Mar. 31, 2007

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OH NO!!! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 3:17 am

because i just couldn’t go to sleep immediately, i looked up the weather forecast. 80% chance of rain today.

but here’s the HORRIBLE THING - on wednesday it’s supposed to only be in the FORTIES, with a low of TWENTY EIGHT.

what about the plants? we’d better not plant them yet, right? because then they would freeze.

oh boy. last sunday my friend gil told me that people were out buying plants like crazy, which was BAD, because this warm weather isn’t gonna last, and then they’ll be sad when their plants die because it’ll get cold again.

i didn’t believe him.

AT LEAST WE HAVEN’T PLANTED THE PLANTS YET.

and really, i need to pay more attention to what gil has to say. he IS a school principal, after all, and that right there should have made me realize that even though he’s quiet and unassuming, he has years and years of knowledge and authority under his belt.

now i’m really truly going back to sleep, before it gets so late that it’s actually morning.

here on the very last day of march, which is, indeed, going out like a lamb...BUT THEN WHAT ABOUT THE FRIGID TEMPERATURES COMING UP?

oh boy.

good night again.

grace still HUGHES not smith.

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John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 3:09 am
"John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,
His name is my name too.

Whenever we go out,
The people always shout,
There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.

Dah dah dah dah, dah dah dah"

almost three in the morning, and i was thinking about names. my friend kelli ferris married rob nieweg but she didn’t change her name. THEY DON’T DO THAT ON THE EAST COAST, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

when she found out that i was abandoning smith and changing to hughes she said YOU’RE KIDDING ME.

fortunately, i am an adult human being and can have any name i want.

but here’s the thing - rob and kelli have a girl named katie. so her name is katie ferris-nieweg.

but let’s say she gets married, to a guy who also has parents who wouldn’t dream of giving up any names at all. let’s say his name is john Jingleheimer Schmidt. and say they have a baby. named Petunia. (why don’t people name children after flowers so much? i’ve always liked the name rose, for example.) but so then is Petunia going to be Petunia ferris-Nieweg-Jingleheimer Schmidt?

and on and on, and then pretty soon everybody will have names that are combinations of twenty or more?

at least at almost three in the morning i’m not worrying about the clutter in our house, or the fact that suddenly we bought all kinds of plants and seeds and trees and they ALL NEED TO BE PLANTED VERY SOON. because it’s not like i can go out and start planting them right now.

and there’s no good reason, really, why i haven’t written in a week. lethargy, apathy, nothing terribly exciting to write about, maybe i temporarily forgot how to type.

the camouflage-theme wedding was...interesting. i didn’t take a picture of any of the camouflage vests that the groomsmen wore because i just didn’t feel like going up to them and asking if i could. i’m sure they wouldn’t have minded, though. the vests weren’t nearly as awful as i thought they’d be. funny thing is, the groomsmen couldn’t seem to bear to wear such formal attire for long, and soon one of the groomsmen was wearing jeans and a big t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

i did take a few photos of the cake, however. in the camouflage theme, it was white with dark green trim and on top was one of those “humorous” cake toppers, the kind that kevin and i saw when we were looking at wedding stuff and he thought it was funny and i said OF COURSE WE’RE NOT GOING TO HAVE THAT ON TOP OF THE CAKE. it was a bride chasing a groom.

but on this cake, they cleverly painted the groom’s jacket so it looked like camouflage.

in back of the cake table was draped some of that mesh military hunting stuff.

here, even though i should GET BACK TO SLEEP NOW BECAUSE THERE’S LOTS OF FENCING AND THEN PLANTING TO DO TOMORROW, i’m going to shrink down then upload a cake photo for you.



while i’m at it, and since i’m not doing anything else, here’s a photo of kevin playing in the band.



ok, now, seriously, i have to get back to sleep. many many things to do tomorrow.

but what if it’s raining? we can’t plant in the rain. i hope the plants will be ok if they’re not planted. yesterday some arrived in the mail, in a plastic box, and i’m really worried about those little plants.

but not enough to lose sleep over.

goodnight goodnight goodnight,

grace HUGHES.


Mar. 23, 2007

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tomorrow [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:11 pm

morning we have fencing class, and then we drive to mt. sterling, about an hour and a half away, and kevin’s band plays for a wedding reception.

let me just tell you this one thing about the reception - the groomsmen and groom will be wearing camouflage vests and ties with their tuxes.

oh boy. i’m taking the camera, hoping to surreptitiously get a photo of this sight.

camouflage.

yes.




Mar. 22, 2007

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well... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:19 pm

i should be asleep now. definitely, definitely, sound asleep. i’ve been tired for a couple of hours now, even though there’s no reason to be so tired because i slept a whole lot last night.

plus it’s raining and i keep hearing thunder so it’s PERFECT for sleeping. and yet for some reason i’m not making myself go to bed. bad, very bad.

besides the fact that there’s no way he’s going to get the nomination, i just don’t think john edwards should continue to run for president. his wife’s cancer came back, they just found this out, and yet he’s going to continue his campaign. shouldn’t he think about her, instead of his campaign?

i’m also a little annoyed about al gore. did you see him on the news? as my dad put it, he looks like a bloated old drunk. what, exactly, happened to the man? please, please don’t tell me he’s even going to think about running for president again.

