not extreme but adequate makeover

Remember last year when I first moved back to MA and went to Ikea? And I wrote blog letters to Ikea? Yeah, that's back:

Dear Ikea,

Sorry I haven't written in so long. I've visited you three times without writing to say thanks for the bargains. Now it is time to catch up.

First, I shall start with my most recent trip. Later on, in another entry, I'll address the other two visits.

Well, you were a nice place to take Mom for mother's day. We enjoyed ourselves. We love bargain shopping. Though, I don't know how many times we mentioned how dangerous you are, what with such good deals. Still, Mom got the Mikael in beech effect white. A giant, sleek new desk for only 150, including a storage unit and a glass top. Now, to put it together. There's always the rub with you.

And, as mentioned in the previous blog, I got the Vika table top with the red Curry legs. Thirty buck for a table. Can't beat that, can you?

Then those orange drapes. O, I had no intention whatsoever of redoing my tiny bedroom, especially since I don't want to be in it. But, alas, your prices were too enticing. Rather than describe what spending $46 can do to a tiny bedroom, I shall show you. A 1000 words, as they say.See? Isn't that nice? And I have you to thank for it, Ikea. Orange, purple, pink and red. How fun!

More later...

Love,
Birget (Swedish version of name)

LOF the sequel (w/ a new ending as of 5/12)

Sometimes at the end of the night on Fridays, I look around the store and turn to my fellow co-workers and say, "Dang. What is wrong with people? Look at this. It is evidence that we are one natural disaster away from some serious Lord of the Flies."

And we survey mashed chicken nuggets on the floor, empty soda bottles tucked into clothing racks, mountains of shirts on the floor, jeans rolled up into balls and stuffed where ever, gigantic piles indicating someone changed her mind and left ten pieces of women's clothing all over a table in the boys' department.

Oh the inhumanity of mall shoppers during the weekend.

A blonde-from-a-box woman shouting on her cell phone, driving a gigantic SUV, and entering the mall almost hit me today. Honestly, could she BE any more stereotypically despicably American?

Maybe she follows Joel Osteen's preachings. Apparently, Jesus wants you to be rich. And if you're poor, does that mean Jesus doesn't love you?

I'm watching Anderson Cooper's 360 series "What is a Christian?" while I write this, which is where that comment came from. Apparently, God doesn't believe the Palenstinians should live in Gaza. Also, according to Pat Robertson, PM Ariel Sharon fell so ill because he gave up some of the holy land to the Palestinians.

What would Jesus do? Definitely exacerbate volatile conditions and support the path to war. I mean, isn't that what he meant when he said, "Love thy neighbor..."?

I also heard Christopher Hitchens on "On Point" today. The jury (consisting of me) is still out on that one. I'm going to have to read the book. Though I do agree on one point he made, which is that it is DISGUSTING what horrible things people will justify in the name of religion.

(this section added later--5/12/07...I literally fell asleep while writing this entry last night)

But you could hear Tom Ashbrook's flabberghastation (I made that word up and intend to use it often) when a preacher from the South called up to tell a story about God's existence. It went as follows: The preacher called to testify about the power of God because a decade ago, his young daughter was on her death bed and they said nothing could be done. The preacher prayed to God and she was saved.

Hitchens said that the man's story was crap. It was the worst form of charlatanism and blatantly false. He was angry at the guy. He asked about the millions of other grieving parents who have prayed but their children died anyway. Were their prayers not good enough for God? Were their children not good enough for God? These stories, he said, were the worst kinds because they imply that anyone who isn't saved after praying is worse than the people whose "prayers" are "answered" by this "God."

Anyway, it isn't everyone who can talk about a major retail mall store, conservative Christianity and antitheism in a blog and tie it all together, so I hope y'all appreciate this.

Going to the Holy Land

That's right folks. Saturday, we got tickets for the Baltimore game. $7 Sammy's here we come. It will be me and Mom and Dad and a Guest To Be Named Later (getit? ha ha) at Fenway pAHk.

It's been a whole nine months since I've been there. Can you imagine going that long? What is wrong with me?

Well, it's because you have to know someone to get tickets or be willing to pay an arm anda leg.

So, it's good to know people. Look for me along the third baseline.

Off to Old Slavery. More later...

Ekphrastic

Loosely, the literary representation of a work of art.

But it isn't necessarily a description of a work of art. It could be something inspired by the art. Or a response to the art. Or something that evokes the art in a literary way.

And I'm attempting it.

I've taken photos of different places. Sometime it's a photo of a landmark. Sometimes just a random thing. And I'm going to write ekphrastics to go along with them.

So, here goes:

Photo title: This Is a Place

This is a place to sit for an hour or more when the weather is
Finally good
Finally

When you sit here, you can write a long poem here
About how you wish you weren't here

You wish you were at a place where outside
Wasn't covered in concrete

You can describe the people and the setting and the things in your head
And apologize to Robert Lowell for stealing the setting
Of a poem from him

After you're done writing
You can walk up the hill,
Past the disabled homeless,
And stand back to back with tourists
As they take a picture of the Capitol Building

Then walk down the hill and
Under the ground
And go home

Eatin' Healthy & The Adams

(see my blog entry on Abigail Adams here)

Waddup Quincy and Weymouth: home of the Adams!

Eatin' Healthy-That's the name of the little cafe I'm sitting right now. It's in Quincy Cennah (Quincy Center for those without thick Quicy-style Boston accents). I'm listening to a woman chattering rather loudly into her cell phone. She is speaking Haitian Creole. This makes me sad that I forgot my headphones to listen to my iTunes and also that my mp3 player has not yet arrived in the mail.

(Side note: I need to learn Haitian because I want to know if the kids at school are talking about me behind my back or other inappropriate things after school. I know French en peu so I get about 5.25% of what they say...)

This place is pretty good. Free wifi (hence the blog), close to work, a little more expensive than a regular casual dining place but that's what happens when there's vegetarian, healthy food available. What's funny is that if this same place were in Maine (well, there are a thousand places like this in Maine), the guy behind the counter wouldn't be a tuff Quincy kid with a wicked thick accent and backwards Red Sox cap, but some dread-locked, nose pierced ditzy dude.

What is similar is that it's close to a park. Only this National Park is in a business building in the middle of the city and serves people who love David McCullough books. (PS This link is to the Thomas Crane Library, which is down the street from the park.)

This is what I see right now:

And now it's pulled away. It's the trolley to take you to the Adams birthplaces, which is right down the street from the first house I lived in, soon to be a museum, I'm sure. As soon as one of you readers writes my Wikipedia entry, as requested on several occasions now.

Anyway, then the trolley takes you to the Adams Mansion.

Guess the name of the street where the Adams' mansion is located. Guess!

That's right: Adams Street.

You are a genius. You should be a city planner.

Anyway, the trolley doesn't take you to Weymouth, but that's where Abigail Adam's birthplace is. I should know. It's drilled into our brain every year of school while going through the Weymouth Public School system. I've been on a field trip to the Abigail Adams birthplace. In 8th grade I sang a sonata about Abigail Adams. If I were in middle school right now, I would have gone to Abigail Adams Middle School. As a camp counselor, I subjected further Weymouth youth to the Cult of Abigail by making them be quiet when the fake Abigail came to our rec program perform a biographical play about her. Abigail Abigail Abigail.

Still, she is by far the best woman in American history to be both first lady and first mother. The other one, I hear, is a real bi-atch.

Off to finally complete my assignment for good ol' grad school.