I didn't get a whole lot of pictures yesterday at the march, as I was busy trying to videotape and march, as well as take photos. I'm sure some of the folks I was marching with will add send some, and I'll be putting together some video on YouTube. Till then, enjoy these!!
I logged onto www.gather.com this morning, as it's just the most fascinating site! Every morning, they have a featured article, as well as a featured group, featured members, and featured photographs.
This morning, my picture of the Iwo Jima Memorial in DC is the top featured photograph!!!
So if you haven't checked it out yet, go on over there, scroll down to "featured images" and you'll see me right on the very first page! :-)
I'm so excited! I put my pictures up there in the hopes of getting them seen and critiqued by a larger audience, and hopefully this will jumpstart that!! WOO HOO!!
It's 12:18AM here in Fredericksburg, a day of crappy assed weather is passed us. Looks like I'll have no excuse about going to work later on this morning, the plows have been through and as long as the sun comes out and melts the ice, I'll have no choice but to go and get in the car and drive up to Fairfax for another thrilling day.
I'm feeling depressed tonight, for reasons I can't figure out... I mean, a lot of petty crap is annoying me right now, but nothing that would contribute to my overall feeling of malaise.
You ever just have those times when you're in a funk? I hate it!!! AUGH! I absolutely hate it.
Ok, so here's a brief list of the petty crap that's pissing me off right now, without getting into too much detail:
1. The Patriots lost today. Granted, they played football like a bunch of blind kindergartners, but, as I said, it's petty.
2. Today was my husband's birthday, and we had tickets to go see the Capitol Steps. So instead, we get a snow and sleet storm and are housebound all day. We wind up playing Yahtzee and another dice game, called 10,000, which I HATE!!!! Oh my God, do I hate playing 10,000. I HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT. It's the most boring freakin' game in the universe.
3. I'm reading this month's selection for the book club, and I hate the book. And I hate that I hate the book, because so far this year, I've loved all the books. But this one? I hate. And what really pisses me off is that I lost my copy of the book, so I went out and bought another copy of it, and then today, opened the Yahtzee box, and some genius (probably me) had put my first copy of the book in the Yahtzee box. I mean, honestly, who the hell puts a book in a Yahtzee box!??! So now I have two pristine copies of this stupid book I hate.
4. I took a nap this afternoon and now I can't sleep.
5. I know a marvelous group of women here in DC, and they all complain that they haven't got any friends that they can hang out with and they miss female companionship, and then I try to make plans with people and everyone's too busy. GOD DAMN IT!!!! Just one of the things I absolutely hate about living here. But when I take a stand and say I'm staying in Fredericksburg with my husband, since no one wants to do anything, everyone thinks I'm pretty much a slavish little hausfrau who is looking to the man in her life for permission. And now, the one person I can always count on, my sister, is probably going to leave and I'll be stuck here, alone, without her. And the thought of that is killing me. Absolutely killing me. But I have to suck it up, and be supportive of whatever she has to do to get by.
6. I am so sick of working on my NaNoWriMo book, but I'm trying to get it ready for a writing competition. The story I've written is great--the plot is great, the characters are great, but the putting it together more or less is becoming a huge headache. Now there's some debate as to whether it's easy to follow or not--somehow my sister couldn't follow what was going on, and my husband had some trouble with it, but most other people didn't have any trouble. But for EVERYONE who's read it so far, it needs to be fleshed out more. And quite frankly, I couldn't give a crap if the whole cast fell in the Mississippi River and drowned--quite a feat considering they're living in Illinois. And I haven't gotten diddly squat done on it this weekend, because my in-laws are visiting, and I'd much rather spend time with them.
7. I bought the Little House on the Prairie books to do some research on the time period for my novel. I got the 5 book boxed set, and read the first 2 books, and went to read book three, and in someone's infinite wisdom, the box set includes books 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. So I guess that whole "The first 5 books of the Little House series" thing on the box was a pile of crap.
8. I feel like I'm being a lousy mentor to the girl I'm mentoring for the Orphan Foundation of America.
9. There was one person who did not call Michael for his birthday today, and it REALLY pissed me off. I'll be damned if we're calling this individual on their birthday. If I have to rip the phone out of the wall. Michael has really put himself out there for that individual, and to me, this is a real slap in the face.
10. The windows in this house SUCK. This is the last winter we'll weather with these stupid windows in the house. Period. I don't care if I have to sell my plasma to afford new windows. These puppies are coming out. I'm also sick to death of the flooring in this house. It's going.
Okay, other things that are going on in my life at this moment...