in the paper today they actually said that the youtube video against clinton could hurt obama. why, is what i’d like to know. because it’s giving him a huge amount of publicity? because it highlights hilary’s general lack of emotion and absence of charisma? in the same story it said that the guy who made the video didn’t have anything to do with obama’s campaign, and he was fired from the company he worked for. please.

on a more personal note, we realized that mollie the dog has been eating cat poop out of the litter box. we got this new kind of litter...ok, kevin bought it...it’s some kind of natural stuff that looks like those pellets that you feed hampsters with, and it breaks down into sawdust when a cat pees on it. but i tried to clean it a few times and was a little surprised that there didn’t seem to be any cat poop anywhere. and because i am dense, it took me a while to realize that there was no poop because MOLLIE WAS EATING IT.

the dog has no shame, and clearly no taste buds.

it could be worse...amy and jim’s dogs love goose poop, and when they take the dogs for a walk, there is goose poop all over the place, so it must be very difficult to get them to not eat the poop that is everywhere.

i guess this is why it seems pretty evident to me that cats are smarter than dogs. i love dogs, and our dog in particular, but they do have some fundamental stupidity issues.

i really must sleep now. except i bet that since it’s getting later there’s probably something good on tv right now.

ok ok ok,

soon to be friday grace.



Mar. 21, 2007

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one more thing tonight... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:12 pm

i assume you’ve seen/heard all the stories about the video displayed on You Tube, about hilary clinton and barack obama? i mean, of COURES you have.

but if you haven’t, here’s the link.


Barack Obama on Youtube

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p.s. heather mills [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:10 pm

i watched part of “dancing with the stars” and was thoroughly nauseated by heather mills. her long dress was slit up the middle, and it seemed she did that so she could fling it back and show off her prosthetic leg. also, they had an annoying video of her first meeting with her dance partner, and she came in and said “hi, i’m heather mills, you probably haven’t heard of me,” and then she said “and i have a prosthetic leg.” like the guy didn’t know who she was! and like he hadn’t been told all about her leg.

i’ve never been disgusted by a person with a prosthetic leg before. i know an 81 year-old woman who told me that on the radio she heard people taking bets as to whether heather’s leg would fall off.

no, NO, she’s not trying to get publicity.

randy told me that paul mccartney offered her 56 million dollars in the divorce and she refused it because she wants LOTS MORE MONEY.

so greedy.

that is all for tonight.

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wednesday, first day of spring [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:46 pm

it’s funny that today, the first day of spring, it was crazy warm. it was a little cool yesterday, but then it got warmer as the evening progressed, and i think that spring officially arrived around 6 o'clock last night and it’s like the warm weather just KNEW that it was supposed to be here.

so. on sunday i was in my second fencing tournament. you may recall that i was in a team fencing tournament a few weeks ago and had to fence against very good experienced fencers and it was exhausting and i didn’t win anything but i didn’t expect to, and it was ok but very tiring. I hung in there and didn’t fall to the floor weeping or anything, which was an accomplishment.

but this last tournament was a beginner’s tourney and kevin kept saying “i think you’re going to do better than you think you will,” and so i started getting my hopes up, even though i have a very long history of sucking at every single sport i’ve ever tried which is why i’ve always avoided sports. sports against other people, i mean.

in the beginner’s tournament there were lots of people so we were divided into smaller categories. my category was women, i think it was women over the age of 14. most of the other fencers were in college, except for one or two younger girls.

i haven’t written in a while because i haven’t wanted to write about the tournament. it started out fine, and i felt good about it, but then i had to fence against somebody and it’s all very complicated about the judging and the scoring, but the bottom line is that the judge i had for this round wasn’t even watching the event at all, and the person who was watching (one of the other fencers) was saying that i had won the point, but the judge didn’t listen, maybe he was on crack, i don’t know, but all of a sudden even though it seemed that i should have won, i lost. there were only seven women competing, and i think i came in 5th. this wouldn’t have been bad if i’d lost fair and square, but that didn’t happen, and it was incredibly upsetting.

i realize it’s not a big deal, and as randy pointed out, it’s not like i’ve been dying to get a fencing trophy, but it was just so disheartening because it wasn’t done according to any kind of rules or logic or fairness. to finally be kind of good at something (at least kind of good amongst the other beginning fencers) and then to lose because of bad judging was just...awful.

if you want to read about it, here is a link to the springfield fencing club website. kevin wrote about the day, and the fencer who he wrote about who was screwed in the judging is, of course, me.

Springfield Fencing Club Website

yuck. i was in such a very bad mood about it that it made me in a bad mood about almost every other thing in my entire life, and then it was all a big downward spiral, and you should be glad that you didn’t see or talk to me on monday. not a happy person.

but then i got over it, as i seem to usually do, and by monday night i was fine and tuesday night i went to fencing club and people who had been to a competition on friday night talked about the unfair judging that THEY came up against and people commiserated with my lousy time and i had fun fencing and it was all good. and i heard joanne make the wise comment that “it’s not like we’re training for the olympics or anything.” she also said it’s all a good learning experience and even though i usually HATE it when people say that, i do think she’s right.

and then today, TODAY, it must have been EIGHTY DEGREES here and so life is good. i spent a good amount of time outside, and it was sunny and lovely even though it was supposed to rain and it’s supposed to rain till monday but i just don’t see that happening and life is, indeed, good.

and soon it will be the weekend, and NO FENCING TOURNAMENTS!

ok then,

grace.




