May. 07, 2008

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Fancy New Blog!! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:41 am

Are you still here? You know I have a fancy new site, but it appears that your browser still has the old one in cache. Just click here and you’ll be redirected to the improved version of my blog.

Or if you’re using a bookmark, you need to add a new one that looks more like this: graceuncensored.com/WordPress. That is all.



May. 06, 2008

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tonight, late at night, here on the couch.. [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:01 pm

ok i guess it’s not that late; it’s 10:44 p.m. but it feels like about one a.m. because of all the exertion today.

i was looking forward to going to mom and dad’s house to help pack instead of staying here and painting, but now i long to paint instead.

i guess what i really long for is the end of this whole moving thing.

i have a photo of the newly-installed windows but i don’t have the strength to go into the office and get the jump drive and plug it into this computer and select the photos and reduce their size on photoshop and upload them. at the moment.

mollie is sprawled out on the floor and that looks mighty good to me.

yesterday the MRI was an interesting experience. i had to lie down on this slab and i guess there wasn’t much padding on it because it took about a half hour and when i got up the back pain was a little bit excruciating. during the MRI the guy, vincent, put a cloth over my eyes so i wouldn’t get FREAKED OUT inside the MRI machine. he slid me into the machine, but i wasn’t totally encased; my feet were outside of it. he gave me headphones and asked me what kind of music i wanted to listen to and i said something relaxing. he went into the other room and turned on the music and it was VERY LOUD. he talked to me through the headphones, or maybe through a speaker in the MRI, i couldn’t tell, and he turned the music down a little. and then he said the MRI was going to start and it’d be loud and he would take several pictures.

YES IT WAS VERY VERY LOUD. i guess the closest thing i can think of is a really loud ambulance going by, only it’s going on in your ears. he did five images, and each took from three minutes to 3:45. except for the RIDICULOUSLY LOUD NOISE, it was kind of relaxing because at least i wasn’t painting anything.

in between the imaging the soothing music came on, which seemed a little bit pointless to me.

i didn’t get claustrophobic luckily, except at first i was afraid that i was breathing too deeply and then i felt i shouldn’t breathe so much which of course made me felt like i COULDN’T CATCH MY BREATH. but after a couple of images it was fine.

before it started victor had me fill out a form asking if i was claustrophobic (what if i had been?), and all kinds of questions about things that i might potentially have in my body, like ear implants or wires in my blood vessels or old bullets lodged in my body somewhere. i wish i could remember more of them, because i tried to imagine somebody having them all, and how their body would probably clang when they walked, like the tin man.

when it was over, victor gave me a copy of the MRI results and it was this HUGE folder, i’d guess it was 11x14 at least. he said that kevin had gotten his results on a disc, but that mine were on these ridiculously huge negatives because we have different doctors.

hmm.

i keep staying up tonight waiting for the results of the indiana primary to dribble in, but i just can’t bear it anymore.

lots and lots of people appeared to have watched my obama video today, maybe because of the primaries?

ok ok ok goodnight goodnight goodnight.

grace hughes

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ALUMNUS OF THE YEAR! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:25 pm

see how crazy things are around here, i totally forgot to post that exciting announcement!

no, the alumnus of the year isn’t me. it’s KEVIN. the very first college he went to called him last week to say that he was “head and shoulders” above all the other alums they were considering for the distinction.

kevin claims he was picked because he’s one of the few who aren’t in prison. i wonder if he’s arrested any of them over the years?

we’re going up to northern illinois on friday so he can get his plaque or trophy which hopefully comes with a large box of chocolates so we’ll be there for the college commencement. i don’t believe i’ve ever been to a college commencement. i graduated in december instead of in the spring and didn’t feel like going back to the U of I in champaign to go to the graduation ceremony. i don’t know why i didn’t attend amy’s graduation; i was probably living in austin, but that’s not a very good reason.

so we’ll be spending the night with kevin’s parents on friday which will be lovely because we haven’t seen them in a very long time.

of course we have plenty of free time for galavanting all around the state.

but all the work will get done. we had lots of help on sunday, and soon i will show you some of that hard work.

that’s all for this moment,

busy grace.


