Oct. 31, 2007

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happy halloween! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:30 am

here are some of the very cool old halloween postcards i found online.







here’s the link to the site, in case you want to look at more of them. old postcards


Oct. 29, 2007

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OK, JUST ONE MORE THING, [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:33 pm

which has nothing to do with halloween - they fired one of the people at FEMA. how about that? so that means that the fema people must be reading my website, huh, and realizing what CRETINS some of them have been.

now that’s a satisfying feeling, that i’m making a difference in the world. finally.

i probably won’t write any more tonight, but now i realize the folly of making any such rash promises.

gh

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OK JUST A COUPLE MORE [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:13 pm
it’s like i can’t move from the chair, i’m forced to sit here and shrink and crop and darken photos, i just can’t stop. so here are a few more.

first, ann and her boyfriend frank. she’s INSIDE OUT, get it? he’s some rocker dude, i don’t know if he was supposed to be somebody specific. it’s funny, last year there were a few rocker dudes, but this year there was only the one.



keith won scariest costume. he was VERY SCARY. i hate being scared. he’s all about SCARY HALLOWEEN. i’m more about fun halloween with lots of candy and baked goods and rum punch.





this is a guy named mark, with jim and another amy, only her name is spelled AIMEE. she’s a cat, with her name on her collar.



this is mark’s lovely wife lindsay, or her name might be leslie, i know it starts with an “l.” being swept off her feet by randy. mr. bananas foster.



here’s yet another priest who is also yet another kevin, with lori who is also a flapper.



and this is my geeky husband kevin STILL WITHOUT A MOUSTACHE, with the very voluptuous bev.



here’s kim and her children, and i know the boy is named spencer and i think the girl is carrie. i must have asked them about 10 times what their names were, and i was in “li'l abner” with them over the summer and you’d THINK i could remember their names, but for some reason i have a serious brain cramp about them.



here’s kim’s husband doug, who was the hysterical “evil eye fleagle” in li'l abner. and here, yet another vampire.



so let’s see, there were a few witches, a couple of vampires, a couple of flappers. i wish i had a photo of some of the baskett family; he was the guy V for vendetta, but i’m not entirely sure what that means. yeah, i know it’s a movie.

there was a guy with a white face dressed in black, and somebody thought he was marcel marceau. but i didn’t think he was, so i asked him and he said he was from the crow movie. and i told him somebody thought he was marcel marceua and of course the guy hadn’t even HEARD of marcel marceau, which is probably just as well because he’d probably have been insulted to have been MISTAKEN FOR A MIME. a dead one, no less. although that guy from the crow was probably dead, wasn’t he? SCARY MOVIE, OF COURSE I DIDN’T SEE IT.

and here’s JL, yet another very very sweet man.



and now that’s REALLY REALLY ALL the photos for tonight.

i really need to get back to the austria photos, before XMAS IS UPON US.

goodnight FOR THE LAST TIME TONIGHT,

grace hughes

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MANY MORE HALLOWEEN PHOTOS LIKE I PROMISED [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:45 pm

one of the funniest ones is bev dancing. she’s singing, i believe, and her mouth is wide open and i showed it to her and she said DON’T PUT THAT UP! so i’m sorry, but i can’t. hopefully there’s another photo of her somewhere.

oh, and also, those were only a FRACTION of the cupcakes i decorated. i didn’t want you to get the idea that i spent three hours on only a dozen cupcakes.

LOTS of cupcakes.

Anyway, here is mom and dad. i didn’t take this picture; luckily bill brought his camera and took some photos, or i’d have had no photos at all of my own parents. they snuck out early because mom’s cold was getting worse and worse. you can’t tell from this photo.



if they’d stayed, we’d have awarded dad “most original” costume. he was a sports...devil? he was wearing a cardinals hat and shirt, i think, with a vial around his neck that was supposed to be drugs, and something else...and black fingernail polish...and scary makeup. highly creative, that’s my dad.

mom was a good witch. there were a few witches, which i guess you can expect at a halloween party. i like witch costumes because they’re so basically halloweeny. how come nobody’s ever a pumpkin? mollie has a pumpkin hat but she’s not very happy to wear it.

this is bill and karen. bat. and robin. very clever idea. this was bill’s FIRST costume-wearing experience, and he walked off with 1st runner-up in the people’s choice costume contest. karen got 2nd runner up. they were tired and wanted to leave early, but i forced them to stay because i knew they were going to get a prize.



here’s jim and amy and randy. jim was charlie brown; when he arrived, he wore a charlie brown costume - a sheet with holes cut all over it. but he quickly abandoned the sheet and i think it’s in the garage now. amy was a spectacular disco queen. and randy, mr. bananas foster.



here’s david, who was also a disco person. my BROTHER david, mind you...when he arrived, my dad said to me, “who’s the guy with the black hair?” IT’S YOUR SON.



here’s troy, who won sexiest costume (he tied with bev, and i wish i had a good photo of her), plus he got 3rd runner-up in the people’s choice.



troy was young paris hilton. older paris was also there. this is paul with his wife myuki, and their ACTUAL LITTLE BITTY DOG. paul called during the party to ask if it was ok if he brought his dog, and a lot was going on and the conversation was a little confusing, but it turned out fine and everybody loved the little bitty dog. especially mollie.



mollie had the time of her life at the party, as you might imagine. she followed people around and stared pitifully at them and was given many many pieces of most food. at one point apparently she managed to snag a cupcake with CHOCOLATE FROSTING and people kept reporting this to me, but mollie didn’t have any ill-effects. but then jonelle gave her one little bit of peda bread and suddenly mollie was hacking and choking and i thought we wee going to have to do the heimlich maneuver on her. we took off her purple cape, and kevin petted her...and then she settled down and went back to begging for food. a very, very exciting night for her.

here’s bill and linda. linda’s costume was VERY sexy, but you can’t tell from this photo. she wore a little bitty short black dress, definitely the sexiest witch at the party. hmm, maybe next year we should have a sexy witch award.



this is gena and tim, a very cute couple, who got one of the two “cutest couple” awards. gena is in fencing, and her husband tim is one of the sweetest men i’ve met. aside from my husband, of course.



and here’s erica, looking lovely as usual. i don’t recall ever actually talking to erica during the party, which is a shame. i hope she had fun. at one point she was crowded into the little hallway with some people, and i hope that was entertaining.



here are the germanns, always looking good. i can’t remember the funny name that gary called himself. i can’t remember talking to them either. did i talk to anybody at all during the party? did i speak? did i try the punch?



ok, JUST ONE MORE photo of randy. he managed to be in many funny photos. did i take all the photos? i mean the ones with kevin’s camera, as opposed to the photos that bill took.

randy and linda. i think bill must have taken this.



damn, these photos are good, i guess i’ll just put up one more of randy. IT’S ALL ABOUT RANDY.



i really like this photo. that’s dave on the left. he got the award for most obscure costume. he kept saying “why did i get this?” and then he said he’d NEVER EVER WON ANYTHING BEFORE. and yet he left his award here. but he also couldn’t find his keys, and they were on the roof of this car.



there are still a few more photos i want to show you but i MUST STOP THIS RIGHT NOW.

all the halloween lights are lit up here in the house, and i could have a party right this minute if anybody stopped by. i’m wearing my fuzzy red pajamas, but i could always say that’s my costume. i think that would be a GREAT costume, as a matter of fact.

last year i thought kevin and i should have been an old married couple - dressed in pajamas and robes, and i could have put curlers in my hair. it would have been funny because at that point we’d only been married a little over a month.

and now, we ARE an old married couple!

enough already. more soon.

goodnight,

monday grace.

