Fortune please be kind

I'm down in Washington, DC for the annual CONSER/BIBCO Operations Meeting. Two days of meetings. And food. Tonight a bunch of us that arrived early enough went out for Chinese food at the same location as last year: Young Chow on SE Pennsylvania Ave. And thank you! to the local person (HN) that organized it. Of course, there were fortune cookies at the end of the meal. My fortune says:

"New and rewarding opportunities will soon develop for you."

I find this both exciting and terrifying. Exciting because they will be new! and rewarding! But terrifying because opportunities usually equal/result in more work. New and rewarding work, but WORK.

So I ask you to please be kind, fortune gods. Please.

Aussie video!

A short movie of Aussie in action.

She just loves chewing on sterilized beef bones. I know it's gross, but there are few toys capable of standing up to the power of her jaws for more than a few hours. She's a chewer so I have to give her something and Aussie makes short work of rawhide. So sterilized bones and the Kong toys are about it. We've gone through quite a few bones in her 12 years. This one happens to be filled with peanut butter flavored stuff for an added bonus. The grating noise of her teeth on the bone sometimes gives me the chills, but bonus! it does keep her teeth clean. She focuses so intensely it cracks me up to watch her. And she'll focus on chewing for an hour or more at a time.

[Side note: embedding video from Flickr is hella easy!]

Observation

People do not, I repeat, do NOT walk in a straight line. Least of all when they have their cell phone glued to their ear or are trying to text and walk at the same time. They weave all over the place, completely unaware of their surroundings. It's bad enough that in England they're padding lampposts to prevent injuries (see this article from early March). But even without the focus on their cell phone people don't walk in a straight line.

Trying to bike these days is like biking through an obstacle course. Everyone is outside enjoying the spring weather despite the high pollen counts. Which is making biking interesting. Seriously, people, LOOK UP periodically when texting or talking on the phone and be a bit more aware of your surroundings and the people in them. LOOK UP when paths are merging or before stepping off the curb. Didn't you learn in kindergarten to look both ways before crossing the street?

Two cups of coffee today, please

I did not sleep well last night. First, I had a hard time falling asleep. Just one of those nights where I couldn't get comfortable. It took a long time for me to relax. I know I was still awake past midnight. I had just fallen asleep and was still in that early "light-sleep" stage when the phone rang.

The phone ringing in the middle of the night means one of two things in my world:
1. My parents are calling from Australia and counted the change in hours the wrong way. Although, in all honesty, this hasn't happened for years. When they first moved there we were always calling each other in the middle of the night because we had calculated the time difference wrong. Now that they've been there for 10 years we pretty much have gotten in down.

2. Something bad has happened. Seriously, when do you get middle of the night calls that are good things?! The phone ringing in the middle of the night usually means someone is either dead or really sick or there's an emergency of some kind.

So when the phone rang at 1:40am last night, I went flying out of bed to answer it. Adrenaline kicked in, the whole nine yards. And since I was half awake and didn't have my glasses on, I couldn't really read the caller ID. I just picked up the phone and answered.

Me: Hello?
Caller: Hello? Hello?
Me: HELLO.
Caller: Who is this?
Me: Um, you're the one calling me. Who were you calling? Who are you?
Caller: Well, it's a perfectly natural question to ask who I'm talking to. So to who am I speaking?
Me: Dude, it's ONE F**KING FORTY in the morning. What do you want?
Caller: Well, if you're going to be like that... [with the gall to sound all offended that I was pissed that he woke me up in the middle of the night for no good reason]

And he hangs up. Dude, are you friggin' kidding me?!? You MOFO!

Naturally, it took me a good amount of time to calm down and have the adrenaline rush leave my system so I could fall back asleep.

It's so going to be a two cup of coffee day. Maybe even three.

Why I bike to work

People have all sorts of theories about why I bike to work. I've had people call me a tree-hugging hippie for riding my bike. I figured that since today is Earth Day and there are all sorts of encouragement to ride your bike today (and May, which is just around the corner, is national bike month), I'll list my reasons.

1. Biking is good for the environment. It just is. And if that makes me a tree-hugging hippie, so be it. I also recycle anything I can.

