bunny?

...gonna kick the darkness 'till it bleeds daylight... musings of a hungarian in texas

©2003 by Annamaria Kovacs. All contents of this blog are the property of the author. Use with written permission only.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Stupid Ice

Yesterday they got me scared because everyone said 'it might start icing the next hour'. So, agreeing with my boss, who told me there's no point in getting stuck at work while 8-mo. preggers, I elected to stay at home. This morning, when it REALLY iced over, I called him and we agreed I'll wait and see what would happen as they promised it'd start thawing out.
At around 1000 my doctor's assistant called from her personal cell phone telling me we need to reschedule the appointment we already rescheduled from 0900 to 1230 once, because no one is going in to the office today. Joy. We agreed on Monday morning.
I tried to get out of the house to try and see if I can even get off the driveway since I could see that the roof was dripping and the sun was out... turns out there was still a thick sheet of ice on my windshield and I slipped twice on the driveway (managed not to fall, go me!).
So I am stuck at home again. Drives me NUTS.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Weather

Our silly peach tree (the oldest of three, named simply Peachy) thinks it's already Spring. It had the same opinion last year--got into budding and flowering mid-to late january.

And then the inevitable ice storms hit, and, needless to say, we did not have any peaches last year, while the year before it had so much the branches were down to the ground, almost.

Now it's the same. And the cold front is rolling in again tomorrow, this time with freezing rain.
Agh. There goes my favorite fruit again.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Some Observations On Fashion

Just' cause, you know, I like this stuff, and because our company actually allowed us thus inclined to watch the Presidential Inauguration from the breakroom.
And because it;'s so much more fun writing about this topic then, you know, politics... :)

1. That was some hat on Aretha Franklin (as Mexalapotis already remarked in her blogpost). One of my coworkers said it reminded her of some hats her mom's church friends were wearing on Sundays. And she matched. Always a plus; besides, she can SING.
2. I wanna know where the new Prez got his overcoat (it looked fabulous) and who told him not to wear a scarf. He must have been freezing.
3. The two presidential daughters looked totally adorable, even though I wouldn't have paired pink with orange in the case of the younger. But, as my dad likes to remark, I am a tad conservative when it comes to dress sense. (The Husband uses stronger words, but that's a nother story).
4. No one looked frumpy, not even Ms. Clinton. Yippee. However, what was up with Bush Sr's purple scarf??
5. Some reporters either need to get a crash course in basic etiquette about dress sense, or they need to get someone there who knows what they're talking about. They actually debated if the red box in Michelle Obama's hand was a CLUTCH PURSE.
....
....
Now, I don't always agree with her dress choices (and definitely not with her politics), but you know, EVEN I wouldn't assume that she'd have a red clutch purse with that pale yellow brocade outfit with pale green gloves. Seriously.
It was, as the breathless Reporter One corrected later, the box with the Lincoln Bible in it. End of Story.

Okay, I just had to get that out of me. Back to my own frumpy existence now. Yes, I am frumpy these days--whatever fits me, I put it on, which means none of my normal, nice professional clothing. It KILLS ME! :)



ETA: That inauguration ball gown, on the other hand... ::rubs eyes:: Oh, that gown...if I could forget it. What was up with that???

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Egyptian Stuff

We finally got to the Tutenkhamun exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art this Sunday. To get in is like trying to get into Fort Knox, I swear. You need to order the tickets in advance, you need to choose a time slot that you MUST be there for on time, the only place to get the tickets from is online at the dreaded monopoly called Ticketmaster, and they cost a friggin' fortune. But as I am a half-baked classicist with two semesters of egyptology under my belt, this was a must-see.
So then you get there, on time, pay the EXORBITANT parking fee that downtown Dallas charges on a Sunday (they ask for a full day's fee as opposed to per hour JUST for this), walk to the side entrance of the museum, and get greeted by two huge booths saying 'Ticket Sales'.

WTF???

