Jen, good to have you back. I'm glad to hear that Paul still engages in small acts of rebellion against his mother's disapproval. I hope he wears the cap with pride. I've had vegetarian bacon. The stuff I had looked eerily like Fruit Stripe gum and tasted only marginally better than cardstock. I hope yours was better. As he indicated below, Marc's obsession with Carl Hiassen has reached fever pitch. The poor man better get cranking with some new novels soon, or I'm going to wind up putting Marc into some sort of literary detox program. Speaking of Hiassen, one of his latest columns made me laugh. I've been on a big Garrison Keillor kick lately, so I've been listening to archived Prairie Home Companion monologues via streaming audio. Problem is, Keillor's voice is like a soothing hookworm that burrows its way into your brain and colors all your thoughts. I've been walking around for weeks with his voice narrating my life. "She walked up to the door ... *sigh* ... and heard her ... her cat, meowing to be ... fed, and she wondered if ... if there was enough spaghetti ... spaghetti ...*sigh* ... leftover from last night's dinner ... for dinner tonight ..."
posted by Kate at 11:02 AM link/comments
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Paul and I survived the week with the parents in Denver, which was really Dillion. We discovered the town of Leadville, known for tourist-drawing reasons as the highest incorporated city in the nation (the elevation was 10,000 feet, I think...oxygen deprivation has blurred my recall...) But, it was a cool place where we were able to fantasize about moving there and being really isolated. Leadville purchases included a pack of anti-smoking playing cards with the grim reaper all over the place; polar-fleece scrap caps made by Leadville alternative-types; (a certain mother figure did not approve of Paul's cap, a disapproval which resulted in Paul wearing the cap 24-7); two Vietnam t-shirts from the thrift store; and pizza with vegetarian bacon.
posted by Jen at 10:46 PM link/comments
This is great Dave for President 2000 2004. I have some strange obsession with his writing as I am on his fifth book in 4 weeks. Maybe it is the Florida element, but I think it is more is dry wit that I enjoy, but it I really love the fact I have been almost everywhere he writes about. Oh, Nat....you need to come teach my African history teacher about religions, she screws them up almost every other day (we only have class every other day!). last, but not least for those of you missing Halloween, play this, oh make sure to try it a few times mixing it up for the best results!
posted by Marc at 12:54 PM link/comments
Monday, June 23, 2003
wow kate... talk about an ad for not getting married... good luck w/ the gram from hades... the vodka luge is a great idea... we should have one for all of our parties!!! and i have to agree, that gram chosen silver is just plain fugly, but the set you two chose is perfectly fine, elegant and simple even... at least it is mark you get to spend the rest of your life with, and not the gram with retched taste and a complete lack of tact...
posted by Becky at 2:20 PM link/comments
Jen, I'm glad to hear that you survived your foray into the great West, and were not done in by sunburns, windstorms, or pockets of ammunition-stockpiling militia members. I heard y'all have a lot of those in your neck of the woods. Have fun not wasting space in Denver. Hooray for mormonism-drenched caves. Holly, who just moved to a new apartment across the street from me (we work in the same office; we live on the same street. in some cultures, i think we're technically recognized as married.), has downstairs neighbors who are drenched in mormonism. You know, young blonde couple with young blonde children. The patriarch recently got sent off on a six-week-long business thing, so the wife packed up the kids and raced home to Salt Lake City for the duration of his absence, presumably terrified of living in the wilds of Cleveland without adult male protection. Nat, the congressman I'm writing the site for is Kucinich. He was elected mayor of Cleveland back in the 70s, but then got ousted from office after he refused to sell Cleveland's public power system to Giant Corporate Bastards. Some Clevelanders hate him for this; I think he rocks. Judge for yourself here. And now, a small wedding-related rant: If any of you someday find that you're an old, bitter, nasty woman, and you have a granddaughter who's getting married, here are some pointers: 1. Your granddaughter and her fiance spent 20 minutes in the flatware aisle of Bed Bath and Beyond carefully discussing and ultimately adding this to their registry. This involved a great deal of thought and compromise. You should therefore refrain from insisting that the couple remove the aforementioned item from their registry just because you saw this on a home shopping channel and purchased it because you "liked this one better than the one they picked out." The flatware you chose is hideous, and the bride and groom will return it at their first opportunity. 