Month: May 2006

  • Prague

    One picture now, more to come later.

    “Paris of the East.”

    Prague, Czech Republic.

    The observation tower was built in 1891 for the Jubilee
    Exhibition.  It is 60 meters or 200 feet tall, a quarter of the
    height of the Eiffel tower in Paris.  The only way to get to the
    top is by climbing 299 stairs. Ack!
     I didn’t huff or puff my way to the top.  Remember, I’m
    afraid of heights.  So since I knew I would never make it up that
    wooden spiral staircase Bear and I sent Mike.  (It’s good to have
    good friends.)  He took some amazing pictures.  Of which I
    will wade thru and pick a few to share.  It was really windy on
    Sunday and when Mike got back down he said the entire tower was swaying. 
    So it’s probably a good thing I didn’t try it, though next time I’m
    going to at least try the first platform.  After all I am trying
    to push my comfort zone on the unreasonable fears.  Hopefully
    there won’t be ANY wind!  

    I hope everyone had a weekend as nice as ours.  And more than that I hope you write about it…..hint, hint.  

  • We interrupt your regularly scheduled program.

    Yay, it’s Memorial Day weekend.  This means that Prague is on the menu. 


    We (meaning Mike and myself) finally talked Bear into going to Prague, so it was decided Memorial weekend would be good.  Of course I found out that it’s going to rain for three solid days but We’ll work around that.  If nothing else we’ll stay indoors, in castles, churches, museums etc.  And then there is always the famous Budvar .  So technically if it gets really cold and icky we could just pick a club and stay indoors until we have to wobble back to the hotel.  The temps have been hovering around 60 but with the wind it feels like 50, you would never guess it’s almost June.


    Speaking of Budvar, the American company tried to sue over ownership of the name wanting Budweiser to change their name, but since there has been Czech Budweiser for about a thousand years they keep losing.  Go figure.   You would think after so many years they would finally reach an agreement.


    Anyway, once again I get to go somewhere extremely cool.  Paris of the East.  I think this time I’ll make sure to take a picture of the Eiffel Tower.  And in case you think I’m kidding, I’m not.  They really have one.  I’ll do my best to bring back proof, lol. 


    And yes, I do realize how extremely blessed I am. 


    Hope everyone has a terrific weekend and stay safe!


     

  • we return you to your regularly scheduled program.

    Tiny update at the very bottom
    Hey!  Did you guys know schlemiel is in the dictionary?  I never knew that.
    schlemiel/noun : An unlucky bungler : chump 

    And if you don’t get the link well then your young and need to get out more.



    Now!  Back to Rome.




    Saturday, way back on April 8th we had the whole day to ourselves to do
    as we pleased, when we pleased.  We pleased ourselves by touring
    historical Rome. 

     We went up to the Borghese gardens and walked all over the park and
    finally meandered our way over to the villa and these gardens which are
    in the back of the Villa.  The villa has a very important museum inside which I wanted to see so
    bad I could taste it, what we didn’t know and no website that I looked
    at tells you, is you need to buy/reserve your ticket, sometimes more
    than a week in advance.

    (I should have checked the “official” site) 
    So we asked for a ticket and the polite man
    said they were all sold out. I asked when two would be available and he
    said next Tuesday.      
    Bummer, because I wanted to see the statues of Daphne and Apollo and
    also Pluto and Persephone.  Both by my favorite Italian sculptor
    Bernini.  It’s my own fault and really I have no one to blame but
    myself.  So I must go back if only to see the museum.  My
    husband said “uh huh a likely excuse”  but it sounds perfectly
    reasonable to me to fly back to Rome to see a museum.      
    And I’m sure it makes perfect sense to  my friends too, lol. 
    Now all I have to do is save a whole bunch of money and go. 


    Piazza De Popolo




    This was taken from a balcony above the Piazza while still inside part of Borghese park.


    That’s St. Peter’s Basilica way back on the right side.




    The next picture shows a better view of the domes that are kind of blocked by the two pines.



























      The twin churches of Santa Maria Montesanto and   Santa Maria Dei Miracoli … they are so beautiful and huge too!

    I’m glad I didn’t have a regular film camera because I took about 50 pictures just in this piazza.




















    The gate is 16th century
    and at one time was the main gateway to the Adriatic.  There has
    been a gate into Rome in this spot since about 220 BC.  You know
    the saying…..”All roads lead to Rome.”

    I was actually trying to keep the Semi-trucks in the picture.  It
    gives a good perspective on how large the Piazza really is.  We
    were about in the middle when I took this so there is almost as much
    space behind me as there is in front.  And yes those are regular
    sized semi-tractor trailers.

















