GRACE UNCENSORED

tuesday

ok, i changed that banner - this is the picture i wanted to use, but i’d just have to cut too much of it off to make it nice and long.  kevin took this picture with his phone and he’s using it for his screen background on his computer and it’s just such an awesome shot…

this was taken from our bedroom in the condo.  and by the way, somebody asked me the name of the b&b and i can’t believe i forgot to mention it - it’s called the dove creek lodge, and their website is Dove Creek Lodge, Key Largo.

even though this is my favorite photo, i’m also happy about the pictures of the pelicans.

ok then,

tuesday grace.

p.s.

i realize it’s time for a new banner - it’s WAY PAST february now.  must get right on that…

oh, james

what is james cameron’s mood this morning?  what did he do last night, after getting shut out of the oscars, after his ex-wife won for both best director and best picture?  did he get really drunk?  did he go home and cry, or did he smash things?

i’m pretty sure he didn’t cry.  he definitely seems more like the kind of guy who would get mad and do a lot of smashing of things.

after kathryn bigelow won for best director they showed james and he was clapping and he looked like he was genuine about it.

but they didn’t show his reaction when she won for best picture.  “the hurt locker” also won best editing, sound editing sound mixing and original screenplay.  that couldn’t have helped james’ mood.

when we were watching the awards last night amy said that james cameron was a horrible person and she was going to tell us a story about him during a commercial but then that never happened, and this morning i wonder what that story was, and how, exactly, amy personally knew about what a bastard he is.

during the show i kept thinking about when he won for “titanic”  he proclaimed himself king of the world.  when he won last night, what was he going to say?  i mean, where do you go from king of the world?  i suppose you could say you were king of all the universe and the galaxies beyond and infinity.  but that would just sound like bragging.

maybe he didn’t win because he really is a very big asshole and everybody in hollywood knows it so they didn’t vote for him.  i can probably read all about it right here, but maybe i’ll wait a while.

i thought steve martin and alec baldwin were pretty funny hosting together, but they could have been funnier.  i liked the opening number, with neil patrick harris singing and dancing. but then the program just went on…and on…and on…almost forever.  there were very many great huge dresses and i can’t imagine actually getting into a car in many of them.  i somehow doubt that the women in the enormous gowns wore jeans and carried the dresses with them.  jennifer lopez’s dress was particularly enormous, and you’d think it would have gotten crushed in the car driving over.  maybe she had to lie on her side, because the huge protusion was mostly just on one side.

ok, enough about that, bring on the pelicans!

first, this is the view from the balcony outside the b&b lobby where we had breakfast.

and here’s kevin enjoying a bagel.

pelicans, and behind them are the outside bars across the bay.  in front of the pelicans is a pair of crocs.  there was also a wet suit hanging on a railing - i think somebody from the hotel went out in a boat every morning to catch fish, and left their shoes there on the dock.

this is our suite.    that window up on the top is kevin and my bedroom.  below, extending halfway across the frame, is our whole suite.  it was HUGE.  on the left behind the trees is a big screen porch.  the b&b really looked like a small hotel, with only 14 rooms.  ours was the only one with a name, the key lime suite.

two smaller rooms on the right, and the lobby balcony on the left where we had breakfast.

i’ve never seen a pelican lying down, and i like that they look like giant meatloaves.

i’ve never seen a pelican so up-close before.

there were plenty of these birds out on the water…i just can’t remember their names.

this is my favorite picture, mr. pelican with his crocs.

this is the hotel looking from the dock.

and here’s the view looking out over the ocean.

i did take a few pictures of things other than pelicans, but not so many.  i remember that when we were in scotland i wasn’t happy that kevin didn’t take many pictures of the different hotel rooms…but i didn’t take ANY pictures of our vast suite!  it was vast, and very nice…but i really most enjoyed watching the pelicans.

i feel like i haven’t sat down since we got back.  maybe there will be some sitting-down in my future today.

ok then,

monday morning grace.

oh, the photos

i haven’t been writing because i’ve been in florida.  key largo, to be exact.  we left monday morning and got back late last night, and i took SO MANY PHOTOS.  a RIDICULOUS amount of photos, and i have to look at them and do all the stuff with them so i can start putting them up here.

