In the spirit of the upcoming election...

A little Poli-Sci lesson (I like the French Corp style):

DEMOCRAT
- You have two cows.
- Your neighbor has none.
- You feel guilty for being successful.
- Barbara Streisand sings for you.

REPUBLICAN
- You have two cows.
- Your neighbor has none.
- So?

SOCIALIST
- You have two cows.
- The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
- You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
- You have two cows.
- The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
- You wait in line for hours to get it.
- It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
- You have two cows.
- You sell one, buy a bull, and create a herd of cows.

DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
- You have two cows.
- The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your government.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
- You have two cows.
- The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
- You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
- You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
- You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
- Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
- You go on strike because you want three cows.
- You go to lunch and drink wine.
- Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
- You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
- They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
- Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
- You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
- Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
- You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
- While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
- You break for lunch.
- Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
- You have some vodka.
- You count them and learn you have five cows.
- You have some more vodka.
- You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
- The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
- You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.
- You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
- Then you kill them and claim a US bomb blew them up while they were in the hospital..

IRAQI CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
- They go into hiding.
- They send radio tapes of their mooing.

(As Seen On: White Skinned Goddess)

Poor, poor cur-sed car

I think maybe my car is cursed. A Cal-Trans truck in a restaurant parking lot this morning certainly didn't like it when they backed into me (where I was sitting, in park, at the drive-through) and scratched my front bumper.


The Cal-Trans worker/driver tried to cajole me into acknowledging "it is just a few scratches, mostly just the paint from the truck, surely it will rub off when you wash the car" and although yes, I kindly acknowledged it was just a few scratches, as I lease the vehicle I would be responsible for repairing these "few scratches" should they not disappear when I washed the car. (And considering there was a strip of paint that came off as he tried to "rub it clean" I'm doubtful these can simply be buffed and polished.)

Name and insurance information, please!

He sighed annoyedly and walked back to his truck. I feel his pain; I'm sure it stinks to get into an accident with company property on company time, especially when it was something avoidable (by looking when he backed up). And I must admit I've accidentally backed into others, though fortunately with no damage. But alas, I will only bear responsibility for the damage I inflict upon my poor, cursed car.

UPDATE: Just got a quote from the body shop and these 'minor scratches' that were likely to rub off when I washed the car, are actually deep enough that no amount of buffing & painting will return it to it's normal state. Instead, the entire front bumper must be replaced at just over $1000. Glad it's not on my dime!

Evidence Item #53

The evidence in support of the suggestion that I am actually moving to Chicago this summer is mounting. The latest is my new address as of August 1.

Please send all correspondence to the approximately 400 sq ft I'll be occupying in this building.

For a photographic tour by the current tenant (Jason, an acquaintance from church who moved out there last summer), go HERE.

Thank you, Lord!

Road Trip: Stop #2

Sunday I left family in Sacramento and headed to Livermore to see friends Kim, Darren and their sweet munchkin, Noah. It was great fun to spend time with them laughing, chatting, eating great food and, of course, taking lots of pictures.








Kim & I also went to her friend Danaly's daughter Lucy's 2-year old birthday party.

If interested, go HERE to see more from that.

As I headed home to SoCal, I had to stop and take a few pictures of the beautiful rolling hills and livestock, just blocks from Kim & Darren's home.






You can see more family photos HERE and more "country" photos HERE.

Great to see you, Rogers Family! I'm so glad we could meet up before I move.

Road Trip: Stop #1

The clock is ticking, hours are passing, days, weeks and even months are flying by, and I realize how little time I have left to just be with people here before I move. It will surely be even longer between visits to friends and family who live outside of SoCal, so a road trip to NorCal was in order and the long holiday weekend provided extra time to make two overnight stops.

Stop #1 was to visit my aunt Gailky, uncle Greggy & cousin Summer near Sacramento. Our time together included a visit to Summer's new apartment (tres chic!) and lunch at El Torito followed by exploration of "Old Sacramento"

And a visit to the State Capital,

A 'photo shoot' with Summer who was willing to let me practice on her (wherein I made her stand by a graffiti'd trash bin and hold a McGuffey Reader, all in one day)

Followed by pizza and a movie (P&P, the 'Kiera' version), church, brunch and a trip to Borders for an early birthday present before I headed to the Bay Area (none of which was documented photographically). We packed quite a bit into 24-hours, but it was so great to spend even that brief time together. Love you Gailky, Greggy & Summy!

More Sacramento pics here.
More photo shoot with Summer pics here.