Mar. 16, 2007

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and now for something a little less heavy - [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:49 am

my friend gary, reading about heather mills, wanted to know if the first song she’d dance to might be “footloose.”

and please remember, HEATHER IS NOT TRYING TO GET A BUNCH OF PUBLICITY. uh uh. no way, jose.

ok then,

friday grace, on the day of our 6 month wedding anniversary.

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more about Darfur, Sudan [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:49 am

since i posted that announcement about the Save Darfur event going on this sunday at the hilton, i suddenly actually became aware of what’s going on there. there was a column about it in the paper today, and then i looked it up online. i found a story in the Idaho Mountain Express, "idaho’s largest twice weekly newspaper. the crisis is, indeed, horrible and shocking, and it’s also horrible that not a lot of people seem to know about it. so, here’s some education.

oh, and by the way, the event here in town was brought to you by mr. rick franck, a friend of kevin’s and a really good guy.

here’s the story from the idaho mountain express:

Ex-marine brings attention to world crisis
Four-day focus on Darfur is call to action
By DANA DUGAN
and SABINA DANA PLASSE
Express Staff Writers

The idea that genocide still exists in today’s world is an unfathomable thought. Yet, in Darfur, Sudan, genocide continues to be a violent and tragic situation, which needs an urgent response.

On a call to action, the Wood River Jewish Community and the Sun Valley Center for the Arts have brought together a four-part exhibition for six days to educate and solicit the Wood River Valley community in aiding and helping to end this atrocity.

In 2003, war broke out between the Sudanese government and Darfuri rebels. The Sudanese government, working with Arab militias known as Janjaweed (or devil on horseback), began sponsoring wholesale ethnic cleansing of non-Arab Darfurians, almost all of whom had no direct affiliation with the rebel groups. Since 2003, approximately 400,000 civilians have died. Another 2.5 million, a third of Darfur’s population, have been driven from their homes.

“Members of the Wood River Jewish Community asked The Center to sponsor a lecturer. They wanted to bring Brian Steidle to Sun Valley,” said Kristine Poole, artistic director for the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Ketchum. “The Center felt it was a good fit in terms of their humanities lectures. Upon closer look, The Center found that ”Darfur/Darfur," the exhibition that was shown in New York City and at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, was really important, and we needed to make this exhibit accessible, visible and as real as possible."

Steidle, a former U.S. Marine Corps captain who received his commission in 1999, left the military in 2003. He said he has always been interested in Africa, when he went to Sudan in September 2004. As one of three U.S. military observers for the African Union, armed only with a pen, pad and camera, he was to report on violations of a cease-fire that had been declared the previous April.

“When I was in the Marine Corps I did some training with the Moroccan infantry,” he said. “I always wanted to go to Africa. It was a great opportunity, and I’d make a good living. That’s why I went, the money and the excitement of the job.”

Steidle, now 30 years old, admits he, like most Americans, knew very little about Sudan. He was seven months in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, eventually working his way up a desk jockey job as the senior operations officer.

"I heard about Darfur, and I wanted to get back in the field. There were rumors but even inside Sudan it takes a long time to hear things. I didn’t really know the extent of what was going on until I got there.

“I had gone hoping we could make a difference monitoring the cease-fire but there was no cease-fire at all. Our reports weren’t getting to the right people. I was more and more frustrated with my inability to get things done. So, I quit and came home. I wanted to forget what was happening and just watch the coverage on CNN, but there was no one covering it. No one knew what was going on. No one had shared the information. It’s become a mission of mine to make people aware.”

Steidle has since spoken at over 100 public awareness events in communities and at universities across the country, including Harvard, Princeton and Stanford. The Save Darfur Coalition sponsored a special speaking tour in Spring 2006, which took Steidle 22,000 miles across the country for over 50 events. Among other high level politicians, he met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, and Ambassador to the UN on War Crimes Pierre-Richard Prosper.

“We’re on the right track,” he said. “We’re concentrating on divestment campaigns but there’s still no definitive action.”

Carefully targeted divestment is tailored to include only the most flagrantly involved companies in Sudan. The targeted approach excludes any company that benefits those outside of government circles, including medicine, education, general consumer goods and agriculture. Among companies targeted for divestment is China’s largest producer of fuel, whose main foreign investor is Berkshire Hathaway. The company, PetroChina, buys 60 to 70 percent of Sudan’s oil.

“Eighty to 90 percent of this money is used for military in Sudan, so people are making money off genocide,” Steidle said. “Six states and many universities have already divested. (Officials with Idaho’s state retirement fund have initiated a campaign). We’ve already proved it works by the ending of apartheid in Africa.”

According to the Sudan Divestment Taskforce, Swiss power giant ABB suspended all non-humanitarian operations in the country, a decision in which divestment played a partial role. Shortly thereafter, one of Germany’s largest companies, Siemens, pledged to pull out of Sudan, also citing the pressure created by divestment as a factor.

“This country has tens of billions invested. A way to find out about your own investments, as my family and I have done is go to sudandivesment.org. It’s great screening tool. You can enter your mutual fund. It will flag any thing that is implicit. I don’t feel right supporting the raping of women and killing babies. I’d rather make money somewhere else. It’s right for Americans to do. You’re basically an arms dealer.”

