M is for...

Mandalay!

Now I know it sounds pretentious when I talk about "my grandparent's riverhouse," but it's really nothing like what you're thinking. More of a swamp house, so not so high class. :) It's an old house along the Aucilla River in north Florida, right next to the St Marks Wildlife Refuge (that's on the other side of the river). So, really, it is located smack in the middle of a swamp, but just happens to be next to the river :)

Mandalay was a hunting lodge back in the 1930s, when there weren't roads leading out to it, but a small train line. It's an old 9 bedroom house, with two big porches and no central air, and a big dining room, and an enormouse kitchen. It's been a sort of time share since at least the 1970s, when my grandparents got involved with it. Nothing big and official with options to swap weeks at Cancun, but just five families rotating weeks at this old house on the river.

It's a great place to grow up! Grandmother would make sure that when my branch of the family came down to visit each summer, we'd have at least part of our stay down there. It wouldn't always line up with fishing seasons, or scalloping, but we'd always have plenty of time on the boat, and swimming off the dock, and just playing at the house. It's an old house, as I've said, and for years they didn't have anything but a tiny little 13 in black and white TV there (I do remember hearing about Hong Kong being turned back over to China on that TV). But that's a great thing for active kids in summer - it forces us to go and play outside instead!

One of my favorite pictures from Mandalay - our supplies table! More kinds of sunscreen and bugspray than you can shake a stick at! We're a fair people spending lots of time in FL (not a one amongst us who tans easily!), so we have to protect ourselves!

This hammock is a right of passage, I believe. The porches at Mandalay are wide enough that they can hold a hammock stretched across them. It's a nice place to watch the river, read, sleep, and stay away from the bugs and enjoy the ceiling fan's breeze. There's pictures of me and Anne and Dad all piled in there when we were very tiny, of me and Anne when we were in grade school and high school, and of now when we're not so tiny. :) This picture was from March (it's very rare to see pictures of me at Mandalay when I'm not in summer clothes). Zach and I stopped in FL to visit family as we moved cross-country, and were able to spend a day down there. So, yes, a picture of him in the hammock too.

Mandalay also has some intensely sad and painful memories for me, but those memories are so different from everything else I have in my mind about the place, that it's almost a second category in my mind, not connected with Mandalay at all. When I think about it though, it just means another reason why this place remains so important to me.

L is for...

LATE!! Got so busy with LESSONS and a trip to LAS VEGAS that I was LATE with my post (L's all around!) Whoops!

No, really, L is for London, one of my favorite places in the world!

Obviously, I didn't take all these pictures, as I'm in some of them, but I took most of the others in this post :)

I've been to England three times since 1997, and I love it more each time I visit. This particular picture above was during a trip in 2005. I was also there with a family trip in 97 and for a study abroad in 2003. Granted the study abroad was really in Cambridge, but that's only an hour's train ride from London (God bless public transportation!)

London is just such a neat place to visit. I love the history and culture, the big-city fun of the shows and restuarants and people and cultures gathered there, the museums and the gardens, the couture shops to window shop, and the open air markets, and... and ... and.... Yeah, I just love that city!

I'm not really a big city person, for all practical would-you-live-there purposes. I like a little more space around me, and a little less cost of living. But for cities to visit, London definitely is consistently high on my list!

PS - for those who noticed, yes we were in Las Vegas this past weekend. I'll have more on that when I get my pictures sorted! :)

Look! Actual knitting content!

Yeah, it has been a long time, hasn't it?? Almost forgot it's called the KNITTING Penguin, didn't you?? Well, it's almost time for a WIP-Wednesday anyway, so wait no longer, I have knitting updates :) Let's see what I've been working on...

For starters, I've just about all caught up with the Monthly Dishcloth KAL. On the top row, from left to right, we have the April cloth ("In the Meadow") and the mid-April cloth ("Dots within Stripes"). On the next row, again from left to right, we have the May and mid-May cloths ("Wedding Hearts" and "Any Day, Everyday"). The first June cloth is currently OTN ('on the needles,' for those unfamiliar with knitting abbreviations).

