The Meerkats of Washington, DC

Dive inspired me with his meerkats of Notre Dame. I will share with you the meerkats of Washington, D.C. I visited the National Zoo in April and was quite taken by these adorable creatures. (I love to converse with the zookeepers). They are always willing to share inside information such as feeding habits, mating habits and personality quirks. Unfortunately these meekats have an uncanny ability to escape from their zoo habitat and have been frequenting campaigning places in New Hampshire and Iowa.


Sarah, the Palin meerkat can see Russia from her front porch. She can skin a moose, talks like a twit and has become the sweetheart of the redneck set.


















Michelle the Bachman Meerkat is equally endearing. She confuses sociopathic serial killers with Western actors and promises to be submissive to her husband when she reaches the highest office! She is stealing the evangelical Christian voters from Sarah the Palin meerkat! (Well, Sarah isn't officially on the ticket yet)

Equally adorable and of the male persuasion is Ricky the Santorum (please Google this) meerkat. His distinguishing characteristic is one of fundamental Catholicism. (Gotta get those voters too). All of these meerkats enjoy tea parties and are funded by the multi-billionaire Koch brothers. In case you are not familiar with meerkat behavior, please research Americans for Prosperity, the 912 Patriots and other tea party groups. Most rednecks, fundamentalists and ordinary zoo visitors think that these are "grassroots" political organizations that are made up of regular, ordinary citizens. Little do they know it is an orchestrated and hugely funded scheme! This scheme was carefully orchestrated by the Cocksuckers, I mean Koch brothers. They are in the gas, energy and corporate take over business and are enjoying amazing profits since the Bush tax cuts. The Kochs are fundamentally libertarian, their father was one of the founding members of the John Birch society. They have organized a campaign to destroy Obama, pesky labor unions, public schools and the middle class.

The tea party members are made up of primarily working class and middle class people. Most of them are or were hard working, honest people. The Kochs are successfully setting them against teachers, unions and other working people by suggesting that teachers and union members have it better. The Obese Governor Christy of New Jersey called teachers welfare queens.

One tea party group has openly admitted to a goal of destroying the public school system. Let's keep those lower and middle classes stupid!

People. The meerkats are cute, but they are puppets. George W. Bush was a puppet. Obama is actually a human being with a brain. He is failing because the republicans are united in destroying him.

Unfortunately, I was not able to photograph all the Washington meerkats for you. Some were underground and receiving "slimy yet satisfying" treats from their keepers. Lucky for you, I was able to catch the cute ones with my little Nikon digicam.

Apartment Hunting

We spent the weekend checking out apartments and townhouses for the art school girls! Four of them!

After one year of student housing - sharing a tiny studio with another student AND the fact that none of them were privileged to win the lottery for on-site housing, the girls are looking for their own digs. (This is actually a good thing, we think)

What an exciting, emotional and frustrating experience this has been. Exciting in that in brings back memories of my young adult self living in the city in a cool townhouse with three other girls. The little known small streets of Philadelphia, some cobblestone, some paved over but too narrow for cars, unknown, quaint little neighborhoods to explore. I remember living on Rodman Street. No one has ever heard of Rodman Street. It was an adorable little street!

Several years ago, Doug and I took the girls on an adventure...a train ride to Philadelphia to see a production of the Lion King at the Academy of Music. We rented a hotel room and walked to the theatre. The best part was the hour or so to kill before the show. We walked around the Avenue of the Arts neighborhood and I showed my girls my old townhouse on Rodman Street. A sign in the window read, "Frodo lost, Bush stole the Ring."

I believe that little detour stirred something in the daughters. Annelise enthusiastically applied to the University of the Arts and lived about four blocks from my old townhouse.

Today we place an outrageous deposit on a townhouse rental in an outstanding neighborhood two blocks away from my old house.

The place is perfect. The girls are worried that it is too nice for them. Split four ways, it is still cheaper than the University housing.

This is emotional because I started here in so many ways.

This is frustrating because the first apartment we looked at didn't work out. I am working with three other students and three other families. We all want our daughters to live in a safe neighborhood. We all want them to live in a nice place. I have one Mom with whom I see eye-to-eye. We agree on everything. I have another who is in Wisconsin and is worried about price. I have another who is a bit of a ______neurotic head case. No I didn't say that. (Yes I did.) She finds fault in everything. I have tried to convince her that all of these wonderful places are cheaper than what the university was charging. She just doesn't seem to get it. I do not want to alienate her daughter. Mine thinks the world of her, but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

So how to parent and negotiate and navigate and stay focused, but not overwhelmed is a challenge.

I keep obsessively checking my email. Yesterday I received about 10 messages on this issue. There is in-fighting and shit going on between them. I don't want to get into the shit! I just want to be settled in an apartment!

Non-objective Water Media Fun

When I feel I'm in a painting slump, the best thing for me to do is play with paint. So I took out all manner of water media, and started pouring . Dr. Martin's inks and pourable acrylics and watercolor pencils. This is just a fun exercise when I feel my oil painting is getting too tight, or I'm overworking things to death. Lately I've had that feeling....

