I feel like I’ve been fighting a cold the last few days. I’ve been a little achy with a sore throat but really noticed it yesterday morning at the gym. Sure I’m not the most in-shape person in the world but I can usually breathe well doing the cardio equipment and always enjoy the water aerobics class. Yesterday I was just tired. So I’ll be hanging out in bed for a while. The good news is we have Cody’s laptop and a wireless network hehehehe. This is one of the reasons we set it up so in a way I’m kind of excited to have an excuse to use it. On the other hand I don’t relish feeling like crap.

Oh, Cody interviewed for the nighttime supervisor position this afternoon. There were two other applicants. One isn’t eligible for administrative reasons the other is still in school and has taken a lot of sick time which will definitely come into consideration at such a small office. Cody’s totally going to get it. He programs little extra helpful tools for the office in his spare time and asks for nothing in return, has been sent to work at other offices out of state, has been there longer, and has had managerial experience before.

This will be a good change - being a supervisor means that he would be working something like a 4pm - midnight schedule and automatically gets holidays off. Basically our favorite swing shift. The bad part is if someone called in and he couldn’t find a replacement he’d have to go in. I’ve asked him how he’d feel about that. But he seems ok with it. These guys are geniuses at keeping the place interesting for him.

is a great little book catalog whose target market is ‘bluestockings’ or literary women. They operate a mail-only business out of a warehouse in downtown Atlanta. Cody got the catalog from his incredibly cool co-worker, Yolanda, who got her catalog from being a subscriber to The New Yorker.

This little catalog offers a nice variety of books, reading accessories, fun card games, stationery, and children’s books and toys. They clearly pride themselves on their eclectic selection of literature, biographical, historical, classics, humor, travel, and cookbooks.

My favorites are

Pride and Prejudice: the board game

My Big Brother which I plan to get for nephew Christian when niece Elizabeth is born

Lydia Cassatt Reading

Loving Graham Greene

The New Yorker Baseball Cartoons which I plan to get dad for his birthday

Geisha I’ve always thought Liza Dalby’s story of an anthropologist being the only American woman to go through formal Geisha training was so cool

There’s also a fashion show book for woodland fairies, twelve months of monastery salads, yoga for wimps, and Rilke on Cezanne.

and for some reason Cody really wants the book about the history of Salt

He was one of the photographers that made small moments in everyday life into stunning artwork. And he used a small 35 mm Leica using a standard lens and usually no flash. He portrayed his juman subjects with honesty while not only maintaining their dignity but somehow showing a beauty we may not have seen otherwise.

He travelled extensively and his photographs capturing the different cultures were published in Life, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and later several books. His portraits of his contemporaries in arts and entertainment as well as politics have become in many cases the definitive image we have of the artists. He witnessed invasions, civil war, communist occupation, imprisonment by the Nazis, eventual escape and the liberation of his home country. And never lost his sense of wonder of the ‘decisive moment’.

An extraordinary man.

Times Dispatch
NY Times
Washington Post
The Age
The Economist
CNN
NPR

His Work-
About.com

Portraits by Cartier-Bresson
A Retrospective of his work at Magnum Photos
Cartier-Bresson

So there’s a big truck digging and making dubious noises behind our house right now. Hope they don’t hit that water main today!

Please go visit my friend Crankydragon she lost her (secretly favorite) kitty Gwen and needs support.

The great hedgehog webring flame war continues.

Clearly no sense of irony. This was when I decided to use my secret weapon - a husband with a creative writing degree. Yeah I know it’s a copout but he so enjoys flexing those old Anarchy Online flamewar muscles every once in a while. And, well, I felt that at this point she needed to be destroyed.

Cody totally kicks ass doesn’t he? Then I blocked her email address. It was time to just let it go.

Since these emails I’ve been accepted into the ridgeback webring (which has 212 active sites) and the got cats webring (which has 63).

What’s really funny is I couldn’t give two shits if I got in her webring or not but the way she went about it just rubbed me the wrong way and, well, like any proper hedgehog I got huffy and stuck my spikes out.

On the way back from the gym this morning (where I had my first class with Yuki the cutest, most diverse, hyperactive water aerobics instructor ever) we turned onto the road that runs behind our house and saw a 100 foot geyser of water coming from the unused stretch of scrub land that runs between our back wall and the road. It’s clearly land reserved for road widening some day. About once a year they run big machines around and look like they’re going to pave it then they disappear and we have another year of the busy street to Rio Rancho being 20 feet further from our house. Which is fine by us.

So this gusher. Yeah looks like they were doing something to that unused land because somebody seems to have hit a water main. We had no choice but to drive under the spray that was being blown around and not only were we showered with water but pebbles too. It was scary. Then we turned onto our street and saw the water streaming down our road and going right into the yard, front porch, and probably the living room across the street. It was a river of that vanilla caramel latte-colored new mexico arroyo water - going down my street. Gee am I glad we bought the uphill house.

I assumed the water wouldn’t be working but no it’s still on. And I went to check twenty minutes later and that gusher was still going. No one had turned off the main and construction workers were just standing around. Complete waste of water. I saw a few teenaged girls from way down the street heading over there with shovels I wonder what they were going to do. The dirt here isn’t exactly suited for dam-building.

Now I can hear a bunch of trucks rumbling around there I wonder what they’re going to mess up now.

I only said Jews were going to hell on camera because I thought it was going to be shown in an obscure middle-eastern country. Who knew the damned reporter was going to ask actual non-scripted questions I didn’t know how to deflect easily?

I (heart) sacha cohen. Is comedy news the only way to get honest information these days or what?

O.F.C.S.: The Online Film Critics Society

My favorites from the list-
5. Heavenly Creatures
6. Waiting for Guffman
7. The Hudsucker Proxy
11. Bound
21. Truly, Madly, Deeply
28. Welcome to the Dollhouse
32. Defending Your Life
33. A Little Princess
36. Jacob’s Ladder
42. Richard III
46. L.A. Story
47. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
48. A Bronx Tale
52. Bob Roberts
54. Raise the Red Lantern
56. The Ref
61. The Ice Storm
62. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
74. Flirting with Disaster
75. Bottle Rocket
84. The People vs. Larry Flynt (I know I was shocked)
89. Topsy-Turvy I love love love this movie
90. Living in Oblivion
96. Cradle Will Rock
100. Mystery Men

Hey, cry me a river dude, it’s not my fault you don’t know the tiger hand.

Rock, Paper, Saddam! The Flash!