Lux Interior RIP

Lux Interior dies at 60; founder, front man of punk band the Cramps

More Vinyl…

Today is Devorah’s birthday! We have a fun afternoon planned at the Sciencenter. I’ll post pictures from this whole week this coming weekend.

Until then, here are a few new records:

I needed to replace my copy of Liquid Days because it started skipping.

Cabin Fever!

Man! Winter is really wiping us out. The cold, the snow, the cold, and more snow. It’s been i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g to say the least. The hardest part is the lack of fresh produce. We’re definitely fat and happy, but only if we’re inside watching movies. Incidentally, that has become our routine and we’ve watched an impressive amount of films since moving here. Have I mentioned we watched the ENTIRE James Bond collection? Well, not the entire collection only up to the third Pierce Brosnan film. So, what’s that…17 altogether? Yeah, we’re regular social butterflies. I’m serious, snow does things to ones mind.

So, what’s new?

Eh, not too much. I finished up all my applications to residency programs and sent those out. Mostly, we’re just waiting until mid-March or so until we have a better idea of the direction our year will go. I’ll let you in on it when we hear anything.

I picked up a few records today. At some point, we are going to have books and vinyl on every wall in the house.

I also picked up a pressing of “Who’s Not Who in Athens, G-A”

R.I.P. Bettie Page

Her agent, Mark Roesler, wrote this message on her website:

With deep personal sadness I must announce that my dear friend and client Bettie Page passed away at 6:41pm PST this evening in a Los Angles hospital. She died peacefully but had never regained consciousness after suffering a heart attack nine days ago.

She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality. She is the embodiment of beauty.

Backlog

Happy Post-Thanksgiving

Here’s an unfinished post from after Thanksgiving. More to come…

Wow. What a wonderful holiday. I hope everyone had a great time with family and friends. We were lucky to have my mom and grandma in town for a few days, so this month has been hectic: painting the living room, cleaning the whole house, preparing Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve been working at a temp agency for a few months now and had been laid off from my most recent gig for about 2 weeks. Everything worked out though since that gave me enough time at home to paint the entire living room. We’ve been holding off on it since that’s where the majority of our stuff is and we weren’t looking forward to covering everything up for a week. The time off let me take care of everything and gave Devorah a chance to not stress out about it. The paint makes a huge difference. We went with a peachy/ salmon color because our living room tends to feel cavernous and dark. It’s a lot warmer now and brighter due to the bright white ceiling. It feels great to have the whole house finished. Now, we can worry about decorating and hanging artwork.

Hello Winter…

There’s snow on the ground and it’s not just a dusting. Yesterday, the area was coated with the fat version of snowflake (my favorite!). Devorah experienced her first ride as passenger while I drove through it last night. “How do you focus on the road, when all you can see are snowflakes?” Good question. We live up on the hill, so the drive down to Ithaca in the snow at night can be arduous.

The living room is painted, finally, after living here for a few months. It turned out better than we had hoped as it really warms up the room. Our apartment is a renovated attic, so it had the tendency to feel like a cave at times. Now we can finally unpack the rest of our things. We’d like to have everything in order by the time my mom and grandma come to visit for Thanksgiving. Hopefully…

If you check out my Flickr, you’ll notice that I’ve uploaded some new sketches. I’m going to try to work on a sketch a day to stay focused and motivated.

Three posts in one…

I’ve been distracted by life and I apologize. Every weekend has been full of traveling and family visits, therefore I’ve used what little down time I’ve had to do just that. Relax. Watch movies with Devorah. Play cards. You know, the necessities.

I was debating putting all these posts up separately, but I’m not going to. There aren’t a lot of pictures to scroll through.

ADVENTURE #1 – Drive to Albany

Devorah’s grandma was in Albany for a conference. Since that’s a whole lot closer than the East Bay in California, we drove out for a quick lunch visit before she had to catch a plane. It was a great time and the drive was only 3.5 hours. Really we just sat, drank coffee, and had a light lunch. We had an hour or so to kill before she needed to be at the airport, so we drove around looking for someplace that might be interesting to check out. We found America’s First Shaker Settlement, complete with gift shop. It’s actually right down the road from the Albany Airport if you happen to be in the area.
I really should have posted early about this visit since my short term memory is on the fritz. I took a photo though:

ADVENTURE #2 – Drive to Boston

Ooh! This was a good one. Visiting Dev’s sister, her husband, and their daughter for Halloween. Ixa’s first Halloween. The plan was that we’d pack up Wednesday night and Dev would pick me up after my shift on Thursday, then it’s only a 6.5 hour drive. That makes sense, right? I’m out of work at 4:30, we’re in by 11:00, no big deal right? Wrong. Apparently, we had forgotten that up to this point a “late night consisted of staying up past 8:00pm. Seriously, we are those people. So, after about three or so freak-out-truck stop- coffee-refill moments we were there. Dude! Babies grow FAST! Ixa is so big and already talking gibberish. It’s pretty amazing. We brought a costume to help her fit in better with her brothers.

