blueflower.orgtag:www.blueflower.org,2010-02-02://122010-03-08T20:25:25ZMovable Type 5.01In Which I Ramble on for Far too Long about the Oscarstag:www.blueflower.org,2010://12.33002010-03-08T20:24:09Z2010-03-08T20:25:25ZLet’s try this again.This is, I believe, draft number four of my entry concerning last night’s Academy Awards ceremony. No, the first three weren’t lost or deleted by accident; I simply changed my focus several times now. I started out...Krishttp://www.blueflower.org This is, I believe, draft number four of my entry concerning last night’s Academy Awards ceremony. No, the first three weren’t lost or deleted by accident; I simply changed my focus several times now. I started out writing a simple post about how I did with my predictions (first draft). That mutated when I got sidetracked by thinking about the last time the Academy nominated ten films for Best Picture (second draft). That turned into a convoluted mess, which I attempted to clean up and turn into a comprehensible narrative (third draft), but by the time I was half-way through doing that it was late and I was tired, so I decided to give up and attempt again today when I would be more coherent (fourth draft). As if you really needed to know all that.
So, how did you do with your Oscar picks? I tallied up only eleven correct predictions out of the twenty-four competitive categories, but I figure that isn’t too bad considering the fact that I haven’t seen even one of the films that was nominated for awards last night. Of course, even if you’ve seen them all, it’s hard to predict exactly which way Academy members will lean when filling out their ballots, so it’s probably not really much of a handicap not to have seen the films.
I correctly predicted all four acting winners and Kathryn Bigelow for directing, but those five were pretty easy since they had more-or-less run the table in pre-Oscar award ceremonies. Pixar is always a safe bet to win animated feature, so picking Up there was no-brainer, just as one didn’t actually have to see Avatar to know that the award for visual effects was a given. As for the other four I got right, I kind of cribbed those from Roger Ebert’s picks.
As for the categories I failed to predict correctly, picking winners among the shorts is tantamount to throwing darts at a dartboard, and I stumbled on documentary feature because I didn’t think they’d give the award to that guy from Short Circuit. I clearly underestimated the momentum of the Oscar buzz that The Hurt Locker had accrued in recent weeks when I picked against it for original screenplay, the sound categories, and, of course, Best Picture. I had Nick Hornby winning for adapted screenplay only because I thought the Academy would reward a critically-praised film that wasn’t going to win the other awards for which it was nominated, but I certainly can’t complain about the award going to my fellow Tischie Geoffrey Fletcher, one of two Tisch alums to win on the night (the other was Juan Campanella for foreign language-film winner El Secreto de Sus Ojos). And I couldn’t agree more with Roger Ebert concerning the cinematography award when he tweeted: “WTF? Cinematography for “Avatar” and all that CGI and green screen? Not for Basterds or White Ribbon?” Then again, cinematographers are the ones responsible for it even being nominated in the category, so they have nobody to blame but themselves for it winning.
Here are some of my other thoughts about the telecast (and bear in mind that I missed large chunks while I was at work or commuting home):
What was with the opening starring Doogie Howser? I’m not against song-and-dance routines, but it just seemed weird and misplaced. Did the producers mistake the reaction to last year’s opening starring host Hugh Jackman and nominee Anne Hathaway for a request to see the show open with another musical number starring a guy whose best-known film role was a cameo in a stoner movie?
I missed it, but I hear Farrah Fawcett was missing from the In Memoriam portion — what’s with that?
The extended build-up to handing out the awards for Best Actor and Actress is getting a little tedious. How about if we get back to the nuts-and-bolts, and then it won’t be such a big deal giving the winners more time to give their acceptance speeches, which is really what we want to hear more than praise from some co-star from years back.
Is Ben Stiller done making movies and now relegated to adding comic relief to the presentation of lackluster awards?
I appreciate the producers trying to keep the show moving and get the last award handed out before the clock strikes midnight on the East Coast, but the rushed manner in which the Best Picture winner was announced made the moment completely anti-climactic and almost seemed insulting to the Hurt Locker team. The only excuse I can think of for doing it the way they did was so that Ms. Bigelow wouldn’t make it too far backstage after accepting her directing award to make it back out on stage in a timely manner.
