Well, after having this featherbed quilt-thing for at least two years (a gift from my mother), we finally got around to getting a duvet for it. As proof-positive, here are pics.
The new duvet is that purple thing, layered underneath the quilt. The yellow sheets are this year's Xmas present from my mom. Nabiki and Cthulhu decided to show up for the picture.
Here is a close of of the cat duvet. As you can see, while it looks plain purple, it is actually striped.
And the quilt we have with it. It's so fugly that it's cute, ne? We inherited it from my grandmother when she passed away a couple of years ago. Bob really likes it.
Speaking of Bob, here is a shot of him ignoring me while he plays a video game on TV. The game, for those curious, is The Eye of Judgement.
And my usual reaction to his silliness--BLOCK THE TV!!! Bwah-ha-ha!
It snowed again today--a lot. Stuck inside the house, I was bored, so I started taking some pictures.
This is the picture window in the bay area of the front of our house. I camped out on the couch for a long time and just watched the snow falling.
Nabiki can't stay still, so she was playing on the stairs. OMG, I actually got a pic where you can see her bobbed tail! She never poses like that!
Tegan, meanwhile, was lolling about in her "cat-nest". That is, incidently, my comfy chair. She has decided that it was hers. Sorry, I couldn't seem to get a good picture of Hickory. She refused to sit still.
Can you tell I really love my next-door neighbor's house? It's about 10 years older than ours, a true Victorian, with stained glass windows and tons of charm. And it looks fantastic when it snows.
A picture looking up the street. I was trying to snow the snow coming down, but it doesn't come out well in the photograph. There must be some kind of technique to capture that.
And down the street as well. You can see how the snow is piling up on the roads, despite the best efforts of the snowplows. This, incidently, is the duplex that burned down a couple of years ago. They fixed it up pretty well, for a rental property.
Once again, upon orders from my mother, I am to post pictures of our recent snow, since I have been complaining about it so much. So I bundled up and took my camera out into the 16 degree F freezing-cold weather to document our sorrows.
Here is the front of our house. The path in the middle has been dug out a couple of times, which is why it is a couple of inches shorter than the yard.
The larger (sic) part of our yard, covered in the white stuff.
And the smaller part of the yard--it's ours up to the bushes. Doesn't our neighbor's house look picturesque?
The side-yard. You can see the 6-8 inches of snow stacked on the air conditioner on the right. That's our neighbor, Bill, in the background.
The hydrant kind of gives you an idea of how deep this stuff is.
If you look closely, you can see icicles dripping from the eaves.
Bob usually handles the snowblowing.
While I shovel out the front walk and stairs, since it is difficult to get the snowblower up there.
The Hills are Alive...with the sound of snowblowers! (La la-la-la)
And finally, a picture of me in the snow so that my nieces will know kinda what I look like. (Actually, I look a lot like Jeff, only female and somewhat smaller.)
On orders from my mother, here are pictures of our new Xmas tree that we finally got around to putting up today. We now have an abundance of Xmas trees (two of which were gifts), but we just put up the one this year, partly from the lack of ornaments that we own, and partly because by the time we cleared the dining room and put up this monster tree, we were both exhausted! So here it is, in all its glory. (PS: You can click on the pictures to make them larger.)
And from the right side. This side holds our "old-fashioned" ornaments, many of which are from my childhood.
Yes, those are plushies on the tree. Our decorations are a bit on the unusual side. Besides, where else are we going to put them?
We left the bottom of the tree bare, because of our three pesky kitties, who like to knock down ornaments and smash them. We did hang a few bells from the lower branches to warn us when the cats were messing with the branches!
And what is a tree without a angel on top? I'm very fond of this one, which we picked up at an after-Xmas sale some 8 or 9 years ago, back when we lived in Des Moines. She even color-coordinates with the curtains!
Yes, this is because the web needs more pictures of cats on it. The exception being that these are MY cats and therefore worthy of adoration by the anonymous masses. ;-D
And our oldest kitty, Tegan. This was Bob's cat before we married, and she's never quite cottoned to me, even though I'm the one who feeds these beasts.
And as promised: OMGWTFPOLARBEAR! This is a new plushie that Bob picked up for me. I decided to pair the bear (no name yet) with Inuki the wolf for a winter wildlife plushie tableaux.
I've seen some previews of the new movie, The Mist, which looks really good and horribly depressing. As I have been in poor spirits lately, I decided to forego the movie for now (catch it on DVD later or something) and read the original Stephen King story instead, published as a novella in the collection Skeleton Crew. It being Stephen King, of course the library had it. So the night before last, I settled in for what I thought would be a pleasant read.
Yeah, right.
Word to the wise: Never, ever, EVER stay up until 2 am reading a scary story by Stephen King. Particularly one of his short stories written in the heyday of his talents. Oh, man, I barely slept, and when I did, I dreamed of fogbanks, giant insect-thingies and the small-town grocery store that I used to go to back when I lived in Lanesville, Indiana.
