It is a lovely sunny Sunday! Bryan and his friend took me to Luck Peak and did some water sports. Many people came over and enjoy the weekend. Spending a couple hours on the beach was so relaxing and playing the water-motorcycle was fun.

After that, we cooked some steak for dinner and I also text the girl in Pie Hole.  And...She replied me! and told me to text her again tomorrow to see what time we can meet.Thanks for this two guys' tip, which was: K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simply, Stupid...

The messages were like:

S: Hi Carli, This is Sherman from Hong Kong. I am checking out the Boise State and looking for someone to show me around while my friends are working. Will you have time to meet for coffee or something?
C: Sure, I don't know what you wanna do.
S: How about floating the rive or do you have any idea?
C: Haha. I just floated the rive today, it was very cold.
S: How about lunch or coffee?
C: Can you text me tomorrow? Maybe we can have luch together than hang out for a bit.
S: Sure!
C-Carli ; S-Sherman

So.. all I could do is...waiting for tomorrow and see what will happen...

as a result of the budget reductions, statewide subscriptions supported by the Secretary of State's Office for the following electronic resources must be cancelled, effective immediately: Periodical Abstracts, Wilson Select Plus

Today we got an email from the consortium to let us know that as of noon today, the plug would be pulled.  Users, thanks to CARLI, didn't get a dead link, but the following page:

Which, I have to say, gives some mixed messages:  "You don't have access!  Welcome to the OCLC FirstSearch Service!"  And besides, we already know that students don't read instructions or directions in databases-- they look for a search box and start typing.  In this case, if you miss the red warning and try and search you get this bit of loveliness across your screen:

A student came to the reference desk today around 1pm and was so thoroughly confused by the case of the disappearing database she was in a bit of a state.  She had printed out some articles just yesterday and now couldn't get back into Wilson Select to get more information.  Luckily she didn't actually need to get back into the database, but what about students who didn't think to print their articles, or didn't get their bibliographic info, or didn't send the whole article to themselves via email?

And how do we explain it to students?  "I know you just used this database yesterday, but see, with state budget cuts and all..."  Students probably hear "blah blah blah the library is completely unreliable blah blah and just wait til you try to find the book that says its on the shelf but isn't!  We're just messing with you here at the library!"

Anyway, the consortium is working to get all its members a new subscription package for these databases, so with luck this database yoink will only inconvenience us and our patrons for a short while.

In her better days, Sadie enjoyed hiking, playing, romping, chomping, and running around the walls of rooms, somehow suspended in the air in a gravity-defying spin with her unbelievable energy. 

Sadie lived a full dog-life, traveled often, and made many friends.  Sadie was even Maid of Honor in Carli's wedding (I was matron of honor due to my already married status...if I had been single I'm not sure who would have won the title of maid) and she did a fantastic job I might add. 

In recent months Sadie's rear legs deteriorated and Carli made the tough but humane decision to let her friend go to the meadows that never turn brown, to where the streams and ponds are always full of fresh water, to where an adventure always lies just over the next hill. 

I'm sorry you had to let your friend go, Carli.  My heart breaks for you. 

we loved the photo and kind words :) 

(as a disclaimer, we don't normally stand next to each other when we shoot, it just happened to be the time when Annie and Jake first saw each other that day and there is only so far you can go on a bridge :P  )

We also received an email from a fellow photographer friend Mike Brice who we ran into while shooting at the museum on Saturday, he sent us this.....

Because we are always behind the camera we don't have many photos of ourselves, so we appreciate it, even if joe's face is covered :)  lol

A few more kind words we like to share and let you know we truly appreciate them, we love what we do and put our heart and soul into this so we always love to know it is appreciated. 

"we want to thank you and Joe, the pictures were absolutely wonderful, more than we ever expected. I showed a few people the slideshow, and they were just amazed at how the pictures captured the moments and people at the wedding were so impressed at how friendly and fun you guys were! The magic of the whole day can be re-lived through your great pictures. 

Lisa"

"Carli!

Holy Goodness!! We love every single picture! You and Joe did an amazing job! 

-Robin"

"

Carli,
 
I just wanted to thank you again for doing such an awesome job on the pictures of my girls!  You are always so easy to work with, and I really appreciate the time and attention to detail that you obviously put into the work that you do.  The fact that you come to us and photograph the kids in their own familiar environment makes it so much less stressful for me as a mom than to pack them (and all of their things!) up and take them to a strange studio. You capture real moments, of them just being themselves!  Those are the types of memories that I will want to look back upon in the future.  Thanks again and I know we will see you again soon, after all the kids are changing everyday and will need more beautiful photos to help and capture those fleeting moments!
 
Sincerely,
Amy (Bacon) Adams"

P.S.  we have some very big news that we will be sharing very soon, so stay tuned!