Was there any rehearsal whatsoever this year? Were all the jokes and dialogue scripted Sunday morning? I honestly can’t remember so many gaffes in the middle of the ceremony before.
And, finally, if you really want to save time and keep the show moving along, let’s go back to only five nominees for Best Picture. I realize that adding five more nominees allowed films from the likes of Peter Jackson and the Coens to garner nominations that they probably wouldn’t have gotten had there been only five total, but if we all knew they weren’t going to win anyway, then what’s the point?
Okay, so the second half of this extended blog entry started with a conversation at work during the ceremony. It was noted on several occasions during the telecast that it had been sixty-six years since the last time there were ten Best Picture nominees. Off the top of your head, can you name the nine runners-up? I mean, pop quiz: can you name the four runners-up for Best Picture from last year’s Oscars? Whether they’re worthy nominees or not, what value is there in naming lots of nominees? How long does the glow from being nominated really last?
Having not had the opportunity yet to see the nine runners-up from the ceremony sixty-six years ago, I was interested in their pedigree. Were they all worthy of being nominated, or was it really a matter of only one or two real competitors that prompted the Academy to revert to only five nominees for the next six-and-a-half decades? One mustn’t forget that, while Casablanca was hardly a forgotten movie, it’s real bonafides weren’t really considered too deeply until the American Film Institute named it the second-greatest American feature film of all time. Here’s a geeky look at the other nine films that were nominated for Best Picture that year.
For Whom the Bell Tolls, based upon Ernest Hemingway’s fantastic Spanish Civil War-novel of the same name, garnered acting nominations for co-stars Gary Cooper (recent winner for Sergeant York) and Ingrid Bergman (co-star of Casablanca, who would go on to win the first of her three Oscars the following year for Gaslight). Nominated for nine awards, the film won one — Katina Paxinou for Supporting Actress.
Heaven Can Wait, directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch, was nominated for three awards. It stars Gene Tierney and future-Oscar-winner Don Ameche (Cocoon), in addition to Charles Coburn, who won Best Supporting Actor that night for his role in Best Picture-nominee The More the Merrier.
In Which We Serve was written by, starred in, and co-directed (along with future-multiple-Oscar-winner David Lean, making his directorial debut) by the legendary Noel Coward.
The Human Comedy, directed by Clarence Brown, was nominated for five awards, winning the Best Story Oscar for writer William Saroyan. It starred Mickey Rooney (nominated for Best Actor), and also featured Frank Morgan, Donna Reed, and Van Johnson.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer threw everything they had behind Madame Curie, which was nominated for seven awards, but won none. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and featured an all-star cast (many of whom had worked with Alfred Hitchcock over the years) that included then-reigning Best Actress-winner (for the title role in the previous year’s Best Picture-winner Mrs. Miniver) Greer Garson, her Mrs. Miniver co-stars Walter Pidgeon, Henry Travers, Reginald Owen, and Dame May Whitty (also appeared in Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes and Suspicion); Albert Bassermann (Oscar-nominated for his role in my second-favorite Hitchcock film Foreign Correspondent); Robert Walker (known to fans of Hitch as Bruno in Strangers on a Train); C. Aubrey Smith (he was in Hitchcock’s Rebecca along with a host of other well-known films); and, of course, Van Johnson and Margaret O’Brien. Oh, and it was narrated by James Hilton (Oscar-winner for writing Mrs. Miniver), who also penned the novels upon which the films Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Random Harvest were based. Both of those films co-starred Greer Garson as well; and Robert Donat (who starred in Hitch’s The 39 Steps) picked up the Oscar for his role in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, beating the heavily-favored Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. Plus, Hilton co-wrote the dialogue for Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent with the hilarious Robert Benchley (seriously, if you’ve never seen Foreign Correspondent you need to rush out and rent it right now).
The More the Merrier, directed by George Stevens (A Place in the Sun, Giant, Shane), picked up six nominations, and won one — the aforementioned Best Supporting Actor for Charles Coburn. It co-starred Jean Arthur (nominated for Best Actress) and Joel McCrea (star of, you guessed it, Foreign Correspondent — why haven’t you seen this movie yet?! It was nominated for six Oscars, but is always overshadowed by Hitchcock’s other film from that year, Best Picture-winner Rebecca).
