you are the cosmos

From Vena Cava's blog

pre and post

This is Stella very proud of herself holding Abigail, one of Meemaw and Papaw's chickens.

This is Stella after Abigail decided to jump out of her arms, scratching her arm in the process (though I think her pride was wounded more than anything). 

Life is tough sometimes.  She recovered well and was happily gathering eggs again the next day.

cassette tape party

I have a major post coming up on the Washington State Fair, which was epic.  But I have some deadlines to meet so I'm gonna do a shorter post until I can get around to it.  Trust me nonexistent audience, you will love it.

Anyway, last week Natalie and I had the fantastic idea to pull out our old cassette tapes and give them a listen.  Tapes are awesome.  I used to spend so much time (as did Natalie) making mix tapes.  I'd also request songs on the radio and wait til they came on and tape them.  Damn, I seem old, but I'm also just generally a very late adopter of any sort of technology so I was into tapes well after a lot of people had moved onto cd's.  I dated this guy who had a tattoo of a cassette tape and it said "mix tape my heart" under it.  I probably liked him just for that tattoo.  Anyway, we waited til Odette was in bed, then opened some wine and sat on the porch.  Unfortunately I could only find two tapes!  I was so bummed!  I know I have more around somewhere, and I didn't look all that hard.  Natalie had a whole pile (see above).  So here's what we decided to do: pick two mix tapes (both, as close as we can estimate, circa 1999 or so), listen to two of her songs, then two of my songs, and make a supremo Natalie/Katie cassette tape mashup playlist.  It is kind of hilarious, but only I guess if you are kinda familiar with this music and the hilarious contrast between our tastes.  Basically Natalie's music sounds like she wants to punch someone and mine sounds like I want to sit in a tree drinking cheap red wine and writing in my journal.  So...here it is!

N:
Reagan Youth (its a wonderful time for a barbecue)
The meatmen (toolin for anus)
K:
Jeff Buckley (so real)
Rachel's (handwriting)
N:
The Plasmatics
Harry Belafonte
K:
Indian Summer
Al Green (What a wonderful thing love is)
N:
crappy techno song by Natalie's crazy ex-boyfriend
The Ramones (I wanna be whipped)
K:
Philip Glass (opening)
Rainer Maria (Half Past April)
N:
Zuzu's petals
Martin Denny
K:
Elliot Smith (Angeles)
Leonard Cohen (who by fire)
N:
Huggy Bear
The Jesters of Newport (You're stormy)
K:
The Sea and Cake (?)
Tori Amos (don't remember what song this was.  this is the song I am most embarrassed of. It was not even one of the Torio Amos songs that you could argue is actually pretty good.)
N:
The Jesus Lizard
Boss Hog
K:
Flashpapr (first song on that record that has a picture of a bunny on the front)
Zbigniew Preisner (Lacrimosa) (yes, this is opera.  eat it.)
N:
***NATALIE CHANGED TAPES (though I thought this should be against the rules)
Los Catalepticos (Portungese rockabilly band...)
Astrid Gilberto
K:
The Secret Stars (Life of Submission/Eyelashes)
Bonnie Prince Billy (nomadic reverie)
N:
X
The Wire
K:
Patti Smith (Because the Night)
Edith Frost (Telescopic)
N:
Atari Teenage Riot
Aphex Twin
K:
Red Stars Theory (Parts per million)
The Smiths (some girls are bigger than others)

There you go!  Did anyone actually read all that?  Probably not.  OK, the big point here is inventing games of silly fun to pass the time with friends is awesome.

synching with animals

I recently watched this TED talk by Joshua Klein about crows.  I like crows.  I love how you can tell when there are baby crows because you see groups of three crows wandering around outside and one of them is almost as big as the others but is just kind of shaggy looking, with maybe some feathers sticking up on top of its head.  I have always thought it looked like the parent crows were literally taking the kid around and teaching them how to do things- here's how you catch a grasshopper!  here's where there's good water to drink!  here's  what you do when you find a shiny thing!  and after watching this talk my suspicions about the intelligence of crows are confirmed.  Joshua Klein talks about crows as synanthropes, a species that thrives despite or even benefits from living close to humans- think coyotes and cockroaches.  These species kind of co-evolve with humans- they adapt to the circumstances presented to them.  Of course, synanthropes are usually seen as major pests.  Joshua Klein suggests that we could actually find ways to cultivate inter-species relationships and develop new patterns of inter-related behavior that are beneficial to both species.  I found this to be a really interesting idea.

the huntington

Me and the girls had an absolutely epic Labor Day weekend.  Each day turned out super fun somehow, even when I didn't try to plan it that way, and even when it seemed like things might not quite turn out, they just kept working out.  It was kind of magic.  I'll post about an adventure on each day separately, but try to get them all up in pretty short order.  First up: the Huntington Library, a gorgeous library/botanical garden/museum in LA.

  The fountains were awesome 1) because it was super hot and 2) because the kids came up with and endless, endless stream of ways to play with the fountains that was fascinating to watch (and, well, participate in too).  Above, notice the dad in the back corner showing his kid how to swirl her finger to make interesting shapes with the water

                What does the washer do?

Then this little wire basket (another piece from one of the fountains?) was filled with flowers and added to the mix...

I was envious of both this kid's creativity and coolness in the face of the heat.  This is but a few of the ways they were playing with the fountains!!!

Another awesome part of the children's garden is this instrument thing made of a bunch of different sizes of nails.  You drop rocks down inside and it makes the most beautiful sounds.  The kids were tossing handfuls in, but my favorite sounds were the ones from a single pebble making its way down the nail-ladder inside the stones.  So beautiful, I wishd I had brought my recorder.

Finally, this is the very first tree S&C have ever climbed

chicken pie shop

We recently went to La Palma Chicken Pie Shop.  I have kind of accepted that I am going to be (most likely) leaving Orange County pretty soon.  I will graduate by June- yay!  But this place has become my home.  I'm having all kinds of mixed feelings about leaving.  One thing I know for sure is I better hurry up and check out all the weird and awesome stuff I've wanted to check out but haven't gotten around to yet.  Enter the La Palma Chicken Pie Shop, in a (what else?) dinky strip mall in Anaheim.  This place reminded me so much of the midwest but with a particularly Southern California character.

  The best part about the chicken pie shop is that you can get the following meal:
salad (passable green lettuce, ranch dressing)
soup (yummy, chicken)
chicken pot pie (cutely shaped, covered in gravy, nicely self contained, oddly soothing)
mashed potatoes (passable, potentially from a box)
parsley (didn't eat)
pie (banana cream, excellent)

...all for $6.75.  Yes that's right, $6.75.  And the kid's menu was even cheaper.  Score!!!  My inner tightwad was in heaven.  I could even take people out to dinner here and not cringe over the bill.  And I'm sure I will.