Bearshorty's musings

I woke up at 6:30 because of the time change so I just read for an hour before Bear woke up. I am glad to be at regular time which our bodies are used to. The whole Daylight Saving Time is just so useless. I did like having this extra time to read. So I finished “Hobbit.” I definitely enjoyed this book much more now as an adult than I ever did. Partly because I forgot most of the book so many plot points were brand new. Partly because I loved LotR movies and liked those books so I know the universe more. And I can appreciate long journeys and fantasy adventures a little more. But this was definitely fun. I don’t think I will reread “Lord of the Rings” since there are so many books I want to read but I look forward to Mark’s reviews.

After lunch, Bear and I went hiking. We spent two hours in the woods following the yellow and white trails (at least until the white trail path got too muddy and we headed home) and then we drove to the beach and walked there for an hour. I did like the exercise. And I do love the woods in the fall – all colorful with leaves on the ground. And the weather was nice and warm enough for extensive walking. Since I just read “The Hobbit” and that book was about a long traveling adventure I imagined I was Bilbo walking along forest paths. I was telling Bear the story, since he never read it and he was recapping Mark Twain to me since it has been awhile for me too. I love talking about books with him.

We got Chinese food and watched “Real Time with Bill Maher” for a bit and then he had to go home since I needed to write my lecture and make a Powerpoint for it. He really needs to find an apartment for us.

Bitching to Amazon actually works; they checked our shipping option with no charge to get the book delivered sooner. Yay. I’ll get “Ghost Story” on Friday if it arrives at Papa’s work on time. With three people waiting to read this book we really were relying on it arriving on time.

( SYTYCD Top 8 perform )

I really love “Real Time with Bill Maher” – the new rules really made me crack up tonight.

( Doctor Who S6E4 )

( Avatar: TLA S2E10 )

Today was rainy and a bit gray. We had plans to go to lower Manhattan in the afternoon but the parents ended up going to Brooklyn with Galina while I hung out with Olya at home. We chatted and then we watched some Bill Maher. It is even more fun to watch with someone else who likes his humor.

After dinner we had our own Bill Maher type panel with Papa as the lone Republican (he claims to be independent but he likes Fox news) and I and Galina on liberal side and Mama more moderate democratic. Olya was the audience. It was actually fun to debate my Dad especially to convince him that one reason Republican plans on taxes don’t make sense is because they have the idea of people’s ability to bring themselves up and American Dream and success being equal to what you put in. Both Galina and I are teachers so we actually could argue well that sometimes society doesn’t value all types of education and professions equally in terms of compensation and how it is not really feasible to always achieve ridiculous success. Papa pointed out examples of immigrants like him coming to America with nothing, but Galina made a great point that people like Papa actually came in with education and were able to learn things like computer programming in a year and retrain themselves because of that background too. Anyway, it was a good political discussion. I had a really good time with our guests this weekend.

Cross-stitching: all pink for pink balloon.

“Real Time” and “Who Do You Think You are” form a great break for a Saturday. I wish I had more time to cross stitch, though. This is a very busy semester.

Cross stitch: finished the bunny with pink and yellow and started on middle bear’s nose and giraffe’s ears.

I woke up at Yeva’s and made myself breakfast. Yeva was staying with her boyfriend at his place but she gave me a rundown of her fridge. Then I made my way to the bus and went home.

On the way I stopped by at a card story and finally bought Bear his Valentine’s Day card. The cards are so stupid. All the inane sayings inside. I bought the least offensive. Bear and I are postponing Valentine’s for a few weeks but we don’t generally do much, just exchange cards and he gets my one rose and we might go to dinner. We both feel this made up holiday is generally stupid. Well, at least I got amusement over some creepy stalkery type Valentine’s messages or messages were the sentiment is that what one most values in the other person is how happy the other person makes one feel about oneself. Yeah, very romantic.

Since I had a really busy week and did not have time to cross stitch I spent some significant time on it today while watching “Real Time with Bill Maher” and “Who Do You Think You Are” on demand on my TV.

I also discovered that Netflix put the whole of “Grey’s Anatomy” on instant so I can have that in the background while doing other things.

Cross-stitch: blue and pale blue for the book the animals are reading.

