That's Random: Keeping the Dog Dry, and Other Domestic Pursuits

My daughter, who turns 11 today, spent much of yesterday morning fashioning a raincoat for our corgi, Bonnie. She insisted -- and since it's her birthday, I reluctantly agreed -- that I show it to all of you. She wants everyone to admire her handiwork, but she declined to provide step-by-step instructions for this project (as she has for others in the past), because she doesn't want anyone copying her design. (Hint: It basically involves a rectangular piece of oilcloth lined with cotton and held in place with Velcroed straps at the neck and belly. Shhhh -- you didn't hear it from me.) So here you go: Dog raincoat by Laurel.

Then, at her own insistence, she spent the afternoon baking her birthday cake from scratch. (Lemon with curd and berries -- yum. An overly complicated recipe from my arch nemesis Martha, of course.) While she was doing this, I believe I was taking a nap. Hey, she's been baking cakes with little assistance from me since kindergarten ...

It's a good thing this girl was born at home, because otherwise I'd worry that she'd been switched at the hospital. Still, she did not get this domestic gene from me. (Just curious: Does anyone else's fifth grader beg for a copy of the humongous Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts for her birthday? That's kind of weird, right?)

Anyway, happy birthday, my love! And by the way: That 10-pound package with the big bow on it? I think you'll be pleased by the contents. Me, well, that's a different story.

That's Random: Feline-on-Fox Lovin'

I want one.

P.S. More on my all-consuming obsession with foxes here.

(Via Dlisted.)

That's Random: What Are You Listening To?

I've been on a music jag lately, dusting off old favorites and giving a few new things a spin. Back in our record store days, Nick and I probably brought home ten new discs a week, listening to them rather obsessively and debating the merits of one album or act over another for hours with our equally music-obsessed friends.

But then, well, life sort of intervened -- as it has a way of doing -- and our voracious appetite for new music trailed off a bit. It didn't die, not by a long shot. It was just side-channeled into things like raising kids, renovating houses, and earning livings.

But I'm feeling the love again, and am hungry for some fresh new music and to soak in. So I wanted to ask: What are you listening to these days? What's been your favorite disc this past year? What band or songwriter is rocking your world right now? Above is what's on constant rotation at our house at the moment, just to give you all a sense of our taste. What else should we check out?

Please let me know about your current faves, or share your own playlist in the comments. Thanks!

That's Random: Tagged

Drey from the lovely Bijou Kaliedescope out of Melbourne, Australia just tagged me with an "I Love Your Blog" Award. Thank you so much, Drey -- the feeling is mutual!

Here are the rules:
1. The nominated is allowed to put the picture on their blogs.
2. Link to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate seven other people and link to them.
4. Leave a message on those people's blog to make them aware that they're nominated.

So now it's my turn to share the award with other bloggers I admire. My list of bookmarked blogs is embarrassingly long, and there are literally dozens that I read regularly. (Seriously -- I think I may need a blog intervention.) But I'm going to focus here on some beautiful blogs that may be new to many of you, and that I haven't already given a shout-out to in one way or another. Check them out when you get a chance:

1. Automatism

2. Eye Spy

3. Hidden in France

4. Ill Seen, Ill Said

5. Please Sir

6. Roadside Scholar

7. Whorange

If you're in the mood for still more great blogs (and have several hours to kill), don't miss my blogroll to the left!

That's Random: Puppy Cam

I cannot stop watching this. Help.

That's Random: Just Because I Like It



Nick and I saw Ben Kweller at San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival a couple of weeks ago and were instantly smitten. His music is so completely up our alley -- heart-on-their-sleeve indie boy songwriters with jangly guitars and slight Southern inflections -- that I can't believe we hadn't heard him before.

Then a friend (thanks, Heidi!) gave us his eponymous CD, and that was it: We were officially Huge Fans.

Anyway, just a little music for your Wednesday afternoon. Hope you enjoy it!

That's Random: Yay for Love!

Photo by Thor Swift

A huge congrats to Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan, who made it legal in San Francisco yesterday after 14 years together.

That's Random: God, I Love This Movie

Give it up for Quang Yi, ladies and gentlemen.

OK -- totally random, I know. But have you seen this movie? I think it's pretty much my favorite film of the last ten years. (And yes, I fully admit to crushing on the beauteous, then-20-year-old Michael Pitt like the pervy, thirtysomething, married-mother-of-two that I am. I mean, hello! Don't worry, though -- I'm over him now.)

Anyway, you should rent it sometime. (But only, you know, if you like kind of weird but totally great, hilarious and yet heartbreaking indie musicals about "internationally ignored" East German transsexual song stylists and the hot young ex-lovers who wronged them, and that came out like seven years ago.) Amazing soundtrack, too.

That's Random: Taking Topiary to a Whole New Level

More Ways to Waste Time reader Harriet just sent over a batch of photos of the Olympic Gardens in Beijing. In a word: INSANE.

Take a look:

Thanks so much for sharing these, Harriet!