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HALLOWEEN PHOTOS! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 6:15 pm
this is in response to aunt sandy’s FRANTIC PLEA for photos. it would be nice to have a long, uninterrupted time to put up lots and lots of photos. for example, some people think that we’re still in austria, or we just came back. seeing as how i’ve only managed to post photos from the first couple of days.

anyway, i took lots of pictures before the party started, to give you an idea of the depth and breadth of the extreme halloween decorating.

first, here are the cupcakes that i spent three hours decorating.



they were quite delicious, by the way. still are, as a matter of fact - i think there are about five left. plus maybe four spider cupcakes, which i have no desire to eat because of all the licorice. i’m thinking of giving them away to a neighbor child.

here’s the table loaded with most of the food.



because more people showed up that i anticipated, i spent too much of the party time trying to replenish the food. next year, i’m going to pile gobs of it out at the beginning. it was a struggle just to get from the fridge to the table because of the many many people standing around in the kitchen.

i have to figure out a way to make the party less about serving stuff.

here’s a good shot of the living room.



and this is all the stuff piled on top of the turntable.



this is my favorite table; it used to be my grandmother’s. last year i covered it with a round piece of wood and covered that with a table cloth, but i really didn’t want to cover it this time. so instead i spent the night FREAKING OUT every time somebody set their drink RIGHT DOWN ON THE TABLE WITH NO COASTER. the table has lots of incredible inlay on it, and next year i guess i’ll have to cover it up again in order to have one less thing to be frazzled about.



i hung these ghosts all down the hall after kevin bought them on one of our many trips to buy yet more halloween stuff.



we have a whole house fan, and when you turn it on it blows REALLY HARD, sucking all the air in from outside and sucking the hot air from the house up into the roof or something. so anyway, when it’s on, it sucks air up right there in the hall so when we first turned it on it sucked one of the ghosts right up. then it just looked funny, like the ghosts were flying around.



ok, here are your charming party hosts.



YOU’RE RIGHT, KEVIN HAS NO MOUSTACHE.

maybe you didn’t notice. i don’t think anybody at the party noticed, i guess because he did, indeed, look like quite a geek. and i was a prom queen, in case you can’t read the sash.

and here’s us with our beautiful dog. she wore a purple cape, but it doesn’t show up so much.



i only have time for ONE MORE PHOTO. randy and roger ruth. randy wasn’t JUST a banana...he carried a can of foster’s beer.

BANANAS FOSTER, GET IT?

apparently, people at the party did get it because he won the GRAND PRIZE in the people’s choice awards.

roger was a nun. one of two nuns at the party.



ok that’s all i have time for now.

MANY MANY MORE PHOTOS TO COME. I PROMISE.

grace.




Oct. 28, 2007

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STILL MORE stupidity, [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 6:34 pm

this time on the local level, right here in spfld. there’s an article in today’s paper about a guy who the city is paying $164,000 to rid downtown of pigeons and starlings.

this was apparently all the mayor’s idea.

the thing is, how does the guy do it?

MAGIC, of course.

he DOES NOT USE POISON AND HE DOESN’T SHOOT THEM.

we know this because the guy said he doesn’t.

well then, how does he rid places of birds?

BECAUSE HE’S A BIRD WHISPERER. HE WHISPERS SOMETHING TO THE BIRDS AND THEY ALL LEAVE.

we don’t know exactly how he works his magic because THE MAYOR SAYS IT’S A SECRET.

secret magic, see. RIGHT HERE IN SPRINGFIELD.

SECRET.

MAGIC.

also just in time for halloween.

the amazing thing is the amount of money they’re paying the guy for his SECRET MAGIC.

oh yeah, the guy does have a license to use a special anti-bird pesticide. and he HAS SOME AT HIS COMPANY.

but he says he has the licens IN CASE HE WANTS TO KILL SOME TERMITES.

please tell me WOULDN’T YOU USE A DIFFERENT KIND OF POISON TO KILL THE TERMITES? TERMITE POISON, PERHAPS?

i’m feeling awfully curmudgeony and generally annoyed with the human race at large at the moment, no reason at all why.

we finally cleaned up all the halloween party debris, and i started taking down the halloween decorations but then i said to myself, GRACE! HALLOWEEN ISN’T UNTIL WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31ST!

it’s kind of like taking down the xmas tree before xmas.

so i quit taking down the decorations and we now just have a clean and lovely and well-decorated house. we might as well throw another party because there’s quite a bit of brie and dill havarti left. also a few cupcakes, but they’re going fast. mysteriously disappearing.

BECAUSE I’M A CUPCAKE WHISPERER.

ok ok ok,

still grace.

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what, exactly, was FEMA thinking? [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 3:43 pm

last night i was perusing the paper because saturday night live didn’t seem funny at all, and i had to read one story twice. apparently, on friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency held a phony news conference about assistance to victims of the wildfires blazing in southern california.

what? why would they do this? i guess they were uncomfortable there at FEMA about all the bad press they got regarding their lack of taking care of hurrican katrina victims. so, somebody at FEMA decided they’d hold a PRETEND news conference, filled with easy questions for FEMA to answer, like “do you feel that FEMA is doing a good job?”

according to the story in the paper, FEMA only gave real, actual reporters 15 minutes notice about the “news conference.” because there was so little time, the agency gave reporters an 800 number to call. but they couldn’t ASK questions, they could only listen - to the PHONY reporters ask the easy questions. Maybe the FEMA reporters were celebrating halloween early and were all dressed as reporters.

it’s just so bizarre, isn’t it? i mean, for one thing, who thought up this stupid idea? “hey, let’s TRICK the real reporters into thinking that OTHER reporters are asking all the questions, and then they won’t ask us anything we might not be able to answer,” somebody must have said. maybe, though, this somebody was just KIDDING, maybe he or she had eaten too much candy corn and was on a serious sugar hight, but then others (also jonesing on too much halloween candy) heard the idea, and since they were clearly all panicked about the possibility of ANSWERING REAL QUESTIONS, they all jumped onboard.

so why didn’t anybody there at FEMA say, HELLO, PEOPLE, the real reporters probably have IQs over 50, and they’ll figure it out! or better yet, somebody could have said GEE, THIS SOUNDS A LITTLE UNETHICAL PLUS REALLY STUPID.

surely, surely, SOMEBODY at FEMA at least had thoughts like this. but clearly, the ones who were rational were all dressed at Marcel Marceau for halloween and so they couldn’t say anything at all.

here’s the statement that FEMA issued after they were found out. their goal was “to get information out as soon as possible, and in trying to do so we made an error in judgment. our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received. we can and must do better.”

the white house press secretary, dana perino, said she didn’t condone FEMA’s moronitude, and that this was something that she was sure that FEMA would not do again.

there was no mention of the "error in judgment in the paper today, so i guess everything must be all good at FEMA again; everybody there has had the whole weekend to get over their candy highs, hopefully they rested up and thought about their incredible stupidity, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll do better in the upcoming week.

not that i’m counting on it.

ok for now,

sunday grace.




