April 25, 2007 by kim.

I’ve been hemming and hawing about putting some of my poetry up here on the ol’ blog. I don’t know why - I guess it’s a vulnerability thing. After much encouragement, I thought I’d post one and see how I felt about it later. This is one of the more positive ones that I wrote when we went to the Guggenheim Museum with Chris’s sister Julie and her friend Tina last Saturday:

Yellow Cow – Franz Marc – 1911
(picture courtesy of www.guggenheim.org)

MOO

Yellow Bessie
Mooing happy
Bluish blotches
On her fanny
And side.
She jumps into
The bright red orange
Sailing over
Greenish fronds.
Peach suns set
Behind blue mountains
Dreaming happily
‘Till dawn.

4/20/07
New York
Guggenheim Museum
©2007

Posted in Poem, Art, Animals, Happy, Observation | No Comments »

April 24, 2007 by kim.

I promise - this will not become one of those crazy “cat lady” blogs. Just one more post about the cat and I will move on…for now…

We bought this chair in Las Vegas before we even got Matilda, and when she came home with us, she quickly claimed it as her own. To show that it was hers, she promptly began to shred it.

We used to have a cover on it, but it is such a neat chair and the cover is so hideous (you can see it on my post about my broken wrist - same chair) that we took it off. No matter - with or without, it is her personal scratching post…and her own personal chair, too.

At least that’s the only thing she shreds…I hope…

Posted in Animals | No Comments »

April 18, 2007 by kim.

Okay - combine the cutie pie picture of Matilda with the icky picture of the waterbug/roach. That’s what we had to deal with last night. Chris noticed that Matilda was really interested in something just outside of the living room, and when he approached her, she walked into the living room with antennae wiggling out of her mouth. EWWWW! Chris freaked, I screamed and she dropped it, where it crawled all around the room. Matilda tried to catch it and we ran around like looney people trying to find something to kill it with. Chris grabbed a shoe and WHAM! Squished yucky bug.

Sad thing is, I think Matilda has been looking for that little plaything all day…

Posted in Insects, Animals | 1 Comment »

April 16, 2007 by kim.

Matilda likes to play with this purple mouse my mom bought for her.  I have dubbed it “Mousey Man”.  One of the new things for her is to hide behind the curtain in the living room and wait for mousey man to come by so she can attack it.  I, of course, comply.  Sometimes, she’ll even sit still enough for me to place it on her head.  Just more fun with kitty!

MAOW!

Posted in Animals, Happy | 2 Comments »

April 16, 2007 by kim.

Our friend David Kovac drew us this picture in honor of us moving back to NYC:

LOVE IT! Thanks David!

David is a comic actor / magician who starred in Chris’s film “Stealing Kisses”. You can check out the preview at www.stealingkissesmovie.com.

Also, check out David’s act on his website: http://davidkovac.com/ (promotional clips produced, directed and edited by Chris LoDuca).

Posted in Art, Happy | No Comments »

April 16, 2007 by kim.

Now, I’m all for catch and release of creatures, but waterbugs or roaches are out of the question (as are mosquitoes).

This is what we found in our apartment late last week:

YUCK! It was hardly moving at all, so we were able to put the quarter down for comparison. Waterbugs, gross as they are, don’t freak me out as much because you usually only see one and they don’t really move as they’ve dried up to a crisp. What really “bugs” me (I had to do it), are ROACHES. I thought that the waterbug was bad enough, but the following morning when we saw a roach crawl out of the kitchen sink, we both screamed and jumped. After a dissatisfying and quick breakfast, we went to purchase some boric acid and treated the apartment. We also put our name on the exterminator list. I’m thinking we won’t have much of a problem now that we’re obsessively cleaning the kitchen every time that we’re in there.
I will take spiders over roaches, any day.

Posted in Insects, Annoyance | No Comments »

April 15, 2007 by kim.

Photo courtesy of Cornell Lab of Ornithology - http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/downy_woodpecker.html

Isn’t this a cute woodpecker? This is the type of bird that almost attacked Chris. Of course, I didn’t have my camera on me. ARGH! You see, we were walking along in Inwood Park a couple miles north of our apartment here in NYC. There is an area in that park where birds, if you have seed, will come and land on your hand to feed as seen in the picture below (taken in 2002 when we lived here):

Being a bird lover, I was just amazed that a woodpecker (like the one pictured way above) was so close that I could see it! As I was watching it, it saw Chris, cocked his head and made a beeline for him, landing on a branch nearby. Chris was a little freaked by this, but I was in a state of wonder. Then Chris moved away and the bird cocked his head again, looked at Chris and made another beeline for him landing on a branch near him which was near me. This time the bird walked vertically up the branch and I just couldn’t believe that I was able to see him that close! Chris again was getting nervous, so we decided to walk away from the birds. That’s when the woodpecker made another beeline for both of us, and we ran up the trail and out of the magical land of birds.

I’ll be back, though. Armed with a camera, birdseed and protective headgear - just in case.

Posted in Nature, Animals | No Comments »

April 8, 2007 by kim.

We’ve been watching Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel, and they should almost rename it “Planet Predator”. I get it - animals need to eat to survive. However, do I have to watch it every fifteen minutes? Can’t I just enjoy the wonderful scenery and the beautiful animals without seeing them get their necks snapped in half? Come on!

If they do feel a need to show predators, how about showing the hunt from their point of view? It almost always seems to be beautiful footage of animals minding their own business and getting attacked out of the blue. Why not show the predators trying to find food because they are starving and need to feed their young?

It all seems very dark and dramatic to me. Probably due to marketing, as usual.

Sigh.

Posted in Nature, Animals, Observation, Annoyance | No Comments »

April 8, 2007 by kim.

Yay! We love the layout and size of our new apartment!
Here are some pictures - before, and after:

Hallway leading into the apartment - BEFORE

Hallway leading into the apartment - AFTER

Hallway leading out of the apartment - BEFORE

Hallway leading out of the apartment - AFTER

Kitchen looking into hallway - BEFORE

Kitchen looking in from the hallway - AFTER

Looking into the kitchen from the living room doorway

Living Room (and Chris) - BEFORE

Living Room - AFTER (with door leading to kitchen)

More Living Room

Bedroom - BEFORE

Bedroom - AFTER

Bedroom

Office - BEFORE

Office - AFTER

Yay! This place is even bigger than the one we had in Las Vegas!

Posted in Happy | 6 Comments »

April 6, 2007 by kim.

Since we’re not working yet and don’t have insurance, we need to be EXTRA CAREFUL until we get some. Luckily, we had insurance when I broke my wrist, or we’d probably still be in Chicago trying to pay off the medical bills.

That said, we had a bit of a scare when Chris almost took off his thumb with a box cutter:

Okay - it wasn’t THAT bad, but still - it wasn’t good. Ouch!

Lesson to be learned - moving can be dangerous. Please try not to hurt yourself until you at least have some insurance. Also - don’t hurt yourself because, well, pain is not fun.

Posted in Observation | No Comments »