Let me introduce...

....the newest building on the block.
They took down the scaffolding at Rainbow Apartments this week and this was underneath.

Middle ground

You may have noticed the change to the header image. As it turns out, an elephant is even too iconic for this blog. Although I would like to point out that it was a picture of a rocking toy found in the Eames House yard and there was nothing political about it. Hopefully a subject like the weather will draw less comment. That is unless you live in Alaska, I guess, and then maybe the anti-snow undertones could get under your skin.

Beware! World is smaller than it appears.

Today during a business lunch I felt the world squeeze in around me just a little bit tighter like an old pair of button fly jeans. I was out to lunch with 6 people, 4 of which I had never met before, 3 of which I had a connection indirect or direct . Did you follow that?

The first, a gentleman representative from a lighting company in the California area handed me his business card. His email address was johndoe@covad.net. (No, his name is not really John Doe. I'm protecting his privacy. Something I don't do for my own father.) If this point escapes you, I'll help, my brother works for Covad.

The second, a stylish lady from a local lighting designer started talking a little basketball and followed with the fact she went to KU but was originally from St. Louis. Well, well, I am ALSO from Missouri and went to the rival KSU, the lesser known but of course better of the two Kansan schools.

And finally the 3rd, a tag along girl working on a separate project but from the same lighting designer. She spoke very highly of the Aggies. Yes, Texas A&M. Now what is the connection you ask? Well she went to the same foreign exchange program that I went to in a tiny hilltop town in Italy, Castiglion Fiorentino.

This concludes our lesson in Small World Statistics.
Thank you and Good Night.

In the still of the night

I realize that sleep patterns can very greatly from person to person, for instance I could sleep through a desert sun or 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Dave on the other is as sensitive to light as a vampire at sunrise. Due to this fact, we have been discussing getting black out shades for our bedroom which is on the east side of the house and hits full daylight brightness at around 6:30am. I had agreed to make a run to Home Depot to pick up them this weekend but that just wasn't quick enough for my sleep deprived husband.

At 1am last night, after finishing up a Kramer vs. Kramer, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Finding all of our darkest, thickest bath towels he covered both the windows head to sill, using thumb tacks to secure them until I was sufficiently convinced that my mother would be aghast if she ever stepped foot in the space. It was definitely darker. It was only after crawling into bed that he realized the yellow light coming from our alarm clock, the green light coming from the smoke detector, and the red glow from our dimmable light switch. After letting out a long exhausted sigh, he said "Well at least the towels will drawn out the roosters."

the surreal life

Never growing up did I think I would one day find myself sauntering into Beverly Hills City Hall Eddie-Murphy-style to wiggle around codes in order to gain a building permit for a house ten times the size and many more times the cost of the home in Tarkio where I did all my big dreaming.

What's in Watts?

Once again, I've been pleasantly surprised by all that Los Angeles has to offer. Of course there are the fish taco stands, and the beach, but what other city in the world has a landmark built of chicken wire, steel bed frames, concrete and tile? This weekend with some friends in town we went to check out said Landmark and were completely surprised by Watts Towers.

Watts Towers are in none other than Watts, which if I were to be gentle, would say is a colorful neighborhood east of the 110. The Towers were started in 1921 and took 33 years to complete. If you check out my Flickr stream you will see why. Simon Rodia constructed the entire structure by hand, without scaffolding. Tours are a welcoming 5$ and if you are in the Los Angeles area it is definitely worth the detour.

I guess that's cleared up

It's officially the second day of March Madness and my bracket reminds me of a favorite family saying. "A dog that poops fast, doesn't poop long." That coupled with the fact that the closer we draw to St. Patrick's Day the more my luck runs out just confirms my longtime feeling that there is not an ounce of Irish blood in me.

so very very sorry

Apparently the powers that be heard my rant about the cable, because yesterday they took it away.

Staying strong

You perhaps are aware of our cable television situation which is about as predictable as Donald Trump's rag, I mean hair. If you are not aware, you may familiarize yourself here and here. Our last bit of cable freedom ran out right before the super bowl aired, the finale to Project Runway was run and numerous other great episodes on channels which we are too poor and stubborn to pay to see. I had just about weaned myself off TBS and Animal Planet when of course! the cable is back! There seems to be a diabolical rhythm of which Comcast is making the cable available. They think that by taking the premier episodes from us and returning to show us the leftovers, the reruns! that we will give in and cough over the upgrade. Little do they know, we are not the average Nielson rater. We once spent an entire month with nothing but CBS and that was before CBS was cool. We will not succumb to their ploys! Although, I did appreciate being able to flip between Pretty in Pink and the Iron Cheft last night. Thanks for that.

Weekend showers bring Mon. flowers

Our little garden was in need of more than a little attention and with a break in the rain on Sun., I decided to get down and very dirty. As you can see in this photo, gardening can be very mentally challenging.

Melanie 1 Brett 0

I finally finished uploading the pictures from this weekend. Not that there were a tremendous amount..but finding the ones that weren't blurry (kids move fast!) or too dark (candle lighting??) took some effort. Mixed in the bunch was this photo which shows our sibling rivalry in full swing. In this action photo, Brett is in full retreat and I think his backside is meant to represent the proverbial white flag.

At the Great Wolf.....

This past weekend, David and I had the pleasure of flying back to Kansas City for a not so small family gathering, and wedding. My parents, Aunt, and Uncle had been planning this get-a-way probably since all of us grandkids dispersed like bees from the hive and they realized to get us all under one rough again it would take either a giant sized water park of fun or one of my Grandma's famous cherry pies. Luckily for them, they used both. All twenty of us found ourselves comfortably tossed into the craziness of Great Wolf Lodge. During the day we packed it in pool side with the big kids trying to keep up with the little kids. You can imagine who blacked out from a chlorine overdose first. Thankfully, no one told Dave or I to pack our hunting gear or some pimple faced teens on the water slides would have found themselves laid out faster than my Dad can say "Pull my finger." Overall the weekend was a huge success and it was after some long hugs and belly full of barbecue that Dave and I found ourselves getting back on the plane thinking of the next big family weekend. I hear the powers that be have a ski trip in mind. Perhaps we'll stay at another lodge, and perhaps then we'll see an actual wolf.

the suggestion box

Dear Makers of the Blogger spell check,

I recently used the word 'blog' in my blog and notice that it is not currently a recognized word in your blog dictionary. Currently it wants to make blog - bloc, blows, bloke, bolos, blouse, or block. Just a helpful suggestion, but you might want to add blog to the dictionary. And as long as I'm here, could you please tell me what a bolos does?

An ambitious speller,
Melanie

Real chicks drive tractors

I have to say that the world needs more chicks on tractors. It could revolutionize agriculture as we know it! Forget the old men in overalls, get chicks!

This blog brought to you from Cuteoverload. The world can never have too much cute.