::SiDesHoW gYpSy::

this is cool as well. it was in the NYT yesterday. go here, use it, use your smarts for good.

Free Rice

i got to level 36.

i found this through the wooster feed on lj. this is really, really cool.

i am a little late to the dance but it's time for


AFRICA CUP OF NATIONS


1Xtra Africa Cup - DJ Edu in Accra from BBC 1Xtra on Vimeo.


1Xtra Africa Cup 5-a-side from BBC 1Xtra on Vimeo.

i need to see if the Horse Brass or someone in town is showing any of the games, otherwise i am regaled to keeping track through the BBC.

i am pulling for Ghana. i pulled for them in the World Cup so i'll just keep it rollin'.

so our new kitty friend is still nameless. we have been calling her Big Mama Blueberry. but it's a mouthful. so i am taking ideas, if anyone out there has any. she needs a name quick like.

this evening am i doing some online reading about Harry Partch, who i recently watched a documentary about. it was something on pbs in think, so if you get a chance to catch i highly recommend taking time to watch it. he was an interesting character.

here is a picture of what i consider to be one of the most beautiful musical instruments i have ever seen, Cloud Chamber Bowls. it is made from bowls used in the radiation lab at Cal. Berkley. the bowls were cloud chambers used to track the paths made by subatomic particles.

i was also doing some reading on Dimtri Shostakovich. i was listening to one of my favorite classical pieces, which isn't saying much because i don't own or know that much, but Shostakovich's Piano Trio. No. 2 in E minor Op. 67 and Cello Sonata in D minor Op. 40 are great. the recording i have is performed by Issac Stern, Emanuel Ax and Yo Yo Ma.

"For some reason, people think that music must tell us only about the pinnacles of human spirit, or at least about highly romantic villains. But there are very few heroes or villains. Most people are average, not black or white. They're grey, a dirty shade of grey."   -  Dimitri Shostakovich

ah, how i love my oppressed Russians and music of dissonance persuasion.

i managed to give myself food poisoning and not from the delicious indulgent sushi lunch on friday but i think from one week past date jalapeno hummus i ate yesterday on my first break at work.

i have never had this wonderful disease before and for those of you out there who haven't either, let me tell you it SUCKS.

and i have a mild version. the stomach cramping kept me from sleeping all day. but i couldn't get up and do anything because it hurt too bad and the nauseousness was easier to handle when being vertical. then there is the low grade fever. so staying in a warm bed just kept everything from getting to overwhelming.

i had D get me some charcoal tablets and aloe gel to drink. so far my stomach is feeling well enough to let me move from the bed to the couch. if am i going to lie awake, i may as well drool over what Anthony Bourdain is eating on tonight's episode since i am going to have water and aloe gel.

i really love cold clear weather. add rain and that sucks, but when it just overcast or sunny, it's beautiful. bundling up, walking around the city, stopping by a house of libations for a warm spanish coffee and then hitting powells city of books.

today will be cold and clear but will include sushi, sake, dance dance revolution and then powells to purchase Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman.

tonight i have been invited to attend the grand opening of a venture between my friends boss and a very talented artist. should be really fun if i make it there.

well, off to prepare for my day.

have a good one y'all.

i was looking out the kitchen window this morning, spying on the squirrels that i had put food out for, when i spotted a kitty out by the covered fire pit area. we have a few strays that hang around but this one i did not recognize. i like to know the personalities of the cats in my yard as i feed the birds and don't like the cats stalking them. i try to keep the peace. i went out and called the cat, who came running over as soon as i called it. turns out to be a female (probably no older than a year or so) who appears to have just had kittens. i gave her some food (so they don't chase the birds)and she began gobbling it up as if she hadn't eaten in a while. she was super duper friendly, let me pick her up, starting purring right away. there is no collar on her and she looked a little mangy. my guess at first was that she was pregnant and someone dumped her because they didn't want to deal with the kittens. now i think she has already had them. i am still under the impression that she is homeless but i have no idea where the kittens would be. i took a picture of her and posted found cat notices on craigs list and with multnomah county animal control. now she is sleeping next to me, crashed out and has been for a couple hours. i don't know if i have done the right thing but i just want to make sure she will be ok. i might let her out later to see if she will go to the kittens if they are still around. i tried letting her outer earlier but she didn't want to go. we haven't heard any kitten sounds around the house or yard. i just don't know. it's cold and wet outside. ug.

my goal for this year.....

sensual: relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses or the indulgence of appetite.

i love having a weekend when i broke because it keeps me around the house. i started reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everthing the other day, which i am throughly enjoying so far (page 47). i really needed to read a non fiction brain expanding book. Midnight's Children and The Foundation Series are still on my nightstand, but i wanted brain food.

and speaking of brain food, i love having fridays off so i can listen to Science Friday. Ira Flatow makes science sexy.

i think there might be some piano and saw playing today as well.

