Postcards from Belarus & Kauai


This is from Luyana and she is studying in Minsk. She told me how beautiful Belarus is.  This isn’t even my first postcard from Minsk.  People from Belarus love Postcrossing.

My Aunts are in Hawaii for their annual trip and Aunt Pat reports that “we have a nice cottage and a lovely view of the ocean showing a hammock tied to two palm trees.”

45RPM: 59th St. Bridge Song

Where I match a song to a specific memory

Sometimes I fall in love with a song, associate that song with a person and then because that song is imprinted on the person, I have a special place in my heart for that person.  I think the first time this happened with with Simon and Garfunkel’s “59th St. Bridge Song”, also known as “Feeling Groovy”

I had never heard it until a talent show in fifth or sixth grade.  But B., a boy who was (and is) a really good singer, wanted to sing it for the show and he recruited four or five other girls to sing it with him.  I was not one of them, though I wanted to be.  I loved a lot about this song, the nonsense melody ending in “feelin’ Groovy”, I loved how simple it was, and sweet.  The group even did some choreography to fit the singing and it looked great.  When I hear this song today, or sing it myself, I can still picture some of the choreography.

B. has grown up to be an outstanding guy.  And I will always remember him as a 12-year-old boy singing, “slow down, you move too fast.”

Snow in November. Or: How I learned that film people are annoying.

Across the street from my school, prop cars were parked in the lot and by the end of the day it looked as if snow had drifted all around.  It was pretty cool.  At recess that day, a guy with an earpiece came over and asked when the children would be outside and we told him the schedule.  “Okay,” he said, “We’ll try to work around that, but we really need to make this movie.”  Maureen and I shrugged.  It didn’t make a difference to us whether or not the movie got made.

The next morning the cars and the snow were still there.  But now they were intermittently making it snow.
 

I caught several pictures of the massive amount of standing around that is movie making.
 
Though it’s pretty cool to see the snow.
 
The trouble started at morning movement, when the phone rang and some guy from the production company explained that they were making a movie and could the children not have recess today.
Nope.
What about if we give a donation?
That would have been something to talk about before today.  Today is happening.  Schedules are set.
Can’t you just push back the recess?
Nope.
 
A man appeared at the door.
What if we donated $500.00 to the school?
At this point, I turned it over to my boss, who ran around to see if people would be okay with that.
Nope.  One teacher was hugely insulted by the offer.  And one class wasn’t there to say, either way.
So 4/5 recess was indoors, but 2/3 and K/1 gleefully ran about, while people with earpieces held their index finger over their lips and looked vaguely disgruntled.
 
The thing I find hard to believe is that they could plan ahead to take down the Absolute Vodka advertisements that are usually in the windows of the bar across the street, but missed the fact that a school and a playground were 20 feet away from their location. It’s not like this is the first time we’ve had the industry within a stone’s throw of our school.  Television films down here all the time and, aside from poaching all the parking spaces, they aren’t much trouble.

So if you see the movie Wild and come across a scene where Reese Witherspoon is shoveling “snow,” know that it was a lovely November day, where not 20 feet away children were having recess.

Postcard from Russia


This is from Elena in the city of Novosibirsk.  She sent me this quote “Let it be as it will be, because somehow, be done.  Indeed, there was never so that there was no way.”

She also writes “I am a student at the Institute of the lawyer.  Engaged in playing tennis and I love to create beautiful things with his hands.”

I love Postcrossing.

Awesome Thank You cards.

Some time ago, I did a favor for a friend and she grew concerned that we were not “even.”  This would be the same friend that made me the fabulous birthday card last year.
“Oh, I’m sure you will eventually do something for me to even things up,” I said, not at all concerned.  But within a week I had a nice stack of Thank You cards she made for me and which I have been sending to people since.  They always assume I made the cards, but card-making is not really a skill I put in play often.  When asked, I set them straight. 
And then I ran out of the cards.  So I mentioned to her that I would have to put myself in her debt again so I could get more cards.  And within a week I had a stack of Thank You cards that blew away the previous ones.  I love them so much!
She bought a bunch of doll clothes patterns and realized she would never actually sew any doll clothing.  So here they are repurposed for me.

 

  
This one is my favorite as I hate the word “panties” but love that doll panties have made their way to a thank you card.
 

Three sentence movie reviews: Thor: The Dark World

Unlike the first movie (which I found kind of boring the first time through and strangely profoundly moving the second viewing) this movie was very well-balanced, giving good time to the earth people, the Asgardians, Thor’s friends, Thor’s romance, and even a bit of gratuitous washing up involving a naked torso.  But best of all, (well, second best, because Chris Hemsworth has got something going on) was Loki, who is perhaps my favorite Marvel villain, mostly because he’s just so fun.  I thought the fight scene at the end was full of creative action-movie-fight scene-type-things and hopefully you will stay for the bit during the credits AND the bit at the bitter end of the credits.

Cost:  $7.00
Where watched:  St. John’s Cinema with Matt.

Three sentence movie reviews: Gravity

A very good exercise in remembering to breathe when things are tense, because this whole darn movie is tense so there is a lot of breathing practice.  Excellent acting–it’s not often we get a film where just one woman occupies the screen for the majority of the movie.  This was one of those movies that is just very well done.

Cost:  $8.50
Where watched:  Regal Tigard 11 with mom.

What’s the plan for the tree?

I’m walking out the door for a day of playing Settlers of Catan (I know you are jealous) and I see that my neighbor has people doing work on his parking strip.  They’ve pulled out all the bamboo and have hacked off several branches from the Flowering Plum.  I figure they are just doing a rough cut for a rather aggressive pruning job and go on my way.

But when I look out the window the next morning, I find that the work appears to be complete, for there is mulch spread all over the parking strip, yet the tree has been hacked to bits, and still left standing.

What the hell is going on?  I hate flowering plums.  We have one in front of our house too. They were planted along the street when the Max line went in and you can see two on the other side of the street in this picture.   I think they are ugly trees, save for the four days in the spring when they are blooming.  I’ve wanted to replace ours with something more pleasing to the eye since the day we moved in. But I haven’t because it would ruin the uniformity.

However, I would never just chop it back like this and leave it.  It’s ugly.  Either take the tree all the way out, or trim it properly.