Last Weekend

And the winners are...

THE HOYER-GREENLEE FAMILY

who turned in their Summer Homework first!

Yes, I know there was no deadline, but you get to be teacher's pets, Geoff, Sue, and Alex!

Everybody else, get cracking! (talking to myself here because mine is stalled in the journal stage.)

My vision is a book for Daddy's birthday.

Send in your poems NOW - operators are standing by - no waiting in line 7!

I need to go and massage the assignment for that guy in the other room,

and get to work myself...

love,

I got a kitten

His name is Jupiter and he's incredibly adorable. I got him from the shelter; he had a brother named Neptune, so I guess you can figure out what their inspiration was. In just a few days he's gone from hiding at every loud noise to fearlessly playing in the kitchen while I'm cooking dinner.

Anyway, since the internet clearly does not have enough pictures of cats yet, here's some pictures from right after we brought him home. I didn't have any cat toys then, so I gave him an extra ball of yarn. Now it's a horrible tangle, but it's the most fun of his toys because it has a long string so I can twitch it for him.

more St. Louis pics

How did Ruben get out of the picture? He is represented by the paintings....

Two Songs

Dear Sibs (especially Agelius):

Too bad it's not still a robin so we could have it go blob, blob, blobbing along!

Now, can you tell what the second song is? Here's a clue:


We're hoping to have corn in late August when Dan comes to visit with his girlfriend Rachel.
Since Rick has not been traveling much lately, he has been quite the farmer. We've had snow peas, radishes, lettuce, and green beans. And we are bringing strawberries with us to St. Louis!

Love,
Gilly

This has been a great vacation...

...except of course for the weather - but actually, since we have accumulated so many indoor project, that's been okay!

Thanks Geoff and Sue for getting the cell phone for Mama - she LOVES it (although she calls it her mobile phone) and it sure makes me feel a lot more at ease! She calls me on it now, it's a lot easier than getting up and walking to the phone - and I'm not being facetious, since it is hard for her to get around.

I have been so worried about them in this heat, but (with a lot of nagging) they keep the a/c on and go to the grocery store at 6:30 am which is good, since Smiley has no a/c.

Thank you also, Geoff, for posting your pix - nice to see an instant review of your visit!

Looking forward to seeing you Rick and Gill - Sally your apartment looks fantastic! I hope you can start a balcony garden - year round! lucky you!

Love to all,

St. Louis Trip

My, but it was hot.

We slept OK, but during the days I didn't want to move much. But we kept pretty busy.

We spent time with the Barrios, took mom to church, went swimming, went to the city museum (I missed out on that!), visited friends, and went up the arch.

Silly me, I took almost no pictures except for in the Arch, so that's about all you get to see.

The picture of downtown is for mom, who was saying that ll you could see was trees -- in the CWE, and that you have to look *west* to see the courthouse. The picture of knees is to show how cramped the little cages are.

I think this was the first time I'd been up it since I was small. and some vertiginous pictures from above and below (I really like how you can see the feet of the arch from the top), and some of us up top, and of the arch from the metrolink station as we headed home.

We really did have a marvelous time, and mom seems to be happy with the new cell phone, so hopefully that will be useful. I put all our phone numbers and cell phone numbers on it, so don't be surprised when you see a new phone number.

Pictures from California

Well I guess I have actually been in California for about a month now. It seems like a lot less time because I have been very busy! But I figured that I should post some pictures since Aunt Kathie said that no one posted on the blog.

I have a lovely apartment now. Don't ask how much I pay in rent because you really don't want to know... but the apartment is lovely! Just to demonstrate, here's some pictures:

Wow look at those lovely bar stools! I got them at Target and now I don't need to get a kitchen table. (That is Sean's incredibly awesome Macbook Air on the counter)

And my bedroom actually has furniture! Unlike the living room...

And then to make sure that there's pictures of the WHOLE apartment, here's the bathroom. There's a washer and dryer in the closet to the left. They have this funny little musical chime when they finish the laundry.

I didn't take a picture of the balcony. You can kind of see it out the window. It's surprisingly large, but facing the street. Plus I can't furnish it until I'm done with the inside of the apartment. Maybe I can start a garden though.

I have been very busy at work. It's been pretty tough trying to adjust to the tools my team uses, because they are all different from the rest of the company and poorly defined because it is a new project. Also there is the constant fun of finding out that the version of the library you're using isn't available for Windows, or suddenly having your project specs changing without anyone updating the physical copy you've been relying on.

