gray day, bright moments

dan and i did manage to pull off a date last night. we discovered a persian restaurant off of seminole trail, near rio road, called zam zam. there wasn't a huge selection of food there, but we had some nice kebabs while watching sad events on aljazeera tv.

afterwards we went to the full moon ball at fry's spring beach club. what a great place to see bands! i liked sarah white and ted pitney in particular. by the time jim waive and the young divorcees came on i was so tired we had to go after a few songs. but i was really impressed by his high energy band and in particular, the few originals i heard. and for a big hairy guy in a cowboy hat, he pulled off a pretty sensitive and stunning cover of patsy cline's crazy.

now it is a saturday, and the sky is full of leaves and rain and mist. i am supposed to do a photo shoot of a building an architect friend designed, but i am concerned about the dreary conditions. this photo shoot is a first for me. i also had a photo included in an online guide to amsterdam. they found it on flickr and asked if it could be included. i think it is the funny guy in orange that makes the photo. i seem to be having some good photo karma lately and am enjoying it.

to bring some color to this gray day, i'll add a few things i found in a bag of random papers i dumped out this morning. this was probably stuff piled on our coffee table that i gathered up before our move.

first there are some collages tashi and i did at a recent family art jam at the uva art museum. the collages were based on the el lissitzky exhibition.

first tashi's:


then mine:


in the bag of papers i also found this piece that tashi created sometime while i was running around busily packing up our former house. it is a flip book of sorts, so you can change the characters' clothing. love it! she is such a resourceful kid and continually astounds me.

exhale

today i feel like the unpacking turned a bend. i finally feel like i can sit in our living room area and just relax. it is amazing what getting some books up on the shelves will do for a room. that combined with moving the rocking chair so it is near the wood burning stove and kicking all boxes out of view.



also, i scored a marvelous retro lamp in mint condition from the spca thrift store. i don't think the lampshade is quite right for it, but it will do for now. it is "handcrafted" drip ceramic and wood. it still has a tag hanging from it. i can't quite identify it's decade. 50's? 60's? 70's? its tag says retro to me.







my sewing room is the next big mess i've got to tackle. the sewing room is actually the "mud room" i think. there is a door to the garage in it, and there is a big closet in which a utility sink, the washer and the dryer reside. there is also this huge awful mirror in there. what were they thinking, people? we can't really take it down, and even though i thought about installing a curtain over it, i also need to have some shelves there. a curtain with shelves in front of it might look a little, well, weird. weirder than this big ass mirror? not sure. any creative ideas on how to transform a mirror?



but now, i must get out of my frumpy sweat pants and t-shirt. tashi has an overnight with a friend, and dan and i are going on a date. i hope i can stay awake. . .

16 weeks

16 weeks pregnant
Originally uploaded by zoe krylova

yea, that's all. even though i look more like 24 weeks.

i wasn't a skinny little thing to begin with, but i also grow 'em big. tashi was 9.5 pounds.

my mom wanted to see a photo of me. this one, taken last night by tashi, is making its way around the internets.

notice that the book shelves are slowly filling?

that is tara behind me in a tibetan thanka. she was a gift from dan for one of my birthdays. most thankas are very colorful, so this one is unique and quite special.

today is very dark and rainy, but the bright spot is that soon i will be meeting some friends at sakura for lunch of japanese noodle soup. nyum!

the forecast is cozy

we had a fairly balanced weekend of relaxation and unpacking. with dan home to haul boxes and push around furniture, the office and craft room started to take shape. there are more books on shelves, toys & games & musical instruments in appropriate corners, detritus in closets & cabinets.

we've been igniting a fire in the wood burning stove every evening, which is such a pleasure after years of staring at a nonfunctional fireplace.

the cats are somewhat terrified of the out of doors, which is a huge change in character, especially for loki. at the blue house he was usually at the front door first thing in the morning, trying to turn the door knob with his own paw. now he tentatively creeps toward the open door, suspiciously sniffing at the woodland air, and choosing instead, the couch. we learned that the neighbors on both sides of us feed stray cats. this morning four scrappy looking felines pranced across the edge of our yard in a proud parade. luna and loki are playing it safe and i am relieved, though i can't help but think our orange guy is a bit depressed.

