Christmas-y feelings on the rise....

A lovely quiet day. The next 4 days will be anything but. I work retail so I will be in the lion's den. Everything is going to be alright, though, because I have just the cure....My christmas spirit is here!!!! Today I watched Scrooge (1970), the musical with Albert Finney. Oh it is divine! Young Albert Finney is so fetching! I am so filled with the christmas spirit I did this to my hair today.....
Half of it is bright red now! I hope everyone is drunk with the spirit of the season! If not just get drunk, full stop.

The Holidays are Here?

Maybe it's just that there wasn't as much time between T-day and X-mas, but it doesn't feel like Christmas time. It could be the warm weather, it could be the lack of customers at the retail shop where I work. My tree is up, I decorated, I've watched some movies-nothing. I don't know why, I just don't feel it this year. I feel like I haven't had enough holiday marinating time. You know music, movies, nog/cider, and tree gazing. I should plan to do that, but when? I had to let go of my cards this year, there just isn't enough time. I don't know what I AM doing with all of my time. I should write out a schedule and see where all the time is going, but who has time for that?

Turkey day come and gone....

Thanksgiving this year was a two part affair at the Ramirez household. On Thanksgiving proper Randall had to work all day. So my sister Natalie and I had the lovely food you see above, just the two of us. We watched movies (not holiday flicks but movies with transvestites!), took a stroll in our neighborhood (at our own peril!), and napped (well tried to, but just ended up laughing 'til we cried) all in all perfection! Quiet, peaceful, basically the complete opposite of Saturday or Thanksgiving Observed. I am so excited by one discovery I made due to this bifurcated thanksgiving celebration TURKEY BREAST! I'm not a real big dark meat person so when I made this super easy, super tasty turkey breast for me and Natalie, I pledged my undying love and allegiance forever.

My middle sister and her family joined us on Saturday. This is the only picture I got since we were all talking and visiting so much I forgot to take any. If there were other pictures I had taken they would have been of:

Eric, my sister's soon-to-be husband, sitting on the couch watching (read as sleeping, snoring) football (I know. Football at my house!)

Randall and Preston playing video games in the guest room.

Jessica cookin' up a storm in the kitchen.

Declan causing destruction everywhere he goes.

Fun was had by all.......

Heaven and Hell

Oh Joy! Finally after all the waiting, it's here! The new Wally Lamb. It is a delicious 740 pages long. At once I am faced with the Reader's Dilemma, reading voraciously only brings the end faster. Alas, how can one not read voraciously when there is such a book to be read? I will savor this moment when the book is still there, unconquered. Soon it will be inside of my head.

Speaking of inside my head, with all the joys of election day there was a defeat. I am continually amazed at how selfish and short-sighted opponents of same-sex marriage can be. How can you be so filled with hateful, righteous indignation and stand in the street and yell and carry signs so that people can't get married?! It is important to me because as a person I want all people to enjoy the same rights, benefits, responsibilities I have everyday simply because I was born into a middle-class, educated, white family and have chosen to live my life with a male-bodied partner. If not for these accidents of birth, I wouldn't be able to rest with my privileges. So I try not to rest. I understand the fervor over abortion, I am firmly pro-choice, but I get it. It's about life and death for pro-lifers. So while I do not believe in their politics or methods, I understand their passion. Where is the issue with gay marriage? Especially in California where the weddings had already been taking place, where was the life and death? Where was the harm? What is the point of opposing something so vehemently that has nothing to do with you or your religion. Marriage has, for some time now, been removed from the religious sphere. It is a matter of state and I think there may be a little something written somewhere about the two being separate. As long as humans have been around, we have wanted to control each other's actions. The reasons are varied and the results mostly disastrous. It's time. It's time to let it go. It's time to mind our own little red wagons on this issue. There is no harm. There is only love. I think we can all stand up for that.

Well this link below pretty much says it all...except I tend to run a little more emotional than violent. A few more tears a few less Boo-yas!

http://madmonq.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/salaam-al-alaikum-fundamentalists-neo-cons-pumas-suckas/

I am so proud of America. I knew we had it in us!

Hope is contagious...pass it on.

GO VOTE!!!!!

