An amazing conversation:

Jackie: (listing her movies) The Kid
Me: I love that movie!
Jackie: Really!?
Me: The one with Bruce Willlis?
Jackie: No, the one with Charlie Chaplin...
Me: Clearly we have different tastes in movies.

Something I gotta know

I've been catching up on my Colbert and he is wearing a cast-type wrap around his wrist, what happened to him?

Junktiques

My mom and I stopped at a "junktique" yard on the way home from Kentucky and boy was I amazed at all the crap this place had. I mean look at it! Have you ever seen so much crap piled outside like this with such pride?! It was truly amazing. I took some pictures of a couple things I found interesting:
I never realized just how huge a stop light was until I was standing looking down at this baby. I mean it's HUGE!As I walked through the endless piles of stuff I came across this table filled with old fans and I couldn't stop thinking of Pottery Barn, people pay good money for crap like this and here it was baking in the Kentucky sun just waiting to be sold.

Another Sweatshop

Well this weekend I visited my sister Jill in Louisville, Kentucky. The real reason for the visit was her baby shower which took place on Saturday and turned out just fantastic. She got lots of stuff for little Alex and is well on her way to being prepared for his grand arrival. Jill also decided to take up quilting what with her extra time and recruited me to help her with the job. After many many "jammers" situations and sewing machine troubles we managed to knock up this little baby in a day and a half, not too shabby. Anyway, it was a great weekend and I'm really happy I got to see her.

A Little Trespassing

Well last night I fulfilled a little goal of mine. There is this really amazing property near my parents house and on that property there is a dead tree. The owners must have decided it would be a grand idea to decorate their loss with a bunch of brightly painted chairs hung from the branches, because that’s exactly what they did. So with a little bravery I hopped the fence and took some pictures of this VERY interesting sight. It was fun, and a little exciting.

Life Changing

Well this weekend I took a little trip to Utah...again. I was exposed to many many new and interesting things, the choicest of which was a little game called Guitar Hero. The above picture shows me doing some serious shredding and raising my goblet to the gods of rock.....right.

Anyway, I had an amazing weekend filled with lots of movies (Hot Fuzz, Super Bad, Knocked Up, The Simpsons Movie and The Prestige). When all of those are listed together it seems as though I have quite poor taste in movies, wow. Rio was eaten a couple times as well as some really good sushi, poker was played and some]video games. All of those things aside it was fantastic to see some people I have missed very much, Annalise, Kristin, Jackie, Adam, Kaleb, and Kelly. Good times guys, I had a blast.

Quick Question

If you had one hand in your pocket what would the other one be doing?

Strange things in Texas

I was driving through Pilot Point today and noticed a huge billboard that said: "quality stud seaman" it's not everyday you see something like that advertised quite so boldly. Sometimes I love the country.

I Heart Ireland

Well I posted several days ago claiming to tell stories about my trip to Ireland. After sending out pictures my momentum seems to have struggled, however I will now make an effort so share some of my travel stories. I feel like I’ve told most of you these stories so bare with me if you already know this stuff. There were many highlights and plenty of craic (pronounced crack…and means fun) as they say in Ireland. Because we drove there I had plenty of time and opportunity to take in all the Emerald Island as it’s called. The scenery was beautiful and filled with lots of rolling green hills and mountains broken up by many many stones. It was amazing to see how many castle ruins we passed along the way, there were far too many to count.

The road from Rosslare to Galway brought lots of stops. My favorite was probably the cliffs of Mohr. I’ve seen ocean cliffs before, but these were unlike any I have ever seen, steep, with lots of inlets and very green. Catherine’s family lives in Galway, a city directly West of Dublin on the opposite coast. We spent most of our time in Galway in search of the craic and were able to find it in many forms:

One night we met a street performer called Todd who proclaimed several times that he was from Detroit. He managed to put himself in a straight jacket and wrap himself in chains, then climb to the top of a ladder and get out of his little predicament.

We went and listened to traditional Irish music (diddly-aye) in a pub and I got to watch as an Irish man decided he fancied Catherine…very entertaining.

We went on a little walk along the coast and I got to take part in a Galway tradition of kicking the wall at the end.

I was also able to impart my love of basketball and air hockey on Catherine at the local game center where I earned the high score on the basketball shoot-out game…not too shabby.

Next we headed to Dublin for a couple days and stayed in the home of two of Catherine’s friends Maggie and Roisin (pronounced Rosheen). They have been slowly redecorating the place and it is really cute. In Dublin we tried to visit the Natural History Museum but found that it was closed for remodeling so we went to the National Gallery instead. We ran into Sonia and Stephen on the street and had a fun meal at The Hard Rock Café (Sonia’s favorite), which was fun. Most of our time was spent walking around the city which I really enjoyed. Our last day there we decided since I’m doing book conservation I should see the Book of Kells at Kings College. We managed to get in for free because we arrived just before they were closing so the man working the till where you pay told us to go on and go in without paying. The books were beautifully illuminated with gold and other natural pigments. I would have to say the more impressive sight was The Long Room where hundreds of volumes are stored.

On our way out of the city we stopped in the equivalent of New York’s Central Park (but in Dublin). A herd of deer lives in the park and we (by we I mean Catherine) were able to find them and get very close to them. I had never heard a deer make a sound before and am here to tell you that their voices are not pretty. The young ones sounded a little like cats crying and the older mothers made a sound that I cannot even begin to describe.

After that we headed back to Galway and the following day I flew back to England for a night and then back home. It was an excellent trip and if you ever have the opportunity to visit Ireland I would strongly recommend it.