La pesante situazione debitoria dell'Azienda Sanitaria Provinciale di Reggio Calabria, circa mille miliardi del vecchio conio, getta sulla sedia a rotelle una struttura che già da anni zoppicava vistosamente a causa del malaffare dei tanti, troppi, manigoldi che vi hanno operato nel tempo. Con servizi lontani dalla decenza e con la chiusura dell'Hospice "Via delle Stelle" sempre più probabile, con le farmacie chiuse per protesta, la situazione diventa, giorno dopo giorno, ancora più tragica.

E tutto mentre da Catanzaro non arriva alcun cenno di interesse per porre rimedio, soprattutto economicamente, alla situazione creata anche, ma non solo, da gente nominata da Loiero e compagni.

Il commissario dottor generale prefetto monsignor (ops) Massimo Cetola, nominato invece dal Consiglio dei Ministri, per ora non sembra in grado di trovare una soluzione ai disastri combinati dai suoi predecessori anche perchè, nel giro di pochi mesi, è stato lasciato solo: degli altri due commissari, Carli e Ranucci, che avrebbero dovuto comporre il triumvirato inviato dal Governo dopo lo scioglimento, per mafia, dell'Asp, non v'è traccia.

A Reggio nessuno ha avuto l'onore di conoscere il volto di Claudio Ranucci, inviato dal Ministero della Salute. Salvatore Carli, invece, aveva scambiato il ruolo riservatogli dal Governo per una villeggiatura in riva allo Stretto dato che sperava di poter riscuotere il proprio, corposo, stipendio limitando la propria presenza in città a due/tre giorni settimanali. Inevitabile la frattura con il generale Cetola e tanti saluti anche a Carli che abbandona l'incarico "per motivi familiari".

Massimo Cetola, è, come Fausto Coppi, "un uomo solo al comando". Al comando di cosa, non si sa, però.

Intanto il 25 giugno l'Azienda Sanitaria Provinciale di Reggio Calabria organizza un programma di screening gratuito, rivolto a tutte le donne dai 50 ai 69 anni, per la prevenzione dei tumori della mammella.

Dove verranno reperiti i soldi francamente non lo so.

I'm going to blame my own approaching senility when asked why I didn't get her a gift, or even a card in the mail on time.  Sure, we're still settling in from moving, we have a 4 month old teething ball of spit in a crib, and I started a new job recently...but still, those are no excuses!  I did call her, and I sent her a bunch of text messages...but before this becomes a post about me let me remind you! that this post is about Carli, who is 30 today.

Carli and I have shared a lot of things over the years.  We've known each other most of our lives.  We got chicken pox on the same day.  We shared tears over dead pets and accidents involving banana seats.  One day, we nearly got eaten alive by a German Shepherd.  I gave my first motivational speech on her behalf in the third grade (it was a massive failure, I might add).  We made up our own language, spied on the neighbors (all Communists and Nazis), and melted huge piles of crayons in the middle of the street.  We rode our bikes through town, blatantly disobeying stop signs and our parents.  We warred with the neighborhood boys, always victorious.  I have more stories about Carli than I could ever write down in this single post, so I will just hit on some of the highlights.

Meeting Carli

The first time I saw her, really saw her, was the first day of the first grade.  I was playing in the front yard, jumping down onto the sidewalk, when I heard someone call "Hi Maleesha."  I looked down the street and there was the little brown-haired girl whose desk was next to mine in Ms. Dienstman's class.  She was waving from two houses down.  For some reason, I remember she was wearing an orange lifejacket, but this could be a nostalgic mind-prop added for color.

The next memory takes place soon after.  For all I know it could have been the same day.  Carli came down the street and invited me to sleep over at her house.  I'd never been to a sleepover before.  "You can come to the circus with us too," she said.  I about died of excitement.  I'd never been to the circus.  I went inside and begged my mom to let me go.  My aunt from Wisconsin was there too, and she was very eager to help me roll my Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bag and find my toothbrush.  Carli and I jumped up and down all the way to her house.  The circus!  A sleepover!  The impending fun to be had! 

Carli's mom greeted us at the front door, looked me up and down, looked at my sleeping bag, and said "What the hell is this?"  As luck would have it, little Carli didn't actually ask permission for a sleepover, nor did they have an extra ticket to the circus.  I wailed all the way back home, I wailed like the dying I tell you.  The devastation...my only friend, and now no circus.  No sleepover!  The Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bag was now in the corner of my room, crumpled and lonely.  Through tears, I watched Carli's mom drive their black Toyota down the street, headed for three rings and elephants.  

It's been a love/hate relationship ever since. 

