george!

For those of you who don't know her, this is my Best Gal Pal, george.

Unfortunately, I did not have the honor of snapping this photo. Back in 2005 during a rehearsal for "On The Verge", a mysterious, unnamed individual snapped it with my cell phone when I was out of the room to try on a costume. This image has appeared on the main screen of my cell phone ever since. It's one of my favorite photos ever.

I also love that it reminds me of a certain video by The Cure. Anybody know which one I'm talking about?

Since I didn't take that pic, I still have to find another image to post. Last night george said that I should post a photo of her or Derek on the blog today. Sounds easy, but it's not. I didn't take many photos of them over the past year & I'm pretty sure I've posted every single one of them.

Then I found this.

This is a townhouse that george and I fell in love with last December. It's so adorable! The interior had nice details and it was situated on a sweet little courtyard with big trees and a fountain. Plus it had a 2 car garage! Unfortunately, the timing wasn't right, so instead of buying a house that day, we bought storage shelves.

Oh, but what's that? Over on the right next to the tree? Why, it's GEORGE!

Hooray! Goal met!

And, unlike yesterday, I managed to post this before midnight. I'm on a roll!

Bread

George told me to post a pic of food. So here's some bread.

Memory Card Month - Day 18

This weekend my mom is taking a big step with her company: She is participating in a wedding show! She has a booth at the wedding show in Catoosa where she will display her kaleidoscopes, necklaces, and other items that she makes.



Today while I was scanning through my memory card, I stumbled upon these photos of a piece I commissioned from Mom. It's a Christmas ornament in honor of Travis and Veronica. I sent my mother V&T's wedding invitation, some confetti from their rehearsal dinner, and pressed flower petals from their wedding reception. Mom took those items & incorporated V&T's wedding colors (orange and blue) into this beautiful ornament.

Here's hoping some people at the wedding show appreciate Mom's work and she gets an order or two. Or ten!

Lying for a living - Part 2

Today's photo is NEW! It is a shot of the front door to the Admissions Office for Duke University's medical school. What do you think it means when such a competitive school is trying to instill hope in their prospective students? Hmmm ...

Anyway, I took this photo yesterday while I was at Duke for my very first day as a Standardized Patient (yes, that's my job title). I spent a couple of hours in a classroom with 2 faculty members and about a dozen first year medical students. I pretended to be a patient named Alexis who was suffering from Ulcerative Colitis. One by one, the students interviewed me about my symptoms, potention causes of my recent flare up, and potential treatment options. It was a complicated case that forced us to discuss a LOT of uncomfortable subjects. Talk about long form improv! Geez! But seriously, it was fun. The students were really engaged in the exercise and I was really impressed by their professionalism and sympathy. You would have that that they'd been in medical school for longer than a few weeks. Luckily, they seemed to love me, too. One of the faculty - the one who seemed the most critical & hard to please - told me that I was "wonderful". And everyone was surprised that this was my first time to be a Standardized Patient. Hopefully this is good news and means that I'll be called in to fake many more illness in the future! Wee!

I know this was an odd acting job - so odd that I don't even know how to put it on my resume. At times I found it very stressful, but I really enjoyed it. I felt that I was making a very positive contribution to the education of these students. Plus it was kinda invigorating to do SO much improvising! It's been ages since I've had an opportunity to do any sort of acting, so it felt really good to have a taste of it again.

Or to put it another way, working for Duke gave me hope.

Clover necklace

While I was climbing over slippery rocks with Tim and Ray, my mother made a necklace for me with some flowers she found along the trail to the waterfall. Somebody needs to teach me how to do this 'cause I think it's pretty cool.

Waterfalls & peeps

Ray next to Hooker Falls. Heh.


Tim triumphantly standing in front of High Falls. Love it when that man gets goofy.


It was REALLY hard to get to the base of these falls. Harder still to get back up to the trail again. I sprained my wrist while pulling myself up on a hunk of tree. Yes, my wrist! It really hurt!
I shall now pause while some of you pat my head condescendingly.

Note that I have lost 20 pounds since this photo was taken. And I'm posting it anyway! See, Mom? No one is safe! Not even me!

Lake Lure & Chimney Rock

Exactly one year ago, Mom, Dad, and Ray were visiting us, so we did what we often do with company and headed out of town. On this trip we stayed at Lake Lure, a beautiful little area at the base of the mountains in western North Carolina.

For many years, this area was most famous for the site featured in the above photo: Chimney Rock. To get to the top of the rock, you have to ride an elevator that was built into the mountain back in the 1940s that travels up the equivalent of 26 stories. Thank god for that elevator. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to hike up to the top of this thing.