SO MANY PHOTOS, many of them of pelicans.  there were many pelicans and i think they’re very funny birds and there were a bunch of them right outside our hotel and more other places.

it is always nice to go someplace.  it has been very cold down in the keys, “cold” of course being relative.  yesterday we had lunch at an outdoor little place and it was about 60 outside and one of the wait staff was wearing a parka with a hoodie underneath.

the night clerk at our hotel grew up in the keys and moved “way up” to orlando for a while but had to get back to her keys.  she couldn’t believe that people were swimming in the pool because it was so cold…we swam in the pool, which was heated, and we got in the hot tub.  during the day the hot tub was too hot, but at night it felt great.  bordering on too hot, but nice because it was a little nippy outside.

it was a good time to get away especially because i’d just had an unfortunate weekend.  i auditioned for a play and i didn’t feel that the audition went so well, and right afterwards i was calling randy on my phone as i flew down 6th street…and then i told him i had to go because i was about to get a ticket.

the cop pulled right out of the parking lot and told me that i’d probably been going so fast because i was on the phone, but i said “no, it’s because i just had an audition.”  i was going 44 in a 30, and i always go that fast or faster.  today i was driving along, going maybe even a little faster and i suddenly remember the ticket and said to myself GRACE YOU’D BETTER SLOW DOWN.  it’s hard to remember when you’re used to roaring along.

so a bad audition (and i was right; it WAS bad and i didn’t get in the show) followed by a speeding ticket…not such a good weekend.

here’s a couple of photos that i took with my phone of our trip.  i was going to post them when we were there because i thought the hotel had a computer you could use, but they didn’t.

here’s a pelican on top of the boat where the guy was playing music during happy hour at the outside bar.

this is a view from one of our bedroom windows.

and from the other bedroom window, the pool and hot tub.  there was a couple from australia in the pool one day, but mostly we had it all to ourselves.

maybe i’ll only put up a few select photos, after i go through all of them.  TOO MANY PHOTOS.  i love my new camera.

mollie was VERY VERY HAPPY to see us when we got home last night.  and it’s a little warmer here, so maybe spring is arriving.

ok then,

saturday grace.

olympics fever

last night i heard a brief mention about the funding for the olympics, how the canadians spent more money on them in the years leading up to their hosting, and how that resulted in a whole lot of medals.  i couldn’t remember the specifics about it, so i found an interesting article about it this morning.

so even though the canadians did spend a lot, they haven’t been spending the tons of money that other countries (who win lots of medals) have been spending for a long time.

i personally think it’s a good thing to spend money on athletics, but i think it would be nice if people had more interest in the arts, and wanted to throw a little money towards it.  but i guess the core deal with the vast majority of people always has been and always will be all about athletic competition, not going to see a play or visit a museum.  just the way it is.

here’s the article.  have a good monday..

Canada’s Olympic athletes are doing very well in the ongoing Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and it’s no coincidence. Money may not be able to buy you a gold metal, but it can certainly help, and Canada has been pouring funding into its athletic programs in the years leading up to the Vancouver games.

Even the names of programs designed to help Canada overtake its rivals in the race for Olympic medals read like spy-agency dossiers: OTP, B2ten, Top Secret.

There’s no doubting it was a national priority.

All Olympic powers have comparable programs. Canada wasn’t in their class, in terms of ambition or resources, before Vancouver won the bidding for the 2010 Games — and its subsequent endeavors are evidence of the lengths nations now go in pursuit of gold.

Exhibit A is moguls skier Alexandre Bilodeau, who Sunday became the first Canadian to win gold on home territory after a shutout in two previous Canada-hosted Olympics. He’s a direct beneficiary of three of the key Canadian initiatives:

• Own The Podium, a multiyear investment [1] of more than $110 million in government and corporate funding to help Canada win the most medals in Vancouver, with the bulk of the money [2] steered toward the top medal contenders. By comparison, the U.S. Olympic Committee said its 2007-2010 investment [1] for these games was $58.2 million.
• Top Secret, a component of Own the Podium that allocated about $8 million to high-technology and science-related projects. For Bilodeau, this included sessions in a Montreal lab improving his relaxation skills through a process called bioneuro-feedback.
• B2ten, a private organization, funded by a small group of wealthy donors, that has provided $3 million over the past five years to a select group of elite Olympians, including Bilodeau and 17 others who are competing at these games. Their aim was to invest [1] with business-style efficiency, getting money [2] straight to promising athletes without diversions for administrative costs.

