X-treme Flushing: The Great Toilet Upgrade

Wow. We were actually serious about upgrading all of our toilets after this lovely episode last month, and are now the proud owners of 3 brand spanking-new pressure-assisted toilets. These things are the piranhas of the toilet world. You'd better make sure all arms and legs are inside the cabin and the lid is down before flushing or somebody could get hurt.

I would much rather have a mighty fanfare announce my business for 4 seconds than deal with the sluggish, finicky crap toilets we had before. Is it normal to have to plunge every other day or am I just really hard on conventional toilets?

These things could probably handle 5 or 6 golf balls and have so far effortlessly whisked away even my most challenging offerings without leaving so much as a calling card.

Did I mention I'm thrilled?

Married 2 Years

A week ago today was our 2nd wedding anniversary. We like to make a big deal of romantic milestones whenever possible so, since we were in Colorado, we stayed in the Hotel Teatro,"Denver's #1 Rated Hotel." Check out the Deluxe Room on the Virtual Tour page to see exactly what our room looked like. It was huge and gorgeous. This is the kind of place where everybody on the staff treats you like you're one of The Rich People. After a delicious dinner of western fare (bison filet mignon!), we returned to find our bed turned down with premium Belgian chocolates left on the pillow. We couldn't help chuckling at the open TV Guide, encased in leather, along with a very elaborate remote, that was also carefully placed on the pillow. We certainly had much better things planned than an evening of TV watching!

A delightful surprise--there was a note from all four of my parents wishing us a happy anniversary and crediting our room with $40 for breakfast the next morning! That was really sweet and unexpected. (The next morning we thoroughly enjoyed a lavish room service tray with pastries, tea, orange juice, fruit platter and an omelet which we ate in a state of total indecency!)

After we got back to Cleveland we had a long weekend off work together. On Sunday night, we continued an anniversary tradition we started last year--attending the Cavana Ballroom's Sunday dance party in our wedding attire, which we can get away with because it's comfortable, lightweight and only a little over the top.



Lat year, we also wore our duds (sans hats) for a special dinner out. I don't feel bad that we skipped that this year. Unless I am leaning forward with my head directly over the plate, food, especially if it is covered in something tomato-based, tends to land directly on my chest, especially when I'm wearing something in a solid, pastel shade. I love that this dress is machine washable, but I just don't think it would have survived buffalo with barbecue sauce!

Family Recipes

I took note of a couple of recipes that came up in conversation. Here is a really easy one for a moist, delicious, reasonably nutritious cake from Mom:

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake
1 Pkg Devil's Food Cake Mix
1 Can Pumpkin (sm) the plain kind, not pumpkin pie mix/filling
Use a 9x13 pan. Cook according to package directions.

And from Eric, one that's low starch, high nutrition, and sounds delish:

Tacomole Salad
Brown 1/2-3/4 lb taco meat. Season to taste.
1 lb spinach leaves.
Toss w/6-8 oz guacamole.
Divide into 2 servings.
Top w/meat, crushed tortilla chips, tomatoes, and olives.

What a great trip!

We had a very rich, wonderful time in Colorado this past week. Grandma's memorial service was just right, and after a couple of days in Denver, we enjoyed a few days in the Rocky Mountains.

From eating out on the town and toasting Grandma's memory,

to cooking out and enjoying our "Magic Fans" from Eric,

to hiking along bridle trails,

to enjoying stunning views of mountains, forests and lakes,
to just hanging out on the back porch of our cabin to watch the hummingbirds,

we had a great time with the family. See all the pics on my website here.

Colorado, here we come!

Tomorrow we leave for a week in Colorado. Paul and I will be joining Eric & Rusty plus Mom, Ron, Phyllis, Alec, Peter and Roxanne for a second memorial service for Grandma in Denver. I was really disappointed I couldn't make the first one in Portland last December due to my cast & crutches, plus 3 jobs. I am going to be playing selections from Phantom of the Opera because it was her favorite music ever.

We've decided to make a vacation of it and will be staying in a charming place in Estes Park called Idlewilde by the River for a few nights. We'll spend our 2nd wedding anniversary (8/17) in Denver at the posh Hotel Teatro and maybe see a show or have an elegant dinner. We won't be returing until the 18th, and I anticipate a total internet vacation the entire time, not a bad thing.

Here are my reflections on Grandma that I will be sharing during the service.