Back in the '80s, a little film called "Dirty Dancing" filmed a few scenes in this area. You know that scene when they're practicing the big lift in the water? That's Lake Lure!

I did not take this last pic, of course. I stole it from a random site on the internet. As I was writing up this post, I heard that Patrick Swayze died today. Such a sad, strange coincidence. Thanks for the fabulous dancing, Patrick ... and for taking Baby out of the corner, of course.

Terrible News

I think most of my readers know this already, but for those who didn't hear, I have news.

I joined an orchestra.

It's all kinda crazy and sudden. A few weeks ago I found out that a community orchestra was holding their auditions & they needed flutes. On a whim, I signed up. I don't know what I was thinking. I hadn't even touched a flute in 18 months! And there I was, renting an instrument just 6 hours before my audition. Madness. And yet somehow I got in.

Note that the group is known as the Really Terrible Orchestra, so maybe their standards are low.

Today was my first time to attend rehearsals. It was EXHAUSTING. The other two flutes sound so good & I was so nervous I almost started to cry. I'm hoping it gets easier as the weeks go by. I'll keep you informed.

Memory Card Month - Day 12

Points of interest
1. This is my 301st post! Wee!
2. Multiple readers have mentioned to me that Babies on Spikes looks mighty tasty, despite the name. Who'd a thunk it?
3. The previous 2 photos were from the Garden of Eatin' at the Durham Farmers' Market. In case you were wondering.
4. Today's photo was taken exactly a year ago. It features my mom on Wrightsville Beach, staring out on her beloved ocean.
5. I think I tried to post this photo last September, but that's when PhotoBucket & Blogger stopped cooperating so well & everything went wonky.
6. Mom told me last week that she didn't want me to post any photos of her during Memory Card Madness. But you know what? I'm an ADULT now, Mom! And I can do whatever I want! So there!!!
7. Ummmm ... love you, Mommy.

Memory Card Month - Day 11

Memory Card Month - Day 10

It's a catastrophe

As some of you may know, certain individuals have declared today - 9/9/09 - A Day Without Cats On The Internet. These people seem to think that cats get too much play on the web.
Ludicrous.
Despite the obvious madness of this suggestion, these anti-cat people have somehow brainwashed a number of websites into participating. Cute Overload? No cats today. Even NPR has agreed not to post anything about felines for 24 hours.

In the words of Hall & Oats ...
I can't go for that.
Oh no.
No can do.

So I'm rebelling in the only way I can.


Internet + cats > belly rubbins!
And that's sayin' somethin'!

Babies on Spikes

Welcome to Day 8 of Memory Card Month! Today we're featuring a photo of one of Tim's favorite desserts: a little something we like to call Babies On Spikes.

Yes, it looks like a trifle. That's because it is a trifle. There's sponge cake & fruit with a layer of cherry jello, then a layer of custard, topped with a layer of whipped cream. All of those layers look very pretty, yes?

Unfortunately, it doesn't look so pretty once you scoop it out & put it in a bowl. There are lumps of gelatinous red goo and ribbons of puss-yellow slime. Frankly, it kinda looks like what you might have if you took a cue from Eddie Izzard and, well, impaled some babies on spikes.

Who wants seconds!?

Kick it, kitten!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present ...
Millie
playing air guitar
in her sleep.


Extreme Close-up!

" ... but your not who I can search for ..."

Okay, so I missed a day. But Memory Card Month is not lost. I'm making it up to you today.

On an ordinary day back in May, Tim and I went to the Tiger Direct outlet here in Durham. While Tim looked for whatever random computer part he wanted, I wandered the aisles. I found this amazing note lying between the netbooks.

"Every inch of me wants
to deny you, but I
find it hard ...

You are so beautiful
to me ... I can
see, but your not
who I can search for
Your smile, your laugh

makes the time seem
... endless.

wait this is just a
lame line to say.
I do miss our talks
but it's better that
I stay away from
you. You do things
to me."

I left the note where I found it, hoping the recipient might come back for it.

Lying for a living

Up-date on Project Bloom: I got an acting job! Well, it's not your usual acting job, but they're going to pay me nicely, so I'm not complaining.

My employer: Duke University's Medical School.

Basically, I've been hired to lie to med students. The professors give me a character, complete with a fake name & very specific medical symptoms. They'll give me about a week to study the info. Then they bring me in and let the students question me as if I were an actual patient. The structure of it reminds me a lot of "Tony & Tina's Wedding" - some of the lines are scripted & specific, but a lot of the time I'll be improvising.

