to keep it separate from the complaining post...

Last weekend ashtalet, pensnuggles and I went to see the Japanese Screens exhibit at the Art Institute. It should surprise no one that my favorite screens were those from the 16th century and/or the ones showing women in Heian kimono. I think my favorite was the one showing scenes from The Tale of Genji (basically the world's first novel). There was also a shorter one showing famous poets (male and female) under bits from their poems that had some beautiful kimono in them. They even had a screen showing "Southern Barbarians" - which is hilarious because you get to see what Japanese people thought the Portuguese looked like - truly enormous trousers for one thing! We were talking about some of the images on one screen and another visitor actually asked me if I had been to Japan! (I said "no but it might be nice because there 'd be tall!"). Yet another tribute to my ability to collect and remember otherwise utterly useless information.

In the Ukiyo-e gallery the showcase this month was on images of Murasaki and Komachi (famous Japanese female writers/poets). There were several images of Murasaki in the same pose which I though was interesting because I think it showed differences in the ideal of beauty over time - she was much more "moon-faced" in the earlier paintings. And I'd forgotten what a total bitch Komachi was! She's the court beauty who told a soldier who loved her that she'd sleep with him if he spent 100 nights waiting outside her pavillion. Of course, just before he got to 100 he died of exposure, and she ended up old and ugly and eventually became a nun. This is a terrible fate if your primary purpose in life is, as I said while talking about The Tale of Genji over in the screens exhibit, to sit around being pretty and rich all day.

This weekend should have a visit to the Aquarium (to see the newly redone Oceanarium) and we were pondering the Ginza Festival on the way home but it's sposed to be in the 90s so who knows if I'll wimp out.

It's too pretty to be grumpy, but i am

It's in the low 80s and sunny with a light breeze. I just spent my lunch half-hour sitting in the sun on Wacker along the river.

It's been a grumpy week for me. Work stress is pretty high - we're moving to a smaller suite at the end of the month and I'm juggling contractors and schedules. He's still more focused on where he will hang his posters and I'm more concerned with having working phones and computers and possibly being able to fit all our files. As soon as people get back from their lunch I'll be spending most of the afternoon in the basement storage room, reorganizing things AGAIN! sigh.

In addition to being an emotional blow, not doing MiRF is a financial one too. That's a nice chunk of change that I won't have, and added to my not getting a raise yet things are REALLY tight financially for me. I'm spending more than 50% of my income on housing now, so add bills and there is pretty much nothing to spare. My condo insurance premiums went up by almost 30% this time, so I called and said "something has to give". I understand that things go up, but I need to get those back down so either deductible will have to go up or coverage will have to come down for a while. I whined a bit to my mom on IM today - so while it may not be very festive - at this point grocery store gift cards sound like a really good birthday present.

Speaking of bills, ComEd FINALLY started billing me for the correct electric meter. You know, the thing I've been telling them since last October? Good news is that they are only going back 6 months - bad news is that they just sent me a "current bill" - without any kind of detail as to what was debited/credited to my account for what. I'm pretty sure that in general now the billing is correct (and glad that I put that $200 in there from my tax refund) but I still want everything in writing from them - I think we're in the ballpark but we may be off by something between $8-$13 because I may have been charged the "delivery charge" for both meters one month. So it's nice to have that "other shoe" of some unknown bill hanging over my head, it's irritating that it's SO CLOSE to being fixed but not yet.

I need to do some housecleaning and might rearrange my furniture again to try and get out of this funk. I need to haul some stuff down to my new storage space and Im pondering appropriating some really nice old leather-and-wood recliners that were left behind in the basement. They need some love, and one needs some seat repair, but I could put them side-by-side on either side of the trunk-table and move/store/toss the papasan chair that most of my friends are too old and creaky to enjoy sitting in.

Last night I really wanted to come home and sit quietly in my swingy-chair with a book and some iced tea, but the Peruvian street festival about a block away was playing really loud music. :( Although the llamas and goats in the petting zoo sure were cute when I passed by on my way from the bus. So I ended up on the couch running through another 3 hours of 'True Blood'. Like the books a lot, the show less so. The corny stuff I can excuse in a "vamp chick-lit" book seem to annoy me more on screen. Still, mmmmmm Eric.....

Bread and Bunny

I came home tonight to discover that Pepper had managed to get up into the tall kitchen wastebasket to dig out and then devour half a loaf of stale bread and some used green tea bags.

Actually, I'm never sure how much green tea is devoured and how much is happily removed from its bag and scattered over a wide area. But the bread - yeah, about half of that is gone.

Guess who isn't getting any pellets tonight? Cuz I'm pretty sure she's not lacking in calories today....

In other bun-related news, one of her tiny wild cousins was hanging out under my I-Go car when I got to the lot tonight. I made sufficient fuss that he skipped over to the verge, where I watched him nibble as I got myself organized to drive. I'm pretty sure he's this season's baby because even though he has a bit of that long leggy adolescent look he still had that little white dot on his head. I even watched him streeeeetch up to nibble the hedge and saw his pretty white tummy before I had to head out.