One of my earliest memories of Grandma was the Christmas I turned 5. I was in my ballerina phase, and I wanted a ballet tutu more than anything in the world. When I opened my present from Grandma, it was this wonderful creation she had made herself--a skirt made out of stiff pink tulle, decorated with an array of colorful poufs commonly used to scrub pots and pans. *holds pouf as visual aid* I gasped in my excitement, "It's a ballet dress!" She laughed her famous laugh and said,"Oh, no, it's a Silly Grandma!" I thought it was the most beautiful skirt ever.

We always lived far away from our grandparents and didn't get to see them very often, so a visit to their house was a Really Big Deal. Grandma would bend over backwards as a hostess, wanting to make sure we were comfortable, well fed and had enough to do. When Grandpa would sometimes get fussy or grumpy when we inevitably got on his nerves, she would say, "Oh, he's just being an old fuddy-duddy!"

I was kind of an uptight kid and she was always loosening me up. Even in my 30s she spent several years encouraging me to try margaritas, which I didn't like at all at first. Now it's my favorite drink ever, and I always think of her whenever I have one. She was very proud of "corrupting" me at last.

Peace to you, Grandma. My life is better because you were part of it.

Bush or Chimp?

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While on a message board discussing our president's views on evolution, a poster asked, "How can a man who looks so much like a chimpanzee not believe in evolution?" It's so true! Check out this site -- it's frickin' hillarious!

Hazardous Waste

I never thought taking out the trash could be so dangerous as it was last Tuesday. These things always seem to happen to me when home alone. Paul was at Joy & Dale's, at a barbeque which I could not go to because I had Troy's ballet class to play for and then the piano competition to attend.

So I got home around 9:45 and thought,"I'm gonna get the trash now so it'll be done before Paul gets home." Everything went harmlessly enough until I took the kitchen bag out of the can. It was heavy and over-filled so I set it down on the kitchen floor. I took a step and ended up stepping on the bottom of the bag. Next thing I knew, something really sharp had cut the inside of my big toe, deeply I might add, as most of my weight was on that foot at the moment of impact.

It was the worst pain since I broke my foot. My immediate, instinctual response: a yell that made the walls vibrate, lots of cussing, and bursting into tears as blood started dripping all over the kitchen floor.

I was freaking out, hopping to the bathroom to get a kleenex or 3 to staunch the flow. Poor Mouchie was very upset by my antics. Usually when I yell like that only when he pounces on me while I'm running up the stairs, an attempt at behavior modification. Every time you scratch me, I will cause you to lose some of your hearing. This time I had to reassure him that for once it wasn't about him, but he still looked like this:
I limped upstairs to my bathroom where the band-aids were, but it was nowhere near ready for that. I went through about 10 kleenexes. Every time I took my finger pressure off so I could get another one, it would start gushing again, leaving giant drops of blood (like 1" in diameter!) all over my bathroom floor, some of which landed on my pristine white bathmat, upsetting me further.

I was still cussing and wailing like a frustrated infant when Paul called about 15 minutes later. I tried to calm down so as not to alarm him unnecessarily, so I just told him the short version. By the time he got home it had finally stopped bleeding and I was able to cover it with a band-aid, but if I bent the toe a certain way or accidentally put any weight on it at all, it felt like a burning hot poker.

I am so sick of foot pain, and it doesn't help that this is the same foot I broke. I couldn't walk much until Saturday. Now, a week later, it is just starting to feel halfway healed. So much for getting in better shape for hiking in the Rockies next week. I am glad, though, that it happened last Tuesday and not tonight, so it should be almost normal by early next week.

An Approximation

You wouldn't know it, but I've been growing out my hair for the past 8 months. I had a super-short pixie cut for about 3 years and loved it, but decided I wanted something softer and more girly, still easy but not The Mom Haircut (TM). I don't want to be mistaken for one of those women who've Just Given Up.

After a few hours last winter perusing online hairstyle websites, I found this cute style:

I figured, oh, by April or so, my hair could resemble this more or less. What I had forgotten to consider was that this model's hair was at least 3" long at the back and sides, whereas mine was about 1/2". Four haircuts later, as of today, here is my version:

It's cute and I love it but it ain't just like the picture. And this is after Steve styled it for me today. Who knows if I'll ever be able to duplicate this on my own. You'd think after 27+ years of actually caring what my hair looks like, I would've had enough practice by now, but you would be wrong.

High-Profile Gigs Coming Up

The Gospel Choir I've been playing for is going to sing 20 minutes' worth of music this Sunday at Archwood UCC for a "Raise the Roof Gospel Service" that is part of the Black, Gay and Proud Celebration 2005! It doesn't even matter that I'm not Christian, black or gay--I know it's gonna be great, it will have wonderful energy and I'll meet some great people.

