Travesty!

What the hell is this?


Yes, that yellow square is a big fat ticket, received on our car while parked in front of our house this morning. Granted, it is technically a ticketable offense to park in front of our house without feeding the meter, but we have lived here for NINE MONTHS without a single ticket. I was all cocky about it, even telling someone this very morning about how they never ticket. And then she dropped me off at my house and said "hey look, someone on your street got a ticket."

ha ha.

My response, of course, "shit. That's me."

So it remains to be seen if our free parking spree is officially over, and we'll be schlepping our groceries from down the street from now on. Stupid rules, when actually followed.

Spring House Debate

The entire Spring House Technical Center (~950 people) got the following email from the site director:

to: Employees at the Spring House Site

As part of their exciting Pennsylvania primary campaign, we've just learned that Senators Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama will be visiting Spring House this afternoon for a townhall meeting in Emmons Auditorium. The meeting will start at 4:00 and should last about 1 hour. Seating will be on a first come basis so be sure to get their early if you want a seat. Sorry for the very short notice but we've had to keep this very quiet for security reasons. The Senators will be arriving by helicopter at 3:55 on the lawn in front of Building 6. Please keep clear of this area. The Secret Service will start clearing the geese from the site at 3:45 to insure that there is no interference with the helicopters. The TV crews should start arriving and setting up by 2:00. Please do not park in the parking spots by building 6. We need to keep these spaces open.

Thanks, I hope you can join us for this exciting and newsworthy event

Signed, the director of the site. I reacted to this with the following (in somewhere near this order):

- wow! That is so exciting!
- I wonder if Chad can come. He didn't say anything about guests.
- How early will I have to get there to get a seat? Can I get all my measurements done before then?
- Wait a second.... why would the secret service have to get rid of the geese and not our facilities people?
- Hillary and Barak in the same place and the same time, and that place is building 6? None of this makes any sense.

And then I remembered what day it was. And then I confirmed with some co-workers (not without some disappointment on my part) that our site director was messing with us. And went about my business, until we got the following email a few hours later.

to: Employees at the Spring House Site

Unfortunately the geese were too aggressive and it does not look like we can move them. Maybe next year on APRIL 1st we can invite the candidates back.

So at any rate, apparently the spring house geese are even scarier than I realized. In other news, Max and Entropy have learned how to ride a bicycle while singing the score from Les Miserables, and Chad has decided to sell his shares of Thoughtbot to Microsoft so he can take the cats on their European tour.

Seriously

This happened.



We're sitting on the couch and hear a noise from the other room. Chad goes to investigate, and I hear:

"OH MY GOD, THERE IS A CAT IN THE VASE. GET THE CAMERA!"

So needless to say, I did. She popped up all wack-a-mole style a few times for the camera but then she had enough. Apparently she can also get out of the vase on her own. This may be the funniest thing that's ever happened in our house.

Persepolis

Wow. This was an amazing movie. It's based on an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, who grew up during the Iranian revolution. In addition to being a powerful illustration of how difficult it is to simply live under the control of an oppresive regime, it was also a brilliant commentary about growing up as a woman in general. There were parts where I laughed out loud and parts where I was near tears. It was also just beautifully drawn.


Seriously. You should go find the nearest slightly arsty theater and see this movie.


The thing about Iran's repressiveness towards women that blows my mind is that it wasn't always this way. The fact that a country could decide to change TO a culture where women can't be in public without a male escort and the police enforce extreme religious laws is amazing to me. And really really scary.

I am so lucky to live in a time and place where I just can't understand such fanaticism. We are free and well fed so I can say "what is WRONG with these people?" about the religious fanatics (in Iran, or otherwise) but then when I get tired of thinking about it go pet my cat and chat with my husband. So in order to avoid sinking this post into a depressed rant about the state of the world, I will just reiterate how happy I am to have the life I have been given. And also I will not take lightly take my responsibility to pay attention and vote.

So anyway, this movie is worth seeing.

First Buds

Disclaimer to Sarah and Al: Sorry. I'm really not just trying to rub in the fact that you live in the arctic. At least you have beer and cheese there.


But seriously - take a look at our tree! These buds that have been on the tree since we moved in (last June) are finally starting to open. I think we have a magnolia on our hands. Who knew we were moving to the south? It's a little hard to see in the picture but there actually a whole bunch of pink petals peeking out from all over the tree.


I will award myself 1 alliteration point for "pink petals peeking."

Free at last

So I guess Max didn't like her collar.


As you can see, she pretty much destroyed it. I insisted the cats get collars after we thought Entropy got out at Thanksgiving. But neither of them have ever gotten out, and as you can see I don't think someone would be able to get our phone number off of that collar anyway.

Fine Max. You win this one. But I'm still going to come upstairs and say hi to Chad when I get home even if it means I wake you up. Blink in disgust all you want, kitty.

On an unrelated note, "The Producers" is the weirdest musical ever. Especially the TV version. Especially the pigeons.

Tired

:):):):)

The good tired that comes from 3 matches (11 games) of volleyball in one evening. Yay thursdays. The world is as it should be, and now it's time for bed.

Not for our nocturnal feline friends, by the way, who are racing each other around the living room.

Yay bed :)