Oh, the story was good. It was can't-put-the-book-down good. Hence my staying up way past my bedtime, curled up in the comfy chair with my knees raised up so I could perch the big hardback volume of the book on them. But dayum, it was freakin' scary!
Some of the story is rather dated. It was written in the early 1980's and some of the plot points (like the protagonist's four-wheel drive car) are not issues nowadays like they would be then. From spoilers on the internet, some things were updated and evidently the end of the story was changed as well, making the movie in the words of one reviewer "the most depressing thing I have ever seen". Not that the original ending was all upbeat or anything, but still...
There are some excellent movies that are brilliant, like Schindler's List or Se7en, which I thought were wonderful examples of the filmmakers' craft and which, having seen once, I refuse to watch again because they're so damn depressing. I have a feeling that The Mist is going to fall into that catagory. Maybe my old bud from the Elitist Bastards, Mightygodking, will do one of his famous reviews for us?
Anyway, last night, my bedtime reading consisted of a half-chapter from Donald Keene's Seeds in the Heart, which is like being with a good friend who is showing you all the cool things about early Japanese literature. And is not scary at all. I am happy to report there were no giant insects in my dreams last night, although there might have been a tanka or two from a guy swathed in layers of silk who looked remarkably like Sanada Hiroyuki.
Okay, this is an experiment with cross-posting my Vox blog to my LJ, so any LJ readers, please let me know if this works okay for you.
So for Thanksgiving, we did what we usually do and eschewed wanktastic family gatherings for a simple meal-for-two at the Potter's Mill, a scenic Bed and Breakfast down in Bellevue, a little ways south of here.
Here's the view as we head towards downtown Dubuque (at least on the highway--it's actually faster to walk down our street to get there).
We pass Murphy's Bluff. This picture does it no justice--it looms over the grocery store (unseen on the left side) like some kind of monstrous beast.
To get to Bellevue, we take Hwy 52 (the River Road). This was once the main route linking Dubuque to the outside world. Now it's a windy old country road. Very scenic, though.
Of course we're in Iowa, so there are a lot of these around. ;-D
And these, too. There's a strange kind of beauty to the cornfields in winter.
And we arrive at the not-so-thriving metropolis of Bellevue (pop. 2,350). Lovely spot, floods occasionally. It also got hit by a big tornado last spring, but they've cleaned up the mess quite nicely.
At last! We reach the Mill!
Not supposed to take pictures inside, but here's the sign.
And the original millstone that went with the building.
It's hard to convey the real size of this place. It's huge, especially for a wooden building.
On the way back, we passed through the City of St. Donatus (pop 140). Every municipality in Iowa is called a "city" regardless of its size. St. Donatus Church is famous for its outdoor Way of the Cross, where every Easter, thousands of pilgrims converge to make their way up the hillside.
Next, it was back to Dubuque for the Festival of Trees, a fundraiser for Mercy Hospital's Children's Fund.
This is pretty much what it looked like inside, but we took some pictures of our favorite trees.
"But we've got the biggest Balls Of Them All!!" was what was running through my mind when I saw this one.
Very Glittery. Would look nice in our house, but our Xmas trees tend to be pretty pedestrian.
And the highlight of the Festival, the Harry Potter Tree. Notice Fawkes in the lower right-hand corner.
And the other side of the HP tree. I don't see much Slytherin representation, however. :-P
What's better that hot chocolate during those cold winter evenings? With whip cream and marshmellows on top!
This tree was downright fugly, but it made me laugh.
Picture doesn't do this tree justice (forgive me, I'm a bad photographer). It was quite charming.
And of course, the tree we all remember. You know the one with the tinsel that would choke the pets, the big bulbs that got so hot they'd set the tree on fire, and the glass ornaments that would shatter at every given opportunity? Oh, those good old days!
I had a hard time getting a good picture of this one, but it was one of the most interesting "trees" there.
This is the Five Flags Theatre, which sits directly across from the hotel where the Festival of Trees was. I love this building! Usually, I don't get over to this part of downtown so I thought I'd get a picture of it.
All in all, we had a fun time, and the food was delicious. Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was a good one!
One of the things that really makes me appreciate the life I have (well, besides watching COPS, which is enough to make anybody happy that they're not on camera with The Men and Women of Law Enforcement) is to read books about The Great Depression of the 1930's. I grew up hearing stories from my grandparents about how hard life was back then and quite frankly, it doesn't hurt to go back and remember those times and realize how very spoiled we are. I recently read an excellent book on the subject of the Dust Bowl.
I picked up The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan on a whim at Borders awhile back and just got around to reading it. Unlike many history books, this one wasn't a boring rendition of names and statistics, but focused rather on the lives of a handful of people who lived through the Dust Bowl. Egan gathered a lot of his information through interviews, and then rounded out the stories with rich detail about prairie life during the first part of the 20th century. He focuses on a few communities in the Texas Panhandle, western Oklahoma, eastern Colorado and western Kansas--the areas hardest hit by the dust storms.
