Ooh, hungry

It is such a bad idea to read the food blogs before lunch break. Wednesday Chef is killing me with the ragu (and the link to the braised cabbage...are we doppelgangers?) and Everybody Likes Sandwiches, enough with the baked eggs in a bun and ham and cheese spoonbread! I'm dyin' over here.

Kima

Just did the home visit. She was totally comfortable with everything but the basement stairs (no big woop, and probably better for her anyway!). We signed all the stuff and changed her name in the microchip registration to Kima. She comes home next Monday when I'm back from Geneva!

Blik!

I got my pagne hemmed and backed and tacked it up above our Brand! New! Futon!

I taped up some of the Damien Hirst dots in the kitchen.

But then got distracted and Blik'd my own room while waiting for Edith to weigh in on the kitchen design. Taped up the Eames circles...

...scrape the backside with a credit card...

...peel off backing...

...stick it on the wall...mash it around...

...peel back the transfer side...

...et voila!

Lookin' good, finally.

We are also doing birds in the living room.


And here are the kitchen dots!

A Really Really Fantastic Day

We had a nice evening out in DC with PC Gabon peeps from near and far, dancing at Ghana Cafe with no punch-out incidents like last time, although Edith did have her ATM card stolen by a quickfingered Adams Morgan drug addict when she walked away from the machine a little too early. So Ghana Cafe's record is still one of fun with a cost.

But that's not even the good part. We went and met Faith Saturday morning, and she is FANTASTIC. Too skinny, very nudgy and loves people, knows how to pee outside and hang out in a crate and sit, and a big loveydovey. I'm gonna love her and feed her and socialize her, if she accepts our house during the 'home visit' tomorrow morning. Am not foreseeing many problems there as our fence is structurally sound and we don't have any tubs of antifreeze sitting out.

After meeting Faith (we will change her name) I drove over to Mt Airy to the bike shop. First thing I hear is "Hey, cool fixie!". Mt Airy is near Frederick and um not so many fixies out there so we are still cool. Larry looks at the bike and says "Can you come back in an hour?" and I'm stupified with happiness. I go to Target and get a few things and come back and THE BIKE IS GOOD AS NEW. The rear was 2 inches out of alignment, the worst he's ever seen, the fork was also messed up, and he replaced my classic seatpost with a new lighter one with a single bolt adjustment, and made a little collar for it. Then all the shop guys had to take a spin on the bike. "One foot no hands," that's the test, he said, riding it nice and straight. Amazing. So I got my baby back and a new one on the way and all is excellent in the world again. Sean and Marin came over for tacos and we watched the original 3:10 to Yuma, which I was not awake for and might watch again this evening with Hope.

I have pics also of the Blik decorating we have done but I think the cable is at work...will post tomorrow before I leave for Geneva!

Bongo to build $73m basilica

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2271175,00.html

15/02/2008 08:33 - (SA)

Libreville - Gabon's President Omar Bongo Ondimba plans to build a huge Roman Catholic basilica worth at least 50 million euros ($73m) overlooking the capital, church and other sources said on Thursday.

"The project isn't completely definitive," Libreville Archbishop Basile Mve Engome said, but the aim was to construct the new church, capable of holding 4 500 people, on the site of the Democracy City complex made for a 1977 summit of the Organisation of African Unity.

Czech firm Helika had won a building tender with its plan for a basilica crowned by a dove of peace and hands joined in prayer that would be 70 metres high.

The project would be financed by the Gabonese state with the help of the Swiss Export Bank, which specialised in funding foreign enterprises, the sources said.

"This is the project that most seduced the president," Engome explained. Between 40 and 45% of the central African country's 1.3 million people were Catholics.

Bongo, who came to power in 1967 and was the continent's longest serving ruler, converted to Islam in 1973.

The Helika plan was in competition with one by architect Pierre Fakhoury, who designed the basilica Ivory Coast's founding president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, wanted in his home village, Yamoussoukro, today the west African country's capital.

That monument was consecrated by the late pope John Paul II.

One wonders if perhaps fighting malaria, HIV and other diseases, or even paving the frickin road, were not 'seductive' enough propositions.

How does Google know what I'm thinking, all the time?

Today's Word of the Day on my Google homepage:

ennui: a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction arising from lack of interest.

I suppose the other possibility is that dictionary.com chose this word for the special day right after Valentine's Day. :)

Names

NICO/NIKO
MISHA AIDEN LOLA CARVER
LAIKA KIMA STU SASHA
ADA NIKITA TASHA
GAIA FREYA GUS GRETA
LEELA KAYA