turkey and henna parties and other fun stuff

Here's a photo of the henna I did at my friend Diana's house on Saturday. The pattern is from Ganesha's Henna Garden.

We had a pretty fun time with it, painting our hands and hanging out. Diana had a few new videos of traditional Indian dancing, and we watched a really interesting movie called Baraka, which is more a series of images than a conventional film. She also got hold of a couple of bellydance instructional videos of....well....dubious quality at her work. I've actually seen a lot of recommendations and good things said about Amira Mor's Bellydance your way to your soul mate, but I honestly don't see any redeeming qualities except the amusement factor! Which is too bad, because the other video of hers that Diana brought home didn't look too bad.

Other than that, it's been a relatively uneventful, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. Michael and I both had Thursday and Friday off, and while he worked Saturday and I work today, we are also both off on Monday. Maybe we will actually be able to go on that picnic we've been thinking about forever! We were at a friend's house for Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday, and spent a lazy day Friday hanging out at Starbucks. Saturday night we spent having dinner with another couple we met through work.

Weather remains too hot. Usually it cools down at least a little bit by this time, but we're not even into jeans weather yet! Counting the days till we travel to Edmonton ...

oh suzanna

Catching up on other areas of my life...I had the Suzanna del Vecchio workshop this past weekend. It was pretty good. I think I mentioned before that she does yoga as well as bellydance--one of the good things about the class is that there was a lot of attention to proper body alignment and what to do--and what to avoid--when performing certain moves. Most of the class was taken up by learning a 2 minute choreography. She built in time for us to sit and take notes on it, and I bought the CD that had the music we were using, so hopefully I will be able to reconstruct it later on! The music had a really nice, heavy Saiidi beat, which means I *really* want to adapt it for a cane. Along with the CD (called Sensual Goddess) I also bought Suzanna's instructional DVD on drum solos, called Lock, Roll, and Flutter, which I wasn't initially going to do, but hey, it was on sale, so....

Always interesting to see some of the people who come to a large workshop class like that--usually ends up being a huge mix of dancers of all levels and styles. Some were obviously professional dancers, some just starting out, and then the usual crowd of rank beginners who don't even know that street clothes are appropriate attire for a dance class. One woman even insisted on doing (well, attempting) the entire class in her skimpy kitten-heeled shoes held on by nothing but one slender strap low down across her toes! What are people like this thinking??? Weird. Another strange thing is seeing people who paid a fair amount of money to come participate in a class led by someone nationally renowned for her teaching get angry and cop an attitude when they're given any kind of instruction or correction. I mean, really, if you're not there for that then what are you there for? I just don't understand that mindset.

There was a bazaar in progress during the afternoon and throughout the evening show, so I got to have a lot of fun drooling over hugely expensive designer professional costumes dripping with fringe, beads, sequins, and other lovely details. I did buy one thing there--an abayah to use as a coverup for my dance costumes. Black with a few small turquoise crystal designs on the front, and a matching chiffon scarf. I also saw a really nice deep green beaded hip scarf that I think I may have convinced Michael to get me for Christmas :)

The show was really interesting--there were some really good dancers, and much of the dancing was in a style that I don't see very often. There were a lot of teachers there with large student troupes, doing these high-energy, almost Vegas showgirl-style routines--not my preferred style, but very fun and high energy. It would be neat to take some classes like that. The honored guest performer was Suzanna, of course, and then the night closed out with a really good singer from Washington (I can't remember her name right now), who got everyone up dancing for fun. I was exhausted at that point, having danced all day and been at the show all night, so Michael and I left sometime around midnight.

Other than those highlights...life this week has been pretty much same old same old. We are closed tomorrow and Friday for American Thanksgiving. Michael and I are going to a friends' house for dinner this year, instead of leaving town. I have Saturday off, too, but unfortunately I'll be back in the reference desk trenches on Sunday. The good news is my friend Diana and I are getting together on Saturday for Henna, Indian movies, and fun!

And just because I can...here's the first design I did for him a few weeks earlier. It was from a picture in Loretta Roome's book, Mehndi: the timeless art of henna painting.