1. My mom's divorce is final. Sayanora, Jerry. I hope this was the wake up call you so desperately need.
2. My aunt's mother died. I knew her a little bit, not very well, but feel sorry for my aunt, and my cousins who have lost their grandmother.
3. My in-laws are here. They're leaving tomorrow. We've had a really nice visit. And I think they're impressed with my cooking skills. And I "helped" my father-in-law install a new ceiling fan in the upstairs office. Tomorrow when they leave, the TV is probably going to take a much needed week-long hiatus and cease to work. And I won't know what to do with the silence. I always feel the same when my dad leaves.
4. Our dishwasher has been repaired. It somehow got broken on January 6th after our 3 Kings party, which meant that we had to wash all the pots and pans by hand. Rather, I had to wash it all by hand. And it took until Friday to get the stupid thing repaired. And then it cost twice as much for the labor as it did for the parts. I'm in the wrong business, when I could be making $100 per hour as a dishwasher repair guy (yes, this dude owns his own repair business, he doesn't work for Sears or anything like that).
5. I've started on my own little diet plan--nothing extravagant, but damn it can be a challenge not to slip back into my old habits. And I get cranky when I can't sit down and just mow through 3 cupcakes and a glass of coke. It's pretty much basics--no soda, no snacks after dinner, try to eat breakfast, healthy snacks during the day if I get hungry, and tons of water. This week I'll try to start getting on the treadmill. I feel better--but cranky. I guess I miss the sugar highs. But I'm not crashing the way I was--I used to come home after work where I had tons of sugar to get me through the day and wind up taking a two hour nap. That seems to have stopped, and I think that's a very good thing. But damn, Slimfast shakes are nasty.
Well, it feels pretty good to get this all out there. I'm still not tired, and am afraid of waking Michael up, so I'll probably sleep in the football chair tonight. He got to bed late on account of the freakin' Patriots game running till after 10pm, and then has to be up by 4, so I'm not going to be the one to wake him up. Thanks for listening.
I apologize in advance if this offends anyone—if you love the President and think he’s a great guy, go ahead and quit reading now! If you think the Iraq war is a good thing, quit reading now. And please don’t send me any nasty messages, I’m just trying to get the word around, since I didn’t know anything about this until yesterday.
On Saturday, January 27th, a huge anti-war protest is planned in Washington DC. I only heard about it yesterday on NPR, I had no idea it was going on, but was wondering when people would start taking to the streets. I guess I know!
Beginning at 11am, people opposed to the war are going to assemble on the National Mall, and march on Washington to show Congress and the President (who will probably be out of town that day!) how the majority of Americans feel about the war. In addition, on Monday, 1/29, there will be the opportunity to meet with your elected officials on Capitol Hill and discuss the matter with them.
For more information, please visit: www.unitedforpeace.org or www.winwithoutwarus.org.
Judy and I will be there, although I don’t know how we can make plans to meet up with anyone, other than cell phones and making plans to meet at Van Dorn St. If you’re an out-of-towner and moved to come, you can always crash with us for free. And finally, please help spread the word—you probably know many more people than I do and can help get the word out, even if you don’t march! Maybe I am living in a cave, but as I said, I knew nothing about it.
I have a new website that may just take over my life...
Gather.com is a gathering place for writers, artists, etc., set up similarly to MySpace.
There are places for you to post writing samples, photography and art samples, and to connect with others who are doing the same.
I'll be entering my NaNoWriMo novel into their writing competition as well, so maybe I'll walk away with a prize! :-)
Check it out!!! My username there is katekosior.
My mom has a friend in Colorado, who just sent the following message around and I found it kind of intriguing... Granted, it's comparing meteorological apples and oranges, but still, there is a point to it.
Up here, in the "Mile-Hi City", we just recovered from a Historic event--may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.
FYI:
George Bush did not come. FEMA did nothing. No one howled for the government. No one blamed the government. No one even uttered an expletive on TV. Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit. Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else. Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either. CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit or report on this category 5 snowstorm.
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards. No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House. No one looted.
Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something. Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.
No Larry King, No Bill O'Reilly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera. No Sean Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.
Nope, we just melted the snow for water. Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars. The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny. Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families. Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.
We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns. We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die". We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.
Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.
"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."
It does seem that way, at least to me.
I hope this gets passed on.
Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living. The Government and Tax $ are not your insurance company.
Last night we hosted our annual Three Kings dinner party, which marks the official end of Christmas. It's always an extravaganza of epic proportions. Last year, we had a good bit of trouble with the cooking, and this year we were so organized, we had an hour for naps and showers before really kicking off the cooking.