2. Biking is good for me physically. It forces me to get regular exercise. My doctor likes this. So do my hips. Regular exercise is also supposed to help boost your immune system, and with my asthma making me especially susceptible to severe respiratory infections, I'll take any boost I can get.

3. Biking is good for me mentally. It's much less stressful than trying to find parking in this city. It helps to relieve stress. There's nothing like a good hard ride when I've had a stressful day to release all the pent up energy. Exercise releases endorphins, and endorphins make you feel good.

4. Biking is good for my wallet. With rising gas prices, biking is making more and more sense. It also doesn't cost anything for me to lock up my bike, so no parking meter or garage fees. Not to mention it would have cost me over $100 a month to park my car where I work...which is about 2 1/2 miles from home where I can park my car for free (and $100 is two weeks of groceries, thankyouverymuch!).

5. I enjoy it. Seriously. I have honestly always enjoyed biking. I find it freeing.

So that's it. I'm sure I could come up with many more reasons if I really thought about it for awhile, but these are the ones that come immediately to mind.

All eyes on us

Never mind that it's Earth Day, it's the Pennsylvania primary today. And if you watch/read the news, you'd assume that's far more important than little old Earth Day. I don't think I could have forgotten to vote today if I'd tried. It's everywhere. The papers, signs stuck up anywhere and everywhere, the news (both local and national), blogs, etc. You can't escape it.

This whole presidential election has been like this. It's been everywhere and a near daily topic for a year and a half now. And we still have a little over 6 months to go. I don't remember a presidential campaign season being this long before. And frankly, I'm sick of it.

I've always been an informed voter. I read up on the candidates and other ballot measures up for the vote, and make my decisions. It's the in your face push of this election that's getting to me. I don't need it stuffed down my throat. Not to mention that if I got all my information from the news and didn't do any of my own research and reading, I'd be grossly misinformed.

I'm not sure what I'm looking forward to more...election day in November so this campaign will be over, or Bush's last day in office so his entire farce of a term will be over.

Things that keep you up at night

Well, things that keep my grandmother up anyway. My mom called me tonight to let me know my grandmother was staying up nights worrying. Worrying about what, you ask?

Whether there were enough plots at the cemetery all next to each other for the entire family so we'd be together.

Yes, I'm serious.

She counted the number of people, and the number of plots we have, and then was staying up at night worrying about the numbers matching up correctly.

These are the kinds of things in my family that necessitate multiple international phone calls and extensive negotiations and agreements/commitments from all family members. She needed us to confirm whether or not we still wanted to be buried there. So she'd know where we were going to be, to be able to "place" us somewhere [side note: in the interest of being able to place us in her mind, she has a photo album that has pictures of every house/apartment I've ever lived in...I'm up to 14 now]. But the worrying is now over. All is well.

I love my family.

The importance of forethought

I'm sure I'm not the only one that's had "what the frakk were they thinking?!" cross their mind in the workplace. I've spent the morning (and will spend the afternoon, too) cleaning up a decision that was made without really thinking about or asking what happens next. See, implementing anything in cataloging requires a certain amount of forethought. Things are changing, quite rapidly, so anything you do has to be both backwards compatible and (theoretically and to the best of your knowledge) forwards compatible. Any decision/action taken means you have to think about what impact it will have in the future in terms of accessibility and stability, staff time needed now and later, and general long term usefulness. Is it (or will it be) sustainable? And how will it be maintained and by whom? Is there a better way to provide access? These are critical things to consider when making decisions.

I'm fairly certain the decision I'm cleaning up today was not made with much forethought, if any at all. What's worse, I couldn't find documentation. I asked the colleagues that had been given the task once the decision was made and was told they didn't have any concrete documentation to speak of. No complete title list. No decision statement. Essentially an ad hoc decision was made and implemented. The result? Five years later I'm having to clean it up because no plan was put in place for ongoing and future maintenance. All the work that was done has to be undone. After, of course, I find all the records involved (easier said than done).

A lot of decisions seem to be made ad hoc. This is what they want right! now!, so let's make it happen. Never mind that in six months they'll want something different. Or that the decision is rarely an one-time action kind of thing and will require continuous activity on the part of the staff. Or that what they want access to is volatile and probably won't exist in six months or a year. Lately I've found it particularly frustrating as much of my time seems to be taken up with cleaning up these past decisions. And every problem reported regarding a past decision inevitably brings to light three more that need clean up.