Steidle hopes that some type of leadership from the U.S. and the west to get a peace treaty will be forthcoming.

“We’d like to see something that’s fair for all parties. Then implementation of protective force to protect civilians, and then prosecution of the people explicit in genocide. The three 'Ps'—peace, protection and prosecution. That’s really the best way. The UN is not going to jump in there until there’s a peace treaty. What happened in the Balkans is the closest to this situation that’s ever been done. It was a great example that showed how the U.S. could take a leadership position.”

What Steidle does not advocate, however, is the U.S. becoming “involved in another Iraq or another Somalia,” with U.S. soldiers taking the brunt of the conflict on the ground.

_________

Curated by Leslie Thomas, “Darfur/Darfur” is three continuous loops of images such as villages burning and rotting skeletons, to name only a few of the inhuman and unspeakable images Steidle photographed. “People get into things in many ways and visual support lends a hand in understanding,” Poole said. “There is so much tragedy in the world and unless it has a face, we are sometimes not compelled to deal with it.”

“It’s exciting for us to squeeze (the exhibit) in, and make it opportunity for people to make it real. People take time to think about the world in a different way,” Poole said. “We need to ask questions, and here in Sun Valley we are removed. As Americans, we don’t have the experience of what it is like to be kicked out of our homes, land and country.”

In addition to the opening of the exhibit at The Center, Wednesday, March 14, Los Angeles actress Adina Porter will conduct two readings Thursday, March 15, at nexStage Theatre of a monologue from a Darfur mother, who explains to her child who her father is.

“I know this community well and because we are giving them a moment they will respond. It’s a hard issue to distill,” Poole said.

The documentary film about Steidel’s experience in Darfur “The Devil Came on Horseback,” premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and has been on the film festival circuit ever since. It will be screened privately Saturday, March 17, at the nexStage Theatre as a benefit for Global Grassroots. Global Grassroots is a non-profit organization started by Stiedel’s sister Gretchen Steidel Wallace in 2004 to invest in social entrepreneurs working for women’s rights in developing countries.

Wallace will be in attendance at the film with her brother at the Community Library Friday, March 16, to read selections from their book “The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur.” Though it won’t be released until the end of March, the book will be available at the screening, the reading and Iconoclast Books in Ketchum.

In addition, Steidel will be visiting both The Community School and the Wood River High School to present a talk and slide show of his images.

“We don’t always have a chance to do projects like this, but there was a sense of urgency to make this work,” Poole said. “So much of this is about education.”

Coordinating the Darfur project with The Center, Susan Fierman of Wood River Jewish Community explained that the reformed Judaism in the United States has taken on this effort to help Darfur because genocide in the modern world must be eradicated.

“The money was raised very fast by Edgar Bronfman, Alan and Wendy Pesky, Richard and Judith Smooke, and Larry and Rebejah Helzel,” Fierman said. In addition, there was a donation by Kiril Sokoloff and an anonymous donor. “The interesting thing for me,” Fireman added, "is that most every event is free and people get to be touched by a global situation that they can do something about.

Bringing “Darfur: A Call for Compassion” to Sun Valley allows for a small community to speak globally. “We can say, ‘no, not in our lifetime, not on our watch,’” Fierman said. “People in the Valley don’t know what and who is involved. They say, ‘well that’s happening all over in Africa and thinking I don’t want to go to that because it is too depressing.’ What’s depressing is to put out of our mind.”

Raising money for Global Grassroots is a major part of this exhibition, but it also about making a connection to the Darfur people.

“Rape is weapon of this war,” Fierman said. “The ones that survive are being ganged raped and are have their own children as well as children from being raped. They are kicked out of their communities because there is a misunderstanding about their rape. These woman are now isolated and in order to eat and feed their children Global Grassroots have built a school and are teaching them to be entrepreneurial, how to make money and supporting them to have a future in Chad.”

Darfur: A call for compassion

“Darfur/Darfur” is a photographic exhibition that will be featured at The Sun Valley Center for the Arts Gallery in Ketchum from Wednesday, March 14, through Monday, March 19. The Center will be open on Sunday, March 18 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call The Center 726-9491.

An opening reception on Thursday, March 15, from 5-6:30 p.m. with readings by Adina Porter at 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. will be followed by a lecture and slideshow presentation by Brian Steidle “An American Witness to Genocide in Darfur” at 7 p.m. at the nexStage Theatre in Ketchum. This is a free event but tickets are required. To reserve a ticket, call The Center 726-9491.

Authors Brian Steidle and his sister Gretchen Steidle Wallace, founder of Global Grassroots, will hold a reading and book signing for their book “The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur” at The Community Library in Ketchum on Friday, March 16 at 4 p.m. This is a free event.

A private showing of the documentary film “The Devil Came on Horseback” will take place at the nexStage Theatre in Ketchum on Saturday, March 17 at 5 p.m. Tickets are $100 donation to Global Grassroots.


Mar. 15, 2007

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heather mills... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:31 pm

...you know, heather mills. paul mccartney’s eventual ex-wife. i was just randomly looking at news stories and read about how she feels there are “huge forces” out to get her. and she also says she’s not seeking any publicity...but she’s going to be on the show “dancing with the stars.”

heather mills wears a prosthetic leg. i also read that she’s going to wear some special thing so the leg DOES NOT FALL OFF WHEN DANCING.

