champagne chair

seeing this reminded ann of the chinese restaurant scene in terry gilliam's 1991 classic the fisher king, one of the best scenes in one of the most underrated movies. after chasing around dumplings awkwardly with chopsticks all night during their first date, parry presents lydia with a tiny chair made from the wire of a champagne bottle, kinda like this:

now if ann could present dabney with a barcelona chair constructed from wine corks and foils....

mom-sley

ann's college roomie, mom-sley, paid superette a visit this past weekend for both business and pleasure having had an interview at the venerable H. during her visit, she and ann shopped oh-so-chic newbury street looking for baby clothes on sale. luckily, they hopped in the little boat, where ann was jealous of all the french-flavored items that only came in wee sizes. she searched and searched for a size "396 months" but no luck. fortunately for mom-sley, there were plenty of sizes for 9 month olds.



ah...babies. it seems that everyone these days is either planning to get pregnant, newly post-partum, or just recently knocked up. ann and dabney suppose that it is only natural that people keep asking about their own current non-breeder status. beyond fantasy, ann and dabney just can't get on the same page timing-wise. when ann is ready, dabney is horrified by the thought. when dabney is willing, ann just hasn't been quite there. when they finally do agree, then they know that that'll be the time. in the meantime, dab's mom thinks they should harvest their eggs. coming soon: a short list of fantasy surrogates.

loopy

having finished her first knitting project in some time, ann was in search of another fun project (i.e. short, in ann's mind). she dug through her yarn stash and discovered two balls of big sky wool/alpaca yarn in a very pretty purple that she had purchased on her last furlough to st. louis.



thanks to crazy aunt purl, here is her latest knitting effort - a crazy loopy scarf on the biggest needles she owns. note: aunt purl did her scarf on size 15 needles, but ann mistakenly grabbed size 19 (it said "15 mm" on one side, duh) out of her bag and started knitting away.

#8

when ann posted her seven list last week, she forgot to mention one of the seven things she wanted to do before she dies. so let's call it #8...

she wants to drive one of these.

View this clip on Vimeo

like a virgin, again.

dabney returned from the virgin islands this past weekend. wait - don't get the image of a luxurious resort. strike that from you minds right away. she spent the last ten days in a tent mere steps away from the beach.



a different type of luxury.

dabney's mom goes every year to st. john, where she hangs out with 12-16 other 50-somethings, a group of people she has come to call her snorkel family. since her mom had to go a little earlier this year, and because dabney had the frequent flyer miles, she decided to go to - ahem - purely to keep her company.

when you are camping with your mother in paradise, daily life takes on a totally different rhythm. you go to bed at 10:00pm and wake up at 6:00 (and anyone who knows night owl dabney knows how weird that is for her). you hitchhike around the island. little things take on greater importance. ooh, ooh, ooh, is that a message for me on the community bulletin board? is that an entire sudoku puzzle book that someone left behind at the registration desk? yay! tonight is mexican night at maho bay! what do you want to do today? i know, let's break into the guest shower room at nearby caneel bay resort, in pursuit of hot water and their trademark coconut shampoo...

back home, with body reset, dabney is trying to maintain the simplicity and pattern. but she has already been lured by the prospect of late poker nights, and glasses of wine. so much for clean living.

and you thought she had given up...

dabney was taken aback when she walked in the door. but there it was in a pile on the couch (and no, it wasn't the dog).

it has taken months during which she blamed being crafted-out, warm weather (i.e. too hot to touch yarn), and lack of fun patterns, but ann has got her knitting groove back.


just to wet her whistle, she made these little numbers. they keep her hands warm while she types away.

the last supper

ann absentmindedly forgot to take a picture of her meal last night. with dabney's return scheduled for this evening, she had to squeeze in just one more meat-centered feast. again, number one on her list of things to do - check.

it looked something like this:

but imagine it bloodier, and accompanied with broccoli, baked potatoes, and two bottles or wine.

thanks to ashbloem who not only purchase the meat but expertly cooked it (but just barely) to perfection.

remote out-of-control

ann didn't want to admit it. she just thought it was the quirkiness of the actual contraption. but after months of puzzlement due to the strangely abbreviated cycles of their space heater, girlladyfriend hit the nail on the head when she diagnosed its problem last weekend when she visited superette; the tivo remote has somehow entangled its signal with that of the heater. when ann switches channels from project runway to no reservations, the temperature goes up or down. when she deems the tv too loud and attempts to adjust the volume, the tower starts to oscillate. when she goes to the tivo main menu, the entire thing just shuts off.


View this clip on Vimeo

anyone out there have any ideas on how to remedy this situation?

how romantic.

a & d on the charles, circa 1999

on this day, seven years ago ann and dabney admitted their mutual affection for each other... in a bar. how romantic. before they made their union official in the commonwealth of massachusetts, they used to celebrate this day usually at their favorite neighborhood restaurant with a nice bottle of champagne and some fancy vittles. but in the wake of the fanfare from their '03 wedding, the day has been relegated to the ordinary of any other day. this year, dabney is even celebrating on an island in the caribbean, without ann, in tent with her mother. ann is ringing it in by taking the dog for walk, doing some paperwork, going to the gym, and later nodding off in front of the tv. how romantic.

comment away

sorry, if you have tried to comment over the last couple of days and were greeted with some sort of obnoxious note saying that ann and dabney had to approve your comment first. what sort of nonsensical setting is that? in any case, all is well again.

39 x 1

is anyone else annoyed by the need for these?

did anyone know this change was happening? ann has gone to her local post office twice to pick up the additional postage but instead has been welcomed by mile-long lines, too long for her taste.

to protest, ann may make her next letter look like this:

poker is fun.

on sunday night, superette played host to its biggest poker night ever with nine participants joining in the fun. it was a $5 buy-in/ winner-goes-home-with-it-all game.



the group for the evening included ann, girlladyfriend, ashbloem, david, boston tara, will, nebraska, interravision and carrrrrrrrrmen. there were so many people, one of mogo's trusty craft fair folding tables had to be retrieved and added on to the end of the dining room table. it was a little tight but it worked out just fine.



and thank god for that new poker set that ann and dabney received for christmas. it was perfect; plenty of chips for the nine players (and by the way, one deck works for 2-10 players). everyone dined on a lot of cheese in the form of rotel and pizza (except of course for girlladyfriend and interravision, a.k.a. the lactose-intolerant twins, who ordered salads). a mish-mosh of beverages was imbibed: bourbon courtesy of ashbloem and david, proseco courtesy of carrrrrrrmen, guiness and bailey's courtesy of boston tara, wine from will and nebraska, and superette's always random assortment of leftover beers.



during the 3 hour game, everyone played quite aggressively and what was funny was that carrrrrrrrmen got a taste of her own medicine and didn't like it one bit - everytime someone would raise before the flop, she pouted. ah, sweet revenge.

ashlbloem was the first to go out. carmen, still bitter about the fearless betting, was later eliminated. then interravision knocked out boston tara and girlladyfriend in one dramatic hand. david was hanging in there for a bit but then went out next. then nebraska's small stack eventually got the better of him. ann knocked out will out with a well-timed flush. finally, it was ann and interravision in head-to-head action.



at first, they were pretty evenly matched chip-wise, but ann steadily whittled down interravision's stack in series of quick hands. then it came down to the final hand during which interravision went all-in and ann called her big old bluff. jack high won the evening. a pretty anti-climatic final hand, but dabney would have been so proud.

(thanks to notyomomma for the splendid phone pics.)