You are totally unique, just like everyone else.

A couple years ago I found a cute little giraffe patterned handbag, kinda like this.

This was about the time I was getting a lot of laughs from giraffes.

After giving it some thought I decided not to get it

and ya know, I'm glad I didn't.

EVERY time I go out these days I see someone with a giraffe print bag.

I do so hate being just like everyone else.

I have illusions of originality.

Sooooo,

despite the fact that huge numbers of people,

the ones who aren't wearing these, or these,

are wearing these,

I recently succumbed to enthusiastic encouragement and ordered a pair of Crocs™.

Not the horrible looking troll shoes though (with all due respect to those of you who adore them, I am sure they are just cute as a teeny little button when YOU wear them),

I got these

and you know, they really are pretty comfy and comparatively cute

but I have no intention of ever owning any of these.

Oh, and I don't care how enthusiastic you are about them,

I will never, ever get these. Just NO.

Hope you all had a faboo 4th!

We had a lovely smallish picnic here.
Mr. Logo grilled chicken, flank steak, burgers, and brats.

It was lovely.
I am housesitting for a friend and her two dogs and two cats are keeping me busy.
Compared with them Ariella is low maintainence but we are getting along ok.
The ongoing fireworks are annoying, I get less patriotic with each explosion.

Life's for living, yeah, that's our philosophy...

After MUCH deliberation Mr. Logo opted for a charcoal grill rather than a gas one. He had been digging it the most and grilling just about EVERYTHING.
That is our dinner from tonight. Grilled salmon and pineapple with some pasta made fresh 'matoes and basil I ripped off the plant in my kitchen windowsill, yum!

Here are the newest set of improvements to the back of my house. The river rock border along the concrete has little solar lights in it you can see the picnic table where we have been eating most of our evening meals. It was too chilly by the time we got dinner ready tonight though.

We are getting downright European! When it doesn't get dark till after 9 somehow dinner at 8 seems more reasonable.

The arbor is going to be home to some climbing plant or other; I'm still deciding what though. We want something that will flower for most of a season and will attract hummingbirds.

Oooo, and I recently disovered I love curly willows and mock orange trees.

I think I want some!

Formative Literature

It All Started With Marx by Richard Armour was one of my first geopolitical reads as a young teenager and I fear it set the standard for me regarding how entertaining I think political books ought to be.
Here is the opening of chapter 4, Russia Under Lenin.

"A new day was dawning and the tsars were dimming in the east. Difficulties might lie ahead, but only during a brief transitional period. Everyone happily tightened his belt, or put on suspenders. (footnote: Peasants who had neither were in for some embarrassing moments.)
In the new goverernment, the working class was the base. This situation was readily accepted by the Russians peasants who had years of experience in starting at the bottom and remaining there. They had nothing to lose, they were told, but their chains, (footnote: No mention being made of their lives.) and they were ready to make the sacrifice. If a shot was occasionally heard in the distance, it was probably someone who was merely discharging his debt to society."


As you can see, I was basically imprinted with an appreciation of The Daily Show.
I just wish I could order the rest of Armour's books. This homeschool would be using them as supplemental texts.

Care to take a tour around my garden?

This is the new flower bed built around trees that grew in the yard of Logo.

This is the concrete, shiny and new, that lay in the backyard of Logo.

This is the shrub by the corner of the house that sits in the curve, all lovely and round, in the exposed aggregate concrete, all shiny and new, that lay in the backyard of Logo.

These are the shrubs, all weeded and mulched, surrounded by border laid by Mr. Logo that grew in the front yard of Logo.

This is the excavator, loaned by a friend, that made hard work easier here in the driveway of Logo.

These are sticks planted by Thing One to train Ariella to agilely run, that tripped the younger brother and caused much distress, here in the backyard of Logo.

Here are more plants that make Mr. Logo so proud, that require much watering, attention, and time, here in the yard of the Logo.

Here is the little frog shelter out front,

and here is Thing Two running with Ariella in front,

and here is a bat box made from online directions, facing the sun in a nice warm location, that lies northeast of flower bed trees, out in the front yard of Logo.

ahem?

XKCD rocks the known world

To reiterate...

Soooo, 'member how I was saying I like going to the SAM and I take the kids, and ya know, all that? I know it was a long time ago, check the last post for details if you are confused.

ok, well, my mom is staying with me this week and I am helping her get about 20 years worth of scrapbooking started. Among her photos were these...

This is a photo of Thing One, me, and my papa waiting for the SAM to open on January 2nd, 1998 so we could go view the Da Vinci Notebook.

My mother's photographic speciality seems to be very distant shots with minimal distractions, like, you know, faces, or eye contact, that sort of thing.

Anyway, as you can see in these photos Thing One was happily passing the time by being fascinated with The Hammering Man.

Once we got inside we watered the kid and checked our bags. If you even thought about carrying a camera in the exhibit they got VERY angry. I think just considering it was grounds for a slap in the face. So this is the only interior pic of the day.

So there you have it, proof I've been dragging that poor child to the SAM since before he was two years old. I promise to talk about something else next time.

I love free museum Thursday!!

(All photos snatched from around the web and taken by enormously talented photographers)

On the first Thursday of every month the SAM (and several other museums) offer free entry to the public.

Given that Thing One and Thing Two are willing to wander through the museum only if we do it quickly,

without lingering by ANY of the things that fascinate me,

I find myself willing to pay the peripheral expenses (parking, food, gas) but not the entry fees in addition to that.

This works out beautifully. On the occasions I can get to the museum solo and take my own sweet time I'm very happy to shell out the bucks for the hours I will spend there but when we will be in and out in about an hour it just kills me to pay for the entrance fee.

The Things are also much more willing to visit knowing that they can just walk though, only pausing by what interests them as briefly as they want, and then move on to eating mini-crack at the Pike Place Market.