Judy and Joe arrived on the train Friday night and we did the major shopping. By which I mean that we bought the stuff that cost approximately $50 more in total than the Saturday morning shopping trip, which still didn't cover the additional $50 we spent on ice, serving ware, and incidentals.
When we got home around 9pm, the grand unveiling took place...
I was not able to post this sooner, because it was a surprise for Judy, but when my uncle came to visit from San Diego last week, he bought Michael and I a new television set. A 42" plasma HDTV to be exact. So she went downstairs and saw it, and all was well...
We got cookin'. Friday night is always reserved for 2 things: baking and chopping onions. We like to get both out of the way so that we can do the hard core cooking the next day.
The lemon bundt cakes refused to cooperate this year, they kept coming out of the pan all broken up. So I told Judy the mini-bundts were out this year, we'd have to make cheesecakes in the morning. She agreed, sadly, we spent an hour chopping onions, concluded (correctly as it turned out) that we didn't have enough, and moved on to preparing the presents for everyone. This year, we bought sparkling cider and wine and printed out our own labels and affixed them to the bottles. We got a couple of boxes of wine goblets and gave every couple a bottle of wine and two glasses. All the kids who were coming would get the cider. After that was over, we went to bed. (at 1:30 am)
The next morning I got up at 7 and went back to the store to finish up the shopping as best I could. When I got home, Judy was up and running, so we made the cheesecakes, she finished up chopping another 5 lbs. of onions, and I gave the bundts another go--successfully this time!
The rest of the day was spent arguing with each other--yep, everyone was fightin'--and cooking. The weather was so crazy, we briefly considered turning it into a picnic--probably the only time we'd get away with doing it. But unfortunately, the ground is so soggy, we weren't able to pull it off. It was the first time I've prepared for this with the windows open, and wearing shorts.
Our menu this year was:
Appetizers:
Chips, bread, vegetables, and crackers with an assortment of dips (dill, french onion, and holiday blend)
Shrimp
Homemade egg nog
Dinner:
Beef stroganoff
Haluski (egg noodles sauteed with onions and butter)
Pierogi
Kielbasa
Chicken Paprikash and dumplings
Polish mushrooms
green beans
salad
Dessert:
Lemon cakes
Apple cakes (brought by Nancy)
Cheese cake
Everyone arrived quite promptly, and we had a huge crowd again this year--twenty one, including 5 kids. Poor TomTom took the brunt of it as young Zach fell completely in love with TomTom and kept shoving him in a cardboard box and toting him around. I looked into the box at one point and TomTom was glaring up at me with a "You're going to pay for this" look of utter disdain. But he survived.
Everyone left around midnight, we went to bed around 1am, and I had to get up at 6:45 because the Best Buy guys were supposed to arrive at 7am to finish hooking up the TV and DVD player correctly. Unfortunately, they didnt' get the 7am memo and didn't get here until 8:10, but whatever. Everything is working correctly now.
It was a great party, I really enjoyed myself, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. Today all the Christmas stuff comes down and I'm treating myself to a pedicure.
...I'm already ready with my first book review of the year!
And it's a non-fiction.
Last year at work, my coworker asked if I liked John Grisham. I had never really read his books until I met Michael, who is a diehard fan, and I started reading Grisham books with him on long car trips, and yes, loved the books. So she recommended we get his new book, "An Innocent Man."
I picked it up for Michael for Christmas and we read it over this past long weekend.
Unbelievable.
I've been leaning away from the death penalty for a long time now, but this book 100% cemented it for me. It's shocking how crooked police, prosecutors, judges and lawyers can be--and they weren't all entirely crooked, but some of them were just not paying attention.
And consequently, two innocent men were in jail for 12 years, one of whom had serious mental illness that was not treated most of that time.
The sick part?
The criminal who committed the murder for which those two were convicted actually testified against them at trial and helped convict them!!!
It was an incredibly fast paced book, not one boring part in it. I highly recommend it. It was absolutely great.
My goal for this year is to read 100 books. 99 to go.
...but without it, this picture wouldn't have happened.
And here's some video of Heather stuffing 20 grapes into her mouth...
Michael and I wrote out our somewhat annual holiday newsletter and it spanned 4 pages... YIKES! Who knew such a year would be so crazy... Anyway, I'm posting it here--God only knows when we'll get it in the mail.
Michael kicked 2006 off with a bang—he earned his GS-13 with the defense department and earned the title “Deputy Branch Chief.” In addition to his fancy title, he got to become a supervisor for the first time. He also went back to his beloved ham radio, with the help of our neighbors, Roy and Jack, who braved the mud in our crawl space to install his huge radio antenna. All this and he was another year older! WOW! We also welcomed our bunny TomTom to the family! We had the chance to rent a cabin in a ski resort town with friends Heather, Steve, Nancy, and Gil in Maryland in mid-January, and had a great time hot tubbing, and hanging out, relaxing.