May. 03, 2008

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today, saturday... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:32 pm
giving the room a second coat of edging was fine. it took about an hour. no problem. but then i spent 15 minutes using the roller, which went really fast, but then i was in severe pain for a few hours afterwards. randy and i went to target right after i stopped rolling and all i wanted to do was lie down on the floor and writhe in agony.

christine said “you’re going to have to have surgery.”

i’d rather not.

for one thing, besides the fact that i talk to so many people whose backs are now completely messed up because of having surgery...if i had it, i’d have to sleep on my stomach while recovering. i can’t sleep on my stomach.

oh, and also - WE’RE MOVING. no time for any of this whole back stuff. no time.

at one point today we were finishing putting in the new piece of flooring and heard a little “meow.” poor winnie had decided to jump down into the hole when no one was looking, and when the flooring was screwed in there was just a little crack that the kitty could peer through.

kevin had to climb into the crawl space under the pantry and rescue the cat. i took some photos of it, because it seemed funny to me. i was also glad i didn’t have to crawl down into that crawl space because i’d probably have gotten trapped and there we’d be, me and winnie.

i really have to go to bed now.

ok then,

saturday night grace.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:34 am

today is dad’s birthday; we were going to join him and mom for lunch at a restaurant in the little town of salisbury, but we had too much to do. hopefully they’ll have a lovely time; the Official Birthday Celebration will be tomorrow night.

dad wanted to come over to our house for cake after going out to dinner, but because of the lack of seating plus the giant hole in the wall, we’re going to have to relocate to amy and jim’s house, where their dining room table has room for TWENTY PEOPLE around it.

instead of sitting around on the floor here.

i really REALLY have to paint now.

grace.

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"it’s just a little hole in the wall" [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:59 am
you think of a hole in the wall as a divey little restaurant that serves unexpectedly great food, or an intimate bar that not a lot of people know about.

around here, it is an actual HOLE IN THE WALL.

not a little hole, a BIG hole.

on wednesday afternoon kevin decided that since the weather was nice and because it needs to be done, it was time to replace two of our three living room windows. the two windows were right next to each other.



this is what it looked like after the windows were ripped out.



and here’s the view from the outside.



and this is after we’d tidied it up a bit.





because these windows that had been installed when the house was built were cheap and crappy, they leaked, causing the floor underneath to rot.



and because our huge white couch was right next to the window, we had to move it. part of it is now in the garage, and another section of it is piled on yet another section in the living.

what did this mean for mollie? TREATS, of course! kevin took a picture of mollie gobbling up the many dog treats, nuts, and random stuff that had collected under the couch.



here’s a closeup of the carpeting all peeled back.



when i got home from working on wednesday, this is what it looked like, and still does.



and this is the disarray that is now one portion of the living room.



here’s the other part of the living room, where at least we have places to sit, even though it is stark and full of patched nail holes.



and to conclude today’s photo essay, here’s honey, queen of the move, happily stretched out on the big pile of couches.



on monday we’re both going in for MRIs. you’d think they’d give us a group family discount. (i finally went to the doctor on thursday and he took an xray of my back and there is almost no space between two of my lumbar vertabra. i take this as a very bad sign of what may be to come regarding my back).

mom came over to help me paint yesterday, dressed fashionably as usual. she wore one of dad’s old shirts over her nice clothes, though, and she even took off her long dangly red earrings.

my hope for the weekend is that nobody ends up in the ER.

ok, i must paint.

saturday grace.



May. 01, 2008

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many more things [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:06 pm

finally FINALLY here are some photos of the roof work on saturday.



jim was sawing and sawing the jagged edge of roof. because he was crouched like this for quite a few hours, i think he was pretty stiff and sore when he finished. and of course he finished, because he’s jim.



for a while randy was having a great time up there on the roof.





but then, as i wrote earlier in the week, randy unfortunately SMASHED his thumb with the hammer and now the roof is covered with his blood. ouch.

meanwhile, in the garden, honey and mollie were having a stand off.



the animals love it when people are outside; they love to cavort all around whoever is out there.

that night, though, mollie was just as happy. kevin emptied the bowl of nuts from the coffee table in order to pack the bowl that they were in. he lined up a bunch of walnuts along the edge of the table, and it took almost all day for mollie to pay attention to the fact that they were there.

but when she found out, she went to work. i watched her as she selected a nut, cracked it open, and at the contents. she kept going back to the table to get another nut, and i wished i’d had the energy to find the video camera and tape it, because it was quite entertaining.

here she is, trying to dig out every last nut crumb.


after the nuts were all gone and the shells were littered all over the carpet, she had to keep sniffing the table, hoping that just one more nut would magically appear.



many many more things happened today, moving and other-wise, but i think i need to take a break right now.

these things include both me and kevin making appointments to get MRIs next week. you’d think they’d give us a group family discount.

