Tuesday, December 30, 2008

The Great Internet/Phone/TV Outage of 2008 has ended

Mom, resting her eyes.



Rudy, doing the same.
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I'm back! It was a quiet weekend at Chez Julainey. My mom was in town for Christmas, and didn't really want to go out at all. We lounged around he house for a week, reading library books and napping. TV was even out for half of her visit because someone working on at AT&T box on our street decided to unplug our U-Verse connection. We had no DSL, TV or land line phone for 3 days. I didn't like leaving Mom alone with no phone, so I kept excursions to a minimum.

I did like being off work for a week and having time to read, though. Some of the books weren't even picture books or murder mysteries.

More adventures coming soon. Mom flew back south last night, and I don't go back to work until next Monday. Ahhhhhh, vacation.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Midtown St. Louis

St. Louis is finally getting serious about the season. Only 5 more days til winter.

I spent last night stretched out in front of the woodstove. Giving up my warm spot to go crawl into that cold bed was hard work, but that's what responsible career gals do, I guess.

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Monday, December 15, 2008

The Big A$$ Indie Arts & Craft Fair, Mad Art, Dec. 5-7

It's not your grandmother's craft fair.
Not unless your grandmother is kind of a hipster.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Groovy

Groovy is not for the claustrophobic or clumsy.

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Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Beehive

Okay, I can't see the word "behive" without thinking of the scene in Nanny McPhee where the clever son decides to do exactly as he's told. That said, this coffee house has less than nothing to do with that movie, except both are fun and odd.

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Monday, December 08, 2008

More South Side, Pittsburgh

The orange sign says: "PLEASE USE FRONT DOOR."
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Accordions and teddy bears go together. I don't know how many hours I spent with my uncle's accordion, mangling tunes from Grandmother's Reader's Digest Songbook for the enjoyment of my bear. I had to do something Sundays and Wednesday afternoons - the library was closed. Luckily for her, my grandmother was extremely hard of hearing.
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Friday is double cheeseburger day at The Pickle Barrel, but we had our hats set for coffee. And Julie isn't much of a carnivore...
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Sunday, December 07, 2008

South Side, Pittsburgh

Julie & I started our Friday-after-Thanksgiving photowalk on the less polished end of S. Carson Street, near the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
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This church sells pyrohi. They take orders Tuesday and Wednesday for pickup on Thursday. St. Louis could really use some church basement pirogi action, if you ask me.

Most of the shops in this part of town hadn't opened, yet, when we started walking, so we decided to head to a coffee shop to warm up and lounge. (More about the coffee shop later.) The manikin at Luxx was getting a new outfit as we passed.
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Maybe Kassal's was being considerate to the next owners - instead of painting out the whole sign, they just wiped out their own name.
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Tomorrow - more shopfronts.
Monday - The Beehive
Tuesday - Groovy

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Snow for Thanksgiving

There was snow waiting for us in Murrysville. More importantly, there were nephews in the snow learning the physics of packing a good snowball. They've lived in Atlanta their whole life. They haven't had too many chances to practice.

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The nephews planned an ambush, too. Uncle Eric and Brad drove down from NYC for the holiday. Julie and I didn't exactly encourage attacking Uncle Eric and Brad, but we may have helped with the snowball-making lessons.
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Friday, December 05, 2008

Okay, so I've been a little quiet this week. I've been sleeping in in the mornings, so my morning posts just aren't happening. I'm sure I'l get back on track, now. I'm reformed. I'm caffeinated. Of course, it's 6 at night, but that's a little detail. I'll just get started with a post while I'm drinking this cafe au lait and waiting for Julie to retrieve me...

So, what had I been talking about? Thanksgiving in suburban Pittsburgh, right? My dad and step-mom still live in Murrysville, my hometown. It's also my dad's hometown, though it's not as full of our family as it used to be. And yes, that's really how Murrysville is spelled. It's not our fault our founder spelled his name funny.

Anyway, I split my time in his jewel of a municipality between the "new" Holiday Inn Express in Delmont and my step-mom's house. The HIE showed up after I left 20 years ago, so it's new, no matter how long it's really been there...
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The house has had a few touches of remodeling since my dad & step-mom got married almost 20 years ago. The latest look features the latest generation of Transformers and LEGOs.
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To be fair, I think the LEGOs belong to my dad, but he lets his grandkids play with them. He's cool like that.

Monday, December 01, 2008

Wednesday Night at The Lube

Yes, I convinced Julie to eat at Quaker Steak & Lube on our way to Murrysville from the airport.

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Sunday, November 30, 2008

More empty STL airport from Wednesday


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Flying to Thanksgiving in the Greater Pittsburgh Area

The airport was empty. The day before Thanksgiving, the airport was empty. I have to admit, if the parents hadn't been so persuasive, we wouldn't have spent the money on plane tickets, either, but geeze o pete, this is usually the busiest travel week of the year, right?

Anyway, we had a lovely flight on a small regional jet.

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Monday, November 24, 2008

Poetry Scores at Hoffman LaChance

From Poetry Scores' press release:

The invitational is a one-night group show (32 local artists) and silent auction going on 6-10 p.m. tonight (Friday, Nov. 21) at Hoffman LaChance Contemporary, 3100 Sutton Blvd. in Maplewood.

Our annual Art Invitational has a few simple rules. Artists must respond to the poem that is the subject of the event, and they must title their work after a verbatim quote from the poem. The work is then arranged in the exhibit space based upon where in the flow of the poem the quote chosen as the title appears.

This year, the poem we all have been inhabiting is Nailed Seraphim, a meditation on 9/11 and the American crucible by local (national) poet K. Curtis Lyle.

More info at Chris Kings blogsite -

http://poetryscores.blogspot.com/

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The poet is the tall man in the white shirt near the top center of the photo.

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Sunday, November 23, 2008

Have You Seen this Kung Fu Chicken?

From the Kung Fu Chicken press release:

Kung Fu Chicken at STLCC-Forest Park
Let's Live Beauty - Contemporary Ceramics and Mixed Media

See new sculpture, pottery, jewelry, paintings and video by Carmelita Nuñez and Daniel Shown of Kung Fu Chicken at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park's Contemporary Art Gallery. This art is overtly jubilant, and subtly spiritual and political. Buy a re-leaf, a recycled aluminum leaf trinket, and contribute directly to global reforestation efforts. This is Kung Fu Chicken's first solo gallery exhibit. Opening reception Friday, November 21, 6-8 p.m. The Show is up through December.

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None of my photos of Daniel's video work did it justice, so you're just going to have to go see it yourself.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Waiting for the bus in Shaw

I think I like my new cell phone's camera. It specializes in ominous.
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

2 month update

In a completely self absorbed burst of narcissism, I would like to talk about my shoulder. It's been two months since I had a torn muscle sewn back together, a detached muscle stitched back to the bone, and bone spurs smoothed off the socket. PT has been going remarkably well, and I am strong enough to use a digital SLR for an afternoon of shooting. The heavier film SLR and 645 are still challenges, but I should be there soon. By Christmas / New Year's vacation I should be able to lift jugs of chemicals well enough to process the film I shot in the Smokies last summer.

Turnabout is fair, right? Here are some pics Julie took of me 2 months ago- the first two while I was waiting to get cut, the third as I was trying to keep my numb lifeless arm in the new sling.

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