Thursday, December 20, 2007

Day 2

Day two in Madrid was one of the most memorable. We woke up early-ish, grabbed a cafe con leche (a now favorite for us) and croissant, then headed to the Sofia museum to get there when they opened the doors. Luckily, once they opened, we were able to hop like Spanish bunnies to the second floor where Picasso's "Guernica" hangs before the mob of field-tripping school children reached it. We got to enjoy it all to ourselves, and it was amazing. It's huge, involved and complicated, and really astounding. There were loads of sketches Picasso did of smaller "scenes" within the painting that were really interesting. After we loaded up on Picasso, we enjoyed lots of Dali, Miro, and other more contemporary artists' works as well.

After a couple of hours, we asked about the Andrew Goldsworthy exhibit that Trevor was interested in seeing, and the information booth lady pointed out the exhibit's location on a Madrid city map; it was closer to the Prado museum in a public park. We decided to head over there, even though by the time we left it was drizzling a bit outside.




After wandering through Madrid's Botanical Gardens (which would have been a lot nicer had we gone on a nicer day--and a day not in December...) and finally finding the public garden where the Goldsworthy exhibit lived, and then wandering through the garden, we eventually came upon the Crystal Palace, a beautiful Victorian-looking glass-panelled building where Goldsworthy had built his art on-site. Even though we were wet, cold, and tired, it was absolutely worth it. The exhibit filled the Crystal Palace and was made up of a large cone made out of logs, and three inter-connected domes made out of logs as well. There were little birds flitting around the domes, and because it was such a rainy day, we were the only guests there, which meant we had the place to ourselves. It was really pleasant--the rain fell and the water slid down the glass panels as we wandered through this log dome. By the time we finally left, there was a group of people coming in.








We left the public garden and made our way towards the Metro station a few blocks away. On our way we came upon a walkway lined with these book stalls--probably thirty of them. Only a handful were open because of the weather, but it's definitely a spot we'll visit when we go back!



Before we left for dinner that night, Trevor took my picture in the fabulous elevator in our hotel. It's nearly identical in look and feel as the elevator in the Grant/Hepburn movie, "Charade," which for me was very exciting. It felt like we could have encountered a ring of espionage at any moment. Or not...



On our way to dinner we walked through the Plaza Mayor, and there were these terrific leaves hanging all throughout the plaza. The stands were in the midst of opening up for the night's business, and the majority were selling what looked to us like Halloween stuff: paper hats, rubber masks, feather boas, etc. We're not sure why that was the theme, but it was fun to look at. We ate dinner that night at a vegetarian restaurant, and on our way home, we stopped again at Matador bar. We squeezed into a table in the back of the bar, got fed munchies again, and had a terrific time. We'd like to take the Matador with us when we leave.


Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Day 1

Hola!
We're winding down after our first night here in Spain, and it's been lovely so far. We flew through Zurich to Madrid (and the Zurich airport was fabulous---we didn't have too much time for shopping, but I might pop into the Hermes store during our lay-over on the way home...) and have spent the late afternoon/evening wandering around the city. We ate at a tapas restaurant called The Trout, and ate some delicious smoked trout (we couldn't resist, given the name of the spot), and were chatted up by some fellow Americans at the next table. They fooled us b/c they were Mexican and were speaking Spanish until they asked us (after observing us using our Spanish/English dictionary), "Where are you from?" and were very obviously from the states. After a perfect dinner, we meandered up towards our hotel, and stopped for a few cervecas at a teeny tiny local bar called "El Matador." It was a great spot: very small, charming, and there were olives a-plenty for us to munch on! We just now made it back to the hotel, where our mattress is ridiculously firm. Tomorrow we're going to visit the museum that houses Picasso's "Guernica." We'll write more later!
Power en Espana!








Wednesday, December 5, 2007

We're on our wedding photographer's new website! The link is to the right, she's "Tone Stockenstrom Photography." How fun!

Tuesday, December 4, 2007



After party...

I captured Trevor on our way home from the dual pre-wedding celebrations of our friends Carrie and Alan, who are getting married on New Year's Eve. The bachelor and bachelorette parties had separate celebrations, then met up around midnight. Soon thereafter, Trevor and I, fearful of turning into gourds, scurried home.

Saturday, December 1, 2007


Early morning monkeys

I was on my way to class Thursday morning and was behind this Pabst Blue Ribbon truck and a little monkey hanging on for a ride. I just thought it was silly.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007


Trevor's in the dog house?

Yes, for a moment he was! We got a new crate and bed for Henry. It's more spacious and will be more comfortable for him, though the crate's mostly fabric, which might lead to Henry's ultimate consumption of it. We'll see. It's a lot nicer than his other one--he'll be able to stand up fully, turn around in as many circles as he likes, and splay out his horse-legs! And Trevor looks pretty comfy in there, too!