Here's the henna design I did for Michael in Key West. We removed the paste at night, and took the picture in the morning--it got darker through the day. It's an original design that I made up as I went along. I think the shape of the pattern really looks good on his palm.

Post vacation letdown

Well, I seem to be quite the slacker girl lately. No blog entries for, what, close to three weeks? I know that my legions of adoring fans are breathless with anticipation, so here we go. I'll even break it up into separate posts to spare you reading fatigue as you navigate through!

Our trip earlier this month to Key West was great, though like most vacations it felt way too short. I wish we could have found a better place to stay...we were going to spring for a hotel this time, instead of staying at the cheap-but-dodgy youth hostel, but there was an airshow going on that weekend, so all the places we found were booked or had been jacked up to horrendous rates! Oh well. Not like we really spent any time there at all except to sleep. Anyway, overall it was a great vacation. We had breakfast at the french bakery every morning, hit the beach each afternoon, and travelled everywhere by bicycle. For once, the weather was perfect-warm but not hot, and low humidity--which meant we both had a lot more energy than usual. We usually hit a couple of attractions each time we're there--this time, we went to the Lighthouse and Keeper's Quarter's Museum, the Shipwreck Historium, and the East Martello Tower garden. It was interesting to learn a little bit more of the history of Key West as a place that grew rich on salvaging offshore wrecks. I also took some henna paste with us, so we could practice on the beach. I'll post some pictures later.

Of course, I it took so long for me to totally decompress, relax, and leave all the day to day stuff behind that by the time I started to feel human again, it was time to turn around and come back! So the week or so afterwards Darcy was pretty grumpy...

More later.

Retrench!

Well, Michael and I are headed off to Key West tomorrow for a four-day minibreak . I can hardly wait! Between the post-election depression and the latest round of stupid management decisions at work, I am going to be more than glad to eat pain au chocolat and cappuccino for breakfast, bike around town, shop for Christmas presents, and read and do henna at the beach.

I'm also excited to report that I am registered to go to the Suzanna del Vecchio workshop and performance in Miami on November 20th! Suzanna is a famous bellydancer, teacher, and yogini from Denver, CO. She's being brought in by a local dancer named Joharah. I am attending the afternoon class on my own, but Michael and a couple of friends will be coming with me to the show. I don't get to see professional performances often, so this will be a real treat!

I can't link to it now, because he's starting to reorganize his website post-election, but some interesting experiences were reported by voters on Michael Moore's website this past week. Many Floridians who wrote in said that when they went to the polls, the voting machines tried to change their presidential votes from Kerry to Bush! They would select Kerry, but on the final confirmation screen before their vote was submitted it would show up as a Bush vote. Most if not all of these people said that they found they had to correct their votes three or four times before it would register correctly! The response from the pollworkers? "Oh, yeah, the touchscreens are sensitive." Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it, about how many Jeb state voters didn't notice the switch in time, and had their vote changed? eta: found this interesting tidbit on Randy's pod bay door. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

after the fall

Well.....America drank the kool-aid. Four more years.

Though I was pretty sure that the election would go this way, I have to admit that in the past couple weeks I had allowed myself to hope for a different outcome. Working in a building that was also functioning as an early voting polling place, I saw the larger voter turnout here firsthand. People were waiting four hours or more to cast their votes, every day, and there was talk about large turnouts in the youth and first-time voter populations--groups who usually favour the challenger over the incumbent. However, I guess that living in one of the few Democratic areas in Florida skewed my perspective of the larger picture.

Watching the networks call state after state for Bush last night, I really felt a sense of despair. Our local "fair and balanced" Fox affiliate station was, of course, all but announcing a win for Bush by about 10 pm. Thank goodness I get better reception with my new rabbit ears and could switch over to ABC/Local 10 and Peter Jennings! I've never seen such biased coverage of an event--I was flipping between the two stations but when the Fox anchor prefaced the announcement of a new Bush state as "more good news!!!" I had to sign off in disgust--I'd rather sit through commercials than deal with that kind of biased garbage.