Jealousy

The town of our youth is solidly Irish Catholic, with a few oddballs scattered here and there.  Carli, being of Serbian descent, was one of those oddballs.  As was I, with my Russian roots and Russian sounding name...well neither of us fit in with the O'Sullivans and the Sullivans and the McSullivans.  But we had each other and sometimes that's all you can ask for.  Since we couldn't compete with the rest of town in the "Who's Got The Most Relatives In Town" or the "Whose Parents Work for the Power Company" contests, we would often act like competitive little jerkettes to each other. 

"I know what a boy's thingy is really called," she told me one day.

"So do I," I told her.  "It's a pee-pee."

"No it isn't," she said.

"What is it then?  Tell me!  Tell me!" I begged. 

"Nope," she said smugly.  "I asked my mom, and you'll have to ask your mom if you want to know." 

So in retaliation, I made her walk behind me on the way to school for the rest of the year. 

When we were eight, we both lost a tooth within a few days of each other.  I dutifully placed said tooth under my pillow, and woke up the next morning to...a tooth.  "Try again," my mom suggested.  "I'm sure the tooth fairy just forgot.  So I placed the tooth there again, and slept with my head to one side to ensure that the tooth fairy had adequate access.  The next morning, the tooth was still there.  "Put a magnifying glass over it," my mom said.  "The tooth fairy probably can't see it."  So I did.  The next morning I flipped the pillow to find a shiny quarter.  Carli lost her tooth, and the tooth fairy arrived promptly the next morning and left her seven dollars and a fancy hot-pink combination lock shaped like a heart.  Even her teeth were worth more. 

I responded by taking a bingo ink stamp and stamping out all the future days on her new Fraggle Rock calendar  (It might not have been Fraggle Rock.  It could have been Care Bears).  I also gave her a rather silly nickname that stuck for several years.

The Bad Perm

I wasn't allowed to get perms.  I wanted one though, really, really bad.  I wanted a perm and pierced ears and a jean jacket more than anything in the world, so I could look like this girl in my class named "Penny." 

Carli was allowed to get perms though, and one day she got one.  A bad one.  So bad, in fact, that she was going to run away from home. Think "electrocuted poodle."  I'm pretty sure I laughed about it a lot (I wasn't raised to be sympathetic).  Someone must have made me apologize because we have a picture of us together that day looking reasonably happy.  Sorry about that, Carli.

By the way, now that I look back, "Penny" looked like an eight year old two-bit hooker. 

Bob-A-Louie's

I skipped classes in high school quite regularly.  By my senior year, I had perfected the art of skipping class to the point where I was still pulling off a GPA in the very high 3 points.  One day, I managed to convince Carli to join me.  She was a "good kid" and very hesitant.  But it helped that the class we were about to ditch was taught by Mr. P., who would never notice, and would believe us when we said we would just be in the courtyard studying the behavior of Kentucky bluegrass on a sunny day, at which point he would offer us extra credit.  So we started taking an extended lunch and spent most of our time hanging out at Bob-A-Louie's, a bar/burrito parlor across the street from the high school.  It was there at Bob-A-Louie's that Carli, another friend, and I decided to do our assigned science project together. 

Someday I will make a separate entry about that science project, but I can't do it right now. 

The Rebel

The day Carli turned eighteen, she marched into her parents' living room at curfew, ten P.M., and announced that she Would Not Be Coming Home That Evening.  The look on her mother's face, oh boy...I hadn't been listening to my parents for years and even I was afraid of that look.  We got into my car (the '93 Excel) and tooled around town.  "I don't care what we do," she said.  "I'm just staying out all night."  And we did.  We drove to Rocker and had peach cobbler at the Flyin' J amongst the truckers and the travelers.  I don't really remember what else we did, I just know that it had an Alanis Morrisette soundtrack and didn't involve anything remotely illegal. 

The Doctor

Carli's a doctor.  And not a love doctor, or a plastic surgeon, or even a chiropractor.  She became an anstheez...annisteezo...one of those doctors that puts you under before you get the knife.  While the rest of us swilled cheap liquor and ran half-dressed down the streets of New Orleans and Panama City, Carli stayed up into the wee hours of the night reading the MCAT study guide.  She also spent a lot of time living around the grasslands of Montana, capturing mice and poking them with needles to find out if they carried hantavirus.  It's all good though...when she's clearing three hundred grand a year, we'll have someone to ask if they can spare a few bucks for bail money.

Carli is really the only person I've ever met who said she was going to be a doctor when she was shorter than corn, and actually said that every year since, and then actually became a doctor.  If that's not "stick to your guns" quality, I'm not sure what is.  And since going to medical school, she's been other cool things like "Chief Resident" (not just a role on Grey's Anatomy!) and "Recipient of Important Cardiac Anesthesiology Fellowship." 