Sam I Am

Happy Sam

Angry Sam

Dreaming-up-an-Invention Sam

Welcome Jacob!

Breathed into life
22 May 2008
to mother Bailey

Came to this world to bring joy and light,
wherever he floats.

May he survive these first days of life so Bailey
passes science class.


Loved and adored by his mother

As well as his Uncle Lance and Great Aunt Kelly

Bride-to-Be: Hannah T.

The older I get the invitations to bridal showers are replaced by invitations to baby showers, then 1st birthdays, etc. So it was fun to attend a shower last night honoring a bride-to-be, Hannah, the sister of my longtime friend Phoebe. I'm always pleased to be included in any Terrill Family event, as they are one of my most favorite families.

(I'm having trouble uploading photos to Blogger so you get the full slideshow rather than a selection of photos. Lucky you! :-)



Looking forward to celebrating with Hannah & Robbie next month!

Victim #2

Hugo and I spied another willing victim in my attempts to better my people photo-taking skills. Check out who that was here.

Happy Birthday, Abby!

Wishing you many a Flirtini (without the pesky side-effects) on this, your special day. You deserve nothing less, my friend.

Happy Birthday!


(Image via Home Baked Memories)

Trade ya?

In anticipation of needing to conserve space in my future Chicago-studio, I am interested in downsizing from a Queen sized bed to a Full. With economy in mind, does anyone have a clean and only gently-used (i.e. less than 5 years old) full mattress set that they'd like to exchange for a clean & gently-used queen set?

Happy Birthday, Liz!

Wishing you a wonderful, fabulous, fantastically, great birthday!




(Image via Wedding Tactics)

Places to Go: Olvera Street & Union Station

Former neighbor and longtime friend Sara P and I braved the 100F+ temperatures yesterday and took the Metro/Gold Line to Union Station and Olvera Street where we were entertained with wares from Mexico and Native American dancing.


In addition to checking off one more place on my list of Places to Go/Things to Do, Sara was a willing subject as I practiced my portrait-taking skills. See more here.

TGIF: Office Rage

This is just about as hilarious as the scene in Office Space where they 'kill' the demon-possessed copier:

Bad Day at the Office

CRIBS, Black*Eiffel style

Black*Eiffel has invited several of her blogging friends to give a peek into their refrigerators and pantries. I'm always interested to see what others keep around as staples and what random things they may have.


<---- My favorite may just be This is Glamorous. (Those Evian bottles are gorgeous!)

For the Curious

The new not-really-all-that-different mahogony hair color..............The punctured bumper

In just 5 minutes:

1. (Semi-gross alert!) I had a scab just above my left eyebrow rubbed vigorously off because the hair stylist thought it was a spot of color they'd accidentally touched there. The bright red that followed told them otherwise.
2. I was backing out of a tight spot with 2 cars waiting directly behind me leaving me very little room as I tried to avoid hitting them and a concrete wall. I didn't hit them but I did hit a too-low-to-see-in-any-mirror tree stump, which punctured and scraped my back bumper.
3. In a lane to drive straight and enter the freeway I was run off the road by the person in the lane to my right who mistakenly believed his lane was a left turn lane.
4. My economic stimulus check said Goodbye! to my savings account and See ya soon! to the auto body shop.

Sigh. I'd prefer not to repeat those 5 minutes any time soon.

Dearest Friends,

Is there a reason we don't take vacations like this?
Sincerely wondering,
K~

Things that look good to me today:

• Lemonade Cupcakes featured on Bake Shop
• Fun Zig-Zag letterpress stationary I read about on {frolic!}
• A cute green basketweave wallet that Emily Style found at Forever 21 for just $10
• The packaging on the bottles of LoveJoy vodka that Oh Joy! saw on The Dieline
• A trip to Prague and/or Vienna that Smitten Kitchen is experiencing right now
• A scoop/stack of mint-chip ice cream from Thrifty's, now Rite-Aid, that Baking Bites reminded me of
• This "All that Glitters..." paper cutout from Scherenschnitte
• A super-cool classic Eames desk chair copy that Making it Lovely is lusting after
  

Mamacita

"For never putting raisins where chocolate chips should be. For this and more, I am grateful."

.

Mothers across the country were celebrated yesterday in honor of their long-suffering dedication to the art of raising a child to adulthood. My mom succeeded in raising three daughters, and we all turned out fairly normal, if I do say so myself.
.

Mom was celebrated with her favorite Lemon Raspberry Pancakes at Jake's followed by a showing of Made of Honor.

Happy belated Mother's Day to all the mothers I know, who amaze me daily with their love and patience.