D has free tickets to the movies, so we might go see something this afternoon. or we will go to the Laurelhurst Theater as we can get in for free. it's just a matter if they have something we want to see. oh, and they have beer.

well, off to make more tea and my yucky tasting health drink. Green Vibrance makes me feel really good but it tastes like grass.

have a magical day.

some top ten favorite things.....

being in a crowd of people alone

sunshine right after rain

magical language

a life filled garden

waking up next to warm skin

people who use their bodies for art

dreams

moving forward

guide dogs

asparagus

i stumbled upon photos from the Christian Lacroix Fall 2007 Couture show and just had to give a link here.

i love these clothes! the hair and makeup are really good as well. the ready to wear collection is fun but there is nothing more fantastic than the couture collections from designers.

today was my first dentist appointment in two years and at the ungodly hour of 9:15. i know, i know, most of you are already up and adam but i love sleeping in. most of my work starts 12:00 or later so my day is just off kilter a little.

anyhoo, so this is a new dentist. they were recommended by a co-worker and boy what a dentist. super relaxing environment and a complementary paraffin wax hand dip for the length of your exam. they dip 'em and put them in herbal warming mitts. they then offered me the choice of three ipod nanos, soft rock, jazz or classical. i chose to listen to the sucking and drilling of the guy next to me having oral surgery. but man, was i relaxed.

which brings me to my newest disease, periodontal. i have to get some cleanings done with Novo Caine (no relation to Michael Caine) so they can go under the gums to scrap out those dastardly little bacteria. yeah. and it's going to cost me about $100 for each of these cleanings, after insurance. yeah. so now i am supposed to get cleanings four times a year. yeah.

well at least that's four more pariffin dips a year that i am not getting right now.

damn, between the eye doctor and the dentist, i have no disposable income left.

can't i just be a dirty pirate instead?

has anyone seen Brand Upon the Brain! yet? Guy Maddin is one of my favorite directors and Cowards Bend the Knee is one of my favorite films.


i love men this vulnerable.

so it has been a little over two months since i quit drinking coffee and i feel soooo good. my headaches are gone, my stomach isn't being eaten alive and i don't get the shakes. i still drink caffeine in the form of Guayaki but i have to drink a lot of it on an empty stomach to even begin to get twitchy. i love this stuff. i have only craved coffee three times since quitting and so i just drank decaf to end it. i forgot how bad decaf is compared to the real deal, so having that little bit squelched all want of coffee. about the third week of quitting, i realized how much of a drug coffee is. now all you drinkers of the exlir of the gods, don't get your cup cozies in a wad. i am pro CERTAIN drugs. if drinking that morning cup makes you presentable to the world, better able to deal with public transportation, bosses, that certain co-worker, and gives you energy to get through your day then do it. but man, i do feel better not having it. this will sound new agey hokey, but i am more in my body and in the moment not being high on coffee. yeah, i am turning new agey hokey hippie on your ass but an intervention isn't necessary. i kind of like being healthy. except for the vast amounts of wine of course. i love wine. LOVE.

yesterday HAD to go to the eye doctor. my contacts are really old and i didn't have a replacement pair. well i found out that i had been wearing the same pair for far too long and have done a little damage that i think i can reverse by wearing glasses much more often that i do but i need a new pair. i found these at the office. just pop in prescription lenses and think Fellini. so the new glasses plus a years worth of contacts should come in a just under $600. crap. and that's with insurance. hopefully the kicker check from the State will come soon and be of some kind of substantial amount.

the weather has mellowed out since last weekend. geez, what a crazy storm. there was so much rain. monday started out around 40 degrees, windy, super rainy and by monday night the rain had stopped and it was 60 degrees. that's hurricane weather. the coast finally got power back early this morning. so many towns are mangled though. i heard on the news this morning that some farms lost half their livestock due to flooding. now they have to go clean up the dead animals before they become a health hazard. i read in yesterdays paper about one woman who died while cleaning up debris in her yard. her husband thought she was in the house when he drove up the their burn pile and he ran over her body. shit.





this is a farm in Chehalis Washington which is about halfway between here and Seattle. there are photos of the storm at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. the one of the dead cows makes me very sad. for the cows and the farmer.

there is something that i really enjoy about tradition. mind you, i am as far left as you can go but what i love about it is that it comes full circle.

tonight i am watching a documentary about the Carthusian monks. every action is meditative, thought about, giving to God. sitting day in and day out in a cell comtemplating the divine.

this amount of ritual is magic. this amount of magic is enlightenment.