Tuesday, November 4, 2008
We liveblog the election...
Because you know you wanted to hear our thoughts! We are ecstatic, frankly. Grace is cheering and whooping at every new Obama call - Ohio was a big moment. The shots of Grant Park are a bit hit here. Every little bit of the electoral map is a new moment of excitement. Peter has actually prayed for the, um, demise of John McCain, and while we don't endorse that theologically problematic impulse, we can kind of understand the misunderstanding that underlies it.
One election ago, Peter was a baby. Two elections ago, I was pregnant with Grace. It is a strange way to measure time.
Election Day
Gracie and I voted this morning at her school - our polling place opens at 8:00, and it's here school, and school starts at 8:40, so I took her with me at 7:30 and we waited in line so I could vote before work. It felt big, and historic, and exciting. Fellow voters directed us to the proper line (two precincts vote there) and we directed our neighbor into our line when he arrived, and the mood was cheerful and calm. Grace was glad to be there, excited for election day, and keen on having a bagel and hot cocoa for breakfast while we waited.
I voted, it went smoothly, we walked around waiting for school to start, we had lots of discussion about the League of Women Voters guide I'd brought... it is an exciting and hopeful day and we'll spend the evening glued to the various screens in our house looking at election returns.
I voted, it went smoothly, we walked around waiting for school to start, we had lots of discussion about the League of Women Voters guide I'd brought... it is an exciting and hopeful day and we'll spend the evening glued to the various screens in our house looking at election returns.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Fun fall colors
We wandered around the neighborhood today taking pictures of pretty leaves and other natural objects of interest. This included a bird's nest and pretty red berries. Grace was oddly camera-shy but Peter hammed it up.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Pumpkins, duly carved.
We're slightly short on Halloween decorations around here - a few got misplaced in the move, although not, thank goodness, the huge Jack o' Lantern trivet and the little matching beaded coasters. So it was important that we choose and carve our pumpkins this weekend. We shopped, we dragged home, we did artistic consultations and roughed in the images before wielding any knives.
And the results were pleasingly cute! The white one is mine, the orange ones each belong to a kid. We had fun carving and were too lazy to toast the seeds, but the next time we make pumpkin pie we'll do some.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
We are chic gallery-hoppers, yes we are!
I wish I'd had a way to take pictures. We (the usual crew, plus Nana and Papa) went out to dinner last night in the fun, interesting section of town (oh, spare me, we do too). The wait for a table was looooooong, so Papa and I took the kids wandering around, and honest to God, we had so much fun in a random art gallery that we came back again after we had eaten.
What was on display was mostly sculpture, and there was this odd piece that involved (allegedly) 50 little clay figures, each about four inches high, in varying skin-type tones. They were set up in little dioramas all over the gallery, so we quickly made a game of finding, and counting, each one. There was the little guy who had been impaled by a nail, whose (presumably confused) companions were gathered around; there were the several groups of figures using string to scale the walls and perch in unlikely places, like on Exit signs. A bunch of them were perched on a teeny DVD player, watching a video about their own creation. There was even (or so Grace and I were told by our Native Informants) one peeing into the sink in the men's room. A whole group of them were crawling out of a (presumably custom-made) hole in the wall, which just fascinated the kids. They were glued in place, which we discovered when Peter pried one loose from the floor, but no harm done.
The rest of the sculpture was - you know, interesting and artsy and creative and really, really expensive, so the whole experience had an undertone of low-grade terror for me lest one of my offspring should destroy priceless (to me) art. I'm not sure my homeowner's policy covers that. There was one small sculpture of a post-apocalyptic house, all raw concrete and grim rebar, that was called something like "Little House on Fanny Mae Street" and we laughed and laughed. Or at least the adults did.
It was fun, at any rate, and we nibbled a bit at the gallery opening snacks, and admired even the non-person sculptures. We stopped for a few minutes at the local CD/record/headshop, and I had to explain all the vinyl to Grace - "Mommy, what's a record?" made me feel really old. Finally we walked back to the cars past the random thrift store, various high-end modern furniture/art/whatever places, the street musician singing a favorite song I hadn't heard in a while, the artfully tatooed hipsters, and the van of Obama fans (a whole subset of our evening: watching them make t-shirts featuring Obama with special spray fabric paint. They were really reticent about talking with us, even about Obama, despite their *van painted with Obama stuff* all of which made me think they might have been a little... artifically happy.) A more interesting Omaha than we usually experience!
What was on display was mostly sculpture, and there was this odd piece that involved (allegedly) 50 little clay figures, each about four inches high, in varying skin-type tones. They were set up in little dioramas all over the gallery, so we quickly made a game of finding, and counting, each one. There was the little guy who had been impaled by a nail, whose (presumably confused) companions were gathered around; there were the several groups of figures using string to scale the walls and perch in unlikely places, like on Exit signs. A bunch of them were perched on a teeny DVD player, watching a video about their own creation. There was even (or so Grace and I were told by our Native Informants) one peeing into the sink in the men's room. A whole group of them were crawling out of a (presumably custom-made) hole in the wall, which just fascinated the kids. They were glued in place, which we discovered when Peter pried one loose from the floor, but no harm done.
The rest of the sculpture was - you know, interesting and artsy and creative and really, really expensive, so the whole experience had an undertone of low-grade terror for me lest one of my offspring should destroy priceless (to me) art. I'm not sure my homeowner's policy covers that. There was one small sculpture of a post-apocalyptic house, all raw concrete and grim rebar, that was called something like "Little House on Fanny Mae Street" and we laughed and laughed. Or at least the adults did.
It was fun, at any rate, and we nibbled a bit at the gallery opening snacks, and admired even the non-person sculptures. We stopped for a few minutes at the local CD/record/headshop, and I had to explain all the vinyl to Grace - "Mommy, what's a record?" made me feel really old. Finally we walked back to the cars past the random thrift store, various high-end modern furniture/art/whatever places, the street musician singing a favorite song I hadn't heard in a while, the artfully tatooed hipsters, and the van of Obama fans (a whole subset of our evening: watching them make t-shirts featuring Obama with special spray fabric paint. They were really reticent about talking with us, even about Obama, despite their *van painted with Obama stuff* all of which made me think they might have been a little... artifically happy.) A more interesting Omaha than we usually experience!
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