B2ten’s program director is Dominick Gauthier, who also coaches Bilodeau and moguls silver medalist Jenn Heil. The program provided the two skiers and the other selected Olympians with new equipment if they needed it and access to a specialized support staff - including athletic therapists and sports psychologists - that wasn’t available to non-B2ten athletes.

“It’s absolutely a difference-maker,” Gauthier said of the extra support — which for the most part went to athletes just on the edge of medal prospects such as bobsledder Lyndon Rush and speedskater Denny Morrison.

“We were looking for people a tiny bit behind … where our dollars would make a big difference,” Gauthier said.

B2ten’s donors have included Stephen Bronfman, grandson of the founder of the Seagram Co. liquor empire, and Barry Heck, a Calgary merchant banker, but most remain anonymous in the spirit of a program that has obtained charitable status and involves no sponsorships or endorsements.

“The others are happy to be in the background,” Gauthier said. “They want to support our country.”

B2ten’s independence from the official Canadian sports hierarchy has caused occasional “issues,” according to Roger Jackson, chairman of Own The Podium. He cited instances where B2ten athletes have not participated in certain national team activities.

Overall, however, Jackson praised B2ten.

“It’s minuscule in funding but has a very big impact for the athletes concerned,” he said. “As we go forward, we’ll sit down with the and discuss even more collaboration.”

Thus far, Canada is “right on schedule” with its medal expectations, said Jackson, who’s been stressing that Week 2 — with the finals of hockey and curling — will almost certainly bring more medals than Week 1.

Whatever the results, he said, Own The Podium already has had an impact by convincing Canadian fans that their national team would be strong.

The Top Secret component of Own The Podium funded more than 50 projects, studying the scientific fundamentals of curling, developing a new binding system for the snowboard team, and using GPS technology to help Alpine coaches analyze different sections of a race course.

For Bilodeau, Top Secret’s benefits included many hours spent in a Montreal lab hooked up with sensors so the freestyle team’s psychologist could monitor responses to various stimuli. The aim was to learn how to develop a calm, focused state of mind that would maximize performance.

Chris Rudge, CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee, said Own the Podium has “provided a level of coaching and science and technical support that we’ve never had before.”

He also cited another initiative by his committee — an Olympic preparation program that counsels athletes on “distraction management” and dealings with the media.

“We’ve put in more money [2] than we ever have, but we’re still not where other countries are,” Rudge said Wednesday. “I hope these games — if we achieve the goals we set — help those who invested in us feel they did a good thing and want to do more of the same.”

Mike English, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s director of sport performance, said the U.S. and other top Olympic nations have had programs comparable with Canada’s in place for many years, but keep evolving them. For example, English helped develop Eye on Performance, an advanced system of cameras and recorders that gives athletes nearly instantaneous feedback about their training.

English noted that Olympic host countries — such as Canada this year - traditionally increase athlete-support spending to boost the chances for home-field victories.

“The sense I get, for the Canadians it’s probably a new approach — they’re just getting into it,” English said. “They’ve spent a lot more money [2] than us the last four years, and they certainly have made some substantial progress. Hats off to them.”

red red red

here are the pieces of red that i painted…and painted…and painted.  it didn’t seem that they’d take that long, but it took longer and longer.  first they had to be painted with the gray primer, and then the red…and more red.  Floorboards, trim for the doors and windows.

i kept thinking i was done, finally…but then kevin brought me yet another piece of wood.   i’m still not done, but i’m done for the moment.  i thought that putting all the pieces in place would be fast, a matter of fitting them in and nailing them down, but it has taken kevin quite a while to do it because there was all kinds of measuring and finding of the studs in the wall and stuff.