What's amazing is how this
preventable tragedy was just permitted to happen, all in the name of
greed. People were getting rich on wheat crops and land speculation,
left and right, and then the drought came (right as the Great
Depression hit) and everyone was struck down. If there hadn't have
been a depression at the time, maybe people would have been able to
just leave, but in those times, jobs were scarce all over the country.
And what was scary about these circumstances was that you could see the
present problems in the American economy being reflected in the mirror
of the past. We have repeated history's mistakes, just in a new
fashion.
Egan is a superior writer, and the reader really gets to know and love the people he portrays. I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in American history, or just in historical writing. It sounds cliche, but I literally had a hard time putting this book down. It was a brilliant work of non-fiction.
I also had a chance in the past couple of weeks to sit down and rewatch Twin Peaks, which has been released in a "definitive Gold-Box edition". It had been awhile since I last saw it and it was just as good as I remembered. What was really amazing to me was the high quality of the transfer. I had a copy of the videotapes from way-back-when and had only seen the series in rather low-quality form. It was a delight to be able to notice new quirky details after all this time.
Twin Peaks first aired when I was still living down in Texas, and I remember meeting up with my co-workers at the mortgage company in the break room every Friday morning to discuss the previous night's episode. I didn't really care who killed Laura Palmer, but enjoyed watching Agent Cooper work his way through the quirky little town. I do remember thinking that the high-school kids all looked like refugees from the 1950's most of the time, although watching the series now, it's funny to see that the characters who were more modernly dressed are the ones that seem horribly dated. Has fashion changed so much since then? I guess it has. Dang, where did the time go?
Strangely, even in these days of shows like Heros, Lost, House and the Sopranos, Twin Peaks still stands up as excellent television. It only goes to show how far ahead of its time the show was. I really enjoyed my little trip back in time while I watched the series again. It was like being 24 years old again all over.
The set has plenty of amusing extras (including a set of postcards), although a commentary track might have been nice. Still, well worth the money, especially if you can catch it on deep discount.
Next up: Honey and Clover (anime version). I've been meaning to watch HachiKuro for a while now, but now that there's a live-action version coming out this winter, it seems high time.
Autumn must be here, because I'm finding time to watch Jdrama again. This past week, I've been marathoning Hotelier, a Japanese remake of the popular Korean drama of the same name.
First, I wasn't even aware that "Hotelier" was even a word. It's not one that is in common use in America, although when I looked it up, it seems that it is English (borrowed, of course, from the French) and means a hotel owner or manager. Huh. Learn something new every day.
Anyway, back to the drama. I'd caught a few episodes of the Korean version when it was shown on AZN TV and it looked good, so I thought I'd give the Japanese version a try. It also helped that one of the stars was Oikawa Mitsuhiro (more on him later). The story focuses on Odagiri Kyoko (played by cutie Ueto Aya), an assistant manager in a large luxury hotel. She's devoted to the job and popular with her fellow staff members. Alas, there's another company looking to take over the hotel (led by villain Morimoto Masakazu, played by character actor Takenaka Naoto, probably best known in the US from his unforgettable role as the Latin-dancing enthusiast Aoki in the hilarious movie, Shall We Dance?). The hotel's president asks Kyoko to find a former manager of theirs, Ogata Kouhei (played by very hot Tanabe Seiichi) to help them defend the business from being taken over. Undeterred, Morimoto in turn hires Mizusawa Keigo (Oikawa Mitsuhiro), a Japanese ex-pat now living in America who is famous for being able to force hostile takeovers.
But as it happens, Mizusawa happens to meet Kyoko by chance when she's tracking down Ogata, and it's love at first sight. That's not about to stop him from taking over the hotel, but he figures he can have his cake and eat it, too. Kyoko has other ideas. Plus, Ogata is in love with her, himself, and he and Mizusawa clash over both love and business.
Basically, the entire drama is about a takeover bid on this hotel, and how the hotel staff band together to fight it. And surprisingly, it was pretty good. It did seem a bit rushed in places, but I think that was due to the writers trying to cram 20 episodes of plot from the Korean drama into 9 episodes of Japanese drama. Unfortunately, I didn't see enough of the Korean version to tell if the plots were similar, but from what I did see, the Korean version was much better (and I'm going to have to track it down now, aren't I?).
However, a big plus in this drama was the supporting cast. The only weak spot was the girl who played Morimoto's daughter. The rest of them were spot-on perfect, and it made the "slow parts" go by quite quickly because they were all so entertaining. Ueto Aya isn't an actress of great range, but she did very well in this drama, even if she was a bit young for the role. I think the only complaint I had was that the romantic parts weren't very romantic at all, and not just because of the age differences. The romance parts just weren't written very well. So don't watch this one for the romance, but for cheering on the gutsy employees of the hotel as they take on "The Man".
Oh, back to what I was saying about Oikawa Mitsuhiro. He's a nice-looking man, not spectacularly handsome, but he's quite a compelling actor. I've seen him in supporting roles here and there and he's always been good. Evidently, he's also a singer and dancer as well. This role had him as quite understated, but that just made him sexier than even the hunky Tanabe Seiichi. Hopefully, he'll get more starring roles in the future. I'll be looking for him.
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