ok then,

grace


Apr. 30, 2008

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beneath the scraping and caulking... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:54 am
right now kevin is working RIGHT OVER MY HEAD, caulking some of the many many many nail holes in the living room. i should be HELPING HIM RIGHT NOW.

i woke up at 5 a.m. mollie jumped up in bed with me, nuzzling my right side and lying down against me. winnie then curled up on my left shoulder, so i was once again sandwiched in. i then heard honey come in through the doggie door, but it was a pretty big noise and i decided she probably wasn’t alone. winnie sat up and looked very intense, so he clearly also knew something was up.

he bounced off the bed and then i heard lots of thumping and noise in the kitchen and figured that some poor animal was being played with, and i prayed that the animal was dead. i slept fitfully with weird dreams of honey dragging a large creature down the hall into the room, and mollie jumping up onto the bed with a big bone in her mouth.

finally, i heard a “cheep” and mollie heard it too and bounded out of bed. this woke kevin up. THANK GOD KEVIN WOKE UP SO HE CAN DEAL WITH IT.

i went back to sleep.

when i got up, he said that when he got into the kitchen a bird was flying around, but then it stuck its beak into the floor next to the refrigerator and mollie lunged for it. kevin made her back off, and then winnie took a turn trying to get the bird, and honey was right there ready for the kill.

i don’t know how he did it, but kevin managed to corral all the bloodthirsty animals and open the back door so the very traumatized bird could fly away.

on saturday morning randy and jim were vigorously roofing and then randy SMACKED his thumb with his hammer and lots of blood squirted out everywhere and he had to stop for the day. our roof is covered in plenty of blood now, i hear; i wonder if the house inspector will note that in his report? we’re getting the house pre-inspected next week, but maybe it will rain and wash away the blood by then.

it’s very dangerous around here.

ok then,

wednesday grace.



Apr. 26, 2008

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roof! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:17 am

randy and jim are UP ON THE ROOF right now. things are hopping around here on saturday morning.

i went to panera to buy them bagels, and was amazed at the huge number of people there. hordes, throngs of people. all sitting around noshing and drinking coffee.

the line went fast though, not enough time for my slow morning brain to calculate the best deal to buy, bagel-wise. the price options for numbers of bagels and accompanying cream cheese was too staggering for me because i’m always math-challenged anyway but especially when i’m not fully awake. i asked the girl behind the counter about cream cheese options and she said “you can get any kind of cream cheese you want.”

this of course is not what i meant, but at that point i figured i’d better just order quickly because she seemed a lot like a nazi and clearly just wanted me to HURRY UP AND ORDER CAN’T YOU SEE WE’RE VERY VERY BUSY HERE THIS MORNING.

so i did, and now i must go document this very very important roof work.

ok then,

saturday morning grace.



Apr. 25, 2008

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over-jealous [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:28 pm

i just re-read the post from this morning (WHICH SEEMS LIKE ONE MILLION YEARS AGO) and noticed that i typed “over-jealously” instead of “over-zealously.” this strikes me as funny now. i wasn’t actually being overly jealous, nor not actually jealous at all about the gardening. just so you know.

here are some of the photos from moving. this is one cluttered section of the music room.



and here’s how it looked after we lugged all the books away.



here’s another cluttered part of the room.



this is after some moving and hauling.



and here’s the same corner without stuff.



last week as we were about to take away the pontoon boat, honey hopped aboard. she loves all this moving, as i’ve said.



winnie is also happy, but just because he’s a contented cat. he was trying his best to relax this morning.



here are just a small portion of the boxes which continue to fill our hall.



here’s some of our back yard. we have a LOT of stuff to get rid of back there. pieces of the boat, the ladder (jim and randy are coming here tomorrow morning to finish up the roof for us because they’re VERY GOOD PEOPLE), the garage door that kevin replaced, the old swing with the stuffing picked over by birds, the pieces of the catamaran encased in brown plastic hanging on the fence...lots to do outside as well as inside.



i keep thinking about that chinese website where they had a photo of the garden and they cited it as an example of a “sustainable garden” and now i believe that many many chinese people are checking the site to see the garden’s progress. here’s a fine photo of the weeds and general debris that now constitutes the garden. we actually still have a couple of giant old beets halfway buried in the soil. so i guess it could sustain us if we were STARVING and didn’t want to eat dirt, or the rawhide bones that mollie keeps digging up and bringing into the house.



last summer we bought a peach and a cherry tree. i guess we’ll never know if they bear any fruit. the peach tree has quite a few blossoms now and is very pretty. adding to the general loveliness, of course, is the brown plastic covering the catamaran sail. very very classy.



one more picture of honey, because she’s just so darn adorable.



it’s now getting late on friday night, and i need to get to sleep so i can get up and pack some more tomorrow.

ok then,

friday night grace.