Oct. 27, 2007

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINE! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 6:22 pm

she’s turning a MILESTONE YEAR today, and i hope she’s having fun. i offered to buy her a plane ticket to come visit us, but she’s not here yet. soon, hopefully.

i’ve known christine for many many years. 13, as a matter of fact. my ex-boyfriend, scott, recruited christine’s ex-husband blair to be the associate producer for my feature film “hope’s happy birthday.” scott and blair are now long gone, but christine and i have remained friends longer than i’ve managed to remain friends with most other people. we’ve both gone through LOTS AND LOTS of various kinds of emotional turmoil over the years, but i have great hope for this new decade in her life - the decade keeps getting better and better for me, and i have every confidence that theres hope for her, too.

the HUGE HALLOWEEN PARTY - was huger than ever before. this is the third one - there were some people at the first one, some more at the second, but this one was CRAZY BIG. it was so big that people actually MOVED OUT OF THE KITCHEN because there just wasn’t room for one more person in there unless they laid down in layers on the floor, and it wasn’t that kind of party, so they oozed into the living room and started dancing like crazy. there were people on the front porch and the back patio even though it was a cold and rainy night, and there was even a group hanging out in the front hall in front of the pantry. our front hall isn’t that small, except the little part near the pantry is pretty tiny, and yet they managed to squeeze in there somehow.

today...things aren’t so pretty here at home. we staggered out of bed at 9:30 this morning and i thought we had to go at fencing at 11...but kevin said “i have to give freddie a fencing lesson at 10.” oh my.

we rushed out the door and didn’t get back till late this afternoon, and there are still lots and lots of dirty dishes. i napped and kevin played his computer video game after collecting some of the various many cans and glasses and bottles.

we’re about to go out to dinner, and i certainly have no intention of cleaning when we get back - i could go to sleep right now, as a matter of fact.

tomorrow morning i’ll have energy to face the mess.

oh, and yes, there are many many good photos of the festivities. the 1.5 million people crammed into our little house.

ok ok ok,

saturday night grace.


Oct. 26, 2007

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PARTY TIME [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:46 am

well, not just yet, thank god. i still have quite a few things to do. bake bread. i have a list of things, but the list isn’t so bad.

ok, i do have a brownie issue. amy has a fabulous brownie recipe, it makes the most delicious chocolatey delicious chocolate brownies ever. i’ve never found a brownie recipe that’s as good as a boxed mix, but these are PERFECT. i made a recipe in a big round pan and kept checking it and it just didn’t seem done enough, so i baked it longer than the time. and then i cooled it and flipped it over...and it turned over with a loud THUNK.

BROWNIES SHOULD NEVER THUNK. it should be a pain to turn it over, it should be slightly underdone so it breaks up a little bit and has to be jammed back together and frosting it should be a little tricky because of the pieces of moist brownie clinging to the frosting.

but no, the frosting was easy because the flipped-over brownie was hard. i frosted it anyway, thinking the frosting would make it softer. it looks BEAUTIFUL now, with a white frosting spider web. i decided people wouldn’t care...but his morning i woke up and thought WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? so i’m going to make another one. because i just have to.

my friend gary sent me an idea for a halloween decoration from martha stewart, glow stick spiders. they look really cool and i thought I COULD MAKE THOSE.

but time’s up. NO MORE DECORATIONS.

I SOLEMNLY SWEAR NOT TO BUY ANY MORE DECORATIONS TODAY.

unless i find a big ceramic plate.

i keep saying that every day, and every day i buy something else. lately it’s not decorations so much, it’s halloween ceramic dishes. i really need a good-sized halloween plate (ok, ANOTHER halloween plate), but all i see are little one, so i buy those. so now i have quite a few small halloween plates. BUT THEY’RE VERY VERY CUTE plus everything now is on sale, because it’s TIME FOR THE XMAS DECORATIONS ALREADY, WHY ARE YOU WASTING YOUR TIME BUYING STUFF FOR HALLOWEEN?

i can’t imagine being this excited about the xmas decorations. maybe if we were having an xmas party. but no, it just wouldn’t be the same.

i also got an e-mail from allrecipes.com, with HALLOWEEN BAKING IDEAS. no no no, that’s all i have to say. last night i spent about three hours decorating a whole lot of halloween cupcakes. they’re very cute, i have to say, but at some point i thought “these cupcakes are really for kids, aren’t they?” what with the large amount of decorations. but then i decided i didn’t care.

but i made a bunch of cupcake spiders, but they required licorice legs. i bought a big bag of licorice - and it’s the wrong kind. i bought licorice VINES and i needed licorice ROPES. oh brother. i don’t usually ever buy licorice. i hope they sell licorice ropes at walgreens because i really don’t have time to spend the day hunting down licorice ropes. i have to make that new brownie.

“you could just forget about the licorice,” you might say. BUT THEN THEY’D JUST BE LEGLESS SPIDERS. they don’t even look like spiders without the licorice.

i have to go now. time is ticking.

ok ok ok,
friday morning grace.


Oct. 24, 2007

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SOMETHING REALLY FUNNY [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:31 pm

now, THIS should cheer you up! i hope it actually works. my aunt sandy sent it to me last week but i didn’t think i could post it...but i think here it is. you will especially like it if you have/like cats. if you HATE CATS, however, maybe you shouldn’t watch it. but i really think you should watch it because it’s SO FUNNY. and thanks again, sandy.

wake up!