I've started going to a nice church in downtown Palo Alto. There's a couple of other girls my age there, so we've formed sort of a club. There's two (other) Sarahs. Last Sunday I went with one of them and my boyfriend to the nearby farmers' market and bought lots of squash. A local animal shelter had kittens there, trying to get them adopted. I resisted the urge to go home with one immediately, but I think I'm going to end up adopting one one of these days.

I'm still looking for a dance studio. The community center here has lots of acting classes and television audition tutoring, but no ballet classes above "princess preballet." There is a dance studio which has ballet classes, but they are 10-11ish during the week. My hours are pretty flexible, but I really can't see being able to work that out. I guess I'll keep looking.

Anyway, that is all from me right now. Perhaps I will post again soon with oodles of adorable kitten pictures!!!

Summer Homework

Well, who hates summer homework more than a mom?

Lucie has to do a Mark Twain essay and a current events essay and next week is MATH camp!

But still, I have some summer homework for everyone...and I'm sending e=mails as well as this blob, because I'm the only one doing any blobbing...

This was a one of Lucie's last assignments at school and we thought she wrote a beautiful poem - then she showed us the template and I had an idea for a family project: a "Where I am From" poem book.

Take a look at this template and write your own poem. Enjoy the process of it - you could write down whatever first comes to mind, or you could refine and refine until you get it right. Whichever way you work, please take it a little seriously - I've asked Geoff and Sue (and Alex, who probably wasn't listening at the moment) to do it, but also Mama and Daddy. And when Gill and Rick come, I'll hand them the hard copy too. But I'm actually hoping to make a book of all our poems to give to Daddy for his birthday, though I didn't tell Mama and Daddy that part.

You can find the original poem on line (plus other people's responses) or choose to write your own first so you don't feel as if you are laboring under the influence. I liked Lucie's so much, I'm feeling a little trepiditious and second-guessing all my ideas before I even get started.

Luckily, I don't have to convince Lucie to do this project - although getting the R man to do it might cause some major volcanic erruptions...

Enjoy the creative editing process! Ooooo, I just tried to add the pdf and it doesn't work so look at your e=mail!

love,

Agelaius

May was Amazing!

Dear Family:

It has been awhile...and even though Daddy and Mama have included updates in the weekly letter about our activities,

I felt I should catch you up - especially since I have the

privilege of reading/hearing your news as it comes to 7227.

Graduation from OLP is full of celebrations and traditions. Beth Barrere, the 8th grade teacher makes the whole year into a rite of passage. It's all a mystery until you live through it!

Here is Lucie, the first of her class to arrive for May Crowning:

There was lots and LOTS of picture taking because everyone had their very important clothes on. Then there was a beautiful all-school Mass which is when everyone brings a flower to the altar as a gift

to Mary - to crown her Queen of the May. The graduating 8th graders each bring up a white rose and they put it on the altar. Mama and Daddy were there, and it was a very special occasion for all of us. We had a special surprise because Lucie didn't tell us she was going to read the passage from Revelations - she did VERY well!

Then there was a lovely luncheon - they sure know how to do things up grand at OLP! Here are some more pictures if I can manage to make this thing work!

Lots of love,

I am an adult now!

Well, in some sort of fit of insanity, the College of Engineering deans saw fit to give me a B.S. in Computer Science. As of May 15th, I'm now an alumna of University of Illinois. Mom and Dad drove down for the looooong ceremony, after which I bestowed upon them the legendary Stole of Gratitude (yeah, I went to the university for four years and never heard of it, but apparently it's legendary).

Hopefully we'll have pictures to post at some point, although Mom and Dad forgot the digital camera, so we bought a cheap disposable film camera. Which means, naturally, that we have to wait until we finish the roll of film. Then you will be able to see my tacky orange tassel, the Stole of Gratitude, and my funny hat. The lucky College of Engineering was assigned orange tassels, while Liberal Arts and Sciences got yellow, Fine Arts got brown, Aviation got light blue and so on. We went to the College of Engineering ceremony, which included speeches from the deans and the president of Engineering Council, as well as everyone in the college crossing the stage.

In other news, I managed to get a job shortly before finals week. It's in Palo Alto, California, which is nearby San Francisco and right in the heart of Silicon Valley. I'll be working for a company called VMware, which makes virtual machines. Rather than try to explain that myself, I'll link to the Wikipedia article, which has a decent definition, in case you hadn't heard that term before. I'll be starting in late June, so right now I'm still packing and searching for an apartment.

