Dogtoberfest!

Get it?! It's a dog festival in October!! The second annual in Austin, in fact, and man was it fun! Matt and I met up with some friends just in time for the costume contest. When Matt heard that there was a costume contest he was a little reticent on coming. "What do we do? Dress up as dogs?" When he learned that it was the dogs who were competing with their costumes, he was all for attending. My goodness, it was a good thing we did. Otherwise we would have missed out on one of the most festive events of the season. It was a good time for all. Take a look...

Get it?! The dog is dressed up as a chicken!

Apparently this dog only needed a hood to pull off Chebacca.

Yappy dogs were even worth interacting with when they had on a costume.

In between rounds of the contest, the dogs decompressed by socializing,

getting a few belly rubs,and even dancing!Of course, what would be a dog costume contest without Wiener Dogs dressed up like a hot dog or a banana?
Is this cute or really upsetting? I'm not sure what yet...

And the grand prize winner, for good reason, goes to the Mad Hatter.
Such dignity.

What is great about this event, is that it turns out that dogs are not at all camera shy. Granted, they get easily distracted by things they can sniff and reeling in people who could potentially pet them, but they are easier to photograph than a happy group of children. Not only that but no body thinks you're a creep for wanting to photograph how great they look. Yep. This event was a marvelous idea. I can't wait until the 3rd annual Dogtoberfest! I think I will rent me a dog to dress up just for the evening....

Be Prepared! for a good Halloween season...

When Mr. Swirly Patterns came for a visit last week, I was struck once again with cult classic fever. There is not one person who can better help you catch the "Ed-Wood" bug than my brother. It's a good thing that he came in time for Halloween season.

For me, this is the most wonderful time of the year; but I have found that in order to experience the depth that Halloween has to offer, eating Abba Zabbas and Bottle Caps is just not enough. Lets be honest here, in addition to the candy and a costume, there needs to be some other things in order to assure a complete Halloween season. I have found that I need substantial time spent in drugstore aisles looking at bad makeup and rayon costumes. I also have found that including something pumkiny helps a great deal too. This can be applied in many ways (ie pie, cookies, bread, carving, seeds, gourds, etc). And of course, viewing at least one terrible (or very dated works too) Halloween flick is a necessity. I'll play viewer's advisory media librarian a moment here and recommend a handful:

- Shaun of the Dead
- The Fearless Vampire Killers
- Ed Wood
- Ghostbusters
- Teen Wolf (but not Teen Wolf Too - unless you are going for terrible and dated)
- Lost Boys
- Sleeper
- Revenge of the Body Snatchers
- Plan Nine From Outer Space (I don't have to have seen this one to know it should be on the list)

I have no doubt that you all would have some good suggestions to add to that list too. Feel free to fill in the gaps I have left. I think I have my main monsters covered here, except for trolls. Okay, I suppose I will throw in Troll 2 just to keep my bases covered.


And for good measure, I thought I would share some key insights we public library folk are trying to share with our community about how to survive a zombie attack. The teen users are particularly receptive to this information at our various "ZombieFest" events. Still, I thought all you "adults" out there might be interested in getting some tips about this too. I mean, you just never know when this information will come in handy...

1. Organize before they rise.
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don't need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto a bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert.
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone but the threat lives on.

Red Hat Society off Burnett Road

Today when I went to get my hair trimmed at Baldwin Beauty School around 9:30am, I was a little startled when I went to take my seat in the waiting area. All I could see were two rows of white and grey headed ladies waiting to firm up their wispy permanents or get their weekly wash-and-style. It kind of stressed me out for a minute as I sat down to bobbing heads chattering about coconut cream pie and dropping lines like "just leave that government alone and they'll fix it" in my periphery. After a minute though I realized that this was the group I fit into this year. That is, the at home during the day group with no kids to keep me from getting things done; and most importantly, I am in that women's league too cheap to pay more than $5 for a haircut. Yep. I suppose I belong to this old lady club for the time being.

Heck. I already drink Yogi Herbal Tea.

I am going on an all yoga fitness 10 day diet starting next Tuesday. There's this yoga studio close to my apartment that gives a promo offer of 10 days of yoga for $10. If any of you out there have every tried to take yoga classes at a studio, you can vouch that this is a pretty sweet offer. I am not entirely sure why I think this is going to be something I enjoy or can even do as I have only done yoga maybe four times in the last five or six years. And the times that I did go I had a feeling that was pretty comparable to the one or two awkward middle school dances I attended with my BFFs as a tween. Like yoga, the room was uncomfortably hot and humid with sweaty bodies. I was so terrible at doing what I was supposed to be doing that I was conspicuous. People told me no one was looking at me but since I was looking at everyone else I knew that was a lie. And I noticed that even the people that were "good" at this ridiculous activity looked very stupid, maybe even more so than I did.