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is anybody at all happy out there? [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:55 pm
when people tell me how they’re really feeling, it’s not happy. do people tell me how they’re really feeling more than they tell other people? do i attract unhappy people? or is every single person in the world miserable?

i hope not. it’s time to GET HAPPY, dammit.

take mollie’s lead. she’s very happy, after i gave her a piece of cupcake. oh yeah, and i let her lick the cupcake paper. because i was making cupcakes and i looked over at her and she was sitting there DROOLING LIKE CRAZY. so of course i had to give her a little cupcake.

have a cupcake, you’ll feel better.

not to diminish anybody’s pain.

but seriously, cupcakes can work wonders. mollie and i split a cupcake that hadn’t been out of the oven long, and it was very delicious, even without icing, and i’m usually all about the icing.

well, i’m DEFINITELY not going to post any of my photos from the concentration camp right now because that’s certainly not going to cheer anybody up.

cupcakes.

i believe i’ve finally officially stopped decorating for halloween. i put the push pins in the drawer. it seems that i have a little too many things to do between now and the party on friday, mostly cooking-type activities. lots of french bread-baking. brownies. more bread.

i made an ice hand for the punch. i also made a sash for my costume, and it looks better than i thought it would, but i can’t figure out the direction that the lettering should be going. I REALIZE this is a completely retarded statement, but i think i overdid it with the cooking and cleaning and decorating a little bit today, and it has made my brain (temporarily) shrink. when kevin gets home i’m sure he’ll help me with the lettering.

i saw an entire episode of “dancing with the stars” on monday, the one where MARIE OSMOND FAINTED. i guess it has been all over the news since then, and i’m just glad that i got to witness such an HISTORIC EVENT IN OUR LIVES.

randy gave me delicious italian beef for dinner, leftovers from his party on saturday night. it was a good party, but my favorite part was when amy dragged an enormous tree branch into the back yard - randy has a really cool fire pit table, and we brought some wood to burn(because we have everything, including random pieces of wood), and when it was gone, i guess randy told amy to go get some wood. that’s what she claims, anyway - i can’t imagine randy actually ordering amy to do anything, especially carrying this huge branch. but she staggered into the yard with it and kept the fire going for quite a while.

after the excitement of “dancing with the stars,” randy forced me to watch “pushing daisies,” which he said was really good...and it was. really good. so good that i remembered to tape it tonight (well, he also called me and reminded me that it was on tonight) and maybe kevin and i will watch it when he gets home. but that’s in an hour, will i still be up in an hour?

i can’t go anywhere or do anything right now because honey is snuggled up next to me in the chair. i know it’s because of all the heat being generated by the laptop, but still, she is a kitty who rarely sits anywhere near anybody. she’s purring a lot and only tried to bite me once.

“pushing daisies,” it’s a fun, quirky show that’s different than anything i can think of.

soon i will become a tv addict.

ok already,

wednesday night grace.


Oct. 23, 2007

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morning in linz [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:13 am

the third day of our trip, we started out by walking our bikes over to the linz palace museum. much of it was closed, under construction, but we managed to see a lot of weapons and musical instruments.







i’m pretty sure this particular piano has something to do with mozart. i bet he played it.



we’re about to head out. the funny thing is, we were in the museum for a couple of hours, and kevin was taking lots of photos and i was videotaping, and near the end, a guy came around and told us we couldn’t take any photos. luckily he waited til the end. i don’t think there were any other people in the museum that morning except for us. this was also true the night before, when we’d taken the train up to the postlingberg mountain. not lots of people sitting around in the many cafes.



kevin took about three photos of this particular statue, so he must have liked it.



and then we started riding...when we entered linz we had to cross a busy bridge, and in the morning it wasn’t so busy. but it was still weird, riding right next to the cars and trucks. there was a bike lane, and the vehicles always respected it.

getting out of linz was much better than our ride in. we were over on the left bank of the river, and the bike path was free of traffic...and of bikes.

here’s a photo when we left the town of steyregg, which i can’t remember at all. i remember the sign, i mean, but not the town. we probably didn’t actually go into the town. the bike path didn’t actually go into the town, but hugged the river.



this wasn’t the most scenic day we had. i remember we stopped at a grocery store in a little town to buy drinks. it was fun to look around in the grocery store, but we tried not to spend all day there because we had miles to go.

this is the day we went to the mauthausen concentration camp. it was really a gut-wrenching experience. kevin took a few photos, which i’ll post next time.

“next time,” in theory, anyway.

ok then,

chilly tuesday morning grace.


Oct. 22, 2007

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right now... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 4:26 am

it’s 60 degrees. going to get more chilly, and then it may rain.

on one of my favorite shows, “as time goes by,” the british sitcom, there’s this one kind of kooky character who always announces the weather conditions in the english channel when she enters the room. perhaps that’s what i’ll start doing.

hi, it’s 60 degrees with a 50% chance of rain, but not till later this afternoon.

the question is though, really, why am i awake at four in the morning? i couldn’t sleep and decided it would be a good idea to get up.

perhaps this wasn’t the wisest choice, because now i feel more wide awake than ever.

winnie the cat is lying next to me here on the chair, except he doesn’t fit so well but he seems perfectly content to be squished up next to me. i think part of the appeal is the warm air blowing out of the side of the computer.

last night i watched an entire episode of masterpiece theater. it didn’t seem like it should actually be masterpiece theater, because i thought that was always a bunch of shows about things way back when. but i could be totally wrong about that since i never watch it. it was called “the incredible mrs. pritchard,” about a grocery store manager who becomes prime minister. it stars jane horrocks, a wonderful actress who was in the little-seen movie “little voice.” she was also the crazy secretary Bubble in “absolutely fabulous.”

the show lasted two whole hours, a very long time to just sit down and watch something. next week it’ll only be an hour. i liked it a lot. and a good thing about it is that it’s only five episodes, so i don’t have to be tied down to watching every week, week in and week out. randy and bev have some shows that they MUST WATCH OR THEY’LL DIE, and that would be too much of a burden. i realize that many many people have shows like this, not just randy and bev, but they affect me, personally, because sometimes THEY CAN’T DO ANYTHING BECAUSE THEY MUST WATCH THEIR SHOWS.

i really really need to get back to sleep now.

goodnight.
gh


Oct. 21, 2007

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austria... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:13 pm

it was eighty degrees here today, i believe, fyi. but by the end of the week, the rumor is that fall-like weather is actually going to begin.

ok, i realize that it’s been almost a week since i’ve written about austria - when i left off, we’d arrived at our very very tiny room in the hotel in linz. we got out of the room and headed up the mountain, the polstingburg. first, we saw an elk.

an elk?

a deer with horns. a reindeer?

no, not a reindeer.



the view of the city was great from on top of the mountain, except it was getting dark quickly.



also, i was very very tired because the night before i couldn’t sleep and was up for four hours. plus i was very very hungry. so we stopped at the very first little place we saw at the top of the mountain, and had a very delicious dinner. kevin took a picture of us.



it seemed silly to me that kevin was documenting the dinner, but now i wish he’d taken a picture at every place we had a meal. what better way to remember how good it was? because almost all of them were very, very good.

kevin had very delicious spaetzle, which is a kind of german noodle, sort of. i had a great platter of cheese and meat and bread, plus a glass of sturm. have i written about sturm? it’s wine that isn’t entirely wine yet, and it’s only available right after they make the grapes into the wine, in the fall. it’s kind of like hard cider. you kind of pronounce it “storm,” except no matter how i said it, i always had to say it a bunch of times before the person taking my order’s face lit up in recognition.