we did meet a very friendly neighbor this weekend. well first, we met her dog. suffering from a degenerative spinal condition, he appeared in our yard, dragging his hind legs through the leaves. we soon learned he belonged to the woman across the street. she came over to say hello, and give us the run down on the various characters that live in this neck of the woods: a parapsychologist couple, some professors, a shopkeeper, a few good old boys, a blacksmith sculptor, and a multimillionaire with an indoor swimming pool. we would be the token hippies. apparently the original owner of this house was a master gardener, which confirmed my suspicion that this yard was once akin to a well landscaped arboretum.

a few words for friday

so despite the good ultrasound, i'm supposed to be on "pelvic rest." i guess i can forget about belly dancing for a while. amongst other things. so i spent most of my today sitting on the couch, gazing out at the gorgeous day, feeling intermittently peaceful and worried.



at one point i could no longer stand looking at the built in bookshelves that have no books on them. so i did manage to empty a couple of boxes, and satisfy my desire to actually have books on the bookshelves. well, on the first shelf anyway.



luna finally braved the great out of doors.



and the trees showed off a lot.





my big journey was down the leafy driveway to the mailbox.



luna followed me to the road, which i wasn't all that happy about. but it's a very quiet road.



tashi and i refer to this light in our driveway as the narnia lamp post.



and here is our aslan.



may you have a fantastical weekend. . .

boxed in

the above is a moving box, quite literally. tashi decided to inhabit it and bump around the house in it while making weird noises.

i'm having a pretty hard time dealing with unpacking. in our last house i think i had the place set up in a week. but right now i feel like i've reverted to the first trimester, and just want to sleep and drink water.

if there was a time a could wiggle my nose and make everything fall into place, it would be now. we have all these shelves and cabinets that could be full, but instead, the boxes remain full. i was hoping to have my craft room set up right away, so that i could start working on some handmade holiday gifts. but that is looking less and less likely. i feel so helpless, not able to lift boxes or move furniture.

i have been very crampy lately, which renders me useless. i had an ultrasound today and everything looked fine, so the cramps are probably just my increasingly heavy uterus declaring its presence. the ultrasound was awesome. there is a baby in there, moving its arms and feet around, its little heart like flower. with all my nervousness around this pregnancy, technology serves me well at times like this. it is so wonderful to have the image of that precious little human in mind.

hopefully with dan's help we will make some progress unpacking boxes this weekend. i really want to get books up on the shelves so the house isn't so echo-y. tashi's room is also cardboard fortress and she keeps asking me if i know where this or that is. the only answer is, "three feet deep somewhere."

what were you doing when barack obama was elected president of the united states?

we started our night out at beer run, where the results were beginning to roll in on the big screen and both dan and i were searching for even more info on our laptops.



molly was there and john and lots of john's family and many locals come to join in on a festive election party.



around 8 i started to need my couch so we headed home. a few minutes after we arrived home the power went down. whaaaat? on election night? you've got to be kidding. dan called the power company and the woman on the phone laughed as she told him our whole part of the county went down. we lit candles and groaned a lot and turned my little battery powered shortwave to npr and stoked up the wood burning stove.

it was hard to remain awake in the candle light with the quiet drone of npr. around 11pm i was certain there would be some sort of controversy, mccain would order recounts, the republicans would try their best to somehow steal the election, we wouldn't know the verdict for days. i told tashi she might as well go to bed, because we probably wouldn't know the result until tomorrow anyway.

as i was singing to tashi the power came back. i schlepped downstairs and turned the tv on. there was mccain, about to concede. i screamed and yelled and dan and tashi ran downstairs to learn the wonderful truth. thank goodness the power came on just in time for us to witness this incredibly powerful historical moment.



yes we did!

rock the vote

i just learned about a three hour show of songs about obama!

i'm on the fourth song and not disappointed yet.

click here and do a groovy hope dance all afternoon.

the season of change

is upon us.

vote!

may today lead to one of the greatest victories in american history.

hanging in there

well, hello!

where do i begin?

we moved. i unpacked the kitchen. dan's parents visited. pumpkins happened. halloween happened. halloween happened again. i made lots of soup. i took some naps. i gazed at leaves. our internet connection happened. and then it disappeared. we cleaned out the blue house. our internet connection happened again. and tomorrow.

an election happens.

hopefully to be followed by happiness.

it's really hard to focus on much else. so here are some photos, for the time being.


nanna & grandpa visited


i made lots of soup.


