. history pretty well, I think.
What really shocked me was that I had never heard of or seen pictures of Crazy Horse Monument until this trip. Really? The world’s largest mountain carving, just a few miles from Mount Rushmore, and I’ve remained unaware of it for 30 years? It’s an interesting story: they refuse to accept any funding from the government for the project, so it is funded entirely by donations and profits from admissions and concessions.