2. Do not contact the bride and request that you be permitted to purchase an ice sculpture of an angel to be used as a decorative item at the wedding reception. The bride, unlike you, is not an 8th-grade dropout who considers Hummel figurines and giant, elaborately-dressed porcelain dolls to be themes in home decor. Speaking of ice sculptures, though, the bride does kind of dig this idea. 3. Do not request, in melodramatic tones, that the bride and groom use 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 as a reading in their wedding ceremony. The bride and groom are well aware that love is patient, kind, non-boastful, does not forget to lower the toilet seat, and shows willingness to compromise on pizza toppings. However, the bride and a slab of sheet rock are about equal in their reverence for religion, so there will be no bible shit at her wedding. Knowing this, when the bride tells you that she doubts she will use said bible passage in her ceremony, you should not glare at her and hiss that if she doesn't comply to your request ("I'm your grandmother! And this is my only request!"), you will "put [the bride] on a guilt trip for the rest of my life." The bride does not care. You already had your wedding. If you don't like what the bride decides, you can bite the bride.
Well! It's nice to see everyone here. Welcome, Becky.
posted by Kate at 10:53 AM link/comments
YAY!!!! I was finally deemed worthy to post to the blog! (j/k) seriously though, a great big hello to all those out there in blog'land... and esp a big hello and extra hug to nat, so that he can share it w/ his woman, whom i miss terribly!!! well, hello and smiles to all!! (p.s. i finally moved to cleveland, and live w/ jen now!!!)
posted by Becky at 9:49 AM link/comments
Saturday, June 21, 2003
So Paul and I and friend Tina just got back from a week-long roadtrip to the north rim of the Grand Canyon -- much ridiculousness and fun was had, pictures to be posted later. Highlights included an electrolyte-draining 8 hour hike down and up the canyon (all agreed it was the most strenuous event ever undertaken by any of us, all agreed we feared heat-induced insanity more than once, but we were not as insane as the guys who were hiking from the south rim down to the Colorado River and then up the north rim all in one day -- when they passed us they were on mile 22, with 9 hours behind them and one more to go...) The GC was followed by meanderings around Utah and southern Idaho, including visits to the drenched-in-Mormonism Moqui Cave (we were lured by the promise of dinosaur footprints and flourescent minerals) and a full day expressing awe over the lave flow at Craters of the Moon. Sunburns are being tended to, and the tent more or less survived an Idaho windstorm that bent one of its poles when it went careening across the campground Friday morning.
But the beautiful ending to all this is that two hours after returning last night, Paul's mom called in a frenzy, insisting that we meet them in Denver right away because she ended up with an extra hotel room for a week (for a Lion's Club Conference) and she doesn't want "the space to get wasted" and apparently she can't get a refund. So, already loopy from a week of car camping, it looks like we're heading out again to save the parents from the possibility of not getting their money's worth.
posted by Jen at 12:31 PM link/comments
Friday, June 20, 2003
One does have to sit back and bask in the gloriousness of the new Sixlayerkate.
Actually I rather enjoy the Blah blah blahs on the about page. They seem wonderfully honest. But perhaps not particularily informative.
posted by Nat at 1:57 PM link/comments
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
'ello, all. Welcome to the newly-redesigned sixlayerkate. Not everything works yet (just ignore all the "blah blah"s on the about page), but I'm working on it, so hold your damned horses. Mid-to-upper 80s in Winnipeg?? It hasn't gotten anywhere near that warm here yet. It was in the 80s on Sunday, and I was so grateful when Marc dragged out a bunch of tools and starting muttering obscenities at the air conditioner. Farnsworth, if you start applying for graduate school at, like, the University of Reykjavik, I'm going to have to seriously reconsider this whole marriage thing. I'd write more, but it's after 5:00, and I wanna go home. So I can sit on the couch and write more websites. As opposed to sitting here at my desk and writing websites. I'm really quite bloody fed-up with websites lately, if you want to know the truth.