So. Here we are, having reaffirmed our isolationist America-rules-the-world unilateral attitude, spit in the face of the international community, and washed the States red with the blood of over 100 000 innocent Iraqi civilians. I really hoped that people were smart enough to see through Dick Cheney's "vote Bush or you'll be killed real dead" rhetoric; believed that the mainstream press exposure of the lies and manipulations and hidden agendas and brainwashing behind the invasion of Iraq was enough to convince even conservative voters that Bush was not working in the country's--or the world's--best interests; couldn't fathom how an experienced, decorated war veteran could really be seen as "softer on terror" and "less able as a commander in chief" than a drunkard who spent the term of his "service" avoiding duty in any way possible; thought that "nuanced thinking" trumped "sticking to your guns no matter how wrong you are." Stupid me. I come from Alberta: I should know how this works by now. The way you get elected is by pretending that you're "just folks" instead of a part of the highest, most priviledged social echelons; by pandering to the lowest common denominator possible; by putting on a rural accent, bragging about your lack of education and having one too many with the boys behind the woodshed.

Whatever.

Arabesque

Okay....

I. Want. This. Book!!!!

Not a lot to report except for the usual Gryphoemia with the usual round of coworkers/managers, which is why this blog has been quiet of late. I am trying to get myself more organized, so as to actually accomplish some of the things I keep thinking about, but as usual it's a long slow one-step-forward-two-steps-back process. Which leads to predictable ironies like sitting next to a kitchen full of dirty dishes and empty of useful groceries reading Home Comforts. Sigh.

Other than that...let's see....I attended an interesting video day at my bellydance teacher's house, where we watched lots of Turkish/Romany/9/8 performances. Michael and I bought tickets to see the Princess Diana exhibition at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art next weekend. Don't know how much Michael will be into it actually, but I guess he's humoring me :) Michael was also nice enough to let me henna his hand with a Moroccan-style design this week. If we get a picture of it we'll post it. Aaahh, my exciting life....

Wiggin' out

Here's a picture from a recent party at a friend's place. It was a wig party, but as you can see I had just taken mine off.

Gryphoemia

Wow, I finally found a word that describes precisely what living here is all about. Courtesy of The Henna Page:

Gryphoemia

A morbid affliction of one's patience. Outbreaks tend to be caused by too much time spent dealing with the stupid. Symptoms of a Gryphoemia outbreak can include increased heart rate, heavy breathing, severe headache, blurred vision and a driving urge to injure someone -- anyone. The most serious outbreaks have been known to cause smoke to rise from a person's ears. Henna artists are particularly prone to Gryphoemia when they've had to be enormously gracious to very irritating people under difficult conditions. Gryphomia can never be cured, but outbreaks can be suppressed by indulging in something you're NOT supposed to do ... like eating junk food, shopping, consuming or imbibing "attitude adjusting substances", and ..... whatever your favorite naughtiness happens to be.

(Definition by The Fabulous Gwyn)

Gwyn, I've never met you.....but thanks!

Interesting....

Check out Dilbert's Ultimate House!!!

Hey, I'd live there. Wouldn't you?

Spared again!

Well, South Florida got lucky...again. Hurricane Jeanne essentially followed the same path as Hurricane Frances, skipping lightly over us and slamming areas to the north. While many Broward residents lost power temporarily, and there were some nasty storm squalls throughout the weekend, overall we are okay.

I stocked up on canned food, water, dry milk, and other non-perishables late last week, and Michael and I rode out the storm at my place. Libraries and businesses were closed for at least Saturday, some into Sunday, and people were told by the County mayor's office to do their preparations, get inside, and stay there. We spent most of Saturday, especially Saturday night, tracking the hurricane on TV, watching reports as it made landfall up in Stuart and Melbourne. A pretty surreal experience, actually, as the weather was eerily calm in my neighborhood while they were getting hit. We emerged midafternoon Sunday, went to check Michael's apartment (which is much closer to the ocean than mine), and spent most of the rest of the afternoon hanging out at Starbucks with his new roommate.

