Facebook Song

We saw Ben Folds last night and Kate Miller-Heidke opened. She has an amazing voice and was absolutely charming. This song was a big crowd favorite. It's called "Are you F*cking Kidding Me?" It's hilarious.

Mother's Day Update

Sorry. I know sporadic posting is really annoying. I just don't have much to say on the ol' blog these days. After all, it was all about angst in the beginning and there's just not a lot of angst going around the house these days. Here's a quick update, though.

Mother's day was really nice. Jerry went to bed relatively early the night before, so he could spend the day with me without being zombified. Warren made me breakfast, then we walked around the reservoir, Jerry was up when we got back, so we all headed out to Manhattan beach where Warren and I shared a coffee and Jerry had a bagel. We walked out onto the pier, but the cold wind drove us back up to main street where we browsed at a book store (and I bought a few books for the book drive which I really have to stop doing). We looked at a rundown shack for sale near the beach and were flabbergasted when we heard the price ($2.9 mil). Then we drove up to Venice Beach and had lunch at my favorite restaurant, Gaby's Mediterranean, which is apparently becoming a tradition because we ate there on Mother's Day last year, too. Back at home we each did our own thing for a while (my thing was organizing book drive books--it makes me so happy). Then Warren and I walked down to the wine shop and bought several bottle of white wine, came home, sat on our lovely new deck furniture and drank a couple glasses of wine. It really was a lovely day.

In other news, the book drive is moving along splendidly. This Friday is my last day for accepting books, so naturally I've got several pick ups planned for this week. Then, this weekend will be all about finalizing the collection and preparing to box it up (with a brief intermission to attend the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest). By the way, if anyone has purchased books from the wish list at Amazon and had them sent directly to me, please tell me. I got some books the other day but there was no receipt so I don't know who sent them. If it was you, send me an e-mail so I can thank you!

We're going to see Ben Folds tonight (Jerry, too). So we're all looking forward to that. Classes are going well. I have to write a resume (due next week) which is a bit of a challenge since my paying jobs in the last 14 years have been few and far between (and extremely part-time). I'll just have to spin the volunteer stuff I've done into work skills.

Hmmmm. I feel like there was something else I wanted to mention. Oh, right! I have two articles to share with you.

This article is a celebration of slackers and a reminder that "once a slacker not always a slacker."

And Celebrate: Save a Mother, by Nicholas Kristoff on Mother's Day, is a call to change Mother's Day, a holiday which celebrates relatively few mothers, into Mothers' Day, a day to celebrate and make the world safe, for all mothers. He offers some great ideas for how to do this in the article.

Now, I need to get busy. No sitting at the computer for me today (unless I'm doing homework).

Possibility

I haven't posted any poems in a while, but this morning I was visiting one of my favorite sites and saw a video of Bill Murray reading some poetry to construction workers in New York City. They were all kind of laughing and Murray was poking fun at the poems, until this one by Emily Dickinson. The workers got really quiet and serious as this poem was read aloud. And they applauded when it was done. It kind of sums up how I've been feeling lately–with people giving so generously to the books drive–so I thought I'd post it for you.

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

 

 

 

 

I Would Like To Say . . .

. . . that when you find yourself wishing you had a broken leg or some other kind of accident or illness, just so you can stay in bed and ignore your responsibilities for a few days, it's time to recognize that perhaps you have bitten off more than you can chew.

It's fine, though. I'm fine. It's all good. Book drive. Buddy system. Homework. Renter moving in (an astronomer!). LIFE is Good. Maker Faire. Ben Folds concert. Selling furniture. Pulling weeds. Groceries. Laundry. Book club. Dog to vet. Jerry. Warren. Summer plans. The list goes on. But they're all good. All tasty morsels, so to speak. I guess I just need to chew slowly.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

We went to see the documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop" yesterday. It was awesome! The film is rated R, but it's only for language (Jerry says the f-word was used four times, but I only heard it once). It would be a shame for people to steer their kids away from this movie because of the rating. (Stupid MPAA–but that's another story.) The film gave us so much to talk about. Jerry's friend Augie commented that the main subject of the documentary didn't seem to notice any barriers when he set out to do something. Where most people would say, "I can't do that because I'm not an artist" or come up with other stumbling blocks, thus guy just barreled right through them. The story was fascinating and the film itself was really well done (and hilariously funny). Shepard Fairey features heavily in the movie, which was cool because his studio is really near our house. And we saw lots of street art that we recognized.