very time-consuming.  but it keeps looking better and better.

this is my work area down in the basement, which is darker than it looks plus it hurt my feet to stand on the concrete floor for hours.  what if you worked at a place with floors like that, like, for example, menard’s?  tortuous.

kevin put in some kind of splitter thing for the furnace vent, which is supposed to go into the bedroom and the bathroom and i don’t think any heat was actually getting up into the bedroom before we bought this.  no wonder it was so cold in the bedroom all the time…

we bought this new grate for the heat vent and i love it.

we bought these little blocks for the trim to match the blocks on the mirror and sink.  that was kevin’s idea.  i didn’t know there were so many options for just about everything.  no wonder we wandered around menard’s and lowe’s for such a very long time.

soon the bathroom will be complete, and then we’ll just move into that room because it’ll be so nice.  it makes me want to paint the other rooms that need it, but no room needed it more than the bathroom.

plus the bedroom is very large and the ceiling is high and needs to be painted and there are inset things in the ceiling which will be a nightmare to paint and the room is filled with many things and i don’t like to think about painting it at all.  i justify not painting it thinking that well, we’re asleep there most of the time, so what difference does it make?

one room at a time.

ok then,

sunday night grace.

geese geese geese

they look so cool out there on the lake that i just want to keep taking pictures.

there they are, way out in the middle.  for some reason they prefer that far shoreline to this one.

\

it’s so cool and is such a loud sound when they take off, so i tried to capture some of it on video.  my new camera doesn’t take such great video, though, and couldn’t do it justice.

this is my favorite picture because you can see the birds in the air and on the water.

the flock was a little closer finally.

here they are, definitely closer now.  i was very excited a little later because they were closer still, and i was going to take some more pictures…but by the time i was able to do it, they were already flying back to their safe zone.

chris young just wrote about the geese in the state journal-register, and he has a couple of pictures of them.  i’d be a really lousy editor because i want to include so very many photos instead of just a couple - but on the other hand, i do have the luxury of including just as many as i want.

he wrote that the snow geese used to be almost extinct, but their population has grown tremendously.  in theory, this is good but now they’re in danger because there are so many of them that they’re over-feeding.

mollie is always in danger of over-feeding.  the other night we came home to find that one of the bird suet packages we bought was on the floor.  mangled, but not torn into.  one packet was missing, though, and mollie skulked all around looking extremely guilty and forlorn.  we kept sternly asking her, “where’s the suet, mollie?” but she just kept up with the skulking.

kevin finally figured she must have buried it outside, and we’d have to look for it in when it got light out.  but then i noticed she looked up at the couch and i lifted up a couple of pillows and pulled out a blanket that had been stuffed in the corner - and there was the suet packet.  it had been opened and just a little had been devoured.  we figured she was hiding that one for later while she worked at ripping open the other one that we found on the floor.

kevin proceeded to say “bad mollie,” trying to get her to look in his eyes, but she absolutely wouldn’t, as she sat there looking utterly abashed and horrible.

this lasted at least five minutes, until she was ready for her nightly treat.

i see no geese out on the lake right now, but hopefully they’ll show up later because i have plenty of time today to take plenty of pictures.

ok then,

sunday grace.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

i called her yesterday morning and sang “happy day before your birthday to you” to get a headstart on the celebrations.  we’re not officially doing anything for her birthday till sunday, when amy is graciously fixing a fabulous birthday meal.

on wednesday i looked out and there were a c ouple of long lines of geese in the water.  here’s one of them.

wednesday was apparently bath day for the geese.  kevin noticed that there  were a lot of them  bathing.  so, naturally, i went down and took a hundred pictures.

who knew a geese’s wings look like that when they’re flying?

mollie doesn’t care about the geese, and up to a point anyway they won’t get all freaked out by her and run off because she doesn’t chase them.

this goose gets the prize for HUGEST LOOKING GOOSE.  it looks like a giant goose next to that other goose.  kind of like the avatars looked next to humans, except not blue and skinny.

i’m obsessed with taking pictures of the snow geese, even though it’s imporssible for a photo to look as cool as they really are out there on the lake.