"In the Meadow" was OK. I liked having an excuse to learn to bobble (seeing as I'm NEVER going to have them on a sweater unless I absolutely LOVE the effect - simply not a fan of how it looks on sweaters). It was the same designer as the March cloth ("The Empty Tomb") and she rather likes those pictures with the rays - the sunshine, the rays from the tomb. She likes them... I don't. Personally, I think it's a little obnoxious during the knitting, for an effect that just isn't worth it. But that's just my opinion. Still - I know how to bobble now!

"Dots within Stripes" was also just OK. It was a similar effect as "Finders Keepers" (from February) but took longer to get into my hands. Had to watch my rows more carefully, and that just defeated the purpose of using the dishcloths as nice mindless knitting. If I'm making another dishcloth and want this effect, I'll do "Finders Keepers" again - heck, that was the pattern I started in the DMV line! :)

"Wedding Hearts" was alright, might make it for a gift for a friend at some point, with kitchen gifts or something for their wedding, but not really my aesthetic. Not obnoxious, like the sun rays, but I just am so over the hearts-and-wedding themes. My own wedding was only 6 months ago - ask anyone who went - not a heart in sight! :)

"Any Day, Everyday" I reeeally like, though! It's a nice dishcloth, a good and bumpy cloth that will be good for scrubbing, and it's a very easy pattern. It's a variation on a basic lace grid, some changes on "yo, k2tog" alternating across rows. If you're not a knitter, don't worry; you're not supposed to understand that :) Anyway, it's very easy to get into your hands, so it's easy to remember and then just fly through the project. A good instant gratification project. Two thumbs up, as far as dishcloths go :) I'm not sure if I like this one or "Finders Keepers" better yet, though. Can't wait to see what the rest of the year will bring!

In non-dishcloth related knitting news, I've almost finished Square Cake! I've got one handle piece (of 4) all finished, and I'm about halfway up the second one. It'll be all off the needles soon, with any luck, and then all that's left is to line it!

And finally, in upcoming knitting news, I've been commissioned for a baby blanket!! My best friend in high school (Ben) has a little sister my own sister's age, and Julie (his sister) got married about 3 months before I did. Yes, she is old enough to be getting married, but it still makes me feel old - I've known her since she was in middle school after all!! ;) Anyway, Julie and her new husband are expecting their first in Oct! Very exciting! They know it'll be a boy, and Ben and Julie's mom (the grandmother-to-be) saw my shrug from the wedding and commissioned a baby blanket for the little one on the way! I'm so excited!!

I've already picked out the pattern I'm going to use, and ordered the yarn. For the pattern, I'm going with a little bit more unusual pattern, a blanket knit in the round. It looks really neat when it's all done (side note: Thank you, Ravelry - you made looking for a pattern so much easier!!) For the yarn, I'm going with Tofutsies, nice and warm and washable, but the cotton and chitin will make it not swelteringly warm in the FL summers. The color I'm looking at is this one, called Foot in the Door, variegated blues and greens and yellows. Julie is looking at pale blue and pale green and yellow for the baby colors. I thought this would be a nice yarn to use, still fitting in with the color scheme, but bright enough that he can still use it as a toddler play-blanket or something without it screaming "BABY," the way pastels often do. I've already ordered the yarn - had to special order it, but it's nice to have connections (i.e. a sister who works at a yarn shop - thank you Anne!!). Soon it will be forwarded on to me, in time to have a nice big blanket knit up for the little guy by his arrival in Oct. Did I mention I'm excited?

Review: Monster

So, yeah, this didn't exactly come on Movie Monday, but Monday I came home from work and fell asleep pretty quickly. I'm out in the sun a lot for my job, and with summer starting to hit us full force here in the desert, it was a LOT of sun I was out in all afternoon (2 1/2 hrs in the sun teaching lessons - like I said, a LOT of sun). So, I came home exhausted. Like Mom always laughed, the source of solar power is people - the sun just sucks all the energy right out of you!

Anyway, now that I'm coherent after work again, it's time for another movie. Moving along on our list, we have Monster next.

"Based on a true story," a "biopic," whatever you want to call it - This is the story of Aileen Wournos, crazy hooker\serial killer in FL in the late 1980s. Realized she could get more money and do less work by killing the johns she picked up along the highway.

