Carole King

Carole King 007
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

First off, the power came on Sunday afternoon, one week after it went off. Hooray!

Monday night, I attended a Carole King concert with my mom, aunts, two cousins, and one of my mom's good friends. It was a fun girls night out, although I worked late so I barely made it on time.

We sat up in the balcony, so the photos are kind of blurry (plus, we weren't actually supposed to be taking them anyway).

I have loved Carole King's music for a long long time. My mom is a huge fan, so I grew up listening to "Tapestry" on vinyl. When I was in the first grade, my school put on a production of "Really Rosie", which Carole did the music for. Even when I was in college, listening to "Tapestry" and belting out "I Feel the Earth Move" on the drive to Athens with my mom was a huge tradition.

Needless to say, I was very excited.

Carole was excellent. She put on a great show, including old favorites and some new songs. She rocked out on guitar and tickled the ivories. She laughed, joked, and kept everyone thoroughly entertained. What an experience.

One of the last

We are going on 4 days without power now.

It sucks. We are fortunate enough to have water (and even hot water!), so showering is not an issue, although it is kind of tricky in the dark.

In the big picture, we are lucky. We have friends who kindly took in our perishables, we have a surplus of propane camping lanterns and headlamps so that we can get around comfortably, we are back at work, and we have some great weather right now. We are not flooded, as are the Hurricane victims in Galveston. We are mildly inconvenienced.

It still sucks, though. Word is power should be restored by the weekend. I think we will be one of the last to get it back.

Remnants of Ike

Ike 001
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

You wouldn't think that Hurricane Ike would hit Ohio, being that we border Canada, and it hit Texas pretty hard, but you would be wrong. We didn't get any rain (at least in my part of SW Ohio), but we did get the worst windstorm in 20 years. Trees are down all over. This is one of my neighbor's houses. My office actually closed, so I'm at Panera checking my email and such, because we are one of the 300,000 in the area without power. Our power went out Sunday around 2:30. It was an interesting night. I'm happy that my dad is such an outdoorsman, because we had good lighting with all the Coleman camping lamps we have.

We didn't have any trees down, but a big limb did come down and hit my dad's car. Fortunately, there was minimal damage--a dent, but nothing serious.

Greek Festival

Greek Festival 001
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

Last weekend, my sister came up from Cinci. We all went to the Greek Festival on Saturday night, and had a good time. We ate Trigonia (spinach and cheese!), gyros, and Greek veggie pizza (from Dominos). We drank greek coffee and beer. We met up with my aunts and cousins, and got to watch the kids dancing. We even toured the Greek Orthodox Church! It is beautiful. It reminded me a bit of St. Vitus's Cathedral in Prague--very ornate with beautiful stained glass. My dad said it reminded him of the Church of the Infant of Prague. It makes me nostalgic--and excited to go back for a visit in February.

These pictures aren't of the best quality because I took them with my cell phone camera.









It's officially festival season in Southwest Ohio. This weekend we have the taste of the Miami Valley and Urban nights downtown, and I intend to take full advantage of them. I may try to get out to the Renaissance festival on Sunday.

Kawaii!

Originally uploaded by poco++

This is too cute! I'm sure one could make a very funny LOL cat with this photo, but I don't have the creativity to do so.

I love kittens.

Grant

Grant 001
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

My cousin and his wife welcomed their third child last Friday. His name is Grant Alan, and he is too cute!

It seems to be the time for babies, as my friends the Syvertsens are expecting a baby in March. I'm so excited for them and this addition to their family.

Mystery Plant

Mystery Plant 001
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

The mystery plant is a mystery no more! It has produced at least 8 zucchini, with more to come. I'll have to find a good zucchini bread recipe.

In other gardening news, I am overrun with tomatoes. This is my favorite time of year for produce, because everything tastes so good! I'll never look at a store-bought tomato the same way--they taste like sawdust.

Gold

That's 10, baby!

Trials of TV Programming

Michael Phelps
Originally uploaded by nataliebehring.com

This wonderful picture of Michael Phelps was taken by Natalie Behring, a photographer based in China.

He looks great, doesn't he? Well on his quest for 8 gold medals this Olympics.

Unfortunately for me, I have managed to miss all three of his races so far this Olympics. Why am I always missing the swimming? Why? I think some of it has to do with my expectations of what NBC's coverage is, and the actual reality. Take Sunday morning. I got up at the obscene hour of 6:30 in the morning to watch the US Mens soccer game against the Netherlands, because Saturday night the announcer said "Coverage starts at 6:30 tomorrow morning." The game didn't actually start until after 7, and then it wasn't on MSNBC as advertised in their info blurb. I watched Italy v South Korea on the tv and the US v Netherlands game on the internet.

No wonder I have missed Michael Phelps! I'm gonna have to research the times for the rest of the sports I want to catch (womens gymnastics - yes, badminton - no) so I will actually see them.

Planty

Nationals 08 017
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

Last month, I went to Nashville for the North American National Championships for Irish Dance. It was held in the Opryland resort, and the day after my team danced, we wandered around the hotel. We discovered this leafy street performer, and my friend's kids had a great time watching her be plant like and twine around the pole here.