You are not allowed to complain if you don't cast your ballot. I have already voted. Randall and I voted on our anniversary, in the rain, waiting on line in excess of an hour. I felt so proud to touch the little box on the screen next to Mr. Obama's name. The importance and significance of this election was almost too much for me at that moment. I am not ashamed to say that my eyes began to sting with tears. A non-white candidate for president with a real chance of winning, I am so proud of America.

When I was 12 years old I remember watching Clinton on the TV. I remember being so enthralled, not just with him but with the whole process. At school I debated for him (I mean Bush did lie about those "new taxes"), I joined the Young Democrats of Alabama and embraced my role as a liberal very much in the minority in Sylacauga, AL. I have never been as excited about a candidate since then, until now. I am not going into details, I am not trying to campaign it is way too late for that (even though McCain might disagree). I love America. Even though I joke about moving away to other cool places, I know America is the land I love. I know it's not cool to admit it, at least outside of a country-western song, but I do. Not even the past 8 years can taint this life-long romance.

4 years ago...

I can't believe that it has been four years since Randall and I got married. I never thought I would get married so young. What have I honestly learned over the last 4 years (and the two before that)? So many things. I tried to write it all out, but it just sounded pretentious and like maybe I should wait a few years before saying I know anything about marriage. I figure up until this point we have gotten very lucky. Just as lucky as we were the day we met.

Things I love/things I hate just because...

Here are my goat friends from across the way. I love goats, I don't know why or where this love came from. It is here now so I will enjoy it.

I hate Tyra Banks. She is weird and overly self-involved. It doesn't take a special talent to make everything in life about you. Believe me I know....

I love Pushing Daisies. If you haven't seen this show please rent the first season it is so sweet and clever and there is even knitting (Mom)! The only problem, as Randall and I found out the hard way, is the unavoidable pie cravings.

I hate people who are willfully uninformed. You have to actively avoid information in today's media saturated culture. How then do some people keep themselves in the dark? I'm not talking about whether Jen Anniston and John Mayer are together again. (They are) I'm talking about knowing which candidate for president best represents your beliefs and vision of the future of America. Come on people.

I love my back porch. It's covered by trees, so that the light dapples through onto what I am reading. I can't get enough.

I hate that the new Harry Potter movie isn't coming out this year. I need Rupert, Daniel and Emma and I am not ashamed.

I love Larabars. They are made out of dates and nuts and other stuff. They taste good, except for the cashew ones they are gross.

I hate passive-aggressive assholes. 'nuff said.

and one last love I love my husband. We have been together for 6 years (married for 4) and I'm not tired of him yet. He is perfect. 'nuff said.

Here is nerdy(?) me...

I love my glasses. The pink is a little faded, it is subtle, no? I think I will stick with pink for a while, then maybe purple. I know I used to seriously hate purple, but I have made peace with the purple. Stay tuned for more... I hope you have a nice day.

Horror at The Grit!

I had to post this picture at Randall's behest. He took it at The Grit during brunch. The composition is excellent for a camera phone. I wish I had that lovely cup of coffee right now. They have the best roast at The Grit. This picture however is a failure since it shows neither my pink hair or my new glasses (they are not reading glasses, but far-away glasses). You never know how blind you actually are until you get glasses. Oh the wonders I can see now, like road signs and pedestrians in the road! Next picture I post will show all three of my new image updates. I'll let you wonder what the third is, and what in that Bitch magazine is making me make that face.

No more blurry girl...

My mom says that she doesn't want to see "that blurry girl" anymore, which is what she calls the picture in my previous post. Which is funny because that picture is perfectly indicative of my current station in life. I feel I don't know where my edges are anymore. Having been through a somewhat troubling, definitely trying, period of my life, I feel a bit aimless. Not to sound super contrite, but I feel like I am lost in a fog. My very wise and strong Aunt Linda says "sometimes dreams change." I am positive they do as mine are changing. The problem is I haven't found new ones yet. I think that is the cause of my current blurry mood. I have never really been without a concrete goal and plan. I just must keep learning and growing and when the fog lifts, it will be there- my shiny new dream. I have to be alright with wandering for a little while.

just a quick post...

I have been quite busy with a project for awhile. Now that I have put that on the back burner (for now) I feel I will have more of an occasion to write. I have a few irons in the fire hopefully soon some with bear fruit. Wow talk about mixing metaphors! Looking forward...