A WOMAN WITH A FAKE LEG IS GOING TO BE ON A DANCE CONTEST SHOW.

but no, please, don’t think she’s seeking any publicity.

will there be extra people there taking photos, hoping to snap the best shot when the leg goes flying across the dance floor?

what if it pokes somebody in the eye? resulting in blindness?

can you imagine, being blinded by paul mccartney’s ex wife’s prosthetic leg?

but you wouldn’t be totally blind, it would just be the one eye.

after the leg flies off (who will be her partner? will he do lots of spins and lifts with her?), will she be all PLEASE NO, DON’T TAKE MY PICTURE! I’M JUST A POOR WOMAN MISSING A LEG!

there was definitely a reason i was going to write tonight, something very very important and meaningful that i wanted to say, but then i got all caught up with images of heather mills and her leg.

i hope your friday is filled with all kinds of good things.

ok then,

thursday night grace.

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zinging along... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 4:45 pm

that’s what the week has done. first, let me tell you about something that’s going on here in spfld. on sunday night, March 18th, from 6-10 p.m. at jazz central station (which is on top of the hilton), there’s going to be a fundraiser to reaise awareness of the genocide currently happening in sudan. it costs a measly five bucks to attend, and there will be music and maybe a couple of speakers, and it’s a very worthy cause and you should go.

kevin and i will go, unless i have become completely incapacitated at the beginners foil tournament in st. louis. or unless the tournament is still going on well into the night. hopefully it won’t be.

ok, so here are some photos from the BALLET GALA which we attended last saturday night. first here’s me and mom and erica; i love this photo because erica looks like a MOVIE STAR.



and here’s me and kevin; i wish there was a good full-length one because my dress is great, but whoever was taking the photos kept cutting off kevin’s head.




randy, kevin and dad, and i assure you that randy was having a much better time than the photo might indicate.



and here’s mom and dad, looking very cute.



we bid on many silent auction things and won all the auctions, but there weren’t any great trips this year. last year we got a week’s stay at a great condo in ft. lauderdale, but the only trips were to chicago and st. louis this year, not very exciting.

i have to go outside and walk or maybe run now, although WHAT HAPPENED TO SUMMER? at least it was nice to remember how great summer weather is, for a couple of days. and i know it will return.

ok then,

thursday grace.



Mar. 12, 2007

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monday?! already? [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:08 pm

the good news is that it was UNBELIEVABLY WARM today. we went running this afternoon and it was actually hot for that. i guess we’ll have a little bit of cooler weather late in the week but SPRING HAS SPRUNG.

my friend jerri had a baby, and his name is charlie. she had him about a week ago, i believe. i haven’t actually talked to her, but christine tells me these things. plus there’s a photo of him on her blog. christine and jerri don’t actually talk very much, i don’t think, but they constantly instant message each other.

i’m not usually even around a computer very much, which is why i don’t take part in any instant-messaging. plus when i used to be around a computer most of the time, the instant messaging was always a big distraction because usually when i’m on the computer i’m LOOKING THINGS UP.

VERY IMPORTANT THINGS that need to be looked up. like calcium and potassium and barack obama.

i listened to one of his podcasts just now and it was quite interesting, plus when you listen to it, there’s all these very trippy images on the screen as you listen. you could get very mesmerized by the images.

i was trying to find about barack obama events here in spfld. surely there must be a bunch of them, don’t you think, seeing as how this is the capitol city and he’s a senator from illinois? i went to his website and found that there was actually an informal meeting TONIGHT, but i missed it because it was a couple of hours ago. but it looked like a very small event; there must be something more than a bunch of people meeting at Panera Bread, isn’t there? isn’t there?

i’ve also been reading his book, “the audacity of hope,” and i suggest that you go pick up a copy and read it. i’m halfway through, and i have to say that it’s pretty fascinating and informative and isn’t too bad to get through, even though i don’t normally read anything that non-fictiony, not to mention that it’s full of things that people should know, stuff about how government and the media and politics and politicians and everything works. it’s good but also sobering and a little depressing.

it’s kind of like childhood obesity, which is bad and getting worse, but i really don’t see any hope of it getting better, only worse. just like all the stuff about government and the way the world actually works, and there are just so many huge things that need to be fixed and i don’t see how they ever could. be.

it makes a person want to sit around eating doughnuts and humming a nice little tune, maybe something from “the music man,” forgetting all the bad things in the world.

christine called me the other day to say she was amused that kevin’s fencing lame (the silver jacket he wears over his fencing jacket in a competition. it’s silver because it’s made of some kind of metal, so that when an electric fencing foil touches it, it makes the score box light up and buzz) says HUGHES USA on it, as if he was going to be fencing in russia or something.

hey, it could happen. it does seem kind of funny that it says USA on it, but i feel that he’s not going to just suddenly stop being in competitions, and it seems that there certainly is a possibility of fencing in some other country.

i’ll be happy to go along. BUT DON’T MAKE ME FENCE. it’s bad enough fencing here in the USA; i’m sure i’d get SLAUGHTERED by russian fencers.

theoretically i’m going to be in a beginner’s fencing tournament this weekend, but maybe something huge will happen and i won’t have to go. kevin keeps saying i’m going to do GREAT. right now only four people are signed up for it, and they’re all 12 years old or younger. i’m not going if it’s just going to be a bunch of kids. if i beat them, well, it’s because they’re 12 or younger. but what if they all beat me? that would be much too humiliating.

oh, here’s a photo of the kitties. winnie, who is, indeed, a very GIANT kitty, was trying to climb over to me. honey was lying in her bed and this is usually how she does it. very very cute, even though she’s a ruthless killer in real life.



ok then,

monday grace.