the meal revived me, and we went to look at the church on the hill.



we went inside, and there was a service going on, so we tried not to be boisterous or disruptive. we didn’t stay there long, and went back out where it was getting chilly.

one more great view.



there was this place on the mountain that i really wanted to see - it was called the Grottenbahn am Postlingberg, and described as a “fairy-tale world for children and adults, whith stories of dwarfs, giants and enchanted princesses.” i feel that from the description it was something that walt disney looked at when planning disneyworld. but it was closed. before we went up the mountain i knew it would be closed, but at least we were near it. next time we’ll go during operating hours. here’s the sign outside the grottenbahn.



we saw another deer with antlers inside a fenced-in area, and a girl standing outside the fence was reaching in petting the deer. very tame.

we took the train back down the mountain - it was an old wooden very historical train, by the way - and kevin saw a GIANT HARE by the tracks. maybe on the tracks. it was ENORMOUS. as big as mollie, our dog. mollie would have been very excited about seeing it.

i missed it, unfortunately.

we got back into linz and there was the Lentos Kuntsmuseum in front of us. it’s a modern art museum made of glass, and at night it’s lit to look different colors. we weren’t going to go in (too tired) but then we decided we might as well. i’d read that they had a lot of klimt art there.

here’s a photo of the museum.



we went in and it was ultra-modern and kind of empty and we asked about klimpt artworks and the woman kind of looked like we were a little crazy, and she asked others working there about klimt. and finally she took us to one measly little black and white sketch. we were disappointed, but we looked around. then we realized that we didn’t like any of the other artwork, so we left. we were probably there about 15 minutes altogether.

outside was a river cruise boat docked for the night, and scads of american tourists were suddenly all over the place. it was a little horrific, even though we really hadn’t been away from home very long. they were older, well-heeled, and they immediately all annoyed me a lot. “bunch of lazy rich pompous americans,” i thought to myself.

we walked down the main street of linz, which was very quiet now, and sat outside at a cafe and had a drink. they were setting up for a huge oktoberfest the next day, and we watched a guy backing a big truck pulling a van. he kept going back and forth, back and forth, and we waited for him to crash into something, but somehow he didn’t.

here’s the street, all lit up, but not a lot of people around, except for the random annoying american tourist.



and here’s our drinks.



and that was it for linz on only our second day of biking.

in the morning we got up and walked our bikes to the linz palace museum.

but right now i have to go to sleep.

HALLOWEEEN IS FAST APPROACHING. or at least our GREAT BIG HALLOWEEN PARTY.

many many things to do this week.

ok ok ok,

sunday night grace.



Oct. 18, 2007

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thursday night... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:11 pm

erica and i went to dinner and then to world market where i did not buy ONE SINGLE HALLOWEEN ITEM. and then to barnes-n-noble, where i BOUGHT ONE XMAS GIFT! which is quite extraordinary for me. i’ve never bought an xmas gift before november, and really, lately, i haven’t bought any before december. sometimes not till the middle of the month.

anyway, my aunt sandy sent me an hysterically funny video, but i have no way of posting it here. there actually probably is some way, but it’s beyond my scope of knowledge of posting, which is very small knowledge anyway.

maybe i should take a class.

however, she did send me some funny dog costume photos. i remember that she sent a bunch last year, and once again there are some good ones. maybe you’ve already seen them all.

this one is my favorite.



well, maybe it’s not actually my favorite but it is because i love harry potter and this is, of course, that three-headed dog from book...one, maybe?

this dog is also very cute.



and this one - what a crazy, crazy outfit. the dog doesn’t seem terribly pleased, does it?



tonight i had mollie try on her pumpkin cap for erica, but after seeing these elaborately decked out canines, i realize we have a log way to go.

maybe next year.




Oct. 17, 2007

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AGREEMENT ON YARD WASTE REACHED! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:48 pm

that was the headline in today’s springfield paper. i added the exclamation point, because that’s just how passionate i feel about the YARD WASTE AGREEMENT!

ok, i admit that i don’t even know anything at all about this VERY VERY IMPORTANT STORY. i will never ever get a good citizen award, at the rate i’m going.

but i just wanted you to know, in case you don’t live here in spfld, the kinds of EARTH-SHATTERING HAPPENINGS that are going on each and every day here.

kevin and mollie and i just got back from two nights of house-sitting at amy and jim’s. pet-sitting, actually. three dogs, two of whom are fairly rambunctious but a lot better than they used to be, and one adorable little fellow, shadow, who has no teeth left yet still managed to eat crunchy dog treats. oh, and four cats.

amy left me two pages of typed notes on how to feed and care for the pets. a big part of it was about feeding the dogs; numie and noodle each got two cups of dog food, plus a half-cup of dry dog food, and shadow got one cup mixed with half a liquid pill. this is homemade dog food that amy makes in gigantic portions, mind you. i had to microwave it for seven minutes at 30% power, and then all the mixing and dividing-up and then numie had to eat in the bathroom, shadow in the laundry room, while noodle ate in the kitchen.

mollie was there too, of course, and she wolfed down her half can of dog food wherever she felt like it.

and then there was the cat feeding, including special instructions for poor Mr. Kitty, the most affectionate and sweet kitty i’ve ever met, who has a serious liver problem and probably won’t live much longer. he now pees on everything so he’s only allowed inside to eat, and then he must go back out. luckily they have a heated dog house for him to stay in. he’s also allowed to sleep downstairs in the basement but only if someone is there to make sure he doesn’t get upstairs and start another peeing rampage.

all of this was merely a portion of the instructions. the dogs had to be walked a lot, and shadow was supposed to have salve massaged into his paw and then he was supposed to wear a little bootie over the paw. but he wasn’t crazy about the bootie. he kicked it off almost immediately.

we’re all kind of tired after all the pet-sitting. mollie is ECSTATIC to be the only dog again. whatever will she do if we decide to get another dog? she’ll sulk, that’s what. we sat on amy and jim’s couch and the dogs all joined us, but if any dog sat next to mollie she would jump down and sit on the floor looking up at us, very very sadly.

the kitties stayed and mom and dad’s house which worked out well except they HATE going in the car so much and this time i decided to just throw them in the car without their carrier and spent the ride over there worried that they were going to climb under the gas pedal and cause a huge accident. but then were ok aside from the perpetual meowing.

once they got there, they were fine. they’re even better now, crashed out on the couch, happy to be home.

ok then, i hope you can rest easier tonight, knowing that an agreement on yard waste has finally been reached.

very concerned grace.


