Had a pretty good birthday.  Kind of quiet with Cody having to work that night therefore having to sleep all day but we went out for sushi (twice in one week be still my heart!) thursday night so it was ok.  We also went to the dog park but there’s more to that story later. 
 
I mostly sat around and watched really silly shows on tv.  Including some show on VH1 about the 40 weirdest reality tv moments or something which was interesting because I finally found out about several things I’d heard for a while but had no idea what people were talking about.  
 
My Dad (my DAD knew about a reality tv thing LOLOL) told me a few weeks ago that apparently this Reuben guy was from Birmingham so there had been a lot of stuff about him at City Stages.  And Brody’s, the foo foo deli in my old (also foofoo) neighborhood, changed the name of their Reuben to the American Idol Reuben or some nonsense.  So now I have finally seen what that was about too although I think he’d been on Ellen once and I fast-forwarded it.  I rarely like the musical guests on Ellen so I’m in the habit of just skipping them.
 
Enough about my practiced naivete regarding reality tv shows.  I also watched a great documentary on either IFC or Sundance about a Chinese Vaudevillian named “Long Tack Sam”.  It was a very unique story directed by his great-granddaughter.  Born in 1885 in China he ran away to join the Circus then stowed away to the US, then Europe where he met and married an Austrian woman and had two daughters, who joined his act when they were old enough, and a son later on.  He toured extensively all over the world - with his family in tow and wife as his manager most of the time.

You can actually trace the effects of historic events in the earliest twentieth century on this extraordinary man and his family.  He had left his family in Europe to tour the US and was unable to leave for Europe between the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 until the end of World War One in 1918. After being reunited with his family they toured all over the world, providing great entertainment during the depression. Almost thirty years after being stuck in the US war was about to affect their lives again. They escaped to Italy after Germany invaded Poland then had to sail for the US when Mussolini joined ranks with Hitler but they couldn’t stay because of his wife’s nationality so they traveled to Shanghai - then the Japanese invaded.  Quite a story huh?
 
There were some wonderful vintage photographs and posters - and the director animated them to almost make the people come alive. A slight head-tilt or blinking eyes. It sounds hokey but I think it enhanced the life of the story. It was a nice surprise to find this interesting movie just flipping around one afternoon.

My parents are so cute. They sent a card with pictures of what they had bought for me that were on their way. Isn’t that the cutest thing? So they got a copy of Dreamweaver MX for me (yay!) and two nice pieces of carry-on luggage from Victorinox. This cracked me up too and I’m not really sure why - dreamweaver got here yesterday and it was from my buy.com, my former employer. Heehee.

But that’s not all!

My sister sent me a really pretty silk giftbag from Ten Thousand Waves, a totally amazing Japanese spa in the mountains above Santa Fe, AND a 100 dollar gift certificate! Woo!! I haven’t been there since the bachelorette party the night before our wedding so I’m VERY excited to go again. Cody and I had meant to rent one of their houses of the moon the weekend of our anniversary but he had to work and we never got around to it. Yay thank you Nicole and Bruce!

I’m still going back and forth on what I want from Cody - I’m wavering between a cute pink ipod mini or an iriver which is cheaper but doesn’t play the itunes file format.

I don’t know what Ms Jocelyn has gotten me. I know it’s not luggage. But I’ll find out later today!

I also got some of my favorite virtual flowers from my friends Juus and Niels and Juus’ son, Ravi. Irises AND Sunflowers! I really can’t wait till we can save up and visit them in The Netherlands.

I’m such a lucky woman to have so many great people in my life

oh my god! Marlon Brando died! I’m actually in shock about that. I really still see him as Stanley Kowalski not the creepy guy in Apocalypse Now or Last Tango in Paris. No, just the Wild One with a lawyer acquaintance that could also have been a contender. Oh ok Sky Masterson and Don Corleone too.

And that great caption for the photo where he’s playing the bongos in his autobiography that said “Discovering Afro-Cuban music really blew my mind.”

my birthday present to you

(file will be taken down in 24 hours)

On the Road

Big Things of a Big Country (Canadian)

Gallery of Huge Beings

Great Big Stuff (that you can buy)

Muffler Men Museum

Petroliana- collectibles related to old gas stations

Road Food

Roadside America

Roadside Peek

Society for Commercial Archeology

Stuck on Stuckeys

Texas Roadside Icons

World’s Largest Roadside Attractions

Themes

American Sign Museum

Bridesmaid Dresses from Hell

Candy Wrapper Museum

Museum of Menstruation

Tacky Mail

Thrift Store Art

Misc

Julie’s Tacky Treasures

RetroCrush

Tacky Living

World of Kitsch

Food & Shopping

Archie McPhee

Gallery of Regrettable Food

Oriental Trading Co

Rhino

Photos of places in Atlanta roughly 50 years ago and the same locations today