Earlier in the week I made a deliciously successful veggie stew. I created a spur-of-the-moment recipe and it was so delicous (I ate the leftovers a moment ago after coming home from my night class and it reminded me of this...) that I wrote it all down and added it to my recipe journal. The whole thing gave me a great feeling of pride. In suuuuch a nerdy way.

I'm going to convince Trevor to submit a video to get on our favorite tattoo t.v. show, Miami Ink. We both have "interesting" ideas for our next tattoos (interesting meaning not flowers, family crests, koi fish, or something else...per the show's request), and although they wouldn't pay the airfare or anything, the work would be done by the best guys in the business AND we could use it as an excuse to visit Rachel and Letty! Yes, I'm getting ahead of myself and planning a long weekend in Miami in my head, but why the heck not? Trevor just has to help me make the video. I'll let you know how it all works out.

Until our t.v. debut! POW-er!

Friday, November 9, 2007




Henry and I walked over to the gallery the other night to pick Trevor up from work, and while we waited for him to finish up, Henry appreciated some art.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007


Pictures and the Galapagos Islands!

We're getting all of the wedding pictures today, though anyone who's interested can check them out here:

http://www.collages.net

Enter: Laura and Trevor
password: 7097

Trevor and I can't wait to see them all, but these nice ones tided us over until we get the whole slew of them from our fabulous photographer. Also, Greg and Paula are currently wandering around the Galapagos Islands on their vacation, probably checking out the Blue Billed Boobie, or seals and stuff. Maybe they'll find a new species! While they're gone, I'm dog sitting for the girls, and last night we (Tequila and I) watched the X-Files in HDTV, which was pretty awesome. I'm going over there this morning to check on the dogs and Trevor's asked me to tape the Manchester United game that will be played this afternoon (or this evening, depending on how you look at it). That one will be even better to watch in HD than the X-Files. We'll be able to see their untied shoelaces and their sweaty hair flying in the wind (87% of the soccer players today need haircuts in a terrible way). It'll be pretty neat. Trevor also got me some excellent birthday presents, and he even let me open two of them before today! I got a great new functional cooking apron (the one I have is decorative, though just lovely), a tea thermos (so I can infuse tea and take it with me to school! I've been eyeing them for months now!) and one of my favorite current movies, Stranger Than Fiction. Henry got me a movie, too: The Host, which is a Korean horror movie about a mutated fish that attacks Seoul. It's pretty funny (a critic called it Little Miss Sunshine with a monster) and great to look at (Trevor and I saw it in the theater last year), so now we can watch it whenever we like! Trevor was worried that he and Henry had gotten me the same movie, but it was worry for nothing.

Well, I have some lesson plans to work on. I have my five hour class tonight (Trevor and I are going to meet friends out for a drink tomorrow night for post-birthday celebrations, and we're going out for food with a group of high school pals on my friend Lisa's b-day, Friday.) so my birthday will consist of teaching and drinking tea out of my new thermos. Not too bad, really! And my students might get out early tonight...
Adios,
Pooooooowwwwwerrrrrrrrrrr!

Sunday, November 4, 2007


It's been a month since our last post, and it's due to one part procrastination and the other part post-wedding-reorganization. We've put away all of the gifts and written all of the thank-you notes (whew!), opened a joint checking account (wheeee!), I've changed my name everywhere except the Social Security office and on my passport (our honey-moon tickets are under Bork, so I wanted to make sure I'd be let back into the country after our trip...although, Spain wouldn't be a bad place to be stranded, really...), which is just weird. I'm not so keen on my new signature, but I've already signed it at the DMV and the bank, so I think it's fairly stuck. Some of my students are calling me "Bork-Power" because they think I sound cool. Don't they realize I'm pretty cool already? Guess not.

I've also been sort of a cooking fool, using all of our new kitchen-related wedding gifts. So far I've been baking mini-bundt cakes (brownies and banana cakes), hummus using our Cuisinart, casseroles using all of our new bakers, and our mixing bowls have seen everything from eggs for quiche (it's in the oven right now...we'll see how it turns out) to cream-cheese frosting dyed black for Halloween (and when we enjoyed the black-frosted pumpkin cupcakes during scary-movie-Monday with our friend Suzanne, it turned all of our lips and tongues black. Not the best look, though they tasted good, and we were too busy laughing at "I, Madman," and getting scared at "The Ring" to notice.). And I really don't know what I did before I got my wooden spoon with the little point at the end for scraping things. I didn't know that I had all of this cooking-excitement in me, but it's been pretty fun. Last night I baked a pumpkin pie (from mid-scratch--the shell was pre-made and the filling was canned, but I added eggs and milk!) and cut out "Eat Me!" and a ghost to bake into the top. It made me giggle. Trevor just thought I was a nerd. Like he's one to talk.