The Ox-Bow Incident, directed by William Wellman, was nominated for just this one award. It didn’t win, of course, but it was the National Board of Review’s pick for Best Film that year, and it has since been added to the National Film Registry as well. Oh, and it starred future-Oscar-winner Henry Fonda, along with Dana Andrews and Anthony Quinn.
The Song of Bernadette was nominated for a whopping twelve Oscars and won four of them, including Best Actress for Jennifer Jones (who just passed away back in December) and Best Score for Alfred Newman (one of his nine career Oscar wins).
And then there was Watch on the Rhine, written by Dashiell Hammett, based on the play by Lillian Hellman, and starring Paul Lukas (who won the Best Actor award) and — with all due respect to Meryl Streep and Katharine Hepburn — perhaps the greatest film actress of all time — Bette Davis. It was nominated for four Oscars, winning just the one, but was named Best Film that year by the New York Film Critics Circle.
Whew.
Going into the ceremony, Casablanca wasn’t the clear favorite to win Best Picture, and, as you can see, the other nominees had legitimate pedigrees, but they’re largely forgotten anyway because they didn’t win. So, does that justify nominating ten films, or, for brevity’s sake, should the Academy go back to only five again next year? The debate will go on and on, and everyone has their opinion.
I’m done. Enjoy the rest of your Monday, everyone.
♥k!]]>
The Passing of Another Yeartag:www.blueflower.org,2010://12.32992010-03-06T20:50:49Z2010-03-06T20:53:13ZIt just occurred to me that today is March 6th. What’s the significance to me of March 6th? Today is my three-year anniversary at my current job. Yeah, I can’t believe it either. When I started this job three years...Krishttp://www.blueflower.org
any job for three years before — not even any of the various jobs I had while I was in school. Three years. Hmm — I suppose it’s pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it seems rather significant to me given that those three years have spanned (or, rather, will have in just over a month) my final three years as a twenty-something. Here I am on the precipice of thirty and I’ve still never had a “real” full-time job.
How on earth did I get to this point? I guess one day turns into one week, which turns into one month, which turns into one year. And then another year. And then another. When I first started this job, I was still applying for other jobs on a regular basis, still optimistic and convinced that a better-paying job was just around the next corner. I got a handful of interviews, and I received more rejection letters to add to my growing collection, but no new job offers ever came along. And then two significant events happened at once — (a) the economy turned south, and (b) I wearied of my mounting pile of rejection letters. “What’s the point of even applying when I know I’m not going to get the job, right?” Well, that's the way I felt at the time anyway. Add to that the fact that nobody was hiring (and the few employers who were hiring weren’t taking on entry-level newbies since they had stacks of applications from floor to ceiling from unemployed folks with oodles of experience), and I actually went something like five months at one point last year without even bothering to look for a job. (It should be noted that those five months coincided with a stretch of time when I was working 50- and 60-hour weeks at work, so looking for a job on the rare day I had off wasn’t exactly high on my priority list.) I would hardly say we’re in the clear now, but I’ve definitely noticed an uptick in the number of job postings out there recently, and, as a result, I’ve finally started looking for work again. The hard part now is getting back into the routine I was in before. I mean, when you’re really on a roll and applying for jobs left and right customizing your CV and cover letter for each posting and sending them off is like second nature, but once you’re off the bicycle getting back on and into the rhythm again almost seems daunting. “How do I do this again?” “What are employers looking for here?” I would say that I’m back on the bicycle, but I’m wobbling a bit as I try to find my balance point again. It will come.
Now I don’t want to speak ill of my current job or employer. I might come home frustrated on occasion, but it’s still honest work for honest pay, and it has kept food in my belly, clothes on my back, and a roof over my head for the last three years. On the other hand, I can’t stick with it forever either. Not only would that be a major waste of my very-expensive graduate-school education, but my prospects of ever seeing an upgrade to full-time employment there aren’t any rosier now than they were the day I started. I pick up all the overtime and extra shifts I can, but that stuff isn’t guaranteed, and there are definite boom-and-bust cycles. Banks, utilities, and landladies don’t care about boom-and-bust cycles — just checks that don’t bounce.
On a positive note, another year in the books means another pay raise, and that’s never anything to thumb your nose at — unless we’re talking about the dreaded one-penny raise. (If you’ve never heard the one-penny-raise story I’ll have to fill you in some time. It was pretty pathetic.) It’s Saturday, the sun is out, and I’m headed out shortly to start collecting on that pay raise. Have a good weekend, everyone!