I kicked off February with a bang—literally. On Monday the 13th, I fell while taking the trash out (I had been remodeling our living room and the trash was full of old wallpaper, etc.), when I slid on the ice and immediately I knew I had broken my leg. My first ambulance ride later, I was misdiagnosed and my sister Judy and Michael got to take me to my first orthopedist. I had a compound spiral fracture and all kinds of torn and ripped tendons and ligaments and such (it’s never good when the doctor takes the cast off, looks at your leg, yells “Oh sh**” and walks out of the room!!). Two months and two surgeries later, I was able to walk again with the help of a plate and seven screws that are permanently embedded in my leg. We are forever in debt to our family and friends who came during that entire time—all of our parents made the trip to Virginia to stay for a week each, my sister moved in with us, Joe was our back up “babysitter extraordinaire,” Nancy brought TONS of food and sat with Mom and Judy during the first surgery, Heather brought me books and videos, and Trent scrubbed my floors and made burritos. In the midst of all the brouhaha, Michael, Judy and I went to see Billy Joel in concert in Washington DC. It was an amazing concert, and even though I had to do it on one leg, they helped me stand for “New York State of Mind”—the tears were flowing!
APRIL: We spent our fourth anniversary quietly at home, but are planning a bang up blow out for our fifth. The big news from April was that we became “grandparents” to four baby bunnies. My sister’s bunny turned out to be a girl, although the breeder swore she was a boy, and Valentina and TomTom created Rocky, Suisse, Rambo, and Nimmy. My college roommate, Kerriann, also came to town and Joe and I went to meet her and spend a day in DC. It was wonderful to see her after 10 years!
In May, we traveled to North Carolina to spend some time at another rented house, this one with our friends Brian and Lara, in Sunset Beach, NC. Sunset Beach is a great town right outside Myrtle Beach, SC, where we honeymooned, so we took time to go back to Myrtle Beach for the memories. We spent lots of time cooking, eating, reading, geocaching, playing games (especially skeeball), and catching up with Brian and Lara and doting over their daughter, Emma. For Memorial Day, our friends Mike and Lesley came up from Charlotte and we again went for the third year in a row to see “A Prairie Home Companion” taped live at Wolf Trap. Michael and Mike also spent lots of time building me a new computer, and now I have a computer of my own and my own office space in the basement, so Michael and I don’t have to fight over the computer any more!
June was Relay for Life time, and may I thank all of you again who contributed to my fundraising!!! I raised over $1000 for the American Cancer Society. It was a great time—we got Michael out there too, and he stayed up all night while I fell asleep with a blanket wrapped around my head—it was FREEZING!!!!!!!!!! Michael and I attended our first book signing without Judy (who was in Israel for work), this time meeting CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was most gracious even when I said the stupidest thing imaginable (“When I was laid up with a broken leg, your face was EVERYWHERE on TV.” His response? “I hope you didn’t get as sick of it as I did.” )
July we traveled north to bring contraband fireworks to my dad for the 4th (smuggled from South Carolina, where they have REAL fireworks). We set them off to critical acclaim, and only one of the neighbors called to complain about it, which only made my dad light them up with additional fervor. After the 4th, we visited Hank and Sheila in Rhode Island and caught up with our rapidly growing nephew!! When we got back to Virginia, Judy took me to meet Food Network Chef Alton Brown at a book signing and promotion for his summer show, Feasting on Asphalt. Judy, Michael, and I also went to see our third Dave Barry book signing—pretty soon he’ll know us by name!
Sadly, in August, our friend Tim passed away very suddenly, and we traveled up to Indiana, PA for his funeral. Interestingly enough, Indiana is the hometown of actor Jimmy Stewart, and the funeral home was built right where Jimmy Stewart was born, so we took a brief minute to go outside and see the historic marker. While we were terribly, terribly sad about Tim’s passing, it was wonderful to meet his family and they were so gracious and included us in everything.
When we got back, everyone threw me a wonderful surprise party for my birthday! The theme was fondue, and we had seafood, pizza and cheese fondue for dinner and 2 different chocolate fondues for dessert. WOW was it wonderful. And Michael bought me a power staple gun for a gift, which I desperately wanted and which has been more fun to use than any gift I can remember getting for a while.
