really big boat

tiny little windows

seattle, washington

Boring Windows, Nice Sign

When I saw this sign before we moved to Whitstable I laughed at the Crab and Winkle Way. Now it's something that is part of every day life! The Crab and Winkle line used to run between Whitstable and Canterbury. Now it's a path that you can walk or ride your bike on along the old route. It goes through Clowes Wood where we like to go for walks on the weekends (although we haven't been for a few weeks). Hopefully at some point we'll walk or ride the whole thing.

Might Be Cheating

I did post this photo (or one very similar to it) on Blackbird Experience way back when, but I wanted to use it for this week because A) it was taken out of my bedroom window and B) the Horsebridge Centre is using it for their summer brochure --- which I believe has just come out.

They almost didn't take it because the man on the left is wearing decidedly un-summery clothing, but after I brightened up the colors, they decided to go with it anyhow. Dan and I tried to change the color of the man's sweater and keep the photo at a good standard, but it proved to be a difficult (read: impossible) task.

little window

one more from chanticleer garden wayne, pa

pleasure garden

chanticleer garden
wayne, pennsylvania

Hint of Summer

A glimpse of the summer sunsets to come, from the bedroom window...

Village Butcher

Do they do asparagus?

to the left

this is the window in my work station at the office. it feels like it's miles above my head, so it's not something i can gaze out of, but it does do the job of a window by letting in light. our office feels sort of cave like, there's no shortage of windows, but they are all up high.

baggage as well

what i wanted to "spill" was my desk drawer. there's all kinds of crazy things in there, but it's just too overwhelming, so i too grabbed my bag.



i was not prepared for how much i was going to LOVE this bag, my mom bought it for me last fall at the fremont market, while i was visiting seattle. it was love at first sight, because it is made with old ad banners, and the handles are made from old seat belts. this one happened to be on sale ($5 cheaper than the rest of the bags, but i don't know why, maybe because it it's a solid color, instead of being more multi colored?)

anyway it doesn't have any interior, pockets, and i was sure that it would become one big vacuous black hole, but it turns out that it is the PERFECT bag, it's the perfect size, it's really comfortable, it's super cute & it's not a black hole because it's MESH!! anyway, enough gushing about my bag, let's get to the contents:

• cel phone cozy that snaps on to whatever you want
• cel phone
  
• cel phone is of course adorned with small plastic glow in the dark monkey

• fancy metal swiss water bottle (it's important to stay hydrated!)
• plastic bag (given to me from from coworker, soon to be turned into "plastic yarn"

• 2 pairs of sunglasses (one pair for looking cool, the other pair is more comfortable & polarized, for better driving)
• GPS (previously posted about on monkey mind)

• work documents (i take with me back and forth to work, in case i need them at home)

• helvetica pencil case
  
• 3 mechanical pencils ( i LOVE the pentel mechanical pencil with the cushi finger grip)
• 1 pilot precise V5 extra fine rolling ball
• 1 staedtler liquid point 7
• emergency lip balm

• 2 burt's bees lip gloop
• 1 zen tazo green tea bag
• 1 orange mesh zipped bag that holds 20 hair elastics, 11 assorted hair pins, and 3 safety pins
• 1 loose hair elastic
• another loose pen,
• a big flat paper clip that fell out of my calendar/date book
• moleskine

• my calendar/datebook (which is home to all manner of assorted clippy things & a picture of my niece and nephew, there also used to be a couple of my wedding pix in here, but they were removed after the great coffee spill of 2007, which you can see evidence of on the cover)

• a crumpled up note that i was going to leave on the car that i hit last week (long story)
• fuzzy fingerless mittens (because the air conditioner in the office blows right on me)
• millie jackson caught up/still caught up (music for the car)
• steel pulse true democracy (music for the car)
• new issue of GOOD magazine (july/august 2007)
• vintage ipod circa. 2003 (mostly used for transferring files to and from work)

• 1 lonely sunflower seed
• 1 pack of dentyne ice arctic chill chewing gum

• notebook (mostly used for taking notes at work)

• wallet/ change purse

CONTENTS:

• 1 credit card
• 1 high point cafe coffee card
• 2 frequent buyer cards for the tangled web
  
• 4 of my business cards
• 1 health insurance card
• 1 rei member card
• 1 auto insurance card
• 1 pennsylvania drivers license
• 1 ATM card
• 1 sparkly marble thing from the rock store
• 1 tiny ceramic frog from japanese garden in portland
• $70 in paper dollars
• $4.52 in coins
• 1 rusty washer
  

and last but not least: my key chain

• clicker for the honda
• key for the honda
• key for the acura
• key to the office (that's the rainbow one)
• key to the house
• key to my bike lock
• super fresh club card
• fit life health club membership card
• brass savannah, ga. shipping tag
  

whew, that was a hell of a lot of work! sorry for all the blurry pictures....hurry hurry hurry! i reserve the right to edit this post later when i am feeling less frantic.

Baggage

Okay, well, I'm right down to the wire so I thought I'd just grab my bag and see what's in it.

