March 29, 2009 by kim.

Chris and I celebrated Earth Hour last night:

For anyone unfamiliar with Earth Hour, people from all over the world signed up to participate in switching off their lights for one full hour to place a vote against global warming. It was really nice, actually. We just sat, talked, listened to records (yes, vinyl), and had a glass of wine. We should do that every week!

Oh – Chris also posted a little video we made in honor of Earth Hour:

Go Earth!

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March 26, 2009 by kim.

Here is a poem I wrote at 6:30 in the morning one day when my mind was racing, as it usually does. I just wrote what popped into my head, and this is what came out:

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Slack-
Jawed
Staring into space
Rivers of drool
Drying on my face

Slap-happy pappy
Walking down the street
Earwigs and horny toads
Jumping at his feet

Dreaming, dreaming
Buzzing all the time
Words of nonsense
Making up a rhyme

Wee hour morning
Kitty crying loud
Jotting down words
To liven up the crowd

Here we go
Jogging to and fro
Have you seen
Jellybean
Gnawing on my toe?

Silly words
Silly words
Splash across the page
Have I tried
Even once
Acting out my age?

Gingerbread
Cookie dough
Make a little man
Try to do
Better than
This
If you can

Silly billy
Polka dot
Shiver cheeky poo
Blidder bladder
Silly sauce
Cock-a-doodle-doo

Crazy girl
In her jammies
Singing songs
In her panties
Lyrics, lyrics
On the page
Will she ever act her age?

Why-fore
Seven score
Billy’s on a shelf
How can she talk so much
Only to herself?

Post-it note
Candy bar
Wriggle wriggle free
Sitting crouched
Pigeon style
Chin upon her knee

Words are slowing
Dawn is growing
Magic’s at an end
Words are slipping
Dawn is dripping
Now put down your pen

That was weird
Billy beard
Almost turned away
Make me shiver
Got a sliver
Take the ball to play

Going, going, going,
Gone
Sleep it is a-calling
Head to bed
Bump my head
Look – the sky is falling

Tilda bilda
Pumpkin pie
Can I ever
Catch your eye?
Ticking clock
Slow is slow
Now I really
Have to go.

11/23/08 Chicago 6:30am
Copyright © 2008 Kimberly P. LoDuca

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March 23, 2009 by kim.

Spring is officially here! I saw my first robin today:

Can you sort of see it there? I know - the quality stinks, but I was shooting from the second floor through a screen…

Then we have the mourning dove and house sparrow:

Followed by the cardinal:

The zoom function doesn’t work through the screen well. Trust me – there is a cardinal in there.

And here we have Matilda watching the action:

Adorable!

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March 21, 2009 by kim.

Here are a number of random observations that I decided to group into one post:

GARBAGE

Come ON! Could the person who decided to leave this piece of litter on a newspaper box not walk the 10 steps to the garbage can to throw it away? Would that have been so hard?

SIGN

Not only does this sign have poor grammar (You gonna) and too many ellipses (……..), but it is a blatant rip-off of the Men’s Wearhouse tag which is, “You’re going to like the way you look. I guarantee it.”

FANS

Call me crazy, but shouldn’t they have pictured this fan on the floor instead of a table?

Really? Air circulator? I just call it a fan.

SCRAGGLY BIRD
I saw this scraggly little pigeon on my way to the train the last couple of weeks:

The first time I saw it, it was raining and I thought it had gotten drenched. The next time I saw it, the sky was clear and it looked the same. Guess it wasn’t dripping wet. It always stood in the same place—alone. No other pigeons around. I thought it was diseased. A couple of days went by when I didn’t see it at all, and I thought it had died.

Nope. It came back and had little white feathers sticking out all over its head (pictured above). What the heck? I thought he might be molting. If so, he seemed to be the only one. All the other pigeons I saw on my walks looked smooth and put together instead of disheveled like this one.

Oh well. He seems to be getting along okay. The other day I saw him with a few other pigeons, eating breadcrumbs someone had thrown their way.

Yay!

Posted in Animals, Observation | No Comments »

March 16, 2009 by kim.

A little late for this post, I know, but hey - what the heck. Look at these beautiful flowers Chris got me for Valentine’s Day:

So nice, and they lasted a long time! I did notice about a week after I got them, that these petals appeared out of nowhere:

I was about ready to throw them away (thinking they were dying) when Chris suggested that perhaps our darling Matilda had been at the flowers.

How? I had put the flowers on that sideboard specifically because we know (at least we think) that Matilda can’t jump that high. What we didn’t take into account was the high chair that Chris had recently moved to the area:

Of course! We’ve seen her jump into that chair before - here was the easy access! One quick jump to the chair and an easy move to the sideboard. Little opportunist.

I then moved the flowers to a place I knew (pretty sure) she couldn’t reach:

That’s pretty high - even for sprightly little Matilda!

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March 12, 2009 by kim.

Last but not least, the final installment of “Series with iPhone”:

Crown Fountain - Millennium Park (in reverse):

Massive!

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March 7, 2009 by kim.

A few months ago I decided to buy a puzzle to work on. You know – something to do that doesn’t involve being on the computer:

1000 pieces. How ambitious of me! When I opened the box two weeks ago and saw how small the pieces were, I almost had second thoughts. Maybe I should have started slow on this new undertaking. Maybe a 100 piece puzzle. You know - ease into it.

Oh well - best to just jump right in!

I took out all the pieces with edges to start building the border, and after two weeks this is how far I’ve gotten:

Sad. You’d think it would be easy to put those basic pieces together, but it’s not.

Especially when Matilda walks over it and plops herself down as close to the workspace as possible:

This is going to take me all year…

Posted in Fun | No Comments »

March 6, 2009 by kim.

That is how many steps it takes to get from the train station to our front door. Why did I decide I needed to know that? I don’t know. I just had it in my head the last couple of weeks.

I got off the train last night and started walking home. I was at the corner waiting to cross the street when I decided that now would be the time to count. I actually turned around and walked back to the train station to begin. Not only that – I counted both last night and tonight coming up with 675 and 683 (respectively). I then averaged the two numbers together to come up with 679.

Wow, Kim. Slow news day?

Yep.

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March 3, 2009 by kim.

Here is installment 2 of 3 in “Series with iPhone”:

Cloud Gate - Millennium Park

Neat!

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