Well, I think that's all from me right now -- hopefully my mom or I will update soon with pictures from graduation, because, of course, if there aren't pictures, it didn't happen.

Is it just me?

Hey - I found this great poem about lima beans and had all sorts of trouble with signing in to the blog. What's with Google getting in there? What a pain! Anyway, here's the poem, by Joan Bauer.

With fork in hand, with tongue in cheek,
with eyes projecting hate,
I glower at the lima beans
remaining on my plate.
Oh, bilious lima, bean obscene,
awash in salt and butter
My stomach turns, my psyche churns
with thoughts I dare not utter.
But there they sit, and I must eat,
although I feel mistreated.
There's one thing worse than lima beans;
that's lima beans reheated.

Hope you all had a happy Easter!
Love,
Gilly

Danny's School on NPR!

Hey y'all NPR addicts - didja catch this one?

Embry Riddle was featured on ATC yesterday when a reporter went on a simulated CanadaAir flight to see how pilots are dependent on technology to "steer" the plane using GPS coordinates, just as Danny taught us! I felt proud to be able to say - oh I already know about that! The teacher said he emphasizes to the students - this is what you want (when you put in the coordinates) and this is what you get - don't look at the first one, look at the second one!

Go Danny!

love,

Agelaius

SNOW at 4920

I haven't checked in here for a long time but I thought you'd like this silly video I made of our snow adventure. Today is Monday and all is back to normal since the school buses are back in business (no school buses on Friday.) Tuesday's blizzard gave us quite an adventure. I was at work till at Children's Memorial until 3:00 which is right when the snow started -- so glad I wasn't at our old hosp. down in Hyde Park which would've meant coming home on LSD which, you probably saw photos of all the cars trapped there... Gigi and I walked to her piano lesson at 5:00 in blowing & drifting snow but it was even worse when we headed just 2 blocks away for my birthday dinner at Galapagos which is on the corner of Hamlin & Lawrence. It was little house on the prairie pa going out to the barn in the blizzard time -- esp. the walk back against the wind, deep deep snow on the sidewalks. What an adventure. By then we already knew the HISTORIC EVENT: snowday called by CPS, first time in 12 years. And then Thursday, TOO! On Weds. I helped R. dig out our LONG driveway... check this out the video.

Snow Removal

Well, I never got up to my knees in snow, but I'm certainly tired of dealing with the snow. Thank goodness for snow blowers. Yesterday, we got dumped on -- about 6 inches in 6 hours. I put off dealing with it until it stopped, and was baking cookies when a neighbor did most of our sidewalk! yay! Then I just had to do our neighbor's walk and drive.

Miraculously, they came and plowed this morning, which means the much worse job of shoveling out the really heavy glop which blocks the drive. I thought I'd include a picture of the mountain of snow between our drive and our next door neighbor's drive. Very frustrating to try and get the snow to perch on top of the mountain, without falling down and needing to be picked up again.

But now I'm all set for the Superbowl -- big exhausting chore done, so I don't have to do any more housework, wood downstairs for a nice comfortable fire, bunch of cookies to nibble on, and an engaging book nicely started so I can completely ignore reality for a while.

Snowmore

Dear Sibs:

Well, people have come up with all sorts of horrible puns about the snow. We both got sent home early and so missed the travails of traveling. We both also stayed home on Wednesday, largely because we couldn't have gone anywhere had we wanted to. We began with a large breakfast at 6:00 a.m.; set out shoveling; and didn't finish until 3:00 p.m.! Granted, we took rest breaks in between - watching Benny Hill and Monty Python because we were too exhausted to think - but it was quite a day! As you can see, Rick was up to his knees in snow. Hope you have all recovered from your snow days!

Love,
Gilly

"The time has come, the walrus said..."

...after all these years, yes, it is time to say goodbye to Lucila, my faithful friend.

Even though she's only been taking up space since mid-summer when I had to stop driving her when her whole exhaust system let loose to drag noisily on the new ramp from 170 to Highway 40, it was sad to hear that she was indeed (FINALLY) picked up by Goodwill this afternoon.

So here are some pictures in memoriam for a good friend who has been with me longer than a lot of people in my life. This is Sally and Danny as my first passengers in February 1994. And here is a picture of us goofing - is this your backyard Karen? I don't know the occasion, but maybe it was bringing you some baby furniture or something.

Hope all is well with all of you,

love,

agelaius