Beautiful Women

Do you ever wonder what you are going to look like when you get older? I do sometimes. I hope I have silver hair: if it isn’t I think I will make it silver. I’ve never colored my hair, but I think I would to make it a beautiful shade of silver when I am older.

Picture via Refinery29

These thoughts were inspired by these pictures via Ten Thousand Places.

R.I.P. Amy Winehouse

Isn’t it a little ironic? The sequence of these two songs, first this one:

And then this one:

She had such an amazing voice, I am so sorry that we won’t hear any new albums.

Happy Tuesday!

Great Falls, VA

Mao’s Last Dancer

This was an eye opening book (for me at least) on China, and after reading it I wonder how anyone could ever think that Communism is a good thing. For that matter, how anyone could commend China and the “advances” they have made while they’ve crushed will of their own citizens (I am thinking of a certain State of the Union Address).  I can’t say the actual writing was phenomenal, but the true story was interesting.

After reading it I realized that I don’t know anything about China. . . just that is Communist (which is bad, but its got to have more of a history than just Communism). . .so now I am looking into a couple books on Chinese history. Considering that the population makes up 1/5 of the world (I think) it would be a good country to learn about.

One thing did stand out, was the pride of the Chinese people. That is not a part of Communism, that is Chinese.

Looking at the Past

Check out these photos of D.C.; photographer Jason Powell combines the old pictures with new streets. Its pretty cool! If you visit his flickr stream you can see more. . . my favorite is the one with bikes at the tidal basin.

Curbside

“Good morning!” I cheerfully said to the neighbor as I tripped out the door this morning.

“You know they won’t pick that junk up unless you call them.” My neighbor hollered at me as I walked out the door to work. The hollering wasn’t necessary, I was about ten feet away. But then, I’ve noticed she yells at everyone, even her dogs. Maybe she is going deaf. . . quiet possible.

A week ago I had spent the better part to two hours hauling refuse left behind by inconsiderate repairmen and painters to the curb for pick-up. It had been hot, buggy, dirty work. I was attacked by ants at one point. My landlord isn’t the most thoughtful person and didn’t provide me with contact information for the workmen, I couldn’t call and complain to the foreman that his workers had left behind a mess that I had to clean up. I broke two nails despite wearing gloves and I got a huge bruise on my leg and a scratch on my elbow. And I had done it to make the yard look nicer and to please the neighbors.

“Oh, really.” I said,  ”I was told by another neighbor to put things on the curb and the county would pick it up once a month, I’ve done it before. I don’t know which day it is, but I thought I would get it to the curb to be ready.”

“Well, they don’t.”

“Really, that’s funny, last time I tried it, it worked!”

“How long has that been sitting there?”

“Um, less than a week.”

“Ah, see, you have to call someone.”

“Um, but it comes once a month.” I said with a puzzled expression on my face.

So I switched to diplomatic mode, she was being difficult and I had a bus to catch: she brought it on herself. Diplomatic mode involves my voice getting a little softer and innocent, my eyes a little larger, I start talking with the hands, and I stand taller, and I put emphasis on certain words. “Do you really think you have to call? Perhaps the other neighbor was mistaken. But I can’t call, no one has ever given me any information to call. I’ve tried looking for a web-site, but I couldn’t find any specific information, I don’t think the site has been recently updated. Perhaps you have some information? What? You have that information? What a coincidence! How lovely. Well, perhaps you could give it to me, yes that would be nice, wouldn’t it. You can put it in the mailbox. Okay. Thank you so much! I really must be going now, I don’t want to miss my bus, have good morning!”

I had to hold my arm tight by my side to keep from doing the princess wave, that would have been overkill. Diplomatic mode usually leaves people stunned, they aren’t sure what to do because they were hoping you would blow up at them, and then they find themselves promising to give out valuable-top-secret-information, like trash numbers.

As I walked away I wondered if she knew about the stoned/drunk bum I found on sprawled on her lawn one night. He was screaming profanities on the top of his lungs at 10:00 p.m. And she didn’t do anything about it even though I know she was home and her dog wouldn’t stop barking. I called the police. At least my curb junk isn’t threatening her safety for what I can tell.

Then I looked down the street, other neighbors had hauled their huge piles of tree branches and lawn clippings, and random 2x4s to the curb. I sighed. At least I got a contact number for the county trash out of the incident.

EU Dreaming

This morning (it was really early in the morning) I was browsing on the internet, and I found myself thinking: “wow, wouldn’t it be cool to live in Europe for a few years? I mean, that would just be really neat. I’d learn so much. . . maybe another language.” And then I remembered that I did live in Europe for a few years. . . three to be exact. And I did speak another language for a while.

Good grief, I have the memory of a goldfish at 7:00 a.m.

Pictures

 

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Last week I read The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I am still trying to figure out what it was about. I was told is had something to do with philosophy, but I am afraid it all went over my head.  Either that or I wasn’t really paying attention because it wasn’t what I was expecting.

However, I “learned” that the answer to the universe the number 42. Whether it is blue or not is beyond me.

The Virginian

This week I read one of the best books I’ve read in a while, The Virginian by Owen Wister. Amazing writing all the way around. My favorite quote from the book was, “It’s not a brave man that’s dangerous… it’s the cowards that scare me.”  Its so true! How many people can you think of that are dangerous because they lack courage to do the right thing?

I was also struck by the boyish antics of the Virginian. He is brave and courageous, but doesn’t take himself too seriously and plays a good joke on more than one occasion. One episode, when he keeps a pompous clergyman up all night “wrestling for his soul” while all the clergyman wanted to do is sleep, had me chuckling out loud on the metro.