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Jay has been passing a dilaudit-soaked few days of napping and (mostly) not being in pain. Lithotripsy tomorrow morning. He's afraid to go to sleep, though, because of the narcotics. Call it The Lost Weekend.
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After a long, difficult week at work, Jay and I spent most of Thursday in the emergency room because of his kidney stone attack. By the end of our wait (i.e., before he got meds), he was moaning "Help me . . . Help me . . ." and I was holding him to me and wailing myself. Hard. He's taking meds all this weekend to get him through till Monday, when he's scheduled for a lithotripsy, maybe surgery to follow. Poor guy.

And yes, I did actually use the phrase TGIF. That's how broken down I am.
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Jay leaned over to kiss me and said, "Goodnight, K-18." I replied, "Night, K-23."

(Back at Waverly Press, where we first met 20 years ago, everyone was assigned an employee number. I hadn't thought of these numbers for years.)
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Ryan on his horse Mac
Lindsey riding backwards
Lindsey showing her two-point stance

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All this week Eve has been at our house in the mornings. She drops the kids off a few blocks away at horse camp, then comes here and works for a few hours till camp is done. Then comes back so the kids can have some Rocky time. It's been so much fun. I've probably gained two pounds because one of Eve's very few weaknesses is doughnuts, which she was kind enough to bring several days.

I went with her to see the kids' graduation ceremony from camp. It was adorable. All these little tiny kids on these big horses. They did really well, demonstrating posting, the two-point stance, and even a little jump. They also did tricks like turning and riding backwards. Some kids were quite good, really concentrating to get the right form. They also learned to wash the horses and lead them. Lindsey fell off one day and briefly didn't want to get back on. But the counselors told her that the horse, Mac, was feeling really bad because she fell, and would she mind giving Mac a big hug to make him feel better? After that, she was all about Mac and what a good horse he was, and she got right back on. Smart counselors. :)
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From HP:

At a Barney Frank town hall meeting in Dartmouth, MA, a constituent asks, "Why are you supporting this Nazi policy?"

Frank responds: "On what planet do you spend most of your time?" He then calls her approach "vile, contemptible nonsense." He closes by saying: "Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table."

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Kind of quiet this weekend. We saw The Time Traveler's Wife on Saturday night (review: "meh"), after spending the day on various projects. I've been chowing down on an unusual number of books the last week or so, enjoying Sunshine (a vampire tale), Wicked Lovely (kind of like a vampire tale but with bad-ass Faeries), and What Was Lost (about the effect of a little girl's disappearance on the people around her).

Today was a work-at-home day, combined with an afternoon visit from my wonderful niece and nephew. Special kudos to Lindsey-Girl, who, all on her own steam, waded into the stream to fetch the bag of dog poop that I had collected on our walk and her brother had thrown into the water!

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If you ever think your job might become obsolete take heart in this. My friend J. was perusing a manuscript that is shortly to come into production here at RLPG. It's a book on Freud and Jung, and she spotted the word "feta" on one page. Curious, she zoomed in and found the author referring to a "feta complete."

Seriously. (And if you don't get it at first, sound it out.)
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So I was perusing the BarbieCollector website (ahem, for no particular reason at all), and I came across this collection of "Silkstone" Barbies. It's an amalgam of adorable fashion outfits (Continental Travel Barbie with a little valise, Artist Barbie in black and white striped shirt, beret, and palette) and some slightly disturbing ones (like the series of "Lingerie Barbies" which they have displayed only from the neck up---????).
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I'm in love with this book by Cristina Nehring, which just came out and sets out to defend romance in the 21st century. It discusses everything I've been thinking about over the past year.
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The guy from the contracting company came to the house this morning to work on an estimate for repaving our driveway. Here's a condensed version of our interaction:


Rocky: ARRARRARRARRARRARRARRARRARR!

Guy: (keeps working but corners of his lips turn up slightly)

Rocky: ARRARRARRARRARRARRARRARRARR!

Guy: (another little smile)

Later:

Guy: What's your dog's name?

Me: Rocky.

Guy: (smile) Perfect.

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Here's Kim shot by a non-photog on my cell phone.

It was so good to see you Sat., Kimaroo!

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I love these pictures of Kim at a friend's wedding, taken by her friend Carol Aaron, who is a professional photographer. Carol's website is here:
http://www.faithanddangerphotography.com/

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Just watched Noah Baumbach's latest movie, Margot at the Wedding. Great movie; scarily realistic. I love all kinds of movie---buildings blowing up, dancers singin' in the rain, romantic tearjerkers. But I so appreciate those few filmmakers who make films that are life-like. What passes for realism in movies is so far stylized yet so pervasive that we don't even see how stylized it is until we see a movie that isn't. My favorite directors and films in this vein are:

Mike Leigh: Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake
Catherine Hardwicke: The Lords of Dogtown, Thirteen
Alexander Payne: Sideways, About Schmidt
Noah Baumbach: The Squid and the Whale
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I was talking with my friend Kim today about her love of slow-moving films, like the Iranian movie The White Balloon. Though I'm generally not a fan, there are a couple of slow ones that I do love:

The Thin Red Line, by Terence Malick. This was a story about (mostly) one long day of combat during WWII in the South Pacific. Like real war, there was a lot of waiting. The sound of the grasses swaying in the wind is the dominant motif in the film. It was also the first time I'd seen Jim Caviezel in a role, and he's really amazing.

The New World, by Terence Malick. This is Malick's retelling of the Pocahontas story, though that name is never used. It strikes me as one of the better imaginings of what life must have been like, for both the native Indians and the settlers---pretty scrappy.

The Straight Story. This is based on the true story of a somewhat poor elderly man who drives his riding mower across several Midwestern states in order to visit his ailing brother. The film moves at the pace of the transport, but it's lovely and calming and alternately melancholy and sweet. The actor who played the old man, whose name escapes me at the moment, was nominated for an Oscar for the role.
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Although the wonder of children is for real, I actually think my sense of wonder grows stronger as I grow older. I used to take butterflies and giraffes and such as a matter of course. But now I look and think, Really? Are you kidding me with this stuff?




















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Am I speaking of a certain vampire? All I can say is that, today on the trail, Rocky reminded me as nothing so much as Jaspar attacking Bella at the party. One minute he was sniffing innocently among the rocks, and the next he had launched himself across about a 15-foot distance to attack a dog who suddenly appeared. He was literally on top of the dog before I even had time to turn around. No harm done, thankfully, but yowza.
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What the?

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Nature's craziness on display at Brookside Gardens:





















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