I am at the brink. I feel pure, creative genius coming on, then paint, paint, paint....Some ridiculous music has spurred me on. I walk out the door. I come back one hour later and the canvas looks like cat vomit.


Well the sure cure is to pour. Then I can come back with some more opaque stuff and see if I can find anything interesting. These might be painting starts or nothing at all, but sometimes I am happier with these than the planned stuff.

Oh and excuse the non-existent cropping and crappy picture quality. My laptop does not have Photoshop and the photo editing software is crap.

Quinceanera!

Yesterday my daughter had the honor of serving as a lady of honor in the court of a Quinceanera. This is a beautiful Latino tradition for a young woman's 15th birthday.

The day started with a formal ceremony and mass honoring Jessica's rite of passage to young womanhood.

A huge stretch limo was hired. Photos were taken a a park and a formal reception was held at a rented hall.

Some people may have gushed at William and Kate's wedding as every young girl dreams of becoming a princess, but this was so much better in so many ways.

The first picture is of the mini-quinceaneran, one of Jessica's cousins who enjoyed the honor of dressing like the honoree. She also won the admiration of every little girl at the park!

Jessica wore an elegant dress, a tiara and carried a scepter. She was truly a princess for the day!

She is escorted by her brother. He rode in the limo with about 13 beautiful young ladies! Lucky guy! He took a bit of "razzing" from his friends, but didn't seem to mind too much.

What an incredible day for a wonderful young lady. We returned to the reception hall for homemade Salvadoran food and dancing. There was a ritual "changing of the shoes" where Jessica's father replaced her Chuck Taylor sneakers with high heels. Jess stood up and thanked her family and her friends for helping her become a young woman. Every member of her family helped to prepare the feast and festivities.




Jessica's mother told me that she could not have one because her family in El Salvador was too poor.

She fulfilled the dream for her daughter.

I wish every girl could be a princess for the day.

(My daughter is the ginger-haired, third from left). I hope you enjoy the photos. Blogger would only allow me to upload three. What's up with Blogger these days?

Shirtless George

Here is the founder of our country, George Washington, shirtless!

Oh what a scandal!

I did not realize that this scandalous sculpture existed!

Thankfully, my art student daughter enlightened me.

This sculpture, created by Horatio Greenough created quite the scandal in 1840.

The Wikipedia entry is as follows:

Greenough modeled his massive (30 tons) figure of “Enthroned Washington” on the great statue of Zeus Olympios which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (and which was destroyed in late Antiquity). The seated and besandled Washington gazes sternly ahead. He is bare-chested and his right arm and hand gesture with upraised index finger toward heaven. His left palm and forearm cradle a sheathed sword, hilt forward, symbolizing Washington turning over power to the people at the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War.

Well, the American people at the time thought it was obscene and hid the sculpture until at least the 1960s. That makes it all the more fun doesn't it?

And by George, he was chopped!

We met up with my California brother in our nation's capitol Friday. This was the highlight of our trip, besides dinner at La Fourchette, the restaurant we visited over our honeymoon, and breakfast at The Diner at Adams Morgan.

Coming of Age - The Elusive Job Hunt

Daughter A has been home from college for a month now. While I love her dearly I am ready for her to not be here so much. Daughter D's last school day was Tuesday.

Now you can understand my reason for helping with the job search.

Oh it has been extremely frustrating. All of the retail outlets and food outlets must be swamped with applicants as none of them ever bother to contact us. The girls follow up with phone calls and hear all manner of excuses.

Finally Mom's ingenious idea: The Temp Agency. I used to use these agencies when I was young and inexperienced. I landed a few nice little busywork jobs filing and typing and filling envelopes and such, but they were resume builders.

I helped A to build up her resume. Highlight skills: Adept at Photoshop, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, yadayadayada. Beef up the National Honor Society and 500 letters to soldiers and Vice Captain of the Fencing club to compensate for her lack of actual "work" experience.

It helped so much that she became overqualified for work in the cookie factory. (Not exactly what we were going for)

Then the Volkswagen dealer was looking for someone with her exact qualifications but wanted a permanent commitment. (No chance)

Will try another temp agency tomorrow. Funny, when I was her age they were always looking for clerical people.

This teen boredom might be the reason there are so many cute cat internet pictures, videos, games, etc.

Memorial Day Weekend!

It is Memorial Day weekend and I do wish to honor all of the brave men and women who have fought and given their lives for their country. Thank you. My husband is enjoying the weekend marathon of old war movies on AMC.

To me, Memorial Day weekend also meant the unofficial start of summer. Ocean City, New Jersey was open for business and the shoobies were flocking to town. We used to laugh at the Pennsylvanians who clogged the roads trying to capitalize on the three-day weekend. They crowded the boardwalk and bought Budweiser visors to wear with their black socks and sandals.

Now I live in Pennsylvania and I will not go near the shore or anywhere else on Memorial Day weekend. Yesterday we had a very laid back "party" with good friends and good food.

Today I decided to relax. I read an entire book while sitting on the back deck. I haven't done that for a while.

Thanks again the the brave men and women from every country who have allowed me to take an extra day to relax.