So why is it that I am so excited about taking up this offer? It started when I got talking to our Relief Society yoga class instructor.* She is a very convincing lady about her yoga ways and I couldn't help but get pretty...well convinced. Yep. That's all it took really. I wish I could say I had more reasons why I have come to the irreconcilable conclusion that I must devote more of my mind, body and spirit to the yoga way; but that was all there was to it. What can I say? She was very convincing.

Now I have checked out books, read the wikipedia entry on the different forms of yoga, started watching DVDs and of course signed up for this class. I feel like this new "lifestyle" in which I am about to engage adds a pretty cool mystique to my very extroverted self. I can especially feel this mystique when I carry around my book Yoga: A Return to Wholeness. I feel downright esoteric actually. And I like that.

But still, I can't help but think it is going to be a really great thing to do this. Ten days of Yoga might even change my life. Well, at least a little. Also, it's nice to try something new. Get involved in a new community of people. Yoga followers come in throngs here in Austin. Maybe it's the hippy "keeping it weird" factor but I like to think it is something a little bit bigger than that. Can I qualify the word transcendental with a "kind of"? Either way, wish me luck. I will be going on a running and swimming fast for the next 2 weeks. I just thought I would let you know about all of this too, just in case you are wondering why I am wearing stretchy gaucho pants next month.


*Yes we have a RS yoga class that I inadvertantly started when I started the "Fitness" mini-enrichment group for walking and running. Which ironically, the walking and running group has been sturggling along since May and the yoga group has been immensely popular. Another reason this whole yoga thing seems sort of cosmic for me to be doing.

Mind your scripture reading...

I was just reading from the Bible Dictionary a few minutes ago about the definition of the word "Zion". There was a passage that reads: "Enoch built a city that was called Zion". And for a moment my mind misread the passage as: "Enoch built his city on Rock and Roll". I was quick to correct myself and tried to better focus my reading. Still, I can't help but think that the Enoch's story might be been even cooler than it already is had built his city Zion on Rock and Roll.

Learn to be a Librarian

Well, I survived my "web institute" in Denton to jump start my MLIS program with them Eagles at University of North Texas. If that doesn't sound very impressive, let me just let you know that this institute consisted of four days straight of meeting and listening to 8 hours of power point lectures. The auditorium was full of about 200 other people and we all sat together learning about all the assignments we will have (it turns out to be lots) and hearing the professors go back and forth with the "you are going to absolutely die in the course" to the "oh don't worry - lot's of people have done this and so can you". I'll go ahead and say that it was actually helpful at first. You may even say there was some "synergy" in the room on the first day but that fades after going through the perpetual cycles one starts in those settings: eat, sit and drink, sit and drink, freeze from the AC, break - go to the bathroom, walk around outside, overheat and get a bit sweaty, return, sit and drink, sit and drink, freeze, lunch and so on. It was pretty cruel towards the end but I made it through. I think it may have even prepared me for the semester ahead in such courses as "Introduction to the Information Profession", "Public Library Management", and "Information Access and Retrieval" (why can't they just call that last one "Reference Work"? They seriously make us all sound like nerdy jerks when we call it that around other people.) The classwork will be pretty cool as I have a boatload of interesting sources to make into "annotated bibliographies". I also get to do these weekly "quests" for the reference class where I look up repudiable sources to find answers to questions like what a SAFFIR-SIMPSON DAMAGE-POTENTIAL SCALE is and how a HURDY DURDY instrument is played (if you're interested browse here under "stringed instruments"). Yep, it turns out that info science was a good choice for me. Despite the Medieval Club-soundingness of a quest, it turns out to be loads of fun. I'm not kidding. If you're interested in doing some yourself. Let me know and I will make up one for you.

Heck, I'll do it right now. You can refer to this Super Duper Resource List my professor gave me. You won't be able to access the UNT sites but I'll make up a question that doesn't depend on those sources.

Okay let's see...

Try this one:

#1 Using an encyclopedia only (either print or electronic), find out who is the wife to the Norse god Thor. Who are his parents? Cite your source(s) used (either URL or title and page # of book used).

Did you like it? Here's one more and then I have to start actually doing my homework. (Only Swirly Patterns can tell me if this one is really true).

#2 Using a dictionary only (either print or electronic), find out what term(s) the British use to refer to a Senior Citizen. Cite your source(s) used (either URL or title and page # of book used).

Aren't you jealous you aren't in library school? Hey, you can still come up with your own quests though! Post any that strike your fancy while exploring that Super Duper List of mine. Research is fun!

Summers get you through all the other seasons.

