White Teeth

Last Thursday, 11-11-10, I went to a hear a talk by Zadie Smith at Rice. She wrote my favorite novel, "White Teeth." She wrote the book while she was still an undergrad at Cambridge. It's funny, poignant, etc. etc.

I felt kind of sorry for her at the talk. She had to read from her notes the whole time. After the talk, she took off her mic and said "talk among yourselves." She said she would be available for individual questions. This led me to think that she really doesn't like public speaking. Her talk was interesting and funny. However, she never made any remarks off the cuff so it felt a bit impersonal.

It was a good experience and one that I would have missed if I wasn't working at Rice University. A friend of mine on campus just got laid off. I sure hope that I miss the next round of layoffs.

My book owl is on about.com

My ruffled t-shirt

I followed (mostly) the directions at Brassy Apple's blog to make this t-shirt. I used 2 very lightweight and drapey 100% cotton t-shirts that I bought at Burke's Outlet for $5 each to construct this shirt.

For the instructions that I followed. Copy and paste this address in your browser window: http://brassyapple.blogspot.com/2010/04/ruffle-me-uptshirt-refashion-spring-top.html

It's a book! No, it's an OWL!

I think this Book Owl is very appropriate for my desk at Rice University - owls are the mascots.

I made it using a largish paperback, folding each page in half. Then I put heavy books on top of it and let it compress overnight. The covers had to be taped together so it would stay round. I had to play around with the pages, too so it would stay roundish. Then I just added the ears and wings, taping them between pages of the book. I curved the large colored paper eyes and taped them to the front.

Isn't he cute?

It's October!

I love October. The weather has finally cooled down - it doesn't get over 90.

The best thing is wearing Halloween stuff. Today I'm wearing my "Yarrrrn" sweatshirt jacket.

I also love wearing orange. I dug out all my orange halloweeny clothes. I'm going to wear one everyday in October.

The huge owl at the state fair

2010 State Fair of Texas

Jim and I went to Dallas for the State Fair this past weekend. The traffic to the fair was very heavy. We ended up getting there around 11 AM. The handicap parking was as far away from the fair's center as possible. (Why do they do that?)
Luckily, I had my scooter with me.

We went to so many attractions - the crafts building, food and fiber building, food stuff building, pig races, women's museum, gardens, Big Tex. Of course, we had to try the special cuisine of the fair - fried beer and fried butter. The fried beer was just horrible. We didn't get to see how they made it. It came in little ravioli sized pieces with liquid beer in the center, served with cheese sauce. It tasted like old yeast. I had to grab a diet coke to get rid of the taste.
The fried butter was messy but tasty. If you popped the whole piece in your mouth, the butter didn't squirt out all over your clothes.

We ended up staying for the light show at night. I wish we could have walked around the midway. It was just too crowded to take the scooter.

The highlight of our fair experience was coming on to the bird show just as it was ending. We were able to get our portrait made with a huge owl.