Spam names

I seem to recall Jana talking about skimming her spam for baby names. It's also a good place to rule names out:

Dorcus Kelley
Rumpus C. Revelling
Stokes G. Procyon
Slums Q. Fetishism
Cowers O. Hales
Yotis D. Lackey
Krissis McEachern
Clunking A. Peregrination

My friend Susan, who is also expecting, said she and her husband try out names by yelling them in the house. "Clunking! Time for dinner, Clunking!"

Just thinking...

Too much mango?

I've had the equivalent of a entire bag of Trader Joe mango chunks today. At what point do I know I've eaten too much mango? Wait...don't answer that.

More interesting (?) than my desk

I found some notes I took while interviewing my mom about her childhood and parents, who died before I was born.

My grandparents were both teachers in rural Nebraska. During the Depression, Grandpa left teaching high school science to farm full-time, something he didn't care for too much, but keeping the family afloat required it. He was a slight, scholarly man, preferring study to labor on the farm. New farming techniques did interest him however. He was very methodical, like riddles, puns and jokes, but inclined to be more serious. My mom and her siblings used to say, "Tell us a story, Daddy, about when you were little..." while he milked the cow.

My grandmother, also a teacher, was quick-minded, impatient, sometimes frustrated, and spoke more sharply. She and Grandpa were quite compatable and liked to talk about similar things, especially current events. My mom believes she used to sew the doctor's wife's clothes as they couldn't afford to pay the doctor during the leanest years. She also cared for their ailing parents, who lived with the family in their final years. Later, my Grandma substitute taught when the kids were in high school.

They weren't a particularly social couple, other than family gatherings and church on Sundays. The farm kept them too busy. They did, however, make a point of taking the kids to concerts, to show them there was a bigger world out there.

My desk

A few months ago, I posted a photo of the explosion that is my desk. I managed to clean it up respectably then, but the explosion has worsened. Not only that, I can't figure out where to put things where I won't forget about them completely. I'm afraid I'm an out-of-site-out-of-mind kind of person, and I'm not happy to admit it.

So this afternoon, I am tackling my desk, finding new homes for the junk that poses as Important Papers, and setting my life straight before the next quarter begins. As a motivator, I will post another photo at 5 pm to show my progress.

So for all you readers who care (i.e. -3)...stay tuned!
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It's now Sunday evening, and I still have not finished and photographed my desk. I did, however, pull everything out of my inboxes and sort them nicely...

Favorite art, part 5

This piece, created by Ray and I a few months ago, will be delivered in early September. The medium is ultrasound, from about a month ago. It's a fairly "close-up." The head is in the upper left part of the middle of the image. Where you see more white is the profile of the face. There's another longer and thicker white streak at the side that I think is the right arm. It makes sense if you imagine where the shoulder is. Maybe?

Dream

I had an interesting dream the other night: I looked down at my ring and realized a diamond was missing. I stopped and looked around to see if I could spot it, though I presumed it was gone and was disappointed I'd have to replace it. Then I got down on my hands and knees and gave the ground a really close look. On the floor were hundreds of precious and semi-precious stones, some set in broken pieces of jewelry and other just loose. I picked through them and realized that a lot of people had lost gems and not bothered to look for them, and other stones had been here all along unnoticed. I felt better about looking for my lost diamond and started thinking about what I could do with some of these other stones, like putting them together in some kind of "found art" piece. Incredible that all these beautiful stones could go overlooked, yet I had come this close to walking away myself.

Good reminder for me: look for life's gems as they're likely right under your feet.

It's that time again

Yes, finals are this week, so I'm studying hard...in the kitchen, playing with food, taking photos, fixing them up on the computer, and blogging about it. Very very productive. Unfortunate that I'm not in cooking, photography or writing school.

Ray's friend Mike just gave us this neat-o blender thing, which is mostly a handheld blending gadget that you can stick in most any container or glass, or on top of its own blendy-container as pictured here. Ray bought some frozen mango bits a Trader Joe's yesterday, so I've blended a few with some ginger ale to make a smoothy of sorts for lunch. Result: delish! A thicker version would easily pass for sorbet. This would go great with some gingerbread biscotti! Hmmm, I've never had gingerbread biscotti. There must be a recipe out there somewhere. I should get right on it...

(Ray's out with a friend for the day. As he walked out the door: "Get lots of studying done...don't take a nap in front of a movie." "Are you kidding," I replied. "I have way too much to do!")

Amazon Swim

Have you heard about this? I've been following Guinness-record-holder marathon-swimmer Martin Strel of Slovenia as he swims the length of the Amazon River. Yup, that's a long way...3,375 miles, all in 70 days. He's been at it more than a month and is about half-way done. He swims for about 12 hours a day, between 85-100 km. In the last few days, he's had to swim past a giant dead crocodile and avoid an angry jaguar. He's been followed by a pink dolphin, is enduring ever-worsening and -spreading open sores from his wetsuit, and the camp and boat have been plagued with fire ants.

"As a young boy, I was beaten a lot by my parents and schoolmasters. This no doubt contributed greatly to my ability to ignore pain and endure..."

www.amazonswim.com

Lookee - ice cream through the mail!

Ice Cream Truffles from Ray
Cookies and Cream
Praline Pecan
Caramel Fudge with Almonds
Coconut with Almonds
White Chocolate Hazelnut
Raspberry
Tiramisu
Apricot with White Chocolate Chips
Bittersweet Chocolate
Strawberry
Banana with Peanuts
Burnt Caramel
= Luckiest Girl Ev-ver.

Awake at 4 am