Seeing the weather--and the damage--inflicted on other areas just drives home how incredibly fortunate this place has been. Florida has never had four storms make landfall in one season. The only other time it's happened in the U.S. period was in the 19th century! Just about every other area of the state has incurred major damage and flooding--some areas more than once--and the estimate for insured losses is in the billions. I didn't even have any power outages this time, and my neighbors told me that they only lost power for a couple hours total with Frances. I think we're all feeling pretty grateful right now even as we empathise with people up north.

In other news...

I hear Kerry is losing ground with younger, married women. This is apparently because this demographic, of which I am nearly a part, is looking for a "big strong protector man" in a president, and Bush is seen as better fulfilling this role. At least, that's what all the old white men newsanchors tell me. Excuse me....I suddenly got this strange foul taste in my mouth....

Mendhi!

My friend Diana came over and did some mendhi on my left hand last night. Here's some pictures she took after she applied the henna paste:

lovely, no? we wrapped my hand so I could wear it overnight. I scraped it off this morning, after it had been on about 12 hours. It's in the process of turning a nice deep brown :)

The weather finally turned nice enough that I could turn off my A/C last night and open the window. So I got to sleep in fresh air last night.

Other than that not much going on. I am battling some of the same old same old at work...mundane petty power struggles that really get me down. The worst of the latest seems to be over but I'm not convinced more crap won't start floating around at any minute. Fortunately both Michael and I have the entire weekend off, so hopefully we can relax, let go of work worries, and have a little fun.

Pretty much says it all...

Ivan the terrible

Well, we're back after a great Ottawa vacation. I got my new passport and visa with minimal problems, so I'm set for another year. My aunt and Jacque's apartment is really well situated in an interesting part of downtown Ottawa, within walking distance of Bytown Market, and we did a lot of sightseeing while we were there. We went into the Gatineaus, one of the area's spectaular parks, a couple of times, and we spent one late afternoon and evening in a small town called Merrickville for dinner and shopping. We took a trip to Upper Canada Village, which recreates an early settlers' farm and town with recovered and restored buildings, reinactors, and working shops and mills. Michael and I bought a handmade broom in the shop there to use in our ceremony next summer. We also spent an afternoon sunning on the beach at Meech Lake, and took a day trip to Montreal to tour the harbor and the historic area of Old Montreal. Our last day was devoted to walking around the market, taking a tour of the Parliament buildings, having lunch at Darcy McGee's (of course!), and some shopping. Michael found a book about Ottawa from Michael Horn's, a great local bookstore, and he saw a wedding band he really liked at Birks Jewelers.

Now we are back in Florida, only to find that although we missed Frances, we are right on time for Ivan, whose path gets closer and closer to Broward County with every renewed forecast. Someone must have decided that Florida was getting too complacent/forgetful of Hurricane Andrew, I guess--but three direct hits in a month seems a little much! County government was closed a few days last week because of Frances; looks like they may shut things down for a few days again until Ivan blows over. Guess I'd better get in line at the grocery store for nonperishable food and more gallons of drinking water and be prepared to hole up in my apartment for a few days with possible loss of power and phone. If not worse! One of the big worries is that there is still so much detrius on the ground from the last storm--tree branches etc.--that more high winds could lift it up again and do major damage. And of course the ground is so saturated right now that flooding is bound to be bad. Cross your fingers and hope that we survive this one relatively intact....

Evacuation time

Boy, did we choose a good time to leave town. Michael and I are sitting in Ottawa, tracking a storm the size of Texas as it slowly closes in on Florida. Experts still aren't certain on where it will land, but over a million people have been told to evacuate. This is the first time in 50 years or more that 2 storms like this will hit Florida at the same time. Frances is already a category 4 creeping up close to 5... just as fierce as Andrew was but over twice as big! Broward has been put into a state of emergency...county agencies, including the libraries, have been shut down. Guess this means they owe me a couple more days vacation :)

It's weird watching it from so far away. On the one hand, you're kind of divorced from the whole thing. On the other, you're on edge hoping that your home won't be destroyed while you're away. I'm pretty far inland; Michael's apartment, however, is on the main floor and only 4 miles away from the evacuation line. Makes me very, very glad we could travel together this year! On top of this, given the state of emergency and possible hit from the storm, we're wondering if we will even be able to get back when we planned to, or whether the airports will be closed! Not exactly the way that I'd choose to get an extended vacation.

