rain, rain go away

so today was a totally depressing day. tons of rain although it wasn't cold. i gave myself a dose of mindless shopping to ease the bleh day. I'm not sure why it makes me happy to spend $1.99 on a xmas trinklet at Christmas Tree Shop (great Rhode Island store that has super cheap, probably slave labored items) which does not sell Christmas Trees. But it does make me happy. I just try not to think about the whole slave labor thing. definite downer. i had breakfast and lunch with my friend jacqueline in newport and killed time in between with shopping. hope tomorrow will be clear.

home again, home again, jiggity jig...

sooooo glad to be home! i almost need a vacation after my vacation. here are a couple of pix from our trip to Phoenix. We went to Sedona the day after Thanksgiving. It was wonderful! We also went to my cousin Kayla's bday party. This is my Aunt Connie holding Kayla's younger brother DeShawn. They are all very cute kids. We also went on Sunday to brunch at the Biltmore Resort with my father. We saw lots of friends and family but I didn't always have my camera or the light wasn't suitable. But hey at least I got some photos up!

thanksgiving fly away

Just to let everyone know, my blog will be on hiatus as of Tues Nov. 22. Jason and I are going to phoenix for turkey day. We will be back on Mon. Nov.28
Happy thanksgiving!! gobble. gobble.

paper mache update

so this week i photographed the devouring of the paper mache animals that i spoke of a few weeks ago. to refresh your memory, 3rd graders were making paper mache animals that looked like natural prey , ie. a snow hare, ibex (goat like thing) and a wild boar which were then filled with meat and fed to zoo animals at the roger williams zoo up near providence. so thursday was the day. it was incredible to see these animals at first be a little wary and then pounce and rip the critter to shreds. the best part by far was when the snow leopard in the process of scarfing down the inards of the papermache rabbit, got the damn thing stuck on its head as you see here. also they fed a moon bear named 'gracie'. she was definitely freaked out by the ibex (goat) at first but eventually came around. man, they never had field trips like this when i was a kid. maybe we went to the science museum or the pioneer museum but that was about it.

big time oops!

so here is why (as my lovely newspaper friends can attest to)you never put anything into the system that can't go in print. this posted on the danbury news-times website this week. (danbury is also in connecticut)the first picture is what ran with the cutline at the bottom. the second is the retraction/apology/ass-kissing that had to go on the following day. big time oops!!!

start'em early

in response to the posts about being a kid and using the old voting machines, thought you might enjoy this photo i took on election night.

election day

so i voted today even though i didn't really know any of the candidates. i just got done hanging out though with one of the first selectman that is up for reelection. it did turn out that i voted for him earlier in the day, blindly, but looks like i made the right choice. had to stand around with him on the corner while he waved to people going in to vote. seemed nice enough. i did get a cute kid shot under the curtain though inside the polling station. actually voting here is way more exciting than it is in arizona. they have the old school lever ballot boxes here. you go in, pull the lever, the curtain closes behind you and then you have to move these cute little switches under the name of the person you want to vote for. very cool because i changed my mind about who i was going to vote for after i moved the switch. all i had to do is move it back and push down the other switch. in az, after you punch your hole you are done, no option to second guess or fix a mistake. to record your vote here you pull the big lever that you used when you first walked in to close the curtain, back the other way, recording your vote. although they were out of voting stickers which was a bummer. those are the best part!

update

so update on the robber. seems that the xmas company that he worked for did all the decorations in downtown mystic as well as downtown new london where our building is. my friend that owns the boutique in mystic that i worked at last year called today. she said that she had heard through the grapevine that the 3 of the stores of the maybe 12 or so that they decorated were robbed this week after they hung the decorations. which turned out to be true. so clearly this guy had a track record. the cops hadn't yet made the connection so this guy is obviously a bigger fish than just a purse thief.

karma

so a couple of weeks ago jason and i found a cell phone at a gas station. we called the person and it worked out that he had lost it on his way to the mountains for the weekend and now he was on his way home. jason and i were only 3 exits away from where he was. we met up with the guy (of course after looking at his photo gallery on his phone. nothing juicy) and gave it back.

well the karma came around today.

not only did i get my actual wallet and purse yesterday, but today the owner of the company that was hanging the lights came into the paper today to apologize and reimburse me for the money i lost. so my new cards are in the mail, i have my new license (in and out of the dmv in 10mins!) and i have the cash back that was in my wallet. so all is well.

bastard!!!

so today was a crap day. my purse was stolen out of the photo department at work. there was a maintence crew putting up xmas lights on the roof of the day today. it turns out one of them ganked my purse, took it into the men's room and then stole my cash and credit cards and drivers license. the cop did a background check on the employees of the company that did the work and pulled up a 20 year old kid that had a larceny list a mile long on his record. i cancelled all my cards except the mobile gas card that belongs to the day. all of the people in h.r. had left for the day so i couldn't cancel it. the cops said that maybe that was good. hopefully he will try to use it and then they can catch him on camera. anyway, i got my super cool orange wallet back, my brush, burts bees, my corduroy purse, but i just checked the dmv website and it will be $30 bucks to get my damn license replaced. this state rips you off at every opportunity. so grand total for this jerkie stealing my purse: $70. i actually had $40 in cash in my wallet. very rare for me to have anything more than 2 dollars. i am mostly pissed off at the way the day allows random maintence people stroll through the building. they make a big deal about checking your visitors in and have them escorted at all times but yet they let yahoos with criminal records a mile long walk aimlessly alone through one of the most expensive departments in the building. boggles the mind. anywho i'm hoping they will pay for my reimbursement but i'm not holding my breath.