posted by Kate at 5:07 PM link/comments
By "same sixlayerkate time" you mean once every coupple of months? Anyway that's great that you are back to school, with what sounds like a vengence. Don't move to Winnipeg expecting it to be cold. OK it is cold here, but only in the winter. OK the winter seems to last forever and at the very least does diminate the better half of the year (seven months with snow in it this past year). But Goddam it, it has been downright HOT here recently. Hot enough that I have once or twice thought that I couldn't wait for it to snow again.
Then again I have always had a preference of cold over heat, but still this mid to upper 80's crap sucks.
posted by Nat at 2:23 PM link/comments
I have wanted to return for a while, but it was that whole cost of education/we don't live in a Socialist economy so I am forced to pay for it thing. Thankfully we have finally gotten to a point I can work a few less hours and take classes, I am taking 4 this summer and expect a transfer over to Kent this fall and right now I am looking at a continuation of my double major in history and psychology. Ok, you got me Nat my real reason for the return to education was I wanted to go to grad school in a far away place like Iceland or maybe Madagascar, I want to follow your lead ;) hehe. Seriously, how is the frozen tundra treating you? We actually got to the point that it was almost warm enough, so I fianlly installed the AC this weekend! Looks like summer, we are told it is summer, but damnit it sure doesn't feel like summer....maybe 15 years in Florida has me confused as to what summer is SUPPOSED to be, hmmmm could be. Ok. until nextime, same sixlayerkate place, different sixlayerkate design....
posted by Marc at 10:04 AM link/comments
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Kudo's to Marc. What has led to this return to higher education? BA in what (or hell it may even be a BS. . . gasp!)?
Which local Congressman?
posted by Nat at 10:31 AM link/comments
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Testing ... testing
posted by Kate at 7:44 PM link/comments
Bunch'a sick bastages, allaya. A quick update (or "why I never post anymore"): 1. I'm redesigning sixlayerkate. Stay tuned for the next week or so for major changes.
2. Besides working, I'm doing like 15 hours a week of freelance web stuff. Marc has recently resumed taking classes toward his bachelor's degree, which means he's cut his work hours, which means that I'm picking up the slack so that we can, like, eat and stuff.
3. I'm taking a night class.
4. Somehow, I've managed to get myself placed in charge of all things web-related for a local congressman who's running for Dubya's job. This will look fantastic on a resume, but does not pay, and requires a lot of my time.
5. I've started gardening. A lot. Like, it might become an obsession. Like, my porch and yard are full of flowers and vegetables and herbs which need care and watering and pruning and general fussing.
6. And oh yeah, I'm also planning a wedding that's sneaking up at an alarming rate of speed. It's less than 4 months away. Good christ.
posted by Kate at 1:17 PM link/comments
Melinda that warms my heart, but could I just limp a little instead of wearing the brace?
posted by Nat at 10:26 AM link/comments
It was like a dream. And you were there, and you, and you were there, too Auntie Em!
It's been months since I've entered the blog. It's like being home again. Sort of.
Hey for interesting stuff, have you guys checked out MoveOn.org? It's the newest wave of internet revolution. Really.
And as an aside, Nat, I would totally aim for you in the parking lot. Especially if you're still wearing your knee brace occassionally. Somehow the weakness makes it more poignant. There's a little shark in all of us.
posted by Melinda at 9:38 AM link/comments
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Ah ha, it all makes sense now. I was begining to think that everyone just took the summer off.
Glad to hear that Jen's was as expected.
posted by Nat at 10:47 AM link/comments
We had fun last weekend. You know, the usual mishmosh of alcohol and campfire and tents and rain and alpacas. Standard, really. You all might have noticed that www.sixlayerkate.com is nonexistant at the moment. I'm working (slowly) on the problem. Sorry for the inconvenience.
posted by Kate at 10:31 AM link/comments