We went to Brooklyn this morning for a little bit to visit my grandparents and then we went for a walk. We had to pick sidewalks and roads to avoid most of the snow so instead of our regular walk pattern we were zigzagging along three main streets we walk on.

I was cross stitching while watching ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’. I caught up on the last two episodes, since they were new and it was nice to listen to a good discussion of politics and current events. Although, having intelligent well spoken people actually say that they don’t believe in evolution is always very creepy to me. Why does belief in God precludes acceptance of science?

Egypt’ civil unrest is having a cultural impact – looters destroyed two mummies in Egypt museum. That is sad, really. I’ve been following online what is going on with their revolution. I hope that when Egypt settles on the government again it won’t be similar to 1979 Iranian revolution.

Doctor Who “Genesis of the Daleks” First episode. The production values were very low. The sets are so cheap! It is definitely 1974 and the acting is silly at times. It was sort of setting the story up, so not much happens until the end where we see Davros and the first Dalek. Having met Davros in Season 4 this was interesting – to see the origins here. And Sara Jane Smith – she was so young here! Harry seems resourceful. This should be an interesting old serial but the pacing is a bit slow.

Exercise: 40 minute walk
Cross stitch – pink to finish little bear’s blanket, multiple colors for book spine.

I woke up at 6 something again, my body is being weird. I don’t normally function on six hours of sleep but that seems to be the norm in the last week. So I did some editing since I was awake.

Today I went to see Neil Gaiman at the New Yorker Festival. I was looking forward to this for a while and I was really happy that it lived up to all my expectation. Really worth the $30. He is an awesome speaker. This was a conversational interview with Dana Goodyear, a staff writer of the New Yorker, and he was funny and intelligent as always. This is the first time I’ve seen him live, but I read his blog and I have seen interviews on line. It was, of course, much better live especially since I got there early enough to get a seat in the first row on the right side and it wasn’t a large theater. So he was right there. I was feeling off and depressed this week and the ninety minutes this afternoon listening to one of my favorite authors talk really just made me feel happy again.

Some highlights:

• Coraline - he talked about his daughter Holly being the inspiration behind this book because of the kind of stories Holly wanted to hear as a child and the kind of story she made up herself at age four. He also talked about the adventure of trying to actually publish this horror story for children and how it came about – a daughter of the publisher pretended not to be afraid of the story to hear the ending and the publisher thought it was safe for children. (Coraline was the first book of his that I actually read, right before reading the first Sandman volume.)

• Doctor Who – what he could reveal about his upcoming episode: some old character is wearing a new face and the episode will reference at least one classic episode. He also told a wonderful story to illustrate the importance of the show to British cultural consciousness and why for him a chance to write for the show was so awesome. One of his early memories as a three year old was taking a milk carton with a straw at lunch at pre-school-type place and pretending it was a Dalek. He made “exterminate” sounds.

• American Gods – there are enough stories for another book. Which will happen eventually. He talked more about how the book was the reflection of his immigrant experience of coming to America.

• Sandman – they showed some covers and explained the collaborative work with the artist; many covers have Gaiman’s altered image on them. He really looks like Morpheus in person too. (I only read four out of eleven Sandman volumes, I need to save up and buy more.)

• We were also the audience for the American premiere of “Statuesque,” a Neil Gaiman directed short silent eight minute film starring Bill Nighy and Amanda Palmer that only aired in England. It was cute.

The Q&A section was great too – good questions. What really impressed me was how awesome he was at the end of the event. He simply got off the stage and just started sighing books (and a leather jacket of some guy with signatures on his jacket). He really didn’t have to since it wasn’t official signing, but he wanted to get as many things signed as he good before the theater kicked everyone out. I got my copy of “Fragile Things” signed since it is one of my favorite short story collections. It takes me a while to get to Manhattan but it was really worth it.

( pictures of Neil Gaiman signing stuff )

Before I had to be at the Festival event, I stopped by to get some food at a café close to Carnegie Hall. They had brunch and I got eggs and toast and potatoes and it was very delicious.

I discover new things every time I go into the city. Today it was a new statue in Battery Park (where you can get on a boat to visit Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty) called “Immigrants.” I took some pictures; it was really interesting and beautiful.