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friday morning, [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:40 am
and the boxes are piled up high in the hallway. one of our bedrooms is now COMPLETELY EMPTY. this is amazing; we called it the “music room,” but no music has been played there for a very long time, because it was mostly just packed with guitars in cases. NOW OUT OF THERE. the walls were lined with tall bookcases chock full of books. NOW GONE. the closet, stuffed with clothes and some of kevin’s many collections including coins and stamps. IS THERE ANYTHING HE DOESN’T DO OR COLLECT? no.

we’ve started in on the office, the room that has vexed me ever since i moved in because it has never been clean. mountains of paper have always been stacked up there, although the mountains did get a little smaller since kevin has been off of work because of his knee surgery. the office bookcase is NOW GONE, but the place still looks like a paper explosion.

we’ll have to move out the boxes today. this will be tricky since many of them are filled with heavy books. carrying heavy things is very very bad for kevin’s knee; it keeps getting swollen and painful. and a couple of weeks ago i was over-zealously gardening for too long, and i’ve had increasing hip pain and right now i can’t run, i can’t even take a walk without horrible pain. one day this week we carried many heavy boxes of books and the next day both of us should have checked into the hospital.

i told brother-in-law jim that he needs to STAY HEALTHY, take plenty of vitamins, get lots of rest, eat right, because he’s the only person who is fit enough right now to help with all things moving-related.

ok, more packing.

friday morning grace.




Apr. 21, 2008

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twins! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:16 am
i found all those missing photos late last night. after i’d downloaded them onto my computer last week, i apparently then promptly sent them to the trash. i’m not sure how i managed such a quick and retarded act, but at least i could dig them out of the trash.

here’s my favorite photo, because if bev’s hair was done up in those little buns on the sides of her head, i think she’d be very princess leia-like. plus the fact that bev and erin look just like twins.



EVIL twins, that is; i like the way bev’s eyes always glow red in photos.

here’s all of the gangster molls, ready for our five minute dance that none of us ever did completely together, but nobody noticd because we were just so damn sexy.



here’s selina and randy.



lots of times it was very warm in our one big coed dressing room, so we’d prop open the fire exit door with a hanger. there’s a nice view of the capitol building from the fire escape, and one night the sun was setting and it was lovely. here’s tombe, dressed in his costume for “le jazz hot.” the men’s costumes were obviously meant for the finale of “a chorus line.”

luckily that’s not the show we were doing



mary and randy. as you can see, mary was a very threatening guy.



i didn’t take many photos of kenton and barb, the two romantic leads, because they were almost always onstage.



barb is the mother of matt the director, and she’s the one who was also always doing everything, from writing the program to putting together set pieces.

i like this photo because i’m taking a picture of myself, but in the background, selina and bev are also looking at photos on somebody’s camera. we had a lot of free time before the show started.



amanda was always ready way early, so she had lots of time to lounge around in her fur and fancy dress before going onstage.



bev, however, does not have the ability to just lounge around. she’s always doing something, and frequently it’s sudoku.



most nights we did vocal warm-ups.



here’s randy and chuck, who plays kenton’s bodyguard. chuck and randy end up happily ever after at the end of the play.



and here’s randy with selina.



and randy with me. randy randy randy, isn’t it?



NOT randy this time; this is erin in her “le jazz hot” dress, packing heat.



i hope erin goes to new york and is a big star. we’ll go visit her when she does.

but now, i must pack.

ok then,

monday morning grace.



Apr. 20, 2008

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sickly [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:01 pm

it was an earthquake early friday morning, a BIG one for around here anyway. it was so big that it was the LEAD STORY on the NATIONAL NIGHTLY NEWS on friday night. maybe there weren’t any other stories out there. it was kind of funny to read accounts of the earthquake in the paper, because people said things like “things shook a whole bunch and i sure never want to have to go through THAT again!” things SHOOK, mind you, they didn’t even fall. i guess because we rarely have earthquakes of any magnitude around here, people are frightened of them because...things shake.

they played some footage of a newscast later in the day on friday, when they were asking people how they felt, and there was an aftershock. a couple of people ran out of the room, and i thought, i wonder where they think they’re going. are they going to outrun the earthquake, maybe?