Yep. It's been awhile since I've last posted and with my library science program starting this weekend, two jobs that are now in full force, all the churchy stuff that goes along with being the R.S. enrichment lady, and getting enough "Cate time" (ie swimming and running time) and Matt time - I think I am going to be hard pressed to be a frequent blog poster. So I best not apologize as this is one of many late blog posts to come.

Still, that is not to say I haven't been enjoying myself these last few weeks. There has been a cake dome party, some scenic running, a reunion with my beloved Austin, TX (after a 6 week hiatus of living in OK), plenty of quality Matt time, and all kinds of great activities that leave you with a slight sunburn. The heat has been oppressive but I am getting so accustomed to swimming instead of running these days I have been able to weather it well enough. Still, hitting our 58th triple digit degree day today has made me welcome hurricane season with open arms (sorry Houston but that is just one less thing you have going for you).

When the going gets hot and I find myself spending an increasing amount of time under florescent light at work and soon to be school, I remember 2 things:

My watermelon cake

and my run up Ephraim Canyon on Skyline Drive with some great company and balmy, cloudy weather.

It was a great day to end all summers.

I hope the rest of you had a few days like that this summer to get you through the rough seasons ahead (well unless you live out our way in which case the summer is the cruelest season). Regardless of weather there is something about summer that all the Redfish folk of 2006 said that is sacred. If you haven't had a sacred summer there is still time for a skinny dip in a glacier lake, a Tiger's Blood snow cone in a hot parking lot, a tin foil dinner up the canyon, park picnic or something the like. If you have had a few sacred moments, then keep them safe. You'll never know when you're going to need them.

Which version would make it onto your iPod mix?

The Original from Europe?

or The Remix from Ash and Mom?

What books should you have read by now?

How was it that I was able to get through my entire public education and never had to read "The Grapes of Wrath"? It makes me a bit sad at the thought of having come this far in life without ever having read the book. I must admit though that if I had read it in high school rather than while living in Oklahoma this summer I would not be able to have such deep appreciation for passages like this...

"Al steered with one hand and put the other on the vibrating gear-shift lever. He had difficulty in speaking. His nouth formed the words silently before he said them aloud. 'Ma--' She looked slowly around at him, her head swaying a little with the car's motion. 'Ma you scared a goin? You scared a goin to a new place?'
Her eyes grew thoughtful and soft. 'A little,' she said. 'Only it ain't like scared so much. I'm jus a settin here waitin. When somepin happens that I got to do somepin -- I'll do it.'
'Ain't you thinkin what's it gonna be like when we get there? Ain't you scared it won't be nice like we thought?'
'No,' she said quickly. 'No, I ain't. You can't do that. I can't do that. It's too much -- livin too many lives. Up ahead they's a thousan lives we might live, but when it comes, it'll on'y be one. If I go ahead on all of em it's too much. You got to live ahead cause you're so young but -- it's jus the road goin by for me. An it' jus how soon they gonna wanta eat sore pork bones.' Her face tightened. 'That's all I can do. I can't do no more. all the rest'd get upset if I done any more'n that. They all depen on me just thinkin about that.'" ---page 124

It's better because it's in Texas America.

One of the most overlooked places for the Momon "you've been called on your mission to..." joke is none other than Paris, Texas. I mean, we make fun of Paris and Moscow Idaho all the time in that context. Why have we been overlooking Paris, Texas all this time? After having to take a pilgrimmage there to get my fingerprints (it's a bit of a long story and not particularly interesting) I found myself in Paris, Texas. Not a bad place really. In some places it had an utterly quaint feeling and in others some dumpy features. It was Small Town, U.S.A.

When I went there, I kept in mind something that I had learned from a friend that I had worked with at Redfish Lake. She was from Paris, Texas that is*, and she told me there was a replica of an Eiffel Tower there in town. So when I stopped at a gas station once I had arrived, I was sure to ask the clerk at the register where I could find this little tourist attraction. She gave me some rinky dink directions that I tried to follow in my head. When I asked a couple of questions she assured me, as you would probably expect, "It will be on yer left. Ya just cain't miss it!"

That got me confident enough to leave with her directions and go exploring a bit. I followed her instructions as best as I could and after a having to take a U-Turn at the very end I realized that the only instruction that had led me astray was the "ya cain't miss it" one. Really, it was about as easy to miss as a lone telephone pole out in a parking lot because...well...that was more or less what it was. That is not to say that it was a disappointing sight to see in the least. After all, there was a red cowboy hat on top AND it was in Texas. As far as I'm concerned, it was much cooler than that stupid looking thing in France. They charge you money to go up in that thing and there isn't even a beret on top. Seriously, who would take stinky cheese over pit BBQ? I ask you honestly...

*See how funny that joke can be - try it next time you see an opportunity!