You find out something new everyday.

Yesterday I found out several things about my eyes. For example, my cornea is very thin…I always new there was a part of me that could be described as thin, however I never thought it would be the light refracting portion of my eye. I was also informed that I have very large pupils, which I feel cancels out the newfound thin body part (if a cornea qualifies as a body part). They give me thin cornea and immediately take it away by telling me my pupils are large. And man did they prove the whole large pupil thing by dilating my eyes as you can see in the picture above. Those babies are huge!

The End of an Era (maybe a little shorter than an era)

Well as you all know I have left West Dean and headed back home for the summer. Leaving was not easy and I will miss all of the people I met there. So far my time has been filled with many activities I decided to give myself, first of which was cleaning out my closet. It is amazing how much crap one person can acquire in life....even when you don't even live in your room. What is even more amazing to me is the thought process that I can only assume went through my head when I packed up my place in Provo and headed back to Texas. Why I decided to keep a magnetic stage that holds various sea life yet throw away a perfectly good step stool is beyond me. By the time I went through half of the closet I had moved all the crap from the confined closet and spread it out across my entire room, if only I had taken a picture. This morning I filled the entire hatch of my car with what I now consider to be crap, if only I had my head on straight when I was packing I could have brought along that stool.

Say hello to my new little friend

Well my trip to Ireland was fantastic, and I have plenty of stories to tell, but just wanted to post this quick picture in the mean time. I'm back at West Dean tonight and flying home tomorrow so it should be a tiring day, but I figured after not posting for a good two weeks or so I should throw something out there. I guess a couple students at the Galway art college came up with these little fairies and they have been selling them ever since. All of them are different and have very fitting names, mine is the one with green hair and she is called Myrtle and Catherine's is called Wendy.

Dear Readership,

So sorry I'm a slacker. Needless to say things are a little busy around here, graduation is tomorrow and I'm driving to Ireland with Catherine on Tuesday. I'll be sure to take lots of pictuers and generate lots of Irish stories.

Love,
Kristi

Skype

How long did I just spend on hold listening to the Pachelbel Canon on a loop?

44 minutes!

My first interaction with Skype was NOT good!

Goings on

Well, several of these events happened a while ago, but I wanted to blog about them if for no other reason than posterity's sake.

Several nights of boredom have led to amazing fruition of ideas. For example, a couple weeks ago we were having a good time at the Dower House, but needed an activity to fill the time. We had a croquet set in the house (mallets and balls) but no wickets. So rather than take the set down to the croquet lawn or go get the wickets and bring them to us we decided to play on a series of slopes with things like chairs and ironing boards being used as the wickets. Needless to say it was MUCH more entertaining than your run of the mill croquet game and it managed to take a lot longer than the usual. I for one think it enhanced my playing skills as it takes far more skill to hit a ball up a hill and around a chair leg than to go straight on through a boring old wicket.

Example two: A bunch of us played a rousing game of Bull Shit or "cheat" as they call it in this country. Well Drew didn't seem to be able to catch on to the way the game is played and as a result I would put down two fours and he would follow my turn by saying things like "I'll see your four and raise you another four" which would obviously generate a bull shit and cause him to collect the played cards. Either that or I would remind him what number he was supposed to be playing. Nedless to say it produced a lot of laughter.

Example three: Jenny had some extra energy to work off the other night and made an offer to run around the lawn while Emma and I played a card game. We naturally declined as that would have just been silly, so instead I taught her how to do a cartwheel. She caught on quite quickly and was even able to cartwheel her way through a patch of wild flowers towards Stephens room for a pleasant hello.

Electricity!

Well this weekend was fantastic! Harm, Catherine and I took a little trip to London to see Billy Elliot and the Tate Britain. We arrived around 11am and went right to the Tate where Catherine was researching frames for an internship she has applied for with the Tate. As for Harm and I we enjoyed the paintings and the fact that it was much less crowded than the last time we visited. From there we had lunch at Bella Italia and then headed to the Victoria Palace Theatre. The show was hilarious and filled with lots of talented kids singing and dancing. My favorite number was probably when Billy and his friend were dressing up in women's clothing. After they danced around for a while 6 giant frocks came out and danced along with them in true chorus line style. Needless to say it was amazing.

Two happy pixies

Sonia and I are working on a set of books together which means we now work together everyday. Yesterday we spent the majority of the day paring a piece of leather to put a new spine on the books. As you can see we had a good time.

Important Skills

Well since coming to West Dean I have aquired two valuable skills:

1. Cigarette rolling

2. Opening a bottle of beer with a lighter

At your service.

3 Dreams I've had Recently

1. Catherine and I decided to repel off the castle and half way down stopped for a glass of wine, it was nice.
2. Jenny and I went to a store where she forced me to steal two items because we were not going to go all the way back through the store in order to pay.
3. Catherine came to visit me in Texas but wouldn't leave the airport.

A herd of dog deer

This weekend Emma, Harm, Jenny, Catherine and I took a little day trip to Petworth House. It's one of your regular run of the mill giant English houses filled with antiques, paintings, vases, clocks, and various other objects. The inside of the house was really beautiful, however I think the highlight was what lives in the garden behind the house.

I was talking to someone before leaving about Petworth and she told me that on her way to the house she could see a herd of what appeared to be dogs in the distance. As it turns out it was a herd of small deer. This story caused us to refer to the herd as "dog deer" for the majority of the trip. We were able to get quite close to them and even got to see a little scuffle between two of them. I have to say I expected more action from a herd of dog deer, but I guess you can't ask too much from a group of antler clad canine.