This coming from the girl who once read a map of Africa and pronounced a certain country as "Eggy-pit", well, we should all be very impressed.  I know that I sure am.  :)

Happy Birthday

So happy birthday, Poo-head. 

I hope someone makes you a lawranchencake-free birthday dinner. 

Here's to another thirty years, and to a hydrogen-powered RV.

Elisabeth Carli

(o padre e sua gloriosa chegada)

Sim, foi confirmado a participação do Padre Adelir Antônio de Carli em Lost. Bom, curso de sobrevivência na selva ele já tem (não muito útil no mar).

Glub - glub - glub

Mas o que é mais divertido em casos assim são os podres desencavados. Por exemplo: veio a público que o Padre Carli era dado a voar, voar, subir, subir, não era de hoje. Ele chegou, inclusive, a freqüentar uma escola de vôo, mas foi expulso há 3 anos por "indisciplina e exibicionismo". O instrutor, esse sim um sujeito responsável, disse que o vigário nunca foi chegado em aula teórica e por isso não entendia nada de meteorologia, correntes, ventos, e todas essas coisas importantes pra se pilotar qualquer coisa. E o professor de vôo disse que o padre era tão arrogante e pedante, que ele "ficou muito menos católico depois de conhecê-lo".

Aguardo ansiosamente que apareça uma suposta amante, com um suposto herdeiro do padre. Se alguém souber alguma pista, já sabe: picagrossa1@gmail.com!

"Foto divulgada pela PM de Santa Cataina mostra momento, nesta terça, em que foram encontrados alguns dos balões que teriam sido usados pelo padre Adelir De Carli, desaparecido desde domingo."

Isso porque ele tinha uma "equipe de apoio"...

Here is where I get to be so proud of you. Carli started to feel a little left out and was wondering if anyone would want to play with her. You turned off your game and asked Connor if he would play with you and Carli. The two of you played the Pretty Princess Dress Up Game with her. It was nice to see you boys make Carli feel special.

After Connor went home we had our usual Friday Night Camp out. We had a picnic with pizza in the living room and slept out there too.

Buster was and his boys came here to meet Connor when he got off of the bus. There was still a nice sized pile of snow and you decided to start throwing snow balls. A couple went towards Buster's car. He said that if any went in his car then he would put you in that pile and cover you up with the snow. He did not mean it as a punishment..he is just playing around. I know that you were trying to keep them from going in his car you were trying your best. Still trying to be playful, Buster had gotten around to you and picked you up and put you in the snow and started putting some in your shirt and some had gotten down your pants. I looked at you and I saw that you were a little stunned by his actions and I thought that you were trying to see if you were really in trouble or not. You held your composure and I had thought that you were going to laugh about it or start getting him with snowballs. But at the same moment your brother and sister were crying and freaking out thinking that Buster was really trying to hurt you. So you ran into the house and I could hear you crying too. You should have seen Buster's face...he did not know what to do! I came in to see you and your feelings were really hurt. You were mad at me too. You said that I should have told him "no" and that the snow was so cold that it was hurting you. He tried to talk to Cavan and calm him down. I came in to see you and Carli. She had came running into her room crying and all mad. I needed her to calm down because she had been congested and I knew that if she had gotten too upset then she would be getting sick. Buster came in to see her too. She did not want to talk to him she was mad. Buster was trying to apologize, he felt so bad. I was trying to get to calm down that she was going to have to get into the bathroom because she was going to get sick. I could just tell and as soon as she moved...sure enough....messy sick.

It was starting to get a little funny and I felt bad for Buster. He was so sorry thathe made everyone so upset.

This is the chaos that I love about this house. I am sorry that everyone had gotten so upset but I know that you all will grow out of it. It is nice to see that you all care so much for each other. I hope that you will continue to be so protective and care like that as you grow older.

After all that you and Cavan decided to go out in the backyard and play.  Since there was no snow back there I had gotten a couple buckets full from the front yard so that you could play in it. The two of you were trying to throw as much as you could on the roof. Then you started just throwing some at the sliding door.  Carli was on the inside and all of you were giggling so hard trying to hit her as she moved from side to side protected by the door.

For dinner I was trying to make French Toast Casserole. A recipe that I was trying out. I try to have a breakfast for  a dinner meal at least once a week. Usually it is on Wednesday but I did it this Thursday. Some how I had turned the oven off while it was baking and I could not figure out why it was not getting done. Finally I figured it out and since it was getting late and you all were getting so hungry then I just cooked up some Spaghetti Os.
We watched Bee Movie after dinner.

Cavan had fallen asleep during the movie. When the movie was over you me and Carli were going to lay in my bed. As we laid there Carli let out a stinky toot.  We all started to giggle and you pretended to get sick. Carli thought that only daddy's toots were stinky enough to get sick for.

Two Bits

MOM