In September, Michael, Joe and I went with our friend, Melissa to tour James and Dolley Madison’s Montpelier. It is completely under construction, so it was interesting to be able to see into the walls and walk through doors that will be turned back into windows and such. It was a great tour, and we had a great guide, and look forward to seeing it when it is completed! Mid-month, Judy and I went up to Bethesda, MD to meet actor Alan Alda, who was in town to celebrate his book “Never Stuff Your Dog”. It was a GREAT book signing, and he took the time to sit and chat with each person who came to the table. Since I got there early, and we were 6th in line, he even personalized our books for us, which was great! (There were over 1,000 people there.)
My mom came to visit and we went and enjoyed the National Book Festival on the National Mall. We got to hear two speakers, Christopher Buckley and Khaled Hosseini, speak about their wonderful books, and about writing. We visited the hall of states and the PBS tent and it was a great event. We really enjoyed it.
October brought with it another signing, this time with actor Harry Shearer. It was a much quieter affair than anticipated, only about 50 people showed up, but Judy and I were third in line for that one and he posed for a picture with us. Michael and his cousin Matt Carroll caught up for the first time in 18 years and spent a great evening reconnecting in Alexandria. We look forward to welcoming them to Fredericksburg sometime soon! It was a fairly quiet month otherwise, the only really amazing thing we did other than the signing was to go to the Bazaar Rus at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Washington DC. Judy helped us choose Russian meals that were delicious—beef stroganoff, sausages, vegetables, you name it. Incredible.
November was the start of the real craziness. National Novel Writing Month kicked off on November 1st, and Michael had the patience of Job to deal with what that month had in store. I decided to try my hand at writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, and while that did happen, it was at the expense of everyone and everything around me! Dishes piled up in the sink, we ate lots of take out, I locked myself in the basement for hours at a time… It was intense. But in only 24 days, I had written 50,000 words!!! I’m hoping to publish the book by the summer of 2007. So far, Michael has loved it, as have his parents!! So I’m waiting to get some feedback from my parents and sister and then I’ll be sending it around to see what others think!!! November was also the year-end wrap up for my book club, and we are now in our 3rd year. It was a good year for 2006, although we lost a lot of members, but we’re starting 2007 with eight new members, which I think will be a lot of fun!
We also spent Veteran’s Day weekend in Kentucky, visiting my good friend Tim, his wife Staci, and their two daughters. Tim and I met 7 years ago in Little Rock and have remained friends since. He lives in a huge house in Franklin, KY, and has a huge yard, in which he taught Michael to drive a golf cart!!! It was a great opportunity to break in our new video camera, so if you go on YouTube or have access to it, let me know and I’ll send you a link to his driving expedition.
We also went with Melissa to check out Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Charlottesville, VA. We were fortunate to have 2 wonderful tour guides, who let Michael feel priceless antiques that belonged to Jefferson himself, a rare experience. The house is set on top of a beautiful hill and the view was spectacular. We loved our trip there and hope to bring our family members back for tours sometime.
For Thanksgiving, Michael headed up to Rhode Island and I stayed here to spend time with my dad. Michael got to catch up with the family and spend even more time with Ethan, as well as his cousins, the Martins. When he came back, we spent the next day traveling to New Jersey to see Rutgers University take on Syracuse. My dad is a Rutgers alum, so we screamed and hollered for the Scarlet Knights, and afterwards, revived ourselves at White Castle.
December has remained busy. I spent 5 days in Florida visiting my mom, where I saw the space shuttle launch, and met Food Network Chef, Paula Deen, at a book signing there. I also helped her revamp her house and computer, and spent time with her 3 cats and her new dog. Upon my return, we only had a week to get ready for Christmas, so busily put up a tree, baked way too many cookies, wrapped presents, and the like. Christmas was special—Dad came down again and Joe was here as well, as he was unable to get back to Buffalo for the holidays. My uncle Glen arrived from San Diego on Tuesday and stayed with us for two days, which was great fun, as apart from my parents and sister, no one from my side of the family had been to the house yet. We showed him around town and he seemed to enjoy it here. For New Year’s, Michael was sick with the Plague which had been bugging me since Thanksgiving, so he stayed home and slept, while I went to Maryland to spend the evening with Heather, Nancy, Steve, Joe and Judy. We all missed Michael, particularly Joe and Steve, who were outnumbered!
Other little tidbits include:
• We finished remodeling the living room and my mom brought a bunch of furniture up, so we now have sofa beds in addition to our guest room. Now we need more company!
• Michael made a lot of upgrades to our technology infrastructure here—we now have Vonage for phone service, and a wireless internet network throughout the house.
So that’s our 2006 in review—we are exhausted just thinking about it!! We wish all of you a very happy 2007 and hope to see or speak with you all soon!