Oct. 15, 2007

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monday, continuing down the danube bike path... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:56 am
and we haven’t gotten any farther than we were the last time i posted some photos. this continues to be this same pretty spot, where we went crazy taking photos and video.



i’d just shot some video, but then i saw a cruise boat coming, so i told kevin we had to STAY THERE SO HE COULD TAKE A PICTURE.



there weren’t a lot of people on the boat, and they were all looking over at the other side of the river, the place where we, too, had been taking many photos. there were maybe four people up on the deck.

and here, i decided that i finally needed to tear myself away from taking the video and get back on my bike.



we didn’t get very far, though. after the bend in the river, we came upon a restaurant/guesthouse/campground that was BEAUTIFUL. i wrote about it before, the place that was so idyllic but i didn’t even realize it until i thought about it later. it’s called the gasthaus kaiserhof, and i just spent a long time looking it up online but i just can’t find it. i sort of found a link to the camping part of the place, and i did find a gasthaus kaiserhof in austria, but it was a different one.

anyway, it was lovely. across the river was the Neuhaus castle. according to our guide map, this castle is one of the largest in the upper Austrian Danube valley, and includes handsome Renaissance structures that are occupied to this day. hmm, the place didn’t look occupied at all.



we finally left, except i wish we could have stayed there til this day. instead we kept riding and the scenery wasn’t quite as spectacular. but not bad, really.



we were headed for a ferry to get to the other side, and this is the entrance to it.



while we waited for the ferry, there was a little house that looked like an ATM, except it had a sign that there was FREE INTERNET ACCESS right there, and i played with it till the ferry came, but couldn’t ever get it to go where i wanted it to. if i had, of course, i’d have written on here, but there was just too much instruction in german.

we crossed to the left bank to a town called Ottensheim, and there were a bunch of things listed in our book about the town. it’s funny; there were always little listings for the places we went past, but we rarely had any interest in seeing the stuff. in Ottensheim, for example, there was a church (there was always a church), and a castle (usually a castle, too). didn’t see the church. didn’t care, we just wanted to bike.

hmm, i’m reading the guide map now and it says there was a “fish study trail,” on the shore trail, with 84 signs which describe native fish species and habitat. we did actually see that, because there were, indeed, pictures of fish on signs all along the trail. so at least we saw SOMETHING in the book. besides all the nature everywhere.

this is what the trail looked like as we headed out of Ottensheim.



things started out very pretty, but as we got closer to the city of Linz, it started to get crowded. not ugly, really, but we were suddenly right next to a main road with lots and lots of cars on it. we were completely safe, up on the bike trail, but right next to the road. this was one of the most unpleasant rides. it didn’t last very long; the road from Ottensheim to Linz was only 9.5 kilometers, which is a mere 5.9 miles, and it didn’t get bad till the last few miles.

there weren’t a lot of other bikes, per usual, but i was in front and i passed a woman. quite a bit ahead of her was a little kid, maybe eight years old, furiously pedalling his little bike. as i passed him, he valiantly tried to keep up with me, which i thought was funny. but at the same time i couldn’t believe that his mom let this kid ride way ahead of her on this busy stretch, and he wore no helmet.

then, though, kevin shouted out at me KEEP GOING! because after i passed the kid, kevin tried to pass him, but the kid tried even harder to keep up...and there was a bike coming from the other direction toward us.

crazy little austrian kid.

we managed to get into Linz ok, but it wasn’t fun. we crossed the bridge, which was unnerving because it’s a major bridge and there we were, right alongside the cars.

i read that linz is an “overlooked gem,” but we weren’t crazy about it. first of all, once we got into the city, there were tons of people everywhere; it was so crowded with people that we had to get off our bikes and walk. i had what i thought was a pretty good map of the hotel, but it took a while to find it.

and when we did...well, it looked ok from the outside. but inside, our room was the tiniest room we had on the trip. there was barely room to set our two suitcases on the floor. it was dark, with a view of the air shaft in the middle of the place, and the room across from us was about three feet away. for some reason, on the website this hotel was called an “adventure hotel.” it claimed to have different, recently-renovated “theme” rooms. i feel that our room had no theme except for the excitement of trying to have space to turn around in.

we showered and quickly left the room in order to overcome the claustrophobia. i’d read about the Postlingberg, a mountain on the edge of town, and wanted to go to the top.

and more about that later...

ok then, i hope your monday morning is going well.

grace


Oct. 14, 2007

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sunday night, and here’s mark and molly and ann on the tv... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:15 pm

my friend ann sent me an e-mail a few days ago about different bluegrass groups performing on channel 4, public access tv, and i read the e-mail this afternoon and made a note of it...and then promptly forgot all about it. but i just turned on the light which is the same switch as the tv and the tv went on and THERE WERE MARK AND MOLLY MATHEWSON AS WELL AS ANN BOVA. how’s that for perfect timing?

perfect, i’d have to say. it’s just like they’re here in my living room performing.

i was going to call this posting FALLING DOWN because that has been the theme for the past few days.

friday evening, about five o'clock, i was having some difficulty with a cheesecake i was baking, and kevin called. “i’m ok, don’t worry, but i’m on the way to the hospital,” he said.

WHAT????!!!

he went to work at three in the afternoon, and before the hour had passed he tripped on a bunch of wires or on some kind of electric box thing they had put on the floor because they were re-doing the office. NOT A GOOD PLACE FOR THE WIRES AND THE BOXES.

i’m the one in the family who trips, not kevin. i am called grace, which used to be ironic because of all the times i’m tripping and falling, but my klutzyness has just become a way of life for me.

but kevin, he is much more light on his feet. he doesn’t fall down, not ever. doesn’t even trip and catch himself, which i do daily. so you see that obviously, the people putting all the stuff all over the floor in his office were very stupid.

kevin said he was going to the emergency room, his hand was numb and his knee hurt. but don’t worry, rick was driving him, it would be fine...

so i continued to have issues with my cheesecake which was turning into a blackened cheesecake, and things were ok for a while...but then suddenly it had been a hour and a half and WHAT WAS GOING ON? did he break his wrist? his leg?

he finally called. no broken bones. it was actually his elbow that was banged up, but it would be ok. his knee, also just badly banged up, no bones broken. he wanted me to come pick him up. ok, i’ll be at the emergency room in a minute, i said.

no, he said, i didn’t like it there, too many unsavory people loitering. i’m walking down the street, he said.

