Love-Fest 2010

Finally! I'll be heading down to good ol' Manassas, Virginia for the weekend to celebrat Valentine's Day with a couple of great friends (Josh & Jen, we love you guys).

We'll be back on Monday, hopefully. That is, if we're not trapped by another blizzard! But even still, I'd rather be trapped with good company than be at work, which was an absolute nightmare today. My job...ugh....

Anyhoo, hope you all have a very lovely Valentine's Day, no matter how you choose to celebrate it (or not)!

Week of Love, Images

Happy Valentine's Day









To commemorate Valentine's Day and continuing in my Week of Love blog celebration, I'd like to present to you some of my photos that have special meaning for me and that I really love.


Here's little Aubrey looking like a tiny, delightful, garden sprite. I took this picture of her back in December during the week I took care of her.



Here's a funny profile picture. No, it's not Alfred Hitchcock. Gotta love those cheeks.




Here's my friend Katie (Katie, please don't kill me), who does an uncannily accurate impression of a Hummel figurine, evidenced by this photo. She also happens to smell fantastic, is an expert knitter, and can sing like the loveliest songbird you'd ever want to hear. Anyway, I couldn't get through life without people like Katie and the rest of my knitting buddies. I love you guys.


Devotion to Felines

Ah, cats. I have many cats in my life at the moment. I think it might not be an exaggeration to say that I know more cats than people. Why, I have 6. My parents have 2. My sister has 3---that's Neko right there to the left, one of hers. Most of my friends have a cat or 2 or 11. What is it about cats? Every cat I've ever known has has its own distinct personality. The brood of 6 currently residing in my home proves this point to a T. I love them all: my silly, soft, beguiling, fuzzy children.









Here is Titus I, posing for heads of the royal coin of Catopia. An impressive animal he is.

Here's my favorite picture of Sophie, taken when she was still an only child!

And here's a bunch o' cats on the bed. Let's see, here we have (clockwise from the top) Hercules, Sophie (who always sits either right against my pillow or ON IT), Luna, and Fi Fi.






And here's my sweet gentleman, Mr. Chesterfield. One of the smartest, loveliest animals you'll ever meet. EVER.



Oh my goofy, wild Hercules.







One of my parents' cats, Honey. She's as sweet as her name implies.








Here's my little Ophelia, who isn't so little anymore. But when we found her, she was a tiny little baby, weighing less than a pound. Fi Fi always has a very "concerned" look, a look she's donned she was 1-month-old. See?




Ye Olde Tyme Cats

Everyone asks me how I got this photo to look this way. I assure you, it was by accident. It's from my cell phone, of all things. I came home from the grocery store one day and was greeted by this trio in the window. That's Fi Fi on the left (see how very concerned she is?), Herc in the middle and Titus on the right (football head).

Little Luna. My sweet, silver doll.

Japan

I don't recall talking too much about my trip to Japan on this blog, if at all. Suffice it to say, we had a great time there and will be going back at some point.
Here are some of my favorite photos.




Me in a gift shop that sold only cat-themed items. You'd think I would have had enough of them in my every-day life!








A LATE dinner at a restaurant in Ginza with friends. Left to right: Hanae, Scott, Mutsumi, me, Todd.

Here's Todd and I outside a Kabuki theater. It was closed for renovations, so we didn't get to go to a show. Next time!

This is the Hie-Jinja shrine. This shrine was very close to the hotel where we stayed. All the shrines in Tokyo are quiet, peaceful places. Even when we were at a particularly crowded one (this one was not crowded at all), there was this gentle, serene beauty about the place. I liken it to the feeling of being in your grandmother's house: warm, welcoming, with a lot of things to see and do, clean, unconditionally accepting of you and so glad you came to visit.



Mutsumi and I in kimonos, which her grandmother made. Believe it or not, we were standing in the hotel's gardens. Yeah. It was a lovely hotel, the New Otani. The gardens are centuries old, actually. They actually built the hotel around the gardens to preserve them. Something to think about. Here's something else to think about: Mutsumi's grandmom took to making kimonos for a living because she was widowed in WWII. It's so eye-opening to realize that losses in WWII happened everywhere. No matter the "side," people died, families suffered. The pointlessness of war just really slaps you in the face.





