Weekend wrap-up

Rand and I went to Pennsylvania over the weekend for my cousin Meghan’s wedding. I’m waiting for my dad to post some actual photos of the ceremony, because I wasn’t in a very good position to get them…

On kind of a whim, we stopped for dinner at Blasdell Pizza in Springville. I’d never had it before, but Rand had. I heartily approve. 🙂

Friday night was pretty mellow. We went to the reception hall to help with some last-minute decorating things. Saturday morning, I finally had the chance to cash in a massage gift certificate I received last Christmas. Ahhh…very nice!

The ceremony began at two, and we headed over early. My brother needed to be there to hand out programs. The photographer was one of my old high school teachers, so I chatted with him briefly about my becoming a teacher and teaching eighth grade. He told me that when he made the move from teaching middle school to teaching high school (after 14 years), he found that his 40-minute lesson plan only took 15 minutes. I laughed. Everything takes three times as long with middle schoolers because you’re constantly saying things like “be quiet,” “don’t touch that,” “put that down,” and “stop it.” 😉

While I couldn’t take any actual ceremony photos, I did get a couple of interesting shots during the ceremony:

window

colten and daddy

Amanda (Meghan’s sister) was the matron of honor. Her son, Colten, was the ring bearer. I caught this cute shot of Colten resting on daddy.

My cousin Scott (Meghan’s brother) sang Ave Maria quite beautifully. I continue to be impressed with his talent. 🙂

The reception had a sort of garden faerie theme. This was their cake:

waterfall cake-front

waterfall cake-side

cake cutting

There was, of course, the obligatory cake-smooshing. I was assured that there will be no cake smooshing at mine. 😉

We posed for a family photo, which I think is pretty nice…but for the redeye I can’t remove and the slightly crazed expression on my brother’s face.

family

Then I posed for a couple of shots with my “double sister.” (Leslie, my sister-in-law, and I were in the same sorority…)

double sisters

There was much drinking, dancing and general carousing. The reception was huge–around 400 guests–and *everyone* was there to party. I did the chicken dance, which I have to admit that I like. I did not do the hokey pokey. The electric slide was not played. As is usually the case, I was unimpressed with the DJ.

Later, my aunt showed me some pictures I had drawn for her way back when (I’m guessing I was somewhere around ten). My repertoire consisted mainly of unicorns and Care Bears.

unicorn

other care bear

Later still, we enjoyed the adventures of Dudley, the Highly Energetic Shih Tzu. Here’s Dudley with his new most favorite toy, a Swiffer duster handle.

dudley

We went out for breakfast Sunday morning, then said our goodbyes and headed back to Buffalo.

All in all, a lovely weekend. Congratulations to Meghan and Tom!

Sunday stuff (and a meme)

So while I was at home over the weekend, I learned that Bigfoot has been sighted in Elk County.

I also attended my cousin’s wedding. More on that tomorrow, but for now, some photos are up here.

And now, a meme, courtesy of Samantha.

First, the rules:
There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, “The best [subgenre] in [genre] is…”.Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

You can leave them exactly as is.

You can delete any one question.

You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question.
For instance, you could change “The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…” to “The best time travel novel in Westerns is…”, or “The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…”, or “The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…”.

You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form “The best [subgenre] in [genre] is…”.

You must have at least one question in your set, or you’ve gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you’re not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions. Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

Got it? I think I do. Here goes:

My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Pharyngula.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Flying Trilobite.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Primate Diaries.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Thus Spake Zuska.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is a k8, a cat, a mission.
My great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Monkeygirl.
My great-great-great-great-grandparent is DancingFish.
My great-great-great-grandparent is Dr. Brazen Hussy.
My great-great-grandparent is Addy
My great-grandparent is MommyProf
My grandparent is Dr. Curmudgeon
My parent is Samantha Says…

The best television series in SciFi is: Firefly
The best cult movie in comedy is: UHF
The best romance novel in classic fiction is: Pride and Prejudice
The best recent movie in comedy is: Knocked Up
The best non-recent movie in romantic comedy is: When Harry Met Sally…
The best pop cover of a hip-hop song is: B*****s Ain’t S**t by Ben Folds

And I guess I have to tag some people…so how about Stephanie, HillaryEnsie, Caoimhe, and Mark.