( Immigrants statue picture )


This morning, as I was traveling to the city, I read the National Geographic article on Jane Goodall. I still find it amusing that this comes out just as I’m finishing teaching an article by her in my class. I love the photo of just her seventy something face – she just looks beautiful and her face really shows a life well lived. She did stumble into her career quite by accident, although having a mentor like Louis Leakey does help in the long run. One of the pictures of the chimps in the article is a little explicit and would not be publishable if it were a human (I don’t think it is online).

Cross stitching works really well with watching “Real Time with Bill Maher” – I don’t have to actually watch the screen intensively to hear the conversations between guests.

( Dexter S5E2 )

My grandmother Tanya died eleven years ago today, so I wanted to take some time and remember the most wonderful and amazing person I have ever met in my life. This was my blog entry a year ago.

Happy Birthday, Misha!

Papa bought the tastiest bagels this morning – very crispy.

I finished Stephen Fry’s autobiography. I really enjoyed it. Mostly because of his humor and because he actually tells of less than good stuff that he did as a teenager – he did spend a little time in jail over stealing a credit card. And I do enjoy reading about people’s childhoods. I’m actually looking forward to the next bit – ages 20 to 40 – that he is writing now. I need to get that when it will get published. Now, I think, I will get back to the biography of Catherine the Great or at least the next section of the book before I break with some fiction.

We went to Brooklyn for half a day. First, Papa and I went to visit my grandparents where I helped set up their emergency cell phone. Then we joined Mama on Brighton and walked around a bit on the boardwalk. It was such a sunny day with lovely blue skies. Mama was in a snit, though, so the walk was not as enjoyable as it could have been. We did have a nice lunch. I had a very delicious chicken with vegetables and tomato juice.

In the afternoon, I finally started a new cross stitch project called “An Interesting Book,” which is a small cross stitch of a bear sitting on a toilet with blue underpants around his ankles and wearing pink slippers and reading a book. Hee. Hee. I bought it in June at a book market in Minsk. It really amuses me. I’m not ready for a big project yet, I’ve been doing smaller ones for a year and a half now.

I also went rollerblading for 45 minutes today, which makes me feel good. I need to make more effort to work out even if I don’t get to the beach to rollerblade. I do have an exercise machine in my room, maybe I should use it. I did break out my little free weights and did some stuff while watching “Real Time with Bill Maher.” I didn’t even realize that the show premiered on Friday. Usually I watch it a week later with weekend breakfast but I caught it today. I think because the media gives so much coverage to the tea party, it seems like the country gone insane. But I do hold hope that most people are actually sane and the minority is just loud.

Laura just came over because she needed her nursing paper proofed. It is much easier to edit someone who at least has intelligent points to make. She was looking at my cross-stitches and thinking of trying something like it. And getting the Kid into that too. That would be cool.

I need to get some grading done tonight. I think I will start with a paper that I know will fail. I usually pick up speed and desire to grade the more grading I do. Like a snowball.

I think this was the most hysterical New Rules ever for ‘Real Time with Bill Maher”. Usually I watch his show on HBO OnDemand about a week later than the show airs with my weekend breakfast, but the new episode from two nights ago was on while I was eating dinner, so I saw it tonight. This time there were no conservatives on the panel (usually there is at least one) which Bill Maher acknowledged. There was the head of Teacher’s Union which drew interesting conversation and general sense of happiness from Democrats getting their shit together.

“The Pacific” Part 3. This is my favorite episode so far, because it was not about battles but a sort of break in Melbourne. And lots of hooking up. It is a bit awkward to watch love scenes with my parents in the room, especially as Mama began to comment on how the characters just met so it was inappropriate of them to act that way. I do like all the little humor here and there too.

I slept in again today and it took me a long time to just get up and eat breakfast and shower. Finally after eleven I was all ready to get out of the house and go to the store with Papa since I needed to buy my ingredients for Passover Seder tomorrow. I make a potato kugel every year – this will be the fifth year. I actually make two in the last few years – one for our family Seder and one for the Seder my friends and I hold on a convenient Saturday during Passover week. I’m also in charge of making a Seder plate at home since I’m the one that cares about some ceremonial detail so I needed ingredients for haroset. Papa came along to help me carry the groceries.