koti's birthday dinner and chill time with old friends :-)

Powder!

Super psyched, was reading a little online Nylon and discovered from those pixeled pages that there is officially a powder sun-screen, not greasy, supposedly-tear-free-yet-your-eyes-are-watering-for-an-hour, sunscreen.

It's "sunblock powder from Peter Thomas Roth." And a fair-skinned lady like myself has never been this pumped about wanting to block out the sun's scary rays.

:-)

Yes please!

Yes Please for Summer 2008:

Ties
Headbands of all sorts
Yellow
All things high-waisted
Australia
Patti Smith
At-home movies (not the creepy kind...)
Shiny shoes
Summer Scarves
Russia
Clip-ons
Vinyl Records
Neon (everything: jackets, headbands, lip gloss, nail polish, rings, shoes, stickers, you get the point)

yellow!

Sometimes at work I google random things like basic colors on GoogleImages...

Today I googled "Yellow" because it's my favorite color right now...and I needed a little sunshine in my cubicle. :-)

Secret's out!!!

Okay so apparently Baby doesn't have (or rather ISN'T ) a secret anymore. :-)

Sarah & Bobby are officially going to have a baby! Yay!

I figured the silence on the couch with the laptop lap top should've had something to do with a massive blog announcement. But check it out here for the details.

8ish months and counting until Baby Rettew-y is here! Hooray!

P.s. Did I mention that this news came on Mama & Daddy's (would have, was) 32nd Wedding Anniversery. Let me just say it was only the second time I've seen Daddy cry (first time being on the front steps after Mama died...). It was the perfect gift, and the perfect way for her to let us know she's near-by. :') (that was a teary happy face in case you were wondering...)

once

(disclaimer = I'm pretty sure this is the must jumbled post ever. Mainly because I was just type-type-typing and never actually went back and read what I had wrote...I may go back and rearrange, but probably not...)

Tonight we watched Once. (received in a joyful little envelope with the word "Netflix" written on the side). I'm sure I will say more about this film.

Music with two people. Music with two people who can feel the tug of separate roads from their very first meeting. From their very first meeting there is a sadness between the two of them, the clinging to a moment, and the holding back. Clinging because they know it is so precious, and holding back for fear that when it ends everything will fall apart with grief, with pure disappointment that it couldn't last forever. Music telling a story that words couldn't fully express.

No. I wouldn't recommend this film to just anyone. Some people don't have the capacity for understanding to even fathom a meaning in it's less than polished style, and actors who aren't really acting, because they aren't actors, their two people telling a true story that isn't actually happening...not sure if that makes sense, but that's the best way I describe the film.

And the only reason I didn't break out into sobs at the end of the movie is because I know the two people that were somehow translated onto the screen (the real people inside the characters representative) are actually on the road, touring, playing their music (that was originally written solely for the film). Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. They are now the Swell Season, and I saw them playing at Bonnaroo. Thank goodness for happy endings, even if they actually have nothing to do with the story told...

p.s. This movie is not a love story. It's a connection/intersection story.

(if you haven't seen Madagascar then you don't get how the above picture might relate to the below text...)

I had a brilliant (or maybe not so brilliant) idea that maybe I would be happier/less stressed if I had a job that allowed me to be more flexible. For example, I've really been missing retail. Now a lot of people may be like, "What?" But I do, I miss it. I loved working in retail. I was surrounded by one of my huge passions - Clothes. I love clothes. Love helping people find things they feel good in, love telling them not to dare buy something, love letting them leave the store with their pockets empty but with a huge smile on their face because they're going to feel beyond fabulous the next time they step out from the mirror. Love it. Of course you're going to get your random complaining bitches here and there, but more than anything, it's a positive face-to-face interaction with people.

Anyway, now why would I chose this over my suit-wearing, high dollah, Corporate America, cubicle? Um, isn't it obvious? I have a two-hour (total) commute every day to a job where I work with (super cool) people (Did I mention I love my co-workers? So they are a huge factor for not wanting to leave) who all live close-by and have their little families and their little friends. And I talk to people on the phone all day who do not want to talk to me, and sometimes get rude (I think if I were any less cheery on the phone I would get land-blasted at least four or five times a day).