Quick weekend update

Rand and I spent the weekend in PA with my family. It had been a while since we’d seen them, and my aunt was in town from Maryland. My brother was also home, with his Shih Tzu puppy, Dudley:

Dudley

Dudley is a very active little guy, and so he was tough to photograph. Currently, he’s afraid to walk down stairs, so he climbs to the top of the stairs and waits for someone to come and get him. (my brother had the same problem when he was a toddler. heehee) In this photo, I was trying to capture him waiting at the top of the stairs.

I was a little concerned about how my allergies would be with the dog around. I took my regular allergy medicine, and I was fine. I’ve since learned that the Shih Tzu is one of the breeds that are typically good for allergy sufferers. They have hair rather than fur, and they shed very little. Of course, I was still careful to wash my hands and such after playing with him.

I didn’t really take any other photos…I didn’t bring the camera, so I only had the phone!

Anyway…we had dinner at my grandpa’s on Saturday night, and breakfast on Sunday morning. My aunt made her famous chocolate chip cookies after Saturday’s dinner–yum! I should have taken a picture of those. They’re about the size of your head!

After breakfast on Sunday, we presented my dad with his Father’s Day gift-the series set of Firefly, and some dark chocolate non-pariels. We also visited with my other set of grandparents, who recently celebrated their 60th Anniversary! Then, before heading back to Buffalo, Rand and I went for a walk/hike with my parents at East Branch Dam. It had gotten pretty warm by that point, so the walk left us rather tired.

east branch

(Photo from the US Army Corps of Engineers site)

Click on the photo-I added notes.

I have to be on my way, now. I actually have work this afternoon! Happy Monday, everyone.

Say “si!” to MexAmerica

There’s a company based in my hometown called MexAmerica…they make tortillas and chips and the like. Their tortillas are good (and are available at Wegmans!), and I pretty much always buy them when I’m buying tortillas. In fact, I’m eating a fajita made with a MexAmerica tortilla right now. 😉 I heard that Mighty Taco uses their tortillas, but I can’t confirm that.

Anyway, MexAmerica used to sell fajita kits…just tortillas and a seasoning packet…it was the best fajita seasoning in the history of packaged fajita seasoning. I don’t know what it was…a sort of smoky flavor. Nothing else even comes close. (I’ve been using Ortega, which is okay, but…) A while back, they stopped selling it. This made me very, very sad. 🙁

I just sent an email to the company, but in the meantime, does anyone have a recommendation for me?

Old photo fun

I just uploaded a bunch of old photos that I scanned today. They’re from high school, so you know they’re going to be good for a laugh.

I asked Scott, my Australian penpal, for his permission to post a couple of photos I had from back in the day, and he gave me his blessing. So here ya go:

scott2.jpg

scott1.jpg

You can see a more recent photo on his myspace page.

And just for giggles, here’s one of me about to go snorkeling in Hawaii:

snorkeling.jpg

And there’s so much more! See for yourself. 🙂

Children will listen

So, Into the Woods.

I’d never seen or heard Into the Woods before the weekend. I was vaguely aware of the basic story, and I think the melodies of a couple of the songs had worked their way into my consciousness at some point, as they sounded somewhat familiar.

As I mentioned, my cousin Scott (a sophomore!) got one of the leads in the musical this year. He played The Baker (which you might say is the lead, given that he was the last one out for curtain call), and he did an absolutely outstanding job. His voice, his acting, his comic timing…all great. I was very, very impressed.

me and scott

That blur of fuzzy yellow hair behind us is Rapunzel, who was also fantastic. Really, I don’t have anything bad to say about any of the kids who were in the show. They did a terrific job.

I loved the first act of this show…the way the stories are tied together is pretty clever, the music is good, and it’s generally fun. Act 1 ends on a nice, upbeat note…and then comes Act 2.

