Monthly Archives: June 2005

OMG this is awesome.

Rossignol » That Walking Building: “Rossignol
Buildings& Fine Nonsense& Art24 Jun 2005 04:38 pm
That Walking Building
Charity links me to this:
‘The Animaris Rhinoceros Transport is a type of animal with a steel skeleton and a polyester skin. It looks as if there is a thick layer of sand coating the animal. It weighes 2. tons, but can be set into motion by one person. It stands 4.70 meters tall. Because of its height it catches enough wind to start moving.’
Watch the video.
I am speechless with joy.

so sue me….
Look at some cool pictures:
My trip with Isaac to NYC

Okay, so this is the TOTAL CHEAT… but whatever.

Today I was back in the office for the first time in roughly three weeks. I normally would work from home on Mondays, but today I had my yearly review (which, of course, went well) so I felt I had to make it in. I spend the greater part of the day just catching up and getting myself back on track. I wasn’t entirely successful, and tomorrow will be spent probably doing the same. This evening, however, I got a peek at the artwork from Mike, our artist for the comic, and man — it is SEXY! We’re gonna kill at Comic Con. I just know it.
Anyhow, off to bed. Talk to you tomorrow.

So our neighbors next door, Barbara and Jeff, have a certain infamy on our block, and are often part of discussions that take the form of ‘why do they let their house go like that?’, ‘are they still alive?’, ‘what are they doing in there?’, etc. We often make jokes about finding the bodies one day, and just yestereday we heard chain saws whirring and a truck out front of their house obviously busy doing some sort of yardwork. I made the offhand black humor joke that they were chainsawing through the front door to get to the bodies. Well, as we soon found out, Jeff died last week, and the workmen were a product of Barbara’s children (step-children as I found out) trying to help Barbara get the place cleaned up a bit. I felt like total crap, of course, for making the joke earlier, and strangely this hits on a number of different levels. Barb and Jeff in their own weird reclusive and twisted way remind me a lot of my own parents — they keep to themselves, Barbara is kinda dependent and scattered, Jeff had health problems but was obviously the one in charge. With Jeff gone, I am concerned that Barbara isn’t going to be able to properly take care of herself. Her kids live in Southern California, and aren’t around to help out on a daily basis. They want to sell the house and move Barb down as soon as possible. I’m not sure Barbara is convinced of this, however, and she feels she’s got some obligation to the memory of Jeff (who she affectionately calls ‘Daddy’) to fix the place up. Julie and I, of course, are looking at the house as an opportunity to purchase a fixer-upper and roll it over to friends or to neighbors we want to live next to us. These are all premature thoughts that we will probably go to hell for, but right now — Barbara is in shock and is grieving and needs some support. Part of me is really happy to give her attention and support and help out when I can and when it’s appropriate (I helped her change the bulb on her fridge and she was brought to tears with thankfulness), but part of me wants to run far far away from this situation lest I be sucked into a role of being the new ‘Daddy’. This is mostly a reflection of my fear around my own parents, and my consideration of what might happen if my dad goes before my mom. In reality, however, I know my mom is way more self-reliant than my neighbor, and without my dad she’d be sad and lonely and inconvenienced (she doesn’t drive), but she would be able to handle herself.
So, here I am, sitting on the fence between good samaritanism and selfishness — contemplating the mortal life of a lonely woman, and thus reflection on my own life. I am so fortunate to have loved-ones and family. I am so fortunate right now to not be alone in my walk of life. Barbara is alone in a real sense. She doesn’t have friends. She doesnt’ have family near by. She sits at home every night mourning the loss of her best friend, her only friend, her partner of thirty years. I want to cook her dinner, but I am faced with the reality of not knowing what her tastes are, and noticing her teeth are in such bad shape that they move while she talks, and I’m not certain she can even really chew anymore. She had talked to me about pulling her teeth and getting dentures before her health insurance runs out.
She’s so sad, so needy, so alone. I will make a point of touching base with her every few days, just to make sure she’s doing okay.

Okay, so I’m several days behind, but I am DETERMINED to bring myself back to the present before I finish for the evening. Quality will suffer, but hopefully there will be something interesting in the midst of the banal drivel.
Saturday — what did I do Saturday? Hmm. We got home Thursday, had a lazy Friday… Saturday. Well, Julie didn’t leave any details on her blog about it, so I guess I’m kinda clueless. Wait, was that Dri’s party? Yeah, that’s right. Adrienne’s birthday party. We went over to Dri’s and hung out (well, I got there like 3 hours late because of the oil change from hell, but that’s another story). That evening I can’t really remember the details.
It’s strange, Weekends just vaporize for me out of my memory. It’s like I spend so much of my attention focusing on work during the week that I just give my memory a vacation over the weekend. It’s not really what I would prefer — I’d rather forget work and remember my free time. Hmm. Gotta work on reversing the polarity on that one .
Actually, let’s just remember as much as I can.
What was that again?

Today I decided to stay home after nearly a week of travel, and did not much of anything. I did some email replying and general working on stuff and got Eli out of school early to go see Madagascar with him, and then we all headed out to Stinson Beach. Robin, Julie’s good old friend (the last bridesmaid) was out from Vermont, so she joined us for the day, and went out to Stinson with us. We had good home-cooked food from Emily, Julie’s mom, and Eli and I walked the beach picking up mussel shells and various beach detrius. We stayed late, then packed the kids into the car and headed home. We tucked ourselves in, and fell asleep.
All in all it was one of those lazy do-nothing days that we should indulge in from time to time (and maybe more frequently than that), but we always end up making ourselves busy on our time off, to get in the life we miss while we work. What we miss are the boring days of do-nothing, when we allow life to just wash over us and happen, and perhaps in those moments come small flickers of inspiration or illumination. And if you’re lucky, even contentment.

Today was a pretty simple-easy day, waking up late with Isaac and packing a few things before heading back to the Javitz, then heading back (not in the rain this time), packing up the rest of what needed to be packed, and then waiting for Julie to get back to the Hotel so we can get on the road.
We had a crazy driver on the way back to the airport that was from Poland, loved to hear himself talk, and was a font of local knowledge. He took us through the backroads of Long Island getting us back to JFK to avoid the nasty traffic, and all along the way told us all sorts of interesting tales of local color. He ended up taking us to the wrong terminal first, because he was excited about going to Poland the next day, and he ended up fleecing us for a larger tip than I intended on giving him, because he couldn’t find change for a twenty, but all in all, we got to the gate just in time.
Isaac had a harder trip back than he did out to NYC, with lots of crying and fussing along the way. He was super tired, but just wouldn’t go to sleep. Finally half-way through he passed out, and gave us a bit of rest. We dragged ourselves out to the curb, rode back on the shuttle to our car, and just made it home before passing out. We got home about 11:30 pm, and we snuck in to Eli’s room for a goodnight hug and kiss. We then collapsed into bed, and that is all I have to say about that.
It’s good to be home.

If you don’t read Waiter Rant, this sort of post is exactly why you should.