this make me think about the last big LA earthquake, in 1994 - i wasn’t living in LA at the time, i was living in austin, ...but i remember that parts of freeways collapsed and buildings fell and people were killed. 10 billion dollars worth of damage. what if you were driving down the freeway and it suddenly COLLAPSED? and you weren’t in a movie, but in real life?

on the news after friday’s southern illinois earthquake, they showed footage of bricks that had fallen off buildings. not quite the same.

the really alarming news is that there’s a 99% chance of a great big major earthquake in california in the next 30 years. this is yet another reason i’m glad i’m not living there anymore.

after all the EARTHQUAKE EXCITEMENT on friday, i spent most of saturday in bed. after feeling on friday like i was getting a cold, i suddenly wasn’t able to get out of bed at all on saturday, and i slept about 15 hours. i feel better today, but not so great, yet we still spent large parts of the day putting things in boxes. i thought we had a general plan about packing stuff up, but now there are boxes and plastic containers in every room, and stuff scattered all over the place and it’s pretty much chaos around here. honey the cat is delighted by this; whenever i empty a bookcase or get out another box, she jumps in, and she’s been racing up and down the hall all day.

mollie, on the other hand, was lying on our bed with a pitifully sad look on her face, because since we were doing all this packing she was sure we were going away for a long time and abandoning her. luckily we took her with us when we made trips to mom and dad’s with all the stuff, and that cheered her up a lot. plus she got treats when she was there.

i was going to post some more “victor/victoria” photos tonight because i took a bunch more, but now i can’t find them. did i delete them? i know they were on somebody’s computer, but now they’re not. they were good photos, too. maybe they will magically re-appear tomorrow, when i’m rested and thinking more clearly. there was a good picture of bev wearing a gold dress that reminds me of princess leia. in this photo she and her daughter erin are wearing their identical black wigs and they look like TWINS. damn, i hope those photos aren’t lost forever.

I’m being very optimistic that i think i’m going to be well-rested tomorrow; i’ve been waking up at about 2 in the morning for the past few night, and staying wide awake for at least a couple of hours. this combined with being sick is not fun at all. it especially sucks to be sick on saturday.

maybe i’ll take that nyquil cold&flu formula that kevin bought for me yesterday. i don’t really feel like i need it, because i don’t have most of the symptoms listed on the bottle, but it would be great to sleep all night through. last night when i couldn’t sleep and was getting really bored being awake just lying there, i went through all the dances in “victor/victoria” and was pleased that i could remember them. i’m sure remembering them will come in handy someday. at least it must mean that my early-onset dementia isn’t as bad as i usually think it is.

ok then, i hope monday is tolerable for you,

sunday night grace.


Apr. 18, 2008

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EARTHQUAKE! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 4:47 am

i’ve been sitting here for about 20 minutes, it’s now 4:45 a.m. on friday morning, i’ve been up since 2:30 because i just couldn’t sleep and suddenly the house kind of shook and then it shook pretty hard and i’m pretty sure we just had an earthquake.

here in ILLINOIS, where we don’t usually have the earthquakes. kevin woke up but i’m sure he’s sound asleep again now. he was quite excited about feeling an earthquake for the first time, but i wonder if he’ll remember it in the morning.

this is the second earthquake i’ve felt (was it really an earthquake???); the first time was in LA, where they happen much more than here.

a very dramatic start to friday. i turned on the weather channel but of course they’re not reporting anything because it JUST HAPPENED.

goodnight.

grace.


Apr. 17, 2008

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here on a thursday morning in springfield [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:06 am

i’ve been sitting here in the chair in the living room, drinking chocolate hazelnut tea which doesn’t really taste like chocolate but it’s still delicious with fat free creamer, although i meant to grab the chai caramel chocolate enchantment tea WITH caffeine because i really need a little of it this morning, reading the paper, continuing to hate our governor, wishing that the funnies would be actually funny sometimes - wouldn’t it me a miracle if one day they were ALL actually funny? - wondering if people will go see the lynard skynard concert on sunday, and at least very happy about annie germann being featured in the IN THE SPOTLIGHT in the paper. annie is talented and lovely and i would like to do some kind of over-the-top production a la tim burton, because that is her dream project, but then i’d have to stage a play or make a movie and right now even the thought of getting dressed seems like too much work.

my mood right now is usual morning surliness with a little extra frustration mixed in. but then i checked my e-mail and a friend, pam, wrote to say that she likes to read what i write. since i usually only get forwarded joke or DIRE WARNING e-mails from my aunt sandy, or random junk mail that i delete, it was certainly nice to get a compliment from a real live person.