Hell, at least I know I have job security. I couldn't work my way out of a job if I tried.

Change of plans

About a month ago I received a summons for jury duty. Term of service is one day or one trial. Mind you, I've only had a Pennsylvania driver's license and registered voter for just barely over a year now. That's some interesting algorithms to get me "randomly" selected for jury duty so quickly after becoming a resident and voter.

Anyway, my summons date was for today. Notice that I am not actually at jury duty or I would not be posting this blog entry. I was "released" from duty for another year. There's this number you call the night before after 5pm and the system tells you if they still need you or not. So last night at 7:30pm my plans for the day changed and I'm at work instead of at jury duty downtown.

This method of calling in is much preferred to the method in my previous city of residence, where you show up no matter what to hang out in a room for up to three days. At 3pm each day you are told if you have to come back the next day of if you are free/released. Fun times. The benefit to sitting and waiting is that you get to read as you can't actually bring computers or cell phones in with you to the court house jury selection waiting room. So for me, it's not really possible to do any work, only reading for pleasure. The downside is that you're sitting and waiting in a room with lots of people talking around you and multiple TVs playing various daytime shows (there's nothing good on at 11am...trust me) and you aren't allowed anything to block out all the ambient noise.

But I'm free from the torture of waiting for another year. Instead I'm sitting here at work editing and commenting on various documents and in the back of my mind contemplating the idea of applying for the Master of Liberal Arts degree with a concentration in Latin American Studies. And yes, I am quite possibly insane.

Mmmm...pancakes!

My friends JM and TP came to Philly with their daughter E for brunch this morning. JM and I share a birthday (but different years) and we've always gone out for lunch or something to celebrate. Well, now that we live in different states, that wasn't an option, so it got postponed until brunch today. Happy belated birthday to us!

Brunch is one of my favorite meals. I love breakfast. We used to have breakfast for dinner sometimes growing up. But when I first wake up in the morning, I don't want a big meal quite yet. So brunch ends up being a perfect time in the day for me to really enjoy the breakfast food. Not to mention I love pancakes and despite all my dad's instruction, I just can't seem to make them successfully. So the only time I get to eat them is when I go out for brunch.

My friend KS told me about this place here in Philly that is known for it's brunch: Honey's Sit 'n Eat. It describes itself as Jewish soul food. I'm not sure what Jewish soul food is, but the food at Honey's is AMAZING. Absolutely delicious. I can't wait to go back and try other things on the menu.

Today I had the whole wheat pancakes stuffed with granola, bananas, strawberries, and blueberries. And a side of bacon (just because bacon is good). The pancakes were huge. Two pancakes in the order, and they are practically the size of dinner plates! And thick with all the stuffing. They came with syrup only, and that's really all they needed. They were so light and fluffy, and soaked up all the delicious syrup. And filling. I actually shared them with JS and TP because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to finish them! The fruit wasn't all mushy (mushy fruit is not good eats), but it was definitely warm and cooked through while still retaining the texture of the original fruit. And the granola added a nice nutty flavor to the pancake batter. Especially with the sesame seeds and sunflowers in it. I could go on and on about those pancakes. Instead, I offer up this picture of the yumminess (which doesn't do it justice...trust me...DELICIOUS!):

Whole wheat pancakes stuffed with granola and fruit. YUM!

Oh. The bacon was good too. Perfect combination of crispy and chewy. JM went for the French toast, made with challah bread. She said it was light and fluffy and very tasty. It smelled delicious. TP had an omelette with a latke on the side. And not just any omelette, but one with bacon, bacon, and yet more bacon. Yes, a triple bacon omelette. And he said it was quite tasty. E had her own pancake and ate most of it, which as anyone that has a toddler knows, is not typical for mealtime. It's high praise that she ate so much of it! TP and JM had some of the fresh squeezed orange juice (there's an old fashioned juicer behind the bar so you know it's really fresh) and said it was fantastic. We also had coffee, which was quite good.