Also, we finally picked up the fabulous bookshelf Mr. John Power crafted for us months ago. He built it according to measurments we took and a design we came up with, and then we put off renting a truck to come bring the mammoth 300 lb. piece of furniture home. It's just purrrrfect and fits 85% of our books (we're going to enlist him to build a much smaller one to go under the window, though we'll probably wait a while before we spring the request on him...although he might read this, so that plan has failed.). I find myself just sitting and staring at it, smiling in a dazed sort of way. It makes the apartment look a lot bigger, too, because it's not as deep as the other shelves we had, and it goes nearly all the way to the ceiling (T.'s Vonnegut hardcovers, my Wodehouses, and my Salinger first editions are on the top). It's the greatest thing.

Martin Lawrence, our feisty jerk of a cat, has found a new home. Well, we found it for him, he really had nothing to do with the selection process. He really couldn't stand Henry (who constantly batted him around every time he was on the floor, the couch, the bed) and he took his angst out on us (our books, pictures, shoelaces, specifically). So a former co-worker of mine who was interested in getting a cat adopted him from us, and he's now the only pet again, and happily enjoying lounging around on the floor without fear of harassment. And we can leave our books on the table without fear they'll get gnawed to pieces. We can also have plants (Martin had developed a taste for my houseplants after Henry came along...he never liked them before.), so I'm growing a bean of some sort that I got as a "Thank-You" gift for pledging to Chicago Public Radio last year. The bean itself has "Chicago Public Radio" branded onto it, so the plant now has the logo, too, which is neat.

School is going really well for me. I'm applying for some adjunct positions at a couple of City Colleges of Chicago for the Spring, which, if I got some classes at the two Southside locations, would cut my commute by about 200-300 miles a week, depending on the schedule. I'm trying not to think about how nice it would be, though, in case it doesn't work out. (Ahhhh, the gas money we'd save...I'm picturing new shoes [for Trevor, too! And maybe even Henry!!]).

And Trevor is kicking some butt at the Gallery. He recently got a new computer and is using it for both home and work. He's getting a lot done at home (don't worry, we watch soccer games while he inputs artists' inventories) and is more organized for work. They've been selling a lot, which is great for everyone, and I helped him out at an event he worked a few weeks ago. It was a fundraiser for a youth organization, and after the night was through, I was completely astounded at the amount of work Trevor does. He'd worked a 7 hour workday, then a 6 hour event. The time on his feet alone must have been exhausting, not to mention the thinking, organizing, over-seeing, and managing he'd had to do. So, he's kind of my hero.

He's off to SOFA Chicago (a showcase of functional art at the Merchandise Mart) with his friend Dan (not Dan Segar, but another Dan. He calls him "tall Dan," or "double-D" so I don't get confused) and I've opted to stay here and grade the many, many papers I have to grade, and organize my lesson plans for the week. Don't worry, I'll also be listening to music, watching t.v., or eating leftover quiche.

We'll have more to come soon, and hope everyone has had a happy Halloweeeeeeen!

POWER (formerly bork-power)

p.s.
Here's Henry after a long day of doing nothing. What a life.

Thursday, October 4, 2007


These five lovely ladies are my Columbia College, Missouri English Composition class. Our last class meeting was last night, so Maria, the gal on the right side of the picture, brought homemade tamales, hot chocolate, and a dessert that I can't remember the name of, but was deeeelicious! They've been so much fun to have in class--five ladies, once a week for five hours at a time, and they were teeerific. Lucky for me, some of them will be in my next eight week session, Comp. 2, that starts on the 22nd. Though I'll be glad to have a break for a couple of weeks from the five hours each Wednesday night.

More to come soon!
The POWERS!!!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007


TOUGH TEACHER

That's me! One of my adult students is a police officer, and she brought her vest and belt to class the other night for me to try on. Although the gear was heavy to hold, it all felt oddly comfortable once I put it on. A few weeks ago she'd come to class straight from work with her sidearm, and she let me look into the gun's magazine and hold the bullets. It's all very strange. And hopefully it will be my only taste of law enforcement that close to home (and to classs)!

Monday, September 24, 2007


I went with my friend Dr. Emily Anderson (she recently got her Ph.D. and I just can't help calling her "Dr." whenever possible) to Tatu Tattoo in Wicker Park to get my pre-wedding tattoo. Here's a photo of Eric, my artist (who was so proud of his work that he called each artist over to check it out, then took a picture of it for his portfolio), working on my ankle. Trevor and I are getting excited for this wedding business! And what better way to show that than body art?

We might not have too many posts until after the wedding, so until then, True Believers!
borkPOWER!