♥k!]]>
Jelly of the Month Clubtag:www.blueflower.org,2010://12.32982010-03-04T17:24:58Z2010-03-04T17:25:11ZLet’s talk about taxes. More precisely, let’s talk about filing your federal income taxes. Have you done it yet? If you have, then feel free to skip to the next entry, as you already know all about the subject matter...Krishttp://www.blueflower.org Okay. Have you heard about The Making Work Pay Tax Credit yet? I remember mention of it back when Obama and the Dems rammed their stimulus mumbo-jumbo through Congress a little over a year ago, but, despite the fact that I like to think of myself as fairly well informed on matters such as these, I guess I never fully understood what this aspect of the stimulus entailed. In short, it amounts to this — expect to see your federal income tax return smaller this year to the tune of four Benjamins.
Whuh?!
No, your tax rate didn’t go up; you see, you already received the money, little-by-little, over the course of the year. $400, divided by 52 weeks, works out to roughly $7.69 per week (or $15.38 per paycheck, if, like me, you’re paid bi-weekly). Technically, for 2009, it was a little more than that, as the money was parceled out in less than a year, but that’s what it will work out to for 2010. If you’re salaried, you probably noticed your paychecks slightly largely, but if you’re like me and no two paychecks are ever alike, then you had no clue this was going on. Or at least I certainly didn’t.
I filed my taxes for 2009 two days ago. It’s probably better that I waited a couple days to compose this entry, because my language would have been a bit more colored 48 hours ago (you should have seen some of the status updates I posted to and later redacted from Facebook). I’m hardly rolling-in-the-dough, but I’ll go ahead and admit that I had my best year ever, income-wise, in 2009. (Let’s just say there were a lot of 50- and 60-hour weeks, especially in the second half of the year.) Needless to say, I was expecting a pretty sizable tax return this year. I was already imagining all of the things I’d do with the money, including paying down some of my credit card debt, so (please excuse my language here — I’m trying to cuss less these days, but sometimes a well-placed cuss word just seems appropriate to make a point) I nearly shat myself when I got to the end of the tax-filing process and learned that my refund wouldn’t even amount to enough to cover a trip to the grocery store. (Okay, maybe it would cover one of those quick stops when all you need is milk, bananas, and a loaf of bread, but those are pretty rare for me.) Oh, what the fudge? The Making Work Pay Tax Credit, that’s what the fudge.
I guess this wouldn’t have been such a big deal had I been expecting it. I mean, if I had known all along that I shouldn’t expect much in the way of a tax return because I was already receiving the money in bits and pieces throughout the year, then obviously it wouldn’t have been such a shock. What surprises the hell out of me is that the Obama administration has wasted millions needlessly promoting or drawing attention to various events and programs (do we really need to advertise the effing census?), and yet so little was made of this. Some people didn’t even make enough to qualify for the complete credit and will actually owe the government money when they were probably expecting a refund. If you know it’s going on, then you can plan and budget for it, but this, well, I feel like Chevy Chase in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” when he learns that his Christmas bonus, which would have been enough to cover the down payment on the pool for the backyard, has been replaced by a membership in the Jelly-of-the-Month Club. Now I know for next year not to expect much in the way of a return, but it’s too late for this year. It’s frustrating, but it’s done.
And, while we’re at it, let me talk to you about who to file your taxes through. If you make lots of money or have lots of deductions or investments or whatever, then this means nothing to you, but if, like me, you’re poor and broke and don’t own a home and don’t have a spouse and don’t have kids and the words “retirement plan” aren’t in your personal lexicon, then I suppose this is noteworthy. I have, in the past, always filed my taxes through H&R Block. I guess it was just habit, you know? Anyway, I kept getting an error message from them while I was trying to finish up my taxes (admittedly, I had made a minor error, but even after I went back and fixed it they kept telling me I had an error — grrrrr!), so I became frustrated and looked elsewhere, and that’s when I stumbled upon the online version of TurboTax. Unlike H&R Block, who wanted to charge me $30-effing-dollars to file my state taxes (in other words, basically my entire federal return amount), TurboTax was free. That’s right — free. Zip, zero, zilch, nada. TurboTax charged me exactly zero dollars and zero cents to file my state income taxes through them, whereas H&R Block had the audacity to think they could stick it to me for $30. So, (warning: another cuss word lies ahead) why the fuck would I ever want to file my taxes through H&R Block again? H&R Block, it was great while it lasted, but now you are dead to me. Dead!