Maybe this whole scenario I've formed is just one huge cop out? Maybe I am doing what every American does: goes to a job they detest, but do it because it's the smart thing, the right thing...

I'm only 20. Why do I have to give in so early. I have my whole life to do things I hate. Why do I have to waste the years were I have minimal attachments (save the lovely student loan corporations which tell me I have to have a job because I have to pay them every month...).

But anyway...I totally just lost my train of thought because Sarah just proposed a new theory to me that can best be summarized like this:

Our father is like the Terminator. Please refer to Sarah's blog (liked at right) for more thoughts on that, because I'm not sure I can present them in the way she can...

New Hero:

Zena Holloway.



Sarah doesn't like this website, she says it reminds her of human jellyfish.

Which probably explains why I like it, because I, in fact ,like jellyfish.

(Kathryn this is also for you.... :-) tehe)

Tilting the Windmills? No. Go with Happiness...

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."

"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza.

"Those you see over there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length."

"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone."

-Don Quixote

Tonight Sarah and I watched a movie entitled, Music Within.

It tells the story of Richard Pimental (Ron Livingston), a man who receives severe hearing damage in the Vietnam War and comes back only to realize the few/nonexistent opportunities are available to disabled individuals. This rude awakening, paired with the eye-opening friendship with Art Honeyman (Michael Sheen), a viable genius living with cerebal palsy, takes him on a journey that would forever change the lives of people everywhere living with disabilities.

I suppose the part that really got me about this movie was the discussion of the text from Don Quixote and the phrase "tilting the windmill." This phrase indicates attacking unseen enemies, or proceeding to take on a task that cannot be completed...as Don Quixote did when he attempted to attack the windmills in that famous literary scene.

I wonder sometimes how many of us are attacking windmills, or rather, seem to have lost the battle. And yes, I am talking about myself, but taking myself out of it...are we still battling windmills? Are we seeing huge obstacles that are not there, seeing things that are not dangerous and thinking they are some huge threat?

I guess it seems that when you get in place and realize how difficult it will be to pull yourself out of it, yet how easy it was to sink into it, you wonder if your negative perspective is making the goal look more unattainable than it actually is. Are there just simple steps to reaching the goal, but are the simple steps so numerous that the stairway disappears far above our heads?

Maybe we need to step back and realize these giants we see above our heads are nothing but windmills, huge and cumbersome, and easily bypassed for what they are, not huge menacing beasts out to get us.

Maybe we should be less like Don Quixote and follow the words of Glen Hansard, "If you've got to go, go with Happiness..." Granted this is a love song. But if we gave up the thoughts of everything being a battle, and slowly fixated on the happy things, I feel sure that we would eventually bypass the windmills with no problem. Of course, as I write this I'm talking mainly to myself...but I think if most people at least tried to think this way, in the end, the world would be somewhat of a more happy place filled with more smiling faces...

Bonnaroo Flashes (in & out of order)

-crazy nails; -crazy boys

-Tennessee green; -traffic

-can scupture; -planet roo

-super graffiti

Roo excitement!


our feet...which were seriously swollen by day 4

MGMT & the ferris wheel

Battles

cool tree lights & kat under the tree

campinggg

grasshopper; dave & kat

pirate dave

yum food

dale & kat; drive-by truckers with the crowd

fountain of peace :)

smiles & blue skiesss

icies were a savior
tegan & sara!

awesome hammocks

Roo love = hardmetal guys swaying to the Swell Season :)

Rilo Kiley <3


Metallicaaa!


(above) at MSTRKRFT; (below) Tiesto


waiting on pearl jam


iron & wine (sam beam)

dale discovers sparkle-wear; and super cool dirt


sigur ros

dancing girl

glowsticks & arts

roo on parade

aaaaah!

death cab for cutie

kat & boys