i mean, i know that my HUGE CHINESE FOLLOWING is always reading here, checking for more photos of our sustainable garden, but it’s nice to hear from somebody once in a while.

i’m going to have to bitterly disappoint the chinese in a while, though, because we’re about to be in the process of moving.

i guess you can say we’re actually IN the process of moving right now, or at least kevin is; he’s been cleaning out the garage and is about to take the vw thing and the half-renovated pontoon boat away, as part of the total cleaning out of our house. in about three minutes i’ll have to help him.

we bought a house on monday. after getting a call from dad on saturday that THE HOUSE OF HIS DREAMS was finally for sale, we looked at it on sunday (dad had been looking at it for years) and we bought it on monday. it’s a duplex, actually, one of only TWELVE UNITS OF ITS KIND in springfield, very desirable, very well-built, good wood, good fixtures, great construction, dad knows this because he watched them being built.

mom and dad are moving into this fabulous unique and lovely duplex, and then kevin and i are moving into their house.

we have five weeks to take out most of the stuff in our house and clean and paint and fix it up and then we’ll sell it.

that’s the plan.

in my barack obama video i kept saying “change is a comin',” but all the change is HERE and it’s all about us and the many changes that are taking place.

change is good. somewhat tiring, but well worth the effort.

ok then, i pack.

grace.


Apr. 11, 2008

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going global... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 5:10 pm
you might recall that i’ve had a huge following in china ever since some woman there put up a photo of our vegetable garden, saying it was an example of a “sustainable garden.” hmm, i hadn’t actually thought about the huge chinese interest, in writing about the olympics and the chinese government atrocities against tibetans as well as all the other bad chinese stuff.

i mean, i’m pretty darn sure that there are, actually, chinese people in china reading this because whenever i check the statistics, there is the link from some chinese website and there are always tons of hits from there.

so i’m sorry if i offended any friendly, peace-loving, agreeable chinese people in china, people who are only interested in peaceful things like sustainable gardens. if you’d like to write to me and let me know what’s REALLY going on there in china, i’d like that. even though i know i’ll never hear from anybody. maybe chinese people will leave comments when SOMEDAY my website is updated and i’m able to have comments again.

anyway, i digress...kevin told me today that one of the links to my barack obama video on you tube is from a SPANISH website. it’s ABC in spain, only i can’t figure out exactly where the mention of my video is; kevin was able to find it but i can’t right now. but here’s the link in case you want to see the website for yourself. but don’t go crazy trying to find a link to my video on there, like i did.

SPANISH WEBSITE WITH A LINK SOMEWHERE TO MY VIDEO

so that means in china i’m known for my garden, and in spain for my singing and tap-dancing. very global. reaching out to peoples everywhere.

i’m very very happy it’s friday, even though i just looked at weather.com and there seems to be a chance for snow flurries from now till sunday. i’m deciding this just won’t happen. but if it does happen, i’m prepared to stay inside where it’s warm and safe from the RIDICULOUSLY STRONG WINDS blowing around out there right now.

i hope you have a good weekend.

ok then,

friday grace.



Apr. 09, 2008

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olympic torch fever! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:13 pm

i’ve been keeping up with the protests about the olympic torch, but haven’t had time yet today to see the furor and foment over the actual running today in san francisco, except i did read that it was lit in some secret warehouse, and that in addition to the people protesting against china, there were also nudist protesters who wanted the games to revert to those in ancient greece. nude, that is, that seems to be the key thing.

the family went out to dinner and jim said he’d heard an NPR interview with one of the keepers of the olympic flame; the guy talked about having to keep it lit in the hotel room and having a window open in order to be able to breathe. dad said “but they don’t keep it burning on an airplane,” and jim said the guy said they did, and dad acted like jim must be crazy to believe that. but i figured jim was right, and i found an interesting article about the torch and flame tradition on BBC News Magazine.

before that, though, i do have to say that in reading about all the protests, it made me want to go protest too. but i also wonder this - because china does such horrible things, why aren’t more protesters protesting them more of the time, instead of focusing on the olympic torch? maybe they are and i don’t hear about it; maybe this is just a very well-publicized protest. because if everybody else in the world really wanted to protest against china, why don’t we stop buying most of our stuff from them? and why doesn’t our government quit borrowing millions and billions and trillions of dollars from them?

i, personally, have my own plan for not buying everything from china. but i can’t tell you about it right now because i have to watch “south park.”

here is the article:

How is the Olympic flame kept alight?

Olympic torch in Kazakhstan
First stop Almaty, 134 cities to go...