It isn't a terribly old bag. I bought it on eBay in March for a fraction of it's worth. Of course, it came with the usual gambling aspect of not knowing exactly what it looks like, and I wasn't in love with it when it arrived. Actually, I'm still not in love with it, but it holds my old-school disc man in a way that allows me to listen while I'm mobile. The headphone wires come out of a front zipped pocket conveniently, (still haven't gravitated to Ipod-land), and it has enough room for my essentials. Basically I told myself that after I bought it I'd have to live with it for a reasonable amount of time. Incessent updating of hand/shoulder bags is a habit I don't feel yet comfortable adopting. It smacks of trend-seeking, vanity and frivolity to me. Anyhow, I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. It falls into the ever-mediocre land of 'like it enough'. So here I go...

In the main compartment of the bag I have the basics:

1. My not-so convenient change (and catch all) purse that I bought from Miss Selfridge in Canterbury for 5 pounds
2. A cheap umbrella I inherited from my old job at the pub in London where I worked until spring last year.
3. My current read: Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. I'm on a Murakami marathon, devouring book after book of his. I can't seem to get enough! -- the bookmark is a postcard of a photo (Erik Kessels collection) from an exhibit at the Photographers' Gallery near Leicester Square, London.

4. Extra CDs for listening on the bus-ride to and from work: currently Glenn Gould, Beethoven Concertos, and The Rolling Stones, Flowers.
5. When out, my mobile phone is in here too, naturally.

In the random little compartments inside I find:

1. Two old National Rail travel cards (I can't seem to ever throw these away). One is from May 2 27, just this past weekend, when Dan and I went to London for the day. The other is from October 24, 2006 from Queen's Road Peckham where Dan works. I must have gone in with him in the morning to meet up with friends while he worked, which I did occasionally before starting work again.
2. An old bus pass("Gold Megarider") from last week. These weekly put me down 17 pounds to get to work.
3. An Aleve bottle filled with generic ibuprofen.
4. A card from Stone in Canterbury, the last place I got my hair cut. Whether I ever get my hair cut there again is up for question.
5. Yuzu Bergamot moisturizer from the fancy hotel Tony treated us to in San Francisco last spring.
6. A day's regimen of vitamins wrapped in cellophane that I continually forget to take.

7. A random two-pence piece.

8. A list of bus pass prices that I got from the bus station in Canterbury after I got a job there.
9. Next week's work schedule that I haven't transferred to my calendar yet... a particularly exciting week because I'm taking a lieu day next Friday for a Bank Holiday that I worked.

And onto the front zipped pocket!

1. My aforementioned disc-man with Elvis Costello's My Aim is True being the last thing I listened to. I know it seems obvious, but I hadn't listened to it in ages. Honestly!
2. My current Gold Megarider uber-expensive bus pass.
3. A hot pink hair tie (for an emergency).
4. Our brochures for the How We Are: Photographing Britain exhibition that we went to last week at the Tate Britain in London.
5. Two rechargeable batteries for when the ones in my disc man run out.
6. A 2 for 1 dining voucher for a pizza/pasta place in Canterbury that we have to use soon because it's going to expire!
7. A Pilot G5.

And hiding within things that I found after taking the original pic:

1. The actual tickets to the How We Are exhibition.
2. A loyalty card from Leon, a cool little place on Carnaby Street.

The contents of my change purse:

1. My trusty London Underground travel card holder from God knows when with stuff inside.
2. My house keys on a cheesy Whitstable tourist key ring that was attached when we moved in... with a Tesco club card thingie to add points to Dan's account (I'm afraid of Big Brother so I don't have one of my own) and a bike lock key.
3. A key to my parents house (why this needs to be constantly in my purse, I don't know).
4. A Boot's advantage card.
5. Whittard/Julian Graves employee discount card (which I've never used).
6. Two pieces of Extra spearmint gum in a package that has seen better days.
7. A receipt from Fopp on Shaftesbury Avenue in London where I bought yet another Haruki Murakami book called Norwegian Wood.
8. Another pink (??!) hair tie.

8. Three pounds and fifty-two pence.

And finally... what's in the London Underground travel card holder?

1. My New York Driver's Licence that still pictures me at age 18.
2.My NatWest debit card.
3. My Empire Credit Union (Syracuse) debit and credit cards.
4. A Kindergarten picture of my nephew Riley.
5. 2 business cards from the Gateway Inn and Suites in San Bruno, CA.
6. A May 21, 2006 receipt for $33.45 from the Thai Nakorn Restaurant in San Bruno, CA.
7. Three make-shift 'business'cards that Dan and I made with just our names and invisiblecouple e-mail address. These were to help us with our anxiety about asking people if we could take their photo on our US road trip.
8. A June 10, 2006 receipt for 38 pounds from Giorgio's, a restaurant in Margate.
9. Three old National Rail cards (I told you I couldn't throw them away) --- two from Margate to Whitstable June 7th and 16th last year when I was cleaning the house and preparing it for our move when Dan was at work... and one from March 19, 2007 in London.
10. A silly photo booth pic of youthful Dan which makes me smile every time I see it.

Now, I don't know about you... but this was surely more than a 15 minute project! -- either that or I'm having an OCD attack; I'm over three hours in since I started! :) It's been fun though.