Thank you all so much for the warm congratulations on my big news! I’m seriously giddy!
It was a pretty non-eventful weekend over here. I should have been organizing my tax stuff so I can get that done (I’m doing it myself this year with a little help from my dad). I should have been cleaning the house. I should have gone grocery shopping. But I’m okay with the fact that I didn’t do any of those things. We seem to keep recycling various viruses in our house and no matter what day it is, one or more of us isn’t feeling so great. Today I feel almost good, knock-on-wood, albeit a bit tired. So Pete is probably home feeling crap. I’m back to babysitting today after a week off and the baby is not too happy about that! She’s cried a lot today after having her mom available 24/7 for a week—the bottle once again insults her after learning to love it with me before. I think she’ll be back to normal after another day or two.
Anyway, Saturday I went by myself to Coney Island for the afternoon to meet a Flickr friend and pass on this ‘traveling boa’ I had (there a bunch of silly traveling item groups in which some item is passed on to people within the group one by one and we each take photos with said item). My daughter refused to come with me because she wasn’t going to be able to go swimming. Her spring break is this week and by Saturday night she was already bored to tears. Luckily she will be babysitting for Tori three days this week and my brother, sister-in-law, and nieces are arriving Tuesday for a visit, so the week shouldn’t be too painful. The weather on Saturday was gorgeous after the forecast had threatened a rainy day, and we had a great time wandering around taking photos. I even brought the angel wings! The set of photos are on Flickr, of course, and I'll be uploading shots from the day often over the next several days.
I got home Saturday around 7pm and my daughter made tortellini for us all to eat and then asked if we could go to the video store. We rented Across the Universe and Romance and Cigarettes, watching the first one that night. Ever since we had first seen a preview for it, we were dying to see it, and it did not disappoint. I was amazed at how well the Beatles’ songs were utilized to tell the story, and how each song became brand new. Visually, it was stunning—ever since I got more into photography I see everything in terms of the camera. This movie really got my juices flowing! Loved it.
The other movie is an odd little film directed by John Turturro and written by the Coen brothers. Starring Susan Sarandon and James Gandolfini, it is a sometimes funny, often sad story of a long-married couple and his cheating. It is also, however, a musical. Many famous faces grace this movie, including Mary Louise Parker, Mandy Moore, Kate Winslet (who is hilarious and heart-breaking), Eddie Izzard, and Christopher Walkin (the movie is worth seeing for Walkin’s musical numbers alone). A very unique film.
Lastly, one of my friends on Flickr has been posting about her adventures doing “geocaching” with her husband and son. She got me intrigued as it is like a treasure hunt that gets you walking. It turned out that our credit card rewards had a hand-held GPS unit that is just the kind you are supposed to have for this hobby, so I used our points to get it. You go to this website www.geocaching.com and register (free), then you can search for caches in your area. There were over 2,000 things hidden within 30 miles of our house alone! We picked one that was rated easier in the Wissahickon and set out with the dogs. The difficult part comes with the fact that a GPS only gets you to within 20 feet of the cache location, and then you hunt, which also makes it more fun. They all have little clues on their listings too, and ours just said ‘chained to a beech tree on the side of cliff.’ Our biggest problem was that we weren’t sure what a Beech tree looked like and didn’t check before-hand. Heh. We looked and looked and I stumbled down steep leaf-covered cliffs to check tree bases. We walked up a little further and I started searching some more and then I saw a chain! I have to admit it was really exciting! There was an old ammo box attached to the chain and we opened it up to see all the little trinkets that people had left (people can take things as long as they leave things and some caches are more specific about what to take/leave). There was also a logbook to sign and we saw the first entry was from two years before. We will definitely be doing more of this cool hobby. Here's the kid with the box...I had to use my cell phone camera because I actually didn't bring my regular camera (I know...gasp)!
How was your weekend?
As a geocacher for a year now I can tell you you will be hooked. Our toddler loves to find treasure and knows what a GPS is already. Another confirmation that his growing up will be so different from mine. You should also check out travel bugs as they travel all over the place and might be an interesting photo subject.
Posted by: Gwen | Monday, March 17, 2008 at 07:50 PM
This geocacher.....I'm worried it could be addicting for me. Very dangerous !!!
Posted by: Emanuele KCl-34 | Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 11:54 AM