Visiting 135 cities in 20 countries, covering 137,000 kms in 130 days. How does the Olympic flame remain burning, even on a plane?

When the Olympic torch is paraded through London on Sunday, all eyes will be on stars like Dame Kelly Holmes and cricketer Kevin Pietersen.

According to the strict traditions of the Olympic movement, and to mark the ancient rituals of the Games, the flame must be kept alive until the closing ceremony of the Games in Beijing in August.

That’s all very well when the cameras are rolling and the torch is in the safe hands of a double gold medallist or a world-class cricketer.

THE ANSWER
The torch is extinguished for flights and overnight
But the flame burns on in enclosed lanterns
Overnight it is in a hotel room with three members of the 10-strong protection team

But what about the more mundane parts of the journey?

A team of about 10 “flame attendants” is responsible for the 24-hour, safe passage of the flame, which has been ignited by the sun’s rays on the ancient site of Olympia in Greece.

The torch, which is fuelled by propane, is used to carry the flame during each day’s relays, when runners in the relay city carry it, mostly on foot.

But there are several lanterns which are lit from the same source and they keep the flame alive at night or on aircraft when the torch is extinguished.

For air travel, where open flames are not allowed, the flame burns in the enclosed lanterns, which act like miner’s lamps.

The torch, the lanterns and the team of attendants, plus other security, fly in a specially-chartered Air China plane bearing an Olympic flame design.

‘Always burning’

The lanterns spend each night in a single hotel room with three guards - one of which must be awake at any time.

“Security people try their best to keep the flame safe,” says a spokeswoman for the Beijing Organising Committee.

“The flame is always burning, whether on the plane or during the relay or overnight. It’s kept in the hotel where the core operation team is staying.”

Convoy for Olympic torch

The convoy accompanying the torch while it makes its way through city streets has more than 20 vehicles provided by the relay city and they escort the torch in a set order (a section of which is pictured above).

Most of this journey is on foot, but other modes of transport over the years have included dog sled, horse, canoe and camel.

In London, it will be carried on two boats, a bike, a bus and the Docklands Light Railway.


THE 2008 TORCH

The design of the torch reflects the host country
Beijing’s torch is 72cms high, weighs 985 grams and is made of aluminium
It can withstand winds of up to 65 kms per hour and stay alight in rain up to 50mm an hour
The fuel of the torch is propane

For a trip across the Great Barrier Reef before the 2000 Olympic Games, a special torch was designed to burn underwater.

The flame made its first trip in a plane in 1952 and has also travelled on Concorde. The torch, but not the flame, has twice been into space.

The torch itself has been produced to withstand winds of up to 65 kilometres per hour and to stay alight in rain up to 50mm an hour. But should it go out, it is lit from one of the lanterns.

This was needed in 2004 when the flame went out in the Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens at the start of the torch relay.

It also went out in 1976 after the Montreal Olympics had started and an official mistakenly relit it using a cigarette lighter. That was doused and it was relit again using the special lantern flame.

Keeping the flame alive is a tradition that began in Olympia in Greece, where the Ancient Olympic Games took place. Fire had divine associations because it was believed Prometheus had stolen it from the Gods.

TORCH RACES OF OLD
There were no torch relays in ancient Games
But there were flame races in Athens called lampadedromia
These honoured certain gods, including Prometheus
The first competitor to arrive at the altar of the god had the honour of renewing its fire.

A flame burned throughout the Games on the altar of the goddess Hestia, situated in the Prytaneum, the building used for the post-Games banquets.

This fire was lit by the sun’s rays and it was used to light other fires of the sanctuary, such as the altars of Zeus - the Games were held in his honour - and Hera.

To honour this, the present Olympic torch relay begins at the Temple of Hera several months before the Games, where it is lit by a woman in ceremonial robes using a mirror and the sun.

This gives the flame a purity that is maintained until it enters the Olympics stadium for the opening ceremony.

The final torchbearer, whose identity is kept secret until the last moment, lights the monumental Olympic cauldron in the stadium, which is kept alight until the closing ceremony.

The Olympic flame was reintroduced to the modern Olympics in Amsterdam in 1928 and the first torch relay was held eight years later in Berlin. It has since come to symbolise the Olympic ideal of harmony between nations.

It became a global event for the Athens Games in 2004, which meant that honouring the tradition of keeping the flame going required more planning.


Apr. 07, 2008

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why i’ve been so busy [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:33 pm

1. the show. which is now OVER. WHOOPEE! it’s nice to have a whole entire night to myself. tonight this involved PIZZA at AMY AND JIM’S HOUSE, and a good time was had by all.