Farmer's market, reading, a gay doc and Indy

These are the beautiful herbs that I got at the new Athens Farmer's Market this morning. I got up sooo early this morning to get there while the pickin's were still good. I got mint, basil, cilantro and onions all for $8! I am so happy I could bust. I can't wait to take Randall next Saturday. I came home and read on my back porch for as long as I wanted, which is just heaven to me. The seemingly unlimited time of days off. I hate time constraints. I understand that we must have clocks and schedules or there would be chaos, but I prefer timekeeping to be a little less rigid.
I eventually got hungry and made a lovely breakfast out of my farmer's market finds. Also, I made some lovely wheat scones from scratch--without a recipe! They weren't very pretty so, no picture. They tasted very good, if I do say so myself, with jam and butter.
I am watching Before Stonewall a chronicle of homosexuality in America before the historical Stonewall Riot. I highly reccomend anyone interested in this subject to see this well-made documentary.
Cassy and I are going to see Indiana Jones this afternoon. I am mildly excited. I remember loving the old Indy movies, mostly due to the fact that Harrison Ford was my boyfriend for most of my childhood. I loved him so much. Thinking back on it I don't remember when it started, but it just was. My mom loved Al Pacino, I loved Harrison. Then he got that tacky earring and started dating Calista Flockhart and it was over.
It seems like a truly kick-ass movie comes out like every week this summer. Next week is Sex and the City! I have very carefully avoided any media on the movie so that I might be as suprised by the plot as possible. So only one more week to go. I hope I make it.

Happy Saturday!

Bad Sesame: The Fern Incident

This is my new boston fern. This is my bad kitty named Sesame Chicken. I discovered his "love" for his new friend? dinner? today while posting. He was literally inside the thing going to town.

I was so facinated, as Sesame rarely shows such enthusiasm for anything other than canned food, I didn't make him stop right away. I took pictures. Then in a guilty-mother terror haze pushed him away from it and frantically begain to google the words: Cat poison fern. You'll be happy to know that Sesame is not in mortal danger. The boston fern should apparently fear him more than vice versa. As I type this 30 minutes or so after the initail altercation he is making his way to the fern again. Such is his fervor, such is his passion and desire for this bulky potted plant.

Roses?

This is our beautiful, I think, rose bush in our front yard. I wish that I could show you more pictures, but blogger is being special and only letting me post one picture per post. I have to find something to plant aroung our mailbox. We had a beautiful butterfly attracting bush of some sort. I'm not going to say I killed it so much as I offended it into eternal slumber. A gardener lady in my neighborhood said after it died in the fall that I should cut it to the ground. So i did. I guess I didn't do it right. It never came back so now all we have is a creepy grey dead stick plant guarding our mail post. Oh that and the evil bees that won't let us get our mail. Seriously, Randall has to take bug spray to the mailbox everyday. I gave up. I just don't get the mail anymore. I think they may be carpenter bees, which means they won't sting me. They still charge at me everytime I get anywhere near the mailbox. Terrifying.

books..too many?

Speaking of the beauty of the outdoors, I have the perfect outdoor activity. This is a stack of all the books I am currently in the middle of reading. I have a very annoying propensity for starting a book when I am half-way through another. I have decided enough is enough. I will climb this mountain of books. I am going to finish all the books that I own. As I write this I have added another book to my stack. So it will take a little longer, I'm game. Summer is the perfect time to read. Winter is for videos and TV, summer is for reading. Outside in the sun (with plenty of sunblock of course) is my new heaven.

Just a regular day...

So today was very productive. I ran around all day, being a good little consumer. I did drop some stuff off at Goodwill so maybe that will offset some of my guilt.

Here are all my babies, some are starting to sprout. The Gardinia in the middle, that Cassy almost killed while we were in NY, is starting to come back. I knew if I was patient it would come back. Now if the Rununculas would sprout, I would be on cloud nine.


This is my new beautiful red tea kettle. We are switching to a french press, instead of using the electric coffee maker. The electric tea kettle I have had for 10 years died. Thus the need for this lovely new one. It is perfectly short and stout. It makes me happy.



We are finally going to paint the hall! We have decided upon blue. The only trouble is there are 500,000,000 shades of blue. I always find myself standing at the color chip wall in Lowes staring at colors that all look the same and make my eyes hurt. Then I cry...

I tried to narrow it down, but ended up getting 4 different testers. So there are 5 different spots on the wall for us to choose from. I feel like we are getting farther away from deciding, not closer.

