The Funniest Book...

I've read most recently is called Funny in Farsi. It was also funny to read it just before visiting Texas A & M, and walk by the Engineering Bldg and imagine things that had happened in the book happening on that campus.

I came across a review of it.

Next I think I would like to read Lipstick Jihad.

merry-go-rounds...

and old pictures from upstate NY:
Viva La Graduate!
Harry Potter Impersonation
Parking Lot
Parking lots near your residence are important. Or at least this one was. Here you can see my friend's trendy mini-cooper "Mini G" and a little further down my sad old dented gray Taurus with the dying transmission. Drunk people from the local dive bar used to mill around it at night, sketchy things were going on there sometimes. Looks pretty placid in the daytime though, doesn't it? And I really Loved this park That would be Recreation Park on Beethoven Street, with a restored carousel you could ride all day for free in the summer.

Link to Binghamton Carousels

Denver trip

I got to take a trip to Denver this past weekend, provided for me by my beautiful & generous friends :-)
Gorgeousness
Cowgirls!
Impromptu Airport Photo

Some links:
Sing Sing! Dueling Pianos
Rocky Mountain National Park

Grrr, Mother Nature.

Eggs, cheese, an expensive container of clarified butter, salty/peppered mackerel (in a ziploc bag, gracias-a-dios!!), yogurt, frozen vegetables, frozen blackberries, various and sundry condiments, onions, carrots...these are the items which are currently at risk of spoiling in my fridge. At least I didn't buy any milk. Please. I am unemployed! A fridge full of spoiling food is not what I need. The electricity flickered (always with the lovely high pitched sound of the smoke detector punctuating the silence) seven times in one night throughout an electrical storm. And just when it had finally cut out for good, then the storm left! As if its mission had finally been accomplished.

A weird concoction I made of pinto beans, tomato paste, okra, onions and various spices might also spoil. Actually that is no great loss. (It was not one of my finer creations.) Maybe the two brands of salty plums which I extravagantly purchased several months ago at Mitsuwa will be okay.To put it in perspective, I suppose its nothing compared to, say, living on a claim and a giant storm comes sweeping through the prairies and ruins your whole crop of buckwheat.

It sure is irritating, though.

found a link...

to an interview with Kiran Bedi

Songs remembered

Art class
Girl
Yellow Submarine

Elementary school music class
Sixteen Tons (give or take a few lyrics)
Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier (pretty much as presented)
Blow Ye Winds (minus half of the lyrics!)
Haul Away Joe(substituting "pretty girl" for "German girl" and "Yankee girl" for "Irish girl")

Road trip: Illinois-Missouri-Arkansas-Texas-Oklahoma-Kansas-Missouri-Illinois
Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind
All My Ex's Live in Texas
Chickenman
Joking
Airplane
Three Hits and Rites of Passage

Before the alloted internet use time is up...

I will note that a particular radio station in Chicago--I think it is 89.5--can't make up its mind whether its Southeast Asian hindi love songs or screaming white guy guitar music. This makes for an amusing situation when I am stopping at stoplights and trying to tune into the one I prefer (guess which one it is!)

BTW there is a cool woman whose name I can't remember...she runs a prison in Delhi, India and is feature in Adventure Divas videos and book...she reformed it by making everyone--prisoners, guards, everyone--practice meditation. They all R-E-S-P-E-C-T her. She has a great smile.

Road Trip Tommorrow!

Maybe I'll visit Little House on the Prairie on my way back from visiting my sister in College Station, Texas in a few days. Look, this is what happens when girls(??I guess, mostly??) who loved those books grow up and have their own kids. All little Lauras! Shouldn't the boys be called little Almanzos, or something?

all my ex's live in Texas
and Texas is where I want to be
but all my ex's live in Texas
that is why I reside in Tennessee

--George Strait

Don't own that song. Maybe I'll see if the library has a CD version for the trip...

this week...

Old Farmer's Almanac For Kids

Papasan

Not my photo...but...a rather good likeness...

A papasan

with a blue cushion
is a very good chair
for relaxing on
an ordinary day.
Its also good place
for a sick cat
or
a short spell
of weeping
or
a dry-eyed spell
of watching the news.

CAT

caught
a
bird
yesterday
much
to
my
surprise

Christine de Wikipedia

Random link...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_de_Pizan

VA poet laureate

And my former highschool creative writing teacher...

http://www.carolynforonda.com/

Canciones

There was once this girl who used to sing songs and snippets of songs in art class. How many? More than a hundred? More than two hundred? She sang Scarborough Fair /Canticle and maybe I Am a Rock and Faking It (in which she accidentally sang "just mean old me" instead of "just lean on me.") And probably The Sounds of Silence, The Boxer, An American Tune, America, Slip Sliding Away, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, Kodachrome, Cecilia, the Simon and Garfunkel lyrics to El Condor Pasa, and others, mostly from their Best of...and Concert in Central Park albums.

Also...probably snippets and songs from the whole Paul Simon Graceland album.

Graceland
I Know What I Know
Gumboots
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
You Can Call Me Al
That Was Your Mother
The Myth of Fingerprints

the funny thing about the previous post was when I wrote it the president was flying into Chicago for his birthday.

Birthdays

This is where my sister recently hit her quarter-of-century mark!

A Giant Moravian Coffee Pot and some others....

Russian Tea

The samovar is an object quite prominently displayed at The Russian Tea Time restaurant in Chicago, a cultural experience that my father could very much enjoy, as he liked all the food on the menu and also got a chance to practice his Russian on many a hapless waitstaffperson.

The samovar actually reminds me of a crock pot, which is what some American Southerners (such as my mother) use around the holidays when they serve a concoction made up of tea, orange and pineapple juices, cloves and sugar, which they call "Russian Tea."

some other songs....

Its All The Same
I, Don Quixote
I'm Only Thinking of Him
I Really Like Him
Aldonza