The before and after.

Winky, the pumpkin I carved.

Kitty, the pumpkin Devorah carved.

There was a kid’s parade that we walked to from Kesh and Kami’s new place (which, by the way is gorgeous.) It was so much fun, seeing the costumes and house decorations. There were a few little crazy jack-o-lanterns that were fun to watch run around.
I really like that we are living so close to them. Not only is it great for Devorah to be able to visit and see Ixa grow up, but I feel like I loosen up and get to know them better too. It’s difficult for us having so many family members all over the country. Especially, without the time and funds for traveling. Day trips are feasible and work to keep us feeling connected. We have this hope that some day, when we have our land, we’ll be the place that family and friends come to visit. The more the merrier. That’s our goal.

Anyway, that’s what we’ve been up to.

ADVENTURE #3 – End of Eat Local October 2008 Challenge

Okay. I’m torn on this one. Let me rephrase that. This challenge served it’s purpose completely. We managed to eat as much from the farm that I worked on and other goods purchased within the set radius of “local”. A lot of our fare has been beans and squash, both we enjoy so that’s not a problem. The problem is that I’ve noticed that I have a digestive problem. At first we thought it was just an issue with wheat or gluten, but (and no TMI here) it looks to be a bit more serious. Definitely manageable, but still a pain. I still need to get some tests done so we can figure everything out for sure. So, that’s why everyone keeps asking if I’ve lost weight. Okay, moving on…

Here’s the last meal: butternut squach soup, potato hash, and a salad. All local, mostly free.

visitors from upstate

Doug and Brandie drove down for a visit this afternoon. Really, it’s been so great hanging out with people we haven’t seen in a very long time. I guess after college, when everyone moves away, it just gets harder to stay in touch. Anyway, enough of that. Today was a blast. We walked around Robert H. Treman State Park. That place needs to have the maps placed in better locations. We didn’t even find one until we headed back to the car. Really, it was nice just hanging out and talking with them. I love being able to catch up and I’m so happy that we aren’t too far of a drive South.

Did you see that gorgeous apron that Devorah was wearing? Yeah, Brandie made that! It’s so amazing and mostly hand stitched. Dev loves it.

Today also marks a year since Dev and I started dating. (not going steady, that wasn’t until November). It’s been a wonderful day. I’m even excited to wake up at 5am for work.

Peak Fall

I forgot how beautiful the Fall season is in this area. This past weekend, Devorah and I went to Elmira to visit with Lindsay and her family (while she was down from Rochester for the weekend). The trees are about at their peak now and the colors were amazing. Dev was in control of the camera and went crazy over every single tree with fiery red leaves. She took a bunch of great pictures to share. We ended up driving from Elmira to Watkins Glen State Park. Unfortunately, it was packed with people due to the holiday weekend. It wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle, so we hiked the whole gorge. The weather was perfect too. Kim and Carl had prepared a wonderful vegetarian dinner by the time we made it back to Elmira. We had a blast visiting with such amazing people.

Here are some pics (all taken by Devorah, well except for one):

We fell in love with the area, it’s more of the kind of set up we’re looking for in a town. An actual Main Street that’s still used and a homey small town feel. Very nice.

Yesterday, I received a call about a job I had interviewed for last week. I start tomorrow! I’m excited because it’s a 40hr/ week gig with potential overtime. Also, it’s only M-Th. So, 10 hour days starting at 6am. Those are my favorite working conditions.

I have a meeting later this morning with the Financial Aid Coordinator in Cortland. Cross your fingers. Supposedly, since they are such a small facility, they are able to get a response as to amount of aid pretty much instantaneously. We know that I’ll have to have one small loan, since I already have a BFA and therefore am not eligible for Pell Grants. Anyway, hopefully I can get a bit of assistance.

That’s about it. I’ll let you all know how the job/ financial stuff goes and hopefully Dev will post on here sometime soon. We’re just figuring out how to add her as an admin to the site and all that.