kayray.org

april 27 — it’s juxtaposition time! here we have two pieces of music which i am listening to a lot lately. the first, which i would classify as “terrible, tasteless pop” is the oddly catchy i saw the sun by ace of base. i think they are swedish or something, which would explain the odd accents and the incomprehensible lyrics: “life is demanding without understanding…” huh? i’m not even sure what this song is about, except that someone saw the sun. oh well, turn off your brain and dance around the room :) ok, now turn your brain back on for a lovely french song of the 15th century, the indescribably beautiful adieu ces bons vins de lannoys, a rondeau by guillaume dufay. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. “farewell to the fine wines of the laonnais, farewell ladies, farewell townsmen, farewell to her i loved so much…” as an extra added bonus, you can also listen to another rondeau by dufay: j’atendray tant qu’ll vous playra. enjoy :)

april 26 — goofy flash game i foundon dansanderson.com. how did i end up there? long story…but on the way i discovered that this german site links to kayray.org. scroll down :) i have no idea how i got there, but it’s kind of neat, huh?

april 23 — if you haven’t been to emotion eric lately, you should go! later… having a lovely day today. took henry to his class in balboa park and took myself to the automotive museum while i was waiting for him. they have a beautiful little car there, a 1916 Saxon model 14. it’s a lovely little car, marketed as a “ladies’ car” because it was rather small and “easy to handle and care for”. i’m looking for a photo of it online but can’t find one… ah, here we go: some other saxon 14; that one closely resembles MINE, the one in the museum ;-) MINE has wood-colored wheels, though. i stole that photo from this website… the other car those guys have is nice too. it made me feel so happy, looking at the old cars today. some of them are so beautiful, all shiny polished wood and brass lamps and so forth. most of my favorites are pre-1935. just added austin’s site to my list of friends’ links. see if you can find his custom error messages :)

april 22 — last night was Good Tv Night — six feet under AND sopranos. yay! we always look forward to cuddling up and watching sunday night tv together. today i got my car back from danny, all fixed up and running fine. i have an ’82 subaru wagon, rust red, and it has about 249,000 miles on it. it’s a great car :) henry swam in the pool twice today, and had a great time. he also played with three little girls (sisters) whom we know from the karate dojo — the eldest started piano lessons with me today and henry went back the their house to play while i taught. he had a great time! i’m rereading “the daughter of time” by josephine tey, which i read years ago on kathy’s recommendation. josephine tey is wonderful. ok dinner time, we’re having van de kamps fish sticks and a giant pot of steamed kale. yum! oh, henry’s little parakeet got brave enough to eat from his hand :)

april 20 — nice day today. henry and i watched the 1998 movie version of Midsummer Night’s Dream this morning, and then matthew picked him up and took him out for the day, and i sat in the quiet and talked to my irc friends and worked on kayray.org, and then went to two libraries to get two other midsummer night’s dream movies. one is the 1980s era bbc one, which i saw when i was younger, and the other is from 1968 and stars judi dench, age 34, as titania… i’m a fan of hers, but i’ve never seen her so young. she’s beautiful, then and now. oh, and a very young helen mirren is hermia. :)

april 19 — it’s 10am and i feel good. i slept pretty well, woke up before the alarm went off, and got a lot of stuff done today already. i helped henry hand-feed his new parakeet, cleaned the kitchen, made pancakes for breakfast, and started burning another copy of the lord of the rings radio play that my brother gave me! now i’m going to read to henry. friday is nice because we don’t have to go anywhere until the afternoon. ……. (later) we just made some really good cookies!

april 18 — well, as you can see, i got the new-and-improved kayray.org up and running. *whew* it’s not completely finished yet — need to add a bunch of links and stuff, and rewrite the “me” page. let me know if it breaks in any way. yesterday we went to monique’s house so henry and wesley could play together. that was really nice, and while we were there the ceramics lady dropped off our finished pieces! they look really great. last night we went to the library, and i got a good big stack of books, and it turned out i didn’t even owe a fine. i know i owe the carlsbad library a lot of money, though, for returning a cd-rom very very late. oh well.

april 15 — whoops missed some days there. i’ve been working really hard on my new kayray.org design. it’s looking good and i’ll probably have it up and running Real Soon Now! worked for hours and hours to make it work in older versions of netscape, so hey netscape 4.* users, be grateful! :) gosh i’m sorry i missed so many days. i’ll be mad at myself in a few months when i look back here… let’s sese, what have we been up to… well, scott (my wonderful insane funny uncle) came to visit mom over the weekend, and we got to hang out a bit, and he tossed henry around the way he used to toss kirsten and me :) scott rules. i have the coolest relatives in the world. and last wednesday henry and i got to paint ceramics in a park (homeschool field trip) which was lots of fun and we should be able to pick up the fired pieces this week sometime. tonight i’ve been sitting here working on kayray.org for hours and hours and it’s so much fun! i figured out some nifty things to do with php to make it extra neat :)

april 09 — yesterday morning henry announced that he LOVES music. he’s been listening to U2 (achtung baby), and this morning i had to go ask him to turn it down. (only because it is so early, not that it was terribly loud) and it made me think, well, he’s 6.5 now, so i’ll be asking him to “turn it down” for about the next 10-12 years, probably. i’m happy he has discovered music — he’s always liked listening to music with me but to decide to just put on music in his room when he’s by himself is new. still working on a new design for kayray.org… i’ve been fooling with css… we’ll see what comes of it.

april 07 — happy birthday kirsten! a couple of days ago dan helped me set up a message board. if you’re interested in model railroading, and you’re modelling the 19th century, you can go there and ask/answer questions :) http://trains.kayray.org. there’s not much activity there yet, of course. i don’t really care if it ever gets busy — i mostly just wanted the experience of setting it up. i think i’ll tweak the colors/fonts soon. also i want to re-design kayray.org… going to work on that a lot today i think. starting… NOW!

april 06 — henry is with us all weekend! today dan went to the flying field to fly his new helicopter, and henry and i went to the wild animal park, for a treat. we got there around 11, and sat by the entrance eating our picnic food and watching the people. then we wandered slowly over the birdshow and passed by the wonderful gorillas on the way, and then watched the birdshow at 12 and the hawk talk afterwards, and then henry played for several hours on the big climb-through fake hollow log and the rope-net tunnel and the life- size rhino statue, and i watched and played a little more aldon’s crossing. oh, and the gibbons were all swinging around their enclosure and we watched them for ages. and the lemurs too!

april 03 — pthree’s giving me his green translucent palm case ! it’ll fit my old iiixe. we did laundry tonight — ugh. dan’s mom wrote me a sweet email a couple days ago… really made me happy :) oh! i don’t think i ever mentioned the wonderful present dan gave me — an incase moya deluxe gearbag! i’ve wanted one ever since the gadgeteer reviewed it, and a few days ago he surprised me with one :) i love it. it fits everything i carry around all the time and it looks great and it has tons of pockets and my cellphone doesn’t sink to the bottom and get lost. i keep my riovolt in the mesh pocket on the back — it’s easy to grab when i get in the car, and throw back in when i get out. i bought 20 daffodils at trader joe’s and they are blooming on a cup on the counter. daffodils, tulips, and narcissus are some of my favorite flowers, and trader joe’s has a lot of them this spring. i bought a big bunch of yellow-orange tulips last week. lovely!

april 01 — we’re watching “back to the future” — it’s one of dan’s favorites, but i haven’t seen it since it was actually playing in the movie theater. fun movie :) and we now know EXACTLY what happens when you try to open a hard-boiled egg with a dremel.