there were just so many of them - that white circle out there is all snow geese.

i took even more snow goose photos yesterday, and i also took some video with my new camera.  i don’t know how to post a little video up here imbedded in the text; i know other sites use flikr and maybe i have that for all my other videos so maybe i can figure it out.  because when the geese suddenly take off, making all that noise and circling around, it really needs to be seen on video.

i’m going to try to work on posting that today, except i have approximately one million things to do today and not a huge amount of time to do them and it already makes me tired just thinking about it.  i’m still sitting here drinking my tea and kevin is already busily hammering things in the bathroom.

he wants to finish the bathroom in the next couple days, but the newly-red baseboards and window trim are taking a long time.  they took a long time to paint, and a long time to put up, but the place is going to be fabulous when it’s finally done.

we got an e-mail that there’s going to be a kitchen tour of homes around here, looking for people to be in the tour, and kevin suggested that we set up a camp stove in the bathroom and show that instead.

i have to think about doing things now.

ok then,

grace on mom’s birthday.

BIG TIME WINNER!!!!

i checked the jury website this morning at 11:15 - no jury service this afternoon!

i just checked again for tomorrow and the announcement just said YOUR JURY SERVICE IS COMPLETE.  YOU ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED TO PHONE IN OR CHECK THIS WEBSITE.

nice.  if only everything was that painless in life…

ok, i have to work (actual work instead of just checking the jury website) right now - i took a bunch of photos today, and will post them later.

meanwhile,

CONGRATULATIONS TO ME!

ok then,

happy grace.

THREE-TIME WINNER!

…of the NOT GOING TO JURY DUTY LOTTERY!!!!!

a couple months ago i got a notification for jury duty, and hoped that i wouldn’t actually be called.  but then, i got the letter…today was my FIRST OFFICIAL JURY DUTY DAY.

i had to go to the jury website and input my special secret juror number after 5:00 friday night - and it said NO JURY DUTY FOR YOU, LUCKY GAL!

it actually said that i didn’t have to go this morning, but i MUST CALL AT 11:15 a.m. to see if i’d have to go in the afternoon.

and again - NO JURY DUTY FOR ME!

then tonight after five i had to check once more…and NO JURY DUTY TOMORROW MORNING!!!

so, i’m a THREE-TIME WINNER!  WHOO HOO!

mom has been called for jury duty three times - that is, she’s actually had to go sit around in the county bldg, but she was never actually on a jury.  so hopefully that’s what would happen to me, if i do get called - but I’M FEELING LUCKY, so maybe i’ll dodge the bullet altogether.

meanwhile…a cold, gray, dreary monday…i went outside this morning and there weren’t even any geese out on the lake.

but…no snow, a good thing.  and actually, the grass looks brown and the yard, bare, but there is some leftover green grass out there.

the view from the dock…nothing out there.

the beach house looks good.  i heard it’s not going to be open this summer, which seems too bad.  somebody should turn it into a nice restaurant.

and then i saw one lone duck swimming around.

as i stood on the dock a while longer, i started seeing snow geese in the air.  it was hard to get a picture because they kept flying up into the clouds.

i realize this picture looks like empty sky, but it wasn’t.  way beyond the beach house i could hear geese honking, and then i saw a few huge flocks of them, so high up there.  they were just barely visible, then they disappeared but i could still hear them honking.

it’s funny, being quiet and listening and watching, there was really a lot going on out there.  it reminded me of being on the queen mary II last summer, looking out at the vast expanse of water and seeing nothing.  but then, when i just watched, i saw a dolphin…then a few dolphins…then i started to see birds flying around and sitting on the water.  who knew that birds would be flying around so far out to sea?

later i looked out and there was a squirrel.  mr. raccoon hasn’t showed up for a couple of nights, but the squirrel was very cute.

finally some birds started to show up.  it looks like this cardinal is saying “are you gonna leave any of that for anybody else?”

i put out some very hot leftover spanish rice and a piece of bread, but still no raccoon.  if he does show up for a midnight snack i’m afraid he’s just going to get a cold snack instead of a delicious hot meal.

ok then,

monday grace.