The weirdest thing about this job is that they want me to give the students feedback. I'm supposed to tell them whether I felt like they made enough eye contact, whether I felt they cared about me as a person or if they just saw me as a bag of organs, etc. etc. The point of the exercise is not just to teach the students to listen to their patients, but also to teach them about bedside manner & basic courtesy. So it's an acting job, but it's also a whole lot more than that.

It's VERY part-time work. I may only work for 5 hours this month & who knows when they'll call me in again. But I'll get paid! Woo hoo!

Durham Farmers' Market

Last night the Travel Channel aired an episode of "Man vs Food" that took place in Durham. It only mentioned a few restaurants - none of them particularly noteworthy in my opinion - but amongst the shots of the DoughMan competition, I believe I spotted some shots of the Durham Farmers' Market. Since the farmers' market is on the same block at the Scrap Exchange, it's only right that we wander on down there and take a peek!



My pics were taken on a Wednesday when the market is relatively quiet (probably 15 vendors). My friend John recently went on a Saturday when it was packed with at least twice as many booths.


What I love about the Durham market is that every single thing sold there is grown or raised within 70 miles of the market, so you know you're helping local farmers. Veggies, eggs, meat, etc., it's all local. There's even a booth where you can buy whole wheat flour ground from locally grown wheat. I should buy some of that next time.


Go here to see more of John's pics.

Next to the booth area is the Garden of Eatin'!

Get it? Eden? Eatin'? ANYway ... It's a permanent garden full of fruit trees and herbs and flowers and such. It's a great place to waste time while you're waiting for the booths to open.

Young blueberries still on the bush.


An honest to goodness paw paw tree! Makes me think of that song from "The Jungle Book"

The Scrap Exchange

Welcome to Day 2 of Clean-Out-the-Memory-Card Month! Hmm. That's not quite catchy enough. Perhaps just Memory Card Month? What do you think?

This morning I was looking through the pics on my newest memory card & I got nervous. I don't know if I can stretch this out for 30 days. It isn't that I don't have 30 pics to show you! I definitely have more than that. It's just that I hate breaking them up into just one or two images a day. Some days when I have the time I will definitely have to post more.

Today is one of those days.



All of today's pics come from The Scrap Exchange, a "non-profit creative re-use station" located in downtown Durham. This place is hard to describe. The basic idea is that they save stuff that would normally end up in landfills & encourage people to use it to make art! You can find all kinds of stuff there ... some of it more familiar than others.



There's even a lot of practical stuff like fabric, glass bottles, picture frames, and floor tiles. I was very tempted to snatch up some of these spools of serger thread.

Forgive the blurriness. Forgive, I say!

The warehouse is kinda dark and dusty (and REALLY difficult to photograph), but worth the effort. My favorite part? The little touches added by the staff.






I probably should have taken george here when she was visiting back in January, but for some reason it slipped my mind. Next time, g. Next time.

A Challenge (and Tiff's Visit - Part 3)

Happy September, everyone! I love this month. It's an invigorating time It always makes me think of new challenges & fresh beginnings. In honor of that feeling, I'm going to attempt a little something. I'm going to try to post at least one photo on this blog every day for a month. I have TONS and tons of great pics that I've taken over the last year that have yet to grace the pages of this blog. I might as well share them, right?

To start out this month of photos, let's look at a few more pics from our trip to the beach with Tiff.

A nighttime shot of the beach and the full moon from our balcony.

There was a 15 minute fireworks display that night, too, but none of my photos came out well.

Parasailing! Maybe someday someone will agree to do this with me.


This was Day 2 of swimming, also known as the day we learned that Tim's hair EXPANDS after it has been in contact with salt water. Wowza!


Chillaxin'. As the kids say.


Digging holes in the sand. Why, you ask? Why not, we say.


No vacation is complete without a trip to an ice cream parlor.


Home again, home again. Thanks for driving us to the beach, babe!

Tiff's Visit - Part 2

Tiff stayed with us for a whole week and it was great. We spent a few days just hanging around here together, but then we hit the road so we could spend some time at the beach. We had trouble finding a place on the water with vacancies for the 3 of us (teenagers aren't allowed to stay in a hotel room alone). Luckily, Tim poked at the internet and found a suite for us in Myrtle Beach with a balcony and a great view.

Tiff sent a pic of our view to her aunt. The aunt's response: "You suck!" ;D

We decided not to do very much in the town of Myrtle Beach. As far as we were concerned, the only point in going there was to play in the water. Tiff hadn't seen the ocean since she was 7 so it was about time we fixed that.