Also, this week I talked with Mary Verdi-Fletcher of Dancing Wheels, and on October 1 I'll be playing at their 25th Anniversary Gala at the Intercontinental Hotel Cleveland, which by the way I can walk to in 10 minutes from home. I'll be accompanying actress Patricia Neal as she sings "Send in the Clowns" and playing background music for the silent auction and dinner. Mary said she immediately thought of me and didn't even call any other pianists. :-)

The First Cut

It's amazing I can even string 2 sentences together. Since Wednesday afternoon, I have attended 12 rounds of the competition--that's 39 hours of music by 30 pianists, only 3 hours of which I missed due to what little work I still have.

Yesterday afternoon I was seated next to a woman whose girth threatened to overflow around the armrest. I'm not small myself and we spent the next 3 1/2 hours trying not to invade each other's Personal Space Bubbles. I'm glad I didn't miss the round as it included three of the eight semi-finalists later picked by the judges, but I came home feeling as if I had spent the afternoon in the middle seat of a packed airplane.

Sometimes you've just gotta take a break. Since the competition is being broadcast live over the radio, I decided to listen at home to the first half of last night's round. WCLV's reception is so sucky it won't come in on any of our radios (except the car), but fortunately you can listen to it via streaming audio online. I blissfully stretched out on the couch, drinking a cherry coke while I listened, then took the five-minute walk to the theater after intermission.

When I got home, I finished picking my eight semifinalists so I could later see if I agreed with the judges' picks. I knew it would take at least 45 minutes before the announcement broadcast, so I settled in the office. The minutes crept by. 11:15 pm and we still hadn't heard.

Paul offered to make dinner and bring it up to me so I wouldn't have to leave the computer and miss the announcement! Of course I told him how sweet I thought that was. He just said it was nothing millions of wives of TV sports fans don't do every Sunday.

Minutes later we heard the announcement live, and four of my picks made it. On to the semi-finals today!

Destination Vacation--Across the Street

This year, the Cleveland International Piano Competition is being held at the Bolton Theater in the Cleveland Playhouse for the first and probably only time because of remodeling at its usual site at CIM.


It's my lucky year because:

1. I'm almost totally off work and in town during the entire competition
2. I can afford a splurge, and
3. The Playhouse is a 5 minute walk from our house!

Since this magical planetary alignment may never again be replicated, I've splurged on a subscription to all the rounds for a total immersion experience, about 50 hours of live music in the space of 12 days! I've been listening for about 6 hours a day during these first rounds, and though it is a lot to digest and sometimes wears my brain out, I have heard a lot of exciting piano playing.

Some of these people are half my age and all can play circles around me. In earlier years this might have dragged up feelings of inadequacy (i.e., There But For Procrastination, Lack of Sufficient Drive, and Laziness Could have Gone I). But I love and am good at what I do in my little niche of the music world. Since I don't particularly enjoy the tedious kind of practicing it takes, I don't think the competition circuit/concert pianist path was meant to be my destiny.

But these pianists! Everyone here has already won numerous other competitions, and it's easy to see why. For the most part, they all have huge dynamic and color ranges and something compelling to communicate. There's a lot of music I haven't heard before, or at least don't know well. Sometimes a little part of my brain, always on the lookout, will think, "Hmm. I like that melody. I bet I could fit that into something for ballet class..."

Primate tendencies

We were eating tuna salad sandwiches for dinner, and Paul got a blob of food stuck to his cheek. I picked it off his face instead of saying something. He immediately used a napkin to wipe, saying, "My sweetie has primate tendencies."

It finally occured to me to ask after all these years, "Does it bug you when I do that?"

"Sometimes."

"Sorry!" I said. Wow, the first time he's ever admitted something I do bugs him, and I had to ask or I would never have known.

He said, "Sometimes I think it's sweet, but sometimes I get a parental vibe from it."

"Makes sense," I said. "And if I licked it off your face, I guess it could have a.....
....sort of 'puppy dog' vibe to it, couldn't it? Not the sort of vibe you're looking for."

Exactly. "We'd like to keep the bestiality or incest vibes out of our vibe repertoire, right?" he said jokingly.

Inspiration struck me. I can just see one of those supermarket checkout line mags geared to tired housewives, like Women's Day, Good Housekeeping, etc. They always have the same headlines every month--Melt the Pounds Away in 14 Days While Eating Anything You Want (next to a picture of a birthday cake in the shape of a train) , How to Get More Energy, Protect Your Kids From the Bogeyman o' the Month, and my favorite, How to Get That Spark Back Into Your Marriage.

