Not The Best of Mornings

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I wake up three hours later than I intended to, with the smell of cat urine wafting from the bathroom and a non-guilty-looking cat sitting on my chest, meowing at me for breakfast. Optical inspection for a video shoot in one hour. If I were still full-time, I’d be late already. The bathroom rug beside the litter box is soaked through with feline incontinence. I splash some pet odor odor neutralizer and cleanser on it. Tonight it goes back in the laundry — for practically the third day in a row. I pray to God she doesn’t have a urinary tract infection, because I don’t have money for a vet.

The camera power cables and microphone cables are hopelessly tangled, but being the obsessive compulsive person that I am, I unknot and organize them with nice, neat twisty-ties. I will thank myself for this later in the day.

Downstairs, a car alarm across the street spits a high-pitched whistling whine into the air. I briefly contemplate printing a clever little “NOTICE: STUPID CAR ALARM ANNOYING EVERYONE” ticket to stick under the offender’s windshield wiper on my way out, but there isn’t time to design it, and my printer is inkjet anyway, so the ink would bleed off the paper in the drizzle.

“Breakfast” is a fistful of vitamins and a couple of herbal supplements (green tea extract to boost metabolism and echinacea for immune response) hurriedly downed with a glass of chocolate milk. No time for a real breakfast. Lunch will be good. Maybe a burrito.

Wind advisory and severe thunderstorm watch today. That means heavy rain, but too much wind to hold an umbrella without it going all Mary Poppins on you. Hardcore. That’s how I lost my last jumbo umbrella, so all I have right now is a piddly little push-button barely big enough for one person.

I’m starting to feel just a bit like Alexander.

Pink Flamingoes and a Wicker Chair

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A couple of WTF scenes around Arlington, VA last night:

(Above, left) While workers pour concrete into the foundation for a large house on North Adams Street, the neighbor has arranged his flock of plastic pink flamingoes to appear as though they are rubbernecking the noisy scene.

(Above, right) At the Pines of Florence restaurant on Fairfax Ave, the men’s room features this large, comfortable wicker chair directly across from the toilet. I’m uncertain as to its specific purpose, though I did sit in it briefly to pull up my socks.

Clematis Seed Pods

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Saw these on a vine hanging on to Amy’s mom’s fence. They’re Clematis, but I’m not sure which kind specifically, because there are hundreds of species and subspecies. Based on the seed pods I was going to guess they were Clematis vitalba or Clematis tangutica, but Amy says these had tiny white flowers through the summer, so neither of my guesses would have applied. Any Clematis experts have an idea? More photos here.

Basang Panaginip Mention

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I’ve received some mention from Basang Panaginip* as a best-designed Filipino blog (in the Movable Type category), and as a runner-up in the listing of Top Pinoy Probloggers. Thank you.

(I’ve never really thought of HNBP as a “problog,” though it does earn the majority of my Adsense income, but I’m hoping that one day, projects like Cheap and Tiny can do that earning for me. For now, it’s nice to get at least enough cash to cover my web hosting expenses and then some.)

* Basang Panaginip is Tagalog, literal, for “wet dream.” Heh. Clever.

Premier Pestates

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When designing logos, sometimes it’s nice to split evenly worded logo type in half with a light, stylized design element. The separation reinforces a sense of symmetry and, tastefully done, can subtly strengthen brand recognition.

On the other hand, sometimes a designer decides to use a typographic flourish as the separating element, which — not being light, large, or different enough to be perceived as being distinct from the main logo type itself — creates a new word altogether. In this case, PremierPestates.

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Returning from Thanksgiving 2006

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Njt.jpg The last Amtrak Regional for the evening passed through New Jersey ten minutes late, but was not too heavily packed, as the bulk of the Thanksgiving holiday crowd had already milled through the corridors of transit several hours earlier. Amy and I found a couple of seats together in an Amfleet 1 coach — those older ones with brown and tan interiors, dimly lit with bright red seats and only a few AC outlets in certain rows. It was a noisy, slightly cramped train, with the heat turned up way too high, so that the air had that musty “burnt radiator” smell, and we took off our hats and jackets and sweaters and still felt too warm. But we managed to sleep most of the way, listening to Grieg’s Peer Gynt on Amy’s iPod, with an earphone splitter to share the audio between two sets of earphones.

I came home at about 3am, to a cat who, though happy to see me, had also thrown up a hairball on the sheets and peed on the bathroom rug.

Thanksgiving Day 2006 Photo Highlights

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Thanksgiving Day was cold, gray, and rainy as we drove to Amy’s grandmother’s house. (The trip may have also involved river and woods.) Two turkeys of one stone each were eaten, as well as cream of broccoli soup, string beans, turnips, mashed potaters and sweet potaters. Here are some photographic highlights which, unlike last year, do not include food, but do include photos of Grandma’s antique cash register:

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More photos in the NJ Thanksgiving 2006 photoset, which continues to grow as the post-holiday weekend progresses. This morning, Amy and I had pre-marriage counseling with her pastor. Now it is time for shameless Black Friday shopping at a suburban big box store.

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On the Thanksgiving Train

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The feeling of dread at a difficult pre-Thanksgiving trip today grew stronger as the precipitation percentages in the forecast rose ever higher. As the storm swept up the East Coast, I trudged home through the rain, wondering just how delayed and crowded the 8:30 train to NJ would be.

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The line to the train at Union Station stretched from Gates B and C, down the concourse, past Sbarro’s and the liquor/lotto store, around the corner, and past the front of the bookstore. The train was sold out, yet somehow, Amy and I managed to score the very rearmost seats in the rearmost car of the train. The seats were together for a couple, at the far end of the car from the restrooms, and right beside the exit, and had extra legroom and two A/C outlets. It was a quintafecta of Amtrak coach-class awesome. The train was somehow not too crowded, the trip went quickly, and there were no delays.

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All in all, a much easier trip than I expected, completely banishing all sense of dread I had earlier had, despite the rain and line and threat of complications from the Thanksgiving rush.

I’m over at Amy’s folks’ place now. Tomorrow (today, technically), Thanksgiving service at church, and then dinner at her grandma’s. Enjoy the turkey or tofurkey, those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving.

(Just two site notes: Weblog comments and trackbacks are off for now, due to heavily increased spambot activity — probably bottom feeders trying to take advantage of sysadmins being away for the holiday season. Also, the webcam is keeping an eye on Pandora for me, in the still image section. You may also occasionally see my neighbor pop in to feed her.)

NMWA

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IMG_8745.JPG Amy and I spent yesterday afternoon at the National Museum of Women in the Arts — a museum we’ve been meaning to visit for years, but kept putting off because it isn’t free. But the day was open after lunch with Brandon, so we went in, coughed up the $8/adult, and took the plunge.

The big great hall of pink marble and crystal chandeliers (Disney-ish, as Amy described it) that first greets you on entry is definitely not the whole museum. There’s a sparse collection of classical and neoclassical work lining the mezzanine walls, but you have to go up the marble staircase at the back of the hall to get to the meat of the collection — the exhibition hall and more modern painting and sculpture works on the upper floors.

Full NMWA photoset here, and here’s a highlight from the “Amy Juxtaposed Alongside Big Scultpure Heads” series:

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