2003-03-10 - 3:14 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", Beatles

Word of the Day: palimpsest

"1. A manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible."

The word is usually used in a metaphorical sense. First time I ever saw this word was in Carl Sagan's novel, Contact. For all its faults, I really loved that book. The transmission they were receiving was called a "palimpsest" because it had multiple layers of meaning all embedded in it.

Another thing that is a palimpsest is an old house. If you live in a 100-year-old house, you've probably got several layers of flooring or wallpaper. There are all kinds of little surprises to find if you dig it up. In the Tenement Museum in Manhattan (very high on my list of places to see there), there were THIRTEEN layers of wallpaper on a single wall.

Much to my surprise, city streets are also a palimpsest. One of my favorite things about Philadelphia is that it feels like the world of two hundred years ago is still lurking here, just around the corner. Or under the asphalt, as the case may be:

This is a pothole on the street my alley branches off of. Brought to you by the Blizzard of 2003. You can see the stones (I think technically these are not cobblestones, but I can't find out what they actually are), as well as the streetcar rail at the bottom part.

Just another berry in my breakfast cereal, if y'know what I mean. :)

The plan for the weekend was to put shelving in the office closet and begin organizing the office. Currently it's just a bunch of papers and manila folders lying around haphazardly. Finding the shelving was a challenge. We could not find what we wanted (cheap plastic stand-alone shelving to hide in the closet). Target was hiding the shelving, or something, because this week's flyer has exactly what we want. We'll probably pick it up tonight.

I have decided that all my future home decorating will be done at Target. That place rocks. Sure, it's cheap, but it looks nice, we have no kids or pets to abuse the stuff, and the cheapness means that when I change my mind about the look I want five years from now, I don't have to feel bad about discarding it and buying new stuff (also at Target, most likely). My plan for a bedroom done in a dark merlot or chocolate stain with ivory bedding is probably much closer to being realized than I thought.

Apparently the shopping trip exhausted me, I came home and took a 3-hour nap. Jeez. Maybe I'm fighting something off. I had the same problem this morning, where for the first time in five months I couldn't get up to take Poindexter to work. He tried to ask me if he should take the train, and then said decisively, "I'm taking the train." I slept 'til 9:30 and still feel like crap. To bed at 10pm tonight, then.

On Sunday, Mom & I went to the flower show while Poindexter and my dad stayed in and "bonded and got in touch with their feelings", as they said.

In other words, they watched "Blade II" on the big screen. Lots of blood and flying body parts, as I understand it. Poindexter must have really been missing his violent films because he was in unusually fine spirits when they picked us up from the flower show.

The flower show was just unbelievable. Overwhelming. Here is me in front of one of the exhibits, which is basically a small park, inside the Convention Center:

They forced all the flowers (and trees -- TREES!) to bloom in time for the show. It was gorgeous. It was really a taste of spring after this horrible too-long winter.

At 2:30 when we arrived, the place was mobbed. You could only see parts of the exhibits at a time, squeezing between people to get a view, which was okay because it allowed you to focus on different plants. By 5:30, it was nearly completely emptied out and you could see each exhibit in its entirety, which was another experience altogether.

My mother has tremendous stamina for flower shows and shopping. I did not inherit this. Two hours into it, my legs were killing me and I was sleepy and I had to sit down. She wandered around by herself for about a half hour while I sat on a chair, put my shades on, leaned my head back against the wall, and passed out. I awoke feeling quite refreshed and we walked around for another hour fifteen or so, until the show closed.

My mom was telling me some of the stuff she overheard people saying. That was cool. There were some figures made from ivy from a topiary, and she overheard someone call them "Chia People". I never noticed before how overhearing other people's comments in a place like this can enhance the experience. I'll have to get people to do it for me more often.

The other day, I was thinking about something involving my MIL -- perhaps our upcoming visit to Florida. And I realized that somewhere in the last five years or so, she has stopped being "Poindexter's mom" and is now "My other mom". Same thing for Papa. As in, someone who belongs to ME, regardless of how Poindexter figures into it. This is a lovely, wonderful thing, and I am happy. Poindexter mentioned on YM that he was on the phone with her, so I told him to tell her, and apparently she feels the same way about me. *warm fuzzies* It's not surprising, since she's been referring to me as though I am an extra child of hers for quite a while, but it's still nice to hear it anyway.

(This is from Friday's LJ. You LJers have already read it. I just wanted to make sure I had it in my journal archive on hard disk here at home.)

Wanna know what we're spending our anniversary doing?

We did go out to dinner, and it was just lovely. We chatted and chatted and chatted, some nostalgia, some current, some looking toward the future.

Now, I'm catching up on some work that I didn't do this week because I was too busy LJing. DO NOT ask me why I get productive at 9pm on a Friday night; I DON'T KNOW. Occasionally I take a break to chat with Poindexter, or go over and kiss him and get slobbered on myself.

He's playing mp3s -- first Elton John, and now he's diversifying. The Cars.

Poindexter, meanwhile, kick-started my own industriousness in the first place by deciding he wanted to work in CAD on a model of our kitchen, so that we can talk about how to remodel it (and decide which comes first, that or the roof deck).

HE IS SOOOOOOOOO SEXY WHEN HE'S DOING ENGINEERING STUFF. WOOOOOOO! I'm a lucky gal. :)

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