    Trevi Fountain













    I’m actually surprised at how pleasant his expression is, he abhors
    crowds and as you will see from the third picture down the crowds at
    the Trevi fountain were absolutely horrendous.  It’s still a
    breathtaking fountain, crowds or not.

























    I didn’t know this but the entire fountain is a story, all the statues
    are either part of the story or represent something about Trevi Fountain. 


    Briefly: Oceanus is riding upon a chariot of seashells drawn by two
    water horses controlled by 2 tritons.  One horse represents a calm
    ocean the other a stormy ocean.  I think, if I remember right there
    are over 42 separate places the water trickles, spurts, gushes etc, besides the large
    main fountain in the middle. 


    The fountain is much, much bigger with a whole lot more stories and
    statues but with all the people it was impossible to get a really
    decent picture.



















    We got some of our best excitement here.  An old gypsy lady
    was
    stealing the money out of the fountain and got caught and
    arrested.  It was rather entertaining to say the least.  It
    took four cops to get her (2 female) and she yelled and waved her arms
    around like they were killing her and her family too.  The cops,
    like cops all around the world weren’t buying her tale of woe. 
    I’m sure they’ve heard it all before.










    Piazza Novona







    What’s really cool is this stands on Emperor Domitians stadium (81-96AD)
    and it still has the shape of a stadium.  At the time the stadium
    was the biggest in the world, even bigger than the coliseum.  It
    could hold over 50,000 people.     
    Oh and before I forget you can see parts of the walls of the arena all
    around the outside of the Piazza and we were told if you can get into
    the basements of the buildings you can see the foundations.


    We didn’t try since some of them are embassies, and since I can’t even
    get into the American embassy I doubt the Argentineans will let me in
    either.



    Fontana dei quattro fiumi


    Fountain Of Four Rivers




    Designed byBernini in 1651.  The guy was very busy.




    At the time they only knew of four continents, so only Africa, The Americas, Europe and Asia are represented.
    This is Africa.  He has his face covered because when this
    was sculpted the source of  the Nile had not yet been discovered.




    The other three rivers are the Ganges for Asia, the Danube for Europe and the     Plate for the America. 
    And no, I have no idea why they picked the Plate (Plata) and didn’t pick any of
    the other jillion
    rivers known at the time.  But if your like me I had to come home
    and look up where the Plate river is, so I saved you time and put a
    link on the name.  (Sweet huh?)  I find it a little ironic
    that in the 17th century no-one knew about the Nile and everyone knew
    about the Plata and now it’s the complete opposite.



    That’s it.  Of course there’s a
    bunch I left out, but good grief this is pictures heavy enough and you
    will probably hate me for how slow it loads.  On the bright side
    if your in the subscription page it doesn’t show the pictures so it
    probably loaded quick.



    Now unless something
    major comes up ancient Rome should be next.  I loved ancient
    Rome.  I could spend days just in that part of the city.  And
    if I really do ever get to go back I will definitely spend at least one
    entire day in that area.

    (links are colored)
    tiny update. literally!  I really hate how my site looks and I
    know that I will NEVER be html proficient enough to design something
    myself.  So in the interest of making me and someone else happy I
    have decided to offer a years free premium to design a new look. 
    If your interested email me.  indigolady1@yahoo.com  Now I’m really finished!

  • Happy Birthday Infiniteplatypus!



    For my Emily!



         Last Aug
    I wrote Allison’s birth story for part of her birthday gift. 
    Today is Emily’s birthday so at the risk of boring my faithful readers
    and grossing out the guys among you, here is the birth story for my
    youngest.  The one destined, for the rest of her life no matter how
    old she gets, and no matter how senile I get, to be known as “my baby
    girl”.  (no comments on the senility, wacky people)
                                                     

    circa 1984

    We were still Air Force and were
    stationed at a small base in Merced, California called Castle. (it’s
    closed now) This was really the first time I had been so far from my
    family and when I found out I was pregnant shortly after getting to
    California it never dawned on me how hard the next 9 months would be without my
    friends and family and a one year old to round things out.  But
    time and growing belly wait for no woman

    .  

     Before I knew it mid April had arrived and my mom was there to help
    out. (Emily by the way had a due date the last week of April.)  May 1st
    rolled around and still no baby.  I went in for my regular weekly
    appointment and everything was still fine.  They figured that every
    day she stayed where she was, was a little bit more weight and
    growth.
     I think they like it when you can’t breathe, bend over
    and have to run to the bathroom every 5 mins. (the doctors I mean, not
    the babies) 
    All 4 of us were like planes circling the landing strip just
    waiting.  Allison spent a lot of time patting my belly and telling
    her sister it was okay to come out.  I spent a lot of time napping
    since my mom was there to watch Allison.  And Bear spent a lot of
    time wishing his life had less women in it…..or a bigger apt…..poor
    guy.  My mom spent a lot of time wondering why she had come over
    to California so soon.