Oh. this is the 'in case we have leftovers but there's no guarantee' line? Okay, that's better than the momentary feeling of 'I've just been had' that run through me there for a full ten seconds.

So you show your printout tickets, they let you through first all the way to the museum so you can check your coat, visit the restroom (no coats allowed, no restrooms or walk-outs while in the exhibit, so this is a must), they check your purse, and then you WALK BACK through one of those mazes like they set up at airport checkins, show your ticket again but this time they SCAN it so you're official, you go BACK to the museum again, you are directed to a line here to WAIT until they allow the next bunch of sheeple in...

Did I mention Fort Knox? Actually, I kept silently chuckling because it was almost like you wanted to see the real, live Son of the Sun God in Ancient Egypt, almost... Except we had more clothes on.

In the first room, they show a two-minute video to the shepherded in flock, narrated by none other but Omar Sharif. The Husband just was tickled pink by that: 'So they got him to do this type of stuff now?' he asked. Obviously he never heard him narrating the six other Ancient Egypt DVDs that are out there.

The rest of the exhibit is very tastefully arranged pretty objects and spacious text placed in rooms, a lot of people walking around with those annoying earphone-shaped audio guides set so loud that you can hear it from all directions, slightly stuffy air, benches to sit and rest a bit (thankfully!), and did I mention that they have pretty objects? I emphasize this because after all, those would be the major draw, right? Well, most of them are rather small, although exquisite... and from the actual artefacts from the tomb, a very small and select amount is presented only. I kind of expected at least one of the funerary masks, or the coffins... but no such luck.

Don't get me wrong--a bunch of the things they had there are so beautiful and lovely that is jaw-dropping. Like the perfectly preserved chair of Princess Sitamun that has the inundation of her royal behind actually visible on the woven seat if you look from a certain angle, or one of the less-known and fragmentary busts of Nefertiti that simply knocks your socks off with her cheekbones and chin. Or some of the jewellery. But still, I expected maybe a tad more meat on those royal bones.

Oh, and the gift shop... They had mummy finger puppets that again, The Husband had a mightly chuckle about, whle I was eyeing a row of hats such as Zahi Hawass is wearing on his excavations (he's my hero, by the way). But I think the inflatable mummy made in China still took the cake. Oh wait, no, it was the plastic/gold colored wig thing the family leaving the exhibit took turns with by the 'Have your name written in hieroglyphs on a piece of metal' machine to have their photographs taken.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Annoyed

So we got home yesterday with The Husband who picked me up from work, and found a card taped to our door from a code enforcement lady at the City of Irving. "Pls call me', was written on the card. Of course, this being me, I immediately thought 'oh noes, WHAT do they want this time?' It is winter, the grass is not growing--do they object to the natural state of the rosebushes in our front yard instead of just having almost-bare lawn and geometrically-cut boring shrubbery?
They called back this AM, and The Husband talked to the lady--turns out (listen to this): someone from the neighborhood called in on us because, quote: 'the grass in SOME places in the yard is high'.
He's out there now with a weedwhacker fixing this.
It's not the code enforcement that really bothers me in this. It's the fact that someone amongst my neighbors have no better things to do with their time but telling to the city on someone else??? We do not have a neighborhood association with strict rules and such so there's never been any obligation to keep stuff exactly the way everyone else does (I think we'd be moving out as soon as one of those is instituted...)

Okay, I had to get that out of my system. Sometimes I just want to dig up my front yard and cover it in 15-feet tall climbing roses all across, Sleeping Beauty-style. I might just do that this spring to honor our daughter. Grr.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Sick As A Dog

It turns out I brought back some fairly naasty germs from Hungary as well, courtesy of my dad who came down with this during the last day of my stay. So now both The Husband and I have it, plus the cat is sneezing, too.

Argh. Thankfully, I can take Tylenol and Sudafed, plus I acquired one HUGE jug of orange juice, and my supply of decaf Earl Gray, local honey and lemon still holds. Baby seems to be doing just fine while I am not. Figures...:)