Beware the lycanthropes

I guess that yesterday was the official full moon. It was round, but seemed very small and bright. You could make out lots of craters and such with the naked eye, but somehow it didn't hold my attention much.
The moon tonight though, well that's another story. In fact, it's like a picture from a story. Big and yellow with thin wisps of cloudy bits across the front of it. I guess it's a sort of hunter's moon as it came out practically in conjunction with the sunset. Beautiful. Our little camera does not do it justice, but I still had fun out there...

Trashy girl

Here was my only job on Thanksgiving - besides eating - a lot...

Gobble, gobble...

Okay, I know it is a little hard to believe that we are from New England and had never roasted chestnuts before.
Since Aunt Patty sent Curt some from her trees as part of his birthday extraveganza package, we thought we'd give em a try for turkey day.
I don't know what recipe he ended up with, but the flavour was delicious - sort of caramelized chestnuts with brussel sprouts (I know, kinda yuck, but when the little cabbages are fully saturated with butter, they have no choice but to be yummy).
Anyhoo, here are some pics the old boy took of his process...

Visitors from the homeland

Yay! We had such a blast with Marcy, Terry, Jenny and Sarahbean.
I will refrain from posting the pictures of Sarah diapered on the floor sharing FunDip with Clovis. We are saving those for when the first slew of boys start showing up at the house to meet her family.

The birthday

So, a bit of catch-up as I've been rather lackadaisical with this journal.
Curt turned 35 - eeeks! That means I am....well, we won't discuss that.
We had a great night eating pub food & playing pool with Sean and Adam. It was perhaps the happiest birthday for Curt that I can recall.
Saturday, a week ago we had a proper party. It was a faboo chance to catch up with a bunch of friends and for us to show off some of the Boston clan as the Delehanty's were visiting (more on that later).
Curt didn't want gifts, but got some nice loot anyhow. Brad & Marti had the most creative idea - even the antiholidayman Curt might be decorating this year...

New space

We cleaned up our upstairs 'spare' room (the one that ended up with all the miscellaneous bits we didn't know what to do with); ripped out the carpet and scrubbed the hardwoods. Now I have a new office. We'll turn the old office in the next room over to an art room. Yay!
Curt gets me so motivated on these projects - if left to my own initiative, probably nothing would ever happen.
We even set up a little animal corner - although kitkat seems to think it beneath him to lay so close with the pups & ends up on the rug under the computer desk. It is a darker & smaller room, but since it's not filled with too much clutter yet, it's rather a relaxing spot to ruminate.

Napping on the rear

Needless to say, Clovis didn't put up with this for too long. I wonder if Ernie knew where he was resting his head?

The last bergman

Well, I think that this will be the last rose from the garden this year (unless we get a bit of rain and it heats up again). She is much the smallest of what we had, but rather cute in an old saffron bottle. We had three sets of blooms come from our Ingrid Bergman roses this year. So, I guess that they're some of the few that really thrive in the long, dry & hot summer.

Out of context

Having our own migrant worker in cliche head attire would be very un-p.c.
To give a bit of backing on this tale, we should mention that this is our fellow heathen neighbor Jim doing us a favour. Even by Monday, he just couldn't stop the partying that began with 2nd Saturday dinner at the Maxfields. Can you guess the theme? I wonder if Marti still has fake mustaches lining her cleavage?

Illustration inspiration

Mercer Mayer is selling giclee prints of some of his illustrations. They are too expensive, but what a pleasure just looking thru the gallerys.
Here are some of my favourites from the books I know - Shibumi and the Kitemaker; East of the Sun, West of the Moon (although I do wish he was offering prints of this beautiful fish); Beauty and the Beast & of course, Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like.
From this site, I see that he's also illustrated Grimms - so that's now on my list to find.
When I see these lovely pictures (some of which are old friends from childhood) it really inspires me. Guess it's a sign I ought to get off my duff & start sketching something beyond my geriatric dogs napping and the trees in our back yard.

The home gardener's song

I just heard a great song on 'A Prarie Home Companion' for us would-be home gardeners. This one is really better for those that have less trees and thus can grow things beyond ferns, hosta and creeping myrtle.
However, I have lived in sunnier locals and been thru these sentiments frequently enough to empathise. The singer is called Stephanie Davis and the song is 'Talkin' Harvest Times Blues.'
The best line comes towards the end..."You have to take zucchini-we're related!"

Rhapsodize

So, for years Curt has had us up on a monthly pay service for music. We use Rhapsody, but I'm sure there must be others. Anyhow, it has really been a big $aver for us.
We had hundreds of cds from before we got the service, but recently we just had them all transferred over and keep em on an external hard drive. Talk about space-saving! Plus we got mucho dinero for them at the local rerun book/dvd/music store (of course, not what we shelled out for them initially).
Also, we would be much more reticent to buy new albums without having had the chance to hear them first. Anyhow, a thought for my fellow music junkies. Now, back to making dinner and finding something fun to listen to.

Old news

Maureen Dowd over at the NYTimes gave over her column to Stephen Colbert back in October. Anyhow, I am just getting to it now...A Mock Columnist, Amok .
His description of old people makes me want to buy his book (I'm always the lowest denominator in the class - you'll find me looking for the cheap & easy laugh rather than studying for the deeper nuances).