As to our Ottawa trip, it's been nice and relaxing so far. We've been walking around downtown Ottawa, the embassies and Parliament. We also took a drive this afternoon into the Gatineau Park and saw William Lyon Mackenzie King's estate. Tomorrow I go to pick up my passport, and we may drive into Montreal on Saturday.

So much for that

Well, I got an email from our contact with the UAE Libraries Deanship today. She's so sorry that she didn't get hold of us earlier, but they have selected two other candidates for the Reference positions. I guess it's nice that they want to keep our applications active, "just in case," but this is the topper on a week that was already kind of depressing. All the more reason it's a good thing I'm leaving for Ottawa tomorrow.

The good news is that if Frances hits, I'll miss her. Though I suppose I should take the contact information for my landlord and my insurance company just in case. The margin of error on the projected path of the storm is pretty wide, so we're still not sure at this point exactly where it will come ashore.

long time no blog

Once again, it seems like a long time since I've posted here. Pretty much same old, same old, I guess, and I would rather be absent than boring!

School is back in. Though the kids don't seem to be as bad this year. Maybe it's because with the new time-management software they need to use their library cards to use the computers, as opposed to last year's video-arcade free-for-all. Don't know if it'll last but I'm enjoying it while it does.

Having the usual fun with my TN renewal paperwork. Thanks to a completely, totally, one hundred per cent incompetent secretary, my renewal letter had to be rewritten three times, under intense supervision. Oh, and did I mention her bad attitude and the rudeness and the fact that she argued that she was right and we were wrong when we pointed out basic mistakes like the fact that she got the name of the USCIS wrong??????. Don't ask me why I don't just get over this crap and not let it bug me....every year I'm stressed out by this stuff and my paperwork is never ever done until the last minute.

This year it's compounded by the fact that I am needing to also get a new passport. They tell me before I send in my application that it will be sent to the Miami Consulate when it's done. Then when I call to see why it is late they tell me they are waiting for me to confirm where I want to pick it up! Then when I follow the agent's instructions to arrange to pick it up in Ottawa I get a phone call 3 days later saying that that is a problem because there is no counter for exchange there (they need to invalidate my old one so I don't have 2 valid ones at the same time). Sigh. To give Justin credit he has promised me that it will be ready in Ottawa on the third, and that if he runs into problems there he will bend the rules slightly and have me come to his office in Hull so he can handle it personally. And both of these offices are less than 10 minutes of driving from my aunt's place. But still...come on...you've had an entire month!!

On top of all this other testing-my-natural-impatience stuff, I've just found out that the engagement ring that we finally found and ordered won't be ready until after we get back. And I want it now, darn it!!!!

hmph.

The good news is that I'm soon out of here for a week of heaven in Canada with Michael, who has been in Spokane the past week with his family. And I. can. hardly. wait!

BTW, if you're looking for some light entertainment to pass the time, may I suggest Etiquette Hell. I'd better warn you in advance though, the site can be addictive....

Thar he blows

Okay, this is just freaky.

We are all obsessively tracking Hurricane Charley, which is now a category 4 hurricane--winds up to 145mph---and twice as strong as originally forecast. Articles from this afternoon describe the kind of effects that places on the west coast, especially Tampa, may expect to experience. Want to see what he looks like? check the map from weather.com.

So far things here in Broward haven't been too bad. We had a heavy rainfall in the middle of the night last night, and things were sunny and calm this morning. However, the wind's been picking up dramatically for the past couple of hours and we expect more stormy weather to come. We are also under tropical storm, flood, and tornado watches until sometime this evening. Naturally, I have to be out tonight...hopefully I won't end up driving to my bellydance gig in the middle of pouring rain.

Here Comes Charley!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5653487/

Forecast to just miss us, thank goodness!

Too bad the storms weren't named Bonnie and Clyde.... :)