Dinner with our friend Yuko and her parents. One of the great highlights of our trip. That's Todd and I in the front, of course. So Yuko's mom made her own plum wine. Yeah, just take one look at me and you'll know how awesome it was. :-)







More Photographic Love

I had a professional photographer at my wedding and she took some wonderful pictures---and a lot of them. However, my most favorite photo of my wedding is this one that Mutsumi took. Can you believe it? She came all the way from Japan to be at our wedding!







This last picture is just a special memory for me of the fun times I had with Kathleen. We were at Todd's friend Dan's home for a Fourth of July barbecue. Great memories.






I hope you enjoyed seeing some special photos that I love. I'm sure this collection will keep growing and growing thanks to all my friends, family and CATS. :-)

Week of Love, Continued

To continue with my Week of Love celebration and in honor of my late, best friend, Kathleen, I present to you this most-excellent, hilarious video from YouTube. This has been around for about a year and in several variations. But it is one of the greatest things I've ever seen. I put it up here for Kathleen because...well...she would have LOVED it.

My friends, I give you: Lady Punch





And this Franz Ferdinand accompanied remix of Lady Punch. It's Lady Punch set to music! How grand.



Ah, I can hear her laughing, even now. Love you, Kath.

Week of Love

Valentine's Day is swiftly approaching so I've decided to dedicate this week of my blog to that holiday. To kick it off, I just thought it an appropriate time to list things that I love and things that I hate. Just randomly:





She loves me...

Todd
the 6 beast---er, I mean cats
all my family
sushi
MST3K
chocolate
etsy
knitting
art
gnocchi
jewelry
Spongebob Squarepants
World of Warcraft
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (who knew?)
Married to the Sea
coffee and tea
games
South Park
chinchillas
honey
cheese
retro 80s music
pancakes
otters
Go Fug Yourself
black beans
the smell of a barbecue
amiguri
raspberries
video games
Spring & Fall
Ninja Warrior
Addi Turbo needles
Corgis



She loves me not...

my job
Indian food, particularly curry
thunder and lightening
insincerity
smell of patchouli
spearmint or cinnamon gum
Popeye cartoons
horror movies
Nascar
the doctor
Twizzlers
Hummers as big as my house
my neighbor's grandson
Futurama
the color teal
flan
laundry
leaky windows in my house
WWE wrestling
meat on pizza
any talk radio (like NPR)
Jello
Family Guy
enchilladas
gasoline prices
cantaloupe
scrapple
Summer & Winter
rap music
double-pointed needles
MTV

Weekly Topic #4 for Defeat the Winter Doldrums Dishcloth Swap

Weekly Topic #4

" Defeat the Winter Doldrums" for some of us we get the doldrums and others don't. For the ones who get doldrums what helps you get rid of them? For the ones who don't get the doldrums, what helps you keep them away?

I think I really do find myself in the doldrums right in the middle of winter. Usually right around now it hits me. Sometimes what makes it feel worse is that, for me, there are no "off-from-work" holidays on the horizon until Memorial Day! ACK!

Luckily for me there a couple of events that I look forward to that help ameliorate the situation. First of, for the last 4-5 years Todd and I have been getting together with his friends, Josh and Jen, for a Valentine's Day Weekend Love Fest. We alternate travel every other year. This year, it's our turn to ravel to them. They don't live terribly far away, though. Just Manassas, Virgina, which is about 2-2.5 hours away. Most of the time, Valentine's Day falls mid-week. So we shoot for whichever weekend is closest. We leave this Friday for the weekend!

Second is my sister Helene's birthday. March 1. Which I guess isn't a major holiday or event. But over the last several years, it seems like a regular tradition that I go down to North Carolina to visit her around her birthday. Luckily, this year her birthday falls on a weekend, so that will really be nice. And I'll get to see my niece and nephew again too. Good times all around!