Weird movie. One of those ones that takes an interesting, yet completely unsympathetic character, and tells the story in a way that you almost understand them. There's a lot of the common threads of humanity running through - searching for love, acceptance, etc. Granted we don't all go out and start killing people, but we can relate a little at least to what the characters talk about - the motives driving them, if not the actual actions.

As for the acting... Charlize Theron definitely deserved her Oscar for this one. At least in my humble opinion! A wonderful mixture of confusion and desperation and bravado, right through. Very well done. (And a side note - make-up was great! Anyone who can make a person as glamorous as Charlize Theron become as outright ugly as Aileen Wournos deserves recognition too!) Christina Ricci was great as Selby, Wournos' lover - a very self-centered, self-serving little person. An interesting side note is the difference people can make in our lives - what path we choose based on who we meet at any given juncture, I mean. In this case, Wournos was portrayed at the end of her rope, contemplating suicide, until she met Selby. And meeting Selby led to her hooking more, and eventually killing more.

Overall: 4 of 5. Not one I'd want for my own shelf, but definitely worth the watching - interesting character, and wonderful performance from Theron. Worth your time.

An ode to the binky

And what is a binky, you may ask? Well, if you do ask, then you obviously aren't a bunny owner, or at least friends with one.

A binky, simply put, is Bunny Joy. A little circuit in their fluffy little brains goes haywire, and they leap for joy, every end of their body going in six different directions. Before I realized there was a name for it, I called it the Bunny Bleaht!! because it looks like their brain just goes "Bleaht!!" and short circuits. :) Below is a youtube video a friend from Flickr made of one of their bunnies binkying 'bout the house. Billy Bunny is a Netherland Dwarf, a breed known for big personalities and high-energy antics.

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If you have some time, check out spekkioxlv's other youtube videos of Billy, and his roommate Ronny Bunny. Hysterical!! They've put together some really funny videos - and the music just tops it off!! Some more of my favorites are Cute but not Cuddly, The Chewinator, and I Feel Pretty. Definitely worth some time spent on youtube :)

I love watching Joey binky. It will come on all of a sudden, just a leap 3 feet sideways, or straight up, or backwards. Often, there's a twist or foot flick involved, twisting him round as he leaps. I've seen friends on Flickr with pictures of binkies, and I'm just amazed. Such lucky shots! I never have my camera handy when Joey binkies. :( Still, it's fun to watch his Bunny Joy bubble over like that. So absurd!! And so cute!!!

So, yes, the Binky - a sign of a very happy bunny.

Review: American Psycho

So recently we upped our Netflix account. Zach was getting tired of strings of 'my movies' (i.e. cartoons or British mysteries) coming in a row. So we've adjusted our account to allow me to have a disc or 2 of a 'my stuff' in, as well as a movie that we both want to watch. Everyone wins! As a result, however, I'm limiting my movie chatterings to Monday now. Otherwise, I'd always be talking about what we saw last :) So, Movie Mondays will probably be a regular part of the ramblings here.

On a side note, we upped our movies just in time for the DVD player to die. Poor little player had put up with me and my obsessive movie watching for several years now, even after years of being the family machine. Lasted us very well. A sad day, indeed.

Anyhoo - first up from our new and expanded movie list: American Psycho.

American Psycho takes place in Manhattan during the late 1980s. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is a young, wealthy investment banker. He is cut-throat competitive about his appearance, his job, his dinner reservations, even his business cards. And then at night he is just cut-throat, enjoying rape, torture, and murder, actions escalating as he begins to lose control. He is aware of his psychopathic nature and tries to get help from others, but he is misunderstood or ignored, as the others in his world are as self-obsessed as he is.

It's not just a slasher flick, as I'm sure people will be quick to dismiss it as. It's actually very well done. Not saying that it's not graphic at times, but a lot is simply by suggestion. Apparently the torture scenes are VERY graphic in the book it's based on. One of my pet peeves is 'suspense' movies that end up being just blood splattered around everywhere - give me Psycho any day! So much can be covered with just suggestion, and be so much more effective as a result!