I so have to go back to Honey's sooner rather than later. The only downside is that there is definitely a long wait for brunch on the weekends, so either eat a light breakfast or bring a small snack for while you wait. Oh, and they're cash only, so make sure you bring at least $15 for brunch plus coffee and a tip. The wait staff is friendly and attentive. We didn't lack for coffee refills and they were very patient about having to pick up the forks E dropped on the floor and more than willing to bring us extra cutlery and extra napkins. I definitely recommend this place. Honey's definitely met my expectations for a delicious brunch.

Afterwards, we headed over to the Please Touch Museum so E could run off some energy. They had story time and jugglers today, both of which just entranced her. She even participated in story time, making animal sounds along with the reader quite happily. The jugglers were great, using the audience at random moments to help during their act. Overall, a great Sunday with friends.

Idiot moment, take 2

I think I'm just all out of sorts this week. This morning I woke up late feeling sluggish and scattered and a bit panicked because I was running late.

Then I tried to leave the house to walk the dog in my slippers.

I had my jacket on. I had the leash on the dog. I had the door open. We were about to step out onto the porch. And something didn't feel right. I looked down and realized I was still wearing my slippers. Oops.

I had to pull the dog back in the house so I could change into my shoes. The entire time I was doing this she was laying there, leash still on, her chin on her front paws, giving me this look. Like I was an awful tease to put her leash on and then not go anywhere. She was not pleased with me to say the least.

At this point I'm just counting my blessings that I'm fully dressed. And that it's Friday.

Idiot moment

I had an idiot moment today.

The entire time I've lived in this place (a little over a year and a half), I've felt like my kitchen was dark. There's no direct sunlight, I have to have a light on even in the middle of the day to really see what I was doing. I've tried those pop lights under the (few) wall cabinets to provide more light. I've seriously considered putting a desk lamp on the counter. Because my kitchen has one small light fixture in the center of the room. Well, technically a bit off center, but still, just one. One of those double bulb with a glass bowl cover generic fixtures. And my kitchen was just not a bright room.

Today the bulb burnt out. I flipped the switch and pop! No more light. Lucky for me the sun hadn't set yet, so while the kitchen bulb was out, I could still see enough to be able to change the bulbs in the fixture via the little bit of light filtering down between the row homes and through my window.

So I removed the glass bowl cover and lo and behold! discovered that I've had only ONE BULB this entire time. One single 100 watt bulb to light my entire kitchen. No wonder the room was so dimly lit.

*facepalm*

I replaced the single bulb with two high-efficiency 60 watt bulbs. And let there be light. It's almost too bright...I can see the dirt on the floor now.

More LOLcat goodness

Kitteh iz beer snob.


see more crazy cat pics

Happy almost caturday!

Busy busy weekend

Last Saturday morning was the Philly Cleanup (a city wide spring cleaning neighborhood by neighborhood sponsored by Mayor Nutter). So I spent a good hour with my neighbors sweeping up the trash and bagging it for pick up. The city provided brooms, gloves, and bags to block coordinators, and had arranged for pick up of full bags later that afternoon from participating blocks neighborhoods all over the city. It was good to be out with my neighbors and helping out. I think that was the first time some of them had seen me without the dog attached to me!

Saturday afternoon I was invited to attend a Talk Cinema showing with DS (his boss subscribes and gave DS his tickets for this week's show since he couldn't attend). What happens is the audience (subscribers) get to watch an advance screening of a film, usually one that had been screened at a film festival, and is probably up for wider release soon. After the movie, a critic leads a discussion and Q & A session. They also have comment cards for you to rate the film and leave comments. The thing about this series is that you have no idea what you're walking into, no idea what film you're about to see. Basically it's an adventure at the movies!

The Talk Cinema movie on Saturday afternoon was The Life Before Her Eyes. One word describes this movie perfectly: INTENSE. But good. It's one of those movies that you really have to think about (and think during) yet it provokes an emotional response at the same time. And you don't really understand what the movie is truly about until the very end. And once you get to the end, you have mentally revisit the entire movie before it all makes sense. Kind of like in the Sixth Sense how you didn't know he was dead until the end and that drastically changed the movie as a whole. And to add a layer of complication the entire movie is made up of anachronistic moments (future past future past). A warning, without giving anything away, the film centers around a school shooting, so if you can't deal with those types of images (potential triggers) you'll want to avoid the movie.