Anyway, life goes on, lessons are learned, and it is Thirsty Thursday (and I’m off tomorrow!), so things aren’t all bad, right?
♥k!]]>
Sunny Monday Morningtag:www.blueflower.org,2010://12.32972010-03-01T17:33:33Z2010-03-01T18:10:27ZI got the new work week off to a flying start this morning by doing laundry. I used to absolutely dread Laundry Day, but now I look forward to it because it gets me up and moving in the morning....Krishttp://www.blueflower.org Pretending that the arrival of March also means the arrival of spring — hey, they’re forecasting low-40s by the end of the week, so gimme a break! — I changed out my winter sheets for spring sheets today. Out with the dark colors, in with the brights. Unfortunately, I don’t have a duvet cover that goes with the brightly-colored sheets, so the red comforter looks a little awkward paired with the sheets right now. I thought I had a duvet cover in a black-and-white pattern that would have been perfect, but I didn’t discover until I got it home that it was only a twin size — poo — so I washed it, and one of these days I’m going to bone-up on sewing skills not used in years by turning it into throw pillow covers. (Don’t worry — it was a cheap thrift-store find.)
I also found a solution for my entryway dilemma. I’ve been using an old coffeetable in my entryway forever, but it was too low and wide for what I really wanted, so I’ve been on the lookout for a table or some sort of console to put there for awhile now. I’ve spotted various dressers and credenzas at St. Vinny’s over time that I thought about trying, but that would involve having to haul them six blocks home, and that would have been a major pain in the butt. (You should have seen me struggle to carry the record cabinet home those six blocks, and that was relatively light!) So, anyway, returning home from work late last Friday night (or, rather, it was technically Saturday morning), I remembered seeing some diningroom chairs next to the Dumpster behind the building next door that I wanted to check out. Wandering over there, I noticed on the other side of the Dumpster a large, white desk. Looking it over, I thought it would be great for my bedroom, so I lifted it up as best as I could and carried over to our building. After getting it inside the backdoor, I looked it over better in the light and inspected the drawers to make sure nothing was living in there. Nope, looked mostly clean and good, so I lifted it up again and carried it up to my apartment. It being now nearly 1:30 in the morning, I wasn’t any too interested in messing with it any more that night, so I left it on the rug in the entryway to be dealt with in the morning. (I mean the REAL morning — as in, after I’ve slept.) Seeing it sitting there in the entryway got me thinking: huh, that might be the solution I’ve been looking for for the entryway itself. I cleaned it up Saturday afternoon, inside and out, and then moved the coffeetable out of the way and replaced it with the desk. Perfect! The best part is, I the boot matt fits under the desk as well, so I moved it there instead of the awkward place it occupied previously on the other side of the rug in the entryway, which makes the whole thing look considerably less cluttered. Now that I’ve found the furniture I was looking for (seriously, I’m not planning on moving any time soon — not only am I tired of moving my stuff, but I’ve acquired several new pieces of furniture since moving in here on top of all the stuff I had before), the next task is to scour thrift stores for the perfect mirror and lamp to accompany the desk in the entryway. Oh, and Mom and Dad — now that I know you’re reading this again — I should probably warn you that I might be sending that coffeetable back with you next time you’re in town, because I really don’t have another place to put it now that it’s no longer in use in the entryway.
So, anyway — Monday, Monday, back-to-work day. Rent’s due (it IS the first of the month). Have a good start to your week everyone!