There is a lot of commentary on the self-absorption and obliviousness of that society, wrapped up in amongst the killings. Definitely one of those movies with lots of layers. A lot of the period details are neat too, like Evelyn's (Reese Whitherspoon's) hair, or Bateman's serious commentaries on Huey Lewis or Whitney Houston. Nice touches.

Christian Bale is wooonderful! So attractive and so creepy - definitely carries the movie himself. After hearing in an interview about the time of Batman Begins, that he always tries to have a new accent in each movie he does, I was honestly listening for it here in American Psycho. And it is a different voice from Batman or Howl or the other movies I've seen him in. Cockier, smarmier somehow, simply in the voice. Kudos, Christian Bale, and yet another reason I love your movies! (I would like to hear him with his native Welsh accent though!)

PS - I did like how Bruce Wayne the business man had some of Bateman's mannerisms. Anne and I both noticed that in Batman Begins - gave it a nice little edge, Wayne channeling the psychotic businessman like that :) Could be that we're both obsessed little fangirls too.... ;)

Overall: 4 of 5. I liked it, but I will admit it is a weeeeeeeird movie. This is the type of movie you can watch as a simple fun flick, or try to analyze its comments on the greed and insanity of corporate culture, etc. - could definitely have a term paper's worth of material in this movie! Christian Bale is awesome as the lead, definitely a career-making turn.

(SPOILER)

So, I have to ask - how crazy is he really!?! At the end I was honestly wondering! I mean, he's obviously crazy, and wants to kill all these people, but has he really done it? He's nuts, no one around him realizes it, but is he actually as nuts as having REALLY killed all those people?? Am very curious!

(END SPOILER)

Some of us don't do so well in the heat...

Zach loves the heat, especially when it's dry like this. He's the type that can't stay warm even wearing tons of layers, so summer is definitely his favorite season (it's a sign of true love that he lets me turn the AC on in the house!) Joey and I, on the other hand, aren't so fond... I know I hate feeling so overheated, and it must be worse for him in his little fur coat!

Tonight we had a lovin' fest with Joey-buns. Poor little guy is hitting a second molt with summer approaching. Can't pet him without handfuls of bunny fur coming away with you! He's a mini Rex, so his fur is extra soft, but extra thick. Which means that as he sheds, the loose hair stays trapped in with the hair still attached. So, you pet him or comb him, and it's fistfuls of bunny fur in the air. Doing wonders for Zach's allergies, lemme tell you!

Bunny tummies are very sensitive too. During their molting seasons, you have to be very careful, because they can get hairballs very easily. This is especially a concern of long-haired breeds like angoras or jersey woolies. Unlike cats, bunnies can't cough up their hairballs, so they risk getting blockages from hairballs. Part of why they need to eat so much hay - keeps the digestive tract running smoothly. Bunny owners have to be very conscious of this during molting seasons, and things like extra grooming sessions help keep the buns from ingesting all that extra fur.

So, today we settled in for a couple petting/combing session with the buns. Good for Zach, good for Joey. Everyone wins! Joey cooperated very well, too! So proud of him :) Usually with grooming and nail-trimming and the like, he's very squirmy and not too cooperative, but today he sat very still and let us pet and brush him, get all that loose fur out. Not that he was having tons of fun, mind you, but maybe he could tell he was cooling off without all that extra fur. The second of these sessions was out of the patio, actually. Made it very easy to sweep away all the shed bunny fur. Swept away about another bunny's worth of hair, too! But it was all worth it - he looks so sleek now! And he was such a good boy through all of it! Even let him have his bedtime veggies a little early for behaving so well :) Yes, I am a pushover when it comes to my bunny - why do you ask?

So, yes, summer is arriving. And yes, there is a noticeable difference between wet and dry heat. Up to a point, humidity makes the same high temperature worse. However, when it's 120 degrees, it doesn't matter - it's dang hot! You feel different too - not like you're going to melt, more like you're going to totally overheat. Hard to describe, really. Guess that's the difference sweating (or actually feeling your sweat) makes! And we definitely still another good 30 degrees to go until we peak (they regularly reach temperatures in the 120s around here in the summer). We may have more coming, but summer's definitely arriving!