Mar. 07, 2007

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p.s. another result of the fencing competition [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:44 pm

is that i was unbelievably tired all day on monday, so tired that i had to take a nap about an hour after i got up in the morning. i wasn’t in much of a mood to do much yesterday, either, except we fenced last night.

kevin ordered me some fencing shoes and knickers, so i will blend in more at the next tournament.

not that knickers you order online have any chance at all of fitting right. when i try on jeans, for example, i have to try on at least 20 pairs before i can find one that’s not horrible.

and white knickers by their very nature are going to be much harder to get. perhaps i’ll find that there aren’t actually any that look anything but hideous.

but like i said, at least i’ll blend in.

four more bananas to go.

gh

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bananas and lycopene and "the audacity of hope" [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:40 pm

my bone density test wasn’t so great. not totally horrible, my bones aren’t going to snap like twigs any moment, nor are they going to turn to jelly so i’d have to just sprawl around like protoplasm on the floor or something.

but not so great. the bone density measurement in my spine was good, but the measurement in my femur, not good. to be normal, the reading has to be -1 or greater. mine was -1.1, which is the least amount of osteopenia you can have. osteopenia is what you get before you get osteoporosis. weak bones.

now i wish i’d been eating even more cheese, drinking even more milk. tomorrow i’m going to the doctor to see if there’s anything else i can do besides becoming crazy about getting enough calcium.

in my quest to research everything about calcium, i took the real age test. you can find it at realage.com, i believe. you answer lots of questions and then it gives you your real age vs. your biological age. it didn’t ask any questions about my bone density, though.

i then found out that i need more potassium. they recommend 3,000 mg of potassium a day. and then i found the USDA National Nutrient Database, which lists pages and pages of food that have whichever vitamin or mineral or nutrient you’re looking for. 25 pages of potassium, for example.

i’d have to eat about five bananas a day in order to have 3,000 mg. of potassium. that’s a lot of bananas. but on the other hand, that would solve the problem of ripening bananas. they’re not ripe, they’re not ripe, then the next day suddenly, POOF, they’re all ripe and they get too ripe. so if i had to eat five in a day, that would take care of the ever-present overripe banana problem in our house.

i also need more vitamin E. kevin took the test tonight and he needs more lycopene. TOMATOES, that’s the answer there, preferably cooked ones because cooking them makes them have more lycopene.

perhaps i should become a nutritionist, because all this nutrition stuff is pretty interesting to me.

i started reading barack obama’s “the audacity of hope” earlier this evening and i will NOT stay up all night reading it, because my doctor appointment is fairly ridiculously early in the morning.

it’s a very good book. i’m fairly sure he’ll be president. kevin bought us obama t-shirts, which i’m quite excited about.

i have to go eat a banana - or five - right now.

ok then,

grace on wednesday night.



Mar. 05, 2007

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and the results are in... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 2:40 pm

..and i’m happy to report that i didn’t cry at all during the team fencing competition yesterday in st. louis. i decided on saturday night that that was my goal - no crying.

here is me at the start of my very first bout. i felt pretty good before it started; i’d slept soundly the night before (because of being exhausted in my quest to find white knickers), and i guess because i didn’t decide to fence until the day before the event, my mind didn’t have enough time to start its usual crazy machinations which i’m sure would have resulted in plenty of stress and freaking out.

but maybe not.

but like i said, i felt ok. notice that i’m wearing my black sweats, instead of the knickers that everybody else had on except for one woman. this was absolutely no big deal, except i was very very warm.




i was wearing a t-shirt, and over that this plastic breast protector that kevin ordered for me. i told him it looks like a plastic version of some kind of antique breast shield that women sword fighters would have worn. it’s kind of big and over that i wear a plastern, which is a short jacket-like thing with only one arm. and over that is the full jacket. all these layers, plus the big fencing mask, not to mention the black sweats, made me very hot.

here’s joann and flynn early on, looking very serious about it all.



joann, being very petite, looks just fine in her fencing uniform. not to mention that she’s a really good fencer. but she’s very very hard on herself, even more so than me. she’s really good, but she doesn’t think she is. she gets very frustrated with herself.

here is kevin, going in for the kill.



and here’s me, at the point later in the day when i was very frustrated and thought that i might, indeed, start to cry. i had fenced for two bouts, and this was the third one, and the team we were against was very good. and this young woman was just SLAUGHTERING me, every time, she’d come in really fast and WHAM, she’d get me and i couldn’t figure out how to do anything to stop her. i was getting more and more upset, and along comes kevin, taking lots of photos and i wanted to yell FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T TAKE MY PICTURE I JUST WANT TO KILL MYSELF.

but that kind of behavior isn’t allowed. also, my teammate jay had been coaching me from the sidelines but at this point he stopped calling out anything so i figured I SUCK SO BAD THAT HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY.

not a good point in the tournament for me, personally.

also, earlier in the day, i was fencing against one of the many college students and there were a lot of them there from washington university, and they all came over and started CLAPPING and CHEERING whenever the person i was fencing against got a point. and at that point i wanted to yell THIS IS ONLY MY FIRST TOURNAMENT, plus lots of swearing at them.