    By May 9th I was back at the obstretician and practically begging him to do something. 
    By our calculations I was more than 10 days over due.  The doctors
    disagreed.  But I knew my mom
    couldn’t stay forever and if she went home that meant that I would
      (A.)  have to drive myself to the hospital or (B.)  
    Bear could drive the whole family there but then still have to leave to
    take care of Allie. Because we just didn’t have anyone we could leave
    her with overnight.  I knew I couldn’t do this childbirth thing
    without him there so I was getting in a bit of a hurry even if Emily
    wasn’t.

    Finally Dr. Graham said he could scrape my membranes.  I thought
    it sounded awful but when he explained it I thought it was
    brilliant.  Basically the idea is to thin the membrane with a
    gentle scrape or two and if she was ready to come she would but if she
    wasn’t then the membrane would just thicken up again.  I was so
    thrilled with the possibility that I practically leaped into the
    stirrups.  Scrape away doc. 
    Then I went home and took a walk followed by another nap.  (I
    learned with Allison, sleep every single chance you can.) 


    That evening seemed like every other evening for the last 2 weeks and
    even though at first I had been excited by 9 PM I was just tired. 
    We stayed up for the 11 O clock news and then went to bed.  At
    about 1 A.M. I woke up and had to pee so bad it felt like Em was
    digging her heel into my bladder.  So I lumbered to the
    bathroom.  When I got back in bed I had barely got comfortable
    when I felt moisture between my legs.  I was peeing the bed. 
    “For Gods sake” I thought, “let’s just pile on one more
    embarrassment.”   So I got back out of bed and went back to
    pee some more.  Then went and got back in bed.  More
    pee!!  Wait a minute?? (light bulb)  I think my water
    broke.  So not being completely sure, since I hadn’t had a
    contraction and believe it or not was about half asleep, I thought I
    would call the
    hospital and ask some questions.
     
    I snuck downstairs dialled
    the hospital and told the nurse on duty what was going on.  
    Of course her first question was “Have you had a contraction?”  I
    was literally in the middle of saying no when the first one hit. 
    That settled that and I told her to expect us soon.  (Barry and I
    had discussed before hand with my Dr. the need to go immediately because my
    contractions with Allison had never come regular and the whole
    hemorrhaging after birth thing had kind of scared us both last
    time.  Though with Dr. Graham we both felt much more secure.)
    So
    I went back upstairs woke up Barry and told him what was going on, then
    we went down and woke my mom up and told her we were headed for the
    hospital.  FINALLY! 
    2 AM and we were finally headed toward baby day.

    Then the contractions started in earnest.  (Want to know what pain
    is?  Be in the middle of back labor and hit railroad tracks. 
    I yelled at Bear, and for the first time ever in a driving
    situation instead of yelling back … apologised.) 
    Luckily we weren’t that far from the hospital.  And even better we
    were pre-registered so we got to sail straight to a bed.  Yay,
    lets get some pressure off of my poor back.  Em typical of her
    future Taurian birthday was head down and trying to
    bull her way thru.  My back was on fire and I thought for a while
    that she was going to break me in half.  This was a lot more
    intense than last time.  The next few hours were just a blur of
    trying to find a comfortable position and trying to breathe thru the
    pain. 

    I looked at the clock thru my lamaze breathing and saw it was 11:30
    AM.  And when the pain was over I remember saying “I need to have
    her at noon.  That will be really easy to remember.”  Hah,
    what was really going thru my mind was…..”please God let me have her
    at noon.  I want to be done, she’s killing me!”  Of course,
    it’s true noon would be easy but I had an ulterior motive even thru the
    pain.  You always hear about back labor but until you actually
    have it, you really have no idea.  And of course now everyone gets
    epidurals so a completely natural childbirth is getting pretty
    rare.  I blame all this natural stuff on my 70′s era
    upbringing.  You just can’t have three 60′s raised sisters and
    then be raised in the 70′s yourself without being all gungho
    natural. 