2. going out to eat. today i realized i’ve gone out to eat SEVEN TIMES in the last FOUR DAYS. this might explain why my stretchy black pants feel a bit snug. too much food. tomorrow, NO MORE FOOD AT ALL. jogging for about FIFTEEN OR SO MILES.

3. reading news online. i won’t clip and paste any obama articles for you now, but i’ve been feverishly reading them a lot.

4. GARDENING. it takes more time than i thought to scoop up all the leaves and debris in the backyard circle garden, plus the huge amount of time it took to try to eradicate the thousands of violets that have always taken over the whole place. they are insidious, and i got a blister on my thumb THROUGH MY GARDENING GLOVES. amy says this is a sure sign of a person with no children, the fact that this blister is a source of consternation to me; if i had kids of course the consternations would be much more plentiful. but on the other hand, i AM a massage therapist and my thumbs are a critical part of my ability to do my job.

5, and the thing that has taken up most of my time, is FREERICE.COM. bev has her sudoku, i have FREERICE.COM. it’s a word game you get a word and four possible definitions and you click on the one you think is right and if you get it right you’re DONATING GRAINS OF RICE TO WORTHY PEOPLE. i can’t remember exactly who these worthy people are, and it seems slightly suspect to me that by playing this game i’m actually and truly doing something good for somebody somewhere, but all i know is i’m just slightly VERY ADDICTED TO THIS GAME.

you get a score after you’ve guessed a few words, and then the score goes up if you keep guessing right, down if you guess wrong, and the amount of rice keeps on growing. the game info says that most people don’t get past a score of 48 and i don’t think i’ve achieved that yet but I’M WORKING ON IT. DAY AND NIGHT. IN ORDER TO FEED THE HUNGRY PEOPLE AND INCREASE MY VOCABULARY.

they should have a sudoku freerice.com. they’d get many many great big sacks of rice from bev alone.

i do miss driving to rehearsal with bev and erin. i took a bunch more photos backstage of the show and i must put them up RIGHT AWAY before the whole thing becomes just a distant memory, like our bike trip to austria.

hopefully we will take another bike trip. kevin goes back to the doctor on wednesday, but we’re pretty sure he re-injured his knee when twisting it as he got in the car a few weeks ago. another MRI? another surgery? we’ll see. he just needs to get better, because ENOUGH IS ENOUGH ALREADY.

being in the play has made me think i need to do GRACETALK #5. but not for a while, because it would be hard to get into the hoogland anytime soon, plus there’s always lots going on in the summer. next fall. but it’s something to work for.

ok already,

monday night grace.


Apr. 04, 2008

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guitars and movies [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:59 am

first, GO SEE “MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY.” it is my favorite movie and is the only movie i want to go see from now on. i think i’ll just keep going to it till it leaves town, and then i’ll buy it. it’s sweet and funny, good music, a delightful story, good good good.

second, kevin is selling a fraction of his immense guitar collection. do you need or want a guitar? he has a large selection for sale. he made a website to sell them, and here is a link to it. KEVIN’S GUITAR SALE. he tells me he’ll give me a percentage of the profits if my mention helps him sell them, but i’ll just be happy knowing that there are a few fewer guitars lying around here.

i have only two more performances of “victor victoria” which is good because today is the first day all week i’ve felt rested because of all the play activity.

randy was going to have a cast party on saturday night and i was going to make a bunch of food for the party, but now he’s not having it because the schwartzes reserved fritz’s wagon wheel restaurant for a party instead. randy and i are both relieved by this. not that randy still needs to put away his boxes of xmas decorations or anything.

ok then, have a good weekend; you will definitely have a great one if you GO SEE THAT MOVIE.

grace grace grace.


Apr. 02, 2008

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p.s. erin [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:02 am

erin, in that photo with me and brett, is a very beautiful young woman, by the way. in case you might have looked at that photo and thought DANG that girl looks scary. she could easily be a (kind of short) model, or an actress or a dancer. she got a degree in fashion design, but there aren’t too many fashion designer want-ads in the paper around here. she most recently spent a few months in sweden visiting her boyfriend, who is getting his phD in some kind of biology-science-maybe psychology or perhaps physiology or microbiology or some other -ology thing. now THAT’S a long-distance relationship. they met in junior high i think, in band. that’s a LONG long-distance relationship.

maybe i won’t go running after all today. maybe i’ll start cleaning up the dead leaves around the flowers coming up. before giving massages and then going to REHEARSAL.

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