(P.S. For more homegrown examples of wacky topiary art, check out designer Hannah Berman's great photo series on the whimsical shrubs in her Albany, California neighborhood on her blog, Printer & Piemaker.)

That's Random: An Imagined History

Does this happen to anyone else? Whenever Nick and I are at the flea market or find ourselves poking around in a dusty old antiques shop, we're always drawn like metal to a magnet to the jumbled bins and boxes filled with old photographs.

This past weekend, in Alameda, we spent a good half-hour sifting through the contents of one such box and passing stacks of old black-and-white and sepia snapshots back and forth. How, we wondered, did these family photos come to be discarded like so much trash, tossed into a shoebox and set out for curious passersby to rummage through in search of nothing more than a few moments' amusement?

We chuckled at the strange, old-fashioned faces and the modest, voluminous bathing costumes. Whatever became of these rough-faced men standing so uncomfortable in their Sunday suits, to the young women with their elaborately marcelled hair, to the children in their home-sewn dressing gowns and short pants?

To fill in their unknowable stories, we whispered invented anecdotes about the nameless subjects of the forgotten images. "Oh, there's Aunt Beatrice chaperoning Helen's trip to the city. She was a battleaxe, that one. Nothing got past her." Or, "This was right before John shipped out. He was killed in the War, you know. Dorothy never got over it."

We goggled at the clothes and the hats and the shoes -- my god, so chic! Back then, going for a ride on the ferry or even taking a leisurely Sunday drive was an event to dress for. I tripped out a little bit on it, standing there under a flimsy flea market umbrella in my shorts and flip-flops, my hair pulled back in a sloppy weekend ponytail. Among the other hardships I'd be so very ill-equipped to deal with, had I been born in a different era, I think I would've had a nervous breakdown just trying to get out of the house.

We wound up buying a handful of the dog-eared photos. Our little game was fun, after all, and the pictures were only a few cents each. I'm not sure what we'll do with them. But somehow, these people -- strangers to us, every last one of them, and probably all long dead -- already felt like a part of the family.

That's Random: Demotivation

Because, deep down in my heart, I am profoundly cynical and bitter, I hereby pronounce these "demotivational" posters ($16 each) from Despair.com Pretty Freakin' Awesome.

Above: Mediocrity

Give Up

Apathy

Procrastination

Demotivation

Gotta get one of these ($10 each), too.

Sad but true.

Can't choose? Well, there's always a Despair gift certificate. ("Finally, a gift as lazy and thoughtless as you are.")

Get your dose of Despair right here.

Bad Blogger

I'm sorry, you guys. I am just totally fried from work and lack of sleep and can't manage much fresh eye candy (or coherent eye candy commentary) right now.

So, umm, go here and have a good laugh.

That's Random: The Strangest Little Neighborhood

Take a look at these pictures, and tell me where you think they were taken.

Are you guessing an older, established city neighborhood or a close-in suburb in a part of the country with lots of stately, historic homes? St. Louis, maybe? Atlanta? If you were, that would be a logical conclusion -- but it'd be totally wrong.

In fact, I snapped these photos in a relatively new housing development on the outskirts of the Wine Country town of Sonoma, California, where we went for a weekend picnic.

I swear, this tract is the strangest thing. The houses all look like they're 80, 90, 100-plus years old (albeit perfectly maintained). But the fact is, they've only been there for a few years and were built to mimic the Greek Revivals, Victorians, Craftsmans, Colonial Revivals, and English Tudors that fell out of favor -- at least as far as "new" houses go -- when our grandparents or even great-grandparents were in diapers.

This sort of building with an eye to the past might be common in other parts of the country (the South and East, I'm guessing, where historic homes are both common and held in high regard). And, of course, there are the Disneyesque, "new urbanism" communities in places like Seaside and Celebration, Florida. But for a new development on the West Coast it's downright unheard of, at least as far as I know.

Sure, we have swaths of tract houses springing from the fields of exurbia that offer a vague nod to older home styles -- a little Mediterranean stucco and wrought iron here, some pseudo-Craftsman porch columns there. But nothing like this. (And trust me, it was even stranger when the neighborhood first went up a few years ago, with the faux-vintage houses seemingly plopped down on barren ground in the middle of nowhere. Nick and I used to drive through every time we were in Sonoma, gawking at the strangeness of it. It looks a lot less freaky now that the landscaping has grown in.)

I honestly can't decide what I think of it. I love old homes, and -- faux or not -- I certainly appreciate these styles more than what passes for "architecture" in most new McMansion construction these days (see photo at bottom).

But the neighborhood is such a self-conscious throwback -- at least on the outside; I assume the interiors of these million-dollar-plus homes are outfitted with granite kitchens and wine-tasting rooms and "spa-like" master baths full of tumbled travertine -- that it seems like more of a curious anachronism and an architectural oddity than a true community.

Photo by BoringPostcards

What's your take? Are there any new neighborhoods like this being built where you live? What do you think about the concept of "new-old" houses -- especially compared to the alternative? Post a comment and let me know.

(P.S. Also check out Melissa from The Inspired Room's related blog posts on the new house vs. old house quandary and the appeal of "new-old" homes.)