♥k!]]>
The Long and Winding Road Backtag:www.blueflower.org,2010://12.32962010-02-24T18:21:36Z2010-02-24T18:53:34ZAs you have noticed by now, I have been rather casual about posting new entries. Why? Because I’m still not sure where I want to go with this. You see, I’ve known for some time that I definitely wanted another...Krishttp://www.blueflower.org Nearly ten years of experience — yes, I’m including the time not spent blogging as well, since that taught me as much about what to do and not to do here as actually blogging has — has told me to watch what I say, edit myself somewhat, and be conscious of the fact that this isn’t my effing diary. The moment I hit the Publish button, everything I just wrote is out there for all to read. Do I want total strangers to know the intimate details of my life? Do I want my friends to know? How about my family? I know, I know, I’m almost thirty, and so there’s really no reason to lie to or try to hide anything from anyone anymore. Well, the juicy stuff, at least. I mean, frankly, my life isn’t all that interesting apart from the little things I do every day to make it so. And a large part of it all boils down to simply getting back in the habit again. I go through similar high-and-low cycles with my actual diary; there are times when I go weeks without writing a thing, and there are other times when I write seven separate entries or twenty-odd pages in a day. The boom portion of the boom-and-bust cycle of my diary used to be driven largely by periods of indecision, depression, or introspection, but I don’t do as much of that anymore. Sure, I wish I had a job that paid more so I wouldn’t be constantly living paycheck-to-paycheck, but beside that I don’t really have much to complain about these days. I live alone, so I don’t have to deal with roommate drama; my neighbors — almost all thirty- or forty-something single men — are largely quiet and respectful, so I don’t have to deal with morons cranking their bass-heavy music or throwing wild parties (where were these people when I was in college and trying to concentrate on my homework?!); I have so many hobbies that the idea of ever being bored or feeling lonely is pretty much completely out of the question; and I [♥] my apartment, so spending copious amounts of time here while not at work is not only acceptable, but even desirable.
Where was I? Oh, right. So, the point I’m trying to make here is that I will eventually get into the habit of posting new entries here more often and more regularly, but I’m not quite ready for it yet. Once I get the actual redesigned site up and running, I’ll open the new blog posts up to comments as well, but I’m not prepared to do that until I have a design up and running that is to my liking. Thanks for checking in on me, and I’ll be back with you shortly.
♥k!]]>
<![CDATA[I ♥ The Library, But…]]>tag:www.blueflower.org,2010://12.32952010-02-09T23:14:01Z2010-02-09T23:22:37Z…hopefully this will be my last trip here with the exclusive purpose of using the Internet. Doing research, checking out materials, et cetera — these are acceptable excuses for a trip downtown to the Central Library, — but I’m tired...Krishttp://www.blueflower.org
et cetera — these are acceptable excuses for a trip downtown to the Central Library, — but I’m tired of having to waste my days off making trips to the library just to check my E-mail, search for jobs, and the like, so I finally did something about it: I signed up today for Internet at home. It’s not going to happen until next Monday (that was the earliest appointment they offered to have some schmo come flip a switch to turn it on), but I should be all set after that. No more turning down shifts at work because I need a day off to travel to the library to check my E-mail. I feel better about it already.
♥k!]]>
Good to Be Hometag:www.blueflower.org,2010://12.32942010-02-04T17:17:32Z2010-02-04T17:17:32ZDon't get me wrong—I’m hardly excited about returning to work today—but it is always nice to return home; to get back to normal. I slept in my own bed last night. I’m raiding my own fridge. I can lie around...Krishttp://www.blueflower.org ♥k!]]>
Good Morning, Americatag:www.blueflower.org,2010://12.32932010-02-03T15:22:42Z2010-02-03T15:53:53ZI’m back. I have three years worth of my life to tell you about, so grab your coffee and bagel, sit back, and relax. No, but seriously, after three years of recharging my batteries I feel refreshed and ready to...Krishttp://www.blueflower.org
I have three years worth of my life to tell you about, so grab your coffee and bagel, sit back, and relax.
No, but seriously, after three years of recharging my batteries I feel refreshed and ready to write again. I’m a very different person than I was then, and I’m no longer exhausted by the mere thought of writing.
Part of the delay that kept me from writing was my insistence that I redesign the site before blogging again. I’ve been working on that redesign for over four years. It still isn’t done. I threw this little minimalist number together just to get me through until I finish the site, but at the rate that I’m headed that might take another four years.
I still don’t have Internet access at home, which I had insisted was another requirement before I begin blogging again, but, just like the redesign, it could be another four years before that happens … and I’m tired of waiting. So, until I get Internet set up at home, the updates will likely be sporadic and uneven, but they’ll come eventually.
Thank you to everyone who stuck with me through these last three years—the blog is back.