Well guys—sincere thanks to the few of you who have followed this blog regularly.
I don’t live anywhere cool and I don’t have any kids who aren't already being blogged about. Maybe someday if I do either of those things, I’ll bring my “personal” blog back to life, but for now I’m going to focus on A VW for Everybody and Books Fill My Mind.
Please come visit me at one or both of these blogs!
A few nights ago I was practicing the piano and wanted to hear a recording of a particular song. I searched for it on my best friend YouTube and stumbled upon recordings by Emily Bear by whom I’m now totally captivated.
I’m not easily impressed by child prodigies as a lot of times they are kids who showed an early aptitude for music after which they were more or less forced to practice constantly, and as little kids, they can memorize like crazy. These kids play better and have a broader repertoire than most adults, but generally they lack emotion, creativity and general musicality (which is fine, hello—they are kids).
While Emily’s life does appear to revolve completely around being a piano prodigy, she is different in a few ways. A) She looks genuinely happy when she plays the piano. B) This kid writes music which possesses emotion, depth, and beautiful chord progressions. C) There is nothing mathematical about her playing. You can tell this stuff comes from her heart. She plays with real sensitivity and dynamics which as a child are very unique to her.
Enough of my talking, here’s a video of her playing one of her compositions. Enjoy.
(Oh, and when I heard her playing Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum, I thought—oh, THAT’S what that song was supposed to sound like when I played it at age 17.)
In all honesty, we had a great year.
I feel like I should be all depressed about some of the stuff that happened in 2009. Maybe it is just that I’m heavily medicated or something, but really I’m pretty happy about the way the year went down.
I made a New Years resolution this year that I wouldn’t eat any doughnuts. This wasn’t so much in an effort to be healthy or lose weight or save money or anything logical like that, it was just that I wanted to make a resolution I could stick to and while brainstorming, I walked by a box of doughnuts and voila—the perfect New Years resolution!
I always thought Dr. Seuss was just being goofy when he asked if “you like green eggs and ham” but did you know that some chickens really do lay green eggs?
Check it out!!
I’m a perfectionist (stupid 1st child syndrome). When I was in 2nd grade, we had an assignment in art class. I don’t exactly remember the specifics other than we were (as I understood it) supposed to find a picture in a magazine and then paint this picture (as best we could). I wasn’t exactly an artistic kid, but I did my best on the assignment and was pretty happy with the finished product. I showed it to my art teacher and she said “that wasn’t really what I had in mind”. I think I cried and then decided that I was not artistic and that was the end of my career as an artist.
About 6 months ago, I decided that it was about time I got over being offended by my 2nd grade art teacher and I was going to learn to be artistic. The internet is full of people who produce such amazing, peaceful, inspiring things and they have me enchanted. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be the kind of skill you can just decide to develop and voila, you’re an artist. I’ve been trying really hard, but I’m not sure that I’m progressing. (See my fully developed art skills here.)
One of the things I love about my husband it that he is such a “guy”. Between the two of us, we couldn’t paint our way through a halogen lit tunnel. The colors would clash, the figures would be unidentifiable, and we’d both sit down halfway through and decide that it was a stupid project and we should go eat pizza or something.
My mother-in-law made me a shirt for my birthday. This was really sweet of her and I wanted Craig to take a picture of me in the shirt so I could send a thank you card and she could see how well she estimated my size (I was pretty impressed). Craig and I had the following conversation yesterday morning.
Maryn: Will you please take a picture of me in this shirt?
Craig: Why?
Maryn: So I can send your mom a thank you card.
Craig: Oh, that’s nice of you. (He is so sweet.) (Retrieves the camera.) Smile.
Maryn: No, not in here, I want the picture to be more artistic.
Craig: okay, what do you mean?
Maryn: I dunno, you know how people have pretty pictures on their blogs? I need pretty stuff in the picture or something.
Craig: You’re pretty. (Aww, he is so sweet)
Maryn: I think I need to be holding something.
Craig: Okay, hold this Coke.
Maryn: Laughs. Okay, fine.
So, this was the picture we ended up taking. Craig did a great job—especially considering that a) he’s a boy and b) he has no idea what it is I’m asking him to produce something that is only defined in my own head.
I’m convinced that I need the following before I’ll be able to create an artistic photograph. 1) a 12.1 megapixel camera, 2) a Mac, 3) Photoshop, 4) an interior designer, 5) a chest full of vintage knitted pieces, 6) rainboots, 7) a personal trainer and 8) a weekly manicure. Alright 2nd grade art teacher, it is almost Christmas time. Pony up. *
*I feel really awkward joking about my 2nd grade art teacher since she died in a car accident. I’m not really trying to blame her for anything, I’m just screwing around like I always do. It is actually all my mom’s fault. :-)
I try to keep this blog from being a) all about my cats and b) a photo journal. I wanted to write about our cruise though, so you’re gonna have to put up with a little photo journaling and next week you’re gonna have to hear about my cat (and yes, I know that gonna isn’t a word).
Our cruise started with a lovely bus ride to the port which I always love because it gives you a good overview of the port city. With a degree in urban planning, I like to pretend that I know a little about city development, suburbs, etc and I like to watch these things go by. 
Since I live in a city with no big breathtaking bridges, I am obsessed with them and took about 20 pictures of this bridge. (Craig totally made fun of me.) I’ll just post the one which includes both the bridge and the cruise ship. 
Here we are being cute in Cabo. 
Cabo San Lucas was a beautiful port. We went scuba diving right next to the ship and the dive ship was outfitted with all of the gear so there was no long boat ride to the dive shop or to the dive site. Freaking awesome! There were sea turtles, hunting seals, a wrecked ship (still think that was orchestrated by the dive company), dolphins jumping in the ocean (that was in the morning before we got to Cabo, not while we were diving), and all of the pretty fish.
I loved Mazatlan because we went downtown instead of the tourist strip. I don’t think that Craig was too crazy about it, but I am a nut for culture and for old stuff, so I had one hell of a time looking at the old cathedral and shopping in the real deal Mexican grocery store. We also got to ride in one of these sweet little VW golf cart taxi cab things. I’m totally asking for one for Christmas. :-)
We decided to do a bike ride in Puerto Vallarta, which ended up being a lot of fun. Here we are at a little church. How quaint. 
I think I’ll just leave you and your thoughts to come up with the story of this photo…
Okay, since Halloween is over, this was something at the distillery where we started our bike ride. I don’t know what it is, but I’m hoping that it has to do with the process of making tequila.
Craig and I go on cruises to have fun in the sun, but also to read…okay, we’re dorks, whatever. We always have to find our favorite reading spot, on the ship. This was it. 
Comfy chairs, sodas, cookies, books, my favorite person, and peace and quiet. Oh yeah.
We're boarding this cat (spoiled rotten; but the alternative is to come home to a bird blood bath) and we're going on a cruise (tomorrow)! I'm so excited (wahoo!) to get out of dodge with my honey (husband of my dreams) and take a week to decompress. (Plus, they have cheese plates on cruise ships! I love cheese!)
You know the phrase “it never hurts to ask”? Do people really mean that? I, for one, think that it does hurt to ask sometimes. Sometimes people say “no” and that can be unpleasant for both the inquisitor and the respondent.
Now maybe it just hurts me because I’m kind of a highly sensitive person, but I really wish people would start saying something more like: “if you want to increase the probability of getting what you want, perhaps you should ask—even if it crushes your heart into millions of pieces and makes you realize that everyone hates you”. See, isn’t that a bit more realistic?
(Okay, don’t worry, my heart has not been crushed into millions of pieces and I do have friends, this phrase has just been running through my head and pestering me.)