After the movie we walked over to Amoeba Music (we were in Hollywood) where Jerry's friend bought some t-shirts to take back home to New Zealand. Warren found a used copy of Idiocracy (one of the funniest movies ever) and I found lots of other documentaries that I want to watch, but haven't seen yet. We had thought we would go to the Santa Monica pier after the movie, but decided to eat dinner at home and once we got home and the boys started playing Halo none of us felt much like leaving the house. So Warren and I poured a couple glasses of wine and hunkered down for a nice evening at home.

Today is Augie's last day with us and we have a full schedule: Hollywood Farmer's Market, pick up Augie's Uncle Glenn, lunch at our house with Glenn, go to Whole Foods to stock up on goodies for Augie to take home to his family in NZ, meet up with friends in Topanga who have some pots (not pot) for Augie to take home, eat some dinner, get to the airport by 8 pm.

I have some very exciting book drive news. My friend Maria was able to get us an encyclopedia set for $8!! She got it at a library book sale on the last day when they were giving things away for $2/bag. I'm so happy! Not including the encyclopedia, we're up to 511 books, which is just past the half way mark. We still have two weeks to go and I'll be getting books from a friend in San Diego on Tuesday and from Corona and Sacramento at the end of the week. I have to admit that I did finally break down and but a few books off the Amazon wish list I made up. I've been trying not to spend my own money on books, because I know I'm going to end up paying for a good portion of the shipping, but it's really hard! So I ordered some of the books that were only $.01 used, which made them $4 with shipping. I ordered 11 books in all. One was more expensive, but I really thought it was an important book for the collection. I must say, this library thing has really made me stop and think before I buy something for myself. At Amoeba yesterday I was thinking of buying a used copy of Rivers and Tides (a fabulous documentary about landscape sculptor Andy Goldsworthy), but then I put it back when I thought about how that $15 could buy three books for the African library.

Time to get off the computer now and start the day!

WoW

Jerry's latest passion is the World of Warcraft game. I don't know much about it, but I did recently read an article about how "video games are becoming the new hotbed of scientific thinking for kids today." And WoW was featured heavily in the article. Then, yesterday, we were driving over to Jerry's dog walking job and he started talking about selling stuff on the game (things like tools or potions, I think). He said he always sells his stuff really fast because he looks at the prices other people are selling the same or similar items for and then he prices his items one to five gold pieces lower.

So, science and economics education via World of Warcraft. Cool.

Big thanks to Susan for posting about my book drive on her blog! It never occurred to me to ask before, but if you have your own blog, please consider telling your readers, too.

Quick Update

We had a terrific time in Santa Barbara last week with the homeschool group. The train was an hour late, but that was the only hitch in an otherwise fabulous day. When we arrived in Santa Barbara we had lunch and then went to the lovely Santa Barbara zoo.

This past weekend was the L.A. Times Festival of Books at UCLA. I skipped it on Saturday, but managed to get there for a few hours on Sunday and made it to both panel discussions that I was interested in seeing (even though I didn't have tickets!). After the festival I spent a few hours updating the Book Drive page and linking all the books on the Books About Africa page to Amazon. I also changed the name of that page to "Wish List" and made a real wish list on the Amazon web site. My eyes felt like they were about to fall out of my head by the time I was finished!

Once I was done with my Web stuff and Warren was done battling the weeds in the backyard and Jerry was ready for a break in WoW (he reached level 60!) we went to Fosselman's Ice Cream Parlor where I had a delicious banana heath bar ice cream sundae with hot caramel sauce. Yum. Yum. Yum. Then we came home and watched Beverly Hills Cop, which I hadn't seen in ages. Eddie Murphy is hilarious and Jerry loved the movie.

Today I'll be catching up on homework, because I've waited until the last possible second to finish two big assignments. We're looking forward to a visit from one of our homeschooling friends in New Zealand at the end of the week. He's return from visiting his grandpa in the US Virgin Islands and will stopover at our house for a couple nights before heading back to NZ.

So, that's all the news. Sorry I haven't posted about Warren and unschooling yet. I will soon!