I am watching Walk Hard. That's exactly how it should be watched, while doing something else. It doesn't deserve my full attention, and can't hold it anyway. Fun cameos and crude jokes do not a movie make.

Well dinner is not going to make itself. Hopefully, I'll post again soon with a more interesting story to tell. For now I am still enjoying my regular day....

This is it...

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have
the life that is waiting for us.

~Joseph Campbell

This is the lesson I am learning right now. We always try to force things
when we should just let it be. This life is not at all what I pictured when
I was a child, but I wouldn't change a thing. I am happy. It's so strange
when you stop in the moment and think "I am happy." Isn't that all that
really matters? I could be successful and "important," but still not be
happy. When I was a teenager I thought that other's adoration and applause
would be my life. I have found my life instead in a tiny house in Athens,
Georgia. A house I share with a neurotic cat and a wonderful partner. A
partner and friend who never fails to amaze me with his kindness and
patience and good humor (this is the true secret of a good marriage). I have
flowers and a place to sit outside and read. I have goats across the way
that just created beautiful, tiny offspring. All of this fills me with joy.
I hope you have found this kind of joy. It is there all around you, you just
have to stop trying to making it happen and just let it be. Kinda like the weird spacing on this post....blogger would let me change it. So after like 20 tries, I have decided to let it do what it wants. Love to all

We sprung, but still no spring

Well we lost an hour this weekend. I guess we get it back in the fall. What if you don't live that long, though, what if you never get it back? How can they just delete and hour? It is still there. Just because we change our silly time-keepers doesn't mean anything. Time is not something that can be trifled with lightly. I have seen many a Sci-Fi flick whose plot turned on this point. Oh time is a motherfucker, and it will have it's revenge. It'll be when we least expect it. It'll lure us into a sense of calm and normalcy. Then BAM, all the clocks will begin to drip with blood, but not human blood. No, that would be expected. It'll be, like, alien blood. The headlines will read "Clocks drip blue paint, townsfolk confused-not really scared." Then Time will write an anonymous letter to the editor saying "it's alien blood and you can tell by how it cures cancer." Then the townsfolk will be excited, I mean a cure for cancer-Cheers! Then Time will be like, "wrong it's bad...very bad in, like, an end of world way." Then the townsfolk will be slightly depressed as now they won't have time to cure everyone of cancer. Then Time (still writing into the editor I suppose) will be like "just forget all that, your all gonna die." Then they'll be scared, and then, well, they'll die. I mean it was inevitable.

I'm moving to one of those towns that doesn't observe DST. They know what they're doing. They're the same ones who still have canned goods after the nuclear holocaust. Buddy, they are prepared. They know better than to mess with time.

um,OK. Have a nice day.

a nice quiet day

I spent the entire day outside reading. It was beautiful and warm and dry, finally. So I soaked up some vitamin D and finished the The Amber Spyglass. The final instalment in the Phillip Pullman His Dark Materials series. It was amazing. This last book was the best, very well written with plenty of stand alone quotes. The end made me cry, I was deeply satisfying as only sad endings can be.

Then I paid some bills and had a nice cheese sandwich on store-bought bread, that Randall brought home, since I still haven't made the loaf I promised him. I'll get to it. Today was not bread day, maybe Saturday. Then I made a list of all the other things I wanted to get accomplished during the remainder of the day. Which always guarantees I won't do a damn thing on the list, it's like I write it all down so that I can be free to do what I really want to do. Man, I am needlessly complicated.

I completed my day by watching the longer-than-expected Lust/Caution. It was as racy as the NC-17 rating promised it would be, the story was compelling too. I do worry for Ang Lee's sense of romantic love. This is not the first time I've seen him initiate a love-affair with a violent act.

So that was about it, tomorrow brings work and stuff of the not-so-quiet persuasion. Now I also need a new book...oh wait I know where to find one of those.

have good day

Christmas in march

So I am a little behind....This is what the new house looked like in December. It was just such a pretty picture that I didn't want anyone to miss it! I really am going to come back with avengence. There are so many cool things going on right now, I really have to share it all. I need to share all the homemaker-y stuff I am totally getting down with right now. So all you peeps that deleted me or moved me down on your blog list go ahead and pull me back up to the tops 'cause I'm back bitches! If you look closely at this picture you can see many really cool things.