we carved pumpkins


tashi dressed up as a pirate



an extremely cute pirate


we took part in the halloween extravaganza on uva's lawn, winding down here


loki finally got to go outside


let's hope that tomorrow a new chapter opens, along with many hearts and minds

rest in peace, lonia efthyvoulou

i found out today that my uncle lonia has passed. he has been fighting lung cancer for about a year.



lonia was the oldest of my mother's brothers, one of three uncles that reside in cyprus.



he has been a hard worker all his life, one of his biggest passions being painting. he could really capture the magic of cypriot architecture, the warmth of its woodlands and the mystery of its coastlines.









i feel for his wife, hara, who cared for him selflessly to the end. thank you hara, for your commitment and kindness. lonia passed surrounded by true love.



lonia had strong opinions and a great sense of humor. he liked to converse with a stiff drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. he was generous with his artwork, passing on many pieces to family members. he will live on in these paintings. when i think of lonia i see him giving a knowing nod, his piercing eyes alight with life, a slow thoughtful smile creeping across his face.

yassou lonia, may you meet peace in the great beyond.

moving chronicles: days 3 & 4

another quick moment online.

thanks to everyone for all the good wishes and positive moving vibes. all is well.

we have been dealing with hassles re: phone and dsl connectivity at our house. but supposedly by thursday all will be in working order.

i am slowly -- very slowly -- unpacking. the kitchen is pretty much set up.

there have been some annoying things. like a burglar alarm that goes off at random that we can't seem to turn off completely when we are home. a high pitched sound that comes through the heating system and makes me sit bolt upright in the middle of the night. and the smell of dead animal coming through one of the heating ducts. but hopefully, all these things will soon be resolved.

and the jacuzzi, it does not work. in fact, it looks like it has been disabled. such a disappointment!

but we are still totally thrilled with our new digs.

our first day luna the cat snuck into the crawl space next to tashi's bedroom and disappeared amongst the eaves. we were worried about her all day and well into the night. she finally came out late and curled up with tashi in bed. now we have to strictly guard that crawl space, a place where tashi was setting up a sort of "clubhouse".

we fired up the wood burning stove last night. ah bliss. we haven't had to turn on the heating system since then, though we sure are going to have to find ourselves loads of firewood if we plan to make this a main source of heat.

in the mean time, it is wonderful to gaze at while resting between boxes.

moving chronicles: on hold

we don't have internet access yet at our new place, and right now i'm in the whole foods parking lot picking up some wireless. i don't have much time though, so i will have to update you all on our new house adventures in another post. in the mean time, things are coming along, though i'm really tired and haven't lost the headache yet! here are a few photos from our new home as things and people and pets seek and sometimes find their places.

moving chronicles: day 2

i have a small window of opportunity here to make a post.

it has been a tough day. and it is not yet over.

it has been pouring down rain all day. about 30 minutes ago, around 4:30, the sky cleared and the sun shone.

dan picked up the uhaul in the pouring rain and with some very kind help from friends, loaded the truck up in the pouring rain.

another friend came with her van and loaded that up with boxes in the pouring rain.

i in the mean time scrambled around the house stuffing boxes with everything that remained, and cleaning up the scary dust bunnies and bug carcasses that were found behind shelves that hadn't been moved for three years. the pouring rain came inside on everyone's shoes, along with lots of autumn leaves.

things still remain, and quite a few things at that. but really, we are probably 95% there. even though i wasn't doing any of the lifting, i hit a wall in the early afternoon and curled up on the lambswool and started to weep. i couldn't bring myself to fill another box, or sweep another corner of dust bunnies, or use my brain which was struggling to remain sane within my aching head.

dan and tashi (who was happily sitting in the front seat of the uhaul) drove off to the new house to unload, along with two friends in their respective packed vehicles. i stayed behind to chill on the only soft surface in the house, a thermarest. i dozed off for a small while. loki came out of hiding from the closet and curled up next to me. i'm glad i stayed behind so that he at least could have some reassurance that we were not abandoning him.

dan will return in a bit with the uhaul. we will return it to the uhaul farm. we will load up two cars with boxes and food and cats that remain and drive up to our new home to start living there. we will be back down to the blue house over the coarse of the week to pick up the last few lingering items, because we have a week overlap between the two places, both a luxury and curse.

we are almost there.