DS and I had the same reaction of needing a minute afterwards to think it through before we could decide if we even liked it or not. And the discussion with the critic afterwards was interesting. The audience had the opportunity to ask questions, and it did help fill in some of the blanks. She had talked with the director and had some interesting insights/answers about the film. But definitely one of those movies that you can continue to talk about for awhile after it's over. On some level, you need to talk about it to fully process and make sense of it.

After the movie, DS and I took a very long walk, discussing/processing the movie pretty much the entire way. The weather was gorgeous, and the walk from 2nd Street all the way to around 34th Street didn't feel all that long. It was wonderful to be out in the sunshine and fresh spring air and clear our heads. We met AH (who had to work that afternoon which is why I got to go to the Talk Cinema film) and then the three of us walked back down to around 18th Street. We decided to go for delicious beers and dinner at Monk's Cafe. Definitely one of my favorite Philly food spots. We split a couple of pots of mussels, and decided to be adventurous and try one of the varieties with cheese and apples and balanced it with a more traditional Flemish pot. We were all a bit disappointed that the cheese and apples didn't really flavor the mussels themselves, but they made a delicious broth to soak up with our bread! Finally, we topped the day off with gelato at Capogiro. So creamy and delicious. The flavors of their gelato are so clean and taste so true. It's a good thing their shops aren't just around the corner...

On Sunday I went to the Philadelphia Zoo with JM and her daughter E. It was damp and chilly, and raining a bit when we got there, so we spent as much time inside as many of the houses as possible. At the first house they had a face painting station. E was remarkably patient for a 3 year old and sat so still so she could have a pink pig painted on her face (it's all about the pink!). She spent the rest of the day being very very careful to not wipe off any of her pink face. Even during lunch she was careful and got worried when we we had to clean the ketchup off her chin. Lucky for us, the majority of the pink stayed on, despite the apple she ate and the ketchup.

E's reaction to the reptile and amphibian house was priceless! We walked in, she ran ahead, rounded a corner, and when she saw the snake (a big green python I believe) she turned around and ran back for the door shaking her head and chanting "no no no no no!" That was the end of the reptile and amphibian house for the day. Lucky for us, she got over it her fears quickly as there was much more to see at the zoo.

We spent the majority of our time in the primate house. E loved watching the monkeys. Probably because they were so active and gave her lots to watch. And the Squirrel monkeys barely stopped moving long enough for me to get a picture. E spent a good 5 minutes having a staring contest with a Golden lion tamarin. The zoo also had a baby sifaka! It was so cute! Mom and dad were up in the branches with baby, and every now and then you'd see this tiny little black hand grab white fur and this little face would appear under the arm of a parent. While I was watching, the baby decided to sit on dad's head for a bit. Just adorable. We were lucky and the rain did let up so we were able to see the big cats before we left. All the cats were spending their afternoon napping. Lazy lazy Sunday. Well, except the jaguar, who was pacing (I think it was almost lunch time as he was pacing in front of the door leading inside to his food!). The trip to the zoo was a nice break for my brain (and a much needed one!) after the intensity of the movie the day before. And I added a bunch of photos to my Philadelphia Zoo set on Flickr.

That's several weekends in a row with lots of activities and lots of walking. I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekends and get some chores done!

Dependence

Every now and again I am reminded just how dependent we've become on technology. We take most of it for granted, not even realizing it's there, such as most cars now have microprocessors in them, we have programmable thermostats, etc. And when it doesn't work for any reason we're paralyzed.

Take, for example, our local library catalog. I'm a cataloger, which means I spend my time working in the online catalog, essentially a large database of bibliographic entries/records housed in a central server that we all access. We have no card catalog anymore, it's all online. And there is no paper back up. A lot of what I do is maintenance and clean up work of entries for existing resources/titles/etc., but I also load new records into the system. When the catalog server goes down, I'm dead in the water in terms of finishing things for local use, but I can still work on various projects that don't require access to the catalog. For example, I can do work in WorldCat for several cooperative cataloging programs we participate in and when our local catalog comes back online I can finish up the local end of things. I can still work, I just can't finish things until the server comes back. This is true when any one piece of the various databases I use in my regular workflow go down...I can do work up to a point. It's frustrating, but all it requires is a little creative management of my workflow to still get stuff done.