Man, is Act 2 dark. Princes are cheating on their wives, bakers wives are cheating on their husbands, characters are dying all over the place, being squashed by the giant and whatnot.  Eep.

But that said, the finale song “Children Will Listen” is lovely, and brought a tear or two to my eye. (and really, it’s not a musical unless I’ve shed some tears…)

Anyway, I say “bravo!” to the cast and crew of Into the Woods, St. Marys Area High School, March 2007. And I make a mental note to see more musicals. 🙂

Beach painting



beach painting
Originally uploaded by enappe27.

This is one of my favorite pieces of artwork from my high school art classes. It was painted with acrylics. I used a photograph from my trip to Hawaii as reference. I was going to post the photo as well, but I’ll need to scan it.

I liked this painting enough that I had it hanging in my apartment.
The board that it was painted on has warped over the years, so I had it in a frame to attempt to straighten it out. It held that way, but just barely.

I really need to find some of the other things that I liked…there was a pastel drawing that my grandparents used to have hanging in their basement, and a charcoal drawing of Jack Nicholson as the Joker that I brought to college with me. I wonder where those things got to…

Early spring?

D’oh! All this blogging and I forgot it was Groundhog Day!

No Shadow for Phil; Early Spring for Us

I never attended the Groundhog Day festivities when I lived in PA, but always sort of kind of wished I had. Then I remembered that it’s cold in February.

You can visit the “official site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club” here.

Friday photos–pottery

bloomquistjar.jpg

This is a piece of pottery by artist John Bloomquist. He’s from Kane, PA, and he was my elementary school art teacher. (he was, by the way, the world’s coolest elementary school art teacher.)

I learned a lot from Mr. B. Like using thin dabs of glue, and Roy G. Biv, and how to tell a killer ghost story. He retired a few years ago and has been dedicating himself to his art. I wonder who they hired to fill his amazingly large shoes.

I own a lot of his pottery. My family became regular customers, so much so that we got a family discount. I’ve given his pieces as gifts to many friends as well. Mr. B used to have a website, but it doesn’t seem to be in existence any longer.

bloomquistbowl.jpg

For the past few years, I’ve been able to visit Mr. B at his booth at the Allentown Art Festival. This year, though, he wasn’t able to come. You see, this spring, he suffered a stroke. From what I understand, he’s recovering well, and I continue to think of him often, hoping that he’s able to get back to his art…it must be a horrible thing for an artist, to be unable to create.

Tired and hot

Ugh.

I have to go back for day #2 of jury selection tomorrow. Not fun. But at least it’s air conditioned.

There was an obnoxious heavily-accented old woman there today who got to go home when she whined about her health problems. Aren’t you supposed to put that on the questionnaire they send you in the mail? Ugh. She was *really* vocal about her displeasure in the courtroom. Whispering, sort of, but in that loud annoying way. I can’t believe the judge didn’t say anything to her. Whine whine whine, my hip, my knees, etc.

I’m still about halfway through Solitude, and so far…ummm…I’m kinda bored. Well, I wasn’t bored for a while, but now I’m bored and sort of stuck. Encourage me. 🙂

I had a lovely visit in PA, first with my parents on Friday, and then with my friends on Saturday. My friends Jen and Mike got married a couple of weeks ago, in a small family ceremony, and had a picnic celebration on Saturday. It was really nice to see everyone, and they all got to meet Rand. Not that we had much of a chance to hang out and talk to people. 🙂


Jen and Mike


Me and Rand
(is it me, or do I always look slightly sleepy in these photos with Rand? 😉 )


The girls

We came back to Buffalo late Saturday, because Rand’s brother was speaking at a church service on Sunday morning. (more thoughts on the service itself later…) One interesting point…Rand’s brother mentioned the 27th Psalm in his address. Heehee. 🙂

No job news. The interview on Friday went fine. I might have a very, very short term temp assignment, unless I get picked for this jury. *grumble*

I know there’s a lot more that I want to say, but it’s hot.