WHY ARE YOU WALKING DOWN THE STREET WHEN YOU HURT YOUR LEG?

kevin isn’t very good at sitting still. he could have gone to the hospital cafeteria, but i didn’t think to tell him that, i was in too much of a hurry to find him, wandering around downtown like a homeless person.

i picked him up and drove him home and then drove to the drugstore to get him the prescription drugs to stop the pain.

we were going to go to the katy trail over the weekend, but that was out. the note he got from the emergency room said DO NOTHING FOR 48 HOURS.

damn.

it has now been 48 hours, and i do have to say kevin is quite bad at doing nothing. today we went to menard’s and walked around a little but not too much, and i guess that wasn’t so bad, but then i was stringing halloween lights all around the outside of the house, and in order to connect them in the garage he CLIMBED UP ON HIS MOTORCYCLE to drape the extension cord. i don’t think standing up on the motorcycle qualifies as doing nothing. he said it was ok because his knee was already swollen and painful at that point, so it didn’t matter. somehow i find fault with his logic.

he did do some nothing, but not enough. he’s sleeping now, which is good, because he’s doing absolutely nothing.

i think i’m finished with putting up halloween decorations because all i have left now are two bags of that stupid spider web stuff and i already put some of it up and i hate it.

we had the blackened cheesecake last night and it was good despite the black color of the top.

i re-scheduled our trip for mid-november. the lady at the b&b where i’d made the reservation was very nice, especially considering how anxious i was about calling her to tell her that we weren’t coming and could we please re-schedule even though it says on the website that you can’t do that at all? i’ve always hated calling people on the phone, and i probably always will.

to add to the general pain level of the weekend, i woke up yesterday morning with an incredibly painful neck. slept on it wrong. i decided to ignore it, and went running yesterday. last night i woke up and thought i was going to die of the pain. this morning it was no better. so i didn’t run today, and i just took three motrin. perhaps it will be all better tomorrow.

it has become summer again, and it’s nice that it’s back. it was eighty today, i think. a lovely day, perfect for hanging halloween lights outside. plus i mowed and trimmed and pulled weeds. a busy sunday, pretty much.

we’ve watched a couple of episodes of “american idol rewind,” which are different auditions they had in various cities. tonight’s was atlanta 2002, and it included clay aiken. it’s kind of fun to watch them, and maybe we’ll even watch some of the actual show, which doesn’t start til january. that sees like a very long time from now.

this is the 7th season. i remember when my friend kelly was obsessed with watching it. that was quite a few years ago - i bet she still watches it. she sent me a photo the other day, of her and her daughter waiting to see the queen. of england. kelly looked very nice, with fancy pointy shoes, but she said that because she wasn’t wearing a dress and a hat, the queen didn’t acknowledge her existence. that seems like a shame. but on the other hand, she did get a really good shot of the queen. kelly must be very important, to have gotten that close to take such a photo.

ok, here it is.



and here’s kelly with her pointy shoes.



i have SO MANY PHOTOS of our bike trip to austria. at least this morning i wrote down a lot of them that i have to shrink down to put on here.

right now there’s this great show on tv again, i’ve mentioned it before, it’s on c-span, the british house of commons. it’s the actual, real house of commons, but it doesn’t seem like it could be real. the house of commons is doing a lot of cheering and laughing and they seem to be ridiculing poor gordon brown quite a bit...i keep trying to imagine our government being like this. our government is so incredibly boring in comparison, at least the snippets i’ve seen on tv.

gordon brown (the prime minister) is debating the inheritance tax with the conservative party leader, and they’re all laughing and jeering and brown and then the conservative leader take turns leaping to their feet to debate. fascinating, really.

sunday night, already mid-october. how did that happen?

ok then, goodnight,

october grace.




Oct. 11, 2007

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sitting around waiting for the party to begin... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:47 pm

i guess maybe i’ve had a little too much time on my hands this week. suddenly the house is pretty darn clean, and very well-decorated. tonight i turned on the halloween lights and they look very good-n-festive and i’m now ready for the party to start.

i have a couple of weeks to wait.

i can’t imagine the house staying clean that long.

i almost completely stopped buying more decorations yesterday, but then i bought a couple more today. but THAT’S ALL.

probably.

no guarantees.

except that mostly all there is now is XMAS STUFF EVERYWHERE.

it finally got cold yesterday. i guess “cold” is a slight overstatement. i think it got up to 60, but it was very windy. mollie and i finally went running at about one o'clock in the afternoon, but it hadn’t warmed up much by then. she was very very happy to run in cooler weather. it was a pretty good run for both of us.

but when i got home i realized it was CHILLY in the house. but it wasn’t actually chilly; it was 72 degrees. which felt CHILLY to me. i really wanted to turn on the furnace but that would have been crazy.

as the summer dragged on into october, i kept thinking i was going to enjoy the cooler weather when it finally came; i’d sit around in warm&fuzzy clothes drinking hot chocolate. but i didn’t think about the house being cold.

not cold, really.

i’m just used to it being pretty warm around here.

i did make some delicious hot chocolate last night. tonight, too.

and right now i’m sitting here in my new red flannel pajamas with pictures of cartoon dogs on them. they’re very cute and very warm. i feel good, but also very wimpy.

it’s like when i went to christine’s house one evening when we were both living in LA, and she lit a roaring fire in her fireplace...and i think the temperature was down to 55. brrr, we were cold. very wimpy, living in LA. not like the tough women we’ve become - last year i lived through mounds and mountains of snow here in spfld, and she did the same in denver.

it’s supposed to be 80 degrees this weekend when kevin and i are going biking on the katy trail in missouri. so much for the cold weather.

honey has started climbing up on the roof. we think she climbs the ladder that has been leaning against it all summer because kevin has been putting on new shingles, except he’s paused in his efforts for a couple of months now. but it’s almost done.

she seems to be very fond of climbing on the roof.

i bought a new bag of buns today to replace the ones that mollie devoured. she looked longingly at the new package, but had to be content with doggie treats.

we’re going out to dinner on saturday night to celebrate my parents' wedding anniversary. they’ve been married many many years and i don’t recall ever actually remembering their anniversary. so this year we’re going to try to make up for those many many years of forgetting by taking them to dinner.

i really must go to sleep now.

ok then,

thursday night grace.


Oct. 09, 2007

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p.s. GO SEE "THE SPITFIRE GRILL" [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:08 pm

oh yeah, i forgot to mention, GO SEE “THE SPITFIRE GRILL.” please. we went to see it on sunday at the theatre centre and it was really well done except the attendance was exceedingly poor. molly mathewson, except in the program she calls herself amelia, is incredibly, incredibly good and it’s worth it just to hear her sing. but the whole thing is good, including a set that might as well be on broadway. it’s simple yet really really well done. there aren’t many sets that good around here.

and also, i don’t find a lot of local plays really worth mentioning. i hate to say negative things about plays because i’m sure there is somebody who would find the mediocre or bad ones good, plus it’s community theater and local theater needs all the help it can get. so mostly i just don’t write anything about the plays i’m not so crazy about.

BUT GO SEE THE SPITFIRE GRILL.

it’s running this weekend, one last chance to see it, thursday through sunday. GO SEE IT.