but i didn’t do that, either.

during the very last round of the day i was determined to at least score a few points, and i did, and that made me happy, plus MY teammates were watching and being very encouraging.

here’s a photo of all of us from springfield.



whew. my team stopped fencing at about four, and kevin’s team wasn’t done till 5:30. we’d started at about 12:30, and it was a long day. i didn’t feel so tired when we left, and we stopped for dinner in st. louis and jay asked me if i’d be in another competition and i said i didn’t know and he was surprised; he thought i’d say HELL YES! but jay doesn’t know about my entire-life complete ineptitude at all things sporting, he doesn’t know that i’ve avoided competitive sports LIKE THE PLAGUE ever since i was no longer forced to participate in them in school.

today i do think i’d like to fence in a competition again. Probably. i’m pretty sure there were few or no other fencers at this tournament who were as novice as me, and i didn’t do totally horribly. i never won a single bout, but i did manage to get points at least part of the time. and i didn’t cry.

the thing is, during fencing class and when we’re fencing in our club meetings, we’re always fencing against the same people. being in a tournament makes you have to think about how to take on somebody you’ve never fenced against before, but if you’d just fence against the same people all the time, i don’t see how you’d be able to get that much better. i mean, i still have lots and LOTS of improving to do, but i think maybe that being in another tournament would help me to be a better fencer.

i do have to say i’m pretty exhausted today. but feeling pretty good for a monday.

a WARM monday, and i think we’re officially done with cold weather snow freezing rain sleet pile and piles of snow miserable cold winter.

ok then,

grace.





Mar. 03, 2007

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please go to sleep now [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:39 pm

but how can i, when kevin is hard at work still, trying to alter the foils so they work for me?

we went to meier. they did have white knickers.

at first we couldn’t find them. they were way in the back, along with the baseball bats and gloves and stuff like that.

we couldn’t find the knickers because they were IN BOXES.

a box of knickers.

we took a pair out of the box. they looked tiny. we trudged to the front of the store where the women’s dressing room was.

it was locked up for the night.

you can shop all night at meier, but don’t try to try on any clothes.

they wouldn’t have fit anyway.

instead we bought some white athletic kind of pants, long ones, in the women’s dept., and i tried them on when we got home and they don’t look bad.

except they’re not white knickers.

maybe they won’t care.

but if they do, then I WON’T HAVE TO FENCE AFTER ALL.

i wish kevin would just stop trying to fix the foils.

today he said he was well-rested, feeling great, for a change.

i told him that by agreeing to fence, i’m going to ruin it for him because he’s going to stay up late trying to fix the foils.

i’m very very overly-tired right now.

but no sleep for me, not yet.

whew.

such a saturday night i’m having.

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white polyester knickers [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:14 pm

oh boy. earlier i asked kevin if this fencing tournament would cause me to cry, and he assured me that it wouldn’t.

we didn’t discuss crying before it even begins. the tears may begin to well any moment.

perhaps i’m overly-tired.

in fencing tournaments, everybody wears white knickers, and they seem to be some kind of polyester. besides having to fence in a fencing tournament, the thought of white polyester knickers were a huge deterrent.

tomorrow. white knickers.

problem is, of course, that there’s no place to buy white fencing knickers here in spfld.

so instead we went to dick’s sporting goods where i tried on some unbelievably unflattering softball knickers. both mens and boys sizes. the boys size (large) were just too tight. the mens size (medium) were both baggy and tight, with each bit of clingy fabric highlighting any slight ripple i might have in my thighs.

can any woman think of a worse fashion nightmare?

kevin said i should get the mens pair, so we got them and rushed home, because amy and jim were coming for dinner. i described my ensemble to them, and they wanted to see it.

i tried it on.

AND I BOUGHT THE WRONG PAIR OF DAMN KNICKERS.

skin tight. i can’t move enough in them to fence. not to mention fairly see-through.

i’m tired, we had a busy fencing class today, plus lots of running around, i’m ready to go to sleep.

but no, now we’re going to meier, which is open 24 hours and they assured me they do have mens softball knickers.

have i mentioned that it’s really cold and incredibly windy here today? the LAST DAY of shitty weather, or at least that’s what i’m counting on.

so if you see a woman softly sobbing and she shuffles through the men’s sporting section of meier later tonight, that’s not a bag lady (not yet anyway), that’s just me.

oh yeah, and with the knickers you wear long white socks. and most people have fancy expensive fencing tennis shoes. i’m wearing a pair of black converse.

a vision. truly, i’ll be a vision.

perhaps the sight of me will distract the other fencers.

am i really going to go through with this? do i have a choice now? kevin is busily modifying two foils, because you have to have a backup foil. i keep praying that he’ll run into an unsolvable problem, thereby making it impossible for me to go.

one moment of weakness today, i said i’d do it, and now...doomed.

doomed.

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well... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 6:32 pm

ok, i wasn’t going to mention this to anybody, but why not, i mean, it’s not like you’re going to call me up and tell me not to.

tomorrow, provided we can get all the necessary components in order for it to happen, i’m going to go to a team fencing competition with kevin.

but wait, you say, you’ve been to these fencing competitions before.