Monday, September 10, 2007


Trevor spotted this dress on Michigan Avenue while shoe-shopping with Dan (for the wedding--otherwise I don't think Trevor would be found doing much shoe-shopping). Although it's a sculpture, I'd still like to wear it. I'm hoping that it comes to life after midnight of a full moon and makes it to our neighborhood where I can wear it...

Saturday, September 1, 2007


The season has gotten off to a rocky start, but I think our boys have it in them to keep the Premiership trophy at Old Trafford.

Thursday, August 30, 2007


I've fallen in love with Beowulf. I didn't think it would happen--honestly. But for the past week I've been sucked into the whole Geat and Dane extravaganza. Yesterday I woke up with the whisper of 'Halfdane...Halfdane..." in my head and I couldn't get the word out. I've been teaching my first literature class (English lit. through the 18th century), so of course the epic poem is standard syllabus material. I was dreading reading it and teaching it, but it's been the best kind of gorey word-feast a horror fan like me could ask for! "Blood-slurrys" and loping Grendel and sea monsters and dragons and lots and lots of treasures. Awesome.

Here's to hoping that The Canturbury Tales is half as interesting...

Sunday, August 26, 2007




It's been a while, and we've been busy! The first weekend in August, Trevor and I met up with Rachel and Letty, Sean and Angi, Neill, Fran, and Destiny, in Door County to visit Grandma and Grandpa Madel and Jim. The weather was great, and even though Trevor and I got up there later than everyone else, we still got in a solid day and a half of hanging out with the group. We went to the beach and enjoyed the sun and Lake Michigan waves with Henry (we discovered his amazing capabilities as a swimmer), ate some great meals, and went through some boxes in Jim's garage of Power and Coleman family heirlooms. Trevor and I came home with some of Maureen's old books (including a copy of Ethan Fromme she'd had in high school; it still had her class notes written in the back cover--so cool.) and other assorted treasures. All in all, it was excellent. Relaxing and good to catch up with everyone, and we listened to a great book on tape during the drive to and from (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime").






I've started classes at all three of my schools now, and I have a feeling I'm going to have a nice semester. One class only has five students--all women--and although it's a once-a-week class, five hours long (not an exaggeration), the ladies are really nice and excited to be there. I'm also teaching my first literature class: English Lit. through the 18th century. It includes Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Johnson. I'm over my head, but it's fun, and the students are miles different from my composition students. These lit students actually enjoy reading and are thrilled to talk about literature. It's marvelous!

And wedding plans are running smooth as can be, so we're getting geared up for that as well! Trevor's gallery is prepping the next show, and even though they're not officially open to the public, they've been selling art like mad! All is going well over there, too, and his decision to move makes us happier and happier each day.

Well, until next time, True Believers, stay cool and dry, and enjoy the last days of summer!
Bork-Power!

Saturday, August 11, 2007




Henry and I hung out on the deck this afternoon. We're picking Trevor up in a couple of hours, and then we're heading up to Door County to meet up with the Power newlyweds, Rae and Letty, Neill and Fran, Jim, and Grandma and Grandpa Madel. We won't have too much time with the whole clan, but we plan on making the best of it all! Word on the street is that Jim has a new puppy, so we'll see how Henry feels about sharing Vader's attention.
More to come when we get back!

Friday, August 3, 2007


Well things are popping all over the place!

Trevor sold two big paintings this week, which is very exciting. Work is keeping him nice and busy, but not too busy. I got a call this morning from my department chair at McHenry County College offering me a literature class in the fall, which of course I snapped up! It's English literature up to the 18th century, so I'll have to quickly (very quickly) familiarize myself with Beowolf, Chaucer, and Shakespeare (though that won't be altogether too hard...) before August 21st. I'm thrilled to take on this challenge, and as long as I don't think about how much work it will be, I'll continue to be thrilled! Right now I'm avoiding the pile of portfolios and final papers from the summer's two classes, but I'll tackle that tomorrow morning...or Sunday afternoon...or Sunday evening...hmmmmmmmm.

Trevor, Sean, and Dan Segar have been nerding out over their video game systems and "Gears of War," which they can play on-line together and talk to each other over little headsets. Angi and I find this to be hi-larious and exemplifies what we love about our Power fellas, and I'm sure what Simona loves about Daniel. Nerds.

The wedding planning is coming together and things still need to be done, so Trevor and I are busy making lists and lists, and more lists. We do enjoy our lists. We're planning a trip to Door County next weekend, and Sean and Angi Power--the newlyweds--will be going, too, along with Neill and Fran, and Rachel and Letty (whoohoo!), so we're anticipating a wonderful time full of sun, drinks, more sun, and napping.

For now, Henry and I will go for a walk, perhaps to the video store to rent "Hot Fuzz," which can only aide in my portfolio grading. Seriously. Really, seriously. (HA!)