YES, I’M TALKING TO YOU, RANDY DUNHAM.

he won’t. but YOU SHOULD GO. i didn’t even want to go; i didn’t feel like trying to look presentable on a sunday afternoon; we’d just taken a two-hour bike ride and i was starting to realize i was tired, and i figured at least it would be a chance to sit down for a while.

but it was GREAT. entertaining, good music, the orchestra was quite good. people who have done a lot of theater - pat pennington, andy vandervort - did a fine job, plus people i’d never seen onstage were also good, especially donna regan. i feel that’s not the correct spelling of her name. but she was good.

tonight when i got home, all that was left of a newly-purchased bag of hot dog buns was the shredded bag. MOLLIE STRUCK AGAIN.

and yet she was milling about, sniffing, looking expectantly at me, hoping for MORE FOOD.

ok, that really is all this tuesday night. but i PROMISE i won’t wait an entire week to write again.

ok ok ok,
gh

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tuesday again? [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:42 pm
i’m not quite sure how that happened. must write more. be more consistent. be a better person. not so lazy. blah blah blah. periodically i do realize that if i just somehow make the voices in my head SHUT UP, i’d be a lot happier. those voices in my head, they’re just so relentless and so nagging.

except when they’re saying, “let’s just do absolutely nothing today, ok?”

so, where has the week gone? lots of time spent putting up halloween decorations. i remember the first halloween party we had, four years ago i guess, and i waited until the day of the party to put up the decorations. waaaay too much pressure. this, our third year of having a party, finds me with waaaay more decorations, but i already have quite a bit of them up.

how am i going to post all the bike trip photos? plus, i’m assuming we’ll take at least one camera this weekend when we go on the katy trail, and then there will be those photos to put up, too. except i started checking the weather and there’s a very good chance of rain one day.

oh well.

the last time i posted a photo, it was our second day of biking, we’d just left the absurdly small “town” of schlogen.

i think i mentioned that this was one of the most beautiful parts of the trip. the woods, the river, the sparkling sun. i keep thinking about how different it would have been in the summer, crowded with other bikers...or if it had been raining, like the week before we went.



you probably can’t read the sign in this picture, unless you have a GIGANTIC screen. it reads “treppelweg,” which means, well, i think it means the walking path. i tried looking it up and translated a page on wikipedia, and this is part of the lengthy definition:
Flax path, also Treidelpfad, in Saxonia Bomätscherpfad (Bomät compared), in Austria Treppelweg, one called a way to work directly at the river bank, which was put on, thus humans and course animals (for example horses) wooden cargo ships river upward to pull could. Also on the bank of channels are such ways. The ships were connected by a rope („line “) with the Treidelpferden and Treidlern going on the flax paths. One called the procedure treideln.

huh.



we stopped to take pictures and video.







there are all taken at this one little place on the river. we finally stopped (after not really going very far anyway) and kevin had a coffee and i had a mineral water. we were at this cafe that had an outdoor seating area on the second floor and this is the place that i think of the most when i think about our trip. i loved this place, it was cute and the day was perfect and the view was spectacular - and i didn’t realize just how ideal it was until i had some time afterwards to think about it.

this is obviously a deep and important lesson to think about in life as we know it.

i would take the time right this very minute to contemplate this, but i just made some banana bread and i need to eat a piece. i tried adding chocolate/peanut butter chips to it, and i’m sure i’ll find that there just aren’t enough chips.

ok then,
grace


Oct. 02, 2007

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p.s. [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:02 pm

the only problem with photos of me on the trip is that most of the time i look like a totally big dork with my yellow biking jacket and helmet and very clingy bike pants. not my best look.

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tornadoes? [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:00 pm

i never, ever worried about tornadoes. because they never touched down.

UNTIL LAST YEAR. a few blocks from our house. the tornado ripped the roof right off a house and they had to tear it down.

now i’m a little more edgy about tornadoes.

we’re just having a watch, not a warning right now, so i guess it’s ok. but they say there was a tornado warning in waverly, which isn’t far from here.

winnie the cat insisted upon going outside. “you’ll get swept away by the tornado,” i admonished him. he listened not and fled off into the night.

he’s back inside now, kind of soggy, as is honey, who is lying on the pillow right next to me.

mollie is sleeping in one of her many beds on the floor.

i gave her a second treat tonight because of the possibility of the tornado.

we’d have to all crowd into the bathroom if there was a tornado, because of our lack of basement. mollie, i know, would REFUSE to go in the bathroom because she’d be afraid i was going to give her a bath.

let’s just say it’s not going to happen.

it would be nice if fall were here. i don’t believe i’ve ever thought like this in my entire life. but i’m sick of the hot days. plus it’s too late in the year to continue to get mosquito bites. there’s at least one mosquito in the house now and it continue to chomp on me.

ok, a few more photos of our trip. this was still the very first day of biking, as we headed towards our hotel for the night, the hotel donauschlinge. it was in the town of schlogen, which wasn’t really a town at all. the town consisted of our hotel (a lovely place), a very nice rv campground, a marina, and another smaller hotel.

we’d been biking along the left bank and in order to cross the river, we took a small ferry. here’s a view of the hotel from the ferry.



like i said, it was a beautiful hotel and we had a lovely room with a balcony, and i videotaped it quite a bit, but kevin didn’t take many pictures. here’s one from our balcony.



we walked around a bit, and had a good dinner in the hotel dining room. i had spaghetti. plus a good soup called fritattensuppe it was broth with slices of crepes in it. very good. they had an english version of the menu, so i didn’t order the liver dumpling soup. although they clearly accommodated english-speaking guests, the young people who worked there didn’t speak much english. i couldn’t imagine what it would be like to work in such an isolated, albeit beautiful place. our waitress said that she lived there at the hotel, as did most of the others.

the next morning, after a delicious breakfast, we were ready to head off. the trail was right there in front of the hotel - the easiest getting to the trail we had the whole trip. as you can see, by the time we finally left there was a new crowd of tourists coming in.



kevin took this picture of the ferry going back across the river.



we stayed on the right side of the road and it continued to be just beautiful. i think this was one of the prettiest parts of the trail. we had only ridden about five minutes when we stopped to take videos and pictures.



and here’s a view of the hotel off in the distance.



this was one of the times when the trail was also the road, but i don’t recall seeing any cars at all. we had to pass a huge grass-cutting vehicle, but that was all. we biked on and on, and it continued to be beautiful.

i need to figure out how to update this website so i can then figure out how to post some videos. maybe the videos will be able to better capture the beauty of the place. but maybe you get the idea with the lovely photos.

how could anybody not love this ride? i guess that’s why it’s so popular.

have i mentioned that i’m trying to plan another bike trip? we’re going to go down to the Katy Trail in missouri, but only overnight, in a couple of weeks. it’s a trail that starts in st. charles, just west of st. louis, and runs for 225 miles. if you want to look at the website, it’s Katy Trail.

there are many many little towns to stay at, and many many b&bs and i’ve been obsessively trying to figure out which one would be best. too many choices, always a huge problem for me.

oh, and i’m also researching scotland bike trips. i found a company actually based in scotland that has a good selection of trips, and i can’t figure out why it’s so inexpensive.

not that we’ll be going to scotland anytime soon; it’s too cold there now. oh yeah, and plus of course we JUST GOT BACK FROM A FABULOUS BIKE TRIP.

yeah, i’ve been a little bit crazy about looking things up in the past few days. hopefully i’ll settle down soon.

ok ok ok,

is it really still only tuesday? grace.

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