BUT THIS TIME I’M GOING TO COMPETE.

whew. it’s slightly terrifying just typing that in.

kevin today said things like “you’ve gotten really good at fencing in the past couple of months.” he in no way tried to coerce me into it. jay is another story. the teams are made up of three people, and one of the people has to be female. kevin is in a team with joanne and flynn.

but jay, he’s DYING TO COMPETE MORE. jay is kind of an intense fellow. he’s VERY INTENSE about some things, anything he cares at all about. HE’S VERY INTO FENCING.

he and eric decided to register as a fencing team, even though they didn’t have a female to complete the team. they asked me a few times if i’d like to join them, and i always said HELL NO I DON’T WANT TO COMPETE.

as a matter of fact, that was really the only new year’s resolution i can think of that i actually had. NO COMPETITIONS.

you may know that i suck at all sports.

but now, here i am. if we can borrow a lame, which is a special jacket that has metal in it somehow so it registers when you get hit with an electric foil, plus if kevin can modify two foils for me, then i’m in.

i figure, why not? i’ll be there anyway, and i certainly won’t be bored. i haven’t been bored at tournaments so far, as a matter of fact i’ve been pretty nervous watching kevin fence. this will give me something different to be nervous about.

i’m going to attempt to enjoy myself and do the best i can. hopefully i won’t be slaughtered by every other fencer who i fence against. so i guess that’s my goal. i know that jay and eric will be nice to me about it even if i drag the team way down because of my lack of fencing finesse. even though jay is EXTREMELY INTENSE, he’ll give me credit for just agreeing to do it.

deep breaths, i’m taking deep breaths. i wish i’d been meditating, because i sure would do a bunch of that right now.

whew. we’ll see how it goes.

ok then,

grace on the brink of hopefully no great physical injury.


Mar. 01, 2007

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I HATE "THE DEPARTED" [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:24 pm

we just finished watching it. why did it win best picture? why does glorifying violence make people feel that martin scorcese is some kind of brilliant man?

repulsive. repugnant. i just looked him up on the Internet Movie Database and it talked about his use of “cathartic violence.”

yeah, right. there are more than enough brutal, despicable acts of violence happening in real life, every day of the year, why on earth do we need to watch fictional graphic, brutal, senseless killing? what, exactly, makes these kinds of films so delicious to so many people?

ugh.

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WELCOME TO MARCH. [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 4:30 pm

in typing this, i saw that i titled last month’s first posting “welcome to february.” and here i thought i was being all unique.

first, thanks to the GRAB A JAVA GIRL. i’m sorry i don’t know your name, but the last sunday when kevin and i stopped by after our very very strenuous “sleeping beauty” rehearsal (we’ve blocked out almost everything we have to do and it is, indeed, all walking and sitting plus two times i get to crawl on the floor), and the girl looked over at me and said “is that grace?” and then today when kevin went to grab yet another java because he loves that place and seems slightly addicted to me but that’s the way it is with coffee, she said she reads this very website! so thanks for that. i though maybe she just knew me from being THE QUEEN. but then again, nobody has seen that sterling performance yet, except the many waiflike yet very strong ballet girls who have to actually work hard during the ballet.

this morning when i woke up and it was thundering and raining, and i went to the fit club, more rain, and then suddenly it looked sunny, so after doing weights i went home and mollie and i had a lovely run. more like a run/walk because i worked extra hard on my legs and they were still a little wobbly. mollie was VERY VERY HAPPY to be outside, which is so unusual for her.

but then after we got home, it got dark and was raining like crazy plus very windy and hailing. then sunny. now it looks cloudy out there and incredibly windy and i hope we don’t have a tornado. it’s been almost a year since the last one TOUCHED DOWN VERY CLOSE TO OUR HOUSE. hard to believe that a year has passed.

anyway, mom’s birthday dinner. first, here’s mollie, looking like an alien dog.



and then, mom after she got her birthday cheesecake.



as you may recall, though, i wrote that everybody had a lovely time at the dinner. however, kevin kept taking lots of pictures, and just looking at them you’d think people were HATING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

i give you exhibit A. jim and amy and dad.



amy didn’t want to be photographed, in case you couldn’t sense that in her body language.

and here’s amy and jim and randy, who is going to HATE it that i put up this photo of him. but it’s just so funny, plus amy is making such a weird face. so is randy, for that matter.



at least kevin and mom looked happy, but that’s because i took the picture and when i take pictures, i yell SMILE, DAMMIT!



here is mollie with amy and jim’s dog shadow, both of whom were quite happy with all the excitement and people and more importantly, food.



they’re standing on our kitchen floor, which didn’t look like a muddy park for at least a half hour during the evening. the mud and twigs and grass clippings have returned by now.

this is honey in her new bed. she spent the entire party asleep. clearly, the noise and food and excitement was too much for her.



FINALLY somebody looks like they’re enjoying themselves. that’s not a shower curtain rod that she got, which is what i thought it was at first, which would have certainly been a strange and unusual gift. it’s a flag pole, for the three really pretty and cheerful spring-like decorative flags that amy got her.



randy kept saying it looked like a pole that strippers use, and then he said that some guy made a fortune selling poles like that for women to use as at-home exercise equipment. he demonstrated how a woman would dance around the pole (for exercise, in the privacy of her own home), but unfortunately i didn’t have my video camera out to document it.

so...in like a lion, out like a lamb? that’s what i’m hoping for this march.

ok then,

grace.

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