Relight the Passionate Fires in Your Marriage With These Easy Bestiality and Incest Roleplaying Games!

New Hits for My Brother in the Deep Recesses of Google

I was reading an entry on Eric's blog the other day about how different search engines have such varying results when searching for one's own name. He is very happy with Yahoo and MSN Search because on both of them, his blog is the first hit for his name.

Having almost a whole day off today, I was inspired to play with search engines. Haven't done this in ages, but I started putting quotes around the names I searched for, which dramatically improved the results. All of the results for my name were actually about me, and thanks to Dad's handiwork, www.karint.com made the first page! Wohoo!! I guess there aren't any other Karin Tooleys out there. :-)

There are a few other Eric Tooleys, however, one of them a teen abstinence crusader, much to Eric's chagrin. However, there is also an athlete and a coffee cup artist, whose site I thought is pretty cool.

I found some pretty cute photos of Eric and Rusty, evidently from a wedding they attended a couple of years ago:

I know, I have waay too much time on my hands today, but this was fun. Besides, it gave me another excuse to link to your blog, Eric!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Check this out. I have finally figured out how to include more than one picture on a post. :-)

Yesterday we had a great time with the Bokuniewiczes. After waking up around 9:30ish, the seven of us gathered around the newly clean and uncluttered kitchen table and breakfast bar while Paul made toast and fried eggs and I prepared coffee, orange juice and fresh fruit.

Paul, Marina and I practiced our trio together for the first time. It actually was pretty smooth going for the most part, each of us having practiced and listened to the CD for the past couple of months. After an hour and a half, we decided to quit while we were ahead, knowing it would be fine for today's performance.

I love that we live so close to everything. We were able to leave at 2:40, drive the 4 miles to downtown, find parking, walk to Jacobs Field and find our seats at a leisurely pace, and still be on time for a 3:15 baseball game.

Check out Paul's hat:
He, Tom and Marina all graduated from Oberlin, so this Oberlin Conservatory hat was a hit.

Here's another gratuitously cute couple pic, courtesy of Marina:

This panorama shot came out really skinny because I stitched it from 7 pics.Paul and Marina are close-up on the left.It was a gorgeous day, sunny, in the 80s and not humid, our seats were in the shade, and the Indians won in an exciting 9th inning. All the pics from yesterday can be seen here.*

As far as the performance at today's service, it went pretty well. Not flawlessly, but that didn't bother us. It was Paul's first public performance in 20 years, and I thought he sounded beautiful. In fact, I think the music was the high point of the service! :-)

They Bokunowitzes decided to go home today instead of tomorrow, so Paul and I have spent the afternoon reading the paper and doing a little clean-up, a very atypical Sunday for us. Usually we would both be working! The downtime feels good.

*My website, www.karint.com, now has my full name as a header on it and a link to this blog, making both much more visible on search engines. I didn't even notice until I uploaded the pics today. Thanks so much, Dad! xo

Toilet tsunami

After a wonderfully fun day rehearsing the Reinecke trio, attending the Indians game, and going out to dinner at The Diner on Clifton, there was a clogging incident. I was running the dishwasher at the time. (This is important later, I promise.)

Tom went upstairs to get our Jet Plunger, used it to pump a ferocious blast of air down the toilet--
--and the toilet started vomiting up copious amounts of water all over the bathroom floor! Poor Tom yelled a request for towels. They hardly made a dent, as the water was now at least an inch deep. I brought up rolls of paper towels and the wastebasket. He turned off the valve for the tank and plunged again, and it overflowed even more.

Oh, by the way, Paul had stopped by work to check a machine, so it was just clueless me at home. What do I know about this stuff? So I called the plumber who offers emergency service day or night, who said they would put out the call and someone would call back soon.

Our poor guests! My first reaction was to tell them I clog up the toilet all the time (that's why we got the Jet Plunger in the first place, the regular one sometimes couldn't make a dent in my disasters!) and it so easily could have been me that this happened to, if they hadn't happened to be visiting this weekend. I wasn't even freaking out, and felt the urge to lighten the mood with jokes. Shit happens!

When Paul got home, he immediately knew something was wrong, because water was dripping out of the light fixture all over the garage. Unfortunately, most of our shoes were directly in the line of fire, so we moved them as quickly as possible. When he came in and took in the situation, he immediately realized the running dishwasher was contributing to the overflow, so we immediately stopped it.