But when my actual PC goes down I'm paralyzed. Pretty much everything I do requires a computer. A lot of the things I work with are online resources. This morning my intern's PC went down. The power supply to the motherboard went kaput so it wouldn't even boot up. She's been working on various projects, etc., all of which were stored on her hard drive. This was a problem. What's more, she couldn't access any of the reference sources (pretty much all of them are available online and the online is generally more current than the paper) to check what something meant or what rule would be applicable for editing of printouts. We still have paper backups, but not all of them are even in our reference alcove, we've put some of them down in storage because we use the online versions. She was genuinely stuck. And I was hard pressed to find her something to do for the morning that didn't require a computer. That's how dependent we are on our PCs. It's a scary thought, actually.

Friends and art

Last weekend I had visitors. One of my colleagues, MA, and her daughter, MAjr, were here. MAjr had a dance audition on Saturday morning at a local university downtown. The audition seemed to go well, but you never can tell with these things. Supposedly they'll notify the students in 2 weeks whether they got in or not, so cross your fingers (and toes) she gets in!!

Anyway, while MAjr danced, MA and I walked around Center City for a bit. The day was bright, sunny and clear, but it was a bit chilly with the wind. Still, nice for walking, especially in the sun. We walked to City Hall, took the obligatory tourist photo of MA in front of the LOVE sculpture in JFK Plaza/LOVE Park with the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the distance, and then wandered down to Rittenhouse Square. While we were petting dogs up for adoption (volunteers with eligible dogs wearing the orange "adopt me!" vests appear at random around the city), MAjr called to let us know she was done and to meet her back at the main hall. Her timing was a good thing. I don't think Aussie would have appreciated it if I had come home with a new sibling for her (best to not upset the household balance the two of us have) and those dogs were so cute...ah well.

After a trip back home so MAjr could shower and change, we decided to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the afternoon to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit (it's been on my list!). We were joined by MAjr's friend S. S's dad J generously drove us to the museum and even offered to see if he could use his company discount to get us in. Unfortunately, discounts don't apply to traveling exhibits, but we had a random confluence of luck that ended with us acquiring 4 tickets for only $20 (normally $20 each!)! As we were getting in line, a woman stopped us and said that they had two extra tickets they'd sell for half price. MA and I said great! There's two tickets for only $20. But we still needed tickets for the girls. We got in line, and as we approached the counter, MA saw a $10 bill lying on the ground. She picked it up and handed it to the women behind the counter, telling them to put it in the donations box or something (have I mentioned MA is a sweetheart and very honest? well, she is!). As we were figuring out the two remaining tickets (the entrance time, etc.), a member walked up and turned in two tickets (members get free tickets) that they didn't use. The woman the member gave them to then handed them to us and said enjoy! Wow! Talk about luck! [Side note: I think maybe we should have bought a lottery ticket with all that luck...]

Anyway, we had about 30 minutes before our scheduled entrance time, so MA and I headed for the 12th Century European art, and the girls split and went for the modern and contemporary collection. We agreed to meet up after we'd been through the Kahlo exhibit and then we'd go get dinner. 12th Century European art is largely religious and religious influenced, and includes many church commissioned pieces. Some of the stained glass is so beautiful, and the woodworking extraordinary. After a brief wander and some gaping at the reconstructed stone arches, MA and I headed off to get in line for Frida.

I was beyond excited when I heard the Frida Kahlo exhibit created in honor of the 100th anniversary of her birth would be coming to Philadelphia. I'm a huge fan of Frida, and have been since high school when I had an art teacher tell me I kind of looked like her. When I asked who she was, he told me to go look her up (what a good educator, no?). So I did. And I fell in love. The movie Frida with Salma Hayek was very true to her life, having been based on the biography by Hayden Herrera (which yes, I do own and have read). Frida Kahlo was a fascinating woman, a feminist before feminism. And her paintings are such intense self studies. Her eye was unflinching, exposing everything in her art. MA said at the end of the exhibit that she was exhausted and drained from the intensity of it all. I'd have to agree.