    Noon arrived and Emily didn’t.  By then I was pushing so hard my
    glasses fogged up so I never noticed until it had passed.  When I
    did notice it was about 12:15 and I thought oh lord please don’t let
    this last much longer. Three more good strong pushes and she
    gave up trying to break my back and popped out and joined the world at
    12:25 PM.   She was long and skinny and looked for all the world
    like a monkey.  We held her and just couldn’t believe we had done
    it again.  We had our little girl.  Allison had begged us for
    a baby sister, I had prayed for one and lo and behold here she
    was. 
    Our little miracle, born at Castle Air Force Base, Merced,
    California.   May 10th 1984 turned out to be a great day.
    May 11th turned out to be a little odd.   Emily wasn’t even
    24 hours old when a fire alarm went off in another part of the
    hospital.  (It was about 7 or 8 in the morning.)  A nurse
    came in and instructed me to pick up Emily and follow her.  So I
    did and we went outside.  There all the new moms were just sort of
    milling around wishing to high heaven somebody had brought chairs or
    something.  Finally, about the time I thought I was just going to
    lay down in the weeds, they let us back inside only to tell us that
    they were sending every healthy mother and child home as a
    precaution.  So less than 24 hours after having her, we were back
    home.  I admit I was secretly glad.  I missed Allison so
    bad.  Funny thing is when I saw her she looked huge compared to
    Emily so it was a shock to see her as a toddler instead of a
    baby.  (She was 21 months old then.)  She took to Emily like
    a duck takes to water.  I gave her Emily and told her here was the
    baby she asked for and since that day they have been inseparable.

    Emily is empathic so sometimes I think on some level we didn’t pick her,
    she picked us.  I think she knew she would have unconditional love
    and support from us.  Not that we don’t all fight like cats and
    dogs sometimes but then who doesn’t.  We are after all a pretty
    normal family.  But our Emily, she’s special, always has
    been.  And that’s not just mom talking you can ask anyone. 
    She will give you her last dime and then ask if you need her coat
    too.  She will run to you if you say, I need you now.  She
    loves with a ferocity and loyalty that is a wonder to behold.  If
    you need a tiger in your corner call my Em.

    I hope for Emily, this……….

    For your birthday I hope that you have the knowledge that we love
    you.  I wish you joy and contentment in your life.  I wish
    for you to know that we have always been proud to call you our
    daughter.  You have blessed our lives beyond measure.

    Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

    Love mom
     

  • Thank YOU Zhenai!

    I have the best friends in the whole wide world.  And I have never met any of them face to face.   
    Doesn’t matter.  Good peopple are good people and thoughfulness
    shines thru.  My little circle here on xanga is stuffed with great
    people.

    I am just here to tell how thrilled I get by presents.  I don’t
    care one bit whether they’re on time or not.  Shoot, just seeing
    that little yellow package slip in my post office box gives me a little
    thrill.  Yesterday I got a double thrill because I didn’t even
    know to expect a package and when I saw it was from Zhenai
    I got so excited by that little yellow envelope.  (Yes people, I
    am easy.)  I ripped it open in the car and whooee! hit the
    jackpot!!  

    This is my birthday card and let me share with you.  If she’s the Queen well the I’m the crown princess.


    Also
    inside was an anniversary card.  So I took it down to the hangar
    and interrupted Bear at work so we could open it together.  Then
    when we saw it we both laughed.  Because not even two weeks ago we
    saw a Bike with a sidecar and I told him I would like to get one. 
    He said “no way.”  When I asked why not?  He never really
    gave me an answer but I think it’s because they aren’t as “cool” in his
    eyes.  Well anyway I wouldn’t let up and finally he asked why I
    wanted one so bad and I said “When were old and tottery we won’t fall
    over”.  Him and Mike nearly died laughing at me.  They think
    the picture of us tootling around is great. 

    And then lo and behold we get this card.  Just proof that you can
    get to know someone online.  That is so awesome. 

    Mike wanted to know if we had ever met, I just grinned and shook my
    head.  and said nope and he said well she sure knows you! 
    ha,ha.

    My candy!  Bear took about half of the little one to keep in his tool box.   Which is fine.
    The senior moments mints?  You will see exactly how apropriate they are.

    All morning I had been gathering the odds and ends that we had bought
    the kids trying to put together a box.  Also trying to put
    together  two little packages for our moms for mothers’ day. 
    And a fourth box for my sis and her hubby who has a birthday of his own
    coming up.  Well our post office closes at 3 pm so that they can
    get the mail to the main post office by 4:30.  Everything that
    could go awry did!! Of course.  I don’t want to say go wrong it
    just didn’t go as planned.  By 2pm I was on my way to the post and
    it was only when I was fishing for my wallet that I realized I had left
    it at home.  No ID, no drivers license, no debit card, no
    nothing.  Senior moment at its finest.  To bad I didn’t have
    those mints!!   
    The book is also from Zhenai.  I really like this because its not new.  It’s what I call a pass along.  It seems we pass along books we like.  I started it last night and oh! I can’t wait to send this to my Allie. 
    It is so beyond good.  This book reminds me of why I loved to read
    Amy Tan, Pearl Buck and others.  I love to get a glimpse of Asian
    culture in the past.  When she tells about footbinding it made my
    toes curl. 
    All in all this little package had a big punch.  All my favorite
    stuff.  A reallly good book, candy and funny
    cards.     Thank you Zhenai, your thoughfulness has just blown my socks off.  Your a sweetheart!