Well, our wonderful plumber just came and snaked it out at about 12:15 am. This whole situation was just striking me funny--it was like a bad movie comedy. (Later I had a hard time falling asleep because I kept getting giggle fits for 45 minutes.) I said our toilet has an eating disorder--bulimia. And Irritable Bowl Syndrome. I tell you, I was really on a roll. Paul and I suggested it was worth the investment to purchase and install 3 new power-assisted toilets next month. "All three?" I had to ask.

"Well, you do use the one in the bedroom," he says. :-D

Somebody loves him!

Here's a pic for your enjoyment. This is an illustration for the post below.

Is Karl Rove gay?

We've been cleaning up the house like mad for our guests this weekend. It looks beautiful. Just think, if we cared enough, it could look like this more than once a year! They were supposed to be here about now, but Marina just called from Toledo, where they got stuck having a blown-out tire repaired. I told them not to worry, we usually go to bed around 12:30-1:00 am and don't have to work tomorrow, so they can come as late as they want.

The other night, Paul and I were speculating on Karl Rove's personal life, or rather, complete lack of one. Most of Bush's crowd feels it's de rigeur to get married and have kids, and apparently, he's done neither. Paul thinks maybe he's gay and in the closet. A hypocrisy expose is always entertaining, so we googled "Karl Rove gay," hoping to hit paydirt.

738,00 hits! Most of them, disappointingly, only linked Rove and the phrase "anti-gay agenda" or somesuch. I did, however, find some interesting out-there lefty blog entries here, here and here. Maddeningly, everything is still just speculation. It's actually not surprising that the spinmeister would have such control over information leaked about himself. I found a couple of sites that said he'd been married twice and had a son, but others saying he'd never married. Well, if he had married and really had a son, what I want to know is, how come this is never once mentioned in any bio? I find that very strange.

I did find a little gem in my surfing that just made me laugh, it was so "pink" and silly. I emailed the link to Trent (of Pink is the New Blog), and he included it in the news section of yesterday's entry! In his words: Who knew that GWB had a blog of his own. :-D

Coming up for air...

It is such a joy to be posting from home again. We got our new motherboard installed on Monday, but did I celebrate by immediately posting here? Heck no. I was too busy catching up on all of my daily email newsletters from the New York Times and salon.com, two of my favorite sources for news. Also, the hilarious Pink is the New Blog, my favorite mental junk food.

When not on the computer, I've been practicing the Trio for piano, oboe & horn in A minor, Op 188 by Carl Reinecke (hear samples here). A couple who knew Paul from Oberlin days, Tom Bokuniewicz and Marina Jaffe, are coming to stay with us next weekend, along with their 3 college-aged boys, while on their national baseball tour vacation. Marina was an oboe major at Oberlin. She doesn't play that much now but is really looking forward to us getting to play some chamber music. This was Paul's idea. The piece isn't that hard, but certainly isn't simple and has required some practicing. We even have a performance opportunity--we'll be playing it for July 24's service at the UU Society of Cleveland.

Hello from the library

Our online access is still out. Since three days over the past week were not business days, the new motherboard for our computer won't be delivered until tomorrow (Friday). The Best Buy repair guys are already booked tomorrow (of course) so if we're lucky, the earliest the computer can be fixed will be Monday. At least they called today to tell me. I was beginning to wonder if the trouble ticket paperwork actually went through.

So here I am at the library, where I have exactly 60 minutes per day I am allowed to log on. It's amazing how much more efficient I've been, doing only the essentials (checking and answering email, checking blogs of family and friends), with maybe 15 minutes left to read a few articles. It makes me realize how much of my time usually gets sucked up by frivolous internet surfing.

I've had time to clean up my office (a tri-annual ritual) in anticipation of a visit in 2 weeks by two of Paul's out-of-town Oberlin friends plus their 3 college-aged sons. It's funny how I'm somehow motivated to clean up for company but not very much if it's just us benefitting from it.

Body Worlds

Yesterday we spent the 4th at the Great Lakes Science Center. We went to the BodyWorlds 2 exhibition, a bizarrely fascinating collection of real human bodies preserved by a process called plastination, and displayed in such a way that you could see all the muscles, systems, etc. as well as bones. Some of them were posed doing things like ice skating or spear throwing, to show how the muscles look different when stretched or flexed.

This is one of the things some people find controversial about it--it was part science, part art, and part sideshow. I, of course, have no trouble admitting to morbid fascination. I also felt awe, amazement, occasional ickiness, and even a sense of the holy. There were also a few animals--a horse, camel and rabbit. I couldn't help but notice how similar the basic building materials were for the humans and animals--only the form, size and shape varied. It seems undeniable to me that we all descended from the same common ancestors.