The exhibit itself was incredible. It included a free audio tour, which normally I avoid, but decided to try since it included commentary from Herrera, various artists, and the exhibit curator. The audio did a wonderful job of putting her paintings in context with what was going on in her life at the time they were created. In addition to the paintings, the exhibit included many photographs from Frida's personal albums, many never seen by the public before. Many had scrawled notes/commentaries written on them by Frida, offering even more insight into her life. As MA said, the exhibit was intense, offering the most complete picture of her life possible through the combination of audio, photographs and her paintings. Well put together, well organized, and absolutely amazing.

Overall, I'd say the exhibit is more than worth the $20 entrance fee. Even if you aren't a huge Frida fan like I am it's definitely worth the $20. I could have spent another couple of hours wandering and just staring at everything. I even learned a few things by having them put in context through the audio tour. And I really want to go back and see it again before it leaves May 18th.

We met up with the girls again and after a few photos on the Museum steps decided to head down to South Street for some dinner and wandering. S's dad J had finished his errands, and once again generously offered to act as chauffeur and drive us there and then decided to join us. We opted for cheesesteaks at Gianna's Grille, agreeing that since it was the first trip to Philly for MAjr, cheesesteaks were a necessity. Gianna's is a bit of a dive, but their food is consistently decent, and they have the option of getting fries with Old Bay seasoning (which I love). After a tasty dinner of cheesesteaks and fries, we wandered up and down South Street for the better part of 2 hours, window shopping and chatting. MA even did a little bit of gift/souvenir shopping.

It was a wonderful day. I had such a good time with everyone. I can only hope that MAjr gets in to the university so MA is forced to visit more often!

Back to basics

I've talked before about how when I first got her Aussie had pretty severe separation anxiety. The only thing that saved my sanity and my wallet was crate training. As long as you don't use the crate for punishment, crate training is a beautiful thing. Basically, when you're not home for any length of time, the dog spends the time locked in their crate. This keeps them from getting into things they shouldn't, etc. When you're home, you leave the crate door open so they can go in and out as they please. Dogs also grow quite fond of their crates, which is incredibly helpful when traveling. Aussie has no issues flying or anything as she travels in her crate (it's an FAA approved kennel) or the crate comes with us to the strange environment. It's kind of like her own personal portable bedroom. It's also security for her, and keeps her calm. She'll go lie in it and take a nap. She stashes things in it to "protect" them (like empty cheese containers she fishes out of the recycling! or rawhide bones she's saving for later). In fact, she's so protective of her crate she gets very upset when I have to clean it (vacuum the fur out, wash the bedding, etc.). She'll watch my every move, peering over my shoulder and periodically whining in my ear until I'm done. Then she promptly goes in her crate to check everything out and make sure I didn't do any permanent damage to her "room."

For years she stayed locked in her crate when I wasn't home. And no, I don't feel guilty about doing it (see statement about how protective she is of her crate...it's her personal space). As she got older and the separation/destructive doggie tendencies subsided, I started leaving her out of it for short periods of time like a run to the grocery store. When we had no issues, those periods of time got longer and longer until I stopped having to lock her in there at all. It's been a couple of years since I've had to crate her when I wasn't home.

Unfortunately, Aussie has been a brat lately. I'm not sure what brought on this round of regression into bad behavior, but we've had to go back to training basics. Among other bad behaviors, two forays into the garbage in a three week period is not a good thing. The gastrointestinal impact alone is not pretty (I'll save you and not go into details...but let's just say I missed work one day because we had to make rather frequent trips outside). So we've gone back to crate training to keep her out of trouble.

Aussie is not happy about this. It used to be that as soon as I put on my coat or picked up my keys she'd go into her crate, no prompting or command from me. She just knew and accepted it. No problem. Lately, however, she's been expressing her displeasure about this return to training basics. I've been having to tell her to go in her crate more than once before she'll do it. And even though she does, she kind of drags her feet in the process, taking her time to get up from the dog bed and walking slowly to the crate. We then have yet another conversation about how she's brought this on herself by her own behavior. Which garners a deep sigh from her in response. And she's generally been a bit pouty all week when I'm home. Not a happy dog about having to hang out in her crate. I'm sure she prefers napping on the couch to her kennel.

I'm hoping a week of having to stay in her crate will be enough of a reminder this time. This weekend I plan to try leaving her out as I run a few errands. If all goes well, we'll try a full day next week. Because a pouting dog is not a good thing.